Mass Effect Mass Effect general thread

[Darth Robbhi]

@Darth Robbhi sure, I agree that Shepard dying is appropriate. My bigger issue is that the ending just seems to fail suspension of disbelief. Despite the creators denying it, "Shepard is indoctrinated and lost in hallucinations" is what it FEELS like.

Yes/No/Maybe. Certainly were I EA's PIO, I definitely would not have denied that as a possible interpretation. Especially when two of the three members of the party "die" running into the beam, and Anderson turns up out of nowhere.

The bits where you interact with all the NPCs before the run to the beam is odd. As is the whole bit of Normandy surviving with the crew intact despite them all being on Earth during the final run in. Items like that are just jarring.

Though, it does offer some interesting storytelling options. The whole bit with Liara at the end is incredibly intimate and reminiscent of Asari bonding/impregnation rituals. Which, if she's Shepard's love interest is both appropriate and fits the whole "fuck then fight" bits of ME1 and 2. But if she isn't, that's a whole 'nother magazine worth of issues. Doubly so if your Shep is a flamingly gay Shep. Which is it's own interesting storyline.

So yes, lots of plot holes . . .

 

[Deleted member]

Plot Truck Tunnel, more like, except we all still love the universe so much we're sitting around talking about it...

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Plot Truck Tunnel, more like, except we all still love the universe so much we're sitting around talking about it...

I'd say more Swiss cheese than Tunnel, but . . .

We love it because EA managed to do what Anne McCathry said about Katherine Kurtz: "it's an incredible historical tapestry of a world that never was and of an immensely vital people who ought to be."

We love it because Shep means we lived in it, if only for a little while.

 

[Deleted member]

I'd say more Swiss cheese than Tunnel, but . . .

We love it because EA managed to do what Anne McCathry said about Katherine Kurtz: "it's an incredible historical tapestry of a world that never was and of an immensely vital people who ought to be."

We love it because Shep means we lived in it, if only for a little while.

While it lasted, it was marvelous.

 

[Undertone]

ME1 was brilliant, a space shooter/RPG with amazing depth. ME2 being considerably longer of a game helped blunt the pain of them turning away from the finer points of role-playing. But ME3... sigh.

At the very least, Mass Effect 3 could have locked out options based on your ME1/ME2 savefiles. Never recruited Legion? No Synthesis option. No Destiny Ascension? No Destroy option. This is setting aside how the series really needed to have way more options. Ten different endings would have been much more satisfying.

 

[*THASF*]

I could never dredge up interest in Andromeda. After the disappointing end to ME3, the utter shit that was Andromeda's graphics was enough to stop me from even giving it a try.

Andromeda had very cool environment art, but they really dropped the ball with one of the most important things; the damn characters. When the game launched, they used the wrong shader effect for eyes, and everyone’s eyes were flat and doll-like. They fixed this in a patch (it was a bug with character packages apparently), but you know what was still fucked? The stupid facial animations and dialogue system, along with all the reused character models. There are like, all of two Asari head models in the damn game.

The worst part of ME:A, in my opinion, was the scenario design. Too many quests were meaningless Korean MMO-grade fetch quests with little tiny blurbs to describe them.

I think part of the reason why ME:A and Anthem both ended up so fucked is because of poor leadership at EA and Nu-BioWare. The new studio leads have no idea what sort of game they actually want. They keep revising and revising and throwing away perfectly good work. ME:A was originally supposed to have procedural planets and a massive scale. They dropped that late in development and went for fixed environments and fixed scenarios. That’s wasted dev time! That’s time they could’ve used to make each quest meaningful and give it better dialogue and interactions.

It all boils down to the difficulties of transitioning from Unreal Engine to Frostbite, plus poor studio leadership.

It was very disappointing for me, too, because I wanted to see what happened next in the Andromeda-verse. It ended just when things were getting interesting.

 

[Darth Robbhi]

Andromeda had very cool environment art, but they really dropped the ball with one of the most important things; the damn characters. When the game launched, they used the wrong shader effect for eyes, and everyone’s eyes were flat and doll-like. They fixed this in a patch (it was a bug with character packages apparently), but you know what was still fucked? The stupid facial animations and dialogue system, along with all the reused character models. There are like, all of two Asari head models in the damn game.

