Unpopular opinions

Well... the first 3 are. By AFFC, Martin is getting increasingly sidetracked with the small stories and exposition. Not that AFFC or ADWD are bad, but, AGOT, ACOK, and ASOS are better. 

More unpopular opinions of mine:
- All the romances suck

- In Mass Effect 2, the Katana is a good gun

- In Mass Effect 2, the Shuriken is a good gun

- In Mass Effect 2, the Vindicator is better than the Revenant

- Grunt is a terrible character that only becomes likeable in the Citadel DLC

- Garrus is poor character that only becomes decent in Mass Effect 3

- Tali was never a good character

- Jacob is not boring (bland maybe, but not boring)



Not sure if these opinions of mine are unpopular opinions:
- Garrus is a useless squadmate in Mass Effect 1

- Tali is a useless squadmate in Mass Effect 1

- Biotics/the Adept are not gimped in Mass Effect 2 (not sure how popular/unpopular this opinion is)

I don't really like Shadow Broker dlc. I play it for the goodies (and so Shep isn't even more clueless in 3) but I don't care about Liara and what she went through the last 2 yrs. My unwritten head-canon Shep, who considered her a best friend in 1, ends up hating her in 2/3 because she feels betrayed by what Liara did (and, even more importantly, didn't do).

Good to see I'm not the only who didn't like the broker dlc

Anyways. This is what I posted about the dlc including a renegade version on BSN

I agree with your weapon choices in ME2, particularly about the Vindicator... great weapon for a precise shooter.

You know, for some unknown reason, I've never really given the Mattock a good tryout.  Guess I like the Vindicator too much.

I wish the trilogy had ended in a Galactical War between the species rather than the good, old galaxy under threat from Giant-Unbeatables-Aliens/AIs-Of-Doom. Let me explain why.

Balak had hinted at thousands of Batarians being trained to become terrorists and kick humans out of their system. What if the Hegemony started a massive attack on human colonies in several systems while being supported by other races in secret who had interests in such colonies? The Alliance would have to deal with the threat and seek allies. Shepard would lead the fight, of course. Even alongside other Captains and Commanders, giving us a chance of knowing other remarkable officers.

(After Saren, it gets pretty boring to know Shepard is the ONLY Alliance officer to be considered a hero, you know. Too much worship.)

The turians could have a major disagreement with the asari for whatever reason and that would dissolve the Council. That would spawn the Galactic War. Alliances would be formed. Salarians could side with the asari because "reproductive reasons". Turians would then demand humans back them up and we would finally see the so-called biggest military fleet of the galaxy in action.

The krogan would take advantage of the state of political infighting and sell themselves as mercenaries to the winning side. Because krogan are tough in the battlefield, turians and asari would dispute the buying of krogan soldiers.

In order to gain the loyalty of all krogan, the asari would insist the salarians develop the cure to the genphage. The salarian military and political elite would then be divided on this matter and that would cause a rupture in the asari-salarian alliance.

At some point, the quarians could join the fight after one of the sides offers to help them in their private war against the geth and in retaking their homeworld. The Admiralty Board would split in three factions: Xen leading research on the geth to turn them into their slaves, Korris vying for peace with the geth and trying to stop Xen and Han Gerrel at all costs and finally Han Gerrel accepting to join one of the two major Galactic Alliances in order to get support in the war against the geth.

In a galaxy where all species are depleting their resources in an ever-expanding war, humanity could be the counterpoint that prevents mutual destruction...or ensures it happens.



The prospect of there being an all-out war with quick-forming Alliances, much like World War I and II sounds much more exciting to me. Instead, we got to be introduced to all these species - turians, salarians, asari, krogan, batarians - and we barely learned anything about their culture, their way of life, their artistic expression (music, theatre, literature). Instead, the Milky Way is a galaxy where everyone speaks English, everyone shares a general mindset, similar philosophies of life, similar economies, etc.

When Balak said the Batarians were a beautiful race, I kept asking myself: when in the entire trilogy did I get to have the opportunity to know whether they were indeed a beautiful race or not? How did we see the Turian homeworld? A dark planet in flames. What about the Salarian homeworld? Again, only visible in the last game, and we only visited ONE building. The rest was landscape.

