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[Domenique]

I don't know, the endings are fine for me now, considering that mass effect in essence (or even better: in my opinion) is a series of Space Opera rather than science fiction. Stuff don't fit well, it's bad, of course, but like somebody said, up to the starchild portion of the game, it was a really awesome experience and for that I can't really say anything bad about it. YMMW, in essence I've enjoyed the series and that is why I'm not losing any faith in Bioware, not because of Mass Effect that is.

I've lost my save so I've tried to replay ME3, but then I became scrimpy of my time so simply watched the videos. But the first mission that I've played through, I was able to analyze everything this time and came to a conclusion that no matter how much the writers dropped the ball in the end, the Mass Effect series is the best story driven RPG we've got, quality-wise. The music, sound effects are well picked, the graphics are good-looking and optimized (I was able to complete it with my toaster, so there you go), I had no problem with voice acting. Even the male Shepard character is designed very well: they took a dutch model for his looks and a guy with a low voice for voice acting to make him as attractive a person can be. It sets a high standart for story driven and cinematic video games, it even reminds me of Star Wars original trilogy (the first was the brighter one, the second was the darker one, the third dropped the ball in the end). To sum up what I was trying to say, nobody did offer us something as good as ME series so far in terms of overall quality. If the writing was well up to the end, we might as well had expirienced the best video-gaming had to offer us: a genuine expirience that shows us how video games are better than movies because you can take part in them, yet still receive a good story, and audio/visual quality.

This is my opinion, of course, but knowing that only Mass Effect pulled the cinematic video game thingy off very well has made me think differently about the series. It had it's problems, but here's hoping that the devs will learn from them and take such sort of video games even further.

[fenrif]

Domenique, do yourself a favour and don't ever try to play ME3 without a carry-over save. It'll completely ruin the magic for you.

[Domenique]

Domenique, do yourself a favour and don't ever try to play ME3 without a carry-over save. It'll completely ruin the magic for you.

I had the save from ME2 stored in my google documents, but forgot to do the same with the ME3 save before formating my old pc, that's why I wanted to replay ME3 at first.

You kinda sound ironic though, I really don't think the saves change THAT much.

[fenrif]

Ah I see, yeah that's much better. ME3 without a carry over save is like watching Return of the Jedi with any mention of the previous 2 films edited out, and instead of Darth Vader, Han Solo, Leia and Chewie you have Barth Gader, Dan Bolo, Reia and Boowie.

[Domenique]

Ah I see, yeah that's much better. ME3 without a carry over save is like watching Return of the Jedi with any mention of the previous 2 films edited out, and instead of Darth Vader, Han Solo, Leia and Chewie you have Barth Gader, Dan Bolo, Reia and Boowie.

Heh, didn't knew that. They really do change the characters so much, or is this just a metaphor of sorts?

[Darkmere]

I've not played without an imported save, but I know without one Wrex was shot on Virmire, and there's no cure so Eve dies. Wreav takes charge and tries to lead the Krogan to more galactic conquest. Garrus is just cut from the whole game if he died. Tali is entirely replaced by Admiral Raan, who does nothing and can't help you make peace. Mordin is replaced by Padok Wiks, the scientist who lets you into the base on (I forgot the name). Jack's dead, so two or three of the Grissom kids die. Jacob's replaced by Doctor Generic, who dies.

Seeing a pattern?

[Shadowlord]

I keep going on missions with Liara and Garrus, and it's nice seeing them talk with old comrades from the previous games.

But the first mission that I've played through, I was able to analyze everything this time and came to a conclusion that no matter how much the writers dropped the ball in the end, the Mass Effect series is the best story driven RPG we've got, quality-wise. The music, sound effects are well picked, the graphics are good-looking and optimized (I was able to complete it with my toaster, so there you go), I had no problem with voice acting.

To sum up what I was trying to say, nobody did offer us something as good as ME series so far in terms of overall quality. If the writing was well up to the end, we might as well had expirienced the best video-gaming had to offer us: a genuine expirience that shows us how video games are better than movies because you can take part in them, yet still receive a good story, and audio/visual quality.

I'm playing through ME3 right now, and have played through ME1 and 2, and personally, I'd rate Star Control II (specifically, the 'The Ur-Quan Masters' port) as a better story driven RPG. Cinematic graphics and sound aren't the determining factor for what makes a good story-based RPG. The story/plot, and how the player interacts with it and affects it, is more important.

