Mass Effect Trilogy

[Jaesun]

It's the awesum buttan. Press a button, something awesome happens. Isn't ME2 where that meme came from in the first place?

That was Dragon Age II

 

[oldmanpaco]

It's the awesum buttan. Press a button, something awesome happens. Isn't ME2 where that meme came from in the first place?

That was Dragon Age II

Yeah they discovered that despite all they had done to simplify the experience in ME2 they still needed to make their games more accessible to the console crowd. Thus we got DAII.

 

[J1M]

One thing I'll never understand was the decision to bind every fucking thing to spacebar. Want to run? Spacebar. Take cover? Spacebar. Activate a console? Fucking spacebar.


Edit: Or it might have been another key, it's been several years since I bothered with ME2.

Button awesome? Button awesome!

 

[J1M]

I aver the ordering should go ME2 > ME 1 >> ME3. (C.f. My signature)

ME2 is much less of an RPG than ME1, I accept. That said I think a lot of the 'RPG elements' ME2 got rid of were pretty rubbish. The entire Mako combat mechanics revolved around 'lol, my weapon's a hitscan whilst yours is a glacially slow moving projectile!', and the 'expanse' of the Mako areas was usually one objective and then some stupid 'collect the 10 bobble heads' fetch items. The inventory system where you had 50 different 'avenger I, Harpoon III' whatever weapons - all of which were outclassed by your spectre gear just mean time wasted in the inventory (armour was fractionally better, where there were ~3 ish suits that outclassed everything else). The difference between 9 or 10 pips on Decryption or whatever was never gameplay relevant.

ME2 has generally superior gameplay modulo the focus on 'getting to the cover!' (ME3, for all its faults, probably has the best gameplay out of the three), I clearly remember trugding around pounding hundreds of bullets into someone with immunity - no thanks. It isn't great, I accept. None of the games managed to escape the quasi-caste system class balance (ME1 psionics >> tech, ME2 tech >> psionics, ME3 adrenaline rush >> everything).

I don't get why people think the story elements in ME1 are better than 2. Granted, the main plot in ME2 is utterly stupid, but the main plot in ME1 was at best barely more-coherant sci-fi schlock. The characters in ME2 are much better than ME1 (Miranda > Ashley, modulo the sad fanservice, Mordin, Garrus is no longer bland, Samara, Legion, TIM, little bit parts like Bailey, Wrex's reprise, etc. etc.) The dialogue is a bit better too.

ME3 is obviously a disaster.

Generally when people talk about ME1 having better writing they aren't talking about the vision quest plot points but how the world itself was consistent and generally made sense. They ripped off enough sci fi sources that the world felt bigger than the parts presented to the player on each mission.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-01-sounds-like-we-wont-get-a-mass-effect-trilogy-remaster

Sounds like we won't get a Mass Effect trilogy remaster

EA appears to have decided against releasing a Mass Effect trilogy remaster.

That's according to EA exec Peter Moore, who has poured cold water on the prospect in a new interview.

"Could we make an easy buck on remastering Mass Effect? Yes," he told IGN(around the 1hr 16 mark). Have a thousand people asked me that? Yes they have. Do we have... No."

"We just feel like we want to go forward. There's a little thing called Mass Effect Andromeda that we're totally focused on at BioWare, and it's going to be magnificent. Anything that distracts from that...

Last month fellow EA exec Patrick Soderlund appeared to signal a softening of the company's attitude to remasters based upon the success other big publishers had conjured up with their own re-releases.

But whether or not other EA games are relaunched in the future (Burnout Paradise would be lovely, thank you pls), Moore appears adamant Mass Effect won't be one of them.

"Do we have teams lying around that are doing nothing right now, that can go and? No, we don't. We want to focus on the future."

 

[oldmanpaco]

EA is not going to leave money on the table. They probably don't want to do anything like this now because ME:A is coming down the pipeline but after that I wouldn't be surprised. I know the ME2/ME3 fans are dying for an iPad release.

