By Alec Meer on January 12th, 2010 at 1:24 am.
OK, we’ve posted rather a lot of Mass Effect 2′s approximately 3178 different trailers to date and thus should restrain ourselves from hereon in, but I can’t help but mention this one. Last year was fascinating/horrifying in terms of Bioware marketing – with Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 both they alternated wildly between trying to appeal to the more traditional RPG fan and then to some sort of marketing-envisaged additional crowd, some mass of potential players who just needed a bit more unconvincingly-animated sexual intercourse and past-its-outrage-by-date goth metal and then they’d surely pour untold millions of Eurodollars into these games. Supremely easy to scoff at, but also supremely rational. Money makes the world go round, and we’d be fools to believe Bioware thought any differently. And yet the most recent clutch of Mass Effect trailers suggest a return to traditionalism- and the most recent even seems to be making amends.
Perhaps it’s because Dragon Age proved successful, perhaps it’s because everyone involved suddenly felt ashamed about pretending their game was anything to do with someone shouting “bitch” repeatedly, or perhaps it’s because the most recent focus group happened to include someone who’d once read a book. Either way, ME’s 2 genetic modified assassin character has, in the space of one trailer, transformed from ludicrous, grating collection of buzzwords and into someone potentially very interesting.
That was then:
Frankly, I’m embarrassed for the entire electric videogaming industry. But: this is now:
Still a little too keen on the I’m-tough-because-I-swear thing, but there are differences both subtle and profound – a matter of cartoon anger versus righteous fury. Well, hopefully. It’s nice to see this character being treated as something other than a Big Brother contestant with guns and tattoos, and it cements the growing sense that ME2 could be something very special. And I say that as someone who found the first Mass Effect dissatisfyingly anodyne. I surprise myself with how much I’m looking forward to this one, and I hope the remaining marketing is going to cement rather than upset that.
12/01/2010 at 01:42 Kadayi says:
“Big Brother contestant”
Quality, and spot on. That raised a loud late night chuckle. ;)
Better video than the first by a country mile, though the bizarre nature of the lipsynching left a little to be desired….
12/01/2010 at 01:52 Isometric says:
Consider me reassured.
12/01/2010 at 01:53 Thiefsie says:
I honestly don’t that improves much on the earlier trailer…
12/01/2010 at 01:53 Thiefsie says:
insert ‘think’ into that sentence where appropriate
12/01/2010 at 03:08 qrter says:
Yeah, I’m not impressed either. Seems more of the same, just without the ‘bitches’.
Also – everyone knows Shepard is female. Everyone. Stop perpetuating the myth, BioWare!
12/01/2010 at 16:44 DXN says:
Think? I honestly don’t. That improves much on the earlier trailer.
12/01/2010 at 01:53 HexagonalBolts says:
I also enjoyed the ‘big brother’ comment – the second trailer really breathes life in to her rather than conforming to the hardass stereotype. Is it me or is the lip sync a little awkward though? Perhaps because it’s so precisely rendered that it looks wrong with the slight audio delay that often occurs on youtube videos.
I just really really really really hope that they learn how to make interesting side missions. The ones in Mass Effect (1) and Dragon Age were disgustingly bland and repetitive when they could quite easily have been so much more. Need to learn a lesson from Oblivion and Fallout 3 (in fact, any fallout game).
12/01/2010 at 01:59 Dante says:
Wait, what? Dragon Age needs to learn from Oblivion on quest design? I really don’t think so.
Mass Effect had some very bland sidequests that seemed almost procedurally generated, but in Dragon Age each one has clearly been painstakingly crafted, I only wish Bethesda could write something half as good.
12/01/2010 at 02:23 feighnt says:
Dante: i’m guessing Hexagonal was thinking, particularly, of the many quests that werent within the cities of the game – you know, the quests you got from the mages’ board or chanters bag or however the hell it worked, that sent you out to the middle of nowhere to, usually, have a bland fight with some villains or somesuch.
