I actually liked the Cypher for the same reason I like the Rachnii. In a galaxy where most of the "aliens" are very human, it was something truly strange and alien.
That's a poetic way of saying it was nonsensical. Nothing wrong with liking an asspull, though, if the asspull is neat.
Perhaps a "truly strange and alien" method of traveling to Andromeda will fall in our laps.
i have zero expectations of the ME:A. and as far as its release goes, i'm looking forward to it.
these are two mutually exclusive perspectives and i hold to both.
the people who are throwing the game under the bus are:
1) the people who have any number of expectations of the game and
2) the people who cannot yet decide whether they should look forward to the game or not because they are torn between historic romance of the previous trilogy and abundant despair of the forthcoming trilogy.
Actually the problem people have with ME:A is that a lot of the established lore is going to be thrown away to the point that Bioware might as well start a new IP instead.
That's a poetic way of saying it was nonsensical. Nothing wrong with liking an asspull, though, if the asspull is neat.
Perhaps a "truly strange and alien" method of traveling to Andromeda will fall in our laps.
Not really. It doesn't make sense with how our bodies and minds work, sure, but I think aliens should be weird like that, or at least some should be. It's just weird alien physiology and isn't trying to be scientific. Does it violate any lore? Lore is the reason we question the travel to Andromeda.
That's a poetic way of saying it was nonsensical. Nothing wrong with liking an asspull, though, if the asspull is neat.
Perhaps a "truly strange and alien" method of traveling to Andromeda will fall in our laps.
I thought the idea of the Cipher was great. Shepard needing the cultural experiences of a Prothean to understand the beacon? Sounds awesome. The problem is the Cipher functioned as a plot device. It helped us learn where Ilos was and taught us to speak Prothean, but did absolutely nothing to explore just how Shepard should have been altered from that experience.
Not really. It doesn't make sense with how our bodies and minds work, sure, but I think aliens should be weird like that, or at least some should be. It's just weird alien physiology and isn't trying to be scientific. Does it violate any lore? Lore is the reason we question the travel to Andromeda.
No lore to violate since it's an entirely nonsensical asspull about a creature we've never encountered before, literally handwaved as such.
If some random "truly strange and alien" method accomplishes the same thing with traveling to Andromeda, how is it any different?
Haven't read all 54 pages of this, so I apologize if this has been brought up already: I had always thought that maybe the original ending having the relays be destroyed in all versions was a way to allow continuation of the series in the Milky Way.
Basically head into a Galactic Dark Ages of technological and infrastructure backslide. Limit the game to a small sector of the galaxy, and just put more detail in that spot. Cut off from communications - and probably knowing little more than the reapers stopped/were defeated and that their local relay blew up - anything more detailed than that would just be unknown, and therefor need no explanation.
Haven't read all 54 pages of this, so I apologize if this has been brought up already: I had always thought that maybe the original ending having the relays be destroyed in all versions was a way to allow continuation of the series in the Milky Way.
Basically head into a Galactic Dark Ages of technological and infrastructure backslide. Limit the game to a small sector of the galaxy, and just put more detail in that spot. Cut off from communications - and probably knowing little more than the reapers stopped/were defeated and that their local relay blew up - anything more detailed than that would just be unknown, and therefor need no explanation.
That's sorta kinda almost a little like the old Foundation books. Huge empire breaks up after millennia; fractures into minor societies all across known space; swathes of knowledge and history lost; slowly rebuilds... Not unprecedented.
That's sorta kinda almost a little like the old Foundation books. Huge empire breaks up after millennia; fractures into minor societies all across known space; swathes of knowledge and history lost; slowly rebuilds... Not unprecedented.
Heh. That makes me think it'e even more likely I'm right. Mass Effect was always a sort of overarching homage to all kinds of popular science fiction.
I thought the idea of the Cipher was great. Shepard needing the cultural experiences of a Prothean to understand the beacon? Sounds awesome. The problem is the Cipher functioned as a plot device. It helped us learn where Ilos was and taught us to speak Prothean, but did absolutely nothing to explore just how Shepard should have been altered from that experience.
So ... pretty much exactly like Project Lazarus. Illogical rule-of-cool that served a plot purpose instead of deepening the character, only difference being that one pushes the limits of science while the other is absolute magical nonsense.
Mass Effect has been doing this from the beginning. I'm not going to be surprised when it happens again.
I thought the idea of the Cipher was great. Shepard needing the cultural experiences of a Prothean to understand the beacon? Sounds awesome. The problem is the Cipher functioned as a plot device. It helped us learn where Ilos was and taught us to speak Prothean, but did absolutely nothing to explore just how Shepard should have been altered from that experience.
