160 réponses à ce sujet

[Gothfather]

I don't think the Op is correct in the conclusions of what went wrong with ME3.

 

I believe the problem with ME3 wasn't realism or the lack there of or Americanism creeping in (which I laugh at because Bioware is Canadian) if you look at Bioware games they are usually ahead of American social issues and change but pretty much in tune with Canadian social change. Which one would expect given that the creators are predominately Canadian.

 

I see the problem with ME3 to be a design failure. The story narrative of the reapers was one of a great overwhelming threat yet the game mechanics revolves around the power fantasy. The story narrative tries to portray the reapers as the threat that will in all probability destroy us, yet the mechanics indulge in the power fantasy to perfection. The power fantasy in gaming is a great tool for engagement but it doesn't work in all games or in all narratives. The power fantasy is terrible for experiencing survival based games or Horror genre games. If you feel powerful in a horror game you don't feel scared because you are powerful so "bring it on baddies." In a horror game you should feel less empowered not more. In a survival game if you feel fricken powerful you aren't worried about survival. 

 

ME3 perfected the power fantasy, you feel like a hero yet the story keeps trying to tell you this is a long shot, the galaxy is in mortal peril. Really? Because post ME2 prologue Shepard goes from victory to victory to victory and it is possible to have multiple cost free victories. it is possible for  not a single crew member to die post Lazarus station. Every scripted death is an "ex" member of your crew. The "i win" dialogue option renders all difficult issues trivial and cost free and not once does Shepard feel like the reapers are unbeatable. All this tells the narrative through the games mechanics that the reapers are NOT that big of a threat. For them to be a threat mechanically you have to LOSE against them more than NEVER.

 

If all you do is go from victory to victory your narrative of the reapers being the overwhelming force becomes disconnected with your story narrative. The narrative your game mechanics are telling is that the reapers are NOT a threat to Shepard even when the game's story tries to tell you the repares can't be beaten conventionally. The narrative and mechanics work at cross purposes with each other and creates a disharmony. Priority earth is told like it is a long shot like the last desperate hope for the galaxy yet the game just took you on a ride from victory to victory to victory and you defeated 2 reapers for Christ sake. When you get to priority earth you are not think I hope i can pull this off, you are thinking, "reapers smeapers I got this."  When you get to the choices with the star child you are not thinking "thank god I made it now to make the desperate choice," you are thinking "woot i kicked reaper ass and now its time for the victory dance. Wait who the frak are you, you little sh!t AI?" Yet you are NOT suppose to be feeling that according to the narrative, you are suppose to feel desperate and insignificant against the might of the reapers which is why they never even considered the idea of refusal in the first draft of the ending. Because you are not suppose to think the reapers are push overs even though everything in the game play tells you they are.

 

The dissonance between the narrative and the mechanics is what ruins the trilogy. When game play is telling a different story from the one of the story you are getting mixed messages and that continues till the end where you expect things to be resolved. Yet the game can't resolve this disconnect because its not actually by design it is the result of design failures. Had the power fantasy not been used in Me3 the game would have flowed better would have felt better and would have ended better because you would not have been given conflicting narrative from the mechanics and narrative from the story. Both forms of narrative would have flowed together and not created this huge subconscious need for resolution that could not be met.

 

This is not to say the only problem with Me3 and its ending can be boiled down to this issue only that it is the principle failing of the game because it has two conflicting narrative one from the story elements and one from the game mechanic elements.

[Darth_Atreyu]

This thread is not about Andromeda, thus should moved to the appropriate subforum.

It's just another opportunity to get high over the irrational hate of Mass Effect 3.

[Catastrophy]

No, the only real thing about the game was the feeling of affection towards the fictitious protagonist.

[Probe Away]

I wouldn't say ME3 was too realistic, I'd say it was too immediate.  That's why I enjoyed it less than the other games.  You were (almost?) always dropped into a hot zone and there was never any time to just enjoy being a space commander.  That makes sense in the context of a Reaper invasion, which is why I always thought the actual invasion should have started much later in the game.  The first half-ish could have been about the hunt for the crucible blueprints or the catalyst.