12/01/2010 at 09:26 Richeh says:
I dunno, actual live action has fairly precise rendering too, and video doesn’t look that weird on youtube. I think they’ve tried to accentuate a sneer on her lips and overdone it. It doesn’t really look like she’s speaking english any more.
12/01/2010 at 14:21 HexagonalBolts says:
@Dante
I meant in terms of side quests
For example, the quests you got from the mages guild in oblivion (although not breathtaking) were far more interesting than the ones you got from the chantry boards.
And dear god, the ones in mass effect must surely have been procedurally generated? They were appalling!
12/01/2010 at 02:04 feighnt says:
oi. ask any goth – no such thing as “goth metal.” term’s “nu-metal,” and goths hate the stuff.
back-on-topic ps: second video is rather better than the original, she seems quite a bit less annoying… though i cant help but think i’ll end up alienating her quickly in the game anyway.
12/01/2010 at 02:09 Psychopomp says:
Her face seems just a tad overacted.
12/01/2010 at 02:15 helic0n says:
So, she’s basically Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
I’m cool with that.
12/01/2010 at 02:27 bill says:
That’s what i thought the first time. It’s still what I think now.
to be honest I can’t really see any change.
12/01/2010 at 08:29 Kadayi says:
Nail on the head. They do seem to be channelling the sneering Dushku with Subject Zero.
12/01/2010 at 19:47 Funky Badger says:
Please, Christ, no!
12/01/2010 at 02:35 Helm says:
I don’t see the difference in writing from the first one, but the 3d art is pretty good.
12/01/2010 at 02:35 ybfelix says:
“anodyne”
Hmph, a word a day.
Better than the Miranda-interview.
12/01/2010 at 02:35 Oak says:
Meet the Badass Biotic Bitch
Copyright BioWare LOLOLOL
12/01/2010 at 05:33 Glove says:
That’s a good point, now that you mention it – this seems like it’s drawn quite a bit of inspiration from Valve’s genius in marketing TF2. I think, though, that they missed half the point – Valve’s shorts were written and directed superbly, a far cry from this totally uncharismatic attempt by whoever Bioware’s hired.
12/01/2010 at 03:23 The Walker says:
At least she’s blunt. Maybe this time I won’t be having lesbian sex with an alien before I even know what’s happening.
12/01/2010 at 09:27 Kai says:
Really? It was all pretty straight forward. Taking into acount that you’re commenting on RPS i have to assume you knew sex was going to be in the first game. Yet it took you by suprise? Unlikely.
12/01/2010 at 10:43 1nightstand says:
Ha? I worked my butt off till I managed to pet some blue ass.
12/01/2010 at 13:20 Jesse says:
The sex scenes in Mass Effect were almost unavoidable. At some point you tell one of your ‘interests’ that you’re not interested in her/him when they ask, and then the other one is yours if you just talk to them once per mission, just exactly like you do with everyone else. Boom, headshot! I mean, sex scene.
They’re like gravity wells in the plot.
12/01/2010 at 19:16 eyemessiah says:
They were not unavoidable. I avoided them, and I was trying not to!
Perhaps I didn’t spend enough time skipping through NPC monologues?
12/01/2010 at 19:23 Vinraith says:
@eyemessiah
Exactly right. They’re only “unavoidable” if you have a compulsive need to read through every scrap of dialogue in the game, which in the case of Mass Effect is a particularly masochistic issue to have. For those of us that have an upper limit to the amount of spoken-word exposition we can tolerate, you have to be sure to go to the “object of interest” after every mission and carefully pick your way through the dialogue tree, being as nice/accommodating/agreeable as possible. It’s extremely easy to avoid, either by being an ass or by doing the obvious thing and avoiding all those lengthy, one-sided conversations entirely.
12/01/2010 at 19:52 eyemessiah says:
@Vinraith
I don’t know… I was pretty hot and heroic in that game. I thought that would be enough ?!?!
12/01/2010 at 20:02 Vinraith says:
@eyemessiah
Hot and heroic counts for nothing. These girls (and presumably guys) are only interested in people that will, when faced with an intergalactic threat, spend hours of their precious time listening to them drone on about their (usually indescribably boring) backstory. If you fail to do that (or if god forbid you cut them off because there might be more important things you should be doing) you get nothing.
