The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Where to start.. I am a huge fan.. played through ME1 when it came out, played all of the DLC.. Same with ME2.. Importing my character the whole way, I was heavily invested in the game and all of the arcs.
So, some thoughts;
The good:
1) The entire opening sequence was great. I wouldnt change anything other than make it a little more clear that you were in Jail for your Cerberus time and expand upon that a little more.
2) The Turian and Krogan Campaigns were perfect. Very emotional and hit like a sledgehammer.
3) The citadel was beautiful. After being exiled from most of it for ME2, getting back was wonderful. Do wish you could have visited Omega again though.
4) The Cerberus missions were fun, and the characters were also top notch. Really enjoyed those. The Illusive Man was a great foe (until the end).
5) Javik was essential to add context to the story. I have the CE, so I didnt to buy it, but shame on Bioware for not including him standard on all games.
6) The Quarian/Geth adventure was everything I hoped it would be, but sad at the same time. In my play though, I wound up supporting the Geth, and when Tali died, it was again, like a brick hitting me.
7) The game play was much more like GoW, with fast paced action. I have been playing Bioware games since KOTOR, and I have enjoyed seeing the game play evolve from stopping the action to full-on FPS style play. The mechanics were much more fluid and the weapons systems are finally right for the game. I do wish there were a few more options though in the gun-mods.
Some Complaints:
1) The salvation of the collectors base was a BIG deal at the end of ME2. Yet, it appears to have had absolutely NO impact anywhere in ME3 other than some throw-away lines.
2) I thought the Protheans had tentacles on their faces?
3) The entire plot of ME3 involves building an army to help retake earth. Per all of the other ME Games, you gather together a team and build alliances, including rescuing and meeting up with old colleagues from the previous games. The all show up on Earth to help you fight. But after that, its all done. You never see them again, hear about them helping the fight. There is no change in the difficulty of the mission or the goals. You may see a cut scene or two with a few Krogan, but nothing really substantial.
4) The Citadel. You work to make it prepared for another attack. You help or make friends with tons of people there. You assist refugees. But when the ending comes, you are totally in the dark about what happened to everyone on it. Are they all just dead? Did anyone escape? There is no closure for the numerous arcs here.
5) The Geth/Quarian Arc is a bit of a tough one. From what I have read, post playthough, there is a way to get Both Sides to co-operate. Just seems like this plot-point was a little more difficult to negotiate out to a good conclusion for Paragon. None-the-less, Either decision had no impact on the overall game play other than a mention of the Geth at the end sequence.
6) The end. Wow. Well, its a lot more convoluted than I would have liked, and far less creative. It is a direct copy of the Borg. Basically, the AI says that to save organics, they absorb them into their collecti I mean.. Indoctrinate them. To quote the Borg Queen To bring order to Chaos. *cought* ripoff *cough* The end choices were equally odd, With every choice resulting in the Relays going kaboom. There are too many questions, did all of the systems blow up with the relays did? Why was your team-mates with Joker on that planet, when they should be on earth, or worse.. dead. Why was joker jumping away anyways? I am a creative guy and I cant really come up with anything to explain the Normandy Segments in a rational way.
Thankfully we did get the Star Gazer segment at the end (With Neil Armstrong Voicing it!).
the sense of dread is still there, as I said the game timeline is quite short, much like me2 (about one week or something like that), and me1 (is less than a month, actually more in line with 2 weeks).
The sense of power from the reapers is still there, try to watch a gold mp against the reapers in youtube, those are as hard as it gets.
And the reapers have to be given a more fleet like appearance, meaning there are now, dreadnought class (harbinger, sovereign), destroyers, cruisers and fighters (the occuli)
They didn't do a very good job of conveying the overall story line and plot points from ME1 and 2 in the new game. I couldn't imagine the experience you are having with only playing the 3rd one. You have to realize, a typical player has 60-100 Hours in the first 2 put together.. That is a LOT of back story and info to leave out.
It would be like watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows without seeing or reading any of the previous works.
