With such a great post week going why stop now? So here’s the official War Story quiz that I’d always mused about making. I’d say the difficulty is fair if you’ve seen all 11 episodes. Don’t feel bad if you can’t 100% it, I bet Paul couldn’t even get 100%.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo has come and gone once again. The convention is always a mess to cover for the organizations who actually have people there, for a civilian like myself, it’s damn near impossible. So I’ll just tell you about what I’ve gleamed so far.

The biggest news of the show was the announcement of the Wii U, Nintendo’s Wii successor. They said they would be debuting the console at E3 a while ago, and most of the rumors surrounding the new system seem to be true. It is an HD system, probably more powerful than the PS3 and 360. It works with Wii games and all Wii peripherals. Additionally, the console will work with one new controller which everyone is calling the WiiPad. It basically brings DS functionality to home entertainment, giving you a big touch screen as well as all the necessary buttons. The screen has all sorts of sensors, including one for WiiMotes, so you could, for example, set the WiiPad on the floor and swing a WiiMote over it to simulate hitting a golf ball off a tee. It seems pretty cool but it’s obviously still very far off, as Nintendo didn’t have any real games to show. Also, Wii U is the worst name since Wii.

Sony also has a new system coming out this year, the NGP, which has been renamed PlayStation Vita. Vita games look a lot like console games so far, which is probably what Sony is going for. The biggest bombshell on this front was that the base model of the Vita would cost $250, the same price as the 3DS, which has not been doing amazingly well. Sony must think they’ve got a real shot at taking a chunk of the handheld market and I don’t blame them. Of course, the Vita will also have functionality with PS3s, so it will be interesting if Sony tries to get a head start on Wii U-style gaming before Nintendo gets their new system out.

The game everyone’s talking about is Bioshock Infinite, of which we still only have gotten to see choice segments. I’d really like to see how the game plays, but it obviously is going to be extraordinary. I remember the hype for the first Bioshock being pretty crazy, but this sequel has taken that into the stratosphere. It’s a shame it’s so far off.

Bioware seems to be having a strong show, showing off a bunch of Mass Effect 3 and Star Wars The Old Republic, probably the two games I’m looking forward to the most right now. What they showed of Mass Effect 3 makes the shooter gameplay look better than ever. I’m not sure how I feel about the OmniTool being a weapon, but whatever. TOR is looking great too, the GUI has been drastically improved since the last time they showed it and the game looks pretty good. They say they’re hoping to get it out this year. My biggest concern is that the combat doesn’t look that interesting yet, especially compared to a Dragon Age II. But we’ve seen so little of these two games it’s still hard to tell.

Ubisoft showed off the new Assassin’s Creed game, I think it’s subtitle is Revelations. It looks cool, but I’m worried it’s a little worn out. I mean, Ezio looks old as hell. When I played Assassin’s Creed II, I had no idea we’d be getting two more Ezio games, and that worries me a little. But then I remember that Brotherhood was great and probably shouldn’t worry.

We got to see some more Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and God damn, that game looks great. I don’t think I really need to belabor this point.

Now that Bungie has left the Halo franchise we’re getting a bunch of new Halo games. For starters, the original Halo is being rereleased. What’s cool about that is that the game runs on the original engine and you can even turn off the new graphics and play with the original ones. So I’m guessing that means unlimited grenades and all that goodness is back. Also, there’s going to be a Halo 4, which will start a whole new trilogy of games. That’s about all we know about that one, though.

The big pushes are still towards 3D, PlayStation Move, Kinect and the 3DS, none of which I own. There are also plenty of great games out there worth you investigating, I just touched on the biggest games that mean the most to me. For example, Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, and Far Cry 3 all made a big splash at the show. So go to a real website and find out what’s going on in the world of games!

I was going to write about the DaMorgue crew trip to Bend, Oregon last weekend to see Death Cab For Cutie and Bright Eyes but I just fell too far behind/lost interest. All I’ll say is that it was a beautiful experience, almost as beautiful as the last half hour of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Junior (Check it out, you won’t regret it.) So instead I decided to go with this experimental post that I hope you will at least find mildly amusing.

We’ve all done Mad Libs, big whoop whatever. I’m sure we all have found memories of highly inappropriate libs about trips to the fair and the first day of school, but so often I’ve regretted throwing out my old Mad Libs. So instead of just throwing them out I decided to “recycle” them on the blog. Now why should anyone care about our Mad Libs? I’m not even sure if the rest of the DaMorgue crew cares, but I find them very amusing. Just think of them as terrible short stories and maybe you can enjoy the subtle retardation of our bored musings. If anyone likes them at all I’ll post more, but I understand if you’re like “Fuck this shit!” Halfway through I almost gave up on this post but I can’t give up on two consecutive posts, that’s un-American.

