865 réponses à ce sujet

[Erez Kristal]

The normandy evac is a and more painful plot hole, it also completly destroy the pace of the scene.
You are running for the beam with all your might. all of a sudden a mako fly by and injure your faithful robot.
Which for you is replaceable since her mind is in the ship!
you ask harby for a time out. the normadny leaves the battle in a few secs. even though no ship was even suppose to get that far to the beam in the first place.
it doesnt give cover fire to all the dying marines.

Harby tell shep dont worry friend. take your time to tell your robot goodbye. shepard stands there for a minute sends off his teams mates who have healthy marines on board who could help.
the normandy fly past harby and waves shepard goodbye.
Shepard runs at the beam!

You cant compare that thing to crate boy you just cant...

Modifié par erezike, 26 juin 2013 - 05:04 .

[Thore2k10]

story >> gameplay... thats why things like baldurs gate and similar games from 15 years ago are still fun to play and thats why i dont care about achievements and a new weapon as a preorder "extra"... -.-

i gave up my hope right after extended cut came out... imho they simply seemed not to care, were happy to have sold so many units and wanted to be done with it... thats what their whole pr communication felt like

im just listening to the music which started to play when you opened the starmap in me 1 and remember those good times... to me me1 has still one of the best endings i have ever seen in a game ironically

[CaptainZaysh]

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

And yet still accurate, otherwise you would have refuted my points. The whole basis of criticism is established on rules in literature writers must abide by,

Erm, no it isn't.  There are no rules of literature that writers must abide by in order to be considered objectively "good" or "bad".

To use one of your stated examples: the presence of the deus ex machina plot device.  Even accepting that the catalyst represents DEM (which I would argue against – more correctly it's diabolus ex machina), its presence at the end of a story does not make that story objectively bad.  (Consider the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Bourne Endeavor wrote...
although creative leeway does exist with some.

Yes, we subjectively interpret whether a story that conforms to or flouts literary convention is good or bad.

It is fine to dislike ME3's (or Raiders of the Lost Ark's) ending.  It is fine to say that one of the reasons you dislike it is because to your mind it invokes deus ex machina.  That's a valid criticism and a valid position, and it invites further discussion.

Saying that a piece of fiction is objectively bad because you didn't like the literary device used to close it is, well, it's what I told you it was originally.

[Iakus]

Armass81 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...
And I have little doubt had the ending been good, we would let much of this go.

This is really all I'm saying here. There's plenty to complain about in each game if you have the desire to do so. Because of the ending, many fans found the desire to do so.

And ive been saying it too. Give them a decent ending and they forget the rest.

I think this worries me, do people really want decent, coherent and deep stories or do they accept any clown act as long as it has lots of fanservice and a happy ending(Citadel dlc)?

How about a decent, coherent, and deep story with a little humor, a small amount of fanservice, and the option for a happy ending?

Forcing Shepard to sell his soul to the Catalyst then burning for it is not "deep" in my book.

Modifié par iakus, 26 juin 2013 - 05:16 .

[Bourne Endeavor]

angol fear wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

Why it is objectivity is because the basis for my criticism is not emotion, but through the use of literacy tools at our disposal.

That's absurd, pompous and narcissistic.  Also, "literacy" doesn't mean what you think it means.

And yet still accurate, otherwise you would have refuted my points. The whole basis of criticism is established on rules in literature writers must abide by, although some creative leeway does exist with some. And yes, I meant "literary." My mistake.

That's ridiculous! You want to give lessons of criticism when you don't know what professional criticism is. You actually don't have real method, you just repeat what every hater say. There is no analysis in what you said. Saying that the crucible is a bad idea, that the catalyst is a deus ex etc... doesn't make you a critic. You did nothing except superficial reading (what is done by almost everyone on this forum).  People may not see the difference between amateur and professional critic but it's very easy : every critic has a theory of literature and your is the mainstream one ( you're not talking about Literature!).
Saying that writers have to obey rules (established by you and other that share the same feeling, that have the same bad habits of reading) just show that you don't know anything about writing and critic.

I do no such thing, and am only referring to what already exists. Are you saying plot holes, Deus ex Machina and etc are not inherently negative attributes in a story and not widely criticised? If not, then those are established rules of literature and not my own invention. What separates my claims here is I have not gone into lengthy detail in this thread, at least regarding ME3's ending, but that does not render my criticism inaccurate or invalid. I have done so already in the past, on this very forum, and simply do not feel the need to go into that much detail now, as whatever I say has already been said.

