The Codex's official opinion on Mass Effect series?

[Roguey]

I have zero interest in playing these at all because it looks really repetitive (and not in a good way) and I can't stand space opera fantasy. Not my bag, great if it's yours.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

You have to watch porn to see asses, Cass?

Man, oh man, do I have stuff to teach you...

 

[markec]

Voted "It's good for what it is"

First one is crap, second one is quite good.

 

[Jaesun]

Voted Yes. 1st one was... meh. 2nd one was an enjoyable Action Game with very light RPG elements.

Why is this in RPG discussions?

 

[Archibald]

Haven`t played them, kinda sad that majority of codex with all their standarts and shit play every shitty game that ever comes out.

 

[Volourn]

Great action rpg series.

 

[pero]

Yep. I enjoyed 2 more, though. I'd rather play a good shooter with RPG elements than a bad RPG with shooter elements. I enjoyed the first, but the gameplay felt diluted.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

derp

Bioware fanboy detected.

herp

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Bioware does asses really good! Therefore voted "great game, thumbs up". Now they should work a bit more on tits and cocks and they would truly rule.

 

[bhlaab]

Maybe ME2 is good for what it is because I haven't played it, but ME1 felt like it was trying to straddle the lines between RPG and Gears of War but it became immediately clear that Bioware had no idea how to make an action shooter so it fails at both.

Apparently they improved the shooter bits for 2 but I'm not going to waste my time with 2 if I couldn't stand to get a quarter of the way through 1.

 

[Baron]

The thing i love in ME series that out-weights all con's is how epic it makes you feel

Mass Effect had my favourite character introductions in any game. The military talking about your character, the view out of the porthole, the crescendo of the amazing score, ending by revealing the face of the character you had created. Moments where you felt the importance of your character's political ascension. I would have fucked a herd of Elcors for that promotion; when it's handed to you it reveals the game's political storyline, and elevates a level one character to 'epic' - a suitable galactic saviour and not some farmer picked by his king.

The Reapers motivations may have been clumsily communicated, but so what? I don't feel particularly outraged if an ancient machine intelligence race dismisses me as an intellectual vacuum, (Dr Manhattan and all that.) I liked to think my Shepherd was noticeably curt to the Hanar. That's just space-Racism, an inevitable part of diplomacy with alien faggots. It FIT that I couldn't completely understand aliens, and particularly the preternatural ones. The Mass Effect story was great despite this. The emerging military power of Earth is grudgingly given an increased political influence amongst the established species who view them with a mix of trepidation, suspicion and hatred (-China?), combined with an examination of government powers operating outside of laws - leading to Saren. My biggest complaint was that Saren began, in my eyes, to be the baddest alienfucker in the galaxy after Darth Vader and female Shep, but they wasted their main villain. By the end Saren was a pathetic zombie gimp, who couldn't keep his finery neat and respectable. He starts off with his shit together, shooting co-workers in the back of the head. A man with a vision. Respectable. He ends with colostomy tubes threaded about his body.

Wrex. Big, reptilian, spin your moral compass Wrex. I adored this game forever when I cornered some cowering informant and was about to cuss on him when Wrex stepped forward and blew his face off. THAT'S what I want! Wrex wasn't just a party flunky or some giddy Dragon Age flake to console. He was an unpredictable and intimidating alien mercenary with his own goals and motivations. And he had some fucking hilarious dialogue in the elevators.

Mass Effect was a god damned triumph and a great RPG, and wouldn't have been improved in the slightest by having my laser weapons 'roll to hit' as opposed to using my own skill at Zzzappery or by giving Shep stats (Hint : you don't need Strength stat in a space game, shit is zero-G.) Shep had a Class (Adept), I crafted her face to 18 Charisma, and she an alignment which was effectively Chaotic - a 1st ed D&D alignment as I recall. But yeah, I didn't need 147 shotguns, and 36 variations of grenades. The Mako needed more dangers than the occasional Thresher Maw. But overall, fucking brilliant production with an amazing score and blue lapdancers.

Mass Effect 2 tried things differently, and not all worked, but good on them. I really liked what they attempted to do with pitting a suicide mission galactic threat against a solid resourceful team; particularly if you suddenly lost members. Unfortunately, the NPCs this time weren't as interesting and so I sniggered when the fish lost the back of his head. For most of the journey I wanted to airlock Jack, Grunt, Samara, Kieffer Sutherland, most of them... but it was still an ambitious storytelling concept.

 

[Pussycat669]

Good for what it is. I just wish they would have scraped the paragon/renegade idea and made diplomacy and intimidate independent skills. As it is now, you are way too much forced into either being a total saint or a complete jackass anytime, anywhere. That and it would also been nice if they would have actually tried to improve the mechanics of ME1, rather than cutting it all out (although in retrospect it probably was for the best).

