#and the way it was received and how bioware immediately backed out of it does not give me hope for new or exciting things w da4

[mneiai]

For the DA prompts, DA:I - anything that deals with the way you can screw up table missions until the elf inquisitor to lose their entire clan. (And a table mission being the ONLY TIME THIS IS ACKNOWLEDGED OR MENTIONED IN THE GAME OMFG.) Your choice of characters but even years later I'm salty about BioWare dropping the ball BIG TIME on this and will seek out any and all opportunities to redress this CRIME OF STORYTELLING.

Omg I hate those missions! The fact there's like one right choice each time or else they and/or a bunch of other people die and even if it basically worked the last round it kills them the next time you choose it or vice versa fills me with fury every time! How are those even equivalent to shit like some Trevalyn cousins pretending to be closer to the Inquisitor than they are and everything basically working out regardless of your choice? It's like top 3 worst advisor choice moments.

Request Post Is Here

So, the first time I played an elven Inquisitor they were a female elf romancing Cullen and that's sort of always stuck in my head.

This is set immediately after the results of the last choice.

XxX

News of Clan Lavellan's fate cast a sober air across the Inquisition. Cullen still sent troops on the off chance that some of her clan yet survived, but Ellana had little hope.

She had been cautious, over and over again, choosing more often than not to avoid using their troops in case her clan thought they were under attack or the people decided to retaliate against them once the troops were no longer there, but now she wished she hadn't.

In her dreams, she sends twice the number Cullen would have. And Elven scouts before them so Deshanna was warned. A letter would be sent back, scolding her for being so overprotective, but with undertones of love.

Ellana would never receive another letter from her clan. She'd never hear Deshanna's gentle voice or the laughter of the children or....

Spread around her on the floor of her room was every piece of correspondence, every note and recommendation her Advisors had given about her clan. She could trace the horrible path of destruction and distrust, could see exactly where, suddenly, she'd had too much hope. Too much faith.

She'd been spending too long among the shems, had internalized too much of her position and titles.

"There's no telling if it would have gone differently." Cullen's voice pulled her from the downward spiral of her thoughts and she looked up to see him at the top of her stairs, Cole peeking at her through the railing lower down them.

"They would not have attacked the Inquisition! Some of these cities are Inquisition allies!" she gave the protest that had been swimming in her head for hours, since the news had first reached them.

He walked forward, kneeling on the floor on the other side of the pile before he was too close and looming too tall. Perhaps all of his time praying had made him sensitive to such things and she still had enough reason left within her to appreciate it.

Reaching out, hesitating just long enough that she could have stopped him, he took up one of Leliana's recommendations, smoothing down the wrinkles Ellana had made as she gripped it. "Though a lie might bring you comfort, I cannot offer one. You will never stop second-guessing your choices in this. The pain will become duller, less pronounced. Eventually you might go days, even weeks without thinking of it. And while it does not help now, at least you will have the comfort in knowing you were trying to do what was best, to save as many lives as possible."

"By hesitating, by using shem diplomacy when I should have shown my power," she bit out, her hand back on his final recommendation, the one she hadn't taken.

Cullen shook his head. "When this first started...do you remember, those weeks ago? I recommended sending troops in immediately," he gave a wry, humorless smile, "I fear that is my answer to most anything these days. In retrospect, I know that would have been the wrong choice. If...if it was the right choice this time--and we cannot know that--you were still not wrong to hesitate."

She let herself dwell on those words, remembering the recommendation he spoke of as she had only just reread it. He'd backed down as soon as she pointed out that her clan might react poorly to shem troops marching towards them. And she still knew she'd been right on that account.

"You each offer advice based on your expertise and I don't push you for more. You're no diplomat, but if I'd had you reach out to the other city-states instead of Josie, it might have gone differently." She knew he had close contacts high up in Kirkwall and Starkhaven, ones who might have been willing to leverage their own connections in the rest of the Marches.

"I...don't know." He wanted to say more, she could tell, could imagine him wondering if the people he knew had done less than their best because it was a stranger asking--she had not meant to give him another reason to blame himself, they both had more than enough of that.

When she'd pulled out these notes, she'd seen files upon files of other ones. All of the records of the important missions were kept in the same place, at least the ones that wouldn't give too much away if spies got ahold of them. It had reminded her of other choices she'd made, of other results they'd had.

How many people had she gotten killed over the last year, by doing what felt like the right thing?

Horribly, none of that mattered as much as this time. No one else mattered as much as her family had.

She was expected to save the world, but she couldn't even protect the people who mattered most to her.

"Ellana." Cullen interrupted her thoughts again.

His odd shem eyes were bright with unshed tears--for her grief, for her pain. She crawled across the strewn papers to push into his arms, uncaring if the hesitant thing between them allowed for such closeness. For now she just needed to soak up the warmth in his broad form and pretend like her world wasn't falling apart while she was tasked to keep everyone else's together.

[fooltofancy]

anthem was the most fun ive ever had with a bioware game, tbh, and it still makes me sad that they absolutely let it down the way they did.

[luckyspacerabbit]

would you ever share the background you created for kai leng? i'd be so interested in hearing it!

Hehe, yes! Thank you for waiting anon. I wanted to really think this through and make sure I was working with all the possible details of his character.

Okay, so my goal with fleshing out Kai was not to excuse him as a villain or to necessarily redeem him, but to humanize him and hopefully incur sympathy because I find his depiction as a mysterious lackey boogeyman to be 🙄 one dimensional and playing on racist tropes like the yellow peril ✨ (also bioware making him predominantly chinese + a lil russian. extrapolate what u will lol)

So here is my background for Kai :) Lots of childhood headcanoning and then some general talk about his character/why I chose certain elements as I did (such as dumping that dumb phantom blade for butterfly swords AEORHIG)

Childhood: According to the wiki, Kai is Earthborn, and from his general heritage we can assume that he grew up in Northern China (omg that's where my ancestors are from). The most populous city there is Beijing, which, if there was a spaceport or alliance recruitment anywhere, it would be there.

I headcanon that he was born to a bit of an unsteady family, where it was likely there was estrangement and unsafe conditions between the mother and father that may have created a sense of helplessness and neglect from a young age.

In my canon, Dan Hyun's mom, Hannah Shepard was the head of an agricultural research facility on Trident, and was an old friend of Kai's mom (From University, possibly).

As conditions worsened throughout Kai's childhood, his mom decided to take a chance and flee with Kai (age 10 at the time) to Hannah Shepard's science facility on Trident (Sentinel Agricultural Research Facility), where she and Kai would stay for about two years as his mom worked to save enough money for their own place .

Since Dan Hyun was already being homeschooled, it was easy enough for Kai to join up alongside her.

Dan Hyun (12 at the time) was extremely happy to have a friend since life on the facility could be really lonely-- but with all these changes Kai was having a difficult time adjusting, especially when Dan Hyun felt put off by his competitive attitude. After so long feeling neglected and growing in a tumultuous home environment, he craved external validation: homeschool provided an avenue for that. They developed their own academic-based competitive rivalry that counted towards friendship, but grew distant when he moved out with his mom about two years later.

When Dan Hyun was 18 (Kai at 16), she managed to apply to an Alliance Research Training program and receive admission-- something that was considered highly prestigious, despite her parents' reluctance. Kai had already begun to build resentment towards her due to the way her parents treated her (very preciously, sheltered, and without exposing her to the difficult parts of life) in contrast with what he lacked in family and world kindness, creating a drive to supersede her and compete with her once again, if only to have tangible proof that just because he began in a lower place didn't mean he couldn't surpass the vision of success.

After this event, they would strike up a still somewhat friendly rivalry again that continued until Kai enlisted in the Alliance at the age of 18 (his attempts to join directly at 16 failed in my canon lol, but he sure tried )

Alliance Service:

Kai took the combat-driven route while Dan Hyun was receiving training for her eventual research establishment in Akuze, meaning that in their line of work, they never crossed paths-- Though they maintained occasional communication and met up here and there whenever Kai was back from his tours.

