Mass Effect - Series Retrospective @Twenty Sided

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@Twenty Sided Shamus Young chronicles his thoughts on the Mass Effect series. To date this Mass Effect retrospective has 34 parts and is well worth your time. The first game is covered in the first 14 parts. The second runs from 15-31. Below is an excerpt from the latest entry 34#.

Just to drive the point home, the writers have the Alliance ask Shepard what they should do about the approaching Reaper fleet. This is really annoying, since Shepard doesn't actually have anything useful to say and answering that question was supposed to be the plot of the previous game. Not only were they not doing anything, but they still aren't doing anything. They have no plans, no ideas, no initiative.

Mass Effect 3 decided to focus on Earth, and then refused to make Earth an interesting place. None of these people have names, personalities, or agendas. They just look at Shepard like dumb kids who forgot to study the night before an exam. The player is being asked to struggle to save a planet of apathetic people who can't think for themselves. Make us care about these people before you blow them up, so we can have some sort of tangible motivation for saving Earth.

And of course there's the infamous trailer-bait line where Shepard proclaims, "We fight or we die!" I feel like everyone has already dog-piled on this, but for the sake of completeness:

Yes, that line is flat-out dumb beyond parody. It's not an answer to their question. (I'm pretty sure they were asking how you fight the Reapers, not if you fight the Reapers.) It's not a terribly inspirational or interesting thing to say. (Compare this clunky one-liner to Shepard's speech just after taking command of the Normandy in Mass Effect 1.) It's monumentally bad advice, bordering on sabotage. (If you're attacked by an invulnerable foe, you don't fight them. You run. You hide. You don't gather into a fleet to be killed en masse, you scatter like cockroaches so they have to chase you down and kill you in detail.) And it's 100% wrong by way of being a false dichotomy. Just ask the Protheans. You don't choose between fighting and dying. You do both.
More information.
 
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Outch…

Plot deconstruction at it's best. Reading it, I'm starting to wonder if the entire plot of ME3 wasn't changed half-way through without everyone giving their inputs instead of just the ending like previously claimed. Some interesting point in the article show that things even at the start didn't make much sense between "what is happening" and "what the characters are saying".

It looks cool though...
 
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What a mess entire central story was here...the less you think about it, the better. At least if trying to hold any optimism for Andromeda.
 
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One thing that I recently found that I hadn't seen others complain about -- which is not surprising because there is a lot to complain about -- is that in ME1 you're given the choice of Anderson or Udina to nominate for the galactic council. If you choose Anderson, then ME2 shows him as such. Roll into ME3 and he is back in the Earth military while Udina is now the councilor... and they never mention it. DON'T GIVE ME A CHOICE AND THEN F'ING REVERSE IT FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN LAZINESS!
 
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One thing that I recently found that I hadn't seen others complain about -- which is not surprising because there is a lot to complain about -- is that in ME1 you're given the choice of Anderson or Udina to nominate for the galactic council. If you choose Anderson, then ME2 shows him as such. Roll into ME3 and he is back in the Earth military while Udina is now the councilor… and they never mention it. DON'T GIVE ME A CHOICE AND THEN F'ING REVERSE IT FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN LAZINESS!
Talking of laziness… why didn't you just google it? There's is an explanation in the game's codex. :)
 
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The woeful ending was the best thing that happened to ME3, as it totally distracted most people from the fact that the game itself was absolute dross. And that it's plot was utterly laughable.

My own personal bug bares were how Shepard got hung up on a kid, when he'd already seen thousands of folk suffer or die throughout his career (not to mention how that supposedly fits in if you were a Sole Survivor or Ruthless); and how the Illusive Man + Cerberus went from morally grey, deep and complex to Scooby Doo villains.

Awful. Just awful.
 
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One thing that I recently found that I hadn't seen others complain about -- which is not surprising because there is a lot to complain about -- is that in ME1 you're given the choice of Anderson or Udina to nominate for the galactic council. If you choose Anderson, then ME2 shows him as such. Roll into ME3 and he is back in the Earth military while Udina is now the councilor… and they never mention it. DON'T GIVE ME A CHOICE AND THEN F'ING REVERSE IT FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN LAZINESS!

