Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread

Scratched wrote:

It's kind of silly and a shame if they take that direction, and tunnel-visioned on Activision/CoD, one game. With Bioware RPGs they have games without equivalents from Activision. It's weird really, because they've got this pissing match with CoD, but you never really see them produce "a competitor to Assassin's Creed" or "a competitor to Skyrim" and launch them weeks apart. They seem determined to ram every first person shooter into direct competition, and always come off worse, and (IMO) their customers or potential customers are worse served by it.

This is exactly what I fear, and why I have low expectations for future ME games.

I just hope they've learned some lessons from the Medal of Honour single player's bad reception. I was so glad when there was some reviewer backlash against the overly controlled levels and 'shooting gallery' game play. I loathed it in Battlefield 3 and really hope they don't try to repeat that style of single player in any future games (or at least in any games I care about.)

I'm more than willing to give ME4 a shot especially since they've hopefully freed themselves from Shepard's story.

Higgledy wrote:

I'm more than willing to give ME4 a shot especially since they've hopefully freed themselves from Shepard's story.

They have an incredible universe to play with now, I just hope it isn't squandered. Here's to hoping that we see many more games based in the universe.

Higgledy wrote:

I'm more than willing to give ME4 a shot especially since they've hopefully freed themselves from Shepard's story.

My fear with this is that they feel every sequel has to one-up the previous game, and where do you go from 'threaten to destroy all life in the universe'?

I don't mind what scale they operate on (remember how much people liked the individual missions) so long as they make the stakes matter within the story they tell.

Scratched wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

I'm more than willing to give ME4 a shot especially since they've hopefully freed themselves from Shepard's story.

My fear with this is that they feel every sequel has to one-up the previous game, and where do you go from 'threaten to destroy all life in the universe'?

I don't mind what scale they operate on (remember how much people liked the individual missions) so long as they make the stakes matter within the story they tell.

A before-ME3 game where you're basically a C-Sec officer would be damned cool. Not destroy all life in the universe scale, but still room for some appreciable scale and threats.

Kannon wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

I'm more than willing to give ME4 a shot especially since they've hopefully freed themselves from Shepard's story.

My fear with this is that they feel every sequel has to one-up the previous game, and where do you go from 'threaten to destroy all life in the universe'?

I don't mind what scale they operate on (remember how much people liked the individual missions) so long as they make the stakes matter within the story they tell.

A before-ME3 game where you're basically a C-Sec officer would be damned cool. Not destroy all life in the universe scale, but still room for some appreciable scale and threats.

A game like LA Noire set on the citadel would be fantastic (provided they could do a better job with the interview mechanic). I'm not holding my breath though. We all know we're getting a multiplayer shooter with a brief single player campaign and only cursory attention paid to the universe that Bioware created.

billt721 wrote:
Kannon wrote:

A before-ME3 game where you're basically a C-Sec officer would be damned cool. Not destroy all life in the universe scale, but still room for some appreciable scale and threats.

A game like LA Noire set on the citadel would be fantastic (provided they could do a better job with the interview mechanic). I'm not holding my breath though. We all know we're getting a multiplayer shooter with a brief single player campaign and only cursory attention paid to the universe that Bioware created.

That's really the crux of it for me. When I think of ME I think of it first as a RPG type of game, and all that brings, rather than a shooter/action game. Action/shooters are ten-a-penny, and if that's all they do with it, shooting at things and firing off magic (by any other name) then it'll get lost in the crowd. Tell me a good story that I can be a part of and influence, let me build my characters, and let Kirk have sex with the alien chick and it's going somewhere.

Scratched wrote:
billt721 wrote:
Kannon wrote:

A before-ME3 game where you're basically a C-Sec officer would be damned cool. Not destroy all life in the universe scale, but still room for some appreciable scale and threats.

A game like LA Noire set on the citadel would be fantastic (provided they could do a better job with the interview mechanic). I'm not holding my breath though. We all know we're getting a multiplayer shooter with a brief single player campaign and only cursory attention paid to the universe that Bioware created.

That's really the crux of it for me. When I think of ME I think of it first as a RPG type of game, and all that brings, rather than a shooter/action game. Action/shooters are ten-a-penny, and if that's all they do with it, shooting at things and firing off magic (by any other name) then it'll get lost in the crowd. Tell me a good story that I can be a part of and influence, let me build my characters, and let Kirk have sex with the alien chick and it's going somewhere.

