Volournian Quick & Early Mass Effect Thoughts

[SuicideBunny]

Don't be dense. Having racist characters in a game does *not* make the game racist.

i'm not talking about the humans über alles nazis, but about the game presenting every inorganic sentient, whether geth, reaper, or ai, as absolutely fucking evil, intent on wiping out the entire galaxy, and terribly stupid.

there are some hints at a bit depth, the art transmissions you find in one of the side quests, or in the dialogue with tali, where you can accuse her people of having started the geth war, but obviously "don't be stupid, we had no choice" is such a strong and mind shattering response that it instantly shuts you up.

 

[Jeff Graw]

Actually, when talking to Tali you can argue that the Geth were the victims and her race the aggressors, but what the hell. Oh, and Vigil also disproves your claim that all AIs were painted negatively.

Also... are you even listening to yourself? A game is racist because the bad guys are machines!? What kind of ultra-sensitive, super-liberal hole did you crawl up from?

 

[SuicideBunny]

Actually, when talking to Tali you can argue that the Geth were the victims and her race the aggressors, but what the hell.

dialogue with tali, where you can accuse her people of having started the geth war, but obviously "don't be stupid, we had no choice" is such a strong and mind shattering response that it instantly shuts you up.

 

[Jeff Graw]

Dammit. I was editing my post while you were replying. See above.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Oh, and Vigil also disproves your claim that all AIs were painted negatively.

play it again, vigil's just a moronic vi, a collection of simple scripts, without sentience, self-awareness, or ability to evolve.

Also... are you even listening to yourself? A game is racist because the bad guys are machines!? What kind of ultra-sensitive, super-liberal hole did you crawl up from?

not because the bad guys are (sentient) machines, but because all the sentient inorganics are bad guys, but i guess to you judgement day (the weird fantasy one) isn't about racism because it's all about robots.
sentience + inorganic = stupid psychopath
that's pretty much racist (in the extended retarded meaning of the word, that is synonymous to negative irrational discrimination).

there are large traces of such generalisation present in the other races too, krogans are just stupid fucking war machines, capable of little else (orc+dwarf=krogan), <s>elves</s>turians are arrogant, and overly self-confident (i can stop sovereign! there are no reapers! saren, buddy, you can't possibly have anything to do with the attack or be a real fucktard!) without the competence to back it up... even though the few real individuals might have more than one or two dimensions, the races as such are very generalised, and everyone but humanity is very incompetent, heck, humanity is THE master race throughout the whole game. they save the galaxy, they sacrifice themselves in order to do the right thing, they are the shining beacon of hope against the darkness of incompetence of the rest of the galaxy, the child prodigy that mastered ancient technology faster than any other race, the one chosen child that gets to decide the fate of everyone at the end, because of superior genetic traits (since it can't be experience) that enable them to overcome obstacles other minor races have struggled with for hundreds of years in the blink of an eye. wheee.
at least in star control 2, which generalised as well, the races themselves were interesting, but here most of them are the typical star trek humans with masks aliens.

either way, sleepy sleepy time.

 

[Volourn]

"game being so blatantly racist."

Huh? WTF? Wut?

 

[SuicideBunny]

let my insomniac self reword that:
"game, like most if not all other bioware titles, being so full of boring and broad generalisations, while the races and as a result the game could be so much more with only little effort"

 

[Volourn]

Sorry. You are just wrong.

The game isn't racist. Not even close.

I think youa re racist, and you are stereotyping entire racies. ie. Turians based on Saren. Garrius is a greta counter exmaple about this.

As for humans being shown as the shining beacon of enlightenment. That must explain the human ambassador. Let's not foeget Ashely, a human, a main character, a party member, and a potential romance who is protrayed as a racist. Not exactly showing humans in gthe best light.,

Not to emention the humongous assholeness that Shepard (the PC) can act like.


"the one chosen child that gets to decide the fate of everyone at the end"

That's bullshit. It's more like it's because the PC happens to be human. Dumbass.

And, turians are NOTHING like elves.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Also... are you even listening to yourself? A game is racist because the bad guys are machines!? What kind of ultra-sensitive, super-liberal hole did you crawl up from?

Yeah, seriously.

