Mass Effect 3 Catch-All

Stele wrote:

Glancing at the reviews, a lot of them are complaining about the day 1 DLC.

Speaking of which, has anyone played it yet?

Something I've noticed is that the dialogue is, like the demo, purely ren/par unless you've got an investigate option, but I think I prefer it with the changes to how reputation works (although it does mean less options with the removal of the fence sitter). What I'm finding is that in my current 'do whatever' playthrough I actually am doing whatever I feel is right, and not being concerned about crippling myself by being locked out of a special ren/par dialogue option, and I've seen far less of those.

All I can say about the face import is, if they fix it and I can't apply it mid-game because of the fix, I'll be... Unhappy. I got close to my original Shepard, but he's still not right.

On the latest Giant Bomb podcast (3.6.12) Geoff is a little down on the game. In a way it might be good to have my expectations reset a little.

NSMike wrote:

All I can say about the face import is, if they fix it and I can't apply it mid-game because of the fix, I'll be... Unhappy. I got close to my original Shepard, but he's still not right.

Yeah I think at this point it's more likely that gibbed gets his ME3 save editor working and you can face morph to fix your current game.

Regarding my question about face imports and the old default female Shepard:

Unsurprisingly, my face import was rejected, and it was even rejected when I used the save editor to switch back to the ME2 default instead of my imported ME1 default. Thankfully, though, one of the new presets in the custom character builder is a very close approximation of the old ME1/ME2 default. You do have to fix the hair and eye color, and I also tweaked the chin and neck a smidge, but I managed to get about as close to my old Shepard as this new model engine is going to manage, import or not. As a result, if you too just want the old default female Shepard, take heart -- she is there to be found.

One other note about faces: Not sure what is up with the lighting in that first section of the game, but it makes the character face models look really terrible. I was a little bummed by it at first, but thankfully the lighting in subsequent sections of the game is far more flattering.

zeroKFE wrote:

One other note about faces: Not sure what is up with the lighting in that first section of the game, but it makes the character face models look really terrible. I was a little bummed by it at first, but thankfully the lighting in subsequent sections of the game is far more flattering.

I think the character lighting is generally better in ME3, whereas in ME2 it was very harsh. I think the problem with Earth/Vancouver's lighting is that there's a lot of ambient lighting, rather than being lit from a source so you only really see the diffuse and it looks dull.

edit: Something I want to fish for comments on - How are people finding/using the new melee? There seems to be more emphasis on it, including skills, but I can't see myself using it. That said, I've got a vanguard run to do at some point which might be better for it.

Scratched wrote:
Stele wrote:

Glancing at the reviews, a lot of them are complaining about the day 1 DLC.

Speaking of which, has anyone played it yet?

I did the mission and been running around with the squad mate. He's handy because there are are very few allies this time around and most are tech based. Nice to have another biotic that isn't Liara. The DLC did cause a CTD. It's easily fixable by doing the sequence of events in a different order but it was a little frustrating.

Higgledy wrote:

On the latest Giant Bomb podcast (3.6.12) Geoff is a little down on the game. In a way it might be good to have my expectations reset a little.

I watched a few minutes of the Quick Look and I ended up being annoyed with how much he ended up saying "yeah...I don't know". I understand what he is saying but have come across with a very different reaction. I'm not even close to beating the game yet, though.

I do have complaints about the game. Mostly how the controls feel on the PC when Shepard is in a tight spot; not good. I end up stuck, rolling against a wall, or rolling out of cover despite not trying to do that. I also wish there was more mission and reward feedback. Often the notifications go away far too quickly. Quests don't update enough and are sparse for information as well. The planet scanning is weird as well and not properly explained.

I wish there were a few more squad options as well. Without the DLC character there are 5. That was fine in ME1 because of all the powers your allies have. Using the ME2 system leaves you a bit constrained with squad powers.

Tenebrous wrote:

BTW have you all seen the kerfuffle about Tali? People just need to chill.

Spoiler:

Apparently you can see a pic of her w/o the helmet on, but Bioware did it from a stock photo found on the net. All those with Tali lust are really upset about it. The story at Dtoid is here.

I'll be intrigued to see what the deal is with Tali. Considering the history of her race and its present situation, that spoiler seems pretty out of place.

Scratched wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

One other note about faces: Not sure what is up with the lighting in that first section of the game, but it makes the character face models look really terrible. I was a little bummed by it at first, but thankfully the lighting in subsequent sections of the game is far more flattering.

I think the character lighting is generally better in ME3, whereas in ME2 it was very harsh. I think the problem with Earth/Vancouver's lighting is that there's a lot of ambient lighting, rather than being lit from a source so you only really see the diffuse and it looks dull.

edit: Something I want to fish for comments on - How are people finding/using the new melee? There seems to be more emphasis on it, including skills, but I can't see myself using it. That said, I've got a vanguard run to do at some point which might be better for it.

I'm playing a Infiltrator who is high on shields and low on health. Anytime I try to use the melee I end up dying anyway. I did use it a tonne very early in the game, though.

Positive note: I really like how they have integrated the characters from ME1 and ME2. I would love to see what the story would be like if some of them were dead. In some cases they appear central to the story.

