Mass Effect - Disappointment of the Year

[1eyedking]

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

*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".

I meant it in the editorial sense. Anyhow, just because he has different tastes doesn't mean he can't be objective in a game review; objectively speaking, KotOR is a serious dumbdown from the Baldur's Gate series.

PS: 'Wanna go again?' refers to the alien-lesbo sex scene dialogue option.

 

[Joe Krow]

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

Ditto. He does seem to be laying the smack down lately. Nice.

 

[Kingston]

Offtopic for a bit. Man Pelit-magazine has turned to shits. The website has a cocksuck interview with Hines entitled "Oblivion is paving the way".

On the polls page they have a "Best Bioware game?" and one of the options is "I haven't played Mass Effect, but I'm guessing its the best one".

A far cry from the days of the 90s (when it was also a pc-only magazine).

 

[ricolikesrice]

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

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.

exactly. who cares what the IDEA for the setting is. hey i have a really cool idea for a new RPG in a steampunk setting with various factions fighting for survival as an impending astroid threathens to destroy the main captial .....
... but ingame you ll meet a ton of weirdo ´s and whackos that wear bunny costumes and ask you to collect plastic dildos for quests.... and instead of a steampunk city 80% of my levels will be rainforest. and the cutscenes are random porno flicks from youporn.com.

can i get a runner-up award for best setting from GB already ? i mean my original steampunk idea wasnt bad, who cares the actual game has little to do with it...

 

[Shannow]

LOL, I'd play that.

 

[Brother None]

(snip)

(snip)

You're right.

Anyhow, just because he has different tastes doesn't mean he can't be objective in a game review; objectively speaking, KotOR is a serious dumbdown from the Baldur's Gate series.

And objectively speaking, Mass Effect is a serious dumbdown from KotOR. It's just a matter of which point of falling you want to point at.

 

[Section8]

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

I dunno about that. It's an isometric RPG released by Black Isle a few months after Fallout 2. I think it warrants comparison, even if it was in development alongside Fallout by an external studio. Both seem to be attempts to recreate a classic P&P RPing experience - one does so with flair, the other just shamelessly licenses AD&D, parrots a bunch of rules without really considering the medium they're being transferred to and emphasises the features that were very much en vogue at the time. Everyone was doing real-time games and everyone was doing multiplayer. I think Baldur's Gate is a pretty clear example of a game that wanted to sit alongside Fallout, but fell prey to the "wouldn't it be cool if?" syndrome.

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

Fallout had plenty of critical praise, but never got the wallet votes. It did pick up momentum later. From memory, Fallout Tactics outsold BG2 in terms of pre-orders. However, you only need to look around at all of the "cult-classic", "product of its time" and "glad Bethesda is putting a fresh face on the old girl" sort of comments to see that people still have mixed feelings.

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.

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.

It still comes across as a bit naive. Rather than his "Morrowind to Oblivion" analogy, why not make mention of the trend that Bioware have steadily made a transparent effort to give each successive game steadily more mass appeal?

He's definitely got the rose-coloured glasses out for KOTOR. I guess being very much an opinion piece, there's no harm in him basically saying - "I wanted more KOTOR and didn't get it" - but it just seems strange to me to see KOTOR upheld as a shining example of what an RPG should be.

 

[Jasede]

Baldur's Gate feels very close to P&P, that's all I am saying.

Remember not every DM is the same.

 

[Brother None]

From memory, Fallout Tactics outsold BG2 in terms of pre-orders.

Fallout: Tactics was the most pre-ordered game (from the Interplay store, not necessarily at other places) in Interplay history. Can't remember where I first heard that, but it's one of those facts that keep rolling around.

It still comes across as a bit naive. Rather than his "Morrowind to Oblivion" analogy, why not make mention of the trend that Bioware have steadily made a transparent effort to give each successive game steadily more mass appeal?

Not the place for it, that'd be better in an editorial or on the outside in a review. I'll ask him if he'll discuss that in his Mass Effect review, which'll be coming somewhere this month or next. His review will be much the same tone as this category win, methinks.

He's definitely got the rose-coloured glasses out for KOTOR. I guess being very much an opinion piece, there's no harm in him basically saying - "I wanted more KOTOR and didn't get it" - but it just seems strange to me to see KOTOR upheld as a shining example of what an RPG should be.

