465 réponses à ce sujet

[Mudzr]

*Long post ahead*



I agree with the OP, and I disagree.

While I did enjoy the story, there are several parts where bioware dropped the ball.

*MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW*

I'll give three examples.



*Firstly Legion. He's a robot that is ruthlessly stalking us since the last game. That's really cool. What happened to forshadowing? What happened to dramatic suspence? What happened to planting plot threads and giving players subtle hints on what is going on.

How hard would it have been to have shown clues of Legion from the start. Maybe someone kills a collector before it reaches you on Horrizon, maybe you hear about signs of a geth ship as you leave Illium. Maybe you find signs of geth weaponary in tuchunka.

While Legion is an awesome character, his whole backstory could have been made so much more interesting if we had a place in it. ME1 sorely lacks a main antagonist, and Legion very well could have served as a mysterious one before the reveal, he's on our side.



*Secondly the Jocker segment.

Don't get me wrong, the segment it'self is a great part of the game that really pulls you in and gives you a bit or personally ambition to stop the collectors. This is even more impressive because the crew it'self and in much more of a spotlight this time around. Suddenly the life of dear Kelly is at stake.

But the "let's bring everyone that can weild a gun on the shuttle" is such a wallbanger, expecially after you have able to go to Legion's mission with no penalty anyway. This could have easily been amended. Shepard could have gotten an urgent mission where all crew were available, you play the mission and bang, suddenly you're joker.

But no, you just leave then come back again, apparently you have achieved nothing, but you lost your crew. This is why it's so apparent as a plot device when really, it didn't have to be.



Finally, the whole game feels like a waste of time. I love ME1 and ME2 too and i'm trying to convince myself it isn't but part of my believes it is. Maybe the term shaggy dog story fits?

Here's the story in a nutshell.

Collectors are introduced --> Shepard gathers a team --> collectors are destroyed.

Maybe it's about a journey but in no obvious way do you prepare for the reaper invasion. As shown by the ending, they're comming anyway, which would be more dramatic except that they can't get here any time soon, since you destoryed their only way to get to the galaxy in ME1.

Maybe I would have been more satasfied if a villians uses the collectors as a diversion so they can activate the citadel and summon the reapers, or maybe destroying the collectors could have somehow hindered the reapers. But it doesn't. You spend ME2 undoing a threat that was only present in that game. It's not even clear why the reapers uses the collectors when apparently they can destroy the universe much more easily themselves, and apparently they'll arive withou the collectors help.

I guess ME2 is about the journey with your companions... i'm not sure, I'm not saying ME2 is wasting time, it's just I feel it may be...



Maybe the problem is I have my own vision, but I feelt that the story of ME2 could been much more interconnected, to it'self and ME1.



Then there are the references. While i'm happy with them in ME2, albiet your choices could have made more of an effect, it appears that bioware is leaving everything for ME3.

Cool.

So are we going to see the Rachni in ME3, is the council going to have a bigger roul, the same as Anderson and Udina, will Liara and the shadowbroker have more focus, and that's ontop of the tiny things, like the consort, doctor michelle and emily wong, that seem like they will reappear in the next game. Considering how it was handled in this game I'm concerned that they will be able to acieve all this recognition with all our now wildly diversing shepards. This could have been handled by resolving some issues like who the shadow broker is in ME2, but now it appears that everything, on top of new issues, is going to be hurtling towards a conclusion in ME3.



Finally, in a direct responce to OP, I didn't feel their was homobia in that respect, but it feels that there is someone quite high up who is against gay romances at least, since it appears that diologue was writting and recorded in both games, (for both lesbian and gay romances apparently) but in both games they're cut. Now Casy comes up with the excuse that Shepard is theirs. I don't know but it feels like the rest of the team has no problem creating this content, but this certain person (s?) cuts it for whatever reason because it's not in their vision for mass effect. Just an observation.



In conclusion, ME2 is great, and I enjoy it better after every playthrough, the story is great at most time (expecially in the case of squadmates) but I feel the main plot could have been improved alot more (expecially with every mission revealing a snippet of what is really going on). I just hope ME3 can really match up to all our expectations because their is a LOT of them.

And new everyone can die. I guess the question is, is bioware willing to create content that a section of gamers wont see in their playthrough... I hope so.



P.s. more focus on batarians, hanar, elcor and volus please, at least give us some talking hanar, you can't speak to one all game, and a batarian squadmate would be awesome.

[mass_zotz]

Moonbox wrote...

MasterSolo wrote...

Everybody is saying that the plot was weak. I mean seriously...the plot in ME2 is anything but weak. Sure the scale of the plot in ME1 was bigger, there's no arguing about that. But can someone give me an example of a plot, that would be better, more epic and on a larger scale than ME1 and at the same time, be less better, less epic and on a smaller scale compared to ME3 (that would probably involve the galaxy fighting against the reapers...I'm just speculating). It's almost imposible to think of a plot like that. That's why ME2 tries to put more importance on characters. And personally, I felt absolutely proud and awesome, when I got all of my team alive, out of the suicide mission and showing the middle finger to the illusive man. I was very attached to the character and got that same feeling of pure awesomeness when I finished ME2. In the past month I've played both games, 2 times each, being able to compare them, and I can sincerely say that both games are absolutely fantastic.

