Mass Effect movie announced

[Whiplash]

Someone announces the movie and this is the fan reaction? I can't wait to see the reaction to the trailer, assuming production even gets that far. I mean lets face it, a Halo movie was announced along with Bioshock (who got as far as to actually having a budget), Heavy Rain, Uncharted, Kane & Lynch, I doubt these are actually going to happen.

[adam_grif]

The majority of ME2 is better written than ME1; the bio-reaper part is the only serious problem. Even that makes logical story sense, it just doesn't make technical sense to anyone who understands biology.

The side quest missions are of generally high quality and characters are mostly well written. The largest problem with the plot of ME2 is the fact that they're taking on what they believe to be an entire civilization of advanced aliens, and decide that one frigate with a dozen soldiers is going to be enough. They don't even take any nukes with them, presumably because Jack used the last of them on her petty loyalty mission.

If absolutely anything hadn't gone as perfectly for them as it did in the final act of the game, they would have been toast. If they had more than one single ship. If they had been a planet full of people, like you thought they were during most of the game. If the SR2 had dropped out of the Relay practically anywhere other than where it did, and crashed into debris. If the collector space station had a single solitary defensive weapon on it. If the collectors didn't have all of their doors and computers wide open for Edi's magical powers of hack to take control of. If the station reactor couldn't be conveniently set to overload and totally obliterate the station.

Their mission is beyond suicidal, it had a near-zero chance of actually being able to achieve it's objectives. Nobody even bothers discussing plans until they've already got there. This never comes up at any point in the game.

I imagine Fox wants to keep acting, but he said he's absolutely done with television. What's better than the starring role in a sci-fi epic where the main character is conceptualized as looking identical to you?

Shepard is modelled after Mark Vanderloo, a dutch model. Although yes, that guy does resemble Shepard quite a bit.

I must be the only person in the universe who doesn't think this. I don't think Meer was very good in ME1, but I certainly didn't think Hale did a superior job at all. I just think she's shit.

Renegade FemShep is hilariously unconvincing 8 times out of 10.

[Ford Prefect]

I'm not sure why you're assuming that one ship was meant to resolve the whole thing on its own. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Shepard was only employed to investigate the Collectors, and the final mission is the result of shit happening around you, like the entire crew being kidnapped, the difficulty in replicating the Reaper IFF in an afternoon etc. Amazingly, the game doesn't even present the final mission as being all that achievable, you know, what with it being repeatedly described as 'suicidal'.

[open_sketchbook]

Besides, the Reaper IFF is implied to be an actual, physical object that had to be grafted into the ship; while EDI might be able to pick it apart and figure out how it worked, they only had one of them at the moment. Shepard is sitting on the best team of specialists in the entire galaxy, the only ones with extended experience fighting the Collectors, an insanely badass heavy frigate with stealth capablities that has now, in all likelyhood, been upgraded with bleeding edge technology that would let them take on almost anything, and has the additional benefit of having a diverse crew that can carry the story back to their people and warn them of the oncoming threat. In short, who the hell else are the fairly tiny human supremancy group going to send through the relay?

[adam_grif]

I'm not sure why you're assuming that one ship was meant to resolve the whole thing on its own.

No alternative plan is discussed, by anybody, at any point in the game. Cerberus doesn't have any kind of fleet, nor the resources to build one (the SR2's construction representing an enormous investment of funds). Shepard's attitude the whole time is "we'll find some way to take them down", and throughout the whole game, your goal is to build your team, as though twelve people could really make a fucking difference against a civilization sized threat.

It seemed pretty obvious to me that Shepard was only employed to investigate the Collectors, and the final mission is the result of shit happening around you, like the entire crew being kidnapped, the difficulty in replicating the Reaper IFF in an afternoon etc.

The entire game is built around the idea that Shepard is going to stop the Collectors at any cost. The whole game is built up to the final confrontation, with you upgrading your ship and crew not so you can perform some "investigation", but so you can take the fight to the collectors.

The "they were forced into it" explanation is highly questionable. Yes, it was the motivation for striking when they did, but they wouldn't have bothered if they didn't think they had a chance of succeeding in the mission, which was, you know, to rescue the crew, and stop the collectors. Kind of hard to do that if they fail, get blown up and lose their only ticket into the Omega 4 relay isn't it? The Illusive Man is completely confident in your abilities, and has zero problems with you rushing into it like that.

Everybody involved is acting like a complete fucking moron.

Amazingly, the game doesn't even present the final mission as being all that achievable, you know, what with it being repeatedly described as 'suicidal'.

Yeah, mentioning that they didn't think they'd be making it back alive. But they evidently did think they'd be able to get the job done, which is horse shit given what they know at the time. And the fact that your entire portfolio of people to recruit consists of exactly 2 people who weren't combat specialists (Mordin and Warlord Okeer, who doesn't turn out well obviously) points towards TiM and Shepard having some sort of bizarre, supernatural knowledge that the fight against them was going to turn out to be decided in narrow corridors full of chest-high cover.

