Bullshido Blade

I haven't written anything here in a while, but it's not really due to laziness. I've been quite busy this semester and I've had to give up most of my gaming and movie watching time. I've played a bit of Team Fortress 2 through the past couple of months, but that's been about it. I plan to play some God of War 3 and Heavy Rain soon.

What I have found time to do is to watch Yankees baseball, MMA, and watch/listen to some podcasts. Irrational Behavior is probably my favorite gaming related podcast at the moment and although there have only been 5 episodes so far, they've all been of very high quality. This American Life is consistently entertaining and interesting as well.

Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping up with most of my Revision3 shows, but Bytejacker has been good. I think it's really improved since I started watching. On the other hand, Film Riot has really fallen off. It's barely the same show anymore and has become quite boring. Food Mob is a new cooking show on Rev3 that I'm really digging, so check that out. I'll probably start watching Tekzilla and HD Nation soon enough.

Before I depart, I should suggest that everyone check out WEC 48: Aldo vs Faber. It was one of the best MMA events I've ever had the pleasure to see, particularly the Leonard Garcia - Chan Sung Jung fight.

And one more thing. For more frequent nose nuggets and goodness on what I'm up to and the stuff I find around the internet, check out my Google Buzz over there on the top right.

Issues with Mass Effect 2

I've been playing Mass Effect 2 and I'm about 20 hours in at this point, so I feel comfortable saying that I have a good handle on what the game is and has attempted to do, despite my lack of completion. How does it compare to the first one? It seems strange for Bioware to get away from the RPG elements that I loved about the first Mass Effect. Creating each character allowed for lots of detail in many categories, but here, it just seems too basic. Basically, you're investing in your "I want to kill things with my gun" stat or "I want to kill things with my biotics" stats. The inventory system wasn't so great in ME1, but I loved the greater variety in weapons, all of which had their own statistics. Instead of trying to improve on it, they just got rid of it all together.

I'm hoping Mass Effect 3 reaches a better balance between the RPG elements of ME1 and the stripped down shooter feel of ME2. Honestly, the combat isn't quite good enough for such a lack of RPG elements. Either way, the story, dialogue, characters, and gorgeous worlds left for exploration compensate. I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed by the way it turned out because Bioware has put out some of my favorite RPGs ever and I feel like this iteration of Mass Effect is too much of an attempt to go mainstream.

Rest assured, however, that Mass Effect 2 is a wonderful experience. It just finds new ways to captivate you.