Mass Effect 3

[Calax]

It took me 17 hours and I finally got my favorite character back.

 

Legion, how I've missed you.

 

That said, Personally, I'd have to rate the writing for ME2 over this. It's hard to explain, but I think they were trying to do wayyy to much in here (think about the options, major plot points, that sort of stuff... if you didn't have characters surviving the different fights). ME2 was probably the best writing thus far, because they managed to work in "You played the previous game! WINK WINK!" without having to write three other storylines to deal with what'd happen if those two characters were dead.

 

I will say, however, Tali and Garrus have GREAT lines going after each other

 

Garrus: "Oh yes... against a geth dreadnaught you drone would just sit there... floating... making that... noise."

[Bokishi]

Just got my free copy of battlefield 3 after preordering me3 on origin. I thought for sure it wouldn't happen after ea prematurely pulled the deal

[HoonDing]

The Prothean is a surprisingly cool character and his gun is pretty nice as well.

 

But the game is missing a manual. I have no clue about what war assets and galactic readiness are, or how many I need.

[Azure79]

Just finished the game on Hardcore with Vanguard.

 

Pros:

 

Good integration of all the previous party characters into the story. Choices in previous games do seem to have some impact as you play the game. Most previous party members in my game had satisfactory conclusions.

 

Basic gameplay is really fun. I almost didn't use a gun. I just biotic charged and one shot killed everyone with heavy melee attacks, which recharged my biotic abilities faster which helped me charge more. There are many fun and viable ways to play this game with each character class. I felt like it was almost a 3rd person brawler with the Vanguard class.

 

Increased customization elements in modifying your weapons and armor. I can easily imagine playing Vanguard focused on pure weapon damage or biotic damage instead of melee damage by customizing weapon and armor.

 

Your choices in-game can lead to vastly different outcomes in the specific level you are playing.

 

Good variety of enemies and some excellent set piece battles.

 

Personally I loved the music and general artistic backdrop of each planet you visit. Also a small touch, but I like how many missions start with the door to the shuttle bay opening and you jumping out as enemies take shots at you. Very exciting.

 

Cons:

 

Pretty much the ending. Too much stuff all at once without any explanation. The entity at the end uses weird circular logic that doesn't make any sense and basically the player can't challenge it. More questions than answers. No satisfactory epilogue. Though I am interested in which direction they will take subsequent games in the MEverse, considering the state the galaxy is in at the end.

 

Kai Leng. His entire character seemed out of place. He seemed almost silly, talking like he was incredibly lethal while his main weapons were a sword and throwing stars(?). Does he not know that those will be pretty ineffective against a space marine in heavy armor with shields, wielding a lethal arsenal of modern weaponry?

 

Overall:

 

Awesome game and well worth the money.

[greylord]

Okay, played and beat the game. Took me 38 hours to do EVERYTHING. If you do everything, you probably won't get a score of 4000. I had a score of around 7000 without multiplayer...and that's with every quest done and completed...at least that I know of and found. I suppose if there are some mysterious "perfect" choices to make, then perhaps you might be able to get 1000 more (hmm, not certain how that could be though).

 

Basically, to get over that 50% galactic readiness which reduces your effective readiness/war assets to half of what you get (hence I had around 3500 effective readiness) you HAVE to play multiplayer. Not so fond of that.

 

 

 

There is MORE than 3 endings...and there is an ending where it hints that Shep MAY have survived...

 

 

 

 

I'm NOT fond of that. I actually enjoyed ME2 more than ME3...though I suppose all the ME1 fanbois will be pleased with ME3. ME2 seemed a little more heroic and a little more fun. Also, except for the music which they stole and reused from ME1 (which still has the best music of the series) ME3 probably had some of the worst music...which is ironic. It's main theme tries to make you feel sad...but to tell the truth I was so sick of that theme by the endings that I was more disgusted when listening to it than anything else. It doesn't have the durability for my ears as the ME1 main intro screen them or the ME1 main theme...or even the ME2 main themes.

