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[ElitePinecone]

There's a preview and a link to buy the digital edition here.

It's an interesting setup (and I like the connection to the Citadel DLC) and I'm wondering about the overarching story between the issues - especially since they seem to jump around a lot in time.

Edit: Although, the idea that the Alliance would've accepted materials and ore shipments to build Arcturus from a mining colony staffed by child labour strikes me as more than absurd. Themis is in the same system as the space station, and nobody would be incompetent or corrupt enough to not check where the supplies were coming from for a major military project. It feels unnecessarily gritty and a bit poorly thought-out.

Modifié par ElitePinecone, 24 juillet 2013 - 12:44 .

[RaduM]

Speaking of gratuitous grittiness, unless the scene of the action in Issue 1 is some kind of North Korean-style death-camp where public executions for the slightest offenses are the order of the day and where children are encouraged to rat on their parents/guardians... what kind of a messed up kid takes the final shot on an ailing stranger?

I mean sure, there are truly horrific stories of child-soldiers being brutalized and committing atrocities themselves, but this?

What, being poor automatically turns you into a sociopath? Child labor is repugnant, but this is going overboard.

To say nothing of the fact that for a secret agent this chick racks up quite a few collateral kills, last time I checked, leaving a body trail behind you was a bad thing.

And oh brother.... Character A holds a knife to Character's B throat. You might think a stabbing is next. Nope, they stop to spout exposition dialogue for the reader and continue to do so while dueling (with Character B pulling out a set of Wolverine claws... is this Comic aimed at 13 year olds or at the more Mature audience that enjoyed the finer points of the Mass Effect Universe).

*sigh* I guess there's good reasons why we have Nobel Prizes for Literature and not Comics.

Unnecessarily gritty, well pointed out ElitePinecone.

EDIT : And no to go off topic, but generally I feel as though the plot writing (for some reason, Mass Effect Character writing has consistently been superb), the plot writing seems to become more and more watered down.

Cerberus for example started out as an underground reactionary organization. That makes sense, humanity's entry into the Galactic Community had been.... complicated. It's perfectly natural for there to be an undercurrent of xenophobia/paranoia.

But lately, Cerberus has become more and more of a cartoon.

Seriously, Cerberus became a State-Within-A-State, with its own leadership, military, intelligence, even military-industrial complex. Even if one assumes the Alliance is completely corrupt and incompetent, wouldn't the Citadel Council notice what's going on?

Anyway, it just feels that plot-wise, Mass Effect writing has been taking every liberty needed, without adhering to some kind of "ruleset". People,Organizations can be as rich/poor, competent/incompetent, powerful/weak, as the plot demands.

Maybe it's just me, but it didn't seem to be like that before. Or maybe the universe wasn't as fleshed out back in the days of Mass Effect 1.

Modifié par RaduM, 24 juillet 2013 - 01:58 .

[Mims]

I think its a bit of both. I've just read through the comic, and I have pretty similar concerns with it. I think Cerberus at this point has eclipsed far beyond what it should realistically be. Its taking the spotlight from other people and organizations that could be interesting. I think the biggest problem with ME3 was it somehow managed to steal the spotlight from the reapers.

This comic sort of feels like apart of this attempt to make Cerberus more and more important, but it ends up drifting us into what feels like an entirely different story. Whether you like that story is completely up to you- but we've now had what, 3 series and 1 additional comic focused on cerberus? More if you count some other side stories. 

As far as should people buy it: ...honestly, this is the first comic I'd say no. Its not worth buying. There's only one thing this comic adds in the form of a twist, and someone could explain that to you in a sentence. It did not really feel like a mass effect comic. 

The artwork is a step up, but has that annoying tendency to treat clothing [both male and female] like its just something you paint on.

Modifié par Mims, 24 juillet 2013 - 02:21 .

[Argentoid]

Is this comic really THAT bad? I'm planning to buy it.

[Leonia]

Maybe the more character- focused issues will be better? Thanks for giving us spoiler-free reviews. Looks like this will be the first comic I pass up.

[RaduM]

Argentoid wrote...

Is this comic really THAT bad? I'm planning to buy it.

