Contemplating Mass Effect 3

So Mass Effect 3 is coming out and I feel a sort of responsibility to 'finish the fight' but I can't seem to muster a real sort of excitement for it. I remember playing the 1st game and loving it but that could have been because it was free and I was going in relatively blind. I liked exploring the galaxy, unraveling the mystery of the reapers, and digging into the rich fiction of the universe. The 2nd game, on the other hand, took out most of the exploration elements in favor of a more streamlined action experience. When I think back on the story most of what I remember is assembling a team and something about collectors kidnapping people to make a humanoid reaper (which made for an extremely silly boss battle). I seem to remember feeling like everything was getting a bit repetitive in ME2, with all the game play boiling down to ridding corridors of enemies and pressing the button prompt to collect/activate the objective. When I played the ME3 demo I just realized how uninspired the combat was, how bizarre cut scenes were, and how generic the dialogue was. The way the game starts also made me feel as if all the actions I took trying to stop a reaper invasion were for nothing seeing as they just waltz into Earth's atmosphere without incident. Am I just jaded? What should get me excited about ME3?

So Mass Effect 3 is coming out and I feel a sort of responsibility to 'finish the fight' but I can't seem to muster a real sort of excitement for it. I remember playing the 1st game and loving it but that could have been because it was free and I was going in relatively blind. I liked exploring the galaxy, unraveling the mystery of the reapers, and digging into the rich fiction of the universe. The 2nd game, on the other hand, took out most of the exploration elements in favor of a more streamlined action experience. When I think back on the story most of what I remember is assembling a team and something about collectors kidnapping people to make a humanoid reaper (which made for an extremely silly boss battle). I seem to remember feeling like everything was getting a bit repetitive in ME2, with all the game play boiling down to ridding corridors of enemies and pressing the button prompt to collect/activate the objective. When I played the ME3 demo I just realized how uninspired the combat was, how bizarre cut scenes were, and how generic the dialogue was. The way the game starts also made me feel as if all the actions I took trying to stop a reaper invasion were for nothing seeing as they just waltz into Earth's atmosphere without incident. Am I just jaded? What should get me excited about ME3?

shouldn't this be in the ME3 section?

no one is forcing u to play ME3 , if u feel like finishing the story and see what the hell happens then get it .

@xdaknightx69: I was hoping to spark a discussion of the evolution of the series and where its heading in its final installment. 'PLAY IT IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT' is kind of reductionist.

well if u wanted to start another discussion then maybe u should have posted about it in the ME3 section of the forum . I'm pretty sure there are already threads there that "DISCUSS" the evolution of the series.

if u are having a hard time finding the section i'll link it for u.

http://www.giantbomb.com/mass-effect-3/61-29935/forums/

Harsh in here...

I understand at least where you are coming from, it seems like you do spend much of the time building a team and getting ready for the inevitable battle but what makes that aspect of the story any less compelling than lets say collecting the items in Zelda. You spend 3/4 of the game getting the right tools for the job so that when the time comes you can fight the good fight.

An example of this kind of tale in film is Oceans eleven, does that automatically make that movie bad?

Also i never found the combat uninspired, the powers work well, the shooting controls just fine and the squad abilities can really turn the tide on harder difficulties, I found the story to be anything other than generic, if anything it was a massive improvement over Mass Effect 1, which you yourself have mentioned you enjoyed.

Yes, you are just jaded. No, that does not mean that you should play ME3.

@xdaknightx69: This is a blog post. When attaching blog posts to forums you get "off-topic" or "general discussion" as options. They're both pretty vague. If you want to discuss the topic, feel free. If not, why post?

@buft: I never enjoyed Zelda :p As for Oceans maybe the difference is the amount of time spent building the team as ME2 is a multi-hour experience whereas Oceans is a 1.5 or so. Also, the variety in those scenes in Oceans might have been more than what is happening in ME2, which by the end felt like clearing the room of bad guys to get to the objective. I can see that might be a bit too reductive but its how I felt and might be why its hard to muster that excitement about ME3.

