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Mass Effect 2

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And I think you're wrong. Oh well, that's life.

To qualify: I have played both KOTORs through twice, and have just started a second play of Mass Effect in anticipation of the sequel. I've never been much of a Star Wars guy, honestly, finding the movies to be far inferior to the games in my own opinion. It just seems like it was a universe made for games. The best of these are action, as well. The Jedi Knight games, the flight simulators, et cetera. While the KOTOR games worked amazingly well as RPGs, and certainly rank among my favorite games, I think nostalgia may be playing a much bigger part than a lot of people are acknowledging.

Mass Effect, while certainly flawed, is engrossing, has (largely) believable characters, and has many more game-changing moments. While very few games allow their stories to branch organically without the obvious binary choices (the original Jedi Knight and a few JRPGs like Chrono Trigger come to mind) at least Mass Effect gave you a bunch of them. A game where it is possible (but not required) for a significant portion of your team mates to not survive the story has balls, you need to at least admit that. I guess that KOTOR had a similar thing with

Juhani

but ME seemed so much bigger than that. I also found the combat infinitely more satisfying (playing as a soldier, granted) and the conversation system to make the world so much more real. Loading times on 360 aside, everything about ME seemed so goddamned polished and well constructed. In KOTOR it was much easier to see the seams. In ME you had to look a lot harder if you wanted to find something disappointing.

It would be ridiculous if Bioware could go 6 (?) years without applying a significant amount more polish to their games, and they did. While KOTOR was great for its time, compared to its little sibling, it seems inferior to me. I'm sure ME will seem the same way compared to whatever Bioware comes out with in 2012.

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I also found the combat infinitely more satisfying (playing as a soldier, granted) and the conversation system to make the world so much more real.

I knock off points for Mass Effect because they didn't balance the difficulty of the combat. In KOTOR, it wasn't difficult, but at the same time it was decently fun for being easy.

Mass Effect on the other hand became so easy for me that I got incredibly bored about half way through. The only thing that kept it fun for me was hacking the game and changing the difficulty to extreme mode.

Also, compare the different planets in Mass Effect and KOTOR. The planets in KOTOR were more imaginitive and more interactive than the ones in Mass Effect. Maybe I'm just a sucker for card games and racing minigames, but that at least gave people in the world something to do.

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Cool, thanks for that Miffy, I was wondering what people see in it. I'm not sure about "nostalgia" playing a part in what impressed me about KOTOR -- it really, truly, blew me away (IGN.com) when I played it 5 years ago. Maybe my memories of the game itself are somewhat rose-tinted, like you suggest, though.

I can see what you mean in terms of its positive aspects, though. Thanks for explaining it to me.

Loading times on 360 aside, everything about ME seemed so goddamned polished and well constructed. In KOTOR it was much easier to see the seams. In ME you had to look a lot harder if you wanted to find something disappointing.

I have to disagree with this one thing, though... Mass Effect felt half-finished to me. Sure there is definitely an awesome amount of polish in certain aspects of its presentation (the conversations alone were pretty amazing -- like watching a film and controlling it at the same time) but it is so incredibly half-baked in places, too. I remember one thing that really took me out of the experience when I started playing it happened in one of the first Citadel missions. (It's been a while since I played it, so forgive me if the specifics are wrong.)

There's this "consort" on the Citadel. She's obviously a geisha type, and in this world she has a lot of power and is highly respected (something clearly taken from Firefly, which is cool). She has many famous and powerful clients that see her for a variety of reasons: each person's needs are unique, but she always manages to accommodate them. She offers personal services as well as entertainment and conversation, but she is also known for the value of her advice. She's beautiful, exotic, untouchable. She has the power to be whatever you need her to be, to satisfy you on many levels. It takes months to get an appointment just to see her, and costs half a year's pay to visit her chambers.

Sure, this is all an incredibly difficult thing to portray effectively, but Bioware could have made some effort...

