Mother Gamer Plays The Mass Effect Trilogy Part 1: Mass Effect

Before you say anything, I know. How is it that I have never played the Mass Effect games especially with my love of science fiction and hugely epic adventures in space? I just never got around to it, but when I saw that the Mass Effect Trilogy was for sale I decided to pick it up and give it a try. This is part one of the Mother Gamer Mass Effect posts. I started of course at the beginning with the first game, Mass Effect.

The character designs were easy to navigate (I chose to play as a female Shepard and chose the Infiltrator class) although I noticed that Bioware seems to really like several different shades of super short hair or bald much like in Dragon Age. Either way, there were a lot of choices and I found something I liked and then started the game.

Shepard, ready to save the galaxy. 

I found the story interesting right from the start. It hooks you in really well with the first mission and the introduction of a sentient artificial intelligence known as the Geth who attack Shepard and company during said mission. The story goes from there with a lot of interesting side quests to go along with the main missions.

There's a lot to see and do in Mass Effect and I enjoyed exploring all of it. One of the places I quite liked was the Citadel which showcased a variety of different alien species and cultures. I exhausted all the conversation options learning about all of them. I found the Elcor particularly interesting in their speech and mannerisms. The Hanar which look like jellyfish were also pretty cool.

Just a few of the cool aliens. 

Shepard's team is pretty varied too with humans and aliens. You can only have three in a party which isn't so bad, but I wished I could have a team of four. I liked having Wrex and Tali in my party because they were great in heavy combat situations and I found them to be intriguing complex characters, especially with Wrex. You do have the opportunity to explore a romance among a few of your team members as well (I chose Kaidan) and it adds a little extra fun to the story. It does have conversation choices as you talk to your companions and other people setting you on your path to Paragon or Renegade. I went the Paragon route for this play through.

Shepard teams up with Wrex and Tali.

The menu navigation is easy and the battle controls are easy to handle also. I had issues with the aiming aspect when firing a weapon, but upgrading Shepard's accuracy fixed that fairly easily. Upgrading skills for Shepard and companions is nice and easy to do. You can also add upgrades to your armor and weapons which is easy to do and helpful as well.  It killed me that a couple of times the game would drop a frame rate and freeze causing me to have to turn off the PS3 and reboot the system. There was also an odd glitch where a party member died and disappeared from my party altogether leaving me with a just two party members team. I asked one of my friends about this and they expressed surprise because apparently that was a glitch that happened in the original release of the game. Honestly, that irritated me a lot. It's the trilogy and while it's cool that I can play all three games like this why wouldn't you at least fix the known glitches instead of releasing it with the same exact glitches? It smacks of incompetence and a bit of greed.

That wasn't the only thing that bothered me. The hacking mini game drove me up the damn wall. It was like a game of Simon Says on crazy adrenaline and if I didn't hit the buttons right as they lit up or didn't move fast enough, I failed. It got so bad to the point that I would save my game before attempting it and then swear a lot when I would have to reload the last save and try again. It does give you the option of bypassing it with an item known as omnigel which is convenient if you have enough of it. However, it is ridiculous how difficult that mini game was and I said all kinds of mean and nasty swear words while trying to do it. And then we have the Mako. 

The Mako or as I called it, the paper tank. 

For driving around and exploring all the awesome planets, the Mako is great. It was cool to go look around at all the different environments, survey minerals, and scan things. When it came to battles with Geth, Thresher Maws, and rapid fire turrets it really sucked to the point of frustration. I took to calling the Mako the paper tank because it could not take a hit at all and driving it while trying to fire missiles and weapons felt awkward and cumbersome. Battles in the Mako made me groan in agony and I just did my best to get through it. I got pretty adept at driving in circles around enemies and even running them over to try and level the field. It could have been great and the controls could have been more streamlined to make it an amazing fighting machine. Instead it was a giant brick only good for holding up that wonky corner of your bookshelf.

Those issues aside, the thing that Mass Effect really has going for it is the story. It has a plot that I felt was great because it had interesting characters and explored some very cool ideas with all the alien races and even had an intriguing history about an ancient alien race. It is obvious with the story telling that they did intend this to be a trilogy because while it ties up a lot of the other hanging threads, it leaves the big one open for a continuation in the next game naturally. 

