Spoiler-Talk: Mass Effect 3 and the future of the franchise - Sensationalist Headlines

Give me Garrus and I wouldn't give a shit what they did with ME4. I mean, so long as it's at least on the same level of quality as ME3. Preferably much higher in a lot of regards. But I'd eat up whatever they threw out anyway, just in the hope that it wasn't complete shit and had my favorite character/[sp]husbando[/sp].

I had to pause the game for this part, I couldn't stop laughing. [video=youtube;qbZJIKeDvR4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbZJIKeDvR4[/video] The only thing what I didn't like about ME3 was the feeling like it felt rushed. I also didn't like it how they excluded the "neutral" option. I didn't choose any, which sounds pretty dumb as why would I want something that I wouldn't use, but it's nice to have a wider range of options should things turn out the way they should (being awkward or bad). e.g. I was in a relationship with Tali since ME2, and when I [sp]spoke to Liara on the citadel and then after just choosing the paragon options all of a sudden I'm a cheating faggot[/sp]. I would have preferred a neutral option to say "sorry, already in another... intamacy". lol

ME3 was a decent game with bad parts. The thing is, the bad parts were so bad, especially in comparison to the rest of the series, that they're going to stick with the gamer audience for a loooong time. I can assure you, jokes will still be made about this ending in the years to come.

[QUOTE=The Castro;39088441]I quite enjoyed it even got Tali to [sp] jump off a fucking cliff[/sp]. I fucking hate Quarians.[/QUOTE] If Kael Reegar was there I would of not killed them, he was the only saving grace for me

[QUOTE=Sir Drone;39098713]If Kael Reegar was there I would of not killed them, he was the only saving grace for me[/QUOTE] I'm still holding out hope that they'll [sp]retcon his incredibly stupid and unnecessary death[/sp] and make him a DLC squadmate if he survived ME2. I would definitely pay for that, especially if he served as the Normandy's Jayne Cobb. [editline]4th January 2013[/editline] Not just because of his voice but because we don't really have any hardasses aside from Javik and he's just fucking crazy.

I would start a petition, but I don't think they'll listen. They'll just ship me some cupcakes or something.

You know, when you think about it, Bioware must [i]love[/i] the indoctrination theory. They've got a whole legion of desperate fans trying to pass off their shoddy work as something meaningful and great, and with all the infighting between fans, there's no way everyone will join together and tell bioware as a whole that they really fucked up.

[QUOTE=MoarToast;39089327]I don't think ME3 would even receive nearly as much flak as it gets now if it weren't for the obnoxious amounts of hype surrounding it. It was being made out as some revolutionary epic video game series finale with super-deep choices that will all matter in the end and great characters and all that guff, when it was really just an above-average (at best) third person shooter with RPG elements and some neat little choices that let you hear a different piece of dialogue down the road. Basically, ME3's biggest problem is that it's pretentious as fuck.[/QUOTE] Can't say I really disagree a whole lot, its my favorite series, but it IS hyped to hell and back. That said, I don't think you have a clue what pretentious means and are only using it because its one of those buzzwords that gets thrown around but has no real meaning anymore, like "immersive", or "causal"...

[QUOTE=Blooper Reel;39109069]You know, when you think about it, Bioware must [i]love[/i] the indoctrination theory. They've got a whole legion of desperate fans trying to pass off their shoddy work as something meaningful and great, and with all the infighting between fans, there's no way everyone will join together and tell bioware as a whole that they really fucked up.[/QUOTE] It's the artistic direction~~~

[QUOTE=Ekalektik_1;39100530] Not just because of his voice but because we don't really have any hardasses aside from Javik and he's just fucking crazy.[/QUOTE] I miss Zaeed as a squadmate :c even though I was 100000% paragon goody-two shoes most of the time, we were bestest bros.

[QUOTE=Blooper Reel;39109069]You know, when you think about it, Bioware must [i]love[/i] the indoctrination theory. They've got a whole legion of desperate fans trying to pass off their shoddy work as something meaningful and great, and with all the infighting between fans, there's no way everyone will join together and tell bioware as a whole that they really fucked up.[/QUOTE] The indoctrination theory is fucking stupid, about as much as the Bioware endings, so I don't really see why anyone would like those more. Honestly I think the [sp]Destroy[/sp] ending was excellently filled out by the Extended Cut. It answered all the questions I possibly had and satisfactorily finished Shepards saga, silly space-child aside.

