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[Rizzo]

Yeah, she was fairly specific. I was such a damn hell as king that I was able to choose the "none of this is even relevant, fuck you all, Tali rulz" and get away with it.

Am I the only person who hated Miranda? Useless character, boring loyalty, fought with Jack (also boring but far more useful in combat). I made sure she died.

[Alex C]

I'm not a Miranda fan but she's anything but useless.

[Buttfranklin]

Yeah, she's pretty much one of the best squadmates.

She can counter all defenses with Warp and Overload, and she can hella buff yr party with her Cerberus Officer skill.  Squad weapon damage +15%?  Yes please!

Jack is good if yr playing a on a lower difficulty, or if you really want Squad Warp Ammo.

[Alex C]

Ironically, the feuding ladies do extremely well when paired together. On lower difficulties the mook squads don't have much in the way of defenses so they can team up for entertaining biotic combos with Pull+Warp/Slam, while on higher difficulties Miranda's ability to peel defenses lets Jack use Pull more freely.

[Tom]

Jack is good if yr playing a on a lower difficulty, or if you really want Squad Warp Ammo.

If you really want squad warp ammo, just do her loyalty mission.

[Alex C]

Yeah, but then you're passing up on stuff like Geth Shields or Reave. Bringing Jack along for Warp Ammo isn't so bad when you consider her decent CC ability.

[Johnny C]

i hated miranda and thought her character was stupid but then i got to her loyalty mission and warmed up to her and then at the end of the game she got like the best fist-pump moment so like there's that

[KvP]

I didn't warm up to Miranda, but Grunt was much, much better than he had any right to be. Same with Samara, though all in all she seems as slight a character as Jacob. Ditto Zaeed, who's just fun.

[Johnny C]

conversely, i never gave two shits about samara, and cared even less about morinth. zaeed is the fucking man though

[Storm Rider]

I also warmed up to Miranda considerably by the end of the game, and the ending solidified it. I thought Samara was done pretty well too.

[Josefbugman]

I think (overall) I liked Thane and Garrus the best, with Legion a close second, so its good to hear that at least one of them is coming back.

[KvP]

Miranda was probably the best human companion of the series, which isn't saying much.

I liked both the DLC characters a lot more, despite neither of them being all that fleshed out, mostly because I thought Miranda was a little too fleshed out (I get it Bioware, she has a giant rack and a peach-like ass) and her inferiority complex (AM I PERFECT OR REALLY REALLY PERFECT?!) was never anything less than irritating. Plus hers was probably the last companion mission I went on so I was all "Great, more family trouble"

[JD]

Legion>Tali>Thane>Jack

Didn't really wanna "sync environmental suits" with Tali though, I think a interview with gaider turned me off to that before the game even came out.

[KvP]

He really does that to you. Best to avoid him if you're interested at all in the romances.

[Dimmukane]

One thing I recently noticed: my non-imported campaign Shepard didn't know much about the Genophage that Moradin talks about for his loyalty mission and just kinda went along with it.  Finally went through with one of my imported saves (saved Wrex), and Shepard was PISSED that Moradin was involved.  Like, right off the bat.  I'm still kinda surprised at the differences I'm finding.

[Buttfranklin]

I never noticed anything about Miranda's figure to be honest, she just seemed to look like the generic ME female to me.

Her art assets are significantly larger.

[JD]

Saw that joke coming a mile away.

[Buttfranklin]

 

[Johnny C]

I think they did as well as they good with a supposedly brilliant individual. I know a few incredibly attractive and talented people who seem constantly haunted by the prospect of being anything less than perfect in every way. It's not like if you're super smart and ultra cute you have no problems, sometimes it ramps them up even more and I think they managed to just about capture that dichotomy.

revisiting this (and because i've been on a kick of his stuff for like a YEAR at this point), from david foster wallace's 2005 commencement speech at kenyon college:

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.

On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self.

Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.

for some reason, in some weird way, i thought of this quote when reading tommy's comments. the slight variation in miranda's character is, of course, that she doesn't so much worship these things as much as she was created to embody their worship. i don't think that's "am i perfect or am i super perfect" at all.

[Tom]

Miranda has to live with that constant nagging thought in the back of her head that everything she enjoys about herself is there by design.

[KvP]

I think they did as well as they good with a supposedly brilliant individual. I know a few incredibly attractive and talented people who seem constantly haunted by the prospect of being anything less than perfect in every way. It's not like if you're super smart and ultra cute you have no problems, sometimes it ramps them up even more and I think they managed to just about capture that dichotomy.

I get that, I just don't think it's worth writing, hearing about, or playing therapist with in the hopes of having digital sex. Listening to people wrestle with privilege is very rarely interesting. I'm pretty much over companions with deeply ingrained self-esteem issues. I don't think it's a coincidence that my line between "interesting" and "intolerable" amongst ME2 companions neatly divides characters who are confident in themselves (Mordin, Tali, Grunt, Thane, Samara) and characters who nurse some deep insecurity (Miranda, Jacob, Jack). Unsurprisingly, those characters make up the majority of romance options. Garrus gets a pass because his vendetta/PTSD isn't inherently stupid.

This pattern is likewise reflected in Dragon Age 2, with Aveline and Varric being the best characters and Merrill / Anders being the worst.

[Johnny C]

sorry that you're sick of one corner of human experience, john

[KvP]

I'm sorry Aerie has become a gold standard character concept.

[Johnny C]

what does that even have to do with anything, games didn't invent the idea of archetypes

[KvP]

I never said they did? I said the ones they're using are boring to me. But the "healing touch of friendship" approach compresses the course of a relationship from "just met" to "ready to die for you" to <25 hours better than anything else, I suppose. They wouldn't keep using it otherwise.

[JD]

I think they did as well as they good with a supposedly brilliant individual. I know a few incredibly attractive and talented people who seem constantly haunted by the prospect of being anything less than perfect in every way. It's not like if you're super smart and ultra cute you have no problems, sometimes it ramps them up even more and I think they managed to just about capture that dichotomy.

I get that, I just don't think it's worth writing, hearing about, or playing therapist with in the hopes of having digital sex. Listening to people wrestle with privilege is very rarely interesting. I'm pretty much over companions with deeply ingrained self-esteem issues. I don't think it's a coincidence that my line between "interesting" and "intolerable" amongst ME2 companions neatly divides characters who are confident in themselves (Mordin, Tali, Grunt, Thane, Samara) and characters who nurse some deep insecurity (Miranda, Jacob, Jack). Unsurprisingly, those characters make up the majority of romance options. Garrus gets a pass because his vendetta/PTSD isn't inherently stupid.

This pattern is likewise reflected in Dragon Age 2, with Aveline and Varric being the best characters and Merrill / Anders being the worst.

I dunno if Jack is insecure. It seems more like she's a cold and impersonal person who struggles to get close to people. Which is rather like Lisbeth now that I think about it.

[satsugaikaze]

Never thought there'd be a game with a 'stock gmilf' but yeah

Samara
How bout those implants honey


Friggin' Obligatory Space Babes.

[Tom]

I dunno if Jack is insecure. It seems more like she's a cold and impersonal person who struggles to get close to people. Which is rather like Lisbeth now that I think about it.

That's an apt comparison.

[Alex C]

Yeah, I suspect that I have a decent overall impression of Miranda in large part because I didn't pursue that thread the first time around. Once you do take on the romance thread (Can we vote on a term other than romance? Please?) she actually seems sulkier about how the mission is "no time to for emotional entanglement" and "idiotic hormones" than she did about her perceived inadequacies. It adds another round of "Miranda has vulnerabilities" when I liked her better without quite so much baggage. Plus, at one point she asks you to promise her you won't die, which will always and forever make me think of Team America.

