I looked and searched to see if this had already been posted, but couldn't find it.. so apologies if it has already.
http://motherboard.v...elevant-as-ever
I found the parallels they drew between our current world and issues and the Mass Effect universe interesting.
If there's one thing ME3 did get right, it was capturing the bleak consequences of a massive interstellar war.
If there's one thing ME3 did get right, it was capturing the bleak consequences of a massive interstellar war.
Almost too right. First time I played was depressing.
Yeah. That was an area that made you think about the impact of the reaper invasion. You can also have a talk with Garrus about "numbers": Sacrifice a million here, to save a couple of million there. The economics of war.
ME3 was great (despite of the ending). Those moments in the docking bay area prove it.
I've recently finished ME3 again for the first time in a year or 2 and yeah it's shows the horrors of the war and it's consequences like few other forms of media have done like what do you do with all of the civilian refugees who have no place to go, black markets, war profiteering, smuggling. Plus it shows soldiers suffering from both physical wounds and metal problems (like PTSD), the stress on their families, and etc.
Almost too right. First time I played was depressing.
I thought the main impact of the reaper war was turning everybody into an alcoholic since getting a drink or buying a drink was the only thing to occupy your free time, or your dialogue.
The silver lining is that if you take destroy w/ high ems then you can collect on all those drinks that everybody says they will buy.
I thought the main impact of the reaper war was turning everybody into an alcoholic since getting a drink or buying a drink was the only thing to occupy your free time, or your dialogue.
The silver lining is that if you take destroy w/ high ems then you can collect on all those drinks that everybody says they will buy.
I bet Jacob still won't buy drinks. He's full of ****.
That's because it was depressing and that's not a shot. They did a damn good job at ripping your guts out, then making you eat them. Then they gave you a sliver of hope to lift you up a little, only to space your half gutted agony wracked left overs over an exploding sun in Geth territory.
Then the ending.
I could almost hear Harbinger laughing at me in the background as the words 'Executive Producer' flashed across my screen.
It sounds like fun now but it was hell at the time.
*Swirls Ryncol*
I didn't think ME3 was all that depressing considering the circumstances. I wouldn't even call it BioWare's most depressing game.
I bet Jacob still won't buy drinks. He's full of ****.
Racist.
Damn... that was the furthest thing from my mind.. 
I didn't think ME3 was all that depressing considering the circumstances. I wouldn't even call it BioWare's most depressing game.
Damn... that was the furthest thing from my mind..
I'm curious what that would be?
Neverwinter Night's OC. The good guys are as dumb as a sack of hammers, an innocent man is lynched to appease a mob, the redeemed villain (possibly your LI) is executed. Add in things like Charwood and yeah, I'll take ME3. I also have a feeling BG2 wouldn't go over well either.
In the hospital you can hear an asari talking with her therapist about an attack. Each time you walk by the story continues. At the end I had the feeling that somehow Joker's sister may have been a part of that story.
At the end Shepard can decide to get her a gun or not.
In the hospital you can hear an asari talking with her therapist about an attack. Each time you walk by the story continues. At the end I had the feeling that somehow Joker's sister may have been a part of that story.
At the end Shepard can decide to get her a gun or not.
Once I realized that, I don't want to be hard on him after Thessia. Except we're kind of forced to be at first, I guess.
I think Mass Effect has always worked better at the level of characters and themes than at the level of plot. Which is OK with me most of the time - I can tolerate occasional plot holes and contrivances if the characters and the ideas that drive them are interesting enough. In ME3 there is definitely a weight hanging over the proceedings to a degree that wasn't quite there in the first two games, but while it may make the game a little less "fun" at times, it's also appropriate - everyone is confronting a possibly unwinnable galactic war from the outset, as opposed to ME1 where the big attack doesn't come until the end or ME2 where the Collectors aren't as pervasive.
I think Mass Effect has always worked better at the level of characters and themes than at the level of plot. Which is OK with me most of the time - I can tolerate occasional plot holes and contrivances if the characters and the ideas that drive them are interesting enough. In ME3 there is definitely a weight hanging over the proceedings to a degree that wasn't quite there in the first two games, but while it may make the game a little less "fun" at times, it's also appropriate - everyone is confronting a possibly unwinnable galactic war from the outset, as opposed to ME1 where the big attack doesn't come until the end or ME2 where the Collectors aren't as pervasive.
Yeah, it's not as fun as ME2 is to me, but I still like what they did. My only complaint remains the same as ever. I only wish I had shared more of this with the ME2 characters. It'd have been nice to have the whole gang involved more often. Even in misery. lol. Not just Vega or Liara knocking on my door. Citadel alleviated some of that, but at the same time, it feels like it's in it's own little world.
Smart of the author to connect the quarian-geth conflict with modern Israel and the history of the Jewish people in general. In addition to passing differences (exiled nomads who live in other societies, but hope to one day return to the promised land, and who experience racist accusations of being "rootless" thieves and conspirators from those other societies), the culture and language are loaded with references to Jews.
Their home star system is Tikkun. Tikkun is a Hebrew term (roughly means "a correction") most noted for use in the Jewish religous concept of "Tikkun olam" (repair of the world)
https://en.wikipedia...iki/Tikkun_olam
Rannoch's means "walled garden", which is an English translation of old Iranian "paridayda", from which the Hebrew word "parades" (paradise) is from (and is often used to refer to the garden of Eden)
The name "Tali" is straight up a Jewish girl first name meaning "dew" (and not even all that uncommon). Zorah was also an ancient city in Judea (most famous as the birthplace of Samson). Their naming conventions in general mirror Yiddish patronymics ("vas" is similar to Yiddish "bas" or "daughter of, though the quarian version refers to ships rather than parents).