 

[donkeymong]

So I beat ME1 and I am now around 6 hours into ME2. This game is definitely worse than ME1 but some things things are better.

ME1 was a decently fun game but some stuff was baffling, like how much they recycled some interiors. When it comes to those side quest locations and other optional places, there's like three different layouts and 95% of the locations are one of those, identical or near identical. Also, even after finishing the game, I never understood the point of searching for those materials on planet surfaces. There was some checklist for them in the quest log but I never bothered to finish it so I guess it was all pointless?

When I heard ME2 stripped away almost everything that is RPG and went full shooter, I assumed that it was just typical Codex hyperbole and only somewhat true, but oh boy was I wrong. When I started the game, I was really confused when I tried to find my inventory, weapon skills, dialogue skills, crouch button and a myriad of other things. I thought that they were just missing because I was still in the tutorial section but the reality sank in eventually. If ME1 was 60% shooter and 40% RPG, this is 90% shooter and 10% RPG.

The game runs beautifully even on max settings and the companions are much less useless than in ME1 but most of the other "improvements" don't really improve much. Like it's obvious that they tried to make this a better shooter instead of a half-assed shooter-RPG hybrid, but I think ME1 gameplay was in fact better. Not only because it was actually possible to run and gun in that game, but just moving around felt so much better. ME2 has this annoying "realistic and cinematic" movement where, if my finger slips away from the w key for a fraction of a second, Shepard stops because there's that short acceleration time before you start running. It might be more realistic but it's annoying. Also, maneuvering around in the battlefield is more of a hassle too because use, cover and sprint are all tied to the same key, in addition to the new, "improved" movement. I often have to fight against the controls and have Commander Retard do all kinds of stupid, clunky shit during combat. I'm not sure if it's my fault for not learning the controls properly or if the game really wants you to stop moving during fights and just sit behind same cover, popping moles until the enemies stop coming. Aside from the obvious, "the enemy retreats for a minute so you can run around, collecting ammo" breaks, of course.

ME2 is giving me some great, unintentional enjoyment though. I just completed Kasumi's heist quest and it was just incredible. After hearing the briefing and the premise, I kinda expected that before the inevitable action finale, first the 50-66% of the quest would involve some light sneaking around and avoiding guards, some light "dialogue puzzles" where you have to pick a few correct options to get required information and not blow your cover etc. (especially since Kasumi warns you not to talk about business or something), but the whole thing was literally "talk to the owner and press one color-coded dialogue option, then walk around a few places and press use when prompted from a mile away". Nobody cares when you walk through security doors in

And after that patronizingly easy and simple start, it's just cover shooting and Michael Bay explosions till the end. It was so dumb and laughable that it was actually hilarious I might actually have some great time if the rest of the game delivers similar retardation.

This game is full retardation. The collector battleship that destroyed the old normandy gets defeated by two ordinary cannons from the Alliance. That really teached me to fear the Collectors.

 

[pippin]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-01-sounds-like-we-wont-get-a-mass-effect-trilogy-remaster

Sounds like we won't get a Mass Effect trilogy remaster

EA appears to have decided against releasing a Mass Effect trilogy remaster.

That's according to EA exec Peter Moore, who has poured cold water on the prospect in a new interview.

"Could we make an easy buck on remastering Mass Effect? Yes," he told IGN(around the 1hr 16 mark). Have a thousand people asked me that? Yes they have. Do we have... No."

"We just feel like we want to go forward. There's a little thing called Mass Effect Andromeda that we're totally focused on at BioWare, and it's going to be magnificent. Anything that distracts from that...

Last month fellow EA exec Patrick Soderlund appeared to signal a softening of the company's attitude to remasters based upon the success other big publishers had conjured up with their own re-releases.

But whether or not other EA games are relaunched in the future (Burnout Paradise would be lovely, thank you pls), Moore appears adamant Mass Effect won't be one of them.

"Do we have teams lying around that are doing nothing right now, that can go and? No, we don't. We want to focus on the future."

For once I kinda agree with them. It's easier to make the previous games work on newer consoles rather than doing a remaster, especially considering the remasters for Bioshock and Skyrim aren't being really successful. You could even say EA is being cautious here.

