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I just want to point out that in order to get the  perfect ending you need to find a hidden dialogue option while speaking to T.I.M. Honestly I prefer the not-so-perfect ending since I think the exchange that happens instead is a much better done scene. Plus you miss out on the LP's title. 
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Jul 24, 2014 18:25
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Lt. Danger posted:The point of this LP is that Mass Effect 3 actually has a really good story, including - especially - the ending.  I don't want to get spoilery, but would you PM me your rationale for this?
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Jul 24, 2014 18:41
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Ztarlit_Sky posted:If you were willing to put in significant amounts of extra effort and a lot of editing out boring parts like Mako driving, you could attempt to style it as critique. I'd actually planned on leaving the Mako driving in. My idea was to do Luna ASAP and when you do the bunkers and come back to the Mako, have Joker inform you that he has managed to wire earth radio stations into the Mako. From that point forward, during Mako missions, I would include music catered to different party members. Like Liara would enjoy Top 40, Garrus Jazz and so on. With additional text displayed bickering as squadmates fight over the radio. About midway through ME3 I started to really doubt the entire process. The flaws that became extremely apparent on what was now my 3rd playthrough really sapped my desire to share the game. I still have all the data backed up. Roughly 500 gigs of it. Might even be more.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:49
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Waltzing Along posted:
I think he'll cover it in the LP. Try exercising patience.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:05
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Waltzing Along posted:I'd actually planned on leaving the Mako driving in. My idea was to do Luna ASAP and when you do the bunkers and come back to the Mako, have Joker inform you that he has managed to wire earth radio stations into the Mako. From that point forward, during Mako missions, I would include music catered to different party members. Like Liara would enjoy Top 40, Garrus Jazz and so on. With additional text displayed bickering as squadmates fight over the radio. With the Mako driving, I meant all the boring and tedious driving over (probably) procedurally generated, textured wastelands. Not the stuff that leads to missions or Mako missions. I kind of like those, but the exploration aspect was a plain joke. I can fully understand if you no longer want to touch the game, I don't want to either. You can also probably get an idea of the OP's views in the ME3 Games thread if you look at their posts only.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:23
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Since you're going over mechanics, are you going to go over the leveling up system, both in terms of your characters and your equipment? It looks like you skipped over 10 levels or so of that.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:04
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I locked onto the LP once I saw who was running it. I loved your MOTB LP and here you are, four years later, making another one. In it until the end. 
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Jul 24, 2014 20:21
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A good tutorial is optional. End of discussion. Forced tutorials are always the worst, because they bog down the game - at the very least, an overly long forced tutorial can make repeat playthroughs a chore. I can think of plenty of games that I liked but would never replay because the first three hours of the game consist of it holding your hand. Also, words have already been said about this, but I really hate how Cerberus is used in ME3. They basically exist solely as an enemy for you to shoot when the game can't justify tossing reapers at you, and it kind of sucks compared to how they were almost interesting antagonists in 2. Endorph fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 21:18
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Endorph posted:Also, words have already been said about this, but I really hate how Cerberus is used in ME3. They basically exist solely as an enemy for you to shoot when the game can't justify tossing reapers at you, and it kind of sucks compared to how they were almost interesting antagonists in 2. 2 is the outlier when it comes to Cerberus. In 1 they were straight up space Nazis. 2 tries to make them seem like misguided folk and then 3 reminds you that yes, they are still space Nazis.
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Jul 24, 2014 21:43
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Let's face it, Cerberus is pretty hilariously incompetent in all three games, in keeping with their role as Space Nazi Umbrella Inc.
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Jul 24, 2014 21:48
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Endorph posted:Also, words have already been said about this, but I really hate how Cerberus is used in ME3. They basically exist solely as an enemy for you to shoot when the game can't justify tossing reapers at you, and it kind of sucks compared to how they were almost interesting antagonists in 2. This, and this was one of the things related to my point about the plot not going any further than it needs to in order for you to have a game where you get to shoot stuff. In ME2, Cerberus are a fairly off-radar quasi-terrorist group that throw a vast chunk of the Illusive Man's personal fortune into rebuilding you and your ship as their one grand project. It's, like, twelve dudes plus Shepard's crew. Somehow, in the six months between then and now, Cerberus has accumulated an army of literally thousands of heavy troops (who are husks but also still shout generic bad guy dialogue), dropships, mechs, several large industrial bases, and a robot who thinks she's people. And they all hate you and anyone you've ever been friends with and want to kill you for reasons that are really never genuinely explained. It's a bit moon-on-a-stick, but I would have loved to have an RPG-style game element where it actually gave you a choice between the Alliance objectives and Cerberus objectives, and it actually affected the way the game plays out and the ultimate results you get. Instead they just exist as an arbitrary combat roadblock between you and all the poo poo you're supposed to be doing, even, in a lot of cases, when there's no real benefit to them to even show up at the same place you are.