The plot was absolutely weak.  The plot didn't have to be more epic in scale to ME1.  The plot simply had to expand on the existing story and prepare for the finale.  ME2 didn't do that.  It didn't propel the story.  It was a mashed-together series of side-plots with characters who previously had nothing to do with the story and were given cheesy and convenient reasons for joining the mission. 

The whole game was an aside.  Giving us a new cast of characters and providing us some backstory for them doesn't qualify as story.  How does rescuing Miranda's sister build the story?  What does Jacob's Dad have to do with anything? Why am I spending the whole game going through unrelated side quests for brand new irrelevant characters instead of continuing the story from ME1? 

Everybody is saying the plot was weak for a reason.  You're mistaking the mashing together of a bunch of unrelated character background as 'plot'.  It isn't.  A good writer knows this.  A bad writer gives us ME2. 

To me the majority seemed to like the gameplay and the story except the final part with the Human-reaper. At least that what it looks to me since I do spend some time on this forum.

[321scooter]

An epic with bad characters and a standard "find these items and fight the final boss" is a bad epic, also known as a bad story. A great story can't save bad characters because the characters make the story.  On the flip side, interesting and well written characters can make a seemingly dull and unremarkable story about a group of kids who discuss scrap booking a great story.  ME2 is character driven just like the original (the formatting is just different from ME1) and the characters are far and away more interesting with greater diversity and depth than most games.  The story isn't similar in structure and tone for a reason: It would be a re-hash of the first.  If they made another "treasure hunt to find the key to beating the final boss" again, people would be outraged.
As a self contained story, ME2 is more effective at delivering a powerful and moving experience while still giving the player impactful, difficult, and morally ambiguous decisions to make than ME1.  The difference between the right and wrong decisions is much more difficult to discern in ME2.  There are plenty of "good" and "bad" arguments for any big decision you make.  This is why I think it's better.  Go back and look at the characters and decisions in ME1, what makes a choice the "right" or "wrong" choice is more black and white, and arguments for and against each choice are less complex.
Honestly, that is all I can ask for with a game like this.  I knew the graphics and combat would be improved, and I was happy with those, but I was pleased with how well they ramped up the intesity regarding decision making and connection to the characters.  I actually had to think about what I would do personally, rather than just go up or down for good or bad responses.

Modifié par 321scooter, 11 février 2010 - 07:36 .

[SharpEdgeSoda]

I'm just amazed a rage thread like this hasn't died yet.

[Llandaryn]

[quote]NoShtSherlock wrote...

Also the difference between show opression and torture and things of that nature on DS 9 is that this was a tv show not a game that is supposed to be a form of entertainment. 

[/quote]

Because games aren't also a form of entertainment.

[quote]

A game is suppose to be fun not disturb you, or make you feel sick to your stomach and have stories of rape or child abuse in them.

[/quote]

Says who? Please link me to your objective source that states exactly what a computer game is supposed to be. Oh, you can't? That's because a game can be anything its developers want it to be.

[quote]

If the writer or Bioware wanted to provoke emotion then make a movie or a t'v show and add those nasty parts of life in.  But a computer game is suppose to be fun, entertaining etc.  Mass Effect 2 for me was not fun.

[/quote]

Just because you didn't like it doesn't mean the developers made the game "wrong".

[quote]

Computer games are suppose to be a fun entertainment that lifts you out of reality for a little while.

[/quote]

Number of times that you have said "computer games are supposed to be fun...." in a single post: 1,571,451.

Lifting you out of reality? Hello, you're running around on a frigging space ship, conversing with aliens, trying to save the galaxy.

How much more removed from reality do you want to be?! This isn't space-Sims. You don't save the galaxy by buying a house, popping out a couple of kids and holding down a steady 9-5 job to buy material goods.

[quote]

Games are not suppose to wallow in the worst elements of human society and use these worst elements just so a game can be dark or edgy.

[/quote]

Again with what games are/are not supposed to be.

ME2 doesn't wallow. Yes, there's bad stuff, but you get to help people. You get to cure plagues and bring murderers to justice.

[quote]

Like the OP I too don't like this game for the way in which many area's of history have been used to make the game appear more brutal, violent, dark and edgy.

[/quote]

The message; under every facade of civility lurks a hidden monster. You can dress it up all you like, but it never goes away.

[quote]

Jack/Subject Zero has been brutalized in a Cerberus camp where the back story sounds like she could have been a child who survived the holocaust which is one of the worst times in are own history.

[/quote]

Right. Because the oppression and systematic extermination of entire groups of people is comparable to a fictional covert organisation doing fictional experiments on fictional children.

[quote]

She has been created with a barcode type tattoo around her shaven bald head. 

[/quote]

She gets the tattoos done herself.

[quote]

I wonder if any of you had a relative that survived the ****s camps would you still think Jack's back story was rightly done to make her character darker or edgier and would you still think there was no problem with this?  Would you still think it was done in a respectful way?

[/quote]

I had a grandfather who serves in WWII and died shortly after it. I don't have a problem with the way Jack is portrayed now. Why speculate about how she might have been portrayed in different circumstances.

