Mass Effect

[Talon87]

Well that's pretty shitty. I'd be pretty pissed if I had pre-ordered the special edition of one of my favorite titles and was told, "Not only will you not be getting your special edition game through us, you won't be getting the game through us period." Would never pre-order with them again. This is going to hurt them BIG time. Which is probably why the cowards waited until the last possible second before telling the public.

[Concept]

Yeah, it's kind of annoying. Turns out Bioware have expanded the collectors edition availability in the UK though - it was originally only Game and Gamestation, but now with Game not having it anymore Amazon UK and a few other online UK retaliers will be stocking it instead.

Honestly, I'm probably going to just grab the standard edition instead now.

[Loki]

Alright, Brenda Shepard UPDATE!

Brenda helps Miranda save her chibi.
She then helped Jacob reunite with his long lost dad. And then convince his dad to commit suicide.
Jack wished to blow up the facility that raised her into the biotic abomination that she is today. There, we met another escapee. Jack shot his head off. Then she nuked the whole place.
Jack and Miranda would then start arguing. Shepard told them both to STFU. They complied because she was so badass.
Brenda continued by going to the Citadel and help Garrus assassinate his old buddy.
While there, she helped find Thane's son and prevent him from assassinating a Turian candidate for a government office by assassinating the Turian before Thane's son could.
Shepard then went to the Migrant Fleet. There she helped Tali retake her father's ship by destroying the Geth. She then bitched out the Admiralty Board and got Tali acquitted.
Brenda then went to Tuchunka and helped Grunt join the Wreav lead Urdnot Clan and slew the Thresher Maw. It was no match for the mighty PHALANX PISTOL! Then some loser died.
Staying on Tuchunka, she also helped Mordin find his kidnapped colleague. Mordin reunited him with bullets.
Samara's daughter was supposedly at Omega. Shepard went there and they found clues that she was stalking prey at Afterlife. Unfortunately, after getting her attention, Shepard turned out to be really dull. Morinth walked away to buy drinks and Brenda never saw her again. Samara was not happy.
PROJECT OVERLORD IS OMG ANNOYING!
Shepard went to the derelict Reaper to find the IFF for the Omega-4 Relay. There, a Geth Infiltrator helped snipe some husks. Shepard would eventually get the IFF and escape with the Geth in tow. She revived it and it was named Legion, after the bad movie.
Legion told of a 'heretic' base, which was writing a virus for reprogramming the Geth to become slaves of the Reapers. Brenda knew this was a threat. She went with Legion to destroy them, but once they got there, Legion said they could rewrite the virus to do the opposite. Turn their 'heretics' back to normal Geth. She ignored that and blew them up anyway.
Tali and Legion would fight. Brenda told Tali to STFU and so her friendship with Tali ended.

She then got on a shuttle to nowhere while the Normandy powered up the IFF. This sent out a signal to the Collectors, who would kidnap everyone but Joker. Joker unshackled the on-board AI, EDI and escaped.

Now Brenda travels through the Omega 4 Relay. She must save her fully Human crew from the dark fate of being Collector Specimens.

Once through, the Normandy was ambushed by automated defense satellites. The armor upgrades helped shield from their attacks. One still cut through and entered the cargo bay. Shepard, Kasumi, and Grunt fought it off. In an attempt to shake off the other satellites, Joker piloted the Normandy through a heavy debris feel. While he did shake them off, the Normandy did not have the kinetic barriers to fully shield any impacts. Legion was killed by a resulting explosion. Shepard and squad proceeded to destroy the Oculus.

Now past the defense satellites, the Normandy flew toward the Collector's Station. It didn't take long for their heavy cruiser ship to launch an intercept attack. Not packing the best firepower, Shepard ordered Joker to fly in close and shoot it point blank. The ship was destroyed, but not without a casualty. Thane was crushed to death by a beam.

The Normandy makes a crash landing on the Collector's Station. Shepard gathers the remaining crew to the briefing room. To get into the central corridor in hopes to find the missing colonist and kidnapped crewman, Shepard has Garrus enter a vent and bypass their doors. Miranda leads their second fire squad to help distract the Collectors as Shepard, Grunt, and Zaeed shoot their way in.

Once she got Garrus through the pipes and past a an army of Collectors, Shepard was locked out of the central corridor. Miranda's squad was through, so Garrus began hacking through the doors. Once Shepard's squad was in though, the doors jammed. In a desperate attempt to close them, Garrus and Shepard pushed them shut, but just at the last moment, a blast came through, killing Garrus.

Shepard kept moving. She saved her lost crew, but wasn't quick enough to save the colonist. Now reunited and saved from being liquified, Shepard still needed to stop the Collectors. Kasumi escorted the crew back to the ship while Samara led a squad to split up the Collector's Forces.

Shepard, Grunt, and Miranda followed Jacob as he used his biotics to shield them from the Collector's Seeker Swarm, insect like robots capable of ripping people to shreds. Unfortunately, the strain of maintaining the shield was more than Jacob could handle. He dropped the shield and Grunt was carried off by the Seekers just as the others made it through to the next section.

Now they were in the final chamber. Samara's fire squad wasn't strong enough. She managed to get the squad through, but she was mortally wounded. She died.

As Shepard would face off with the FINAL BOSS, she needed the others to defend their position so Shepard would have enough time to stop the Collectors. Shepard took Tali and Zaeed. Miranda, Jacob, Jack, Mordin lead the Collectors at the doors.

At the final chamber, Shepard found out the horrible experiment of the Collectors. They were making a fugly baby. Shepard blew them all up. Tali would be crushed by falling debris and DIED while Mordin could not hold position and ALSO DIED.

Brenda ran out of the base as the reactor was set to blow. She jumped on and Joker helped GTFO of there. In the end Legion, Thane, Garrus, Grunt, Samara, Tali, and Mordin all died. Shepard would then throw an Ice Cream Party back on the Normandy with her all Human crew.

Then she went to Aite to find Admiral Hackett's friend, crazy lady. There she was supposed to sneak in and sneak out. Bullets are sneaky right? Especially when all the bullet catchers couldn't complain about her lack of sneakiness. The two escaped and went to an asteroid the size of a planet. There, she took some drugs, putting Shepard into a two day stupor. Then she woke up and realized she only had a few more hours to stop the Reapers, so she murdered everyone at the station there and sent the asteroid into the Mass Relay. It exploded, killing all the Batarians that lived in the system. All the Reapers were stuck in a boring ass blown up system or something. SUCKAHS!

THE END... FOR NOW... (until Tuesday anyway)

ME2 Brenda Face Code:
753.N7F.L26.F93.1FQ.33Q.1DA.711.966.413.4G3.376

I hope all those 1s were in fact 1s and not I's.

[deoxys]

I've had Mass Effect 1 and 2 for over a month now and promised myself I would completely replay them before I get the game tomorrow night.

Unfotunately that never happened.

Guys, what do? Do I a. force myself to replay them before the third game, or b. fuck that, play third game anyway?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by deoxys

I've had Mass Effect 1 and 2 for over a month now and promised myself I would completely replay them before I get the game tomorrow night.

Unfotunately that never happened.

Guys, what do? Do I a. force myself to replay them before the third game, or b. fuck that, play third game anyway?

Choice A. Though I could see B too. But my vote is ultimately for A. Ridiculous train-of-thought justifications inside.

Spoiler: show

I've never played a Mass Effect game before, but the experience seems to be a personal and, for some, a deeply moving experience, one that is sharable any time with other fellow fans, much like how watching Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time or like reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time doesn't put you at a disadvantage for maximizing your enjoyment. This is not quite the same thing with a lot of pop culture which has to be experienced when the rest of the wave that we call Society is also experiencing it. For example, you can watch the Seinfeld episode "The Betrayal" for the very first time today if you want and still enjoy it (or not), but it won't be the talk of the water cooler the way it was the day after the episode first aired fifteen years ago. Similarly, you can watch an anime on your own after it's aired, but don't expect anyone online save your closest friends to give a fuck and to be as enthusiastic about discussing it weeks late to the party as you will be: 'cause they all already saw it and discussed it to death back when it aired. And even for Choice B-valid entities, sometimes the individual decides that he'd rather watch it on his own anyway rather than watching it with the horde for various reasons. ("I want to be able to watch it at my own pace," "I hate having to watch only one episode every week or two weeks," etc. See: Talon and MLP:FiM S2.)