 

ME3 seems to make you feel less of a hero than the other two. That's what I think is missing from ME3 is that "I feel like a hero" factor. Other than that it's a great game. More in depth with characters...though in their attempt to gather everyone from both prior games in some way...they spread them out even further than originally (now you have to go hunting them over the Citadel and other locations!).

 

 

 

 

I did enjoy seeing REX again. Kaiden was annoying. Cortez never even made a move on me...don't know if that's because it was a preload where I already had a romance previously or what, but didn't have any of the gayness in the game. So, unlike DA2 no one hit on me even after I said I wasn't interested (Anders)

 

 

 

 

I WILL say, this game is far better than DA2 in every way. Still a great game. Better overall quests than ME1, and more varied environments than ME1, but ME1 had a better and a stronger story with more in depth characters overall. ME2 had a better quest system and better feel overall. Still, ME3 is probably better than most games that are coming out.

 

ME3 just forgot that it could have happy quests at parts and was just depressing through most of it. I think that's what the biggest problem I had with the game, but if you like depressing...than you should run...as fast as you can...to get this game if you don't have it already (though in the depressing market, NIER actually beats ME3 out by a mile...so I'll at least admit that).

 

Just some initial thoughts after doing my playthroughs.

 

As an aside, many of the quests I did simply by wandering around and listening through the citadel. You only really need to do that twice, if you are thorough enough you'll get all the quests in the first half, and then later in the second half by listening to people. I also gathered everything in the systems, and if you do that you'll basically be able to go back to the Citadel and give people their stuff.

 

Biggest gripe I think I have though is that basically to get to a certain point...you really DO have to play Multiplayer. It's basically a cheat (like entering a cheat code) to play multiplayer for a few hours, raise your readiness score, and then you don't even have to do all the sidequests and you still can get a pretty nice ending...

 

I think that was a down dirty shame on bio's part...but hey, it's their game and they can do what they want to...I was just along for the ride.

Edited March 9, 2012 by greylord

[greylord]

Pretty much the ending. Too much stuff all at once without any explanation. The entity at the end uses weird circular logic that doesn't make any sense and basically the player can't challenge it. More questions than answers. No satisfactory epilogue. Though I am interested in which direction they will take subsequent games in the MEverse, considering the state the galaxy is in at the end.

 

Kai Leng. His entire character seemed out of place. He seemed almost silly, talking like he was incredibly lethal while his main weapons were a sword and throwing stars(?). Does he not know that those will be pretty ineffective against a space marine in heavy armor with shields, wielding a lethal arsenal of modern weaponry?

 

Overall:

 

Awesome game and well worth the money.

 

I'm one of those that actually think the endings make sense.

 

First, normally everyone dies. Just beating this is a victory for Shep. This isn't just one Reaper...this is the entire fleet of them...so just making sure enough survive to continue on is a massive victory. Shep does more than that...so him dying in accomplishing that isn't a big plot hole to me. Depressing and unhappy...yes...but unexpected or a plot hole...not really.

 

On Synthesis

 

 

 

 

This one actually makes the most sense. It changes people so that their DNA now is different. Hence, I'd imagine instead of biotics being powerful with implants, they now have those implants and powers at that level as a normal part of their DNA. Also a reason why Joker and EDI may be able to have a viable romance afterwards.

 

On the otherhand, how they suddenly all got on the Normandy doesn't make any sense...but maybe they are going to make some DLC to explain that?

 

 

 

[HoonDing]

I'm not sure what to think about the Reapers anymore. It seems they have always been underwhelming.

 

In past cycles, the Reapers had always relied on the surprise element to overwhelm the Citadel, shut down the mass relays and then go from defenseless system to system. But even then, they must've taken losses, not to mention it took centuries to wipe the Protheans.

 

Against a united galaxy with ME2 handwaved technological upgrades, they aren't at all tough.

