For all Bioware likes to gab on about the "role-playing", in the end, they are going to make you play their story, not yours.
BioWare: A Dead Shepard Stays Dead
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Every story-driven game has to have some semblance of linearity and a defined end goal for the story to be any good. The difference is that Bioware actually allows you to make decisions along the way, both major and minor, which personalize the exact details of the story to you and you alone.theamazingbean said:
How many RPG's can say that?
All of them, as long as you're talking about actual rpg's. Video games, loosely inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, which some people strangely refer to as rpg's are probably a different case though.JeanLuc761 said:
Given we're talking about video games, Bioware is at the front of allowing the player to influence the story and their character.theamazingbean said:
It's unfair to compare it to a pen and paper RPG because of the restrictions inherent to videogames as a medium.
I'm fine with giving Bioware the gold medal in the Special Olympics, that doesn't change the fact that they routinely try to focus on things that would be better accomplished in other media, while ignoring the strengths that gaming has to offer. Their role-playing would work better on tabletop, their writing and storyline would work better as a book, and their gameplay mechanics still flail around uselessly.JeanLuc761 said:
I guess I would call Bioware the best game company that shouldn't be making games.
I disagree completely - I am extremely glad Bioware is pushing the electronic gaming envelope.theamazingbean said:
As Yahtzee pointed out: importing your protagonist is something that has been absent from CRPGs for far, far too long. And where other games mainly used it for stats, items etc. - Bioware is focusing more on the decisions you've made and the history you've built in the universe.
Sure, ME's cooperative storytelling approach could work better as a tabletop game, but guess what? You can do that yourself. Just grab GURPS or d20 Modern or some other dicerolling system and fluff all the Asari, Salarians etc. you could want into it. You won't even need to pay a team of highly-compensated mathematicians, graphic/level designers and writers to make it happen.
But for those of us who want video gaming to advance, rather than simply being abandoned as a powerful storytelling medium, we could not disagree with your point of view more.
Why the fuck would I do that? There is nothing interesting enough about ME's setting to justify the port. I'll just play GURPS or d20 Modern straight.Optimystic said:
I've said it before, "choose your own adventure" does not equal "good storytelling". I love video games as a storytelling medium, as long as the developers keep in mind the unique strengths of the that particular medium. Bioware RPG's are marked by offering you 3-6 mediocre storylines that you get to choose from. Why some people consider this better than 1 good storyline you are railroaded into is something I'll probably never grasp, but it has nothing to do with love of video games or storytelling. Nice threadomancy though.Optimystic said:
To quote Kelly Chambers: "I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope time will change your mind."
And you're welcome.
And you're welcome.
Herein lies why I don't like ME that much. "Mass Effect 3, as with the rest of the trilogy, is Shepard's story."
If you import a save from ME2 with a dead shepherd then he should be dead in ME3. No new shepherd and no hope for humanity. You play with the characters who survived in ME2, fighting against impossible odds in a doomed world, and possibly skill your way to saving the world without shepherd. But that's the extra step you just don't see developers do anymore.
I am a sucker for those kinds of scenarios though. Which is why I thought the final mission in Halo:Reach was pretty awesome.
If you import a save from ME2 with a dead shepherd then he should be dead in ME3. No new shepherd and no hope for humanity. You play with the characters who survived in ME2, fighting against impossible odds in a doomed world, and possibly skill your way to saving the world without shepherd. But that's the extra step you just don't see developers do anymore.
I am a sucker for those kinds of scenarios though. Which is why I thought the final mission in Halo:Reach was pretty awesome.
I'm not surprised they're doing it this way, given the backlash against the fact that you could resurrect your dead Warden by playing Awakening and then import that save into Dragon Age II and have rather a weird situation. They should have made it so that you could import a dead Warden into Awakening in order to use your "world state" from that Warden, it would just prompt you to make up a new Orlesian Warden.
I think they're still doing it in a stupid way, though. If you are going to make 3 games where you play the same main character in all three, don't make the second game end in a "suicide mission" where you can kill off the protagonist. It's just dumb. Granted, as far as I'm concerned the entire plot of ME2 was idiotic beyond belief. I haven't played it and I'm not going to. I gave it a try for about half an hour when they gave me a free copy with DA2, and it merely confirmed my total lack of interest in playing.
I think they're still doing it in a stupid way, though. If you are going to make 3 games where you play the same main character in all three, don't make the second game end in a "suicide mission" where you can kill off the protagonist. It's just dumb. Granted, as far as I'm concerned the entire plot of ME2 was idiotic beyond belief. I haven't played it and I'm not going to. I gave it a try for about half an hour when they gave me a free copy with DA2, and it merely confirmed my total lack of interest in playing.
I respectfully disagree. I loved ME so much I played through it on like four different save files over times, but ME2 was a trudge for me. I never want to touch that thing again, and this just makes me want to pass on ME3 as well. And my Shepard didn't even die.Logan Westbrook said:
I'm also not sure I like the "You're free to choose, but only certain choices count" precedent. After having already watched Shep die once for silly reasons in a game that really didn't need it, being told that Sheps's death THIS TIME is serious business is just really lame. They made death cheap and then they told you it was meaningful, and now they're saying that if you went down "path X," you can't plug yourself in to one of the features that sets this game apart from other titles: The continuity factor.
Edit: Jeez, I thought this was a new thread. Yeesh.
'Cause remember: you can fight like a krogun, you can run like a leopard but you can't be better than commander Shepard.
Well it would have taken a metric ass-ton of work. Work that few people will actually see and could instead be put towards improving everything else or providing more contenttetron said: