By Alec Meer on September 27th, 2009 at 10:32 pm.
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.
My favourite part was when she said “bitch”. That’s when I knew for certain that she was a badass.
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Yeh I know! And then she said ‘F**k you!’. HARDCORE.
(*cries*)
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He, thanks for the laugh, Ludo! :D
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Godawful trailer.
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Hey, look on the bright side. You’re supposed to be able to pick who joins your suicide squad. So we probably won’t have to have her on the team. Bitch.
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Now this is some good game writing.
And I know who will be in my party in ME2 :)
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My… whats with the terrible marketing with Bioware’s games at the moment?
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Its like they almost don’t want us to like it…
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Yay a psycho. Finally a female party member without mommy issues… or daddy issues…
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Usually the psycho part is for the player…
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Also, why would you announce very loudly and clearly that you are switching to shotgun? I'm all for fighting fairly (except when I'm not), but I don't see why my enemy should know which weapon I'm using until they eat my white-hot plasma shell. Or whatever.
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This is probably one of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen. Utterly classless.
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Jeeeeeeeeeeeesus, Bioware need to sack their marketing department. Or, if they’re doing it themselves, find one that knows how to do this stuff properly. I have never seen a string of adverts that do more to cement the idea that videogames are marketed at unintelligent 14 year old boys.
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Completely agree. So immature.
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What an unsavoury lady.
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I like the fact that this trailer ends with the exciting news that a Dragon Age Origins in-game item is available with the purchase of Dragon Age Origins. That will certainly help inform my decision of whether to purchase.
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Wow. That was shockingly shit. Bioware are really trying hard to shit on their reputation aren’t they?
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Please say Wrex gets to come back and punch her in the face
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It’s almost like they have been bought by some other company..
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They want to widen their target audience.
This is not the best way to go about it.
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Bitch1
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Bitch, of course I meant “Bitch!”
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Well, I bet there will be a sound file in there called ‘Bitch1.wav’.
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I hope there’ll be a file named bitchslap.wav :)
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It’s easy to understand. Just imagine the Simpsons’ meeting where the execs decided on what Poochie had to be. Now imagine that meeting continuing and dictating to the video clip makers what they needed to have.
Whedonesque is maybe what they were aiming for, but they missed the key ingredient to Joss Whedon’s formula: You don’t spell out the character in the first 20 seconds — the mystery of the character needs to last one or two seasons, to then mesh with development. On the other hand, here we’ve got: “I’ve been mistreated. I have lots of tattoos that signify how much of a badass I am. I enjoy lots of sex. I wear skimpy clothing. Bitch bitch bitch.”
In a trailer?
There will be no further questions. I await the promise that Ms. Poochie will never come back.
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What a lovely balanced young lady or, perhaps, not.
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Glad to see Bioware are keeping their one hint at a sex scene per trailer quota going. Really awful trailer, but I showed the Marilyn Mason Dragon Age trailer to a friend of mine and he said it made the game look ‘awesome’.
So I guess the marketing heads know what they are doing – ie, appealing to the lowest common denominator in the hope that they make their games appeal outside the more hardcore RPG circles. Can’t really blame them for doing that, but hopefully this particular party member is optional.
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HK-47 should be given his own TV show.
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Replacing Cowell on the X-Factor.
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I’m interested in the part at 12 seconds when you see there will be 7 more character reveals somewhere between now and release. Or at least the reveal that there will be 10 characters total for you to recruit, barring any surprises.
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Well, at least the “kept the haircut” line made me chuckle.
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Yeah, it was the sole bit of wit in there. Really scattershot writing there. Feels like they were just throwing stuff out and seeing what stuck.
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Quick poll: as depressing as this trailer might be, is there actually anyone here who has been put off to the extent that they won’t purchase Mass Effect 2?
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I’m still buying Dragon Age despite “THE NEW SHIT,” if that answers your questions >_>
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Sadly, not yet. I’ve been put off by the Dragon Age marketing, but not enough to cancel my preorder. If the game turns out to be shit though, that’s it for ME2. Dragon Age will be my litmus test.
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they have both put me off to the extent i will wait until i have a very good idea of how bad they are before i fork a cent for them and they are very likely to get overshadowed by any other good looking game at release time, DA for example has a very good chance to get ignored by me if Borderlands turns out to be any good (the fact that they keep delaying will make it worse)
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Just curious. Personally I’m still buying Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, based on Bioware’s superb pedigree. I think Bioware can afford to put out trailers like this and they’re not likely to lose sales from their fans, so as a marketing exercise it makes sense to try and draw a new crowd.
I just finished KOTOR for the first time, and then I come online and see this trailer and it feels as though Bioware couldn’t possibly have been involved. Hopefully when the games are actually released we’ll see Bioware’s quality. Apparently, early rumours have it that Dragon Age is excellent. If all goes well ME:2 will follow suit.
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I think Nerd Rage has the right idea. If I were a big Bioware fan, I don’t think I’d let some bad trailers turn me off. When they actually get around to putting out a bad GAME, that’s when you worry.
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Unless it really gets destroyed in the “Wot I Think” I’ll still buy it no matter how bad the marketing gets. It’s just marketing.
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I’ve opted out of getting Dragon Age (looks like the worst kind of 70s generic fantasy going) ME2 I’ll probably still get, though I’m not keen on this direction.
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I will probably still buy both games. I don’t think that they could so suddenly mess everything up. But I will wait for some reviews first.
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I will buy Dragon Age cause I think it looks good, despite the shitty marketing. I will “wait and see” with ME2, cause I considered the first one to be too mediocre in all aspects.
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You guys are just terrified of forceful women.
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Trust me, I *love* forceful women.
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But do you like them bald?
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Yes, I’m terrified of any woman who is as likely to cut herself as she is to cut my dick off while I’m sleeping. If you’re not afraid of mentally unstable women with a penchant for violence, you’ve never dated one.
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Some look good bald, yes.
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That’s why you give them targets, Nerd Rage.
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I can with total sincerity say, it ain’t the bald, and it ain’t the forceful.
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bald and with her body completely covered with tattoos, you can only tattoo yourself so far before you looking like an idiot, and went past the line and kept going for about 10 light years
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I think someone got promoted to head of marketing at EA recently and should be fired this instant.
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When she says “I’LL KILL YOU,” at :40 I thought the Geth sounds were her making baby noises.
That is all.
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What I found most jarring about that little video is the swearing. They really should have picked different lines for the trailer, because the beeping is just awkward. If it was just cussing, that would have been okay, and it would have been okay without it, but not this clunky middle-ground they’ve got going on.
