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As hamfisted as Javik's inclusion is, I like the character. It's hard to make an arrogant rear end in a top hat work, but as far as his personality goes, I like his interactions. He's a vengeful imperialistic dick, and given that it was the Prothean Empire I was always confused why everyone thought they had to be benevolent caretakers.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 11:04 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 03:43 |
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Bahahaha dear god I wish they had gone with the dark energy ending instead of whatever rear end they pulled those finales from. Did they just run out of time? Or did the writing staff really have no idea how to end it? I had the basic philosophy of the organic-synthetic plot spoiled for me, and that sounded ok, but jesus christ way to trip at the finish line guys. Everything in ME at least sounds plausible within universe, minus the whole liquefying of spacefaring races. Then they pull a giant Deus Ex Machina at the end. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I don't think I've ever been as disappointed in an ending to an RPG than in this game. I don't even like Mass Effect that much, and I'm compelled to rant about the pseudo-philosophical bullshit that was the wrap up to this trilogy. Bravo Bioware, way to add controversy at the end.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 16:45 |
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I can't stop thinking about how crappy that ending was. To add to my "games as thinking exercises" street cred, I really like the ending to Planescape Torment. And I always felt infinitely more satisfied talking my way out of it, so I have no problem with a game that doesn't end with a giant boss battle. But after all the hard science mumbo jumbo and detailed explanations, we have a talking plot coupon who just says "I did it, now screw explanation about who I am, pick doors 1-3, roll credits!" Now pass this series off to Obsidian, and let Chris Avellone show you how to write a loving ending.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 17:01 |
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ImpAtom posted:Obsidian just had a big layoff. Goddamn it, Bioware can write good dialogue, but their overarching storylines blow. Baldur's Gate went out on a whimper really, even if you kill a god, etc. Their gameplay is always good, but generally uninspired. Obsidian is (was) a place of mad, beautiful ideas. I don't know if their programming team is lazy or just too obsessed with trying new things, but their mechanics are generally sub par, and bugs always abound. Plus you've got the writing staff who take every trope in their chosen genre and twist it until it's unrecognizable. I won't say Alpha Protocol or NWN2 are good mechanically, but I enjoyed them for what they tried. Lucasarts hosed them hard on KotoRII, which even in its unfinished state is still a better game than the first.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 17:20 |
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I woke up from a nap today, and the first thing that came to mind was how slapdashed and welded on those endings were. It's irksome that I'm stressing so much over this, but I honestly can't figure out why they didn't just use the original lead writer's endings. Even if their resolution had no bearing on past choices, they would of still reconciled the series in a cogent manner, instead of the arbitrary bullshit they slapped on. Seriously, what the gently caress. Everybody tries to be all mysterious and poo poo, cause they saw 2001 and thought it blew their minds. "What was the monolith?", "That was so deep!", blah blah blah. Truth is that Arthur C. Clarke said it was a malfunctioning automated exploration probe from an alien race, but Kubrick wanted to be vague and left it's origin unexplained. I think they tried something like that here, but with much less success.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 00:00 |
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I actively hope they do another asspull and say Shepard was under an indoctrination induced hallucination, I would accept that over their poorman's Kubrick ending. Blow up the loving Earth! Kill all the squad mates in front of Shepard! I'm not looking for a happy ending, I'm looking for a coherent ending. It's a testament to how hosed those endings are because I enjoyed the game literally until you meet the catalyst. 5 minutes of game time were enough to taint the experience.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 00:31 |
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It's hard to discuss any other part of the game in light of the end. I wish Henry Lawson had more of a sendup before he died. They teased him more than they did TIM, and then he's there for maybe a minute. I think Tuchunka was the best part of the game, because the reward cinematic of seeing the thresher maw kill the reaper was built up to well. I wonder if Jade Empire II is still on the table. Wuxia as a setting needs more games.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 00:53 |
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Codependent Poster posted:They find the Shepard VI. Somebody suggest this in that twitter feed.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 01:02 |
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The thing that I don't get is that this series was never really about shocking swerves. Everything is always built up in the background, hints being thrown out via conversation and lore. And then they decide to drop all that with the ending. Obfustication and double talk aside, if we go by the incomprehensible nature of Gabe and Tycho's responses, maybe this is indicative of how the thought process of writers work. I dunno, if you're aware of convention it becomes mundane, and you seek to subvert it. I'm not excusing it by any means, I'm just baffled by it.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 02:15 |
