There are definitely some great environmental improvements! Like I never realized how fuggin dark some part of the game were. I definitely appreciate the lighting boost. They don't show the full...
There are definitely some great environmental improvements! Like I never realized how fuggin dark some part of the game were. I definitely appreciate the lighting boost.
They don't show the full image here, but I'm so bothered by them vacuum packing Liara's tits into her uniform. I think I saw someone mention that it looked like they back ported the ME3 uniform into ME1 and like... It's such a shame. A shitty design trope and the girl looks like she has clothes painted on her. That looks uncomfortable to wear. Super fucking annoying.
Overall I'm definitely excited for the legendary edition. I'm happy they upgraded femsheps face to, you know, actually look like femshep, and juts the look of the game overall. I will definitely be getting this and am super stoked. The only coveat is, if they don't fix femsheps ME3 casual dress, I will riot. That thing is the ugliest fucking piece of clothing I have ever seen.
I didn’t really get the Liara thing to be honest. It just looks like a consequence of how they simulated the fabric since the series moved to resembling sporty and technical fabrics rather than OG...
I didn’t really get the Liara thing to be honest. It just looks like a consequence of how they simulated the fabric since the series moved to resembling sporty and technical fabrics rather than OG Star Trek outfits as the art style matured. I don’t see it as being especially uncomfortable. I see women at BJJ and yoga wearing similarly fitted clothes (in the before times). But Liara would need need a really big cup size to show up that big. The model in that pic is a D/DD.
Like if I was an alien who knew nothing about clothing, I’d sooner believe someone would willingly wear a rashguard dress that than willingly wear skinny-jeans based on comfort alone. Of course, why she’s dressed like that to walk around in rather than having it be her “action” outfit is a different question.
Tight fitting clothes is one thing, but they fell into the boob sock realm. Clothes generally don't fall across breasts like that. Even in your example, the fabric of the sports bra isn't...
Tight fitting clothes is one thing, but they fell into the boob sock realm. Clothes generally don't fall across breasts like that. Even in your example, the fabric of the sports bra isn't contouring underneath her breasts, or up the side of her breasts. You can't see complete outlines. On Liara, you can see the contour of her breast completely as it leads up to her armpit as if she was naked ffs. It's disappointing to see them fall into the boob sock realm because it's over done and fucking infuriating to see, because it's everywhere and it overly sexualizes a character. They could have just updated the old one and kept how the fabric falls.
Also, a human chosing to wear tight fitting clothing isn't the same as a character being put into tight fitting clothing.
My bottom line is that it's an overdone trope that's genuinely pathetic design at this point and I'm fucking sick of seeing. Also sorry if this seems aggro, but like it's a nasty sticking point for me and this'll probably be all I have to say about it so I don't get my ass in trouble.
I'm really surprised by how often I prefer the original image in this. Sure, the improved textures and better effects and lighting and so on is nice, but in quite a lot of the examples they've...
I'm really surprised by how often I prefer the original image in this. Sure, the improved textures and better effects and lighting and so on is nice, but in quite a lot of the examples they've horribly over-cranked the gamma and everything just looks washed out. I don't know what engine they're using now but the Mass Effect games have never been very good at faces and that hasn't really changed in the new version either. It's not quite Andromeda bad but it's still not great.
I hope it looks better in game. Because I do like the series and will probably pick this up at some point. I am slightly disappointed that they left the co-op multiplayer out, but I can understand why it wasn't a priority.
I was actually thinking the opposite. In just about every remaster, I prefer the original graphics over the new ones. But this one looks really good to me. I don't think it looks washed out at...
I was actually thinking the opposite. In just about every remaster, I prefer the original graphics over the new ones. But this one looks really good to me. I don't think it looks washed out at all. If Anything, the scenes from the original version look too high contrast, which can make the remaster feel washed out in comparison. The shadows are crushed, and other dark areas seem to lose a lot of fine detail. It almost reminds me of how some people incorrectly calibrate their TVs to make the image look more "punchy".
The lighting looks much better in this remaster, for sure; the biggest problem I have is with the faces that look really bright and unnatural. I take that back; the biggest problem I have with the...