[quote]

Or what if one of you had a sister/mother/aunt/daughter who had been raped, molested would you see no problem with Jacob's loyality mission to give his back story a darker edge?

[/quote]

You didn't actually play Jack's loyalty mission, did you?

[quote]

But I agree that these themes and back stories to make the games darkier or have a brutal, violent theme should not have been put in the game to make it have a darker edge or make the game sell as a darker sequel.  I don't think these subjects were handled respectfully and they shouldn't have been put in a computer game.

[/quote]

You're entitled to your opinion (I think, I believe) but please stop with the redundant platitudes. "Should not" have been put into the game? Says who? You? The government? God? Your whole post is trite.

[quote]

TV Series, Movies or Computer Game are three different areas of entertainment and what subjects could be handled well and fit well in a t.v series or movie are not the same kind of stories that should be put into games whether there for mature adults or 15 plus and that's in my personal opinion:)

[/quote]

Because, you know, nobody ever made a game based on a film. Or a film based on a game.

<_<

Modifié par Llandaryn, 11 février 2010 - 07:32 .

[TLK Spires]

congratulations, you missed the point entirely!

Modifié par TLK Spires, 11 février 2010 - 07:33 .

[shaneho78]

NoShtSherlock wrote...

Shaneho, just because you don't agree with the OP's opinion on this game you have no business making assumptions about their life or their experiences. If you can't be mature enough to agree to disagree then you shouldn't post on threads like these

You misunderstood me. My words have no bearing on her personal life or experience. Genetic fallacy is committed (this is a common of many people including me) when the context of a situation is not considered when making an argument, for instance, her claim that the plot is threadbare without considering that ME2 is the 2nd act of a trilogy. I apologize if my words (incorrectly) imply something faulty about her genes.

Modifié par shaneho78, 11 février 2010 - 07:46 .

[Noverian Security]

shaneho78 wrote...

NoShtSherlock wrote...

Shaneho, just because you don't agree with the OP's opinion on this game you have no business making assumptions about their life or their experiences. If you can't be mature enough to agree to disagree then you shouldn't post on threads like these

You misunderstood me. My words have no bearing on her personal life or experience. Genetic fallacy is committed (this is a common of many people including me) when the context of a situation is not considered when making an argument, for instance, her claim that the plot is threadbare without considering that ME2 is the 2nd act of a trilogy. I apologize if my words (incorrectly) imply something faulty about her genes.

[img]http://knowyourmeme.com/i/7588/original/tactical_facepalm.jpg
seriously, lighten up

[shaneho78]

Noverian Security wrote...

shaneho78 wrote...

NoShtSherlock wrote...

Shaneho, just because you don't agree with the OP's opinion on this game you have no business making assumptions about their life or their experiences. If you can't be mature enough to agree to disagree then you shouldn't post on threads like these

You misunderstood me. My words have no bearing on her personal life or experience. Genetic fallacy is committed (this is a common of many people including me) when the context of a situation is not considered when making an argument, for instance, her claim that the plot is threadbare without considering that ME2 is the 2nd act of a trilogy. I apologize if my words (incorrectly) imply something faulty about her genes.

[img]http://knowyourmeme.com/i/7588/original/tactical_facepalm.jpg
seriously, lighten up

lol. I'm saving the pic

[Bob3terd]

Got to agree with some of the original posters points

Firstly id like to say that mass effect 2 unfortuantly jumps on the dark and gritty bad wagon without really think what makes a dark atmosphere work. Now as an earier poster said and overly happy sunshine game becomes vapid but the same can be said for dark and gritty to much of one thing will desensitize one to their effects, to much uplifting moments and they fall flat to many dark moments and the same can be said.

mass effect is a 3 part trilogy but with about 2 years between each game the contrast is lost each needs to find a balance of the 2 i felt mass effect 1 did this quite well though you might not notice it at the time, the first 3 missions where mainly uplifting with some disgust at the exo geni on feros and virmire was dark mid before the hard fought triumph at the end.

Mass effect 2 didnt really manage it for me there where some dark and nasty scenes that worked (garrus getting crippled because i didnt disable the chopper) but after a while i just became decencitized and it failed to grab me after that. In the end the suicide mission fell face first into tedium with all that came before it. A good story will carry the user through all kinds of emotions before the end. ME2 just followed the trend of washing out the colour pallet making sure 200 years in the future there is no such thing as a working light bulb and trying to make every action seem futile.

Unfortunatly the main flaw is that as the designers said they where attempting to make a mature game but really failed to look up maturity in the dictionary. It has the same approach as games like the witcher who simply think that adding swearing, violence, sex and scandalous material makes a game mature.
Well i hate to break it to those who think it is but it aint, maturity is how you handle those things within the game that makes it mature. For example finding nemo for children is about a fish, for parents its about a widower who lost the women he loves and his overprotective nature of his only remaining child and coming to the conclusion that he is growing up and has to let go of control for his sons own good.
Bit off topic i know but its to prove a point.
Mass effect 2 has nothing to say about those topics like the experiments on jack as a child other than "it is bad m-kay", proving they where only added their for shock value rather than anything of real weight. A good example of a well written game is bioshock 1 although most would say its just dark and gritty is also has some intresting family values hidden in it which help to bring light where its needed and darken the shadows.

