Totally Not Corrupt Professional Objective Gaming Journalism DRAMA

[Infinitron]

Well, I don't think the original idea was to make a game past the first one. On its own, the first provided a pretty conclusive ending to the reaper saga. Sovereign was dead so he couldn't awaken his reaper brethren. but then EA saw money so Bioware had to derp a way into getting the reapers to return anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_(video_game)#Development

BioWare announced Mass Effect on October 4, 2005, as an Xbox 360-exclusive game and part of a trilogy.[28][29]

 

[AlexOfSpades]

They screwed up big time on Mass Effect 3. Check this,

What if, the only way to destroy the Reapers is to be able to communicate with them, to hack into their cybernetic minds and shut them down from the inside... but that would require you to have reaper tech on your brain. To save the galaxy, Shepard goes through indoctrination. (This could happen in the beggining of ME3). His body is partially deformed, metal cables and leds visible through his now pale skin. His voice changes and his eyes glow. Big chance for good dialogue: crewmembers dont trust him anymore, Ashley may leave the crew if you dont convince her to stay and that you're not insane. The person you had romance with previously is afraid of you now. She or he says you're not the same anymore. Shepard (and the player) feels lonely for the first time in the trilogy, but he knows he's the only one that can pull this mission off. He knows he's doing the right thing, even if that requires sacrificing himself. But now that he has Reaper tech on his body... he can communicate with them. They talk to him. They explain their motives. The lines between paragon and renegade become blurry - it doesnt make any sense anymore. Maybe they're right. Maybe everyone should submit to the Reapers if they really are unstoppable - doing so would just avoid bloodshed and war. Wait, no! You cant give up Shepard! We have to save the galaxy...! Meanwhile, Illusive Man hires his space ninja guy, Kai Leng, to assassinate Shepard. But he cant do it alone. Kai Leng must travel through the galaxy, following a list of dossiers and recruiting people to help him in the battle against Shepard... Exactly like you did, during Mass Effect 1, when fighting against Saren. It all makes sense now. During the climax of the game, there's a huge battle between the two ships - all the crewmembers you failed to convince that you're not insane, have left you or joined Kai Leng's side. While both spaceships are engaged in a space dogfight, Kai Leng teleports to inside your ship as soon as your shields are down... and you two have a final showdown inside the very Normandy. This isnt a battle for survival anymore - its a battle to save the galaxy but also to prove everyone you're not the same insane monster Saren was. Or is this exactly what Saren was thinking, when you killed him? Leng perishes and Shepard survives thanks to his reaper body augmentations (crewmembers die during the battle kind of like in ME2 suicide mission, depending on certain decisions).

In the end, you must meet the Reapers alone (or everyone else will be indoctrinated too), so Shepard is left alone talking to the Reapers in a strange, surreal scene (maybe he's floating in space and the Reapers are around him, judging him, talking through his mind). Reapers explain that, as robots, they are unable to design things that they werent programmed to do. So they rely on allowing organic life to develop, to then study their technology and improve their own with it. And then they exterminate them and use their broken souls as fuel before they develop too much and threaten the Reapers - and that has happened for countless eons. They also mention how every living being, came from their seeds - a tiny bit of their biomechanical DNA. However, they offer Shepard a chance - he may integrate with them, becoming a Reaper, and helping them wipe the galaxy out. Shepard never really had a choice - he was destined for this. The player loses control (in panic) as he witnesses Shepard opening his arms and allowing a Reaper to absorb him. There is nothing the player can do. Shepard is now inside it, part of it, an organ, a gear - just part of a much bigger system. (His arms are wide open, connected to the Reaper biomechanical systems, in a HR Giger fashion and Christ-like pose). Flashbacks of every important conversation of the trilogy go through his mind, as Shepard, minutes before complete assimilation, remembers his job. He may give up now and become part of them, or he may struggle. Two endings may ensue:

- Good ending happens, if you did good things throughout the trilogy. Shepard remembers saving the Rachni Queen, not killing the infected Thorians, worrying and saving his crew on Mass Effect 2. He remembers his crewmembers - no, his friends, and his love. He has to finish the job... for them!! In a last burst of willpower, he takes over the Reaper with his mind. Their systems, as robots, were designed at least to an extent to have an operator, perhaps used by their creator eons ago. And now its used against them, as Shepard controls them for just a few moments. He knows he cant keep up for too long (or it will destroy his mind), so he dominates all Reapers and forces them to dive into the Sun. Shepard knows that if he stays, the Reaper will retake control of its own systems and may even control him. He cant take the chances. He knows that there is only one way out, only one way to make sure the galaxy will be safe. Game ends with Shepard diving into the sun too, the reaper technology melting into its most basic chemical forms. Ashes to ashes.


