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Hey guys! Have you heard of this new video game trilogy called Mass Effect? It's an awesomely amazing series with an excellent storyline that revolves around you - some goofy white space trucker - traveling the known galaxy bangin centuries-old blue bitches!quote:Set 200 years in the future in an epic universe, Mass Effect places gamers in a vast galactic community in danger of being conquered by a legendary agent gone rogue. A spectacular new vision from legendary developers BioWare, Mass Effect challenges players to lead a squad of freedom fighters as they struggle against threatening armies to restore peace in the land. quote:As Commander Shepard, rise to become the galaxy’s most elite soldier and lead an all-out war to stop an ancient and ruthless enemy: the Reapers. With over 75 hours of content and more than 300 awards, one of gaming’s most acclaimed franchises is available for the first time in a premium foiled box set. you, a goofy white space trucker:  lara, a centuries-old blue bitch:     anyways, yeah let'ss get down to the real meta of this game Mass Effect Trilogy is a sequence of three Mass Effect games that form an epic, almost mythical, rise of a human hero in the face of a galactic annihilation. I can safely say there has not been a game that touched me this deeply since my innocent childhood. At the end of the trilogy, I was ravaged by the sense of resolution it offered. I was obsessed for days, thinking about what had happened during my experience and about my companions. Despite the fact that I am now writing about the game, please note that it is impossible for me to convey in mere words the full extent of the beauty I experienced. Consider playing! (buy) I will first give an overview of the game plot. Then I will be more technical and attempt to explain why the game succeeds. Then I will conclude with a general impression of the game. I will avoid focusing on minor details about game mechanics (which in my opinion are just means to an end), but clutch to the big picture. There are spoilers, but they are essential to illustrating why the game is so mighty.  Each game takes around 30 hours to complete, with a moderate dose of self-initiated exploration (some take as long as 80 hours). The total number of hours for the trilogy adds up to almost 100 hours. There are certain types of emotion that arise only from a long journey. Were you touched at the end of the seventh installment of Harry Potter or the third Lord of the Rings movie? During the 100 hours of play in Mass Effect, you surf the galaxy in your personal ship Normandy, meet countless characters and get to know them (across the three games). This is enough time to evoke the feeling of being glad to see an old friend. As a specific example, you recruit an alien character in Mass Effect 1. He is somewhat irksome and rebellious, but you eventually grow to like and even respect him for his other qualities. By the end of the first game, you feel like he is a genuinely great pal. Now, in Mass Effect 2, he is nowhere to be seen, off to take care of his own business. Only 20-30 hours of additional play into the game will you encounter him again. The gladness of seeing each other's face is mutual. Nearing the end of trilogy, you will have spent so many hours, having experienced even emotions that only come attached to the waning of age. This galactic community that you have grown so attached to is counting on you to stop the invaders. The sense of duty, honor, and resolution that you feel about saving the galaxy is a result of the sheer scale of the game.  In Mass Effect, you can have romance with your crew members. The developer Bioware is famous for a dialogue system that allows you to communicate with the game characters, however limited. At any point of play, you can choose to hang out in your ship, visiting your crew members in their own cabins. In this private space, you can have conversations that touch on intensely personal issues of your members (which can initiate side missions). Let me provide a specific example. One of the galactic species is called the Asari. They have bright blue skin, and are one of the most advanced civilizations in the universe. In Mass Effect 1, you recruite an Asari named Liara T'Soni. When I first saw her, I had no particular feelings, mildly repulsed by her exotic appearance. But as I progressed through the game and got to know her better, I learned to appreciate the strange mixture of qualities in her. Fiercely intelligent in mind but pure in heart, beautiful and terrible at the same time, remarkably capable yet humble. In the real world, it is probably very hard to find someone in which these qualities coexist. Eventually, I developed genuine liking of her. Strangely, I have rarely if not never felt the feeling of having a crush on someone in real life. The sensation of happiness and the beating of the heart upon just thinking about the character came to me as both bizarre and pleasant. I really think it is a cool outcome. Think about it; a virtual character has taught me what it (kind of) feels like to be in love. At the end of Mass Effect 3, in the final stance against the Reapers, Liara is killed in a combat. But the situation is too urgent to mourn for her. When my time has come to sacrifice myself to save the galaxy, at the moment I initiate a procedure to turn myself into an immortal but dead program, the memory of Liara flashes on the screen (presumably, the game stores which characters you have romance with and show them at this point). There is no way I can describe how I felt at that moment, on seeing Liara's face one last time.  For most of the game play, special sound and visual effects are very reserved. There are cutscenes and background music, but these are mostly for a storytelling purpose. It is clear that the developers concentrated on improving the game experience itself without relying on easy "cheats" of flashy visuals and grandiose music. To me, Mass Effect put the Japanese anime and games in stark contrast. J. products tend to be too enthusiastic to impose appropriate restraints that are crucial to achieve truly powerful experiences. Wild moves will be displayed too often, dramatic music will be played too frequently, etc. On the other hand, Mass Effect is strictly regularized. It focuses on the core experience at all times (not the immediate entertainment specific to that given moment). Consequently, the story alone is immensely enjoyable. When you add additional components on top of this already powerful base, its emotional impact shines forth blindingly. For instance, in Mass Effect 3, there is a certain signature piano piece --- a deep, poignant, sorrowful yet resolute score. This piece is only played at the most critical moments. (In my play, I think I encountered this piece only twice, one in the beginning and one in the ending.) In the ending, when my Shepard chose to give up her life and grabbed those controllers to begin disintegrating her body, this music began trickling down the screen, touching the very bottom of my inner being. This kind of narrative power only comes from careful reservation. As C. S. Lewis said, quote:Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. Playing Mass Effect Trilogy has taught me
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Jan 16, 2015 20:27
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why does Lara have eyebrows but all the other Ataris do not?