The worst part of ME:A, in my opinion, was the scenario design. Too many quests were meaningless Korean MMO-grade fetch quests with little tiny blurbs to describe them.

I think part of the reason why ME:A and Anthem both ended up so fucked is because of poor leadership at EA and Nu-BioWare. The new studio leads have no idea what sort of game they actually want. They keep revising and revising and throwing away perfectly good work. ME:A was originally supposed to have procedural planets and a massive scale. They dropped that late in development and went for fixed environments and fixed scenarios. That’s wasted dev time! That’s time they could’ve used to make each quest meaningful and give it better dialogue and interactions.

It all boils down to the difficulties of transitioning from Unreal Engine to Frostbite, plus poor studio leadership.

It was very disappointing for me, too, because I wanted to see what happened next in the Andromeda-verse. It ended just when things were getting interesting.

Andromeda was flawed from the beginning, because it's desertion. It effectively betrays the key tenant of Mass Effect - that you, Shep, are the savior of the universe. In Andromeda, you're part of a group who decided to book it when faced with danger. You're marketing the game to ME players, who have invested considerable amounts of time saving a fictional universe, and hunger for more, and they're now folks who legged it when the going got tough.

Admittedly, I played ME right as I was in a real world situation where I ran into danger and would have died had a few rocks been different, but screw that. People play RPGs so we can be big damn heroes, or big damn villains, but never to be the guy who runs when the going gets tough.

We all came back to ME to keep playing our Sheps. Because, paragon or renegade, we all wanted that moment where the entire universe is riding on us, and it was lock and load, flick the bic, and smile that terrifying smile at the Reapers before we take them as our bodyguard to hell.

Andromeda takes that away. Ultimately, all of ME doesn't matter because Andromeda is a reboot. People would forget shitty art, poor facial expressions, awful side quests, clunky gameplay or any other multitude of sins if the game had met an instinctive need. But it doesn't. It takes all the stakes away without building up rapport.

 

[*THASF*]

Andromeda was flawed from the beginning, because it's desertion. It effectively betrays the key tenant of Mass Effect - that you, Shep, are the savior of the universe. In Andromeda, you're part of a group who decided to book it when faced with danger. You're marketing the game to ME players, who have invested considerable amounts of time saving a fictional universe, and hunger for more, and they're now folks who legged it when the going got tough.

Admittedly, I played ME right as I was in a real world situation where I ran into danger and would have died had a few rocks been different, but screw that. People play RPGs so we can be big damn heroes, or big damn villains, but never to be the guy who runs when the going gets tough.

We all came back to ME to keep playing our Sheps. Because, paragon or renegade, we all wanted that moment where the entire universe is riding on us, and it was lock and load, flick the bic, and smile that terrifying smile at the Reapers before we take them as our bodyguard to hell.

Andromeda takes that away. Ultimately, all of ME doesn't matter because Andromeda is a reboot. People would forget shitty art, poor facial expressions, awful side quests, clunky gameplay or any other multitude of sins if the game had met an instinctive need. But it doesn't. It takes all the stakes away without building up rapport.

The lower rungs of the Andromeda Initiative don’t know that they’re running away from the Reapers as a “backup plan”. Only the upper echelons were privy to any of the details. They think they’re just explorers.

The plot itself is a rehash of the assimilation plot from the first game. The Kett are just organic Borg, unlike the Reapers, who are more like the regular kind of Borg. That’s bullshit.

If they’d got rid of the fake conflict with the Kett, got rid of the Remnant ruins, made it about exploration, colonization, discovery, and the actual difficulty of terraforming and dealing with the native cultures, it could‘ve been interesting.

 

[Captain X]

Well, that and all the identity politics pushed with it.

 

[GoldRanger]

The lower rungs of the Andromeda Initiative don’t know that they’re running away from the Reapers as a “backup plan”. Only the upper echelons were privy to any of the details. They think they’re just explorers.

The plot itself is a rehash of the assimilation plot from the first game. The Kett are just organic Borg, unlike the Reapers, who are more like the regular kind of Borg. That’s bullshit.

If they’d got rid of the fake conflict with the Kett, got rid of the Remnant ruins, made it about exploration, colonization, discovery, and the actual difficulty of terraforming and dealing with the native cultures, it could‘ve been interesting.