Your conclusion is rather presumptuous, since I am a writer and have a good grasp of it. I only lack fame, which is what your rebuttal seems to hinge on. My criticism of ME3 is somehow less valid because I am not a "professional critic" despite my analysis both past and present reaching the same conclusions, in some cases well before those professionals have.

Incidentally, I find it amusing you call me a critic as I never actually addressed myself as one, but am merely a schmuck being critical by using facts. You inferred the rest and so far have still not refuted my argument, attacking me instead.

Modifié par Bourne Endeavor, 26 juin 2013 - 05:45 .

[Reorte]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

And yet still accurate, otherwise you would have refuted my points. The whole basis of criticism is established on rules in literature writers must abide by,

Erm, no it isn't.  There are no rules of literature that writers must abide by in order to be considered objectively "good" or "bad".

To use one of your stated examples: the presence of the deus ex machina plot device.  Even accepting that the catalyst represents DEM (which I would argue against – more correctly it's diabolus ex machina), its presence at the end of a story does not make that story objectively bad.  (Consider the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark).

IIRC there were some references to worrying about what happens when the Ark was opened but yes, I would say that was a flaw in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's just not one most people worry about too much because they enjoyed the whole thing. The DEM is still objectively bad but the scale of it and its overall impact on everything else just happened to be less in that case (and it doesn't run contrary to what we think the Ark can do; it's more of a McGuffin if you've already accepted supernatural powers are possible within the story).

These things are rules that need to be followed for objectively good writing, like it or not. All you can definitely say is that it is impossible to say that doing X will always ruin a story. The combination of good and bad, where they happen, as well as a whole bunch of other things that are far more subjective (you can write a story where everything is completely consistent, rational, makes perfect sense, everyone is consistent within their character but it's still bad if it's utterly dull) end up determing what the final result is like.

In general the more people are entertained the more crap you can get away with, which is mostly why comedies don't get held to the same standards of making sense. If you're aiming for serious and thoughtful you need to be a lot more careful not to make the mistakes which are unarguably mistakes because those are the details most of the audience will be relying on to get something out of your work. You cannot ask an audience to think then complain when they don't stick to only thinking about the things you wanted them to.

[Bourne Endeavor]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

And yet still accurate, otherwise you would have refuted my points. The whole basis of criticism is established on rules in literature writers must abide by,

Erm, no it isn't.  There are no rules of literature that writers must abide by in order to be considered objectively "good" or "bad".

To use one of your stated examples: the presence of the deus ex machina plot device.  Even accepting that the catalyst represents DEM (which I would argue against – more correctly it's diabolus ex machina), its presence at the end of a story does not make that story objectively bad.  (Consider the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Bourne Endeavor wrote...
although creative leeway does exist with some.

Yes, we subjectively interpret whether a story that conforms to or flouts literary convention is good or bad.

It is fine to dislike ME3's (or Raiders of the Lost Ark's) ending.  It is fine to say that one of the reasons you dislike it is because to your mind it invokes deus ex machina.  That's a valid criticism and a valid position, and it invites further discussion.

Saying that a piece of fiction is objectively bad because you didn't like the literary device used to close it is, well, it's what I told you it was originally.

No, what makes it objectively bad is the innumerable errors in storytelling that accumulate over a twenty minute period. Deus/Diabolus ex Machina (both could be argued) were merely one. By your assessment all writing is subjective and therefore we cannot conclude any is bad on an objective standpoint. If so, then say, Twilight cannot be considered an abomination of writing despite its numerous flaws because a good portion of the cinema population happens to adore it.

[CaptainZaysh]

Reorte wrote...

IIRC there were some references to worrying about what happens when the Ark was opened but yes, I would say that was a flaw in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That's fine as a subjective opinion.  You're going to lose me if you...

Reorte wrote...
The DEM is still objectively bad

Oh dear.  I suppose anybody who thinks the ending of Raiders is "good" and that deus ex machina is fitting considering the subject matter is just objectively wrong, then.  If only all of our interpretations could be as valuable as yours.

Reorte wrote...
These things are rules that need to be followed for objectively good writing, like it or not.

Says who?

[CaptainZaysh]

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

No, what makes it objectively bad is the innumerable errors in storytelling that accumulate over a twenty minute period. Deus/Diabolus ex Machina (both could be argued) were merely one. By your assessment all writing is subjective and therefore we cannot conclude any is bad on an objective standpoint.

