Miranda Lawson Sim

For the past few months I've been playing Mass Effect multiplayer pretty steadily with some breaks to play The Walking Dead game on Xbox360 (btw, great effing game). Well, now that the Supernatural ep is out for The Sims 3, I may be taking a bigger break from ME multiplayer and get back to making my ME sims. 

Aaaaaand here's a picture of my Miranda Lawson sim. 

       

 Not bad in the face if I do say so myself. The clothes are also kind of close to the original except for one vital detail....

Mass Effect Sims: Joker Edition

Yeeeeeeup I'm getting all the humans out of the way first, since they're the easiest to make.

"But Maul, Liara's not human..."

SHUT IT


Moving on....

Here's Joker!  :D

  Everyone's favorite Normandy pilot comes complete with beard and hat. He was pretty easy to do, but if you think I could fix something to make him even better, I'm all for it.

Fun fact: The Sims 3: Generations EP came with this Rebel Alliance t-shirt which also has "Rebel Alliance" on the back. I thought this shirt was really fitting for Joker, seeing how Joker's voice actor is Seth Green. If you don't know, Seth Green makes a little show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim called Robot Chicken. Robot Chicken had a few Star Wars parody episodes. Also, Seth Green is the voice of Chris in Family Guy. Family Guy also made a few Star Wars parody episodes where Chris plays Luke Skywalker. So anytime I think of Seth Green, I immediately think of Star Wars and Mass Effect.

TL;DR The shirt stays. I can change the colors though.

Mass Effect Sims: Ashley, Kaidan, and Liara

Welp..I'm finally posting some of my work. Tell me what you think.

Ashley

I'm pretty happy with this one right now. Went with old school Ash, with the ponytail, but dressed as Mass Effect 3 Ashley.

Next is Kaidan Alenko.

I feel I got it as close as the game would allow me. It won't let me bring his eyebrows down further and there's no "ruggedness slider" either. So I hope boyishly handsome will suffice.

After looking at these pictures, I think I may go back and fix his eyes a little and recolor his clothes with more blue. Maybe even add a little 5 o'clock shadow....



















Liara T'Soni

I was happy with her while in game. But now seeing her juxtaposition with the in-game picture of Liara, I'm not liking this anymore and will go back and fix it. My sim version has a pointy chin, and her eyes could do with some more work. On the plus side, I think I've got her coloring and her outfit pretty on target (that is, with what I have in the Sims 3). And while her nose gave me the most trouble, I think it turned out really well.

She looks like a anthropologist PhD/shadow broker right?

Btw, all asari will have this hair style for their sim version since, EA didn't make "tentacle head attachment" in the Sims3. The style is close enough. Just wait till you see what I did for our more alien comrades....

So I know I said I'd write a part 2 about the EC DLC.....

I LIED!!!

I'm just tired of talking about it. I liked it and felt that it tied the room together. Nuff said.

What I do want to talk about is the idea of making Liara's apartment from the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. It's a pretty sweet apartment. Very modern and sleek looking.

Liara's pad.

Unfortunately, I'm not so great at making houses and I can't pull off the giant fish tank behind the bed and a few other design aesthetics in the game, but as always, it's the Sims and I'll use what I can. I wonder if I could ask someone to make this on the Sims forums?

Since I want to make a place for the other characters, I might try making another house based on Hotel Azure in the game too. Unfortunately, I can't find any good pictures of the hotel on Google, so I looked on YouTube and this is what I could find. Unfortunately the video is strictly for game strategy so the camera is all crazy, but you can see the kitchen around 8:07, the living area at 8:30, and 9:47 a quick shot of a dinning room.  At 9:41 and 10:00 you can see a nice looking bedroom with a blue wall in the back. I like that. 

Mass Effect Extended Cut Part 1

So Bioware released their highly anticipated Extended Cut DLC on Tuesday the 26th. I played it that night after work and putting my son to bed. Took me 4 hours but I finally did it and saw the new extended endings and cut scenes. In this post, I'm going to keep it short and just give my general impression of the original endings and the extended ones. My next post will be a further break down of the events and I will share what I liked and didn't like from the EC DLC.

