where an impoverished young woman is trying to sell herself into slavery and the game presents the most ethical outcome as helping her negotiate a better contract for her indentured servitude?
Looking back those games were Fukuyama'd as shit, jfc
where an impoverished young woman is trying to sell herself into slavery and the game presents the most ethical outcome as helping her negotiate a better contract for her indentured servitude?
Looking back those games were Fukuyama'd as shit, jfc
Mass Effect was a lot of fun, but something about Bioware's writing always feels lacking to me, and the fact of how frequently you are presented with situations where both options suck or the good/evil labeling betrays some incredible I D E O L O G Y is a big reason why.
TBH I don't even know why they bothered with the choices after ME1. They had the data that said that like 90% of players only played the good route, if your "choices matter" storytelling is so bad that everyone just picks the same options then you should give up and do a linear story I must say.
Because the mass effect games were never about actual choice, but rather the aesthetic of choice.
Even putting aside that 90% of the player base made the same choices; the alternative options never even changed the story that much to begin with.
And that's because choice in the mass effect games was always nothing more than a charlatans magic trick. Bioware never really had to give players an actual choice: just the illusion of one. The player never really had a sense of true freedom or agency within the games...but the choice and dialogue system was really good at making players feel like they did. That feeling of engagement is really powerful even if it's all smoke and mirrors.
...but hey, enough about the American system of democracy.
That's def another reason why Bioware games fall flat for me. Although games that offer narrative choice that is actually substantial are few and far between - does Disco Elysium count? There's a lot of routes, but the ending is always the same. Fear and Hunger has a ton of possible outcomes, but they aren't really signposted and honestly feel more like discovering bonus content than interacting with a narrative. Heavy Rain had a ton of routes and endings, but also a lot of very ham fisted writing that felt like it was forcing you onto certain paths even if it wasn't.
Maybe having narratives with genuine choices in a computer RPG is actually a cursed problem without a solution.
It doesn't help that the good route gives you the best outcome 99% for the time whereas playing solid renegade screws you over significantly more.
I mean I don't exactly mind because I like to play the starry eyed optimist paragon protag that tries to save everyone possible, good or bad, but there's seriously only a single instance where playing that character actually screws you over, and it takes place in an offscreen news email in ME3.
Well I guess this is probably better than rewarding you for killmurdering and saying that doing a hecking genocide was actually the correct choice (though that doesn't stop Bioware fans from frequently arguing that anyways...)