12/01/2010 at 03:28 skalpadda says:
Does anyone know/can tell if those “interview shots” are made in-engine? If so it seems they’ve really improved on both models and animation for the sequel. I found it a little disturbing that even ME1 made Dragon Age look extremely stiff and unweildy, and while I know they’re different engines and DA:O has been in development for ages, still!
Edit: And I’d like to add that I quite like the idea of this character, as someone who could be a little out of control and maybe actually challenge your actions now and then. I’ve always felt Bioware games have been a little too much “happy families”.
12/01/2010 at 07:57 deimos says:
Nope, not in-game. Those were made by Blur Studios AFAIK.
12/01/2010 at 04:05 JKjoker says:
i hope they actually changed her and not just edited the “bitch!”s out of the trailer, it also seems like they dialed back the tattoos a bit (i would dial them back even further), or i might be confused by the fact she is wearing clothes this time, she still sounds like she is permanently in her period tho and while they obviously improved the animations and facial expressions the contact between characters (like when they kiss) still looks as bad as Dragon Age, its kind of vexing, the rest of the graphics look so good but then they hug and its so fake that it breaks immersion i wish they would just not do it if they cant do it right
12/01/2010 at 04:08 Ed says:
I have noticed a disturbing statistical trend in games coverage lately:
Let q represent the actual quality of the game in question once the hype has died down;
Let h represent the amount of pre-release hype that RPS buys into;
q = 1/h
Bioshock, anyone?
(Sorry, RPS! You’re still great!)
12/01/2010 at 04:21 Vinraith says:
@Ed
So RPS had almost no interest in Bioshock pre-release? Interesting.
12/01/2010 at 07:30 Psychopomp says:
It’s impossible for someone to just happen to like a game that’s hyped up?
12/01/2010 at 09:36 Kai says:
I don’t think that’s true. Saying that more hype means less quality is absurd. You’d be more right to say quality has no impact on hype. You’d not be right in my opinion, but still more right.
12/01/2010 at 09:54 Riotpoll says:
Except quality is not the same as fun/interesting. There’s no doubting Bioshock is a quality game, just some people (including me) found it a dull game to play. (I didn’t even finish the thing).
12/01/2010 at 11:46 Brumisator says:
Only if you buy into the hype and get unrealistic expectations for the game, which is almost guaranteed to make the game not live up to the expectations, because you’re been hyped up to expect the cure for cancer.
12/01/2010 at 12:42 Bhazor says:
Meh, the cure for cancer is over rated anyway. I’m more into the indie STD cures.
12/01/2010 at 13:23 fulis says:
Some games, like GTA IV, just make you disgusted with hype though.
Go read what was written about the game when it came out. I think that game, after having played it, undermined any leftover credibility I had attributed to the games press. There was no end to the hyperbole, ‘amazing voice acting’, ‘oscar worthy story’, ‘living breathing world’ and then you play the game and notice how much the accents stand out as being fake and how absurd the story events are except that in this iteration of the game it does acknowledge the absurdity. ‘I used to have this club….’ ‘don’t worry I’ll go kill everyone in it for you because I’m a non-believable psychotic motherfucker’.
12/01/2010 at 13:24 fulis says:
That’s a doesn’t*
12/01/2010 at 13:44 Rinox says:
After being scared shitless by the New Shit trailers for DA:O and then finding out that it’s an RPG classic, I’m not too worried about ME2 and its marketing.
12/01/2010 at 13:45 Rinox says:
Whoops was supposed to be a general reply, not to this thread. Fail. =(
12/01/2010 at 04:12 invisiblejesus says:
I don’t see a huge difference. But then, the first one had a certain quality of idiotic fun, and besides that I think Dragon Age has taught us that Bioware’s marketing rarely has anything to do with the actual games anymore anyway. On the whole I’m digging the Suicide Squad/Dirty Dozen/whatever vibe ME2 seems to be playing to, suits my Shepard from ME1 nicely.
