Mass Effect Trilogy

[Nutria]

I completely agree with everything except for two points:

ME2 has a thin main questline, not that great, but it propells the plot and has a really satisfying final mission.forward

I found the story in ME2 to be not just retarded, but insulting to the player. No matter what you choose, Shepard will always have his pants charmed off by the Illusive Man. It's so far from making sense that I kept expecting there to be some big plot twist where you find out you're mind-controlled. But no, the writers really thought that TIM was such a great character that the player would be over-awed. I was not impressed in the slightest. By ripping off a character from the X-Files and having Martin Sheen read the lines, all they did was make it more obvious how awful their writing was.

Aria is the same way. This chick is using vulgar language. What a badass! The player must be so terrified of her, right? I was outraged that I was never given the option to just shoot that bitch in the face and take what I wanted.

The suicide mission was a great idea, but they ruined it for me by having the purpose of it be total nonsense. They're kidnapping people... so that they can melt them into goo... to build a giant terminator... because... that's just what they do. That's not even worthy of being in a fanfic written by a 12-year old. At the end when you decide whether to blow up the station or not, it's supposed to be this really tough moral dilemma. I just couldn't take it seriously after that boss fight and the whole moronic story leading up to it.

Characters:
ME2 > ME1 > ME3

A couple of the new characters in ME2 were good and they did a great job of adding depth to the old characters from ME1, but for me it didn't make up for the really terrible characters you have to drag around the galaxy with you. In Jack we once again have a character who I'm supposed to respect because they're female and yet say "fuck" a lot. Then we've got Miranda's butt, Samara's sideboob, Thane's moping, Legion's religious musings, and Jacob. I was not impressed by any of them. Why am I even taking these clowns with me? Oh right, because Shepard takes orders from TIM. And why does he take orders from TIM? Because he's a retard.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I completely agree with everything except for two points:

ME2 has a thin main questline, not that great, but it propells the plot and has a really satisfying final mission.forward

I found the story in ME2 to be not just retarded, but insulting to the player. No matter what you choose, Shepard will always have his pants charmed off by the Illusive Man. It's so far from making sense that I kept expecting there to be some big plot twist where you find out you're mind-controlled. But no, the writers really thought that TIM was such a great character that the player would be over-awed. I was not impressed in the slightest. By ripping off a character from the X-Files and having Martin Sheen read the lines, all they did was make it more obvious how awful their writing was.

Aria is the same way. This chick is using vulgar language. What a badass! The player must be so terrified of her, right? I was outraged that I was never given the option to just shoot that bitch in the face and take what I wanted.

The suicide mission was a great idea, but they ruined it for me by having the purpose of it be total nonsense. They're kidnapping people... so that they can melt them into goo... to build a giant terminator... because... that's just what they do. That's not even worthy of being in a fanfic written by a 12-year old. At the end when you decide whether to blow up the station or not, it's supposed to be this really tough moral dilemma. I just couldn't take it seriously after that boss fight and the whole moronic story leading up to it.

Characters:
ME2 > ME1 > ME3

A couple of the new characters in ME2 were good and they did a great job of adding depth to the old characters from ME1, but for me it didn't make up for the really terrible characters you have to drag around the galaxy with you. In Jack we once again have a character who I'm supposed to respect because they're female and yet say "fuck" a lot. Then we've got Miranda's butt, Samara's sideboob, Thane's moping, Legion's religious musings, and Jacob. I was not impressed by any of them. Why am I even taking these clowns with me? Oh right, because Shepard takes orders from TIM. And why does he take orders from TIM? Because he's a retard.