 

ME1 and 2 both had a degree of urgency about them as well, since in each case you were still trying to prevent a Reaper invasion, but you never felt as forced into it as you did in ME3.  There was still some time to absorb the amazing worlds around you.

[Vanilka]

Speaking for myself, the military stuff is one of the things I enjoy. It's one of the moments I'm like, "Hey, I've always wanted to say that!" Of course, I know that Mass Effect has nothing to do with real military and the funny thing is that I'm not even into realistic military games, but I've found good balance in Mass Effect. In a way, I feel that ME1 is almost childish in this aspect - although by that, I don't mean to say it was bad. (BTW, Shepard says Ashley "was a hell of a soldier" if you let her die on Virmire in ME1, too. It's not ME2 and ME3 specific. It's something Shepard just happens to say throughout the franchise.) With all that said, I do think that Cerberus troopers using those lines is rather odd. I mean, why would they? Why not use something more fitting for a bunch of indoctrinated troopers?

 

Now I do agree that the style changed significantly throughout the franchise. I'm not really bothered by that kind of thing as I have enjoyed all the games, but I can see how that can be a bad thing and how it can actually be a risky decision to go with something other than what made ME1 popular. What bothered me much more, though, is that ME2 has very little of actual plot (Mostly it's just recruitment and loyalty missions.), is rather contrived (e.g. Shepard's death.), and it basically contributes nothing of value to the franchise, and that the narrative of ME3 is very, very flawed and contrived, as well. Those would be my biggest problems. The change of style never actually occurred to me much. To me, it actually feels as if the franchise matured in some ways. (And got worse in some others, of course.)

 

It's just my opinion, but I don't think the games being "too real" is objective criticism as "too real" does not necessarily mean "bad". (It's also a matter for a discussion whether ME2 and ME3 truly are all that real since a lot of what's happening in the two games is pretty far-fetched.) I'd say it's more of a matter of personal tastes. And that's fine, of course. I can understand that completely. On the other hand, I do see the change of style as a possible gamble. I agree that the three games all feel completely different in style and I can see how that could be a problem for some. That's a legit complaint, I think.

 

As for MEA, I wouldn't be bothered by it being real. I'm quite excited about exploring a new galaxy and everything that comes along with it. I'm hoping for it to actually make sense scientifically where possible. (Please, no more people surviving atmospheric entries and devices that can magically overwrite everybody's DNA, including those that have no DNA.) I am, again, much more worried about the writing being good.

[Innocent Bystander]

For them to be a threat mechanically you have to LOSE against them more than NEVER.

Yes and no. You can play through entire game without thinking about consequences and bigger picture and in that case you're only winning.

But you can look at it from different POV: in most missions you deploy, complete objective and GTFO AFAP while the mightiest of armies are getting slaughtered left and right.

[Vanilka]

 

ME1 and 2 both had a degree of urgency about them as well, since in each case you were still trying to prevent a Reaper invasion, but you never felt as forced into it as you did in ME3.  There was still some time to absorb the amazing worlds around you.

 

 

I agree. I did miss all the space exploration from ME1, peaceful or otherwise. I felt it was getting worse as the franchise progressed. ME2 barely has planets where you need a helmet with a breather. (Not to even mention your companions never need actual protection.) Most planets suddenly have conveniently breathable air and pleasant enough atmosphere. And there's generally very little to see and explore in ME3. Most areas we visit are civilised and inhabited and under attack and you barely ever need a helmet any more. So, yeah, that sucks, imo.

[KCMeredith]

Just out of interest: What should they say? Of course a Cerberus trooper will say "Cover the flanks" if he sees somebody moving there.

[CHRrOME]

I don't see Mass Effect being nothing like Star Wars. SW has that "vintage" or "classic" look that make it really cool, while ME goes for a more "futuristic" or "modern" sci fi kind of thing. It's cool too, but it's different.

I didn't like ME3 not because it was too real but because of the lack of detail, the terrible story and a nonsensical ending.

