It’s not too often when my hobbies collide, particularly when it comes to gaming and anime figures.  While there have been many figures based upon video games, they’re usually Japanese domestic titles that I have not much knowledge of.  So it was a real surprise when I saw that Kotobukiya was coming out with a figure from one of my favourite games ever, Liara T’soni from Mass Effect!  It felt like forever when this figure first announced and I mistakenly chose SAL rather than EMS for the shipment, so it took another two weeks to receive since her release.  On the bright side, it gave me some extra time to finish Mass Effect 3 and enjoy some of the multiplayer portions of the game, the downside is that I stopped taking photos for awhile so when it came to taking photos of Liara, I had a bit of a hard time getting back into the groove.

For those that haven’t played Mass Effect before (and shame on you if you haven’t), Dr. Liara T’soni is an Asari, one of the alien races in the Mass Effect universe.  She’s also one of the mainstay female characters in all three games and one of Commander Shepard’s optional love interests.  The Asari is a “female” only species with an insanely long lifespan and affinity in biotics.  I say “female” due to their feminine features, but they are mono-gender so I guess you can’t really classify them as male or female.  They are able to reproduce with any gender of other species, which makes Liara a love interest candidate for either a male or female Shepard.

Liara is first encountered by Cmdr. Shepard on Therum in Mass Effect 1, stuck in a biotic field (aka the bubble), and has been a crucial part of the trilogy’s storyline particularly in Mass Effect 2′s DLC, Lair of the Shadow Broker.  Liara expresses her interest in Cmdr. Shepard rather early on in the series but I, as a player, didn’t pick her as a love interest.  I’ve always felt Liara’s character is more like a very close friend, one that you share a special bond with.  Though there’s “best bud” Garrus, I think he’s more like a brother-in-arms than a friend that Shepard confides in (emotionally).

Kotobukiya’s figure is based on Liara’s representation in Mass Effect 3, the outfit is a blend of her scientific outfit with that of armour.  Technically, the outfit is based on what she wore in the Shadow Broker DLC but it was carried over to ME3.  I really like this tactical look that Bioware went with, it definitely suits the more combat oriented theme nearing the end of the series.  It says “I’m a scientist, but I can still kick ass” – which Liara definitely can do – she’s come a long way since Shepard first met her on Therum.  She’s much less naive.

Now, you might be wondering why the figure looks so different from the actual character, there’s a simple answer in two words: Shunya Yamashita.

Kotobukiya brings you a new art collection designed by Shunya Yamashita – a well known Japanese illustrator and game designer, famous for his beautiful female characters.  Or so it says on the side of the box.  I had a little chuckle after reading this description - maybe it’s because I am already acquainted with Yamashita’s work.  This is the first time I’ve seen Kotobukiya put a description like this on their box, I assume this is because part of the intended target for this figure also includes those say … in North America.  Let’s face it, anime, figure collecting, cosplay type stuff aren’t really all that mainstream here, though it’s gained quite a lot of popularity it’s still somewhat shunned upon.  Maybe shunned isn’t the right word to use, but versus good ol’fasion football (hockey here in Canada), beer with the guys at the bar, night out at the peelers – dressing up as a Sailor Moon character at a cosplay convention just isn’t something you’d announce to the world.  You get the picture.  And for those that clicked on that link, I’m sorry – here’s something that might help ease the pain.

For those that aren’t familiar with Yamashita, he’s known for his distinct art style, mainly the character faces – they all look the same (much like Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball characters).  As with some of my more recent reviews of Christie and Lucy, you can see that their faces are very similar to Liara’s.  I’m not that much of a fan of this style, but it is signature for sure – one look and you know it’s Yamashita’s work.  As for Kotobukiya, I would say they’re fairly well known for their anime figures and plastic models and maybe more-so recently with their Bishoujo line of figures which concentrates on DC/Marvel comic characters and video game characters.  Though the quality of their figures aren’t the best, they’re not bad and I would say they’ve improved a lot especially in recent years.  Though Alter remains my favourite figure company, I have quite a few Kotobukiya figures in my collection – I’m guessing it may be due to their price and the fact that they branch out and come out with figures that isn’t Hatsune Miku or Nanoha.  LOL  Case in point, here we have Liara from Mass Effect!  I do wonder how Bioware ended up with Kotobukiya and Yamashita rather than other companies such as Alter, GSC, Max Factory, etc.

I didn’t realize that Liara came with a DLC code for Mass Effect 3′s multiplayer – though later I saw that this was announced in Bioware’s blog/store.  I actually didn’t even notice that the Bioware store was selling this figure, though it doesn’t come as a shock.  The DLC is a Premium Collectible Pack which I think really just equals to a Veteran’s Pack with some uncommons and chance for rares.  It would’ve been nice if it came with ultra rares or even promotional N7 weapons like in the Commendation Packs, but I guess that’ll piss out some gamers out there who can’t or aren’t willing to get this figure.

Back to Liara, she comes to us in the usual PVC material scaled by Kotobukiya as 1/7 like the others in the Bishoujo line.  I don’t know why Kotobukiya keeps rating these figures as 1/7 scale when they seem more like 1/8.  From head to toe, Liara is just slightly under 22cm in height, so unless Liara is around 154cm in height, the scaling is way off.  But I digress, the topic of anime figure scaling is never ending – it’s an enigma that’ll never make sense.

Up close, you can see Liara’s facial feature has become more anime-like and the face more slender.  Her eyes and eyebrows are thinner and longer, the lips colour is dark blue rather than purple.  Also, missing on Liara’s face are her freckles - but unlike most anime figures, Liara’s nose is much more pronounced, even for the Bishoujo line.  Though if Liara looked like this in the game, I wouldn’t have mind.  =)

My Liara, unfortunately, came with a light scar just above her left eye – I guess that’s Kotobukiya for you!  Though to be fair, I only noticed it through the macro lens and from certain angles – it’s not clearly visible to the eyes.

The “hair” remains fairly true to the Asari design (and Liara), though it appears a bit too smooth. The white spots, though looking nice, is no where like the game.  I’m not really sure what to call it, and I don’t recall if the game mentions anything so I’m just going to refer to her head tentacles as “hair”.  ^_^’  For Liara (the character), the hair appears more scale-like and the white patterns run all the way to the back.  You know how zebras look white with black stripes but really are black with white stripes?  I think that’s the best way to describe Liara’s hair in this case – but on the figure, the head is represented as blue hair with white spots fading upwards.  While the game Liara does appear to have the white-ish spots appear to fade towards the back of her head, it’s not as obvious as how the figure makes it out to be.  Is this inaccurate representation a bad thing?  I honestly can’t say it is – I think it would be pretty hard to put that kind of detail on a PVC figure and to paint (even when compared to Alter’s standards).  Yamashita and Kotobukiya did a pretty good job with the representation of the head given what they had to accomplish.

When Liara’s prototype was first displayed, there was a bit of criticism from the fans that the sculpt of her breasts were too large.  Since it was based upon Yamasita’s illustration, that’s not surprising.  But concerns were taken into consideration and the production figure now comes with the size reduced – though some people now complain it was reduced too much.  LOL  As I’ve said, you just can’t please some people!  I don’t really have an opinion on the sculpt of Liara’s breasts, though I think the lost the roundness of the prototype and became more perky.  Liara always seemed to have rounder breasts rather than perky breasts in the game though.  But anyway, I think the interesting part is that the zipper of her outfit is pulled down to just below her breasts, providing the illusion that her breasts are popping out.  It also gives Liara a more relaxed look in conjunction with the expression on her face.  Maybe if she dressed like this when she asked my Shepard about his feelings towards her, his answer might’ve been different.  In the game though, you see Liara dressed more conservatively and the zipper is zipped above her breasts.

Another aspect of the figure that’s different is the size of her head.  The figure seems to have a larger forehead reminiscent of Tweety bird or Tyra Banks - I can’t recall whether this was an issue for the fans too, but personally I don’t mind.  It adds to that “alien” feel of the figure, not that the blue skin or tentacle hair isn’t obvious enough.  The size doesn’t look as emphasized in person as it does in the photos though.

A minor complaint, however, is the blue paint that Kotobukiya used – it looks thick and slightly rough.  As if the painter or machine isn’t used to painting blue skin colour and didn’t know how much paint to apply.  It definitely doesn’t look as smooth as some of the more recent Kotobukiya anime figures (like from the Shining series).  The blue also has a slight glimmer to it, like they added some silver into the paint which makes her head fairly reflective if you shine a light directly at her.  Her head becomes almost metallic-like, maybe it’s armour plated too like her gloves and boots? 

A lot of times, figure sculptors are faced with the difficult task of making a 3D rendition of a 2D illustration, particularly when the illustration lack artwork of additional angles.  Though Yamashita’s illustration only shows the front, there are numerous images of Liara in all angles, as well as Bioware’s concept arts.  If that wasn’t enough, play the game – there’s a 360° model of Liara right there!  So there’s really no excuse for a bad sculpt for Liara and luckily there really isn’t.  The sculptor for Liara is Busujima Takamaki, who also sculpted Asuka (of Tekken Tag Tournament 2) for Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line, but that figure looks awful – the prototype looks like a cheap bootleg.  That said, I’m not sure how much involvement Bioware had in terms of this figure’s development, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a few say in it, especially when they’re selling this in the Bioware store as well.  Plus the fact the sculpt was changed to accommodate feedback from the fans, that’s not a very common occurrence in anime figures.

There’s not much to go on about the back of Liara’s outfit, it is undoubtedly familiar to the players (not that the rest of the figure isn’t).  Typically, this is the part where I compliment the illustrator, character designer or the sculptor – but since this is based on Bioware’s design and something we’ve seen in the game, I guess all I can say is kudos to Bioware’s design team!  Because there’s not much to say about the design, I’ll just talk about Kotobukiya’s work on the figure.  For the most part, the paint work is clean and within the lines, not perfect, but typical of current Kotobukiya standards.  The white is solid and lacks shading - dependant on lighting to cast shadows and creases in the outfit.  The white paint appears a little thick as well, as if it needed a couple of coats to cover the base colour (the typical gray from the mold).

There is a very slight sparkle effect in the white paint (like the face), if you look really closely, you can see the slight metallic feel to the white.

One thing I never really noticed about Liara’s outfit is her leg armour and the way it’s strapped around her legs.  It looks cool and sturdy – but if it was real life, it must be annoying as hell.  Ever wear a drop leg holster before?  It’s quite similar to what Liara’s wearing here - after moving around for awhile, it tends to get lose and slide around which makes it annoying and cumbersome, especially when you don’t have time to re-adjust or tighten.  Liara is usually part of my squad in Mass Effect, and we do a lot of running around…

One of the things I like about this figure is Liara’s boots and the way her bodysuit wrinkles behind her knees.  The boots have a really cold metallic look about them, almost makes me think they might feel cool if I touch them.  The amount of wrinkles behind Liara’s right leg may be a bit overkill, but it still look pretty nice nonetheless.  I wish the sculpt put in a bit more wrinkle detail where the thigh straps are though, that would’ve made the bodysuit a bit more realistic looking and add to the overall presentation.

As for Liara’s armament, she has an M5 Phalanx in her hands and a folded M3 Predator holstered.  The sculpt on these weapons are done well and reflect the actual game model.  Mass Effect enthusiasts will instantly recognize these weapons just by looking at them, just as they will recognize the big blunder on the pistol.  While, the right side indicates M5, the left side is reversed indicating 5M.  That may not be Kotobukiya’s fault, however, as that’s how Shunya Yamashita drew the illustration – it shows 5M in the source picture.  Kotobukiya could’ve stepped up to the plate and fixed this error on the figure, but they didn’t.  I’m sure fans had voiced their concern about this when they saw the painted prototype too, but unlike the breasts, this wasn’t changed.

Another small deviation is the way Liara’s hands are cupped together – Yamashita’s illustration has Liara’s left hand cupping over her right hand.  But on the figure, the hands are side by side rather than on top of each other.  I assume this was more of a manufacturing practicality choice rather than a sculpting oversight – having the one hand over the other would’ve slowed down assembly, painting and aesthetics.  If the hands were on top of each other, it may very well have become one piece instead of two in terms of the mold – that would’ve also been problematic for the gun to fit in her hands.

Last small issue which is just a pet peeve, really, is her trigger finger.  Come on Liara, the Shadow Broker ought to know better! 

Holstered to the left of her belt is the M3 Predator heavy pistol, in case you’re unfamiliar with the game and are wondering how that thing is a pistol, click here.  The majority of guns in Mass Effect folds up to a nice compact rectangle when holstered, which is pretty cool.  I’m not sure what the decision was to give Liara two heavy pistols – I would’ve assumed she would at least have an SMG and a pistol, typical of an Asari biotic / commando.  Adding to that, you only get to equip one type from each weapon class in the game, so you can’t have two kinds of pistols at the same time – but you can have a rifle and pistol.  I’m a little surprised by this and didn’t realize it until I was taking pictures of the figure - I kept thinking that was the M4 Shuriken SMG.

Now, you might also be wondering why this picture below is so different from the others and that it has a purple backlight.  I was playing around with a bunch of lighting, thinking to mix things up a bit so all the pictures look a little new and refreshing.  Problem with that is a lack of consistency – when picking the final pics to upload, I deleted all the other photos with the purple backlight leaving only this as I didn’t like how those turned out.  So now I have this one purple lit photo out of a batch of blues and greens.  The blue and green backlights are a bit more subtle, but the difference is still there.  Hey, blue, green and purple – does that sound familiar?  Granted, this was just a coincidence, it would’ve been perfect if I had used red instead.  [lulz]

An interesting design from Kotobukiya lately is the inclusion of changeable logos in the bases – at least for their Bishoujo line anyway.  Liara came with two transparent inserts, one with the N7 logo and one with the Mass Effect 3 logo.  While the N7 logo is nice, it just didn’t make sense with Liara as she isn’t an N7 Operator – though I can see how this will work with the upcoming female Shepard figure.  The other issue with these logos is that if you place them horizontally, Liara’s feet will block portions of the text, making Mass Effect 3 read Ass Fect.  So I decided to rotate the logo so it sits in between Liara’s feet – but it just doesn’t feel natural.  Maybe it’s best to leave the base transparent instead.

There’s really not much to complain about with this figure, if anything, one can argue about the face sculpt compared to the actual game Liara.  But that is really an artistic design rather than a manufacturing screw up.  Another issue might be cost, if you’re not used to collecting anime figures then the price for Liara might be a bit of a shock to you – Liara retails for 6800 JPY which is roughly just under $80 CAD – then you add another $20 for shipping.  It’s definitely an expensive hobby, but for me this purchase was much more justifiable than some of the other figures I’ve collected.  With Mass Effect being one of my favourite games and the bond created with the characters, I didn’t need to think twice about getting her.

Liara was a little hard for me to photograph for a few reasons.  For one, it’s been awhile since I’ve taken photos of a figure so I was a little rusty, then there’s the issue of setting up the shoot – I had some ideas of what I wanted to do, but I just couldn’t produce what I saw in my head.  I also couldn’t get the lighting right (and to my liking) so a lot of the photos overexposed or have too much contrast.  I wanted to get a little futuristic feel with the background but as you can see that didn’t turn out well either.  Here’s hoping my shoot with the upcoming female Shepard will be much better!  LOL

I think I put more pressure on myself for this shoot because of the connection I had with the character – that and the fact I didn’t have much time to spend on the pictures and really wanted to put the review up before I procrastinate too much.  The N7 Operation weekend (ME3 multiplayer) events didn’t help with things either – I had to skip Operation Exorcist to get some of this done.  =P

Liara is also a very slender figure, she doesn’t take much horizontal space – which also made the majority of my photos portraits.  I normally prefer landscapes, but there were just too much negative space.

