I finished Mass Effect 3 this past Sunday. I played all three games in sequence, one right after the other, as one character, with a consistent role-playing mindset, and I only back-tracked the story once (and then just a couple minutes of story time) when I got ultra-fed up at the bullshit game mechanics at the end of ME2.

The first game was a bit tedious in its side quests but the game part (the shooting) was enjoyable enough and main story was solid and set the stage for the arc to play out.

The second game had the best side quests (loyalty missions for every squad member, all of them great little short stories) and propelled the main arc forward in a good way, but the shooting was poor.

The third game had the best gameplay and some interesting quests, but was mostly concerned with wrapping up the arc in grand fashion, which it did.

As games, I'd have to rate them ME3, ME1, ME2. As stories, ME2 followed closely by ME3, then ME1. But if you compare them to other games, I think they're lacking as games. The gameplay without the stories would be pretty crap. You might ask, why make them games at all? Why not just movies? 

I think there's value in the gameplay anyway, even though it's rather dull. Doing the missions lends weight to the storyline as you propel it forward. You become invested in the characters and their decisions. Because it's your Commander Shepard, wearing the face you chose, fighting the way you want to fight, saying the things you want her to say, it becomes much more personal.

BioWare, the company that makes these games and some other games like them, states its mission as, "[our] vision is to create, deliver, and evolve the most emotionally engaging games in the world." I think it's interesting that they don't emphasise gameplay in this statement, just emotion. I mean, they do a pretty good job with the emotions.

I just wish they'd pay a similar amount of attention to the game. More than once, especially in Mass Effect 3, a battle was stopped at a certain point in order for a scripted event to take place in lieu of defeating an enemy, and when that happens the emotion I feel is "jerked around."

So I'm on the fence about whether BioWare games are my thing or not. I can see the appeal. And maybe Dragon Age: Inquisition, with it's vast, open world, would appeal much more than the ultra-linear Mass Effect story. I guess we'll see.

Right now I'm playing Bayonetta. About which I'll have more to say later, I bet!

Thought we'd have net at home yesterday, turns out the tech will come Monday morning instead. Two days without connectivity. We can do this.

We're changing internet providers; the old one should cut off tonight and the new one should start tomorrow at 5-10x speed improvement. They are sending a tech but I have no idea how it will go.

Your recommendations for a sacrifice to ensure a clean hand-off?

In no particular order, the bad gameplay from Mass Effect 2.

Coolant: they keep you from shooting forever (and thus motivate you to suck less) by having your futuristic kinetic projectile weapons dependent on cooldown. Okay, that's a real thing, machine guns get hot, you can't shoot them constantly. However, machine guns also have bullets. But not Mass Effect 2 guns. They have infinite ammo, you just can't shoot infinitely. Get it? Me either. Now, your weapons can only cool down by ejecting slices of coolant. Fortunately, all weapons, even those developed by other cultures, even invading cultures ones from millions of years ago, use the same coolant in the same form factor. So you don't have to manage different kinds of ammo. Just one kind of coolant. (We're ignoring "heavy" weapons.) And many enemies drop coolant when you kill them. Or there might be coolant just lying around. Or, in boss fights, your guns might just magically be refilled with coolant when you advance to the next fight phase. COME THE FUCK ON. If your game mechanic is so broken that you have to code in "cheating" in the boss fights, maybe you should revisit that mechanic, y'think?  (The original Mass Effect did this much better, still having infinite ammo, but also having actual cooldown on your guns, so you had to plan your shots carefully or your guns would overheat and you couldn't shoot at all for a while.)

Sudden time sensitivity: during the first two acts of the game, it doesn't matter when you do things. Even if you are told a quest is critical, you can do it whenever you want, and it only becomes time sensitive when you start it. For example, there's a spaceship that's going to crash into a planet unless you divert it. It'll wait forever for you to get there, then when you dock, you have four minutes to turn on the engines, or you lose. There's another one with missiles attacking a colony. And others with kidnappings and stuff. Okay, it's goofy for real life, but the game sets up this pattern of "quests aren't time sensitive until you start them" which we come to rely on. The game says these things are urgent, but they'll wait for you. And then Act 3 starts and suddenly, shit doesn't wait for you. Bad things happen if you don't start the "suicide mission" the very moment it is offered to you, and bad things keep happening if you keep doing other quests, no matter how important they are. OH PLEASE. How am I supposed to know it matters? "Hey, you remember all those previous times we said, 'you better hurry' but we didn't really mean it? Now we mean it!" 

