Mass Effect 3

Loving it, but not playing it excessively, there's some stuff I don't like (the sonar and avoiding reapers) and I've got more quests do to than I currently have access to as certain networks of clusters aren't open yet.

Also haven't touched multiplayer and won't until nearer completion.
 
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I played it excessively :|. So as a result I'm now finished. I absolutely loved the game, although deep down I wanted a different ending to what we had. It's going to take me a little while to work up enough courage to play it again, but next time I'll be sure to play multiplayer as well.

I wrote some stuff on another site so I will post it here as well, it has some spoilers in so it's up to you if you want to read it.

So after a grueling weekend of late nights and spending far too much time in a dark room in front of a TV screen I have finally finished the game. Overall I thought the game was pretty damn good, you get to save lots of lives and form alliances with the most unlikely of races.

The game itself took me a little while to get into as I was used to playing in first person rather than third. The graphics look much better and smoother although I did notice small glitches during the conversation scenes, such as Shepard focusing on Glyph while he spoke to Liara his head was at some strange angles. The redesign of the Normandy SR-2 looks good with some new rooms and some annoying parts but I'm sure you'll know/find out when you play. I found the main story line to be much better then the previous two, allowing us to visit the council races home planets and seeing them for the first time. It also showed Tali removing her mask again but we still don't get to know what the Quarians look like. But what would a Mass Effect game be without the Geth, they make a small appearance and you get to see some of their side to the Morning War. The side missions are just your normal search, find and return quests but with usually an award that serves a purpose at the end of the game. You seem to be doing a lot of eavesdropping as well.

The enemies are much smarter this time round as well, they did give me a lot of trouble but that also could be down to the fact that I'm really not that good at playing games in general. Cerberus and the Reapers are the main enemies in this game and after playing the game I prefer the Reapers henchmen. I found myself yelling at the screen many times at Cerberus doing wicked things to 'better' humanity. But at least in the end you get your own back at the Illusive Man and my god it was satisfying. The Thresher Maw attack on the Reaper on Tuchunka was amazing even better the videos!

As they said in interviews and such they have removed the scanning planet system as it was quite frankly annoying (I have a feeling it was that which gave me a 44 hour game play in Mass Effect 2). The new system is much better as it is no longer time consuming but it also mean we don't get to visit planets other than quest planets this time round. You also get chased around by Reapers, I've had many close shaves. I think this time you get to see a lot more of the galaxy it's just a shame we can't visit it more. The use of probes and fuel remain but at least time you can pick up fuel in random systems and there is no need to buy probes.

There are a lot more weapons but I just get to the same 5 through out the whole game, I upgraded them but I think that was mainly just to spend my wealth. I mainly used the Valkyrie V with help occasionally from a sniper rifle and the SMG. There are a lot more options to upgrade armours and there are all sorts of complete armours to get which I didn't end up buying. There are weapon upgrades too but I paid little attention them as well. You can buy lots more things for your room too including a VI to look after your fish. I spent some time in Engineering finding my old models and chasing that damn hamster. You get a lot more use out of your cabin at least this time, you get to give interviews and pursue your side career as a shrink.

The ending was a bit hmm for me sure it answered some questions but it game me so many more. It seems games are starting to jump on the Deus Ex ending bandwagon. I watched the endings on YouTube and there seems to be a lot of hate for it. Okay yeah I'm disappointed at the outcome but we all know that happy endings only truly exist in fairy tales. But overall I'm happy with it, in fact more so it was exactly how I wanted it to end. It gives a chance for species to become better and to hopefully finally be at peace with each other. The cinematics were spectacular though, seeing all those ships was very impressive I must say.

But now that I've finished I feel lost. I've watched anime series and read books and felt the same but never with a video game. It sad to know that there could possible be no more in the Mass Effect series and if there is, the Commander won't be involved. I remember when I finished reading His Dark Materials trilogy and remember feeling a hole open inside of me at the realisation that there was no more, I cried a few tears at that and I very nearly did with this. When I get attached to a story I don't want it to ever end but as we all know that time must come. All in all I recommend that everyone should play this game and the other two as well if you haven't already.
 
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I sure hope my copy turns up today. I've been playing the Mass Effect 2 DLC missions to stave the disappointment of waiting. Hopefully the DLC has an impact on 3 or I'm kinda wasting my time.
 
