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Showing posts from March, 2012

Did you see Vent Kid on the Citadel?

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I did. There are people out there who think the ending to Mass Effect 3 is actually one big fakeout , and from the point where Shepard is hit by the beam onward nothing is real and its all a piece of attempted Indoctrination by the Reapers. A lot of debate is framed around whether or not That Stupid Kid(TM) at the start of the game is real or not. For example, why is Shepard the only one that reacts to him? Why did the kid go from the roof of one tall building, climb up the inside of another tall building in a VENT, say "you can't help me" then crawl back down again? Okay, that last one could just be bad writing but anyway. While the below doesn't solve the supposed mystery of indoctrination theories, this does perhaps address the question of whether That Stupid Kid(TM) is a real stupid kid or a pretend stupid kid. I was wandering around the Citadel and decided to take a look at the tribute wall. I'm not sure if the pictures there change over time, b...

Mass Effect 2 Music

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So hey, there's a bunch of unused Mass Effect 2 music lurking over on Bandcamp from one of the composers. Track 1 is fantastic if you liked the Suicide Mission material. Music here .

No Fighting in the War Room: Mass Effect 3

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End game spoilers galore for Mass Effect 3 here. If you haven't completed it yet, move right along. Seriously, go. Get out of here. Okay. I completed ME3 a couple of days ago, fully aware of the furore over the ending as I made my way closer to it, thinking "can't be as bad as everyone is making out, surely". Only to complete the game, sit back and think yep....a game that did almost everything right apart from the ending (and to be clear, I mean from the moment you go to retake the Earth). While most of the point I'd probably make have already been made , I want to make a few comments about the actual design of the finale (which is terrible). First the recap, which itself highlights some pretty bizarre scripting. Destination: Citadel The Citadel turns out to be a crucial part of your large space weapon that can kill the reapers. Shepard and company need to get on board. Rather than hide it in the middle of nowhere, the ancient and terrifyingly intelligent R...

Security Conferences: you're doing it wrong

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For the most part, I am not a conference person. I have no interest in booths or free pens (free pens that you paid $2000 to get your hands on, fact fans), I rarely bother with the parties or speaker dinners, I avoid keynotes with a healthy passion and usually spend most of the time locked in my hotel room unless I'm doing what I went there for, which is "be a dancing monkey on stage for 40 minutes and hope someone got something useful out of it." More often than not, it's the same bunch of people speaking at the same bunch of events. If your company has a person who goes to these events and speaks, be happy about it. It's even rarer if you have more than one of them. If you're lucky enough to have a security lab with dozens and dozens of people across the globe, the physical act of coming up with an idea, having sufficient research material to cobble together into something coherent and then get up in front of a couple of hundred people to deliver it isn...