Mass Effect Series Catch-All

ME2 and ME3 are a combination of visual novel, shooting action, and JRPG-esque combo tactics. Some people replay ME2 over and over just to get all the content. It's good for that.

Mass Effect dev plays ME1 on Twitch, talks about behind the scenes stuff.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/364515685

Saving THAT one for later...

BadKen wrote:

Mass Effect dev plays ME1 on Twitch, talks about behind the scenes stuff.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/364515685

Oh, thanks.

BadKen wrote:

Mass Effect dev plays ME1 on Twitch, talks about behind the scenes stuff.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/364515685

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I've been watching this and love that everything the developer is saying about the cinematic aspects of the game validates everything that I said.

Spoiler:

TOOT.

IMAGE(https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OGC.e44a4b72d357686f3fc983f5c273dd81&pid=Api&rurl=https%3a%2f%2fmedia.giphy.com%2fmedia%2f12KvwFXTeZiP60%2fgiphy.gif&ehk=XfvwJzIKERAWXa7bAWKl%2bQ)

Don't look at me in that tone of voice.

Well, I'm not the type of person to replay an RPG because I'm bound to make the same choices every time. Not to mention in our modern global political climate, the Renegade options feel even more distasteful. But my BioWare fan-ness got the better of me and I decided to go with the trilogy, especially since a remastered collection I was holding out hope for is looking less and less likely. Playing the PC versions on my TV this time using the controller mod, and using cheats to get past the crap I don't care about. Just wrapped up the first game and moving on to the second. My thoughts:

  • As stated above, I'm pretty much playing the same Shepard as what I believe my first playthrough was: (1) Shepard is a lady. (2) She's mostly a Paragon but if you push her, she pushes back and won't take your crap. (3) Vanguard, which I forgot kind of sucks in the first game and is better in all the others. (4) She can't get enough of the blue if you know what I mean.
  • The one thing I know that is different is that I saved Kaiden the first time around, and I saved Ashley this time. Kaiden seemed like the obvious Paragon choice before, but in this playthrough Ashley seems way more interesting and less cloying.
  • This is likely my last playthrough of this game because I was enjoying myself enough to see it through but...it's rough. The Mako is a great idea executed just about as poorly as possible. (For all the things Andromeda did wrong, that was one thing they corrected.) The combat is really mushy and unsatisfying. And some of the dialogue is great, some of it is...woof. I think it was easier to accept at the time because nothing was better. I'm only about 5 hours into ME2 and in terms of both gameplay and writing, the quality is astronomically better.
  • The story in the first one frankly just cements my position of being an ME3 ending defender.
    Spoiler:

    Your conversation with Sovereign is very much aligned with your arguments with other races, with a similar condescending attitude about how you are too naïve to "get it" when you question their plans.

  • That said, the council lays on things pretty thick with refusing to acknowledge the situation. Reminds me of the Mission Impossible movies, where you would think after the first 3 times the team is framed and inevitably save the world, the government might give them a bit of leeway.

I haven't played Andromeda since launch, but did they change the vehicle? Because I hated that thing WAY more than I ever hated the Mako. Incline slightly larger than 20­­°? Time to FLOOR IT because otherwise it literally can't climb it.

@ Kuddles - I recently went back through ME 2 and just want to caution you about picking too many bad choices. I played Shep as a no nonsense but basically good commander, but found my paragon skill was a little too low for some important character interactions. The game kind of punishes you if you want to be morally gray at all.

I’m trying to make it through ME 3 before anthem launches. I will say I really miss these kind of games and am sad about the huge push for multiplayer content.

NSMike wrote:

Incline slightly larger than 20­­°? Time to FLOOR IT because otherwise it literally can't climb it.

I’m confused because you’ve basically just described the Mako but you’re talking about the Nomad.

Eleima wrote:
NSMike wrote:

Incline slightly larger than 20­­°? Time to FLOOR IT because otherwise it literally can't climb it.

I’m confused because you’ve basically just described the Mako but you’re talking about the Nomad.

The Mako could climb anything it just controlled horribly and was bouncy as sin. I think you could drive it in reverse up a 60 degree slope.

We can all agree that the Hammerhead was the best ME vehicle (that you got to drive anyway, the Normandy will always be the best vehicle) right

I drove the Mako into an incline like I (or someone who actually knows how to sail) would 'drive' a sailboat into the wind: tack back and forth.

Also, the thrusters were *awesome* for gliding above 'potholes' as you cruise across the great wuss plains. So satisfying to catch everything just right.

Man I loved the Mako.

Man a lot of things happened in this thread, didn't it?

NSMike wrote:

Shifting back and forth between people talking to each other is a cinematic technique, and it's one employed in every television show and movie you can watch from the inception of the media down to the latest episodes and films released within the last week.

Much as I hate giving any ground to LarryC in any Bioware game debate, my love of movies is bigger and I have to object. Yes, shot-reverse shot is basic cinematic grammar, but that doesn't make it *good* cinema.

