426 réponses à ce sujet

[silverserfer28]

ME2 is awsomeness its what made me get in to the mass effect series i hope they put a mass effect 2 characters pack in mass effect 3 multiplayer

[Mike 9987]

Me2 does not coincide with the themes of mass effect 3? The entire mass effect trilogy is about unity, teamwork, and setting aside differences to achieve impossible goals. The entirety of the game has you creating that unity (on a smaller scale than in me3) just to build up to the suicide mission for the soul purpose of achieving an impossible goal. Yeah, some of the plot holes are bad, but the core of the mass effect universe has been preserved through all three games despite the endings, and getting rid of ME2 would be a mistake. It sets up the stage for ME3 in the sense that, if the unity on this small scale was possible, it may be possible on a galactic scale to defeat the reapers; this is exactly what happened. Sure, not in the way people expected, but the reapers were defeated. 

Modifié par Mike 9987, 22 janvier 2013 - 01:10 .

[Barquiel]

The series started to go downhill from the beginning of ME2, imo. Shepards death was simply dumb (Project Lazarus is the biggest space magic ever) and unneccesary (Shepard being resurrected serves no narrative purpose, except for a few one-liners). What followed was the railroading with having to join Cerberus, it introduced far too many new characters, etc.

Modifié par Barquiel, 22 janvier 2013 - 01:13 .

[wright1978]

ME2 is a great game and a great middle chapter imo. The problem is with ME3 and the fact it is highly mediocre and goes out of its way to try and ignore rather than build upon where ME2 left off.

[WolfyZA]

Mass Effect 3 reminds me of movies like "X-Men 3 The Last Stand", "Matrix Revolutions" and "Batman Dark Knight Rises".. It ignored the lore of the trilogy completely... Which ruined of what could've been awesome trilogies... Face it sometimes writers cop out because they dont know how to finish of the story they started... Hoping that people will see it as.... yip you guessed it "ART"

[SNascimento]

ME2 is the best game in the trilogy so no.

[Vlk3]

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

[nos_astra]

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

[Applepie_Svk]

klarabella wrote...

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

So it´s BioWare´s fault... problem solved

[Kyle Kabanya]

To the OP:

Two things could have saved the ME series. 1) Remove the endings and 2) Get rid of ME2.

The reasons behind removing ME2 from the series is because it did a complete one eighty from the first ME. We are given a new antagonist with Harbringer which made sense. We met the "scout" of the reapers and then now the elder reaper. Okay, its good so far, but then we are introduced to the Collectors.

The Collectors are a sub division of the reapers and are controlled by them, oh and the collectors are mutated Protheans. Nowhere in the lore or in ME1 is it hinted that the Reapers may have someone working for them, aside from the Keepers. And in ME2 the only thing we're given to link the two together is that whole colonies of humans are dissapearing.

It doesn't make sense, plus why would the Reapers mutate only the Protheans, and none of the billions of species before them. Why would they even have a base in the galaxy, why not in dark space with the reapers.

Then you have Cerberus. Why is Shep working for them when everyone in the Galaxy hates them because of their dangerous experiments on other aliens. They are pro-humanity and want to rid the galaxy of other aliens and/or control the galaxy. And why does everyone treat Shep as if its okay to work with such dangerous people.

ME3's ending and ME2 made no sense when compared to the overall theme and story of the trilogy. ME2 was a vacation from the main storyline and the ending to ME3 was just a mockery to everyone who spent hundreds of hours playing all three games.

[jsamlaw]

The Reaper invasion wasn't the only plot in the Mass Effect series. Treating ME2 as a "side story" doesn't do it justice. Cerberus was HUGE part of this series. Cerberus wasn't a major part of ME1, but that doesn't mean the writers never intended for Cerberus to play a major role from the very start.

Mass Effect was an "original" IP for Bioware (I use quotations because many sci-fi themes are recurring or similar). ME2 was a chance for them to not only fully develop the Cerberus faction, which would later become almost as great an antagonistic force as the Reapers themselves, but also large parts of this newly created universe.

