Well the year just started but this game could be number one at the end of 2010 too.

I’m of course talking about Mass Effect 2. It’s out since last Friday but unfortunately Royal Mail isn’t as fast as I thought.

Already played until I reached the last chapter last week thanks to the interwebs and finally received the pre-ordered Collectors Edition today. Ordered it from Game for 45€ (a great deal because the German Collectors Edition costs 99€!). Quite weird as this version would be multilingual too. (Installed it in English of course.)

The Collectors Edition contains:

- Mass Effect 2 (surprise!) + Bonus DVD containing behind-the-scenes and making-of videos

- Limited Edition Mass Effect Redemption #1 comic book

- 48 page hardcover art book:

Anyone got a Normandy SR2 wallpaper in a decent size yet? DO WANT!

- Limited edition Cerberus Network card:

The card is the most important bonus item. Granting access to:

- Exclusive in-game Collectors armour and weapon as well as bonus content like extra star clusters and missions. Some already available and a few coming in the future.

So now a few words about the game:

(If you haven’t played Mass Effect 1 get it right away otherwise you miss a great game and have no idea what’s going on in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3.)

You start the game with a sequence showing the Normandy under attacke and getting destroyed by an unknown vessel and Sheppard floating around in space (which isn’t that healthy.)

Thanks to a corporation named Cerberus (yah, those guys) Shepard get’s sunrised because they need a man to save humanity (and every other organic life form in the universe). Sheppard’s wounds aren’t completely healed yet when the medical facility is under attack and he has to fight his way out. This first level serves as tutorial and you come across something really important there: The new inventar-HUD thingy. The invenatar in Mass Effect 1 wasn’t something Bioware could have been proud of. In Mass Effect 2 they fixed this issue by getting rid of the inventar. Eh what? Yes really, they did and they came up with a HUD like interface which works way better in my opinion. Gunfights are now way faster and full of action.

After leaving the medical facility you meet the mysterious Illusive Man, Cerberus chain smoking CEO, for the first time. He unveils some not so nice facts, for example disappearing human colonies and asks you for help. And you can’t say no of course cause he has a little present for you: the Normandy SR2. Bigger, faster better and in need of a new crew. For the next few hours/days it’s your job to find the best of the best somewhere in the universe to fight against the mysterious enemy out there.

Once one of those folks joined your crew you can help them with a certain personal problem. After that they are loyal which unlocks their special abilities. I guess that’s one of the reasons why the character development is much better in Mass Effect 2.

Another improvement worth mentioning is the atmosphere. Sometimes it’s a pity that you have to concentrate on the bad guys, cause the landscapes, buildings and all different kinds of surroundings are just amazing. You find such an amount of different planets: From mech factories, to tropical planets to planets with way too much radiation (even for your shields).

You can’t visit all places though but you can scan every single piece of frozen rock out in the universe for minerals. You need those to research and develop new technologies, from new ammo types up to new main guns for the Normandy 2. Unfortunately this takes a little bit too much time, but I couldn’t stop cause maybe you’ll find a side quest on one of those planets.

You never know, right?

Overall Mass Effect 2 is a really satisfying game. At some points the story is a little bit predictable but it still surprises from time to time. Highly recommended!

Can’t wait to see Mass Effect 3, cause the last few frames of the outro were just screaming: “OH SHIT! NOW WE HAVE A REAL PROBLEM!"

Mass Effect 2 Launch trailer below:

The next blog post will once again be about something mostly anime unrelated:

“HTPC building and configuration with hikky”. My HTPC is already put together and running but had to order a different heat sink cause the onboard fan is way to noisy. Expect the article around Saturday.

hikky off

P.S.: Dammit, why Bioware, why? I still don’t know how she looks!

Most likely you haven’t heard about Machinarium yet. But if you like the idea of playing a game which is kind of unique you might want to check out this short review.

Machinarium was released a few weeks ago for worldwide online purchase and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can get it via the official homepage (where you can play a few demo levels online).

The PC version is also available via Steam, Direct2Drive, Gamersgate and Impulse for ~15€ / 22USD / 2000Yen.

I ordered the boxed version which is available in German, Russian and Italian since Tuesday for example here on amazon.de.

Besides the game CD (yes, a CD!) which contains Samorost 2 too, you will find the soundtrack, the manual and a double sided poster inside.

You will notice that the whole game is hand drawn but the great artwork and animations generate 3D feel which is really great.

The world of Machinarium is some sort of post-apocalyptic retro robot world. All buildings, devices the robots themselves look like made out of mechanical parts, tubes and other stuff left behind from a former civilisation in my opinion.

