Mass Effect New Mass Effect confirmed

[JB_0x0003]

EA should license this IP to a more capable developer or just leave it alone. Whatever remains of Bioware will only do more damage.

EA would have a more fun game if they took Mass Effect, and the budget they were planning to allocate for a new Mass Effect game, and just gave it to someone like Sandlot.

I’m a little surprised EA doesn’t farm games out to smaller Japanese developers anymore. When EA made Def Jam with AKI they got a sequel the following year, and the sequel had a different gameplay system from their normal wrestling games. And it was a hit for them...if Kudo Tsunoda wasn’t a fucking moron that could’ve been a money train that just keep rolling for them.

EA could probably just go to Sega and get the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Binary Domain team to make them a new Mass Effect game. And that game would wrap in like half the time it’d take BioWare to make it, and it would play better.

EA is a machine fueled by Sports Games + The Sims and exists to enable executives to feel like they're making Business Decisions. That's why they buy things or farm out contracts, then kill it or force insane decisions on the creatives. Money is something they happen to make largely because of legacy decisions, not something they optimize for in all of their decisions.

 

[Cologno]

Blue. Sleek. Sounding like this. That's what worked. Science fiction with a sense of luxury and progress. By contrast Mass Effect 2 is hideous and half of it looks like it's set in Brazil. Loud, ugly, obnoxious tendencies won ouout.

Because the setting was supposed to be that way? Don't really get this criticism cuz that's what Bioware intended for the setting. Not defending the game, but the Terminus Systems were described as a shitty outlaw expanse of space that hadn't submitted to Citadel rule. Like the Afghanistan or California of the galaxy, the trashcan where people who weren't wanted anywhere else went.

 

[GamerCat_]

Blue. Sleek. Sounding like this. That's what worked. Science fiction with a sense of luxury and progress. By contrast Mass Effect 2 is hideous and half of it looks like it's set in Brazil. Loud, ugly, obnoxious tendencies won ouout.

Because the setting was supposed to be that way? Don't really get this criticism cuz that's what Bioware intended for the setting. Not defending the game, but the Terminus Systems were described as a shitty outlaw expanse of space that hadn't submitted to Citadel rule. Like the Afghanistan or California of the galaxy, the trashcan where people who weren't wanted anywhere else went.

They could just as easily have written the universe to not have space-brazil or the story to not take me there. It's there because they wanted to make a game set in space-brazil rather than blue sleek optimised future.

So pretty and cool. If memory serves this was their last pre-Obama game. And it shows. We get to go to cool, clean places. Wear cool, serious, effective looking stuff. I love so many details about this game. The way the guns feel and sound and handle. The pretty natural landscapes which err on the side of graphical minimalism rather than muddy overdone textures. There's a sense of real texture and physicality to everyone's suits in this image that's totally GONE by the second game. It's incredible. Complete flip of sensibilities.

There are no Final Fantasy X beaches in ME2 or 3. Nothing that strikes me as nice like parts of ME1. This game was a swansong of taste in western "RPGs" when it should have been the beginning of a new trend.

 

[Silverfish]

Shit combat

Found the guy who never played vanguard or shotgun sentinel.

 

[Turbo normie]

Here how I imagine the first minutes of the game.

A freezing wind blows on an icy planet. A blue alien steps heavily into the snow mantle, the camera's angle widen. Liara is revealed. The remnants of her feminine breast are crushed by an ugly gender neutral suit, her face got puffed up like Peebee. She's holding a dildo shaped device beeping, tracking a red blinking point. Beep Beep Beep.

"I found them ! !" yells the one who was cute , dubbed by a trans voice actor. "I found Shepard !"

Covered in snow, a skinny maimed body is laying. The rest of the N7 armor confirms that's Shepard after the destruction ending.

"They are barely alive ! Quick, Joker, set a course to the gender affirming clinic !" Normandy's theme song starts playing, the legendary spaceship is comming. A little space travel scene, flying next to a destroyed mass relay (OH NOES CONSEQUENCES !) the SSR Normandy is reaching a space hospital. Screen fades to black, the character creation opens.

Here are the first important options offered to you, gamer.

BODY TYPE :1 / 2
GENDER: BIGGOT (default skin, Male shep from the previous trilogy) / BRAVE (default skin, fem shep) / NEUTRAL (a black bold generic person) / TRANS (an AI generated woman)
SEXUALITY: SAD (based on your previous choices, if you romanced an heterosexual option) / HOT (lesbian) / POWERFUL (fags)

 

[Baron Tahn]

It was ok as a space opera thing? Dont get a lot of scifi RPG. Never gets explored or done with imagination properly. ME just as bland and generic as DA...just functional. I guess the whole schtick it revolved around was the mass effect gates/gravity tech thing and that was about as strong as it got - could see they were super proud of it. Worked for bionics, chuckin dudes around...Citadel was ok as a concept and sorta wasted. Normandy was an alright base, not enough to do woth it tho.

