Mass Effect 1,2 & 3 -- Action (RPGs?) made by BioWare (ME3 Spoilers Hidden!)

As long as Jack Wall still contributes I'll be happy. ME has become far too commercial to return to ME1's awesome Vangelis/synth style of music though, ME2 did a good job of scrubbing most of it out.

 

The combat of ME2 is better, definitely. The story... well, I didn't care for the plot in ME2 quite as much (although the character missions are great). I'm not really sure I like the default choices. Sure, a lot of ME is all about our choices, but Bioware seems to be leaning towards the Renegade choices more than Paragon. I glanced through an IGN editorial about what they wanted in ME3 once, and even there they mention that the Paragon route seems to get a bit shafted these days. In ME1 it wasn't quite so blatant, but when ME2 started, I think the default choice was let the Council die and/or put Udina in charge? Something like that? Even from a Renegade standpoint, who would put him in charge?! That's not badass, that's just stupid. I think the newest novel reflected this too, although it also freed up Anderson to go do more stuff if he wasn't stuck as a useless Councilor.

Even ME2's plot seemed to favor Renegade, since you have you depend on Cerberus for just about everything. The group that experimented with Creepers, Rachni and who knows what else. Whenever ME3 rolls around, I just hope those big choices (killed the rachni queen or not, saved the Council or not) actually have an impact on the plot... ME2 was the middle game so maybe they can't change too much (sure, Sheppard can die, but that then won't carry over to ME3 of course, that'll just be a game over), but as ME3 is the end, I hope there'll be more consequences or changes for whether you did or didn't do something.

And yeah, Jack is weird. Never liked her, but playing Paragon I just tried to act nice... and somehow it ended up either she wants romance (or something) or she hates you? Its not like there was ever a "be romantic or be nice" conversation choice. Yeah, she's screwed up, but still, almost seemed like a glitch in the game. At least Miranda didn't hate you at the end.

The Shadow Broker DLC is great though. I just need to do a ME2 playthrough where I stay loyal to Liara (I could just break it off with Tali, and Liara doesn't seem to mind after that, I think, but might as well make a whole Paragon playthrough and stay loyal) before ME3 comes out.

I liked the music of ME1, we'll see how ME3's music will turn out. Although when is the earliest we could possibly get some samples so we could form opinions of the new composer? Not sure trailers count or not, hm.

 

Making Udina the default choice is extremely stupid. I would choose Anderson for just about any position over Udina, because he's just the far better man. Yes, Udina already has political experience, but he's also shown he sucks at it. Anderson's character far surpasses Udina, to the point where Anderson would be better at anything worth doing. Add Shepard's personal feelings towards Udina and it is silly to have Udina as the default choice.

 

Unless Bioware is trying to tell us default Shepard is a brutal stupid oaf.

 

Ahem.....KOTOR *cough cough*

 

I agree, although KOTOR had a reason, Star Wars is often broken down to Jedi/Light side = Good and Sith/Dark side = evil.

When comparing ME1 to ME2, it seems like the choices in ME2 had less effect on the outcome of the situation.

Too often did the choices lead to the exact same outcome.

In ME1 there were many side missions that had multiple choices that lead to multiple outcomes, I liked that.

I think ME1's story is far better than ME2's, but I guess that is to be expected. I loved ME2's teammate missions, though. The teammate missions and the suicide mission were the only things that saved the role-playing element from being a complete disappointment.

 

Best news I've heard all week. Mansell is up there with Giacchino for best composer out there at the moment and I think he'll really add to the game's experience.

 

KOTOR never punished you for being evil or good. You could have been the evilest person ever, and still got the lightside ending if you wanted to. Sure, it makes force powers on the opposite spectrum more mana draining, but you had so much mana it was a non issue.

The reason? Your choices weren't influenced by your morality. That is the biggest failure of the Mass Effect 2 mechanic. If you want to keep your team alive, you need to go all the way Paragon or Renegade, because it influences your charm/intimidate options.

By having your dialogue choices separate from your morality score, you can play it the way you feel is right, not the way the game wants you to.

 

I agree completely. Straying from the path even once can lead to losing a teammate you want to keep.

 

huh... i really didn't notice anything like that when i've played. strange.

 

I sincerely beg to differ on this point: having played many times as a Paragon who often chose Renegade interrupts or replies, I don't think I mysteriously lost a teammate that way. I think I only lost one or at the most two teammates on different playthroughs and on purpose at that: f.e. not having upgraded the ship or chosen the absolutely worst specialist for a job. Perhaps you have to waver constantly from one stance to another in order to lose people that way? Maybe that could explain why Mordin sometimes dies on some players through no fault of their own.

 

Just finished my playthrough with all the story based DLCs, went through most of the codex, all of the Cerberus Daily News Reports and I've been reading some of the threads here and at the bioware social forums.

These are some of my notes/assumptions of what the heck will happen in ME3 aside from the usual stuff (i.e., recruitment of council races, return of rachni, geth/quarian alliance, etc)

Enjoy!

