Mass Effect virgin almost five years later
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ME2 was the most well-rounded (and had the best characters). ME3 was amazing and is probably my favorite of the three games, but mostly because the gameplay FINALLY became legitimately good, and it was just an overall very emotional game. It really is unfortunate that the last ten minutes where shite.
But yeah, imo while the original Mass Effect was a good game, you had to slog through a lot of annoying crap. The gameplay was boring, the fucking inventory system made me want to shoot myself, and don't even get me started on the vehicle sections. The characters were okay, but I didn't care for them (in general) half as much as I did for those in ME2 (and 3 by extension). I don't get why most Escapists think it's the best in the trilogy, usually they always talk about Lovecraft blahblahblah. I mean yeah, the plot was better structured in the original ME, I'll give it that. I came into the series knowing jack-all, and it was super fun/exciting figuring out everything (oh man, was I blown away when the main villain was revealed [no, not Saren]).
Also, just a counter (cuz I am honestly curious) why do YOU like Tales of Symphonia. In fact, I'm scratching my head as to how you can enjoy ToS and hate Mass Effect. I despise Tales of Symphonia. All the characters are little bitches that I want to punt across a football field.
I mean, no offense, if you like it more power to you, I just honestly do not get the game at all. I found the story incredibly hamfisted, the characters (as I mentioned) were ridiculously annoying, the writing was crap even by video game standards, while the gameplay was the only (and I mean only) slightly redeeming feature. Honestly, I find it almost comedic that you enjoyed that game while disliking Mass Effect. But of course, this all boils down different strokes or whatever.
But yeah, imo while the original Mass Effect was a good game, you had to slog through a lot of annoying crap. The gameplay was boring, the fucking inventory system made me want to shoot myself, and don't even get me started on the vehicle sections. The characters were okay, but I didn't care for them (in general) half as much as I did for those in ME2 (and 3 by extension). I don't get why most Escapists think it's the best in the trilogy, usually they always talk about Lovecraft blahblahblah. I mean yeah, the plot was better structured in the original ME, I'll give it that. I came into the series knowing jack-all, and it was super fun/exciting figuring out everything (oh man, was I blown away when the main villain was revealed [no, not Saren]).
Also, just a counter (cuz I am honestly curious) why do YOU like Tales of Symphonia. In fact, I'm scratching my head as to how you can enjoy ToS and hate Mass Effect. I despise Tales of Symphonia. All the characters are little bitches that I want to punt across a football field.
I mean, no offense, if you like it more power to you, I just honestly do not get the game at all. I found the story incredibly hamfisted, the characters (as I mentioned) were ridiculously annoying, the writing was crap even by video game standards, while the gameplay was the only (and I mean only) slightly redeeming feature. Honestly, I find it almost comedic that you enjoyed that game while disliking Mass Effect. But of course, this all boils down different strokes or whatever.
Fine, I'll bite.Mick Golden Blood said:Zhukov said:
What did you just say?
At least you're being good humoured about it.
It beats driving the bouncemobile across twenty boring, interchangable, featureless palette-swapped mountain ranges so I can raid the exact same base/cave/ship for the sixth time.
Don't get me wrong, planet scanning was a waste of time that sucked seven flavours of arse, but at least I could get it over and done with early then never look at it again.
However, I was referring to the combat. It was a boring chore in ME1, decent if somewhat bland in ME2, and pretty darn fun in ME3.
Oh please. If you can find a quote of me saying that the glowing space child is a great character then I will give you my firstborn.And that this little shit
Is a great character.
Although he could probably still give Kaiden and ME1-era Tali a run for their money.
What's stopping me from saying the exact same thing to you?Yeah, different strokes for different folks, but saying something is worse when it is so obviously and monumentally better in just about every way that actually matters to anyone is a sign of insanity, sir.
That's the thing with arbitrary statements on subjective matters. They're meaningless and anyone can make them.
"Worst characters" in the series, not worst characters ever.
In ME1:
Wrex was awesome.
Liara, Garrus and Ashley were pretty good.
Kaiden and Tali were crap.
The villain was good. (No, not Saren, he sucked. The proper villain.)
In ME2 and ME3:
Mordin, Legion, Wrex, Liara (LotSB), Jack, Samara, and Garrus were awesome.
Kasumi, Grunt, Thane, Miranda, The Illusive Man, James, Javik, Ashley and Tali were pretty good.
Zaeed and Jacob were crap.
The villains were meh.
Therefore, I arbitrarily declare ME1 to have the worst cast of characters in the series.