New game mechanics: this is a cardinal flaw in my book. The joy of playing a game is found in discovering the rules and behaviours (the mechanics) of a new system and gradually becoming a master of that system; we like games because as humans we like to learn, and we feel enjoyment from getting good at playing them. When you spend 40 hours playing a game, you get a feel for what they want you to learn and get good at. It is bad game design to introduce new rules very late in the game, where techniques you have had no in-game training or experience in exercising can have serious consequences. It is particularly bad game design when the only other time you had to do something like that was just once in the previous game, where the outcome was irrelevant to your choice; they presented this mechanic simply in order to add dramatic tension. Now in the second game you have to engage with a similar mechanic, but the outcome is dependent on your choice. So not only is the mechanic new within the game, the only tiny bit of training we had with it in the previous game set up an incorrect assumption about how it should be played. THIS IS BULLSHIT. I'd be perfectly happy with this game mechanic if they'd made a point of having us exercise it several times earlier in the game; in fact, I would have loved it. But springing it on us in the last hour of the game with no warning and no training is absolute shit.

Resource restriction: all role-playing games have to limit resources and access to higher level weapons in order to actually be playable. You can't just give the new player the best weapon right away or it will be impossible to provide a balanced and engaging 20+ hour game with new foes and challenges. However, it really makes no sense to put the player in a giant space ship, which cost vast sums of money to create, crewed with a couple dozen people who say they are clearly getting paid very well and yet dictate that you have no money. "If you want to buy anything, you'll have to rob ATMs and rifle through people's lockers, wall safes and wallets." Yeah, this is actually a thing in the game.

Pseudo-fishing: other resource stupidity is contained in the limited supplies of four metal ores that you need to research upgrades; in order to get these ores you can't just buy them, you have to put your ship in orbit around dozens of planets (expending fuel you have to buy), manually scan with a recticle for the presence of ore, then send down a probe (that you have to buy) to collect that ore. OH MY GOD. It's just as bad as fishing in a Zelda game, except that you have to do it, probably for five or six hours, if you want your shit upgraded. It's a totally artificial mechanism for slowing gameplay down; the player can't get better at it as there's no skill to learn, it's not enjoyable, it's just repetitive, there's no creativity, no actual game, it's just a timewaster. Sometimes you'll find a random side quest in your exploration of these planets but you know what? I didn't need the motivation of finding ore in order to seek out side quests -- they're their own reward because they are the game I am sitting here wishing I could play, instead of mashing SEND PROBE for the thousandth time. Usually in an RPG, when you have to find a bunch of a limited resource in order to upgrade your shit, you at least get to play the game (kill some monsters) while you're searching. But not Mass Effect 2. 

Sigh.

I just started ME3 last night, and it seems better in some ways. The combat seems more fluid, though it is also much more intense; so intense that you are basically forced to use the "power recticle" to pause gameplay to plan your next shot, movement or action. Health management is a step back in absurdity from the basically infinite health you had in ME2 (if you hide behind something long enough, your health regenerates fully) and back towards ME1's physical health/shield power which is more game-like. Also there's apparently no more infinite mental incendiary grenades, which is good, but also bad because the fucking stupid "coolant" ammo system from ME2 is back again. I'm intrigued by the new need for weight management, which lets you balance power/magic cooldown times against physical firepower; if you're carrying lighter guns then you can use your powers more often. That's nice. 

I'm also kind of fucked because I imported my ME2 character, which was at level 29, and she kept that level. I had to reassign all my skill points, which was fine, but it also means that right here at the beginning of the game, I'm fighting "level 29" monsters, so there's not much getting acquainted time. Also, that the game allows me to do this means that all enemies are programmed to scale their difficulty to my level. Which is kind of good and kind of bad. Good in that it means the game will always be a challenge, and bad in that I will never be able to actually "master" anything like one does in other RPGs. Sometimes it's nice to just wade through the chaff in an early level when you come back to it, knowing there's challenging monsters later on, but in ME3 there's no chaff (and no coming back, either) at all. So we'll see how that goes.

