Poll: Should I even bother with Mass Effect?

[Shymer]

I slightly preferred ME1 to ME2. Not sure why. If you break down the individual moments, ME1 definitely has some slow pace issues - but somehow all of the pieces gel together in ME1 really well and I feel more... in control?

ME2 has the opposite problem. It feels like you're being rushed all the time - collecting clips is annoying - you sometimes trigger a cut scene in ME2 which means you can't search the rest of the level before being thrown elsewhere. The lack of inventory and kit upgrade mechanic is so slick that it's totally unengaging.

The Mako driving on planets to find resources was a bit dull - but the scanning and probe minigame in ME2 has absolutely no variety. At least the low-G physics and act of driving on an alien world offered something engaging from an experience perspective.

It seems like they have successfully removed a lot of the connecting tissue of, what might be considered tedious, gameplay from ME1, only to find that it was the glue that made the whole game more coherent and immersive.

That being said - I would heartily recommend playing both. It is interesting to find two games that are thematically and stylistically siblings, but are so very different in how they play and make you feel. Also games where you don't know from moment to moment whether you are actually having fun - but overall create a tremendous feeling of quality and happiness of having taken the journey.

I have not taken the plunge into ME3 yet. I am halfway through ME2 and enjoying it.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

Play all three, and go for a full completion.

ME1 has atrocious teammate AI (at least the PS3 port, I don't remember how it was on PC), annoying inventory management and is generally clunky in terms of gameplay, but it offers the best in exploration - the galaxy really feels huge.

ME2 and ME3 are much more streamlined, quests are replaced with missions, where you go to the designated area, go through the mission and never come back again. They're much more corridor-ey and sacrifice the rough-around-the-edges RPG focus of ME1 for RPG elements and play much more like a shooter. They also add an "interrupt" command to conversations and a lot of those are really worth it.

Play male, play female, play full paragon and full renegade, think up a character and roleplay them. Import saves and remember - there are no *bad* decisions. The consequences play out later in the trilogy, but you're never really punished for making the "wrong" choice. So do what you feel your Shepard would do, and enjoy the show.

ME3's ending is indeed pretty bad, but for me it felt more tedious than "OMG story betrayal!".

The games also play around with some scifi tropes, so a fan of the genre might get a kick out of it.

Tricia helfer is the superior voice actor, not that mark meer is bad, its just a great story from a female perspective as well.

Also, you should seriously consider going FemShep. Helfer is a far superior voice actress

FemShep's VA is widely considered to be better than MaleShep's. But it's Jennifer Hale, not Tricia Helfer.

 

[votemarvel]

Also, you should seriously consider going FemShep. Helfer is a far superior voice actress, but the real reason to do it is so you can romance this beautiful bastard:
[img/]http://cdn.staticneo.com/w/masseffect/thumb/a/af/Garrus_Vakarian.png/310px-Garrus_Vakarian.png[/img]

While Tricia Helfer is a better voice actress than Mark Meer, playing Male or Female Shepard has no bearing on hearing her wonderful voice as EDI. FemShep is voiced by Jennifer Hale. While she is the superior choice for emotional scenes, if you're going for "badass", her delivery just kinda falls short.

The person who voices Female Shepard is Jennifer Hale.

Tricia Helfer voices EDI.

Edit: Ninja'd

 

[Lucyfer86]

Play them, finish the third and cry. That's what all of us did.

Wrong.

/More letters.

 

[dyre]

Definitely play all 3. Most of Mass Effect 3 is amazing, with easily some of the best storytelling of the series. Also the gameplay is a lot better, there are lots of interesting side quests, side characters and side conversations. It's an excellent game with some excellent writing.

The horribly written ending is the lead writer's fault, but his staff (who contributed lots of work to the rest of the game) did a top-notch job. Also, with the rereleased / enhanced/ whatever they call it ending, I'd say they solved some of the problems from the original ending. I would say that the rereleased ending is merely disappointing, not infuriating like the original one. As in, you'll be a bit put off by the ending but not nearly enough to make you regret playing one of the best video game series ever made.

 

[votemarvel]

I've voted for play all three.

Mass Effect is by far my favourite. Yes the side-quests look the same but a great deal of them tie into the main story in a small manner, giving a sense of cohesion to the universe. The feeling that everything is connected.

