Tuesday 13 November 2012

ME3: Extended Cut Analysis Part 3



Once again, I've trudged through the musings of insanity.  Special thanks to the various youtubers for raising legitimate questions I otherwise would've looked over.

It took longer than usual; not because it was an almost 40 minute video, but because of how depressing and painful it was to go through, as before with BoD.  I could've added more jokes, referenced the ME games with clips, taken more time, but I just wanted it to be over with.

Generally, I love analyzing things, critiquing them.  This started in college, where colleagues and myself would look at our own work, fiction, code, or otherwise.  There was a good sense of satisfaction and a feeling of helpfulness, when you can not only point out a problem, but recommend a solution.  Our stories would get published, our code would work more efficiently, hostilities would increase: things were fun.  We'd play Three Corridors -- a custom Reign of Chaos map on Warcraft III, a precursor to Defense of the Ancients fame -- late into the evening.  (I'm a bit of an elitist MOBA player, having played with Eul, and hosted about 2 years worth of RoC DOTA/Doomsday Stand games with custom banlist, back in the day.)

The ME series?  It's bad.  Illogical.  Incomprehensible.  Drawn out ramblings amidst a protagonist who shouldn't even be there, yet is.  And is no longer the character they were.

Writers, whatever you do: don't create "Question Explosions."  When every sentence uttered or behavior taken by a character, whose scope is the galaxy, whose timeline is billions of years, and is supposedly the most intelligent being to have ever existed, please have a way to subvert all that in a simple, intelligent way; else you're on a sinking ship to nonsensical rambling and lore destruction.

Despite my Bookends of Destruction series, I feel like I was looking at the ending yesterday.  It is still the worst thing my brain has touched.  So bad, had I forgotten most of the nonsense?  Luckily, my regiment of Baldur's Gate 2, and recently Icewind Dale, (and LoL for fun), has kept my otherwise painful month of critique in a high spirited gaming experience.

I suddenly remember I haven't touched Peace Walker in months...

6 comments:

  1. No more ME3 after this one is finished?

    Pwease?

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  2. I remember looking at this a few months back and thinking, "My gosh! You could continue coming back to this and still find new things every day." And it looks like I was right. Even now I find it utterly bewildering and fascinating just how vast and how bad the problem is, and all from one or two plot devices. Even now I can't fully wrap my mind around it, after spending months reading articles, watching videos, and just discussing the subject, it's still almost completely beyond my comprehension. So... does that mean BioWare succeeded with the Reapers? xD

    Know that all the hard work you put these does not go unappreciated!

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  3. Thanks a lot for taking the time to go through the ME series like this, with particular focus on the storytelling abomination that was the final 10 or so minutes. It makes me sad that it sounds as though I don't have any more Smudboy ME3 videos to look forward to, but every one of them was enjoyable.

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  4. Do you enjoy Assassin's Creed at all? I'd very much like to hear your thoughts on that series. I'd even contribute to a Kickstarter campaign where you advertise the analysis of other long-running plot-driven franchises! Gladly!

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  5. Do you think Shepard's dreams are Premonitions to Synthesis?

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