Line #22 GameplayAndStorySegregation/MassEffect


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4	* A recurring problem in ''Mass Effect'''s in-game cinematics is a bizarre version of this trope; rather than "gameplay vs story segregation" it's "in-engine cutscenes vs everything else segregation." The gameplay is consistent with the novels, cinematic trailers, codex, pre-rendered cutscenes, and spin-off shorts in how it portrays the combat, but this clashes with how everything is shown in the in-engine cutscenes. Mainly, no one in the cutscenes has shields, and their armor [[ArmorIsUseless doesn't do anything]]. The only time Shields ''are'' depicted in a cutscene is during the first game's Bring Down the Sky [=DLC=], where Shepard is fired at but their Shield takes the hit.
5	** This is made worse in the Legendary Edition, which adds the option to keep the game at 60 frames per second. The originals ran at 30. This makes any sequence that intersperses in-engine cutscenes with prerendered ones ''very'' obvious.
6	* The series has had many issues when it comes to [[NoCutsceneInventoryInertia accurately depicting your weapon loadout in cutscenes]]:
7	** In Mass Effect 1, weapons were depicted accurately 100% of the time, but this was possible because there were only two designs of each of the five weapon types, they only had four different palettes each, and they all fired the same. Despite there being a huge amount of weapon types, you only feel like you see three of them, making the comparatively huge amount of designs present in 2 and especially 3 feel like RememberTheNewGuy.
8	** In Mass Effect 2, weapons are always the one Shepard is using... so long as they're holding it. In several cutscenes where Shepard exchanges weapons with a character (such as with Garrus or Zaeed), the weapon will be the one you picked, only to transform into a different weapon in the next shot. Further, the actual actions performed with the weapons will assume they're the default fully-automatic Avenger, which gets awkward with weapons like the Mattock which isn't automatic at all.[[note]]In the Mattock's case there's an "Auto" switch on the side, but of course, this isn't visibly used.[[/note]] More notably, Shepard will frequently use assault rifles even if your class can't specialize in them, and several of your squad members use assault rifles for most group scenes in the Suicide Mission, even if they weren't seen disembarking the Normandy with one or don't have the requisite training.
9	** Because of the above critiques, Mass Effect 3 has Shepard use the default Avenger rifle and Predator pistol almost all the time, at the expense of using what the player gave them. This often results in Shepard running around with an Avenger all of a sudden while the rifle they're ''supposed'' to be using remains on their back. A good example is during the Grissom Academy mission: Shepard fires on a mech while using an Avenger with up to ''five'' weapons stored on their back. The ''Leviathan'' [=DLC=] averts this by accurately showing unique weapons in cutscenes, most notably during the escape from Namakli. As the squad attacks the Reapers at the Leviathan artifact, everyone can be seen utilizing their weapon correctly, regardless of whether it's a beam (like the Particle Rifle) or a standard-issue weapon.
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13	* One early side-mission involves Shepard helping C-Sec with a group of shady weapon merchants to ensure one of their undercover helpers remains safe. As a part of the quest, Shepard is asked to pretend to be the buyer in a back-alley weapons deal, yet the game doesn't stop you from bringing Garrus - a former C-Sec officer[[note]]The mission can be accepted during the initial visit to the Citadel, so at the earliest the deal could take place is mere moments after he leaves C-Sec[[/note]] - to help you. No one involved with C-Sec ever brings up the problems of bringing a recently resigned cop to oversee a shady deal, nor do the crooks even bother to check if the folks they're dealing with are involved with the law.
14	* Saren's appearance throughout the story. He's clearly filled with geth-like cybernetic implants from the very start, yet the council is indifferent about them and outright says they see no links between Saren and the geth. Then at the end of the game, Saren boasts about his new implants, despite his character model having no obvious alterations to it. The only new powers he showcases don't come about until ''after'' he's dead and [[EmptyShell his corpse]] is overtaken by Sovereign, suggesting Saren himself didn't know about those - making one wonder what the "upgrades" he's boasting about actually ''are''. If they're meant to be external they don't exactly show, but if they're meant to be internal he [[ForgotAboutHisPowers doesn't bother using them]] against Shepard.
