Poll: do you think ME2 is to blame for most issues in ME3?

[wulf3n]

ME2 wasn't the cause of any issues, it was merely a symptom of the real problem, Biowares priorities. From ME1 - ME2 there was a clear shift of focus from substance and depth to something of spectacle and accessibility.

Don't get me wrong ME2 had some deep moments, but they were always over shadowed by "Ohhhh look we have a "suicide mission, tense right!" or "You have to work with "TERRORISTS", conflicted yet?"

even though ME1 had a suicide mission as well, it didn't feel the need to play it up as some big thing Shepard and the gang just got on with it because they're professionals and Cerberus never made you do anything that would cause internal conflict, they were "Terrorists" in name only, there was no 'compromise for the greater good' moments.

 

[putowtin]

no, the storyline may have moved away from that of the first game, yet the second gave us a chance to learn more about the galaxy Bioware had created and gave us move interesting characters to meet.

to me, ME3 had full flexibility.

[http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/195/gman.png/]

 

[AD-Stu]

My short answer would be no - for the most part, it's ME3 that's responsible for ME3's problems.

With the way everything ended up panning out I agree, most of ME2's plot goes nowhere. But that's because the ME3 team chose to either ditch or ignore a lot of the stuff that was deliberately set up in ME2: that being all the dark energy and human genetics stuff, the whole reason behind the Collector attacks and the human Reaper.

It seems to me that the Crucible was something the ME3 writers had to come up with when (for whatever reason) they decided to ditch all that material. I understand absolutely that stories adapt and change over time - Drew Karpyshyn himself says that Cerberus was never intended to play anywhere near as big a role in the story as it ended up playing. ME2 was written with the potential to tie directly into ME3 and be an essential part of the plot, it just didn't pan out that way.

 

[bug_of_war]

Mass Effect 2 was an excellent game. It did advance the story line by revealing the new 'head' of the Reaper armada, it delved more into the Prothean history, it showed what happens to a race when they fuck with the big kids plans, the suicide mission forced players to actually care about their squad mates and what they had to say, and the ending to ME2 showed us how Reapers were made. Mass Effect 3 has nothing wrong with it, it is a perfectly valid game that has some flaws. The biggest of which is the fact that multiplayer effected single player. However everything that happened in ME3 was completely fine story wise. The Crucibles introduction at the start of the game gives you a goal to work towards, and it is a much better goal than, "Lets shoot at Reapers and hope we kill them all, cause that obviously worked well for the Protheans and all the other races before them", the ending whilst somewhat lacking in diversity is still adequate as it makes sense that the same thing happens in the span of 5 minutes because technically EVERYONE is doing the same shit at the time the choice is made, thus diversity in the ending initially is going to be little. The Extended Cut gave people a view into the future effects, therefore the ending is still fine. You personally may not like it, but that is your opinion, not a fact that should be reflected by everyone.

A bad game is a game that literally can not function and is practically unplayable, Mass Effect 3 and 2 both functioned and were beatable, hence you can dislike the story/gameplay, but the game itself is not bad.

 

[sanquin]

ME2 isn't to blame for ME3's ending sucking. It's bioware/EA, and nothing/no one else that's to blame. Sure the progression of the three games should have been "finding out about reapers -> finding out how to stop reapers -> stop reapers" rather than "finding out about reapers -> stopping a side race from abducting people and making reapers -> stop reapers" and because of that ME3's plot had to be rushed. But that still isn't why ME3's ending sucked.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Fuck the Crucible altogether. If it was introduced in ME2 it would just have been a better-explored, more long term stupid thing to stake the fate of everyone in the universe on. The Crucible is just a terrible plot device, and that is the end of that. It doesn't matter how many conventional weapons you need, you spend every second you can trying to make it work before you turn to a flying microphone to destroy the Reapers. I personally think the Crucible and all choices should have been the worst ending, for people who fucked up royally enough not to be able to figure out a way to destroy the Reapers through co-operation with other species.

As for the suicide mission, the diminished roles of characters isn't inevitable, it's lazy. It's sort of like every choice in the series. Just because it should have a massive effect does not justify diminishing it for convenience's sake. It's called think out, design and implement that massive effect and give the players real payoff. A character should die in ME2 and be replaced by another, new, different character in ME3. This new character should influence events by having their own unique personality. Maybe attempting certain things the ME2 character could handle is too much for this new one and your game is altered by it. Maybe you fail a mission because of it. Maybe a character that could have helped you later isn't anywhere near you because they're filling in for the character you let die in ME2 and the one in their role is too inexperienced to be of use. Consequences, you know? Yes it would be a pain to untangle, and a pain to develop. It would also be a million times better than "Just have them take a minor role, so if they die we don't have to change anything else".

 

[RevTibe]

Hmmm. What if the tech used to make the baby reaper in the collector base also offered a powerful way of killing them off - Shepard wants to use it to destroy them, Illusive Man wants to blackmail them with it to control them, Shepard runs to alliance with tech, Cerberus becomes the enemy. Could've been a much smoother transition between 2 and 3.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

"You have to work with "TERRORISTS", conflicted yet?"

Oh this is so concise as summing up my experience with ME2. I was wondering the whole time "Is terrorism that big of an issue in the US that this is considered a moral dilemma? Are we meant to feel bad about working with Cerberus? Is doing so enough of an outrage that our own squadmates would doubt our motives?"

 

[Uncle Comrade]

The problem with Cerberus is that they were portrayed so inconsistently. In the first game they were a shady cabal of rogue scientists doing unethical experiments, mostly involving siccing nasty creatures on people to see what happens.

Then in 2, they were expanded into this kind of secret (although not that secret, since everything they owned had their insignia stamped all over it, and everyone seemed to know right away who they were) intelligence organisation, with everyone going to great lengths to tell you how they were the good guys and the only ones willing to stand up for truth, justice and the American way fate of the galaxy.
Ocassionally a character would react negatively toward them, only for their concerns to be dismissed, all the horrible experiments they did in ME1 were just handwaved away as "a rogue cell" and they rarely requried you to do anything that morally dubious (and if they did, you were perfectly at liberty to refuse, all you'd get was an email from the Illusive Man saying "Not what I would have done but, whatever, your call.")

Then ME3 comes around, Cerberus are back to being villains, this time in the style of SPECTRE from the early Bond films. Practically everyone who worked for them in the previous game has defected, having realised that they were evil all along, and are more than happy to assist Shepard in stopping them. I can understand the reasons for this story-wise, as they needed a new 'large powerful group working for the reapers' for you to go up against, now that the Collectors are gone and the Geth have turned out to be alright after all, but for me the sudden switch from 'misunderstood good guys' to 'obvious villains' was one of the most jarring things about the trilogy.

 

[GameChanger]

I absolutely (NOT) love how they totally made the Reapers arrogant instead of overwhelming. I mean, Sovereign was arrogant but at least he had the muscle to back it up. Harbinger just was a whiny bastards with an army of insect minions who did all the dirty work for him.

Besides, they weren't that intelligent from 2 on. Just bullrushing everything. Yeah, there's your millons-of-years-old machine mastermind master race right there. As strategic as a kitchen table with three legs is what they were.

 

[Exocet]

They removed sweet weapon mods and ammo mods from ME2 on, they were wrong.
Sure they could have removed the crap menu system, but why did they remove the option to have a single shot before overheating, massive damage explosive shotgun, and a lightning, infinite pew pew assault rifle?

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Gonna go with no. Partly because the "problems" with ME3 are up for debate, and I don't happen to think it is as flawed as the poll seems to presuppose, and partly because any problems it does have can be placed on the game itself, not what came previously.

The development of each game was separate from the others. Sure, they had a lot of the same people on each one, but every game had its own team with different talent and different goals and different budgets. Whatever ME1 did placed no direct demands on ME2, and whatever ME2 did made no direct demands on ME3.

ME2 is a bit of a sidetrack from the "main plot" of the reaper invasion, but you can't say it did nothing to advance it. It told us the ultimate fate of the protheans. It gave a lot more insight into what the reapers want, i.e., their reproduction cycle. It introduced a leader for the reapers (it's certainly not ME2's fault that ME3 completely neglected Harbinger). And it expanded the universe of Mass Effect so, so much, making sure that the final game didn't have to do that itself because you are already informed and invested in the galaxy and its people.

As far as the Crucible goes...It's a tricky subject. I never wanted there to be a reaper-killing MacGuffin, I think most people are disappointed that the game immediately forced us to rely on some sudden discovery that promised to be our total salvation. But really, was there any other way to structure the game?

MacGuffins are not an inherently bad plot device. In this case, it gave us something to work toward. Think about it. In ME1, the Conduit was the MacGuffin. It was a mysterious object that we knew little about other than that we must find it before the bad guys do. It lead us in all our decisions; what gets us closer to the Conduit? What can we do to keep Saren from finding it? In ME2, it's less clear-cut, but the Omega 4 relay was pretty much MacGuffin-like. We know that the collectors are bad, they likely work for the reapers, and we have to find some object or learn some technique to get us to their homeworld in order to stop them. It was more organically woven into the plot, but really, the reaper IFF was the MacGuffin.

So, along comes ME3 and introduces its own MacGuffin at the beginning, and many of us, me included, are disappointed. But really, it's the only thing that makes sense. Without the Crucible or something similar to work towards, the game is essentially aimless. "Stop the reapers" is a weak central pillar around which to structure the plot. We know the reapers are a galaxy-devouring force, and even with the ultimate goal of stopping them before they kill everyone, without some vehicle to make the impossible happen the plot flails around without any specific thing for Shepard to do aside from prop up the walls as they fall in on everyone.

I do think that the Crucible could have been used better in the overall arc of the plot and gameplay, but its existence is, as much as I don't want to hear it myself, pretty necessary.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Nope, 2 was the best game in the series simply because it didn't focus on the overall plot. Getting to know the team members and preparing for the suicide mission was much more interesting than going through a linear story with epic setpieces every five minutes.

And 3 could have focused more on some of the team members, like Miranda (who's almost impossible to kill off in the suicide mission).

 

[TheKwertyeweyoppe]

I feel like ME2 was the only one that got all the elements right (planet scanning excluded). The combat was actually pretty fun (as vanguard at least), and while it was still just a sideshow dragging the story out, it was a fairly enjoyable one.
But more importantly, the story focused almost one hundred percent on the characters. The whole collecters thing was just a reason to bring them all together, and an impossible task they had to achieve. The mistake ME3 made was in assuming I cared more for a billion people than one.

If anything, it was ME1s fault for introducing the whole reaper apocalypse in the first place. ME2 got away with mostly avoiding it and then ME3 had to clean it up somehow.

 

[Krantos]

Just as a side-note DA:2 feels like the Phantom Menace lol.

...

.....

That might be the best way to sum up my problems with the game I've ever heard. Wow. The more I think about it, the more accurate it seems.
-Shallow one dimensional Characters.
-Fancy, choreographed combat that fails to evoke any tension or feeling of danger.
-Cringe worthy "humor"
-Bad acting.
-Unnecessary shout outs/cameos to previous entries in the series.
-Too many plot elements, not enough actual plot.
-Pointless & unexplained changes to series lore.

Oh, god, that must have been the problem with DA2, it was written by George Lucas!.

OT: Not really. I think there were things they could have done in 2 to make 3 better, but 3's problems were entirely its own fault.

 

[Frotality]

absolutely. all ME2 accomplished plot-wise was complicating things with additional characters and factions that ultimately had very little to do with anything, apart from mordin's cure. thus, ME3 had to cover WAY too much ground, when it had big enough shoes to fill already being the finale to a series with dozens of big choices.

for the most part bioware did damn well considering the circumstances, but when you write yourself into a hole and rush out the finale to a series you radically changed in the last seconds of development, thats not exactly an excuse.

 

[Megalodon]

As far as the Crucible goes...It's a tricky subject. I never wanted there to be a reaper-killing MacGuffin, I think most people are disappointed that the game immediately forced us to rely on some sudden discovery that promised to be our total salvation. But really, was there any other way to structure the game?

Not after they decided that the Reaper invasion would occur at the start of the game. ME1 highlighted the problem talking the Ashley after Virmire. She points out that a rifleman has no role in a war against sentient spaceships. At the time I thought a full invasion wouldn't occur in the series, becuse of it invalidating the gameplay mechanic of infantry combat, when a Total War style grand strategy would be a way to tell the story of a Reaper War actually in line with the background on them. Instead they just gave the Repears ground troops to give you something to shoot.

A better idea (and completely different story structuring) would have been essentially a higher-stakes ME1, countering groups of Indoctrinated Reaper agents. Hell, with the Batarian stuff, a full war with the Hegemony would fill the need for grand set piece cut scence fights, while providing an easy source of dudes to kill in gameplay. And they said enough stuff in ME2 to potentially give you a Reaper solution. My preferred idea is reprogramming the Mass Relays to destroy ships displaying Reaper IFFs, like a reverse Omega 4 situation. Although that would be more of a reverse ME1, with Shepard trying to implement the plan and Reaper agents being reactionary and attempting to stop it.

 

[Ziame]

IMO the biggest problem with ME3 is that they wanted to solve the whole Reaper War, the lasted for /CENTURIES/ in previous cycles, to quick can of whoopass. I hoped that ME3 would set us up for further sequels - with Shepard dead, possibly with a big dent in Reaper Fleet, next games would focus on the War (as in, Mass Effect 4 - The War, Mass Effect 5 - The Victory, Mass Effect 6 - The Aftermath) and what happens after... instead they decided that a magical device was needed, that solved everything...

And tbh it was a ridiculous economic decision. I mean, instead of setting up an OBVIOUS SEQUEL HOOK of EPIC GALACTICAL PROPORTIONS, they ended it once and for all (pun intended)... I mean wtf.