Dunno how to fix it. Star Control was a game with lots of great ideas and exploration. Maybe something like that strapped to a party based thing. Space is hard.

Edit: Someone mentioned Anachronox. Fkn awesome game. Probably one of the only games I actually laughed at some of the gags.

 

[Talby]

The Mass Effect series works pretty well as an IQ test. If someone says anything but the first game is the best one, you can be assured their IQ is in the double digits and probably 70 or lower.

 

[Jvegi]

Do you remember times when developers designed new IP for every game?

For every game? I don't. But I can believe you do, since you have brain damage.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It was ok as a space opera thing? Dont get a lot of scifi RPG. Never gets explored or done with imagination properly. ME just as bland and generic as DA...just functional. I guess the whole schtick it revolved around was the mass effect gates/gravity tech thing and that was about as strong as it got - could see they were super proud of it. Worked for bionics, chuckin dudes around...Citadel was ok as a concept and sorta wasted. Normandy was an alright base, not enough to do woth it tho.

Dunno how to fix it. Star Control was a game with lots of great ideas and exploration. Maybe something like that strapped to a party based thing. Space is hard.

Edit: Someone mentioned Anachronox. Fkn awesome game. Probably one of the only games I actually laughed at some of the gags.

Mass Effect’s whole schtick originally was meant to be choice and consequence stuff on different scales. The big one, and the only one that it seemed they kept by the time the first game came out, was that everything you did from game to game would carry over and effect things in different ways. It’s a pun title, Mass Effect, what you do or don’t do will have a mass effect throughout the series. The was the big idea of the series, a trilogy built with the idea of progress carrying over; and since it was being made with that in mind, they could do far more with it than they did in Baldur's Gate 2. Of course at a certain point in Mass Effect 2 it becomes painfully clear they’ve dropped the idea of any kind of meaningful progress carrying over.

There were two more levels of choice and consequence that never made the first game, or the series at all. The first, and it’s the whole reason why they came up with the dialogue wheel, is that originally you were meant to have dynamite conversations where doing things like interrupting and not saying anything at all would change the outcome of conversations. In the end his didn’t make it though, and dialogue just ended up working like normal; except the wheel stayed, maybe because they talked up the wheel in interviews when talking about the dynamite conversation they cut. Alpha Protocol did end up doing something along the lines of what BioWare talked up with their dialogue system during development, but what they talked up was much more dynamic sounding than what Alpha Protocol ultimately did. The second part of the choice and consequence aspect they cut, was you were originally going to have to make choices about what missions you took, where going off to do one thing over there might meant someone over here might die. I’m not really too sure why they dropped this. Maybe they thought it’d mean they’d need to make more content, and picking between stuff would meant there might be something people didn’t see. Developers were getting very big on the idea of not making things the player might miss around when Mass Effect came out. This aspect made it far enough along that BioWare built a trailer (it’ll play if you leave the game on the main menu for a while without doing anything) around this cut gameplay idea.



Going off the trailer it seems like it could’ve just functioned like picking between missions in XCOM. But stupidly they dropped it.

There’s other things you could say are the games schtick too. It’s very clearly meant to be their own completely owned “Star Wars” game after the huge success they had with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. And exploration was originally meant to be a big part of it, and I guess they did try, but they did a completely shit job of it. But the major stuff they talked up about Mass Effect (beside some aesthetic stuff, your suit was originally meant to get dirtier and scruffed up from combat) while it was still in development was the choice and consequence stuff they completely abandoned.

 

[Orud]

The Mass Effect series works pretty well as an IQ test. If someone says anything but the first game is the best one, you can be assured their IQ is in the double digits and probably 70 or lower.

ME1 was an alright game with an OK story. I loved it overall (and still do).
ME2 was an OK shooter with a terrible, none existing story. There was also an obvious toneshift to more 'Joss Whedon'-ness. I hated it.
ME3 was a GOOD shooter with a terrible, retarded story. I disliked the SP campaign but loved the MP.

I distinctly remember one of ME2's DLC's where someone (Kasumi or w/e she's called?) suddenly takes out a futuristic Katana and does a summersault to land on top of a shuttle, to then destroy it by slamming the sword through the cockpit.
From then on I realized that ME2's story wasn't a misfire, with it being doomed to be a stupid teenage-angst shitfest. Any pretense of a more serious sci-fi series was now replaced by pop-culture drab. Kai Leng did not come as a surprise to me in ME3.

