getting stupider or just more obvious? this year's bad games.

[evilneko]

It's just that I couldn't disagree with you more.

 

Mass Effect had its flaws (MAKO! ...and some other Scrappy Mechanics...) but I vehemently disagree that the voice acting, lack of flavor, and combat were among them. Far from it. The Soldier class may have been a bit boring at times but some situations still required proper use of your skills. Biotic was awesome. You spend 30 levels or so being a glass cannon, getting one-shotted by anything with a sniper rifle or better, but on the other hand able to lift a frikkin tank (where the hell was that in ME2?!) and eventually gaining armor and powers which allow you to (*gasp*) survive that first shot.

 

Mass Effect 2 was not as good, dumbed down skill and item system (though, admittedly that resulted in a lot less time spent fussing over inventories...), huge nerf to biotics (wtf!), though still enjoyable especially after I discovered how to mod out some of the worse aspects of the gameplay (such as partially fixing the biotic nerf). Even with its flaws, I'd still say like the first game, lack of flavor was not among them.

 

In sum... my view of Mass Effect is pretty much diametrically opposed to yours, and given I've never heard the same complaints from another, I'm inclined to think the problem is less with the game and more with you. I mean, how the hell can you say you're limited by Shep's cowardice? Where the hell does that come from? I don't get that one at all.

[Vindekarr]

I was held back by cowardice because even though my finger was firmly on the trigger, the character often stood moralising for minutes before I was allowed to pull it.

 

War is a sickening horrible process and soldiers need to have hard minds and reptilianly cold hearts. However, even with a "renegade" character Shepperd was a whining brat. All talk, and no action.

 

My biggest criticism of Mass Effect is that it pretends to give you control over your character, but whenver you really want something done, you've got to go through twelve hours of soap opera dialogue before you can even see if it's going to be possible.

 

For example, you cant execute a guilty man without first waxing lyrical about this and that, then and even then, the actualy executing takes 50 seconds and is not even shown on screen.

 

You actualy get very little freedom to make decisions. If you want to kill someone, you'll have to work towards it through hours of aweful dialogue.

 

I also object to the aweful world crafting.

 

Problem one: The aliens. they just dont make sense. Turians shouldnt be able to speak with their jaws set up like that. Salarians should'nt even be sentient because their eyeballs would fill a massive amound of cranial space, giving them a brain not much bigger than a dog's. Asari are laughable because of convergant evolution. I mean, what are the chances of two races of human evolving in one galaxy? well it's got soo many digits I would be banned for spamming if I posted it.

 

And the others have no purpose what so ever. the volus? what do they do? If you have gotten to the point that you cant use a race for anything less than a vendor or two, then you cut them out. it's just bad writing practice.

 

Problem two: Mass Effect fields are under used and unrealistic. If you can manipulate mass itself, why not use it for something more advanced than a MD pistol eh? Mass can in turn manipulate gravity, gravity itself can manipulate TIME!!!!. It makes me laugh in disgust at the missed opertunities here, time travel is possible for one thing, A big enough mass distorts time itself, why not use that?

 

Mass can do far more than shoot bullets. Yet Bioware only uses it for shields, guns, and fields. It's a sad waste.

 

Thirdly, aesthetics. This also greatly offends me. In ME 1 you only had one single mesh for female heavy armour, and two for medium and light respectively. That's just shameful laziness. five suits of armour with difereing colours across then entire whole game? that would be OK if it looked good too, but it just looks like some kind of peverted BDSM gear rather than armour.

 

I have a very very low tolerance for tights. My tolerance for lack of imagination and blatant dev laziness is even smaller.

 

And finaly, you had very little true facial customisation. Everyone was, with little variation, short haired, vaguely anglo looking, and had the same droning American accent. Well, I get sick of droning Americans really quickly.

 

This whole game strikes me as one that could only appeal to the very veyr easily amused. I have standards, Neko. It takes more than sparkly massfields and a lesbian-alien sex scene to interest me. Enjoy this if you wish, but it's just too simple, too childish, and too blatantly a cash-grab for me to ever look at again.

 

Enough has been said however. This is a topic about bad games, and the discussion of them. this game was bad, it has been discussed, let us move on and spread hatred for something else.

[brokenergy]

Vin I think you need to read this:

 

http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/214805/the-real-science-of-mass-effect-2/

 

It will make you more angry

[Vindekarr]

"internet explorer cannot display this web page"

 

All I got was a white page. I dont doubt it's scientificaly plausible to a degree-machine CAN and COULD rebel, aliens do exist(somewhere) and controlling mass would be fun, but it fundamentaly is too conservative for me. They had a universe they could have done almost ANYTHING with, and yet they made it a flat dry scifi like any other. Makes me more sad than angry.

[Kazakovich]

I've never really been interested in Mass Effect, but I feel that I'd rather like jumping to it's defence reguarding one thing. Namely the senseless alien species.

You see, I personally think that the laws of evolution and basic physics could stand aside a bit when it comes to sci-fi aliens. Somehow, it's quite a bit of the whole charm with these 'Like humans but...'-creatures. As long as this is well executed, of course. There's got to be some thought behind it, like anything else. Painting them green and dye their hair in some uncommon colour don't quite do it. But making an alien species and culture that, despite being impossible in the real world, is both quite fun to write and read. Even if the Elites from the Halo-mythos are impossible creatures, I still find them interesting and I like the general aesthetic behind. Buuut then again, it's Halo, and they're pretty much the only relatable and engaging characters that can be found in THAT dreary space marine opera...

The point that I presumably can't present properly, is that the, in my opinion rather draconian, laws of physics could be skimped on a bit in order to make an interesting race of extra-terrestials. Under some responsibility, of course... Not even blasting Newton out into space will save a poorly written character or people.

