Mass Effect 3

[Gorth]

Start of old thread

End of old thread

 

Still, if you're willing to dismiss this expectation of a 'personalized' ending as unreasonable, the introduction of an omnipotent figure in the last 10 seconds of gameplay who talks utter BS is pretty bad in its own right - good comic relief, though.

 

Meh, game descends into abject absurdity from the moment you hear the citadel has been kidnapped.

 

Been thinking a bit about some improvements (with the benefit of hindsight)...

 

Drop all the pointless Fed-Ex quests. All of them. They add nothing to the game and adds to the sense of bad pacing. No trace of those quests would add more to the game than it lose.

 

Drop Vega, Ashley, Liara and EDI as party members (Kaidan was actually surprisingly tolerable when you play a male Shepard and can ignore romatic pursuits). Reallocate those resources spent to one or two interesting party members.

 

Drop Kai Leng. Adds nothing to the game.

 

Put a stop sign at the outskirts of London and tell people 'To be continued' and then find a decent way to wrap up the game.

 

[meomao]

I agree that ME3 ending is cheap garbage. Most of the final sequence beginning with the Cerberus base mission is quite bad compared to the rest of the game. I'm really at a loss explaining how they could have dropped the ball so bad. Not only a crap, nonsensical and rushed ending. Even a plagiarism of the original Deus Ex.

 

The only reasonable explanation I've been able to formulate is that ME3 have sufferend the "design by metrics" trend of last Bioware games. Only a few minority of gamers experience the end of a game. There are stats that talk of a meager 10/20% finishing rate. Bioware published the metrics for ME2 and the result was that only 50% of the people who have begun the game have finished it (and that take even multiple playthroughs in to account).

 

So, maybe, when it was time to decide what kind of resource they should put in each part of the game, they decided to invest a lot more in the sequences that happens in the early-mid game and the ending pulled the shortest straw in term of time, attention and resources. If you think about it, it's just smoke and mirrors. Most science-fiction endings (especially the twist/exposition variant) suck badly and do not make a lot of sense. The illusion of sense and value is more important than the reality of it in most cases.

 

Having said that, imho the whole hysteria concerning the "retake ME" movement is even worst than the ending. The ending could be really bad, but the Tuchanka and Rannoch sequences are truly brilliant and worth my time and money alone.

Edited April 14, 2012 by meomao

[Aedelric]

I agree with essentially all of that Gorth though I would say the first inking of the absurdity was at Thessia with the Prothean VI and Kai Leng.

Edited April 14, 2012 by Aedelric

[Humanoid]

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot.

 

 

Seriously, partial reboot up to the end of ME1, but with ME3's gameplay format would be the cleanest way to do it.

[Aedelric]

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot.

 

Well said. :D

[Janmanden]

They could just have cut out all your former squad members and turned them into day-one DLC's.

[Majek]

To fix ME3's plot, the first thing one should do is fix ME2's plot.

 

 

Seriously, partial reboot up to the end of ME1, but with ME3's gameplay format would be the cleanest way to do it.

Might as well remake Me1 with Me3 gameplay or even improve it. :D

[GhostofAnakin]

They could just have cut out all your former squad members and turned them into day-one DLC's.

 

Don't give them any ideas. That seems to be the trend they're working toward now, what with Javik in ME3 and Sebastian in DA2.

[Orogun01]

They could just have cut out all your former squad members and turned them into day-one DLC's.

You really think that people will pay to see Jacob? I think you got that backwards

[Oner]

They could just have cut out all your former squad members and turned them into day-one DLC's.

You really think that people will pay to see Jacob? I think you got that backwards

Jacob see to pay will people?

[Nepenthe]

Start of old thread

End of old thread

 

Still, if you're willing to dismiss this expectation of a 'personalized' ending as unreasonable, the introduction of an omnipotent figure in the last 10 seconds of gameplay who talks utter BS is pretty bad in its own right - good comic relief, though.

 

Meh, game descends into abject absurdity from the moment you hear the citadel has been kidnapped.

 

Been thinking a bit about some improvements (with the benefit of hindsight)...

 

Drop all the pointless Fed-Ex quests. All of them. They add nothing to the game and adds to the sense of bad pacing. No trace of those quests would add more to the game than it lose.

 

Drop Vega, Ashley, Liara and EDI as party members (Kaidan was actually surprisingly tolerable when you play a male Shepard and can ignore romatic pursuits). Reallocate those resources spent to one or two interesting party members.

 

Drop Kai Leng. Adds nothing to the game.

 

Put a stop sign at the outskirts of London and tell people 'To be continued' and then find a decent way to wrap up the game.

Meh, disagree re: Liara, think that Ashley could be a lot better if she didn't have Zaeed's ME2 line budget. Tali could've got the chop without me noticing, but she has essentially an extended cameo so it doesn't trouble me. Apart from that, mostly agree with you. SubZero and Miranda could've been good with little effort (that part I don't expect you to agree with)

[greylord]

Start of old thread

End of old thread

 

Still, if you're willing to dismiss this expectation of a 'personalized' ending as unreasonable, the introduction of an omnipotent figure in the last 10 seconds of gameplay who talks utter BS is pretty bad in its own right - good comic relief, though.

