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Why is there no love for the fallout games Guinness? Did Black Isle hurt you in some way before it was torpedoed into Obsidian?
(Get it? Obsidian, not oblivion? I'm so witty.)

Henners91 wrote:Thought I'd fix this one for you:

Spoiler:

His team finally assembled and prepared (yes, it took the whole game to do this; but hey it killed time before ME3 and made a few $$$ eh?), Shepard takes the Normandy through the Omega 4 Relay in order to challenge the Collectors directly. His team sits back and enjoys a long cutscene before discovering that the Collectors were harvesting humans to create their own giant Terminator Baby. After holding back intense laughter at the hilarious visage of this ultimate foe, Shepard destroys the abomination and sends it to ill-conceived villain hell and, with the help of his team, makes it out alive - but not before he learns that the Necrons are set to return to Terminus to wipe out all life once again.

QFUT (Quoted for Ultimate Truth)

ME2 did many a thing correctly but the story was absolute crap.

LordofHats wrote:

Henners91 wrote:Thought I'd fix this one for you:

Spoiler:

His team finally assembled and prepared (yes, it took the whole game to do this; but hey it killed time before ME3 and made a few $$$ eh?), Shepard takes the Normandy through the Omega 4 Relay in order to challenge the Collectors directly. His team sits back and enjoys a long cutscene before discovering that the Collectors were harvesting humans to create their own giant Terminator Baby. After holding back intense laughter at the hilarious visage of this ultimate foe, Shepard destroys the abomination and sends it to ill-conceived villain hell and, with the help of his team, makes it out alive - but not before he learns that the Necrons are set to return to Terminus to wipe out all life once again.

QFUT (Quoted for Ultimate Truth)

ME2 did many a thing correctly but the story was absolute crap.

Uhh who are you comparing to? ME was by far more superior of a story.

LordofHats wrote:

Henners91 wrote:Thought I'd fix this one for you:

Spoiler:

His team finally assembled and prepared (yes, it took the whole game to do this; but hey it killed time before ME3 and made a few $$$ eh?), Shepard takes the Normandy through the Omega 4 Relay in order to challenge the Collectors directly. His team sits back and enjoys a long cutscene before discovering that the Collectors were harvesting humans to create their own giant Terminator Baby. After holding back intense laughter at the hilarious visage of this ultimate foe, Shepard destroys the abomination and sends it to ill-conceived villain hell and, with the help of his team, makes it out alive - but not before he learns that the Necrons are set to return to Terminus to wipe out all life once again.

QFUT (Quoted for Ultimate Truth)

ME2 did many a thing correctly but the story was absolute crap.

Still more deserving of a place on the list than Call of Jingoism.

Uh, that's what I said? I'm confused...

By any standard of story, ME2 was horrible. Just looking at Bioware's two previous works, KotOR and ME1, ME2 seems to have been a radical drop in the quality of Bioware's story telling ability.

I've actually gone so far as to claim, Mass Effect 2: Side-Quest the Game has no main story worth talking about. It's a 25-30 hour game where you spend probably 4-5 hours actually doing the main storyline.

LordofHats wrote:Uh, that's what I said? I'm confused...

By any standard of story, ME2 was horrible. Just looking at Bioware's two previous works, KotOR and ME1, ME2 seems to have been a radical drop in the quality of Bioware's story telling ability.

I've actually gone so far as to claim, Mass Effect 2: Side-Quest the Game has no main story worth talking about. It's a 25-30 hour game where you spend probably 4-5 hours actually doing the main storyline.

agreed. But it was rushed. ME3 is promising to improve on ME2 and making it more story driven and character driven.

Well here's ME2's plot:



As for the influential games; I don't think that list is *terrible* but the complete absence of the most influential games on the RTS genre (C&C, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Total War series) is puzzling. Almost as if the genre doesn't exist.

EA is promising to improve on <insert serial title> and making it more story driven and character driven.

Fix'd. Because EA always delivers, am I right

Bioware has been usrped by EA's desire for cash. Hence the absolute piece of gak that was DA2, the worst game to ever have "Bioware" on the box and probably one of the worst games of its release year. Bioware is dead to me

EDIT: In short, I would have called ME2 a fluke, but then I played DA2 and I realized it wasn't.