This is where I believe his decline truly began.

Some habits, like his desire for tangible proof of success and seeking external validation, manifested more heavily in this time. Collecting badges off of dead soldiers (To remember his skill first hand) is a notable one, but I speculate he relied heavily on the word of his commanding officers to counter his self-esteem. Titles were incredibly important because they were proof. When he began to feel a loss of control which led to emotional outbursts and breakdowns, he would fall back on these bits of evidence that he had done something, anything.

The weight and violence of service combined to break away his mental strength and conditioned him to that of a soldier.

Famously, he was discharged in 2186 after his N7 designation. In a bar fight on shore leave, he murdered a Krogan (OKAY. Listen. The wiki says "first-degree murder" but first degree requires premeditation and bar fight implies heat of the moment. So IDK I think the details around this one are a little fishy. He was on leave but he was a soldier, so ? he probably just had a weapon on him? Okay, I'm not excusing him but premeditation is a bit different from manslaughter so just something I've pondered. It separates intentional killers from accidental murders).

At this point, he is formally incarcerated and set to serve a twenty-year sentence.

Cerberus Contact:

The year is 2177, and Kai has lost everything he's ever worked for. His prestige is gone, he is at the worst place he has ever been, his mom won't talk to him, and he has no one. He had even stopped hearing from Dan Hyun, the only person he could have considered a friend once.

Through a small TV in the prison, he is able to hear about the attack on Akuze, and its one survivor: Alliance Scientist Dan Hyun Shepard. In the attack her biotic abilities (Which she had kept secret for many years) were revealed, prompting immediate recruitment into the N7 Program and a contract for ten years of service. This drove Kai into rock bottom-- while he had nothing, Dan Hyun was steadily on track to uprooting the only thing he had ever felt like he had accomplished.

This is when Cerberus intervened, promising him a home, freedom, belonging, and success.

So of course Kai agreed. Why wouldn't he? He had nothing left in his miserable life and there would never again be a place for him.

Cerberus Intervention:

It's my belief that Kai wasn't necessarily "alienphobic" in the beginning. Instead, I think The Illusive Man saw a very clear opportunity to recruit and nurture a broken man into a pawn of service. TIM is incredibly smart-- everyone who works for Cerberus is. He knew what Kai needed was validation, the promise of success held directly on the tip of his tongue to drive him into tenacity and action.

Organizations like Cerberus, even in real life, prey on people at weak points, fulfill their needs and drape their ideology on top like icing on a cake. That's not to say that Kai is completely innocent-- he ate the sweets and readily threw the world to the side in order to attain more-- but it does give some perspective.

Kai in Cerberus:

In ME2 we know there is some apprehension on Kai's part about the role Shepard will play. He is already starting to feel slighted from failures with Rasa and takes even the possibility of rejection from TIM extremely hard and with violent emotional outburst. This evidences how much TIM has whittled him away over the decade of service. Kai feels as though he owes everything to TIM, that TIM saw something in him-- failing him is disproving that and accepting what Kai has feared all along: that he truly is a worthless and incapable person.

Kai and Shepard:

Kai is best known for his direct antagonism towards Shepard in the events of ME3, directly killing their allies and potential love interests in a way that is extremely personal. Yes, it is part of the job, but at the same time, it's clear Shepard gets under his skin. It's because in the end, after all that setup, Shepard is the one person who can take it all away from him.

They can replace him as TIM's prodigy/ They can bring an end to the organization that gave him everything (From his cybernetic enhancements (uh indoctrination cough couch) ) to his purpose in life. Kai threw it all in with them because he didn't see another choice.

My Canon: The End

So how do things end for Kai in my canon?

As you're aware, you can unalive him, violently. But Dan Hyun is very emotional and due to their shared childhood, I like to believe that there was still a grand feeling of kinship between them, a recognition of the other due to shared insecurities. I don't think there was ever a time Dan Hyun looked at Kai and saw anything other than her slighted friend (which is very romanticized, but SHE is very romanticized), it was just about getting Kai to see that too.

She locked him down the best she could, yelled, cried, and beat the shit out of him, but ultimately, preserved his life. After the crucible had been fired and Thane (alive ofc) attended to, she sought to right things between her and Kai: whatever form that takes. Who knows if he'll ever be able to live comfortably in society again-- but at least here, he has the chance.

Random Tidbits:

Some notes! At his best, I like that Kai is portrayed as Loyal, Hard Working, Methodical, Clever, Tenacious, and Factual. I think sometimes he can be written off unfairly as wimpy or scared, but in truth, he's very sure of his abilities and able to calculate his chances extremely well. He's smarter than fandom gives him credit for.

He has an interesting conflict between arrogance based on title and humbleness. He knows he wants to be the best but he never airs it-- like when Rasa suggests that he wants to be the leader for Humanity but he grows quiet and says to just focus on where things are at right now.

His time as a soldier absolutely affected him in ways I think sharpened him to the killer he became. It instilled values that remained with him in Cerberus, such as when he berates Bates for abandoning his squad and calls him a traitor. Kai doesn't betray-- he's quite literally ride or die.

Also? The ninja sword is super dumb because Kai is Chinese and the swords and Phantom's themselves are designed to appear Japanese in aesthetic. Ninjas= Japanese, but China did have their own sect of Assassins which I believe gave birth to Wu Ching as a type of Martial Arts? Or was drawn from it hmm

To keep to accuracy, Kai would have trained more towards their martial art techniques which focuses on close combat and quick movements, as well as the use of dual blades called butterfly swords (You'd likely recognize them as a set of rogue daggers).

That's all for that meta! Phew. If anyone actually read to the end, hey wassup, hope you enjoyed, and take most of this with a grain of salt since it's my headcanons and background work :) Thank you again for reading!

[felassan]

The rest of this post (quotes from the article) is under a cut due to length. [source]

(There are discussions of colonialism under the cut / in the article.)

After speaking to various devs who worked on MEA I’ve learned quite a bit about what happened here. First of all, there were several more species designed for this galaxy. One writer lists having proposed “five or six” new alien types, while another states that the ones BioWare opted for in the end were specifically chosen for being in “cosplay-safe” territory. Another dev mentions that an entire system was constructed just to facilitate communication between species who were indigenous to Andromeda and those who had arrived from the Milky Way. The “species who were indigenous to Andromeda” part is important, given that there were also different ideas for how to handle first contact - making the Pathfinder a violent colonist who shoots first and asks questions later wasn’t something that was set in stone from the get-go.

“I think it was a project that couldn't have possibly lived up to expectations,” Neil Pollner tells me. Pollner was a senior writer on Mass Effect 3 before going on to write parts of Andromeda. “Not just the high bar of the original trilogy, but the logical expectations anyone would have of Mass Effect going to a whole new galaxy. Because the scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you'd be getting a massive new experience with a ton of new things in [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda - new species, new lore, an entire new galaxy at your fingertips, etc.

“But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn't even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren't going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn't there.”

Pollner goes on to explain something I mentioned above - that there’s an inherent disconnect between making your character an explorer in a game where the vast majority of gameplay involves killing. “Ryder the explorer should have a challenging and dynamic first contact experience,” he explains. “Instead, you're almost immediately killing kett. So, some very basic pillars just weren't lining up.”

When I ask about the fact that several species had apparently been cut from the game - something I had already learned in previous interviews - Pollner assures me that I had “no idea” of what was dropped in the early days of Andromeda. He also lamented the iconic narrative and branching complexity of earlier BioWare games, stating that he wishes the team had been able to maintain the same level of variation, options, and consequences as the revered RPGs the studio was known for.

“The other BioWare Montreal writers and I were dreaming up and developing things for Andromeda months ahead of Edmonton officially starting the project - i.e. before the budget and scope had been decided/communicated,” Pollner says. “We just knew that we were going to Andromeda, with almost nothing else established, including even when in the timeline it would happen. And we set out to brainstorm and grow ideas that could organically serve that general premise. “That first contact expectation I mentioned? We'd developed ideas for how the player would navigate that. We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used.”

