D.A. fan is back for an ME1 Text Only 'Let's Play' (page 51)

The Unreal Engine being polished between games was neat to see.

Voice Acting/Dialogue were bounds better in ME2 than ME1 and even better in ME3. Still, I never encountered the levels of expression that even DA2 had (specifically Sarcastic Hawke.) Maybe it's the drawback of a Soldier Protagonist but I like being the funny one in the room sometimes. I was never funny in ME2. In ME3, I could...joke...enough. Mostly, Shepherd depended on the others to provide the personality.


Music: I liked the music of ME3.  the ending kinda approached Trespasser levels of goodness. Whoever provides the Shepherd Cabin music should be shot. 


Story/Content:  I have said before that DA2 allowed you to do things like... express grief and I found that quite unique. You still couldn't do that in ME2. But in ME3, I got tears, I got people checking in on me and I got to say that things weren't alright. yes. yes. keep this. Death to Stoic protags who can never fall apart for even a minute. *amused because very likely Shephard dies* I mentioned up stream that there was a lot of continuity on little things in the form of the emails. I thought this was really cool. and also the fetch quests in ME3 only need to be improved a little bit. My understand of all the reputation checks leave me impressed. The random conversations in the Citadel that highlighted the atmosphere of what civs feel during a war. But the Citadel civs replaced the background of the Normandy. So then the Normandy was DEAD in ME3. I wish there had been a balance- maybe a few less on the Citadel to put some on the Normandy.

The basic main plot line of ME seems to be... By happenstance and skill, you are in the right place and the right time to save the Galaxy. And because you did it last time? guess what, it is your full time job all the way, you don't get out of it, even if you die. You essentially have the same bad guys all three games- The Reapers. You don't need to stop and ask, "What was I doing again? Oh yeah. Still fighting the Reapers."  This leads to an odd and unchanging backdrop of urgent dangerous monotony. you're always trying to stop them. Until you do. which brings me to the ending.

It was too bad that they committed to the idea of a Trilogy without writing the full story up front. Isn't the basic of any writer an outline that you flesh out more and more? I'm not the first to say it, but I was confused by the ending choices and the reveal of the true bad guy. I also think it's crap that Shepherd dies 2/3 of the options.  

But the struggle for life as you push past your body trying to shut down...slipping in your own blood and falling to the floor unconscious... I kinda find it unlikely that Shepherd survives even in Destroy. It makes no sense. They should be dead. And a split second of chest movement does not a life shepherd make. The Writers wanted Shepherd to die and then they choked and couldn't do it because of fan back lash.

I noticed that Main Missions Seem Sparse and I say that and then don't know what I mean exactly? DAO has intro, Circle, elves, dwarves, redcliffe, landsmeet, end game. DAI has Intro, recdliffe, haven, abyss, winter, arbor, end game. It seems that Mass Effect games write small-medium base game and you have to buy the DLC to make it a full game? I don't have the missions memorized. ME2 was the worst, with like, what, 4-5 main missions? and gives you more companions that you'll ever need. ME3 was better in that regard but then your squad options got limited by the budget given to all the cameos. Which, a handful actually fought with you, so they didn't just show up and take up budget without doing some work. But because they were priotizing some narratives over others, there were moments where the ball was just dropped. As another said, if I hadn't had Citadel, Thane's death got little comment from anyone and he was Shepherd's bf.  On the game length again: It's just ME3, with Citadel Content, and me being inefficient and lost and first PT...under 50 hours? I recently played a "quick" Pt of DAI and clocked in at 65 with Trespasser DLC using 11 of those hours. My first PT of DAI had me skipping things too, and I clocked 70. Numbers don't lie, I guess, the games are just smaller. 


Connected to story is Romances and Companions



Romances: I think the way they handled Femshep's flirting with men was abysmal. Jacob flirts come to mind as particularly skeevy but there I was grieving Thane and, without my consent, my Femshep is hitting on James HARDCORE. Not to mention that Garrus's stuff was rather strong sex related right off the bat... who was writing for Femshep? Was it an actual woman because I would honestly be surprised. It was good that repeatable dialogue was part of the repeatable romance scene. They made me fall in love with a space lizard, so I give it the stamp of approval once actually started. 


Companions: Joker, Wrex, Grunt, Jack, Samara, Thane, Garrus- all good. Some were okay and were made worse due to failed delivery. James at the start was cool but then got worse. Steve started out bad, got better, but didn't get enough screen time to make me care. I grew more and more irritated with Miranda all of ME2. Didn't even like her reintroduction in three. But then her hang out scene in 3 was very well executed adn she was redeemed. For the most part, Bioware delivered and I cared about all of my companions. (except Jacob and Zaeed) And I got Tali and LEgion really late in 2, and then both died again in 3 so I actually feel the least connected to either of them bit didn't dislike either. Liara wasn't in 2 and then in 3 I favored others but for the most part she is just too...soft and girly and passive and "science is my life." She's like standard paragon. I don't really know what to say about Kaidan. He was all over the place. Mad, Sad, disappointed, distrustful- it seems like we had 3 or 4 talks about whether or not I was really Shepherd and really nto actually evil. then declaring his love for her even though the only time he'd flirted with her was the Citadel scene at the casino. but at this point, I'm deviating into writing flaws. For a game that checked whether or not you got ten Asari writings from ME1, they failed on character continuity on a couple key characters between games. 

Freedom to RP: I think the series is known for kinda forcing you into paragon or renegade unless you become familiar enough to hack the system. ME2 Shepherd had no personality. ME3 did. Also, you are a space soldier no matter what and you will never forget it. Was Shepherd ever human? weak? I wonder sometimes. But even the times I pick Renegade were a bit tame. I think the only time I loved the dialogue of Shepherd was when I was telling TIM to fuck off at the end of ME2.


Fighting: Got better the more I understood what was going on. I graduated from Soldier to solider with missles and grenades and sniper skills. Maybe I'll try space wizard some time. I liked ME3 fighting better than ME2, but that could be familiarity slipping in and making it a better experience.


Random Small things:


May the Mako stay forever dead. I hardly used that weird shuttle in 2 as well and never missed either in 3. 

I kinda missed the stupidly easy timed puzzles.

Lots missing sound  and email error bugs that I'd expect to be gone in a game that has been out this long. They also stole my furniture.

They need to install a mirror and just let us change appearances. Seriously. ME2 was kinda bad for me and I tried twice.

In Conclusion:
They made me care enough to bawl so frequently that they must have succeeded on the companions. I found the main story line a bit repetitive and underwhelming- only missions that stick out to me at the moment are both Earth missions, the Citadel mission, and Thessia (my favorite missions, possibly, are where I'm fighting through the hoards.) the final bad guy was a confused mess of angry making. And a happy ending is very unlikely, and I don't usually try to depress myself. I can see myself play one male shepherd who kills a bunch of people and is a total jerk most of the time. And then one more Shepherd, female, for either a living Thane mance or Kaidan.  But I don't see the massive replayablity that I have found in the Dragon Age series to be reflected in it's sister company, Mass Effect. Mostly due to the lack of expression Shepherd suffers from. But also because I don't want to romance anybody but the three I mentioned. And there is only so much horrible I want to do in a universe- I usually don't kill companions, for example, so the sort of Mikefest PTs they speak of sound interesting to read but don't appeal to do in my spare hours. Of course, Mikefest can also play the triology in less than 15 hours, so maybe that's why they seem capable of doing so many various things.
 
Hmmm. I got nothing else at the moment. Time for bed. I work tomorrow.

I believe the reason for that is because it's very spoilery. So it was purposely avoided to check on his sister