May Update

Last time I wrote an update was in March when I was looking forward to Mass Effect: Andromeda. I did play and complete Andromeda in a little more than 80 hours. While I encountered a few bugs, nothing bothered me too much even though some of the animations did look funny (possibly patched away by now). Overall it is more Mass Effect: fly around space, land on planets, talk to people, and shoot the bad guys. I found it entertaining though there are a couple of things that I didn't like. One is that Ryder can never be too threatening (just a jerk) -- nothing like when the original trilogy's Shepard used renegade dialog choices -- so don't expect to be able play the game like that. Another is that a major plot point is left unresolved. If it's setting up a sequel then I suppose it could be acceptable but I'm concerned they will place it in downloadable content (DLC) and I rarely play DLC. I'm trying to avoid spoilers so I won't say too much else on it; it's just the way that part of the story was introduced around the middle of the game I kept expecting to investigate it and the fact that I never got the chance to annoys me. There are two other story elements that I believe will definitely be sold as DLC so I'll probably miss out on those.

Since finishing Mass Effect once, and briefly playing a second character with the new game plus option, I've mostly been playing Forza Horizon 3 (FH3) again when I've had time to. I did reach the credits for FH3 back in December though there is so much content in the game I'm not certain anyone will want to do everything (I'm at 40% completion). You actually don't have to always race if you don't want to. Instead it can be more fun to drive around looking for boards (bonus XP and fast travel savings) to hit and PR stunts to complete. PR stunts involve driving as fast as you can, drifting, and launching your vehicle off of ramps. There are tools for making car designs as well, though you need patience for anything elaborate. I made a Cobra logo from the G.I. Joe franchise and have placed that on a bunch of cars. It's not perfect but from a distance it looks good enough. While I don't like having a lot of images on my cars, there are some very impressive designs by other players. The Forza Horizon series is my favorite of what little Microsoft publishes and it's a beautiful series to take in-game screenshots of. Here are some of those Cobra designs (if you ever use Blogger let me warn you that lining up images the way you want can be maddening!):

Storm Shadow (I jumped off a cliff
while moving sideways)

Basic Cobra color scheme, though
I refer to this one as Baroness. 

Eels

Major Bludd

Trubble Bubble

B.A.T.S.

Alright, to the blog update. Looks like the comments I've received thus far are spam and here I thought someone actually had something nice to say. The statistics Blogger provides indicates that I do get some views on each post from a variety of countries but mostly from the United States of which a majority of those are probably myself (just now added something to Chrome to block myself). Feel free to post a comment even if it is just to say hi! I've not advertised or even told too many people I know about the blog so it's not surprising the web traffic isn't very big right now. I was waiting until I had a fair amount of content and maybe it is at that point now. I've not written a whole lot either as I post more scans than anything else but as I stated in the About section, the video game magazines were the inspiration to start a blog. I'm also still considering a YouTube channel for a few things.

E3 wasn't always in L.A.

Aside from the usual Saturday morning ad updates I'm also planning an upcoming post about my one visit to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) which was all the way back in 2003. The 2017 E3 begins on June 13th with the press conferences taking place the few days before. E3 doesn't typically have as many surprises as it used to due to online leaks, yet it's still one of the most exciting weeks for those of us that like video games a little too much. Watching (and analyzing) the press conferences and absorbing all of the game news in that one week is great. It's too bad Nintendo doesn't still do a press conference; it has been releasing prerecorded video presentations followed by live streams since 2013. Nintendo has the newest console and recently announced the New 2DS XL so it seems like a great time to try a press conference. Oh well.

I'll look into posting an article or two from the '90s as well if I have any. E3 began in 1995 which is a little after most of my magazines. However, I do have some of the Show Daily magazines that are handed out each day at E3. The older ones are over-sized and don't fit on my scanner which makes getting ads from them a pain. Scanning text is easier though since it doesn't all have to be pieced together perfectly. The plan is to post the week before E3 because I'll be too busy reading about all of the new games the week of E3 like everyone else!