RocketBlender - 2014-01-12
They can actually be a fun company when they don't take themselves too seriously. Mass Effect's biggest flaw was overextending itself and promising way more than it could deliver. I know everything about the third game that pissed me off so well since I still enjoyed it enough to play the whole thing.
Dragon Age though, what a fucking mess...
|
Hooker  - 2014-01-12 Mass Effect's biggest problem is how dull it is.
|
dairyqueenlatifah - 2014-01-12 Pretty much.
The gay romance was the highlight of ME3 for me.
|
|
Chocolate Jesus - 2014-01-13 So the main game is bad - but we should still buy it, then spend an additional to access the least worst part of it? What is wrong with you?
|
SolRo - 2014-01-13 Or you could just watch all the fun scenes online, just like this one.
|
Aelric - 2014-01-12
Citidel ALMOST made up for the problems of ME3.
I'm not going to go into the ME3 ending, because goddamn, who should care at this point. Instead, I think that ME2 set too high a bar, and that bar was based on timing.
When ME2 came out, the first Dragaon age was only a few months old and everyone was feeling good about Bioware. On top of that, it was such a significant improvement on the first (I know, a matter of opinion) and it was so much closer to the idea of Mass Effect as an episodic show (most of that game had little to do with the overarching plot, rather side stories based of the characters) combined with DLC that was almost universally liked. It was the result of a perfect storm, and probably got more praise that it deserved, but was pretty damn good under all the praise.
Then, two years later, Mass Effect 3, still a decent game in my opinion, was so focused on it's Lovecraft machine alien story, it's ra ra shooterism and got away from the idea of exploring a universe or episodic side quests, going less Star Trek and more Star Wars, combined with DLC that should have been in the main game (Leviathan basically explains the ending that everyone bitched about better than their revamped ending did) and serious lack of fresh faces, while abandoning some of the better characters from 2. Plus, worst of all, The Old Republic and Dragon Age 2 had sapped Biowares goodwill, so no one was willing to overlook these flaws. The timing was off.
That said, ME3 wasn't terrible, but it the series was showing age by then, and as hooker mentions, was getting fairly dull. Citadel was totally out of left field, however. It was hilarious if for no other reason than defying expectations. After such a grim-dark serious story with a disappointing payoff, here some this weird, almost vaudevillian side project parodying itself quite well.
I dunno, I though it was a good sendoff to the seris. I know they will make more Mass Effect, they invested too much into detailing the universe, but for this particular set of games, I'm glad they salvaged a few smiles out of this lengthy 5 hour-or-so DLC.
|
|
Hooker - 2014-01-12 I couldn't force myself through Mass Effect 2 long enough to have any real opinion on if it is good or not, but it took a distinct turn in two directions that I hate:
1) Commercial appeal. The shining symbol of this would be the woman they introduced with the skin-tight outfit and outrageous tits and ass that the camera never seems to miss.
2) An even GREATER focus on story at the expense of a game. The original Mass Effect was probably a twenty hour game with about an hour of gameplay in it. Mass Effect 2 seemed even worse about this.
I find myself in this weird situation with games these days. I like games. I enjoy playing shooters and real time strategy games and platformers and stuff, but games don't feature that any more. My favourite are world-building games, where you are given a universe, the rules of that universe, the controls you have over it, and a goal to arrive at. Civilization, for instance. There are things the game is and things the game isn't and you arrive at the destination, win or lose, however you want and your choices determine how or whether you get there. Compare that to the "open world sandbox" of GTA5, where you have this huge, detailed city with the promise of being able to do whatever you want it in and ultimately it's a linear story that you can be wearing different outfits in. It's maddening to me, and I don't understand how people who played games, PC or console, in the 90s can accept this lightly-interactive stories. Calling them games is dishonest, and they're getting worse.
|
Aelric - 2014-01-12 All valid points. You'll notice, I'm not praising the beginning of 2 or end of 3 (though, the Lovecraft thing is at least a little more paid of in the DLC 'Leviathan", which plays like an episode of the X-Files, and does so much to help that ending that it shouldn't have been DLC. I consider it to be too important to the core plot of miss.) I'm saying that the character development stories were good and part of why is that they were episodic in nature, like a Star Trek episode, were better than the overlying galactic threat.
I agree, I think that is the original writing team styed on through the whole series, it may have been a better game. That said, Mass Effect shined when if focused on low-stakes, personal side stories WAY more than the typical high-stakes save the world shit. I'm so sick of save/doom the world stories and would rather have more anthology or episodic style storylines. Short, quick, tun in next week for another adventure. I'd REALLY like a game that doesn't even have an overarching plot, just REALLY well written side quests. It's always the side quests you remember anyway. You and your space crew exploring planets that are unrelated to each other, that is what I want.
|
Aelric - 2014-01-12 Oh,a nd the real original point of all this was that the Citadel DLC is fucking great if you have played all the games. Even if you disliked them, you should still at least pirate if not buy this DLC if you played them all.
|
magnesium - 2014-01-12
I liked Mass Effect 3, but then I'm used to the entertainment industry giving me unsatisfying endings to series I like. And it was a much better ending if you played Leviathan. Of course, this is the type of game I enjoy. Different strokes, and what not.
|
Nominal - 2014-01-12
Fanboy accounts were posting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the face of Bioware. The players looked from fan fiction to Mass Effect, and from Mass Effect to fan fiction, and from fan fiction to fanfiction again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
|
| Register or login To Post a Comment |
Reddit
Digg
Stumble
Facebook