I Don't know about you but in my first playthrough I barely gave the side missions and exploration a sideways glance and just barrelled through the main quest. It was only after I fell in love with the ME universe that I decided to explore every inch of it available to me. Moments where you land on a twilight planet with a binary star system and running across ancient fossilised remains of giant creatures was quite awe inspiring, to me anyway.Zhukov said:
Moments like these :
and vistas like these:
Are much more enjoyable to me than squinting at a bunch of squiggly lines. As I said before maybe it's just because I enjoy a well crafted universe.
Saren was an awesome villain and hit every nail in the head as to what an anti-Shepard would be. Charismatic, driven, goal oriented, ruthless, wanted the best for his people and the galaxy even though his judgement was flawed. I don't see how Saren could be a lame villain... I mean look at how bad Kai Leng was... the big bad at the end didn't seem like a villain to me. More like a nightmare or an unstoppable force like gravity.Zhukov said:
Basically Saren = a villian I can respect, disagree but respect all the same.
Illusive man = same as Saren
Kai Leng = didn't want anything more than to tear the asshole in half for what he did to Thane
Sovvy = Crap my pants and hope that Garrus don't notice
I don't consider a bunch of skyboxes and crudely modeled maps to be a sign of a well crafted universe. I consider it to be lazy filler material.Batman said:
Yes, they're rather pretty if you take the screenshot at the right place and don't look too closely at the featureless terrain, but I found exploring them to be dreadfully dull. I got more enjoyment out of looking at those pictures that you posted just now than I did out of all of ME1's vaunted "exploration" elements.
Saren was conceptually good. I like the idea of a villain who saw what we were up against and decided that collaboration was preferable to extinction.Batman said:
However, the execution was lacking. He was absent for almost the entire game. Also, his dialogue was so painfully corny [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrgNgnkvrA0] that I couldn't take him seriously in the slightest.
Your probably doing this the right way IMO. The story missions are more interesting and more atmospheric, but doing the sidequests first lets you unlock all your dialogue options and stuff, meaning you don't see an option that you'd really rather take in a conversation, but not be allowed to as you haven't invested enough into being Captain America or Dirty Harry.Zero Serenity said:
And yeah, the characters in ME1 aren't too great [Saren is alright, Wrex is cool, but the rest are pretty bleh], but in ME2 that picks up a ton.
If you like the dialogue options, if/when you ever get to ME3 you'll find it highly disappointing, as most have been removed.
Yeah, this doesn't get fixed all through the series. ME2 has the crappy planet scanning, and ME3 has fly around Reaper sirens cops and robbers style thing. Kinda crap, but it fills in the time when you don't feel like doing anything.
You can get out of the Mako and fight it on foot. It just takes a lot longer to kill. So long as you keep moving, and don't get too close, you're fine. Plus you get more XP for killing it on foot, as with any enemy.
You unlock that when you become a spectre from memory, and you can get two sets: 1 from the C-Sec armoury, 1 from the Alliance Requisitions officer. Personally I'd wait a little before buying them: The level of the items you can buy changes as you level, so if you get to a higher level before buying them, you can get really good weapons, whilst if you buy them early you drop potentially the best weapons in the game down to marginally the best, if that compared to some other things.
As for combat, in ME1 its piss easy. Melee enemies are a bit of a bi***, thanks to their near 1 hit kill attacks, as are enemy biotics [Both of which you'll face en mass in the main mission set], but otherwise its pretty meh. Oh, and Krogan can be evil if you don't realise they get back up after you kill them and charge you. Try turning up the difficulty if you're finding it too easy though. Might help.
Hehehe, there are some truly evil combos you can do in ME1. I personally took Wrex over Garrus for the Biotics, but Kaiden and Liara together worked well - just disable everything en mass by lifting it, throwing it, stasising it or anything else.
Yeah, its kinda odd like that. Every time I start a new playthrough "Ok, I am not wasting so much time with the sidequests this time, just a story run, then I'm done. I'm sick of these samey rooms and boring levels".
/me ends up doing every sidequest in the game before starting Feros or Noveria [Not actually possible, as some quests are unlocked after doing each, but as many as you can do].
Whelp, there goes that plan.
Horses for courses. Don't worry about not liking it, it's just how you are. I found the first ME to be a bit action light. If that's the issue, try two and three.Zero Serenity said:
Okay, about 30 hours and I'm done with the game as much as I wanna be. One word? Dissapointing. Two? Dissapointingly Short. When I say that I mean the story is dissapointingly short. I realize now that all the sidequesting stuff is WAY more substantial than the story of the main game, which is dissapointing. Again, I didn't find the characters other than my own all that engaging or interesting, I sent Ashley to die (YES!) and still think there was something about the game that could have been better.