Had the series ended without us ever experiencing Illium, the Drell, the inner workings of the Quarians, the trial-by-fire of adolescent Krogan, Omega, and the Shadow Broker, we would have missed out on a lot of quality storylines. ME2 filled in a lot of lore gaps while still focusing on a major plot point (the influence of Cerberus and The Illusive Man).

Cerberus added a third faction angle to the overall story. It wasn't just Humanity against the Reapers, it was Humanity fighting itself while trying to fight the Reapers -- a pattern that occurred previously with the Protheans and fit within the theme of a "cyclical" universe.

[Fistleaf]

ME2 is more like a spin-off to the Mass Effect series, though a good one. ME3 as a direct sequel to ME1 actually fits into the story quite nicely.

[AlexMBrennan]

2. The catalyst's logic is more sound:

Well, no. Firstly, nothing Shepard observes is more than just an anecdote or an outlier to Catalyst, so even peace with geth does not in any invalidate Catalysts logic.
Secondly, the outcome is still that the geth are either dead, or helping the war effort. Either, they are not a threat to galactic life - remember, it's not about the body count; a good analogy would be a gardener pruning trees.

While it may not necessarily make more sense for them to go from ME1 Evil black ops to ME3 Evil Empire, it is easier for me to stomach than ME2 somewhat sympathetic gray to ME3 Evil Empire.

I'm sorry, but Cerberus railroading is not the same as making them sympathetic. The issue is not the portrayal in ME2 but the player forgetting that Miranda is terrorist who personally killed Shepard's unit on Akuze (maybe).

4. ME2 didn't have much impact on ME3 anyways

Oh, but it did. The events of Arrival set up an unwinnable war in ME3 that would require a deus ex machina super weapon.
Arrival gives the Reapers the ability to freely travel to and from dark space and establishes that they do not need fuel. That undermines ME1's plot, and without a need for infrastructure we have no way of forcing an engagement.
Without Arrival, the galaxy could have meaningfully prepared for the Reaper invasion and thus made stopping Saren in Me1 meaningful - we end up winning using a super weapon discovered only after the Reapers have invaded... so why couldn't we just have had it out in ME1?

[Mcfly616]

klarabella wrote...

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

This. (What klarabella said)


ME2 went off on some weird tangent side-story. If anything ME2 messed the narrative all to hell, and ME3 did its best to make up for it. ME3 was a step in the right direction, while ME2 was 2 steps back.

[Enhanced]

Mcfly616 wrote...

klarabella wrote...

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

This. (What klarabella said)


ME2 went off on some weird tangent side-story. If anything ME2 messed the narrative all to hell, and ME3 did its best to make up for it. ME3 was a step in the right direction, while ME2 was 2 steps back.

The reapers were collecting humans to build a reaper core for this cycle. That was a side-story?

Modifié par Enhanced, 22 janvier 2013 - 03:11 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Mike 9987 wrote...

Me2 does not coincide with the themes of mass effect 3? The entire mass effect trilogy is about unity, teamwork, and setting aside differences to achieve impossible goals. The entirety of the game has you creating that unity (on a smaller scale than in me3) just to build up to the suicide mission for the soul purpose of achieving an impossible goal.

See, I don't buy this. While ME2 was supposedly about making a vast variety of brilliant but conflicting personalities work together to do the impossible, it never did. There was never a team-building theme, and the impossible goal was solved for reasons entirely separate from that team-building.

While team-mates was definitely a driver for the plot in terms of recruitment, it was never about the team. Character development was almost entirely between the character of the mission and Shepard, with all other characters being plug-and-play cameos with throw-away dialogue at best, and irrelevant at worst. There was never a strong tone of interaction between the cast: the closest we got were brief, one-off moments of character friction between a small few (the loyalty conflicts), but otherwise it was 'welcome to the normandy' with Jacob, and then the companions sat in their room and the rest of the ship may well have never existed. The closest we got to conflict resolution was between Jack and Miranda or Tali and Legion... but all those really amounted to was 'put it aside for now, and don't hate me.'

