160 réponses à ce sujet

[Linkenski]

This is a thought that just struck me as I was having a chat with a friend of mine who probably dislikes ME3 more than I do, and I actually think a point he made resonated with me, and I was viewing the Rumination Analysis on ME3 on youtube (go look it up), in which the same argument is made.

 

"The Mass Effect universe was a place that had a spark". I felt like at some point either during ME2 or ME3 it got too "real". The thing my friend keeps pointing out he disliked about ME3 is that the way it uses military titles, ranks and chatter pisses him off. A lot of the time you'll hear Shepard tell a friend "you're a hell of a soldier!" whereas in ME1 or ME2 he'd probably go "I value your friendship". He dislikes it in how Cerberus troopers keep yelling commands like "Taking casualties!" and "We've got wounded!", military term usage like "ASAP" and "ETA", "flanks" and you get the idea.

 

At some point he felt like it got too gritty and my interpretation is that he finds it to be "too real". There's a certain corniness of ME1 that to me captures the essence of Star Wars and other 80's or 90's fantasy settings where everything is kind of wonderful, and with how ME3 has so much loom and gloom with the portrayal of the Reaper War but adding the military bravado and language on top of that, it lost some of its charm.

 

I think it's part of why ME3 feels distinctly different from the rest to me. Part of me enjoyed how real the Reapers felt, but it also meant I'm not in the camp that thought Harbinger should've been the antagonist in the ME3 we got, because Bioware made the Reapers seem more like monsters and less like the super arrogant and "oh so evil" beings from ME1 and ME2 that had a level of almost cartooniness to them.

 

And here we are, looking at the trailer for Mass Effect Andromeda... and this time it completely strikes me as "too real" somehow. I think it's the dubstep noises, the "oh look at how COOL the Mako is now!" the Jetpacking and... I don't really know what it is, but I'm not really feeling it to be honest. I think it's because whatever Andromeda may eventually be, right now it does not capture the sense of charm that Mass Effect had originally.

 

Did Mass Effect become too real at some point, according to you?

[DaemionMoadrin]

No.

 

It didn't become too real, it became too US american. Too patriotic, too militaristic... if anything, it became closer to the CODs, BFs and other soldier games out there.

 

The writing changed and is inconsistent, so that may account for the felt changes, too.

[mickey111]

No, I don't. I liked the whole trilogy actually.  The mass effect universe is not charming, it is derivative as hell and comes across as if the developers reviewed every popular sci fi book, show and movie in the English language.

[Linkenski]

No.

 

It didn't become too real, it became too US american. Too patriotic, too militaristic... if anything, it became closer to the CODs, BFs and other soldier games out there.

 

The writing changed and is inconsistent, so that may account for the felt changes, too.

That's another way to put it I've also used myself in the past, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's been thinking it. I don't mean to insult anyone by saying it, but it's true... it is more MURICA at this point, but that's something I hope ME:A gets away from since it doesn't have the idiocy of trying to emulate WW2 movies because its theme is "WAR". The whole selling point of ME3 "Full Scale Galactic WAR!" made me so worried back in 2011 and rightfully so. The final game had the same ho-hum military bravado vibe.

 

I felt like most of the quarians were just human military-commanders in alien skin, the same for Krogan. The whole thing about us "going to war" against Reapers made me very frustrated. From the start Reapers were presented as more of a doomsday or godzilla kind of threat and not an opposing force that wanted to "go to war" against us.

[Larry-3]

Well, in Mass Effect 2, Shepard was not in the military. He or she was basically a mercenary -- which I did not mind -- which is why there is less military-ness to it. Also, I like Mass Effect being more "real". But I got to say, being in the military just got on my nerves. I got tired of everyone telling me where to go and what to do. I want to be an outlaw with a ragtag crew of misfits, and run my own ship.

[Killroy]

This complaint is pretty silly TBH. The series got more corny and unbelievable as went, it didn't get more realistic.