12/01/2010 at 04:20 Thiefsie says:
Also… she has the smallest chin I have ever seen…
The interview stuff doesn’t look real-time… quite possibly in-engine (though I mostly doubt it) the black background and subsurface scattering of the skin leads me to believe otherwise. Just some fancy mocap I believe – just more excessive and ott than say… HL2 and ME
*pure speculation
12/01/2010 at 07:18 derFeef says:
dude, the interview is CG, and BAD cg that is. I wonder tough, the cinematic looks awesome, but this looks really bad (technical speaking)
12/01/2010 at 12:45 Bhazor says:
Just gonna say that the ingame dialogues look more natural than this polished close up. The lines on her face are wierd and she seems to have lazy eyes (especially at “… for humans”). Bizarre!
12/01/2010 at 05:17 tomwaitsfornoman says:
Gah. Do not want.
Mean-chick-with-a-dark-past-who-eventually-learns-the-meaning-of-Christmas is not good story.
12/01/2010 at 06:59 Soulless One says:
Wow, is there anyone on this team who’s actually a good person?
All the character videos are just people who are good at murdering tons of stuff. I know Darker and Edgierer is in right now, but seriously. Any good guys?
12/01/2010 at 08:40 Kadayi says:
I think the idea is as it’s a potential suicide mission that they are all tough as nails relentless killers. Poetry lovers and flower collectors need not apply, apparently. However I do agree that it kind of blands things out a bit. Here is hoping that as far as killers go their personalities are a touch more distinct ala The Seven Samurai, rather than it being a simple case of who can shout how utterly bad ass they are and swear the most.
12/01/2010 at 16:51 Azhrarn says:
I would assume the scientist is the closest you’ll find to a “good guy” in ME2, tbh this all reminds me very much of the “GrimDark” setting of the 40k universe, no good people, just less horrible ones.
12/01/2010 at 19:52 Funky Badger says:
Its The Dirty Fucking Dozen.
IN SPAAAAACE!
That’s, like, great.
Particulary enjoying the different views of Sheperd.
12/01/2010 at 07:16 derFeef says:
the facial animations are so much exaggerated, she looks like made of jelly.
12/01/2010 at 07:25 sigma83 says:
I didn’t really have a problem with the previous video, and I think this one fleshes it out more.
Soulless One: Tali. Liara, who is essentially a marshmallow. Thane is not exactly bad, more pragmatic to the point of being potentially sociopathic.
12/01/2010 at 07:26 def says:
So is the jury still out on whether Subject Zero is Talitha from ME1?
The “she can’t be because major characters of ME2 shouldn’t be able to die in ME1″ argument is pretty much void with the whole Wrex story.
12/01/2010 at 07:56 Robin says:
Still tripe.
It amuses me that the games market is now varied (mostly lacking) enough in taste that Mass Effect 2 can win ‘most anticipated’ polls. Bioware games seem to just get expelled into the world at regular intervals without any risk of upsetting the status quo or communicating anything vital, like Gap clothes and Dan Brown novels.
12/01/2010 at 08:35 Rinox says:
Personally, the biggest reason I’m looking forward to ME2 so much is to see where they can take the whole “decisions you made in ME1 carry through to ME2″ thing. It’s something we’ve never really seen before in a project of this scale/polish, and its success/failure may very well define the industry’s willingness to take on such a massive storyline challenge in the years to come.
And regardless of that, it should be a good game anyway. As long as they learned from the mistakes of the original and deconsolify the inventory.
12/01/2010 at 12:39 Bhazor says:
Yes we have.
Deus Ex Invisible War, KOTOR 2 among others all continued the choices of previous games. Perhaps not to the same degree.
Personally I think the choice consequences will play out like the origin stories in Dragon Age. Characters will be in different uniforms but with the same dialogue and you’ll fight critter x instead of Mr Y at point Z. I’d prefer that to whole planets/quests being unavailable in ME2 because I told a reporter she had a big fat arse in the first game. That would be a real fuck you to find out the best bits are unnavailable because of an arbitrary choice two years ago.
