AgamemnonV2

That's not too bad of a backlog. I've got a friend who owns about 200 games on Steam. He's only played about 60 of them. He went bat-shit during that holiday sale, picked just about every sale pack there was. I, on the other hand, am damn picky when it comes to games, and some of the ones I own on Steam I was either coaxed to purchase (because I can't have an opinion on the game unless I own it apparently) or I was mistaken in how awesome it was supposed to be. Here's what I have to work with: Audiosurf Counter-Strike: Source Dark Messiah Might and Magic Day of Defeat: Source DEFCON Empire: Total War Garry's Mod Grand Theft Auto IV Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Half-Life 2 Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Half-Life 2: Episode One Half-Life 2: Episode Two Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Half-Life: Source Just Cause 2 Killing Floor Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead 2 Mafia II Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne Mount and Blade: Warband Neverwinter NIghts 2: Platinum Portal Sid Meier's Civilization V Stargate Resistance Team Fortress 2 The Witcher: Enhanced Edition X3: Reunion Zombie Driver It's a little disheartening how little of Civ V I play considering how big of a Civ fan I am. I guess I just wasn't that much of a fan of the changes. Oh, and X3 is hella hard to understand to play.

Individuals are just that: individuals. Just as there are Cerberus operatives who don't tote the "exterminate all aliens" motto, not everyone in the Third Reich was a Nazi. In fact, most of the military commanders who had been around before Hitler's rise to power rather frowned on the orders they were given and some flat-out didn't carry them at all. Obviously, in this case, you don't need to align your beliefs with TIM to be in Cerberus, neither did the soldiers of the Wehrmacht align their beliefs with Hitler either. As for a Nazis-in-space game, see Killzone 3. Well, that's actually more of a World-War-II-in-space game.

I want to rid the world of all things "mobile," "portable," and "tablet." I'm not a fan of anything that supports that world, i.e. Gawker's layout changes. Like six billion other people, I still browse the Internet on a DESKTOP and plan to do so for quite some time.

Honestly the climbing ability should be tied to difficulty. I tried to mention this once the update came out and I was drowned by a sea of fanboys that screamed and screamed until I went away.

Fair enough. I think the discrepancy comes from how well Cerberus hides their goals. Even bringing back Shepard was about forwarding humanity, etc. Miranda even tells you flat-out that she fought with TIM to put a chip implant in your brain so they could control you but she was stone-walled on that. But yeah, I was getting the whole "master race" vibe right after Freedom's Progress, where Miranda is all like, "Oh, we should abduct this Quarian because he might have something more useful than what we already have seen." And then if you do just that he's all the worse on the Flotilla. Besides, I knew Cerberus was bad news the moment TIM blinked. Eye implants are a precursor to the big bad wolf in Mass Effect. Personally I think they are labeled as terrorists as to give the universe (and us, the audience) an idea of how the Alliance and the Council view them. When we think of terrorists (by our modern standards) we think of some rag-tag group of untrained people hiding out in caves making explosives out of car batteries. As I and Badmin pointed out, they're so much more than that. They're an unbelievably well-funded organization that stretches across the galaxy. They have numerous fronts that seem more friendly in design (like Terra Firma). They're past the terrorist classification. If the aliens knew how well-founded Cerberus is they probably would be much more wary to humanity. I wonder if even it's Cerberus operatives that are working within the system to make sure that they stay labeled as terrorists rather than what they really are--space Nazis. Thanks. Bioware has been really skating on the dark edge of things lately and I haven't really been a fan of that. If we ever have a discussion about why Loghain is a monster in Dragon Age, I have another list of all the atrocities he commits as well to label him as a selfish opportunist. I'm betting that Mass Effect 3 is going to have a "Dragon Age" ending which throws at you all the epilogue dialogue of your choices in the three games. I'm also betting that if you helped Cerberus significantly that the aliens figure it out after the Reaper threat is dealt with and humanity goes to war with everyone else. Bioware is really good about making you feel like total crap about the choices you make in their games.

