269 réponses à ce sujet

[Skirlasvoud]

Luc0s wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

And we had control over Shepard's reactions, morality and persona. Do you get it now?

We never had full control over that. Shepard is Shepard. He is a character in his/her own right. We can influence how Shepard deals with situations and sometimes we can even influence his/her opinion on something, most certainly, no doubt. But Shepard as a character is always the same. Just like Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher) is always Geralt of Rivia, no matter how we play, no matter what decisions we make, Geralt is still Geralt, a character from Andrzej Sapkowski, not us the player.

Don't you dare bring an RPG into this that's actually sucessful at what it does.

Witcher never put on airs. Geralt's personality is well established from the beginning and the man consistently reacts in the way I expect him to, up to the point where I'm the more feeling one of the two behind my keyboard and loving every moment of it. The advertisement hasn't slapped us to death with "player choice" and just promises us an engaging story, which it does remarkable well. And yet, lo and behold, there's actually a wonderful gem to be found when it comes to story divergence.

Compare that to Mass Effect 3, the most hyped game I ever played. Shepard is a shell of a personality, which we're supposed to fill out. And yet, even that is torn from our hands in ME3 and suddenly this sham of a hero we're supposed to control, is brough to life and does as he/she sees fit, against our wishes. ME3 fails at both depth of character AND player immersion. I feel nothing. The advertisement HAS slapped us to death, but what we got is a tepid on-the-rails uncharted adventure game, but with a far lesser storyarc.



Witcher is the complete reverse of ME3. CDProject gives us a set proagonist and guides it through an amazingly rigid story with suprising choice. It has focus. Bioware doesn't know how the hell its supposed to do anymore, aims for to give us player choice, doesn't and then ruins the story. It comes short of what the Witcher does.

Modifié par Skirlasvoud, 01 avril 2012 - 10:08 .

[Fenrisfil]

noxsachi wrote...

And how is choosing how to respond not a choice? Being able to define your response is the most important aspect of making a character your own, even more so than choosing what action to take.

I tend to agree here. Sure the games ended up minimising your impact on the Galaxy itself by offering suspiciously similar replacements to characters and events you didn't initiate. But you at least had control over your own character. The only time I've felt seperate from my Shepard before was by not being able to see Tali's face when he can in ME2 (if you romance her). At least I understood the reasons for that. But in ME3 you suddenly had no control over your own character at several points. 

Thessia wasn't so bad as I felt my shepard should be upset over that. However on a secnd play through I tried to not be so upset and found I couldn't be. The dream sequences were worse though as your forced to visualise this one kid you've only seen in passing and make him the focus for your nightmares. I always try running away from the kid but eventually your forced to look all sad as he burns. It's dangerous showing us the workings of our characters subconcious mind as it shatters the illusion that we've created a unique character. Obviously now we know the only reason for those dreams were so we'd recognise and (supposedly, though obviously it didn't work) feel an emotional attachment to starkid. If it wasn't for that, perhaps they would have had varied dreams which were based on past decisions that possibly may actually be haunting our Shepard. But no, it was a means to an end and nothing to do with our decisions or our Shepards.

Finally of course there is Starkid itself. Suddenly we can't even argue or express an opinion. All we can do is lamely obey the Starkid and take him at his word.  By that point it was obvious that nothing I did, or that I thought my Shepard was meant anything at all.

[Cant Planet]

+10 for OP.

The kid... When the game started, and the Normandy turned into a toy that a kid was playing with, I thought that was well done and well thought out.

When he showed up the second time, my reaction was "okay, weird that he keeps appearing wherever Shepa--- aw, hell no, he's going to be some precious symbol of humanity and loss shoved into my damn face for the rest of the game, isn't he? ISN'T HE???" (Though it's probable that there was more swearing.)

Soon it was confirmed. They were one of the two strongest labels in gaming when it comes to their writing (IMNSHO), yet now they had decided to resort to weak and long-overused narrative tactics to water down what was already working about the story, in favor of attempting some cheap child-in-danger sentiment that unsurprisingly failed to connect.

And to have him turn into Godchild at the end? That's supposed to be edgy and complex and intellectually stimulating and effective? It's so cliched that I'm surprised they didn't have him singing a creepy nursery rhyme.

[Flextt]

Good examples of nightmare scenes: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Scarecrow missions.

[Jayelle Janson]

I didn't mind the nightmare scenes although it immediately made me think of Deadly Premonition.  I saw it as Shepard feeling guilty because he had the chance to save him and failed. 

The problem is that now I've started replaying the game as soon as I see him I feel an outpouring of hatred towards him because of that stupid Catalyst.

Modifié par Jayelle Janson, 01 avril 2012 - 10:30 .

[Ashilana]

Jayelle Janson wrote...

I didn't mind the nightmare scenes, I saw it as Shepard feeling guilty because he had the chance to save him and failed.

The problem is that now I've started replaying the game as soon as I see him I feel an outpouring of hatred towards him because of that stupid Catalyst.

\\

It really does seem odd to me that they would make a character who ruins any future playthroughs.  I am a sap, I cried a little when my Shep watched ventkid die.  But then the dreams were a bit forced... and the ending made me loathe the entire thing.

On my second playthrough I just got up and got a soda.  Slightly different reaction than they were aiming for I think.

[Garlador]

I have little love for kids anyway. I can't think of many films or stories where a little kid made the story better (usually they make the story WORSE).

My Renegade FemShep has blown up entire planets and shot her own friends in the back in her might-makes-right mentality. She's surely seen dozens of dead kids before. Hell, I personally killed most of the Ranchi Queen's newborns myself not too long ago.

I have no earthly idea why she would get so bent out of shape over some generic white boy she doesn't know.

[Saremei]

The kid was completely the fault of these forums. I can remember specific posts back when ME2 came out talking about how much more impactful the game would be with the inclusion of children and specifically the death of one. So Bioware did just that. A lot of things about ME3 were shaped by this board (including the concept of the reapers being an ancient race who turned themselves into synthetic/organic hybrids) yet it seems many disagree with them when they're actually implemented.

Modifié par Saremei, 01 avril 2012 - 10:47 .

[Shepard needs a Vacation]

lordnyx1 wrote...

I agree with just about everything you wrote OP.

Nightmares being actual nightmares instead of just slow mos in particular.

this

[MegumiAzusa]

The Angry One wrote...

You know, now that I think about it, the forest/park of the dream is an odd setting.
What is it's meaning? Aside from looking creepy and cliche? The forest has nothing to do with anything.

It's the mixture of a calm setting (the park) and a frightening one (a dark forest)
Usually creates strong feelings, a well known tool used in too many horror movies.

Cant Planet wrote...

+10 for OP.

The kid... When the game started, and the Normandy turned into a toy that a kid was playing with, I thought that was well done and well thought out.

It's not the Normandy, it's a standard alliance fighter.

Cant Planet wrote...

When he showed up the second time, my reaction was "okay, weird that he keeps appearing wherever Shepa--- aw, hell no, he's going to be some precious symbol of humanity and loss shoved into my damn face for the rest of the game, isn't he? ISN'T HE???" (Though it's probable that there was more swearing.)

The child character was even introduced as such by BioWare in previews.

Modifié par MegumiAzusa, 01 avril 2012 - 11:12 .

[PorcelynDoll]

I still don't get why the catalyst looked like that kid.

[malra]

PorcelynDoll wrote...

I still don't get why the catalyst looked like that kid.

because the writer's thought that by making the arbiter of your destruction be the child you watched be destroyed it would provide a sense of artistic symmetry.

[NReed106]

Got to say, it would've been awesome for the nightmares to include Shep's backstory. The sole survivor for example going through Akuze all over again etc.

I still like how they incorporated your lost squadmates, but it could've been better

[Cant Planet]

MegumiAzusa wrote...

Cant Planet wrote...

When he showed up the second time, my reaction was "okay, weird that he keeps appearing wherever Shepa--- aw, hell no, he's going to be some precious symbol of humanity and loss shoved into my damn face for the rest of the game, isn't he? ISN'T HE???" (Though it's probable that there was more swearing.)

The child character was even introduced as such by BioWare in previews.

Ah, see, I avoided all preview material, since I already intended to get the game and I thought avoiding the promo stuff would help me enjoy it. More fool me. In retrospect, a couple of spoilers might have lowered my expectations in a good way.

Modifié par Cant Planet, 01 avril 2012 - 11:35 .

