Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 came out on Tuesday (March 6), and I played a lot of it. And then I beat it. And then I started again, after playing a bit of multi-player. If I wanted to sum up the game by referring to it only in terms of the previous to iterations, it would be something like this: It takes the best parts of the open environments in Mass Effect 1, combined with the best combat of Mass Effect 2, the best RPG mechanics of ME 1, and the best levelling-up of ME 2, and then adds some very good features, while pruning out things that nobody liked. Basically, it takes the best of the previous two games, removes bad stuff, adds some good stuff, and improves the results as much as it can. It is an amazing game to play. Also, the writing is incredible, which is par for the course (of course) for Bioware.

The story starts on Earth, after Shepard is under house arrest for blowing up a star system a few months (possibly a year, it's never really stated) beforehand. It killed 300,000 Batarians (who never had a good relationship with humanity in the first place) but delayed the Reaper invasion. You actually get to play through that in the last piece of ME 2 DLC.

Anyway, the Reapers invade anyhow, so Shepard is ordered to flee and get help. The rest of the game is about getting help. It's very similar to Dragon Age: Origins in that aspect. Gather help from a variety of races from an invasion that nobody believed was coming until it showed up. The invading force shows up every once in a while (50,000 years in ME, every few centuries in DA), far enough apart that it's several generations between each one. The only difference (besides it taking place in space) is that the invading force is regarded as superior in every way (much bigger, far stronger, almost invulnerable) here, and the order you get help is fixed (in DA:O, you could do any of the four main quests in any order).

Gameplay-wise, combat is a cover-based shooter with added abilities to tear up battlefields. And you'll need these abilities, because enemies are both smart and have abilities of their own.

Anyway, let's get into specifics. There are five different gun types - sniper rifles, assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, and pistols. Each type of gun will have seven or eight actual guns in that category, trading off Ammo Capacity (how many bullets you get), Firing Rate (how fast the bullets get unloaded), Damage (how much each bullet hurts), and Accuracy (how close each bullet gets to the centre of the crosshairs, as well as how much the muzzle climbs after each shot). As well, each gun is assigned a weight. You can carry one of each type of gun, but too much weight will increase the cooldowns on your abilities. On my first play through, I left out submachine guns and pistols, because I was fine with sniping, assault rifles for medium range, and shotguns for close-in work. My second playthrough I just went with sniper and assault rifles, and left close in stuff for heavy melee (more on that later) and powers, which recharge hella fast because I wasn't carrying much weaponry at all.

Each weapon can also be modded as well. There are five different mods for each type of gun, and the mod will apply to all of that type. For instance, a damage mod for assault rifles can be applied to all the assault rifles you have (even though you can only carry one at a time). Mods tend to be consistent across each type of weapon. There'll be an ammo mod (allowing you to carry more clips), a damage mod (bullets do more damage), an accuracy mod, usually an armor piercing mod (sacrifices some damage to ignore a percentage of armor), possibly a scope, and one more unique mod. Sniper rifles get a concentration mod that slows down time perception, allowing the player to line up a nice headshot (they do extra damage). Assault rifles get a stability mod, which I don't know what does because I stuck with the damage and scope mods (a scope on an assault rifle turns it into a mini sniper rifle. A lot less damage per shot, but a vastly increased fire rate). Submachine guns get ultra-light materials, making them even lighter (and they aren't the heaviest things to begin with. If they didn't have atrocious muzzle climb, I'd rock one of them through the whole game, and get wicked short cooldowns for my abilities). Shotguns get a bayonet for extra damage on melee attacks, and pistols get a taser that stuns enemies on melee attacks. You can only use two mods for each gun, so pick and choose wisely.

Besides that, each gun and mod can be upgraded four times, from level I to level V (all the way up to X on new game+). Mods can be found around environments, or bought in stores. If you have one, the next level will be available. For instance, if I have Ultralight Materials II for my submachine guns, and I find Ultralight Materials while wandering around on my mission, it'll be level III. Then I can go to the store and buy level IV. Each level increases its benefit by a bit more.

Guns can only upgraded on the Normandy (your cool starship). Each level of gun reduces the weight while increasing damage and accuracy. So upgrading your favourite gun quickly is good, because not only can it do more damage, but it lets you use your abilities quicker.

