Mass Effect 3 SPOILERS THREAD

Well, I'm guessing those implants you see TIM getting towards the end of the game have the same ability as Sovereign's tech. As far as we know, Saren was completely organic and yet became indoctrinated in the first game.

Well the reapers themselves are able to indoctrinate organics, as you see throughout the game - Cerberus teams going nuts while working on the "dead" reaper. I would assume that TIM, going all-in with the Reaper tech, gained some of those abilities. Particularly since the reapers would have been paying particular attention to him, I could see him getting some extra "juice".

At this point I still haven't watched or played through any of the EC content. Just not sure I want to anymore. :(
 
There is a difference between indoctrination and implantation with Reaper tech. The Illusive Man opted for surgery to have himself implanted with the same technology as Cerberus troops. We saw plenty of indoctrinated individuals throughout the series that didn't have Reaper tech in them but were indoctrinated. Martiarch Benzia and the stupid Jellyfish in ME3 are examples of this. However being implanted with Reaper tech most likely includes indoctrination.
 
There is a difference between indoctrination and implantation with Reaper tech. The Illusive Man opted for surgery to have himself implanted with the same technology as Cerberus troops. We saw plenty of indoctrinated individuals throughout the series that didn't have Reaper tech in them but were indoctrinated. Martiarch Benzia and the stupid Jellyfish in ME3 are examples of this. However being implanted with Reaper tech most likely includes indoctrination.

Right, I believe the combination of the two with TIM is what gave him the ability to control Anderson at the end.
 
True, but in the grand scheme of that horrible goddamn ending, it's a relatively small complaint (IMO).

I think the problem comes from them waiting until the last minute to decide how to end everything and not having the proper oversight for the story and the project. Indications are based on certain file names and object descriptors like the "dream planet foliage" lead me to conclude that they might have been working on making them ending a dream or going with something like indoctrination theory, but then some how we ended up with Star Brat and space magic instead. And the EC is nothing more than them trying to address fan backlash and make sense out of the garbage. They said it wouldn't change anything, just clarify and yet it did change a couple important and key images in the ending which alter their fundemental meanings.
 
There is a difference between indoctrination and implantation with Reaper tech. The Illusive Man opted for surgery to have himself implanted with the same technology as Cerberus troops. We saw plenty of indoctrinated individuals throughout the series that didn't have Reaper tech in them but were indoctrinated.

Sure, but we're talking about TIM's indoctrinating Anderson. It seems plausible to me that Cerberus could have reverse engineered the Reapers' indoctrination tech to allow TIM to have the same ability after his implants were put in. There's a fair number of plot holes in the ending, but this one doesn't seem like one of them to me.
 
Sure, but we're talking about TIM's indoctrinating Anderson. It seems plausible to me that Cerberus could have reverse engineered the Reapers' indoctrination tech to allow TIM to have the same ability after his implants were put in. There's a fair number of plot holes in the ending, but this one doesn't seem like one of them to me.

This was my interpretation as well. TIM was studying reaper tech throughout the books and games, so I just figured he somehow figured out a way to gain rudimentary control through implants. It's a little silly, but it's the type of issue I can ignore if the parts around it are decent. Shepard entering the geth consensus was stupid imo, but it had some nice parts in it, so I really didn't care.
 
I am compelled to jump on the anti-ending bandwagon. As far as I am concerned, Mass Effect 1 was one of the greatest RPGs I ever experienced (the only one I have played that slightly surpassed ME1 was the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic).

Mass Effect 2 was not as good as Bioware hyped it - I felt it had improved in some ways but was still inadequate. The story was not as interesting and did not engage me anywhere near as much as ME1. The gameplay had some improvements, but also had some flaws. I felt that some people were right that ME1 definitely had tedius gameplay flaws that required more "streamlining." At the same, I felt ME2 definitely went overboard and took the quick path of dumbing things down instead of truly streamlining/optimizing. And the "revolutionary interactive cinematics" that Bioware kept claiming was a thousand times better than ME1 (which itself set the standard in that regard) fell significantly short of their own self-created benchmark. The "interactive cinematics" simply weren't much better than ME1.

However, overall Mass Effect 2 was still a great game - and certainly much better than the vast majority of good games. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the majority opinion on Mass Effect 3: that the game itself was excellent and the ending was terrible. I felt the game was "good," but not great like ME2, and certainly not a standards-creator like ME1.

ME3's combat, although in some ways improved (I did feel more "involved" in combat than previous ME games), was clunky. Some say ME1 was like that, and although that might be true, I found it overall much worse in ME3. My shepard was constantly rolling all over the place and bouncing off of everything as if he was in a pinball machine. I had to constantly fight the cover system to get Shepard into the correct cover position without him automatically "attaching" to an exposed position, jumping over the wall into an enemy, or sitting for three seconds changing his face-direction instead of moving (while getting shot at from the side by those horrible Banshees...or cut up by Kai Leng).

As for the story/characters, I was signficiantly disappointed. I was completely hyped up at the beginning, as I heard that although the ending was mediocore, the rest of the game was fantastic. The beginning immediately engaged me in the story. However, the first of multiple story problems for me also started at the beginning.

When the Reapers arrive at Earth, the defense committee asks Shepard how they are going to stop the Reapers. He responds to "stand together and fight" (or some other similar renegade option). Shepard, more than anyone alive, has seen the full power of the Reapers. I have seen in the Bioware forums that some of the people who dislike the endings have tried to rationalize the possibility that a united galaxy can defeat the Reapers conventionally. Well, sorry, but that is bull.

Everything in Mass Effect 1 and 2 make it absolutely clear that as the galaxy's forces stand, in numbers, technology, and overall strength, they cannot defeat the Reapers in a traditional fight. Sovereign was incredibly powerful against that massive interspecies fleet of ships. and the last scene in ME2 shows a HUGE force of Reapers that are each just as big/powerful as Sovereign and Harbinger.

Yet a prevalent theme begins from that first moment of the game: we need to find more allies, ships, and guns/tanks to blow up the Reapers. Look, I know this is a fictional story. I also know this is not just a fictional story, but a *video game* fictional story. And not only is this a video game fictional story, it is a science fiction video game fictional story. If you want to enjoy a story of that genre, you're going to have to have to tolerate ideas/concepts that "just are" in that fictional universe. Yes, you can think about possible explanations for what appear to be plotholes, but then you are going to have to think about explanations for those explanations, and the more questions you answer to your self, the more new questions you will create. Just as it is in real-life.

So if you are going to enjoy a fictional story within a science fiction video game, not only do you have to have allow yourself to have a suspension of disbelief, you have to allow it to a greater degree than other situations, such as a more serious medium (dramatic film) and other game genres (non scifi / fantasy). I understand that.

However, in ME3, something was constantly happening that was not happening when I played ME1 and ME2, even with that understanding intact: I was constantly, throughout the entire game, struggling to maintain that suspension of disbelief, and in turn, struggling to remain engaged in the story at the same level I was while playing/experiencing ME1 and ME2. Everyone in the galaxy...even while personally standing a few miles from (still visible from miles away) massive Reapers wiping out entire fleets, armies, and cities...kept repeating, as if I was playing a multiplayer match of Battlefield, "all we need is X and we got this bro!"

Yes, all the Humans need to survive is an official alliance with the Turians, because somehow an official alliance with the in-process-of-getting-wiped-out Turians is going to help Earth even though the Turians are ALREADY fighting the Reapers. What is this? Do the Turians have half their fleet sitting on the sidelines reserved for "allies only" that are not already actively engaged fighting the Reapers at their own planet?

Everyone, especially our heroic common-sense Shepard, acted way too much in complete denial throughout the whole game. I knew from the very beginning that ME3 was going to have to be about something besides a conventional war with the Reapers - as I am sure most people realized. It had to be about pursuing *something* that was key to defeating the Reapers, even if temporarily in order to give the galaxy time to prepare for a final war far into the future. This obviously ended up being the Crucible - yet even after it was revealed - everyone, including Shepard, still acted like conventional war was a major priority (despite the conflicting-dialogue, where the same characters would act differently, at different times, on the issue - seemingly uncoordinated/poor writing by Bioware making the issue worse). Anyway, I am not going to go into further details on that issue, as you should already understand the problem I have there.

Then there were too many times when the game focused on facing a Reaper head-on, and the Reaper beams were a little too inaccurate, considering they are "hyper advanced, hyper intelligent, living machines with hyper computational power."

Then there was Shepard's plan to kill a Reaper (even if it was one of these "smaller," yet still gigantic and incredibly powerful ones that were made-up just for ME3) with eight of Wrex's little ground tanks. Yeah...I think it is a good thing that the Turian fighter crashed into the convoy, because if it had not, I think the galaxy would be dead by now.

Like I said, in any story you're going to have to think "hey, its a fictional story, put that to the back of your mind and move on - just assume there is a logical explanation, but don't actually think about it." But I was having to do that way too many times in ME3, and as a result I could never become completely immersed as I had in ME2, and especially in ME1. A good story created by a good writer does its best not to have zero plot holes (impossible), but to tell itself in such a way as to disguise the plot holes so that you have to intentionally look for them in order to see them. I was not looking for them, and they kept popping up in my face (not the case for me in ME1/ME2).

Unfortunately, the clunky Shepard controls and the story problems were not the only two things that hurt ME3 for me. There was a distinct lack of character interaction in this game as opposed to ME1/ME2. The Normandy even made it visible. Remember back in ME2 you had several decks, each filled with different rooms, and every room had another character? I played ME games because of the connections with characters and the story, not for the action. ME3 was all about action - and I am really surprised many feel the pre-ending game came anywhere close and/or met/exceeded ME1 standards. Sure, we saw all the old characters again, but only for a short while. And none of them were on the Normandy for very long, if at all. As I moved around the huge Normandy, it felt very empty, the complete opposite from ME2.

Even with the squadmate characters, there was little character development/interaction compared to the first two games. Heck, even the romance was extremely limited in several different ways. There was the requirement to have been in a relationship with someone in ME2 in order to romance them in ME3, with the exception of new ME3 characters and Ashley/Liara. There was the requirement (and partially an inherited flaw from ME2) to enter into a singular relationship, without the option to not enter into a commited relationship (why is Shepard only allowed to be looking for marriage/kids or no romance at all?). There was little romance dialogue/interaction at all with any of the characters. And then there was no actual love scenes either lol. Honestly, on the last point I could care less in any other game, and I would care less even with ME3 if that was not already an established part of the Mass Effect series. But since Bioware already established it in ME1/ME2, the scenes were definitely missing in ME3.

Just everything about the game felt incomplete and disoriented to me (since I was not focused on the action). I guess many of the people that love action games felt right at home. However, I don't really enjoy pure action games. I enjoy action in other types of games, but I don't enjoy action for the sake of action - and I guess I am in the minority there. As a result, I think a lot of gamers who enjoy both action and RPG games enjoyed ME3, not even realizing they were not enjoying the RPG elements much anymore, as they were enjoying the admittedly great action parts of it.

So now I finally get to the bad part... Even with all of ME3's flaws, I still considered it to be a decent game...up until the ending. Wow. I had expected a mediocre ending where nothing I did changed the ending much and I just had to pick RGB like in Deus Ex: HR. I already knew that because of all the backlash. But I had made sure not to read any spoilers or any details on the endings.

*Reapers theme music begins*
However, I was not prepared for what my eyes and ears were about to be exposed to...
The horror...
A 10 minute ending that destroyed the entire Mass Effect universe/trilogy for me...

It is truly amazing that someone, anyone, at EA/Bioware, with the power to do so, did not stop those atrocious ideas for endings from moving into prodoction.

Let's not even get into all the plot holes and non sense that rises with everything as a result of the "starbrat" citadel catalyst. That is a nightmare in of itself. I am just going to focus on the ending choices (as I listened to each of them, I became increasingly horrified that as each was explained, the chances of hearing a halfway decent one decreased).

Choice #1: Destroy. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Murders all existing synthetic life and (apparently) allows eternal galactic suffering via the resumption of non-reaper "traditional" organic-sythetic conflict in the future.
b) Destroys at least billions of organic lives when the mass relays explode.
c) Disables countless ships across the galaxy - killing at least millions via slow deaths from starvation, freezing, and/or lack of oxygen.
d) Strands the Normandy crew on some random planet and is forever separated from whoever he loves (and the one he loves is stranded with a small group of people with the possible chance of never being able to find anyone else).
e) Kills everyone on the Citadel (or are they all already dead? either way, just as bad)

Choice #2: Control. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Eliminates the free will of the supposedly-living Reapers.
b) He then forgives all of them for the inconceivable mass death and suffering they have inflicted for at least tens of millions of years. And they still have no remorse for what they have done or sympathy for their victims.
c) He becomes one of the ruthless Reapers and essentially becomes a galactic dictator (even if not ruthless).
d) The various galactic corruptions and numerous kinds of selfishness, bigotry, and prejudice continues (both in organic vs synthetic variants and numerous other variants), and Shepard just keeps these eternal evil conflicts "under control" with his Reaper forces.
e) Destroys at least billions of organic lives when the mass relays explode.
f) Disables countless ships across the galaxy - killing at least millions via slow deaths from starvation, freezing, and/or lack of oxygen.
g) Strands the Normandy crew on some random planet and is forever separated from whoever he loves (and the one he loves is stranded with a small group of people with the possible chance of never being able to find anyone else).
h) Kills everyone on the Citadel (or are they all already dead? either way, just as bad)

Choice #3: Synthesis. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Proves that video game developers should avoid becoming philosophers?
b) What?
c) Seriously...What?

Come on, this is by far the dumbest ending of all four. Essentially the message of this choice is that the power of science and technology supercede morality and ethics. Apparently there are some looney tunes at Bioware that think technology can somehow make everything better and magically change people to be "good." Nothing about this ending makes any sense at all. I like endings, whether on TV, in the movies, or in games, that make a logical point about something - whether a moral statement or something else. This ending acts like it is intellectual and/or making a point - it isn't. It is utter non sense and pointless.

Choice #4: Refusal. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Nullifies anything he has ever done.
b) Allows the cycle of mass murder and suffering to continue.

So essentially I have no Paragon options, and even the all-renegade endings are virtually identical. Everything I experienced in ME3 gave me the impression that there were two problems:
a) The writers became way too ambitious, attempting to incorporate philosophical issues too grand for them to comprehend (borrowing a line from the Reapers), not to mention too grand for them to have the time to adequately flesh out and for the designers/developers to adequately build into the game.
b) EA rushed the game with a budget and timeline that was inadequate to give a proper conclusion that matched the standards set by THEMSELVES, their own marketing, and the story / plots Bioware setup in the previous games.

These four choices killed even the first two games for me. I guess there will be a lot of people, that realized the stupidity of these endings, that will still buy the next ME game. Unless there is some huge revalation that shows the endings were not anything as they appeared (even though Bioware has already offiicially rejected the Indoctrination Theory), I will not be one of them. Not only will I not play an ME game again (I can't - i will just become aggitated thinking about the endings) nor buy an ME game again, I will never play/buy another Bioware game that does not resolve its story in ONE game (and reviewed by players as a good story with a good ending).

It is clear to me that the Bioware that exists today (the EA kind) completely rushes games (as indicated by ME3), and no longer has any concern about their games' fanbases.
 
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Some of what you've said I agree with. A lot of it I don't. For example the combat in ME3 was vastly superior to the other games. I didn't have problems rolling around when I didn't want to, etc.

But lets take a look at what you said here.

Choice #1: Destroy. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Murders all existing synthetic life and (apparently) allows eternal galactic suffering via the resumption of non-reaper "traditional" organic-sythetic conflict in the future.


