Mass Effect developer Bioware has been in damage control mode since the embarrassment it suffered due to fan backlash over the numerous errors and continuity problems in the recently published tie-in novel Mass Effect: Deception. In response to numerous complaints, Bioware has announced that the book is being re-edited and that subsequent printings of the book will be revised to eliminate these errors.
Now, in a new press release, Bioware has issued what its spokesman
described as a “preliminary” list of corrections that will be made in
all future printings of the book. Among the more noteworthy errors from
the current edition of Mass Effect: Deception that Bioware has promised to correct are:
Various references implying that the Mass Effect universe is actually the future of the alternate timeline created when Biff Tannen gave a 2015 copy of Gray’s Sports Almanac to his past self in Back to the Future II.
Saying that the volus are not a distinct species, and are actually just ”asari who’ve let themselves go.”
Claiming that the Illusive Man’s real name is Antonio "The Plunger" Barbagelata.
Repeated statements that the Reapers, a race of hundreds of hostile, ultra-advanced machine intelligences millions of years old who travel through interstellar space in ships over a kilometer long, were built by the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois in 1992.
Referring to the homeworld of the asari race as “New Jersey.”
The (completely unauthorized by Konami) appearance of Revolver Ocelot, who originally appears as an agent of Cerberus but is later revealed to be a double-agent working for a heretofore unknown organization called “the Minutemen” that has secretly ruled the human race since its founding by Theodore Roosevelt, Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor Franz Joseph I, and the reanimated head of Oliver Cromwell in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War.
Dialogue inconsistent with previous portrayals of several alien races, such as giving all batarians heavy Scottish accents and depicting turians routinely addressing each other as “broheim.”
Describing game glitches as if they were actual in-universe events, such as a battle where a krogan warrior gets “stuck in the wall.”
Numerous timeline errors including references to the supposed involvement of the Systems Alliance in the Iran-Contra Scandal over 160 years prior to the Alliance’s actual founding, statements that the first military use of mass effect field technology by humans occurred during the Franco-Prussian War, and the book’s opening narration describing the events of the story as taking place “between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas.”
Inaccurate descriptions of mass effect fields, which are actually a technology that can temporarily increase or decrease the mass of matter within a given area by running electric current through an exotic substance called Element Zero, as “an energy field created by all living things” that “surrounds us and penetrates us” and “binds the galaxy together.”
Apparent confusions about quarian naming conventions, as evidenced by the presence of quarian characters named “Rael’Koris vas Greeter nar T.G.I. Friday’s” and “Tali’Vael vas Center Field nar White Sox.”
Widespread use of coins made of the highly radioactive isotope polonium-210 as currency by criminal enterprises trying to avoid using credits. While this does not, strictly speaking, violate existing Mass Effect canon, actual polonium-210 is incredibly toxic and so radioactive that a single gram of it will quickly heat itself to a temperature of 500°C, making its use as a medium of exchange improbable.
Referring to the turians, salarians, and asari races as “fightgars,” “smartingtons,” and “sexanoids,” respectively.
Incorrectly attributing the characteristically slow, monotone speech patterns of the elcor race- actually the result of the elcor having a naturally cautious, deliberate temperament due to their evolution on a dangerously high-gravity world and a language that expresses emotions and nuance through body language and pheromones rather than tone of voice- to marijuana use.
A scene in which Conrad Verner successfully petitions the Citadel
Council to grant Ambassador Donnel Udina emergency powers and create a
clone army.
Describing the appearance of the Citadel as “like Deep Space Nine, but way cooler.”
Several chapters of hardcore sex scenes, which have been removed entirely due to their explicit content, noncanonical pairings, and misconceptions about both asari and human physiology.
Chapter 8 in its entirety, which appears to be simply a series of excerpts from To Kill a Mockingbird with all instances of the name “Atticus” replaced with “Saren.”
