Mass Effect - Disappointment of the Year

Disappointment of the Year Mass Effect

Despite its many strengths, BioWare's sci-fi epic was the game that most disappointed us this year. After releasing an amazing game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to virtually unanimous praise, you'd think the development team would have used a nearly identical formula while constructing Mass Effect. Instead, they took Mass Effect in the same direction that Bethesda took Oblivion after Morrowind's success - they developed it for the masses. The game's character development options have been drastically reduced from dozens of unique attributes, feats, skills, and force powers to a handful of talents and unoriginal biotic abilities. KotOR's hundreds of hand-crafted items with long, witty descriptions and various statistics and effects have been cast aside in favor of an uninspired equipment system with three numeric scores and a Roman numeral to define each item's power. On top of that, enemy strength and loot are scaled to the player's level Oblivion-style, the number of companions compared to all other BioWare RPGs has been reduced, inter-party dialogue is strictly limited to the ship, combat is real-time and only allows for limited strategic maneuvering while paused, and landing on uncharted planets is, well, not what it was cracked up to be.

As a result, Mass Effect is essentially an action title with subpar RPG elements, and for that it receives our "Disappointment of the Year" award. While the game is still certainly worth playing for its excellent audio, cinematic dialogue, and storyline, Mass Effect is arguably BioWare's most lackluster role-playing game to date.

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From Gamebanshee (http://www.gamebanshee.com/editorials/goty2007page2.php) and seems a surprisingly harsh analysis from mainstream media so soon after release. Is comparing it's direction to Oblivion's fair?

Apologies if this was already posted - I took time off the Codex over xmas.

Gamebanshee now has a NMA spy-ninja as their editor - so no wonder their reviews became harsh. I'm sure he kicked some shit out of their writers.

Oddly enough, Mass Effect also won the award for Gamebanshee's Best Story/Writing of the Year, beating out NWN2OTB. Weird.

To be honest it was that kind of game. There was some half decent, if extreme, dialogue, and the characters faces and body language mostly managed to convey their emotion convincingly (as opposed to the witcher - I swear one guy was hopping up and down trying to go to the toilet for the entire conversation).

On the other hand, the upgrades and "force powers" were pretty bland, and in some cases too similar to each other. Not sure its disappointment of the year, but then I guess it depends how much you were expecting.

...

even more oddly enough, Hellgate:London, was runner-up for "Setting of the Year".

yeah a post-apocalyptic london filled with comedians doing teenage humor to their best, an utter shit story line with cutscenes of a flying book and some of the worst quests in hack n slash / MMORPG history .... i can certainly see how that is a "runner up" for best setting.

no clue about Mass Effect, but compared to HG:L it cant have been THAT bad, heck even some of the mainstream media (for once) has a clue and givev the appropiate disappointment awards to HG:L.

oh btw, i m still playing HG:L (not subscriber/founder though... i may be masochistic but no utter moron) quite a lot since i somewhat like it despite the endless list of shit about it...... but how anyone sane can not call HG:L a disappointment of epic proportions is beyond me.

then again, their MOTB review was crap as well, worse then most mainstream ones.

dunno, used to like gamebanshee but lately not so much anymore....

Good grief, dumbing down for the masses and level scaling must be exterminated!

I wonder if enough of this happens maybe eventually some companies will realize it doesn't work well and stop doing it.

But since the game will probably sell millions, nevermind.

skyway said:

Gamebanshee now has a NMA spy-ninja as their editor - so no wonder their reviews became harsh. I'm sure he kicked some shit out of their writers.

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Yes - Brother None (?).

"Disappointment of the Year Mass Effect" imho - yes. Bioware should make a lof of better games not waterdown rpg like Oblivion ( level scaling !!!).

But since the game will probably sell millions, nevermind.

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1 600 000 so far

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/mas ... es;title;1

Imbecile said:

To be honest it was that kind of game. There was some half decent, if extreme, dialogue, and the characters faces and body language mostly managed to convey their emotion convincingly (as opposed to the witcher - I swear one guy was hopping up and down trying to go to the toilet for the entire conversation).