The morality of this is debatable. You can argue their intelligence but synthetic life may or may not have a soul no matter how much you want Legion and company to.

b) Destroys at least billions of organic lives when the mass relays explode.

There is nothing in the EC or the regular version that confirms this. In fact the EC even tries to show you this isn't the case.

c) Disables countless ships across the galaxy - killing at least millions via slow deaths from starvation, freezing, and/or lack of oxygen.

Many ships would also be able to reach inhabitable worlds via conventional FTL drive. Lack of functional relays does not make for a death sentence.

d) Strands the Normandy crew on some random planet and is forever separated from whoever he loves (and the one he loves is stranded with a small group of people with the possible chance of never being able to find anyone else).

Apparently you weren't paying attention when you played the EC. The Normandy is repaired and is seen flying off again.

e) Kills everyone on the Citadel (or are they all already dead? either way, just as bad)

I'm not sure on this one. I'll have to go back and watch this. In the original cut yes, this was the case.


Choice #2: Control. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Eliminates the free will of the supposedly-living Reapers.


Well this is a bit of a plot hole. They certainly seem like they have free will, yet the Star Brat seems to contradict this.

b) He then forgives all of them for the inconceivable mass death and suffering they have inflicted for at least tens of millions of years. And they still have no remorse for what they have done or sympathy for their victims.

They are machines and their purpose nonsensical. This also goes along with the idea that they are not individually sentient.

c) He becomes one of the ruthless Reapers and essentially becomes a galactic dictator (even if not ruthless).

This isn't how I interpreted things. He may dictate the actions of the Reapers forcing them to rebuild the galaxy they've destroyed. The Reapers and the new being created by adding Shepard's consciousness to the Catalyst may choose to stay out of organic life and do nothing but take care of the galaxy like city engineers or municipal utilities.

d) The various galactic corruptions and numerous kinds of selfishness, bigotry, and prejudice continues (both in organic vs synthetic variants and numerous other variants), and Shepard just keeps these eternal evil conflicts "under control" with his Reaper forces.

This right here is just human nature and simply how organic life seems to be. I think resolving this galaxy wide would have been fucking retarded. And again we don't know if the new entiry in control of the Reapers will do anything of the sort. Aside from the intent to rebuild nothing more is stated about their intentions.

e) Destroys at least billions of organic lives when the mass relays explode.

Nope. Try again. The relays now break apart and don't seem to explode violently.

f) Disables countless ships across the galaxy - killing at least millions via slow deaths from starvation, freezing, and/or lack of oxygen.

Again, many ships would also be able to reach inhabitable worlds via conventional FTL drive. Lack of functional relays does not make for a death sentence.

g) Strands the Normandy crew on some random planet and is forever separated from whoever he loves (and the one he loves is stranded with a small group of people with the possible chance of never being able to find anyone else).

No it doesn't.

h) Kills everyone on the Citadel (or are they all already dead? either way, just as bad)

Where the hell did you get this? That's not the case at all based on what's seen in the game.

Choice #3: Synthesis. My Paragon Shepard:
a) Proves that video game developers should avoid becoming philosophers?
b) What?
c) Seriously...What?


On this one I agree 100%. This ending is just fucking bullshit and complete nonsense. I also agree with regard to the "refusal" ending. Shepard just watches everyone die, gives up, dies, and lets the cycle continue. This truly invalidates everything done in the past 3 games. As I predicted, the EC couldn't fix everything and there are some lingering plot holes that simply couldn't be addressed. The Star Child is still retarded and the Reaper's motivations make no fucking sense. It also doesn't eliminate the Deus Ex Machina plot element of the Crucibal. We knew it wouldn't. Unfortunately some of what needed to be addressed was so ingrained into the game that BioWare basically couldn't fix every thing. However the EC does do a good job given what they had to work with and the time it took them to produce the content. Some of the more annoying plot points were clarified and explained and yeah, BioWare lied.

They said it wouldn't change anything but some things, albeit sublte ones were changed such as the Normandy not getting damaged by the relay explosion and being irrepairable on the jungle planet's surface. The relay explosions were also cut shorter to make use of the same footage but the meaning behind that is pretty clear. The sublte distinction has a huge impact on the perception of events. For me the EC simply made the ending of the game a lot less painful. In fact I'm fairly pleased with the control ending overall. No it's not the scrapping of the Priority Earth mission and the total rewrite that the ending portion of the game ultimately needed, but it's workable salvage of the trainwreck we were left with originally.
 
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DESTROY ENDING:

Yes, synthetic life being "actually alive" is debatable. But the Geth, synthetic lifeforms themselves, not only claim to have always been allive as a whole, they themselves acknowledge that individual life is different from a collective network of thinking. And using the "reaper code," they transcended to an even higher level than the level that the Geth and Paragon Shepard (using all-Paragon options) established as "living."

If we go into "souls," well it is debatable even for organics - in the strictest sense of the term. Does anyone have true souls? And if so, you can even question how intelligent and self-aware an organic has to be in order to have a soul. The single-celled organisms? Multi-celled organisms? Insects? Animals? Prehistoric humans right on the "line" between what humans have decided the difference between humans and monkeys?

The reapers even have organic material in them, yet are dominantly synthetic - what percentage of material organic vs synthetic has a soul? Does a human still have a soul when its entire body, along with half of its brain, is cybernetic but the other half is still organic?

And what is a soul? Is that a religious term (as in God-given souls) or is it just a generally spiritual term (you have some kind of supernatural life that is inherently part of the universe)? Or does it just mean you truly are thinking "who am I?" as opposed to an artificial entity that has self-developed the capability to state "who am I?" without actually having a self-aware mind truly thinking it...rather it is just artificially simulating the thinking.

It is definitely all very debatable. But in this scifi video game that really isn't all THAT complex, Paragon Shepard believes that AI/non-VI synthetic life is alive. So if he selects that Destroy ending, he is giving up everything he believes in (and everything you the Paragon player have become attached).

MASS RELAYS:
I did not play Arrival so I guess they exploded in a completely different manner in that DLC?

CONTROL ENDING:

Citadel: Ok apparently I skipped to that part on the wrong ending on youtube (or maybe it was an old version I watched? Not sure how it was before Extended).

What you mentioned is exactly my problem with the Control ending. I can't remember what website, but on one of them a video game or technology journalist stated how if we assume the catalyst is stating something that is false, and Shepard does not contradict him, it must be false. Or else everything everyone says in the game can be questioned - eventually the entire series can be questioned. The "you can imagine anything" that I see some people mention, is just an excuse. You can argue that with Duke Nukem Forever (never payed it, but just an example) you can "imagine" that you are having fun in a revolutionary, advanced game that has fantastic modern gameplay and graphics. That doesn't excuse how bad it turned out. The video game is supposed to be an imaginative world - you should not have to do the work for the creators.

So with that out of the way, the catalyst states, as apparent fact, that organic and synthetic life have always unjustly waged war against each other. So apparently, Shepard accepts that this is an inevitability and he must use the military force of the Reapers to ensure organics and synthetics do not destroy each other. Shepard ACCEPTS the same state of evil by which the "original" galactic civilization a billion years ago was consumed. The problem with the Control ending is not that "evil" is not resolved - as you said, that would make the the Control ending as ridiculous as the Synthesis ending. The problem is that under the Control ending, there is no "hope" - a major theme in ME - for the resolution of the galactic problems, because they are always there, only the symptoms suppressed by the Reaper forces.

All of the endings have serious problems beyond what I have been talking about - due to the fundamental plot holes - so even if the issues I am talking about were not there, the endings were still terrible (the same reasons talked about all over the place). But limiting it to just these specifics: the Control ending is once again a non-Paragon option, because it offers no hope for a true end to the "first" perpetual cycle, the cycle of war between organics and synthetics (which was only better than the one-way slaughter by Reapers).

There needed to be an ending-option where Shepard, combined with something unique about the present cycle of galactic civilization, ended the reaper threat both without violating his Paragon principles and while also giving the galaxy their own choice, their own chance to avoid returning to "old ways" that in and of themselves, offer no more hope than that of the ongoing Reaper cycle.

Basically, if they were going to go with this fundamentally bad ending, they could have made it "less bad" by allowing an ending where no one (except Shepard himself and/or the Reapers) was killed by Shepard's choice and there was some kind of narrative about why THIS time, THIS galactic civilization has a *chance* (no, not something that Shepard magically controls - he just gives them the chance) at synthetic-organic peace that the "first" galactic civilization did not have.
 
The Mass Relays do explode differently in the Arrival DLC. You clearly see it wipe out a star system. And prior to the Extended Cut they exploded in much the same way, but you didn't see the result of that explosion, but given the Normandy was basically destroyed as a result of being caught in the shockwave made it fairly clear that the relays exploded violently. The Extended Cut changed that as the Normandy no longer suffers major damage from a shockwave and is able to take off again. And it is seen doing so after Commander Shepard's name is added to the memorial wall at the end of the game. There is also now dialog from Admiral Hackett which orders all the ships to flee the blast radius of the relay, and Earth I believe is shown to be OK afterwards, so that tells me the relay didn't wreck the Sol system.

And yeah, the fundemental issues with the endings still remain. The Catalyst states that synthetics will always rebel against their creators and yet Shepard already proved this to be false. In fact the Geth / Quarian situation isn't what the Galaxy thought it was at all. The creators were scared of their creations and tried to destroy them. An act which Geth would completely forgive. With the two races working side by side, that should have been thrown in the Catalyst's face.

I wouldn't say that the control ending leaves no hope. It leaves the galaxy as Shepard left it (in which he/she spread hope along the way) but with Reaper forces rebuilding the relays and what they destroyed. A punishment or sentence if you will for what they've done over the millenium. But beyond that the control ending in the EC doesn't state any intentions by Reaper / Catalyst / AI / Shepard to do anything but rebuild what was lost. There is no involvement in politics, no subjugation of anyone, no change to the Quarians or Geth, nothing. They are left with the chance that Shepard gave them with the Reapers on garbage / cleanup duty. I have no problem with that aspect of the ending and I still think you are reading into something that isn't there.

Also do not know that this is a violation of principals. This can be argued. On the one hand you can say that the Reapers are now enslaved as a result of Shepard's will being in control of them. The subsequent AI created by Shepard's will being combined with theirs either indicates that there was but one consciousness that truly controled the Reapers making them more like cooperative Geth intelligence or indicating that they had no free will at all. Or at the very least, they were constrained to their purpose either by programming or AI shackles similar to what EDI had placed on her to prevent her from controlling the Normandy in ME2. And one could also argue that enslavement of the Reapers is justified and desirable because that's what they did to billions when they created collector's, husks, brutes, cannibals, and other Reaper creatures.

I'd argue that being put on cleanup and construction duty is a fitting punishment for them. They have to atone for some of what they've done. If they were ever truly free before (which the game seriously denies by specific statements made in dialog) then they are not free now. War criminals, murderers, etc. are placed in captivity when captured and in days passed they were used for labor and did society a benefit behind bars. Making license plates or whatever. In extreme cases criminals are often put to death. Now whether or not you agree with the last part is a separate and complex issue. However I point out that life imprisonment and the death penalty for savage crimes are believed in and endorsed by lots of good people.

And I'd go on to say that the destroy ending isn't necessarily a renegade act. It is one of desparate self-preservation. It puts an end to the Reaper threat once and for all. The sacrifice of the Geth is the only time where this gets muddy and isn't so clear cut. This by itself isn't even necessarily an evil act. It depends on whether or not you believe the Geth are actually alive and it also may simply come down to numbers. Sacrifice a billion lives here so that 10 billion+ don't have to die. That's a shitty choice but it's not necessarily done out of mailce.I'd call it a renegade act for the selfish nature of it, but Renegade Shepards seem to be "get things done no matter the cost" type anyway. Renegade Shepard's aren't necessarily evil either, but they are an ends justifies the means type of personality. The motivations that drive renegade and paragon Shepards are the same. Paragon Shepard's simply take the high road more often than not with the idea that compromising one's principals to accomplish something invalidates the reasons you were doing it in the first place, and that losing who you are in the process is unacceptable.

Synthesis on the other hand is completely fucking evil. It volates people on multiple levels and gives them no choice. And the idea that conflicts would be eliminated by everyone being the same is just horse shit. There is too much wrong with synthesis to get into it. I'd hit the character limits for posts if I did that. (Again.)

But I think that many people who say what your saying missed what BioWare had said about this game. They saw how people thought of renegade actions in the first two games as wrong or evil, and BioWare didn't think of them as such. They wanted the game universe and it's characters to be more gray, more morally ambiguous. It isn't a matter of what's right or wrong, it's just the methods that differ between what are really good people to begin with. The way the games are written you don't get that impression but that's what BioWare was shooting for. Paragon Shepard is more or less altruistic and renegade Shepard is an ends justifies the means kind of person but again the motivations are the same.
 
Mass Effect 3 script information hidden within the game's Extended Cut DLC suggests further ending dialogue changes for players who download the upcoming Leviathan add-on...those with Leviathan installed will be privvy to extra snippets of information about the Reapers' origin...the Leviathan DLC is set to divulge information on the Reaper's creators- the Leviathans....Shepard can then question the game's controversial Star Child AI about the ancient race at the end of the game

extra dialogue options will allow Shepard to discover more about the Leviathans' fate, already hinted at in the Extended Cut's dialogue

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-08-mass-effect-3-dlc-suggests-further-changes-to-ending
 
Mass Effect 3 script information hidden within the game's Extended Cut DLC suggests further ending dialogue changes for players who download the upcoming Leviathan add-on...those with Leviathan installed will be privvy to extra snippets of information about the Reapers' origin...the Leviathan DLC is set to divulge information on the Reaper's creators- the Leviathans....Shepard can then question the game's controversial Star Child AI about the ancient race at the end of the game

extra dialogue options will allow Shepard to discover more about the Leviathans' fate, already hinted at in the Extended Cut's dialogue

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-08-mass-effect-3-dlc-suggests-further-changes-to-ending

LOL, so it's true that we have to pay to get the whole ending.
 
Confirms what we have been saying all along. The existence of Starbrat is the source of all problems this ending has. Otherwise, good try Bioware.

Agreed. The extended cut is actually pretty good now addressing most of the issues that we had from the ending, aside from the Starbrat itself. And I think working within the lame framework they had established with that idiotic character, they did a good job after the fact with the EC. I think they've done as well as they could have.

But yeah, I noticed all the new dialog, and it does ellude to Harbinger not being the first true Reaper as originally postulated.

I fucking love how Shepard can now say that making the choice to pick synthesis on behalf of the entire galaxy is wrong and he/she won't do that. I pick this comment EVERY TIME NOW. Fuck that ending.
 
I still haven't been able to bring myself to reinstall any of the ME games. ME3 just killed the series for me, they don't hold any interest anymore.

I'm just hoping I can convince people to not buy DLC for this game. Money talks, if people leave off the DLC purchases perhaps they'll listen.
 
LOL, so it's true that we have to pay to get the whole ending.

I'd just like to say that I called this WAY in advance. It's going to happen more and more, which is why I'm praying for kickstarters to really take off. Get gaming out of the hands of megacorps and suits and back into the hands of creators and artists.
 
And there are a few on here who support dlc's...


I'll you tube it if I have to pay more for something that should be in the game.
 
And there are a few on here who support dlc's...


I'll you tube it if I have to pay more for something that should be in the game.

You do know that DLC's are sometimes actually created AFTER the game was released right? I don't see anything wrong with it so long as the content is good enough to justify the price. For the most part Mass Effect DLC's have been good enough to justify the price of admission. Project Firewalker is the only one that wasn't. And it wasn't horrid, but it should have been free or 1-2$ at most. Others like the Shadow Broker and The Arrival were well worth $10.

