Video game news and reaction

[ahzad]

me too b/c i would love to see this game come back w/ a vengeance. I loved both the SNES and Sega version, the SNES for the story and the Sega for the graphics and matrix pieces.

[Crafty_Pat]

The Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns.

SOLD!

[Mister Andersen]

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From here:

An official press release went out today announcing how we are re-prioritizing the Mass Effect 3 post release content schedule to provide a more fleshed out experience for our fans. For many of you the “Extended Cut” will help answer some questions and give closure to this chapter of the Mass Effect story. Oh and it’s at no cost to you – the fan.

Here is a mini FAQ to help you understand what the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut is and isn’t:

What can fans expect from the Extended Cut DLC?

    For fans who want more closure in Mass Effect 3, the DLC will offer extended scenes that provide additional context and deeper insight to the conclusion of Commander Shepard’s journey.

Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?

    No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.

What is BioWare adding to the ending with the Extended Cut DLC?

    BioWare will expanding on the ending to Mass Effect 3 by creating additional cinematics and epilogue scenes to the existing ending sequences. The goal of these new scenes is to provide additional clarity and closure to Mass Effect 3.

When will the Extended Cut DLC be available?

    Currently the Extended Cut DLC is planned for this summer, no specific date has been announced at this point.

Why are you releasing the Extended Cut DLC?

    Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard’s story.

So there you have it. Are we proud of the game we made and the team that made it? Hell yes. Are we going to change the ending of the game? No. Do we appreciate the passion and listen to the feedback delivered to us by our fans? Very much so and we are responding.

I want the multiple endings we were promised for year (and I won't lie, I'd like the option for one of those to be happy), but most importantly I want an ending that makes sense. I'm pretty certain given the words closure, context, and clarity that I won't be happy with what's produced because it means leaving the serious narrative flaws of the final act intact.

Jennifer Hale says she knows nothing of what's coming in the DLC, hasn't been contacted by the team, hasn't had a recording session, or been given any indication that she will be needed for this new content. Given BW are calling it the "Extended Cut", it strongly implies that they're just going to use some of the dialogue that was inexplicably cut (such as Hacket's line potentially explaining the fate of the Normandy).

Until then, enjoy Unofficial Mass Effect 3 epilogue slides

ETA: Well, looks like there may possibly be a thin ray of hope. Assuming they aren't lying through their teeth again.

[Krensky]

I want the multiple endings we were promised for year (and I won't lie, I'd like the option for one of those to be happy), but most importantly I want an ending that makes sense. I'm pretty certain given the words closure, context, and clarity that I won't be happy with what's produced because it means leaving the serious narrative flaws of the final act intact.

There were multiple endings. In fact the game has twice as many endings as the other two games in the series. There is a happy ending, it's full paragon middle path. You don't even need a particularly high war assets. What happens to your friends and allies is all covered in the conversations leading to the end. The only poorly explained bit is the Normandy being in a jump, but it's not like that ruins it.

I swear, it's like no one payed attention in high school English class when they covered foreshadowing and metaphor and conceit.

[Antilles]

I too was, shall we say, somewhat unsatisfied with the ending, but then a friend got me to read up on the Indoctrination Theory, which I really hope is right because it makes the ending seem way less stupid than it currently does. I recommend googling for more information, it's a fascinating read.  Brief summary of the theory as follows:

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Basically, the theory is that Shepard has been undergoing a slow indoctrination process, that the kid in the beginning is a hallucination Shepard is having, the nightmares are the Reapers trying to break Shepard who is unconsciously resisting, and the whole ending scene from the moment he gets knocked out by Harbinger is one final push by the Reapers to break Shepard. Fucking up with the Illusive Man encounter or choosing the control/symbiosis ending is basically you submitting to indoctrination, while the destroy ending is you shaking off indoctrination, which is why it's the only ending with the brief snippet of Shepard waking in some ruins and drawing a breath. It would explain so much, and if Bioware isn't going for that ending I really hope they've got something just as good planned, otherwise I'll be very very sad.

[Krensky]

I too was, shall we say, somewhat unsatisfied with the ending, but then a friend got me to read up on the Indoctrination Theory, which I really hope is right because it makes the ending seem way less stupid than it currently does. I recommend googling for more information, it's a fascinating read.  Brief summary of the theory as follows:

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Basically, the theory is that Shepard has been undergoing a slow indoctrination process, that the kid in the beginning is a hallucination Shepard is having, the nightmares are the Reapers trying to break Shepard who is unconsciously resisting, and the whole ending scene from the moment he gets knocked out by Harbinger is one final push by the Reapers to break Shepard. Fucking up with the Illusive Man encounter or choosing the control/symbiosis ending is basically you submitting to indoctrination, while the destroy ending is you shaking off indoctrination, which is why it's the only ending with the brief snippet of Shepard waking in some ruins and drawing a breath. It would explain so much, and if Bioware isn't going for that ending I really hope they've got something just as good planned, otherwise I'll be very very sad.