Well, enough self pity and bitching, the review is up and the photos complete, even if half-assed.  At least now I can concentrate on other tasks and sleep easy – at least until the next N7 Op weekend…

Oh and one last thing, where the hell’s my Miranda figure?! 

BioWare said they were listening to the community.  They have heard  and now they have spoken…

In my previous post, I presented some of my thoughts on the Mass Effect 3 ending.  I also mentioned that BioWare said on their site and social media that they were listening to the fans and planning to address the concerns that fans had.  Well, BioWare has finally come out with an official announcement on their next “big” project for a ME3 DLC called ME3: Extended Cut.  They announced this back on April 5th, but I’ve just been too damn busy lately to post this.  Basically, this free DLC will be addressing some of the concerns that players had with the ME3 ending – mainly unanswered questions to some of the cut scenes we were presented.  Scenes such as what happened to the Normandy’s crew (and I guess that means how your squad mates got back on to the ship), the galatic fleet and the epilogue of each race, why the Normandy was flying through the Mass Relays, etc.

This is great news for those of us looking for some answers, but the bad news is that BioWare has firmly stated they will not be changing or be adding to the existing endings – ever.  While I never really believed they need to change the current endings, I was hoping they would add an additional ending (or endings) - preferably a happier ending where Shepard lives, Reapers get destroyed without killing all synthetics and keeping the Mass Relays intact.  I believe they could’ve done that without ruining the “artistic integrity” of the current endings.  I admit, I’m a bit tired of seeing them use the term “artistic integrity” to describe the existing ending.  I don’t feel the current ending options are artistic at all, the entire story, however, is.  But this is their story, so I guess the ball’s in their court on how they want to end this trilogy.

Who knows?  Maybe in the extended cut, it will show what happened to Shepard in the “destruction” ending and if he really survived.  If he did, that’d be nice – but I feel really bad about the Geth and EDI.  Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with!

From the BioWare Blog, it states:

An official press release went out today announcing how we are re-prioritizing the Mass Effect 3 post release content schedule to provide a more fleshed out experience for our fans. For many of you the “Extended Cut” will help answer some questions and give closure to this chapter of the Mass Effect story. Oh and it’s at no cost to you – the fan.

Here is a mini FAQ to help you understand what the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut is and isn’t:

What can fans expect from the Extended Cut DLC?

• For fans who want more closure in Mass Effect 3, the DLC will offer extended scenes that provide additional context and deeper insight to the conclusion of Commander Shepard’s journey.

Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?

• No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.

What is BioWare adding to the ending with the Extended Cut DLC?

• BioWare will expanding on the ending to Mass Effect 3 by creating additional cinematics and epilogue scenes to the existing ending sequences. The goal of these new scenes is to provide additional clarity and closure to Mass Effect 3.

When will the Extended Cut DLC be available?

• Currently the Extended Cut DLC is planned for this summer, no specific date has been announced at this point.

Why are you releasing the Extended Cut DLC?

• Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard’s story.

Will there be more Mass Effect 3 DLC?

• More content is being planned and we will release information at a later date.

So there you have it. Are we proud of the game we made and the team that made it? Hell yes. Are we going to change the ending of the game? No. Do we appreciate the passion and listen to the feedback delivered to us by our fans? Very much so and we are responding.

Summer is coming…

Sources:
http://blog.bioware.com/2012/04/05/mass-effect-3-extended-cut/
http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=662095

As a side note, Square Enix has announced a trio from ME3 in their Play Arts Kai line-up.  Commander Shepard, Ashley and Garrus!  I think they look kind of ugly (except Garrus), but to be fair, I think majority of the Play Arts figures are pretty ugly and lack quality finish, especially on human faces.  I’ve pre-ordered them anyway, simply because I love Mass Effect!  =P

*image courtesy of Tomopop*

Kotobukiya has also announced their Bushoujo line is going to have a Female Shepard.  Naturally, I’m going to be pre-ordering that as well when she’s available.  But come on, how about a Miranda figure already?!  XD

*image courtesy of cooltoyreview.com*

Spoiler Alert:  This post contains massive spoilers on the plot and current endings to Mass Effect 3.  Do not read if you wish to experience the end for yourself!

By now, you probably have already heard of all the commotion on the Mass Effect 3 ending(s) and how much they “sucked” and made no sense.  I didn’t bother reading up on any of this until I finished the game, however, since I’ve finished the game, I am inclined to agree.  Also having a baby recently (the day before ME3 release date) drew my attention away from the media, giving me time focused on the game itself (when not focused on the baby).  The Mass Effect universe was (and is) beautifully done, the story amazing and emotional, but the ending definitely didn’t live up to the bar raised by the trilogy.  Perhaps that bar was set too high or that the community was expecting too much?  Could the Mass Effect story ended any other way?  Here’s my take on this controversial subject…

Take note that all that you see in this article are my personal (and biased) feelings towards the game and the ending and I’m no professional game critic / reviewer – but since I love this game / franchise and I have a site dedicated to this sort of stuff, I thought I’d insert my two cents, but I think this little picture I made pretty much sums it all up. 

I’ll start by giving a real life account about my experience with the ending.  This past Tuesday, I was speaking to a co-worker about Mass Effect 3 and how I had finished the game – he mentioned he read mumblings about the endings and I was ready to give him a whole speech on what I thought of the ending.  But he said he didn’t want spoilers and wanted to experience it himself as he was close to the end.  That was fine by me, I told him everything was great up till the last 5 minutes.  So the next day at work my co-worker walked by me and said, “I finished the game.  You were right, the ending was bad.  The game was great but I couldn’t believe the last 5 minutes…”  Take note that his was the first thing he said to me that morning – no “Hey, good morning!”, no “What’s up?”, just “The ending sucked”.

So if anyone from BioWare is reading this, true story on the reaction towards Mass Effect 3 and its ending.  This is how I feel, this is how many other fans feel – and of course, you know that by now.  I’m curious to know how many out there liked the ME3 ending(s) vs those that didn’t?  What’s the breakdown percentage like?  I’m surprised nobody on the BioWare forum put up a poll on whether people liked the ending (maybe they did and I missed it).  All I know is that there are so many people out there dissatisfied with the ending that they decided to do a charity drive to draw attention to their cause.  As of this writing, I think I read somewhere on the BioWare forum that approximate $65,000 had been raised with the goal being $80,000.  A Facebook page was also set up, which can be found here.  The news became big enough that even media such as CNN and Fox News picked up on it, though it doesn’t mean that much to me, but it’s nice to see that they’re covering this topic.  There has been so much uproar and talk that Dr. Ray Muzkya (co-founder of BioWare) released his comment on this subject yesterday; you can read his statement at the BioWare blog site.

Now, I don’t want people (and BioWare’s Mass Effect team) to get the wrong idea about what I’m trying to say.  I LOVE the Mass Effect universe, franchise and what they’ve done with the trilogy.  It’s the anti-climatic ending that has me (and the other fans) disappointed.  Fans started to come up with ideas on the ending, dubbed the Indoctrination Theory, where the last 10 minutes of the gameplay was really all in Shepard’s mind and that the events didn’t happen as he was knocked unconscious by the Reaper’s attack.  Personally, I’d like to believe it just to justify the ending that we got, but I highly doubted it.  I thought fans were just grasping for what wasn’t there to make themselves feel better.  It was gaining momentum till recently shot down by a deleted end scene and comments by the Mass Effect team – most of these are found in the ME: Final Hours app that was released in the iTunes App Store (though I didn’t buy it).  That depressing video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3PQT4c_r7Q - I think they were right to remove that scene, it would’ve crushed the fans (even more).  This one video has pretty much debunked all the Indoctrination Theory ideas in less than a minute.

Okay, looks like I’m getting a bit side tracked and started reporting on the current situation, but I guess a little background info is warranted.  Getting back on topic, here are my thoughts on Mass Effect’s ending when I finished the game – not polluted by any other influences, because truly, I didn’t learn about the bad ending rants till after I had finished the game.

After speaking with the “ghost child” entity on the Citadel, I was faced with three options, A, B or C.  In my first playthrough of this part, I was totally confused at what was going on.  I was really expecting some sort of battle, like with Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect 1, not a “choose your own adventure” type A, B, C option.  I think I was still in shock while the “ghost child” entity was explaining the options to me, so I didn’t really pay attention to what was what and which path is which option.  As you can see below, there’s the three options, Left (blue), Middle (Green), Right (Red).  Though I have to say, the “green” didn’t exactly look green to me, more like blue-ish white.

So there I was, a confused Shepard, not knowing which was the path I wanted to take.  I was thinking fo destroying the Reapers, so I thought that meant taking the left path (blue).  I thought it was blue because it was the Paragon colour, symbol for the right, the just, the moral high ground.  So I went left – it killed my Shepard, destroyed all the Mass Effect Relays and made the Reapers leave.  I was confused even moreso – WTH just happened?  SNAP!  Did I take the wrong path?  I wanted to destroy the Reapers … so going the “paragon” looking path meant following the path of the Illusive Man and trying to control the Reapers?  I’ve been fighting Cerberus against this very idea since ME2!!!

So then I reloaded the save and paid more attention to the “ghost child” entity’s instructions – looks like I had to take the path on the right – the evil looking red renegade colour path.  But wait, what are you telling me, “ghost child”?  If I take this red path, it’ll still destroy all Mass Relays AND kill all synthetic life?  But I don’t want to do that either!  What about EDI and the relationship we’ve created with her as the Normandy’s crew?  How would Joker feel about this?  Wait, there’s more – the Geth will be destroyed too!  WTF?!  I’ve spent the latter half of ME2 and ME3 trying to bring peace between the Geth and the Quarians – all that work was for nothing?  I’m sure many in the Quarian fleet would be happy with this decision, but I’ve also grown attached to Legion and the “new” Geth collective.  Hell, they helped with the Crucible and also started helping out the Quarians and their return to Rannoch!  Did they deserve to be destroyed?  I hated the Geth in ME1, they were the enemy or we were made to believe that, but they’re no longer a threat and I’ve grown fond of them as allies.  But this meant destroying the Reapers once and for all – which was my goal since ME1 – and apparently the only option that’ll allow Shepard a chance to survive?  I thought this ending was rather lame as well, it also went against everything I tried to establish through the trilogy.  I read that the scene of Shepard “reviving” is only achieved if you meet certain criterias, I’m not sure exactly what that is but it seems like I achieved it.  My Shepard grasped a breath of air just before the credits rolled in (you can easily find this video on YouTube).

But maybe this was what Casey Hudson and the development team wanted and intended?  The renegade path has Shepard (and the players) choosing his own survival over that of an entire synthetic race (or anything synthetic for that matter).  But does that mean anyone who had biotic / cybernetic implants like Shepard was succeptable to being destroyed by picking this path?  This had me confused a little as well… which lead me to the last option.

The last option, the “green” path gives us Synthesis, a combination of synthetic life with biotic life using Shepard as a template?  So I re-loaded the save and tested this last ending to see what happened.  You guessed it, Shepard dies again and all Mass Relays are destroyed.  But hey, at least all life are changed into some sort of weird cybernetic beings and the Geth and EDI will survive – that’s good news for Joker I guess.  This option sorta came out of left field - I just don’t find it tying into anything I’ve done within the trilogy.  Also, what gave me the right to say, yup, this is where “humanity” or all life should “evolve” into.  I honestly can’t say this is a “happy median” between the blue and red options, and honestly, it seems like something Saren was after in ME1.  Just look at how that turned out for him – not too pretty.  Anyway, I think I’m gonna call this the Borg option – and watching the ending videos, this was the only option where the soldiers on Earth didn’t raise their guns to “cheer” at the victory.  I don’t think they were too happy with what just happened.  LOL

Then at the end of the credits, we are presented a silhouette of what appears to be a grandfather talking to his grandson, looking up at the same moons in the picture above.  Apparently it’s many many years after the Mass Effect events (forum sources indicate possibly 10,000 years later) – the grandfather goes to say that not all what happened with Shepard was clear and it was pretty much all a legend by then.  The kid then asks when he’ll be able to go to the stars in which the grandfather replies, someday…

To be honest, I especially hated this “stargazer” scene as I found it distanced us away from the events of the Mass Effect trilogy and the characters we’ve grown to love.  It also felt as if the trilogy may have been a story that the grandfather made up to keep his grandson entertained and that it didn’t really happen.  What I also didn’t get was why the child asked his grandfather when he’ll be able to go to the stars – no matter which ending I picked, the Normandy crashes on “this planet”.  Could the surviving crew of the Normandy create a new civilization – that’s possibly a lot of in-breeding!  Also, just because the Mass Relays were destroyed and they faced a “galactic dark age”, it shouldn’t mean they’ve forgotten all about their technology.  Couldn’t they re-build ships to go into space?  You’d think by “10,000″ years later they’d figured a way to go back into space.  Heck, we’re able to go to space now in real life!

At the very end, I was presented with a screen, indicating that Shepard became a legend and that we could continue his legend through further gameplay and DLCs.  There’s a problem with that as far as I can see, with the main issue being that Shepard’s dead – if I hadn’t opt for the ”red” option (though that little scene left a lot of speculation and doesn’t prove much either).  So, do I really want to play further and buy the DLC when I already know the ending, particularly if I thought the ending was crap?  What’s the point in playing Shepard and expanding on his legend if we already know how his tale ended?  Playing through more of his “legends” feels futile when he’s just going to die anyway and nothing I do could change that.  It also brings back painful feelings and emotions about the (what I feel is) bad endings – do I want to be reminded of how this epic story ended?  Not really.  BioWare had stated that any DLCs they release will not be aftermaths, so anything that happens in the upcoming DLCs will be before the final battles.  I always like to back things up with credible proof, but I can’t seem to find BioWare’s actual statement on this at the moment.  This makes sense though, as after you finish the game, the save reverts back to Shepard on the Normandy before the mission to assault Cerberus (The Illusive Man’s base).  This also makes me a little disappointed as that means there won’t be a new ending (or very unlikely).

Though I really dislike the current endings, I haven’t been onboard with the whole “change the ending” movement.  Realistically speaking, I doubt that will ever happen due to the cost and logistics of it all.  Hiring the voice actors again, coming up with new animations, designs, etc.  But I think there may be the possibility of extending the ending options – why couldn’t there be an ending where Shepard lives and both Synthetic life and biotic life live in peace together?  My efforts in bringing the Geth and the Quarian people is a shining proof of that possibility!  Also, what of the Rachni?  They came in peace and helped with the building of the Crucible!

The ending was suppose to conclude any questions and plot holes, but I think it created more questions than answers – which is also probably why a lot of fans are angry and feeling hurt.  Just why was the Normandy flying through the Mass Relays at the end?  Weren’t they in Earth’s orbit helping fight the Reapers?  How would they know I was about to blow up all the Mass Relays?

