Bad? The writing in ME2 was awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6HxU8MPac&feature=related
Was the writing in Mass Effect 2 bad?
Débuté par
Plinkett
, févr. 20 2012 10:01
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#52
Posté 21 février 2012 - 12:39
TheoCN
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i really didnt like that he had to die and be ressurrect BEFORE the game even starts.
now if he dies again, it will be ressurrected again and again. that was beyond silly.
now if he dies again, it will be ressurrected again and again. that was beyond silly.
#53
Posté 21 février 2012 - 12:41
nitefyre410
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Was the writing bad... I have seen worst and I have seen better. There were bright spots in ME 2 yes.. Mordin's Loyalty mission is one for me at least and then there were times you simply cringed I.E the Jack/ Miranda conflict which was a clear ploy of pick the human love interest. The two year time skip was handled poorly very poorly especially considering that Shepard died and was brought back with no ill side effects. Not even comics books are the bad when it comes to bring people back the dead - they do it all the time and there is always some ill effect be it personal or not.
#54
Posté 21 février 2012 - 12:42
Homey C-Dawg
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I thought the writing in ME2 was good (though there were cringe-worthy scenes), but I though the plot was kinda weak.
#55
Posté 21 février 2012 - 12:46
cipher86
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ME2 was filler. The dialogue was fine the plot just didn't have much direction.
#56
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:02
The Tesla Effect
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The Collectors could have more importants to the main ME series plot that they had.cipher86 wrote...
ME2 was filler. The dialogue was fine the plot just didn't have much direction.
#57
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:05
N7Raider
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"Tell your assassin to aim for her head...cause she doesn't have a heart"
ugh the writing was awesome.
ugh the writing was awesome.
#58
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:06
nitefyre410
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Turryn wrote...
Me2 varies in consistancy a lot, but it does have some of the best writen sequences in any game ever.
The plot is kind of poor, all told, and doesn't mesh very well with the characters and motivations in ME1.
So it depends what you mean by 'writing'. Tolkein was a fairly average 'writer' but produced some of the best setting and plot ever delivered by anyone, anywhere. Neil Gaiman is a fantastic 'writer' but you won't get anyone comparing American Gods or Sandman to Lord of the Rings. =/
Gaimen is one of my favoriates and Neverwhere was is on of favoriate books of his.. I need to finish American Gods
#59
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:22
Garrus Kavarian
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Shepard is the only person who can stop the Reapers, and he ends up becoming part machine. Irony!
And for that I accept the resurrection decision. It's a cool little twist.
And for that I accept the resurrection decision. It's a cool little twist.
#60
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:27
Soverign 666
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I dont understand why some people on the forum think the writing in Mass Effect 2 was bad. Can you point me to a video game that has better writing? Is there anything you people like about the mass effect series?
#61
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:28
Dr Death DST
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Losing Drew Karpyshyn as a writer I think hurt the franchise. I wish he continued with this instead of doing star wars. I mean star wars has been done to death. For me it died at episode one. I can't get over that. Finally we have Mass Effect here which let me enjoy sci-fi again without feeling childish. Then Fox scared Bioware into creating lackluster love scenes.
#62
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:28
mango smoothie
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I have never found the writing of the main plot in Mass Effect 1 or Mass Effect 2 to be very good. What makes Mass Effect a great story to me is the writing of the individual missions and characters. So yes Mass Effect 2 had good writing, but not in the main plot. Same goes for Mass Effect 1.
#63
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:29
nitefyre410
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Turryn wrote...
nitefyre410 wrote...
Turryn wrote...
Me2 varies in consistancy a lot, but it does have some of the best writen sequences in any game ever.
The plot is kind of poor, all told, and doesn't mesh very well with the characters and motivations in ME1.
So it depends what you mean by 'writing'. Tolkein was a fairly average 'writer' but produced some of the best setting and plot ever delivered by anyone, anywhere. Neil Gaiman is a fantastic 'writer' but you won't get anyone comparing American Gods or Sandman to Lord of the Rings. =/
Gaimen is one of my favoriates and Neverwhere was is on of favoriate books of his.. I need to finish American Gods
A good compairson from I have read( I was getting close the climax) I would inclinded to agree.
Yes you do, it ends kinda well.
You still gotta admit that the best bits in American Gods are more where Neil just lets himself go describing the emigrant characters (especially the London shoplifter/trickster lady) and their lives, and the actual plot is somewhat thin. The book lives moment to moment on the character interactions, locations and dialogue.
Somewhat like Mass Effect 2 did.
#64
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:32
adawg828
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If having a Shepard that says something completely different than what the wheel says then yes it is bad.
#65
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:35
Palathas
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I thought everything was quite good until the very end. The idea of a human Reaper isn't a bad one but something just didn't quite click for me. I think it was the human shaped Reaper. I'm not really sure. Overall I thought it was pretty good though.
#66
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:36
What a Succulent Ass
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>No family, Jacob?adawg828 wrote...
If having a Shepard that says something completely different than what the wheel says then yes it is bad.
