Mass Effect Deception

What the actual. I got this book from the library, because i'm obsessed with Mass Effect. It was awful. A reasonably okay storyline but with filler and poor writing that had me itching to get out a black marker pen (last time I had this was when I read Shelters of Stone. I now pretend that book wasn't written).

Rubbish fan fiction with little to recommend it. The prose was bad, Anderson acted out of character, it was moralistic, which is pretty out of tune with the Mass Effect morality (which is either pragmatic or somewhat Old Testament). A kid murders a guy who kills his girlfriend and Kahlee & Anderson are all 'tut tut, naughty boy' about it. Yeah... because Anderson and Shepard neer kill anyone, and certainly not for reenge (Kai Leng, for example, one of the most satisfying kills in any game I'e eer played).

I'm not the only one - Penny Arcade lampooned it -

And fans more dedicated than I compiled a Google doc about the errors in Mass Effect Deception.

My Favourites:

• Quarians don't wear Environ suits.
• A homosexual character is suddenly a heterosexual character.
• Kai Leng (an extreme racist) is shown flirting with aliens. 
• Singularity makes people explode.
• Cerberus have a PR department.
• After breaking into Anderson's apartment Kai Leng eats some cereal, then clears up after himself. It just made no sense. 

The author engages in a lot of 'Telling Not Showing' - a rookie mistake that would get you marked down in a creative writing course. If I had submitted this during my degree my professor would have called me in for a word.

It feels like Dietz tossed this off (pun intended) in an afternoon. While chugging beer. And watching the football.

Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim

I've completed Dawnguard as a vamp, and am now trying to do it as a Dawnguard. Love it. It's Shivering Isles worthy and totally worth the money (take note Bioware, because I'm yet to say that about ANY Mass Effect DLC).

Spoilers under cut.

How To Fix The Open Tray Error on Xbox 360

Xbox 360 Wireless Controller (Photo credit: ChipperMist)

I read about a million suggestions on how to fix this, most of which included hitting the x-box. I tried a few of these and none worked. Then I found a tutorial that suggested deleting all your DLC. (You can re-download it for free).

I deleted all the DLC on my X-Box 360, then cleared the cache and rebooted. Opened and closed the tray a couple of times and it was working again.

Which means I don't hafta fork out £69+ for a new console.

Liberal Bioware

Great, humourus take on the religious right's fury at Mass Effect:

"They allow same-sex romance and preach multinational cooperation as the "good" methodology, and the one that asserts your own military muscle/divine mandate while saying f-you to the rest of the diplomatic community is the "bad" methodology. The wholesome conservative family values woman (Ash) onboard is portrayed as a racist, religious bitch, and the bisexual liberal (Kaidan) is a calm, mild-mannered gentleman. They prop up false gods like "Athame" and "Kalahira" and make no mandate for the player to stop and worship the one true God of Earth. And most importantly, they not only let you sleep outside your species, they wrote the alien romances to be more favorable, when they should have had only human options as God intended. What part of this series isn't left-wing propaganda? Not that I don't love every minute of it (save the last ten). lol :D"

Hearthfire

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Leviathon ME3

Got Mass Effect 3's Leviathon yesterday...


SPOILERS UNDER CUT

Skyrim Hearthfire trailer

bullet points:

• Build your own home from scratch
• Adopt and raise children.