@turambar: Without getting into politics, that could be an interesting stance for a game to explore, but I don't think that's what ME is trying to do. That's a point that would be made by an attempt at regulated response failing, or by the Council viewing Specter membership as a necessary evil to be avoided unless absolutely needed, or by somebody quoting the Bhagavad-Gita if you can't think of a less heavy-handed way - not by avoiding a resolution entirely by making "You get to break all the rules" a good thing to strive for that puts humanity on the political map and also happens to save the galaxy because Hooray Humans.
@ various: It makes me sad to see how few people understood what this article was about at all, or simply decided not to read it before commenting.
e: Spec Ops: The Line asks some great questions about this, come to think of it. Man that game was smart.
@blaccuweather: Honestly in context that seemed like a failure as well, which is why I didn't mention it; giving him the "mind control" excuse and making his True Self shine through so he can choose suicide removes the question of how to stop a person with unlimited power who just chooses to use it in a harmful way - he takes his carte blanche to do anything and chooses to off himself, so he remains in control. Either solution (you shoot him or he shoots him) implies that the only way to stop a person you've given unlimited power is for someone with unlimited power to stop him - essentially what Heather brings up as "And so, to combat enemies that don’t follow particular moral codes, we look to heroes who are similarly unbound."
Can we stop ourselves from being destroyed without stooping to our enemies' level? Can we bear the shield but break the sword? Mass Effect seems to set itself up to ask the question, then doesn't. Only bullets can solve this.
The first Mass Effect asked interesting questions about what might happen if an agent is given carte blanche to do "what must be done" in the character of Saren; he is corrupt and actively harming the organization he should be protecting, but there is no way to revoke his powers since one of them is "ignore any attempts to have your power revoked". Then those questions were completely bypassed and any interesting paths they might have led down were slammed shut when the solution turned out to be "just shoot him a bunch, I guess".
In retrospect, that should have told us everything we needed to know about how the trilogy would end.
Thank you for offering the only review I've seen so far that calls out the unforgivable technical problems here. This game is good, and when it actually gets finished it will be great, but holy hell the obsequious fawning and incessant 9.6 ratings are unhelpful when bugs are this omnipresent. If a feature of the game (Ironman) is literally unplayable because any crash will doom it, a crashy product should be met with appropriate scorn.
This is a problematic Quick Look. It's a great service to provide, looking at games, but occasionally, things like this are produced which paint the game in a slightly unfair light.
The mechanic of crew members being damaged when they pass through incidents is clearly explained in the unavoidable tutorial, and it's bad that neither Alex nor Austin remembered it. Also, the +1 reroll for the specialist is right there on the screen and they don't understand it correctly.
This game is, like Austin says, built on the difficulty of cooperative tabletop games, that require a careful studying of the rules and a handful of losses to get a feel for how to win, Going in without that careful studying of the rules is understandable for the Quick Look format here, but it makes the game look even more unforgiving than it already is - and since this is an independent game with a non-$5 price tag, it may turn people away from a developer that could use the money and support.
I love you guys, and I don't want to be that guy who complains that you play badly, because you don't; this is just an unfortunate confluence of factors...
Good premise for the game. Bad ramping and teaching by the game especially in a game with so much randomized mechanics. Jeopardy is well and good but if you can't even start to learn how the game mechanics function because of bad dice rolls audience will turn it off before they get to the good stuff.
...that leads to reactions like this one, blaming the game for something that is partly but not entirely its fault. Maybe a game like this would have been better served played with the tutorial?
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