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I don't understand all the stupid bouncing of random NPCs. What the hell, really? Did they, for some unfathomable reason, want to imitate the idling animation of night elf females in WoW or something?

Lol, disappointment of the year! Wow! Yet just on the previous page, Mass Effect gets the Best Story/Writing award ( : ) Guess who's second? That's right, Mask of the Betrayer! Am I the only one who finds it curious that 'wanna go again?' won? Oh, and then they have the best original setting awards and apparently, Hellgate: London is more worthy to be up there than The Witcher. Oh, and did you know that BioShock is now an ARPG?

Lesifoere said:

Imbecile said:

To be honest it was that kind of game. There was some half decent, if extreme, dialogue, and the characters faces and body language mostly managed to convey their emotion convincingly (as opposed to the witcher - I swear one guy was hopping up and down trying to go to the toilet for the entire conversation).

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I don't understand all the stupid bouncing of random NPCs. What the hell, really? Did they, for some unfathomable reason, want to imitate the idling animation of night elf females in WoW or something?

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I think that the emotional visual cues could have been subtler and more numerous - I think this one was to express outrage and anger. They concentrated on sword animations instead, which are nice, but to be honest I can't follow them unless I drink blizzard which I hate.

Best full screen effect has to be the drunk one though! Very funny when trying to click on a moving innkeeper and repeatedly selecting the 'ghost' image...

cardtrick said:

Oddly enough, Mass Effect also won the award for Gamebanshee's Best Story/Writing of the Year, beating out NWN2OTB. Weird.

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how to write truth about the shit game and at the same time please the publisher in order to get invited to more presentations?
GB teaches.

But since the game will probably sell millions, nevermind.

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1 600 000 so far

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/mas ... es;title;1[/quote]


This right here is why we will probably continue to get crap games. It's all marketing and hype that sells games. Doubt this will change, but it really bothers me.....let it go...let it go........

Oh, I get it they only review rpg's since their winner for best graphics is Bioshock, not say Crysis. But aren't the rpg mechanics in CoD4 deeper than in Bioshock?

I'm not sure I buy the arguments. While some of them are good, they seem to be more ideologically motivated than "genuinely from the heart." I mean, who complains about the lack of turn-based combat and less statistics on items aside from people trying to sound "old school", "hardcore", and/or trying to please the Codex?

So which one of you hacked Gamebanshee?

Well, I do agree with most of the arguments the article states. However, there was a lot of charm in Mass Effect as well. It's true that the game seemed to have a lot more promise to it than was delivered. But it's good points still provided a very enjoyable romp. If I had to vote on most disappointing game of 2007 there are some way better contenders out there.

Yeah. I can't honestly say I was disappointed with Mass Effect. It pretty much did - hype aside - what it said on the tin. I bought it expecting a splashy, fluffy, space opera that would keep me painlessly entertained for about a week, and that's what I got. The lesbo-aliens thing was a bit disappointing to a jaded trash-addict like myself. If you're gonna go for adolescent melodrama you may as well crank it up to 11, methinks.

My biggest disappointment so far is The Witcher because IT HATES MY PC! I'm sure it's a fantastic game, and what I've played of it has been great fun, but... gah... back to the drawing board. I'll get it to work one day.

Comapring ME's 'level scaling' is silly. It's also foolish to comapre it to that crappy named as Oblivion. ME has controlled level scaling, and is done a lot more logically. More akin to the NWN series of level sclaing as opposed to Oblivion.

I don't how one call a game 'dissapointing' in onje bretah then had it some of the more wortwhhile awards in the enxt. It's illogical. All this is that your expectations were rather retarded.

For me:

Most Dissapointing: The Witcher - Good game; but really overrated, and probably least mature game that was suppsoedly mature. Tsk, tsk.

Most Surprising: MOTB - I expected a fun game yet what i got was an awesome story with nearless unmatched role-playing. Sweet.

cardtrick said:

Oddly enough, Mass Effect also won the award for Gamebanshee's Best Story/Writing of the Year, beating out NWN2OTB. Weird.

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Wait...what?

