I really like that it's original, anyway. I don't want to be playing other well-established characters. I want a fresh face (Shepard) to develop as I please.
KotOR worked because it was set 20,000 years before the movies, so there was no conflict with existing histories/characters. A couple of subtle references here and there to the likes of Exar Kun and Nomi Sunrider, that was all.
In theaters? Not so great, below budget. In DVD sales? Big success, put it into the black. Firefly DVD sales were even better.
As it is, the voice acting and writing of Bioshock's dialog seem to be its weakest points. Which is a shame, since these things are at the heart of the game. Whoever is voicing the female crew member (who argues in favor of saving the miners in the walkthrough videos) needs to be fired, because she sounds horrible. High pitched, squeaky voice reading poor dialog (Look! Hoppers!) with just a twinge of redneck drawl.
And Joss Whedon will make it all better, huh?
That one of the best dialog writers in the business (along with David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin) would improve the quality of the game's script? That's generally how it works: People who are "among the best" at something do better than others, who aren't. "Sounds dangerous... and lonely" makes a great meme but I hope it's not indicative of the rest of the game's dialog.
I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the "alien female" in both scenarios is the same. This means this character is of such a seductive and sexual nature that she's sleep with the hero regardless of the sex. This is actually good, but not socially. Licentious behavior such as this is socially seen as deplorable, too taboo. Therefore this character would have to be the "bad choice." Otherwise they'd just be outright promoting homosexuality. This character is also female for a reason storywise, I'm sure.
No, no. The Asari - who, as has been pointed out before, is technically asexual and therefore has no necessary conception of gender - is named Liara, and she is a shy scientist who is terrible at being around other people and prefers to quietly sit alone working at archaeological sites. This is pretty far from the 'seducer' stereotype. In fact, I'd say that Bioware's philosophy would prevent having such a character in the main party. They're all about choice and while it seems they've made some vaguely annoying decisions here, it would go against their grain to include a romance option which was a "bad" option.
Instead, this character seems to be pandering to the male Kirk fantasy of seducing the innocent alien female, which, while it makes me roll my eyes a little, isn't really too bad.
To be overly PC and make it "fair" they'd either have to take out the lesbianism, and replace the character with a guy, or turn the "bad" choice into a guy if the hero is a guy as well. If they do the first they've pandered to a ridiculous minority and isolated another by omitting homosexuality for no good reason. If they do the second they'll only reinforce the idea that homosexuality is bad by having the "bad' choice be the gay one on both sides.
I have no idea what you're talking about here. To be "overly PC"? Really? I don't think it's overly PC to have man-love in a game about choice - as it stands without it, it's coming across as kind of weirdly skewed. But as has been said earlier, there is sure to be some kind of option there, it just doesn't lead to sex. Hmph.
Also, I'm also assuming that who you sleep with boils down to a very basic and uninventive "good" person or "bad" person. It's just how it's been.
Can you give me examples? I can't remember a Bioware game where you have a choice between good romance and bad romance. Maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
My point is that it has nothing to do with that, and this particular alien female is merely a seductive one who would charm you regardless. That sort of licentious behavior is, sadly, socially deplorable, and so she'd have to be the bad choice, regardless of the sex. And besides, it is more acceptable for it to be a woman.
Again, I think it goes against Bioware philosophy to designate some romance options as socially bad. Jade Empire certainly didn't, did it? But you're right, lesbianism is far more acceptable to most than male-male.
In theaters? Not so great, below budget. In DVD sales? Big success, put it into the black. Firefly DVD sales were even better.
As it is, the voice acting and writing of Bioshock's dialog seem to be its weakest points. Which is a shame, since these things are at the heart of the game. Whoever is voicing the female crew member (who argues in favor of saving the miners in the walkthrough videos) needs to be fired, because she sounds horrible. High pitched, squeaky voice reading poor dialog (Look! Hoppers!) with just a twinge of redneck drawl.
And Joss Whedon will make it all better, huh?
That one of the best dialog writers in the business (along with David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin) would improve the quality of the game's script? That's generally how it works: People who are "among the best" at something do better than others, who aren't. "Sounds dangerous... and lonely" makes a great meme but I hope it's not indicative of the rest of the game's dialog.