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Jul 24, 2014 21:56
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:2 is the outlier when it comes to Cerberus. In 1 they were straight up space Nazis. 2 tries to make them seem like misguided folk and then 3 reminds you that yes, they are still space Nazis. ME2 gave the impression that they were economically sufficient but somewhat understaffed Double Space Nazis attempting to make a good PR campaign with Lazarus Shepard. The number of times Shep has to stop some experiment gone awry in 2 alone reinforces the fact that yeah, these assholes cannot be trusted what are you even doing Shepard do not give them that powerful alien artifact even Grunt thinks this is a bad idea. Still, them showing up as a major antagonistic force in 3 is like finding out Section 31 from Star Trek is suddenly as well-armed and dangerous as the entire Romulan Star Empire. ME3 KINDA addresses this later down the line but it still can be a bit jarring. On the topic of tutorials, another game series that's done them really drat well, I'd say, is Metroid. The opening segment in Super Metroid, for example, allows the player to get used to the controls and hits you with a "boss" almost immediately, then gives you a gameplay pop quiz with the Self-Destruct timer, all with minimum dialogue. Prime is much the same, and while introducing the game's mechanics it also gives the player a taste of what's to come, "resetting" at the end to give the player some incentive to get their powerups back and explore the hellhole they landed on. The segment on Mars in ME3 is decent, but coming off the segment on Earth it kinda gives the feeling that it's dragging its feet in finishing the "tutorial" part of the game. At least some better parts of the game are coming up soon.
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Jul 24, 2014 22:11
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StrifeHira posted:Prime is much the same, and while introducing the game's mechanics it also gives the player a taste of what's to come, "resetting" at the end to give the player some incentive to get their powerups back and explore the hellhole they landed on. Kind of like Dragon Age 2, except done well!
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Jul 24, 2014 22:15
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FullLeatherJacket posted:It's a bit moon-on-a-stick, but I would have loved to have an RPG-style game element where it actually gave you a choice between the Alliance objectives and Cerberus objectives, and it actually affected the way the game plays out and the ultimate results you get. Instead they just exist as an arbitrary combat roadblock between you and all the poo poo you're supposed to be doing, even, in a lot of cases, when there's no real benefit to them to even show up at the same place you are. Given the morality system that came about in ME2, I was really surprised that Bioware DIDN'T implement something like this. Depending on the ending of ME2 after all you could either diss and leave the Illusive Man entirely with the Paragon Shep, or have a begrudging respect for him with Renegade Shep. Star Ocean 2 for instance has an affection system that dictates which of 80+ different ending cutscene bits you'd get to see depending on how you interacted with characters. While those 80+ bits are just different variations of characters and dialogue, it's neat that they put so much effort into that. And given that Star Ocean 2 was released in 1998, it's not exactly a new concept by any means. Heck, Shadow The Hedgehog did it if you want a less obscure and more recent example. I'm not saying that ME3 needed 80 different scenarios or endings going into the game, but being forced to fight for the Alliance because plot when your Shep could have been in bed with Cerberus at the end of ME2 when that the series was built upon the whole idea of freedom of choice with storytelling, it irks me. I dunno though, I think that just in general Bioware wrote themselves into a corner and had to do the best with what they had given their time constraints.
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Jul 25, 2014 00:26
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Mr. Soop posted:Given the morality system that came about in ME2, I was really surprised that Bioware DIDN'T implement something like this. Depending on the ending of ME2 after all you could either diss and leave the Illusive Man entirely with the Paragon Shep, or have a begrudging respect for him with Renegade Shep. Star Ocean 2 for instance has an affection system that dictates which of 80+ different ending cutscene bits you'd get to see depending on how you interacted with characters. While those 80+ bits are just different variations of characters and dialogue, it's neat that they put so much effort into that. And given that Star Ocean 2 was released in 1998, it's not exactly a new concept by any means. Heck, Shadow The Hedgehog did it if you want a less obscure and more recent example. The big problem with making a big split path choice like that is that it's a LOT of development money thrown into a gimmick that most people won't see as the average user will beat the game once, if that. I think the only games that have split the game like that that come to mind for me would be the withcher 2, and fate of atlantis. Alpha Protocol gets a side mention for reacting to lots of small scale choices, but the game was tiny to compensate for that.