12/01/2010 at 12:57 Rich says:
Deus Ex: IW, really? I’m pretty sure I didn’t cause the Collapse or join with Helios and became head of the illuminati. Also, Paul is dead.
12/01/2010 at 13:35 Rinox says:
@ Bhazor
As I remember, in Kotor 2 you could basically still choose what you/Revan were like ‘after the facts’ by reacting to certain myths and rumours surrounding him/her. None of the choices you made in Kotor 1 automatically changed anything in Kotor 2. Don’t remember what Invisble War did. How did that work?
So I think the ME 1 -> ME2 save game thingie is still pretty revolutionary. You seem to dread the idea of maybe missing some contect or being excluded from it because of what you did in ME1. But I would welcome such a (relatively) “reload”-proof world, where you make imperfect choices. Sure, releasing the Rachni Queen in ME1 was a good and noble thing to do, but does anyone really think that freeing a ravenous race into outer space won’t hurt somebody? As with the reporter…no one made you call her a bitch/fat. If you felt that you had more important things to do than talk to the press, then fine, but don’t be surprised if the press will turn on you. Makes sense.
What you said about most choices’ consequences probably being aesthetic more than anything else will probably be true. But they can at least put a few shockers in there. :-) And I’ll love it for what it is; a story that is mine, but where I’m not perfectly in control of every little detail.
On an unrelated note: Is it me or has Bioware lately been focusing on the “No Reload” issue a lot? There’s what we just discussed, but they also revealed that some end-game events in ME2 will be the consequences of choices you make along the game but will only become apparent later (ie can’t reload right after and start over). And then there’s The Old Republic, which will also feature permanent choices as there’s no saving. Mm.
12/01/2010 at 16:45 Pantsman says:
Bhazor, Invisible War didn’t have any consequences at all for what you did in the first game. All it did was lump the three possible endings into a single one where they all happened, which is about the worst possible way they could’ve handled it. Not only does it not make much sense story-wise, but it entirely trivializes your choice in the first game.
Being blocked off from a planet in the second game because of something you did in the first may bother you, but to me it sounds awesome. I’d love to see BioWare giving the player’s actions real, unexpected consequences like that, instead of just making your goodness meter go up or down. Everyone criticizes their games for being safe and formulaic, particularly post-KOTOR. What you’re describing would be the exact opposite.
12/01/2010 at 19:35 eyemessiah says:
@ Bhazor: “I’d prefer that to whole planets/quests being unavailable in ME2 because I told a reporter she had a big fat arse in the first game.”
Me too, in DA I used a combination of mods and console monkery to nullifyreverse the effects of many of my decisions by manipulating plot flags, approval ratings, forcing unlocks e.t.c. Surprisingly I don’t feel that any of it really broke the plot – if anything I felt more involved because I was free to play through the sort of story I wanted to play through, rather than having to choose from a selection of set paths that didn’t entirely appeal to me.
I hope its just as easy to “cheat” the plot in ME2, because the whole no-reload thing is a big turn-off for me.
@Rinox
I think we want polar opposite things from RPGs, precise control of all the details is exactly what I want!
12/01/2010 at 08:01 sigma83 says:
I feel very strongly that Bioware products offer significantly more value than a Dan Brown book, and are leaps more entertaining.
12/01/2010 at 08:10 Hattered says:
She has rather nice teeth for a supposed gutter-trash gang/cultist type. Was she “subject zero” in some super-secret dental-hygiene trial?
12/01/2010 at 13:00 Rich says:
You mean Colgate’s secret research into element Zero striped toothpaste?
12/01/2010 at 08:35 Dreamhacker says:
I interested in seeing some statistics as to how many “newly converted” buyers Dragon Age had.
Because I would be impressed if that “so bad it should have gotten the creator and his whole fired and banned from the games industry”-advertising managed to hook ANYONE except that small group of people who implicitly trust Bioware to make good games.