25 hours in so far, this game has some problems but I am enjoying it. BioWare said if you stay loyal to your LI from ME1 to ME3 you'd be rewarded, more like "If you romanced Liara you get the benefits from it." considering the VS gets put out of comission for like HALF THE GAME. The Normandy feels barren after ME2 to ME3, so very dark and dim, pretty boring really.
 
Lupus said:
more like "If you romanced Liara you get the benefits from it."

Awesome, didn't cheat on Liara in ME2 despite Tali being generally awesome.

Anyhoo, having played through ME and ME2 pretty much back to back over the last couple of months, I'm slightly scared to buy ME3.

[There are my opinions on the endings below but no actual details, it really doesn't merit spoiler tags but have put them on in case people who are playing it don't want to read them at all.]

The reason being that I've also being following the comments (read: shitstorm / fan-relations nightmare for Bioware) about the ending. Having watched one of the endings on YouTube and knowing mostly what the others entail, I think Bioware
really, really underestimated fans' expectations with regards to closure and how their choices would affect the very last part of the game.

I'd liken it to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl just having the "not teleporting everywhere first" endings, except if that game was 120+ hours long and had emotionally involving characters.

I'll probably still buy ME3 though, because I've heard it's mostly excellent.
 
The bug about importing faces is the most annoyed I have ever been with a game. That workaround to get your face code took longer than I wanted. Eugh. Well at least the guy looks like my Shep again now and I'm finally a couple of hours in.
 
Finished the game, fun series from start to finish, nothing really amazing, BioWare established the lore pretty well even though it's not entirely fresh, story was all over the place after the first game and from them BioWare was winging it, sad. I went with the Synthesis ending I couldn't betray my bro Legion or take away Joker's waifu, and the other ending choices I'll go for with Renegade.

Entire time I just felt this song was so relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmZBOY6Mczk

Oh and the entire "cycle" thing is pretty horrible, especially the reason for it, so half arsed, if they changed it and took out "The Shepard" epilogue I'd be okay with everything else.
 
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Lupus said:
Oh and the entire "cycle" thing is pretty horrible, especially the reason for it, so half arsed, if they changed it and took out "The Shepard" epilogue I'd be okay with everything else.

One pertinent point I've seen asks why the Reapers aren't just used to destroy synthetics if they become too dominant. Sovereign wasn't kidding in that ME dialogue where it mentions they're beyond our comprehension.

I'm slightly worried about the face codes - for my Paragon(ish) full series playthrough I used the default male face, but the female Shepard I started from ME2 for a Renegade stylee is awesome, don't want to lose her!

Think I'll be giving up on following the fallout in the gaming press until there's further news from Bioware themselves as it's mostly the same arguments now.
 
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Love it. Since ME2 was so simplified from the first game i'm glad they added in some more features. If it had been simplified even more i'd probably have not bothered with it despite how much I tend to love BioWare games.

I like the new characters. Vega is pretty awesome.

My favourite part of the game is how there is more squadmate interaction. Like in ME1 and 2, when someone claims a room, thats where you find them. In ME3 they have their own rooms but they move about and talk to each other. On the citadel too, I like how they go relax there when Shepard does. It's little things like that which I just love!

There is 1 mission that I can't stand but that's because it reminds me of that minigame thing on AC Revelations. That first person game you get through the pillars? Reminds me of that and I didn't like it.
 
And it was going so well until the last 10 mins....

Just finished it and i am a bit disapointed. The ending dosen't take into account what you have done up to that point. It leaves you in the dark about everyone's fate. I thought the ending would be better, but it has still been a great trilogy of games from bioware! Bring on mass effect 4!
 
The ending choices didn't really bother me. I just want some Dragon Age style epilogue slides telling me what happened next.
 
Cathe said:
The ending choices didn't really bother me. I just want some Dragon Age style epilogue slides telling me what happened next.

Me too, at the very least. I went with the synthesis ending and I felt it was a fitting end for Shepard, my last selfless act. Though I did perform a renegade option against kai Leng in an otherwise Paragon playthrough.

I can't complain with the game though overrall, I had my doubts from the tairlers that it would be a dumbed down gear of war clone, but they just ommited any character interaction, it played like the previous 2 as far as the narrative went, it was nice seeing all the DLC make relevance (who knew that batarian terrorist from bring down the sky would be one of them?)

