Mass Effect Series Catch-All

nel e nel wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I couldn't look at EDI's hair without thinking of Twiki's pageboy.

Her hair was the least of her worries

*pic*

Heh, more as a feature that a bug--I like that they made us wonder if that was what they were referencing, as the whole thing seemed like it enjoyed playing with elements of sci-fi and assembling it all into something new. I wonder if the some of the differences in preference for 1/2/3 has to do with what periods of sci-fi people are nostalgic for.

OH FFS....

*sound of Mass Effect 1 being re-downloaded re-installed (lucky I had that backup handy)*

Also, by sheer coincidence I am presently wearing my KEEP CALM GET ANGRY Paragon/Renegade t-shirt. Notable for it's distinct lack of GREEN. Just sayin'

cheeba wrote:

This is all I have to say.

*all the feelings*

I think there was a whole article someone wrote about that theme, lemme see if I can find it.

edit: here it is:

http://kotaku.com/5895616/mass-effec...

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
cheeba wrote:

This is all I have to say.

*all the feelings*

I think there was a whole article someone wrote about that theme, lemme see if I can find it.

http://kotaku.com/5895616/mass-effec...

One of the first comments is from the ME3 audio lead. I also noticed this background music during my initial playthrough of 3.

cheeba wrote:

This is all I have to say.

Listening to this has single-handedly made me more excited for Not Mass Effect 4 as I have been since the end of ME3.

Finally finishing up ME3... the final third is a lot of fun so far!

I really hope the series gets the HD re-release treatment, and (like Metro Redux) they take the opportunity to clean up 1. I like the more RPG-like elements, so I'm not saying necessarily to remake it completely; but I think there is universal agreement that they improved the engine and graphics in later installments, and that the inventory management wasn't that great. It would also be nice to play with all the DLC in place, some of which I never got around to or which didn't work as well after the fact as it would have integrated.

All of what Malor said.

I replayed ME1 twice, ME2 three times, and after the ME3 ending I couldn't even think about finishing my 2nd run, much less starting a 3rd to carryover choices.

At least the multiplayer was fun.

Malor wrote:

All you could do was choose one of three festive colors which which to wipe out the inhabited galaxy.

IMAGE(http://cdn.meme.li/instances/500x/54048017.jpg)

(i'm probably butchering that reference)

pyxistyx wrote:
Malor wrote:

All you could do was choose one of three festive colors which which to wipe out the inhabited galaxy.

IMAGE(http://cdn.meme.li/instances/500x/54048017.jpg)

(i'm probably butchering that reference)

What was that you tried to say?

The only thing that's stuck with me in this thread so far is robot camel toe.

cheeba wrote:

This is all I have to say.

This is the right answer. We also would have accepted:

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Enjoyed 2 due to Wilma Deering. So sue me!

FTFM(e)

Also, this post sent me on a brief google image journey into Buck Rodgers history, and MAN was that series weird.

cheeba wrote:

This is all I have to say.

+∞

#cameltoegate

CptGlanton wrote:

Also, this post sent me on a brief google image journey into Buck Rodgers history, and MAN was that series weird AWESOME.

FTFY

Also, Princess Ardala > Wilma Deering.

You are all bad...and should feel bad!

(picked up trilogy for cheap on PSN for new play through after I get home this month)

Grrrrr.....

I liked ME1, loved ME2, and was reasonably into ME3 until the end, at which point they completely broke my belief in their universe. It became obvious to me, at that point, that they'd just been making it up as they went along. Most of the choices you made in the earlier titles ended up being handled as cosmetic outcomes only.... the Rachni queen comes to mind. They foreshadowed that one as a Really Big Deal, and it ended up being a complete anticlimax.

There were moments of absolute brilliance in ME3; the Tuchanka mission was some of the best game storytelling ever done. But it was mixed with a lot of crap, and then the end completely misunderstood what the entire series was about.

