Screenshot Thursday! featuring Garrus Vakarian and Kaliya Shepard

Garrus Vakarian gets more love.  And why shouldn’t he! This weeks contributions to Screenshot Thursday! comes from Sable Rhapsody on the BSN. Thank you for sharing your beautiful Shepard and her dashing vigilante!

A council Spectre, through and through, Kaliya Shepard learned the hard knocks in life back on Earth. However, her survival on Akuze taught her what it really meant to be deadly.  Keeping others at arms length was her general MO, but a certain “scarred” turian has learned to bridge that gap.  Whether taking down mercs or killing collectors, this uncompromising couple have each others backs.  And remember…….there is always time for a glass of wine.

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Quote of the Week #20

In preparation for this week’s Focus Friday, our survey commenters’ thoughts on Kaidan Alenko will be highlighted.  Comments on Kaidan ran the gamut from loving his romance and character, to finding him boring, to irritation at his accusations of FemShep “cheating”. And, though some felt it was out of character to make him bisexual for the third game, many were thrilled with the opportunity to romance this soft-spoken biotic, with a male Shepard.

Here is a sampling of some of those expressed thoughts:

“Kaidan’s romance was really good and quality-wise I have no complaints, but once you get him back to the Normandy there were almost no dialogues with him, even less romance-related ones. Would also have liked more battlefield flirting and more unique dialogues if you stayed loyal to him.”

“I appreciated making Kaidan finally romance-able to male Shepards, and Steve was great, but their romances felt short and I’d love to develop their relationships and maybe even have Kaidan address why they couldn’t have gotten together back in ME1.”

“The worst was when he brought up Garrus, when he asked if there ‘was’ something between us. My Shepard at best had the option to act flustered and say, “Oh, I was so confused after Horizon.” While she is sorry if she hurt him, she’s definitely not confused and she didn’t pursue Garrus out of confusion. Would highly prefer the option to unambiguously say, ‘Garrus was there for me, and it’s serious now. I’m sorry if I hurt you.’ None of this flustered damsel stuff, please! :)”

“Kaidan shouldn’t have been made bisexual, when he never expressed himself that way in the previous installments.”

Romances as Side Dishes

Over this past weekend David Gaider, a BioWare writer for the Dragon Age series, wrote in his personal blog about romances in video games.  Not unexpectedly, this was quickly followed by the online zine Eurogamer.net, featuring a related article that highlighted much of what was contained in Mr. Gaider’s post.  Considering how infrequently romantic content of video games makes it into the news, and Cosmic Love’s focus on romance-related content (specifically those in BioWare’s Mass Effect series, in particular Mass Effect 3) we found this post and subsequent article to be of interest. While our reactions may vary in part, n7petiole and myself (coldwetn0se), wanted to take the opportunity to chime in on this topic. Below we summarize our reactions to specific quoted material excised from the original blog, and to make this as easy as possible to follow, we have used different colors to highlight each of our responses (n7petiole, coldwetn0se). We should also note that sarahmann62380 approves of this discussion, though did not have the time needed to add her own thoughts to this post.

“A friend of mine and I had a discussion regarding romances in Dragon Age. He said he had a problem with the fact that not all of the companions were romanceable, stating that there should be some way to, not necessarily on the same playthrough, convince every member of your party to have some manner of relations. I stated that it wasn’t feasible because of the effort required, and the sacrifices to other gameplay aspects it would cause. In a perfect world, though, would you even condone this?” — mrbob0822

The quote above was the question posed to David Gaider, and was the impetus for this particular post on his blog. What struck us first and foremost, is that Mr. Gaider’s opinion and response to this question is, of course, shaped by his perspective as a writer for these games.  But does his position as a writer divorce him from the player’s view? Can he also see the story through the eyes of a player who experiences it for the first time in game?

Monday Musing | Tune in Tomorrow……

Greetings!  The Monday Musing will be completed and posted Tuesday, January 15th.  A blog post from BioWare writer, David Gaider, has come to our attention.  We at Cosmic Love would like to weigh in our reactions to his comments on romance in video games.  His blog post can be found here, and the article on Eurogamer.net relating to his blog, can be read here.

Thank you all for your continued viewership, and see you tomorrow!

50,000 hits!

Well, who would have thought?

