T w e n t y S i d e d

For the record, I don’t actually think the video holograph phone needed to be in color. In a world aiming for photo-realism, having a 3D video projector that is also photo-realistic can be kind of weird. It’s easy for the player to get confused about what they’re seeing. Wait, which people in this conversation are real, and which ones are projections? Now we’re talking to Wrex in a different room, but I thought he went somewhere else. Is he a projection? No, they just shook hands, okay. It wouldn’t kill the game or anything, but it would befuddle some people. If someone is new to the series, or if they put the game down for a few weeks, then they might not recall who is on the ship and who isn’t. The classic sci-fi grainy hologram trope (I’m betting it’s a trope, but I’m not going to go hunting for it) solves all of this so the player can focus on what’s being said.

The genophage is a pretty classic “ends justify the means” question. Ozymandias posed the same question at the end of Watchmen. Would you kill N people for certain to avert what you believe is the likely death of N*1,000 people in the future? By fiddling with the values of the multiplier and the level of certainty you can usually tip the scales one way or the other, but if you make those two values uncertain enough and the timeframe long enough, you can create an intractable problem for the audience to ponder.

I don’t object to the fact that Mordin changed his mind and decided the genophage was wrong. I don’t object to the way different players conclude one way or the other. That was the point of the exercise. I do mind that the game itself seems to be taking a position on the question. This is the hazard of the stupid and contradictory renegade / paragon arrows. Sometimes those are methodology. Sometimes they’re about right and wrong. Sometimes they’re about being nice or rude. Then you throw the flashing red and blue prompts into the emotional climax of the game and suddenly this shades of grey question turns into a black and white binary decision.

Even beyond the renegade / paragon prompts, I felt like the choices were boiling down to genophage=evil, cure=good. Again, I can understand why someone would come to that conclusion, but I really felt like the game itself should have remained aloof about it.

And if you’re curious why Rutskarn was suggesting it was Business Time, now you know.

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 know my thoughts were really rambling and unfocused when we got to the underground section. Let me try to sand the corners off of this ugly bit of criticism:

They step off the highway and go down a flight of stairs into a section called “the city of the ancients”. The idea that it’s basically sitting under a highway but that it’s completely mysterious is just goofy to me. Who called it “city of the ancients”? And then after all the build-up that this is THE CITY OF THE ANCIENTS, it turns out it’s just a couple of palette-cleansing tunnels. This isn’t really a plot hole or anything. It’s just that the characters tried to heap so much significance on such a small and inconsequential space. Nobody mentioned it before, or after. It didn’t have any bearing on the ongoing adventure.

Also, Liara marvels at the painting, surprised that the Krogan had an artistic side. I wanted to bop her on the head for being so racist. Or perhaps, for being so dismissive of their capacity for architecture, which was apparent long before we got to this small scribble on the wall.

And now for my big gripe about Tuchanka:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect 3 EP17: The Set-Pieces Must Flow”

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 discussed the “How is babby formed?” meme back in 2008. So Rutskarn was really digging deep into the internet archives for that one. When Rutskarn mentions becoming captain of the guard to open a door, he’s referring to an infamous quest chain in Neverwinter Nights 2, which led me to post this long tirade.

And to repeat what we said earlier, congratulations to Chris, who I believe is on his honeymoon cruise right now.

And now we come to the subject of the shroud. Uh oh. I don’t feel very well. I kind of feel like I’m about to nitpick…

Man, good thing that after centuries of warfare the Krogan never destroyed, investigated, dismantled scavenged, or recycled the shroud, right? I mean, here’s this device that was built by their foes, on their own planet, to inflict a sterility plague on them. (Or NOT a sterility plague, depending on who you ask.) I’m not sure how they managed to build the dang thing in the first place. If the Krogan were kicking the galaxy’s ass at the time, then building massive structures on their homeworld would have been like the Japanese trying to build their own shipyard on the coast of California at the tail end of 1944. Moreover, I’m not sure why we need it. What does the shroud do that you couldn’t accomplish with a spaceship? I mean, we’re dumping some sort of biological agent into the atmosphere, right? Why build a towering shroud while being shot at by Krogan when you could just dip into the atmosphere and drop it Enola Gay style? I thought the Turians released the genophage, not the Salarians? So are you telling me that the Salarians invented the genophage, built this tower, and then didn’t intended to use it? And yet they had the foresight to sabotage the shroud, anticipating that it might be used for the cure, when they could have just blown it up to make extra sure it wasn’t ever used. Why use this same delivery method for the cure, since lots of off-world Krogan will likely miss out on it? Better yet, give Wrex a big honkin’ canister of cure and a cargo container of hypodermic needles (or whatever) and let him handle the distribution. Letting him control the cure would give him the power to unite wayward clans, draw in more allies from far off, and deny the cure to troublemakers who might threaten his power.

*Wipes mouth*

Whew. Okay. I think that’s all of it. I feel a bit better now.

To be fair, these aren’t story-ruining flaws for me. I’m sure we could find other spots in the series where it all falls apart under too much scrutiny. In a story this big, this is bound to happen. Especially when you don’t have a plan. I just wish the problems with the game had been limited to stuff like this: Missing lampshades and the odd contrivance.

EDIT: Ah yes, the shroud was originally built to fix the Krogan atmosphere, before the uprisings. I’d totally forgotten about that. It does explain most of the problems above. (But not all!)

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.