Clark, if there's one lesson I've learned from you ...

I LOVE this game franchise. I still remember about a year and a half ago around my birthday getting the first Mass Effect game and immediately becoming absorbed in its universe and characters. The revolutionary gameplay letting you make decisions that alter how the game turns out and the addictiveness of Xbox Live achievements and wanting to get every one possible.

Then life entered into things and while I got the sequel that Christmas, it stayed on the shelf unplayed for the better part of the next year until just recently when dj_tenku got a 360 and Mass Effect after my raving about it before. Well, now I was on the other side of the coin and hearing all the fun things about the game got me wanting to play the franchise again, and that was how I started playing the sequel during the holidays.

And now I'm full into the sequel, loving the changes made to the weapons/upgrade systems, as well as the differences to the story approach compared to the first, and with Mass Effect 3 coming next month I can't remember the last time I was so excited for a game launch (maybe The Legend of Zelda on the SNES).

And when I become a fan of something I go full board I start to develop ships I lean towards and I've even looked through some fanfic (nothing caught my eye). But also I came to the discovery of Collector Edition releases for big video game titles when they launch. Usually I'm a budget gamer, since I have little time to game anyway (having several I have yet to play that I've owned for years) I rarely ever buy one that isn't at a budget/sale price.

However, when I first got into Mass Effect, I had become very interested in getting the art book for the first game, but that proved to be nearly impossible. So when I learned that the CE version of 3 would have an artbook included amongst other extras and the game only being around $20 more than the regular version, I had to jump on that. So I've pre-ordered, and while news recently that there might be not enough CEs for the pre-orders, I'm hoping mine is one that goes through.