Honestly, I feel that all three Mass Effect games have their strengths. I think ME1 has the best main story of all three games. Mass Effect 2's main story was mostly non-existent for 90% of the game, but it had the best character development among all three. Meanwhile, ME3 had the best gameplay and systems of the games, but I felt that it kinda flopped in the story and character development outside of the Citadel DLC.
I will give props to ME1 for its entire ending sequence. Everything from using the Conduit on Ilos up to the ending was at the time the most exciting thing I had ever done in a video game. It's just that they then topped themselves with the Suicide Mission in the next game.
What I really wanted from ME3's ending was Dragon Age 1's ending, In Space.
Multiple teams working towards the common goal, allies and resources to manage based on my previous choices, alliances and discoveries. Setbacks and advantages alike, references to previous missions and objectives.
That said, as disappointed as I was in the final few minutes (seriously, ME3 is great, and also easily the funniest game in the series), I am one of those who appreciate the Extended Ending enough to enjoy it, and agree with the Citadel DLC making for a fine 'head canon ending'.
Which is to say @Morninglord pick up that M-6 Carnifex and get back into the fight!
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Honestly the Extending Endings + Leviathan increased my enjoyment of the plot/ending a thousand fold.
I will still, to my dying day, not comprehend why Leviathan wasn't in the base game. It's such a crucial plot element.
I stopped playing ME3. I like it better that way. I don't want to turn into you guys. I mean, I love yas. But you guys are obsessed. It's painful to watch.
Nooooo. :sad: Mass Effect 3 is gravy, all the way up to literally the last five minutes. You should totally play up to the grand finale. Unless you already got that far and quit, which is a reasonable life choice.
I just didn't like it as much as 2. I kind of feel like I have to work to like it, same as 1. I felt like I was booting it up to play it because I got this far, not because I was drawn in.
2 devoured the soul I don't even believe in. It made a soul shaped place in my mind, filled it up, and then ate it.
Like, I don't even like the way they changed Vanguard really. It's great and shit but its so easy. There's no feeling of accomplishment and no need for spatial awareness and using cover properly. At least in multiplayer its really hard so you have to be on point. I didn't feel like I had to be all that on point in the normal game. I actually enjoyed the pin point shotgun more than the class, since I had to actually aim, but not enough to get really enthusiastic.
I hate the rpg shit that came back. Buying guns and upgrading them, and the way it was integrated into the game, it felt like a chore rather than something awesome. I'm not a fan of rpg stuff for rpg's sake.
Didn't like the paragon and renegade options as much (the ones I actually saw, anyway, I'm sure there's a few good ones in there). The dialogue just wasn't as punchy to me. Many of the options felt kinda flat for me.
It's just me, I'm really really idiosyncratic when it comes to what I like in a video game. If it's got something I like, if it clicks, I'm gravy. Even a subtle shift in design can make me feel bored. When I start getting bored, I don't wanna play. Something about the game just didn't give me the high that 2 gave me. I didn't feel as accomplished for beating big fights. They felt kinda samey after a while.
I dunno, it's a great game, no doubt about it. But being a great mass appeal game isn't enough to keep me interested. I'm too idiosyncratic for that.
I might come back and beat it someday, but I don't really feel any urgent need.
Also I spilt coffee on my keyboard, then ruined my left hand with an rsi problem soon after, and I still haven't fixed that keyboard, and my hand still ain't good enough that I want to play a mostly keyboard game for any length of time. I play everything with controller now and modify stuff so I don't have to use the left trigger.
All the above problems were still there, but these really make it so I am unlikely to try and push through it out of a sense of, I dunno, duty to finish or something anytime soon.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
i've actually been thinking along those lines lately
i really have no strong desire to replay ME3's single player
there's a lot of busy work, the story just has all kinds of problems, and there is absolutely zero challenge left in it after running the multiplayer for any length of time
and it is just way less ambitious in terms of role-playing and decision making
ME2, i do want to revisit. i'm curious how it holds up now; i haven't played it recently either
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BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
edited September 2015
ME3 brought about better enemy AI with more variety, Mass Effect 2 character choices except on a species-wide scale with diplomacy, and some of the performances and character I'd heard in a long time. The choices themselves probably weren't as granular as some people were expecting the finale to be, of course, but the amount of variation in outcomes honestly feels on par, if not more, than that in Mass Effect 2 (besides the disappointing linearity of the Earth mission, ofc)
I tried ME3 vanguard without nova but it just didn't work as well as it did in ME2.