+1

The Mass Effect universe/lore is one the best I've ever played in, and there is a metric ass-ton of potential for great games to be made based on it. It's just that I have zero confidence that EA will do anything other than continue to shift ME games away from being a RPG and more towards being yet another cover-based, third-person shooter.

In my role as an expert in stuff on the internet, my view is that EA acts this way because they look one step ahead rather than two. They see action games doing well (I think they always do) and they're easy to make, so they make them, as many as they can. What I think they miss is that they need something to define their games beyond just target shooting. They need to do some harder to make games, better writing behind them, more complexity/depth beyond just point and shoot, and that's got to be a tough decision for someone to sign-off on, especially in the high stakes, low risk climate.

Any old developer can churn out a generic point and shoot or cover based shooter, I've played plenty, and that where I feel the risk is for EA, that their games may not have any flavour that makes me want to buy their game over a £5 budget title.

It's weird in a way, because I look at things like Mirror's Edge and on one side I'm saying it must be fairly easy to make, because it's a reasonably simple and straight forward game, but on the other it must be tough for them working out what to make of it. That's with a reasonably distinctive title DICE made for them.

Actually, I think fan feedback on the last ME and DA games are going to have a significant cooling effect on the entire RPG aspect of Bioware games going forward. DA2 was the RPG-iest RPG they've made yet, with the ability to shape a true character rather than just make multiple choice decisions and stat allotments. Your choices decided what role Hawke went into, what she said, and how people treated her. The events broadly may be the same, but Hawke's place in it could be different in a small character-based way, not in a "I'm a world mover and shaker" kind of way. DA2 showed that small stories with complex multiple-playthrough layers are not well-received. If anything, how NIER was widely viewed only reinforces that conclusion.

End-shenanigans with ME3 feels like it goes the same way. Of all the MEs, it had the most variance in how it ended, but it received the most backlash. This is despite all the lovingly detailed scenes where a lot of WTF scenarios could result. Some people didn't know certain very different things could happen; and the lack of hitting over the head seemed to be detrimental. Subtlety doesn't go over very well.

For my part, I hope they keep the moment to moment gameplay of ME3 or improve on it. It's the most cohesive, and best designed gameplay of all the MEs.

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusions LarryC.

Granted, I haven't played through DA2 yet... but it seems like you are saying it had more RPG-ness as compared to - obviously - DA:Origins. People loved DA:Origins and it's RPG-ness because even though you had a set opening, and character set, you had 6 openings to choose from, and throughout you made choices upon choices.

As to ME3, I don't know, I think people did appreciate the connections throughout the game and previous games, and especially noticed it if they did a second playthrough. It was the ending that obviously caused backlash, and obviously people who are disappointed are much more vocal than those who are happy - especially on the internet.

Citizen86:

It's a difference between making story decisions and making character decisions. In DAO, the Grey Warden was basically a blank slate, and each decision you made affected the outcome of the story arc you were in, but had limited effect on how NPCs treated and conversed with you. The Grey Warden didn't really have much of a character that you could appreciate, or affect, beyond the backstory.

In contrast, Hawke is a very specific character, how you choose to moderate her responses eventually decides how she conducts herself outside of your choices, which choices are presented to you, and how other characters see you and respond. A benevolent noble Hawke get deferential asides, a sarcastic Hawke can have problems being taken seriously, and a Stern Hawke gets no-nonsense and wary attitudes from NPCs.

I imagine there are lots of people who liked PS:T (which is 100% about character-level decisions to an extent far greater than any Bioware game or really any other RPG) but disliked much of DA2 and the ending of ME3. I am one of those people.

That said, I am totally willing to believe that the people holding Bioware's purse strings have already made the rather dubious leap of 'no 1:1 mapping of dialog choice to giant storyworld change = DOES NOT SELL'.

In my role as an expert in stuff on the internet, I search the Bioware site for information:

http://www.masseffect.com/about/tril...

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/muVbT.jpg)

On PC, Mass Effect will include Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station on disk. For Mass Effect 2, Cerberus Network will be included which features Zaeed – The Price of Revenge, The Firewalker Pack, Cerberus Assault Gear, Arc Projector heavy weapon, and Normandy Crash site mission. For Mass Effect 3, Online Pass will be included granting players access to co-op multiplayer.

On Xbox 360, Bring Down the Sky and Pinnacle Station are not included with Mass Effect, however they are available as stand-alone downloads through Xbox LIVE. For Mass Effect 2, Cerberus Network will be included and Online Pass will be included for Mass Effect 3.

