Hitting the Club

[grigjd3]

To take your coffee maker analogy, if there's reason to rationally believe that your coffee maker should be working under those conditions, because you're a caffeine addict and you've hooked up your coffee machine to independent and hurricane-resistant power- and water-sources, then it's a completely valid complaint, no matter the silliness of hooking your coffee machine up to such devices. Your coffee maker should not act that way.

Likewise, given that all life ends in X days unless Shepard defeats them, it's a valid complaint if he's visiting strip clubs or doing other meaningless side-quests, regardless of the possible silliness of that premise. One does not exclude or invalidate the other. Shepard should not act that way.

I'm not calling the Reapers a hurricane. I'm calling the plot a hurricane. The plot is so much more silly than the idea of a guy going to a strip club while he has important pressing business to do (which, by the way, happens). I'm saying the plot itself is the hurricane, and it's headed your way, and you're wasting your time wondering why there isn't a working coffee machine. Look, I don't care that Raiden has absolutely ridiculous powers in Metal Gear Solid. I complain that the story is so far over the top and so self-referencing that you need a compendium to follow it. The character Raiden, motivated or not, doesn't cause an issue when everyone in the game has killer nano-bots in them triggered by somebody who comes across as bad representation of a Norse god rather than an actual human being. Similarly, if you're willing to accept a universe that has a race of evil space ships who actively mold the direction life takes so they can return every 50 thousand years to harvest civilization, all because there is some see-through person who believes that fleshies and metalies can't get along, then what the heck is your problem with the guy taking a few minutes off to go to the strip club? Seriously, you're complaining about him taking time to go to the strip club? Really? I mean, he also takes the time to help some random doctor deal with her shady past even though that has no bearing on the plot. He also spends his time scanning keepers. He also takes the time to go have a shooting contest with his old buddy while millions are slaughtered on earth. He even takes the time to check out every spare planet he can even if it has nothing to do with reapers at all. In fact, at no point does this character ever appear to be a man on a time-sensitive mission so much as a guy randomly wandering about the galaxy and you're complaining that he's spending a moment at the strip club?

 

[Hagi]

To take your coffee maker analogy, if there's reason to rationally believe that your coffee maker should be working under those conditions, because you're a caffeine addict and you've hooked up your coffee machine to independent and hurricane-resistant power- and water-sources, then it's a completely valid complaint, no matter the silliness of hooking your coffee machine up to such devices. Your coffee maker should not act that way.

Likewise, given that all life ends in X days unless Shepard defeats them, it's a valid complaint if he's visiting strip clubs or doing other meaningless side-quests, regardless of the possible silliness of that premise. One does not exclude or invalidate the other. Shepard should not act that way.

I'm not calling the Reapers a hurricane. I'm calling the plot a hurricane. The plot is so much more silly than the idea of a guy going to a strip club while he has important pressing business to do (which, by the way, happens). I'm saying the plot itself is the hurricane, and it's headed your way, and you're wasting your time wondering why there isn't a working coffee machine. Look, I don't care that Raiden has absolutely ridiculous powers in Metal Gear Solid. I complain that the story is so far over the top and so self-referencing that you need a compendium to follow it. The character Raiden, motivated or not, doesn't cause an issue when everyone in the game has killer nano-bots in them triggered by somebody who comes across as bad representation of a Norse god rather than an actual human being. Similarly, if you're willing to accept a universe that has a race of evil space ships who actively mold the direction life takes so they can return every 50 thousand years to harvest civilization, all because there is some see-through person who believes that fleshies and metalies can't get along, then what the heck is your problem with the guy taking a few minutes off to go to the strip club? Seriously, you're complaining about him taking time to go to the strip club? Really? I mean, he also takes the time to help some random doctor deal with her shady past even though that has no bearing on the plot. He also spends his time scanning keepers. He also takes the time to go have a shooting contest with his old buddy while millions are slaughtered on earth. He even takes the time to check out every spare planet he can even if it has nothing to do with reapers at all. In fact, at no point does this character ever appear to be a man on a time-sensitive mission so much as a guy randomly wandering about the galaxy and you're complaining that he's spending a moment at the strip club?

You've not been reading my posts have you... Here, I'll quote one for you:

I'm hardly riled up...

I called it silly. No more, no less.

It is silly. All that you mention is silly.

Am I going to let silly things ruin the game for me? Of course not.
But I'm not going to pretend they aren't silly and I don't believe the game would've been improved without all the silly fedex quests and strip clubs.

It's nothing against strip clubs in particular as you seem so eager to claim. It's simply a complaint about the silly nature of strip clubs as opposed to the glorification in this article as some sort of hidden desire of malekind.

Strip clubs, like so many superfluous things, have no place in frantic quests to save the galaxy. Nor do bars and restaurants. Mass Effect was a great series, but I do think it could have been improved by maintaining a heavier focus on the central conflict instead of getting distracted by random people in distress, strippers and other things that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do in any way, shape or form with the Reaper threat.

