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swaps55 · 3 years

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Here we fucking go.

We have a glorious moment, one of the best of the trilogy. Anderson dies, and Shepard has to get up.

What do you need me to do.

No protests. No arguments. There is only the mission, and Shepard isn’t done. It’s the very essence of Shepard, the heart and soul of what makes them such a magic character.

And we follow up that moment with this bullshit.

I’ll take this moment to remind folks that in the original, vanilla ending, there was no explanation of the reaper origins. Shepard couldn’t ask questions. There was just, HEY. Pick a color.

So to my jaded self, the Extended Cut and Leviathan are merely attempts to sleep in the bed they made.

The biggest mistake BioWare made was attempting to explain the reapers. They are supposed to be unknowable. Beyond our comprehension. Yet here, in the final moments, they are distilled into something completely knowable and understandable, at the expense of everything the trilogy spent three years building.

“The reapers are not at war with you.”

Yeah, except you gave Harbinger understandable motivations, an ego, an obsession with a tiny organic, and a vendetta. You made the impersonal Cthulhu monster something with a very personal agenda. Those two ideologies are in direct conflict with each other.

“Who designed the Crucible?”

“You don’t know them, and there is no time to explain.”

WHEN THE FATE OF THE GALAXY HINGES ON IT, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE TIME. Honest to god, this translates to, “we dunno, fuck off.”

Now onto the color coded choices. I’ll further point out the reminder that the vanilla ending included no voice over, no slideshow depicting the outcome and consequences, no memorial for Shepard. It was literally exploding relays in three different colors, with no other differences between them. At all.

The Extended Cut is a direct response to the uproar, which included the following:

“The relays exploded. Everyone’s dead.” BioWare, astonished at this assumption, somehow forgot they put out a DLC that makes it explicitly clear that destroying a relay releases a titanic source of energy that would wipe out a system. So Extended Cut? Comes out and says, “everything that was broken can be fixed.” No why, no how. You have a decimated galactic economy, the bulk of half a dozen armies stranded in a single system, and the codex clearly states we do not know what kind of material the relays or the Citadel are made from. So...how do we fix all of these things in the next few lifetimes? Fuck you, that’s how.

“...how the hell did my love interest get on the Normandy??” Because in vanilla, there is no goodbye scene. Shepard runs to the beam, never looks back, gets blown up, then stumbles to the beam. There is no injured squad mates, no evac, no tender goodbye. One second they’re there, the next they’re exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet. Which is why Harbinger so patiently waits for Shepard’s ship to come take the wounded love interest away, because we had to have some reason for them to wind up on the ship, and there isn’t a way to do it that makes sense, so have a tender goodbye and don’t think about the fact that the Normandy apparently could have just dropped you right off at the front door and saved everyone a lot of time and trouble.

“Why did the Normandy flee?” In vanilla, there was only the cutscene of Joker frantically mashing buttons while consoles exploded around him, with a swelling instrumental cacophony that ended with a discordant shriek, suggesting total disaster. When I first played it, I somehow thought, to my horror, that I’d killed Joker. And guess what? Joker and your love interest exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet is just where the game ended. That music is the credits music. That’s where the journey stopped. Not ended. Stopped. The only other scrap was the voiceover by Buzz Aldrin and a pop up saying, ‘you did it! buy our DLC.’ So the Extended Cut added a cry from Hackett to run from the Crucible, though there’s still no reason given for why, aside from ‘energy is bad for technology,’ and apparently the Normandy is the only ship that somehow winds up stranded on Lame Jungle Planet.

If the Crucible was essentially just a giant EMP that nukes all technology, then everyone is basically fucked, and how do you ‘outrun it,’ since it goes everywhere??

Fuck you, that’s how.

The choices themselves can fuck themselves, too. Attaching strings to the trilogy-spanning goal of destroying the reapers is a cheap bait and switch. A human being somehow being turned into an immortal vessel to puppet the immortal machines is a complete disaster waiting to happen. Human minds aren’t meant for that, and we’re given no context or information on how that’s supposed to function.

And Synthesis? You’re asking one person to directly violate the bodily autonomy of every single being in the galaxy? With zero explanation given for what that means other than a few utterly abstract sentences, how it works, what it changes, and what the consequences will be, good or bad? Fuck right off.

Is my interpretation of the endings completely and forever impacted by experiencing the vanilla ending after playing ME1 when it launched in 2007 and waiting five years for the finale? Yes. I won’t even pretend that I can take an unbiased look at Extended Cut, because all I can see is how blatantly and poorly it tried to respond to the backlash.

Beyond the incompressible narrative choices, the plot holes, the confusion, etc., the worst sin the original ending made was not giving the player an emotional release. There was no closure. No end. It just stopped. That haunted me. It sounds stupid to say I lost sleep over the ending of a video game. It sounds melodramatic and entitled and obnoxious. But I did. This world and these characters meant everything. I’d like to think that after having lived through a pandemic, it’s a little easier to understand why the fictional places we escape to so we can forget about the real world feel like a lifeline. It may be stupid that a video game means this much to me. But it does. And I have never gotten over how that ending made me feel, and I have never forgiven it.

The only thing the Extended Cut does is provide an emotional release, in the form of goodbyes to your love interest, an ending slideshow, and a voiceover telling you all the ways the galaxy isn’t actually fucked, even though it is. For a lot of people that’s enough, and that’s a good thing. Emotional release is a big deal. Even if the ending isn’t satisfying, having somewhere to put your emotions makes it a lot easier to swallow.

This is the first time I have experienced the ‘true’ ending since EC came out in 2012, and now that I have the achievement for finishing the game, I never intend to do it again.

I’m going to go boot up the Citadel DLC, which is the love letter send off the trilogy deserved, and what BioWare was capable of giving us all along.

They just...didn’t.

#tow cables on the citadel #in which i am angry and emotional and crying and in general a disaster of a human #apologies for the typos #of which i am sure there are many #i just can't bring myself to reread it

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irikahkrios · 4 years

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the asari make me so mad because of all the wasted potential. like, an alien species that not only can reproduce with any species, but prefers to reproduce with other species because it helps them add genetic diversity to their own species, and also they reproduce not through sexual means but through like, a vulcan-style mind meld??? and they don't really have a concept of gender??? and they live for like a thousand years and naturally have super powerful biotic abilities and have made massive contributions to the arts and sciences and are super respected in the galactic community??? all of that is sick as fuck!!!!! the asari could have been such a cool species!!!!! but then the cowards at bioware were like "hmmm let's make them Big-Tittied Sexy Blue Alien Ladies and have their entire species be constantly and obnoxiously oversexualized and objectified, and only make occasional references to how supposedly 'powerful' and 'respected' they are and instead constantly talk about how sexy they are and how every species wants to fuck them, because god knows the horny dudebros need something to jerk off to"

like go to hell bioware the asari could have been excellent and y'all ruined them

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dgcatanisiri · 4 years

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*writes up a half page ranting response*

*closes window*

No. I’m not going to get anywhere by doing that. But... GAH...

So, yeah, I’m gonna rant on my own instead of responding to a confession.

So, I’m not making value judgments on other people. I’m not telling them they can or can not like certain characters, certain stories, whatever. I’m not attempting to police people’s way of thinking. All I do with my various rants and ravings, which I try to tag appropriately, is express my views and opinions and at the least try to explain why it is that I am approaching things the way that I do.

