150 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

Right....so my opinion isn't quite as bad as the title might suggest. But I am disappointed in the way the Reapers developed as a threat in ME2. There are two reasons for that:

(1) In ME1, we had Sovereign. The encounter on Virmire was about the most awesome hero/villain encounter (if you could call a Reaper that) I've seen in a game so far. In ME2, we got...Harbinger. So, you defeat the Collectors, and then the big revelation: the entity who had all those horrible, cheap and outright silly lines to say to you....is a Reaper? Remind me to never again overestimate their intelligence.

(2) The silly body horror on the Collector ship and the base, the reasoning for the human Reaper. So the Reaper needs...what? Genetic material? Why didn't they clone that stuff, should be easier and easier to hide. OK, maybe Shepard isn't so bright and didn't realize that what they wanted were the humans' minds, but if so, why not have a smart Shepard for a change and say that? Or would that offend players? Do I see a barely hidden instance of Dumb is Good here? Really, a Shepard who isn't bright enough to even consider that the Collector base *might* be a valuable resource, who's not smart enough to know that genetic material simply cannot be what the Reapers really want, that made a joke of my protagonist, and that completely nonsensical stuff of monsters made from human bodies, from the Scions to the Reaper itself, that made a joke of the mysterious techno-gods introduced in ME1.
And it's even worse: it seems that cheesy horror was what Bioware wanted in the first place, they even retconned the Reapers for that purpose. Why ruin a perfectly good concept for effects that add nothing, absolutely nothing, to the threat they already represent? I guess it was created to evoke disgust, but all it did was make me groan. Even my old pet peeve pales to insignificance in the face of this colossal blunder.

YMMV, of course, but for me the rationale for the processing of human bodies, the human Reaper itself and all the cheesy horror acted as a textbooks case of a Wall Banger. ME2 almost ruined the Reapers for me, and as a continuation of the Reaper plot, ME2 was, in my estimation, almost a complete failure. The only thing that offsets it a bit was the Reaper IFF mission which had a very convincing mood in spite of those (groan - not again) cheesy Scions.

I hope very much that this tendency does not continue in ME3. What do you think?

Disclaimer:
I had and have a lot of fun with the game in various ways. It only failed as a continuation of the Reaper plot.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 octobre 2010 - 07:23 .

[Ieldra]

double post

Modifié par Ieldra2, 19 octobre 2010 - 07:19 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

The Reapers were two-bit monsters in ME1 as well, the conversation with Sovereign on Virmire reduces it to mustache-twirling villain in under five minutes.

[dgumb]

While I don't really share in the antipathy towards the reapers, I have to agree about the scions/husks.
I don't know why, but every rpg for some reason has to include the "undead" enemy archetype. And every time I see them I groan and roll my eyes. It's one of the most overused, and lame, clichés in all fiction.

Modifié par dgumb, 19 octobre 2010 - 08:58 .

[AntiChri5]

A big difference is that in ME 1, you fight Sovereign once. While it is easy to use broken abilities to make the battle a joke it is still a serious fight.



Harbinger? You fight a dozen times on every Collector mission (all THREE of them) and he is never a serious threat.



When Sovereign "assumed direct control" i was stunned, and afraid.



When Harbinger does it, i am annoyed and irritated.

[Zulu_DFA]

It's the same good old Reapers. Only from the "thermal clip" perspective.

[FireEye]

Ieldra2 wrote...

ME2 almost ruined the Reapers for me, and as a continuation of the Reaper plot, ME2 was, in my estimation, almost a complete failure. The only thing that offsets it a bit was the Reaper IFF mission which had a very convincing mood in spite of those (groan - not again) cheesy Scions.

My biggest problem with ME2 is how it handled the Reapers.  Really, the only thing I needed to know about them was how to stop them from arriving in Shepard's lifetime, and how to pass that knowledge along to the next generation.  Explaining them, particularly in such a way that makes them so easy to understand (... just another reproducing species ...) was just... a bad move, story wise, I think.

IMO, ME1 makes for a much darker story.  I guess the difference is mostly a matter of whether you prefer psychological horror vs. body horror.