I was also puzzled by that (second spoiler box near the bottom) when I played ME3, but as Morrandir pointed out, the explanation is in the game's excellent and informative codex. They definitely should have had a quick dialog or something to make it clear though. Reading the codex should be optional and not "required reading" ;) .
 
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About the story...

There is no problem with the core game(s). Except the ending. There is absolutely no logic to move Citadel near Earth for example, and etc, I think we had these conversations already.

There is a huge problem with DLC. Where people who didn't play them get confused later or play them too soon and then notice "plot holes", like seeing and killing banshees in DLC then ingame several months later in the "temple" your sidekicks are suddenly surprised by them and comment that it's a new type of mobs. Whatta joke.

There is also a problem with Mass Effect cartoon, not because it's about the most boring sidekick in games ever - James Vega, but because it breaks the core idea of Collectors where the second ship of theirs exists.

Then there is a problem with ME3 multiplayer where these Collectors, although extinct by your actions in ME2, appear as friendlies. Bioware writers probably believe a chicken is actually a dodo bird.

Anyway, releaseversion game writers IMO didn't do a bad job. But later EA's milk_em schemes just ruined it.

For gameplay I can only say that removing Mako and introducing sonar minigame instead was the most rotten idea of that decade.
 
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About the story…

There is no problem with the core game(s). Except the ending. There is absolutely no logic to move Citadel near Earth for example, and etc, I think we had these conversations already.

There is a huge problem with DLC. Where people who didn't play them get confused later or play them too soon and then notice "plot holes", like seeing and killing banshees in DLC then ingame several months later in the "temple" your sidekicks are suddenly surprised by them and comment that it's a new type of mobs. Whatta joke.

There is also a problem with Mass Effect cartoon, not because it's about the most boring sidekick in games ever - James Vega, but because it breaks the core idea of Collectors where the second ship of theirs exists.

Then there is a problem with ME3 multiplayer where these Collectors, although extinct by your actions in ME2, appear as friendlies. Bioware writers probably believe a chicken is actually a dodo bird.

Anyway, releaseversion game writers IMO didn't do a bad job. But later EA's milk_em schemes just ruined it.

For gameplay I can only say that removing Mako and introducing sonar minigame instead was the most rotten idea of that decade.

Sorry Joxer, but I have to disagree on that one...there isn't a single premise in the central plot that isn't directly contradicted at some point. Almost laughably sometimes...like with Miranda putting a tracer on Leng to find TIM's office, when you see her standing right next to him at beginning of ME II.
And problems with ME had their roots all back from the first game, but at least two of them did a better job of slowly developing it's tone. You were there for the ride, so all the logical fallacies be damned.
This Shamus has a point...ME III did a terrible job at world building...like in Dead Space III, it feels there is an entire game missing to bridge the gap between the two.
 
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and how the Illusive Man + Cerberus went from morally grey, deep and complex to Scooby Doo villains.

Awful. Just awful.

Cerberus were Scooby Doo villains in ME1, it's ME2 that tried to pretend they were not.
 
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Cerberus were Scooby Doo villains in ME1, it's ME2 that tried to pretend they were not.

No…there was still a better sense of purpose behind their actions. Take first mission on Mars…what reasoning is there for erasing data on Cruscible to keep it out of hands of the Alliance? Would Cerberus then build another, all on their own?
But they needed to be EVIL even when there was little sense in it, since the real, actual war with Reapers was delayed up until the final mission.
 
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there isn't a single premise in the central plot that isn't directly contradicted at some point.
I just have to disagree on that.
Assuming we take the central plot as the same thing. IMO the central plot is psychological/sociological analisys of some male/female named Shepard tossed in the center of events bigger than him. The whole thing does start as ordinary mech stuff, but turns into what I've said. Evangelion, yes. Of the same quality, no.

