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 Mass Effect 3 is a 2012 science fiction action role-playing third-person shooter created by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts.  But you know what Mass Effect 3 is. You wouldn't have clicked on this link if you didn't. The basic premise is that in the 22nd century, humanity is one of many great galactic powers in an age of peace and prosperity. In 2185, however, the Reapers - impossibly advanced genocidal robots from the dawn of time, the true terrible secret of space - have returned to the galaxy to destroy everything. In one swift attack Earth is captured and its spacefleet crippled. It is up to the player, in the guise of soldier and hero Commander Shepard, to unite the galaxy, muster a counterattack and end the Reaper threat once and for all. The reception to Mass Effect 3 was mixed, to say the least. With two previous games and an Expanded Universe full of fiction behind it, expectations for Mass Effect 3 were high. The storyline, and especially the ending, came under a lot of fire from the fanbase for not living up to their hopes. In the end, Bioware actually released several pieces of DLC - one gratis - to address the outcry. Unlike most people, I think Mass Effect 3 is really good - it's about as underappreciated as a game can be when it's a AAA title. This LP is gonna be all about me trying to re-sell Mass Effect 3 to you. God, this was a bad idea.  I've got two favours to ask the thread. Favour One: Favour Two: It's possible you may have some preconceived opinions about the game/this thread. These may include:
If so, congratulations!  All of these things are true. But in the interest of keeping the thread readable, I'd rather you didn't post these.I don't want to censor free speech, however, so instead please consider posting the following pro forma: quote:In my opinion, Mass Effect 3 is a bad game. Along with many other fans, I was disappointed with the conclusion of this trilogy. Mass Effect 1 and/or 2 were far superior. And then you can sign it or whatever. This way, though, you can register your dissent without making anyone feel like they have to get into a protracted argument about it, saving us all a lot of grief in the long run.  I can't make you do any of the above but it'd be very much appreciated! Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 17:26
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Contents Click the images to watch videos on Youtube.  Part 1: Introductions  Part 2: Tutorials  Part 3: Space  Part 4: Class  Part 5: Form  Part 6: Challenge  Part 7: Patterns  Part 8: Intertext  Part 9: Criticism  Part 10: Focus  Part 11: Choice  Part 12: Religion  Part 13: Writing  Part 14: Setting  Part 15: Criticism 2  Part 16: Orientalism Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 17:26
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Synopsis Like you haven't played all of these games already.  Mass Effect 1 is the first game in the series. In 2183, a rogue agent of the intergalactic Citadel Council attacks the human colony of Eden Prime. Player character Commander Shepard is hastily inducted into the Spectres, an elite order of black ops commandos that answer only to the Council, and assigned to track down the renegade responsible for the attack, Saren Arterius. Key to the conflict is the imminent return of the Reapers, an ancient machine race that wipes out all advanced organic life in the galaxy every 50,000 years. With the aid of an unlikely band of misfits, including turian officer Garrus Vakarian, asari professor Liara T'Soni and itinerant mechanic Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Shepard tracks Saren down and stops him, moments before Saren could open the way for the Reapers to return. There are casualties along the way, though: krogan mercenary Urdnot Wrex is killed during a tense stand-off on the planet Virmire, and Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko gives his life ensuring the destruction of Saren's stronghold shortly afterwards. Shepard's victory guarantees humanity's rise to galactic power, but he is sure the Reapers will find another way to return.  Mass Effect 2 is the second, and best, game in the series. Despite his success in hunting down Saren, Shepard is sidelined and isolated after his warnings of the coming Reaper apocalypse become politically inconvenient. Shipped off to fight geth insurgents on the fringes of civilised space, Shepard is ambushed and killed by the Collectors - a servitor race in thrall to the Reapers. Two years later, Shepard is resurrected by Cerberus, a paramilitary organisation dedicated to human supremacy at all costs. Driven by the Collector plot to abduct and transform human colonists into horrific monsters, Shepard must gather an even unlikelier band of misfits to assault and destroy the Collector home base beyond the mysterious Omega-4 Relay. This time around, his allies are criminals, assassins and mercenaries, and Cerberus seems intent on manipulating Shepard for their own selfish ends. Ultimately, though, Shepard succeeds in destroying the Collectors - though not without the loss of salarian bioscientist Mordin Solus and the geth emissary Legion. When he discovers that the Reapers have almost arrived at the edge of the galaxy, though, Shepard is forced to detonate a mass relay, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents in an attempt to hold off the inevitable. Returning to Earth, Shepard submits himself to the Systems Alliance for judgement.
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Jul 20, 2014 17:26
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Part 1: Introductions Further Reading ME2 Intro: http://youtu.be/XBtVWS4J1o8 Quake 2 Intro: http://youtu.be/GwKspxVu7Lc Earth Civilians Discovery: http://www.clevernoob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2235-earth-civilian-2d-sprites-aka-jack/ Open question: what introductions are good? Which games do you think have memorable openings? This is my first video so let me know if there's anything I should do to improve it. At one point I ask you to listen to what the characters say, but keep on talking over most of it. I can't help it, they keep talking when I need to talk! So here's the transcript. quote:SHEPARD and ANDERSON are walking-and-talking, just like in The West Wing Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 17:32
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I have Citadel, but probably won't show it.Gharbad the Weak posted:Mordin, Wrex and Legion are dead. This is canon.
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Jul 20, 2014 18:55
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Aces High posted:I want to go into a bit of detail about something you talked about towards the end of the video, talking about the choice of Vancouver as the place where Shepard's tribunal is taking place. You talk about how it doesn't have the same emotional effect nor does it communicate that Earth is under attack the way Independence Day does or the mention of other more publicly known major cities in the Quake 2 intro. I can understand how if Shepard is in Washington DC and the White House is destroyed that the player would think "holy poo poo, they're really here on Earth, it's actually happening" but I feel that I prefer the decor and background to be a little more unknown for a few reasons. That's fair enough - there are advantages to genericising the city, like you say. I think Endorph is right in that a series of empty roofs is a really bad way to suggest "you're in a city", and that hurts more than anything. I wouldn't say Mass Effect/Bioware in general are above a bit of cheese, but ME3 is probably the first to turn it into full melodrama - Mordin's song, Legion's question.
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Jul 21, 2014 09:23
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As I'm importing a save, I don't have a choice - it's RPG all the way. There just aren't many dialogue wheels in the opening section (or throughout the game, really).Geostomp posted:Worse, it disregards some very major events we saw that should be haunting Shepard, like killing 300,000 people just to delay the Reapers last game or abandoning someone on Virmire in the first game, in favor of the lowest common denominator. Which will be something of a theme in this game's "emotional" scenes. It is an incredibly clumsy and ham-handed scene, but I see three advantages to the vent-child: 1) Everyone sees it and remembers it. Players may not have played Arrival or may have forgotten/moved on from Virmire. 2) The child has a face, unlike the 300,000 batarians - without whom the galaxy is better off anyway  3) The child has no agency - Ashley/Kaidan/the ME2 team all made a choice to risk their lives, but the child is purely a victim. Arguably the child isn't 'for' Shepard-as-a-character, but for Shepard-as-a-player. Shepard proper is probably thinking of friends, family and other soldiers, but their faces wouldn't mean anything to us players.
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Jul 22, 2014 14:49
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Waltzing Along posted:Um. What's the point, then? With this in mind, why only show this game? I'm just confused. The point of this LP is that Mass Effect 3 actually has a really good story, including - especially - the ending. With that in mind, why show anything but this game?
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Jul 24, 2014 15:43
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Part 2: Tutorials Further Reading Dead Space 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxezK0uWmDI auntie pixelante - http://auntiepixelante.com/?p=465 How do you make good tutorials? Should you have to look things up in the manual sometimes? Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 15:47
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StrifeHira posted:Prime is much the same, and while introducing the game's mechanics it also gives the player a taste of what's to come, "resetting" at the end to give the player some incentive to get their powerups back and explore the hellhole they landed on. Kind of like Dragon Age 2, except done well!
