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Description

“I'm on fire…

Nothing's gonna hold me back

Unless the sky has a pocketful of tricks to try

You pick a colour and I sing it for you

I know you feel the same way

Say you feel the same way!

Fingertips alive - superhuman touch

Can't get enough of this electric love

Burning the sun with just a wave of your hand

Sparks flying out in every direction

There's more of this to come -

I think it must be heaven!

Burning the sun with just a wave of your hand…

I'm on fire -

Golden echoes upon my face

Tell those dreamers they can dream up all they like in this place

Oh, you pick a colour and I sing it for you

I know you feel the same way

Just one day like this will keep me going on…

Tender kisses will keep me going on…

It seems all hell has broken loose

It couldn't be more beautiful

I just want to burn the sun with you…

A messed-up garden to inspire the greatest minds in all their power

I just want to burn the sun with you

With just a wave of your hand…”

Athlete, ‘Superhuman Touch’

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5TTe2…

“I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favourite fanart on the Citadel!”

This is a sweet Xmas gift by a good friend, which he commissioned from a very talented artist called for me! It depicts my long-time Mass Effect character, Vonda Shepard (albeit in an alternate dimension where she’s a Renegade and where Bioware allow the long beaded braids I always wanted her to have!)

I’ve played her over thirty times across all the games – I tend not to explore different options when playing Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout etc… I like to play the same character making the same choices over and over again. I tried to make her an ethnic mix, as Mass Effect suggests tends to be the norm in their world – I always imagined her having a black father and a mother (Hannah) who was mixed-race Asian/Caucasian. The deepest skin colour in the character creator comes out as a gorgeous milk-chocolate in the lighting of the game, and while she’s pretty in the original, she’s absolutely beautiful with the upgraded graphics in ME2.

Mike and I discussed Mass Effect (along with lots of other issues like politics and sexual attraction) over the last few years. I likely gave him the wrong impression about being Renegade, because I play her as at least 80% Paragon (mostly because Paragon actions tend to be more badass). There’s a few critical choices I do go Renegade on, but that tends to be when something presses her ‘berserk button’ and is mostly out of character for her. The only decision I ever feel conflicted about is whether to kill the geth or have them ally with the quarians, and I tend to change that on every play-through as the mood takes me. The rest of my choices are pretty consistent, apart from one I did have to go back and change from the original game when ME3 came out, because both Wrex and Mordin can’t survive and I had to make a choice ) I always played as a Shotgun Sentinel, saved Ashley, romanced Liara, saved the Rachni and the Council, and pretty much made every Paragon decision and interrupt. All my companions survived except two, and the two that are scripted to die (Thane and Legion).

I really like this tribute; her face is very much as I see her and I always wanted her to have Bo Derek braids! The game doesn’t allow that so I had to go with shoulder-long hair, alas - making her the spitting image of my Knights of the Old Republic character. The game doesn’t allow you to have tattoos but I love the ones here, they all suit her perfectly. She’s a Spectre and a living embodiment of the things she stands for, so it makes sense she’d have tattoos.

Mike and I disagree sometimes 😊 but I think that’s healthy; friends should be able to take different stances on things, friendship shouldn’t be an echo chamber. And I’m old and cynical; the young should feel passionate about things and want to change the world. Even if they change their minds later, that’s what being young is all about. I was like that once; I marched for gay rights, against apartheid and the Poll Tax. When our young get apathetic and cynical, we’re all really screwed. Mike is active in several DA groups he runs and makes passionate appeals for good causes - in these troubled times, I think we need more people trying to change the world for the better.

I have a real hankering to play ME again after seeing this. The first game – along with Dragon Age Origins – is among the finest games I’ve ever played. Unfortunately both series had diminishing returns somewhat, although even the sequels are, for the most part, superior to most other games. It took me a long time to like ME2 – the silly Cerberus plot was execrable with Drew Karpyshyn leaving, and I just didn’t want my talky space opera turned into a dull corridor shooter. But the graphics and inventory were improved, the game ran smoother, and the saving grace was the charismatic companions and your relationships with them. Mass Effect 3 was pretty good really, tying the previous games together well in many ways… until the final ten minutes, which must count for the worst game ending in history, and damaged the love I felt for the series as a whole. Bioware clearly hated the series by the end; 2017’s Mass Effect Andromeda was utterly dreadful, and it more or less killed the entire franchise. I honestly couldn’t care less about fancy graphics (I loved ME1 and DAO after all) but the plot, writing and characterisation was shockingly poor, and the entire game was the same boring fetch quests that polluted Dragon Age Inquisition. Bioware pulled the plug on the series, which I have to think was the plan all along, to concentrate on their plot-free multiplayer shooter, Anthem, because they’ve been pretty open about wanting the MMO/shooter audience since DA2 so they can get rich on monthly subscriptions and microtransactions. I think it’s likely they will completely reboot Mass Effect in about a decade, and we’re about five years away from a Dragon Age reboot. We shall see.

Until then, the best hopes for story-driven single-player games are Obsidian’s ‘Outer Worlds’ and Projekt Red’s ‘Cyberpunk’. I don’t know if these games will be as good as they are being touted to be, but both designers have a well-deserved reputation for care, craft and a commitment to story-driven games and role-playing, so my hopes remain high. Alas, Bioware is long gone, having been just a shell owned by Electronic Arts for the best part of a decade now.

Anyway, old lady rant aside, this is a lovely tribute from Mike. Thank you for that, and for being a good friend through troubled times 😊

Maybe I should play her as a sexy cyborg Renegade next time 😊

Marcy

Description

“I'm on fire…

Nothing's gonna hold me back

Unless the sky has a pocketful of tricks to try

You pick a colour and I sing it for you

I know you feel the same way

Say you feel the same way!