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Jan 16, 2015 20:29
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I gave your mom the mass effect, if you know what I mean.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:31
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Mass Effect is my favorite driving sim with alien sex
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Jan 16, 2015 20:32
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i like when bioware goes back and tries to shoehorn in PC stuff like gay romance options and changing lead characters to girls like they meant to all along even though the cover of the game had a guy on it
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Jan 16, 2015 20:33
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David Copperfield posted:Mass Effect is my favorite driving sim with alien sex same
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Jan 16, 2015 20:33
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CISMALES DID 9-11 posted:i like when bioware goes back and tries to shoehorn in PC stuff like gay romance options and changing lead characters to girls like they meant to all along even though the cover of the game had a guy on it shepard is a guy or a girl depending on what you pick in character creation tho? edit: although I did lol pretty hard when Kaiden suddenly caught the gay
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Jan 16, 2015 20:36
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rear end effect
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Jan 16, 2015 20:40
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I remember I was so annoyed at the end of the third game that I made a thread about it.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:42
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game's poo poo, op
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Jan 16, 2015 20:43
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games, poo poo, op
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Jan 16, 2015 20:43
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more like mass erect cause you get to gently caress a lot of aliens
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Jan 16, 2015 20:46
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Cocksmith posted:rear end effect I would play this game
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Jan 16, 2015 20:46
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ive never even seen a screenshot of mass effect but i bet its an fps with cutscenes
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Jan 16, 2015 20:48
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People talk about this game a lot
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Jan 16, 2015 20:49
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Earth women hate when you cum in their hair. Would Lara act the same way if you shot a load into the folds in her head?
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Jan 16, 2015 20:49
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Mass Effect is so freakin' good.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:51
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rear end erect
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Jan 16, 2015 20:51
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thats alot of  over a videa game
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Jan 16, 2015 20:54
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I tried playing it a while back but it was too much work ordering people around with that clunky menu thing
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Jan 16, 2015 20:58
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Went Jack and never went back.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:01
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gnarlyhotep posted:I tried playing it a while back but it was too much work ordering people around with that clunky menu thing Just don't do it.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:01
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Rex Deckard posted:Went Jack and never went back. 
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Jan 16, 2015 21:02
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script kitty posted:why does Lara have eyebrows but all the other Ataris do not? because tatoos are a characteristic of antisocial sperg space babes, not stripper space babes
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Jan 16, 2015 21:06
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Captain Shepard uses Mass Effect 2 on RaySmuckles Its super effective! Captain Shepard Uses Mass Effect 3 on RaySmuckles It's not very effective…
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Jan 16, 2015 21:10
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I hear there are strong female characters in this game, so this must be the gamergate thing I keep hearing about? Fill me in guys, I don't keep up with the twittersphere very much
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Jan 16, 2015 21:13
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 mass erect 3
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Jan 16, 2015 21:19
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immolationsex posted:I hear there are strong female characters in this game, so this must be the gamergate thing I keep hearing about? Fill me in guys, I don't keep up with the twittersphere very much My dawg let me tell you about ~Tali~
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Jan 16, 2015 21:19
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immolationsex posted:I hear there are strong female characters in this game, so this must be the gamergate thing I keep hearing about? Fill me in guys, I don't keep up with the twittersphere very much  confirming that rear end effect has a strong female sexbot
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Jan 16, 2015 21:22
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David Copperfield posted:Mass Effect is my favorite driving sim with alien sex Frontier please add this after player-owned stations
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Jan 16, 2015 21:24
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GAYS FOR DAYS posted:Just don't do it. Oh I thought you had to, maybe I'll go back and try it again
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Jan 16, 2015 21:24
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script kitty posted:why does Lara have eyebrows but all the other Ataris do not? Not gonna scroll down to see if anybody else answered this - it's because all Asari have random discolored patterns on their face and Liara's happen to resemble eyebrows
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Jan 16, 2015 21:25
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blowfish posted:
wanna f*ck this big metal rear end
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Jan 16, 2015 21:26
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Harime Nui posted:Not gonna scroll down to see if anybody else answered this - it's because all Asari have random discolored patterns on their face and Liara's happen to resemble eyebrows
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Jan 16, 2015 21:30
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Just fyi, Mass Effect is just a highly organized rip-off of scifi throughout the 20th century, including the ending which is ripped straight from the Foundation series.quote:...Trevize is made to decide between three alternatives for the future of the human race: the First Foundation's mastery of the physical world and its traditional political organization (i.e., empire), the Second Foundation's mentalics (and probable rule by mind control), or Gaia's absorption of the entire Galaxy into one shared, harmonious intellect.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:33
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blowfish posted:because tatoos are a characteristic of antisocial sperg space babes, not stripper space babes so... she's space-latina?
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Jan 16, 2015 21:36
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Acid Haze posted:Just fyi, Mass Effect is just a highly organized rip-off of scifi throughout the 20th century, including the ending which is ripped straight from the Foundation series. Nobody cares because you can't shoot guns and gently caress sexy aliens in those books.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:37
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immolationsex posted:lmao are you serious, is that the actual reason yea, eyebrows and freckles
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Jan 16, 2015 21:40
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Jan 16, 2015 21:41
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| # ? May 8, 2024 15:04 |
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Acid Haze posted:Just fyi, Mass Effect is just a highly organized rip-off of scifi throughout the 20th century, including the ending which is ripped straight from the Foundation series. Mass Effect is a re-make of Star Control.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:41
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