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Apropos of nothing, I like the Codex and its cute attempts to harden up the sci-fi in the main game a bit. Like I remember reading the bit about the beacons and it says they don't actually beam a telepathic message into your mind they, uh, modify your cerebral cortex or whatever so the memory of the message is put into your brain. Yeah that's it.
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May 14, 2016 03:06
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2house2fly posted:Apropos of nothing, I like the Codex and its cute attempts to harden up the sci-fi in the main game a bit. Like I remember reading the bit about the beacons and it says they don't actually beam a telepathic message into your mind they, uh, modify your cerebral cortex or whatever so the memory of the message is put into your brain. Yeah that's it. I liked when the ME2 codex showed a picture of a Prothean husk in a game where the Collectors existed. I also liked when the ME3 codex contradicted everything about the Reapers in ME3.
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May 14, 2016 03:17
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Milky Moor posted:I agree with basically all of this. This is really dumb in a sadly predictable sort of way, the Normandy is ostensibly some super advanced ship, and Cerberus seems to have little issue recreating the drat thing almost perfectly which speaks to the larger problem that Cerberus's powers and capabilities fly all over the place at the behest of the writer in the last two games because they are poorly written garbage You also didn't engage his arguments that the problem isn't just physically hiding a spaceship, its hiding the infrastructure that basically seems to render Cerberus as an actor powerful enough to compete with galaxy spanning governments to the point they can invade multiple planets in the midst of a giant space war including the heavily armed heart of the Galactic government. That extends to things like gaining and concealing the manpower to both act as a giant army and keep everything secret enough that nobody can do poo poo about them. It's loving bananas.
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May 14, 2016 03:23
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If I was going to try invading planets I'd definitely want to do it when they're already distracted by a huge space war.
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May 14, 2016 04:04
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2house2fly posted:If I was going to try invading planets I'd definitely want to do it when they're already distracted by a huge space war. So you wouldn't mind the whole massive fleets and giant armies fully mobilized that your gawky terrorist organisation will be trying to take on?
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May 14, 2016 04:13
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khwarezm posted:This is really dumb in a sadly predictable sort of way, the Normandy is ostensibly some super advanced ship, and Cerberus seems to have little issue recreating the drat thing almost perfectly which speaks to the larger problem that Cerberus's powers and capabilities fly all over the place at the behest of the writer in the last two games because they are poorly written garbage Cerberus never invades planets with a force large enough to conquer. They operate like a terrorist group. And while capable of causing damage, al-Queda couldn't survive if they fought force on force with coalition forces. That's what I think of in ME3 when they're a huge problem in the beginning of the game and after the citadel attack fails you only fight Cerberus forces when you assault their base. Kai Leng shows up on Thessia with such a small force because most of the Cerberus army gets killed. Obviously I agree that the funding is an issue, but the Cerberus MO seems to be abducting and indoctrinating people, and you don't have to pay them if they're indoctrinated. They don't have dreadnaughts, and if they built a Normandy, they clearly have shipyards, which probably helps explain where some of their funding comes from. Maybe one of their front companies is a defense contractor and that's why they have all that hardware laying around.
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May 14, 2016 04:47
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wookieepelt posted:Cerberus never invades planets with a force large enough to conquer. They operate like a terrorist group. And while capable of causing damage, al-Queda couldn't survive if they fought force on force with coalition forces. That's what I think of in ME3 when they're a huge problem in the beginning of the game and after the citadel attack fails you only fight Cerberus forces when you assault their base. Kai Leng shows up on Thessia with such a small force because most of the Cerberus army gets killed. Obviously I agree that the funding is an issue, but the Cerberus MO seems to be abducting and indoctrinating people, and you don't have to pay them if they're indoctrinated. They don't have dreadnaughts, and if they built a Normandy, they clearly have shipyards, which probably helps explain where some of their funding comes from. Maybe one of their front companies is a defense contractor and that's why they have all that hardware laying around. Cerberus is not pulling some Paris style attack where they just try to kill a bunch of civilians in a soft unexpected target, or ISIS style exploiting local sympathies and divisions to gain control over actual territory, they assault the heart of the Galactic government which is clearly mostly populated with aliens who would have no reason to accept a nutjob human supremacist organisation. Its so dumb, its like if al-Qaeda made a serious and concerted attempt to conquer the United Nations headquarters in New York. Not just to set off a few bombs but try to seize control of the machinery of government. But I guess they're all indoctrinated so whatevs. But I think the one that annoys me more is when they assault the Salarian base with the Krogan females. I can't come up with any good rationalization for that one, its a base stacked with elite Salarian special forces on their home planet that is both on super high alert because of the whole unknown horrors invading the galaxy thing while seemingly being completely untouched at that point in the game. And both attacks come by complete surprise and of course they can do all of these things simultaneously across massive areas of the Galaxy while also getting caught up in Mars, the Krogan homeworld and who knows where else. Not to mention their weekly another-experiment-gone-horribly-wrong cleanup operation.