 

[pippin]

>uk

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Mass Effect 3 is probably the best of the series. People love to shit on its endings, but despite what you think of them, I thought it tied up 99% of the series lose ends really well (especially with the very well done Citadel DLC). Your C&C for the whole series had some major repercussions (it was nice, for example, to make Ashley/Kaidan playable characters, rather than having them just make one off appearances....which would have been way cheaper. And the ending of ME2 affects many of the side missions and cameos) and, maybe most importantly, it's the only game in the entire series where combat is actually fun, rather than just OK. Plus, it's endings aren't as bad as everyone says. I also thought it found a good balance between the inventory tedium of ME1 and the "barely an RPG at all" gear/interface of ME2. The ME games have never had much variety of builds, but ME3 does give you more options than ME2.

ME2 is a close second. The final mission is obviously a high point of the entire series. I have a hard time disagreeing with people who say it's the series' best game, but I just like the emotional resolution with your party members that ME3 has

ME1 is great, but its awful cut and past planet missions get tedious fast and are the worst sort of padding. You can ignore planet exploration if you want, but you will still have to do it quite a bit to complete a few major side quests and main missions. And the combat is pretty awkward and rough. Still a great game for introducing the universe.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

No, I had all the DLC for ME3 since I sailed the seven seas for it and there was no difference in the endings between Extended Cut and the DLC.

The endings get changed as soon as the dlc is installed, there's no way to go back to the original ones. Meaning you don't have to actually play the DLC to see it.

One additional ending seems to be the one where you don't pick anything and just attack the kid. Take that, Fallout series.

I actually liked the original ending better. I assumed my team died, which was a major gut punch and fit with the grim tone of the game (love it or hate it, ME3 does have a well done apocalyptic tone to it). So I was really disappointed when the DLC added a scene where your team is airlifted to safety just because fans bitched and moaned. I also thought the endings to ME3 worked best if they weren't explained too much (especially the synthesis ending, which worked fine in the original, but was just silly in the DLC). So I actually think that the DLC ending makes things somewhat sillier by trying to overly explain something that's best left open to interpretation. Also, the relays being destroyed was a major repercussion, but it's the last game in the series. Something big had to happen.

Which isn't to say that ME3's endings are beyond criticism or anything, but I think the butthurt over them and massive backlash was partly a case of internet group think run amok and was way overblown. I still prefer the original ending to the DLC, so it's a shame that you basically can't play the game with the original ending anymore.

 

[Modron]

Are you seriously....

http://venturebeat.com/2016/11/17/o...eld-mafia-and-gears-dominate-the-sales-chart/

Sixth best selling game of its release month. That's a five year old game.

That list gave me cancer.

 

[oldmanpaco]

ME2 is a close second. The final mission is obviously a high point of the entire series. I have a hard time disagreeing with people who say it's the series' best game, but I just like the emotional resolution with your party members that ME3 has

The only redeeming thing about ME2 was that they made the only black characters father a deadbeat dad who abuses women. They really blew our minds with that one.

Also that mission where you land on the planet and spend 20 - 30 minutes searching wreckage for the dogtags of the Normandy crew is pretty awesome.

 

[Volourn]

"That list gave me cancer."

Good. Hopefully you'll die soon so we don't have to read your retartet posts.



"The only redeeming thing about ME2"

Lie. ME2 is awesomesauce and its final mission is perhaps the best ending sequence of ANY game EVAR.

 

[pippin]

Mass Effect 3 is probably the best of the series. People love to shit on its endings, but despite what you think of them, I thought it tied up 99% of the series lose ends really well (especially with the very well done Citadel DLC). Your C&C for the whole series had some major repercussions (it was nice, for example, to make Ashley/Kaidan playable characters, rather than having them just make one off appearances....which would have been way cheaper. And the ending of ME2 affects many of the side missions and cameos) and, maybe most importantly, it's the only game in the entire series where combat is actually fun, rather than just OK. Plus, it's endings aren't as bad as everyone says. I also thought it found a good balance between the inventory tedium of ME1 and the "barely an RPG at all" gear/interface of ME2. The ME games have never had much variety of builds, but ME3 does give you more options than ME2.