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Jul 24, 2014 22:15
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Thanks for the feedback, everybody!quote:Even though you said you feel this is a good game, so far you haven't really shown anything that was particularly good but have pointed out a lot that is bad or could have been done better. This is mainly in terms of the gameplay. The story stuff has been neutral. A lot of the time, when I say "good", I mean "interesting" - and vice versa. I'm actually making a conscious effort not to say "interesting" too often. Count along at home! I made the first two videos before starting this thread, and I assumed most people were very familiar with ME3 and didn't want me to go over basic stuff/backstory too much. I'm gonna change this up for new videos though, since there seems to be an interest. Most of the things I like best are deep-set thematic concepts that need a bit of time to develop before I talk about them. I'm gonna say nice things in, uh, about two videos' time (so next Thursday hopefully). JcDent posted:In my opinion, Mass Effect 3 is an OK game, maybe, and a bad sequel to Mass Effect 2, which was a bad sequel to Mass Effect (which was good). Along with many other fans, I was disappointed with the conclusion of this trilogy. Mass Effect 1 and/or 2 were far superior. 
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Jul 26, 2014 00:27
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Part 3: Space Further Reading Presidium Map: http://lpix.org/1755609/presidium map.jpg Anachronox: http://youtu.be/OH0Px07ccts Nudge Theory: http://www.businessballs.com/nudge-theory.htm#nudge-theory-overview What are some other cool spaces in games? What levels say something with the geometry they use?
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Jul 27, 2014 17:33
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quote:ME 2 refused to set up the scenario for reapers returning - it should have been about shephard searching for a reaper-killing tool, not about this suddenly-appearing villain race that has no overall impact on the reaper conflict No! quote:We should have discovered the Crucible in ME2 and started building it then, instead we got Mass Effect: Random Pointless Intermissions. No! quote:I agree, but feel that ME2 could easily have made real strides to giving everyone a fighting chance against the Reapers along the way to beating the Collectors with just a few extra side-quests or some mention of usable data being recovered from the Collector base. If nothing else, they could remember all the setback the Reapers have suffered this cycle and have them weakened enough that they'd need time to gather resources to begin a full invasion. All they'd have to to is give a decent time-skip between the games to allow for the galaxy to start arming itself for the coming dark age and we'd be ready for the big epic war story they were so intent on showing. Anything would have been an improvement over the giant Dues Ex Machina device that nobody understand at all, but are desperate to build and just hope it somehow solves their problems. No! Bad! Bad bad bad! quote:Is it possible you're all giving the writers too much credit when it comes to the council? It could be that they were just created to be simple strawman politicians who act as nothing more than a plot obstacle to the action-based solutions of the player. There's a slightly more sophisticated reason for the Council's actions than "politicians bad, soldiers good" - well, at least, there's a fairly decent reason for Bioware writing "politicians bad, soldiers good" that isn't just crypto-fascism.
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Jul 31, 2014 09:10
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Part 4: Class Further Reading Reaper Sounds: http://youtu.be/qd3sD17Ovyk?t=1m16s Tripod Sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtZSdCqTmhI Strider Sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KUaeyXP3Tw
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Jul 31, 2014 09:10
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My objections are largely to do with engaging with a work on its own terms, and how Mass Effect is about Reapers in the same way that zombie films are about the undead. For what it's worth, the next few videos will be about story and characters and not mechanics - Sunday should be about EDI, next week Mordin, and after that one of the main motifs.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:07
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Endorph posted:Man dude I appreciate your LP and like it but just quoting a bunch of posts and going 'bad!' like you're talking to a disobedient dog because they have a thought or opinion you disagree with has kind of soured me on this. It's really dull and bad criticism, that's why. It's predicated entirely on what somebody thinks the story should be, rather than what it is. There's a place for counter-factual analysis, but not when it gets you to the wrong conclusion. Technically the concept of the Crucible is set up back in Mass Effect 1. e: you don't have to agree with me! that's cool, I don't mind. but I'm not gonna pussyfoot around when I think someone is wrong.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:22
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BioMe posted:I think you are missing the point here. No one is saying ME1 should have already solved the Reaper problem completely, but "a super secret weapon out of nowhere" was not the best they could have done. And the way it works and is explained doesn't make a whole lot sense even if you ignore the deus ex machina, Give me... hmm... two updates' time and I'll try to explain my take on it.
