242 réponses à ce sujet

[General Battuta]

I just finished replaying Mass Effect 1 and 2 in one go.



Initially I had felt that ME2's plot was less urgent and involving...but I was wrong.



It's superior in every way.

[TheShady]

TOBY FLENDERSON wrote...

Plot: a story arc involving the evolution of events and characters.

You just got learned.

And how do the characters evolve?

They just float around in the story, untouched by anything but Shepard and their own history. There's no connection to the present.

[Sidney]

frylock23 wrote...

I think that I lost out on the feel of the mission itself in ME2. First, I think the sheer volume of characters undermined the intent. We spend so much time recruiting new people and seeing little bits of their personal angst via their loyalty missions that the over-arcing purpose is lost. Plus, the way the game played out, I felt more like I was assembling a disaster movie cast: a lot of characters but not enough time to thoroughly develop them and make them compelling before you move on to the big game.

I agree with this. I felt like if they'd shaved off 2 or 3 of the recruitables and and used the time/money to create and expand a smaller core group of people it would have felt a bit more engaged with all the NPC's.

[catabuca]

TheShady wrote...

catabuca wrote...

OMG, somebody better take back my literature PhD then.

That was just showing off now, Doctor. 
Btw, a video game is, strictly speaking, not literature. Am I right, Doctor?

What can I say, if I don't blow my own horn nobody else will

'What is literature?' is a whole 'nother debate, and one I wouldn't touch with yours (just as, as an amateur photographer, I wouldn't go near the 'what is art?' debate either - not on here at least).

A video game literature? Well, it's a text. And as such can be 'read' like any other text. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

It has a script. It could be described as a play, whereby you're the director.

Aaaaanyway ... my opinion on the storytelling in ME2, not that it's worth a jot, is that I was very shaken the first time I played it by just how much the storytelling lacked in comparison to ME1.

I've since played it another 2 times. I thought that I'd give it time, since so much was overhauled perhaps I was being too emotional, harking back to ME1 with rose-tinted glasses, that I was opposed to change. I've gotten over a lot of the other things I didn't like in my first ME2 playthrough (I don't play fps or tps, so the combat involved a very steep learning curve, for example), and I like the game a great deal, but the way the story unfolds still nags away at me.

I'm not averse to the idea of gathering your band of team mates, and keeping them loyal isn't an outright bad idea. However, the flow of the story in ME1 felt much more logical and natural to me than ME2. The Collectors, for example, just didn't play that great a role in it, and I think that's a shame, especially now if they've effectively gone for good (which they may have done, if you interpret Harbinger's remarks at the end of the game in that way). At some points in the game you'd be forgiven for thinking the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack were the main enemies.

The main missions in ME1 tied in very well to the main story: your objective was to gather information on Saren, the Geth and the Reaper threat; you found out information during each mission that carried the story along; and by the end of each mission you were given an essential piece of information that would help you stop Saren. Some of the small side-missions tied in very well with this bigger story arc, and those that didn't still fit the feel of the universe.

Now, I'm the first to admit the side missions in ME1 were cut-and-paste, mostly in terms of scenery and what you were asked to do (find base, kill turretts, enter base, move through room/corridor, kill badies, loot lockers, leave), and I think I'd make a distinction here between gameplay mechanics and storytelling. There is no doubt at all that the gameplay mechanics have vastly improved in ME2 and I am at the front of the queue to applaud Bioware for that. As far as I'm concerned, however, the storytelling has fallen short of the excellence Bioware achieved in ME1. That isn't to say ME2 isn't a great game, but what I am saying is that, for me, Bioware didn't manage to pull that certain something out of the bag again. Compared to other game franchises Mass Effect remains head and shoulders above most, but I believe it is simply because they set such a high standard for storytelling in ME1 that it becomes noticable in ME2 when they don't quite reach that same standard.

I'd also like to say, by way of peace-keeping etc., that I wholeheartedly defend and accept the right of others to think that ME2's story was the best Bioware have ever produced, and for them to express that. I ask that they allow those who think as I do to also express their opinions in a warm, friendly and fun environment.