- Bad ending happens, if you were ruthless or selfish. You remember killing all those people in cold blood, just means to an end. You were just a guy, doing your job. Saren was weak. They were all weak. But you're not. You're part of a Reaper now. You are the all-knowing, inevitable end. You are an immortal death bringer. You failed your mission and now your friends must die. But its okay. Its all means to an end. Game ends with the Galaxy being wiped out, only primitive lifeforms survive. The cycle continues, forever.

This would make Mass Effect 3 a game about discovering who are you, truly - after Shepard was indoctrinated, did he remain the same? Would you remain the same? To what extent are you affected by your past? Its a journey of self-understanding, of rejection (from the crewmembers) and finding out your true purpose (in the end). Its also about the origin of the galaxy (the Reapers being the creators of every organic life) - about man, meeting God, meeting his Creator. What if God wasnt a nice guy? Would you stop him, or would you join him, if you had a chance? Also, another point: You becoming what Saren was, without noticing. Do we really have control over our lives, or was Shepard destined for this, just like Saren never had a choice?

How's that, artistic enough? Excuse any typos, i'm drunk.

 

[Gragt]

But but but! Aren't all games art?

Spoiler

I wouldn't have a problem calling all games art. There is good and bad art after all.

The discussion is irrelevant anyway. Is Papers, Please an awesome experience with thematic relevance and technical brilliance? Yes. OK. Then who the fuck cares what you call it?

It's that whole "what is an RPG?" discussion over again. I dunno. Never did know. I just know I like games with stats and tactical combat and maybe some exploration and cool dialogue that the world reacts to. Maybe you like something else.

Broad definitions for anything is relevant, but ultimately the question isn't "are games art?" but "should gaming be taken seriously?" When 99% of what gaming produces is juvenile bullshit, I'd say the answer is pretty obvious. Not that that matters to my personal enjoyment of the medium.

Just like the "What is an RPG", you get these kind of discussions lately because most people involved don't understand what art is about, i.e., communication. There is nothing mystical about doing something artistic. But something good, or great? Now that takes some work! I'm happy to leave one part of the discussion to other people.

 

[Jick Magger]

They screwed up big time on Mass Effect 3. Check this,

What if, the only way to destroy the Reapers is to be able to communicate with them, to hack into their cybernetic minds and shut them down from the inside... but that would require you to have reaper tech on your brain. To save the galaxy, Shepard goes through indoctrination. (This could happen in the beggining of ME3). His body is partially deformed, metal cables and leds visible through his now pale skin. His voice changes and his eyes glow. Big chance for good dialogue: crewmembers dont trust him anymore, Ashley may leave the crew if you dont convince her to stay and that you're not insane. The person you had romance with previously is afraid of you now. She or he says you're not the same anymore.

Already brought about 3/4 of the fanbase into bloody rebellion. Genuine Conflict between Shepard and his crew would mean them behaving like real people and not just talking love pillows that the fans can write shitty fanfics about while jerking off to source filmmaker porn gifs, leaving them frightened at the actual attempt at character development and angry that Bioware snapped them out of their golden-waifu dream world.

 

[Spectacle]

The ME story could have been so much better if they had kept the Reapers as Lovecraftian monstrosities. Nobody ever wonders or cares what Cthulhu's motivations are. It's pretty damn obvious that they were just making this shit up as they went along, with no real story outline.

This is kind of the problem when you introduce lovecraftian monstrosities to be your overarching big-bad in a series of stories. H.P. Lovecraft never really intended for Cthulhu to be more than a monster of the week in one of his short stories, and thus decided to play fast and loose with its motivations. Because honestly, nobody really cares too much about the motivations of the monster in a one-off horror story; nobody ever criticised John Carpenter for not explaining The Thing or Michael Myer's motivations, and the latter actually was actually diminished as a character when they did decide to explain it in Halloween 2 and Rob Zombie's reboot.

When you're dealing with a series of stories, all of which are connected and follow the same characters, then you'll essentially be shoving that question in their faces over and over and over again to the point where you'll basically have to answer it at some point down the line. You're basically setting yourself up to fail.