“I proposed five or six new alien species when Andromeda was in its infancy, and I still think they had a ton of potential,” Hepler says. “[Ex-BioWare writer] Jo Berry came up with a few, too, they were awesome.

“However, I'm pretty sure those ideas are still property of BioWare, so even though I'm 100% certain they won't be used, I can't talk about them without getting some kind of permission.”

Given that Pollner had his own ideas for new species, and that Hepler had “five or six” on top of a “few” more from Berry, it’s reasonable to conclude that concepting was done for up to ten additional species that never made it into Andromeda.

“I remember some early concepts that were pretty out there,” Dorian Kieken tells me. Kieken was a design director at BioWare Montreal for Mass Effect 2 and 3 before being promoted to franchise design director at the beginning of Andromeda’s development. “One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most of the alien characters - except the Hanar, although I wouldn't underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers. The intention in Mass Effect Andromeda was to introduce new races that would still be in the realm of cosplay, which is probably why more crazy concepts were abandoned.”

I was surprised that this was even a consideration, so I followed up. Kieken assures me that after Andromeda’s two new races had been decided on, their evolution of their design gradually went into more “cosplay-safe territory,” with the team consciously steering away from “jellyfish” types of aliens. “In the early development of the game, we explored a lot of new species. I'm not sure why we settled on the specific number that were in the final game, but my guess would be a mix of production reasons and having a reasonable amount of races to deal with knowing we were already bringing quite a few from the Milky Way as well.”

As Pollner mentioned earlier, the team only had the budget for two new species plus the Remnant. On top of that, they weren’t able to bring all of the Milky Way species, which corroborates Kieken’s recollection of why so many species were cut.

Given the context of these conversations - species being cut from Andromeda, first contact being muddled with militance, and even cosplay potential governing alien design - I also ask why, in the devs’ eyes, Andromeda was poorly received in relation to the original trilogy.

“I think it’s more story-related than setting-related,” Kieken says. “Andromeda has strong core gameplay that improved a lot over the trilogy, but the story didn't feel as strong. I didn't connect with the new character cast as much as I did with the original trilogy.

“It's also not a fair comparison as the trilogy is three games, so you have a lot more exposition and time to bond with the characters. That being said, I seem to recall a stronger rollercoaster of emotions in the original trilogy, which I think led to more memorable moments. From the tension of almost blowing up Wrex with your shotgun or gathering everyone on a suicide run, to the lightness of listening to Mordin sing ‘I'm the very model of a scientist Salarian’ or shooting cans with Garrus in the Presidium.”

Pollner also explains why Andromeda was perceived so differently from the original trilogy, citing differences in the amount of time the team were given to make the game, but also noting that the core issue was more systemic in nature.

“I think the thesis statement for why is that the Mass Effect trilogy was an incredibly demanding endeavor,” Pollner says. “The checks that were written for it, the complexity of the experience was insanely massive. The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical. Some of the ‘lessons’ learned from the original trilogy are ones that are important for game development but result in the player experience being less. When you're talking about triple-A development, the original trilogy is actually the anomaly, not Andromeda.

“Because I moved on from BioWare after my work on Andromeda was complete, I have no idea what, if any, future plans there might be. At the time of my departure, there were none.”

It’s worth noting that Pollner is clear about Andromeda being better than a lot of people give it credit for. While some of the concerns people had have now been verified by people who worked on the project - that there could have been more species and that the core premise of Ryder the explorer becoming Ryder the killer is inherently flawed - the team still worked hard on delivering an ambitious game within the constraints of what they were given.

“I find the game to actually be pretty darn fun, and once the technical flaws were ironed out, and the initial reactive disappointment faded, the game does stand on its own,” Pollner says. “There's some really good stuff in there.”

[source]

[catherdrashepard]

Darrow is Not Going to Die at the End of the Series Part 2

There are probably going to be at least one or two more parts depending on how much I can stop myself from blathering on. Anyway, spoilers ahead for the following: Dark Age, Hunger Games, Castlevania, Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, Avengers Endgame, The Hobbit, Voltron, FMA, HttYD, Death Note, Madoka Magica, Merlin, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, HunterxHunter, Dragon Prince, He-Man (the new one), Yu Yu Hakusho, Persona 3. Mass Effect, The Hollow, Camp Cretaceous, and whatever else I can think of.

I last left off on talking about how my thoughts implied that Darrow could die at the end as long all the loose ends are tied. But, I don’t think that that’s really something that can actually happen. A lot of this is speculation on my part and really relies on what happens during the 6th book.

The first thing that came to mind was Mass Effect. The ending of Mass Effect 3 was...not very well received. I’m not going to say that I’m particularly happy with it either but I also think it fits the narrative. However, one thing to note, video games are different than books and the story that Shepard goes through is reliant on the player. Also, stories in games are going to be shorter than stories in books (for the most part, there are definitely exceptions) due to player involvement.

I’m going to start with Shepard’s first death, at the beginning of Mass Effect 2. Of course, being the second game, their death couldn’t be permanent unless BioWare switched protagonists mid trilogy. There are a few reasons, in my opinion, that Shepard was killed during the opening credits of the second game.

First of all, the combat changed between games (a lot between the first and second and only slightly between second and third), and I think Shepard’s two year absence gave a reason for a tutorial on the new combat system. They were dead and had to learn how to use new technology. This is also done between the second and third games, with a 6 month gap, but the combat only changed slightly. Secondly, having the main protagonist die really highlights the threat that the player is dealing with in the second game but, Shepard’s return also shows that they still have unfinished business and that their story isn’t over. Thirdly, I think the absence gives time for the secondary characters time to develop on their own. This is shown more with the characters who appeared in the first game but also it gives an idea of just how much of an impact Shepard had. I feel like this is a parallel to the time Darrow spent in the table between GS and MS.

Now to move on to Shepard’s more permanent death...although if you complete the game entirely (at least in the legendary edition; thank goodness I hated the battle readiness thing) there is a dubious ending where Shepard may or may not have lived. But in any case, Shepard is considered dead and their story is over. Whatever my feelings about this may be, this type of ending didn’t come out of nowhere. The main threat, the Reapers, have been dealt with in a permanent manner, or at least it’s heavily implied that they won’t be coming back. However, just because the Reapers are gone doesn’t mean there aren’t still things to be done. Specifically, recovery. Shepard very well could have been involved in this but it’s not necessary. Their story is over, they have dealt with the threat and it’s not coming back.

Darrow, on the other hand, has not finished his mission. Even if he does by the end of the next book, however, it’s a very different circumstance from Shepard. The threat in Mass Effect was a very large and tangible thing, whereas the problem Darrow faces is an ideology and the people who hold those views. Something like that doesn’t end with a large space weapon pointed directly at the threat; it permeates everything. So even if Darrow defeats Atalantia, Lysander, and whoever else, there’s most likely going to be more people who shared belief that Golds are best. Also, we saw how the Vox Populi felt about the things Darrow was doing. Darrow is essentially reconstructing an entire system of government and, no matter how correct Darrow is, there will always be people who disagree with him.

Assuming Darrow defeats the remnants of the Society, stops the Ascomanni, deals with Quicksilver and whatever he’s doing, takes care of Atlas, handles Apple, what’s left? Much like with the end of Mass Effect, what’s left is recovery. The difference between these two, however, is that while Shepard was not necessarily needed for the rebuilding, Darrow would be.

Now, both Shepard and Darrow spearheaded their respective causes, but (and this relies heavily on how the sixth RR book goes) defeating the Reapers was a group effort, utilising every species and as many resources as they can spare. No doubt the rebuilding of the entire galaxy will require the same. Not that Darrow’s goal hasn’t been similar in that regards, with the help of so many different Colors being necessary. It’s just....Darrow’s circle feels a lot smaller than Shepard’s.

