starmine76 wrote...
Not sure if anyone realized/remembers this, but Mass Effect 1 visual style was very clearly a homage to old school 70's sci-fi, from the look of the armor to the film grain to the music. It was really unique and really added a lot to the feel and atmosphere of the game.
In addition, it conquered a common downfall of most visions of the future in that they didn't simply design things in a way that would look cool to someone living in 2007. Don't know what I mean? Look at the "2015" scene from Back to the future part 2. Its set in 2015, but it still feels very 80's. Thats becaused, like most movies and games that take place in the future, it was designed to look appealing to someone living the time period it was made. Bioware was actually pretty bold to avoid this for the most part.
A lot of that was lost in ME2 in favor of a much more modern look to everything, although many hints of that influenced remains. But now, looking at ME3, it seems that influence has been lost completely, and in fact many of the screens, simply from a design standpoint, look very much like something that was designed in 2010. It's not a huge gripe, and it doesn't break the game for me, but doesn't anyone else feel as though Mass Effect lost a little bit of it's identity (or gained a new one) when they abandoned that awesome old-school aesthetic?
I do disagree with you on a few things. After all, at the VERY BEGINNING of ME2 we right away got the $6,000,000 credit man, straight out of of ye-olde-thyme sci-fi, thing is, if Mass Effect HAD been Flash Gordonish or Buck Rogersesque in theme, despite being a space opera, you can't deny, it would have been laughably cheesy. Though, I won't deny, I do miss the film-grain, you just don't see that effect, natural or otherwise anymore. As for the asthetics, I'd say they still were designed to appeal to the time period, after all, we loved the curved organic designs for the guns and the logically made future (watching them collapse and stick to your back in a way that was more internally consistent, rather than lazy animation = AWESOME!), but what did we like in the 80's? Bricks, Sci-fi weapons were bricks. Look at Warhammer 40,000 or Starcraft. I won't say that ME1's designs were timless, but, I think they were meant to more appeal to the idea of an idealistic future, clean whites and smooth lines, rather than the machined and industrialized apocalypse idea, which IS something we havent touched for a long time, so really, it was about ideas, not decade fashions.
Modifié par Arian Dynas, 12 avril 2011 - 04:57 .
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