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Jul 25, 2014 02:22
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I think SO2 and some other old games like, iirc fallout2 do it best. Don't waste development time and money building two games when each player is likely to only see half. Instead just crank out a lot of epilogue slides which acknowledge the choices and wrap things up.
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Jul 25, 2014 02:47
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Ah, Mass Effect 3. It deserved a lot of the praise that it got, and didn't deserve all of the criticism. But it still deserved some criticism. I remember reading the spoiler discussion thread on SA when ME3 was released and it became readily apparent that a lot of people hated the ending. It was a topic of discussion for days. It also got mixed up in a lot of 'Games Journalism' complaints at the time, especially when critics were quick to denounce those who hated the ending as entitled, whiny babies. As for me, I didn't like the ending at all. With hindsight, however, I have a differing opinion: Mass Effect 3 is a good game. But it wasn't the game people were looking for, and it wasn't put in the right place. I'll explain this more as Lt. Danger puts up more videos, but I'll explain what I can. It's interesting how you say that Bioware has been aping John Campbell. Mass Effect has always been a homage to pulp sic-fi and space stories. What's interesting is what they're attempting to do here. In early sci-fi, the emphasis has almost always been on humans as a unified race, dealing with problems and situations that arise when dealing with, well, aliens, or alien devices. The idea of early science fiction was more one of exploration, or discovery. Alien races would pour out of the woodwork, and in most cases, the threat or antagonist of the book was external, an alien race bent on the destruction of humans. An interesting parallel to draw to Mass Effect, where the Reapers are an external threat and Cerberus represents, as you said, an internal enemy, which in early sci-fi was aligned with the external forces arrayed against the protagonist. Here, we see Bioware trying to move towards a more modern take, where a lot of the focus is on the characters themselves, their motivations and reasons for doing things. This more modern take is based around using the situations of sci-fi, the outlandish and bizarre,to explore both relationships with people and the main character's own inner demons. Looking forward to more! Torchlighter fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 03:45
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While the ending definitely soured the whole game for me, it wasn't the worst part. That honor is given to a certain recurring enemy that I hope you'll critique especially hard, both as a plot element and character.
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Jul 25, 2014 06:16
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A Curvy Goonette posted:While the ending definitely soured the whole game for me, it wasn't the worst part. That honor is given to a certain recurring enemy that I hope you'll critique especially hard, both as a plot element and character.
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Jul 25, 2014 08:04
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In my opinion, Mass Effect 3 is an OK game, maybe, and a bad sequel to Mass Effect 2, which was a bad sequel to Mass Effect (which was good). Along with many other fans, I was disappointed with the conclusion of this trilogy. Mass Effect 1 and/or 2 were far superior. Although some parts of Mass Effect 3 were good, much of it was not what the fans wanted. Botching the ending in particular is unforgivable, regardless of whatever reasons there may have been. And ultimately, responsibility lies with Mac Walters and Casey Hudson. Bioware are a shadow of their former selves. Your opinion is very silly and I disagree with it completely. Signed, JcDent P.S. I also hated that little kid and everything that had anything to do with him. Good luck with your LP, Lt. Danger! Give my regards to Marauder Shields! Hitlers Gay Secret posted:2 is the outlier when it comes to Cerberus. In 1 they were straight up space Nazis. 2 tries to make them seem like misguided folk and then 3 reminds you that yes, they are still space Nazis. I'd say this is a fair criticism of the game, especially considering the insane resources Cerberus, for independently funded racist group/rogue military cell can muster late in ME3. Also, Shepard spent ME2 doing the equivalent of flying a ship with Al-Qaeda flag and nobody bat an eye. Still, ME2 had the decency to have space hamsters, the Cain (Kain?) gun and Black Widow Anti-Materiel rifle. JcDent fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 08:39
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The Mass Effect team\writers made some extremely questionable narrative choices throughout the 3 games which strongly suggest that either they had no over-arching plans at all beyond 'Reapers!' or that none of the writers ever communicated properly with each other (the third unsaid alternitive is that one of the lead people is a George Lucas who keeps using his clout to gently caress poo poo up). Still, that said I am interested to see what you have to say about the game. I don't actually remember a whole lot about it apart from the fact that after I finished the game I thought to myself "Haha! I was right and it worked! That was the stupidest thing I have ever done." Neruz fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 17:43
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Neruz posted:The Mass Effect team\writers made some extremely questionable narrative choices throughout the 3 games which strongly suggest that either they had no over-arching plans at all beyond 'Reapers!' or that none of the writers ever communicated properly with each other (the third unsead alternitive is that one of the lead people is a George Lucas who keeps using his clout to gently caress poo poo up). There were changes throughout, but an interview released shortly after the game confirmed that the ending was written by two people with no input from the rest of the staff. It was also intended to cause "speculation".
