Chindie Posted April 5, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 5, 2012 Say I want to get in to mass effect. Is it a game changer if I dont play through 1 and jump straight in at 2? Has 1 dated badly or is it still pretty and brilliant? 1 has dated quite a lot. It kicks off the story obviously and has some great moments, and introduces some great characters you'll know and love for the entire series. But it's gameplay was always a bit messy, it didn't have the polish you might expect. They really messed up things like the inventory - you end up running round with stacks of armour and guns that you constantly have to trawl through to decide what to use and what to ditch and what upgrades to use and what to dump in this messy inventory system that becomes a hassle. In 2 they completely ditched that, making the game a little less customisable but much, much easier. It also has the worst graphical glitches of the series. The entire series suffers with texture pop in, but in 1 its terrible. What is worth noting though, is that considering you bought a PS3 recently, the PS3 edition of ME2 opens with a little 10 minute long 'motion comic' that fills in the story of 1 (since that game wasn't released on the PS3) and allows you to make a lot of the decisions from that game that can colour 2 and 3. So you can almost get the best of both worlds - you'll miss out playing the first game but you'll know whats going on and get to make the choices players who've played from the start will have made. EDIT - The PS3 edition also includes all the DLC for the game except the last piece, Arrival, which isn't very good anyway. So you'd also get a lot of add on content for free too, including a couple of the best missions in the entirety of ME2 and a couple of bonus characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Alternatively, you can purchase the interactive comic as DLC if you're playing on Xbox 360. I pushed through with the first game because I heard the second was much better and it really is. The story of the first game is good though, so it depends what is more important to you I suppose. If you care about the narrative and the characters in your gaming experiences, play the first game. If it's all about the gameplay and the story isn't as important to you (shame on you) then start with ME:2 and get the interactive comic which allows you to make the key choices which will affect your playthrough of ME:2. Obviously, I chose the former, and I don't regret it, but it was a bit hard to get motivated to play through the game at times because it did bore me somewhat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante_Lockhart Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Finished. I can see why people are fuming over the ending. No closure AT ALL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Alternatively, you can purchase the interactive comic as DLC if you're playing on Xbox 360. I pushed through with the first game because I heard the second was much better and it really is. The story of the first game is good though, so it depends what is more important to you I suppose. If you care about the narrative and the characters in your gaming experiences, play the first game. If it's all about the gameplay and the story isn't as important to you (shame on you) then start with ME:2 and get the interactive comic which allows you to make the key choices which will affect your playthrough of ME:2. Obviously, I chose the former, and I don't regret it, but it was a bit hard to get motivated to play through the game at times because it did bore me somewhat. Story is very important to me, especially. In an open world RPG, otherwise it descends into a fetch quest game which is not my cup of tea at all. But if there's a way to catch up with the story without losing too much impetus and jump in to a great game that will take up 30 hours of my life as it is im down with that. Im a PS3 man so hope there's something similar on PSN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 6, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 6, 2012 As I said, the PS3 version of ME2 has the interactive comic of the first game at the start, it gives you the story of the first game and lets you make choices on the big decisions from ME1 to carry over into ME2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
legov Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Oh oh, do you think Skyrim is overrated as well, Doug? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Oh oh, do you think Skyrim is overrated as well, Doug? Not played it and probably won't for a couple of years, but it looks beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 As I said, the PS3 version of ME2 has the interactive comic of the first game at the start, it gives you the story of the first game and lets you make choices on the big decisions from ME1 to carry over into ME2. Cheers. Wasn't sure if you were reading from different pages. Sounds fine enough by me. If I'm working my way through the PS3 greats then I can't miss mass effect 2 right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Yeah, get it. One of the games of the generation for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 6, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 6, 2012 Yep, it's superb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Just completed ME:2 this evening and I'm straight onto ME:3, can't wait. ME:2 was absolutely brilliant. A shame I didn't get into it sooner, I would have liked to have done a second playthrough straight away to play as a Renegade and a different class, ah well I can always do it at a later date. Now though it's onto the third game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted April 9, 2012 Share Posted April 9, 2012 ME3 seems to be not so involved as ME2 so far. I'm enjoying the story line, and I think if anything the cut scenes are better, but the missions all seem a bit samey so far. I'm also a bit frustrated with the lack of different characters, although that might have something to do with the choices I've made? I only had one death at the end of ME2, but being quite a way into this one the fact that lots of your squad from ME2 seemingly *could* join you again, but don't, is massively disappointing. At least Tali's back though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddybloke Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 I Think there are more chest high walls in this game than gears of war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 11, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 11, 2012 ME3 seems to be not so involved as ME2 so far. I'm enjoying