The Wiggles came to do a concert in Paulville once, and the band liked it so much they never left. Now every humpday night, all the people who live in Paulville put on their feelings, kilts and walk their sugar monkeys to the town square. Then they sit on the grass, listen to The Wiggles play propaganda music, and eat fruit by the foot.

No one has to go to school in Paulville unless they want to. Of course, everybody wants to because Clint Eastwood and Damon Wayans are two of the teachers. Clint Eastwood teaches Fun with Computers and Damon Wayans teaches Magnets.

One day Clint Eastwood said to Damon Wayans, “Maybe we should take the students on a field trip.”

“That’s a bold idea, Clint Eastwood,” said Damon Wayans. “Let’s take them to the most fun place we can think of.”

“But that would be Paulville,” said Clint Eastwood.

I am only writing this post to avoid the risk that this could be a one post week. I like to think that I personally should be able to write at least one post a week, even if I have nothing to say. With that said I suppose I could use this time to mention possible upcoming topics and subjects that will generate future posts for future generations. To start it’s only a few weeks ’till the DaMorgue crew is taking our voyage to Bend, Oregon to see Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes, that sounds like a rip-roaring adventure waiting to happen. Sean will also be graduating around the same time so I can only assume the blog will now be his career, cheers!

I feel like there’s some albums coming up… Definitely a new Death Cab and My Morning Jacket record. Last time I checked they were both coming out on the same day. There’s probably all sorts of indie releases that Sean and Colin know about but I don’t, everyone loves surprises, I know I do!

Usually this is where I’d talk about movies but I wont. There’s a bunch coming out and we’ll be seeing and reviewing a handful of them, nuff said. In more dramatic blog news you can look forward to a weekly post retelling the amazing musical journey of The Defenestrators starting the first week of June. For those who don’t know The D was and still is the band that myself, Colin, and Nancy Tin Tin all formed in Junior High. So you can look forward to an in-depth retelling of our ultimate story of; sex, drugs, and something something coming this summer.

I still plan on filming something small this summer as well as to further hone our craft and amuse, there will be more news on that as it develops. Hmm, seems that’s all I can think of right now, but keep checking in for further updates and tom foolery, Otteni out.

If you’ve tried to take you’re PlayStation 3 online in the past week or so, you might have noticed something: you can’t. That’s because Sony was forced to shut down the PlayStation Network after a massive breach in security. According to the official blog, hackers have taken every single PSN users’ name, email address, password, location and possibly even credit card information. All 77 million PSN users are now at risk for identity theft.

What’s worse, we can’t play our games. I was looking forward to playing Portal 2 coop all last weekend, but the network was down and remains down as Sony is forced to rebuild their entire network. There are people who have online game subscriptions that can’t get online right now, this downtime is literally costing them money.

The identity of the hackers is unknown. Anonymous had threatened to hack Sony in the past, but it seems unlikely that it was them, since they seem more interested in sticking it to the man than stealing from the innocents. Also they’ve denied being responsible and condemned the hack, so there’s that. Even Geohot, Sony’s previous public enemy number one, said the attack made the hacking community look bad.

There are rumors that PSN might be up again next week. Sony has quite the hole to dig themselves out of, what with mainstream press and even congress criticizing the corporation for letting this happen. This has led a lot of people to discuss how Sony will compensate everyone at PSN who was inconvenienced by this situation. There’s even a class action lawsuit.

While I think that reaction (my ID was stolen? Free stuff, please) is weird, Sony is going to have to do something to bring people back to PSN. I have a PS3 and I want to play on it, so I’m certainly going to be back as soon as I can be, but I’m not sure I’d be comfortable putting my credit card information in. I’m certainly not going to use my new password, which I came up with because of this hack, for my PSN account. But I already favored my 360 anyway.

What about the people who only play PS3? Do you expect some sort of compensation from Sony? Will you just stop going online? Has the outage affected you, or did you not notice at all? The vocal minority is rightly enraged, but I have to wonder what the common man knows and thinks about this ridiculous situation.

Over the past few weeks I’ve replayed the first Mass Effect and made it about half way through Mass Effect 2. It has cemented them as among my favorite games. Before I shift my focus to next week’s Portal 2 I wanted to share the wealth with anyone who has yet to delve into this fantastic vision of the future.