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She’s no Tank Girl, I’ll tell you that much.
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Oh, damn you.
“SHE’S JUST THE GIRL
SHE’S JUST THE GIRL
THE GIRL YOU WANT,” is going to be stuck in my head for ages.
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Eh. I didn’t mind the trailer.
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Me, I like ‘em feisty :p
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She’ll probably wind up being the most interesting character in the game.
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while i also think she could be interesting (doubt bioware will make her anything more than a cardboard characters like in ME1 tho), putting her in the first “new character” trailer like if they were proud of themselves for creating her gives me a very bad feeling … bitch!
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Apparently we are all cognitively challenged 13 yr old sports drink consumers.
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Until this post, I’d never thought of the trailer in anything but a positive light. But now that it’s pointed out; yeah, the whole affair does seem a little trite.
Nevertheless, the character seems fun, if not all that interesting. And it’ll give my girlfriend someone to root for instead of the paper dolls included in the first release.
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To be honest, though…
If it turns out it was in fact all just about fucking, that would make a pretty hilarious dynamic for a video game.
“I didn’t hire you for your daddy issues, I just like it rough and raw.”
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Agreed. Games need more fucked up characters with motives that are entirely their own. Sadly, it seems inevitable that there’s going to be a sidequest where you can turn her to the side of good, respectable boringness through a series of dialogue trees where you have to pick the most understanding and supportive dialogues.
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*Sigh* Y’know, I was almost excited about ME2. I even tried very hard to draw a clear distinction in my mind between the sequel to Mass Effect and that other Bioware game which tend to look and sound worse for every new trailer. And then they had to go and do this. Was this really the same company that released Baldur’s Gate?
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That…
Was supposed to saw (renegade points gained,) but I used the <'s instead. It thought it was HTML :(
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and then you wrote “saw” instead of “say” … i really, reeeeeaaaaalllyyyyy miss the edit button
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The only way they can turn this around is for Shepard to have a *Sigh and roll eyes* dialogue option immediately after she says anything.
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Gosh. Seems so out of place. Like she was imported from one of those godawful “mature audience” X-men spinoffs (“Subject Zero”?!). Hopefully, we will be able to push her off a ledge in the middle of a conversation.
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Oh god, you’re so right. She’s like if Rob Liefeld dropped a character right into the middle of Star Trek. Not nearly enough pouches to be a a Liefeld character, though.
What we do need is a Deadpool-esque character who is completely aware of videogame, sci-fi and fantasy adventure cliches, and tears them apart for you, so long as you have him/her in your party. That’d at least be an interesting take on the comic relief character.
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@Dominic White
GOD YES, a Deadpool-esque character would be much welcome from the super-serious-business that even comic relief characters usually have to follow.
Of course, this character would have to be fairly well hidden to counteract the massive nerdrage generated from people who don’t like to be reminded that they are in fact playing a game ;)
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This trailer reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPkVY088VE
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It made me think of this:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpMPFGBtE7Q
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I really don’t think it’s all that bad. At least she’s not boring or bland like the human chick from the first. Why is everyone hating on Bioware lately? You haven’t even played a damn second of ME2 or Dragon Age and everyone is all up in arms about the “direction” Bioware is taking these two games. Stop being so damn critical and jaded….I’m certain Bioware will pull these two off. As for this jaded gamer, I really don’t think Subject Zero is worth getting upset about. So please stop.
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Totatlly agree. That is completely out of sync with what we know the Mass Effect universe to be. The ME unirverse is supposed to have a kind of subtle spacey vibe and this character completely disrupts all of that. I’m all for bitchy characters but there is such a thing as wit and subtlety. Give me a bitch that has clever insults and put-downs not a character that has the personallity of a Rhino.
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I didn’t see anything wrong with the trailer. Not every character is going to be well spoken and eloquent, especially given what sort of people you’re recruiting in ME2. Ex-gang member who gets her kicks from hurting things? She’s not exactly going to speak the Queen’s English, is she? The execution of the trailer might be a little off, but this isn’t anything on the level of “That Dragon Age Trailer.”
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Bioware has been doing a marvelous job lately of reminding me why I pay no attention whatsoever to pre-release trailers. They usually tell you absolutely nothing about the game in question, either artificially building hype or artificially inducing worry. I’m sure Mass Effect 2 will be at least at the level of the original (which was good, not great). Silly advertising decisions will have no impact on that contention. Similarly, I’m quite certain Dragon Age will be better than its pre-release footage as well. I’ll wait for reviews on both, of course, but the only thing that’s really going to change my mind is someone actually having PLAYED THE GAME.
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Uhm, this is the standard stereotype for every female lead character since Lara Croft. Not that there aren’t exceptions, but come on…
Why are we deciding to rejoice in finding that awful just now? Because she actually used dialog that fits that character cliché? I mean, no problem with it, but it’s not like we hadn’t the chance to do so 10 years ago. This is the reason I find gender equality to be horribly… misunderstood… in mainstream (action-)gamedesign.
Plus I like the “Joined a cult, kept the haircut…” line. Yea, kill me.
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See, this just goes to prove my theory that marketing will be the downfall of our species. Who’s up for joining my revolution where we shoot all marketers in the face?
…
Bitch!
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Every RPG needs its wildcard character and I like the idea of a female Vin Diesel on my team. I was really impressed with some of ME1′s female characters–the girl Shephard especially–and it’s good to see strong women is an element that’s been kept in the sequel.
Sure they’re trying a bit too hard (put on some clothed dammit) but god knows it’s better than yet another orphaned blowup doll who’s in love with the player from scene one.
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If you completely ignore the new character, the rest of the trailer is pretty bland, crappy action, crappy effects (the biotic effects look even worse than in me1, uh, why do they have to go into free ragdoll mode ? at least have them flail around and try to shoot back a bit) and i could swear the engine looked a lot better last time i saw it.
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What the fuck happened to Bioware.
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So let me get this right Bioware, the rest of my crew all have to wear armour, whist Riot Grrl runs around with little more than her tattoos to protect her? Does she not feel the cold perhaps?
Sad, very sad. One can only hope that enough commentators lamenting them for going down this route shames them into changing this before release….
The only positive seems to be that there are 10 character slots for your team, so at least that's an improvement.
Yes You’re right, I’m deliciously evil
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Well with many touted opportunities to kill characters I know which save file I’ll be keeping aside when I’m feeling glum.
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[I disagree with some people here]
I mean it’s only a trailer, and a fairly tongue in cheek one too, so why take it so seriously? Loosen up, go with the flow of it, and enjoy it for its over the top Hollywood style nonsense.