[malres]

catabuca wrote...

There is no doubt at all that the gameplay mechanics have vastly improved in ME2 and I am at the front of the queue to applaud Bioware for that. As far as I'm concerned, however, the storytelling has fallen short of the excellence Bioware achieved in ME1. That isn't to say ME2 isn't a great game, but what I am saying is that, for me, Bioware didn't manage to pull that certain something out of the bag again. Compared to other game franchises Mass Effect remains head and shoulders above most, but I believe it is simply because they set such a high standard for storytelling in ME1 that it becomes noticable in ME2 when they don't quite reach that same standard.

I'd also like to say, by way of peace-keeping etc., that I wholeheartedly defend and accept the right of others to think that ME2's story was the best Bioware have ever produced, and for them to express that. I ask that they allow those who think as I do to also express their opinions in a warm, friendly and fun environment.

Couldn't have said it better. Shows clearly what you got your PhD for.

[Sidney]

catabuca wrote...

I'm not averse to the idea of gathering your band of team mates, and keeping them loyal isn't an outright bad idea. However, the flow of the story in ME1 felt much more logical and natural to me than ME2. The Collectors, for example, just didn't play that great a role in it, and I think that's a shame, especially now if they've effectively gone for good (which they may have done, if you interpret Harbinger's remarks at the end of the game in that way). At some points in the game you'd be forgiven for thinking the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack were the main enemies.

To some extent it reads more like a collection of short stories or something, and I'll test that PhD in lit, like Go Down, Moses where they are discreet stories in a unifying shell. ME1 has a stronger central narrative to it no doubt but ME2 is conceived of as a very different type of narrative.

I think it suffers some for being a middle child in the trilogy. The thrill of discovery is over in ME1 and the final controntation is due up in ME3 so all ME2 can do is try and bridge the gap. It does that in an unconventional way.

I will say this for it, the roaming about getting people thing works as long as you accept the not highlighted enough element which is that you can't go after the collectors because TIM doesn't know how to make the Omega 4 Relay work. Time is usually a poorly served element in these games - DAO you roam about finding lost swords and slaying bandits rather than immediately getting an army to stop the huge swarm of baddies. In ME1 you are in a race vs time to stop Saren....but you have time to explore many planets, troll for minerals and stop rogue VI's on the moon. The more leisurely pace of ME2 is explained by the fact that you are almost 100% reactive until the final act. Your side quests and loyalty missions make sense in the the context of time the game has created something you can not say about either DAO or ME1.

[glasgoo21]

Didn't reply ME1, even tough it impressed me, ME2 is worth gold, strange tough since it seems to be less epic in story telling.

[TheShady]

Personally I don't think any Bioware story is that great or special.

It's your typical epics, hero saves everything and is just generally awesome. There's not much complexity. I don't care much for those.

In KoTOR 1 we had the evil Sith Lord who wants to conquer and rule the galaxy and the hero stops him. (The only really special thing is the twist in the middle, the idendity crisis.)

In ME you have the same thing. Awesome person saves galaxy.

In DA:O, you got another awesome person who saves the country from the evil monsters.

I'm assuming that it's very similar in BG. Never played those.



What's good in Bioware games is the way the story is told and what characters are in it. How the thing evolves into the conclusion.

In my opinion, ME2 did not do so well in those departments.

(The only good thing is the very basic writing, as in the wording and dialogue, if you isolate it from the rest.)







As for what literature is... I, as a non-literature-PhD, would consider anything that's written (with words) literature, as, for example, scientific texts (that are not telling a story and are not art) are called literature too (at least in our German-speaking realm). That of course is very technical and nit-picky. I don't care much for definitions anyway. I call literature or art whatever I want to call literature or art, even if it's just my non-existent diary or my latest bowel movement.