The whole part with a downtrodden child suddenly turning out to be a remorseless killer? Well, it depends on the standards. A 15 year-old might find it "gritty" and "extreme!" and "cool". To somebody almost twice that age? Let's just say my opinion is not so enthusiastic.

And there's the casual,collateral murder of a mine foreman. Sure, a total jerk-ass mine foreman, but still. For a teenager raging with hormones it would be totally "dark" and "cool" (the same way the Warhammer Universe's unrelenting misery and disembowelments can be considered "cool").

I dunno, the Mass Effect does have room for violence, but this is just juvenile.

(Don't even get me started on a scene that just screamed "Just stab him!")
(And Wolverine claws... *facepalm*)

It depends on your standards. If what I described to you it seems like a good comic, go on buy it and enjoy it.
If not, then no.

[EatChildren]

Mass Effect is the kind of game with an all female race of hot blue space babes.

It was already pandering to 13 year olds.

[Argentoid]

RaduM wrote...

Argentoid wrote...

Is this comic really THAT bad? I'm planning to buy it.

The whole part with a downtrodden child suddenly turning out to be a remorseless killer? Well, it depends on the standards. A 15 year-old might find it "gritty" and "extreme!" and "cool". To somebody almost twice that age? Let's just say my opinion is not so enthusiastic.

And there's the casual,collateral murder of a mine foreman. Sure, a total jerk-ass mine foreman, but still. For a teenager raging with hormones it would be totally "dark" and "cool" (the same way the Warhammer Universe's unrelenting misery and disembowelments can be considered "cool").

I dunno, the Mass Effect does have room for violence, but this is just juvenile.

(Don't even get me started on a scene that just screamed "Just stab him!")
(And Wolverine claws... *facepalm*)

It depends on your standards. If what I described to you it seems like a good comic, go on buy it and enjoy it.
If not, then no.

Now that sounds stupid. And I thought Mass Effect: Evolution was bad.

Modifié par Argentoid, 24 juillet 2013 - 03:36 .

[RaduM]

EatChildren wrote...

Mass Effect is the kind of game with an all female race of hot blue space babes.

It was already pandering to 13 year olds.

Please, Mass Effect is easily more than that. Sure it *has* Asari strip clubs, but the game, the plot, the characters, the whole universe is hardly focused around them.

Let me put it this way. Tali is an intriguing person beneath that helmet, a very well written character. The fact that she is also endowed with "dem hips" is forgiven.

EDIT : And the fact that they chose to just grab off a photo off the Web and "Tali-fy" it speaks of either Bioware's lack of resources or lack of respect, for their own work first and foremost and for the people who enjoyed their work. You don't freaking write Tali the way you do and then just grab a photo off Google... and at least never apologize for lack of time/money. You just don't.

Modifié par RaduM, 24 juillet 2013 - 03:31 .

[jtav]

I just finished it. While not great, it gave me some empathy for a character I'd previously dismissed as a cartoon, so I found it serviceable.

[drinkurmilk]

RaduM wrote...

*snip*

Cerberus for example started out as an underground reactionary organization. That makes sense, humanity's entry into the Galactic Community had been.... complicated. It's perfectly natural for there to be an undercurrent of xenophobia/paranoia.

But lately, Cerberus has become more and more of a cartoon.

Seriously, Cerberus became a State-Within-A-State, with its own leadership, military, intelligence, even military-industrial complex. Even if one assumes the Alliance is completely corrupt and incompetent, wouldn't the Citadel Council notice what's going on?

Anyway, it just feels that plot-wise, Mass Effect writing has been taking every liberty needed, without adhering to some kind of "ruleset". People,Organizations can be as rich/poor, competent/incompetent, powerful/weak, as the plot demands.

Maybe it's just me, but it didn't seem to be like that before. Or maybe the universe wasn't as fleshed out back in the days of Mass Effect 1.

I am struggling to disagree with a word you have said RE: Cerberus.  

Modifié par chrisutd, 24 juillet 2013 - 04:27 .

[survivor_686]

With regards to the slave-facility for Arcturus Station:

The foreman has links to Cerberus. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that Cerberus ran the company in order to get its claws into the human military-industrial complex.

But the idea of the Alliance willingly looking the other way while slave labour goes on its backyard is a little hilarious.

[Lost Mercenary]

survivor_686 wrote...

With regards to the slave-facility for Arcturus Station:

The foreman has links to Cerberus. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that Cerberus ran the company in order to get its claws into the human military-industrial complex.

But the idea of the Alliance willingly looking the other way while slave labour goes on its backyard is a little hilarious.

If the foreman is Cerberus he could easily manipulate the information so that they wouldn't be any the wiser.

Personally I really liked this comic as a starting point. There are still 12 more issues to go to see where this leads us.

[ElitePinecone]

Mims wrote...
I think Cerberus at this point has eclipsed far beyond what it should realistically be. Its taking the spotlight from other people and organizations that could be interesting. I think the biggest problem with ME3 was it somehow managed to steal the spotlight from the reapers.

This comic sort of feels like apart of this attempt to make Cerberus more and more important, but it ends up drifting us into what feels like an entirely different story. Whether you like that story is completely up to you- but we've now had what, 3 series and 1 additional comic focused on cerberus? More if you count some other side stories. 
 

Yeah, I'm not very enthusiastic about more Cerberus at this point either. The organisation is fairly one-note as it is, and it seems to have become (if anything) more cartoon-villainy and *less* interesting or complex since ME2. I really liked the idea of human politics being based on integrationist/xenophobic parties that was explored a little bit in ME1, but the more Cerberus becomes a major part of the story the less nuanced that politics is becoming. The Illusive Man's speeches are posturing rather than thoughtful.

I'm also finding it pretty frustrating that the group is constantly being retconned to possess (or indirectly control) more and more power within the mainstream Alliance military and economy, at earlier and earlier points in time. It's getting increasingly ridiculous that an organisation with such reach for decades is the same one Admiral Kohoku barely knew existed in ME1.

survivor_686 wrote...

With regards to the slave-facility for Arcturus Station:

The foreman has links to Cerberus. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe that Cerberus ran the company in order to get its claws into the human military-industrial complex.

But the idea of the Alliance willingly looking the other way while slave labour goes on its backyard is a little hilarious.

Yeah, I know that it could be handwaved with reference to Cerberus' shadowy connections (although it was only founded four years earlier) but I just find the whole notion of Arcturus station's *main supplier* being a slave mining colony as so far beyond belief that it just makes me frustrated.

I mean, military and sensitive civilian projects in current-day advanced economies have a supply chain for resources that's detailed and meticulously accounted for, using contracts and suppliers. The idea that this *wouldn't* happen in a quasi-UN bureaucracy like the Alliance in 150 years' time is absolutely nuts. The idea that a forced-labor camp using children as workers would exist in the *same system* as the Alliance's future headquarters and Parliament is ridiculous.

I had to go back and check the comic a few times to make sure it didn't take place in the Terminus Systems, rather than literally the first system humanity ever discovered through the Mass Relays, the gateway to Earth, the headquarters of the Systems Alliance military and the location of its Parliament.

[RaduM]

lostmercenary99 wrote...


If the foreman is Cerberus he could easily manipulate the information so that they wouldn't be any the wiser.

Personally I really liked this comic as a starting point. There are still 12 more issues to go to see where this leads us.

Easily, huh.

Reminds me of children playing. "I'm holding a super-duper laser-ray! " "Yeah? Well I have a super-duper-duper armor that stops your super-duper laser ray"

Of course you can say *anything* is easy (or anything is hard). But let's be serious.

Mass Effect's appeal is in the "hardness" of its sci-fi (phenomena are explained and have roots in our current understanding of physics) and also in the believability of actions (humanity is not the center of the universe, they are just newcomers) among other things.

Well, I don't know how to tell you this, but the Mass Effect mythos does not paint the Alliance as being led by either fools or crooked opportunits.

I'm not sure how aware you are of how, say, organized crime works, but the short version is that organized crime dedicates part of its profits to pay off the authorities. That's how it survives.

Same here. Sure, Cerberus could potentially operate right across the block in the Vancouver Alliance HQ, *IF* the right people are paid off.

Suffice it to say that the concept of Cerberus having the entire upper administration of the Alliance in its pocket is laughably ridiculous.

At least by what has been established so far.