the story line, and I think if anything the cut scenes are better, but the missions all seem a bit samey so far. I'm also a bit frustrated with the lack of different characters, although that might have something to do with the choices I've made? I only had one death at the end of ME2, but being quite a way into this one the fact that lots of your squad from ME2 seemingly *could* join you again, but don't, is massively disappointing. At least Tali's back though. Very valid criticism and ones I would make of it too. ME3 owes a lot more to Gears than any other game in the series, to the extent that every mission is shooting and little else. The ME2 returning character thing is annoying. It's definitely a failing of the game that, having created so many great characters in 2, they do little with them in 3. Even the ones they do something with are given really raw deals (and it's a little galling that, should a character have died in your run through of 2, he's replaced with a more or less identical character that does exactly the same things). None of the new characters, maybe Javik aside, bring anything like the great presences that 2 had. I think ultimately they created their own problem by allowing characters to die in 2, it created too much work for 3 to have so many variable player characters present. So they dumped them into one off mission appearances and non player characters giving them more control over exactly what they need to make characters do or so. But it still doesn't make me feel better about having to forgo Mordin for... well, whatever the meathead guy's name is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 It just means you should have tried harder in Mass Effect 2 so that no-one died, like I did I'm near the end of Mass Effect 3 now and some characters have died, which I assume is unavoidable and just part of the overall storyline, but having everyone bar my choice between Ashley and Kaiden (I chose to send Ashley to her death in the first game, the alien-hating, small-minded bitch) survive through the first and second game into ME:3, it was sad to see some of them go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 It just means you should have tried harder in Mass Effect 2 so that no-one died, like I did I'm near the end of Mass Effect 3 now and some characters have died, which I assume is unavoidable and just part of the overall storyline, but having everyone bar my choice between Ashley and Kaiden (I chose to send Ashley to her death in the first game, the alien-hating, small-minded bitch) survive through the first and second game into ME:3, it was sad to see some of them go That doesn't make any difference actually. I only had one death in ME2, but they've halved the number of playable characters. I read an interview with the developer and they say they wanted to make it easier to 'connect with your characters'. Which I took to mean "couldn't be arsed!". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 19, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 19, 2012 It seems to have been a combination of 'couldn't be arsed' and 'were unable to be arsed'. They realised that they'd ended up with so many different permutations of potential team mates that they'd end up with so much extra work to properly implement them all, so they made most characters from 2 into cameo non-playable appearances. And some of them get a really raw deal - Thane spends the entire game, bar 2 cutscenes, sat in hospital, Kasumi has a 2 minute appearance in a side mission, Samara and Jack have token appearances in other missions... To be honest the entirety of ME3 plays out like a game trying to juggle an unwieldy amount of variation in it's inception. And often it's solution is to reduce the impact of variety as far as possible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthEastVillan Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 Finished the third last night having played through 1 and 2. Amazing series and my personal favourite games of all time. I can see how a lot of people were frustrated with the ending and especially with some of the choices you are forced to make. To be honest despite going out on a bit of a whimper I fully appreciate what the developers have done over the three games and doth my cap to them. I've never been so emotionally involved in a group of characters and even had a lump in my throat towards the end. My biggest gripe with the third game is the whole galactic readiness system, what a load of shite. I'd completed EVERY single side quest and every paragon choice available to me after importing a full paragon character from 1&2 and yet because I couldn't be arsed with multi-player or playing some lame ass iPhone game I could not get the "best" ending available. Cheers Bioware/EA.Thanks for **** all. No reward at all for playing through the first two games and keeping every single character (bar keiden) alive. But I digress. Superb series that will stay with me for a very long time. What odds a ME4 in the not too distant future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 It seems to have been a combination of 'couldn't be arsed' and 'were unable to be arsed'. They realised that they'd ended up with so many different permutations of potential team mates that they'd end up with so much extra work to properly implement them all, so they made most characters from 2 into cameo non-playable appearances. And some of them get a really raw deal - Thane spends the entire game, bar 2 cutscenes, sat in hospital, Kasumi has a 2 minute appearance in a side mission, Samara and Jack have token appearances in other missions... To be honest the entirety of ME3 plays out like a game trying to juggle an unwieldy amount of variation in it's inception. And often it's solution is to reduce the impact of variety as far as possible... Jack and Samara were my two favourite characters as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 20, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted April 20, 2012 Thane and Mordin were up there for me. I kinda let them off with Thane, his character has a defined arc that had to end here. Though I'd liked to have seen him play a bit more of a role than he ended up getting. As for Mordin... I have no idea how a character almost universally loved, ended up being relegated to 1 part of the story. And in my particular Shepherds canon, I was presented with a decision that, with regards Mordin, was pretty grim. Ah well, it's still a good game. But it could have been **** incredible. Probably should have been. A lost opportunity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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