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Cortez coming to terms with his husband's death is one of the actually well written subplots in the game and it's not like you spend time hanging out with every minor character's heterosexual spouses either. There's plenty of bad pandering in Mass Effect but I don't think this here is a problem.
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Jan 27, 2014 16:39
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It's better than nothing and I did feel some compassion for him, but I guess I feel like he should have had more going on than just that. He didn't get much screen time to be a fleshed out character so to me it felt like they wrote a gay character instead of writing a character who is gay, if that makes sense. I feel disappointed that there wasn't more to him than the husband mourning and option to sleep with him. Maybe the fact that he didn't show up until 3 is part of it, too. (Also Kaidan was dead in my playthrough so I don't know if his interactions were more organic.)
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Jan 27, 2014 16:53
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They're both about as well written as the rest of the romance options, not sure where you're coming from here. It's a bad game in a lot of ways but this isn't one of them.
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Jan 27, 2014 16:57
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I do think that part of it is that characters introduced in part 3 are all underdeveloped, yeah. None of the new guys get to do enough compared to the returning crew.
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Jan 27, 2014 16:59
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Manatee Cannon posted:They're both about as well written as the rest of the romance options, not sure where you're coming from here. It's a bad game in a lot of ways but this isn't one of them. Well. All of that "romance" stuff is pretty badly written, really. But other romanceable characters throughout the series have other motivations and plot contributions, which Cortez, Allers, and Traynor do not. I didn't retread the rest of my complaints with ME3's writing too much because they've been said better by others plenty of times. Cortez and Traynor feel like they exist for the sole purpose of being bangable gay people. I don't like that. They need more to them. Like someone at BioWare said "put gay people in the game" as opposed to "some of the people in the game can/should be gay." Having gay people in the game is a step forward from not having gay people, but I feel like the step could have been bigger. But maybe the bigger step can be made by a game that doesn't have terrible writing all around. Dross fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 17:00
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Dross posted:Well. All of that "romance" stuff is pretty badly written, really. But other romanceable characters throughout the series have other motivations and plot contributions, which Cortez, Allers, and Traynor do not. I didn't retread the rest of my complaints with ME3's writing too much because they've been said better by others plenty of times. Someone hasn't been paying attention, because Traynor's the only reason you pick up half the missions thanks to her intelligence processing skills. Even Cortez spends time talking about flying Triton fighters and bantering with Vega on the cargo deck. Diane Allers really did contribute nothing though.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:04
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Dross posted:Well. All of that "romance" stuff is pretty badly written, really. But other romanceable characters throughout the series have other motivations and plot contributions, which Cortez, Allers, and Traynor do not. I didn't retread the rest of my complaints with ME3's writing too much because they've been said better by others plenty of times. And the two NPC female crew members and the reporter you punch in the face every game are so much better? They're all miles ahead of Miranda or Jack, which have been uniquely terrible in their own special little ways since ME2.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:06
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Grump posted:Western RPGs suck at pacing, really, and Mass Effect is the worst I've seen ever. As apposed to what? JRPG's? That have massive amounts of dialogue and tutorials that never end? Games like Persona and Final Fantasy are so slow paced whereas games like Mass Effect are pretty well paced in my opinion. Yes, sometimes there is dialogue I don't care about but it's usually because I want to see all the dialogue trees and I end up selecting every tiny option and turn what should have been a quick conversation into Commander Shepherd asks 20 questions.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:08
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Manatee Cannon posted:reporter you punch in the face every game See I was totally going to replay the series as a Renegade so I could do stuff like this and see how the other side's story went but since ME3 ignored everything I did prior to itself, it's killed my desire to do that. quote:They're all miles ahead of Miranda or Jack, which have been uniquely terrible in their own special little ways since ME2. G-Whizard posted:Yes, sometimes there is dialogue I don't care about but it's usually because I want to see all the dialogue trees and I end up selecting every tiny option and turn what should have been a quick conversation into Commander Shepherd asks 20 questions. This is the biggest thing that got in my way. The first two games held my interest but by halfway through 3 I'd gone from "I want to know EVERYTHING" to "I just want this to be over but I don't want to miss anything." Dross fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 17:08
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Dross posted:See I was totally going to replay the series as a Renegade so I could do stuff like this and see how the other side's story went but since ME3 ignored everything I did prior to itself, it's killed my desire to do that. I really don't know where you're getting that from. Here's a short list of big stuff that needs prior actions to get the best outcome in ME3;
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Jan 27, 2014 17:16
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Best outcomes of minor plotlines, sure, but in most cases the characters just get replaced by totally-not-that-character and those plotlines still *happen* without them and don't significantly affect the game as a whole. And I would have liked for the ending to be based on my choices and my paragon/renegade score as opposed to "did you do all the side missions in THIS game, okay good, choose your ending." Also the ending revolved around "organics and synthetics can't coexist in peace" which as a Paragon I spent the entire loving series trying to disprove. Dross fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 17:21
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I see that we have moved from calling Bioshock Infnite horrible poo poo to calling Mass Effect horrible poo poo. Hoping that Portal 2 and Last of Us get called horrible poo poo next! Goons 
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Jan 27, 2014 17:26
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Nobody has ever said ME3 is a great game though, and Bioware romances have been the object of ridicule since forever. And Bioshock Infinite is a great game.  People have been calling it poo poo since it was released, though.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:28
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ME3 is a great game with bad storytelling. Its multiplayer rules.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:38
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Syrinxx posted:I see that we have moved from calling Bioshock Infnite horrible poo poo to calling Mass Effect horrible poo poo. Hoping that Portal 2 and Last of Us get called horrible poo poo next! poo poo, I almost thought we were going to get to have a frank discussion where we disagree on a game's merits and flaws without anyone calling anyone else's opinion stupid. Next time, friends.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:42
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Dross posted:And I would have liked for the ending to be based on my choices and my paragon/renegade score as opposed to "did you do all the side missions in THIS game, okay good, choose your ending."