This game also introduces the heavy melee. Basically, your omnitool (a holographic wrist iPad) makes a giant knife out of mass effect fields that you can use to stab people. Awesome! The only problem is you can't use it from cover, and you have to hold the melee button down for about half a second before the animation takes place. So if you do use it, you'll be exposed for a while, during which enemies are free to take whatever potshots they like at you. So that's the drawback. The good news is it's insta-kill for unprotected targets (no armor, shields, or barriers), and quite damaging even for protected targets. I can get through about half a guy's life bar by using it on shielded targets.

There's also the Grab mechanic. If you take cover behind something low (chair, desk, waist-high wall) and someone walks up to the other side, you can grab them (by tapping the melee button), haul them over the cover, and stab them in the neck. Insta-kill, regardless of protection. The hard part is luring enemies that close in, because most of them tend to back away and lob grenades if they know you're behind cover. I told you they were smart.

Levelling up is the same as the previous game, but more. In ME 2, there were four ranks to every ability. The last rank had a choice, usually between more damage, or a wider area of effect. Every time you levelled up, you got two points to spend on abilities. You had to spend the amount of points equal to that rank to get the ability. So to get rank 1 of Adrenaline Rush would take 1 point, then two points for rank 2, then three points for rank 3, then four points for rank 4. Maxing out an ability would take 10 points, or 5 level-ups.

In ME 3, each ability has six ranks, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth each have choices. More power vs less cooldown. Wider area vs increased effect against shields. Maxing out an ability now takes 21 points, but you get four for levelling up. And there's 60 levels instead of 30, so there's plenty of opportunity to level up, particularly since experience comes from much more than simply completing missions (as it did in ME 2).

Scanning makes a return, but it's more than just hovering over a planet for 5 minutes and occasionally pressing a button. Now you fly around a solar system and press a button, sending out a signal that scans the vicinity for something interesting. Interesting things include ship wreckages that give you some fuel, intel that converts to small bonuses using the lab in the Normandy, war assets (fleets, scientists, troops, what-not) that directly contribute to the war effort, and Prothean and other objects that can usually be returned to someone on the Citadel in exchange for some experience, credits, reputation (which increases paragon and renegade scores in proportion to each other) and more war assets. So sending out scans is very useful, but it also attracts reaper attention. Too much attention and a fleet of reapers arrives in the system and chases you. If you escape, they'll be there until you come back, unless you do a mission in the meantime. If they catch you, you die. However, the game saves each time you enter a new system. So what I ended up doing was arriving in a new system, scanning around a whole bunch until I found everything, got caught by the reapers, restored to the previous save, and went directly to all the objects to scan them before the reapers arrived. Loophole abuse much?

Interrupts also made it back from Mass Effect 2. Dialogue is slightly less involved, though. Whereas in the previous games, a conversation would have five or six points of interaction, in this game there'll only be two or three, with Shepard filling in a lot on his or her own. I would have liked to have more options, but I can deal with that.

Multiplayer is something added for this game. It apparently started out as a separate game called Mass Effect: Assault, but eventually turned into this when that one was cancelled. I think I'm addicted to it. I'd like to say that it's because multiplayer is really well done, with awesome maps and amazingly cool stuff, but it's because I'm a loot hound, and the good loot is sparse enough that I have to play a lot to get it.

Each multiplayer mission is four-player co-op. There'll be 11 waves of enemies, with each wave starting a few seconds after the last enemy of the previous one has been killed. The very last wave, you have to get to an extraction point and last for two minutes. Often in particular waves (third, sixth, and tenth) you'll also have an objective. One objective is to get to a specific point and use that object (you're character ducks down and uses his or her omnitool for a few seconds) before proceeding onto the next one (there are four objects that need to be used, but you'll only be given one at a time). Another is to hack one specific point. The hack lasts for a few minutes, but the more players are around that point, the quicker it goes. The enemies tend to swarm all round, so you'd better pray the hack takes place in a well-defendable area. The other objective is to kill certain members of the enemy. Usually these will be stronger than the standard ones (they'll have shields, armor, or barriers). Only one will be marked at a time, and when it dies, the second one gets marked. Each objective has a countdown, and if that reaches zero, you fail. If all the players die, you fail. If none of the players makes it to the extraction point, you fail.

