GhostofAnakin

Finally finished Dead Space 3. The final couple of chapters were boring, IMO. Everything was "solved" by that point, and so it was just a slog through enemies in order to set up the final encounter. Then again, that's how I feel about most games' final couple of hours. All the interesting stuff is pretty much done (learning about the story, dealing with any plot twists, etc.) and now all there is is one or two more waves of enemies thrown at you until you face the final boss fight.

This past little session of playing Dead Space 3 emphasized why I HATE these stupid games with autosave functions and no manual save at any point. I'd started a mission, knowing I had 15 minutes before I had to go. No problem, I thought. Surely there'd be an opportunity sometime within the next 15 minutes to save and exit. But nope, the mission just kept going and going with no autosave icon appearing. So here I am, 15 minutes later and still my game hasn't saved, and I'm stuck between exiting (it will save, but all the way back to the last autosave, which was well before I started the mission) or playing on until I finally get an autosave. So I play on for another 10 minutes, FINISH the mission, and I STILL don't get an autosave. Frankly, it's ridiculous. Games nowadays should allow for saving at any point. None of this autosave at certain points BS, where if you quit you'll have to redo all that stuff after the last autosave.

Getting kind of bored with Dead Space 3. At first the story was kind of cool, and the mission associated with it (ie. searching through various derelict space ships for folks) were fun. Now it just feels like random fetch quests with shooter bits for no purpose other than to prolong the game.

I've actually found a lot of times the purple guns I've picked up are better than the orange ones. I remember finding an orange one and thinking, "Yes! I'm gonna kick butt now", and then end up selling it a bit later when I got a purple gun of the same level that was so much better. Maybe I just have bad luck.

I'm liking Dead Space 3's shooting more now that I have my carbine/shotgun combination. Carbine's good for long range, and shotgun is deadly when they get in too close to me.

Finally started Dead Space 3. Some early thoughts: -The shooting is a bit awkward. The aiming is ... stiff. It's almost Resident Evil-esque, in that it seems to take a while to aim, move the sights over the target, and fire. It's especially annoying when more than one enemy is attacking you. -The tutorial is weak. A couple of the powers don't have any real explanation for them, and even when you go into inventory, the descriptions of the various items is lacking, IMO. -On the plus side, the setting is pretty cool and the story, so far, is interesting.

I don't know if it's just a run of back luck or what, but it seems 2 out of every 3 lobbies I try to join has the host simply just sitting there. Even after sitting there for 2 or 3 minutes, they won't click 'ready'. Worse, there's usually another person in the lobby also doing that. It literally takes me ten minutes to find an actual match because I keep being put in lobbies with folks that are off taking a dump or something.

You mean like introducing Emma Stone's character, then seemingly dropping her and never hearing from her again after your date? :D

Didn't an article say the last MP DLC was going to include Co-op missions, like the Spartan Ops ones from Halo 4? Or am I hallucinating again? ME3's MP needed more game modes.

I've noticed over the last few days a lot of lag. I assumed it was because they kept throwing me in lobbies with people across the globe from me. I've also noticed a lot of connection issues lately. Last night it took me like ten minutes just to find a game. Between getting disconnected, to the annoying idiots who sit in lobbies for unknown reasons for a couple of minutes, it took forever.

No QTEs? That's it, I'm not buying this game! Just kidding.

Speaking of my "luck" when it comes to the Reserve Packs, been playing quite a bit over the last few days and saved up quite a bit of credits. I got the new Krogan dude for free as a "gift" that they're giving to everyone, then in the first reserve pack I got the new Collector dude, and in the second reserve pack I finally got the N7 Demolisher. Three new characters in one shopping spree, and I didn't have to pay anything for them. :D

Slight correction on my part -- I still haven't unlocked the N7 Demolisher? (whichever one is the infiltrator class) and one of the Batarian ones, aside from the new characters. Also, when I say I've played sparingly, I mean there's months between playing, but when I do play I play pretty hardcore. For instance, since I finished off Far Cry 3 in early January, I've played ME3 quite a bit over that time, and have unlocked the bulk of my characters during that time. Maybe I've just been lucky? I remember I went through one string where I had enough credits to buy two packs of the one where you have a greater chance to get characters (forget what it's called), and both times it unlocked 2 characters, giving me 4 characters in total I didn't have before. I guess that's the problem with this system. It does seem to be about luck. I know a friend who plays the MP a lot more than I do, yet he's complained to me about the fact that I've got more characters unlocked than him because he keeps getting characters he already has (thus only gets the XP bonus plus the appearances unlocked for them).

