Mass Effect 3 is being panned by a lot of people, apparently.

The Metacritic score maybe high, but the actual rating is very low.

 

So, I'm a lot further in now and damn the dialogue deciding what I say is pissing me off. Very frustrating stuff - you hardly have anything to do with dialogue anymore, honestly.

Combat is fine, etc. That was never really in question as Bioware/EA seem to be trying to appeal to people who only care about shooting aliens and not RPG's.

The story is interesting so far though. I must admit I like the war room and how all your previous choices through the games have an effect on what support you can get for your war. Pretty good mechanic in my opinion.

On the other hand, there are some terrible parts so far. Very mild spoilers here (and hopefully my spoiler tags work).

Spoiler

The dream where you chase the kid from the demo through a forest was really stupid the first time. The second time they made me watch it was just annoying. I literally could not care less about it, and shame on Bioware for relying on such contrived and cliche plot devices and not even pulling it off well.

Also, the gay shuttle pilot seems very forced into me. Like Bioware is screaming "Look at this pilot! He is homosexual!" and trying to shove it in your face a bit. I wouldn't mind a gay character if that was just a part of him, not what your whole interactions are based upon. I don't know, just seems strange to me.

 

While the lack of dialog options is frustrating, its really not all that much worse than ME 1 and 2 in that respect. I've been replaying ME 1 lately, and the dialog in that is pretty railroaded as well. Sure, there are more options, but the results are still pretty much the same.

The combat is ok, though I still dislike the 3rd person perspective, especially because the sighting reticule is so tiny. I've "lost" it a few times in room clutter and ended up shooting the wrong things because there aren't any ironsights and I can't tell what I'm aiming at. The cover mechanics are also pretty annoying - sometimes you'll dive into cover when you're just trying to run past something, or you'll keep popping back and forth between cover (i.e. a doorway) instead of breaking cover like you want to. Other times, you can't get into cover for some reason, or you end up pointing the wrong way, or you're forced to shoot a different direction than the one you want because you moved slightly - even though the camera is pointing in the direction you want to shoot.

Despite the complaints, I'm still enjoying it, mostly because of the story. I admit I'm not very far (just left the Citadel), but the story seems to flow much better than it did in ME 2.

Oh, and another minor gripe - Liara's voice. She keeps getting her inflection wrong. Sometimes she'll end a statement on a questioning tone, when no question was implied, and sometimes she has zero inflection at all - sounds robotic. It's a little off-putting.

 

Downloaded it. The first part of the game sucks, but it gets better once you leave the Citadel. The gear system is pretty cool, a good mix of ME1's tedious micromanagement bullshit and ME2's... OK so ME2 didn't really have one.

Also, the Blasto 6 thing is amazing and I want to see Blasto: The Animated Series.

 

Fixed this, details in spoiler to avoid spoilers for From Ashes.

Spoiler

So in the level, after you discover the Prothean stasis pod, you're meant to go hunt down two pieces of data like I said in my last post. You can either choose to advance forward, or to the right, with an objective at either location. Advance straight forward first. If you go to the right, after you come out of the cutscene, your game will crash. This doesn't happen if you go forward, and then you can finish the quest normally.

As a sidenote, I'm a bit mad that the Prothean's just DLC sidecharacter'ing up in there. He's fucking cool, and the backstory he brings is even greater.

He's honestly my one sticking point about the game so far (because honestly the lack of dialogue options? There were never very many to begin with in the series).

 

Three times now I've gotten Shepard stuck on scenery in the Normandy cockpit. It's ME1 all over again.

 

Had a funny bug last night. On the Mars mission, Liara hit a Cerberus trooper with Singularity and after he died and the singularity disappeared, his body continued flailing around wildly on the floor for no apparent reason. Looked like a breakdancing ragdoll.

 

I figured I might as well be considerate and put this in a spoiler tag, despite no specific spoilers being it. Just my very vague feelings about the end.

Spoiler

Well I just finished the game and... I really don't know what to say. Seriously, what the fuck was that. That ending was just terrible? I don't really know what to think of it, but I know I didn't like it. Hated it, even.

All I can say is, I don't have much desire to continue playing after that so I'd advise you do whatever you want before the ending.

Actually, thinking about it a bit more I think my problem was it absolutely pissed all over everything I'd been working towards over the last three games. Sorry, that was a bit more specific but I'm sure you'll still be surprised.

Now I need to sleep. I've only had like six hours sleep combined or something since I started playing - truly a marathon session.

 

Just finished the Rannoch mission, and I gotta say, WTF?

Spoiler

I get to the end, where you can tell Legion to upload the Reaper upgrades to all geth and secure their loyalty for the fight against the Reapers, but despite a near-maxed out paragon score, it wouldn't fucking let me pick the persuade option to get the Quarian fleet to stand down. So I got to watch the Quarians basically get exterminated in orbit, followed by, imo, the most genuinely gut-wrenching moment of the game so far when Tali, in despair at the destruction of her race, jumps to her death. All because my Shepard is apparently too fucking stupid to speak up and suggest that the migrant fleet stop firing on the newly upgraded Geth. And all he can say afterward about the fate of the Quarians is "They made their choice." Fucking seriously? That's it?