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It's a grand space opera that goes out of it's way to explain how stuff works in a relatively realistic manner. Hell even Reaper indoctrination is speculated upon scientifically. Star Wars is a fantasy story with lasers and light swords. The backdrop has no bearing on reality, but works within the confines of the setting. That's what makes the ending of this series so jarring, because they abandoned that in favor of contradictory ambiguity. "Tripped at the finish line," is how I'm describing this to people, and that's the image that sticks for me.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 02:36 |
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I wonder if this is an effect of Bioware simply being too bloated for it's own good. In an interview with Casey Hudson they remarked about how they need to plan everything so far in advance due to the costs, resources, etc. This, combined with EA influence, leads to stuff like DA 2. DA 2 had only a year in development. Quite frankly I think that game is great for such a short turn around cycle. Objectively however, the criticisms leveled against it are not without merit. This whole thing smacks of "mainstreaming", and the quality of the product suffers for it. Then again, I don't imagine EA's board of directors gives a poo poo until it affects the next fiscal quarter.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 03:17 |
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Darko posted:...starting to morph into the same type of thing you see elsewhere, complete with the black or white "either they completely agree with me or they're shilling for the other side" mess that plagues the Internet in general. I think even in the more vitriolic threads I've read the valid criticisms have shone through, which to me is evidence that the reaction isn't unwarranted, author intent be damned. A work of fiction with constant, underlying themes shouldn't suddenly abandon them at the end. That's just shoddy writing.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 04:30 |
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Conspiracy about DLC notwithstanding, do you think they'll ever address why they didn't use the (in my opinion) thematically more consistent dark energy ending? It seems odd to ignore an established framework in a game that's built entirely on a narrative foundation. I suppose the simple answer is that Mac really had a hard on for Harlan Ellison, but that seems a cop out.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 04:50 |
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I remember beating Planescape Torment when I was 12 or 13 and not liking the ending. Having not been exposed to philosophy at any level (much less in a video game) I couldn't reconcile what had happened. But years later I realized how the underlying narrative supported the ending. That was a game about existentialism, and given the setting, sure as hell couldn't of been anything else. It's kinda sad to think that this hamfisted of an ending will be the generational equivlant for this period of gaming youth, because it's nonsensical fluff. VIDYA GAMES AS ART!!! Hurr...
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 06:34 |
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They should pull a Kojima and announce a Mass Effect 3 "Director's Cut." Add the film grain back in, boot the star child, make it about dark energy and poo poo. Problem solved.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 08:36 |
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Both the beginning and the end of this were supposedly changed and written by Mac. I'm not blaming him for the fact that they changed, I don't have evidence of that. I think I remember hearing that they ultimately decided to go with a "faster" beginning rather than have Shepard on trial for Arrival; perhaps the ending suffered this fate as well. The beginning was off putting to me, it seemed as ramshackle as the ending. If the haphazard beginning and ending were the result of changes passed down from on high, I'd be more understanding, but not forgiving. To possibly invalidate my arguments in the face of forum goers, I actually liked DAII. It is markedly inferior to DAI in terms of environmental depth, but the shift to Hawke rather than a blank slate, and the idea, if not the execution, of putting it exclusively in Kirkwall was neat. It would in theory allow for a richer experience within a given setting, which it certainly did not. Hell I liked the final boss battle, not because of anime woman with big sword, but the animated statues. It was cool to play through, if not challenging mechanically. To make a point, I remember reading in this forum that they only had a year for that game, and the product for that brief of a time table is quite frankly great. In comparison to it's contemporaries, a la Witcher 2, it is certainly unremarkable. To finalize, what I'm saying is that Bioware performs really poorly in a limited timeframe. If "market research" dictated the beginning and end of this game, and they adjusted after the fact, I'd understand it more given the context of this argument. In essence, gently caress EA.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2012 14:41 |
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I'm going to Pax East, but on saturday, not friday unfortunately. Given the supposed "honesty" of Pax panels, do you think they'll candidly discuss the ending? Or just run damage control? Or they could just throw David Gaider up there to talk about Dragon Age III. That'd be fun to watch.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:10 |