Agree it was very satisfying to cut Council in ME1 and then let them all die; Personally liked to play as renegade and dead Cerberus operative but they should add option to double cross TIM too; as plot goes it was something about dark energy (reticoned later) and collector building second reaper as plan B... although not much original the plot was great ride thanks again to interesting side missions; as to new companions liked them all aside from vulgar and empowered womyn called Jack; even DLC ones like Zaved and the Japanese chick were cool. I took orders from TIM cause he was my Boss... as long as he was helpful in muh mission to stop reapers anyway; given that my character was dead and blowed up the council it was the only logical way for him. Anyway Garus mission alone was the best in entire series and even my Nigga Jacob was much cooler than this Jersey shore gorilla you were given in third part; which added some in gun play but had terrible finale and PST scenes. My 75% renegade Shepard would never come apart after seing some kid to die; he led his unit to wipe out Batarian slavers loosing much of his command in process and then then genocided those fuckers with clear concience.

 

[illuknisaa]

I started playing ME1 few days ago and ThoseDeafMutes summed it up pretty well. ME1 is a game where literally everything is done wrong. After 20h of playing I have not found a single redeeming feature outside of maybe asari tits.

 

[Max Stats]

I played as Femshep. Were there supposed to be any romances? I missed them if that's the case.

Spoiler

Femshep can get with Kaiden
Broshep can get with Ashley
Either can get with that slut Liandra

Obviously you have to save the proper person on Virmire to fuck them.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I completely agree with everything except for two points:

I found the story in ME2 to be not just retarded, but insulting to the player. No matter what you choose, Shepard will always have his pants charmed off by the Illusive Man. It's so far from making sense that I kept expecting there to be some big plot twist where you find out you're mind-controlled. But no, the writers really thought that TIM was such a great character that the player would be over-awed. I was not impressed in the slightest. By ripping off a character from the X-Files and having Martin Sheen read the lines, all they did was make it more obvious how awful their writing was.

Aria is the same way. This chick is using vulgar language. What a badass! The player must be so terrified of her, right? I was outraged that I was never given the option to just shoot that bitch in the face and take what I wanted.

The suicide mission was a great idea, but they ruined it for me by having the purpose of it be total nonsense. They're kidnapping people... so that they can melt them into goo... to build a giant terminator... because... that's just what they do. That's not even worthy of being in a fanfic written by a 12-year old. At the end when you decide whether to blow up the station or not, it's supposed to be this really tough moral dilemma. I just couldn't take it seriously after that boss fight and the whole moronic story leading up to it.

I would not say that the player always has their pants charmed off by TIM. They must always cooperate for the main quest-line of the game, while the player indicates whether or not they're going along with it because they have no choice if they want to defeat the collectors or because they see things more eye to eye with The Illusive Man. Paragon Shepard generally makes it clear they're not happy with the cooperation.

There are two issues with Cerberus really - the first is that ME2 retcons them away from "generic racist-terrorist bad guys" in ME1 to this massive organization dedicated to protecting and advancing Humanity at any cost. It didn't quite mesh and if your Shepard had one of the three back stories involving Cerberus fucking you over as your defining heroic moment, it didn't make sense for Shepard to cooperate without so much as a peep about it. The second problem is what happens in ME3, which is that the "cooperate with Cerberus" path is instantly yanked out from under your feet. It's especially headscratching when you consider that Cerberus' final plan, to control the Reapers, is one of three valid paths that Shepard can take at the final decision point in ME3. So wouldn't it have made more sense if that path was unlocked by collaborating with Cerberus throughout ME2 and ME3 rather than Shepard spending the whole of ME3 saying "No! You can't control them!" only to control them at the last moment 33.33...% of the time?



As far as the suicide mission is concerned, I will make no argument in defense of the human reaper goop plotline.Or the "they suddenly kindapped your crew YOU HAVE TO GO NOW" thing. But ultimately the structure of the mission and the effort you put into pulling it off makes it the most satisfying mechanically in the series. The game is about building your team and getting your ship ready, and you get major payoff in the mission. Unlike the rest of the series, you actually have stuff for your whole team to do, not just the 2 people you brought with you on a shuttle. The Terminator, despite the conceptual stupidity, somehow manages to be the best final boss of the series, not because it's actually good but purely by being "not as terrible to fight as Saren's reaper form in ME1" and being less stupid than KAI FUCKING LENG, the tryhard cereal-stealing space ninja that the game tries desparately to pass off as "awesome".

