Poll: do you think ME2 is to blame for most issues in ME3?

[TheDrunkNinja]

I voted "no".

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Bioware games are not about innovative narrative and story-telling. They're about great characters that you come to love by the end.

This. Although I'd add world-building to the list (and I liked the ME1 characters more than you did).

The parts of the series that were weakest - including the end of ME3 - were almost always weak because they were focused on plot, and the plot was just never as central (or as well-crafted) as the character moments and the overall tone.

You got me on the world building. And yeah, it seems to be a bit of a reoccurring habit for many Bioware games and their plot. Though I would like to clarify that by no means to I think that ME1's characters are bad or not well done. I love them. They were the reason I fell in love with the series. From Ashley's instinctive impulse to sacrifice herself to make up for her family name to Liara's mysterious yet near-innocent attitude to Kaiden's traumatic L2 training that lead him to his lax yet determined persona. I don't even need to mention the shear awesomeness that Wrex, Garrus, and Tali share with their different cultures and backstories.

I never felt so attached to characters from a video game before, but like I said, when ME2 came around, it was all the better. The old characters got more awesome and the new characters won our hearts for the first time. The animations, voice acting, and interactions felt more natural and human than they did in ME1. Playing ME1 again, you begin to notice how stiff everyone is and there's much less emotion behind the scenes. For me, Mass Effect 1 revolutionized my perspective on what character writing could be in video games, but it was Mass Effect 2 that perfected it.

 

[Frotality]

>snip<

ill definitely agree that a huge part of the problem of ME3's ending is that it doesnt really involve or resolve any of the characters, which bioware should damn well know are the best and most critical part to any of their games. even knowing that i could never bring myself to like any of ME2's characters just because they were there for no f**king reason, and i guessed, quite accurately, that the fact they could all possibly die meant they would barely be in ME3 and be even less important, so they werent worth getting invested in. basically bioware's own hype for the series broke my suspension of disbelief for the characters. with that said, i did really like legion, and the only one with plot significance in ME2, mordin. but then, legion is mostly awesome because he helps you understand the geth. i cant really excuse bioware for making awesome, but pointless characters because its not like they need to do THAT much. the plot is there to drive the characters, but they cant be driven if theyre not in the f**king car. leave em hanging on the edge at least, all it takes is a few lines saying "we cant advance until we can avoid the bee things. mordin can make a thing to get around the things. go get mordin" and wing-bang-zoom, plot relevance.

 

[Therumancer]

ME3 had two major issues. One of those issues was the ending of course, which was craptastic enough to retroactively ruin everything good about the series up until that point. It's impossibe to derive any enjoyment from the series knowing that is how it ends, and how little it fits with the rest of it. This includes the side issues of Bioware's lying about the ending, and of course the reveals from their "behind the scenes" app". The other issue was a major antagonist that not only didn't fit with the series, but who was involved in some of the most jarringly horrible cinematics in all of video gaming, introducing the JRPG stereotype of "you won the battle, but lose it anyway as the bad guy wins and runs away in the cinematic!" which in of itself is a crutch for bad writers. Basically anything involving "Mr. Space Ninja" starting with his very existance represents a major problem, and given how central he is to the plot and how things work... yeah.

Neither of those problems had anything to do with ME2.

Now it can fairly be said that ME2 is responsible for a lot of Bioware's problems in a more general sense however. Basically ME2 is when they decided to turn "Mass Effect" from an RPG into a shooter, and dumbed it down to the extreme, removing a lot of the itemization, the abillity to equip squadmades, skill selections, etc... from the game. While a lot of shooter fans loved this, the overwhelming number of Bioware fans utterly detested it, but were kind of drowned out by the shooter casuals. Those complaining also dealing with the problem of them being considered "supporters" of the move in financial calculations since they had already purchused the game and wanted to continue the series for the storyline if nothing else.

