T w e n t y S i d e d

And we’re back on the ranting.

Here again we find ourselves interacting with the main plot, and once again the whole story flies apart. The reaper has been here for 5 million years, or one hundred reaper cycles. Yet none of the last 100 races managed to find it, destroy, or make use of it, or whatever.

And then we find it. Somehow. And we find out Cerberus has been here, dumped a bunch of scientists here with no real goal, and then forgot about them. And they all died. Just like all the other Cerberus cells, they wasted many lives and much money doing things that wouldn’t advance their stated goals even if they worked.

Now, remember that the council doesn’t believe that the reapers exist. (Which is preposterous, but let’s just ignore that for the sake of keeping this post under 1,000 words.) The council’s disbelief is the only reason we’re teamed up with these criminal racist murdering lying stooges. But we don’t use this reaper hulk to prove that reapers exist.

The only reason we’re going on board is to get a reaper IFF. And the only reason we’re doing that is so we can go through the Omega-4 relay to fight the Collectors. Of course, that’s stupid. If our only goal is to stop the collectors, then it’s way better to camp on OUR SIDE of the Omega-4 relay. Throw down some mines. Wait for them to run into the mines, then blast them. Problem solved.

Now you could argue that our real goal isn’t to just blow up the reaper ship, but to go through the relay and get our hands on that great reaper tech. Except the game designers portray this choice as unambiguously evil.

And Legion, who has been looking for us, shows up here? Was he able to predict that we would come here, or was he just amazingly lucky. (This point might actually be addressed somewhere in Legion’s dialog. In any case, this is a minor point and not nearly the immersion-breaker that the other points are.)

So sum up:

* Cerberus acted like idiots
* Shepard acted like an idiot
* The past 100 harvest races, while not entirely idiots, might have done better if they had found the reaper.
* The council are idiots
* Legion probably could have been making better use of his time
* The writers are not exactly making a fearsome display of mental prowess either. This is not a complicated plot, and it shouldn’t have this many problems.

So, par for the course?

Man, get me outta this main plot and back to the loyalty missions.

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.

Here is a fun game to play. During this episode, one of the hosts says something incorrect about a videogame. Did you catch it?

The first four minutes of the episode were some of the most fun I’ve had in ages. I’m just picturing a newcomer to the series hearing our review of Halo, the Wiimote-based PS3 exclusive. Yes, 99% of the people out there will dismiss the discussion as the ravings of silly people. But you know, somewhere on the internet, lurks that last 1%. The people who will hear this, and the red curtain of rage will descend, and they will experience an epic level of indignation that “this review is so bias and inacurate”. I realize this is a really childish thing to enjoy. Sorry.

We did manage to sneak in a few words about Mass Effect 2. So there’s that. Anyway. Come back tomorrow and see if the show improves! The suspense must be killing you!

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.

Hey, I made a homepage for Spoiler Warning. That’s just so that I have a handy place to link when I introduce people to the show. Right now I usually link them to the first episode of the latest series, which isn’t nearly as informative as a page with the premise and list of seasons. So there’s that. It’s not particularly well designed. No RSS feed or any fancy stuff. It’s ugly. But you know the old adage: “Release first, finish second”. That’s not an addage? Hmph. Could have fooled me.

Anyway, if you’re passing along links to your friends, this link is the one to give them http://www.shamusyoung.com/spoilerwarning/

Also, big thanks to the artist who made the Spoiler Warning fan art. (Which you can see I’ve made the official logo for season 4.) Now to reveal what a complete amateur I am, I lost the name of the artist and the link to the original. (I can’t remember if it was sent via email, or in the comments, and I don’t remember when.) So, I suck and I fail at blogging. But how about that fan art, huh?

EDIT: The fan art was by Pure Pareidolia. See the original.

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.

We got so caught up in joking around about Samara’s loyalty mission last time that I never got a chance to say that I really liked it. I like the idea of a non-combat mission. And when I objected about us not being able to shoot Morinth outright, I wasn’t saying “We should be allowed to shoot Morinth”, I was just thinking that the game didn’t really do a good job of explaining why you couldn’t. (And why using your biotics would be useless or unwise.) I bring this up because it was a minor quibble that took up a good portion of the episode.

And now we begin Jack’s loyalty mission…

I wrote 600 words on Jack’s loyalty mission back when the game was still fresh in my mind. That might be worth reading now that we’ve reached that point.

This is another place in the story where the good part of the game (loyalty missions) is at odds with the central premise of the game. The plot insists that we work with Cerberus and accept this “rogue elements” excuse, but all of the previous game and half of this one are dedicated to showing what an obviously preposterous idea that is.

1) If the “Rogue elements” excuse is a lie, we are idiots to believe it.
2) If it’s the truth, we’re idiots to trust TIM.

No matter which way you look at it, Shepard is required to behave like a moron for this plot to work.

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.