Mass Effect 3 - Page 7

I loved both ME1 and ME2, but for different reasons and both definitely had their flaws. ME1 had a great setting, you met each character for a logical reason, and the character development was driven through missions aimed at defeating the rogue Spectre guy and taking out geth. This makes sense because your initially out to take down one powerful guy, something that a surgical strike team like the one you gather.

The environments for the most part were beautifullly done. The Citadel felt like the city in space and center of civlization that it was supposed to be. The Mako exploration missions for the most part were boring because of the monotonous planet landscapes, but the ones that varied a little and had a side quest were brilliant.

The combat system was great, but your allies could ne relatively useless later on in the game even on higher difficulties. The classes were unique enough that another play through with a different class with a different experience. The inventory system was a little bit unruly, but once I got the Spectre weapons and decent armor I didn't bother picking up other ones

The variety of enemies was simply pathetic though. I know the geth are the main enemy, with the occasional husk, krogan, or whatever mixed in, but it made fighting kind of monotonous (although in a different way so then the 1. crouch behind cover 2. Use bio powers 3. Fire when not fired upon 4. win combat system of ME2).

The story of ME1, like most people here said, is what really shines. All things gradually point to the galactic threat of the reapers, and your choices later on in the game become more world-changing as a result. One that sticks out to me is deciding whether or not to let the Rachni queen live, and consequently whether or not they can join in on the final battle. Basically the story serves to gradually highlight the gravity of the Reaper threat, culminating with the entire Citadel fleet barely taking out the Reaper. This to me shows that a rag-tag team of aliens and a Spectre cannot defeat the Reapers, but that the entire galaxy must unite to survive. That may be cliche, but the way that this resolution is built up to is not at all cliche and makes it seem more plausible.

This sets up ME2, which I assumed from the end of the first one, would be about gaining allies (like entire space fleets) to help with the Reapers, and finding some potential weakness that they have. ME2 is supposed to be the "dark" game of the trilogy, but that could still have easily been accomplished by the questionable actions that Shepard would need to do in order secure certain allies, like alientaing one to gain another or something along those lines.

The environments in ME2 are even better looking than ME1, but seem to lose their awe and expansiveness, especially with the lack of planetary exploration. When I am in a space RPG, I kind of expect the gam world to feel more open and free, at least on side quests that don't impact the main story line.

The combat system in ME2 is simply put, a Gears of War clone with biotic powers. The process of
1. duck behind cover
2. use biotics
3. shoot back for a second when not shot at
4. win or die
gets kinda boring in a 20+ hour long game

The "streamlined" inventory was definitely a disappointment over the ME1 clusterfuck/hording. Classes didn't change too much but because of the combat system offer less of a different experience on another play through.

The variety of enemies is certainly greater than ME1, but the combat system makes it feel like fighting anything but those huge mechs, a boss, or maybe the melee enemies very unique. Fighting a geth is supposed to be different than a mercenary, but they are almost identical except maybe in the handgun you use.

Simply put, the story of ME2 is way too centered around the around the characters. I get that it is supposed to make the game feel more personal, but it also makes the game progress relatively little until the final few missions. As another poster put it, half of the characters have no place. I think Bioware could have done a better job of making the characters loyalty missions tie into gaining more galactic support to fight the Reapers. Legion's loyalty missions effectively helps bring the geth into the fight against them, but that seems to be the only one seem very important. Compared to the potential destruction of the galaxy, who cares if Jack has bad childhood memories? Who cares if Jacob has daddy issues or Mordin wants to save his pupil? Grunt's loyalty mission could have been tied to gaining the krogans as allies, while still remaining personal. Mordins' loyalty mission could have been about convincing him to develop a cure to the krogan genophage. Tali's loyalty mission could have been tied to gaining the support of the quarians. Samara's mission could be tied to gaining the alliance of more asari justicars to make kind of a second commando team if needed Not every missions needed to be like this, but i would have given a nice balance to "getting a competent and loyal team" and "need more firepower to take out Reapers if an entire fleet can only take out one"

What I hope for in ME3 is similar to the ending missions and some of the DLC for ME2. The part where you play Joker and try to escape the ship is a nice diversion from simply being in control of Shepard. Controling Samara leading a group of justicars on a strike aboard a reaper would be awesome, and different than if it were with Shepard. In the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, the fight with the Spectre was different than the standard duck-and-cover combat system, you actually had to think about where to move to avoid her biotics, especially on Insane. The driving mission in that mission was also very well done. In the Overlord DLC, the last battle also requires some management of the battle rather than just blasting enemies, and the fact that you only have Shepard to do it is a nice change of pace. The scenery and Hammerhead sequences are also done very well The Repaer IFF mission felt awesome and mysterious because you were "stomping on holy ground" and did not know where the enemies were coming from.

ME3 needs to have the expansive feel of ME1, a different combat system than the first two, or at least make multiple styles viable, a hybrid inventory system, a enemies closer to the variety in ME2. Above all though, it needs to still have some focus on character development along with saving the galaxy to make it a well rounded and unique RPG.

ME1's story may not be super original or deep, but at least it was believable and it created a very nice atmosphere, and the ending was very satisfactory. The build up of threat and the final crippling battle were done perfectly. But ME2's ending butchered the plausibility of the whole story in 5 minutes. It's like for the whole game you are trying to find out who those weird Collector guys are and why are they abducting humans, but there is no build up before the finale whatsoever, just a sudden "revelation" that they are literally grinding humans to make a giant human-shaped spaceship from their bodies. Really, what the hell >:-(

I believe that was Bioware's attempt at originality. Mass Effect's storyline stays extremely close to the novels that inspired it, I guess they wanted to get away from that a bit.