 

[Dark Matter]

Great action rpg series.

Yep.

 

[juggernaut]

Pretty average really. Easy to waste some hours in, neither made me uninstall in disgust or anything. I liked ME2 more than ME1, and both more than DA:O which I barely played an hour of. The music helps both games a lot, as does female renegade. Something I find interesting is that they incline towards the end. Probably won't play either of them ever again, I'll play ME3 though.

 

[Sceptic]

snip

9/10. Still not entirely sure if serious.

Anyway, series is good for what it is. ME1 was a mildly amusing timesink that was pretty much mediocre all along. ME2 took the mediocre and split it neatly: what it does better than 1, it does much better, and what it does worse than 1 is absolutely abysmal. The law of average puts both games squarely on mediocre.

 

[circ]

Pretty average really. Easy to waste some hours in, neither made me uninstall in disgust or anything. I liked ME2 more than ME1, and both more than DA:O which I barely played an hour of. The music helps both games a lot, as does female renegade. Something I find interesting is that they incline towards the end. Probably won't play either of them ever again, I'll play ME3 though.

Easy to waste some hours in, if not in sequence. I can do one mission which takes 5-10 minutes although a little longer towards the end. After that I have to quit and do something that's actually interesting and not repetitive. If it wasn't for the occasional blurb from your teammates or a new antagonist, every level would be identical.

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

I liked Mass Effect 2 for the gameplay and hated the story and characters. Liked Madd Effect 1 for all of the opposite reasons.

Still pissed off that Bioware pretty much wiped the slate clean in ME2. They brought the collectors into the game for... no reason. Had you work for Cerberus for... really fucking retarded reasons. And the plot twist at the end, the total lack of main story development, the psychological problems of your crew... it's all shit.

Worst part is that ME1 ended up in a pretty good place to keep a perfectly good political theme which ME2 completely glossed over in favour of some cliche Borg knock offs. The fuckers.

Overall I'd say that ME1 was better for the simple fact that ME2 completely failed to continue the things that happened in ME1. Also ME1 is decent enough as a game. Not very good, but far from the worst ever.

 

[Ancient]

I liked Mass Effect 2 for the gameplay and hated the story and characters.

You didn't like Thane ? or Garrus ?

Characters ware as good as in ME1 if not better , only jacob sucked ass badly.

Oh i see you are missing someone

Still Thane is almost as bad ass as Garrus is

 

[M_I_C_K_E_Y_M_O_U_S_E]

I liked Mass Effect 2 for the gameplay and hated the story and characters.

You didn't like Thane ? or Garrus ?

Characters ware as good as in ME1 if not better , only jacob sucked ass badly.

Oh i see you are missing someone

Still Thane is almost as bad ass as Garrus is

The Normandy characters were pretty cool, but they were all secondary. I was mainly hating on Harbinger and the Illusive man who were directly responsible for the weakness of the main story. And I still don't know why Bioware thought it would be a good idea to demote the citadel council from main characters to unimportant cameos.

 

[Ruprekt]

I'm a fan of space opera,

but ME was shit, both games.

 

[meeneque]

Both are total crap. Not worth removing it from inventory.

 

[Rogue]

"It's good for what it is"
What's that supposed to mean anyway? It's crap but it's great, because it's crap to begin with? This survey is useless.

 

[Antihero]

Beats me, and I don't see how ME2 is any good even for a shooter. Maybe the dialogue is better than the average shooter's, but that isn't really gameplay. The only advantage over crap like Gears of War is that I can actually see the mole I'm whacking instead of some grey, overbloomed blob against a grey, overbloomed background.

 

[Roguey]

"It's good for what it is"
What's that supposed to mean anyway? It's crap but it's great, because it's crap to begin with? This survey is useless.

Phrase that became popular to abuse/mock when VD and others used it to defend Fallout 3. It's approaching it from the angle that action-RPGs will never compare to action games or RPGs, but can be all right as a sum of their mediocre or less-than-mediocre parts (e.g. "Compared to the first two Fallout games, Fallout 3 is a pale imitation that may anger many fans of the original games. However, comparing Fallout 3 to similar games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Gothic, Two Worlds, Assassins Creed, etc presents a much more favourable reaction"). So when someone says Mass Effect 2 is good for what it is, they consider it good enough as both a cover shooter and a dating sim/dialogue selector or whatever.

 

[octavius]

If it wasn't for the online activation shit I'd probably give it a go. But out of principle I don't buy game I can only install five times.
It's excactly this kind of shit that leads to piracy.