Mass Effect 3 - Mass Effect 1 and 2 "just a preamble"

This is a throw-away piece but Eurogamer has some comments from BioWare Edmonton General Manager Aaryn Flynn, who says Mass Effect 3 is the "Superbowl" while the first two entries were "regular season of American Football matches". Anyway, a bit on creating the finale:

"Fans want a definitive end," he said. "They'll be the judge of that ultimately when they play it and see how we do that. Certainly, what this game absolutely does represent is the culmination of almost a decade's worth of work for the studio and for Casey [Hudson] and his team in terms of exactly what we're trying to do with the game we kicked off almost ten years ago. They're working really hard to make it a real proper conclusion, something that's fitting to what they've worked on for so long, and what the fans are telling us they're dying to see.
"It feels good for them. They're excited about the story they're going to tell and what's going to happen in the game. They've got lots of surprises up their sleeve and stuff they've been holding onto for a while."

More information.

Mass Effect 2 was the best game they ever made, according to themselves - and now it's just one part of a preamble?

That would mean Mass Effect 3 will change the world as we know it, right?

Well he's quite right about ME2 - the story didn't go anywhere, you end up pretty much exactly where you left off in ME1.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Mass Effect 2 was the best game they ever made, according to themselves - and now it's just one part of a preamble?

Should that surprise us though? They did the exact same thing to DA:O when they started hyping DA2.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Well he's quite right about ME2 - the story didn't go anywhere, you end up pretty much exactly where you left off in ME1.

Oh nonononononono.

At the end of ME2 you ended up in bizarro land.

The game was actually a bit of fun. Not really an RPG, but still not bad…….until that ending.

ME2 was entertaining as a predictable "experience" shooter, but let's just say I don't agree with Bioware that it was the best game they'd ever made.

I liked ME2 overall, but there's no denying the story is very thin. It doesn't really lead anywhere.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I liked ME2 overall, but there's no denying the story is very thin. It doesn't really lead anywhere.

There was a story?

(and that's coming from somebody who have 6 different character playthroughs with the game.)

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
ME2 was entertaining as a predictable "experience" shooter, but let's just say I don't agree with Bioware that it was the best game they'd ever made.

Technically, absolutely. The rest is very subjective. I'm sure they're proud of their work.

Originally Posted by azarhal
There was a story?

There were many small stories. Then there was the climax, which personally I didn't think was that bad. But the main story arch did not move forward very much, true.

So if ME3 is the superbowl, what is the halftime show?

Technically, absolutely. The rest is very subjective. I'm sure they're proud of their work.

If they'd said "it's our best technical achievement", I suppose it would make more sense.

Personally, though, I think something like NWN is much, much, much more technically impressive.

The Unreal engine seems to work quite well for most developers, and I didn't see much in ME2 that stood out.

Won't deny that it looked great, but I didn't see anything that went beyond games like Gears of War, Bioshock, Batman AA, and games like that.

To me, they're all similar on a technical level and from an art direction viewpoint.

Very competent and smooth, but that's ultimately not my primary concern when playing a game.

10 years? I must have missed Mass Effect Zero.

Any time a company comes out with a new game it's their best game ever….until the next game comes out. Somehow I don'tthink a game would sell that well if they marketed it as "kind of ok, but not as good as our others".

Originally Posted by KapitanUnterhosen
10 years? I must have missed Mass Effect Zero.

Presumably they started developing ME 1 quite a while before it was released to the public …

Originally Posted by fadedc
Any time a company comes out with a new game it's their best game ever….until the next game comes out. Somehow I don'tthink a game would sell that well if they marketed it as "kind of ok, but not as good as our others".

Yeah, I can see them going "Well, umm…it didn't quite turn out the way we envisioned it, there wasn't enough time to make the new dialogue system work properly so we removed it. I mean…nobody really cares about dialogue anymore right? And some other content had to be removed too, basically umm…most of the game. But yeah, it's still playable. Kind of."

Working on ME1 since 2001? Come on.

Only way that statement makes sense is if that guy considers KOTOR's production to be part of the ME line.