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Option C: Cancel their panel. I doubt they'll do this, the backdraft would just stoke the fires after the buzz had died down. Just have them go in and grit their teeth and dance around it, while directing all questions to the Old Republic.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:13 |
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I really wish Kubrick had never made the monolith ambiguous, and just gone with what Arthur C. Clarke had originally written. Would of made vague asspulls like this less acceptable in moderately grounded sci-fi.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:33 |
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Stuff like Dear Esther and Flower I'd say satisfy whatever that french phrase means. Apparently people hate TvTropes on this forum, but I think their quote for a shocking swerve is applicable here. "Think of it this way: if Russo was managing the local Pizza Hut, you'd order a pizza and they'd deliver a newspaper. Sure, it was a surprise, but it didn't make much sense, nor did you want to order from them again. But it sure fooled you, didn't it?" — R.D. Reynolds on Vince Russo's writing style, from the book Wrestle Crap
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:39 |
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RMcC3D posted:I almost mentioned Flower in the post, actually, as a great example of a more indie, art-house style game. Braid's another good example. I was going to say Braid, but fundamentally that's a puzzle game, a good one at that. Too video-gamey one might say. Also it's not like consumer based art is a product of our jaded generation. How the hell do you think artists, in the traditional sense, ate if not by patronage?
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:42 |
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Uncle Wemus posted:Didnt Parasini in me2 say that her next assignment was about Dark Matter? I didnt see anything involving her in 3, not even an email saying she died. At this point I think they were just riding high on their own success, and felt they could do no wrong. This happens to directors too, often to disastrous effect concerning their careers. If anyone ever watched Entourage, the main character kept pushing to star a film where he played as Pablo Escobar because he felt he could pull it off. He had had such a wave of success that he felt everything he touched was gold. The film bombed so hard that the next season is basically about him trying to bounce back. I get the same vibe here, except it occurs at the end of an otherwise very satisfying game.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 04:52 |
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Rebel Blob posted:Nope. Not good enough, look what I've scrawled in my notebook here: "LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE." This, along with that earlier gamefront article, essentially sum up the perceived outrage very well. I'll bicker at certain points, because despite agreeing fundamentally about the use of the Illusive Man, I felt that portion was executed well if you get him to commit suicide. I can't speak for the forced Renegade interrupt, because I have no desire to play the ending again. Pass these essays around, they're the best explanations I've read.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 05:01 |
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quote:So the Reapers were secretly good guys trying to end the threat of dark energy by scattering dark energy based artifacts all over the galaxy for young races to find, reverse engineer, and use. In hopes that they find a species who can fix the problem they've spend 37+ million years thinking about. That guy says he's glad they changed the ending, but to me this seems like something a eons old artificial intelligence would actually do. It's thematically consistent, and to be honest, is a better use of science fiction convention than the bullshit they gave us. It doesn't turn the Reapers into good guys, just illuminates you to a problem. The leap of faith is in "trusting in humanity's indelible spirit" and all that jazz. gently caress man I think this is a great ending. Maybe I'm crazy, I dunno.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 05:08 |
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CrushedB posted:I'm honestly not sure which makes the Reapers and/or their creators look dumber. A.I. stories are often predicated on the fact that as sentient beings, we accept that our thought processes are not governed by, in large part, rational thought. In order to rectify existence, we require an arbitrary assumption. However this is expressed is generally unique to the work, and some can be better than others, that's an effect of writing skill. A.I. on the other hand rely solely on deductive reasoning. As fundamentally irrational creatures, we cannot accept that, hence, friction on both ends. Generally the story comes down to the fact that pure logic lacks the plasticity necessary to innovate, and this is where the dark energy ending comes in. The arrogance of the Reapers is totally justified in this narrative context, with the races of the galaxy (geth included, the Reapers see them as inferior) defying them as a send up to their intellectual rigidity. This is a common story line in A.I. stories, but not necessarily a bad one.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 05:43 |
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Lloyd Boner posted:Why the gently caress is Miranda there? Artist likes Miranda?