Correct.  Assessing whether a piece of art is "good" or "bad" is an inherently subjective exercise.

Bourne Endeavor wrote...
If so, then say, Twilight cannot be considered an abomination of writing despite its numerous flaws because a good portion of the cinema population happens to adore it.

Your personal opinion about Twilight is fine.  It's when you start presenting your opinion as the objectively correct one that you start to come across as a little strident.

[PMC65]

erezike wrote...

And no one can really take proffesional site such as ign and gamespot seriously. There is too much politics involved. between those sites and major publishers
A lot of times they dont ever finish the game before reviewing it.
And a sequel like m3 should be played by someone who played me1 and me2 in order to have a an established

http://www.forbes.co...-off-the-rails/

Interesting read ... thanks for posting.

[Reorte]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Reorte wrote...

IIRC there were some references to worrying about what happens when the Ark was opened but yes, I would say that was a flaw in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That's fine as a subjective opinion.  You're going to lose me if you...

Reorte wrote...
The DEM is still objectively bad

Oh dear.  I suppose anybody who thinks the ending of Raiders is "good" and that deus ex machina is fitting considering the subject matter is just objectively wrong, then.  If only all of our interpretations could be as valuable as yours.

Resorting to sarcasm after one post of mine? That doesn't help your argument.

If you wish to completely over-simplify what I said then I suppose you could draw that conclusion but what I was actually saying is that there was enough good that the bad didn't really impact much, and therefore the overall experience was good. It doesn't change the bad parts from being bad, they just don't matter much there.

Reorte wrote...
These things are rules that need to be followed for objectively good writing, like it or not.

Says who?

Anyone who wants to make a decent effort at producing quality work. What is mostly subjective is the relative impact of making mistakes or bad bits of writing but if you don't accept them as any sort of rule then you're effectively defending any bit of random gibberish. Fine, you can still call it subjective, in the same way as you could call it only subjetively bad if someone decides to go on a killing spree because they're bored - after all, there's no fundamental law of nature that decides good or bad.

[CaptainZaysh]

Reorte wrote...

Resorting to sarcasm after one post of mine?

Apologies, I'm British.  I can't always help myself.  Seriously, I didn't mean to be a d**k.  I just think you're wrong about this issue.

Reorte wrote...
If you wish to completely over-simplify what I said then I suppose you could draw that conclusion but what I was actually saying is that there was enough good that the bad didn't really impact much, and therefore the overall experience was good. It doesn't change the bad parts from being bad, they just don't matter much there.

Do you agree that this is a subjective assessment?

Reorte wrote...
Anyone who wants to make a decent effort at producing quality work.

But you don't speak for all those people.

Reorte wrote...
What is mostly subjective is the relative impact of making mistakes or bad bits of writing but if you don't accept them as any sort of rule then you're effectively defending any bit of random gibberish. Fine, you can still call it subjective, in the same way as you could call it only subjetively bad if someone decides to go on a killing spree because they're bored - after all, there's no fundamental law of nature that decides good or bad.

You've explained in your own post why the killing spree isn't objectively bad.

[Coyotebay]

I am a Johnny-come-lately, and played the entire trilogy starting at the beginning of April and finishing ME3 two nights ago.  I'll start by saying it was an amazing ride and a powerfully emotional finish, and I'll never forget it.  As for the ending, I was forewarned about the issues and controversies, but stayed away from it to avoid spoilers.  I also downloaded the extended cut ending and never played the game with the original ending, but afterward I played the original ending on Youtube to understand the differences.  These are my thoughts, with no attempt to argue for my point of view as I have read countless arguements on both sides and agree with many of the points on both sides.

1.  The mass relay controversy.  I know in the original ending it was said by star kid that they would be destroyed outright in at least one scenario, and they were, which led to the impression of whole star systems being exploded, which is a tragic and pointless end regarlless of your ending the Reapers.  I'm glad they fixed that in the DLC with the relays simply getting damaged from releasing the energy and not blown up.

