Stanley Woo wrote...
Let's tone down the Mac hate, please, or at least make it more constructive. it'd be much appreciated. Thank you.
I certainly don't hate Mac - for the most part, I try not to hate anyone - but on the whole I do not like his comic-writing. I hear a lot of enthusiasm for his comic in this podcast, which is great for him (I appreciate positivity), but I do not hear any awareness of the criticisms that fans have made of previous ME comics. Isn't Mac interested to know what we'd like to see more of and what we don't want to see again? Or is he just so confident that we'll buy anything to do with Mass Effect that any points we could make about previous comics don't matter to him?
I mean, of course, as a writer Mac has a certain story he wants to write - and I expect he'll write that regardless. A writer does have to stay true to a certain inner vision - to what they can offer creatively that no one else can. But as fans of the Mass Effect universe, we can give some feedback on the methods he has used for dialogue and narrative in previous comics - we can tell him what we think worked and what didn't.
I did not like the way Liara was written in Redemption. I'm a fan of the character in general, but I felt that in the comic she was portrayed in a very shallow manner: as a stereotypical ass-kicking superbabe in spandex. I didn't feel that her personality or approach to life from Mass Effect 1 really saw much light at all. (Of course she was in different circumstances, and devastated after the death of Shepard: but surely those are grounds for deepening a character and showing further complexity, not to making the character more shallow?) I found the dialogue cringeworthy more often than not, and felt very little in terms of real danger or drama. Comics as an art form can be a medium for amazing things. In this case, the use of the medium fell short. (Just to balance things out a bit: I did like Feron and thought he was written comparatively well.)
I also did not like the PS3 comic, Genesis. It's interesting that Mac talks about the choices that the comic gives you, mentioning *specifically* the impact of death-related choices. I can only imagine he's talking about the rachni when he says that if you let such-and-such die then you won't have an ally later on (ME3?). I mean, it seems to us so far that saving or killing Wrex makes no difference because he's simply replaced by his brother if dead - and Ashley and Kaidan's behaviour on Horizon was mostly identical, so I doubt he's referring to the implications of choosing one or the other of the Alliance marines. Anyway, getting back to the comic in general, I was very disappointed by the portrayal of some characters, particularly Kaidan ("a good kid" who is years older than Shepard - really?), Liara (a blushing caricature of herself), and Tali (who was described in a very patronising manner). It hurts me when Bioware goes to such lengths to make me adore those characters in ME1 and then seems to have little regard for portraying them consistently in the comic. (Again, just to balance out my criticism here, one thing I thought the comic did very well was flow. Considering how much was left out - two whole quest hubs in Therum and Feros, not to mention all side-quests - it could have come across as very choppy. Indeed, I think some things should not have been left out - for instance, the geth got no mention at all. But, taking this into account, each event flowed quite smoothly from one to the next. I think this could still have been achieved if a few more crucial details had been included, though, and if the above-mentioned characters had been portrayed better.)
Until I get the sense that Mac is interested in upping his game, a few minutes of enthusiastic description of an upcoming comic simply isn't going to make me buy it. I have no grounds for believing that Evolution is going to be any better than Redemption (won't compare it to the PS3 comic, because it's not like vs. like) because Mac doesn't say anything about trying to make it better. Perhaps it will be, however, because - if I understand correctly - the Illusive Man is Mac's own character. He can't write him inconsistently if he's always written him, right? Anyway, that's my sole basis for hope.
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On the topic of Ashley and Kaidan, I have been waiting mostly-patiently. But, like many fans, I'm finding my patience starting to crack. I'd already waited for their role in ME2 since ME1, and that was tiny and traumatic. Fans of these characters (and, contrary to what some posters say, there are a lot of us) are now almost completely starved of content. This is what makes us come across as desperate and, dare I say it, over-sensitive. We know that, if Bioware intends to do something big with these characters, they're not going to tell us yet. There simply aren't going to be any big DLC releases so soon to the PS3 release - and maybe Ashley and Kaidan won't even get their big return until ME3. We understand this. But it would be so much easier for us to bear the wait if we got even the slightest sense that our characters were being treated fairly compared to other characters in comparable roles/situations. Every LI character but Ash/Kai got a mention from Kasumi. Every LI character but Ash/Kai could be cited as Shepard's reason for fighting in LotSB (instead, their only mention is to be condemned by Liara - they only come up in a negative context). The PS3 comic pushes Liara into the LI role, with Ash/Kai left in the background. Every single one of these could have been handled differently. If they had been, we wouldn't be so unhappy. We would have taken our little morsels and been satisfied for another few months. But the lack of level ground is so obvious that it makes us feel as if we have no grounds for hope that Bioware will do anything good with the characters that
they made us love. (Come on, Bioware. You created these characters. You showed us how awesome they are. Why be surprised that they have lots of fans who eagerly await their next appearance?) All we can do is keep waiting, fanning our increasingly tiny embers of optimism. This is why we watch for any new Bioware announcement. This is why we are so disappointed when we keep seeing nothing.
Modifié par Estelindis, 21 janvier 2011 - 08:49 .
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