Mass Effect (4) Musings

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

Based on the blurb, I'm pretty sure the story will be DA:O-esque utter garbage though, which pretty much kills my enthusiasm in the crib.

 

Story never was a strong point for BioWare. I'd settle for "not facepalmingly awful." They have managed that much with Jade Empire and KOTOR at least.

 

 

I really liked ME1 on the story front. KotOR was a crude, soulless campbellian thing, Jade Empire was cartoonish bull****, but ME1 managed to not take itself seriously without making it impossible for me to care.

[PrimeJunta]

No accounting for tastes I suppose. I liked JE's campiness and KOTOR did read like Star Wars fanfic, but it read like pretty good Star Wars fanfic. 

 

ME1 OTOH never ceased to irritate me on the story front, from start to finish. I can't really think of anything I liked about its story. I thought both ME2 and 3 had more redeeming qualities story-wise.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

ME1 OTOH never ceased to irritate me on the story front, from start to finish. I can't really think of anything I liked about its story. I thought both ME2 and 3 had more redeeming qualities story-wise.

 

*shrug* I suppose the reaction to it heavily depends on how much one likes cheesy 80s sci-fi.

[ShadySands]

I loved ME2 but I thought the big reaper reveal (and the baby reaper/terminator fight) was beyond stupid

[Malcador]

It's funny to look back after ME3 at ME2 and wonder what was the point of that game. Other than Miranda's ass.

[Sarex]

Other than Miranda's ass.

 

Though that was a pretty good point you must admit.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

It's funny to look back after ME3 at ME2 and wonder what was the point of that game. Other than Miranda's ass.

Miranda's ass was the point of Ass Effect 2.

[Zoraptor]

That was the point of watching 'Chuck'. It was written into their contract that they had to pointlessly eat Subway sandwiches and Yvonne Strahotski had to have at least one scene in her underwear during the last season. I wasn't complaining overly much about that last stipulation, to be fair.

 

The point of ME2 however was to laugh at all the fanservice poses and male gaze camera angles Miranda was put in by a 'progressive' company that had forgotten the internet existed for such things- if you're a troglodytic misogynistic ogler, at least.

 

Can't say I either have optimism or pessimism about ME4 personally. I'd wish they kept the MP and SP parts essentially separate but I wasn't too worried about the approach they used on ME3 for that, I never played MP and it didn't overly effect me. The overall ME structure is quite a good fit for a MP game though. As for the other stuff like supposedly being set in Andromeda and the like, some of it sounds plausible, some of it not so much.

[PrimeJunta]

Observation: any thread about ME devolves into a discussion about Miranda's ass.

 

This exemplifies the problem with the game, and the people who play it.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

This exemplifies the problem with the game, and the people who play it.

 

I don't think it's endemic to ME players.

[Gorth]

It's still in there.  The patch just edited the war assets math such that a reasonably completionist single-player run could achieve the "best" ending without ever launching the multiplayer.

Spoil me rotten... what was the "best" ending??? I thought there were only the

 

 

Red, Green and Blue

 

 

endings. Never even touched the multiplayer button in the game

 

As for the other games mentioned, didn't buy DA:I, got JE since about a year ago on my Steam account and never touched it other than to check that it actually booted. Kotor... I liked the game up until I got forced to change class from my beloved scoundrel character, ME1 I liked for the combat (because i played ME2 first and ME1's combat was vastly superior), ME2 I liked for the companions and the companion stories (even though I think German Public Transportation could take lessons in how to create proper linearity) and ME3 was a very mixed bag with some high highs and some low lows (still debating whether K** L*** or the ending was the main detractor).

 

Edit: ME4... it will depend on the feedback the game gets from some of the locals (who shall remain unnamed) on these forums.

[Malcador]

Observation: any thread about ME devolves into a discussion about Miranda's ass.

 

This exemplifies the problem with the game, and the people who play it.

Wasn't a big deal to me, but I figured I'd make a joke and an attempt to head off anyone trying to make it later on. Not true though, almost always it devolves into Bioware being a bunch of garbage peddling whores for EA.

[Gorth]

Observation: any thread about ME devolves into a discussion about Miranda's ass.

Pictures or it didn't happen

 

 

 

 

...

Yes, that was a joke

[Humanoid]

The "best" ending

had a not-so-subtle hint that Shepard survived.

 

 

As for Miranda, ugh, I think Bioware genuinely misread how people would receive her as a character. Instead of a cool central character everyone would like, they ended up with an smart-arse, insubordinate, plot-armoured Mary Sue impression.