The lighting looks much better in this remaster, for sure; the biggest problem I have is with the faces that look really bright and unnatural.
I take that back; the biggest problem I have with the graphics is that it came out in the era where visual designers were all screaming "BLOOM ALL THE THINGS! And we need lens flares to make things more epic!" The remaster is better, but it's still got too much bloom. At least the effect looks a lot nicer than it did back then.
This has always been one BioWare’s signature problems as a studio is this sort of kid-in-a-candy-store attitude towards implementing new stuff. New engine lets us do bloom and volumetric lighting?...
This has always been one BioWare’s signature problems as a studio is this sort of kid-in-a-candy-store attitude towards implementing new stuff.
New engine lets us do bloom and volumetric lighting? PUT IT EVERYWHERE!
This temperamental lack of restraint is also why their projects always suffer from evidence of creaking under the weight of overscoped agendas and extended amounts of gameplay padding.
Someone should stop and ask themselves "Does spending a significant amount of your time picking and sorting through garbage to sell at the flea market really drive home the fantasy of being a big,...
Inventory management improvements
Items can now be flagged as “Junk”
All Junk items can be converted into Omni-gel or sold to merchants at once
Inventory and stores now have sorting functionality
Someone should stop and ask themselves "Does spending a significant amount of your time picking and sorting through garbage to sell at the flea market really drive home the fantasy of being a big, damn hero?" I mean, I'm the commander of a starship I can't have a crew of red-shirts come by to clean up after me? I don't have a quartermaster to manage the finances and keep things stocked?
It's definitely a problem in the first game that I don't really remember seeing in the sequels. Having 10 different levels of the same type of armor was just tedious.
It's definitely a problem in the first game that I don't really remember seeing in the sequels. Having 10 different levels of the same type of armor was just tedious.
The fan outcry over them removing the inventory management in the second game was riotous. I never understood why this kind of abject tedium is appealing to people.
The fan outcry over them removing the inventory management in the second game was riotous. I never understood why this kind of abject tedium is appealing to people.
My recollection of my feelings at the time (and I haven't played a Mass Effect game since 2 released) was that pretty much everybody agreed that they needed to streamline inventory management, but...
My recollection of my feelings at the time (and I haven't played a Mass Effect game since 2 released) was that pretty much everybody agreed that they needed to streamline inventory management, but instead of improving the inventory system they just basically did away with the more complex weapons and loot altogether. I remember feeling that way, at least.
I like RPGs and that kind of thing is just part of the experience for me. I was sad that the games started to lose that feel. I also enjoyed the Mako quite a bit and spent many hours exploring the...
I like RPGs and that kind of thing is just part of the experience for me. I was sad that the games started to lose that feel.
I also enjoyed the Mako quite a bit and spent many hours exploring the planets.
It’s not a popular opinion but we’re out there man. I still think ME2 is a masterpiece but I was really upset by the many changes. Instead of improving the Mako, planetary exploration, and the inventory system they just gave up and removed them (and added the much worse probe system). I never gave ME3 a chance so I’m interested to check it out finally.
I still don't know why they felt the need to change to a traditional ammo system instead of just refining the first game's mechanics to be tighter and make a bit more sense. Interestingly, that...
I still don't know why they felt the need to change to a traditional ammo system instead of just refining the first game's mechanics to be tighter and make a bit more sense. Interestingly, that seems to be exactly what they're doing for this remaster of the first game!
I'm looking forward to checking this out but I'm also bracing myself for a whole new wave of people who hate the Mass Effect 3 ending all over again. It was... quite a phenomenon the first time...
I'm looking forward to checking this out but I'm also bracing myself for a whole new wave of people who hate the Mass Effect 3 ending all over again. It was... quite a phenomenon the first time around and I wonder how it will end up this time around, now that there's probably a whole new cadre of gamers who weren't there to experience the firestorm the first time. I doubt it'll be even a tenth as bad as before but I'm betting there's going to be a whole bunch of people stunned to see that that's how it goes.
I wasn't one of those people who were furious about it, writing pages and pages about how terrible it was, or demanding Bioware change it at all. But at the same time, I was more than ready for Game of Thrones' ending as a result—that one still doesn't top Mass Effect 3's ending for me.