Others like the Aegis and Firepower packs were so cheap it didn't bother me. I liked the extra weapons. It was nice to have them on additional replays. When you play the game on the hardest difficulty, strategy in combat and squad loadout become important and part of the fun. New weapons gave way to new strategies and made things interesting. That's just me. This is not to say I agree with the From Ashes DLC day one release. Judging by the content it's clear that was part of the regular game separated out to increase the cost and to add something "special" to Collector's Editions. I don't like that but recognize it's their game and they can sell it however they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
 
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I still haven't been able to bring myself to reinstall any of the ME games. ME3 just killed the series for me, they don't hold any interest anymore.

I'm just hoping I can convince people to not buy DLC for this game. Money talks, if people leave off the DLC purchases perhaps they'll listen.

Yep. Done playing. I will just wait until the new DLC comes out and people make youtube videos of it. Its unbelievable how short-sighted and indifferent EA was about this whole thing.
 
You do know that DLC's are sometimes actually created AFTER the game was released right? I don't see anything wrong with it so long as the content is good enough to justify the price. For the most part Mass Effect DLC's have been good enough to justify the price of admission. Project Firewalker is the only one that wasn't. And it wasn't horrid, but it should have been free or 1-2$ at most. Others like the Shadow Broker and The Arrival were well worth $10.

Others like the Aegis and Firepower packs were so cheap it didn't bother me. I liked the extra weapons. It was nice to have them on additional replays. When you play the game on the hardest difficulty, strategy in combat and squad loadout become important and part of the fun. New weapons gave way to new strategies and made things interesting. That's just me. This is not to say I agree with the From Ashes DLC day one release. Judging by the content it's clear that was part of the regular game separated out to increase the cost and to add something "special" to Collector's Editions. I don't like that but recognize it's their game and they can sell it however they want. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

Sorry you are right I ment paid for dlc, and while some are the exception giving you you worth while content for the price a majority does not. I also dont feel this "new" ending or "extended cut" is at all worth it.
 
Sorry you are right I ment paid for dlc, and while some are the exception giving you you worth while content for the price a majority does not. I also dont feel this "new" ending or "extended cut" is at all worth it.

So all DLC shouldn't be purchased because only some of it is good? I can say the same thing about movies and games themselves. The good are definitely outweighed and outnumbered by the bad ones. Listen my experience tells me that most Mass Effect DLC is worth the money. Most Call of Duty DLC isn't. So if I buy a CoD game I don't buy the DLC unless people I know rave about it. Which has never happened. Mass Effect DLC on the other hand has always been worth while with the one exception. So I trust that new DLC will be worth it as well. The day it isn't is the day I stop buying it. But I'm not going to boycot DLC because I'm butt hurt. If a product is worthy of my attention and worth buying I'll buy it. If it isn't, I won't. Simple. I don't look at DLC any differently than I looked at expansion packs, sequels, or games themselves. I just know that they are smaller and cheaper.

Uhhh the Extended Cut is free. I'd say it's worth the download. It does address many of the problems people had with the ending, including me. It doesn't address all of them. It can't get rid of the Starbrat, so it can only do so much. but it does explain a lot and flesh out the story quite a bit more. It even explains what the Starbrat actually is, and confirms as EDI suspected that the Reapers do function EXACTLY like the Geth, by consensus. The Starbrat is little more than the collective consciousness of the Reaper collective. Yeah, it shows BioWare back tracking on some aspects of the original ending with some subtle changes to the cinematics, but frankly what they changed needed to be changed.

Some people are still looking at this stuff with butt hurt eyes. The fact of the matter is, they made a mistake. Either they released the game too early, and or their creative direction after their short sighted ram rodding of Drew Karpyshyn took a nose dive. Whatever the case the game has gotten better with the Extended Cut, and the new DLC looks to be pretty damned awesome.

No one hated the game's original ending more than I did. I was pissed, said what needed to be said and BioWare did a decent job of addressing the issue. No it's not a perfect game now, and they could only do so much after questionable creative direction with the Starbrat, but it does help elevate the game back up. Despite some of the game's design oversights I'd give it a 9.5/10 easily prior to the ending. After the ending I gave it a 7/10. Now I'd put it back up to a 9/10. BioWare has tried to reach out to the fans and give them more of what they wanted and they did listen to a lot of what fans had asked for. You can't please everyone but it's really not all that bad. If some people could get over their ass pains they'd see that it's really not all that bad.

Story wise it's still a shit load better than what you get out of MOST video games. Certainly better than the ridiculous stories we get with third and first person shooters. It's also one of the few games outside of the fantasy genre that does have a decent story. (Overall.)

As for DLC I'll keep buying it so long as it's good. When it isn't, I'll stop. I don't buy DLC for other games which have a proven track record of trying to sell me maps from a game I've already got or something that isn't worth the price of admission.
 
I cant believe that there is still someone talking about this MassFail3.

Let it die in shame please

It dont have near the same quality as ME2, let alone ME1
 
I cant believe that there is still someone talking about this MassFail3.

Let it die in shame please

It dont have near the same quality as ME2, let alone ME1

Please, Mass Effect 1 was the least quality game in the series. No, I'm not saying it was the worst game in the series, but it was the worst quality technically speaking. ME1 was a CHEAP and I mean CHEAP game. It made up for the lack of quality by the quality of it's content. But the game had tons of filler to make it longer. Remember the Mako exploration? That took place on about a half dozen or so planet maps reused over and over. This bullshit took up about a 3rd of the game at least. Your entance on those planets helped mask this but they were basically all more or less the same with Eltania and a few others being stand out exeptions. Bunkers and buildings were all reused on all the side missions. Buildings for side missions were all reuses of about 4 maps with objects moved around to try and conceal the fact that they were reused.

You had tons of weapons which all had two or three models a piece which only varied by color. Armor designs weren't a lot different on that front. They were all recolors of the same handful of models. It is also the shortest game in the series once you account for all the wasted time on the Mako. You can finish it completely in about 25 hours or so if you use a walk through to shorten the planet expiration.

The sex scene in the game is an even better example of BioWare reusing stuff. Liara, Ashley and FemShep all have the same body. Skin ton and heads were adjustable to fit the needs of the scene. If you had a FemShep and got with Kaiden, then FemShep would use Liara / Ashley's body with FemSheps head and Kaiden would use MaleShep's body with his own head, but he would have the same animations and do the same exact things as Male Shepard would. And interestingly enough, it looks like they were going for more than that, because the game toggles between the in-game engine and pre-rendered FMV for Liara's scene as she has a few extra shots due to making the mental connection to Shepard. Blurring of Shepard's face in these scenes cover for the identity of Shepard and it was done with both a male and female standing there hardly moving, and Liara uses identical animations both times.

Mass Effect 2 was a FAR, FAR better effort than this. It had a much bigger budget, and a much larger development team. Even when you edit the save file to give yourself all the resources, and only need to click planets to find out if there are missions on them, the game is still almost 40 hours. with all the DLC's. It's about 30 hours without. ME3 is about the same, but will likely get longer as DLC's are made available.

I'll agree that ME2 is more polished than ME3, but this is largely because ME3 was much more ambitious and BioWare ran out of time to do everything they wanted to do. ME1 has ME2 beat for story and that's it. ME2 has more dialog, more variable outcomes for actions and much more streamlined combat and general game mechanics. It also runs better and looks better. ME3 is mechanically the best one, as it builds off of ME2, but lacks in story at the end. You can see lots of little things cut short due to a time shortage through the game.

Most people seem to remember these games more emotionally than how they really were. Go through them as many times as I have and gain some objectivity. ME1 3x, ME2, 9x, ME3, 6x.
 
Uhhh the Extended Cut is free. I'd say it's worth the download. It does address many of the problems people had with the ending, including me. It doesn't address all of them. It can't get rid of the Starbrat, so it can only do so much. but it does explain a lot and flesh out the story quite a bit more. It even explains what the Starbrat actually is, and confirms as EDI suspected that the Reapers do function EXACTLY like the Geth, by consensus. The Starbrat is little more than the collective consciousness of the Reaper collective. Yeah, it shows BioWare back tracking on some aspects of the original ending with some subtle changes to the cinematics, but frankly what they changed needed to be changed.