And why did the two squadmates I took to Earth (Garrus and Liara) end up back on the Normandy?  I assumed they died when the Reaper beam shot at us in London as we were running towards the Citadel (as proven in the recently released deleted scene video)?  Also, was everyone on the Citadel already dead when the Reapers brought it to Earth?  Because it blew up too after I made the Synthesis and Destruction choices – that’s a lot of lives needlessly lost!  =(  Perhaps the future DLCs will address these questions – but I wonder how?  BioWare said any future DLC released will focus on events that occur prior to the end of the story – so we’ll never know why the Normandy was flying through the Mass Relays?  How my “dead” friends made it on to the ship?  What about the entire galactic fleet that was in the Sol system fighting the Reapers helping to defend Earth?  What happened to them?  My Shepard brought together the galactic races putting aside their differences to fight a common enemy (which was an inspiring theme) – then they all get stuck in the Sol system because I destroyed the Mass Relays?  How does that make any sense?  So the Quarians will never set foot on Rannoch after I just helped them make peace with the Geth (which welcomed them back to the home planet)?  The Krogans won’t make it home either to help their females re-populate their civilization?

Then again, I can’t seem to find concrete evidence of BioWare’s statement on future DLCs - only that Casey Hudson and Dr. Ray Muzkya mentionining something about the artistic integrity of the story and that the ending won’t be changed.  BioWare has also stated that they are listening to the fans and will address some of the concerns – whether that means answering the question to these weird end scenes or a different ending remains to be seen.

While I understand that this was the end of a story, I’m not sure why Casey Hudson (or whoever else was responsible for the story) decided to destroy all the Mass Relays.  I think they could’ve ended the story and kept the Mass Relays intact – imagine the Stargate franchise ending their season finale by destroying all the Stargates.  That just kills any future possibilities of story continuity, spin-offs, fanfics, community growth, etc. in a canon universe.  I can see why so many people started coming up with ideas of the Indoctrination Theory, in order to help keep this canon universe alive.  It leaves the imagination open for the rest of community who wish to explore what happens in the aftermath.  Destroying all the relays basically tell the fans, “That’s it, it’s over.  There’s nothing else left within this franchise.” which is rather depressing to hear.  And if BioWare is listening to the community and thinking of addressing the ending with DLC, the Indoctrination Theory might be a viable way to go and keep the existing endings canon.  There are so many ideas floating around by the fans on the BioWare forum, it’s pretty easy to pick up from there and deploy this theme and come up with a “true ending” for the fans.  Again, please save Shepard, his love interest, mass relays, Geth and EDI!  LOL

Though I don’t buy in to all those Indoctrination Theory ideas, some of them do appear credible.  People kept saying how the scene where we see Shepard breathe at the end of the Destruction ending is him lying in the rubbles of London, after getting hit by the Reaper beam.  And everything else from there on was in his head, or sub-conscious battle against Reaper Indoctrination; when I played the ending, it seemed like the “ghost child” kept pushing for either Reaper control or Synthesis options.  The entity really didn’t seem to like the option of destroying the Reapers, which might kill Shepard and that the Synthetics might rise up and rebel against biotic life.  That’s a lot of “mights” in that option whereas the entity seemed rather conclusive about pro-Reaper options.

Then again, people claim that Shepard had to be in London as you can see a bookshelf behind him and that there was no bookshelf on the Citadel where Shepard was at (and that he couldn’t survive the explosion in space and re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere).  When I first saw that video, I didn’t think that made sense and that bookshelf people claimed looked like rubble to me.  Now that the Indoctrination Theory has been debunked, it doesn’t really matter.  But for the heck of it, I went back and looked at that final image (and even increased the levels on it) – does it still look like a bookshelf at the back?  It doesn’t to me, it’s just look like rubble that resembles a bookshelf (because we wished it to be)… you know how the saying goes, look at something long enough and it’ll eventually become what you want it to be.

I think one last aspect of the ending that left a sour taste in my mouth was the last couple of battles when I got back to Earth.  I worked hard gathering resources, gathering allies to come save earth.  I really wanted to kick some Reaper ass back on Earth, as portrayed in the “Take Earth Back” trailer.  I thought I was in for some epic ground forces combat against the Reapers with my allies, but that wasn’t so.   I was really expecting multiple skirmishes and strategic battles in various Earth cities, pushing back against the Reapers.  The Galaxy-At-War ratings would’ve been more effective and viable in this case, how many allies I get on the ground would be matched with my readiness rating and available fighting resources.  But I was only presented with a couple of short skirmishes and running to some rockets to blow up a Reaper destroyer.  Then after that it was the charge towards the Citadel – got beamed up and didn’t fight anyone – not even The Illusive Man.  WTH?  =\  I felt cheated as if I was duped by false advertising.  And what about all the notions about my decisions from ME1 and ME2 leading up to ME3 contributing to the outcome of the final act?  It seems and feels like I was only force-fed 3 preset options and nothing I did in the trilogy really mattered.  I cured the Genophage, but it didn’t matter since the Krogan males won’t be going home anyway.  I united the Quarians and Geth, but it didn’t matter either since Geth may be destroyed, plus they can’t go hom either.  I got the Turians to come help Earth by helping their home planet, by the way, did I mention they can’t go home either?  Did I forget to mention all the Mass Relays were destroyed?  =P

And I just have to throw this last bit in here, what’s up with Tali’s face?  We finally see her unmasked and the community finds out BioWare used a stock photo as the base?  I have to say I’m a little disappointed in that – Mass Effect has some beautiful artwork and character designs, why did they have to use a stock photo to create what Tali look like?  I’m sure they could’ve come up with their own concept and design of what Tali really looked like.  I think finding out about the stock photo also killed some of the fantasy and imagination of the Mass Effect universe.  It’s like we’re drawn into this dramatic story and imaginative world only to get slapped in the face with reality.  I didn’t need that in the game.  I can get slapped with reality every 15-20 minutes when the baby starts cring.  LOL

Okay, so up to now, I’ve been saying all the things I didn’t like about ending (and parts of the game), which really accumlates 5-10 minutes of the entire trilogy.  That’s just not fair, is it?  I really do love the story that was given to us and the interactive way it was presented – even if the ending could’ve been better.  I can understand the theme of sacrifice and I always had a feeling Shepard wouldn’t be coming back alive – even for artistic reasons.  But is it really so bad if he COULD survive it all?  Would it destroy the artistic integrity?  I really don’t feel that it would.  After all the difficulties we experience as the player, all the sacrifices and deaths Shepard has seen – does he not deserve a chance to come through in the end, overcoming impossible odds – giving the rest of us hope that miracles can come true?

I think the theme of sacrifice and death to protagonists is a little too played out – Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 3, etc. what’s wrong with a little happy ending?  We could definitely use a little happiness in our lives right now, given the waivering global markets, low job rates, wars, terrorism, etc.  Would it be bad to have a little hope and then be presented a miracle?  One of the things I loved about Mass Effect’s story is the way it brought together all the races, putting aside their differences and learning to accept each other and to work together.  That’d be nice in the real world, and wouldn’t be a bad thing to strive for – though I’d hate to see that happening only due to some sort of apocalyptic event.  lol  I really wanted Shepard to come back from the war against the Reapers and get together with Miranda (I picked Miranda as my Love Interest).

The Mass Effect story definitely had an emotional effect on me when I played through the trilogy – the story was beautiful and inspiring.  I remember the end of ME1, where the Alliance fleet jumps in to Citadel space to help the Council (I chose to save them) – the sacrifices made in that battle felt justified – I could feel the sense of relief and hope amongst the Council members as Normandy spearheaded the reinforcement against Sovereign.  That battle was simply epic and morale boosting!  Honestly, I expected something similar for ME3′s ending – especially when I saw the galactic combined fleet jumping in to Earth space.  The battle scene was exceptionally done and I really liked seeing the fighter squadrons in action, that was really reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica and Wing Commander (and even Star Wars).  =P

The characters are memorable, their sacrifices unforgettable, especially in ME3 compared to the previous two.  I loved how Mordin said “Would have liked to have run tests on the seashells.” before knowingly going towards his death – it almost made me cry.  Then there’s Liara’s time capsule scene with Shepard, Thane’s prayer in his last moments, spending time with Garrus at the top of the Presidium, Tali’s beachfront home back on Rannoch, etc.  All amazingly written and well scripted – I really felt the ending did not do any of these amazing moments justice.

I picked Miranda as my character’s love interest in ME2 and carried through to ME3 – honestly, I picked Miranda because of her personality and the things she shared with Shepard.  While she’s normally protrayed as a cold-hearted bitch / Cerberus cheerleader, I really liked seeing her softer side and how she eventually warmed up to Shepard and came to trust him and even worry about his safety.  There was more to her character than just her self-confidence and genetic modifications, you’d just have to look a little more closely beyond the book’s cover.  Though having that “ass effect” didn’t hurt either!  While I picked Ashley as Shepard’s love interest in ME1, when I met Miranda, I just had to replay ME1 without a love interest (didn’t want to cheat on Ash).  Ash’s personality felt a little static compared to Miranda – all Ash really did was cite poetry and complain about the xeno on the Normandy.  =(

With the seriousness aside, I also enjoyed the funny / lighter side of things the Mass Effect team put into the game, particularly in ME3.  Tali and Garrus’ relationship was a fun surprise when I opened that hatch to the main battery.  Seeing Tali drunk and bitch about Miranada was hilarious – though seeing Ash drunk on the “mmm, cold floor” didn’t seem to have the same effect.  The inside jokes on Shepard’s dancing also created some chuckles in me.  But the funniest part I found was in Conrad Verner and how he refers to the bug in ME2 (I can’t believe that wasn’t patched) and how Shepard shoved a gun in his face.  Nice one, BioWare!  It’s a shame all these great and epic moments appear to have been over-shadowed by the ending controversies.

I’ve been playing BioWare games a long time and have really enjoyed with what they’ve done overall.  Dragon Age, Buldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: KoTOR, etc. all really great games.  There are talks of boycotting further DLCs and even BioWare games on various forums and social media – as much as I dislike the ending, I honestly can’t say I’d go that far.  I really do think BioWare come out with great games, and Mass Effect definitely deserved all those perfect scores game review sites have been giving them.

It is also pleasant to see BioWare responding to the community through their forums, blog, Facebook and Twitter.  My hats go off to those in particular handling the social media portion, they’re doing a fantastic job of responding to the masses even though they can’t provide any specific details.  I’m sure they’re tired of hearing people whine and bitch about the ending, but I think so far they’ve been pretty cool about it when it’s easy to get defensive.  I’ve also never seen another game company address the community this much either, asking for feedbacks, reviews, critism, etc.  BioWare has stated they are listening and that they are working on something – I do hope they will address the concerns regarding the ending.  If they do, that’d be pretty epic and I think would say so much about BioWare as a company and their dedication to its players.  That would also put them back in everyone’s graces and probably elevate them as a shining example of a game developer listening to the community, its consumers.  I think it’s safe to say that even if we have to pay for the DLC that address the ending controversy, people would do it.  Some may whine and bitch about that too, but I think the majority of those who dislike the ending will appreciate the fact BioWare has spent the time and resources to come out with what they want and pay for it.

I have played the multiplayer portion of Mass Effect 3 quite a bit, especially when they issued the N7 Challenges.  Can I say that I really hate the Reapers?  The Banshee + Brute combo is devastating, particularly with Ravagers at the rear hitting you with their long range attacks.  There’s no where safe to hide from them!  Banshee is especially hard to kill from my experience, the teleporting, instant grab death, the scream, the energy ball she throws at you, etc.  She has a gap closer, range attack, barrier and armor!  Ouch!  The best way I found is to just keep running away (but then you gotta be careful with the Ravagers shooting you when you move out of cover).  So yeah, I really hated the Reaper Challenge on Silver – I don’t even want to imagine what Gold would be like.  =*(  But I think BioWare should definitely keep up with the multiplayer content, it’s nice to finally have a decent online co-op game.  I’m so sick of death match and capture the flag type multiplayer games.  Here’s hoping for more maps and maybe even mission based content.

As fun as the multiplayer is, it’s not perfect and there are a number of bugs.  The one I hate most is being out of sync, I can’t reload or damage enemies, can’t climb ladders, activate mission objectives or revive my team mates.  This is a serious bug that needs to be addressed, I hate the fact that I’m in the game but can’t help out my team.  This is particularly true if I’m playing in Silver or Gold challenges (though I haven’t dared tackle Gold yet).  Another bug is the online store purchasing, where it loses sync when you try to unlock a Recruit, Veteran or Spectre pack.  If you exit the game and come back, your credits would have disappeared as if you had purchased the item pack already.  I hope this will be addressed in the near future too.  As for the functionality, my only gripe is the “space” key (which I’ve re-mapped to left shift) which acts as run, cover, use.  It’s a little annoying trying to revive a downed teammate during the heat of battle only to take cover instead because they died too close to a wall.  At least let us separate the use and run/cover keys on a PC if that’s possible?

So what will future DLCs have in store for us?  I can’t wait to find out and I’m hoping BioWare will add additional endings to the game – preferably a happier one with Shepard surviving and re-uniting with his love interest, saving Earth and the Mass Relays.  I joked to my friends that with the current endings, there’ll probably be a Mass Effect 4, which will be an MMORPG where players play as one of the trapped galactic race in a fight for the Sol system – cuz they can’t go home anymore.  =P  So that’s it, my take on ME3, the ending of an epic journey.

Did BioWare end it right?  I would say no.  No in the fact that the ending seem rushed and un-related to the things I’ve accomplished (or tried to) within the trilogy.  They also created a bunch of contradictions and unanswered gaps in the story.

But did they do it right, as in create an amazing franchise/universe for the fans.  The epic struggle and scarifices and believable characters that we can relate to?  Hell yes!  Maybe it was their secret intention all along?  To create all this controversy, speculations and chatter?

How else could the ending be completed with the amount of variables from ME1 to ME3?  I think it would’ve been simple to create an ending similar to ME1, depending on the allies (and amount of allies you accumulated through Galaxies-at-War).  Whether Shepard lives or dies, whether he’s able to destroy the Reapers (keeping synthetics alive a the same time) could be all based upon his ”major” choices carried over from ME1.  I’ll reiterate the fact that I think Shepard and the Normandy crew definitely deserved a “happy” ending after all the hardships and sacrifices they’ve been through.  I don’t think that would’ve destroyed the artistic integrity nor underlying themes of personal sacrifice.  While I say it’s simple to create the ending, I was merely referring to the concept of making the “happy ending” a viable option, as for the logistics of programming and creating that content is another story.  =P

Would I recommend ME3 (or the entire trilogy) to others?  Absolutely!  It’s still one of the best damn games created, ever!  The journey from ME1 to ME3 was worth the time spent, getting to know the characters and Normandy crew, going along their quest to save the galaxy enduring the hardships and sacrifices was tear-jerking at times.  No matter how much people bitch and whine about the last 5-10 minutes of the ending is miniscual compared to the whole series.  People can’t get held up on the ending controversies and forget the adventure that brought them here.  But would I recommend re-playing the trilogy?  Probably not, especially knowing how depressing it all ends.  Not that I wouldn’t want to re-live the journey, but moreso I don’t have the time in life to spend on re-living this story only to be depressed and disappointed at the end.  LOL  I know this sounds contradictory, but that’s just how I feel right now.

