It couldn’t be because you were, if i remember right, the person who started the use of the term “Enders” on anyone who thought the ending of mass effect was not good, could it?
It also could be that some of your posts in this thread are the equivalent of someone going in to a thread about the new xcom after it is released and talking about how they are glad the game is now a fps because they never liked strategy games (purely an example, i haven’t been following it for quite a while).
Am I allowed to say I liked the spellcasting? Biotic explosions never got old. Maybe I unfairly gave ME3 credit for better gameplay just because I changed classes.
Watch me blow everybody’s minds:
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I like the shooting in Mass Effect.
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I liked the original endings.
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I like the writing.
No, no. Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.
Makes perfect sense that a bunch of people with the same issues…
And the problem is Tom’s refusing, on this occasion, to rise above the morass of reviewers. Still not even ONE medium-rated review on metacritic…again, even blockbuster films have their negative critics. I think it may be an issue he has with the genre, personally…
Lantz
1745
Calling the writing bad is not insulting anyone who enjoyed it. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some light/pulp/guilty pleasure/entertaining writing. In book, movie, or video game form. You can substitute another term if you prefer. But there’s nothing wrong with going to see a summer action blockbuster and cheering when a drunk father who is somehow in an F16 destroys a giant space ship.
The Mass Effect series is full of plot silliness. Hell, Shepard is basically a giant roving Deus Ex Machina himself/herself. You travel around the galaxy solving every single problem big or small with the right two sentences or frequently just literally handing the person the solution. You need a heat exchanger diagram? Oh, I have one of those in my pocket. You’re welcome. You save the galaxy and solve the entire galaxy’s father issues at the same time. I think that it pretty much the definition of Mary Sue fiction.
It’s not that there aren’t some well written parts or interesting missions, but overall the plots are just full of holes and convenient solutions and conveniently timed events. This doesn’t make it wrong to enjoy it. I enjoyed it. But I think the ending was on par with the rest of the series with perhaps being a bit darker but personally I like that part of it.
IMO, it’s not so much bad writing but standard RPG tropes. I was tasked to urgently find a water chip in Fallout 1 but had time to do all sorts of non-essential side quests. Same for Fallout 2, or Skyrim, or any one of many RPG’s that I have played. I’m on an urgent mission in all of them but I always have time to help the farmer find his lost cow, or find an engine part for the guy rebuilding a Chrsylus auto, or kill the varmits eating the old woman’s crops. I wish RPG’s could drop those and just give us larger more involved relevant quests but this still seems to be SOP in most. I just find it strange that so far only ME has been called out on this that I can tell.
Soma
1747
It is like the last 3+ months never happened. We are back to square one in this IS ME3 ENDING SHIT “conversation” once again.
MOVE ON PEOPLE.
Nesrie
1748
The Enders things pretty much negates any other claims Tom makes on his stance on this matter. You cannot unring that bell. Good comparison.
Quick note:
There are two versions of the “Refusal” Ending. One involves shooting at the Star Child which is the most common version I’ve seen. However, the other actually involves refusing the Star Child via the conversation wheel. It’s actually rather different and poignant too. Well worth looking at. So don’t shoot the Star Child, instead, tell me to go get screwed instead.
Hey, hey, hey! I am the one who coined the term “Mass Effect Enders”, and it doesn’t apply to everyone who disliked the ending. It’s a term reserved for the dogmatic, entitled types who were starting passive aggressive charity drives, mailing huge numbers of cupcakes to Bioware headquarters and generally refusing to acknowledge alternative, positive interpretations of the ending or countenancing anyone who didn’t believe the ending to be objectively repugnant.
Firstly, if you take offense at the Ender bit, please. It’s a bunch of people who hang out with each on the internet. We get to joke around with each other. If you guys can come up with a nickname for us, knock yourselves out. Narrative Originalists or some such thing. Go for it. I won’t accuse you of contempt or being overly intense.
I’m afraid you lost me with that analogy. But for the record, I was all but summoned to this thread by some comments made a page ago, calling me out by name. They might as well have stood in front of a mirror and chanted my name three times!
-Tom
Exactly what I’d expect an Ender to say! Now you get in this pigeonhole and stay there!
But, yeah, Brad’s right. It sounds like you don’t understand the term. By your logic, a Birther is anyone who can’t name the hospital where Obama was born.
-Tom
I can’t believe you think he was born in a hospital!
Nesrie
1754
Nah, it just means I know how you used it. Let’s not pretend this is the first time this topic got a little jump in activity here.
Those cupcake people, they should have just delivered a big pile at their door stop.
Speaking of shrill, you need to go higher. Everyone can still hear the dog-whistle.
Given how people view the term it was derived from, Tom, “Ender” couldn’t have been any worse if you called people “Endzis” or “Ending Deniers”; that it would make the so-named eyes bleed shouldn’t come as a shock.
Who stopped at three? [/awkward]
Seriously, though, you poured more condescension into this thread at times than if someone spilled a stereotype of France. While I wouldn’t say that yours was particularly frothy intense like some, it was obvious. I don’t even react to it any more (much); it’s just kind of a thing you do about particular issues. Its words on a page, though, and people (me) may read it differently than you intend, so there: Water under the bridge. I purged it from my mental file of possibly unintended and unconcerned grievances. I don’t even hold any markers against Frothy McFrotherson, I mean Brad.
Grif, you are spot on about the other Refusal. It’s a great bit that shows how the series and character connected with so many people.
Never send a human to do a machine’s job. Duly noted and corrected with my apologies.
RickH
1758
You are ignoring the reason why it’s so easy to hate EA: they are the most obtuse, greedy, and gamer-hostile publisher in the industry. Don’t act like EA-hate is some sort of contrived phenomenon.
Here, I would say that EA-hate is entirely appropriate regarding the ME3 ending, since the last thing I saw at the end of a disappointing, seemingly franchise-destroying series ending (it appears that’s being walked back) was a goddamn commercial for DLC. It’s as if I was being reminded who to blame for all of this BS.
And in response to various upthreaders, yes I hated the ending, and no it wasn’t because I wanted a “happy ending.” Shepard’s sacrifice was the obvious outcome of the storyline. However, it was handled in such a way as to make the sacrifice mandatory yet ultimately meaningless.
While Tom is clearly above emotional engagement with the series, I was not. I had a great time playing in the universe and experiencing the characters. It mattered to me what my Shepard did for his universe. So, it was heartbreaking to watch the three color-coded endings played simultaneously and see how little things changed.
RickH
1759
It’s actually condescension. Called it upthread.
And I guess other publishers like cough Ubisoft cough Blizzard (always online anyone?) cough Capcom (DLC on disc anyone?) are virgin pure innocent angels?
It is some sort of contrived phenomenon. Contrived by…you.
ha ha, enders will always be enders…predictable.
