My views on the Mass Effect series greatest flaw... and how Fallout is better.

[Nomanslander]

Now first off, I want to have one rule in this thread that I would much appreciate if you guys would oblige to if you wanted to respond. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not turn this into another "why Mass Effect 3 ending sucked or didn't" thread. I notice this happens a lot where the topic will be about one thing and the readers will take what I call the "tabloid" approach where instead talk about the most prevalent generic done to death topic that come to mind that has some association with the OT.

Don't do it! Stop! Actually, pardon my boldness but "fuck you" if you do. Okay, I really didn't want to put it that way... actually! Yes I did.

FUCK YOU IF YOU DO!

Okay... okay. I really got side tracked there, and it's not a very good start to this thread. Please just entertain that one rule for me... PLEASE! This just isn't what's wrong with ME3s ending, because if you asked me, the series was doomed from the start.

Anyways, back to business...



First off, I want to mention this isn't something I became aware of in ME3. If anything that game cemented my reason for everything that was wrong with the series, and it all has to do with this story telling mechanic.

One of the biggest things ME was touted about was how much your choices "mattered." This wasn't just going to be one game, but a series where every choice you made would be felt in other games. A story mechanic version of the butterfly effect where every little detail could and would come up in the next game in the franchise. This was ME greatest feature and ultimately lead to it's biggest undermining in the end.

The first time I noticed the problem was in ME1 when I replayed it making different choice to see what outcome I would get, and what disappointed me was to see generally nothing really could change the overall arc of the story. Second play through, I decide to act like a complete asshat to the council during briefings by hanging up on them all the time. Would this make them question my abilities a a specter? Nope, it didn't. Okay, let's kill everyone this time, Wrex dies too, what difference did this make? Absolutely none. No decision you make truly deviates and makes irreversible changes to the overall arc of the story. Now with the first game I could live with these features. But with the second game - since we were suppose to save our completed games - it was time to see just how much alteration the series would take by the choices I made.

First off, let's see how the council would feel about me joining Cerberus? They're willing to reinstate my specter status as long as I stay in the transverse? Okay, now what if I let the original council die, with the new members they might decide to try and arrest me on the Citadel and force me to fight my way out, right? Nope... cone again they're willing to reinstate my specter status as long as I stay in the transverse. Okay, Udina, he hates my guts, let's see how my return to the Citadel be different if I placed him in charge instead of Anderson... They're willing to reinstate my specter status as long as I stay in the transverse... -_-

Now I know how impossible it would be to make a game with such altering outcomes. But since the series always touted how much our choices matter, in the end they could do nothing but make a game that completely and utterly didn't... and that's why in the end, all we could be left with was blue, green and red (only time I'm going to mention it).

A game of choices is only worth while when you are able to see the differences that's been made to the outcome. You need consequences to your actions, and there was absolutely none in the game.

Eradicating or saving the Rachni queen makes no changes to the fact you still encounter them in ME3 predominately as enemies. Choosing Ashely over Kaiden made no different because even with different personalities and mind sets, in ME2 both choose not to join you with Cerberus, and play out the exact same motion in ME3 questioning you, being hospitalized, and later chosen to become specters. With or without Wrex, you still have a less interesting brother that does the same thing as Wrex and unite the clans and eventually decides to help you if you cure the gennophage.

Threre are never any major alteration to the story and where you stand in the game.

Now let's take Fallout: NV. If you decide to choose the less than pleasant dialogue option, you might end up with a friend turning foe and openly attacking you for the choices you made. Now even though that game does also follow patterns. The choices you make does alter your quest lines and ultimately you're left with playing a different game and in a different world from the one to started off with.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

To start, this:

I never understood why all games with supposed "branching choice/narrative" only go for just the type of branching that says: "If you wear this red hat, a NPC will comment on that this way. And if you wear a blue hat, then the same NPC with the same cutscene and cinematography will make a slightly different comment."

I mean, why would ANYONE in their right mind would waste thousands of dollars for an scene that may as well not be there? i just don't understand the mentality of putting effort on something that should be painfully obvious that it is not going to make a difference in ANYTHING. Except of course to just pull a "technically" when asked (you know the one i mean). When the developers say that they "technically" made this cutscene different because of a choice you made, and therefore you have no reason to complain that it doesn't take choices into account.

 

[votemarvel]

The illusion of choice is very important.

You obviously need to keep the core story moving forward, so that remains pretty unchangeable. What can be altered though, as you point out, are the little things. How you talked to certain NPCs, did they survive into the next game at all?

The core story is going to remain the same but it is the little things surrounding that which make the game feel like a personal experience.