If anyone from BioWare is reading this, feel free to leave a comment, I would love to hear some of your thoughts - hope I’ve laid out both positive and negative experiences fairly.  For now, I’m going to continue playing the multiplayer portion and wait for Kotobukiya’s Liara figure.  I was initially going to wait for Liara’s figure review to talk about the Mass Effect ending, but I didn’t want to delay this post.  Wish they would make a Miranda figure though!  ^_^’

Thanks BioWare for making such an epic game!  Hope to see more in the future – but just remember, happy endings aren’t overrated!  At least give the players that option…  =)

To my family and friends, I probably have some weird hobbies – in particular, collecting anime figures.  I have to admit, it felt a little weird when I first started but I’ve grown accustomed to this hobby now so I really have no problems with it.  Even so, I’ve always felt weird about Dollfie Dream collecting, because quite frankly they’re just creepy.  So it is really a huge surprise to myself when I found myself picking up my first “daughter”…

I made a pre-order for Evelyn roughly nine months ago, she finally arrived on March 5th, to much relief.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could take the waiting any longer – all the distractions leading up to her release date was getting a little dreary.

Evelyn, as I’m going to call her, comes in 1/1 scale at roughly 53cm in height.  She came packaged with blood and stuff and poo and a lot of “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah”, but after the first couple of days, she settled down and have been surprisingly quiet throughout the night.

Okay, so seriously speaking, this isn’t a Dollfie Dream review, nor do I ever plan on getting into that stuff.  As I’ve said, dolls creep me out – maybe it has something to do with seeing Chucky at too early an age.  Plus, I now have one daughter, I think that’s enough drama.  So the saying goes, when you have a son, you only have to worry about one dick – but when you have a daughter, you have to worry about all the other dicks.  LOL  That’s probably true, but I’m not quite there yet (thank goodness), I’m not sure how I feel about this topic yet, but I’ll find out in the years to come.

I didn’t take too many pictures of Evelyn on the day of her birth, as all the goriness isn’t really something that needs to be remembered.  But I did make sure to take a few embarassing photos to make her life miserable at a later stage in life and to perhaps fend off potential dicks.

This picture below is probably my favourite, probably due to the DoF effect, the sepia and it looked like one of the pictures on the wall at the hospital.  The nurse was giving Evelyn some eye drops, baby didn’t look happy.  lol

I didn’t have a baby cap at the time the baby was delivered, so the hospital provided a cap – needless to say it was too small for her large head (which I will make fun of when she’s older).  She kinda looks like the Pope in this picture… baby pictures on the first couple of days are never really flattering, if you ask me, but still gotta capture those precious moments.

So then I brought in a bigger cap for her, I can’t say it look any better, but at least her head was kept warm.  Maybe she’s just not a hat person?  While the above picture look a little Catholic, the bottom one makes her look like Buddah, or one of those fortune god statues you find at Chinese restaurants.

The second day blood test indicated Evelyn had borderline jaundice, so the doctor recommended hooking her up to the “light” for twelve hours.  When I heard this news over the phone, I thought they were going to put her in one of those old see-through tanks with a light on top (like a tanning bed).  When I got back to the hospital though, I found they had hooked her up to a blue light therapy thing – the blue LEDs made her look so alien.  Too bad the light wasn’t green though, otherwise there’d be some nice Borg jokes for her later on.  Just look at technology now, this is pretty cool – if people see this a few hundred years ago, they’d definitely think she’s an alien baby.

Evelyn definitely has feminine poses – she hates it when her arms are wrapped in the blanket, she always finds some way to get her hands free.  She also sleeps a lot better throughout the night (thank goodness) compared to her brother at this stage.  Sometimes looking at her chubby face, I can’t tell if I’m looking at a boy or girl.  She looks a lot like her brother when he was a few days old…thank goodness for her more feminine features.

So for fun, the wife decided to dress Evelyn up in the same outfit her brother wore when we took him home from the hospital.  So, looking below, who’s who?!  LOL

At four days old, Evelyn’s already making weird anime-like faces… makes me wonder what she’s gonna be like when she grows up.

Since I’ve merged the personal blog and the reviews together into one page, I don’t think I’ve posted anything personal - hell, this is probably the real first personal post I’ve done on my site.  Thought I’d take a break from all the figures, cars and games related topics and throw in a little more info about myself.  With social media being ever so popular, personal life has become all too public and common nowadays.  Even so, I still don’t like talking about personal stuff much on the Internet – but since this is also a personal site I think it’s time to change things up a little.  With two kids, work and a helluva lot of hobbies, it’s going to be hard to keep up to date with reviews, so it’s time for some quick filler content whenever I find time.  lol

So yeah…. sorry, I’m not a 40-year old virgin living in the basement of my parents’ house – I live upstairs.

j/k!  ^_^’

Valentine’s Day is here and what better way to celebrate than with Catherine, the blonde beauty from the game with the same name, Catherine!  This will be what I’m going to call a hybrid review, a mix between reviewing the game by Atlus and the subsequent figure released by Max Factory.  Be warned this review may contain mature themes and will definitely contain plot spoilers.  If you haven’t played the game and/or don’t want to read the plot spoilers, I’ll try to give spoiler warnings but it may be best if you just look at the pictures if you don’t want to ruin the gaming experience for yourself.

Catherine, the game, was published about a year ago in Japan by Atlus on the Playstation 3 and XBOX 360.  Atlus, in recent years, have been coming out with some really unique genres that I find refreshing to the gaming scene, particularly Demon’s Souls.  Just thinking about that game still depresses the hell out of me, not that I mean it in a bad way, it’s just that they created such a great atmosphere of despair in the game that I’m still haunted by it.  Atlus is also known for their low production runs, so good luck finding stock at your local game store should they run out.  When Demon’s Souls was released, it instantly became a cult hit and flew off the shelves – I had to resort evilBay to get my copy of the collector’s edition.  So when Catherine was announced, I placed my pre-order at the local Gamestop for the collector’s edition early.  The collector’s edition is dubbed the “Love is Over” edition, which comes with the game, t-shirt, pillow case (something Tier @ Tentacle Armada can appreciate), boxers, artbook and soundtrack – all packaged in a simulated pizza box.  I say simulated because the box didn’t really look like a pizza box, it was compact and thick, not squarish and flat like a real pizza box (as shown in the promotional photos below).

I’ve wanted to do a review of this game since it was released last summer (for North America) but have been procrasting.  Maybe not really a full review per se, but to express some thoughts on it.  I was really intrigued with the use of animation in this game, though it’s nothing new, it has been awhile since I’ve seen one.  Also what captivated me was the plotline and the options that you could take to achieve the various endings.  Before I started, I was really confident that I’d play the good boyfriend and stay true to the one I “love” – but the game definitely threw a bunch of curve balls that had me questioning my decisions.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, the player plays the protagonist named Vincent who comes to a crossroad in his life.  He is in love with his long time girlfriend Katherine, who has been pushing for marriage, but Vincent isn’t sure if he’s ready yet.  Along the way, Vincent comes across a beautiful and carefree girl named Catherine who all of a sudden captivates Vincent’s mind and has him second guessing his decision to get married.

*spoiler alert*  One of the things I found why I had a hard time staying “faithful” was because of Katherine and her background.  All we were told by the game’s story was that Vincent and Katherine had been dating for five years, though they went to school together years prior.  So going in to the game, I had the logical thought of being the truthful, dedicated boyfriend and that Katherine was the girl for me.  As the story progressed, I realized that I had absolutely no attachment to Katherine at all.  It’s as if you just awoke from a coma and have amnesia then being told who your girlfriend or wife is.  You can’t remember anything you’ve done in the past, the good times, the bad times, etc.  You’re told a story, and it’s up to you whether to believe it or not.  That was the case here, and I’m not sure whether if this was done intentionally or not by the game designers, but as a player, I was actually experiencing and learning what Katherine was like during the progression of the game.  There were many moments where I despised her pushy and bitchy attitude towards me, not knowing what her true motives were.  Did she really love me?  If I had experienced the five years of relationship with her, my decisions between her and Catherine would’ve been a lot less convoluted.  Being the player, I was actually experiencing the personalities and actions of both girls for the first time and at the same time.  So if it was truly the game’s intention to do this so I would be motivated to pick Catherine over Katherine, then it definitely succeeded in creating havoc to my thought process.  It really wasn’t until the end of the game (if you picked Katherine) that you see some of their pictures from the past and learn a bit about their relationship.  *end spoiler*

So after going through a roller coaster ride with Katherine’s personality, the mysterious Catherine shows up with her flirty yet easy going attitude.  Given the game’s premise, I knew Catherine was a bad apple from the beginning.  But as the game progressed, I found she began to display a different side to her that was contradictory to her outward appearance.  When Vincent first met Catherine, she basically said all the things he wanted to hear, and she was extremely seductive.  Not only that, she was a really aggressive girl – and assertive – she knew what she wanted and nothing could stand in her way.  I have to admit, I liked that about Catherine.  But just what was it she really wanted?  I wanted to believe in the words she says, but a girl like this, you just couldn’t be certain!

So when Max Factory announced this endearing character, it was a no brainer for me to pre-order.  Actually, I didn’t even pay attention to her development until a friend of mine showed me a link to her prototype.  Well, he probably did it in jest to mock my figure hobby, but whatever, I wasn’t going to pass up a great figure from Max Factory, especially when I quite liked her character in the game.

Catherine comes to us in PVC form, sculpted by Shining Wizard in 1/7 scale.  From head to the bottom of the pedestal is roughly 23cm, while if you actually measure her from the tip of her toe to her head, she’s about 33cm.  So the entire presentation is probably correct in scale at 1/7, but if you consider the scale of the figure alone, Catherine is probably like 1/5 scale.  That’s considering if Catherine is the typical Asian girl height of 160-ish cm?  Either way, she is a decent size, yet she doesn’t take all that much precious real estate to display.

This is pretty much the standard viewing angle for Catherine, I find she looks the best from this ~45 degrees angle.  She also look’s pretty good from behind at ~135 degrees.  Catherine has a beautifully sculpted face, though if you get up close to it and look at her straight on, she looks a little odd.  That’s probably due to how far and high her eyes are, but from a distance, her tilted head and expression looks great.  Her body language is both seductive and cute and taken directly from one of the game illustrations as well as a similar scene in the game.

If I recall correctly, it was around this scene where she pulls off thise pose.  It was one of the mornings where Vincent woke up with her beside him in bed.  She was getting dressed and pulled up her stocking as depicted by the Max Factory figure.  I tried to find the screenshot but couldn’t find it and since I don’t have a video capture card, I had to make do with what I could find.  The game screen shots are all taken from random Google searches…

 Acting weird?  Yeah, I probably would have the same reaction as Vincent if I woke up in the morning with a naked girl like Catherine beside me.  Vincent pulled off a great “Oh shit!” face here, Queen Bitch Katherine will have his balls if she ever found out.

*spoiler alert*  It was after the first night that my perception of Catherine’s character started to change; though she was flirty and aggressive (and dressed like a prostitue/stripper),  one of the first things she said to Vincent was that she hoped he didn’t get the wrong idea about her.  She claimed she wasn’t the type that would sleep with a man on the first date, but she really liked Vincent (yeah, we’ve all heard that one before).  But her voice actually sounded sincere, she even went as far as asking if Vincent had a girlfriend and that he better not cheat on her.  I’m no rocket scientist, but if you’re going to sleep with someone, maybe you should confirm their relationship status before hopping into bed him/her?  Either way, this caused me to start to wonder if Catherine’s character was really all that sinister and if she really had ulterior motives?  But she ran off in a rush the next morning claiming she was late for a dentist appointment.  Hmmmm?! *end spoiler*

I’m kinda jealous of you too… Vince, my man!  But whereas you have Catherine in 2D form, we have her in 3D.  Shining Wizard did a great job replicating Catherine’s outfit, even though the outfit itself is rather simple, the sculpt has a ton of wrinkles and smooth shading.  The paint work on Catherine’s outfit is also very well done, no dirt spots or black specks on top of the white, clean black lines within the dress’s vertical patterns and a beautiful pearl effect in the skirt and stocking.  The red ribbon is also very well scuplted, with gradual shading in between the wrinkles.

 While Catherine has a petite body figure, I think the sculpt could have benefited from slightly larger breasts.  Compared to the game, the Max Factory version seems a little widespread and lacking in cleavage.  I’m not usually a breast person and don’t care for huge cannon balls on anime figures, but I wouldn’t have mind if they added a little bit more on top in this case.

As I’ve said earlier, the stocking is done quite well, the pearl effect has an almost transluscent feel to it.  The wrinkles just before the hand looks realistic from normal viewing distances, and depending on the angle you’re looking at Catherine, it looks as if she’s really pulling them up her leg.  But when you look closer and from the front, you’ll see that the stocking is already on her leg and her hands are just floating in mid air.  I’m not sure how hard it would’ve been to sculpt the stocking lifting up into her hand?  Maybe not hard for the sculptor, but it probably would have been a manufacturing nightmare and I’m rather glad Max Factory played it safe instead of ruining the figure with her hands intertwined in her stocking material.  The little heart shaped patterns found on Catherine’s outfit and stocking made it on the figure as well, nice small details like this definitely helps with the overall presentation.

Given Catherine’s compromising position, it’s not hard to view her from a more hentai angle.  Guys with upskirt fetishes will be pleased with this figure, no doubt.  I usually don’t like figures that are on their ass with their legs up (spread) in the air with no purpose.  I think it’s a silly way to satisfy an upskirt fetish, but there have been a number of pretty good figures in the past that I passed on due to this fact.  Catherine is a little different though, like Spica, she’s leaning back putting her clothing on – she has a purpose for sitting in this position.  The way she’s pulling up her stocking portrays her naughty and seductive nature, with her head looking back as if she’s checking to see if Vincent is paying attention to her.

I’m not too sure what the decision was to put Catherine on a pedestal covered in white fabric.  It’s not bad, but it feels a little out of place to me, as I’m pretty sure she was sitting on the bed in the game during this scene.  That said, I do like the fact they made the pedestal look like it’s covered by a white cloth, almost wedding like, which matches Catherine’s pearl white outfit.  The pedestal is fairly solid, but still light – it won’t save her if you knock her over.  Two pegs on the pedestal sticks into her bottom, it is a solid fit so she definitely won’t be falling off the pedestal by herself.  At least you won’t have to worry about this figure having leaning problems!

 Catherine’s back is pretty plain, but I wouldn’t flat out call it boring.  There are a lot of subtle features in the sculpt and careful paint work.  If any of you had ever tried blending white paint and shading it, you know how much of a bitch it is – I’ve always dreaded painting white when I used to work on miniatures (Warhammer FB/40K).  Speaking of paint shades, notice the back of her hair?  The yellow fades down and doesn’t cut off in a solid line, which is usually the case in cheaper figure manufacturers.

Speaking of hair, this is probably the part that has most collectors complaining.  Unfortunately, the production model’s hair colour is off from what was initially shown and from the original artwork.  The Max Factory paint isn’t as yellow, when you look at it in person it actually has a slight olive/greenish hue to it.  I’m not sure why that is, but when I took the pictures and compensated for the white balance, her hair came out looking yellow and fairly close to the prototype images.  The yellow is still a little too saturated compared to the original artwork, but at least it’s yellow.  I can only assume the yellow that Max Factory used was calibrated from a computer that has the white point set to native, perhaps, and not 6500K (or whatever standard they use)?  I’m only referring to 6500K as an example as that’s what I normally calibrate my photos to so they look “right” when printed out and seen under natural light.

