Discussion Mass Effect Legendary Edition + New Mass Effect

[Stuka87]

There also seems to be a brew-ha-ha on the Steam forums in that EA will be updating "camera angles" for some of the Miranda shots in the update...

I actually agree with the minor camera angle changes that BioWare has elected to make. One of them is when you first meet Maranda, and the camera is only looking at her ass as she is walking. According to an interview, they just backed the camera up. Its still behind her, you will just see more than her ass. I guess 13 year olds may be bummed, but personally I am fine with it.

 

[simas]

I actually agree with the minor camera angle changes that BioWare has elected to make. One of them is when you first meet Maranda, and the camera is only looking at her ass as she is walking. According to an interview, they just backed the camera up. Its still behind her, you will just see more than her ass. I guess 13 year olds may be bummed, but personally I am fine with it.

people care about these things?? i guess you do have to be 13 year old or younger for that..

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I actually agree with the minor camera angle changes that BioWare has elected to make. One of them is when you first meet Maranda, and the camera is only looking at her ass as she is walking. According to an interview, they just backed the camera up. Its still behind her, you will just see more than her ass. I guess 13 year olds may be bummed, but personally I am fine with it.

-ME2 had some serious pandering fan service that, while not unexpected in a sci-fi space opera setting, just gets more cringe the older I get.

Haven't read anything about it, but I also kind of hope they scale back the Ashley space trollop thing they had going on in ME3, where military girl ends up looking like a space Kardashian as a backlash to her appearance in the first two games.

She was actually one of the better written and more complex characters in the OG Mass Effect, it was frankly disappointing what they did with her in ME3 (naturally not all of it, like the writing, can be fixed).

 

[simas]

-ME2 had some serious pandering fan service that, while not unexpected in a sci-fi space opera setting, just gets more cringe the older I get.

Haven't read anything about it, but I also kind of hope they scale back the Ashley space trollop thing they had going on in ME3, where military girl ends up looking like a space Kardashian as a backlash to her appearance in the first two games.

She was actually one of the better written and more complex characters in the OG Mass Effect, it was frankly disappointing what they did with her in ME3 (naturally not all of it, like the writing, can be fixed).

Ash was my interest in ME1 so I ignored any romance lines in ME2 (not to 'cheat' on her) to re-unite in ME3. She looked VERY different in ME3 for some reason..

 

[BillClo1]

I don't even know what happens in Andromeda. I've never played a Mass Effect game. But you sure come off as quite homophobic, @simas

Here is the thing that you appear to be missing. He was using lefties as an example; it could have been blue eyed redheads or whatever. I think the point he was trying to make was that pandering to a tiny proportion of the population and hence your customer base, while simultaneously alienating the majority of your customer base doesn't make good business sense. Which is sorely lacking these days in companies that are more concerned about being "woke" and promoting a lifestyle that the vast majority of the population doesn't agree with. Even if it costs them money. I wish some stockholders would sue said companies for costing them money, but I doubt that'll happen.

Its one thing for people to be willing to tolerate and ignore the small fraction of the population that they disagree with (I fall into that category), but said tiny fraction isn't willing to be tolerated and ignored. Noooo... they get all zealous and work hard to shove their agenda in people's face all the time, dying to get the approval of the majority of the population. They want those "atta-boys" and "Yea, you rock". Again, it doesn't really matter what the agenda is for purposes of this conversation, it could be anything that flies counter to cultural norms. It's the religious levels of zealotry in shoving it in everyone face, be it in popular culture, movies, video games, even the schools, that tick people off and generate dislike for said tiny minority. Its pure propaganda, pure and simple.

I can tell you, I don't get up in the morning and think about X, Y, or Z group that I disagree with that day. I have far more important things to worry about. But when I get bombarded with their agenda in every form of media and all of a sudden we're "phobes" if we disagree (but not do or say anything bad or disrespectful to said tiny minority), it gets my hackles up. So I go out of my way to avoid buying products from companies that get all pushy like that. Good to know that the publishers of Mass Effect need not worry about receiving any money from my wallet. 🙂

Incidentally, the tactic of calling someone a "phobe" right off the bat is a pretty lame one; its the equivalent of calling someone a racist in an attempt to shut down the conversation because you have no other effective argments to make. Its effectively the zealot's nuclear bomb of insults, but frankly, it has lost its effect with many people due to overuse and misuse.

 

[JujuFish]

Here is the thing that you appear to be missing. He was using lefties as an example; it could have been blue eyed redheads or whatever. I think the point he was trying to make was that pandering to a tiny proportion of the population and hence your customer base, while simultaneously alienating the majority of your customer base doesn't make good business sense. Which is sorely lacking these days in companies that are more concerned about being "woke" and promoting a lifestyle that the vast majority of the population doesn't agree with. Even if it costs them money. I wish some stockholders would sue said companies for costing them money, but I doubt that'll happen.

Its one thing for people to be willing to tolerate and ignore the small fraction of the population that they disagree with (I fall into that category), but said tiny fraction isn't willing to be tolerated and ignored. Noooo... they get all zealous and work hard to shove their agenda in people's face all the time, dying to get the approval of the majority of the population. They want those "atta-boys" and "Yea, you rock". Again, it doesn't really matter what the agenda is for purposes of this conversation, it could be anything that flies counter to cultural norms. It's the religious levels of zealotry in shoving it in everyone face, be it in popular culture, movies, video games, even the schools, that tick people off and generate dislike for said tiny minority. Its pure propaganda, pure and simple.

I can tell you, I don't get up in the morning and think about X, Y, or Z group that I disagree with that day. I have far more important things to worry about. But when I get bombarded with their agenda in every form of media and all of a sudden we're "phobes" if we disagree (but not do or say anything bad or disrespectful to said tiny minority), it gets my hackles up. So I go out of my way to avoid buying products from companies that get all pushy like that. Good to know that the publishers of Mass Effect need not worry about receiving any money from my wallet. 🙂

Incidentally, the tactic of calling someone a "phobe" right off the bat is a pretty lame one; its the equivalent of calling someone a racist in an attempt to shut down the conversation because you have no other effective argments to make. Its effectively the zealot's nuclear bomb of insults, but frankly, it has lost its effect with many people due to overuse and misuse.

This really isn't the thread for this, but a few things to address.

First, you're not being tolerant if you want LGBT people to disappear. Just like it's racist to say "I don't care if black people exist, I just don't want to see them", it's homophobic to say "I don't care if LGBT people exist, I just don't want to see them".

Second, if you're being alienated by the very existence of LGBT relationships in games (note: I'm not talking about a game whose sole purpose might be to explore an LGBT relationship and ramifications of being LGBT), then you're not being tolerant.

Third: "promoting a lifestyle that the vast majority of the population doesn't agree with" Buddy, I've got news for you. It's the other way around, at least in the U.S. Two thirds of Americans believe homosexuality is morally acceptable, and that number keeps growing every time Gallup does another poll.

Fourth, acting like there's an "agenda" out to "bombard" you is also intolerant. Guess what? LGBT people exist. They play games. They make games. They like having some representation. Diversity is a good thing.

Fifth, I didn't call simas a homophobe. I let them know that they were coming off as one. Perhaps they are just poorly communicating their message and they should rethink how they're saying what they're trying to say. Or perhaps they actually are a homophobe. Either way, if you read what I actually wrote, you'll see I did not call them one.


Now, that said, there's definitely pandering that goes on (with a lot of different hot button issues, not just LGBT). It can be very blatant and shallow, and definitely makes me roll my eyes.

 

[simas]

Yes, I think none of this belongs to video game forum in any way so lets stop this.

