Mass Effect 3

[Drowsy Emperor]

Paying attention doesn't mean its challenging, it just requires you not to pick your nose and aim at the same time.

 

Imagine that, it ended after the ending.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Bos_hybrid]

http://me3finalhours.com/

 

Now for PC.

[Calax]

From Geoff Keighly... who I can't take seriously since I worked at gamestop and heard his voice "I'm Geoff Keighly!" every 20 seconds for a little PR vignette for some new game coming out.

[Nepenthe]

Liara and Wrex. Liara is probably a more personal choice, but Wrex was arguably THE memorable character. Garrus was just the "Good cop confined by red tape" archtype, and it wasn't until ME2 where he gained a PILE more complexity.

Kind of hard to imagine Mac Walters wrote Wrex, after the "fake" background info on the ending.

[HoonDing]

I just finished the game. I thought the ending was fine, maybe not the best ever, but hardly worth getting up in arms over. What I really enjoyed was talking to all my old friends in London before the final push, and then heading into battle with my best buddy Garrus and my girl Ashley.

 

Anyone else never really feel attached to Anderson?

Funny, according to the link posted earlier Patrick Weekes had to fight hard to have those ending conversations with past and present party members included. It was the only good part of the entire ending mission.

[BobSmith101]

Paying attention doesn't mean its challenging, it just requires you not to pick your nose and aim at the same time.

 

Imagine that, it ended after the ending.

 

It was pretty easy, but still a lot more satisfying than what passes for an ending in ME3.

[Oner]

*snickers* Geoff Keighly.. pfft.. *bursts out laughing*

[Janmanden]

That's funny because the game wouldn't have lost anything even if the final mission wasn't touted as "suicide" but rather as just hellishly difficult. In fact, considering how easy it was to get everyone out alive, the suicide thing made it more anti-climatic than anything.

 

It's rather silly to use the word 'suicide' in the same context as a game that pops up with a 'Resume' button on mission failure. Done (painfully) right, it should have shown you a ten minute non-interruptable cutscene showing you the galactic consequences of your untimely death (while it deletes all your save games in the background to ensure that was truly the end of that play).. As the story goes anyone else who have tried to go through the Omega relay before has gone MIA and presumed dead and therefore it's a suicide mission.

[Hurlshort]

I've gotta say, there were a lot of characters from ME2 that I didn't connect with, but when I ran across them in ME3 I found myself thinking fondly about them. Thane is a good example, I never really dug him in ME2, but his short cameo in ME3 was fantastic. Overall I appreciated the care ME3 took to pay service to all the relationships I had built up in the first 2 games. I was given plenty of closure over the course of the game, so the ending itself wasn't really a problem for it.

 

I mean I guess I could try and analyze it and get upset about it, but why would I do that over a video game? My story of Commander Shephard is over.

[Tale]

I don't find a lot of closure in Wrex being stuck on earth in the best case scenario. Maybe there's closure in Wrex being vaporized off-screen for the worst case scenario, but that seems decidedly nihilistic.

 

We just end the game with people being stranded in random locations. It's like watching the introduction to Gilligan's Island or Lost. And the first episode of those shows opened more than it closed.

[Nepenthe]

I've gotta say, there were a lot of characters from ME2 that I didn't connect with, but when I ran across them in ME3 I found myself thinking fondly about them. Thane is a good example, I never really dug him in ME2, but his short cameo in ME3 was fantastic. Overall I appreciated the care ME3 took to pay service to all the relationships I had built up in the first 2 games. I was given plenty of closure over the course of the game, so the ending itself wasn't really a problem for it.

 

I mean I guess I could try and analyze it and get upset about it, but why would I do that over a video game? My story of Commander Shephard is over.

Well, I found myself a lot more invested in the story of this game trilogy than I generally do (in fact, probably the most after baldur's gate, which was more due to the major effort it took me to actually get to play all the games), so I probably took it a lot harder than most "serial gamers" would. I feel pretty vindicated in everything I've said by the posts of "non-"Patrick Weekes, since they essentially display the amount of hubris and disconnect game "auteurs" have. The industry knee-jerk just strengthens this impression. Also glad to see that there are some competent people with right ideas, even if they aren't listened to at crucial moments.

[BobSmith101]

That's funny because the game wouldn't have lost anything even if the final mission wasn't touted as "suicide" but rather as just hellishly difficult. In fact, considering how easy it was to get everyone out alive, the suicide thing made it more anti-climatic than anything.

 

It's rather silly to use the word 'suicide' in the same context as a game that pops up with a 'Resume' button on mission failure. Done (painfully) right, it should have shown you a ten minute non-interruptable cutscene showing you the galactic consequences of your untimely death (while it deletes all your save games in the background to ensure that was truly the end of that play).. As the story goes anyone else who have tried to go through the Omega relay before has gone MIA and presumed dead and therefore it's a suicide mission.

 

Fire Emblem is like that. You can softsave the game but anyone dead stays dead because it's already saved that outcome.

[Hurlshort]

Why would Wrex be vaporized or stuck on earth? Plus I was just happy the crew of the Normandy survived. They are on a pretty awesome looking planet, and even if the Normandy is busted, they are going to get rescued eventually. They've got a well deserved extended vacation.

 

I thought they ending was a bit unclear, I took the middle path where you absorb your DNA or whatever. Were the relays destroyed, or just overloaded for a brief time? Even if they were destroyed, we still have faster than light travel. Wrex will get back to Tuchanka in a year or so, big deal.

[Raithe]

Why would Wrex be vaporized or stuck on earth? Plus I was just happy the crew of the Normandy survived. They are on a pretty awesome looking planet, and even if the Normandy is busted, they are going to get rescued eventually. They've got a well deserved extended vacation.

 

I thought they ending was a bit unclear, I took the middle path where you absorb your DNA or whatever. Were the relays destroyed, or just overloaded for a brief time? Even if they were destroyed, we still have faster than light travel. Wrex will get back to Tuchanka in a year or so, big deal.

 

Pretty much using the Crucible destroys the Mass Relays. Or at least, that's what SpaceKid tells you before hand.

Actually, the ftl travel they have is about 12 lightyears a day. While the Mass Relays could send you 200 light years in a second or so (if it was one of the minor relays), or if it was one of the Major Mass Relays, you could pretty much go from one end of the galaxy to the other in those few seconds.

 

With the use of Mass Relays, even with their own ship ftl, the ships designed and built aren't meant for long lasting travel. Well, apart from the Quarrian ones. All ship designs are pretty much geared towards the use of Mass Relays to get around quickly rather then keep crew on board for months/years at a time between systems..

 

But yeah, did you have any idea why the entire crew got off Earth, onto the Normandy and have Joker take them into ftl and out of the system? It just seemed to jump in there purely to do the "hey, let's do a pilot episode of Gilligan's island with the Normandy Crew!"

[Tale]

Why would Wrex be vaporized or stuck on earth?

The Relays are gone. Either they exploded and destroyed every system with one, as that seemed like the entire point of Arrival having been made, or it didn't. And now nobody can go very far from where they are, because it's stated at many points in the series that the relays are what make interstellar travel possible. FTL only allows for travel in clusters.

 

Fun bit is you can't even know if it vaporized the star systems or not. They don't bother showing you anything afterwards except for the Normandy, which was damaged by the explosion.

[Janmanden]

*SPOILERISH*

 

There is one ship related mission to get some thermal tube for engineering, which by the way has a completely different name than the one Adams refer to. I wonder if the installation of that is the reason that the normandy survives in the end or maybe it's just a pointless fetch-quest?

[Raithe]

Said quest is supposed to help in certain combat situations. Or at least, if something goes bad , it's possible that nasty stuff gets vented through engineering, thereby killing everyone there...

 

I have to admit, I went through the rest of the game waiting for some situation to occur where that came into relevance beyond being background fluff...

[Malcador]

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/War_Assets/Crucible#Optimized_Eezo_Capacitors

[Raithe]

Heh, kind of like how having chased down all the Matriarch's Writings in ME1 helps provide that extra 4 War Assets from Conrad's "dark matter thesis"

[Serrano]

But yeah, did you have any idea why the entire crew got off Earth, onto the Normandy and have Joker take them into ftl and out of the system? It just seemed to jump in there purely to do the "hey, let's do a pilot episode of Gilligan's island with the Normandy Crew!"

 

After command thinks nobody made it to the conduit the army is ordered to retreat, although I think it's possible to miss that bit of chatter if you head right towards the beam without stopping. so the companions must have been picked up by the Normandy at that point. As for the second thing they probably didn't know what the Crucible was about to do but even if they did it makes sense that they might try to run from the energy wave.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Serrano

[Calax]

Why would Wrex be vaporized or stuck on earth? Plus I was just happy the crew of the Normandy survived. They are on a pretty awesome looking planet, and even if the Normandy is busted, they are going to get rescued eventually. They've got a well deserved extended vacation.

 

I thought they ending was a bit unclear, I took the middle path where you absorb your DNA or whatever. Were the relays destroyed, or just overloaded for a brief time? Even if they were destroyed, we still have faster than light travel. Wrex will get back to Tuchanka in a year or so, big deal.

 

Well, using the 12 light years per day figure that was posited... it'd take... a while to get around.

 

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2010/199/6/e/Mass_Effect_Galaxy_Map_by_DWebArt.png

 

that's 100,000 light years in diameter. The Krogan DMZ is closer to earth than anyone else, but the Turian worlds? You're boned. Rhannoc? You're gonna spend at least an entire generation in transit.

[Nepenthe]

Why would Wrex be vaporized or stuck on earth? Plus I was just happy the crew of the Normandy survived. They are on a pretty awesome looking planet, and even if the Normandy is busted, they are going to get rescued eventually. They've got a well deserved extended vacation.

 

I thought they ending was a bit unclear, I took the middle path where you absorb your DNA or whatever. Were the relays destroyed, or just overloaded for a brief time? Even if they were destroyed, we still have faster than light travel. Wrex will get back to Tuchanka in a year or so, big deal.

 

Well, using the 12 light years per day figure that was posited... it'd take... a while to get around.

 

http://th09.devianta..._by_DWebArt.png

 

that's 100,000 light years in diameter. The Krogan DMZ is closer to earth than anyone else, but the Turian worlds? You're boned. Rhannoc? You're gonna spend at least an entire generation in transit.

Frankly, am not sure even the Quarian ships are designed to travel without mass relays, making those calculation purely theoretical. The ships are of a shorter range.

[BobSmith101]

Nothing is designed to travel long distances without Mass Relays. Quarians should be least effected since their lives can carry on aboard the flotila and there should be a lot of spares floating around up there.

Fuel and food are major issues for everyone , the ships are not designed to carry enough of either. Everyone would have to have Geth taxis and travel in stasis.

[Majek]

That's why next ME game should focus only on Sol system, since everyone is "stuck" here. The scope probably wouldn't be "epic" and it shouldn't be about the end of the world but that way BIO could make a *insert positive adjective* game.

[Nepenthe]

As an aside, I never really considered WHY two key Mass Effect people (lead gameplay designer Christina Norman and senior producer Jesse Houston) left during development/before the release... Both of them to Riot Games, in fact. One wonders if project leadership was related to the decision, or was it just the weather.