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Jul 31, 2014 14:40
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It's literally the topic I want to cover when we go get Javik two updates away
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Jul 31, 2014 15:01
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Waltzing Along posted:I think this is where the game really starts to run off the rails. I don't fully agree myself - I think "fight for Earth" is shorthand for "get the Reapers now before they wipe out humanity and take out one of the four galactic superpowers, crippling any future resistance", but the game doesn't do a great job of spelling that out. Shepard ends up seeming a little callous in their word choice.
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Aug 1, 2014 09:41
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Flytrap posted:Actually, I got the impression that Earth was where most of the combat was happening since the Reapers have had a strange fascination with humanity ever since Shepard killed their asses. Yes. The bulk of the Reaper fleet is at Earth. At the moment, they're busy harvesting people, but once they're finished they will turn their full attention to the turians, asari and everyone else. The Reapers attacking Palaven are a small distraction force (see that intro cinematic for the Menae mission) - they're there to tie up the turian fleet... to "divide and conquer", as people've mentioned before. Shepard wants the Primarch (and the asari, and the salarians) to commit to a united assault under the Crucible superweapon to break the back of the Reaper fleet at Earth ASAP. The asari and salarians want to just defend their own borders and worry about the long term later. Any of you ever play a team battle in an RTS? Starcraft or something? In a 2v2 or 3v3, if your teammate gets rushed, you don't turtle up and leave him hanging, because then it turns into a 2v1, they steamroll you and you lose the match. Instead you throw everything you have to save them and punish the rusher afterwards - together. quote:And spreading your forces and charging the biggest Reaper force you can find is such a good idea because..? The whole point is that they don't spread their forces. Letting the turians fight just on Palaven and the asari fight just on Thessia and the salarians fight just on Sur'kesh is spreading your forces. Letting the Reapers destroy Earth takes humanity out of the fight, and then the Reapers can destroy Palaven and take the turians out of the fight, and then the next world, and the next... Better to rally the galaxy now while only one of the galactic powers is crippled, than to wait for humanity to be destroyed and the turians to be crippled, or the humans and the turians to be destroyed and the asari crippled, etc. Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 15:14
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Waltzing Along posted:What you say sounds nice but none of it is in the game. It is all your own head canon or inference or however you want to put it. You just did he Palaven/Manae part. They said a few times that Palaven is getting butchered. You aren't even there. You are on a moon and there are Reapers all over. On the main planet it is just as bad, or worse than on Earth. Feel free to re-watch the Primarch video and count the Reapers. There are nine in orbit facing off against the turian fleet and two on the ground on Menae. Perhaps there are more on the surface on Palaven, which is bogged down in a ground war - considerably better off than Earth, where the defence has collapsed into guerilla warfare with civilian conscripts. e: the point of Menae is that the turians are delaying the reapers with a flank attack from their planetary defence base on the moon. if anything, the moon is tying up reapers by drawing them away from the main force proper We don't get a good look at the (massive) Reaper fleet around Earth until the end, which may have been reinforced by Reapers rallying from other theatres/diminished by Reapers splitting off to conquer the rest of the galaxy. The Codex describes roughly "a dozen" Reapers delaying the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Fleets at Arcturus while many "dozens" more plowed through the relay to Earth, destroying 1st and 4th Fleets. 400 processor ships alone are apparently present on Earth to complete the harvest. I can't find any other numbers, however, and I don't like using the Codex as evidence. On the Citadel, Udina says "Earth was the first Council world hit. By all reports, it faces the brunt of the attack." Shepard later says "The Reapers won't stop at Earth. They'll destroy every organic being in the galaxy if we don't find a way to stop them." The asari councillor then says "The cruel and unfortunate truth is that while the Reapers focus on Earth, we can prepare and regroup." The salarian councillor offers "If we can manage to secure our own borders," i.e. not homeworlds, "we may once again consider aiding you." Note that the summit to rally everyone's forces isn't Shepard's idea, but the late Primarch Fedorian's. Finally, we won't see any more Reapers plural until Thessia, towards the end of the game. drat you for dragging me down to this level of analysis, it's so boring.  Also, please don't use the term "headcanon", it triggers me
Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 19:29
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Neruz posted:Sci-fi writers have no sense of scale. Thank you for this post, it's a good and interesting point.
