Except that Dragon Age: Origins had several (impactful) grey-area moral choices, and was a pretty good story.
It's funny, when I seeor ehar people talk about cliche's, I usually have no idea what they're talking about, because if when all you see when you play Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins is "evil things are trying to kill be because they're EVIL hurr durr" then probably shouldn't be playing videogames at all. There's a reason the Reapers are trying to kill the galaxy, and there's a reason the Darkspawn are trying to wreck all of Thedas' collective sh*t, and if you can't be bothered to figure out why then don't make threads about how storytelling is doing downhill. I find it astounding when people forget that games are made to have fun (we're on a site called the Escapist of all things), and instead try to psycho-analyze games or stories or characters that exist purely for the enjoyment of the player. You know what? Space Marine's story and characters were pretty flat, but it was a damn fun game. Games are about escapism and fun, not Graduate-level Psychology studies.
More on the subject of writing, every story boils down to something completely one-dimensional when you strip all the nuances away. Everything. Sometimes, you also get a completely different story when you do that. I remember one PSM (this was like six years ago) where they took the plots of several games and boiled them down into the most basic plot, and they all became cliche'd and actually the opposite of what the story is actually about. The point is when you boil a plot down to "They're evil because they are" you strip out everything else that makes it interesting. Now, some games are simply this and have terrible stories and characters, but games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins have a boatload of nuances to the stories that set them apart.
If you are going to say ANYTHING about how stories have become "cliche" or just badly done, talk about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
It's funny, when I seeor ehar people talk about cliche's, I usually have no idea what they're talking about, because if when all you see when you play Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins is "evil things are trying to kill be because they're EVIL hurr durr" then probably shouldn't be playing videogames at all. There's a reason the Reapers are trying to kill the galaxy, and there's a reason the Darkspawn are trying to wreck all of Thedas' collective sh*t, and if you can't be bothered to figure out why then don't make threads about how storytelling is doing downhill. I find it astounding when people forget that games are made to have fun (we're on a site called the Escapist of all things), and instead try to psycho-analyze games or stories or characters that exist purely for the enjoyment of the player. You know what? Space Marine's story and characters were pretty flat, but it was a damn fun game. Games are about escapism and fun, not Graduate-level Psychology studies.
More on the subject of writing, every story boils down to something completely one-dimensional when you strip all the nuances away. Everything. Sometimes, you also get a completely different story when you do that. I remember one PSM (this was like six years ago) where they took the plots of several games and boiled them down into the most basic plot, and they all became cliche'd and actually the opposite of what the story is actually about. The point is when you boil a plot down to "They're evil because they are" you strip out everything else that makes it interesting. Now, some games are simply this and have terrible stories and characters, but games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins have a boatload of nuances to the stories that set them apart.
If you are going to say ANYTHING about how stories have become "cliche" or just badly done, talk about Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
