Mass Effect 2 - Page 31

He was the lead writer of Mass Effect 1 and co-wrote Mass Effect 2, but yeah the Mass Effect novels aren't particularly great.

I think the universe which Karpshyn definitely had a major hand in creating is kind of fascinating, but I agree that the tangents in the game are far more fascinating than the main story. Would love to have a game where you’re essentially just a Spectre doing smaller, insular, missions over the course of the game rather than working towards a universe crippling threat.

I think judging from the books he was responsible for the moments in the game where it became 24 in space. He definitely seems to have a thing for hard edged violence. 

It’s interesting with the writing situation because even though Gaider was the lead writer on Dragon Age 2 everything I really loved about the game seems to have come from Jennifer Hepler. The Anders storyline is the thing I really loved about DA2 and the Sebastian Vael questline was one of the best in the game.

He also created the characters of Revan and Malak, and was basically responsible for writing Knights of the Old Republic's entire storyline -- for that alone, he automatically gets a lifetime free pass from me.

His Mass Effect novels are OK, but hampered somewhat by the fact that they're Shepard-less, and somewhat tangential to the games' primary storyline (apart from the first one). His Darth Bane novels, however, are cut-loose-kick-ass amazing.

If LucasArts gives him enough leash, I think we're in for some incredible moments with the SW: Old Republic MMO.

I just finished my second playthrough, and I was surprised by just how excellent this game still is. It's got to be the most immersive video game world I've ever played with. I think this time, what most impressed me was how awesome my Paragon Sheperd was. In fact, I think this is probably Mass Effect's secret weapon. Whether he's paragon or renegade, man or woman, Shepherd has awesome writing, and you also get a nice feeling of ownership over him.

Also, I've never seen a game where playing the "good" version of a character made him into quite this much of a total badass. Still lost more of the team as a paragon, though.

Always amusing.

Holy shit, someone just linked me to a series of Red Letter Media styled reviews of Mass Effect 2's plot. Literally sixty minutes of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR558wTjOUU

Jesus.

It's like someone watched the great Red Letter Media dissections of the Prequels and decided that what made them great was a goofy voice and repetition of a key thesis for sixty minutes. Red Letter Media had the decency to actually give objective analysis of why the story failed, whereas this is literally sixty minutes of subjective whining.

I'm not going to watch this but I'll be fucked if I can find any possible way you could mount a 60 fucking minute long critique of the ME2 plot. I detest nerds and their untalented bandwagon hopping.

Yeah, I'm not watching that either, because you made it sound like pure torture.