Mass Effect: ANDROMEDA

[Mark_Nguyen]

Question: Is the ME series playable when my six year-old daughter is in the room?

For some reason, I always thought it was a straight-up FPS, despite it being a Bioware title. Now that I know it's got a lot of storytelling too, and especially now that I have a model of the Normandy on my desk (Christmas party door prize!), I'm tempted to start it. However, as a parent I can't play anything overly violent / mature since my girl is likely to be in the room whenever I have a chance to play...

Too much for a six year-old? For reference, I've played a few hours of Arkham City with her, and she's generally okay with it (finds it boring), and HAWX (even more boring for her). Everything else has been nonviolent family-type games (Lego Star Wars, Ni No Kuni...) or Kinect stuff. I have The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us still in the plastic because there simply isn't time to play when she's not there.

Thoughts? I've actually acted on stage with Mark Meer, and it'd be nice to finally tell him I've played the game featuring his most well-known role. :P

Mark

 

[BillJ]

Question: Is the ME series playable when my six year-old daughter is in the room?

For some reason, I always thought it was a straight-up FPS, despite it being a Bioware title. Now that I know it's got a lot of storytelling too, and especially now that I have a model of the Normandy on my desk (Christmas party door prize!), I'm tempted to start it. However, as a parent I can't play anything overly violent / mature since my girl is likely to be in the room whenever I have a chance to play...

Too much for a six year-old? For reference, I've played a few hours of Arkham City with her, and she's generally okay with it (finds it boring), and HAWX (even more boring for her). Everything else has been nonviolent family-type games (Lego Star Wars, Ni No Kuni...) or Kinect stuff. I have The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us still in the plastic because there simply isn't time to play when she's not there.

Thoughts? I've actually acted on stage with Mark Meer, and it'd be nice to finally tell him I've played the game featuring his most well-known role. :P

Mark

I don't have any problem playing with my kids in the room. But it can be violent from time to time.

 

[Skywalker]

The first game is relatively mild (I can only think of one scene you might find truly objectionable to show with your daughter in the room) but the violence, sexual content and profanity gets dialed up a fairly significant amount in Mass Effect 2.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The first game is relatively mild (I can only think of one scene you might find truly objectionable to show with your daughter in the room) but the violence, sexual content and profanity gets dialed up a fairly significant amount in Mass Effect 2.

Considering a lot of kids play worse games like the GTA series it's not that bad.

 

[Reverend]

The first game is relatively mild (I can only think of one scene you might find truly objectionable to show with your daughter in the room) but the violence, sexual content and profanity gets dialed up a fairly significant amount in Mass Effect 2.

^Just to qualify this: the "sexual content" basically consists of a few awkward make-out scenes that mostly involve a lot of almost fully clothed grinding.
ME3 is a bit less timid, but you're still basically in shampoo advert territory.

Honestly, I'd be more worried about the husks giving the kid nightmares than concerned they might see a sideboob.

 

[Skywalker]

The first game is relatively mild (I can only think of one scene you might find truly objectionable to show with your daughter in the room) but the violence, sexual content and profanity gets dialed up a fairly significant amount in Mass Effect 2.

Considering a lot of kids play worse games like the GTA series it's not that bad.

How many of those kids are six years old, though?

But yeah, there isn't any actual full-on nudity or anything, apologies if I made it seem that way. I'm more talking about certain character models and camera angles.

 

[LeadHead]

The swear jar fills up fast in ME 2. So if you're worried that your kid will start dropping the F-bomb a lot, you might want to be careful once Jack enters the game.

 

[SPCTRE]

I also banged Kelly, Allers, and Traynor in the same game. Oh yeah.

How could you do that to Chambers

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I also banged Kelly, Allers, and Traynor in the same game. Oh yeah.

So I'm ready for Andromeda now.

LOL.................

How did you manage to woo Kelly Chambers, I wanted to but felt guilty about it as she was a real sweetie..

And Diana Allers, how?

 

[Reverend]

I also banged Kelly, Allers, and Traynor in the same game. Oh yeah.

So I'm ready for Andromeda now.

LOL.................

How did you manage to woo Kelly Chambers, I wanted to but felt guilty about it as she was a real sweetie..

And Diana Allers, how?

IIRC with Chambers you have to be nice to her and ask her to feed your fish, or something (that's not a euphemism, go wash your brain out with soap!) And With Allers, you pretty much just have to ask.

...yeah, Allers is probably the most shallow character Bioware have ever done. I'm not sure what they were thinking beyond: "Hey look! Stunt casting!"

But yeah, there isn't any actual full-on nudity or anything, apologies if I made it seem that way. I'm more talking about certain character models and camera angles.