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The big problem in my mind is that it makes the character seem completely unlikeable. “RAH RAH I’M A BIG MEAN WOMAN. I SWEAR.”
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[I disagree with a person here]
It’s not like some of us actually think that this sort of thing impacts negatively upon the games industry as a whole, and opens up the gateway for further criticism by the mainstream media. Did you miss the stuff a couple of years back where Geoff Keighley from Gametrailers TV was there defending Mass Effect on Fox News because people on the show were saying it was pornographic?
http://kotaku.com/347350/keighley-sets-mass-effect-record-straight-or-tries-to
This sort of stuff is playing right into their hands I’m afraid. Bioware are a successful company, they’ve a long record of making positive saleable product, so why the need to throw fuel on the fire with this sort of thing in ME2 and Dragon Age is pretty sad tbh.
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Hey Bioware, your dick is showing, put it back in your pants before someone notices.
Trailers for RPGs is an absurb concept anyway. Trailers are meant to be exciting most of the time and rpgs are some of the least exciting games there are.
All their attampts to make their RPGs look exciting and badass ALWAYS COME OFF WRONG YOU CAN’T MAKE TLAKING TO PEOPLE, ALLOCATING STATS, AND BLAND-AS-HELL RPG COMBAT FUN AND EXCITING TO WATCH ITS LIKE TRYING TO RELEASE A TRAILER FOR THE SIMS 4/5/6WHATEVER FILELD WITH ACTION MOVIE CLICHES AND CURSING AND A SHITTY CHARACTER ARCHETYPE AND THAT MAKES ME ANGRY!!!
MASS EFFECT 2: MASS HARDER!
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No it really isn’t about sex
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Are any of the RPS fellows off to see Bioware in the coming days? I think it’s getting to the point where a confrontation on the direction of their marketing is very important. There’s a sex clip in pretty much everything now. It’s beyond a joke.
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Bah Biowares marketing are geniuses, okay maybe not, but they know their target market.
You all know that for every grown-up gamer – Which most of us here are, that’s why we can you know, read words and respond without leetisms spilling forth…
Anyway, you all know for every gamer who sees this for the shallow and slightly pathetic trailer it is, there are a few thousand teenage boys, WWE watching man-boys (in the UK we call them Chavs, in the US fratboys?) – hell the majority of the 360 player base – who’ll think it’s ‘f**king awesome, bitch!”
They’ll be repeating those lines in school, they’ll be excited over the tattoo’d badass bitch in the game, and they’ll buy it.
They’ll buy it in droves.
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I’m pretty sure that the typical idea of the perfect lay for the ‘horny simpleton’ isn’t ‘difficult, frightening, bald triplecunt’.
The problem is BioWare is marketing to a lowest common denominator that it’s basically insulting to even insinuate exists. Chastising the slack-jawed straw-men isn’t so much better than releasing the trailer in and of itself.
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Sorry, brah. We should go to that sick kegger at Troy’s tomorrow night.
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I do agree also the point of marketing is to sell more copies and since BioWare RPGs are already must buys for BioWare RPG fans it makes sense for them to market the game towards a large market segment who wouldn’t normally buy it.
I do have a grudging respect for the marketing stratagy for this and Dragon’s Age but I still think these videos have been poorly done even for their target demographic. Althought my judgement might well be impaired by how much I hated it.
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Actually I just thought of something. The best thing for Bioware to do ever would be to give this girl a questline where she gets some character development and learns to stop being such an insufferable… Well the only appropriate word is bitch. But yeah. That would be amazing.
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There’s something wrong with you.
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I don’t get what the fuss is about, she used the word bitch twice and they seemed perfectly appropriate in the context she used them in.
Also, yay, finally a new character from Bioware rather than the same old tired archetypes!
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Am I just blanking stuff from my memory, or did nobody say fuck in Mass Effect? This seems out of place.
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Yet no toilets anywhere. What a strange world the future is…
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Not-as-good-as-Baldur’s-Gate-but-still-decent is crap now?
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Hmm, I don’t mind the language… it seems ‘foul’ language is the ‘in thing’ used to distinguish games for older players and inject ‘realism’. All this is disrupting quality family time; I remember playing Grand Theft Auto 4, my goodness the amount of swearing was too much (almost at every sentence!) that I had to play alone using headphones leaving my wife and daughter to miss the whole game. At least some games, or even previous iterations such as GT San Andras, had the occasional swearing but you could distract them, skip the particular scene or say “This is wrong, don’t do this, its a bad thing, this is a bad example.” But swearing is not the way to portray toughness, especially the ladies. My point is, use other elements other than B1tch to portray a character. This will just turn off both the gentlemen and the ladies playing video games around the world and attract unnecessary heat from the ‘authorities’. Whatever happened to action speaks louder than words?
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@ wrathfire:
If you were taking the piss and my sarcasm detector has failed, forgive me. But are you seriously suggesting that GTA4 would have made for some quality, daughter-safe family entertainment (just as San Andreas apparently was), if only it weren’t for the *swearing*? And that in San Andreas, parental guidance was most pressingly required when the characters swore?
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You must never swear while you kill cops.
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@MD
Haha! Touche~ Sorry for the misunderstanding, my daughter is almost 2 years old now and at that time GTA 4 came out she was few months old. Thats why I used headphones but then babysitting is tough with headphones (you knew that didn’t you?). Maybe swear filters should be nice, at least I can have fun gunning down the Popo while my daughter plays with her blocks.
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“Joined a cult, kept the haircut.”
Don’t tell me that isn’t a gem.
Althought this trailer does have a slightly Prince of Persia 2 smell about it.
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Yeah, that one line was good. But it’s like finding a peanut in a… well. I just won’t even finish that.
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Gosh.
I mean, horrific stereotype and all but… first character with some kinda forceful personality in Mass Effect? Excluding The End of Game Boss, obv.
For all its wonderful world building and alien designs, Mass Effect had an extreme personality deficit. This is something of an overcorrection, but at least they’re trying to correct.
That one was too cold, this one is too hot… but the next one will be…?
…
I’d really like to not buy Mass Effect, but the story that kicks off during the last 2/5ths of the game was too much fun to leave alone. Damn their eyes.
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I’m guessing that this is far more to do with EA’s marketing than Bioware’s.
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That’s an awfully good point.
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Yeah there will be a romance option where she reveals she’s a scared, vulnerable, dependent girl on the inside and just needed the love of Shepard to bring that out of her. Give her an alignment shift and all that.
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…Not to buy Mass Effect 2, I mean, gah, lack of edit function…
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@reverend
If you’re signed up to the forums you can go to the thread and edit in there. Though be aware it adds your sig (if you have one) into your post. ;)
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It also screw up some formatting. For example, it seems to remove (permanently) paragraph breaks, which can be a real issue with a longer post.
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This… *points finger* THIS is dumbing down to the console crowd…
This is what they want…Forget their lesser graphics, bad physics and rubbish controls this is what you get when the average age of a console player is 12 year old.
Bitches!
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I’m pretty sure that was the worst trailer I’ve ever seen but I’m taking that as a good sign. No really. BioWare surely have two seperate developement teams one working on ME2 and another working of Dragon’s Age, right? So the fact the trailers for both are utter crap can be taken as evidence that the idiots who are working for BioWare who were responsible for the direction of those the god awful Dragon’s Age trailers aren’t working on either game, they’re just the shared marketing people. If the marketing for ME2 had been good and the marketing for Dragon’s Age bad then we’d have had to worry that something was going seriously wrong with the Dragon’s Age developement team but as it is we can go with the most plausible explanation and dismiss these as nothing but the fevered imaginings of a deranged marketing department.
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Agree with everything except the part about the fucking. The tough chick act works there for me. Bloody testosterone…
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Oh come on. Are we sure “abrasive, juvenile, immature, thinks-she’s-tough-but-everyone-else-rolls-their-eyes” isn’t exactly what they’re going for? I’ve known people like that.
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I was distracted by the voice actor.
Sounds like Pauley Perrette from NCIS.
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sounds like Paris Hilton to me, i wonder how they are going to explain her going all tattooed chain-mail bikini in space and in hazardous planets
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Meh. She’s just Shar-Teel. Only she doesn’t mind sleeping with men, as well.
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“Shar-Teel. Only she doesn’t mind sleeping with men, as well.”
Well actually if you install the BG1NPC mod for Baldur’s Gate … which I recommend, by the way, it’s not cheesy and it doesn’t suffer from sloppy editing, unlike a lot of fan mods — good enough that it makes the game better than vanilla BG2 IMO. Of course, since it is actually good writing, it’s not a smooth relationship. (She’s even more messed up than Viconia in BG2, but also less needy.)
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Jaheira: If a tree falls in a forest… I’ll kill the bastard what done it!
Nalia: I am sorry for that extended exchange but he is such a bounder, such a… a manipulating… such a.. Oh, to Hades with the manners, he is a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!
Viconia: Minsc, that… tattoo on your face. Does it have tribal significance or did some nursery’s fingerpainting class assault you with the blue pastels?
Viconia: Valygar, do you realize you have twigs in your hair? Dirt under your fingernails and mud on your boots? You’re a filthy mess. Ha! How can I be discreet? Take a bath.
Jaheira: Cut your wit, bard. The day has been long already, without you adding hours to it.
Jaheira: ‘Methinks thou dost protest too much’. Aye, I can quote the poets too. If you must protest, I respond only to hunger strikes, and, even then, too late.
Viconia: He dropped to his knees to beg for mercy, which offered me height advantage as I smashed in his skull with a sledgehammer.
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>> ie. there are more intelligent ways of writing dialogue for a “bitch” character…
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And as an added bonus, it reminds one that romantic interests in Bioware games were decidedly better executed when the sex scene was implied.
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Indeed, however not everyone likes to listen to figures of speech and soliloquies. Sometimes blunt is better. The main reason why Haer’Dalis never finds his way into my party, my raven.
Besides people, it’s a bioware game, I’m sure there are a few navel-gazing whiny introspectives in there.
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Oh man, this looks so awesome, just like Dragon Age. So dark, gritty, mature, and EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEME!!!! YEAH!! WOOOO!!!
:P
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What I like: 90s skater/punk/grunge/tattoo culture; humour; fits into the whole Dirty Dozen cast feel; no DD tits in sight. What I don’t like: gratuitous sexuality; genderswapped Gears of War character; MTV swearing; gratuitous sexuality.
Overall, the humour still wins out, assuming she gets more lines like the “joined a cult; kept the haircut” one.
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Ugh
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While I have nothing against a hardcore, punk-rock type character, I DO take issue with the game they’re shoehorning her into.
Mass Effect 1 was barely edgier than Star Trek. It was lightweight, family-friendly pulp sci-fi. The ‘sex scene’ was no rauncier than what Shatner was getting up to with green alien ladies back in the 60s. I was kinda looking forward to more of that.
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I think you hit the nail on the head on why I find her so distasteful. She would fit more in a Riddick or Gears of War setting but not gleamy, neony Mass Effect.
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Yesss another female character designed for me to fuck.
Seriously. What’s with this new-found love of awkward sex scenes in games. It’s such a leap backwards.
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Someone needs to tell Bioware that the lift biotic is actually Hilarious and not, as they seem to think, Very Cool And Matrixy. It doesnt help that anyone lifted with that power immediatly turn into ragdolls for the duration. Seriously, if you want to lift me up in the air, and i’m still carrying my gun, you better believe i’ll be shotting wildly at you for as long as i can.
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Things one should not do in 0g if one wishes to escape with all of one’s limbs intact: exerting a great deal of force away from oneself while floating free.
Things a gun does: exert a great deal of force away from oneself.
Things Lift does: neutralise the effect of gravity on the victim.
Things firing an assault rifle whilst under the effect of Lift does: make the victim hurtle into the nearest wall while spinning on themselves at 50mph, breaking most of the bones in their body.
(Which of course leads us to asking why every enemy in Mass Effect has the fire discipline to not cause their own death when Lifted. I’d love it if they didn’t, but then Lift + Push would be a tiny bit redundant.)
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I wasn’t aware lift put you into zero gravity.
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It changes your mass so that you weigh nothing, which is essentially the same thing as being in 0g.
I know far too much useless shit.
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i was not aware that mass and inertia didnt mean anything on 0g, its like you shoot a very light bullet at a nice speed and suddenly you are launched at 50mph against a wall breaking your bones, damn thats good to know, no need for boosters in space, just throw a pebble and youll zoom at lightspeed
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Alex Norris: i suggest you review your mass vs weight concepts, they seem to be a little mixed up in your head
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Now now, don’t exaggerate.
Let mass of 10 bullets = m1 = ca. 60 g. Let muzzle speed = v1 = 900 m/s. Let mass of person firing the assault weapon = m2 = 90 kg. We are to calculate resulting velocity of person firing the weapon, v2.
p = m1*v1 = 0.06 x 900 = 54 kg-m/s
v2 = p/m2 = 54/90 = 0.6 m/s (= 1.3 mph)
If you fired lots of bullets, sure you’d go flying. Or if you were slim and/or short. But a short burst should be OK.
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if we are going into numbers you should consider the air resistance (which makes both the moving body and the bullet dissipate a big part of the energy) and you should remember that in the mass effect 1 codex it said the bullets were very very small (making ammo pretty much infinite) so bullets should have a lot less than 60gr, plus there seems to be a kind of pulling effect when the biotic is used that should also be accounted for, just setting gravity to 0 wouldnt make you float, you need to pull up/jump too
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a 9mm bullet has about 8 gr btw
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It’s a bloody sci-fi game. Lift makes people float up without struggling because it’s better crowd-control than Push. That’s probably the only reason behind it. The fact that it makes sense if you apply a little bit of science to it is an added bonus and frankly, I couldn’t care less about the maths of it all.
And last I checked, W=Mg and humans lacked the capacity to throw pebbles at speeds in excess of 1km/s.
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@Alex Norris – I’m not sure it does make sense if you apply a little bit of science to it, if you’re using the biotic on a planet or satellite. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but gravity is what keeps you moving in an ellipse along with the planet, orbitting the planet’s star. Remove the effect of gravity from someone and they should keep going in a straight line because of their velocity – or, from the perspective of someone on the planet, be flung away (probably into a wall or the ground). The Earth’s average speed is about 30 km/s, so if you’re somewhere with a similar orbit this is may be a bit more problematic than weapon recoil…
(Inappropriate application of physics to soft scifi concepts = fun)
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It’s true that they haven’t made nothing but crap.
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Would have been better if they’d used this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LPCvgzg_hg – as a backing song, bitch!
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I forgot what is perhaps my biggest beef with the character in my earlier list of grievances: who in their right mind thought that “Subject Zero” was a cool name? At the very least, they should have named her Zero (a traditional criminal name by way of the Yakuza, as we should all know from generic gangster types in pop culture) and kept the whole subject zero thing a mystery. You know, for character development.
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meh, I’ve been around women who swear more than that. what is the big deal? If they want to introduce characters who are pissy all the time, I’m all for it. You have a limited band of people to follow you around, you might as well pick the interesting ones
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This reeks of committee design. Somehow they’re mixing ideas that are actually decent with absolute shit. If they’d drop the G. I. Jane + Generic Overcompensating GRRL power vibe and replaced it with an understated confidence it would have been fine.
“Turns out, mess with someones head enough and you can turn a scared kid into an all-powerful bitch.” Rargh, GRRL power! Nothing is as annoying as someone still mentally chained to their childhood 10-20 years after the fact.
“Now who’s the badass biotic… bitch.” That’s fucking terrible.
“I’ve been around, ran with gangs, joined a cult, kept the haircut.” Abstracted from the context, that’s a half-decent line. A bit snarky, irreverent even.
They should have made her:
aloof instead of in-your-face, she’d actually be likable in a sort of feline manner.
clearly over qualified instead of anxious to show off, she’d come off like an experienced veteran instead of a ridiculous powercunt .
50+ years old but with a biotic bodylift that made her look mid 20s she’d be a lot more sexually interesting. All of the benefits of MILFhood with none of the downsides.
unconcerned with self-destruction and/or sacrificing her body it would be a lot more interesting and slightly absurd/disturbing in an Alien(s) or GITS android sort of way. As opposed to an inexplicable death wish.
dismissive of your party’s lives especially the main character, as if dozens of years of murdering people for increasingly less moral reasons from self-defense to revenge to money to pleasure and with increasing ease has completely devalued human (or sentient considering the setting) life for her.
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Is she…. is she wearing armor made out of tattoos?
How does the helmet fit on when you go to a planet without a breathable atmosphere?
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Something tells me the naked look may just be her default armour much like Ashley’s godawful pink armour was her default look in ME.
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I liked Ashley’s pink armour, even bought a suit of it for Wrex to wear
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So some examples of this character type in video games please? For me this Subject is too rare to be a cliche, maybe I didn’t watch TV enought in the “90′s” …
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enough TV
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This works really well if you’re the target audience. Just an FYI.
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I’m kinda thinking Bioware has lost something somewhere. First Dragon Age: O and now this. :/
Luckily, Risen is looking tres awesome. :D
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Hmmm… who might the lady in the white uniform be at 1:07?
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Anyone else recall the slave girl you rescue from suicide if you play with the sole survivor background? This chick seems a lot like her, and the dialog in the trailer with its past references leads me to believe it’s the same person.
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Committee design it is. “Can we have her edgy, but without the, yeah, without these edges?” Although she could be worse.
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I love how kitsch the whole thing is.
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Alright, this is arguable but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I’m actually not (technically) a [three star Belgian chef]. Dostoevsky is one of my favorite authors, Spinzoa is my fucking hero and I spend my free time reading Russian history books. Yet I loved this trailer. It’s perfectly understandable that some of you don’t like it, but please don’t assume that that it’s just the team trying to toss the idiot side of their audience a bone.
As for the criticisms on her character, yeah she’s overcompensating. I’m betting I would be too though if I grew up in an environment where the only way to not die was to show that I was, without doubt, the strongest. Read an article on child soldiers, this IS actually an issue in reality too (though I doubt that’s what Bioware was getting at). Teach a kid to do nothing but fight and by the time they’re an adult they might not know how to stop anymore.
Full disclosure: I just turned 18, so I am actually the demographic some of you are saying it’s intended for age wise. >_0
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The issue isn’t snob vs non-snob, the issue isn’t even whether she’s a rounded character or not (and it being BioWare I’m sure she will be), the issue is that the trailer is just awful. It’s almost like a parody of a trailer, but sadly it doesn’t tip the wink to let us know that it knows.
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Does the game try to (“lower itself to”) appeal to those audience repesented by this character type? We don’t know yet from this trailer, for now all it says is there is a bitch in the game you could recruit.
It doesn’t say you are supposed to like her; it doesn’t necessarily mean the game tries to be “edgier”, maybe it’s just this character tries to be “ediger”. Maybe you can kill her off before she can even join, like Valygar from BG2 (though I doubt Bioware has the courage). In real life we hate a lot of traits of people, why shouldn’t they turn up in a game? Nearly everyone hate Anomen in BG2, if Bioware made a character trailer for him, do you think “oh no now Baldur’s Gate is trying to target the jock/holier-than-thou people”?
ps: trailers tend use quotes out of context. Maybe in actual game she is facing another self-claimed badass biotic bitch.
