Video Games: You Game Like a Young Man, With Nothing Held Back. Admirable, But Mistaken.

[karaddin]

I'm on board with playing as Asari Shepard/Liara child, please make it happen Fez.

[Fez]

I don't consider it a mistake to write something to be what you think is good for the story instead of to appeal to the desire of marketeers to milk an IP for all it's worth.

Right, but that's my point. You either undermine the illusion of choices by saying "Your choices don't count" or undermine the epicness of the narrative and your effect on it.

But Bioware wanted to have an epic story with epic consequences where you had real choices. And that means shitting all over sequel potential.

And I really don't see a problem with that.

Sometimes its best to give in to realities. If sequels are going to happen regardless, you (as a hypothetical Bioware writer) might as well do your best to ensure that there remains a consistent, well-crafted story that spans throughout the IP. Otherwise you're just leaving it up to others who don't have the same regard that you do for an IP you helped create in the first place. There is going to be a Mass Effect 4 at some point (definitely next generation, and possibly after one or two Mass Effect: [random word] games that are set pre-trilogy), the series has sold too well and EA has seen how well Halo 4 did despite that supposedly being just a trilogy, and I'd have preferred for that game to come organically from the end of ME3 instead of seeming tacked on and no-doubt invalidating potential story-paths from ME3.

Also, if Bioware was going to ruin all sequel ability; they should've at least had the decency to have some awesome endings.

And anyway, I vastly prefer a strong story to narrative choice. I want choice in my gameplay and in individual missions so that I have the ability to craft the main character in to who I want them to be. But in terms of major events, there's nothing wrong with railroading if its well-written. But that's a whole other discussion.

[Ran]

Approaching 24 hours left in the THQ Humble Bundle, and in the last couple of days they've added Titan Quest and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, for a total of 9 games (including 3 different Company of Heroes games) if you give more than the average price. Warhammer and the CoH games are what got me to go in on it, but Darksiders seems interesting enough and Metro 2033 looks amazing.

[Werthead]

Approaching 24 hours left in the THQ Humble Bundle, and in the last couple of days they've added Titan Quest and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, for a total of 9 games (including 3 different Company of Heroes games) if you give more than the average price. Warhammer and the CoH games are what got me to go in on it, but Darksiders seems interesting enough and Metro 2033 looks amazing.

Metro 2033 is a game with stunning atmosphere and worldbuilding. It is monumentally rock hard, though, and the ending is a bit weird, but definitely worth playing. One of the better FPS games of the last few years.

CoH is, of course, the definitive modern RTS and the DoW games are a lot of fun.

[Shryke]

Sometimes its best to give in to realities. If sequels are going to happen regardless, you (as a hypothetical Bioware writer) might as well do your best to ensure that there remains a consistent, well-crafted story that spans throughout the IP. Otherwise you're just leaving it up to others who don't have the same regard that you do for an IP you helped create in the first place. There is going to be a Mass Effect 4 at some point (definitely next generation, and possibly after one or two Mass Effect: [random word] games that are set pre-trilogy), the series has sold too well and EA has seen how well Halo 4 did despite that supposedly being just a trilogy, and I'd have preferred for that game to come organically from the end of ME3 instead of seeming tacked on and no-doubt invalidating potential story-paths from ME3.

And sometimes it's best to just do your thing and if someone else wants to fuck it all up, they can go ahead.

I'd say that "sometimes" is "most of the time".

Also, if Bioware was going to ruin all sequel ability; they should've at least had the decency to have some awesome endings.

Doesn't matter. Even if it ends before Starchild, there's still huge choices you've already made that future games must handle.

And anyway, I vastly prefer a strong story to narrative choice. I want choice in my gameplay and in individual missions so that I have the ability to craft the main character in to who I want them to be. But in terms of major events, there's nothing wrong with railroading if its well-written. But that's a whole other discussion.

And a whole other game. I mean, it's not like Mass Effect wasn't clear what it wanted to do right from the start. If anything, they oversold that point. But it's clearly what they were after.

[The Anti-Targ]

There is a common point with all ME endings, all the races continue, with or without modifications. technologically advanced life has now wntered into a new era never before experienced. More and more species on more and more planets becoming space faring races, and the problems of these naive populations joining the galactic fold.

