What Video Games Have You Been Playing, Part 10: Or; A Shameful Display!

[AdamCrock]

Recently I've started playin games I've missed during the years. After Dungeons Siege 2 I've just finished Mass Effect 1 Great game !! Strikes me as a mix of "Star Wars" (similiar to KoTOR in some ways) , "Star Trek" (space exploration angle) and "Battlestar Galactica" (the Geth and the sentient AI computers apocalypse angle). Definitely worth recommending. Has anyone played the sequels of ME ? Are they as good as the part 1 ?

 

[Synobun]

Recently I've started playin games I've missed during the years. After Dungeons Siege 2 I've just finished Mass Effect 1 Great game !! Strikes me as a mix of "Star Wars" (similiar to KoTOR in some ways) , "Star Trek" (space exploration angle) and "Battlestar Galactica" (the Geth and the sentient AI computers apocalypse angle). Definitely worth recommending. Has anyone played the sequels of ME ? Are they as good as the part 1 ?

They are better. ME1 didn't age very well from a performance perspective so you'll likely have a better time with ME2 and ME3.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

ME2 had the best story, ME3 had the best combat. Both were better than ME1 in almost every respect. MEA is...ok. It's not bad but it's not the glory that was the original trilogy.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Recently I've started playin games I've missed during the years. After Dungeons Siege 2 I've just finished Mass Effect 1 Great game !! Strikes me as a mix of "Star Wars" (similiar to KoTOR in some ways) , "Star Trek" (space exploration angle) and "Battlestar Galactica" (the Geth and the sentient AI computers apocalypse angle). Definitely worth recommending. Has anyone played the sequels of ME ? Are they as good as the part 1 ?

If you Played ME 1 you should absolutely play the sequels and keep your savegames. The trilogy is really one big game divided into chapters. Mas Effect 2 has the best final mission I've ever seen.

 

[PhroX]

ME2 had the best story, ME3 had the best combat. Both were better than ME1 in almost every respect. MEA is...ok. It's not bad but it's not the glory that was the original trilogy.

ME2 had the best story? Really? I mean, sure, the characters and their individual stories were generally great, but the central plot about the Collectors and Cerberus was crap. ME1 had easily the best main story of the trilogy even if basically every other aspect of it was outclassed by its follow ups.

 

[Lexicus]

ME1 had easily the best main story of the trilogy even if basically every other aspect of it was outclassed by its follow ups.

IMO this is also the case for Halo, more features in the later installments made them better games, probably, but nothing ever touched the narrative gold of the first game.

 

[Synobun]

IMO this is also the case for Halo, more features in the later installments made them better games, probably, but nothing ever touched the narrative gold of the first game.

The Sovereign scene is something else.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I've just finished Mass Effect 1 Great game !!

Did you punch the reporter? If you didn't, I'll be disappointed.

 

[Dachs]

ME1 had easily the best main story of the trilogy even if basically every other aspect of it was outclassed by its follow ups.

That's certainly one of the memes about the game, but I don't really see why the crit path/non-crit path distinction matters to people. The whole point of ME2 is to put together a team and harden it for a final confrontation. Recruitment quotas lock your progress. Ignoring recruitment/loyalty missions and saying "well, the non-recruitment crit path missions weren't amazing" would be like complaining about Eden Prime, Therum, and Ilos being trash while ignoring Virmire/Noveria/Feros.

And honestly, I wasn't overly impressed with ME1's crit path. It was serviceable. The twist was...okay. Some of the storytelling decisions didn't really work for me. Overall, it was adequate for what it was. I respect that some people adore it, but I believe that nostalgia plays a big role in that.

 

[Synobun]

More and more I'm convinced Creative Assembly simply makes up its specs when listing the minimum and recommended hardware for Total War games. I exceed the minimums for both Warhammer and Rome 2 but performance is complete trash. Warhammer becomes unplayable after 100 turns.

Whose bright idea was it to turn the campaign map into a weather simulator in Rome 2? With no weather the FPS is... passable, but I might as well be looking at a slide presentation once the rain/blizzards/storms kick in. Northern Europe and Africa may as well be inaccessible when they get weather events. They don't let you disable the weather and I can't seem to find a mod that does it either, leading me to believe CA intentionally went out of their way to bake this 'feature' into the game. In battles? Sure, makes sense. On the campaign map? Why?

