Heads Will Roll

              We meet again, daunting blank screen. Let's see..... Today was a somewhat productive day. I actually left the house. I went to Sam's club with my mom and put in an application. It may not be the ideal job, but it does have perks. It would be nice to know how much I'm am going to make every paycheck. Other than that though, I didn't really do anything. I downloaded a few movies, organized my itunes a little more, and played a lot more Mass Effect.
              I'll just go ahead and give you a warning now, I play video games a lot and will probably be writing about them when I cant think of anything else to say. I can't help it, it's just part of who I am. I tried to ignore them once (for a girl). That was a horrible idea. I realized that you should never have to sacrifice a passion in your life for someone. If they are a half decent person and actually care about you, they will understand that you have hobbies. The more I think about it, the more I can't believe how stupid I was. I was so blinded by the thought of someone thinking I was cute, that I let her change what I did and who I was. I never want to let that happen again. The next time every single person in my life says " Addy, this is a horrible idea. Don't do it." I'm just going to listen. I'll just save time and money that way.
              Well... That just went to a weird place. I'm going to go ahead and jump back to Mass Effect.......  Mass Effect is hands down the best series i have ever played (Sorry, Spyro). In Mass Effect, you are Commander Shepard. You essentially choose everything about your character but the last name. Gender, race, family background, military history, good guy or absolute prick. The choice is yours. When the topic of this games best element comes up, some people say its the combat that makes it great. More people will say its the dialog or the story. They're all wrong. Bioware, as a game devolper, has always done one thing to their games that place them beyon all others. Charater devolopement.
               Throughout the series (much like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic), you traverse the galaxy building a rag tag team of soldiers, theives, and all around badasses. In between missions you have a main base, the Normandy. The Normandy is your ship, and you are its captain. While on  Normandy you have the option to get to know your squad members. In the course of your adventure, you learn everyones unique personality, you might even begin to care about what happens to them. There are several points in the games where you must choose which member to send into danger or which one to leave behind. Bioware succesfully makes these choices very hard to decide, not because you fear they will ruin the mission some how, but because you just dont want them to get hurt.
               And that is why Mass Effect is ( in my honest opinion) the greatest series of this generation. Character developement is a key concept that no one grasps quite like Bioware. Too many people fogive poor character developement in place of stunning visual effects or easy to master combat mechanics in video games these days. Its as if no one realizes that the characters are what alow you to invest yourself in these worlds. A game with boring emotionless charaters will just drag you along for the ride without ever allowing you to take a seat.
               To anyone still reading this, I apologize for the Mass Effect rant. I promise, I will not even mention it next time. I have just had that locked away in my memory warehouse for too long and never had a chance to vent it out.
                This is Addison Richard,  signing off.