Edited March 9, 2012 by virumor

[Azure79]

Well according to the ending

 

 

The Reapers seem to be tools to some synthetic intelligence themselves. This is pretty much what I don't like about the ending.

So...the Reapers were created as a solution to protect organic races from total annihilation from their synthetic creations. Whoever created the Reapers accomplish this by periodically harvesting all advanced organic life using their synthetic creations and preserves them in Reaper form.

It seems like you are pretty much doing what you are trying to protect against.

The entity at the end seems to make some very big assumptions that directly go against what Shephard could have experienced, but we are never allowed to challenge it.

For example why is it inevitable that all created synthetic life will rebel against their creators? There is no explanation. A Shephard who made peace between the Geth and the Quarians, had experience with EDI wanting to work with organic life could have easily argued against that assumption. The player is never given that option. It's like the ending to Fallout 3. There is a glaring flaw in the endgame logic, but the game ignores it in favor of a limited set of choices that all lead to the destruction of the relays.

Granted Shephard is most likely bleeding out and dying at that point and isn't going to get into some evolutionary-philisophical-transhumanism debate with an AI. He just wants the Reapers gone and the galaxy he has fought so hard for preserved. So he makes a choice.

Personally I would have liked something like,

Shephard: So wait, you are supposedly the most advanced synthetic AI ever to exist and your only solution to protecting organic life from synthetic life is to destroy organic life with synthetic life, all based upon some faulty assumption that synthetic life will ALWAYS destroy organic life?

Hackett, blow up the citadel. It controls the Reapers. Joker, trace my signal, I need an evac for me and Anderson.

Game ends with the Citadel destroyed, The Reapers inactivated and the mass relays still functional. We get a nice long epilogue that is worthy of a series spanning three games and 5 years.

 

 

[Lexx]

Heh, good point. Makes a lot more sense and I wish it would be available.

 

 

 

Finished the game last night. I am giving the space-shooter soap opera 8 of 10 points, which is one point more than my initial 7 of 10. It's ****ing linear, not an rpg, the beginning is really cheesy, the dialog totally stupid in times, but still it has quite a few pretty and epic moments, which make up for it, imo. I liked the ending too, even though there was this

child

-detail, which pissed me off, because I don't give a **** about this

stupid child

.

 

Had 3020 something-something war assets and I thought that it was maxed out? Now I read above that it goes up to 4000? Sucks (the bar looked full!).

 

I didn't liked how the gay romances are handled. First time I met that dude in the shuttle bay, it felt like BioWare was punching his **** into my face. In general the romances felt really stupid this time around, imo. To me it was as if the whole game had been only about romances and the rest you do is just sidestory.

 

Anyway... my character at the beginning of the end of the game:

 

Edited March 9, 2012 by Lexx

[C2B]

Honestly, the writing for this game is a wee bit... focused. They keep hitting the "War is aweful and effects everyone" button so hard, it's become worthless. Every time you meet somebody new, they seem to have their "Oh god, I might die" break down right in front of you.

 

Played the game and finished it. Liked it, but pretty much this. It got cheesy as hell.

 

... Then again... Mass Effect is a summer action/space-opera blockbuster so it was fitting.

 

Good game. I just hate the recent buzz around it with people arguing that is somehow the magnum opus of videogames as a whole.

[BobSmith101]

The ending sucked on so many levels.

 

It worked well in the game they ripped it off from but here it was nonsensical and badly done. Given the situation presented in the cinematics it was all sorts of overkill that ended up doing more harm than the Reapers.

 

As for the "epilogue" less said about that the better.

 

Removed any motivation to finish the game again. I feel sorry for those people with 20+ Shepards.

 

Final game score 8.5 RPG score 4.

