not dead space 3 more like dead space 2

I mean, I cant speak for the person you are replying to, but its sometimes possible to have such a terrible ending that it puts you off for the entire series.

I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion about a year ago for the first time, and it got me hooked all the way through the series. Didnt matter if it was more of a story exposition piece, or more silly episode, I loved it.

The ending for the series, though... Its notoriously divisive because it had almost no animation for the last 2 episodes (40 minutes) because they ran out of budget. I felt that it was awful, and after forcing myself through both of the episodes, I felt like all my time was wasted with the series. It was such a downer (not even the ending conclusion, but the presentation and lenght) that I didnt feel anything about the anime anymore.

Thanfully the movie (End if Evangelion) reinvigorated my interest, which was sort of a alternate take on the ending, with another 30-40 min mindfk in the end, but the presentation was so much more better. It still put my friend off from the series and for a long time he said "you know, evangelion was really ehhh..." after seeing the movie, but after a rewatch when his internet was down, he actually thought it was a pretty good anime again.

I havent played the ME series, but I can understand if some people feel the ending was so terrible, that it ruined the series for them.

Tankbusta40: Yes, it killed the entire series, the worldbuilding that was done in the first and second game was ruined by that abusmal ending imo. It did not take away the fun I had with the first game (and somewhat the second game, even if it's overrated) at the time, but in retrospect I look back at them as ruined games and any future games are ruined by that ending.

OhMyGandhi: Nah, the ending was that bad.

I will not put much time into explaining it if you think (like a lot of people) that it's the best in the series. If you think that you obviously don't care about the things I care about when playing a game like Mass Effect. I had a bad feeling about how EA would effect BioWare, and the sequel to one of my favorite games proved me right.

So, Mass Effect (1) set out to be a deep rpg experience with deep rpg elements such as character customized stats and items/armor/weapons, and deep conversationtrees (hell, the first hour was all conversation witch the FPS fanboys hated but I loved). It also had an epic story (granted, the story in the first game had problems, but on the whole it was great).

Fast forward to the second game, it had less engaging conversation, less customization and a story about building a small team of people to.... fight the reapers and collectors? Yeah, those guys would make a big difference when fighting a whole armada of Sovereign like enemie ships, where's the story again? Granted, the writing was pretty good, but the story tock a nose dive. I guess it's fine though if all you wanted was an excuse to shot things (but that was never the point of Mass Effect, the shooting mecanics were never that great to begin with). The only thing Mass Effect 2 improved were the action and graphics, witch EA knew would please most people. I'm an RPG fan though, so those elements mean less to me then the RPG elements, and Mass Effect 2 went the complete oposite way in that regard.

The third game... don't even get me started on the third game, thats not even trying to be an RPG anymore. When BioWare created Mass Effect (1) you could tell that it was the old guard of game development philosofy behind the game, it reaked of BioWare quality of old (building on games from their past, games like Baldurs gate, Kotor, Jade Empire etc) and the sequels came at a time when BioWare had gone through the EA grinder fully, and it shows.

I am actually incredibly happy that you responded, and with a good amount of depth as well.
I am one of the few people who loved the first two games, and though the third game was decent, I felt that it was not nearly as well paced as the 2nd game.

For me, I liked that so much of the first game was frontloaded with exposition, most good RPGs need that for world building, setting up rules, establishing the characters and introducing their initial motivations, possibly hinting at character arcs.

Why do people think the 2nd game was the best in the series? it balanced out (in the eyes of most gamers) great story, with strong, concise action, and a more cerebral sense of tone and pace. I actually feel like EA getting their hands on it, to make it more like a third person shooter worked wonders for it. It took away some of the heavier RPG elements from the first to make it a universally more approachable game for all gamers. And I'd take a few concessions any day of the week for a franchise to not only do well, but also respect the average player's time by not padding it out when it doesn't need to be.

If your biggest arugment against the second game is that there was less customization and more shooting, that really is personal preference, and entirely subjective. But I would ask you this, you just said that the first mass effect was one of your favorite games, and that because of the ENDING to the third game, you felt like it ruined the franchise for you. I still don't understand that logic. That's like me saying that my love for Bioshock is non existant because I didn't really care for the third game, one that was universally praised, but I couldn't get into because it was 95% action, and nothing else. I still love the series, I am still happy to have played all three games, but I found the third one lacking. That's all. That, to me, sounds far more reasonable then disregarding an entire franchise over the last third of the third game.

I respect your opinion, I just don't agree with the fact that people put the second game on a pedestal. It's a great game, even compared to the first Mass Effect, it does handle things like inventory etc in a better and more comprehensible way. It also had better shooting mechanics like I said, and while I would have liked less focus on combat and more focus on rollplaying, I prefer the combat in the second game to the first game. But like I said, combat is just one factor, and I think Mass Effect (1) had a lot more going for it. It's almost like BioWare had more ambition to make it an RPG, and then they changed their mind with 2 and 3 for some reason.

Mass Effect also had planetary exploration, the Mako gets a lot of shit, but it was actually a great idea that added to the athmosphere of the game. I remember taking the Mako out for a spin and sniping enemies on the planatary surface outside bunkers from kms away and it was an awesome feeling. Mass Effect (1) just felt like a more expansive, open world that you could play the way you wanted.

Regarding the ending to Mass Effect 3, well that is an topic way to big to cover here, but I will say this. The ending turned me off of the Mass Effect universe. I think it's mostly because it didn't fit Mass Effect, the tone was completely wrong, trying way to hard to make Mass Effect about something it never was about. Mass Effect was a war story, pure and simple from the very first game to the very end of Mass Effect 3. Then something happened. You can almost get a sense of someone coming from outside the development team and wrinting that ending, It just didn't fit. I guess THAT, together with the fact that the third game had less of everything campared to Mass Effect 1 and even compared to Mass Effect 2, I just lost faith in the series. It didn't help that I got Dragon Age Inquisition and it also let me down from the first game, I guess I'm starting to see a pattern with BioWare games, and I don't like what I see.

In the past, a BioWare game was an instant buy for me, now it's starting to dawn on me that BioWare as I knew it during the 90's and early 00' does not exist anymore. THe people who worked there then have left, at least the important people, and those who are left are probably under EA scrutiny. It's a sad thing to see your favorite game dev to that way, now I put my faith elsewhere. Im not saying BioWare is crap now, I'm sure many people love their games. But for me, they have fallen from grace. I will never buy a BioWare game out of trust anymore, I will wait for reviews and then decide.

I know you wanted to know what about the ending turned me off, but explaining that would be like writing an essay in school - too much work. I hope I gave you an idea at least.

"Rockstar Games’ co-founder and former VP of Development Jamie King said he envisions GTA 6 as a game that’s “maybe not quite as edgy or quite as funny” as its satirical predecessors."

oh yeah, totally internet grifters spreading rumors...

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".