Considering how old the game is, the environments and character designs look great. I loved exploring space and scanning all the different planets and reading all the factoids about each one. It showed that a lot of thought went into each one. I couldn't land on all the planets, (some of them couldn't support life at all such as a gas planet) but the ones I could were a lot of fun to explore as I did the main missions and the side quests. There's two DLC missions included in the first game that are fun to play also. 

Enjoying the view on Luna. 

Overall, I enjoyed playing the first Mass Effect. I liked Shepard and I liked Shepard's companions and learning about them and who they were. I loved the story and really got into it which says a lot for how good the writing is. The voice acting wasn't terrible and I did chuckle when I recognized Seth Green's voice as Joker. I liked Joker a lot and found him to be funny and smart. He really is a fantastic pilot. The combat on foot was alright and manageable. The combat in the Mako drove me up the wall and the hacking mini game really sucked. That being said, I think Mass Effect is a solid game and I did have fun playing it because of the great story and because of the story driven character development. It's definitely worth playing through at least once. Now, I'm off to start Mass Effect 2!

*Mass Effect Trilogy is playable on: PS3, Xbox360 and PC

Tales of Zestiria, An Adventure That Was Just Okay

Among my backlog of games, I chose Tales of Zestiria as the next one to play. I like the Tales series and have liked them since the beginning so I was looking forward to playing this one. I'm starting in easy when I say this, because while I did like the game there were some issues and one of them in particular really set me off because it was a pretty underhanded thing to do. So let's get started.

Tales of Zestiria opens with an introduction to the main character Sorey who is Human and his friend Mikleo who is a Seraph; an angelic being exploring an ancient ruin. This gives you an introduction to the battle system controls and the items menu. The open world feel of the game is stunning and the art work is beautiful with bright colors, a variety of creatures, and lots of places to explore.

Sorey and Mikleo exploring.

The combat system is well done especially with a technique known as Armitization which lets Sorey fuse with any Seraph partnering with him like Mikleo in order to do powerful combo chained attacks which lead to some gorgeous over the top anime style cut scenes for some of them.  It actually makes the fights fun and there's plenty of customization choices giving you endless possibilities with your combat style preferences. 

Armitization comes in handy when fighting a dragon. 

The story's concept about the strength of people's convictions and the depths of their passion is interesting, but there isn't enough of a spark to really get you invested in it. Some of the characters are great and you do like them and their interactions with each other like the powerful friendship between Sorey and Mikleo. The other characters however, lack a certain something and it feels uneven somehow. I also didn't understand why the game would introduce a character only to have them leave before the story has fully begun. Then there is a character death that happens as part of the story, yet it felt empty and like it was just an excuse to get rid of them so they could insert another character with the same abilities. There are the usual skits that are in the Tales games and those offer a bit of lighthearted humor that are needed from some of the darker aspects of the story. The pacing is uneven towards the end and when it disables the teleportation so you can't fast travel and you have to run very long distances or try to work around that, it becomes a bit frustrating. 

A Tales skit with Sorey and Mikleo.

Another thing that can become tedious is constantly having to fight monsters. Sometimes when you want to explore or you've cleared a dungeon the monsters reappear quickly which is great for level grinding, but after a while it  feels like you're fighting every two minutes. Luckily that's when a holy bottle comes in handy since it makes the monsters disappear for a brief bit of time. 

Battling monsters in a dungeon.

There are plenty of side quests to do as well as optional bosses that offer a challenge for you and your party members. If a fight gets too hard, you do have the choice of turning down the difficulty level to simple which is convenient. I just wish the story had been a bit more memorable. While it doesn't deviate from the usual Tales formula; the story could have been a lot stronger. It starts off pretty strong, but by the second half of the story it feels weak and falls a little flat. 

The game is beautiful with the the designs.

Now, we come to the big thing about the game that made me incredibly irritated. I take a lot of screenshots for my Mother Gamer blog posts so I can pick and choose which ones I want to use. When I tried to take screenshots of my Tales of Zestiria game, I got a message saying I couldn't take a screenshot. I thought that was odd, but then I received the same message when I tried to use shareplay or tried to record video. I looked it up because I thought that was very strange and found that a lot of people had the same issue. Here's the why. Apparently, a few gamers asked Bandai Namco directly on Twitter about it and the response was the entire game was blocked because of licensing issues and that seemed to be the only reason. Look, I get it. Licensing in Japan can be a royal pain in the ass to handle and deal with. That I understand. What I don't understand is blocking the ENTIRE damn game so no one can take screenshots or video. Yes, it was because they had several costumes from a variety of anime titles such as Evangelion and Godeater so I understand not wanting to get in trouble and that was their work around. However, they could have just blocked those and let people take screenshots. I also think it's pretty damn underhanded to release a game and not mention at all that the game's shareplay and screenshots function will be blocked until you get a ton of gamers demanding to know what's going on. Was it a big deal? No, not really. I worked around it and took photos with my phone for the blog post. My issue was the level of dishonesty. If they had just said something from the start about it, I think people would have gone a little easier on them about it. 

Overall, Tales of Zestiria isn't a terrible game in the Tales series. It's got solid combat, some likable characters, and a beautiful open world exploration aspect going for it. It's a solid game, but not a great one. It's good for one play through and it's an adventure that is just okay. 

Note: Tales of Zestiria is playable on the PS3 and the PS4

Just Include Everyone

Heads up, there are spoilers in this article for Star Wars. So if you don't like spoilers don't read this and don't read the link to the article. Okay, now I read this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/star-wars-force-awakens-rey-toys_568bef03e4b0b958f65cf2c7?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women&section=women&

After reading it, I found myself rather annoyed again. I say again, because I had this reaction when there were complaints all across the board about the fact that there were no Black Widow and Gamora toys or merchandise anywhere to be found with the Marvel lineup. To refresh your memory a bit about why that bullshit happened here is an article from The Mary Sue: http://www.themarysue.com/invisible-women/

Even J.J. Abrams knew this was a problem as shown here: http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/09/jj-abrams-star-wars-force-awakens-rey-toys

Oh come on. No Rey, really?

There are so many reasons this annoys me; the big one being that it's boys and girls asking where Rey is. The other is I was one of those young girls. I found a love of comic books thanks to one of my uncles who is a huge comic book fan. I even remember the first comic book from his comic collection that he let me read that got me hooked on comics. I loved Star Wars and I loved Star Trek thanks to my grandmother who was a huge science fiction fan. Video games were things my brother Rob and I discovered on our own through our friends, but I loved those too. These were things I grew up with, that mean a lot to me, that are part of my childhood and that came with me into adulthood where I love them still.

The other thing that bugged me is this mentality among some people of oh the women and the girls don't matter even though in this day and age there is so much proof that more and more women/girls are playing video games, reading comic books, and loving things like Star Wars and Star Trek. There's also the "surprise" that so many people wanted merchandise of Rey that really bothered me. I mean, really? They're surprised that people wanted to buy toys and other merchandise of THE main character from the movie? Right, and I'm surprised that they know that ONLY boys like Star Wars. Yes, that was sarcasm.

I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that not every girl is about Disney princesses. Yes, some are and that's great, but some of those very same girls love Star Wars too. To sit there and imply that they don't is not only ridiculous, it says a lot about how little they respect the fact that girls and women are also nerds and geeks.

It brought me back to days growing up in my home town where some of the meaner boys and girls in my class would tell me disdainfully that video games weren't for girls or that I was weird for liking Star Wars and Star Trek. There were also times where I would buy comic books from the used book store/comic shop or go into the comic book shop across the street and I'd have a few guys act like I had come into their bedroom at night watching them sleep like a creeper. I'd also get a couple that would see I was buying comic books (something that I wanted to do in peace, I mean fellas really you were rude) and it would treat me like I was a contestant on Jeopardy and grill me with questions challenging my comic book knowledge basically implying I had to prove that I was worthy enough to be in their domain. People who do that seriously need to grow up.