[facialstrokage]

malres wrote...

facialstrokage wrote...
How about the argument that building your team is actually a legitimate basis for a story??
I think some people either don't understand or simply don't appreciate the concept of story. Story isn't just about fighting bad guys. That's bland and pathetic. It's about Shepard. Even Bioware claims that Mass Effect 3 will end the story arc for Shepard. That includes his LI's, comrades, enemies, friends, and everyone and everything in between. It's about themes: innocents, love, loyalty, trust, etc. And lastly, it's about stopping the Reapers. You think if someone's gonna make a trilogy with reoccuring characters, their growth and adventures would be just as big a factor in the game as killing the bad guys. ME is really like a book, where Shepard is the protagonist. What he does is important, but who he becomes and how he interacts with others is just as, if not more, important.

Building a team is a legitimate basis all right. A basis. A foundation on which further structure can be built. Not the be-all and end-all of a story at all.
I think some people don't appreciate the difference between interesting characters and a relevant context between them and an overarching story. You seem to be suggesting that all is well with the reavers always being out there, posing an eternal threat which is never resolved. Instead, all future ME incarnations should focus on a number of characters who would be tasked with changing the overall state of things if they weren't so busy with dealing with each other.
That's a soap opera, not a space opera.

The comparison with Matrix, Star Wars, and Halo is pretty shallow. ME and Matrix have nothing in common. Matrix is just a weird story with lots of slow-mo action. Halo has no story, at least nobody plays it for the story- it's just headshots, headshots, headshots. And as for Star Wars. Yes, I can definitely see ME taking that same route- hell, Bioware made the best Star Wars game ever.

What I am afraid Matrix, Halo etc. might have in common with ME one day is that the original concept got swamped under a heap of mediocre spin-offs for all kinds of media.

In fact, I think Bioware based their story arc of a similar path. ME1 is like Ep. IV where the protagonist took out the temporary threat but not the real one (Death Star vs Saren). ME2 is like Ep V in both its darker environment and in depth inter and intra character developments. ME3 will likely be an epic battle between Shepard and the Reapers (Luke vs Sith). The real question is though: why is that bad? If you don't like Star Wars, you're the problem, not the story. Star Wars is possibly one of the best sagas ever made.

(Edit)
ME2 is nothing like Ep. V. It does not have an ending any darker than Ep. V, for a start. Also, Ep. V progresses the story and sets the stage for Ep. VI, ME2 does not, because nothing changes or is added. (Oh, so EDI assumes that Reapers reproduce by melting organics, and the collectors tried to build a gigantic terminator for a purpose we never learn, apart that it was probably meant to somehow help the reapers in a fashin which is never disclosed, and at the end of ME2 we see the reapers out there instead of the ME1's end where Shepard tells us they are still out there...)

I would argue that the story isn't as linear as you put it. It's not just about stopping the collectors. It's about the crew. It's about their adventure, coming to know one another, and in essense, yeah, kinda like a soap opera. What's wrong with that? I mean, it's not gay like soap operas are, but the premise is similar.

ME will not take the route Matrix and Halo did because those two started off as a single story, but expanded for commercial reasons. Whereas ME and Star Wars were planned as trilogies (SW as two) from the beginning. ME is no spin-off. They had it right from the start.

And to say that Ep. V progressed the story depends on how you look at the story. In ME, we knew the overall goal from the start: stop the collectors. That seemed short only because we knew what it was already. If you look at SW from that perspective, the goal being to stop the sith, how did Ep. V progress that? Darth Vader didn't die, the Emperor didn't die. Hell, no one died.
If you look at the story as a goal, and only by getting to that goal will story progress, then yeah, there's no "story" progression. Hell, I can make the same remark about Star Wars. The sith weren't any closer to dying by the end of Ep.V, hell they were stronger. So does the story regress in that case??? No, of course not. The story is everything that happens. Literally, everything that happens, whether or not the goal is accomplished, whether or not you like it, whether or not it adds anything new. Story is written, not achieved. [nerdy physics analogy- it's not about the velocity, it's about the path.]

Modifié par facialstrokage, 15 février 2010 - 06:39 .

[malres]

facialstrokage wrote...

malres wrote...

The comparison with Matrix, Star Wars, and Halo is pretty shallow. ME and Matrix have nothing in common. Matrix is just a weird story with lots of slow-mo action. Halo has no story, at least nobody plays it for the story- it's just headshots, headshots, headshots. And as for Star Wars. Yes, I can definitely see ME taking that same route- hell, Bioware made the best Star Wars game ever.

