Babble: All things Mass Effect 3 Part 3 – Plots, subplots, and related commentary (pt1)

The whole Mass Effect 3 Babble:
Part 1: Look, Gamplay and such
Part 2: #Solcomms
Part 3: Plots, Subplots and related commentary pt1, pt2, pt3
Part 4: The Extended Enging and Wrap Up

Oh dear, when you start having “something” part three “sub something” part one then you know it’s getting a little thick. But I have so much to talk about that it will just be too much to put all together. I mean, if my notes were more than a single page in length, then you ought to know that the actual post(s) are going to be epic! Plus, it’s my blog damnit! :-P Glad we’ve established that. *winks*

Also, let me add that I’m well aware that the Extended Ending DLC is coming out today (has already actually) and that could make a substantial difference to what I’m going to talk about… if I allow it to. But I’m not going to. I’m going to make a clear split between how the game was and how it turned out after Bioware tried to save itself from mob justice. I will be watching the DLC this week, but I’m going to keep going on as if I hadn’t and come back to that right at the end of this series.

Why take this approach? Well, a couple of reasons.

The first being that it would might require a lot of thought – seeing as Bioware decided to throw in their version of the meaning of life (42! 42 damnit! Weren’t you paying attention?!).

Secondly, I don’t have my xbox connected to the internet. In fact, I only have random moments of connectivity at home. So if it weren’t for the miracle of Youtube, I wouldn’t even have been able to watch the bloody thing. Maybe if I were actually putting my Shepard through all that trauma again, I might have been differently affected by the whole thing, but because I’m not, I’m going to try to keep it two different entities.

Thirdly, because I feel they are two different entities altogether. I feel that this is an attempt to put a Band-Aid on a third-degree burn.

Yes, I will most certainly comment on it somewhere, but not immediately.

So in this post I’m going to give a brief summary of the game (ha! Me brief!). I do plan on doing a full on babble about some feelings relating to story specifics later in this series (yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s become a series), but since the story is so interwoven with the characters, it makes more sense to just touch on it here and dive into it later.

I’ll also be chattering about the characters: specifically going into their look and how they sound. Yes, it does sound like a repetition of the previous post, but this time seeing as it’s spoilery!!!, I can actually make some game references. I especially need to be able to do that with the more unsavoury sort.

You’ll notice however that Javik is conspicuously absent from this whole series. That would be because, while I have the Collector’s Edition of ME3, my lack of internet connectivity prevented me from downloading his existence into the ME universe. All I know about him and what I’ve seen of him is his odd sense of humour and his African accent.

But the same applies to the other DLC characters from Mass Effect 2 – Katsumi and Zaeed. I don’t know them so I’m not going to talk about them.

One more point. I've already noticed that there are some edits that I need to do in previous posts. If there's something I miss in a particular post that're worth babbling about, mention them and I'll work them in.

Summary – vague impressions

There is so much to love about Mass Effect 3 and so much to hate about it. As upset as many are about the game (myself included), I don’t think it’s because the number of negatives outweigh the positives… There is a lot to marvel about. It is more that the consequences of the negatives are so dire that it completely overshadows the good. My hope is that I’ll be able to do the good some justice.

Mass Effect 3, as discussed before, has the reapers finally invade the galaxy, first taking out the batarians before focusing their attention on humanity and then on everyone else. Side note: why did they first have to focus ALL their attention on humanity before taking everyone else on AT THE SAME TIME? Hmm… They are so technologically advanced – due to all the knowledge they’ve absorbed – that there is very little opposition the Alliance can give and soon most of earth’s forces are decimated – with the exception of some random ships that were somewhere else for some other reason.

Shepard again has to take on the mantle of soldier and protector – along with the new role of diplomat – despite how she has been treated by just about every major government structure within the galaxy. She does this with as much grace as someone could given the circumstances and manages to do the impossible (again) for the third and final time. She unites the races – who have the tendency to hate each other – and convinces them to throw all their resources into building the ultimate weapon against the reapers and sacrificing all they possibly can – including some their homeworlds – to defeat this common enemy who has no intention to leave before all the races are wiped out. Well, those they don’t find another use for – ala the keepers.

If that’s not enough, Shepard takes the fight back to earth, running headlong along with other ground forces consisting of earth resistance fighters and the races she managed to gather into what would become her final charge. Somehow she survives the crazy battle and laser strikes and whatnot to make it to her destination just to discover that nothing is as it seems. She is given the terrible choice that will somehow save some but not others and certainly not herself.

General chatter

I have covered some of these things already, but they deserve being mentioned again.

Having played all three Mass Effect games, I have to marvel over how these characters developed through the years. Ashley looks stunning. They’ve still kept her basic bone structure, but I initially didn’t recognize her – definitely not from the trailers! Most of the characters received a major amount of attention. Their skin doesn’t look so plastic anymore, their eyes (which Bioware has always thankfully managed to get right) now has a lot more expression and interest in them.

But it’s more than that.  They managed to bring in real body language beyond a character standing with their arms crossed or leaning against a table. And they’ve managed to do that with every portion of the body, not just hands and hips. There are still some things that are a little clunky. Arm movements seem a little awkward. However, there’s no denying that everything has been improved. One of my favourite scenes is Liara’s moment where she enters Shepard’s information into her galaxy record. It is in here that you’ll find the best example of how much attention was spent into her character specifically. 

“But there’s one entry I wanted your opinion on.”

In the moment Liara says “your opinion on”, she turns her head from the record to Shepard and her expression was brilliant. It showed everything it needed to. Uncertainty, hope, deference… her eyes are narrower than usual, her head slightly tilted. Everything from her face to the way her shoulders shifted was just right.

But it’s not just the movements that maketh the character. A lot of it has to do with voice acting as well. I dare say most of it. Bioware managed to assemble a wonderfully talented cast – many reprising their roles as characters and so are already well in tune with what they needed to do. Here too there’s been a lot of improvement from the acting side. Simply compare the characters from Mass Effect 1 – Tali, Garrus, Liara, Wrex, Kaidan, Ashley, Joker, Anderson, Chakwas – to Mass Effect 3. They’re not just reading lines anymore. Now even in ME1 there were still some shining moments in terms of acting, but it felt like a lot more attention was given to the voices from ME2 onwards and in ME3, it just stands out.

I have to highlight three actors specifically who I felt really raised the bar: Jennifer Hale (Commander Shepard – Female), Ali Hillis (Dr Liara T’Soni) and William Salyers (Dr Mordin Solus). Okay, let me explain why before you tell me I’m being biased (even if I am somewhat).

There’s always been some heated debating (we shan’t call them all out wars) about who’s the better Shepard. Now give Mark Meer his due: he makes for a really strong, impressive Commander Shepard… but that’s it. What has always elevated Jennifer Hale is the fact that her angle on Shepard was always more than rough and tough. She managed to layer her lines in such a subtle way that you could pick up that there was more to what she was saying than just the words whether it be amusement, hurt, frustration, etc.

In Mass Effect 3, the story didn’t allow for only a rough and tough Shepard and Mark Meer definitely stepped up to the plate to give moments where you could hear the frustration, the weariness, the hopelessness that Shepard was feeling.  But there were also moments where the line was so flatly delivered that you didn’t know what to make of it.

When Shepard is on the Normandy for the first time in ME3 – as Normandy is leaving earth – Joker speaks over the intercom. In-game this would be the first time in six months that Shepard hears Joker’s voice and Shepard’s first reaction is “Joker, is that you?” With Hale, you could hear pleasant surprise in her voice. Meer delivered it so flat that you had no idea whether he was surprised, amused, bored, or just neutral. He could’ve been the dead-eyed cashier muttering “paper or plastic”.

I played until after Palavan with Broshep before I started off my Femshep game (Alyssa) and I agreed to starting the game together and giving a running commentary of what we were seeing, feeling and noting as we played). I continued playing BroShep (or Bastard Shep as my character has come to be called) up until Tuchunka. I’ve further watched several ME3 vids with Broshep, filling in the blanks I hadn’t gotten to.  I feel that those who’ve only played the male Shepard are missing a helluva lot. Yes, femshep’s romance options were severely limited in the previous Mass Effect games (ugly, pathetic, chocolate far too sweet for one’s teeth, and slash) but you got a far better idea of what was actually going on with Shepard or simply understanding the character’s tone. You could do a single scene with a million different ways without changing a single word on the script. You can also lose every nuance if you just do rough and tough.

Liara has always been an interesting character because of how she developed, not because of how she started off. A big reason I didn’t like her much in the first Mass Effect was because it really did sound as if Ali Hillis was just reading her lines for a second time and thought to add a couple of pauses and attempts at different intonation along the way. I found Liara bland as a result. If you look at who she was, what situation she found herself in, there was a lot more that one could have done with it. I understand that Liara is an incredibly soft spoken character, but something was just missing. In ME2 she definitely improved, though sadly one could only truly appreciate the change had one played/watched the DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker.  Oh, you did hear change without the DLC as Liara had become really cold two years after the events ME2 started off with, but the range Hillis had in the DLC just made a much greater impact. With ME3 there are several emotions that Liara shows, a lot of shock, anger and desperation along with the moments where she is the glue holding Shepard together – whether she is Shep’s romantic interest or not – and Hillis really did a great job.

