Mass Effect 3 - Review

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Anybody who knows me or has been reading any of my past Conversations with IrishPride articles, knows that I am absolutely enamored with the Mass Effect universe. Well, I just finished Mass Effect 3 and I come to you with a review of the final chapter. Does the conclusion of Commander Shepard's epic trilogy end with a big bang? (See what I did there with the big bang comment, it being a sci fi game and all, I know, I'm weird!)
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Mass Effect 3 - Review

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The Holy Trinity...Anybody who knows me or has been reading any of my past Conversations with IrishPride articles, knows that I am absolutely enamored with the Mass Effect universe.  Well, I just finished Mass Effect 3 and I come to you with a review of the final chapter.  Does the conclusion of Commander Shepard's epic trilogy end with a big bang?  (See what I did there with the big bang comment, it being a sci fi game and all, I know, I'm weird!)

Conversations with IrishPride Episode 18

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I'm So Excited and I Just Can't Hide It!!
 
Hello everybody and welcome to episode 18 of Conversations with IrishPride!  Today I am going to talk about how it has been a long time since I've been extremely excited for a game to be released.  Anyone that knows me or has kept up with my past episodes will know that I am talking about Mass Effect 3.
 
I am a huge Mass Effect fan.  The story is top notch, the gameplay and action is stellar and it has huge replay values, everything we gamers look for in a game.  I am absolutely enamored with the story of Mass Effect.  Never before in a video game have I been invested with the characters on screen.  The decisions that you make throughout the story actually has meaningful outcomes.  You care about your teammates and it's hard to see them get killed.  In preparation for Mass Effect 3, I decided to play though Mass Effect 2 yet again and there is one thing I learned about ME2... it's still a great game.
 Time to save the galaxy.
After putting 100+ hours into Mass Effect 2, I still enjoyed it as much as the first time.  It's rare for me to replay a video game, but I've done so with ME multiple times.  After beating ME2 and all the dlc available, I'm am even more excited to conclude Commander Shepherd's story.  I'm also a little sad knowing that it will be over soon.  BioWare did tell fans to hold onto their ME3 save files hinting at the possibility of a Mass Effect 4, but I don't want to give my hopes up.  It has been a long time since I was so excited for a video game release, even more so than ZeldaQueen was for Skyward Sword.  Luckily the wait is almost over.  Until then, I'm going to continue to play the fantastic multiplayer demo with Assimilator.
 
This is IrishPride signing off.  Is anyone else super excited for Mass Effect 3?

This Weeks Geek - System Change

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As many of you know Mass Effect 3 comes out in a few weeks. Now for a long time I have played the Mass Effect series on Xbox 360. It is where I played the first Mass Effect game (twice) and it is where I have played the second Mass Effect series (twice). But then I made a mistake. I downloaded the demo for Mass Effect 3 on both my Xbox and my computer.  Doing so made me realize how much better the game looks on my 7 month old computer then my 7 year old console. Ok, so it is not the original console, but the same tech is inside it (minus the red rings, after two of those I better not get another one). This made me want to play the game on the younger and more powerful PC. But I have invested 80+ hours into Sheapard already, and I wanted to keep with him.  How was I to do this?  Would I have to just face facts and start from scratch? Buy the games on PC and start over to have the more subtle choices move from one game to the next? No, I would not do such a thing, and thanks to the internet, I will not have to.
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Conversations with IrishPride Episode 3

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Insanity is Insane!
 
Hello everybody and welcome to episode 3 of Conversations with IrishPride where today I'm going to be talking about a game that I love, beat and now am playing it again and enjoying it just as much, maybe even more.  I talk non other than the one of the greatest games evah, Mass Effect 2.
 
About a week ago, I got the undeniable itch to play Mass Effect 2.  I, however, wanted to play the first Greatest game ever? I think so...one so I could change some story line issues I had with my main Commander Shephard.  My original Shephard that I beat Mass Effect 2 with the first time around was not exactly how I wanted him to finish in the original.  Wrex was dead (one of the coolest characters in the Mass Effect universe), had a relationship with Ashley (Tali wasn't an option in the original) and I didn't want to play Mass Effect 3 without Wrex being in the story nor did I want to have a crazy love triangle, not until my second playthrough of course :) 
 
As a result, I booted up Mass Effect and started out on my journey to fix my mistakes the first time around.  As I was playing; the more I realized how better Mass Effect 2 was and was really getting the itch to play it.  I didn't simply want to make a new character in Mass Effect 2, I wanted a Commander Shephard who made all the important decisions in the original transferred over to the sequel.  But, I didn't want to play the entire Mass Effect story to do this.  I thought I was in a bit of a pickle and figured I would bite the bullet and do a speed run of Mass Effect and have everything like I wanted and then transfer it over to ME2. 
 
Luckily, I didn't have to do this because I never realized that there is a dlc where Dark Horse created an interactive Mass Effect comic where you go through it and make all the important decisions of the original and it will impact the story in ME2 and later in ME3.  Huzzah!  I don't have to play the entire ME again and can have Wrex alive and have no open relationships to worry about. 
 Wrex. Yes, he is a badass.
Starting up ME2 I didn't know which class I wanted to play as this time around.  In my original completion, I was the soldier and enjoyed it immensely.  I wanted to try something new and I literally went through all the classes and still couldn't decide.  I almost selected the soldier class again, but went ahead and stuck with the infiltrator class (I do enjoy sniping), set the difficulty to Insanity (figured might as well beat it on the hardest difficulty) and started my new Shephard with the way I wanted to end it in the original ME. 
 
Boy, when there is a difficult setting that is called Insanity, it is truly insane.  But after I got the hang of things with my new class and how enemies act, I have found that the Insanity difficulty level is a much more enjoyable experience than Normal.  I have to actually stop and think about a strategy for those tricky encounters instead of just running in there and let my squad do what they want.  I have to tell my squad where I want them stationed and tell them what powers I want them to use and at what times, a very worthwhile experience.
 
So here we go again.  Getting hooked into a game I have already beat and am enjoying it even more than the first time.  I've already sunk 60+ hours into ME2 and have a feeling there are many more hours that are going to be devoted to it.  Besides, I still have to create a renegade player.
 
Well that does it for Episode 3 of Conversations with IrishPride.  Be on the look out for episode 4 coming in the near future.  Until then, my name is IrishPride and I'm addicted to Mass Effect.
 
~IrishPrideMe playing Mass Effect 2, I am an addict.

Story Driven Video Games: My New Love

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Hey everyone, IrishPride here talking a bit about video games that provide a deep engaging story and how they have revolutionized my overall gaming experience. After beating Dragon Age: Origins the other week and recently playing the crap out of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, I decided to do a quick write-up about video games that are story driven and how I completely fell in love with them...
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