Mass Effect 3

[Gorgon]

Funny how these things go. The same people would likely be all *rrwarrr* at some hot lesbian action.

[Gorth]

There's already a hermaphrodite. It's made explicit (hoho) that Asari can be both male or female depending on the circumstance, hence Liara (ME1 romance option) is a hermaphrodite.

I thought she was there to please the pedophiles? Wasn't she in her own words considered a child amongst her people?

 

So, anybody played the game (legitimately) yet? Curious minds wants to hear first hand impressions.

[MrBrown]

So, anybody played the game (legitimately) yet? Curious minds wants to hear first hand impressions.

 

Yes, but the posts got lost behind all these posts about transvestite trolls or something.

 

 

1st impression for now is, it's game mechanically better than 2.

[Raithe]

It's never stated that Asari can be male or female. They're always female.

 

Isn't it more that Asari don't actually have a "sex" per se. They are a mono-gender/neuter race that just happens to look feminine, but they don't actually use any sexual techniques as we know it. They are considered to have "maternal" instincts tho, so they tend to associate with being considered female in general. Biologically, they "attune" their nervous systems to that of whoever they want to have a kid with. They don't take/give genetic material back and forth like male/female sexes do, but the asari dna is altered in mimicry of the parents map.. (its some really weird sci-fi biology).

 

An asari child is purely Asari, they have no genetics from their non-asari parent. But something in the way they think is from both parents. Or something weird along those lines.

 

In purely writers terms.. The Asari are meant to represent the collective "green skinned hot alien chick" from Star Trek/Star Wars and the mystical long-lived elves from most fantasy..

[Drowsy Emperor]

A clarification. Users on metacritic are saying the game is crap for various reasons but no one (in about 30 scanned through reviews) is mentioning the gay romances.

 

Articles citing gay romance as the reasons for the game's low score are more or less completely false.

 

In fact, if the game is as bad as they're saying its just an excuse.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Tale]

They are a mono-gender/neuter race that just happens to look feminine, but they don't actually use any sexual techniques as we know it.

They have female primary and secondary characteristics. They describe themselves as monogender, which means one gender. They identify as female, use female titles (matriarch), and pronouns.

 

That they assign genes differently is academic. And for all we know, they had male Asari once, but it got bred out due to being unnecessary. That would certainly explain some things.

[HoonDing]

Biologically, they "attune" their nervous systems to that of whoever they want to have a kid with. They don't take/give genetic material back and forth like male/female sexes do, but the asari dna is altered in mimicry of the parents map.. (its some really weird sci-fi biology).

If they don't take genetic material from the "father", how are they even able to become pregnant? They create an embryo out of nowhere? Auto-fertilization?

 

EDIT: aha, according to the wiki they use parthenogenesis. Doesn't really make sense for a clearly mammal lifeform, but whatever.

Edited March 6, 2012 by virumor

[Zoraptor]

It's never stated that Asari can be male or female. They're always female.

'Pure' Asari have Asari as both parents, that is mentioned multiple times. Thus they're probably something like snails on the sex front when it comes to homospecial relationships as opposed to the more sexually conventional (to our homocentric worldview, at least) heterospecial relationships.

 

Technically, I should probably look up whether there is a term distinct from hermaphrodite to describe that sort of behaviour but since it's a sci-fi only situation and real world hermaphroditics like snails don't actually boff beetles in reality there almost certainly isn't without resorting to a made up term like paragyny.

 

{additional, since I actually went looking to see if something like heterogyny existed as a term}

 

They speak english. Of course they'll refer to themselves as female there, as that is what they resemble and every human who sees them will use the female pronoun and descrriptors. Just more homocentrism.

 

They clearly reproduce sexually- it is also mentioned that traits of the father are picked up in heterospecial relationships and they clearly are not clones- Liara and Benezia, Samara and Morinth are not identical.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Zoraptor

[HoonDing]

It'll have to attributed to "space magic" considering their reproduction is driven by their mind melting/"embrace eternity" bs. Asari are basically Twileks and Vulcans merged together.