@JujuFish - just be careful with 'you sound like' statements - it is a form of personal attack and could be taken as such. Shutting down any discourse through attempts to intimidate is how hate groups operate and yes, every spectrum (left and right) has these hate groups. Same people doing the same things can not be called 'protesters' or 'domestic terrorists' just because you you take specific position on one of many issues currently dividing us as a country (a riot is a riot, it does not matter who riots)

for BillClo1 , I think he/she wanted to say there is a continuum between tolerance and just outright we-are-holier-than-you preaching which is really hate, arrogance, and ignorance that comes out in whole a lot of SJW message. again, there is no monopoly on hate speech and left wing social justice warriors (especially cough potato kind) are just as full of it as their opponents.

to give you an personal example, I am Jewish , which is a tiny minority in vast majority of the countries of the world. Am I proud of my faith? yes , of cause but I am quiet about it , dont feel I need to shove it into anyone face, and want to love and respect any other person with any other faith , opinion, or position. Have Jews been subject of extreme discriminations and outright extermination, yes and I have family members on both sides of my family that perished mid 20th century. However, does it mean I am going to be going around and shoving this into everybody's face, demanding that gaming companies now make at least 50% of the characters to pounder to my faith , position , etc ? No, that is just stupid, wrong, and devalues anything I stand for. It is not social justice to demand these stupid things from companies, it is actually the opposite.

I am also a first generation immigrant and will forever to my dying breath would be easy to identify as such, the moment I open my mouth. So what? I dont go around demand that for of each and every video game to be published to have at least 50% of immigrant characters quota. Again , this quota thing is stupid , be it for national original ,language, skin color, whatever. Just do the game, forget quotas. that is in my opinion what Bioware unit did not do and instead went off the ledge trying to pounder to whatever perceived causes they thought they are helping (which they did not).

@JujuFish - you are absolutely welcome to disagree with me and I will not call you a Nazi just because you disagree with me 🙂. Peace.

 

[esquared]

Stop with the politics in this forum.

Next one gets infracted.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[JujuFish]

@JujuFish - you are absolutely welcome to disagree with me and I will not call you a Nazi just because you disagree with me 🙂. Peace.

Haha, thanks. 😛

Everyone just gets so worked up over everything. Emotions flaring make things more difficult. And yes, I am often the pot calling the kettle black. I often feel like I have two emotional states: complete apathy, and complete grump.

Anyway, back to Mass Effect! I've never played the series, so I think I'm going to get the Legendary Edition. I love me some sci-fi, so it's about time.

 

[ondma]

Swore to never waste another dollar or minute of time on anything in the Mass Effect universe after the soul crushing travesty that was ME3. So far I have kept that promise to myself.

Edit: I loved the first game, enjoyed the second game, although less than the first, and well, I already said what I think of the third one.

 

[CP5670]

I thought ME3 was fantastic if you leave out the last 15 minutes (after TIM). It had the best main quest of the series otherwise. I was much more disappointed by Andromeda.

 

[Muadib]

I've also never played any ME game. I want to though, so I'll see where this goes.

 

[ondma]

I thought ME3 was fantastic if you leave out the last 15 minutes (after TIM). It had the best main quest of the series otherwise. I was much more disappointed by Andromeda.

I don't understand that reasoning. It is like losing the Superbowl on a last minute hail mary and saying "It was a great game, just the ending sucked". But the ending of ME3 *is* the point of the whole series. Hundreds of hours and dollars invested in the most disappointing ending to a game that I have ever seen. I have played a lot of games over probably 30 years, and no other game I have played even came close to disappointment of the ending of that game.

After the game was over, I just sat in front of the screen astounded at how awful it was.

Edit: I have held to my commitment never to touch Mass Effect again. Initially I planned to never even play a Bioware game again, but I broke down and played Dragon Age: Inquisition. It was far from the rage inducing travesty that ME3 was, but it was not up to the standards of the early Bioware days either.