Anyone else having issues with video crashing? I have been playing most of this evening and twice the video has crashed (music still playing) and my system isn't responding. I monitor temps via the MSI Afterburner onscreen overlay and the temps have not gone over 90c. My system specs are in my signature and I am using ATI Catalyst 12.2 Preview.
Never crashed for me but I did use a desktop nVidia GeForce 560Ti 448 when I played it though. I had glitches where the game froze on me but it wasn't computer freezing level, just a forced CTD and reload.
Same drivers as the ones you use and Mass Effect 3 never crashed once.
I did get stuck a few times in a certain part of the Normandy SR2 but thats the games fault. hehe
I know the game crashed on me repeatedly when I was doing the mission where you find Javik. After a bit of googling, I found other folks who reported the same issue.
The crashes for me were triggered right after you watch one of the Prothean video flashbacks. I ended up working around that by triggering the other (of the two) flashbacks first and saving really, really fast afterwards.
Ironically, both times it crashed, was during a cutscene. I searched google and found a page on EA that links a couple of .dll files that are supposed to fix crash issues. I don't think this is related to my video card or any part of my system for that matter. No other game has done this and I play games that push GPU/CPU's to their limits.
You seem bent on the idea that it could possibly be my drivers. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but it's most likely not the issue at hand. According to some info I gained from EA/BW, it's bugs in the game.
Been playing the multiplayer, it's actually quite enjoyable. First time I've gotten the wife to seriously play anything not named Spore, and she's been doing it all day long. My 100% galactic readiness eagerly awaits this new ending!
In light of this announcement, how far into the single-player game am I allowed to go without being irreversibly forced down the path of an ending? I currently just beat Tuchanka.
I think the "point of no return" as far as the asset score goes is...
Priority: Cerberus Headquarters. Tuchanka is a long ways before that. For instance, you'll still need to do the Quarian-Geth arc which is just as long as the Genophage arc. So just keep running around gathering war assets and you'll be fine.
The ending is Totally independent of the actual game. There are some paragon/renegade options that ease along a portion of the pre-ending. But otherwise, nothing you do in game will effect the ending, barring not having enough war assets.
Should there be a separate thread for the story, where people can freely talk with unmarked spoilers, and this one can be left for gameplay and tech/performance questions?
I only ask because I want to post but I'm terrified of reading something I haven't seen yet.
I've been playing ME3 for a bit now, haven't played the SP at all, but having a lot of fun with the co-op.
Any of you want to play with me, I'm Target_Tango on Origin.
Deagleson and his friends and I have been having a blast. Deagleson and I completed Gold with only a few low levels with Adept, it was awesome. The biotic combo explosions are endless fun, can't get enough of it.
Come join Mumble and hear the biotic explosions. With 4 Adepts, it's like listening to fireworks and bomb testing for 30 minutes straight. See enemies go flying all over the place, exploding etc, lots of fun.
I want to try Platinum with 4 LVL 20 Adepts on Mumble!
With Deagleson Streaming it! Would make for epic Youtube gaming moments.
My wife and kids are going out of town from Thursday to Sunday, so I may be catching up on ME3 multiplayer. My name is Mitlov in the game as well if anyone is interested. I'm probably not as good as you guys--I can hold my own in bronze and silver, but probably not gold. And I didn't even know that there was platinum. In a support role, I play as an engineer. When I feel like mixing it up, I play as a vanguard.
Krogan Vanguard FTW. I can play an entire round on Silver (gold is a tough, I'll admit) without firing my gun and without dying, just beating the $*%&$* out of everything that moves.
I agree that one needs to pay attention to every detail in the game and remember everything after many hours of game play. Or just play it so many times that every info sticks. Bio did make us play ME1 about 3 times.
They should have used a different ending in ME3 and this would have been the best story game in the history. In their defence there is little, except someone saying that what we got was not the original ending and that they had to change it for some reason.
After ME3 as the ending of this trilogy, there is another statement saying that there most definetly will be a ME4. This was after all the ending hype going over the net. And even with the DLC ending there is little changed. Have they decided to make a ME4 before? Have they changed the ending because of this so the 4th game would be an even bigger seller? Who knows.
But in the end I'm still sad about how they finished ME3. A bitter taste.
