Atomic Gamer - 10 Things Wanted For Mass Effect 2

magerette

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Atomic Gamer has a Top Ten wish-list posted for Bioware's prospective next entry in their space-themed rpg trilogy begun with Mass Effect. They're all in favor of more aliens:
1. More great aliens. Sci-fi without some kind of strange, extraterrestrial (but also intelligent) life is usually hollow and lonely... Give us lots of new characters, ones with deep histories that may take some work to get out of them. Be able to find more about their background either during missions or as a consequence of them. Give them funny lines often, and make sure that the voice actors that portray them can really put forth a full range of emotions. Interesting characters are at the heart of good sci-fi, not flashy special effects or space travel.
Here's a bit about the plot-line they'd like to see:
6. A bit more non-linearity and impact to the story. Mass Effect was designed that on successive playthroughs, even if you did things totally differently and played the story planets in a new order, you still got almost all of the story and important dialogue. I'd love to see Mass Effect 2 add just a bit more permanence and consequence to the player's actions. Sure, keep giving us the options in some cases to choose who lives and who dies - that's a great part of many RPGs nowadays - but make it seem even more impactful and personal. Give us consequences that matter not just in the scope of the story, but ones that make a difference in combat.
You can read the whole list here.
More information.
 
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They forgot an item on the list to make combat not suck and actually give your AI companions functional intelligence.
 
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I don't get the whining about ME's combat. I enjoyed it well enough -- I mean sure, it wasn't quite up to the level of a pure shooter à la Crysis or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but it was more fun than most action-RPG's.
 
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Personally, #4 on the list is the only one that really bothered me.
Well that and the inventory management UI which wasn't mentioned in the list.
 
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Yeah, we spent FAR too much time cruising around in the Mako. It might have been fun if there was some exploration to it but they lay out what you need to find right on the map and there are rarely any enemies at all. Sure, you could find mineral deposits but that just gives you money, which you get tons of pretty fast. Which leads me to the other gripe...

Balance! Games are supposed to get harder over time. This one seems to start out hard then get easier and easier. Money becomes easier to get. Your powers/weapons increase faster than the enemy's. You learn to play your character better but the AI doesn't get smarter to compensate. Luckily, the story got a lot more interesting, which covered the gameplay getting more dull.
 
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From #3 they got this wrong:
"One problem was that you couldn't order them to specific cover spots correctly since they'd both go to the same spot and one would often wind up exposed to enemy fire"

If you went in to pause mode (space bar) you could direct each companion to a different spot and tell them to stay down while you sniped the place up. Worked pretty well but was not needed for most battles.

I played this game while waiting for Fallout 3 and all the good games that came out recently. Probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise but I am glad I did. I didn't like the KOTORS but this was fun with a LOT of dialog and great but cliched Sci Fi story. Hell I even read one of the books at the same time as playing, what a nerd...
 
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My suggestion is that they implement an inventory system which is at least equal to their older games. I cannot come up with an RPG ever that had a worse inventory system than ME, and that should be taken literally. And yes, I even count games like Ultima I.
 
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Personally, I argued (and continue to argue) for few alien races in ME. IMO, Star Trek and Star Wars were so lousy with aliens that the unique treasure of sapient life was cheapened and watered-down.

I'lll always prefer a universe with a handful of well-developed spacefaring species, over a universe with "big-eared, snaggle-toothed, bumpy-foreheaded metaphors for human free-market policy."
 
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I agree with Stormwaltz... kinda. But I also disagree. Kinda.

Space opera isn't hard sci-fi. It's not about the precious gift of sapient life or some stuff like that. Instead, it's a close analogy of orcs-and-elves-and-dwarves-and-my-god-halflings swords-and-sorcery fantasy. Fantasy races are analogies of human myths and cultural prejudices -- orcs for the Mongol hordes, dwarves for Jews or Tatars or any well-integrated but clearly "different" culture living among us, elves for all the things we'd want to be but can't, and so on. Space opera has established a similar set of conventions -- the money-grubbing cowardly trader race, the Roman empire in a funny hat, the empathic, sexually promiscuous mythical Pacific vahiné (or possibly Thai hooker?) with blue tentacles, the big, brutish barbarian race, all centered around the hard-hittin', sharp-shootin' hero pulled from cowboy stories, perhaps with a touch of mystical warrior training thrown in for local color.