I'll reiterate: WTF Bioware?

 

There is a certain skill branch that is related to those paragon/renegade speech options. Perhaps you didn't have enough skill points put into that one - I forgot exactly what it is called.

 

I only remember from Mass Effect 1, but were they not something like "Charm" and "Intimidate/Intimidation"?

 

Yeah, that is what it was called in ME1 but I just checked and it's under Offensive Mastery (the name is because you're "an expert tactician on and off the battlefield"). Put some points into that to get more charisma, and thus more dialogue options (though I can probably count on my fingers how many times you can use them).

 

Ive been absent from these forums the last few months, mostly due to the fact that I've been on the Mass Effect 3 forums over at Bioware Social Network.

To me, this game is an utter disaster. Not only that, but I see it as one of the greatest betrayals of a fanbase in gaming history.

I'll start with the non-spoilery shit first.

Facial Import: So that Shepard you've been playing with since ME1? The guy you imported into ME2? Ya, his face wont be recognized by ME3, so you'll have to build a new one. Link to Priestly's sticky on the matter. Completely breaks immersion, I couldn't help but thinking "This isn't my Shepard... its some random guy who just happens to sound the same...I don't care about this person..." And I'm not alone in this, its one of the major complaints in a long list that's going around BSN. Eventually I gave up and permastuck his helmet on, now I just have to deal with his face in certain cutscenes.

Dialogue: Or lack thereof. Auto-dialogue in places where there should clearly have been a dialogue wheel. At one point I put my controller down for 5 minutes while Shepard just talked away with no input from me. At countless points I couldn't help but think, "My Shepard would never say that, what the hell?" Just another example of Bioware's lies in regards to choice... but I'll get to that in a minute.

Plotholes/Continuation Errors: This is especially evident with Liara. In your first conversation on the Normandy she says

Spoiler

"Shepard, we haven't been together in years, are you sure you still want a relationship" (if you romanced her that is) So you're completely ignoring Lair of the Shadow Broker now? I saw you 6 months ago woman, just because I don't see you for a few weeks doesn't mean I want to be "Just friends".

Why is Anderson no longer a member of the Council? Oh wait, you didn't read Mass Effect: Retribution? No explanation, nothing. At least explain it to people who aren't complete ME junkies. Not really a plothole, but unexplained it left a lot of people wondering just what the hell happened.

Oh ya, there are plenty more by the way, I just don't feel like listing them. Shepard being surprised by the Rachni being alive, etc.

The Endings: I'm not going to describe them, you can find plenty of videos online if you haven't beaten the game and want to see them. I will however be talking about them in a general sense, so turn away now if you don't want to know.

Spoiler

Absolute bullshit. The worst endings I've ever encountered. In a standalone title, these endings would have been mediocre... but in the ME series they're just unforgivable. I get the whole "War is hell, blah blah, Sacrifices, blah blah, Mature ending, blah blah" No, I'm sorry, this was just bad writing. 6 years ruined in 15 minutes. I didn't expect a rainbows and butterflies ending, but what we got is just pure shit.

The endings got leaked about 4 or 5 days before release, despite everyone believing them, I held true to my faith in Bioware. "They would never do this to us" I thought, so wrong.

It's like someone put "Rocks fall, everyone dies" in the script as a joke and it somehow made it to production.

The best possible ending you can get is still awful, it differs from the worst possible ending by little more than a color and two people surviving.

Mass Effect Dev Quotes Bioware has already locked 3 of these threads, this one just happens to be the most recent. Full of wonderful quotes from the Devs that turned out to be utter lies.

Oh ya, this is the Big List of Copied Shit. There are spoilers for both the endings and Tali fans.

I'm just going to leave it here instead of going into a full list of Bioware's lies, the giant media blackout over the leaked endings, the countless bugs, the day one DLC, or everything else on the never-ending list of things wrong with this game.

Bioware's stickied thread of Fan Reviews.

I will say that the gameplay is fantastic though. Combat is fluid and fun, easily an improvement over ME2.

Also Multiplayer is fantastic, it makes a nice break when I get tired of the storyline.

 

Spoiler

Oh my fucking god. There is no good endings. None. They're all so horrible, no matter what. I had fucking 6600 readiness +100% and ever ending was horrifying. I wish I'd never seen any of them.

Despite my rant earlier, because the first two hours of the game were awful... Ever bit inbetween was epic. But then the end... Oh god. ):

 

Found another (incredibly annoying) bug. Returned to the Normandy from a mission and discovered that my cash and fuel were zeroed. No idea what triggered it, so I have to redo the entire mission...

I've also been noticing lots of continuity errors - mostly people asking if you've met when you'd talked to them in ME1/2.