Also, why the fuck can I not remove the mascara from my character? Even when I remove all makeup, there's still these huge blotchy black eyelashes.

Ugh.

Sure, I understand why people play these games, and I'm having lots of fun despite these problems. But it is very jarring, especially coming from the very tightly and carefully constructed worlds and game systems in JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon's Dogma and Dragon's Quest and Dark Souls, to see such egregiously sloppy and amateurish game mechanics used to tell such an interesting and engaging story. 

NB: I suspect that if you select "storytelling" difficulty that most of my complaints (except sudden time sensitivity and new game mechanic) become kind of irrelevant because Shepard becomes some kind of unstoppable force of nature, so I can totally see playing the game that way and just enjoying a William Goldman's Princess Bride-esque "good parts" version of Mass Effect.

I'm annoyed at Mass Effect 2 again. It yanked me around yesterday, invoking a rather dramatic plot point after an unrelated mission, with very little foreshadowing and no way back.

That the plot point's semi-interactive cutscene had a bit of the flavour of Dragon's Lair in its demand that I move a character exactly as directed or instantly die didn't endear it to me either. I don't like it when new game mechanics (even fluffy semi-cinematic ones) are introduced mid-title. 

Also it has been rumoured that the mission that narratively follows the plot point is time sensitive (as in, you should do it right away rather than fuck about side quests at your leisure), although no other mission in the game thus far has been time sensitive. If that is true, it will piss me off even more. Because I fucked about on some side quests. Because I only had an hour to spare yesterday. We'll see tonight.

Thus far I have not been particularly impressed with BioWare's games at all. They seem to tell great stories, but then, so do a lot of movies and books. I guess I'm supposed to be grateful that I'm getting a mini-series worth of lovely narrative, but it's interspersed with so much tepid and tedious "go here shoot that" gameplay, I more feel like I'm supposed slog through the interminable gun battles just to earn the right to see the next episode rather than eagerly play a viscerally enjoyable game with a cool story that ennervates it. Matter of perspective, I guess.

I'm thankful I'm playing on hard mode, though. At least I'm dying occasionally, though it's sometimes with a rather baffled WTF shake of the head -- "okay, what the hell was hurting me there?"  

I have some thoughts about the playing perspective differences between ME1 and ME2 that I'd like to talk about but I'll probably save them for after I'm done the game. Maybe even get started on ME3 before I really dig in.

Anyone out there started Dragon Age: Inquisition yet? Is that out?

So the new OSX operating system version 10.10 shipped recently. They're calling it Yosemite. It makes a lot of things better/nicer/prettier. More in line with my sense of style.

Except the system font.  (The system font is what "system" things are drawn with. Things like menu bars and buttons. Stuff you look at all the time.)

The system font in OSX used to be Lucida Grande.  Now it's Helvetica Neue. That's bad.

Here's an image that shows the difference, courtesy of 64notes.com.

Helvetica is a regressive step for text like system captions because it's harder to read at small point sizes. It runs a little narrower in width for the same amount of text, which can be good for screen space conservation, but that is partly due to the things that make the font harder to read. And I think we can agree that harder to read is a bad direction to go for any important typeface. 

Here's a list of things wrong with Helvetica, as compared to other typefaces in its genre, that make it a poor choice for a utility font.

1. The x-height is short.  X height is a measurement of the height of the x character, and is a shorthand metric for the overall height of lowercase characters. In general, the taller the lowercase characters are in proportion to uppercase characters, the easier a font is to read at small sizes. (Yes, there is a point where this effect reverses itself.)  Small type sizes call for a proportionally larger X height.  (Admittedly, Lucida Grande's x-height is slightly shorter than Helvetica's. I never said it was perfect, only that it was overall, better.)