Edited March 9, 2012 by BobSmith101

[Lexx]

This reminds me.. While the final battle, with all these space ships around, I wondered what they do in order to not kill their own fleet with ****load of friendly fire. There had been so many ships and lasers all around, it gave no room to evade and stuff like that. If you jumped into the system as first, you pretty much could count the minutes till your death, either from the reapers who randomly shoot into the big cluster or from your friends behind you, who just shoot forward. And what about the earth? The friendly fleet is blazing their guns at the reapers.. which have the earth behind them. What with all the miss shots? They fly straight at the earth and probably wipe out a lot stuff as well.

 

This was something which really bugged me while playing. This detail should have been overthought a bit more...

 

 

/Edit: And about the stock photos, I don't get the fuzz about it. Everyone is using stock photos, what's the big deal?

Edited March 9, 2012 by Lexx

[Giantevilhead]

Almost done. It's like they took The Matrix, Serentiy, Star Trek and Battlestar Gallactica threw them in a pot, and gave it a good shake. Pleasantly surprised though. For all the raving it's a good game.

 

You forgot Babylon 5, which is probably the biggest influence on Mass Effect.

Nobody watched Babylon 5. Well maybe the Mass Effect writers. Anyway I tend to group it with Star Trek, same makeup artists.

 

In terms of the setting, tone, and story, Mass Effect has a lot in common with Babylon 5.

 

You have humans being newcomers to the galactic community but becomes powerful very quickly.

 

Every race in the galaxy use FTL technology left behind by an ancient unknown race.

 

A lot of advances in technology is gained from reverse engineering tech left by alien races.

 

There's an intergalactic UN but unlike the Federation in Star Trek, there is a lot of conflict and backstabbing between the various factions.

 

There's a pro-human/earth conspiracy backed by powerful shady corporations.

 

Aliens tampered with the evolution of various species across the galaxy.

 

There's an ancient evil that sows chaos and destruction across the galaxy every few thousand years.

 

The protagonist tries to convince all the races to unite and combat the threat but everyone is too concerned with their own problems to care.

 

Various people want to exploit the technology of the ancient evil, including secretive human factions and corporations. This is also met with disastrous results.

[Raithe]

And I can say I watched Babylon 5 and thoroughly enjoyed the majority of it. And yeah, I've got the dvd's of the whole series...

 

Anyhow, my CE arrived today so currently installing it all, and shall cheerfully spend a non-productive afternoon getting to see what it's all about..

[Nepenthe]

I'm 19 hours into the game so far and feel like it's still relatively early. Mostly still on disc 1, but had to swap into 2 for one mission. Kind of glad they didn't force it as heavily as they did with ME2, where they castrated the game to minimise disc swapping.

 

Having a strange reaction to this game. These days most games I play are frenetic one-sitting-with-maybe-some-sleep-in-between affairs where I sprint through the story (me2 and deus ex: hr are representative of these games that I enjoyed tremendously). This time I actually enjoy walking around, listening to what's going on (and having Shepard contribute to them as well). I can't remember any other game but Baldur's Gate 2 giving me this kind of mellow sense of enjoyment ever before. Let's hope it lasts until the end.

 

Kai Leng. His entire character seemed out of place. He seemed almost silly, talking like he was incredibly lethal while his main weapons were a sword and throwing stars(?). Does he not know that those will be pretty ineffective against a space marine in heavy armor with shields, wielding a lethal arsenal of modern weaponry?

The kinetic barriers don't stop slower-speed object like swords (which is why melee has ignored them since ME1). Modern body armor does very little to stop even knives (cops hate crossbows, bolts go through their vests). So you're basically left with just the problem of having bought a knife into a gun fight.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Nepenthe

[Malcador]

This reminds me.. While the final battle, with all these space ships around, I wondered what they do in order to not kill their own fleet with ****load of friendly fire. There had been so many ships and lasers all around, it gave no room to evade and stuff like that. If you jumped into the system as first, you pretty much could count the minutes till your death, either from the reapers who randomly shoot into the big cluster or from your friends behind you, who just shoot forward. And what about the earth? The friendly fleet is blazing their guns at the reapers.. which have the earth behind them. What with all the miss shots? They fly straight at the earth and probably wipe out a lot stuff as well.