That used to be the voice for Ashley. They aren't using that voice anymore.
That's a relief, because that voice was terrible. It did not fit the character or the game.
Not that is particularly the place to discuss this but you're saying Joss Whedon is a good writer? He can write some good lines but he's nowhere near a brilliant writer. Definetly not a consistently good one. This is easily shown by the fact that Angel was a good series, apart from the 4th season and Joss Whedon didn't have a hand in most of hte episodes.
I think Whedon is a pretty good writer, but he's much much better at plotting and creating interesting characters and situations. That's where his talents lie, I think.
But man, we are like three degrees of off-topic now.
Not that is particularly the place to discuss this but you're saying Joss Whedon is a good writer? He can write some good lines but he's nowhere near a brilliant writer. Definetly not a consistently good one. This is easily shown by the fact that Angel was a good series, apart from the 4th season and Joss Whedon didn't have a hand in most of hte episodes.
He's a fantastic writer when it comes to dialogue, which is what everyone remembers from the stuff he's written: Speed and Toy Story, along with his TV shows. He even wrote the most memorable line in the first X-Men movie "How do we know it's really you?" "You're a dick", though most of the rest of his stuff got cut.
Sorry to be so off topic, though I think the quality of the dialogue in Mass Effect is going to be something that gets a lot of discussion when the game is out. It was both one of the best and worst things about KOTOR (Best - HK-47's lines, worst - pretty much anything that fell out of Carth and Bastila's mouths), yet it still killed everything Lucas himself wrote for the prequels.
In theaters? Not so great, below budget. In DVD sales? Big success, put it into the black. Firefly DVD sales were even better.
As it is, the voice acting and writing of Bioshock's dialog seem to be its weakest points. Which is a shame, since these things are at the heart of the game. Whoever is voicing the female crew member (who argues in favor of saving the miners in the walkthrough videos) needs to be fired, because she sounds horrible. High pitched, squeaky voice reading poor dialog (Look! Hoppers!) with just a twinge of redneck drawl.
In theaters? Not so great, below budget. In DVD sales? Big success, put it into the black. Firefly DVD sales were even better.
As it is, the voice acting and writing of Bioshock's dialog seem to be its weakest points. Which is a shame, since these things are at the heart of the game. Whoever is voicing the female crew member (who argues in favor of saving the miners in the walkthrough videos) needs to be fired, because she sounds horrible. High pitched, squeaky voice reading poor dialog (Look! Hoppers!) with just a twinge of redneck drawl.
Yeah, massive goof, because I was thinking of Bioshock as the best example of what good dialogue and voice acting can do for a game. Bioware - Bioshock trips me up.
Its funny, I had only been peripherally aware of this game until the other day. Now I have this odd feeling my husband and myself might end up pre-ordering it though we don't have a 360 yet.
The plan is to get either a 360 or a ps3 before the end of november, which we've been arguing about for a bit. Myself for ps3, him for 360 (he's more from the Sierra school of gaming I'm from the NES).
And as of when he saw the extended interviews/previews, he says that it now "primally owns his soul".
Because, I swear to you, it feels to him like a cross between KotOR and Star Control 2. And since those are some of his favorite games of all time, yeah...
Now I just have to figure out which 360 will have the least chance of dying in the long run...
Its funny, I had only been peripherally aware of this game until the other day. Now I have this odd feeling my husband and myself might end up pre-ordering it though we don't have a 360 yet.
The plan is to get either a 360 or a ps3 before the end of november, which we've been arguing about for a bit. Myself for ps3, him for 360 (he's more from the Sierra school of gaming I'm from the NES).
And as of when he saw the extended interviews/previews, he says that it now "primally owns his soul".
Because, I swear to you, it feels to him like a cross between KotOR and Star Control 2. And since those are some of his favorite games of all time, yeah...
Now I just have to figure out which 360 will have the least chance of dying in the long run...
Get the elite, because it's sexy. And it's black, so you can... pretend it's a PS3. Though I haven't the foggiest notion of why you'd want to do something like that.