Besides that, you get money for completing the mission, as well as completing objectives, with a bonus based on how fast you did them. Money can be spent on packs that contain supplies. Recruit packs contain common equipment or characters (with a chance for uncommon stuff), veteran packs (more expensive) contain more common equipment and characters, as well as something uncommon (and a chance for more uncommon or rare), and Spectre packs contain even more common stuff, with at least one rare and a chance for more (either uncommon or rare). So uncommon and rare equipment or characters are doled out sparingly (which is why I'm addicted).

Unlocking characters allows access to them. You only start off with access to humans of each class, but you can get access to alien races specific to two classes (for instance, you can unlock the Drell for Adepts, and again for Vanguards). Getting the same character again gives you more options for their appearance.

Most equipment is of the One-off variety. A missile that can be used to take down difficult enemies (but only usable once), or medigel to bring you back to life (once). There's also one-off gun, ammo, and armor bonuses that last for one mission (use incendiary ammo for one mission, or faster cooldowns for once mission).

However, guns and mods stay with you, and are available for each character you unlock. Getting the same gun more than once upgrades it to a higher level (all the way from I up to X). Same thing with mods. However, guns and mods are all classified as either common, uncommon, or rare. So trying to level up the rare guns and mods will take a lot of money. Usually they're a better option than the common guns, so I'm not sure it's worth stocking up on recruit packs to get that level X gun you started with.

I probably should have stated at the start that you don't play Commander Shepard during the multiplayer. You play whatever race and whatever class, and call him or her whatever you want, because names aren't used. You do get to level up, though. The cap is only level 20, but you're limited to five abilities to level up (and two of them are passive - your class and Fitness, which increases health and shields).

I think that's about it for the entire game (single and multiplayer), except to say that you probably won't like the ending. I did, because I like different things like that, and I also got to it before the internet exploded in unhinged complaints about it, so their bad opinion didn't persuade me. Bioware went high concept, and nobody liked it. Either that, or they’ve finally found an audience wide enough that it include people who aren’t madly in love with them.

Anyway, some random tidbits:

Bioware really likes words that start with C - Citadel, Cipher, Conduit (from ME 1), Collectors (from ME 2), Crucible, and Catalyst (from ME 3). All the important things start with C. Except for Shepard, but even he or she is Commander throughout.

Cerberus is a bad guy again. In the first game, Cerberus was a shadowy terrorist organization that did horrific experiments to ensure humanity's places in the cosmos. In the second game, they're more well-intentioned extremists, and the only ones who're willing to investigate the missing human colonies. So you and them team up, despite the atrocities they committed in Mass Effect 1. In ME 3, they're back to being bad, but it's more personal, since you've worked with them and argued with their boss.

The only squadmates from ME 2 that are playable in ME 3 are also the ones that were squadmates in ME 1. Most of the squad from the second game can make it back, but they're usually relegated to sidequests. Mordin, Thane and Miranda can play important parts in the main quest, but only if they survived the previous game. I'm told that if any person died, they're replaced. But I'm not sure how that works, particularly with people that can die in ME 1 (Hai, Wrex).

To wrap it all up, this is a tremendous game, and don’t let the blowhards on the internet say otherwise just because they can’t handle the end.

21 Jump Street

So this week, Evan and I went to see 21 Jump Street. Not the TV show (because, frankly, most TV shows from the eighties are best left in the eighties. We always remember them fondly, but if you go back to them now, they tend to suck. Really badly), but the movie based on the concept of the TV show. Young-looking police officers infiltrate high school and bust up crimes. But really, when every movie is victim of Dawson Casting, I don't think it would work in real life.

Anyway, trailers this week were American Reunion, Neighborhood Watch, something Evan got, and That's My Boy - the latest Adam Sandler flick, with Adam Sandler doing Adam Sandler jokes. Pass.

The movie starts in 2005, which according to my calculations, was seven years ago. Jonah Hill (Schmidt) enters his high school doing the whole Eminem thing (short blond hair combed down, plain white shirt). He tries to ask his hot neighbor to prom, but can't get the words out. He's mocked by Channing Tatum (Jenko), but soon Jenko finds out that he can't go to prom either, what with his terrible grades and all. Schmidt is the typical square, Jenko is the typical cool guy.