Something I want to try. Get as many people to be N7 Fury Adepts. Since the biotic explosion would would happen since the two skills combine. Plus the dark channel or whatever skips to the next victim after a biotic explosion, so don't have to reapply and even if dark channel not on, a mob hit by multiple Throw force would die anyway. It will be epic, plus the Fury aren't as squishy as the other adepts I think.
Yeah, I unlocked a Krogan sentinel today, and with the skills related to rage maxed out, it's silly fun. I just run around the map headbutting and body-checking people and tossing low-level enemies like thirty feet.
It's quite sad that all the talk on this thread is about the multiplayer and those fears in many ways have come true that the multiplayer is catching up more than the singleplayer which truly has been the most important of the series since it was always a single player campaign, i really don't like multiplayer that much quite bores but i just never been into online gaming. Yes the endings even with the Extended Cut it still doesn't rectify a lot of lost answers but with the leviathan coming out which will have even more dialogue with the Catalyst about the ones who have created the reapers, and well i guess that trend will continue with more dlc about the endings that will again make it more open ended than it was before just hopefully whenever they do make mass effect 4 your choices and those endings will all be taken into account! But like usually with Bioware it's not always like that. Hopefully with more dlc content it will be more longer because, Mass Effect 3 really is the shortest of the first two.
I don't think the ending is bizarre because Bioware was trying to set up a sequel. If that's the case, there wouldn't have been three separate endings that mean three separate things for the universe (including one which results in all plant and animal life becoming organic-synthetic hybrids, which totally alters the ME universe). They wouldn't have had you choose between the Geth and the Quarians surviving, because now they don't know which to put in the next game. Instead, I think they just tried to get clever and avoid a Hollywood ending where a few spunky upstarts totally annihilate an invincible enemy with nothing more than balls of steel and a totally implausible deus-ex-machina (
Independence Day, anyone?). But like Final Fantasy 1's time-loop ending, they just tried too hard and ended up with something that sounded like it came from a stoned first-year philosophy student.
I think it'd be interesting to see a Mass Effect game not centered around Commander Shepard. It'd have to be before the cataclysmic end of ME3 because of the issues I mention above. The universe is certainly rich and detailed enough for one. I'm sure people will pooh-pooh a Shepard-free Mass Effect game, but I'm sure people pooh-poohed a Kirk-free Star Trek when The Next Generation first debuted...and look how that turned out.
How about a prequel game about Captain Anderson in his youth, when he was a candidate for the first human Spectre?
Okay, just finished the ending again with the "extended cut," and I've got to say I'm disappointed. Not only in how little changed, but in how amateurish some of the additions felt (static illustrations instead of 3D animation like the rest of the game?).
I'm glad they explained how your teammates got back on the Normandy and why the Normandy was flying through a mass relay when the explosion hit. But instead of being "unexplained," these things are now just "unbelievable." With people being decimated in a mad dash for the beam, Shepard stops running because one person gets injured? Out of the hundreds being killed in seconds? And calls in a medivac from orbit? And waits there for it to arrive? And the reaper just keeps shooting at lone infantry when they arrive, instead of saying "hey, there's an incredibly fancy warship landing a hundred yards away, maybe I'll shoot at that once or twice too"?
And they still don't explain who set up this system. And the explanation of why it's set up--because organics and synthetics can never get along--is still implausible (are we supposed to believe that Joker and EDI is the first peaceful coexistence with technology in the history of organic life? Really?).
Overall, still really disappointed in BioWare over the ending.
Im not into happy endings, rarely in life there are happy endings, soldiers die, people divorce, you get mugged, things are though as they should be, where is the fun in easy?
Thus I was thoroughly expecting them to fail, catastrophically, heroically, sacrifice for what they believed or not (a shepard running away from all the things is a possibility), even if victory could be achieved, it should be so hard that you had to really earn it.
I started an adept build on insanity for the extended cut dlc, I dropped that build, it was just too easy, sure its fun to make things go boom, but it gets boring fast to be that OP.
I will try the new platinum levels, I usually play asari adept or salarian engineer, Im there for support and to make things go boom, but people dont play coop in that game, they try to see who gets the highest scores.
