WOW those sex scenes are...detailed and well done.

Don't deflect. You are literally putting words into people's mouths then following up with some kind of slur about...North America? (really?)




Hey, you're the one who's counter to my opinion is saying having this opinion means we are "f*cked in the head"



Thank you, I think I will.



You never did answer: how much shooting takes place in dating sims?

And how would you describe it if someone said "Asians are complete degenerates when it comes to sex?" or "Those dissolute Europeans are obsessed with sex"? Probably doesn't sound so nice, does it?



That violence is generally more readily accepted as entertainment? I totally accept this is the case.

Do I think that's necessarily a good thing? No. But by that I don't say "WE NEED MOAR BEWBS!" That is, as you say "F*cked in the head" I think violence should be toned down too.




Did Mass Effect ever sell itself on having sex scenes? They always tried to downplay romances as a minor addition. Heck this time around they refused to even say who the romances were before release, it had to be datamined by early access players.

Sorry, doesn't fly. I directly referenced the attitute towards media by a continent whose main unique feature is having no main unique feature (it's all multicultural, multiethnic, multieverything- well, except for "'Murica!", but that's a different issue). Don't try to make this some ethnic thing.

Now who's the strawman? No one said "we need more bewbs" (well, not in response to violence at any rate, unless "make love not war" counts). But freaking out that we have more bewbs and calling it gratuitous, porn or lolexhbitionism is ridiculous (and approaching "fucked in the head" levels if you legit preach the latter).

And this deflection of "oh I don't like violence either" sounds really thin by the way. How many times have I seen you decrying the sex scenes vs how many times with the violence? Even if you truly dislike both, that you go on about the sex more still suggests you find it worse than the violence, which is again mind-boggling to me, especially given the ratios (two min of sex vs how many hours of boom headshot?). I don't have to understand your opinion, but I will object if you judge others for theirs.

Are you kidding? Remember the ME1 controversy? The explosion of choices for romance in ME2, including paying up the ass for Yvonne Strahovski's likeness for the poster girl? Oh how about Pretty Good Banging™? It doesn't matter who the romances are, was there ever any doubt that there would be romances? That's pretty much ME's only unique selling point, apart from the dialogue wheel, which, you guessed it, is a means to the end of getting the banging on. Blah blah blah, BioWare characters you can get attached to, you know damn well this is the ultimate refined form of that. And people know it, they buy it, they eat it up despite disappointment after disappointment in other areas. But sure, go ahead and tell me that romances are marginalized, by design. They may make up less than a tenth of total game time in any one playthrough but their reach and importance is almost inversely proportional.

So no, upping the ante on sex scenes is not only appropriate, it's pretty much mandatory. Only downside is they couldn't/wouldn't do it across the board which means some people got shafted (or rather didn't) and now they have to deal with that. For the romances where they did offer a valid and fulfilling alternative, that seems like the best of both worlds for all.

I was just about to say, did I imagine #prettygoodbanging, three separate trailers showing three different love interests, devs emphasizing MEA would have more romance options than any previous BW game?

That anyone would consider this "downplaying of the romance aspect" is quite baffling.

I've also yet to hear an argument for downplaying sex and violence in a ME game that isn't just personal opinion stemming from the poster's own dislike of those elements.

This is sinking to below stupid.

I don't know if I can block a mod, but I intend to find out.

Oh it's been below stupid for some time. And I include myself in that for coming back to this discussion. I think we should have less srs bsns and more enjoyment out of threads, would you agree?

And you really shouldn't take everything so personally. Apart from a few outliers (and this thread notwithstanding of course) I find of lot of what you post quite reasonable and agreeable. Agree to disagree (on basis of preferences only)?

Fuck it, damn forum ate my reply again and this conversation stopped being entertaining days ago. Fact is, you have nothing to stand on besides "muh preference" which would be fine if it was just stated as such and that's it, instead of trying to categorically declare sexual content in media gratuitous everywhere.

"BioWare has the capability to not show sex"- fascinating, except you've said fuck all as to why they should go that route, except again for your preference, which has been logged, thank your for you input. Moving on...

Oh I don't know. Despite his views he seems a tad less prone to reading comprehension fails or bouts of buttannoyance. I'd say 7/10, would debate again.

You know, the hottest sex scene I've seen in a game wasn't even full on sex but a fade to black deal.

It was from Telltale's Batman.

The game itself was okay, not their best...but hot damn that sexual build up and hook-up scene at Catwoman's apartment got me flustered.

That's actually one of the reasons why I'm not a fan of explicit sex scenes in games.

And sometimes it really wrecks my role-play.

Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree. If you want to try to make a case for the possible existence of a "societal trend" toward squeamishness when no individuals possess said squeamishness, have at it.  Ditto with the double standards.

People make the comparison between sex and portrayals of graphic violence because an argument can made that either one isn't always necessary to telling a story, but usually only the former generates complaints. There is a bit of a double-standard, and it does tie into people being more squeamish about portrayals of sex and nudity than they are portrayals of violence.

(And actually, none of this is new. Such accusations have been around for quite awhile, in various forms, and I'm really, really tired of seeing them.)


Uh... really?

Scientific theories start with stated assumptions, and then data is collected to prove or disprove them. I find that it generally works better to avoid making assumptions about other people's internal attitudes, motives, and the like, because that way lies a world of misunderstandings and the birth of -isms and -phobias and the like.


Then you've changed your tune.




I don't see any reason to repeat the definition of the word, but I will say that it depends upon the goal of your creation. Editors frequently have to deal with cutting or padding content to fill the available space. Sometimes they re-sequence content or add a scene/chapter/paragraph (or several) if they think that's needed to convey meaning. Other times, they'll cut perfectly good content because they decide it's superfluous (gratuitous) and doesn't add anything to the whole.  One thing I noticed the first time I played any of MET on PC (I originally played it on PS3) is that some of the cutscenes started with somewhat longer establishment shots.  They probably snipped here and there to make it work better on console.


Yep. I've been pretty astonished by some of your replies to me.  It took me awhile to figure out that you were putting value judgements on words, which led to some of the accusations you made.