Seven years later, they meet at the police academy. After a brief bout of hostility, they both realize that they're each good at what the other guy sucks at, and team up. They become friends and partners, but it turns out police work is much more boring than in movies and TV shows. And yes, it's quite meta to be showing how boring police work is compared to the movies ... in a movie (that will undoubtedly show exciting moments in police business). Meta is something that 21 Jump Street jokes with at times, though probably not the extent that critics are extolling it for.

The duo screws up their first arrest because Jenko doesn't know the Miranda rights (they always cut away before reaching the end on TV). Except that's not actually how it works - Miranda rights need to be said before an interrogation, but do not need to be read after an arrest. Even if they're not read at all, it's only what the suspect says that's inadmissible in court. Read more here.

Because of the screw up, they get transferred to 21 Jump Street, an undercover precinct disguised as a Korean Church (complete with Korean Jesus). It’s captained by an angry Ice Cube, and had a few extras that had solved a new case every time Schmidt and Jenko come in with an update.

Anyway, they get sent undercover to school, where the ideas of cool have changed so much in seven years. Jenko tries to fall back on what he thinks is cool and passes that "knowledge" onto Schmidt, but it doesn't work at all. Which is actually a good idea, because then the plot gives Schmidt and Jenko an idea of how the other side lived in high school. Schmidt gets in with the cool kids (not so much stereotypically cool as simply hip) while Jenko winds up hanging out with the AP chemistry kids when he needs help to catch up.

The plot involves taking down a new LSD-type drug, but it's mainly there to tell jokes. And tell jokes it does! This has to have one of the highest ratios of humour to runtime in a while. The humour is spread pretty broadly: Gross-out humour, awkward humour, sight gags, Gilligan cuts. Something for everyone. If you like a lot of different kinds of humour, this may be your favourite movie ever. However, one caveat - the theatre was packed with young people that find this stuff funny, and packed theatres with willing laughers make any movie much funnier. Take Bowfinger. Saw it in theatres and had a blast. Saw it on my own ... not so much.

Back to 21 Jump Street. There's not a whole lot of action. A bit near the end, including a car chase that was full of no explosions - a truck carrying highly flammable compressed gas canisters remained unexploded. Then a tanker carrying gasoline remained unexploded, even after being shot multiple times. And finally, a truck carrying chickens in coops ... exploded, raining feathers everywhere. "That's what exploded?!?" the characters cry exasperatedly.

There's a cameo by Johnny Depp (and Peter DeLuise, who was also on the original 21 Jump Street). And there's the occasional Reality Ensues (but mainly for comic reasons). The music's fine, although the 2005 section use "The Real Slim Shady" which was popular around 2001 or so. There's a great cut near the end that has heroic music during a getting ready scene, interspersed with doing chores (they're undercover at Schmidt's parents' place).

I'm not sure whether this is a theatre movie or a Blu-Ray movie. I’ve been comparing it to The Other Guys in terms of humour and action, and I think it's about even. The Other Guys had more action, this has more humour. But since I wasn't looking for or expecting a lot of humour, this one hit my expectations more. So I'll give it Theatre Status.

John Carter

Two nights ago, Evan and I went to see John Carter, the generically named movie about a guy who goes to Mars. Also, he fights stuff. We took Steve along with us, because he's actually read the source material (Evan's read some of it. I ignored it completely). It's written by the same guy who wrote Tarzan, about a billion years ago.

Evan got the preview game because of the Avengers. We tied on Brave and Wrath of the Titans. All three movies are on our list, but Brave might slip off, depending on if we want to go see a Pixar movie or not.

The movie starts off at the end, actually, with Edgar Rice Burroughs (the author of the books) getting a telegram (did I mention it's set in 1882?) from his uncle, John Carter. There are some very specific instructions in the will, one of which involves Carter's diary. As Burroughs starts reading, it flashes back 13 years and tells the main story.

Carter is looking for a cave of gold, with which he'll do something. We don't know what, but I imagine it has to do with drinking so much alcohol he'll forget his dead wife (died in a fire, possibly set by union soldiers, but I don't know). He gets arrested and offered a job, which he turns down and then promptly escapes from jail.

