Mass Effect 3 - Page 13

Yeah, I noticed that both Garrus' Overload and Liara's Singularity (my two go to abilities) seemed to have a lot of downtime. But as I said I rushed through it once and autoleveled both of them. I'll test things a bit more.

 

 

Rather liked the new "choose your growth path" when leveling up; feels like they are improving ME2's way too simple leveling/growth system, while still not going full RPG with it.

Oh, and while expected and a bit too melodramatic, the little gut punch at the end of the intro mission still worked for me.

Also, since this doesnt involve any spoilers (given the whole earth invasion starting scenario is right there in the game cover), i have a couple questions here that intrigue me:

How the hell did the Reapers got to the Sol system so suddenly? Is it me or the game makes clear they did not use the Mass Relay at the end of the System at all?

Also, Earth clearly isnt that important/crucial in staging a galaxy assault, right? Its not like it houses a major military asset (compared to other races military might) or holds a prime strategic position.

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Man, March cant come quick enough...

 

They needed the base in order to do their usual "Instantly flooding the galaxy" trick. So now they have to go through a more regular style  invasion.

 

My hope?

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

I think this could work, but I guess we'll see in a month.

 

Only a couple of weeks away, still chugging through Amalur, and my unfinished ME2 re-playthrough. I think I'm going to be streets behind when this launches unless I can convince my wife to go visit home for a month and also quit my job.

Pretty decent opening, everything fell right into place, some epic set pieces that have been missing from the series. Was sitting there going, oh yeah, when Wrex/Liara/Garrus popped in. Don't know if I'm missing anything but that last boss battle was a pain. I don't know if the option was there but I would have liked to turn cover at corners as the mech guy approached my initial starting off spot...ended up flailing around trying to find far away cover, and died a couple of times as I was shot in the back trying to get a better hiding spot. Tried holding the a button and pushing to the edge but nothing happened.

If they implement some kind of mission based lock out system that we saw with Lothering in Dragon Age, should give the kind of urgency to the fight that is happening in the game, another level of depth to choices of what to do (and/or who to save). That I shouldn't be chatting up all the ladies on the Normandy after I check my email and talk with Joker. Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by mongycore - 2/15/12 at 6:14am

 

Equating "Twilight" with "romance stuff" isn't exactly what I was going for, though. My point is that Mass Effect, as fun as it is, is actually fairly similar to Twilight in many different ways. It'd be disingenuous to say that Mass Effect is "better" entertainment than Twilight. You might like to think so because you enjoy it more, but that doesn't make it better. It's cheesy soap opera at its core and all the characters are fairly standard archetypes in a fairly predictable, routine story (a scary group of aliens is out to destroy humanity...wow). I'm not saying that doesn't make it entertaining, but obviously Twilight is a phenomenon greater than Mass Effect that entertains people too. Perhaps not you, but at the end of the day, shooting aliens in the face and having werewolves and vampires fight each other isn't that far removed from each other in the first place.

What reaction are you after there, Parker?

Literally got up an hour and a half early to play this fucker all the way before work.

 

--Mansell's action scores are a bit samey, but any chance he gets to change shit up (the piano melody, broken by the Inception horns), he's on his game.

 

--Echoing what someone said a page or two back about the easy gut punch. And I dunno whether I should be mad at Bioware or myself that IT WORKS.

 

--Finally figured out who the new default FemShep reminds me of.

 

--Oh man, I am gonna abuse the shit out of that Biotic Punch charged melee.

 

--Yeah, the weapons/powers do seem a lot weaker this time, and I have concerns about Gears of War syndrome setting in (one enemy=emptying a clip). But then, a lot of that is that the enemies are a hell of a lot smarter and varied. The Cerberus soldiers with the fucking armor and shields are gonna be pains in the dick. That said, IIRC, if you're importing from ME2, you start out leveled up wherever you left off since the new cap is at 60. This shit can and will get sorted out, I think.

 

Minor spoiler (Click to show)

 

 

--Second part of the demo could've used a LOT more Liara and Garrus.

 

Minor spoiler (Click to show)

 

 

--I thought that last bleeding soldier was an interrogation/Renegade Interrupt in the making. Was not to be. Oh well. That was still kinda gruesome.

Parker,

 

I wish you'd been around when I took a shit-kicking for suggesting that GI JOE and VAN HELSING might be equated as derivative genre entertainment.

 

Edit: Separated by personal taste and how much stock you put in literary pedigree, of course.

Edited by Lightning Slim - 2/15/12 at 7:26am

I don't get this at all.  We make qualitative judgments between different forms of entertainment all the time, even between properties that have a lot more in common than "this one has certain genre elements and that one has different genre elements."  Such judgments are more or less this site's raison d'etre.  Sure, they're usually more subjective than we like to admit, but that doesn't mean they're dishonest.

 

Also, while both are reductive, I think "shooting aliens in the face" is a much better distillation of ME's basic appeal than "having werewolves and vampires fight each other" is of Twilight's.  It seems, for lack of a better term, disingenuous to distort the essence of the properties for the sake of making them fit a half-baked thesis that genre element A = genre element D regardless of all other difference in tone, content, and medium.  And although you say they are similar in "many different ways," that tenuous connection is the only example provided. 

 

No offense intended, but I'm surprised to see any chewer make a stance that seems so broadly dismissive of both genre fiction and criticism in general.

I thought the "gut punch" as we're calling it, apparently, was cheap, lame, melodramitic, hammy as shit and bad bad bad.  I guess showing the Shep has emotion is the point, but it's handled VERY POORLY.  

 

Demo was fun, though.  Combat feels better, I'm liking the larger options for customization.  "I'll make you an honorary Krogan!"  Fuck, yes, Wrex, you beautiful bastard.

Only went through the demo once, on an engineer -- combat drones make those jackholes with the riot shields turn their backs tout de suite -- and I can safely say that the next three weeks' wait is going to drive me up a tree.

 

No offense taken. My only point is that no matter how you distill the two entertainments, they're still both pulpy guilty pleasures at their core. To me, the best kind of pulp entertainment transcends it's pulpiness and becomes something more. Hell, my handle here is based off of a pulp crime series that I personally feels is undervalued as literature (seriously) so I'm the last person that should say there's nothing worthy in anything pulpy.

But when I look at these two works of entertainment in question, they just happen to be pulpy guilty pleasures that appeal to different audiences. That's not to say that Mass Effect isn't superior entertainment as a game compared to Twilight as books or movies, (I happen to think it is) but if you're in the habit of playing games and you're the type of person that enjoys space opera stuff and also hates romance novels, then of course you're going to think so, there's no argument there.  Unless someone is willing to argue that there is some deeper, artistic subtext I'm not getting out of the Mass Effect games beyond being fun entertainment. By all means, I'd love to see someone try. That's not to diminish its entertainment value at all. I love the hell out of ME:2 (never played the first 'cause I'm a mofo with a PS3). And I hate Twilight. It doesn't appeal to me at all. Of course I can criticize it until the cows come home for its blatant sexist messages, but there's plenty of stuff in the Mass Effect games, or several, several, several other video games that could easily be seen as "damaging sub-textual messages' that we set aside and choose not to actively engage in, because we recognize them for the sensationalistic bullshit that they are. I think people get up in arms about Twilight because they see messages within the pulp that seem dangerous to its audience, but they're forgetting that people aren't reading this shit for the messages and are just as capable of setting that crap aside and enjoying the books/movies for how ridiculous/sensationalistic they are as a gamer is playing a Grand Theft Auto game, seeing some of the danger lurking behind the luridness, setting it all aside to enjoy the entertainment for what it is. 

Stelios seems concerned about the Mass Effect writer in question because, god forbid, she kind of backhandedly praised Twilight and expressed that she didn't like the "shooting" parts of video games. My guess is this is the case for her because she's a writer, and frankly, writing the parts of the game where your characters run around and shoot shit isn't all that interesting. In fact, my guess is writers have little to do with all those sections, so of course they seem less interesting.

 

My bigger point is that maybe we should all take a deep breath and stop crucifying Twilight as the Antichrist of Entertainment, because it's quite possible there's some kind of sexist message mixed up in all of that. I hope that makes sense.

Edited by Parker - 2/15/12 at 9:02am

Someone should alert Valve that their whole "storytelling through gameplay" thing isn't right. We should actually be trying to uncouple gameplay from narrative even more rather than looking for a vocabulary better suited to the format.

 

 

 

I can see that, although I think part of what makes Twilight such a lightning rod for hate is that its text is extremely girly while its subtext is extremely anti-feminist, allowing people to hate on it for being sexist or because they're just sexist themselves.  I'm reminded of the Parks and Rec bit where a guy is trying to put it into a time capsule only to have an ACLU rep object due to its overtly Christian themes and a born again lady also object because it has monsters and "really, just a tremendous amount of quivering". 

 

But I don't really care about Twilight, so I ignored the stuff about that writer.  Assuming she isn't splitting duties by also designing the shooter mechanics of the game (which would be surprising to me in this day and age), of course she should be more interested in her job than someone else's. 

 

I'm still surprised that you seem to be taking the position that pulp is pulp is pulp, and that Mass Effect does not have anything on its mind beyond being a mindless shoot em up.  It's tricky to compare it to a book or film, because the branching nature of the storylines mean that it has to approach its thematic and character material more amorphously, so it can contain multiple answers to a single thematic question.  But I think it's selling the ME writers, the woman in question included, short to say that the story they're telling doesn't engage with issues of justice vs expediency, loyalty as an ideal or a commodity, sacrifice, religious faith, genocide and in the allegorical sci-fi tradition, race relations and American exceptionalism.  Are these concerns subordinate to providing the visceral thrill of headshotting a monstrous alien?  Sure, but those ideas are still in there, and are expressed with at least as much sophistication as your typical action movie or young adult novel.

 

Edited by Schwartz - 2/15/12 at 9:45am

 

Keep in mind that you're the one that said that you would love ME:2 just as much if all the relationship stuff was removed. Think about Mass Effect 2 without any of the relationships. You said nothing of doing the valve method of storytelling through game-play in your answer, you said "you could rip out all the romance stuff and I'd like it just as much." 

For one thing, you're assuming this writer is doing the "romance" stuff just because she mentioned Twilight. Not that she's a woman, I hope that's not the case, but you equate someone who at least has an appreciation for Twilight with the writer that "must" be handling the romance stuff. Let's say she perhaps worked on more than that...like the bits with Mordrin showing possible shades of guilt through his armor of logic about the genocide he committed (arguably the most interesting content in the game). But it's still "relationship" stuff and it's not told through game-play. Being so upset over what this writer said basically sounds like you're saying that you'd be fine with removing it and having the game reduced to a first person shooter. There was nothing in your initial answer that said anything about the "storytelling through game-play" at all. 

Played the demo last night. Went through the first section and quit out before I got into the second. I'm not sure if I want to spoil the story beats from the second mission before the game comes out. Really looking forward to the multiplayer unlocking on the 17th. The input of the Battlefield guys on the sound design of this game is telling, and is almost enough to make me to overlook my resentment of EA's encroachment on Bioware.

 

Had kind of a weird experience as I played through the first level last night, As the opening cinemas played and I caught a couple of glances at the city outside I couldn't shake a feeling of familiarity. As soon as I got outside and had camera control, I panned around a bit to get a better look at the reapers kicking the shit out of the city.

 

Hey... those look like the North Shore mountains...

 

Huh... that body of water that that gigantic robot squid is wading in looks a lot like Burrard Inlet...

 

Holy shit! That's Canada Place down there...

 

 

So yeah... The opening level of the demo takes place in Vancouver. The reapers are stomping a mudhole in my hometown. I feel strangely honored.

In regards to the whole writer and/or not liking the action bits, it's interesting that there are three campaign modes that run the scale from emphasizing story to emphasizing action with how each handles the conservations and the combat.

Hey, I read Jeremy's Twilight article too! Awesome. And maybe I haven't been reading the right threads, but to me, Chud always seemed to pretty much ignore Twilight, save for an occasional good-natured piss taking. There's way more animosity reserved for Transformers and Kevin Smith. That said, there can't be anything wrong with assuming Twilight is junk and going about your day, right? I've only ever seen the 'Twilight is harmful to our precious youth minds!' in the lesser corners of the Internet, or the occasional feminist think piece. 

 

The problem with equating it to Mass Effect is that it gets into the whole 'Are video games art?' dilemma, which is a road I doubt anyone wants to go down again. No one is holding up Tali as a feminist icon here, we're debating whether or not she's made of spiders. Though in truth, maybe this isn't an argument I should be making, as I have no animosity for twilight, just resigned disinterest. It will soon have moved off the cultural landscape to make room for some other junk I won't pay attention to. And meanwhile, I'll likely be enjoying the hell out of junk that suits me, like Grand Theft Auto 5 or whatever. So I guess I agree with you, in principle. Just seemed a combative way to phrase it.

 

Mass Effect engages with these issues, yes, but Twilight engages with a bunch of issues as well. How it engages with those issues might be questionable, but then again Mass Effect has the luxury of not really having anything to say. As you point out, it's a game, therefore, the player is the one making the decisions concerning the issues you're bringing up. So in many ways, it's less risky than Twilight because it never comes down on one side of anything. 

Yes, that also suggests that this comparison is unfair to begin with, but I'm not the one getting all bent out of shape about the fact that a video game writer mentioned Twilight. You would think that the people getting upset that she mentioned a vague appreciation for trashy books wouldn't freak out about her writing a video game for the very same reasons you and I both mentioned. 

And again, I'm not trying to sell the game short at all because I find it hugely entertaining and creating something that's hugely entertaining is hard enough as it is. But I think we're fooling ourselves if we think that Mass Effect has some merit or weight as anything other than an entertaining game. Part of this goes back to the whole "are video games art?" debate, and I don't want to bring that up here, but based on my answer you could probably guess where I'd come down on the issue.

And to clarify, I love pulp. Love it, love it, love it. I think pulp is capable of being great examples of real artistic merit, sometimes better examples than "high art" because pulp usually was never created with the intention to be seen as art at all (and therefore doesn't have the bullshit artifice of "art" getting in its own way). I just don't think either of these examples in question are good examples of what transcendent pulp. They're both very good at entertaining their core audiences. That might sound like I'm damning them both with faint praise, but I think if anything they should be commended for doing what they're doing. It's hard enough to be entertaining these days.

 

Well, thanks to Jennifer Hale and Mark Meer, we've established that Shep speaks Canadian.

 

If anyone cares to read it, here's the actual, unedited, original interview with Hepler, which was posted in 2006. Only did a quick search of the pages, but it appears nowhere is "Twilight" ever even brought up. Instead of debating some sad fan's misrepresentation, folks could at least debate the merits of her own, actual words, in their full context. (Saw elsewhere she apparently was responsible for the Dwarf Commoner story in DA:Origins, which was my first and favorite, so she's cool in my book.)

 

So, ME3! I hope the dialogue was stripped down for the demo; even for a quick-and-dirty prologue, every response having binary options didn't feel right for ME. Loved the expanded power trees, with more options to customize. I'll be losing a lot of time just poring over all classes' trees the next couple weeks. And in part 2, picking up weapon upgrades to be, I assume, fiddled with over a workbench later made my insides all melty.

Yeah, I'm not seeing the contradiction in what I said. The romance plots are decoupled from the main game in ME and ME 2. Therefore you could easily rip them out without negatively affecting the game. This is not the approach I want.

 

And this writer was senior writer for DA 2 not ME 2. I have no idea if or what she did for that. 

 

 

 

I wasn't suggesting that Twilight didn't have plenty of ideas it works with simultaneously; all books/movies do, I'm just not familiar enough with Twilight to say what they are.  But to play Shephard's Advocate, I don't think the branching storyline means that ME necessarily lacks any point of view.  They give you multiple courses of action, but they have to come down on a particular reaction for each.  They're actually telling multiple stories within the same basic plot outline.  The most common point of reference for this type of storytelling is the old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, but you could also look at it like your initial playthrough of ME3 will be analogous to a movie, but its a movie that comes packaged with several dozen remakes of itself, which are subtly to wildly different in the details.

 

 

I know.  I wasn't either.
 

That certainly does sound like damning with faint praise, and I don't think the distinction between pulp and high art or transcendent pulp are as easily delineated as your posts suggest.  But then, I also never understood why "are video games art?" was such a contentious issue.  It's real simple to me: if a game has a story, that's a form of drama.  Good, bad, tasteless or transcendent, that's art. 

 

 

 

I was going to reply with a (too) long dissertation about the validity of video games as art, but nobody really wants to read that tired old argument again (including me). I disagree with your definition of story=drama=art, but as much as I find this kind of conversation (and your side of things) interesting, I think for the sake of this thread and everyone reading it/having fun with Mass Effect 3, I'll choose to let it go. I'll concede that there is at least  something artful in how the writers of games like the Mass Effect series artfully construct choices for the player to make (therefore allowing the player to be the writer of the "final draft" to a certain extent, and, in my opinion, removing "authorship" from the game, which removes key elements of a story, which disqualifies it as being art even through your definition). But there I go again...

I appreciate your thoughts on it though, and I'm sorry if it seemed like I was dismissing pulp in general, or making a claim that levels of quality in pulp were easily discerned. 

Appreciated.

 

I never quite grasped the difference between "art" and "something artful" and why it was so significant to people in this debate.  But that can be a discussion for another time if people prefer.  I'm holding out on playing the demo myself, as 3 weeks really isn't very long, but it might start feel like it once I see Garrus and Wrex again.

 

Played through the demo twice yesterday, pretty kickass. It only runs a smidge worse than ME2 on my ancient Radeon HD3450, so it's good that I can actually play the current PC game I most care about.

 

The background details when you stop to look out at the earth city are awesome. I especially like the reaper ship and warship that shoot back and forth at each other perpetually, until you reach the trigger point and the warship blows up. The addition of cinematic zazz definitely seems successful.

 

My 2nd try was with MaleShep, the first time I've ever messed with him in the series. Judging from just the few scenes in the demo, I don't think I need to bother with him for a whole game. The FemShep actress is just so much better at involving me in what's going on.

 

I'm not sure if it's just because I haven't played it in 2 years, but the shooting action in the 2nd half seemed better than ME2 , more fun. I'll have to load ME2 back up and compare.

 

I'm pretty sick of spending all my time Warping and Singularitying from a distance as an Adept in ME2, I'm ready to bring the incindeary ammo death.

 

A question: I'm not too familiar with the whole Gear Of War cover control thing, but is there a way to run into a low ridge and just hop over it and keep going? Every way I've tried, it seems like you have to crouch down in cover against the ridge first, and then hit forward+space to hop over it. That seems really stupid.

Wrex-n-fx.

Figures Reapers would be Canucks fans...they're not there to wipe out humanity. They just finally received the 2011 Cup Final Broadcast and want to wreck shit up too. God damned Reapers, real Canucks fans don't disintegrate our city when we lose the cup, we just shrug and say maybe next year.

As a Bruins fan, that is refreshing to hear.  Hope to see a rematch this year. 

 

Hell of a series last year.  If they went with the black and gold throwbacks with the old school logo, they would've taken it.  Those uniforms are sick.

 

So, that Mass Effect 3 demo. Had a blast with it. Loved the sense of scale and the sound design (Which reminded me just how smart it was of me to get that new 5.1 speaker setup for the living room). It felt like we only got snippets of Mansell's score, but what was there was promising and seems to fit the ME aesthetic like a glove. Yeah, the 'gut punch' was melodramatic, but it worked as the required 'You Sonsabitches!' moment. Oh, and I think I have a crush on the new default FemShep. Is 36 an acceptable age to develop your first crush on a videogame character, or should I start organizing the intervention now?

 
The real surprise was the MP stuff, which I'm finding myself enjoying way more than I expected. What I played basically a slightly less polished Horde mode (Can't remember ATM if there's any other variants in there), but it's fun and the little objectives here and there help break up and contextualize the shooting a bit more. Lots of customization options as well. I'm definitely more intrigued now than I have been so far.

Edited by Workyticket - 2/15/12 at 4:28pm

What the hell man, where's the love for Alyx Vance?

The 'gut punch" just had me thinking "YES! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!", so it worked for me as a comedy moment. If you can't tell, I'm Renegade all the way.

Sooo, I had my xbox hooked up to my less than stellar tv and the demo gave me a headache.   The camera was too close to Shepherd and when I moved it too look around it felt kind of whirry if that's a word.  Also when he was moving it felt off from ME2's regular pace.   Now I was hooked up by composite cables and watching everything at a bad angle so maybe my hd tv and an hdmi connection will fix that.   And since I live in Vancouver maybe next time I'll actually notice the setting.  