2.  Millions of aliens being stranded far from their homeworlds, including pretty much all the Quarians.  Since the relays weren't destroyed, the damage can be repaired/rebuilt.  If you chose the control or synthesis ending, the problem is solved, as the Reapers with their massive ships and expansive tech can probably do the work quickly, and in the meantime, it was established earlier that they can travel between star systems with their FTL drives from several months to just a couple of years, so they can easily ferry people to their home systems en masse.  In the destruction ending there are no Reapers to take advantage of, so it's a much bigger problem.  The one saving grace though is that there are many mass relays that were never turned on and would still be intact.  Travelling to these relays from the Citadel relay could possibly put the Quarians, Krogan, and others within the ballpark of their home systems while relays are rebuilt.  I do think Bioware dropped the ball though on this, however, leaving the player to connect the dots and do some speculation on the resolution.  Simply not having the relays get destroyed in the first place would have avoided all this, especially since destroying them really served no purpose to the story.

3.  The ending not being consistent with the story's philosophy or how you played the game.  I can understand why people were irked at the original ending, and even in the extended ending you mostly just ask star kid for clarification without offerring much in the way of argument.  (just a couple of "But you're wrong" choices)  I too was yelling at the monitor, "You claim to know that conflict with organics and synthetics is inevitable - look at EDI!!!" (Legion didn't make it to ME3 in my playthrough, he will in the next one)  Yes, one of the main themes of ME was tolerance and the bringing together of all life forms, and many felt the ending contradicted this.  This part I disagreed with.  All the endings achieve at least the potential for this as they all end the Reaper threat and allow all surviving species to work together at rebuilding the galaxy.

4.  The ending offers no closure.  This I also disagreed with.  The scope of the story was the Reaper threat, so there was closure.  What happens after is beyond the scope of the story.  No ending is perfect.  Whether you control, destroy, or synthesize, there are going to be tradeoffs, and the potential for future challenges, conflicts, and threats will always be there.  What happens if the Krogans start overrunning everyone again, for example?  (if you cured the genophage)  But that is another story.  It would be like saying that there was no closure at the end of Harry Potter because maybe one of Voldemort's lackeys might decide years later to resurrect his quest for domination and kill Harry and his friends in the process.  It's just speculation until that story is written.

5.  A macro impersonal ending doesn't fit with a very micro personal journey.  This I agree with for the most part.  Even with the overarching galaxy-wide plot, the whole series was about personal relationships, and people relate the most to individual characters, not grand ideas.  I chose the synthesis ending for one simple reason: EDI lives and has free will.  Forget all the save the galaxy stuff, it came down to saving someone I got to know and cared about in the game.  This is where Bioware missed the boat, and later admitted.  They forgot that for people playing these games, what matters most is what happens on the local, personal level between your character and those they interact with.

6.  The purpose of the Reapers was inconsistent with their characterization.  Star kid's analogy of the Reapers being like a flame that just does what it was designed to do was a crock.  Going back to ME1 and Sovereign, the Reapers were not characterized as machines simply carrying out their programming function, like NOMAD in Star Trek TOS, or the alien juggernaut in Star Trek IV.  Their actions are intentionally malicious, their contempt for organics clearly stated, their methods explicitly and deliberately spreading fear and terror, their creation of undead-like abominations from live races an intentional mockery of them.  Instead of having star kid defend the Reapers and toss out that obviously wrong synopsis of them that you are forced to accept as Shepard, the ending would have been better served by acknowleding that while the original intent seemed like a good idea at the time, the Reapers indeed did become corrupted and were out of control.  And regardless, killing off advanced species every 50,000 years is a recipe for total galaxy-wide extinction, as just in the case of humanity, it took hundreds of millions of years from the first dinosaurs for an intelligent race to evolve.

7.  The synthesis ending was terrible.  I disagree with this.  The word "homogenization" has been tossed out, but I don't see it that way.  Each species still retains its unique DNA, it just has synthetic components added to it.  A Krogan is still a Krogan, a Salarian still a Salarian, etc.  The one thing I liked about it - besides saving EDI - is that it was the one choice where Shepard takes a leap of faith, which is actually visualized by his leaping into the light beam.  In the control and destroy endings, Shepard is taking charge and imposing his will on the outcome, but in the synthesis ending he is ending the conflict while giving all life - organic and synthetic - the opportunity to create a whole new future for themselves.

8.  The extended ending was better/worse than the original.  I agree with this one except for the shortening of Anderson's death scene.  I can't understand why they did that, his final dialogue in the original that I got to watch on Youtube was terrific.  Though even in its shortened form, his final scene brought me to tears.  The added explanation from star kid was ok, especially if you did Leviathan (which I did), but the ending montage was welcome and the final scene aboard the Normandy and watching it fly off in the end was much more powerful for me than the original ending.