I hear From Ashes also includes an assault rifle with infinite ammo.

Vector wrote:

Positive note: I really like how they have integrated the characters from ME1 and ME2. I would love to see what the story would be like if some of them were dead. In some cases they appear central to the story.

From what I understand they're replaced by an NPC and sometimes you miss out on some (non-essential) rewards.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I hear From Ashes also includes an assault rifle with infinite ammo.

Vector wrote:

Positive note: I really like how they have integrated the characters from ME1 and ME2. I would love to see what the story would be like if some of them were dead. In some cases they appear central to the story.

From what I understand they're replaced by an NPC and sometimes you miss out on some (non-essential) rewards.

Yes, the NPC comes with a new assault rifle. I haven't used it but I had him equiped with it. Reminds me of the geth heavy weapon from ME2.

I can see characters would be replaced but it is seemlessly done. There are a tonne of little decisions and things that make me go "did I change that?". I'm impressed how my decisions and actions have made my story different then someone elses.

On another note, I'm paralyzed by two choices about how to play my first time through the game:

- Adept or Infiltrator. I played the first hour or two of the game as both, and I completely love both. Adept was already amazing fun when played correctly in ME2, and the tweaks made to the class in ME3 only serve to make it orders of magnitude more awesome. That said, the gunplay has also been vastly improved and sniping is fun as hell, especially with Liara constantly setting up easy targets with stasis bubble. Gah! This really shouldn't be such a hard decision; the presence of multiplayer should make this less of a concern since I'll be able to enjoy whichever class I don't choose there. But now that it comes down to it, I still can't decide.

- Kaiden or Ashley. I originally let Ashley die on Virmire, but now I have ME2 import options for both of them. From a pure mechanical perspective, Kaiden seems like the better choice for the classes I want to play since Ashley's role is pretty well duplicated by James and Garrus, so unless the player is themselves an engineer or sentinel (thereby filling Kaiden's combat role) Kaiden adds more variety to your squad choices than Ashley does. That being said, I'm starting to feel like Ashley's story may ultimately end up being more interesting despite the fact that I really didn't like her character much in ME1 (hence me letting her silly racist ass die originally).

Curse you Bioware! Your game has already confounded me with choices, and I'm not even three hours into the story!

Oh, and on a genuine "curse you Bioware" note: Holy sh*t, but my fears regarding insufficient hotkeys have been realized. Please someone tell me that this time around there is some way to hack the game to support more than eight hot bar slots.

zeroKFE:

I can solve your issues for you. Ashley won't be available for a very large section of the game at the start, so her functionality as a squad member should not influence your decision-making. James is more awesome, anyway.

Vector:

You know there are a metric ton of guns in this game, and unlike ME1, they all have unique characteristics. I have 7 assault rifles already, and they all feel different. I tried them all out on the gun range for experimentation. I like the Phaeton one immensely as an Avenger upgrade for my Soldier, but I get the feeling that I'll be wanting to pack the significantly more lightweight Avenger for an Adept. The weighting really adds a nice layer of trade-offs between the guns.

You know, I was disappointed when they announced they wouldn't be bringing Jack Wall back, but I do love the soundtrack to this one, including the ways it reinterprets the original theme music.

t's time to take Earth back, Commander. Buy Mass Effect 3 now from Green Man Gaming and get 20% off when you use this voucher code in the basket:

TAKEE-ARTHB-ACK20

zeroKFE wrote:

On another note, I'm paralyzed by two choices about how to play my first time through the game

Flip a coin.

I got hit with the face import bug (on 360). Tried to re-create my original Jon Shepard, but without much success. I now have an emo-drag-queen interpretation of my original Shepard. It's slightly upsetting, but more than that, it's quite hilarious watching Shepard be a galactic badass with perfectly plucked eyebrows and too-much-eyeliner.

I took the day off yesterday, and UPS delivered the game at 9:30am. Pretty much spent the entire day until I went to bed playing it. Loving it. The combat feels much more dynamic than the previous games, with powers that cooldown in next-to-no time (maybe because I imported a Lv 30 character?).

The MP is pretty interesting too - put an hour or two into that. I like how your progress in the MP feeds back into the SP campaign.

Worst part so far is...

Spoiler:

...EDI, and her ridiculous shiny oogaba. Frankly, I've lost a lot of respect for Joker

Stele wrote:
Nekroman wrote:

Btw, can you add attachments to weapons anywhere besides the benches? I picked up a few items for my sweet sniper rifle but now I can't find another bench.

On your ship. Haven't seen any weapon benches during missions I don't think.

It kind of makes the "equip now" option useless when you pick up a new weapon. As if I'm going to trade out my scoped AR/SMG/whatever for an un-scoped one... :?

Actually, when you pick up a new weapon in the field you can bring up the equipment menu and mod weapons directly from that screen. It's not super obvious, but on the weapon window in the equipment menu there should be a button prompt at the bottom where the mod slots for the weapon are displayed.

Jonman wrote:

Worst part so far is...

Yes, so far Joker just seems... dumb compared to ME1/ME2, not necessarily in relation to EDI but he's got less to say and it's less interesting and humorous.