Combat is something I genuinely don't understand the complaints about. For me I find it by far the smoothest and satisfying of the trilogy. I never feel restricted on the options I have available. Every class can become 'godly' by the end. You always have opinions.

I struggle to understand the complaints people have about the cover system too. Lightly push against cover to enter, lightly pull away to exit. Plus because of the ability to crouch you don't need to be pressed against cover in order to take advantage of it. Also not once have I shouted "get off the &$*£ing wall", which was an all too common occurrence in the second and third games.

Now don't get me wrong I can understand the move away from dice-roll to standard shooting in the two sequels but for me that was just one of the things that pushed the balance in favour of the gun based classes.

Making Biotics next to useless against armoured and shielded enemies, combined with the fact that your own shields were as effective as wet toilet paper, meant biotic classes were all too often stuck behind a chest high wall spamming biotic combos.

The weight system in three made this even worse. Now you had biotics that still did next to nothing against shielded enemies but you had the choice of being able to spam your biotic combos or carry a decent weapon, and if you went with the gun choice you may as well just have picked the soldier.

Balance shifted even more toward the Soldier with Mass Effect 3. You had a weapon for every occasion, you just applied your ammo 'powers' to the weapons before you got into combat, and you could breeze through sections. Plus because you weren't reliant on powers to be effective, you could vary your play style a great deal more.

Rant over and now back to story. I've already mentioned that I think the first game had the best story but my favourite story moment of the trilogy happens in Mass Effect 2 and that is Tali's loyalty mission. The problem for me is that it all feels disjointed, it never feels as if the universe is one complete whole. The individual parts are great but they all feel separate.

Mass Effect 3 brought the feeling of whole back but story feels like an inconvenience to all the 'awesome pew pew action'. Bioware seems to have forgot that the characters are just as important, if not more so, than the combat in the game. The only ones who feel 'complete' are those who return from previous games. There are great moments in it but they are few and far between for me.

Then of course we must touch on the endings. It wasn't what they represented for me but how poorly those ideas were fleshed out that annoyed. We were told that our three choices would have massively different repercussions for the galaxy but were shown three nigh on identical endings. Thankfully the Extended Cut went some way toward fixing that.

I know I may sound down on the last two games but they really are fun to play. Consider them a whole rather than three separate games is the way to go I think.

 

[hermes]

All three of them are worthy.

1 has the weakest gameplay of the series, mostly because it tries to be a shooter without fully committing to it. However, it has a phenomenal story, universe and its fundamental to understanding the setting in the rest of the series.
2 and 3 has the best characters (Mordin and Thane for the win) and are pretty competent as shooters

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I recommend you play all three.

It's a fantastic trilogy that will take you around 100+ hours and will be well worth it. Make sure you grab the Extended Cut dlc as well which will give you a bit of closure to the end of ME3. Throw in all other dlc while you are at it, you won't regret it.

 

[votemarvel]

All three of them are worthy.

1 has the weakest gameplay of the series, mostly because it tries to be a shooter without fully committing to it. However, it has a phenomenal story, universe and its fundamental to understanding the setting in the rest of the series.
2 and 3 has the best characters (Mordin and Thane for the win) and are pretty competent as shooters

Yet I'd argue that it is the strongest of the series but I suspect that is because of the same reason you don't, the dice roll.

It's strange to me to be honest that Mass Effect 1 gets disliked for hiding the dice roll behind a faux shooter cover but Dragon Age II, which hid the dice roll behind a faux hack and slash cover, gets praised for it.

That's not to say it is without fault of course, I would have loved for them to take into account where you were hitting the enemy in the dice roll for example.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

snip

snip

GAH I knew that didn't sound right.

HALE is the better voice actor. I blame everything on the person before me who said Helfer

Also, while the general voice acting for FemShep is indeed better, you're also correct that Hale has some issues when she needs to raise her voice or be threatening.

 

[hermes]

All three of them are worthy.

1 has the weakest gameplay of the series, mostly because it tries to be a shooter without fully committing to it. However, it has a phenomenal story, universe and its fundamental to understanding the setting in the rest of the series.
2 and 3 has the best characters (Mordin and Thane for the win) and are pretty competent as shooters

Yet I'd argue that it is the strongest of the series but I suspect that is because of the same reason you don't, the dice roll.

