Mass Effect 3

[Reverend]

^YMMV. Personally I can take him or leave him, but really, it's beside the point. Like him or no, his story is most assuredly ties into the main arc and his presence sheds new light and added depth & detail on a number of subjects. Not just the protheans and the reapers, but the ancient asari, the origins of the rachni and a little on the race that preceded them.

[STR]

Jeyl wrote:

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He's the most typical "I'm a warrior and I'm built to fight" trope that I've seen in so many other BioWare games.

That he's the stereotypical warrior isn't what makes him interesting. It's that he's an enormous ass. You can't even take half the stuff he says to people seriously. Is he providing background on the Salarians and Asari or is he just trying to piss people (mostly Liara) off? He lies without hesitation or remorse and seems to treat almost everyone with open disdain. He is refreshingly contemptible.

His extended cut ending is pretty lame and out-of-character though.

[Skywalker]

Reverend wrote:

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^You can't just equip one weapon? Strange I thought you could.

Jeff O'Connor wrote:

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Could have sworn you can equip just the one weapon in SP...

So, I finally imported my ME2 Adept last night and it looks like you guys were right. I can have my Shepard carry just a pistol and nothing else. But the squadmates must have at least two, for some reason. So I think what happened was I got the squadmate thing mixed up and thought it applied to Shepard, too.

[Reverend]

^Well since the squadmates' cooldowns aren't affected by weapon weight it really makes no difference as far as they're concerned. So feel free to load up Ash with a Revanent and a Widow and let her do some serious damage while you chuck enemies around with biotics.

[Skywalker]

Ooo, I'll definitely do that.

Apparently Tali is dead in this Shepard's world (I guess I'd forgotten about that). So...that ought to make things interesting later.

[Reverend]

I just finished what is probably my last playthrough of ME1 last night and uninstalled the game for the first time in years. Since my "loser" Shep ended up being not being a terribly interesting prospect for importing, this new Shepard is designed to end up getting as many squadmates killed as possible. I want to see that memorial board filled to the brim!

Oh and how's this for sad? I'm so attached to my main Shepard that I felt the need to "fix" one of the official wallpapers.

[PsychoPere]

Only 42% of players have completed ME3.

[Skywalker]

Not surprising. A friend of mine stopped playing after Shepard says goodbye to all his/her various squadmates, before the final run to the beam in London. She said she'd read about how the game ended and would rather finish on a good note.

[LeadHead]

Yeah, given the nuclear reaction to the ending, it's not a shock that many did not complete it. After seeing the endings, I sometimes wished I'd never completed it myself. The extended cut made it so I can at least tolerate it. But I'd imagine many stopped playing and never tried again. Such a shame.

[RyuRoots]

With the rubbish we got? I finished and started another play when my machine died, but I can't say I blame anyone who signed off early if they knew about it.

[Reverend]

Not surprising, especially since (according to various studios) most games are never finished by a significant percentage of those who've installed them. For example, I've had Deus Ex HR & Batman Arkham City since before Xmas and have yet to complete either of them. Not that I didn't like them, I just left them alone for a while and never got back to them. I've been playing Skyrim for several weeks now and I fully expect that I'll uninstall it before getting anywhere near finishing the rebellion quest line.

With the ME3 ending fiasco, it shouldn't be a shock that a lot of those that bought the game only played it to a certain point before quitting. I wonder how many of them just watched it on youtube?

[Jeff O'Connor]

42% is pretty good for gaming. Look up some of the numbers on other titles -- when BioWare originally posted something about ME2's completion rate before this year (it was something like 49%) they were absolutely ecstatic. 42 is still pretty good.

Red Dead Redemption is a completely different kind of game, granted, but to give a good measure of how much this stuff really matters, its completion rate is 10%. And they used the same definition -- not 100%ing the game, just beating its main story path.

Eidos, when speaking of the Hitman series' stats in this regard, has claimed that 20% is average. :P

[ATimson]

Jeff O'Connor wrote:

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42% is pretty good for gaming. Look up some of the numbers on other titles -- when BioWare originally posted something about ME2's completion rate before this year (it was something like 49%) they were absolutely ecstatic.

ME2's completion rate after five months (the same period of time) was 56%, meaning that ME3 has a 25% drop in completion rate.

42% may be "pretty good" compared to the industry as a whole, but that significant of a drop from the last game in the series would be pretty worrying if I were Bioware.

[Reverend]

^ I suppose it depends on whether or not ME3 sold more units in that time than ME2. Going by percentage alone can be deceptive. Either way, I'm sure any drop off will be attributed to the endings fiasco. Also, I doubt the extended cut made much of a dent in that overall. While some who may have stopped before finishing might have gone back, it wouldn't have done anything from those that had already traded the game in.

[PsychoPere]

Reverend wrote:

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For example, I've had Deus Ex HR & Batman Arkham City since before Xmas and have yet to complete either of them.

You just had to mention those two, didn't you? I also haven't finished either of them yet...

Or The Witcher 2, or The Amazing Spider-Man, or Max Payne 3, or Spec Ops: The Line, or Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions...