Friday, February 19, 2016

Earth: Major Coats

You know the little tooltip in the middle of the screen in Mass Effect 3? The one that tells you where to go?

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Ever notice how stupidly unhelpful it is?

Luckily, it's just one of those clear the area things, all you have to do is --

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Wait, shit, I still have the cain.

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Actual conversation in our house. I actually died twice trying to replay this section for MSPixel because the top button is X, goddamnit. Also all buttons are purple.

Anyway, this shit is happening:

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Finally, the shuttle comes.

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So, uh, welcome, Major Coats ... ?

I cannot explain Major Coats. God, I wish I could. I tried. I kept waiting for him to pop up in a comic or something, but naw, with Major Coats, what you see is what you get.

Major Coats is Anderson's best friend who shows up literally on 11:30 PM of the entire fucking trilogy. Here is what I know about him: his name is Major Coats. Here is the function he serves in the story: he is Major Coats.

... Major Coats is the hero of Mass Effect Andromeda.

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At least 50% of Anderson's lines from here forward are "I was born in London" or some sort of glowing praise for Major Coats.

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... is the actual line from the game, but again, Spacer. It probably should be more like,

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Next time: MAJOR COATS

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

To Earth!

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Are you ready to go to Earth for the second time in the Mass Effect series?

This was kind of a big deal. I guess everyone assumed the final battle would be in space somewhere. I would have guessed the terminus systems, that's where all the action in ME2 was.

Of course, I would have thought the game Mass Effect had mass effects in it, so maybe don't listen to me ever.

On the shuttle:

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... well?

That was one of the criticisms of Mass Effect that Bioware tried to address in 3: you pick a background for Shepard that she helpfully forgets for the rest of the game. I think they did a generally good job of patching it up, right until they forgot that Spacer Shepard and Colonist Shepard probably give no fucks about Earth.

Anyway, there's these things on the ground called hades canons.

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They look like reapers, because reapers aren't real creative.

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Also they blow the hell out of Alliance ships, which is probably why we need to blow them up.

Wait a second, that shuttle that just got toasted --

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There's a glitch here. If you play as the correct Shepard, it doesn't activate, so this is what's supposed to actually happen:

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However, if you're playing as man Shepard, you get this:

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Which is supposed to play if you did the did with Steve, but in general, it just plays because guy Shep cares.

As we go along, we find a cain, which isn't glitched at all.

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Here's what I don't like about the cain. One, it's a gun. Two,

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It takes a second to work. I always think I screwed up!

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But as it turns out, I didn't, so we can continue through London.

Friday, February 12, 2016

The Absolute Extent of My Artistic Abilities

About ... gee, fifteen years ago? Yes, fifteen or so years in gaming history, if you wanted an incredible cut scene, you went to Square Enix. They were then known as Square. As a video game historian's aside, back then they were called fmv, not cut scenes. It stood for for full motion video, because the game was playing a compressed video instead of running anything in engine. The original Playstation didn't have the juice to render something so impressive as Squall and Rinoa's first dance in real time.

Point being, Bioware can kindly use the mad huge processing power of the XBox 360 (or PS4 if you prefer, or PC if you're gonna be that nerd) to bring us a big ass Final Fantasy style cut scene. Or, at least that's what I think of every time I see this.

This is one of the most impressive cut scenes in the game, I think, so it's only fitting that I shit it down my leg. You're at least getting an extra long MSPixel today, so.

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Here we go, coming up on Earth! I can't draw space ships, which is exactly why I'm drawing every scene from a sci fi shooter.

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I'm reasonably sure Joker always talks about the turians, the asari and the Alliance. If you solved Rannoch to the satisfaction of all parties, you get a little bit extra:

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This is the plot of Battlestar Galactica: the humans are at war with a race of robots known as Cylons. The Cylons manage to blow the humans out of the fucking sky, so the humans group together in a ship fleet and attempt to take back their homeworld. The main character is Commander Adama.

Look, I make jokes about this being low budget Star Trek, but --

Yo Joker, who else is ready?

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Well then, come the fuck on!

... you know the Normandy doesn't fire an entire shot during that whole fucking sequence? Way to be a team player, assholes.

Next time: