Mass Effect 3

[Sketcz]

I prefer ME1 to ME2, which I thought was dumbed and a fairly generic cover shooter. Get in cover, shoot a bit, do it again and again and again. They also chopped the vehicle sections, which were ace.

[Neon Ignition]

That's one of the things I feel ME3 has dropped the ball on. Too many missions devolve into wave shooting, ME2 had a lot of it but there was some sense of pacing and atmosphere to many of the missions. ME3 less so.

[Riskbreaker]

Just finished this, so I guess I may as well join in on the griping about the ending.

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I'll put more in later. I don't know if Bioware intended for a particular end to be canon but I hope to hell it isn't the Synthesis ending. It's so damn contrived and the whole new DNA-synthetic idea is so flawed it's not even funny.

I'm gonna read every else's posts now that I can see the spoilers and then gripe some more in a bit

But ending aside I actually really enjoyed the game, it could have done with a bit more refinement. The numerous war asset runs were just a bit daft and just felt like another way to squeeze that damn scanning game in. There should of been of been half as many and it's a shame that half of the systems seemed to exist purely for this purpose.

And the Banshees were much better suited to the multiplayer mode than the campaign where they just trounce your AI team and resist your best efforts to put them down. Upon seeing two or three on the battlefield I'd just want to put the controller down as they were far too tedious to fight, to the point that I'm wondering if an Insanity run would be more frustrating than it's worth.

[rmoxon]

I prefer ME1 to ME2, which I thought was dumbed and a fairly generic cover shooter. Get in cover, shoot a bit, do it again and again and again. They also chopped the vehicle sections, which were ace.

They removed the vehicle sections becuase everyone hated them.... well except you obviously.

ME2 was dumbed down from 1, but I prefer the term streamlined, becuase even if it was less of an RPG and more of an action title, it actually improved the game.

[elaniel]

Finished my game and I am completely surprised that

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Jarvis came out at the end of the Normandy, I never used the guy! I was thinking Liara or Garrus would have come out with Ashley (she came out luckily) so I have no idea how it's decided at the end.

Also, did anyone else get an end-game save? It seems to only have a save from

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before the final Citadel part

. I'm assuming it must be a hidden save?

I did enjoy the game, and don't mind the ending. Although with Bioware effectively saying that they are going to do a new ending I can imagine anything from

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when Shepard gets hit by the beam is a hallucination.

[sj33]

^Nope, it does seem to resave just before the

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attack on the Cerberus base

for some reason.

[mugetsu]

the reason why it saves you back at the cerberus base attack after you complete the game is because future dlc would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[sj33]

Yeah, it throws you back to the last possible point where you'd still actually be able to access DLC. It does actually save after the ending though, so presumably it still 'knows' that you've completed it (though you're free to get more war assets, play the forthcoming DLC and have another bash finale) if you want to see

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the explosions in a different colour

.

[C']

Finished today. Like a lot of people it seems, I enjoyed the game a whole lot (though not as much as Mass Effect 2) but then was confused/frustrated/angry at the ending.

However, what's annoyed me more is the seeming fact that I can't actually get the "best" ending

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where Shepard appears to survive)

without playing the multiplayer part of the game. I don't subscribe to Xbox Live Gold any more and to be locked out of an ending in a single player game because of it is bull****tery of the highest order.

[gambit6613]

Only just starting this and loving it, just i have 2 issues, the first why did Bioware not allow for weapons to be put away, not sure why it bothers me but its rather anoying. The other issue, has anyone noticed a problem with the textures of this game? It looks very poor at times, at first i thought it was my TV but i have tried it on others and its still there, really suprised this was not fixed before it was released, im playing on Xbox.

[Riskbreaker]

Finished my game and I am completely surprised that

->Open Spoiler<-

Jarvis came out at the end of the Normandy, I never used the guy! I was thinking Liara or Garrus would have come out with Ashley (she came out luckily) so I have no idea how it's decided at the end.

It gets better

->Open Spoiler<-

you can have crew members that accompanied you on the final run towards the Reaper disembark from the Normandy!

I did enjoy the game, and don't mind the ending. Although with Bioware effectively saying that they are going to do a new ending I can imagine anything from

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when Shepard gets hit by the beam is a hallucination.

->Open Spoiler<-

I don't think they'll change it, they may tweak it and hopefully make roads to explain some of the plot holes and provide closure but I imagine it will stay largely the same. Still we'll see, I'm already disappointed with the last 10 mins for so many reasons the DLC would have to be damned good to get my interest.