On the other hand, by comparing it to KotOR, even by holding up that game as an example, an easy frame of reference is set. If Jon, as a KotOR fan (and he is, yes), says "this game is like KotOR, but less so" then you should immediately know "oh well, skip" (not that you didn't already, but you know what I mean).

Also, it's not being held up as a shiny example. GB has been steadily mocking all the times people do that with Oblivion, which is mentioned in all kinds of RPG reviews from Two Worls (sensible there) to the Witcher (doesn't make sense there. Why even say "not as good as Oblivion" for TW?)...so we're not apt to do that kind of thing ourselves. We're not holding up KotOR as a shiny example, but as a direct frame of reference because it is a very similar game from the same RPG developing house. Makes sense, no?

 

[obediah]

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.

You'd have to be a bioware fanboy awaking from a 9 year coma to label Mass Effect as "Dissapointment of the Year". Bioware has been very open about what the game would be, and after about 30 hours of playing if anything I'm pleasantly surprised at just how much background and story they did put in here. This guys complaints are all valid though, if the article was just "Mass Mediocrity: The Mainstreaming Effect".

I also have to repeat the comments of others in this thread - that someone uses KoToR to exemplify the good old hard-core rpgs of yesterday makes me want to end the world.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Mmmm, I am both a KOTOR and BG2 fan, and I don't consider myself naive or stupid.

It really depends on what you want from a game. Choices and consequences alone don't do it for me (heresy!!!). I need lots of dialogue and story (maybe as a remnant of the years I spent as a total bookworm?). Fallout had the freedom, but I found it's narrative incredibly weak, probably because I had to wander around searching under rocks to find traces if it. BG2 and KOTOR might have had illusionary choices which infuriate your average Codexer, but I found the narrative much stronger. Accept that some people place more value on certain aspects of RPGs than you do, and don't assume them idiots for it.

Kotors combat may have been easy, but I got so utterly tired of fighting 12 mutant mantises or whatever in TB mode in fallout, just really firing my pistol each round and waiting for them to move so I could click fire again. Deep and fulfilling it wasn't.

And please don't bring up something about generic storylines in KOTOR or BG2 blah blah. Fallout had a mutant overlord wanting to conquer the post apocalyptic world with his army of mutated humans, which he mutated with a secret military experiment goop. And I'm going to type mutant 1 more time for effect. Maybe it's not been seen often in video games, but that is hardly a "holy crap, didn't see that one coming!" type plotline.

KOTOR was what I wanted from a Starwars RPG. In fact, if I could have improved anything I would have completely done away with the turn based stuff and merge in Jedi Knights combat, to make the lightsaber chopping more satisfying. Mmmmm, Jedi knight...

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

Fallout had a mutant overlord wanting to conquer the post apocalyptic world with his army of mutated humans, which he mutated with a secret military experiment goop.

Did you finish Fallout as a diplomatic character by any chance?

 

[Mayday]

 

[fastpunk]

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?

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.

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u215/Surgleh/30k35g8.jpg

Twas an example of great writing in ME, the type of writing that got it the best writing/story award, ahead of MotB. Sorry, the right line was "let's go again!" , not "wanna go again?" , my bad.

Also, Diablo isn't an RPG. Consider that.

 

[Volourn]

"And objectively speaking, Mass Effect is a serious dumbdown from KotOR. It's just a matter of which point of falling you want to point at."

Objectively speaking, ME is a 'smarting up' of KOTOR. It's deeper, more mature, more complex, has sueprior writing/characters, and so on so forth.

KOTOR, on the other hand, is a dumbing down of NWN/D&D.

P.S. To say BG is a dumbed down FO is beyond retarded. It's friggin' illogical. Considering the fact that the games were made at the same time., and had completely different goals; it's just plain pathetic.

 

[Jeff Graw]

"And objectively speaking, Mass Effect is a serious dumbdown from KotOR. It's just a matter of which point of falling you want to point at."

Objectively speaking, ME is a 'smarting up' of KOTOR. It's deeper, more mature, more complex, has sueprior writing/characters, and so on so forth.

