IPMM 80: Let’s Talk About Sex

Hi — huge Bioware geek, so sorry, but to clear up some things:

ME1

Only three romance options here. Two heterosexual human ones, and Liara who is available for either playable gender. You all seem to have a much more favourable stance on the whole “single gender species even though they all look like human women and perform human femininity” thing than I do. Personally I kind of saw it as a bit of a cop-out.

ME2:

ME2 was kind of crazy — SIX straight LIs, three for dudeshep (1/3 aliens), three for femshep (2/3 aliens).
– With Jack, you seem to have remembered it backwards. You actually just flatout cannot complete a romance with her if you’re a renegade. She’ll have a one night stand with you, but that’s it. Basically you’ll remind her of herself, so she won’t trust you. You can only actually romance her with a paragon dudeshep, which some people have some kind of critical interpretations on (won’t really get into that here).
– Tali is pretty enthusiastic about having sex with Shepard, from what I’ve seen? Like, she’s up front about the risks and takes every reasonable precaution she can. I can’t necessarily speak to that from first hand experience, though — I’ve never played ME2 with a male Shepard. Just from videos I’ve watched and second hand accounts.
– Kelley Chambers, the ship’s psychiatrist/your yeoman is actually a pansexual love interest. Just, the game kind of treats her romance as being less valid than the others (no “romance complete!” achievement, starting any other just overrides it), which sends a pretty… icky message. She’s there, though, a person who is indisputably a woman who is romanceable by femshep.
– If you were in a relationship with Liara last game and didn’t cheat on her, there actually is an implied sex scene in Liara’s DLC. Again, both genders.
– What you seem to be thinking of with “you die if you’re a lesbian” is Morinth, a character I’m going to say most players aren’t even going to get, because to recruit her you need to murder one of your companions in cold blood ostensibly for no reason (most ham-handed “moral choice” of the whole series). She’s an asari with a medical condition where she kills anyone she bonds with, and after you beat the game she might try to convince you to have sex with her (if you fall for it you get a game over screen).

ME3 didn’t really come up here, but there it’s actually heterosexual femshep who gets screwed over the most — one of her possible existing LIs straight up leaves her, another one dies (in a great scene, but still). Straight dudeshep doesn’t need to worry about that. There are two new exclusively gay LIs, and gay dudeshep actually gets some love, finally. Really polarising game, but for me it hit a lot of emotional notes.

DAO:

– Not a lot to add here, but it’s worth noting that Stone Prisoner, the golem DLC you mentioned, actually comes free with every new purchase. So unless you bought the game used or pirated it, you could have installed it without paying anything extra.

DAII

Easily the most polarising thing Bioware has ever made. Honestly I liked it more than Origins, because it cared more about the things I care the most about (characters).

– In DAII, 5/9 of your companions are possible love interests. 4/5 of those are romanceable by both playable genders. The fifth is DLC only, and celibate so a female PC can romance him, but not actually have sex ever.
– Unlike in the first Dragon Age game, there are essentially two romances for all of those 5; a “friendship” one where you agree a lot and get along great, and a “rivalry” one where you… don’t so much.
– “Paragon, Renegade and Clown”, while humorous, is kind of an oversimplification of DAII’s dialogue system. Unlike Mass Effect, DAII doesn’t actually put a values judgement on its conversation options. The blue/green options, for example, are Diplomatic/Helpful. While at first glance these just seem like “good guy” options, in practise what they represent in your interpersonal relationships is basically you telling your companions what they want to hear or encouraging their behavior and existing beliefs. Which is not necessarily a good thing in all circumstances — for example, picking those options with Fenris very often puts you in the position of at least tacitly supporting an abuse victim’s irrational near-genocidal-hate for mages, despite mages being an oppressed minority in the country he’s currently living in. Only picking those options for Anders, conversely, puts you in a position of supporting his increasingly dangerous and militant pro-mage efforts, and you can actually become literally complicit in some… let’s say “morally questionable” activity around endgame which you might not personally agree with.
– Rather than being “renegade”, the red options, Aggressive/Direct, are just you being really blunt and calling people out on your shit as often as they are you being a rude asshole. Like, if you personally believe that Merrill should stop using blood magic, red options are how you tell her that. (Whether or not Merrill knows what she’s doing perfectly well is kind of left up to the player to decide, and can be debated either way — again, not getting into it here, she’s a pretty complicated character). Upping your Aggressive/Direct personality value is the only way to avoid some fights too, because that’s what lets you intimidate people.
– Sarcastic/Charming, the purple options, involve you either being a glib smartass and employing occasional (and possibly insincere) flattery. What’s actually really interesting is comparing it that to the other two — usually these options don’t actually net any kind of relationship change (with some exceptions). If you pick a lot of purple options, what you actually end up doing is avoiding taking a serious stance on important issues and refusing any kind of open emotional investment. Best purple quote in the entire game, I think, is an option you get after a really terrible personal tragedy hits your character.

Aveline: How are you holding up?
Player Character (Charm): “I’ve got a smile on my face, don’t I? That seems to be enough for most people.”
Aveline: Not for me.

(which is also a prime example of how great a character Aveline is as well).

Okay, that got way longer than I meant it to, sorry if this comment seems like obnoxious fangirling. I just find some of these topics really interesting and its hard to shut up about them once I get going.