Mass Effect 3

[Dhalin]

So, nobody has started a ME3 thread here?

I find that very odd, so I think I'll remedy that!

This was too good to pass up; I pre-ordered and hit the ground running at roughly midnight Tuesday when the game released.

First impressions, wow, the game really starts with a bang! I don't want to give spoilers, but you're given a few calm moments and then there's running, explosions, running, shooting, and a "barely got out of that alive!" rescue and that's within the first 10 minutes!

Storyline-wise, this game is absolutely epic. No more mystery, no more "okay, so what's going on here...?" it is more like "Okay, we need to KILL these things, let's amass the largest freaking army anyone's Ever seen!" and right from the get-go, you're doing ridiculously awesome things, getting people to work together that hate each other... it is just so EPIC!

Gameplay-wise, it is a lot like Mass Effect 2, but yet they brought back some elements from 1. Soldiers can now use SMGs (never did understand that back in 2, why they couldn't), but yet you gotta watch what weapons you put on, because if you weigh yourself down, you're going to be finding it harder to use your abilities (the more weight you put on, the slower your abilities recharge). So, more guns = a lot more shooting, but a lot less power usage and less guns = less shooting, but more power usage.

Your character can now do awesome rolls, jumps, slipping around corners to evade enemy fire, but then the enemies have picked up a few new tricks, such as guys with huge metal shields that are hard to take down with simple gunfire unless you're a good shot or you got the right kind of powers or squadmates to help you kill the guys.

Melee fighting is better than it was, with new high-damage melee strikes, and you can even assassinate people if you can sneak up on someone and be within melee range while still in cover and undetected; it is a one-hit kill if you manage to pull it off!

And last, but not least, the War Room. A lot of people talk about this and so will I: everything you do (well, nearly everything) contributes to the war effort and it is a complex system. Basically, help people = they help you in the war. Get as many people as you can!

Also, there's a Multiplayer aspect to this game, that helps your Single-Player campaign, but I've not tried it yet so I can't comment. I've read a few things about it that makes it sound so farking awesome.

So, in closing, I've played about 10-15 hours now and I'd have to say... wow. I was trying to imagine how the game could possibly be better than the last one, I never imagined it would be this awesome.

What is even better, is that it has some really nice graphics, some awesome scenery, even in-game rendered cutscenes, and this 4 year old computer can handle it just fine. I've not seen a single instance of FPS drops or anything of the sort whatsoever. The loading times... what loading times? The game loads even faster than ME2 did! Whether you are first starting the game up, or you're transitioning between areas, the worst loading time I ever experienced was ~5 seconds.

In closing: 9.9/10. Easy.

If you like Sci-Fi, I highly recommend this (though you might want to play the first two in order; importing your saves from the earlier games makes the gameplay experience that much better).

[Frith-Rae]

Interesting cuz Ive been reading some opposite feedback...

Not that the game is bad but specifically..

Graphics have lttle changes from ME2 (very little update - but perhaps ME2 was good anyway)
The "RPG" element is lessened, you make fewer choices, fewer diagloue choices, and apparently in the end - your choices throughout the game (taht warroom and stuff you were talking about as well as your imported character) has little to no effect on what happens regardless of which ending you pick.

In fact, regarding those choices=impact and less RPG-ness (more actiony) - sounds exactly how I feel about the supposed "tons of choices!" in SW:TOR..hehe.

I am sensing a theme Bioware..and its not one I like.

Keeping in mind - Never played ME1 or 2, but have thought about picking up ME3 just because I think "well its so popular perhaps Iim missing out on a solid game!" But I will NOT be playing 1 an d2 at any ponit so then I think I might be just lose and out of the whole story so why bother? heh.

[RuneDragoon]

you can port your character forward - so when you play me 1, you can use that character in me 2. fairly sure its the same for three.

[Dhalin]

Interesting cuz Ive been reading some opposite feedback...

Not that the game is bad but specifically..

Graphics have lttle changes from ME2 (very little update - but perhaps ME2 was good anyway)

ME2 was indeed very good and crisp. They didn't need to change anything. Don't fix what ain't broke, etc.

The "RPG" element is lessened, you make fewer choices, fewer diagloue choices, and apparently in the end - your choices throughout the game (taht warroom and stuff you were talking about as well as your imported character) has little to no effect on what happens regardless of which ending you pick.