[Peer of the Empire]

A good topic

My Shephard would never wear such a girly expression after the destruction of the shuttles.  I've said it before, I was more moved by the fiery embers of Alliance ships falling to Earth

[Stygian1]

Its weird I was just thinking about writing something just like this.

Totally agree OP.

BioWare really forgot that they aren't supposed to decide anything for Sheppard. The dreams should have been more in depth, and effected primarily on our choices. Something twisted with a LI (as you mentioned) would definitley have an emotional impact on us. Forcing us to "care" about the kid is just bad bad writing.

[Grasich]

Flextt wrote...

Good examples of nightmare scenes: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Scarecrow missions.

Not really nightmares per say, but the hallucinations in Dead Space 2 I thought were quite well done.

[Grasich]

Luc0s wrote...

<text>

You may want to fix those quotes. It looks like you just suddenly started a conversation with yourself.

[Wowlock]

Yep , I pointed out this problem in the suggestion thread. Aside the ending...the game had some serious ''Cut the gameplay and cue the Dramatic moment ! '' syndrome. The first time I felt inactive was when we met Kai Leng.

Cutscenes are all good and nice but the way they are handled sometimes in ME3 is just over the top. As I said , with Kai Leng, Shepard just sit back and watch a terminally ill Thane duel with him..... In no way of shape that Shepard would allow that. It felt like they had to build up Leng as a bad guy so they literally freeze Shepard in the scene so all you can do is watch....while you can simply shoot him while Thane knock him down......It was cheaply done and I was more mad at Shepard than Kai Leng to be honest.

Those ''over-dramatic'' or Overly-cinematic moments was quite out of character and made me feel like I had no control over things. I prefer the cinematic moments like in Lair of Shadow Broker where Shepard won't just stand there and watch but actually do something about it , like how he tackled the rogue Spectre etc.....

[KingZayd]

noxsachi wrote...

iamthedave3 wrote...

The nightmare sequences would have been a good time to have Harbinger turn up, come to think of it. I never liked him as a villain, Sovereign was much better written, but he's better than what we got (nothing).

The Kai Leng defeat could have been handled better. The main issue is that - oddly - Kai never gets to really shine. His appearance on the citadel is brief, and he is defeated even if he manages to kill Thane. But there's never a moment where Kai Leng just gets to look unbeatably awesome. His troll e-mail doesn't work, either.

A Virmire-like scenario that ends with Kai killing one of the squadmates would have worked effectively, I think, if it was obvious that Kai manipulated you into that situation.

I heard that Kai Leng was originally intended to have indoctrinated the VS, and you had to choose between the VS and someone on your squad. That would have actually made him a legitmate villain. But sadly that sequence was lost.

Also I actually rather liked his troll e-mail. I doubt it was what they were going for, but the way the game shows him Kai is just this petulant child, and the e-mail confirms that. It and stabbing him in the gut after breaking his sword were the only good things about him.

I agree that Kai Leng's email did seem to suit his character, even though it was still infuriating as i was destroying him until he called the shuttle in for backup.


Are you telling me that my paragon shepard could have shot ashley legitimately? damn, that would have made the game better just for that possiblility.

[KingZayd]

Flextt wrote...

Good examples of nightmare scenes: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Scarecrow missions.

max payne 2 nightmares.

[Dreogan]

malra wrote...

PorcelynDoll wrote...

I still don't get why the catalyst looked like that kid.

because the writer's thought that by making the arbiter of your destruction be the child you watched be destroyed it would provide a sense of heavy-handed artistic symmetry.

I made a modification to show how this failed.

[Dendio1]

Or hell, have a new sequence where you think you are awake, only things go horribly wrong and you wake up and it is a nightmare. Have us have to do something disturbing, like see our LI get huskified and we have to kill them

Nice suggestion. I was emotionally attached to the kid after he was killed, and the dreams seemed weird/creepy enough. However, Immediately after thessia me and shepard did not see eye to eye.

I was pissed at kai leng and ready to get our prothean vi back, but shepard was down in the dumps. Honestly I wondered if I had missed something important, since everyone seemed to have all but given up.

If I had been soundly defeated by kai leng it would have been better. Have my shep lose his life bar and then trigger the cut scene. It was disorienting to go from beating kai leng in game to watching him beat me.

I just wanna point out that the cut scene is still one of my favorite ones in game. Kai leng was a badass walking in between those missles

Modifié par Dendio1, 02 avril 2012 - 12:37 .