So I finished Odin Sphere this afternoon, actually I beat it around three in the morning but I played it a bunch more to get all the scenes and all that fun stuff. Great game, has some obvious flaws but in the end it's worth it to just overlook them in favor of a great time. Poured a mostly enjoyable sixty four hours into it and as is so often the case I find myself a bit lost about what to play next. Further complicating that decision is the reality that by this time next month I'll be the father of a baby boy. Personally I don't want to be in the middle of something come time for one of those life changing experiences because (obviously) whatever I'm playing will get dropped. I might have up to four weeks to play whatever but it's within the realms of possibility that my wife could call out to me in an hour for me to find out she's gone into early labor.

I don't know what to expect from life as a father in terms of how it will impact my favorite passtime. I'm bracing myself for a complete collapse of my spare time and not being able to really get into anything for several months, maybe even years. That might be the case or maybe I'll be lucky and he'll start sleeping through the night within a few months. Doubtful but not impossible. Either way, as I get closer and closer to the due date I'll be expecting her to "pop" more and more which will obviously detract from whatever title I'm playing. I'm thinking about Psychonauts, since I've played 90% of it prior to save data corruption and a fit of rage. Also up for actual consideration is Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams since I'm pretty sure, like most action adventure games, I'll likely be able to beat it in a week.

I was planning on picking up some c lassics collections for something to play after he's born. Smaller games that won't necessarily demand sixty hours or more of my time, or demand my undivided attention lest I miss out on subtle plot developments. That and a collection of forty games on one disc means I'll find something to like but won't suck me in. Might work, might not, won't know till I'm there and trying. It will be interesting to see how life as a father will affect my life as a gamer. Even more so how will I go about introducing and educating a person about this entertainment medium I'm so fond of. It's a lot to think about and I've been thinking about it a lot of late. Most of us discovered video games on our own or via friends. What if our parents introduced video games to us like they did music? What if instead of playing the latest thing you started out playing c lassic Mario before moving up to Sonic, the original Final Fantasy, Mega Man, and so on. Would that kind of structure give you a finer appreciation of how the medium has evolved, or would it just a kid to a life of sports while his dad obsesses over his "games". All questions with no real answers since the answers will reveal themselves in the fullness of time. But that's just the kind of thing you find yourself thinking about when your about to become a parent.

Thanks for reading.

For any of you that might have been interested in the second part of Things Left Unfinished I'm realizing that it's going to take a while. The first part took me a little bit with me tweaking it whenever I felt like it but the series in question only had two titles in it, both of which I had played in the past couple years. Sitting down tonight and starting to attempt to sum up the Legacy of Kain series is a much more daunting task. Namely because we're talking about five titles here, all of which I played more then five years ago. The Legacy of Kain series has one of the best storylines ever and I want to do it right. Between that and the many hours i'm sinking feverishly into Odin Sphere it might be a while till I have a finished product to show. That said there has been one person that has actually expressed their interest in part 2 so I will eventually get it done. If not for myself then for them.

On another note did you know that gamespot blog post titles MUST be between five and eighty characters and cannot be all in upper case. So if you were me trying to name this blog post WIP rather then work in progress. Why I don't really know, if I want my TITLE TO BE ALL IN UPPER CASE I should be allowed to hit cruse controll and do so. Also if I felt like it I'd like to think of a title that was eighty characters long. Thinking about it now an alternate title for this post might have been:

Gamespot: Completely Unnescssary Blog Post Title Criteria Nazis

Sure it's not eighty characters long but it's the longest I could think of off the top of my head. I find Gamespot is like Microsoft Windows in the sense that I'd like to leave it behind for something better but I've gotten nice and comfortable here. I tried switching to Ubuntu Lynux once and while I was actually getting used to it and understanding how it works I ended up going back to Windows because I was comfortable there and I had everything set up exactly how I liked it. Even so I keep flirthing with the idea of a Ubuntu install for general use with Windows for gaming purposes. See talking about it right now is making me think about trying Ubuntu again rather then plunking down the cash for Windows 7. But this is the tech geek in me talking, I'll shut him up for you now.

