Why was Mass Effect successful?

[HadToRegister]

 

The most fun I had with a "recent" game (I use "Recent" loosely, because I'm willing to wait a year or two for a GOTY version on Steam during a sale) was PREY.

 

I do that almost always - I'm patient, why would I pay for a product, that sometimes may be even unplayable due to some bugs or glitches, and then pay separately for DLCs or season passes? I just wait a bit, usually you can later buy "full package" with all add-ons for the same price, as the base game on release. Plus, usually you get the game with all the possible patches and fixes. This seems like a good practice, works for me at least. Also, I don't play any multiplayer games or MMOs, so I don't care if servers are "alive"; a good, singleplayer game can be "new" to me even if it's couple of years old. Right now, I'm trying "Divinity: Original Sin 2" - I just played it for an hour or so (I went on a modding rage with Battletech's .json files), but I'm really enjoying it. I feel like I'm playing good, old, very narrative title, like "Baldurs Gate" or "Planescape: Torment". On a side note, as to the "modern games being made around one template": how come so many fantasy games start with your main char being imprisoned? :laugh:

 

I have to give "Prey" another chance. I really liked the original game, I stopped playing the "new" one after a couple of hours. It felt kinda...repetitive. Lots of backtracking, multiple times. I guess I didn't have that feeling of progress, when I had to basically run in circles every so often. But yeah, when I have time, I will play it again. I've noticed, that some games need to grow on you, just like some music albums.

 

 

Well, what's good about the backtracking in Prey, is that when you go back to an area you've been to before, oftentimes you'll have a new power that will get you by an obstacle that you couldn't get by earlier.

That's "kind of" the progress you get to feel.

 

I enjoyed Divinity 1, I still haven't finished it, I uninstalled it to install some other steam games I bought that I wanted to play through and get 'out of the way', plus I was getting a bit bored with the turn-based fights

 

I'm currently slogging through F.E.A.R. which is a real chore due to the same enemies over and over

I remember someone saying that "F.E.A.R " stood for "Fight Enemy And Repeat"

[Mudran]

 

 

 

 

 

So lets say the game has to shine in atleast 2 areas to get fans for whom it is important? LOL my midnight logic...

 

Well, personally I'd say that a good game is always more than just a sum of its basic elements, which is also true for any other form of art: literature, films, even music.

Note, how silence is basically lack of any sound, yet moments of precisely timed silence play crucial role in music, and can make a difference between forgettable "summer song" and truly great composition. Silence as a single element is absence, it is "void", you can't even describe it. But when mixed in a proper way with sound, it can possibly result in something that people will listen to for the decades to come.

A video game can be composed of rather mediocre elements and yet turn into a "cult thing" for many. There are also games with high-budget, new-gen graphics, professionally recorded music et c., which can bore you to death.

I mean, look at "Mass Effect: Andromeda". It was made with new, yet very familiar and recognizable elements. Theoretically, it should be a success, at least moderate. But it bombed quite hard. Why was it? Because of horrible animations? That was (partially) fixed in official patch. Some shady SJW's agenda? That can be annoying and hilarious to some, when major part of expedition, meant to establish new human society turns to be gay or transgender. But that's not the theme of the game, I can get past this, or just pay no mind to it. I want to be an explorer, a Pathfinder, I'm here for the adventure. So maybe the problem was with visuals or bugs? That can be refined too, with fixes and mods.

If you ask me, the problem was, that ALL of the "puzzle pieces" just wouldn't want to fall into proper places.

 

The protagonist is a "man without properties". Gender aside, what can you REALLY tell about Ryder? Do they have any personal charisma? Are they strong, foolhardy, funny, neurotic? What does their body language in cutscenes tell about them (except for the permanent, absent, "autistic" smile)? I've already seen many comments comparing Ryder to "an empty shell, remote controlled by SAM". And I'm kinda inclined to agree with that. Often I feel like Ryder is not truly "mine" character, but a puppet with their strings resting NOT in my hand. I can't even be a "renegade" a**hole. In Poland we have this expression for a character, that lacks personality - "warm noodles".

 

How about main antagonists? It isn't possible to completely avoid comparisons with the original trilogy - and the "bad guys" from "ME: A" don't stack up to Reapers. There's this big problem with game franchises (and movies, too) - escalation. Every time somebody makes a sequel to a popular title, they want it to be "bigger, faster, deadlier" et c. In case of "Mass Effect" Bioware kinda shot their own foot, when they've created Reapers - an enemy so ridiculously overpowered, huge, almost immortal and so on - that anything else in comparison looks just like a minor hoop on the way to glory. But even Geth are more intimidating than Kett, since they were great unknown for their own creators and everyone else for what - three centuries? Even Shepard wasn't sure what to expect from Legion and whether they should help the Geth, erase them or make peace between Geth and Quarians - which is why that moment on Rannoch was so powerful (regardless what outcome you have ultimately chosen). Kett? So...they're angry and warlike. What of it? They're just another random race of aliens. In the Codex section in previous games you could learn, that humans were originally at full-blown war with turians. And then they became BFFs... This is something, that you actually couldn't even see in the games, that was just an episode from a history of humans as spacefaring species. Conflict between human colonists and Kett seems to be comparable in scope to that, maybe even less "important". Anyway, how can that even stack up to the the threat posed by the Reapers, who can patiently wait in dark space for millenia, silently observe the evolution of biological entities only to suddenly reappear and wipe out all intelligent life from the whole galaxy?

 

And the main villain? Sorry, but Archon is a cardboard cutout. He's evil, because...well, because. That's it. He's evil for the sake of being evil, so the protagonist may find their opposite. Remember "The Illusive Man"? He was the villain we "loved to hate". He wasn't one-sided, he was conflicted. He wasn't "evil", he believed himself to be a good guy and genuinely believed, that what he was doing was right. Moreover, Illusive Man's and Shepard's ultimate goal was largely the same - protecting the galaxy from Reapers. What made Illusive Man "evil" were his methods, sacrificing anything and anyone and his obsession with Reapers, that proved to be his undoing. Yet, even if he commited suicide at the end of trilogy, his last words prove that he's still a human being with some greater GOOD in mind, not a raging monster that just "wants to see the world burn". If you were doing the "full renegade run" in the trilogy, it was quite possible to be worse d*ck, than the "IM" himself...

Archon..."warm noodles", again.

 

All in all, I'd say that "Andromeda" failed to be a success comparable to original "ME" not because technical deficiencies or some social controversies, but mainly because of rather poor writing, that for the gamer translates as a lack of incentives to play. Seriously, I've got "ME: A" patched, so animations or bugs are not that big of an issue for me, yet I can just stop playing it for weeks on end. That never happened to me with the original games. The game just fails to "pull me" into its world. Nomad is just a Mako with a new coat of paint. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but I think I've actually enjoyed mining in "ME2" more. Mysteries are kinda underwhelming. It's really thrilling to discover some ancient ruins, made by civilization you know nothing about, until you realize that those ruins are largely empty, with only occasional sentinels here and there. At least in "ME 1" you could collect weird things, like asari manuscripts - and they would turn out to be useful two games later. I can't find even ONE character, that would be at least somewhat convincing. Friendly buddy, like Garrus, Wrex or Grunt. Or opera-loving scientist with ADHD, like Mordin. All that makes characters different in "ME:A" are weird hairdos. Combat is the element that gets defended the most in "ME: A" by gamers. For me even that feels unsatisfying. I have the impression, that it is the same combat, as in "ME1" again, except with jetpacks. And you can't even control your squadmates' powers in fight...

So...is it a playable game? Yes, sure. It's not "Big Rigs" or "Ride To Hell: Retribution"; it is not "totally broken". But does it have anything on original trilogy? Oh, hell no. No amount of patches will ever fix that.

