Chez

Guys--guys it's MAGIC SWORD.

Imagine, if you will, a placid lake.

Now imagine a portly gentleman clinging desperately to a tube, attached to a speedboat, driven by an increasingly irate fellow determined to hurl our aforementioned friend into the water. Witness, in your mind's eye, the tube bouncing higher and higher into the air--and then, once the makeshift vehicle is nearly 3 feet into the air, our friend's face as he realizes he's going to become detached from his arms if he tries to hold on.

He lets go and skips, like a chubby stone, on the water.

As you can surmise, this hurt, and I remained in the water afterward, where my compatriots in the boat (excluding the sneering driver) tossed me several flotation devices, including a bright orange life jacket and two (2) brilliant purple noodles. Thus equipped I had them leave me in the soothing water whilst they zoomed off to the other side of the lake.

Enter an entity we will hereafter refer to as the Drawl Guy.

Puttering up to me in his tiny little speedboat, the man accosted me with the thickest southern drawl I've ever heard. It was like *syrup*, the way it poured out of his mouth, entire words disappearing in its glacial advance.

"Hey, bo-wah," he said, somehow separating "boy" into two words, "You out here by yerself?"

"Yes sir," I replied.

"Dawn chu reelize 'at's dangerous, son?"

"Why's that?"

I swear to you--SWEAR TO YOU--that Drawl Guy followed up with the single strangest sentiment ever.

"Somebody might hitchu! They might think yer a duck!"

I was dumbfounded.

"What?"

"I said someone might think yer a duck! Where's yer boat, bowah, I'll holler at 'em fer ya."

I numbly indicated where my boat was. He began puttering off after it.

Ladies and gents, I couldn't help myself. I couldn't. I tried, but I couldn't.

I quacked.

He turned around. "You say somethin' to me, bowah?!"

"No, sir. Quack."

When I climbed back into my boat a moment later, they asked me what I'd done to make Drawl Guy so mad.

"Oh, you know, discovered the first duck to ever purple tentacles..."

GT: Violent Opera

add me if you wanna play

I love you just because you're named after Vimes.

I remember waking up one night; it was darker than usual in my room 'cos there was no moon out.

For the life of me I thought someone was standing next to my bed--I looked over and what little light there was seemed to highlight the general curvature of a human form.

Man, I nearly fucking tried to punch whatever apparition had surfaced next to me, but then the tree outside my window shifted a bit and the shadows moved.

Jesus christ it looked just like a person though...

That Ballsack guy needs to grow the fuck up. Seriously. I don't give a damn why you're mad, Mr. Ballsack. PC gamers like you are ruining our hobby 'cos you're doing your goddamned best to turn it into the gaming equivalent of the local coffee shop--pretentious, exclusive, and completely disgusting. If somebody doesn't want to wrestle with putting a computer together, installing the game, upgrading the parts, and all this other uselessly involved shit rather than just *playing their games*, you need to back the fuck off and kindly stuff it.

This is what you assholes get for being pirating, elitist, pretentious, snot-nosed brats--the same (perfectly enjoyable) experience as everyone else.

JOYSTIQ YOU FIX THAT RIGHT NOW, THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE "ALL YOU'RE GETTING"

uh...is IW going to comment on this in any way, maybe elaborate on what IW.net's going to have?

okay, how exactly does it remove competitive play if you stop people from fucking with the game?

I see a couple things that worry me--mainly the fact that we were told completely different things by Bioware before concerning Mass Effect 2; we were informed we'd be playing as a new character, so on. It makes it sound like they don't know where to go. On top of that, an ending where you can die is a pretty courageous stunt, but "...by a new force" makes it sound like a new bad guy's going to appear near the end of the game that we only will learn more about in Mass Effect 3, which means this one's likely to feel incomplete.