Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Mass Effect 2’s “All-Powerful Bitch”

Posted by Alec Meer on September 27th, 2009 at 10:32 pm.

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Dark tidings from Camp Bioware, in this seemingly rather ill-judged trailer for the new Mass Effect 2 character Subject Zero. Bitch. Shoots for Strong Vengeful Joss Whedon Villain-Type, but comes off like an insipid, low-rent exploitation movie. Bitch. Hopefully this is simply an unfortunate marketing misfire, as with those very silly Marilyn Manson/low-budget porno trailers for Dragon Age, and not representative of the tone of the game itself. Bitch. But I must say, they’re going to have to fight to win back my anticipation for the game at this stage. Bitch.


“Now who’s the badass biotic, bitch?” Dear God. HK-47 she really ain’t. That said, at least I now know which of my ME2 crew members I’ll be killing first. Bitch.

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298 Comments »

  1. DK says:

    “The near unanimous praise ME got still bewilders me. I guess we’re so desperate for western RPGs we’ll take anything we’re thrown.”

    This, and add to that the fact that ME is only an RPG in the very loosest sense. It’s a glorified TPS, nothing more. And not even a super-awesome TPS – it’s a decent one. It’s Dark Sector with a little less gimmick and a tiny amount of RPG mechanics.

    This looks like it’s the same as Dragon Age – a juvenile attempt at making thinks “darker” and “more mature”.

    • Subject 706 says:

      Could not agree more. Add to that the fact that 90% of the sidequests are so cookie-cutter similar they make Oblivion look a paragon of variety.

    • TotalBiscuit says:

      How could you possibly claim that Oblivion’s sidequests didn’t have variety? They were the best bit of the game. The dungeons on the other hand…

    • JKjoker says:

      every TPS ive ever tried had better action gameplay than mass effect, including dark sector, i think ME barely manages to be a mediocre TPS

    • DK says:

      Honestly, Dark Sector seems to have gotten the short end of the review stick for some reason. It’s not game of the year, but it’s a very solid game with a fun gimmick.

    • I only rented it for the 360 (and beat it over a weekend), but I liked Dark Sector more than Gears of War. The customizable guns are fun, and turning into The Guyver over the course of the game is pretty badass, too.

    • Evernight says:

      Subject 706 hit the nail on the head so hard it shattered the board

    • JKjoker says:

      I liked Dark Sector (after i managed to get the shitty port to work), unfortunately the game feels (and probably was) rushed by lack of time/money and both the ending and particularly the last boss are so shitty that they coat the otherwise pretty fun game with a thick layer of disgusting crap

    • DK says:

      @JKjoker:
      What you said and reviewers remembering what Dark Sector was first announced as, and what it looked like.
      Back then it seemed to be a very sci-fi setting, and the player character was more of a ninja sneaky-type.
      When it turned out to be a Gears of War clone in many respects disappointment was unavoidable.

  2. Klaus says:

    It’s times like these, I’m glad I still have the mind of a philistine or a child. ‘Cause I like this. She has more personality than everyone in Mass Effect, combined. Besides maybe Wrex and the Asari Consort’s smug doorman, fuck I can’t stand her.

  3. subversus says:

    I’m with you on this one. There are some cheesy lines in this trailer, but it’s a trailer after all and it sells the game to all people, not only hardcore rpg fans. BTW I think she’ll make a perfect match with the recently revealed krogan – two psychos on the battlefield, chaos and fun.

  4. Piispa says:

    Bitch.

  5. JulianP says:

    I’ve met people who are exactly like that, so I hope that the ridiculousness of the character is done on purpose. If it’s not… then that makes me a saaad panda.

  6. ilves says:

    trying a bit too hard there? like the gratuitous swearing

  7. CJohnson03 says:

    Yes, but can you have sex with her?

    OH GOD DRAGON AGE MARKETING IS INFECTING MY MIND

    • Stromko says:

      I don’t know, I kind of liked her, but I think the commentary set my expectations very very low.

      re: CJohnson03: I think bits of this video do suggest you can hit that, yes.

      Though that should come with the stipulation that she turns 10x as crazy after you have sex with her, and invariably she ends up trying to kill you. I mean if they want it to be ‘mature’ and ‘darker’ they got to be realistic about this.

  8. Vandell says:

    I liked Mass Effect.. .__.

  9. Rai says:

    At gametrailers this video has a 9.4 rating. I’m starting to think that we’re in the minority and Bioware/EA know exactly what they’re doing and have the complete lack of self-respect necessary to do it.

    http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/mass-effect-2-subject-zero/331087

  10. skyturnedred says:

    Such a short trailer and already she annoyed the shit out of me.

  11. Rei Onryou says:

    I’m sure it’ll be fun to have her around on occasion, but a trailer like this just dilutes the effect her “badass”-ness would actually have.

    Still looking forward to it though.

  12. Jacques says:

    She needs a good kick up the ****.

  13. Dan K says:

    Well to be fair this is most likley marketing, but I could imagine her character being a way for “goodie” players to see some of the more renegade elements, if she were a squaddie she could “help out” with negotioations or show another more rebel side to conversations. Still, it does seem like poor marketing, poor that is if they want their game to be seen as adult in a good way and not in a sleazy 3am back alley way.