So, my opinion: Dorian Pavus is a lousy, reductive character that brought nothing to the table that hadn’t been provided by no less than a dozen, and I’m underselling that point, characters in other media. To say nothing of my dislike of him on a personal level, finding him arrogant and obnoxious. And if this is the quality that BioWare approaches their gay characters, which, based on what happened with both Steve Cortez and Gil Brodie, seems like the case, I DON’T. want them to be writing more gay characters, because they SUCK at it.

My reasoning for this is based on the fact that all these characters have yet to be a character who the player seems expected to walk away from the game, if they must remember one fact about them, is the fact that they’re gay. It’s all that they’re there to be. The gay character. At most, you might be able to argue Steve, that he’s “the widower,” and not necessarily “the gay widower,” but still. What EXISTS about these characters beyond their sexuality? What do they provide, on a character, on a story level, that is not directly tied to their sexuality, to who they are banging and the fact that it happens to be another man?

Dorian? His entire personal quest revolves around his father not accepting him for being gay. Gil? Reduced to his straight best friend accessory and turkey baster. Steve? Exists to be in mourning for his husband, and possibly for Shepard to catch on the rebound. THIS is the caliber of BioWare’s writing for gay men.

I mean, take a look through my “another angry queer rant” tag. This is something I have LONG gone in on, because that’s their portrayal of gay characters. That’s the approach they take - make these characters have their character and characterization depend on them being gay. Write them in a way that makes it such a big deal that it’s the driving force of their portrayal in the game.

This is, I’ll be fair, something that I see as being born of generation gap - the writers at BioWare, the people who wrote these stories, came of age in a different era that queer people my age and younger. They grow up with the looming specter of the AIDS crisis. Being gay was something to hide, because it quickly led to a death sentence, either from the disease itself or because the straight people would decide to kill you before you had a chance to “infect” them. While the world today is still a massive work in progress on this front, it is still better than that.

So to a writer who lived through that, even while in the closet, when they do what I tend to think writers do and write to the child they were, the child in need of a role model, they are writing characters who are open and upfront about being gay. Who are making it a core part of their identity to reach back to that child and say “it’s okay.

BUT - there’s always a but - but, to MY generation, to the generations who are coming after that period, instead of coming across as trying to be revolutionary, of having gay characters who exist openly as gay... To these younger generations, it instead just comes off as reducing these characters to no more than their gayness, that ‘being gay’ is all the identity and story and existence they need. Because when you take away the time spent on highlighting their gayness, what story are you left with? What character are you left with? Does this character EXIST in the narrative as a person, or as a walking demand to be seen as a gay character?

And, y’know, to some, that demand is ignored anyway - witness the bi!Dorian mods. Witness the fact that there are mods that make Gil romanceable by Sis!Ryder - like, what are you getting out of that? I say this as someone who romances Gil, but... Really, WHAT do you get out of a mod like that? And the only answer I can come to on that question is that it is this group of straight women who are upset about ANY content they are locked out of on the basis of gender.

But that’s a separate issue for a separate rant. Just bringing it up because it points out that trying to use characters to demand that they are viewed as a gay person... It doesn’t have any effect on someone who is being homophobic. They will disregard that if they so choose. So using these characters as an anvil on the issues of gay people? Not exactly doing much. Meanwhile, as I said, to a new generation, this is reductive.

Like, I see a character like Dorian, I think about what would have happened if he’d been in the media for my teenage “struggling with my sexuality” self. And the answer I reach, the conclusion I come up to, is that, at most, he wouldn’t be a help. At worst, he’d be a dagger - THIS is the example he would have of what it is to be gay... And that’s not him. So does that mean he’s not actually gay? Well, he’s attracted to other guys, so he doesn’t think so. But then... who does he get to look up to? Who is his role model? Because it’s not Dorian.

That’s what gets to me with BioWare’s portrayal of gay men. In Dragon Age, gay men consist of Dorian, who I just went over, Wade and Herren (by way only of word of god...), who... That’s worse, in my opinion, considering the abuse they hurl at each other on the job, on top of being side characters we are meant to laugh at, and... That’s really about it. In Mass Effect, we have Steve Cortez and Gil Brodie, who, okay, in terms of personality might be better examples, but... Their portrayal in the game basically reduces them to a single element - “my dead husband” or “my best friend wants me to be her turkey baster” - and doesn’t explore them AS INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE, just as “messages” to be delivered.

That’s my representation as a gay person. Joke, reductive, or The Message™. That’s not a good track record.

So this leads me to advocate for the romances to be all bisexual. Because at least then, the characters are not defined by their sexuality. Because at least then, BioWare can’t restrict their Prince Charming style romance to women. Like, stop and consider for a moment. In the last seven BioWare games, not counting Anthem, the four Mass Effects and the three Dragon Ages, how many characters would you say really repeat a single, primary archetype? Like, if you were to reduce a character to a single trope on their TVTropes character bio, which would you pull out to describe a character to someone else so they got the core idea of who this character is? What it is like going through their character arc? Through their romance arc?

Because at least for me, “Knight in Shining Armor” could be applied to AT LEAST three characters, based on their portrayal in their respective games: Alistair, Cullen, and Cassandra. All three are straight romances. Two are from the same game. Two are the same gender.

I cannot think of a SINGLE gay - or bi - character who I would use that term with. This is a PROBLEM.

Because, again, as I’ve said repeatedly, BioWare TAPS. THE SAME. WELLS. with their same-sex options. Gay/bi men are sketchy, suspicious, someone on the outside of the dominant society of the places we are playing in. And I’m not saying that this is intentionally done on BioWare’s part, but it’s a pattern of behavior that they are perpetuating. The gay/bi options they offer are variations of the bad boy, and just about ONLY the bad boy - the exceptions are Kaidan and Jaal, who it took fan demand to get them as bi options, and then Cortez and Gil, who, as I’ve already said, don’t get enough characterization to qualify either way - sure, Gil’s probably not a bad boy in the traditional sense, particularly in comparison to Reyes, but... We come back to the issue of “what else IS there to him in the first place?”

BioWare’s portrayal of gay men is flawed at best. I don’t have FAITH in their ability to provide solid queer representation when they are giving us characters of a single set sexuality, because they fall back into these patterns that are painful, are reductive, are... just not reaching the audience that needs more to their representation.

And, as I’ve gone into elsewhere, the romances are ALWAYS playersexual, so that’s really no excuse either, because why would Alistair romance someone who sacrifices Isolde and Connor, his adoptive family? Would Morrigan REALLY come to love a goodie-two shoes who stops to pull kittens out of a tree? No, really, WHY is Liara devoting herself to a racist, xenophobic bastard? The romance options are playersexual by definition, so stop deluding yourself that it only comes into play when the romances are all bisexual.

#dg rants #another angry queer rant #bioware critical

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thedreadvampy · 5 years

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So Love, Death and Robots...

Ok, like the first 4 were all, in different ways, really pretty good, and there are a couple of other good offerings in the mix, although a lot of the otherwise good ones fumbled the landing a little and left me feeling slightly unsatisfied.

Sonnie’s Edge was a solid opener, not my favourite in the world (and the accents felt really fake if I’m honest - if you say they’re from Newcastle give your characters Geordie accents, you cowards, none of this ‘generic working class Brit’ bollocks), but the twists were good, the characters had some life to them, and while I am a biiit eeehhhhhh about the Rape As Backstory element, it wasn’t egregious and the story was well put together and rattled along at a fair pace. I would have liked a bit more information about where her anger came from, since she shrugs off the idea that it’s from her Traumatic Backstory, but that’s really my only criticism. Animation-wise I’m not the biggest fan of photorealistic scifi animation, and the monster designs are fine but not mindblowing, but it’s doing what it does solidly (although I don’t know why that one character has her tits all the way out in her regular costume, it’s a bit Teenage Boy Scifi but it’s still a cool costume and I like the blacklight effects). The theme for me here is competent - nothing in the story or the animation was stand-out exciting for me but it was all done well, paced well, animated and designed very well, but it all sort of hit a “good but not great” note for me if I’m honest. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀

Three Robots was fun and engaging, if a bit superficial - it’s more of a series of stitched-together vignettes than a story, and other than the central characters, the world, and the cat very little connects the scenes, but that’s fine, it’s a worldbuilding exercise and it does what it’s doing pretty well. I really dig the character designs, especially the big blocky triangle robot - I’m a sucker for highly variable robots existing in the same world and I always appreciate effective non-humanoid character design. Also I did really enjoy the closing twist, that gave me a giggle. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀

The Witness was also really good but missing something. I loved the animation and character design, the comic book sound effects were occasionally a little clunky and distracting but the Comicsness of it was really working for me. I liked the story - it telegraphed part of the ending very deliberately but kept you guessing about the details and then pulled a pretty effective twist at the end anyway - and the characters managed to convey a lot of personality without a lot of explanation. There was a pleasing sense of inevitability to it, and while I kind of wanted a bit of explanation I think it was probably the right decision to leave it ambiguous. I did leave it feeling a little unsatisfied in an indefinable way, but looking back I think it would not have been made better by being any more explicit about what it was trying to convey. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Suits, the one with the redneck mecha pilots, was far and away the tightest and most satisfyingly put together in the whole show for me - I liked the animation style a lot for it, it was funny and emotionally engaging, and while it wasn’t breaking much new ground it was beautifully paced, kept you invested and made you care about the characters, and was probably the only one which I had absolutely no complaints or lingering disappointments at all with. 5/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖 .........aaaaaand then it all went wrong a bit for me because the episodes I genuinely solidly enjoyed got much fewer and further between as the bulk of stories got increasingly adolescent and superficial (I know, I know, it’s called Love, Death and Robots, it was always going to be a bit Teenage Boy, but the first 4 were all solid enough that I was feeling positive about it) Sucker of Souls was...fine. Characterful animation, uptempo pace, good character design (although GOD those ACCENTS, please stop and hire Actually British and Actually Irish voice actors if you’re planning on having British and Irish characters). It just felt completely hollow, though. Like, why do I care about this happening? Most of the characters are reasonably likeable if pretty stock, but the actual protagonist has nothing to him except Gruffly Macho Mercenary #4518B, and the plot is paper-thin and utterly unsatisfying. Monster exists, hubris of man raises monster, monster does something gratuitiously gory (if well-animated), people run away from monster, kill monster with guns and explosions, oh no what a twist we’re still in trouble, cut to black. And there was just nothing added to that, nothing clever or imaginative or unexpected, and the only twist they managed was that their Big Triumphal Moment was totally pointless. I thought they were going somewhere interesting with the cats thing and then it just got dropped and we went back to guns and explosions. I get doing something like this as a character piece but a) the characters just aren’t interesting enough to prop it up and b) the stakes aren’t balanced right for it to work (heh, stakes). It feels like this was just ‘I have a cool character design for Dracula and a couple of setpiece ideas’ and the whole short was just a vehicle for that, but while those things were cool they weren’t cool enough to make half an hour of TV feel worth it. It’s nice to see 2d animation but the animation style is only really ‘fine’ to me. This episode feels like someone really liked Hellboy but is not nearly as good a writer as Mike Mignola. 2/5 robots 🤖🤖💀💀💀 When The Yoghurt Took Over was fun enough. It didn’t have much more to it than ‘it would be funny if yoghurt took over the world’ but sometimes that’s enough. The animation’s cute and the idea is original enough to be funny and indepth enough to keep you engaged - I like a lot of the visual gags, even if they were a bit on the nose, and I enjoyed the vibe of it. It felt like a really odd fit with the rest of the show, though, and I’m not sure what tone the ending was trying to strike. Overall, 3.5/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖💀💀 (imagine I can emoji half a robot) Beyond the Aquila Rift, like Sonnie, is wholly competent and also pretty rote. The twist was telegraphed from a mile off, and imo the episode only manages to fill a full 15 minutes because like 3 of those minutes are just sex scenes without much substance. Again, photorealistic animation isn’t my bag, but even that considered the faces were carefully-textured enough that mid-tier animation made it all feel a bit Bioware and got in the way of me empathising with the characters. The story is an absolute off-the-rack sci-fi classic, and there’s no real twist on it - if I’d never seen this story played out before it might have worked, but I have seen approximately 20000000 versions of it and this just wasn’t bringing anything new. I liked the navigator character, when she was in it, and the design was competent, but it just did nothing for me because it all felt deeply generic and so the episode just dragged on with nothing new or exciting. 2.5/5 robots 🤖🤖💀💀💀 Good Hunting is another one where I liked bits of it but felt like it didn’t really go anywhere with its premise. I like the idea of contrasting traditional fantasy tropes with scifi, and I do like to see steampunk that legitimately grapples with the colonial baggage, but it just felt like it didn’t have much room to grow. The mechanical animation was really pretty - I especially liked the scene with the automatic hare - and the story was solidly paced, plus I do like when stories have a go at recontextualising traditional Seductress Monsters, buuuut to be honest it felt like a bit of a letdown. Where it hit, it hit solidly - I liked the throughline about how she felt like she’d become what he had thought her mother was, and the parallels between his experience of working for the British and her experience of sex work for them - but I think the issue for me is that, while I liked Liang and felt like he was well fleshed out, this felt like it should have been Yan’s story and it just wasn’t, really. Also I’m not very clear on what the point of the robotics work was - symbolically it works on some levels but I don’t know if it actually helps along the core theme, although the more time I spend with the idea the more it’s working for me. Still, I think we could have done with cutting the wuxia-ey scene at the beginning in half to make room for a little more meat at the end. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Ugly Dave. It’s fine. Nothing to write home about. The gag is pretty clear from the off, and doesn’t really build up into anything other than the obvious, but the animation is nice, the character design is strong and the jokes are adolescent but well-delivered. 3/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖💀💀 Shape-Shifters. I don’t know how this one was because it bored and annoyed me so much that I skipped to the next episode after 5 minutes. Ugh. Yeah. They’re werewolves and their squad is mean to them even though they’re real good at war. I assume that the only reason this isn’t called Dog Soldiers is because there’s already a film called Dog Soldiers about werewolf squaddies which the target audience of this short film, edgy teenage boys with a hardon for modern military propaganda, already like (side note: I didn’t get to the bit where presumably they eventually transform. but I flicked through a few frames on the tracker bar and they looked like incredibly generic wolves). My guess is that probably at the end they a) save their squad despite being discriminated against or b) the more annoying one gets killed by his own side. probably both. idk, I noped out because it was just wanking off the concept of the modern military and our two protagonists were two obnoxiously macho army men talking about how unfair it was that nobody appreciated how GOOD THEY WERE AT KILLING FOR ‘MURICA mission accomplished etc. Oh, and the animation style was another incredibly uninteresting photo-realistic but video-game animated pile of boring. 0/5 robots, too bored to actually watch it 💀💀💀💀💀

However, luckily just as I was getting Very Bored of Shooty Shooty Bang Bang adolescence, there were a succession of really nice character pieces

Helping Hand was a great small-scope short story. A lot of the episodes are really bombastic but Helping Hand is small and contained and character-driven and I liked it quite a bit. The animation is once again photorealistic, but to be honest that works well for me here because the movements are really believable, there’s a good reason to use animation instead of live actors (because it’s a situation where you’d either need a really expensive shooting setup or to mostly animate it anyway), and I think that the personal struggle would have had a lot less impact if the animation was more stylised. It’s a bit gross but beautfiully paced and tense (and the character’s Irish accent isn’t ear-burningly awful this time!) I will also say that of all of them, this character design feels the least male-gazy and the most like an actual person. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Fish Night was unexpectedly gorgeous! I really don’t rate the animation style of pseudo-cel 3d with heavy lineart, and I was all set to find this episode ugly, but it’s honestly stunning. It feels like some of the best Nobrow comics, I can almost smell litho ink and feel heavy paper. It’s just got such a beautiful artistic sensibility. Storywise it’s a little weak - the characters are solid and the wonder is real but it just doesn’t really go anywhere, and it just sort of ends, it could really have done with a few seconds of closing scene because it felt like it just cut itself off - and I’m not sure it’s anything meatier than a beautiful piece of visual work, but it’s allowed to be that and it does it stunningly! 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Lucky 13 isn’t really up my alley (although Samira Wiley puts in a great performance and I love her) and it’s another one where I sort of think, you know, why is this an animated piece if you’re just going to mocap everyone and set most of the action in cockpits and in a hangar, but it rattles along well and does what it wants to do, which is to be a solid Hero Pilot And Ship story. I just don’t actually want to be watching military dramas, but at least it’s much, MUCH better executed than Shape-Shifters both in terms of animation and storytelling, the characters are likeable, and the pacing is good. 3/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖💀💀 Zima Blue. LOVE LOVE LOVE this story, brought down only by the fact that I, uh, kind of hate the art style? A lot? It’s a matter of personal taste but that angular, geometric, leggy thing does nothing for me, although the environments are really nice. But the actual story is clever, original and a little bit silly in all the ways I like my scifi to be, plus it explores some interesting themes of consciousness and happiness. And the twist in the tail is really nice and fairly unexpected. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Blindspot is dull, dull, dull, desperately dull and generic. We’re back on the adolescent Shooty Boom Boom bullshit, with poorly established stakes that never really get resolved, uninteresting and unpleasant characters, and a completely textbook story. The female character is apparently only there to make brain-itchingly bad Sassy Oneliners and have one scene where she shoots some guys, all of the characters have taken their personalities from the 15 Year Old Boy’s Guide To Being A Cool Rude Badass, the character designs are cluttered and not amazing, and there’s nothing original or exciting happening, it’s just a series of different shaped guns. The ending at least has a strong idea of what it’s doing, and almost works, but it’s dragged down by the fact that it relies on me being sad that these characters have got stomped, and I’m afraid that’s a lot to ask with characters as annoying and unpleasant as these. 1/5 robots 🤖💀💀💀💀 Ice Age. It’s a fun little concept. I’m not sure it really goes anywhere much but it’s quirky and very nicely put together, and it gave me a chuckle. 3/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖💀💀 Alternate Histories feels like something I’d see on Newgrounds in 2004, but slightly polished up and expanded on. Ha ha ha Hitler gets killed in various ways, which was definitely hilarious when I was 12. It’s much more interested in coming up with funny ways Hitler might die than it is in exploring any alternate histories that might result, despite the framing device (and also weirdly seems to imply that Nazi victory would be a good thing in one scenario?). I’ve used the word adolescent a lot here but this one isn’t even really adolescent in its sensibilities, it feels aimed at 10-13 year olds. 2/5 robots 🤖 🤖💀💀💀 The Secret War closes out the series in a way that feels consistent with the overall sense I got from Love, Death and Robots, in that it’s solidly made and not particularly original. But I did like it - the animation is stunning (although I stand by imitation not being the point of animation, it is aiming for realism and it does that almost flawlessly) and it’s surprisingly emotionally engaging. It keeps its focus on the experiences of the soldiers as people rather than on the concept, which is for the best as the concept is pretty generic, and it produces something with a bit of genuine emotional weight and stakes. It’s basically the exact same base story as Suits, even down to a lot of elements of the monster design, but set in a very different place with very different core characters, and as both Suits and Secret War are really character pieces, they make two very different but very strong stories out of it. This one is really hammering the GRITTY button as hard as it can, but it pulls it off, and while it still felt very pointed at teenage boy sensibilities it was a genuinely engaging and immersive story. If Soul Sucker desperately wanted to be the Hellboy comics, Secret War solidly evokes the Hellboy films but certainly isn’t just trying to be something other than what it is. 4/5 robots 🤖🤖🤖🤖💀 Overall thoughts - like all anthology shows tend to be, Love, Death and Robots is very hit and miss. A lot of episodes are really, REALLY rooted in a teenage nerd boy idea of coolness, and it doesn’t have much interest in criticising or examining what that means, but when it manages to get away from that a lot of these short films are fantastic. I will say that like a lot else, it’s dominated by both white male writers and white male protagonists and/or Strong Female Characters, and again, the best episodes tended to be ones that broke that pattern. From the title and trailer, I was worried about it being a lot more sexualised and gratuitous than it ended up being (although it definitely had its ehhhhhh moments), and I was honestly pleasantly surprised that of 18 episodes, only 2 featured rape-revenge plotlines, and none (maybe one?) were about Evil Seductresses, because given the title I had Concerns. However, it is still overwhelmingly white character-wise, which is a shame - I counted 2 episodes with Asian protagonists and 2 more with Black protagonists, which is relatively good, but there were probably only about 10 named/centred characters of colour all told. I dunno. I’d recommend taking a punt on it but I have Criticisms of the show overall. The good episodes are REALLY good though and I will definitely be rewatching 2 or 3 of them.

#apparently I wrote a full review of this #oops #love death and robots #netflix #scifi #review

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tearlessrain · 6 years

Text

okay, I have a spare afternoon and a freshly made batch of guacamole I need to hide from my roommate because I only had one avocado and that is not enough to share. time to ruin it by watching Maximum Ride.

aw sad bird child. okay she looks nothing like the description in the book but she is adorable. why does the old guy look so much like Sad Island Luke.

listen I’m gonna be honest and say I barely remember the plot of the books and have no idea who anyone is. I remember who Ari is and like three of the bird children

why would the nicknames they (if I remember right, see above) gave eachother be on their official forms

oh god down we go into Voiceover Exposition Hell

... that is not a tomboyish fourteen year old girl.

... that is NOT a fourteen year old boy

seriously she looks like liv from izombie

um. did his wings get cut off. why is his back like that. where are her wings. why are they acting like it’s a big secret nobody is watching this who didn’t read the books we’re just here to see mediocre cgi wings. you have one job, movie. don’t screw up your one redeeming quality.

omg small child is adorable. he’s also the best actor by far for some reason. not that the bar was high but like this kid can actually act

why are they like. going out if their way to make max as unlikable as possible. I dislike her almost as much as light turner.

description of iggy I recall reading: pale, light-haired, fine-boned, somewhat calm and serious

description of max I recall reading: dark-haired, relatively sturdy build for a bird child, blunt and outspoken

so why am I seeing literally the exact opposite????

