{"id":10871,"date":"2011-03-02T09:02:51","date_gmt":"2011-03-02T14:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=10871"},"modified":"2011-03-02T09:08:33","modified_gmt":"2011-03-02T14:08:33","slug":"spoiler-warning-s4e46-geth-whos-coming-to-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=10871","title":{"rendered":"Spoiler Warning S4E46: Geth Who&#8217;s Coming to Dinner?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some people claim that Mass Effect 2 is not a brown corridor shooter.  Allow me to retort:<\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pd4vuP-KeMA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pd4vuP-KeMA'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p>Gah.  I haven&#8217;t been subjected to such high doses of brown since the original Quake. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not just the lack of color, but also the overbearing industrial style.  It&#8217;s as if everyone in the galaxy lives in warehouses.  Yes, we get some nice color in Jacob&#8217;s mission.  And the <em>non-combat<\/em> areas of the game are at least as vibrant as the ones in Mass Effect 1, perhaps even better.  But as soon as we start fighting it&#8217;s back to flat, boxy, linear, and monochrome.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s list the missions in the game.  Industrial corridor shooter levels are in bold.  Levels which are lively and varied are in italics. Areas that are a mixed bag are in unadorned text. <\/p>\n<h3>Core missions:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Project Lazarus<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Freedom&#8217;s progress<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Horizon Colony<\/em><br \/>\n<strong> Investigate Collector Ship<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Dead Reaper<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Collector Base<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Recruitment &#038; loyalty missions:<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Recruit Garrus<\/strong><br \/>\nRecruit Tali<br \/>\n<strong>Recruit Thane<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Recruit Jack<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Recruit Samara<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Recruit Mordin<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Recruit Grunt<\/strong><br \/>\nGarrus: Eye for an Eye<br \/>\n<strong>Grunt: Rite of Passage<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Jack: Subject Zero<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Jacob: The Gift of Greatness<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Legion: A House Divided<\/strong><br \/>\nMiranda: The Prodigal<br \/>\n<strong>Mordin: Old Blood<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Samara: The Ardat-Yakshi<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Tali: Treason<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Thane: Sins of the Father<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure some people will argue with a few of my classifications one way or the other.  Maybe <em>Garrus: Eye for an Eye<\/em> and <em>Miranda: The Prodigal<\/em> should be in bold because most of the action takes place in a warehouse far away from the interesting bits of the Citadel. Maybe <em>Recruit Tali<\/em> should be given credit for being colorful and well-lit, even through it was a sea of concrete and industrial crates. We can bicker over individual entries, but I think the trend is clear.  <\/p>\n<p>Again, we see the Jekyll &#038; Hyde nature of this game.  Omega, Illium, and the Citadel are all bright, colorful, and feel lived-in.  (By space opera standards.)  But once the shooting starts it&#8217;s like we&#8217;re playing a late 90&#8217;s first person shooter &#8211; warehouses, crates, and nondescript industrial stuff. What happened to places like Virmire and IIlos? Does <em>every<\/em> battle need to be close-quarters? There was no reason to smother players in crates like this.  <\/p>\n<p>You could argue that Mass Effect 2 has just as many interesting areas as Mass Effect 1, but since it&#8217;s a far larger game the overall percent is worse. Still, it would have been really nice to mix things up with an ice world. Or some alien ruins. Or a beach. Grasslands. More residential stuff. Gardens or temples.  I think the game just has too dang much industrial scenery. <\/p>\n<p>Lair of the Shadow Broker was really, really good, in that it presented spaces that looked plausibly residential, detailed, and interesting. (At least, until your reached the titular <em>lair<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some people claim that Mass Effect 2 is not a brown corridor shooter. Allow me to retort: Link (YouTube) Gah. I haven&#8217;t been subjected to such high doses of brown since the original Quake. It&#8217;s not just the lack of color, but also the overbearing industrial style. It&#8217;s as if everyone in the galaxy lives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}