This sort of thing is troubling yet fucking hilarious to me. Our "generation" has games like Fallout or Wizardry 7 to champion, while this guy is lamenting the days when RPGs were as deep and involved as fucking KOTOR. I shudder to think of the day when Oblivion fans start saying things like "Fallout 3 is so disappointing, I wish it had been more like Oblivion and not dumbed down for the mainstream.

After releasing an amazing game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to virtually unanimous praise,

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Which would indicate that intentionally or not - they developed it for the masses.

you'd think the development team would have used a nearly identical formula while constructing Mass Effect.

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Bioware would never use a nearly identical formula in any aspect of their games! How dare he even suggest it!?

Instead, they took Mass Effect in the same direction that Bethesda took Oblivion after Morrowind's success - they developed it for the masses.

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Or to paraphrase, they took Mass Effect in the same direction that Bioware took Baldur's Gate after Fallout's success. I mean, I guess I should be happy that somebody is opposing the dumbing down of games, but if someone can see that Mass Effect is a simplified version of KOTOR, how can they fail to see that everything Bioware have ever done is a dumbed down version of something better?

The game's character development options have been drastically reduced from dozens of unique attributes, feats, skills, and force powers to a handful of talents and unoriginal biotic abilities.

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Wait a minute. Did any of the character development options in KOTOR mean a fucking thing? Regardless of what you pick, you basically click on the nearest enemy and wait until combat is over. It's almost impossible to lose in KOTOR's combat. The only part that stumped me was when my diplomatic jedi devoid of combat skill was forced to take on two of those "zomg critters made from pure dark-side!" things by himself.

Now compare that to a game that is more about player skill than character skill, and it's understandable that they'd have less meaningless choices. The real question is, does that limited set of choices compliment the action gameplay in an interesting way?

Also - "unoriginal". If that's such a problem, then what the fuck are you doing playing Bioware games? Or anything set in the Star Wars universe? How was that a disappointment when Mass Effect has obviously been an ersatz Star Wars right from the very beginning?

KotOR's hundreds of hand-crafted items with long, witty descriptions and various statistics and effects have been cast aside in favor of an uninspired equipment system with three numeric scores and a Roman numeral to define each item's power.

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Oh, I get it now. He's in love with the illusion of complexity. But again - "uninspired" - as opposed to a fucking Star Wars game using the d20 system?

On top of that, enemy strength and loot are scaled to the player's level Oblivion-style,

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Wasn't this the case in KOTOR, where you could potentially visit four planets in any order and breeze through the combat on each one regardless of level? In any case, I fail to see how level scaling is any more evil than providing no challenge.

the number of companions compared to all other BioWare RPGs has been reduced, inter-party dialogue is strictly limited to the ship,

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That's probably a fair complaint, and almost certainly a direct product of "its excellent audio, cinematic dialogue, and storyline", which he goes on to praise.

combat is real-time and only allows for limited strategic maneuvering while paused,

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Yep, that's KOTOR alright.

and landing on uncharted planets is, well, not what it was cracked up to be.

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Having played the mini games in KOTOR (the gunnery, the space suit bit, the underwater bit) what the fuck did he expect!?

As a result, Mass Effect is essentially an action title with subpar RPG elements, and for that it receives our "Disappointment of the Year" award.

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At least it has action going for it. KOTOR was just a subpar RPG. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the action gameplay in Mass Effect was utter shit, despite the various claims that it's like Gears of War (no, really!)

While the game is still certainly worth playing for its excellent audio, cinematic dialogue, and storyline, Mass Effect is arguably BioWare's most lackluster role-playing game to date.

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Wow, it must really be something to knock NWN, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire and KOTOR off their respective pedestals. I mean, I agree with the sentiment, but it sounds to me like this guy has an inflated opinion of Bioware's "illusion of choice" formula and resents Mass Effect for being forthright in its simplicity. And it being an action game.

Section8 said:

After releasing an amazing game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic to virtually unanimous praise,

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Which would indicate that intentionally or not - they developed it for the masses.

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Didn't Fallout receive unanimous praise as well, even making it into various 'Top Computer Games' lists?

Section8 said:

you'd think the development team would have used a nearly identical formula while constructing Mass Effect.

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Bioware would never use a nearly identical formula in any aspect of their games! How dare he even suggest it!?