The relative success of ME2 as an action game seemed to fuel a lot of the design choices made for "Dragon Age 2" which in of itself was dumbed down into a brawler, with most of the customization and RPG elements entirely removed. On top of that it wound up constantly re-using a lot of the same enviroments, spawned monsters on top of you, and almost humerously had loading screens telling you to do things like have fighters block for mages to protect them, when you were dealing with an enviroment where you had dudes in plate armor jumping off roofs like ninjas into the middle of your formation, and might not even see your enemy until it spawned (the game liked to do things like drop a spider the size of an elephant right on top of you when you crossed a certain spot). This combined with things like Bioware lying about fan response (ie when asking the fans if it was okay to remove character generation options in exchange for a fully voiced Hawke, the response was "no" but Bioware did it anyway... not listening wasn't as big a deal so much as the fact that Bioware tried to claim that the majority wanted this trade off which it clearly did not, making the whole gesture infuriatingly pointless and insulting). "Dragon Age 2" of course wound up becoming infamously devisive, but honestly a lot of that was fueled by irritation over what happened with "Mass Effect 2".

When Mass Effect 3 came out people, lovers and haters, mostly got it to finish the story, including those that hated the desicians made with ME2 and DA2, when they ruined the story there was much rage since that was the one thing everyone was playing for.

ME2 didn't directly cause any problems with ME3, but did contribute to the current climate of hostility towards EA/Bioware.

 

[kingthrall]

Mass effect 3 was a great game but It is a clone copy of the tv series Babylon 5. Apologies if too picture heavy for some users but I think I need visual evidence to get my point across.

Just check some of these images out.

Mass effect 3 Reaper

Babylon 5 shadows

Babylon 5 Narn race- their race used as slaves pretty much the same way as krogan brought almost to extinction, notice they are both reptilian as well

 

[kingthrall]

Captain John Sherridan "Earth Alliance". Notice similarity in Uniform and name?

My point is, that mass effect 3 blew its story-line instead of polishing it all off from number 2 they could of made their own game or at least not make such a carbon copy. Mass effect 2 was a great game and sadly Zaeed should of been so much more of a pivotal character IMO. Number 3 was great gameplay but felt no where near as interactive as number 2 did.

 

[AD-Stu]

Mass effect 3 was a great game but It is a clone copy of the tv series Babylon 5. Apologies if too picture heavy for some users but I think I need visual evidence to get my point across.

You already made another thread about this, and it was established that Mass Effect borrows bits and pieces from loads of sci fi sources, not just Babylon 5. There's huge nods to Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly... the list goes on. This is sci fi. We like our ideas borrowed.

 

[Rack]

In part yes, it's a lot harder to write a good story when put into the absolute corner Mass Effect 2 and even Mass Effect 1 started. But the Mass Effect 3 writers messed up so badly that it's hard to envisage them getting it right from any angle. With a bit of backpedalling and hand-waving they could have written their way out of that mess. Considering the majority of people only complained about the ending and no-one complained about ME2 I reckon all they really needed to do was cut everything in the room after the lift and go straight to Destroy. I doubt anyone would really notice the destruction of all civilisation or the army of plotholes if they didn't telegraph it so badly.

 

[kingthrall]

Mass effect 3 was a great game but It is a clone copy of the tv series Babylon 5. Apologies if too picture heavy for some users but I think I need visual evidence to get my point across.

You already made another thread about this, and it was established that Mass Effect borrows bits and pieces from loads of sci fi sources, not just Babylon 5. There's huge nods to Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly... the list goes on. This is sci fi. We like our ideas borrowed.

"cry more?" This is relevant to the topic at hand, otherwise I would not have sourced it.

Mass effect as a series did not borrow a lot until the third game. They could of got away from taking a few pieces here and there but mass effect 3 basically blew out to be Babylon 5. Resulting in a game that was less superior than number one and two.

 

[blackrave]

The fact that just about of the decisions made in ME1 were only referenced in a casual 'sup by an easily missable NPC in ME2 made me lose hope.

Save the Rachni? Random Asari says 'Sup.
Save the colonists on Feros? Shiala says 'Sup.
Tell Helena Blake to reform? She says 'Sup.
Save the Council? They say 'Sup.

Yea, after all that, I could easily see that whatever 'epic decisions' BioWEA wanted us to believe were in the game, they'd amount to nothing in the end. And, due to the simpleton color coded ending, I'm glad I gave up on the franchise after ME2, rather than doubling down only to be crushingly disappointed by ME3.

That, and fucking thermal clips.