[Rizzo]

It seemed like every single way I played this game Garrus was really distant and basically refused to talk to me. I've played through twice, once with a continued campaign (male) and once with a new character (female) and Garrus was a dick the whole time. wtf?

[Alex C]

He has a lot of calibrating to do.

[Blue Kitty]

Well he did lose parts of his face, and he came to terms with you being dead.

[satsugaikaze]

Garrus is basically a stone wall unless A, he's doing his side quest or B he's in it with Shepard's vay-jay (sort of)

[Alex C]

I still like him a helluva lot better than I did in the first game though. He's more interesting when I'm not holding his hand through every impromptu ethics lesson.

[Storm Rider]

I think giving Garrus a chip on his shoulder did his character worlds of good. He's much more enjoyable now that he's a little more sarcastic. He has some of the funnier cracks in the game in my opinion.

And I haven't done it myself because I actually haven't finished a playthrough as female Shepard yet, but I heard from people who did that Garrus's romance is arguably the best one Bioware's ever done precisely because it acknowledges how weird the situation is.

[satsugaikaze]

It even has a Paragon interrupt.

SOLD

[cyro]

And I haven't done it myself because I actually haven't finished a playthrough as female Shepard yet, but I heard from people who did that Garrus's romance is arguably the best one Bioware's ever done precisely because it acknowledges how weird the situation is.

Definately arguable, but it's good partically for that reason, partically because it didn't feel the need to pander the whole "sex with space babes" (and anti-space-but-still-babes babes) compared to the other romances of the series. It was pretty tactfully handled rather than a romance for the sake of a romance (and implied banging.)

Actually the Tali romance was kind of like this too, but not as well done.

On a vaguely related note, the Miranda romance is probably the stupidest one in the whole series. "I feel only cold shallow resentment for you despite my respect for your abilities. Oh, you rescued my not-twin twin sister? Lets bang. Now I love you."

The fuck?

[Buttfranklin]

Space women are Complicated, it seems.

[Alex C]

I think giving Garrus a chip on his shoulder did his character worlds of good. He's much more enjoyable now that he's a little more sarcastic. He has some of the funnier cracks in the game in my opinion.

Also, this will sound kind of weird, but I kinda liked how going all Paragon on his ass in the first game wasn't apparently enough to make him do everything by-the-book once left to make judgement calls on his own. Now, I suppose if you were feeling uncharitable I guess you could just chalk that up to Bioware not having a cost effective way to incorporate both attitudes, but in a game in which a fair amount of stuff carries over from the first I kinda liked the idea that Garrus wasn't someone you could just mold into an ersatz Shep.

[Blue Kitty]

And I haven't done it myself because I actually haven't finished a playthrough as female Shepard yet, but I heard from people who did that Garrus's romance is arguably the best one Bioware's ever done precisely because it acknowledges how weird the situation is.

I love any romance option that has you talking with Mordin about protection.

[KvP]

[Torlek]

Well, looks like the Citadel's going to get fucked up again. And I am getting a serious Shep vibe from that lead bot thing in the second pic.

[JD]

Some high quality scans of a recent game informer article

Ashely looks silly.

[KvP]

Well, looks like the Citadel's going to get fucked up again. And I am getting a serious Shep vibe from that lead bot thing in the second pic.

The article they're from indicates that the pics are from a mission on the Salarian homeworld (my money on ME2 companions being temporary / location-based in ME3 is looking smarter), so it looks like the Reapers are probably just hitting all the racial homeworlds in the galaxy. The Citadel's probably on the list, though I could see it being the resistance base and all. With the Conduit shut there's only one way in and it's through the front door.

[Johnny C]

Ashely looks silly.

seriously

[Tom]

Liara and Kaidan look really good, though.

[satsugaikaze]

You all have bad taste.




;-;

[cyro]

I have taste?

Huh.

[Alex C]

Nah man, sorry. She looks kinda drag queen.

[KvP]

Ashely looks silly.

seriously

She done got Flemeth'd!