Matt's Game Blogamado

[stock]

That or something else. Game Literature sounds like a library/bookstore sign. Not very exciting, ya dig?

[Kelso]

How about "Cool Story, Game Bro." (Get it? It's like Game Pro, but also a meme.)

[kayeforare]

Exactly!Game literature sounds like a huge library. Hopefully, this thread will be posted with some of the list of the newest computer games this time.

[Matador]

I haven't changed the design yet, but I made a new post about Mass Effect 2.

[Ben]

Sorry I'm a hardcore mass effect lore nerd and yeah... this bit.

The Krogan Species had a history of overbreeding and mass starvation before they were exposed to the rest of the galaxy.

This bit is flat out wrong, the Krogans before they were exposed to the galaxay were a tribal race on an incredibly dangerous planet with an extremely high infant mortality rate. They evolved to breed quickly and numerously to counter this as it was the only way to survive on there planet since they nuked the fuck out of it and were trapped in a nuclear winter. The over breeding happened when they were given intersteller travel abilities by the salarians. After they beat off the Rachni they had nothing to keep there numbers in check.

Also didn't the females separate into there own clans of there own choice?

[Matador]

Sorry if I got that wrong, but it seems the only thing I added in by mistake was the mass starvation part.

I don't think it was by choice. I should probably replay that, now that you've poked a hole in my observations. I do think, though, that putting the entire gender off screen is a really bad idea in general. We already have the Asari being treated as sex objects, so the segregation of an entire gender REALLY seemed anti-female. I'm not as well researched on Bioware as I used to be, but I saw that they had 8 writers for this game. I should check to see how many of them were women, 'cause this game just reeked of male privilege at times.

Truth be told: I really liked the game. I kind of wished I'd played male shepherd so I could've woo'd Tali (I played Femshep starting out with a Compassionate Janeway archetype who got down with Garrus). Tali and Kelly and Liara were the only two female characters I was interested in as female characters. The rest that I can remember were either off-putting (Miranda and Subject Zero), or uninteresting (Samara, Katsumi and the Dcotor). Even Liara is pushing the limit because she's Asari (who are all 'female,' thus asexual) and she was dull until she *spoiler* the *spoiler spoiler*, and then I was done with her.

Maybe I should play again as a Male and see if Miranda isn't a total bitch and if Jack has any emotional core worth pursuing. That's the problem with deiverging narratives: You don't know if the writers redeemed themselves in the other branches.

[Ben]

No they suck at writing female characters. I'll freely admit that. I've never been able to play a male character in there games becuase the female love intrests are just... shit. And the few female characters that are interesting aren't romanceable (Although I really liked Samara and the doctor is rad) Dragon Age has the same problem.

The lack of seeing female charcters in the game and the apparent sexism (the Krogan being seperated by gender, the Turian females all living on the home planet and not spreading) is more of writing around a technical limitation then actual sexism. It basically comes down to the fact that they haven't had time or the resources to do new models/skeletons/animations for females of each race. They were asked about it in the lead up to ME 2 (since they're all absent in ME 1) and they basically responded that due to engine restrictions they were limited to how many skeletons etc they could work in the game. They would have had to create new skeletons, animations and models (That all are fully customisable faces so they don't end up with clones walking around) for Turians, Batarian, Krogan, Elcor, Vollus, Salarians etc and it just wasn't feasible.

The Krogan gender segregation came about as a result of that, so is the fluff about Turian females not leaving there home world often (Although they hold high ranking positions on it I'm pretty sure). I'm not sure they've ever given a reason for any of the other races though.

[Matador]

That's a bullshit decision. If it was that bloody important to have so many species, reuse a skeleton or two for the other species! The collecters can use the turians, the batarians can use the humans, etc. There are fucking work arounds for this kind of things. Hell, you made one race a single gender, and they already used a human Skelaton, and you used a human skelaton for the Drell, too! You could remove one species, like the Volus! The Elcor barely move, and it's the same with the Hanaar. You could use a single skeleton for the Krogan and make it so the woman are fucking tough as nails, or there's only one type of armor because Krogan society itself is sexist. There: Now we've addressed the issue, and we've made a weakness into a strength.

Are the Quarians the only species with Male and Females of the race shown in the game? I didn't notice gender as an issue for the other races, but that's probably because the only three races you encounter as societies are Human's, the Asari and the Krogan.