In ME3 it appears to be entirely possible to putter around forever while the reapers consolidate their gains. I could go around searching every system in the galaxy while the reapers do nothing but sit in systems they've already taken (presumably until you do more plot missions; I have not messed with the shroud on the krogan homeworld yet even though strategically that would be the first thing I would do if game time wasn't linked to plot missions). In ME1 and 3, doing certain plot-missions prevents the completion of numerous other sidequests, screwing over anyone who is fooled by the priority label (in ME3) on plot missions (or in descriptions of the missions in ME1, how they are described as urgent).

In Star Control II, in contrast, time passes while you are playing, and events will happen as time goes on, eventually culminating in the eradication of the species in your part of the galaxy, one by one, if you haven't already won the game by then. While it is still possible to win the game after species start getting wiped out, it's a pyrrhic victory at best, and if you're too slow you'll lose when the death march reaches Earth. You also get to customize your flagship and use it in battle, if you desire to, or use other ships in your fleet (though it's always one ship against one ship at a time).

I have some minor annoyances with Mass Effect 3, which ... well, I kind of doubt any game would really address, but still, it bugs me a bit (of course you can come up with just-crazy-enough-to-actually-work ideas for any game and they won't be possible to do, most likely, unless you're playing morrowind or something):

Why can't I use drones with mass effect cores to cause stars to go nova or supernova after luring reapers into a system with scanning pulses?

Also, WTB missiles with element zero drives surrounded by metamaterial cloaking shells to make them actually invisible (because thermal stealth is facepalm-worthy). When the missiles reach the enemy, they should be able to create mass effect fields to either scatter the ship across several light years (probably requires a huge element zero core) or just tear it apart (probably requires considerably less element zero).

Basically, I can think of all kinds of ways to fight the Reapers, not including Sheridan-like tactics (plant ludicrously powerful nukes among asteroid field, lure reapers to nukes (easy, since they just love to chase you), detonate nukes), but instead we're stuck with not fighting them at all and putting all our hopes on one site?

Instead, we get nothing inventive or useful against reapers (so far), and get a GAME OVER without a fight if we let a reaper catch us? (Unless you count the secret project as something inventive or useful against reapers, but nobody knows anything about it or what it does, and one would expect the reapers to destroy it before it could be completed if it were actually a threat to them)

Also, without having looked at any spoilers, it's blatantly obvious (to me) that the Reapers are driving refugees to the Citadel and will almost certainly be hitting it soon, taking out any defense fleet, and attempting to capture the civilians, but I am given no ability to warn anyone that it isn't safe. IIRC they could disable the mass relays if they took the Citadel, as well. I doubt they will go that far, though, mainly because it would be a Game Over for the player, who probably lacks the fuel to travel between star clusters on normal FTL.

(Why did the SR-2's fuel capacity drop from 1500 to 1000 between ME2 and ME3, anyways?)

[dogstile]

So what we got was an ending that say's "look, your allies do get on the ship, the relays don't get destroyed, they get off the planet" because they realised that all of that fucked over the universe forever. The ship getting repaired and them getting off the planet seems a bit iffy considering they crash landed and it looks a bit damaged when they land, but whatever.

But I thought the main reason the ending sucked was the very existence of starchild? Starchild is on the citadel, could they not just activate the portal using him? Hell, why use the geth in the first game, they had the collectors. Why is their only one species of collector? The reapers have been doing this for countless cycles after all.

Gah, still not pleased. Never thought I would be to be honest.

[fenrif]

I've not played without an imported save, but I know without one Wrex was shot on Virmire, and there's no cure so Eve dies. Wreav takes charge and tries to lead the Krogan to more galactic conquest. Garrus is just cut from the whole game if he died. Tali is entirely replaced by Admiral Raan, who does nothing and can't help you make peace. Mordin is replaced by Padok Wiks, the scientist who lets you into the base on (I forgot the name). Jack's dead, so two or three of the Grissom kids die. Jacob's replaced by Doctor Generic, who dies.

Seeing a pattern?

Also, for most of the characters that isn't there without an imported save (95% of them) you get a "basically the same character" stand in and the game carrys on pretty much the same. For example on grunt's mission you get generic Krogan #42. Most of the missions will play out exactly the same, except that you'll do worse as you've said.

-snip-

Yeah, there's plenty of games I'd rank way higher in terms of storytelling, and more importantly player agency within the story. Planescape: Torment is an obvious standout, but there are plenty more. In terms of graphics and sound I'd point to FF13, or whichever number was the corridor one from this console generation.

