Comments on: GameCritics.com Podcast Episode 71: Mass Effect 3 & Sequels

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:47:37 +0000

Way to represent nerds/rappers Dylan!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:15:45 +0000

I know I’m a little late to comment, but when you guys started talking about good sequels King’s Field: the Ancient City was literally the first thing that popped into my head. Lo and behold Mike Bracken mentions it moments after I thought it. This podcast seriously made my day.

By: Mike Bracken

Mike Bracken — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:59:56 +0000

Haha! The spiders don’t scare me, but yeah…probably good advice.

By: mr.pants

mr.pants — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:32:41 +0000

Watched chasing ghosts it was very good however Mike you should stay far away from the guy in the trailer if you know what’s good for you. As exciting as those spiders were I would keep my distance from that one

By: Mike Bracken

Mike Bracken — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:49:00 +0000

Haha! I hated Frasier too. :p

By: Pedro

Pedro — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 08:42:24 +0000

Good show folks, kept me smiling on a long drive this morning so thanks!

I cannot believe Chi is the only one who likes Seinfeld. I guess the rest of you are Frasier fans, huh? A sickening display.

😉

By: Li-Ion

Li-Ion — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:29:06 +0000

[quote=Flo]If you’re truly roleplaying, though, you will, most of the time, not end up with a “pefect” renegade/paragon score. And while each individual dialogue prompt will not offer a wild variety of options, all of them combined do add up to innumerable possibilities. Sure, the number of possible outcomes is not affected, but the image you concoct of “your” Shepard is. Thus your strong identification with the role.[/quote]
I agree. My feeling is that no ‘real’ person would be 100% paragon or 100% renegade, but in the gray area in between. The way I played I ended up with roughly 60/40 towards renegade choice in ME1 and 2, by the end of ME3 it was 50/50 because of all the galaxy-saving I had to do.

ME2 and 3 got much better in this respect, but ME1 was very restricting to players who didn’t want to fully commit to either ideal. Since intimidate and charm were linked to renegade/paragon scores, not maxing one was causing problems in the later game.

However, it remains that while the way the game can play out differs a lot depending on choices, most choices were rather limited to renegade or paragon. And in any case Shepard would end up trying to save the galaxy. After all a renegade-Shepard is still a hero, but more of the Jack Bauer type while a paragon is a boyscout in shining armor. Thus there could always be only so many ways how this could end.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:27:14 +0000

I really don’t like looking like I’m trying to hide, so just wanted to add that “anonymous” above, c’est moi.

— Haki “aushaki” Crisden

By: Richard Naik

Richard Naik — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:23:11 +0000

@Zolbrod

I’ve actually been told that about MMX8-I’m saving it for now though, since I want to record a blind run of it eventually. Also, it’s somewhat comforting to know that there’s more MMX still out there, totally unknown to me 🙂

By: Flo

Flo — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:29:08 +0000

[quote=Li-Ion]
Isn’t that all a bit smoke and mirrors though? Generally you have two main responses: renegade or paragon. Sometimes something in between. A lot of people stick to either renegade or paragon throughout their playthrough. Which results in a lot of people having very similar experience after all.
[/quote]
True, many players will deem it favorable to stick to one side of the paragon/renegade system… which I don’t do, because that’s missing the point as far as I’m concerned. It’s also my biggest issue with ME3 that it basically eliminates all nuance in the dialogue options by reducing them to two easily distinguishable choices.

If you’re truly roleplaying, though, you will, most of the time, not end up with a “pefect” renegade/paragon score. And while each individual dialogue prompt will not offer a wild variety of options, all of them combined do add up to innumerable possibilities. Sure, the number of possible outcomes is not affected, but the image you concoct of “your” Shepard is. Thus your strong identification with the role.

So yes, the experience of the events is similar for all; the experience of Shepard’s character not that much.