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2012 05:49 |
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Did anybody else stop watching Lost when they realized they were never going to resolve anything? I was about halfway through the first season and I understood this was a LOTS OF SPECULATION! moment. Did people actually enjoy that ending?
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 00:18 |
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I wonder if the need to write purely cinematic stories is an anachronism of modern gaming development and not systematic throughout games in general. This is me admitting I'm a nerd, but I wrote D&D scenarios with "moral quandaries" specifically because I wanted to see how my friends reacted to the situation, and the choices they made. Player agency is a great thing in my opinion, and it seems to me a lot of veteran game writers got into writing for video games because their movie careers didn't pan out.
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 00:24 |
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Did anyone not like the direction they took Udina? Or rather, the lack of direction? Even if he decided to join Cerberus, they never explain why, just trusting that people would be satisfied with "He was an rear end in a top hat."
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 04:14 |
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Liberatore posted:Eh, the character itself explains enough: Udina is a power-hungry son of a bitch. It really wouldn't take much to persuade him, especially since TIM and the rest of Cerberus were indoctrinated anyway, it's not unreasonable to think Udina suffered the same fate. It's just that they almost humanize him at the beginning of the game, you even get to ask about how he feels, etc. Then you shoot him without any real input on his part. Most one dimensional characters don't get this much screen time.
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 04:20 |
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Did Mac Walters delete his twitter?
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 04:27 |
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I made mention of this before but I think player agency being the main driving force in games is something most veteran writers aren't really down with. How many of them actually got into to write for video games, and not television or movies? Reconciling cinematic experience with choice is difficult, and counter intuitive to some.
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 06:53 |
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I played Xenogears when I was like 11 years old. I think I got it for the giant robots. That game knew more about gnostic religions than most theologiests. Must of been a weird process playing that poo poo for the ESRB.
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 09:17 |
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You could infer that they're an indoctrinated race. I was looking forward to diving into the bowels of the citadel, finding the keeper's hives or w/e, but was satisfied with the TIM meeting. Then the ending happened and you know how that went.
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2012 09:24 |
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Thoren posted:It sure would have been nice if the game rewarded some kind of neutral play. Eh, this really isn't the kind of game that works in the context of neutrality. The whole point is that you need to pick a side or reconcile a conflict to move forward, nonaction in this case doesn't work. I did like the blurring of Renegade/Paragon in this game, and by that I mean Renegade not sticking solely to being the "rear end in a top hat" option. The first Witcher, and to a lesser extent, the second, works in the context of neutrality. Geralt's mission is peripheral to all the conflict around him, so he can basically tell everyone to go gently caress themselves and still complete the game in a satisfactory fashion. In Mass Effect, the mission is the conflict.
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 09:29 |
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Party Plane Jones posted:Alpha protocol is so incredibly unfinished thanks to Sega basically locking the staff out for 6 months and sitting on it before release from what I remember. It's amazing that what we got is halfway done and not less. If I can take that at face value, what project of their's wasn't rushed in some fashion? Seems they can't catch a break in terms of time.
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 10:48 |
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Torment was a Black Isle job, before Interplay started hemoragging money. Does every publisher just think of them as a joke studio? Cause they improve upon every ip they touch IMO. I guess I'm doing it wrong by looking past the bugs?
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 10:57 |
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Dan Didio posted:Convince them the Steven Heck way. Decapitate them with a soccer ball?
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 11:03 |
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Think they'll wait till after PAX East to discuss this in earnest? I imagine they have a whole schedule of press releases and poo poo that was on the table, none of which included contingencies involving this scenario. In a way I hope they just can the PR spin and have an honest discussion, but who am I kidding?
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 14:45 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 03:43 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:If they avoid the topic at Pax I expect things to get a whole lot worse. Standard PR tactic is to just bunker down and weather the storm. I bet if they allow discussion at all, "obfuscation" will be a word used on blogs reporting on it.
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| # ¿ Mar 18, 2012 15:32 |
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