Mass Effect 3 (PC/360/PS3)

It's just so polished. Cracking presentation and graphics, moving story (so far) decent gameplay and just feels quality. Really, really like it. Also appears I don't have to mine planets any more, result!
 
Are the scanning/mining bits removed from ME3 then? It's cool accumulating minerals to upgrade your weapons etc but it could definitely be done in a more interesting way. I'm also hoping general space exploration will be made a bit more interesting too.
 
LTFC said:
Are the scanning/mining bits removed from ME3 then? It's cool accumulating minerals to upgrade your weapons etc but it could definitely be done in a more interesting way. I'm also hoping general space exploration will be made a bit more interesting too.
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It's much less of a hassle to scan and mine now. Scanning is basically right-clicking and it sends out a pulse to see if anything is within a certain range.

When you mine, a while line points to where the signal is coming from. The globe spins a lot faster and I generally find the signal within a few seconds really.

Milanista said:
I swear they've redesigned the models for all the female characters. They all have bigger boobs.
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Yep, all of the females seem to have been "enhanced".
 
jaygrim said:
How does it work with Kinect?
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With voice recognition. You can read the text on the game's conversation options to select which one you want and command your squad in battle by calling their name then choosing a number of stuff like where to go or what ability to use. It's not exactly essential but pretty cool nonetheless.
 
What a huge improvement in graphics since Mass Effect.
I remember the days when every side missions looked the same.
In Mass Effect 3, everything in the environement is perfectly detailled and different.
Travelling the Galaxy never felt this good.
And I LOVE my engineer class!!!
 
I don't really think the RPG elements were that extensive in the first place. In ME1 they were simply based around ranking up your player, which you can surely still do in ME3 (I haven't played it so I can't say). ME2 did remove some of that, in terms of choosing weapons and upgrading them, but on the whole I've always seen it as a shooter/adventure to be honest.
 
Guy Pearce is Commander Shepard

009HTL_Guy_Pearce_001.jpg
 
I watched one of my flatmates play through Mass Effect 2 and then 3 when it was released - personally I've only played the start of the original and didn't really get into it.

I loved the ending, one of the best I've seen in a video game actually...

I'd much rather have an ending that is open to theory and interpretation than the classic Hollywood;

Shoot bad guys
Bad guys dead
Celebrate

I thought along these lines as I was watching the ending, but this goes into a lot of depth to prove the theory;
YouTube - Mass Effect 3 - Shepard's Indoctrination

Great stuff BioWare, ignore the haters.
 
I though it ended my shepard adventure nicely.
Overall it's a solid ending but since...
Bioware made too many promises, I can understand people complaining but that does not mean the endings sucked. Btw, I chose the middle path.
 
My flatmate chose the blue (control) ending, and initially he seemed disappointed by the ending, but afterwards we YouTubed the other two endings which didn't help much, but after I tried explaining to him how I believed Shepard was indoctrinated and that the bit with Anderson and The Illusive Man wasn't "real" and just searched YouTube out of curiosity and found the vid I posted above.

There's a couple of issues still (the Normandy flying away.. why?) but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than a typical linear and conventional view of the ending.

Basically the red option is the "correct" one to overcome the reaper's hold over Shepard, in the other two he "trusts his enemy", pretty much the definition of indoctrination in Mass Effect. It also makes how shooting The Illusive Man is a "renegade" choice make sense - the reapers are manipulating Shepard (and the player, kind of breaking the fourth wall) into thinking right is wrong.

I urge anyone who's disappointed with the ending to watch the above video
 
I did exactly the same as you Rob, straight after I made my choice. Went straight to the 'net. Agree completely. Although I also don't understand the Normandy bit... my guess is:

All synthetic life was going to be turned off, so that means EDI would switch off completely (meaning the end of Normandy). So Joker must've flown away to save her but crash landed in some random planet instead.
 
I reckon there's gonna be some DLC to give the ending a bit more closure, the message that appears at the end kind of hints towards it as does the "one more story" comment by the old man.

Another thing giving weight to the "Indoctrination" theory is that if you choose the red option and save Anderson, you see Shepard waking up on Earth - how would that happen if he actually destroyed all synthetic life? At some point I'm sure Shepard was told that he himself was part synthetic (being dead and all) so that option would kill him too.

I think it's very, very clever - making that choice appear like the evil/renegade choice, giving it the colour red - if you played Mass Effect as a good guy, you're going to want to save the Geth and other synthetics so you'd probably be swayed towards the other two choices anyway. This is exactly what the Reapers want Shepard (and you) to think.

I'd probably have taken the red choice anyway - in games where you take moral choices I always be the most sinister bad guy possible, in Skyrim my character is a serial-killing-cannibal-werewolf assassin! :LOL:

These are from ME1 and ME2, so spoiler warning in advance if you havn't played those, but I thought these were hilarious;

YouTube - Mass Effect: Commander Shepard Is Such A Jerk

YouTube - Mass Effect 2: Commander Shepard Is Still A Jerk

Brilliant! :D
 
Oh dear oh dear. What a poor rushed way to end it all. I've read the theories and the one rob mentions isn't that bad at all, but the lack of clarity and failure to deliver the promises of completely different endings based on your choices from previous games was shambolic.

