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Arglebargle III posted:I've played past the first encounter with Kai Leng at this point and I have to say, his character so far is exactly the sort of smug weeaboo motherfucker whose face you'd love to smash. So it must be something later that ruins him. He represents the worst and laziest way to write a recurring vilian. Have him show up at the end of a mission, say something snarky to the PCs, and get away multiple times while deliberately stripping the player of any means to stop him. Even when you "beat him" in gameplay, the subsequent cutscene shows him thumbing his nose at you and getting away while trivializing the entire mission. He's basically a JRPG forced-loss boss (or JRPG boss that you beat in a huge battle then lose to in a cutscene) in a third person shooter. He even has weeaboo fightan magic and space katana. He is, far and away, the worst part of the game for me.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:32
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I stuck around to watch nerds flail around about "HOW DARE YOU CONDESCEND ME?!  " and was not disappointed.  A Curvy Goonette posted:He represents the worst and laziest way to write a recurring vilian. Have him show up at the end of a mission, say something snarky to the PCs, and get away multiple times while deliberately stripping the player of any means to stop him. Even when you "beat him" in gameplay, the subsequent cutscene shows him thumbing his nose at you and getting away while trivializing the entire mission. He's basically a JRPG forced-loss boss (or JRPG boss that you beat in a huge battle then lose to in a cutscene) in a third person shooter. He even has weeaboo fightan magic and space katana. Good. You opened this message. This isn't actually asari military command.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:48
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Sombrerotron posted:Do you think that such analysis is inherently pointless, or that certain creative expressions do merit it? And if some do, how do you identify them? My beef is not with analysis, it's that Mass Effect did not invent the idea of a theme, and by this thread's own admission it forgets what its theme is. How does this make Mass Effect good? Why should I give a poo poo about Mass Effect?
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Aug 18, 2014 17:45
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Haaahaha I forgot about that. "I see you opened this email, IDIOT  "
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Aug 18, 2014 17:51
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Hah. Read through the thread just in time to run into this. A little learning is a terrible thing, indeed. Trying to narrow down a text to the "message" and just "the message" is something you are generally disabused of during your first year of BA in [Some Sort] Literature. Fiction doesn't work that way. We've known that as far back as when Plato was condemning it for not working that way and Aristotle was writing up the rules to encourage better integration. We've dispatched "what did the Poet mean" as the primary means of analysis well back in the early 20th century, over a hundred years ago. I can handle smug. I've been told I'm personally insufferably smug in general, and exceptionally smug when I'm right about something (hey, you may have noticed something about this post. Kudos!). I can handle malformed ideas - we all have a few, as no one can know everything, nor withhold judgement one everything they don't know. It's the combination - a babies grin as he displays his brand new poop drawing all over the wall in an adults voice - that's rather annoying. But hey. That's juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust my opinion, backed by millennia of literary analysis. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 18:10
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You know, when put against the likes of Kai Leng, a number of other "expanded universe" characters that made the cross into the main games come off far better. Jacob and Miranda probably being the best of the lot, even if they were less... flat in their own game. Jacob's character arc in 3 can have some rather bad, if unintentional implications for those Guess the prriiiiiizzee wasn't worth it after all.