I mean, obviously being the face of a war is going to get you a lot supporters and people to work with, but the most important players are Darrow’s close friends and family. I’m sure part of this is the fact that the books are first person with specific POVs. Mass Effect does focus on Shepard’s story, but it’s in third person and you get a lot of different information through sidequests and talking to other characters. I mean, there’s a whole codex in Mass Effect with a lot of information and there isn’t one for RR (PB should make one tho). Our knowledge of the universe and its history is more limited in RR than Mass Effect, but I think that’s mostly because the lore in Mass Effect has more of a direct impact on how the story goes.

But back to the original point, it’s explicitly shown in Mass Effect that it requires everyone to stop the Reapers. And even though we see Darrow’s army, the main players, the ones who are taking care of the big things, are still Darrow’s inner circle. As an example, Mass Effect would be more like a pyramid (ironic) where Shepard is at the top. Even if it crumbles away (they die), the pyramid will still stand. For RR, it feels more like a chain. If one of the links (Darrow) breaks, then the chain is also broken. You could re-attach the pieces but it wouldn’t be as strong as it once was.

One last thing I wanted to bring up (which I will bring up again in part 4, yes I said part 4), is technology. Both Mass Effect and RR take place in the future and therefore have better technology than we do. There is something very important about this technology though that makes it more likely for Darrow to live. The Reapers are a race of sentient squid machines hellbent on the genocide of every other sentient species in the galaxy. But they are the ONLY things with access to that kind of technology. Even when they share it with Saren or the Collectors, it’s not something others can replicate. And once they’re destroyed (control ending notwithstanding) at the end of the third game, that’s it. They could still have people who are indoctrinated (although I think that stops when the Reapers were destroyed?) or people who are just stupid and think they were right, but...those people aren’t a threat. They can’t bring back the Reapers, I doubt anyone would be able to recreate such a thing (at least not within Shepard’s lifetime even if they did live). So once the Reapers were gone...that’s it.

Now, the technology in RR is, for the most part, accessible to everyone. Assuming Darrow defeats Atalantia, Lysander, etc. their way of thinking would still be around. But with the way the universe works, I think it would entirely possible for supporters of the Society to rise up and start a conflict all over again. This means Darrow is not finished yet, even if the immediate threats are gone. It wouldn’t make sense for him to die when there’s still stuff for him to do.

I do think, though, that it is worth mentioning that the definite ending of Mass Effect is probably related to the fact that it’s a video game and especially for stories like that, a more open ended conclusion with the implication that I COULD do more would only be frustrating. With tv shows, movies, and books, I notice, having a more vague ending works better because you’re just separated enough from the story that you can enjoy the implications of more stuff without feeling unsatisfied. There’s always exceptions of course.

ANYWAY, it part 3 I’m going to be talking about Persona 3 and 5 so....stay tuned.

[eggoreviews]

My Top 25 Games Advent Day 16 - Mass Effect 2 (#10)

​​“They tell me it’s a suicide mission. I intend to prove them wrong.”​​

​​Here we have another example, and in my eyes the best example, of the product of Bioware being at their absolute peak. Mass Effect 2 is a nigh on masterpiece of a game that, even after almost a decade, still holds up extraordinarily well in every aspect. I love the Mass Effect series (well, the main trilogy anyway) for its cinematic storytelling, its interesting and unique plot concepts and gameplay elements, its intricate setting and, crowning all, its always unforgettable companion characters who go on your journey with you. The series’ second instalment, at least in my eyes, does all of this absolutely perfectly without 3’s wonky ending and 1’s slightly outdated settings and mechanics. If I called Dragon Age: Origins the Lord of the Rings of gaming, here’s Star Wars.​​

​​Mass Effect 2 doesn’t fuck around. It starts you up on the original ship from the first game, before immediately blowing it up and killing Commander Shepard, the vaguely cheesy space hero we all love so much. After Shepard’s revival at the hands of Cerberus, Mass Effect 2 kicks off with an epic space opera story taking you all across the universe, with espionage, emotive character arcs and an oppressive, genuinely fearful atmosphere created by the game’s big bads, the vastly superior alien race known as the Collectors. It’s amazing how they managed to blend that overriding fear of an enemy so powerful it could wipe out everything with this giddy excitement to explore. Whether that be the plethora of planets you can seek out, mine for resources and explore or some of the more densely populated space stations, such as the vast cityscape of the Citadel or the seedy, neon underworld filled with criminals and night clubs, Omega. Mass Effect’s universe truly has a life of its own and it tells such a grandiose story within it that it’s impossible not to become immersed. Each and every area you visit is packed full of memorable characters of various diverse species, like the awesome looking Turians and Krogans, down to the hilariously blunt Elcor, who communicate by prefacing everything they say with how they’re feeling. On top of this, a bountiful selection of engaging side quests and an overarching main story that largely involves you seeking out each of your party members to hunt down the Collectors make this a truly perfected combination of a well-realised sci-fi setting and story.​​

​​Drawing on those companion characters for a moment, I would say that this is one of the best, most diverse and engaging cast of characters you can find in a game, as each of them follow their own individual character arcs and have unique relationships with Shepard depending on your actions and the behaviour you exhibit towards them. The likes of Jacob (the guy you start with who is admittedly a bit boring), Miranda (the biotic who was experimented on by her family to make her ‘perfect’), Garrus (the kickass Turian who is everyone’s favourite and also has gotta be the canon love interest for male Shepard), Mordin (the quick-thinking, quick-everything Salarian doctor with a surprisingly dark past), Grunt (a wartime experimental clone taken by Shepard as a replacement for their original target, Grunt’s creator), Jack (a highly powerful, erratic biotic in a maximum security prison), Samara (Asari matriarch who can step on me and also everyone), Thane (the coolest, chillest assassin in the galaxy), Zaeed (amercenary veteran with a sick ass scar), Kasumi (cool space thief) and Tali and Legion (oneQuarian and one Geth, both interesting and unique characters in their own right, these characters draw upon the central conflict between the two races explored in the first game’s main story. In the sequel, the slow development of the two from sworn enemies to allies is something to behold, especially as both are so lovable on their own). Went on a bit of a tangent there but I felt it was important to include everyone in that list. The best part about this is you spend the entire game building your relationships with these characters, choosing a romance option, decking Shepard and the gang out in the best gear, upgrading your ship with the materials you mine from planets. And then it all comes down to the finale, the so-called ‘suicide mission’ in which anyone and everyone can die depending on your choices and upgrades beforehand, as well as any decisions you make during the mission. It is genuinely incredibly difficult to save everyone first try and is a great example of how to ensure the choices you give to your player have weight and lasting impact; in Mass Effect 2, everything is on your shoulders and no one’s survival is guaranteed.​​

​​As I said before, I don’t think it would be wrong to call this the Star Wars of gaming, and it wouldn’t take that title without a lot of pew-pewing and excellent use of the sci-fi genre. The gameplay and gunplay (which is the majority of your experience) is slick and well-executed, even feeling intuitive and fun almost a decade later. Even that final boss encounter, that I will never really understand the potent hatred people seem to have for it, is an awesome final test of what you’ve learned and how you’ve improved along the way, pitting you up against an all-out giant Terminatoresque killing machine as an excellently overblown ending to a game full of dramatic encounters to shoot at. Alongside this, the visuals are superb and do little break immersion even as time has gone by and I would argue that this game still holds some of the best graphics you can find from the previous generation. And last but not least, this game’s spicy ass mechanical sci-fi soundtrack is definitely something to flap about, especially when it comes to the combat and that Suicide Mission score is nothing short of incredible.​​

​​So now I’ve ranted aimlessly for three chunky paragraphs about each singular aspect of this game that I adore, you can probably see why this title has such an enduring memory to me. Playing this game for the first time at 12 years old off the back of the also amazing Dragon Age: Origins, Bioware took their perfected formula of knowing exactly how to craft a story, setting and excellently realised characters and shot it up into space both figuratively and literally. In my eyes, Mass Effect 2 is Bioware’s greatest title and it’s honestly more than a shame that we haven’t received anything from Mass Effect in recent years, aside from the less than great Andromeda. A Mass Effect 4 would kill me dead, but at the very least an original trilogy remaster would keep me ticking for a hot minute. Get on it, Bioware. Pls.​​

​​Standout Moment Award: Probably already mentioned this, but of course it’s the suicide mission. An unforgettable epic of a quest and one of my favourite overall game finales to date.​​

Standout Character Award: Thane Krios. The ice-cool, terminally ill assassin takes today’s award for being an all-around great dude.