There's no major existential threat any more, but there's still plenty of adventure to be had. Several hundreds of millions of planets that harbour life, millions with intellectually advanced species, thousands on the verge of space exploration. And no doubt the Asari, Geth and Quarian between them can bring Mass Relays back.

As to prequels. Who cares that we already know how things went down in the Rachni wars or first contact war? We all knew what happened to Anakin Skywalker and all the Jedi thanks to the OT but it didn't stop people from seeing the NT in massive numbers. How many more would have seen it if the NT had actually been good?

I don't think lack of human involvement in a pre-quel would be detrimental to an established franchise. Actually I find having to play the human protagonist in sci-fi and fantasy games to be distinctly boring, because, y'know, I'm human.

Lemme be a rogue Ardat-Yakshi with a penhant for Elcor.

[The Anti-Targ]

Approaching 24 hours left in the THQ Humble Bundle, and in the last couple of days they've added Titan Quest and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, for a total of 9 games (including 3 different Company of Heroes games) if you give more than the average price. Warhammer and the CoH games are what got me to go in on it, but Darksiders seems interesting enough and Metro 2033 looks amazing.

Ooo Dawn of War might just get me to buy at the last minute. I have Soul Storm and it was fun. But I do really prefer to get Darksiders on console.

[Fez]

And sometimes it's best to just do your thing and if someone else wants to fuck it all up, they can go ahead.

I'd say that "sometimes" is "most of the time".

Capitalism trumps Idealism every time. Best that can be hoped for is to influence the end result.

Doesn't matter. Even if it ends before Starchild, there's still huge choices you've already made that future games must handle.

Oh I agree. I'm just saying, if you're gonna go out with a bang, at least make it worth it.

And a whole other game. I mean, it's not like Mass Effect wasn't clear what it wanted to do right from the start. If anything, they oversold that point. But it's clearly what they were after.

Well, I don't really recall the whole "you're choices matter!" thing being that big a marketing tool before ME3. ME1 and 2 certainly had some degree of choices, but there weren't really any choices that could be called a big deal (the council's fate in ME1 and the collector base's fate in ME2 come the closest, but both were easily glossed over). While you still had lots of decisions to make up until that point; the galaxy in everyone's game was roughly in the same shape at the start of ME3. The choices were more at the character level, what kind of person did you want your Shepard to be, as well as holding the lives of various party members in your hands.

Its only in ME3 that setting-altering choices showed up. And really there's only 3 of them; what happens to the Krogan, what happens in the Quarian-Geth conflict, and what choice do you make at the end? Bioware could've easily made a game where the Krogan always get cured (which almost every player does anyway), just picked one of the three resolutions to the Quarian-Geth conflict (little trickier here, but good writing would help; alternatively they could not resolve it), and have an ending where the Reapers are destroyed and Earth is saved, the end. That would still be a satisfying game. Lots of smaller details in the ending could vary, but so long as those parameters are set; there is a constant universe ready for future stories.

[Leviathan I]

Metro 2033 is a game with stunning atmosphere and worldbuilding. It is monumentally rock hard, though, and the ending is a bit weird, but definitely worth playing. One of the better FPS games of the last few years.

CoH is, of course, the definitive modern RTS and the DoW games are a lot of fun.

Not to mention that Metro: Last Light is coming out early next year and looks amazing.

[Jon AS]

Well, I don't really recall the whole "you're choices matter!" thing being that big a marketing tool before ME3.

The whole "import your character and choices to shape the narrative of the subsequent games" was totally a big selling point for the ME series, and this proving such a popular idea with fans is probably responsible for them implementing it in Dragon Age as well as CDProject making a half-assed attempt at it in The Witcher 2.

[mjgambino]

I just started Baldur's Gate EE on my ipad. I'm only a few hours in right now, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be wasting a lot of time with this one.

[Shryke]

Capitalism trumps Idealism every time. Best that can be hoped for is to influence the end result.

No it doesn't. See: the end of ME3 that makes a sequel impossible without overturning something about the original trilogy.

Well, I don't really recall the whole "you're choices matter!" thing being that big a marketing tool before ME3. ME1 and 2 certainly had some degree of choices, but there weren't really any choices that could be called a big deal (the council's fate in ME1 and the collector base's fate in ME2 come the closest, but both were easily glossed over). While you still had lots of decisions to make up until that point; the galaxy in everyone's game was roughly in the same shape at the start of ME3. The choices were more at the character level, what kind of person did you want your Shepard to be, as well as holding the lives of various party members in your hands.