A couple of the new characters in ME2 were good and they did a great job of adding depth to the old characters from ME1, but for me it didn't make up for the really terrible characters you have to drag around the galaxy with you. In Jack we once again have a character who I'm supposed to respect because they're female and yet say "fuck" a lot. Then we've got Miranda's butt, Samara's sideboob, Thane's moping, Legion's religious musings, and Jacob. I was not impressed by any of them. Why am I even taking these clowns with me? Oh right, because Shepard takes orders from TIM. And why does he take orders from TIM? Because he's a retard.

Well all I can say is I disagree really. Jack has more layers than just her "I'm so tuff who's a badass biotic bitch I am" exterior if you delve into it but she wasn't a favorite overall. Her visual design is my biggest issue with her, because of their questionable decision to make characters have "iconic looks" in combat so she just fucking rolls into battle wearing tattoos for armor (sorry Nameless One).

I thought that Legion was singularly the most interesting new character because the backstory they added to the Geth was extremely well written in comparison to the schlocky SciFi of a lot of the series. Along with EDI they provided a much more detailed look into the universe beyond "we're aliens with rubber foreheads". With the Geth you got a sense of dealing with an alien psychology, largely divorced from human affairs.

 

[Background Character]

ME1 > doesn't matter the other games are shit

But it's not like ME1 it's something to go completely insane about either.

 

[Nutria]

I thought that Legion was singularly the most interesting new character because the backstory they added to the Geth was extremely well written in comparison to the schlocky SciFi of a lot of the series. Along with EDI they provided a much more detailed look into the universe beyond "we're aliens with rubber foreheads". With the Geth you got a sense of dealing with an alien psychology, largely divorced from human affairs.

I guess Legion might have been a good character if I had given him a chance. I think my main problem with him is that he's not introduced until well into ME2. By that time I was actively pissed off at the writing in the game and I was just trying to get through to end.

 

[Sykar]

Degenerates proclaiming that the biggest turd of the series, ME 2, is the best.

 

[illuknisaa]

Degenerates proclaiming that the biggest turd of the series, ME 2, is the best.

I don't see how that is hard to believe though. Lot of people tout me1 as the best but that game is really the bottom of the barrel. Any change in the gameplay department is positive change.

 

[Sykar]

Degenerates proclaiming that the biggest turd of the series, ME 2, is the best.

I don't see how that is hard to believe though. Lot of people tout me1 as the best but that game is really the bottom of the barrel. Any change in the gameplay department is positive change.

Castrated Biotics on anthing above normal (Warp/Reave spam anyone?) with sticky cover, castrated character development and nonsensical (squad) powers = "positive change" in addition to the removal of the Mako and instead getting a retarded pop a mole probe mini game any 2 year old could solve and to top it all off you have to play daddy for all those mentally retarded buffoons and hide it under the name of "loyalty". Oh yeah and global CD essentially leading to only using the same power over and over in like 95% of all the fights.
Not to mention how the story is completely nonsensical and does nothing for the overarching plot from the first game.

Holy shit make up more excuses for the biggest turd Bioware ever made.

 

[Wayward Son]

you have to play daddy for all those mentally retarded buffoons and hide it under the name of "romanceing".

FTFY

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Castrated Biotics on anthing above normal (Warp/Reave spam anyone?) with sticky cover, castrated character development and nonsensical (squad) powers = "positive change" in addition to the removal of the Mako and instead getting a retarded pop a mole probe mini game any 2 year old could solve and to top it all off you have to play daddy for all those mentally retarded buffoons and hide it under the name of "loyalty". Oh yeah and global CD essentially leading to only using the same power over and over in like 95% of all the fights.
Not to mention how the story is completely nonsensical and does nothing for the overarching plot from the first game.