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18	* Jack, a.k.a. Subject Zero, is supposed to be the most powerful human biotic alive, which is shown in a cutscene where she one-shots three YMIR Heavy Mechs, which are some of the deadliest foes in the game. In gameplay, she's no more powerful than other biotics on the team. This is especially noticeable if you bring her on a mission where you fight three of those mechs; she uses normal combat mechanics rather than curb-stomping them as she does in cutscenes. Additionally, her powers are basically ''useless'' against mechs.
19	* The Quarian fleet only allows Tali, Shepard and one other squadmate[[note]]Standard for a loyalty mission; the squadmate in question must be present[[/note]] to board their flagship. You know, the race known for being the most extreme germophobes in the universe? Shepard has to wear his/her helmet at all times, and most of the squadmates do the same - except for a select few (Jack, Samara, Miranda, Jacob) who can waltz onboard with nothing more than a breathing mask, walk around without anyone commenting and sit in the middle of the crowd during Tali's exile hearing.
20	* The Krogan treat fighting a Thresher Maw on foot like it's a big thing. In the first game, a sufficiently well-grinded character can defeat a dozen of them on foot throughout the game. A somewhat marginal example, since Shepard is acknowledged as possibly the greatest warrior who ever lived by the Krogan.
21	* On a couple of occasions, you and your squad can kill Krogans (the huge, hulking species with redundant organs, extremely thick hides and extreme regeneration abilities) in a matter of 2 seconds with the Shuriken Machine Pistol (does the least amount of damage in the game, and is especially weak against armour, which some Krogans have) in cutscenes. In gameplay, Krogans take a rather long time to take down even with powerful weapons like the Phalanx.
22	* No matter how powerful a biotic you are, no matter how strong all your biotic abilities are shown to be... you are never even ''considered'' for the position of the one who holds the biotic shield at the end of the game. You could have skills comparable to (if not greater than) an ''Asari Justicar'' (which you have in your party, by the way), but you are not even considered for the role. Until ''Mass Effect 3'', all cutscenes showed Shepard as a soldier without using any fancy tricks, like biotic powers or engineering tricks... which most of the character classes you can choose from would have.
23	* Heat sink technology was brought in during the two years between ''1'' and ''2'', based on geth technology salvaged after the final battle, yet the ten-year-old wreck of the ''Hugo Gernsback'' has a plentiful supply of heat sinks [[note]]as well as mechs which didn't exist in the first game, yet are identical to the one's Shep's been fighting, including their ability to use guns with thermal clips[[/note]]. Additionally, Shepard knows what heat sinks are as soon as [=s/he=] wakes up aboard the Cerberus station. Heat sinks are supposedly interchangeable between all geth and Citadel species weapons, yet your ammo supply will be neatly divided into a certain number of rounds per gun, and you can't use, say, a spare heavy pistol heat sink to buff your sniper rifle ammo; once it's assigned to a specific gun, it can't be applied to any other firearm.
24	* The M-920 Cain heavy weapon uses mass effect technology to propel a 25-gram slug to 5 km/s speed, which helps the explosion greatly, as said by the lore. If you use the weapon in the game, the slug travels very slowly. It's surprising [[ArtisticLicensePhysics the slug doesn't fall]] to the ground after a while, luckily the weapon's power is not affected.
25	* The planet Ker is described as being unpopular for mining due to its crust being "largely free of precious metals." Scanning it, however, reveals that the game classifies it as a Rich world with plentiful resources.
26	* The Husks encountered in Mass Effect 2 are referred to as being "more advanced... evolved" than the ones encountered in Mass Effect 1... but the first game's Husks had built-in shielding and an EMP attack, whereas the sequel's Husks are unshielded pure melee combatants that die instantly if you shoot them in the legs.
