Review Jeff Vogel reviews Mass Effect 3

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Jeff Vogel; Mass Effect 3

Spiderwebs Jeff Vogel reviews Mass Effect 3 on his blog.

In the first part he describes the things he liked.

I played Mass Effect 1 and 2 obsessively. All side quests, all everything. I played Mass Effect 3 front to back (skipping a lot of the side quests, which sort of telegraphs how I felt about the experience), experienced the ending, and then watched the recently patched new endings on YouTube. There's a lot of good stuff here for game geeks to argue about, though, before I get too cranky about it, I wanted to say what I liked.
...
The Gameplay

Tight as a drum. Except for occasional problems finding walls my character could hide behind, the game plays well. It's fast paced, fun, and full of exploding things.

I do wish that there was more variety in what you could do. I desperately miss the vehicle sections in Mass Effect, which were great for breaking up gameplay. They had their problems, but, honestly, I think the game would be much better if those sections had been improved instead of dropped entirely.

Given that he apparently didn't enjoy ME3 the same way like the previous games , it would have been interesting to hear what he didn't like as well. Which would be the purpose of a review, to show both, the pros and cons.

The second part's about the ending drama.

BioWare, a company known for awesome video game storytelling, creates a trilogy of games in one of the most well-realized imaginary worlds ever created in the medium. People love this world. Passionately. Then BioWare fails to stick the landing. Deafening rage and butthurt echo across the Internets, who have nothing more important to worry about. So BioWare, at what I'm sure was considerable expense, makes a free patch to expand the ending. It makes things kind of better. Life, somehow, continues.

(By the way, this whole sorry incident is excellent proof that their IS such a thing as bad publicity. BioWare's reputation for good storytelling is invaluable. They saw it threatened. They reacted appropriately. But I don't think anyone working there is happy this happened.)

 

[SCO]

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Not sure if it's an intentional ass- licking diplomacy or just a stupidity.

 

[mbpopolano24]

Wait, what???

"[Mass Retarded] It's fast paced, fun, and full of exploding things."

So are my bowel movements - that does not mean I want millions of retards playing with them....

 

[Micmu]

Jeff got boring as fuck already.

*schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* biowarare rules *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* best game ever *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* best ever *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* best ever created *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* best ever designed *schlurrrrp* *schlurrrrp* best storytelling *schlurrrrp*

 

[Infinitron]

"PLEASE HIRE ME BIOWARE." - Jeff Vogel

 

[sea]

My favourite are the parts where he outright contradicts himself, like where he says the ending is a problem because it's too dark and grimy, but then praises BioWare for being "bold." I also like how he apparently doesn't care about narrative coherence in a story-driven game and hand-waves the problem entirely, and his biggest complaint, Kai Leng, is completely swept under the rug.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Vogel gonna Vogel.

I cringe every time I read someone praising the "world building" in ME series.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

like watching a small business owner write up an article on how awesome the nearby walmart is and how they always have the best deals for him and his family

 

[Excommunicator]

So the front page of his blog consists of: a long post about the Mass Effect 3 ending, a long post about all the good things about mass effect, a pointless post full of my little pony meme pics, and one about how he is upset about his practical day-1 purchase of the Diablo 3

It's like the Codex minus the good bits

 

[Menckenstein]

 

[thesheeep]

Huh? He mentions the patch for the ending? Does he mean the extended cut edition/patch? I though that wasn't even out yet.

And please, could we stop covering the ending of ME3? It hurts and enrages me every time I think about it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

 

[aris]

Seems like Vogel is the now the number one guy that everyone on the codex loves to hate, but I guess he had it coming, since he did not complain enough about me3.

 

[Infinitron]

Seems like Vogel is the now the number one guy that everyone on the codex loves to hate, but I guess he had it coming, since he did not complain enough about me3.

People have been complaining about Jeff since long before ME3.

 

[aris]

yes I know, but this seems to have caused the butthurt to reach a critical mass.

 

[Gondolin]

I fail to see the critical mass. The criticism was worse when he released Avadon.

 

[Brother None]

yes I know, but this seems to have caused the butthurt to reach a critical mass.

Not really. The response is more "Vogel likes BioWare game, news at 11."

He's a big fan of BioWare's work, and his own work has been moving to emulating their style more. Some will see that as a positive. The Codex won't. It is what it is.

 

[Sceptic]

It was worse when he announced Avadon.

Oh right gaudaost.

That blog post Infinitron linked was pretty lulzy, I'd forgotten there were some gems in there.

"I am going to go to a forum full of people who hate my games, my writing, and the mere fact that I still draw oxygen on this planet."

your hyperbole is very codexian.

 

[betamin]

Geneforge will always live in my miiiinnnnnnnnddddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Menckenstein]

Geneforge will always live in my miiiinnnnnnnnddddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until he "remasters" it.

 

[Micmu]

The response is more "Vogel likes BioWare game, news at 11."

It's not a problem that he likes them. He volourns them, and his reviews are not proper reviews, just incessant fanboy praise.

In a silly way, it really does look like he wants to work in AAA industry. Unfortunately, nobody told him that bioware is a bad choice, because they fire nowadays, not hire.

 

[sea]

Seems like Vogel is the now the number one guy that everyone on the codex loves to hate, but I guess he had it coming, since he did not complain enough about me3.

It's cool that he does what he does, but his games have been getting steadily worse... unfortunately the best thing about them were always open-ended exploration and the character systems, and when you nerf both of those you don't have a lot left.

Really though, his butt-kissing attitude is what gets him in trouble around here - I think everyone can admit that even if his games are going more mainstream, he's still one of the few "true" RPG guys around anymore, but his obvious worship of everything BioWare and his "la la la, I can't hear you" attitude when it comes to critique is insulting both to fans and to game development as a discipline. It's clear that he's hit a brick wall as far as his talents go a long while ago, and has no desire to ever push himself towards new ideas, improve on his own formula, etc. any longer.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Yeah, cocksucking means not complaining enough.

 

[Johannes]

What I don't understand is how he keeps otherwise simplifying his games, to make them easier to get into, but still insists on copious amounts of trash combat. Though same thing can be said for Bioware, I guess.

But his game design decisions seem to be based a lot on just what sells. He had the Geneforge games with tons of C&C, for example, and when he makes Avadon which doesn't have that, and it sells at least as good, he thinks - I shouldn't waste time on this branching stuff since it's clearly not what the people really want. When I dropped the party member count, people didn't complain either.
And the attitude that people who actually do complain about dumbing down are just rare anomalies on the internet (or people who'll buy the game regardless), whereas every time someone comes to his forum and says "the game is too hard and I will not switch to easiest difficulty cause that's degrading", that somehow represents a huge segment of his playerbase who he must cater to. Also the Spidweb forum being inhabited by appalling brown noses, who couldn't give honest feedback if their lives depended on it. Or even if they do they'll say something like "I didn't like X, but that's just my opinion so be sure to change nothing Jeff!".




It's quite a pity considering how fast he can churn out his games - now if he had another team member who was responsible for just designing and balancing the game mechanics, we could have a good game from his direction every year. Even if he sometimes hits the right notes himself too, like with Geneforges, which were quite excellent in everything but mediocre combat in most encounters.