Information on PlayStation 3 DLC will be available soon.

This was released last week, November 6th. PS3 version comes out later.

Looks like a nice set... I'm not sure who the target is. Fans already own all 3 games. Well maybe if people played on consoles and sold off their games, it's a nice box set to grab again.

I guess there's a few people out there who haven't played the games yet, or maybe only one of them.

Isn't it the only way to get ME1 for PS3?

Like someone said before, if this Trilogy thing was on Wii U I'd be all over it (with all the DLC, of course) but I no longer have a 360 or my copy of ME1 (given away to a relative) and my copies of ME2 and 3 on PS3 are pretty "new".... and I don't want to have to deal with Origin on PC.

Scratched wrote:

My fear with this is that they feel every sequel has to one-up the previous game, and where do you go from 'threaten to destroy all life in the universe'?

Easy. Now we've saved this universe, we have to traverse to the anti-universe where the human threat is destroying the reaper civilisation.... those damn dirty apes!

I'm pretty sure it is coming to WiiU.

Scratched wrote:

I'm pretty sure it is coming to WiiU.

As well as ME3 standalone? Hardly seems like a good business decision but then I'm not that high up in any such organisation.

This time I shall call upon my internet expertise and read the FAQ on the Bioware site I posted above:

Rykin wrote:

Isn't it the only way to get ME1 for PS3?

Bioware wrote:

Yes, the original Mass Effect will be available as a standalone digital title through the PlayStation Network for $14.99. It will release the same day as the Mass Effect Trilogy on PlayStation 3.

Duoae wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I'm pretty sure it is coming to WiiU.

As well as ME3 standalone? Hardly seems like a good business decision but then I'm not that high up in any such organisation.

Bioware wrote:

At this time we have no plans to bring the Mass Effect Trilogy to the Wii U platform. The Mass Effect 3 Special Edition will be coming to Wii U later this year and will feature an interactive backstory experience to help players discover the events of the first two Mass Effect games.

This thread seems to be the thread for Mass Effect discussion these days, so...

In response to a production error in which about 1,000 customers who bought a physical copy of CODBLOPS2 received a Mass Effect 2 disc in their case, Bioware has responded with an impromtu promotion cleverly titled "We're answering the call."

(bolded for emphasis)

Bioware wrote:

Rumor has it that about a thousand customers who purchased Call of Duty: Black Ops II for PC today were also treated to a surprise copy of Mass Effect 2. If you were one of the affected, chances are you thought it was a mistake, but we prefer to think that it was an omen, and when the universe talks, you should listen.

If the universe thinks that you should be playing Mass Effect right now, who are we to argue? In fact, we want to help! The first fifty fans affected by this phenomenon to send us a picture holding their special disc 2 will receive a code for a FREE PC copy of Mass Effect Trilogy.

Remember, in order to qualify, YOU must be in the picture, and disc 2 of your Call of Duty: Black Ops II must be visible. Got it? Then send your photo to [email protected] and you could be playing your very own Mass Effect Trilogy in time for the weekend!

Well played, Bioware.

Huh. The last time I sent a photo of myself to a game company was to get one of those cloth patches for winning an Atari 2600 game.

Well, the recent talk about a new trilogy, and also that some goodjers are firing up the trilogy again, got me going. So I started once more. I absolutely loathed the ending, and it soured my experience in retrospect, so to change things up a bit, this time around, I'm playing the game with full DLC. Now, I'm about to start the Virmire mission on ME1, and I'm not interested in DLC for that game, but I have just bought the 4 DLC's that stand out from ME2: Shadow Broker, Arrival, Overlord, and Kasumi. While I've played through ME2 about 4 times, this 5th round will be my very first playthrough ever with the DLC. I've heard lots of good things, especially about Kasumi and Shadow Broker, so I'm excited.

Question would be, should I wait to see if I'm still excited BEFORE I buy From Ashes, Leviathan, and Omega for ME3? Or should I go ahead and get them now?

Waiting seems like the obvious choice to me. It's not like they'll stop selling the DLC, but if you buy now and burn out on Mass Effect playing through 2, they'll be wasted money at best, and at worst they'll be a big bag of guilt making you play something you don't feel like playing out of obligation.

kexx wrote:

I absolutely loathed the ending...

I don't think the ending was as bad for me as it was for others. I had more of a problem with the changes they made to the playing of the game and the story throughout. While it had its great moments

Spoiler:

Like the death of Mordin

, I just felt like it was trying too hard to be something of a gung-ho-action game. I felt like they "streamlined" a lot of the rpg elements that really set the series apart from other games. I had accepted this as what I would get instead of another KotOR, and now it's just another shooter with some sci-fi stuff in it.

I also really didn't feel as if the story as a whole kept my interest. What kept me playing was my connection to my crew, and that is actually due to the previous games... At first, I was excited about finally fighting the reapers, but it just never panned out. It was just missing something intangible that I felt with ME1 and to a slightly lesser degree 2. Maybe it's just that I've grown a lot in the last 4 years, and maybe it's because I have far less time to play games now. I dunno.

I've been thinking about doing another run myself. The only thing is, I want to play it on the tv with the home theater setup. I only have the PC versions of the games. Did anyone play the PC versions from the couch? Were there any issues with the smaller UI? How about using the kb+m from a couch - are there issues related to comfort there? Or should I just wait for ME Trilogy to be released for PS3?

kexx wrote:

Question would be, should I wait to see if I'm still excited BEFORE I buy From Ashes, Leviathan, and Omega for ME3? Or should I go ahead and get them now?

If you're sure you'll want to replay ME3 then at least get From Ashes. It adds some NPC interactions that don't exist in the vanilla game. I never got the other two, but they both sound pretty good as well.

Higgledy wrote:

I just hope they've learned some lessons from the Medal of Honour single player's bad reception. I was so glad when there was some reviewer backlash against the overly controlled levels and 'shooting gallery' game play.

Some backlash? The reviews I've seen are saying that it's killed the franchise.

Scratched wrote:

My fear with this is that they feel every sequel has to one-up the previous game, and where do you go from 'threaten to destroy all life in the universe'?

To something less than that. From a story perspective, I thought Dragon Age 2 was a fantastic RPG. Sure, there were some things that didn't make sense regarding mages, but overall I thought it was a great direction for the series. To be honest, I'm terribly sick of the classic RPG plot. If I never have to save the universe again I'll jump for joy.

JillSammich wrote:

I also really didn't feel as if the story as a whole kept my interest. What kept me playing was my connection to my crew, and that is actually due to the previous games... At first, I was excited about finally fighting the reapers, but it just never panned out.

The overarching story was represented in miniature with the Quarian vs. Geth conflict, and I think it would have been a lot better if the Reapers hadn't existed at all. The moment of the choice between Quarians and Geth in ME3 is really the finale I wanted for the series. After that I was actually disappointed to get back to fighting Reapers. In fact, as much as I like the voice acting for female Shepherd, she says "Reapers" so often in ME3 that by the end it was incredibly irritating. I also wasn't terribly fond of how the Inconceivable Man story ended up. I'd have much rather had him painted as just a plain old flawed genius.

@ complexmath,

I like that, actually. That could´ve been a good ending. I loved the Tuchanka mission, and the Geth conflict was very well handled. I think you nailed it for me, the Reapers weren´t really all that interesting. It was the characters, not their adversaries.

JillSammich wrote:
kexx wrote:

I absolutely loathed the ending...

I don't think the ending was as bad for me as it was for others. I had more of a problem with the changes they made to the playing of the game and the story throughout. While it had its great moments

Spoiler:

Like the death of Mordin

, I just felt like it was trying too hard to be something of a gung-ho-action game. I felt like they "streamlined" a lot of the rpg elements that really set the series apart from other games. I had accepted this as what I would get instead of another KotOR, and now it's just another shooter with some sci-fi stuff in it.

I also really didn't feel as if the story as a whole kept my interest. What kept me playing was my connection to my crew, and that is actually due to the previous games... At first, I was excited about finally fighting the reapers, but it just never panned out. It was just missing something intangible that I felt with ME1 and to a slightly lesser degree 2.

I had exactly the same experience.

Yeah, somehow the Reapers went from mysterious and interesting enemies in ME1 to boring ones in ME3, despite barely existing in ME2. Though for me, the problem might have been the second and third games themselves, rather than the Reapers specifically. The games went from RPG-with-shootery-elements to shooter-with-light-RPG-elements, which isn't what I'm interested in (though was probably good for their bottom line, so I don't blame them). Also, the first game had a sense of exploration that the sequels lacked. Even if the planets generally had nothing on them, being able to land and explore made the universe feel much larger and (for me) more enjoyable to spend time in.