And the reason the Normandy's fuel capacity changes is because Bioware are about as consistent as a thing that isn't very consistent. They unashemedly retcon anything from game to game if they think it'll help improve gameplay. Which in any other genre would be great... Not so much in a "talky-techy" style sci-fi game.

[Domenique]

I'm not saying that ME series is better than, say, Planescape or Morrowind or any of the older RPGs with excellent stories, I'm talking about the cinematic way the story was delivered, where every animation and audio cue seems to be well thought out, I felt like I was watching a nice movie in which I could participate. Again, I forgive ME for logical errors as I see it as a Space Opera rather than a sci-fi. Still, in terms of accesibility (I have no doubt my dad who never played a video game could finish it), audio quality (music and voice-overs), cut-sceny delivery, I have never seen anything like it besides maybe DA series, which also come from the same developer. Of course, it's not perfect and in terms of storyline I would prefer a lot of games instead of ME, but ME stands out in it's delivery, my opinion of course. I loved SC2, but again, ME series were more about a cinematic delivering of the storyline, and that's why I can forgive the much poorer storyline. In terms of storylines, I would prefer that of Obsidion over Bioware's any time, but overall quality seems to be better in Bioware games.

[fenrif]

Again, I'd refer you to FF13. It's a much, much slicker game in terms of audiovisual presentation. ME3 is full of cutscenes where, because of the glitchyness of the game, the action presented onscreen is just laughable. There are plenty of cutscenes where people's heads move around, but their eyes stay locked on Shepard and it's really really creepy. Or where dramatic things are occuring, but because of the terrible direction and aging engine it just falls flat (the Salarian who gets shot on the citadel sticks in my head, though I can't remember what mission specifically). Contrast with FF13 where characters actually display emotion convincingly via facial clues alone, and huge attention has been paid to the direction and mise-en-scene of every shot... And that's if you're sticking to the RPG genre (which by ME3 is a genre that barely applies). Head out to other genres, and why not if we aren't worried about the writing or gameplay elements, and there are many examples of better cinematic gaming.

Spoilers for both games:FF13 cutscene ME3 cutscene Notice things like how FF13 has the characters mouths convincingly shape the words they're saying, whereas in ME3 it's just muppet style open and closing vaugely in time with the dialogue. The smoothness of textures, especially around the characters clothing and faces, etc.

And lets not even get into the idea of "cinematic gaming" being a posetive. Again, look at FF13. Cinematic as you can get, but it's a terrible game. Generally speaking the more cinematic a game is the weaker it is in terms of what actually makes it a game. The sad thing is that most games nowadays are about cinematic delivering of the storyline. It's odd that you'd cite SC2 because everything about that games was designed so that outside of actual gameplay it was essentially an interactive movie. And again, it had much a much better audiovisual presentation than ME3. Better direction, better cinematography, better lighting.

Also, and this is just a minor point, but space opera is defined (According to wikipedia, so grain of salt and all that) as:

"colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes."

Characteristically optemistic in tone, competently and beautifully written stand out to me from that definition with relation to ME. Just because it's space opera doesn't mean it doesn't have to be a coherant story. Though tbh I disagree that it's a space opera at all. The game's presented far more as a Star Trek style sci-fi. Well, untill the last 20 minutes of the series anyway.

[scriver]

Star Trek definitely goes under "space opera" in my book

[fenrif]

Star Trek definitely goes under "space opera" in my book

What? ...Why? ...How?



...Who?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Fenrif, if you hate ME so much, why are you always so active in topics concerning it?

[fenrif]

Because I find discussing video games interesting and have a lot of free time on my hands at the moment?

I wasn't aware you're only allowed to talk about a game if you're a fanboy? :S Is this really something you have to ask about, or are you just trying to tell me to shut up without actually coming out and saying it? I mean have you ever heard of something called a critic? They have them in pretty much every artistic medium. They aren't called "praisics." Identifying the problems with a specific piece of work not only helps greatly in understanding it, but also in understanding the medium as a whole. It's also generally welcome by artists because it helps them perfect their craft. Art invites criticism? Is this really such a foreign concept to you, or are you just mad because I don't share your love for the games?

I guess if I had to nail it down I'd say I find it interesting deconstructing the series with regards to how the promise and premise of the original game dwindled and died over the course of the series.