Speaking of EDI:

Spoiler:

Check out her alternate outfits. Ridiculous camel toe for an anatomically incorrect machine.

So the word on one of the bigger and more frequented forums of the web is that there are a lot more hidden timers (think Derelict Reaper and Reaper IFF in ME2) in this game. Some of them even applying to side missions (what used to be assignments). People have reported just exploring the galaxy and getting a hang of the scanning and certain N7: xyz missions suddenly failing.

Anyone encountered anything like this yet?

The recommendation has been to always pick up every mission you can find when you are on the Citadel and other hub worlds and do them before doing the next "Priority: xyz" mission.

With regards to the scanning, MEWikia has a page on it already.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Check out the alternate outfits

Something I noticed about that, if you swap outfits and then look at the info page for a character, they each have different bonuses.

I just got done with my exams, managed to unlock the game early but it won't let me access the DLC menu =(

Has anyone else who unlocked early managed that or should I just wait until Friday?

Vector wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Stele wrote:

Glancing at the reviews, a lot of them are complaining about the day 1 DLC.

Speaking of which, has anyone played it yet?

I did the mission and been running around with the squad mate. He's handy because there are are very few allies this time around and most are tech based. Nice to have another biotic that isn't Liara. The DLC did cause a CTD. It's easily fixable by doing the sequence of events in a different order but it was a little frustrating.

I did play it. The squad member is ridiculously awesome. He has a warp/reave style power that passes from enemy to enemy after they die for the full duration of the power. Yes that means I can trigger a biotic explosion to kill one guy, then the power goes to the next... and I can trigger another explosion... and so on... for 10-15 seconds. It's f*cking awesome.

And yes an AR with infinite ammo. I need to test it in the shooting range but damn.

And an amazing and plot integral story to go along with it.

Pretty much a must-buy DLC. But also pretty dickish of them to make it DLC in all honesty.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Speaking of EDI:

Spoiler:

Check out her alternate outfits. Ridiculous camel toe for an anatomically incorrect machine.

Yeah in the

Spoiler:

Cerberus "Miranda" outfit... jeez.

I need a rolleyes smiley...

Luggage wrote:

So the word on one of the bigger and more frequented forums of the web is that there are a lot more hidden timers (think Derelict Reaper and Reaper IFF in ME2) in this game. Some of them even applying to side missions (what used to be assignments). People have reported just exploring the galaxy and getting a hang of the scanning and certain N7: xyz missions suddenly failing.

Anyone encountered anything like this yet?

The recommendation has been to always pick up every mission you can find when you are on the Citadel and other hub worlds and do them before doing the next "Priority: xyz" mission.

With regards to the scanning, MEWikia has a page on it already.

I did get an N7 "rescue someone" mission. I forget now offhand. But in the description in the journal it says something about getting there soon. Or maybe the contact told me I should get there before they get overwhelmed? Something like that.

I'm a little worried that it's going to fail, but I also have 3 missions on the planet I'm currently visiting. Seems silly to jet across the galaxy for one thing and then come back, but maybe I should...

Stele wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Either BioWare pissed of more people then I woulda thought or some {ableist slur} subset of the gamer community (e.g. 4chan) is on one of it's saddening crusades again. Just one day after release, ME3 has a Metacritic user score of 2.7/10 with over 300 negative reviews.

Glancing at the reviews, a lot of them are complaining about the day 1 DLC.

Glancing at how many are complaining about how 'conversation choices have been removed', a lot of them are also idiots.

nel e nel wrote:
Stele wrote:
Luggage wrote:

Either BioWare pissed of more people then I woulda thought or some {ableist slur} subset of the gamer community (e.g. 4chan) is on one of it's saddening crusades again. Just one day after release, ME3 has a Metacritic user score of 2.7/10 with over 300 negative reviews.

Glancing at the reviews, a lot of them are complaining about the day 1 DLC.

Glancing at how many are complaining about how 'conversation choices have been removed', a lot of them are also idiots.

Did they click Story instead of RPG when starting the game?

Honestly I'm a little pissed at how Bioware setup that starting menu. The choice should default to RPG. I don't know if they should list it first, or still in the middle. Or maybe have it be like the difficulty, where it's a left/right menu choice, and RPG is the default... But something to get the traditional game as the default.

Granted I think you can change it somewhere in options... but it should be there at the start, for people expecting traditional ME/Bioware gameplay.

Stele wrote:

And an amazing and plot integral story to go along with it.

Pretty much a must-buy DLC. But also pretty dickish of them to make it DLC in all honesty. :(

There goes the neighbourhood.

For a whole £6.19 I'm still not sure about it.

Scratched wrote:
Stele wrote:

And an amazing and plot integral story to go along with it.

Pretty much a must-buy DLC. But also pretty dickish of them to make it DLC in all honesty. :(

There goes the neighbourhood.

I wasn't complaining before playing it. But now that I have... damn.

You know how if you romanced Liara in ME1 then LotSB was pretty much a must-buy for ME2?

This is like... if you played ME1/2, From Ashes is pretty much a must-buy for ME3.