Oh crap she's spread to another series..

[SylasGaunt]

http://kotaku.com/5027237/gears-of-war- ... new-author

I'm torn on how to feel about this. 'Hard Contact' was a good book, but Traviss' attempts to cram the SW universe into a 3 million clonetrooper wide hole and cover it in mando-wank have poisoned whatever good will it earned.

On the other hand Gears has no Mandolorians to gush over, Jedi to smear, and no stupidly low numbers to latch onto.. so maybe she'll put out a good book this time? Hopefully? Please?

[Peptuck]

Goddammit.

Just....just.....goddammit.

The only thing that would make me angrier is if DeCandido was doing it.

[JointStrikeFighter]

THE COG ONLY HAD 4 SOLDIERS!

[Ford Prefect]

Maybe she'll read the art book which said something along the lines of 'while the Locust have a firm grasp of small-unit tactics in urban warfare situations, they are not above discarding thousands of drones in tactically and startegically unfavourable ways, such as killing a single entrenched Gear, simply to prove that they can'.

Honestly, of all the things we should be caring about, it should not be the Gears of War novels. Without the visual direction* and the rather impressive voice acting, it's inevitably going to be just 'huge dudes kill huge aliens with huge guns'. Yeah, I like the characters and stuff like Dom's search for his wife, but that's only because Carlos Ferro sold the character to me. Del Ray has already gone into the whole thing with the wrong idea; cutting dudes in half with chainsaw bayonets is novel, but the best parts of Gears of War tended to be stuff like creeping through a dirty cathedral, trying to avoid the attention of an unstoppable killing machine while some chick whispers desperately in your ear to get the hell outside you've only got six minutes oh jesus marcus hurry up!!

*I know it will sound ridiculous, but Gears of War is like the Amélie of huge dudes killing huge aliens with huge guns.

[Vendetta]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

So, at least she's not writing something where she can do any actual damage.

[Darth Onasi]

Hmm..

Mandalorians: Big burly men with big guns who like to kill things.

Soldiers in Gears of War: Big burly men with big guns who like to kill things.

There's a connection here somewhere...

[SylasGaunt]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

So, at least she's not writing something where she can do any actual damage.

Eh? I can think of several that were decent enough reads. Not masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination but not horrible either. Granted the vast majority of them do suck (those splinter cell novels for instance) but it's possible to get one right.

We know Traviss is capable of writing a good book, Hard Contact proves that. Hopefully the fact that as far as I can tell there's no plausible way for her to bring in Mando-wank and Jedi-bashing will keep back the problems she's had with the Star Wars books. If I remember right it should also keep her spec-ops fetish in check as well.

[Havok]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Worse than movie videogames?

[Ryushikaze]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Worse than movie videogames?

Those can, on occasion, turn out good. Not often, mind, but occasionally.

[Vendetta]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Worse than movie videogames?

The novelisation of Baldur's Gate is an artifact of such malevolence and evil that men go mad merely being in the same room as it.

[Peptuck]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Not true. The Mass Effect novel was a pretty good read (exposition heavy in the first half, though) and some of the Resident Evil books are pretty good (some is the emphasis here; you can skip any of them that involve Rebecca, which is most) EndWar is solid, even if it does have the "Based on the bestselling game" when it was published a year ahead of the game. And of course, you have the Halo novels, which vary in their quality, but are pretty solid reads.

The problem with videogame novels is, as with videogame movies, the people who make the novels. A quality author can make them work well, but you need to have a quality author doing the work in the first place, who cares about the source material. You don't have that, you get a bad book.

[Joviwan]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Worse than movie videogames?

The novelisation of Baldur's Gate is an artifact of such malevolence and evil that men go mad merely being in the same room as it.

Wasn't that the one where Khalid was killed by jelly, and then Jaheria crawled into the protagonists pants? Where the author couldn't describe to you a broadsword if his life depended on it?

Didn't the sequel basically revolve around Irenicus being a minor bit character while the hero fucked jaheria and Imoen got all lesbian with a drow priestess?

[Darth Onasi]

Videogame novels always suck. Even more than videogame movies. Unalterable law of the universe.

Not true. The Mass Effect novel was a pretty good read (exposition heavy in the first half, though) and some of the Resident Evil books are pretty good (some is the emphasis here; you can skip any of them that involve Rebecca, which is most) EndWar is solid, even if it does have the "Based on the bestselling game" when it was published a year ahead of the game. And of course, you have the Halo novels, which vary in their quality, but are pretty solid reads.

The problem with videogame novels is, as with videogame movies, the people who make the novels. A quality author can make them work well, but you need to have a quality author doing the work in the first place, who cares about the source material. You don't have that, you get a bad book.

The difference with Mass Effect at least is the novels are planned hand-in-hand with the game as opposed to being based off of it.

[Thanatos]

The difference with Mass Effect at least is the novels are planned hand-in-hand with the game as opposed to being based off of it.

And written by the game's head writer.

I personally found the writing quality poor compared to the game, but it wasn't a thumbs in my eyes kind of experience that some other book's I've read have been.

[Peptuck]

The difference with Mass Effect at least is the novels are planned hand-in-hand with the game as opposed to being based off of it.

And written by the game's head writer.

Well, yeah. That's why I said that you need a decent author who cares about the source material. You lack both of those and you get a shitty novel.

I personally found the writing quality poor compared to the game, but it wasn't a thumbs in my eyes kind of experience that some other book's I've read have been.

Well, at least he had a basic understanding of firefight dynamics, and the bits with Saren were just awesome. The part where he tortured the batarian to death while thinking to himself "At least I'm not a monster" did so much to define his character.

[Stark]

Not true. The Mass Effect novel was a pretty good read

You are either or both of the following

a) insane

b) someone who thinks that Mass Effect had a high quality of writing

either is bad, both is terrible. That novel was absurdly pretentious (both writing style and with their attempts at 'hard' scifi ZOMG TEH GAMMAZ) and incredibly boring. Sure, Mass Effect was both pretentious and boring so maybe that shoudl be a success, lol.

Vendetta clearly meant always bad compared to ACTUALLY GOOD NOVELS, not compared to the appalling writing inside games. I'm a pretty big Gears fan (for the reasons outlined by Ford, really - the game succeeds by sheer quality despite itself) and I have zero interest in novels such as these, because I have zero interest in mediocre or terrible fiction in general. Since I think it's a law of the universe that these novels can NEVER be consistent with characterisation (ffs the hacks they hire for this crap couldn't even do this in TERMINATOR NOVELS where half the cast ARE ROBOTS) and as soon as you realise that, they're no better at all than fanfiction.

Frankly, the brand-drones who buy anything with their favourite nerd pillar printed on the front should just own up and buy the Starcraft BOARD GAME.

[Darth Onasi]

b) someone who thinks that Mass Effect had a high quality of writing

Actually, it does. Your opinion that it's boring and pretentious is.. well, your opinion.
Just like mine is that Gears of War is a foul boil on the ass of video games and every copy should be ritually sacrificed to the nearest available god, but that's neither here nor there..

[Stark]

b) someone who thinks that Mass Effect had a high quality of writing

Actually, it does. Your opinion that it's boring and pretentious is.. well, your opinion.

This isn't UNO. You can't beat an opinion with an opinion. Statements of quality, however are not always subjective; Mass Effect has plot holes and weak contrivances throughout, even ignoring the videogame staples of super-long exposition cutscenes and cutscenes that drop you in fights that would have been over if you'd just run away or fired first. This doesn't make it high-quality, and if you don't think the entire Citadel segment is boring you have the highest tolerance for bland fedex cheese in five states.

Just why DID Kohr-Ah... I mean, Sovereign... decide to call you up and fill you in on his whole plan again? Oh, I guess that's the exceptional quality writing! Planescape has good, quality writing, Mass Effect is pretty ordinary and I actually think the KotoR games had better writing.

Just like mine is that Gears of War is a foul boil on the ass of video games and every copy should be ritually sacrificed to the nearest available god, but that's neither here nor there..

Except because I'm not a dickless moron who bases my self esteem on a fucking videogame brand, I actually don't care what you think of Gears. Since you're clearly a fluff-reading wallflower who digs on Ass Erect, you're even miles outside the target market for a shooter like Gears.

[Ford Prefect]

Just why DID Kohr-Ah... I mean, Sovereign... decide to call you up and fill you in on his whole plan again?

While I can see what they were trying to do with the Reapers (yeah, totally inexplicable. Can't really fathom out what's going on in those kooky computers' brains), that whole conversation just came off as 'actually, we don't have any good reasons for this at all'. That would be fine if it didn't come across as lazy.

Really, the only worthwhile writing in Mass Effect was basically a few of the stories you hear from Wrex, Garras and Kaidan. It's not even universal for them, either. I like Garras' story about the dude cloning the organs, but not much else, and the Jump Zero stories were pretty well written but terribly delivered. Strictly speaking, though Wrex was my favourite character, the only reason his stories were any good was the way it sounded like he was constantly facepalming at how generally stupid everyone is.

In a way, I was actually annoyed that I saved Wrex. He was my favourite character, but that scene just was not well written. It was just too easy to convince Wrex not to save his people. His best piece of character development was when he talked about his desire to have the Krogan settle down to reconstruct their society, and then have to kill his father because Papa Wrex wanted to continue the war, which was subsequently invalidated with two or three sentences from some dude. Hilarious.

[Stark]

Yeah, that was so poor. FUCK YOU I WANT TO SAVE MY PEOPLE... oh, nevermind. Let's go blow it up! Turns out blue and red options always work, so plot tension = non-existent.

