T w e n t y S i d e d

The Illusive Man runs a super-powerful organization that opposed you in the first game, because they are inept pro-Human terrorist mooks. Then he brings you back from the dead, because he opposes the Reapers. But then he’s attacking the Citadel, because he’s… pro-Human again? But then he’s husking Humans because he wants the Reaper power for himself. Later on he tell the Reapers what the Prothean AI revealed about the catalyst, either because he’s indoctrinated or because he knew how the Reapers would respond. And then at the end he’s just a stupid crazy idiot who got indoctrinated ages ago.

You can’t say any particular thing is a plot hole, because he has character elements to justify almost any sort of behavior. His only real motivation is identical to the motivation of the writers: Oppose Shepard no matter what she’s trying to do, and oppose her in a way that leads to squad-based shooty combat. TIM is the avatar of the writers, and he doesn’t step out of the way until we meet the Star Child. Who is arguably the same thing. This is true of a lot of videogame antagonists. The problem is, it’s not supposed to be this obvious. Usually the writers hide that sort of thing behind a curtain of of characterization.

This could have been done much better, is what I’m saying.

Sorry for the rough start to this week. It really did take us a long time to get it all working, and by the time it happened some of us were tired and irritated. Maybe that was just me. At any rate, we’re near the end. Looks like we’ll finish this game right around the end of the month. We’ve picked out our next game. I won’t reveal what it is, but I will say the next season is likely to be a lot more positive.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I don’t know what to think of Horizon / Sanctuary. Did they install a gun out in the boonies, away from a population center in Mass Effect 2? Was that area the ONLY rural area? Or did the collectors invade the only rural area with a huge space-gun? Or was this new massive population center / Cerberus base built in the few months since the events of ME2? Or was this an existing Alliance base that Cerberus took over so they could build a secret underwater husk factory?

If Horizon had been built around characters the way Zhu’s hope had been, I might have felt like there was an emotional stake in this place. But at the end of Mass Effect 2, we don’t even know what happened to the colonists. Did we rescue them? Did any live? Did some escape? Going by what was shown us, it seems reasonable to assume everyone was turned into Reaper slush. But then why is this place so much bigger?

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. It’s not connected, nobody thought about it, nobody cared enough to give a name to a single person on Horizon. The writers just re-used the name of the place without bothering to explain what happened here. Re-using the name just serves to make the galaxy feel smaller without taking advantage of that smallness to build characters, relationships, or stories.

Well, we got Miranda’s sister. There’s that.

Behold, the nunchuck gun!

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Josh talked about the FOV thing in this episode. This is one of those usability issues (like invert mouse) that’s either crucial or completely irrelevant, based on your gaming habits, history, play style, muscle memory, eyesight, and equipment. One person finds the thing to be almost unplayable, and another can’t imagine a situation where they would even notice, much less care.

I played shooters back in the days when an 85 degree field of view was standard. I don’t actively notice the tight FOV the way Josh does, but when I switch from 60 to 90, it does create an incredible sense of relief, like turning off a light that was shining in your eyes or silencing machine noise that had been going on for so long that you’d forgotten about it.

The Champions Online bit we were talking about can be found here.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.