​​It’s been a long ol’ month, but we’re finally getting there. Today, I kicked off my top 10 games of all time. From here on out, it’s going to be beyond difficult to stop myself from descending into rambles, but I’ll do my best to keep myself coherent. ​​ ​​Tomorrow: No. 9; An odd creature with floating appendages takes off to save some blue things in dire distress.

[sigmalied]

Sig’s Anthem Review

Verdict

BioWare’s Anthem is a genuinely fun and engaging experience that sabotages itself with myriad design, balance, and technical oversights and issues. It is a delicious cake that has been prematurely removed from the developmental oven - full of potential but unfit for general consumption in this wobbly state. Anthem is not a messianic addition to the limited pantheon of looter shooters because it has somehow failed to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of its predecessors. 

Am I having fun playing Anthem? Absolutely. Does it deserve the industry’s lukewarm scores? Absolutely. But this is something of a special case. The live service model giveth and taketh away; we receive flexibility in exchange for certainty. Is Anthem going to be the same game six months from now? Its core DNA will always be the same, but we’ve already begun to see swift improvements that bode well for the future. 

Will my opinion matter to you? It depends. When I first got into looter shooters I was shocked at how much the genre clicked with me. They are a wonderful playground for theory crafters, min/maxers, and mathletes like myself who find incomparable joy in optimizing builds both conventional and experimental by pushing the limits of obtainable resources ad infinitum. The end game grind is long and at times challenging as you make the jump to Grandmaster 1+ difficulty in search of top-tier loot to perfect your build. This is what looter shooters are all about.

If you don’t like the sound of that, you’ll probably drop Anthem right after finishing its campaign. But if you do like the sound of that, you might find yourself playing this game for years.

TL;DR: This game is serious fun, but is also in need of some serious Game & UI Design 101. 

I wrote a lot more about individual aspects of the game beneath the read more, if you’re interested. I’ve decided not to give the game a score, I’m just here to discuss it after playing through the campaign and spending a few days grinding elder game activities. There are no spoilers here.

Gameplay

The Javelins are delightful. I’ve played all four of them extensively and despite identifying as a Colossus main I cannot definitively attach myself to one class of Javelin because they’re all so uniquely fun to play and master. Best of all, they’re miraculously balanced. I’ve been able to hold my own with every Javelin in Grandmaster 1+. Of course, some Javelins are harder to get the hang of than others. Storms don’t face the steep learning curve Interceptors do, but placed in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, both are equally as destructive on the battlefield. 

I love the combo system. It is viscerally satisfying to trigger a combo, hearing that sound effect ring, and seeing your enemy’s health bar melt. Gunplay finally gets fun and interesting when you start obtaining Masterworks, and from there, it’s like playing a whole new game. 

Mission objectives are fairly bland and repetitive, but the gameplay is so fun I don’t even mind. Collect this, find that, go here, whatever. I get to fly around and blow up enemies while doing it, and that’s what matters. Objectives could be better, certainly. Interesting objectives are vital in game design because they disguise the core repetitive gameplay loop as something fresh, but the loop on its own stays fresh long enough to break even, I feel.

The best part is build flexibility. Want to be a sniper build cutting boss health bars in half with one shot? I’ve seen it. Want to be a near-immortal Colossus wrecking ball who heals every time you mow down an enemy? You can. There are so many possibilities here. Every day I come across a new crazy idea someone’s come up with. This is an excellent game for build crafters. 

But... why in the world are there so few cosmetic choices? A single armor set for each Javelin outside the Vanity store? A core component of looter shooters has always been endgame fashion, and on this front, BioWare barely delivers and only evades the worst criticism by providing quality Javelin customization in the way of coloring, materials, and keeping power level and aesthetics divorced. We’re being drip-fed through the Vanity store, and while I like the Vanity store’s model, there should have been more things permanently available for purchase through the Forge. Everyone looks the same out there! Where’s the variety? 

Story, Characters, World

Anyone expecting a looter shooter like Anthem to feature a Mass Effect or Dragon Age -sized epic is out of their mind, but that doesn’t mean we have to judge the storytelling in a vacuum. This is BioWare after all. Even a campaign that flows more like a short story - as is the case with Anthem - should aspire to the quality of previous games from the studio. Unfortunately, it does not, but it comes close by merit of narrative ambience: the characters, the world’s lore, and their execution. 

(For a long time I’ve had a theory that world building is what made the original Mass Effect great, not its critical storyline, which was basically a Star Trek movie at best. Fans fell in love because there were interesting people to talk to, complicated politics to grasp, and moral decisions to make along the way.)

While the main storyline of Anthem is lackluster and makes one roll their eyes at certain moments or bad lines, the world is immediately intriguing. Within Fort Tarsis, sophisticated technology is readily available while society simultaneously feels antiquated, echoing a temporal purgatory consistent with the Anthem’s ability to alter space-time. Outside the fort, massive pieces of ancient machinery are embedded within dense jungles in a way that suggests the mechanical predates nature itself. The theme of sound is everywhere. Silencing relics, cyphers hearing the Anthem, delivering echoes to giant subwoofers… It’s a fun world, it really is. 

As for the characters… they might be some of the best from BioWare. They feel like real people. Rarely are they caricatures of one defining trait, but people with complex motives and emotions. Some conversations were boring, but the vast majority of the time I found myself racing off to talk to NPCs as soon as I saw yellow speech bubbles on the map after a mission. And don’t even get me started on the performances. They are golden.

The biggest issue with the story is that it’s not well integrated with missions. At times it feels like you’re playing two separate games: Fort Tarsis Walking/Talking Simulator and Anthem Looter Shooter. And the sole threads keeping these halves stitched together during missions - radio chatter - takes a back seat if you’re playing with randoms who rush ahead and cause dialogue to skip, or with friends who won’t shut the hell up so you can listen or read subtitles without distraction. I found it ironic that I soloed most of the critical story missions in a game that heavily encourages team play.

Technical Aspects: UI & Design 

This is where Anthem has some major problems. God, this category alone is probably what gained the ire of most reviewers. The UI is terrible and confusing. There are extra menu tabs where they aren’t needed. The placement of Settings is for some inane reason not located under the Options button (PS4). Excuse me? It’s so difficult to navigate and find what you’re looking for. It’s ridiculously unintuitive.  

Weapon inscriptions (stat bonuses) are vague and I’ve even seen double negatives once or twice. They come off as though no one bothered to proofread or edit anything for clarity. Just a bad job here all around. And to make matters worse, there is no character stat sheet to help us demystify any of the bizarre stat descriptions. We are currently using goddamn spreadsheets like animals. Just awful. 

The list goes on. No waypoints in Freeplay. Countless crashes, rubber banding, audio cutouts, player characters being invisible in vital cutscenes, tethering warnings completely obscuring the flight overheat meter… Fucking yikes. Wading through this swamp of bugs and poor design has been grueling to say the least. 

And now for the loot issues. Dead inscriptions on gear; and by dead I mean dead, as in “this pistol does +25% shotgun damage” dead (this has been recently patched but I still cannot believe this sort of thing made it to release). The entire concept of the Luck stat (chance to drop higher quality loot) resulting in Luck builds who drop like flies in combat and become a burden for the rest of the team. Diminishing returns in Grandmaster 2 and 3; it takes so long to clear missions on these difficulties without significant loot improvement, making GM2 and GM3 pointless when you could be grinding GM1 missions twice as fast. 

At level 30, any loot quality below Epic is literal trash. Delete Commons, Uncommons, and most Rares as soon as you get them because they’re virtually useless. I have hundreds of Common and Uncommon embers and nothing to do with them. Why can’t we convert 5 embers into 1 of the next higher tier? Other looters have already done things like this to make progression omnipresent. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here, BioWare. It’s already been done for you. 