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Jul 25, 2014 18:22
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One would think they'd bother with an actually interesting universe if they wanted people to think about it.
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Jul 25, 2014 18:26
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Put two egomaniacs in a room together and you could provide detailed paper from each non-participating writer explaining why the plot sucks, they wouldn't flinch. That's the picture I got of Mac and Drew, anyway.
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Jul 25, 2014 19:50
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In the first video, you mentioned how a prologue can encapsulate the story, but you skipped the best instance. After Hackett does his little dialogue, after the crawl text, we get the entrance of our hero, the spacecraft pulling in, only for the camera to pull back and reveal it's just a child's toy. We identify it, anticipate it, only for the game to pull out the rug from under us, creating an equivalence. That space ship is a toy for children, Commander Shepard is a toy for children, Mass Effect 3 is a toy for children. Really, that's all they needed after the hysterical outrage engendered by the ending. You could, of course, read it as putting The Child as a parallel with The Player, etc. but I much prefer my original reading. It's the third part of an epic space opera where "shipping" is practically as much a gameplay element as shooting. It owes the audience at least some acknowledgment that it knows what it is, with Shepard's unusual sentimentality and the aforementioned dating minigames. It's a dollhouse in space.
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Jul 25, 2014 22:56
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Precambrian posted:It's a dollhouse in space. Don't forget to find and buy all these fun little accessories/weapon components, to go with your new dresses/armors. They'll go well with your house's/ship's new add-ons/equipment. Then Ken/Garrus can pretend to work on his car/calibrate weapons all day. 
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Jul 25, 2014 23:10
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After watching the two vids I can make a few comments: 1 - They are well done. They look good, sound good, and flow well and are interesting. 2 - Even though you said you feel this is a good game, so far you haven't really shown anything that was particularly good but have pointed out a lot that is bad or could have been done better. This is mainly in terms of the gameplay. The story stuff has been neutral. 3 - Judging this game on its own isn't really a fair way to do it. At least in terms of story and writing. Are you going to fill in the back story as we come upon integral plot elements?
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Jul 25, 2014 23:15
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Waltzing Along posted:2 - Even though you said you feel this is a good game, so far you haven't really shown anything that was particularly good but have pointed out a lot that is bad or could have been done better. This is mainly in terms of the gameplay. The story stuff has been neutral. That is probably because almost all the parts of ME3 that are even remotely worthy of praise have nothing to do with the main plotline. I expect we'll start seeing more good things when Lt. Danger starts sidequesting.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:22
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Neruz posted:That is probably because almost all the parts of ME3 that are even remotely worthy of praise have nothing to do with the main plotline. I expect we'll start seeing more good things when Lt. Danger starts sidequesting. Well yeah, but he says he is doing this LP to show off why it is a good game. But we are an hour in and this hasn't happened. I think it is a terrible game with some really great aspects. But I feel this way because I look at it as the conclusion to a trilogy rather than an entity on its own. On top of this, I feel the best part, by far, is Citadel. And he doesn't want to show that off so yeah. Anyway, I like hearing differing viewpoints and since he is doing a good job of this, I am eager to hear the conflicting ideas. I'm also hoping it makes me like the game again.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:26
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The music on Mars is really good.
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Jul 25, 2014 23:44
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Thanks for the feedback, everybody!quote:Even though you said you feel this is a good game, so far you haven't really shown anything that was particularly good but have pointed out a lot that is bad or could have been done better. This is mainly in terms of the gameplay. The story stuff has been neutral. A lot of the time, when I say "good", I mean "interesting" - and vice versa. I'm actually making a conscious effort not to say "interesting" too often. Count along at home! I made the first two videos before starting this thread, and I assumed most people were very familiar with ME3 and didn't want me to go over basic stuff/backstory too much. I'm gonna change this up for new videos though, since there seems to be an interest. Most of the things I like best are deep-set thematic concepts that need a bit of time to develop before I talk about them. I'm gonna say nice things in, uh, about two videos' time (so next Thursday hopefully). JcDent posted:In my opinion, Mass Effect 3 is an OK game, maybe, and a bad sequel to Mass Effect 2, which was a bad sequel to Mass Effect (which was good). Along with many other fans, I was disappointed with the conclusion of this trilogy. Mass Effect 1 and/or 2 were far superior. 