[Yellow Rabbit]

Oh! ME topic! Nice. Maybe someone here will be able to give me a hint about the thing.

 

I've played Mass Effect for the first time just recently, three months ago or so, and the game confused me a great deal. I found gameplay decent for what it was worth and liked some of the companions, but the story part literally INFURIATED me to no end by overall B-movie-style stupidity of the main plot and shameless rip-offs from many sources in composing the setting without even trying to add some original flavour to it. It felt like Frankestein's monster, only the dead one.

 

Now I'm not used to such cute reactions from myself about things like games and it left me feeling uncomfortable, especially since there are so many people praising exactly the parts of the game I loathed so much. "To each their own" I thought yet again and decided against trying ME 2-3 and anything else in the series.

 

Could someone give me hint me about differencies between story parts of ME and ME2, if there are such? Maybe I was wrong about decision not to try it? I like sci-fi, after all.

[PrimeJunta]

The story is infuriatingly nonsensical in ME2 as well (and even more so in ME3). Some of the characters are better in ME2 though, the gameplay is improved, the free-form part of the game has more "meat" to it, and the universe is (somewhat) less monotonous, although the parking-garage-or-mall esthetic still applies, and for some reason every alien race in the galaxy uses the exact same font for all their signage. 

 

All in all IMO the series gets better until the last fifteen minutes or so, at which point it proceeds to slip on a banana peel, fall into a cesspool full of pig manure, drown, die, and go to a Hell which consists entirely of an elevator playing elevator music at you for the rest of eternity.

Edited April 22, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Yellow Rabbit]

Thank you, PrimeJunta.

 

*ME - sratched*

[Humanoid]

I think I would have liked ME2 a lot less had it not been the one I played first. It's probably a marginal improvement in gameplay (though I don't feel it's as big an improvement as some others do), but in the context of the first game, has lobotomised writing. Because I played it first, the most egregiously stupid plot elements of ME2 kind of went over my head, so it was a solidly playable game in that regard.

 

ME3 though, has no such saving grace. I consider it one of the worst games I've had the misfortune of playing. What's more, I hold that opinion even if the infamous ending is disregarded: sure, the ending is terrible (I never got even near there myself), but so is the beginning, and almost all the parts in between.

[cirdanx]

I only hope it´s totally different. If it´s anything like ME3...no chance i will buy it. That is not forgotten. Bioware is a LIAR. End of story. I could live with the ending and just say: "well ok its ****..lets close this chapter" but they flat out lied and based on THIS lie i bought it. And i have no intention to bend over again.

 

Having said that...ME died with part 3 for me anyway, i expect a shiny shooter and nothing else, whit all the typical EA stuff, DLC in form of maps, maybe weapons, a season pass, always on and Origin etc.

 

Nope thank you.

[PrimeJunta]

I was lucky enough to play the games almost completely "blind." I.e. I had not followed any of the hype about any of them. I was vaguely aware of some buzz about the series having a "bad ending" but that's about it.

[GhostofAnakin]

I loved ME2 but I thought the big reaper reveal (and the baby reaper/terminator fight) was beyond stupid

 

It's funny how the trend in the Mass Effect series is how the ending is usually the worst part of any of the games (minus the first one, which I actually liked).

 

Personally, I just want them to shoot for an ending that just doesn't suck.  Doesn't even have to be good.  Just not awful, since the ending is the last thing we remember about our play experience.

[Humanoid]

Kai Leng did a great job of evening out the awfulness of ME3, ensuring that unlike the previous games, there were no peaks of competence throughout the middle of the game.

[PrimeJunta]

@Humanoid I take issue with that. Tuchanka was definitely a peak of competence.

[Gorth]

I liked seeing the Geth perspective too. Things became less black and white after that. But yeah, after K** L*** showed up, the game took a nosedive quality wise. Before him, I only truly hated the "dream sequences" with the stupid child.

 

Edit: I dislike QTE's, but as much as they detracted for the game, Bioware scored some goodwill points by completely dropping minigames, making up for that

[Humanoid]

I didn't get to the Tuchanka section myself (I ragequit during the second dream sequence), but I have watched a let's play right to the end. I'm not sure I can agree that it was a good sequence, in that in ME2, the equivalent decision seemed to be handled fairly evenhandedly. In ME3, the writers seem to be strongly suggesting that one solution is the 'good' one. That kind of heavy-handedness is one that seems to define ME3's writing in my eyes.