Comments | trinityvixen: SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

trinityvixen

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Mar 21, 2012 17:11

This is a five-point defense of the players who disliked the ending of Mass Effect 3, so naturally there are A TON OF SPOILERS should you choose to read it. At the risk of becoming, as I worried with my roommate last night, the backlash against the backlash, I still find these arguments lacking. There is exactly one point they raise on which I ( Read more... )

mass effect 3, i am aware of all internet traditions, mass effect

Comments 4

xannoside March 22 2012, 03:48:36 UTC

Ethan is just supposed to be completely dysfunctional after the accident. This is not a good reason, but it's why. There's also some later stuff.

trinityvixen March 22 2012, 14:16:00 UTC

But he's not the only one! Absolutely everyone behaves bizarrely. The FBI guy who won't corral the abusive cop. The woman who helps Ethan out despite mounting evidence (and Ethan's own confession) that this guy might be a goddamned killer. The psychiatrist! Who has reasonable suspicion and possible evidence that his patient has committed a crime who refuses to tell the police out of doctor-patient privilege THAT DOES NOT EXIST IF HE THINKS HIS PATIENT IS A CRIMINAL.

xannoside March 22 2012, 16:53:29 UTC

Oh, he's in no way the only one. He's just the most egregious. Heavy Rain's biggest problem is that it's very obviously a game that was written with particular endings in mind, and everything else was written backwards from it.

This isn't a bad way to write, but it lends itself to the lazy writer approach where stuff just is because they need it to be that way to accommodate the ending.

I like the game a lot despite it's problems because I like the atmosphere of the game A LOT (and Jayden's glasses).

trinityvixen March 22 2012, 18:45:59 UTC

I'm getting something of the same sense you mentioned, mostly because I know that there's no way to write and then animate the number of different endings that this game would otherwise possibly generate if you didn't have it narrowed down to specific endings. This is the problem with choose your own adventure narratives outside of books. A book can be read pretty quickly, and it doesn't take but a few more moments to write two endings to every decision. In contrast, creating a game out of that is not only expensive and arduous, it would be incredibly frustrating to players. You'd have to create some kind of saving tree whereby you can save at each critical juncture point before going on ( ... )