After doing a bunch of missions through her assistant, Nelyna, you're given the opportunity to meet this incredible Consort - in her chambers, no less... but when you finally walk through the door this is what you see:

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/thumb/1/12/Consort%27sChambers2.png/800px-Consort%27sChambers2.png

(A room that looks almost identical to any other in the citadel, with some plants and a bed.)

And when you finally see her:

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/d/d7/Sha%27ira6.png

She's the EXACT same 3D model as her assistant, Nelyna, even down having the EXACT SAME CLOTHING.

For me it wasn't so much "seeing the seams", as it was a slap in the face with pure laziness (or "ran out of time and/or money"). It really took me out of the experience.

Likewise, I was motivated to collect all these little data samples from these weird drones that maintain the Citadel because I was told the data could be used to finally figure out something more about them (nobody knows anything about them, apparently). It was a side-quest that reminded me of the Sand-People side-quest from KOTOR, but unlike that quest, where all my hard work actually revealed a really interesting history of that secretive people, in Mass Effect I didn't learn anything. It was like the designer went, "hmph, I can't think of any interesting history or information about those drones... I'll just skate over it".

I really want to love Mass Effect, and all this talk has actually made me want to experience that universe again, but these are the issues I had with it... things that I recall being done so much better in KOTOR (apart from the ending and Kashyyyk, those sucked :)).

But, as you've described, you are given some genuinely interesting choices that weren't obviously "good" or "evil" in Mass Effect. It felt a LOT more fluid and organic, and that's definitely something I did really enjoy about it. I'll go back and continue my journey, but I really just wanted to know where all the ME love came from, so hopefully I can start appreciating to, too.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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Nostalgia is one thing, but lets not forget that if they made KOTOR today it would be different. Games are just as much a product of their time - and without KOTOR they wouldn't have had the jumping off point for Mass Effect.

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it really, truly, blew me away (IGN.com) when I played it 5 years ago.

Me too. I'm just saying that the last time I tried to boot it up (about two months ago) it was much less so. It was a damn impressive game for 5 years ago though, and I don't want to discount the achievement that Bioware accomplished with it.

I have to disagree with this one thing, though... Mass Effect felt half-finished to me.

I know from the rest of your post you weren't talking about this aspect specifically, but to all those who hold this opinion based on the side planets being just height-maps, I would like to point out that ME had just as many fully fleshed out planets as KOTOR, with side planets also there if you wanted to see them. Regarding your actual complaint, I do think that's fair. The thing with the Asari consort didn't bother me too much, personally, but I can see how it could be an issue. Really, the only Asari who was any different from the others was Benezia, unless I'm mistaken. It made sense to me that her powers would be mental rather than shown in some physical manifestation. After all, this is a race which is highly dependent on biotics, not on physical prowess. As for the little drone-guys, I never found the last one, so I just considered it an unfinished thing from my playthrough and didn't see that.

I really want to love Mass Effect, and all this talk has actually made me want to experience that universe again, but these are the issues I had with it... things that I recall being done so much better in KOTOR (apart from the ending and Kashyyyk, those sucked :)).

I thought Kashyyk was pretty cool actually, but that may have just been because I really like Jolee.

But, as you've described, you are given some genuinely interesting choices that weren't obviously "good" or "evil" in Mass Effect. It felt a LOT more fluid and organic, and that's definitely something I did really enjoy about it. I'll go back and continue my journey, but I really just wanted to know where all the ME love came from, so hopefully I can start appreciating to, too.

I hope you do as well. It really is one of my favorite games of the last couple of years, and I'm a guy who traditionally has very little patience for RPGs. (despite that, I still at least try to play all the big name ones in the hopes that I'll "get" them. Bioware always seems to find the right spot with me, so I look forward to whatever they do.)

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And when you finally see her:

She's the EXACT same 3D model as her assistant, Nelyna, even down having the EXACT SAME CLOTHING.

She's very different in the 5th dimension

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I really want to love Mass Effect, and all this talk has actually made me want to experience that universe again, but these are the issues I had with it... things that I recall being done so much better in KOTOR (apart from the ending and Kashyyyk, those sucked :))..
Haha, Kashyyyk was my favorite planet out of the ones where you search for the Star Maps. But I'm weird, most people also hate Taris but I would also say that is one of my favorite parts of the game.

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Taris is a wonderful intro planet and really feels alive. I think people just resent it because it's more obviously linear than the rest of the game. I also think it's damn good though.

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I would like to point out that ME had just as many fully fleshed out planets as KOTOR

Err, kinda. It had the same number of "major" planets, but each of those planets was way more linear and way more limited in terms of the number quests, characters, etc than the ones in KotOR. (And KotOR II had even more!)

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but mass effect had better music

Ha! Oddly enough I though Jeremy Soule's score for KOTOR was better than John Williams's for The Phantom Menace... I absolutely adored it. I was very disappointed when they hired someone else to score the sequel (although I've not played it, so I don't know how good it was).

Can't really comment on any comparisons with ME, though.

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:shifty:

I know I didn't word that in my other post very well, but putting aside the fact that it's my favorite game and just comparing the two objectively is what I meant.

I know, I'm just joshin'. Personally, I don't think humans are capable of objectivity under any circumstances (Yes, I realize that the statement is sort of self-defeating because it declares itself wholly subjective).

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I know, I'm just joshin'. Personally, I don't think humans are capable of objectivity under any circumstances (Yes, I realize that the statement is sort of self-defeating because it declares itself wholly subjective).

Allow me to join in:

When I first played KOTOR my jaw literally hit the floor.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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So you would say that ME is better than KOTOR? (Note: I haven't heard all of Chris's thoughts on the podcast.)

Im not quite whether its a case of either being better or worse just being better or worse at different things, which is quite baffling seeing as it means Bioware didn't build on the successes of KOTOR quite as much as they should have maybe?

For KOTOR the combat system got to be slightly frustrating, the turn based system could get really unfair especially against multiple enemies and i think perhaps the force recharge should have been more obviously tied into the turn system, as i recall it was more of a time based recharge rather than a turn based recharge ei u get x amount of force points per turn, correct me if im mis-remembering that. But i complete love the star wars universe, and the storys plot and characters were really great.

but for ME the only thing that fell down was the side quest and sometimes the hour long history lessons, i think we can all come together and agree that if bioware had made KOTOR 3 using most of ME it would have been the perfect game

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I don't know if everybody knew this, but according to this, the procedurally generated planet surfaces will be replaced with actual hand-crafted surfaces for ME2.

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I don't know if everybody knew this, but according to this, the procedurally generated planet surfaces will be replaced with actual hand-crafted surfaces for ME2.

Well, that's an improvement. Will the stuff to do on the planets be something OTHER THAN "go to point x and watch nothing happen"? Or will they simply be HAND-CRAFTED "go to point x and watch nothing happen"s?

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Well, that's an improvement. Will the stuff to do on the planets be something OTHER THAN "go to point x and watch nothing happen"? Or will they simply be HAND-CRAFTED "go to point x and watch nothing happen"s?

That's the spirit! Keep your chin up and reach for the stars!

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The procedural general of planets wasn't the problem with the planet missions. It was mostly the lack of interesting stuff to do.

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Speak for yourself, I found it pretty dull that every building on every (non-plot) planet in the galaxy had one of three interiors. It was like IKEA space outposts.

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The procedural general of planets wasn't the problem with the planet missions. It was mostly the lack of interesting stuff to do.

Yes. In fact, the terrains were awesome. However, I guess I read this (or maybe the article also said) as the missions also being more "hand-crafted". Of course, only time will tell.

Anyway, all discussion about Mass Effect 2 has been rendered useless by this link that Chris posted earlier:

LD0AdV6-rAY

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