Err, what? I don't know who wrote this or what game they were playing, but they certainly doesn't describe ME3. A quick run-down... let's see... it is entirely possible to entirely exterminate the quarian or geth races (or you can save one or the other or both if you do it right), it is entirely possible to (I assume?) exterminate the Krogan, or you can help them rebuild. Whether or not the Rachni (if you saved them back in ME1) survive the events of ME3 are also solely up to you, several major NPCs in the last two games can get killed or survive solely depending upon you, and for that matter... it is possible to lose the entire war which means everyone dies at the end, as in, total galactic extinction of all advanced species.

In fact, regarding those choices=impact and less RPG-ness (more actiony) - sounds exactly how I feel about the supposed "tons of choices!" in SW:TOR..hehe.

I am sensing a theme Bioware..and its not one I like.

They used ME2 as a base, but expanded upon it. As for "RPG-ness", you still choose what to upgrade when you gain a level, but there are two more choices in the leveling path of any power/ability (instead of just one at the very end of a power/ability's path), and they re-introduced gun mods. You can equip two mods onto each of your guns, and you have to find these mods scattered about. Also, you can "purchase" permanent upgrades for Shepard, each of them offers two choices, you can only pick one for each.

As for stats like strength/intelligence/etc? No, ME doesn't have those. ME1 didn't, ME2 didn't, and ME3 doesn't either. Don't really need them IMO; the game is meant to be more action-y with lots of story and interactivity. The gameplay is immensely fun and you get -into- the battle.

Keeping in mind - Never played ME1 or 2, but have thought about picking up ME3 just because I think "well its so popular perhaps Iim missing out on a solid game!" But I will NOT be playing 1 an d2 at any ponit so then I think I might be just lose and out of the whole story so why bother? heh.

ME1 and ME2 are fairly cheap; if you do get ME3 I highly suggest picking up at least ME2. But if you don't want to, well, nobody's going to force you. You can always read up on the wiki (just google 'mass effect wiki') and you'll get a lot of the story that way. There's a _lot_ of backstory to this game series; you might want to read up on the major races, places, and ideas behind the ME universe, which is easily done at the wiki. Just go to the 'races' section and read each one. Interesting reads, IMO.

As far as I know (I've not tried it yet) when you create a whole new character in ME3, you can choose the general gist of what the character did in the previous games, such as who you saved on Virmire, who lived and who died in the suicide mission at the end of ME2, whether or not you saved the council in ME1, who you romanced (if anyone) in the previous games, etc. ME2 had a similar function (a cool interactive darkhorse comic-book style thing) so I assume ME3 has something like this too.

[Dhalin]

you can port your character forward - so when you play me 1, you can use that character in me 2. fairly sure its the same for three.

It is, turned up to 11.

Importing a character you played in ME1 -and- ME2 into ME3, you get a Lot, I mean a LOT of stuff. When some guy you hadn't seen since ME1 walks up to you and says "Oh, Hi, its been a long time since you..." and you're like "wow, that's right, I remember that!" lol.

Nearly every interaction with every NPC was saved in variables in your save files, I read somewhere there's 1000+ variables saved in the files. Sadly, about 2-3 of them were messed up in ME2, including how you dealt with Conrad Verner; ME2 incorrectly assumes that you punched the guy instead of peacefully talking him down (this doesn't seem to make much difference in 3, he didn't say anything about it. Though, how you deal with him in ME2 very much does matter I assume). There are fan-made fixes for this, though, if you wanted to fix it.

[Shian]

I've been so hungry for this game after the game-on-rails that was SWTOR that it's amazing to run around the world and run into people and prior actions and see what the results were. I still can't believe these two games were made by the same company. I can see the similarity in mechanics but gameplay couldn't be more far from each other.

Sadly I'm using an archived game because I didn't think to back mine up when I upgraded my OS, but eh, close enough. Whoever save file this is did all the stuff I did anyways. The important thing is, I can pick out the parts that they did differently, like a very easy to miss Elcor interaction so not a bad thing.