That's the thing: "ME: A" feels like a bunch of loose cogs, that could've made a perfect clockwork, IF they worked TOGETHER. If somebody likes shooters, they may enjoy it for awhile, but the rest will put them off soon enough. Don't care much for shooting, want to roleplay? That won't work for long, either, since combat is integral part of gameplay here; and then you start to notice incosistencies and plain stupidities of writing. Just want to admire landscapes? Poor optimization will ruin your day. If only this game was worth more than this "sum of its elements"... Which is not to say, that you "can't" enjoy it. Ultimately, GAMER is the element, which determines the game value the most. There are people, who actually enjoy playing "Big Rigs", you know... :laugh:

 

 

Also, your Decisions were supposed to matter in the Original game, and carry over to the next two installments

 

Once they were acquired by EA for ME2, and ME3, the gameplay, started to take on the generic "Every game that EA publishes" action, and interface

 

Yeah, the "decision thing" was one of the main selling points for the trilogy. I know it worked for me. Since I've played the games after all three of them were already out, I wasn't really "outraged" with the whole sh**storm around endings and all the things that were promised and not delivered. Sure it was annoying - why everybody wants to be so "original" with those convoluted endings and forcing the "Jesus Christ sacrifice act"? Videogames are not movies. In case of movies, we're passive observers, so we are willing to accept potagonist's decisions, even when we don't always agree with them. In games, we are creating our own reality, and we often want to have those "best outcomes". So while a simplistic "happy-ending" may seem cliched in a movie, it still works well in a videogame, I think. As an evidence, lots of "ME" veterans play the trilogy up to the Citadel party and pretend that everything that follows never happens. I believe there is even a mod in which Shepard defeats Reapers, survives, and everybody gets wasted at the party, which ends the game. I've never used it personally, though. I got over it. What REALLY bugged me, was that all my efforts, all my work, all decisions, all the people I've saved et c., was reduced to a spreadsheet with numbers in "ME3"...

 

As to your "Every game that EA publishes" statement... Did anybody else notice, how incredibly similar "Dead Space" and "Mass Effect" franchises are?

 

"Mass Effect": there's this race of space monsters, called [Reapers], that eviscerate living beings and transform them to [Husks] and also absorb their DNA to create more [Reapers],

"Dead Space": there's this race of space monsters, called [brethren Moons], that eviscerate living beings and transform them to [Necromorphs] and also absorb their DNA to create more [brethren Moons].

 

"Mass Effect": you find this [Ancient Alien City] with the so-called [Conduit], which you must use to protect humanity from [Reapers],

"Dead Space": you find this [Ancient Alien City] with the so-called [Conduit], which you must use to protect humanity from [brethren Moons].

 

"Mass Effect": in order to defeat [Reapers] you have to use this [Alien Machinery - Citadel] with the help of [Crucible],

"Dead Space": in order to defeat [brethren Moons] you have to use this [Alien Machinery - just that...] with the help of [codex].

 

"Mass Effect": twist! The [Crucible] can blow up in everybody's collective face, if used by the villainous [illusive Man],

"Dead Space": twist! The [codex] can blow up in everybody's collective face, if used by the villainous [Jacob Arthur Danik].

 

OK, I could go on, and probably I'm stretching it a bit, but...damn :laugh:

 

 

 

 

 

I agree about that puzzle in proper places :smile: Sometimes I wish for some feature in some MMO or game and that MMO doesn't find it appealing in a better way, or they do the opposite even, but sometimes someone else take that idea, but or it is wrong game or it is not altered enough for their game, it is always sad when it doesn't fit, because it was meant with a vision for a different game . The point is that a good idea doesn't mean anything, it has to fit their game. So it is always up to them. (I deleted the rest of what I wrote - it wasn't important).

 

I agree about the reapers - when it starts in ME 1 it looks like an interesting mysterious horror themed plot - kind of Alien inspiration. But this is not a horror, so it is an interesting idea from you that the enemy still has to have space where it can develop and not being invincible like in horror games, where you have to run away. Or tv series version - find a superweapon.