^THIS

I blame mostly EA and Bioware
And also consumers who supported this with their money
.
.
.
Fact that I was one of those who bought the game doesn't make things easier

P.S.Fucking thermal clips

 

[AD-Stu]

You already made another thread about this, and it was established that Mass Effect borrows bits and pieces from loads of sci fi sources, not just Babylon 5. There's huge nods to Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly... the list goes on. This is sci fi. We like our ideas borrowed.

"cry more?" This is relevant to the topic at hand, otherwise I would not have sourced it.

Mass effect as a series did not borrow a lot until the third game. They could of got away from taking a few pieces here and there but mass effect 3 basically blew out to be Babylon 5. Resulting in a game that was less superior than number one and two.

I dunno about the whole "did not borrow a lot until the third game" bit.

The quarians have been in the series since ME1, and their story is pretty much a beat-for-beat copy of the plot of Battlestar Galactica: species creates sentient machines, which then kick their creators off their homeworld(s) and force them live on a flotilla of spaceships. In ME2 when we get to actually see the quarian flotilla there are a number of ships that look an awful lot like ones in the Colonial fleet from BSG. Plus as someone pointed out in the other thread, the Colonial military dress uniform is also blue and very similar in appearance to the ME universe uniforms. And that's before we get into Tricia Helfer and Michael Hogan being hired as voice actors in ME2. There's also BSG's theme of "can synthetics and organics find a way to co-exist", which ME has used from the outset. ME just chose (thankfully) to leave most of BSG's religious overtones out.

Or we can look to Star Trek and the Borg - a relentless species with the singular goal of assimilating organic life, that turns organics into soldiers for its armies by brainwashing them, implanting them with cybernetics and connecting them to a hive mind. A race against which "resistance is futile". Change "assimilate" to "indoctrinate", soldier to husk and you've got the Reapers, dating all the way back to the beginning of ME1.

That's before we even get onto the points you've raised about Babylon 5, which are perfectly valid too. They've also been true since the outset of ME1, by the way, so none of them are new in ME3. The Alliance has always been called the Alliance, its dress uniform has always looked much the same as the one you've pictured (it's also pretty similar to a lot of present-day armed forces and law enforcement uniforms, but let's not digress too far), and the Reaper dreadnaughts look the same in ME3 as they did all the way back to Sovereign in ME1.

We could go on, but the point is that from the outset Mass Effect has borrowed aesthetics, themes and story elements from a range of sci fi sources. Personally I don't see it as a bad thing: after all, they're borrowing the best bits from all of our favourite sci fi franchises, giving it their own twist, and then letting us run around inside the results. But it was hardly something that was new in ME3.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

ill definitely agree that a huge part of the problem of ME3's ending is that it doesnt really involve or resolve any of the characters, which bioware should damn well know are the best and most critical part to any of their games. even knowing that i could never bring myself to like any of ME2's characters just because they were there for no f**king reason, and i guessed, quite accurately, that the fact they could all possibly die meant they would barely be in ME3 and be even less important, so they werent worth getting invested in. basically bioware's own hype for the series broke my suspension of disbelief for the characters. with that said, i did really like legion, and the only one with plot significance in ME2, mordin. but then, legion is mostly awesome because he helps you understand the geth. i cant really excuse bioware for making awesome, but pointless characters because its not like they need to do THAT much. the plot is there to drive the characters, but they cant be driven if theyre not in the f**king car. leave em hanging on the edge at least, all it takes is a few lines saying "we cant advance until we can avoid the bee things. mordin can make a thing to get around the things. go get mordin" and wing-bang-zoom, plot relevance.

I'm not sure what you were mostly on about, but if you honestly feel that it's pointless to get in vested in a character since they'll most likely die, then I'll just say don't ever read or watch Game of Thrones.

Also, I don't see why you think ME2's characters were there for no reason. They all had reasons to be there. That's what the entire game was about. Unless this is again about the plot importance of ME2, which again I'll state I don't care about whether people think ME2's plot wasn't important. I'm here for the characters, goddammit, and if you just can't get over the plot importance, then that's your own deal.

 

[Da Orky Man]

The only problem with ME3 I have is with the ending. That is all. If anything, ME1 is the my least favourite. Though character and storytelling remains at a more-or-less constant quality through the series, the majority of all the games is combat, and from my point of view, ME1 had the worst combat.