The reason I have not completed Mass Effect before is for whatever reason I lost my save game and the thought of having to replay all those missions was too depressing. Now because sufficient time has passed and with the fact that there is a bit of a games drought right now I decided to tackle it again.

As before I’m playing a female Sheperd (better voice actor). My actions are mostly Paragon (goody-two-shoes) but I do like to bitch slap anyone that dares question my actions as a Spectre. Class wise I’m a Vanguard, a specialist in pistols and shotguns with a few biotic powers. I mainly shoot things in the face with a shotgun though.

I have to say even with the very clunky inventory system I am really enjoying the game, even more so than last time. I was going to rush through it so I can play the sequel but I can’t help myself doing all the side missions. It’s pretty amazing how much background information there is in the game to find either through conversation or the codex. I also love the overheard conversations you can hear by standing near certain NPCs. Most of it isn’t relative to the quests you’re doing but adds to the richness of the universe. Bioware really poured a lot of love into this game and I’m happy to explore all of it.

Anyway for anyone that hasn’t played it before it costs about £10 on PC, well worth it. So far at least!

Before I list the main attraction, I have an iPod Touch, 1st gen, with a broken earphone port. It will probably play music through any kind of dock (Haven’t tested this but I can) and if you really want I think you can buy dock to earphone converter cables. Anyway for internet browsing over wifi and general iPod Touch games it’s fine. Supplied with charging cable, no headphones £50.

Games

Nintendo DS Games. No boxes/manuals unless otherwise stated but they are legit! £5 each

• Nintendogs
• Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (With Box/Manual)
• Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (With Box)
• Final Fantasy 3
• Advance Wars: Dual Strike
• Hotel Dusk: Room 215
• Meteos
• Super Mario 64 DS
• Puzzle Quest
• Kirby Power Paintbrush
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (2 boxed copies with manuals, one is still sealed)

White PSP for sale, original model. Barely used, great condition. I’m selling as a bundle for £70 including:

• White original PSP (not PSP Slim or PSPgo) with charger.
• PSP Case. Holds PSP and 3 games.
• 4Gb memory card
• Wipeout Pulse
• Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
• Lego Star Wars: Original Trilogy
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Essentials
• Final Fantasy 7 (On the memory card. Possibly tied to my PSN Account but think it’ll work fine as long as it’s not deleted)

Comics

Where possible I want to sell entire runs. If you do want bits and bobs I’d rather they were at the start or end of the collections so I can still sell continuous blocks but all offers welcome. Conditions of all comics is at least good

New Avengers: I have the entire run of New Avengers (well, issue 57 is missing!) going for £40.

• Volumes 1-7 in paperback (issues 1-37)
• Issues 38-64 (Excluding 57) singles
• Avengers Finale single
• Avengers Annual 3 single

Ultimate Spider-Man: The first 15 volumes (issues 1-90) for £45

• Volumes 1-15 in paperback.

Ultimate X-Men: First two paperbacks are the “Ultimate Collections” that have 2 volumes in each so there are no missing issues, they are just grouped differently £40.

• Ultimate Collection Book 1 and 2 (issues 1-25)
• Volumes 4-11 (issues 26-57) in paperback

Ultimate Avengers: 6 issue run for £4

• Issues 1-6 singles

The Ultimates 3: This is not a patch on The Ultimates 1 and 2 but hey ho, at £3 you can’t moan!

• Issues 1-5 (5 issue run) in singles

Captain America: It pains me to sell these as they are so good, this is the current Ed Brubaker run. Slightly higher price due to hardbacks, aprox 70 comics for £60.

• Captain America Omnibus (issues 1-25) in hardback
• Fallen Son: (5 issue run) in hardback
• Death of Captain America Vol.1 (issues 25-30) in paperback
• Death of Captain America Vol.2 (issues 31-36) in hardback
• Issues 37-50 in singles
• Captain America: Reborn (6 issue run) in singles
• Captain America: Who will wield the shield? (one shot) single
• Issues 600-607 singles (they changed the numbering here)

Invincible Iron Man: This is the Matt Fraction run, issues 1-28 for £15.

• Volume 1 + 2 (issues 1-13) in paperback
• Issues 14-28 in singles

Secret Invasion: Annoyingly I’m missing issue 7. For that reason it’s only £3.

• Issues 1-6 + 8 (8 issue run) in singles.

Dark Avengers: Again annoyingly missed buying issues 7 and 8 but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the series. £5.

• Issues 1-6 and 9-16 (16 issue run) in singles

Siege: The 2010 crossover event, only 4 issues so a princely £2.

• Issues 1-4 in singles

Astonishing X-Men: The first 34 issues for £15.

• Volumes 1-4 (issues 1-24) in paperback
• Issues 15-34 in singles

X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse: Four thick paperbacks that I can’t be bothered to count the issues of! £20.

• Books 1-4 in paperback

X-Men: I have various X-Men books. I can find out what issues and series they belong to but for now will just list the book titles and prices. Basically the more issues per book the more it costs!

