Actually, if I recall another recent tweet by Gamble explains (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) how dialogue is often the *last* thing they do in a scene, since they first need to get the timing and emotions right in the scene.
There's
this one where he says VO is not one of the last things they do because it's needed to be able to "get the timing, tone, and emotion in."
I stand corrected then, I must have misremembered.
Still, I stand by my reasoning that the mere existence of the dialogue means they originally intended the last mission to have a *lot* more variance and agency than it ended up having. Indeed, the best evidence for this is the London level as it stands. The more you examine it, the clearer it becomes just how rushed the whole thing was put together.
In fact, this....
There's
this one where he says VO is not one of the last things they do because it's needed to be able to "get the timing, tone, and emotion in."
LINK
There's your tone, your timing, and your emotion. I would much sooner listen to the awesome audio work from Turkish Star Wars.
....is a pretty good example, no?
Make no mistake, these guys were under a serious time crunch and their ambitions far outreached their ability to deliver it on time. There's evidence of it *all over* the game and not just the bugs, glitches and the arse-pulled ending, it's in the sidequests, the GaW/EMS mechanics, the conversation (or lack thereof), the animations and in the way ALL of the main characters were treated. Seriously, Liara appears to be the only character they treated right, and even that was a bit ropey at times. I mean it was great to confirm the suspicions about who her father was, but the execution was a bit half hearted.
To me, the cut dialogue is emblematic of the many half formed, or poorly executed ideas the game clearly has:-
- An embedded reporter? Great idea, great potential. The result? An utterly pointless character who has ZERO impact on the story. The reason? Not enough time. Indeed, her poor integration makes me believe she was an 11th hour addition.
- Scanning planets for missions? Great in theory, but since all you can get out of it is credits, more pointless war assets, some fetch quest macguffin and *maybe* a 5% stat boost, then it's hardly worth it at all. I'm sure the intent was to have the mini N7 missions like in ME2. Traynor might tell you there's garbled reports of trouble in such-and-such a cluster/system. You go, scan the planets in the region, find the trouble spot and drop in for a mission. A good example would have been helping the elcor evacuate. Indeed, as it stand evacuating them with a probe is just down right stupid. However, an actual mission would require a level map, new assets (elcor soldiers anyone?) and of course some voice work. So again, great idea, lots of potential but not enough time.