I'm sorry, but what's DA2? If pressed I could hazard a guess, but it'd probably be wrong.

moom241 wrote:I'm sorry, but what's DA2? If pressed I could hazard a guess, but it'd probably be wrong.

I'll hazard a guess for you and say Dragon Age 2.

Also, at the above comments on ME2 - to be fair, this whole thread is about best ENDINGS, not best STORIES. Even if ME2 was SIdequest: the Video Game, the finale was pretty intense.

LordofHats wrote:
By any standard of story, ME2 was horrible.

The final boss was absurd, but the story was not what I would call horrible. Then again, I didn't expect much because the story in 1 wasn't that good either. I would have preferred they left the Reapers out (or at least fething renamed them), and just centered the story on galactic politics.

I see it sort of like I see the Halo series, really well realized world with a great aesthetic, but mediocre gameplay, and middling stories.

I have a hard time being invested in a stories ending if the story itself is no good. So you had a spiffy ending? To bad the rest of the game sucked.

Then again, I didn't expect much because the story in 1 wasn't that good either. I would have preferred they left the Reapers out (or at least fething renamed them), and just centered the story on galactic politics.

IDK. ME1 was good in the sense it held attention and suspense very effectively and kept you guessing about what was going on. Like in KotOR Bioware handled it very well there. I have numerous problems with ME2's story, starting with how they killed Shepard for no reason other than to make a game trailer. Why the crap would you ever dictate a game's story to produce a game trailer? That's backwards.

LordofHats wrote:I have a hard time being invested in a stories ending if the story itself is no good. So you had a spiffy ending? To bad the rest of the game sucked.

I just wondered why the cuttelfish machine race needed to make its new addition look like a skeleton, and why it needed to kill people to do it. They should have just had it be biological experimentation (ie. how do we best kill you) and left it at that.

My only problem with the rest of the story was that it was disjointed. I thought the individual "missions" and character development were, generally, very good.

LordofHats wrote:
IDK. ME1 was good in the sense it held attention and suspense very effectively and kept you guessing about what was going on.

For like 10 minutes. As soon as the beacon is found its like "Oh, ancient conquerors, Saren is probably working for them"

Though, as much as I dislike the Reapers (its probably mostly the name) I am somewhat interested to see what their motivation is, if Bioware bothers to supply one.

LordofHats wrote:
Like in KotOR Bioware handled it very well there. I have numerous problems with ME2's story, starting with how they killed Shepard for no reason other than to make a game trailer. Why the crap would you ever dictate a game's story to produce a game trailer? That's backwards.

It wasn't just to produce a game trailer, there's very few reasons he could be induced to work with Cerberus, though it was heavy handed. It also solidifies the Collectors as serious business in a way that the abduction of random people does not (yep, you took/killed some of our billions/trillions of people, oh well). Granted, that last bit is probably more me being me than a real story point.

I mean, say I played an "internationalist" Shepard in ME1. What is Cerberus going to say to me in order to convince me to work with them? I guess they could have taken someone hostage, but I'm Shepard, I've already killed at least one person, and possibly one Krogan, because I felt it was necessary.

All that said, I'm not saying the story for ME2 was great, or even good, I'm saying it was acceptable and did a good job of playing to ME's strengths: world design and aesthetic. I already compared it to Halo, but Skyrim also comes to mind. Honestly, so does the original Dragon Age. Hell, I even thought DA2 had a better story than the first game.

Hell, I even thought DA2 had a better story than the first game.

And I just died a little on the inside again *cries*

Honestly the Cerberus bit is just a continuation of how much I hate ME2's story. Shepard died so they could make a trailer. That's it. They wused out of actually forcing the player to make a real moral decision and just hammer fisted you in there (of course I have that complaint against all of Bioware's game's since KotOR).

Shepard doesn't work for Cerberus cause they brought him back from the dead (how'd his body survive reentry anyway?) he did it cause the story dictated it. A much better story was waiting in ME2 and it was just never used. THe Collectors are a rather blatant example of sequel syndrome. If these guys were lying around why the crap did Sovereign need Saren in the first place? Hell, what's the point of Sovereign being around in first place?

I agree about characterization though. In DA2 as well the ability of Bioware to make you actually give a damn about your party has improved since KotOR. The only KotOR person I gave a damn about was HK-47 (and only because he was genuinely hilarious).

mega_bassist wrote:I...but...Really? Sure, it wasn't a decent ending, but it wasn't anything amazing.