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Actually to think of it, nearly every NPC in BG2 is not quite likable or to be deemed as a stereotype if presented in minutes long trailers. Probably except Imoen and Minsc (and Boo)
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This video has shown me just how bad ME2 and Dragon Age is going to be. :(
I wanted a good RPG experience this Holiday too. :(
There's still The Witcher at least!
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I enjoyed the witcher also, but seriously?
That games more juvenile, stereotypical and at times than any Bioware game has EVER been.
Right down to the barmaid who’ll drop her knickers for a walk home and a bottle of wine.
It overcomes it to still be a good game (just short of great imo) thanks to some nice moral ambiguity, but nothing Bioware has done, is even close to the collectable soft port art cards thing…
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Juvenile, stereotypical and chauvinistic even^^
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[Voice of dissent mode]
As someone who values narrative and writing very highly, I thought that was just fine. On the side of exciting even. Voluntary concession: I may have low standards.
When I read the comments that say ‘She should be this’ or ‘she should be that’, recall that sometimes, people really do talk like that, and think that way. I get that you’re mainly arguing the presentation, but if subject zero’s like that, then subject zero’s like that. It’s their character.
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Submitted for your approval.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkTKdqMj7Ys
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That certainly does a much better job of conveying her character (and it’s fine for her character to speak in the manner of the trailer) without resorting to being really childish and groan-inducing as in the official trailer.
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This is so much better.
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Superior
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I hope the so-called “professional” marketing people get to see that, and understand why it is *so* much better.
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It reminds of:
http://assets.gearlive.com/celebrities/blogimages/avril_lavigne.jpg
or
http://media.photobucket.com/image/pink%20singer/mersades34/2ah8gwp.jpg
More or less, “I’m female, spunky, and tough… and pretty too!”
That song fits better for Ashley. Someone who’s tough and gritty and yet still feminine.
Baldy seems, charmingly bitter, dangerous, and volatile.
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I guess there’s a lot of small pee-wees out there then.
I got two things from this: she had a sense of humour and she was playful.
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@Kadayi: Yeah, there’s just these three seashells on a little shelf.
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Expected something different. Not as trashy, more authentic.
Hey, Burns Flipper in TLJ sweared ten times more (no exaggeration!), but was a more real character.
She doesn’t have very much depth, she’s predictable, she’s supposed to look hot, she features in a sex scene, but she’s all independent and can fight for herself! Wooh, she’s soo different! Gah,..
…so, Mass Effect 2 is not the right game for me, it seems…
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Woah, sir, you idea of what people is suppose to find hot is quite different
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I’m sure that marketing wanted to look her hot, so she’s supposed to look hot. That would explain the implied sex scene and the countless camera pannings over her body.
I don’t find her hot, though.
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You know this been Bioware, I’d not bet against Bioware building her up in this manner, as the Billie-bad-ass (no connection to the one that used to be in Doctor who) of the show, only to tear her down utterly when playing the game.
After all it’s no fun breaking a character down unless they’ve been built up in the mind of the audience first.
Bioware have a fairly solid history of building expectations up in one direction, then neatly shattering them, sidestepping them or otherwise hitting you in the face with the big wet fish of surprise!
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They have?
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They have? Oh, you mean like when they promised that NWN2 would be a good game?
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NWN2 wasn’t even a BioWare game, man.
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NWN2 was made by Obsidian… I mean I’m not defending Bioware, I’m just saying get your facts right.
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OK, we’ve done a fair bit of criticizing, and I think most of it’s justified, but maybe we can turn this thing towards a more constructive end. Assuming ME2 is a good game (and I think that’s probably a fair assumption despite this trailer) what SHOULD they be showing in trailers? Personally I think character snippets are usually going to backfire even if they’re good characters, I’d be focusing on the universe and maybe some of the new locations, as well as teasing the plot.
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they could be talking about how they did not improve gameplay (i was under the impression they did from the older trailers but watching this one makes me think otherwise), or how close we are going to get to see actual 3d rendered ass this time (considering how much they keep hyping the “sex” in their games this is an important question, ME1 was a huge disasspointment if you get what i mean :p)
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Rules for making a trailer:
1. Show, don’t tell.
2. HInt, don’t spell it out.
3. Put down the Marilyn Manson.
4. Every statement consignifies its opposite. If a character or Mr. Manson states “I am a badass”, we do not assent immediately. We wonder: Is this character a badass? Could this character not be a badass.
5. When I meet someone for the first time, and she tells me her life story, I run away screaming. Why should trailers be different? We’ll only care about the life story once we care about the character. So keep the background material on the blackboard.
6. If you want to convey a “deep” character, don’t put it all on the surface. In thirty seconds, that trailer told us _everything_ about the character: why she looks the way she does, what her motivation is, and XTREME ATTITUDE. Even Meet the Demoman held something back.
7. For that matter, when thinking about “what to put in the trailer”, think about “what NOT to put in”. A trailer needs to give the impression that there’s more to the product than what’s in the trailer.
8. Flying cameras make people sick (they’re clear of this one).
9. A Male Fantasy is not a “Strong Female Character”. How can you tell the difference? Here they take a character that should be a straightforward, murderous psychotic, and shoehorn it into a “hurt little girl” sexpot frame. You, the 13-year-old gamer, know she’s a real woman, because she’ll sleep with you. Calling her a strong and complex character is like saying that mainstream porn has deep and honest depictions of lesbianism.
10. Everyone in the game is a piece of meat: a 3-D model with a voiceover. Showing player selection/configuration screens merely emphasizes the fact.
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Spot on Dinger
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This trailer is so edgy they bleeped the fuck out!
I just feel that every single swear word was so carefully placed it sounds forced. Or…well, I really have difficulty to place my problems with the trailer.
I don’t know how the voiceover was intended at the beginning. As posing? As an interview response?
Ugh, I really can’t get my head around it, but yep, I don’t like it.
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The character snippets I like, this particular character I don’t. I sincerely hope that the next video features the black-armored geth: there must be an explanation why a lone geth is traveling the galaxy, deliberately drawing attention to itself. That sounds like a setup for an interesting series of conversations.
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No. No no no no no. Whatever EA exec approved Dragon Age and is now clearly meddling in Mass Effect 2, get the HELL out. Bioware games tread a thin enough line as it is, they don’t you pushing them over the edge!
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SO FUCKING EXTREME!!!
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Like somebody else said… shes like a walking Mountain Dew commercial…
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i think the young lad from that video was staring me down from the opposite platform at mile end the other day.