When you get a good roll on loot, the satisfaction is immense. But when you don’t, and you won’t 95% of the time, you’ll feel like you’ve wasted hours with nothing to show for it. We shouldn’t be spending so much time hunting for useful things, we should be trying to perfect what’s already useful.

It’s just baffling to think that Anthem had the luxury of watching the messy release of several other looter shooters during Anthem’s development, yet proceed to make the same mistakes, and some even worse. 

Nothing needs to be said about visuals. They are stunning, even from my perspective on a base PS4.

Sound design is the only other redeeming subcategory here. Sound design is amazing, like the OST. Traditional instrumentals meet alien synth seamlessly. Sarah Schachner is a seriously talented composer. 

I’m just relieved to see the development team hauling ass to make adjustments. They’ve really been on top of it - the speed and transparency of fixes has been top-notch. They’re even working on free DLC already! A new region, more performances from the actors... I’m excited and hopeful for the future. 

[princess-nope]

Love Emerges in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

The following is an essay I wrote back in 2016 for an art history class focused in women’s studies. The prompt of the essay was to compare a piece of media to one of the books we read and using it to define melodrama. I don’t expect many people to read this but it’s just something I thought I would share. I’m still very proud of this essay and re-reading it after so long reminded me why I love KOTOR and Carth Onasi so much. I hope you like it.

In all honesty I never truly knew what the term “melodrama” meant until this course. I’ve heard it at least a thousand times but tried to avoid using it in conversation to prevent from looking foolish. Learning about melodrama in class and conceptualizing it beyond the one-dimensional insult most people use it as has been for the better. Not only is melodrama not necessarily a bad thing, it’s present in almost all the things I enjoy to some extent. So as I wracked my mind for something to write about, I opted for my most current obsession, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. KOTOR is a Star Wars role-playing video game developed by BioWare and Lucas Arts released in 2003 that takes place 4,000 years before the original trilogy. However, because of the numerous characters and side quests it is impossible to write about it as a whole in one short essay. With that in mind I chose my favorite part of the game, Carth Onasi. In this paper I will analyze Carth Onasi as a character in the world of KOTOR by comparing his character traits and side quest with my working definition of melodrama.

Before I dive too deep into this paper I want to step back and properly introduce you to the character of Carth Onasi . KOTOR allows the player to be either male or female and provides romance options for both genders. When the opportunity is presented to me, I always try to play a female so I can truly become immersed in my gaming experience. It should also be noted that the player can play as a dark side or light side character based off of the decisions they make throughout the game; with this in mind my analysis will be based on the light side PC. Carth is the love interest for the female PC and is the first companion the player gets in the game. The player is encouraged to talk to him and throughout the game more information about his past and motivations for hanging out with the PC are revealed. He is very charismatic, charming and witty as well as a dedicated Republic soldier. Carth is a classic example of the “victim-hero” and comes from a tragic past that I will get into later. What is arguably the most interesting thing about him outside of his purpose in the game is the male gaming demographics’ reaction to him. I learned soon after beginning KOTOR that Carth is overwhelmingly hated by male players because he is “annoying, whiney and over emotional.” That sounds a lot like the definition of melodrama I got from my friends, I’m sensing a connection here.

With all of that in mind I will be working with Linda Williams’s concept of the melodramatic mode. How I interpret her concept lies in her five key features of melodrama which all in some way fit into Carth’s character and backstory. Her definition hit a chord in my brain and helped me wrap my head around what melodrama truly is. When asking my friends what they believed the term meant, they generally answered that it was a method of making things overly or unnecessarily emotional to get a reaction or move the plot forward. My boyfriend added that usually when something is melodramatic, the writer didn’t mean for it to be. However, I respectively disagree to an extent. It appears in KOTOR as it does in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a scene or situation that forces the audience to empathize or sympathize with the characters. This makes Carth Onasi the best avatar for melodrama in KOTOR because objectively he is the only character that can share a  “happy ending” with the female PC through the means of a romantic relationship.

Video games are a bit different than literature or film in the sense that the player is directly involved in the story. In role-playing games especially the story progresses in a certain way based off of the player’s decisions. So it’s one thing for me to witness St. Clare’s death through the eyes of Tom, and totally another for me to be Tom. Though it can be argued that the player cannot physically feel and experience what the game avatar does, there is only one degree of separation instead of two or three. I am Tom because I made decisions as Tom, I am directly being affected by my choices and feeling all the pathos that come with those decisions. With the open character progression of KOTOR, I am experiencing this universe because the game is allowing me to make these decisions with little to no restriction. Therefore as the PC I am experiencing the adventure with Carth as myself, I am making the decisions I want to make and falling in love with Carth along the way.

Going back to Carth’s massive unpopularity in the male demographic Williams states, “suffering itself is a form of powerlessness that is coded feminine.” Carth is much like St. Clare in this sense, with St. Clare’s father describing his son as feminine and unfit to run the family plantation. Almost all of the PC’s companions have side quests that play out their own little melodramas, but they don’t seem to receive the same negative reaction. For the sake of argument my reaction to the male PC love interest Bastilla was negative, but for different reasons. Right off the bat the player’s first interaction involves her condescendingly expressing her ingratitude for her rescue. This immediately left a bad taste in my mouth for the character. Bastilla continues to deem herself superior and only after talking to her a lot does she get off her high horse and show some humanity. So do I dislike her because I find her too masculine? Of course not, I dislike her because she’s rude. Video games are notorious for being a boys club with few games including something for heterosexual women that isn’t a “game for girls.” Carth Onasi was specifically designed and written to be a companion for the PC, but a love interest for the female PC. Carth might have been given melodramatic tendencies to elicit a positive female response, but he was also given conventional good looks, cool clothes and a sense of humor.

Just as Williams uses Rambo as a masculine example of a character working in the melodramatic mode, Carth shares similar traits of “endur[ing] multiple indignities and pathetically suffer[ing]” in a way “that elicit audience empathy” even going as far as to also “begin his prolonged rescue-revenge.” Through player dialogue Carth tells the PC he had a wife and son who tragically died during the attack on his home planet. Before this he mentioned how his mentor, Saul, had left the Republic to join the Sith which was a huge betrayal to Carth. So with just this brief chain of dialogue Carth perfectly conforms to Williams’s description of a masculine character operating in the melodramatic mode. Saul, the villain of Carth’s story, directly attacked his home, a “space of innocence,” thus hitting the first key feature of melodrama. When playing KOTOR 2 it is possible to run into Carth again when he returns to Telos to get information from the new PC about the PC from the first game. He asks the new PC if they’re able to find the last PC to “simply tell her Carth Onasi is waiting for her.” Though it isn’t present in KOTOR Carth comes full circle and returns home to wait for his happy ending to return to him.

My take on Carth’s character appeal is that he appears to be the most relatable character. He is often times the “straight man” of the story and reacts to space magic like a normal person typically would. His role as a victim-hero in his own story is merely additional layers given to build a complete character. The second feature of melodrama is the virtue of a victim-hero. Carth suffers from the loss of his family and by this logic holds virtue. Carth can only gain his virtue by “purg[ing]…the taint of selfish ambition.” Carth’s “selfish ambition” is his desire to kill Saul and avenge his family. He states, “I know killing Saul won’t bring them back, and it won’t make me happy again… but I have to do it.” Carth is aware of the fault in his bloodlust for Saul but cannot overcome it. The PC can act as a voice of reason if the player chooses, but I allowed Carth to have his revenge therefore moving from pathos to action.

This leads to the third feature, or the “recognition of virtue” through a use of pathos and action. This concept correlates with arriving “too late” or “in the nick of time” and is applicable to Carth’s confrontation with Saul. Though the main antagonist of the game is on his way to kill the PC, Carth revels in his lust for revenge. Carth’s pathos finally moves to action that in turn helps the player recognize Carth’s virtue and the villainy of Saul. This final conflict gives a resolution to Carth’s story and allows him to move on through the game assisting the PC whole-heartedly.