It's strange to me to be honest that Mass Effect 1 gets disliked for hiding the dice roll behind a faux shooter cover but Dragon Age II, which hid the dice roll behind a faux hack and slash cover, gets praised for it.

That's not to say it is without fault of course, I would have loved for them to take into account where you were hitting the enemy in the dice roll for example.

I believe it is because DA2 is the second of a series, and the first was heavily reliant in dice rolls, while ME 1 didn't have a previous game to compare with.

Also, flying numbers. If they show flying numbers over the enemies heads, people immediately identifies it as an RPG, understand that there is an element of chance associated with the damage, and can even figure out easily the effectiveness of an attack depending of, for example, where are you aiming at. If you don't, people will just notice "I shoot it in the head from 6 feet away and it did nothing", and get frustrated by it.

 

[Magix]

For ME3 ending all I have to say is it's about the journey, not the destination

 

[Magix]

For ME3 ending all I have to say is it's about the journey, not the destination

That old PR line does'nt hold water if the destination is so horrible it renders the journey meaningless.

If that's your opinion of the game, then you should be criticizing the game, not just the ending. OP's problem is with the ending, not the rest of the game. If HE has no problems with the journey, then he shouldn't avoid playing the game just because of the destination.

I, for one, loved the gameplay of ME2 and ME3. Haven't played 1 so don't know about that. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but I don't see how that makes it horrible. I mean a good game is subjective, of course, but you can't just call an award winning, highly scored and highly popular AAA game horrible without heavily emphasizing that that's your personal opinion.

when the destination is just as if not more important than the journey itself.

Your opinion is no less valid than mine, but I still fail to see how ten minutes of borderline cutscenes can be more important than the previous hundred hours. Or I should say, I fail to see how those ten minutes can TAKE ANYTHING AWAY from your enjoyment of the previous hundred hours. The previous hours by definition happened in the PAST - you already enjoyed them. And if you didn't enjoy them, what in the name of god did you do pouring a hundred hours into a game you didn't enjoy playing. Go read a book.

 

[SargeSmash]

The thing you have to remember about ME1's combat is that it's not a pure shooter. It looks like a shooter, but it's very much like Bioware's other RPGs like KOTOR, there's more math than skill involved. Once you realize that, it's all smooth sailing. The sequels actually bring the series into line with expectations of what folks thought the combat should have been in the first game. It's not better or worse, just different, and a bit more skill-based than before.

With the Extended Cut, the ending is passable, and the whole series is worth investing in, despite a few niggling issues along the way.

 

[votemarvel]

For ME3 ending all I have to say is it's about the journey, not the destination

When the destination is the hotel where you are forced to eat dog turds for every meal, it doesn't matter how nice the drive to get their was.

A rousing ending can save even the weakest of stories. Yet at the same time a weak ending can destroy the strongest of tales.

The ending is more often than not, the thing that people remember the most.

Personally I think there are many things to complain about with Mass Effect 3. Such as the comedy animations, eavesdropping side-quests, increase in passive conversations. etc. I could go on for a while.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

You should definitely play all three, they're fantastic games made even better by the connections between them.

Also be sure to get all the story DLC. That would be Bring Down the Sky for ME1; Zaeed - The Price of Revenge, Kasumi - Stolen Memory, Overlord, Lair of the Shadow Broker, and Arrival for 2; and Extended Cut, Leviathan, Omega, and Citadel for 3.

 

[chiefohara]

Tricia helfer is the superior voice actor, not that mark meer is bad, its just a great story from a female perspective as well.

FemShep's VA is widely considered to be better than MaleShep's. But it's Jennifer Hale, not Tricia Helfer.

oops, thank you for the correction

 

[AD-Stu]

If the epic space opera experience is what you're after then definitely play all three. Seeing the whole thing out from start to finish, seeing how your different choices and relationships with different characters play out, is a big part of what made most people fans of the series. Start from the middle and you miss out on a lot of that stuff.

A lot of people say ME2 is their favourite, and that's fine, but in story terms it's probably the least 'epic' of the series - it's more like a whole series of smaller character pieces. Lots of fun, just not necessarily epic.