The Funny Side of Forums

I was off for 2 days and, of course, the weather was crappy, rainy.  Today it's bright and sunny... and I have to go to work.  Where's the fun in that?  Which is the subject for today.  Fun.

I like playing video games for two reason, I find them fun and challenging.  I recently played Mass Effect 3 for the second time because 95% of the game is fun and challenging.  The last 5%, the ending, is terrible.  If I know someone is going to play it, I advise them to play through the battle of London and then stop.  Very, very few people like the ending.  It's why sales started off great and then tanked.  No one wants to play a game with a rotten ending.

Anyway, as I did the first time I played the game I went into the Bioware forums to express my dissatisfaction a second time.  As I did the first time I stated that I like to play games because they are both fun and challenging.  This morning, to my surprise, I found some individual had commented negatively about my entry.  The individual had suggested I was playing games for the wrong reason.  This person posted a link to a blog and went on to question whether I only went to movies that were fun, or read books that were fun, or only listened to music that was fun.

My first thought was that this person was being pretentiously trite.  So, I followed the link to the blog and read it.  It was pretty much an attack on people's need to have fun and by doing so they were ignoring the serious side of life.  It was very critical regarding the word 'fun' and all of its connotations.  But then, at the end, there was a PS.  Here the writer claimed the article was really about people needing things to be funny, not fun.  There's a big difference there.  So, I copied the PS and tacked it into my response which was simply "you evidently didn't read the PS."

I enjoy going to movies, for me that's fun, however I don't only go see funny movies.  There is a big difference.  That's one of the things about Forums, you find out some people do say funny things.

What a combination, Romney and ME3

This has been a bad month on the job line for me, not because I'm losing mine, no, my schedule is all topsy-turvy thanks to meetings and classes and more meetings.  I can't wait for October to get here so things can quiet down... a little, and I can get back to a regular schedule.

On a whole I'd have to say this past week was on the funny side.  I got to watch some of the secret Mitt Romney tapes and, were I a critic, would have to call them boring and uninspired.  If you've seen any of them then you know, he rambles on and on and on totally avoiding anything substantial.  I saw where the dude who threw the fundraiser is blaming the "help."  How Republican.  My suspicion is that he, himself, taped the dinner for posterity only to discover Romney is the personification of droll.

Ann Romney's plane had to land because of smoke.  Later she whined about being a candidate's wife.  What did she think this was going to be?  A Sunday Social?

Paul Ryan got booed by Seniors and then, from one of the news clips I read, went on to lie about his percentage of body fat.

Boo, baby, Boo

Quite a number of Republicans are unhappy with the campaign, including Laura Ingram, and the want it shaken up.  I'm sure they must realize by now shaking is not going to help.  They did pay attention to their own primaries, didn't they?  Mitt basically won by default because the other candidates were just to crazily far to the right.

One of the really funny things was Ralph Reed telling Evangelicals they should vote for Romney.  Isn't that going against your faith?  Could this indicate Ralph wants a heretic in the White House?  Or, is it possible he's an White Supremacist in disguise?  Perhaps he doesn't understand that if Mitt gets elected Mormon Missionaries will swarm out of Salt Lake City like a plague of locusts.

And for all of you gamers out there, the real shocker was Bioware putting forth a statement which, and I paraphrase, states that the Mass Effect Universe is large and there are more stories to tell.  I said something similar back in... May?

Back then everybody was running around like their hair was on fire because they didn't like the ending of ME3.  Why is this funny?  Because you don't kill off your golden goose and everybody was sure Bioware had loped off its head.  I said that and nobody listened.  Now I read on Gamestop, or maybe it was Rock, Paper, Shotgun that the original team is either reassembling, or has reassembled.  Surprise.

Mass Effect 2

Since I've already played Mass Effect 3 I figured I might as well play the two previous parts of the trilogy, which it isn't since there is DLC on the way for ME3.  I already owned the first part but I can definitely remember popping it into the xbox and thinking "this music sucks."  It sounded like some guy had been locked away in a teeny, tiny little room with a Casio keyboard for way too long a time.  Needless to say, I popped that baby out of the xbox.  Last week I was reading in one of the gamer magazines I get on my notebook that ME 2 was the best game of all time (maybe it was Gamestop).  This decision, they claimed, had been reached by a common consensus of universal game players.  So, I ordered a copy from Amazon.

Due in 3-5 days

And, of course, I'm trying to wade through the first installment.  Besides the shitty music, I find it amazing at how far graphics have come. You have to wonder how it became so popular they decided to use it to launch a trilogy (which isn't really a trilogy since there's more DLC on the way).  Now you know what I'll be doing instead of watching the closing ceremonies.  Someone said the Spice Girls are going to be performing.  Isn't that enough to make you want to vomit.

Mass Effect 3, the true ending

Back when this game came out there was a lot of hubbub as to whether Shepherd dies; a lot of people were not happy.  Of course he didn't die, there was no body.  What you did get were a number of short scenes which didn't tell you anything.  A two second clip of a human moving in the rubble of Earth says nothing yet a lot of voices shouted "see, Shepherd lives."  The truth is it could have been any survivor.  Where is the Normandy?  That's my main question.  First you see the Earth relay station detonate and pulse / destructo beam aim and hit a 2nd relay station, and then you see the same pulse / destructo beam chasing and (perhaps) overtaking the Normandy.  This means Joker had left Earth and made it through at least one relay station (maybe two).  The fact that you see survivors exiting the ship (no where near Earth) raises a lot of questions.  Like, was the pulse / destructo beam specifically targeting every relay station?  If that was the case a three second clip could have shown them all destroyed.  Or was it specifically targeting the Normandy?  Hhmmmm.

Too many people were thinking inside the box.  They need to understand Bioware is thinking mostly in terms of revenue.  With Mass Effect they have a golden goose.  So, they're going to kill it off leaving only a few measly DLC golden eggs? Holy shit, give me a break.  Believe me, Shepherd didn't die.  How do I know?  Normally, when I finish a game I don't watch the credits - boring.  With ME3 I didn't turn off my console, nor did I pop the game out in frustration.  I actually went into the kitchen and began loading dishes into the dishwasher.  I had just put a glass in the rack when I heard voices talking, one old and one young.  Going into the living room I saw that a tag was added at the end of the credits. What I saw was an older man talking to a child.  The last spoken line in the game is a statement made by the child.  "Tell me more stories about Shepherd."