Fingertips alive - superhuman touch

Can't get enough of this electric love

Burning the sun with just a wave of your hand

Sparks flying out in every direction

There's more of this to come -

I think it must be heaven!

Burning the sun with just a wave of your hand…

I'm on fire -

Golden echoes upon my face

Tell those dreamers they can dream up all they like in this place

Oh, you pick a colour and I sing it for you

I know you feel the same way

Just one day like this will keep me going on…

Tender kisses will keep me going on…

It seems all hell has broken loose

It couldn't be more beautiful

I just want to burn the sun with you…

A messed-up garden to inspire the greatest minds in all their power

I just want to burn the sun with you

With just a wave of your hand…”

Athlete, ‘Superhuman Touch’

www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5TTe2…

“I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favourite fanart on the Citadel!”

This is a sweet Xmas gift by a good friend, which he commissioned from a very talented artist called for me! It depicts my long-time Mass Effect character, Vonda Shepard (albeit in an alternate dimension where she’s a Renegade and where Bioware allow the long beaded braids I always wanted her to have!)

I’ve played her over thirty times across all the games – I tend not to explore different options when playing Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fallout etc… I like to play the same character making the same choices over and over again. I tried to make her an ethnic mix, as Mass Effect suggests tends to be the norm in their world – I always imagined her having a black father and a mother (Hannah) who was mixed-race Asian/Caucasian. The deepest skin colour in the character creator comes out as a gorgeous milk-chocolate in the lighting of the game, and while she’s pretty in the original, she’s absolutely beautiful with the upgraded graphics in ME2.

Mike and I discussed Mass Effect (along with lots of other issues like politics and sexual attraction) over the last few years. I likely gave him the wrong impression about being Renegade, because I play her as at least 80% Paragon (mostly because Paragon actions tend to be more badass). There’s a few critical choices I do go Renegade on, but that tends to be when something presses her ‘berserk button’ and is mostly out of character for her. The only decision I ever feel conflicted about is whether to kill the geth or have them ally with the quarians, and I tend to change that on every play-through as the mood takes me. The rest of my choices are pretty consistent, apart from one I did have to go back and change from the original game when ME3 came out, because both Wrex and Mordin can’t survive and I had to make a choice ) I always played as a Shotgun Sentinel, saved Ashley, romanced Liara, saved the Rachni and the Council, and pretty much made every Paragon decision and interrupt. All my companions survived except two, and the two that are scripted to die (Thane and Legion).

I really like this tribute; her face is very much as I see her and I always wanted her to have Bo Derek braids! The game doesn’t allow that so I had to go with shoulder-long hair, alas - making her the spitting image of my Knights of the Old Republic character. The game doesn’t allow you to have tattoos but I love the ones here, they all suit her perfectly. She’s a Spectre and a living embodiment of the things she stands for, so it makes sense she’d have tattoos.

Mike and I disagree sometimes 😊 but I think that’s healthy; friends should be able to take different stances on things, friendship shouldn’t be an echo chamber. And I’m old and cynical; the young should feel passionate about things and want to change the world. Even if they change their minds later, that’s what being young is all about. I was like that once; I marched for gay rights, against apartheid and the Poll Tax. When our young get apathetic and cynical, we’re all really screwed. Mike is active in several DA groups he runs and makes passionate appeals for good causes - in these troubled times, I think we need more people trying to change the world for the better.

I have a real hankering to play ME again after seeing this. The first game – along with Dragon Age Origins – is among the finest games I’ve ever played. Unfortunately both series had diminishing returns somewhat, although even the sequels are, for the most part, superior to most other games. It took me a long time to like ME2 – the silly Cerberus plot was execrable with Drew Karpyshyn leaving, and I just didn’t want my talky space opera turned into a dull corridor shooter. But the graphics and inventory were improved, the game ran smoother, and the saving grace was the charismatic companions and your relationships with them. Mass Effect 3 was pretty good really, tying the previous games together well in many ways… until the final ten minutes, which must count for the worst game ending in history, and damaged the love I felt for the series as a whole. Bioware clearly hated the series by the end; 2017’s Mass Effect Andromeda was utterly dreadful, and it more or less killed the entire franchise. I honestly couldn’t care less about fancy graphics (I loved ME1 and DAO after all) but the plot, writing and characterisation was shockingly poor, and the entire game was the same boring fetch quests that polluted Dragon Age Inquisition. Bioware pulled the plug on the series, which I have to think was the plan all along, to concentrate on their plot-free multiplayer shooter, Anthem, because they’ve been pretty open about wanting the MMO/shooter audience since DA2 so they can get rich on monthly subscriptions and microtransactions. I think it’s likely they will completely reboot Mass Effect in about a decade, and we’re about five years away from a Dragon Age reboot. We shall see.

Until then, the best hopes for story-driven single-player games are Obsidian’s ‘Outer Worlds’ and Projekt Red’s ‘Cyberpunk’. I don’t know if these games will be as good as they are being touted to be, but both designers have a well-deserved reputation for care, craft and a commitment to story-driven games and role-playing, so my hopes remain high. Alas, Bioware is long gone, having been just a shell owned by Electronic Arts for the best part of a decade now.

Anyway, old lady rant aside, this is a lovely tribute from Mike. Thank you for that, and for being a good friend through troubled times 😊

Maybe I should play her as a sexy cyborg Renegade next time 😊

Marcy