Mass Effect: Lair of the Shadow Broker

So, Lair of the Shadow Broker has been released, I've played it, what do I think?

Overall it's pretty good, the level design and story follow Bioware's usual highly competent standard; there are, however, a few niggling little problems that I have, which (for better or worse) I'm going to focus on (naturally there are spoilers ahead, so be warned):

• Firstly, conversing with Liara, now I expected that this was going to be a core factor of the game, especially for certain players who romanced her in the first game, and then hooked up with another character in the second game. Now I had thought that there could have been some interesting tension that could develop during the missions if you brought along your new partner while on a mission with your ex; Bioware, however, seems to have disagreed with this idea, never really mentioning it apart from one small mention if you follow a very particular conversation path, in my case it was Liara telling me that "her sources have told her [I] have been trying to get into Tali's helmet", um Liara update your sources! I've been inside that helmet!
• Secondly, the fight with the Spectre working for the Shadow Broker. Now it wasn't a case of this fight being difficult, or easy, it was simply this: right at the start of the fight she tells me "You've never faced anything like me before", overconfidence in her abilities I can expect, but she knows who I am, I'm Shepard! I've beaten a Spectre before, I've beaten a Geth Colossus pretty much single handed, I killed a frakking Thresher Maw on foot! hell, I got spaced and it just slowed me down, you would think that she would know this already.
• Thirdly, Bioware has made a big point of having your actions in the Universe have consequences down the road. So why exactly does the Shadow Broker and Liara seem to be six months behind with their information? I know they had to have dialogue available for people who want to beat the Shadow Broker, before destroying the Collector Base, but would it have been too much trouble (given that they know that most people playing will have already done so) to have some dialogue for people who do this afterwards? Hell they do make a tiny reference what with the Broker saying that he'll be able to use the Normandy to pick over the remains of the Collector Base after he kills me, but that's it, apparently despite finding out that I did that, no one found out that I severed all connections with Cerberus and told the Illusive Man where to stick it, even Shepard seems to forget this, he also seems to forget that the Council reinstated his Spectre status!
• Fourthly, where exactly where the Renegade interrupts? didn't see a single one, saw plenty of Paragon interrupts, which seem to have been redefined as "Make strange overtures towards my creepy and Psychotic ex, while my shotgun armed current girlfriend stands nearby, ultimately forcing you to reload the game to ensure you haven't frakked things up" interrupts, but I suppose that doesn't role of the tongue as easily
• Finally, why exactly did they have to take out my other team member for the start of the final confrontation? I know it must happen no matter who you take in there with you, but it's a bit disconcerting to see Tali get mocked by the Shadow Broker (without Shepard coming to her defence), followed by her being crushed under a beam (meanwhile Shepard is pushing the Asari with the Biotic powers that could block such a beam from crushing her! out of the way, as opposed to the Quarian in the fragile environmental suit).

So, that's some thoughts on Lair of the Shadow Broker, some of you might be thinking that I didn't like it, given that I've focused on the negatives, but that's not true, I enjoyed it, I'd like to see more expansions like this, and it was good to be back in the Mass Effect 'verse again.

So they're making a Mass Effect movie...

WHY?

I enjoy the Mass Effect series, I mean really enjoy it, its probably safe to say that I've sacrificed a few percent of my final mark for my degree with the time I've spent on it. So, it may initially seem surprising that the idea of a favourite thing of mine being adapted so that more people can enjoy it, is what I am officially considering my front runner for Worst Adaptation idea of the early 21st Century.

Allow me to expand on this; no film adaptation of a Video game has ever been a real success, and it would be naively optimistic to assume that Mass Effect will do any different. But in the mainstay, games that have been adapted already have had a major advantage over Mass Effect: none of them had as much freedom of choice available.  

Everyone who plays Mass Effect plays the game in a different fashion, Choice is a major part of the game, and personally it's one of the big draws of the game, that for once your actions have definite consequences in the games' Universe.  Whereas the vast majority of games that have been adapted have single linear path from start to finish, that can be easily adapted into a script, event A neatly ties into event B. This is not the case of Mass Effect, which follows more of a tree structure with the plot, from even before the game begins, you're faced with choices that will govern how the game turns out: what gender do you choose? what background? what specialisation? All of these allow you to tune the game to yourself, and how you want to play, and the choices become more and more frenetic after that: 

Do you go to Feros or Noveria first?

Or do you go and rescue Liara?

Do you kill the Rachni queen or not?

Do you leave Alenko or Williams behind to die?

Do you do all the side quests?

Do you romance Ashley/Alenko or Liara?

Or do you bide your time, hoping they make a certain Quarian mechanic romanceable in the second game?

Do you let the Council die, or sacrifice the Alliance fleet to defend them?

These are just some of the choices available, and everyone I've spoken to had a differing set of responses, to these questions, meaning that everyone has a different version of what the "true" Mass Effect story is, the odds are dramatically against the screen playing managing to make anyone happy, I predict many comments of "They clearly don't understand the real story of Mass Effect" being made when the film gets released (hell I'll probably be making them as well).

Then there are the actors, who are they going to cast? If they don't have the original voices, then there will be a lot of complaints made by people, and they'll be right. Every character already has a voice associated with them.  There's also the problem with how the cast will look, in general, with the majority of the rag tag bunch of misfits that you put together being aliens, CG is going to be extremely prevalent, but for the humans how are they going to work on that? Will they use actors who look vaguely like the characters? Or will they decide to use CG for the humans as well? If so, will they just use the CG from the game? Carrying on down this avenue of exploration, will they reason that most of the film has therefore been built for them already? If so, why not just use someone doing a play through of the game as the film?

This is something I can really see them considering, and the reason it won't work, is that the story of Mass Effect is one that needs to be interacted with, in order to get the most worth out of it.