Mass Effect 3

[Brannigan]

COMMANDER SHEPARD! you're an avatar for the resistance, a beacon for all who fight for an uncertain tomorrow, humanity's last, best hope... you mind hopping on that turret?

I was actually pleased with how little you actually have to do turret crap.

[twmac]

Though I disagree (Sure, I guess those plot holes exist, but none of them bothered me at all until I read that thing. Now that I know about them, meh. Still loved ME2), I feel I should point out that you've been featured in this week's Sunday Papers. Grats!

Thanks, this is the 3rd time we have been featured there. We got in for a piece I did on Passage, another that this guy Spann did on Tropico 1 and now this piece written by Walker (not idle thumbs' Nick or Dan). Pretty proud that we managed to do that, I've always wanted to have the chance to write for RPS but being linked is just as good - seeing as I almost never play PC games.

[lobotomy42]

Mass Effect 2 and 3 are much more similar to each other than either is to ME. (It feels a bit like the relationship between Back to the Future and BttF Parts 2 and 3, actually.)

I got about half-way through Mass Effect 3 last night, before deleting my character in frustration at a poor choice I had made unintentionally. (Why didn't I keep more savegames???) It's...ok? I still feel like it's cashing in on the emotional currency built up in my mind during Mass Effect, rather than making me care about any of the new characters or situations. And, like ME2, it has the weird plot device of "We're under attack, so you have to travel the galaxy and...talk to people! Sort out their problems!"

I also find myself missing the lack of a clear "villain" character like Saren in ME. Saren was a great nemesis, functioning as parallel to Shepherd. He went rogue from the Spectres just as Shepherd was entering, and these two, after learning what was going on with the reapers, developed opposite reactions to this knowledge. Saren is the tragic hero of his own story, a story that is also about a Spectre trying to save a skeptical galaxy from the reapers. It's easy to imagine Saren choosing the "Paragon" options from the dialogue wheel when speaking with reapers and "Renegade" when talking to the Council. ME2 had nothing like this, and so far neither does ME3. Cerberus is held up as the villain, but Illusive Man is so transparently evil that it's difficult to feel him as anything more than a plot device. He is the star of his own 4X Strategy game, perhaps, but certainly not his own CRPG.

[Brannigan]

I actually finally went back and started playing ME1, which I hadn't done. Only played 2 and 3. Man that game is janky as hell. Also had to force a lot of graphics options down it's throat through the nvidia control panel so my eyes didn't completely puke. Haven't gotten far, but my god does saren's visual design scream "HEY LOOK I'M A BAD GUY." I also see why they chose to streamline things and tighten up the enviroments. Walking around the citadel is kind of tedious even when it's my first time with it. Enough bitching at an old game, my plan is to play a completely different class and play through all the games again, partially to experience characters are never interacted with, like wrex.

[Erwin_Br]

Funny, because I felt too constrained in ME2, after I had played ME1. I loved the walking and elevator moments.

[Brannigan]

In theory it's cool, but in practice for me I'm just like "ugh seriously I don't have time for this shit."

[Orv]

The response/outrage/straight out pleading due to ME3s ending is both baffling and hilarious to me.

Mass Effect has never truly given you a choice, your choices have never really meant anything. The entire second game is a testament to this. And now, because the ending is (admittedly) absolutely terrible, people are suddenly up in arms about it. "Retake Mass Effect 3" is probably the stupidest video game related internet petition I have ever seen, and I've seen a great many.

[Brannigan]

I disagree about the choices not mattering. They matter on a character/personal level, but bioware certainly has an overall story it wants told. Talking about ME3 in particular with my sister, the outcomes on our mission choices varied quite a lot, and character interactions were different. End result of course is more or less the same-ish, I'm one of the few that really didn't get annoyed at the ending it seems.

Oh and the petition is pretty dumb.