What I am afraid Matrix, Halo etc. might have in common with ME one day is that the original concept got swamped under a heap of mediocre spin-offs for all kinds of media.

In fact, I think Bioware based their story arc of a similar path. ME1 is like Ep. IV where the protagonist took out the temporary threat but not the real one (Death Star vs Saren). ME2 is like Ep V in both its darker environment and in depth inter and intra character developments. ME3 will likely be an epic battle between Shepard and the Reapers (Luke vs Sith). The real question is though: why is that bad? If you don't like Star Wars, you're the problem, not the story. Star Wars is possibly one of the best sagas ever made.

(Edit)
ME2 is nothing like Ep. V. It does not have an ending any darker than Ep. V, for a start. Also, Ep. V progresses the story and sets the stage for Ep. VI, ME2 does not, because nothing changes or is added. (Oh, so EDI assumes that Reapers reproduce by melting organics, and the collectors tried to build a gigantic terminator for a purpose we never learn, apart that it was probably meant to somehow help the reapers in a fashin which is never disclosed, and at the end of ME2 we see the reapers out there instead of the ME1's end where Shepard tells us they are still out there...)

I would argue that the story isn't as linear as you put it. It's not just about stopping the collectors. It's about the crew. It's about their adventure, coming to know one another, and in essense, yeah, kinda like a soap opera. What's wrong with that? I mean, it's not gay like soap operas are, but the premise is similar.

Let me clarify: ME2 has great characters. Mordin is hilarious. Jack is great - wouldn't touch her with a 10-foot-pole, but that's part of what makes her great in my eyes. I could go on with the other characters. If their background and recruitment/loyalty plots make the game for you, then hey, that's ok, a matter of taste. Me, I prefer space opera over soap opera.

ME will not take the route Matrix and Halo did because those two started off as a single story, but expanded for commercial reasons. Whereas ME and Star Wars were planned as trilogies (SW as two) from the beginning. ME is no spin-off. They had it right from the start.

I hope you're right. Fact is that ME has already spawned one iPhone game, a comic and two books. Not to judge their quality, but ME2 already ties in with ME Galaxy and ME Redemption, which reminds me of the many Matrix and Star Wars prequel tie-ins into books, computer games, TV series etc. Neither series profited from it.
And EA is only starting, just think of the DA:O and Dr. Pepper bonus content. I hope it stays irrelevant for the game itself.

And to say that Ep. V progressed the story depends on how you look at the story. In ME, we knew the overall goal from the start: stop the collectors. That seemed short only because we knew what it was already. If you look at SW from that perspective, the goal being to stop the sith, how did Ep. V progress that? Darth Vader didn't die, the Emperor didn't die. Hell, no one died.
If you look at the story as a goal, and only by getting to that goal will story progress, then yeah, there's no "story" progression. Hell, I can make the same remark about Star Wars. The sith weren't any closer to dying by the end of Ep.V, hell they were stronger. So does the story regress in that case??? No, of course not. The story is everything that happens. Literally, everything that happens, whether or not the goal is accomplished, whether or not you like it, whether or not it adds anything new. Story is written, not achieved. [nerdy physics analogy- it's not about the velocity, it's about the path.]

Ep. V developed the characters and progressed the story no matter how you look at it. I wrote it in another thread already, but I'll gladly repeat it here:

• Luke overcomes injury on Hoth, faces his inner demons in the cave on Dagobah and fails when confronting Darth Vader (character development) and is set on the path to Jedi knightship and learns about his father (story progression/revelation).
• Han changes from rogue to charming rebel (character development) and starts courting Leia (story progression).
• The rebels are defeated at Hoth (story progression).
• Three new characters are revealed: The emperor, Yoda and Lando.
• The emperor is introduced as ultimate antagonist to which even Darth Vader bows to. Their agenda is revealed: Turn Luke to the dark side (story progression).