2. The bowls are enlarged and almost circular. The bowls are parts of the letterform that need to be distinctly round; letter with bowls are a, c, o, p, d, b and so on. Big, round bowls take up more space and, with their large interiors, tend to make text look uneven. Some roundness is needed, but an exaggerated, almost circular roundness is a specific stylistic choice. Small type sizes call for a more oval bowl shape to allow balanced density.

3. The kerning is too tight. This is where Helvetica gains space efficiency, by jamming characters together. By and large, the tight kerning is a response to the big round bowls. With all that whitespace within the characters, the only way to optically balance a line of text is to push characters closer together, visually augmenting their black lines. Tight kerning is particularly dangerous at small sizes, when characters can appear to run into each other. Bad kerning leading to character collisions is amusingly called keming for this very reason. Small type sizes call for a modestly kerned font.

4. The characters are too closed. The degree of open-ness of a typeface is represented by how much whitespace there is between disjoint features of the character. A simple measure of this is how much space there is between the two endpoints on the letter c, or between the upswing on the lowercase e and the crossbar, or between the two ends of the s and the middle sweep. A tightly closed typeface like Helvetica is harder to read at small sizes because the whitespace that should flow through the letterforms is more closed off. Small type sizes call for a moderately open font.

Helvetica is not a bad font. It's fine at large sizes, especially when used in moderation.

But it's a bad choice for a computer system font where readability at small point sizes is critical, and I think Apple has made a real mistake here.

Unfortunately, I think we're stuck with it. Apple's made a huge deal about the typography in iOS7 (where we first saw Helvetica used as a system font) and iOS8, and now it's all over OSX in Mavericks.  Crap.

Here's an interesting thing, though. You'd think if Apple was really in love with Helvetica, they'd use it all over their website, too. After all, the website is the first impression any company makes on a new customer. But, they don't use Helvetica there at all: Apple.com's CSS font-family specifier is "Myriad Set Pro", "Lucida Grande", "Helvetica Neue" , ...  in exactly that order. Which, interestingly, is about the order in which I'd like to see those fonts used.

I guess the folks behind the website still have some independence. I wonder how long it will be until Jony Ive whips them into conformance.

This is from my adaptation of  The House at Pooh Corner.

Christopher Robin (CR): A child. Innocent in the ways of the world but the master of the realm of his imagination. While CR is off-stage more often than not, he often provides solutions to the problems of the others. 

Winnie the Pooh (Pooh): A bear. Gentle, creative, gregarious, a little proud. Doesn't rely on intellect so much as intuition. Easily confused. Lives in the moment. Loves to sing and make up poetry on the spot.

Piglet: A small pig. Timid, unsure, anxious, and yet quite smart and determined when circumstances press. Pooh and Piglet are boon companions and have adventures together more often than separately.

Rabbit: A rabbit. A self-important busybody tending to rush about and try to do too many things at once. Generally a good sport and eager to please those who treat him well, but does have a bossy, manipulative streak.

Eeyore: A donkey. Irritable, melancholic, sarcastic, sometimes fatalistic and often demonstrating low self-esteem. When alone, Eeyore usually seems happy, and he is often found doing kind things for others. 

Tigger: A young tiger. The newest member of the company, he's excitable, inexperienced, very (almost too) friendly and desperately wants to be accepted and seen as a worldy adventurer. He tries way too hard.

Owl: An owl. He was wise and smart at one time but has aged into a parody of himself; imagine perhaps an old great uncle, once proud and strong, but now muddled. Pompous and wordy, not belligerent. 

Kanga: Parent kangaroo. A kind & tolerant caregiver, kindly watching over Roo and the other smaller animals. Adopts Tigger early on.

Roo: Young kangaroo. Roo loves to play and is full of joy and wonder.

Narrator: Introduces chapters and provides context.

On gender: the story is about a child and a bunch of stuffed animals. I’m confident that gender is irrelevant in this context. Go ahead and cast any role in any gender presentation, and change any gendering words in the script as you see fit.

If you cast a female Christopher Robin and want to portray her as female, feel free to alter the name to suit, perhaps choosing Christobel, Christophine, Christienne or Christiana.

In my staged reading this past August, we had a male Kanga; and female Roo, Rabbit and Piglet, and we'd have had a female CR, Eeyore and Owl also if my first choice actors had been available.