Then again, I died a ton in ME2 with it, too. So maybe it's not the most accurate feeling.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Honestly, ME2's fights feel pretty samey to me by this point--but that might be because I put an utterly ludicrous amount of time in. There isn't as much dialog (but the renegade actions are extremely punchy). The squad banter and interaction sets the stage for what they did in ME3, but it's pretty minimal in comparison.
I will agree that ME2 Vanguard forced a level of situational awareness you just don't need in ME3 if you've been playing the multiplayer for any length of time. That's more on the multiplayer being balls hard when you have no equipment and forcing you to up your game--and on the multi getting the benefit of watching how people were playing the game and coming out with maps and kits that learned from what had been implemented before. The singleplayer couldn't play with the kits that way.
Going straight into Insanity in ME3 with no time in multi was too hard at points and I had to dial it back, same as ME2. After a few hundred hours of multi though, Insanity felt like Bronze.
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Having replayed Mass Effect 3's story recently, boy does it not hold up as a setpiece-style experience
You can see every seam in every cutscene they have and the whole "cinematic" angle feels like a film school project with zero budget
"we want this brute to crash into this structure and knock Shepard off of it, but we can't actually do that for whatever reason, so we'll shake the camera a little and do some quick edits and hopefully people will get the idea"
It feels shockingly cheap and full of weird filler!
BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
ME3's Vanguard honestly felt like the only class that took a step back, despite having a ton more spectacle. Charge and Nova are so interlinked and easily thrown-out that it takes ME2's concept and detracts from its use in that game, which was much more pre-planned and tactical
Honestly the Extending Endings + Leviathan increased my enjoyment of the plot/ending a thousand fold.
I will still, to my dying day, not comprehend why Leviathan wasn't in the base game. It's such a crucial plot element.
Leviathan is great because there are shockingly few missions in ME3 where you only fight Reapers. It was nice to go on a few random kill and destroy missions like the good old days in the Mako.
Was replaying ME3 this afternoon because I bought it for the Wii U (My Xbox is all boxed up and my PC isn't working so... well I have three versions of this game now) and I really dislike the tension of scanning an area and getting attacked by Reapers.
It feels like false challenge. There is no real element of strategy or tactics beyond in->out->in->out. I feel like getting touched by a Reaper on the map should engage you in some kind of ship battle or something at least.
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Was replaying ME3 this afternoon because I bought it for the Wii U (My Xbox is all boxed up and my PC isn't working so... well I have three versions of this game now) and I really dislike the tension of scanning an area and getting attacked by Reapers.
It feels like false challenge. There is no real element of strategy or tactics beyond in->out->in->out. I feel like getting touched by a Reaper on the map should engage you in some kind of ship battle or something at least.
Yeah, that's definitely the single most half-baked element of a game full of half-baked ideas
On my second playthrough, I went in and edited everything to remove the silly reaper chases and increased the maximum fuel by like 10x. Never missed either of those pointless things.
Having replayed Mass Effect 3's story recently, boy does it not hold up as a setpiece-style experience
You can see every seam in every cutscene they have and the whole "cinematic" angle feels like a film school project with zero budget
"we want this brute to crash into this structure and knock Shepard off of it, but we can't actually do that for whatever reason, so we'll shake the camera a little and do some quick edits and hopefully people will get the idea"
It feels shockingly cheap and full of weird filler!
That's kind par for the course for the series. They really only pull out the epic cinematic scene once per 'chapter', and even then it still doesn't have as much ...momentum as it should. ME1 was sort of groundbreaking initially, but stuff like Jenkins getting mowed down, the first thresher maw, Liara in her stasis bubble, the Saren fight on Virmire. Everything has a very low budget, out-of-place feel. Sort of like looking at a cartoon where the active prop stands out from the beautiful matte-painted background.
The Saren headshot, Sovereign warping in to places in cutscenes and Ilos are the only real oomph parts in ME1 (and Ilos manages it through plot, not through cinematics). ME2 and ME3 have a bit more weight to them, but they still seem to cut corners visually (probably so they could focus more on dialogue stuff). The world feels a bit more present in combat, but it still feels very boxey and inorganic as a whole.
