Mass Effect 3 Discussion

My MaleShep was a PIMP. I did a Kelly/Tali/Miranda relationship all in one playthough.

 

That works hahaha!

I was surprised Ashley didn't mind my Shepard dating a quarian though. She said that Tali was like a sister to her or something which was weird because Ashley was kind of a bigot to aliens in ME 1.

 

Hehe... same thing happened to my male Shepard back then.
Ashley was hitting on him (out of nowhere no less), and I also remember she getting jealous at Liara who barely took an interest in him as well even though I avoided conversation options that might lead towards a romance with either (so it was surprising because the whole argument between the two came out of the blue).
Ashley behaved as a real presumptuous idiot (and a nag)... so I left her to die on Virmire (besides Kaiden was on my scope since day 1 so it was a no-brainer on who to rescue), and I of course turned down Liara as well (she was far more tolerable than Ashley in behavior - calm - and wasn't acting like a brat)... so my male Shepard was celibate until ME3 (until the right man came along).

 

lol this is getting serious

ChipIn: Retake Mass Effect - Child's Play

Honestly at this rate, I see Bioware adding DLC to "fix" the ending...

 

Don't worry about the bad ending, BW will be milking us fans with DLCs.
I haven't played ME3, but saw a bunch of clips on YouTube. They kinda...hmmm...dunno even...

 

He's a real bore, anyway. Ashley's kinda boring too, but at least she has boobs.

 

Kaiden was useless in every way so I sacked him on Virmire every time in ME 1.

 

It was the evil plan all along, get you hooked and then make you buy the ending

 

Haven't seen the awful ending yet (hell, haven't started the single-player yet because I need to get my "perfect" character through ME2 still), but I would never turn down a chance to donate to Child's Play. Best charity EVER. Great cause, you help kids right in your community and know you're really making a difference in their lives, and essentially no overhead.

 

Just Finished my first play-through, I've heard about the ending being bad (didn't want to watch the videos on youtube) but to be honest I just found it weird. It just doesn't feel like a Mass Effect ending, I mean it's basically a choose your colour ending, after all the amazingness, epicness and storytelling this is the best that Bioware can do to end the (in my opinion) greatest series in gaming? because I'm having a hard time believing that.

I was talking to someone who had already completed the game and after a while this is what we came up with:

Spoiler

Everything after the Harbinger scene was some sort of hallucination or even indoctrination to stop the reapers from being killed. When you move Shepard he moves like he does when he has his dreams (not sure if this makes sense to anyone but he moves faster and smoother than the speed his legs are moving at).

I noticed that something was off when the child was talking to you because when it speaks the voice primarily sounds like a child's voice but I also noticed how your own voice is in the background and sometimes you can clearly hear it (my ME2 save was a male shepard).

The child gives you the 3 options but the character that carries out the option seems to be the opposite. The destroy option is carried out by Anderson and the Control option is carried out by the illusive man (at least it looks like him), so what seems like the bad option is carried out by the good guy and vice versa.

The child also seems to push you away from the destroy ending and more towards the control and merge solutions and in both you die (but the reapers are still alive).

I chose the destroy option (after actually taking some time to think about it due to the stuff I've written above but I was very close to choosing the merge option because it seems like the right one but due to me over analyzing I thought that maybe the reapers wanted me to choose that option) and at the end you see Shepard take a breath showing that he's got some life in him. Now I see 2 things wrong here, the first is that the citadel was blown up and second, like the child says Shepard is partly synthetic which means that the destroy option would kill him as well.

Also, what's up with the mass relays? I played the Arrival DLC from ME2 and they said that if a relay is destroyed it's like a star going supernova and on the galaxy map you see that each relay has a far reaching wave but it's never explained if it is the destructive effect or just the wave that destroys the reapers (if it is the former it basically means you killed a large percentage of beings in the galaxy yourself).

Anyway these were some of our thoughts and from looking online there seem to be a number of people who are having thoughts in the same direction as us.

Spoiler

If the whole hallucination thing ends up being true I keep wondering if Bioware will put out some sort of explanation DLC and I don't how I will feel if they decide to charge for it. A part of me will be happy to get a proper ending but there will also be the part of me which will be pissed that they gave us a dream ending only to ask for more money for the 'proper' ending.

 

Unless Bioware pre-planned a DLC ending, I wouldn't count on anything. In order to make a decent DLC, they'd need to bring back all those celebrity voice actors and I'm sure with their busy schedules, they don't have time or desire to come into to the studio for a 2 min recording session.

 

Who says they didn't already do it and now are just waiting for a perfect time to release it...

 

'Mass Effect 3' producer talks controversial ending

ETA, I haven't finished the game yet.. and I havent read the article..