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Aug 1, 2014 19:42
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Willie Tomg posted:Are we in the "good" part of the game yet? Because so far our two introductions to the galaxy destroying menace hyped for the last two games has been There are two fights against Reapers on foot, which I assume is what you're hoping for. They aren't that fun. e: also, thank you for making a post that isn't I-Spy Reapers on Palaven Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 20:48
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Mr. Soop posted:Indeed. I never quite understood some of the story driven art direction decisions for this game. Earth is getting taken over, but we're only told this and not really shown it. Meanwhile, having a huge section of Palaven burning in the background on Menae really illustrates better than the generic space battle cutscenes just how destructive the Reapers are. Even when we do see Earth, it never quite looks as hosed as Palaven does. Also thank you for this post, which is also thinking in-depth about why the game makes choices. You bring up an important point about Menae largely being a stopgap in the story - a mission that exists to tell the player what's going on with the turians, why they didn't just run over to defend their ally, how they suffer under the Reapers and how they react (incredibly stoically, as it happens). Menae forms a somewhat clumsy transition from the Reapers invading to the genophage arc - it's clear Bioware really wants to do something on the krogan and the genophage, but can't find a way to get there from the invasion of Earth. So the turian councillor sends you to the turian primarch, who decides that the only way he'll help you is if you get the krogan on side, and next video we'll see the only way the krogan will help you is if you sort out the genophage. I don't think it's bad that ME3 focuses on the krogan and not the war, but it's not a smooth transition (unlike the quarian arc). I mean, strictly speaking there's no reason Victus couldn't have just asked for Alliance infantry squads to help fight the war on Palaven, or asari commandos or the Blue Suns or whoever - no, he's firm, it has to be the krogan.
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Aug 1, 2014 20:58
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Oh definitely, and Alliance squads would probably be too busy defending human colonies, the asari have turned isolationist, the Blue Suns are horrible mercenaries... Victus is fully aware its an unconventional gambit, and everyone describes him as a maverick who plays fast and loose with strategy, but it's always struck me as quite a transparent hard left-turn into Kroganville.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:08
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Pro-click. Mind if I add it to the Earth update? quote:I do this thing with movies and the better TV episodes/series where I watch them all twice, once to get the plot beats and enjoy it viscerally along with the normal hu-mans, and then wait a while for my initial impressions and hype/disappointment to clear up, and then watch it a second time deconstructing the gently caress out of its formal parts to create My Actual Opinion. That's sorta what I'm doing here. There is no way I'm playing this game a second time since the Citadel DLC was funny but not that funny, yet you seem like a smart dude who earnestly likes this game and your posts elsewhere are pretty legit so I'm trying to leave myself open to maybe having overlooked some stuff the first time through. Later I'm going to do an update where I tell everyone how they should like things and deliberately come across as a bit of an arse. In reality I can't do that, but hopefully I can explain what ME3 is trying to do and how it's supposed to work as a piece. I may have exaggerated when I said I was going to re-sell everyone on ME3.
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Aug 1, 2014 21:33
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Without pictures, this doesn't really mean anything. Thessia is fine until its invasion at the end of the game. Sur'Kesh isn't shown to be invaded at all. The only relevant comparison is Palaven and Earth. Palaven is invaded and fighting a ground war. Earth has lost the ground war and is now being harvested. Both have it bad, but Earth is worse off because the majority of Reapers are at Earth e: and the population is being forcibly converted into goo. ME3 Earth : ME3 Palaven :: WW2 France :: WW2 UK Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 12:53
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FullLeatherJacket posted:I think I described it in a previous post as "a zombie-shooter set in a range of differently-coloured rubble environments", or something to that effect, and it's one of my big issues with the game. Agreed! The only thing I'd say to that is my usual protest of how ME3 isn't ~really~ about either of those two things, but that's content for another update.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:05
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Neruz posted:Pretty much, text-wise the game does an excellent job of telling you all about how bad things are but the visuals don't hold up, or hold up in the wrong way. I really do think there was a severe communications gap between the art team and the story team, or else the story changed significantly two thirds of the way in. There was definitely a script rewrite at some point, which to be honest is par for the course with any decent-sized project. However it was mostly stuff to do with Udina, the Virmire Survivor, Thessia and the Catalyst that was affected.
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Aug 2, 2014 13:21
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Waltzing Along is confused when he says Shepard convinces Victus not to care about Palaven because Earth is somehow more important. Shepard gets Victus off Menae at the request of the turian councillor so that Victus can attend the war summit because Victus is the new primarch. That's the only reason Victus needs to go. He's nervous because he's not good at diplomacy, but he knows his duty. The reason Shepard mentions Earth is to explain that this is bigger than one world - Earth is also under attack, we need a galactic solution to this galactic problem, we need your fleets for the Crucible - and as a reminder that Shepard had the exact same decision and made the exact same choice - to abandon the fight on his homeworld to pursue a united response. It's the "I need an alliance. I need the turian fleet," that confuses people, I think, because they think Shepard is speaking as a soldier for Earth (he's not, Anderson took that choice) when he's a soldier for the Crucible, for the galaxy.
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Aug 2, 2014 16:36
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Waltzing Along posted:Since you brought me up directly... Emphasis mine. quote:SHEPARD: General Victus? Shepard actually says nothing about going to Earth, or fighting for Earth, or abandoning Palaven. Shepard brings up Earth to tell Victus that he's not alone, that he can't fight alone. Remember that after this sequence Victus says that if the turians are going to help the rest of the galaxy, the rest of the galaxy (the krogan) have to help the turians (and fight in the ground war on Palaven). Palaven is very definitely not being abandoned or left to fend for itself. After all, Shepard is asking Victus to make the exact same decision he did at the end of Earth - leave the day-to-day ground fight for one homeworld in favour of rallying the galaxy to save all homeworlds. If you've already decided that ME3 is awful, there's not a lot I can or should do to convince you. That's your opinion, that's fine. And if I'm missing something, then show me where in the text above. I have provided you with convenient videos of Mass Effect 3 in case you ever want to make a point substantiated by the actual game. But I can't persuade closed minds. e: the reason I belabour this point is that it's really important that we see how ME3 shows the asari approach (each race should just worry about their own thing, thanks) is wrong and Shepard's approach (let's try a whole new way of doing things together) is right. reeeeally important. Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 19:15
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In the next update, we'll be going to Earth with the turian fleet, since apparently that's what we unrealistically convinced the primarch to do.
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Aug 2, 2014 19:20
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quote:CORINTHUS: Commander Shepard. Heard you were coming, but I didn't believe it. General Corinthus. Again, already the primarch's/Hierarchy's idea to leave Menae and attend the war summit - not Shepard's. quote:Shepard returns from the comms tower. quote:Corinthus explains that the new primarch is General Adrien Victus. Garrus and Liara provide background information - Victus is a bit of a maverick. There's one line there that's a bit cold-blooded ("I need someone - I don't care who..."), but it comes to me as Shepard asking Corinthus to get to the point already.
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Aug 2, 2014 19:40
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Part 5: Form Further Reading KTR Artificial Voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qobhDJ_vEOc Faith: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/11/25/mirrors-edge-producer-depressed-by-sexy-fan-verision-of-faith/ Jack and Miranda: http://www.uwbnext.com/editorials/jack-and-miranda-female-constructs-in-mass-effect Eclipse Phase: http://eclipsephase.com/ Here's a meaty topic: women. What do we think about the depiction of women in games? I call out Jack and Miranda in the video, but see the link above for a different perspective.
