I’ve played ME1 6 times, ME2 9 times, ME3 1 time. My research on the web reveals other gamers with a similar scenario. In 2011 the gaming industry made more money (I’m told) than the movie industry. When megabucks and investors are at stake, gaming companies cannot produce mediocre games & expect to recover their investment. Second, the clientele (players) have grown up and expect more than “I shot you before you shot me” – (now I’ll go play on my skateboard).
Have you noticed the never-ending list of CREDITS that roll? No longer are computer geeks designing boring games with typical [stupid] Judas betrayal storylines. Instead, Hollywood’s Writer’s Guild is involved with writing interesting and compelling storylines which frees up the geeks to focus on TRYING to keep our games from crashing every hour on the hour.
What do we HATE and what do we LIKE? Why? It’s a question about US, not the game. Likely I’m 95% older than most gamers out there. I’ve been in the business world for decades and when it comes to psychology, I’ve been trained by the master himself Ned Hermann – the pioneer of left and right brain psychology – a field of study where many have written their doctorate thesis. I’ve compared notes with my older sister who teaches at the U of Abq who also has a PhD in both psychology and PhD in industrial management. I ask her what makes a great video game which is a question about US.
Doc Sis: People want (and need) to be HEARD. Unfortunately most parents are not affable & don’t encourage their kids & teenagers to ASK questions and unlock the latent potential they have. Ever wonder why so many of them endlessly fiddle-fart nonstop with their cell phones? Second, we need to feel we’ve done something SIGNIFICANT with our [mostly] boring routine lives and this virtual reality does just that. Ever wonder why deadbeats join a cause greater than themselves? Purpose & acceptance. Drill down further….the news hasn’t changed in 50 years (just the names & places). Boring. Cartoons in super HD (4k) and 3D & robots fighting and smashing up the city. Duhh. Watching extreme this and extreme that on TV. Boring. What makes us really tick? As one philosopher put it “you can lie to the world – but at least be TRUE to yourself”. The fact is, we need to admit we are all SOCIAL creatures that need acceptance – and some try to ram that down our throats with an assortment of various mind games. Correct redirection of that “game” hits a spark in us. Well now, aren’t you a HERO in the game!
Me: that “spark” was really unfolding as we compared ourselves with other races in ME3. Note the “wet towel” in our faces when we read Liara’s notes about uncovering the Prothean. Before, we all reverenced them with awe and worship – later to discover they were just Imperialistic & dominating. Nothing new there. Javik’s favorite line: ”you stupid primitives!” But what REALLY made ME2 so compelling? CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT --- and not only one character but 12!
We love issues, situations, & mysteries that we THINK about all day long. Fortunately in a video game, we can have some choices in the matter – as opposed to passive entertainment where we control nothing. ME2 was not all about Shepherd. It was plenty about the “dirty dozen” -- then getting to know them more by doing their loyalty missions.
We ask ourselves, “what would we have done in the same situation?”. Out of the 12, SURELY you can relate to one or more characters. My favorites were Garrus & Legion. Garrus because of his warm heart and gracious demeanor and Legion because it caused me to really think about how nutty we humans really are sometimes. What is “life” anyway? That made you think in both ME2 and ME3. Jack(lyn) was also very compelling. I imagine the story writers spent countless hours over the table designing & speculating on her character.
The professional actors and actresses for voiceovers where just magnificent! When I first heard the Elusive Man’s voice, I said to myself – “I know that voice from somewhere”. It happens to be the actor Martin Sheen. Seems like playing ME2 9 times, I always seem to discover something new I hadn’t seen before.
BOTTOM LINE: What makes any play, movie, video game (whatever) really GREAT (instead of just okay) is when the story contains solvable mysteries, character development, challenges, exposed villains, puzzles, humor, surprises, and most importantly, a significant TEAMWORK struggle with a grand finale of “YES! WE DID IT!”. That was seriously lacking in ME3 – though there were 4 different solo endings. I’ve never read so much anger, frustration, and hate mail because of it. Alternatively in ME2 – “YES, WE DID IT!”. ME3 could have had a 5th ending where they all gathered for a victory party at Shep’s apartment. Looks like Bioware’s script writer went on vacation near the end of ME3 game creation. Anymore said would be a spoiler.
We all have our rants and raves about the game (to each their own). There will ALWAYS be gripers and complainers. Notice that any youtube video has about 1% thumbs down on any subject. On the web, there are nearly a MILLION suggestions & gripes by various ME players. I hope there is a ME4 but not holding my breath since (from a business perspective) it’s not likely.
Hopefully Bioware’s marketing department is doing their job (reading comments like this) – not to fix ME games but to assess customer feedback for new games. RANTS: don’t play a 20-30 minute movie or gameplay (ME2, ME3) without giving us a chance to SAVE when the game can go multiple directions. To play ME3’s 4 endings (actually 5), I had to “endure” a 35 minute movie each. A SAVE at the last moment would allow us to try different things. Lastly, the weapon mods were extremely clumsy in ME1 and especially ME3. A simple drag & drop or checkbox would have done nicely. Such bad game menu “mechanics” & and lack of attention to detail (menus) is unforgivable. For the message terminal, a green screen (messages) and red screen (no messages). As such, we can stay focused on the game. RAVES: job WELL DONE on the ME series and that says a lot for someone gaming since 1994.
Thank you.
Dale
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) went the first way.
