Mass Effect 3, because we need a thread without Caps Lock

[Marc v4.0]

Conrad was the hardest hitting moment in all of ME3 for me.

You did good, Conrad. You did good.

[Toast]

Originally Posted by Arcanum

Well they take it so they can shut down the Mass Relays, but even after they stole it and brought it to earth the Mass Relays were still working, so clearly they couldn't do that. So really there was no point in them taking it until they found out that you knew it was the Catalyst.

I get why they take it, I was just curious how they move something that big. Yeah, there are mass effect fields, but the scale of the citadel is just so massive in comparison to things that they normally move around, like the dreadnaught sized ships.

Also, the reapers usual MO was arriving through the citadel relay and thus cutting off the hub of the galactic community, the leaders of the galaxy, and probably a significant portion of their military might all at once. And from there, shut off any relay they want, isolating entire clusters so they can't effectively fight back. Even if the reapers didn't arrive through the citadel relay this time, they still had the capability to take it over at any time. Why didn't they?

Originally Posted by Arcanum

The Citadel was locked down, just like what happened in ME1 when Sovereign tried to seize control of it. Not only do the arms close, but protective shielding closes the gap on the tower end, completely sealing it off. At least, I'm 90% sure that's what happens, since otherwise it would be pretty stupid.

Yeah, mistake on my part there. The problem is is that it's never clearly shown. The only time we really see that is during Sovereign's rush to get into the citadel before the arms close. It's not really clear until he goes to land on the tower, and we can see the presidium ring and solid plates 'above' it. Still, they should have at least mentioned that Shepard couldn't use the conduit.

Originally Posted by Arcanum

To be fair, they kind of wrote themselves into a corner with how powerful the reapers were, so they needed some sort of Deus Ex Machina. Not saying it's well done, in fact I agree with you that it's pretty lame, just pointing out why it's there.

I get that, too, but I don't think they had to. The codex states that new weapons like the thanix cannons give even smaller ships an edge against one of the big reapers, but we never see them being used, not even by the normandy which, for most people, specifically has them.

Not only that, but there was plenty of speculation before the game came out about alternate methods of fighting the reapers. Some that I remember are deliberately destroying mass relays, using dark energy to cause suns to go supernova, and probably some that I'm forgetting.

Originally Posted by Marc v4.0

My dream ending was the one that floated around for a while before it was rewritten.

Dark Energy from Element Zero usage would eventually destroy the galaxy, so races must be culled every so often to allow the DE to naturally burn away. The choices at the end are to Shut down Element Zero technology or to let the Reapers do what they have to.

edit: Yeah, Leng is a punk. Did nothing but prance about like a FF reject jackass while eating more bullets to the face than Garrus after a hardcore face-bullet fast.

Not that this wouldn't be a better story than what we got, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense by itself. How does dark energy 'naturally burn away'? I've heard the rest of that one as well, where the choice is to destroy the reapers and try to find a solution on your own, or accept reaperism so that the universe can survive. I don't know, something about it just doesn't say enough to me for me to think that explanation would have been any better.

@Snake: The more I think about the game as a whole, the more I agree with almost everything you've said.

The only part I disagree with is the timed missions part. True, I wouldn't have known any of those missions were timed, because I did them pretty much as soon as I got them, but I'm kind of ok with that because different players are going to have different priorities. Like on Tuchanka it was hard to tell which mission I should go for first. The problem is I don't think they did enough of that. I think more planets should have had multiple missions where perhaps you can't do them all in the time you have.

[Marc v4.0]

Well, I assume DE would naturally diminish the same way regular pollution eventually gets filtered out of the ecosystem when no more is being put in.

[Bells]

You get multiple missions during the Geth confrontation too

i picked attacking the Reaper base BEFORE going after the Geth Servers. In my mind, i thought this would give me a chance to break the Geth Free from the Reapers. As it turns out, it forced me to watch Tali kill Legion and all Geth getting extinct. The alternative being Loosing Legion, All quarians and then watching Tali commit suicide... sadly i don't even know if going for the servers first could change that outcome.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Bells

You get multiple missions during the Geth confrontation too

i picked attacking the Reaper base BEFORE going after the Geth Servers. In my mind, i thought this would give me a chance to break the Geth Free from the Reapers. As it turns out, it forced me to watch Tali kill Legion and all Geth getting extinct. The alternative being Loosing Legion, All quarians and then watching Tali commit suicide... sadly i don't even know if going for the servers first could change that outcome.

Yeah, the order makes a difference.

But you have to have done the right things in ME2, as well.

[Bells]

Also, this




EDIT:

But i WILL give Kudos on the little things Bioware got it right. I Loved having "Mr Trailer Guy" show up in London. I would've enjoyed having him in my Party... I salute you and your gruffy voice Mr Trailer Guy.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Bells

But i WILL give Kudos on the little things Bioware got it right.

Isn't that ME3 in a nutshell, though?

Mass Effect 3: The game that got many little things just right, while completely botching the big picture.

[Azisien]

Actually, fuck spoiler tags. Everybody who hasn't played the game probably shouldn't read this.

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

SPOILERS INCOMING

So the general consensus among most folks here and in other forums is that ME3 itself was a fine game, until the ending happened and fucked everything up to high hell.

...I respectfully disagree with this consensus.
And so long as everyone's sharing Walls of Text here about their ME3 impressions, Snake is definitely obliged to join the party.

MY THESIS: Mass Effect 3 works primarily by deceiving the player into believing he/she has independent agency, even moreso than prior ME installments. It also 'succeeds' early on by playing to its strengths of dialogue and character interaction while desperately hoping you don't notice how flimsy the overarching story is.

Basically, ME3 hopes that you love Garrus, Tali, Liara, Mordin, Thane, Wrex, Legion, etc. that you'll be placated by tons of witty (and admittingly well-written) quotes from them and you'll be too busy being emotionally manipulated through their sacrifices and hardships to realize that ME3 is a tremendous disappointment when it comes to everything else.

As the guy with the N7 hoodie in real life, I am inclined to pretty much agree with this. Of course, I don't agree with the agency of your thesis. I don't think Bioware "tricked" anyone. I would just say they got it plain wrong. What they forgot was that they've spent two games putting together a pretty wicked character drama, but they didn't weave what they had into, as you say, the overarching story. They went for a pretty generic finale that didn't take characters into account.

The characters were there before that. And thus before the finale, everything was pretty much awesome. Except for perhaps....

REGARDING THE MAJOR PRE-CRUCIBLE CHOICES:

I can only say here that I was honestly roleplaying when I played all three games. This was expressed as 80% Paragon and 20% Renegade, in pretty much all three games. ME3 was slim on choices, which I thought might be all right, but I absolutely agree that the game lacked a sense of urgency.

REGARDING THE DEGRADATION OF ASHLEY WILLIAMS:

Ashley absolutely gets fucked over in this storyline. She's written to be abnormally paranoid of Shepard beyond a point where her misperceptions would be remotely believable -- seriously, Ashley, it's sensible to doubt Shepard's motivations when he's actually working for Cerberus on Horizon, but when he's shooting the Illusive Man's grunts and you watch him angrily berate the Illusive Man's projection on Mars, you are no longer entitled to be a whiny paranoid jerk.

...I was seriously enticed to shoot her just because she was so annoying. Add her new and not-improved characterization (seriously, what happened to the relatively deep, interesting character I met in ME1?) to her new and not-so-improved physical appearance, and she's a shell of her former self.

Even worse, Bioware seems to actively want you to discard Ashley into the refuse pile. After you bring Ashley back onto your team post-Udina Incident, she has the least interactive dialogue cutscenes and the least unique dialogue in general in the Normandy out of any squadmate -- less than Kaidan (if you kept Kaidan alive instead), less than Javik, less than Vega, less than EDI. It's like even Bioware was like "We don't like her anymore, we give up."

I was going to come up with a bunch of points about this including a few where I disagree but actually I don't even like Ashley THAT much and never have. I just banged her because I didn't want to get space elf herpes.

REGARDING KAI LENG THE CEREAL KILLER:

...What a fucking atrocious antagonist.

I have a great idea guys! We forgot to make a good combat rival for Shepard in the first two games, so how about...how about...An Asian Space Ninja with Robot Legs? I don't care how many camel toes, nipples, make-overs, or whatever the fucks happened to anyone else in this universe, Kai Leng is the worst thing in The Mass Effect Universe.

REGARDING EDI:

Uuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh.

I'm now actually going to argue that EDI is still a pretty decent character. The sexbot body sucks (...improved by jumpsuit), but that's about it. I found the interplay between EDI and Joker to be not only realistic, but humorous whenever it wasn't. EDI develops pretty well as a character, bouncing off Shepard as a sort of organic role model. They could have done other stuff, sure, they could have done everything different, but what they did with EDI still worked pretty well.

REGARDING THE KID:

I'm actually convinced the Kid could have worked if, like, Shepard actually knew him, and if the player actually got to know him before he died.

Like, okay, toss a fifteen minute prologue with Shepard in house arrest at the beginning of the game. Have Bioware actually write the kid well, and accomplish the impossible by finding a remotely talented voice actor to play him. Maybe make the kid like, Admiral Hackett's son, or Vegas' cousin, or give the kid some reason for him to be present, maybe he's just the son of some nameless Alliance Council member, hell, I don't know. Have the kid actually have a few conversations with Shepard. Let Shepard's lighter, friendlier, more paternal side come out; make the kid likable enough so the player's emotionally unsettled alongside Shepard when he dies.

That'd work! Mind you, I'd still prefer the Kid have nothing to do with this story, because I don't think it thematically works here, but if Bioware was so attached to the concept, at least write the concept in such a way so that it holds objective merit and is believable.

Still, the best solution (while changing as little as possible in the script) would have been to have the Virmire Casualty play that role as the ghost haunting Shepard, and be the ghost later 'possessed' to speak with Shepard in the ending. That'd have far more emotional resonance with those of us who played from ME1, and it's not like it'd even cost Bioware more money, with both Ashley and Kaidan's VAs returning to voice the 'Alive' versions of the respective characters.

I pretty much agree with this, ball dropped on the artsy Kid front. I'm not even overall against the whole stress/trauma thing that Shepard goes through. Because really, Earth is under attack, the fight is at home for the first time. The game opens and he's watching Vancouver get blown to shit. That's traumatic for anyone.

About halfway in, I'm even vaguely interested in the Kid Dream sequences because they are seeming a little more abstract than just "Shepard saw a shuttle with a kid on it get Reap'd." You could hear other voices in the dreams, and I started wondering if this was all foreshadowing for the true nature of the Reapers etc.

That turned out to fall pretty much off a cliff though, once the third sequence came along and I couldn't find anything cohesive in my mess of ideas.

REGARDING LOVE INTERESTS:

I kind of wish Bioware was a tad more even-handed regarding love interests as opposed to imposing its own preferences on you and giving some romances greater closure than others? Though I will concede that, for the most part, I was satisfied with what I've seen and read.

...Despite my general dislike for Jacob as a character I'm not sure how I feel about the racist undertones of the African American male being the only love interest who actually unilaterally breaks up with you and hooks up with another person, though. All the Caucasians and the aliens are steadfast and loyal, meanwhile he abandons you? It doesn't even really fit Jacob's character, like he was always boring but also a solid friend and a decent person, and I'd honestly have suspected Jack or Miranda would be more the 'love 'em and leave 'em,' noncommittal types.

...They handled Tali, Garrus and Liara right though and maybe that's all that mattered. And I'll definitely give Bioware massive props for handling the maleShep / Kaidan romance with surprising dexterity and depth; their interactions are arguably better than femShep / Kaidan. Traynor and Cortez were solid additions too, although I do sort of feel Bioware over-defensively thrust their gayness into the spotlight too soon and didn't let Traynor and Cortez develop organically into sympathetic, likable characters before hitting homophobic assholes with the hammer of "Oh yeah, by the way, they're totally gay."

I liked both Traynor and Cortez? And I played hetero and it wasn't even made obvious they were gay? My experience is actually the exact opposite of this so-called "thrusting gayness." A description which evokes some interesting imagery for me, by the way. The romances were pretty well done. Wish they hadn't shown Tali's face at all. The mystery was alluring.

REGARDING THANE:

I felt Thane was one of two characters that Bioware unapologetically and absolutely got 100% right; just felt like articulating that here before y'all presumed I hated everything about the game.
...The other character, of course, was Garrus.

I neither liked nor hated Thane from ME2, so it might carry additional weight for me when I say that I also liked how Thane was treated in ME3. His life and death were extremely meaningful.

REGARDING GAMEPLAY:

...Okay, okay, the gameplay's the best in the series, Bioware did an amazing job there, it's better than ME1 and ME2 in every conceivable way, battles against Reapers and Cerberus are hella fun.
I just wish Bioware spent a little less time perfecting the battles and a little more time working out all the kinks in its damn story.

[SPOILER]My one criticism of gameplay: That awful Reaper battle on Rannoch. Our major face-off against a Reaper and...all we're doing is dodging and...aiming some Orbital Striking weapon. If we took out a 'Human Reaper' in development in ME2, and the scope and the brutality of battles was supposed to increase in ME3, it'd have been cool to actually take even a single small Reaper head-on. Give us some of that Atomic heavy weaponry in ME2 and let us go berserk!

-Ammo powers reset! Ffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!
-General lack of huge enemies, not just the Reaper fight. What happened to Geth Armatures and Colossi? Did they all go on vacation?
-Riding off the lack of Geth unit types, I found the enemy variety overall got a little anemic by the time.

REGARDING THE ENDINGS:

...Actually, I really don't have anything to add there that hasn't already been said.

EDIT: One thing I will say about the ending is that it's just stupid that Shepard, if he brought peace to the Geths and the Quarians, didn't totally say "Hey Catalyst, you know a synthetic race and the organic race that created them is working together against the Reapers?" Like, doesn't that completely defeat the premise of the argument?

"Organics always create synthetics that destroy organics."
"Oh, hey, I know a few Geth who'd say otherwise. Also, there's this AI on our ship who doesn't seem interested in killing us."

Pretty easy answer is that the peace is extremely temporary, especially on astronomical time scales. Given the lore of the Mass Effect universe too, it seems to me like peaceful AIs are the exception, not the rule. So you're right, that line for Shepard should have been in there, but the Catalyst's counterargument would be there just as easily.

But I mean, fuck, I didn't like the three choices either. Part of that is because I found it hard to make those choices, in a GOOD way. I actually wasn't sure what was best for the galaxy, out of those three. The synthesis one was just plain fucking retarded, in a hippie-joining-hands-circle kind of way, so I picked that one. I have a save game not far from the end, so I'll probably play the other options to experience them again for myself. The ending wasn't what I wanted, for sure, but accepting THAT, I was also displeased with the presentation of the available endings.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Azisien

Pretty easy answer is that the peace is extremely temporary, especially on astronomical time scales. Given the lore of the Mass Effect universe too, it seems to me like peaceful AIs are the exception, not the rule. So you're right, that line for Shepard should have been in there, but the Catalyst's counterargument would be there just as easily.

I'm not so sure. The Geth seemed to arrive at a pretty solid logical conclusion. If, even after all the shit the Quarians put them through the Geth can remain a rational and in my opinion peaceful race, then I'm not sure we can conclude that synthetics have a predisposition toward rebellion.

Ultimately if Synthetics do constantly wipe out organics it's probably because Organics have this amazing ability to start shit for no goddamn reason every now and then and the Synthetics just don't fucking get it.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by "Half Assed" Karesh

I'm not so sure. The Geth seemed to arrive at a pretty solid logical conclusion. If, even after all the shit the Quarians put them through the Geth can remain a rational and in my opinion peaceful race, then I'm not sure we can conclude that synthetics have a predisposition toward rebellion.

Ultimately if Synthetics do constantly wipe out organics it's probably because Organics have this amazing ability to start shit for no goddamn reason every now and then and the Synthetics just don't fucking get it.

Yeah, and, so? I figure peace could be broken by either side. Suppose my initial writing over-emphasized crazy AI but um, I also include crazy organics in my logic, of which there are plenty.