[Kynare]

That's the part I liked about the series, actually. It's why the games I preferred the most were the first and the third. ME1 felt humbling--you were strong, you had a competent crew, but it was realistic. You were just human and the achievements you made reflected on that. Then you gradually took on bigger tasks, became a half-cyborg backed by a multi-billion credit company, and happened to be one of the few individuals on your crew who bothered wearing full armor in the middle of battle. Wasn't a huge fan of the second game.

if you ask me? Many of the details during ME3 leaned towards the Paragon path. Giving the Collector base to Cerberus was pointless, because TIM will go against you and you'll rejoin the Alliance either way. Killing the Rachni Queen was pointless, because she comes back. Selling Legion to Cerberus was pointless, because he's rebuilt as a new AI (and, again, you don't get to stay with Cerberus to reap the benefits.)

My main Shepard was full Paragon. I always felt she had a sense of vulnerability. Perhaps the complaints of Paragon Shepard being some weenie are justified, but it fit the atmosphere and it helped transition to the third game much better. Even when you did something magnificent like killed a Reaper, Paragon Shepard would give it a sense of "mortality", especially when they whinged about it later on. Additionally, comments such as "you're a hell of a soldier" made sense coming from a Paragon Shepard, because they were always loyal to the Alliance even during ME2 and a soldier at heart.

Which is why I've always felt that going Renegade usually ends in more dissatisfying results. His/her speeches suggest a sense of invincibility, and s/he can even deny ever feeling scared or unsure. Then the ending comes along and boom. Your hardcore monologues are now irrelevant. Whereas for Paragon, it simply validated everything they expressed concerns about up to that point.

[N7Jamaican]

Too real? Nah. 

[Mcfly616]

While I will say that ME1 had a charm and atmosphere that didn't carry over to the sequels (obvious within the first half hour of ME2), I will also say that I enjoyed the looming doom urgency of ME3. That was one of its strongest aspects imo.

 

 

So, no....I wouldn't say it got too "real".

[Gileadan]

I found it rather unrealistic that you heard the Cerberus troopers say anything. It baffled me that they didn't use some sort of encrypted communication via helmet headsets instead of blurting everything out loud. I half expected them to shout something like "Delta squad, flank to the right" or "Reloading!"... because informing all hostiles within earshot of your battle plans or that your gun is fresh out of ammo is the polite and professional thing to do.

[Panda]

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.

 

Well this is pretty much I was going to comment, I think there is different in feeling that the game is too militaristic than feeling it's too realistic and OP and friend seem to have problem with the militarism.

 

Actually for me it's kinda akward when playing many of the roleplaying games, since I hate that my protagonist belongs to many organisations and her/his attitude towards the organisation is quite predetermined. I mean I have to admit I wasn't biggest Alliance fan in ME and I hated being Warden in DAO (I actually first didn't know I had to be warden no matter what so I did many playthroughs with different origins and reloaded many times to change dialogue so I wouldn't have to go with Duncan XD).

 

For this reason I'd hope that our main character isn't with Alliance and isn't military in ME:A, but I feel like it's too much to ask. I don't hate belonging somewhere in games, I liked having own gang in DA2 and Saint Row 4 and joining up to thieves guild in Skyrim. But military stuff, not so much.

[rashie]

Not even in the slightest.

 

The way the physics and lore in the mass effect universe is set up, its closer to star wars than anything else, its quite strictly in the realm of high fantasy scifi.

[Mcfly616]

snip

 Clearly it's too much to ask of Bioware to let us start out as a loner (a completely blank slate) and give us the freedom to become whoever we want. Too bad, because it'd be a much better game if they didn't tell me who I am and how I feel about certain things that make me who I am, but instead allow me to take in the setting with unbiased eyes and then allow me to determine how I feel about it.

 

Even though Bioware literally said that we wouldn't be "Shepard 2.0", sadly, they go ahead and make us N7 again. Solid differentiation. 

[Chealec]

 Clearly it's too much to ask of Bioware to let us start out as a loner (a completely blank slate) and give us the freedom to become whoever we want. Too bad, because it'd be a much better game if they didn't tell me who I am and how I feel about certain things that make me who I am, but instead allow me to take in the setting with unbiased eyes and then allow me to determine how I feel about it.

 

Even though Bioware literally said that we wouldn't be "Shepard 2.0", sadly, they go ahead and make us N7 again. Solid differentiation. 

 

We only know you start as an N7 - you might die at the end of the first game and get resurrected by a loony terrorist organisation that would be ... oh, hang on ... never mind.