One hundred and fifteen (or so) posts later, the Cosmic Love blog has officially made it to 50,000 hits.

Thanks, Romance DLC fans.  We couldn’t do this without you!

EuroGamer Article on BioWare Romances

Good Morning Romance DLC fans!

There’s an interesting article out in EuroGamer this morning that takes a look at a post David Gaider recently made on his blog.  The article is a good read, but the blog piece linked within is obviously more complete and insightful.

What do you think about David Gaider’s blog post?

Focus Friday | Thane Krios, Part 3

Today we bring you the final portion, Part 3, of our Focus Friday series on Thane Krios.  In our first two posts we covered player reaction to how Thane’s romance was handled in Mass Effect 3, followed by the “cure debate” and opinions regarding his lack of recruitment.  In this last post we’ll wrap things up by examining player response to how his death was handled in ME3.  This will be followed by a brief summary where we pull together related portions from all 3 posts, and then speculate what steps BioWare could take to end the debate.

For the last time, here are the statements which correspond to Thane’s section of the survey,with those highlighted in green covered in this post:

• I was satisfied with the quantity of content in the romance.
• I was satisfied with the quality of content in the romance.
• I want the option to cure Thane’s Kepral’s Syndrome.
• I want the option to recruit Thane to the Normandy.
• There should be additional scenes and dialogue with a romanced Thane.
• The death scene should have a more visible impact on Shepard, if she romanced Thane.
• Crew members should acknowledge Thane’s death.
• I have other comments.

Screenshot Thursday! featuring Steve Cortez and Don Juan Shepard

We finally have screenies featuring one of Mass Effect’s newest love interests; Steve Cortez!  Thanks to @mnomaha on the BSN, for her contribution of our favorite shuttle pilot and his dreamy Shepard.

This hunky Shepard may be a long way from Mindoir, but Don Juan Shepard is no “lost soul”.  Not since meeting his co-pilot for life, Steve Cortez.  Flying into the danger zone with Combat Armor activated, Cerberus and reapers alike best beware of this Shepard’s prowess.  Diplomacy in one hand, and an M-12 Locust in the other, paints a perfect picture of a man worthy of the Star of Terra. Fight on for your “flyboy”, Don Juan!

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Quote of the Week #19

Liara T’Soni has the largest number of romancers, and many saw her romantic content as fulfilling and satisfying.  But some were quite vocal about the lack of relationship specific dialogue.  Feeling as though they had to keep reaffirming their Shepards’ intent with Liara.  Here are some of those comments:

“I would love if Liara (romanced) would express her feelings towards Shepard more like Tali does.”

“I feel like Liara didn’t show her love until towards the end of the game I wanted her to show her feelings towards Shepard from the start and I was disappointed that Liara tried to friendzone Shepard on the Citadel.”

“While I liked the romance, it seemed that too much of Liara’s interactions occurred whether or not she was romanced. I’d like some original content please.”

Character Spotlight | Love Fest!

Coming back from the holidays, we find ourselves a tad shy on Character Spotlights from our fabulous readers.  So today, I have designed a tribute to the characters we have been discussing.  I encourage all of you who just want to “express the love”, to add a sentence or two via comments.  And, should the spirit move you, signup to be a guest blogger for the Character Spotlight, and gush to your hearts content about the Love Interest of your choice. On with the Love!

“If you expect me to get into a tinfoil miniskirt and some thigh-high boots, I want dinner first. Sir.” – Ashley Williams Mass Effect

Ashley Williams caught my attention immediately upon meeting her. Believeable soldier, tough but anxious and fighting with survivors guilt. Her strong will and sharp wit made her a unique character that I truly wanted to learn more about. She quotes poetry, and sticks giant guns in the faces of Krogans, Geth and any other badasses set to impede her duty. What’s not to love!

“When you put it that way, there’s no reason they wouldn’t like you. I mean us. Humans. Ma’am.” Kaidan Alenko Mass Effect

Quipping with Joker in the beginning scenes of Mass Effect, put a smile on my face.  Recognizing at once, how much thought and care the writers put towards making this ship, this crew feel “alive”.  Kaidan’s warm nature and somewhat tragic past, made me want to reach out and give him a hug.  Throw in a great set of talents and skills, and this loveable biotic was a very well balanced teammate.  All clear, Commander.