To sum up in the end what really matters is contrast an entirely dark room isnt scary you suddenly add a candle in there and the shadows start playing tricks with the mind and it gets a whole lot spookier. mass effect 2 did improve on gameplay but i have to feel it came at the loss of story. A more fleshed out story with more ups and downs and it could have been a real empire strikes back!

p.s. i realise my name isnt mature but it dosent take away from the truth of my argument!

Edit: perfect example for what i mean would have been the mission your crew got abducted if you played as shepard on an away mission and defeated the collectors on a colony saving its inhabitants just and your enjoying your victory the collectors abduct your crew. Returning you realise the colony was but a diversion and false victory and now your chance of sucess is even lower. One step forward 2 steps back!

Modifié par Bob3terd, 11 février 2010 - 08:19 .

[Spell Singer]

Ozymandia23 I agree with a lot of what you say, or can understand you view it that way but I don't agree with your primary contention.



The ending of ME was the best I've ever played through, it edged out KotOR slightly. It was something else to do those fights and see the cut scenes play. It was a special feeling I agree and it really brought everything home. Mind you not saving the Destiny Ascension was something I did only once since watching hope die like that was painful.



However, the elements you complain about are in ME. They may not be in your face like watching Chambers be rendered into paste but Asari poledancers, drugs, criminal behavior, etc are all there in ME. If I can speculate a lot of the loyalty missions are designed to make you the player start questioning "Do the ends justifiy the means." My experience with online role play makes me think that it is basis of many peoples on line experience. The ultimate choices in ME2 are exactly that: do the ends justify your actions. Is the genophage justifiable? Should you destroy or rewrite the Heretics? What do you do with the base?



But I can't fault you for not liking the ending of ME2. I have to admit I didn't. I was...numb? I guess that is the best word. To a degree too much happens in that mission to take in. I didn't expect to find the crew alive, then I find half of them alive...and walking in the Normandy afterwards just drives it home. I fought the embryo reaper in a total daze since I was lost to what I was supposed to do, there should have been a timer, there was no obvious target on it, there was this "human lava" meter. Then the cut scene triggers and it is all over.



Dealing with the Teflon Man didn't even leave me feeling better. Walking around the Normandy was just twisting the knife. This was not the uplifting ME ending at all.



But just because I personally can't stand Hamlet doesn't make it a bad play. I think that ultimately you can say you don't like ME2 without saying it is badly written or lacks a good story. The loyalty missions are very well done in terms of character development, you might not like all your crew mates but at least they become people by the end of them. The story of the collectors...well it drives home the extinction in a way that is horrifyingly personal. Cerberus as far as I am concerned never changes you know what Cerberus is in ME and the only thing you find out in ME2 is why it is like that.

[Jedi_blues]

I think what we have here is the difference between a plot driven story and a character driven story. This is most definitely a character driven story, and I think the characters, for the most part, have good depth, especially considering this is the first time we meet a lot of them.

[commandoclone87]

I hear you on that the stroy wasn't quite what you would expect, but as others have mentioned, the Mass Effect Trilogy takes heavily from the original Star Wars trilogy. (Drew Karpyshan was a lead writer on KOTOR and has done several novels in the Expanded Universe so he knows Star Wars)



If I would call to mind A New Hope, it had a intro to the main heroes, a devestating tragedy, a hero coming into his own and a final battle against all odds which was a victory for the good guys. Mass Effect 1 follows the same general pattern; Introduces Shepard and several key characters, you have a tragic attack on Eden Prime which launches the hero on his quest (think the attack on Luke's home and destruction of Alderaan), a good friend dies (though not directly by the enemy) and a final battle against the clock as the enemy races to destroy the good guys.



Now the Empire Strikes Back, you have the hero nearly getting killed, The group is scattered, and the hero has to rejoin them after getting some upgrades (Luke's gotten some Jedi training and is now able to use the Force) while aquiring some new allies (Lando) and then facing his enemy and learning a terrible truth. The movie ends with a hero being lost and the rest regrouping to prepare for the conclusion.



Mass Effect 2, we have Shepard dying and being rebuilt with few upgrades, The original crew is scattered, You aquire some new allies and rejoin some old friends, you face an enemy whom becomes an ally (I would relate Legion to Lando, both doing what they can to save their people eventhough others would suffer), learn a terrible truth about the Protheans and how Reapers have been created, and if depending on how you did, one or more heroes are lost. At the end, Shepard regroups with the survivors of his team and prepare for the final battle as the Rebellion did at the end of Empire, the only difference being that Han Solo was still alive, while your team member may be dead.



And lastly Return of the Jedi. In the last part of the Original Trilogy, the Heroes began to bring the fight to their enemies, sent an assualt squad ahead to weaken them, aquired new allies (The furry Ewoks) and after a final confrontation between the Luke and Vader/Emperor, the heroes become victorious, though not without heavy losses.



