Mom finally tried playing by herself

I got an SMS from my mom. Seems she's trying to play ME2 herself! She's having trouble with the controls it seems, but still very cool!

Going to call her during the weekend and hear if she tried again ;)

Achievement Unlocked: Got mom to watch an episode of an anime

So this is just a small post, but I thought I'd share anyway since I think its awesome.

Some time ago my parents and I got into a deep conversation and some of it revolved around topics like the matrix, human evolution, religion and ethics.

At some point I mentioned some stuff about Ghost in the Shell. My mom seemed really keen on the story when I told her what its about. She seemed keen to give it a try, but she wasn't so keen on the reading subtitle thing.

So I thought I'd try and find a dubbed version so she could watch it. Well, I haven't found a dubbed version yet, but I took my subbed version along to just show her bits of the first episode. We watched through the entire thing!

Its awesome. She made me copy it to her PC and she will try to watch it at some point.

Starting Mass Effect 2

<< Previous
Yes, I admit it, I'm terrible at blogging, but here's the next installment :P

So we started playing ME2, but this time I wasn't driving :P So the first part of the game is a lot of "How to use multiple keys and the mouse at the same time". I won't lie, its kinda funny to watch, but at the same time I realize I've had a few years of experience with hand-eye coordination and PC gaming.

There was a lot of running into walls and struggling with the camera view, but eventually we got all the way to meeting TIM for the first time.

We even got around to Freedom's Progress. Took a bit of time to kill all the mechs, but my mom felt pretty good about killing that YMIR mech ;)

My mom did ask Tali to come back to the Normandy, but at the same time she decided to give Veetor over to Cerberus. Not sure what will happen because of this, since I only gave them the data.

She was happy to see Joker again.

Next up we landed on Omega to find the scientist salarian who will help with the agent to counteract the Collector Swarm effects :)

There is also a lady called Aria who insists we go see her ;)

Finishing Mass Effect 1 with Mom

<< Previous

So we had a public holiday this past Thursday and my mom and I managed to finish Mass Effect 1!

We started on Wednesday evening. We got Wrex's family armour, helped Tali with her pilgrimage and went to deal wirh Dr Saleon for Garrus. After that we went to Virmire.

Virmire was exiting. She managed to calm Wrex down and enjoyed Captain Kirrahe's speech. Ashley went with Captain Kirrahe.

The conversation with Sovereign blew her mind. We set the bomb and went to give Ashley backup when she was faced with the choice to save her or Kaiden. She chose Ashley.

Thursday morning we went to Ilos to stop Saren from reaching the conduit. The conversation with Vigil was also very interesting and she was very surprised about the Keepers.

She enjoyed the fight in the Citadel, especially the part where we walked up the side of the Council Tower. We talked to Saren and he shot himself after trying to convince him that he's wrong. She chose the "Focus on Sovereign" option and the Council and Destiny Ascension got destroyed. She almost cried when it looked like Shepard got killed at the end.

She also chose Anderson to serve on the Citadel Council since she really dislikes Udina.

So loved playing through the story! I'm really happy about that and I'm looking forward to seeing what she'll do with the rest of the games.

She also ordered a computer screen so she can play the game when other people want to watch TV. She will be buying the Trilogy for herself and I need to bring the next novel over when I go visit again since she's finished with the first one.
Next >>

Mom on Noveria

<< Previous
(NOTE: My blog contains spoilers, so if you haven't played Mass Effect 1, you have been warned!)

This would be a combination of a few days we played including some time over a holiday.

We managed to get the garage pass and went on our way to peak 15. We had a hilarious encounter where I tried to run over a geth trooper with the Mako. The geth model got stuck sort of inside the Mako model and it kept jumping around. It was hilarious.

We eventually managed to clear peak 15, killed Benezia (which was sad) and freed the Rachni Queen (Wrex was very unimpressed). She usually likes taking Wrex along and then cycles through the other party members.

We also managed to complete Feros over the holiday. After that we did a lot of assignments and talked to everyone on the ship. We've gotten Wrex, Garrus and Tali's missions and will be doing them before we go to Virmire.

My mom is finally starting to warm up to Garrus a little (which is great since she didn't trust him at all).

I also got my mom to read the first Mass Effect novel (Revelation). She's really enjoying it. I never thought I'd see her read a sci-fi book ever.

She wanted to take the second one home, but she has to finish the first game before I'll give it to her :P

Next >>

Mom & Liara

<< Previous
I know I've been neglecting my blog a little, sorry about that guys! Life sometimes dishes up a lot of stuff to do at the same time and you only have so many hours!

So another Thursday came by where I was going to go visit my parents (I'm really excited about playing Mass Effect with my mom), but we ended up going out for dinner. So no gaming but we did discuss a holiday we'll be going on in March. My mom asked me if we can bring the game with on holiday o.O I found this funny because this is usually a no-no and the time is meant to be spent with family. Since we are playing this together, its not the same thing though :P

So eventually we did get to playing some more. I like to do a bit of a recap at the start of each session, since my mom might struggle to remember some details. Though she was quick to remind me that we need to go save that other lady (Liara). So we set off in the Normandy. My mom liked the space "flight" cinematic. Back on the Citadel she was disappointed with the Rapid Transit System because she was expecting to fly, but was given a loading screen instead. I'm renaming this to the Rapid Disappointment System (if you heard how my mom reacted you would agree)

I did take the time to show her what Assignments were compared to missions. I also showed her the Mako :) She's starting to at least recall the controls I'm using to drive stuff :)

We eventually went on the mission to go save Liara. Nothing really amusing happened other than her saying that the Krogan Battlemaster looked like a yellow frog. ("Geel padda")

After the mission we had a chat with Liara (my mom likes investigating) and found out about Benezia and Liara's dad. My mom is adamant to go to Noveria and find Benezia, so I guess we're skipping Feros for now.

We did go to the Noveria System, but got given a few assignments on the Citadel so we decided to stop off there first. We also got the mission with the escaped slave that you get when you take the Colonist background. I've never seen this and my mom and I both thought this was very sad but well done.

We eventually went back to Noveria and started the mission there. That's about how far we played.

My mom is still adamant about trying to play it herself, but she's experiencing a problem I used to have when I was a kid. Other people are using the TV :P

We hooked the computer up to my parents' television and we're playing it there. She was going to play today since she was home alone. I messaged her asking if she played, here's her reply:

"*sigh* I needed to go buy something. when I got back your sister was back and I couldn't play because she was watching TV. then I needed to make dinner"

She has the same problem when my dad is at home, but I expect her to play at some point.

Her opinion about the game so for "Dis so lekker!" (Its so fun!)
Next >>

Mom & The Citadel

<< Previous

As predicted, my mom has been too busy to play the game herself because of work. She seemed a bit disappointed about this though :) An additional note, my friends who understand Afrikaans, imagine all the things my mom says in Afrikaans. hehehe

We did a quick recap since my mom sometimes has trouble remembering things (I'm thinking gaming will help with this). We need to find Septimus to have a chat to him, we need to find Harkin to find out where Garrus is and we need to find Fist so we can find the Quarian that has the data on Saren. We also have a few side quests still open.

Now, I haven't played Mass Effect 1 in ages and apparently I missed quite a few things, so I can't remember the Citadel very well. I just ran around trying to find stuff. My mom also remembers that if something has a blue circle we can interact with it. So we talked to a lot of NPCs and things. We were scanning the Keepers as well. I did explain to he that we don't need to talk to things if she doesn't want to. She said "How else are we supposed to learn things?" Side-quests galore. This play-through might take a while, though its a good thing, since we will be seeing

I forgot what was in the Med Clinic so we went in there to find Fist's men harassing people and Garrus trying to save them. We shot at people and kicked their asses. There was also a funny bit where the crate in the room fell on top of an enemy :P So now we got Garrus in the squad, but my mom doesn't seem to trust him very much. I hope it changes, because really, there is no Shepard without Vakarian :P

At some point we were in the area around Chora's Den. I thought, yay, we can go talk to the Genera-oh crap Fist's men are here! More ass-kicking :) and I explained to my mom what the red triangles on the mini-map were. We cornered Fist and he told us that he tricked the Quarian into meeting Saren's men. Wrex shot him after that and my chided him for killing someone who surrendered. Then we had to rush to safe the Quarian!

So we save Tali and then cut to the scene where we hear the audio file and learn about the Quarian pilgrimage. My mom likes her and the idea of the pilgrimage. So after that our squad consisted of Wrex and Tali :)

So we went back to Chora's Den. All the dancers and things are back now. We talked to the General and convinced him to shape up. We also agreed to help him out of the elcor diplomat. Then there were some random NPCs that you could interact with, but no, my mom wanted to go see the dancers, because they danced so nicely.

So we went to complete the quest with the Asari Consort. During this exchange she kind of flirts with you and offers you credits if you ask for compensation. She also offers you a gift of words. When I was at this part that was confusing but cool and I just chalked it up to asari being mystical. My mom also thinks they are quite spiritual and mystical, so she likes them a lot. My mom didn't think that much of the gift of words though and chose the "That's it?" option. I DIDN'T KNOW SHE HAS SEX WITH YOU IF YOU SAY THAT! Awkward moment #1. What surprised me is that my mom didn't think this was awkward at all and the feeling was on my side only. They don't show anything other than the hand on the side of the glass though, so maybe awkward moment will be more awkward later. (if she romances anyone)

With this not being so awkward for her and her liking asari I'm wondering about the romance options. It would be strange if it went that way.

