disappointed. It is the worst of the series in my opinion, ME1 being the best.
It is too bad that things have been on a decline. That isn’t to say it is horrible,
it is just not as good as I would have hoped, not as good as its predecessors.
So some specifics about things I liked and didn’t:
--The sound was really good. Not only was it well done in
general but I’m a big fan of the higher dynamic range offered. I play this game
about 10dB louder than most, which is great. In the future, maybe even consider
going further, for those of us with true reference HT systems.
--The story was ok overall, but too dark. I understand that
this is a big war and thus it’ll be a little dark, but it was too far on that.
In the third act, things are supposed to be looking up. Needed more victories,
less “everything is going to hell all the time.” Near the end it got far, far
too dark.
--I’d like to see more character interaction. Too many
conversations with your crew were just listening to them talk in a
non-cutscene. Responses, even if just for show, make things more immersive.
--As I mentioned in another post, I find the multi-player to
be crap and it shouldn’t be integrated with the single player. I’ll never tell
you not to include more features in a game but multiplayer like this has no
place having any influence on the SP game. Yes, yes I appreciate it is, in
theory, optional. It should just be a separate part people can play if they
like.
--The exploration mini-game is the worst yet. You seem to
have taken the criticism about the Mako sections in ME1 wrong. The problem
wasn’t with planetary exploration. Like in Starflight, which I’ve no doubt
influenced this game, it gave the universe a tangible sense of bigness and was
really cool. Only problem was the controls. What needed to be done was a
vehicle that was easier to move around on the surface. Instead we went to a
planetary scanning game that was far more boring, though easier, and now to the
silliest of all with the “save the game, scan the system, load the game, scan
again in the right places” mini-game.
--The level up system is quite good. I think you found a
good balance of simplicity and choice. Not tons of fiddly things to deal with,
but yet some real choice in how your characters progress.
--Inventory system was reasonable. Better than the
“millions of guns, none useful” in ME1 and the “6 guns you can’t mess with,” in
ME2. I liked the tradeoff between firepower and power charge. I think it could
go for a bit more customization/complexity in gear however.
--The game needed some way to level your squad outside of
missions. Since you can’t take them with you on the citadel anymore or the
like, and can’t leave missions in progress, there’s no way to level them up and
look at their powers outside. Should be somethign on the ship you can do that
with.
--A high rez DLC pack like seen in Dragon Age 2 or Skyrim
would be nice. Higher rez textures for sure, and maybe higher poly models. PCs
have some heavy hitting hardware, and the graphics in the game are nice. Be
nice to see even more.
--There was plenty of good comic relief with your crew
banter. Keep it up.
--You need to fix the whole DLC authorization thing. I
launched the game with connection problems (after already having played it) and
it complained that I couldn’t play From Ashes because it couldn’t be
authorized. That isn’t acceptable. I appreciate that you want to try and
curtail piracy (though you really need to analyze if your efforts do anything)
but it needs to not mess with legit players. I’m ok with needing to auth on
install, heck I get the game from Origin so I’m online anyhow. However after
the initial auth, and Origin should do that automatically, it should never need
to reauth. Part of the reason I buy single player games is to play when my net
is out, or I’m traveling, and so on. It is not acceptable to walk down the road
of needing them to be always online. I’ve stopped buying from Ubisoft for that
reason, I’ll stop buying from EA if the same happens.
--The ground boss battle with the reaper on the Quarian
homeworld is poorly done. It is silly to drop someone in to a fight with a
brand new mechanic that hasn’t been explained and have instant death the result
of failure. I was getting real, real frustrated with that fight. New mechanics
are fine, but players need to have them explained, and have time to figure them
out. A 1-hit kill boss is NOT the time for them.
--The quick load button’s behavior should be changed to
match earlier games in that it loads the last quick save, not the latest save. I’ve lost count of the number of times I
wanted to go back to the quick save, hit quick load, only to be taken back to
the autosave.
--The Kai Lang fight on the Asari homeworld is moronic and
contrived. Seriously, this is like Hollywood action movie bad story right here.
“Oh here’s a boss fight but look you can’t actually hurt the bad guy and then
when he gets tired of it he’ll just use his magic ‘I win’ button and beat you.”
Come on. This is sloppy writing and is extremely frustrating. I understand you
had more you wanted to do with the plot, but figure out a better way to do it.
This just felt like a slap in the face to your players.
--The endings are deeply, DEEPLY unsatisfying. Seriously,
this game seems almost… emo to me. No matter what, everything is dark and sad,
it is just a question of HOW dark and sad. That is a poor way of doing things.
Yes, I realize that everything ending well may be a “fairy tale” ending. Hate
to break it to you but this IS a fairy tale. Games are escapism, not reality.
We want the hero to win, that’s kinda the point. I’m ok if you want to offer
other endings for the people who like that but having it all be dark is really
a poor decision, one I disliked.
Ultimately as I said this is the worst in the series. On a
true 1-10 scale (not the inflated game rating scale sites use) where a 5 is ok
or average, I’d rate the original ME about a 9-9.5. Not perfect, but probably
my favorite RPG of all time, supplanting BG2. I’d rate ME2 about an 8, mostly
due to some of the mechanics changes for the worse, and because the story
wasn’t quite as good.
ME3 is more difficult. Its rating depends on whether you
take my disappointment for the endings in to account. The game prior to the
final push I’d rate probably a 6.5-7. Good, but not up to the spec of the other
two in a number of ways. After the end, I’m tempted to rate it a 4. The reason
is because I find the stories in Bioware games deeply engrossing, I care about
the characters, and to get slapped in the face like that really bothers me.
So as for the future I’m certainly not buying any ME3 DLC
until I’ve investigated it and decided that it is worth it, either in changing
the endings, or providing a good “what happens after” story or the like. I also
won’t be preordering anymore. While I’m not completely sorry I have the game, I wish I’d
waited until it was cheaper. I have a backlog of games to play and this one
wasn’t horrible, but I am wishing I’d chosen something else to play.
Modifié par Sycraft, 12 mars 2012 - 10:49 .
Retour en haut