• Uncanny X-Men: Rise & Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire paperback £5
• X-Men: Deadly Genesis paperback £3
• X-Men: Supernovas paperback £5
• X-Men: Messiah Complex hardback £15
• X-Men: Nation X hardback £15

Be warned, there’s a lot of waffle here! So much so I think I’ll have to insist you click to see more…

(EDIT: I’ve just realised how horrid the headings are in this theme. I can’t be bothered changing them now but hope to soon)

Games

WoW wise, I’ve slowed down since I hit lvl 80. It also helps I’ve finally got my Chef’s Hat, costing 100 Dalaran Awards. So I don’t have to do the daily cooking and fishing quests. Though if I have the time I do indulge on the chance I’ll get a rare item. I have been loving the random dungeon finder and runs are so quick with this that I can usually squeeze in a random normal, heroic, the Tournament dailies and the cooking/fishing quests in an hour-ish. The dungeon runs are pretty soulless as groups tend to be of the “GO!GO!GO!” variety. However my aim really is to gear up a little more (got some good healing gear, though need some decent leg and trinket items!) and then start looking for a family oriented guild. I’d love to start doing 10 man raids but most people organise this for 7pm ish which is bang in the middle of bathing and putting Hannah to bed. I’d want to start at about 9pm really as that gives me time to go to her if she hasn’t settled and hopefully anything after that Kat can deal with!

Still on the topic of games, I’m getting rather excited about Star Trek Online. In fact I’ve just pre-odered it after reading Tom Francis’s preview. I have no doubt certain aspects will be ropey (such as ground combat) but the idea of an MMO that lets you develop a party of characters is quite appealing, and of course ship combat.

Other than that I’ve picked up a few games in the sales:

• Osmos
• Braid
• Ben there, Dan that & Time Gentlemen Please (Double Pack)
• Red Faction 3
• Borderlands
• Braid

Some of those were very, very cheap in the Steam sale. I won’t go into detail about them all, but I’ve completed Ben there, Dan that (available free here), enjoyed quite a bit of Osmos, a few minutes on Braid and a few hours on Borderlands and Red Faction 3 each. The latter I was…a little dissapointed by. Red Faction 3 is great in concept, I think the problem is actually with me. I don’t like the GTA ‘living city’ style game, they’re a bit too free form? The demolition physics are fantastic, and the game is certainly great for a quick ‘blow everything up’ game but just didn’t grip me.

Borderlands on the other hand has the mechanics that appeal to me (an FPS Diablo, essentially) but the UI has not really been designed for the PC which just smacks of laziness. I shall try it multiplayer though where I think it’ll fare better.

Rob recently got Dawn of War 2, and we’ve played a bit of Last Stand and campaign co-op which seem quite fun.

Comics

I’ve just caught up with the recent Matt Fraction series of Iron Man and I have to say I’ve really enjoyed it! In addition to that I’ve continued with Dark Avengers, New Avengers, Astonishing X-Men and Captain America.

Dark Avengers I quite enjoy, I love Norman Osborne and am just waiting for him to finally snap. New Avengers is as usual a bit average but fun fluff.

Astonishing X-Men has just about recovered from the truly awful Warren Ellis initial run. I don’t know if he realised it was shit, or it’s the new artists or both, but it seems much better at the minute so I’ll stick with it. I’m hoping really that Joss Whedon returns to the series. Or actually if Kieron Gillen would. Gillen used to be my favourite games journalist a while back. I think all the awards made him a bit too pretentious for a while, but from the previews of his run on S.W.O.R.D (which is tightly linked with AXM), I think he could do the series well.

Captain America is getting back to being one of my favourite series. I have to say I’ve not enjoyed it much since Captain America died and Bucky took the mantle. I loved Bucky, but since he’s been Cap and they’ve OD’d on the WW2 stuff I’ve found it a bit of a bore, and dissapointed that during Dark Reign that a new Captain America hasn’t been the beacon of light for our heroes that he should have been. Though I do understand that Brian Michael Bendis has had the major heroes fail so that they can rise better than ever, which is pretty much what is happening. There’s only 1 issue left of the ‘Reborn’ series to go where Steve Rogers will return. Which I’m excited about because I love Steve. And the prospect of there being 2 Captain America’s is interesting, I wonder if Bucky will be renamed?

I’ve also started reading Ultimate Avengers, which has the brilliant Mark Millar returning to the Ultimates universe. So far I’ve really enjoyed it, quite a radical move to have the Red Skull as Cap’s son, and Cap going ape shit about it! I think this’ll be on my regulars list.

Last week I got the JMS (I can’t spell his full name…) trades of Thor. With Thor, Cap and Iron Man all returning to former glories soon for the up coming Marvel event ‘Siege’, I feel I need to complete the trilogy and get caught up. It also helps that there are Cap, Thor and Avengers movies in the works which has got me excited about these characters. In the next few weeks I think I’m actually going to bite the bullet and subscribe to these titles from a comics. Yes I know it’s about 3 times more expensive than waiting for the trades, but the 6 month plus wait for those is too long!

Other stuff

Well work is work. Nothing much to note. My degree is going ok, submitted my first assignment for the new course last week, I think I’ve done ok. My other course starts in a couple of weeks so yay, double the work!

Hannah wise she’s of course as lovely as ever. The super cute thing at the moment is that she really loves books, always bringing them to us to read to her. One of them has flaps that reveal pictures, and one of those is a tiger mask. So we say “Tiger, rarrrgh!” and she says “Rarrrgh!” back! It’s so funny. It’s impressive too that she can be looking through the book on her own and she will recognise the picture and say ‘”Rarrrgh!”. However she some times gets it wrong, and apparently a giraffe and an elephant also go “Rarrrgh!”…

Anyway I shall try and update more, which I always say but hey, perhaps I’ll keep to it this time?