I managed to disable the clouds through a mod but the other weather's still intact. Bye-bye performance.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

They don't let you disable the weather and I can't seem to find a mod that does it either, leading me to believe CA intentionally went out of their way to bake this 'feature' into the game.

Or maybe just nobody's made one yet. Use it as an excuse to learn to mod!

 

[Synobun]

Or maybe just nobody's made one yet. Use it as an excuse to learn to mod!

I don't want to learn how to code.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't want to learn how to code.

Modding doesn't necessarily require coding, depending on the game.

 

[Phrossack]

Honestly I still haven't played ME3 because I screwed up my ME2 game with poor choices and I'm afraid to play in my broken world

ME2 was more polished and balanced than 1, but the main storyline was kinda...off.

The Collectors are abducting humans to build a Reaper. *A*. Reaper. Just one. A little one. Looks like it's from Terminator, because Reapers think being bested by the decisions of a human means humans have superior genes or something. And they dropped the plotline with Tali in the beginning.

It was much lower stakes than ME1, so probably should've gone before it, storywise.

 

[Arakhor]

You are allowed to replay ME2, you know.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Honestly I still haven't played ME3 because I screwed up my ME2 game with poor choices and I'm afraid to play in my broken world

Someone did a playthrough with the maximum number of side characters dying, and in theory the worst possible ending in ME2

SPOILER: it dosnt make any difference when you port your save game into 3, if your worried you can just start a new save in ME3 with the default story settings the only thing you miss out are some cameo appearances of your old favorites and extra lines of dialogue

 

[hobbsyoyo]

ME1 was great, story wise. I have no real issues with that at all. I just think ME2's was better. It had more tension and yet didn't fall into despair as ME3 did.

I want to say that MEA has more backstory and worldbuilding content in it than all three of the other games combined. It's extremely detailed at a granular level, though the technology encyclopedia entries are a bit lacking. Relative to the huge volume of cultural and political data in the encyclopedia of MEA, the technology portion is small, though it may not be small in absolute terms. The whole package is massive however, and there is an incredible wealth of information about the cultures of the Andromeda galaxy and plenty of snapshots into the lives of the peoples thereof. It's nice to pick up tidbits of people's lives in the background chatter and it's usually very well thought out and insightful. I know which bars Kadara are sketch and I know how complicated familial relationships get with the Angara. I've even picked up enough chatter among the Krogan breakaway colonists to know they really don't want to be separated from the other Initiave/Milky Way races - they just felt they had no choice.

Where MEA failed was in building an interesting story to wrap around the backstory. You play a grass roots politician-commando without actual, meaningful or deep politicking. Your dialogue is usually shallow or superficial and the tension in the arguments you have with rivals, allies and enemies are either a caricature of grievances being aired or silly on the face of them. And while they took the plot in a different direction - restoration and exploration instead of assault and decay - at the end of the day I can only care about so many different aliens being abducted and turned into angry (but slightly different) aliens through wholesale genetic reconfiguration.

Your character in MEA is almost a Picard and a Kirk combined. Almost.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Honestly I still haven't played ME3 because I screwed up my ME2 game with poor choices and I'm afraid to play in my broken world

ME2 was more polished and balanced than 1, but the main storyline was kinda...off.

The Collectors are abducting humans to build a Reaper. *A*. Reaper. Just one. A little one. Looks like it's from Terminator, because Reapers think being bested by the decisions of a human means humans have superior genes or something. And they dropped the plotline with Tali in the beginning.

It was much lower stakes than ME1, so probably should've gone before it, storywise.

Ultimately none of your choices really make much of a difference to the finale, nor ot most of the stuff you'll get to see or do along the way. I don't think it's possible to break the world in ME.

 

[Arakhor]

They make a big difference to the "best" endings of the various sub-plots, but not the final half-hour, of course.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yes it affects all the little personal soap opera stories of course, but any time you think you've taken a decisive stance on something that will have game-changing consequences... no. The Rachni Queen choice in ME1 and the decision whether or not to destroy the Collector base in ME2 for example.