What Video Games Have You Been Playing VII: The Real Ending is Locked Behind a Paywall

[Akka]

Holy crap, I just took the wall of bad plot in the teeth again.
Was replaying the Mass Effect serie - I figured that enough time had passed so I could overcome my disgust of the ME3 cretinous story and see what Citadel, Leviathan and the "improved" ending added to the game. Enjoyed ME1, enjoyed ME2. Arrival tastes like a glass of cerebral vomit, but it's quick so I look hard the other way while doing it (curse my OCD for even pushing me to do this garbage).
And then I try to start ME3... and suddenly the stupidity of the plot hits me. I think of the cretinous Crucible thing, I think of the cretinous Cerberus-as-main-antagonist thing, I think of the whole idiocy of making the invasion happens when the only logical plot would be to prevent the Reapers from reawakening to begin with, I think of the Starchild in the end, I think of how ME3 lost all the veneer of acceptable technobabble to enter into space magic...

And I just drop the game, five seconds after the intro. This garbage really ruined the serie for me :-/
Well, maybe I'll be able to get back at it later, when my brain has processed the stupidity and allows me to shut my thinking off. But really, I'll never be able to understand how anyone, and even less actual WRITERS, could defecate such horrible plot...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@Akka In spite of the plot, the gameplay in ME3 was top notch. They really perfected combat in that game.

Have you tried ME:A?

 

[Synobun]

The explanations for the stuff in ME3 are no more damning than the explanations for just about every other sci-fi tech in the game. It's all magic.

 

[Arakhor]

Other than the Crucible silliness, I did like that Mass Effect tech relied on just one magical hand-wave (element zero).

 

[Finvola]

I haven't played ME:A (PC needs an upgrade) but I did play the Trilogy. I was pretty disappointed with ME3 and its ending but I did enjoy the Citadel DLC. It kind of made up for the ending. A little. I didn't really care for how Liara was forced on us too. She's kind of like ME version of DA's Leliana. I love the DA series as well (apart from her popping up everywhere), I will either have a new PC or a serious upgrade by the time the next installment comes out because I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[Arakhor]

Liara was my favourite character, so I didn't mind.

 

[Mouthwash]

While I was away:

Planescape: Torment (now officially my favorite - everyone needs to play it)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (mostly bad, way too much exposition with no payoff)
Kotor 1 (my second favorite, although the dark side path isn't narratively satisfying)
Kotor 2 (is even better than Kotor 1 at first, but the later game feels extremely rushed even with the restored content mod)
Skyrim with mods (actually makes it into a reasonable game, but I'm not going near Bethesda again)

Thinking about trying AC: Origins.

 

[Commodore]

Other than the Crucible silliness, I did like that Mass Effect tech relied on just one magical hand-wave (element zero).

Yeah as long as element zero was involved the explanations of a lot of the tech were pretty plausible. Even biotic powers made a weird kind of sense within the established norms of the fictional setting.

Liara was my favourite character, so I didn't mind.

Yeah I like the Liara romance plot across the entire trilogy. She's the only one Shepard really talks about settling down and starting a family with after the war. It's like everyone else is just a booty call for Shepard, but he/she really falls in love and wants to have a real relationship with Liara. Makes it all the sadder when

Spoiler :

she has to place Shepard's name on the list of the Normandy's fallen.

 

[Akka]

The explanations for the stuff in ME3 are no more damning than the explanations for just about every other sci-fi tech in the game. It's all magic.

It must be comfortable to be limited by binary thinking and unable to see degrees.
But it looks like it's pretty limiting.

While I was away:

Planescape: Torment (now officially my favorite - everyone needs to play it)

You're late to the party, man. Torment has been my favourite game of all time from 2001 to 2015 (where it barely lost its crown to The Witcher 3).

Yeah as long as element zero was involved the explanations of a lot of the tech were pretty plausible. Even biotic powers made a weird kind of sense within the established norms of the fictional setting.

Like DA, I feel like the ME serie true strength lies in how good, detailed and consistent the SETTING is (while the plot itself is pretty meh, if not even downright bad), providing a solid foundation to verisimilitude.
But both series have tended to make their (mediocre) plots take precedence over the setting, despite the former being the weakest part and the latter the strongest.

 

[Arakhor]

Planescape: Torment (now officially my favorite - everyone needs to play it)
...
Thinking about trying AC: Origins.

Was it I who told you to play Planescape? It's my favourite D&D setting, based purely off the game, which should tell you something.

Origins is good. Yes, it has random loot and micro-transactions and dozens of little things to do not even remotely connected to the main quest, but the graphics are good, I enjoyed the story and there are lots of little callbacks to the previous games.

 

[Mouthwash]

Was it I who told you to play Planescape? It's my favourite D&D setting, based purely off the game, which should tell you something.

I was hoping that the game would let us see the actual Outer/Inner planes, but alas. A mere glimpse of Carceri and a short trip into Baator (it just seems like the Abyss, which is so wrong).

I knew that Githzerai lore came from this game, but I didn't realize how much the setting as a whole owed it. Purely off of PS:T? Are you sure?

Origins is good. Yes, it has random loot and micro-transactions and dozens of little things to do not even remotely connected to the main quest, but the graphics are good, I enjoyed the story and there are lots of little callbacks to the previous games.

A little Skyrim-like for my tastes. Although the map is apparently ten times bigger.