 

[SuicideBunny]

ie. Turians based on Saren. Garrius is a greta counter exmaple about this.

actually saren and garrius are very much alike. both think the end justifies the means and are deluded by some notions of their personal definition of a "greater good".
and that pretty much fits the bioware generalisation of the turians:

"Turians are willing to do what needs to be done, and they always follow through."

aditionally, all but one of the turians in the game fail. for someone specializing on solo stealth runs, nihilus fucks up big time, gets killed as a result. garrius doesn't get his man, you do. saren doesn't stop sovereign, you do. the council fucks up big time, you and the rest of humanity straighten it out.

the only competent turian in the game is the cop who willingly endangers a civilian in order to "get his man", and that's a minor part of a short sidequest.

As for humans being shown as the shining beacon of enlightenment.

hope, not enlightment. enlightment would imply humanity being some kind of paragon of morality or wisdom, while hope only means all the other races are too incompetent to deal with the problem, which is pretty much the case.

That must explain the human ambassador. Let's not foeget Ashely, a human, a main character, a party member, and a potential romance who is protrayed as a racist. Not exactly showing humans in gthe best light.,

as i said, hope.
still, both those characters show what other races lack, namely texture.
(also, ashley is not a racist, just a nationalist)

Not to emention the humongous assholeness that Shepard (the PC) can act like.

which remains entirely without any consequence, if i'm not mistaken. also, such texture is only present within the human race, making the other races seem even more flat and textureless than they already are.

"the one chosen child that gets to decide the fate of everyone at the end"

That's bullshit. It's more like it's because the PC happens to be human. Dumbass.

no, actually it is because you happen to be human, but not because you happen to be human. you happening to be human would imply chance, but this was a conscious design decision, both the fact that it's humanity who does or doesn't do the saving, and the fact that there even is someone who needs to be saved. there are many other possibilities, but obviously humanity has to be so awesome, because the player character is the chosen one, and so is his race. all those countless alien vessels fuck up, the flagship gets nearly blown up, but then come the humans to the rescue, and their insignificantly small force manages to turn the tide and save the council at great implied but meaningless expense.
there could be countless tie ins to the way you did the main plot or sub quests, like a corp fleet depending on what you did on noveria, or something through wrex, or tali, the council could simply not blow up when you decide to let them down, and survive in a rather poor and righteously pissed state, resulting in you being demoted, publicly shamed, your previous actions used against or for you in some kind of trial, and so on.
heck, the council could prove at least marginally competent and have a back-up plan you were not told about due to the high risk of your person ending in enemy hands, but no, they are at your mercy, just like the rest of the universe, and through you at the mercy of humanity's split personality.

either way, and i'll put this in bold, so it's easier for you to read: none of this is even part of my argument of why the game is racist, only examples of what i called other traces of generalisation.
the game is racist because of the simple fact that the reapers try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner, the geth try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner, and most of all, both ai's in the game try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner.
all the inorganic sentients are generalised into stupid and unreasonable psychopaths, who lack any finesse, intelligence, or competence.
the inorganics are displayed without any texture, sense or reason. they aren't even remotely alien, only boring, and you are perfectly justified in your righteous anger against them.
at least there's some hope for the geth in future titles, since they might as well be controlled, but not so in this first game.

And, turians are NOTHING like elves.

depends on the elves. they reminded me a lot of the lotr elves with a touch of japanophilia.

 

[Trash]

They paid homage to them, but with absolutely no understanding of the games themselves. On one hand you have "Gotta go stop Saren! Time is running out! Go *here*!" and on the other you have "Let's go waste some time to explore the shiny planetoids!". As a result the main quest loses it's sense of urgency and the exploration it's sense of purpose. SF and SC2 were smart enough to make exploration part of completing the main quest, and used time triggered events to maintain the sense of urgency.

Absolutely true. The early speech at the council and the one in the ship kinda surprised me as well. They sounded rather hysterical. After all, you really didn't have that much info that the universe was going to be exterminated. The best you knew at that time was that Saren was up to no good. But for military types to start screaming "end of the world" at that point was unexpected. Especially when you're free after that to just wander around and scan planets.

In SF and SC2 the exploration was an integral part of the gameplay. In mass effect it feels tacked on. That's what I meant with that many things don't really gel together that well. Still, the exploration itself was enjoyable.

if they wanted to include a proper homage, they would have put more effort into the races, instead of them being so generic, boring, and the game being so blatantly racist.

the game is racist because of the simple fact that the reapers try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner, the geth try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner, and most of all, both ai's in the game try to blow you up in a rather stupid manner.
all the inorganic sentients are generalised into stupid and unreasonable psychopaths, who lack any finesse, intelligence, or competence.
the inorganics are displayed without any texture, sense or reason. they aren't even remotely alien, only boring, and you are perfectly justified in your righteous anger against them.
at least there's some hope for the geth in future titles, since they might as well be controlled, but not so in this first game.