I posted this on the Bioware forums soon after finishing it, alot had already been said by other gamers (no doubt) so I tried to keep it brief:

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In the spirit of answering the original question somewhere way off at the top of the thread. There were two stand out moments for me in the game, the first was Liara talking to femshep about her entry on the time capsule. The second was femshep and Anderson sat watching Earth from the Citadel. There were many many more besides that and to Bioware's credit everything but the last 10 mins of the game was a standout experience that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I guess that's why the ending felt like a kick in the quads. Yeah I'm a happy ending person where I can get it, but I'd have gone along with the general direction of the ending if it wasn't for the appearance of the god-child and plot holes Joker could pilot the Normandy through with his eyes closed. And honestly they felt so damn contrived.

Of the three, my ending was the destroy choice. The idea of controlling the Reapers just didn't sit well with me, I don't see why Shepard should suddenly be capable of controlling advanced sentient beings. And don't get me started on the Synthesis solution which brings peace about pretty much by magic. I'd argue whether a new synthetic-organic DNA would in actuality just be a different form of organic life and therefore wouldn't actually solve anything. "Oh hey our DNA is different now, and we all have PCBs on our skin therefore we totally wouldn't consider creating a purely synthetic lifeform....ever."

I won't lie, the short scene of the breath at the end made me smile (the preceding 10 minutes were horrendous so I'll take what I can get). But that was in no way my primary reason. And I hated the idea of sacrificing both the Geth who I had gone out my to save and EDI who I'd help evolve. But it was the best way I had of putting two fingers up at both the god-child and what I saw as a crass excuse for the cycle and it's subsequent solution. That synthetics and organics couldn't co-exist ever. By destroying the Reapers and the catalyst my best hope was that if synthetic life developed again organics would take better care to live with their creations. And if they didn't, well, I guess no-one said survival of the fittest doesn't include machines.

And sorry, while I'm here, I have to pick on this:

"We help them ascend so they can make way for new life. We store the old life in Reaper form." What, sorry what? You preserve an entire civilisation by turning it's members into a slush puppy and somehow putting their DNA milkshake in a reaper shaped cup preserves them? Are you kidding? Seriously this is the best you could come up with? Why bother? What's the point? If you'd have said Reapers like advanced race DNA flavoured jam on their synthetic toast it would be easier to swallow.

I could almost buy it if Reapers were forcing the advanced races to kind of meld their consciouness into one being, that represented that races culture, memories and achievements. But the idea that melting them down and retaining the DNA, somehow preserves that species is so daft it deserves a reward.

The sentiment still remains. Even Angry Joe in one of his saner moments manages to nail 10 reasons why they got it wrong.

[elaniel]

Had some more time thinking about this after completing the game.

I find it funny you make so much effort to get to the ending of the trilogy and it basically says:

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Okay, you've finished, now pick one of these endings.

There was no conclusion on my game of what happened to

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Ashley and Liara after I took them into the Reaper after Shepard was hit by the beam.

The only conclusion seen is

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Jarvis (still WTF was he doing coming out of the Normandy when I never used him?) and Ashley step out with Joker. Where exactly was the Normandy going anyway? I thought it was in Earth's orbit. Why was it going through a relay?

I did like

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Shepard's breath at the end, but I wanted to see my romance and Shepard reunite.

It seemed like there was no conclusion to any characters stories. I spent 3 games investing in these characters and then I hardly see anything about them barring

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a quick goodbye while in the Earth base.

I didn't actually think what you said PerfectSmith until now. How did

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Ashley end up on the Normandy

when she was with me at the end.

[C']

->Open Spoiler<-

[i]I guess that's why the ending felt like a kick in the quads. Yeah I'm a happy ending person where I can get it, but I'd have gone along with the general direction of the ending if it wasn't for the appearance of the god-child and plot holes Joker could pilot the Normandy through with his eyes closed. And honestly they felt so damn contrived.

This probably best echoes my own thoughts on the ending.

One of my favourite parts in the game was the

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genophage cure storyline with Mordin and Wrex. Mordin probably ranks up there with Garrus, Tali and Legion amongst my favourite squad mates from the previous games and watching events play out which in the end forced him to sacrifice himself to ensure what he was working towards came to fruition was so effective. Everything from the music to the dialogue felt perfect. Yes it wasn't a "good" resolution on a personal level (I'd lost a a favourite character) but the events that transpired gave an outcome that felt tied in to the choices and actions that I had made, not only in the immediate preceding hours in Mass Effect 3, but also back in the first two games as well.

The main game's ending totally lacked this to me.

[Adam Stone]

Out of interest.... how is the actual game itself?

No game ending can be worse than Turok's - and yet i still hale that as one of my childhood favourites :-p

Is the core game up there with the quality of 2?

[sj33]

The game itself is fantastic. I am probably one of the more vocal people in terms of 'irritation' with the fundamentally broken ending, but the game is still a candidate for my game of the year - everything up until the final 10 minutes is pure class. It is definitely 'on par' with Mass Effect 2 at the very least, ending aside. I would recommend this game to everyone.