Also, one of the biggest shames of the 'legendary' edition was that they dropped ME3's mp entirely. It was so damn good.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I'll still never forget my roommate when I was in university seeing my play Gothic, asked me what it is, and got talking about RPGs. He was a console player and asked me if I've ever played ME2 because it's one of the best games ever created.

These works are so anxious to spam you with retarded meaningless lore to prove that they aren't COPYING (someone tell teacher!) but it's all a waste of time

Mass Effect is still up there in terms of world building. Despite some instances of awkward exposition, it's one of the best in terms of the lore/backstory of the setting flowing off of itself and each major event happened as a result of something earlier. There's very few games I can say that about, where you can trace the timeline and see how each major event happened as a result of something earlier, going back millenia.

Found the guy who never played vanguard or shotgun sentinel.

Yea..ME2 is the only game that forced you to stick behind cover for majority of sections on the highest difficulty because of the armour/shields/barrier system. ME3 is where the action 3rd person shooter concept of ME2 shined with much improved enemy AI, much less padding, build variety, gun customization, etc.

 

[Falksi]

The Mass Effect series works pretty well as an IQ test. If someone says anything but the first game is the best one, you can be assured their IQ is in the double digits and probably 70 or lower.

This is how I judge any "best ever" lists I see. If anyone pick 2 or 3 over 1 I instantly recognize their gaming opinion as retarded.

I mean, they removed a ton of good stuff like all the armors, extra dialogue choices and added pointless shit like ammo and global power cooldowns too. But how anyone can prefer that fucking mining mini-game over ACTUALLY EXPLORING PLANETS is fucking mind-boggling.

Sure, the controls on the Mako weren't great, but at least I was getting what I signed up for...some actual interplanetary space exploration. Seeing the completely absence of that from the latter 2 games was just mind-boggling.

 

[Iucounu]

If anyone pick 2 or 3 over 1 I instantly recognize their gaming opinion as retarded.

No, all three are retarded, just in different ways.

Sure, the controls on the Mako weren't great, but at least I was getting what I signed up for...some actual interplanetary space exploration. Seeing the completely absence of that from the latter 2 games was just mind-boggling.

That would imply Andromeda is a good game...

 

[HumanMaleFighter]

No, all three are retarded, just in different ways.

One is a solid game with extremely comfy aesthetics and an all-time-best soundtrack.

Two was a step in the wrong direction across the board. Way shittier "epic orchestral" soundtrack, drabber and less functional armor sets and environments, far less exploration, bloated worldbuilding, a retarded story, le edgy misfit companions, and mechanics that are literally as mechanical as whack-a-mole. ([Recruit --> Loyalty Mission. Repeat.] [Find cover --> poke out to shoot or use ability. Cooldown/reload in cover. Repeat.])

Don't even get me started on the Geth dindu nuffin subplot. Or the fact that the setting's shiny optimistic retro-SF foundation was replaced with generic slop.

Three was like two, but with much better mechanics and a fun multiplayer mode.

The best way to play Mass Effect is to play the first game and disregard the others. You've beaten the reapers; they're stuck in dark space for the next few thousand years. The end.

 

[Bulo]

The best way to play Mass Effect is to play the first game and disregard the others.

I didn't know I had an RPG Codex account

 

[Iucounu]

No, all three are retarded, just in different ways.

One is a solid game with extremely comfy aesthetics and an all-time-best soundtrack.

Two was a step in the wrong direction across the board. Way shittier "epic orchestral" soundtrack,

Mechanics in ME1 are a trainwreck (here are some examples: http://gamedesignreviews.com/reviews/mass-effect-massive-interface-fail-part-ii/ ) and most of its planet exploration is insultingly bad. Basically you must skip most of the side missions to make the game enjoyable.

The soundtrack in ME2 has some very good (non-"epic orchestral") synth music pieces, at least as good ME1. Otherwise I mostly agree, but I should add that ME3 lost even more atmosphere, replacing it with the mandatory LGBT catering.

 

[Camel]

One is a solid game with extremely comfy aesthetics and an all-time-best soundtrack.

Two was a step in the wrong direction across the board. Way shittier "epic orchestral" soundtrack, drabber and less functional armor sets and environments, far less exploration, bloated worldbuilding, a retarded story, le edgy misfit companions, and mechanics that are literally as mechanical as whack-a-mole. ([Recruit --> Loyalty Mission. Repeat.] [Find cover --> poke out to shoot or use ability. Cooldown/reload in cover. Repeat.])

Don't even get me started on the Geth dindu nuffin subplot. Or the fact that the setting's shiny optimistic retro-SF foundation was replaced with generic slop.

Three was like two, but with much better mechanics and a fun multiplayer mode.