[Mcfly616]

The way the physics and lore in the mass effect universe is set up, its closer to star wars than anything else, its quite strictly in the realm of high fantasy scifi.

 That's arguable, to say the least. I'd say it leans closer towards the feel of Trek, but in the end it's just a bunch of ideas and staples of the genre thrown together. The sequels don't even feel like the original. Seeing as how Star Wars isn't even legitimate sci fi (though is usually labeled as such), it's a  full blown space fantasy. There is little to no science involved. Mass Effect atleast delves into science (as it pertains to the lore)

[DarthLaxian]

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.

 

Indeed - it begs the question why we need to unite the galaxy if the crucible just needs a damned source of power (read: why don't we couple it to another relay if it needs that sort of power?)

 

In the same vein: If no cycle before hindered the reapers from compartmentalizing the galaxy (by shutting down the relays!), why is a conventional victory impossible? (if you throw the might of the whole galaxy at them - something which has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, why can't you win (and why did they feel to drive that home with that slap in the face refuse ending (if you shoot Glow Boy because you think he's spewing **** left and right!)?))

 

greetings LAX

ps: It didn't become to real, it became to unreal (don't like Deus Ex Machinas -.- and sudden changes in narration...come on they had that dark-energy-sub-plot (which probably was important over all - at least with the orgininal writers!) and then they decided to toss all that out and write a damned COD in space kind of story (it wasn't branching anymore for example - it was damned LINEAR, which is shitty in an RPG

[The Arbiter]

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.

[The Arbiter]

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?

but too be honest... flanks, casualties, need backup... are tactical commands. When you get into a conflict you do have to communicate with your squad accurately otherwise you are dead. Even HALO uses the terms as a matter of fact... any military from the past and present even the future will use the same terms. If you think these are too realistic then I don't know what to say how can we substitute flanks then? should we say "YO BOY NEED SOME HELP ON MY RIGHT SIDE" wtf... 

[Jaquio]

I liked that ME1 felt like it was a whitewashed corporate utopia with a seedy underbelly lurking beneath the surface.  But yeah, by the time ME3 rolled around, they were clearly trying to tap into the COD/BF/GOW market with ultra jingoistic war shooter.  In my opinion, the reason it feels like it lost its "spark" is that war shooters are so cliché and stale at this point.

 

ME1 always felt like the shooting sequences existed (and were tolerated) only to advance the plot.  ME3 felt like the non-shooting sequences only existed to set up new fighting sequences.

 

Part of that was also due to the immediacy of the threat as the game series ratcheted up the tension.  The kind of long conflict-free experiences you could have walking around on the Presididum for the first time in ME1 just didn't seem appropriate as the galaxy was coming to an end.

[Cyonan]

While I preferred it when we were a spectre only occasionally taking requests from the Alliance rather than an Alliance marine first, I liked the extra dialogue from Cerberus units.

 

It made it feel like they were a proper squad of enemies rather than the constant "I WILL DESTROY YOU!" of Mass Effect 1.

[Panda]

 Clearly it's too much to ask of Bioware to let us start out as a loner (a completely blank slate) and give us the freedom to become whoever we want. Too bad, because it'd be a much better game if they didn't tell me who I am and how I feel about certain things that make me who I am, but instead allow me to take in the setting with unbiased eyes and then allow me to determine how I feel about it.

 

Even though Bioware literally said that we wouldn't be "Shepard 2.0", sadly, they go ahead and make us N7 again. Solid differentiation. 

 

Well that's true and it might not fit to Bioware's style of story telling that much. But I'd rather be someone surrounded by friends or gang than military person with supportinaten or part of big organisation I might not like. I guess this is subjective though, some like some organisation their character is in and some hate that organization, but like another organization.

 

But on the OP's topic, I was somewhat bothered by the militaristic feel of ME3 as well. I get it with the circumstances, but it's not my favorite thing in games.

[Ghost of Margie Thatcher]

Mass Effect has never felt real, or seemed particularly realistic to me. I don't expect realism from science fiction, so that doesn't bother me. As long as there is some internal consistency, some believable scenarios, and effort to make the characters feel like people, they can dress it up with whatever bells and whistles that they like. I can turn my brain off and accept space magic when playing a video game.