In recent times: the realization after playing through Mass Effect 2 that the whole thing with taking a savegame through the whole series doesn't mean shit.
I mean, it's an awesome idea, and I admit it's very ambitious, and my expectations probably were a bit high. I mean, taking in account every little conversation choice and potentially shaping a completely different path throughout the games probably takes an awful lot of manhours for a game like this. In a game like Planescape: Torment, most of your choices result in different text (different awesome text), but in ME it takes voice acting, animating, beautifully detailed 3D environments, etc. I understand there are limitations.
But damn, we could've gotten *something* more than this. If they'd held the game in development for one year longer they could've done it and I would have been totally fine with that.
If you choose to sacrifice the council at the end of Mass Effect 2:
Miranda: "Shepard did everything right, sacrificing the council? Man, that was awesome."
If you choose to save them:
Miranda: "Shepard did everything right. Saving the council? What a guy!"
Every single character that could potentially die in Mass Effect 1? Non-frikkin'-recruitable in the sequel. So far for your heart-wrenching choice about who gets left behind on Virmire.
Ashley lives: "o hi lolwut ur with cerberus now? kbi!"
Kaidan lives: "yeah, what she said."
And who at the end of ME2 was certain to live to be recruitable in ME3? No one. Except for Liara, maybe. Haven't played LofSB. But I imagine she'll be too busy. Garrus and Tali? Don't get your hopes up, guys.
Your choice toward the Illusive Man at the end of ME2 will probably net you an e-mail on your terminal at most.
I was so pumped, imagining taking a character through a whole trilogy, and taking another one through with a radically different experience. But I was crushed when reality struck.
It's such a great idea and finally someone was going to actually do it. One of my favourite developers, no less. And then they chickened out. They chickened the fuck out.
And this whole wall of text isn't even taking into account the "streamlining", the mess that the story's become, the planet scanning instead of driving around in an awesome tank. Don't get me even started on that.
Also a big disappointment was Neverwinter Nights 2. I mean, some things were better than the first, like the campaign structure.
But:
- The toolset was way more complicated than the first, and far more buggy. Result: not the building and scripting community that the first game had. The first game was awesome at this, but it also had some very annoying limits. Neverwinter Nights 2 fixed these limitations, then destroyed all the rest. There was barely a community to speak of.
- It was painfully chuggy even on a ninja system.
- It recycled a lot of the music from the first game.
- It felt unfinished. If you destroyed a chest, it didn't have a "breaking" animation, it just made a breaking sound, then popped out of existence.
- It didn't have those awesome sparring and blocking animations anymore. In NWN it really seemed like those two guys were fighting. Sidestepping, strafing, dodging, parrying, shield-blocking. In NWN2 they just took turns hitting each other.
And finally, The Sims. It was a great idea. It looked like something I could've had a lot of fun with. The actual game was as tedious as going to work and doing the dishes.