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Aug 18, 2014 18:24
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You're like someone who can't take criticism of their own criticism. But that's like juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust my opinion man. EDIT: And I hate how people would tell me to read the Mass Effect novels to understand why Kai Lang is  badass. If I have to read a book to understand a videogame you're doing something wrong. There should never have to be homework for a videogame.Kai Lang is garbage. GenderSelectScreen fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 18:31
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Lt. Danger posted:A lot aren't, though, and I want them to stop watching. I can't speak for others, but I was genuinely interested in why you thought Mass Effect 3 was a good game. I was going to watch till the end because what you were saying was compelling, even if I disagreed. But I won't watch any more because I don't want to expose myself to direct attack again. I've read the books. Why? Because I enjoyed the games enough that I was curious to see what else was involved in the ME universe. I knew going in that they weren't great works of literature. But here's the thing, most fantasy and science fiction is pretty dumb. But with these novels at least I had an investment, already. I now know how Saren came in contact with Sovereign. I know why Anderson doesn't like Saren. I know how Grissom Academy got its name. This has increased my enjoyment of the games. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. In fact, there is a lot right about it. I got some enjoyment from it. I spent some time reading rather than watching TV or something less constructive. And there are people out there in the industry who made some money. Seems like a good deal. You know what is wrong, though? You. You are wrong. You are wrong about Mass Effect 3 being a good game. You are wrong about the characters not mattering. You are wrong for not including Leviathan. And the place where you are the most wrong? You are wrong for killing off Wrex and Grunt and Mordin and not including Citadel. Why? Because Citadel IS the best thing about Mass Effect 3. You want to show how Mass Effect 3 is a good game? You show off why the characters are great and then you show off Citadel. Those are just my opinions, though. You don't want people who disagree with you to watch? That's just weak, dude.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:00
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:You're like someone who can't take criticism of their own criticism. But that's like juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust my opinion man. Is that what you've been hearing? Ha ha ha haa... oooh that's a good one. Whoever's been telling you that has a sense of humor.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:06
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I have to say I'm really surprised people like the Citadel. Especially the purely character-building segments. That was really loving awkward to play and I had to stop. I mean I like the characters and all, but I don't want a make-believe social life with them. And the comedy bits were obnoxious too.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:12
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Heatwizard posted:My beef is not with analysis, it's that Mass Effect did not invent the idea of a theme, and by this thread's own admission it forgets what its theme is. How does this make Mass Effect good? Why should I give a poo poo about Mass Effect? StrifeHira posted:Is that what you've been hearing? Probably.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:26
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Anyone who defends Kai Leng in any capacity is either a troll or has something seriously wrong with them. Period.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:28
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BioMe posted:I have to say I'm really surprised people like the Citadel. Especially the purely character-building segments. That was really loving awkward to play and I had to stop. I mean I like the characters and all, but I don't want a make-believe social life with them. The Armax arena and the phantom armor doesn't hurt either. Iamblikhos posted:Anyone who defends Kai Leng in any capacity is either a troll or has something seriously wrong with them. Period. The only likeable thing about him is that he dies.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:34
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I'm a proponent of putting cyborg ninja into literally everything, and even I can't defend Kai Leng.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:36
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Heatwizard posted:You can spend four hours identifying and pontificating over the themes in Mass Effect..it's very possible to sit down and analyze garbage. Hell, there's a whole college course about it. uh, yeah. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 19:46
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Mass Effect is 0.13 Citizen Kanes, far below the reqisite 0.4 threshold to be taken seriously therefore the concept of formal aesthetics slide off the property like an oil slick and fails to apply in any way. Perhaps with a few more Metric Hemmingways of authorship it could be considered, but, no...
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Aug 18, 2014 19:47
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Kurieg posted:Because the combat is fun, the banter is good, they re introduce Wrex as a squadmate again and gives you some time to hang out with your space bros. I'm sorry if you didn't like that but a lot of people did. The arena was alright. The social-life simulator was hilariously/uncomfortably pandering. I mean someone said Bioware has been slowly reinventing the dating sim. Well, they finally got there.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:05
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Yes as much as I enjoy sitting here listening to you ramble I also felt a little chastised by your remarks, especially when talking about how people become too attached to fictional characters. What the gently caress is wrong with liking a character? Yes they aren't real but why the gently caress are you playing a video game that is built upon the premise of you making a connection with the cast?! For gently caress's sake you yourself explained that you liked Mordin in an earlier video so where do you actually stand? When I was growing up I wasn't too involved in RPGs but that started to change when I started playing D&D and other pen and paper types because I felt compelled to put effort into the process of making a character because that way everyone would have fun. I've played some campaigns with people put the least amount of effort possible and it drags down the story and the fun for everyone involved. When I started playing games like Mass Effect I felt the same way about the characters in the game as well. Kaiden and Ashley were boring as poo poo so they just stayed on the ship most of the time but I still spoke with them to find out what else there was that the writers had come up with for those two. We fast forward to ME2 and upon finding out that these characters that I had been spending time getting to know in the game, that they could die and that I, as the player, could keep them alive then yeah I felt compelled to keep them alive. Do I consider these characters my friends or anything like that? No because I understand that they are fictional characters but I do go around and say to fans of the series that "yeah, I romanced Tali because I thought it was cute" or "yeah I felt bad and ended up restarting certain missions so that no one would die in the suicide mission" because I did feel a little upset that I had the power as the player to keep certain characters alive and that I had failed. Sure there are some people in the world that get attracted to these fictional characters and again as other people have pointed out these people are kind of weird but they are not the majority either. But whatever, gently caress it, that's just my opinion too