I'm impressed with the conclusion-equse feel to what they're doing. It's actually getting hard to play. Everyone is dying. So suddenly, no foreshadowing at all. All my favorite characters are just getting eliminated one after the other. Even people I couldn't even imagine dying. It's a war though, people die I get that and everyone should have an ending. I just don't like seeing characters I've bonded with the past two games get offed with no chance of saving them. I wish I had left <spoliers> with the Reapers. The fact they gave her an off screen death was a bit lame and getting shot in the back of the head by Cerberus isn't a heroic or memorable death at all. (Not that the horror of the reaper death was any better but you can be VERY sure that was memorable at least.)

Graphics I personally feel are step down from ME2. I have a hard time believing they are the same. Garrus in particular is stuck in a permanent lo rez state. Bioware has stated they have no plans to fix this. THIS IS YOUR POSTER CHILD! He looks terrible! You've had three games to fix this.
Need I mention Diana Allers? I'm convinced she is made of nightmares. I don't know what it is specifically, but she looks very wrong. I don't even think I can spend the two minutes it would take looking at her to get her kicked off my ship. Something went horribly wrong with that render. Disappointing because the model is a very attractive woman.

I'm about halfway though and.... I'm kinda getting bored. In ME1 and 2 you could go play "action action action!" then go relax in the citadel and explore all the side stuff and find hidden treasures like people you saw in ME1.

ME3 sees to be all "action action action!" with very little of that downtime I actually enjoy. When everything is a "Wow, amazing! Did you see that moment?!" it stops losing it's power without something mundane to compare it to. I'm up to counting 9 times where Shepard has to make this amazing leap because the thing she's standing on is crumbling beneath her or the ceiling is caving in and everybody's in danger and they must jump out of the way. Meh. The exception to this is the signature serrated bell toll noise of the Reapers. That hasn't lost it's frightening allure.
Speaking of mundane, one of the first things I noticed was the distinct lack of 'xp' points, lore and other triggers on the ship. Why remove gameplay aspects? Did some people complain about them? This is a very rare thing for a game to do though I suppose if you've played the first two games, the third can teach you very little you already know.

[Velea]

Ok, even I think this game is cool, and, you know, I'm like a girl!

Not that I'll play it cause I SUCK at shoot'em up games. But it's fun watching my son play.

[Dhalin]

ME3 sees to be all "action action action!" with very little of that downtime I actually enjoy. When everything is a "Wow, amazing! Did you see that moment?!" it stops losing it's power without something mundane to compare it to. I'm up to counting 9 times where Shepard has to make this amazing leap because the thing she's standing on is crumbling beneath her or the ceiling is caving in and everybody's in danger and they must jump out of the way. Meh. The exception to this is the signature serrated bell toll noise of the Reapers. That hasn't lost it's frightening allure.
Speaking of mundane, one of the first things I noticed was the distinct lack of 'xp' points, lore and other triggers on the ship. Why remove gameplay aspects? Did some people complain about them? This is a very rare thing for a game to do though I suppose if you've played the first two games, the third can teach you very little you already know.

Dunno about you, but they keep sending me back to the Citadel every few "major" missions. Then when I'm at the Citadel, this dude wants this, that dude wants that and you gotta go out there and get em and bring em back to the Citadel.

My main beef: I wish people would tell me where the heck this stuff is!

So an Elcor says "Rescue ______ from my Homeworld <insert name I forget>"

Um... which system is that in? It isn't lighting up on my map.

Same with the Volus who asked me to grab an item from his homeworld, Irune. I'm looking at the map, none of the systems are lighting up with the quest, so I have no idea WHERE it is. They gave me a planet name, but not the system and the codex doesn't say what system the planet is actually in. Nor do I feel like blowing thousands of units of fuel checking every planet in every system.

OR

I'll open up the Citadel map and I see names on it... like there's a "Sallea" marked on the Presidium Commons map in the Courtyard area. It is a very small one-room area... I look and look and look and look and there's no "Sallea" anywhere. So um... ok?

Other than that... I love this game.

As for the graphics? I didn't think Garrus was "low-res"? The main diff between ME2 and ME3 is that he's missing his prosthetic on his face because his battle wounds have healed (well, mostly. Look close -- his face isn't quite right) for the most part. It might look like he's low-res because he wears plain blue armor with no markings, but otherwise I never noticed anything wrong with Garrus's appearance.

They are very literally using the same graphics found in ME2; perhaps you need to tweak your display options?

