Mass Effect 3

[ATimson]

What good things can I say about Mass Effect 3... Hmm...

Well, the destruction of player agency in the beginning section was on a far smaller scale than in the beginning section of Mass Effect 2.

Spoiler: Sur'kesh

They finally made Mordin a sympathetic character.

And that's about it. At least in terms of specific points. I think 3 is probably still a better game than Mass Effect 2, asides from the music. But the first game is by far my favorite, and I'm still waiting for a sale on it (or on the entire Trilogy set) for PS3 so I can replay for trophies.

 

[Reverend]

Oh I can say plenty of good things about ME3. It's precisely because it's so good overall that the bad stuff sticks out as much. At the time it was vexing, these days it's mostly just baffling.

As I said what must be 18 months and 120 odd pages ago: if it was a bad game, nobody would care if the endings sucked.

 

[TheGodBen]

I liked Mass Effect 3, I enjoy playing it, and no other game (or any other form of art) had the same sort of emotional effect on me as the time I shot Mordin.

But the game still has some pretty bad design decisions. The side missions sucked. The reduced dialogue options sucked. Overriding player choices from the previous games (Rachni Queen, Udina on Council, etc) with the wave of a hand sucked. The ending was atrocious. The Omega DLC was completely pointless, and far too expensive.

It wasn't a bad game, it was pretty good overall, but at the same time it wasn't the send-off that the trilogy deserved.

 

[soapp]

I enjoyed them for what they had and what they where. Flaws aside, I jumped in and enjoyed every single bit of it, the ending of ME3 wasn't what I was expecting, but I wasn't too disappointed because the over all experience was so darn great.

I guess everyone complaining about the ending so much, when I got there I didn't have my hype to high so I was perhaps a little disarmed, and lucky because I got the extensive ending first... I do admit if I had the original ending I might have had more question marks over my head. Not the best ending ... clearly, but I can't hate the game because the journey was great.

And the universe they built was great, I can't wait to see more of that universe.

 

[Reverend]

This thread actually inspired me to load up the game again and I'm surprised at how active multiplayer still is (on PC at least.) I expected it to be a bit of a ghost town by now.

A real testament to the combat system which IMO was as much of an improvement over ME2 as that was over ME1. The difference being that ME2 was a total overhaul while ME3 refined it to near perfection. I say "near" because the whole spacebar thing. I understand controls have to require less buttons on consoles, but there's just no excuse for it on PC!

Also reminded at how much the powersets were improved. A sort of reversion to ME1's more RPG style with more passives and a whole bunch of alternative build possibilities. And no, I don't care what the die hard RPG'ers say, the game did *not* need an inventory system. It made no sense in ME1 and they were right to ditch it and even more right to not bring it back in ME3. My only gripe was the aesthetics of having the SMGs holstered in the same place as the pistol. I know it'd require more animation work but it should have been on the right thigh or something. Also, would have been nice to customize the weapons like you could the armours. As in change the colour and patterns yourself rather than have the mods randomly change the look.

Now back to the single player to avenge Thane!

 

[Thestral]

"This is for Thane you son of a bitch!"

Hmm, I should boot it up again myself, my latest playthrough actually romanced Thane and it's time for 3. The question is which way to go with the shipping... back to Kaiden to finish that up or go in totally different direction with the delightful Traynor?

 

[Reverend]

I think this is my fourth or fifth playthough. It's my full renegade engineer and I've decided that it's going to be a "kill everyone possible" playthrough. She'd already killed Mordin, sabotaged the genophage, gunned Ash down, Thane just died and because Eve lived I think she has an unpleasant meeting with Wrex in her future. I think the hardest thing is going to be Tali...not looking forward to that.

If nothing else the Citadel party ought to be interesting...if a little quiet.

 

[Thestral]

I can't bring myself to do a true Renegade playthrough, I just can't.

 

[Aragorn]

Aside from the ending, I find it funny how during the entire duration of the game Earth is under attack. So when you're busy doing side missions or romancing Liara/Ashley/Miranda/etc. or just lounging around, Earth is being destroyed. Earth is sure a lot more resilient than the other planets that fell to the reapers.