12/01/2010 at 08:39 StickyNavels says:
It’s the future. They have pills for that sort of thing.
Also, it seems they gave her a shirt. Personally I don’t mind the leather straps – it worked for Zardoz!
12/01/2010 at 10:39 phil says:
Regardless of whatever else she is, Subject Zero is no Sean Connery.
12/01/2010 at 16:42 Solario says:
The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!
12/01/2010 at 09:02 The Sombrero Kid says:
subject zero is the kid from the second book right?
12/01/2010 at 09:31 Bleeters says:
@ Soulless One
Tali’s back. So there’s at least one, yeh.
12/01/2010 at 09:31 Sheep says:
Still won’t have her in my party.
12/01/2010 at 09:42 EGTF says:
Well, that’s a relief.
Anyway, don’t know if these are old or not but I cracked up at them -
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/9078/masseffectbook.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6421/masseffectbook2.jpg
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/3806/masseffectbook3.jpg
12/01/2010 at 10:03 El Stevo says:
I don’t see any huge differences between this and the first trailer (either profound or subtle). But that’s OK by me, because I quite liked the first trailer.
12/01/2010 at 11:09 Po0py says:
Dunno what all the fuss was about over the first Mass Effect. I thought it was a good but at the same time a very tired and barebones kind of RPG. The level design was absolutely atrocious. Industral concrete. Everywhere. Characters and world building was what helt my interest and I’m usually not the type to go for the imersion thing. Combat was decent but could have been improved greatly.
I just haven’t been sold on ME2 yet. I’m still waiting for a reason to fall in love with this.
12/01/2010 at 11:25 Mr.Bigglesworth says:
This is SO cheesy and lame.
12/01/2010 at 11:40 Tyndareus says:
I’m just glad to see that I’m not the only one who’s been unimpressed by Mass Effect (and Dragon Age, for that matter). Decent games, long enough, but after clearing the exact same building for the 20th time or seeing that ridiculous buggy climb vertical slopes or crash from dizzying heights at no cost to vehicle or crew whatsoever, I felt that it was more generic and less revolutionary that the hype vendors would have us believe.
I felt KOTOR was much more interesting (even the butchered KOTOR2) and I’m not that interested in the Star Wars universe to begin with.
However, I don’t expect any objective reviews of ME2 for at least several months and I must admit that it will be hard to resist the tons of praise that will surely be heaped upon ME2.
12/01/2010 at 11:48 Psychopomp says:
“However, I don’t expect any objective reviews of ME2 for at least several months and I must admit that it will be hard to resist the tons of praise that will surely be heaped upon ME2.”
But taste is subjective…
12/01/2010 at 17:24 Lilliput King says:
My objective review of Mass Effect:
There are some quests. There are some guns. There is no jump.
12/01/2010 at 18:46 Jeremy says:
They won’t be objective on either side of the line I’m afraid. There will be haters, who started hating the game before any of the 3178 trailers came out, and now are just looking for cracks anywhere to hang onto to support their biased hatred of a game they previously knew nothing about. On the other hand, there will be those who are probably already giving it 10 out of 10 on metacritic or something, without ever having played it… the hard part is finding authenticity amongst all the bs. Simply rating it poorly doesn’t mean the critic is a hater, nor does rating it highly mean the critic is a fanboy. I’m fairly confident I’ll enjoy it, and I know my own tastes, so I’ll follow those :)
12/01/2010 at 11:59 manveruppd says:
It’s better written and directed than most (largely due to the pre-rendered bits) but I see no substantial difference from the previous ones either. Sex: there. Violence: there. Pissed-off-ed-ness: there. Bad-ass-ed-ness: there. (My, aren’t I feeling word-creative today!)
The only thing separating it from the trailers RPS scoffed at was the lack of metal. Ergo, RPS are anti-metallite bigots! :p
12/01/2010 at 12:08 Alez says:
So there were World War 2 games, Zombie games….and now Mass Effect 2 trailers. Seriously, gimme the game or chill the fuck out, Bioware!