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Aug 3, 2014 09:40
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Geostomp posted:I know I would have liked her a lot more in ME2 if that were her original design instead of looking like something out of a bad trip. It's hard not to improve from the belt-bra. Agreed. I like that she dresses very aggressively - using her nakedness as a weapon, almost - and I wouldn't want her to cover up that much, but the belts do look uncomfortable.
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Aug 3, 2014 12:27
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Sombrerotron posted:Questionable art design aside, I've always considered it a bit of a pity that EDI was humanised at all. Although I'm not the sort to dismissively refer to character developments such as this as "Pinocchio syndrome", I can't help but wonder if an opportunity was lost to explore a road that's probably a little less commonly traversed in popular sci-fi. It makes sense, I believe, for EDI to strive to continue improving upon herself (itself, if you will), but given EDI's role as a life-supporting, guardian-type AI with a powerful sense of right and wrong, the arguably more logical direction for that pursuit would've been towards a kind of godhood. I feel that would've tied in well themetically, and could've provided a good source of conflict for Shepard and co. throughout ME3 - and possibly a good reason to destroy all Reaper tech, and therefore also EDI, at the end. This is something that will come up again with Legion and the geth. One of ME2's strongest ideas was its treatment of the geth - unfortunately hidden away behind character dialogue right at the end of the game.
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Aug 3, 2014 12:31
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Soricidus posted:Where "people" is defined as "a vocal minority consisting almost entirely of men" and "nice things" is defined as "gratuitous T&A all the time". As the article I linked suggests, on the one hand Miranda, literally an engineered perfect woman, is a very appropriate statement on how men (Miranda's father) want women to be and appear; on the other, CAMERA ANGLE: BUTTSHOT. Do we need it/her to be rubbed that closely into our faces? I vaguely remember an anecdote from a games developer about constantly getting sexualised female character designs back from the art department regardless of feedback, and how they got into a protracted debate with the lead artist who just really really really wanted the female lead to have big T&A. I don't think we should smother all artistic expression under layers of 'practical' armour, but there's always a line between meaningful costuming and titillation. e: Jacob wears a similarly impractical outfit to Miranda, but you don't notice because the camera focuses on his face and he's not quite so disproportionate with his body shape. Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Aug 3, 2014 |
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Aug 3, 2014 13:35
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Sombrerotron posted:things accidentally (maybe) get inappropriate Arguably neglect is just as responsible as actual pandering. FemShep has a number of animations that don't look right because she's using the ManShep skeleton rig - thinking in particular of her sitting animation when wearing the dress from the Kasumi mission. Oof. That's almost definitely non intentional, but it's still bad, just like how female Shepards had to make do with a generic facemorph until ME3. And who knows if that was only because Marketing thought it'd be a good idea? quote:The same group of posters spitballing for pages and pages about the specific force disposition of a spacefleet of colossal immortal cybernetic cuttlefish with death lasers in the opening moves of an apocalyptic galactic war is invited to talk about the measurable sexualization of women over the course of a series' run and goes "welp, its a made up fantasy reality nothing about it has to make sense, dudes will be dudes right?" Maybe they're feminist allies who are very keenly aware that they can only experience this issues from a position of privilege and don't want to be accidentally insensitive. That's plausible.
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Aug 3, 2014 22:21
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Actually, would like to highlight that point you made about the sexualisation getting noticeably worse as the series goes on. All right, so ME1 had asari strippers, but ME2 has that and a space blouse and space lingerie and an adjutant that strips off for you if you have dinner with her, and ME3 has all the above plus the sexbot. Normally I disagree with people saying ME got 'CODified' to appeal to mainstream audiences more as time went on, but maybe here they have a point.
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Aug 3, 2014 22:29
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:58 |
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I have the most amazingly relevant quote for this discussion, but I'm saving it for a later video.
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Aug 3, 2014 22:38
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