Tag Archives: Mass Effect

Games I Want to See

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After years of not playing games and then only playing World of Warcraft, I am now a full member of the gaming community again. I’ve played many games both well-known and obscure in recent months, and there are many more coming down the pipe I’m excited about, but as a true North American, I am never satisfied. There are many other games I would love to play — if only they existed.

Portal 3:

A screenshot from Portal 2We all want it. Who knows if we’ll ever get it, but if it finally does get announced, it will trigger a tidal wave of nerdgasms the likes of which we have rarely seen.

But what could Portal 3 be about? Chell has finally escaped Aperture Labs. Supposedly, the co-op campaign in Portal 2 hints that there may be other potential test subjects locked up down there, but honestly, Chell is Portal — which is odd when you consider she has no personality whatsoever.

Personally, I’ve always wanted to see a Portal game set in the wider world. The idea of running around a city with a portal gun is just too much fun. Leaving Aperture would be a risk, and there would probably have to be a section of the game where Chell returns there (you’d need to involve GLaDOS somehow), but I want to feel the sun on my face as I sling portals.

Mass Effect: Lost Chapters:

The wreck of the Normandy in Mass Effecf 2I’m not as big a Mass Effect fan as some, but I’ll agree with the majority that the game did have some very interesting secondary characters. I think an anthology game devoted to telling their stories of their lives pre-Shepard would be very interesting — maybe more interesting than the main ME games.

Potential stories include:

Call of the Sea: A tortured Thane Krios sets out to hunt down his wife’s murderers, while struggling with his guilt over failing to protect her.

Crisis of Faith: A young Mordin Solus attempts to restore the Krogan genophage while struggling with Krogan who seek to stop him, allies who wish him to annihilate the Krogan altogether, and his own internal ethical crisis.

Good Cop: New to C-Sec, Garrus Vakarian investigates a series of brutal crimes, but the farther along he gets, the more the system fights him, and the more disillusioned he becomes.

Etc.

Diablo III: Wrath of Angels:

Imperius, Archangel of Valor, in Diablo 3We all know Diablo III is going to get at least one expansion pack sooner or later, and with all the loose ends left by the ending of the main game, there’s no shortage of plots to pursue.

I hope they get around to completing all of them, but something in particular I was disappointed we didn’t see more of in Diablo III was angels as villains. The material leading up to the game certainly seemed to be building up Imperius and Malthael, in particular, as potential bad guys.

Following the events of Diablo III, Imperius now has more cause to hate humanity than ever, so I could definitely see him going rogue and trying to exterminate mankind. I think it would be a very interesting break from tradition to have a Diablo game focused on battling the forces of Heaven instead of the forces of Hell.

It’s not enough for a whole expansion, but I’d also love to see some more character-driven quests about the followers and the player classes. I want to see Kormac confront the leaders of his order, and I want to see that mage-slayer finally catch up to Li-Ming.

Warcraft IV: Army of the Light:

Warcraft art featuring several races working together as they would in the Army of the LightI’ve previously discussed the Army of the Light and the fact that I don’t see how it could work in a game like WoW. But I do think it would work perfectly for another strategy game. There’s not the same level of game mechanics reliant on war between the factions.

Furthermore, it seems to me that the Burning Legion is really the chief villain of the Warcraft strategy games. Every one of the RTS Warcraft games involved the Legion somehow, whereas only one WoW expansion has given them a central role. I view WoW’s central villain as the Old Gods — a type of villain much more suited to an MMO’s smaller scale of story-telling than are the massive armies of the Legion.

The first few campaigns could deal with uniting the peoples of Azeroth to form the Army, while casting down those individuals who are an obstacle to peace (I’m looking at you, Sylvanas), and the latter half of the game would focus on taking the battle to the Legion and ending their threat once and for all.

It’s unlikely, but I can dream.

Warcraft HD:

A screenshot of the Orc campaign from Warcraft 2: Tides of DarknessI honestly can’t believe Blizzard hasn’t already done this. Step one: Remake the early Warcraft strategy games with the Starcraft II engine. Step two: Collect money.

It’s just that simple.

The only real question would be whether to precisely preserve the original storylines or alter them to include the latest retcons. I could see a strong argument for either, honestly.

Dungeon Siege III: Seed of Creation:

I don’t care what the haters say; Dungeon Siege III was a great game. At this point, it’s pretty clear they won’t be doing any expansion or continuation for it, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one.

There are any number of awesome things a DSIII expansion could focus on, but I would love a game where you can play as the game’s villain, Jeyne Kassynder. Jeyne was a really deep and fascinating character, and one of the game’s greatest strengths.

