T w e n t y S i d e d

Well, it’s over. When we began this series I’d planned on mapping out a great big deconstruction of the ending and listing all of the failings in exhaustive detail. This was going to be the definitive listing of the major thematic / logical / lore / character problems at the climax of Mass Effect 3.

But in the end, my heart just isn’t in it. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 3 EP41: Artistic Integrity”

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.

The OK GO video I talked about is called WTF?, and it’s probably the simplest video they’ve ever done. Compare it to Needing, Getting, which required some construction acoustics R&D, a massive musical course, hundreds of musical instruments, a specially modified car, and for lead singer Damian Kulash to take a stunt driving course.

I just thought that was interesting.

To everyone celebrating Thanksgiving: I hope you’re having a fun day with great food. I just had ice cream cake so I’m pretty happy right now.

The next episode will complete our run of Mass Effect 3. Then we’ll be announcing the next season.

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.

This problem has sort of crept up on developers. In the 1990’s, shooters didn’t have much in the way of story. Basically, “Bad guys over there, go shoot them until the world is saved.” At the time everyone complained that this was kind of hollow.

There weren’t plot points, character development, or worldbuilding. There was shooting, and – later on – shooting bigger guys with bigger guns. You know. MOAR DAKKA, basically.

So then developers began injecting stories into games. Once every hour or so the characters would stop what they were doing to give some context to what was going on.

Then the stories grew. We had multi-threaded plots, character arcs, plot twists, lore, and rising action. Sure, lots of it was pretty sophomoric, but… baby steps, right? As games became more about story, the story and gameplay became more at odds. The gameplay has to stop for the cutscenes and the story has to stop once the gameplay starts. It’s like pausing a movie, playing an hour of a game, then pausing the game and watching another five minutes of movie. We’re watching a badly paced movie, and to get to the next scene we have to play a bland game.

I don’t see this as a Mass Effect problem, or a BioWare problem. This is a problem for anyone making story-driven action games. This problem culminates at the end, where the developer has to decide if they want to give you a big long combat finale at the expense of the story’s pacing, or if they want to go into full-on movie mode and make you stop playing your game.

I tried to think of games that did this finale really well. I came up with two. Now it’s your turn. You think up two games that successfully unified the story and gameplay crescendos at the end. I’ll wait…

Okay, so here are the games I thought of: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 3 EP39: MOAR DAKKA!”

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.

Thanks so much to Glitch, who apparently forgot that Sunday night was Spoiler Warning night and sent Josh all the Steam messages while we were recording, because he wanted to play a videogame. WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR VIDEOGAMES BECAUSE WE’RE BUSY WITH MASS EFFECT 3!

Also note at 19:10 – the elusive left-handed salute!

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.