Of masses and effects - Plastic, DLC and the long wait.

If 2012 is our final year on this planet then I hope we get some great games before those pesky Mayans come and scratch all our discs, erase all our hard-drives and plough all our girlfriends. Wait though! Before you go and try to convince all the people you can to join your end-of-the-world orgy cult or website linking 2012 to the illuminati via the sinking of the Titanic, take heed. The Mayans were talking about something altogether quite different: The end of the world for Commander Shepard. In a couple of months we will be able to try and save the entire milky way from destruction at the hands of space fleas that we dismissed all claims of.

...but before I get into talking about Mass Effect 3, we need to go over a few things here for the fake drama. 

Firstly, you probably remember me talking about the early releases in Kotobukiya's "bishoujo" line of collectible statues a year or so back. The concept was that, Shunya Yamashita would take an important (generally) western character from the pages of Marvel's comics and transform them using his style into a "bishoujo" interpretation. The line is as much about the artist as it is about the western license conversion though. It was successful enough that later, DC comics added themselves to the books, which Kotobukiya used as an excuse to introduce a new larger scale. Then, production ramped up and we started seeing a lot more releases from both publishing giants and then, seemingly out of nowhere, "Lucy".

Careful. Wouldn't want ectoplasm everywhere again.

Now Lucy is someone that I don't remember hanging out with Dan Akroyd and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. Well, no. She's representative of the logical conclusion of converting a franchise wholesale into bishoujo form. The cultural invasiveness of Ghostbusters is so that even with little in the way of media in the last twenty years, people will recognise the use of its iconography and our friend Lucy here, hopes that you buy into that.

Funnily enough, it's probably one of the better rendered of the entire line. The face in particular retains much of the original illustration - something that is often lacking in the line. While it's sexualised, the people buying in know what they are getting and I have seen greater numbers of women buying into or reviewing these things than I have men in all honesty.

I brought up Lucy though because this is where the Bishoujo line opened the floodgates. From being mostly comic book ladies seeing the treatment, Kotobukiya expanded to Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Tekken, Street Fighter and apparently Bioware last year. 

Have Kotobukiya jumped the shark with the popularity of these "entry-level" collectible statues? Well, the fans of Bioware's Mass Effect certainly seemed to have missed the point in the most delicious of ways. You see, there was a point to me talking about plastic for a moment. About the same time that we got announcements regarding the first Tekken bishoujo statues, Bioware and Kotobukiya announced the addition of their IPs to the mix with Liara T'soni.

Knowing Bioware she will come with special DLC for ME3 that is a satellite laser Liara can only equip every other Wednesday... but only when there's nothing on TV.

Admittedly, it is kind of weird for Liara. I suppose she was picked because she is the most easily-identified of the Mass Effect ladies to a general audience, being "blue and that". Still, better to get such impulses out of the way before the Matriarch kicks in and you're stuck doing ads for talcum powder, garlic and whatnot.

The amount of hate it has been getting is immense. She looks young but that's arguably the point of "bishoujo". The way the people over at the Bioware social network were going off, you'd think it was a four-year-old chained naked to Rorschach. Which of course it isn't. Guess what? It's a different take on your character. You don't have to like it. You don't own the IP. I know, it sucks... but you will live. Is it really worth so much rage? We're in a global community now. Let's all be a little more fluid.

Never have two panels been more relevant.

While there is a lot of complaining from the masses (As if the Mass Effect anime wasn't enough to ruin their lives), it looks like Shunya Yamashita has actually had less control over this particular character than he usually does (Liara doesn't tend to have the wardrobe he touches). While it's positively tame by his standards, the more vocal denizens of the Bioware fanbase are easily alienated by non-manly things such as this and don't seem to grasp the concept of ignoring merchandise that holds no appeal to them. Instead wasting everyone's time, bellowing about it whenever they catch glimpse of an image. 

Yamashita always does large assets and a particular kind of face. The faces often do not convert well to the final product either but they have been getting better recently. Herein lies the problem. Bioware shared a prototype gallery with their facebook fans. Most are not the target demographic. There will be a large percentage that are unaware of Shunya Yamashita and Kotobukiya, let alone the statue collecting business. Well, turns out they didn't like Japanese retellings of their favourite information broker. As it turns out, this Asari biotic did have implants. Though they were not of the L2 variety. Those breasts just had to go (They were silly)!

In a first for the series, the statue was remodelled by people that probably weren't going to buy it anyway. Hell, I may not even buy it and I bought all the others because I think the line is getting a touch out of control with its releases. It's a shame Bioware don't take such notice when their fanbase complains about some of the things they get wrong with their games. Looking at you, Dragon Age 2.

Still, it's right there on the tin: Mass Effect bishoujo statue. It's about 9 inches high and made of plastic. It sounds about as useful as it is. Buy it, don't buy it. The rest of the line consistently sells out. This one may but it has competition from some big hitters in the line (If priced the same as its kin, buying in bulk is rather offputting) like Harley Quinn, Storm and a rebel pilot from one of the Star Wars novels. It does seem to be over-saturating itself from the 3-releases-a-year-model.

Here's an M8 assault rifle to help you get your man back on:

Is it back on? Good.

Mass Effect 3 is set to be an explosive finale for your Commander Shepard very soon. The demo will be launching "when it's ready" and while, hopefully that isn't some Duke Nukem type trolling, should be soon. Because it's a new release from post-EA Bioware, we also get the annual DLC treasure hunt as the pre-order locations are announced, crossover armour is shown off and DLC codes are dropped into random merch they know few people would buy of their own volition such as Chantry medallions and Seeker chains... whoops, sorry, wrong game: allegedly there are codes inside the packaging of the second wave of Mass Effect action figures.

Yep, these things. They will be re-branded as Mass Effect 3 figures to help hawk units to people who don't follow things religiously despite the fact that these characters have mostly been sidelined in the sequel. Garrus is the only confirmed squad member and Miranda - one would assume - retains her status as love interest if you could put up with her nattering about being perfect in the last game. Mordin there may not even have the same voice actor, removing one of his most beloved features. Will "exclusive DLC" be enough to shift these? Probably. Though I'm left wondering what the DLC could be when these characters probably don't play a huge role in the sequel. I mean really... all four of them could well be dead. Will they even show up at all if one starts a "new game"? Going on the PS3 version of ME2, which seemed to act as though Shepard had done the worst s/he could in the first game, I would say not. They probably have a generic placeholder like Wrex had with his "brother" Wreav.

Still, I'm cautiously excited for Mass Effect 3. I haven't been majorly disappointed by the series yet and thankfully it doesn't seem to want to force me to play some shitty Facebook micro-transaction fest to unlock some useless in-game trinkets that the completionist in me hates me missing. While the digital PC version seems to sadly be EA Origin exclusive, the addition of multiplayer could be fun too and it might be nice to play with people who don't stand up into gunfire like Garrus seems to love doing courtesy of the AI. Playing as a race other than Human could also be refreshing, especially if they capitalise on that with racial traits to make the differences more than aesthetic. The combat promises to be more intense in the new game with more powers and running to be had for all too. The Vanguard I am sounds mightily happy with that. 

Keep an eye out for the demo and have fun with whatever you are currently playing!

Just a short one today. Still waiting patiently to kill some Reapers. 

Andy out.