I think the most emotional part of my first playthrough was what happened to Tali because I didn't have enough points to make some other choices.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I wish there was a way to do a Renegade game while being a punishing badass but without being a mincing sadist.

It's like, murder this bad guy in cold blood who helped the bad guys himself and deserves to die. +2 renegade.

Don't murder a lot of innocent villagers for no good reason, +32 paragon.

WTF? It should be lawful good vs chaotic good, not decent human being vs sadist mass murdering asshole.

I'm working on a trilogy playthrough now because I didn't carry data over the first time, with a custom Femshep trying to play the 'Renegade without being a sadist mass murderer' route. Still in ME1, but I saved Wrex this time.

Ever notice all the good romance options for Femsheps are either female or monstrous looking? I suppose Jacob is a viable human heterosexual male, but personality-wise, Garrus and Thane are the only ones I can imagine my Femshep liking.

And I agree. ME3 sure has it's flaws. Like, your decisions in previous games have way too little an effect, and characters who are dead are just replaced with equivalents who do basically the same thing. But it addicted me until I finished, and that's way harder than it used to be for me.

 

[Skywalker]

While I have plenty of negative opinions about the game overall, you won't find me disparaging the combat or the leveling/inventory system. I thought it was by far the best in the series, a nice middle ground between ME1's rather excessive system and ME2's practically nonexistent system.

 

[Reverend]

Aside from the ending, I find it funny how during the entire duration of the game Earth is under attack. So when you're busy doing side missions or romancing Liara/Ashley/Miranda/etc. or just lounging around, Earth is being destroyed. Earth is sure a lot more resilient than the other planets that fell to the reapers.

That's because the reapers are systematically rounding up as many humans as possible to convert them into reaper slush. IIRC the codex says it's a process that could take decades. If they wanted Earth "destroyed" then they could have done so fairly easily with a mass impactor bombardment, but they only tend to do that to planets with too small a population to bother with.

As for Shepard "lounging around": keep in mind that the game seems to span something like six months to a year (hard to tell exactly) and in that time Shepard goes from one battlefield to another with barely enough time to catch a breath in-between. Indeed in all that time the crew gets exactly *one* shore leave. I don't know what the real world regulations are for how frequently personnel involved in heavy fighting need to be rotated off the front, but I think it's a safe bet it's a little more frequent than that.

People need a pressure valve or something inside them will snap. Hell I remember the stories my Nan used to tell about yank soldiers on leave during WW2. She was a nurse at the time so they mostly involved her treating the ones that got drunk and got their arses kicked.

 

[Thestral]

Also, Palaven falls pretty early in the game but there's reports about ongoing fighting throughout.

 

[The Doctor]

I loved Mass Effect 3. Sure there's quibbles but overall I adore it. Endings? Meh, there's sooo much good stuff before there that I'm happy. And Citadel is just the most awesome damn thing in the universe.

I for one am excited for ME4!

I recently replayed the endgame section of ME3 after picking up the DLCs that I missed the first go around (Citadel, Omega and Leviathan.) From my POV, the Leviathan DLC and the extended cut really made a big difference in how things felt when it was all over.

That being said, I still think Destroy is the only viable ending. I started ME with the intention to destroy the Reapers. I sure wouldn't change my mind after all those years of struggle just because some faulty AI tried to dissuade me. Besides, even though my Shepard ended up on the Paragon side of the scale, he was and is a survivor. Destroy is the only ending where Shepard lives to fight another day.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I loved Mass Effect 3. Sure there's quibbles but overall I adore it. Endings? Meh, there's sooo much good stuff before there that I'm happy. And Citadel is just the most awesome damn thing in the universe.

I for one am excited for ME4!

I recently replayed the endgame section of ME3 after picking up the DLCs that I missed the first go around (Citadel, Omega and Leviathan.) From my POV, the Leviathan DLC and the extended cut really made a big difference in how things felt when it was all over.