Also multiplayer, I've only played it the once but it is fun if you like that sort of thing, and it didn't intrude on the game's length unlike most mutiplayer centric games.
 
Oh I love the multiplayer. The contest (community goal - kill 1 mil brutes, squad goal get extraction on silver vs reapers) they ran last weekend was a ton of fun.
 
Though I don't play ME (though I keep meaning to) I want to know what you guys think of the ending being potentially changed, since it seems Bioware is going to cave.

Personally, while I don't know the nature of the ending, I feel that even if you don't like it's kind of tough ****, it's done now, what gives the player the right to change it? Sure films have test screenings which can affect the ending of a film, but not AFTER it's finished.
 
I dont have a problem with any of the actual endings in what they mean for the main character, but it would be nice to see what happens to everyone else in the aftermath.

It's not the first time this has happened though, Fallout 3 ended rather abruptly. Until Broken Steel (the dlc) came out which then resumed the game 2 weeks later and allowed you to free roam doing quests you might've missed.

Looking at both ends of the spectrum, it seems bioware made promises thaat the endings wouldn't be A B C so they either forgot to update people on the changes or rushed to release the game (though again I heard the single player was completed on schedule and the delay was to accomodate the multiplayer)

It does seem a little patheticfrom the fans though, not the demanding of the ending but the charity they were donating towards to gt the ending, now bioware have caved it seems people assumed they were paying for a new ending or something a`la kickstarter. And it seems some of the people who donated want to retract their ther donations, to me that's as bad as the guy who's trying to sue bioware.

One other thing that bothered me though is the reviews were all glowing, not one talked about the ending, like some kind of gaming Conspiracy. I can't recall if something similar has happened i nrecent years but it does remind me of the Raiden Reveal when MGS2 came out (with all footage showing snake in the trailers and even the tanker demo.)
 
Omaru_SD said:
I dont have a problem with any of the actual endings in what they mean for the main character, but it would be nice to see what happens to everyone else in the aftermath.

It's not the first time this has happened though, Fallout 3 ended rather abruptly. Until Broken Steel (the dlc) came out which then resumed the game 2 weeks later and allowed you to free roam doing quests you might've missed.

Looking at both ends of the spectrum, it seems bioware made promises thaat the endings wouldn't be A B C so they either forgot to update people on the changes or rushed to release the game (though again I heard the single player was completed on schedule and the delay was to accomodate the multiplayer)

It does seem a little patheticfrom the fans though, not the demanding of the ending but the charity they were donating towards to gt the ending, now bioware have caved it seems people assumed they were paying for a new ending or something a`la kickstarter. And it seems some of the people who donated want to retract their ther donations, to me that's as bad as the guy who's trying to sue bioware.

One other thing that bothered me though is the reviews were all glowing, not one talked about the ending, like some kind of gaming Conspiracy. I can't recall if something similar has happened i nrecent years but it does remind me of the Raiden Reveal when MGS2 came out (with all footage showing snake in the trailers and even the tanker demo.)

Well, it's understandable no? THe most anticipated game of the year's ending being spoiled by a review? Not gonna have a lot of people thanking you for that =P I know they could've talked around it, but in this day and age people are REALLY spoiler-sensitive about certain things.

And is that true about people wanting their donations back? Jeez... you try to promote a positive image of gamers and this happens...
 
I haven't got to the end yet, but if it sucks as much as peopel say and there really is no change by the choices people have made... well then i think the fans have been lied to and we've all been let down. I think they should go asway and fix it. I don't believe we're 'entitled' to a good ending or the endign we want, but I believe a good company would try to keep the fans happy or at least make good on the majority of their promises. It would be different if only a few people thought the ending sucked, or that the ending sucked but was in line with what came before.

Anyway, there would have been DLC to extend it in one way or another with or without this fuss, so it doesn't change much?

So far I'm enjoying the game, but it seems the worst in the series in terms of plot etc. The amount of coincidences is astounding and the side missions are poor. I love the fanservice of gettign closure on every character, but seriously accidentally bumping into almost every single one?

The action is much better in thsi game though. Shooting feels really tight and some of the battles have been epic. I hope the build up to the ending is anythign as awesoem as the fight up the Citadel was in ME1.
 
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