The Lamer Gamer

For some odd reason, Bioware decided to hide the “Campaign complete” save files in a hidden area on the Xbox hard drive, and so when I upgraded mine, I couldn’t see them or move them to my new one.

Actually the story goes more like this.

1. Fire up ME2
2. Attempt import
3. No save files found (huh?)
4. Check hard drive, sure enough no save files, must have left them on old drive.
5. Swap out new HD for old HD,
6. Attempt to copy ME1 save data, says it can’t since I’m not signed in to my profile.  (profile is on new HD)
7. Swap drives back
8. Move profile to Memory Unit
9. Swap drives again
10. Sign-in and copy ME1 save data to MU
11. Swap drives again
12. Move data from MU to new HD
13. Fire up ME2
14. Attempt Import (still says no save data)
15. Begin to wonder if I’m insane…
16. Search interweb, find problem is that the campaign completed data is hidden, and presumably can’t be moved.
17. Swap drives, AGAIN!
18. Fire up ME2
19. Attempt import
20. Yay! Finally it sees my characters.
21. Save new data on MU
22. Set for Insane Difficulty, why not, I’m already there…

Maybe it’s simply vanity but I love making avatars.  Well it’s not strictly vanity as I made Miis for everyone I knew when I got the Wii.

One of the cooler, but less overall useful features of Mass Effect was the character customization.  It had such depth that I spent upwards of an hour one night trying make myself a life-like avatar.  The above result only looks good from the angle shown, but I’d say it’s recognizable.  It’s so trivial, but for ME2 I’d love it if they enhanced character creation even just a little  further.  This is the sort of thing that doesn’t mean so much when no one else can see it, since it isn’t a multiplayer game, but I don’t care.

Maybe along with this they can make a less scary looking female model for Shepard.  The male version was fine, maybe just put a wig on him.

New DLC is in the works for Mass Effect!  I really never thought they’d release anything else as it’s been a long time since “Bring Down the Sky”.

Guess they heard me on using the DLC to build up to ME2.  Yeah it’s still a shame that there haven’t been any other releases for ME, and the only reason this one will be produced is as a marketing tool for ME2.  It’s a great game with a lot of interested players that want some more stuff to do.

BioWare is preparing to present on Mass Effect 2 during the Game Developer’s Conference in March. In all seriousness, if they don’t do something about the 5 minute load time in elevators at the Citadel, I’m not buying this game.

Okay, I lie. Mass Effect is easily one of my favorite games. Of course I’m going to get ME2. But the load times during the game are atrocious. You may not have noticed this due to BioWare cleverly forgetting to put the little “Loading…” bar on the screen while you’re taking the endless elevator rides, but that’s what it’s doing. Despite this and other facets which let you take a break during game play, strangely, it still suffered from massive texture pop. Not that the pop affects gameplay, or my particular enjoyment of the game, but it has to indicate that BioWare hasn’t put a lot into modernizing the engine since they put out KOTOR I & II and Jade Empire.

Here’s hoping they announce some cool (and FREE!) DLC for Mass Effect that bridges the two games.