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Subject: "Replaying ME2"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences Games Topic #106
Reading Topic #106, reply 21
Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
942 posts
Apr-19-17, 12:42 PM (EDT)
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21. "RE: Replaying ME2"
In response to message #19
 
   >I replayed parts of all three games in the leadup to MEA, and I think
>that, for me at least, 2 is the one that's aged the worst.

The cast and characterization, and everyone's personal journey stuff, is loads better than one and I think probably even better than three. It has that going for it.

>Plotline wise, we've got the entire Cerberus thing painfully
>destroying the illusion of choice,

This was especially annoying because... hrm.

Bioware has never been that great at its illusion of choice to begin with, because they don't want to spend time creating content people won't see. (Whether that makes them efficient developers or whether it makes them lazy and wanting to have their cake and eat it to is an open question.)

But in the first game you had a TON of personality and policy paths you could take Shepard down and it all held together relatively well.

I did a "darkest timeline" full Mass Effect playthrough once. By which I mean all three games. And in the first game, you can play Shepard as an actual bad person, a racist, a human supremacist who thinks those Cerberus guys kinda have the right idea and who is fairly open that they plan to use their Spectre status to undermine the Council from the inside, who refuses to have a turian aboard their ship and who leaves Wrex's corpse laying on the beach on Virmire without even looking back.

The pull the choke-chain on that during the second game. They pull it HARD. The closest they'll let you come is betraying Samara in favor of Morinth, a decision that makes no fucking sense in the context of the rest of the game, where even a hardcore Renegade Shepard is required to play as a fundamentally decent person. You can't really go native into Cerberus.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that per se... but if you played at the extreme edge of the first game it was INCREDIBLY noticeable.

I'll give them credit for the third game; getting everyone except Morinth and Zaeed killed in the suicide mission (it actually takes a lot of planning to do that) is actually quite seamless. You have less buddies to banter around with but the narrative flows incredibly well; you don't even notice. The only sticking point is when they bring Legion back as a VI, because they wrote Rannoch in a way that doesn't require Tali but DOES require Legion. (That always seemed off to me.)

> And if they wanted an ammo system, they
>needed to make it work a lot better. Way too much running out of ammo
>in the middle of a fight for no damn reason.

Really? I almost never ran dry. My biggest problem was that I'd have to leave cover in order to scoop up more clips, and that could get you killed.

ME:A has actually apparently decided "fuck it" with regard to ammo. Enemies no longer drop it, but there are ammo crates EVERYWHERE. Anywhere you might, potentially, get into some kind of fight, of any sort? Ammo crate. Are you a mile underground spelunking an alien death vault that hasn't heard the footsteps of a living being for thousands of years? Turn the corner and an ammo crate will be there! Often they're conveniently behind hard cover as well.

It has gotten to the point where I've begun filling up all my guns with modification that reduce spare ammo in favor of some other benefit, because there's no downside to having less spare ammo.

-Merc
Keep Rat


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 Replaying ME2 [View All] Gryphonadmin Apr-16-17 TOP
   RE: Replaying ME2 Kendra Kirai Apr-16-17 1
      RE: Replaying ME2 Verbena Apr-17-17 2
          RE: Replaying ME2 MoonEyes Apr-17-17 3
      RE: Replaying ME2 Mercutio Apr-17-17 5
          RE: Replaying ME2 Arashi Apr-17-17 6
              RE: Replaying ME2 Gryphonadmin Apr-17-17 8
                  RE: Replaying ME2 Arashi Apr-18-17 15
              RE: Replaying ME2 Matrix Dragon Apr-17-17 9
                  RE: Replaying ME2 Verbena Apr-17-17 10
                      RE: Replaying ME2 Mercutio Apr-17-17 11
                          RE: Replaying ME2 Verbena Apr-18-17 13
                              RE: Replaying ME2 MoonEyes Apr-18-17 14
                                  RE: Replaying ME2 Verbena Apr-18-17 16
                                      RE: Replaying ME2 MoonEyes Apr-18-17 17
                                          RE: Replaying ME2 Verbena Apr-18-17 18
          RE: Replaying ME2 Kendra Kirai Apr-17-17 12
   RE: Replaying ME2 MoonEyes Apr-17-17 4
   RE: Replaying ME2 Mercutio Apr-17-17 7
   RE: Replaying ME2 Matrix Dragon Apr-19-17 19
      RE: Replaying ME2 CdrMike Apr-19-17 20
     RE: Replaying ME2 Mercutio Apr-19-17 21
          RE: Replaying ME2 Matrix Dragon Apr-19-17 22
   RE: Replaying ME2 Rieverre Apr-25-17 23


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