How much is the life of a virtual being worth? How about 10 lives? Or 50?

            You see, I just recently finished writing my review for Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, and after finishing it, I began to question some of my actions. Near the end of the game, I acquired a nuclear bomb as part of the story, and after using it to infiltrate the final boss’s fortress, I bought a “few” extras just in case. But I think we all know where this is going.

            As would anyone who’s given nearly infinite power, I began buying and using as many nukes as I could afford. It was so easy. Because I had already completed the game, I already had the cash I needed, and I would just reload my save every time I ran out of the nukes. First I was just using them on buildings. After all, no one would miss one abandoned (or possibly inhabited) building, right? Next, I began using them on enemy soldiers, because they’re leader was evil, so they must be evil too, right? Then, I just stopped caring. Why should I care who I use this weapon on? I’m untouchable; there are no consequences strong enough to stop me from doing what I want. Even if I were to nuke every faction’s HQ, all their armies combined couldn’t stop me.

            Then I began to notice a pattern in other people’s play styles. Everyone would begin the game, travel to the nearest city, nuke a few buildings, then nuke the soldiers who would retaliate, and finally nuke anyone caught in the crossfire. The exact same thing I did.

             At first, it seemed like a natural thing. It’s fun to cause chaos, and it’s just a videogame. Why should I care about virtual people? But the more I thought about it, I began to realize just how sinister my thoughts were becoming.

WARNING!!! MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t finished Mass Effect 3, go do that now, because I’ll be talking about the endings (and also because it’s amazing).

With Drew’s fantastic review uploaded (Which you can check out over here), I thought this would be a great time to talk about ME3’s ending, and more specifically, the controversy surrounding it. In case you haven’t been keeping up with it, fans aren’t particularly happy with the ending to say the least. People have petitioned to change the ending, proposed to boycott BioWare’s games, and some have even tried to sue BioWare. [i]Retake Mass Effect[/i] is probably the biggest force, and by raising over $80,000 for Child’s Play (the charity, not the movie series), they’ve tried to garner BioWare’s attention in hopes of having the endings changed. 

[Warning: Mass Effect 3 is rated M and this video contains scenes of the content earning it that rating

April 27, 2006: Nintendo has just released the name of their newest console, codenamed Revolution. April 28, 2006: The entire internet bursts out laughing, jokes about the “Wii” (pronounced “wee”) abound and fans of the big N let out a collective groan. Why, of all the possible names, would Nintendo choose a name that’s a joke? And it only went downhill from there. Once the Wii was released, there were endless “do you wanna play with my Wii (wee)?” jokes. Nintendo fanboys everywhere were giving the big N dirty looks while trying to convince people that it was cool name. But everyone was still wondering, why did Nintendo name it that?

            Fans were excited about the “Revolution”, the first pictures showed a sleek, black tower of awesomeness with blue light from heaven emitting from the disc drive. And why else would Nintendo codename something the “Revolution” unless it was something huge?  Sure, Revolution wasn’t the best name either; it’s a bit too long and hard to translate, not to mention presumptuous, but it was cool. But for the love of Mario, why the Wii? Why use a name that they knew people would make fun of?

I'm fine with people having their own opinion, but this one borders on outright trolling: http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/122/1220061p1.html. This is the reason people think you're biased IGN. http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/i-am-alive

I love IGN, they're my main news source, but I plan on taking their opinion with a grain of salt from now on.