I just picked Mass Effect up when I got back from school for winter break, and I have to say that it goes beyond all of my expectations. I was of a big fan of Knights of the Old Republic, and when BioWare announced a title for the 360, I was psyched. Over past two days, I have put about 12 hours into my career, and there never was a dull moment. Mass Effect has a non-linear storyline that never ceases to amaze you. There are always three or more leads that you can choose to pursue at any given time to continue the main story. There are also other many another side-quests that take you across the many galaxies, clusters, systems, and planets available to explore in Mass Effect.

The games starts out with the creation of your character. You can choose your first name (your last name is always Shepard), your Psychological profile (Lone Survivor, War Hero, or Ruthless) , your character class ( Solider, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Vanguard, and Sentinel), and customize your character’s face. Your psychological profile determines what some NPC’s think of your during gameplay.

Lone Survivor:
You where the only survivor of a mission that you and a team of marines went on. You are know as a survivor.

War Hero:
In a mission where the chances of living where slim to none, you rescued soldiers on your team, and defeated the enemy.

Ruthless:
You have always gotten the job done, no matter what the costs, no matter what the conditions.

Picking a character class is very important, because it dictates what skills and weapons are available to you during the game.

Solider (Combat):
Improved health and health regeneration, widest selection of weapons, massive melee damage

Engineer (Tech):
Improved tech resistance, reduced recharge time for tech abilities, can only be trained with the pistol.

Adept ( Biotic):
Improved biotic resistance, reduced recharge time for biotic abilities

Infiltrator (Combat/Tech):
Increased damage by tech mines, reduced overheating of sniper rifles and pistols

Vanguard (Biotic/Combat):
Reduced recharge time for tech and biotic abilities, increased damage and accuracy of pistols

Sentinel (Biotic/Tech):
Increased biotic resistance and damage of shotguns and pistols

One of the coolest and jaw-dropping parts of this game is the character interaction. Dialog is ridiculously realistic. The characters body and facial movement makes the game look almost like a sci-fi movie. You can pick what you say, and just like Knights of the Old Republic, character alignment is determined by how you interact with other characters in the game.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZK15KcA2k&rel=1]

Mass Effect is a game that puts you in the driver seat of an epic blockbuster space opera.

Right now, I have that feeling little kids get on Christmas morning. I just bought Team Fortress 2 on Steam for $30. Yes, I know that I could gotten a better deal if I bought the Orange box before the official release of TF2, but I didn’t have enough money at the time. Yes, I could have still bought the Orange box for an additional $20 that would include the Half-Life 2 bundle. It would not be worth it to me. I would never have found the time to play Half-Life 2 and I could better use that $20 to go towards coffee.

For those of you that are confused right now and don’t know what Team Fortress 2 is:

I pull up my Steam window. 67% downloaded @ 2.2 MB/s.

I love the IST building’s network where I can be free from Rescom’s bandwidth restrictions.

It’s now 80% completed @ 2.5MB/s.

Anticipation and excitement are seriously starting to build up. I really hope the game meets my high expectations. Team Fortress Classic was one of my favorites when Valve released Half-Life. TF2 has been in development for such a long time now. I’m just happy that it is finally here.

Done.

Here is a video of my favorite character (Valve really did a great job with his personality):