Mass Effect Romances

[Tsukiyumi]

So, I'm most of the way through Mass Effect 2, and frankly, I'm finding the lack of romance options disappointing. I'm playing as femshep, and the fact that you can't at least go after Jack is ridiculous. Also, the inability to carry on with more than one partner at a time seems immature and unrealistic to me.

No polyamorous or polyfidelitous people in the future? What, did Christians or Muslims take over the world sometime before 2183?

It seems lazy and close-minded to me.

[Mikey]

*ahem*

I am monogamous, and neither Christian nor Muslim. I'm not sure what that has to do with Mass Effect 2 - as I understand it, it's some sort of video game - but I'm just putting it out there.

[Tsukiyumi]

Christians and Muslims like telling other people how to live; thus the statement. How else would no-one in the future have that choice for a lifestyle? Some of the aliens in the game are polyamorous... but somehow you can't be, even with characters of that race. It'd be one thing if there were certain characters that it wouldn't work with, but it's all of them.

It seems to me that the writers of the game are supporters of the "one man, one woman" horseshit that's been trumpeted about continuously in American politics over the last few years.

[Mikey]

Christians and Muslims like telling other people how to live

Not too much of a gross over-generalization, there.

In any event, I doubt very much that the game developers were trying to make a statement with their choices of allowable relationships in the game. They were trying to sell games, nothing more; and one does that by, when such choices need to be made, adopting the choice that coincides with the characteristics of the majority a/o won't damage sales with the minority. That is, such limits on available relationship types in the game wouldn't (and didn't) prevent you from buying it; but it might prevent some fundamentalist dad in Alabama from letting his son buy it.

Another thought is the difficulty of portrayal. A video game is a limited tableau compared to real life, and any depiction of polyamory involved would very likely just come across as mere "sleeping around."

[stitch626]

Hate to spoil it for you but FemShep can go after Jack. Rather emotional scene too.

Can also go after Miranda, though not sure why you would want to.

Of course it seems everyone (party wise) in ME3 is bi, so everything goes out the window there.

[Tsukiyumi]

Good points. It still doesn't come across terribly realistic when one party (who isn't even present in ME2) can find out you've been seeing someone else behind their back. It ain't that easy in reality (usually you need to hire somebody like me), and it comes off almost like the game was written by people who don't date much...

[stitch626]

Ah, don't know about that yet, haven't actually played a full game using an old save.