I'm hyped for a remaster of the entire trilogy with the DLC because I actually never played most of the DLC. But I didn't end up doing that because I always planned to replay the entire series with all the DLC once it was all released... until I finished ME3's base game on launch. I guess I'm of two minds about this remaster. On one hand, the first ME holds some of my fondest gaming memories (and it's still my favourite of the three) but, on the other hand, ME3 gave me some of my worst ones.
I guess I'll just hope these new graphics are shiny enough to distract me this time. And hey, between the extended ending and the Citadel DLC, maybe it'll soften the blow enough for everyone, including me.
In hindsight I realize the ME3 shit-show was basically the first time I saw all the core-ingredients that enabled Gamergate all mixed together at once. It's like the cannon had finally assembled...
It was... quite a phenomenon the first time around and I wonder how it will end up this time around
In hindsight I realize the ME3 shit-show was basically the first time I saw all the core-ingredients that enabled Gamergate all mixed together at once. It's like the cannon had finally assembled itself in response to ME3 and then it just needed someone who could figure out how to aim it at more consequential targets.
Of course, the ME3 shit-show was also not just innocent people mad at the game for being bad either. Lest we forget, a mere month before ME3's release this happened. Between Tumblr and the Chan-sites, people had been refining tactics to weaponize this kind of flash-mob approach to stochastic cyberbullying. Complete with strategies for cooking up viral content and creating ready-made, shareable Copypasta to hoodwink people into joining in.
Hopefully changes since then have improved things and people are a bit more credulous about what they see now. But for sure people will try to relive the glory days for sport and kick off such a flash mob again.
Oh for sure, I think those two situations got the notice of the people who eventually stoked GamerGate into becoming a thing to take notice of this particular group of people and see if they could...
Oh for sure, I think those two situations got the notice of the people who eventually stoked GamerGate into becoming a thing to take notice of this particular group of people and see if they could rally them into a hateful weaponized mass. It took a couple of years, but I can't even remember what the situation was that launched the mass publication of "gamers are dead" articles that ended up being the spark that set it off.
That said, these two are the proto-examples of the possibility of GamerGate. The ME3 ending thing is what started the whole "entitled" thing, I remember, and that spawned a period of hostility itself. It was pretty wild that they even made an extended ending for the game to address the backlash but I have to believe that was more the result of ME3's ending being so universally hated, and not just a product of manufactured outrage.
I'm hoping gaming in general learned its lesson about letting hate mobs take over the conversation, anything close to it has been shut down quickly everywhere in recent years, but I suppose it remains to be truly tested again.
I think it's largely been shut down by more aggressive community management. Developers themselves engage less often and run their comment through PR. When they do engage it's often in tightly...
I'm hoping gaming in general learned its lesson about letting hate mobs take over the conversation, anything close to it has been shut down quickly everywhere in recent years, but I suppose it remains to be truly tested again.
I think it's largely been shut down by more aggressive community management. Developers themselves engage less often and run their comment through PR. When they do engage it's often in tightly controlled setting like a company forum or Discord rather than openly on Facebook, Reddit, or Twitter.
I don't think the "universally hated" is an adequate descriptor of the ending either. The hate-mob sprang up before most people even got a chance to play the game, let alone actually play it through to completion. There were definitely criticisms to be lodged about pacing, how they collapsed all your decisions into a points system, and revealing critical plot elements via last-minute info-dumps. But by that point the intensity of the reaction was blown way out of proportion and, in my opinion, was basically being manufactured by poisoning peoples' minds against it before they ever got a chance to give it a fair shake. That's what took it from something flawed and perhaps disappointing to the greatest betrayal since the Red Wedding.
The reason it was entitled was because, by any objective standard, Mass Effect was an extremely ambitious project. It's kind of miraculous it came out as well as it did at all. I think it would have been perfectly appropriate to cut them some slack if they fell a little short of the mark, but the internet decided they specifically made a bad ending because they hate you or something. It was just an extremely hostile reaction that anyone could have recognized as being way out of proportion and evidence of people with a very brittle grip on their own emotions or ability to process even mild feelings of disappointment.