I just really, really hate her she hasn’t displayed a single redeeming quality or resemblance to her book counterpart

fifteen minutes in and still no sign of wings aka the only thing that would make this movie even slightly watchable

“I know you think max doesn’t care, but she does” are you sure about that fang because we’re almost a fifth of the way into the movie of which she’s the titular character and she has yet to display even one single emotion

wait that’s iggy sorry they both have the generic white boy haircut and dress similar

why did they give iggy all of max AND fang’s distinctive/interesting traits

less than one minute later: “you’re wrong to think max doesn’t care, she does” okay so like... you know the part of editing where you go through and look for superfluous lines and remove them? I THINK THEY FORGOT TO DO THAT.

god it’s like listening to a bioware dialogue tree

the only plot this movie has had so far is “nobody can go outside and everyone has to keep quiet” and now you all come pouring out of the house and start yelling the instant something suspicious happens. okay.

WINGS. FINALLY.

it wasn’t even a dramatic reveal though it was literally just schwoop there she goes

oh that’s some hobbit-level cgi oh dear

you know if you don’t have the budget to make decent wings and show them more often you shouldn’t be making a maximum ride movie that’s the only reason anyone is even here. seriously, one job.

oh my god ari I’m dying what did they do to his character design holy shit that’s bad

wHY ARE THESE CHILDREN BETTER ACTORS THAN THEIR OLDER COUNTERPARTS

WHAT IS THIS 80S MUSIC VIDEO OVERLAY EDITING

lasto beth nin, tolo dan nan galad

her face is just slowly rotating closer please stop.

i don’t want it.

what did that accomplish

aaand max continues to be a passenger in her own movie while fang and iggy take all the initiative

such dramatic. very slo mo. wow.

I love how they were so confident in their writing ability that they thought they could made the wings an afterthought

paul ari you is a wirwulf

I’m sorry nobody is going to get that it’s a mystery science theater reference

okay know what we should just rename the movie “Iggy” because he’s literally the only one who’s done anything useful or interesting

omg ari did the Shan Yu Punch out of the ground amazing

okay those wings are in no way sufficient to lift a child. even a child with hollow bones and whatever other bullshit physiology. they aren’t much longer than arms, you don’t even need to worry about being cumbersome when folded because they apparently just vanish magically so why not go for it. seriously, you had ONE JOB.

“stop.” thank you fang that’s just what I was about to say to her. but I think you meant “stop being irrational about this particular thing” whereas I meant “stop talking forever please and thank you”

you do NOT have enough chemistry or nuance for this much dialogue-free face closeup content, movie. when I said stop talking I meant stop the WHOLE scene containing the talking.

you know that “lemon stealing whores” porn intro that became a meme? that’s the quality of acting I’m looking at here. I’m not exaggerating that’s the vibe I get from her.

ah the ol’ “convenient nearby sexual assault” trope, hallmark of a writing team who forgot to give their protagonist a personality or redeeming qualities and are desperately trying to make up for it too late.

here comes fang in all his music video quality cgi slo mo glory to once again render max utterly superfluous

the funny thing is in any other movie I would kind of hate him but the baseline is max so he seems all right

it’s been 40 minutes and like three things have happened

okay I know normally in these liveblogs I’m yelling “show don’t tell” but that only works if what you’re showing has any internal consistency or meaning, if I just wanted to watch a bunch of disjointed scenes sometimes in slow motion I’d watch Koyaanisqatsi because at least they did it well. movie, please stop showing me things.

speaking of internal consistency they keep going wildly off model on the wings, they keep changing size/shape, now they look like they’re made of bendy wire how hard is it to google bird anatomy. YOU HAD. ONE. JOB.

how is she this bad at acting. I’m just looking on in awe now.

oh fang you’re a saint for putting up with her but you should have just left her in the house and taken over the movie

THE DIALOGUE IS SO BAD. “how’s you’re shoulder?” “fine......................................................... seriously, that’s all you’re going to say?” HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING

this is just such a bizarrely disjointed mess

no. no please don’t kiss I don’t want to see it and it definitely didn’t happen in the book

thank god

omg it was iggy, finding yet another way to save the movie

oh stop trying to make her out to be all heroic and shit now, you wasted half the movie making this bed now lie in it and make someone else the protagonist. how about iggy, who has a personality and does things and stopped the unnecessary romance subplot in its tracks. the boy’s a hero.

only 30 minutes to go I can do this

I’m not even mad about the bullshit science because every other component of the movie is somehow even worse

“you were his favorite” FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY SHE HAS NO REDEEMING QUALITIES

actually scratch that SHE HAS NO QUALITIES SHE’S JUST THERE

flashback to the comparatively talented child actors time again

what was the point of that flashback though, you’re just relaying the exact information fang just told everyone with no new contributions. I didn’t say show AND tell ffs.

I don’t even know what to say about ari he’s just generally hilarious

okay we get it the ringing is loud, you have established this into the ground now please stop

okay good nobody’s talking Imma just take my earbuds out until it’s over

finally

and they’re back in their weird, economically inefficient cage arrangement again. oh no.

seriously why are all the children better actors like where did they find these children. moreover where did they find such terrible adults.

here comes woverine’s obnoxious metalhead little brother again

OKAY, WE KNOW IT’S JEB, YOU CAN STOP BUILDING UP TO IT NOW

please stop talking I beg you this is painful

“I brought you to the house so you could develop physically and emotionally” and I assume they brought her back because that part of the experiment was a complete failure

okay listen the pacing and editing in this movie is awful. it’s so slow. they pause for at least three seconds between every single line of dialogue and it feels like they’re doing that because they’re trying to cover for the fact that they have absolutely nothing to say. this conversation could last half as long as it is. and the editing isn’t even interesting it’s just “headshot headshot fullbody distance shot from the side repeat” even if the actors were good this scene would be boring as all fuck.

[monotone exposition]

[more exposition]

[badly emoted emotional response]

there now imagine that repeated several times over and you’ve watched the entire, I shit you not, seven minute scene.

so she walked out of the room calmly and voluntarily right past ari and then we cut to ari aggressively wrestling her back in the economically inefficient cage room

why is he talking like batman

why are they all looking to her for leadership she’s shown zero leadership

MAKE IGGY THE LEADER MAKE IGGY THE LEADER DEPOSE MAX

bit late to establish a new villain with no precedent in your already disjointed movie isn’t it?

p l e a s e stop with these establishing shots

asdfkdgs she punched him in the chest and his head jerked to the side miscommunication

once again that went on longer than it needed to I think we’ve identified this movie’s fatal flaw

one of them

the other is max’s acting

and the ratio of wings to literally anything else

everything that’s occurred in this movie could have happened in thirty minutes tops

running running running

with no indication of how far apart they are or where they’re going of course so there’s absolutely no tension

wha

omg she’s still standing there fucks sake learn pacing

“so what now” “I dunno” LEADERSHIP

oh goodness oh no she has passed out I guess we’ll just have to make Iggy the leader such a shame

you know even in the book I remember liking Iggy a lot. he was a wildly different character from the little I recall but I do know I liked him.

they flashed back to the entire movie sped up and it took less than a minute which I think says a lot about how little happened in this movie

oh no enough romantic tension

S T O P

I was at least expecting a final dramatic group takeoff since they’re a bunch of BIRD PEOPLE standing on the edge of a CLIFF and all, but I guess the cgi budget ran out so we end with the bird children just standing on the ground in a group to dramatic music.

YOU

HAD

ONE

JOB

fuck this I feel cheated but at least it’s over.

#tearless liveblogs #a cautionary tale in budgeting both your time and cgi money wisely #this movie does neither

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bam-monsterhospital · 4 years

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questing in skyrim areas in elderscrolls online is always a bit of a mixed bag for me...

i have no love for the nords in general, don’t often play as part of the ebonheart pact, and as such when questing in skyrim i’m met with a bombardment of ‘oh man nords are the besssttttt’ from npcs and the world - because it’s the nord zone nord-group-alliance area of nordness so of course horns will be tooted. Normally this is whatever, since eso has been surprisingly good at balancing out and digging at the fantasy racism throughout the elderscrolls universe, not disguising the fact that all the human races are terrible towards everyone (especially orcs) and people can just suck. There’s usually no pretentious moral myopia shoved in your face until you’re forced to accept it or quit the game (looking at you bioware). The themes of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and decency and shit are usually nice and grey and open, and i dig that. (EDIT: 2023 Alyson here, I was blind and an idiot, and didn’t see the grotesque racism eso DELIGHTS in detailing while also condoning. The anti-elf racism glorified everywhere. The lazy leaning into racism for altmer and dunmer because ‘oh that’s just what they’re like’ meanwhile the entire map has a festival celebrating elf-genocide. it’s EVERYWHERE)

but boy. mmmmm. i can’t always have what i want, because sometimes the obnoxious boring face of standard-western-fantasy-xtian-coding-ideology just slaps you in the teeth and you’re forced to go along as it drags you through its bullshit.

spoilers for the kynesgrove questline below the cut.

so like. it’s about kyne right? kyne as in a deity worshiped a lot by nords, blah blah blah. In oblivion kyne = nature. in skyrim kyne = the sky, nature, and like... some sort of prime goddess. Way back in eso times kyne = athena. Kyne is just a super jack of all trades deity you pray to for help in war and she also covers the snow and weather patterns of skyrim and whatever.

So i get wrangled in to helping these rando nord npcs because ‘sure i’ll go look for your dumb soldier friends who are praying at this kyne retreat or whatever, even though technically doing so would help your war alliance to the detriment of my own....... but whatever’. You get there, shit hits the fan, there’s daedra worshippers everywhere, the usual. The panicked nords inside one of the cabins are freaking out about ‘oh no the witches!’

witches you say?

I wanna be a witch ouo

well, no eso says bad player, witches = bad, obviously. So you’re forced to bumblefuck your way around this disappearance mystery and whatever until one nord just goes apeshit and gets possessed

you learn the kyne-lovin wardens here are the now-daedra worshippers, and it’s like ‘oh hay cool, you had a faith crisis and then found something that works, good for you’

later. lay-ter dawg. my work is done. byyyeeee.

but of course, no. the nords are all “ohhh man well....... wE JUST GOTTA KILL THEM ALL I GUESS. SINCE Y’KNOW, NOW THEY’RE EVIL WITCHES”

i was so done. you’re tasked to kill the leader who lost her sons in the stupid alliance war (like yeah lady war IS stupid, you’re totes right) and.. your choices....

are “oh let’s fuckin kill everyone! because nord faith! hnngghgh” and “she has a living son right? let’s bring her back to the liiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhttt”

-_- i’m so tired. of light = good. of good=light and alllllll the associations and baggage with it.

meanwhile i just........ want to leave this lady alone? or maybe give her her son to help combat the misery? jfdhksal;fs

Oh btw, being all evil and not a good god-fearing nord turned her into a hagraven. Because of course it did.

i literally reflexively u-turned and started walking away from this bullshit

boooo

booooooooooooo!

and of COURSE she’s super young and meets the standards of straight-male-attraction.

BOOOO

oh! look who gets to live another crazed reactionary day. it’s the terrible possessed nord captain!

just

aughgh. fuk dis quesssst

But alyson, if you hated the quest, why didn’t you just abandon it?

... because i need the experience and monies ;_;

#eso #skyrim #skurrurm #quests #alyson plays videogames

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faejilly · 7 years

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@musanocturnis, @servantofclio, @probablylostrightnow, @forgefaerie, @the-duelling-tophat, @evilsapphyre thank you for all the hearts/hugs/well wishes, ilu <3

SO MANY REPLIES ...

evilsapphyre replied to your post “good morning self, you wanted to start your day with a fraudulent...”

BOO, to the use, but it was good that they caught it super fast

IKR? *YELLS* ... but thanks? *eyeroll* idek

ameliacgormley answered your question “[[MOR] on the one hand I said I would do the thing I want to do the...”

*hugs* I feel ya. Kidlet wants me to chaperone his class field trip and I'm just...cringing because what if it's a bad day for any of the umpteen reasons I have bad days?

EXACTLY

bUT i WANT toO? But I don’t want to. But I SHOULD.

But maybe I can’t? (but what if I could?)

It’s very hard to plan when one’s brain isn’t really talking to one.

*grr*argh*

joomju answered your question “[[MOR] on the one hand I said I would do the thing I want to do the...”

Cab? Can someone else drive? There are times where I just say "f this" and pay through the nose to do the thing. Worth it.

well, the cab’d be over $100? and I have failed entirely at meeting anyone lately, which is actually a really good reason TO GO ... and yet

*sighs*

syzara answered your question “[[MOR] on the one hand I said I would do the thing I want to do the...”

Ugh. I hope you can soothe the anxiety gremlin enough soon so you can brain more usefully <3 (does that make sense? to me it does)

that absolutely makes sense! and same here. and thank you. <3

jadesabre301 replied to your post “So I’m giving up on the to do list of doom for awhile And taking a...”

why is she upset with the show? (yessssssssssssssssss ticking off CC)

evilsapphyre replied to your post “So I’m giving up on the to do list of doom for awhile And taking a...”

I watched the first season but I just couldn't go for a second. (Even though I adored Magnus. <3)

lafemmedarla replied to your post “So I’m giving up on the to do list of doom for awhile And taking a...”

Baths are yay! And CC is mad about the show's success?! Go show go.

I have lost track of all my links, but apparently yes, she doesn’t get much extra from it doing well, and she has absolutely No Input, and their attempts to be Not As Racist and Homophobic as the source material have from all accounts been effective and also made some subset of fans recognize some of the gross shit CC does?

‘Cause I didn’t watch it when it first came out, because FU CC. But if it makes her feel bad I’m all for it.

Also the cast is just so precious. (Especially Magnus. And Izzy. I may add to this list as I get further along. Though, if I didn’t already know what was going to happen in Simon at some point here in S1, I’d be a little annoyed at the S2 banner that gives it away? I mean, I get WHY but it’s kinda giggle-snort-obnoxious at the same time.)

ameliacgormley replied to your photoset “alexanderbanes: magnus bane + waistcoats”

YES WATCH IT!!! WATCH IT AND GUSH WITH ME! (okay parts of it are bad in the beginning but a lot of it gets better, and Magnus and Malec are the source of all things wonderful and good in this world and you need it in your life!!!)

I AM HAVING A LOVELY TIME, THANK YOU FOR THE ENABLING/ENCOURAGEMENT YKWIM

shadoedseptmbr replied to your post “in other exciting gods this is such a fucking monday news I offered to...”

***many hugs*** to be honest both my kids have a huge fear of those Dyson dryers that...move your skin around? Nightmares for both of them the first time and I know my daughter is just like No, I have hand sanitizer in my pocket

I used to do that? I have gotten out of the habit I should get back into it, it is a lot easier on everyone

jessaknits replied to your post “in other exciting gods this is such a fucking monday news I offered to...”