 

It's hard to believe a mammal lifeform would ever evolve to monogenderism.

[Raithe]

It's hard to believe a mammal lifeform would ever evolve to monogenderism.

 

Has anyone actually stated that Asari are actually mammalian?

 

They're blue skinned, monogender aliens who mystically/telepathically attune nervous systems to scan your dna, then shift their own genes in a weird map to copy traits, whilst still keeping purely Asari dna, looks and biology....

 

And is it odd how focused this conversation is on sci-fi biology?.....

[Giantevilhead]

The power of Tiberium has delivered humanity from destruction.

[Gorgon]

So, anybody played the game (legitimately) yet? Curious minds wants to hear first hand impressions.

 

Yes, but the posts got lost behind all these posts about transvestite trolls or something.

 

 

1st impression for now is, it's game mechanically better than 2.

The everything button sucks. Either you do a roll when you are trying to open a door or whatever, or you force yourself to play the game slower. There are arrows on the screen to indicate what direction you will roll if you press the everything button while in cover. This really shouldn't be necessary, in fact i'd say it's a strong clue that something is really borked.

 

I don't understand it at all. Controllers have a bazillion buttons, loads of combinations are possible. So why the unicycle approach to getting around.

 

Haven't played the game propper, maybe you get used to it, but I kinda doubt it.

[Hurlshort]

You get used to it.

 

I'm not sure how anyone can complain about this game, at least any more than with the previous 2. It is more of the same and that is great for me.

 

I'm loving the conversations you walk up on, and the fact you can intercede in a few of them. It doesn't consume a lot of time, but it's a nice touch.

[Tale]

Really am loving it. I stand by my previous assessment of combat. Still too easy with the enemies lacking protections. But it's still fun. Love the new weapons and how they have such variety, love the weapon mods, love the weight system. I carry around a sticky grenade launching pistol. My squadmate has a cover piercing sniper rifle. My other squadmate has a rifle that uses ME1's overheat system and ramps up damage the longer it's fired. Am intimidated by the number of weapons I can find and then upgrade.

[Calax]

I like it but I don't at the same time. It feels like they tried to spread the story out to much... at least with side missions. Basically there's two types of side missions... ones you get when you waltz into an area and hear somebody griping into their phone about "We need XXXX or we won't survive!" and it pops up in your log to get XXXX. Usually that item is on a map for a mission that only pops up with a more regular "Walk up to npc and have him send you to get something" quests.

 

Thing is, I've missed just about every single one thus far. I mean, it's getting to the point where I'm gonna start going over the walls with a fine tooth comb... or it would if they didn't just have a part of the Citadel marked "Side Quests R US!" that contained something for a good half of the sidequests you can get, and other little bonuses... and a store that'll

sell you the sidequest item if you don't pick it up in the right mission

.

 

The Main story is... confusing. Not in the actual story story is, but the whole "War resources" bit is... you're getting war assets and so on, and you can check a little graph that says "You need this much to beat the game!" But overall it's almost unexplained and unintelligable.They're throwing all sorts of numbers at you, but I have no idea what they mean.... why is everything at 50% organization? How can I make this go up? How does it go down? WHY HASN'T IT VARIED!?

 

I have no idea how far I am overall... I kinda broke thigns by going a bit out of sequence (I went ot a side quest planet that had SCREWBALL numbers of Cerberus and mechs.... before they were introduced) and so having an entire cutscene devoted to a Cerberus Mech dropping from the sky, or engineers popping up turrets seemed out of place after I'd killed 30 of the things.

 

By the way, Cerberus Engineers need to have their designer put in a furnace and light on fire. They're able to spawn constant turrets (that can smash you right quick) on an ok cooldown and in larger firefights this means you'll end up with 3 or 4 of the things blazing away at you if you don't take them down in short order.