- Go to Earth immediately with all your surviving crew mates(Consequence:Less Humans Die, your crew is sacrificed) or level up and get help from galactic community, (Consequence: More humans die with each mission)
- There is no magical weapon/deus ex machina/more powerful race than reapers option, the galaxy can fight off the reapers
- Estimated population of repears based on age of derelict reaper. Minimum of 740 Reapers.
- Heretic Geth only represent 5% of entire Geth population (Imagine a fleet larger than one seen in ME1, might even be the largest in the galaxy)
- The turian fleet presently has 37 dreadnoughts; the asari, 21; and the salarians, 16. Humanity has 7
- One of the missions will be making peace with Battarians and getting their military help (Consequence: Give up human settlements in the Skyllian Verge)
- "Last Prothean" Team member?
- How does the Citadel play into the war?
- Council member homeworlds are all being attacked. Choice of which to save first, determines casuality rate.
- Justicar leaves due to code, Grunt leaves to go back to Tuchanka, Zaeed contract is done, Jack leaves(Just because), Legion goes back to geth, Tali goes back to the Fleet, Kasumi just cause she's useless, Not sure about Mordin, Miranda and Jacob
- How much time before ME2 and ME3? (Enough time for Krogan to repopulate? Tali to rise to the Admiralty? Thane to Die?)
- Framed narrative. So that timeline extends to a decade, thus being able to choose to repopulate krogan
- Cerberus clones Shepard creates an army, is the British Sniper a Shepard Clone?
- Super Weapon: Through Reaper Technolgy in Collector Base. Use Mass Effect Relays as InterGalactic Gun/Mass Accelerator Weapon
- Mass Relay Choke Point Strategy (Battle of Thermopylae or Last Battle in Wing Commander movie). Do Reapers even use the Mass Relay?
- Krogan population still good enough to fight a war but it might be a war to end the species(HOLD THE LINE!). Based from CDN, War on Gavrug

So wadya think?!?!

 

God, I hope they don't pull the "anyone can die" approach again.

 

I liked the 'anyone can die' approach. It kept things fresh and made you care about the characters and how they fit within the story.

I seriously hope they don't use a deus ex machina. And I hope the Illusive Man dies. Preferably heroically and redeeming himself. But if not, a horrible death will do.

 

does the illusive man deserve a heroic death? i mean what will be the canon ending of mass effect 2? for me i was against him at the end.

 

I think he does deserve a heroic death. While he may be a pretty scummy character by the time we see him, I think his goals are mostly noble if a bit self-serving. Still, his point (minus the humanity only bits) is that the galaxy needs to defend against the Reapers and he's really the only one in part 2 (and maybe through part 1) that actually takes the threat seriously. He's a good anti-hero. But I do think there is some redemption that he will need to have before history sees him as anything more than a ruthless businessman.

 

Well, TIM might be redeemed through a lenghty dialogue full of succesful blue paragon charm lines.

 

I think I'm going to need to go soundtrack browsing on Amazon as I have never heard of Clint Mansell before.

However so long as he can bring a sweeping, epic score that's at least on par with ME2's title theme (The one that's also played over the credits) to round up the trilogy then it's no big deal.

 

Oh god yes. It would have been nice to see Jack Wall finish off the trilogy, but Mansell is capable of delivering something very special.

 

Has anyone heard this yet? It's something Sam Hulick wrote for ME3 but it won't be used. Sounds pretty ominous at the beginning:

Shepard's Return

 

What's interesting here is that unlike Jack Wall, who claims to have not even signed on to ME3 because he wanted to move on to new things, Sam Hulick was actively working on the soundtrack to 3 and so I'm assuming was sacked and replaced by someone more commercial.

Which is a pity because the above track does have quite an epic feel about it. Wonder what 'Shepard's Return' is referring too though? Could be a red Herring of a title, but still intruiging.

 

I wonder if Hulick has any more tracks he'll be letting slip.

I can see "Shepard's Return" indicating something like finally telling the Alliance in its darkest hour he isn't a Cerberus - backed douche after all

 

My best guess is that the 'Return' would have referred to Shepard's return to Earth.

That piece sounded alright, but a bit too samey to what we've heard previously. I've adjusted my expectations now that Mansell is on board.

 

To me the departure of Wall and Hulick feels like John Williams skipping any one episode of the Star Wars series or Marty O'Donell and Michale Salvatori not doing the soundtrack for a Halo game: maybe the experience will be alright but it'd definitely not be the same. As for Hulick's "Shepard's Return", for a bit there at the start it sounded like something out of TRON LEGACY's soundtrack; which is to say, not bad at all.

But Mansell can write beautiful music and if you're in any doubt you can pickup samples of the Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain soundtracks. So I hope we will be in for a treat.

 

I'm stoked about Mansell scoring 3. If there's one thing I moderately dislike about Mass Effect, it's the boring and forgettable music (sorry if that's sacrilege around here, I just don't dig it). No doubt Mansell will give us something better.