What follows is the fourth feature, being “realism.” A more literal aspect of this feature comes in the form of Carth searching for his son, Dustil. When the player discovers Dustil is actually alive, Carth desperately tries to find him in a “search for something lost” that “ties [him] to the past.” The PC can no longer gain any meaningful information from Carth until this side quest is completed. Though avenging his family is important to Carth, it isn’t his character side quest but rather his relevancy to the overall story. Realism ties in with the final feature of melodrama, morality and the sense of “good and evil.” Dustil has joined the Sith and is a student at the Sith academy while Carth is Republic soldier. Star Wars has always been surrounded by the simple concept of good versus evil, light versus dark, the Rebels versus the Empire or the Republic versus the Sith. Visually Carth’s base costume is brightly colored where Dustil’s academy uniform is grey. The two contrast and visually embody their alignment. This is a goal Williams claims melodrama is constantly trying to achieve. Though the plot can tell the audience all they need to know, visuals are just as important and the concept of showing and not telling can add to the overall story. However, this final feature of melodrama isn’t complete until good triumphs over evil and a sense of morality is achieved. Carth redeems Dustil and proves to him why the Sith are evil therefore teaching Dustil morality. With this act Carth has totally become a well-rounded character operating in the melodramatic mode.

In conclusion my working definition of melodrama involves intense emotion, visual conflict, a sense of virtue and morality, and finally redemption. I strongly disagree with the concept that melodrama is always a negative thing or is only applicable to women. Carth Onasi is my favorite Star Wars character despite the fact that he isn’t canon in the cinematic universe. His entire characterization revolves around melodramatic tendencies but those tendencies are what give him depth and make him interesting. Experiencing KOTOR until the final boss fight with Carth by my side made the game fun and memorable for me. There were plenty of other quests and stories that are much more melodramatic, but they operate in a non-constructive way and are the reason I believe melodrama is used as a negative term. Carth’s character is with the PC from the very beginning; therefore being the first real character the player can interact with. That just adds more to the relationship he and the PC develop and becomes fulfilling in the end. The fact that Carth is despised by men makes me love him even more in all honesty. Carth Onasi was made for my demographic back in a time when women were rarely seen as “gamers.” Carth is emotional, virtuous, moral and the embodiment of good. I couldn’t ask for more in a video game companion.

[dragonageivpcdownload]

How to Download Dragon Age IV

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Funny To A Point – Heeding The Call In Destiny 2

After years of listening to gamers gripe about how the original Destiny ruined their lives in every conceivable way (even as they logged in hundreds of hours), Destiny 2 is finally here. Does the shiny new sequel provide Bungie with the redemption it doesn’t really need and has never asked for? Seeing as how all the early criticism has focused on the way shaders are used to paint your guardian pretty colors, it seems like the answer is yes. But we all know that the real verdict won’t be rendered until the professional critics weigh in – and we all know that the only professional critic that really matters is ME. Well, fear not, dear readers: Like my hideous Smurfette of a guardian, I am up to the task and ready to save the day!

Full disclosure: I never actually managed to finish the original Destiny. I played for about a week or so when the game first came out, but lost interest when that weird emo prince showed up in the incomprehensible-yet-paradoxically-simple story. My experience with Destiny since then has been downloading every new expansion and then feeling progressively more guilty for not actually playing them.

So what imbues me with the expertise needed to weigh in on Destiny 2, you ask? Well, for starters I was one of the first critics to identify and outline some of the major problems of the first Destiny – I was so early, in fact, that I received a massive amount of hate from the same super fans who would become Destiny’s super haters once they realized I knew what the hell I was talking about. I also cracked Destiny’s biggest secret, which has still eluded everyone else, so I think that makes me the King of Destiny? I dunno. Anywho, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Note: You can click on any of the pictures for a better look at whatever misadventures are being documented.

Destiny 2’s opening cinematic lays out the series’ plot like it’s reading a picture book to a child, and it’s a decision that I wholly appreciate. At this point, all I really remember about the first game is that a giant ping-pong ball gave my zombie soldier some sweet superpowers, which I used to kill a bunch of angry aliens as I searched for shiny balls engrams to score more loot. The intro doesn’t contain any huge revelations (“a mysterious good force is fighting a mysterious evil force!”), but I no longer felt the need to look up a plot synopsis on a Destiny fan wiki after watching it, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

Actually, Destiny 2’s intro did contain one particularly rude revelation: Because I didn’t max out my Destiny 1 guardian (I’m going to go ahead and blame Prince Creep for that), I can’t import her into the sequel. So as far as I can tell, from a lore perspective my original guardian gets blasted to smithereens during the cabal attack that kicks off Destiny 2. Not being able to carry over my character isn’t a huge loss, but it does undermine the fantasy a bit:

The Speaker: “You are the chosen Guardian, who will rise from the dead and save humanity from the galaxy’s greatest thr–“

*BLAMMO!!!* [Guardian’s head explodes into a fine mist.]

The Speaker: [Shuffling over to the next corpse] “Ahem…You are the chosen guardian…”

Anyway, with my old guardian now super-forever dead, I resign myself to creating a new character from scratch. I go with the Hunter class, because like me they are crafty and roguish and it’s my fantasy world so I’ll believe whatever I want! I also opt for a female Awoken, because humans are boring and robots are probably going to kill us all one day and I don’t need to be reminded of it every time I pull the trigger. At this point I realize I’ve remade all the same class choices I did in the first game, so I decide to just remake my character entirely. Think you’re getting rid of my guardian that easy? Think again!

Creating a character in a game usually turns into an all-night affair for me, as I obsessively shift every slider back and forth to its extremes before settling on the default position. Not so in Destiny 2! You get to create the exact hero of your dreams – by choosing from 7 stock faces and a handful of the ugliest hairstyles imaginable, because apparently the barbers were the first ones to be killed off in the apocalypse. Normally my wife weighs in on every minute detail during the character creation process, but the only feedback she offers me about Destiny 2’s limited options is that one hairstyle in particular makes my character “look like a heathen.” I’m not even sure what that means.

This just looks like Conan The Barbarian’s haircut to me, though come to think of it he probably was a heathen, so I guess she was right after all.

I opt for a crazy space mohawk instead, then move on to the face tattoos, which are always being as pointless and ill-advised in character creators as they are in real-life. Even so, Destiny 2 sets a new low bar for the extraneous category. Once again, I imagine an intern – possibly the same one who made Andromeda’s preset faces for BioWare – whipped them up in a matter of minutes.

Intern: “Hey, here are some face dots.”

Bungie Employee: “…You mean freckles?”

Intern: “Nah man, just face dots.”

Bungie Employee: “Alrighty then. Next!”

Somehow my guardian ends up looking vaguely like Margaery Tyrell, if she was thrown into the Mad Max universe and also purple for some reason. As totally rad as that sounds, I immediately regret every decision I made as soon as she pops up in the first actual cutscene – the gaming equivalent of getting dressed in the dark and then realizing you’re wearing your wife’s shirt as soon as you step out into the sunlight.* My wife also didn’t seem impressed, simply stating, “she looks quite striking,” which I assume is a polite euphemism for fugly. But whatever – at least it’s time to finally start playing!

Destiny 2 wastes no time getting into the action; after a brief cutscene starring the three characters from the first game that actually had faces, players are thrust into battle against a new faction of turtle-looking enemies called the Cabal. The Cabal are hellbent on destroying The Last City, which would normally be the name of a piece of armor or some robot butler in a Bungie game, but in this case it’s an actual city. Come to think of it, the Cabal is also a perfectly adequate name for an enemy faction…has Bungie lost its edge?!

What the heck are the space moles from Mass Effect doing in Destiny? And why are they so mean?!