[goishen]

I've always said that the reaper war shouldn't have started when it started.  They should'a waited for at least a quarter into the game to start the reaper threat.

 

By the end, it's just following orders...   There is no humanity really left in Shepard.   Which is what they wanted to show, I guess.  But, eh. 

 

EDIT :  But then again, if you go back and play ME1, Hackett's on that Comm Buoy like every five minutes asking if you can do something for the Alliance.  That was one reason why I liked ME2 so much.  It freed him/her from all of those restrictions.  I don't really want a rag tag crew, but I want the decisions I make to be my own.   Not some admiral's.  

 

It's kind'a like on the Citadel in the very ending scene right after TIM and entire Anderson thing, Hackett just says, "Shepard!?"  like he's annoyed that we're bleeding out and about to die.  Sure man, nothing big.

[KaiserShep]

I dunno about real, but it got a lot more serious, which I guess is fitting, since, like, it's the machine apocalypse, but I'd like to be able to explore space, play f*ck/marry/kill with humans and aliens alike, all without watching the backdrop get scorched by guddamn skyscrapers. 

[Dantriges]

I didn´t buy Arrival, so the intro already felt quite unreal to me.

[Xaijin]

There was a distinct genre shift with each game, though I have no idea what was going with three other than every race but the krogan going

 

"OH NO I AM A HYSTERICAL WOMEN IN A 50's ATOMIC HORROR FILM FRANTICALLY HISTRIONIC WITH FEAR AND PANIC"

 

 

"OH THANKS SHEPARD, NOW I CAN FIGHT THE REAPERS"

 

 

ME had a distinctly early 80's feel with pearly white replacing silver as the color of the futuuuuuuuure. Seeing that ME1 is essentially a "very heavy borrowing" *cough* of Star Control II, that kinda tracks. You had exploration, a vehicle that controlled like an 80s station wagon with a drunken Italian comedy father driving it and blue psychic space strippers [also via Star Control II]. The soundtrack had stuff taken straight from the roland 808 playbook, further reinforcing temporal consistency.

 

ME2 was a complete shift along with a pallet change from white and blue to brown and red, and added the genre staple of the "TALKS FUNNY BEAST RACE" and the Dirty Dozen in "THESE ARE THE VOYAGES OF THE USS DADDY ISSUES", and we got to see the seedy underside of the til-then pristine universe (even the mining settlements in ME are eat-off-floor-clean and orderly) and the perspective flip of starting with Legion rescuing a mangled Shepard is replaced with endless shots of Miranda's ass.

 

ME3 seemed to take a page from Halo 3 and simply handwaved a bunch of **** into "well stuff went down and it's time for all those ominous portents to be real", the only time I've ever seen this work in the literary genre was Bio of Space Tyrant and the Black Company series. So off you go to slap and mansplain to all the hysterical races why they're idiots for not fighting the Reapers and use your Insurmountable Verbal Jiujutsu to put the Stuff in the place where Stuff goes, and then all that stuff you did actually doesn't mean anything because Colonel Sanders is waiting for you in the tv room, Neo; and he's gonna mansplain to you why the last two and half games were kinda pointless and simply thought exercises in avoiding extinction.

 

As for the military infusion, Shepard was always a soldier, and he wasn't a Lt. Commander in the Galactic Space Rangers, he was part of the navy. If anything that was always there if in vague hand-wavy sort of fashion.

 

Realism is simply a tool, and it doesn't seem to be overly intrusive, quite the opposite; as a Spectre, Shepard can literally dismiss anything with a word, and even buzzcut pewpew Shepard can pick Flare and explode all the things with purple juju despite not being a biotic.

[KaiserShep]

I didn´t buy Arrival, so the intro already felt quite unreal to me.

 

Yeah, ME3 only has a few lines peppered throughout to acknowledge Arrival, but to me, it makes a meaningful enough difference that I really don't care for the game without having done it. 

