So I've started Mass Effect...

Continuing my hobby of starting games years after they've been popularized, I'm now giving the 2007 Science Fiction game Mass Effect a try.

To be clear, I'm the type of player who grinds away at these type of games for an hour or so a day a couple times a week until I finish after a month or so - no all-night binge sessions for this guy.

At this point I've played the game for a non-consecutive 30 minutes, leaving me with the following impressions:

1) Like a lot of role playing games, a lot of early effort goes into character creation, unlike say a game like Uncharted, don't expect to actually play anything for the first little while - but definitely expect to create some backstory for your character!

2) After going through the work of creating your character, get ready to walk around and talk to a bunch of people.  Like many similar games you get to effect how your conversations will go, but again, no early running and jumping.

3) Finally getting to run around and shoot a little, my character has touched down on a planet under siege and gets to shoot aliens and collect various bits of equipment I'm sure I'll get to use later.  Not quite as intense as the Dead Space series, the gameplay seems kind of fun, although I'm pretty sure I'll miss being able to jump - also it looks as if I'll be in charge of a group as I move along.

So far that's about all I've got - I haven't completed the first mission yet (wait till next week), but the graphics are fun, the gameplay is pretty straight forward, and expect for a clear impression of where I'm supposed to go (probably a feature I'm currently unaware of so far), the game looks like it's off to an interesting start.

Game Review: Red Dead Redemption

Yesterday I finished the PS3 game Red Dead Redemption (at 96.8% completion after a month, thank you very much), and overall, I'd have to say it's a pretty solid game.

The story moves ahead nicely, the visuals and music are really quite great, and except for the fact that virtually every group you can imagine is treated pretty horribly (Latinos, First Nations, Chinese, the Government, and women all come across very poorly in the game - not even Anthropologists are spared), and that some of the mini-games are crazy hard to do (five-finger fillet, anyone?), I would strongly recommend the game to people who are on the fence.

Also, although the cover of the game (pictured left), includes Zombies, they don't exist anywhere in the main game (although a couple of bites got me a little nervous), as Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare works as a separate game, with all the same characters as the main game, but with the addition of zombies and various monsters.

So now I've got a couple more weeks of the old west, followed by season two of The Walking Dead game, and then I'm off to figure out what all the hubub about Mass Effect is...