What’s Mass Effect All About?
In the beginning of the first Mass Effect, humanity is a recent arrival on the the galactic stage. Mankind got there thanks to the discovery of ancient technology from an extinct alien race called the Protheans. The Mass Effect is what makes FTL travel possible. The central hub of galactic civilization is the Citadel, and that is where the most powerful body of inter-species government, The Council, resides. Humanity wants a seat on the council and our chances would be improved if a human could become a Spectre, an agent of the council with incredible autonomy and authority. Commander Shepard is probably mankind’s best candidate.

Who is Commander Shepard?
That’s largely up to you. Shepard is a human, but that’s about all that’s set about the commander. You are free to choose is Shepard is a man or a woman, what kind of upbringing Shepard had, why Shepard is famous and what kind of combat Shepard specializes in. Both Mass Effects are engaging because you are usually free to make your own choice on how to tackle a situation. Your choices are categorized as Paragon or Renegade and if you consistently make choices down one of those paths, you are able to do more. As a Paragon, Shepard is a compassionate hero, always willing to help others and maybe even able to charm his or her way out of some sticky situations. As a Renegade, Shepard is a more intimidating, apathetic and selfish figure, willing to shoot enemies who spend to much time monologue-ing and even betray people for his or her own benefit.

For what it’s worth, choosing to have a background as a spacer war hero will boost your Paragon points at the beginning of the game and choosing to be a ruthless earth-born will boost your Renegade points. To start as neutral as possible, choose to be a sole survivor colonist. Personally, I think the female Shepard voice actor is better as a Paragon and the male actor is better as a Renegade. But most importantly, you should just make Shepard the kind of hero you want to play. You’ll be commanding the commander for quite a while.

What are the Classes?
There are six classes in the Mass Effect games. They are broken into three focuses: combat, tech and biotic abilities. The soldier is pure combat, the only class able to master all the weapons in both games. The engineer is pure tech and which is handy for locked doors and crates in the first game and the ability to summon an attack drone in the second. The adept is pure biotic, able to use powers not unlike those of a Jedi. Lots of throwing people around. The other three classes are mixes of the first three. The infiltrator is a combat and tech specialist and an expert sniper in the second game. The vanguard is a combat and biotics specialist, a master of close combat. The sentinel is a tech and biotics specialist, arguably the most versatile of all the classes.

When I first played through Mass Effect, my Shepard was an infiltrator. I liked that, since I never felt obligated to bring another tech specialist just to unlock crates. I turned that Shepard into a soldier in Mass Effect 2, because I wanted access to all the guns. My second time through both games I played as a vanguard and have been really enjoying it. In Mass Effect 2, vanguards get the ability to charge, which I think is the most fun power in the game, although it takes a bit of skill to use properly. I’ve been told that sentinels and soldiers have the easiest time getting through both games. Once again, you should really just choose what sounds fun to you.

Why Should I Play These Games?
If you like third person shooters, RPGs or engaging stories, both Mass Effect games are worth your time. The first game is like great Star Trek, it builds an amazing new universe that you’ll love to explore and learn about. The second game is like a Star Wars, less focused on the science fiction and more about real drama and an epic story. Except you get to make all the choices.

Both games focus on your ability to assemble a team of misfits to overcome ridiculous odds. They feature a great cast of characters who you will genuinely enjoy getting to know and will make it difficult for you to choose who to bring to a battle, and, eventually, who lives and who dies. I have never enjoyed conversation more in a game than in both of the Mass Effects.

Admittedly, the first Mass Effect has started to show its age, especially if you’ve seen Mass Effect 2. If you have a PS3, that’s a non-issue, since the game never came out on that platform. You get a bonus interactive comic at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 that catches you up and lets you make the critical decisions from the first game. If you’re on Xbox or PC, suck it up, bitch. Get past the technical jank, the bad inventory management, the terrible Mako sections. At the heart of it all, the first Mass Effect is still quite an enjoyable title.

If you’re scared because of the RPG aspects of the games, don’t be. In Mass Effect 2, there basically is no wrong choice you can make, the leveling and inventory systems are so streamlined. More importantly, the combat is great fun, like Gears of War with magical sci fi powers. This isn’t turn-based at all, it’s a straight-up shooter that you could play without ever pausing.

Mass Effect 3 is supposed to come out at the end of this year. You’ve still got time to join me in line on opening night. It’s time you catch up with one of the greatest game series of all time.