Mike Gamble is now Project Director at BioWare - What could he be in charge of?

Meh.

As long as it doesn't turn into laziness or complacency.

I'll take a fun game over a mediocre or indifferent one. Even a bad, but fun game. Hell, considering the Troika, Obsidian, Spiders, Piranha Bytes games that I've been enjoying, "bad but fun" should be my middle name.

Well, that is a subjective opinion. And I understand not liking something that other people like. A lot of people, even people that I know and speak to nearly every day, found CoD: MW2 to be a great CoD SP campaign. And that is just ... an unthinkable notion to me. The story of MW2 makes MW1 look like fucking Inception ... to me. Modern Warfare 2 has an 91% metacritic average on aggregate across all platforms. Which means, all things considered, that I am wrong in my opinion thinking that the SP campaign is shit, or that the game is utter garbage. But that is okay, because I don't have to be the target demographic for every game out there and even so, not every franchise that addresses me, needs to be a TBS/RPG or a RTwPRPG. I can either deal with it and have a good time, or write it off. I sincerely don't see what the people that didn't like ME2 expected to see in ME3, with even more streamlining than its predecessor, that would be to their taste or preference. You might as well have written that franchise off completely. I went into DA:I with no expectations, after thoroughly hating DA2 and came out just as disappointed, as I had expected. ME3 did nothing to fix the things that people did not like about ME2. Did not like scanning in ME2? Have some more in ME3. Didn't like the limited armour customization of ME2? Have just as much in ME3. The only thing that was actually changed and whether it was for the better, that's debatable, was the cooldown system, that was tied to weapon loadout. The weapon customization system was the most redundant and uninteresting shit I have ever come across in an RPG. Alpha Protocol literally did that better.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Nothing about it looked like it would be a game I would enjoy, but I'd rather be proven wrong and get a good game, than not even make the effort.


But it was a regression in so many other fronts. Like press "x" to everything, journal and the revolutionary quest "eavesdrop" system, among others. I didn't personally like the new skill trees that much, either, but that is personal preference.

I understand that, not every game has to be an RPG, like I said, but tying everything to a single button can be confusing, if not frustrating at times. And it makes absolutely no sense on PC especially. Furthermore, the journal system, specifically, is the worst, the absolute worst journal system I've ever seen in any game ever. Raven's Cry had a better journal system. Barely, but still better. Like, I could make some sense out of it, at least. ME3, if you left the game for two days, you're fucked. Might as well start a new playthrough

It's not "Isomorphic". It's STATIC and doesn't update when your objective changes, making it fucking useless. Also, late in the game it defaults to scrolling to whatever is in the middle of the list and not the top where all your active quests are. You can't defend this garbage lol.

Is scrolling to the middle a console thing? I don't remember that behavior.

I can't speak to whether or not the journal was useless, since I don't use journals unless I need to, and the way ME3 was structured I didn't find that I needed to refer to the journal much.

There's unconventional. Then there's magic wand.

The Crucible is definitely a magic wand.

Backing ones self into a narrative corner is an unfortunate aspect of dealing with end-of-the-world scenarios. While people generally liked the concept behind the Reapers, what tool or narrative element can the writer rely on when the lore and in-game events reinforce the idea that they're unceasing engines of destruction?

I wasn't as bothered by the ending as others may have been. I think instead of having a choice as to what you would do to the Reapers, the final battle should been the culmination of all your choices, with the conclusion of the battle (and the firing of the Crucible) being dictated by said decisions. All of this would be taking place while you essentially fight the Reaper-version of TIM; similar to Saren's transformation in ME1.

How many of the loyalty missions did you do for your allies? Depending on those choices, some will be at the final battle with you, holding off the reaper forces, while others will perish.

Did you destroy the Collector base or keep it for Cerberus? If you kept it for Cerberus, TIM will hail it in and bring in a number of Cerberus troops for you to fight.

Did you have a high EMS score prior to the fight? More the galactic fleet will survive the initial skirmish with the Reapers, and Harbinger will be left more exposed.

The worse the decisions you made, the less likely you would have been able to destroy the Reapers. This is all what played out in my own head. I know it doesn't jive with everyone, and I'm sure some people think - in retrospect - that it was a terrible idea to have the Reapers in the first place. Considering that these games were made on a two year cadence, I'd say BioWare did a pretty good job with them for what they were; flaws and all.