A game that did this brilliantly was Telltale's The Walking Dead. They had a set ending in place but still managed to make the whole experience feel personal and different depending on your choices.

I know you didn't want to turn this into a thread about the Mass Effect 3 endings but they must be referenced to a small extent. The big issue with them is that the illusion of choice was shattered there, I felt that what I had done previously didn't matter. The Walking Dead, despite only having one ending, always made me feel as if what I'd done mattered.

 

[Goofguy]

Sure, there are some decisions that ultimately panned out to nothing:

Spoiler: Series spoilers #1

- The Rachni Queen (though I'm pretty sure Bioware did come out and say they dropped the ball on this, correct me if I'm wrong).
- Conserving or destroying the Collector base.
- Convincing Garrus to break the rules to get the job done or keep playing by the book in the first game.

To Bioware's credit though, there were some events that transpired only if the right conditions were met from the previous games:

Spoiler: Series spoilers #2

- Reuniting the Geth and the Quarians wasn't hard to achieve but did require specific decisions be made prior.
- The whole Wrex/Wreav - Eve - Genophage - Mordin part could be played out many ways including the potential survival of Mordin, murder of Wrex at the Citadel and simultaneously gaining Krogan and Salarian support.

Besides, the ME trilogy's greatest feature was actually its vast cast of characters and the way your Shepard interacts with them. In the end, I'm going to remember Wrex and Garrus being badasses much more than how the Council's decision to reinstate your Shepard is nonsensical.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Bioware games in recent years have an illusion of choice. I think it was their changed mindset after EA acquired them. DA:O and Mass Effect were made before EA owned them. The games that came after were made differently. They had less development time and it really shows. "Choice" is just an advertising buzz word that they use now.
As for me?

The Mass Effect trilogy is fascinating to study. The first game is so wildly different from the other 2. It was a space opera where you play a blank slate character and the game was centered around humanity in a new frontier and what its place in the galaxy should be. It was a game that fully embraced its RPG roots. The second one moved to more of a blockbuster. It ditched the sci-fi soundtrack and went with a orchestral score. Party members started wearing impractical outfits not suited to battle or alien environments and more emphasis was placed on combat. They began hand waving away things that were established in the first game (Cerberus being at the forefront).
In the third game, they started to define your previously blank slate character. Remember how you could choose between representing yourself as a member of the Alliance or as a Spectre first? Yeah, you are now Alliance to the core. Admiral Hackett, that faceless quest giver from the first game? He is a person that you really like and respect. And your character is haunted by nightmares of a kid you didn't save. And your character inexplicably cares about Earth and will do anything to save it. They stripped your character away from you and gave you one that fit the story they wanted to tell. They tried to give the game a very deep and complex ending (focusing on a theme they decide to put above all others for no explained reason) and made the game a full on drama piece. The series' biggest weakness for me is that it has no cohesive identity. The first game is so radically different from the third that it feels like a different team made it.

 

[Nomanslander]

Besides, the ME trilogy's greatest feature was actually its vast cast of characters and the way your Shepard interacts with them. In the end, I'm going to remember Wrex and Garrus being badasses much more than how the Council's decision to reinstate your Shepard is nonsensical.

That - also personally - is the greatest feat of the ME series. I genuinely felt more connected to the universe and all it's characters more than so many other series of this genre. I go so far as to place ME over Star Trek and I grew up watching Star Trek.

But where there are pros there are cons unfortunately. A game about choice? No it wasn't. A story about one man's audacity to rise and bring together a universe to stand up against a juggernaut of an enemy with little hope of surviving? No, it failed to do that too if you ask me.

I never cared about the Reapers, but it was all the little moments that really stood out.

I like to compare Mass Effect to the TV series Lost. In the end both failed to delivery their main selling points but became endearing for completely different reasons.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Besides, the ME trilogy's greatest feature was actually its vast cast of characters and the way your Shepard interacts with them. In the end, I'm going to remember Wrex and Garrus being badasses much more than how the Council's decision to reinstate your Shepard is nonsensical.

That's very true. I've always felt Bioware are absolutely awful at overarching plots (ME3 and DA2 proved this without a doubt) but they're amazing at characterisation.

This makes what you said about Garrus even more frustrating. I basically convinced him to come to the light side rather than be a renegade and then in the second game completely destroys that character arc because they wanted to make him space batman.

Also the fact that they changed Mordins voice actor almost ruined ME3 for me. He's one of my favourite characters and It was really jarring for him to be different in 3, It was all I could think about when I really should've been caught up in an emotional moment regarding the genophage.

