You would think that, after doing almost nothing but play Mass Effect for a week, I would know how to spell the name "Shepard." After the shame of the last strip, I pored over every word in the script with my full consciousness, discovered errors and resolved them; I felt like I was truly at the tiller of my life. But no! I maintain that it is they, they who have spelled Sheperd wrong (they!) but that might not be a strong play rhetorically.
The word doesn't even make sense when I look at it now, I don't recognize it. This happens to designers, too: it all starts being shapes. I have another mind I use for technical work, and I need to bring it to bear. I apologize. We're replacing the SSD in Gabriel's new machine, and when it's good again I'll fix the strip, but in the meantime here is the ruined version which I ruined because I am bad.
I just read an article at PC Gamer about how playing Multiplayer can affect the ending you get in Mass Effect 3, and I already knew that, but given the reaction I suspect that this is new information for many people. It may be more appropriate to say that playing multiplayer has an effect on your Readiness, and Readiness has an effect on your ending, but whatever.
I was curious about how this worked, which is why I talked to somebody at Bioware three weeks ago and tried to make sure you had a heads up. This is an especially problematic scenario for Reviewers, though, who aside from trying to complete the game with substantial time pressures are playing said game in an environment without anyone to play multiplayer with. I had a build last week for the PC that I straight up quit playing because it had no multiplayer and no abilty to acquire DLC - in other words, it was not Mass Effect capital M capital E, it was something else. Maybe just the M was capitalized.
I had the ability to do that not because of some moral rectitude but because people do not expect me to give them anything approaching a traditional review. It's a structural problem with media and perhaps even time itself. I urge you to play Multiplayer because it's a fun take on Wave based co-op, with the side benefit of improving your Single Player outcome; but remember that this one is for all the marbles. If a bipedal asthmatic orb wants you to find a book for him somewhere, you know, maybe you go get him that fucking book.
(CW)TB out.
