Most of the usual online resources reported on May 4th that EA has delayed Mass Effect 3 until Q1 2012.

I've got no problem with delaying a game in order to release a finished product. I'm no fan of the GT5 delay-a-thon, but sometimes delays are inevitable and even necessary. I can even appreciate the timing since the original release would have put it up against Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

But this goes a little deeper. EA has used phraseology like "broader appeal" and "larger market opportunity" when discussing the delayed release. Having already seen how EA dumbed down ME2 (I guess inventory screens and marketplaces are too much for game players these days) and Dragon Age 2, I can only imagine how ME3 is going to play. EA has mentioned "shooter-meets-RPG" over and over and has even brought in DICE for "consulting".

I'll pick it up, I'm far too invested in the Mass Effect franchise and want to see how the story ends, but it might be the last BioWare title that I get (at least new). Saying that pains me, the original Neverwinter Nights still sees gameplay on an XP laptop that I've got, but with EA's acquisition of Bioware I think the downward spiral of Bioware is the shape of things to come, I'd love to be wrong on this one.

Any other opinions?

1Up.com
Josystiq
Forbes
EuroGamer

EA didn't dumb down s***. Bioware did. Bioware's the developer. EA just publishes.

I dunno...lots of people enjoy throwing Bioware love around, but most of their popular games are riddled with issues in my book. KOTOR was terrible, NWN's gameplay was hidden deep inside overcomplex mechanics, Baldur's Gate failed to hold my attention...and ME2 and DA2 have demonstrated that the company doesn't really know how to deal with mistakes. They don't learn from them, they hide from them. Their inventory system for ME1 was a f***, and their attitude for ME2 was not to FIX it, but to ELIMINATE it, which is mindblowingly moronic. Same with DA2: the strategic depth of the first game offended some people, so rather than improve the system they dumbed it down. And people didn't like the idea of unlimited ammo in ME1, so they added the tedium of reloading for ME2. It seems like anything they don't get right the first time, they just give up on. And what they DO get right the first time they never seem to improve on either. They really are a one-trick pony. BG, KOTOR, DA, ME...all the same game in different settings. I genuinely enjoy the Mass Effect lore, but I don't really want to play Halo with interactive dialog scenes, and that's what the series is devolving into.

At the rate they're going, we'll have red splotches on the screen instead of a health bar for ME3.

So my buddy wants me to play ME2 but I wasnt sure if I wanted to. Worth it?

I wouldn't say I'm a Bioware fanboi, but I do enjoy their games. I believe ME1 was the best RPG shooter of all time (eclipsing even KOTOR 2, which held the record in my book previously). I would encourage you to play through ME2 if you really liked ME1. IF you were satisfied with the ending in ME1 and really don't WANT to progress (and if watching beautiful body-models animated in tight and sexy space suits doesn't do it for you), then don't play it.

DA: Origins was the best fantasy game I've ever read. Which explains why I quit after the second chapter (because if I wanna read, I'll pick up a book).

Encryptshun wrote:I believe ME1 was the best RPG shooter of all time

No.



It's not likely any game will ever oust SS2 from the throne of best FPSRPG. It does more things more right than any other shooter/RPG before or since.

MinisterofDOOM wrote: KOTOR was terrible

Highest form of blasphemy! Take it BACK!

redtop91 wrote:

MinisterofDOOM wrote: KOTOR was terrible

Highest form of blasphemy! Take it BACK!

Sure, at its good points, it was brilliant. Problem is, the game was 5% good points and 95% errand running. Trudging across tiny, claustrophobic environments to wade through quest text you don't care about to help people you don't care about with problems you don't care about. When the combat did come, it was generally poorly balanced and rarely exciting. When it got good, the game was excellent. The trudging dragged it down, though.

Sometimes I wonder if Bioware remembers that games ARE in fact about gameplay. I absolutely appreciate story depth, especially in an RPG. But walking around all day reading text isn't gameplay, it's reading. If I want to read star wars fiction I'll buy a book. I'm playing a game. Let me chop people's heads off with my lightsaber.

Bioware, and by extension, Black Isle, have turned from a company that produced genuinely innovative and engrossing games to a mass-market ready corporate treadmill that traded game-play for spectacle. Playing their games is more like watching a really long movie. Dragon Age is literally exhausting to play.
Goaded by EA, they struggle to keep the sequels coming while the quality suffers and the innovation runs flat. Which, from a business standpoint, I respect and understand...because f*** knows that people buy it up. However as a gaming company they have completely lost what made them such a great developer.
Sadly enough, it seems this scenario has happened to all great developers of the late 90's. Swallowed up by the big publishers, their designs have been driven by money rather than the desire to make a fun game. Our only saviors seem to be start-ups and indie developers like CD-Projekt. (Who's Witcher 2 annihilates any modern Bioware title)
/End rant.

MinisterofDOOM wrote:Let me chop people's heads off with my lightsaber.

Well said.