 

Yeah I read his reply somewhere else - he's basically saying he didn't want the ending to be forgettable. While I understand what he was trying to accomplish, I feel that he did so in a negative way. He's right when he said we won't forget the ending, the problem as I see it is we won't forget it because it was complete rubbish and potentially stained the entire series. Can he make up for it with DLC? Absolutely.

 

Yeah it is not forgettable in a sense that we are in awe, but more like we are disgrunted lol.

 

I think that's the wishful thinking that is currently prevailing but I wouldn't count on it. All this uproar will die down in a few weeks and people will move on. ME 4 will be released in a few years and people will buy it. After all, the ending did leave a small opening for the series to continue. There's no way EA would let a cash cow like this just end.

 

It's not a wishful thinking. It's what really happens some times.

 

There really isn't any other way to say it. My opinion of EA cannot be written on these forums -- it would violate too many forum rules . EA screwed with the Mass Effect series too much (Origin, Day 1 DLC, crappy ending with an opening for more DLC). Don't really need to budget for any future EA games, that's for sure.

 

This was the first game i ever played from Bioware, was impressive cinematics, i just hope video games don't all become like that, mainly cinematic and graphics and less about gameplay content, and furthermore Milking players (Day 1 DLC)..

 

It is confirmed that there is no ME 4 for a while now. Based on how they ended the series any (if there is any) games for the series after ME 3 will happen before or during the Shepard arc.

They deliberately killed any future for the series and instead are willing (somewhat) working on prequels.

I know there has been these complaints for many other games that has come and go but I think this one in particular is not going to waver simply on the point that for a game with a very, very, very high expectations and hype should of been expected to end with a bang and instead it ended with a flop. The community base for BioWare games are way more civil, intelligent and logical when conducting these complaints than let's say the protesters of CoD.

 

I wouldn't mind if some DLC would make up for the ending. I don't think it's the ending that ME3 deserved.

 

ME3 is the end for me. The combat isn't really my style (mores so since ME2), but I found the narrative entertaining enough. I'm dragging my foot so I haven't played through a lot of ME3 yet so I don't know how it ends. It's just a guess from what I've read, but it seems like BW compromised the ending in order to get people to buy future titles set in the universe.

 

I agree it may be a prequel or whatever but its definitely not the end of the ME series. It's EA's Halo, they're not going to let it die until they've milked it for all its worth. If I were in charge of publishing at EA, I'd definitely be pushing Bioware for a 4th title because I know its guaranteed profit.


SPOILER:

Spoiler

In one of the endings, the kid asks the old man for one more story about Shepard and he obliges. So that tells me they will either make a DLC that deals with other aspects of the ME universe with Shepard or they'll release ME4 that puts a twist on it (e.g. dream or some kinda deus ex machina).

 

Still quite too early to speculate, but as we know bio does pack in some DLC. Who knows if something down the pipe might comprise some DLC that might wrap this story up a little better never know.

 

Yes, the Reaper-like indoctrination by EA is definitely stamped over many aspects of ME3. I'm still dreading the point when my first Shep gets to the end-game, but at least now I've thoroughly braced myself for a letdown.

On a more positive note, I just finished the Krogan Genophage arc. I must say, it was potent and spectacular overall. It was morally obscure and sad in the right way, which sounds like more than the game's ending will be.

 

Simply one of the best games I've ever played. ( I'm not an old gamer )
Graphics are outstanding , I didn't play ME2 or ME1 but I'm enjoying the story.

I got annoyed twice, the first one when I knew that Shepard is .
Second one when I knew that the ending is awful.

 

good story, i enjoyed it. interesting ending choice lol

 

ME3 completed.
It was alright i guess, the ending was meh-ish.

 

Ending was crap. I am disappoint.

 

I dont get why people are fussing over day 1 DLC. If anything you should be HAPPY they gave you another venue to get collectors edition content. Other games if you dont buy the collectors edition you NEVER get that content.

Its great for people who couldnt afford the collectors edition at the time of launch but still want the content, everyone is SERIOUSLY blowing that out of proportion

 

so is it better than me2?

 

For the most part yes. Basically everything was pretty good, exciting, gripping and tolerable until the last 20 minutes of the game (the ending).

ME 2 did have some moments where the story was not as exciting but ME 2 does have the better ending hands down.

 

Finally had time to finish game and I will be playing it again. I made a horrible mistake, my Mordin and Tali wer replaced by generics because I imported the wrong ME2 file. They were killed in ME2, OOOOPS.

The ending I had was GREEN. I chose to merge, with the robots-Joker and EDI love. We are all Dirletics.

 

So it means that it has the crappiest ending of the series? I mean, ME1 ending was much better than ME2 ending ...