Note how all characters are tightly woven into the overarching storyline of rebels vs. empire. By the end of Ep. V, things have become personal even for Lando. The ante's been upped insofar as there is no going back now for anybody, least of all for Luke. What happened in Ep. V has changed the state of things. The roadmap for Ep. VI has been set: Han must be freed, Luke must become a Jedi and defeat Darth Vader and the emperor, and the rebels must defeat the empire.

Compare this to ME2. Two thirds of ME1's main characters are downgraded to supporting characters. In their place, lots of new characters are introduced. Except Mordin and Legion, no recruitment nor loyalty missions have any connection to the conflict at hand. Heck, how can we blame the council/alliance for not acting against the reavers/collectors when we're ourselves focusing on our teammember's childhood/family/whatever issues?

If Ep. V was anything like ME2, then the rebels sit snuggly on Hoth, worried about empire attacks on far-away rebel bases. Chewie, Han and R2D2 are delegated to supporting roles. Leia has C3PO's income tax declaration done (loyalty mission!) while traveling the galaxy for 90 minutes, recruiting half a dozen disturbing individuals such as a
robot seeking its creator, a claustrophobic starfighter pilot and other in itself great characters who fail to have any apparent qualification as rebel other than pure strength or skill. Without ever acknowledging each other's existence (with the exception of a conflict between the alopecian wookie and the flea-allergic xenophobe), the movie plot would revolve around the recruits' issues, much too briefly at that and again with little to no visible connection to the rebellion, the empire or anything. Finally, in a carefully choreographed and impeccably executed flurry of special effects, the carefully "developed" team destroys the star destroyer flotilla who has been attacking rebel outposts. Nothing is said about the Emperor or Luke's heritage, and at the movie's end the team sits again snuggly on Hoth.

Modifié par malres, 15 février 2010 - 10:57 .

[kaotician]

I think that ME2 is absolutely specific in its' narrative aims, and succeeds in them. Where ME1 introduces us to the broader universe, at a 'race' level, if you will, and shows us around that universe, ME2 attempts (and in my view) succeeds in humanising that vast diaspora, by introducing us to various characters and types, across a multitude of species, at a very 'human' level. The aim I believe is to humanise a vast, epic-scale drama, so that we are not left with a tale that feels told at the level of a sort of personalised unit-scale RTS type of game.

[BattleVisor]

The loyalty mission strayed too far away from the storyline, and the introduction of so many new characters, and the snubbing of 2/3 the ME1 to suppport was really degenerative of the whole narrative.

It would have been better if atleast more character were interdeveloped within the main narrative.

Only Mordin(krogan genophage) and Legion's (geth re-write) quest seemed to have been relevant at all.

Modifié par BattleVisor, 16 février 2010 - 12:44 .

[mp84]

BattleVisor wrote...

The loyalty mission strayed too far away from the storyline, and the introduction of so many new characters, and the snubbing of 2/3 the ME1 to suppport was really degenerative of the whole narrative.

It would have been better if atleast more character were interdeveloped within the main narrative.

Only Mordin(krogan genophage) and Legion's (geth re-write) quest seemed to have been relevant at all.

Like the Side quests in ME were really interwoven into the main story as well. (sarcasim there, as we all know, the Side quests in ME 1 had nothing to do with the main story at all)

Don't mean to sound harsh there, but In a way, Bioware decided to take a different aspect for their side quests this time around, make them character driven and more part of the story in a way.

There's a line that Jacob says after Horizon that I think really puts the Loyalty missions into prespective. Right after Shepard talks to the TIM , Jacob is there.

He says "So we're finally gonna take the fight to the Collectors", then goes "About time, but there's a lot of unifished bussiness the crew needs to take care of first."

Because quite frankly, all of them think their gonna die when they go through the Omega 4 relay, so they wanna wrap any kind of problems they had.

So to me, it offered so much prospective into these characters that I really thought was well done.

[Moogliepie]

davidt0504 wrote...

So apparently some people don't get the concept that the part of recruiting your team is just as integral to the plot and overall story as the missions with colletors.  Not just the recruiting but even the loyalty missions are integral to the story.  I present evidence of this in that if you just breeze through as little squad stuff as possible to tackle the collectors, you die and that game can't be used in me3.  This game is not all about shepard fighting the collectors.  Just like mass effect 1 was not all about shepard hunting saren.

