Mass Effect 3!

[Rawra]

OK, so it took me quite some time to realize how the other thread of mine was in the wrong section. Copy-pasting what I've said there

It's so awesome, I don't even... Especially the Narrative mode, exactly what I needed. I like games for their stories, not for their difficulty, though the combat (from what I've seen, in Narrative, which is quite little, but nevertheless) is also awesome. I'm in love with every single character in it, and the landscapes, OMG! Nerdgasm! Your opinions?

[After finishing it] So I just finished the game. The ending was thoroughly disappointing. Just sayin'.

[maxon]

Ah, you got to the end then. There's a petition on BSN - it starts "the endings suck...." It's actually put me off finishing and I don't think I'll be playing it long-term, unlike the first two.

Anyway, on the positive side, the rest is excellent and I've become a multiplayer addict.

[Rawra]

Yeah, I can't really complain about anything else, since it's so neatly done. The other thing that bugs me is that I can't import the ME1 & 2 face to ME3, but that will be fixed in a future patch, I'm sure.

[Axe Gaijin]

I loved the ending, honestly don't know what people are complaining about. What were they expecting? Rainbows and fluffy pink ponies?

On my 2nd playthrough now, then I need to finish some ME2 playthroughs :)

[maxon]

The endings are all the same and they're nihilistic - doesn't really fit with the rest of the game. Plus they (it) make(s) absolutely no sense. Nobody expected rainbows and ponies.

[KiaraRawks]

I havent finished the gameplay yet because my sister who owns it on xbox 360 ( i have a ps3), she got mad at me b/c I killed the guy who was gonna cure the female thingy, and well I didn't know It was optional lol. Anyhow, I'm currently obsessed with multiplayer mode and leveling up every character. I'm really trying to get a Krogan but I have yet to successfully get one. This is actually my first time ever playing a ME game so I don't think I'll be as bothered by the ending as others have been

[Layna]

Well I played mass effect all of them I'm the biggest fan (i've met the all the people that made it in person) If in ME4 shepard won't be revived I won't play it :/

[Shoosh Malooka]

ME3 will be on my hard drive when I've got the space. Mass Effect seems like star wars without the bad parts. What a wonder it would be if Mass Effect spun a Sims game.

[maxon]

Shoosh - it has bad parts and then some very bad parts. Sorry to tell you. Some parts though are awesome, especially the Tuchanka story and the resolution of the Quarian/Geth conflict. I wept buckets. I'm still, surprisingly, enjoying the multiplayer too.

[Rawra]

^Well, I have to give Bioware credit (no pun intended) for making the EC DLC, I mean, at least they tried to make up for their mistakes, though they pretty much failed, the extended endings were just a bit better than the original ones, and the new one was like a "fuck you" from Casey Hudson to all the fans. And the new DLC, Leviathan, seems promising too.

I really think that a fourth part, even though I'd get it, would be unnecessary, especially without Shepard and most definitely without the other squad members. Let's face it, Mass Effect is about Shepard and the Reaper war, not about the whole galaxy and other things which might be what Mass Effect 4 would be about.

[maxon]

the new one was like a "fuck you" from Casey Hudson to all the fans.
He was probably upset by all those videos on UTube of various Shepards shooting the kid* at the end and refusing to play ball with the craptastic ending (singular intended). Regarding the EC, as someone said on the Bioware boards, 'a polished turd it is then.'

(*if it was up to me, I'd have shot the bugger at the beginning)

Edit, Oh and Shoosh, the ending of Thane's story - that was another 10-tissue wonder.

[GnatGoSplat]

I enjoyed ME2 a bit more. It felt more like the decisions you made in the game mattered more. For example, the outcome of the suicide mission and who survives into ME3 was largely influenced by player choices. There were also a lot more side missions, should you choose to search for them, and the romance system was much better since you could always break up and chase after someone else (though I really wished for some TS3 style infidelity). Then there are really minor things that I preferred like the missions being expandable and updating as parts of the mission are completed.

On the other hand, I think they did do a great job with ME3. I felt real sadness when former ME2 squad-mates died. I do wish that my FemShep's decisions throughout the story line had more of an impact on how her story ends like in ME2. It really did seem that the way you played Shep's entire career didn't really matter so much, as the final choices of ending would be the same. However, I did find that even though I didn't like any of the available endings, they made me feel sad and heartbroken with the fate of my Shepard that I had grown so attached to. I did like that the EC at least gives a glimmer of hope in one of the endings. I'm actually surprised so many people had trouble comprehending the original endings that they felt a need to spell it out in the EC. Anyway, when a game is able to make me feel something, and become emotionally attached to the characters, I think it's a pretty darn good story.

[Synthesis]

I'm inclined to agree with Gnat--especially from where we moved from ME1, I not only appreciate the really revolutionary step ME2 was (for better or worse; ME3 built on top of that, evolutionary rather than revolutionary), but the handling of the plot felt stronger.

Now, yes, the case can be made that ME2 is a matter of getting a team together for the whole game. Versus ME3 being a matter of...getting parts together for the whole game. Personally, I think it still handed it better.

I was also disappointed by some of the technical issues that came with the game--lazy animation work, disjointed scenes, bugged quests that Bioware has no interest in fixing unfortunately, because of their preoccupation with multiplayer.

[Rawra]

Having to play multiplayer to get high EMS was bullshit, thankfully it was fixed with the Extended Cut DLC. They are going to introduce multiplayer in Dragon Age III too, and even cut things out of the game, things you can only get if you play multiplayer. Didn't they catch the drift that no one was pleased with the shoved down the throat multiplayer? Fans are going to be seriously pissed off again, and if I'm personally as disappointed as I was with ME3, DA3 will be the last BioWare game I ever buy. If EA stood out of it and let BioWare handle their games, it wouldn't have gotten this bad. But apparently they are seriously determined to ruin every single good franchise there is by butting in like morons.

[GigaRevival]

Having to play multiplayer to get high EMS was bullshit, thankfully it was fixed with the Extended Cut DLC. They are going to introduce multiplayer in Dragon Age III too, and even cut things out of the game, things you can only get if you play multiplayer. Didn't they catch the drift that no one was pleased with the shoved down the throat multiplayer? Fans are going to be seriously pissed off again, and if I'm personally as disappointed as I was with ME3, DA3 will be the last BioWare game I ever buy. If EA stood out of it and let BioWare handle their games, it wouldn't have gotten this bad. But apparently they are seriously determined to ruin every single good franchise there is by butting in like morons.

Source?

Not that I necessarily need one (it's totally believable) - but just in case. I can't seem to find anything on DA3 besides that announcement about potential names for the new game and such.

Edit: Never mind. Just took a bit of perusing through BSN (unfortunately). :|

[Synthesis]

Having to play multiplayer to get high EMS was bullshit, thankfully it was fixed with the Extended Cut DLC. They are going to introduce multiplayer in Dragon Age III too, and even cut things out of the game, things you can only get if you play multiplayer. Didn't they catch the drift that no one was pleased with the shoved down the throat multiplayer? Fans are going to be seriously pissed off again, and if I'm personally as disappointed as I was with ME3, DA3 will be the last BioWare game I ever buy. If EA stood out of it and let BioWare handle their games, it wouldn't have gotten this bad. But apparently they are seriously determined to ruin every single good franchise there is by butting in like morons.

I understand your dismay, but I don't think it was necessary even before the extended cut--you just had to go through all the quests very thoroughly (having played the ME3 multiplayer demo, I didn't play ME3 multiplayer until finishing the game).

As a whole, I'd agree--it's an unfortunate trend.

[Rawra]

^I was actually referring to the EMS limit, which was like 3500 or so without multiplayer, if I remember correctly, and you needed 4000 or so for the Synthesis ending (not that I would ever pick anything else than Destroy).

[PharaohHound]

^ The required EMS to unlock the Synthesis ending is 2800, regardless of whether you have the EC. 3500 or so is thought to be the max possible EMS with single player only (assuming you don't cheat/hack the game and don't have any ME3 DLC), so Synthesis is entirely possible. (See this (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Priority:_Earth#Aftermath) and this (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:War_Assets#Exact_info_on_EMS_needed_for_endings.3F) for details). Prior to the EC, 4000 was required for Shepard to live in the Destroy ending, so that particular result would be unachievable pre-EC, single player only.

[Rawra]

^My bad then, I confounded the Destroy requirement with the Synthesis one. My point still stands regarding the necessity of playing multiplayer in order to get a certain ending.

[Synthesis]

Odd. I was able to get the Destroy ending where Shepard gasps (I guess we're okay with spoilers) without multiplayer.

That being said, I did have the DLC companion. That may have made the difference.

[PharaohHound]

Whoo, spoilers ahoy! :P Having Javik does let you get more EMS. I believe that having any of the current single-player "story" DLC like From Ashes or Leviathan makes it possible to get 4000 (can't confirm that, though.) I do agree that, prior to the EC, forcing the player to either play multiplayer or buy DLC was very heavy-handed.

I do actually enjoy the multiplayer. It's not nearly as well-supported as something like Uncharted 3, which has superb multiplayer with very regular and significant updates. But I can't play Uncharted right now, so I'll go with ME3. :P

[GnatGoSplat]

I did have Javik from that DLC, but not the EC DLC, and I didn't get the gasp. I'm pretty sure I did all missions and scanned all planets for war assets. I had to get the EC DLC before I got the gasp.

[Synthesis]

Very odd. Maybe my experience was bugged--given how buggy the game was, this wouldn't surprise me, but the bugs I encountered made small quests unfinishable, not the other way around.

[maxon]

Has anyone here played Leviathan? I was wondering about it. I have not DL the EC because I've not wanted to play through to the end again. Can't see that changing either soon. I've been playing multiplayer a fair bit - surprisingly fond of playing faux-Tali and Garrus. Some of the DLC for ME2 was great, as was Bring Down the Sky, and some parts of ME3 are great (just not all the parts - what happened to the side missions?). So I'm torn though not feeling like rewarding Bioare/EA with more custom at the moment.

[Rawra]

Played it. It's almost as good as Arrival or LotSB, and that one's by far my favourite. I like the fact that it explains more about the Reapers and their origins and that it has special dialogue for the LIs (might sound subjective, but Liara's lines, romanced or not, are hilarious).

[Synthesis]

I've been on the fence as to purchasing it. I actually thought the EC improved the endings (at least, the ending I like). That being said, I'm not really in the mood to actually be paying for DLC for ME3.

[clynnc19]

I love all the Mass Effects :) To bad I can't play them right now. Without Internet my downloaded content becomes corrupted. As soon as I get internet I'm downloading Leviathan. It looks like it would be awesome.