 

Meh, game descends into abject absurdity from the moment you hear the citadel has been kidnapped.

 

Been thinking a bit about some improvements (with the benefit of hindsight)...

 

Drop all the pointless Fed-Ex quests. All of them. They add nothing to the game and adds to the sense of bad pacing. No trace of those quests would add more to the game than it lose.

 

Drop Vega, Ashley, Liara and EDI as party members (Kaidan was actually surprisingly tolerable when you play a male Shepard and can ignore romatic pursuits). Reallocate those resources spent to one or two interesting party members.

 

Drop Kai Leng. Adds nothing to the game.

 

Put a stop sign at the outskirts of London and tell people 'To be continued' and then find a decent way to wrap up the game.

 

But then what about War assets? I barely have enough already, and need more for the Shep breaths for a second at the end if I only play SP!

[GhostofAnakin]

Meh, disagree re: Liara, think that Ashley could be a lot better if she didn't have Zaeed's ME2 line budget. Tali could've got the chop without me noticing, but she has essentially an extended cameo so it doesn't trouble me. Apart from that, mostly agree with you. SubZero and Miranda could've been good with little effort (that part I don't expect you to agree with)

 

The dialogue with Ashley annoyed me, mainly because she happened to be my love interest for that play through. Yet a lot of time after missions, she had nothing more than a Zaeed/Kasumi response.

 

Ashley: Horrible what happened on Thessia. Those poor people.

*click on her again*

Ashley; I hope Liara is holding up.

*click on her again*

Ashley: Those Reaper bastards.

*click on her again*

Ashley: Commander.

*click on her again*

Ashley: Commander.

*click on her again*

Ashley: Commander.

 

This is my love interest, the one that's supposed to be so close to Shepard, yet that's all I get when discussing one of the major moments of the game?

 

(PS. I think it was after Thessia. It might have been after Rannoch. Either way, it was a major story point mission)

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, I was a bit underwhelmed with the Ashley dialogue as well, but then I thought on the fact that a good chunk of players probably don't even have her alive in their games, and I decided to be happy with what I got. I thought her final conversation in London was well done.

[Janmanden]

They could just have cut out all your former squad members and turned them into day-one DLC's.

 

Don't give them any ideas. That seems to be the trend they're working toward now, what with Javik in ME3 and Sebastian in DA2.

 

You got a point, but I kind of regret getting that From Ashes DLC a month after. I would like to think that Javik was originally cut, because BioWare thought it was simply too embarrassing to include a ruthless Jar Jar Binks wannabe, but then the EA suits came along and insisted that anything Bio' was gold and that it should be added as a DLC.. Well, d'uh.. It's a fantasy game, it could happen..

[Gorth]

Meh, disagree re: Liara, think that Ashley could be a lot better if she didn't have Zaeed's ME2 line budget. Tali could've got the chop without me noticing, but she has essentially an extended cameo so it doesn't trouble me. Apart from that, mostly agree with you. SubZero and Miranda could've been good with little effort (that part I don't expect you to agree with)

Yeah I know. Different people have different preferences regarding who they take on ground missions (I'm pretty sure Bioware has the numbers somewhere). The main point was that it felt like their attention to NPC's had been stretched a bit thin. I even forgot Tali because she shows up relatively late in the game. Personally, I wouldn't have minded somebody like Jack and Wrex/Grunt in the party instead of some of the others. In a full scale war on the front lines, you need "bad ass" characters, not prom dates.

[Humanoid]

Which is just another example of ME3 paying for ME2's sins. Biting off more than they can chew and so forth.

[Morgoth]

[Nepenthe]

Meh, disagree re: Liara, think that Ashley could be a lot better if she didn't have Zaeed's ME2 line budget. Tali could've got the chop without me noticing, but she has essentially an extended cameo so it doesn't trouble me. Apart from that, mostly agree with you. SubZero and Miranda could've been good with little effort (that part I don't expect you to agree with)

Yeah I know. Different people have different preferences regarding who they take on ground missions (I'm pretty sure Bioware has the numbers somewhere). The main point was that it felt like their attention to NPC's had been stretched a bit thin. I even forgot Tali because she shows up relatively late in the game. Personally, I wouldn't have minded somebody like Jack and Wrex/Grunt in the party instead of some of the others. In a full scale war on the front lines, you need "bad ass" characters, not prom dates.

I once said that I would forgive any sins this game has, if I could have even one mission with Wrex, Miranda and the Revenant LMG. I only got the final one of the three, and this game has plenty of sins that could use forgiving.

 

S'yeah, write me down as another wrex-wanter.

[Hurlshort]

I thought Wrex had a pretty huge role in this game. He wasn't a party member, but he felt like it through the mission to save the female Krogan and Tuchanka.

 

Miranda had a pretty small role, but I never got all that close to her in ME2.

[Janmanden]

In a way It feels a bit like a greek tale to romance Miranda in ME2.. A bit (relatively speaking compared to something humongous, though sligthly on a stretch) disappointed about the follow up to that in ME3.

[Orogun01]

In a way It feels a bit like a greek tale to romance Miranda in ME2.

Because she's like Shepard's mother?

[Janmanden]

She created you in ME2 (with some help), didn't she?

[Gorth]

Oedipus Shepard...

[Janmanden]

And then you kind of went to war with your father..