HERE BE SPOILERS  

*****************************************************************************

The problem I had with the original endings was the fact that my experience and choices over the past 3 games and 5 years didn't actually matter. I got the same dismal ending but in a different color. I never expected Shepard to have a happy ending. Happy endings are for Disney and general American film goers, not the Mass Effect series. (Not saying I would have been opposed to a happy ending either, just saying I wasn't concerned by the lack of one.) Overall, I wanted my Shepard's sacrifice to mean something and those endings fell short. They also didn't leave any explanation on what became of your crew after they crashed on that planet or what happened to all the different fleets from your alien comrades after the Catalyst's beam damaged all the mass relays, which in turn made us all wonder about the situation of the other homeworlds and colonies throughout the galaxy. Leaving it all to speculation, the most popular theories by the most devoted fans told of a bleak and depressing future, no matter what you did in the previous games.

But Bioware listened to their fans and came up with a solution to help us understand. I'm glad they did because these new endings are so much better. It fixed some of the major plot holes, gave us more depth and closure, and hit all the right emotional chords. Each ending now feels different from the others and the consequences of your final decision are adequately shown through a narrative slide show and additional cut scenes and voice over. For the first time since finishing the game back in April, I felt like my Shepard's choices actually mattered and I was rewarded for my time and effort with a complete ending that showcased the characters that I grew fond of over the past 5 years.


Not everyone agrees with this opinion, but whatever the reaction, I think we can all agree that Bioware has successfully made an ending to a game that will be talked about and discussed by gamers for a very long time to come.

My Mass Effect Sims

My Mass Effect sims are coming along pretty darn well if I do say so myself. It's a little strange figuring out what to do with their clothing still. The Sims base game + expansions doesn't come with a lot of sci-fi type clothing, so a lot of it is just recoloring of other stuff. I'm still sticking to my no CC rule so that's fine and all. So far I've got 10 made, but I still have so much more to do. And I'm not even sure if I'm really complete with the 10 I have cause I like to tinker with them to make them perfect. I should really post some pictures of what I have so far.

What I have done:
Commander Shepard (female)
Liara
Tali
Garrus
Wrex
Ashley
Kaidan
Joker
Miranda
Samara

What I still need to do:
Commander Shepard (male)
Jack
Kasumi
Zaheed
Mordin
Jacob
Grunt
Thane
Legion
James Vega
Jarvik
Morinth
Dr. Chakwas
Aria
Saren
The Illusive Man
Anderson
Hackett
Kai Leng
and possibly Kelly Chambers, Samantha Traynor, and Steve Cortez

Guhhh.......at least it's fun. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't any fun. Haha! Especially since I don't think anybody is going to know they exist or download them. Maybe afterwards, I'll make the Normandy, but by then, Supernatural will come out and I'll be distracted again. Braaaaaaaiiiiins.

Alright, I just gotta get this out or I'm going to explode

Gay marriage. If you're honestly against it, what are your reasons? So far, the reasons I've heard don't hold much water when you really think about them.

#1 Gay people shouldn't marry because it will ruin the sanctity of marriage

Riiiight because Kim Kardashian's 3 second marriage is really held sacred. And didn't Britney Spears break some kind of record for the shortest marriage? Oh and of course Newt Gingrich will squeal on and on about how "the gays" will ruin marriage, but cheated on and then left his first two wives while they were sick with Cancer and MS. I could go on with other examples of why this "sanctity of marriage" issue is bullshit, but I'm trying to keep this short.

So, maybe when straight people can start treating their marriages as sacred, then maybe they'll have an argument.



#2 It says in the Bible that it's wrong

Oh please. You know what else the Bible says is wrong?  Wearing two different kinds of cloth. You wanna know what's okay in the Bible? The death penalty for people who have committed adultery and children who swear at their parents. All in the same chapter..... 

NEXT



#3 If we let gays marry, then we'll have to let people marry animals, objects, even children

First of all, wow. That's a really large leap in logic, considering that animals and objects are not sentient and therefore cannot actually consent to the marriage. And children, while sentient, are not mature enough to make those adult decisions and therefore, cannot legally consent to any marriage.