Even The Shadow Broker DLC with its glorious skybox feels epic at times, but still has stuff like Liara's apartment that feels more like a diorama than an actual apartment. I feel like they were sort of finally getting on their feet cinematically with the Citadel DLC, but it was still frequently lazy (like a face shot of Joker coupled with a space car that looks like it's on Half-Life style rails). The games are shot sort of like a high-budget B movie.
ME survives on its story/dialogue, worldbuilding and (in ME2 and 3) its combat gameplay. Otherwise your cinematic shots are like ...once every 6 hours. Cutscene animation is generally not its strong point.
Was replaying ME3 this afternoon because I bought it for the Wii U (My Xbox is all boxed up and my PC isn't working so... well I have three versions of this game now) and I really dislike the tension of scanning an area and getting attacked by Reapers.
It feels like false challenge. There is no real element of strategy or tactics beyond in->out->in->out. I feel like getting touched by a Reaper on the map should engage you in some kind of ship battle or something at least.
Yeah, that's definitely the single most half-baked element of a game full of half-baked ideas
Or how Shepard defaults to a Carnifex/Predator every freaking time?
Phalanx 4 lyfe.
I would have loved if the cutscenes actually had a line of code (or 20, whatever) so the game recognized which weapons characters had equipped. Cutscene pistol for Shepard is fine-ish... but why give Miranda or Tali an Avenger when they aren't even supposed to be able to hold one?
Having replayed Mass Effect 3's story recently, boy does it not hold up as a setpiece-style experience
You can see every seam in every cutscene they have and the whole "cinematic" angle feels like a film school project with zero budget
"we want this brute to crash into this structure and knock Shepard off of it, but we can't actually do that for whatever reason, so we'll shake the camera a little and do some quick edits and hopefully people will get the idea"
It feels shockingly cheap and full of weird filler!
That's kind par for the course for the series. They really only pull out the epic cinematic scene once per 'chapter', and even then it still doesn't have as much ...momentum as it should. ME1 was sort of groundbreaking initially, but stuff like Jenkins getting mowed down, the first thresher maw, Liara in her stasis bubble, the Saren fight on Virmire. Everything has a very low budget, out-of-place feel. Sort of like looking at a cartoon where the active prop stands out from the beautiful matte-painted background.
The Saren headshot, Sovereign warping in to places in cutscenes and Ilos are the only real oomph parts in ME1 (and Ilos manages it through plot, not through cinematics). ME2 and ME3 have a bit more weight to them, but they still seem to cut corners visually (probably so they could focus more on dialogue stuff). The world feels a bit more present in combat, but it still feels very boxey and inorganic as a whole.
Even The Shadow Broker DLC with its glorious skybox feels epic at times, but still has stuff like Liara's apartment that feels more like a diorama than an actual apartment. I feel like they were sort of finally getting on their feet cinematically with the Citadel DLC, but it was still frequently lazy (like a face shot of Joker coupled with a space car that looks like it's on Half-Life style rails). The games are shot sort of like a high-budget B movie.
ME survives on its story/dialogue, worldbuilding and (in ME2 and 3) its combat gameplay. Otherwise your cinematic shots are like ...once every 6 hours. Cutscene animation is generally not its strong point.
I suspect that's more to do with resource limitations than anything else. Cutscene animation is very expensive, both in terms of the manpower needed for development and the computing power needed when rendered in real-time like the ME series is. Combining that with the level of detail they need in the facial expressions in cutscenes are going to force them to use a lot of shortcuts where possible.
Honestly, game development as a whole is just the art of making something look just good enough to fool the player into accepting it. Whether it's physics collisions or cutscenes or what have you.
I'm fucking tired of forgotten alien races with advanced technology that is the key to our mission. I swear BioWare designs all of its games by going to one of those online generic plot generators.
I like how in the second article someone's autocorrect changed "biotics" to "bioethics."
FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
They have to know it's a thing with them by now. It'll either turn out to be Humans, and time travel is involved, or it's all just a cult hoax or something.
like, they're clearly the main shit, the protagonist species, but we're protagonists too and we're fucking it up lookylooing around someone else's galaxy
out of nowhere some jerk just up and makes a rousing speech and then tries to recruit you for their ship of plucky adventurers
then every so often you get to the end of a mission to find that they got there first and they're either like hail, friend of friends or stay out of my way if you like breathing and you don't know which you're going to get
during a conversation you see an interrupt icon pop up, but strange and reversed and you realize it's theirs, then yours appears and they clearly clock it and suddenly you're in an interrupt standoff
I'm fucking tired of forgotten alien races with advanced technology that is the key to our mission. I swear BioWare designs all of its games by going to one of those online generic plot generators.