By castrated you mean no-longer made it drastically overpowered. Adept was basically the only class in ME1 it was possible to have fun with, while it's no longer the star of the show in 2 and the other classes are a lot better. That's by far a net win, particularly given that biotic users themselves in both ME1 and ME2 will still need to rely on guns frequently. Vanguard probably the most fun in 2, while Infiltrator is the most powerful class. Adept is ok but isn't a biotic god anymore.



The removal of the Mako, just like the removal of the unbearably shitty inventory (note: if you didn't play it on 360 at launnch, you don't truly understand how bad the inventory was, the late port on PC made it slightly more bearable by not automatically shoving you back at the top of the list anytime you tried to omnigel a useless piece of junk), was a major benefit for the game. Yeah, it would have been great if the Mako was made into something good, and if the inventory was replaced by something good, but not having either still made for a much better game than ME1.

Yes the main questline is weak, no arguments there. Loyalty missions aren't shit though, you're wrong there. They're the best missions in the game on average and the worst of them are just "ok". It's night and day compared to the anemic personal quests from ME1. Thesey involved going to the same fukken reused spaceship interior or generic reused base interior dumped on a barren planet with a skybox that you have to spend 10 minutes driving up sheer cliffaces in the mako to reach,where upon you fight the same bad guys you have the whole time and then the thing you were looking for appears in your inventory and you have a brief conversation about it on the ship.

Planet scanning sucks, but is mercifully a tiny part of the game, unlikey the UNC quests in ME1 which were an extremely poor substitute for sidequests outside of the main hub. "Exploration", LOL.

P.S. defense layers that appeared on the higher difficulties make combat a lot more interesting. The highest difficulty isn't very fun, but the one just below that where every enemy has a defense layer forces you to make good use of squadmate powers and your own abilities, as well as encouraging you to switch weapons regularly. Biotic players hated that you had to strip them before you could ragdoll people, but it was a good design choice overall.

Holy shit make up more excuses for the biggest turd Bioware ever made.

Nobody is defending Mass Effect: Andromeda or Dragon Age: Inquisition currently.[/QUOTE]

 

[Sykar]

Castrated Biotics on anthing above normal (Warp/Reave spam anyone?) with sticky cover, castrated character development and nonsensical (squad) powers = "positive change" in addition to the removal of the Mako and instead getting a retarded pop a mole probe mini game any 2 year old could solve and to top it all off you have to play daddy for all those mentally retarded buffoons and hide it under the name of "loyalty". Oh yeah and global CD essentially leading to only using the same power over and over in like 95% of all the fights.
Not to mention how the story is completely nonsensical and does nothing for the overarching plot from the first game.

By castrated you mean no-longer made it drastically overpowered. Adept was basically the only class in ME1 it was possible to have fun with, while it's no longer the star of the show in 2 and the other classes are a lot better. That's by far a net win, particularly given that biotic users themselves in both ME1 and ME2 will still need to rely on guns frequently. Vanguard probably the most fun in 2, while Infiltrator is the most powerful class. Adept is ok but isn't a biotic god anymore.



The removal of the Mako, just like the removal of the unbearably shitty inventory (note: if you didn't play it on 360 at launnch, you don't truly understand how bad the inventory was, the late port on PC made it slightly more bearable by not automatically shoving you back at the top of the list anytime you tried to omnigel a useless piece of junk), was a major benefit for the game. Yeah, it would have been great if the Mako was made into something good, and if the inventory was replaced by something good, but not having either still made for a much better game than ME1.

Yes the main questline is weak, no arguments there. Loyalty missions aren't shit though, you're wrong there. They're the best missions in the game on average and the worst of them are just "ok". It's night and day compared to the anemic personal quests from ME1. Thesey involved going to the same fukken reused spaceship interior or generic reused base interior dumped on a barren planet with a skybox that you have to spend 10 minutes driving up sheer cliffaces in the mako to reach,where upon you fight the same bad guys you have the whole time and then the thing you were looking for appears in your inventory and you have a brief conversation about it on the ship.