 

[CP5670]

I guess for me, it's the journey that mattered. I agree that the endings are all stupid and don't fit into the game at all (even the patched one; I never saw the original one), but it was 15 minutes of a 90 hour game, the rest of which was better than the previous games. I liked how you visited all the species' homeworlds and resolved long standing issues for them, and many decisions you made in the earlier games were critical. It also had by far the best DLCs of the series, especially Leviathan. I just stop playing after beating TIM and pretend the rest of it never happens. 😛

 

[DeathReborn]

To this date I have never seen a ME3 ending, I was warned it sucked harder than a black hole so always quit before the end. From what I can gather I dodged several EA Bullets, I have been told what the endings are but I won't validate REALLY BAD storytelling. Pro-tip for Developers/Publishers, don't build a game on "your choice matters" only to say "take this selection of canned turds" at the end.

 

[Stuka87]

To this date I have never seen a ME3 ending, I was warned it sucked harder than a black hole so always quit before the end. From what I can gather I dodged several EA Bullets, I have been told what the endings are but I won't validate REALLY BAD storytelling. Pro-tip for Developers/Publishers, don't build a game on "your choice matters" only to say "take this selection of canned turds" at the end.

So you decided to not play a game based off garbage internet hearsay about the last 2 minutes of the 60 hour game that is amazing up until those last 2 minutes? And even the last 2 minutes have very little impact on the gaming experience for the other 99.8% of the game?

If this is the case, you must skip every single game in existence, but no game ever made is 100% perfect 100% of the time.

 

[ondma]

So you decided to not play a game based off garbage internet hearsay about the last 2 minutes of the 60 hour game that is amazing up until those last 2 minutes? And even the last 2 minutes have very little impact on the gaming experience for the other 99.8% of the game?

If this is the case, you must skip every single game in existence, but no game ever made is 100% perfect 100% of the time.

There is a huge gap between "100 percent perfect" and the ending of ME3. Although I am playing less these days, I was an avid gamer for many years, and like I said before, I have never played another game that even came close to the absurdity and triviality of the ending of ME3. I suppose, if you are willing to play a game simply for the gameplay experience, that is fine, and if it is satisfying to you, more power to you. However, for the third part of a Trilogy that is supposed to be the culmination of a story driven series, simply having good gameplay is not good enough for me. Believe me, If I had known what a mess the end of the Trilogy would have been, I would have stopped at the end of the first game for sure, and maybe even never started the series at all.

 

[Borealis7]

IIRC the ME3 ending was just like the Fallout 3 ending. you reach the final room and you are faced with a choice - which faction you favor, and you are presented with the relevant ending scene according to your choice.
but for FO3 i didn't care so much about the crappy ending because i enjoyed the game. for ME3 it was "meh, at least i finished the trilogy".

BTW there are so many parallels between the ME series and the OG Star Wars trilogy in terms of the contents of each part and fan reception of it. its astounding 🙂

 

[DeathReborn]

So you decided to not play a game based off garbage internet hearsay about the last 2 minutes of the 60 hour game that is amazing up until those last 2 minutes? And even the last 2 minutes have very little impact on the gaming experience for the other 99.8% of the game?

If this is the case, you must skip every single game in existence, but no game ever made is 100% perfect 100% of the time.

It was my 2 brothers & a few friends so no internet garbage that you speak of. I can enjoy games how I please, as should you.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

For all of ME3's original (not extended edition) endings faults, it was a testament to the journey to that point that it evoked as much emotion in me as it did. I was angry, yes, that for all the talk of choice and consequence this massive trilogy the ending of the game came down to three world states.

But I was also sad/happy/moved by some of the truly rough and irreversible elements of the ending (your squadmates dying in Harbinger's final attack, the Galaxy having to start from scratch without the MR tech). The reworked ending breaks up the flow of that final section a bit much, throws a bunch of fan service in.

Regardless, the ME trilogy is legend. Bioware pioneered some incredible story telling techniques (namely loading in world states from prior installments) and actually figured out how to make a decent cover based shooter in the process (not the highest praise, but still).

Both ME Andromeda and DA Inquisition took some huge steps forward in gameplay while simultaneously taking huge steps backwards in what we all actually show up to Bioware games for: an incredibly immersive, engaging story with memorable heros and villains.

 

[ondma]

For all of ME3's original (not extended edition) endings faults, it was a testament to the journey to that point that it evoked as much emotion in me as it did. I was angry, yes, that for all the talk of choice and consequence this massive trilogy the ending of the game came down to three world states.