After starting the game you will see a flying-something-robot-thingy delivering trash to a dump outside a town somewhere in the middle of a deserted landscape.

In this first level, which serves as tutorial too, you have to put the games hero together who was dissembled  because of the harsh “delivery” before. The hero is a little robot, going by the name Josef. This little fella has some useful skills: You can stretch or clinch his body in three different positions which is necessary to pass the game. On his journey Josef finds a lot of stuff lying around which has to be assembled, dissembled or arranged in a certain way to get some mechanisms to work. To carry those parts around he simply “eats” them and it looks like he has an unlimited amount of storage space. ^_^

After putting him back together Josef is heading back to the town, where he comes across a plot by gang of criminal robots who plan to bomb the city’s tallest tower and kidnapped his beloved robot girlfriend too.

Some ingame footage below:

What’s interesting is that that the game manages to tell a story containing a conspiracy and also a love plot without a single word. Especially as it does it in funny way.

All you will hear are some speech like noise together with such comic like speech bubbles as in the screenshot above.

If you don’t do anything for a while Josef will display some random speech bubbles too, containing some memories, mostly from his girlfriend.

There are some games inside the game itself too. You have to play space invaders in the gaming arcade up there on the left to get some money for example.

If you are really stuck somewhere you can click on the hint button on the top right. Josef gives you a hint, displayed in a bubble of course. Still not able to figure it out? There’s a a walkthrough book on the top right too, but don’t use it if you don’t have to. It’s way better to think little bit longer.

If finished the game after playing a few hours on two evenings. The end was a little bit abruptly but I have played well know games which I were shorter, way more boring and more expensive in the past. The way who you have to do all those puzzles is always unique as well as funny and creative.

If you like to use your brain while gaming I highly recommend giving Machinarium a try.

As Machinarium is a European game, created by a small independent company, this post isn’t Japan related. But I just had to blog about this piece of digital art.

But for those eager to have some J-stuff in this post too: Bad Apple (with English subs)

Can’t get enough of this song. \o/

Some may have seen this a few days ago on figure.fm but that’s something that should make it to my blog too, of course.

I reserved tickets for the Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance premiere last week!

The movie will be shown on November, 6th at the "Gloria Filmpalast" in Munich with English subtitles. (As part of the Asia Filmfest 2009, showing a lot of Asian movies. For example: Blood: The Last Vampire, IP Man, Red Cliff, Shinjuku Incident, K-20, Ichi, Lady Venegance, Samurai Princess, and many more.)

Anyone of my European readers going to join the fun? Let me know below. Maybe we can have a little meet up there! I’ll bring along a friend of mine and also fellow blogger Raito-kun.

I’m so looking forward to this, especially as those who already had the chance to watch it, for example Dollfie master Wolfheinrich mentioned that Rei got a lot of screen time in 2.0.

Now to the random stuff  and news:

Se7en-Mania:

My house is finally free of Windows XP and Vista: Upgraded everyones PC/laptop/closet here.

Hell, I even installed Windows 7 on my netbook. Wasn’t that easy though as it is a Asus Eee 701 4G. It’s a netbook from the 1st generation with a 4GB SSD hardrive. (Back from early 2008 when ASUS thought that putting a small and cheap SSD into netbooks would be smart idea. There weren’t netbooks before though so you can’t blame them.)

Windows 7 was vlited, which means throwing out all the unnecessary stuff from the install disc, like a ton of drivers and such. Runs better than Windows XP on that little fella.

I came across a great tool by the way. It’s called Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool and was released by Microsoft last week. This little tool lets you copy the files from your Windows DVD or iso to any USB flash drive/SDHC card and such and makes those devices bootable.

You could do this before too, but it is easier that way. Also more end-user friendly, cause there are people around who freak out when they have to use command line programs.

Next step to having real life Macross action achieved:

The launch was scrubbed yesterday and after waiting 5, 6, 7? hours Ares I-X finally launched today. Was watching it live and in HD thanks to Spacevidcast.

Footage from the launch below:

Game review coming up:

I got a small parcel from Amazon today containing a great game which was released recently.

Most of you probably haven’t heard of it Machinarium yet.

It’s not the usual bloody something shooter madness or random 2D waifu game. (I like those genres too, no worries. ) No, it’s a game where you actually have to activate more than 50% of your brain!

So coming up in the next days: The Machinarium game review.

Stay tuned!

Just found this doujin beat-em-up game via otaku.fm about an hour ago and haven’t done anything else since then^^

Download/Info here.

Don’t forget to set your computers regional settings to Japanese or (like me) use AppLocale (works with Vista too).