The curls are done very well though and somewhat soft so the chances of them breaking off is very minimal, unless you have a sadistic side and like pulling things apart.  ^_^’

Speaking of sadistic natures, I think the game developers must’ve had a bit of that when coming up with the gameplay and viewing angles.  If there was one thing I despise about the game, it was the crazy blocks I had to climb every single night.  You see, when you go to sleep in the game, you turn into a sheep.  Yup, a sheep!  Well, you look like you to yourself, but everyone else looks like sheep (and that’s how they saw you).  Then you’re forced to climb to the top of the grid by pulling and pushing blocks, creating paths where there was none before.  But did I forget to mention that the blocks beneath you is constantly falling off?  So you can’t stay in one spot too long, you climb or you die.  That’s not all, there are other sheeps climbing for their survival, and they will push you down or block your path if you’re not careful.  It’s sheep eat sheep!  There are also exploding blocks, fractured blocks, immovable blocks, spring blocks, etc.  If you fall to your death in your dream, you die in real life – that sucks hard!

See this screen below?  Yeah, get used to it – there were so many moments where I felt like doing a /ragequit as I’d get so near the top and I accidently hit the drop button and fall off, or the camera angle blocks my view of what’s behind a block.  Given the fact that you can climb the front and back of the blocks in 3D fashion, I don’t know why the camera angle only limits to the front, you could only rotate it roughly 45 degrees either side, not being able to completely see what’s behind.  The amount of times I died accidentally is unforgivable, particularly when I was so close to the top and the nightmare was chasing me.

That’s right, did I forget to mention the nightmares?  At the very top of each level set, you’re faced with a monster that comes climbing up behind you, trying to drag you down to the abyss.  While I really hated a lot of these creatures, some are rather funny (like the ass monster) – all of these are metaphors of what Vincent experienced during the day.  For example, the bloody bride that looks like Katherine – which symbolized Vincent’s fear of committment and marriage to her.  Then there was the freaky baby, which is rather easy to guess what it symbolized.  The ass monster was rather amusing though, which symbolized Catherine and her nympho nature in Vincent’s mind.

*spoiler alert* Vincent had a rough time with trying to get Catherine off his mind and I, as a player, found her hard to resist as well.  There was a charm about her that I couldn’t explain.  She’s wild and flirty, but the things say appear sincere and I felt as if she really did care about my character.  Things weren’t going all that well with Katherine, she was getting bitchy and demanding.  Plus, there was the hint that she may be pregnant with someone else – yeah, that’s right – she may have cheated on Vincent with his best friend!  Of course, the way everything presented by the game was misleading and confusing – there were even talks about Catherine or Katherine being a witch that was killing all the guys in their sleep.  I even thought Erika (the waitress) might’ve been the witch at one point in the game.  I liked how the game kept planting suspicions in your head, it kept you guessing and hard to just follow your heart or your logic.  Everything was a shade of gray – I just wasn’t sure who I could trust 100% nor if the decisions I made were correct.  *end spoiler*

Catherine was created to be a sex object, there’s no doubt about it.  She was inserted into Vincent’s life to create havoc, and I’m glad Max Factory decided to pick up on this and make a figure.  At first, I wasn’t really all that impressed with this figure, it looked really simple to me.  But you know what they say, less is more!  The more I looked at the figure while taking photos for this review, the more I liked her – there was a simplistic elegance to her design but also containing enough eye candy.  Earlier I mentioned the satisfaction for those with upskirt fetishes, but there’s actually more!  I guess you can also say Catherine can satisfy those with feet and legs fetishes as well – Shining Wizard did a great job with the sculpt of Catherine’s feet and particularly her beautiful long legs.  If this is sounding repetitive, it is, I really can’t find much wrong with this figure.  I started liking her so much that I even contemplated getting another one to keep new in the box.  Nuts.

I think the human hands and feet are the hardest parts to draw properly let alone sculpt, so I’m rather impressed with what was presented here.  Of course, up close doesn’t look like much, but when you look at the figure as a whole, they’re not bad.  On top of that, Max Factory did a decent job with painting the toe nails and finger nails yet again.  No blob of a mess here that covers the entire toe/finger.

The muscle and bone structure sculpt around the knees are probably my favourite detail on this figure.  I know it’s a bit of an odd detail to have focused on, but I found it really showed off Catherine’s legs.  The area around the knees look realistic enough and with a little bit of lighting, the details pop out even more so.  Before I forget, the “sexy sofa” that you see Catherine sitting on is courtesy of Alpha Max’s Spica figure.  While I was taking Catherine’s photos, I thought to myself, it’d be nice if she had an actual seat or bed – wait, I did have one of those!  Yay!

The bottom pic is also probably one of my favourites out of this batch, it pretty much describes all the details I’ve mentioned about Catherine’s sculpt in one simple picture.  Gawd those legs!!! <3

*spoiler alert*  So just who was Catherine anyway?  Sometimes she appeared innocent, yet other times she appeared like a psycho that stalked Vincent.  Was she really there to help him, did she really like him?  Well, as many of you probably already guessed, she was not just your typical girl next door.  She was more or less the figment of Vincent’s imagination.  She existed, but only through Vincent’s mind – none of his friends could see her.  At the end of the game, she admitted to not being human.  She was in fact a Succubus dispatched by Mutton (the bar keeper) to come seduce Vincent, to test if he’s worthy of love (and life).  She did in fact had feelings for Vincent and mostly what she had said were true (she tried to help Vincent along and man up with what he really wanted in life).  Depending on your gameplay decisions, her ending will differ between bad, good or true.  Bad ending is she dumps Vincent, naturally, while the good and ending has her marrying him and both of them go to live in the Underworld.  The true ending is the same as the good ending, with the exception that Vincent takes over the Underworld as King. So if shacking up with a sex demon is your thing, Catherine was the way to go – in this case, I probably wouldn’t have mind.  lol  *end spoiler*

A funny thing I realized when I was processing Catherine’s photos, I decided to play with the blue filter and yikes!  Her eyes look sinister and demonic with the filters on – maybe there’s something to it?  LOL  It’s funny how her eyes glowed like that; definitely an interesting side effect.  The figure matched her video game persona and will probably end up on my favourites list this year.

Catherine can probably be a model for Victoria’s Secret - the pink background work wonders with this figure, just like Elsa (nsfw).

All in all, I found Catherine rather fun to take photos of, she’s just so photogenic.  At first it was really boring when I was taking the standard black background pictures, but once I got to the latter photos where I played more with the lights, my fondness for this figure grew.  I’m really hoping Max Factory will release a Katherine figure but for some reason I’m not holding my breath.  I wanted to do Catherine’s review when she was first released in January, but I had selected her to be part of a combined shipment which unfortunately the other figure got delayed to this month.  So I had to wait till the end of January to get Catherine – but here she is, and the review, I made it just in time for Valentine’s Day.  I’m gonna wait and see if she ends up in the bargain bin – if so, I’ll probably pick up another one as backup.  ^_^’

I’m surprised there aren’t more reviews of Catherine yet as she’s been out for about half a month already, but Lestter on MFC has a really pretty picture of Catherine that he took, definitely check it out!

02.15.12 Edit: Forgot to mention, for some odd reason whenever I look at this figure, I’m reminded of Jay Chou’s song “Her Eyelashes”.  The MV is a little dated, but still a pretty good song.  lol

 I think it’s been about half a year since I’ve posted a figure review, after Skyrim was released, things were just a little different around here.  But now that’s finally behind me, it’s time to get back on the saddle and write some reviews.  Particularly with all the interesting figures coming out this year, I just can’t sit back and do nothing anymore.

The first figure I’m going to review will be Kotobukiya’s Christie Monteiro, from the Tekken game series.  As you follow through this review, please keep in mind I haven’t taken figure photos for awhile and I haven’t been writing much, so I’m really rusty with it all.  Don’t expect any witty comments (not that I had much to begin with) nor pretty pictures (not that I had much of that to begin with either) – that’s right, it’s all about the figure, plain and dry.  Yup, that’s how I’m gonna roll with this one. 

If you’re here reading this, then you probably already know who Christie is and are probably wondering whether this figure is a good buy or not.  If you’re not familiar with Christie then don’t worry, you’re not alone.  I’m not that familiar with Christie myself, other than the fact that she’s one of the characters in the Tekken series (Tekken 4 and on).  While I’m familiar with the title of Tekken ever since it came out, I was never all that into the game and story.  I don’t think I’ve ever owned a Tekken game until Tekken 6, which I got for Christmas a couple of years ago – even then, I never played the game.  At least not until I got Christie’s figure, I thought I’d take a look at the game and see what this fighter was like.

Two things came to mind when I started playing Christie’s character:  First, I can say that Kotobukiya did a great job pulling this one off.  The style and look is very similar to Christie’s design from Tekken 5 and up, though this version is supposedly based on Tekken Tag Tournament 2.  Second, OMG is her fighting animation is ever annoying!  All that bouncing and prancing around made my eyes so dizzy, but I guess that’s the point given her fighting style is Capoeira.  And I thought Mai Shiranui’s bouncing boobs were distracting…

One look at the face and you know who the artist / designer is for this figure.  Christie has the undeniable signature face by Yamashita Shunya, which I typically (or starting to) find boring.  Well, maybe not boring, but it’s getting typical – they all look the same, just different bodies.  But I do have to admit I really like Christie’s face, maybe even moreso than her original realistic look.  The face here is really cute and matches her body language well.

One general complaint that people had (or have) that I’ve seen is the fact Christie’s head is pointed towards the back and looking downwards.  While I agree this hides her pretty face, but I don’t mind it much.  I think the head position matches her body language, it looks as if she’s moving forward but looking back at an attack she just dodged.  That said, there’s also a lot of eye candy from the frontal view, and looking at her face may not be the first thing your eyes would pay attention to. 

You’d think someone that is trained in the fighting arts of Capoeira would wear something a little less revealing… all that movement and prancing about, mishaps must happen.  I guess one could argue this is less constricting for her when she’s fighting, as well as a decent distraction for an opponent of the opposite sex.  Christie’s 1P outfit is definitely unique – it looks like she wrapped herself up with disco ball material but ran out.  If it sounds like a rant, it really isn’t – I can appreciate a girl’s decision in what she wears, especially if she has the body to show it off.  I think the sculptor did an amazing job on Christie’s body sculpt, it is very detailed and very… tempting.

The detail in her outfit is superbly done as well, all the little honeycomb pattern is done neatly and well textured.  Christie was sculpted by Busujimax, who also sculpted Alisa from the Tekken series too.  I was slightly interested in Alisa’s character due to the mech integration, but I’m trying to cut back on my figure spending so I picked getting Christie over Alisa.  I definitely have no regrets doing so, I think Christie has a much better body sculpt and body language.  Alisa looks somewhat stiff and that she’s about to keel over backwards from the weight of her rear thrusters.  ^_^’

Obvoiusly when you first look at Christie, you see her breasts, and it’s definitely one of the defining features of this figure.  They aren’t over the top like Alter’s new bikini Selvaria, which is a real turn-off for me.  I don’t think I can classify Christie’s breasts as being unrealistic, but I really can’t recall when’s the last time I’ve seen a real girl with such perfectly round breasts.  Then again, I dig Asian chicks, so breast size is really a non-issue for me.  /flamesuiton

Another defining feature of Christie’s sculpt is her abs, I think the pictures explain it quite well, don’t you?  She has an unrealistically skinny waist, but that’s typical of anime-ish girls.  The only gripe I have is the manufacturing quality of Kotobukiya’s work on this one; they’ve been releasing some fairly decent quality figures lately but it seems like they took a step back in terms of quality control with Christie.  The body is full of mould and seam lines – particularly around her waist – it looks like she has scars from a liposuction or c-section.  They may not be as noticeable from standard viewing distances, but they are obvious when you get up close or aren’t too focused on her breasts.  If the manufacturing process took a little more care, Christie would be an extremely superb figure.  I’m not sure if all Christie figures are like this, but I’m pretty sure they are – but if you’re on the fence whether to purchase her or not, don’t be!  She’s definitely a worthwhile purchase, given all her eye candy features, but somehow I just have a feeling she will end up in the bargain bin.  I’m not sure what it is, but it just feels like there’s not much hype over this figure and as of this writing, I think I’m the first one to come out with an English review of this figure.  Hell, I might even have the first full review of this figure?  I just haven’t come across any other reviews of Christie yet…

Getting on with defining features, Christie definitely has the assets to show it off.  Yeah, I just used that lame pun – butt come on, just look at the pictures!  You have to admit it’s warranted in this case!  While I don’t care much for the breasts, I said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m definitely an ass guy.  lol  If I had to pick one decisive feature that won me over with this figure, it’s Christie’s beautifully sculpted ass.  They could always be a little perkier, but I think Busujimax did a fantastic job with Christie’s rump – and with Christie’s design of looking backwards, it gives me more reason to display her with from this angle.  But seriously, it’s not just her ass that has all the details from this view, there’s also her belt with the strands on the rope, the jewels hanging off her straps, and the pretty cool butterfly on her back!  Speaking of the butterly, I didn’t even realise the wings were transluscent until I posted up her picture.  Small details like this make for a great overall presentation of a figure and a great conversation piece.  =)

The strands dangling from her back and side are flexible, so there’s no worry about snapping them off unless you’re intentionally tugging on them.

As with the Bishoujou line of figures, Christie has the signature semi-transluscent hair.  I was gonna do some fancy silhouette type lighting showing off her hair but got lazy in the end.  After the hundreds of frames I took trying to capture the water splashing effect (seen further below), I got fed up and decided to move on to try publishing her review as quickly as possible.  January was pretty busy in terms of figure releases and there are a bunch of figures I want to review (particularly Catherine from Max Factory) with the little time I have available lately.  Also, since I haven’t taken any figure photos since GSC’s Strength, I was really impatient and rusty with my lighting technique.  You can probably tell from the pictures that I didn’t really bother with proper white balancing and the somewhat harsh lighting.  Christie’s skin tone is really bronzed, somewhat darker than the soft shading of the prototype photos.  The overall paint work on the skin also doesn’t feel as smoothly finished as the prototype photo – the prototype appeared to have a very even air brushed gradiant.  It’s not bad, but when I received Christie in person, I was a little surprised that she was a little more bronze / orangey than I had anticipated.

That said, Christie’s back sculpt is very well done as well, and even more of a reason to display her with more of her back exposed.  Particularly the feminine arc of her back down to her ass – it’s very sexy!

On with the figure details, Christie’s pants (or stockings I should say?) are full of win.  The detail and paint work here is very well done, though the ink wash is a little crude, the intended effect is still achieved.  And all of a sudden I just realized I’ve been jumping from past tense to present tense throughout the review, and now that I’m amost done the review I’m too lazy to go back to fix things.  So I’m just gonna apologize for that and move on…  lol

As I was saying, the leggings (yes, I’m going to call them leggings from now on, seems more appropriate than pants or stockings) are very detailed.  The paint is shiny and give off that disco ball effect I mentioned earlier.  The purple lines around her outher thighs are cleanly painted with no overlap or runs.  The sculptor didn’t just do a great job on Christie’s body, but her clothing as well, it really looks as if her clothing and accessories are moving with the sway of her body.  If I had some sort of foot fetish, I might’ve gone into more detail about her feet sculpt, but I don’t so that’s that.

