Category Archives: Mass Effect

WELL HELLO!



Had this boyfriend once I lived with who played a concerning number of Dragonball Z video games — you know, the hybrid fighting/RPG ones. I mean, not that I didn’t watch them. Like, a lot, to where whenever I am writing a new blog post, or whenever I’m talking to folks I haven’t seen in a long time, I have this urge to go, ‘WELL HELLO!’ in the voice of Launch.

She was running the shop in one of those games… I think it was Budokai Tenkaichi 3… or maybe it was like, some equipment upgrade station… dang man, I dunno. But when you went in she was all WELL HELLO, and so, yeah. Cred points if any commenters can find a clip of that voice audio for me.
(UPDATE: Here is is! Thank you, OffalAl, for making this for us!)
So. Well, hello — sorry I’ve been MIA from SVGL a little bit, but I’ve taken on some longer-term articles (which, like fruit, will bear slowly, stay tuned!) and had my hands full, and when I’m not doing that, I’ve been traveling. I’m coming to you live from midnight on Cape Cod, where my parents live.
I was raised here in MA, where summer meant Atlantic Ocean, the cold salted stone that borders it, and all of the shellfish that were dashed on its shores. This time of year, I love to visit whenever I’ve got time; this weekend we visited the Edward Gorey House, swam on a private beach in Yarmouth, ate lobster (favorite food, if I had to pick) — working vacation, I suppose.
Personal junk aside, the last time we talked, I had been getting ready to stage the Bad Bitches exhibit’s opening at Babycastles’ Williamsburg locale, and I am happy to report it went lovely. Motherboard covered the proceedings here, and at Kotaku this month, I used my column to address some of the response to the exhibit and, loosely, the reasons I wanted to stage it.
Related to challenging norms, Brandon Sheffield talks to BioWare Montreal’s Manveer Heir (friend of mine; I’m sometimes called “Womanveer”) about diversity in game characters, I talk to Metanet’s brilliant Mare Sheppard about Toronto’s Difference Engine Initiative, and interview Starhawk‘s senior producer at Sony on inclusiveness.
Finally, my bro Kirk Hamilton (who works at Big K now, whoa) writes on the “Mass Effect beauty pageant” that took place to much controversy on Facebook. As a mixed race woman with pretty non-traditional features I can identify with folks who are tired of media ideals that don’t look like them, but how I feel about Blonde FemShep is two things: One, lovely blonde women have probably had enough of being told they can’t possibly be smart or admirable, so piss off; and two, please stop saying “FemShep.” It drives me crazy.
Or, like, I guess, go ahead. I’m pretty not-into Mass Effect, so you guys have fun. I presume most of you guys like Mass Effect for the same reasons I like Twilight: trope-heavy pair bonding in the environment of beloved fantasy cliches where it’s fun to laugh at yourself, or, at the very least, to laugh at yourself while secretly being kind of serious about it. Pair bonding is quintessential. I wrote about it here.
Preceding article has nothing to do with video games, bee-tee-dubs. You know how important I think it is that we enjoy things that have nothing to do with video games. Like music! So if you’re on Spotify, please add this 1990S MUSIC PLAYLIST, entitled “liquid television,” an enormous 11-hour trip back to an era when flannel wasn’t ironic. You’re welcome.
[Today’s Good Song: Broken Water, ‘Peripheral Star‘]

Character, Flaw?


Hello, SVGL friends — long time no see! Busy as always, with some labors of which you’ll hopefully see the fruit quite soon; the news pace has been picking up over at Gamasutra, too.

I’m still getting a lot of mileage out of Bayonetta, but Twitter followers know my favorite game in the universe right now is No More Heroes 2. I reviewed it at the AV Club, so those of you who have been waiting for more formalized thoughts from me besides “if you don’t love it you probably just shouldn’t ever talk to me again” and “no seriously listen this game is fucking brilliant“can read something that’s hopefully a little more professional here.
I think that, according to scale, this is the overall highest rating I’ve ever given any video game that I had to score. No More Heroes had a mindblowing idea with a few weaknesses in its execution; those weaknesses didn’t bother me as much as they seemed to bother others, but nonetheless I can appreciate a sequel that provides watertight solutions to previous flaws.
Speaking of which: I passed on Mass Effect 2; it’s not the kind of experience that interests me. I don’t really care for the “space opera” vein of science fiction, and I’m a little fatigued of dialogue trees. I can praise the first Mass Effect, which I did play at least for a good chunk of time, for how well-done it is, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. Fortunately, there is Gamasutra’s Chris Remo to offer you some thoughts on the ways Mass Effect 2 aimed to address the weaknesses of the original.
Back to No More Heroes 2. I’ve heard a lot of people say they feel that the newer, tighter trip to Santa Destroy loses some of the character that the first one had. Over at the Brainy Gamer, Michael Abbott has a thought-provoking articulation of this point of view. The perspective raises a couple questions for me.
I’ve always praised creative spirit over technical execution, maybe more than a professional reviewer ought. I’d always prefer a risky, high-impact experience with a lot of rough edges to a polished, fluid one that doesn’t really shake the paradigm or feel artistic. I like distinctive auteurs, and Grasshopper’s Suda51 is on my very short list.
I wonder if we’ve come to associate creativity with visible flaws? Does something with clumsy bits in it seem scrappier or nobler? Is there really a loss of “character” visible when something’s streamlined or polished? Do we need to see the creator’s errors to understand their vision and spirit?
One of the reasons I’m such a big fan of Hideo Kojima’s is his self-awareness. He knows his cutscenes are too long and that his sense of humor is weird, and he knows how critics feel about it. Yet he won’t change — in fact, much of the time in Metal Gear Solid 4, the elements for which his direction is most often criticized are exaggerated in a way that feels intentional. Therefore, Kojima’s work is a dialogue between himself and the players. They have a sense of “knowing” him because they know how he expresses himself in games.
Suda51 also has a distinctive identity, and a pattern of being behind games that are beloved for their concepts but encounter critical difficulty because of execution issues. Did we come to associate those design shortfalls with the “identity” of the creator? Because critics who like his work found themselves having to champion its “character,” flaws and all, could it be that in a well-executed No More Heroes game, we no longer recognize the visionary?
When an offbeat independent band suddenly produces an album that’s too polished, fans are likely to say they prefer the older, more distinctive material because it had more character. Same principle at work here?
For what it’s worth, I am not on the side of the fence that sees any kind of character loss in No More Heroes 2. As I said in the comments on Brainy Gamer, I really think the issue is simply that something can only be new once, and it won’t feel the same the second time.