That and, it just got fun to hate on things and the hate becomes its own sort of sport.
I'm sure it was signal boosted to the stratosphere by people who engage in outrage as a sport. But at the same time, I think Mass Effect 3's ending actually was also just that genuinely disliked,...
I'm sure it was signal boosted to the stratosphere by people who engage in outrage as a sport. But at the same time, I think Mass Effect 3's ending actually was also just that genuinely disliked, even once you remove the people engaging in it for sport. I don't think it could have gone that far if it wasn't so widely disliked.
Of course, the intensity of the reaction has overshadowed most of the issues people had with what ME3 presented with the ending, and enough time has passed that it's hard to remember what disappointed people so greatly compared to how people responded (which was definitely extreme), especially after they modified the game with an extended ending and released DLC to soften it. But also I can't speak to the level of hatred people responded with because I just stayed out of it entirely. Admittedly, I don't really know how the in-depth mechanics of that response went and can only really speak for how pretty much everyone I know who was a die-hard ME fan just suddenly wasn't overnight.
I think through all these years, MrBTongue's video (which was fresh around launch and before the announcement of any changes) preserved what people who were genuinely disappointed greatly by the ending felt about the game itself, independent of the hubbub happening around it. Basically it was just so contrary to what many enjoyed about the previous games that it left many feeling unsatisfied or, in more extreme cases (admittedly like myself), left them feeling hollow about it.
I recall the entitlement thing because because some people were outright demanding a redo of the entire game (!!!), or that EA owed them all their money back, or any number of inane demands. And those all really are patently ridiculous demands. I noticed that was the same group of people who also somehow thought all that needed to be fixed were the three coloured buttons or the lack of 50 different endings for all your choices for everyone. I think the only thing most people who were genuinely disappointed by the game wanted back was the sentiment squad camaraderie back because the ending really biffed that one.
I suppose the simpler way of saying this is that I can't think of another game where such a large proportion of its players just straight up felt they did not get an emotional return of investment on a story, even the many that didn't engage in gaming forums or subculture. Anecdotally, many of the people I know who consider themselves casual gamers but enjoyed the series came away disliking how it ended and the ones that didn't simply just were never all that invested in the first place.
Mass Effect was one of those generation-defining games for me when I finally got to play it on my modded Xbox 360 back in 2010. I don't know how this game got in my pile as that time is generally...
Mass Effect was one of those generation-defining games for me when I finally got to play it on my modded Xbox 360 back in 2010. I don't know how this game got in my pile as that time is generally pretty fuzzy for me. I do remember learning how to torrent and using my newfound power on my high school's network so it likely came to me in a large batch of downloads I did before their IT wisened up to what was happening.
I spent a good long week playing Mass Effect 1 while feasting on a diet of Doritos, glazed oatmeal cookies that seemed to soften when left exposed to the air rather than harden, and Mello Yello soda. I was absolutely in love with it, but due to living in the boonies and my Xbox lacking network connectivity, I never played any DLC for it. Mass Effect 2 went the same way although I didn't end up liking it as much as the first game. By the time Mass Effect 3 rolled out, I was too engrained in internet gaming culture to give it a fair shake. At that time that gamers would flock to the Consumerist's Worst Company in America and vote EA worse than companies like Walmart, Bank of America, and Comcast. It was the first time that I actually came away from gaming as a whole feeling disgusted. The ending was spoiled for me and the vitriol was over dramatically intense at the time. The game likely would have benefitted from more development time and maybe had EA ported ME1&2 to the Wii U, I probably would have played through them all again years later on that system.
I'm excited to give this a fair shot though and play through it from start to finish on my own with all the DLC. I'm really hoping they can do more with this IP in the future.
There are definitely some great environmental improvements! Like I never realized how fuggin dark some part of the game were. I definitely appreciate the lighting boost.
They don't show the full image here, but I'm so bothered by them vacuum packing Liara's tits into her uniform. I think I saw someone mention that it looked like they back ported the ME3 uniform into ME1 and like... It's such a shame. A shitty design trope and the girl looks like she has clothes painted on her. That looks uncomfortable to wear. Super fucking annoying.
Overall I'm definitely excited for the legendary edition. I'm happy they upgraded femsheps face to, you know, actually look like femshep, and juts the look of the game overall. I will definitely be getting this and am super stoked. The only coveat is, if they don't fix femsheps ME3 casual dress, I will riot. That thing is the ugliest fucking piece of clothing I have ever seen.
I didn’t really get the Liara thing to be honest. It just looks like a consequence of how they simulated the fabric since the series moved to resembling sporty and technical fabrics rather than OG Star Trek outfits as the art style matured. I don’t see it as being especially uncomfortable. I see women at BJJ and yoga wearing similarly fitted clothes (in the before times). But Liara would need need a really big cup size to show up that big. The model in that pic is a D/DD.
Like if I was an alien who knew nothing about clothing, I’d sooner believe someone would willingly wear a rashguard dress that than willingly wear skinny-jeans based on comfort alone. Of course, why she’s dressed like that to walk around in rather than having it be her “action” outfit is a different question.
Tight fitting clothes is one thing, but they fell into the boob sock realm. Clothes generally don't fall across breasts like that. Even in your example, the fabric of the sports bra isn't contouring underneath her breasts, or up the side of her breasts. You can't see complete outlines. On Liara, you can see the contour of her breast completely as it leads up to her armpit as if she was naked ffs. It's disappointing to see them fall into the boob sock realm because it's over done and fucking infuriating to see, because it's everywhere and it overly sexualizes a character. They could have just updated the old one and kept how the fabric falls.
Also, a human chosing to wear tight fitting clothing isn't the same as a character being put into tight fitting clothing.
My bottom line is that it's an overdone trope that's genuinely pathetic design at this point and I'm fucking sick of seeing. Also sorry if this seems aggro, but like it's a nasty sticking point for me and this'll probably be all I have to say about it so I don't get my ass in trouble.
I'm really surprised by how often I prefer the original image in this. Sure, the improved textures and better effects and lighting and so on is nice, but in quite a lot of the examples they've horribly over-cranked the gamma and everything just looks washed out. I don't know what engine they're using now but the Mass Effect games have never been very good at faces and that hasn't really changed in the new version either. It's not quite Andromeda bad but it's still not great.
I hope it looks better in game. Because I do like the series and will probably pick this up at some point. I am slightly disappointed that they left the co-op multiplayer out, but I can understand why it wasn't a priority.
I was actually thinking the opposite. In just about every remaster, I prefer the original graphics over the new ones. But this one looks really good to me. I don't think it looks washed out at all. If Anything, the scenes from the original version look too high contrast, which can make the remaster feel washed out in comparison. The shadows are crushed, and other dark areas seem to lose a lot of fine detail. It almost reminds me of how some people incorrectly calibrate their TVs to make the image look more "punchy".
The lighting looks much better in this remaster, for sure; the biggest problem I have is with the faces that look really bright and unnatural.
I take that back; the biggest problem I have with the graphics is that it came out in the era where visual designers were all screaming "BLOOM ALL THE THINGS! And we need lens flares to make things more epic!" The remaster is better, but it's still got too much bloom. At least the effect looks a lot nicer than it did back then.
This has always been one BioWare’s signature problems as a studio is this sort of kid-in-a-candy-store attitude towards implementing new stuff.
New engine lets us do bloom and volumetric lighting? PUT IT EVERYWHERE!
New console lets you have curves? CURVE EVERYTHING
This temperamental lack of restraint is also why their projects always suffer from evidence of creaking under the weight of overscoped agendas and extended amounts of gameplay padding.
There was also another recent blog post talking about gameplay-related changes: Mass Effect Legendary Edition - Gameplay calibrations.
Someone should stop and ask themselves "Does spending a significant amount of your time picking and sorting through garbage to sell at the flea market really drive home the fantasy of being a big, damn hero?" I mean, I'm the commander of a starship I can't have a crew of red-shirts come by to clean up after me? I don't have a quartermaster to manage the finances and keep things stocked?
It's definitely a problem in the first game that I don't really remember seeing in the sequels. Having 10 different levels of the same type of armor was just tedious.
The fan outcry over them removing the inventory management in the second game was riotous. I never understood why this kind of abject tedium is appealing to people.