The last game I can think of that had a truely awesome ending was Red Dead Redemption.

I really thought BF3s ending was pretty speccy, especially when you open the nuke case and save New York

LordofHats wrote:

Shepard doesn't work for Cerberus cause they brought him back from the dead (how'd his body survive reentry anyway?) he did it cause the story dictated it. A much better story was waiting in ME2 and it was just never used. THe Collectors are a rather blatant example of sequel syndrome. If these guys were lying around why the crap did Sovereign need Saren in the first place? Hell, what's the point of Sovereign being around in first place?

I tend to think that the Collectors would have been a backup plan. Which one is easier? Sovereign telling one guy (Saren), who happens to be very politically powerful, to go open the gateway to allow the Reapers in? Or telling the Collectors to stealthily abduct millions of human beings over the course of two years? When Saren failed, the Collectors went in as a backup plan.

As for the body surviving re-entry, bear in mind that Shepard wasn't naked. Even if the suit didn't protect him much, it probably protected him to the point that his body didn't disintegrate when he went into the planet.

I tend to think that the Collectors would have been a backup plan. Which one is easier? Sovereign telling one guy (Saren), who happens to be very politically powerful, to go open the gateway to allow the Reapers in? Or telling the Collectors to stealthily abduct millions of human beings over the course of two years? When Saren failed, the Collectors went in as a backup plan.

Given the arrogance of the reapers, it kind of killed any potential they had by making a back up plan (since Saren was the backup plan in the first place) so a back up back up plan is even more absurd. Not to mention the origin of the Collectors is just ridiculous given the lore as presented in ME1. All the Reapers are supposed to be asleep but Harbinger apparently has Insomnia (and if he can communicate with the collectors over such distances why'd Soveriegn bother staying withing the galaxy?) Of course this all hinged on that the Reapers returning to the galaxy on their own power would take to long which apparently it doesn't. I mean, ME2 wasn't as bad as Transformers 3 in terms of making no sense as a sequel but its one of the more senseless stories to be in a sequel.

Locclo wrote:As for the body surviving re-entry, bear in mind that Shepard wasn't naked. Even if the suit didn't protect him much, it probably protected him to the point that his body didn't disintegrate when he went into the planet.

And people have been saying that since release. It still makes no sense! Nothing the size of a man can survive atmospheric reentry. Objects many time the size of a man, with much higher densities can't! Even if his body did make it through reentry (which is horribly impossible by any logic) the force of gravity would literally splat him into a billion pieces on the planet surface. There'd be no body to recover. That entire scenario was absurd (not to mention there was really no need to kill Shepard). Everyone thought he was crazy after ME1 and ignored him. Renegade Shepard would have no qualms accepting Cerberus' help, and paragon Shepard would do it for the greater good. They only killed him so they could make a shocking trailer.

LordofHats wrote:

Locclo wrote:As for the body surviving re-entry, bear in mind that Shepard wasn't naked. Even if the suit didn't protect him much, it probably protected him to the point that his body didn't disintegrate when he went into the planet.

And people have been saying that since release. It still makes no sense! Nothing the size of a man can survive atmospheric reentry. Objects many time the size of a man, with much higher densities can't! Even if his body did make it through reentry (which is horribly impossible by any logic) the force of gravity would literally splat him into a billion pieces on the planet surface. There'd be no body to recover. That entire scenario was absurd (not to mention there was really no need to kill Shepard). Everyone thought he was crazy after ME1 and ignored him. Renegade Shepard would have no qualms accepting Cerberus' help, and paragon Shepard would do it for the greater good. They only killed him so they could make a shocking trailer.

You're assuming that the planet is similar to Earth. A human could easily survive re-entry to something much smaller mass (as they wouldn't be going nearly as fast), or something with a much thicker atmosphere (as the drag would be enough to make your terminal velocity rather slow).

Shepard's grizzled manliness absorbed most of the impact. Yes that's even if Shep is a woman.

Fecking idiots. They didn't even put skyrim in the list.

Grakmar wrote:
You're assuming that the planet is similar to Earth. A human could easily survive re-entry to something much smaller mass (as they wouldn't be going nearly as fast), or something with a much thicker atmosphere (as the drag would be enough to make your terminal velocity rather slow).