But I was also sad/happy/moved by some of the truly rough and irreversible elements of the ending (your squadmates dying in Harbinger's final attack, the Galaxy having to start from scratch without the MR tech). The reworked ending breaks up the flow of that final section a bit much, throws a bunch of fan service in.

Regardless, the ME trilogy is legend. Bioware pioneered some incredible story telling techniques (namely loading in world states from prior installments) and actually figured out how to make a decent cover based shooter in the process (not the highest praise, but still).

Both ME Andromeda and DA Inquisition took some huge steps forward in gameplay while simultaneously taking huge steps backwards in what we all actually show up to Bioware games for: an incredibly immersive, engaging story with memorable heros and villains.

I sort of enjoyed DA:I, but it just seemed something was missing. I dont know what, exactly, but I was always waiting for some element that would make me really care about the characters, and it just never happened. Also, when I played it through to completion, I had a computer that barely ran the game, so there was a lot of stuttering, and I had to run it at lowest settings. I have a much better system now, and started a replay, but quit after a few hours.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I sort of enjoyed DA:I, but it just seemed something was missing. I dont know what, exactly, but I was always waiting for some element that would make me really care about the characters, and it just never happened. Also, when I played it through to completion, I had a computer that barely ran the game, so there was a lot of stuttering, and I had to run it at lowest settings. I have a much better system now, and started a replay, but quit after a few hours.

- A couple major factors from a story perspective were the lack of a compelling/competent villian (bad guy in DAI basically sits on his hands and gets his ass kicked through the entire game) and an incredibly flat/bland main character who unlike Shep or even Hawke from DA2, had to be a blank slate and sort of non-entity in the world.

Combat was off, just super spongey enemies and it really did that annoying thing where "every mob encounter is a 5 minute tactical experience" thing that just gets super old after a while and the semi-open world element just made the game feel dead with no real questlines or characters to interact with in the various zones. Everything of importance happens only at your home base.

The Trespasser DLC, however, was incredible and demonstrated that Bioware is still capable of making an awesome directed entertaining game. Just need more of that Bioware and less of whatever the hell made Anthem and ME:A.

 

[CP5670]

I agree about the bland player character in both MEA and DAI. In MEA in particular, most of the dialogue is very generic, and it's rare for Ryder to say anything you remember 5 minutes later. I think DAI at least had well-written companions and a very good main quest, while MEA lacked any of that. I found it hard to care about MEA's main quest or companions for 80% of the game, especially with Ryder himself being so bland. The graphics are great and the combat is fun but becomes repetitive after a while. The game is full of filler MMO-style side quests (more than even DAI) and not enough interesting quests with player choice or consequences, very unlike the old ME games.

 

[aigomorla]

Who plays Mass effect for the story?
Its all about the mayhem mode and grinding for pretty guns no? (sarcasm) well not really.... that's the only reason why i have so many hours in ME:3 + ME:A as the game was not very interesting. Ryder is nothing like Shepard, and ME3 they utterly destroyed the entire series.

Anyhow EA really ticks me off lately... i would not support this until they at least fix Anthem, which was the main reason why ME:A sequels got axed.

 

[Stuka87]

Who plays Mass effect for the story?
Its all about the mayhem mode and grinding for pretty guns no? (sarcasm) well not really.... that's the only reason why i have so many hours in ME:3 + ME:A as the game was not very interesting. Ryder is nothing like Shepard, and ME3 they utterly destroyed the entire series.

Anyhow EA really ticks me off lately... i would not support this until they at least fix Anthem, which was the main reason why ME:A sequels got axed.

EA brass is meeting this week to determine the fate of anthem, everybody is pretty sure it will be killed off. I am not sure what they could do to fix it at this point anyway.

But I am very annoyed that ME:A was not as good as it should have been because of Anthem (And due to being released 6 months early). I was really looking forward to some DLC content though as there was a lot left to explore, and finding the other arks.