So, if you guys feel like staying with me through this little adventure, I'm going to start playing ME2 next Monday. Cheers.
I get to pop heatsinks in the next game from what I'm being told. *Drumset*DustyDrB said:-Sees thread about Mass Effect virginity
-Hits ctrl+F
-types "pop your heat sink"
-no results
ToS had good combat, a story that kept me guessing (especially after Kratos makes his move) and replayability just for the story bits. The annoying characters were probably more tolerable at a different age (I was 16ish then, I'm 25 as of last Monday, 6/11/12). But the major feature is that the main story took up most (90% maybe) of the game and the side quests were only a dozen or so whereas in Mass Effect it seems to be reversed.Cheery Lunatic said:
This.Zhukov said:
These look like they've been heavily put under the ray of color correction and therefore look like ass. But honestly the only interesting landscape was Luna. That was interesting.Batman said:
So, if you guys feel like staying with me through this little adventure, I'm going to start playing ME2 next Monday. Cheers.
I adore the characterization.
I also feel that the FemShep/Liara is one of the most realistic homosexual romantic portrayals I have ever seen in any media. The Male Shep/Cortez I hear is okay, but I'd approve more if it was something they allowed in the first game.
Understandably, they do suffer from a certain trope [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscountLesbians]. But I don't care if Liara doesn't see herself as a "woman". Don't care. I love her so much T_T
I could make a monstrous post about this but you can read other replies regarding what people liked and I'll probably mostly agree with those.
And to reiterate a theme of most of my today's posts: Most of the female cast feel like actual females.
Ashley is a ***** and I don't like her - BUT THAT'S OKAY. At least she complex, for once.
I also feel that the FemShep/Liara is one of the most realistic homosexual romantic portrayals I have ever seen in any media. The Male Shep/Cortez I hear is okay, but I'd approve more if it was something they allowed in the first game.
Understandably, they do suffer from a certain trope [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscountLesbians]. But I don't care if Liara doesn't see herself as a "woman". Don't care. I love her so much T_T
I could make a monstrous post about this but you can read other replies regarding what people liked and I'll probably mostly agree with those.
And to reiterate a theme of most of my today's posts: Most of the female cast feel like actual females.
Ashley is a ***** and I don't like her - BUT THAT'S OKAY. At least she complex, for once.
Agree to disagree? The first one is by far my favorite. Best villain, best story elements (the story is predictable, but well-written and interesting), in my opinion the most enjoyable combat despite it being much less responsive. I know the combat wasn't as good, mechanically, but to me it just felt better. It was very 'RPG', whereas ME2 and ME3 combat feels a lot more like a Gears of War clone.Zhukov said:
Me3 was great, but the ending sort of left a sour aftertaste. ME3 is the only one I haven't gone back to play again immediately after finishing it.
i will admit, although I love the first two mass effects, the first game took me a try or two to get into it, it took a slightly different approach and once I pushed through and became a spectre, I finally got a grasp on it and dove right in (essentially to getting off taris and past dantooine to compare to KOTOR since you've played it)Zero Serenity said:
the combat plays more like an rpg than it does a shooter, which is probably why you are getting a bit annoyed with it (that and it isn't as polished as it should be, and it turns way more into a shooter in ME 2 and 3)
if you are having trouble getting into it, maybe recommend watching a "let's play" of it on youtube? honestly the characters and story really gripped at me, way more than any other bioware product before, so if you enjoy those, i would suggest at least watching it (the ending half hour or so is really good too! great cutscenes and such)
agreed on all of this, I would be suffice to say I think I enjoyed me1's ending the best even, the cutscenes were superb and I think it really got a hold of me that I WANTED to stop saren more than anything, while in me2 it was more a "wooh...gotta kill harbingers..andross..thingy..err..robot?"MetallicaRulez0 said:
Personally I like Mass Effect for the story but the gameplay of the first game drove me up the wall. I like the gameplay in the second two much better.
So...welcome back to the now bloody panties of my Mass Effect gaming experience. 8 Hours in to Mass Effect 2 and I really am noticing the differences so heavily that I'm not sure I preffer this one to the original yet. First impressions are rather silly when you get blown up and revived with cybernetics and are allowed to even pick a new class. But once I got past the first alarmingly generic shooting gallery and got back into the Citadel something hit me in the face. This "world" doesn't feel so dead anymore. Stuff's going on outside, people are having actual conversations and there does seem to be a sense of people are doing things to do things instead of just being generic NPCs. Picked up some quests, got some cash, some EXP and upgrades and I do apreciate the change from having to buy new gear to just upgrading what you have.