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May 14, 2016 05:16
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One thing I think we can all agree is that he is right about how ME2 basically shat all over what ME had started and in the grand scheme of things, plot wise, was a total waste of time because nothing happened.
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May 14, 2016 05:18
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khwarezm posted:This is really dumb in a sadly predictable sort of way, the Normandy is ostensibly some super advanced ship, and Cerberus seems to have little issue recreating the drat thing almost perfectly which speaks to the larger problem that Cerberus's powers and capabilities fly all over the place at the behest of the writer in the last two games because they are poorly written garbage Hi Shamus. The Normandy isn't 'super advanced'. It's a combination of pre-existing technologies, designed jointly by the Turian government and the Systems Alliance. In fact, the Normandy isn't a one of a kind super ship - it's a prototype for a new human frigate class. I always like how people act as if it's hard to build a space ship in a space opera like Mass Effect. A spaceship is nothing more than a fancy car and the Normandy is just a fancy car with a supercharged engine. It is not hard to build a spaceship, particularly not one to military spec if you have contacts within the military and government, which Cerberus does (as of Mass Effect 1, even!) and a number of secret facilities (again, Mass Effect 1). If this was a setting where constructing spaceships was some big feat, where the ship-building capability actually mattered, then people might have a point when they angrily nitpick that Cerberus just can't be able to do that. All in all, you probably kill less than two-hundred members of Cerberus in Mass Effect 3. khwarezm posted:So you wouldn't mind the whole massive fleets and giant armies fully mobilized that your gawky terrorist organisation will be trying to take on? Reminder: everyone's off fending off the Reapers. I think my two favorite complaints from nerds about writing are: 1. They changed things and that makes it a ret-con! Cerberus only had three bases and there was something about a General in charge, therefore everything about ME2 is bad and dumb! 2. RAILROADING
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May 14, 2016 05:22
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Waltzing Along posted:One thing I think we can all agree is that he is right about how ME2 basically shat all over what ME had started and in the grand scheme of things, plot wise, was a total waste of time because nothing happened. I don't think 'upsetting Harbinger's last-ditch plan before they need to slowboat to the galaxy' counts as 'nothing happened', personally. Of course, that's based off the assumption that ME3 wouldn't begin with that having no consequences for their whole armada and therefore invalidating the whole Reaper trap thing in the first place.
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May 14, 2016 05:23
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His point that ME sets up a sequel where Shep is running around trying to get information with Liara as his sidekick who knows about Prothean poo poo is a good one. And it was totally wasted in ME2. ME2 didn't need Cerberus. Killing Shep and blowing up the Normandy was idiotic, especially when you immediately get them back the next scene. It really is like a completely different story. And that is where the story went off the tracks. It wasn't at the end of ME3 or even during it. It was right when ME2 started.
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May 14, 2016 05:31
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Waltzing Along posted:His point that ME sets up a sequel where Shep is running around trying to get information with Liara as his sidekick who knows about Prothean poo poo is a good one. And it was totally wasted in ME2. ME2 didn't need Cerberus. Killing Shep and blowing up the Normandy was idiotic, especially when you immediately get them back the next scene. It really is like a completely different story. And that is where the story went off the tracks. It wasn't at the end of ME3 or even during it. It was right when ME2 started. There's very little worth in the 'what could have been' line of critique. For example: What's Liara going to bring to the table when you've spent the whole game pointing out that she was wrong, her life has been wasted, the Protheans were chumps, and the only thing they could bring to the table was the stuff on Ilos? Oh, and you killed her mother. I can see Alt-Shamus now. "With Shepard and Liara finding all these other Prothean clues, ME2 did not respect the idea of Ilos being the last ditch attempt of the Prothean species. It devalues the Details First style of storytelling that Bioware used to exemplify."
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May 14, 2016 05:38
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Milky Moor posted:Hi Shamus. And Cerberus can replicate all this without a problem because hold on the phone's ringing I really need to take this right now. And also since Cerberus had a few secret bases that they tended to accidentally fill with ungodly abominations in the first game its obvious that they could move on to creating fleets and tech that can go toe-to-toe with the military super powers of the galaxy, similarly you can see that ISIS have started popping out aircraft carriers ever since they took over chunks of Iraq and Syria. quote:All in all, you probably kill less than two-hundred members of Cerberus in Mass Effect 3. Haha, oh is that all? quote:Reminder: everyone's off fending off the Reapers. TL;DR; these games got really bad.