It tries to be deeper and more mature, but that only makes it's shortcomings all the more obvious. For example, after Saren uses the beacon, he doesen't destroy it or anything, he just leaves it there for you to find. And then throws a huge raging fit after discovering that you've used it. Beyond stupid, and made all the more obvious by the more mature direction of the game. As for more complex, don't be stupid -- people have already given a huge list of things that ME dumbed down from KOTOR already. As for better characters, I'd say they're about the same, but that's completely subjective. No one from KOTOR made me cringe whenever they spoke the same way that Ashley did in ME though. The writing seems about the same to me, average at best. My main gripes with ME were how badly the planetary exploration elements were handled (and how horribly their leisurely nature meshed with the supposed urgency of the main quest), the fact that you get to make a few huge choices, like wiping out an alien species or not, that don't have any consequences in the game (I know, it's a trilogy, but what do you think the chances are of those choices carrying on in the sequels?), and the shortness of the damn thing.

KOTOR, on the other hand, is a dumbing down of NWN/D&D.

The character system was dumbed down yes, but that's about it. In all other areas, KOTOR was far superior to the radioactive shit pile that was the NWN OC.

P.S. To say BG is a dumbed down FO is beyond retarded. It's friggin' illogical. Considering the fact that the games were made at the same time., and had completely different goals; it's just plain pathetic.

Agreed.

 

[Volourn]

"and the shortness of the damn thing."

Funnily enough, it took me longer to finish ME than KOTOR.

'People' ar edumb. ME is more complex than KOTOR. It's silly to say otherwise. And, yeah, KOTOR is a dumbed down version of the Aurora. Considieirng that combat/character system is a huge part of both games; that being dumbed own is huge. It doens't really matter if KOTOR is 'better' than NWN OC; it's still dumbed down including stealing ideas from NWN (collection quests, Bastila is just a wannabe Aribeth, ancient civilization, etc., etc.).

Plus, none of the best KOTOR side quests top NWN's top side quests. None of them.

I used to think KOTOR was better than the OC; but nope. Not really. The one thing it does better than the OC are the companions; but that's not really surprising consideirng OC companions were basically last minute additions yet their back stories were just as good as most of KOTOR's.

Both NWN OC and KOTOR are mid 70s affairs. ME is much better than that, and most definitely not dumbed down.

This idea is that ME is 'dumbed down' from KOTOR is just plain silly.

And, yeah, there ar esome story illogic in ME. Just like any other game including your precious overrated KOTOR.

 

[Naked Ninja]

Did you finish Fallout as a diplomatic character by any chance?

Nope. Diplomacy, Science and Small Guns were my tagged skills. And during my playtime I barely used the first 2 skills. No wait, I don't think I ever used them. But I had MANY opportunities to regret not putting my points into perception and strength, thanks to random tedious battles every couple of blocks traveling the wasteland. Later, when I discovered my "diplomatic scientist who uses small guns to get himself out of jams where his tongue can't" build didn't have enough strength to use any guns bigger than a pistol without serious penalty (on top of the penalty I already had), and I'd experienced just how often guns were useful in comparison to Science and Diplomacy, I got annoyed and quit. Weak narrative, not enough dialogue (IIRC the only person I encountered with a decent dialogue was harold the mutant who told me about the military base. I think that was his name, harold.), unbalanced skill system, large number of tedious random battles every time I tried to travel anywhere....meh. Maybe if I'm ever bored I'll look up a character builder guide and try again.

 

[Jeff Graw]

'People' ar edumb. ME is more complex than KOTOR. It's silly to say otherwise.

Hmmm... let's see what comes next:

And, yeah, KOTOR is a dumbed down version of the Aurora. Considieirng that combat/character system is a huge part of both games; that being dumbed own is huge. It doens't really matter if KOTOR is 'better' than NWN

Now let's replace "NWN" and "Aurora" with KOTOR and KOTOR with ME.

And, yeah, ME is a dumbed down version of the KOTOR. Considieirng that combat/character system is a huge part of both games; that being dumbed own is huge. It doens't really matter if ME is 'better' than KOTOR

'Nuff said :twisted:

 

[afewhours]

"and the shortness of the damn thing."

Funnily enough, it took me longer to finish ME than KOTOR.

I don't doubt that, but you're part of a small clique. I clocked ME in 21 hours, and that wasn't a rush job. I dawdled around chatting to all the NPCs, doing side missions, etc. it's not like I bombed through the MQ.

I did pretty much the same thing with KOTOR1. I think I clocked 40 hours on that beast - give or take.

Most reports on t3h internet have been kinda similar. The main discrepancy is that people bombed through ME far quicker than I did. I bet you could clock ME in under 10 hours if you really wanted to. I think you'd struggle to do that with KOTOR1.

ME is not a long game by any description.

