T w e n t y S i d e d
The Terrible New Thing
Fidget spinners are ruining education! We need to... oh, never mind the fad is over. This is not the first time we've had a dumb moral panic.
Wolfenstein II
This is a massive step down in story, gameplay, and art design when compared to the 2014 soft reboot. Yet critics rated this one much higher. What's going on here?
Overused Words in Game Titles
I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.
Seven Springs
The true story of three strange days in 1989, when the last months of my adolescence ran out and the first few sparks of adulthood appeared.
Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot
Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.
Don’t really want another account to keep track of so I’ll put it here, not in vid.
You mentioned wanting to have the Salarians join you on the Normandy – after cleaning up the targets outside the facility (satellite uplink, drones, etc) and not setting off alarms in the base, a few members of the STG will camp in the Normandy’s lower level. Kirrahe and Rentola are both there, and a few untargetable no-names.
No idea if setting off the alarms affects it or not, as I always kept the guards around for the XP.
Note they only stay on the ship until you dock somewhere, so if you don’t go chat with them soon-ish you miss the chance.
If you don’t do any of the side things to help the salarians, Kirrahe dies. I think some of the salarians make it, no matter what.
I just now realized that I’m not sure I ever did that. They’re on the way, it’s almost hard NOT to. Oh, and you’ll probably get equivalent xp that you would for the guards if you sic the guards on the STG guys.
that “machines can be broken” line is the worst in the entire game IMO. I mean what does that mean, is he implying that humans can’t be broken? Because I’m pretty sure they can be.
That said I really do love the “confidence born of ignorance” line, or pretty much anything by sovereign. They really made him seem ominous and powerful as well as intelligent (even if telling us about them is a pretty stupid move for sovereign).
It means Sovereign is not the immortal, all-powerful Elder God he is trying to play but something that can be ultimately defeated.
I swear my two reactions upon seeing the hologram Sovereign were: “Shit! It’s Cthulhu!” and then upon closer inspection, “Mmm, lobster thermidor would be nice…”
The only thing about his speech that I don’t love is when Shepard asks about what the Reapers want to gain by growing and then killing organic life. The whole “we are beyond your comprehension” thing is both stupidly patronising (if the player is supposed to understand, surely civilisations as advanced as in Mass Effect can get the gist of it), as well as a sign of sloppy writing. It’s really obvious right there that the writers had no idea what the Reapers actually wanted, or whether they would have a sequel to explain it, so just pulled some vague nonsense to make them sound evil.
Personally, I felt that when Sovereign said things like that it wasn’t because the writers didn’t have any answer to the question, but because Sovereign is colossally arrogant on the one hand, and doesn’t want to give the organics anything they might be able to use to stop whatever it is they’re ultimately planning on the other. He’s a bad guy, but that doesn’t mean he HAS to pull the old villain-monologue-where-he-tells-the-hero-all-his-plans shtick.
He pretty much did monologue and reveal all his plans save for one small thing, though. Telling humanity that the Reapers were coming would allow for them to potentially mount a defense, as well as disuse Reaper technology. It’s possible that he’s so arrogant he just assumes any defense would be totally useless, but that doesn’t seem like the kind of stupid thing an ancient sentient machine would do.
It just doesnt want to admit that reapers need organics,because of how superior it feels.The fact that it is a machine doesnt mean it cant be arrogant.Sovereigns whole speech is just arrogant “Im superior,bow to me worm” banter.
Starting to hate Viddler. I don’t care about whatever they’re selling. The ability to comment directly into a video is nice, but to me it’s not worth dealing with adverts.
Really, ads are one thing, but having ones that PLAY LONGER UNLESS YOU CLICK ON THEM are spawned by the devil.
Wait,those are on viddler as well?I never saw them on these videos.Still I hate them and how frequent they are.
I liked the speech. It was one of my favorite moments of the game. The conversation with Sovereign is, of course, my favorite moment…. I would definitely have preferred saving the comments until AFTER the conversation, but that’s okay. If I want to hear Sovereign talking, there’s videos aplenty on YouTube.
Still, I really like the “hold the line” speech.
That insane prisoner is one of the worst places if you go the paragon path.You have to play an idiot if you want paragon points,since both other options give you renegade points,even the “neutral” one.I mean you already fight a bunch of brainwashed prisoners,and here is a guy blabbering about voices in his head,and you just let him go?….
I imagine that sovereign must be pretty bored after all those millenia alone in space,so he grasps any opportunity for exposition he can find.Still,nice conversation though.And he does lie to you about organics being useless,since it seems reapers need organics in order to evolve themselves.
I would think that time has no meaning to a Reaper, which is basically a giant biomachine (or whatever) that’s capable of shutting itself down at any point. Does it feel like eight hours when you get a good night’s sleep? Probably not, so I don’t see why Sovereign would get bored by sitting around for millennia.
Unlike other reapers sovereign did periodically turn on to scout the galaxy.And once he found out keepers are malfunctioning,he probably never went back to hibernation.And that was probably at the time council was formed,which was at least 1000 years ago.Not to mention that as a machine he thinks faster then humans,so while we observe a single event during a single second,he can observe millions of different things.
But I wasnt serious about that.It is an alien machine,so concepts of boredom and sanity are very different for it then for humans.
I swear the cell where the insane prisoner is, isn’t there a cell next to it with a bunch more Salarians the open up a dialogue as to what to do with them and you can pick to pretty much execute everyone in the cell? I swear I remember doing that…
That’s in a different prison block in the base.
I know its hard with your setup and all but could you at least try not to talk over the ingame conversations? That’s pretty much Let’s Play 101 because it is really irritating to have multiple voices you have to keep track off.
Personally,I like it this way.They are louder than the game,and most of those things are too cheesy when listened to more than once.These guys,Im listening for the first time,so they arent that cheesy.
Yeah, it irritates me with games I’ve never played before when watching a Let’s Play sort of thing — I think I’m immune, even glad, here because I’ve played Mass Effect eleventy billion times.
Honestly, the only thing that annoys me is hearing the echo of talking through the open mic.
Yeah, someone needs to get a pair of headphones.
That was the wonders of Realtek Audio sound card, which we fixed last night, so never again!
Yes. For the record, I was using a headset, it was the moron soundcard that was making a mess of things. I could UNPLUG my mic entirely, and everyone else would STILL hear their own voices when I hit talk. The system was MIXING IN my output to the input. On purpose.
Whoever designed this software should be horse-whipped.
I know that Creative’s X-Fi drivers allow you to mix in both your voice and the system’s own audio output in order to easily record podcasts and the like, so I’m not surprised that Realtek has a similar option. There’s nothing wrong with it, really; it can actually be pretty useful in certain situations. Of course, this wasn’t one of those situations. :P
About the pink krogan armour:Maybe they are colour blind,and no one is brave enough to point out that pink is for sissies.
It’s worth noting that in many parts of the world pink is not a ‘girl’s color.’
Also, depending on the terrain and plant life, pink may well be camouflage on the Krogan home world.
Interesting fact I heard on QI: before the 20th century and even somewhat into it pink was considered a boy’s colour and blue for girls. With some newspaper article having mention about a royal family being presumptuous and painting the babyroom ‘in a boy’s pink’ and then getting a girl.
Thank you Stephen Fry.
I *think* they were shooting for red with the armor. In Mass Effect 2, my Asshat Shepard wears blue armor with “red” stripes that look very nice in the armor creator, but that look like pink ass out in the world.
Krogans in pink armor = still WRONG. Krogans in red armor = somewhat badass, or with the white… like Krogan Red Cross. So, y’know, hilariously WRONG.
What bugged me about this section was how Tali said the beacon was just like the one on Eden Prime. Even though she was right, she wasn’t there and she wouldn’t know what it looked like exactly unless Kaidan, Shepard, and Ashley are such good storytellers that she could memorize what it looked like perfectly from a briefing.
Yeah,thats the problem of having the same dialogue trees for all your party members.
Still,they have some interesting unique banter between themselves when you are doing nothing important.
so sovereigns voice over effect is the same as the necrons in DoW.
and what they want to do is pretty much the SAME. THING.
plus theyre called reapers. the necron god is a reaper.
CONSPIRACIES ABOUND!!! the necrons ARE THE REAPERS
DoW HAPPENS IN THE MASS EFFECT UNIVERSE! OH THE HUMANITYYYY!!!
If Mass Effect happens in the 40k universe, does that mean Shepard is the Emperor? Maybe the twist in the third game is that the Reapers get wiped out when they run into the Tyranid hive fleets.
And tyranids are rachni?Krogan will evolve into orcs,obviously,and asari will become eldar.What about the other races?Elcor must have some place in this because they are such awesome fighters.
Not much for me to add this time, but I just want to say I LOVE that conversation with Sovereign. He just comes across as this incredibly ancient, powerful being, and he has the whole weight of the build-up in the story about the Reapers. When you find out for the first time what he is, I just sat back in my chair and went, “Wow.” I NEVER saw it coming.
And his voice! I swear, if I could get an implant that would let me talk like that, I would get it in a heartbeat.
I’m positive that I got into the facility from the other end (the way that you first tried to go), and worked my way from there forward to the security console you encountered first. So there must be some way to do it. Maybe you need more Electronics skill or something.
I wonder if the reapers eat MP3 players, or if that is too base a technology for them.
Salarians are too damn awesome. Too bad in Mass Effect 1 the closest you get to be exposed to this in-game is here, where they’re doing exactly what they consider to be uncivilized and stupid: That is, fighting face-to-face.
Come on! They’re a species that believe if you are in the receiving end of a first strike, then you’re too dumb to live and deserve to be put down.
The Salarian you DO get in ME2 is nice, but I much rather get a black ops spy Salarian to talk to. I mean, for them the heroes aren’t the Pattons and Leonidas, those are the “special needs” kids, for them the heroes are the Odysseus and Scarlet Pimpernels, who accomplish their success on trickery and deceit.