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Mass Effect Trilogy

Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,120
Assassin’s Creed 1 may as well be a demo for Assassin’s Creed 2. The first game has maybe the most drastic swing from “this is amazing to this fucking sucks” I’ve ever experienced in a game. I still remember going over to my friends place and being amazing by how it controlled, how it felt to do things, just the act of fucking around in the environment felt amazing. I went out, I rented it, had a blast for a bit but then at some point it just became painfully boring. There was no game really built around the mechanics, it wasn’t fun to just sit on a bench and listen to someone over and over and over again. It wasn’t until Assassin’s Creed 2 that they honed what they had into a fun video game. Assassin’s Creed does have an interesting setup for the series, and where the setup seems like it was going I’d be surprised if Watch_Dogs didn’t start as a Assassin’s Creed game where you’re finally Desmond in the present.

Mass Effect has a similar problem to the first Assassin’s Creed but without the gameplay part. AC1 felt fantastic, ME1 felt like fucking dog shit to play. Mass Effect was fairly terrible, but it had a lot of cool ideas, and bring those ideas to fruition didn’t seem like an impossible back in 2007 (or even like 2005 when they were first talking about it and showing it off) because other things had already done similar things. The stuff they fucked up was shit people had already done better years earlier, and their most ambitious bits ended up being dropped in the first...with the only thing let being the idea that what you did in the first game would carry on to the second and third games. The first games wasn’t exactly coy with signaling which bits were meant to carry on either. But by Mass Effect 2 is was very clear this concept was being dropped. It’s funny because the whole reason the series even seems to be called Mass Effect is because it was originally built around all these big ideas of how the things you did have this big effect on the game’s world; but they dropped most of it before they shipped the first game, and the final bit for why it’s called Mass Effect was dropped in the second.

Mass Effect 2 does feel a little better to play. But they just completely abandoned so much shit from the original instead of improving upon it, it’s just kind of a head scratcher. It was also pretty fucking aggravating even if the shooting was better. Although the third person shooting and action still wasn’t so go to make that the focus. Like your powers aren’t on the level of games like Raven Software’s early 2000s Star Wars games or 2004’s Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy. There is almost something kind of funny about Bioware not being able to figure out how to do large explorable environments by the time of Mass Effect 2 given where the whole industry kind of was by 2010 and who they were partnered with in Elevation Partners.

The weirdest change BioWare made with Mass Effect 2 was dropping the synth score and heavier film grain. For all the first games problems, the aesthetic was pretty great and the one that that actually worked; but they fucked with the thing that worked too.

It almost seems weird the big direction Mass Effect takes with combat is shooting given one of the big ideas of the game is Dune shields.
 
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Iucounu

Educated
Joined
Jul 4, 2023
Messages
621
There is almost something kind of funny about Bioware not being able to figure out how to do large explorable environments by the time of Mass Effect 2 given where the whole industry kind of was by 2010 and who they were partnered with in Elevation Partners.
If anything ME2's levels seem smaller than ME1's, especially the Citadel of course. It also seems very unoptimized, just loading a different area of your little ship took quite a while even with a decent gaming PC (with today's hardware this is not noticeable).

The weirdest change BioWare made with Mass Effect 2 was dropping the synth score and heavier film grain. For all the first games problems, the aesthetic was pretty great and the one that that actually worked; but they fucked with the thing that worked too.
Maybe the artists had left, or management made a conscious decision to chase whatever was considered sellable to the public at the time, even if it meant a downgrade. But I like much of the ambience music and atmosphere in ME2 too, the Reaper/Collector levels are even a little creepy. The loading screens are great as well.
 

Iucounu

Educated
Joined
Jul 4, 2023
Messages
621
Speaking of Krogan, you'd think a liberal player would abhor the Krogans' inherently violent culture, but it seems many such players are remarkably fond of characters like Wrex or Grunt, completely glossing over these characters' non-liberal attitudes.
This reminded me that even ME3 has traces of funny writing, such as Javik's racist opinions about Salarian. Alas liberal ME players would never allow say Ashley Williams to say the same things. Expecting more from humans than other species is of course very racist.
 