Planet scanning sucks, but is mercifully a tiny part of the game, unlikey the UNC quests in ME1 which were an extremely poor substitute for sidequests outside of the main hub. "Exploration", LOL.

P.S. defense layers that appeared on the higher difficulties make combat a lot more interesting. The highest difficulty isn't very fun, but the one just below that where every enemy has a defense layer forces you to make good use of squadmate powers and your own abilities, as well as encouraging you to switch weapons regularly. Biotic players hated that you had to strip them before you could ragdoll people, but it was a good design choice overall.

Holy shit make up more excuses for the biggest turd Bioware ever made.

Nobody is defending Mass Effect: Andromeda or Dragon Age: Inquisition currently.

The most overpowered classes were Infiltrator and Soldier thanks to Immunity, factanking Threshers and Rocket turrets while an Adept would get one shot, period. Try again, dipshit. Also the Engi was better against anything Geth. As usual morons like you have little actual knowledge.
Furthermore this is a fucking single player game, so who cares if a class is somewhat stronger than some others? Adepts also had the lowest damage output among the classes alongside Engi.
And yes, essentially making all powers sans Warp/Reave useless and let the other powers only be effective against health when you could one shot them anyway turned them into nothing but weak, slow and cumbersome finishers so the retards who do not notice they spam Warp/Reave 24/7 would think they are "useful".
Meanwhile the strongest abilities like Cloak and Adrenaline work just fine on all difficulties.
The only thing which made Adepts a bit OP was Bastion which came late in the game but could have been balanced easily.

Then of course the retconning and flimsy excuses like the "Thermal Clips" are so laughably bad it defys comprehension.

I am a PC gamer and do not give a shit about consoles, in fact I consider them to be a blight and one of the major reasons for the long and steady decline of mainstream gaming. The inventory was annoying but I have seen far worse.
Mako was broken but it was the right idea and was at times even somewhat fun when the terrain was relatively flat. With more original level design and better physics Mako planetary exploration would have been awesome and many players thought the same at the time. Instead of adressing the criticism like proper adults they threw a tantrum and removed it with an even shittier and compeltely nosnensical minigame which was so mindnumbingly boring it was not funny even once. Same they did with the inventory system.

There is nothing fun or particular challenging with the defense layers. They are boring and merely restrict what you can use, there is no real thought or tactics require to deal with them. Add to that the retarded global CD and you just spam the same powers over and over and over, even more so for the Adept who spams Warp, then Warp and then some more Warp until he gets Reave which is just another boring Dot. And if you are in a squad before you are able to do any of the actualy interessting moves one of your squad mates will have most likely obliterated the enemy with any kind of handgun.

ME 1 had the right idea and restricted these powers by enemies mass. Very heavy enemies like Geth four legged tanks would at most stagger when you tried to lift them. Instead on expanding on that they castrated Adept powers. Controlling the battlefield like advertised? Don't make me laugh, Engis with the Drones had better CC at anything above normal and playing normal was playing easy mode since it was yawn inducingly easy.
Shit they had to retcon even here, claiming that "armor" and "barriers" magically interfered with biotics, even though none of that was even hinted at in the original

I was taling about the biggest turd of the original triology, dipshit. ME 1 >>>> ME 3 > ME 2.

ME 1 was a flawed rough gem but was overall solid.
ME 2 was the retarded cousin with more than just down syndrome and only mentally deficient retards who think sticky cover is hot shit enjoyed it.
ME 3 was more of ME 2 just slightly less retarded albeit with the worst ending(s) in gaming history probably.

 

[SteelAttack]

I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time reading through ME1's codex (heh) entries. The amount of lore and background you could find in there was a great backbone for the game's plot shenanigans. I will admit the second and third games are superior shooters, with better shooting er...gameplay mechanics, but most everything else took a nosedive in quality, except perhaps for some companions in the second game.

Whenever I think of the Mass Effect series it's always a bittersweet memory because of its squandered potential. I had a lot of good times throughout the three games (granted, most of them during the first one), but in my opinion the series devolved into something that resembled less and less an RPG as time passed, with more polished and fleshed out action elements at the cost of customization options and freedom to mix your gameplay style, and a story that made less sense as the series progressed.