It's supposed to be a story driven game, not a 4X. They HAD to have some kind of major antagonist.

 

[Floridaman]

The lower rungs of the Andromeda Initiative don’t know that they’re running away from the Reapers as a “backup plan”. Only the upper echelons were privy to any of the details. They think they’re just explorers.

The plot itself is a rehash of the assimilation plot from the first game. The Kett are just organic Borg, unlike the Reapers, who are more like the regular kind of Borg. That’s bullshit.

If they’d got rid of the fake conflict with the Kett, got rid of the Remnant ruins, made it about exploration, colonization, discovery, and the actual difficulty of terraforming and dealing with the native cultures, it could‘ve been interesting.

Shame they screwed if up, colonization of the final frontier and playing a John Smith character was something many people have wanted.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Shame they screwed if up, colonization of the final frontier and playing a John Smith character was something many people have wanted.

From what I know, part of the problem was that development was messed up from the beginning, they had no clear vision, they were forcing the guys responsible for all the actual game making and not just the story to rush things in so little time, which was why there were so many glitches

As for how/why character designs for females were so ugly? Ask the guys of Dragon Age Inquisition.....Serra’s an Elf but she looks more like a deformed hobbit like Gollum

 

[bullethead]

Edit: wrong thread

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Volbeat has some pretty catchy songs on their new album:

Wrong thread, I think.

 

[Vargas Fan]

I played through Mass Effect Andromeda and feel this game got too much bad flak. Between the people who were solely going to condemn any EA product and the fandom still bitter after the ending of ME3 there was no way it was going to get a fair hearing.

Saying that, there is something odd looking about Cora. There is more flat out humour like for instance Liam and Peebees loyalty missions and the final mission is just epic.

Also there's something about getting up Tanns nose. There are faults though, for instance the lack of interrupts.

Also replayed Wolfenstein the Old Blood.

 

[Spartan303]

I played through Mass Effect Andromeda and feel this game got too much bad flak. Between the people who were solely going to condemn any EA product and the fandom still bitter after the ending of ME3 there was no way it was going to get a fair hearing.

Saying that, there is something odd looking about Cora. There is more flat out humour like for instance Liam and Peebees loyalty missions and the final mission is just epic.

Also there's something about getting up Tanns nose. There are faults though, for instance the lack of interrupts.

Also replayed Wolfenstein the Old Blood.

The women in Andromeda were deliberately designed to be ugly and off looking. All to throw off 'The Male Gaze'. Seriously, they said as much. I mean, how do you go from this to this?

 

[Tiamat]

The women in Andromeda were deliberately designed to be ugly and off looking. All to throw off 'The Male Gaze'. Seriously, they said as much. I mean, how do you go from this to this?

That really ticked me off. I loved the original Mass Effect trilogy. Then I looked at Andromeda and the overall look and gameplay and thought “what the hell happened?”

As for personal gaming for me...not too much as of late I confess as I am trying to focus on writing, but for a long while I was an avid player of Fallout 4, albeit with a ton of mods installed, particularly for settlement/fortification building, firearms mods (the original game weapons are just hideous), and armor mods, plus some quests.

That and my other still personal favorite remains Elder Scrolls Skyrim. With a neverending amount of mods you can easily get lost in that game.

 

[Vargas Fan]

The women in Andromeda were deliberately designed to be ugly and off looking. All to throw off 'The Male Gaze'. Seriously, they said as much. I mean, how do you go from this to this?

First off I wouldn't say they were all ugly and off looking but Cora had a combination of her face and her hairstyle. Look at Suvi for instance. Also the original got criticism for some looking too much like fanservice. Prime examples being Miranda, the woman in the Citadel DLC and most obviously, Diana Allers.

 

[Spartan303]

First off I wouldn't say they were all ugly and off looking but Cora had a combination of her face and her hairstyle. Look at Suvi for instance. Also the original got criticism for some looking too much like fanservice. Prime examples being Miranda, the woman in the Citadel DLC and most obviously, Diana Allers.

So what if they're beautiful and we find them attractive? Sex appeal tends to sell. Miranda would generate far more revenue than Cora would. Its just a fact.

 

[Doomsought]

First off I wouldn't say they were all ugly and off looking but Cora had a combination of her face and her hairstyle.

She looks like she has fetal alcohol syndrome.