Hard sci-fi, dealing with more realistic settings or more difficult concepts, is a different genre, and it doesn't really mix well with heroic space opera. (It might, but I haven't seen it done successfully yet.) So in that sense, IMO your mention of the precious gift of sapient life is a bit off the mark; it's a valid point, but not all that relevant to space opera, which depends on, as you said, a colorful panoply of races representing the glory of the free-market capitalist economy.

However, I the Star Trek / Star Wars / Babylon 5 / Mass Effect space opera formula is getting severely threadbare. My main beef with ME was that there wasn't a damn thing there that we hadn't seen before many, many times over. In literature, the space opera genre did get a reboot -- I particularly like Iain M. Banks's Commie spin on it, Englishmen-in-funny-hats aliens notwithstanding -- but this has yet to happen in TV, film, or computer games. And IMO the literature variant is about due for a reboot too.

It is a shame that what ought to be the freest, most creative, least fettered genre of creative expression has become so much a prisoner of its formulas. I'm currently re-reading Dune, and space opera really doesn't get any better than that -- and Dune doesn't have any (sapient) aliens at all. (I'm talking about the first volume; the series went downhill real fast from there; past Children of Dune it was clear that it had become very much a prisoner of its own formula.)
 
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I don't get the whining about ME's combat. I enjoyed it well enough -- I mean sure, it wasn't quite up to the level of a pure shooter à la Crysis or S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but it was more fun than most action-RPG's.

Funny, I didn't like ME's combat because it was *too much* like a pure shooter à la Crysis or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I played it like a shooter, in fact for like 10 levels I forgot to assign skill points and was doing just fine. When I remembered, I noticed I had like 18 points to assign. Stats just had a minimal effect and that makes it much more an action than an RPG to me.
 
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What difficulty level were you playing at? At normal, it was ridiculously easy, except for one or two punishingly difficult encounters that came out of the blue.

"I don't like action RPG's" is a valid expression of a taste.
"The combat in X sucks because it's X, Y, Z" is a valid complaint.

However, "The combat sucks because it's an action RPG and I don't like action RPG's" is just juvenile.
 
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You're going to be disappointed on a regular basis if you hold all sci-fi up to Dune.

I'm not sure if Bioware really push for the originality or complexity that you crave. They're "in the box" story-tellers and even Dune is "hero with a thousand faces" all over again. Frank Herbert wrapped it into wonderful ideas like the Holtzman effect devolving weaponry and books are a better medium for ideas than games.

Edit: Actually, I'll change that to "a better medium for ideas than games have become".
 
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You're going to be disappointed on a regular basis if you hold all sci-fi up to Dune.

Yeah. I figure re-reading Dune a few dozen times would be a more fulfilling experience than hoping for something even a fraction as thoughtful, or interesting, from Bioware.

I'm not sure if Bioware really push for the originality or complexity that you crave.

They aren't. I recall from somewhere that Bioware's stated they have a formula--ancient rising evil (whether or not that makes sense), elven or quasi-elven clingy girlfriends, heroic chosen one--and by god they're sticking to it.
 
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Dune really was great sci-fi and the games based on dune, dune 1 and dune 2 was also great, I loved the stories in these games!

To think that bioware could write something like that is just unthinkable. In general I haven't played a sci-fi RPG in eons with a deep and intressing story.... hmm acctually I Cannot remmember the last time I played any RPG with a deep and interessing story :( TW is the only thing to come close I guess.

As of now FFVII still stands out as the best story. It amazing how well it fits into todays society? The planet being destoryed by consuming its energy? CHECK , terrorists and bombings CHECK, people who support mother earth CHECK, spiked haired youths causing trouble CHECK. Big breasted jap. girls being popular CHECK. Scientific expriments going wrong CHECK. Strong single fathers CHECK. I could go on and on!