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I don’t get what the big deal is. You guys are all assuming that the character is supposed to make us wow and ga-ga at how original and badass she is. Someone mentioned “sigh and roll eyes” should be a dialogue option…I’d almost bet money that it is. The character could be very intentionally flawed and emotionally vulnerable in the actual story of the game. Rarely do we get a completely shallow, generic stereotype in a Bioware game. There is always more under the surface. I’m sure she has been abused in her past or something and Shep can make her cry or put his thing into her thing, etc.
I’m guessing that montage is intentionally puerile. That being said, I’m willing to give the character a chance, but her bikini is indeed silly looking.
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The way I see it, the more diversity the better.
Most of you expect the same stereotypical “bioware” characters- the deep thinking intellectual types, who have a very deep inner conflict. However, fill a cast with everyone like this and the interactions will turn bland.
True, the concept of this character is very generic, and bland, but the interactions between the hero and her will just add a more rounded character of the hero.
To quote the Dark Knight (for the umpteenth time), “some people just want to watch the whole world burn”. Clearly this character is one of those people.
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I considered this as well. Well said.
There are plenty of people like this in real life. If you are shooting for realistic characters and diversity, there is certainly nothing wrong with including her. Like I said above, though, I’m sure her background justifies her behavior / attitude. Unless she is a psychotic, no one is the way they are “just because.” People are the sums of their upbringing and their life experiences, and ideally a good RPG character is as well.
I’m not saying everyone has to love her. Simply put, if you don’t like her, don’t use her on your team.
Although I wonder how old she is supposed to be?
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So few bioware characters are not introspective.
The only one i can think of is sarevok who you have to grind down to get him to think about himself.
The first time you talk to him in bg2 might be the last, he begs you for his life. Even that doesn’t make him reflective.
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I find the outrage over this a little silly and I must say the thought of playing my (female) Shepard as a Renegade with a semi-psychotic female sidekick is an appealing one, especially considering how sedate and boring the female characters were in ME1 (Tali was cool and interesting though, but very much a good girl).
I know girls who look like that, including the haircut and the tattoos but minus the shotgun, and I know girls with a far dirtier mouth, so provided they give her a proper background I really can’t see the problem.
The only thing that made me cringe a little was the bleeped “Fucking” (if you’re going to play the badass card, either don’t chicken out and bleep it or just leave it out altogether) and of course a lot of it felt juvenile, but hey, it’s a trailer, you can’t characterize a person in 1½ minutes of tiny clips.
The voice actor seems pretty good too :)
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Hahaha I actually like her! Reminds me of how my ex behaves played Left4Dead.
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I’m just hoping that this trailer is just misbranding from the marketing department and not what the folks at Bioware hopes Mass Effect 2 will be.
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You know, a character that looked like this and yet was a completely serene monk or something would be much more interesting.
Oh well.
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I started chuckling part way through this ad, just because the whole character seemed, well, a bit daft. I guess we’ll have to wait for the wot-I-think.
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This is pretty terrible yea
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Keep the Dragon Age marketing team the hell away from ME2!
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Still, I can’t wait to take down that stompy mecha-geth! After I call it a bitch, of course.
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To add to this, the bullets in Mass Effect are in fact tinier than a grain of sand. They’re metallic shavings from a slab inside the weapon, fired at near relativistic speeds. That’s why guns don’t run out of ammo there.
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That was meant for the zero g gun firing discussion on page 2.
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Bioware’s marketing department has a lot to answer for. I’d actually prefer no ads at the moment.
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Honestly, while I didn’t like the character, I find the anger over this kind of strange.
I personally think the character could be really interesting, if Bioware manages to tell it properly. Judging by the first comment in the trailer, I’m willing to bet she lead a seriously traumatic early life. One that most people didn’t survive, and those who did probably ended up in worse psychological shape then she’s in.
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The name “Subject Zero” kida give it away
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kinda
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… what the hell?
I’m very very glad that I haven’t palced my pre-order yet.
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http://tubedubber.com/#qsefCmNAQR4:JT5AQIlmM0I:0:100:0:35:true
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I just wanted to add – I love the tags on this entry.
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What annoys me isnt the language or the character personality (although my female shepard would never dream of taking someone that psychotic on her missions). What bothers me is the clothing, or lack thereof. I want my spacemarines to have armor, if she is going to run around like that all the time then im gonna off her the first time I get the chance.
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In the spirit of optimism, I thought I’d repost the ME2 trailer from E3. Think positive thoughts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCpK2XnIaeI
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Oh, just noticed, what’s with this series of random Lovecraftian avatar pictures….
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It seems that Gravatar automagically assigns those if one didn’t setup his avatar.
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I see the frightened little girl from “Mass Effect: Ascension” by Drew Karpyshyn grew up. =)
That would explain a few things, she was made into one of the most potent biotics in existence against her will in the book (she wasn’t even 10 I believe) by some ruthless Cerberus people, that would leave you with more than a few mental scars, especially when you don’t have full control over all that power at first.
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That girl was also autistic, and the story took place shortly after the events of ME.
This is not her.
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I don’t know what the fuss is about. She’s clearly fucked up and has an obviously exaggerated, tough-girl persona as a defence against being messed with again. Going by Bioware’s track record, I trust them to make her an interesting, well-rounded character. Seriously, did you guys actually talk to the party characters in ME, or did you just run around shooting stuff?
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Marketing department must be smart, see what a discussion it started.
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I hope she’s the kind of girl who likes dark basements – , as she’s going to be spending a lot of time in the hold of the Normandy.
“Switching to shotgun!” – yeah, I bet all the underground gang members say that.
And shall we assume her background involves some shady scientific experimentation, which made her into the damaged individual today?
I’m still looking forward to ME2 though, so there.
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If you read the Mass Effect: Ascension novel then you’ll know her backstory.
This was done to her, not something she got of her own free will.
Cerberus is the baddy in this game, and they did this to her, so I imagine she’ll want more than a few words with them.
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That should be “damaged individual she is today” or “is in the future”, or whatever.
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So basically she’s a BioWare’s version of River Tam from Firefly/Serenity – only without her martial arts and her charm, and with a shotgun, tattoos, bald hair, attitude, telekinesis and the power of “bleep” instead. I hope at least for a good backstory – and, who knows, maybe the execs just picked up her worst parts?
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Incidentally, I first assumed that she was wearing a sort of mottled brown coat.
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Same.