"SUGGESTIVELY: SO, NO MISSUS TAYLOR WAITING FOR YOU BACK HOME, JACOB?"
#67
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:37
LordJeyl
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While I wouldn't give the writer's a bad grade for the work they did on ME2, I would certainly be critical about their execution.
Starting out the game with Shepard's death and resurrection was a pretty cool idea that I thought was executed well, but from moment one of taking control of Shepard, we're introduced to the biggest and most over used plot device that will plague almost half the game. Something goes wrong, kills everyone, now it's your problem. The amount of times things just turn on us is almost baffling.
One issue with ME2's low points I find stems from putting humanity as the star attraction. Rescuing human specific colonies and having Shepard follow Cerberus orders I felt shifted the focus away from the galaxy wide threat that the Reapers represented in the first game and took away many of Shepard's authority. Also the inclusion of exposition galore EDI was also a slight misstep, since having the actress who is now in every science fiction game Tricia Helfer talk one radio in almost every single mission gets tiresome. What would have been a god opportunity to allow characters who were squad mates handle situations they're trained in is instead past off to EDI.
As for the Collectors, that's probably the low point in the game as a whole. The Reapers are trying to find a way to destroy those they deem a threat, and instead of using a weapon that's so perfect it leaves whole entire colonies empty without even a trace of activity, they instead choose to make their own Terminator based on human whatever for dumb shock value. The idea that Reapers take the form of whatever genes they take is also kind of dumb considering that the part where the Reapers attach themselves to the Citadel is in the shape of a Reaper itself.
The biggest mistake in ME2's story involves The Arrival DLC. Instead of taking Mass Effect 2's ending and building that up for the sequel, they release a fairly boring and game changing DLC that only serves to set up the sequel when they didn't need to. Did Shepard really need to have that incident with the Batarians to go to Earth and stand trial? Was being part of Cerberus not sufficient enough for a trial? That unfortunately is not the low point of the game. The low point comes in the form of the Reapers entering the galaxy at the end of the DLC. If it takes only three years to go from dark space to being inside the galaxy, why did they bother with the collector's and the human reaper when they were only months away?
While I can forgive most if not all these errors if the third games turns out to be god, that doesn't seem to be the case. ME3 looks to have the lowest quality of writing in the entire Mass Effect series.The human focus has been bumped up to 11 with Earth being the center of the galaxy, the galaxy wide threat is being treated like a "secondary objective" when saving a planet that's never been important to the Mass Effect series. And since the Reapers killing everyone isn't enough to get us invested, the writers resort to pure, unadulterated methods that are just meant for pathos. Inflict an emotional response just for emotions sake, because if not, there is absolutely nothing about Earth worth saving. The fact that Shepard, a character who can treat everything with a unity point of view is so dead focused on saving Earth rather than anyone else is so out of character I almost expected her to not even realize what a Reaper actually was.
But the most disappointing thing about all of this isn't so much that the writing has gone down, but the appreciation for the source material has as well. I can understand that trying to grab new players who haven't played Mass Effect before is something that would benefit sales, but to treat Part 3 of a trilogy as the perfect jumping in point just shows a lack of respect to the hard work that went into the previous games. No series of stories no matter how well they do in standing on their own should distance themselves from the stories that lead to them.
Starting out the game with Shepard's death and resurrection was a pretty cool idea that I thought was executed well, but from moment one of taking control of Shepard, we're introduced to the biggest and most over used plot device that will plague almost half the game. Something goes wrong, kills everyone, now it's your problem. The amount of times things just turn on us is almost baffling.
One issue with ME2's low points I find stems from putting humanity as the star attraction. Rescuing human specific colonies and having Shepard follow Cerberus orders I felt shifted the focus away from the galaxy wide threat that the Reapers represented in the first game and took away many of Shepard's authority. Also the inclusion of exposition galore EDI was also a slight misstep, since having the actress who is now in every science fiction game Tricia Helfer talk one radio in almost every single mission gets tiresome. What would have been a god opportunity to allow characters who were squad mates handle situations they're trained in is instead past off to EDI.
As for the Collectors, that's probably the low point in the game as a whole. The Reapers are trying to find a way to destroy those they deem a threat, and instead of using a weapon that's so perfect it leaves whole entire colonies empty without even a trace of activity, they instead choose to make their own Terminator based on human whatever for dumb shock value. The idea that Reapers take the form of whatever genes they take is also kind of dumb considering that the part where the Reapers attach themselves to the Citadel is in the shape of a Reaper itself.
The biggest mistake in ME2's story involves The Arrival DLC. Instead of taking Mass Effect 2's ending and building that up for the sequel, they release a fairly boring and game changing DLC that only serves to set up the sequel when they didn't need to. Did Shepard really need to have that incident with the Batarians to go to Earth and stand trial? Was being part of Cerberus not sufficient enough for a trial? That unfortunately is not the low point of the game. The low point comes in the form of the Reapers entering the galaxy at the end of the DLC. If it takes only three years to go from dark space to being inside the galaxy, why did they bother with the collector's and the human reaper when they were only months away?
While I can forgive most if not all these errors if the third games turns out to be god, that doesn't seem to be the case. ME3 looks to have the lowest quality of writing in the entire Mass Effect series.The human focus has been bumped up to 11 with Earth being the center of the galaxy, the galaxy wide threat is being treated like a "secondary objective" when saving a planet that's never been important to the Mass Effect series. And since the Reapers killing everyone isn't enough to get us invested, the writers resort to pure, unadulterated methods that are just meant for pathos. Inflict an emotional response just for emotions sake, because if not, there is absolutely nothing about Earth worth saving. The fact that Shepard, a character who can treat everything with a unity point of view is so dead focused on saving Earth rather than anyone else is so out of character I almost expected her to not even realize what a Reaper actually was.
But the most disappointing thing about all of this isn't so much that the writing has gone down, but the appreciation for the source material has as well. I can understand that trying to grab new players who haven't played Mass Effect before is something that would benefit sales, but to treat Part 3 of a trilogy as the perfect jumping in point just shows a lack of respect to the hard work that went into the previous games. No series of stories no matter how well they do in standing on their own should distance themselves from the stories that lead to them.
Modifié par LordJeyl, 21 février 2012 - 01:38 .
#68
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:37
Chuvvy
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Some of the characters were questionable, but that's usually how it goes for BW romances, they're romances first, good characters second, it should be vise versa. And I think most people agree the plot wasn't solid, but the dialog was good.
#69
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:39
Mx_CN3
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I agree with all of the people here that are saying the writing is good, the story not so much. You'll rarely (if ever) find something in which all of the writing is flawless, but ME2 has very few truly badly written scenes (I've never romanced Jacob, but I think we've all heard the stories... I'm not even going to try to find it on Youtube). The overall story was certainly inferior to ME1's (especially the second half of ME1), but the individual conversations with characters were almost universally superior (Sovereign and Vigil being the two major exceptions).
DA:O and KotOR both give ME2 a run for its money, at least in character dialogs. I've heard very good things about Uncharted's writing as well, but I haven't played it so I can't comment myself. Some of the writing in SWTOR is spectacular, especially the Imperial Agent storyline. I was nearly shedding tears at the epicness of some of the story decisions there.Soverign 666 wrote...
I dont understand why some people on the forum think the writing in Mass Effect 2 was bad. Can you point me to a video game that has better writing? Is there anything you people like about the mass effect series?
#70
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:46
catabuca
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MnMH wrote...
I didn't have a problem with the dialogue, but the narrative pacing, and plot were atrocious.
I agree.
#71
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:47
Gibb_Shepard
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The characters were written very well. But there are lots of plot holes and poorly executed elements of the story. The story really was bad, but the characters make up for it.
#72
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:49
through_silver
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The dialogue in ME2 was just OK. That's not a bad thing, mind you.
Modifié par through_silver, 21 février 2012 - 01:56 .
#73
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:51
Aaleel
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catabuca wrote...
MnMH wrote...
I didn't have a problem with the dialogue, but the narrative pacing, and plot were atrocious.
I agree.
I agree completely.
#74
Posté 21 février 2012 - 01:53
Dreadwing 67
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ME2 is not the standard pacing or direction and that makes it unique.
As for the writing, some areas left me with a head ache trying to understand what was going on (Jacob's mission, say one thing one time, one sec later does a 180 on what he just said), but nothing game-breaker.
I don't look for a perfect game, I look for entertainment and I got that and more from it.
As for the writing, some areas left me with a head ache trying to understand what was going on (Jacob's mission, say one thing one time, one sec later does a 180 on what he just said), but nothing game-breaker.
I don't look for a perfect game, I look for entertainment and I got that and more from it.
Modifié par Dreadwing 67, 21 février 2012 - 01:54 .
#75
Posté 21 février 2012 - 02:10
Mass.Effect.2
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Soverign 666 wrote...
I dont understand why some people on the forum think the writing in Mass Effect 2 was bad. Can you point me to a video game that has better writing? Is there anything you people like about the mass effect series?
Planescape: Torment for story and writing
Prince of Persia (2009) for emotional impact and main characters aka Character development.
Just to name two which instanly come to my mind.
Mass effect as nearly no character development on screen. Even when there is good character development from me1 to me2, we do not actually get to see it. Only garrus can have a bit of character development. Not even shepard get the luxory of character development. He seems static in the way you play him. There is no real turning back from beeing a renagede or paragon sheppard, the game more or less punish you for changing him. At least in me2, in me1 it is actually possible, but there is not much motivation to do so. The story does not support this. Actually Sarren got more character development than any other character in mass effect.
Aaleel wrote...
catabuca wrote...
MnMH wrote...
I didn't have a problem with the dialogue, but the narrative pacing, and plot were atrocious.
I agree.
I agree completely.
I have to agree.
Modifié par Mass.Effect.2, 21 février 2012 - 02:11 .