 

Guys at the first missions , I told Miranda to leave by mistake.
Is that wrong ?

 

I don't have the game yet but the issue i have with me3 based on the videos I've seen, is that they build up this feeling of doom and that you have limited time to save the earth.
But you go around the Galaxy taking on side quests and what not. It seems to conflict with the very premise of the game which is to stop a Galaxy consuming force from obliterating the earth in a few moments.

Sent from my samsung galaxy s2 using tapatalk

 

that is overcome by how the time passes inside the game, sheppard is borderline, exausted, and without sleep, and when he does sleep you will know.

The exploration and sidequests arent that extensive btw. There are 53 missions, and mostly involve system exploration, the ones that you are in the planet (land) are 15. dont be fooled by sidequests number, they are 2-1 missions, for example, when you land on a planet in a sidequest, there are usually one more mission to do in there, which wont be a hassle btw or make the mission thougher.

and the game puts the missions available during a certain time, if you trigger something, some missions are lost and not available to you anymore.

 

so sheppard goes around the galaxy for a week or so trying to build alliances etc.
the way the reapers are described as galaxy ending beings, you would think the earth would not survive for a couple of days at best.

i actually liked me1 and 2 a lot, but there just seems to be something wrong with the plot on this one that i cant get myself to accept. thats why i didnt buy it.

 

Basically.

It is fast-paced though. The side quests take only like a "day or two" and if you don't go and do them after a few other missions, they get abandoned and consequences will occur.

 

i cant say much more without spoiling someting

 

Im agreeing with the hivemind, This was a great series with a good story ~ until the last 10 minutes.

 

I don't mind, I've seen some videos of me 3 and I've seen the ending.
Just put a spoiler tag to warn others.

Sent from my samsung galaxy s2 using tapatalk

 

How are you supposed to win a Silver challenge Reaper map. >_>
Most if not all the players i have meet online are weak Vanguards using pistols.
(No offense to players that can actually play them ofc)

And i really want that N7 special cache of weapons. D;

 

Based on the events from ME2, Earth got the attention of the Reapers mainly because of Shepard's actions which probably resulted in them doing what they did by the end of the game.

Given the amount of hit-run tactics employed by the resistance in ME3, it would stand to reason that the Reapers will take time to find and process the entirety of Earth's population if majority would flee into hiding - giving Shepard enough time.

But there's also a psychological component to take into consideration.
Given how Shepard continuously resisted the Reapers in the past (probably something that no one did before, or did, but with much less success) he/she went from being described as 'nothing' to a 'nuisance' and 'interference'.
On some level, it may have become personal to Harbinger and other Reapers which gave them the idea that in order to successfully stop Shepard from succeeding, they have to hurt him/her on a mental level - wear him/her down.

A lot of ME3 ending could be interpreted like that actually - along with a few other things that would render it 'incomplete'.
And looking at the rest of the game, the 'ending' made little sense.
I mean, personally, I can understand what they were trying to do and appeals to my personal exploration of 'the bigger picture', but closure was something we definitely lacked - and it's inconsistent with how Bioware works.

 

I have never played any of the ME's, would you guys recommend I pick up ME3? It sounds really cool, and I'm very intrigued by the online play.

Is the game kind of like skyrim? Is there a lot of customization involved?

 

Mass Effect 3 is a lot of fun but I recommend you play the first two Mass Effect games first. Probably the biggest draw of ME3 is the story and to fully appreciate it you should play ME1 and ME2 first.

 

Spoiler

Since you dont mind... let's go.

1) Sheppard only sleeps 3 times in the game. And those are marked by the cutscenes of his nightmares.

2) The sidequests as I said are mainly, go to a system, scan the aforementioned system, and either send a probe in a planet, or investigate some debris in space. Note that this takes time, while the MER make it quite fast to travel, FTL is still quite slow in comparison.

3) Earth wasnt taking the war well, and neither any of the invaded planets, the turians were better at it, thessia fleet fell quite rapidly, but not as fast as earth fleet did, also the planet fell quite fast.

4) You still need alliances to make the war remotely possible to win.

5) There is the new blasto movie, you know the hanar spectre? Yeah thats right!

 

QFT. That is all you need to know really.

 

Im going to disagree!

Spoiler

The plot for ME3 as I see is this:

1) You are introduced to the power of the reapers quite early on earth, forcing you to leave earth in an attempt to save it, with a military alliance

2) Cerberus is introduced as another enemy, and clearly from the begining indoctrinated. This comes to an end when the Thessia arch story starts and we go to find out how cerberus got that army, and to destroy the org, once and for all

3) The long standing conflicts needs to be solved for the alliance to work, basically lets fix some things, and unite in a war effort against a common larger foe.