Did they hire the people behind Lost to write this ending?
 
That video I posted previously has had a new, longer, updated version uploaded which contains more evidence and puts forward an even stronger case this time;

YouTube - Mass Effect 3 - Shepard's Indoctrination (NEW)

It's over 20 mins long, but well worth watching.

This article is also well worth a read if you're still in doubt;

http://uninhibitedandunrepentant.tumblr.com/post/19344938387/mind-holy-fuck

This quote from it in particular struck me;

You see, what we forget as we play through is that the only perspective we have is Commander Shepard’s. Some of us may not think of it that way, but that is the case. We only see what he or she sees, and we only perceive as he or she perceives. And Shepard would only know something was wrong with his or her own mind if we saw it.

What is the point of having an indoctrinated character if the person directing them knows they are indoctrinated? Shepard isn’t the only person that has been indoctrinated. We have. We didn’t see the subtle hints. Shepard didn’t notice the signs, and so we didn’t notice them. We were too caught up in saving Earth, just like Shepard.
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I think it's pure genius from BioWare - this from someone who only bought Mass Effect 1 for £4 in a sale and played about an hour of it, then only watched playthroughs of 2 and 3 - I'm not defending my purchase here, I truly think it's a great ending, and the people complaining need to look a little deeper and try to understand it.

The best endings, in my opinion, are those that are left open to imagination and interpretation - ones that can be discussed after the fact, that's the case here.

Off topic, but regarding Lost;
Lost was never a show to tell a great story - a plane crashes on an island, there's a load of sci-fi bollocks going on, they run into hostile natives, try to escape the island, fail, try again, fail, then after more sci-fi bollocks they succeed, the end.
There were always loose ends, unanswered questions, plot holes etc. but Lost was never about those things, it was pretty much entirely based upon the characters and the relationships and sacrifices they made, to me some of the episodes have deep meanings and are quite philisophical, I also think in terms of the character's story arcs they rounded it off nicely.
 
if that theory is correct and that's the story and ending they were going for then they really should have made it more clear so it wouldn't need the fans to try to work out the hidden meaning behind the ending images we see. Plus when you reject it and you get the small scene of shepherd breathing... The game should then continue allowing the real ending.


The problems I have with this ending and theory is it goes against everything they had claimed the end would be. 16 different endings based on the choices you made. It's a bit of a pathetic stretch to tweak the characters here and there on the ending to claim it's a different ending.

Plus my other big issue is not a single decision I made in the game has any relevance on the ending. I dont mind the theory explanation IF we had gotten a laddered ending where as you progress through the final mission you get cut scenes dependent on your choices from the 3 games. Each gamer would get their own laddered ending with cut scenes triggering on each step up. People can be shown dying or surviving, the geth are shown doing something while someone else is shown dying as you didn't take the time to collect all those weapons earlier in the game...

.... Then you make that final push and the ending scene kicks in. If you reject the attempts from the reapers to control you and so on then it returns to the rubble and you can have one last go at defeating them and then whatever happens happens... Live or die.

Of course the less said about the piss poor writing in the final scenes the better, "I created synthetics to kill organics in order to prevent synthetics from killing organics". The theory may well shed light on the actions of Shepard but it can never excuse the rest of the terrible ending.
What we got feels like ea trying to end on a 'ohhh is he still alive?' for a mass effect 4. But the way they explained the reapers was such a mess that it's hard to imagine how they could make another game and people take it seriously. It's just shocking how bad it all was.
 
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Radiation said:
if that theory is correct and that's the story and ending they were going for then they really should have made it more clear so it wouldn't need the fans to try to work out the hidden meaning behind the ending images we see. Plus when you reject it and you get the small scene of shepherd breathing... The game should then continue allowing the real ending.


The problems I have with this ending and theory is it goes against everything they had claimed the end would be. 16 different endings based on the choices you made. It's a bit of a pathetic stretch to tweak the characters here and there on the ending to claim it's a different ending.

Plus my other big issue is not a single decision I made in the game has any relevance on the ending. I dont mind the theory explanation IF we had gotten a laddered ending where as you progress through the final mission you get cut scenes dependent on your choices from the 3 games. Each gamer would get their own laddered ending with cut scenes triggering on each step up. People can be shown dying or surviving, the geth are shown doing something while someone else is shown dying as you didn't take the time to collect all those weapons earlier in the game...

.... Then you make that final push and the ending scene kicks in. If you reject the attempts from the reapers to control you and so on then it returns to the rubble and you can have one last go at defeating them and then whatever happens happens... Live or die.