My assumption in ME3 is that you will finally bring physical evidence forward to convince the Council of the Reaper threat. Shepard will be teamed up with some old friends and some new faces and will be sent ahead to infiltrate the Reaper forces. Things will go badly at first, Shepard will ally himself with an alien species and will eventually come face to face with the central Reaper entity in command of the Reaper forces. He will win, people will die and the Galaxy will be changed forever.



This is the way of trilogies, It worked for Star Wars, it worked for Lord of the Rings and it will work for Mass Effect. Just because you find the plot a little thin, don't write it off yet as ME3 will fullfill what was missing from ME2 and bring everything together. You will also need to save Mass Effect 2 so that when you get to ME3, you can import your characters if you want to make different choices.



Just my comparison and realization that ME2 is not to be the conclusion, but the start of the worst time in Shepard's life.

[IceTitan]

 Way I see ME2 is.
It's based on the terminus system, which is lawless in most cases.
The Council pretty much tells you to stay in the terminus (if you kept them alive) so long as you worked with cerberus.

It's a dark universe, there is no such thing as a divinely pure existance. And they were focusing on showing the dark side of the known galaxy, and the human colonies that were hit were all in the terminus systems which also were closest to the Omega 4 relay. Which made sense, since the Citadel would never go into the terminus no matter how much humanity pushed, well though a human controlled council IMO would of done something imo... or maybe wouldn't.

Legion did not stalk shepard, he was trying to contact Shepard. And the Armor bit is because he, the Geth revere shepard in a sense for destroying sovereign. He was the one organic they felt they had something in common with and didn't behave like they had expected. At least that's how I understood it.

Anyways they do explain that Asary go through several phase, just like we do. The Asary strippers/mercs etc, are part of the phase we would relate to as adolescence, the rebelious year of indulging and experimenting. I recall a Fantasy race depicted the same way (elves). Gaining maturity as they hit various states, from being rebelious to seeking companionship (settling down.), up to Matriarch which is like the wise elder guiding the younger.

We all do stupid reckless things when we're young, they even talk about how people see Asary as promiscuous being a mis-understanding due to their behavior when their younger in ME1. It also depicts various things, how some of the terminus races seem to assume more than actually know about human behavior etc.
That your actions in that dark, lawless part of space, actually impacts it's perceptions of humans.

Frankly it talks about Asary behavior almost the beginning of ME1. To play ME2 and start freaking about the strippers sort of shows you haven't payed any attention in ME1 about the races backgrounds and such. I still remember alot of the things said in ME1 about how Asary behave and were perceived, same about the Turians and Solarians,  ME2 just shows it more directly. 

The main plot was fairly as long as the plot in ME1, not counting the recruitment. The thing is, it is very likely that all the NPC's you recruit in ME2, return in ME3, hence why they made their recruitment and loyalties so important. Pretty sure when they made ME1 they spent the whole time juggling the idea of keeping them or not, and they opted for not. Instead they were turned into npc's specially in Wrex's place,  have a heavy impact on events in ME3.

And yes it does feel like the focus this time is characters, they made it so they are actually important and that they will die if you just ignore them and that you can fail if you neglect them.

My only real complain is the lack of gear variety, and some gameplay features that I wish they hadn't changed.
But story wise it's not perfect, but it's what I expected being a middle story, and being a lawless sector.

Modifié par IceTitan, 11 février 2010 - 09:20 .

[Agamo45]

If you can't handle the dark/disturbing themes, then don't play it. It's rated M for a reason.

[brgillespie]

Collectors are introduced --> Shepard gathers a team --> collectors are destroyed

Shepard/Saren is introduced ---> Shepard gathers a team/Shepard learns about the Reapers ---> Saren/Sovereign is destroyed.

Just sayin'. The only important parts of ME1 were Eden Prime, Virmire, and Ilos/Citadel Finale. Everything else was fluff. The sum of Theron was recruiting Liara, the sum of Feros was basically finding out that Saren has a big-ass ship called Sovereign that can control the minds of the crew, and Noveria was finding out from Benezia that the ship was controlling both her AND Saren.

Mass Effect 1 was plot-point driven. Honestly, your ME1 crew - while fun to get to know - weren't of huge importance to the story. Mass Effect 2 was about building a team to stop a seemingly-implacable enemy. It was character-driven to make that final suicide mission that much more intense.

Modifié par brgillespie, 11 février 2010 - 09:57 .

[Ozymandias23]

aksoileau wrote...

OP's name is Ozymandias...which is from Watchmen... Which is extremely graphic and disturbing. It contains rape, murdering pregnant women, tons of blood, language, etc. So why the double standard?

I've never seen Watchmen. Ozymandias is a sonnet by Shelley. If you're interested:

http://www.online-li...lley_percy/672/

[Ozymandias23]

Conway044 wrote...

aksoileau wrote...

OP's name is Ozymandias...which is from Watchmen... Which is extremely graphic and disturbing. It contains rape, murdering pregnant women, tons of blood, language, etc. So why the double standard?

Ozymandias is a very famous sonnet by Shelley and another name for Ramesses the Great.  So it is very possible that the OP is simply educated rather than a hypocritical comic book fan.

Just read your post. Thanks for explaining.

[Ozymandias23]

Mondo47 wrote...