So yeah. Mass Effect does not strike me as being in the same boat as ponies or Seinfeld.

In fact, I think there's an important distinction there which may help explain why some things are Category A and others are Category B:

Category A entities tend to be things that come out "in full" and so you can't prevent people from ripping through them at their own pace. Because nobody wants to be spoilered, everybody avoids talking with others until they themselves have completed the game/book/film. But because everybody is making their ways through the game/book/film at different rates, there aren't too many people winding up on the other side of the rabbit hole at any given point in time. And it's because of this that you're really not missing out on too much by taking your time with Category A entities and enjoying them at your own pace.

Category B entities, on the other hand, tend to be things that come out "in bits and pieces." You get one little morsel at a time. And usually, everyone sees it at the same time and at the same rate due to the limitations of the medium imposed on all viewers. (E.g. a television broadcast airs at the same exact time for all viewers regardless of region in the country and it proceeds, without a Pause button, whether they like it or not, and finished in 30 minutes' time w/ commercials.) Because of this, everyone enters the rabbit hole together and everyone winds up on the other side of the rabbit hole together. They get all their discussions out of their system in one big ginormous orgy of thoughts and ideas and passions, and then, having exhausted themselves, they part ways, and what's left behind is a barren wasteland. Pity the poor soul, then, who decides to join this particular party late!

I think a lot of television series end up being Category B specifically because television, by its very nature, is:
(1) a serialized medium that doesn't tell you the story it wants to tell you all in one sitting
(2) a video-audio medium that (ignoring TiVo and such) doesn't let you pause or rewind, unlike a book or a video game
(3) something which everyone sees at the same time (ignoring international differences, and again ignoring TiVo and such)

Some things are in a sort of in-between space. Mass Effect may belong there. Harry Potter belongs there. These are things which, due to their insanely popular nature and the marvels of modern telecommunications, would otherwise have fit into Category A but which today border more on Category B's side of things. Like, everyone read Harry Potter Book #7 at their own pace, sure, but if you didn't finish that book within the first two weeks, you were S.O.L. for the juiciest, most energized fan discussions online; and if you didn't finish it within the first month, you might as well have finished it a year later for all the Internet was concerned. If you think Mass Effect fits in there, then ... I guess I can see why you're anxious about missing the ME3 train.

But still. My advice would be to go with Choice A. I think you owe it to yourself. What Deoxys will miss out on is discussing ME3 alongside fellow fans while ME3 is still hot. But what he'll gain instead is a fuller, more refreshed understanding of the backstory and the characters as he heads into ME3. It'll mean the difference between getting references to games 1 and 2 that pop up in game 3 and not getting them at all.

[Loki]

It is possible to do a speed run of both games. It should take about 2 days each (about 25ish hours) if you devote both days to each game, which could get you playing ME3 by like Thursday or Friday. Unfortunately, if you have school or work, this is not gonna be easy.

Another option is to get the Mass Effect Genesis DLC for Mass Effect 2, which allows you to make a brand new character with choices of ME1 (no sidequest stuff, just main quest stuff i.e. Killing the Council or not). It costs 320 Microsoft Points though (which translates to $4). That takes off a lot of hours, especially since I consider ME1 considerably longer than ME2. My own run of ME2 with Brenda Shepard was only 28 hours with all the DLC and most of the sidequests, while I believe ME1 was over 60 with most of the sidequests.