[cachx]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...
The Reapers were two-bit monsters in ME1 as well, the conversation with Sovereign on Virmire reduces it to mustache-twirling villain in under five minutes.

Pretty much...

I don't know why people hate on Pants the Human Reaper that much, I though it was very lazy to have a terminator lookalike in there, pretty much the same when reaper-saren started to act like a leaping geth, but I don't rate any of those moments as a "jump the shark" moment like many do.

[philiposophy]

The reveal of Harbinger as a reaper was totally flat because it was kind of obvious already and also had none of the gravitas that Sovereign's reveal did. It was clear from the start of ME2 that the reapers were behind it all, but until Virmire in ME1 there was no hint that Sovereign was anything more than a ship Saren found.

[Nightwriter]

To me, a scary villain is one who is silent but shows clear and obvious signs of vast intelligence. It can speak, but chooses not to.

That is sort of how Sovereign came across to me in ME1. Sovereign really only says a handful of things to you, and every line was spoken with a casual indifference, as if the exchange was meaningless to it.

Harbinger talks your ear off, proving that the more words you throw at us, the cheaper each word becomes.

[FuturePasTimeCE]

maybe mass effect 1 introduces shepard, the council, and reapers... mass effect 2 was about extending the overall story plot of individual characters, with minor aspects of the reapers... mass effect 3 will go on in more details about the reapers, combined with the extended characterizations of mass effect 1 and 2...

[Elyvern]

Like a puppet-master who keeps intruding on his craft to give editorial interjections. Yep, I really wanted to slap him silly by the end.

[TMA LIVE]

Harb's "You suck! I own you!" comments will always be the downfall of him. He must be intern Reaper, who they give the ****ty pointless jobs.

[FuturePasTimeCE]

TMA LIVE wrote...

Harb's "You suck! I own you!" comments will always be the downfall of him. He must be intern Reaper, who they give the ****ty pointless jobs.

the idea of "power" and "authority" went to his head... he believe he owns shepard.

[Geowil]

AntiChri5 wrote...

A big difference is that in ME 1, you fight Sovereign once. While it is easy to use broken abilities to make the battle a joke it is still a serious fight.

Harbinger? You fight a dozen times on every Collector mission (all THREE of them) and he is never a serious threat.

When Sovereign "assumed direct control" i was stunned, and afraid.

When Harbinger does it, i am annoyed and irritated.

You brought up a good point there.  Maybe the differences between Sovereign's and Harbinger's power means that the Reapers are just as diversified as say biotics are, some are more powerful then others.


Back on topic though, I do not think that BW ruined the idea of the Reapers in ME2.  I think they are setting the stage up to support having some Reapers being weaker then others, or maybe making it more plausible for a Reaper army to be beaten to that end.

Harbinger seems less powerful then Sovereign was maybe he even has entirely different abilities.  Where Sovereign was meant to have strong indocrination powers maybe Harbinger was only meant to be able to remotely control his victims.

Also why does everyone comapre the human Reaper to the Terminatior?  Dose the Terminator franchise suddenly have exlusive rights to potray the human sekeletal structure in a machine kind of way?

True the idea might have come from there originally but I don't think it was in an effort to cut production costs.  We do not know what the Reaper would have looked like finished anyway, that was mearly an endo-skeleton construction for the Hum-O-Smothy to be formed around, going off of EDI's comments. 

Modifié par Geowil, 19 octobre 2010 - 11:16 .

[crooked]

Agreed, the encounter on vermire was frightening. Collectors were just annoying. But I wouldn't call the story a failure, I think it did a decent job at setting the stage for a third installment

Modifié par crooked, 20 octobre 2010 - 12:12 .

[Sepewrath]

AntiChri5 wrote...Harbinger? You fight a dozen times on every Collector mission (all THREE of them) and he is never a serious threat.