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That's pretty much grasping at a straw that Bioware pulled a Dallas so that you can avoid having to accept that Shepherd was always going to die from the beginning of the series. What the hell else did you folks think was going to happen to a christ-figure?

Destroying synthetic life is the "I'm an asshole" ending.
Controlling the Reapers is the "I'm an idiot" ending.
Creating synthesis is the "I'm making a new universe that should avoid the source of this whole situation (fear of synthetic life by organic life)" ending.

"Tell me another story about The Shepherd."

[Sletchman]

Man, fuck Bioware.

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Playing ME3 - first they kill Mordin Solus, and now Thane too? Dammit, if they kill Dr Chiakwas or Joker i'm gonna be pissed.

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I thought both of those characters deaths in my paragon Shep playthrough (my first, that I finished last night after finishing my project) were downright beautiful.  I'd hold up Mordin's entire sequence (plus a few clips from ME2 to establish character) as another example of "Games are art."  It had to be him.  Someone else might get it wrong.

Thane I figured was gone in ME3 anyway, for obvious reasons, so letting him go out like a boss was great.  His final hospital sequence with his son and Shepard was a masterpiece, and I couldn't think of a better way for a great character to be sent off.

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My problem isn't even that it's all a negative ending.  Would I like an ending were Shepard settles down with Liara and finally get to have them little blue babies?  Sure, that'd be nice.  But I'm ok with Shepards death (given the Jesus parallels it really had to be expected).

My problems are that it doesn't really make much sense.  Ok, lets accept the whole random starchild business (it was fucking stupid, but it's not going anywhere).  Why the hell did Joker and my team suddenly become deserters without warning?  These guys have followed Shepard into hell and out the other side 3 times, but now they just figured what?  "Fuck it, lets get our own earth - with hookers, and blackjack."  It made no sense on multiple levels (and had zero forshadowing - they've shown no evidence of wavering support for the cause or plan) - the 2 people I had standing next to me on the final push to the beam were suddenly transported (suddenly Star Trek up in here) onto a ship that was deserting the battle for no real reason (and again, with no motivation).  The game has also canonically established that if you destroy a Mass Relay that you toast the entire solar system it's in.  So you also just killed more then the Reapers were going to.  Good job hero.  But hey - at least with the destroy option, they aren't coming back.  So life can find a way (though that wasn't even alluded to).

It's not just Shepard who is doomed either - the whole universe is pretty much fucked.  No Mass Relays means no intersystem travel.  All those Taurians on earth are dead unless the Quarian fleets can produce enough food for the decades long travel home (and that's on the unlikely chance they have the fuel for that kind of journey distance without Mass Relays - unlikely given the settings reliance on them for transport).  Your squad is a least partly dead - if that planet they randomly landed on has a suitable food source it certainly won't cover everyone, so either Garrus/Tali or everyone else is hosed.  Heaps of refuges and places rely on food from farming colonies, food that they are no longer getting.

The Starchild came from nowhere, had no established place in the plot/lore and in general made no sense at all.  His control centre had 3 control points they he can't use, despite the fact that you were the first and only organic to set foot there (something he admitted they hadn't predicted).  You can't question him (unlike almost everyone else in the game series).  So no motivations, no alternate solutions (The Geth are cooperating, that's a broken/damaged cycle), no explanations (the Reapers themselves admit humans are special, but their "creator" won't?) and no showing him his hipocracy (Reapers remove free will, effectively turning organics into machines).  The fact that you can't even ask "Why the fuck do you look like that dead kid from earth/my dreams" is just another in a long list of that entire sequence's failings.  You also get contacted by Hacket - who seconds ago was told no one made it inside.  Why would he message someone who didn't make it in?  That wasn't so much a problem as it was poorly written (like the rest of the sequence - it just felt so rushed and half assed).

As the final in the series, the game and it's ending should have answered the big questions (who Reapers, Citadel, Mass Relays) and the answer given shouldn't make people collectively ask: What the fuck?  The fact that that particular WTF is followed up with an equally nonsense scene with your ship and crew that makes you ask the same question again is pretty much just some salt rubbed into your wounds.

And then they have the gall to follow up all that insanity with "Hey, buy some DLC" which is pretty insulting.

