A Day in the Life

This is a Spidey story I wrote at work just cause. 

He grudged down the steps, eyes half open, half closed; he grumbled to himself about mondays, and the curse of Queens. Alley cats, gun shots, reruns of Sex and the City. New York wasn't the best place to live. It was home though, and it had cocoa puffs. 

He turned on the kitchen light and groaned. Light burns! He squeezed his eyes shut and almost stumbled over his Transformers pj pants. He walked past the kitchen window above the sink, he noticed the old lady next door staring. Crap, he forgot his shirt. He then bumped into the round wooden kitchen table. He wondered who put the table in the middle of the room and sluggishly made his way to the brown two door fridge opposite the door. He opened the cupboard beside it and pulled out a big bowl and his precious cocoa puffs. He would have kissed the box if he was anymore weird. He poured the contents into the bowl, each small ball making little pings as they hit the bowl. Course to him it was like an avalanche and he quickly shot the box back up, spraying the rest of the insides all over the floor. He groaned and let himself fall to the floor. Thank God his Aunt left early, this would have been a sight, a shirt less, drooling, half awake super hero nephew spread on the kitchen floor covered in cocoa puffs. He scooped up the puffs, pulled himself up and put them in the garbage pan next the fridge. The moment of truth, time to pour the milk in. He turned around and opened the fridge door. He let out a huge grin and grabbed the jug. He tipped it over the bowl and waited. One drop. No, oh no. Not now, he was hungry, sleepy and cocoa puffs less. This was the worst day ever. He bolted up stairs, determination in his eyes. He was going to buy some milk. 

There was no time to shower, he had a job to do. He ran past the bathroom, his bare feet making soft padded thuds as they hit the rug floor; he headed to his room and dived underneath his bed. Shoving the mix of clothes and paper aside, he pulled a box out and open it. Grinning to himself he started to place the padded suit on himself. It's good to be Spider-Man sometimes. 

He used his organic web to shoot the latch on his window and fling it open, then he leaped through it and webbed the window closed as he zipped down the street. He could feel his stomach rumble, soon he thought. Those cocoa puffs were his! He got to the convenient store in 5 minutes flat; passing all the busy streets of new york and the occasional tree. Yes, the part had a tree. A few people walking up and down the busy streets going on about their lives, the smell from the big ones must have been bad. He had to make a smart ass remark in his head, his way of dealing with stress or boredom. Mostly stress. He didn't think life sucks or that it's unfair but it can get hard at times, just another test to pass. 

He quickly arrived at the store, to the loud sounds of cracks and screams. Great, another day of being Peter Parker. He landed in a war zone, tossed cars and broken pavement as far as the eye can see; a joke about this being normal for manhattan streets came to mind, he had to swallow it though. His spider sense was going crazy and there were people trapped under this twisted wreckage of steel and gravel. He went where the grunts were. His sense guided him, easily tossing everything to side; making sure it didn't topple those who weren't trapped and either helping those trapped or fleeing. 

"We got this Spidey! That giant Rhino thing went further downtown." A giant Rhino thing? The hell did that mean? 

"Uhhh that sounds perfectly sane did it have a basket and a dog too? Never mind that, make sure once you get these people free, you run." He zipped down the street, following the thuds and cracks. He knew he was getting closer, because the sounds were becoming a thunder storm. Booms and cries for help echoed through the street. From a distance it looked like the Hulk. Great. Another tangle with the Hulk, cleaning up Fury's mess again. After this he was going to change his name to Fury's other eye. Wait. This wasn't the Hulk, as he got closer he noticed the outline had a horn on the forehead. The texture was a rough grey hide, with creases and an opening. A very small opening. He closed in and jumped in front of this thing, it was heading straight for a public bus. He collided with it, he saw eyes. This thing was a guy. A mutant? A mutate like himself? No time, Pete had to move him. He threw his weight to the left and toppled this thing into the sidewalk. Wait, it was still moving. It moved forward and Spidey felt himself break through something hard. It was a concrete wall. Ow. 

He could use his strength to guide this thing but he didn't know how to stop him, he needed to. Through the daze of going through a wall, he could hear people. Joints, he was going to hit the joints. Stop this thing. He flipped back and webbed the knee, pulling himself in as hard as he could he kicked as hard as he could. Success, it began to fall over. One problem, a couple was underneath them. He leaped back and caught this thing by the chest. The momentum had caused catching this thing feel like stopping a sentinel. Funny story. 