Interesting, it showed up with a price for me on XBL, I'll have to take a look at this again.

And honestly I'm not one to complain about plot holes, every story has it, its almost impossible to prevent them, cover the major ones and I'll be good. But I was never a big harper on the plot holes in ME3.
 
Interesting, it showed up with a price for me on XBL, I'll have to take a look at this again.

And honestly I'm not one to complain about plot holes, every story has it, its almost impossible to prevent them, cover the major ones and I'll be good. But I was never a big harper on the plot holes in ME3.

Most of the major plot holes are explained, changed, or covered in the EC. That being said they did introduce a new one as a result of one fix, but I let it slide as the fix actually addresses more than one thing.

Specifically, why does Harbinger not simply destroy the Normandy when it comes down to evacuate your injured squad? Though the camera angle does indicate that the conduit pylons may somewhat obscure Harbingers shot on the Normandy and probably doesn't consider the tiny ship a threat given what it's doing down there, but the Reapers tend to kill things and harvest things that aren't necessarily a threat. Potential to be a threat at any point is good enough reason. So I consider it a minor issue, but something I did notice.

But the fix gives us a reason for Shepard to be alone, for Hackett to know that Shepard should have made it up to the Citadel, and it allows a final good bye for Shepard and his/her love interest if they are in the squad during the final mission. It also explains why that love interest didn't go with Shepard. (Injuries being too great to continue the mission.) Of course it shows that your squad does indeed survive if your EMS is high enough.

You also see someone tell Joker it's time to leave when Hackett orders the fleet to leave once the Crucibal discharges. You see Joker get pissed over history essentially repeating itself, and the Normandy runs, but doesn't get it's wings blown away by the blast wave. Instead it seems to set down on that jungle planet for repairs. You see them add Shepard's name to the memorial wall amidst repairs on the Normandy. The ship isn't nearly as damaged in this scene when it sets down.

Essentially the new ending does what the old ending should have done. It gives meaning to the sacrifice by showing that life will continue for most, and that things will return to normal and the galaxy was saved while there was still something left to save. Now I still hate Synthesis, I think it's total garbage, and unfortunately it's worse as it continues to drive home the point about homogenizing DNA ending conflicts, which is bullshit. Destroy and Control are pretty satisfying now, each in their own right. The fourth option is also pretty good, albeit short. It's a "failure" of an ending really, but people wanted a fourth choice and they got it.
 
ME not only had the best story, it also had the best main missions (IMO). And the hub worlds were best in ME. I could tell that they tried returning to the ME style hub worlds in ME3, but corners were cut and they just weren't as good. ME2 definitely had the best side content. But I'll take the Mako missions from ME over the "find and press a button" side missions of ME3.

To me, ME2 and ME3 kind of feel like two sides of one coin and if you could somehow combine the main story elements from ME3 with the side content of ME2 you'd have the definitive ME experience.
 
ME not only had the best story, it also had the best main missions (IMO). And the hub worlds were best in ME. I could tell that they tried returning to the ME style hub worlds in ME3, but corners were cut and they just weren't as good. ME2 definitely had the best side content. But I'll take the Mako missions from ME over the "find and press a button" side missions of ME3.

To me, ME2 and ME3 kind of feel like two sides of one coin and if you could somehow combine the main story elements from ME3 with the side content of ME2 you'd have the definitive ME experience.

I want the hub worlds of ME1, the story quality of ME1, combined with the side missions of ME2, and the combat and character interactions of ME3. Now I'm not talking about the auto dialog around the Citadel for the fetch quests. I'm talking about the dialog and even auto-dialog and idle banter of the squad mates and Normandy crew in ME3. That would be the definitive Mass Effect experience. I also think ME3 has the best weapons and customization. So that should be in there as well.
 
Please, Mass Effect 1 was the least quality game in the series. No, I'm not saying it was the worst game in the series, but it was the worst quality technically speaking.
Exactly, it was a new IP, unkown to all but with the Bioware logo on it.
It didnt had the time, funds nor the full AAA team behind it. I still remember the awful face shadows problem.

ME1 was a CHEAP and I mean CHEAP game. It made up for the lack of quality by the quality of it's content.
Isnt the same with all the Mass effect´s ? LOL
ME1 had problems, thats for sure, but they arent near close to the plague and "gearslization" nor the "calldulization" that infected ME2 and ME3.
They transformed a true RPG exploration, awe and story driven space game in a Soap Opera filled with shootings.

But the game had tons of filler to make it longer. Remember the Mako exploration? That took place on about a half dozen or so planet maps reused over and over. This bullshit took up about a 3rd of the game at least. Your entance on those planets helped mask this but they were basically all more or less the same with Eltania and a few others being stand out exeptions. Bunkers and buildings were all reused on all the side missions. Buildings for side missions were all reuses of about 4 maps with objects moved around to try and conceal the fact that they were reused.

Couldnt disagree more. Cheap in what sense ? Mako exploration is all about SPACE/planet exploration. Or do you think there´s action in every fucking rock in the space ? No, the Mako was a trully freedom "walk" in wasted, barren, desolated places that trully exists in the universe.
When you reached a unmapped planet, the sensation of desolation and awe was almost palpable.
In every piece of EVA i did, in Mako or by foot, there was a story behind it. If you didnt read logs and etc, im sorry, pehaps you was demotivated by the lack of PEW PEW PEW in a barren lifeless rock that somehow had a SOS signal for about 30 years without anyone noticed/cared for. [enough of Ad hominem here i promess :p]

About the same Prefabs all over the place, you better accustom with it. In the general space exploration, everything is prefab´d so logistics are easier to deal with. But i know you meant the lack of inpirational and original structures spread thru the galaxy and i couldnt agree more. Yes, its attached to the same COST problem from above.

You had tons of weapons which all had two or three models a piece which only varied by color. Armor designs weren't a lot different on that front. They were all recolors of the same handful of models.

My thoughts exactly, but, if you group all modern rifles, isnt they almost the same ? Varying only in size and colors :p ?.
One thing to be noted is that Weapons in general, in ME1, was much much more complex and "credible". Almost all weapons was energy based, you only setback was the heat, whose you dealt with cooling units. Dont even make me start about ammunition in ME2 and 3.
It is also the shortest game in the series once you account for all the wasted time on the Mako. You can finish it completely in about 25 hours or so if you use a walk through to shorten the planet expiration.

Seriously ? My first try in ME1 i took almost 55 hours on it without tasting all the game content. I have moar than 150 hours in that game, but dont have 50 in ME3.

The sex scene in the game is an even better example of BioWare reusing stuff. Liara, Ashley and FemShep all have the same body. Skin ton and heads were adjustable to fit the needs of the scene. If you had a FemShep and got with Kaiden, then FemShep would use Liara / Ashley's body with FemSheps head and Kaiden would use MaleShep's body with his own head, but he would have the same animations and do the same exact things as Male Shepard would. And interestingly enough, it looks like they were going for more than that, because the game toggles between the in-game engine and pre-rendered FMV for Liara's scene as she has a few extra shots due to making the mental connection to Shepard. Blurring of Shepard's face in these scenes cover for the identity of Shepard and it was done with both a male and female standing there hardly moving, and Liara uses identical animations both times.

Same costs problem.That´s Bioware fault, not the game itself.

Mass Effect 2 was a FAR, FAR better effort than this. It had a much bigger budget, and a much larger development team.

Undoubtedly.