[Dhalin]

Ok, even I think this game is cool, and, you know, I'm like a girl!

Not that I'll play it cause I SUCK at shoot'em up games. But it's fun watching my son play.

Try turning the difficulty down? I know they made ME3 slightly harder than ME2, but if you turned it down to the lowest difficulty setting, you should still be able to wade through it with not too much difficulty and if you get stuck in some area, you can ask your son to help you get past it (the Reaper in the Quarian missions comes to mind).

The game isn't -that- hard, you duck in behind stuff and shoot shoot shoot.

Try playing Soldier, you do nothing but shoot and use the occasional concussive shot. As long as you remember to keep switching between your ammo types, you're fine. Sometimes I do entire missions doing nothing but shooting my gun.

[Shian]

Try turning the difficulty down?

Try playing Soldier, Sometimes I do entire missions doing nothing but shooting my gun.

Err... this is what I do. I prefer to play with the story and not worry so much about having to aim a tiny crosshair. I'm also not very good with FPSes Plus getting all those one hit kills makes me feel like Shepard is as awesome as he/she is hyped up to be. I mean, come on. After three games and who know how many combat hours clocked, Shepard should be knocking everything down easy.

[Dhalin]

Err... this is what I do. I prefer to play with the story and not worry so much about having to aim a tiny crosshair. I'm also not very good with FPSes Plus getting all those one hit kills makes me feel like Shepard is as awesome as he/she is hyped up to be. I mean, come on. After three games and who know how many combat hours clocked, Shepard should be knocking everything down easy.

Bah, one hit kills are overrated.

Its all about peppering someone full of holes and turning them into swiss cheese.

Whether you use Inferno Ammo or Disruptor Ammo, it is funny to see this dude just walking towards you out in the open and then you open fire and he's stumbling backwards flailing his arms around like an idiot while he's stunned or panicking because he's on fire. Literally.

I love assault rifles. I reeeealllly love assault rifles. It gives a more Rambo-style feel to the game when you use em. Of course, I carry a sniper and a pistol too, because sometimes I need that headshot (stupid phantoms and nemesis anyways) or there's an enemy way too far away that I need to deal with. And sometimes I run out of AR ammo and I gotta pull out my pistol, which by the way, is nearly as fast as an assault rifle itself.

And of course, I pack on all of the extra ammo mods and upgrades I can. Nothing like MoreDakka, right?

[Frith-Rae]

To Dhalin:

Re: Choices not changing the endings -

I am reading another thread approaching 80 pages atthis point, man7y of the posters having finished the game and having little to no motivation to replay it because they have seen "each of the 3 endings". Its not that the endings themselves are different; its sounds like the finesse of your choices doesnt change the overall-reveal-eding. If that makes sense. Like I guess they feel like regardless of what they choose - heading towards "ending 1" much of those flavors mean nothing as ending 1 is ending 1 is ending 1. There is no 1.2 or 1.3 or 1.4 depending on what character choices they mde. There are only certain XYZ endings and you WILL ed up with ONE of those XYZ endings regardless of what other/all decisions you are making.

Not being a player msyelf I can only intrepret what they mean; and I know they are disasstified.

RE: loss of RPG elements -pretty much as you pointed out Soliatire actually. Apparently a llt of a the charatger-flavor responses are automated now and people are even showing on youtubr how many LESS conversation options you have in me3. They are lamenting that its loss its RPG-flavor feel (not talking about stat distribution talking about charagter development/lore'free form whatevers) for more of the Action RPG style (Much like DA2 changed from DA1 actually).

The site I peruse has a wide variety of posters and is a heavily trafficked site for a wide vareity of gamers; and again these are posts half of which from people who have already finished teh game. I am not saying they are like always right and I alwys agre ewith them but they have bveen pretty consistent with the games I am familiar with (andn what I like and my opinon on those games) and many of them make excellent and valid points (its not just full of trolls or people who are unable to intelligently discuss varying opinions lol).

So I tend to give their criticisms and credits credence and that they arent just blowing smoke or trolling.

But again having not played 1 or 2 and having NO DESIRE to (so I aint gonna I dont care if they are free I dont have the time and I dont care that much about the game series to do so...god..playing 60 hours of games brfore geting to the one I kinda wanna check out LOL) I cant really give like exact examples of what they are talking about. I can just read about their opinoins and pay atention to the specific points and why they feel the way they do.