"Uuuugh, okay I know how this looks but trust me. Heh heh it's more painful than you could imagine. So how about moving slightly to ohhh I dunno.....OUTTA HERE?!" The couple got up and ran for the exit. Spider Sense! He got caught with a powerful hit to the ribs and he flew into the staircase, breaking through it. He heard cracking and breaks, the stairs were coming down on him. He knew people were up there. He had to act fast, this giant so not the Hulk was getting back up. He webbed the incoming debris and moved to help support the structure. Spider sense was going nuts. This thing had to be stopped. Now. 

"Hey everyone above me! If you direct to another stair case, you'll be fine. For your convenience this place will re-open when they stop being tacky with autumn season sales!" The people started moving away, some cheering for him. He leaped at this thing, webbed the eyes and punched him in the back of the head. How does that hurt himself?! His wrist began to burn. The hide was hard, he decided to guide it. He grabbed the horn and threw his weight to the right, this thing followed. Turning back towards the entrance hole it created. They were back out on the road. More space to maneuver. He leaped over the head, keeping his hand on the horn and drove his feet into this things chest before it had any time to react. He could feel it caving over, his back collided with the pavement and he decided to use his proportionate strength on this sucker. He sent it flying a couple feet behind him. Not very far but better then nothing. His heightened durability was able to withstand some of the weight of this thing but his legs still felt stretched. This thing was more than 15 tons. 

Spidey crouched, leaning more on his arms. Taking the weight off his legs. He had to stall, his body was feeling this battle. 

"You know, normally I don't tangle like this on first meet ups. There's usually a number exchange, a meet up place then you turn out not so much like your display picture." This thing got up quickly. It looked pissed. It lunged at Spidey, he used his arms to leap up and double jumped off this things back.

"Then I respond with I need an adult and then you respond 'I am an adult' and I write a book about it and cry with Oprah." He needed this thing pissed. He needed it focused on him, so that way it wouldn't concern itself with the people. It worked. A loud roar came out from it, words followed. 

"I'll impale ya, ya little runt!" Well now we know it was capable of speech, not very moving though. 

"Aww wittle snookums first words." It ran at him harder now. He needed it this blinded so he could guide it. He webbed down the street, heading towards the prison. It had just been given reinforced walls. He made sure to yell out to people, letting them know to get out of the way. One car however wouldn't move so he slid under it, pushed the car over head the thing and as he leaped up, webbed it so it wouldn't crash into the pavement. He had to keep going, his body felt like crap. He arrived at the prison and landed dead center on the way and looked to meet the rhino thing closing. He side flipped at the last second, spinning and driving his feet into the back of this things head, doubling the impact into the wall. He heard it groan and it stumbled. This thing had to go down. Now. He leaped forward and planted himself on it's shoulders, sending quick jabs into his head. It didn't take long before it collapsed. As it fell he rolled off it's back and landed on his back and lied there. Catching his breathe and letting himself calm down. 

It seemed like forever for anyone to respond. The police and SHEILD showed up. Nick Fury greeted Spider-Man. 

"Good to know you can be discreet." 

"Good to know you can see that." Spidey leaned up, an officer came over to offer help. Spidey waved him off. "Go take a look at big ugly, he might confuse himself as a step-child after that beating." The officer gave a nervous chuckle. "Heh I got brain damage from that last fight." Fury sat down beside Spidey and whispered. 

"How many times are you gonna do this Pete? Get beat up, let the collateral damage rise?" Spidey sighed. 

"How many?" Spidey replied. 

"What?" 

"How many people got hurt as soon as I showed up?" Fury looked forward over the harbor beside the prison. 

"....none." Spidey stood up. 

"I rest my case. I know what I'm doing Fury, if you did; you really think I'd have to clean it up?" With that he webbed home. Passing by people thanking him. 

He came through his window. Putting his torn costume in the pile. He'd sew it later. He headed to bathroom, cleaned himself up and bandaged what needed to be. His stomach grumbled and he headed downstairs were he was greeted with his bowl of cereal. He forgot the milk. Dammit! He whirled around to be greeted by Aunt May. 

"On my way back from work I heard the most interesting thing." Peter lowered his head a bit. "Spider-Man stopped an escaped mutant, and saved a bunch of bystanders." Pete looked up at here. A jug of milk in her hand, smiling at him. "Here you go Pete, you did great." He hugged her and took the jug and began eating his cereal. City saved, people happy to have him around, Aunt May proud and Fury crying. Did he mention that being Spider-Man rocks? 

The End.