Even when you edit the save file to give yourself all the resources, and only need to click planets to find out if there are missions on them, the game is still almost 40 hours. with all the DLC's. It's about 30 hours without. ME3 is about the same, but will likely get longer as DLC's are made available.
I cant believe you liked more a fucking Sonar screen for gathering minerals (something that the lazy A.I could do it) than the Mako and EVA travels. The Normandy is a Military/Exploration Stealth Ship, not an "Ishimura" Planet cracker, filled with mining probes and stuff related.
I cant stress this enought, they put a Arcade minigame and people liked.
Also, you gathered minerals for WHAT ? You´re already a Spectre, you have the ultimate SOA weapons and gear, you dont need to upgrade anything. The game should push experimental tech that we find thru the game, and not "upgrade this standart military sniper rifle scope"
I'll agree that ME2 is more polished than ME3, but this is largely because ME3 was much more ambitious and BioWare ran out of time to do everything they wanted to do.
Exactly, it was rushed. Why !? Profit of course.
ME1 has ME2 beat for story and that's it.
ME3 had almost no story behind it.
In ME1, you are a [your plot] and ambiciously become the first Spectre, by there, you start investigating a lot of things, almost all are related to Saren -> Beacons -> Reapers!?!
In ME2, you are killed, remade by one of the worst villans ever, to fight for their "humanity", that are being abducted in the galaxy -> collectors -> ridicously Human-reaper -> You discover that you are facing an enormous horde of god-like beings that one can obliterate a planet without sweat. And theyre here.
In ME3, you and your friends quest together in the magicals places of the galaxy gathering supplies to whistand an unmeasurable powerfull wave of beings. that somehow now can be destroyed by the most basic weapons-> end.
ME2 has more dialog, more variable outcomes for actions and much more streamlined combat and general game mechanics.
Yes, totally usefull citadel reffuge dialogs and cover/kill/cover/kill combat.
It also runs better and looks better. ME3 is mechanically the best one, as it builds off of ME2, but lacks in story at the end. You can see lots of little things cut short due to a time shortage through the game.
ME2 is much moar beautful than the 3, ME1 cant be judged because the lack of work in the port, and it was the first. Me3 have poor textures, repetitive and boring level designs.
Most people seem to remember these games more emotionally than how they really were. Go through them as many times as I have and gain some objectivity. ME1 3x, ME2, 9x, ME3, 6x.

LOL, i bet you dont have half the ours i have in ME1-2.

Thats what happens when they´re more than a 6 month repetitive shooter :p

Sorry for all the grammar errors :(
 
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Exactly, it was a new IP, unkown to all but with the Bioware logo on it.
It didnt had the time, funds nor the full AAA team behind it. I still remember the awful face shadows problem.


Isnt the same with all the Mass effect´s ? LOL
ME1 had problems, thats for sure, but they arent near close to the plague and "gearslization" nor the "calldulization" that infected ME2 and ME3.
They transformed a true RPG exploration, awe and story driven space game in a Soap Opera filled with shootings.



Couldnt disagree more. Cheap in what sense ? Mako exploration is all about SPACE/planet exploration. Or do you think there´s action in every fucking rock in the space ? No, the Mako was a trully freedom "walk" in wasted, barren, desolated places that trully exists in the universe.
When you reached a unmapped planet, the sensation of desolation and awe was almost palpable.
In every piece of EVA i did, in Mako or by foot, there was a story behind it. If you didnt read logs and etc, im sorry, pehaps you was demotivated by the lack of PEW PEW PEW in a barren lifeless rock that somehow had a SOS signal for about 30 years without anyone noticed/cared for. [enough of Ad hominem here i promess :p]

About the same Prefabs all over the place, you better accustom with it. In the general space exploration, everything is prefab´d so logistics are easier to deal with. But i know you meant the lack of inpirational and original structures spread thru the galaxy and i couldnt agree more. Yes, its attached to the same COST problem from above.



My thoughts exactly, but, if you group all modern rifles, isnt they almost the same ? Varying only in size and colors :p ?.
One thing to be noted is that Weapons in general, in ME1, was much much more complex and "credible". Almost all weapons was energy based, you only setback was the heat, whose you dealt with cooling units. Dont even make me start about ammunition in ME2 and 3.


Seriously ? My first try in ME1 i took almost 55 hours on it without tasting all the game content. I have moar than 150 hours in that game, but dont have 50 in ME3.



Same costs problem.That´s Bioware fault, not the game itself.



Undoubtedly.


I cant believe you liked more a fucking Sonar screen for gathering minerals (something that the lazy A.I could do it) than the Mako and EVA travels. The Normandy is a Military/Exploration Stealth Ship, not an "Ishimura" Planet cracker, filled with mining probes and stuff related.
I cant stress this enought, they put a Arcade minigame and people liked.
Also, you gathered minerals for WHAT ? You´re already a Spectre, you have the ultimate SOA weapons and gear, you dont need to upgrade anything. The game should push experimental tech that we find thru the game, and not "upgrade this standart military sniper rifle scope"

Exactly, it was rushed. Why !? Profit of course.

ME3 had almost no story behind it.
In ME1, you are a [your plot] and ambiciously become the first Spectre, by there, you start investigating a lot of things, almost all are related to Saren -> Beacons -> Reapers!?!
In ME2, you are killed, remade by one of the worst villans ever, to fight for their "humanity", that are being abducted in the galaxy -> collectors -> ridicously Human-reaper -> You discover that you are facing an enormous horde of god-like beings that one can obliterate a planet without sweat. And theyre here.
In ME3, you and your friends quest together in the magicals places of the galaxy gathering supplies to whistand an unmeasurable powerfull wave of beings. that somehow now can be destroyed by the most basic weapons-> end.

Yes, totally usefull citadel reffuge dialogs and cover/kill/cover/kill combat.

ME2 is much moar beautful than the 3, ME1 cant be judged because the lack of work in the port, and it was the first. Me3 have poor textures, repetitive and boring level designs.


LOL, i bet you dont have half the ours i have in ME1-2.

Thats what happens when they´re more than a 6 month repetitive shooter :p

Sorry for all the grammar errors :(

Actually I've got about 90 hours in ME1. And yeah, you can shorten the shit out of it by knowing where crap is on the planets and killing the dull Mako crap. I know what you mean about a sense of desolationan and all that. No I don't think there needs to be action under every rock in space, but it is a game. The Mako shit was way too repetative and boring. That was filler that took up about a third of the game. I did every quest and did everything possible in ME1 and it took about 55 hours, but again that was with crawling each planet trolling for minerals and crap.

And no, I don't care for two or three's version of it either. It's all just filler crap. But I felt ME1 only had about 25 hours or so of real content. Less than 2, and less than 3. I played Mass Effect 2 completely through doing all DLC and all quests 9 times. Few people have spent more time in that game than I have. It takes about 40 hours to do now, but took about 50 the first time. I don't skip dialog either and I spent a lot of time listening to idle chatter of NPCs and other stuff. Maybe I get through the combat faster? I don't know but I explored everything I could, gathered all pickups and I played the game through on Insanity and Hardcore difficulties. That even lengthened the amount of combat. Some people spend a lot more time in RPG's figuring stuff out or exploring stuff that isn't worth exploring, or something. I don't know. But some people seem to take a lot more time than I did. But you can do everything in Mass Effect 2 in under 49 hours including all DLC's. I clicked on each and every planet to see if there was a mission there as that's all you needed to do for EDI to flag the planet as having an anomoly. I didn't mine for 500,000 units of mineral resources per resource either. That's a stupid thing I see a lot of people do. You only need about 200,000k of everything and 50 or 60k of Eezo to get all the game's upgrades and research everything.
 
I didn't mine for 500,000 units of mineral resources per resource either. That's a stupid thing I see a lot of people do. You only need about 200,000k of everything and 50 or 60k of Eezo to get all the game's upgrades and research everything.
Stupid indeed. But you don't know the first time through. I think when I replay ME2 I'll like it a lot more because I'll know not to mine every planet. I actually ran out of money because I spent so much on fuel and probes. And I didn't need most of the resources. That sucked.