That's one reason ME2 was such a disappointment to me. There was plenty of stuff like the Cipher to dig deeper into. Heck it could have factored into the reasoning for Cerberus to bring Shepard back, or even be part of what brings Shepard back to begin with.
But in the end, it was just more Rule of Cool.
That's one reason ME2 was such a disappointment to me. There was plenty of stuff like the Cipher to dig deeper into. Heck it could have factored into the reasoning for Cerberus to bring Shepard back, or even be part of what brings Shepard back to begin with.
But in the end, it was just more Rule of Cool.
It was always rule of cool, though, and elaborating further would be like "explaining color to a creature without eyes".
Pretty unfair to pass the blame onto ME2 for ME1's contrived asspulls.
It was always rule of cool, though, and elaborating further would be like "explaining color to a creature without eyes".
Pretty unfair to pass the blame onto ME2 for ME1's contrived asspulls.
Why? If it's a trilogy, some mysteries should take longer to unravel than others.
I just finished reading Leviathan Wakes. I'm not p*ssed that there's some loose ends, because there are other volumes in the series.
Why? If it's a trilogy, some mysteries should take longer to unravel than others.
A trilogy never was guaranteed, though. Had ME1 failed financially and the story stopped there as a standalone, all that would exist is that plot-dependent asspull that made no sense. Elaborating on the "mystery" of the magic brain filters wouldn't change the way they operated in ME1.
Blaming ME2 for the stuff that didn't make sense in ME1 is disingenuous.
A trilogy never was guaranteed, though. Had ME1 failed financially and the story stopped there as a standalone, all that would exist is that plot-dependent asspull that made no sense. Elaborating on the "mystery" of the magic brain filters wouldn't change the way they operated in ME1.
Blaming ME2 for the stuff that didn't make sense in ME1 is disingenuous.
ME1 was marketed as the first of a trilogy. With save imports.
If it had been a failure and ended with the first then it would have been an incomplete trilogy. But it wasn't. And Bioware decided that the best way to write a trilogy was to make the third entry the "best place to start' 
So no, I'm not blaming ME2 for stuff that didn't make sense in ME1. I'm blaming Bioware for writing a cr*ppy trilogy.
So ... pretty much exactly like Project Lazarus. Illogical rule-of-cool that served a plot purpose instead of deepening the character, only difference being that one pushes the limits of science while the other is absolute magical nonsense.
Mass Effect has been doing this from the beginning. I'm not going to be surprised when it happens again.
Essentially, it was exactly the same.
ME1 was marketed as the first of a trilogy. With save imports.
If it had been a failure and ended with the first then it would have been an incomplete trilogy. But it wasn't. And Bioware decided that the best way to write a trilogy was to make the third entry the "best place to start'
So no, I'm not blaming ME2 for stuff that didn't make sense in ME1. I'm blaming Bioware for writing a cr*ppy trilogy.
You're also giving a pass to ME1's nonsensical plot devices (since you like it) and dumping the blame on ME2 (and ME3) for not retroactively fixing the nonsense. Having save imports doesn't in any way give ME1 leeway to bull its way through contrivances and explain them in a later entry. Individual stories are individual stories.
Also, ME2 is more of a "best place to start" than ME3 ever was. It was practically a soft reboot in itself.
Why? If it's a trilogy, some mysteries should take longer to unravel than others.
I just finished reading Leviathan Wakes. I'm not p*ssed that there's some loose ends, because there are other volumes in the series.
To an extent. But if we've just taken on the entire culture/mind set of another species, that shouldn't wait until your next installment to be explored in some capacity. Feros can be the first stop on Shepard's agenda, which is pretty early in campaign-terms.
Sure, maybe you can elaborate further on it in ME2. But there was no indication in ME1 that it would be anything more than a magic plot device. There's no change in Shepard before or after he acquires the Cipher, it might as well not exist in terms of character impact. We don't explore, for example, how a Prothean would view the world in comparison to a human.
It's a bit like having to wait for ME3 to give Shepard some reflection on what resurrection is like.
You're also giving a pass to ME1's nonsensical plot devices (since you like it) and dumping the blame on ME2 (and ME3) for not retroactively fixing the nonsense. Having save imports doesn't in any way give ME1 leeway to bull its way through contrivances and explain them in a later entry. Individual stories are individual stories.
Also, ME2 is more of a "best place to start" than ME3 ever was. It was practically a soft reboot in itself.
I blame the writers for not thinking ahead. The Cipher was (on the surface) a cool mystery to explore. ME2 showed it wasn't, it was a "nonsensical plot device" as you call it, to be discarded when they were done with it. Would it be so nonsensical if the Cipher was something that was actually explored further, and played a crucial role in the story? Was Gollum a contrivance in Lord of the Rings?