I loved this series.  The ending wasn't perfect but in no way ruined it for me.  And no ending is perfect.  If the end was just you beating Harbinger in a big boss fight and throwing a "galaxy is saved" celebration in the epilogue, people would have been disappointed at the cliche finish.  I like an ending that makes you think, and that is bittersweet as it should be.  Yes, Bioware left some holes to fill, but I can live with that and fill them with my imagination.  Everyone has their own idea on what an ideal ending should be, and that's great.

Modifié par Coyotebay, 26 juin 2013 - 08:35 .

[CronoDragoon]

Coyotebay wrote...

8.  The extended ending was better/worse than the original.  I agree with this one except for the shortening of Anderson's death scene.  I can't understand why they did that, his final dialogue in the original that I got to watch on Youtube was terrific. .

Great post, small clarification here: This scene is the same in both versions of the game's ending; I'm guessing you just heard the audio file for it that was cut out of the vanilla game? The dialogue about kids was probably cut out because it's a contradiction; Anderson does have kids. But it's still nice to have that extended dialogue available on YT to listen.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

What did I love about ME2? I could play an entire episode in one night. That's right. An episode: Stolen Memories was an Episode. So was Samara's recruiting mission. Then there was her loyalty mission. That was a separate Episode. They took about an hour or two each to play. There really was no over arching plot. It was a collection of short stories.

ME3? It isn't like that. It's a really dark story. But I really think that if that weird ending hadn't happened the way it did and releasing the energy of the crucible didn't destroy the mass relays in every single case, and you didn't kill the geth and EDI in destroy every one would have been fine with it, and there was that one where Shepard actually did survive instead of getting that gasp. They would have said the ending sucked, but the outrage would have not been there.

Face it: the only reason the geth and EDI had to die in destroy was to sell Synthesis and Control. If the mass relays were fine in all three, it was to sell Synth and Control. Remove that taint, and hardly anyone would have picked them, especially with the possibility of Shepard surviving destroy, because picking Control and Synthesis would only work the first playthrough. As soon as the spoiler is read that Shepard survives destroy, no one would ever pick the other two.

So why not write a better ending in the first place?

[Reorte]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Face it: the only reason the geth and EDI had to die in destroy was to sell Synthesis and Control. If the mass relays were fine in all three, it was to sell Synth and Control. Remove that taint, and hardly anyone would have picked them, especially with the possibility of Shepard surviving destroy, because picking Control and Synthesis would only work the first playthrough. As soon as the spoiler is read that Shepard survives destroy, no one would ever pick the other two.

So why not write a better ending in the first place?

The usual reply you'll get to that is that that would make it all too neat and tidy, managed to defeat the impossible without any real losses (other than the implication of all the people and things lost that the player never saw or heard about). Which might be true but to counteract that by shoving in arbitrary losses doesn't work for many people, myself included.

[Reorte]

Coyotebay wrote...

4.  The ending offers no closure.  This I also disagreed with.  The scope of the story was the Reaper threat, so there was closure.  What happens after is beyond the scope of the story.  No ending is perfect.  Whether you control, destroy, or synthesize, there are going to be tradeoffs, and the potential for future challenges, conflicts, and threats will always be there.  What happens if the Krogans start overrunning everyone again, for example?  (if you cured the genophage)  But that is another story.  It would be like saying that there was no closure at the end of Harry Potter because maybe one of Voldemort's lackeys might decide years later to resurrect his quest for domination and kill Harry and his friends in the process.  It's just speculation until that story is written.

5.  A macro impersonal ending doesn't fit with a very micro personal journey.  This I agree with for the most part.  Even with the overarching galaxy-wide plot, the whole series was about personal relationships, and people relate the most to individual characters, not grand ideas.  I chose the synthesis ending for one simple reason: EDI lives and has free will.  Forget all the save the galaxy stuff, it came down to saving someone I got to know and cared about in the game.  This is where Bioware missed the boat, and later admitted.  They forgot that for people playing these games, what matters most is what happens on the local, personal level between your character and those they interact with.

Those two points contradict IMO. The Reaper plot was closed but it was the personal aspect which provided a large part of the appeal for many people, and closure there was completely lacking in the original ending. The EC at least provided it, albeit in a way that was pretty unsatisfying for a lot.

[Coyotebay]

Reorte wrote...

Those two points contradict IMO. The Reaper plot was closed but it was the personal aspect which provided a large part of the appeal for many people, and closure there was completely lacking in the original ending. The EC at least provided it, albeit in a way that was pretty unsatisfying for a lot.