That being said, I still think Destroy is the only viable ending. I started ME with the intention to destroy the Reapers. I sure wouldn't change my mind after all those years of struggle just because some faulty AI tried to dissuade me. Besides, even though my Shepard ended up on the Paragon side of the scale, he was and is a survivor. Destroy is the only ending where Shepard lives to fight another day.

Plus you're not forcibly altering the genetic code of eveyone in the galaxy against their wills to turn them into a big homogeneous group, or risking the Catalyst convincing you to restart the Cycle all over again at a future date.

 

[The Doctor]

I loved Mass Effect 3. Sure there's quibbles but overall I adore it. Endings? Meh, there's sooo much good stuff before there that I'm happy. And Citadel is just the most awesome damn thing in the universe.

I for one am excited for ME4!

I recently replayed the endgame section of ME3 after picking up the DLCs that I missed the first go around (Citadel, Omega and Leviathan.) From my POV, the Leviathan DLC and the extended cut really made a big difference in how things felt when it was all over.

That being said, I still think Destroy is the only viable ending. I started ME with the intention to destroy the Reapers. I sure wouldn't change my mind after all those years of struggle just because some faulty AI tried to dissuade me. Besides, even though my Shepard ended up on the Paragon side of the scale, he was and is a survivor. Destroy is the only ending where Shepard lives to fight another day.

Plus you're not forcibly altering the genetic code of eveyone in the galaxy against their wills to turn them into a big homogeneous group, or risking the Catalyst convincing you to restart the Cycle all over again at a future date.

Yeah, Synthesis never sat right with me and Control seemed utterly foolish considering I had just, not two minutes previous, convinced The Illusive Man to commit suicide because he'd been indoctrinated into thinking he could control the Reapers. Not to mention, of course, that Saren met the same fate in ME 1.

I like to think of Destroy as the 'Kirk' option. When in doubt, break the massive computer controlling everything.

 

[LeadHead]

Yeah, I mean there's a lot lacking in he endings, but the thing I keep going back to is just how dangerous and insidious a technology the Reapers are. Not only do they just flat out kill trillions, but they first remove your free will, then slowly convert you into a monster.

Control is an insane ending, because even if you accept the premise that Shepard is pure and can do no harm, absolute power corrupts absolutely, so eventually Shepard in some form will be corrupted and create a new nightmare. Either that or it just turns you into the Borg, not a good way to go.

Synthesis is also a no go. Converting all life in the galaxy into some sort of organic/tech mixture could have millions of unforeseen consequences that you have no time to consider in such a short amount of time. Also, it does seem pretty ridiculous, to say "We must save the galaxy from the machines!" then have it be "We must all become machines!"

Destroy works because you also defeat the ultimate enemy, The Starbrat created by Leviathan that started this whole mess. The Starbrat is the soulless mass murderer or trillions and is completely unrepentant. It along with everything it did, needed to be destroyed. The fact that it could consider everything it had done a "solution" proves that it was so fundamentally flawed it would never come up with a proper solution. Destroy the reapers, destroy the starbrat. Play the Citadel DLC afterwards so that EDI and the Geth survive so that its not an awful ending to an amazing trilogy.

 

[Reverend]

For me it comes down to the right of sapient life to self determinism. With both the control and synthesis endings you're essentially imposing your will on the entire galaxy, either by self-apotheosis or fundamentally changing the fabric of their existence (which I still don't fully understand on a practical level.)

The destroy ending means that for better or worse, the surviving races will be in charge of their own destiny and with luck, the pattern AI patricide is broken. Of course that would be easier if the Geth & EDI weren't killed alongside the reapers, which I still think was bogus and highly contrived. I my head canon I like to think that they were only knocked offline and could easily be repaired after some time.

 

[LeadHead]

Of course that would be easier if the Geth & EDI weren't killed alongside the reapers, which I still think was bogus and highly contrived. I my head canon I like to think that they were only knocked offline and could easily be repaired after some time.

That's the way I look at it too.

 

[Skywalker]

I still think the Destroy ending killing EDI and the geth was only added in to give that decision 'consequences,' because otherwise it's pretty much a no-brainer. But I agree, it's really contrived and was clearly just tacked on without much thought.