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Her lines constantly beat you over the head with her “Tough bitch who takes no crap from nobody” schtick. And I. . .like it. It’s compelling and makes her a believable character. After all, a harsh childhood can teach one to constantly project a tough image as a basic survival mechanism.
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Seriously?
“I’ll kill you?”
That’s low. That’s very low.
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bioware seems to utterly fail in the promo/ad departement.
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Actually, shouldn’t people be celebrating the diversity of character that bioware is showing?
I feel like the only person at the party with a happy face balloon.
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No no, my face balloon is happy too. I trust BioWare to give this character the depth she’ll need to not be a pain in the ass, and even if they don’t, you won’t have to bring her on the missions or even talk to her a lot.
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Or just accept that shallow persons really exist and not everyone has a deep secret side.(Though Subject Zero doesn’t look like one of them)
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Sure they exist, the problem is that shallow persons usually make boring characters, and I would like my fictions to have as few boring characters as possible.
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Another ad aimed at 16 year olds?
Great for a game with a 18+ rating.
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Believe me, if I was 16 it would be below me. However I’m older, so it’s a-OK
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Count me as another who is not overly bothered by this, and this is comming from someone whose eyes rolled so much during the ‘Rawk!’ DA trailer that I tied my optic nerve in knots.
I suppose though I’m not quite getting the same vibe others are. I’m viewing the trailer as though it were put together by the character herself, her trying to sell herself if you like. Its not Boware saying, ‘look how badass our character is,’ but rather her trying to say ‘look how badass I am.’ It fits a lot better with the fact that it seems quite clear that the character isn’t entirely ‘with it.’
Of course, I could be entirely wrong on this. But I can see a lot of room for character development on this one which will paint her as far more interesting than some are assuming here.
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@ James G: Yep, well said I reckon.
I sometimes feel like I have a far lower-than-average tolerance level for this sort of thing, but the trailer in question didn’t bother me at all. I’m not all ‘OMG MUST BUY’ based on it, but my interest level probably stayed steady at ‘very little’ from before watching the trailer to after, and then rose to ‘mild’ thanks to the resulting discussion.
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If Bioware make an encounter in which an NPC, upon meeting Ms. Zero, tell her: “Why are you throwing around ‘bitch’es and acting juvenile, does that make you feel like some badass strong woman? Gosh you are a walking cliche, so predicta-” “Shut up BITCH” *Shotgun butt to the face*. That would be awesome :D
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I detect the hand of John Romero in this…
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Somebody was channeling some serious John Romero when this got approved….
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I have never seen a character like that in a videogame before.
This, in fact, is a new shit.
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It’s a shit, all right.
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I have never seen a character like that in a videogame before.
This, in fact, is the new shit.
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Maybe this is what they called a Dead Unicorn Trope
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I remenber a book about a girl traveling from spacestation to spacestation, inside cargoships… (a horrible and painfull life), before his latest cargoship got captured by pirates …hence.. she was force to meet people that will kill first, and then rape his body.
There are some sci-fi about very strong womens, and can be good books. Womens are fragile (I refuse to say “and stronger on other things” because is true, but who cares). So a mix of “Strong” and “Fragile” is like a interesting theme. But maybe a bit forced.
I just hope ME2 to be x4 longer than ME. ME was just a preview of a game in a bad way. I finished it in 2 days.
But theres XMAX, and with XMAX the need to rush games and release in a forever unfinished state. Man.. I hate XMAX.
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ME2 was my most anticipated game. ME2 is still my most anticipated game…but this trailer has dampened the enthusiasm somewhat. She looks to be a terrible, pathetic attempt at being edgy and badass and quite frankly, I’m just going to get her killed at the earliest opportunity.
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I guess this is certainly a possibility, so I won’t go all AIM yet. I did find ME’s character a little bit too shallow, though. Just a little.
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Ugh, what is this fresh kind of madness. Could’ve sworn I was replying to James G.
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Is she making “Brum brum” noises when she’s charging her gun?
My biggest complaint in terms of party, same in the original, is that I’m a super agent who has all the crew and resources of the alliance at her command as I battle a galactic threat that could destroy a thousand worlds. Yet I’m buying my own weapons and forming strike teams made up from an unruly Klingon, a cop who was kicked off his own force for being a dick and an unapologetic racist. Now it looks like I’m essentially taking on violent street urchins. Surely the alliance could have spared a couple of green berets or swat members or something?
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.
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Bioware has never been very original, the NPCs follow the Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits trope to the letter, and its justified with the worst reason : “The authorities haven’t actually noticed (or are) the problem, and the heroes have to gather whoever they can. ”
i remember when i got to the ending of ME and i had to choose to off the council, i didn’t doubt it for a second, they never helped me, they were always bitching about something and they didn’t even give me a paycheck while asking me to pay fortunes for equipment, in fact the way they presented it i felt like they told me to embrace corruption for money
do you expect “that” council to give you appropriate help ? the human group was not that much better (i found myself wishing i could off them too and put some Kramer wannabe in office just to give that unhelpful universe the finger)
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“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”.
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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.
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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…
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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
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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.
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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.
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Subject 706 hit the nail on the head so hard it shattered the board
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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
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@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.
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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.
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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.
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this was a reply to Klaus
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Bitch.
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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.
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trying a bit too hard there? like the gratuitous swearing
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Yes, but can you have sex with her?
OH GOD DRAGON AGE MARKETING IS INFECTING MY MIND
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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.
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I liked Mass Effect.. .__.
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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
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Not a huge number of votes there mind you.. and some similar comments.
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Oh and in that thread:
“dammm she made mass effect m rated all by herself
can w8 to hit that”
Gets 6 thumbs up. Make what you will of that.
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Ahh to be young and creepy.
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it seems we just arent ready for THE NEW SHIT
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Such a short trailer and already she annoyed the shit out of me.
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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.
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She needs a good kick up the ****.
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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.
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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.
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It takes a real man to admit that that trailer is utterly awesome. Bitch.
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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.
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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.
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Even if it isn't ironic, it has been immensely successful as a way to generate buzz about ME2.
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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
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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.
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Me too, high five!
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Your reply system sucks.
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this is bioware, their terribly written characters are always serious :(
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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.
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“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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Y'know, that's 13 forum-pages of comments on a marketing trailer designed to cause people to talk about Mass Effect 2.
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I’d like nothing more than to watch her die a miserable death.
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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.
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Loving the painfully obvious Bioware/EA marketing dept. astroturf comments in this thread.
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lol ive been readin what u said and whoa! chill out its a cheesy trailer, other trailers for cool shit r also CHEESY, so chill, the game gonna be heavy, if you played the 1st one you will know ..
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