MATURITY!
Don't know about maturity, but DA seems to have less escape hatches than ME with regard to the choices the games throw at you. (I mean, it still has them (how can you travel to the Circle and back and Connor's demon doesn't do anything? ), but it felt like there were less.)
Just dropping this here:
Cassandra: "I still don't understand how drakes take that hand.Varric: "Hmm... Maybe we should start you on Shepard 6."Cassandra: "Isn't that a children's game?"Varric: "Yeah."
Is this real?
I think both ME and DA have moments of maturity mixed with a lot of teen rated content.
I admit that I'm not a fan of DA's approval/disapproval system. Because it simply becomes all about pleasing other people. The "right" choices are the choices the game tells you is right based on the opinions of your companions. ME is the opposite extreme, where you are loved no matter what. But I have to say that none of the confrontations in DA compare to the ones you can have in ME. The shootout with Wrex, killing Mordin, and shooting the VS. The game may not give you many of these but the few they give you is good. Whereas in DA you'll get into an argument, you may or may not fight, the companion leaves. I would say that DAO did a better job but DAI has been disappointing. It seems like you can't say a mean thing to any of these people, even when they're useless to you. I personally think they should stop letting us know if a companion likes something or not but still have them approve and disapprove. Try to tie some of our companions to the main plot, give us a chance to betray them if we choose or them to betray us.
Also, both games do a whole lot of heavy handed "This is the right decision" steering. They just do it in different ways. Just look at the set up to the Mage/Templar choice in DAI. They might as well just said "Pick Mages". The same heavy handedness was done in DA2. Meredeith was crazy and the Mages were oppressed and must be saved. What both of them do however, is not offer any real consequences for making a choice. It's always right no matter what. Although, I will say that the only time I made a choice in ME I regretted was letting that Asari Scientist go free in ME1 and ME2 only to find out she murdered a bunch of people and was indoctrinated. Now they did a great job of letting the player decide for themselves what to do and you don't just get the great outcome by being Paragon. Both games seem to have a decent system but they are flawed.
Now if I were to go into mature content. Once again they're both good but flawed.
DA needs to stop it with the fade to black and ME needs to show some naked ass. Mix ME's love scenes with DA nudity. DA does offer other themes such as S&M which places it higher on the sexual maturity scale as well as certain themes of transgenderedness et al. But the kid gloves handling of it sours it for me. It's hard to see something as mature when it's all about lecturing the PC/Player and nothing more.
Overall, neither game should try to hold themselves above the other in terms of what is more adult. They both have shitty one dimensional joke villains, and shallow plots deserving of a Saturday Morning cartoon.
Mark Darrah: They’re definitely, at their hearts, different from a franchise perspective. Dragon Age is very much darker, and more mature, just from a tone perspective. Mass Effect is like a space opera. It’s essentially a teen rated IP at heart. It wants to be something that could be on television on a Sunday afternoon. Dragon Age, if it was a television show, would be on HBO. So, from a thematic story-telling perspective, they’re so different it’s hard for them to share.
No. No. On so many levels, no.
The Mass Effect trilogy was an epic, mature piece (even though they were frightened of sexual stuff in 2 and 3) that would easily translate into a movie trilogy. DA2 and DA:I are cartoons. Even a "ka-pow" appearing in combat over my character's head in DA:I would fit neatly into the current combat design. The world is pretty, but the combat & enemy design and the writing in DA:I are downright cheesy at times.
Seriously, this might be the most ignorant thing I have ever heard a dev say. Sorry I'm losing it a bit here but... wow. Mac Walters might want to have a word with Mark.
P.S. I just googled the above quote to make sure it's legit. Pretty incredible it's actually authentic.
No. No. On so many levels, no.
The Mass Effect trilogy was an epic, mature piece (even though they were frightened of sexual stuff in 2 and 3) that would easily translate into a movie trilogy. DA2 and DA:I are cartoons. Even a "ka-pow" appearing in combat over my character's head in DA:I would fit neatly into the current combat design. The world is pretty, but the combat & enemy design and the writing in DA:I are downright cheesy at times.
Seriously, this might be the most ignorant thing I have ever heard a dev say. Sorry I'm losing it a bit here but... wow. Mac Walters might want to have a word with Mark.
P.S. I just googled the above quote to make sure it's legit. Pretty incredible it's actually authentic.
Yep, genetically modified hotties in bodysuits so tight you can see every crease on them, mystic monks flashing their blueberries in combat, and tatooed chicks naked to the waist are incredibly mature
As is heavy-handed messianic symbolism (no, you can't add psuedomystical aspects and suddenly label it "mature".)
Foolish use of death/ressurection to advance the timeline.
Enemy designs lifted from Borderlands
And cheesy bro-dialogue fitting for an '80s shoot-em-up film ("How about 'goodbye?'")