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Jan 27, 2014 17:47
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Question Mark Mound posted:I totally agree. I think that, instead of choosing your ending at the end, if it had taken the choice out of your hands and had based it on certain decisions averaged out across the 3 games the public outcry probably wouldn't have been as bad. That way, the ending is a culmination of your actions throughout the entire series, as opposed to just picking something at the end which may be totally out of character. On the other hand, then the complaint would have been "why do I have to play all 3 games again to get a different ending?"
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Jan 27, 2014 17:52
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Dross posted:On the other hand, then the complaint would have been "why do I have to play all 3 games again to get a different ending?" edit: not that it matters for how ME3's ending system turned out... Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 17:54
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Syrinxx posted:I see that we have moved from calling Bioshock Infnite horrible poo poo to calling Mass Effect horrible poo poo. Mass Effect's writing is pretty poo poo and there's been no end of outcry to support it. Taken as a whole, Bioware's writing has been getting worse and worse. It kinda started to kick in around Mass Effect 2 - everything up to that was fairly inoffensive or in games so happy-go-lucky you didn't really care - but fortunately there's only so many ways you can gently caress up a series of discrete recruitment missions, so it didn't really matter there either. When they tried to get all moral in Dragon Age 2, or when they tried to wrap everything up in ME3, or when they tried to write space opera in The Old Republic, that's when the poo poo really started to show. They're good at writing snarky characters but anything more nuanced and they approach it with all the subtlety of a brick, especially if it involves trying to pretend the player's input matters. Question Mark Mound posted:That way, the ending is a culmination of your actions throughout the entire series, as opposed to just picking something at the end which may be totally out of character. The trouble with that approach is that you'd have to change almost everything about Mass Effect 3 so that it actually paid more than cursory attention to what you'd done previously.
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Jan 27, 2014 17:57
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Mass Effect 3 is an OK game but because it came after ME2 it had a lot to live up to. Gameplay wise I thought it did but it had some real poo poo level design and the story was very bad and some of the animations are loving horrendous I mean a game from 2012 couldn't do looking at things without peoples eyes rolling up inside their skulls and they do that constantly, even in cutscenes. Then I remember playing ME2 and they brought up that dark energy and dying stars (was that also in ME1) and I was like alright this is going to be something but nope go to talk to a child. Multiplayer was pretty fun. Tacked on multiplayer doesn't always suck, who knew?
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Jan 27, 2014 18:00
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Basically, everyone should play Alpha Protocol, partially because there it feels like your decisions actually do matter and change the game, and partially because then you can just tool around as the smuggest hipfiring invisible ninja superspy.
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Jan 27, 2014 18:07
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Sprat Sandwich posted:some of the animations are loving horrendous I mean a game from 2012 couldn't do looking at things without peoples eyes rolling up inside their skulls and they do that constantly, even in cutscenes. That reminds me, this happened to me (sorry for iphone video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYz8SA6-WvA She was stuck in that corner when I talked to her, so her head is constantly turning around to face me and her eyeballs ARE facing me (so they're rolled all the way back in her head). Then at the end she walks into the wall and resets. Sprat Sandwich posted:Then I remember playing ME2 and they brought up that dark energy and dying stars (was that also in ME1) and I was like alright this is going to be something but nope go to talk to a child. Something I read after Googling after finishing the game was that one of the original plotline plans was that the reason the Reapers culled organics is because their reckless use of mass effect fields was unnaturally increasing dark energy/entropy and thus accelerating the heat death of the universe. Which would have made a lot more sense to me than "we do this because you guys can't get along" but in another way has the same problem as "you guys can't get along" because the solution to a problem that immature societies inevitably face is not "destroy them before they mature, then let some other immature society take over, give them the same tools, and watch them make the same mistakes" Dross fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 18:13
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If you've ever loved Mass Effect you should play the Citadel DLC for ME3. It's the best content of the series, slightly ahead of the Shadow Broker in ME2. Especially because it fleshes out Traynor even more, who continues to be awesome.