But then again, I can't say that Mass Effect managed to do that.

 

I suppose it might be a victim to the Time and Place-phenomenom. You know, when it's appropriate to soften the physical laws up in the microwave and when it isn't. Perhaps Mass Effect got some emphasis on keeping it somewhat realisitc (as far as Sci-Fi go), and then the whole charade falls flat when the much more fantastic elements pop up. Sometimes, a more lighthearted approach to science is appropriate, and sometimes a more sober one is. But you can't flicker between the two all the time.

 

But then again (again...), These points come from a man who wrote a few sci-fi stories starring nothing else than space-fairing Satyrs... No first stone for me!

[brokenergy]

And I suppose that humanoid sentient do exist in other planets? Scientists say that there might be intellectual life out there but the question is are they all human like? No one here has ever saw an alien in real life and they can't comment on how it looks like. But this a different topic all together and we should focus on topic.

 

And Vin the link is fine. It is about the real science of Mass Effect from several of America's scientists who are specialists in their respected fields. It's a good read and quite interesting plus it also has the real science of StarCraftII next to it.

[AliasTheory]

Checked the article. Works fine, using Google Chrome. I always enjoy reading stuff like this. That's one cool (and hard thing) about writing anything science-fiction.

 

Just got to remember Mass Effect IS a video game and it has gotten plenty of praise. As mentioned before, this game like every other is perfect for some and not so much for others. If we had stuck to what might have been realistic and took out such humanoid aliens for example, I'm sure for many other gamers this would have been a duller experience. From a financial standpoint, it would have obviously been the wrong choice now that we've seen the results. Mass Effect is just an interesting fantasy like Star Wars and Star Trek, the whole "what-if."

 

Vindekarr, I'm guessing from your major points in your argument up there you must enjoy Bethesda's games very much. I just hate it when I'm clicking through a bunch of dialogue I've already heard and then whoops, there goes a head. Killing is just a bit too easy, haha. Good thing auto save is there.

[Vindekarr]

Actualy Im not much of a Bethesda fan either.

 

If I had to pick favorite Dev's I'd say Relic. They keep dialogue short, sweet, and antisocial. But it all actualy has meaning to the storyline.

 

I dont like having to wade through hours of dialogue put in solely to make the game feel less short. Mass Effect felt more like a soap opera than a movie to me.

 

If I had to pick a Sci Fi universe I like I'd actualy say WarHammer 40,000-the characters are oddly a lot more human than ME's, especialy in the books, but ti's also got much more morality and doesnt waste your time with six hours of dialogue that ends on an anticlimax.

 

The charm of 40K is that despite the stylisation, it actualy feels MORE realistic than ME, the characters behave as they should within their factions, and they're very easy to empathise with and understand as human beings. Even Space Marines-hell if you've read the chapter omnibuses, especialy the Space Marines.

[AliasTheory]

I'd say Mass Effect was basically made to be a Star Wars Episodes I-III: a soap opera in space with action in it. I never really enjoyed those movies for that style, outside the epic fights.

 

I'm interested to what you've got to say about games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3, both which are still popular on these forums today. I personally never found Fallout 3 to be super dialog heavy and there was great freedom in choice. Would you classify either as a bad game or simply one you didn't care for?

[Vindekarr]

Unmodded, Oblivion is simplistic and lacking flavour-but a superb platform to add mods to.

 

Unmodded, I just dont really feel comfortable in FO3, I think it's the aesthetic style. I just dont like the way it looks, and while I'll forgive a game ugly for a good story, it did make me feel somewhat uncomfortable. A greatly enjoyable game that I couldnt really get into through my own chooseyness.

 

Nonetheless they are both superb quality, and Bethesda deserves kudos for making a game almost entirely based around modding, this has turned out very very well indeed-just look at Nexus.

 

Usualy a the games I like are gritty, emotional, or otherwise have a destinct flavour to them. Some examples are WarHammer 40K Dawn Of War and the expansions and sequals-I really love the 40K universe, it's the perfect mix of grim, dark drama, awesome hero vs monster battles, well presetned human morality, and at times, side splitting rofl moments.

 

Dawn Of War II for me is my all time favorite stratergy game, it's a fairly good RTT, with a slightly shakey STEAM multiplayer, but it's the RPG singleplayer that I really enjoy. It's just brilliant, a stylised, immersive, fun scifi universe that while exploration is limited(only 4 planets) those few worlds are done in breathtaking detail and are full of natural beauty and un natural ugly. And they adapt to gameplay too-as the Tyranids invade the jungle world Typhon Primaris, it gets notably more primal, the trees because gnarled and menacing, red algae floats down through the canopy, and the sky becomes leaden and polluted. It's a beautiful game and one of my all time favorites, but it also underlines what I like.

 

You just get so much freedom to immerse yourself in an unimaginably vast virtual realm-it really helps also that the factions are so diverse, from the bestial Tyranids, who simply want to feed their endless appetite, to the savage Orkz, who just want to have a good time-(they love fighting, loud noises and driving home made buggies way too fast) the enigmatic Eldar, who are the very embodyment of deception, to the unsubtle but heroic SpaceMarines, bioengineered half machine supersoldiers who are the immortal protectors of humanity.

 

A moderately good game, but set in such a beautiful, amazing world that it's impossible not to love. It's like that with 40K books too, the plotlines arent too imaginative, but the world is so vast(11 fully realised factions(and a near infinite horde of sub factions, all unique), 16 billion planets, 9788 semi-realised races) and the writing usualy of such high quality, that that simply doesnt matter. It may be world war two with lasers, but damn, you could spend a lifetime just researching one world it's so wonderfully detailed!