This is somewhat true. I feel the biggest examples of reactivity come from ME1 to ME3; ME2 gets largely ignored in this regard imo. On the other hand, the whole game is one big ending.

 

[commie]

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net...-collection-debuts-1-ahead-pes-2017-nba-2k17/

Bioshock the collection raped it's competition in the UK, and its competition is sports games, which is what 90% of the Uk plays exclusively. So....

and, Skyrim did super well, too.

What world do you live in where these games aren't a quick buck? lmao

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...skyrim-and-battlefield-1-impress-in-uk-charts

Can't wait for a Witcher 3 remaster...it has been a year and a half since release and it's starting to look its age...

 

[pippin]

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net...-collection-debuts-1-ahead-pes-2017-nba-2k17/

Bioshock the collection raped it's competition in the UK, and its competition is sports games, which is what 90% of the Uk plays exclusively. So....

and, Skyrim did super well, too.

What world do you live in where these games aren't a quick buck? lmao

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...skyrim-and-battlefield-1-impress-in-uk-charts

Can't wait for a Witcher 3 remaster...it has been a year and a half since release and it's starting to look its age...

CDPR have relased enhanced edition of every Twitcher game, so I'm sure they will do something like that. It's a shame other companies took this as a meme rather than something really useful.

 

[donkeymong]

ME2 is a close second. The final mission is obviously a high point of the entire series. I have a hard time disagreeing with people who say it's the series' best game, but I just like the emotional resolution with your party members that ME3 has

The only redeeming thing about ME2 was that they made the only black characters father a deadbeat dad who abuses women. They really blew our minds with that one.

Also that mission where you land on the planet and spend 20 - 30 minutes searching wreckage for the dogtags of the Normandy crew is pretty awesome.

Actually, Legions Mission was also quite good. And he was the only new character i liked.

 

[TK--421]

Mass Effect 3 is probably the best of the series. People love to shit on its endings, but despite what you think of them, I thought it tied up 99% of the series lose ends really well (especially with the very well done Citadel DLC). Your C&C for the whole series had some major repercussions (it was nice, for example, to make Ashley/Kaidan playable characters, rather than having them just make one off appearances....which would have been way cheaper. And the ending of ME2 affects many of the side missions and cameos) and, maybe most importantly, it's the only game in the entire series where combat is actually fun, rather than just OK. Plus, it's endings aren't as bad as everyone says. I also thought it found a good balance between the inventory tedium of ME1 and the "barely an RPG at all" gear/interface of ME2. The ME games have never had much variety of builds, but ME3 does give you more options than ME2.

ME2 is a close second. The final mission is obviously a high point of the entire series. I have a hard time disagreeing with people who say it's the series' best game, but I just like the emotional resolution with your party members that ME3 has

ME1 is great, but its awful cut and past planet missions get tedious fast and are the worst sort of padding. You can ignore planet exploration if you want, but you will still have to do it quite a bit to complete a few major side quests and main missions. And the combat is pretty awkward and rough. Still a great game for introducing the universe.

They could have done so much with the mass effect series. Instead they streamlined all the RPG elements, removed the inventory system instead of revamping it, and removed any presence of exploration. After ME1, the series in my opinion took a serious dive in quality. Not in terms of characters or gameplay, but the atmosphere of ME1 just felt better than the later games. The series went from an RPG shooter to a shooter with some RPG elements, and tried to appeal to the mass Gears of War audience.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Inventory for its own sake isn't necessarily good. Most of the stuff you'd find in ME1 was shit and the inventory had minimal purpose to begin with. ME1 was an awkward game. Sure it had an inventory, but it's action was also stiff and awkward and, of the entire series, I think it's the most conflicted about the type of game it wants to be and suffers for it. It has a bunch of RPG elements, but they aren't terribly meaningful. It has a bunch of action, but it's not terribly fluid. ME2 made the action way better, but went too drastically in the opposite direction on RPG elements, sacrificing customization. ME3 finally settled on the correct balance for what this series wanted to be.

