6 Days To Mass Effect!

Mass EffectImage via WikipediaOne of the more hotly anticipated games to arrive for the PC is probably Mass Effect. Just like Jade Empire, ME was released for the Xbox first before being ported across to the PC.

And they’re arriving in six days, 28 May 2008!

The makers are of course, Bioware. Recognised everywhere as one of the best RPG game companies, Bioware has prodouced many hit titles like Baldurs Gate series, Neverwinter Nights series, and Knights Of The Old Republic. Regardless of the setting, be it ancient mythological times, or far flung futures, Bioware’s RPGs usually set a standard where other game companies follow.

Mass Effect should be no different, since it garnered a few “Game Of The Year” awards for 2007 from various magazines and gaming websites.

Ok in a nutshell, Mass Effect is a sci-fi RPG like KOTOR. However, since it’s not a Star Wars universe, I think Bioware thus had the full freedom to be creative with the story and the characters. Anyway, to further whet your appetite for Mass Effect, here’s the official trailer for it I found on Youtube:

Story aside, Mass Effect also has its own story to tell – the one about software piracy. I have included 2 links below this article and I suggest you read them. While I do not wish to rattle on about piracy here, I did ramble about them on my main blog, a long time ago. I really hope they increase the install count from just 3 installs to maybe, 5 or so. You never know, I might just decide to reinstall ME 5 years from now and re-play it, just like I did with GRAW and GRAW2! Seriously though, putting all these crap protection systems on games just really gives us more reason to buy pirated versions – they come without these stupid steps I need to perform to play a game which I bought!

The other thing that’s probably famous about Mass Effect, is the much talked-about sex scene. Well hold on to your pants, because it isn’t “traditional” sex. It’s not even interracial sex. It’s inter-species sex… yup, an alien and a human going at it.

Now I’m not going to link the videos of that scene here but you can easily Google for them, or go to Youtube. I have seen it, and my opinion is – “meh”. It’s actually pretty tastefully done, just like how you’d see it on TV. So, if you can see it on TV, there’s not much “nudity” right?

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Playing Free Online Games

Many of us, at one time or another, must have come across free online games websites. I worked (current “in-between jobs”) in the IT industry, and believe me, I have seen my share of “illegal” online games clients installed on company PCs. Well it’s “illegal” in the sense that games aren’t “company approved” software and hence, shouldn’t be installed.

(As a quick aside, yes us IT folks can see who has installed what on the company PCs. We’re just busy enough not to go around and harass you to remove them, but oh yes we know).

Recently I’ve had this “chess bug” bit me, and thus I wrote the previous entry on Power Chess. Since I don’t relish the thought of installing my old, old, OLD copy of Chessmaster 5000 (yeah it’s that old), replete with lots of Microsoft ADO drivers to access the “chess database”, I thought I’d revisit the idea of playing chess online with real humans.
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Whatever Happened To Power Chess?

Power ChessImage via WikipediaChess… the mere word might invoke disdain in most people.

“What a boring game!”

“Only old people play it in parks!”

Yeah yeah. Chess is one of the first games that got me in contact with COMPUTERS, because back in the early 70’s, my dad would buy some “Chess computers” and play against them (as an aside, my dad was the National Champion like for 6 or 8 years running back in the 60’s) since there was nobody around who could pose a challenge to him, let alone beat him.

And us kids, well we do pretty well in chess for ourselves. That is beside the point though. The point is, although I might not be as passionate about Chess as my dad was, I still like an ocassional game now and again.

Back in the mid to late 1990’s, Sierra online made a chess game called Power Chess. To me, it was one of the best, if not the ultimate chess game ever produced. Unfortunately, Sierra didn’t update it past PowerChess 98, and it died a natural death. However, I never forgot why I loved it, and even up to today, I keep hoping to find something similar.
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