Hagashager

Educated
Joined
Nov 24, 2022
Messages
516
It's sn uncanny valley thing. Having a human talk like Rex hits too close to home. Having a hideous space dinosaur do it is cute.
 

Aarwolf

Learned
Joined
Dec 15, 2020
Messages
444
This reminded me that even ME3 has traces of funny writing, such as Javik's racist opinions about Salarian.

He had racist opinions about all species other than original Protheans (Protheans being the umbrella term for original ones and lesser races "uplifted" to that status). I loved taking him to Thessia and watching Liara burning with shame after his comments. I think it would be impossible in this day.
 

Caim

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
15,717
Location
Dutchland
This reminded me that even ME3 has traces of funny writing, such as Javik's racist opinions about Salarian.
He had racist opinions about all species other than original Protheans (Protheans being the umbrella term for original ones and lesser races "uplifted" to that status). I loved taking him to Thessia and watching Liara burning with shame after his comments. I think it would be impossible in this day.
"You only left the stone age because we thought you were hot" is an existential nightmare for any sapient species to hear.
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2022
Messages
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Location
Vareš
Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Best ending for the Krogans was to ensure they can't cure the genophage after what they did in the past to warrant it, and shoot the not-Mordin impostor clone in the back when he tries, who you could tell wasn't the real one because he had a different voice and didn't understand it to be the right decision the way the real Mordin did.

For the Geth, it was obviously to wipe them out of existence as punishment for their bad writing and retconned behaviour where they went from one of the few good pieces of scifi writing at the end of Mass Effect 2 to being anthropomorphised robots that want to be human with your former companion as their robo-Jesus.
But....Legion said "I" for the first time, Pinocchio is a real boy now , and Mordin sacrifice made me cry

Lots of people have gone from "the ending sucks" to noticing the extended cut is also terrible, as well as the intro and many other parts of the game. But to this day I've barely seen people mentioning the bullshit they pulled with the Geth & Mordin.

The geth shit started in ME2 though, I'd say they were leaning that way already. Legions obsession with Shepard is pretty retarded that was added in just for the lols
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2022
Messages
1,770
Location
Vareš
Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
The yellow ending is implied to be the most hopeful because even though everyone is wiped out the archives liara creates will give the next cycle the knowledge needed to break free without destroying the relays.
Isn't that odd too, valuing the defeat of reapers and preservation of relays higher than everybody's survival? And all that for the benefit of some unknown future species?
Don't forget the writers threw a hissy fit and said that the next cycle simply used the crucible and chose one of destroy, control, synthesis. So liara info was just "use the crucible".

It was an acceptable ending without that caveat.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,120
Best ending for the Krogans was to ensure they can't cure the genophage after what they did in the past to warrant it, and shoot the not-Mordin impostor clone in the back when he tries, who you could tell wasn't the real one because he had a different voice and didn't understand it to be the right decision the way the real Mordin did.

For the Geth, it was obviously to wipe them out of existence as punishment for their bad writing and retconned behaviour where they went from one of the few good pieces of scifi writing at the end of Mass Effect 2 to being anthropomorphised robots that want to be human with your former companion as their robo-Jesus.
But....Legion said "I" for the first time, Pinocchio is a real boy now , and Mordin sacrifice made me cry

Lots of people have gone from "the ending sucks" to noticing the extended cut is also terrible, as well as the intro and many other parts of the game. But to this day I've barely seen people mentioning the bullshit they pulled with the Geth & Mordin.

The geth shit started in ME2 though, I'd say they were leaning that way already. Legions obsession with Shepard is pretty retarded that was added in just for the lols

People talked above the Geth stuff around when Mass Effect 2 was new, which was 13 years ago. Now nobody really talks about Mass Effect in general. Nobody cares because nobody thinks about the series anymore, and nobody really cares about BioWare like they did in the 2000s either. BioWare had residual goodwill, but they seem to have pissed it away with a general audience.
 