An expansion could depict Jeyne trying to atone for her past crimes by helping the Tenth Legion rebuild Ehb, while she also searches for the lost power of Creation to fulfill her mother’s mission and resurrect the Creator Gods.

Yes, this would mean ignoring most if not all of the player choices surrounding Jeyne’s fate at the end of the first game, but I don’t care. Jeyne’s just too awesome.

A man can dream…

Honestly, all of these games are pretty unlikely to ever be made, and even less likely to be made how I want them, but speculation is fun. I can dream.

What about you? What are some games you’d love to see made down the line?

Mass Effect 2: Struggling to Understand

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Mass Effect 2:

The wreck of the Normandy in Mass Effecf 2The two game franchises I’ve seen most hyped in recent times are Portal and Mass Effect. Amazingly, Portal pretty much lived up to its insane hype. Mass Effect… not so much.

ME2 is not a bad game; I’ll say that out of the gate. I will be harsh to it in this blog, but that doesn’t reflect my full feelings. It’s a solid six or seven out of ten — okay, not great.

But I am left struggling to understand what people love so much about this game. And I think I do, but at the same time, I don’t.

Saving the best for last:

Investigating the Collectors in Mass Effect 2The main problem with ME2 is that it is incredibly slow in getting started. It takes an eternity to get your squad together, and for the most part, I found this part of the game very dull. I honestly can’t remember a single recruitment mission that I enjoyed.

For that matter, I can’t remember many recruitment missions period. They all kind of fade into a blur; there was the one where I fought mercs, the one where I fought mercs, and also the one where I fought mercs.

The loyalty missions were a bit better, though still repetitive. Amazing how everyone in my crew got betrayed by someone they love. But some, namely Mordin’s and Tali’s, were actually quite engaging and ethically weighty, despite their predictability.

Still, the entire grind of recruitment and then loyalty missions ultimately felt very much like busywork — and a lot of it at that.

The Citadel in Mass Effect 2However, once I got all those done and had my whole crew ready, I started enjoying the game a lot more. I’d describe it as a quantum leap forward in entertainment value. I spent hours chatting with the crew on all manner of subjects. I particularly enjoyed my conversations with Mordin and Thane — dear God, those guys are awesome.

And then we launched our epic assault on the Collectors, and I had to make heart-breaking decisions over who would live and who would die. Although I resent the unpredictability of which of my decisions would lead to people dying, it was on the whole an enjoyable experience.

But here’s the problem: that part after the game got going, where things were actually interesting? It was about 10% of the total time I spent playing ME2 — I did the math. The rest was just building the crew, doing side missions, and grinding for resources. If all the busywork had been cut out of this game, it would have been as long as the original Portal.

The Normandy crash site in Mass Effect 2Ultimately, it’s the same problem suffered by Diablo, World of Warcraft, and frankly any RPG I’ve ever played outside the Dungeon Siege franchise: it’s a huge amount of grinding and time-sinks for brief, if stellar, rewards.

What could have been:

So I sort of understand what people love about this game. A lot of the characters are very interesting and memorable once you finally get far enough to properly interact with them, and the main plot — while not especially original — was plenty exciting.

But yet, those good parts were a pretty small part of the game, so I don’t understand why it’s viewed as such a masterpiece. It could have been, but the execution was badly botched.

The Collector ship attacking a colony in Mass Effect 2It saddens me greatly because I can easily see how it could have been worthy of the hype if it had just been executed a little better.

Recruitment missions and loyalty missions should not have been separate things, and there ought to have been more variety to them so it’s not always “kill mercs to recruit them, then help them deal with the friend/family member who betrayed them.”

It also would have helped a lot if the loyalty/recruitment missions had been connected to the main plot. The game would have had a much greater sense of purpose if everyone on the crew had lost someone to or suffered as a result of the Collectors, or the Reapers.

Maybe the Cerberus experiments on Jack could have been a response to the Reaper threat. Maybe Miranda’s father could have created her to fight the Reapers — now there would have been a twist; she escaped him only to end up serving the purpose he originally intended for her. Maybe Jacob’s father could have been shot down in a Collector raid.

Inside the Collector ship in Mass Effect 2With the rest of the game streamlined, the Collector arc could have been expanded and given the attention it deserved. It ended up feeling like an afterthought, almost. So little of the game was devoted to actually fighting them.

Make those changes, fill a few of the more obvious plot holes, and add an option to know if a character has new conversation options without actually going to talk to them, and suddenly you have a game that would be worthy of all the hype.

But unfortunately, what we’re stuck with ends up being a very average game. There are tantalizing flashes of brilliance, but they feel lost amidst hours of slaughtering mercs and scanning planet after planet cause I could never find one with any frickin’ element zero. There was the potential for so much more.