I usually have this theory - if what I expect in the game is there it feels like the right idea, but if there is something too complicated or feeling like out of place, it doesn't fit or feels bland for me. So there is some thin line between taking inspiration from something else, so it would be something what players would feel like it belongs there - like that classic horror plot, but then continuing with what was I would expect to be more scifi Galactica - more complicated story involving politicians, soldiers vs army mayors, trader's machinations etc? where this big enemy is in background for a long time and a lot of things are happening before it will be revealed what it is? which is quite classic for TV series, where they have this 1 big new enemy kind of idea, but you slowly process to it. They often solve "the same enemy, which doesn't evolve" problem with always different kind of enemy and always different kind of way how to defeat it. But it doesn't have to be super race/boss, maybe it could be anything else in a game. Something you can win your side, something you can handle differently - more interactive way.

Are there games like that or is it always big enemy you need to overcome?

 

EDIT:

I remembered that TV series with Galactica was one of the few where they don't fight the invincible enemy, they mostly run away from it, dealing with political, social relations and from time to time uncover some passages of who is their enemy. So it could be horror themed, realistic and going for long time, the enemy wouldn't evolve, but your journey would. So maybe I was expecting more like that from ME, but maybe players are used to big bosses and invincible enemy you can win fight with, so it wouldn't be appealing.

 

So maybe because ME 1 is still such master in storytelling of that what I would expect from it - I like it more. But it looks from what you are saying here that ME2 and 3 had theme: conquer the big enemy. Well I didn't play really ME2 and 3, because the start of the games didn't have this authentic feel. It felt bland for me.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Mudran

[Mudran]

Another idea I got from watching difference between Mass Effect 1 and Andromeda is - you don't need AAA engine to create a cult game, but you need high quality of writing or narratives and really a passion project (I don't know how to describe it otherwise) and still you can do it 3d person view. and still you see a lot of indie games not being able to do it. Mostly they trying for sandbox and end up right there. It looks like they are so happy that they got the animations and trees and whatever, that they made it working, like it would be their ultimate goal. Or like they are building their own lego world and not a game for others. You see too many flaws in their game to be fun to play for others like they don't even think about it. They are trying to compete with AAA, getting exhausted on that and they end up there. If the studio is a bit bigger, they usually aim for something "special" and that is quite often something not acceptable for a lot of players. And then they are flamed anyway for not being as good looking as AAA games. But you can see here, that it is not AAA quality the game is good for (I deleted repeated text) and I know that ME 1 didn't sell as much as the other 2 titles, which I think sold that much because of better engine and known franchise, which sadly does a lot, but anyway ME was the one which made it all happen. If it would be bad I don't think it would get a sequel.

 

But maybe it wouldn't work anyway, so I will try to compare other games/sequels:

Maybe Witcher 1 and 3 is another comparison. When I saw Witcher 1 for the first time I din't want to play it - it was isometric, confusing, Geralt's face for me is the worst of all witchers there etc, but still the world is good enough, only it is quite old game. But the enhanced version made it more playable for me. So I guess indie/small studio game would have to be good atleast like Witcher 2 to be accepted?

 

On the other hand RPG games like the old Game of thrones or Of orcs and men wasn't good enough for a lot of players - I have no idea why, for me it felt similar like mass effect 1 - good writing, very good immersive design, very good RPG, still the only thing it was flamed for and got around 60-70% of rating was combat, which was never the focus, and that it isn't openworld, which was never intended to be. So I don't understand sometimes why this is happening, I love openworlds, but I miss this kind of narratives and details there, so I'm very happy if atleast this limited corridor version is available, but I feel so sad why players attack them for not delivering big ultimate game? Maybe because they were copying Dragon Age origin style, but when those games came out, it wasn't acceptable anymore what DAO was still OK with? Players simply require jumping and working combat now I guess :p. And Vampire the Masquarade managed both with half-life engine, so that is why players will not tolerate it anymore? Another recent example like that is Vampyr.