[dreamgazer]

I'll take ME3's "realism" over ME2's complete lack thereof any day of the week. 

[Linkenski]

This complaint is pretty silly TBH. The series got more corny and unbelievable as went, it didn't get more realistic.

I also didn't mean "real" as in realistic. I mean "real" in sort of a derogative sense where it tries hard to seem more realistic but it doesn't work in its favor IMO because it takes away the charm.

 

I think all Mass Effects have corny stuff, but ME1 is this intelligently corny story whereas ME3 became this corny awkward story more like.

[The Hierophant]

I wanted them to go further down the Fifth Element route with the series. Shep's revitalization by the Lazarus Project reminded me of Lee-Loo's resurrection too. 

[KaiserShep]

I wanted them to go further down the Fifth Element route with the series. Shep's revitalization by the Lazarus Project reminded me of Lee-Loo's resurrection too. 

 

Meanwhile, at the Lazarus Cell facility...

 

[wolfhowwl]

BioWare loves their stupid singing scenes too.

 

[dreamgazer]

Meanwhile, at the Lazarus Cell facility...

 

 

Probably more like this:

 

[Dantriges]

Yeah, ME3 only has a few lines peppered throughout to acknowledge Arrival, but to me, it makes a meaningful enough difference that I really don't care for the game without having done it. 

 

Never felt the urge to pay extra just to become a war criminal. And it´s nice that someone else besides Shepard did something against the Reapers before ME 3.

[SardaukarElite]

I don't agree with your analysis but I think it's fair to say that the series has revised it's identity each step and that hasn't been an entirely good thing.

 

Mass Effect 1 always had a kind of pop (modern American) military flavor to it, and a childish 'soldiers get things done, politicians waste time' philosophy. I'd say the difference is that it had this core theme of hope, it was about look up and out and back in time. Shepard was going out into a new galaxy exploring and uncovering ancient mysteries. In the later games the galaxy was both portrayed as known and static, and under attack from a greater threat. There was also a pretense of being hard sci-fi which the series dropped entirely with 2 and embraced more anything goes mentality (see: clothes in space, ninjas in space).

 

I think this all breaks down in the end because across the trilogy you get a bunch of themes which are being played both ways. The Reapers are comic, megalomaniac oversized villains and they're unimaginable space horrors. The Galaxy is being ravaged by an outside threat and that outside threat includes ninjas, a boasting space cuttlefish, and a rogue black ops group with the success rate of Team Rocket. If they'd taken ME1 and actually made that more realistic, darker and militaristic then I think maybe there could have been a compelling experience there as the world would have changed in a way that made sense as a response to threat.

 

I'd agree that Andomeda seems to be moving away from ME1 but I think it is embracing ME's less realistic side from what  they've shown so far. Which I suspect is a good thing, if that's  where BioWare naturally feels they should take things.

[ArabianIGoggles]

No.  Make Mass Effect more like Star Wars and I uninstall the trilogy and delete my Origin account.  

[Vapaa]

There was also a pretense of being hard sci-fi

Omnisexual sexy human-looking blue alien space babes.

Your argument is invalid.

[Feybrad]

Omnisexual sexy human-looking blue alien space babes.

Your argument is invalid.

 

You don't know what he means by hard. *wiggles Eye Brows like an Idiot*

[wright1978]

No didn't have any issue with them using military language. I didn't have any issue withe the degree of reality(except for when they abandoned the notion completely and parachuted in glowboy to act as ending santa.)

Though I did have an issue with them assuming everyone should/would be over the moon to be back with the alliance after being freed from that choke chain in ME2.

[Innocent Bystander]

If anything, it felt 'unreal', more like 'tilting at windmills' than war; you don't fight, you throw everything you can get your hands on at Reapers, hoping that you'll build that "nonsensical contrivance that somebody pulled outta their butt" (read: Crucible) before they find and destroy it.