http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/13/14267646/mass-effect-andromeda-sex-banging-pretty-good-confirmed
:|
The more I hear about Mass Effect the more I don't want to hear about Mass Effect and that's when I already didn't want to hear anything about Mass Effect.
:/
The original was announced in the heyday of Halo. Just when I left my innocence behind and started working as a game tester.. I spent the money I had to, to buy a console and a copy of the first Mass Effect. It had the same spiel as Destiny. And BioWare had the clout to back it up. Mass Effect would see many years as a strong IP for Microsoft.
Then EA bought BioWare for a steal at under a billion dollars.
10 years. Most of that with the lingering bitterness of how the last game in the series ended. Not what it was.. or what the series was as a whole or anything.. Just that BioWare did what they thought they had to do to close the series out.
I'm hear thinking.. 5 years since the last game and somehow EA hasn't made a deal with SyFy or Netflix for a series. I mean if The Expanse isn't enough to call the series dead and long live The Expanse.
But at the beginning the only thing about Mass Effect was that it wasn't Halo.. and that was fine.. but apparently people at Microsoft thought it was too much like Halo before it even launched so they had BioWare change the game. I didn't need to know that because that means that Microsoft.. changed what could have been an even better game into something that probably wasn't as good. And unlike most games that Microsoft.. I can't find a good word for it (tarnished?).. but the end of that idea is that the third party studios responsible for games that depend on Microsoft tend to close because they don't make enough money back (see Crackdown, and Freelancer before that). Seeing as how they thought Xbox and consoles weren't big enough for Mass Effect and Halo.. that could have doomed the IP. All we would have lost would have been story and characters (TV SHOW, BOOKS, MOVIES). The game itself is a bunch of stupid menus and diddling around social spaces but you can't even visit the real areas and see the real world out there in that universe. Which Bungie outright stole.
BUT thankfully Mass Effect sold well enough to survive into what will soon be 2 major story arcs. Very few other games and the studios that make them that have depended on Microsoft and survived. but again that might be more because BioWare is part of EA now.
When I first played the game I enjoyed it and tore it apart. I made a 25 page blog which I lost when Defy (Viacom) bought gametrailers.com and shut it down. Had I just played it though like a normal person I might have gotten more out of it instead of getting bored and allowing the first one to fade. The second game cut things out that made the first stand out from other shooters like Halo while oddly emphasizing story. I'm left wondering if some of those additions where things Microsoft made them add in to make the game more puzzle and RPG than just a shooter. I could care less about story though, I want to visit all the worlds they introduced in the first game. Thankfully the story and characters were strong enough to carry that game and the shooter gameplay while also new and improved.. went a totally different direction than I expected. The third was more of the same and wrapped things up. Adding multiplayer made the game last much longer than the first two games.. because that's what I want in a console game that decided to eschew all aspects else that could have made it great.
I don't find that either of the first two games has that much replay value. And neither does the third. BUT since the second was so strong and compelling it does deserve to be played at least a few times. I didn't bother more than those few times.
I had made peace with the idea that Mass Effect dropped features and couldn't have the space opera shit it never had and never promised.. because it was just a console game. Few other console games and gamers even understand what a Space Opera is.
And again.. I'm fine with that. It was Decided that it was more important to tell the story of a handful of characters well.. than to provide players with a rich sandbox to play space cop in a Space Opera.
From Mass Effect.. I learned that you can't play a game with expectations and biases and really enjoy it. It gets boring during the first pass. So dulled it no surprise that Derpstiny managed to get away with so little for so long. It's most of what Mass Effect should have been without improving on anything. Destiny just happens to be so stupid that it utterly defies logic that anyone actually takes it seriously besides that the game play is what was missing from so many other games. But I've heard so many people say "I don't want anything to spoil the story of Destiny!".. At least one of them made the clarification that what she didn't want spoiled was the mechanics of the new Wrath of the Machine raid.
But why is it that during the years since Mass Effect 3 ended has Destiny even been a thing? Couldn't Mass Effect have had more DLC? I never bought any DLC for it.. It has more gameplay.. can't be argued. It could be argued that it has more story due to all the DLC. But it has the right balance of gameplay to story to not get stale after 3 years?
No.
We know all the characters and places.. but there's so little there that it's 2 dimensional and calling it shallow would be wasting breath. It's space magic nonsense. But I play it because it does gameplay that isn't available in other games. Sure after 3 years even the gameplay seems dumb.. but what can you do? Big publishers aren't putting money into this type of game. EVEN THOUGH they have to see how much people are willing to pay Activision to play Destiny.