Also not liking

Spoiler

the killing off of old ME2 squadmates. I've managed to save a couple, either by making the right decisions or clicking the paragon option when it pops up, but the fact that thet seem to be actively trying to kill them off is annoying. It's like "Oh, hey! Here's your old buddy you haven't seen in a while. He didn't really have to be in the scene, but here he is. Oh, what's that? Suicide mission? Of course he volunteers."

 

Mass Effect 3, especially its endings, are being panned across the web.

Bioware really fucked up.

 

Been avoiding this thread and reading anything about ME3 so I didn't get spoiled. I saw the board for it today outside Gamestop and I figured I'd pop in to see if it was at least worth the time, regardless of how bad they wanted to be Gears of War, and I'm very let down that this is how it's going to be =(

So is it even worth it for me to keep playing ME2 on the PC so I can have my choices carried into ME3, or does anything really even change? And how.the.FUCK do you fuck up something as important to the whole goddamned idea of the series, like facial importation. That should've been the goddamned first thing they checked.

If they're just going to fuck up the face regardless I'll just use the ME2 save file took and cobble together a Shepard, choices be damned.

 

Mass Effect 3, despite my hatred of the first two hours, was good, in my opinion. Despite some major flaws. Your choices from the first two games matter for the most part. Even things from ME1 that didn't matter in ME2 turn up.

However, the ending...

The last five minutes of the game horrified me. They built it up so incredibly well, and then crushed any hope I had.

To fix the faces use this, it helps some. Solutions at bottom.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/323/index/9513640

 

So far I'm seeing mixed reviews all around for this, I've been a long time fan of the series now and will probably end up getting it eventually but I want to ask DLP a straight yes or no question.

Do you recommend ME3 or no? This pretty much translates into, do I torrent it or buy it?

 

Just finished the game:

Final verdict: Incredible. Awesome. Worthy.

Opinion on people bitching about the endings:

Spoiler

"Waah! Shepard dies to SAVE ALL OF ORGANIC CIVILIZATION as we know of it from a terrible, endless cycle of destruction and death. How dare they not give me my perfect ending where I spend the rest of my days fucking chicks on a beach somewhere, lauded as a savior/hero by all of civilization for my incredible deeds?!?!?"

Either you didn't make the right choices, and got shitty endings... or you're just a bunch of pricks who can't accept that sometimes, with victory comes the ULTIMATE Sacrifice.

Honestly I'm betting it's some of Column A, and some of Column B. There are sixteen endings. Which take into account many of your choices and actions over the course of the entire series.

The best stories don't always end in butterflies and roses.

More later, after I have time to explore some of the other endings, and come up with a more in depth response.

At people bitching about the Dialogue: I see your point... to a degree. But honestly think you're blowing it way the fuck out of proportion. While you may not have as many forced dialogue decisions, the number of topics to investigate has gone up significantly. In previous games there were generally only two or three. Five or six is fairly common in this game.

Did they downgrade the amount of dialogue choices? To a degree. But they also added a fuckton of more dialogue. Which makes the change seem more drastic than it really is. Something like twice as many dialogue lines as in the last game. The game would have came out in 2015 if you wanted the same amount of dialogue choices per dialogue lines.

Sub-Topic: "MY SHEP WOULDN'T SAY THAT?!!?!11!?!1?!!?!"

Shepard has always been his own character. He's always had his own tone, We've just pained him in different 'colors' be they Renegade or Paragon. Since there is a shitload more dialogue in this game than in the previous two, you're just getting more exposure to his character (depending on which route you go, I was mostly paragon with about a 1/3rd renegade). As opposed to the one that you superimposed upon him.

At the people bitching about the lack of RPG Elements: Fuck you. RPG Elements =/= Overly complicated management system in which every single tiny little thing must be micro-controlled!!!11!11oNE.

Is it somewhat streamlined? Yes. But you know, I actually found it rather interesting, trying to balance weight to get the perfect measure of power recharge speed and firepower that I wanted, depending on the mission I was going into.

Also: Balancing Capacity, Damage, Fire Rate, Accuracy etc etc was also rather fun and came down to a fair amount of strategy.

Then throw in the modification system for an additional levels of customization and specialization if you so desire.. and I honestly don't know what the shit you're complaining about.

Furthermore, I loved the levels of customization going into your (and your squad-mates) powers as you made them progressively higher level. It allowed me to have a significant effect on my style and tactics.

For your information, I played a Vanguard on Hardcore mode.


To the people bitching about Day One DLC: Yeah. You're totally fucking right. That was shitty as hell and I honestly knock two points on a ten point scale from this game for that alone. But then it earns one back because I know it was fucking EA that forced BIOWARE to pull this shit. Since what is what EA does. Forces successful companies to exploit their products for greater profit margins at the expense of quality.

To the people bitching about Face Importing: You're right, that is unacceptable. But that's a bug, not intended. It's been said many times in many places that Bioware is working on a fix for it. For your information, my PC playthrough transferred my Shep's face just fine. It seems like that issue is mostly a console thing.


Final Verdict: 8.5/10. A full point for Day One DLC. and .5 for various bugs/glitches.