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30	* While chasing Dr Eva on Mars, it is impossible to damage her with conventional weapons, as she will NoSell the hits and continue running without losing a step. However, once she critically injures the Virmire Survivor, she is suddenly susceptible to conventional arms fire, requiring the player to shoot her several times to shut her down. (As an aside, while playing the game on NewGamePlus mode, which has been pointed out by the Mass Effect Wiki, trying to shoot her with certain weapons like the Executioner Pistol, Acolyte or Scorpion will not cause enough damage before [[NonStandardGameOver she kills Shepard]], despite being more powerful than the starting pistol.)
31	* The player can listen to the problems of various people onboard the Citadel, and do assorted sidequests for them, which will reward you with resources and increased combat readiness values. The problem is that the effects are immediate, so the dialogue can get a bit weird. When you recover a fossil of a Krogan war mount that has been extinct for 2000 years and talk to the guy who wants it that you've got one in your cargo bay, he thanks you for your trouble, and then a few seconds later, you overhear him saying they've cloned the things and the Krogan are currently riding them into battle.
32	* During the Citadel Coup, if Kaidan is your Virmire Survivor and you're forced to kill them, they die to a single shot (either a pistol by Shepard or an assault rifle by a squad mate), even though Kaidan is wearing armour. Ashley at least is wearing her blue leather getup, but that still leaves the Shields thing mentioned earlier.
33	* During the final confrontation with [[spoiler:Kai Leng at the Cerberus Base, it's possible to blow him into nice, meaty chunks using an incredibly powerful rifle (the Black Widow is good for this)]]. Even though he's supposedly been blown apart, he magically appears alive and well in the following cutscene when he struggles to stand up.
34	* Shepard will always end up holding an unmodded Carnifex pistol after [[spoiler:Harbinger destroys the team running towards the Conduit]], even if you never bothered to equip them with one, or if you had a modded Carnifex. This can at least be explained by Shepard losing theirs in the attack (it happens to all their other guns, after all), but Shepard is never explicitly seen picking it up.
35	** During that same segment, Shepard will also wear a destroyed version of the standard N7 armour... only players likely switched most if not all of the armour out long before, on top of adding patterns and colours.
36	* Allies can be killed by insta-kill moves by certain enemies like the Brute, Banshee, Atlas and Phantom. These insta-kill moves are pretty brutal and the fact that in the multiplayer segment, they prevent you from being revived by medi-gel or teammates coming to your aid. These moves range from being picked up by a hulking mech and being crushed to having large, razor-sharp claws thrust through your chest. This won't stop your squad from simply standing back up as soon as the fighting has stopped and walking around as if nothing happened.
37	* Despite [[EncyclopediaExposita the Codex]] treating space battles relatively realistically, every space battle depicted in cutscenes is the StandardStarshipScuffle. Not too noticeable in the first two games, but it goes all out in the third, with ships always [[SeeTheWhitesOfTheirEyes engaging in visual ranges]] (even dreadnoughts, who are established that if they're engaging at anything less than several thousand kilometres something has gone seriously wrong), no-one uses [[EnergyWeapon GARDIAN lasers]] to defend themselves against fighter craft despite them being on every vessel, fighters themselves always go OldSchoolDogfighting even though they're armed with missiles, and although Thanix cannons are supposed to be everywhere no ship is shown using them.
38	* In 2, you face [[MightyGlacier YMIR mechs]], which can be turned to your side with the AI Hacking power. In 3, you fight Atlas mechs, which are effectively [=YMIRs=] with a human pilot. The Overload and AI Hacking powers were combined into one called Sabotage... which still turns the Atlas and its human pilot against its allies (though this could be justified in that you are hacking into the controls, with the human pilot doing what he can to override your hacking.) The Leviathan DLC introduces Triton ADS, an "old military mech" used for diving found in a crashed freighter that's just a reskinned Atlas, even though those are supposed to be a new, top-of-the-line Cerberus development. (The Codex doesn't explicitly say they're entirely new, but if the Triton is so ubiquitous that a random freighter could have one, one wonders where they were in prior works.)
