Writing N' Video Games

Why hello, I didn't see you there. Please, step in. Don't worry, despite us never having met, my alien translator perfectly converts our conversation to English. What? Yours doesn't? You should see a doctor about that... Factions - Broader Strokes THE ANGARAN... and Jaal: As a written character, Jaal is fine enough, if you're willing to settle for that. He's the poster boy for his species and as such, is our window into their culture. Our experience with him will either help define his race or defy stereotypical expectations. Many characters in Mass Effect tend to fall outside the norm of their culture. They serve as exposition to their people's norms while also highlighting how and why differ. *My biggest gripe with Jaal has to do with the god-awful writing, scripting, and direction of his loyalty quest. It's not even a terrible premise, it's just executed with utter nonsense. A sub faction of the Angaran are hostile to any foreign aliens, w...

Gabe again, welcome back to me slicing and dicing Mass Effect Andromeda for the sake of narrative exploration. Shout out to my blog partner, Ben, who left me this lovely comment while proof reading this segment: "Gabe sucks jk" Stay beautiful, Ben. Characters: Fine Tuning (Cont.) *Cracks knuckles* Alright, let's start getting to work on the bread and butter of Mass Effect: our alien squad mates. OLD VETRA: Our smuggling Turian squad mate made a great impression on me when we first boarded the Tempest (our pathfinding space ship). I got the feeling she was someone who routinely circumvented regular routines from her demeanor and actions. Vetra's resume comprises a slew of contacts she somehow fostered in a new galaxy that enables to get her hands (talons?) on a variety of resources and tools that suit your needs. In practice, she doesn't actually get you anything specific. She just says she can. This breaks a cardinal rule of story-telling (show don...

You came back! I mean, ahem, of course you did. Welcome back to part two, everyone. Ch aracter Alterations - Fine Tuning RYDER: In principle, I admire what they aimed to do with Ryder as a new hero, in contrast to Shepard. I consider it a mi ld success that grew into a deafening misunderstanding of tone. It makes sense though. Shepard was already established as skilled and noteworthy by the time he was a Spectre. Why not take the opportunity to build someone's story from scratch in an endearing way with fumbling starts? It certainly breaks the mold except...  As the late Rodney Dangerfield would phrase it, Ryder gets no respect. As a replacement Pathfinder, Ryder has no experience and often flounders nonsensically as they figure out the plot. Excuse me, I misspoke. I meant to say, as SAM (his artificial intelligence) figures out the plot. Ryder flies by the seat of his/her pants, treating serious problems flippantly with little to no options to play it one hundred ...

Hello there fans, both new and old.  This is Gabe signing in to take a swing at a dead horse. I've made no secret about my feelings for the Mass Effect series- in fact, I've uploaded about a dozen episodes to our YouTube channel to that effect. Today isn't going to be all that different. As a writer, I've always looked to other works in various mediums in order to refine my own sensibilities, taste, and style. The original Mass Effect Trilogy, Firefly, Star Wars, and Star Trek (among others) all helped cement my desire to step into the science fiction genre.    So, like the title says, I'm gonna tear Mass Effect Andromeda up, pick apart the pieces, shuffle them around, insert some possibilities, and see what happens. For science! As a disclaimer, I've played Andromeda twice to completion (Boy Ryder and Girl Ryder/ Pre-patch and Post-patch!) and dabbled in the multiplayer. It's not a bad game, more like an unlucky one that barely represents the best part...

Symphonic Gameplay: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of what's left of my life, I have finally beaten Persona 5. I am thou, thou art I. Thou has turned a vow into a blood oath. Your ability to enjoy JRPG's is now infinite.    Full disclosure, I've only ever beaten Persona 4 before getting excited to play 5 but man was it worth my relatively short wait. As a newer fan of the Persona series (as well the Shin Megami Tensei series), my appreciation has come in layered waves of discovery.  The turned-based combat and general focus of the series tickles the nostalgic center of the genre that first got me to fall in love with video games. Combine that with its sincere effort towards fleshing out a distinct cast of characters and I was hooked. Persona 4 took my breath away and retroactively stands as one the best games I almost missed during my PS2 era. I'm happy to say that I didn't miss the boat on P5.  I could talk at length ...

A Brief History Battlefield has always been a game defined by multiplayer gameplay, large scale warfare, and destruction spread out across grand—this should seem obvious—battlefields.  Fields of battle if you will.  That does sound like it should be obvious but, Battlefield has also been recently defined by campaigns that don’t capture the grandiose feeling of playing Domination in multiplayer. What says grandiose better than a flamethrower? A brief recap of the last few games for anyone who hasn’t tried them is as follow: Battlefield Bad Company 2 was wildly loved, but that’s an entirely different article. Battlefield 3 and 4 campaigns were regarded as mediocre by most, with 3 held above 4, but both disliked for not capturing the magic of the larger multiplayer maps. I did love the third game, biases up front. Hardline was an attempt at a cop drama that was entertaining to a good amount of people, but why did that need to be a Battlefield game when i...

Here we are, at the end of our strange love affair. Oh, and also here's the last part of my Final Fantasy XV writing review. We're back on the train and headed straight for the empire capital city... but not before another detour! Noctis wants to visit Luna's hometown of Tenebrae. Gladio protests but relents after Noctis showed his resolve during the last detour. If it helps him move past it, Gladio is okay with making time for it.  With the nights getting longer, the train gets ambushed by daemons that are controlled by the empire. It's all hands on deck as the boys get trapped at a checkpoint and have to fight off the empire while guarding the train too. Ardyn shows up too and we get into a surreal chase scene where Noctis tries getting revenge.  About halfway through the chase, it became painfully obvious that this was a trick. Ardyn reveals later that he used to magic to switch appearances with Prompto. So that whole time Noctis was chasing Ardyn, it was ...