Sure, Indoctrination Theory makes a lot of sense, but it's been declared as offically "not happening".  So we're stuck with this shit fest, we just get to have it extended (and if nothing else - it damn well better explain my crew randomly becomming deserters).

EDIT: The Synthesis ending is also rediculous since it has EDI and Joker standing on the planet - she is part of the ship.  She just controls Eva's body by remote (firmly established earlier in the game).  That crash and the destruction of Normandy would have killed her.  So yet another "WTF?" from a sequence full of them...  The ending pretty much just ignores all the stuff the game has established, sure theme is the worst hit, but canonical facts are ignored to.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the first 99+% of the game.  It had some absolutely magnificent moments, and there was a great book ending effect (the first game really started with a great Shepard speech and the third had one right at the end) as well as plenty of fantastic call backs to the first two.  They also managed to make more of the game seem really alive - the setpieces (you'll know exactly what I mean when you see them) and the Normandy/Citadel (with the crew moving around and talking to one another) in particular.

[Antilles]

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I've no problem with Shepard sacrificing himself, I love a heroic sacrifice as much as the next guy, it's just that the whole ending sequence doesn't really make sense. Here's a neat document going through the ending sequence step by step and pointing out everything that doesn't add up or make sense, and there is a lot of it.

Otherwise if you haven't I suggest you watch this 20 minute youtube video summarizing the indoctrination theory. I think you'll have to agree it's at least mostly plausible.

edit: I pretty much agree with what Sletchman's saying.

[Krensky]

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It's not established that destroying a relay destroys the system. It's established that smashing a large asteroid at relativistic speeds into an active one destroys the system. Nothing was established about what happens when you burn them out.

[Sletchman]

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It's not established that destroying a relay destroys the system. It's established that smashing a large asteroid at relativistic speeds into an active one destroys the system. Nothing was established about what happens when you burn them out.

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You can see explosions from an extragalactic perspective.  That's some big explosions.

Ok, sure, it's "Colour-Coded Space Magic", but that just serves to make it even more rediculous - the setting goes from reasonably hard-sci (with just the single piece of space macguffinotonium to make it all work - but it's totally consistant in how it works) where anything with that kind of energy blowing up is categorically bad, to straight up Space Magic: "They just break, because of all the magic... yeah magic that makes you all into hybrid-synthetic-dna*-creature things... Oh you chose the other ending?  Then it's magical targeted-explosion-power..."

*Wait... What?  Instead of the obvious singularity ending, that any Sci-Fi fan would have wanted (and expected) from this ending, you just put green glowy shit on Joker and Liara?  And the space wizard's explanation for it - "synthetic DNA"?  The shit?  You've been in the Geth collective, so the idea of a cultural singularity isn't a foreign one (in fact for newcommers to the genre that sequence explains the concept really quite well).

EDIT: My only real beef with the rest of the game was the cutscenes - my Shepard kept spawning an M8 Avenger from nowhere during cut scenes, and it would then become the weapon I actually took towards the end.  In the rare cutscenes that showed the weapon I actually had, her model was holding it as if it were an Avenger - so her hands went through the gun, and she drew it from the empty assault rifle positon.  Not a huge flaw but took a little away from the effect of some cool cutscenes when something silly was happening.  Same with scenes with handguns - my Paladin would turn into a Predator during cutscenes.  A little silly that that kind of stuff happens really.

[Krensky]

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What?

ME is the squishiest of soft-sci space opera. Smith's Lensmen series is more scientifically sound. It's completely inconsistant in it's use of physics, chemistry and biology. All of the tech and science exists to support the story, rather then the story exploring the science and technology, and how they work changes when the writers need a plot point. The game ignores junior high-school level physics when it's convienient to do so, for Newton's sake.

The endings are no more space magic then the whole rest of the game series, and the synthesis ending is a perfectly cromulent technological singularity-esk ending. It just doesn't look like what bad and mediocre writers have told you it should look like.

[Sletchman]

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What?

ME is the squishiest of soft-sci space opera. Smith's Lensmen series is more scientifically sound. It's completely inconsistant in it's use of physics, chemistry and biology. All of the tech and science exists to support the story, rather then the story exploring the science and technology, and how they work changes when the writers need a plot point. The game ignores junior high-school level physics when it's convienient to do so, for Newton's sake.

The endings are no more space magic then the whole rest of the game series, and the synthesis ending is a perfectly cromulent technological singularity-esk ending. It just doesn't look like what bad and mediocre writers have told you it should look like.

Lets agree to disagree.  That ending rubbed me entirely the wrong way (actually all 3 did, but that's neither here nor there).

I'm not saying the ME series has any accurate tech or science.  I'm saying that it's consistant in it's bypassing science.  Every scientific innaccuracy I can think of can be explained by the existence of Element Zero - from Biotics, to Starships to completely ignoring conservation of energy.  Everything stems from that big ol' chunk of elemental macguffin.  A macguffin that is used and applied pretty consistantly, at least as far as every example I can think of.

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On a seperate note: What authors would you suggest as having written good technological singularities in their work?  While I'm slightly offended at your implication that I've only read bad and mediocre authors (and wouldn't know the difference between them and good ones), I am curious who (and which of their books) you would recommend.

I still stand by the idea that any work that references "robot dna" really ought to be comedy (futurama for instance), by YMMV.  Obvious exceptions made for incharacter jokes and the like.

[Krensky]

Even eezo and it's magical effects aren't consistant. The relays make massless corridors (which is flat out impossible, because if it was massless the ship couldn't move), ignoring stuff in the way or movement. The little ones in the first game though work somehow like teleporters and far faster then the big ones.

The guns don't work because the writers failed classical physics, KE=mv. Sure the mass effect reduces the mass of the projectile, but that also reduces the energy it has to impart to a target. Which makes sense since mass (not matter) and energy are the same thing.

Biotics don't work since all the uses in the game require ludicrous amounts of energy. Generating a mass field to slow and stop a fallin person who weighs 150 lbs would require in a second or two, as much energy as all of europe produces in a year.

During ftl the starlight and background radiation in front of the ship would be so blue shifted it would kill everything aboard. Remember that shields don't stop radiation according to the codex. Except on the quarion planet in 2. Or when we need to handwave away the blue shift problem.

The D and L chemistry stuff is bs. You can't get energy from the handedness you aren't evolved for but it won't do more then give you a upset stomach. Note that we consume D-glucose, not L-glucose. In fact, the whole alergy thing is borderlin kooky because allergies are an immune response, and your body mostly doesn't recognize the other handedness.

It just goes on and on. You can accept all of that, but the endings are too much. The concept that those behind it are stupid, fearful, irrational zealots is too much. That because the game doesn't make shit up to try and convince you it's not pure fantastical magic it's not acceptable because it's wrong to let the audience figure out the why of a miracle.

As for the other question, the problem isn't that that vision is bad, it's that it's not original or exhaustive. Look at the ware series, look at the night's dawn trilogy, look at foundation, look at hyperion. Look at the council wars before the wars started.

All a technologic singularity implies is that after it everything has changed so much that it's unregognizable to what came before.

[Krensky]

But yeah, the magically appearing and disappearing helmets and guns annoyed me. It was just sloppy. Same with the eye and head tracking glitches.

[Sletchman]

It just goes on and on. You can accept all of that, but the endings are too much. The concept that those behind it are stupid, fearful, irrational zealots is too much. That because the game doesn't make shit up to try and convince you it's not pure fantastical magic it's not acceptable because it's wrong to let the audience figure out the why of a miracle.

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The reason I didn't like the ending wasn't because it was bad on it's own merits (except the whole team teleporting onto the normandy and deserting business - that shit was flat out stupid).  It was because it didn't fit the game at all.  It doesn't play like any other part of any of the preceeding 3 games at all.  You can't ask questions, you can't point out the hypocracy, you basically get the control you've always had taken away from you and given 3 near-identical cutscenes to pick from with no real context or reason.  I can accept that the Starchild is an irrational douche.  Why the hell can I not point that out?  I got to do it to Saren, Benezia, Sovereign, Harbinger, The Illusive Man, and every other antagonist I came across.

It also undermines so much that had been built.  Early on I showed my Nana the leaving earth scene and the first dream sequence with the child and suggested it was almost like the writers are trying to get the player to feel Shepard experiencing PTSD.  She's a psychologist, and her job is to council soldiers who have returned home and can't cope - and she thought it a great piece of well played narrative.  The ending turns that excellent creative concept into just some omnipotent jackass who was what?  Just fucking with Shep for giggles?  Because a godling messing with your head for [REASON NOT GIVEN] is so much better then the concept that seeing that this supersoldier, held up as humanity's ideal, and the savour of the galaxy is flawed and messed up - just like the rest of us.

Did you honestly think that it was a good, fitting ending to the trilogy?  I know if I was playing in a tabletop game and my GM pulled that ending on us to cap off an epic5 year campaign I'd not be a player in his games again.  "Yeah, everything you've worked towards and accomplished for the last 5 years ammounts to precisely fuck all.  Good game guys!"

All a technologic singularity implies is that after it everything has changed so much that it's unregognizable to what came before.

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Exactly.  It didn't, and it wasn't.