Flying glasses

Work was good today. The consultant who came in shed so much light on what was going on with the tapes, and for the first time in ages I felt like we got somewhere with it. I feel a renewed sense of direction and hopefully the problems with tapes can be sorted although it will take time.

Badminton was embarrassing tonight. I somehow managed to contort myself to try and get a shot and ended up somehow sat on the floor with my head tangled in the net, which catapulted my glasses halfway across the court. I've had a pimple on my nose which is disappearing but still painful, so it really hurt. Also my shoulder started hurting so it wasn't much fun after that.

Rob and Steve have finally finished ME3 so I can at last speak about the ending. I'll admit I was not too happy about the ending at first. I knew most of the way through ME3 that there was never going to be a happy conclusion to the series and that Shepard probably wasn't going to make it - trillions dead, the homeworlds of all the major races devastated, etc. It really made you really start to feel Shepard's struggle to unite the races in the desperate war against the Reapers. Especially when he starts to lose it at the end.

However, I do think the ending was rushed and too ambiguous with some truly random plot devices (wtf was the Normandy doing?). After being angry for a few hours after I completed it, I thought sod it, the rest of the game, and the whole series, has been bloody good so why let the last 10 minutes spoil it. There are some absolutely amazing moments throughout ME3 and some of the writing truly is top-notch. Even the final battle through devastated future London is pretty amazing. The whole series is full of great moments. Looking back at ME1, it might look rubbish in comparison to ME2 and 3, have many control annoyances and various glitches, but it had heart. I count one of the best bits as being in ME1 where you're given command of the Normandy. Realising that the ship is yours and you can explore the galaxy at will is such a cool moment.

I do think however there should have been a sliding scale of endings for ME3, like from Shepard survives and wins, to abject failure where the Reapers win and the cycle continues. The three options you do end up with aren't all that different with largely the same cutscenes, which is why it feels rushed, like they ran out of time. I've read the various theories on the ending, like it's a hallucination or dream after Shepard gets injured, and the wildly popular Indoctrination Theory, but I can't escape the feeling that it's just the fans trying to make sense of the ending. Even if the Indoctrination Theory is true, then that still means the game ends with a seriously injured Shepard waking up in the ruins of London, with the Reapers still attacking.

Whether they will do anything after all the negative feedback, I can't say. If they were to make a new ending now, it would involve a hell of a lot of work, like graphics, animation, voice recording, etc. The fact that people are sending the game back for refunds is bonkers. Also it's now just £23 on Amazon, which seems weird. The ending issue seems to really have got a LOT of attention, even in the mainstream press. I'll wait and see, but won't hold my breath. I'd have thought people would be more pissed off about the From Ashes DLC, which appears to have been a main part of the game which was removed.

I did start a replay of ME3 with my renegade Shepard but I seem to have lost heart in playing that one. I think I'll delete it and start again when they've fixed the face import bug (soon), and there's still the Sentinel class one I started and never got through ME2 with to finish off. It was interesting to play a different class, so I'll probably do that one at some point.

Or I could finish Dragon Age, which despite taking me nearly a year to not complete yet I still enjoy playing it. I don't think I'll be arsed with DA2 which is apparently total crap. Also I know Skyrim is getting a lot of attention but I don't know if it's my kind of game or not, since I'm more of a sci-fi type than fantasy.

The Raspberry Pi computer sounds ace, just my thing. I'd love to get one but demand is so high you have to go on a waiting list. It does seem mad that a computer with a 700mhz ARM, 256mb RAM and the ability to output HD video can cost so little. I'd be interested in trying to put one in a laptop shell with a good keyboard and make a writing machine.