 

[sanquin]

There's only one truly major thing changing with your choices in the ME series that I can think of. The Quarian/Geth battle. You can get three results. The geth are saved, the quarians are saved, or both are saved. Granted it still doesn't affect the overall story, but I do see it as a major change in the game depending on your choices in ME2 and some in ME3. And other than that, you're absolutely right.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

A few points. First, while Fallout allows one to play a relatively varied character who takes a fairly arbitrary path through the wasteland, few narrative arcs make even the slightest bit of sense. In short, if your character has not demonstrated a propensity for selflessness during the course of the game, the sudden character turn required to turn on the water purifier at their own expense has no real basis.

Second, while the game impact of various choices within Mass Effect were relatively meaningless, they still have an impact on the world. Simply looking at the first game there are dozens of people who live or die on your orders and, while you might never speak to them again, that is a fundamental change in the universe around you. The decisions have consequences; to assume that means they impact the narrative is folly. Shepard makes relatively few choices with any capacity to affect the universe on a galactic scale and each of those decisions does have a tangible impact upon the game, either because they contribute in the long run to your readiness in the final chapter, or because there is some mention of it later in the series if not both.

The major plot points of Mass Effect are largely an inevitability you cannot prevent or alter and while some see this as a fundamental failing of the franchise, it largely makes perfect sense. Each of those moments is the result of god knows how much planning by an ultra-intelligent robot race wielding a staggering amount of power behind the scenes. The war was going to happen. The attack on the Citadel was going to happen. The fundamental state of the galaxy did not allow for tales of reapers to be a plausible threat in the first case and in the second, the races of the universe had no real cause to believe the Reapers had a mean to attack the galaxy isolated as they were in dark space.

 

[Nomanslander]

There's only one truly major thing changing with your choices in the ME series that I can think of. The Quarian/Geth battle. You can get three results. The geth are saved, the quarians are saved, or both are saved. Granted it still doesn't affect the overall story, but I do see it as a major change in the game depending on your choices in ME2 and some in ME3. And other than that, you're absolutely right.

Actually, story wise you do make drastic changes to the overall story. The problem from there on is is that once you do so, that story arc is wrapped up and you never really see the effects of it again.

I want to compare Mass Effect with Fallout.

In Fallout:NV, if you decide side with the NRC, for the rest of the game you become a prime target of the Ceasar's legion and you endlessly have to face them until you finish the game. But if you side with Caesar, you get the reverse, and you'r left unable to access NRC missions and story (you can't enter MacCarren Airport without staring a major battle). Where ever you go, NCR will attack you, even the quest givers that you could made an ally of.

Now going back to ME3, once you're done with the Quarian/Geth conflict, if you had to choose one side or another. You're never again in the game have to face the consequences of choosing one side or the other. You're never faced with Geth attacking your or having the Quarians turn on you. Actually, Bioware does a cheap trick and completely eradicates the other race so you'll never have to confront them ever again.

The problem with ME is once you make a choice in any of the games, what ever alteration you make in the story is dropped into the back story and you never again have to deal with it. Any choice - on the other hand - that's going to come back in the game and present itself WILL instead bring in a substitute to play out the same motions as if no difference was made.

The only time in the history of the series that Bioware has allowed major changes to effect the main narrative in the story was the suicide mission of the second game. The only time in the history of the series choice really did end up mattering. But even then, let's say if you get everyone even Shepard killed in the game, that save no longer is able to count and you're going to have to redo the mission if you want to import your save for ME3.

Once again, choice and consequence ends up completely being written out of the game and giving you the illusion of choice.

 

[mad825]

There's only one truly major thing changing with your choices in the ME series that I can think of. The Quarian/Geth battle. You can get three results. The geth are saved, the quarians are saved, or both are saved. Granted it still doesn't affect the overall story, but I do see it as a major change in the game depending on your choices in ME2 and some in ME3. And other than that, you're absolutely right.

I wouldn't even count that.

Previous choices only affect the ability to make the quarians and Geth co-exist. Quite frankly, quarians deserve the Darwin award for being indiscriminately prejudice towards the geth.

OT: Apples and oranges in both sense.

While they are two different games by genre, there were also two different game design practices; one kept true to the original formula while the other changed and changed again the original formula. You can guess which ones which.

 

[4RM3D]

Go play The Witcher II... One of the best recent games when it comes to choice and impact. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't as polished, but it's still okay.

Anyhow, Mass Effect has been made as simple as possible. You have 3 choices: the upper is 'good', the middle is bad, the bottom is 'evil'. Of course if you go with (the massive) dialogue options like that of Planescape: Torment most of your target audience would have fallen asleep after the first conversation. I suppose you could say Mass Effect has been dumbed down for the masses. Those obvious choices bother me the most. After that it bothers me how little those choices really matter.