This is not reality; it's a game. I expect games/movies to have happy endings. I'm ok with a few people dying, but if the galaxy as a whole had failed catastrophically, I'd be pissed.
That said, I'm surprisingly perfectly fine with the extended cut endings. They changed the part that made the least sense (relays go boom but galaxy is not destroyed) and other than the funky green ending (I chose red, because that's what I set out to do across all 3 games), it made sense and wrapped things up in an acceptable manner.
Umm no, the problem is not the lack of a happy ending, it's the Deus Ex Machina type of detached ending that simply ignores everything the player has done up until that point.
You could have skipped all the quests, save no one and do everything badly and you'll still be presented with the same choices and 99.9% of the cinematics just as if you would do everything perfectly.
That, and the early endings were really dry and unclimactic, leaving everyone with bad tastes in their mouths. After such an epic story that spanned so many years since the first game, we were pretty much greeted with the cinematic equivalent of a 'You Win, thanks for playing' message. Fans expected more and got very little in return, that's all.
Some of us still do.
Add me on Origin: DEagleson if you want to play sometime.
Do note that me being in Europe might add some more lag into games if you play with me.
Totally bumping ME3 back to life but hear me out, ok?
First we got the new patch notes for v1.04, releasing today and it seems to fix most of the problems.
Mass Effect 3 Patch 4 Patch Notes
A new patch will be coming this week for Mass Effect 3 which will improve your gaming experience!
On X360 and PS3, you will be prompted to update your software, just confirm and wait for it to complete. On PC you will need to install the patch through Origin before you launch Mass Effect 3. Wait for it to complete installation before playing.
We expect the patch to be available Thursday this week, but will update when we have more information.
Issues Fixed:
- Fixed tutorial tip that didn't properly display an unbound command
- Fixed an issue in multiplayer where if a character has DLC weapons equipped, and the DLC associated to the weapons is deleted, the weapon loadout screen displayed no weapons
- Sabotage power evolution 6 increased tech damage bonus no longer stacks
- Fixed a rare crash in the final mission level involving the firing of the Cain at the Hades Cannon.
- Fixed the Encumbrance Bar from not updating correctly for the Earth DLC weapon mods
- Fixed weapons with natural piercing from having their damage reduced with piercing mods equipped
- Incinerate power evolution 5 now gives a damage bonus to frozen and chilled enemies
- Krogan Vanguard Rage bonuses now work properly
- Fixed Shepard's shadow from not appearing after entering and exiting an Atlas
- Fixed quitting/disconnecting while holding Retrieve Object that could cause the Retrieve Object to disappear
- Fixed users logging off or disconnecting during gameplay from not being able to return online until rebooting the game
- Players can no longer grab Geth Pyros over cover
- Fixed issue in which enemies surviving a detonated Stasis blast became invulnerable
- Attempting to equip similar weapon mods will now present a 'Slot Occupied' message
- Asari Justicar passive power evolution 3 power damage and force bonus now works properly
- Disruptor Rounds consumable (all ranks) damage multiplier against shields and barriers increased from 100% to 400%
- Particle Rifle no longer replenishes ammo from ammo boxes and supply pylons
- Fixed an issue when using Biotic Charge before death that caused the match to be unplayable afterwards
- Fixed pathing for Banshees so they don't get stuck in a teleport routine
- Fixed Asari Justicar from not being able to activate Biotic Sphere within range of large enemies
- Fixed dropping Retrieve Objects that could potentially fall under the level
- All Batarian and Krogan kits will now stagger less than other kits
- Ops Survival Packs now grant a one second damage immunity when consumed
- Singularity power re-designed:
Singularity no longer has a maximum number of charges and will only be destroyed when the time runs out
Performing a biotic combo on someone floating in the singularity no longer ends the singularity
Base cooldown changed to 8 seconds
Base duration of the singularity changed to 8 seconds
Base power now does 100 points of damage per second to all targets that are in range, even if not floating in the singularity
Base power sets up biotic combos on everyone that comes into range (only 1 combo added per enemy per cast of singularity)