[Orv]

They don't matter on a personal level though. Hence my comment about 2. My Paragon Shepard wouldn't have worked for Cerberus with a gun to his head or some kind of cranial-implant bomb. Like you said (or maybe didn't quite say), it's all in service to the blockbuster, which means a lot of your choices are invalidated from one game to the next to tell the story. Anderson came back to the Alliance Military in the tie-in book, completely invalidating almost all of the choices you've made for him. Whatever, the petition remains stupid and I've had enough super-fans up my ass about ME3 being so incredible and not acknowledging any flaws that I'm tired of the whole thing.

[Brannigan]

They don't matter on a personal level though. Hence my comment about 2. My Paragon Shepard wouldn't have worked for Cerberus with a gun to his head or some kind of cranial-implant bomb. Like you said (or maybe didn't quite say), it's all in service to the blockbuster, which means a lot of your choices are invalidated from one game to the next to tell the story. Anderson came back to the Alliance Military in the tie-in book, completely invalidating almost all of the choices you've made for him. Whatever, the petition remains stupid and I've had enough super-fans up my ass about ME3 being so incredible and not acknowledging any flaws that I'm tired of the whole thing.

I meant personal in your own feelings towards the characters. Not in a what would shepard do way. ME3 is SO INCREDIBLE!!1! I enjoyed it a lot, but it certainly isn't perfect by any means. For one I really wasn't thrilled with the readiness thing and how it actually effects the game.

[Orv]

I meant personal in your own feelings towards the characters. Not in a what would shepard do way. ME3 is SO INCREDIBLE!!1! I enjoyed it a lot, but it certainly isn't perfect by any means. For one I really wasn't thrilled with the readiness thing and how it actually effects the game.

Oh yeah, fair enough. I was pretty bummed when

Mordin ate it

, so they definitely crafted some incredible characters.

[Brannigan]

mordin died in 2 for me, a fact that hurt because joker kept calling the new solarian not-mordin

[brkl]

FUCK THIS GAME

You can't adjust your characters ears anymore Sasquatch is just not the same without his Tony Blair ears.

Not that the game could do anything with my ME2 save file, I had to do a whole song and dance to get most of the values correct (http://masseffecttools.99k.org/v2/index.php). Even then ME3 offered me a black man with yellow eyebrows at first.

[Nappi]

I'm a couple of hours into this, so I feel obliged to my post random incoherent thoughts about the game here:

• Importing my character went fine. I was afraid that I would have to install ME2, but luckily that wasn't the case. Apparently, I had swapped girlfriends at least once, because different save files said I had sexed a different gal. I like the idea of being able to choose my memories.
  
• The combat feels very tight. I can throw fireballs constantly, due to the decreased cooldown.
  
• The sound design is weird. They have, perhaps appropriately, made dubstep the face noise of evil.
  
• That dream sequence. Jesus.
  
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: "It's not the end of the world. But you can see it from here."
  Mass Effect: "If this ain't the end of days, it's pretty damn close."
  

The last point bothered me more it should have.

[Gwardinen]

[*]The sound design is weird. They have, perhaps appropriately, made dubstep the face noise of evil.

I kinda love this. Every time the Reapers find me when I'm scanning I mimic their BWOAAAARR noise.

[Brannigan]

I kinda love this. Every time the Reapers find me when I'm scanning I mimic their BWOAAAARR noise.

Should start going BWOAAAAARR as a greeting, in real life.

[TheLastBaron]

Got this at PAX, going to wear it the entire time I play the game.

http://imgur.com/y8Ix0

[juv3nal]

Got this at PAX, going to wear it the entire time I play the game.

http://imgur.com/y8Ix0

That's supposed to be an omniblade? It looks more like a squashed Hanar.

[brkl]

Oh man, this guy. Kicking ass, taking names.

[TheLastBaron]

That's supposed to be an omniblade? It looks more like a squashed Hanar.

Yeah, there's a reason I left it in the bag after seeing people walking around wearing it.

[elmuerte]

I'll probably get my copy of ME3 and the end of this week, and I'm already outraged about the possibility of an ending.

[Brannigan]

I'm outraged that I don't have a blow up sex toy omniblade.

[Nappi]

I'm outraged.

[Thompson]

Outraged.

[elmuerte]

Raged