12/01/2010 at 12:13 MadMatty says:
Oh woe. Well, the graphix look nice. to go along with those stereotypes
12/01/2010 at 12:32 Dominic White says:
As others have said, there really doesn’t seem to be much difference between the first and second videos. Alec seemed to be overreacting to the first and is rebounding on the second.
What is more to the point here is that Bioware seem to have built up a track record of really crappy character introductions. Even their ‘meet Alistair’ video for Dragon Age largely featured him grimacing angrily and bathing in the blood of his enemies.
They do, however, write pretty good characters – see Alistair and most of the Dragon Age cast in general.
12/01/2010 at 20:39 jsutcliffe says:
@Dominic White
I rejoiced when I got the chance to execute Alistair. I found him to be extremely irritating. Same with most of the DA characters, to be honest — I think I only actually liked Leliana and Sten, and would grudgingly put up with Wynne.
That said, although I haven’t seen anything about the ME2 characters that makes me particularly interested in any of them, I liked most of the ME characters (except the blandy bland humans) enough to have faith in there being some great characters in the new group.
12/01/2010 at 13:17 Sinnerman says:
Somewhat better presented but still pretty terrible in my opinion. As someone who found the first one pretty anodyne I have to say that I am even less interested in this one which seems to be more angsty and trashy. No PR pleasing road to Damascus moment here, sorry.
12/01/2010 at 13:55 Calabi says:
Its a shame how cliche they both sound. The dialogue is just riffing of a hundred other movies. I’m not sure you’d hear dialogue like that in a movie anymore, except in a parody. Games writing appears to be stuck ten years behind everything else.
12/01/2010 at 16:51 Pantsman says:
Only ten? That seems generous.
12/01/2010 at 19:58 Funky Badger says:
So, you’d rather dialogue that sounded like nothing that’s ever been in a movie, ever.
Erm.
Out of interest, what is your favourite movie, book, game etc?
12/01/2010 at 16:00 Jambe says:
I laughed at that. Did anybody else? I don’t think that was their intended reaction.
I’m no more impressed with this than I was with ME1 (or any other BioWare ARPG ftm). Solid mechanics, finely-crafted universe, trite story, cliched characters seemingly written by teenagers who just sprouted their pubes, and little replayability? Yep, that’s BioWare alright! Their CGI group is pretty good, but as others have said, something about the lipsynch here is wonky. The feature exaggeration may be deliberate but I find it more off-putting than engaging; that’s part of why I started chuckling.
I’ll play it at some point but I won’t pay full price because I don’t think the first one was worth it. My favorite BioWare ARGP is Jade Empire, lol. Their actioney roley stuff seems rather like Batman: AA; not groundbreaking, not overwhelmingly good, but just solid fun. Except I keep going back to Batman more than I ever did BioWare ARPGs. It’s the writing, I think; I can’t be assed to tolerate it more than a couple times through. That’s amusing, because Batman is no less silly overall. I’m just acclimated to him, I suppose.
12/01/2010 at 16:08 Rinox says:
I think that before putting down the clip as silly and dumb, we should wait and see how it actually fits in the entire storyline. If you take things out of their context, they often look silly. But a story isn’t told by one scene, it needs time to be woven first. Only then do character motivations and the tone of certain dialogs make sense.
12/01/2010 at 16:09 Rive says:
They all had their Caries shots as kids. Duh.
12/01/2010 at 16:10 Rive says:
This Reply to thread button really needs work….
12/01/2010 at 16:48 army of none says:
I love RPS because they use terms like “dissatisfyingly anodyne” when describing videogames.
12/01/2010 at 17:01 Acosta says:
When you say “objective review” you mean “reviews that agree with my preconceived ideas of the game”, right? Just catching on the language.
12/01/2010 at 17:33 cjlr says:
I preordered ME2 quite some time ago, and I can’t be arsed to cancel, so I guess it’ll still show up at my door on or about release date, but seriously, I find it hard to care anymore.