The gameplay opens with your guardian returning to The Last City after some kind of patrol (or a sandwich run for we all know), and landing on the outskirts of the siege. I spend a few minutes of getting reacquainted with the controls, which includes immediately throwing a grenade at my feet and blasting away half my health. From there it’s on to the first battle, though things don’t go quite how I expect.

Even after all these years, I still remember my first open-ended skirmish in Halo; how dynamic the battle felt, and how the A.I. enemies seemed to be thinking and reacting for themselves. In contrast, much of the opening level in Destiny 2 feels more like Disney’s It’s A Small World ride than an FPS, as you’re guided from one small murder diorama to the next. Even for a self-grenading chump like myself, the initial enemies you face are about as threatening as the paper silhouettes at a shooting range, taking a step or two and then waiting politely for you to shoot their heads into some kind of ghost vapor. On the positive side, the controls feel as silky smooth as ever, and the first two guns I picked up were called Origin Story and The Last Dance, so at least Bungie’s still got it!

After a few more underwhelming encounters, the game’s seamless co-op kicks in – another guardian is just over the ridge and is in need of reviving! I’m not sure how he managed to die during this dog and pony show, but by the time I get over to him, a third player has him back up on his feet. It’s the thought that counts though, right?

Our improvised trio rallies around the bald dude who despite being a blue alien is always going to be Captain Daniels to me and anyone else who has seen The Wire (to my wife he’s the captain from Fringe, which is basically the same role only with parallel universes thrown into the mix). Daniels tells me that I should stay behind his shield, but I get annihilated by an incoming missile before it’s even deployed. So that’s how my co-op buddy died…

The Night King shows up in Destiny 2, but apparently he’s a good guy now.

One of my anonymous pals revives me and we hunker down and fight off a few waves of enemies together. It’s a cool, ships-passing-in-the-night kind of moment that reminds me of Journey, albeit with more guns and grenades and slaughtering aliens as they mindlessly funnel into my murder canal.** Once the assault ends, I turn to wave to my teammates, only to see that they have disappeared without so much as a goodbye –apparently manners were also a casualty of the apocalypse.

I move onto the next area and run into another NPC who I should probably know from the first game, but she promptly tells me that she’s going to “kick the Cabal where it hurts,” and then jumps onto the nose of a spaceship and disappears. I assume she’s talking about their space nards, though that’s an assumption in and of itself – how does she know the Cabal are males? Way to assume their gender, only human lady left on whatever planet this is. Seriously, is this Earth? Whatever. On to the next fight!

The next encounter actually gives me a run for my money, thanks to one enemy in particular: Pashk, The Searing Will. I know that’s his name because I actually took extra damage just to grab a screen of it.

No wonder he’s fighting so hard – people have probably made fun of his name for his whole life!

Unfortunately for him, Pashk is no match for Ode To An Unbroken Heart, which is the name I just gave my melee knife because two can play that game, Bungie!

With Pashk’s searing will extinguished, I head onto the next area, only to trigger a cutscene that introduces Destiny 2’s villain: a massive Cabal warrior named Ghaul. Well, mostly massive – his tiny bald head makes him look like a dude in a mascot suit who took his head off for a breather. Also, what is with villains wearing masks that distort their voices? Have we learned nothing from Bane?

I’m sorry, a world without what? Work on your enunciation, Ghaul! Also, why yo head so tiny?

Regardless, Ghaul gives a little speech about how puny guardians are, then drives the point home by planting his foot in my face and kicking me off of the magic tower we were trying to defend. As if that’s not bad enough, he also puts some kind of massive chastity belt on the ping-pong ball Traveler, which sucks away all the guardians’ superpowers. Talk about rude!

Despite just being a regular alien lady again, my guardian somehow survives the stories-high fall off the magic tower – though I guess that’s probably because it wouldn’t be much of a game otherwise (“And so the final guardian perished, and the might Cabal took over the galaxy. Thanks for playing!”). I limp out of the burning city with only a pistol, shooting some strange spikey dog creatures that also barf up their souls when they die (seriously, what kind of bullets are you shooting in this game?). Eventually a woman with a hawk shows up and invites me back to her village, which serves as the game’s first social hub. By that point in the evening my narcolepsy starts kicking in, and I repeatedly fall asleep while kicking around a giant soccer ball, only to wake up a few minutes later to sight of my character being nuked for wandering out of bounds – always a good time to call it quits.

You thought I was joking about falling asleep, didn’t you? Think again!

While Destiny 2’s opening doesn’t leave the strongest impression (even by tutorial-level standards), it contains at least a few sparks of Bungie’s patented dynamic combat, and does a much better job setting up a story and villain than the first game. And while I wasn’t particularly blown away by anything in my first night (well, except for the out-of-bounds limit), my subsequent play sessions have been more emblematic of what Destiny 2 strives for: tense and challenging fire fights against formidable enemies; an addictive loot loop that has me switching up my arsenal at a satisfying pace; and fun public events that you can jump into during the final few seconds and still nab the rewards. There’s also the PvP that I’m sure I’ll get obliterated in, and co-op strikes and raids if I can ever get Jeff Cork to put down Path of Exile and play with me (oh how the tables have turned).

Oftentimes in my column I tend to either gush endless praise for a game or take a big dump on it, but so far Destiny 2 hasn’t elicited anything quite so extreme from me. I’m enjoying the combat and the sense of progression, despite the fact that my character feels more like a mute marionette puppet than a super hero (seriously, a silent protagonist? In 2017?). And while I’m enjoying the game more and more every night, I don’t know that I’ll be one of those crazy people who plays it obsessively for years on end.

Anyway, I continued writing down more impressions and anecdotes in the subsequent play sessions, but rather than weaving them all into a(n even) long(er) and (more) boring narrative, I’ll just throw them in with some pictures and videos, and use the extra time to play more of the game. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is!

Few games take the term “monster closet” more literally than Destiny 2. It’s seriously just a door with mysterious black smoke!

The European Dead Zone is like a taxi zone at the airport – ships are constantly coming in and dropping aliens off on the same street. You’d think they’d have a better invasion plan.

All joking aside, Bungie serves up some awesome sci-fi environments every now and then.

The hawk lady seems pretty cool. Even if she fell for the face dots.

Titan looks like an awesome neon-blue planet when you view it on the map, but it turns out it’s just Mother Base. Also, what’s with all these potato-chip bags?!

Sometimes Destiny 2’s combat suffers from the level design, with enemies funneling into murder canals because it’s the only path through the environment. Then again, sometimes it’s also fun to rack up a billion headshots in a row.

I ran across these two little frog aliens, which I’m assuming are Destiny’s equivalent of Statler and Waldorf. I’m hoping they play a big role in the story later on.

Not to get too deep into spoiler territory, but Cayde’s torrid love affair with this chicken is as emotionally touching as it is sexually graphic.

There are a lot of big balls in Destiny 2. Just saying.

Seriously, they’re all over the place.

Bungie says the EDZ is the biggest zone they’ve ever created, but I don’t know how that’s possible when every rig on Titan contains an endless sprawl of identical rooms and corridors. One time when I was hopelessly looking for an exit, I ran into a big knight-looking dude and received a Lost Sector banner when I defeated him. In my case the “Lost” was quite literal. Also, does anyone else find it weird that Titan is a class in Destiny 2 and also a planet? Too many Titans, Bungie!

I don’t even want to know what that is.

Breaking news: The totally useless spaceships return in Destiny 2! They’re not fooling anyone, but they do make for a pretty snazzy-looking loading screen.

Everyone spawns into the same location on The Farm, making you look like some horrific, multi-headed mutant. The extra arms would probably come in handy during battle, though.

I was super excited when I got sword from a treasure chest. A sword! Then I found out it’s some kind of weird magic sword that needs ammo. How the hell is that better than a rocket launcher?!

And finally, it’s not a sci-fi game if you don’t have floating rocks – and also point out said floating rocks to the player via NPC dialogue. In this case, ghost speculates that they’re caused by some kind of Hive magic. How’s that for science fiction!***

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Funny To A Point – Heeding The Call In Destiny 2 was originally published on Tech News Center The Digital Generation