So today is Monday, and Monday's are never the best, well I guess sometimes they can be, on the off chance that something awesome happens like we have a holiday or something, but usually Monday's aren't any fun and thus the need for humor in order to make Monday's become fun. YouTube is always a good choice, a few laughs here and there go a long way to making any day just a little brighter. With all that said today we'll be featuring a few videos from one of my favorite YouTube channels, How It Should Have Ended, check out their site HERE. Hopefully these videos will brighten your day a bit, they did mine for sure.
This last weekend we finally got to see who the final four teams are going to be and without a doubt more brackets were destroyed in the process. This coming Saturday we will have two great games occurring between Kentucky vs Louisville and Ohio St vs Kansas. We here can't help but to be rooting for the underdog in the Kentucky game, specially due to their everlasting rivalry, which rivals that of Duke and North Carolina, this game is promised to look fantastic, we sure are looking at an intense finish for this year's tournament.
Since the tournament's beginning many have stated that Kentucky was going to win it all, they are the top choice to win for sure, but this tournament has been so bizarre at times that there is no telling what will happen next Saturday, these teams have all bleed on the court, they have given their all to get their schools this far and now we get to see what college ball is all about, the give it your all or go home mentality we only find in college sports. It doesn't matter if your team is playing the final or not, the final is always a fun game to watch, it's always an all out battle and very rarely has it not been a good game to watch, this is the beauty of college finals.
We couldn't help but to cheer for Baylor this past Sunday even though we knew that there was a very small chance of them taking the win, it's nice to see the underdog win, but going home at this time is no loss, there is no shame in leaving this tournament at this point, specially when playing against one of the best programs in the country, so well done Bears. This goes out to all the teams that broke the odds this year, the teams that would not give up, the teams that we all thought were going to leave on the first round and not only proved us wrong but wowed us in the process, this tournament was reminded of the beauty it possesses due to your victories, we tip our hats to you.
Ohio St vs Kansas will be a good game to watch for sure, some here are speculating that Ohio St is going to take it all but there is no real answer here, if Kansas plays like they did on Sunday then there is a good chance that they'll be able to show up again on Monday for sure. Both teams are no push overs, these are the four teams that have fought and won over hundreds of teams in the United States, thus these games should both prove to be fantastic to watch for sure. We're still a little bias against the tournament game being on Monday, we understand the reasons behind it but still, Monday is just never a good day for a final, this is something that needs to be reconsidered one of these days.
Another thing that was beginning to get to us are the commercials that surrounded the tournament, there were so few of them, like 15 or so, and they just cycled between those for the entire thing making even the best of commercials become "that annoying At&t" commercial. Though this was occurring there was one commercial that took us by surprise, this Powerade commercial is so absurd, like a direct punch in Gatorade's mouth absurd, that we couldn't help but love it and laugh about it for quite some time. The whole thing is so brilliant that it surprises us that we never saw it coming, it definitely deserves a spot here for best commercial in this tournament, besides the "here we go" dog commercial.
An update for the Mass Effect 3 people here, Bioware has announced that this next week (beginning of April) they will release new additions to the story, an alternative ending is rumored but not officially announced yet. If there is another ending that does get released you'll have to purchase it and rumors say it'll be close to $30 or so (more than regular DLCs). We'll def know more about this as the week progresses, but Bioware has heard your complaints and will be solving these issues very soon, starting another character in preparation for it might be a good idea, if not a fun one. This whole mess with creation of a new ending has brought on some concerns from artists all over the world, we'll give our opinions in this matter next week for sure.
We hope your weekend was fantastic and though it is a Monday and they are generally rough we pray that it might be a great one for you,
Originally we weren't going to cover this story, we don't usually do articles on video games except for in passing and in collaboration articles, to imagine that a game is deserving of its own stand alone article had never crossed our minds until now. The first thing we should mention is the striking phenomenon that this game has caused, from ESPN to Forbes to CNN everyone has either covered the release, the impact or the fun they had while playing Mass Effect 3, and thus we decided that it was about time we did our own article filling you in as to why this game is such a big deal and why there is so much controversy circulating around this game. (No worries there will be *NO SPOILERS*)
For those new to the series you play as Commander Shepard of the Normandy (name of your awesome ship) and its basically up to you to save the universe from calamity. Without giving too much away the first two games deal with you discovering this threat and meeting all the other alien races around the galaxy making a name for yourself and dealing with business while you're at it, but the third game deals with the big threat of the fist two games hitting everyone in mass and you having to deal with it, you having to go around and try to get the universe to join together and face this threat, this Reaper threat. That's the best we can do without giving too many things away, there is something to finding out the details while you play the game so we're not about to spoil that for you.