Oh,but we did see Illium. Ok, and we did see Thessia. Only Thessia was again only available in the last game. And Illium was an international business hub kind of world. It was a general model of an ultra-advanced, high-tech city.

Hell, we got to see more of Tuchanka than any other homeworld. And Tuchanka is a pile of radioactive rubble. We even saw more of Omega - A LOT MORE -, which is basically a hideout for criminals, than of anywhere else. An all-out war, comprised of many local wars would have been an opportunity for Shepard to visit many places in the Milky Way (Exploration). The ever-growing tense political situation would spawn many creative, well-written dialogues. Squadmates loyalty could fluctuate and change depending on who you side with or whose interests you defend.


And more importantly, such a complex evolving situation could TRULY spawn MANY DIFFERENT ENDINGS, something which ME3 sorely lacked.

Humanity could either come out on top after the species razed their infrastructure to the ground and spent all their military might, with powerful allies, with strange bedfellows, completely isolated (too many betrayals will do that) or worse: with Earth destroyed by the Batarian terrorists and whoever else took advantage of humanity's inability to summon allies and conterattack the threat.

Alas, none of that came to be. Instead, we got [Harbinger's deep-throated voice] Reapers. Thanks, Bioware.

Sansa is great last season.

---

DragonEffect I would love that too but I guess its better written in tv series format rather than games. Now that Andromeda focus itself on exploring other new world and newer threats, I don't see any of this will be realized.

Much of the themes in the games is a derivation from other popular scifi shows but less expanded. The whole melting pot of culture and alien civilization and politics in Citadel Space was derived on Babylon 5. The whole AI versus organics is based on Battlestar Galactica. Space militarism and alien bugs, Starship Trooper. Aliens talking in English, Asari and a ship full of alien misfits, being stuck in the middle of a war between species, you have the knowledge of ancient race etc, Farscape. And many more...

But I think this is the exact reason why they're too hesitant to expand further without being utterly copyist. Not that a compilation of Scifi greatest hits is that bad. But Krogan and genophage and its politics is probably the only thing I considered original.

They hinted Human-Batarian conflict several times in the game. Shepard's personal history, Bring Down The Sky DLC, Arrival DLC, Balak thing again. Post-Arrival Shepard would still be in limbo if ME3 hadn't started with the reapers utterly decimating the Batarian Hegemony.

The reason I pointed it out is because there are also Garrusmancers who criticize him for his black and white viewpoint and will have Shepards that argue the entire way with him about enforcing a "damn the consequences so long as it gets results mentality". I haven't seen a Garrusmancer say that it's ok to oppress others, nor that every word from Garrus' mouth is gold. Neither have I seen a Garrusmancer say you can't dislike him. We debate because your reasons for hating him was for reasons not considered canon.
So if I speak up, it's because I disagree with why you believe people are debating with you on Garrus. Not all of us, if there's any, are blind to his flaws.

I remember this thread. Okay, here's a few of mine:

--Asari are the most boring and uninspired race in the series. I been seeing various interpretations of elves for years. Making them all female and putting them in space doesn't help at all.

--Pistols are the best weapon in ME1.

--Thane has gone from tragic to boring to irritating for me as the years have gone by. It's nothing against the Thanemancers, but I'm having less patience with his rambling about dying, why he isn't a bad guy and his wife's death. I tend to skip most of the conversations with him.

--Kaidan is a more interesting character than Ash.

--The batarians should have not been the first to be attacked by the Reapers.  That should have been the volus.

I probably have more later, but the Kindle needs charging so I'm going into Mod Lurk Mode.

I think this opinion may not be as unpopular as you think. Many people think the Reapers and their "unstoppable except by space magic" nature was a major problem for the story, and they have a point.

Personally, I don't think I'd have liked the "standard war story" setup you favor, because of the lack of a mysterious and unexplained element we need to decipher. I highly prefer SF where there are new mysteries of the universe to decipher, but I agree the Reapers were not a very good example because their nature created too many storytelling constraints and their abomination aesthetic suggested there was nothing worthwhile to uncover about them and they were best destroyed without thinking.