39	* After completing the mission on Sur'Kesh, the turian and krogan leaders will both say they have an important mission for Shepard, but that they will not discuss it with the other person still in the room. Once the cutscene ends you can walk up to each of them in the War Room and get the details, even though they are both still standing only a few feet from one another.
40	* The War Asset system has this in spades, due to its sometimes bizarre way of attributing EMS (Effective Military Strength) to said assets, and/or having flavor text that doesn't jive with the value of the asset. For example, a single Squad Mate from the second game may have a higher EMS than a starfighter squadron. The ''VideoGame/ExpandedGalaxyMod'' rebalances these values to be more realistic.
41	** Admiral Mikhailovich (from the first game) will only appear as a War Asset if you let the Council die in the original game. This is although Mikhailovich was already a significant character then (acting as a Rear Admiral leading an entire fleet), and there is nothing to indicate that he died between games if the choice was made to save the Council.
42	** The Salarian Special Tasks Group War Asset is only added ''if'' Major Kirrahe is dead, which makes little sense considering how loyal both Kirrahe and STG are to Shepard's cause. Even worse, the disconnect is likely a developer oversight, as the official guide states that the player should receive the STG asset if Kirrahe is alive.
43	** Repeatedly promoting multiplayer characters into the single-player campaign can result in an N7 Spec Ops war asset that amounts to an intergalactic superpower greater than all other assets combined. That doesn't make much sense in the context of the campaign.
44	* The M-7 Lancer, found in a vault during the ''Citadel'' DLC, is described as being a rare and valuable weapon despite its "endless heat sink" tech going out of circulation only three years before the events of said DLC. Ostensibly the rare part is that and the fact that it's chrome-plated, or it's a tip of the hat to players who ''really'' missed the ammo mechanics of the first game.
45	** This disconnect extends to the Prothean Particle Rifle, a DLC weapon that can be found absurdly early in the game (right after Mars if the player visits Eden Prime first), has the same kind of "endless heat sink" technology, and can be replicated for use for Shepard's squadmates. One wonders why, if Shepard and subsequently the Alliance had access to this technology, no one bothered to replicate any more for use by Alliance Marines or anyone else who may be stuck in extended engagements and needs the consistent firepower.
46	* While every Mass Effect game suffers from [[TakeYourTime allowing the player to spend as much time as they want doing side-quests despite the urgency of the story]][[note]]Like stopping Saren in the first game or rescuing the colonists in the seciond[[/note]], ''Mass Effect 3'' highlights this by emphasizing the Reaper War. It permeates every facet of the story, and much is made about the urgency of Shepard forging alliances and finding a way to stop the Reapers while they annihilate millions of people every hour, but you wouldn't know it when you kip back to the Citadel for a bit of shopping and hanging out with your crew. Perhaps most famous for this is the Citadel [=DLC=], where Shepard and co. spend a lot of time on shore leave and have comedic adventures and meet-ups that are almost entirely ignorant of the rest of the game.
47	* It's never entirely clear how the fleets of the Milky Way can avoid detection by the Reapers for the entirety of the game's story. The ''Normandy'' -- a state-of-the-art stealth ship with an integrated Reaper IFF can travel silently in systems occupied by Reaper forces only if they never send out a sensor ping in Reaper-occupied systems. The second they do, "Reaper Alertness" becomes an issue and Shepard needs to get out ASAP. How Admiral Hackett managed to coordinate the Crucible construction project undetected, while also keeping allied fleets and personnel safe, with none of the unique assets at Shepard's disposal, is never elaborated. They are certainly not running silent, as Shepard and Hackett have a direct line to each other, and Crucible research personnel routinely send emails. Relatedly, starship fuel is scarce as the Reapers systematically have destroyed fueling stations in all but a couple of star clusters, but the Alliance and Hierarchy can somehow keep their fleets operating without any observable infrastructure.
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Context GameplayAndStorySegregation / MassEffect