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Defiance Reviews: “Goodbye Blue Sky” and “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” + New Articles

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Holy long blog title, Batman! I’ve gotten a bit behind in my Defiance reviews with all the big news lately, so let’s get to it.

Review: Goodbye Blue Sky:

A promotional image for DefianceIt’s rainin’ men!

No, wait, it’s actually raining giant jagged chunks of flaming metal. That’s much more dangerous, and almost as messy.

“Goodbye Blue Sky” sees Defiance and the local band of Spirit Riders hit by razor rain. Much like the Hellbugs, razor rain is exactly as fun as it sounds, so all members of Defiance have to take shelter in whatever building is nearby when the storm hits. In a town with as much intrigue as Defiance, that can lead to a lot of tense situations.

Meanwhile, something terrible befalls the Spirit Rider Sukar, ultimately leading Irisa to embrace the Irathient faith in earnest, which puts her on a collision course with Nolan.

Mostly, this was a good episode. It did suffer from some shaky writing. A few lines of dialogue just didn’t sound right, and there were too many plots going on at once. Irisa’s plot was very tense, as was the McCawleys’, and these stories could have easily carried the episode. We didn’t need the lovers’ quarrel between Alak Tarr and Christie McCawley, nor the rather pointless diversion with Stahma and Kenya.

However, Irisa is growing on me. She seemed a little more balanced this time around. She still had her bouts of screaming, crying, and threatening to go all Cuisinart on people, but she had some more sedate moments, as well.

The town of DefianceI am enjoying this whole “chosen by God” angle they’ve got going with her. I’m suspicious of when sci-fi starts getting all mystical, and it could end up getting silly, but for now, it’s an enjoyable mystery, and there’s no guarantee they’ll pull a Battlestar Galactica and just end up saying “a wizard did it.” So I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

It’s also interesting to see her relationship with Nolan evolve as she drifts ever closer to her own people and away from him.

Also, I’m really starting to appreciate how deliciously evil Nicky is. And Rafe McCawley’s getting pretty badass, too.

These musical montages at the end of every episode really need to die a grizzly death, though. I hated them in Stargate: Universe, and I hate them in Defiance.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

Review: I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times:

I feel like I shouldn’t have liked this episode as much as I did. It was, by almost any standard, filler. Even the few new revelations we did get aren’t likely to have major ramifications.

The cast of DefianceBut yet I think this might just be my favourite episode to date.

“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” picks up immediately after the previous episode with Nolan investigating the Arkfall diverted by Sukar. There, he finds something unexpected: a human astronaut from the year 2013, Gordon McClintock (played by Brian J. Smith of Stargate: Universe), who has apparently been in suspended animation on the Arkship for the last several decades.

This raises all sorts of questions about Votan activity before the Pale Wars and threatens to heighten tensions between the Earth Republic and the Votanis Collective, especially as it becomes clear the astronaut is not entirely what he seems to be.

However, for all the political implications of this, this episode is really a pretty personal story. It’s about McClintock’s struggle to cope with the new world and his new life.

It’s a pretty cliche story, and anyone who’s watched a lot of sci-fi TV will find it familiar. It is also, as I said, largely filler with minimal implications to the greater storyline of the series.

But despite all that, it works surprisingly well. Maybe it’s just because I like Brian J. Smith as an actor, but I found the story very touching and heartfelt.

Datak Tarr (Tony Curran) in DefianceThe regular cast members had good moments to shine, too. Rafe McCawley, in particular, hit it out of the park this time around. I’m really starting to appreciate that character.

It also helps that things felt less scattered than usual. As is always the case with Defiance, there’s a lot going on in this episode, but most of it ties together logically. The one major tangent, and my only major complaint with the episode, was the continued story with Stahma Tarr and Kenya Rosewater, which I’m still finding pretty dull.

It’s funny. I have nothing against Kenya as a character, and I have no issue with Mia Kirshner’s acting, but every plot she’s involved in just bores me to death for some reason. Coincidence, perhaps.

My only other nit to pick would be the last 30 seconds, which can be summarized as, “Quick! Drop everything for a totally random tie-in with the game!”

Still, overall, I’d say that “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” is probably the best episode of Defiance to date. There’s something to be said for taking something simple and just doing it well.