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Aug 18, 2014 20:09
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Heatwizard posted:How does this make Mass Effect good? It doesn't, necessarily. My bit (and I'm pretty sure Lt Danger's too but I dont wanna put words in his mouth) is mostly getting away from pissing matches about words that change on the speaker like "good" and "bad" and "value" and "like" though in order to focus on aesthetics present in a work that was worked on by hundreds and possibly thousands of people over three games over most of a decade. quote:Why should I give a poo poo about Mass Effect? That's on you. I largely don't anymore because of bullshit in this game, but because of critical discussion in this thread have grown to appreciate ME3 because within the gunmetal grey cover shooter hetero-male fantasy fest "hook" is its camp appeal in the balls-on-the-table-gay-as-hell-adam-west-batman sense while curating a salad bar of trimmings from other, IMO more satisfying primary works like Star Trek TNG, Alien/s, etc. Over the course of Mass Effect, while the Reapers hack and saw away at the galaxy in the narrative Mass Effect 3 hacks and saws away at Mass Effects 1, 2 and 3 via theme and character and level design, demolishing what is beloved, decomposing it to its components, and clearing the way for new entries into the ME IP and beginning a new cycle of monetization. Casey Hudson is literally Sovereign over his pet property. That, and the fact that embracing the specific fecal melange actually does kinda make me give a poo poo again just a little, is cool + funny as hell. You don't, strictly speaking, have to care though. I'm certainly not gonna force you. Willie Tomg fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 20:19
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Mass Effect 3 - I wish you could see it like I do. It's so... perfect, but that's just my opinion
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Aug 18, 2014 20:20
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Kurieg posted:The Armax arena Hitlers Gay Secret posted:And I hate how people would tell me to read the Mass Effect novels to understand why Kai Lang is
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Aug 18, 2014 20:30
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Covok posted:I didn't buy any of the DLC for ME3, but, hearing there is an arena, makes me interested in Citadel. I like the combat system in 3 and I liked the arena in ME1 so getting to play tactical battles whenever I want sounds fun. It does work that way, right? Basically yes. It's more like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer with different locations and you playing as Shepard. You also get to choose from any surviving squadmates during the matches.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:42
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Sombrerotron posted:Do you think that such analysis is inherently pointless, or that certain creative expressions do merit it? And if some do, how do you identify them? At the risk of inviting adult conversation into the thread, it really goes back to the idea discussed earlier about "death of the author". You can only analyse something in terms of either what it is or what it tries to be. You can analyse a cheese sandwich in as much as you can look at the bread and you can look at the cheese and take them apart. It's not a metaphor for the French Revolution. Pretending it is is just completely self-serving and masturbatory, and largely relies on you ignoring the obvious intent of a work (it's a loving sandwich, you said you were hungry) in favour of assigning things arbitrary purposes that can't be disputed because everything is now utterly subjective. As I alluded to, the desire to shoehorn things that clearly don't fit into this framework seems just to be a clinging attempt to validate the medium against some artificial standard, as if talking about the underlying meaning of Sonic The Hedgehog like it was Ionesco's Rhinoceros justifies the time you spent on it, because "it's a fun game about a blue hedgehog that's gotta go fast" is not a good enough reason to enjoy something. My problem is not critically deconstructing Mass Effect. The problem comes when you start chasing after ghosts and assigning complex meanings to things that are likely just there because there was a hole. You can't look at a bunch of people who go on their own forums and write things like "gigglesquee" and spent hours and days writing a never-nude fetish lesbian while allowing their main plot to essentially be something that happens offscreen and gets indicated by a loving bar graph, and then turn around and tell me that actually they didn't want to write a character-driven game and instead it's a rich, tailored narrative about the nature of robotics. That might well have been better, but that's not to say that's what it is.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:43
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StrifeHira posted:Basically yes. It's more like Mass Effect 3's multiplayer with different locations and you playing as Shepard. You also get to choose from any surviving squadmates during the matches. This includes people like Jack, Miranda, and Zaeed. The only issue is that they all have their powers configured exactly the same way and you can't re spec them. It even has it's own little plot mission that culminates in you fighting every enemy in the game at once.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:47
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Kurieg posted:The only likeable thing about him is that he dies. I wonder if that was the point: to make people hate him so much that his death would make it worth it. Nah, that's way too clever for BioWare.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:52
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Iamblikhos posted:I wonder if that was the point: to make people hate him so much that his death would make it worth it. It's obvious he was supposed to be hated. The problem was that he was so poorly written that everyone hates him for different reasons Thant the writers intended.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:02
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Iamblikhos posted:I wonder if that was the point: to make people hate him so much that his death would make it worth it. I've said it before but his death would be so much more powerful had he been the Virmire Casualty. Just a different kind of worth-it. And if we're going to look ahead to Lt. Danger's analysis, if every character is a representation of some theme (Virmire Survivor is the Mass Effect 1 player's avatar, James is the fresh player's perspective, etc), then what does Kai Leng represent? He murders a minor character (who possessed perfect memory but suffering a terminal illness), steals from the player during an impossible-to-win fight, is regarded in-game as a mega-threat, and goes out only after a drawn out boss-fight that ends with a QTE cutscene. In some ways, it's like Bioware designed a character/experience to mimic what the avatars in-game feel like when they go up against Shepard. So what does it mean when that mirror image of the player is lovely?
