Contrasting Games

 I've had Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy sitting in my bought-but-not-played list for a while, so I finally got around to that.

The gameplay is pretty much just okay. Exploration/traversal is a step above simply pressing forward, but there's not much in the way of real exploration. Combat involves a lot of running around and shooting with the rest of the team helping a bit, but mostly giving activatable abilities on cooldown. There just isn't really anything to elevate the gameplay, which is a bit sad.

The story/characters are all great, though. This is not quite the MCU team, which may be a hurdle to overcome, but the charm and interplay is there. These GotG are a group, though still fairly new and still coming to trust one another as a family of sorts. The story builds up to a galactic threat from a very small incident with an unrecognized Soul Stone and the Guardians absolutely fail their way through much of it, but manage to be heroes in the end. The experience of the narrative is one I very much enjoyed.

Now flip that around for another game I'm just getting around to: Gears Tactics. I have not played any of the Gears of War games, so I have no investment in the franchise, but heard the tactical game was pretty good.

And, well, the tactical gameplay is indeed quite good. I'd argue that the four-character squad is a bit limiting, but the bones are solid. The five classes have some reasonably distinct skills. The equipment upgrades/modifiers offer a deeper system than the more typical direct upgrades. Execution moves granting extra action points to other squadmates is a nice touch. If you appreciate tactical games, it will likely be some fun to play. At least to start. What pulls it down a bit in my book is the leveling is pretty slow and the missions (especially the periodically-required "side missions") can get repetitive.

And the story is bland. There are a couple events that might be twists, I suppose, but only one has much effect and that effect is largely to draw things out more. The characters are fine enough given they have no real chance to develop in any way beyond "Okay, I agree with you now." The early glimpse at series characters might be meaningful to long-time players, but I found it pretty forgettable all told.

I also played through the Legendary Edition of the Mass Effect trilogy.

I don't have a lot new to say about that, as they experience is much the same as before, with the exception of the Citadel missions. I never played the Citadel DLC for ME3 and the mission chain there is actually pretty cool and fun and fits the universe... even if it fits kind of poorly under the "every day millions are dying" shadow ME3 throws over everything from the beginning. Taken by themselves, these missions are pretty great and it's nice to see some old squadmates you otherwise only intersect with in the game briefly. To quote Urdnot Wrex (if he survived, at least): "That's why I love hanging out with you guys! Why shoot something once when you can shoot it 46 more times!" Seeing virtually the entire crew in action at once (even if in cut scenes) is great.

I would also have to note that the development is very apparent playing the three games back to back. ME1 is stiff and awkward in comparison. ME2 gets much better to play, with a shift toward mission-based (more than location-based) play. ME3 evolves things further, feeling even better to control.

On the other hand, ME2 has some timing/narrative flow issues and is potentially deceptive in how the first few plot missions are immediately required, but then you're presented with a big one that isn't (Reaper IFF) - and once you do engage in that one, you have a hard timer on getting to the endgame if you want the better endings.

Of course, ME3 has pacing issues as well in throwing the doomsday of the Reaper invasion of Earth at you right out the gate and then saying "go gather forces while the Alliance builds this MacGuffin." Every day matters! And yet, the events of the game probably would realistically take place over the course of months, at least. 

Overall, I would say ME3 feels like it may have been rushed, particular in the narrative department. I think they underwent a few story rewrites, so it wouldn't be surprising at all. It would have been nice if things could have finished on a more graceful note, but the trilogy is still something special and laid some nice, new worldbuilding out there in the science fiction scene.