We attempted to contact Bioware to inquire about other notable errors in the book that were not included in the press release, such as calling Element Zero “kryptonite” and the implication in the book’s closing scene that the entire Mass Effect series actually takes place in the imagination of the autistic kid from St. Elsewhere, but have received no comment from Bioware as of this time.
An earlier form of this article originally appeared at Kuribo's Shoes, the greatest and possibly only fake video game news site on the Internet.
Various references implying that the Mass Effect universe is actually the future of the alternate timeline created when Biff Tannen gave a 2015 copy of Gray’s Sports Almanac to his past self in Back to the Future II.
Saying that the volus are not a distinct species, and are actually just ”asari who’ve let themselves go.”
Claiming that the Illusive Man’s real name is Antonio "The Plunger" Barbagelata.
Repeated statements that the Reapers, a race of hundreds of hostile, ultra-advanced machine intelligences millions of years old who travel through interstellar space in ships over a kilometer long, were built by the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois in 1992.
Referring to the homeworld of the asari race as “New Jersey.”
The (completely unauthorized by Konami) appearance of Revolver Ocelot, who originally appears as an agent of Cerberus but is later revealed to be a double-agent working for a heretofore unknown organization called “the Minutemen” that has secretly ruled the human race since its founding by Theodore Roosevelt, Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor Franz Joseph I, and the reanimated head of Oliver Cromwell in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War.
Dialogue inconsistent with previous portrayals of several alien races, such as giving all batarians heavy Scottish accents and depicting turians routinely addressing each other as “broheim.”
Describing game glitches as if they were actual in-universe events, such as a battle where a krogan warrior gets “stuck in the wall.”
Numerous timeline errors including references to the supposed involvement of the Systems Alliance in the Iran-Contra Scandal over 160 years prior to the Alliance’s actual founding, statements that the first military use of mass effect field technology by humans occurred during the Franco-Prussian War, and the book’s opening narration describing the events of the story as taking place “between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas.”
Inaccurate descriptions of mass effect fields, which are actually a technology that can temporarily increase or decrease the mass of matter within a given area by running electric current through an exotic substance called Element Zero, as “an energy field created by all living things” that “surrounds us and penetrates us” and “binds the galaxy together.”
Apparent confusions about quarian naming conventions, as evidenced by the presence of quarian characters named “Rael’Koris vas Greeter nar T.G.I. Friday’s” and “Tali’Vael vas Center Field nar White Sox.”
Widespread use of coins made of the highly radioactive isotope polonium-210 as currency by criminal enterprises trying to avoid using credits. While this does not, strictly speaking, violate existing Mass Effect canon, actual polonium-210 is incredibly toxic and so radioactive that a single gram of it will quickly heat itself to a temperature of 500°C, making its use as a medium of exchange improbable.
Referring to the turians, salarians, and asari races as “fightgars,” “smartingtons,” and “sexanoids,” respectively.
Incorrectly attributing the characteristically slow, monotone speech patterns of the elcor race- actually the result of the elcor having a naturally cautious, deliberate temperament due to their evolution on a dangerously high-gravity world and a language that expresses emotions and nuance through body language and pheromones rather than tone of voice- to marijuana use.
Describing the appearance of the Citadel as “like Deep Space Nine, but way cooler.”
Several chapters of hardcore sex scenes, which have been removed entirely due to their explicit content, noncanonical pairings, and misconceptions about both asari and human physiology.
Chapter 8 in its entirety, which appears to be simply a series of excerpts from To Kill a Mockingbird with all instances of the name “Atticus” replaced with “Saren.”
We attempted to contact Bioware to inquire about other notable errors in the book that were not included in the press release, such as calling Element Zero “kryptonite” and the implication in the book’s closing scene that the entire Mass Effect series actually takes place in the imagination of the autistic kid from St. Elsewhere, but have received no comment from Bioware as of this time.
An earlier form of this article originally appeared at Kuribo's Shoes, the greatest and possibly only fake video game news site on the Internet.