I know I'm a male writer, but fuck do we need some female talent and viewpoints.

[Ben]

Quarians and Humans are the only race you see each gender. Hannar and Asari are aseuxal. Volus, Elcor and uh... the dudes in the gas suits whos name escapes me probably don't have obvious gender differences. I recall there being something about the Salarian females mentioned but don't really remember it.

But yeah I think honestly it's more lazyness then anything else. I mean the skeleton memory and animation limits sure as shit don't explain why the only krogan female we see is covered in a blanket so you don't actually get to know what they look like. A female Turian showed up in the comics and honestly it wouldn't even need a different skeleton (Basically it's head crest is a lot smaller, that's really it)

[Desov2]

Quarians and the Geth were by far the most interesting part of the Mass Effect universe in my opinion. There whole relationship is pretty neat and I just like the Quarian backstory in general. I thought that Tali is one of the better written characters though to be honest.

I did romance miranda in my playthrough and basically she has family issues and that's why she is a bitch all the time. She's not really that interesting.

[Ben]

Quarians and the Geth were by far the most interesting part of the Mass Effect universe in my opinion. There whole relationship is pretty neat and I just like the Quarian backstory in general. I thought that Tali is one of the better written characters though to be honest.

I did romance miranda in my playthrough and basically she has family issues and that's why she is a bitch all the time. She's not really that interesting.

I hated Tali... I think I'm the only one. I just really don't like her. She weirds me out with the whole "LOL I'm a cute naieve little girl, THEY DESERVED TO DIE!" thing. It's fucking weird.

There are only two times in the entire game I felt anything other then hate for Miranda, and one of the times was when she died on my final mission, and then it was satisfaction. (The other was reading her details in lair of the shadow broker that made me all )

[Matador]

Yeah, her whole sidequest made me kind of pissed. I did it anyway, since I wanted to make sure my team didn't have emotional baggage going in, but I later pissed her off when I sided with Jack (who I felt was being a bitch to the wrong person,).

In the end, my whole team was loyal with the exception of Jacob, who I dumped for Garrus, and Miranda, who was mad that I sided with someone else in an argument. Kind of funny that the only people I pissed off were both Cerberus.

Subject Zero came off as whiny and forceful. I didn't understand why the fuck she joined my team. I know she wanted the Cerberus info, but she was a fucking loner. Why did she want to join my crew? If she HAD to join my crew, it should have been under forced circumstances, and there should have been some benifit to her joining up with me (resources and manpower she wouldn't have had on her own). There's potential for a character with her background, but I didn't like the way she came off, and I didn't think much of the way she was written.

I found Tali kind of cute, but yeah, the whole "Kill the Geth" thing put me off, too. It wasn't as bad as Ashley in ME1, but that's because the first game was all "Hey, here's a blue woman you can fuck who hasn't busted your balls, and here's a pink woman who's Xenophobic when you've been inviting aliens to help save the Galaxy." I chose Liara because tapping a blue woman is the closest thing to being Captain Kirk in this game so why not?

Why couldn't they have made a white guy the racist instead? But no, racism=character trait!

[Ben]

I hated every love intrest in ME 1, Liara was creepy and made me feel like a pedo. Ashley was crazy and xenophobic (Although if you stick one up her she softens up) Kaiden was allright just... really bland. And then he turned into a fucking whiney bitch in 2 "WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME! I WAS SO LONLEY! BOO HOO HOO! YOU JOINED CEREBUS!?" and I'm like... bitch fuck off I'm banging Garrus now cause he's a fucking bro.

I still want a Wrex romance option.

I think I just ignored Jack, if you wanna sit in the bottom of my ship and bitch and moan what the fuck ever I don't give a shit.

[Matador]

Wrex was dead in 2 for me because I played on PS3. I didn't really care for Wrex that much, but then, I didn't really care for Grunt too much either. "Yeah, bro, you're awesome! Now go kill something in the other direction, facing away from me."

I wish I could have assigned bunks. I'd totally put him on the bunk above Miranda and leave the artificial gravity on.
*splat*

[Ben]

Wrex was pretty much the opposite of Grunt.

He was the old bitter hardened warrior dude who was just kind of sick of everyones shit. Also he had a fight against the chick that rules Omega that lasted for weeks and destroyed an entire space station, and that's rad.