My recollection of my feelings at the time (and I haven't played a Mass Effect game since 2 released) was that pretty much everybody agreed that they needed to streamline inventory management, but instead of improving the inventory system they just basically did away with the more complex weapons and loot altogether. I remember feeling that way, at least.
I like RPGs and that kind of thing is just part of the experience for me. I was sad that the games started to lose that feel.
I also enjoyed the Mako quite a bit and spent many hours exploring the planets.
It’s not a popular opinion but we’re out there man. I still think ME2 is a masterpiece but I was really upset by the many changes. Instead of improving the Mako, planetary exploration, and the inventory system they just gave up and removed them (and added the much worse probe system). I never gave ME3 a chance so I’m interested to check it out finally.
I still don't know why they felt the need to change to a traditional ammo system instead of just refining the first game's mechanics to be tighter and make a bit more sense. Interestingly, that seems to be exactly what they're doing for this remaster of the first game!
I'm looking forward to checking this out but I'm also bracing myself for a whole new wave of people who hate the Mass Effect 3 ending all over again. It was... quite a phenomenon the first time around and I wonder how it will end up this time around, now that there's probably a whole new cadre of gamers who weren't there to experience the firestorm the first time. I doubt it'll be even a tenth as bad as before but I'm betting there's going to be a whole bunch of people stunned to see that that's how it goes.
I wasn't one of those people who were furious about it, writing pages and pages about how terrible it was, or demanding Bioware change it at all. But at the same time, I was more than ready for Game of Thrones' ending as a result—that one still doesn't top Mass Effect 3's ending for me.
I'm hyped for a remaster of the entire trilogy with the DLC because I actually never played most of the DLC. But I didn't end up doing that because I always planned to replay the entire series with all the DLC once it was all released... until I finished ME3's base game on launch. I guess I'm of two minds about this remaster. On one hand, the first ME holds some of my fondest gaming memories (and it's still my favourite of the three) but, on the other hand, ME3 gave me some of my worst ones.
I guess I'll just hope these new graphics are shiny enough to distract me this time. And hey, between the extended ending and the Citadel DLC, maybe it'll soften the blow enough for everyone, including me.
In hindsight I realize the ME3 shit-show was basically the first time I saw all the core-ingredients that enabled Gamergate all mixed together at once. It's like the cannon had finally assembled itself in response to ME3 and then it just needed someone who could figure out how to aim it at more consequential targets.
Of course, the ME3 shit-show was also not just innocent people mad at the game for being bad either. Lest we forget, a mere month before ME3's release this happened. Between Tumblr and the Chan-sites, people had been refining tactics to weaponize this kind of flash-mob approach to stochastic cyberbullying. Complete with strategies for cooking up viral content and creating ready-made, shareable Copypasta to hoodwink people into joining in.
Hopefully changes since then have improved things and people are a bit more credulous about what they see now. But for sure people will try to relive the glory days for sport and kick off such a flash mob again.
Oh for sure, I think those two situations got the notice of the people who eventually stoked GamerGate into becoming a thing to take notice of this particular group of people and see if they could rally them into a hateful weaponized mass. It took a couple of years, but I can't even remember what the situation was that launched the mass publication of "gamers are dead" articles that ended up being the spark that set it off.
That said, these two are the proto-examples of the possibility of GamerGate. The ME3 ending thing is what started the whole "entitled" thing, I remember, and that spawned a period of hostility itself. It was pretty wild that they even made an extended ending for the game to address the backlash but I have to believe that was more the result of ME3's ending being so universally hated, and not just a product of manufactured outrage.
I'm hoping gaming in general learned its lesson about letting hate mobs take over the conversation, anything close to it has been shut down quickly everywhere in recent years, but I suppose it remains to be truly tested again.
I think it's largely been shut down by more aggressive community management. Developers themselves engage less often and run their comment through PR. When they do engage it's often in tightly controlled setting like a company forum or Discord rather than openly on Facebook, Reddit, or Twitter.