Goddamn, the pc and fridge liberation front has arrived. You were also appalled at the horrible portrayal of AI's in 2001: a space oddysee or the terminator?

On a more serious note, Bioware indeed used the old fear of ai's taking over story angle. But that's hardly racism, perhaps machinofobia. If you take offense at that, you really need to work on your priorities.

 

[Astromarine]

I wish some smart liberals would show up in this forum for once, so you conservos would actually have to sweat a little. The current peanut gallery, as represented by this argument, really REALLY sucks.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Goddamn, the pc and fridge liberation front has arrived. You were also appalled at the horrible portrayal of AI's in 2001: a space oddysee or the terminator?

actually, i cannot stand pc, and in both those cases, the ai in question is singular, whereas here you have an entire branch of.. hmm.. sentience without exception marked as "evil". it's not much of a big deal, as every game does it to some extent (and the argument above was more of a trolling attempt for fun), since it's a lazy, easy game design decision, and the standard fantasy gamer seems to need evil that is evil for the sole sake of being evil, but contrary to, say, a game where red robots shoot blue robots in order to score points (lol, racial war), this game actually tries to play around with racism on the top-most layer, while fucking the idea up on the ones below, which makes the attempt rather funny.

On a more serious note, Bioware indeed used the old fear of ai's taking over story angle. But that's hardly racism, perhaps machinofobia.

depends on whether you assume there being something as a god or soul, so you consider living beings being more than complex biological machines, which generally s-f being science and not religious fiction does not. not to mention that the typical old ai's taking over theme is racist at it's core, and draws at least one parallel to the "good" old colonial times.

If you take offense at that, you really need to work on your priorities.

as i said, this was more for fun, but also a bit of critique of shallow game design and futuristic fantasy being sold as science fiction just because it has guns and spaceships.

 

[Volourn]

"actually saren and garrius are very much alike. both think the end justifies the means and are deluded by some notions of their personal definition of a "greater good". "

Did you play the game? First off, Saren is being controlled by Sorveign. He's not himself. Garrus, btw, can actually grow as a character. In fact, the PC cna have more influence on Garrius than most of the time thye'd have with Obsidian's influence system.


"the only competent turian in the game is the cop who willingly endangers a civilian in order to "get his man", and that's a minor part of a short sidequest."

Lets' not forget the C-Sec boss. Unlike Garrius, he's all about the rules, and he doesn't really fail.



"also, ashley is not a racist, just a nationalist)"

She's racist; but I had this disucssion on the BIO baords. It's old.


"as i said, hope."

Play the Renegade Shepard. Not exactly a beacon of hope? btw, It's not humans who are beacons of hope; but the PC. Even though the game isn't really a 'chosen one' set up; it essenntially works that way because the PC's decisions are the ones one that make a huge difference in things (much like any RPG).


"which remains entirely without any consequence, if i'm not mistaken. also, such texture is only present within the human race, making the other races seem even more flat and textureless than they already are."

Other races have avriance too. The thing is you don't see enough of them to effectively stereotype ALL turians, ALL hanars, ALL volus, etc., etc.


"the inorganics are displayed without any texture, sense or reason"

Simply not true. I don't think the geth are represented as *all* evil. I actually am kinda on their side consideirng how theyw ere treated by their creators. And, there were little hints dropped that they're more than what we know.

If there's any race basically whitewashed in the game, it's the krogan who are nothing but a barbaric beats of scummery. Even, the one main krogan npc who had *some* depth was picture as super violent. Then again, there was that one krogan scientist, and talk of actual krogans who didn't seem all that interetested in violence; but finding a cure for their race.

 

[errorcode]

i really wish they had expanded on that Krogan Doctor you encounter. Wrex gives this speech about how there are no Krogan Scientists and how that's part and parcel to why the krogans are basically fucked as a species, but then you encounter not only a krogan doctor but one who apparently has found a cure.

As much as a loved the game overall, this seemed too glossed over and ignored.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Did you play the game? First off, Saren is being controlled by Sorveign. He's not himself. Garrus, btw, can actually grow as a character. In fact, the PC cna have more influence on Garrius than most of the time thye'd have with Obsidian's influence system.

i was talking about saren before sovereign, y'know, the previous specter test, and saren actually believing that he can team up with sovereign in order to find a way to stop it, being too overly confident in his own abilities, just like the matriarch was too confident in her own ability to withstand indoctrination and in turn has mirrored saren (which also served to lessen saren's dramatic villain role, since it was already used up by the matriarch shortly before).

Lets' not forget the C-Sec boss. Unlike Garrius, he's all about the rules, and he doesn't really fail.

he also doesn't do squat in the whole game, being little more than a background extra. not having any active role means he cannot fail by default, since he actually doesn't try to accomplish anything.
saren, garrius, nihilus, the council dood, the noveria dood, and the undercover cop are the only ones i came across. there was this other dood on noveria in front of the garage, who was also turian, so he might be the singular exception to the rest, but i actually finished noveria before talking to him, where ha had nothing to say, but acted as if we were bff.

Play the Renegade Shepard. Not exactly a beacon of hope?

before i repeat myself again, why the hell do you assume that in order to be a shining beacon of hope you'd have to be an alien loving liberal hippie first?
we aren't talking about hope for a better welfare system or more rights to minor races, we're talking about the only hope from utter complete eradication. it's the situation that effects you being a beacon of hope, and your personality does not affect it.

btw, It's not humans who are beacons of hope; but the PC. Even though the game isn't really a 'chosen one' set up; it essenntially works that way because the PC's decisions are the ones one that make a huge difference in things (much like any RPG).

ps:t didn't have you saving the whole world, instead it was all about how you fucked up your own and other people's lives. there is no prerequisite stating that your actions have to be of galactic significance in order for the game to have any validity, and even if that is the way you chose, you don't have to go with the blatant direct "hulk smash" approach, instead having your actions being more subtle

you are the chosen one. after all, specters aren't trained, they are born.

Other races have avriance too. The thing is you don't see enough of them to effectively stereotype ALL turians, ALL hanars, ALL volus, etc., etc.

meh, that and the rest of the above will have to wait for later, gotta run.

Simply not true. I don't think the geth are represented as *all* evil. I actually am kinda on their side consideirng how theyw ere treated by their creators. And, there were little hints dropped that they're more than what we know.

which i mentioned, btw.
but even then and considering the possibility that the geth are controlled as well, those are only hints without any substance behind them. all geth attack and try to kill you, all ai's attack and try to kill you. and so on. considering how incredibly many geth you meet, it renders the art transmission and the whole "we was only defendxoring ourselves" thing rather trivial.

at least bioware has left the possibility open to expand upon those hints with dl content, and reform the geth in the future (omg, you killdxored our god, you is our new god), so not all is lost.

If there's any race basiclaly whitewashed in the game, it's the krogan whoa r enothing but a barbaric beats of scummery. Even, the one main krogan npc who had *some* depth was picture as super violent. Then again, there was that one krogan scientist, and talk of actual krogans who didn't seem all that interetse din violence; but finding a cure for their race.

you mean the one scientist that shouts some inane bs and then shoots you? ^_^

 

[Riso]

Let's not foeget Ashely, a human, a main character, a party member, and a potential romance who is protrayed as a racist

It's normal to dislike/hate your enemy that wanted to wipe you out not 25/30 years ago. That the enemy happens to be an alien race called Turians is not making her racist. In a time were technological progress is rapidly increasing and the world changes nearly uncontrollably fast it is only natural to reconsider who you are, where your place is and where you want to be.

 

[Volourn]

Except she dislikes/hates all alien races; not just turians.

 

[Severian Silk]

I think there are games where the depiction of evil machine "races" is cool, and games that aren't. I think the conservophiles will defend the latter to the death.

 

[Riso]

Ashley's statements on how the council races look out for themselves first isn't racist.

 

[Volourn]

Ashley says a lot more than just Council attacks. Did you even play the game? Listen to what she has to say. It's lots of other race bashing. That said, there are two incidents where she, oddly enough, shows some sympathy for other races. *shrug* Go figure.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/article ... ass-Effect

Yahtzee says there's too much dialogue.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

That's the same guy who hated The Witcher, right?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

That's the same guy who hated The Witcher, right?

If by The Witcher you mean Bioshock and by hated you mean thought it was OK instead of sucking its dick, then yes.

 

[Serious_Business]

Expected a bit more from zero punctuation, the game has a lot of things he could have made fun of other than what was brought up. But I have to admit the Bioware tendencie to shove usless "I'm a failed writer and you're my audience here is what I wrote in high school if you skip it you're obviously a dumbass and this is why I made the action sections for you but they are boring not like my writing which is awesome so you're missing the best part sucks to be you" dialog down your throat. Which, when I think about it, sums up Bioware pretty well, so it was witty. But, not his best, no.