Mass Effect 4

[Imperial]

Tbh games could be an acceptable storytelling medium tomorrow if developers wanted it to be. Now more than ever do we have the opportunity to tell truly immersive tales. But we can't so long as developers keep hiring writers with all the experience of an online fanfic contributor.

They probably need more fanfic writers

I've seen fanfic stories that are way better written than any game.

[Mangalore]

That depends on what level of quality you expect. If you went into Mass Effect like me and expected a story and game for eating popcorn with(functionally how video games work), you couldn't even be too shockingly disappointed by the endings. ...

The disappointment is mainly that they have been wasting away what they built up in ME1. Instead if running with what they had they replaced most stuff with generic nonsense and expanded any tiny nook of ME1 into a major plot point. That combination is deadly aka what I term sequilitis.

They had the basics of a great game universe but imo ruined most of it because instead of keeping the vague hints of neat details and ideas they steamrolled it with 0815 cliches aka boredom and spectacle.

In ME1 you are just a special forces guy who was lucky enough to serve as an USB port to an ancient device, from ME2 on out suddenly the Messiah with resurrection and all. It's still a typical heroes story but they had neat details here and there. With ME2+ME3 I'm not interested as it is just tasteless porridge.

ME1 felt like Star Trek, ME2 like Transformers...

[beckyolt]

Not really looking forward to this. Mass Effect to me was about Shepard and his companions. I don't really play Bioware games for their worlds - I do that with Bethesda games.

ME1 felt like Star Trek, ME2 like Transformers...

Don't you think you exxagerated a bit there? I still thought ME2 was amazing in terms of story.

[Gaidin]

Don't you think you exxagerated a bit there? I still thought ME2 was amazing in terms of story.

He's kind of correct there. While ME1 had a desperate battle against all odds in the background against the single reaper by the Fifth Fleet, the fight that the player and his team was a part of was a Star Trek 2 Kirk vs Khan style fight where the two sides were in a sense on even ground and the better fighter came out on top. Once ME2 came along and all there was was Shephard and the Collectors, it shifted to the traditional formula of the desperate battle(Strike Team against Collector Base) in the form of the Suicide Mission, albeit very well done(credit where credit is due). Transformers is an exaggeration, but the last-ditch desperate fight, not so much. That's what makes the last fight at the end of ME1 better story-wise. Better fighter wins. The better fighter winning overloaded(in a sense) the reaper in the background desperate battle and allowed the fleet to win. They were tied together in that sense. Not exactly a new thing in either sci-fi or fantasy.

[Mangalore]

Not really looking forward to this. Mass Effect to me was about Shepard and his companions. I don't really play Bioware games for their worlds - I do that with Bethesda games.

To make good companions you have to embed them into the world, if possible have them interact not only with the player but with each other to hint at more going on than what the player sees. That's imo the Tali appeal. She is a character acting within the world (both in ME1 and ME2) which makes her more accessible because we get the illusion of "getting her". The same goes for the story. You don't have to go to Tolkienesque detail but you need a world where a given story makes sense.

Don't you think you exxagerated a bit there? I still thought ME2 was amazing in terms of story.

Depends what story you mean? Some characters had good writing to them and yeah, some of the missions had better development to them. Others were abysmal. But the underlying main story was a big "Wait? What? Why?"

I chose Transformers because I consider it actually to be an effective spectacle movie targeted at a specific audience (possibly what Gaidin expected for the whole trilogy). In essence however its story is entirely forgetable and in the case of the ME trilogy you don't need ME2 for the story at all. It's generic filler.

[Stavroforos]

Not really looking forward to this. Mass Effect to me was about Shepard and his companions. I don't really play Bioware games for their worlds - I do that with Bethesda games.





Don't you think you exxagerated a bit there? I still thought ME2 was amazing in terms of story.

I thought ME2's story was the weakest of the three.

[Crusader Invasion]

ME2 didn't have much of a main plot, but it's character subplots were all great. It's unnecessary filler for Shepard's story, but it was still enjoyable. The universe was fleshed out more and the canon was expanded. And at least the final battle actually took some of your choices into account, unlike ME3.