Sometimes I just think the makers of this game could see into the future.
 
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The needing to unite against a greater evil is the old book of Mormon tale and crops up in Dune in the end.
 
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Actually, all sci-fi and fantasy works like this. You have a setting. There are characters in it. The characters have a big challenge, decide to overcome challenge. Characters fail miserably because of obstacle. Characters overcome obstacle and go through meaningful personal change. Thaurin gets the chick. The end.

Also, Mass Effect rocks! Wooooh!
 
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Actually, all sci-fi and fantasy works like this. You have a setting. There are characters in it. The characters have a big challenge, decide to overcome challenge. Characters fail miserably because of obstacle. Characters overcome obstacle and go through meaningful personal change. Thaurin gets the chick. The end.

That's a pretty reductive and imbecilic way of looking at things, especially since this simplification would also apply to... well, nearly any genre of fiction, and to some extent non-genre so-called "literary" fiction while overlooking all the things that distinguish them and the nuances.

Not to mention that I can name any number of SF/F titles that don't conclude with characters overcoming obstacles and succeeding. Maybe you should read more?

As for the list...

8. Continue to rebel. With Mass Effect, Bio tried pretty hard to get away from their previous sci-fi series, the excellent Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Without LucasArts looming over them, Bioware got to delve into more serious themes and mature looks at good and evil - compare those to the simplistic, over-the top turn of Anakin to the Dark Side in Star Wars episodes II and III. Bioware also didn't try to rip off the lightsabers, which were oh so important in making the combat of Knights look so great. All of this should continue and be built upon. Mass Effect sold enough copies: a new franchise was most definitely born, and Bioware is going to need a lot more creativity to keep gamers' interest.

Considering that KotOR and Mass Effect are the same game in slightly different trappings, that's particularly hilarious. Either the author's an idiot fanboy, or he's trying for irony, but the latter is unlikely given that the rest of the list has "idiot fanboy lapping up Bioware bodily fluids" written all over it.
 
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That's a pretty reductive and imbecilic way of looking at things, especially since this simplification would also apply to... well, nearly any genre of fiction, and to some extent non-genre so-called "literary" fiction while overlooking all the things that distinguish them and the nuances.

Not to mention that I can name any number of SF/F titles that don't conclude with characters overcoming obstacles and succeeding. Maybe you should read more?

Well, hey. That's what they'll teach you in a writing workshop, anyway. And, really, you can indeed probably apply that formula to most books, even that "any" number of titles that you can name. Change in the main characters is, in my opinion, the hallmark of good literature. That's not to say that most sci-fi and fantasy is good literature...

By the way, "succeeding" might not always be the success that was initially hoped for at the beginning of the story...

P.S. Three put-downs and/or personal attacks in one post. A personal record, congratulations!
 
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Well, hey. That's what they'll teach you in a writing workshop, anyway.

Gee, those must be some shitty writing workshops to teach you that all things must follow one formula, and one formula only.

And, really, you can indeed probably apply that formula to most books, even that "any" number of titles that you can name.

So you're aware that it's a reductive and oversimplified way of looking at things. Why bring it up, then? Are you trying to prove that Bioware doesn't produce garbage that recycles the same tripe over and over and over again, or that the recycling of garbage is perfectly okay because nothing escapes what you think is the One True Formula anyway?

Oh, and while we're at it--tell me what obstacles were overcome in 1984, which isn't even a particularly obscure book and is definitely sci-fi. Maybe breaking under torture counts as "overcoming an obstacle"!

Change in the main characters is, in my opinion, the hallmark of good literature.

Considering that a great fat lot of what's considered "good literature" doesn't concern itself with characterization, let alone the inducement of change in characters, I cannot LOL enough at this. Long Day's Journey into Night? The Cherry Orchard? I could name a lot more, but I guess those aren't good literature in your eyes, not because you have any valid criticism or counter-interpretation to offer, but because characters in them don't change.

P.S. Three put-downs and/or personal attacks in one post. A personal record, congratulations!

Nothing undeserved. :)
 
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