20 terrible things from Mass Effect 2: the flawed writing
No matter how many 100s Mass Effect 2 received from the gaming press, it was a deeply flawed game. This post examines the abominable writing.
To prepare for the release of the demo for Mass Effect 3, I’m revisiting Mass Effect 2 in a four part series. Let’s examine 20 instances of the terrible writing in Mass Effect 2. The series will then conclude with the five worst elements of the game.
20: Don’t invent a lame excuse to take away all my stuff.
I think the only reason they killed you in the beginning was so they’d have an excuse not to transfer over your items. Being killed off and coming back to life doesn’t seem to have had any real impact past the first 30 minutes of the story. You don’t struggle with the existential crisis that should come with having been dead for two years and come back. You don’t spend more than perhaps a line or two on thoughts about the afterlife.
You were dead, then you “got better.” This should be a major plot point, in Shepard’s character arc in ME2. At the very least, there should have been more questions about the process.
Instead Shepard walks through the game like an unthinking automaton, stumbling around the edge of this enormous plot hole. They missed an amazing storytelling opportunity.
Shepard’s death in ME2 also negates anything you might have accomplished with multiple play-throughs on the same character in the first game.
As a result, Shepard’s death and unexplained recovery seem only to be an excuse to take away your stuff.
I liked my stuff.
Star Wars by George Lucas? Pfft. Star Wars by BioWare? Yes!
I don’t care anymore when George Lucas abuses Star Wars. But when BioWare gets the licence? That’s exciting. Star Wars The Old Republic is no exception. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oy-2E4YQpU[/youtube] I mean, that’s only one of the many trailers I’ve watched and it alone gets me more excited to play the game than all the Brewmasters in Pandaria. […]
A Jewish perspective on the importance of storytelling.
For the fifth time at Mason, I have delivered a D’var Torah, an interpretation of the Torah, to the High Holidays congregation at the university Hillel service. This year I spoke on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and my topic, relevantly enough to this blog, was the power of storytelling and why it is important that we […]
Four ways to fail upward with content
Entrepreneurs are often told to fail quickly, but when you’re a writer, your primary product is content. What can you do to build the same mentality into written text? When start-ups seek to fail frequently, they’re really aiming to try new things and to not be afraid to throw out what doesn’t work. If you publish often, the same mentality […]
Related posts: