833 réponses à ce sujet

[Jade Elf]

Someone With Mass wrote...

My tip is: Skip the comic and read the resume on the Mass Effect wikia page instead. It's ten times better than this.

That, or watch some of the many ME1 playthrough vids on YouTube. Recently posted example.

[glacier1701]

Having looked over the vids I must say it really does short change PS3 users. While there is difficulty in condensing things down to fit into a reasonable time frame of the choices it does show it clearly does not give them ANY context as why those choices really mattered. Moreover it will certainly be something that will cause untold confusion to PS3 users within their ME2 game when things are not as portrayed in that comic.



However if that were not enough it also slaps PC/360 players of ME1 in the face as well. Nowhere within the game are we told that what we are doing at the beginning of ME2 is anything other than hunting down Geth because that is what the Council wants us to do. In other words they have turned around on the threat of the Reapers. Yet the comic clearly states that this is ONLY the official reason and that Shepard is still actually out there working on the reaper threat. In other words the council has been retconned (slightly) to look less stupid than what we got if we played on the PC/360. It really makes me concerned that ME3 is headed in a bad direction storywise as compared to its promise when we first embarked on the journey in ME1.

[Dean_the_Young]

Glacier, except that from a 'Shepard's perspective,' it works just the same as for someone who beat the endgame and heard the Reapers address the Reapers.



In the ME2 prologue, we're told the threat is classified. (Official position.) Shepard is sent out to seek out Geth. (Same). Shepard will die. (Same.) Shepard will return and find that the Council has turned it's back on what he thought was already established fact (same again).

[Slayer299]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I'm going to step out and completely disagree with Didy, and most of you, and say that, for an abridged version that had to work within a strict limit, it did pretty good for what it was intended to do (give a skeleton summary of the overall major events and persons of ME1 in a limited time span).

We were never going to get, or were offered, or promised, or implied, an hour-long comic, or a forty-five minute comic, or a thirty minute comic. Even a fifteen minute comic is still fifteen minutes on top of the other twenty/thirty minutes of 'sit down and wait' time between starting a new game and actually getting our first non-hand-held fight (and another ten/twenty+ to get to the actual work in Horizon). The comic is not a replacement of ME1, nor was it ever supposed to be. It was never going to be able to cover the nuance, the context, and the feel of a game that could easily go into the over-40-hour range.

I can't agree with you there. No one was expecting an hour (or 45 minute) long comic to cover the events of Mass Effect, that's just not realistic. But really, the comic omitted a lot in information (Geth, Cypher, Nihlus) and got even more information either wrong or contradicted itself. It could have been done in that time frame hitting all the primary story information and without ending up looking like what we've all seen. Which is a neutered and sometimes, just plain wrong version of the story.

The comic is not a replacement for ME1, but neither is an accurate and helpful to the new PS3 players either. You mention earlier that why would Cerberus have been covered since it was a sidequest. Well the reason is otherwise you think that Cerberus is just a human organization with all of humanities best interests at heart and that contradicts the entire idea of a moral issue when having to work with Cerberus in ME2. Why would their be a moral issue for working for them if there is no context for what happened in ME1 and the the CC's reaction makes even less sense, much less Tali's or anyone elses.

[bjdbwea]

Slayer299 wrote...

No one was expecting an hour (or 45 minute) long comic to cover the events of Mass Effect, that's just not realistic.

I disagree. It wouldn't be unrealistic to expect that. It would be difficult to fit all the important events and decisions from ME 1 even into one hour, but it would be possible. Especially if you already chose the easy way of presenting it in the form of a (badly drawn) comic with voice-overs. If BioWare and EA would have had any interest in doing this right and worthy of ME 1 instead of just making money fast, they would at least have tried.

Modifié par bjdbwea, 16 janvier 2011 - 04:06 .

[darknoon5]

The comic is free iirc, so claims they rushed it and only did it for money don't make sense to me.

[Dean_the_Young]

From an overall summary of the story, however, how important was the Cypher, or Nihlus? (No quibble about the Geth).



Nihlus was a twenty-minute character who didn't even get his five minutes of fame, and knowing that Shepard was possibly going to be the first Human Spectre, before he went on to become the first Human Spectre without any role from Nihlus, isn't a critical part of ME1's plot. Nihlus was on Eden Prime even less than Jenkins, a voice on the radio, and his death at Saren's hands was far more eclipsed by Saren's attack on Eden Prime from the story perspective.



The Cypher itself was a unnecessary plot McGuffin that was only necessary because the authors wanted it to be necessary. It existed because the writers said it was a problem that needed to be solved, but 'Liara understood enough' could have been just as valid an explanation. When did the Cypher itself ever matter again, from a summary perspective? You couldn't access the vision without the far more important Virmire beacon/conversation with Sovereign anyway. Otherwise, what was related to the Cypher that had any real relevance to ME2's story that wasn't summarized well enough in ME2 itself?



People have talked about how you could cut half the ME2 team out of the story and never notice? That was Feros, a destination which, while fun and great for building the feel of the game, really had no importance to the plot besides the Cypher it was created to give reason for.



The comic isn't 'inaccurate', in that it outright says things that weren't true. Shepard was initially on a 'routine patrol.' The first sign of trouble was an attack on an Alliance patrol that saw something it couldn't describe. The comic doesn't lie, it just leaves a whole lot of things out, and for the most part the things it leaves out were largely irrelevant to the larger plot as a whole. Case in point, Nihlus.



Nihlus wasn't necessary for the Alliance to set up a routine patrol on the Normandy. Nihlus wasn't necessary for the Council to give Humanity a Spectre either. Even the entire 'Humanity wants a Spectre' subplot wasn't necessary for Shepard to be on that ship for that mission.Nihlus's involvement in the mission itself was irrelevant. Nihlus being killed by Saren was irrelevant to Humanity bringing overall accusations against Saren, since that stemmed from the dock worker, and no one else. While Nihlus was important in the implementation of the story, Nihlus wasn't important to the story itself.



And yes, Cerberus in ME1 was irrelevant to the plot as a whole: everything you needed to know about Cerberus to make an informed opinion in ME2, you actually learned in ME2. The moral quandry you are thrown in with regards to Cerberus applies to the moral quandry you are in with regards to pretty much all your team, and doesn't go away if you never fought Cerberus in ME1.

[FireEye]

Mesina2 wrote...

FireEye wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

Did you ever played Soldier class in ME1?!
Do you know how boring that class is in ME1?!

I challenge you to play as Soldier in ME1 and then in ME2 and say to me it's better without Thermal Clips!

My MainShep is a Soldier in ME1.  She's also the only one I brought into ME2, and I kept her as a soldier.  ME2 would have been better with a cooling system and without the thermal clips.

What's the highest difficutly you played with that Soldier?
Both ME1 and ME2.


Oh and BTW you still didn't say why is unlimited ammo system better.

"Insanity" on both and "because I happened to enjoy combat in ME1 more," as a reason.  Pure subjectivity on my part. 

[TMA LIVE]

Not to turn this into an ME LI war, but I think they kind of did an unfair job setting it up. Before you make the choice, they spend a bit of time setting up Liara as some ME LI, while Kaidan/Ash are just some random soldier in the background, as well as how they've been depicted, aka as a "random soldier".

[TheAwesomologist]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I'm going to step out and completely disagree with Didy, and most of you, and say that, for an abridged version that had to work within a strict limit, it did pretty good for what it was intended to do (give a skeleton summary of the overall major events and persons of ME1 in a limited time span).

We were never going to get, or were offered, or promised, or implied, an hour-long comic, or a forty-five minute comic, or a thirty minute comic. Even a fifteen minute comic is still fifteen minutes on top of the other twenty/thirty minutes of 'sit down and wait' time between starting a new game and actually getting our first non-hand-held fight (and another ten/twenty+ to get to the actual work in Horizon). The comic is not a replacement of ME1, nor was it ever supposed to be. It was never going to be able to cover the nuance, the context, and the feel of a game that could easily go into the over-40-hour range.

They had the expanse to do a bare-bones spark-notes, and that always meant they were going to cut out fat from the muscle. Did Shepard learning he was a prospective Spectre candidate change that the mission started out as a 'routine mission?' Not really. Even Nihlus himself was come and gone in thirty minutes, even ignoring that the very conversation you learn about being a potential spectre can be a four-five minute one in-game, or a third of the entire opening they had for this entire comic.While, from a gaming experience, those first thirty minutes of exposure meant a lot, from an over-arching story significance they really don't.

The same applies to a lot of other aspects. Shiala and the Thorian? They were related to a plot McGuffin which need not exist in a comic, since 'Prothean expert Liara' is good enough to 'help interpret the vision', especially when the problem of 'not a Prothean mind' never needed to be brought up in the first place. Udina's lockdown? A plot twist that of it's own lasted about five minutes, and didn't exactly change Shepard's intent in the least before or after. Character development missions and conversations? That was never in the cards either.


Didy posted a great list of issues, complaints, and nuances mixed, and while I certainly agree that many, if not all, of those are valid detractions from the ME1 game experience, just focusing and fixing all of those (a sentence here, a close up there, a paragraph of exposition now) could have easily doubled the entire comic time, if not more, and that's just based on Didy's first impressions hours after seeing it.

Many more improvements, I'm sure, could come after more time.

Working in a time limit is hard. It's a fact of life. Compressing all of Mass Effect, a game of 40 to 60 hours of gameplay, into a quarter of an hour? You're going to lose stuff. You have to absolutely justify each and every thing you put in, relative to the rest, and above all can never go beyond your limit.

Don't ask 'why didn't they add this in?' That's a meaningless question. Ask, instead, what they should have taken out to put something else in.

Came here to write some long response similar to this. thanks for sparing me the time

Just reinforces the fact that I'm glad I've played ME1 (multiple times...). PS3 folks may want to go read a wiki.

That said, I hope this means we can get a dual-wielding pistol Tali. She could use a level of bad ass.

[Remus Artega]

I am now starting to figure out where the problem is...this comic is how mr.walters envisions me1 to be so in context of this he made ME2...that is why there is a lot of content missing in context of ME1 but if you replace ME1 with this comic some of them simply dissapears as aforementioned by Dean...if your a complete newbie and not knowing anything about ME1 existence...
Basically I am trying to say that ME2 feels like it is more of a sequel to this comic rather than ME1...

Modifié par Remus Artega, 16 janvier 2011 - 04:24 .

[xxSgt_Reed_24xx]

jojon2se wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...
OK.
When the hell he overacted?

At this point I should simply observe that my candid trolling attempt indeed had people biting, depite their knowing better.

Let's just say: "throughout". Compared to his earlier performances as Shepard (specifically), this is very much: "Yeah! I'm /really/ gonna engage my listeners with this /exciting/ story, booyaah!" Whether this is a good change or not, or if there /was/ a change at all, even, is for each to decide on their own.

As for the comic: what the condensed narrative most importantly lacked, is the back info, experiences and feelings, that forms the WHY you would make one decision over another - it even gives you tiny fragments of these AFTER your making your pick.

Meer's VA in the comic >>>> Meer's VA in the GAME.

that's pretty fail. But a good change on his part.

[Nhani]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
From an overall summary of the story, however, how important was the Cypher, or Nihlus? (No quibble about the Geth). *snip*

This pretty much. The vast majority of alterations or omissions didn't seem all that important to me in the context of Mass Effect 2, regardless of their prior relevance.

Could it have been better? Of course it could have. And I definitely agree that the Geth are a glaring omission, but I do think a lot of people are blowing most of the omissions out of proportion.

[xxSgt_Reed_24xx]

TMA LIVE wrote...

Not to turn this into an ME LI war, but I think they kind of did an unfair job setting it up. Before you make the choice, they spend a bit of time setting up Liara as some ME LI, while Kaidan/Ash are just some random soldier in the background, as well as how they've been depicted, aka as a "random soldier".

Talk about immensely annoying. I hate that they are referred to as such, makes them unimportant and boring so that the players will be like... "oh, who are these guys again??" Bioware: "Oh, don't pay any attention to them, they're unimportant, we just had to throw them in there as a bone for the ME1 players."

blech.

[Jade Elf]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The comic isn't 'inaccurate', in that it outright says things that weren't true. Shepard was initially on a 'routine patrol.' The first sign of trouble was an attack on an Alliance patrol that saw something it couldn't describe. The comic doesn't lie, it just leaves a whole lot of things out, and for the most part the things it leaves out were largely irrelevant to the larger plot as a whole. Case in point, Nihlus.

Nitpick! The Normandy was on its shakedown run, ie. maiden voyage type of thing. And that was just a cover for the mission to recover the beacon on Eden Prime. That's hardly a routine patrol.

But I don't disagree with your post overall.

Nevertheless, I think they could've done a better job explaining things within the scope of the comic and its length. But, oh well...

[Massman123]

didymos1120 wrote...

I have to say, I'm not super-impressed with the way they've retold things. 

Dude who cares! As long as you get to save Wrex

[Eradyn]

...Wow. How the hell did this piece of crap get greenlit by the heads of both Dark Horse AND Bioware? The story is written like a rookie's first draft. A rookie who paid half-assed attention to ME1 and couldn't write a coherent, unbiased synopsis to save their career. The art design and coherency and continuity isn't in much better shape. NEITHER of these parts were ready to go out the door. This is just sloppy.

BW, what were you thinking?

Modifié par Eradyn, 16 janvier 2011 - 04:50 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Jade Elf wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The comic isn't 'inaccurate', in that it outright says things that weren't true. Shepard was initially on a 'routine patrol.' The first sign of trouble was an attack on an Alliance patrol that saw something it couldn't describe. The comic doesn't lie, it just leaves a whole lot of things out, and for the most part the things it leaves out were largely irrelevant to the larger plot as a whole. Case in point, Nihlus.

Nitpick! The Normandy was on its shakedown run, ie. maiden voyage type of thing. And that was just a cover for the mission to recover the beacon on Eden Prime. That's hardly a routine patrol.

But I don't disagree with your post overall.

Nevertheless, I think they could've done a better job explaining things within the scope of the comic and its length. But, oh well...

All things considered, a shakedown run is a routine patrol.

While the fact it was secretly something isn't, that's wasn't 'apparent' at first, nor in the context Shepard was speaking from (about how it was talked about before hand), nor was that relevation especially worth an extra sentance of speak-time.

[/anti-nitpick mode over]

[Badpie]

 What I liked:
It does a good job of recapping.  It was thorough and some of the artwork was nice.  I like Meer's voice over narrating.

The descriptions of Ashley, Garrus and Wrex.


What I hated:Kaidan is "a good kid"?  Really?  Seriously.  He's a) older than Shepard and Wow, could you be more condescending?
Tali is an "energetic little quarian"?  Again, way to talk down.
Really pushing for the "beautiful" asari to be the chosen love interest, aren't you, Bioware?  <_<

Why does the rachni queen look like a thresher maw in the picture of Liara holding Benezia?


What amused me because I thought "you can't be serious":  Kaidan's arm shelf picture on the desk.  Is that a graduation photo?

[IndigoWolfe]

Badpie wrote...

Tali is an "energetic little quarian"?  Again, way to talk down.

But... she is...

[Badpie]

IndigoWolfe wrote...

Badpie wrote...

Tali is an "energetic little quarian"?  Again, way to talk down.

But... she is...

"little" makes it a condescending term in the same way "he's a good kid" is.  

[Badpie]

Mash Mashington wrote...

The condescending tone prepares the player for Talimance in ME2

Ah yes.  Look at that cute little quarian with the adorable crush on the big manly hero.

[Badpie]

You can't hate on Doucheshep. He can't help it. He's more manly and awesome and alpha than anyone so to talk down to people is just being honest. I mean... you really can't blame him for being the most bad ass space marine in Delta Squa- I mean the universe.