Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut Release

The Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut is available today for download, says the Bioware Blog.

I was so looking forward to this game and was so disappointed by the crappy ending. After the controversy and Bioware's defense of their crappy ending, I lost all faith in them. However, I have to give them one last chance. And this is their last chance.

In truth, I have little faith that this downloadable content will save the series. They have been referring to it as an extended cut, something explain the ending. A good story should not need to be explained. I still do not understand how anyone with above 80 IQ can look at that ending and not see that it is crap. They would have done better to just admit they screwed up and fix it. I would rather wait six months for a proper ending then a rushed explanation of a crappy ending.

We shall see what they have done.

Update: Downloading the content now. I am afraid to look at the boards while I wait.

Next XBox Master Plan

A document was released a few weeks ago that purports to be the Microsoft plan for their next XBox.(direct download) 

CVG did an analysis of the document and claims that it is real. Although the document is from 2010, it is likely that, while some of the specific details may have changed, reading through this document should give us a good idea of what to expect in the next XBox when it comes out (likely) for Christmas 2013.

The full analysis can be found in this article.

The most interesting things to be included in the next XBox:

Cheating in Gaming

This is a great article about cheating in videogames and looks at a specific user, John in Canada (represent!). No, its not me.

A few of the commenters take the writer to task about his sympathetic view of the subject. I thought it was balanced portrayal. It laid out the facts and let the reader decide.

Some time ago I railed against the dearth of good journalism in gaming, the rah-rah press release article with the skeptical "..will it live up to the hype? Only time will tell." at the end to salvage what shred of the writer's credibility was left.

Kudos to Stephen Totilo for a piece of real journalism in the video game industry, a somewhat rare sight.

The Year of Halo

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that one of the most anticipated games this year will be Halo 4. More video of Halo 4 was released recently at E3 including the Halo 4 trailer

and this gameplay video

10 Years Playing Civilization 2

This is a great post by a guy who has been playing Civ 2 for 10 years. He is somewhere in the year 3991 AD and "the world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation". 

This is a great read for any fans of the Civ series and an interesting "what if". And let's face it, all of us played Civ because we wanted to see what would happen if we were in charge.

Even more interesting is the comments to the post after he asks for advice on how to rebuild the world.

A Dearth of Posts

I haven't been posting on this blog for the last few months. My wife and I recently added another kid to our family, and I have been very busy with that. However, things are starting to settle down and I have a few interesting posts on file and I will be putting them up and keeping this blog up much more regularly.