Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

[kangaxx]

Unbelievably I've never played this series. Is it worth playing this?

 

[Atlantico]

I don't get why people bring up that something is "derivative" or "lacks originality" or whatever as if that was inevitably a bad thing when it still succeeds at world-building, works at what it tries to do and can be fun/good for what it is.

That's because you're a mentally challenged NPC who likes his entertainment bland, predictable and accepted by the other NPCs.

ME's universe was sadly and incomprehensibly derivative. It has nothing to do with "the heroes journey" you dumbfuck.

Now go get vaccinated, NPC. Wear a mask. Obey.

 

[Caim]

Unbelievably I've never played this series. Is it worth playing this?

Only ironically, for the meme, out of self-loathing, for historical reasons or to agitate the Codex. Otherwise give it a skip.

 

[Lacrymas]

Or morbid curiosity to see what the fuss is about only to say to yourself "is that it? It isn't even good".

 

[Caim]

Or morbid curiosity to see what the fuss is about only to say to yourself "is that it? It isn't even good".

The games are way too long for that.

 

[TemplarGR]

Unbelievably I've never played this series. Is it worth playing this?

Definitely a yes. If you think you would enjoy a space opera adventure, with some gears-of-war cover shooter and some light rpg elements, then definitely yes. It is not a spergy spreadshit simulator, so nerds here (most of whom have played it plenty of times) pretend to hate it, but really, it is a great and entertaining game trilogy. The ending of 3 is kinda shitty but it didn't really ruin my experience much. The 3rd game, ending aside, was the best in the series. It is a really fun and immersive trilogy.

Just play it, enjoy it, and come here pretending to hate it, cause otherwise morons here are gonna call you "retarded" like they do to me. It is the Codex.

 

[Nutria]

Except the Hero's Journey is extremely made up by Campbell.

Yeah but the basic point still remains. Every good sci-fi story has been told on multiple Star Trek shows, the Outer Limits, the Twilight Zone, the Dimension X radio show in the 1950s, and pulp sci-fi magazines before that. Most of them probably go back centuries to the Thousand and One Nights. Nobody bitches about how Shakespeare ripped off all his plots from Boccaccio or history or whatever.

ME1 did a really good job of using those building blocks they'd inherited form former generations to build up a setting where you could make good games. You have to remember that games are not literature or cinema. Telling a story in an interactive way is vastly different from that and a game should not be trying to compete with other kinds of media. ME1 ripped off all these old ideas in a way that was designed to work for making a series of games to follow on to it. Unfortunately by ME2 that had all been discarded.

 

[Yosharian]

Unbelievably I've never played this series. Is it worth playing this?

Ehhh it's alright. Too many flaws to make it universally appealing but if you really love the genre you might get some enjoyment out of it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Telling a story in an interactive way is vastly different from that and a game should not be trying to compete with other kinds of media. ME1 ripped off all these old ideas in a way that was designed to work for making a series of games to follow on to it. Unfortunately by ME2 that had all been discarded.

Sure, but this story had been told to us 3 times in the past already, by Bioware themselves no less. Nobody is expecting brilliant innovation from anyone, a good story can be told well without being extremely new. Johann Sebastian Bach didn't create anything new or innovative for example, only mastered the old things. I just don't think ME is compelling or makes much sense as an interactive story in which you play an individual. Maybe if it were a wargame and not an RPG.

 

[Nutria]

I just don't think ME is compelling or makes much sense as an interactive story in which you play an individual.

This is exactly what I think is so tragic about it. They played it pretty safe with the plot of that game but they set up so much foundation for sequels that would take it in different directions. A hell of a lot of effort went into defining the universe that you're playing in. The game itself was pretty good, but what disappoints me is that it promised so much for the future that wasn't delivered.

 

[KVVRR]

Would it really have mattered if every new game had a new protagonist as boring and bland as Shepard was?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[Loremonger]

That Rean fella (now known as deleted member 7219) was closing in on 2 million posts I do believe. Has anyone ever deleted their account and had more posts than that?

