The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

Don't do this.

Trust me, it's better not to know.

 

Why? Did the other space muslims stone her to near-death for strolling around the galaxy with a man who was not her husband?

 

I just watched the 40 minute video.

My God, almost a ten minute cutscene with two or three completely meaningless dialogue choices thrown in for no reason, and nothing interesting or relevant happens until the Reapers attack. It was once again amateur hour at BioWare.

The subsequent gameplay is, of course, a tutorial, but a very strange one where Anderson treats Shepard like a rookie who doesn't know to reload his gun unless Anderson tells him to. It's really odd that Shepard is supposed to be the most badass battle-hardened soldier in the galaxy, yet has to be told things he already learned in basic training.

The scene where Shepard leaves Earth would be fairly effective if it wasn't for the unbelievably shameless and transparent attempt at emotional manipulation.

Something about Wrex's dialogue seems a little odd and out of character. Did they change the voice actor too?

The whole thing with Cerberus trying to stop Shepard is so dumb. BioWare was obviously flying by the seat of their pants after the first game and couldn't think of any logical opponents for the player. Teenagers on Fictionpress probably put more planning into their multi-volume epics than BioWare does.

On the plus side the guns sound good and combat seems to have good feel to it, so it might be a decent action game.

 

It's no suprise that the stories of ME2&3 suck when:

 

Drew is better than Mac. But I think even if he was still the lead writer EA would make sure ME still went on the path of full retard instead of semi retard.

 

I Googled Mac Walters and found this interview.

 

...BiowEAre makes it. The only thing good about ME1 was if you try really hard you can almost imagine untapped potential under the surface of the world and story. Until ME2 came out. That was like watching the sweet sorta-cute girl whose dad beats her, drop out of school and become a crack whore.

 

Gotta love how even shitty movies aren't so... shitty.

SHEPERD, YOU'VE GOT TO STRATEGY MEETING, IS IMPORTANT
THANKS FOR COMING SHAPERS, WHAT DO WE DO
WE FIGHT OR WE DIE
MEETING OVER
And then they all died.

 

So, Mac and Hamburger are responsible for the shitty derpy ME2/3 plot, right?

Figures.

Well done BioWare, replacing old writers with new non-gamer writers.

 

I don't think Hamburger Helper had anything to do with ME2 or ME3. It's more like Bioware's entire writing department has gone full

 

It's reassuring to see that humanity is in such capable hands. They probably need Shepard to hold their dicks when they go to the bathroom.

 

Yeah, in 1990s.

 

Black, shut the fuck up.

BioWare wasn't always in full-decline mode. You gotta give them that much credit, at least.

 

Oh, they weren't always in full-decline mode alright, but they never were good either. Neither was their writing.

 

For late 90s, early 2000s standards, their writing certainly was way above of 95% all other shit that was there (minus BIS, LGS maybe). For today's standards, agreed, they have been surpassed by now by many developers, including non-RPG developers.

But that's because BioWare gave up it's creative sovereignty when they started with this venture capital enterprise nonsense and later the full assimilation into EA.

 

Also, too much focus on trend-gameplay, not enough focus on world design, lore, and, god forgive, originality?

Even the fucking BG games felt more original than their supposed "original IPs".

 

Err. What?

 

What, what?

Are you gonna tell me writing standards back then were that great in general?

 

There were never any writing standards. Unless of course you are talking about Thief. BG 1/2 is just a ridiculously absurd DnD campaign, where a level 1 character becomes the semi-embodiment of a 'dead' god.

 

Whatever, Shrek.

I still used to love the old BioWare games. Don't like that, then shut up and die in a corner.

 

Easy fellas. There's enough of her for all of you.

 

And die they did

 

Morgoth

Oh. Don't mistake me. I don't mean AT ALL they are bad games. They are actually good (especially BG is a good GAME because it implements DnD reasonably well). But I am not going to start shouting all of a sudden that BG had great/good writing.

This is my opinion on the issue. If you are willing we can talk about it.

BG has okay writing. Just good enough to keep me interested in playing the game. It has its twists and turns that do add to the enjoyment. The dialogue is NOT well written and the characters are... ahem. But still it feels like an adequate adventure bedtime story, I would expect from a computer game.

It at least tries to be serious with the entire iron mining issue. The conspiracy about being a bhaalspawn becomes a bit stretched but gives you a feeling of being recognized by the game in some way along with the incidences of being accused for murder. So yes, there is gratification in the plot.

Answer me this: Why would you ever expect a video game to be a piece of great or even good literature? You shouldn't. That's why I was quite happy with BG.

 

That's because video game writing is not supposed about being "good literature". It isn't even about good dialog that much in the first place, but about world, plot and character coherence.

 

In before "DO A BARREL ROLL" space combat.