The biggest problem with Mass Effect's dialogue

I don't know, I think that, in a round about way, the Citadel DLC might have done more damage to the franchise in the long run than the endings to ME 3 did.

Sure the endings were terrible, and narratively/coherently divorced from what came prior but at least BioWare got the unequivocal and almost universal response that, by and large, the endings sucked.

With the Citadel, they looked at it and the overwhelming "popularity" surrounding it and walked away with the mindset that everything else should try and emulate it. The idea that forced campiness trumps a nuanced story, that constant quips and one-liners spilling out of 2 dimensional cardboard cutouts beats having characters with depth or a story with a consistent sense of urgency; given the main plot hook. Etc.

Even more than that, it seems that the biggest 'lesson' they took away from the Citadel DLC (IMO) was that no one actually wants to see a nuanced science fiction story, or a narrative with a focus on discovering the unknown, of finding those things that are inherently different from us. No, they think that we would all rather have the vague overtones of a sci-fi story, namely space ships and laser guns, as a subdued backdrop to a story about cutting it up with your goofy friends. It was cringe inducing how much more emphasis, and in-game time was devoted to gathering those ingredients for Movie Night over stopping the Archon, or trying to study the Remnant.

It's a bit more in depth than that.

It's not like the MET didn't incorporate jokes during "serious" moments.

In ME2, no one complained when the Collectors boarded the Normandy SR2 and we got to take control of Joker. As I recall, that was a pretty heavy situation, but Joker still cracked jokes.

That does happen the second time, which underlines her increase in authority.


Do people even play this game?

I'm beginning to wonder.

That scene worked for me. It was about as goofy as one of the more cringe-worthy scenes from Girls; though I wouldn't say it was as good, I thought what they were trying to do was fine.

The car chase and trying to hack the door immediately come to mind.

Some of the banter was funny, the part where you're overriding the door and Liara and says remember the good ol days when you could just slap Omni Gel on everything for example.  However, the overall theme of the DLC was serious to me.

So two minutes tops out of what? 3 hours? Jam packed with action and a never before seen side of Liara.

You can insert humor at certain times, that doesn't mean that everything has to be humorous. It fitted the Citadel DLC like a glove although I cringed at certain attempts at humor there too.

I guess it depends what we're going for.  Are we going for Adan Sandler, Will Ferrell type of comedy?  If so, then yeah it fits. 

But that just doesn't fit the overall story to me.  Your entire Initiative plan has gone to total crap, and now you have to pivot and quickly come up with alternative solutions to find a place for everyone to live or the Initiative fails, and thousands of people either die or never get out of cryo.  Not to mention if the reapers actually come, the continuity of MW races as a whole is riding on this.

How exactly does lighthearted fit this?  If Andromeda was already established and you and some friends were exploring the new galaxy trying to see where you fit in, then lighthearted definitely fits that.

Why? A big part of the initial stage of the game is the underlying (and rather pessimistic) belief that Ryder isn't cut out for the job, and even his own team - some of which are colleagues he's trained with and know his level of competence - are unsure of his suitability. Giving him the ability to go all Joffery Baratheon on his team when he realistically hasn't earned their respect would have come across a bit odd, at least.

Ironically this is one of the things I enjoyed in particular about MEA. The OT is still my personal videogames pinnacle but I'd be lying if I said that starting off as some already grizzled badass that everyone deferred to didn't make me wish I'd seen some of Shep's rise. Hell, that was one the best things about DAO.

How much screen time those two parts got? How long was the DLC? Do you really consider those less than five minutes long bits as the set tone now?

Talk about reaching.