Mass Effect 3

[DarthParametric]

It's less about hardware restrictions of the consoles and more about whoever it was who was in charge of that particular part of ME3 deciding it'd be funny to have a bunch of dead Ashley's and Kaiden's laying around.

I never saw any Ashley and/or Kaidan corpses myself. I was talking about the generic corpse piles. The reason they all look the same is to cut down overhead. The thing the consoles are very short on is memory, so you get a lot of mileage by reusing textures. Hence why the corpses all the look the same.

[Lynk Former]

I wasn't replying seriously.

[DarthParametric]

[JesusIsGonnaOwnSatan]

Don't promise it if you can't deliver. It's just as disappointing as when Nintendo said how the Wii Remotes motion controls would do this, this and this. They only just STARTED delivering what they promised with Skyward Sword but it was too little, too late.

 

Found this relevant quote:

 

Interviewer: [Regarding the numerous possible endings of Mass Effect 2] “Is that same type of complexity built into the ending of Mass Effect 3?”

 

Hudson: “Yeah, and I’d say much more so, because we have the ability to build the endings out in a way that we don’t have to worry about eventually tying them back together somewhere. This story arc is coming to an end with this game. That means the endings can be a lot more different. At this point we’re taking into account so many decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C.....The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them.”

 

All I can say is wow. I see where you're coming from.

 

You can't base the ending of the whole trilogy on something that might happen in the Arrival DLC though, since Shepard's participation in the Arrival scenario is optional. If you didn't play the DLC a squad of marines sent by Hackett carried out the mission instead in ME3 (getting wiped out in the process).

 

A logical opinion.

It's just that contact with a reaper artifact as shown in Arrival is *exactly* what would be required to cause the kind of IT-proposed indoctrination attempt effects in ME3.

 

 

Going by what is said and mentioned in the games (and not any comics and novels), both these gentlemen also spent several months in close proximity to a Reaper (Inside Sovereign, and just upstairs from the embryo). Indoctrination is not a quick process, it is mentioned that it takes weeks or months to do properly. There is a Quick Indoctrination option as well, but using that the victim goes insane within a few days so it's not really an option for sleepers and long-term operatives, or a Shepard that seemingly remains herself 6 months later.

 

Yes, what happened to Saren and TIM was not instant (I should have been clearer), but the point is that it started with close, indirect contact with a reaper artifact, just after the First Contact War.

 

 

The conduit (if you mean the beam up to the Citadel) was a transporter beam meant to move organic material up to the Citadel for processing for use in Reaper construction. Thus it's not unreasonable IMO that husks etc continue to shovel up bodies, especially since a fair number of them just were produced nearby with the failed rush attack.

 

Shepard would have to be knocked out for hours for this many bodies to be piled up:

 

 

As for them being Ashley and Kaidan, I can't see the resemblance in their faces, because it's such a low-quality, horrible texture, but the fact that the piles feature Pheonix and Onyx armours, and *only* those armours, does seem to be peculiar.

 

There is no such thing in established lore. See above.

 

Before ME3, neither were Crucibles, Catalysts, or cause-shepard-to-shoot-anderson-with-a-wave-of-a-hand powers.

[Q]

Haven't played the game, yet, but 'twould be a disservice if I didn't post this.

 

[urluckyday]

Haven't played the game, yet, but 'twould be a disservice if I didn't post this.

 

 

True story. I still am truly disappointed by the way things turned out for one of my favorite franchises...

 

Nothing to look forward to on xbox now except for Halo 4!

[Lynk Former]

An interesting interview with Drew Karpyshyn and some very interesting things he has said about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and how things could have been... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-20-the-writer-who-left-bioware-eurogamer-interviews-drew-karpyshyn

[Red Hessian]

"It's exciting to be working on an a world that is completely of my own invention and over which I have total creative control ... With Children of Fire, I can be a creative glutton - there is no give, it's all take. I do what I want, when I want. It's very liberating."

 

I think this says it all.

[DarthParametric]

I still find it mind boggling that he talks about going into a project set up as a trilogy from the start with no overarching plot mapped out, just making crap up as they go along, like it's a good thing. That's precisely the reason ME3 ended up the way it did.

[Miltiades]

I still find it mind boggling that he talks about going into a project set up as a trilogy from the start with no overarching plot mapped out, just making crap up as they go along, like it's a good thing. That's precisely the reason ME3 ended up the way it did.

As much as I enjoyed the Mass Effect games (to a degree), this is one of the reasons I don't consider this one of the best (gaming) trilogies of all time, as some gaming sites dare to claim. If even the ending of the series was subject to change and wasn't set in stone from an early period, it doesn't deserve that kind of praise.

 

You often hear of serialized TV shows having a concept to start with, a begin point and a clear vision on how it should end. Often, the creator only knows these things for certain and has a general idea of how to get from point A to B. Some ideas will change, or be expanded upon, but you're pretty sure that it at least will make sense within the rules of the created universe. What happens when you don't have the ending planned out even in a general way is what you get with Mass Effect, where changes and additions (Cerberus in ME2, for example) feel forced and the setup for the grand finale needs to be explained during the finale.