In the end I still accepted it, until the EA shittyness went of the chart. Thus I've never played Mass Effect 3.

 

[shrekfan246]

I want to see press hype from the actual developers or publishers that Mass Effect was a "game about choice", because I see that brought up far more often by people on forums or personal blogs when they're lamenting the issues it had. Aside from the few hype things from Casey Hudson and whoever else about Mass Effect 3, I can't find anything saying the ME franchise was being touted for how your choices would matter in the end.

Aside from that, this:

Second, while the game impact of various choices within Mass Effect were relatively meaningless, they still have an impact on the world. Simply looking at the first game there are dozens of people who live or die on your orders and, while you might never speak to them again, that is a fundamental change in the universe around you. The decisions have consequences; to assume that means they impact the narrative is folly. Shepard makes relatively few choices with any capacity to affect the universe on a galactic scale and each of those decisions does have a tangible impact upon the game, either because they contribute in the long run to your readiness in the final chapter, or because there is some mention of it later in the series if not both.

It's not about the finish line, it's about the journey to get there. Little things are changed or added all throughout the franchise depending on what you did earlier, and it's stuff that you could completely miss your first, second, or even third time through the games. Yeah, the plot doesn't branch out in some convoluted Shadow the Hedgehog or Final Fantasy XIII-2 manner, but you know, I kinda expected that when nothing about the overall plot changes based on what you do in Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2. It's all about what happens in the world while you're there. Saving Ashley or Kaidan has no real impact aside from flagging a different one to survive the mission. Nothing about how Mass Effect ends is altered by that choice, and the two of them have practically the exact same lines in Mass Effect 2.

And fairly large things can change depending on your actions. A chain of events starting in the first game can change whether a character from the second game survives in the third. It's not an impact on how the game ends, but it's an impact on how you perceive the game when you play it.

So what if the plot stays the same? The plot of Bioware games are usually the weakest part anyway. The franchise is about Shepard, about his/her crew, their struggle, and how the player perceives all of it. Not about how saving or killing the Rachni Queen in the first game has no functional impact on the plot of the rest of the series.

Though maybe my point of view is why I didn't get angry or even disappointed at ME3.

 

[CaptainKoala]

Think about the past ME games and the ending choices. Saving/Killing the council in ME1, Saving/Destroying the Collector base in ME2. All choices, not just the ones made at the end, have never affected the ending in ME games. About the most influence they ever had was the end mission in ME2, and even then you're not directly affecting how the plot is going to turn out. The choices don't (and never have) really directly change the overall story, it changes your journey along the way. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, my point is just to show the style of the games.

Then ME3 comes along, and the ending follows the formula of the past two games, where the choice affects your journey but not the overall plot. And what happened? ONE OF THE BIGGEST SHITSTORMS IN GAMING HISTORY. People were expecting something out of it that was completely uncharacteristic of the trilogy up to that point.

Also, in my opinion, ME3 had more great moments than either of the first two games. The Quarian/Geth conflict, the Citadel assault, the Thessia mission, Mordin and the genophage cure, the bomb on Tuchanka, even the beginning mission on Earth. To completely write these things off and focus on the ending is doing a huge disservice to how great the game really was. And I think it's a complete shame that the moment you mention the words 'Mass Effect 3' to anyone, the very first thing that pops into their heads is 'oh yeah that one game with a shitty ending'.

 

[King Billi]

Personally from my experience every game out there that has ever claimed to support player choice has only managed to do so as a gimmick. At the very least the only real influence and connection I ever felt I had over the progression of the story only ever extended as far as my first playthrough and honestly it dosen't really matter at that point if that "choice" was ultimately shallow like in Mass Effect or if it actually did create drastic changes because as soon as I start my second playthrough the limits on my supposed choices always become clear. It's still kinda cool and fun to be able to try something different but in my mind it's just like watching the deleted or alternate scenes on a DVD, my first playthrough is the only real "true" one.

So yeah, what you say in regards to Mass Effect is certainly true but in my opinion it's still cool even when it is no where near as important or impactful to the overall story as they may have said it would be.

In any case looking back now the "illusion of choice" was never really what sucked me in to Mass Effect in the first place, as some others have already said the characterisation and the incredible richness of the world is what really made me love those games.

 

[drummond13]

So you prefer a meandering sandbox game to a more plot-centric streamlined game. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[Storm Dragon]

One decision that should have affected countless scenes throughout the series was also one of the very first choices you make at the beginning of the first game: Whether or not Shepard is a biotic.