Mass Effect 3 done right. And not the Hack way. Oh hai Casey Hudson.

Ahem

First off I'd roll with the indoctrination theory. So you'd have the 2 "endings" and the one continuation where your Shepard wakes up among the rubble. Now depending on your EMS/choices/Paragon and Renegade; Anderson could either be dead under the rubble, dying or alive with injuries. Reinforcements show up IF you cured the genophage.

As the reinforcements push for the beam, Harbinger focus' it's attacks. Here's where your choice to resolve the Quarian/Geth conflict comes into play. If you did, there will be enough ships to cover the fight above Earth so the Normandy flies in to help against Harbinger. If you have high Paragon or Renegade/EMS/upgraded your ship from ME 2 then the Normandy will survive and push Harbinger away. If one of those requirements hasn't been met the Normandy is either damaged or destroyed. If Damaged or Destroyed, Shepard never makes it to the beam, either to help hold off incoming Reaper forces or be killed by Harbinger. In that scenario an unnamed solider makes it to the beam but it ends on a cliff hanger.

Assuming the Normandy survived, Shepard makes it to the beam but the transportation fries his weapons. Upon entering the Citadel, they sees the bodies of C-Sec officers and Cerberus operatives. Scrapping some left over armor and weapons, they either discovers Bailey's body or finds him holding his position in a security office; revealing that all the civilians were able to get off the Citadel in time(once again depending on your choices and personality) if not; civilian bodies will be laying throughout the Citadel. If Bailey is alive then the race to the crucible console is a bit easier, if not get ready for a long drawn out trek.

Along the way, Harbinger; still in Shepards mind, tries to persuade them. Creating images of the squad mates dying, being harvested and convincing them to join the Reapers. Either Shepard gives in or they fight off the attempt. As Shepard nears the console, a keeper approaches them; revealing a Prothean AI stored in the keepers as part of the Protheans reprogramming. It allows Shepard to touch Harbingers mind where they learn of "dark energy". After this, the AI wipes the traces of Harbinger from Shepard but by doing that it terminates itself.

Now free from any more indoctrination attempts, Shepard pushes to the final room. The crucible terminal; where the Illusive Man is waiting. Looking normal, he attempts to convince Shepard to work with the Reapers and allow them to process Humanity and turn them into the next Reapers; giving them galactic superiority. Shepard can either agree or talk him down. Talking down leads to a shoot out. If Bailey is alive, he'll activate nearby automated turrets to help. If not, hope you brought a lot of medi-gel.

Either you agreed or talked down, Shepard and the Illusive Man will come face to face in front of the Catalyst console. A giant interface that sends out a signal. You can either talk down the Illusive Man and convince him to face his errors (he doesn't shoot himself in the face if you are high Paragon), kill him, allow him to merge humanity with the Reapers, high renegade he commits suicide or fight him. Which would be difficult as he has Reaper level biotics. Either way, when Shepard reaches the console they are greeted by an image of Harbinger masquerading as the Shepard opposite of your own. So if paragon Shepard, Harbinger will appear as Renegade Shepard and vice versa. If Illusive Man was left alive, he'll keel over in pain as this is another indoctrination attempt.

Thanks to the Reaper signal purge by the AI, Shepard can resist it and confront Harbinger. With the Normandy hitting Harbinger hard, it becomes desperate and commands Shepard to not activate the catalyst. Shepard can either comply or put the pressure on Harbinger by bringing up Dark Energy. That the reapers were once organics, afraid of their own mortality so they sought to live forever. With the discovery of Dark Energy, the Reapers feared that organics left unchecked will discover a way to end their 'perfect' existence. The Crucible sends out a signal that disrupts dark energy. Not only severely disabling the Reapers but possibly shutting down the relays by disrupting their own dark energy by sending the signal through them. If high paragon, Shepard will warn the fleet of what's about to happen, if high renegade Shepard will only warn the Normandy. You can choose to not warn anyone.

Either way, Shepard makes their choice and Harbinger phases out; damning Shepard. Now, if you kept the Illusive Man alive; he'll disable Shepard and activate the Crucible himself, dying in the process: Stating that he wanted to one up the Reapers and Shepard to prove his superiority. If not Shepard will activate the Crucible and either be severely crippled or die. The signal is sent out and the Reapers are made helpless as the ships blow them to hell. The signal is sent through the mass relays, if Shepard sent out a warning either himself or through the Normandy; the fleets head through the relays to get to their home planets before Shepard activates the signal. If not, they become stranded in the milky way. Either way, the Normandy heads to the Citadel and Shepard is greeted by their LI and most used squad member. They can either receive medical attention for their crippling injuries, die in their LI's arms or be helped by their LI and squad mate and limp out towards the Normandy. Then the credits roll.