Lovecraft wrote a whole bunch of connected stories about incomprehensible monsters/gods, and it worked fine. But I guess if your audience is 14 year olds who want a spoonfed definite conclusion it's not going to work, they'll prefer a spoonfull of shit to no spoon at all.

 

[Haba]

Someone does not quite get what "lovecraftian horror" is all about.

The hallmark of Lovecraft's work is cosmicism: the sense that ordinary life is a thin shell over a reality that is so alien and abstract in comparison that merely contemplating it would damage the sanity of the ordinary person. Lovecraft's work is also steeped in the insular feel of rural New England, and much of the genre continues to maintain this sense that "that which man was not meant to know" might be closer to the surface of ordinary life outside of the crowded cities of modern civilization.

If you explain the motivations of a Lovecraftian horror, it ceases to be Lovecraftian in the first place. Horror of the unknown and stuffies!

 

[dextermorgan]

Mass Effect is just an uninspired amalgam of various Sci-Fi tropes introduced by far more competent authors that doesn't really work as a coherent whole because it lacks the vision of the materials it draws from.

 

[Zewp]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_(video_game)#Development

BioWare announced Mass Effect on October 4, 2005, as an Xbox 360-exclusive game and part of a trilogy.[28][29]

Well, fuck me sideways. I was under the impression it was originally going to be a standalone game. The writing certainly gave off that vibe.

Just goes to show how absolutely fucked up Bioware has really become then.

 

[Jick Magger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_(video_game)#Development

BioWare announced Mass Effect on October 4, 2005, as an Xbox 360-exclusive game and part of a trilogy.[28][29]

Well, fuck me sideways. I was under the impression it was originally going to be a standalone game. The writing certainly gave off that vibe.

It probably was, to some extent. Pretty standard marketing policy is to make the first entry in an intended series of films have a conclusion which can both serve as a potential sequel hook if it turns out to be successful enough to continue, and have a satisfactory conclusion to the story if it doesn't and they decide to write it off. It's usually the second and third entries that are most closely tied together story-wise. See shit like Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, etc.

 

[Bubbles]

The initial ME marketing heavily exploited the "mature, realistic Star Wars by the best writers in the industry" angle. Announcing it as a trilogy was a perfectly natural move.

 

[warpig]

They screwed up big time on Mass Effect 3. Check this(...)

That's pretty cool, I like it. Makes more sense than starkid (that's hardly an achievement though).

 

[AlexOfSpades]

Someone read my wall of text. I'm going to sleep smiling.

 

[buzz]

Shit, Mass Effect 3 could have been "better" even if they were sticking with the same plot but not fucking up all the small things. Like introducing bland and unimportant new characters and crew members and removing the relatively cool aliens and psychos from 1 and 2. Or fucking up Tali's face reveal. Or creating the illusion of consequences in such an obvious way (for example, the trial at the beginning of the game was a missed opportunity for them to do something a la Chrono Trigger). Really, the biggest fuck-up from EA and Bioware was that they ruined their credibility even with their biggest supporters though shit like that. If they carefully pandered to their herd, ME3 would be RPG of the decade for most of the mainstream media and populace.

 

[Dexter]

Polygon is apparently getting even better: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2014/01/02/ben-kuchera-joins-polygon

 

[Ninjerk]

Someone read my wall of text. I'm going to sleep smiling.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

 

[garren]

Polygon is apparently getting even better: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2014/01/02/ben-kuchera-joins-polygon

Polygon just got even more entertaining!

 

[Zewp]

Now there is no reasonable way they can attempt to hide what shills they are.

 

[CSM]

Intrepid Polygon journalist Arthur Gies:

 

[DragoFireheart]

You know what's sad and breaks my heart?

How most modern day Game Devs lie even more than politicians. It truly blows my mind away how they can act like such scumbags.

 

[CSM]

 

[e-mailio estevez]

I just love how often the phrase 'You spoke. We listened' seems to get used when it comes time for DRM removal. Because it's all about you: the fans! Such transparent fake sincerity.

 

[PlanHex]

"You spoke (a year ago). We listened (but did nothing until now, even though we knew that doing what you wanted was entirely possible and not that hard to do)."

 

[evdk]

"You spoke (a year ago). We listened (but did nothing until now, even though we knew that doing what you wanted was entirely possible and not that hard to do)."

Silly PlanHex, twitter has character limit.

 

[Kitako]

OMG LIEK, IT'S FREE?!?!?!

..

Seriously?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

more and more reasons to wish for ea to die.