I think we tend to forget that these actors sit in a booth. The whole world basically plays in their minds and so it is really hard to generate reactions that sound authentic. Maybe it’s because of this that I really appreciated Hillis in ME3. During the battle with Kai Leng on Thessia, Liara saves Shepard from falling off a ledge by grabbing onto her arm. She shouts at Shepard to hang on with an almost growl to her voice, you can imagine that Liara was really straining and desperate. This was no longer Hillis sounding like she was merely reading lines.

Mordin popped into the Mass Effect universe in the second instalment and instantly became a beloved character due to his quirky dialogue and rapid, uneven manner of speech. Salarians have such short lifespans that every second is important to them, which makes those moments where he pauses to punctuate a particular point all the more precious. William Salyers took over from Michael Beattie and to be honest, the only reason I realised that there was a different actor playing Mordin was because I had gone to IMDB to check who the cast were for all three games (I was in a stalkerish mood *winks*). Salyers does have a slightly higher pitch but he must have really taken time to learn Beattie‘s take on the character. He truly was brilliant. Mordin also had a lot of different directions he was going, from his awfully chipper self to sad to regretful to angry. Salyers pulled it off in style and for that he really does deserve proper notice.

So I tackled the good things regarding the characters created. I need to take on four less-than-stellar creations.

What on earth did they do to Joker?! When it comes to his design, as I said before, it looked to me like he had had a rash on his face – or was fresh from having a rash that he scratched at mercilessly. I also don’t know what they did with his eyes, whether they made them wider or just whiter, but he was far too eerie for me. Seth Green is a really talented voice actor and I think it a shame that they didn’t take better care of his character. What annoys me about that is that he was hands-down one of my favourite characters. I am totally one of those who felt he should have had a shot at Shepard in ME2. He would have been a much better option than all the other males they threw at her. 

Vega… good grief… what can I say about Vega? Well, I’m going to tear into him a little later, but… let’s first give Freddie Prince Jnr his credit. He managed to act the shit out of a really lame character. However, that grunting he did when he was doing pull-ups was really disturbing. Seriously. As for looks, he looks like a tank – which is basically the role I used him for as a squad mate. So I guess in that respect they did okay. And they definitely did his eyes better than Joker’s, but I still felt that there was something off about him, whether it is that his body is too big for his head or his dialogue is horrendously… stupid (there isn’t another word for it, sorry).

And then the worst for last: Diana Allers… … … … … She is the most painful video game creature I have ever had the displeasure to look upon. Bring that cannibal on the ship, please. Let’s have a talk with it.

I know that her looks were supposedly based off of Jessica Chobot who also did her voice, but have you seen pictures of Chobot?  

   That is not an ugly woman in the slightest. I don’t know which pictures they used as reference, but it must’ve been those that should have been burnt. Yes, I see some of the features there, but there couldn’t have been a harsher rendition of her, without question. Alyssa and I had to find something good about this character… after much painstaking deliberation; we decided that her hips would be good for childbearing.

So now that I’ve defended Chobot’s honour, let me turn around and rip a hole into it. Let’s just first get this out of the way: Chobot isn’t an actress. She’s a writer and a camera host. But being a host does not an actor make. Not a damn. And then to put her in a booth and have her do what I consider the most difficult type of acting not only makes her look bad, but verges on stupidity for whoever thought of that bloody idea.

I don’t have the background details. I don’t know why or how Diana came into existence.  I don’t know why she had to walk around must-hang with very little to hang; or why she needed hips wider than her shoulders. But it didn’t do anyone justice or credit.  If anything it created a new breed of Chobot-haters.

If you needed to have a journalist on board, you know who I would have loved to see? Khalisha al-Jilani. No really! Just imagine it: An antagonistic reporter given no choice but to document the Normandy’s journey; someone who challenges Shepard’s every move – basically the exact opposite of Liara’s role. And yes, there could be some punches thrown (I would love to see Kalisha kick Shepard’s ass. I’d pay to see that. Oh wait, I did. *giggles*).

Then imagine her beginning to talk to the crew; her walking around everywhere trying to prove her bitterness justified and maybe, just maybe having her start seeing different angles to Shepard or at least to the mission.

Wouldn’t that have been much better than we got?

Khalisha for RESIDENT!!