 

Last note... why do I feel like Cerberus has taken a page from Armacham Technology Corporation and decided to go screwball comedy evil? I mean compare their ME two version to this one... in 2 they were extreme, but ultimately trying to do good, and the reason they had terrible reputation is that their extreme adventures bordered on unethical. And now they're just flat out unethical, to the point of actively sabatoging anyone who's also trying to save humanity. It's just... wierd.

[Maria Caliban]

I'm not sure ME's writers could handle a transgender character. They still can't agree whether asari are women or female, or what mono-gendered means.

 

"They're throwing all sorts of numbers at you, but I have no idea what they mean.... why is everything at 50% organization? How can I make this go up? How does it go down? WHY HASN'T IT VARIED!?"

 

The graph is of Effective Military Strength. Every time you get a War Asset, it's multiplied by your Galactic Readiness, which starts at 50%. So, if you do a mission worth 100 War Asset while your Galactic Readiness is at 50%, you'll gain 50 Effective Military Strength. Galactic Readiness increases via playing the multiplayer game, but you don't need to do that to get the best level of Effective Military Strength.

 

For example, if you have 100% Galactic Readiness because you love that MP, you only need to gather half as many War Assets as someone who never touched the MP game. If you're not interested in MP at all, you'll have to do more regular missions/side-quests to get the best EMS. You won't have to do *everything* but you'll have to do a great deal.

 

While I'm at it, you should know that some side quests and even main quests can be failed if you don't do them soon enough. It's not that they're on a timer, but if you choose to do other quests first, the NPCs you need to rescue can die or the base you need to rescue can be over run.

 

Also, some quests are given to you when you pass by the NPCs as they're having conversations. And the journal entries can be vague or incomplete. You may want to jot down notes.

 

By the way, Cerberus Engineers need to have their designer put in a furnace and light on fire. They're able to spawn constant turrets (that can smash you right quick) on an ok cooldown and in larger firefights this means you'll end up with 3 or 4 of the things blazing away at you if you don't take them down in short order.

I learned this during MP. I rather like it.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Maria Caliban

[Calax]

While I'm at it, you should know that some side quests and even main quests can be failed if you don't do them soon enough. It's not that they're on a timer, but if you choose to do other quests first, the NPCs you need to rescue can die or the base you need to rescue can be over run.

 

Also, some quests are given to you when you pass by the NPCs as they're having conversations. And the journal entries can be vague or incomplete. You may want to jot down notes.

No kidding... I'm trying to figure out the Hanar quest on Citadel and have gotten to a certain point and can go no further...

 

That said, I kinda figured that the "Side quests can be time sensative" was in effect. Thus why I did the school sidequest before doing the "Diplomatic Summit" main quest.

By the way, Cerberus Engineers need to have their designer put in a furnace and light on fire. They're able to spawn constant turrets (that can smash you right quick) on an ok cooldown and in larger firefights this means you'll end up with 3 or 4 of the things blazing away at you if you don't take them down in short order.

I learned this during MP. I rather like it.

During MP it's meh. Most of the time you and your partners can knock out the Engineers and turrets fast enough they aren't an issue. But in SINGLE, you're sitting here with a turret blasting at you, the engineer is making a second one, your allies seem to be shooting butterflies, and an Atlas is trying to turn your face into shrapnel. It doesn't turn out well (the school pissed me right off with spawning three engines, two shield Cerberus, a few centurions and having an atlas doing sniping from the other side of the place)

[HoonDing]

The graph is of Effective Military Strength. Every time you get a War Asset, it's multiplied by your Galactic Readiness, which starts at 50%. So, if you do a mission worth 100 War Asset while your Galactic Readiness is at 50%, you'll gain 50 Effective Military Strength. Galactic Readiness increases via playing the multiplayer game, but you don't need to do that to get the best level of Effective Military Strength.

 

For example, if you have 100% Galactic Readiness because you love that MP, you only need to gather half as many War Assets as someone who never touched the MP game. If you're not interested in MP at all, you'll have to do more regular missions/side-quests to get the best EMS. You won't have to do *everything* but you'll have to do a great deal.

