Cogs can think.

Sure, the vehicle section takes a lot of practice. Sure, some of the colonial buildings are all the same but with different interiors. Sure, the game is very difficult to get into. Sure, the graphics aren’t always any good.

But Jesus-fcuking-Christ does Mass Effect make up for it by being by far the most in-depth game I’ve ever played. The attention to detail and the amount of work that has gone into each and every little element of the game - from the history of the galaxy all the way down to the history of the simplest of weapons you get to use - is just mind blowing .

Every item, location, and person in the game has a tremendous amount of history, and you can learn all about it if you want. You can talk endlessly with the NPCs about a huge number of topics. To illustrate, at one point I was having a discussion with one of my team members about the merits of God when you’re in outer space - “Just because I’m in space, I’m not allowed to believe in God? What bullshit is that?” - and you go back and forth about the topic. My conversion with her lasted like 20 minutes. And you can have discussions like this with many characters.

Everything is explained during the game, in great detail. Sure, you can skip it all, but you’ll miss so many subtle points, so many things that help you understand why and how things happen in the Mass Effect universe. Sure, it takes its cues from Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, but who gives a shit - Mass Effect is much less idiotic than Star Trek, but has a more life than BSG. The Mass Effect universe is actually kind of plausible, and the whole main story about the cycle of civilisations being destroyed and rebuilt again just for the pleasure of some… Well, some sort of deities is very compelling.

One of the side quests involves trying to talk a teenage girl out of committing suicide. She was taken from her human colony when she was four years old, to become a slave. She knows nothing of emotion and love and caring, and it shows in her speech. She refers to herself in the third person, and knows nothing than punishment and abuse. Say one wrong word, make one wrong movement, and she’ll pull the trigger. It’s all quite emotional, and very well acted.

I think that sums up Mass Effect pretty well. The game is much more about people than about graphics and violence. Heck, I don’t think I’ve seen a single drop of blood, and there weren’t any oversized tits either. You can see it; most of the graphical work has clearly gone into the characters, and their facial animations are better than in any other game. Engaging in conversations is completely different than in other games too; it’s like a film. You leave the third person perspective, and you get movie-style camera work, with everyone actually speaking out their dialogue - even the player’s every word is voice-acted. And dear lord, the voice acting is good. I’ve never seen a game with such incredible voice-acting.

What’s also really good is that the choices you make aren’t just obviously good OR obviously evil; there’s a lot of grey to choose from too. This gives you very fine-grained control over how situations turn out.

And finally, finally, finally, a game with a worthy ending sequence, which seems to last like forever, is extremely spectacular, and is still under your influence: there’s dialogue in it, and combat, so what you do matters.

The game isn’t perfect, but it’s a rare gem among the mediocre shite of modern gaming. Definitely my game of the year, and I hope BioWare makes a worthy sequel.

Ninja Gaiden II is probably the shallowest and dumbest game I’ve ever played, but after all those pretentious RPGs I’ve been playing… This is actually loads of fun!

No platforming, no questing, no exploring, no mixing potions, no dialogue - just mindless slicing and dicing of endless amounts of enemies in nonsensical locations, chasing a blonde chick with big tits who’s been captured by the bad guys. Oh, and did I mention the boatload of chopped off limbs and immense fountains of blood?

What’s not to like?

About being Scottish, and how that relates to being Greek, according to Eugenia.

About being Dutch.

We’re very tolerant.

Towards people who look, speak, and behave exactly like us. Or who have lots of money. If you don’t fit into one of those categories, you’re a terrorist.

Peter Molyneux’ Fable II is absolutely mindblowing. Seriously. It has the atmosphere of Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride, British accents, an amazing fairy-tale story, a pet dog, and a very cool sense of humour. Definitely recommended. I’m loving it.

Go little Sparrow, go!

My XBox 360 is getting decent use. As I said, finished Fallout 3. Also finished, since then, Bioshock (too short, lame ending sequence). I also nearly finished Assassin’s Creed, but after assassination #something I realised that while extraordinarily beautiful, this game has no gameplay whatsoever. I stopped playing.

I’m now totally into Oblivion, also by Bethesda, and I’m really enjoying it. Doesn’t look as good as the newer games, but dear lord, there’s so much to explore and do, I love it.