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May 14, 2016 05:40
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khwarezm posted:My apologies, its not super advanced, its just using prototype technology humans have never had access to and which required heavy assistance from other more advanced races to build at all. Yep. Why couldn't they? Let's have a look at the Normandy's 'prototype technology'. Lithium heat sinks - that's the stealth tech (yes, really). and A disproportionately large drive core. Both of these technologies are explicitly there so the Alliance can learn how to apply them in other situations. Neither of them are even Turian technologies - in fact, the Turian side of things seems to equate to how the ship's rooms are laid out. There's no technology in it that humans "have never had access to" or "required heavy assistance from other more advanced races". This isn't like Babylon 5's White Star where it's created with technology from older spacefaring races that no one understands. It's just a ship that punches above its weight. The Normandy was built once and, by the sounds of it, it wasn't particularly difficult. It'd be much easier to build it a second time. You should probably watch less anime if you have this mindset that a prototype can never be built again. That's kind of the whole point of a prototype, a proof of concept that'll be made better. quote:And also since Cerberus had a few secret bases that they tended to accidentally fill with ungodly abominations in the first game its obvious that they could move on to creating fleets and tech that can go toe-to-toe with the military super powers of the galaxy, similarly you can see that ISIS have started popping out aircraft carriers ever since they took over chunks of Iraq and Syria. Cerberus never goes 'toe to toe' with the 'military super powers'. That'd imply at least one fleet engagement. quote:Haha, oh is that all? It's absolutely nothing when you're dealing with a galaxy full of people.
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May 14, 2016 05:58
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the only thing we know about the Normandy being special in the sense that making multiples would be a logistical nightmare is based more off of what that Rear Admiral with the stick up his rear end says to you in ME1. Basically the Normany was over-engineered and cost way too loving much to build, we shoulda just built another flotilla with that money. But if it's just money that is the problem, hey how much did TIM drop on resurrecting Shep? What's a couple more billion credits for a matching Shep ship
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May 14, 2016 07:37
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If you're somehow at a loss as to how Cerberus could replicate the Normandy, you could always listen to the conversation with EDI where she literally tells you exactly how Cerberus was able to do it, and how they have the kind of resources that made it possible.
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May 14, 2016 07:48
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Yeah I have some issues with Cerberus' capabilities in ME3 but building a bigger, golden Normandy, a ship who's (not actually experimental) tech was somewhat famous and barely classified in the first game alone, would be piss easy and this is a weird hill to die on.
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May 14, 2016 07:52
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Mass Effect 2.
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May 14, 2016 07:57
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Mass Effect 2.
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May 14, 2016 07:57
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His overall point of "Cerberus sucks and I hate them" is something I agree with wholeheartedly.
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May 14, 2016 08:56
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Cerberus may be  most of the time but it's not because they're unrealistic. For me it's because they lose all sense of ambiguity in 3 and Shepard seems to become an idiot around them. In terms of combat though I prefer manshoots to blobshoots.
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May 14, 2016 09:05
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I dunno, guy totally lost me when he said Marina Sirtis did an amazing job and that whole Benezia scene was incredible tbh.
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May 14, 2016 10:30
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Tirranek posted:Cerberus may be Yeah, the series absolutely suffers from how they're handled.
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May 14, 2016 10:52
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Milky Moor posted:Why couldn't they? To me this is like saying a Nuclear Submarine 'just' has a large reactor and several Nuclear missiles. Yes, obviously its possible to build but the difficulties in doing are not to be underestimated, especially for a clandestine terrorist organisation. This is all just being pedantic as far I'm concerned the problem with Cerberus is that their abilities and resources jump all over the place depending on the writers need to put more shooty bits in the game, multiple characters (TIM, Kai Leng, Miranda) were obviously meant to be cool mysterious quote:Cerberus never goes 'toe to toe' with the 'military super powers'. That'd imply at least one fleet engagement. Not necessarily, it could just as easily imply that they have capability to launch heavily armed surprise attacks on the home planets of the most powerful species in the galaxy. But I guess that happens only around four times during the course of ME3. quote:It's absolutely nothing when you're dealing with a galaxy full of people. Ok well, I suppose that a good point, Cerberus could potentially have lost millions of troops over the years to all of alien races and even the human government that clearly hate their guts. Especially when they start to really stick their dicks in the meatgrinder in ME3. In that context losing hundreds of troops to one person and their two pals is a pittance. quote:This isn't like Babylon 5's White Star where it's created with technology from older spacefaring races that no one understands. It's just a ship that punches above its weight. Milky Moor posted:
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May 14, 2016 13:08
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khwarezm posted:I'm half tempted to just link to paragraphs from the Mass Effect wiki where they keep using phrases like 'State-of-the-art' and 'Experimental technology'. Anyway I have reservations that Prototypes of advanced tech that seem to require extensive infrastructure to build can be just copy pasted by any bunch of racists who want to start shooting aliens. There's a reason why something like a Blue-water navy is a preserve for the most powerful nations on the planet and I would presume that building a fleet of loving starships is an order of magnitude more difficult than anything we could possibly build on earth. Especially when that ship causes everyone on board to be like 'Holy poo poo Shepard, this is the bestest ship ever!'. lol it's okay shamus, i'm sorry that you wrote a bad essay
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May 14, 2016 13:51
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Milky Moor posted:lol it's okay shamus, i'm sorry that you wrote a bad essay 
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May 14, 2016 13:53
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This thread is oozing with grease and paste.