ME1 will always be my favorite out of the three. The way the series degenerated into a nonsensical Michael Bay explosion orgasm in the end doesn't negate the fact I had a good ride overall, with a lot of fond memories, but that's only a testament to the way the first game imprinted itself in my brain with its setting, lore, music and characters. Everything after that was certainly downhill, but I managed to smile quite a bit during my rolling down thanks to the first game.

It could have been so much more.

 

[Sykar]

I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time reading through ME1's codex (heh) entries. The amount of lore and background you could find in there was a great backbone for the game's plot shenanigans. I will admit the second and third games are superior shooters, with better shooting er...gameplay mechanics, but most everything else took a nosedive in quality, except perhaps for some companions in the second game.

Whenever I think of the Mass Effect series it's always a bittersweet memory because of its squandered potential. I had a lot of good times throughout the three games (granted, most of them during the first one), but in my opinion the series devolved into something that resembled less and less an RPG as time passed, with more polished and fleshed out action elements at the cost of customization options and freedom to mix your gameplay style, and a story that made less sense as the series progressed.

ME1 will always be my favorite out of the three. The way the series degenerated into a nonsensical Michael Bay explosion orgasm in the end doesn't negate the fact I had a good ride overall, with a lot of fond memories, but that's only a testament to the way the first game imprinted itself in my brain with its setting, lore, music and characters. Everything after that was certainly downhill, but I managed to smile quite a bit during my rolling down thanks to the first game.

It could have been so much more.

Squandered potential is probably the best description for the Mass Effect series. They had all the right ingredients from the first game, instead of refining the menu they threw it out of the window.

 

[donkeymong]

I am also tired of the nonsensical claim that the combat of the first game was the worst. First thing, biotic and tech were also part of the combat, and these abilities got worse in the sequels.
Most of them became worthless on higher difficulties, thanks to the so called protection system, the ridiculous small areas of impact(3 meters at best), and the global cooldown.
What was actually a good crowd control in the past affected 2-3 enemies at best...
Even worse, tech mines were replaced by shooting magically ice, fire and lighting magic from the omnitool, like in some shitty fantasy game.
And even the gunplay was alright in the first game, when the player isnt completly dumb and fires his guns
in bursts while crouching. Like a tooltip actually recommends...

 

[SDeden]

The suicide mission was a great idea, but they ruined it for me by having the purpose of it be total nonsense. They're kidnapping people... so that they can melt them into goo... to build a giant terminator... because... that's just what they do. That's not even worthy of being in a fanfic written by a 12-year old. At the end when you decide whether to blow up the station or not, it's supposed to be this really tough moral dilemma. I just couldn't take it seriously after that boss fight and the whole moronic story leading up to it.

What ruins the suicide mission is that it is easy. There is no real element of sacrifice because you have actually try to get anyone killed. It would have been a nice pay-off if after spending an entire game to get to know and sympathize with your crew if you then had to send some of them to their deaths to complete the mission. No possibility of a "perfect run". I know why they didn't do that though; everyone would just bitch about it. Apparently Mass Effect needs to be a power fantasy.

I think the main plot was a good premise just because it was weird and the colony abductions in a more indirect way showcase the 'Reapers' power. It suggests very potent capabilities and alludes to very strange and alien motives. Of-course then you still need it to make some kind of sense and be compelling and the idea falls apart there.


I think the Reapers were a mistake anyway. The setting never needed them to provide a catalyst for telling interesting stories. Virtually all the side conflicts are more compelling than the Reapers who amount to basically just a bit natural disaster. Frightening even and very destructive, but not that interesting themselves. Might as well have just had the Reapers be a wave of dark energy or some such crap poised to ripple through the galaxy and destroy everything.

In retrospect I think the series would have been better if it was more of an anthology series about the adventures of the first human Spectre rather than a trilogy about Shepard fighting the Reapers.