[Concept]

>Loki

Nice. I'm doing Overlord now, with seven loyalty missions done. Plan is to do Overlord, Lair of the Shadow Broker, IFF, Legions loyalty mission, Final mission then Jacob's, Miranda's and Thanes loyalty missions before finishing off with Arrival (which is essentially a short ME2.5 anyway). If I've worked it out right, everyone should come through the suicide mission alive except Jack. I don't want to come out of it with everyone alive (done that before) because I think it makes a better story if some die, and Jack a) is who I least mind losing and b) has one of the loyalty missions my Shepard wouldn't initially bother to do.

>Deoxys

I'd definitely recommend playing ME1 & 2 first, you'll lose a lot of the impact of the story if you don't. I'll miss a lot of the initial ME3 discussion too, between it coming out 3 days later here than in America and because I'm not around for the first three days it is out here, so it'll have been out for nearly a week for Americans by the time I get my hands on it. That's assuming I even finish the remaining parts of ME2 prior to going away - not sure how long the DLC missions will take me, having not done them before.

EDIT the first: "This one has forgotten whether its heatsink is over capacity. It wonders whether the criminal scum considers itself fortunate?"

Ah Blasto, never change.

[Loki]

I came.

To this thread to show you guys what I just picked up.



Also I had an orgasm.

EDIT1: SONVABITCH! I can't keep my ME1 face. And now it looks like he's been retardified. FFFFF.

EDIT2: Okay, salvageable. Not a horrificly messed up face, but not MY Shepard's face. I suppose he got cosmetic surgery while relieved. Anyway, there's a big difference in dialogue from the Demo. Your actions in previous games will change what the Admiral says and you get an extra chat option with Ash/Kaiden (assuming a romance thing though).

[Concept]

Just finished the suicide mission, which leaves me pretty much with just Arrival to go before I've a compete save file to import to ME3. Despite being given this handy chart, I managed to mess up my original plans slightly and have both Jack and Miranda die, rather than just Jack, but I'm going to keep the file rather than attempting to go back and fix it - in a way, it was actually good. It came as a genuine surprise to me and as a natural consequences of my Shepards choices. I suppose this is what I get for taking Grunt with me to the final fight and sending Zaeed back on escort duty.

Now the plan is to do Jacobs loyalty mission (I deliberately left Jacobs, Jacks and Mirandas because I didn't think my character would do them, but I think after doing a suicide mission together and Jacob sticking with me when I gave a big screw you to his boss, he deserves it), followed by Arrival.

EDIT the first: AHHHHH GHOOOOOSSSSSTS!

Turns out Miranda automatically appears in the ending conversation for Jacobs loyalty mission, even though she's dead right now.

EDIT the second:

Originally Posted by Talon87

Well that's pretty shitty. I'd be pretty pissed if I had pre-ordered the special edition of one of my favorite titles and was told, "Not only will you not be getting your special edition game through us, you won't be getting the game through us period." Would never pre-order with them again. This is going to hurt them BIG time. Which is probably why the cowards waited until the last possible second before telling the public.

Turns out it's worse than I realised - the GAME group also owns Gamestation, so they aren't getting it either - and it's not just ME3, but all future releases by EA (and EA own a lot of the major studios) or Capcom. This is going to really shit on them. But then again, what alternative do we have? The closest we have to a high street rival for these two is HMV, I suppose, but HMV has always had a shitty, overpriced selection. Then again, I've been pre-ordering stuff I really want off Amazon for a few years due to their nice habit of sending stuff so it arrives before the actual release date.

EDIT the third: ME2, completed. Continuing on from my ME1 file:

Spoiler: show

So Shepard gets murderated within the first few minutes of ME2, and subsequently raised from the dead by Cerberus who seem to be the only ones doing anything about the Reaper threat and the thousands of vanishing human colonists. Now, my Shep was not exactly overjoyed to be working with them (or about having spent two years actually dead) and he was pretty sour by the end of the first game anyway. Nonetheless, he let Veetor go back with Tali because frankly he probably owes Tali a few for the whole helping him stop the invasion of the galaxy thing.

