f1madman wrote:
I can't believe they've canned mass effect macd. Kinda enjoyed andromeda, yeah it wasn't as great but still a solid game.
I was probably overly harsh on the game in my vitriolic posts when it came out. Also, a lot of the little annoyances and issues I had with it were patched out.
I still have issue with it seemingly like you made a couple of big choices (like make your first settlement a scientific or military base) than had no implications later on. While perhaps this is true in ME and ME2, this game was always going to be a standalone and plenty of big decisions did have immediate payoffs.
I don't like them making the movement have the jumping/vertical aspect. It did speed the game up and probably makes it more fun for people who don't play on Insanity like a sadist.
I didn't like the multiplayer characters as much. Perhaps because the characters I played as in ME3 were probably rathe runbalanced making them too good (Geth Trooper especially was silly-good and my main)
The decision to exclude a whole race for making some DLC so we never get them. Annoying, but I ME2 basically had it's true ending to explain the start of ME3 as a DLC which is far worse. I think it hampers the whole thing to just have the deaths of many thousands of souls be a thing your character does off-screen.
I don't think they should have allowed access to all powers for the main character. I liked the 6 classes [+1 bonus skill on a 2nd run] system, even though I mostly just stuck to Soldier class. It's the kind of thing I feel like I'd have thought as a cool idea but it took something away imo.
Personal relationships with teammates - Missed by a long way. Vetra was supercool and the big krogan guy was interesting but the rest I didn't care about so much. ME/2/3 all had at least 1 human character I absolutely did not care about too, so perhaps I'm harsh. And, of course, I believe that there's no Shepard without Vakarian, and loved Garrus voice acting and writing and had a trilogy with that character.
Romances - I feel like several of them went waaaaaay too fast. The male-male romance has you go on about one date then adopt a baby together. Sure, they need people but that stuck out to me.
Open World or Missions or pacing (I forget)- Now, ME had an open world aspect that was closer to this than the on-foot hubs of ME2/3. ME also had a lot of set-piece missions. Many short ones, but also had quite a few longer ones. I felt ME:A lacked having as many of these. Or, it may have been the case that I ended up with a load of these missions right at the end. The thing is, by making so many of the missions and things to do just open world events rather than missions, it means if you are the kind of person who plays for 100%, which is me, you end up just not having proper missions to do for huge chunks of time with only small "proper" missions to break it up. From what I recall, the actual set piece missions were pretty cool. And, in fairness to them, Dragon Age: Inquisition was rather similar in it's layout and I very much enjoyed that game for it.
Wow, I haven't bitched about Mass Effect in a while. It will come back though, I think EA basically said that once the heat had died down. It's not Grand Theft Auto or Uncharted or Halo level of a franchise but it's still a moderately big name. I'm still somewhat surprised we haven't heard of a remastered trilogy being released for PS4 and Xbox One. I'd probably be dumb enough to buy it even though I can play all 3 on my Xbox anyway. But man, if they remade ME (and to a lesser level of need, ME2) with all the features and improvements they put in to ME2/3, they could get another wad of cash from me.
Rather looking forward to the Christmas holidays as I'm thinking I'm gonna do a either a trilogy run, or just ME3 using a save. Been too long since I checked in to that game. I was hoping to pickup Walking Dead S4 to do but, although it seems it will be finished and the Telltale staff should get a gig finishing it, I doubt it will be ready given the commotion. Life is Strange 2 doesn't seem like it will be done, and I'm not sure I'll like the lead characters as much as I loved Chloe and Max and their plot. And it wouldn't be Christmas without playing my favourite ever Christmas/Winter themed level of all time - Freezeazy Peak from Banjo Kazooie. But it's only October...