There is no I in team, as they say, but ME2's team building was entirely about the companion's relationship to Shepard, not the rest. There is no real team progression or development of esprite de coprs: people get along at the start of their joining as well as they do at the end, and the moment the mission is over they all go their separate ways, some of which were almost certain to conflict. That's not a convincing display of unity.


As for being impossible, the whole reason that moniker existed was because of the Omega 4 relay's IFF screening. That got solved with the retrieval of the Reaper IFF: once that was gained, Shepard and the team became functionally irrelevant. Cerberus, or anyone Shepard delivered the IFF to, could simply send in their fleets to blockade the Collectors, and set up a seige. The Collectors, never a particularly serious threat in the first place, were marginalized well before the game ended.

Yeah, some of the plot holes are bad, but the core of the mass effect universe has been preserved through all three games despite the endings, and getting rid of ME2 would be a mistake. It sets up the stage for ME3 in the sense that, if the unity on this small scale was possible, it may be possible on a galactic scale to defeat the reapers; this is exactly what happened. Sure, not in the way people expected, but the reapers were defeated. 

People expected Shepard and a team of henchmen to take down the Reapers with pew pew because that's how ME2 set up it's resolution: with Shepard going pew pew to a Reaper.

Sure, ME2 relied on the plot artifact to get there (the Reaper IFF) just like ME1 relied on the deus ex machina of Vigil's data file, but the requisite plot device of ME2 was narrey a mention in the Suicide Mission, which is what everyone remembers.

[Mcfly616]

Enhanced wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

klarabella wrote...

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

This. (What klarabella said)


ME2 went off on some weird tangent side-story. If anything ME2 messed the narrative all to hell, and ME3 did its best to make up for it. ME3 was a step in the right direction, while ME2 was 2 steps back.

The reapers were collecting humans to a build a reaper core for this cycle. That was a side-story?

then have them invade and do it. No need to introduce an all new villain (out of nowhere), then kill Shepard for lulz and convolute everything. Leaving ME3 to deal with the entire Reaper invasion/war/origins and end.....well, it was a huge mistake.

[Dean_the_Young]

Enhanced wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

klarabella wrote...

Vlk3 wrote...

No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

It is, however, ME2's fault for not following ME1's story properly and for not laying the groundwork for ME3's story properly.

This. (What klarabella said)


ME2 went off on some weird tangent side-story. If anything ME2 messed the narrative all to hell, and ME3 did its best to make up for it. ME3 was a step in the right direction, while ME2 was 2 steps back.

The reapers were collecting humans to build a reaper core for this cycle. That was a side-story?

Yes: it was a threat that was created and resolved within the game itself, and the threat had no basis for being a considerable influence on the plot past justifying Cerberus Empire.

The Collector Plot is tangent because it served no greater purpose whatsoever. Imagine if Cerberus never existed as such, and the incompetent Alliance let the Collectors proceed without the events of ME2: what happens? Well, a few million non-Alliance colonies get abducted by a ship/a few ships which can be taken down by well-piloted frigates. So what?

The Collectors were never going to be able to complete their project before the Reapers arrived: they were going to need Earth, and Earth was only going to fall after the Arrival. The Human Reaper prototype was in no way key for the Reaper's plans: it wasn't going to serve as the next Vanguard (the Reapers were already on approach for Arrival), and it wasn't even going to be complete before the Invasion. It doesn't stop the Reapers from restarting, and it doesn't even foil any established plans the Reapers could otherwise have used the Collectors for.

The Collectors continuing unbeaten amounts to the a nuissance threat. They were never a Big Deal. About the greatest effect we can say that their existence gave the Reapers would have been a better place to stow the Citadel if we never got a Reaper IFF... but given the number of destroyed Reapers, we probably would have gotten a Reaper IFF anyway. After which, the Crucible Effect would have dealt with them accordingly.