The game is a mix between a real time role-playing game and a third person shooter, strategy is necessary when fighting the alien races who seek your demise, specially in the higher difficulties. The element that makes this game rise above its competition is the ability to mold the story to your liking, the game emphasizes the importance of choices and the result of your choices teaching you what the outcome of bad choices are and what good choices are. Every choice you make in the game affects the outcome of the story, so if you decided to save a character instead of killing them, they might come back to help you later on, or give you items and so on. The concept here is simple, in real life your choices have consequences, good and bad, and thus in the game you should have those as well, this is where the Mass Effect series shines, not to mention that your character is entirely customizable meaning you can play a guy or a girl and you can make them look however you want making the experience your own, unique to you.
Not only do your choices matter while playing through the game which is not new but the choices you make in each game is imported along with your character to the next game and that is revolutionary. Meaning, if you play the first game and not worry about making friends and making good decisions then on the second and third games people will respond to you differently, where they could have been an ally now there is only contempt. What this means is that it places a very real concern on each choice you make while playing through the game, a wrong choice could cause a whole race of people to die out, which causes you to pause while playing the game and think about your choices, think before acting, this game in many respects can be a teaching tool about the importance of thinking before acting, about the effects of bad choices and their negative future consequences.
This gigantic project started in 2005 with the humble announcement of the game and has now come to a glorious close in 2012, let us explain to you why the dates are important, in 2007 the first game came out and everyone loved it, in 2010 we got the sequel and our Shepards got to live again and save the universe and now in 2012 our Shepards got to do his or her thing again. What this means is that all that played the first game in its release have had an investment on this game for 5 years, that's a 5 year commitment to a storyline, this whole project was a brilliant move by Bioware. This means we have had a 5 year relationship with this story and its characters causing us to care about what happens to them, 5 years will do that to you, it's like reading a book that you have waited 5 years for where your choices affect the ending, the concept is brilliant.
Bioware is the company responsible for this game, in the last few years Bioware has not disappointed us with their continual brilliance and creativity in the gaming world. There is a controversy about the ending of Mass Effect 3, we're not about to talk in detail about it but in short some people have found the ending to be lacking, after 5 years the public was expecting a massive incredible ending and thus the riots and letters began to be written, complaints that Bioware does take seriously, and has announced that it will make it up to all those aggrieved but that they want to wait a little bit until everyone has had a chance to finish playing the game, which we find to be a fair request.
Overall Mass Effect 3 is a brilliant game, it hosts amazing graphics, great voice acting, fluid combat simulations and a good RPG balance within the gameplay experience, and of course the storyline is epic. This is the type of game where you become so invested on a character that you feel compelled to help them and be by their side as if they were your actual friend, you gotta give props to a game designer when he causes you to feel guilty when betraying a fictional character within a videogame. With graphics improving more and more being the "bad guy" in a game is going to be more and more difficult, which causes the games to be more and more relational and better at teaching moral lessons about life, love, war, and death. Mass Effect 3 has brought on a new paradigm in gaming, one where your choices in one game might affect the next game, and thus sequels take on a new meaning all together, this is a great influence on the future of gaming.
For those that have finished the game we hope you enjoyed the experience and if you are dissatisfied just wait a little bit, Bioware has not let us down yet, we're sure they will pull through. For those playing through the game right now, enjoy the ride. And for those that have no idea what Mass Effect 3 is, we promise that you know at least one person who is playing it or has played it, it's just that big of a deal. We hope your week has been going well, and pray that it will continue to do so.
This year has just started and a lot of awesome things have been getting made, new products are being announced and overall this year is panning out to be a great one. There's so much to be exited about that sometimes its tough to choose what to be excited over. There is an indisputable feeling of re-freshness when one realizes how great a year is going to be, thus we decided to compile a few reviews of cool things that recently came out in order to share the joy and hope that this will be an awesome year, there is a little something for everyone here, there is so much going on already we can't help but look forward to all else this year will bring.