Dragon Age isn't the most mature game out there. Which is fine. But neither is Mass Effect. Which is also fine right up until they try pretending it is mature.
Dragon Age isn't the most mature game out there. Which is fine. But neither is Mass Effect. Which is also fine right up until they try pretending it is mature.
ME1 doesn't even pass this test, and neither does ME2. Unless you don't consider choosing whether to genocide a species and whether to kill thousands of humans or thousands of aliens + the galaxy's political representatives "mature".
ME1 doesn't even pass this test, and neither does ME2. Unless you don't consider choosing whether to genocide a species and whether to kill thousands of humans or thousands of aliens + the galaxy's political representatives "mature".
Mature content? Potentially.
Handled maturely? No, not at all as it turned out.
Mature content? Potentially.
Handled maturely? No, not at all as it turned out.
You dodged the fact that ME1 doesn't even pass your requirements.
You dodged the fact that ME1 doesn't even pass your requirements.
Show me where I said it did.
Part of the failure of the trilogy doesn't use it's "mature" content maturely. Something that built up as the series progressed.
But do you want me to say it started with ME1? Sure, it started with ME1. Everything has to start somewhere.
No. No. On so many levels, no.
The Mass Effect trilogy was an epic, mature piece (even though they were frightened of sexual stuff in 2 and 3) that would easily translate into a movie trilogy. DA2 and DA:I are cartoons. Even a "ka-pow" appearing in combat over my character's head in DA:I would fit neatly into the current combat design. The world is pretty, but the combat & enemy design and the writing in DA:I are downright cheesy at times.
Seriously, this might be the most ignorant thing I have ever heard a dev say. Sorry I'm losing it a bit here but... wow. Mac Walters might want to have a word with Mark.
P.S. I just googled the above quote to make sure it's legit. Pretty incredible it's actually authentic.
The game is just as mature as something like Gears of War.
Also keep in mind this is the series that introduced a race consisting of nothing but busty, 20 something women who like both men and woman.
Show me where I said it did.
Part of the failure of the trilogy doesn't use it's "mature" content maturely. Something that built up as the series progressed.
But do you want me to say it started with ME1? Sure, it started with ME1. Everything has to start somewhere.
Hey, so long as you acknowledge that the series has been doing it since day one, that's good enough for me.
The concept of a "Mature" rating isn't to distinguish the nature of the storytelling. It's only to designate a game as something that isn't appropriate for children.
Lollipop Chainsaw has a "mature" rating, but that has nothing to do with whether the storytelling is "mature" in nature (with regards to the adjective, as used outside of video game context.)
Personally, I feel the "self-regulation" this is referring to is a sad and ineffective replacement for proper regulations. Of course, I rarely agree with rating systems that are actually binding, either. Even so, the fact that it's legal for a 5-year-old to buy a Mortal Kombat game indicates to me that there is something wrong with the system, regardless of whether a genuinely well-designed alternative exists.
...I haven't played DA:I yet, but I kinda agree with that guy's words. Most notorious example is Shepard's (indoctrinated?) dreams. I honestly expected them to be more unpleasant than they are. They're kinda light, in fact.
Aside from that, ME3 has a lack of gore and disturbing things. Most gruesome ones are the Brutes IMO (a Krogan body and a Turian head? now THAT'S the way! If only the rest of the game followed that philosophy, it'd have been way darker than it is).
Uhm, Banshee impaling, headshots on Cerberus Troopers, blowing them up with Carnage or Atlas Rockets looked pretty gory to me. But I agree, it's a little too sterile for a galactic war
Uhm, Banshee impaling, headshots on Cerberus Troopers, blowing them up with Carnage or Atlas Rockets looked pretty gory to me. But I agree, it's a little too sterile for a galactic war
Well, that too, maybe. But headshots are so overused as of today that they're already as mild as a Barbie doll.
....which is kinda sad btw.
Gore does not make mature. Language does not make mature. Middle school kids use worse language than adults, yet it's a criteria for games and movies? Get real.
In both series you're given a god-like power that separates you from the rest of humanity: in DAO it's the taint. In DAI it's the mark. In ME it's the visions. In DA2, well, Hawke actually has to work for it, and succeeds, which makes the Champion of Kirkwall the best hero of them all.
In Morrowind you fulfill the prophecy of the Nevarine. In Oblivion you're the Hero of Cyrodill - no godlike powers but you have a stroke of luck and carry the amulet of dragons (or whatever it is) for the Emperor and join the blades. For some reason everyone trusts you because you delivered it to the blades. In Skyrim you're the Dragonborn.
In all cases except DA2, the fate of the world rests on your shoulders. Hawke rose to power based on her own deeds and connections.
In DAI, the mark makes you practically a god. You were in the fade when some green woman reached down and saved you from being eaten by giant spiders. Others saw it. And you have this mark on your hand. Solas takes a wild guess and discovers it closes rifts. From then on you are the Herald of Andraste! And people started bowing. Wow, what a power trip. I am the Herald of Andraste! Bow before me! And you hold the power of life and death of people in your hands. Will you be a balanced ruler, a soggy piece of bread, or off with his head?
Of course, Daenerys Targarean is pretty much like a goddess in GoT with her fire immunity and pet dragons, but my guess is that she can still be killed. Everyone can be killed.
But in DAI you have to save the entire world from destruction. It rests completely on your shoulders. You. And you get to shape the world afterward.
Of course the reason games have these power trips for the players is because we, the peons of society have such little power in our every day lives. We practically have to ask permission to use the bathroom during our shifts at work. They can make us pee in the cup randomly to see if we're using anything that's on our company's forbidden list. We saw our retirement plans evaporate in 2008. Don't say they bounced back, because some got cashed in for living expenses after the economy tanked. And to give you an example of how tough it is today.... my parents (now deceased) bought their house in 1950 for $5000. My father was making $5000/yr. as a machinist. The house was the size of a $200,000 home today. A $40,000 home was almost a mansion. Puts things in perspective. This is why we have power trips in role playing games. They're an escape from our real lives.
I'm having a hard time thinking of any respect in which this is true outside of the romance scenes. DAI has more explicit sexual content. Ok. Other than that, drawing a blank. How is Dragon Age darker in tone/atmosphere than ME3? How is something darker in tone than a story of a dilapidated Earth overrun by malevolent robots massacring and brainwashing people by the millions, which can only be rectified by the sacrifice (i.e. death) of the protagonist and their friends? Don't get me wrong, I like this about ME3, but I just don't see the sense in Darrah's comment.
Few video games are mature as in presenting problems and ideas that only a mature mind can comprehend and relate to. It's simply not profitable to make such a game. Thus, it comes to the minor elements like sex, curse words and gore to determine the legal age for the audience. Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age try to ask hard questions and raise different problems but because there is no option to fail you can't really call both of them mature. Kids just skip those parts and play the game for fun.
I'd say that Deus Ex Human Revolution is a mature game.
I'm having a hard time thinking of any respect in which this is true outside of the romance scenes. DAI has more explicit sexual content. Ok. Other than that, drawing a blank. How is Dragon Age darker in tone/atmosphere than ME3? How is something darker in tone than a story of a dilapidated Earth overrun by malevolent robots massacring and brainwashing people by the millions, which can only be rectified by the sacrifice (i.e. death) of the protagonist and their friends? Don't get me wrong, I like this about ME3, but I just don't see the sense in Darrah's comment.
I think that's more dark than mature, if by mature we mean adult content. As I said earlier the Gears of War series has the exact same thing going on but I think people would hesitate to call that 'mature', so I think there's some other criteria going on (as an aside, I'm not trying to diminish either series by comparing them, I am actually a fan of GoW).
I think that's more dark than mature, if by mature we mean adult content. As I said earlier the Gears of War series has the exact same thing going on but I think people would hesitate to call that 'mature', so I think there's some other criteria going on (as an aside, I'm not trying to diminish either series by comparing them, I am actually a fan of GoW).
Sure, but in Darrah's quote he actually says both ("Dragon Age is very much darker, and more mature, just from a tone perspective"), and obviously there's a bit of overlap between the two (there is a sense in which something which is dark is more mature than something that isn't). But as I said, I'm just having a hard time coming up with any other respects in which DA is more mature besides the sex content, or the relative darkness of the two stories/atmospheres (which strikes me as about a wash).
Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age try to ask hard questions and raise different problems but because there is no option to fail you can't really call both of them mature. Kids just skip those parts and play the game for fun.
I'd say that Deus Ex Human Revolution is a mature game.
Can you explain a little more?
Mass Effect isn't a mature game, unlike Deus Ex : Human Revolution?
Sure. I meant the overall theme and shown issues. You can't skip problems with augmentation and different viewpoints on it in Deus Ex: HR. It is all around you, NPCs talk about it, advertisements show it, the world reflects it. And neither side is presented as a clear winner. Mass Effect lacks such focus, the only thing that is constantly around you is "shoot the bad guys" theme the maturity of which is... questionable. That's why people feel dissonance when faced with organic/synthetic conflict in the end of the trilogy - it was not developed enough to be considered a major theme.Can you explain a little more?
Mass Effect isn't a mature game, unlike Deus Ex : Human Revolution?
Then Mc Tiernan's Predator and Die hard, or Verhoeven's Robocop and Starship troopers aren't mature, no?
It's different kind of maturity. The movies you listed are mature because the show elements that are deemed not suitable for kids. The questions raised, however, are not that mature and kids can relate to them just fine. So, I guess the situation can be described as this:Then Mc Tiernan's Predator and Die hard, or Verhoeven's Robocop and Starship troopers aren't mature, no?
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