4) The Synthetics VS Organics is again part of the story, and this is shone in the light that since they are AI, selfaware, they arent prone to killing everything in sight, quite the contrary, the organics are the ones that started the conflict in this cycle. And when the reapers come to save the day, guess what they did to salve ourselves from synths? just throw some other synths to kill us.

So you build an alliance that tries to defeat the reapers, thats the game, and this is quite fun. The end of cerberus is a bonus, didnt liked them in ME1 nor ME2, in the latter I did whatever I could to screw them up. But I saved Jacob's behind, and dated Miranda.

Now here are somethings that I find interesting:

1) Paragon and Renegade options are quite black and white, and that is something that shouldnt be that way, the game was supposed to be more grey than anything, were we can choose something and pay heavily for it. There are only 2 instances that I saw on grey decisions in the entire game, the 1st is the docking officer and the refugee, if you support the latter you get his family and some others refugees in the citadel neting you some lost points, if you support the former, you will redirect the flow of the refugees to thessia.

The 2nd instance is the 2 C-Sec officers discussing in their office at the Presidium, if you go for hysterical side looking for terrorists (which at that point of the game there is no mention, and surely after the coup d'etat da cerberus just gave, giving the status of a terrorist organization, is just disingenious) or you go for offering the base security level, since people are going to start plundering and there is the large refugee camp that we see and more incoming, surely the rational choice would be to crowd control, however if you do that, you lose war assesets instead of gaining, and you lose because there is inefficiency in security, since the other scenario, were you dont investigate anything, but go just looking for fairies, is going to make much more secure.

2) It doesnt matter how many war assests you gain. You can finish the game with just the bare minimum, and the ending will just be a little different, with less lines for you. And this is plain ridiculous.

3) Im still looking for a color blinded ending, since for those unfortunetly affected by that illness are thinking we only got 1 ending instead of 3.

4) I expected much more from Kai Leng, its a pain to kill him in the cerberus station, not because its difficult, but because there is script preventing you to kill him before the 2 phantom arrive. And according to the novel he is one tough mother****

5) Thessia is where the writing begins to fail. They try to insert desperation with the reintroduction of cerberus into the main plot line (cerberus doesnt disappear on the sidequests at all, since most of the missions that you can land are tied to cerberus in some way, with the notable exception being the mission in the refinary, where your enemy is the reapers)

6) Cerberus closing act, and the explanation again that the reapers did this with the protheans, the same we can control them, we dont to destroy them was terrible, and this was because....

7) Sanctuary was supposed to be the main source of cerberus troops, but we are in a convoluted part of the story, there is ''so much information'' going on, since we are ending the game and we need to finish the cerberus act, that we try to finish most things here and assault the damn space station.

8) I didnt have high expectations regarding the quality of writing, Drew Karpyshyn, aint a good writer. His novels are as lame as it can gets, they are basically substandards all around, since there are too many uses of what I call ''the standards'', there isnt anything out of the ordinary, nor quality that surpasses anything, lets say that if I go to the market and I see several different brands of toilet paper, they are going to serve their intended purpose, with just slight deviations.

9) Mac Walters is around average as well, as you can see through ME2, is a giant gatter you troops and ME3 as well, at least there is something more interesting in here, you sure are average... Basically his problem is that he also uses too much of ''the standards'', and the same ones...

Summation

ME is a great universe. There are many faults in there? Oh yes! Are they any worse than changing wookies to ewoks? Nope.

Do I call for the extermination of the ewoks? Yes! Do I go as empire to kill all ewoks in that map in Empire at War? Hell yes, one of the most wonderful things to do in that game.

 

heres how i see it (im not going to use a spoiler tag since i havent played the game and everything i mention here will be evident from the trailers, etc):

unlike the previous games, the me gameplay doesnt match the plot of me3. in me2 for example, you had to build a team. the storyline itself lends well to visiting other planets/galaxies and exploration.
in previous games, the power and advanced tech of the reapers is fairly established and is further heightened by the trailers and opening sequences of me3. so there is a very palpable sense sense of dread and impending doom that sheppard has to act FAST. and from demo gameplay sequences ive seen, that sense of dread is gone by the time you reach the citadel where you seem to take youre sweet time to explore and do rpg things.
also, the reapers in the first two games were truly powerful, however in me3 it seems like theyve been reduced to walker like creatures akin to war of the worlds where a fairly 'ancient' terran civ could hold out indefinitely against them.
however i dont doubt biowares ability to come up with some really good emotional gameplay moments as it did in me2.

so in summary, i just feel that a doomsday plot, is never served well by an rpg and works much better in other genres like the action/fps game crysis2.