All the way along, all through Mass Effects 1 and 2, Shepard's thing was being told there were several ways to solve a problem, and then breaking out of that mold, doing something entirely different. Over and over and over, people try to set limits on what Shepard can do, and over and over, he or she ignores those ideas and does something either very clever, or very assholish, cutting through the dilemma, and showing it to have been false all the way along.

This, I would argue, is the single unifying theme of Mass Effect, and then the ending completely violated that. Suddenly, everything you'd done didn't matter. You were given a few choices, decreed by a godlike being, and that was all. You couldn't do anything clever, you couldn't prepare, you couldn't work around the problem differently. You couldn't be Shepard anymore. All you could do was choose one of three festive colors with which to wipe out the inhabited galaxy.

And then they retconned that destroying the relays didn't matter, and there's some 'afterward' stuff, but we already had established, in the ME2 DLC, that a simple asteroid strike on a relay would obliterate the containing star system. So now you're taking the most powerful weapon to ever exist, one that they constantly yammer about, claiming it to be The Ultimate God Weapon That We Don't Understand But Holy Sh*t It Is Powerful, and firing it into the relay network, overloading and destroying the whole thing. Somehow, that's supposed to be less destructive than a rock.

The guy who wrote that ending didn't know what the f*ck he was doing. He wasn't paying attention to the story. He didn't understand what the game was about in the first place, and then wasn't up on the details and the implications of the supposed tech that his supposed universe was using.

This totally shattered my suspension of disbelief. They can retcon all they like, but they can't put Humpty together again. There was no real plan. They didn't know where they were going. They were just pulling it out of their butts all the way along, and I haven't touched any of the titles since, as I now know that the supposed consequences of your decisions don't actually exist. There's no point to playing it through anymore, because it doesn't really change anything about the outcome.

Malor wrote:

This totally shattered my suspension of disbelief. They can retcon all they like, but they can't put Humpty together again. There was no real plan. They didn't know where they were going. They were just pulling it out of their butts all the way along, and I haven't touched any of the titles since, as I now know that the supposed consequences of your decisions don't actually exist. There's no point to playing it through anymore, because it doesn't really change anything about the outcome.

I reconsidered replying to this because it's been done over and over, but might as well.

It was plenty obvious that they issued a check they couldn't clear right at the outset of Mass Effect 2. Instead of a radically different universe depending on the divergent choices of the first game, the game out and out shunts you to kind of a pointless quest with limited meaning. The Collectors may or may not be connected to the Reapers, but their immediate threat is humanity - which Shepard doesn't particularly care about. She's all about the entire universe and the Reapers. There were better leads that would showcase the differences which were established in the first game. They declined to show most of this, and that was pretty telling, if you ask me.

And you know what? I bet they'll do the same thing in Dragon Age: Inquisitions, too. All the different outcomes DA:O was supposedly renowned for are just going to be minor points in DA:I.

Shepard's character as a mover isn't a theme. It's not unique to Mass Effect. Every single game with decision points is like this. Your character is special because so and so, and she defies the rules because so and so. That's just how video game characters are if they're the main protagonist.

Arguably, Shepard is less of this compared to say, Kenshin Himura, or Neo. She isn't "The One." She can be killed. Her resourcefulness is not infinite. She can't solve everything. I figured that's the main point of having her die in ME2. Many players gloss this over as a plot point strongarmed to suit the mechanics, but that doesn't make sense. There were any number of ways they could have done that. Having Shepard die from an ambush makes an important point.

The idea that the universe was not what it seemed just a few hours ago is a central theme of Golden Age scifi. It underlies such classics as "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," and a whole bunch of successor Asimov stories. Mass Effect's authors explicitly refer to this era of scifi as their inspiration. It stood to reason that the entire thing was going to hinge on an unexpected reveal about the nature of the universe at the 11th hour. That's how these stories go. For the ending to have been anything else would have betrayed that vision.