He's pursued by the posse until he runs into some Apaches. Everyone starts killing each other, so Carter takes off. The sheriff (Bryan Cranston!) takes a shot somewhere on his person (is he clutching his side? his arm? his abdomen? His Medula Oblongata? His Duodenum?) so Carter rescues him and drags him into a cave. The apache's give chase, but run off when they see the inscription above the cave. Carter goes spelunking with the world's longest lasting match (seriously. It burns for over a minute. That thing is awesome) and finds his cave full of gold, along with a bunch of spider inscriptions. Suddenly, a figure appears. The sheriff shouts a warning, and Carter shoots the figure. It drops a medallion of some sort. Carter picks it up while the figure lays dying. It spouts some nonsense, which Carter repeats while trying to understand, and the medallion lights up. BOOM! Carter wakes up in the desert.

He looks around and slowly clambers to his feet, but when he tries to walk, he takes a flying leaps and lands on his face. And this is by far the best (and funniest) way of portraying a difference in gravity. How many worlds in Star Wars had different gravity than Earth? Tons, but none on screen (seriously, how did the asteroid in Empire Strikes Back have Earth-like gravity at all? It’s a freaking asteroid). Same with Star Trek. And many other movies. It's possible that a large chunk of the $250 million budget was used to realistically portray weaker gravity (Wikipedia lists it as a little over 1/3 of Earth's, but I don't think Burrough's knew that when he wrote this).

Of course, more of the budget was spent on the large aliens that soon show up. Oh, hey look! It's the plot! Soon there's a princess and rescues and arranged marriages and tyrants and villains, and an arena scene suspiciously similar to Attack of the Clones (hero fights monsters in a desert arena cheered on by multi-limbed aliens). Mind you, it's possible that George Lucas simply ripped off (homaged, please) the original source material. So who knows?

Anyway, there's a lot of fights, what is scientifically known as a metric f***ton of special effects, and very little character development. So it was pretty much exactly my type of movie. There were only a few problems. The biggest is that the music is competent, but nothing special. Don't bother getting the soundtrack. Maybe I'm just not giving it the benefit of the doubt, because I've been spoiled by the score for Mass Effect 3. But there were scenes where the score really could have added something special, and it didn't.

Besides that, the plot is somewhat longer than most plots, with a lot of things happening to the main character. Mind you, in pulp science fiction, that's what happened. Things just keep happening at a breakneck pace, until finally the book ends with the guy getting the girl. They weren't into things like plot details and character development back then. Just good, old-fashioned action. My kind of stuff. You know, if I can get around the old-timey lingo and zeerust.

So I tab this as a theatre movie. I doubt that Evan or Steve will have the same opinion, having read the source material, but maybe ignorance is bliss after all. They spent the car ride home comparing notes and complaining that the bad guys aren't actually like that at all, whereas I spent the time laughing at the jokes in the movie and pretending I was in Mars gravity.

They Should Just Add Bieber to Twilight

No movie this week. There's nothing really coming out, and Mass Effect 3 is being released on Tuesday. So I will be busy saving the galaxy (again). Also, March Madness starts next week, and SWTOR is supposed to have a huge patch drop some time in March. It's entirely possible that I won't leave my room for a month. But that's beside the point. This column will be about something I haven't touched on that much - music.

On Facebook, I've seen a couple of images floating around. Both of them have two pictures, with a photo of an artist and a caption of his lyrics above a photo of Justin Bieber and a caption of the chorus to his song Baby (sample lyrics: And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh / Like baby, baby, baby, no / Like baby, baby, baby, oh / I thought you'd always be mine, mine). Inevitably, both pictures will imply that Justin Bieber is killing music. The first picture compares him to Frank Sinatra, and the second compares him to Tupac Shakur. That leads me to this.

Let's take a look at the implications of the Sinatra picture. Obviously, they're trying to prove that music is getting worse, with Bieber's Baby held up as the standard of putritude. For anyone who thinks that music was better way back when, I would like to refer you to the Nostalgia Filter. Quick, who can name the #1 single from 1969? Was it something by the Beatles? Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath? Ha, no. It was by The Archies, and it was called Sugar Sugar (Sample lyrics: Sugar, ah honey honey / you are my candy girl / and you got me wanting you / honey, ah sugar sugar / you are my candy girl / and you got me wanting you). And this is supposed to be 40 years of superior to Bieber how?