[Losonti Tokash]

How exactly do you define Kasumi, Tali, Miranda, and Liara as combat specialists? They're good at it, sure, but what marks them for recruitment is in others areas.

[Havok]

Miranda: Organization and management
Jacob: Weapon construction and maintenance.
Mordin: Sciencey stuff
Garrus: Spec Ops
Grunt: Shock trooper
Jack: Biotics
Tali: Engineering
Thane: Spec Ops
Kasumi: Theft and infiltration


I mean, yeah, they can all shoot guns, but duh, almost all of them are currently or were in some sort of military organization. Even a secretary in the Marines is still a Marine. Saying that they are all combat specialists and using it as a negative, when the whole point was to recruit the BEST people (the best because they excel in multiple fields) in the galaxy, is a massively asinine nitpick.

[adam_grif]

I mean, yeah, they can all shoot guns, but duh, almost all of them are currently or were in some sort of military organization. Even a secretary in the Marines is still a Marine. Saying that they are all combat specialists and using it as a negative, when the whole point was to recruit the BEST people (the best because they excel in multiple fields) in the galaxy, is a massively asinine nitpick.

Missing the point. It isn't that they can use guns, it's that everybody seems to just intuitively know that everything is going to come down to infantry combat with extremely small strike teams, and thus recruits the exact team that will be best for the job. At no point in the game do more than two people ever go anywhere with Shepard, the rest of the team are granted thumb-twiddling duty. The sole exception is the final fight. Evidently, confronting the collectors is the reason they were chosen (excepting Mordin, who had something sciency to contribute that would have been necessary regardless of their exact plan), and in this fashion they had zero hope of succeeding, except that it turned out that the collectors were complete pushovers.

[open_sketchbook]

It came down to infantry combat because that's what the game mechanic was. The fact of the matter is that Shepard's team had enough various skills between them that they could more or less handle whatever mission would be required once they came out the other side.

[Gramzamber]

GR, Femshep is a way better experience than with a male Shepard. Mark Meer does an okay job, but Jennifer Hale's acting totally blows him out of the water.

I must be the only person in the universe who doesn't think this. I don't think Meer was very good in ME1, but I certainly didn't think Hale did a superior job at all. I just think she's shit.

And they should get Denzel Washington to play Shepard.

I find it absolutely amazing that you cale Hale a shit actor (which she isn't), then go on to recommend a plank of wood as Shepard.
There's no accounting for taste I suppose.

[Havok]

Missing the point. It isn't that they can use guns, it's that everybody seems to just intuitively know that everything is going to come down to infantry combat with extremely small strike teams, and thus recruits the exact team that will be best for the job. At no point in the game do more than two people ever go anywhere with Shepard, the rest of the team are granted thumb-twiddling duty. The sole exception is the final fight. Evidently, confronting the collectors is the reason they were chosen (excepting Mordin, who had something sciency to contribute that would have been necessary regardless of their exact plan), and in this fashion they had zero hope of succeeding, except that it turned out that the collectors were complete pushovers.

Dude, even from the beginning it is a special ops mission... basically like a sci fi Force Recon team. I mean, I can't imagine why they would think that a small highly trained and specialized team might be able to succeed in discovering and thwarting the Reapers' latest plans using lots of small arms attacks.

[Starglider]

The largest problem with the plot of ME2 is the fact that they're taking on what they believe to be an entire civilization of advanced aliens, and decide that one frigate with a dozen soldiers is going to be enough.

As discussed, that's all the resources they had. The Alliance and Council wanted to pretend the problem didn't exist. Even if a fleet had been available, and the reaper IFF worked for multiple ships, it probably would've been completely trashed by the debris cloud.

They don't even take any nukes with them, presumably because Jack used the last of them on her petty loyalty mission.

Even if they had taken nukes, the Collector station was likely too big, too tough and too well shielded to be affected by surface impacts. They would have to conduct an infantry op anyway to place the nukes in critical spots (if any exist). Personally I think they did take nukes, but overloading the reactor (yeah, standard sci-fi 'all reactors can explode like bombs') was a better plan, much more yield and only one critical spot to reach.

If absolutely anything hadn't gone as perfectly for them as it did in the final act of the game, they would have been toast.

If you act like a military commander, i.e. don't bother with most of the loyalty missions, then lots of people do die.

If the SR2 had dropped out of the Relay practically anywhere other than where it did, and crashed into debris.

The whole point of the IFF was to avoid that.

If the collector space station had a single solitary defensive weapon on it.

Possibly it did, but the station didn't have sensors capable of defeating the Normandy's stealth the way the cruiser did.

If the collectors didn't have all of their doors and computers wide open for Edi's magical powers of hack to take control of.

The collectors are a slave race with minimal intelligence left, according to Mordin. I think it's fitting that the Reapers pay the price for total obedience in having unimaginative tactics and sloppy system design.

If the station reactor couldn't be conveniently set to overload and totally obliterate the station.

Human ships use fusion reactors, but have antimatter injection on their engines for extra thrust. It's fairly plausible that the Collectors are using antimatter power sources, which do have an inherent self-destruct capability.