Harbinger was a giant war machine, I don't recall ever throwing down with one of those in ME2. And Harbinger talked peoples ear off, Harbinger said like 2 lines to you and of course Sovereign couldn't say anything to you because its existence was hidden for 80% of the game so to attempt to discern "That is how Reapers behave" conclusion from that, is a bit of a leap on a person's part.

The same way someone simply assumes, the Reapers are out for mere reproduction is a massive leap with nothing to go on but a single action of the Reapers. That could be one of the 200 million reasons for their actions or it could just be their means of directly replacing Sovereign and taking another shot at the CItadel. But of course people don't think about things like that, because they just love to hear themselves complain. 

And TC just to let you know, cloning genetic material on that scale is about as feasible as making a sun in your garage. Also Shepard is dumb for not just randomly coming up with ideas for why they need humans? well maybe they wanted human reproductive organs, maybe they wanted germ cells, maybe they wanted keratin, lymphocytes, maybe they wanted their funny bone to grow a sense a humor. There are a ton of reasons you can come up with for why they needed human bodies, to say that Shepard is dumb for not sitting there and going through the dozens of possibilities would equally as dumb as your making Shepard out to be.

[Epic777]

Sepewrath wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...Harbinger? You fight a dozen times on every Collector mission (all THREE of them) and he is never a serious threat.

Harbinger was a giant war machine, I don't recall ever throwing down with one of those in ME2. And Harbinger talked peoples ear off, Harbinger said like 2 lines to you and of course Sovereign couldn't say anything to you because its existence was hidden for 80% of the game so to attempt to discern "That is how Reapers behave" conclusion from that, is a bit of a leap on a person's part.

The same way someone simply assumes, the Reapers are out for mere reproduction is a massive leap with nothing to go on but a single action of the Reapers. That could be one of the 200 million reasons for their actions or it could just be their means of directly replacing Sovereign and taking another shot at the CItadel. But of course people don't think about things like that, because they just love to hear themselves complain. 

And TC just to let you know, cloning genetic material on that scale is about as feasible as making a sun in your garage. Also Shepard is dumb for not just randomly coming up with ideas for why they need humans? well maybe they wanted human reproductive organs, maybe they wanted germ cells, maybe they wanted keratin, lymphocytes, maybe they wanted their funny bone to grow a sense a humor. There are a ton of reasons you can come up with for why they needed human bodies, to say that Shepard is dumb for not sitting there and going through the dozens of possibilities would equally as dumb as your making Shepard out to be.

I agree with this 

[Therion942]

There were Reapers in ME2?

What's a Reaper? Didn't you guys get neuralized at the start of the game like me, I mean I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to remember anything that happened in ME1.

Wait are you telling me we had an antagonist that wasn't TIM?

Damn. I guess I played wrong or something.

[crooked]

Therion942 wrote...

There were Reapers in ME2?
What's a Reaper? Didn't you guys get neuralized at the start of the game like me, I mean I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to remember anything that happened in ME1.
Wait are you telling me we had an antagonist that wasn't TIM?
Damn. I guess I played wrong or something.

And I agree with this

[hooahguy]

Sepewrath wrote...

AntiChri5 wrote...Harbinger? You fight a dozen times on every Collector mission (all THREE of them) and he is never a serious threat.

Harbinger was a giant war machine, I don't recall ever throwing down with one of those in ME2. And Harbinger talked peoples ear off, Harbinger said like 2 lines to you and of course Sovereign couldn't say anything to you because its existence was hidden for 80% of the game so to attempt to discern "That is how Reapers behave" conclusion from that, is a bit of a leap on a person's part.

The same way someone simply assumes, the Reapers are out for mere reproduction is a massive leap with nothing to go on but a single action of the Reapers. That could be one of the 200 million reasons for their actions or it could just be their means of directly replacing Sovereign and taking another shot at the CItadel. But of course people don't think about things like that, because they just love to hear themselves complain. 

And TC just to let you know, cloning genetic material on that scale is about as feasible as making a sun in your garage. Also Shepard is dumb for not just randomly coming up with ideas for why they need humans? well maybe they wanted human reproductive organs, maybe they wanted germ cells, maybe they wanted keratin, lymphocytes, maybe they wanted their funny bone to grow a sense a humor. There are a ton of reasons you can come up with for why they needed human bodies, to say that Shepard is dumb for not sitting there and going through the dozens of possibilities would equally as dumb as your making Shepard out to be.

Agreed. Im scared of the Reapers, though Harbinger was a bit silly (I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS), the concept of them is scary. And the closing scene is terrifying- the thought that all the hard work to keep the Citadel mass realy closed, the Reapers are still coming. 
This morning it was really dark out, and I saw whatI thought was a UFO out in the distance, but it was really just a goodyear blimp that had all its lights on and was really far away. But in the five minutes that I discovered what it really was, I thought that the ME story could possibly be real, and pretty much told the entire story with the Reapers and the Protheans and Shep to my friends who were with me, and how the Reapers were coming. 
Needless to say, I was quite happy that I was proven wrong. The mere thought of the Reapers being real has me in chills. 

[Rip504]

My response to this...



Is that in ME3,Shepard and his/her crew will find out that the Reapers and Humans share some kind of ancestry! Yay cheesy ME plot twist. A.k.a. The Human Terminator oops I mean Reaper.



It is a Terminator,not a Reaper. Way to steal artwork Bioware. In Dead Rising 2 you can make a "lightsword". What is it really? A lightsabor. Yes of course the Giant Terminator in ME2 may sound cool. It was not. The only reason it was a Reaper is because of ME1 and legal rights.



I agree,ME2 failed in telling a compelling Reaper story.

[Nightwriter]

Sepewrath wrote...

Harbinger was a giant war machine, I don't recall ever throwing down with one of those in ME2. And Harbinger talked peoples ear off, Harbinger said like 2 lines to you and of course Sovereign couldn't say anything to you because its existence was hidden for 80% of the game so to attempt to discern "That is how Reapers behave" conclusion from that, is a bit of a leap on a person's part.

The same way someone simply assumes, the Reapers are out for mere reproduction is a massive leap with nothing to go on but a single action of the Reapers. That could be one of the 200 million reasons for their actions or it could just be their means of directly replacing Sovereign and taking another shot at the CItadel. But of course people don't think about things like that, because they just love to hear themselves complain.

... What?

Harbinger was definitely worse than Sovereign in ME2. He did talk people's ear off. He trash talked all through the fight. That seems so contrary to the Reaper image they were trying to portray. And it doesn't matter if Harbinger is a giant war machine, in ME2 he was just another trooper on the field who happened to glow.

One action isn't enough proof their motive is reproduction?

EDI: "It seems that the Reaper takes the form of whatever species it comes from..."
EDI: "They tried the same thing with the Protheans but failed..."

One action? We're given evidence of a series of actions. A cycle.

[hooahguy]

Maybe Harbinger saw that Sovereigns method, using an actual reaper, failed, so he tried to use a different method, which would be direct intervention through soldiers, after what he saw with ME1 and how the council races could, in fact, take down a reaper. He didnt want to lose another reaper so he used the collectors, while still maintaining some sort of control and not having to risk losing another reaper.

[Foolsfolly]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

The Reapers were two-bit monsters in ME1 as well, the conversation with Sovereign on Virmire reduces it to mustache-twirling villain in under five minutes.

He actually reminded me of old comic book villains like Galactus and especially Darkseid. All haunty talk and about how feeble we are...in fact Frozone's whole thing about monologuing fit perfectly for the Sovereign encounter. And of course, when it came to actual battle Sovie was a coward and was defeated really really easily for such a "god" like enemy.

Not saying I didn't like it. I LOVED it. I like those old chessy comic book villains and all their grand standing. Harbinger was exactly the same. We're too small and infintile to understand them, we can't possibly win, all those nice lines he has.

They're fun villains....but they were never deep meaningful villains. Just "We're beyond you" and grand standing.

And I thought the reveal of Harbinger being a Reaper was well done. It wasn't this big DUN DUN DUN! moment it was a nice subtle thing. It made my jaw drop when I realized it. And it made me feel a touch sorry for the Collector General.