Ooof, I feel you with this day. Also re: children and noise yesterday we sat in the back row of the airplane and kiddo CRIED every time someone flushed the toilet for like, the first hour. Because it was a horrible sound, honestly.

UGH. SYMPATHIES. That sounds like The Actual Worst *hugs*

shadoedseptmbr replied to your post “30 for Maia please! (I think you didn't get that one yet?) <3”

Leah totally sympathizes with Lucy

*angry Ryder fist-bump*

elfyourmother replied to your photoset “New Dollmaker = Hello there, Hawkes. <3”

i'm seriously playing with this one now, haha. I love the updated rococo maker! (good lord do I love Theia's gown lmao I want it for myself)

ISN’T IT GREAT? Gosh, I love new dollmakers :D (I LOVE YOURS TOO. I am making those my fault. AH MARI <3)

argei replied to your photoset “New Dollmaker = Hello there, Hawkes. <3”

if only Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts was like this!

I KNOW, RIGHT? WE NEED SOME BALLGOWN FANCINESS TYVM BIOWARE.

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speaking-impartially · 7 years

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Mass Effect: Andromeda is trying to play with emotions I don't have yet.

So I finished Andromeda over the weekend, and I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I thought I was going to. Though it took a bit to get going, it presented a compelling story and some very likeable characters, and it was extremely respectful of the original trilogy without being obnoxious (god, look at me talking about Mass Effect like I'm a Star Wars fan.) However, there was one bit in particular that's been niggling at me as to why I found it so bothersome, and I think I finally figured it out. So we knew from the outset that Ryder was going to get his/her/xir own ship, as said ship had been all over the marketing material well in advance of the game's release. In game, you bumble around a little bit on the Nexus and then get handed the keys when the plot demands that you start doing stuff on planets. Step outside and boop, there's the Tempest, let's go have space adventures. Accompanying the appearance of the Tempest is a piece of music highly reminiscent of The Normandy Reborn from Mass Effect 2, to underscore the excitement and drama of the scene. Woo, here's your ship! It's awesome! Go save the galaxy, or at least a little corner of it! Here's my problem with that scene: the Tempest hasn't earned that music. Let's step back and think about the context of The Normandy Reborn, which, full disclosure, is probably my absolute favorite piece of music from the original trilogy. It too complements the dramatic appearance of the ship with which we are to continue our journey, but there's so much more going on emotionally, which makes the triumphant soundtrack far more appropriate. The Normandy SR-1 never got a dramatic introduction. Shepard starts Mass Effect aboard her, and even when he/she/it takes command later in the game, the focus is still on the mission to find Saren and on the gravity of the commander's recent ascension to Spectrehood. The Normandy is just kind of there as a necessity - you have to get around somehow. However, by the end of the game, after all of the space adventures are said and done, the player has developed a bond with the ship. The Normandy is just as much a part of the crew as any of the other major characters, and has probably saved their ass just as much. She's the last thing the player sees in Mass Effect The First, heading off into the stars to continue the journey. Then we head into Mass Effect 2. You get the opening logos, the intro crawl, and then bam, it's the Normandy again! How exciting to see the ship that became so important to you over the course of your last adventure! Can't wait to pick up the story and go- Oh. Oh GOD. OH MY GOD NO. So, after one of the biggest "oh, shit" moments in gaming, Shepard wakes up two years later, surrounded by strangers and apparently working with an organization he/she/zi had previously associated with some pretty shady nonsense. In addition, there are roving bands of Collectors up to no good that need to be dealt with. Everything is weird and uncomfortable, especially since the old crew isn't around anymore either. The Illusive Man basically just kicks you out the door with a couple of leads on new team members, but at least he's found a pilot you might like. The buildup to the introduction of the SR-2 is beautifully choreographed - it was the point at which I think it became clear how cinematic this game was going to be compared to its predecessor. There's the walk with Joker where you briefly catch up on the last two years, with the music building in the background all the while. The old Normandy theme starts to emerge in the string section, and then: "They only told me last night." The music swells. It's your ship again, back from the dead, just like Shepard, reinforcing the strong connection between them (and the player, by proxy.) You are truly back in business and ready to save the galaxy once more. Now let's jump back to Andromeda. The Tempest arrives with much the same fanfare, but while the music is telling me to be excited and emotional about it, my brain is telling me otherwise. I don't know this ship. I don't have a history with it yet or any kind of emotional connection. While I definitely grew to have a certain amount of affection for the Tempest by the end of the game, I wasn't anywhere close to where the music wanted me to be during her introduction. Because of this, the music feels like nothing more than a cheap, pandery throwback to a very emotional scene from the first trilogy, and just ends up falling kind of flat. I don't have those feels yet, so how can they be invoked? Callbacks are all well and good, and there are plenty of great ones later in the game, but they shouldn't distract me from experiencing the new story. Also, Bioware, don't think I didn't notice that the level up sound is Vigil. That's a fucking cheap shot right there - I'm on to you.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect andromeda #the Normandy #sr-1 #sr-2 #the Tempest #video games #music #soundtracks

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overthinkingfeathers · 7 years

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I finished MEA! Well, 97% complete, with a few unfinished “additional task” side quests and at least one bugged out quest that I never got, but still. I’ll finish the additional side quests at some point. RIP bugged out quest, presumably always barring me from 100%.

Anyway, random thoughts below. Spoilers of all kinds.

-I’m going to need to replay the last major mission at some point, because I cannot figure out exactly when or how the Archon got off the Hyperion or why exactly it crashed. I assume it was explained, but I missed it.

-On a related note, I’m amused that Ryder yelled out in the middle of battle that since the human ark crashed onto the planet, it was their planet now. I’m even more amused that everyone agreed. I’m not really sure that’s how typical planetary negotiations work. “Well, the bad guy stole our ship and crashed it on the best planet here, so dibs!”

-The kett need to look less similar. I get that they’re all basically literal clones, but the scowling survivor kett at the end was just confusing to me. Didn’t I already kill that guy? Did the game bug out and think I didn’t, or is this a new one? Is the guy I killed a couple missions ago not the second in command? I have no idea what’s happening here. Can we get them badges or something?

-God this game was buggy though. I still loved it, but it was not ready for release.

-Also, the space driving thing is excruciating after the first few planets. I get it, space is pretty, but I spent literally an hour just scanning a few galaxies. Do I get anything for it? Probably not. Does Mass Effect have a history of tying future game scenarios to little things you did in previous games? Yep.

-Ryder’s heart literally stopped on at least two occasions with Liam (her romance) in tow, and he did not react. Like, I get that the first one was planned and thus only a little bit of concern was strictly helpful, but come on, the second one was a much bigger deal. There was no warning she was going to go down, let alone that hard. It was just a bit jarring to have her trying to stagger across a room while the two companions, one of whom was her love interest, just... stood there. I have no problem with the stagger walk scene, and I know they love it in the latest Bioware games, but it only works when there’s no companions around. Otherwise they just stand there looking silly.

-Speaking of romances, man, they really played favorites, didn’t they? Like, don’t get me wrong, Liam’s romance was cute - the final scene in front of the crowd was adorable - and I really appreciated how many chances he gave Ryder to make decisions and not feel weird about it (”Things get weird on a ship sometimes”/casual dates/”It’s fine if it’s just we used to flirt”). But I looked up the rest because they kept pushing the sex! in! space! thing before release, and his scenes were all fade to black (and so were Vetra’s, who boyfriend romanced), and uh. Wow. There’s some disparities, hey? Cora, Peebee, and Jaal are just straight up porn, and everyone else is some variation of fade to black. I don’t even mind fade to black, but the obvious time and effort put into 3 out of... what, 8? 9? is kind of obnoxious.