About Cerberus "evolution" I don't actually care much and for what's worth if one reads ME comics, everything will fit at it's place.
My problem with the trilogy is killing off ExoGeni without a(ny) reason. Probably lack of $ to invest into growing the story about them.
 
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No…there was still a better sense of purpose behind their actions. Take first mission on Mars…what reasoning is there for erasing data on Cruscible to keep it out of hands of the Alliance? Would Cerberus then build another, all on their own?.

Getting human soldiers killed by Thresher Maws, husks and Rachni for no reasons at all had better sense of reasoning? Ok... I personally consider it gratuitous pointless slaughter though.
 
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And this is why Mass Effect three never existed for me, other than going through the motions of first purchasing it, then demanding a refund. The whole thing made no bloody sense, and, on top of that, it was terrible.
 
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No…there was still a better sense of purpose behind their actions. Take first mission on Mars…what reasoning is there for erasing data on Cruscible to keep it out of hands of the Alliance? Would Cerberus then build another, all on their own?
But they needed to be EVIL even when there was little sense in it, since the real, actual war with Reapers was delayed up until the final mission.



Yep.

Cerberus were set as "results over moral weakness" in both games. They didn't change, the perspective you viewed it from was what changed between ME1 and ME2. That's one if the things that made it so interesting. Especially when you'd then got the likes of Jack, a merciless killer, throwing in her story and hate for Cerberus too. It added loads of depth and grey areas which helped flesh out the story.

In ME3 they reduced all that to "Cerberus BAD!". Sad really.
 
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Getting human soldiers killed by Thresher Maws, husks and Rachni for no reasons at all had better sense of reasoning? Ok… I personally consider it gratuitous pointless slaughter though.

Those were experiments that comically turned out worse for Umbrella/Cerberus than anyone else, but hardly a senseless slaughter.
The way I see it with humans being newcomers in the galaxy, Alliance created a rogue agency so they would more quickly catch up with other species in biotics/technology, until it eventually spiraled out of control.
It would have actually made for a pretty damn interesting DLC or Expansion and with Cerberus becoming more consistent throughout the whole trilogy.
 
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Mass Effect was a disappointment, but that's what I feared from part 1 on. They constructed a huge, dark, shadow-y, mysterious danger - and I was afraid that they wouldn't find a good way to solve that, rightly so. I was afraid that they wouldn't come up with a good explanation for the whole thing but tried to - and they did come up with a disappointing one (another way would have been NOT to try to explain it, which probably would have been better). I was afraid that they wouldn't be able to create an ending that makes sense (Part 1: Almost no chance to defeat one reaper, better hope that they don't come back, Part 3: Oh, btw, you can win a war against all of them. Yeah, sure.)

Part 1 started a great premise, built up a great setting - but unfortunately, they had no idea how to explain or end it properly. It's like hinting at Cthulhu in part 1 - and then let part 3 end with a firefight against 10 Cthulhus WHICH YOU CAN WIN. For me, the hopelessness of that fight was part of what made the setting interesting. That the explanation and solution they came up with was bullshit was the smaller disappointment.
 
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Has some valid points, a little over critical for me: as someone who just adores all 3 games in different ways, I choose to look at my experience as a whole with Mass Effect.

Mass Effect 1 was all about exploration, and the wonder of a brilliantly written new SciFi universe, steeped in world building, mature themes and witty banter.

Mass Effect 2 was all about the crew and the spectacle, so many great moments and what a feeling at the end with the reaper vision and the team saved (hopefully).

Mass Effect 3, once the DLC/EC had been added, was 30-40% better than the vanilla game IMO. Definitely a pity that it required Citadel/Leviathan/From Ashes etc to feel complete, but it is what it is. The Multiplayer was the real star here for me though, holy moly... so many hours in perhaps the best MP gaming I've had (tied possibly with TLoU Factions which I still play).

Mass Effect, for me, is about the journey more so than the destination.

I hope Andromeda is amazing, it's going to have some very critical eyes reviewing it me thinks.... it best thoroughly deliver if it wants to break out from the tri-colour ending quagmire the franchise was left in after ME3.
 
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