The Most Watched Valentine's Day Movie
The Vow had everything in it to make it a great movie, it had a good cast, a good story based off of a real story which always works well, and the preview of the movie caused many to go into tears mode, one would imagine that this movie would have been great, but there was a forgotten element, an important element, that this movie missed, one that should never be overlooked, the script. The movie in itself was not a wretched movie, it was a fun movie to watch and it was a tear jerker, but it did not have good dialogue to go with it, this is kind of a big flaw. A requirement within romance movies is that those that love chick flicks will go and cry and enjoy themselves while those that don't are at least presented with a good script, some laughs, and an overall ok experience. The problem with "The Vow" is that because of the poor script many could not find enjoyment within this movie, many who love chick flicks have also admitted to the fact of poor scripting, it's unfortunate really. In the end this movie was a 2/5 at best, with good company it might go to 2.5/5.
Star Wars Episode I 3D
So some of us got the chance to go watch Star Wars Episode I 3D this weekend and we assure you that it was just as corny as it has always and that Jar Jar was as terrible as he has always been. Let's be honest here Episode I is just not that good, the acting is lacking, the script is poor, Jar Jar is in it, and we have the George Lucas' "every scene must have 10 things going on in the background" syndrome. So did the 3D help it at all? Kind of, the 3D effects weren't used often so at times you could take off your glasses and see the movie normally which is to no surprise being that it wasn't filmed in 3D to begin with, some still were disappointed though for the rumors of 3D and the re-release screamed tons of changes and there were only a few so that was disappointing to some. We are on the team that says the least amount of changes Lucas ever does to a movie the better we are, they are rarely good changes to begin with so we're better off without them. The movie is still part of the Star Wars series so loyalty alone carries fans on. The interesting thing about this movie is that the new generation of watchers love it, while the older generation hates it, which happened for good reason, Lucas made this movie with the new generation in mind, so if you go see it do so with this in mind. Overall this movie was a 2.5/5, with good company and comedic commentary it can raise to a 3.5/5 (it's a lot of fun to make fun of this movie).
Mass Effect 3 Demo
For the gamers out there the Mass Effect 3 demo came out yesterday and it blew our minds. In the demo you go through the introduction and one of your first missions in which you get to test controls, fighting mechanics, you get to see how much they have improved the environment and graphics in general, and overall get a little taste of how awesome this game is going to be. ME3 is the most looked forward to game of this year, so lucky to all other games that its coming out next month, thank god that it is. For those new to the game this is the third installment of the series and its conclusion, the big deal with this series is that its a real time role playing shooter that engages you in your decision making and every choice you made on the previous games change the way the story flows within this game. What this means is that the replay value for this game is out of bounds the most developed anyone has ever attempted before. No game has ever incorporated your choices from a previous game into its sequel, not only that but being able to import your own character is awesome as well. Overall ME3 is promising a ton, even a multiplayer mode which IGN just recently praised, and after playing through this demo we can only summarize that Bioware are actually going to be able to deliver all the awesome they promised. Here is a game worth looking forward to, be it on your PS3 or your Xbox 360, or even your PC, this game will be available to all. Look for it March 6th.
Source Fed
If you are a long time reader you know we love Phillip D Franco and everything he does on YouTube, well Phil and his team have recently started a new channel called Source Fed where we get everything we loved from Phil's channel taken to the next level and basically we get everything that mattered throughout the day in 2 min segments they call "20 minutes or less". This channel not only keeps you up to date on everything that is going on in the world but it does so with good humor, good writing, and a great cast, they also have a blog with more relevant news to quench your thirst if you want more. Phil or sxephil will continue to produce his own videos that we love and will take part in some of the Source Fed stuff. This is a good way to stay on top of things that are going on around you, new movie reviews, random social critiques and so forth, it is always a good idea to stay informed on what is going on around you. Be warned that Phil has been known to curse and have more mature content so if you are offended don't see his videos but Source Fed is family friendly, at least so far we have not seen any material or dialogue that was risque. So in the end Source Fed is a good YouTube channel to be filled in on everything that is going on around the world, they update whenever anything of relevance is happening, so almost every day, and house some of the most talented people within YouTube, be sure to give them a look.
There are a lot of other updates to be made of games coming out, movies to see, Angry Birds is now on Facebook (What?! Yeah!!), and with the Academy Awards coming up there is a lot happening, we hope you enjoyed today's blog and that there was something in here for all of you. Be sure to come back on Friday where we will be discussing the Academy Awards and putting our two cents on who deserves the Oscars this year.
We hope you are having a good week and we pray that you will finish strong and have a glorious weekend,