Rank 3 changed to a damage over time bonus (used to be a radius and duration bonus)
Evolve 1 changed to singularity duration bonus (used to be a hold duration bonus and number of charges increase)
Evolve 5 changed to damage over time bonus (used to be a radius increase mechanic)
Evolve 6 now detonates biotic combos when the singularity explodes
- Fixed an issue with the Banshee being able to sync-kill players farther than she should be able to
- Fixed an issue with Firebase Jade giving partial extractions when all players are already inside the extraction zone
- Fixed SMG Ultralight Materials Mod not having impact on power recharge speed
- Fixed Armor Piercing Ammo not applying penetration bonus to secondary weapon
- Fixed player death camera beginning before a sync kill is complete
- Fixed an issue with talent points remaining after a character promotion
- Melee creatures will now completely ignore pets (drones, decoys, etc.) rather than just having a chance to ignore them
- Fixed an issue with Private Lobbies not staying private after the match has begun
- Krysae no longer ignores enemy shield gates
- Fixed various weapon sound-replications for clients
- Concussive Shot changes:
Evolution 3 damage and force bonus now applies to frozen and chilled targets
Evolution 5 changed to increase damage by 50% and radius by 1 meter (used to take on the properties of your ammo power, but this did not work)
Evolution 6 damage bonus to organics increased from 100% to 200% over 10 seconds
- Fixed issue where enemies in Stasis surviving a biotic detonation would become un-synchronized for clients
- Fixed Leviathan DLC Weapon Mods not carrying over to New Game +
- Marksman will instantly reload weapon ammunition when activated
- N7 Shadow Sword Mastery power evolution 5 and 6 now apply to Shadow Strike damage
- Fixed Atlas rocket applying damage over time on N7 Paladins using the Omni-Shield
- Fixed automatic revive at a specific spot in Firebase White
- Fixed an issue with ammo boxes causing players to be unable to fire weapons after attempting to refill grenades
- Fixed an issue with the Krysae Sniper rifle not functioning properly on squad members (Firefight pack)
- Can now headshot Banshees, Geth Primes, and Brutes for an extra 40% weapon damage.
- Can now shoot the Atlas exhaust port on his back for an extra 40% weapon damage.
- Fixed the health bar position of Tactical Scan on Swarmers
- Fixed an issue with enemies approaching a downed player to execute, but showing mercy and leaving
- Fixed seeking projectile powers occasionally failing to impact targets even though it appeared to impact
- Successfully extracting from a match gives 10% bonus credits. This reward does not depend on your squad members you must extra personally to get the reward.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Retrieve Objective wave to not recognize the recovery of the object when it enters the retrieve zone
- Fixed bleedout effect that was disappearing when another player used an Ops Survival Pack
- Fixed Decoy that was blocking the use of ladders to NPCs and squadmates
- Fixed Flamer power of Vorcha from being activated simultaneously with the Reegar Carbine
- Fixed icons of powers disappearing from the Character Screen
- Fixed an issue with Ken/Gabby and Tali/Garrus ambient dialogues not triggering in Normandy engineering
- Fixed an issue in which purchasing multiplayer card pack purchases would not complete
Exploits Fixed:
- Fixed an exploit that allowed players to be invincible and invisible to enemies
- Fixed an exploit where players were able to use rockets from other weapons
PS3 Only:
- Fixed an issue on PS3 where after accepting an invite, a player could get stuck in a multiplayer screen by entering the store from the promo screen and then exiting without purchase
- Fixed a crash when pressing PS button during the game's boot sequence
PC Only:
- Fixed the hint popup to update mouse left click and right click bindings
- Fixed an issue that made Origin users display their game as joinable when their game is full
- Fixed a crash on Firebase Rio caused by heavy melee
Xbox Only
- Fixed a rare crash (black screen) on Xbox 360: Upon booting up the game and attempting to reach the title screen, players will now be able to get to title screen to recover their save games. Progress to locked achievements will be reset. Achievements already unlocked will remain unaffected.
But thats not it, BioWare is also releasing a new FREE multiplayer DLC pack next week adding new content as well as a new enemy faction: The Collectors from ME2!
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