The best way to play Mass Effect is to play the first game and disregard the others. You've beaten the reapers; they're stuck in dark space for the next few thousand years. The end.

I was with you until ME2 worldbuilding. Chris L'Etoile mostly wrote the ME2 lore and did a great job. I like Karpyshyn's ME1 optimistic world way more but L'Etoile gave us a realistic and grounded portrayal of the ME universe, showing the sordid underside of the galaxy. The Omega station and Purgatory provide a far more cynical view of the noblebright galaxy from ME1. The ME3 soundtrack is excellent too.
BioWare also hit a lightning in a bottle with the ME3 multiplayer.

Sure, the controls on the Mako weren't great, but at least I was getting what I signed up for...some actual interplanetary space exploration.

 

[antimeridian]

here are some examples: http://gamedesignreviews.com/reviews/mass-effect-massive-interface-fail-part-ii

This is hilarious, but I feel the need to point out the PC version overhauled the inventory screens, elevating them from atrocious to merely terrible (the underlying loot/equipment systems are themselves quite bad so what can you do).

 

[Silverfish]

Do you remember times when developers designed new IP for every game?

For every game? I don't. But I can believe you do, since you have brain damage.

Say what you will about Bioware now, but they went from Baldur's Gate to Neverwinter to KoTOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect to Dragon Age over a decade or so. That's pretty impressive.

 

[Hellraiser]

The ME3 soundtrack is excellent too.

No, no, just fucking no.

All the new tracks by that Requiem for a Dream guy (IIRC it was his work, and him much hyped before release as a replacement for Jack Wall) are bland half-assed unmemorable movie shit, ridiculous decline over even ME2 (which had a few memorable bangers on par with the best ME1 themes). Seriously the whole thing sounds phoned-in.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

One is a solid game with extremely comfy aesthetics and an all-time-best soundtrack.

Two was a step in the wrong direction across the board. Way shittier "epic orchestral" soundtrack, drabber and less functional armor sets and environments, far less exploration, bloated worldbuilding, a retarded story, le edgy misfit companions, and mechanics that are literally as mechanical as whack-a-mole. ([Recruit --> Loyalty Mission. Repeat.] [Find cover --> poke out to shoot or use ability. Cooldown/reload in cover. Repeat.])

Don't even get me started on the Geth dindu nuffin subplot. Or the fact that the setting's shiny optimistic retro-SF foundation was replaced with generic slop.

Three was like two, but with much better mechanics and a fun multiplayer mode.

The best way to play Mass Effect is to play the first game and disregard the others. You've beaten the reapers; they're stuck in dark space for the next few thousand years. The end.

I was with you until ME2 worldbuilding. Chris L'Etoile mostly wrote the ME2 lore and did a great job. I like Carpyshyn's ME1 optimistic world way more but L'Etoile gave us a realistic and grounded portrayal of the ME universe, showing the sordid underside of the galaxy. The Omega station and Purgatory provide a far more cynical view of the noblebright galaxy from ME1. The ME3 soundtrack is excellent too.
BioWare alsho hit a lightning in a bottle with the ME3 multiplayer.

ME2 was more grounded, showing the underside of the galaxy, because most of it was set in the Terminus Systems, but it didn't portray it as well as it should've. It's far too focused on making things seem *cool* (Aria), murder, sex and wannabe "dark" concepts.

 

[Camel]

Baldur's Gate to Neverwinter to KoTOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect to Dragon Age

We have had a hell of a run with Bioware up until 2012. Jade Empire has a great story with a great twist on par with KotOR and it's a pity we'll never see a sequel made by old BioWare. Terrible combat with button-mashing really hurts JE.

 

[Silverfish]

I always liked the button mashing in JE, but I was even more of a consolefag back then than I am now.

 

[Camel]

ME2 was more grounded, showing the underside of the galaxy, because most of it was set in the Terminus Systems, but it didn't portray it as well as it should've. It's far too focused on making things seem *cool* (Aria), murder, sex and wannabe "dark" concepts.

I don't know. Human experiments, exploitation, the seductive Ardat-Yakshi space vampires, xenophobia, the Illusive man and Martin Sheen carrying his character. BioWare hit the ground running with a darker world with shades of grey characters before the GoT made it mainstream. It's a tragedy BioWare lost L'Etoile and he mildly criticized them after the ME3 release.
After playing Owlcat's Rogue Trader as a "Dogmatic" character it hit me how BioWare failed to deliver a real Renegade playthrough in ME - they should've given us an opportunity to play a xenophobic and racist Shepard, exterminating aliens left and right, conducting an Exterminatus of a Batarian or Geth homeworld while making Whedon-like quips and hugging a hot girl.

 

[antimeridian]