 

[civvver]

@Akka In spite of the plot, the gameplay in ME3 was top notch. They really perfected combat in that game.

Have you tried ME:A?

The combat was cool, but I thought ME3 lacked variety in terms of enemies. I only played it through once but it seemed like you always fought the same human cerberus guys who always had the same few weapons. Contrast that to ME2 where you would be on a side mission picking up samara and fighting space gangsters, some humans with assault rifles, some silarians with tech abilities. Then you'd go fight some krogan dudes who would just rush you and fight melee, then you might run into some biotics on another mission. I don't remember anything like that in ME3.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there were basically two changes in ME3 combat from ME2- one was the cover system also added rolling action so you could cover and roll to other cover points. A subtle change but significant.

Then ME2 locked classes into weapon types. Like a soldier could use everything while an infiltrator could only use like sniper rifles and pistols and a vanguard biotic could only use shotguns and pistols, or something like that, I might not have the types exactly right. So every class felt really unique not just cus of their abilities but also cus of their weapon types. Like not having sub machine guns vs shields made a big difference in your play.

What ME3 did was let any class use any weapon but all weapons had weight. Carrying more or heavier types increased your ability cooldowns. And soldier classes could carry more weight. So you could go with a soldier with every weapon or with just assault rifles and have a super low concussion shot cooldown. Or on a vanguard guy you could use an assault rifle or just a lighter shotgun.

This sort of took away from the flavor of the classes imo but allowed your abilities to shine a lot more, as now biotic powers could have super low cds and actually be your primary weapon over a gun.

Anyway, combat in both is good, though I thought the enemies were more interesting in ME2.

 

[Synobun]

It must be comfortable to be limited by binary thinking and unable to see degrees.
But it looks like it's pretty limiting.

That's definitely what I'm known for, my narrow-minded binary thinking. That this zinger is apparently applicable towards an off-hand remark about a video game is interesting.

You missed the point, anyways. Your beef with ME3 is based upon a betrayal of the setting's premise which isn't true. The Crucible and AI falls in line with the plot and the technologies of the universe. You can't say it betrays the Reaper lore because you never knew enough about them to make such a claim. If your arse is truly chapped about the ending, you can make yourself feel better about it by considering it the same way people considered Interstellar's ending, i.e. the ending is a simplistic interpretation intended to be understood by a human mind (that wouldn't ordinarily be able to handle what it's processing).

It's fine to dislike it, I'm just saying that your reason doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If it were really due to space magic, you'd have never made it this far.

 

[Arakhor]

I knew that Githzerai lore came from this game, but I didn't realize how much the setting as a whole owed it. Purely off of PS:T? Are you sure?

No, of course not. TSR was already going belly-up when this game was produced. What I meant was that Planescape became my favourite setting purely on the strength of playing Planescape: Torment first.

And yes, Avernus (the first layer of Baator) is a hellish wasteland, but the other eight layers are quite different. Dis is a massive iron city, Stygia is frozen solid, Phlegethon is mostly fire and lava etc.

 

[Kyriakos]

I can't run any decent game in this computer. Probably for the better, cause otherwise i'd be playing EuIV or some such waste of time

 

[Akka]

That's definitely what I'm known for, my narrow-minded binary thinking.

Don't know if it's what you're known for, but if you can't see the gulf between space magic from ME3 and the hardish SF from ME1, then yeah you're showing a striking lack of ability to see fundamental differences and that definitely looks very binary.
And you just double down on it with the rest of your post, which is just grasping at straws to find excuse for a terrible plot.
(BTW, I wasn't even really speaking about the ending, the whole serie slipped progressively from a reconstruction of space opera into a fantasy space opera)

The combat was cool, but I thought ME3 lacked variety in terms of enemies. I only played it through once but it seemed like you always fought the same human cerberus guys who always had the same few weapons. Contrast that to ME2 where you would be on a side mission picking up samara and fighting space gangsters, some humans with assault rifles, some silarians with tech abilities. Then you'd go fight some krogan dudes who would just rush you and fight melee, then you might run into some biotics on another mission. I don't remember anything like that in ME3.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but there were basically two changes in ME3 combat from ME2- one was the cover system also added rolling action so you could cover and roll to other cover points. A subtle change but significant.

Cerberus everywhere is more a (one of the many) plot problem than really a gameplay one.
ME3 had a more interesting level-up system, and more than anything it just handles a lot better. The gameplay is by far the best of the serie.

Basically, the Mass Effect serie improved constantly on gameplay, graphical design and writing. But decreased constantly on plot and background setting.

 

[Synobun]

Yeesh. You think ME1 is hard sci-fi?

Ooookay.

 

[Kozmos]

Aside from element zero FTL and biotics it was reasonably hardish going by ME1 Codex entries.

 

[Synobun]

Aside from element zero FTL and biotics it was reasonably hardish going by ME1 Codex entries.

"Aside from everything, it was reasonably hard sci-fi" is not what I would consider convincing. That there are technobabble explanations makes it soft-sci at best. It can never be anything 'harder' simply through virtue of its entire foundation being based on space magic.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Aside from element zero FTL and biotics it was reasonably hardish going by ME1 Codex entries.

The codex was great in ME1. Didn't bear much resemblance to anything that actually happened in the game. It just looked like one man's sci-fi world building tacked onto the game. But it had some great sci-fi stuff in it.