Of course the less said about the piss poor writing in the final scenes the better, "I created synthetics to kill organics in order to prevent synthetics from killing organics". The theory may well shed light on the actions of Shepard but it can never excuse the rest of the terrible ending.
What we got feels like ea trying to end on a 'ohhh is he still alive?' for a mass effect 4. But the way they explained the reapers was such a mess that it's hard to imagine how they could make another game and people take it seriously. It's just shocking how bad it all was.
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I despise this standpoint on storytelling...

The thoughts of "the ending wasn't conclusive so it's ruined the series" or "my decisions didn't make a difference" etc. annoy me, and I am glad that BioWare had the balls to not worry about this when they wrote their ending.

How can you say your decisions didn't make a difference because the endings are similar? That's ridiculous.
That is like saying that everyone's life ends in death so whatever decisions they make don't matter because it's all going to end the same.
Entire races have survived or fallen because of Shepard, in Arrival a whole star system was wiped out, individuals have lived or died based on your decisions, allies and enemies formed etc.
So none of that matters just because of the ending?

And regarding how it should have continued after Shepard wakes up - I'm not going to fully disagree with you there, it would have made sense, but as I've said before, my favourite types of endings are those that leave you to theorise and ponder over what happened, and what will happen.

Endings that conclusively wrap up all plotlines, loose ends, unanswered questions etc. leave no room for imagination or discussion, in my opinion they're quite boring and uninteresting.

The way it is now, people are left to think about it while the option for more single-player DLC remains.
 
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WARNING

Some TV show/movie spoilers inside;

Your opinions and preferences are obviously different to mine, so I won't go through your entire post point-by-point, it would be a waste of my time as it would fall on deaf ears.

Just dismissing non-conclusive endings as "incompetent" and "lazy" is just crazy though - the most obvious ones in recent times I can think of being The Sopranos and Inception.
Don't even try and tell me those endings were disappointing.

Another point is that a combination of tiny details here and there can paint a bigger picture and give you a much better understanding of the story - i.e. in Mass Effect, there's hints in all three games that Shepard could be a target of indoctrination. From the codex entries, by the end of ME3 his symptoms and (depending on your choice) behaviour pretty much match the exact definition of someone that's indoctrinated.

BioWare have already said there will be more single player DLC content, if that's not an ending then what else could it be? I couldn't see people buying any sort of stories that occur during the "middle" of the game.

All the way through the final mission I was hoping the ending wouldn't just end up being Shepard et al high-fiving and celebrating after obliterating every reaper in existance, my flatmate had done every side-mission and was 100% paragon too so I suspected it would be a classic Hollywood "happily ever after" bollocks where all the bad guys die, most of the good guys live (with the odd token sacrifice).

Thankfully not.
 
Guys guys, I like the ending, but it would've also been nice to have a more conclusive punch, especially since it's the end of a trilogy. I think MGS4 handled this quite well, but again, I don't hate the so-called 'indoctrination theory' so I ain't going to complain.
 
Of course there are going to be examples where a story ends leaving you to question the ending, ponder if what you think happened actually did or if it was actually a different way around.
But my point is there is a growing trend to break away from the norm and end a film or tv series with an open ending that only answers a few basic things and all those twists and turns are left unanswered with the 'erm ... we don't have any reason for all of that so make something up yourself"

Of course someone will get it right... but a lot aren't and they're relying on shocks and surprises to drive the audience figures up as they watch it with wonder... and then at the end pull a lost on us and claim it was NEVER about the twists and shocks we were all watching, it was something else that's surprise surprise very easy to write an explanation for.


I've never seen the film or tv show you mention Rob so I have no idea about those. I heard there was a big kick off about the tv show one which shows that people clearly don't enjoy these types of things.

Bioware revealed DLC is coming. I too think that it can only be another ending which raises three important points.

1 - why wasn't this in the game already? If this was supposed to be in there why not delay the game until it was ready? Who releases a game without the ending in there?

2 - If the existing game ending was good enough for the writers and designers ... why would they have any need to add a dlc ending? Adding an ending as dlc just makes it look like they realised they screwed up.

3 - I hate the idea that we all bought a game and it didn't even come with the full story... we're going to have to wait longer and then download the ending at a later date. Horrible idea.



As for how the ending would have panned out in my mind. Well I definitely didn't want a high five feel good ending.
I wanted to see how my choices affected the bigger picture. I wanted to see something different if you had saved Ashley or Kaidan. I wanted to see different scenes depending on how many people survived the suicide mission. I wanted to see maybe the Geth being the worst choice you could make and they just get shut down by the reapers or hacked or something and loads of people die because of it.

I wanted to get bit on my ass for most of my decisions and then at the very end... maybe have shepherd repeat the ending from ME1 and pull a Saren. Or maybe he's so far indoctrinated that the love interest you spent your game building has to put a bullet between his eyes.

Something like that which actually went though your game and worked with it... instead of ignoring your story and giving you a generic ending the same as everyone else.
 
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