 

There is a lot of fantasy openworlds made by small studios, but it is obvious they run out of time and resources. Piranha bites was the only studio who became cultic with their imperfect openworlds. So I guess there is a lot of scifi games with similar results. I cannot talk about scifi, because I'm very biased - it always feel so sterile for me.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Mudran

[NasaManf]

I too felt bored or tired of playing certain games even not for too long but now I realize they been a replicating other games or doesn't shown much creativity with their games.

[BcSeed7]

Phenomenal characters, good story, good gameplay. Really, this is no brainer.

[kamelkamel01]

 

The most fun I had with a "recent" game (I use "Recent" loosely, because I'm willing to wait a year or two for a GOTY version on Steam during a sale) was PREY.Youjizz Pornhub Tubegalore

 

I do that almost always - I'm patient, why would I pay for a product, that sometimes may be even unplayable due to some bugs or glitches, and then pay separately for DLCs or season passes? I just wait a bit, usually you can later buy "full package" with all add-ons for the same price, as the base game on release. Plus, usually you get the game with all the possible patches and fixes. This seems like a good practice, works for me at least. Also, I don't play any multiplayer games or MMOs, so I don't care if servers are "alive"; a good, singleplayer game can be "new" to me even if it's couple of years old. Right now, I'm trying "Divinity: Original Sin 2" - I just played it for an hour or so (I went on a modding rage with Battletech's .json files), but I'm really enjoying it. I feel like I'm playing good, old, very narrative title, like "Baldurs Gate" or "Planescape: Torment". On a side note, as to the "modern games being made around one template": how come so many fantasy games start with your main char being imprisoned? :laugh:

 

I have to give "Prey" another chance. I really liked the original game, I stopped playing the "new" one after a couple of hours. It felt kinda...repetitive. Lots of backtracking, multiple times. I guess I didn't have that feeling of progress, when I had to basically run in circles every so often. But yeah, when I have time, I will play it again. I've noticed, that some games need to grow on you, just like some music albums.

 

I LOVED and played the "Splinter Cell" games, A STEALTH GAME, then the Blacklist (IIRC) installment, had me run through this Tutorial of "running towards a barricade, hitting a certain button and automatically taking cover" UBI

 

I started playing ME2, the tutorial had me "running towards a barricade, hitting a certain button and automatically taking cover" EA

 

It's the Game Devs or the Publishers, who are making me feel like I'm just playing the SAME game over and over and over again.

 

Also, how many games have you played now, where you immediately think to yourself, "I bet this person guiding me through all this is the person that betrayed me at the beginning of the game"

And it turns out you were right?

Edited June 8, 2019 by kamelkamel01

[Mudran]

That is also the part which was hard for me to get over in ME2. Most of all I didn't like design of that part of the ship. ME1 looked similar, but at the same time more authentic.

 

When I watched video about Star Trek the game, which for some reason wasn't received well, I realized that this is typical console model of games - action, scripted action, corridors, dialogues in cutscenes. Games like Lost Planet - I tried to play it because it looks good, there is some story, it can be immersive even, but for some reason I didn't feel any need to continue. It is a good game, still I didn't want to play it. So I wonder what is the difference with ME - it looks similar, but maybe it was created with different focus, and maybe that is enough. It has simply more of freedom and interactivity, I cannot see any other reason.

 

Maybe that is also reason why I never played AC games, there was always that tutorial where I was told go there, to do that, all timed, while timed tasks can be good sometimes, I just couldn't get over it.

 

I don't know how other players see it, but I prefer different temp in games - where I can focus on different things and let my mind rest, maybe that is why I prefer Bethesda open worlds, where you had this freedom of your own pace and different gameplays - and Bioware games was let you do it as well, while those console games were constant action. But maybe that is just me - I have hard time concentrate longer on 1 thing.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Mudran