okay...um, not to come off as argumentative, but I don't think that's true either. Cerberus occasionally works with aliens. The Nazis never and would never share resources with non-Aryan races. I still believe Nazi Germany would have turned on the Japanese as soon as the Allies were defeated. Likewise, Nazi Germany was an aggressive military force that attacked everyone around them. Cerberus's stance is simply that human safety and stature should not be a secondary priority to appeasing other species. Granted, the desire for security easily transitions into a first-blood attack policy. Likewise, a species-partisan stance easily turns into a species superiority stance, which easily leads to genocide. Also like (and unlike) the Nazis, Cerberus conducts sick experiments on people. However, like the terrorist label, I don't think it's fair to call them space Nazis. Heck, the Nazis were wholly devoted to Hitler. Disagreeing with Hitler was typically a death sentence. Jacob openly defies and disagrees with the Illusive Man and he doesn't even lose his job. Look, I don't disagree that Cerberus is a bad group with an immoral leader. I just feel obligated to jump in when people throw around labels like "terrorist" and "Nazi" because in some cases, it minimizes how bad real terrorists and Nazis are. I totally concede that Cerberus pushes itself awfully close to those groups. If I were living in the ME world, I sure as hell wouldn't support them. I don't even hook up with Ashley because I think she's bigoted. Let's take a look at Cerberus's activities. In ME1: They set Thresher Maws loose on civilians and soldiers just to see what the reaction would be. They use the Geth spikes on civilians just to see what the reaction would be. They set Rachni loose on civilians just to see what the reaction would be. They try to use a Thorian on a civilian population just to see what the reaction would be. They kill an Alliance admiral when he gets too close to exposing their operation. In ME2: They strap an idiot-savant into a nightmare-fuel torture chair just to see what his reaction would be. They kidnap children and perform psychoanalytical and torture experiments just to see what biotic children would do. They purposely let slip where Commander Shepard is supposed to be going just to see what the Collector response would be (in the process getting half [if not all] of Horizon's colonials abducted). From the Shadow Broker's dossier: They infiltrate news media organizations (10 to 1 says Khalisah al-Jilani is a Cerberus operative). They kill off the Salarian corner market on narcotics trade on Trident just so they could take over their business. They capture Asaris to test their biotic powers. They kill the Pope to replace him with one that is more militaristic and centered toward humanity. They assassinate an Alliance politician just to forward another one in their pocket. They assassinate some more Alliance politicians just to forward their gains to ensure new laws are passed to allow them to create new shell corporations. They "neuter" a Matriarch's biotic powers because she was a political opponent. So really, we can stop pretending that they're baby Jesus or something. They literally are the new space Nazi party in Mass Effect. Everything they do--whether it is murder, extort, torture, harass, blackmail, or embezzle--is done for the sole purpose of "ensuring humanity stays on top." How no one sees the "master race" tones on this one I've no clue. It sort of reminds me of the people who defend Loghain from Dragon Age. Both are complete monsters.

April Fools is over Microsoft. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?

He's got a point there. Cerberus is far from a terrorist organization. They're much more like space Nazis. Which is fine, because that's worse than being a terrorist I would say.

Found that out a long time ago, bro.

I think that it's part of the moral ambiguity that Bioware wanted to inject into the franchise, much like 2004's Battlestar Galactica. The idea is that we're facing galaxy-wide extinction and you have to ask yourself what you'd be willing to sacrifice to prevent that. Indeed, the actions of Cerberus have proven to be immoral, but what if Illusive Man was truly convinced that those actions were necessary to prevent massive extinction? What if he was also convinced that the Alliance and Citadel Council were not going to take the necessary action? Bioware is running with this trope with EVERY SINGLE GAME however, and it's starting to get old. Mass Effect 2 had you playing Dr. Phil for 75% of the game just because "the best of the best" were all mentally screwed up. What exactly was wrong with keeping with the Alliance being the saviors of the galaxy and then building off of that instead? Nothing. If someone told me that I'd be working for Cerberus as part of the main plot in Mass Effect 2 after I had beaten Mass Effect 1, I'd punch them in the neck for lying. This hardly coincides with what they usually say. Male default Shepard is on all advertising and they specifically say your Shepard dying in ME2 is not canon. So yes, there certainly is a canon play-through.

Wes Johnson makes up for 97% of this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmj966e7saE&feature=related HAMMMMMMM IT UP!