I don't think the "universally hated" is an adequate descriptor of the ending either. The hate-mob sprang up before most people even got a chance to play the game, let alone actually play it through to completion. There were definitely criticisms to be lodged about pacing, how they collapsed all your decisions into a points system, and revealing critical plot elements via last-minute info-dumps. But by that point the intensity of the reaction was blown way out of proportion and, in my opinion, was basically being manufactured by poisoning peoples' minds against it before they ever got a chance to give it a fair shake. That's what took it from something flawed and perhaps disappointing to the greatest betrayal since the Red Wedding.
The reason it was entitled was because, by any objective standard, Mass Effect was an extremely ambitious project. It's kind of miraculous it came out as well as it did at all. I think it would have been perfectly appropriate to cut them some slack if they fell a little short of the mark, but the internet decided they specifically made a bad ending because they hate you or something. It was just an extremely hostile reaction that anyone could have recognized as being way out of proportion and evidence of people with a very brittle grip on their own emotions or ability to process even mild feelings of disappointment.
That and, it just got fun to hate on things and the hate becomes its own sort of sport.
I'm sure it was signal boosted to the stratosphere by people who engage in outrage as a sport. But at the same time, I think Mass Effect 3's ending actually was also just that genuinely disliked, even once you remove the people engaging in it for sport. I don't think it could have gone that far if it wasn't so widely disliked.
Of course, the intensity of the reaction has overshadowed most of the issues people had with what ME3 presented with the ending, and enough time has passed that it's hard to remember what disappointed people so greatly compared to how people responded (which was definitely extreme), especially after they modified the game with an extended ending and released DLC to soften it. But also I can't speak to the level of hatred people responded with because I just stayed out of it entirely. Admittedly, I don't really know how the in-depth mechanics of that response went and can only really speak for how pretty much everyone I know who was a die-hard ME fan just suddenly wasn't overnight.
I think through all these years, MrBTongue's video (which was fresh around launch and before the announcement of any changes) preserved what people who were genuinely disappointed greatly by the ending felt about the game itself, independent of the hubbub happening around it. Basically it was just so contrary to what many enjoyed about the previous games that it left many feeling unsatisfied or, in more extreme cases (admittedly like myself), left them feeling hollow about it.
I recall the entitlement thing because because some people were outright demanding a redo of the entire game (!!!), or that EA owed them all their money back, or any number of inane demands. And those all really are patently ridiculous demands. I noticed that was the same group of people who also somehow thought all that needed to be fixed were the three coloured buttons or the lack of 50 different endings for all your choices for everyone. I think the only thing most people who were genuinely disappointed by the game wanted back was the sentiment squad camaraderie back because the ending really biffed that one.
I suppose the simpler way of saying this is that I can't think of another game where such a large proportion of its players just straight up felt they did not get an emotional return of investment on a story, even the many that didn't engage in gaming forums or subculture. Anecdotally, many of the people I know who consider themselves casual gamers but enjoyed the series came away disliking how it ended and the ones that didn't simply just were never all that invested in the first place.
Mass Effect was one of those generation-defining games for me when I finally got to play it on my modded Xbox 360 back in 2010. I don't know how this game got in my pile as that time is generally pretty fuzzy for me. I do remember learning how to torrent and using my newfound power on my high school's network so it likely came to me in a large batch of downloads I did before their IT wisened up to what was happening.
I spent a good long week playing Mass Effect 1 while feasting on a diet of Doritos, glazed oatmeal cookies that seemed to soften when left exposed to the air rather than harden, and Mello Yello soda. I was absolutely in love with it, but due to living in the boonies and my Xbox lacking network connectivity, I never played any DLC for it. Mass Effect 2 went the same way although I didn't end up liking it as much as the first game. By the time Mass Effect 3 rolled out, I was too engrained in internet gaming culture to give it a fair shake. At that time that gamers would flock to the Consumerist's Worst Company in America and vote EA worse than companies like Walmart, Bank of America, and Comcast. It was the first time that I actually came away from gaming as a whole feeling disgusted. The ending was spoiled for me and the vitriol was over dramatically intense at the time. The game likely would have benefitted from more development time and maybe had EA ported ME1&2 to the Wii U, I probably would have played through them all again years later on that system.
I'm excited to give this a fair shot though and play through it from start to finish on my own with all the DLC. I'm really hoping they can do more with this IP in the future.