Get the elite, because it's sexy. And it's black, so you can... pretend it's a PS3. Though I haven't the foggiest notion of why you'd want to do something like that.
360 r too smal u mite lewz it in teh craks in teh cowch lawlz!11
...I got nothin'. Although I'm still shocked by the PS3 every time I see it on display at Gamestop. Thing's the size of the Atari 5200 and sounds like a fucking vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, Mass Effect is what sold me a 360, finally. Or will, anyways. Unless Hellgate: London winds up being the hottest shit ever, I'm going to take the money I'd have spent on a PC overhaul and get a 360, Mass Effect, and Army of Two, and be the happiest gamer alive.
Get the elite, because it's sexy. And it's black, so you can... pretend it's a PS3. Though I haven't the foggiest notion of why you'd want to do something like that.
360 r too smal u mite lewz it in teh craks in teh cowch lawlz!11
...I got nothin'. Although I'm still shocked by the PS3 every time I see it on display at Gamestop. Thing's the size of the Atari 5200 and sounds like a fucking vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, Mass Effect is what sold me a 360, finally. Or will, anyways. Unless Hellgate: London winds up being the hottest shit ever, I'm going to take the money I'd have spent on a PC overhaul and get a 360, Mass Effect, and Army of Two, and be the happiest gamer alive.
Dear sweet jebus does this game look good!
I think you were stood too close to the 360 display and overheard its fan because the PS3 is quiet whilst the 360 sounds like its grinding up horses to subsidise its power supply.
I think you were stood too close to the 360 display and overheard its fan because the PS3 is quiet whilst the 360 sounds like its grinding up horses to subsidise its power supply.
I think you both just couldn't hear a damn thing over the sound of the N-GAGE fellating everyone who bought it and buying them cars.
This game comes out 2 days after me and my girlfriend's two-year anniversary. Yesterday at the mall, she handed me a preorder slip for this. She's paid it off for me.
This game comes out 2 days after me and my girlfriend's two-year anniversary. Yesterday at the mall, she handed me a preorder slip for this. She's paid it off for me.
Keeper?
Marry her or send me her number. I got no problem going old-school mormon and taking on a second wife.
This game comes out 2 days after me and my girlfriend's two-year anniversary. Yesterday at the mall, she handed me a preorder slip for this. She's paid it off for me.
Keeper?
That .... that can't be a serious question. You should check her for a barcode. I think she may have been specifically crafted for you.
This game comes out 2 days after me and my girlfriend's two-year anniversary. Yesterday at the mall, she handed me a preorder slip for this. She's paid it off for me.
Keeper?
That .... that can't be a serious question. You should check her for a barcode. I think she may have been specifically crafted for you.
maybe she WAS crafted for him. you got a thing against robosexuals?
This game comes out 2 days after me and my girlfriend's two-year anniversary. Yesterday at the mall, she handed me a preorder slip for this. She's paid it off for me.
Keeper?
That .... that can't be a serious question. You should check her for a barcode. I think she may have been specifically crafted for you.
maybe she WAS crafted for him. you got a thing against robosexuals?
Not at all. I'm still waiting for mine. I guess she's on backorder.
So, I've partially educated myself about the game, but a few things are bothering me, mostly about their choice system...maybe some people have answers...
First:
They always talk about how you can wander around the Citadel and you don't need to pick up Wrex, and they're always like "you could not take him, if you want, and then you miss out on all this backstory and there's places where he develops the story more and he's awesome in battle." But every time I see it, there's no real reason not to pick up Wrex, and that just seems kind of ...'meh' to me. You need to have at least some sort of interaction for Wrex if he's not in your party (that is different than if he were or if he's in your inactive party).
Like, some Turian running around, picking fights with you because you're a Krogan lover, but not doing it otherwise (maybe he wants you to hunt down Krogans or something, I don't know). I just know they've put no incentive in for not taking Wrex. Even if it was unsure whether or not he would join the party it could be useful (as in, you need to do things right for him to want to join you), but that doesn't seem to be how it works, either.
Second:
The Paragon/Renegade stuff a developer was talking about didn't seem to give any incentive to be evil again. Only that it 'blocked off some of the good endings'. Woohoo...