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Yes, that sounded quite dumb. Also, the use of an identical formula shouldn't be a desirable.

Section8 said:

Instead, they took Mass Effect in the same direction that Bethesda took Oblivion after Morrowind's success - they developed it for the masses.

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Or to paraphrase, they took Mass Effect in the same direction that Bioware took Baldur's Gate after Fallout's success. I mean, I guess I should be happy that somebody is opposing the dumbing down of games, but if someone can see that Mass Effect is a simplified version of KOTOR, how can they fail to see that everything Bioware have ever done is a dumbed down version of something better?

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Remember it requires going against aghast amounts of propaganda, hype, and popular praise. Every small step is a step.

And I completely agree with the rest.

ME is much, much better than previous game in lots of ways, and also inferior to previous Bioware games in lots of ways. The game is definitely lacking in the role-playing department compared with KOTOR. The only skills that are not related to combat or dialog are the horribly executed decryption/electronics skills. On the other hand, in KOTOR you could place mines, reprogram droids, hack security panels etc. etc.

But what I like about ME is the fact that, unlike previous BIO games, the game provides you with choices that fall into a grey area when it comes to morality. It's ironic, really, because prior to it's release, and even AFTER it's release, Shephard was criticized/mocked for being an over-the-top crazy bloodthirsty asshole. Imagine my surprise when I found out that he doesn't say even a single thing that seems completely irrational or "evil". Just about every renegade choice presented in the game feels justified IMO. At his worst, Shephard is impatient, and even that is definitely understandeable/believable given the situation. It's a shame the game has those awful romances(and a few other cases of typical childish Bioware moments), because the game feels genuinely mature at times, and by "genuinely" I mean it doesn't try too hard(as opposed to some of the silly/contrived stuff seen in The Witcher).

Baldur's Gate is a different type of game from Fallout. Saying it's a dumbed down version of Fallout is completely retarded.

Hazelnut said:

mainstream media

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GB is a sizeable site (bigger than Blue's News or Evil Avatar, slightly smaller than Shacknews, about half as big as Eurogamer, to give a frame of reference), but it's not really mainstream media.

skyway said:

Gamebanshee now has a NMA spy-ninja as their editor - so no wonder their reviews became harsh. I'm sure he kicked some shit out of their writers.

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Spy-ninja? Cool.

That said, I had nothing to do with Mass Effect's pick as either disappointment of the year or best writing winner. I haven't played the game, the head editor suggested the game for both picks and I was fine with it, I trust his judgement.

ricolikesrice said:

even more oddly enough, Hellgate:London, was runner-up for "Setting of the Year".

yeah a post-apocalyptic london filled with comedians doing teenage humor to their best, an utter shit story line with cutscenes of a flying book and some of the worst quests in hack n slash / MMORPG history .... i can certainly see how that is a "runner up" for best setting.

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Hellgate: London also almost beat out Mass Effect for disappointment of the year.

The story line, cutscenes and quests all have nothing to do with HG:L's setting, though. Isolate the setting and consider it apart from the rest of the game, that's what we did. Bad quest design or its unpatched status didn't impact the idea of its setting, which was more original than the fairly bland Sci Fi (Tabula Rasa) or fantasy (Eschalon) being pumped out.

ricolikesrice said:

dunno, used to like gamebanshee but lately not so much anymore....

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Sorry to hear that. The only thing that changed recently is me joining, Jon and Steven have been around for years.

fastpunk said:

Yet just on the previous page, Mass Effect gets the Best Story/Writing award ( Question ) Guess who's second? That's right, Mask of the Betrayer! Am I the only one who finds it curious that 'wanna go again?' won? Oh, and then they have the best original setting awards and apparently, Hellgate: London is more worthy to be up there than The Witcher. Oh, and did you know that BioShock is now an ARPG?

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Mass Effect's strong story didn't really impact that it's still a pretty bad, disappointing game.

What's 'wanna go again?'

The Witcher is not an original setting, it's based on a property (a book).

BioShock is as much an RPG as Diablo. Consider that. Besides, it literally says in the description that it's closer to an FPS than an ARPG. So no need to point it out.

skyway said:

how to write truth about the shit game and at the same time please the publisher in order to get invited to more presentations?