But wait, let's not leave it at that. We got to pick which Bieber song was ruining music, so let's go back to other artists and see what they've written as well. How 'bout a small band from Liverpool called The Beatles? Best rock band in history you say? Sample lyrics: "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah / She loves you, yeah yeah yeah / She loves you, yeah yeah yeah yeah. (wait, how does she feel about you?) More sample lyrics: Oh yeah, I'll tell you something / I think you'll understand / When I say that something / I wanna hold your hand / I wanna hold your hand / I wanna hold your hand. Gee, what romantic gesture would I like to do? And yes, I do hope you understand.

But wait, should we actually take a look at Frank Sinatra himself? Yes, yes we should. And I don't mean to look down on him, because most of his lyrics are actually pretty tremendous (although I don't know enough to be truly judgemental). Instead, I trawled through some lyrics sites and came up with Yes Sir That's My Baby (sample Lyrics: Yes sir, that's my baby / No sir, I don't mean maybe / Yes sir, that's my baby now / Yes, ma'm, we've decided / No ma'm, we won't hide it / Yes, ma'm, you're invited now / By the way, by the way / When we meet the preacher I'll say / Yes sir, that's my baby / No sir, I don't mean maybe / Yes sir, that's my baby now). And those are all the lyrics. To the entire song. Very polite, yes, but very short. And all of his songs are like that. He could get good lyrics, because he only put 50 words in.

Anyway, now let's go onto the second image, comparing Tupac to Bieber. It also has a Youtube View count, implying that not only is music getting worse, but that people's taste in music is getting worse as well. Harumph, I say to that. Firstly, they compared Keep Ya Head Up to Baby. Hmm, maybe we should pick another Tupac song. How 'bout Thug in Me? (Sample Lyrics: *expletive deleted* *sex descriptions* *expletive deleted* *racial word I'm not allowed to say* *sex depictions). So Keep Ya Head Up might be about female empowerment, but Thug in Me is about how good sex with Tupac is, 'cause he's such a thug. Alternatively, it might be told from the point of view of a thug who thinks he's much better at sex than he really is. However, then we'd have to be open to the possibility that Baby is simply a clever parody of the shallow pop music that so many people crave. The problem is that according to Poe's Law, some parodies tend not to be caught.

Next, let's look at the audiences. Bieber is aimed at female teens and tweens. Tupac? Not so much. He skews to the young, urban crowd (and please don't read urban as black. My first year of university was spent in a dorm filled with young white boys who loved rap. I didn't really care for it, because I was more into techno and punk. Ironically, ten years later, I'm starting to come around on rap). There's some overlap, to be sure, but to compare Tupac and Bieber would be akin to trying to say that Pearl Jam is better than Enya, because who likes that New Age-y stuff anyway? And yes, both Pearl Jam and Enya are incredibly talented, and I've liked bits and pieces of both. You just can't compare two wildly different styles. For that matter, you can't compare similar styles either, but we'll get to that.

Female teens and tweens can like a lot of different, varied stuff. Individually, they'll like and dislike a great many things, but occasionally, they'll all get together and collectively really like the same things. Bieber, for one. Twilight, as another. The weird thing is, the rest of society has decided that if this particular group of people universally likes something, it must be terrible. It's like their opinions are automatically invalid, and wrong to boot. It's why both Twilight and Bieber have such massive Hate-doms.

Why can't people like what they like? People have confused Quality with Enjoyment. For instance, Drive was a quality movie, but I didn't enjoy it. Transformers was a thoroughly enjoyable movie, but not quality. But it seems that people think it has to be good to be enjoyable, and if it's not one, it's neither.

But let's take an actual glimpse into the actual lyrics of Justin Bieber himself. Yes, Baby has simplistic and repetitive lyrics. Is that his fault? No, because like many artists, he doesn't write his own stuff (well, not all of his own stuff. I'm sure he contributes the occasional line and song). Talented actors are paid to act, not write. Talented singers should be expected to sing well (something that Bieber does fantastically, if you'd be willing to put down your blogs and actually go listen to him). Now how about some of his other songs, besides Baby? ... Actually, I can't find any that aren't just as generic. Ain't that a kick in the head?