By the time I got done pricing upgrades and taking into account the PITA factor, I just decided to get one of these:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...Sku=I455-92603

Going to order it tonight. I doubt that they'll have any in stock, but hopefully it will be delivered by the time this comes out.

I really wanted to like Mass Effect 1 & 2, but I just couldn't get into them. Not my cup of tea I suppose.

I wouldn't sweat it. There's never going to be anything that everybody likes.

Yeah, its ****ing ridiculous how much QQing has been going on over the multiplayer being the "project $10" thing instead of some day one DLC. Especially since even games that had day one DLC as their p$10 thing like DAO also had Warden's Keep that was in the CE but not the regular version just like From the Ashes. Or with DA2 and the Signature Edition having the same situation with one DLC that's name eludes me in addition to the Black Emporium that was the p$10 thing. Plus there is the whole situation where probably 90% of even the best content released as DLC would've never seen the light of day unless it could be sold as DLC. Do they want more Duke Nukem Forever situations or do they want games released in a timely fashion?

DA2's was The exiled Prince.

ME2 had the Cerberus Network which offered as best as I recall The Price of Freedom(Zaeed) as well as the Normandy Crash Site on release. They were free, but the network itself cost money (though was included with the purchase of a new copy of the game, as I recall).

I actually liked the Cerberus Network idea the most, a one-time price to get a series of dlc, but the bitching over From Ashes is just silly. It's basically just an extra companion, like Zaeed or Kasumi. It isn't integral to the game, and it was designed as a bonus for the series' biggest fans (the character is a Prothean), the people who'd be most prone to purchase the CE or digital deluxe. I'm sure it's cool, but it's supposedly no more integral to the story than Zaeed or Kasumi.

Maybe I'd understand more if I wasn't one of those people who was one of the series' biggest fans and had preordered the DDE.

Yeah, the Cerberus Network was the p$10 thing in ME2 and came with a bunch of stuff. Zaeed, Firewalker, Normandy Crash site, Arc Projector and the Cerberus Weapon and Armor.

Yeah, but only Zaeed and Normandy Crash site were day 1.

Well regardless, I think we both agree there is nothing groundbreaking going on here either in gaming in general or specific to Bioware's games.

Definitely. I have no idea what the fuss is.

It kind of lays out an unpleasant reality about gaming communities though. For whatever reason there's a very vocal anti-Bioware segment out there, and they lock on to whatever the flavor of the month is as far as things to bitch about. I think it started with DA2, it carried over strongly into SWTOR and now here it is again with ME3. It's just a pet theory, but I'm wondering if there's any possibility that a rival corporation is using the internet as a sort of company-versus-company battleground. It's bad on bioware's own boards, but it's downright crazy if you go to sites outside of EA like metacritic or reddit or (I hear) 4-chan.

Gaming communities are generally very vocal and often very negative (the WoW boards were horrendous back in the day) but this is maybe the worst I've ever seen, and it makes me wonder if something's going on...

Some of it is probably the "rabble rabble EA sucks rabble rabble" stuff since they got bought up by EA. DA2 also had some rightful criticisms because boy was that game clearly rushed out the door presumably thanks to the aforementioned EA overlords. A lot of recycled (many times) locations in DA2 and they kind of took some risks that maybe were better suited to an original project instead in terms of making people less bitchy. That said I liked it anyway.

I'd agree with all of that on DA2. Although it didn't keep me from playing the complete game twice and won't keep me from buying 3. Basically, for me, Bioware's worst game (and that would be DA2 right now) is still better than anybody else's best.

They need to up their game from DA2 for that to remain true, though. From what I've seen of ME3 so far, I don't think there's anything to worry about.

How hard is it to transfer existing games from one computer to another? Last time I upgraded my old computer had died, so I lost everything.

I'll have old and new networked.

It's not hard at all. Just look in your documents folder > Bioware folder > Mass Effect 2 folder > Save folder > whichever character.

I have everything backed-up to a portable drive, too, just to be safe.

Been playing ME2 to get revved up for ME3. I'd forgotten just how awesome the launch trailer was for that game:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sjOEmHEd2XM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wonder what they're going to come up with on Friday to top that?

I still need to complete my last go around on ME2. I haven't loaded it on the new computer yet, but the other games I transferred (Skyrim and Kingdoms of Amular) are fine.

Went from lowest to highest graphics settings on Skyrim. Too bad I'm 100% burned out on it - it sure looks great now.