Blue Ninja
Member
The Alliance pours all of its funds into the Jesus Project, because Lazarus didn't quite cut it.Rahxephon91 said:
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Mass Effect 3 PC Gamer Details [Up3: Four Demos At E3, 30+ Minute Livestream]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Fimbulvetr
Member
Rahxephon91 said:
Didn't they say you keep all your skills but get more?
Rahxephon91
Banned
I don't even know. I just play the most basic class(soldier) and shoot things. That's my Mass Effect experience, shooting and talking and occasionally punching newscasters.Fimbulvetr said:
Blue Ninja
Member
I prefer my Mass Effect 2 experience.Rahxephon91 said:
Fimbulvetr
Member
Rahxephon91 said:
Soldier?
Aww gross, it's like i don't even know you anymore.
Fimbulvetr said:
Basically BioWare said your not starting all over again. A single power will evolve multiple times, unlike in ME 2 where they only evolve once.
I willing to bet when Import your Save, The game will read your Character Level & give you a set number of Skill points to use.
Rahxephon91
Banned
Fimbulvetr said:
The annoying thing is that Shepard's death and ressurection wasn't even important for the story; they could have turned the "dead" part into "nearly dead with really bad injuries and disfigured face" part and the story would at least make some sense. Because now even changing Shepard's face during CC, or changing his class (and abilities) means that something went wrong with Project Lazarus; after all, the point of the project was to reconstruct Shepard as (s)he was before death -- no changes at all.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Rahxephon91 said:
The fate of all cannon fodder.
His last line to Joker was "Never pick Soldier."
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
...okay. Replaying ME2. Then never really explain why Shepard doesn't ditch Cerberus as soon as he reaches the Citadel. I mean, his homeboy is a Councilor. They could have gotten him a ship ASAP and really, only Miranda wouldn't have left with Shepard at that point.
WanderingWind said:
I am currently playing through it as well and those moments are really bothering me.
So far, Mordin and his loyalty mission have been the only silver linings.
Also, I think that I will limit myself to using Garrus and Mordin; they are the only ones that ever have anything interesting to say.
Kitschkraft
Member
SilentProtagonist said:
It would be a long write up for me to explain why I personally don't like the ME2 writing. Here's a tldr version.
Although ME2 may have had better characters and characterization, these were wasted on a bad story, one that is based on two bad plot points, and that continues to deteriorate as we reach the conclusion of the story.
Resurrection. You can have a sci-fi/fantasy story like this with all of this goofy stuff happening and people will be okay with it. But certain things, if done improperly, will break suspension of disbelief, regardless of whether or not they are actually more implausible as anything else in the fiction. The resurrection angle failed miserably because of this. It just felt stupid, period. Also annoying is the fact that, as others have been pointing out, other characters in the universe don't seem to even care. And you know Shepard isn't going to be introspective. The concept of resurrection simply brings along too many philosophical issues for Bioware to just ignore them all.
Cerberus. So many problems, I'm sure you've heard most of them. I really do not understand why they took this route with the story. Can't put my finger on it, but there are a lot of things like this in ME2 that irk me. The "suicide mission" aspect they kept pushing in the promos. Some of the characters and character models. The resurrection as I just brought up. Just a ton of story elements and design choices that felt as though they were created from the top down as opposed to the reverse.
Nappuccino said:
Agreed. I remember my first time through ME2, I kept waiting for the payoff with the Collectors, but never got it. I never felt the urgency of stopping them, I never felt the possible repercussions for failing to stop them (besides hearing about more unnamed colonies that Shepard has no connection to going missing), and besides two insignificant instances, I never felt the connection between the Collectors and the Reapers (which made the main story arc feel relatively insignificant).
ME1 never had award winning writing, or an innovative sci narrative, but it was told in a well paced, relatively believable manner. Yes there were plot holes scattered throughout, but the points that mattered throughout the main campaign were tied together in such a way that the payoff at the end felt more significant. Questions that had built up throughout the game were answered in moments like the conversation with Sovereign and Saren. The focus was on the threat from Saren (and subsequently, the Reapers) and all of the characters and many of the sidequests came from the circumstances of the main arc instead of creating the main arc themselves. It may have been a cliche, simple narrative, but it was told well and set in a very atmospheric universe.
I could be alone in this, but I would have loved it if Bioware had just kept the story simple. Shepard didn't need to die and (without expounding on the interesting questions and scenarios that would accompany being dead for two years) all it did was complicate the story and make it less believable. Shepard didn't need to be forced to work with Cerberus, or forced to have intentionally stupid dialogue when all it did was go against the events laid out in the first game. I would have loved to see ME2 be the game that ME3 is becoming: have Shepard trying to go to each of the species and trying to rally them against the oncoming threat of the Reapers and then have the third game be all out war, but it is what it is at this point.
WanderingWind said:
I think they explain that the council doesn't trust Shepard anymore because he joined Cerberus (and if you let the council die). They also don't believe in the collectors and reapers. Ashley/Kaidan showing up in the colony was the result of TIM's manipulation and infiltration of the Alliance Network. This means he cannot give you a ship or any kind of help aside giving you back your Spectre status. This is really a weak part of the plot since Cerberus are criminals and they removed Saren's status based solely on Tali's recording and rumours.
heliosRAzi
Banned
I agree. The reason why the Council doesn't back Shepard fully is because he is working for a terrorist organization that the Citadel says is their avowed enemy. To them, he is a traitor. Bioware could have followed that through with having a Spectre come after him like he went after Saren.Vamphuntr said:
Thagomizer
Member
Jerk said:
"Consensus has been reached that we wish you to accost us so that we may render you ineffectual as a threat."
Rahxephon91
Banned
LoL.But I actually do wish Bioware would go all the way and allow Shep to be dead in ME3. That would have actually been cool.Fimbulvetr said:
But yeah honestly I'm not a big fan of ME in general, so I'm not drawn to the story as much as some of you guys are. ME1 in spite of it's gameplay problems, just did not have an interesting story. You have all this cool background story and world and then the story just goes into generic sci fi world with ancient aliens and boring space villain that we can not begin to understand. I would have liked something else. My favorite parts of Star Trek are the more human parts where the villains aren't something we can't understand and the stories, while fantastical, just serve to tell us something about the human condition. That's why I mostly like the character stuff in ME2, because they are just stories about people in this possibly interesting sci fi universe and they help us see different parts of it. That stuff's far more interesting to me then the Reaper storyline.
Bowdz said:
This. Who taught it was a good idea to make the "loyalty" the most important part of the game? The whole thing about ME1 was the protheans, and their fate. I was like :
-OMG guys, the collectors, are actually protheans!---Guys?
-Shepard my father, he paged me---we gotta check this out!
I mean why is it so important to them? The world is about to get destroyed, and you want to set off a bomb...mkay. Why not make this a sidequest, like in ME1? Worst, the way you act on their missions, don't even alter their way of thinking. Dumb bitches
Am I the only one who NEVER understood what Legion was about?
Thagomizer
Member
Rahxephon91 said:
I agree, but that's no excuse to make that storyline a pile of shit as well- as dull as you find ME1's storyline, it was at least competent.
Rahxephon91
Banned
This is an actual argument with a friend of mine.Thagomizer said:
"At least in ME1 stuff happen".
And that's true. ME1 has a better constructed story. ME2's main plot feels kind of pointless in the overall reaper plot.
TruePrime said:
Problem is all the character missions in ME2 don't matter for shit in the ME universe or the story arc of the trilogy. ME1's story at the very least fleshed out the world and the characters/species in it. ME2 could be a 3 hour game. All the stuff that happens in the middle is almost completely pointless.
graywolf323
Member
so what about Miranda if she sided with me at the end of ME2?
AcceptableGhost
Member
ME1 is a bad game, discussion over. ME2 on the other hand, pretty great. I hope ME3 is more like the second one.
Thagomizer
Member
Orellio said:
Wellllll, I wouldn't say all- Legion, Mordin, Tali had missions that had a great potential for being very important later on.
But yes, ME2 felt like a holding pattern much of the time. It's never good when you think to yourself that a game feels padded on your first runthrough.
Rahxephon91
Banned
You may have just opened the gates.MTMBStudios said:
Orellio said:
Yeah but I'm coming from the angle that the stuff the people in this thread feel matters, actually sucks so I much rather have the enjoyable side stuff then the crap I don't give a damn about.
For me just existing and meeting the people in the Universe was worth it where as saving it didn't mean crap because it was boring and the gun play was bland and the villians lame.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I disagree on the first point, but I'll be addressing that in my LTTP: ME2 thread in a few weeks.MTMBStudios said:
Orellio said:
Especially if your squadmates aren't full squad members in ME3. As far as I am concerned, the success of ME2's story lies in the level of integration that the teammates from ME2 have in ME3. Despite not liking the direction ME2 took, it can still be somewhat relevant to the trilogy if you get to keep your "really good team". Reducing the majority of the team to part time squad mates or even cameos would be the final nail in the coffin for ME2 in terms of redundancy of the story.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I'm pretty vocal about not liking Mass Effect, and even I would just call it mediocre. Not even the combat is actually bad, it just has a learning curve more like a learning cliff.TruePrime said:
Ickman3400
Banned
MTMBStudios said:
Haha nice try.
Bowdz said:
You're right to a point, but for me it felt like ME2 was so jam-packed with squad mates (especially if you include the DLC characters) that I didn't really get a chance to give a damn about half of them. And if the ME1 characters in ME2 are any indication to go by, BioWare will probably drop the ball on that too.
The suicide mission had such a high degree of variables for who lived or died that it would almost be a logistical nightmare to bring back more than a couple ME2 characters for ME3.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
TruePrime said:
The trolling comes from the "discussion over" bit.
The general complaint of Mass Effect 1 is that there were many concepts that were sound, but they were poorly executed. We all know the issues: Poor frame-rate, mostly c/p sidequests and the float mako. Most of us recognized the potential behind these concepts; all they needed were a delicate touch and Bioware would be onto something brilliant.TruePrime said:
What (I think) shocked parts of the community is that Bioware didn't do this. Instead of fixing features that clearly had potential they just took them out entirely. I mean sure, the side quests are no longer c/p, but they're now really boring 15-minute linear missions that are utterly boring and offer nothing interesting in terms of story or setting. It just turned a really interesting game into something generic.
Anyway, in regards to the writing; it's true that Mass Effect 1 doesn'tt have a brilliant story. I mean it's full of tropes, and its prone to lazy writing. Yet what made it so adored by fans is that it was so well paced and executed. It felt like an adventure, you knew Saren had betrayed the galaxy for some reason, so you spend most of the game chasing him while learning about the galaxy and a way bigger threat. I think one of the key things is that it was paced so well, yeah the beginning of the game was fairly slow (I know this turned off some members such as GhaleonGB, who got bored at Eden Prime, returned to the game and when back to the epic trilogy Halo), but it didn't rush you and because of that it probably has one of the epic game endings ever.
Yet the problem with ME2 is that in terms of the main story there is no substance. The PR describing the game in one sentence was correct, and thats disappointing. Putting aside other story issues, the game hypes up the suicide mission so much but theres no real tension or story development for the player to care. You literally spend 20 hours recruiting team members and then the game ends.
I'm not sure why they did this. Maybe it was planned, maybe it was forced by EA, but it's clear that it was intentional. Now I'm not shitting on accessibility, but it was clearly in the design from a story perspective; it's challenging to keep players involved with a main plot that lasts 10 hours +, instead give them a single bullet point story and then offer lots of self-contained missions that players can play for 2 hours and then forget about. It works, but I feel it betrays the original vision and scope that the original portrayed.
This is why there is skepticism towards ME3.
Anyway, thats my effort post quota for this month filled.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Chinner said:
Don't forget very crappy cover system, poor controls, geometry glitches when biotics start to get involved (No Shepard get out from under that wall you're a person you don't even fit), poor combat (that gets shoved down your throat constantly despite not being good) and those dull, extremely large fetch quests involving flying to every random planet you can find and pressing SCAN.
SilentProtagonist
Member
Review scores, awards, game sales... Those are all pretty good tries too.Ickman3400 said:
Fimbulvetr
Member
ThoseDeafMutes said:
And the horrible UI.
Yup, those issues are very apparent, especially in hindsight. I wouldn't agree with every claim you make, but then again that's not the point I'm trying to make. Mass Effect 2 is the better 'game' after they cut out most of the interesting features and concentrated mostly on shooting, but the original still remains the superior experience.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Fimbulvetr said:
Goddamn fucking inventory!
Chinner said:
I disagree though. ME2 was certainly less ambitious in scope but most of the stuff it stripped out wasn't good to begin with. I agree the better solution was to fix their problems, but I also think that 0 is a bigger number than -1. I enjoyed ME2 far, far more than I enjoyed ME1.
YMMV.
Orellio said:
That's funny, since Mass Effect 1 is barely a 7 hour game if you just do the main plot, ie the non shit part of the game.
I guess places like Illium, Tuchanka, and Omega where a huge portion of those character missions take place don't "matter for shit", but amazing locations like Feros and Therum add a richness to the Mass Effect tapestry beyond explanation. Let's not even broach the subject of the "wonderful" world building the Mako portion of the game brought to the table.
Mass Effect 2 has a lot of dumb shit in it, but this propping up of 1 in its aftermath on this forum by a vocal few is insane.
ME2 is infinitely more playable than ME1, but it's at the expense of doing anything interesting or novel.