Caim

Arcane
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
15,717
Location
Dutchland
Best ending for the Krogans was to ensure they can't cure the genophage after what they did in the past to warrant it, and shoot the not-Mordin impostor clone in the back when he tries, who you could tell wasn't the real one because he had a different voice and didn't understand it to be the right decision the way the real Mordin did.

For the Geth, it was obviously to wipe them out of existence as punishment for their bad writing and retconned behaviour where they went from one of the few good pieces of scifi writing at the end of Mass Effect 2 to being anthropomorphised robots that want to be human with your former companion as their robo-Jesus.
But....Legion said "I" for the first time, Pinocchio is a real boy now , and Mordin sacrifice made me cry

Lots of people have gone from "the ending sucks" to noticing the extended cut is also terrible, as well as the intro and many other parts of the game. But to this day I've barely seen people mentioning the bullshit they pulled with the Geth & Mordin.

The geth shit started in ME2 though, I'd say they were leaning that way already. Legions obsession with Shepard is pretty retarded that was added in just for the lols
People talked above the Geth stuff around when Mass Effect 2 was new, which was 13 years ago. Now nobody really talks about Mass Effect in general. Nobody cares because nobody thinks about the series anymore, and nobody really cares about BioWare like they did in the 2000s either. BioWare had residual goodwill, but they seem to have pissed it away with a general audience.
Of course they lose a lot of goodwill with the one-two combo of Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. Sure they also released DA:I in between those two games and ME3, but there were at least a few people who seemed to like that game.
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2017
Messages
4,120
Best ending for the Krogans was to ensure they can't cure the genophage after what they did in the past to warrant it, and shoot the not-Mordin impostor clone in the back when he tries, who you could tell wasn't the real one because he had a different voice and didn't understand it to be the right decision the way the real Mordin did.

For the Geth, it was obviously to wipe them out of existence as punishment for their bad writing and retconned behaviour where they went from one of the few good pieces of scifi writing at the end of Mass Effect 2 to being anthropomorphised robots that want to be human with your former companion as their robo-Jesus.
But....Legion said "I" for the first time, Pinocchio is a real boy now , and Mordin sacrifice made me cry

Lots of people have gone from "the ending sucks" to noticing the extended cut is also terrible, as well as the intro and many other parts of the game. But to this day I've barely seen people mentioning the bullshit they pulled with the Geth & Mordin.

The geth shit started in ME2 though, I'd say they were leaning that way already. Legions obsession with Shepard is pretty retarded that was added in just for the lols
People talked above the Geth stuff around when Mass Effect 2 was new, which was 13 years ago. Now nobody really talks about Mass Effect in general. Nobody cares because nobody thinks about the series anymore, and nobody really cares about BioWare like they did in the 2000s either. BioWare had residual goodwill, but they seem to have pissed it away with a general audience.
Of course they lose a lot of goodwill with the one-two combo of Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. Sure they also released DA:I in between those two games and ME3, but there were at least a few people who seemed to like that game.

And Dragon Age 2. BioWare at this point has had over a decade of games nobody gives a shit about. Andromeda and Anthem were the games that broke the camel’s back, but it was bound to happen anyways given what they’ve been putting out since Dragon Age 2.
 

cruel

Cipher
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
876
I've finished Priority: Tuchanka in ME3 yesterday. The game has its problems, but when the heights happen, they are actually very good and memorable, even when playing the game for the first time in 2024. Epic, atmospheric, a lot of action, great music and some serious C&C involved. To have the balls to kill one of the more interesting characters, but do it in a way that doesn't make the player angry and makes it really count, impressive.

Very heavy spoiler below related to what I'm talking about, don't open if you intend to play the game at some point:


There was clearly a lot of talent at Bioware at some point. Some of the brief conversations with your team members have more fun and charm that hours of playing a 'modern' RPG nowadays.
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2022
Messages
1,770
Location
Vareš
Codex+ Now Streaming! Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Tuchanka could've been great if they didn't rewrite Mordin and remove all the nuance of what the genophage actually is and why it's needed.

Talent would be working with what was set up, not rewriting things to suit you better.
 

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