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Aug 18, 2014 21:09
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FullLeatherJacket posted:My problem is not critically deconstructing Mass Effect. The problem comes when you start chasing after ghosts and assigning complex meanings to things that are likely just there because there was a hole. You can't look at a bunch of people who go on their own forums and write things like "gigglesquee" and spent hours and days writing a never-nude fetish lesbian while allowing their main plot to essentially be something that happens offscreen and gets indicated by a loving bar graph, and then turn around and tell me that actually they didn't want to write a character-driven game and instead it's a rich, tailored narrative about the nature of robotics. That might well have been better, but that's not to say that's what it is. Yeah this is pretty much what I was trying to get at, although you put it far better than I could. Bioware invests time and energy into their characters while putting the overarching narrative in the background, so players are going to focus more on the characters and less on the narrative. Yes the narrative has some interesting themes and an overall message to convey, but they are underdeveloped and poorly communicated to the player, as evidenced by the collective "wow, I never noticed x motif before" every time Lt. Danger does a new episode.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:12
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Mass Effect 3 - See it like I do or gently caress off.
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Aug 18, 2014 21:13
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BioMe posted:The arena was alright. The social-life simulator was hilariously/uncomfortably pandering. The non-romance meetup with Traynor is creepy as gently caress and genuinely made me uncomfortable watching it. 
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Aug 18, 2014 21:54
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FullLeatherJacket posted:The problem comes when you start chasing after ghosts and assigning complex meanings to things that are likely just there because there was a hole. Thwomp posted:I've said it before but his death would be so much more powerful had he been the Virmire Casualty. Just a different kind of worth-it.
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Aug 18, 2014 22:17
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Waltzing Along posted:I can't speak for others, but I was genuinely interested in why you thought Mass Effect 3 was a good game. I was going to watch till the end because what you were saying was compelling, even if I disagreed. I'm not wrong for not seeing it your way. You are the one who is wrong for not seeing it mine. Also I am not wrong for not knowing how to structure paragraphs.
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Aug 18, 2014 22:25
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Interpretations are subjective, but not all interpretations are equally well realized in the text. Even something like Final Fantasy 8 is a fascinating story about stuff like the Cold War paranoia and child soldiers, you could argue. And sure, those things are objectively present in the text. You just have to cherry pick like hell between all the awkward teenage drama to argue they are strong themes and worth playing the game for.
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Aug 18, 2014 23:03
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You're a funny guy, Lt. Danger, but God Alive, the "Just My Opinion" joke went on too drat long. I don't mind someone being a dick, it's pretty funny, but timing sure gets to me. The one surprising thing I'm seeing in this thread is that I thought the tie-in novels were universally despised on these forums. They're too "Bioware" or they break canon or they were racist, goons always dogpile the poo poo out of the novels. The threads in games always blamed them on the Bioware forums-types, you know, the ones who coined "gigglesquee," who are not at all like us. Really surprised to see someone champion them here.
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Aug 18, 2014 23:30
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I don't get it.