Like a few folk here, I don't agree with everything the original poster said, but I'll give them kudos for a pretty good argument/statement of opinon. Here's my two cents in response (I apologise in advance for the Wall-o-Text experience ahead of time):

I saw ME2 as being very much the dark middle-chapter of a suitably epic story (all the Empire Strikes Back comparisons through the boards suggest I'm far from alone here). So for ME2 the content was suitably grimier and more ambiguous; characters struggled with hard pasts and unpleasant moral choices, while Shepard constructed his Dirty Dozen and assisted them in some way or another in putting their past misdeeds or experiences behind them. Shepard as a character helps them grow out of where they are into a place where they can go into the future and step onto the next page of their lives.

As for the unpleasant elements of the story, ok, I can see how some
people would be offended or distressed by some of them. Epic stories
have though been filled with disturbing themes for centuries; in fact,
sometimes the further back you go, the worse they get - rape, murder,
torture, incest, genocide, fratracide, infantacide, and those are just
the common ones. History itself is full of it, too. I'll agree that the whole young Asari running off to
be pole-dancers, mercs, waitresses and floozys thing was a bit of a
relic of the juvenile James T Kirk school of alien cultures (as in
female aliens are there to be a funny colour, dress in skimpy nothings
and throw themselves at rugged male hero-types), but I was willing to
buy the whole 300-year teenage phase thing and it is a very old trope of sci-fi fiction now. Not a very PC one, but one that will take a while yet to abraid into something less juvenile. That is though a very minor aspect in something as large as the ME series. Sci-fi is a little phallocentric in its politics at times, as is a lot fantasy and horror fiction (though not all, admittedly). Gender politics will always be fighting a tough battle to get correct representation, but no one game/book/movie will ever please everyone.

While it was never said, I saw Shepard's quest in ME2 for the team's loyalty not so much as a means to make them survive, but as a way to make them want to survive; instead of throwing themselves suicidally at the enemy, they fight with a passion to live beyond the final battle, earning either redemption, hope or direction to become new people no longer shackled to ghosts of their pasts (Miranda's envy of normality, Jacob's relationship with his father, Jack's childhood of torture and abuse, Grunt's lack of connection to his heritage, Thane's desire to make amends, Mordin's contemplation of ethics and morality, etc.). Shepard is not so much marching them into doom, but trying to save them from their own personal dooms though facing a greater one.

Just using Jack's origin story as an example (because the character seems to be one people either love or hate with seemingly no middle ground), it could not have in my eyes worked in any other way. Without such a horrible past to have endured, Jack would have been a simple sociopathic criminal with a tendency to drop f-bombs left and right, only brought along to blow things apart and thus as disposable as a bag of demo-charges. The character's endurance of terrible wrongs was responsible for the shape she had grown into, and without seeing and experiencing the unpleasant reality of it, she would have been a character the audience could develop no serious empathy for. Instead understanding her past made me at least want to know more about her and see if there was a way to free her from the bonds of the past. It made her my favorite character of the game, hands down.

Jacob's story had a similar vein, placing him in his father's shadow and using the abhorent events on the planet's surface to demonstrate once and for all he was the better man. That one could have been a little better drawn out in my eyes, but I could see what it was aiming for. Without the moral questions, without the darkness, there would have been much less meaning, and much less to make the characters more detailed. And if you didn't care, empathise, sympathise or just plain like the characters, would you really want to see any of them survive? Or would you just fire them at the Collectors and forget them? Bad things happen to good people in the real world, things that often have no excuse. These events shape them. The game was doing just that, and I feel that the dark, seedy and horrifying aspects of this were needed to paint such a shady world correctly and realistically.

The story took the form of character studies more than part of a big, over-arcing plot in my eyes; an interlude on the way to the main event (which Empire certainly is to continue the comparison), and while I agree that the main thrust of the story outside of the new crew could have had some more depth and a couple less plot holes in it, it was certainly more engaging to me than say Dragon Age: Origins was (that's just me personally - I still played DA:O through and enjoyed it, with the exception of one of the final plot twists was just so idiotic to a person with any concept of morality or simple story foreshadowing that there could be no turning back from what seemed an entirely inevitable ending). I loved ME2, enough to play it through a few times now just to explore different plot paths, etc. which I couldn't do with DA:O. Sure, it was a darker (occasionally uneaven) ride, even marching the path of the Paragon, but I certainly don't think they went too far, at least for me. In fact, without it, I don't think it could have functioned as well as it did.

Anyway, that's my own opinion. Thanks for bearing with me. You can wake up at the back now 

Whilst I don't agree with your opinions I appreciate the time you took to explain your point in a civilised mannner. thanks.

[Ozymandias23]

Shahadem wrote...

I have to agree with you Oz. There were very few positive changes in ME2, and a lot of negative ones.

The very first 1.5 hours of ME1 were the greatest video game experience I have ever had. The battle on the Citadel was almost as spectacular because you were running and gunning your way through an entire army, only to get to Saren and talk him into commiting suicide to save his honor.

Every main storyline mission played through like a seperate movie, and they all came back together at the end. Sure the planet exploration was boring as heck, but you knew when playing that was just pointless filler so it was easy to forgive.

In ME2 only the pointless filler remains. And it's not because I played too much ME1, I still get chills when playing through the first ME1 mission and the battle on the Citadel. I have never gotten that same feeling during any single part of ME2, nor does my character even feel powerful anymore.

This

[TopUSGun]

Instead of complaining go write a book if you think you can come up with a better story.

[Ozymandias23]

shaneho78 wrote...

NoShtSherlock wrote...

Shaneho, just because you don't agree with the OP's opinion on this game you have no business making assumptions about their life or their experiences. If you can't be mature enough to agree to disagree then you shouldn't post on threads like these

You misunderstood me. My words have no bearing on her personal life or experience. Genetic fallacy is committed (this is a common of many people including me) when the context of a situation is not considered when making an argument, for instance, her claim that the plot is threadbare without considering that ME2 is the 2nd act of a trilogy. I apologize if my words (incorrectly) imply something faulty about her genes.

My understanding of genetic fallacy is where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context.

Perhaps Sherlock was referencing this definition in his reply and believed you were suggesting that I had reached my conclusions because I was Jewish, female, gay or all three.

[Skavau]

This is all from the Original Post. She may have rescinded some statements now, but I don't think so - having vaguely scanned it.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for Mass Effect 2. I found it
crass, tasteless and deeply unpleasant. Bioware seems to have forced
every nasty thing they could think of into Mass Effect 2 and in doing
so utterly destroyed the feel of the Mass Effect universe. Mass Effect
2 is not a sequel to Mass Effect 1. It is a spin off. The moments where
I actually felt I was playing Mass Effect were all too brief.

Bioware took the game into a darker atmosphere. I don't agree with some of the plot progressions that they used and I felt thoroughly underwhelmed about the Collectors and Harbinger on hinesight, but they obviously intended to make a darker world.

There was certainly a lot less suspense in ME2 than there was in ME.

There seemed to be no narrative structure to the game. The plot,
such as it was, was utterly contrived, unconvincing and frankly
embarrassingly bad in places.  I have never played a Bioware game that
had such a weak, threadbare story, such stilted dialogue or borrowed so
heavily from other sources such as Babylon 5, Star Trek, and Terminator
etc. The final battle was absurd. I won’t spoil it for anyone who
hasn’t played the entire game; all I will say is that a cameo from
Governor Schwarzenegger would not have been out of place. It was
ridiculous and utterly inferior to the end game of Mass Effect 1 in
every possible way.

Yeah, it was a bit sketchy. The specific desire of the Collectors to gather humans opened up many possibilities behind them and the Reapers. The connection of the Collectors to the Protheans was good, and I felt it should it have been hinted at mored progressively rather than just 'discovered'.

The final battle was absurd and the objective of the Collectors, under a Reaper to create another Reaper (a human one) suggested organic heritage of the Reapers... and possible weakness. But still, final battle was a  bit over the top.

Having Shepard die, be rebuilt and be upgraded throughout the
game with more and more synthetic parts was pointless and only served
as a flimsy attempt to force the player to accept working with
Cerberus. It didn’t work on any level in my opinion. The two year gap
was a transparent excuse to off load the original squad mates whose
personalities did not fit into the type of game Bioware wanted to make.
This might have worked better if they had been replaced by characters
with equal charisma. They were not, in my opinion, with the only
exception being Legion and EDI.

Okay.

Going to disagree here a bit. I like the idea of Cerberus reviving Shepard. It makes sense they might idolise him as a symbol of humanity.

Once Shepard was alive again and the Collectors had been
identified as the enemy the ‘plot’ then took on the appearance of a
grocery list. Gather specialists, do loyalty missions, gather minerals
to upgrade the Normandy and then do the final mission. Personally I
found it slow moving and monotonous and frankly I was bored. There were
too many new squad mates and it made it difficult to feel any
attachment to any of them, even if I had found their personalities
appealing, which I didn’t. And whilst the new Normandy was beautiful, I
had the overwhelming urge to off load the crew and fumigate the ship.

This was poor game mechanics, not plot devices. Albeit some of the squad pickups were ridiculous. Why would you be asked to pick up a dangerous insane biotic who had spent her childhood being tortured by Cerberus to go on a Cerberus mission? Why would some merc like Zaeed be considered a viable candidate for saving the universe? Why would you be asked to risk the judgment of some Justicar that by logic, wouldn't hold much support for Cerberus and depending on past choices - might feel compelled to attack you on sight?

I also found the portrayal of women in Mass Effect 2 offensive at
times. On Omega the Asari seemed to have been assigned the role of
strippers, pole dancers and prostitutes. There seemed to be a recurring
theme that suggested women were play things, to be used and abused
when opportunity permitted. This theme carried through to Jacob’s
loyalty mission, a mission that I found disturbing on an emotional
level and absolutely sickening.

Oh play the world's smallest violin.

I am no fan of censorship and I deplor self-censorship even moreso. Entertainment has now for a long time, provided social analysis and commentated on social taboos. It has for a long time addressed and introduced situations that mirror the fate of the wretched in real life. You want to change and filter this because it upsets your sensitivity? Why don't you consider the possibility that Omega, a fictional asteroid settlement of lawlessness and mob rule might actually be supportive of or passively encourage the objectification of women?

In that mission we were presented with a scenario where a ship
had crash landed, the captain had separated out the female crew members
and placed them in a camp. He then gave these women to his officers to
be used as play things. The idea was horrific. Perhaps Bioware feel
that the suggestion of rape is suitable content for their ‘dark and
edgy’ video game but I don’t.  It was uncalled for and I found it
sickening and disturbing. For me it evoked parallels with some of the
atrocities carried out in ‘camps’ across Europe during World War 2.

Of course it was horrific. It was meant to present itself like that in order to invoke a negative reaction from the player. The fact that it offends you meant it obviously worked well, the fact you feel it ought to be censored is nothing less than you desiring to enroach on other people's creativity based on your hurt feelings.

You are the clear example of taking offense on behalf of others.

This feeling continued into Subject Zero’s loyalty mission where
we’re provided with a story about the abuse of children. Children
bought or stolen, ripped away from home and family, transported to a
facility in crates, half starved and experimented upon, injected with
substances to see what effect it would have. The parallels with history
are hard to ignore. The children of Bullenhuser Damm, brought from
Auschwitz to Neuengamme for experimentation.  Is this really suitable
for inclusion in something that is supposed to be a source of
entertainment?

This, by the way was in the novels of Mass Effect. This was present, or similar references were present in Mass Effect. Do you wish for them to be censored too? Of course it might parallel with history - that is our reference point for comparison. When we think of experimentation of children, we naturally think of failed fascist regimes with no concern about humanity.

Shall we eradicate the entire horror genre because it often touches upon mutilitation and torture? Shall we censor comedians from engaging in 'dark humour' because they may reference things that some people just cannot handle?

Might I ask, have you played Bioshock. If so, what did you think of it?

Samara’s loyalty mission was another that I took issue with,
though for very different reasons.  We’re presented with her daughter,
Morinth, a sexual predator, whose victims are killed by engaging in sex
with her. We’re instructed to go to the apartment where her last victim
Nef, a young girl, lived with her mother. The mother
allows us into
Nef’s room where we listen to her video diary in order to find the
password to allow us into the club where Morinth stalks her victims.
The diary entries chart Nef’s first meeting with Morinth and mentions
the beginning of an attraction between them. In one of the diary
entries Nef comments that Morinth is a girl, that she’s attracted to a
girl and asks ‘am I a freak?’

Perhaps homosexual taboos may still exist in the Mass Effect universe.

Perhaps Mass Effect might be making some commentary on the taboos of the modern world? Indeed, I'd say its certainly far more likely than suggesting the game is homophobic or bigoted. You must know better than that given the LI in Mass Effect and the continuation of them in ME2. Not to mention the thumbs up to across species relationships.

Modifié par Skavau, 11 février 2010 - 07:37 .

[Ozymandias23]

Bob3terd wrote...

Unfortunatly the main flaw is that as the designers said they where attempting to make a mature game but really failed to look up maturity in the dictionary. It has the same approach as games like the witcher who simply think that adding swearing, violence, sex and scandalous material makes a game mature.
Well i hate to break it to those who think it is but it aint, maturity is how you handle those things within the game that makes it mature. For example finding nemo for children is about a fish, for parents its about a widower who lost the women he loves and his overprotective nature of his only remaining child and coming to the conclusion that he is growing up and has to let go of control for his sons own good.
Bit off topic i know but its to prove a point.
Mass effect 2 has nothing to say about those topics like the experiments on jack as a child other than "it is bad m-kay", proving they where only added their for shock value rather than anything of real weight. A good example of a well written game is bioshock 1 although most would say its just dark and gritty is also has some intresting family values hidden in it which help to bring light where its needed and darken the shadows.

Excellent post. I think you've explained the point I was trying to make much more clearly than I was capable of. In particular

"Mass effect 2 has nothing to say about those topics like the
experiments on jack as a child other than "it is bad m-kay", proving
they where only added their for shock value rather than anything of
real weight."

And that is my issue.

I think too the scene during Tali's trial where one of the Quarians recites almost verbatim a Jewish prayer supports my argument that Jewish religion, culture and history were very much in the developers mind when they were seeking 'inspiration' for the 'dark and edgy' tone they wanted to foist onto Mass Effect 2. I find the way they handled that material quite callous, insensitive and utterly disrespectful.

[Gravity Bun]

Ozymandias23 wrote...


Samara’s loyalty mission was another that I took issue with, though for very different reasons.  We’re presented with her daughter, Morinth, a sexual predator, whose victims are killed by engaging in sex with her. We’re instructed to go to the apartment where her last victim Nef, a young girl, lived with her mother. The mother
allows us into Nef’s room where we listen to her video diary in order to find the password to allow us into the club where Morinth stalks her victims. The diary entries chart Nef’s first meeting with Morinth and mentions the beginning of an attraction between them. In one of the diary entries Nef comments that Morinth is a girl, that she’s attracted to a girl and asks ‘am I a freak?’

Why would this make her a freak? Why? Intentional or not, there is a suggestion there of homophobia.

My impression was that Nef was more concerned that Morinth was an alien, rather than female - Asari are mono-gendered anyway (even if they all look like females).