  14. Poltergeist says:

    You guys are taking this so seriously, the trailer was pretty bad but I’m sure the character will fit in nicely, despite the cheesiness.

  15. It takes a real man to admit that that trailer is utterly awesome. Bitch.

  16. poop says:

    someone just fire the bioware marketing department christ.

    Also i’m impressed at how even in a really heavily edited trailer they still managed to make combat look really terrible, even fallout three managed to look not terrible in its trailers.

  17. Adventurous Putty says:

    I hope you all realize you’re ludicrously mad. That was hilarious precisely BECAUSE it’s so over-the-top and horrible. It’s, like, ironic or something.

    Or rather: even if it isn’t, I decided to take it that way anyway. And I laughed.

    BITCH.

  18. Ansob. says:

    Even if it isn't ironic, it has been immensely successful as a way to generate buzz about ME2.

  19. Andy says:

    I actually thought the trailer was pretty cool. And that’s kind of worrying in itself! But I always thought the story of ME1 needed a bit more of a rogue character, someone who was a bit crazy and off the rails. Everyone felt a little too clean cut and had some kind of noble reason for everything they did (gah). This might hopefully bring a bit of interesting chaos into the mix.

    Oh…uh…Bitch

  20. Danarchist says:

    You guys that think she isn’t realistic have never hung out with girls in the military =P over compensation isn’t just for guys with big trucks!
    I think it will be fun, even if the video was a little low brow. You guys are starting to sound like the reviewers on moviepoopchute.com from the jay and silent bob movie.
    Its a freaking game after all, I realize your British but ya gotta enjoy the jiggle of jubblies as a bird is firing an auto like any other bloke right?
    Pomp is for boring people that play tennis and then sit around talking about tennis.

  21. Spiffy new comment system says:

    Me too, high five!

  22. poop says:

    this is bioware, their terribly written characters are always serious :(

  23. heroic zero says:

    Got some issues with aggressive female characters, Alec? :)

    I’ve gotta say I was expecting something more outrageous based on your reaction to it. That video could have been better, but it wasn’t as bad as you made me expect it to be. :)

    Poor Bioware. They’re trying so hard to be adult with their trailers these days, but they come off a bit like a twelve-year-old girl trying to act all grown up. She can mimic all she wants, but it’s still just an act.

    Of course, if it wasn’t Bioware we wouldn’t be nit-picking these trailers so much.

    • DK says:

      “Of course, if it wasn’t Bioware we wouldn’t be nit-picking these trailers so much.”
      No, we wouldn’t – we would write it off as some eastern european publishers usual creepy trailer.

      There is nothing good about this trailer – the writing is undeniably garbage, the delivery and voice acting is terrible and it doesn’t even LOOK good, both graphically and gameplay wise.

      It’s a fail-trailer throughout.

  24. sascha/hdrs says:

    Tank Girl in the future or what? You know … every time I see triple-A developers producing such stereotype-shite (and they do that 99.9% of all the times) I look gladly at myself as an indie dev with my own IP and a collection of original characters that make such characters like the above look like b-movie stars.

  25. simon says:

    Alec must have some mother/sister issues, this seemed fine to me. Maybe he is feeling guilty for having enjoyed the strap-on so much?

  26. MrFake says:

    It’s characters like these that make RPG-lite decisions worthless. Not because she’s a bad character–she may be hard to stomach and poorly thought out, but that’s a character all in itself. No, it’s worthless to make team or team-building decisions because those characters thrown aside lose all purpose.

    So, I vote that those of us players who decide not to use this steaming pile of bitch, get the opportunity to slaughter her.

    The same should go for all other characters. In an RPG-lite, most people probably only use a handful of their teammates anyway. How about instead of building a big, pointless roster, have anyone we don’t recruit act as an antagonist. I cede this idea to Bioware for their future games, because they’ll need it.

  27. Vargas says:

    Well… if you think about Mass Effect as mostly being assembling a posse of hard-ass mercs and killers across the galaxy to deal with some unknown menace that is making entire colonies dissapear, I guess you’d go after the most dangerously psychotic and capable agents out there. The more I think Mass Effect 2 will turn out to be some sort of Suicide Squad in space the more I like the concept of Subject Zero as a character.

    • jalf says:

      Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really think saying “bitch” after every 4 words implies being either capable *or* psychotic. If they’d portrayed her as capable and/or psychotic, then yes, I agree she’d be a good fit.

      But to be honest, I think a capable agent would be the one who shoots you in the head. The one who stops to say ‘bitch’ instead is the incompetent one.

  28. Y'know, that's 13 forum-pages of comments on a marketing trailer designed to cause people to talk about Mass Effect 2.

  29. Luckylad says:

    I’d like nothing more than to watch her die a miserable death.

  30. Syron says:

    As one of the devs pointed out, she’s written by a guy that wrote character’s on the other end of the like-a-bility spectrum. She’s available for the kind of …. people… who enjoy those sorts of expressions and characters, while letting those who find her grating either ignore her or just let her be one of the first to go in the upcoming suicide runs.

  31. Robin says:

    Loving the painfully obvious Bioware/EA marketing dept. astroturf comments in this thread.

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