One small aspect of figures that I always scrutinize in my reviews is the ability of the manufactures to paint finger nails.  They are small and require attention to detail, it’s just one of those things set one manufacture above the other in terms of quality, I find.  Alter, GSC and Max Factory are usually pretty good with this, particularly Alter’s paint jobs.  Most times, medicore to lower end manufacturers will just dab a blob of paint often covering the entire tip of the finger.  I was pleasantly surprised that Christie had neatly painted finger nails, which isn’t something I usually expect from a Kotobukiya figure.  Unfortunately for my Christie, the painter forgot to paint the thumb of Christie’s left hand – she has ten fingers, learn to count!  Sheesh!  =P  The siver dry brushing also over laps a little onto the fingers, giving them a slightly glittering effect, but that’s just the macro lens talking.  Honestly, it’s not something you’d notice when you look at Christie as a whole.

An interesting design that I haven’t seen yet on any of my other figures is the clear base that comes pre-mounted to Christie.  The box included three different designs that you can place inside the clear base.  You can opt for an illustration of Christie, the Tekken Tag Tournament logo, or Tekken Project autograph by… well, I really don’t remember who and I can’t recall where I saw that info at the moment.  lol  But this setup is definitely interesting and much better than the typical disc or rectanuglar plain white base that comes with Kotobukiya figures.  My pick is probably the one with Shunya’s illustration for the base as you can see the illustration source and the Tekken logo.

And as tradition dictates, here are some slightly more artistic photos of Christie, though I’m not all that entirely impressed with them myself but life goes on…

Here are two photos that I came up with after going through hundreds (more like over a thousand) of frames to capture.  I really hate working with water as they’re so unpredictable in movement.  It was also hard to time the shutter with one hand and splashing the water with the other.  The first photo I played around with the colours in Lightroom and Photoshop, so the water drops look kinda fake, but that was kind of the intention – to make it a little surrealistic.  I had the image in my head of water splashing across Christie while she’s in motion, but the end result didn’t come out as well as I had planned.

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the colour version or the B&W version below – okay, I lied - I prefer the B&W since I’m into the low key / harsh lighting type photos.  But I noticed most people prefer colour versions, so I posted both up to please both sides of the coin.

Yay!  I made it through the entire review without ever mentioning the monstrosity that was called a Tekken movie… wait… d’oh!  >_<’

It has been awhile since I’ve updated my site – I wanted to get back into adding some more contents but Skyrim keeps beckoning me to play.  So yeah, I’ve been spending my free time lately playing Skyrim and watching Battlestar Galactica on Blu-Ray.  >_>’  So now that I’m finished with the BSG box set and taking a break from Skyrim – I’m feeling too lazy to take photos of figures – so I thought I’ll just post up my GTI build .  Though it’s a copy and paste from my build thread on [iDUB], at least it’ll ease me back in to the writing mood (I hope).

Yes, I actually have hobbies (and a life) outside of figure collecting (and gaming).  LOL

Got my Volkswagen GTI (Fahrenheit Edition) on Aug. 31, 2007 – completely stock. It was purchased from Owasco VW, with roughly 1200km on it as it was used as the sales manager’s car for about a month. I preferred brand new, but the car was in great shape and I got a decent discount, so c’est la vie! It was #37 out of 150, hence my username on [iDUB].  The Fahrenheit GTI is a limited edition of the MKV GTI released in the 2007 model year, there are 1200 in the US and 150 in Canada.  It’s basically a fully loaded GTI, but comes in Orange, Charleston wheels and European tuned suspension.

A few weeks later, I received something in the mail. Yup, that’s right, it came orange too.  For those that don’t know, this is a “Fast”, the mascot for the GTI (at least for the MKV, not sure about the other gens).  It usually comes in black if you purchased a GTI – it was pretty cool of VW to make an orange one for the Fahrenheit.

The car remained stock for about a year as I slowly became more involved with the local VW enthusiast scene – though I did change the North American light switch to the European version.  I then decided to go for a different look – I really hated the black plastic lower trims on these GTI’s (and some Audi models). It feels cheap and just doesn’t match the car at all – it should’ve been colour matched in my opinion. Everyone had Votex or ABT kits at that time, so I decided to go with OSIR. I really liked their kit design and the carbon fibre accents – the gloss black, to me, felt like a nice accent and contrast to the orange.

I purchased my kit from Frank @ EuroSport Tuning back in February of 2008 during a sale as recommended by Nancy (Wyng on the forums). The kit wasn’t installed till later in October of 2008 though – I shopped around for a reputable body shop but this was how it turned out.

The paint colour didn’t match, they had my car for about a month and still couldn’t match it. Not all the kit was mounted on either (CF trim missing), they used cheap wooden screws (that rusted in a week) to mount the skirts and they told me my original lower trim were garbaged when I had asked them to keep it. I wasn’t in the mood to argue at that time, just needed my car back for work so I just left. It was a bad experience for sure, but other people seemed to have had great experiences with that particular body shop. I do admit the finish / clear coat was done fairly well though, too bad the colour didn’t match. I was still able to get this pretty cool shot of the car though. Around that time I also got my R32 rear installed by H2Sport, although I forgot to take pictures. I also installed a Euro switch and a rear fog light – I love rear fog lights, but I hate it when retards on the roads turn them on when not needed.  The rear fog on the MKV GTI is also asymmetrical – it replaces one of the white reverse lights – which is a little annoying as people are always telling me I have a bulb out when I reverse.  >_<’

I later installed a boost gauge, as I wanted to see how my boost and vacuum were performing. I wanted the OSIR vent pod, but I didn’t like the position of that pod. So I went with VMR’s vent gauge that sits in the center which I find more preferable. I can see the gauge with my peripheral vision while keeping my eyes on the road - it also freed up my driver side vent, which allows me to adjust it (I think it’s more important than the center vent). The air still blows through the vent, I can still adjust the open and close dial as well, but the air just blows straight (through the gauge).

A few months later, I was recommended to 360 Auto (by Nancy again) to help with the paint work. Pae did a pretty good job at matching the colour and definitely earned my trust as a customer. Too bad he’s not there anymore.   I cringe everytime I think about having to colour match this paint colour as it’s so difficult to do right.  Pae also mounted the CF side trims correctly.

March of 2009:  I installed a Evoms intake and got APR Stage 1 flashed by H2Sport. Talk about a night and day difference in power!  The APR Stage 1 is rated at 252hp/303lb-ft (94 octane), but I usually set it to 91 octane mode for more fuel efficiency.  I prefer 91 octane as Shell’s V-Power doesn’t contain ethanol like the 91/94 from Sunocco/Petro Canada.  At 91 octane, the APR is rated at 246hp/282lb-ft.  Gotta love this 2.0T!

June of 2009:  I got the rear tail lights tinted by Pierre @ ShinzoWerks

August of 2009:  I brought my car back to Shinzo to get my hood and roof vinyled gloss black.

I also attended Vagkraft for the first time that year as a booth car for Frank @ Eurosport Tuning since Marco couldn’t make it.

September of 2009:  I installed the BSH Stage 2+ PCV Fix and Catch Can, got the kit from Andrew @ Redline Motorworks which I bought at Vagkraft.

March of 2010:  I finally got fed up with that POS noise pipe (that thick black pipe you see above, just to the left of the engine) and decided to get rid of it.  It was always in the way when I worked in the engine bay.  Removing this first should’ve been my first mod, it would’ve made the intake and catch can installs so much less painful.

May of 2010:  On a whim, I bought a Votex lip and installed it.  Which was later sold to James just prior to the 2010 Vagkraft (which he won 1st for the mild show car category).

Then there was the unforgettable GO Dubbin’ meet that same month, which brought in typhoon-like winds.  Many umbrellas lost their lives that day.

July of 2010:  I decided to give the hood a new vinyl treatment, so it was back to Shinzo once again.  This time I got the 3M dinoc CF vinyl, unfortunately it only comes in dry carbon and no gloss.    I really wanted a gloss CF hood to match the rest of the car’s CF, but this had to do in the interim.  I also installed the OSIR CF eyelids for the lights, I liked this much better than all the other brands with the droopy eyelids out there.  This followed the contours of the car.

August of 2010:  I got the new plastic OSIR vented fog covers, which was nice because I didn’t have to drill into my bumper like the CF fog covers (which I still haven’t installed because of this fact).  The plastic fog covers just screws on using the OEM mount.  I initially painted the fog covers gloss black to match the front mask, but it didn’t look good.  I thought there was too much black and too much gloss, it diverted attention away from the rest of the car and it didn’t match the dry CF vinyl hood.  I had these black fog covers on for a few minutes then told Pae to repaint them to colour match the car.  I also reverted back to the OSIR lip as I felt it matched the car more in terms of my current styling.  But I kind of miss that Votex lip now that I think about it. 

That same month, I also FINALLY got my car lowered on FK Silverlines (installed by 360 Auto) that I got from Max.  So nice not being 4×4 status anymore, but then again, once you go lower, all sorts of weird noises and gremlins start happening.  Ah well.  I didn’t slam my car though, I still wanted something driveable as this is my daily – so I left it at about one and a half finger gap.

And once again, I was one of the booth cars for EuroSport Tuning at Vagkraft.  Lowered my car just in time for the show.  My CF vinyl hood and side pillars were a HUGE hit at the show, everybody who walked by had the urge to feel it off.  My poor Fahrenheit…

September of 2010:  I installed the Waywell WD6050 HU in place of my stock Premium VII HU and also CF wrapped my center console.  The Waywell is somewhat of a replica of VW’s RNS-510 at a fraction of the cost.  I can now play an assortment of media as well as have bluetooth connectivity for the phone – it also comes with iGO Primo navigation.  The software definitely have bugs and needs polishing, but so far it’s working fine for me so I don’t have much to complain about.  Since I had taken apart the center console to install the Waywell, I thought I might as well give the CF wrap a shot.

November of 2010:  I’ve always wanted to get KW v2 coil overs, so when the opportunity came, I got a set for a pretty decent price.

December of 2010:  I would’ve waited until spring before installing the new coils, but due to an emergency, I needed some cash to help pay for some bills.  So I sold my FK coils as quickly as possible and got the KW installed.  (This pic was taken much later, forgot to take pics of the actual install).

January of 2011:  Got Euro LED tails installed, purchased them from Pierre @ Shinzo as he was parting out his GTI.  I hadn’t done this mod up to this point since I wasn’t sure how the crystal/chrome would look on the orange.  Also because I was afraid fo getting that dreaded light bulb out dash light, I hate warning lights on my dash if they don’t need to be there.  lol  But the install went well, and no bulb out warning lights!  The LED tail lights have also grown on me.  At least it matches the emblem and badges on the hatch.  The North American model of the GTI didn’t come with LED tails, so a new cable needed to be installed and plug configurations changed for the LED.  Some model years didn’t seem to like this – though the LED will function normally – the car will think there’s a bulb missing to the rear.

I also decided to slap an [iDUB] sticker on my colour matched fog cover, still can’t decide whether this was too “rice” to do.  No one’s really said anything to me about it, so I just left it there.  LOL

July of 2011:  Finally installed my Hawk HPS brake pads with Super Blue brake fluid and stainless steel lines.  These were purchased from Frank @ EuroSport Tuning about a year ago during the group buy.  But since I still had a lot of padding left and have just flushed my brakes during a maintenance service, I didn’t install these new items till this year.

August of 2011:  Courtesy of the 401 and a constrution truck, I had to replace my windshield.  Got it replaced by Pedro @ Speedee Gonzales Auto Glass, saw that he was recommended on a lot of different forums so I gave him a try.  He came to my house and replaced it within a couple of days (had to wait for the part) and I thought he did a really good job.  Seal was excellent and it was very cleanly done.  My only gripe is that the rearview mirror mount came from the factory higher than normal, so it feels a little weird when I look up at the mirror as things are pointing ever slightly downwards.  On the plus side, I have more visibility in front and that stupid rock chip I’ve had in front of my eyes for the past 3 years is now gone.

I also installed the OSIR Telson CF Spoiler as well as the OSIR vented double sided CF hood around the same time.  Bling.

We’re now almost there – in terms of how I envisioned my car to look when I first got it.  Performance wise, I’m pretty satisfied with my APR Stage 1.  No plans yet to go Stage 2 and downpipe as I think Stage 1 is a good compromise between power and reliability.

August of 2011:  And here’s how the car currently looks, pictures taken at Vagkraft 5.  You may or may not have noticed that I have changed the front mask to the OSIR CF front mask.  =P  I was debating whether to put on the CF fog covers, but decided to keep with the orange for the show.  I think the colours flow better with the orange fog covers.

And a pic by Calvin Lee from the show – I haven’t had the opportunity to take more formal shots of my car in its current form.  With winter upon us, I probably won’t be taking any pics of the car till next Spring.

What does one envision when they think of strength?  I would assume people would normally associate strength with muscles, power, Superman, etc.  But in Black Rock Shooter’s case, Strength comes in the form of a petite girl with massive mechanized arms.  How’s that for cool?!

I’ve been happy thus far with the BRS figures coming from Good Smile Company; in general, the figures are well made and lacks any significant flaws.  That is with the exception of BRS animated version, where the initial production batch was missing the star on the jacket.  GSC remedied that by issuing a sticker, but that was only for the domestic market as far as I know, those of us in the international community were SOL.

Strength is one of the supporting characters from the Black Rock Shooter OVA, which I still have yet to watch.  I even have the demo from the BRS Figma as well as the Blu-Ray movie which are just sitting on my shelf untouched.  I guess you can say the same for my BRS figure collection, they’re all just sitting in their boxes awaiting their reviews.  Strength is the first BRS figure that I have opened up and she just so happens to be the newest addition to my BRS collection.  I figure all the other BRS characters have been out for some time and have received many reviews already, so I might as well do something new and review Strength.

I can’t say I’m all that familiar with the BRS franchise, while I know what it is, I’m not intimate with the details nor the characters.  I’ve been thinking about this fact quite a bit lately, I realize I don’t really have any affinity towards most of the figures in my collection.  That, I think, allows me to review the figures as is and without bias.  But then again, sometimes this lack of connection to the characters will result in my failing to recognize unique elements that defines the figure from its original source.

All I know is that Strength is the alternate persona of the girl named Yuu and that she might end up being an opposition for BRS (or already is?).  Can’t say I’d be surprised if they fight and end up being allies in the end though, Strength doesn’t seem like an antagonist to me.  Either way, when I first saw the figure up for pre-order, I thought she had an interesting design that separated her from BRS, Dead Master and Black Gold Saw.  Alright, fine, I saw those massive mecha arms and thought they were pretty damn cool – and being the mecha fan that I am, I didn’t have any problems with justifying her in my collection.  Hey, I already have BRS, DM and BGS, so might as well get Strength  and complete the set.

Truly, when I think of strength, I would’ve never envisioned a little girl with such massive arms which are called Ogre Arms by the way.  For some reason I think this actually works and it has a little bit of that steampunk-ish feel to it.  Since Strength is an alternate persona, I assume the arms are a metaphor for her strength of character since her body is so petite.  But as I’ve said earlier, my lack of knowledge to the original source may be miscontruding my perception of the character.

When I showed Strength to a friend of mine, he asked me a bunch of questions I didn’t really have the answer to.  Note to self not to discuss figure collecting with my friends as I can’t even explain my obsession with these plastic things.

“Why aren’t the Ogre Arms attached directly to her arms?”  I guess it’s so she can rotate her arms more freely?

“Why a bracket then?  Why not some ball joints or servo?“  I guess it’s for the coolness / artistic design factor.

“Wait, is that a tail coming … “  Yes, okay, she’s an anime character – she doesn’t need to make any sense!  Moving on!

