Cowboy Bebop +
Mass Effect + FemShep = Awesome

By Kirk Hamilton at 12:03 PM on March 28, 2011

It's no secret that we here at Paste love Mass Effect. It's also no secret that when it comes down to choosing our protagonist's gender, we prefer FemShep—the female version of Commander Shepard—to her more popular BroShep counterpart. What you may not know is that we're also huge fans of the late 90's anime Cowboy Bebop. And so today... well, today was a good day....  read more

Found in: Games, News

The Voice-Actors of
Mass Effect, Placed Head-To-Head

By Kirk Hamilton at 4:10 PM on February 2, 2011

As I mentioned in my review of the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2, it wasn't until I played the second game that I came to fully appreciate Jennifer Hale's great voice-over performance. Hale is the actor who plays the female version of the game's protagonist Commander Shepard, a version of the character affectionally referred by fans as "FemShep." Whether we chose to play her as a caring paragon or a queen-bitch renegade, Hale brings a welcome amount of guts and emotional range to her performance. But what's interesting about a game like Mass Effect is that it's possible to...  read more

Found in: Games, News

Mass Effect 2 Review (PS3)

By Kirk Hamilton at 2:40 PM on January 31, 2011

When Mass Effect was released in 2007, buyers may have noticed a stamp on the box that read "Only on Xbox 360." BioWare's intergalactic RPG was touted as one of the highest-profile console exclusives of the generation—the acclaimed developer was returning to the sci-fi grounds they so thoroughly stomped in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Xbox owners were going to get to have all the fun. ...  read more

Found in: Games, Reviews

Bit Player: Home Again

By Kirk Hamilton at 10:15 AM on January 28, 2011

Videogames take us places. They do a lot of other things too, of course; they entertain us, challenge us, pit us against one another in brutal competition, tell us stories, let us make music and give us the tools to build amazing things. But for now, for my first column here at Paste, I wanted to talk about the places they take us—the epic voyage and the long journey home....  read more

Found in: Games, Columns

The 20 Best Songs in Videogames

By Nathan Spicer at 6:35 PM on January 14, 2011

The first commercial videogame involved navigating a rocket ship; it was created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1971. Music has been around for um… a lot longer than that. But the two have been intertwined from the nearly the beginning of gaming, as far back as Atari 2600, which allowed gamers to play alongside background “music,” which was really a series of simple loops. ...  read more

Found in: Blogs, List of the Day

2010: The Year in Downloadable
Game Content

By Kirk Hamilton at 10:30 AM on January 7, 2011

For the first few years of the current console generation, it seemed like most developers hadn't quite wrapped their heads around the concept of Downloadable Content. The bulk of post-release DLC was limited to map packs for popular shooters, new outfits or skins for player-characters and new gear, power-ups and weapons to use in various games. These packs were nice bonuses for hardcore fans, but for the most part they had a whiff of the insubstantial about them, a hint of the nickel-and-dime....  read more

Found in: Games, Features

The 20 Best Videogames of 2010

By David Wolinsky at 7:00 AM on December 9, 2010

This year, Sony and Microsoft both jumped onto the motion-sensing wagon trail, the God Of War series drew to a close, and lower-budget downloadable titles proved they could hold their own next to bajillion-budget mainstream games.  read more

Found in: Blogs, List of the Day

Mass Effect 2 Review (Xbox 360)

By Garrett Martin at 10:53 AM on February 11, 2010

Developer: BioWare Publisher: Electronic Arts Platforms: Xbox 360, PC Interstellar role-playing shooter weaves an epic sci-fi yarn The first Mass Effect suffered from an identity problem. It couldn’t decide if it was a role-playing game or a third-person shooter. Even worse, the box-art and promotional materials made you think some generic buzz-cut space marine was the main character. Everyone knows Commander Shepard is a tough-but-compassionate bottle redhead with a weakness for space liquor and alien women. She’s also a beautiful lady....  read more

Found in: Games, Reviews