I want to find a forgotten alien race with ancient technology...
that's just rubbish. Like, for their time it was impressive, but holy fuck, if you tried to sell it now, your customers would flay you alive.
I'm fucking tired of forgotten alien races with advanced technology that is the key to our mission. I swear BioWare designs all of its games by going to one of those online generic plot generators.
I want to find a forgotten alien race with ancient technology...
that's just rubbish. Like, for their time it was impressive, but holy fuck, if you tried to sell it now, your customers would flay you alive.
An ancient alien race with Windows 95? That could be fun!
Posts
Multiple teams working towards the common goal, allies and resources to manage based on my previous choices, alliances and discoveries. Setbacks and advantages alike, references to previous missions and objectives.
That said, as disappointed as I was in the final few minutes (seriously, ME3 is great, and also easily the funniest game in the series), I am one of those who appreciate the Extended Ending enough to enjoy it, and agree with the Citadel DLC making for a fine 'head canon ending'.
Which is to say @Morninglord pick up that M-6 Carnifex and get back into the fight!
I will still, to my dying day, not comprehend why Leviathan wasn't in the base game. It's such a crucial plot element.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I just didn't like it as much as 2. I kind of feel like I have to work to like it, same as 1. I felt like I was booting it up to play it because I got this far, not because I was drawn in.
2 devoured the soul I don't even believe in. It made a soul shaped place in my mind, filled it up, and then ate it.
Like, I don't even like the way they changed Vanguard really. It's great and shit but its so easy. There's no feeling of accomplishment and no need for spatial awareness and using cover properly. At least in multiplayer its really hard so you have to be on point. I didn't feel like I had to be all that on point in the normal game. I actually enjoyed the pin point shotgun more than the class, since I had to actually aim, but not enough to get really enthusiastic.
I hate the rpg shit that came back. Buying guns and upgrading them, and the way it was integrated into the game, it felt like a chore rather than something awesome. I'm not a fan of rpg stuff for rpg's sake.
Didn't like the paragon and renegade options as much (the ones I actually saw, anyway, I'm sure there's a few good ones in there). The dialogue just wasn't as punchy to me. Many of the options felt kinda flat for me.
It's just me, I'm really really idiosyncratic when it comes to what I like in a video game. If it's got something I like, if it clicks, I'm gravy. Even a subtle shift in design can make me feel bored. When I start getting bored, I don't wanna play. Something about the game just didn't give me the high that 2 gave me. I didn't feel as accomplished for beating big fights. They felt kinda samey after a while.
I dunno, it's a great game, no doubt about it. But being a great mass appeal game isn't enough to keep me interested. I'm too idiosyncratic for that.
I might come back and beat it someday, but I don't really feel any urgent need.
Also I spilt coffee on my keyboard, then ruined my left hand with an rsi problem soon after, and I still haven't fixed that keyboard, and my hand still ain't good enough that I want to play a mostly keyboard game for any length of time. I play everything with controller now and modify stuff so I don't have to use the left trigger.
All the above problems were still there, but these really make it so I am unlikely to try and push through it out of a sense of, I dunno, duty to finish or something anytime soon.
i really have no strong desire to replay ME3's single player
there's a lot of busy work, the story just has all kinds of problems, and there is absolutely zero challenge left in it after running the multiplayer for any length of time
and it is just way less ambitious in terms of role-playing and decision making
ME2, i do want to revisit. i'm curious how it holds up now; i haven't played it recently either
Then again, I died a ton in ME2 with it, too. So maybe it's not the most accurate feeling.
I will agree that ME2 Vanguard forced a level of situational awareness you just don't need in ME3 if you've been playing the multiplayer for any length of time. That's more on the multiplayer being balls hard when you have no equipment and forcing you to up your game--and on the multi getting the benefit of watching how people were playing the game and coming out with maps and kits that learned from what had been implemented before. The singleplayer couldn't play with the kits that way.