Dragon Age was… well, it was a huge whack of good solid fun, but it was heartbreakingly generic and derivative in places, and so while I would say I quite enjoyed it I certainly wouldn’t call it a classic in the sense that any part of it will really stick with me. I absolutely loved it the first time through, but with some repetition the cracks started showing. Plus, the first time through I was just so damn thrilled that it didn’t resemble too closely the abortion of a marketing push that I would have been handing out near perfect scores almost regardless of the actual quality.
Right. So: ME2. It seems that they’ve chosen the most cringe-worthy dialogue in the whole game to spotlight in their trailers. That is unfortunate.
There’s an episode of Freakazoid wherein our hero is verbally sparring with some antagonist or other for several minutes. They trade cliches and “witty” dialogue until Freakazoid ends it by saying, “I’ve run out of cop show cliches!”
Yeah, BioWare marketing is like that, only played dead serious.
12/01/2010 at 17:34 Jimbo says:
Granted, the trailer is slightly less ridiculous than the first one, but I don’t see anything new suggested about her character at all. She’s ‘edgy’, impulsive, she likes fighting for fighting’s sake – and she’s still staying on the ship.
12/01/2010 at 18:20 Mesmertron says:
For some reason, she always puts me in mind of a thirteen year old boy’s attempt to derive a character from an alchemical mixture of Meshell Ndegeocello, Tank Girl, and thirteen years of abuse at the hands of an older brother with disturbing tendancies.
Actually… I think i’ve suddenly hit upon the key to Bioware’s latest writing shift…
12/01/2010 at 18:27 l1ddl3monkey says:
I would.
12/01/2010 at 19:35 1stGear says:
I wouldn’t even say “carefully pick through”. I went for mostly neutral responses with Ashley with a Paragon response thrown in on occasion and she was still all up in my pants. Bioware romance plots are set up in such a fashion that as long as you don’t consistently call the person a retard they’ll throw themselves all over you.
As for SuZe, I’m still not terribly impressed. Not terribly impressed with any of the characters as a matter of fact. As someone else said, they all tend to be variations of “Violence and ruthlessness are awesome” and Grunt is just Wrex only not as interesting. Its kind of a shame because all of ME1′s companions had some depth and reasons to follow their conversations.
Except for Liara, who Bioware just put in for the sake of the Sweaty Neckbeard demographic.
12/01/2010 at 19:43 Bleahh. says:
I like that Rachel Weisz looking chick better.
13/01/2010 at 11:07 Schadenfreude says:
That’s actually an Yvonne Strahovski looking chick ’cause, well, they CGed Yvonne Strahovski.
13/01/2010 at 13:41 Kadayi says:
@ Schadenfreude
Might want to slap a NSFW on that dude……
13/01/2010 at 19:19 kr8 says:
@kadayi: Why? She’s dressed enough. :P
12/01/2010 at 20:53 Calabi says:
Actually seeing another one, it kind of reminds me of XFactor and those little interview snippets they have where they tell you their aspirations and life story.
12/01/2010 at 21:02 Rei Onryou says:
Dragon Age: Origins was RPG of the decade (the noughties) and it’s looking likely that ME2 will be RPG of the decade as well (the tensies(?)). Are Bioware legally allowed to do that?
12/01/2010 at 21:53 Funky Badger says:
Wasn’t Baldur’s Gate 2 released in the, ahem, Noughties?
13/01/2010 at 09:26 Macq says:
Hopefully it’ll have more content then the “WTF, over already?” first game.
13/01/2010 at 23:39 Tim says:
They improved her outfit dramatically.
15/01/2010 at 08:18 Jason says:
I was like, anodyne doesn’t sound like the right word, doesn’t it mean soothing? And indeed it does. Apparently the first game was dissatisfyingly soothing. Alec was seeking something more like being rubbed with a brillo pad but all he found was the aloe vera on the wound of gaming. Either I’m dumb, the soothing of pain is now bad, or the wrong word was chosen.
As for the trailers, I couldn’t agree more. The first was so generically edgy it hurt. The second keeps the edge but gives it the flavor of, you know, a real person. It’s still not really there, but it’s miles better.