EDIT : Echoing what ElitePinecone said, it feels as though we are seeing ever-increasing Cerberus "power creep" earlier and earlier in its history.

Modifié par RaduM, 24 juillet 2013 - 05:21 .

[Seboist]

RaduM wrote...

EatChildren wrote...

Mass Effect is the kind of game with an all female race of hot blue space babes.

It was already pandering to 13 year olds.

Please, Mass Effect is easily more than that. Sure it *has* Asari strip clubs, but the game, the plot, the characters, the whole universe is hardly focused around them.

Let me put it this way. Tali is an intriguing person beneath that helmet, a very well written character. The fact that she is also endowed with "dem hips" is forgiven.

EDIT : And the fact that they chose to just grab off a photo off the Web and "Tali-fy" it speaks of either Bioware's lack of resources or lack of respect, for their own work first and foremost and for the people who enjoyed their work. You don't freaking write Tali the way you do and then just grab a photo off Google... and at least never apologize for lack of time/money. You just don't.

Eatchildren is right, Mass Effect is a 13 yo's fantasy and not just because of the Asari. Just look at how you can use the council as a verbal punching bag without consequence for instance.

[RaduM]

Be serious. You're cherry picking, just like the other guy. There are plenty of layers to Mass Effect to enjoy.

[Seboist]

Argentoid wrote...

Is this comic really THAT bad? I'm planning to buy it.

They've all been bad.

[Iakus]

::sigh:: is this what Mass Effect has been reduced to? A cartoonishly "grim and gritty" setting where an Iluminati-like Cerberus secretly runs the universe?

[P. Domi]

RaduM wrote...

Easily, huh.

Reminds me of children playing. "I'm holding a super-duper laser-ray! " "Yeah? Well I have a super-duper-duper armor that stops your super-duper laser ray"

Of course you can say *anything* is easy (or anything is hard). But let's be serious.

Mass Effect's appeal is in the "hardness" of its sci-fi (phenomena are explained and have roots in our current understanding of physics) and also in the believability of actions (humanity is not the center of the universe, they are just newcomers) among other things.

Well, I don't know how to tell you this, but the Mass Effect mythos does not paint the Alliance as being led by either fools or crooked opportunits.

I'm not sure how aware you are of how, say, organized crime works, but the short version is that organized crime dedicates part of its profits to pay off the authorities. That's how it survives.

Same here. Sure, Cerberus could potentially operate right across the block in the Vancouver Alliance HQ, *IF* the right people are paid off.

Suffice it to say that the concept of Cerberus having the entire upper administration of the Alliance in its pocket is laughably ridiculous.

At least by what has been established so far.

EDIT : Echoing what ElitePinecone said, it feels as though we are seeing ever-increasing Cerberus "power creep" earlier and earlier in its history.

^^This. Very well worded and explained. The "pact of fiction" regarding the Mass Effect universe laws, history and 'codex' (as they were originally established), seems to be in constant negotiation in the most recent comic books.

Modifié par pablodomi, 24 juillet 2013 - 05:48 .

[RaduM]

Morocco Mole wrote...

lol@people still taking the comics seriously. They've never been good.

Still it would be nice if they were. Especially since the series name "Foundation" suggests, in my opinion, that they help set the stage for the next Mass Effect game (which will possibly be a side-quel, concurrent with the trilogy continuity).

P.S. : I highly doubt the next ME game will be a sequel to the trilogy itself, as it would inevitably mean canonizing an ending (or, dare I hope, a "Final Cut" revisit where the initial endings are discarded as Shepard's hallucionations and instead a "true" ending is proposed that ensures galactic continuity, like a Destroy Plus aka "no Synthetics were harmed in this victory over Reapers").

Modifié par RaduM, 24 juillet 2013 - 06:02 .

[AresKeith]

Morocco Mole wrote...

lol@people still taking the comics seriously. They've never been good.

Of course they've never good, but it being canon just makes it worse

[Iakus]

AresKeith wrote...

Morocco Mole wrote...

lol@people still taking the comics seriously. They've never been good.

Of course they've never good, but it being canon just makes it worse

Indeed.  THe fact that they are canon makes them serious.  If facepalmworthy