tehpiemaker said:
Therumancer said:
I share your utter animosity towards Electronic Arts, but there are several things you have said that I simply cannot take a stand for. For one, the story aspect of a game is entirely up to the developers. For some of those that know this they blame the lack of quality writing on the fact that the previous writer for Bioware left a while ago. That said, I did not particularly find the ending to Mass Effect 3 so offensive as everyone else did, but that is a matter of opinion. However, they did release a free DLC to extend the ending of ME3 which expands on a lot of things people complained about. You won't get everything you asked for, but that's the case and we have to deal with it.
Dead Space 3 I can agree with. The first wasn't particularly frightening or good for that matter. Am I the only one who remember how floaty the controls were?
I disagree to a great degree, I feel that developers have a duty to ongoing properties and their fans, especially if they are picking up someone else's work as might be the case here if the original writers DID leave.
That point aside, you have to understand that with Mass Effect 3 it's not *just* about the ending being crap, and it is, because it doesn't fit the rest of the series (which I won't break down yet again unless it becomes nessicary), but also because the developers came out and promised the fans specific things with the ending, such as it not being an A, B, or C choice which it was. They also promised that all of the questions in the series up until this point would be answered and everything tied up in a nice, neat, little package.
The Devs not only failed to deliver on this promise, but a "behind the scenes" app made it clear that they never had any intention of delivering on those promises, stating specifically that they were never going to deliver the answers people wanted, because those can be used to inspire other games. Or in short, they wrecked the trilogy for franchise potential... pure greed.
It's also apparently been documented (going back to the original contreversy) that they started ME3 without an ending in mind, eventually they puked something out based on a letter written by an 8 year old boy the studio lead taped to his door as an example.
Extending and explaining an ending that didn't work for the series to begin with is little more than an insult to the fans (which is why I never DLed the free content). It's largely saying "we don't care what people think, we're going to do this anyway". A lot of this issue largely being fueled by the industry not wanting to surrender to fans for fear of the precedent it would cause. That's why it seems there was so many articles by other people in the industry advising EA not to cave it seems. I don't think it was ever about creative integrity, since the whole problem exists because there is no creative integrity here... or any integrity at all for that matter.
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As far as Dead Space goes, I personally like the game and it's franchise, including the first one (especially the first one) it innovated a bunch of cool things. My point is simply that it was never really a horror franchise, more like a dark science fiction story... a "wierd tale" to use an old term for a story without a definitive genere. People complained from the very beginning that it was an action game and didn't live up to the hype in magazines like "Game Informer" that it was going to be more horror than anything. People who wanted a new, genuine, survival horror game were disappointed from the beginning. Continueing to say that Dead Space is not a horror franchise, which it never was, as we knew from the first game, has lost any relevency. By the third game you should know exactly what this franchise is and stop QQing about it.
To be honest it could be argued "Dead Space" is one of those games that inspired current bad trends though. It is a game that was hyped as being something very differant than what it actually delivered. It wound up being a decent game and IP though, so people supported it anyway, largely due to "judging it on it's own merits". That wound up being a bad thing because now people in the industry can point to Dead Space, and it's two sequels, as an example of why lying works, especially when trying to sell action games as horror. If people had not supported it, no matter how good the game turned out to be on it's own merits, I suspect a lot of later atrocities, especially from EA, never would have happened. Gamers as a whole have not been good at actually putting their foot down on promises made by the gaming companies, which has simply caused them to grow bolder.
I also think that these kinds of trends have lead to a lot of developers believing they can just dial in work, and leave lies and marketing to cover it. I think "Colonial Marines" is an example of that. Great marketing and deceptions used to promote a steaming pile of 5 year old technology and gameplay with a franchise stamped onto it.