Given that its an ice planet I doubt the atmosphere is thick, and it seems to be earth sized. Bioware aren't rocket scientists. I doubt they considered much of anything into how his body miraculously survived. But now we're really just hair splitting the finer points of suspension of disbelief which is a lost battle in itself

Scrazza wrote:Fecking idiots. They didn't even put skyrim in the list.

The skyrim ending was crap and you know it. Boring as all hell.

Scrazza wrote:Fecking idiots. They didn't even put skyrim in the list.

But...that didn't have an ending.
No really, there is technically no ending to Skyrim. No end screen or cinematic, just an in-game conversation, and you continue playing.

And the big boss was anticlimax deluxe.... fething 6 hits on master >_>

Soladrin wrote:And the big boss was anticlimax deluxe.... fething 6 hits on master >_>

Yeah, that's just silly.
For a "great threat", dragons are fairly pathetic. They should release a patch that makes them more formidable.

The game didn't have a single challenge after I got to level 10 or something. If your gonna make a game so vast and "realistic" looking. At least prevent a power gamer from ruining the experience with a single skill.

Crafting system in skyrim is broken as all hell.

GOnna have to agree about Skyrim. I actually found the main storyline horribly bland. The Skyrim Civil War and the conflict between the Thalmor and the Empire was infinitely more interesting but played little to no role in the storyline (here's hoping for Expansions!)

LordofHats wrote:
And I just died a little on the inside again *cries*

At least the revolt of the oppressed class (mages) was slightly more interesting than "Kill the Archdemon (Sauron)."

That being said, DA's strength, both games, was the world, not the story. Well, and the some of characters. Morrigan, Shale, and Shen were all interesting.

LordofHats wrote:
Shepard doesn't work for Cerberus cause they brought him back from the dead (how'd his body survive reentry anyway?)...

That's an easy sci-fi handwave in a universe with ambiguous psychic powers.

LordofHats wrote:
....he did it cause the story dictated it.

Well, yeah. And Romeo killed himself because the story dictated it; ie. found himself in a particular situation. Not that ME2 is Shakespeare, but contrivance basically comes with the territory of fiction.

LordofHats wrote:
A much better story was waiting in ME2 and it was just never used. THe Collectors are a rather blatant example of sequel syndrome. If these guys were lying around why the crap did Sovereign need Saren in the first place? Hell, what's the point of Sovereign being around in first place?

Saren is an easy explanation: he was connected to the body connected to the Citadel.

The Collectors can be considered a contingency plan.

Sovereign had to be there for reasons of trust and capacity.

Ok guys, does anyone remember Heart of Darkness? 1998ish jump and run? Little boy fighting against shadows?
The story was simple (you want to rescue your dog) but the ending was awesome. One of the hardest fights I ever had (on hard obviously) but soooooo deserving. Still smile when I think about it.

Greets
Schepp himself

P.S. All of Skyrims storylines are anti-climatic and boring as hell. No real personalities in this game ffs!

I thought Parthenax had personality, but he also had the side of effect of making me hate the Blades' guts.

At least the revolt of the oppressed class (mages) was slightly more interesting than "Kill the Archdemon (Sauron).

I agree that it was more interesting but this is my basic gripe with DA2: "Okay DA2. Mages good. Templars bad. I get that. The Mages are being treated horribly and are being oppressed by an autocratic/theocratic system where they're less than human and I should support them. Well. Why does every mage I try to help go DARK-SIDE! I know I'm supposed to feel sorry for them but come on. I'd like to help a mage who doesn't resort to blood magic the moment the going gets rough. I mean come on. I have to side with the Templars on this one these mages are out of control!"

That's of course ignoring that there is no main storyline in DA2, just a loose affiliation of side-quests and side plots (act 2 especially had nothing to do with anything). The only semblance of a main plot appears at the very end of the game and it kind of comes front left field cause there was nothing in the middle to connect point A and point Z. I was especially kind of peeved at Flemeth/Leliana's Token appearances in the game which served no purpose at all but to wave around popular Origin's characters in an otherwise crappy game. I'm probably more peeved about Flemeth though cause she was supposed to play a major role in the story, but she kind of doesn't.

I do however give you know who blowing up you know what Most Awesome Moment of Gaming 2011. That scene was epic.