Since I belong to the PC gaming master race ( ), I'm big on modding. I've written up two mod lists for Oblivion and FO3 here (albeit they are a bit outdated now). I can't play Civ 4 without playing CCV (or better known as Community Civilization V). Then there's Kingdoms Grand Campaign for Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms (again, can't play without that). My third-party mod-of-choice for M2:TW, however, is definitely Third Age: Total War. Then there is Floris for Mount&Blade (again, cannot play without that). Although I play it with a combination of Diplomacy as well. As for M&B online play, it's cRPG all the way. Then there's probably a slew of minor or third-party additions to any number of games I play (The Witcher, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc.). I like to flex this every chance I get to all the console folk.

Flying cars, robot cars, etc. It's all ultimately silly. Given the rising problem of traffic correlating with rising population, as well as the increasing density of population in urban areas, neither of those concepts are going to solve the future's problems when it comes to transportation. Personally I think public transportation will become the norm, i.e. underground high-speed trains. And then the only people that will have flying cars are government employees (i.e. police, fire-fighting, and emergency forces). Eventually roads won't be able to be widened well enough to compensate increasing traffic and the fight for the last pieces of free property will convert most city roads to add construction on top of them. At least that's my theory.

Not just paragon, renegade too. Regardless of how you play Shepard makes it very clear throughout the entire game that he's not working for Cerberus, he's merely accepting Cerberus' help because their goals happen to be aligned. Sure he's using Cerberus equipment and getting intel from them, but he's not under their command. He's not working for Cerberus, he's working with Cerberus. This has never been something I have accepted, especially with vanilla Shepard. With vanilla (also considered canon) Shepard, Cerberus is responsible for his unit's attack on Akuze. Plus there's also the side quests from the first game that show that Cerberus was part of a lot of sick and terrible experiments. It's a wall banger that he even ACCEPTS to work with Cerberus. I was really disappointed how shoe-horned you are to work for the bad guys. Just some terrible writing on Bioware's part (aside from the whole "you died" bit as well). Retcon is Bioware's motto I guess.

Trollific indeed. Hasn't Kotaku reported numerous times how the PC market only continues to rise throughout the years? Seems pretty silly to contradict yourself on that one.

Niiice. Certainly saves me the trouble of logging out to fiddle with invedit. Although, truthfully, what really bugs me are the climbing spiders. Ever since that little update I've lost a lot of interest in creating structures. Everyone says, "Oh, use the lip technique!" but it looks so atrocious. I mean, since when has Minecraft been about reality? You punch trees.

SG-1 was the baby Jesus. SG:A was okay. And SGU was just begging to nail the final coffin in the series. Personally I'm glad it's all done with. SG-1 had the lovely theme of running with the positive vibes of the American military. Not to mention it's all Air Force. You know, the guys that actually would be running anything dealing with space? I don't know what it is with writers and their incessant need to make all the space military being run by the Navy. Dear writers: the Navy only knows crap about the water.

I generally join forums on holidays or momentous occasions. Christmas, Halloween, the day Steve Irwin died, etc. That way I have a good first impression. Also, how do I kill that Tonberry at the top of my screen?

PC gaming is dead because the PC gaming market keeps expanding each year.

Hardly. There's no logout button.

Meh, they're still not showing us what we really want to see. Inventory systems, the character sheet, the new features like crafting, etc. That's what I'm interested in. Bethesda has no trouble making their graphics look nice in their games so that's hardly buzz-worthy if you ask me.

The game certainly has its faults, and the Prologue certainly doesn't paint a pretty picture with starting out with some bad voice acting, but it does get better. I thought it was interesting that this and Neverwinter Nights 2 were on sale on Steam. Both of these games use the Aurora engine and the on-the-ground dialogue lists. Couple this with The Witcher's dark tones, the Witcher group of heroes that are looked upon with distrust and who can "sense" monsters...and who become sterile and usually have a lower life expectancy due to drinking mutagens...ahem, right. Well, couple that with Neverwinter Nights 2, which is nothing like Neverwinter Nights 1 in the respect that you get three arbitrary party members that you cannot get rid of and who stick around with you. They also bicker amongst each other and you during specific quests. Essentially if Neverwinter Nights 2 and The Witcher had a child, it would be called Dragon Age: Origins.

What it says on the tin. You'll usually find me most prominent on Kotaku in my areas of expertise, such as not liking Valve and wondering when Diablo III is going to come out.