Succesfully recruited Mordin, Jack, Grunt, Zaeed, Kasumi and Garrus - particularly pleased with Garrus, as the two of them got along excellently in the first game. Did Kasumi's loyalty mission, as it's kinda presented as a "do this or I won't join you" deal even though it's not gameplaywise. Also did Zaeed's, because frankly fuck the Blue Suns (and Garrus would've wanted to do it, so I took him along for the ride) - took the renegade path, leaving the workers to die in order to get REVENGE on Vido. However, the mission on Horizon left him most displeased - they couldn't save all the colonists, and Kaiden totally blew him off - not to mention that Kaiden bought back painful memories of Ash's death.

Went to Illium to recruit Samara, then to Tuchanka - partly to do Mordins loyalty mission because the genophage is pretty damned important to galactic security, and partly to see Wrex. Whilst there Shep also helped Grunt with his loyalty mission - because if having an insane Krogan on board is dangerous, taking said insane Krogan to the place he wants to go and not letting him do what he wanted to go there to do is fucking suicidal. Having parted on good terms with Wrex, we also went and recruited Tali, then helped Garrus out with his problem. Revenge is a motivation Shep understands, and Garrus is our awesome badass buddy. Sidonis got sniped, no messing around there.

Went to the Collector Ship, almost died, chewed the Illusive Man out for knowingly sending us into a trap. Went and did Samara's (because Ardat-Yakshi are freaking dangerous) and Tali's (because Shep's growing kind of sweet on her) loyalty missions, killing Morinth and rallying the crowd to clear Tali's name respectively. Also went and dealt with Project Overlord where we took great pleasure in pistol whipping the lead scientist. Then (purely because Shep wanted to delay the inevitable suicide mission which he wasn't all the confident about coming out alive from), he went and helped Liara deal with the Shadow Broker. Admitted his fears to Liara and ended up spending the night with her. Her reassurances, as well as the reminder from Overlord that he's doing this for the people, damnit, finally gave him the will to fetch the Reaper IFF. Activated Legion and helped him to re-write the heretic geth, then discovered his crew had been kidnapped - which did not make him a happy bunny.

Shepard immediately mounted a rescue mission, charging through the Omega 4 relay but not before getting a pre-climax climax with Tali, whom he'd developed feelings for. Garrus lead the fire team both times, Legion did the tech stuff, Zaeed was sent back with the crew. Shepard chose Grunt and Kasumi for the final run, giving the others an epic speech when leaving them to hold the line because it hit him hard just how much they were willing to give for the mission. Killed the Human-Reaper and escaped on the Normandy, though sadly Jack and Miranda died holding the line. The whole crews actions on the mission, along with Overlord and Liara's encouragement, finally reminded our lost and hurt Shepard why he was fighting - to help people - resulting in a determined, atoner, muchos paragon Shepard emerging from the hell that ME1 and 2 put him through. With his faith in people re-affirmed, Shepard told the Illusive Man where to shove it and blew up the Collector base.

Figuring he owed his Thane and Jacob for their valient efforts and for sticking with him, Shepard went off and helped Thane stop his son assasinate someone and Jacob find his father, getting Kolyat off on community service and handing Ronald Taylor into Alliance custody. Then went and did Arrival. Arrival was awesome - I successfully did the stealth bit stealthily, held out on the optional last stand, and my new and re-invigorated Shepard even tried to warn the batarian colonists. As a result of the late game Paragon surge, finished ME2 with almost dead level Paragon and Renegade scores, and have ready to step into ME3 a new Shepard - the hero to hope for, rather than the only option.

Gotta say - with Loki and I having done so many things differently, I'll be very interested to see how different our experiences of the final game turns out to be. Bioware said that due to it being the final game of the trilogy, the scope for variation was much higher than in ME1 and 2, because there's no need for events (and in particular the ending) to be similar enough to continue the story into another game.

[deoxys]

Well, I guess I fucking HAVE to replay all of the games, because my save data from ME1 won't transfer to ME2, and my current profile refuses to let me load my ME2 data because it was on a profile I've deleted and no longer have access to (basically, I can't recover it).