 

[prodigydancer]

Wow, this thread is so filled with ME1 nostalgia, it really makes me laugh. Could you take your rose-tinted glasses off for a moment? Because I have something to show you.

Looks familiar? It should, if you've actually played the game. And that's ME1 in a nutshell: gather X of Y. Or kill a group of trash on an irrelevant planet to be rewarded with random generic items. (Although, there were no non-generic items anyway - the itemization was as bland as it could possibly be.) Main quest aside, it was almost as boring as DA:I.

 

[Sykar]

Wow, this thread is so filled with ME1 nostalgia, it really makes me laugh. Could you take your rose-tinted glasses off for a moment? Because I have something to show you.

Looks familiar? It should, if you've actually played the game. And that's ME1 in a nutshell: gather X of Y. Or kill a group of trash on an irrelevant planet to be rewarded with random generic items. (Although, there were no non-generic items anyway - the itemization was as bland as it could possibly be.) Main quest aside, it was almost as boring as DA:I.

That's the quest structure of almost every cRPG.

 

[schaltbock]

Wow, this thread is so filled with ME1 nostalgia, it really makes me laugh. Could you take your rose-tinted glasses off for a moment? Because I have something to show you.

Looks familiar? It should, if you've actually played the game. And that's ME1 in a nutshell: gather X of Y. Or kill a group of trash on an irrelevant planet to be rewarded with random generic items. (Although, there were no non-generic items anyway - the itemization was as bland as it could possibly be.) Main quest aside, it was almost as boring as DA:I.

The point of the scan the keepers quest wasn't collecting for the sake of collecting but to induce players to explore every part of the citadel. I remember a sidequest that would be pretty easy to miss if you weren't looking for keepers (the one with the rogue AI that starts near the keeper in the back of the casino). I thought that AI sidequest was just filler when I first played it but it touches on the main theme for the entire series:

I do agree that the keeper quest is tedious but it wouldn't have been so bad if there was an actual decent pay off at the end. Now that's the true theme of the entire Mass Effect trilogy.

 

[donkeymong]

Wow, this thread is so filled with ME1 nostalgia, it really makes me laugh. Could you take your rose-tinted glasses off for a moment? Because I have something to show you.



Looks familiar? It should, if you've actually played the game. And that's ME1 in a nutshell: gather X of Y. Or kill a group of trash on an irrelevant planet to be rewarded with random generic items. (Although, there were no non-generic items anyway - the itemization was as bland as it could possibly be.) Main quest aside, it was almost as boring as DA:I.

Seriously? Thats just a quest the player can do when exploring the citadel along the way, when also doing quests like with the consort or simply chatting with diplomats and C-Sec. Unlike clicking on powerpoint "planets" to gather ressources for weapon and ship upgrades, this was optional and even had some dialogue.

 

[SDeden]

I think ME1 had better writing in terms of plot and world-building, and was maybe even a bit more nuanced with its characters. I also think the Uncharted Worlds, while somewhat bland and repetitive in execution, at least added a real sense of scale and freedom to the game. It's not all perfect though, of-course. ME2 improved on many of ME1's problems but had more problems of its own and the writing was dumbed down for mass appeal.

 

[Severian Silk]

ME was dumbed down from the beginning, idiot.

 

[c2007]

ME1 built a universe that had some internal consistency, felt sci-fi, was familiar to a BioWare fan, and used a gun. I liked it.

ME2 had slick presentation, interesting characters, a bewildered clusterfuck of a story, and a fun ending sequence terminating with some of the stupidest shit extant.

ME3 was an on-rails interactive story, I enjoyed the gameplay and was blown away by the ending - as if a team of Krogan loaded full of egg salad thunderously farted in my general direction. It sucked.

So, MET - great potential, pretty lame overall.

 

[Pirata Alma Negra]

Use your neurons for god's sake. The metric is ME1 compared with the rest of the series, not with some kind of da Vince's masterpiece.