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Jan 27, 2014 18:42
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I wish they'd release the ME3 multiplayer stand alone. It's really fun. I just never feel like putting the disc in and going through all the motions to get to it.
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Jan 27, 2014 18:52
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Does BioWare DLC ever go on sale? I got the games for under 10 bucks each so $15 DLC would kinda sting.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:06
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G-Whizard posted:As apposed to what? JRPG's? That have massive amounts of dialogue and tutorials that never end? Games like Persona and Final Fantasy are so slow paced whereas games like Mass Effect are pretty well paced in my opinion. Yes, sometimes there is dialogue I don't care about but it's usually because I want to see all the dialogue trees and I end up selecting every tiny option and turn what should have been a quick conversation into Commander Shepherd asks 20 questions. My point was in games like Mass Effect, something huge happens, like the Reapers invading the gently caress out of Earth then nothing happens for the longest time until finally you get something big at the end. Most visits to other planets in Mass Effect made me feel like we didn't need to be there, and I never really felt satisfied when I completed missions. Yes. JRPGs waste your time and are there's a lot of running around for no reason, right. They're slow paced, but they are consistent at least. Final Fantasy at least gives you cool bosses to look forward to at the end of most dungeons.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:27
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Dross posted:Does BioWare DLC ever go on sale? I got the games for under 10 bucks each so $15 DLC would kinda sting. All the time.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:29
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I really don't know where you're getting that from. Here's a short list of big stuff that needs prior actions to get the best outcome in ME3; Yeah, good thing you can get the best endings for those things because that means that in the final encounter the Krogan can..., or wait you can get the Geth to..., Well I suppose if you didn't have that crewmember's loyalty they wouldn't be able to arrive in the final battle and... The real problem is that it's the least impactful way of adding consequence, rising absolutely no higher than back in the NES era where you'd get a single splash screen of Samus without her armor. Doesn't impact the gameplay an iota. And with the ending(s) presented, long term consequence is hosed as the isolation galaxy wide leads to the starvation and collapse without global trade and commerce keeping the various migled species alive. Question Mark Mound posted:I totally agree. I think that, instead of choosing your ending at the end, if it had taken the choice out of your hands and had based it on certain decisions averaged out across the 3 games the public outcry probably wouldn't have been as bad. That way, the ending is a culmination of your actions throughout the entire series, as opposed to just picking something at the end which may be totally out of character. This would undoubtedly have hidden the  ending because you couldn't immediately reload a save and just go "oh, they didn't work on the ending until the day before the project was due". But as an ongoing gameplay evolution, I wish to hell that this would become a standard for development. "Three Doors: Pick your ending" is bad game design because it just nullifies all of your choices preceding it. Played a Paragon Shep the first time and now you went Renegade Shep? Same three doors. It would have at least been substantial if your Krogan and Geth decisions essentially charted your ending path. Sure it would still be a badly conceived and written ending but at least my decisions throughout the series would have been impactful beyond a still frame in the epilogue.But yeah, the dream is Mass Protocol. Take the polished gameplay and production values of Mass Effect with the dynamic and confident storytelling of Alpha Protocol. Let someone die? Well now the mission to rescue someone becomes a mission to destroy their temple and piss on the ashes. Hate fighting Geth? Befriend them and now they fight along side you in missions instead of being your enemy. And if you let a species die your climactic battle is harder in some ways and easier in others. Totally hard to create this game and keep it playable and balanced but incredibly rewarding.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:36
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I'm amazed that people are still this mad about ME3. I honestly thought it was a fantastic game with a wonky ending. It has some of the worst writing in the series, but the series always had patches of questionably writing and it I thought it still had alot of great moments. Also, sorry, it really does look bad when you complain about the gay characters, especially when you somehow don't notice the equally shallow writing on the straight ones. Skychrono posted:If you've ever loved Mass Effect you should play the Citadel DLC for ME3. It's the best content of the series, slightly ahead of the Shadow Broker in ME2. I honestly feel that the The Citadel, while fine, has the opposite problem of the ending. While the ending gave the player choices that all lead to a path that no one wanted, The Citadel is often embarrassingly fanservicey and pandering. Like I don't mind winking at the fanbase from time to time but the whole segment just seemed like one continuous wink.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:38
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Ape Agitator posted:And with the ending(s) presented, long term consequence is hosed as the isolation galaxy wide leads to the starvation and collapse without global trade and commerce keeping the various migled species alive. The codex states that some races are dextro-amino-acid-based and some are levo-amino-acid-based, and the two can't metabolize each other / the wrong kind of protein is toxic. If all the Normandy crew is stranded on one world, won't either (Garrus and Tali) or (everyone else) immediately starve to death due to that world being one type and them being the other? And I would like to point out that my problem is not the inclusion of gay characters, but their lack of depth even relative to everyone else. They don't have subplots with any plot effects or more than about ten minutes of screentime / two or three conversation threads each (outside of DLC which I haven't played, apparently). So my point wasn't "don't put them in" it was "do better than that." As far as "still" being mad about ME3, I just played the entire series this month for the first time. Dross fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 19:42