I really wanted to replay the games, but continue my original Shepherd's file, too. I'm not fucking happy right now, over a hundred hours of game time wasted. That story, gone. I'll never know how it would have ended for that file.

Whatever. I guess this is just destiny's way of saying "Fuck you, you're going to play them again and there's not shit you can do about it."

Edit : so, rebeating Saren allowed me to transfer data back into ME2. I remember the story fairly well so what I think I'll do is beat ME2 again and then continue into ME3. That way I can end this Shepard's story and start a new one from the beginning.

Also, are you guys running paragon or renegade? I try to stick to a healthy mix while keeping paragon just a bit ahead.

[Loki]

Almost done with the single player. So far is has been quite the emotional rollercoaster. Also, there's quite a few challenging moments, even on Normal with a near max leveled Soldier.

Argument mini-quests are now much more streamline and less dialogue skipping. I think Bioware's feedback from ME2 showed that like 80% of people skipped dialogue, so now it's much simpler. You will walk around and see two people debating, then Shepard just clicks on whoever he is supporting. Then you get your reputation boost.

This is similar for other sidequests which don't involve combat. Someone will mention something being found someplace and you just get the quest. You do it and go back to the person and get your reward. No dialogue to mash skip on.

Unfortunately, this was also transferred into chats with squadmates, even aboard the Normandy. Unless there's a big discussion with Paragon/Renegade options, it's pretty much auto-talk. There is a slight advantage in that now squadmates won't just stand at their post every day. They actually move around and chat with one another in different rooms. It was really weird suddenly seeing [character] standing next to Joker on the bridge swapping Human/Alien jokes around. The disadvantage is you can't have them repeat themselves if you somehow missed it. >_>;

[deoxys]

How's the multiplayer hold up?

[Loki]

Originally Posted by deoxys

How's the multiplayer hold up?

I spammed multiplayer during the demo period. It's pretty fun and solid enough, although I don't plan to do any until after I beat the game once at least. My friends have been playing multiplayer almost non-stop though.

The only problem with combat in ME3 is that the A button is the every button. Run, take cover, roll, revive, jump- all A. This causes the occasional combat mistake. Like wanting to run past someplace and then suddenly find yourself with your ass parked behind a piece of debris that actually leaves you completely vulnerable.

[Concept]

>Almost done with the single player.

Christ man, I don't even get to play til monday ;;. At least I've managed to avoid almost all spoilers (I know what I think is the complete main squadmate list, unfortunately, plus the contents of the trailers/demos).

>Deo

Trying to play my character in a particular way, so first game he was narrowly more Paragon than Renegade, second game almost dead level, and thanks to deliberate character development I plan to play him almost straight Paragon in ME3.

[Loki]

I'm fairly sure I missed a few quests, but the main quests are rather dramatic and captivating. I will say the game also feels less like Mass Effect and a bit more like Uncharted at times. Very theatrical without the player getting much decision. But in war, the soldiers fighting don't choose who lives and who dies.

[Loki]

Okay cool. After you beat the game, it actually takes you to a point just before the final mission so you can technically go back and redo the finale or do any missions you missed and so on and so forth. Also, the final mission is like a good few hours to do also. Even if you do take off any time I spent dying.

[deoxys]

I'm playing through ME2 again and I'm at the point following Miranda's and Jack's confrontation. Romancing Miranda meant I HAD to tell Jack to stand down, which in turn lost her chance to be loyal to me.

I didn't have enough Paragon/Renegade points to lean to either side because as I stated earlier, my Character is mostly Paragon but with a touch of Renegade. Which fucking blows.

I now have one more chance to get her loyalty, through a talk with her, but again, I need the stupid Paragon points.

Fuck Jack. I fucking hate her character and would love nothing more than to see her die in a fire. Unfortunately, I am trying to go for a perfect game, so I can't let anyone die.

[Loki]

I don't remember that argument requiring perfect paragon/renegade. My run with Brenda Shepard totally had a big split of mostly Renegade (about half) and some Paragon (about a quarter), and she still managed to talk them down. But then again, all of those are level dependent, so maybe I did their loyalty missions much earlier than you did?