And just to qualify my previous qualification (I feel a Python sketch coming on!) the "less timid" stuff in ME3 actually still managed to be more tasteful than ME2's, oddly enough. They're mature in a "Let's treat these as relationships with actual grown-ups" way and not mature in a "Hey look! Blue boobies!" kind of way.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I thought Diana Allers was in there as she knew one of the people who made the game and so pushed herself into being put in the game. Not sure what her real life name was.

 

[Reverend]

I have no clue how Chobot ended up in there, only that it certainly wasn't for her acting abilities. Not that it's much of a waste since the character is utterly pointless.
The only thing that annoys me about it is that they took the time and money to develop a unique face asset for her and all Tali got was that 30-min photoshop job of a stockshot they probably got off google images.

The weird part is that everything about it felt very last minute. She never interacts with anyone other than Shepard & Traynor and spends the whole time in Zaeed's old hang-out. You can just leave her arse on the citadel and miss *nothing* of value apart from a few extra readiness points, which after they patched it, hardly even matters.
Now an actual embedded *journalist* (as opposed to the whole superficial newscaster thing) and war correspondent is a great idea that could of added a lot and given a wider perspective on the war and proven to be a very useful expositional tool for new players who may not know the history of the previous two games.
Even if it was just a bunch of text articles in the emails it would have been better than what we got.

 

[TheGodBen]

I also banged Kelly, Allers, and Traynor in the same game. Oh yeah.

How could you do that to Chambers

I knew I was going to die in the end anyway, so my promises to come back for Kelly were always disingenuous. And as long as she didn't find out about my other girlfriends, what was the harm? I gave Kelly comfort and hope of a better tomorrow during the galaxy's darkest days, does it really matter if I was letting Traynor use my shower at the same time?

Like I said, this was a save for doing things I had never done before. I hadn't hooked up with Kelly or Allers before because those romances are so slight as to not be worth it, so I only did them this time just to see them. My intention was always to end up with Traynor as my primary romance. I was tempted to have a fourth girlfriend by hooking up with Samara in the Citadel DLC, but then I would have had to put off Traynor's romance even longer, so I opted not to.

I thought Diana Allers was in there as she knew one of the people who made the game and so pushed herself into being put in the game. Not sure what her real life name was.

That whole scenario looked sketchy as all hell. A personality from one of the world's biggest video gaming websites with no prior voice acting experience (or talent, apparently) got a role in one of the biggest games of the year. Then IGN gave the game a 9.5/10. How did EA and IGN not see the conflict of interest there?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

That whole scenario looked sketchy as all hell. A personality from one of the world's biggest video gaming websites with no prior voice acting experience (or talent, apparently) got a role in one of the biggest games of the year. Then IGN gave the game a 9.5/10. How did EA and IGN not see the conflict of interest there?

Ethical journalism "humpf"

 

[SPCTRE]

Like I said, this was a save for doing things I had never done before.

Yeah, I guess I can see that from an efficiency standpoint.

Back when I had a lot of free time (which is to say, was neglecting my uni work), I would have insisted on doing these things in separate playthroughs (or in a pure Renegade playthrough, just to be an ass)*. These days, I'm glad if I can even finish a story.

*(I lost count of the number of my original ME playthroughs a long time ago)

 

[SPCTRE]

Ahh, good times.

 

[Reverend]

That whole scenario looked sketchy as all hell. A personality from one of the world's biggest video gaming websites with no prior voice acting experience (or talent, apparently) got a role in one of the biggest games of the year. Then IGN gave the game a 9.5/10. How did EA and IGN not see the conflict of interest there?

Ethical journalism "humpf"

Not so much of an issue as from what I gather (honestly not familiar with much of her work) she's more in-line with a TV presenter than an actual journalist.

I'm not sure presenters are even remotely expected to appear as being objective since their job is to essentially be a mouthpiece/spokesperson for whoever is hiring them. Either way, I'd class this more as a clumsily handled bit of stunt casting than any serious conflict of interest.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Ahh, good times.

Oh god I love this comic.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

And there's this one

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

WARNING Possible spoilers might follow. You are warned.




http://moviepilot.com/posts/3361218

The following images also suggest timeline spoilers. Posting as links only and not images.

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/im...ect-4-andromeda-mass-effect-timeli-491880.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/im...ect-4-andromeda-mass-effect-timeli-491881.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/im...ect-4-andromeda-mass-effect-timeli-491882.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/im...ect-4-andromeda-mass-effect-timeli-491887.jpg

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/im...ect-4-andromeda-mass-effect-timeli-491898.jpg



So does this mean Mass Effect 3 is now rendered irrelevant?