Going straight into Insanity in ME3 with no time in multi was too hard at points and I had to dial it back, same as ME2. After a few hundred hours of multi though, Insanity felt like Bronze.
You can see every seam in every cutscene they have and the whole "cinematic" angle feels like a film school project with zero budget
"we want this brute to crash into this structure and knock Shepard off of it, but we can't actually do that for whatever reason, so we'll shake the camera a little and do some quick edits and hopefully people will get the idea"
It feels shockingly cheap and full of weird filler!
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Leviathan is great because there are shockingly few missions in ME3 where you only fight Reapers. It was nice to go on a few random kill and destroy missions like the good old days in the Mako.
It feels like false challenge. There is no real element of strategy or tactics beyond in->out->in->out. I feel like getting touched by a Reaper on the map should engage you in some kind of ship battle or something at least.
Yeah, that's definitely the single most half-baked element of a game full of half-baked ideas
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
That's kind par for the course for the series. They really only pull out the epic cinematic scene once per 'chapter', and even then it still doesn't have as much ...momentum as it should. ME1 was sort of groundbreaking initially, but stuff like Jenkins getting mowed down, the first thresher maw, Liara in her stasis bubble, the Saren fight on Virmire. Everything has a very low budget, out-of-place feel. Sort of like looking at a cartoon where the active prop stands out from the beautiful matte-painted background.
The Saren headshot, Sovereign warping in to places in cutscenes and Ilos are the only real oomph parts in ME1 (and Ilos manages it through plot, not through cinematics). ME2 and ME3 have a bit more weight to them, but they still seem to cut corners visually (probably so they could focus more on dialogue stuff). The world feels a bit more present in combat, but it still feels very boxey and inorganic as a whole.
Even The Shadow Broker DLC with its glorious skybox feels epic at times, but still has stuff like Liara's apartment that feels more like a diorama than an actual apartment. I feel like they were sort of finally getting on their feet cinematically with the Citadel DLC, but it was still frequently lazy (like a face shot of Joker coupled with a space car that looks like it's on Half-Life style rails). The games are shot sort of like a high-budget B movie.
ME survives on its story/dialogue, worldbuilding and (in ME2 and 3) its combat gameplay. Otherwise your cinematic shots are like ...once every 6 hours. Cutscene animation is generally not its strong point.
Phalanx 4 lyfe.
"I should go." <lazy saunter stage right>
It just makes me chuckle every time.
I would have loved if the cutscenes actually had a line of code (or 20, whatever) so the game recognized which weapons characters had equipped. Cutscene pistol for Shepard is fine-ish... but why give Miranda or Tali an Avenger when they aren't even supposed to be able to hold one?
And also how they always turn and look in that direction at the same exact speed, every time.
Steam / Origin & Wii U: Heatwave111 / FC: 4227-1965-3206 / Battle.net: Heatwave#11356
I suspect that's more to do with resource limitations than anything else. Cutscene animation is very expensive, both in terms of the manpower needed for development and the computing power needed when rendered in real-time like the ME series is. Combining that with the level of detail they need in the facial expressions in cutscenes are going to force them to use a lot of shortcuts where possible.
Honestly, game development as a whole is just the art of making something look just good enough to fool the player into accepting it. Whether it's physics collisions or cutscenes or what have you.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Everyone gets an update!
Customizable Mako! (also other stuff)
A ship name! Loyalty missions! (also other stuff)
I like how in the second article someone's autocorrect changed "biotics" to "bioethics."
It'll probably be the Brother Moons.
like, they're clearly the main shit, the protagonist species, but we're protagonists too and we're fucking it up lookylooing around someone else's galaxy
out of nowhere some jerk just up and makes a rousing speech and then tries to recruit you for their ship of plucky adventurers
then every so often you get to the end of a mission to find that they got there first and they're either like hail, friend of friends or stay out of my way if you like breathing and you don't know which you're going to get
during a conversation you see an interrupt icon pop up, but strange and reversed and you realize it's theirs, then yours appears and they clearly clock it and suddenly you're in an interrupt standoff
I want to find a forgotten alien race with ancient technology...
that's just rubbish. Like, for their time it was impressive, but holy fuck, if you tried to sell it now, your customers would flay you alive.
Why I fear the ocean.
An ancient alien race with Windows 95? That could be fun!
i'm just hoping for fewer plot holes
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy