So it seems this tagging phenomenon has spread across GameSpot like a loveable plague. I toyed with the idea of doing one myself despite not being tagged. But while catching up on all the blog posts that I missed during my break (I spent the last two weeks with my girlfriend on a holiday of sorts so I was away from the net) I noticed Rath3rDashing had tagged me! So on with the show!

1. Mario Is Missing! for the DOS was the first Mario game I ever owned. I thought it was awesome. If I remember right it came on about four floppy disks. If you don't know what it is the game is basically an educational game to teach children about geography. You play as Luigi travelling the globe stopping Koopas from stealing various artefacts and of course looking for Mario's whereabouts. It got ported to the SNES and NES later down the line but I heard those versions were quite poor in comparison to the DOS version. At the time I was being raised by Sega so I didn't own a "proper" Mario game until the N64 came out a few years later. However I had played the SNES Mario games on visits to various friends' houses so I wasn't entirely ignorant of how "normal" Mario games played.

2. My GS banner is of Susan Storm AKA the Invisible Woman. I chose that image because the colours are easy on the eyes and the image isn't cluttered. I like the Invisible Woman because she is a respectable strong character with an interesting super power and not, in fact, because she looks attractive.

3. I met my girlfriend on the internet. "Ha!" I hear you say "Well" I begin "Hear me out". We met on a forum and got to know each other via MSN. Long story short: after many many months of talking I took a train down to see her and we've continued the tradition of visiting each other whenever there's a gap in our schedules. We've been together around two and a half years now. I love her very much.

4. Speaking of my girlfriend I have much longer hair than her, longer than most girls in fact. I've had one haircut in the last three years or so and my hair is currently just above the middle of my back. At the time of my last haircut it was creeping very close to my waist. I don't intend to ever let it get that long again but I will be keeping my hair long for the foreseeable future. Yes I'm a fan of 70's/80's rock bands where the majority of band members have hair down to their asses but the main reason my hair is long is simply because I like it that way. Gender stereotypes be dammed.

5. I don't like my username. Yes I did choose it but that was a long time ago in my youth. I don't want to make a new account as I've had this one so long I feel an emotional attachment to it. Back in the day you could change your username as much as you liked, which if I remember right I did do once. I think my original username back in '03 was something like SolidSnake89. I'm glad it's no longer that but I'm still not exactly super pleased with my current one.

And that's that for now. I've heard I'm supposed to tag some people in response? In that case ZhugeMarc? Rowr14? lrsp? you guys are tagged if you happen to come across this post. As for any others most people seem to have already been tagged, in that case if you're on my tracked list and haven't been tagged then consider yourself tagged!

'till next month. G'night.

So the first DLC pack for Mass Effect got released this morning. As a huge fan of the game I feel compelled to ramble about it a bit and give a sort of mini-review. Thar be spoilers ahoy below the image for both the game and the DLC.

Alright so the first thing that struck me was that I couldn't select the DLC from the in game menu when I wanted to go play it. Instead we need to load a game that's already in progress and where Sheppard still has possession of the Normandy. Luckily since I have three characters spread over five-ish different game sessions I still had plenty of those saves lying around. Though it made me think, what about those who don't save as regularly as I do? My girlfriend for example generally only has one or two saves when she's going through a game and just simply saves over the same one repeatedly. While I'm different, I usually have at least ten+ files spread around at different points in the game for if I ever want to go back to that point. So anyway, it means people who have no save other than the end of the game will have to start a new file and play around two hours just to access the content.

Another reason I disagree with the lack of an option to jump right in is that it defeats the feeling of the DLC "bridging the gap" between this game and the sequel like Bioware said was the intention back in the day. Instead it's simply an extra mission stuck in the middle of the game. Although this means if I do another run through of the game I'll be able to go through the DLC at whichever point I please in between the main story missions. So I guess there's an advantage to each one but in honesty I'd prefer to just be able to choose this chapter from a menu and dive right in using the character data from my last save.

So once I got into the game it was at least a nice thing to see it clearly marked on the galaxy map. Meaning I didn't have to bounce around looking for it or wait for a message from the Alliance about how Sheppard is the only hope to save/kill X.

The plot for the DLC is fairly straightforward: the batarians (a new race not present in the game previously but quite heavily present in the prequel novel) have taken over a mining asteroid and intend to crash it into a human colony.

Fist impression was: "Damn, the Mako."

Now I don't mind the Mako (though I know quite a few players hate it) but I would have preferred the ship to have landed in a port (like Noveria) rather than having me drive around like the legion of uncharted worlds do. Though considering the circumstances this was probably the best way to do it as this makes it easier for Bioware as they can set out several points of interest on the map where we have to go and it stacks on some extra minutes for driving time.

I threw the difficulty on Insanity as I wanted to try long it out but I actually found it quite easy. This is probably because the actual gameplay and tasks you complete are pretty much just same old stuff you've done plenty of times on uncharted worlds.

Stripped down to the core points the gameplay consists of: Drive to point A, flip a switch. Repeat for point B, C and finally go to D where the DLC reaches its conclusion. At each point you'll face a room full of enemies and turrets guarding the points outside to deal with.

There is a short side quest but it simply consists of going from point to point examining bodies.

There was only one truly new area in the DLC but in Bioware's defence it actually looked very nice, much less drab than the usual interior combat areas do. And of course the enemies are the batarians so you're fighting something entirely new. Other than that the outdoor area looks very much like the moon (understandable considering the setting is an asteroid) and the first three places you go to look confusingly like that identical square two-floored building that almost every planet in the galaxy seems to have.

The voice work and cut scenes impressed me. Sheppard has plenty to say and so do the batarians but my team-mates were oddly mute the entire time other than their usual "area clear" dialogue they said literally nothing else during the entire chapter.

There are really only two moral choices you face in the plot. The first is a simple let live or shoot to hell and back. The second is more morally grey which I liked. There's no clear cut "good" and "bad" decision.

All in all I got what I was expecting but maybe a little less than what I hoped. It took me around 90 minutes to complete (granted I was trying to take my time) like Bioware said it would. I did enjoy it a lot but there were certainly a lot of re-used objects and areas. But the cut scenes and plot did feel like they fit nicely beside the other top-notch Mass Effect missions.

We know there's more DLC coming and the fact we only got 50 achievements for this pack when its possible for developers to add up to 250 for DLC it's obviously just a matter of time 'till we see the next pack. I'm looking forward to it but I'd be willing to wait longer for it if the final result was a longer lasting experience.

So another month gone by and another Gamespot editor gone. Like in last month's blog post I'd rather take a quick look at a handful of things that Ryan Davis did that stand out for me.

On The Spot

Gamespot's live show certainly took a hit when Rich left. But with Jeff as the new host it seemed they picked up nicely from where they left off. Then of course Jeff left and now with Ryan gone too the show certainly has a different feel to it. Ryan did a great job as co-host and even if I had no interest in the game they were looking at his personality and humour would always keep me watching.

Diamonds and Pearls

Edited together by Vinny, staring Ryan.

Time Trotters

Suspense filled live action drama from Ryan, Jeff and Rich.

The Reviews

Like Alex, Ryan's done a legion of reviews. I always thought his opinions were spot on (no pun intended).

Hopefully next month I won't be writing about another editor leaving. Though it's nice to know Ryan's still gonna be active in the internet community so we'll still hear from him. Hopefully we'll still see some more humours head scratching blog posts too.

So Alex left this month. Rather than go on and on about how much it sucks (which it does of course). I'd rather look at the things Alex has done which stand out for me. So in no particular order:

Burning Questions

I remember I used to start every Microsoft Excel lesson back on my old college course by reading the latest addition of Burning Questions. Not only did Alex give answers to interesting questions about games from past, present and future he also did it with his usual sense of humour which is what made the feature so enjoyable to read. It slowly died off around the end of 2006. Which is a shame as it could have easily continued onwards.

Regarding Robocop

Completely hilarious. Alex's descent into madness at the hands of Robocop.

24

Rather than give a plain video review of an average game Alex turned the 24 video review into my favourite of GS' video reviews.

The Reviews

Alex reviewed a hell of a lot of games and any of the reviews on the lower end of the rating system are just joke filled gems.

Big Rigs

The Big Rigs review. 'Nuff said.

So here I am sat on my clunky ol' laptop again (pretty much like I was back in May on my first blog post) since my PC has given me a fine Christmas present this morning. The image below pretty much speaks for itself.

Just my luck. Yesterday I did say to someone "I want to have a break from the PC over Christmas" now perhaps Santa through his crystal ball intercepted my words and heard "I want to have the PC break over Christmas" and tried to grant my wish. Alternatively Santa could just be a jerk and wanted to screw with me. Or maybe Evil Santa heard me instead, there is an Evil Santa right?

Perhaps I've been too naughty this year. I knew I shouldn't have burnt down that kitten orphanage.

The PC just sticks me with the blue screen now whenever I turn it on. I'm guessing it's Windows that's screwed up again and hopefully the rest of the data on my hard drive is still in there. So it seems my holiday gaming is going to be on the 360 then if I can't get this sorted out. Though if you look a couple blog posts down you'll see that my 360 has been on the verge of exploding for a while now. Looks like this Christmas could be very lacking in gaming then if my luck persists.

So to continue my new tradition of doing a blog postper month, and the tradition of having the fist sentence in my blog posts contain the word 'so' within the first two words, I decided to do this very post.

I entered a contest a bit ago on the GameSpot UK podcast with the prize being Virtua Fighter 5. Now I haven't played a Virtua Fighter game since the second gameon the Mega Drive, if I remember right, though I remember enjoying it. So I decided to enter. Fast forward to the next podcast my name was read out as one of the winners (which was rather odd and fun at the same time). I had to play it back a couple times to make myself believe it was actually my name that was being said. I don't normally have much luck with competitions of any kind, the last time I won a competition it was a Thomas the Tank Engine one when I was about 5.

So to fast forward again to present day (or to the past depending on when you're reading this) I stumble in from college ready to start on my new assignment when I find a package waiting for me. I was expecting it to be my Wii jackets so I didn't really open it with much enthusiasm but instead it was Virtua Fighter 5.

Here's the game sat proudly upon my 360, which surprisingly has yet to explode.

The game is fantastic from what little I've played so far and I am one happy bunny. So thank you GameSpot UK! You've helped my wallet from getting that extra bit lighter as the rush of Q4 games continues.