I was actually looking forward to possible explanations for the Lazarus Project in ME3. Sadly all we got was "Derp, the helmet kept the brain intact!"
Me3 was actually called that.
Sure, maybe you can elaborate further on it in ME2. But there was no indication in ME1 that it would be anything more than a magic plot device.
Ding, ding, ding.
To an extent. But if we've just taken on the entire culture/mind set of another species, that shouldn't wait until your next installment to be explored in some capacity. Feros can be the first stop on Shepard's agenda, which is pretty early in campaign-terms.
Sure, maybe you can elaborate further on it in ME2. But there was no indication in ME1 that it would be anything more than a magic plot device. There's no change in Shepard before or after he acquires the Cipher, it might as well not exist in terms of character impact. We don't explore, for example, how a Prothean would view the world in comparison to a human.
It's a bit like having to wait for ME3 to give Shepard some reflection on what resurrection is like.
On Ilos, Shepard was able to understand the fragments of Prothean recordings. I took that as foreshadowing that the Cipher was going to be important later, that it's affecting Shepard's mind in unexpected ways.
And yeah, Shepard not being able to reflect on being dead in ME2 was a rather large complaint by people. Myself included
On Ilos, Shepard was able to understand the fragments of Prothean recordings. I took that as foreshadowing that the Cipher was going to be important later, that it's affecting Shepard's mind in unexpected ways.
And yeah, Shepard not being able to reflect on being dead in ME2 was a rather large complaint by people. Myself included
But that meant practically nothing in character terms. Yes, Shepard can understand Prothean, but that's pretty much the least interesting aspect about the Cipher. It's not interesting because it lets us instantly learn new languages.
It's interesting because of the questions it could have raised in terms of identity and serving as our one link to the Protheans, who are currently extinct. That's not a job for ME2, beyond potentially exploring things a bit deeper. Shepard acquires the Cipher in ME1, hence why that should have introduced us to what being a Prothean is about, potentially exploring a completely foreign culture.
I blame the writers for not thinking ahead. The Cipher was (on the surface) a cool mystery to explore. ME2 showed it wasn't, it was a "nonsensical plot device" as you call it, to be discarded when they were done with it. Would it be so nonsensical if the Cipher was something that was actually explored further, and played a crucial role in the story? Was Gollum a contrivance in Lord of the Rings?
I was actually looking forward to possible explanations for the Lazarus Project in ME3. Sadly all we got was "Derp, the helmet kept the brain intact!"
Me3 was actually called that.
But that meant practically nothing in character terms. Yes, Shepard can understand Prothean, but that's pretty much the least interesting aspect about the Cipher. It's not interesting because it lets us instantly learn new languages.
It's interesting because of the questions it could have raised in terms of identity and serving as our one link to the Protheans, who are currently extinct. That's not a job for ME2, beyond potentially exploring things a bit deeper. Shepard acquires the Cipher in ME1, hence why that should have introduced us to what being a Prothean is about, potentially exploring a completely foreign culture.
Potentially, yes, but not necessarily.
Look at Babylon 5. Part of the first season's arc was concerning Commander Sinclair's lost memories from the Battle of the Line and why the minbari insisted on him commanding the station. Hints were dropped here and there concerning what happened. But the big reveal wasn't until the start of Season 2. And the full implications were not revealed until Season 3.
Mysteries can have a slow burn to them.
Potentially, yes, but not necessarily.
Look at Babylon 5. Part of the first season's arc was concerning Commander Sinclair's lost memories from the Battle of the Line and why the minbari insisted on him commanding the station. Hints were dropped here and there concerning what happened. But the big reveal wasn't until the start of Season 2. And the full implications were not revealed until Season 3.
Mysteries can have a slow burn to them.
Slow burn is one thing. Mass Effect doesn't even have the fire set to low though.
A slow burn should have me look back on previous experiences and say "oh I get it, that's how this all fits together". Mass Effect doesn't even do that. I personally haven't watched Babylon V, but you said yourself: big reveal, full implications, etc, implying that they build on what came before.
There isn't even a slow build up to it. In retrospect, this could have been a very interesting series in terms of playing with identity. Shepard has trouble differentiating himself from his newly established Prothean Cipher in ME1. He could potentially start wondering if he was a clone/having fake memories/ is he really Commander Shepard in ME2 after Lazarus. And ME3 would have been the full weight of all this coming to a head. That would have been awesome.
But Mass Effect 1 should have left me saying "Wow, I loved what they did with the Cipher in ME1, can't wait to see that explored further in ME2". Unfortunately, we can't get that because the Cipher itself did absolutely nothing in character terms, whether subtle or overt.
Retour en haut