So I finished Mass Effect 2 recently, and I’ve already begun thinking about Mass Effect 3. Here is a collection of my thoughts.

Playable Characters

Liara T’Soni

I was somewhat surprised (and perhaps a little disappointed) that so few characters returned from Mass Effect 1 in Mass Effect 2 in a playable form. Let’s break it down: There were 5 playable characters in Mass Effect 2: Wrex, Tali, T’Soni, Kaidan, Ashley, and Garrus. Of these characters, only three of these were sure to have survived, and two returned in Mass Effect 2 as playable characters. The remaining character is T’Soni, and I would be surprised if she wasn’t a playable character in ME3.

Mass Effect 2 Characters

With the suicide mission at the end of ME2, Any team member has the possibility of dying. As a result, I doubt anyone can return as playable in ME3. The only team member who has the possibility of returning is Legion, as he could simply return as a different physical Geth.

Captain Anderson

This is perhaps just wishful thinking on my part, because Captain Anderson was a total badass, I’d like to see him playable in Mass Effect 3. I don’t have anything really good to base this on, he’s just a good soldier.

Characters From the Novels

The novels have a rich collection of characters to grab from, one that I think would be particularly cool is Gillian Grayson, a preteen autistic biotic. Of course, the novels are written by the lead designer of the games, so a crossover wouldn’t be too far fetched.

The rachni

I think the decision to destroy or save the Rachni in the middle of Mass Effect 1 was probably the biggest decision you needed to make in the Mass Effect series so far. Sure, there was payback in Mass Effect 2 depending on your decision, but the crossover was relatively minor from Mass Effect 1. I think the Rachni (could) be a key force in taking on the Reapers in ME3, and you would be rewarded for your decision in ME1 in ME3 for this (especially considering the default decision is to destroy the Rachni in ME2, it would be a good indicator that you played all three games).

Cerberus

I really don’t trust the Illusive Man and Cerberus’s intentions, I think he might be under the control of one of the Reapers, and isn’t actually on our side.

Destroying the reapers

Obviously destroying the reapers (and more than one this time) would be different from the rest of the games, but I don’t know how they would do it. They would either have to make some sort of destroying reaper sub-game, or destroying each reaper would be a different varied mission, or something. It would probably involve rallying all of the races around the ME universe though, and uniting them in an attack against the Reapers (including the Rachni if they’re alive as mentioned above).

Anyways, those are my predictions for ME3. I’m really looking forward to it.

Lineups were rediculous everywhere.

Video games weren’t the only games at PAX…there was also Magic/TCGs and D&D stuff. Yah, I dunno. It seemed cool I guess.

Only panel I really wanted to see at PAX. From Right: Doc from Sarcastic Gamer,

This was that M.C. Frontalot playing his “tut tut” song live. We tried to miss his concert, but after we saw some of it it turns out he was pretty good.

This was M.C. Frontalot doing a surprise duet with Johnathan Coulton, who headlined the day we weren’t there.

This was the only good pic I got of Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, who are actually from Burnaby. Check out those costumes…

This is probably the best video I got from PAX. It’s from the guys who headlined that night: The Minibosses. They did rock covers of NES games.

This was pretty cool: The whole computer is submerged in mineral oil. Water cooling to the extreme..

Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible/The Guild

PC Freeplay area. You get a computer for a little while and play some games. We played UT3 and some Starcraft.

The Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway booth was giving away free copies of the game if you got your head shaved with a “hell’s haircut.”

I <3 my companion cube.

Just some picture that Mel took. I wish I had Mel’s camera, her pictures are all clear and most of my pictures were all blurry.

Sumo Lounges were everywhere, especially in the handheld lounges. They were really comfy. They’re supposed to be the definitive gaming chair.

And that’s PAX2008! Thanks for checking out my pics and videos.

This is one of my favourite pics from the PAX trip. Seriously, me and the Dark lord of the Sith are best buddies.

This was taken with melissa’s camera. I have no idea what game this is… or what’s going on… and I’m not going to even try to explain it.

Umbrella employee guy was pretty cool.

Yah I don’t know who these guys are supposed to be either. They were nice enough to pose though when they saw me take the camera out. I saw them sumo wrestling on the floor later.

Princess peach was there selling classic games. I bought Burgertime from her.

Together at last…(Que romantic music)

The Fruit Fucker live at PAX! There was even a demonstration of him..erm…with some fruit.

Godot from Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, drinking his coffee.

I don’t know who she is..either.

Okay so that’s it for Cosplayers, one more gallery to go up with just misc pictures and stuff and that’s it for the PAX 2008 posts.

Once you add an account to Flock, it keeps you logged in (like actually logs you in if you somehow logged out) and gives you extra functionality based on what you’re doing. For example. most social networks would give you a list of your friends in the people sidebar.

The Media sidebar can fill up with lots of different things from your social network, such as stories from digg or recent photos from your friends from Facebook.

Lots of drag and drop stuff, like a drag and drop web clipboard and drag and drop photo uploading for Facebook and stuff like that.

And most importantly, an integrated blog editor that I’m using right now to write this post.

Since Flock is based on Firefox 3, a lot of Firefox extensions work with Flock, like stumble upon and Foxmarks.

I am a little disappointed, however, at some of the social networks that are missing from flock, such as reddit, stumbleupon (with the people sidebar stuff) and stuff like drag and drop photo uploading to open source photo platforms (such as the one my site runs). Oh, and the theme is ugly and there doesn’t seem to be anyone who’s made a theme for it yet.

But yah, I’d definately say it’s worth trying out.

UPDATE: Trying to put photos in this blog post using Flock was not very easy and I ended up going online anyways. That’s another strike against it.

It all started with problems downloading podcasts. For no reason, I started to get “file not found” errors when I try to play a podcast. So lemme get this straight: iTunes automatically downloads podcasts for me…but if it fails its up to me to fix it? I must manually go to the iTunes store, search for the podcast, locate the episode I’m missing and download it? That’s a little counter-intuitive is it not?

Of course, iTunes customer support could help me escape from this annoying situation, right? Let me summarize my customer support experience using real world examples:

• Hi, my key won’t fit in the keyhole on the door. Can I have a different key?
• Hi, just try turning the knob and pushing on the door. It should open.
• Hi, I don’t think you understand what I meant. The key is broken. I cannot open the door unless I can unlock it. Please help me get a new key or fix the lock.
• Hi, it is unfortunate that you cannot follow our instructions. We feel for you. Tear.

Honestly, that’s what the customer support was like it was absolutely rediculous.

Another problem I have with iTunes is the ipod syncing, which is ironic cause that’s why I’ve been using iTunes for this long. My iPod is set to sync to new episodes of podcasts, meaning that after you listen to a podcast episode it deletes the episode off the ipod the next time you sync it. So let’s say you have an ipod full of songs and podcasts. Let’s say you listen to 5 podcasts over the course of a couple days and iTunes downloads 5 podcasts of the same size. When you plug in the iPod to the computer, you expect that it will delete those 5 podcasts you listened to and replace it with 5 other podcasts, correct? AM I INSANE IN ASSUMING THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD WORK?

But no. iTunes tries to move new podcasts to your ipod before removing the old ones. iTunes gives you a placebo message box saying “You don’t have enough space to sync everything to your iPod. Do you want to turn off podcast syncing for this iPod?” If you click no, it stops syncing and doesn’t delete the played podcasts off your iPod. If you click yes, then it ignores your request and still stops syncing.

You can’t remove podcasts manually off your ipod either, which means you have to turn off either music or podcast syncing on your ipod, sync it (so it will delete all podcasts or music) and then turn the syncing back on (and it will move everything it just deleted back on the ipod). Seriously, what possessed the programmers to make it work this way? The rest of us weren’t born and raised in WTFville.

One thing I’ve learned from switching to Windows is if a program doesn’t work for you, find an alternative. And I did. A simple google search wielded me this article and I plan to look for an alternative. If anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment. Thank you and goodnight.

A billion years ago my dad put some leftover sauces in the fridge… just in bowls with saran wrap over it, kind of thing. Well, one day we decided to clean the fridge, and found the suckers still in there. The contents were kind of crusty so I put the bowls in the sink with some hot water in them to try and soften it up. Well the next day, THE BOWLS WERE A HUGE FUNGUSFEST. I mean, not even 8 hours later! WATER. In a BOWL. So anyways, I was quite frightened and had to go to work so I just avoided the issue. That would be mistake #1. All day I was imagining that guy I saw on Ripley’s who had inhaled some bread mold and lost his whole face, so I figured I should wear some sort of mask or something. But, as time drew on, and no mask presented itself, I pulled the sweater I was wearing over my nose (which happened to be Brennen’s… I am so, so sorry….) and dumped the first bowl over.

The dome of mold exploded and STEAM CAME OUT. Steam rose out of the bowl like from a roadkilled animal in the middle of January! I had to book it out of the kitchen to save my life, but before I did, I managed to spray some Lysol on the writhing moldcreature, hoping 99.9% of that bacteria would be killed instantly.

So I am writing this convinced that I now have Strapholomatheaulophilius of the throat and I have 36 hours to live.

Good bye, everyone.

DRAW YOUR OWN EFFING PICTURES.

Hear that? You get good at drawing by PRACTICE. It’s not some big secret, it’s not some magical power, you GRAB A PENCIL, you PUT IT ON THE PAPER, and you DRAW OVER AND OVER AND OVER UNTIL IT LOOKS GOOD. That’s it. That’s the big secret. Maybe it takes YEARS, yeah, sorry that your little microwave dinner mentality is an inconvenience for you. BUT GUESS WHAT. There ARE some things in life you actually have to WORK AT. Wow, what a shocker. Good luck trying to get through life by pasting your name on someone else’s work, kid. You better get outta this habit, and quick.

Honestly….. GOSH.

FINALLY her annoying presence will be snuffed out forever, leaving Grissom to wallow in his agony before coming to his senses. She made him soft… vulnerable… counterproductive…. He needs to be FREE of her draining effect! Her clinging, whiny spirit shall no longer hinder your intelligence!! Go! Run free among the Lady Heathers of the world!! Crush the Sarah Sidles into oblivion, for they do not deserve your affection!!

Oh yeah, and some more reviews were added. Expect some more soon, including Zodiac, The Simpsons Movie, Chrono Trigger, and the like.