If the warning was sent out, there is an after credit scene where it pans to the Mass Relay and just as it hints that the Relay is starting back up, the screen goes black. The End.

Things to note about how the ending can change. As Shepard, Hackett asks for advice on who should lead what teams where. These teams are scientific studies in reaper and Prothean Technologies. Keep in mind without these, the beam could fry Shepard and you get a shitty ending.

SWORD team. Which is the fleet, you need to manage who's in the front, middle and providing cover in the back. Same goes for HAMMER team (ground forces). This kind of micro manage will help ease the final push. It won't be a cakewalk but it'll make sure Shep needs to do what she/he needs to do.

Picking the right options will provide the least amount of casualties. Basically the suicide mission from 2 but on a grander scale. You can cock up and the Reapers win or push through and make your choices on the Citadel and receive the ending you desire.

No talk of synthetics vs organics. Seriously Casey, Asimov is spinning in his grave.

Phew. That took a bit but that's how I would have done the ending.

What is a man? A bag of guts man - Binary Domain review

It's been a hectic month. I promised to update from time to time and then I get racked with BS, driving school and getting into ICS.

 Ah yes, way too busy. What with the fiasco of Mass Effect 3 (gonna add to that later). Plus other mediocre Silent Hill games, it's been a sad panda month. I have yet to play Kid Icarus but it's on my to do list. Also movies are slow. I have seen Hunger Games and I'll get to that movie later.

So, Binary Domain. I love this game. Sure it's not perfect, it isn't "deep" or artistic and the storyline goes batshit in the final minutes of the game but unlike ME3 it fits with the overall plot.

The story focus' on Dan, dubbed "The Survivor" mostly cause of respawn saves but I digress. He's your bread and butter for the whole game. The plot concerns a corporation creating something called 'hollowed children'; robots who look and THINK they are human. So the UN sends in Dan and a squad called a 'rust crew', special squads that deal with this sort of thing. That's the jist of it. Along the way the game judges how you deal with your squad mates and the ending as well as certain motives are changed depending on how high their trust level is with you. It's moments like this that take it beyond a simple third person shooter. Speaking of which, this game is hard. It's not like GoW where I breezed through that game, I played this game through on multiple trials; on different settings. Even on easy my organic arse was handed to me on a robotic platter.

It may be your simple duck and cover mechanic but cover doesn't last long so you need to stay on your toes. You can upgrade your guns to help give an edge but you get swarmed so you really need your teammates. When they ask if they can help, you let them. One it eases up the battles a bit and it raises their trust with you. Be careful though, allowing one squad mate to act MIGHT lower the trust you have with another squad mate. See? How this is more than just a third person shooter? You have to stick to cover or you die. A lot. Issue commands to your squad and need to gain their trust for the best possible outcome for the game. You can't just plow through this game, you go through med kits in a flash. Sure you have regenerating health but it's not as fast as you think and you will die in an instant. They do give you time to either administer a med pack to yourself or call for help from a squad mate. They are responsive. Sure, they can walk in front of your shots, which does cost the trust level. That's buggy, I mean if a guy was shooting and I got in front so my ass could have hot lead salad; my reaction wouldn't be "oh great I don't trust you a-hole" it'd be more along the lines of 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMUTHAFUCKASHIATE!!! Why did I do that?!"

There is co-op which allows for a lot of fun. It isn't just competitive multiplayer which is lame. It's co-op and you and your partner are thrust into an even harder experience. That's all I can really say, it's the same as the single player you just have human back up.

The music is lifted heavily from Deus Ex/Daft Punk. Very electronica, with a heartfelt orchestra behind it. It's stunning when it needs to be and gut wrenching while in the middle of battle. It helps with the atmosphere of a dystopian future of corporations and government secrets. Yes the ending gets weird by introducing human/robot hybrids that take away from the atmosphere but I wasn't expecting the Schindler's List of robotics. Especially when the token black guy; Bo goes on about Asian porn halfway through the game. CLASSY.

All in all a good experience and at 9 to 10 hours worth your money. It's a buy or a rent.

Binary Domain gets 8 Metropolis references out of 10.

I'm coming for you Mass Effect 3, and when I do. You'll know the meaning of the word "conclusion".