So, yes. Still a side story. It could have at least tried to present itself as an important side story: the Collectors could have been scheming to spark a Terminus-Council War following a Human intervention, or the Collectors could have been preparing the galaxy for the Reaper War by setting up Reaper allies and preparing doomsday weapons: the Omega Plague, sad to say, is probably the most significant plot non-development that occured in ME2.

Instead, ME2 focused on Daddy Issues, using a death rate of a blip of a galactic statistic as a backdrop for a series of characters barely related to the main plots.

[CronoDragoon]

ME2 is much better as a stand-alone story than it is as a middle part of the trilogy's plot.

[ElSuperGecko]

SNascimento wrote...
ME2 is the best game in the trilogy so no.

Vlk3 wrote...
No. The trilogy is better off without ME3. It's not ME2's fault that the next game didn't follow the story right.

CronoDragoon wrote...
ME2 is much better as a stand-alone story than it is as a middle part of the trilogy's plot.

All three of these statements are accurate.  It's fortunate that ME2 deviated somewhat from the main story and presents a complete narrative in and of itself, because I can now go back and play it and enjoy it without having to worry too much about the craptacular farce that ME3 descended into in the last half hour.

[Ticonderoga117]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

So wait, to fix ME3, we ditch the game that came first? That's a horrible idea. Here's a good idea, create a third volume in the franchise that fits with what we have!

How?

ME1 and ME2 were not only remarkably different in construction and direction, but ME2 didn't even have the courtesy to build upon the main themes and plots established in ME1. While ME2 certainly did an admirable job in expanding upon the Genophage, Quarians, and Geth, these were ultimately three sidequests and three characters out of dozens. The rest of ME2 ranged from irrelevant (Jack, Jacob, Thane) to downright counterproductive (ending the game with the option of destroying the Collector Base, and thus ensuring that it couldn't be used as a key plot driver in the future).

The ME trilogy is a great example of  lack of sufficient forward planning, but ME2 is the greater outlier in the series.

Ah, but it did. Did people really expect the Reapers to leave a big WMD out and about to be found conviently? If you did, you are an idiot. The only decent way for the galaxy to beat the Reapers was to unite and expand in a direction the Reapers wouldn't expect. That is thier weakness. They purposely lead us in the direction they want and then when they attack leave us disconnected and alone.

ME2 was the foundation for the win. We build a team of people who hate each other, either by sheer force of will or through the idea that we need each other. In ME3, this would've then been placed upon the Galaxy at large to kick the Reapers out once and for all.

However, ME3 said to hell with that and plopped in the worst plot device they could write in and not even have the common couresy to keep a connection between ME1 and ME2.

It is truly the fault of the writers of ME3 for making a train wreck of this story as a whole.

[Ticonderoga117]

CronoDragoon wrote...

ME2 is much better as a stand-alone story than it is as a middle part of the trilogy's plot.

How? There is no "magic gun" waiting on a far off planet. The Reapers have only very recently miss stepped, and it's not on the scale of "Oops, left the plans for that very dangerous weapon out in the open. Heh. Oh well, guess we're just going to leave it there then."

The only hope the Galaxy had was to unite and branch out in technology, and ME2 covers the beginning of this well enough.

[Iamjdr]

How exactly does banding together a crew of people who dislike each other gonna help against the reapers? How is that a set up for a win? I mean I started the series at me2 ps3 and it is possibly one of my favorite games but by the end of the game when they showed the reapers coming I was like .... Um we barely just killed a baby one how are we gonna stop all those? Go terminator on them and travel back to each cycle to kill each reaper as a baby?

[Ticonderoga117]

Iamjdr wrote...