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Aug 18, 2014 23:48
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Lt. Danger posted:I strongly believe art (low-brow or high-brow, it doesn't matter) is about communication, about opening a dialogue between artist and audience(s). Lots of people, quite fairly, believe art is about entertainment, about causing pleasure or cathartic release in the audience. This is a bit of a false dichotomy and it might be what's stirring people up so much in this thread. Critical analysis is fine, cathartic release is fine, and investment in stories and characters is fine, but I wouldn't just dump each of these into separate piles. There are other hermeneutics at stake here as well. In your intertextuality episode for example you mentioned that ME's style is broadly a bricolage of different science-fiction texts. While I liked how this factored into your analysis of the series as a whole (ME1 is the paragon game, ME2 the renegade game, and ME3 the apocalyptic singularity) you fell short of expanding this idea further and instead resorted to a rather reductive point: Mass Effect is really 'nothing more' than a pastiche of its genre(s). In a way what you are saying is true. Mass Effect shouldn't be read as a context-free game. But context by itself doesn't tell me much about what Mass Effect is doing with its intertexts and why this (supposedly) makes it such a compelling series. If, as you say, ME should be read as a dialogue between artist and audience(s), then a game that's just "derivative, intentionally so" sounds to me like a terrible place to start a conversation (not the least because I imagine a fanboy quoting his favourite movie lines at me)! But it's not of course, and that's my point! Because a clever use of intertexts isn't just about making a scrapbook of your favourite things, it's about finding crucial differences through repetition (by repeating what came before and discovering something surprising in the gaps you create). You pick up on this point yourself when you talk about the series' internal differences, but the same applies to its broader contexts as well. Mass Effect - its characters, its settings - finds its own texture in the negative space of this wide-open 'love letter' to science-fiction as a whole. This, I think, is what people mean when they say they "like" the game series's characters, or its settings. They aren't necessarily making a universal statement about all science-fiction. What they are doing is talking about an object that's contingent to them, even if it's not "supposed to be" a thing in itself. And - whether intentional or otherwise - they are also saying something about the text as a work of difference (of affect, voice, and tone). Again, you are rallying a defence by saying this thread 'isn't for everyone' and that certain people shouldn't read it because opinions. I disagree. You can't separate pleasure and critical analysis into two different buckets and act baffled when people call you condescending. If you really want to talk about how art communicates meaning to audience(s), then perhaps examine how audience reception around these basic elements (characters, settings, plot) matters and relates to the central points you're trying to bring up. Because I don't think they're as mutually exclusive as you're making out. Gravastars fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 01:29
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I'm loving all of the crazy breakdowns of Mass Effect-obsessed people. All fans are terrible. Consuming media for the sake of obsession is creepy/lame/pathetic, and rightfully called out. Stories are important and can draw us in, but we do have to remember at the end of the day that they are stories. Its a fun story to justify numbers getting bigger and play shootyguns. It has some interesting themes and the occasional thought-provoking scene. But, none of Mass Effect has happened. And it will never happen. And getting offended at that is funny. I love Star Trek. I have watched all of the episodes of all series. I have read only two books however. Why? Most Star Trek books are poo poo. I played the MMO for about 2 weeks and uninstalled it, as it is(was?) poo poo. And I will be the first to tell you that there is dumb stuff in ST, and when I find crappy ST, I turn it off. Except maybe to make fun of it. Threshold And I  at "Grunt is not my friend. My friends are real."Edit: Just read through the thread(I was just watching videos before), and almost none of the posts were about the point of this LP, which was a critical analysis of Mass Effect 3. Why not go sperg out about Mass Effect in the Games thread? Mrit fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Aug 19, 2014 |
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Aug 19, 2014 02:31
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Mrit posted:I'm loving all of the crazy breakdowns of Mass Effect-obsessed people. All fans are terrible. Really the part about that last video that I disliked is that it lumped all people into 2 categories, people who agree with Lt. and a bunch of uber nerds who are obsessed with a space opera. You also did the same thing, lumping lots of varied opinions into a single inaccurate hyperbole. People are capable of thinking Wrex is fake, and still preferring to have that character around. People can disagree with an idea without holding the outright opposite opinion and having a breakdown.
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Aug 19, 2014 02:50
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JossiRossi posted:Really the part about that last video that I disliked is that it lumped all people into 2 categories, people who agree with Lt. and a bunch of uber nerds who are obsessed with a space opera. You also did the same thing, lumping lots of varied opinions into a single inaccurate hyperbole. People are capable of thinking Wrex is fake, and still preferring to have that character around. People can disagree with an idea without holding the outright opposite opinion and having a breakdown. Did you read the last 3 pages? The wailing and gnashing of teeth by some posters about criticism of a video game/those who obsess over it. A fun, but dumb video game. Its just a game.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:02
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Mrit posted:Did you read the last 3 pages? The wailing and gnashing of teeth by some posters about criticism of a video game/those who obsess over it. This is some low-tier stuff, step up your game if you want to get with the big boys.
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Aug 19, 2014 03:12
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