Secondly, and quite frankly, I find anyone who states this reason truly offensive. They are essentially drawing direct parallels between homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia. WTF.

Third, there was a time when blacks and whites couldn't marry because someone else thought it was wrong. It was actually a law in many states. I personally know an elderly couple who had to prove before a judge that they didn't have any black ancestry before they could marry in Virginia. And that was after 1967 when interracial marriage was legal at the federal level.



So yeah, if those are the three major reasons why gay people shouldn't marry, then people need to start being more reasonable. Any other excuses I missed?

Mass Effect forums

So I finally broke down and decided to start up a profile for the Mass Effect forum. Despite it being, quite possibly, my favorite game of all time, I didn't want to get involved with the forum for reasons I'll get into below. Since Bioware is owned by EA, the forums are pretty much the same design as the Sims forums, so if you're a fellow simmer and have an account over at Bioware, don't be afraid to hit me up!

Why did I not want to be a member of the Mass Effect forums you might ask? Well, I'm already a big geek when it comes to the ME series. I can probably start reciting obscure data from the game's codex, I have (and read) all the books and comics (except for that flaming POS Deception), I have an action figure or two, and I might have a certain favorite character's name as a license plate for my own car. So yeah.....I think I have a borderline unhealthy obsession with the game series (but really, it's kind of my generation's sci-fi adventure so that's okay right? It's like avid fans of Star Wars or Star Trek and they're pretty normal right???) and I didn't want to add "forum poster" to that list of "why I'm such a loser super cool." Sigh...


So what made me change my mind you might ask? I could go into some long-winded explanation about how I'm eager to share my Mass Effect Sims with other fans or how this is the time when Bioware is combing through the forums looking for ideas for future DLC, improvements, and suggestions for the next ME game they make, but I won't.  Instead, here's the short answer: I don't have anyone in RL to talk about Mass Effect to the same extent that I do. Sure I have friends who like the game series well enough, but they're not obsessed about it like me. And many of them are still pretty pissed off about DEM ENDINGS (but that's a topic for another day).

OH and Happy Towel Day!

Mass Effect Sims Coming Soon

So....since having a baby, I haven't had a lot of time to play my other video games in a while. I've got a large backlog of games that need to be played and some aren't even opened! However, I did finish Mass Effect 3. I love this series. It might actually be my favorite game series of all time. I've even read all the comics and books. (NERD ALERT) Anyway, it inspired me to try making all the characters from the Mass Effect games (all 3) as Sims. Since many are aliens with very different physiology, they all have to be human. Not a problem though, because as with everything I do, I'm going to make it as detailed as possible.

At the moment, I've made female Commander Shepard, Liara T'Soni, Garrus Vakarian, Tali Zorah, and Wrex.  The trouble I'm running into is whether or not to do a literal interpretation of the alien characters or just make them as "attractive" representations of themselves. It hasn't been too difficult with Liara and Tali since they're human-like anyway, but Garrus and Wrex are very challenging. I've modeled Wrex's face after Kratos from God of War. Figured that was pretty accurate if he was a human, except no scars sadly. I wish the Sims had scars to add.

Anyway, if I had chosen to go the literal interpretation route, than Wrex's eyes would be far apart and beady, his nose would be almost non-existent, he'd need a large back hump, etc. So I don't think I'll be going that route. Clothes are also pretty challenging. This game takes place in the distant future so futuristic clothes are a must. Also a lot of importance is placed on military style as well. Since there isn't a whole lot of choices for "armor" in The Sims 3 (/sarcasm), I'm currently trying to give the characters fashionable alternatives. I still want things to look futuristic and alien, but not ridiculous and cheesy.

This project should take up most of my time playing. Just bought Lunar Lakes as it would be the perfect neighborhood for these characters. And how far am I going to go with this? Pretty far. I'm planning on making ALL THE CHARACTERS. Going by this amazing work of art, 25 + Javik, EDI, Hackett, and Kai Leng. That's 29 new sims! I might even throw in Traynor or Kelly Chambers for an even 30! Haha......but seriously, this won't be easy.

I should go.  ;)