MegaSovereign wrote...
SpamBot2000 wrote...
MegaSovereign wrote...
You can't pull that card when you've been trying to convince me that Bioware had the clear intent of suicide promotion. Yes, it's an interpretation..that's the point. That doesn't mean that Bioware intended for you to draw, IMO, a ridiculous conclusion.
It seems that BioWare didn't know/care what conclusion anyone would draw. And I haven't been trying to convince you of their intent, clear or otherwise. I was trying to convince you that it is possible to see it in those terms, based on what there is present in the work. And I think I made a decent case.
You have to do some serious mental gymnastics to come to the conclusion that the ending is trying to break the fourth wall and is deliberately promoting suicide.
Lack of narrative cohesion and thematic contradictions are actual issues. An ending that might be open enough for people to draw different conclusions about the meaning of life is not.
Sacrifice is a problem when your trying to protray it. Everyone understands taking a bullet in a buddy cop movie. Or jumping on a grenade in a Trench warfare WWI movie. They might not neccessarily agree with what they did in a, 'I couldn't do that' way, but the context of why the character on screen did it is there.
So what about a video game? Is this level of sacrifice something you can do? Not in ME3's ending sacrifice because in certain ending's Shepard was being portreyed as Space Jesus. But let's come back that later. Right now, the notion of sacrifice in games.
We've had to sacrifice in games before. Kaiden or Ashley. The ME2 crew vs readyness/loyalty mission/losing a squad member permanently. These sacrifice's are one's that rip something that was there away from the player. The player however goes on. So while a sacrifice, it's not a personel sacrifice.
Shepard's sacrifice, or not depending on choice, but let's assume you jumped in the beam. This sacrifice where Shep dies for a better tomorrow for all is reminescent of a biblical execution whereby one man dies for the sake of all. Yet ME3 treated it so hamfistedly that the actual sacrifice is outweighed by something of much more relevance to the player.
The player has effectively lost control. No more Shepard mean's no more Avatar of our making to take action in the in game universe on our behalf. Now this was, at the time, not a sacrifice the player was willing to make. Shepard sacrificed him/herself, but the player, at that point, was not willing to sacrifice their involvement of the game that came to such an abrupt end. BW themselves are partly to blame on account that their previous entries of ME and DA have had great endings that allowed the player, at the very least, 'the possibility' to continue on through playing the game in an interactive fashion once the main game had hit it's end point. DA:O is, quite possibly, the best of BW endings, with ME2 and 1 vying for second place.
Then we come to the logic used to promote the synthesis sacrifice. The Cat attempts to argue that synthesis will lead to some form of Utopia where synth's and Org's can undersand each other and this will lead to peace. But Org's understand other Orgs and they still fight. And Synth's understand other Synth's and the Geth had an internal conflict as well. It is therefore not impossible, and highly likely that Synth'd lifeform's will, at some point, go to war over some reason, be it politcal, resource based, old grudges, etc. Unless, Synthesis did something to all lifeforms, making them slave's to an indoctrinated mind set that make's conflict impossible, but ultimately robs synth'd life of free will in some form.
So when making a sacrifice in game as a developer, you need to remember these things.
- Will the player accept that a sacrifice is neccessary? I.e. has the player been conditioned through the gameplay and narrative to accept this is a viable option?
- Will the player accept the 'level' of sacrifice needed to achieve the desired effect?......(ok, hands up who 'tried' to embrace eternity with Morinth?
- Is the rationale for making the sacrifice one that stands up to scrutiny given the time, circumstances and logic used to promote sacrifice as being the prefered, or rather, only option?
- Who is the intended benefactor of the sacrifice, and how to best show the effect the sacrifice has on involved characters? I.e. Do glowing green eye's and circuit board skin cut it?
Maybe the best way for BW to view the concept of sacrifice from a development perspective, and for player's to enjoy as part of a gaming experience, is not to rip thing's from them, but rather, to allow them to discover that they have to make choice about what to let go in a matter of fact manner. The Kaiden/Ashley choice about who to sacrifice illustrate's this perfectly, to the point here gamer's have had to turn off the game and think about it for the rest of the day. (I alway's go back to the bomb, regardless of whose guarding it. After all, without the bomb the mission fails, so being mission focused I protect the mission asset).
Thinking about sacrifice to much lead's to indecision or rejection of the choices in favour of searching for others, and in a decision based game that offer's very real, yet at the same time, illusionary choice, that's bad.
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