Seriously, I make this all-powerful telekinetic goddess of war who can fling enemies through the air with a thought, fly across the battlefield at Mach 1, and HEADBUTTS GODDAMN KROGAN SO HARD THAT THEY ARE THROWN OFF THEIR FEET; but as soon as a cutscene starts, suddenly she and everyone else forgets about these abilities. It's like the opposite of the more recent Final Fantasy games: Instead of Shepard suddenly doing amazing things that aren't possible in normal gameplay, she has the awesome abilities in normal gameplay and never uses or even acknowledges them in cutscenes, even though I can think of at least half a dozen scenes where just Biotic Charge alone would solve the problem at hand.

Actually, the worst example of this in action wasn't a cutscene, but that scripted chase sequence at the end of the Mars mission in the third game. While I was chasing that robot chick, I was Biotic Charging her on cooldown (which was quite often, since I stacked cooldown reduction like there was no tomorrow), but as it turned out, I wasn't supposed to catch her until the designated time and place. It didn't matter how many times I physically collided with her throughout the chase (at least a dozen), the game didn't let me grab her or anything because that would ruin the Ashley/Kaiden story arc that they had planned.

 

[Megalodon]

I want to see press hype from the actual developers or publishers that Mass Effect was a "game about choice", because I see that brought up far more often by people on forums or personal blogs when they're lamenting the issues it had. Aside from the few hype things from Casey Hudson and whoever else about Mass Effect 3, I can't find anything saying the ME franchise was being touted for how your choices would matter in the end.

From ME3's amazon page:
"You determine how events will play out, which planets to explore, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all."
"Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation."
"A Rich, Branching Storyline - Experience a sci-fi epic with multiple endings determined by your choices and actions throughout the game"

Now technically none of these statements are entirely false. But beyond "I'm not doing that side mission", there's no choice of planets to explore; Earth, Palaven's Moon Thessia etc. have to be visited. The "unique experience of your own creation" bit is BS (and a claim that ME2 could defend better with the player-influenced suicide mission). And I doubt someone with no foreknowledge reads "multiple endings determined by your choices and actions throughout the game" and thinks "aquire arbitary score to determine colour of ending explosion" (although the EC narrations/slideshow dosomewhat help). Plus of course, the story doesn't really "branch" at any point.

 

[shrekfan246]

I want to see press hype from the actual developers or publishers that Mass Effect was a "game about choice", because I see that brought up far more often by people on forums or personal blogs when they're lamenting the issues it had. Aside from the few hype things from Casey Hudson and whoever else about Mass Effect 3, I can't find anything saying the ME franchise was being touted for how your choices would matter in the end.

From ME3's amazon page:
"You determine how events will play out, which planets to explore, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all."
"Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation."
"A Rich, Branching Storyline - Experience a sci-fi epic with multiple endings determined by your choices and actions throughout the game"

Now technically none of these statements are entirely false. But beyond "I'm not doing that side mission", there's no choice of planets to explore; Earth, Palaven's Moon Thessia etc. have to be visited. The "unique experience of your own creation" bit is BS (and a claim that ME2 could defend better with the player-influenced suicide mission). And I doubt someone with no foreknowledge reads "multiple endings determined by your choices and actions throughout the game" and thinks "aquire arbitary score to determine colour of ending explosion" (although the EC narrations/slideshow dosomewhat help). Plus of course, the story doesn't really "branch" at any point.

Aside from the few hype things from Casey Hudson and whoever else about Mass Effect 3, I can't find anything saying the ME franchise was being touted for how your choices would matter in the end.

People on the internet say that from day one, the franchise was about how your choices would impact the ending. From the first game. I want evidence of that. Because the ending of the first two games is always functionally the same no matter what happens, unless Shepard dies during the suicide mission (which as the OP already helpfully pointed out, means that save can't be transferred to ME3 so it doesn't matter either).

Quite frankly, I'm pretty impressed with what they managed to do. I never expected them to be able to make an ending that took into account every single action every single player performed over the course of one, two, or three separate games. Come on, that's unrealistic. But the amount of references, the amount of callbacks, the amount of things that can be just a little different per game astounds me, and means I'm always finding one or two small new things throughout each subsequent playthrough. Combined with the fact that, to me, Mass Effect was always about how your actions sculpted the world around you as you traveled within the predetermined plot, yeah, it didn't surprise me when the ending of the franchise ended up being what it was. They wrote themselves into a corner from the very first game anyway, because the Reapers had the same problem the Borg did in Star Trek.