Its only in ME3 that setting-altering choices showed up. And really there's only 3 of them; what happens to the Krogan, what happens in the Quarian-Geth conflict, and what choice do you make at the end? Bioware could've easily made a game where the Krogan always get cured (which almost every player does anyway), just picked one of the three resolutions to the Quarian-Geth conflict (little trickier here, but good writing would help; alternatively they could not resolve it), and have an ending where the Reapers are destroyed and Earth is saved, the end. That would still be a satisfying game. Lots of smaller details in the ending could vary, but so long as those parameters are set; there is a constant universe ready for future stories.

They were glossed over, yes. And that's because they sold the game on big choices and ended both games on big choices and then went "Fuck, what are we gonna do now?". The point is, they obviously sold the game on those big choices and designed the games to have them, even if it forced alot of stupid moves on them when they had to walk it back.

The series was very obviously designed right from the start to be about big choices that impacted your story. Hence killing one squad mate, no way around it, in ME1 and importing characters from game to game. They could have made the game you describe, but they obviously had no interest in doing so.

[Ser Hippie]

ME did some of the choice stuff really well - Tuchanka, in particular, was a real gutpunch for me; in a good/sad way playing as a Paragon and some of what happened during the mission and aftwards actually bothered me when playing as a renegade-ish Shepard. I also liked the Geth/Quarian bit, although my "Saint Shepard" paragon got through that rather easily.

It just felt like they couldn't translate that to the big picture and also had some other lapses that were annoying (like how Cerberus goes from a small cell to galactic power, among other things. I still did enjoy ME3 a lot, although I can't bring myself to not destroy the Reapers.

[Kosciuszko]

Anyone want a Saints Row the Third Steam key? PM me.

ETA: Taken.

[haLobEnder]

Given we've got some pretty archaic bandwidth caps here in Canada and I can't really download every game from the Humble THQ Bundle without risking going over my limit this month, any suggestions on which games I should download first out of the 3 Company of Heroes games, Darksiders and Dawn of War?

[Inigima]

I say Darksiders, but those are wildly different genres. It's going to depend on what you feel like playing. Darksiders was pitched to me as "gothic Zelda" and that's pretty accurate.

[Clueless Northman]

I agree. But that's a(nother) mistake by the writing staff, because EA was obviously going to want sequels. Just like with movies, its rare for new IPs to make the big bucks, franchises are everything.

And this has to end.

Preferably now.

This is killing entertainment industries faster and with more certainty than any P2P gimmick ever will.

[Howdyphillip]

I went out and bought Epic Mickey 2 hoping for good Disney nostalgia and fun game play. It has been incredibly disappointing. The camera control on the game is horrible, and there isn't much of a story line. This may be the most disappointing game that I have played this year.

[The Anti-Targ]

And this has to end.

Preferably now.

This is killing entertainment industries faster and with more certainty than any P2P gimmick ever will.

In general sure. But I'd like to re-visit the Mass Effect universe. 3 games wasn't enough.

I think Shryke and others are too attached to having the choices each gamer made at the end of ME3 remain definitive for each player. Well, if you're a completionist then you played at least 3 times and chose a different ending each time. So for me there is no definitive ending. I see no problem with a sequel assuming Bioware's internally most favoured ending and putting some temporal distance between ME3 and a sequel so that there's a whole new suite of characters. And if Bioware want Liara+Shepard = Jane Snow as the new hero then that's all good.

The only reason not to have further games in the ME universe is if Bioware feel like the creative well has run dry on that IP. If that's the case then yes let's never have another ME game ever again. Because none of us want a half-arsed game that would see the franchise end on a sour note.

[Clueless Northman]

I see no problem with a sequel assuming Bioware's internally most favoured ending and putting some temporal distance between ME3 and a sequel so that there's a whole new suite of characters. And if Bioware want Liara+Shepard = Jane Snow as the new hero then that's all good.

KOTOR did it. Well, then they're quite forced to pick an ending since the games are prequels to well-established movies.

Then, even Elder Scrolls did it after Daggerfall - in some weird and twisted way that's quite cheating since they corssed "All of the above" :D