 

This was something which really bugged me while playing. This detail should have been overthought a bit more...

 

 

/Edit: And about the stock photos, I don't get the fuzz about it. Everyone is using stock photos, what's the big deal?

 

Sadly, I doubt naval combat at long range or involving maneuver of small formations would be as sexy. Blame George Lucas.

[Tale]

Just got my free copy of battlefield 3 after preordering me3 on origin. I thought for sure it wouldn't happen after ea prematurely pulled the deal

Same. I knew they'd have to honor it, but feared they may try to 'forget' it. So I contacted them yesterday and got a guy who seemed troubled by english. I figured I'd wait until the ninth and here they are.

[Malcador]

 

Guess that kid left a mark. I wonder if he's even real or if Shepard's going crazy.

[Gfted1]

Someone fill me in. Thats a different kid from the little girl that died in the preview trailer but does a child somehow factor in as a plot device in ME3? Why is Shepard all ate up over one out of billions of deaths?

[Tale]

A lot of people just consider it cheap emotional manipulation. They tried writing Shepard as traumatized this time around. Seeing the death of the kid and the nightmares represents that.

 

I can kinda see why they did it. It makes Shepard more of a character, when he hasn't really developed at all throughout the games. But I'm firmly in the opposition camp.

[greylord]

Someone fill me in. Thats a different kid from the little girl that died in the preview trailer but does a child somehow factor in as a plot device in ME3? Why is Shepard all ate up over one out of billions of deaths?

 

Either the kid is symbolic, and in your mind as some thought already (and what I'm leaning towards after the end), or something all screwed up is going on I think.

[Lexx]

Well, he is sad about the death of the one kid. Probably because it's the only kid in ME1 to ME3, so it ruined his life after the one and only child has died. :>

 

Yea, they wanted to make Shepard look like under pressure, slowly running down, etc. pretty sure. But it horrible failed, imo. These dream sequences and stuff are super crap and I haven't met anyone yet who cares about the child. Instead, they should have made it possible for Shepard to become an alcohol addict (if the player goes drinking all the time), his beard should grow, he should just look much more ****ed up the more you progress, etc. Had to think about Battlestar Galactica (the new stuff) all the time, where the characters changed their look a bit over time. Something like this is missing in the game.

Edited March 9, 2012 by Lexx

[Malcador]

Guess it would make sense, rather weird situation with the vent, also how no one seems to notice or help him on the shuttle that gets vaped. Does seem a bit ham fisted, if true, but will have to play it to see it.

[Morgoth]

ME3 sells 900k units within 24 ours in the US alone, ships 3,5 million units worldwide

 

Well deserved.

[Nepenthe]

Someone fill me in. Thats a different kid from the little girl that died in the preview trailer but does a child somehow factor in as a plot device in ME3? Why is Shepard all ate up over one out of billions of deaths?

Well, the kid is clearly an allegorical representation (either by the writers directly or by "Shepard's subconscious") of the plight of the human race on Earth while he's hanging out at Purgatory with asari chix. To keep this spoiler free, the dream thing does get repeated in the game when Certain People buy it.

 

btw. I'm (un)impressed by Bioware's ability to make piss-poor demos of their games. The ME2 PS3 demo was technically utter ****, DA2 demo showed the worst parts of the game, and the ME3 demo had about 80 % of the dialogue cut away from it - because it's the "new character" mode where the story is slowly filled in later on instead of going DAO/ME1 style exposition overload from the start. Frankly, think they shouldn't do these since a lot of people are happy to assume it's reflective of the finished product.

 

 

The whole arc where Mordin sacrifices himself to give the Krogan another shot was brilliant on all levels, in addition to writing have to highlight the gorgeous graphical effect the spreading of the genophage cure had