Course none of them said it waas a baad game or anythingf; but that there were definiltey things they missed about the game mechanics/rpg play of 1 and 2 that were absent in 3.

[Shian]

BLARG. It's been so long that I forgot how to 'properly' play this game. That is, tour your ship after EVERY mission.
My boyfriend got some real key character insight by actually going down to the med bay and talking to everyone instead of immediately charging off to cure the genophage like I did. He also found Garrus in the cockpit teaching Joker some turian jokes.

man7y of the posters having finished the game and having little to no motivation to replay it because they have seen "each of the 3 endings". Its not that the endings themselves are different; its sounds like the finesse of your choices doesnt change the overall-reveal-eding. If that makes sense. Like I guess they feel like regardless of what they choose - heading towards "ending 1" much of those flavors mean nothing as ending 1 is ending 1 is ending 1. There is no 1.2 or 1.3 or 1.4 depending on what character choices they mde. There are only certain XYZ endings and you WILL ed up with ONE of those XYZ endings regardless of what other/all decisions you are making.

Umm... it may have been a very long time but I thought that's how all thier games played. You got 1 of 3 cutscenes and then text or stillshots at the end that told you the outcome of all the tiny choices you made. How can that be surprising?

The game isn't about the ending (at least for me) It's all the stuff in between.

[Shian]

Okay, I'm at the very end, but haven't finished yet.

I've come to the conclusion the game plays solely on the assumption that you've played ME2. If you haven't played ME2, you miss out on ALL of the heart warming and wrenching moments because there is little interaction or introduction to the reoccurring characters.

Tali and her "emergency induction port" replaces Mordin giving my female Shepard medical advice on romancing Garrus as my favorite scene of the entire ME series.

My boyfriend continues to find interactions I didn't get to my irritation. I look forward to my next playthrough and finding them all.

[Dhalin]

For Frith, Shian, and others who did not play ME2, you can download a file from the ME2 save database. They have thousands of Shepards there that you can download if you lost your saves, or you didn't feel like playing ME1 and ME2 all over again just to change a small/key decision, etc.

I forget what that website address is, but it should easily be found by google. These files come with a good list of decisions/paths taken so you don't miss out in ME3!

As for "not knowing what's going on in the world", a simple trip over to the mass effect wiki would easily fix that. They have a pretty good helping of the lore, about worlds, how eezo works, etc.

[Frith-Rae]

Umm... it may have been a very long time but I thought that's how all thier games played. You got 1 of 3 cutscenes and then text or stillshots at the end that told you the outcome of all the tiny choices you made. How can that be surprising?

The game isn't about the ending (at least for me) It's all the stuff in between.

Ok read through 20 more pages of debate about all this. The complaint was more direct. 1- ending has huge holes/plot gaps and 2-none of the endings are different actually, it's (and yes this is a quote), "same ending, just three different colored explosions..."

And yea some say the game journey is still worth it, but some were so pissed by the endings it ruined the rest of the game.

However, recent word is ...there is to be another ending released that is the "real" ending that doesn't have the problems of the current ones...and that's all we know.

But! I am glad to hear could just d/l a me2 ending and load it up. I am thinking now I will play at least some of ME1 for my completionist gamer sake - but finishing both prolly won't happen.

Heck I've not finished a game since like Doom3d... I have hopes for dues ex: HRthough, just haven't finished it YET!... Lol

[Romirez]

i refuse to read this thread until i finish the game. please post a possible spoiler tag in the Subject line!!!


(I ABSOLUTELY HATE SPOILERS.)

[Dhalin]

i refuse to read this thread until i finish the game. please post a possible spoiler tag in the Subject line!!!


(I ABSOLUTELY HATE SPOILERS.)

I know I certainly didn't post anything that should be a spoiler, I don't remember reading anything else that's a spoiler?

Other than maybe "the game has weak endings"?

[Chioxin]

But! I am glad to hear could just d/l a me2 ending and load it up. I am thinking now I will play at least some of ME1 for my completionist gamer sake - but finishing both prolly won't happen.

How much is that DLC going to cost? *Snarky comment!*

[Frith-Rae]

There have been no spoilers...

And Chio, right now... It's reportedly free but yea... We will see!