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Jul 26, 2014 00:27
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Lt. Danger posted:I'm gonna say nice things in, uh, about two videos' time (so next Thursday hopefully). So by hour number 3? Also, it would be interesting to have some of the vehement haters in a co-commentary video for some of the more divisive moments.
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Jul 26, 2014 00:30
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Waltzing Along posted:So by hour number 3?
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Jul 26, 2014 00:57
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Besides, that's what we're here for.
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Jul 26, 2014 01:01
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The discussion here has been pretty good so far too. The more analytical commentary is the only way to do this game proper justice without it devolving into the "STILL A BETTER ENDING THAN MASS EFFECT 3" type of stuff we're all tired of hearing over and over again.
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Jul 26, 2014 01:43
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Waltzing Along posted:So by hour number 3? I think everyone is aware that you don't like the game.
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Jul 26, 2014 07:00
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FoolyCharged posted:The big problem with making a big split path choice like that is that it's a LOT of development money thrown into a gimmick that most people won't see as the average user will beat the game once, if that. I think the only games that have split the game like that that come to mind for me would be the withcher 2, and fate of atlantis. Alpha Protocol gets a side mention for reacting to lots of small scale choices, but the game was tiny to compensate for that. Yeah, I wouldn't suggest it would be practical to have a game on this scale that effectively splits in two and gives you separate Cerberus missions, but you could easily do choices between two objectives in the same level, with Anderson in one ear talking about saving the galaxy and the Illusive Man in the other ear talking about saving humanity. And that wouldn't be an unreasonable theme to build on, considering how often it comes up in the first two games. A lot of it is just about giving the player the illusion of agency and the illusion of choice, which really falls down in this game compared to the first two. By way of example, in something like New Vegas, it's not fundamentally key to the core game whether you choose to fight for the Legion or the NCR, you still end up in the same places doing the same things, but it feels specifically as if you're choosing to do it rather than being shuttled between shooting galleries for plot reasons that don't really hold up to particular scrutiny.
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Jul 26, 2014 11:51
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 Part 3: Space Further Reading Presidium Map: http://lpix.org/1755609/presidium map.jpg Anachronox: http://youtu.be/OH0Px07ccts Nudge Theory: http://www.businessballs.com/nudge-theory.htm#nudge-theory-overview What are some other cool spaces in games? What levels say something with the geometry they use?
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Jul 27, 2014 17:33
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 Weird visual glitch. Is that the game, or your recording? Anyway, I'd say the most iconic locations from the past dozen years or so of video games are Orgrimmar and Stormwind from World of Warcraft. Orgrimmar used to be way too big, a little confusing, and filled with weird sights and sounds. When it was taken over by Garrosh, its design was streamlined, making it much easier to navigate - but from a visual/player response perspective, the place suddenly felt a lot less like home. NPCs were everywhere, but a lot of them filled some sort of purpose, either story or gameplay, there weren't the weird remnants of old quests that didn't exist anymore, like the guy in the inn who you could beat up for no readily apparent reason, or all the vendors/trainers for mechanics that got removed. The place had updated along with the game, but if you'd been going through the same Orgrimmar for years, it suddenly felt strangely oppressive and alien, fitting with how Garrosh had transformed The Horde from 'a bunch of weird dudes who chill out and hang because they're too weird for the Alliance to deal with' into an oppressive but efficient military regime. Part of that is just sheer mechanics, like I said, and I've never been huge on Warcraft's plot to begin with, but I always thought that transformation was neat.
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Jul 27, 2014 18:59
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:47 |
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No Allers? True, you have the choice to not bring her along, but she is part of the game. I also laughed at your comment about how "some" of the bad writing had to come over. Are you going to go into any detail about Liara/Shadow Broker and all that? That whole thing is just terrible to an extreme. You are at the Presidium for a few hours, come back to the ship and she's got a whole room set up? Yeah, she used her own resources to do it but it also immediately would give herself away as the shadow broker, a secret person. It doesn't make sense. Other than Earth thinking other races would want to help it is, to this point, the worst written aspect of the game.
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Jul 27, 2014 19:56
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