I’ve been ripped off!

Over at Town Hall, Kevin McCullough warns everyone about the evil that is Mass Effect:

It’s called “Mass Effect” and it allows its players – universally male no doubt – to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to “engage” and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game “persons” hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of.

Not counting the times I’ve died and restarted (which would be time that isn’t counted in the total on my save game), I have spent 22 hours and 51 minutes playing Mass Effect. Probably 18 hours of that has been spent killing enemies who are allied with a machine race that wants to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy. Another three and a half hours were spent talking to NPCs in the interest of investigating said machine race’s allies and/or other criminals. An hour and twenty minutes has been spent managing my inventory^[a]. Perhaps a full minute (and I’m being very generous here) was spent on a “sex scene”, which involved a blue-skinned, genderless alien leaning forward and whispering in my character’s ear, and then a shot of her naked arm against what appeared to be an alien headboard.

Also, my character customization options at the beginning of the game consisted of being able to change the basic look of my character’s face. I even tried creating a female character, and I don’t remember any options for “breast size” anywhere on the menu. Removing warts and such? Trust me, the thing does not get that detailed. The best you can do is an option to add a scar, presumably to add realism to your character’s backstory as a soldier.

As should have become clear to you by now, I have been ripped off. I got a fun science fiction/adventure RPG, and what I should’ve gotten was a game that allowed me to make “the most realistic sex acts ever conceived” — more realistic than any sex act that any person has ever even thought of, much less had. Fun science fiction or not, I’m feeling let down by Mass Effect now.

Xbox Live has been having some issues lately, and some brain trust decided they should sue Microsoft for five million dollars because their lives were ruined by not being able to play video games or somesuch nonsense^[b]. Isn’t it obvious that this is grounds for a bigger suit? I demand that Microsoft refund my Mass Effect money and pay me for emotional damages. I think four quadrillion dollars sounds like a good amount, don’t you?

1. Why does the weapon upgrade menu jump to the top every time I turn an upgrade to omni-gel, when the other items that I also wish to turn to omni-gel are at the bottom of the list, because they’re oldest? [↩]
2. Believe me, I’m as much a video game addict as the next person — just ask my girlfriend; if she sees my DS come out of my pocket while I’m waiting for her to do something that will take thirty seconds one more time, she’ll probably snap — but that’s utterly insane. When Xbox Live doesn’t work, they should do what a normal person does: play something offline. If it doesn’t work enough that you’re dissatisfied with the service, cancel your account. Boom. Problem solved. [↩]