I thought MP wasn't going to affect SP in any way? Hopefully there'll be a mod or trainer to set whatever is affected by MP to 100%.

[Majek]

edit: i'm sure there will be.

Edited March 7, 2012 by Majek

[MrBrown]

I'm pretty sure enemy engineers can't place a another turret before the current one gets destroyed.

 

Agree about the quest logging. Too often I just end up having to trump through all areas until I find the thing I'm looking for. This is especially annoying for quests that basically say "go to planet X!", but don't even tell what system it's in...

 

For the Hanar quest, you need to check the terminals in the embassies, presidium commons and docking bay loading area, then head back to the embassies.

Edited March 7, 2012 by MrBrown

[Tale]

 

I thought MP wasn't going to affect SP in any way? Hopefully there'll be a mod or trainer to set whatever is affected by MP to 100%.

No. MP does affect SP. But you're supposed to be able to get the best ending without MP. Which is at 4000 EMS and a condition.

[Malcador]

Amazing the drama over the stock photo use (twice) in the game. Anyway, I'd like that trainer to just give me whatever statistic MP would give me and save me some grinding effort. Anyone playing an Infiltrator ?

[Orogun01]

There's already a hermaphrodite. It's made explicit (hoho) that Asari can be both male or female depending on the circumstance, hence Liara (ME1 romance option) is a hermaphrodite.

I thought she was there to please the pedophiles? Wasn't she in her own words considered a child amongst her people?

 

So, anybody played the game (legitimately) yet? Curious minds wants to hear first hand impressions.

I thought the Asari were a scale to measure perversion; the more stuff you see in them the more perverted you are.

[greylord]

While I'm at it, you should know that some side quests and even main quests can be failed if you don't do them soon enough. It's not that they're on a timer, but if you choose to do other quests first, the NPCs you need to rescue can die or the base you need to rescue can be over run.

 

Also, some quests are given to you when you pass by the NPCs as they're having conversations. And the journal entries can be vague or incomplete. You may want to jot down notes.

No kidding... I'm trying to figure out the Hanar quest on Citadel and have gotten to a certain point and can go no further...

 

That said, I kinda figured that the "Side quests can be time sensative" was in effect. Thus why I did the school sidequest before doing the "Diplomatic Summit" main quest.

By the way, Cerberus Engineers need to have their designer put in a furnace and light on fire. They're able to spawn constant turrets (that can smash you right quick) on an ok cooldown and in larger firefights this means you'll end up with 3 or 4 of the things blazing away at you if you don't take them down in short order.

I learned this during MP. I rather like it.

During MP it's meh. Most of the time you and your partners can knock out the Engineers and turrets fast enough they aren't an issue. But in SINGLE, you're sitting here with a turret blasting at you, the engineer is making a second one, your allies seem to be shooting butterflies, and an Atlas is trying to turn your face into shrapnel. It doesn't turn out well (the school pissed me right off with spawning three engines, two shield Cerberus, a few centurions and having an atlas doing sniping from the other side of the place)

 

 

 

 

For the Hanar quest, you will find one of the Nav terminals on the Embassy level next to the business suite (5). The next two are found in the Presidium Docks (If I remember correctly where I found them). One is on the left as you enter the docks, the other is at the far end of the docks past everything else. Don't be fooled by the ones in between as they don't seem to do anything. After that...you have to go BACK to one of the previous nav terminals (I went back to the one that I hit upon entering the docking area on the left side) and hit that one. After you do that you then meet back up with the Salarian spectre outside the original business suites...and watch what happens.

 

 

 

[greylord]

Amazing the drama over the stock photo use (twice) in the game. Anyway, I'd like that trainer to just give me whatever statistic MP would give me and save me some grinding effort. Anyone playing an Infiltrator ?

 

I am. Several sections are in the game where you can use your stealth to sneak through and/or decrease the number of enemies, so that's useful.

 

I'm also loving my sniper rifle...I'm the mail slot king!

Edited March 7, 2012 by greylord