Now, the second thing is kind of par for the course, but I'm really hoping there's also an incentive for not taking Wrex to make the game different when he's not there other than "no Krogan Battlemaser for you!"
UltimaGecko on
The facehuggers want to play with you in the AvP LP. Facehuggers also want you to check out the TF2 cards here. View the in-progress RE mansion recreation for L4D here.
So, I've partially educated myself about the game, but a few things are bothering me, mostly about their choice system...maybe some people have answers...
First:
They always talk about how you can wander around the Citadel and you don't need to pick up Wrex, and they're always like "you could not take him, if you want, and then you miss out on all this backstory and there's places where he develops the story more and he's awesome in battle." But every time I see it, there's no real reason not to pick up Wrex, and that just seems kind of ...'meh' to me. You need to have at least some sort of interaction for Wrex if he's not in your party (that is different than if he were or if he's in your inactive party).
Like, some Turian running around, picking fights with you because you're a Krogan lover, but not doing it otherwise (maybe he wants you to hunt down Krogans or something, I don't know). I just know they've put no incentive in for not taking Wrex. Even if it was unsure whether or not he would join the party it could be useful (as in, you need to do things right for him to want to join you), but that doesn't seem to be how it works, either.
Second:
The Paragon/Renegade stuff a developer was talking about didn't seem to give any incentive to be evil again. Only that it 'blocked off some of the good endings'. Woohoo...
Now, the second thing is kind of par for the course, but I'm really hoping there's also an incentive for not taking Wrex to make the game different when he's not there other than "no Krogan Battlemaser for you!"
The problem with moral games is that they don't actually alter the game in any significant way until the end cutscene. Now something like True Crime, if you're a bad cop or do certain things the story deviates entirely and can end llike 5 missions before where the good ending comes in. That's some real diversion.
Act like a totalitarian prick through a game and some planet just won't welcome you. Of course you're a prick so you can set down, whoop ass and destroy the civilisation.
The Paragon/Renegade stuff a developer was talking about didn't seem to give any incentive to be evil again.
It's not evil though, it's ruthlessness. There's a difference, because being ruthless will directly get you what you want, for example saving the galaxy. You can't really be evil as such in this game. I doubt there's any ending where Shepard destroys democracy and turns the Alliance into an Evil Empire.
The Paragon/Renegade stuff a developer was talking about didn't seem to give any incentive to be evil again.
It's not evil though, it's ruthlessness. There's a difference, because being ruthless will directly get you what you want, for example saving the galaxy. You can't really be evil as such in this game. I doubt there's any ending where Shepard destroys democracy and turns the Alliance into an Evil Empire.
Well, maybe the last bit.
Feel free to replace 'evil' with 'ruthless' in my last few sentences, then. It doesn't alleviate that 'being ruthless' just cuts off things, while 'being an upstanding bastion of niceness' has no mentioned downside...
UltimaGecko on
The facehuggers want to play with you in the AvP LP. Facehuggers also want you to check out the TF2 cards here. View the in-progress RE mansion recreation for L4D here.
I honestly love firefly but would never play a firefly game.
can't imagine it working, or capturing what's great about the show.
also, this game is what is causing me to get a 360 asap... elite yummmm.
Firefly would work, it would be an extension of Escape Velocity.
There's so few games that involve poorness and space-ships. There's nothing like getting a huge score when you can barely pay for fuel to get to the next system, then having to defend it from pirates.
Anyways, I agree that if the only effect of saying "no" is that you don't get to see something, I'll be annoyed.
But I'm hoping they don't go that route. I'm pretty certain that Paragon/Ruthless doesn't just close things off to you, as it would be a bit silly to say "Oop! 55% ruthless, no cool endings for you!". Hopefully they just have multiple endings that depend on your actions over the course of the entire game.
That said, I'm totally going 100% ruthless. The citizenry need to understand that this is a threat that must be dealt with by any means necessary.
Oh if you don't think I'm gonna make his face, you are so wrong.
Actually, they've made a lot out of the face creation, so are they gonna let us upload/download faces? Or will we have to make little "15 to the left" notations if we want to share?