I'd refer you to the first thirty seconds of this in particular:

Mass Effect 1 can be very cinematic at choice moments, but most often it's TV in its most "radio with pictures" mode.

kuddles wrote:

The one thing I know that is different is that I saved Kaiden the first time around, and I saved Ashley this time. Kaiden seemed like the obvious Paragon choice before, but in this playthrough Ashley seems way more interesting and less cloying.

I am progressing with a plan to save Kaidan. It's my first journey with the OG Mass Effect, having played the sequel, and the trequel, where Ashley was the choice.

Whilst Ashley may not stack up so well against a ridiculously talented supporting cast, honestly, she did still manage to leave a moderate impression. I expect no more, no less, from Kaidan.

Thus far, in early ME1, Ashley has presented a shade more depth of character than Kaidan. Not that it has proven difficult. This leads me to ponder if the developers created Kaidan and Ashley with only the choice in mind. Having to leave someone, anyone, behind is the takeaway. As oppose to two fully realized characters, with a view for the journey, who were later highlighted as an either or. With the added effect of leaving someone behind.

So far Kaidan is playing out as likable whilst reserved with seemingly little room for growth. Ashley is testing and provocative with area to grow. I can see, in a fictional sense, where we can generally suss out intrigue, why Kaidan is more often left behind. In reality he'd be the more likely to come through on merit and respect. Ashley is offensive and brash.

Or, decide on biotic verses soldier for combat, or boy verses girl for romance, if unimpressed with the character of either returning extra. Tali, Garrus, Wrex, and Liara, are the real stars.

jdzappa wrote:

@ Kuddles - I recently went back through ME 2 and just want to caution you about picking too many bad choices. I played Shep as a no nonsense but basically good commander, but found my paragon skill was a little too low for some important character interactions. The game kind of punishes you if you want to be morally gray at all.

Ah, but I'm actually looking forward to this and not always getting the "get out of jail" free card. Also looking forward to not everyone surviving.

If I ever replay again I promise I will try to save Kaidan. I did play through ME2 without an import the first time (ME2 wouldn't load my ME1 file, so I played ME2 with no import at launch and then when I finished I immediately replayed ME1 and then ME2 again, later learned it was because that file had never been played on that 360 since the original save was done on a 360 that Red Ringed and I could have fixed it by loading it in ME1 and saving) as FemShep and he was alive for it.

I did do one ME1 to ME2 game where you don't let Garrus join in ME1 just to see how things go down in ME2 (didn't change much of anything). I can't bring myself to do the Wrex dies in ME1 thing (which is what happened in my very first play through) because then I would miss all the great Wrex parts in 2 & 3.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ZGP5cS1.png)

The arbiter of who lives, who dies, who tells your story has spoken.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Man a lot of things happened in this thread, didn't it?

NSMike wrote:

Shifting back and forth between people talking to each other is a cinematic technique, and it's one employed in every television show and movie you can watch from the inception of the media down to the latest episodes and films released within the last week.

Much as I hate giving any ground to LarryC in any Bioware game debate, my love of movies is bigger and I have to object. Yes, shot-reverse shot is basic cinematic grammar, but that doesn't make it *good* cinema.

I'd refer you to the first thirty seconds of this in particular:

Mass Effect 1 can be very cinematic at choice moments, but most often it's TV in its most "radio with pictures" mode.

See, this is where the problem in the whole discussion materialized. Larry's initial criticism was that ME1 was not cinematic. He kept dragging the discussion kicking and screaming into a critical examination of how ME3 was better, once I pointed out that shot-reverse-shot was actually a cinematic technique. I never said ME1 was very good at it. It still definitely had its moments - the cinematic elements of the opening sequence, a number of strong story beats, and especially the ending, were all on-par with, at the very least, a decently budgeted sci-fi production in the 2000's. A lot of the middle of the game was not cinematically interesting. And I never argued that Mass Effect was this cinematic video games revolution - just that it was cinematic.

If you haven't watched that VOD from Twitch linked up above, the developer making the commentary worked on Mass Effect for 2 years, and was a cinematic designer on the project for a decent chunk of it. He talks about the cinematic choices and camera movements, etc., especially on the Citadel because that's where he did a lot of his work. He also pointed out that pretty much everything for the small side quests and uncharted worlds quests was handled by automatically generating camera shots based on the scripting of the scenes we were watching. So yeah, a lot of the less important stuff in the game is pretty bog-standard shot-reverse-shot because that's all they could safely do for such a swath of content in the middle of a project as big as Mass Effect.

Elemia also pointed out that the technology was different, and much older, and his commentary goes into that EXTENSIVELY. Unreal 3 was practically brand new, and there were a lot of things they had to develop on top of the engine that just... weren't in place for making an RPG, and Epic was not offering any real support because they were buried in developing Gears of War at the time. Mass Effect 1 was a much more troubled project than I think most of us realized. This is one of the things that may have hobbled Mass Effect 1 in ways we couldn't really think of without further context. It's also something that ME1 and Andromeda actually have in common - both were struggling because both had engines that weren't equipped for what they were trying to do - ME2 and ME3 had a SIGNIFICANT amount of pressure relieved by the fact that ME1 had built the foundations of the Mass Effect RPG elements pipeline. When Andromeda went to Frostbite, an engine that wasn't exactly new, but also wasn't at all equipped to handle RPG elements, they had to rebuild the pipeline. In ME1, the cinematic design for anything less than a major story beat suffered. In Andromeda, it was the facial animations. (And probably a lot more than that, tbh, but those are the most concrete examples for the scope of this comparison.)

