Mass Effect

[jetpack_monkey]

So, um, I fell down a fannish rabbit hole called Mass Effect. I talked a little about this back in March, but let's just say that I'm on my second playthrough right now. Dude!Shep has grown on me, but I'm still a solid Fem!Shep supporter. I want to go through and do a playthrough where I make all the bad calls and see where that puts me at the end of the game.

And it's not just that I enjoy playing the game. I am obsessive about the universe. The characters, the alien races, the history. The philosophical questions posed by the series and the questions it should be posing. I track things like when characters got a major writing upgrade (Garrus in ME1 was kind of bland, but Garrus in ME2 is AMAZING and I want to be friends forever). I haven't delved into the side media too much, but that's my next stop.

It's been cutting into my vidding time a bit. The further I get into the game, the more I want to play it. It's like a novel where you've become really invested and you just can't put it down. I care about these characters, I care about this universe. I care about the infinite options that spread before me and the consequences of the decisions I make.

Also, I am amazing with a sniper rifle. Boom.

I will take any fic, meta, or vid recs that you folks have. Lay it on me.

I leave you with this clip, which is from the Citadel DLC and the funniest stupid thing I've seen in a while (although it makes more, um, sense if you've played the game):

Comments

[thirdblindmouse]

I'm sure you yourself have no vids to recommend that left you speachless or anything. ;)

[jetpack_monkey]

I've seen that one. It is genius and I left a squeeful comment to Beccatoria.

[beccatoria]

MASS EFFEEEEEECT! Man, I just adore these games. I've played them over and over and backwards and I still love them. I still get surprised by how different they can feel when you put thought and effort into roleplaying your Shepard differently. I mean, the overall arc is obviously not going to change, but the way I felt about decisions and characters changed radically. I went from really disliking Ashley to feeling a lonely, ruined kinship with her, from thinking of Tali as a daughter to a best friend, from thinking Kaidan had a decent point on Horizon to feeling wildly and brutally betrayed. My decisions regarding the Genophage, man, that is a spiral of a situation, and, of course, what I do at the end. It's just so good.

I will be honest, I haven't read any of the tie-in material so can't comment. I can't explain why, because I'm a huge geek for the Star Wars expanded universe, so it's certainly not purist snobbery on a conceptual level, but I just...I kind of love the simplicity of its existence as a trilogy. Right now, that's enough for me. I guess we'll see if that lasts... ;) Plus I heard that the tie-in material was uneven, which I'm sure adds to my satisfaction with just sticking to the games.

But I would be super interested in actual informed opinions from those who've seen/read the stuff.

As to recs, aaaah, I have a few but I wish I had more.

On the vid front, there aren't that many around but I did find a few cool ones on CreaSpace -

http://creaspace.ru/videos/video.php?video_id=2232 <-- N7 - a really good instrumental vid focusing on space flight and the Normandy and space combat. It's completely visually gorgeous.

http://creaspace.ru/videos/video.php?video_id=2094 <-- Code to Soul - it's more of an extended trailer/recap than a vid in some ways, as it uses extensive voiceovers, but it's a really well-done look at the Geth/Quarian conflict, with some brilliant use of more minor conversations (occasionally repurposed, occasionally not) you have in the game that are actually super interesting and relevant.

http://creaspace.ru/videos/video.php?video_id=1370 <-- Listen to my Story - Femshep general ME1 & 2 vid.

Other than that I mostly have articles, and things to link. laura47 already linked one of my favourites, thematically speaking, but there are a few other articles I found interesting.

I will add a warning - I picked most of these up during the initial post-Ending blowback period, which bummed me out because I actually adored the ending (and still vastly prefer it without the extended cut cus I'm a weirdo, clearly... :p) so most of these are oases of "OMFG YOU GOT IT TOOOO" relief in an ocean of people screaming that I was a monster because I didn't pick DESTROYYYYYY. That said, I have totally been on the other side of issues like this, so I don't wanna be an insensitive jerkface. So, like, feel free to skip!

http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/5/3461080/reviewers-talk-mass-effect-3-the-ending-the-narrative-the-controversy

This is an article about the post-ending controversy asking various industry figures about their responses both to the game's ending and their reactions to the, um, reaction. The article is interesting enough, but I actually really enjoyed listening to the whole podcast, long though it is. What struck me was the way their individual game experiences affected the choices they ultimately made and how they felt about them.

http://galacticpillow.com/2012/04/02/editorial-the-reapers-advocate-a-different-take-on-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

This is a long, but (I think at least!) worthwhile look at the ending from a hard scifi perspective. It talks about how the game reconciles Fermi's paradox (the fact that the Drake equation predicts a number of intelligent alien civilisations so high that it's potentially odd we haven't found evidence of them), the way it engages with the concept of a technological singularity, brings in the Kardashev scale and a host of other cool stuff.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/08/06/film-crit-hulk-smash-a-few-words-on-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3

I don't know if you're familiar with FILM CRITIC HULK, but basically he writes long, thoughtful film reviews in the style of THE HULK and it's brilliant once you get used to the ALLCAPS. Anyway, he often SMASHES things he perceives have poor narrative flow, etc., but this is him instead defending the end of the game.