Thanks for reading.

I've wanted to play Mass Effect for a quite a while now and only got around to actually do so now. It's one of those "came out for Xbox and then came out on PC" crowd of games. Jade Empire is another good example from the same developer. People seem to think highly of the game and now that I've played it myself I understand why. I'd go so far as to say that it's one of the better Bioware titles available.

+ The story is great. People expect as much from anything with Bioware attached to it but I'd say this tops a lot of their previous work. I wouldn't say it's as good as KOTOR but that game was in a league of it's own if your a Star Wars fan like me.

+ The game universe is immersive and well thought out. The major races have plenty of backstory and there is an in game encyclopedia of sorts that explains a great deal if your the kind that likes understanding the world they are playing in.

+ Fantastic voice acting. The whole game is voice acted and in general it's superbly well done.

+ Lots of incentives to play it again. There are three choices you make over the course of the story that have huge implications and aren't necessarily easy to choose. Several awards given during a play-through have benefits for your next play-through.

+ Actual morally grey areas. The above mentioned three choices are actually really hard to call, unless your an animal loving hippie or a corperate thug. The rest of us grey human beings will have a tough time with those.

+ Third person shooter combat? But I thought this was an RPG. The blend of RPG and shooter elements is masterfully done and it's the best hybrid of the genres since Deus Ex. The combat is great and skill points spend during level ups have a noticeable impact on weapon handling.

+ Difficulty was just right for somebody like me. Between your regenerating shields, first aid kits, special abilities, and your fellow party members it's pretty hard to die. That's not to say that you can just run around nilly willy and shoot at whatever moves. Once those shields get knocked out you can die pretty fast.

+ Great soundtrack. Not something your going to be humming after your done playing but while you are playing it's rather enjoyable.

- The game is woefully short. Maybe that's why a lot of people love it as not everybody wants to sink 60+ hours into one game anymore. But clocking in at around 45 hours I felt like the game could have been so much more. It's not like I sprinted through the game, I did all the sidequests I came across and I was still done in a fraction of the time I've invested in other great RPGs.

- The vehicle sections are pretty meh, mostly due to lousy physics for the Mako. The vehicle feels like it's made of styrofoam and bounces off the ground if you go over the smallest bump. Also it's uncanny ability to drive up mountains at an eighty degree angle bugged me.

- The character interaction feels stiff a lot of the times, especially the romance dialogue. It basically boils down to you walking up to your party members in between missions and them gushing their past all over you with you just standing there asking questions now and then.

- That good ol PC framerate slowdown is here. If your character is one that makes use of the games titular mass effect powers you will likely see slowdown when the action ramps up and you have a bunch of effects going off at once.

- Not enough interior environments. Outside of the story areas the sidequests will take place on planets you land on. On with there are a total of three interior possibilities to be found. A small mine area, an underground bunker type area, and an above ground two story building. A little variety beyond the placement of boxes inside would have been nice.

- "Meh" AI. Enemies generally strafe around and move between cover but on average are pretty brain dead. The only time your really in trouble is when a tank ****enemies rush you and start smacking you around a la melee. The same can be said for your other party members. They do pretty well on their own but they often get stuck on things and they won't attack things unless they can see them. You could be fighting for your life in a doorway with a buddy right next to you but he'll just stand there with his gun drawn unless you charge in or manually order him to go into the next room ahead of you.

- Lack of enemy variety. You've got krogen warriors and several versions of geth droids which have a jrpg upgrade system of both that are visible due to different color schemes. This droid is harder because it's white, this korgan is harder because he's wearing black armor, ect. That covers 75% of what you shoot at over the course of the game.

I think a lot of the things that bugged me stem from the games short length. I suppose being short it's a great game to replay but personally I could have done with more of everything. The main story is intense and has several great moments and aside from the meh vehicle gameplay the sidequests do a pretty good job of being varied and interesting. Gripes aside I have to admit that it was a great game and ranks well with the many great games I've played this year. I'll certainly be looking forward to playing Mass Effect 2 whenever I pick that up.