I hope they don't do what they did in Jade Empire, where the "evil" path is just a different view on life ("people need to be able to look out for themselves/solve their own problems") for 90% of the game and then turned into some sort of crazy maniacal villain path where you end up killing half of your party.
I'm still convinced that the whole morality scale will end up being the standard Bioware "Saint vs Puppyeater". I can only hope that I'll be proven wrong in due time but I'm not too hopeful on that part.
Posts
KotOR worked because it was set 20,000 years before the movies, so there was no conflict with existing histories/characters. A couple of subtle references here and there to the likes of Exar Kun and Nomi Sunrider, that was all.
That one of the best dialog writers in the business (along with David Mamet and Aaron Sorkin) would improve the quality of the game's script? That's generally how it works: People who are "among the best" at something do better than others, who aren't. "Sounds dangerous... and lonely" makes a great meme but I hope it's not indicative of the rest of the game's dialog.
That's a relief, because that voice was terrible. It did not fit the character or the game.
Interest rising.
Steam: YOU FACE JARAXXUS| Twitch.tv: CainLoveless
No, no. The Asari - who, as has been pointed out before, is technically asexual and therefore has no necessary conception of gender - is named Liara, and she is a shy scientist who is terrible at being around other people and prefers to quietly sit alone working at archaeological sites. This is pretty far from the 'seducer' stereotype. In fact, I'd say that Bioware's philosophy would prevent having such a character in the main party. They're all about choice and while it seems they've made some vaguely annoying decisions here, it would go against their grain to include a romance option which was a "bad" option.
Instead, this character seems to be pandering to the male Kirk fantasy of seducing the innocent alien female, which, while it makes me roll my eyes a little, isn't really too bad.
I have no idea what you're talking about here. To be "overly PC"? Really? I don't think it's overly PC to have man-love in a game about choice - as it stands without it, it's coming across as kind of weirdly skewed. But as has been said earlier, there is sure to be some kind of option there, it just doesn't lead to sex. Hmph.
Can you give me examples? I can't remember a Bioware game where you have a choice between good romance and bad romance. Maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
Again, I think it goes against Bioware philosophy to designate some romance options as socially bad. Jade Empire certainly didn't, did it? But you're right, lesbianism is far more acceptable to most than male-male.
edit: eesh, that came out longer than I thought.
Not that is particularly the place to discuss this but you're saying Joss Whedon is a good writer? He can write some good lines but he's nowhere near a brilliant writer. Definetly not a consistently good one. This is easily shown by the fact that Angel was a good series, apart from the 4th season and Joss Whedon didn't have a hand in most of hte episodes.
But man, we are like three degrees of off-topic now.
Curse my lack of a 360 and lack of a TV and lack of money!
Sounds like you have more than enough time to save up. Start filling the piggy bank, go go!
Moriveth has been telling me that he plans to beat it himself before you get there.
twice
There is a most severe punishment in store for him if this is true
Oh well. I can deal with a 28 day self-imposed internet ban. I think.
He's a fantastic writer when it comes to dialogue, which is what everyone remembers from the stuff he's written: Speed and Toy Story, along with his TV shows. He even wrote the most memorable line in the first X-Men movie "How do we know it's really you?" "You're a dick", though most of the rest of his stuff got cut.
Sorry to be so off topic, though I think the quality of the dialogue in Mass Effect is going to be something that gets a lot of discussion when the game is out. It was both one of the best and worst things about KOTOR (Best - HK-47's lines, worst - pretty much anything that fell out of Carth and Bastila's mouths), yet it still killed everything Lucas himself wrote for the prequels.
Yeah, massive goof, because I was thinking of Bioshock as the best example of what good dialogue and voice acting can do for a game. Bioware - Bioshock trips me up.
The plan is to get either a 360 or a ps3 before the end of november, which we've been arguing about for a bit. Myself for ps3, him for 360 (he's more from the Sierra school of gaming I'm from the NES).
And as of when he saw the extended interviews/previews, he says that it now "primally owns his soul".
Because, I swear to you, it feels to him like a cross between KotOR and Star Control 2. And since those are some of his favorite games of all time, yeah...