I think it's just about seeing how the story ends. I want to know what happens to Sheppard, Garus, Liara, the Geth, the Quarians, and a whole host of other characters that I got to know while playing the game. Don't think of it as how Sheppard stops the Reapers, (I'm assuming that's what happens, I've been on media blackout for this game, no trailers or demos), think of it as what happens to the characters you've gotten to know and you'll be more excited for it.

@Warmachine said:

@buft: I never enjoyed Zelda :p As for Oceans maybe the difference is the amount of time spent building the team as ME2 is a multi-hour experience whereas Oceans is a 1.5 or so. Also, the variety in those scenes in Oceans might have been more than what is happening in ME2, which by the end felt like clearing the room of bad guys to get to the objective. I can see that might be a bit too reductive but its how I felt and might be why its hard to muster that excitement about ME3.

You're right, ME2 was a lot of clearing rooms to get to the next objective. Frankly, though, that's the crux of a massive number of games, particularly about 90% of first and third person shooters. God, that sounds boring, but for me at least it isn't.

The writing, on the other hand, which you mentioned in your first post, is generic and cheesy in the demo. Mass Effect has always had a hint of that and I never really thought the games had that "great" writing that Bioware is fabled for.

Those two things sound like good reasons to put the game off for a while, at least to me, but remember that you'll probably get more spoilers than you like if you don't get it day 1. Am I getting it? Yes! And I'm expecting to have tons of fun with it. Still, something in me feels kind of wary. At the very least, though, the shooting felt pretty good in the demo.

@believer258: Yeah, I think I've loved Bioware writing before, but maybe that was more concepts rather than content. The demo just had lines like "WHAT DO WE DO?" "SURVIVE" Those kinda things were a bit face-palm-worthy. Maybe that doesn't speak for the whole game, though.

@Warmachine said:

@believer258: Yeah, I think I've loved Bioware writing before, but maybe that was more concepts rather than content. The demo just had lines like "WHAT DO WE DO?" "SURVIVE" Those kinda things were a bit face-palm-worthy. Maybe that doesn't speak for the whole game, though.

Hopefully not. Those are the very lines that I didn't like. I wanted one of the council members to go "HOW THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO THAT DIPSHIT!?" In fact, those are the ones that made me wary of the game in the first place.

I felt the same way about Mass Effect 2. It felt like all i was doing was going over to talk to someone when I landed, kill all the bad guys and then leave. The fact that the missions would actually have a mission complete screen bothered the hell out of me when I wanted to play a space RPG. All I wanted was a better Mass Effect 1. Technical issues taken care of. Thats it.

I am excited for ME3 but am contemplating playing ME2, again since I played it on the PC first but my first game stuff is on the 360. The demo has given me some faith and it looks spectacular in action.

That said, I was actually thinking about this game and thought, why is it that we have this trilogy centered around Shepard? I feel like Mass Effect could become more of a open RPG experience with a rich history that is yet to be read and discovered and grows over time just like Elder Scrolls. Human history is pretty much written but the other races and even human history past today can be written creatively. I actually love the parts about other extinct races and what happened with the Protheans.

I played the demo and well... its more Mass Effect. But... I'm not really excited either. I'll pick it up a year from now when it has all the DLC bundled with it. You KNOW that will happen.

@Demoskinos: Yeah, at a discount and with the DLC makes the value proposition a bit more appealing. That's how I feel about Assassin's Creed: Revelations as well.

@Warmachine said:

@xdaknightx69: This is a blog post. When attaching blog posts to forums you get "off-topic" or "general discussion" as options. They're both pretty vague. If you want to discuss the topic, feel free. If not, why post?

You need to add tags at the end of your post, that way you can attach blog posts to their respective categories. e.g. putting a "Mass Effect 3" tag at the end of your blog post will allow you to attach that blog to the ME3 forum.