It's not a good feeling to feel like you're being excluded simply because of your gender especially from something like Star Wars that's meant to be for everyone to enjoy. This thinking that girls and women don't belong because "it's for boys" is a total crock. That's not how things are now. There are so many girls and women who are into comic books, Star Wars, video games, and all the wonderful nerdy and geeky things that are out there. It's not okay to say they don't matter or they don't belong. They DO belong just like all the boys and men belong so that everyone can share their love of something they feel is truly amazing be it Star Wars, video games, cosplay, and more.

I've found that as an adult, there are less people telling me I don't belong because I'm a woman. Instead they ask me what I think of this or that comic, or ask if I've played a certain video game and if it's worth buying and that makes me feel great. It gives me hope for my daughters who are also into a lot of the same nerdy and geeky stuff that I am; hope that more and more people won't worry about whether or not something is "for boys" or "for girls" and just celebrate the fact that they truly enjoy something and share it with others. We need more of that and less "surprise" that there are girls and women who are nerds and geeks that love all this awesome stuff too. Just include everyone. The kids today seem to understand that, why can't these people?

Assassin's Creed Syndicate and Jack the Ripper DLC Totally Worth It

I just finished my first play through of Assassin's Creed Syndicate and the Jack the Ripper DLC and I feel this is one of the best games in the Assassin's Creed series. Why do I feel that way? Well, let's get started. Set in 1868 London, you don't get to play as just one assassin; you get two. Jacob and Evie Frye who are twins and assassins. Each has their own special skills that you can upgrade as the game progresses. For example, Jacob has some impressive brawler skills and Evie has a very handy stealth skill known as chameleon where she can blend in and become invisible. For the majority of the game you can switch between them in the menu system quite easily depending on who you want to play as. There are missions as part of the story that are specifically designed for Jacob while others are designed for Evie.

The Frye Twins, Evie and Jacob.

Both Jacob and Evie are likable main characters with differences in how they do things. Evie wants to hunt down the remaining Pieces of Eden to stop the Templars while Jacob wants to help their city in a more straightforward way without the mysticism, which does bring up their sibling rivalry during some cut scenes, but it's done in a way that is meaningful and shows that in spite of their differing worldviews they do love each other. Guiding them along the way in the various missions is fellow assassin Henry Green. Henry Green became a favorite of mine because he was this interesting person who was great at handling arguments between Evie and Jacob with such graceful diplomacy. I also loved the interaction between him and Evie because it was sweet and it was clear that they were both fond of each other which was why I found the collecting all the pressed flowers around London for Henry side quest so endearing, because it leads up to a wonderful moment between the two.

This is Henry Green and he's fantastic!

Victorian London is impressive. I mean, there are some truly beautiful scenes in the game that show tons of details right down to the background people. There is a lot to see and do in the game that can keep you busy for hours. There are side missions where you can take over different gang boroughs and then you have a gang war where you have to eliminate the gang leader of that neighborhood adding power to Jacob and Evie's gang The Rooks. There are also Templar hunts where you find and assassinate them from a variety of locations.

One of the many gorgeous views in Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Another impressive view. 

Some of the side missions I really liked were the ones with Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and Alexander Graham Bell. They're fun to do and add a little extra something to the story. You also get some very cool assassin's tools to use courtesy of Mr. Bell like voltaic bombs which when dropped shock people with some massive electricity. That's right. You get an electric ball of doom which works great when you're fighting a mob of enemies. There's also some side missions with Queen Victoria.

The main story isn't too shabby either and it is interesting to see how Evie and Jacob handle the situation in their own unique ways. I did find that I played as Evie more because I loved her stealth abilities and I enjoyed the heck out of her weapon of choice; the sword cane. I also liked Evie herself a lot because she is this intelligent, independent woman in a time when women were not really allowed to be and she can handle her own in a fight and be totally ruthless. I also loved that she looked like a real person; not an over the top sexual fantasy ideal. I also felt that this made up a little (not a lot, but a little) for the whole "women are difficult to animate" fiasco and found that I enjoyed the heck out of the game running around London playing as Evie. 

Evie is awesome!

Evie kicking ass. 

That's not to say I didn't love Jacob too. His fighting skills are equally impressive with his weapon of choice, brass knuckles. I also had a fan girl moment when I recognized the voice actor for Jacob as Paul Amos (that's the actor who plays Vex; one of my favorite characters on the show Lost Girl folks) and that just added to the fun for me. I even took Jacob to some of the Fight Club areas to earn some cash (yes, I took Evie too) for the various crafting and upgrades needed and it was so much fun to play.

Jacob goes to town at the Fight Club. 

That's not to say there aren't any flaws in the game. There were a couple that drove me crazy. Let's highlight the Queen Victoria missions, because that's where I noticed this particular problem. I know that there are timed missions in Assassin's Creed and they can be insanely frustrating. For the record, I hate timed missions. It adds a lot of pressure. All of the Victoria missions were timed which had me swearing a lot, but none as much as the second mission in the series known as Drive for Lives. I HATED Drive for Lives. I hated that mission so much; not only did I swear in all six languages that I know, I thought about finding the sadist that designed this mission and throat punching them repeatedly. It took me at least five tries until I got this done. For starters, the insane challenge of getting a wagon full of lit dynamite across the bridge and into a safe area in 80 seconds was just not going to happen because while the carriage driving controls aren't terrible; they're not great. It felt like I wasn't going very fast at all even with the boost and carriages can't take a corner when you're hurtling at a high speed. Then there was the factor of it felt like every single carriage that ever existed in 1868 London was blocking the path and the bridge completely along with the enemy carriages trying to stop you. I was determined to beat that mission out of sheer pride by the fifth time. I finally did it, but I was pretty angry by the end so I had to take a break from the game for a bit.

Operation: Drive for Lives. Pure Evil. 

Free run still gives me problems occasionally. There are times where it's okay and then there are times where all of a sudden be it Jacob or Evie, I'm sticking to a wall when I didn't want to or climbing up something when I'm chasing a target which can be rather annoying especially when some of those chases require that I be stealthy. Those issues aside, I enjoyed playing the side missions and the main missions a lot. There's also a fun surprise mission in the game that is worth checking out when it appears.

Once I finished the main story, I started up the Jack the Ripper DLC. This puts the Frye Twins in London twenty years later with Jack the Ripper terrorizing London. Jacob has disappeared and Evie arrives in London from India having received a letter from her brother asking for help in dealing with the Ripper. It's refreshing to see Evie as a middle aged woman so well done and the fact that she's still kicking ass is completely awesome. Evie's learned a few new tricks, the big one being the ability to strike fear in enemies. This introduces a couple of new assassin's tools, fear spikes and fear bombs which come in handy during a fight where the challenge is you can't kill or harm anyone as they're non lethal.

Evie older and still amazing.

The side missions and main missions for this DLC are done quite well with a mix of all out brawls and some where you have to do a bit of sleuthing. There are some places in the story where you do get to play as Jack the Ripper and it's done in a subtle way that isn't too in your face about everything and doesn't detract from the story. Most of the events take place in Whitechapel of course, but you are free to explore and get all the side missions done if you wish. Evie really shines here and I loved playing as her again. I do admit that I missed Jacob however, and wished I could have played as him here as well. Another thing I noticed was a rather irritating glitch that happened every time Evie was driving a carriage. There would be a lag spike and the game would stop in places and then start. Luckily, there weren't too many of those carriage chase scenes so I still enjoyed playing the game. Overall, the game is fantastic and so is the DLC. There's tons to explore, even more to do, and I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Black Flag, perhaps even a little more than Black Flag. Assassin's Creed Syndicate and the Jack the Ripper DLC are totally worth it and worth playing through more than once. 

2016 Gaming Is Looking Great

 First of all, Happy New Year dear readers! I'm still working through my backlog of games, but it's hard not to get excited about the upcoming games for 2016 especially after watching the featured video on the Geeks Are Sexy website about all of the great games coming out. I'm pretty excited for Persona 5, Final Fantasy XV, and The Last Guardian to name a few. It looks like 2016 is looking great for us gamers. You can check out the awesome video here: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2016/01/03/198036/

Fallout 4: The End Of The World Never Looked So Good

I just finished my first play through of Fallout 4 on the PS4 and my overall impression is that it was amazing. I truly had fun playing it especially when I got to run around in power armor. We'll get to all that in a minute. First you start with the usual creation of your character. You can play as male or female. I chose female and let's just say the hairstyle choices were interesting. Again I ask, why were there several types of bald? At least there were some long hair choices, but I went for a fancy updo. There are a lot of choices for the face also and you can add scarring if you want or different facial features.
Once that was done, I started the story and the world seems like it's a nice place, you even get a cheerful talking robot by the name of Codsworth out of it. Then the Vault-Tec rep shows up at your door informing you that you and your family are approved for entry into Vault 111. A few minutes later a news report warns of a nuclear attack forcing you and your family to rush to the vault and as you're waiting to go in a nuclear bomb detonates in the distance causing even more panic. The platform you're on then lowers everyone into the vault and everyone is put into cryosleep. Years later, events cause you to be awakened and then your adventure in Fallout 4 begins.

Entering Vault 111

Things are not as your sole survivor remembers in their little town. Signs of war, desolation, and destruction are everywhere. You do run into your old pal Codsworth and he becomes your first companion. This also gives you a tutorial on the game controls and the crafting aspect of it i.e. rebuilding settlements. The controls are fairly easy to manage and you can go back and forth easily. Of course the big thing is to loot everything everywhere you go because salvaging things like metal and copper are important to building many things such as water pumps that give you purified water or radio beacons for recruiting settlers.

The old homestead isn't what it used to be. 

After the tutorial is out of the way, you're instructed to head to Diamond City as part of the main story quest. Of course, you can explore other areas as you go which leads you to new characters and companions one of the first after Codsworth being your canine companion Dogmeat. There are 12 companions in all to find in Fallout 4 as you progress in your adventure. There are also 4 different factions that you can join and do a ton of quests for, but bear in mind that as part of the main story you are going to have to pick one and this affects your relationship with the remaining factions. 

Just a sole survivor and their dog.

There's a lot to do in Fallout 4 with the various faction quests and radiant quests. There are also side quests from various cities and settlements which can keep you busy while doing the main story quest. Factor in the quests that you can do for your companions and there's at least 100 hours of game play or more. There are a ton of dangers while exploring the world of Fallout 4 like Queen Deathclaws, Super Mutants, and Raiders just to name a few. The SPECIAL (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) system is here too and it's quite streamlined in the way your abilities are managed and each skill requires a higher rank to unlock as you progress via the perks chart. 

Taking out some raiders.

The power armor was a great plus for me because it's like running around in a tank and kicking lots of ass and it was awesome! And while I liked the first power armor set I found, the best one to me was the X-01 power armor I found while doing  a quest and it was a complete set too. This thing could stand up to all kinds of things even suicider Super Mutants. Walking away from explosions virtually untouched in the X-01 power armor was all kinds of amazing. 

One of the first power armors I found.

Behold! The X-01 power armor in all its glory!

There are glitches of course, but not a lot. I only experienced a couple. One was with being stuck in the elevator in one building and the only fix was to reload my last save and start over. There was another one where I was floating above the ground and the game froze completely. Again, reloading my last save seemed to do the trick. Another thing that bothered me was all the radiant quests mainly from The Minutemen leader Preston Garvey because after a while they become tedious especially with the kidnapping ones when it seemed like the same NPC settler got kidnapped three times. I started to think that perhaps they were getting kidnapped on purpose just to screw with me. I also wish there had been a way for the factions to work together against the scary villain instead of forcing you to pick one and depending on your actions, the other factions would become your enemies. I wish there had been a varied path with some options instead of you had to be on this set path and there's no other way around it.

That being said, I enjoyed Fallout 4 a great deal. There's lots to see and do, tons of things to build, and plenty of adventure to be had. It's worth checking out and definitely worth having in your gaming collection.

The Holidays Are Upon Us!

So I have been busy knitting for Christmas and my birthday is coming up. In the downtime, I've been enjoying Fallout 4. When things die down a bit (see after Christmas and everyone is stuffed from all the pie) I'll be posting more Mother Gamer posts. We'll start with Fallout 4 yay! That will be followed by some backlog gaming posts. I still have Assassin's Creed Syndicate and Destiny to play.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and has a wonderful time with their friends and family. Until next time everyone. :)