Yeah the indoctrination theory is retarded when you have shepard confront what'shisname who casually identifies kai leng as indoctrinated from 30 feet away

The IT is just as flawed, if not more so, than the actual ending. If the IT is true, then the game had NO ending. It just left it open for an ending we won't get. Its a choice between a crap ending, or no ending. And fuck it, if I could get a "happy" ending to the game, where destroy doesn't wipe out all synthetic life (which it DOESN'T seeing as you live through it, even after being blatantly told you won't), so I can save the Geth... and EDI I guess, I'd be totally content. I could have looked past all the utterly bullshit ghost kid crap. It wouldn't have been a great ending, but it would have been at least average. At least the EC DLC changed things from awful to nearly acceptable. My absolute PERFECT ending, would be a refusal ending that wasn't a kick in the dick. The one they added sucked so hard. It was just "ADN THEN THE GALXY DIE" I spent the whole game building the BIGGEST ARMY in the galaxy, and all for nothing. What if I wanna tell the ghost kid to fuck off and die, and not end up losing no matter what?

I'd be fine with not being able to save everybody, honestly. They even kind of made it into a theme with a lot of the quests in 3. But their distinctions were just hamhanded

To be honest, I'm one of those people who just really wants an all singing, all dancing happy ending, should you choose to go for it. Hell, maybe a small bit of an aftermath video. I want to know that all the characters are happy for the rest of their lives, that kinda thing. As for the EC, I felt like it closed some questions but opened up some more. What they are, I really don't know. And it still didn't answer my question of what happened to Shepard after the destroy ending. Argh. Either way, another final ending mod from Bioware would be amazing, one that actually works and solves everything... etc. Referring to the start of this post.

[QUOTE=El_Jameo;39111422] Either way, another final ending mod from Bioware would be amazing, one that actually works and solves everything... etc. Referring to the start of this post.[/QUOTE] [img] http://filesmelt.com/dl/Rainbow6.png[/img]

The [sp]Destroy[/sp]ending makes the most logical sense. EDI dying is a weird nonfactor though the fact that she went from a cool ship AI to a sexbot was the real problem with that character. It's sad that [sp]the Geth[/sp]have to die but it creates a cool relationship depending on how you played the game previously. [sp]The Quarians decide that in the middle of the worst this galaxy has faced that they are going to go on a mission to take back their homeworld, devoting every ship in their fleet, even unarmed civilian vessels, into the attack. In their arrogance they lose everything and the Geth rise to the occasion and promise to defeat the Reapers, which they see as an existential threat to themselves. Their final moment, fighting for a galaxy that has spurned them at every turn, shows that they are more selfless than their creators. Unfortunately they are put on the sacrifical altar to wipe out the Reapers, and that is how the story of Creator and Created ends.[/sp] It's one of the very few poignant moments of genuine tragedy in the series and the more I think about it the more I believe it was entirely coincidental because Bioware writers are [I]criminally [/I]bad at what they do.

I tend to think that Mac Walters can't handle a big plot, but character writing (mostly dialogue) is his strong suit.

[QUOTE=The_J_Hat;39112228]I tend to think that Mac Walters can't handle a big plot, but character writing (mostly dialogue) is his strong suit.[/QUOTE] I think people give Walters too much credit as a character writer. When he initially started off he had a habit of only writing in archetypes. Garrus and Wrex in ME1 were just a buddy cop and a merc with a heart of gold respectively. In ME2, he began to base characters entirely on singular traits. (Jacob and Miranda were just there as the token humans without much personality or opinions in contrast to Kaidan and Ashley, though Jacob got the worst of it.) Additionally, Walters was very repetitive when it came to the majority of the loyalty missions. Squadmate's conflicts often boiled down to parental issues without much variation. Now, one could say the moments with the old characters in ME3 is definitely good work, but the new characters are... lackluster. Samantha and Cortez are basically the token gays, James is a bit better than Miranda and Jacob, but he's still branded as a token human without the benefit of the trilogy-wide development of Ashley and Kaidan. I could go on, but those are some of the major issues with Mac's work - resorting to archetypes and being repetitive.

My main issues with ME3: -Stale combat, literally the only powers I used as an infiltrator were cloak, grenades, and shredder ammo.Rarely I might have thrown an incinerate by accident, or I'd only use sabotage if a Mech appeared and I hadn't already double tapped Q and E. -On that last bit, squad mates felt almost useless for anything that wasn't ability spam. I rarely if ever watched any squad mate doing any proper damage without abilities active. -The small choice of squad mates and the fact you're given only 6 or 7 people with flat development between missions meant I rarely checked up on conversation, I never talked to the sad sack alliance engineer that flies your shuttle and talked to Vega and the rest of the crew once, with the exception of Garrus, EDI and the lady that manages your messages and stuff, who were pretty much the only ones I paid attention to. -No weight to most of your decisions short of a number -Some incredibly poor line writing in some levels, the plot failed to have any real impact on me (and hell, I was a victim of spoiling the ME2 ending and key parts of the plot a week before release for myself, two years later I bought the game off Steam and it was still thrilling to listen to and diverge into, ME3 failed to capture any of the atmosphere ME2 perfected, it felt as empty as the obligatory grey tint environment on Earth at the start and end of the game.