Also, in reply to the other post, the prefabs in ME1 weren't the problem. The problem was that the reasons for doing the Mako missions were very generic. There just wasn't much plot there. And while structures should be the same, using the same cave assets over and over is not logical in a realism sense. Also, if we want to talk realism, most rocky planets are rather flat besides cratering. The ridiculous mountains that Bioware placed everywhere are non-existent in our solar system besides a few isolated places on Earth.

Despite all of that, I still missed the Mako in the second game. While the missions could and should have been better, there was a sense of mystery, isolation, and exploration that you got in ME that was lost in the second two games. Jack Wall's excellent music played a large part in that, as the unknown world themes were some of the best in the game (thankfully, as you'd hear them a lot).
 
Oh, the terrain was absolutely awful. I could spend 10 minutes trying to scale a mountain to only discover that I wouldn't be able to make it over the peak and would need to find a new path.
 
I'd just like to say that I called this WAY in advance. It's going to happen more and more, which is why I'm praying for kickstarters to really take off. Get gaming out of the hands of megacorps and suits and back into the hands of creators and artists.

It's EA, DLC and day 1 items are a given with anything they churn out half baked.

Seeing as ME1, and ME2 had DLC (especially ME2), no surprises at all, and I'm sure there will be another 4-6 DLC's lined up for ME3 to complete the rest of the story, I probably won't play it again after my current run through until all the DLC is available, I have a bunch of games that need to be completed...although the MP part of the game is kind of fun.
 
Stupid indeed. But you don't know the first time through. I think when I replay ME2 I'll like it a lot more because I'll know not to mine every planet. I actually ran out of money because I spent so much on fuel and probes. And I didn't need most of the resources. That sucked.

Also, in reply to the other post, the prefabs in ME1 weren't the problem. The problem was that the reasons for doing the Mako missions were very generic. There just wasn't much plot there. And while structures should be the same, using the same cave assets over and over is not logical in a realism sense. Also, if we want to talk realism, most rocky planets are rather flat besides cratering. The ridiculous mountains that Bioware placed everywhere are non-existent in our solar system besides a few isolated places on Earth.

Despite all of that, I still missed the Mako in the second game. While the missions could and should have been better, there was a sense of mystery, isolation, and exploration that you got in ME that was lost in the second two games. Jack Wall's excellent music played a large part in that, as the unknown world themes were some of the best in the game (thankfully, as you'd hear them a lot).

I can't disagree with that. Everything needed balance. The Mako stuff was fun for awhile but there was simply too much of it. Vehicle use in ME2 was curbed entirely until the DLC, which wasn't necessary. Project Firewalker didn't do it well, but I thought Project Overlord did. You had a reason to drive around in those missions.
 
I've played ME1 4 times, ME2 twice and ME3 I completed once, but it took me 3 months to do it because I wasn't enjoying much of it. Here's my disjointed rant that I'll type up because I'm in-between projects this afternoon:

ME1 - best dialog-writing, best main story, most interesting choices, felt the most satisfying to play through for me personally
ME2 - best side missions by far, good story but not fantastic, lots of detail in characters' backstory and writing
ME3 - worst dialog, worst writing. Best gameplay (shooting, cover, etc). Some very exciting setpieces to fight on, but game *really* felt like the player was "along for the ride" doing combat scene, story scene,combat scene, watch Shepherd jump off a ledge with explosion, run past this, blow up this, etc. The pacing was tiring to me.


All of them have good parts, but ME1 was my favorite and ME3 was the flashiest and fastest, had a lot of lines that made me groan, and a lot of scenes where I was just thinking that "this is like the Michael bay of video games."

And just to mention the writing in general, like the overall scripts of the games: ME1 seemed pretty sophisticated. Things made a lot of sense and had a lot of apparent depth. There would be a plot twist and I'd be able to think about how that action made sense coming from that character, or something would be portrayed with the right amount of mystery and the right amount of exposition, etc. It was like a very good writer was at the helm of things. disclaimer: I'm not a great writer myself so I'm poor at articulating it and I haven't played these in a while so I don't have many examples ready to support my opinions.

For ME3, the writing seemed all over the place. It wasn't as cohesive. The villains didn't seem to make much sense. The Reapers didn't seem logical or intimidating at all.

1 Reaper alone, Sovereign, in ME1 seemed like he was about to accomplish everything he needed to and fought viciously against huge fleets around the citadel. He was "smart" and cunning and his actions seemed sensible and it would be reasonable to expect positive results (for him) from his strategic and tactical choices. He was the big mysterious alien, lovecraftian cosmic horror death machine with a fearsome intellect and he was a shadow looming over the game.

In ME3, reapers are a bunch of dumb digitally-shrieking fools getting killed by big worms, and sending their pathetic ground troops down to fight on even terms with the turians and humans and stuff. Sovereign was just 1 entity, and he did awesome stuff as a villain. The reaper fleet is massive in ME3, but it feels like they barely achieve anything other than burning a few cities.

I think a lot of stories benefit from a strong element of mystique, with a few solid reveals thrown in that can blow our minds. The exposition that ME2 and 3 added just didn't resonate. They added more detail and they are canon, sure, but the twists here and the reveals here weakened the story rather than strengthened it. Think to finding out how the cycle works in ME1 - Damn, the Protheans were not the first... they were just the most recent step of a long staircase of galactic extinction events? The Reapers do this? whoa, what could that mean?

What gave you that sense of awe and inspired the thoughts that go with that, in ME2? Were you impressed by "the human reaper?" Everyone I know thought it looked like a gaudy Terminator knockoff and it was weak and impotent besides. Not impressed. The collectors being Protheans? Whatever, I was more interested in the universe in which they were dead - the reapers made more sense to me as a mysterious, killing cosmic force, that way. How about ME3? The Starchild, and the crucible? ME2 I can assume is the writers trying to expand on the universe and adding new detail, but that detail just not being executed particularly interestingly or convincingly. ME3 I can't see anything other than poorly equipped writers writing themselves into a corner and having no time to think of something better, realizing they have a deadline to release the game and they have no idea how Shepherd is going to beat a fleet of a million Sovereign-reapers. "Yeah, the Crucible, that'll be the thing the story centers around." There's a problem if the only literary resolution to a plot arc is supermagic.

And the thing with the kid who died in the beginning on Earth, and the dreams you have, and the Starchild? That just seemed so forced. I felt like Shepherd was *my* character in ME1 and ME2 and the choices I made with Shepherd wouldn't indicate that he/she'd be so affected by this, but now it's a canon fact that Shepherd is all torn up about one specific kid dying? Millions of people died on the Earth attack, and Shepherd, the coolest-headed, most brilliant officer in the Alliance and human spectre is going to get all torn up and obsess over one single kid? Put your attention to things that you have some control over, and worry about the people you know! Goodness, that kid wasnt even the first person in the trilogy I'd failed to save, either.

I just don't find it plausible, or consistent with itself... So much of 3, just didn't resonate with me. Felt contrived and forced. Felt like they were making scenes and making them look awesome (and they did) and the story that linked it all together was less important, or crafted by less talented or less passionate people. Or maybe just too many people - 1 good writer could make it all cohesive, but not a team. Who knows.

So that's my rant. If ME1 was adapted into a movie or a novel it'd be a pretty good one. If ME3 was, it would be another common special-effects summer action movie with a weak plot that we all forget.

That said, ME3 did have its high points. I still say it was a good game. It is a good enough game, and a broad enough game, that I cam capable of almost totally hating some aspects of it, and I can still enjoy much of the rest of it. I guess that alone is worthy of some praise, and good job to Bioware and perhaps even their writers for enabling that.
 
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So that's my rant. If ME1 was adapted into a movie or a novel it'd be a pretty good one. If ME3 was, it would be another common special-effects summer action movie with a weak plot that we all forget.
Interestingly, a ME movie is in the works, and they have said they are focusing on the story of the first game. Whether that is a tacit acknowledgement of the superiority of the story in that game or a signal that they hope it will be successful enough to turn into a movie franchise (I'm guessing the latter), who knows?
 
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