All that said, ME has more consequences for decisions than DA:O does. If you decide to go a certain way, the story and its characters could be radically different. You can't know if you only ever played one way and only ever listened to players who played the exact same way you did. The ME3 podcast CC was filled with stuff like "WTF? That can happen?" You won't see the same kinds of reactions to DA:O. It's a lot better in that regard.

Making Shepard not be Shepard anymore is terrible, terrible storytelling.

You can argue until you're blue in the face, and it will still be terrible storytelling.

Shepard was always a moving target. Your Shepard is different from my Shepard, and it seems like you injected a personality qualiy in your Shepard that was never explicitly in the game - that she's invincible. None of my Shepards ever were. In fact, in the first ME, she was forced to leave behind a crew member and a close friend to die because she couldn't hack it. That's not a Shepard that beats all odds. That's a human that can fail. Whose plans fail.

At the end of ME1, you have to choose between sacrificing the human fleet or the Destiny Ascension. Once again, human. Prone to failure. Flying by the seat of her pants. Barely knows what the hell is going on and what she's doing. She is often thrust into great conflicts where she can't determine the outcome. You can't NOT kill Sovereign. That event arc is decided. It is beyond your power to spare it for whatever reason you care to think of.

You can't spare the krogans on Virmire. There's no finesse that allows Shepard to do what cannot be done. This is why Wrex is so pissed. He thinks Shepard could've done more, if only she cared more. Of course, that's debatable.

She's not even guaranteed to survive ME2. Each possibility is an arc that describes the meta-Shepard, and in one of those stories, she dies fighting the Collectors. Not invincible. Not an exception. Suicide mission killed her.

it seems like you injected a personality qualiy in your Shepard that was never explicitly in the game - that she's invincible.

Larry, you always do this, you just make up stuff like that.

I never said that. I never even thought it.

Read what I'm actually saying, and then if you have comments after that, I'd be interested.

Malor wrote:
it seems like you injected a personality qualiy in your Shepard that was never explicitly in the game - that she's invincible.

Larry, you always do this, you just make up stuff like that.

I never said that. I never even thought it.

Read what I'm actually saying, and then if you have comments after that, I'd be interested.

That is what I interpreted from what you posted. Here:

All the way along, all through Mass Effects 1 and 2, Shepard's thing was being told there were several ways to solve a problem, and then breaking out of that mold, doing something entirely different. Over and over and over, people try to set limits on what Shepard can do, and over and over, he or she ignores those ideas and does something either very clever, or very assholish, cutting through the dilemma, and showing it to have been false all the way along.

It is true that Shepard often exceeds expectations. That is what makes an exceptional hero in any heroic genre. It is still true that she cannot always find a way out of a problem, and she is ultimately limited by being a single human. Many characters try to set limits on what Shepard can and cannot do. Sometimes it sticks. Sometimes it doesn't. In the case of very powerful personas (like the Council), it often actually does stick. That's the central conflict in ME1: essentially getting the Council to believe what Shepard is saying - because what she can do is dictated by what they will do and believe.

Shepard exceeds expectations in the last part of the game. Never in billions of years had Catalyst had occasion to give up its mantle and prerogatives. It's making an exception for Shepard. Because she's exceptional. Even when it absolutely doesn't have to.

Malor wrote:

You can argue until you're blue in the face, and it will still be terrible storytelling.

I'm going to steal this and use it in other conversations.

Also you people need to stop calling Shepard a she, he's gonna be pissed when he comes back.

Who's gonna be pissed? Shepard identifies as a woman. Always has. There is no other Shepard.

They call him... The Cishepard

So Larry, do you think the ending is all right then? Pre director's cut?

I actually already said that it wasn't. Did so in the ME3 thread. Multiple times. I laid out my reasons there.

I genuinely enjoyed the pre-DC ending. It was the rare game ending that made me sit back in my chair, go "Huh," and get all contemplative.