[deoxys]

I did Miranda's first and Jack is almost the last one, so that's a big problem.

I've read plenty of people say that you can get 'No One Left Behind' with her unloyal, so I think I'm going to swing for that. If I recall correctly, I had this problem on my first play through as well. I believe there is a problem with unlocking the 'It was just lip service' paragon option no matter how much paragon you have.

Anyway, I've sank a good 18 hours into ME2 since Wednesday, and I should be finished today. Gonna save before the final mission to be sure no one dies.

[Loki]

Biotic users will like this game much more than ME2, even on Hardcore/Insanity.

Instead of overloading everyone with extra layers of protection, now they just have a lot more of what they already have. i.e. more HP. If you had shields, you now have even more shields and HP. Warp has almost no effect on Shields/Barriers, but biotic detonations can still do significant damage. Also, as it was shown in the demo, Liara's Stasis power allows damage to the frozen target, but now it can also be used for biotic detonation. Since it still works through shields/barriers (not armor though), you can easily hit someone with Stasis then follow with a Warp to detonate and destroy their protection, then hit with Singularity/Pull and do another Warp for kill. Also, all these explosions really fuck over anyone close by.

Tech can also be used to do Tech Bursts. The most common one is Cryoblast followed by Incinerate. Overload and Incinerate also works while organics are stunned by Overload. And FYI, Carnage also counts as a tech power, but not Concussive Shot.

[deoxys]

Okay, I made it through ME2 and saved everyone. Here's my problems with ME3 so far, no spoilers for plot:

Spoiler: show

WHY ARE MY BIOTICS COOLDOWNS LIKE TAKING FUCKING FOREVER THIS WASN'T HAPPENING BEFORE WTF

This fucking A button dealio is driving me crazy. Why does EVERY FUCKING ACTION have to be mapped to the A button? When I want to duck for cover, I tuck and roll instead. Bullshit.

Ashley is a bitch.

James is a tool, straight off the Jersey Shore. Only on the second mission and I hope this guy dies in an angry, violent manner.

The controls are too fast compared to ME2, even with camera turned down.

Cover system got much looser. In a bad way.




I think there are others but my rage is overcome with anger at the A button right now.

STORY SPOILER:

Spoiler: show

Edit: ohshitisdnvdsjnvs I think I just got Ashley to like me again because I went paragon FFFUUUUUU DO NOT WANT SHEP X MIRANDA OTP K?!

[deoxys]

Okay, what the hell is happening, I don't like Shepard talking and me not telling him what to say. This is bullshit.

[Loki]

Originally Posted by deoxys

Spoiler: show

WHY ARE MY BIOTICS COOLDOWNS LIKE TAKING FUCKING FOREVER THIS WASN'T HAPPENING BEFORE WTF

Are you carrying really heavy weapons? These now affect cooldown times.

Originally Posted by deoxys

Okay, what the hell is happening, I don't like Shepard talking and me not telling him what to say. This is bullshit.

Uh... I mentioned this:

Originally Posted by Myself

Unfortunately, this was also transferred into chats with squadmates, even aboard the Normandy. Unless there's a big discussion with Paragon/Renegade options, it's pretty much auto-talk.

[deoxys]

Ah okay, its the heavy weapons then. Still used to the ways of ME2.

And I'll be honest I didn't read lot of posts in this thread because I was trying to stay away front any info in regards to the game because I wanted to be surprised. But... the lack of talking at every moment, while boring for some, made the game more personal for me. idk. shit.

[Blastoise]

Just beat ME3 last night: time for my thoughts.