Overall rating: 7.9/10

New articles:

I’ve got a few more articles up at WhatMMO. The first is 6 Best MMOs for Story. No one who knows me should be surprised by what hit #1.

The second is Top 6 MMO Enemies. Always with the spiders…

Mass Effect: Better Late Than Never + New Article

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If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you’ll recall that I bought the original Mass Effect many moons ago but was unable to play due to compatibility issues with Windows 7. This enraged me and nearly soured me on Bioware’s games permanently, but I did finally get around to playing the later games in the series.

Saren Arterius in Mass EffectThat left me wondering what the original was like, so when I got my new computer, I decided to see if I could get it working. And to my surprise, I was able to.

I’m not sure why I wasn’t able to on the old computer. The fix I used was a little convoluted to execute, but it was not hard to find, and I can’t believe I wouldn’t have found it before. Maybe the fix to get it working on Windows 7 hadn’t been released yet when I looked the first time?

Anyway, the point is I was able to play through the original Mass Effect without issues.

I’m not quite sure how to rate this game. If I had to describe it in a word, it would be, “wonky.” Not bad, per se. Just wonky.

Firstly, the game reeks of “console port” in the worst way possible. It’s blatantly obvious the control scheme was not originally designed with the PC in mind, so it’s sloppy and awkward at the best of times.

There are also a lot of weird mechanics that just… don’t feel right. For instance, the overheat mechanic just feels weird in comparison to a more traditional reload option. And why the bloody hell does Shepard move so slowly?

The Prothean ruins of Ilos in Mass EffectThe pacing is all over the map, too. Much of the character development and optional content is front-loaded onto the first half of the game. As a result, the early parts of the game feel too slow, and the last half feels too rushed.

Mass Effect does feel a bit more like a game, and not a “choose your adventure” novel, than the later installments, but not necessarily in a good way. The gameplay of later ME titles may be shallow and minimalistic, but at least it’s functional. Aside from the issues I’ve already mentioned, the original is bogged down by a lot of what I like to call “RPG BS.”

For instance, this time around, I rolled a class primarily based on fighting with a sniper rifle. But it took me until at least halfway through the game to train up my sniper rifle skill to the point where it was actually useful for anything.

I can’t believe idiotic mechanics like this ever existed in the first place, let alone that they didn’t die the death they so richly deserve back in the ’90s.

I do try to make allowances for the game’s age, but even so, there’s a lot about Mass Effect that just feels awkward and… indefinably wrong somehow.

It was disappointingly short, too. At least the later games were pretty meaty in the content they offered. I blew through this one in just a few days.

My new Shepard in Mass EffectBut don’t let all those complaints give you the impression I didn’t like the game. It still had a lot going for it. The story, while occasionally inconsistent, is pretty good, and it has all the great character development I’ve come to expect from the Mass Effect series.

I found it interesting to see how the characters had changed and evolved since the beginning. I’m inclined to say that Tali and Wrex changed the most as time went on, while Garrus changed the least. Shoot ’em all and let the spirits sort ’em out, eh, Garrus?

Liara actually displayed some personality this time around, even if it was just that of the blushing damsel in distress waiting to be swept off her feet by Shepard. She’s still easily the least interesting squad member, in my view.

Some missions suffered from pacing issues, but a few were very fun. The Virmire mission is definitely going down as one of the better moments from the entire trilogy.

This game feels a bit more organic than the later installments, too. The maps are a bit bigger and less linear, and I much prefer the elevator rides to endless load screens.

I’m going to do a full play-through of all three games in order, making all different choices this time around. I’ve only played one class and made mostly the same choices so far, so I’m going to try to be as different as possible this time. For instance, I’ve only ever played the later games with Ashley, so this time I chose to save Kaidan. Turns out he’s a pretty cool guy, but I still think I might like Ashley slightly better.

The Battle of the Citadel in Mass EffectI feel like I should go full renegade this time since I only ever play paragon, but I just never enjoy being the bad guy. I also considered being a male Shepard this time around, but I still really dislike that guy’s voice acting. And it doesn’t really make much of a difference anyway. Male Shepard gets better romance options, but it’s not worth putting up with his monotone for three games.

I’ll probably do another post on my thoughts on the series as a whole once I complete the play through.

New article:

My latest article at ADANAI is Gamer Demographics Dispel Stereotypes.

Yes, girls do, in fact, play video games. In large numbers.