My love of gaming rekindled. AND: do babies have nightmares?

WOW,  Mass Effect is spectacular! Until I met Mass Effect, I didn't realise that I was without a game that I really loved! I don't even know where to begin.  I've stared and stopped writing 4-5 times already.

As a bit of background Mass Effect is an RPG Shooter, the objective is to same humanity. But isn't that really the objective in all games? As Commander Shepard, you can choose your basic background, your gender, your personality type and your job.  My Shepard is a female, spacer (lived in space all her life), is the sole survivor of some major attack on a colony, and is an infiltrator. To translate: she's a bit of a goody-goody who plays with sniper rifles and technology.

When you play ME, you get "Paragon" or "Renegade" points. That is you can play nicey nice or be a total asshole. You get the points accordingly. Now, you are going to save humanty, so being a renegade does not mean you join the bad guys. It may mean that you shoot them in the kneecaps to get information. These paths you take changes the outcome of dialogue, how people react to you, etc. 

What has struck me about this game is the writing. I am playing the nicey nice version, so that I can learn backstory.  Now, Shepard is military through and through.  So when you pick the "Nice" responses, you aren't sappy, AND you really don't know what Shepard will say.  For instance your shipmate was in a major battle. Your response is  "Are you OK?".  The first time I saw this I was prepared for something sappy like "Are you OK, I know it's really though to see people die, but time heals all wounds" What she actually says is something like "That was pretty rough down there, you OK?". That's it. It's delivered very straightforward. It's refreshing after some of my JRPGs.

I play RPGs because I like making choices, and levelling up. I like thinking about my character, and how I will make her stronger. In ME, what "job" you take has major consequences. You only have certain skills, you cannot gain the other ones.  There are 3 major character types: Soldier (assault specialist), Engineer (Technology specialist: you can screw with robots. Considering your enemies are robots, this is a good thing), or Adept which are Biotic specialists (they can lift, throw things with their minds: this world's version of magic users). Then there are combinations of any 2 of these types.  So: my character is a combo of soldier and engineer. I will never become trained in shotguns or assault rifles: I can only use pistols and sniper rifles. BUT I can use some tech stuff: I can disarm enemies, etc.  I can't ever use any "magic". So I will have to play through again! (and again, and again). Another  nice thing: your teamates level up, even if they are not in the active squad! Thank goodness!  That means you can use the right team for the right mission, and not have to worry about artifically levellling up someone! Hurray!

ME is also non-linear. I have the strat guide, and I didn't follow it exactly as it said. I ended up in the same place as I would if I had used the guide, but I got there a different way. I was supposed to have a fight in a med centre: it just never happened.  Neat! Next time through who knows what will happen?  The game is huge, there are worlds out there that you can survey, land on, get resources from that has nothing to do with the game. Truly enjoyable.

Only problems: the AI. Some of the guys were complaining about the AI, I hadn't had a problem, so I didn't really understand what they were saying. Now I do.  Ashley (assault specialist) always gets in trouble. Standing in front of a half dozen enemies isn't going to work, sweetie!  I think you just really have to go slow. It isn't a run and gun. In areas where it was difficult, I had my characters use their skills as they saw fit, not just their defensive capabilites. That made it better.

OK: other than ME what else is going on? Erica STILL not sleeping. Last night (and night before) woke up screaming. She was not standing up when we went in, she was still lying down.  Does anyone know if babies have nightmares?

Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!