I don't doubt it's popular. And really, I don't blame EA/Bio for implementing it. If people want to give them free money for stuff they could unlock with just a bit of time and patience, more power to them. It's just not something I would ever do. Only stuff I'd pay money for are things that I can't access without paying for, like the SP DLC. I understand that, but it's not like you can't eventually unlock those characters/weapons eventually. And it's not like it takes forever. I've only played sparingly since release, but I've unlocked every character except the new ones just released the other day by playing matches and earning credits to get those packs. It's cost me absolutely zero actual money, and I've got access to everything that those who spend money have. So if someone like me, who hasn't played it continuously since launch, can unlock these extras rather easily, surely those who've been playing it non-stop will have unlocked them within a month or two of playing? Maybe I'm just frugal. But I never understood paying for stuff like that if you could get the same content for free with just a bit of patience. It's not like the single player DLC, where the only way you can access it is by paying for it.

On a slightly related note, I don't understand why anyone would use real money to buy those MP packs for Mass Effect 3. Even on the lowest challenge (Bronze), you usually get around 15000 to 17000 credits per match. All it takes is playing a half dozen or so matches to earn enough credits to "buy" the best packs. So why would anyone actually spend actual money on those packs?

Space magic?

Sounds like it's content that expands the citadel that can be played anytime after the Citadel coup attempt and before the run-up to end game. Thanks. Though there's going to be more rage on the Bio boards once people realize it isn't set after the ending (ie. no post-ending Shepard reunion mission) like a lot seem to be hoping for.

Alan, I'm confused about this upcoming DLC. The write-up also makes it unclear when it's set in terms of the story. Please clarify for those of us who don't speak Priestley.

Been so busy lately. I still haven't had a chance to sit down and play Dead Space 3 yet. I'll probably find some time tonight to give it a run.

Alan doesn't like playing as a female character. He just likes dressing his male character up in female armor.

I can sort of see why that would be the case, especially in a RPG where you sort of adopt the role and personality of the PC, especially when controlling how a line of dialogue goes. For me, I stick with male characters when the option is there, mainly because it feels more natural when interacting with NPCs. It's different in a game like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil, because you're not selecting how the character acts toward folks.

If it's a female gamer, perhaps. I think one of the aspects of the Witcher series that turns some off is the protagonist is always Geralt, a male character. If you look at the Bio boards, in particular, there's this almost obsession with wanting to be every possible species in existence. Even the new Mass Effect game, you've got threads dedicated to being able to play as anything other than human. As for the Witcher 3, I'm super excited about it but, I'm not following much of the development closely because it's too far away from release and I simply would rather leave it out of sight, out of mind, rather than get all pumped for a game that's still a year or so away. It's one of the reasons, now that the initial excitement has worn off, I don't post much in the PE sub-forum. Come March or April of next year, that will change.

Very few things make me laugh as much as seeing someone who is arrogant get knocked down a few notches in a game "Pride comes before a fall" It was rather amusing. He'd stand in front of a brute and 2 ravagers, firing his pistol at them. Then when he'd go down and none of us came running to save him, he'd start screaming into his mic, "nice teamwork, guys. Thanks for just letting me die". Dude, if anyone tried to revive him at that point, the entire team would be dead and mission would fail. You deserve to be left to bleed out if you're dumb enough to get killed with an entire mob of enemies roasting marshmallows around your corpse.

I'm a little "meh" on the timeline between Ep. III and Ep. IV. There's already way too much stuff going on during that time, plus the fact it severely limits the lore Obsidian can come up with since so much of the actual movie lore will have to be observed. That was one of the things I liked most about the KOTOR series. It was set during a period where, at that time, only old comics had ventured. So other than offending the comic book fans, BioWare/Obsidian had a lot more leeway about what the story could be about during that time period.

Funniest thing I've experienced in recent memory: I was playing another round of ME3 MP today, joined a lobby with some dude who announces to the rest of us that he's "gonna switch to Silver challenge, so if anyone can't hang with the good players, leave now". No one leaves and the game begins. First wave we come across, he gets killed and needs to be revived. Second wave, he gets killed and needs to be revived. I think he got killed 8 out of the 10 waves, the only one in the entire lobby he managed that feat. After the game finished, one of the other players in the lobby says, "you might want to stick with Bronze challenge".