[Bob Saget]

I know I'm a bit late to the party in bashing on ME3's endings, which really are quite bleak, but I actually am about to say that the bad started a bit earlier than the final scene.

 

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I think the real issue in ME3 was how your choices played out and how you get to see them. This issue was addressed earlier by DP and a few other individuals in how the original endings were simply "chose your color". While I was satisfied with the extended cut, there are still many outstanding issues in the final act of Mass Effect 3.

 

First off - Your choices. This has been the most defining characteristic of the trilogy, choosing your own destiny. Throughout the trilogy you see your choices in action in if you saved/killed the rachni, helped Legion, etc. In the final battle, I was expecting atleast an even stand-off with my perfect paragon run. I expected to see legions of krogan charging and blasting harvesters, with geth troopers taking on as the soldier role, and the STG coming in to take on the commando role.

 

Unfortunately, I saw very little of this. No matter what your EMS is, in even play-through you only see half of Hammer force make it to earth, that's fine considering the odds, but the fact that the reapers are destroying you without breaking a sweat against the best possible EMS you could have is just sad. If I united a galaxy, it shouldn't be this bad, in fact Bioware should have atleast made it that we were holding steady at first, then taking losses towards the end. Add to that, I only saw like 20 krogan line up to hear Wrex's speech. Wheres the armada? I thought i'd be seeing hundreds of angry krogan ready the charge the line, and above all. I saw nothing of the geth on the planet. nothing. For all that ME3 emphasizes on choice mattering, I really didn't see any difference between my perfect paragon playthrough compared to my renegade play-through.

 

This was perhaps the most disappointing factor in the final act. The endings themselves were bad, but my view is that it started going down-hill far before that.

[DarthParametric]

The voice-over guy is pretty bad, but it still gave me a laugh nonetheless:

 

[youtube=hd]usWbrqJAsIY

[Lynk Former]

I'm waiting for the next ambitious project by some other developer to do with the ME trilogy promised but fell short on. I'm sure one day someone will try again...

[DarthParametric]

Explicitly promised by Bioware, or just what you hoped the series would be? I don't recall there being anything particularly revolutionary in the various claims they put forth over the years, regardless of whether or not they actually achieved any of them.

[Lynk Former]

What I hoped the series would be, of course. Why would you think otherwise? Also, no video game is going to be revolutionary unless it can suddenly pop out 3D holographic images out of nowhere or something drastically forward like that. I just expected it not to disappoint me on so many levels by the end...

[mur'phon]

Unless your expectations aren't too specific, that should happen soon enough (In my case it already has, Alpha Protocol was that game mechanic and story wise for me).

[Lynk Former]

What compelling space based sci-fi series is coming out soon?

[Dread Advocate]

What compelling space based sci-fi series is coming out soon?

 

There is Halo 4, but that series has been around for a while now, and compelling is rather subjective.

[Lynk Former]

I'm liking the look of Halo 4 because it has a lot of Metroid Prime flavouring added to it, but I wouldn't count it as a contender.

 

I mean compelling in terms of story and depth and character interactions. Halo has the scale, but not the depth needed for what I'm thinking of.

[Bob Saget]

Halo 4: finish the new fight so you can finish it again in Halo 5 XP

 

I haven't really paid attention to anything that comes close to Mass Effect in terms of compelling sci-fi, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if another developer comes out with such a genre of their own in the next E3

[Miltiades]

What compelling space based sci-fi series is coming out soon?

I'm with you there. Over the past few years, I've been mainly looking into RPG's because I found the genre had the biggest potential to tell interesting stories. Sadly, the genre is mostly occupied with fantasy settings. Finding a decent space based sci-fi game that isn't just about shooting stuff is hard as it is without looking to specific genres, let alone finding one in the RPG category. I'm guessing it's part of the reason I'm still excited every time a Star Wars game is announced.

 

Also, Prey 2, where are you?!

[Sabretooth]

What compelling space based sci-fi series is coming out soon?

 

Cowboy Bebop: The RPG

 

MAKE IT HAPPEN PEOPLE

[JesusIsGonnaOwnSatan]

Anyone play Leviathan?

 

I did, and i found it to be

surprisingly good.

 

 

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I'm unsure if what it does for the story is good or bad though, now that we know there are bigger fish than the Reapers (badum-tissshhh).

 

A lot of people praise the DLC for clarifying the character of the Catalyst, but I'm a little surprised at that. Was all of this not obvious from the Catalyst's first exposition?

 

I also don't understand the consideration of it's logic to be fallacious. It was given an imperative, with no binding restrictions: achieve the goal at any cost. It is simply doing what it was programmed to, and doing it in a logical manner.

[Lynk Former]

To hell with the DLC.

 

Doesn't matter if it's the best thing ever made, make a game complete when you release it or it doesn't count.

[Dread Advocate]

Indeed Leviathan is great. It makes a lot more sense out the ending. But, like Lynk said, it should've been put in the final product from the start. There is no justifiable reason to keep chunks of the story that important out of the game. To hell with "good business."