At this point my mom was getting sleepy, so we decided to go speak with the council. She's now a Spectre :) We then spoke to Anderson and Udina. We can either go to Feros, Noveria or go to find Liara. I just told my mom that we need to do Noveria after finding Liara. Next session we're off to find Liara it seems :)

Edit: Forgot to mention that she jumps up and down when we get "points"(Paragon/Renegade) or credits.
Next >>

Mom & Mass Effect Reboot

So this past Saturday I went to my parent's house to do an errand. After that my mom and I sat down for our second session.

Now that she knows what's going on, she's more comfortable with making the choices while I play. So we created a new game. Same choices, Colonist, Sole Survivor, Sentinel.

My mom isn't really good at finding out how to do new things on the PC on her own (yet, this experiment is going to change this I'm sure :) ), so while I was playing I was explaining to her what keys I was pressing and what I was doing with the mouse. She made notes of most things so I'm really hopeful that she will be playing this herself at some point :)

She really got into "her story" and she said something along the lines of "It's addictive. We're going to spend hours on this." Now she knows why I spend hours on stuff like this :P

I explained to her how save games work. We also made one save game at the start of Eden Prime so she can go back and practice the fighting and then jump forward to where we are now.

I did explain to her what happens when you click "Investigate" in the dialog options, but that she has to tell me if she wants to talk to people more. She usually investigates what people say :) I'll have to see if she keeps on doing this, but I have high hopes.

I also explained to her what she needs to do in the menu when you press Escape. I explained what the journal, squad menu, etc does including what the codex menu item is for. Her response to this was along the lines of "Oh, so this is how you know so much of the background." Since we had limited time (I had to go at 4 PM), she asked me "Can I go look at these myself later on?" I gave her an affirmative on this. I'm rather ecstatic that she's interested enough to go listen to the codex entries in her own time.

So, we played through Eden Prime and eventually reached the Citadel. We talked to many NPCs, some of which mentioned the Consort (the Elcor diplomat who has a problem, the Alliance marines who wanted to go visit her). I did run around quite a bit, since I wanted to show her the concept of exploration and that you can talk to other people. We eventually reached the Consort's place of business and we talked to the receptionist. Somewhere in the conversation where the assistant explains what the consort and her acolytes do, my mom said "Is this a whore house?". I did awkwardly laugh a little at that, but tried to explain that consorts usually offer a variety of services including just talking to people. Eventually it boiled down to "Its a classy whore house." She laughed when you pass by the salarian that says something like "Even humans find the Consort appealing."

We eventually spoke to the Council and could either look for Harkin, Garrus or go talk to Barla Von. My mom also reminded me that we need to go talk to the drunk turian General in the bar. (Guys, my mom is reminding me about side quests, awesome). So since Barla Von was nearby, we went to talk to him and found out about Wrex. So we went to go get him first.

Through most conversation my mom sometimes makes paragon, sometimes neutral and sometimes renegade choices. We'll have to see how it goes.

So we ended the session, walking around and talking to people with Wrex and Alenko in the squad.

**Next update might take a bit of time, as my mom has a lot of work to do atm. I'm hoping to go visit again on Thursday, though I did tell her to SMS me if she decides to play it herself ;)
Next >>

Experiment: Playing Mass Effect with my mom

So, I found an awesome blog whilst doing some reading on Mass Effect after my first Campaign session: Mass Effect According to Mom

It was an epic read and it occurred to me that a reason my parents don't really get my gaming hobby is because they haven't really seen me play.

My mom loves movies though, and I thought she would love the story in Mass Effect. The only problem is that she is a bit of a technophobe and freaks out when she has to do anything new on her computer.

So I suggested that we try the following: I play the game (use the mouse and keyboard) while she makes decisions and if she likes it, she can play it herself.

So, I got a hard drive for my old PC, installed Windows 7 and Mass Effect on it and took it to my parents place. In the process of hooking it up to their TV I informed my mom that they could watch movies from my PC on the TV as well. I opened a movie called War Horse just to show her. She was very excited about this part :P

So we started off, me using the mouse and keyboard, mom trying to follow the story and what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse and my dad just watching.

She chose Colonist -> Lone Survivor, which if I remember correctly is the same as what Reg's mom chose(Think I was incorrect here), but she did pick Sentinel instead of Infiltrator. Funnily enough, my mom is a dentist and 56, so that relation is also kind of funny :P

So we started the game and all too soon realised that my mom was having trouble following the story because she was focussing on what I was doing with the keyboard and mouse too much. So we decided to backtrack and start over. This time just watching me play so my mom can follow what is going on on screen. My dad picked up what was going on on screen rather quickly.

At some point we had a break to eat dinner and my mom asked "What is this game called again? War Mass?". I don't know how, but she managed to mix up War Horse and Mass Effect's names.

Another interesting bit, when I talked to Chakwas and she mentioned how Alenko gets migraines due to the L2 implant he has, she immediate identified with this due to her chronic cluster headaches. I'm wondering if this will eventually influence her choice between Ashley and Kaiden. We shall see :)

We played until 10pm and she really enjoyed it :) Next time we'll try making her choose dialogue options again :)