I agree, the last scene on the Normandy is what made it work for me.  Without it, the ending really feels lacking.  I was referring more to Shepard's last scene with star kid, which felt very abstract and disconnected from everything that had been going on for three installments.  For a story that was built so much around people, they weren't even  mentioned in the dialogue, making those final moments feel very cold and lonely.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Reorte wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Face it: the only reason the geth and EDI had to die in destroy was to sell Synthesis and Control. If the mass relays were fine in all three, it was to sell Synth and Control. Remove that taint, and hardly anyone would have picked them, especially with the possibility of Shepard surviving destroy, because picking Control and Synthesis would only work the first playthrough. As soon as the spoiler is read that Shepard survives destroy, no one would ever pick the other two.

So why not write a better ending in the first place?

The usual reply you'll get to that is that that would make it all too neat and tidy, managed to defeat the impossible without any real losses (other than the implication of all the people and things lost that the player never saw or heard about). Which might be true but to counteract that by shoving in arbitrary losses doesn't work for many people, myself included.

The problem was that BW made the game too sanitized. The settings were too clean. Gears of War did a far better job of capturing that apocalyptic atmosphere of real people stranded and the demolition setting than Mass Effect 3 did. So we have this feeling of "oh, it wasn't so bad", "there weren't any real losses". That's because we never really saw any. The only planet that really had any demolition setting was Tuchanka. Every place else was too neat and tidy.

There were no people around. There were no dead bodies around. Lots of husks, but you were shooting them. You never thought for a minute that "Hey, these were once residents of this city."

This is where the game fell flat. This is why we thought there were no losses. 600,000,000 dead on Earth estimated, and I'm thinking that's a low number. That's a lot of people. The cities are in rubble. London was so dark we couldn't see the rubble. Why? Oh, they were probably reusing Tuchanka tiles and making them blue for the most part, and adding some other features to them. We didn't notice in the dark.

And we were isolated on the Normandy. Our hub world was the Citadel: the neat clean shiny Citadel. There you go. No atmosphere of destruction. It lacked grit.

The victory reunion should have been with the backdrop of the ruins of a city. That would have been more appropriate. Yes we won, but what do we have left?

Gears 3 had a better ending.

[Reorte]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...
The problem was that BW made the game too sanitized. The settings were too clean. Gears of War did a far better job of capturing that apocalyptic atmosphere of real people stranded and the demolition setting than Mass Effect 3 did. So we have this feeling of "oh, it wasn't so bad", "there weren't any real losses". That's because we never really saw any. The only planet that really had any demolition setting was Tuchanka. Every place else was too neat and tidy.

Not really thought of it that way but it's an interesting point. Even with Tuchanka it seemed like most of the wreckage was just the way Tuchanka is. I think that Thessia tried to be that but it was too little, too late, and not particularly well done.

Losing the Citadel in the middle of the game (as long as there was another hub) would've had impact, at least the first time you played the game. Particularly if it happened as you were wandering around normally, not in a mission, which suddenly turned into having to get back to the Normandy and out of there before it was too late. Imagine just wandering around the Presidium when the alarm sounds...

[Iakus]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...


The problem was that BW made the game too sanitized. The settings were too clean. Gears of War did a far better job of capturing that apocalyptic atmosphere of real people stranded and the demolition setting than Mass Effect 3 did. So we have this feeling of "oh, it wasn't so bad", "there weren't any real losses". That's because we never really saw any. The only planet that really had any demolition setting was Tuchanka. Every place else was too neat and tidy.

There were no people around. There were no dead bodies around. Lots of husks, but you were shooting them. You never thought for a minute that "Hey, these were once residents of this city."

I always thought ME2 and ME3 had too much of a "comic book" feel.  Not so much Watchmen as Justice League.  Attempts to darken it always felt forced and articifical. 

This is where the game fell flat. This is why we thought there were no losses. 600,000,000 dead on Earth estimated, and I'm thinking that's a low number. That's a lot of people. The cities are in rubble. London was so dark we couldn't see the rubble. Why? Oh, they were probably reusing Tuchanka tiles and making them blue for the most part, and adding some other features to them. We didn't notice in the dark.

That is indeed a very conservative estimate, given the population of Earth in teh codex and the estimation it would take the Reapers a decade to finish harvesting Earth.  It assumes maybe half a year between the intro and Priority: Earth, and does not take into account that Reapers hit the high population centers first.  there could easilly be a billion or more dead by the end of the game on Earth alone.

