Investment, Entitlement, Chilli

I haven't blogged since January! Fucking January! No longer can you bathe in the abundant warmth of my melodic prose; these prolix acorns must be seeked out and gathered, harvested and stored for the inevitable mute months that follow. Fuck it, though; In my days here I have written enough to keep you going for a while. You shall not go hungry, little squirrels.

Shit's been happening: Too much, too fast. Instead of devoting large quantities of time to tedious and probably predictable convictions, I'm going to skim the scum off the surface; There was The Ending Of Mass Effect 3 (Disappointedly convoluted and/or pretentious), The Buying Of Whiskey by CBS (Cynical, apprehensive), and That Time I Made A Huge Pot Of Chilli As Instructed By One David Snider. Truth be told, it got messy.

[The blog is free range and spoiler free. Also, it's filmed in front of a live studio audience.]

I liked Mass Effect 3, though you probably wouldn't think that if you listened to me talk about it for any length of time. It seems that all the content that Mass Effect 2 so memorable and charming was removed for - what, exactly? Why was I only limited to 4/5 squadmates for the entire game? Seeing as Kaiden is a prick, Tali was dead and James is Human, that leaves me with Garrus and Liara. So, I ended up playing the entire game with Garrus and Liara following me everywhere. Which was terrible because fuck Liara. And not in the Mass Effect, everybody get nekkid, sense of the word. I mean in the "Is there an individual mute button for this character?" sense. The bad sense.

Mass Effect 3 seems content to dangle the characters that I actually wanted at arms length, only to brutally and pointlessly remove them from me and order me to go on without them. I have seen the argument offered that a smaller pool of characters allowed the writers to plot out some better banter - which the game ultimately fails to deliver. When the game really wants a specific character on a specific mission it removes the element of choice entirely, so why even pretend that I'm involved in this process at all? Mass Effect 3 was lacking in moments. After displaying such flexibility and imagination with the level design in the previous game, it was a pretty brutal and unpleasant experience to be told, yet again, that my only objective is to "Survive". The entire game felt stale.

Things improved dramatically when the DLC Prothean dude joined my squad, as he basically becomes your virtual tour guide. This also meant I could bench Liara for the rest of the game, which was a relief as I quickly grew tired of her bleating. While fantastic that I wouldn't have to spend hours mining the shit out of asteroids - the substitute, scanning planets for lost junk, was tedious, and watching the Reapers chase you around the Galaxy Map was the most ridiculous shit I have ever seen in my life. Every time they popped up I felt like Benny Hill should automatically start playing. This game was supposed to be stylish, and sexy. Why the fuck do I feel like I'm playing a shitty Pacman rip-off in the year 2159?

Enough with them negative waves!

Despite my numerous beefs with the game I found it satisfying at a base level. I felt I had received my moneys worth of entertainment. Is that enough? Mass Effect is a franchise in which I felt heavily invested, both emotionally and monetarily. Bioware had a wealth of resources, characters, actors, assets, history and lore from which to pick, and a fanbase who would have followed them blindly into whatever innovative matrix they could envision. Squandered. I love Mass Effect. It deserves better.

Deserved.

Thanks for reading,

Love Sweep