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Oh The Drama: Mass Effect 3 Edition (Spoiler-free)

It was Friday night. Or Saturday morning. Depending which side of the clock you’re more active.

But for me, it was the culmination of a five year journey. An epic adventure that consumed over 300 hours of my life. And at 3AM that day it was all over. Mass Effect 3′s end credits flashed across the screen and that was it. The first thing I did was delete all the 35-odd GB of game installs lying on my Xbox 360 hard drive since the first game’s debut in 2007. Unlike many a fan I didn’t feel the need to rage, troll, throw a bitch fit, fight for a refund or start a petition. Rather, I was overcome with a sense of relief.

You see, being a big RPG fan and by extension, an admirer of BioWare’s work, I was naturally pumped when I first read about this space-faring odyssey in the September 2006 issue of EGM (acquired second hand nonetheless) but over time, I’ve learned that things are never what they’re meant to be. There’s always some form of compromise at the end of it all. In this case, it was BioWare forsaking deeper narrative, culling out characters central to the game to package off as DLC and slap multiplayer on it in order to sell more units. Having been on the business side of things in the industry, I can understand where they were coming from and I guess they weren’t given much of a choice either.

Given that BioWare got bought over by the same company who thought it was a cool idea to turn what was arguably the greatest strategy franchise into an FPS (that too, after buying the studio responsible for said franchise) I was expecting far, far worse. And sure, it was diabolical enough that the game mechanics forced me to play the multiplayer mode for over 20 hours, it was better than expected and even grew on me.

After all, it’s not everyday you get a semi-decent game from the same developers who gave you the steaming pile of turd that was Dragon Age 2. Craptacular characters, bugs galore, recycled dungeons and lame plot, it seemed like a pre-alpha build on release. Keeping that in mind as well, Mass Effect 3 wasn’t that bad a game.

Yes, a little more exposition would have been nice as would a greater emphasis on your choices throughout the trilogy but if a next to negligible portion of my 300 hours of gameplay ended up being rubbish, it would be stupid to hold it against the developers. Considering that we live in an age of disposable, 5-10 minute games, a mammoth, interweaving trilogy in itself is a tremendous feat.

So what I’m getting at is this, after all that has happened in the past what with the debauchery of the Dragon Age series and their parent company’s reputation, now unfairly voted as the worst in America, we could have been treated to something a lot more distasteful than a brief slipshod ending. An Angry Birds mini-game perhaps? Or maybe a mineral management simulation? The possibilities to mess this up were endless. And as gamers we could have been a little classier about our response. I’d like to believe we’re a better breed than disgrunted Instagram using iPhone fanboys.

Tags: 2006, 2007, android, bioware, Command & Conquer, command & conquer renegade, DLC, EA, EA games, EGM, instagram, iOS, iphone, mass effect 3, mass effect 3 ending, Shepard, video games, Westwood

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Categories Xbox 360

7 ways to tell monsoon’s arrived

4 Aug

Something I wrote for T3 India. Now here and unedited for your viewing pleasure:

Soaked clothes, floods and insane traffic: yes, it’s India’s rainy season. For further proof, scan tabloids for the word “deluge”, broadsheets for yet more articles about preventing malaria, and these tell-tale techy revealers…

1. The New Booze Invasion

With the rains comes bars trying to grab your attention with new variations of your usual poison. Do you go for a sugarcane-infused lager or take a chance on the banana beer? And what’s that fancy neon green thingamajig that it’s being dispensed from all about? One thing’s for sure: one pint later you’ll be back on Kingfisher. Unless you had to fortitude of ordering one with another free during happy hours, which means you will end up with a hangover that makes The Hangover 2 seem like a good idea.

2. Fair-Weather Walkers

The first word of rain has summer couch-potatoes everywhere grow legs and reach for their porous raincoats and squeaky rubber slippers. And before you know it they’re blocking up every square inch of walking space wherever possible with their best Fred Alastaire Singing In The Rain persona gladly risking possible death and disease for some mindless fun. Until they realise that their spiffy new iPhones (bought on EMIs no less) much like their mood, the gutters and most of the country, are heavily waterlogged.

3. Social Network Updates

Halfway through your fifth planning meeting of the day you steal a glimpse at Facebook, only to see that half of your acquaintances are ranting about how bad the weather is and the rest getting supremely emo over how it’s the greatest thing since the iPad. This season is clearly Dr. Jekyll to some and Mr. Hyde to others but all parts fun if you’re the sort who lives vicariously.