In ME2 there is a side mission where you rescue a stranded quarian crashed on a dangerous, remote planet. The system's name is Sheol and the planet Gei Hinnom. Sheol is the underworld (referenced frequently in the Torah), not unlike Hades, and Gei Hinnom is literally "valley of Hinnom", named for the same location in modern Israel just outside Jerusalem, but eventually translated in the new Testament of the bible as "hell".
http://biblehub.com/...cal/s/sheol.htm
http://www.goisrael.... of Hinnom.aspx
In ME2 when Shala'Raan opens the court proceedings, the blessing she gives ( "Blessed are the Ancestors who kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season"). is literally the Jewish Shehecheyanu, translated word for word into English with references to God simply repalced with "ancestors", and keelah se'lai thrown in at the end
http://www.reformjud...se-shehecheyanu
then you get to the part where their whole shtick is basically space Zionism, and it starts too look a bit too obvious the historical conflict they were referencing. Biower doesn't really do subtle all that well.
Smart of the author to connect the quarian-geth conflict with modern Israel and the history of the Jewish people in general. In addition to passing differences (exiled nomads who live in other societies, but hope to one day return to the promised land, and who experience racist accusations of being "rootless" thieves and conspirators from those other societies), the culture and language are loaded with references to Jews.
Their home star system is Tikkun. Tikkun is a Hebrew term (roughly means "a correction") most noted for use in the Jewish religous concept of "Tikkun olam" (repair of the world)
https://en.wikipedia...iki/Tikkun_olam
Rannoch's means "walled garden", which is an English translation of old Iranian "paridayda", from which the Hebrew word "parades" (paradise) is from (and is often used to refer to the garden of Eden)
The name "Tali" is straight up a Jewish girl first name meaning "dew" (and not even all that uncommon). Zorah was also an ancient city in Judea (most famous as the birthplace of Samson). Their naming conventions in general mirror Yiddish patronymics ("vas" is similar to Yiddish "bas" or "daughter of, though the quarian version refers to ships rather than parents).
In ME2 there is a side mission where you rescue a stranded quarian crashed on a dangerous, remote planet. The system's name is Sheol and the planet Gei Hinnom. Sheol is the underworld (referenced frequently in the Torah), not unlike Hades, and Gei Hinnom is literally "valley of Hinnom", named for the same location in modern Israel just outside Jerusalem, but eventually translated in the new Testament of the bible as "hell".
http://biblehub.com/...cal/s/sheol.htm
http://www.goisrael.... of Hinnom.aspx
In ME2 when Shala'Raan opens the court proceedings, the blessing she gives ( "Blessed are the Ancestors who kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season"). is literally the Jewish Shehecheyanu, translated word for word into English with references to God simply repalced with "ancestors", and keelah se'lai thrown in at the end
http://www.reformjud...se-shehecheyanu
then you get to the part where their whole shtick is basically space Zionism, and it starts too look a bit too obvious the historical conflict they were referencing. Biower doesn't really do subtle all that well.
Hades is used in the New Testament as well.. it's still written in Greek, after all. It's just that the underlying concept changed in the inter-testament period. And it was written by Jews, so they brought some of the Sheol concept into it as well. Palestine had been Hellenized by Alexander by the time it was written.
But yeah, I think there's similarities with Jewish, but also Gypsy cultures.
I didn't think ME3 was all that depressing considering the circumstances. I wouldn't even call it BioWare's most depressing game.
Honestly, I can't think of any Bioware game that has more depressing.
Even Jade Empire's "bad" ending where you surrender is a "good" ending in comparison.
Damn... that was the furthest thing from my mind..
I'm curious what that would be?
I would also like to know. I've never played another BioWare game that made me too depressed to replay it.
But yeah, I think there's similarities with Jewish, but also Gypsy cultures.
I haven't found any linguistic or historical references to Roma. I think people simply connect the two in modern terms because of the whole generalized nomad thing and accompanying racism (which the Jews obviously experienced more of during the diaspora, as well), but there's actually not any real similarity apart from the nomadicism (and you could just as easily connect the same stereotypes to Bedouins, Dom, etc. as they are fairly universal attitudes toward peripatetic societies). A big difference is that Roma are not refugees, but nomads by choice, and have no cultural desire to return to India. Historically, their place in the social strata is a bit different, too (though similarly disparaged). Roma tend to work in low skilled manual labor jobs, and are culturally and technologically archaic compared to the larger societies they inhabit (they still practice bride kidnapping, for instance, whereas the quarians are specifically noted to be less sexist than other ME societies on at least one occasion). The quarians are the opposite, noted for working in technical fields.
The Jewish historically were just as if not more advanced than the other cultures they worked in too, and took skilled professions that others in their societies couldn't or wouldn't (Jews were disproportionately represented in financial services due to Christian/Muslim prohibitions against lending on interest among other things, Quarians tend to do AI programming and research which is heavily regulated and discouraged in Council space).
I've also seen comparisons to Muslims, though that seems almost entirely based on comparing the female garb to a hijab (actually, according to ME1 art books the hood was supposed to look like religious iconography of the Virgin Mary) and the "pilgrimage", which in the quarian case is exogamous rather than endogamous, so bears little similarity. It's a bit more similar to the Mennonite/ Amish Rumspringa (similarly used as a rite of passage into adulthood, for instance).
At the time that I played ME 3, i found those scenes to be a little soft, or light, compared to how I would have handled it. I assumed that part of the issue was that capturing an appropriate scale was essentially impossible with the available resources, and thus they had to "triage" how many people could be animated at once.
In retrospect, it was reasonably impressive that they tackled the issue to the extent that they did. I doubt most companies would have, under similar circumstances.
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