QFT. It's fine to prefer ME1 if it floats your boat, but some of the complaints are completely baseless. I think the majority of the story complaints are from people who weren't paying attention. 

[Moogliepie]

Myrmedus wrote...

PiercedMonk wrote...

Further, for a character based story, one character has been excluded, and it's ommision is painfully obvious. 'Mass Effect 2' lacks any proper antagonist. What would 'Mass Effect' have been without Saren? Faceless hordes of geth are fun to shoot, but Saren provided a focus for Shepard's enmity. A person should be judged by the quality of the enemies, and the absence of a villian in 'Mass Effect 2' really hurts the story. Harbinger dosen't count, because for all it's "assuming control", never once is there a moment where it feels as though Shepard is pitted against an opponent. Harbinger is as lacking in character as all the collectors, and the geth the first go around.

Just to add - I also found Sovereign to be a big part of ME1's plot strength. The conversation with it was brief but it provided a huge boost to the plot and to establishing the Reapers as a massive (no pun intended) antagonist in the trilogy. The character they created embodied everything I would assign to a genocidal god and you could almost 'sense' its power purely from your conversation with it - now that's damn good script.

Harbinger was an opportunity to do that again and for much of ME2 I hoped there would be some form of direct contact, even if through a Collector, but it never really came. The best we had was the phrases flung at you during combat. In fact it wasn't even until replaying ME2, once I KNEW that was a Reaper, that I felt a sense of connection to this opponent.

I also definitely think this game suffered from having so much focus put into its art direction and cinematography because while that was absolutely exquisite, the content that is divulged through such practices was weakened.

I think Bioware games tend to go overboard with antagonist driven stories, and I actually enjoyed that ME2 was more about Shepard, his crew and the galaxy, than an arch-villain.  There are also certain things that are there as gameplay decisions. The fact is, if you want a more urgent feeling story, you can have it, by doing the IFF mission as soon as it become available, and immediately going to the Omega 4 relay. Of course, this urgency comes at the price of sacrificing some of your squad members. 

[TheShady]

malres wrote...

Ep. V developed the characters and progressed the story no matter how you look at it. I wrote it in another thread already, but I'll gladly repeat it here:

• Luke overcomes injury on Hoth, faces his inner demons in the cave on Dagobah and fails when confronting Darth Vader (character development) and is set on the path to Jedi knightship and learns about his father (story progression/revelation).
• Han changes from rogue to charming rebel (character development) and starts courting Leia (story progression).
• The rebels are defeated at Hoth (story progression).
• Three new characters are revealed: The emperor, Yoda and Lando.
• The emperor is introduced as ultimate antagonist to which even Darth Vader bows to. Their agenda is revealed: Turn Luke to the dark side (story progression).

Note how all characters are tightly woven into the overarching storyline of rebels vs. empire. By the end of Ep. V, things have become personal even for Lando. The ante's been upped insofar as there is no going back now for anybody, least of all for Luke. What happened in Ep. V has changed the state of things. The roadmap for Ep. VI has been set: Han must be freed, Luke must become a Jedi and defeat Darth Vader and the emperor, and the rebels must defeat the empire.

Compare this to ME2. Two thirds of ME1's main characters are downgraded to supporting characters. In their place, lots of new characters are introduced. Except Mordin and Legion, no recruitment nor loyalty missions have any connection to the conflict at hand. Heck, how can we blame the council/alliance for not acting against the reavers/collectors when we're ourselves focusing on our teammember's childhood/family/whatever issues?

