Mass Effect 3 - Page 22

Great story-telling transcends genre.

I think it's time to make that Shadowrun game.  And not a multiplayer only shooter.

 

 

 

Indeed.

 

But seriously I can't remember loving a game so much and not giving a basic shit about the world whatsoever. Like I'm pretty sure I spent more time making sure Sten got his sword back than worrying about the darkspawn attack.

 

12 hours in.  If this game reminds me of anything, it's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  It's sticking the landing thus far in a way that stabs me in the heart.

Edited by The Dark Shape - 3/6/12 at 4:24pm

Oh god.

 

If you have the DLC, DO THE MISSION AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

 

Without spoiling the identity of the character or anything else, I will say that the character has/causes some hilarious reactions during squad conversations.

Just wanted to say to all those playing the game, I'm at work and can't play it right now.

Also, I hate you all.

     Quote:

I called in today.  Work in 17 hours.  I CAN FINISH THIS.

I hope you have a power outage.

If they kill Tali or Garrus, I WILL RAIN HOT VENGEANCE DOWN ON CANADA.

I get the feeling I'm gonna have to step away from this thread for a coupla weeks. It's been great fun gents - see you on the other side.

You guys would make the worst soldiers ever.

Yeah, I would pretty much suck as a real-life soldier, especially since I can't drink or smoke for shit.

Quote:

That's why I play video games.
 

 

Weight system kicks ass.

Three hours in, I'm carrying a shotty (the N7 Crusader that I upgraded to Level 5 immediately on the ship, and also stuck a couple mods on), and a pistol that I modded to reduce weight by 50%.

 

Got the +20 boost to weight limit by putting 3 points into Assault Mastery, and I currently have a +162% bonus to my recharge time at Level 6 alone. And I still get to lug around my pistol and shotty (the max is +200% recharge time).

Vanguard is gonna be fun.

Is it just me, or with each ME iteration, is feminism taking yet another step backwards? It's heading towards loli-fanaticism at this point. Why is everyone's bust bigger? Ashley, Chakwas, and even an AI have all been hugely sexed-up.

 

     Quote:

I have a Canadian ex from back in college. You're gonna have to wait in line.

Another person's encounter with the glitched facial-importer:

 

 

to:

 

Took the week off, actually the next three but will be heading to Canada next week. The game so far is shipping me and old racist dead face together hard. The giant future megaboobs on all the characters don't bother me so much, but just the empty expressions in all the human female characters so far (arrived at Citadel). There's a shot of Ashley when you arrive on the 4th rock, looked like she was on the verge of becoming a husk. Chobot looked so deformed I'm surprised she approved the model as is. Nice to get the doctor back.

Going to go meet the council and then agonize whether I should go all Chris Brown on that reporter, probably not...playing it true paragon as I did in the previous two entries.

Trust me, people, PUNCH THE FUCKING REPORTER. Holy shit, does that gag come full circle.

 

About 3 hours in as well. Can't even keep track of the things I love so far, though how subtlely grave and determined Udina is this time around is probably the biggest surprise. I think I actually LIKE the son of a bitch this time around.

 

The game keeps getting dramatic moment after dramatic moment so very right, Im terrified of if or when its gonna peter out.

 

 

And you think it's not gonna pull at the heartstrings this early.... (Click to show)

 

I should've taken the week off.

My Shep had a thing with Jack, and it's pretty awesome to see how it changed her.

 

The stuff with Cortez and his husband is striking. Although the game is a bit more space maudlin than the last two. I have a bad feeling about how this is going to end.

There's a "Complete Poems of Tennyson" book available for purchase as a gift in the game.

 

Oh, god...no...

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Sorry, Jack is disgusted by your infidelity. It's over.

 

The importer couldn't even import my character.  Seriously, it malfunctioned and defaulted to the default Shep.  I guess he was just too ugly.  :(
 

 

Dude's half-Krogan.  That's gotta be the answer.

 

Also, God, I hate Ashley.  Seriously, she is just the worst.

You had your chance to incinerate her two games ago.

Aghh, my limited edition will arrive tomorrow or friday at worst; wait is murder...on the plus side, itll be a ME3 weekend!

Dammit, Bioware! How the fuck do you mess up importing my characters!? I've had the same two Shepards since Mass Effect, and now I'm getting punished for that? Way to look out for longtime fans, assholes. 

 

Now I can't start playing ME3 until this is fixed. I refuse to play as anything less than the Shepards I've had for two whole games. Finishing the story with a new look just wouldn't feel right.

As far as the importer goes: Game got the face shape and eyes right, but threw out everything else. But she was easy enough to rebuild.

 

So I went from:

 

 

To:

 

 

No harm, no foul.

 

Also, much as I was prepared to hate the asshole--and still kinda do--I'm finding I like Vega as a character. Just not as a person. The sparring match belongs in that Best Delivery of Exposition thread. P.S.-- Don't ever call your fucking commanding officer Lola, lest she drop your goofy ass.

Initial (spoiler-free) impressions:

 

Only made it through the prologue last night.  So far it's already amazing.  It hits the ground running and really doesn't let up.  Plenty of familiar faces, and a couple small surprises in terms of some choices you can make (and one mild not-quite spoiler - NOT punching the reporter can actually lead to something pretty touching, actually.  Have your paragon interrupt finger ready).  Bioware really knows how to drive the atmosphere home.  It's dark, and even the places that seem nominally "safe" still feel incredibly tense.

 

Combat seems harder on one hand, and easier on the other.  Harder in that even with a ME2 "maxed out" character you're not nearly the nigh-invincible badass you were towards the end of that game.  I haven't died yet, but I've gotten awfully close a few times.  Them Cerberus assault troops are deadly accurate with those grenades they throw....  However, the deadlier enemies seem to be balanced out by your squadmates seeming (at least to me) a LOT more effective and durable than they used to be.  Or maybe they just use cover better, but either way I've had a couple firefights that my squadmates have practically won by themselves (Normal difficulty, incidentally).  Plus, your squadmates really are important this go round...their powers really make it far easier to get by some of the more specialized enemies.  Half the time in ME2 I felt like I could just bull-rush through everything with my big machine gun and liberal use of Adrenaline Rush.  It doesn't feel that way anymore...though I don't have the big machine gun yet.

 

The new facial textures do have a tendency to make just about everyone look a fair bit rougher around the edges than they used to.  They also have a tendency to not fully load in some conversation scenes, which makes it suddenly look like the game has gone into "soft focus."  Nothing near a game-breaker...just something I noticed, along with some other minor conversation bugs.  We'll see if they continue to be frequent enough to be genuinely annoying (though one of them I found mildly hilarious...an entire conversation where Shepard's head was turned and clearly looking at something besides the person he was talking to...the angle makes it look like Shepard is staring creepily at the person's bed while talking to them).

 

Kinect controls are pretty smooth.  Only had a couple commands not recognized, and that was outside of combat.  Nice for conversations, too.

 

One last "immersion" bit - Bioware seems to have finally succeeded in making the Normandy Crew feel like, well, a crew.  Squadmates and crewmembers may have static positions on board ship, but you still get snippets of them interacting with each other, whether in passing or over in-ship intercom or whatever.  Walking into one character's area and hearing them chatting pleasantly with Joker over the intercom couldn't help but make me smile.  One of my mild criticism of particularly ME1, but even ME2 to an extent was that most of the time your squad and crew felt like a disconnected bunch of folks that never spoke to anyone except Shepard (with a few exceptions).  Now they really feel like a bunch of people that know and respect and usually even like each other.  Major kudos for that subtle but effective touch.  Also, the new crewmembers are so far pretty cool, as supporting characters go.  Oddly I'm finding Vega less boring than most of the "that guy" Bioware characters...but that may be because on my playthrough "that guy" Kaidan is still around to be "that guy."

My Shep still looks just like Obama, so no problems there. But I can't seem to get the dlc of the psn yet, so we all have problems.

 

Have to admit, this aspect is worrying me somewhat. the game comes out tomorrow in Aus, and I've gotten very attached to my two Shepards. Especially my male/main Shep, who obviously I'll be starting with. Can't fathom starting part 3 without him there properly.  

I broke that cycle and did the Paragon Interrupt that followed.

 

It was kind of a DAWWWWWW moment.

Just heard something both baffling and annoying regarding one of the NPCs from Mass Effect 2:

 

 

(no story or resolution spoilers, just info/talk regarding a possibly - and inexplicably - absent character)

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

If that's true, that's lame as hell. I was looking forward to having...words with them.

 

Apparently it's already fixed on the PC, hopefully console fix soon to follow, but at the very least they are aware of and working on the problem.
 

Are you playing on X-Box 360?  If so, open up the bench, then hit "X" and then use the directional stick to pick the mods (make sure you've selected a weapon you actually have mods for, though...if you don't have any mods for that particular class of weapon, it won't give you the option to mod them).

 

SUPER-MILD LOOT-RELATED SPOILER:

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

 

 

Good to hear.  I bit the bullet and just did my best to recreate my character.  Didn't get the nose quite right, but I can live with it for now.  However, if they release a patch, I'll be seriously tempted to start over.  Thankfully I'm not very far in (just got to the Citadel.)

 

The baffling thing for me is that, while I understand the need to tweak the character creator somewhat, how the hell did my lighter skinned, stubbly, close cropped character become a darker skinned, bald douchebag with a soulpatch?  I get that some folks didn't have the facial code from ME: 2 or whatever.  Apparently I did.  Even double checked it, yet many of the options were still the complete opposite of my old guy.

Yeah, but I didn't think she'd get this much more hateful.  I mean, c'mon, the universe is burning and she's still being a douche.  She's like the Britta of the Mass Effect universe.

 

The nice thing about the ME3 creation station is that when you import a character and decide to make alterations, the custom Shepard face starts with your import face instead of start off with a default face like in ME2.

 

At least it did on mine.

 

Unless your ugly mug is so bad that it breaks the creation station. 

I hope Adrian Shepard imports correctly.  Only problem I had with Maxine Shepard was her eyebrows going white for some reason.

 

Also, just had a moral quandry in the game.  Fucking hell, that's the most hemming and hawing I've ever done for a decision in a video game before.  And I'm still pretty early in the game, so I can only imagine what kind of difficult choices I'll be making later.

 

And no, don't tell me what kind of difficult choices I'll be making later.  I wanna be surprised.

My only gripe so far (and it's a small one) is on the 360 I've had to switch discs multiple times already and I'm only about 5 hours in. I know ME2 had double discs also but the swutching was less frequent.

Maybe it's bc I try to do every side quest as soon as it pops up so I don't miss it bc of an invisible timer. I may be jumping ahead without realizing it.

I'm fucking loving it so far. Does anyone get the feeling that this feels like ME1 with ME2 sensiblilties?

 

Yeah, it's nice that you don't have to start over absolutely from scratch, but in my case, the character was so wrong it was almost to the point of absurdity.  I mean, how do you go from, "let's have this setting mean a bit of stubble", to a soul patch?  The code was dictating that the head shape slider be pushed all the way in one direction, when the one that looked most like my Shepard was the exact opposite.

 

Thankfully the decisions ported over just fine, but when this whole character continuity thing is one of the main appeals of the series, you'd think they'd troubleshoot a bit more.

Uggggh, I'm so tempted to just restart to recreate my character from ME2.  I'm only about 90 minutes in, but I didn't feel like having to redo my guy from scratch when the importer didn't work.

Well I ordered my collectors edition online in Oz, it releases here this morning, my copy won't be in the mail until this afternoon at the earliest - and there's a long weekend this weekend.

 

My prediction is Declan Shepard won;t be starting the final leg of his epic saga until Tuesday.

 

Fuck.

Resisted the baiting she was doing. My paragon pitied her for being a bottom feeding human waste of space, ended up getting another War Asset in turn. I've been confined to playing Mass Effect in my office or private workspace when they came out, first time playing the game with full surround sound while the wife is out at work. Some of the booming freaks out our cat. I will love the look on the Racist Dead Face's face when she finds out about my ME2 fling; it was Tali - Jack was damaged goods abused for years (I was friendly with her but without any deeper motive so she'd know friendship without strings attached) and Miranda was just a prissy snob - I already made the Ashley mistake once. When it comes down to it I should've gone with Liara.

Jesus, sniper rifles destroy everything I find in my scopes.

You should've gone with Liara.  The game is great about handling their relationship.

Banshees are sort of terrifying.

To anyone starting the game, I'd advise against spending squad points on ammo supply expansions. There is even more ammo than in ME2, it's almost in every friggin room. I've never gotten lower than 12 shotgun shells and 70 AR rounds after getting that ill advised 35% ammo expansion instead of +25% headshot damage.

 

If you find yourself running low a lot there are clip expansions and weapon model upgrades anyways.

 

So anyways, my inital non-spoilery impression is that most of the game is pretty spectacular. The upgrades and refinements to the combat system are significant. The fighting feels and looks so much better, it'll be difficult to ever go back to ME2.

 

The guys on the Penny Arcade forum convinced me to try Vanguard (it seems like 90% of them play it on there), and now I'm a total convert. From what I can see, it's the only class to play.

 

The Vanguard in this game, even more than in ME2, is an unstoppable ass kicking machine (the "pinball of death" they call it on PA) in any situation, at any range. It's almost making Normal seem too easy, the ass kicking is so all-encompassing.

 

Besides looking awesome, the Charge ability changes up the gameplay in a unique way, and ratchets up the intensity. When it's upgraded (import an ME2 Vanguard and most of your upgrades carry over at the start of ME3), blasting across the battlefield into an enemy's face instantly restores your shields, so it's a simultaneously offensive and defensive action. With upgrades, you even get to slow down time for a second or so on impact, perfect for lining up that shotgun blast. As long as you're rockin' the cooldown bonuses, you can even survive blasting into a group of 3 or more guys, just Charge right into the next one to get the shields back up.

 

ME3 adds another Vanguard power that makes the whole thing even MORE awesome, the Nova strike, meant to be used in tandem with Charge. The difference is this one drains all your shield for an awesome area of effect attack (I'd upgrade the radius instead of damage if I were you). It also cools down super quick (at least with my shotgun/AR only +110% cooldown bonus weight build), so as long as you are playing smart and fast and picking the right angles, you can just Charge/Nova/Charge/Nova, laying purple waste to everyone. Just make sure you aren't going to get drilled by two guys after you Nova and your shields are down, get ready to line up that next Charge immediately, then retreat or back away if you have to.

 

The Vanguard also has enough other Biotic abilities to compete with Adept, my former class. In ME2 as adept, I would pretty much just Singulary/Warp at the start of every battle in the game, then plug away with SMG, got pretty damn boring by the end. In this game, just bring Liara if you need Singularity. The Vanguard gets Pull and Shockwave, which are very usefull, Shockwave especially. If there are 3 Husks running straight at you, a Shockwave will flick them all away. Upgrade the distance on it, and you have an all around awesome power that can go right through solid objects and set off Biotic combos that Liara sets up for you, competing with Warp for usefullness.

 

So, the campaign. As I said before, pretty great, though I do have my quibbles. About half the conversations in the game go like- NPC:"I've got a problem with ____!",  Shepard: "That's not important right now! The only thing that matters is...The Reapers!". I get it, Bioware writers. The war is the focus of the game. That doesn't mean it has to be 100% single minded. There is room for other shades to the situation in a 30 hour game. It is possible for Shepard to be concerned about other things at the same time. In this game, though, my beloved Femshep is inching just a tad too close to an obnoxious level of self-righteousness. My ME2  Renegade Femshep seemed to have many more chances to throw a little nihilism and brutality into the mix. ME3 has been dissapointing in that regard. 2/3 of the way through, I haven't gotten to do anything as cool as advising Jack to kill the Cerberus scientist that experimented on her ("A bullet in the head solves everything.", my favorite line), push a guy out the window because he was being a jerk, or go all Jack Bauer on someone withholding information.

 

In ME3, it seems like I'm always being funneled towards the middle of the road, with both Para and Ren choices being mild variations on the same inevitable thing. Sure, you get to Renegade-Interrupt kill someone once, but they were being obviously evil at the time. You'd have to have been stupid not to. There's no real choice in it.

 

So, unless I get to wipe out some innocent species or advise someone to murder their former friend pretty soon, ME2 is still going to have the crown for Renegade story aficianados. ME3 is the clear winner for gameplay and overal spectacular presentation, though.

I really must stop coming in here

Sorry did I say too much? Do I need to spoiler anything?

No not at all, I have only myself to blame honstly, I just want to be as unspoiled and pleasantly surprised as possible, yet have no self control when it comes to this thread.