-I’m still totally going to romance Reyes next playthrough, because of course, but the sex implied scene right outside the cave where he just had his crime lord opponent murdered is a bit concerning. I know you’ve got to have your kinks, but I’m shaming a bit here.

-Really though, the scene implied scenes in a couple different romances were a bit concerning. Y’all are going to go at it on a mountain/in the desert (not that far from the outpost!)/against a cave wall? In your space armor? I know it’s fantasy, and we’re not really able to do any of this, but sex with the space armor (and sand) is apparently my line for suspension of disbelief.

-They desperately want me to love Jaal, but I do not. He puts my teeth on edge for some reason. The codex describes him as Ryder’s best friend. Sigh.

-So the Quarian ark DLC is all but confirmed, right? They didn’t even try to be subtle about that.

-Also, I’m glad Ryder thinks that their entire former galaxy is probably dead and never gets to talk about that to anyone at all. Also never brings up their mother’s surprise cryo thing to literally anyone, including the doctors on board. That doesn’t seem relevant.

-Also totally going to be a benefactor DLC.

-Also also, they are so fucked. Nevermind the kett, who there’s undoubtedly going to be more of, but the whole other races so advanced that they’re creating/destroying entire planets? Beyond our comprehension.

-I’m complaining a lot here, but I enjoyed the game. I’ll totally replay it. I just hope they fix some of the issues soon.

#MEA spoilers #ME:A #Spoilers for the ending #and romances #Talk of sex

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masscni-blog · 7 years

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I didn’t think I was going to be able to actually motivate myself to get my ass up and go on my run with ME:A at my fingertips, but apparently fate wasn’t having any of that and knocked out my internet right at my appointed time. Anyway, back now, and here’s some spoiler-free but still hidden impressions of the game so far, from the half hour I managed to play before getting the boot:

The CC is a little...lacking for my tastes. Thankfully, I think both default Scott and Sarah are hella cute, so I’m sticking with my usual Mass Effect formula of going with the default appearance, because all the customizable non-defaults look like potatoes. Sad you can’t adjust the default models at all, but again, that’s not a change from the old trilogy, so nbd.

My God it is so nice to have a protag with facial features that actually move and express emotions. Goodbye perpetual blank, thousand-yard stare. The voice acting is also a big step up, at least from Mark Meer to Scott Ryder.

Liam and Cora look and sound amazing.

The tone-based conversation system is really working for me. It’s like a refined version of the one from DA2, which was my favorite version in any Bioware game. I don’t feel compelled to choose a conversation option to earn points I’ll need to make a persuade check later in the game - I’m just picking what I feel like Ryder would say in that situation given the personality I’ve decided on for him. It’s very freeing.

The jetpack is so much fun.

My compulsive need to scan everything is warring with my desire to take in all the scenery. Mildly obnoxious, but I’m sure I’ll get over it once I have a sense for what items are scannable on sight, rather than having to have the scanner open all the time for fear of missing something.

Combat is mildly overwhelming at present, but I can tell it will feel pretty satisfying once I get used to it.

That’s about it for now.

#;; OOC #mass effect andromeda spoilers #not really but I want the blacklisters to have something to work with

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farfromdaylight · 7 years

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andromeda talk! i'm about 13 hours in at this point. this will be somewhat scattered as i've been playing most of the day and haven't... made much in the way of posts.

spent most of the day on eos, completing pretty much every quest i could; i still have some left to do there but from what i can tell they're either collection quests or behind the too-hazardous field. i guess i have to wait for the atmosphere to clear up. definitely an interesting mechanic, all told.

the whole vault thing was.... IT WAS A LOT, GOTTA ADMIT. honestly it really reminded me of halo? mass effect has always had some pretty obvious parallels to halo, but that whole area looked like it could have come out of a halo game, complete with gravlifts (although no lightbridges, lmao). i'm not honestly sure what happened at the end there??? but it was a very intense sequence. fighting the remnant reminds me of fighting the forerunners, a bit, although it's also clearly a callback to fighting the geth in me1.

i really feel like mea is, in general, bioware's attempt to combine all of me1-3 into one game, with the most heavy inspiration drawn from me1. which is not a bad thing, honestly; i try not to pick a favorite from the trilogy because they all have their flaws, but me1 is a very, very solid game. having planet exploration be improved and expanded is absolutely a good thing.

anyway, i've just reached aya and recruited jaal into the party, and honestly i was really, really underwhelmed by that entire sequence. the thing that bothers me the most is the language aspect. i was REALLY happy with how the kett were handled at the beginning of the game; it was really neat to land in a new galaxy and meet hostile aliens and be fighting enemies marked as "unknown" because you cannot understand the language.

in contrast the angara were handled very clumsily; within moments the universal translator kicked in (itself a cheap plot device) and they could all understand each other. but more than that, the angara knew who ryder was and where she came from and what the pathfinder was and ????? ??? ????? what the fuck? I HAVE NEVER MET YOUR SPECIES BEFORE, WHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS INFORMATION? i could buy it if they said something about idk meeting some of the exiles from the mutiny, or picking up from comms, BUT NOTHING. LITERALLY NOTHING.

swing and a miss, bioware.

anyway jaal seems cool and i'm looking forward to getting to know a brand new alien. actually let's dive into character talk under the cut because this is of course getting long

dreck! i love dreck. i love all krogans though so i'm biased. (well ok there was that one guy in me2 or 3 or w/e but in general, i love krogans.) from a design standpoint, i don't super love his color scheme? wrex and grunt had really bold, interesting color schemes that really worked; dreck doesn't and instead looks a bit drab. i'll get used to it, i'm sure, but eh.

also apparently he's an infiltrator so i'll never get to use him :'( (i play infiltrator)

i am in love with vetra and i'm so glad she's bi because i'm gonna smooch her

i have mixed feelings on cora, mostly because she feels like miranda 2.0 and i don't think it's handled well. also it's fucking bullshit that she's straight. i have never seen a more lesbian haircut in my life. (i'm joking, but seriously, she's not straight.)

i really don't like peebee. she feels like liara 2.0 but in a really bad way, like all of liara's bad qualities and none of the good ones (and perhaps a bit of tali, as well). i found her really obnoxious down on eos and her behavior on the ship has not endeared her to me. sigh.

I REALLY LIKE LIAM. LIAM IS MY DUDE. actually i'm kinda torn on whether to smooch liam or vetra because i def like both of them. liam has been cool since the start of the game.

other crewmates... a bit unsure about suvi, mostly because the religion stuff kinda came out of left field to me (and also because i know how mass effect games work and gods don't come into them). she seems perfectly nice though and i did apologize to her for being somewhat abrupt about her opinions.

i like kallo! i'm glad there's a salarian on board and it's neat he helped build the ship.

I'M PRETTY UNSURE ABOUT SAM. at times ryder and sam feel like a partnership, and at times not. again, i know how mass effect games work. THIS CAN'T END WELL.

of course i say that and i'm someone who fucking prefers synthesis so the fucking joke's on me

don't have much to say about the other crew as of yet, need more time with them.

only other thing to comment on i think is that i briefly spoke to my comatose brother via sam (CREEPY) and totally told him dad was dead but then lied and said that home was great, so that tells you exactly what kind of ryder i'm playing : ' )

#mea liveblog #mea spoilers

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