Damn You Comics, Damn You to Hell!

If you’ve never listened to Just BS, the podcast that Scott and I host but rarely ever post the audio file for, you know that I am a comic book fan.  Ever since I was a kid, I would find a way to read comics even though I could never afford them.  Usually that meant that I was reading as many comics as fast as I could in the Walden’s bookstore in the local mall before one of the clerks would chase me off.  As I grew older and started driving myself, I found a comic book shop and started purchasing them legitimately.  I’d never be able to wait until I got home to read the comics and would usually park my truck in the parking lot of a nearby town park or even in the comic book shop’s lot to read my most recent purchases.  Growing up, I was a Marvel fan as their stories were more interesting to me.  I remember when that changed, though.  In the world of comics, much like with soap operas, there are big events that “will shape the future of the universe forever” or some jazz like that until the next big event.  The event that ended my blind love affair with Marvel was their Civil War, pitting superheroes against other superheroes.  Best friends fought as well as husbands and wives and siblings against one another.  In principle, it was a neat idea but it ended badly.  I won’t go into it here, but trust me that it was anticlimactic. 

                After my disappointment, I left the comic realm for a number of years until it was DC Comics, with their Green Lantern-based world even, drew me back in.  It was a fresh story for me and the writing was good.  I’d always been interested in the Green Lantern as a character and the power ring as an idea and it was a perfect jump in point as the whole universe was in upheaval and knowing all the backstories wasn’t that critical.  I was pleased and kept buying them.  Since I was buying comics from the DC section, I noticed how there was a great storyline unfolding in the Batman world while Bruce Wayne was apparently dead so I started reading that, too.  Things were going great.  I had a few comics that I was reading again and all was well.  I still wasn’t reading anything Marvel because their world events were just getting dumber and dumber, in my mind, but I was happy with DC.  That is, until DC went and blew everything up.

                Not literately blowing everything up, but DC Comic decided to restart all their comics from scratch.  Everything you had ever known from the DC Universe was now no longer a definitive thing.  The origin story for all the characters had changed and old characters once dead were no longer so, etc.  At first, I thought this was an interesting thing, however, as time has gone on I now find it to be incredibly annoying.  I was never incredibly invested in the DC Universe but I did have a basic understanding of the characters and where they had come from in their origins and their attitudes based on the events in their lives up until everything changed.  I know feel a sense of discontinuity between myself and the characters to the point where I and down to only buying one DC comic, The Justice League and frankly, I’m going to quick buying that one in the next week or so.  Why?  Because I can’t relate to these characters.  They are all flat and two-dimensional which is part of the reason I never bought DC as a youth, besides never having the money.

                I noticed recently that Marvel’s newest “OMG this is the biggest thing since sliced bread!” event, The Avengers vs. The X-men, is on sale and I bought the first issue.  Immediately, the characters were more multidimensional than The Justice League and a lot of that has to do with the fact that these characters have a storied, rich history and one that I know.  I may have been out of the loop for a few years, but I can tell the severity of an issue based on Cyclops’s actions and this event is very severe.  Does this mean that I’ll start back toward the Marvel camp?  Probably not.  I’ll finish this new event and reevaluate, but if I had to guess I am about to be done with comics for a few years.  There just isn’t anything out there that I want to read, not from Marvel or DC at least.  With comics like The Walking Dead and Incredible getting their own shows and fantastic works like Battle Pope, one of my all-time favorites, perhaps this is the time to start looking at independent or indie comics.  All I do know is that for the time being, I will not be making mine Marvel and DC may as well stand for “Don’t Care.”

The Rare Gameplay Review of Mass Effect 3

In 2007, Bioware launched the first of the Mass Effect series. Now, 5 years later, we see the series come to a (controversial) close. Unlike the first couple games, the ending to this one was not universally appreciated. Much like the television series "The Sopranos", "Mass Effect" has now come under fire for its ending. Fans complained in droves on message boards, twitter, and one especially down trodden individual complained all the way to the FTC. However, with Bioware deciding to add a free DLC this summer for free that expands the ending, this subject is far from over.

Yet, this is not what interests me; the gameplay is truly one of the greatest single player experiences ever made, and I'd prefer instead to talk about that.  Much like many of my posts involving reviews of video games, I will simply list all the things that come to mind whether they be good or bad. I find this gives me the opportunity to discover my real feelings for a particular product once I start committing my ideas to paper... er, computer screen (Whatever the hell you call it). One caveat however, I did not play with Kinect, so I have no input there.

Since I'm an optimist, let's start with the Pros...

Pros

• Riveting storytelling and RPG moments continue to captivate. You don't get such an angry feeling on the ending of a series if you didn't care about the story in the first place. I don't know if people liked the end of the "Halo" series when it ended simply because I don't think anyone really cared. Mass Effect is different; Commander Shepard in a lot of ways feels like a true extension of yourself, forcing you to make tough decisions while trying to do everything you can to be ready for the final showdown with the Reapers.  If you've never played Mass Effect, you are missing out on a great story.

• Weapon and armor modifications allow for a more customizable approach to combat. In "Mass Effect 2", one of the worst parts was mining planets for minerals to upgrade your gear, while in "Mass Effect 3", simple discovery along with earning money doing several engaging side missions makes the gear grind much more enjoyable.

• Inclusion of rolls, dives, and other mechanics allow for more exciting movements and tactics when facing enemies.

• Integration of past adventures in the previous games into the final story creates a depth to the game that I have not seen in any other.  Just about everyone you meet in the Mass Effect universe has a part to play in the final game.

• More tech and biotic abilities added to the arsenal allow for more exciting combat.

• Talent trees having more options within a specific ability allows for more customization depending on how you want that particular character to engage in combat.

• Weapon weights affecting special ability recharge times allows you to decide whether or not you want to focus more on a weapon or tech/biotic play style.

• Improves on the model of "Mass Effect 2". (which is pretty difficult to do!)

Cons

• Imports of facial structures from "Mass Effect" can sometimes not be detected by the "Mass Effect 3" character import tool requiring for some people to recreate the face of their character at the beginning.

• In a few instances, the characters models will make some pretty odd movements with either their hands or will twist their necks a bit too far to look behind themselves. 

• Scanning zones for artifacts and other goodies with Reapers chasing you is fun at first, but quickly gets old.

• The Effective Military Strength rating decides which ending you are capable of getting. However, to get the ratings necessary for a certain ending requires the inclusion of multiplayer campaigns. This forces a player who is interested in seeing the full ending to do multiplayer even if they don't want to do so. Multiplayer is fine, but this game was built around the single player experience, and forcing players to partake in something they'd rather not does not impress me much.

• Finally, the ending. Not because I didn't necessarily like the endings (I really enjoyed one while not being overly impressed with the other two), but because it has detracted from what is one of the greatest gaming experiences ever. I hope the DLC will fix most of the problems, but we'll just have to wait and see.

In the final analysis, all I have to say is I love this game. It's somewhat bittersweet to see the series end, but I know I've logged a lot of fun hours playing "Mass Effect". If I had to rate it out of 10, I'd give it every bit of that 10 despite any negatives. Games and series like this are rare indeed.

There you have it. My first post in what seems like forever.

(If I proofread, it means I care. You can guess on that one.)