[QUOTE=Dr.Critic;39113373]My main issues with ME3: -Stale combat, literally the only powers I used as an infiltrator were cloak, grenades, and shredder ammo.Rarely I might have thrown an incinerate by accident, or I'd only use sabotage if a Mech appeared and I hadn't already double tapped Q and E. -On that last bit, squad mates felt almost useless for anything that wasn't ability spam. I rarely if ever watched any squad mate doing any proper damage without abilities active. -The small choice of squad mates and the fact you're given only 6 or 7 people with flat development between missions meant I rarely checked up on conversation, I never talked to the sad sack alliance engineer that flies your shuttle and talked to Vega and the rest of the crew once, with the exception of Garrus, EDI and the lady that manages your messages and stuff, who were pretty much the only ones I paid attention to. -No weight to most of your decisions short of a number -Some incredibly poor line writing in some levels, the plot failed to have any real impact on me (and hell, I was a victim of spoiling the ME2 ending and key parts of the plot a week before release for myself, two years later I bought the game off Steam and it was still thrilling to listen to and diverge into, ME3 failed to capture any of the atmosphere ME2 perfected, it felt as empty as the obligatory grey tint environment on Earth at the start and end of the game.[/QUOTE] Most of your points are well justified, but you only spoke to each crew member (save for a couple) once? Well that's a large part of the reason why they would have fallen flat. With the exception of the primary players (Legion, Tali, Wrex, Mordin), the vast majority of what character development there is to be had is on the ship or at the hubs. You missed a lot of very, very good content.

[QUOTE=evilweazel;39069524]It's the most obvious gripe with the game, really. Don't get me wrong, I just laugh when people say "Wow all they did was make it space gears of war you can ROLL", but there is a legitimate complaint to be made with how the endings work. I like them myself now that the extended cut DLC is out, but they do leave something to be desired by a lot of die hard people.[/QUOTE] The ending was really the least thing to complain about storywise to be honest. Honestly the reapers should never ever have apeared in force.

I think if the ending of 3 had not been so unexpectedly weak and out of place then the rest of the story faults might have been more forgiveable (or at least forgettable), as it is the whole game felt lazy and creatively bankrupt. Had it not been the third game in the series this wouldn't have stood out so much but after the amount of content the previous games packed in 3 feels very much like the bare minimum they could get away with and still have a complete game. I really loved ME1 and despite 2's better characters I never felt the overall story reached the grand space opera level the series began with. I thought 3 diverged even more from the aspects of the fiction I liked and the real kick of the ending was not that it was dumb but that I no longer gave a shit what happened. Maybe I could get back on board with a future ME but Bioware have to prove before I will consider them as highly as I once did and truthfully I don't see this happening.

Mass Effect 3 wasn't all that bad, yeah, it had it's flaws (actually, a lot of them), but it also had some great moments. Just watch this for example. [video=youtube;B2GT23vJozQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2GT23vJozQ[/video]

[QUOTE=SlashSpeed;39120152]Mass Effect 3 wasn't all that bad, yeah, it had it's flaws (actually, a lot of them), but it also had some great moments. Just watch this for example. -snip-[/QUOTE] Interesting to see another ME3 fan video using that song from Two Steps from Hell ('Nero' for those wondering). I always liked this one. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z9OHa3R3vQ&feature=youtu.be[/media]

Also the multiplayer in ME3 is seriously underrated. I have 47 hours played already and I have become re-addicted to it.

I found it fucking boring and only played it to max out the shitty EMS score since that's partially why it even exists in the first place. [editline]6th January 2013[/editline] The game would have been better off without MP.

I don't think it should have been part of the singleplayer at all, maybe optionally but having to play coop you don't like to get a singleplayer advantage is pretty dumb. And I dunno. I beat the game once in 12 hours and don't plan on ever playing it again; the terrible writing overall would just get on my nerves too much. The multiplayer has already given me almost 4x that gametime. For me personally it's been a great part of the game.

How the hell did you beat the game in 12 hours? I skipped a good deal of sidequests on my first run and it STILL took me 34 hours to beat.

I have a bad habit in RPG's of skipping everything that isn't the main story. It doesn't help that I play Soldier :v: