Wrong Choices in Mass Effect 2 May Doom Shepard
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
At about 2:50 there was a sentence far more terrifying to me than anything else that has been said so far: "you burn fuel". It was said specifically in reference to exploration. There are only two ways that can go, and neither of them is good.
1 - Exploration requires fuel. Now it's even harder and more annoying, and you have to start planning more. The spontaneity was one of the best parts! You could wander into a system and say "ooh, a new planet! Let's land and see what's there." Not it'll be "Nope, sorry, I need to conserve fuel for that important thing over there."
2 - You have to explore places to find enough fuel to keep traveling. Turning a previously enjoyable diversion into a mandatory grind. Exploration is at it's best when you DON'T have a goal already in mind.
Other than fuel, that looked very awesome.
1 - Exploration requires fuel. Now it's even harder and more annoying, and you have to start planning more. The spontaneity was one of the best parts! You could wander into a system and say "ooh, a new planet! Let's land and see what's there." Not it'll be "Nope, sorry, I need to conserve fuel for that important thing over there."
2 - You have to explore places to find enough fuel to keep traveling. Turning a previously enjoyable diversion into a mandatory grind. Exploration is at it's best when you DON'T have a goal already in mind.
Other than fuel, that looked very awesome.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that part. Yeah, that definitely has potential to be a pain in the ass. A more promising feature, though, was how they were talking about looking around on the planet from orbit and choosing a landing site - that seems to imply that even the side-quest planets are going to be more unique and interesting.far_wanderer said:
How to bring back Shepard from the dead, even if its permanantly? Well, you don't, you make a clone. Theres also the possibility of time travel I suppose.
At first I was getting skeptical about Mass Effect 2 having us play from the perspective of someone not Shepard (unless that rumor's been dispelled in which case man am I slow on the take) but suddenly this entire dynamic makes me think this could be awesome. Plus it actually makes you feel like there's consequences to your actions. Of course I guess mileage may vary depending on how attached you got to Shepard while playing Mass Effect 1
Quite like the idea of fuel adds a element of desperation since humanity appears to be falling.far_wanderer said:
That could be worrysome. One gripe of samey planets that appealed to those that just liked listening to the map music replaced with the rich and immersive side quests that're bogged down with faffing about. We may not know how bad or good it may actually be until the game finally comes out.murphy7801 said:
On a different note: thank you Escapist (Namely YOU John Funk) for making me waste an hour at TVtropes. But since this is ME we're talking about it might've been worth it. Mebbe.
I like how this one's coming along, but I do think that telling people about Shepard's death will take a little bit of the punch out of Shepard dying.
Also, I think that what the dev meant there, with "that wasn't an ending", that was just a "fail" death.
Also, I think that what the dev meant there, with "that wasn't an ending", that was just a "fail" death.
I'm mostly glad to see the galaxy map music make it's return 
Although it does look fantastic, seems a lot more sandbox with the whole "pick where you land" thing and I'm glad they upgraded the command system for your squad. Looks like a seriously good game worth all the work the guys at BioWare have put in
Although it does look fantastic, seems a lot more sandbox with the whole "pick where you land" thing and I'm glad they upgraded the command system for your squad. Looks like a seriously good game worth all the work the guys at BioWare have put in
No offense but this sounds fairly retarded, and like Bioware might need to get their head examined.
Simply put, creating an ending so horrible that nobody would ever want to see it, and then making it apparently tricky to avoid (hence the save and reload thing) seems like an exercise in "let's see how many fans we can slot off". Either that or a ploy to sell a whole bunch more strategy guides than usual.
I suppose multiple endings adds to replay value, especially if they aren't dependant on a single desician towards the end of the game. However I also tend to miss the point unless substantial amounts of gameplay are also changed. For example replaying huge chunks of Mass Effect to see only a few differant lines of dialogue and a differant ending cinematic would be a bit much... so I hope if they are doing this kind of thing to encourage multiple plays through they are including enough truely differant content at enough points in the game to make it worthwhile.
I'll also be honest in saying that just reading this reminds me a bit of "Cross Edge" which is basically a game that has a good and bad ending. To get the good ending you need to do some ridiculously obtuse things that involve stuff like winning various boss fights without inflicting a single point of damage on a specific enemy, or hopefully finding hidden time sensitive events in previous areas in the right sequence, etc...
It can be fun to do things to change a game's outcome, Chrono Trigger is the masterpiece of demonstrating this despite it's age. However there is a point at which you can just get too ridiculous especially if it's an "all or nothing" equasion with only a handfull of endings.
I for some reason have these visions of something like:
Shepard dies if you don't suddenly backtrack from the second to last planet to the first planet to get the Wrex Hotsprings scene which gives Shepard heart failure from shock. This requires inserting a pacemaker which saves his life from the ordeal, and the pacemaker saves his life again when it restarts his heart after the final bad guy in the cinematic stops it with psychic powers.
Well either that or you need to play monkey-see, monkey-do in Spectre Training to ensure you have a doppel doll.
Those who have played Cross Edge or Crono Trigger will understand exactly what I mean in both cases.
Simply put, creating an ending so horrible that nobody would ever want to see it, and then making it apparently tricky to avoid (hence the save and reload thing) seems like an exercise in "let's see how many fans we can slot off". Either that or a ploy to sell a whole bunch more strategy guides than usual.
I suppose multiple endings adds to replay value, especially if they aren't dependant on a single desician towards the end of the game. However I also tend to miss the point unless substantial amounts of gameplay are also changed. For example replaying huge chunks of Mass Effect to see only a few differant lines of dialogue and a differant ending cinematic would be a bit much... so I hope if they are doing this kind of thing to encourage multiple plays through they are including enough truely differant content at enough points in the game to make it worthwhile.
I'll also be honest in saying that just reading this reminds me a bit of "Cross Edge" which is basically a game that has a good and bad ending. To get the good ending you need to do some ridiculously obtuse things that involve stuff like winning various boss fights without inflicting a single point of damage on a specific enemy, or hopefully finding hidden time sensitive events in previous areas in the right sequence, etc...
It can be fun to do things to change a game's outcome, Chrono Trigger is the masterpiece of demonstrating this despite it's age. However there is a point at which you can just get too ridiculous especially if it's an "all or nothing" equasion with only a handfull of endings.
I for some reason have these visions of something like:
Shepard dies if you don't suddenly backtrack from the second to last planet to the first planet to get the Wrex Hotsprings scene which gives Shepard heart failure from shock. This requires inserting a pacemaker which saves his life from the ordeal, and the pacemaker saves his life again when it restarts his heart after the final bad guy in the cinematic stops it with psychic powers.
Well either that or you need to play monkey-see, monkey-do in Spectre Training to ensure you have a doppel doll.
Those who have played Cross Edge or Crono Trigger will understand exactly what I mean in both cases.