How exactly does banding together a crew of people who dislike each other gonna help against the reapers? How is that a set up for a win? I mean I started the series at me2 ps3 and it is possibly one of my favorite games but by the end of the game when they showed the reapers coming I was like .... Um we barely just killed a baby one how are we gonna stop all those? Go terminator on them and travel back to each cycle to kill each reaper as a baby?

Check who you have for a crew. Most of them are very influential for thier species or organization. Through them Shepard can get the ball rolling on actually getting the Galaxy's **** together.

Again, there won't be obvious superweapons laying about that will be able to help. Or at least in an universe where the Reapers weren't criminally stupid.

[Dean_the_Young]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

So wait, to fix ME3, we ditch the game that came first? That's a horrible idea. Here's a good idea, create a third volume in the franchise that fits with what we have!

How?

ME1 and ME2 were not only remarkably different in construction and direction, but ME2 didn't even have the courtesy to build upon the main themes and plots established in ME1. While ME2 certainly did an admirable job in expanding upon the Genophage, Quarians, and Geth, these were ultimately three sidequests and three characters out of dozens. The rest of ME2 ranged from irrelevant (Jack, Jacob, Thane) to downright counterproductive (ending the game with the option of destroying the Collector Base, and thus ensuring that it couldn't be used as a key plot driver in the future).

The ME trilogy is a great example of  lack of sufficient forward planning, but ME2 is the greater outlier in the series.

Ah, but it did. Did people really expect the Reapers to leave a big WMD out and about to be found conviently? If you did, you are an idiot.

Fortunately, I didn't. 

A Collector Base that was intact regardless, however, could have served as a reliable and less contrived means of expressing and exploring Reaper views and intentions. Say that instead of some war base that they don't even need, the Collector Base is actually more analogous to a library, inside of which is an unrivaled history of the galaxy. Instead of the Prothean VI being invented to exposit Reaper patterns and tell us what the Catalyst is, we could get that from the Reaper's own records... over the course of which we could see history through the Reaper's perspective, including any perceived cycle suggesting the inevitability of synthetic uprising.

A perspective on the Reaper's perspectives would have been a suitable role for the Collector Base, rather than just have it dumped on us by the Catalyst as it was.

The only decent way for the galaxy to beat the Reapers was to unite and expand in a direction the Reapers wouldn't expect. That is thier weakness. They purposely lead us in the direction they want and then when they attack leave us disconnected and alone.

Hence why everyone hates it when the Mass Relays break, no?

Not a fair argument, I know, and certainly not one you were making. However, the 'we must stray from Reaper paths', either literal (in terms of travel) or technological (the other part of Sovereign's speach' would require us to, well, stray from those paths. ME2 doesn't: we expand right down the Reaper roads, just faster than thay anticiapted.

ME2 was the foundation for the win. We build a team of people who hate each other, either by sheer force of will or through the idea that we need each other. In ME3, this would've then been placed upon the Galaxy at large to kick the Reapers out once and for all.

Dude, most of the cast of ME2 didn't even talk to eachother, let alone interact enough to hate eachother. It also wasn't the team that beat the Collectors: it was the retrieval of the Reaper IFF that tore away the Collector's primary defense, and past that the Normandy which left them in a seige situation. 'Sheer force of will' or 'the idea that we need each other' didn't beat the Collectors, a technological gambit did: first the IFF, and then the never-discussed magic frisbee that can made reactors conveniently explode in Red or Blue.

I don't know how you thought a squad of soldiers was going to show how to win a conventional war when they didn't even do that in ME2, but I've a feeling you haven't put too much thought into it past the vague fuzzy feeling that it should be more awesome.

However, ME3 said to hell with that and plopped in the worst plot device they could write in and not even have the common couresy to keep a connection between ME1 and ME2.

Possibly because ME2 spent most of its time cutting ties between it and ME1 in order to go off in its own direction.

It is truly the fault of the writers of ME3 for making a train wreck of this story as a whole.

Sure. And ME3's writers were also ME2's writers and ME1's writers, who started the train down its path.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 22 janvier 2013 - 07:30 .