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Alpha Protocol is phenomenal but a big reason it works so well and is so replayable is that it's very short and features a very small story. It's not really reasonable to expect the same level of variance across three 40 hour games that all need to lead into one another. Also, did people get mad at Deus Ex HR's Choose Your Ending thing too? It didn't feel too different from the crappy presentation in ME3 to me.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:46
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Dross posted:And I would like to point out that my problem is not the inclusion of gay characters, but their lack of depth even relative to everyone else. See you say this but like Traynor, who wasn't even a squadmate, was far more interesting than say Vega, who wasn't even romancable at all. I mean, yeah the character with the dead husband didn't have alot of depth, but that's really the only example I can think of of what you're complaining about, so to say that it's a problem with the whole game that all the characters are gay and have no depth just doesn't come off very well.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:47
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axleblaze posted:See you say this but like Traynor, who wasn't even a squadmate, was far more interesting than say Vega, who wasn't even romancable at all. I mean, yeah the character with the dead husband didn't have alot of depth, but that's really the only example I can think of of what you're complaining about, so to say that it's a problem with the whole game that all the characters are gay and have no depth just doesn't come off very well. Apparently Traynor gets fleshed out a lot in DLC that I didn't buy. In the main game she felt like a setpiece to me, and I definitely listened to her between every mission. Does she interact a lot more with a female Shepard other than potentially sleeping with her? Dross fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 19:49
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Dross posted:Apparently Traynor gets fleshed out a lot in DLC that I didn't buy. In the main game she felt like a setpiece to me. Does she interact a lot more with a female Shepard other than potentially sleeping with her? Well she's a crew mate which means all you can really do is talk with her. I just remember learning alot about her past and what drives her and she seemed pretty well fleshed out despite the fact that I didn't sleep with her at all. I mean, I found it fun to see her start as kind of a nervous character that was way over her head to a character that makes important decisions without even needing to ask permission. She has an actual arc which is more than Vega got. In general though it still just comes off as odd to complain that "everyone is gay" when two characters are gay. It's also not like the character that Tryanor replaces also didn't want to bang you no matter your sex in ME2, so it's just really the addition of one Gay character. axelblaze fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 19:52
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I agree that James isn't interesting either. Maybe my problem is that all of the newly introduced characters in ME3 are boring and ultimately inconsequential. Re: the "everyone" thing, that was more in regard to it being an unsubtle factor in a very large amount of overheard dialogue on the Citadel as well. I was worried that I'd come off looking like a bigot by posting my issues with it because I very much want characters like that to have quality representation in games but I didn't feel like this was it.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:54
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Surlaw posted:Alpha Protocol is phenomenal but a big reason it works so well and is so replayable is that it's very short and features a very small story. It's not really reasonable to expect the same level of variance across three 40 hour games that all need to lead into one another. People very much did, yes. They felt that nothing you did up until the ending affected it, and you ultimately just picked which button you pushed. Then when they were making ME3, they went out of their way to say that it wouldn't be an ending where you just picked a button for which ending you got. Which is, you know, exactly what ended up happening.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:56
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Dross posted:I agree that James isn't interesting either. Maybe my problem is that all of the newly introduced characters in ME3 are boring and ultimately inconsequential. I agree with that much (though I do like Traynor but wish they had more for her to do). Allers is the worst of them all really. Just a waste of space on the ship. The game would have honestly benefited by giving you more characters you had from previous games because the story wasn't very well structured to develop new characters.
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Jan 27, 2014 19:57
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Isn't Allers just a cameo of some real life video game journalist? Also why is she interviewing me on galaxy-wide TV in a tank top and gym shorts?
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Jan 27, 2014 20:00
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Crappy Jack posted:People very much did, yes. They felt that nothing you did up until the ending affected it, and you ultimately just picked which button you pushed. I think I was able to say "well, that was kind of dumb" and move on easier because I didn't follow any of the hype. This is sad to say but just by virtue of it being a video game I expected a bad ending. Deus Ex honestly bothered me more, and I didn't play that until pretty recently.
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Jan 27, 2014 20:00
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Dross posted:Isn't Allers just a cameo of some real life video game journalist? Also why is she interviewing me on galaxy-wide TV in a tank top and gym shorts?
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