If Ep. V was anything like ME2, then the rebels sit snuggly on Hoth, worried about empire attacks on far-away rebel bases. Chewie, Han and R2D2 are delegated to supporting roles. Leia has C3PO's income tax declaration done (loyalty mission!) while traveling the galaxy for 90 minutes, recruiting half a dozen disturbing individuals such as a
robot seeking its creator, a claustrophobic starfighter pilot and other in itself great characters who fail to have any apparent qualification as rebel other than pure strength or skill. Without ever acknowledging each other's existence (with the exception of a conflict between the alopecian wookie and the flea-allergic xenophobe), the movie plot would revolve around the recruits' issues, much too briefly at that and again with little to no visible connection to the rebellion, the empire or anything. Finally, in a carefully choreographed and impeccably executed flurry of special effects, the carefully "developed" team destroys the star destroyer flotilla who has been attacking rebel outposts. Nothing is said about the Emperor or Luke's heritage, and at the movie's end the team sits again snuggly on Hoth.

LMAO, that was awesome!
Anyone who reads this should "get it" now...

[davidt0504]

catabuca wrote...

I'm not averse to the idea of gathering your band of team mates, and keeping them loyal isn't an outright bad idea. However, the flow of the story in ME1 felt much more logical and natural to me than ME2. The Collectors, for example, just didn't play that great a role in it, and I think that's a shame, especially now if they've effectively gone for good (which they may have done, if you interpret Harbinger's remarks at the end of the game in that way). At some points in the game you'd be forgiven for thinking the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack were the main enemies.

don't forget the you could make an arguement that the galaxy itself is a character in each mass effect game and in the second one you were sticking mostly to the terminus systems which is full of pirates and merc bands.  The Collectors are defined in the game as enigmatic, and keeping to themselves.  So it makes since that the Collectors would largely remain an overall mystery because of this and also because we all know they are not the real threat and they really only served the purpose of developing the reapers as an enemy, at least thats what I got from them.  The only thing I pulled from the collectors was the knowledge that the reapers were even more sadistic, cold and evil than I thought from ME1.  So it makes since to only see merc groups for most of the game while your in "normal" areas of the galaxy.

[davidt0504]

malres wrote...

Ep. V developed the characters and progressed the story no matter how you look at it. I wrote it in another thread already, but I'll gladly repeat it here:

• Luke overcomes injury on Hoth, faces his inner demons in the cave on Dagobah and fails when confronting Darth Vader (character development) and is set on the path to Jedi knightship and learns about his father (story progression/revelation).
• Han changes from rogue to charming rebel (character development) and starts courting Leia (story progression).
• The rebels are defeated at Hoth (story progression).
• Three new characters are revealed: The emperor, Yoda and Lando.
• The emperor is introduced as ultimate antagonist to which even Darth Vader bows to. Their agenda is revealed: Turn Luke to the dark side (story progression).

Note how all characters are tightly woven into the overarching storyline of rebels vs. empire. By the end of Ep. V, things have become personal even for Lando. The ante's been upped insofar as there is no going back now for anybody, least of all for Luke. What happened in Ep. V has changed the state of things. The roadmap for Ep. VI has been set: Han must be freed, Luke must become a Jedi and defeat Darth Vader and the emperor, and the rebels must defeat the empire.

Compare this to ME2. Two thirds of ME1's main characters are downgraded to supporting characters. In their place, lots of new characters are introduced. Except Mordin and Legion, no recruitment nor loyalty missions have any connection to the conflict at hand. Heck, how can we blame the council/alliance for not acting against the reavers/collectors when we're ourselves focusing on our teammember's childhood/family/whatever issues?

If Ep. V was anything like ME2, then the rebels sit snuggly on Hoth, worried about empire attacks on far-away rebel bases. Chewie, Han and R2D2 are delegated to supporting roles. Leia has C3PO's income tax declaration done (loyalty mission!) while traveling the galaxy for 90 minutes, recruiting half a dozen disturbing individuals such as a
robot seeking its creator, a claustrophobic starfighter pilot and other in itself great characters who fail to have any apparent qualification as rebel other than pure strength or skill. Without ever acknowledging each other's existence (with the exception of a conflict between the alopecian wookie and the flea-allergic xenophobe), the movie plot would revolve around the recruits' issues, much too briefly at that and again with little to no visible connection to the rebellion, the empire or anything. Finally, in a carefully choreographed and impeccably executed flurry of special effects, the carefully "developed" team destroys the star destroyer flotilla who has been attacking rebel outposts. Nothing is said about the Emperor or Luke's heritage, and at the movie's end the team sits again snuggly on Hoth.