Bungie keeps dropping content regularly to refresh and invalidate everything you have (gear) so you keep chasing new gear that doesn't matter. It's mostly the same game as it has been.
Maybe she's just echoing my bias but I don't understand Trials of Osiris. To do trials you need to be somewhat high level. You get almost nothing out of it. WHY BOTHER?! because people like to do trials.. the drops don't matter.
But Destiny like Mass Effect also isn't a Space Opera. Arguably it has no story whatsoever. At least Mass Effect has a strong story and characters you can see develop. That you can walk around and talk to and see that they aren't card board cut-outs with a speaker taped behind the hole in the mouth. It has what 4 cutscenes between the original game and all the expensive DLC?
:/
Most of the 'Space' in the first 3 Mass Effect games was menus and cutscenes (same as Destiny). Most of the stuff that wasn't directly story driving was silly with little drama. Even the few aspects that were offered in the first game.. the RPG elements and exploration.. were cut down or cut out. Yes it made for a more solid game and that was great.. because it felt more cohesive and adult and cinematic at times than Halo.. It didn't feel worthy of being a Space Opera.
Oh but it is they say. Mass Effect is all about romancing a few characters.. Mass Effect 4 is going to blow that out of the water. So who cares about all that other boring stuff which will also be in 4.. like exploring new worlds!
What's clear is that you aren't flying around like you can in no Man's Sky and Star Citizen. What's clear is that the game is still story driven. You won't ultimately have much impact or effect on anything that happens in the game.
If even No Man's Sky scratches the itch for planetary exploration that Mass Effect can't.. then it was worth buying.. and that's so hard to explain to people. And maybe I don't want to play Mass Effect 4 if that stuff is still not in or done right given a clear example. BioWare has done nothing to show replay value or that you can go off track from the main objectives and that anything there will be as compelling as that main line. After No Man's Sky you have to sell replay value. And I'm just not interested in a game that only focuses on story and characters for replay value. I would have shot myself in year 2 if Destiny was actually story driven.
I would have invested all kinds of time into No Man's Sky, the same as with Ark (but I don't want to play Ark) and Destiny (send help).. if NMS had better crafting like in Ark. Of course you can't sell 18 quintillion planets to explore if you spend more than a few minutes setting down roots by building a base.
On the one hand that's dumb design because space magic allows you to just scavenge just what you need from a planet with virtually nothing advanced on it. It was way too much video game and not enough simulation. But again.. no one cares. The few people that still play NMS do so for their own reasons. If it ever allows us to build infrastructure and cities by introducing NPC colonists then it might become appealing. Which is also why Ark is fading. I mean I'd love to play it again.. but it's still the same boring bullshit and there's no reason to play it solo right now.
I must be wrong for wanting to play Ark solo and wanting more out of that game than being forced to work for a tribe accomplishing nothing. For wanting to play Mass Effect because I'd like to fly my space ship around and land on richly varied worlds. I imagine Mass Effect with procedurally generated suburb areas that dwarf artist crafted areas the same as Need For Speed could have done ages ago. You could just drop into the sprawl for hours or days just leveling up. Destiny did this with just barebones areas with patrols. And that, aside from strikes and multiplayer was a thing. PvE they called it. It couldn't have been more barebones and be taken seriously. the DLCs expand on it but almost no one goes patrolling to run bounties. There's almost no point. It would make sense in Mass Effect because those worlds are still alive and vibrant AND massive, so certain types of patrol missions for you before AND after you become an N7 Spectre would have filled the games up very easily. Which also could have been added in DLC. But even optionally.. that expanded PvE aspect would have given the player more to do outside of the main story.
Although I haven't played it I understand FF keeps this kind of thing alive in XV.
Even if there are only actually a few of them, the capitol cities. Hell.. if there's only a couple of areas as detailed as half of Los Santos in GTAV, without as much to interact with because the story isn't that epic.. but to show you that there IS an alien population there.. that's what I'm expecting from Mass Effect. It shouldn't be a dumb story driven video game. It should be an MMO. The focus shouldn't be on banging everyone on your ship that you don't even fly yourself (regardless of it having a pilot) and I can't even begin to construct coherent thoughts about why that's so juvenile given all that the game lost since the original in terms of features.
But if that's what people will pay money for... menu driven BS and meaningless soap opera romances. I'm just hoping there's much more to the game than that.
I find it funny that someone on the Westworld forum said almost the opposite about it. This after I was wondering about a Westworld game.. he's like the show is tame. But has some delightful moments..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/board/nest/264547692
But some dork did this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475784/board/nest/265228026