I enjoyed some of the vignettes too, but I found anything connected to the game play was lessened. Then again, 'Garrus says funny shit' and 'Ashley is emo' might be pleasant while playing, but it's NOT 'excellent writing'. Don't even get me started on the Troi bossfight cutscenes and dialog. Ugh.

But this isn't to single Mass Effect out - it's just the topic of the OP. Games almost universally have poor writing, and that doesn't necessarily lessen the game. Freespace has a standard weak story, but it's still good - the Ass Creed story is complete balls, but the game itself is unaffected by it.

[Atavarius]

b) someone who thinks that Mass Effect had a high quality of writing

Actually, it does. Your opinion that it's boring and pretentious is.. well, your opinion.
Just like mine is that Gears of War is a foul boil on the ass of video games and every copy should be ritually sacrificed to the nearest available god, but that's neither here nor there..

LOL. "My gamez is better than ur gamez dood."

I've only been able to form an opinion based on the Traviss threads here, so I will say this will probably be bad. Gears is very much style over substance so I have my doubt over whether it can translate to a book well, especially a poorly written one.

I do need to say I enjoyed ME in a turn my brain off kind of way. The citadel annoyed me to no fucking end though. The novel was meh, read it once, doubt I ever will again.

[Stark]

GHETTO - amusingly, there IS a good story in Mass Effect, but I don't think the writers put it there. The Terminus systems, the Council's stagnation and stupidity, and many other events actually DO fit into an interesting little setup, but the writers didn't notice and we got a lame story instead.

Remember, some huge proportion of the Citadel is only accessible to the Keepers, and we don't know what they're doing. BAN ALL INVESTIGATION. What could go wrong? Oh yeah, and lets base our culture here for... some... reason. What could go wrong?

[Stark]

I've only been able to form an opinion based on the Traviss threads here, so I will say this will probably be bad. Gears is very much style over substance so I have my doubt over whether it can translate to a book well, especially a poorly written one.

Yeah, in licenced shit like this the characterisation is always a bit off, and Gears is 99% characterisation. If Baird, Dom, Marcus and Cole didn't have their chemistry, the game would be short, bland and average. A book BASED on it, with those characters handled in a fanfiction way, is pretty much doomed.

[Ford Prefect]

Yeah, in licenced shit like this the characterisation is always a bit off, and Gears is 99% characterisation. If Baird, Dom, Marcus and Cole didn't have their chemistry, the game would be short, bland and average. A book BASED on it, with those characters handled in a fanfiction way, is pretty much doomed.

I can't imagine how terrible Cole is going to be. Everything he says and does is write out of a book of cliches, yet it's excusable becauseo f the way the Deltas interact. I'm willing to excuse fairly average plots based upon good characters. The plot of Crisis Core is practically non-existant, but character interaction (and some fairly subtle visual touches) saves it. When Genesis shows up spouting passages from his favourite piece of poetry, everyone calls him on it for being pretentious. One of the most egregarious (lulz spelling) is when Ashley talks to you about how she's Christian. She sounds really obnoxious about it, but the way Sheppard's diplomatic responses are given managed to convey, to me at least, that he actually thinks she's being an obnoxious prat. AssCreed might have one of the silliest* plots around, but all the inexplicable monologues that the targets give are actually kind of cool, but only because their voice actors could pull off a 'you're a retard, altair' tone.

*I am lapping that shit up, incidentally.

[Darth Onasi]

This isn't UNO. You can't beat an opinion with an opinion. Statements of quality, however are not always subjective; Mass Effect has plot holes and weak contrivances throughout,

A plot hole here and there is hardly ground for calling it boring and pretentious.

even ignoring the videogame staples of super-long exposition cutscenes and cutscenes that drop you in fights that would have been over if you'd just run away or fired first. This doesn't make it high-quality, and if you don't think the entire Citadel segment is boring you have the highest tolerance for bland fedex cheese in five states.

Or you have the attention span of a humming bird. Sure, the Citadel cacn get a little samey after a while but it's not the borefest you make it out to be.

Just why DID Kohr-Ah... I mean, Sovereign... decide to call you up and fill you in on his whole plan again? Oh, I guess that's the exceptional quality writing!

And what similarity does Sovereign have to the Kohr-Ah apart from "lol kill everyone"?
If you're going to make comparisons to Starcon, the Reapers are more akin to the Eternal Ones in the shitstain known as Star Control 3.

Planescape has good, quality writing, Mass Effect is pretty ordinary and I actually think the KotoR games had better writing.

Wait wait wait, you blast Mass Effect then praise Planescape, king of all pretentious plots? Heh.

Except because I'm not a dickless moron who bases my self esteem on a fucking videogame brand, I actually don't care what you think of Gears. Since you're clearly a fluff-reading wallflower who digs on Ass Erect, you're even miles outside the target market for a shooter like Gears.

My point in that was to show that one's opinion on a game doesn't make it fact, regardless if you think of yourself as the primary judge of all quality.