 

[Clankenbeard]

You're not allowed to touch the girls (or boys) in the vast majority of US strip clubs. You will get thrown right the hell out if you try. You used to be able to touch them in Las Vegas, but I believe they were looking into changing that policy. They can touch you all they want, but you have to keep your hands to yourself. It's a safety thing.

Susan, Firstly, you do a great job for The Escapist. Keep doing it.

I live in Houston, TX--the strip club capital of the US. Seriously, we have more than any other city. (Also breast implants originated here, so that gave us a bit of a jump start.) We officially have the 3-foot rule enacted in 1997 to disallow patrons within 3-feet of topless dancers. Official club rules are always "hands off". So, you are correct--it can litterally be "touch and go...out the front door".

Dancers will use the rule if things get ugly. But in many cases, the application of your hand to their body parts will result in more patronage (read $) from you. I have seen only two people removed from a club because they were too forward with their dancer. But these guys were both a mess--blind stinking drunk (which is hard to get to without spending a fortune) and almost incoherent. They needed to go.

If you are polite and philanthropic, around your second lap dance, your hands may get guided to parts officially off limits under club policy. And once you're there you have squatters rights. But you have to treat it like petting a cat (Freudianed!). You have to let it come to you on its terms.

As a bit of a side note, apparently any rule can be hacked. It's been a while since my last bachelor party, but way back then, dancers here got around the 3-foot rule by applying a thin layer of clear latex paint to their nipples. They are officially no longer topless! Feel free to breach the 3-foot barrier.

 

[grigjd3]

You've not been reading my posts have you... Here, I'll quote one for you:

Actually, I have. The point is, people will attempt to keep living a normal life no matter what is going on. It's not like Pearl Harbor occurred and soldiers stopped going to strip clubs until May of 1945 (that would be silly to believe). Rather, with the increase in numbers of soldiers, strip clubs flourished during that time. Even while fighting in Europe, some soldiers managed to find time to have sex with women in France. It's not silly, it's human. All the little distractions are human. People just function better when they have some sense of normalcy. This is simply human - which is not nearly so silly as a fleet of evil space ships destroying advanced life on an arbitrary though clearly defined frequency due to the philosophical ramblings of some space-station/illusory boy/ridiculous and unnecessary plot device. The attempt at everyday life - that's a common human trait. The over the top plot based on some game designer's sad attempt at wrapping up weak loose-ends - that's silly.

 

[Hagi]

You've not been reading my posts have you... Here, I'll quote one for you:

Actually, I have. The point is, people will attempt to keep living a normal life no matter what is going on. It's not like Pearl Harbor occurred and soldiers stopped going to strip clubs until May of 1945 (that would be silly to believe). Rather, with the increase in numbers of soldiers, strip clubs flourished during that time. Even while fighting in Europe, some soldiers managed to find time to have sex with women in France. It's not silly, it's human. All the little distractions are human. People just function better when they have some sense of normalcy. This is simply human - which is not nearly so silly as a fleet of evil space ships destroying advanced life on an arbitrary though clearly defined frequency due to the philosophical ramblings of some space-station/illusory boy/ridiculous and unnecessary plot device. The attempt at everyday life - that's a common human trait. The over the top plot based on some game designer's sad attempt at wrapping up weak loose-ends - that's silly.

Except this is not normal life.

This is a guy on a mission that has an amazing sense of duty.

It's the equivalent of a cop getting a call that there's currently a bank heist in progress and stopping at the bakery on the way there. A soldier on guard duty in a warzone taking half an hour off to watch a funny TV episode. I'm sure some of them even do that, but not those with Shepard's personality.

Again and again in ME3 it's underlined how life isn't normal anymore. Not for anyone. There's countless refugees, constant Reaper attacks, terrorist strikes by Cerberus etc. And we're supposed to believe that a man, on whose minds are constantly the thousands of people dying back on Earth and all over the galaxy and whose constantly shown extreme willpower and sense of duty is going to take a few hours off to visit a strip club?

And you can keep on mentioning the silliness of the plot as much as you like, I even agree, but it doesn't magically make the rest not silly. One thing being silly doesn't somehow make other things perfectly normal.

The thing isn't that some other soldier is doing these things, they very well might have. The point is that Shepard is doing them and seeming to suffer from memory loss as he goes from stressing the urgency of his mission to relaxing at the local strip club the next moment. That's what's silly. In that exact context. Not in some other context, with some other person.

This context, a man we know would go to any length to do what he sees as his duty talking to his team mates about how he worries about the millions of lives lost every day, how there's no time to spare and action must be taken now before it's too late before embarking on whatever pointless side-mission's in the game or visiting a pointless strip club. That's silly and out of character.