Next on the list is Fable II, which, sadly, is a new game so it’s 62 EUR. I’ll have to think about that.

In the meantime, where’s my torch, and where’s my Longsword of Sapping, I’m about to enter the catacombs of an abandoned fort…

I’m turning 24 today. Only six more years until I’ll start dying.

I finished Fallout 3 last night. I spent a lot of time doing lots of side quests and exploring the Wasteland, so it took me a little longer than most. I have to say that I’m disappointed in the game’s ending sequence. I won’t reveal anything, but it was too short and too little a reward for well over 120 hours of gaming.

Luckily, when I went level up to level 20, I chose the Explorer perk, revealing all locations in the Wasteland, and I saved right before the final quest began - I opened my save game, and I’m now back exploring the Wasteland, hopefully completing more side quests as I go.

My character, Fiona, deserves more. She’s bad ass, JUST LIKE THE REAL FIONA.

Last Saturday I threw a party for some of my closer friends at my place. The original idea was to hold the party during election night, but since everyone was being all responsible and slaves to capitalism, whining about work and school and whatever, we held the party the following Saturday.

The whole thing was awesome, but it did remind me of something Marco said somewhere last week or the week before that: we’re pretty much stuck with each other for the rest of our lives. The people that were here Saturday night, those are the people whose weddings we’ll visit, whose baby showers we’ll enjoy, whose funerals we’ll attend. I’ll turn 24 in three weeks, only six years and my life will be over, so I better get my social circle in order or else no one will cry during my funeral. Not because of me - but because they’ll be forced to listen to Fiona all throughout the god damn ceremony. THAT ONE’S FOR MAKING FUN OF FIONA AND ME.

But then again, I have this fear that even when we’re dead and buried, I’m still stuck with those people. I pretty much got front row seats in hell due to that one time I tried to score a chick on a graveyard in Belgium, and so do most of the other people in my circle of friends. But that’s not my biggest fear. Oh no.

My biggest fear is that when we arrive in hell, and Satan unleashes thousands of his minions upon us to commence the eternal cycle of torment and pain, I’m gonna be like, psssh. Amateurs.

I’ll be all like, uhm, fire? Brimstone? Dude, I already been to Texas, this stuff isn’t working. You guys have a similar administration to the one on the other side, right? You folk know all I’ve done and such, right? All my thoughts? Use that to your advantage, damnit! You guys have this whole untapped resource of subtle torture ideas, and you’re not even using it.

Take me for example. Sir Satan, you don’t have to waste all those precious mana points on casting thousands of little demons of fire - you can use your mana points much more efficiently by simply casting a kitchen where all the cups face the wrong way, where the cutlery is unsorted, but where no matter what you do, no matter how you sort and turn everything, the moment you blink, everything’s back to its unsorted state.

That’s subtle torture for you right there, sir, and you’ve saved on mana points, and you don’t have to deal with all those annoying demons of fire anymore (litterboxes for fire demons aren’t cheap, you know). Implement mana points saving rules all across hell, and in no time, you can conjure yourself a nice Alfa 8C with wheels of fire.

That’s my biggest fear. Not hell, but the fact I’ll probably make hell a lot more efficient.

I felt like I was part of something special last night. Involuntarily, I was counting his stress points in each sentence. I forgot my friends around me. For some mysterious reason, I spoke along with the Lincoln quote, a quote that I happen to know by heart. You know what?

I felt American.

We were all witnesses to something remarkable last night. In 20 years, my kids are going to ask me where I was.

The part of the speech that touched me most was the following. It’s as if he was talking directly to my friends and I, huddled up around a huge flatscreen TV, on the other side of the Atlantic, our bodies kept going by what the rattling coffee machine provided us with.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

Beautiful. Just beautiful. I’m not used to getting slightly emotional because of someone’s speech, but this one certainly did it. You know what? I’m gonna do it.

YES. WE. CAN.

So like, I went skiing yesterday with Renate and Bart (her boyfriend). It was awesome, but obviously, I was pretty tired when I got home at around 18:45. Seeing I had to get up at 6:30 the next morning for university, I decided to go to bed early, at 22:00.

Which is rare. Normally I’m not in bed before 00:00.

The result is that I woke up at 3:45 this morning, fully awake, fully capable, ready to start my day. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I mean, it’s like, night.

Is it, then, worrying that my first idea was to clean?