And we were isolated on the Normandy. Our hub world was the Citadel: the neat clean shiny Citadel. There you go. No atmosphere of destruction. It lacked grit.

The victory reunion should have been with the backdrop of the ruins of a city. That would have been more appropriate. Yes we won, but what do we have left?

Gears 3 had a better ending.

THIS
THIS
THIS
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[Nole]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Gears 3 had a better ending.

See Marcus without the bandana on his head. Epic.

[AlanC9]

Coyotebay wrote...
1.  The mass relay controversy.  I know in the original ending it was said by star kid that they would be destroyed outright in at least one scenario, and they were, which led to the impression of whole star systems being exploded, which is a tragic and pointless end regarlless of your ending the Reapers.  I'm glad they fixed that in the DLC with the relays simply getting damaged from releasing the energy and not blown up.

I think this one caught Bio flat-footed. We see the Citadel Relay releasing the energy wave, beaming the next relay, and then exploding. The Charon Relay then releases the wave, beams the next relay, and explodes, and so on. The Citadel Relay blast is strong enough to separate the Wards, but no more than that. People thinking that another explosion happened a few minutes after the camera cuts away is something that Bio should have expected, but did not.

[angol fear]

Bourne Endeavor wrote...


I do no such thing, and am only referring to what already exists. Are you saying plot holes, Deus ex Machina and etc are not inherently negative attributes in a story and not widely criticised? If not, then those are established rules of literature and not my own invention. What separates my claims here is I have not gone into lengthy detail in this thread, at least regarding ME3's ending, but that does not render my criticism inaccurate or invalid. I have done so already in the past, on this very forum, and simply do not feel the need to go into that much detail now, as whatever I say has already been said.

Your conclusion is rather presumptuous, since I am a writer and have a good grasp of it. I only lack fame, which is what your rebuttal seems to hinge on. My criticism of ME3 is somehow less valid because I am not a "professional critic" despite my analysis both past and present reaching the same conclusions, in some cases well before those professionals have.

Incidentally, I find it amusing you call me a critic as I never actually addressed myself as one, but am merely a schmuck being critical by using facts. You inferred the rest and so far have still not refuted my argument, attacking me instead.

Maybe I was a little too harsh. What irritated me is your point of view (that is "objective"). You could have been the most famous writer of your country, I wouldn't change what I wrote. Being famous or not isn't the problem, and it doesn't mean what you say is true or not.  When you criticize, when you say what is good or not etc... you create an aesthetic. If you do it for your own work, you act as a writer, but if you do it for other's works, you act as a critic (like Aristoteles). But critic can make mistakes : Truffaut lisliked The Night of the hunter because it's not really good technically. The problem is that this film is one of most impressive and important that was ever made. He based himself on things that are supposed to be objectives, he was wrong.  And Aristoteles's aesthetic doesn't work on contemporary literature or Barroco's.

I am myself a literature teacher, cinema critic and writer. Deus ex machina and plot holes can be criticized, they are not inherently negative. Blaming deus ex machina without trying to understand it is just the opposite of reading. Reading is trying to analyze, to know how the differents elements work together.

edit : I don't say that to you to refute your arguments, I'm not interested in a discussion that looks like a fight where the winner won everything. Mass Effect 3 was supposed to be a game where the player's vision was his own vision of the game not someone else's.

Modifié par angol fear, 27 juin 2013 - 07:08 .

[Oni Changas]

the ending would have been better served by acknowleding that while the original intent seemed like a good idea at the time, the Reapers indeed did become corrupted and were out of control.  And regardless, killing off advanced species every 50,000 years is a recipe for total galaxy-wide extinction, as just in the case of humanity, it took hundreds of millions of years from the first dinosaurs for an intelligent race to evolve.

This would have justified the very existence of that ghost... thing for me and saved this series.

Also the RGB only makes you think about how ****ty it is. Sensible and sweet endings are no longer a cliche. Get it out your head folks. The RGB is an example of the current cliche; overly "philosphical" and nonsense conclusions where something bad HAS to happen. Just cause. Thats garbage.

"Happy" or "lame" endings work because they're tried and true. Its not some "artist" trying to be different yet copying ish from every shade of sci fantasy to make people think (in many cases, of about how retarded said conclusion is).

I'm done here. Oni out.