My ME Rankings (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, January 30, 2017, 17:34 (2855 days ago) @ Robot Chickens

ME1:
Best overarching story
Worst gameplay
Worst character stories
Resource gathering was not required.

ME2:
Best character stories
2nd best gameplay
2nd best overarching story
Most abusive resource-gathering system

ME3:
Best gameplay
2nd best character stories
Worst overarching story
Second most abusive resource-gathering system

Are there other categories I should rank? Feel free to quibble with me.

I pretty much agree with all of that. At the time, I didn't mind the resource gathering in ME2... there was something kind of "zen" about it (plus I loved the music). Not sure I'd have the patience for it now, but I found it strangely soothing at the time :)

The only other thing I would say about ME2 in particular is that it is one of the best examples of a game where the story & character development mesh together with the mechanical gameplay experience to create something larger than the sum of its parts. The way you spend the entire game tracking down crew members, building relationships with them, fighting along side them, and then you push into the final suicide mission with the weight of responsibility on your shoulders. The last ~2 hours were especially powerful for me. The combat was so intense, and the stakes felt so high on a personal level. I worried about each decision I made along the way (which crew members to assign to each task), which made me fight that much harder, which made me more nervous for my crew because the combat was so stressful... It's a perfect feedback loop between gameplay and narrative that very few games come close to achieving.

Mass Effect 3 also did this to a degree, but not quite to the same level of perfection. Halo 1-3 had moments or segments that hit a similar nerve for me, but never sustained that feeling the whole way through like ME2 did for me. The only game I've played that matches it in that regard, IMO, is The Last of Us.