sorry but anyone could also apply those same points to me2
[*]Shepard is killed but is revived in order to take on the collectors (luke overcoming injurys, which in itself was hardly worth mention in ep. V)
[*]Shepard faces ash/liara/kaiden and works out the relationship from the first game/ shepard deals with working with cerberus and being ostricized by most of his old allies (luke faces demons)
[*]It is revealed that the collectors are actually protheans (darth vader is luked father/revelation)
[*]Liara goes from innocent and niave archaeologist to hardened information broker (han changes from rogue to charming rebel)
[*]The humans are taken from horizon/freedom's progress (rebel's defeated at hoth)
[*]Ten new characters are revealed/ others who don't play as much a role also (three new characters revealed)
[*]This last one is not so much but we find that the collector general is only a puppet for harbinger, we don't really learn the reapers true motives but are given a glimpse but due to the nature of the story this would fit in much better in the third act of the trilogy (the emperor is revealed as the ultimate antagonist and someone who even darth vader bows to)

So see its all a matter of how you interpret the story, most everyone's complains are ultimately about not personally likeing something not that the story itself is lacking. 

Modifié par davidt0504, 16 février 2010 - 03:29 .

[ZennExile]

I love the "Character" arguements but really most stories have the common courtesy to both develop characters AND plot elements at the same time in a way that allows them to play off one another, In ME2 we have characters then plot. Like character development has nothing to do with the plot.



Sure simple minded people can't tell the difference and they are the vast majority of the audience but really? Why not throw the people with human sized mental ability a bone or two instead of just catering to the lowest common denominator?

[davidt0504]

you do realize that most characters were developed far more than any movie has time to do?

[TyDurden13]

TheShady wrote...

TOBY FLENDERSON wrote...

Plot: a story arc involving the evolution of events and characters.

You just got learned.

And how do the characters evolve?

They just float around in the story, untouched by anything but Shepard and their own history. There's no connection to the present.

"There are no second acts in American lives." - F Scott Fitzgerald.

[ZennExile]

davidt0504 wrote...

you do realize that most characters were developed far more than any movie has time to do?

You do realize that I'm not paying $60 for a movie?

[davidt0504]

ZennExile wrote...

davidt0504 wrote...

you do realize that most characters were developed far more than any movie has time to do?

You do realize that I'm not paying $60 for a movie?

and your getting much more than you would in a movie.

[FredegarKadere]

I could pay $60 for a movie if I get popcorn and soda and bring a friend. Got to get that full experience and all.

I think some people need to take the time and replay Mass Effect 1. The human mind has a funny way of playing tricks on what we know and what happens.

Mass Effect 2 has a good story. Mass Effect 1 has a good story. Both games go about telling and revealing that story in a slightly different manner. Some people will prefer one over the other and that needs to be accepted. I found squad interaction in ME1 to be richer but generic since resources were allotted to each member of the cast to have some type of say, while in ME2 the interaction is usually targeted between a few select characters if you had happened to bring them along at the right place and time. All this argument is moot until the third of the trilogy comes into play. Until then we can not rightly compare how each of the three holds up compared to the others in the series. ME2 could have ended with a cliffhanger instead of starting with one, but aren't cliffhangers "cliche".. Isn't everything "cliche" or ripped off to the umpteenth degree anyway?



I find Michelle West and Steven Brust to be excellent story tellers. Both authors go about telling their stories in a radically different fashion.

[Shockwave81]

I wonder if BioWare is even paying attention to the numerous threads of this nature that have popped up.



They've been remarkably quiet about a game that could almost be considered their current flagship title.



There has been little to no mention about plans for the exciting DLC we've been promised - most of the information we've got came in the days immediately prior to or after the release date. Aside from a revelation that 2011 is supposed to be a big year for the ME universe. This is all starting to sound too familiar.



All of that aside, the main game shouldn't be relying on DLC over many months to fill it out in the first place!! Grrr...