All that said, while I admit to being a total Mass Effect fanboy, for all my defending of the series on these forums, I don't think I've ever once argued that they are good at being RPGs or shining examples of the ARPG genre. They have RPG elements, but the majority of their RPG elements come down to C&C and a minimal amount of character building. I do think they have way more C&C than people here give them credit for, but their character building is only slightly more indepth than your average action game with minor RPG elements (your biggest choice is just picking a class, after which the builds are fairly locked in). Honestly, it's kind of a shame that Bioware made them. If Ubisoft or someone else made them, they probably wouldn't have bothered selling them as RPGs and maybe we could have avoided all this pointless, "Waaaah! They aren't RPGs! Where are the inventories? Bioware sold out!" bullshit that tends to take up 90% of all discussions about the games on this forum and just see them as what they are: action games with light RPG elements.

 

[Doktor Best]

Mass Effect games were never meant to be rpgs and you will never have fun with them if you expect a proper rpg-experience. They are popamole shooters with rpg elements, and if youre in the mood for a passable shooter playing in a decent setting throwing a somehow interactive lighthearted scifi b-movie flick at you then go for it. Otherwise, dont. Or do it anyways and be a whiny ass on codex about it.

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net...-collection-debuts-1-ahead-pes-2017-nba-2k17/

Bioshock the collection raped it's competition in the UK, and its competition is sports games, which is what 90% of the Uk plays exclusively. So....

and, Skyrim did super well, too.

What world do you live in where these games aren't a quick buck? lmao

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...skyrim-and-battlefield-1-impress-in-uk-charts

Are we really complaining now that EA does not want to churn out rehashes of old games for "a quick buck"?

Its not like Mass Effect would really benefit from a remaster. Those games are not old enough. They are damn right to focus on Andromeda so we even have a slight chance of something playable coming out of their pipelines.

CDPR have relased enhanced edition of every Twitcher game, so I'm sure they will do something like that. It's a shame other companies took this as a meme rather than something really useful.

With the tiny difference that all of those enhanced editions were free for the owners of the original game. And they had some rather serious problems that needed urgent fixing. And they added content, which is something i highly doubt with any remaster EA would shit out.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Most remasters have been of games that play fairly consistently across the whole series and thus lended themselves to just "same game with a new coat of graphical paint" type upgrades. I could see EA being put off by the fact that, even if they port them all to the same engine (which would take a considerable amount of work, given that they used slightly different versions of unreal across the whole series), they probably couldn't make them all play consistently without putting a significant amount of effort into rethinking combat mechanics in ME1. It could definitely be done, but it'd probably be more expensive and time consuming than just converting Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 in "Bioshock" or upgrading "Skyrim" to DX11 and calling it a remaster.

Not that anyone would mind, I think (I wouldn't care if they all looked the same, but played slightly differently). But EA's always been weirdly protective of IP that they see as still financially viable. I imagine they might not want to release a Mass Effect 1 that looks like a 2016 game, but plays like a 2006 game, in the same year that they have Mass Effect: Andromeda coming. In fact, even if they all played perfectly, I suspect they still wouldn't want to release them as they'd be afraid people would get confused if a bunch of new Mass Effects were suddenly released and the remasters would end up inadvertently cannibalizing the sales of Andromeda.

 

[Severian Silk]

There's a big difference between Witcher 1 and Witcher 3 combat mechanics.

 

[TK--421]

Words

True, the first game was ambitious and I agree it did suffer because of it. I kind of like the 1st over the later because of what it could have turned into and I'm sure a lot of it is pure nostalgia because I remember raging over Matriarch Benezia knocking me over and having a box get stuck on me, causing me to lose all my progress and have to load an old save.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

There's a big difference between Witcher 1 and Witcher 3 combat mechanics.

There's a big difference between EA and CDP. But is CDP re-releasing Witcher 1? That'd actually be good news.