But the game does seem to be shying away more from the RPG elements of putting points into skills and more into the whole shooting thing. Management of equipment somehow got worse (since statistics for guns are invisible and I avoid online guides) but the changes to upgrades is kinda nice especially since you can manage everyone instead of having to do individual persons. I really apreciate the fact that my sniper rifle doesn't bob around like a drunkard doing a pole dance, but having it perfectly stable does smack of cheating a bit. I hate to make it sound like I'm debasing myself for Halo, but I really wish more games had a two-tiered alarm system for damage taken (slightly annoying for half damage, really annoying for shield gone) since I seem to have trouble focusing on my health bar when I'm blasting things. The change from just heat to being able to eject a sink is welcome because the enemies seem to be in greater quantity and strength, so that whole thing balances out.
Fortunately for the game, the writing seems to be getting much better and I'm tending to care more about the events and characters. I've met both of my former squadmates (Garrus and Tali if you're just joining us and if you are, SHAME ON YOU!) and do enjoy the bits of what happened to them. It does make the whole importing of a save thing come alive and this game seems like a more proper sequel than just a add-on knock-off.
The Planet Scanning mechanic for resources sounds good on paper, but the fact that you have to buy Helium-3 to get around while the Mass Relays cost nothing just scream "we have no idea what we're doing". I don't mind buying the probes, but when flying from a fuel station to any place and back is 500 units it really feels restricting.
So, sofar I like the shooting and some of the story elements a lot more, but I can't quite say this game is better and I think it lies somewhere in the much smaller ammount of RPG customization options.
Oh. I did have to laugh at the line "Remember when we just opened locks with Omni-Gel?" because the hacking minigames are still rather silly, but they could have been much worse.
But the game does seem to be shying away more from the RPG elements of putting points into skills and more into the whole shooting thing. Management of equipment somehow got worse (since statistics for guns are invisible and I avoid online guides) but the changes to upgrades is kinda nice especially since you can manage everyone instead of having to do individual persons. I really apreciate the fact that my sniper rifle doesn't bob around like a drunkard doing a pole dance, but having it perfectly stable does smack of cheating a bit. I hate to make it sound like I'm debasing myself for Halo, but I really wish more games had a two-tiered alarm system for damage taken (slightly annoying for half damage, really annoying for shield gone) since I seem to have trouble focusing on my health bar when I'm blasting things. The change from just heat to being able to eject a sink is welcome because the enemies seem to be in greater quantity and strength, so that whole thing balances out.
Fortunately for the game, the writing seems to be getting much better and I'm tending to care more about the events and characters. I've met both of my former squadmates (Garrus and Tali if you're just joining us and if you are, SHAME ON YOU!) and do enjoy the bits of what happened to them. It does make the whole importing of a save thing come alive and this game seems like a more proper sequel than just a add-on knock-off.
The Planet Scanning mechanic for resources sounds good on paper, but the fact that you have to buy Helium-3 to get around while the Mass Relays cost nothing just scream "we have no idea what we're doing". I don't mind buying the probes, but when flying from a fuel station to any place and back is 500 units it really feels restricting.
So, sofar I like the shooting and some of the story elements a lot more, but I can't quite say this game is better and I think it lies somewhere in the much smaller ammount of RPG customization options.
Oh. I did have to laugh at the line "Remember when we just opened locks with Omni-Gel?" because the hacking minigames are still rather silly, but they could have been much worse.
It gets said towards the begining of the game. I think some of the lines are randomly triggered.
I agree. Saren is freakin' awesome. He is a lot like The Illusive Man, only scarier. TIM is a lot smarter than Saren though. I like a villain who doesn't know that he is a villain. One who thinks that he's doing the right thing, but at the same time he is not afraid to get his hands dirty for the greater good. That's a good villain. And both Saren and TIM qualify. I love them.Batman said:
Lol'd.hard.Zero Serenity said:
But glad to see your enjoying me2!
I would definitely recommend as others have pointed out getting the shadow broker DLC, and the Project Overlord DLC is quite good too! (the weapon packs and shit are all useless, idk about the character one though)
the game definitely gets better as it goes along i think, so hopefully by the end your enjoying that game as much as I/we did (we as in the fans).