Mass Effect Series Thread

[Solkia]

So I bought ME3

 

First impressions are odd. I must have missed something or there must be a time skip, because I currently have no idea why I'm with the alliance again and why Liara isn't an info broker anymore.

 

Don't like the dodge roll, in ME2 I would always run into cover, and when I was done I pressed Spacebar + S to back out. Now I do a flip. Haven't found a use for it yet but then again I'm not too far in.

 

I don't understand why health doesn't regenerate??? I mean on the bright side now I might not have a stockpile of Medi-Gel I never use.

 

 

 

 

 

Also something about the PC version: Scaling issues with the HUD.

 

You remember the 4k screenshots a while back and how dialogue circles were tiny?

 

This is my computer running it at 1080p

 

 

This is my computer running it at 720p 

 

 

Apparently I can fix most of this by fucking around with .ini files. Might just be a bad PC port.

[Xenos]

Since the health bar is segmented in ME3, you can only gain health back if the health in whatever segment it's in isn't completely depleted.

 

Also, you should have probably played the ME2 DLC Arrival and Lair of The Shadow Broker. Arrival explains why Shepard was in the situation he was in at the beginning of the game, and Lair of The Shadow Broker is a pretty good character arc for Liara. (That, and it's fucking cool in general)

 

God help you when you get later into Mass Effect 3. Maybe you'll have a better experience compared to me though.

[Solkia]

I think I have Arrival, but I don't know how to find it, I only found the firewalker missions

[Xenos]

I think Admiral Hackett contacts you from your personal quarters on the Normandy, last I checked.

[KrazyBean]

Oh man you have to play the ME2 DLCs. They are some of the best DLCs I've probably seen in a game. Don't forget Overlord.

[Gabz Girl]

Yes, get the ME2 DLC! They're really good and explain a lot of the stuff that happens in ME3. Mind you I haven't got them all either, but God knows when I'll ever play ME2 again!

 

Oh God you're going to hate Kai Leng. Especially because there really is no explanation given to why he's coming after you, as far as I know. That and the fact he's some anime ninja dude. 8I

[Patticus]

Kai Leng is the Illusive Man's protege, as far as I can tell.

[Xenos]

Kai Leng should have been handled way better as a character. He was just way too over the top, and even the threatening letter he sends you makes me cringe.

 

I don't think I know anyone that likes the guy.

[Solkia]

Honestly I already hate Kaiden

 

Like goddamn what do you want from me, I saved the galaxy twice and all you can do is bitch about Cerberus

[Xenos]

People hate both Ashley and Kaidan, but honestly I grew to liking them both on subsequent playthroughs, dunno why.

[Solkia]

If you play Mass Effect 2 please romance Tali for the full experience

 

[Xenos]

My Shepard was quariansexual

 

I hope they're in ME4 so I can continue the legacy.

[Solkia]

Hopefully 10x more quarian girls and 10x less warping on top of shit.

 

I swear either my hardware is dying or ME2 on PC is glitchy as hell. I actually managed to fall into a pit to my death because I warped on top of and over railing. 

[Solkia]

 So I want to talk about something in Mass Effect 3 that blew my mind

 

 

Windowed mode with no borders.

It has all the benefits of fullscreen and all the benefits of windowed mode in one

for one I got all the screen caps just by pressing Prt Scrn, which in fullscreen results in a big black rectangle

second of all it is so easy to access other part of my computer now. I can go from this

to this

just by pressing the windows key, without ever exiting or minimizing the game. 

This needs to be a standard for PC ports.

[Solkia]

The battle in London is hurting my fucking eyes, the big walker thing keeps shooting the stupid laser which makes the screen shake and everything light up blue

 

who thought that was a good idea in a genre where you need precision?

[Xenos]

Oh yeah, I remember that. Gave me massive fucking headaches when I played through it.

 

But it's not the only questionable design choice at the end of this game tbh

[Solkia]

Man, I don't even know if I'll be able to do that second playthrough on my male Shepard because of this London thing.

 

Also do you know how clashing it is to go from one of those dream sequences of Shepard chasing that kid directly to FemShep laying half naked with the camera focused on her ass?

[Xenos]

I kind of wish that dream sequence only happened once near the end of the game. It honestly became tiring after like, the second time, even on my first playthrough.

 

And ass shots are very popular with the camera work in Mass Effect for very obvious some abnormal reason. Not nearly enough of Garrus though

[Solkia]

Fuck it, I know I'm 3 years too late to the drama but I want to vent about why ME3's ending is shitty to me personally, as well as a lot of the game. I'l talk about what I liked too though

 

Spoilers under the cut, for more than just 3

 

For the record I got to the London Seizuretastic battle, but when I saved and quit for the night stupid fucking origin's cloud got corrupted and I lost hours of progress, so I only saw the endings via youtube videos because I don't feel like going through all that again. I may be missing key things so bear with me. 

 

So yeah, the ending is exactly what I thought it would be. Yet again the stupid heroic sacrifice trope.

 

But there are plenty of games where heroic sacrifice didn't matter and was even well recieved, why is this any different?

 

Well, I'll tell you why: In this game, you are Shepard.

 

Shepard is basically a blank slate given to you to interact with the world we're given in the way we want. When you decide to blow up the Collector base, that was your choice.

 

When you decide to punch the news reporter in the face rather than turn your cheek, that is your choice.

 

When you decide to destroy the Geth, the Quarians, or make peace between them both, that's your choice.

 

When you decide to have bad taste and fuck someone not named Tali'Zorah, Liara T'Soni, or Garrus Vakarian, that's your choice to be lame.

 

Everything that goes on in theses games is your choice, you spend a long time interacting with the world given to you.

 

And then that shitty trope rips all of it apart. That's it. No more. You're gone. That self-insert you spent over 60 hours developing in the span of 3 games is taken from you. It's a bitter fucking feeling.

 

Now that I got my thoughts on the ending out of the way here's some things I also didn't like about 3:

 

• Some of the enemies get really obnoxious. Brutes and Banshees are bullet sponges that actively chase you, and it gets tiresome to fight them when you just want to get on with the game.
• A lot of the choices in 3 depend on your actions in 2. Which is fine, I knew that going in, but some of these conditions are way too damn anal.
• Cerberus was entirely obnoxious and intrusive. Don't even get me started on the evil Raiden clone.
• Do I even really need to talk about Joker and EDI because I'm under the assumption that shit speaks for itself.
• SFX are garbage. Guns went from making laser sounds to farting.
• Interacting with objects is really picky

Things I DID like:

 

• I liked have access to all weapons off the bat with the restriction of weight
• My ass looked great
• The side characters were great in 3. Never at any point did I imagine Tali hated Miranda, and it was nice to meet Samara's daughters.
• Physical combat actually doesn't suck anymore
• You don't get worn out when you run
• Objective markers
• Improved visuals
• Emails from the Krogan

So yeah. Mass Effect 3. That person on the front page said it all, the ending ruins it.

[Xenos]

Yeah that's pretty much my feelings with the game, although I'd say the extended cut heals the wounds a bit, and the Citadel DLC heals the wounds

a lot. (Srsly get the dlc srsly print money if you have too)

[Chaos Incarnate]

So..... Andromeda. That was boring. I hate to say it, but I feel like the series is dead, or at least going to be in cryo for a longggg time. What did people think of Andromeda on here? There were a lot of ideas in it that I liked, like more focus on a smaller squad, but I gave up less than halfway through. I didn't like any of the characters, and I hated the combat. Getting rid of the power wheel was a huge misstep. I can't believe Bioware botched it up so badly. 

[Korke]

So... Mass Effect Andromeda... Played it pretty late but eventually I would have to look it with my own eyes. After all I think I have like around... [(30*6)+(40*6)+(40*6)]=660 hrs spent with the original trilogy.

I just finished it, with some small quests to be done yet. I've had a good time playing it overall, 45hrs of gameplay.

Honestly, the game is not that disaster the internet made it look like to the public. The bashing was so high that when I got the game I was getting psychologically prepared - expecting to face something like Sonic 06 or Forces (which I painfully finished some weeks ago), although I think my game is patched. Maybe the 1.0 version could have had bad things that I did not see because they were fixed.

I agree that the excessive side quests was a bad decision, there are just too much MMO-like quests that try to artificially extend the game time. I heard that DA:I had the exact same issue, but I never played it to confirm.

But I don't agree with the shots that the concept of open world in ME is receiving. It felt right most of the time, giving good ME1 vibes of exploring uncharted worlds.

I also don't understand the shots that the main squad cast is receiving. I think most of them are interesting enough for a one-shot story.

The characters we love from the OT wouldn't have been so special to us if it wasn't for two additional games... especially a certain GOTY-worthy masterpiece called ME2. Both ME:A and ME1 had to introduce everyone from scratch and I think ME:A was as good as ME1 on that job.

It is true that the quantity of humor is off-balance. I think they got the wrong message with the content of Citadel DLC being full of it and loved by the fans. That was our final goodbye with the cast, and the whole point of the activities was to give screentime and good moments with those characters we already know everything about. - Although with a brand new cast facing a dire situation sounded... a little forced.

I liked Vetra, Peebee, Cora and Drack. Jaal was ok-ish and Lian was meh. Although I agree that some stuff was very mishandled, like:

Spoiler

Peebee's have ZERO CONSEQUENCES with the escape pod drop-off thing. It was in-character to screw up like that, but the problem was that nor Ryder nor anybody in the ship did anything to her afterwards. She also doesn't really make a strong scene of apologies, even if you are in a romance with her as I did.

The introduction of Wrex is better than Drack's but honestly, putting the same cards and conflicts that happened in the OT to make struggles in the friendship building would feel repetitive. It was fine.

The new dialogue wheel was a step to the right direction, but at the same time I think it has some disadvantages. The Paragon-Renegade system from the classic games could had been shallow but at the same time, I felt even more encouraged to make a second playthrough when I touched ME1 for the first time. There was a guarantee that you would find new outcomes, dialogues and banter, especially after ME2's introduction of narrative actions.

... Speaking of which, they were very lacking in ME:A. One of my complaints of the OT is that no matter how things went, Shepard would always act like the default soldier class in the scenes, and I was hoping ME:A to finally make things more rewarding. It wouldn't hurt to adapt Ryder to use some actions with biotics or tech, while still having a same outcome (or maybe not! different outcomes encourage more playthroughs, so it would be even better)

There was nothing that could stand some badass moments from the OT like headbutting a krogan, shouting at admirals or shooting Thane's son's hostage in the head so he would stand down - quite the memorable scene.

The combat is the strongest part of the game. It was better than every game from the OT. It would had been perfect if I could order my squadmate to use powers when I wanted though.

It is true that the game is unpolished. There are some abrupt cuts between CGI's and cutscenes, leaving a weird feeling... that the game has skipped something.

But overall, I liked it. Too bad I will never ever see Vetra, Peebee or Drack ever again because the game flopped...