 

About that gutpunch - 

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

The second part of the demo felt like stuff we'd already been shown but it was where the combat started to feel better for me.   Seemed to me like Shepherd's coolddowns took forever and Liara was almost always ready to drop another Singularity or Warp into the mix.  

 

And I hope the skill/power upgrades are a little more fleshed out.   

 

I did find a weapon upgrade item but never bothered to find out  if I could use it.

 

 

 

Nup, I even resisted Alyx. Guess I'm a late bloomer.

 

 

 

Think it's too late for Bioware to chuck in a Renegade Shep Fist Bump animation? Because it's something that really should be.
 

 

That multiplayer co-op is some addictive shit. Surprisingly.

Inconceivable!

Goddamn, the multiplayer is fun with a team of micced people.  Setting up killzones, designating perimeter defenders, having a group snipe from afar while a Sentinel and Vanguard tear shit up in the middle of things.  Goddamn fun and addictive.

 

Oh, and in that scenario?  I'm the Vanguard.  Because hiding behind cover for shield recharge is for pussies and the Volus.

 

So Your Friend Is A Vanguard: A helpful guide for those who have never before encountered the blue berserkers.

 I'm not seeing any mention of this anywhere. Was it a limited time thing?

So the multiplayer is a coop campaign scenario, not a pvp deathmatch thing?

According to the internet the offer is over now, I'm afraid.

Rats. Wish I'd seen that earlier, as I'd like to play the BF3 single-player, but no way I'm paying full price for a short campaign. Thanks anyway!

Fuck Yeah... if that thread is on the money I can ditch the planet scanning and go balls deep into Mass Effect 2 this weekend. Just made it to the 'second' disc this afternoon. So what's the word on any extra curricular resource gathering for ME3? There's got to be a way of providing upgrade options without the tedious scrounging of currency, just kills the game when you're doing repeat playthroughs.

I think I might be the only one who never really found planet scanning to be the pain in the ass most people see it as. Maybe it's because having an old save gave me a shit-load of minerals to start. I'm sure they'll scrap most of it due to the outcry; perhaps they'll just get rid of the mini-game aspect and have you send one probe to a planet to get its resources.

Multiplayer is fun as hell on the Ghost map and a giant pain in my ass on the other one.  I've only gotten two "full extraction" awards but even the ill-fated missions are a lot of fun as long as you don't just fuckin' eat it on wave one. It's interesting to get a look at how (I presume) weapon customization will work in the main game. A little bare, perhaps, but maybe I just haven't gotten any cool mods, or they have different ones for the campaign. Is there a level cap on this beta, and is there any chance progress will carry over to the main game, since it's all tied into your EA account?

I think they've said that character progression doesn't carry over, so don't put too much effort into it.

Well shit. I guess I'm not too bummed anymore that I haven't unlocked the Krogan soldier.

For those who have been playing: could there possibly be any power better than the soldier's frag grenade? If you camp out a spot near a resupply, you're basically untouchable by anything short of a Phantom or an Atlas. Being surrounded? Frag. Centurion? Frag. Guardian, Engineer, turret? Frag. Also they're accurate most of the way across the map, and explode on contact with enemies.

Flipped a coin to see about posting this on the main page or the boards. The boards won.

 

http://www.popbioethics.com/2012/02/why-mass-effect-is-the-most-important-science-fiction-universe-of-our-generation/

 

Mass Effect, from the scientific, spiritualist, and transhumanist angle. GREAT read, there.

I can't say I agree 100%. But I agree with this. Whatever my complaints may be with the ME franchise as games, the setting is truly phenomenal. Which also explains why the more Big Idea, more sci-fi focused ME is still my favorite.

Also, they don't mention it in the article, but as much shit as everyone (rightfully, for the most part) gives the planet scanning, I find myself still doing it just because the planet descriptions scratch a long-buried astronaut itch like no other media ever has. i genuinely love reading about all these different planets, their properties, and general history.

On the one hand, they had to do something to make you work for the resources necessary to upgrade your ship.  On the other hand, you'd think Cerberus would just give you the stuff you needed since they didn't see that much of an issue spending the credits to bring you back to life and remake the Normandy.

I suppose a requisition order filling mini-game sounded like it was the lesser option compared to planet scanning.