 

[Bumvelcrow]

That Rean fella (now known as deleted member 7219) was closing in on 2 million posts I do believe. Has anyone ever deleted their account and had more posts than that?

The million plus posting elite are a result of a bet that backfired.

 

[Tacgnol]

That Rean fella (now known as deleted member 7219) was closing in on 2 million posts I do believe. Has anyone ever deleted their account and had more posts than that?

The million plus posting elite are a result of a bet that backfired.

Or rather a wish of the site administration made with a low wisdom score.

 

[cruel]

I started playing this, and the game is actually good (which is a surprise for me). Authentic, well written characters, nice atmosphere, some C&C here and there, non-moronic quests, good writing, no SJW agendas, nice music, not everything is black and white, build variety, etc. Comparing this to the shit we're getting recently (Greedfall, Outer Worlds), Mass Effect looks like a game on a totally different level. Totally depressing how the games declined in those 14 years.

 

[J1M]

I punched the reporter.

Immunity skill (soldier) is heavily nerfed in ME1 (only lasts 6 seconds instead of 20).

Doesn't seem like you could hit level 60 in a single play of ME1 without some form of meta-gaming.

ME2 has less backtracking and scanning when you import a character with a million credits.

Infiltrator seems like it would have been a much better choice than Vanguard for ME2 on Insanity difficulty.

Driving the MAKO into a mass relay is still cool.

Charging up the side of the citadel is still a genuinely fun and exciting level idea.

 

[antimeridian]

Immunity skill (soldier) is heavily nerfed in ME1 (only lasts 6 seconds instead of 20).

Doesn't seem like you could hit level 60 in a single play of ME1 without some form of meta-gaming.

Immunity was the craziest thing in ME1. I don't remember if the original game ever explained that enemies were using it when their health started flashing white. I remember it took me forever to figure that out when I played it as a kid. Rewarding when you realize Warp and Neural Shock are good counters, kind of.

You couldn't hit 60 in a single game in the original, even with stepping out of the Mako to get full XP for kills etc. I read they made some changes to XP gains and leveling for LE but I don't know if it's any different now.

 

[Yosharian]

You can hit 60 in ME1 with mods... Oh that's right you're playing the shitty LE edition, too bad

 

[Riddler]

I finished my playthrough of the trilogy and I had a pretty good time.

It's kind of hard to compare the games since they are so different but I feel like I have to go against the codex consensus (?) here and say that ME1 clearly is the worst game. It has truly atrocious gameplay, animations are stilted and character writing is often poor and it's full of filler. It does set up an interesting universe but it doesn't use that very well narratively or for character writing. The best thing about the game is the music, lore and some of the aesthetics.

ME2 is a step up in pretty much every department except the main narrative and music. It is less of an RPG in that there are less conversation options but compared to the implementation in ME1 this feels like a good thing, more show and less tell through the investigation panel. Would I have preferred a game with more options for characterisation? Sure! But I prefer less if the option is more of what I got in ME1. It's a pity that the game went almost full retard with the main plot and didn't let it progress much of anywhere. It's as if they had one thing in mind, scrapped that relatively late in dev and then didn't have time to implement something new. I would have preferred a smaller squad that you had more interactions with rather than almost everything being either a recruitment or loyalty mission.

ME3 was the strangest game of the trilogy. In most ways it was a big step up from the previous games, mainly in combat and animation but also to a lesser extent in character writing. It's once again a pity that they went full retard with the main plot and this feels like it partially has to do with the lack of set up from the precious game and a misguided desire to wrap up every loose plotline in the universe. The individual set pieces were often very good but they didn't fit very well in the larger narrative. Kai Leng was just embarrassing, all the interspecies relationships a bit strange and wildly varying character writing, spanning from the best to the worst in the trilogy.

For ME4 I would recommend the creators to go with the indoctrination ending. IE. Shepard having very mild indoctrination until the very end when he gets almost fully indoctrinated to try to fool shepard into making a meaningless choice that has nothing to do with the reapers goals, but the game ending with the physical destruction of the reapers and the relays. My idea would be that the reapers real goal was the dark energy thing all along and that the synthetic stuff was only to mess with Shepard and to divide and conquer the galaxy. Set the game one to a few generations after the first trilogy and make it about rediscovering the galaxy as the mass relays are being rebuilt. If you want a larger lurking threat it could be people discovering that the story they were told about bioVSsynth was a lie and that the goals of the reapers were something else. As for the main character I feel like it could be fun to play the leader of a mercenary company or something.



A final thought: god damn, ME2 and 3 are so fucking horny! The ridiculous Miranda ass, all the skinsuits, Ashley being dolled up like a prostitute and even a robot camel toe... I can kind of see how an internal backlash to this kind of ridiculous sexualisation could occur in an organisation and lead to the equally ridiculous uglification we have in later bioware games. I wonder what happened between ME1 and 2 to cause this shift in direction. Is Mac Walters irredeemably horny and his current wokeness a cover for that?

 

[Yosharian]

The ridiculous Miranda ass

I think you meant to say GLORIOUS Miranda ass

 

[Riddler]

The ridiculous Miranda ass

I think you meant to say GLORIOUS Miranda ass

Spoiler

 

[MajorMace]

I wonder what happened between ME1 and 2 to cause this shift in direction.

The most discussed topic back then regarding ME1 among the plebs was how cool it was to finally get sex scenes.
BioWare, maybe under the impulse of EA (?), went hard on giving that hollywood feel. This is why ME2 replaces ME1's scifi novel feeling by hollywood space opera shitshow. That's why we never got a proper sequel to ME1 with proper expansion of its well-presented setting.
I disagree with most of your summary of the trilogy. I believe that ME2 was far worse than ME1. It did everything but writing better you say, but that's forgetting that everything but writing is horrendous in ME1, and even if it's better, it's still pretty fucking bad in ME2 and 3. Writing however, was pretty good in ME1, and it turned to shit in 2 and 3. Oversexualisation of the companions being a clear and sad illustration of the complete downfall of the tone and themes of the game. So what ME1 did good, ME2 suddenly did very poorly.

We go from a game with good writing to a game with pretty much no qualities.

 

[Nano]

Oversexualisation

No such thing, dude.

 

[Riddler]

I wonder what happened between ME1 and 2 to cause this shift in direction.

The most discussed topic back then regarding ME1 among the plebs was how cool it was to finally get sex scenes.
BioWare, maybe under the impulse of EA (?), went hard on giving that hollywood feel. This is why ME2 replaces ME1's scifi novel feeling by hollywood space opera shitshow. That's why we never got a proper sequel to ME1 with proper expansion of its well-presented setting.
I disagree with most of your summary of the trilogy. I believe that ME2 was far worse than ME1. It did everything but writing better you say, but that's forgetting that everything but writing is horrendous in ME1, and even if it's better, it's still pretty fucking bad in ME2 and 3. Writing however, was pretty good in ME1, and it turned to shit in 2 and 3. Oversexualisation of the companions being a clear and sad illustration of the complete downfall of the tone and themes of the game. So what ME1 did good, ME2 suddenly did very poorly.

We go from a game with good writing to a game with pretty much no qualities.

I thought the gameplay in ME2 was ok and the gameplay in ME3 was fun (for the first time in a bioware game since BG2). Not building on it seems like major mistake to me, since they finally stumbled upon something that worked and that was in the gameplay genre they wanted to make games in.

Regarding the character writing I think it both got better and worse at the same time. All the romance shit was terrible, and some characters got butchered (primarily Ashley) and I guess that is what a lot of people remember but plenty of the other stuff did get better, especially in ME3, with the help of greatly improved animation. The sacrifice being that you have less control over things. Companions interact naturally with both the environment and each other a lot more but you can't direct the conversations any more, you just watch scenes playing out. I don't really mind since the control was almost completely illusionary in ME1 anyway.