Strength is shrouded in a black hood which I think plays to her name’s advantage.  Her eyes are  somewhat emotionless here, which I usually find annoying in figures, but not in this case.  It works well with the rest of her appearance since you’re unable to gauge the expression on her face.  Her massive arms are probably what you notice first when you see her, thus you are left with the conceived notion that she is strong even with such a petite body.  Mix in that cold stare of hers, she is definitely intimidating!

The downside to this emotionless gaze is that you lose some context to her pose.  She is suspended in the air, almost like she’s jumping yet like she’s not.  You’re left wondering what exactly her body motion is telling you.  Normally, the “animated version” of BRS figures have a more dynamic pose – whereas Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master seem like they’re facing off each other, perhaps Strength will look like she’s jumping backwards when paired up with Black Gold Saw?  I actually haven’t tried that yet, so I can’t say for certain – I’ll update on this at a later date.

Speaking of petite, Strength definitely has the signature BRS look, a really slim body build and really flat chested.  I think Strength may be even flatter than BRS in this case.  ^_^’  Not that I have any qualms about it, but do you think she’s compensating in any way with those massive arms?

Her upper thighs have somewhat better definitions, particularly when viewed from her left side.  It’s nothing to write home about but I can appreciate the detailing here for what it’s worth.  But the dominant feature of Strength is her arms, of course, and I find them extremely well done.  The metallic paint work and “dry brush” effect on the edges make her large gauntlets look durable and used.  By used, I mean it doesn’t look all shiny and polished like it came straight from the factory.  The shading creates a nice weathered effect, though I think the surface could’ve received more “scratches” to make the pair look more battle-weary.  I have to give GSC credit here with the paint work, they could’ve used a flat colour and painted the entire arm one colour but they didn’t.

For the most part, the gauntlets (as I dub them) are fairly solid yet light weight.  You do have to pay careful attention to the thumbs though, as they are a separate piece and glued on to the rest of the hand via a little stub.  I can definitely see someone mishandling them and break off the thumb.  The attachment to the arms also need some attention, while the guantlets lock in place to the arms fairly securely (also via a little stub), her arms are quite thin.  If you’re going to take the gauntlet off for whatever reason, make sure to hold on to her arm with the other hand and lightly wiggle the gauntlet off.  For what it’s worth, both Ogre Arms clip in to the display base very securely and you won’t have any wobbling issues.

Strength rests on the display base via three points, her left foot and her two arms.  The base is your typical BRS style damaged “blocks”.  It’s certainly much more pleasing to the eyes than a standard disc or rectangle.  GSC didn’t cheap out on the details of this display base either, there are cracks and damages as well as careful shading of the paint work.  The base is sturdy and Strength is very well balanced on it, there’s no fear of her toppling over.

Now for that tail of hers, I’m not sure why it’s there nor why her designer even came up with the concept, but it’s there.  I actually didn’t even notice she had a tail until I got the figure; when I saw it, it reminded me of the tail from an alien from Aliens.  The tail is also reminiscent of the Borg Queen’s spine from Stre Trek – and ultimately I think that’s what it is.  It’s not really a tail but moreso a mechanized skeletal spine that helps Strength balance and move better.  I think I read that somewhere, but correct me if I’m wrong.  The “tail” is actually a separate piece which pegs into a little slot just behind (and above) her butt.  So you can optionally leave the tail off without fear of an unsightly hole dancing in front of your eyes.

Strength’s outfit is a one-piece suit with a very short “skirt” portion (writer’s block, can’t think of the correct term), as such her undergarment is rather exposed when you view her from just about any frontal angle.  Fans usually react negatively to the white underwear and I usually don’t give a damn, but in this case with the white so exposed in a midst of black, I found it a little distracting.  While it matches the black and white theme Strength has going on, I think a slightly darker shade (or even black) would have worked out better.  That is unless this was the intent - to arouse the little hentai in all of us?

Strength also has little white bow ties on the top of her stokings and her tail, I thought about taking detailed photos of them (as I normally do when I talk about the finer details) but ultimately decided to skip it in this set of photos.  I mean, they’re just white bow ties and nothing fancy!  ^_^’

If you’re a regular to my site, you may have noticed some difference in style with this review.  First and foremost, there are only 15 pictures as opposed to the usual 30+ that I take.  I didn’t take as many detailed macro shots as I didn’t feel it was necessary for this figure.  If you’re looking at Strength from section to section, she’s actually rather plain.  There’s not much pattern on her outfit and she doesn’t exactly scream colour.  But when you look at her as an entire package, she’s a very well polished figure.  Normally, I can find minute paint errors or production mistakes with the macro lens, but I’m rather surprised at how clean my Strength is.  She lacks mentionable flaws and I didn’t notice any unsightly seam lines.  The shading is very well done, even her outfit has a slight black-charcoal gradient thing going on.

For this photo set, I incorporated a bit more lighting work rather than post processing – I barely touched these photos at all.  Since I’ve been working on some other photo projects with my friends, they left their Speedlites and wireless tx/rx at my place - I took advantage of this and put our 580ex’s to good use.  =)  I normally just run a 580ex and modelling lamps – I’ve been meaning to get more strobes so perhaps this recent shoot can serve as a motivation for me.

Strength is rated at 1/8 scale, but given the size of the Ogre Arms, she looks larger than she actually is.  Head to toe, she is roughly 15cm, but if stretched out she’s actually 22cm.  So I guess 1/8 scale is somewhat accurate, for a little Asian girl anyway!  But hey, by now we all know size doesn’t matter right?  Strength can be defined in many different ways – mentally, physically, mechanically… but as long as you have a kick ass set of mecha arms, nothing else really matters.  Strength is definitely a figure worthy to be put on display, upskirt and all.  ^_^’

Hey look, my second gaming post!  I would’ve never expected I’d be talking about a Warhammer 40K game, but here it is!  Not entirely sure why I decided to post this, perhaps it was due to the stupid ordeal I had to go through this past week trying to get my order fufilled correctly and I just wanted to vent a little.

But first off, I just wanted to say I’ve been a fan of Warhammer: 40K and Warhammer: Fantasy Battles for the longest time.  I started collecting back in high school, my friends and I started off with Warhammer: Fantasy and my first army was the Bretonnians.  I think I amassed an army around 5000 points, sadly most of them are left unpainted.  LOL  I then moved on to collecting Space Marines for the 40K series and probably amassed an army around 2000 points.  It’s been a long time and I can’t really remember – I’ve always wanted to get back into playing and painting the figures but I just don’t have the time.  Plus, all my friends stopped collecting and playing too, so I don’t really have anyone to play with or to motivate me on painting the rest of my armies.

That’s where games like Dawn of War came in, it fufilled my tabletop gameplay urges conveniently on the PC, without having to mess around with bits and pieces nor spending hours and hours on trying to paint them.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a great satisfaction in completing the figures, but it’s just so damn time consuming (and the figures themselves are fairly costly).  While the Dawn of War series satisfied the RTS aspect, I was eagerly anticipating THQ’s new release of the franchise in the form of a 3rd person shooter.

The game was released earlier this week, on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011, and I had placed a pre-order with my local GameStop Canada months ago.  GameStop’s pre-order exclusive was dubbed the “Emperor’s Elite Pack”, which contained special armor sets for the Black Templars and Space Wolves Chapters.  I got the call from the store on Tuesday and went to pick up my game after work – at checkout, I asked the sales girl about the exclusive code, and the look on her face was NOT promising.  She had that “Oh, sorry to disappoint you” look and told me that none of their orders had the pre-order exclusive codes included.  She had inquired with her manager but haven’t received any updates yet – so she took my name and number and said she’d call me back the next day.  But I knew she wouldn’t.  No girls ever called me back.

I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and waited till Wednesday afternoon before calling the store.  This time I talked to a guy, and he wasn’t really helpful at all.  He told me that all the pre-order codes were limited supplies so those that had came to pick up the games before me got all their codes already so I was SOL.  I knew he was just saying that to get me off the phone, but being the pushover that I am, I just said okay and hung up.

By this time, I was a little disappointed – but I decided to wait another day to try again.  Meanwhile, I played through some of the single player campaign as well as the multiplayer.  I have to say I’m quite impressed with THQ’s take on this shooter – the graphics are beautiful and the ambiance feels like the Warhammer 40K universe.  My gripe with the single player, though, is the typical storyline of Chaos corruption and the portrayal of the Ultramarines Chapter.  They’re so… vanilla, IMO.  Yes, they’re the poster child of Warhammer 40K, but there’s really nothing intriguing about their Chapter.  Dark Angels have a dark secret, the Blood Angels have their gene curse of the Black Rage, Black Templars are on their crusade, Space Wolves have their primal ferocity, etc.  Ultramarines?  They’re balanced.  Wooooooo!  Yeah, they make for a great army but lacks the intrigue that many of the other Chapters have.

The single player campaign is also a bit typical in that it’s “one man vs. the world” kind of deal.  It’d be nice to go into a mass battle site with squads of Space Marines against the countless Orks or Chaos Space Marines.  Maybe there is and I haven’t played far enough into the game yet, but so far it’s pretty much me, myself and I taking on hordes of Space Orks.  Sometimes there are 2 or 3 other Space Marines following me, but they don’t really do anything but yell and run in front of my reticules.

I’ve read a lot of threads and players complaining the game’s not polished and that the game crashes constantly.  Graphical bugs such as black texture and stretched textures plaguing the game, making players unable to play the game properly.  In my experience though, I haven’t come across any of these issues (yet), and I haven’t crashed once yet in my 15 hours of gameplay.  I’m currently running a Core i7-950 @ 3.07GHz, 6GB RAM on Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit with an nVidia GTX 580 (courtesy of EVGA’s superclock model) @ 1920 x 1080 resolution.

The multiplayer, so far, has been pretty fun as well.  It also has the somewhat industry standard RPG element, where you can attain achievements during gameplay to unlock more skills, armors and weapons.  From my experience, the gaming is pretty smooth and the online battles have been frantic and exciting.  Sometimes it is hard to distinquish if the other player is on the same side as you though, because Chaos Space Marines and regular Space Marines tend to look similar.  Many times I’ve found myself shooting at a purple coloured Space Marine, thinking he was Chaos (i.e. Emperor’s Children Legion) only to find out he’s actually on my side.  Luckily, friendly fire was turned off on the server – which can be turned on, but I’ll bet there’ll be a lot of rage quitting due to team kills.  LOL

Upon achieving level 4 in multiplayer, you unlock the Customizer for your profile, which allows you to start modifying the colour scheme, armor and weapon loadouts of your Space Marine or Chaos Space Marine.  I never did finalize a paint scheme for my custom Chapter when I was playing 40K way back when - my early sample squad of Space Marine had blue and shades of gray camo paint job, which I think turned out great but I never continued that trend.  I’ve always had the idea of basing my chapter off the Imperial Fists and making them a specialized urban defense / city fight themed Chapter.  But then that meant I should include some yellow into the paint scheme to relate the Chapter back to its origince.  Yellow in an urban camo, as you may have surmised, wouldn’t work too well in an urban setting.  I then thought of using some aspects of ACU’s (US Army Combat Uniform) colour scheme to paint my Space Marines, but by that time I had stopped playing the actual table top game and packed up my figures into boxes.  So with the customizer option in the recent game, I put a sample scheme together for my online Space Marine.  This isn’t final, but I think is a decent start should I ever get back into painting and designing my custom Chapter.

I’m currently level 11 out of 41, and thus far I found myself surprisingly decent at playing a support role using the heavy bolter.  In one session, I placed first on my team and had a 15-kill streak with the heavy bolter.  The score here isn’t all that impressive, but my team still won and sadly I was the best on our team for that session.  LOL  THQ indicated they will be releasing a 4-player co-op mode for online play some time in October, though it may only be something as simple as co-op against endless waves of Orks and seeing how long you can survive.  May not be that exciting, but at least it’s some form of co-op!  Games have been lacking some serious co-op gameplay in recent years – I miss the good old Rainbow Six / Rogue Spear days with my friends.

So Thursday rolled along and I decided to give GameStop another call.  This time the girl I was originally dealing with answered the phone and told me that they received a new batch of the game with the exclusive pre-order bonus codes inside and that she also obtained a code for me.  So I went to the store to pick up my code after work - very happily might I add - and came straight home to try it out.  I loaded up Steam and input the code, the amount of digits matched, so I clicked on “submit” and eagerly hoped for the best.  “Sorry, your code is not recognized.”  Cue sappy broken heart music.  I tried the code again and again, thinking I might have mis-typed it.  Nope.  The code simply didn’t work.  So I hit up THQ’s site dedicated to the Space Marine game and saw that they had a Pre-Order Issues thread.  Wow, I wasn’t alone – this seemed like a common problem in all regions and not just happening to me.  People who have picked up their pre-orders didn’t receive any code for the exclusive items either.  Even worse, there are those that have pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition (exclusive from THQ’s site) that haven’t even received their game yet.  Some are even being told that their pre-order couldn’t be fulfilled due to inventory shortage.  Talk about a logistical nightmare – someone, somewhere, screwed up really bad.  Is it THQ’s fault or somewhere in the supply chain management?

So I decided to try e-mailing THQ about my incorrect code to see if there’s anything they can do.  I had serious doubts that I’d get a reply, but by that night I received a reply.  They were able to verify my bonus code, but it was for the XBOX 360 version of the game, not PC.  I was dismayed and lost hope of ever getting my pre-order bonus.  Not that it was the end of the world, but I think it’s the principle of it all.  While I know these pre-order bonuses are subject to availability and are limited in quantity, these codes weren’t even supplied to the local retailers to begin with.  And it’s not just GameStop Canada, there are gamers out in the US, UK, Australia, etc. with the same issue.

So today morning, I gave my local GameStop another call and one of the girls I dealt with on Tuesday answered the phone.  I told her about the code that I got on Thursday wasn’t for the PC version and inquired if they really did receive a new batch of the game with the exclusive codes inside.  She said, “Yeah, we do.  Oh wait, why don’t I just open one up and give you the code?  Don’t know why we didn’t do that in the first place.”  I was like, suuuuuuuuuuuure!  It really wasn’t what I was going to ask, but if she could offer that to me, that’d be great.  So she gave met he code over the phone and I tried it out after work (yeah, work showed up a lot in this post, huh?).  Lo and behold, the code worked.  Interestingly, the “Emperor’s Elite Pack” also comes with the “Traitor Legions Pack”, which was supposed to be a Best Buy exclusive.  So now I have four exclusive armour sets unlocked instead of the advertised two.  I assume this is true for everybody else who has the code, but I haven’t come across anyone saying “Yahoo!” on the THQ forum yet.  Odd.

I later dropped by the store and picked up the actual card with the code on it so I can put it in my game packaging.  The sales girl showed me the new batch of the game that they got had a yellow sticker on the packaging whereas the version that I got did not.  I read a post on the THQ forum which rumored that there may have actually been two different releases of the standard game package in North America, one with the exclusive bonus code and one without.  Based upon my experience, I think that rumour may be true.

So if anyone out there is having the same problem I had with regards to the Emperor’s Elite Pack bonus codes, try your local retailer again to see if they have received a new batch of the game with the codes inside.  I decided to post this up hoping it might help someone out there looking for answers.  I’m glad my local GameStop came through for me and for THQ’s support department actually responding to my e-mails.  Hope those who pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition directly from THQ will eventually get their order fufilled too.  So far, I think this is a really well developed game and does the Warhammer 40K franchise proud – any Warhammer fan out there shouldn’t be disappointed in this title.  The game feels polished and the fierce ground combat (especially melee) is dazzling.  It’s a real shame about the logistics of the launch though, which may plague THQ’s credability in the long run unless they can offer a remedy to these missing codes and particularly the shortage on the collector’s editions.