As for ME4, how about bringing back Drew Karpyshyn and Jack Wall? I just want a game that focuses more on story, dialogue, and exploration instead of just combat.

Also, if Bioware doesn't want to address the outcome of the ending of ME3, why not just make ME4 take place with different characters during the two year period that Shepard was dead?

[Wulfburk]

A game about Nihlus would be EPIC, he is so awesome. (The first turian you see on ME1)

[Kanaric]

I have little hope for Bioware to recover from EA ownership. DA2, ME3, and TOR is simply too much.

I'm hoping they, and EA, are learning from their mistakes and bring us a good ME4 because 2 and 1 were very entertaining games.

[Stavroforos]

ME2 was the least interesting and entertaining game for me.

[Sir Adrian]

I suspect they will use the excuse that this isn't Shephard's story anymore to make ME 4 a full fledged shooter.

[Bregil]

I suspect they will use the excuse that this isn't Shephard's story anymore to make ME 4 a full fledged shooter.

Because there aren't enough shooters out there already. I hope you're wrong but I don't have much hope as long as EA is calling the shots.

[Teutonic Warlord]

I have little hope for Bioware to recover from EA ownership. DA2, ME3, and TOR is simply too much.

I'm hoping they, and EA, are learning from their mistakes and bring us a good ME4 because 2 and 1 were very entertaining games.

I would like to see them make the destroy ending canon for the next game. However, instead of Shepard surviving the Roy G Biv Citadel explosions, he would actually wake up from the destruction of the beacon on Eden Prime. Perhaps the trilogy could be visions placed in the mind of Shepard by the Reapers to show the futility of resistance (hence our choices didn't matter in the final game; the Reapers wanted to make what we did feel pointess), but Shepard decides to fight against the Reapers anyway and "find another way" (Harbinger's words at the end of ME2 ). A nice little theme of fate vs. free will, and we could get a new trilogy where some similar and some drastically different steps are taken to find victory. Perhaps Shepard could find blueprints for the weapon that killed the Reaper found in ME 2 with a single shot?

But, alas, I can't expect acts of genius from Bioware anymore, and certainly not with EA at the helm.

[Sir Adrian]

Because there aren't enough shooters out there already. I hope you're wrong but I don't have much hope as long as EA is calling the shots.

As do I, but shooters sell and EA is in it for the money.

[PGeo36]

Good RPGs sell too, but EA is too stupid to see that.

[Bregil]

Good RPGs sell too, but EA is too stupid to see that.

The problem is that RPGs are inherently more resource intensive and risky than most other game types. EA corporate views everything in comparison to FIFA (the top selling international game every year). FIFA is an incredible cash cow considering all they really have to do to sell more is add new players and maybe one or two new features and they can sell it all over again for full price year after year. When corporate bean-counters (who by-the-way don't know much about games themselves) see that, they see no reason to be "risky" and greenlight overly ambitious projects.

[Gaidin]

Good RPGs sell too, but EA is too stupid to see that.

Thing is mass effect started as a conglomeration of a shooter and an rpg. Neither EA nor the developers need a lot of excuse to shift it more towards shooter, especially when the story has shifted more towards the total war of the third game. It's largely on the developers to present a development idea that that keeps it away from shooter, but is still in the universe of Mass Effect. Something that is very doable. Hell they can do any genre in the Mass Effect universe if they really want to. But it's on them to figure out how.

[StealthFox]

Anyone see the supposed photos and video of Mass Effect 4?

http://www.examiner.com/article/mass...4-capabilities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=jiSM1-EV4ZI#!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Anyone see the supposed photos and video of Mass Effect 4?

http://www.examiner.com/article/mass...4-capabilities
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=jiSM1-EV4ZI#!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1. I am wondering is this before or after ME story?
2. That armor and helmet is really ugly
3. by picture, I hope we are not fighting in that building (This remind me more about Max Payne 1)

[StealthFox]

The armor does not look as refined and elegant as ME3 armor, most noticeably the helmet and the eyepiece. Does that mean it's a prequel or tech took a step back after the Reapers were destroyed? I don't think we can read too much into it. I consider it a technical demonstration, and damn, that video is mightily impressive.