And thus, it cannot be ME2 that's at fault.



OffTopic:
Though I gotta think that Karpyshyn is PISSED. He basically created a universe that could easily rival Star Wars/Star Trek, and then Bioware killed it off.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

As far as the Crucible goes...It's a tricky subject. I never wanted there to be a reaper-killing MacGuffin, I think most people are disappointed that the game immediately forced us to rely on some sudden discovery that promised to be our total salvation. But really, was there any other way to structure the game?

Not after they decided that the Reaper invasion would occur at the start of the game. ME1 highlighted the problem talking the Ashley after Virmire. She points out that a rifleman has no role in a war against sentient spaceships. At the time I thought a full invasion wouldn't occur in the series, becuse of it invalidating the gameplay mechanic of infantry combat, when a Total War style grand strategy would be a way to tell the story of a Reaper War actually in line with the background on them. Instead they just gave the Repears ground troops to give you something to shoot.

A better idea (and completely different story structuring) would have been essentially a higher-stakes ME1, countering groups of Indoctrinated Reaper agents. Hell, with the Batarian stuff, a full war with the Hegemony would fill the need for grand set piece cut scence fights, while providing an easy source of dudes to kill in gameplay. And they said enough stuff in ME2 to potentially give you a Reaper solution. My preferred idea is reprogramming the Mass Relays to destroy ships displaying Reaper IFFs, like a reverse Omega 4 situation. Although that would be more of a reverse ME1, with Shepard trying to implement the plan and Reaper agents being reactionary and attempting to stop it.

That's pretty interesting actually. After Arrival, the Batarian Hegemony goes to full-scale war with the Alliance, at the same time Shepard is trying to rally the galaxy to be united against the immanent reaper invasion. That's a good solution too, using the plot devices of ME2 against the reapers, thus ensuring continuity AND eliminating the need for a the sudden appearance of a previously unknown superweapon.

However, the batarians would never really stand a chance against the Alliance, much less the combined Citadel races, so that would really be a relatively short conflict. And if the reapers just died every time they used a mass relay, it would not end the war. They would figure out pretty quickly what was going on and just stop using the relays. It would slow them down, but it certainly wouldn't stop them. Remember that the reapers can travel at least twice as fast in conventional FTL as any other species can, according to the codex.

I dunno, there are certainly ways that they could have done ME3 differently, but after 2 whole games of Shepard desperately trying to tell everyone that "The reapers are coming, the reapers are coming!" I think the best thing to do would be to make this game about the reapers actually coming. They had committed early on to a trilogy structure, so to have the overarching foreshadowed conflict of the whole series come at the end of the final installment would be a huge letdown, wouldn't it?

Captcha=berlin wall
Is your real name Gorbechev, by any chance?

 

[Rariow]

Partly. (In poll-speak: yes)

I'd argue that nearly every problem in ME3 but the ending was pretty much entirely ME2's fault. ME2 kinda did its own thing, having very little to do with the main plotline. It also felt the need to shoehorn Cerberus in as the good guys, which made them being the bad guys again in ME3 feel extremely awkward (Say all you want about indoctrination, but these guys went to being portrayed as moronic terrorists in ME1 to very smart but maybe a bit too willing to get the job done good guys in ME2 to getting in Shepard's way seemingly for the lulz of it in ME3, particularly if you didn't destroy the Collector base at the end of 2 and if you chose the Control ending anyway), the Collectors don't show up at all (unless they do in one of the DLCs, still haven't played any of those yet), and nothing you did in ME2 seems to matter in the slightest to the grand scheme of things.

That said, the best moments of ME3 were achieved pretty much exclusively because of the focus ME2 put on the characters. What happens with Mordin is, for me, the high water mark of the entire series, what happens with Thane is probably the saddest moment in the whole thing (Particularly if you romanced him in 2. Oh, God, so many feels), and the list goes on and on. This is only possible because ME2 spent so much time making these characters so good.

In summary: The plot of ME2 made the plot of ME3 worse, but the character development in ME2 made the character stuff in ME3 better, mostly because ME2's story spent most of its time derping around and not moving the overall series plot forward.

Just for the record, I'm one of an apparently very limited number of people who liked ME3 the most out of the three. Even if I really like it, I'll have to admit that ME2 isn't actually all that good: Mechanics are mediocre, and the story is tangential and pointless at best, with the characters being the only bit where it really shines. ME1 is probably the most solid one plot-wise, and I like it more than 2, but I never noticed putting points into anything having any sort of effect, and the actual shooting bits are bad even if it is considerably more of an RPG.