-I liked some of the gameplay changes: making it so that biotics can actually do things at the higher difficulties is nice (holy shit, there's some actual value in being able to CC people who have lost their shields/barriers now!), even if I did decide to play an engineer and spam dem drones/turrets. Tying recharge times to weapon weight was also a decent compromise, even if it is logically nonsensical: you can have your biotic/tech toys and actually get to play with some of the neat guns you find too. Some of the other changes I have more mixed feelings about: cover feels a lot more "sticky" in a bad way (I've died a few times trying to coax Shepard off a wall that he took "cover" behind as he was getting pelted by enemy fire) and sometimes the game doesn't seem to be able to handle odd cover design/placement (having Shepard fire his biotic/tech blast into the wall he was cowering behind instead of the enemy standing in broad fucking daylight was an annoying occurrence).

-The scanning changes are one step forward, one step back. So scanning planets is easy now, but if I use my scan too much in a system (and in some cases, "too much" means "you scanned twice") I have to waste nearly as much time playing grabass with Reaper ships. Really?

-There are definitely times where you can see where Bioware wound up cutting corners. The game has a healthy number of sidequests, but a lot of them usually wind up being "find this thing in a planetary scan/random container in a mission" fetch quests. I wound up doing as many as I was able (well, except for those I got the stuff for but didn't "complete" because the quest givers disappeared after a certain milestone in the game), but that was mostly to fill up my "HOW AWESOME IS YOUR GALACTIC ARMY SO AWESOME" bar: without that as a motivation I probably wouldn't have given a shit. Some of the sidequests also wind up using the multiplayer maps as levels as well. The handful of sidequests where you meet up with older companions are generally alright though, if only for the story/character development.

And plot spoilers below, ye be warned:

Spoiler: show

-Okay, so the Reapers (synthetic) exist to exterminate organics so that the organics won't create synthetics which will then turn around and wipe out organics. Which, by the way, organics are capable of doing at least partially because the Reapers have created the technology in order to guide organics down a desired path that makes wiping out organics easier before the organics create a race of synthetics that will wipe out organics.

uh

This is almost a worse reason than the Reapers existing "just because." It probably would have been better to have kept the Reapers' purpose similar to ME2's where harvesting sapient races is their primary means of reproduction: doesn't make the baby space terminator thing any less dumb as shit, but at least it's a lot more plausible as a motivation (and, as synthetic life mimicking organic life to survive, a more interesting angle).

-It also doesn't even make sense in the context of the ME universe: AIs are outlawed (and by and large every race capable of designing AIs adheres to that restriction), and it's established that the one known race of sapient synthetics (the geth) are perfectly content to keep to themselves and only fight when attacked by organics or manipulated by the Reapers themselves. If you're being charitable you could say that this is meant to show the Reapers are wrong and that the annual feeding frenzy is unnecessary to prevent the galaxy from sliding into chaos, but I doubt anyone at Bioware thought that far ahead.

-Like I said in the 2012 Gets thread, I feel like the rest of the story is alright: you get some good sendoffs for several characters, and you get to be involved in several galaxy-changing events (the genophage, the Quarian-Geth conflict, etc.). It's unfortunate that you don't get to see the ramifications of your choices beyond "THE (INSERT RACE HERE) LIKE YOU SO NOW YOUR EFFECTIVE MILITARY STRENGTH NUMBER IS BIGGER" though: the game makes no bones about the fact that the curing the genophage could be a really bad idea or whether the Quarian/Geth peace will actually last, and it's disappointing that they didn't take the opportunity to have you really consider whether a species' aid was worth paying the piper for in the post-game ending.

-Really, the ending almost scuttles the series for me. Here are three choices, all of which result in pretty much the same cutscene with slightly different variations/colored laser beams, with one of them (Synthesis) being nonsensical and relying heavily on what a lot of people have been derisively calling "space magic". Oh, and you don't have any real closure in any of these endings either: want to know how everyone having glowing green electrical traces under their skin prevents a synthetic-on-organic galactic genocide? We don't know either, fuck you.

I really enjoyed the journey, mind, but the payoff is a kick in the balls.

-Oh, and why the fuck is the "leader" of the Reapers taking the guise of a 10 year-old kid? Exactly what convoluted allegory were they trying to make with those "you're running through a dark forest and OH NOES TEH CHILDS IS BECOMING IN FIRE" sequences?