The Angry One wrote...
LinksOcarina wrote...
Weaker story for example, is whooly subjective. If you want to get down to brass tacks the weakest story in the trilogy is Mass Effect 2, because it had no real story to it, it had character drama in place of a story. The side missions with the characters were the most memorable part of the game for many people, while the Suicide mission is the only element of the main story, of stopping the collector threat (a new enemy created because...well...) that is worth mentioning for the most part.
It's story is overall weaker than ME1. ME2 was supposed to be mostly character driven. ME3 is supposed to be an epic finale, and consistently fails at this.
Shallower gameplay and less variety is also subjective. Again, Mass Effect 2 is kind of a culprit here. Limited weapon capacity, regimented weapons in classes (unless if you pick up a new weapon class towards the games middle) an overly simplified level up system, and the heavy use of class powers leads to rinse/repeat gameplay in terms of mechanics.
Mass Effect 3 did an amalgam of the two systems; added new weapons and more diverse weapon specifications, the weight system allowed you to build a character that is powers heavy, weapons heavy, or balanced. New powers and a longer level up tier with more customization options and squad-based abilities, and weapon modification to adjust to situations as you saw fit.
The gameplay is far shallower than ME1. No vehicle bits, no variety, hacking completely removed in favour of pure cover shooting.
I'm not saying it was all perfect, but BioWare's attitude of "if it doesn't work, remove it entirely" is annoying.
As for auto dialouge, you may be right that there is a lot of that in Mass Effect 3. But conversely people can say there is no variety in dialouge in Mass Effect 1. A lot of the side quests and even some main-storyline missions had 3 dialogue choices say the same thing. This is on record for a lot of people at this point. The council scenes on the Citadel all go the same way regardless of what you say is my favorite example to use, because it showcases how shallow dialouge could be in Mass Effect 1.
So to say that auto-dialogue is an issue is possible, but it has been present since game 1, and is a weakness of the whole series. They just decided to not hide it anymore.
Sometimes you said the same thing and had different outcomes, or had the same outcome after saying the same thing.
Neutral dialog was important for roleplay reasons, and auto-dialogue is an affront to the very nature of Mass Effect.
Sometimes it works for the sake of narrative flow, but it is outright abused in ME3.
As to your second point, what precedence are you talking about?
As I've stated. Origin, Pandemic and Westwood. Used, abused and shut down.
Maxis continues in a zombified state, churning out cash-cow products. Will Wright's dream game, Spore, was turned into a crippled charicature of itself by EA meddling. That sort of thing.
Comparitve to Mass Effect 1, I can say the mako elements, the rough shooting mechanics, the broken sytem for how those mechanics works, the rather easy hacking bits (that really were only to get items and omni-gel, never to really stop a fight, so I use hacking loosely here) and so forth are more detrimental to the gameplay mechanics of Mass Effect 1 than anything else. Add to this the sense of exploration being a mapped out square of land with ten different color palettes and some propped in, similar looking "dungeon" levels and minerals to mine, one can also argue that Mass Effect 1 was poorly designed too as an RPG.
The story in Mass Effect 1 is a typical sci-fi episode. Go someplace, do some missions, try to go for an overall goal of stopping one guy. It has merits for being the start of a typical good vs evil plot too, since the Reapers were an early seed planted in-game as the big bad boogeyman you can't stop. What made Mass Effect good and fresh was the take on the world of Mass Effect.
If you were to break down the storylines of all three games, they all serve a different prupose. One is the introduction, the setup, and the exploration chapter. Two is the charater driven melodrama that prepares you for the climax, and introduces even more complex themes that the first chapter couldn't achieve. And three is supposed to be a pay off, the climax of the previous two arcs with established characters, tying up as many loose ends as possible and bringing forth a feel that was logical since the beginning; all out war between the big bad.
To say that the ending didn't deliver is also opinion again, not factual. If you didn't like it I can't change that opinion, but at the same time to not say why it didn't deliver, because of Mass Effect 1 (if I am reading this correctly) is too vague, and not exactly informative.
I do agree the attitude of "it doesn't work, remove it" is annoying. But they do that because the fans weren't satisfied with what didn't work. So it goes back to that hubris again from both parties that is the real culprit here.
As for the neutrality, name me one piece of dialouge that is neutral about the reapers. And I mean in the whole trilogy. Or even better, name me a piece of dialouge that can be seen as neutral for the major events of the game; the loyalty missions of Mass Effect 2 as an example, which pretty much tie into the ally gathering in Mass Effect 3 in a number of ways at times. The sad truth is, the important events in Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 never had neutral options to them. So yeah, that bit is lost in role-playing, but that bit also makes no sense in the narrative that is presented. So to say it was abused in Mass Effect 3 is honestly somewhat disengenuous to me, because it makes sense because of the part of the story you are in.
As for past history, that is all conjecture on Maxis's part, and while you are correct that past events can happen again, but it does not mean it will happen. As I said numerous times, BioWare as a name brand and as a company has GROWN under EA over the past five years. Only one studio is currently suffering layoffs, and they have five studios up and running I believe, each working on a different project, incudling Mass Effect 3.
So I am doubting past events will occur this time.
Modifié par LinksOcarina, 23 mai 2012 - 06:18 .
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