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We don't go to presentations. At least, I don't think. Used to go to E3. But y'know, that stuff is expensive.

Annonchinil said:

Oh, I get it they only review rpg's since their winner for best graphics is Bioshock, not say Crysis. But aren't the rpg mechanics in CoD4 deeper than in Bioshock?

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Dunno. The thing is, games considered were games we cover and have played. We have a small staff who all have jobs outside of this, we don't play games for a living, so we can't consider all titles. GB has always operated through a filter, doing only pre-selected games, and this is not different.

Azarkon said:

I mean, who complains about the lack of turn-based combat and less statistics on items aside from people trying to sound "old school", "hardcore", and/or trying to please the Codex?

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Jon wrote that. He's been playing RPGs for 20 years now and isn't always happy with where they're heading. Did you read his the Witcher review? Be sure, this isn't meant to please the Codex, it's his opinion, his taste.

Volourn said:

I don't how one call a game 'dissapointing' in onje bretah then had it some of the more wortwhhile awards in the enxt. It's illogical. All this is that your expectations were rather retarded.

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Why? Best graphics is also a "worthwhile award", but that doesn't mean a game with great graphics couldn't fail. If the basic consideration is "Mass Effect had a good story, but that's it", wouldn't that make it a failure as a game (regardless of if you agree that all there's to it is the story)?

Section8 said:

Our "generation" has games like Fallout or Wizardry 7 to champion, while this guy is lamenting the days when RPGs were as deep and involved as fucking KOTOR

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Jon is your generation, and has been playing RPGs for two decades. He's comparing it to KotOR because that's BioWare's previous game, no other reason.

Section8 said:

I mean, I guess I should be happy that somebody is opposing the dumbing down of games, but if someone can see that Mass Effect is a simplified version of KOTOR, how can they fail to see that everything Bioware have ever done is a dumbed down version of something better?

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Fairly sure he sees that, though I'll admit the other GB staff are bigger fans of BioWare than I am, but he's discussing the internal company trend here, not the general trend.

1eyedking said:

Didn't Fallout receive unanimous praise as well, even making it into various 'Top Computer Games' lists?

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Yes, unanimous critical praise as far as I recall.

1eyedking said:

Remember it requires going against aghast amounts of propaganda, hype, and popular praise. Every small step is a step.

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*shrug* I'm sorry, guys, but it's too simple to write off Jon as someone who just doesn't know what he's talking about. His tastes simply differ from yours, just like they differ from mine. He doesn't have such a problem with it that he didn't feel like hiring me, and had no problem with my scathing Fallout 3 preview or me calling BioShock's gameplay mechanics "basically mediocre".

GB is not a hub of propaganda, hype and popular praise. But unlike what you may believe, that doesn't mean it agrees with a lot of Codex opinions by default. GB's staff has its own tastes and yes, Jon does like BioWare's games. I can live with that, considering he praised the Witcher to high heavens, and considering his support and interest in both old and indie cRPGs.

Section8, with his recent posts in FO 3 topics, is officially my hero.

Brother None said:

The story line, cutscenes and quests all have nothing to do with HG:L's setting, though.

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Really? While most quests are the standard "kill x for y" type that add nothing to the setting, its the really silly ones like "put sources of evil into a pickle jar" that make the setting inconsistent. Like the developers wanted to the setting to be serious and grim and then they add in things to turn it into a circus tent. What about npcs, surely they contribute to the mood of the game and the setting? The npcs in Hellgate are like the cast of ... something entirely different. They act quirky, the dialogue is silly, no one could imagine this fitting a post-apocalyptic setting. And that's the thing, I never feel as if the people in the game are racked with despair or the world is making its last stand.

And is the setting even that great? London is overrun by demons. There is no conflict between the three main human factions. At least none that is visible in-game. Come to think of it, the game doesn't take much advantage over the fact that we are in London. Except for a few specific areas, they could just rename the stations and call it "Hellgate: Anytown". They may have written huge amounts of quality lore and whatnot, but what does it matter if I don't see any of that in-game.