Now I just have to figure out which 360 will have the least chance of dying in the long run...
Get the elite, because it's sexy. And it's black, so you can... pretend it's a PS3. Though I haven't the foggiest notion of why you'd want to do something like that.
...I got nothin'. Although I'm still shocked by the PS3 every time I see it on display at Gamestop. Thing's the size of the Atari 5200 and sounds like a fucking vacuum cleaner.
Anyway, Mass Effect is what sold me a 360, finally. Or will, anyways. Unless Hellgate: London winds up being the hottest shit ever, I'm going to take the money I'd have spent on a PC overhaul and get a 360, Mass Effect, and Army of Two, and be the happiest gamer alive.
Dear sweet jebus does this game look good!
I think you were stood too close to the 360 display and overheard its fan because the PS3 is quiet whilst the 360 sounds like its grinding up horses to subsidise its power supply.
Keeper?
Marry her or send me her number. I got no problem going old-school mormon and taking on a second wife.
twit feed
That .... that can't be a serious question. You should check her for a barcode. I think she may have been specifically crafted for you.
maybe she WAS crafted for him. you got a thing against robosexuals?
Not at all. I'm still waiting for mine. I guess she's on backorder.
First:
They always talk about how you can wander around the Citadel and you don't need to pick up Wrex, and they're always like "you could not take him, if you want, and then you miss out on all this backstory and there's places where he develops the story more and he's awesome in battle." But every time I see it, there's no real reason not to pick up Wrex, and that just seems kind of ...'meh' to me. You need to have at least some sort of interaction for Wrex if he's not in your party (that is different than if he were or if he's in your inactive party).
Like, some Turian running around, picking fights with you because you're a Krogan lover, but not doing it otherwise (maybe he wants you to hunt down Krogans or something, I don't know). I just know they've put no incentive in for not taking Wrex. Even if it was unsure whether or not he would join the party it could be useful (as in, you need to do things right for him to want to join you), but that doesn't seem to be how it works, either.
Second:
The Paragon/Renegade stuff a developer was talking about didn't seem to give any incentive to be evil again. Only that it 'blocked off some of the good endings'. Woohoo...
Now, the second thing is kind of par for the course, but I'm really hoping there's also an incentive for not taking Wrex to make the game different when he's not there other than "no Krogan Battlemaser for you!"
can't imagine it working, or capturing what's great about the show.
also, this game is what is causing me to get a 360 asap... elite yummmm.
The problem with moral games is that they don't actually alter the game in any significant way until the end cutscene. Now something like True Crime, if you're a bad cop or do certain things the story deviates entirely and can end llike 5 missions before where the good ending comes in. That's some real diversion.
Act like a totalitarian prick through a game and some planet just won't welcome you. Of course you're a prick so you can set down, whoop ass and destroy the civilisation.
It's not evil though, it's ruthlessness. There's a difference, because being ruthless will directly get you what you want, for example saving the galaxy. You can't really be evil as such in this game. I doubt there's any ending where Shepard destroys democracy and turns the Alliance into an Evil Empire.
Well, maybe the last bit.
Feel free to replace 'evil' with 'ruthless' in my last few sentences, then. It doesn't alleviate that 'being ruthless' just cuts off things, while 'being an upstanding bastion of niceness' has no mentioned downside...
Firefly would work, it would be an extension of Escape Velocity.
There's so few games that involve poorness and space-ships. There's nothing like getting a huge score when you can barely pay for fuel to get to the next system, then having to defend it from pirates.
Anyways, I agree that if the only effect of saying "no" is that you don't get to see something, I'll be annoyed.
But I'm hoping they don't go that route. I'm pretty certain that Paragon/Ruthless doesn't just close things off to you, as it would be a bit silly to say "Oop! 55% ruthless, no cool endings for you!". Hopefully they just have multiple endings that depend on your actions over the course of the entire game.
That said, I'm totally going 100% ruthless. The citizenry need to understand that this is a threat that must be dealt with by any means necessary.
Actually, they've made a lot out of the face creation, so are they gonna let us upload/download faces? Or will we have to make little "15 to the left" notations if we want to share?
3DS: 1607-3034-6970