*images found in this post were sourced from various sites, such as Games Workshop, THQ’s game site, Warhammer’s Wiki page as well as my own*

It’s funny how some things work out unintentionally - prime example is this review of E2046′s Elsa.  This review has probably some of the best photos I’ve ever produced that no one will ever see…

Note: the following review contains 18+ material and is NSFW.  Readers discretion is advised.  =)

So here we are – the Elsa review I’ve been itching (yet somewhat hesitant) to put out since her release.  I mean come on, it’s only been a year (6 months from the E2046 release)!  Elsa was initially released as a garage kit figure, designed by Diskvision, but since there’s no way I’d ever be able to piece together a GK figure and paint it adequately, I had to resort to the secondary market.  The first time I saw Elsa’s prototype photos at last year’s Wonder Festival, I fell in love with her – the face sculpt was beautiful, the eyes are alluring and the pose stunning.  The only thing I had qualms about was the fact she was completely naked.  Yup, save for some fishnet stockings, heels and weird arm/neck band things, she is completely, utterly in the nude!  Elsa is easily one of the most beautiful figures I currently have in my collection that will probably never get displayed.

Elsa is really unique amongst my collection as she has a realistic face and body sculpt (albeit slightly exaggerated at certain parts) – above all, she has a nose!  It’s funny how most anime figures lack a proper nose, but they look okay.  But imagine a real person without a visible nose, that’d be pretty freaky, huh?

Another captivating feature about Elsa that caught my eye when I saw her prototype was her eye lashes.  She had actual eye lashes!  It probably wasn’t anything new, but it was new to me as I was pretty new to the figure collecting hobby.  The eye lashes look pretty fake up close, in person, but in a photo, they look quite beautiful and helps make her eyes stand out.  It also helps add to the realism effect – well done Diskvision – and subsequently E2046 and Hobby Fan.  LOL

Elsa was released as a re-cast by E2046 and more recently Hobby Fan.  Had I known Hobby Fan was going to release a version of Elsa, I would’ve gotten theirs for two reasons.  One, I think Hobby Fan’s paint quality is better than E2046′s, and also Hobby Fan has magnetic attachable clothing.  The clothing look like crap - no offense Hobby Fan - it makes Elsa look fat (in pictures anyway) and she loses the beautiful body sculpt, which is her defining feature.  But then again, at least I could’ve displayed Elsa with clothes on!  The magnetic outfit is also what delayed Hobby Fan’s release, allowing E2046 to get the lead in market sales.  I thought about ordering an Elsa from Hobby Fan to do a comparison review, but I just don’t have the budget for it.  As a side note, their 1/4 KOS-MOS is simply beautiful and stunning – which I didn’t get a chance to review yet.  If anyone at Hobby Fan is reading this and would like to offer me an Elsa for comparison review, please e-mail me or leave a comment!  ^_~

So anyway, when I saw that E2046 was going to release Elsa, I impetuously jumped on her, uh – I mean – it!  It took awhile for E2046 to finally receive stock, but I was surely to be one of the first few people to get her.  You see, receiving Elsa as part of the first batch is both a blessing and a curse.  You get what you really want, but then you pay the price of being the guinea pig batch, the test group, the cannon fodder.  While the Elsa I received is beautiful and well done, there are many points that I found lacking.  I’m not sure if it’s just because I got the first batch, which is usually the rush order to appeal to the masses, or that subsequent batches are the same.  I’m sure the subsequent batches are improved but I won’t know for sure and my review will be based upon what I have in front of me.  That is, if anyone from E2046 is also reading this and would like to send me another Elsa, perhaps the dark skinned version, for a comparison review then please e-mail me or leave a comment!  ^_~

E2046′s paint work, overall, appears a little crude on Elsa, there are some nice tone and shading here and there but the colours seem off.  A lot of the darker areas appear really pink and unnatural to the rest of her skin colour.  What I also found disappointing was the finish on the paint work – it’s way too glossy!  Shining a light on Elsa, no matter hard or soft will produce an unnatural shiny reflection.  Post processing fixed that up a bit, but as you can see in the pictures, the sharper parts of her body are still reflecting quite a bit of light.  Bonus about the lighting is that it really shows off the sculpt and the amount of body detail Elsa has.

Elsa’s face is somewhat of an enigma to me, her face seems to change depending on the angle you look at her.  From the left side, she looks skinner and has a sharper chin.  But from the front, her face looks rounder and she looks more baby-faced.  It’s like she changed from a girl in her twenties to a girl in her teens.  Sexy -> cute -> sexy -> cute.  Then slightly from her right, she looks like a different person.  @_@

E2046 also should’ve taken more care painting her mouth – there’s a glob of paint insider her mouth, on her teeth which really ruins close up photos of her.  Poor girl used too much lipstick and it all ended up in her mouth!

Aside from the glossy paint finish, another drawback from this E2046 version was the quality control.  I noticed A LOT of black specks and dust debris in her hair and all over her body…

…but remember when I stated it’s funny how some things work out unintentionally?  Well, the somewhat bad quality control on Elsa actually turned out to be a nice surprise when I uploaded Elsa’s photos.  Aside from the glossy skin, black specks and dust debris, the prep work on Elsa prior to the paint job is kinda bad as well.  You can sort of see the material’s roughness, like it wasn’t sanded down smoothly prior to the paint application.  This led to the skin looking fairly uneven and porous – particularly under a macro lens.

But then I found a surprising twist to this during my post processing session – all the unevenness, pores, black specks start to look hauntingly realistic when I upped the contrast on the photos.  With my prefered harsh lighting setup, this created a visually appealing Elsa that makes her look almost like a real girl!

Save for her hair, which is too static, I think the rest of her look pretty realistic, no?  If she had a Barbie doll hair, maybe these few photos could fool some people that aren’t looking too closely.  In the first photo, you can see a few black specks on her body, which I thought added to the realism effect as they’re kind of like black beauty marks on a human body.  The roughness of the resin material, contributed by the rough gradiant of the shadows, produces an effect which I think makes her body look like actual skin.  Take note of the rib area, the armpit, under breast and pelvic regions.

The black and white versions may be a little less realistic as her skin looses surface detail in the low key setting.  But I like the way they turned out too – can these photos be considered fine art, rather than hentai?  I’ve always preferred low key photography, I find they can be dramatic and say quite a lot with so little.  I was already thinking about taking some photos like these for Elsa when I got her, but during a Victoria’s Secret store visit to buy a gift certificate, I noticed a number of photos of the Angels are in a low key setting, just like how I envisioned Elsa’s photo to be.  It really helped motivate me to get Elsa’s photos completed.  Say what you will, but I honestly do admire the photos in the Victoria’s Secret store and their catalogues, they have some really great composition and lighting.  For those who don’t know, Victoria’s Secret just started opening up stores in Canada last summer.

I’m normally a very harsh critic of my work and don’t like to toot my own horn - but I think I did a pretty good job witht he above three.  They’re easily my favourite out of this batch.  I also don’t normally post the full scaled photos in the reviews, but I think these deserve to be seen unscaled.  These may honestly be some of the best photos I’ve produced that no one will ever see, unfortunately!  The middle B&W picture could’ve used a little more light on Elsa’s face though…

So, back from tooting that perverbial horn, Elsa’s shading work is somewhat on the harsh side.  The shading isn’t as smooth as the one shown in the prototye photos.  The shaded areas are often too dark and not enough gradiant leading up to them.  The palette is also too much on the red side, so it looks rather fake closer up.  See the bottom breast photos, pay more attention to under the breasts as the photos zoom closer.  In particular, the bottom pic looks like Elsa had harsh bra straps digging in under her breasts and left a mark there.  And the vertical line going down to her belly button, it’s shaded rather pink and harsh as well, although you can’t tell given the way I took the photos and processed them.

I’m not normally a breast person, but I have to admit Elsa definitely have a nice set of breasts and perky sculpted nipples.  The paint work on the breasts is pretty good, but as you can see in the image above, the surface is not smooth like regular PVC figures.  You can see some textures, which is one of the oddities I mentioned earlier that actually help enhance Elsa’s photographic presence.  Whether this was intentional on E2046′s part, I’m not sure – but I’m really guessing it’s not.  Her breasts may be oversized for her body, but they have a natural look to them.  For the most part, I don’t have much to complain about with regards to her upper front torso, the body sculpt is superb.  The lines on her body shows off her body very well in just about any lighting situation.

From the side, however, things are a little different.  It still looks great, and it looks like Elsa works out quite a bit, but I think her hip bones are a little on the rough side. It could be due to the recast, but the original photos from the Diskvision model appeared to be more smooth - they’re pronounced, but isn’t as sharply cut on the edges.

Edit:  Also, forgot to mention that Elsa’s belly button here is a little deep and it seems like E2046 just drilled a hole rather than have it curve inwards smoothly.  Not that noticeable, but the latter would’ve been much better.

One other feature of Elsa, is that her vaginal area is right there in your face, while her crossed legs sort of tuck it away from your eyes’ focus, it is still very easily seen.  Again, this may be a re-cast issue, but the shape of Elsa’s v-spot appears a little different from the Diskvision version.  Here, it is almost Native like, whereas the Diskvision appears to be more realistic (bit of lips and all).  Okay, yeah, that was really weird to type and sounded really strange in my head.  Hey, this is my second figure review that actually details this portion of the female anatomy.  =P

Elsa’s hair is quite nice, albeit static and hard looking.  I appreciate the original sculptor’s attempt and design though, it’s definitely got a lot more detail than most figures out there.  I also really like the way Elsa is combing through her hair with her hands – although I don’t quite get what the pose is ultimately telling me.  She does look cute and graceful for a naked girl.

And now, the money shots!  Another one of the beautiful asspect of Elsa is her back side.  Diskvision did an amazing job with her rump, the drawback here is that pretty much all the negative things I’ve said about E2046′s paint application applies here.  Her backside is waaaaay too glossy and the shading for the skin is way too dark.  Here are two pictures that shows this – while I sorta FUBAR’d on the white balance here – you can see how the wrinkles in Elsa’s skin looks rather fake, more so on the left pic than the right.  The dark-ish pink shading used just seem relly bad and makes Elsa look like she’s wearing a meat suit rather than it being her skin.  This is somewhat contradicting to how she looks from the front.

The glossy nature of the paint finish also made her ass look flat, particularly her right butt cheek in the pictures below.  That glossy halo around her butt sort of creates a visual effect as if something is pressed up against them.  When looking at Elsa in person though, this isn’t as big of an issue as lighting changes depending on your movement and how you’re looking at Elsa.

The wrinkles in the skin, I understand, is really hard to sculpt, I guss you can say it appears to be folding the right way, but it still looks really awkward to me, I can’t put my finger on why that is.  It looks rubbery and un-skin like, from what I see on some of the other “bending” Diskvision figures, they all have this issue.  But I’m thinking it really has more to do with the way it’s painted than the actual sculpt.

Elsa’s outfit, or lack thereof, is an interesting one.  Long pink thigh-high fishnet stockings with two cute ribbons at the back.  I have a hard time determining what type of girl Elsa is and what she does for a living.  You look at the fishnet stockings and high heels and the mind automatically wanders to stripper or hooker – but I’d like to think there’s more to Elsa than meets the eyes.  I had thought about taking a photo of her beside a dancing pole, but I couldn’t find the materials to build a set.  C’est la vie!  I’m glad I didn’t build that set though, as it probably would’ve looked pretty shitty.  And Elsa seems to fit more with catalogue style photos (like the very last pic in this review).  The beauty of an original character design is that there’s no background and you can perceive the character based upon what you’re presented.  While that may be bland and a deficit for some figures out there, I don’t think that’s the case with Elsa.  I feel her eyes tell a pretty good story on their own.

Before I forget, Elsa is rated at 1/5 scale – she’s definitely got some height to her, especially with her hair up in the air.  At roughly 40cm in length, you better have enough clearance for her!  Luckily, she’s rather vertical and doesn’t take up much real estate.  Her legs are also very long and sexy, they may be somewhat disproportioned to her body, but it’s not something you notice when looking at her as a whole.  The footware looks fragile, and I’m sure the heels are, but her legs are sturdy and her feet are situated in the base firmly.

Speaking of the base, E2046′s release of Elsa comes with a base of their own design – it’s a transparent pink disc with the word ELSA written on it.  I actually like this base as it seems to glow beautifully even in the dimmest lighting conditions – it really suits Elsa well.

And so, there you have it folks, my first fully nude figure review and probably my last!  While there are a few other Diskvision figures that caught my eyes, I’m not sure if I’ll get them or not as I probably will never be able to display them.  Having them sit in a box just doesn’t seem fair to these work of art.

One thing about Elsa that I feel differs from her “sister figures” (Eve, Angelica, Erika, Grace) is that she has more of a nice girl aura about her.  The other girls, save for Erika, seem like Japanese AV idols.  Erika seem to be on similar lines of Elsa, both these girls have a more innocent face.  Erika and Elsa are both blondes, but Erika appears to have blue eyes whereas Elsa has brown.  Elsa’s facial feature also screams Asian, so I’m not sure if she’s suppose to be mixed or an Asian girl that dyed her hair blonde?  In fact, I had to look it up in Google to see if blonde hair with brown eyes are even genetically possible.  I guess the answer is yes, but I’ve never met a natural blonde with brown eyes - that’d be interesting.  Either way, Asian/Caucasian mixed girls are hot!  =P

Edit:  I went back and had a look at the Diskvision version again, and it looks like Elsa had blue-gray eyes.  But my E2046 version came brown.  Hmmm, sneaky!

I really do appreciate these well sculpted figures by Diskvision, and thankful for companies like E2046 and Hobby Fan that are able to provide a pre-painted kit for those of us who aren’t able to do it properly ourselves.  If there’s any chance one of these girls come out as a PVC version, I’ll definitely pick one up.  [Oh great, so I have just contradicted myself in two paragraphs.]  If anyone’s thinking of getting Elsa, I would definitely recommend the go ahead.  The only decision is whether to go for the E2046 version or the Hobby Fan version, there might be some other vendors out there, but these are the two I commonly shop at and trust.  Subsequent batches of Elsa from E2046 might have better quality than mine, but if you want a covered up Elsa, Hobby Fan the wa to go.  That is unless you’re good at sewing miniture clothing.

To be honest, if I displayed Elsa, it probably wouldn’t be so bad.  Elsa doesn’t look skanky or slutty, you can say she appears refined – maybe you can even consider her along the line of fine art sculptures?  Hey, Aphrodite was sculpted naked on numerous occasions throughout history, the only difference between her and Elsa is that Elsa has arms.  =P

Elsa was really fun to take photos of, the pink backdrop was kinda inspired by the visit to the Victoria’s Secret store – they had a pink motif going on there when I visited around Valentine’s Day.  Yep, that’s how long I’ve been sitting on this review and these photos.  With the recent site updates and lack of content, I guess Elsa is a good way to help kick things off again as I get back on the saddle.  So maybe I’m wrong, perhaps people will actually see these photos afterall.  I mean, you’ve read this far haven’t you?!

^_^’

I wonder what happened last night?

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