However, I think it's also important to link to the follow-up, which makes about twenty more great points, but also acknowledges that he was kind of harsh in the first post because he was reacting emotionally and out of disappointment that something he thought was great wasn't liked. I really admire the way he's able to stick to his original point while apologising for being exclusive to those who wanted to talk.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130407060157/http://badassdigest.com/2012/08/17/film-crit-hulk-smash-a-few-more-words-on-the-column-about-the-ending-of-mas/

(Wayback machine'd because for some reason the original link is being weird - like the article is still linked on the website, but I'm getting errors trying to access the page).

I don't read fic very much, so I'm not going to be a huge help there, but, BUT, I am gonna rec one piece. It starts here and is called That Which Was Lost:

http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/4611.html?thread=15900931#t15900931

I am actually so out of the fic loop that I'm not sure if I'm right in my assumption that a kink meme is usually largely about sexytiems, so I will say that this story doesn't have any porn in it in case that's something you'd assume from the link because I'd hate to provide false expectations either positive or negative!

I will also say up front, it is a WIP, and hasn't been updated for about a month and a bit (though the author posted recently saying it wasn't abandoned). Usually that's a dealbreaker for me.

But this is so good I just don't care. It's 153 parts long at the moment and I desperately hope it continues.

The basic premise is that Benezia didn't die on Noveria. She was terribly wounded and Liara and (Fem)Shepard put her in stasis until they could work out how to unindoctrinate her and what to do. Now, in a vaguely post-Destroy ending, Liara has hauled her out of stasis, recruited Aethyta to help her with her mother, and headed back to Thessia where she is becoming a deeply complex and more than slightly morally ambiguous political leader trying to rebuild Thessia. It's told alternately from the perspectives of Liara, Aethyta and Benezia and it's stunning. It's slow, but worth it. Liara's characterisation is a love letter to her development from thoughtful, shy bookworm to thoughtful, taciturn revolutionary. Benezia's perspective is full of fractured and ruined nobility, and Aethyta is just pure joy to read. She's exactly what you'd expect - crude and blunt and funny, but with a deep sense of heart and depth; she's comedy relief but never only comedy relief. It's deeply affecting watching her try to work out how to connect with secretive youngest child, and to navigate her deep rage at Benezia leaving her with the broken woman who now needs her help, and who she is still in love with, all while pushing aside the fact her own daughters are lost in the aftermath of the war.

It's just REALLY good.

At which point, that's a ton of kind of serious stuff, so I'll end by saying all my Mass Effect stuff is in my Mass Effect tag, but if you want to know how I screwed up every romance, then look here: http://beccatoria.dreamwidth.org/169663.html

At which point, if I haven't terrified you with enthusiasm, there's no hope for you. ;)

Seriously, sorry, this comment turned MONSTER.

[jetpack_monkey]

I suppose there's no hope for me then.

I've been meaning to pick your brain, btw, on good sources for footage for vidmaking.

[beccatoria]

Yay! And re: below, you're welcome - hope a few of them are interesting to you. ;)

As to footage, ALL THE VIDS YES, PLEASE!

I've started working on the ahem, project, I mentioned on my DW and I'm making reasonable progress, but it's an epic task, so even with a partner in crime it'll be months at least before it's near ready preliminary completion. But I will totally drop you a line when I'm done! (Because I WILL be done!)

For more immediate vidding needs, yargh, that's a bit of a tricky one because one of the primary sources I was using for a lot of the MAJOR plot divergences got yanked from the youtubez, but I will go looking through my old source notes and pull out some hoepfully useful links and DM you soon! :)

[jetpack_monkey]

Also, thanks for all of this. I see I have quite the fandom trek ahead of me. Yay!

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about many of the same things (http://bradcpu.livejournal.com/146597.html)! And missed this post last night because I was replaying ME2.

So does this mean there's a vid in the cards from you?

The biggest challenge I found when vidding it (aside from keeping focus amid all the characters, all the subplots, all the variables) was fighting the urge to play instead of vidding.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

There's probably a vid. I have a song, but it doesn't work in all places, so we'll see.

[hjcallipygian.livejournal.com]

Because I was on FIRE. Try to keep up, Shepard.

Mass Effect is amazing. Do you have all three games?

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Yup! Played through twice now, once as each gender. Future playthroughs will probably be all fem!Shep unless I get a sudden desire to romance Jack.