Their mission is beyond suicidal, it had a near-zero chance of actually being able to achieve it's objectives. Nobody even bothers discussing plans until they've already got there.

They probably did 'off camera'; it's clear that the amount of dialogue you get in the game is only a small subset of the conversations the characters would actually have over weeks / months of preparation. It's just that the planning would be completely speculative, as they had no solid intel, and thus of little relevance to the player.

[Ford Prefect]

I find it absolutely amazing that you cale Hale a shit actor (which she isn't), then go on to recommend a plank of wood as Shepard.
There's no accounting for taste I suppose.

Haha, you really do have a stick up your ass on this, don't you. Setting aside that I only suggested Washington as a laugh, the idea that anything that Hale has done even comes close to, say, Washington's portrayal of Frank Lucas in American Gangster is hilarious. I even think she's done fine work in other avenues, but pardon me for not worshipping at the altar.

[Losonti Tokash]

Ford, he just seems to have it in his head that absolutely nothing Hollywood does can be decent. All actors that have been suggested or even mentioned are invariably "macho apes" or "planks of wood."

I mean I guess we could get around that particular complaint by casting Woody Allen as Shepard but I believe that might be another example of poor casting.

[General Zod]

Ford, he just seems to have it in his head that absolutely nothing Hollywood does can be decent. All actors that have been suggested or even mentioned are invariably "macho apes" or "planks of wood."

I mean I guess we could get around that particular complaint by casting Woody Allen as Shepard but I believe that might be another example of poor casting.

They could always cast Samuel L. Jackson or Will Smith as Shepard. Or Hugh Jackman for that matter. Maybe even Robert Downey Jr.

[Gramzamber]

I find it absolutely amazing that you cale Hale a shit actor (which she isn't), then go on to recommend a plank of wood as Shepard.
There's no accounting for taste I suppose.

Haha, you really do have a stick up your ass on this, don't you. Setting aside that I only suggested Washington as a laugh, the idea that anything that Hale has done even comes close to, say, Washington's portrayal of Frank Lucas in American Gangster is hilarious. I even think she's done fine work in other avenues, but pardon me for not worshipping at the altar.

I never said Hale was fantabulous. I'm a fan but I'm not going to say she's omgawesome.
Washington on the other hand I consider a one-note actor and have never liked his performances.

Ford, he just seems to have it in his head that absolutely nothing Hollywood does can be decent. All actors that have been suggested or even mentioned are invariably "macho apes" or "planks of wood."

I mean I guess we could get around that particular complaint by casting Woody Allen as Shepard but I believe that might be another example of poor casting.

Yeah I have called all actor suggestions macho apes. Like all ONE of them (guy from Lost).
Cast Hugh Laurie as Shepard. Then at least I can have a laugh.

[Losonti Tokash]

Seriously, dude. You've automatically dismissed every one that's been brought up, along with preemptively insulting anyone that could be selected by virtue of being a Hollywood actor.

[Gramzamber]

Seriously, dude. You've automatically dismissed every one that's been brought up, along with preemptively insulting anyone that could be selected by virtue of being a Hollywood actor.

Not really, I made a jab at Lost boy, yes. I also dismissed Sam Worthington, but I was the one who brought him up in the first place (yes I hate him that much I'll bring him up just to call him a wanker).
But yes I am deeply cynical about Hollywood's eventual choice in this, not only because I dislike the concept of casting anyone as Shepard but because I expect them to go as cookie-cutter action hero as possible.

[Stark]

I wonder why they'd make an action movie out of their pew pew shooty game? It seems an odd choice!

[Ford Prefect]

But yes I am deeply cynical about Hollywood's eventual choice in this, not only because I dislike the concept of casting anyone as Shepard but because I expect them to go as cookie-cutter action hero as possible.

Shepard IS a cookie-cutter action hero. He shoots people, blows stuff up and busts out one liners pretty much all the time.

[Losonti Tokash]

That part where he shoves the mercenary out the window was pretty badass, though.

[Ford Prefect]

I always preferred the part where he stabbed the mechanic with a shockprod thing. Not only does it make sense outside of proving you're a crazy lunatic, the 'you're working too hard' one liner was great.

[Ghost Rider]

I always preferred the part where he stabbed the mechanic with a shockprod thing. Not only does it make sense outside of proving you're a crazy lunatic, the 'you're working too hard' one liner was great.

Even in playing ultra pu...I mean Paragon, I did that. If for no other reason I just cannot believe even Goody two shoes Sheppard would let such an easy thing get away. I just love the looks of whoever you bring to that mission looking at you.

[Ford Prefect]

Man, one of the Paragon interrupts is 'making fun of a dude bleeding to death in the sun'. And Mordin makes a bad joke based on it. Say what you like about Bioware's writing, and I'd be the first to call them bad, but they sure can write a titanic jerk.

[adam_grif]

That part where he shoves the mercenary out the window was pretty badass, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z--ic2lQzg