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May 14, 2016 14:53
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I think shamus makes some good points about how bad ME3's plot is, but he's also an incredible sperg who spent literally months writing nitpicky essays about video games. Dunno what he wrote about ME2, since that's a fun game and I don't want to read bad things about it.
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May 14, 2016 15:03
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Mymla posted:I think shamus makes some good points about how bad ME3's plot is, but he's also an incredible sperg who spent literally months writing nitpicky essays about video games. Want to know something really weird? He got nominated for a Hugo for the Mass Effect stuff. Really.
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May 14, 2016 15:05
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Here's the thing though: Mass Effect owns, each and every part of it.
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May 14, 2016 15:12
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Mymla posted:I think shamus makes some good points about how bad ME3's plot is, but he's also an incredible sperg who spent literally months writing nitpicky essays about video games. ME3 is a pretty good case for why ME2 was right to throw out all of ME1's story and do its own thing.
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May 14, 2016 16:17
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poisonpill posted:Dead Kai, so what same
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May 14, 2016 16:53
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khwarezm posted:Cerberus is not pulling some Paris style attack where they just try to kill a bunch of civilians in a soft unexpected target, or ISIS style exploiting local sympathies and divisions to gain control over actual territory, they assault the heart of the Galactic government which is clearly mostly populated with aliens who would have no reason to accept a nutjob human supremacist organisation. Its so dumb, its like if al-Qaeda made a serious and concerted attempt to conquer the United Nations headquarters in New York. Not just to set off a few bombs but try to seize control of the machinery of government. But I guess they're all indoctrinated so whatevs. Except they don't go to the Citadel to take over, they go there to kill the council so Udina can take over. They go to Tuchanka to set off a big bomb, they go to Surkesh to prevent the genophage from being cured and they send one gunship to Thessia to take the Prothean beacon. They never show up to take control. It's always to further destabilize an area already in danger of falling to the Reapers. khwarezm posted:
Of course they can pull off surprise attacks, they have access to the Normandy's stealth tech. They can attack multiple places at once for the same reason al-Queda can. It's really not unrealistic. They are small cells operating independently.
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May 14, 2016 17:11
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The Citadel invasion was what pissed me off. Saren needed an army of geth, krogan clones, and access to a super-secret backdoor to do it, but somehow Cerberus manages to storm the city sized station in a few hours and just up an leaves without losing anything meaningful.
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May 14, 2016 18:54
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They had Udina helping them on the inside.
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May 14, 2016 19:32
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Mymla posted:I think shamus makes some good points about how bad ME3's plot is, but he's also an incredible sperg who spent literally months writing nitpicky essays about video games. He wrote that 90% of ME2 owned. Unfortunately that other 10% was the main story quests.
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May 14, 2016 19:44
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2house2fly posted:They had Udina helping them on the inside. Even that wouldn't get them an entire army through. It also doesn't explain why Udina would ever agree to this beyond "probably indoctrinated".
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May 14, 2016 20:04
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Geostomp posted:Even that wouldn't get them an entire army through. It also doesn't explain why Udina would ever agree to this beyond "probably indoctrinated". Udina is an rear end in a top hat! In game explanation enough!
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May 14, 2016 20:25
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Geostomp posted:Even that wouldn't get them an entire army through. It also doesn't explain why Udina would ever agree to this beyond "probably indoctrinated". He has a bunch of dialogue earlier about how he can't get anything done iirc, the point of helping Cerberus was that they'd put him in charge so he could have authority to do what is necessary and all that. Sort of a "road to hell paved with good intentions" story, a bit like the Reapers themselves.
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May 14, 2016 20:57
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I'm going to do a full Mass Effect Retrospective but I am not going to actually include any of the DLC. Any of it. At all. Because I am a huge human being.
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May 14, 2016 21:06
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