Category: Uncategorized

There are very few times in life when lightning strikes twice, especially during story telling. Mass Effect was an epic space adventure with fascinating lore, great characters and cool side stories woven throughout. The first game ended with Shepherd preparing to set off to fight the Reapers, and here the saga continues.

Right after the events of the first game, the Normandy finds itself under attack by a new threat: the Collectors, a race of creatures feared and forgotten with time. There weaponry is far more advanced and there attack swift, the Normandy is destroyed and Shepherd is dead…but not for long. Years later Shepherd is recreated and brought back through scientific means by the Illusive Man, the head of the human elitist group known as Cerberus. Cerberus is widely known as the terrorists and villains but the Illusive Man can’t deny the threat the Collectors and the Reapers possess. Shepherd must reunite with  old allies and search out new scientists, convicts, soldiers to face the Collectors while under the flag of Cerberus…

While I admit I wasn’t a fan of the death and resurrection of Shepherd, the game is superior to the first in almost every way. Martin Sheen is fantastic as the Illusive Man and steals the show for me. Game play is drastically improved with more options and a great variety of allies to help you make some awesome combinations. The Collectors are a creepy enemy with a cool origin. The new characters are awesome while the old characters grow in some fascinating ways. Mass Effect 2 is an outstanding sequel I can’t recommend enough. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Games, like all forms of media entertainment, have expectations and as part of life, sometimes our expectations crash and burn. Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was one of my favorite Star Wars games and one of the games that got me the Battlefield franchise. You can imagine my joy when I found out the makers of Battlefield were making there own Battlefront game…

EA’s Battlefront first and foremost has no actual story mode. It stays exactly within the original trilogy of Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return of the Jedi . If you got the plain $60 copy, you essentially got a game with a small hand full of repetitive maps played with basic game modes. The game looks great and sounds great and the gameplay itself is solid but my friend Autobot and I sat down and played every mode this game had to offer in about 3 hours. The heroes, to which each side has only 3 each, are clunky but wreck infantry easily enough. There was a huge lack of vehicular combat, let a lone being able to seamlessly jump in. Flying was serviceable but clunky.

Let’s keep in mind however, this game was released in 2015, around the time The Force Awakens was coming to theaters. While I have access to the DLC maps and two bonus heroes, just from sight I can say it doesn’t seem like much considering what the season pass originally cost. Finally, we come to epic problem: because this is a strictly multiplayer game with a bad reputation to begin with, it’s hard as hell to get a game going. I waited 10 minutes to play a game at 1:00 pm on a Tuesday in 2019 and got nowhere. As far as I can tell at the moment, it’s nearly a dead game which is why I can’t recommend it at all, even for dirt cheap. May the gaming gods bring you glory.