4. The Big Bollywood Item Number

Blaring from every possible radio or computer with a pair of speakers you pass is a horribly compelling mix of the cheesiest, borderline pornographic lyrics, some kind of novelty instrument – Irish flutes and circus kazoos perhaps – and a scantily clad formerly famous film actor exhorting you to umm…do something, if her gyrations didn’t render you temporarily deaf.

5. Municipal Corporation Madness

Another year since the epic floods of 2005 and you’ll still find your local civic administration drumming up Pulitzer Prize winning excuses as to why you won’t be able to step out of your flat due to them not being able to cover up a pothole and clean the drains. Problematic if you don’t want to drown when you need to make an emergency run to the drug store for aspirin. You know, in the event that you’ve to succumb to drunkenness as detailed in point number 1.

6. Aquaphobia

Symptoms include draping belongings in layers of plastic bags and possessing enough raincoats and umbrellas to keep a small country dry. If they could they’d laminate themselves. We recommend in investing in plastic companies and a good shrink for your pals.

Tags: aquaphobia, beer, BMC, bollywood, booze, fail, iPad, iphone, kingfisher, lulz, monsoon, municipal corporation, plastic, social networking

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Categories Uncategorized

Predictions for 2011

12 Dec

A little something I wrote for T3 India’s anniversary issue. Now here and unedited for your viewing pleasure:

One year from the end of the Mayan calendar aside, here’s what to expect in 2011. Pardon the lack of accuracy in our forecast. There wasn’t an app on the Appstore to help us out.
1. Himesh comes to iTunes: Sure Apple teased us with “Tomorrow is another day. That you’ll just never forget” but let’s face it the Beatles announcement is just the place holder for this nasal singer who has the mighty legion of rickshaw driving fanboys at his side and easily singable tunes that can have the most stuck up of editors humming in no time. That and the lack of a Emperor Palpatine-like Yoko Ono figure to cause his demise make this prophecy inevitable.

2. 3G comes to India: Sure it will in a more widespread fashion and rates that would drop faster than the TRPs of Bigg Boss post-Pamela Anderson and the not too under the radar cat-fighting between telcos like drunken women but there will be an obvious side-effect – a telephone minister would resign.

3. Indian Politicians on Twitter: Just like Shashi Tharoor last year the internet will throw up some canny, publicity hungry politician wanting to raise his or her profile. However don’t expect any controversy, just carefully managed; succinct tweets that would make Rahul Dravid’s batting seem less bland.

4. NotionInk finally launches the Adam: To the relief of many a techie rooting for the underdog the Adam will finally hit the shelves only to be outspecced and outgunned from Apple’s and Samsung’s next Retina Display and SAMOLED toting darlings making it the Palm Pre of the tablet world.

5. iPhone4 in India: Hopefully at a rate that won’t have you selling your kidney, limbs, first born and your mobile connection to own it. This will be followed by Windows Phone 7 finally launching here leading to a spate of “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” arguments all over again. Can we meet in the middle ground? Preferably Android please?

6. …and speaking of Android: Samsung, HTC and your favourite manufacturer of Android handsets will finally find a way to increase battery life so that you can tweet, check your emails, video conference, Skype, walk the dog, do the dishes, breathe and most importantly make calls without the battery dying on you in under thirty seconds.

7. Big Bazaar enters the Mobile Biz: Hot on the heels of Tips, iBall, your grandmother and your cat entering the mobile phone space with super cheap handsets freshly made by suicidal Chinese workers would be our version of Wallmart wading into the already crowded pool leading to crazy price drops. The good news: an iPhone 4 knock off for under a grand. The bad news: it breaks the moment you try calling anyone.

8. Foxconn outsources to India: In order to lower suicide rates and most importantly, cut costs, the mysterious contract manufacturer for almost everyone from Nintendo to HP, decides to outsource their projects to India leading to a decrease of suicides, an increased productivity, greater tech leaks and of course a grand reality TV show capturing all the drama.

9. Less mobile phone predictions: Let’s face it, the portable space has been booming so much so that this writer’s first 43645758 thoughts on this article were all cell phone based. And even after trying to look busy writing this article to escape the proof-reading boredom of closing time he’s nowhere close to having less of them. Having said that he apologizes and promises the same won’t hold true next year. Maybe.

10. You will join our Facebook page: Legend has it that if it’s in print it must be true. And while this isn’t exactly number one on our list of predictions, truth be told, being marooned on a planet inhabited by nothing but lingerie models and latest tech is, but this isn’t too far down the pecking order. So join us at http://fb.me/T3India or just search for T3 India on Facebook to see what goes on behind the scenes at India’s premier gadget mag. Stalkers and irate fanboys who want to hunt down that writer who gave your favourite product a bad review are welcome too.