One story that stood out to me as a pretty egregiously Bad Thing To Do­™ - at one point in the development of the project, BioWare (Casey Hudson) had a meeting with the publisher's marketing teams to discuss how far along the project was, and if it was a Go or No Go on whether or not they could start their marketing campaigns - a Go being confirmation that they were close enough to release that marketing more heavily made sense. Hudson came back from that Go / No Go meeting with word that it was, in fact, a Go, so they had to go into super crunch to finish up. It later got back to the teams somehow that Hudson had, in actuality, given them a No Go, and just used it as an excuse to crunch.

kuddles wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

@ Kuddles - I recently went back through ME 2 and just want to caution you about picking too many bad choices. I played Shep as a no nonsense but basically good commander, but found my paragon skill was a little too low for some important character interactions. The game kind of punishes you if you want to be morally gray at all.

Ah, but I'm actually looking forward to this and not always getting the "get out of jail" free card. Also looking forward to not everyone surviving.

In that case, carry on. I just hated being totally penalized for an arbitrary number.

NSMike:

I will accept the position that ME1 was cinematic but incredibly crappy at it. Like fantastically boring and hard to play. Bear in mind, I completed all side quests and every planet and every quest on every planet in ME1. To me, ME1 was mostly all that stuff.

jdzappa wrote:
kuddles wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

@ Kuddles - I recently went back through ME 2 and just want to caution you about picking too many bad choices. I played Shep as a no nonsense but basically good commander, but found my paragon skill was a little too low for some important character interactions. The game kind of punishes you if you want to be morally gray at all.

Ah, but I'm actually looking forward to this and not always getting the "get out of jail" free card. Also looking forward to not everyone surviving.

In that case, carry on. I just hated being totally penalized for an arbitrary number.

You could mix in a fair bit of Paragon in a Renegade playthrough or the reverse. You just had to hit the breakpoints when the conflicts came to a head. Many of the best moments come from mixing the choices and playing a character rather than trying to game the system. A playthrough in which some people don't make it is also more compelling and gives more gravitas to ME3 later on. When your Shepard is an unstoppable wrecking ball who saves everyone, it can come as a surprise in ME3 when you can't. If you already lost people in ME2, losing more in ME3 is thematically consistent.

I’m totally okay with losing Jack, James and Miranda in ME2.

But Jack has such a cool turn around in ME3. Those other two can get sucked out of a hull breach for all I care but Jack with her kids is awesome.

Rykin wrote:

But Jack has such a cool turn around in ME3. Those other two can get sucked out of a hull breach for all I care but Jack with her kids is awesome.

Granted.

Spoiler:

you are 100% correct. I can never bring myself to let anyone die. Not even the Cerberus cheerleader and the “prize”.

Mass Effect themed PC

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyIihR4VAAAzMQj?format=jpg&name=large)

I generally hate the RGB/Tempered Glass PC ascetic, but I kind of want that.

Oh my gosh, that’s a amazing.
And here I’d thought I’d gone a little overboard a year ago when I decked my new PC and black and red...

Mass Effect 2 is down. Kind of played it obsessively so I think I'll take a break before getting into the replay of 3. I think 3 will be particularly interesting to play because I originally beat that one quickly after it was released so I never played any of the DLC.

- There are some finicky issues for sure (I feel like 1 out of every 4 times I tried to get Shepard to vault, she decided she couldn't be bothered), but for the most part the combat holds up pretty well for what it is.

- Another reason why you should never listen to fan complaints: Replacing the very smart overheating system in ME1 so that you had to do pointless ammo hunting is dumb.

- Playing through this is a little bit on the depressing side. Even if a lot of the "choices" feel superficial, there's something about having this feeling of getting to know your crew and their world between gameplay that was so enticing, and after the dull thud of Andromeda and games trying to copy this formula also being forgotten, I'm not sure if we'll get anything like this again. (That said, games like Life is Strange taking the formula of choices affecting relationships without the need for shooting things in the head over and over is a welcome trend.)

- Memory of the first time I played through this is so fuzzy, but I feel like my opinion of the team is mostly the same. Samara is the most interesting, Thane is a close second. Miranda is the worst. (A mean-spirited brat who whines about how difficult life is when you have the perfect body is gag-inducing.) Legion is the most underrated and I wish he didn't join your team so late in the game.

P.S. I found this ranking by PC Gamer and the text for Kaidan almost made me spit my rum and coke on my computer.

- I don't know what I did wrong, but I couldn't romance anybody this time. Even Kelly Chambers couldn't be bothered flirting with me. I guess I'm as bad at this in video games as I am in real life.

All in all, a very entertaining playthrough, even if age has resulted in the moral decisions not feeling as mind-blowing as I thought they were a decade younger and filled with BioWare fanboy feelings.