'People' ar edumb. ME is more complex than KOTOR. It's silly to say otherwise.

I found KOTOR's bastardised 3e rules to be a bit 'meh', but there's still more to it than ME. Character development in ME was, to be honest, pathetic. You had three rather rigid choices of class. A DPS class, (Soldier) a Debuffer class, (Engineer) and a Crowd Control class with a pathetic DOT on the side. (Adept) Apart from the Infiltrator, the cross-classes are a waste of time.

In KOTOR, you had three main classes, but you could customise these a lot more than in ME. You could tweak your attributes, choose specific feats, take specific skills - then you could mix things up with a certain Jedi class. Okay, it's still a bit narrow in comparison to say, NWN2 - but it's more leeway than you get in ME.

In ME you could equip a gun, armour, omni-tool, and bio-thingy. You could also upgrade these things.

In KOTOR, you could equip a gun, a melee weapon, armour, implants, belt, headgear, shield. All of this altered your character's capability in the field to a much greater extent than in ME. Having trouble with grenades? Equip a detonation kit! Character getting splatted with too much regularity? Swap out that vibroblade for a carbine!

Plus, none of the best KOTOR side quests top NWN's top side quests. None of them.

I can't remember the side quests from either game very well, so there must be some truth in that. Pazaak? Fuck that, if I wanted to play cards, I'd ask my friends.

Both NWN OC and KOTOR are mid 70s affairs. ME is much better than that, and most definitely not dumbed down.

What's wrong with the mid-seventies? Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs and Station to Station were all awesome albums!

I've stated before that I quite enjoyed ME, but it's froth - and, honestly, representing it as anything more than froth ignores its strengths. KOTOR1 may not be, say, RoA, but it has a little bit more to it.

 

[Dark Matter]

It tries to be deeper and more mature, but that only makes it's shortcomings all the more obvious. For example, after Saren uses the beacon, he doesen't destroy it or anything, he just leaves it there for you to find. And then throws a huge raging fit after discovering that you've used it.

In case you forgot, the geth place explosives and try to destroy the whole facility. As for why Saren didn't destroy it himself, it could be that a few gunshots and normal hand grenade(which are probably the only tools that were readily at his disposal at the time) aren't enough to do the job. The beacons were created to last a long time, so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for them to be properly fortified. Another thing to take into consideration is that Saren didn't have a whole lot of time. Shephard and co. weren't really far behind him. This also rules out the possibility of him destroying the facility with his ship.

But it doesn't really matter, there may be some aspects of the story that aren't 100% believable, realistic, logical. So what? Even your precious Torment is filled with stuff that is just plain illogical, yet it doesn't seem to matter a whole lot in Torment's case.

But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, this just further establishes the Codex' reputation of being filled with a bunch of pompous brats trying to rebel against the mainstream, instead of being truly objective.

 

[afewhours]

But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, this just further establishes the Codex' reputation of being filled with a bunch of pompous brats trying to rebel against the mainstream, instead of being truly objective.

I can objectively say that objectivity is for losers. Count me among the pompous brats. I make no claims to superiority.

 

[Brother None]

Objectively speaking, ME is a 'smarting up' of KOTOR. It's deeper, more mature, more complex, has sueprior writing/characters, and so on so forth.

I notice you avoid discussing "smarting up" of mechanics and gameplay. Why?

 

[Jeff Graw]

In case you forgot, the geth place explosives and try to destroy the whole facility. As for why Saren didn't destroy it himself, it could be that a few gunshots and normal hand grenade(which are probably the only tools that were readily at his disposal at the time) aren't enough to do the job. The beacons were created to last a long time, so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for them to be properly fortified. Another thing to take into consideration is that Saren didn't have a whole lot of time. Shephard and co. weren't really far behind him. This also rules out the possibility of him destroying the facility with his ship.

That's weird. None of the explosives were actually that close to the beacon, and, if I recall correctly, Saren would have had more than enough time to destroy the beacon with his ship. And for such a "properly fortified" device it sure destroyed itself pretty easily!

 

[Volourn]

"I notice you avoid discussing "smarting up" of mechanics and gameplay. Why?"

I notice that you are blind. ME has superior game mechanics, and gameplay to KOTOR. There's less wasted skills/talents, there's more challenge to the combat, there's more actual meaningful choices, space travel isn't as limited (ie. you can actually not see every planet in the game), not everything is black and white, etc., etc.