Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread [Spoiler tag free, beware]

[tmp]

Obviously not all the changes were fan feedback, but stuff like how speccing worked and the combat were at least in part due to feedback (combat doesn't feel particularly responsive in DA:O, mage staff attacks are basically embarrassing in DA:O, the stamina system isn't nearly as shitty, etc).

Yup, pretty much. Lot of stuff that's there is pretty obviously due to cutting corners in struggle to push the damn thing out two weeks ago, but the parts that aren't, well.

[Thrawn]

Wow, the ending really was that bad.  I was assuming it was typical internet crying and people making a fuss over nothing...but it really is that terrible. 

Pretty much the entire end of the game ran off a cliff, starting getting small bugs, side missions felt shorter and less involved etc. etc.

Overall I really enjoyed the game, but those endings...wow.  I even got the "secret ending" and that made it even worse.

[Sjofn]

It isn't quite as shitty the second time you do it, if that helps, because by then your soul has already been wounded and has scarred over and you spend the entire time going "man, fuck whoever wrote this" but there's no "wait, this can't fucking be how they're choosing to end this, because this is terrible."

Er, at least that's how it worked for me. 

[Surlyboi]

At least you get to disembowel Kai Leng in a cut scene.

I still would've preferred head-shotting his bitch-ass with the carnifex, but hey...

[Sjofn]

That renegade interrupt is the winner of "interrupt I can't imagine ever, ever skipping." Because fuck Kai Leng. Stupid stupid fucking character with plot armor and the power of cutscenes.

[tmp]

It's especially satisfying the way it's set up, with everyone going blind out of sudden and that long limping forward. I was going "renegade interrupt gimme gimme gimme" entire time. And then bam, epic payoff. About the only place in game where that stupid omniblade was of use

Hale's delivery was spot-on, too.



sidenote: those eyelashes they give female characters are ridiculous

[Paelos]

It's Revlon, for battle.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Maybe she's born with it.

[Nightblade]

It's especially satisfying the way it's set up, with everyone going blind out of sudden and that long limping forward. I was going "renegade interrupt gimme gimme gimme" entire time. And then bam, epic payoff. About the only place in game where that stupid omniblade was of use

Hale's delivery was spot-on, too.

sidenote: those eyelashes they give female characters are ridiculous

God, did anyone else feel like this scene was incredibly stupid, forced and predictable?

K we killed space katana faggot in an incredibly anti climatic matter, lets all TURN AROUND AND IGNORE HIM FOR A BIT

*Kai Leng lurches forward... VERY LOUDLY*

*Slow motion wepon break into cheesy action movie one liner*

A friend of mine in IRC puts this, and the general state of the game a better way:

*Thane ME2 introduction video linked*
<@army_of_300000_draculas> everything about it is missing in 3
<@army_of_300000_draculas> any scene focused on a character
<@army_of_300000_draculas> the feeling of a moment
<@army_of_300000_draculas> the sunset
<@army_of_300000_draculas> in 3 there would be two lines of dialogue exchanged about how the tower was exploding and then you'd have to run down the side of it while lasers shoot at you then thane would be in your ship and you could talk to him but not in a conversation with wheel choices...

I swear, Shepard *ALMOST DIES* so many times during the game I stopped giving a shit.

Everyone talks about how great the rest of the game was aside from the ending, but I see it more like a few pockets of greatness blotted out by an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

[Ratman_tf]

K we killed space katana faggot in an incredibly anti climatic matter, lets all TURN AROUND AND IGNORE HIM FOR A BIT

This part was painful to watch. Your squadmates mill around like mindless dipshits. Not even WATCHING THE ONLY OBVIOUS ENTRACE WHILE SHEPARD'S BACK IS TURNED TO IT.

[Surlyboi]

The first time I fought him, I ran out of ammo and ended up using powers to finish him and that damned phantom, he was down before the her and then I ran around torching her jackrabbit ass.

Never mind the fact that I would have put two extra rounds in the back of his prone skull before sitting down at the console, ya know, just to be sure.

[caladein]

The Thane thing is a little difficult to unpack.  On one hand, a lot of his character is tied into taking full advantage of a locked-in conversation mode in the (overwrought in my opinion) way they handle his flashbacks.  And it's not like ME3 doesn't use proper conversation mode.  It's sort of chicken and egg.  Would Thane work in a context where some of those kinds of conversations aren't dealt with in that particular way anymore, or does he emerge from exploring that context in the first place?  (Like sparring with Vega.)

Along the same vein, I'll be replaying ME2 shortly as a male, and I wonder how many times I'll feel like an ME3 interrupt SHOULD be there, but isn't.  I know ME1 was a bit weird going back knowing that there weren't any after playing ME2 when it came out.

[tmp]

God, did anyone else feel like this scene was incredibly stupid, forced and predictable?

Sure; but the guy is such annoying cockbag, getting to press that red interrupt was still extremely satisfying.

[Abelian75]

Maybe she's born with it.

Well played, sir.

[jakonovski]

DLC rumors making the rounds, along with some drama. Contains details of possible upcoming story elements so read those bits at your own risk.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/10560313/1


Spoilered for huge.

[tmp]

Volus antagonist. This is all.

[Jeff Kelly]

That whole outline reads like  . Like a Evangelion plot that even the Japanese would discard.

Space boy turns into reaper kid and fights synthetics throughout the Galaxy, after most of the players proved that the whole premise is flawed with Geth and Quarians making peace and such.

This explains so much though. They already had the plot for the next installment of Mass Effect and needed to shoehorn it into 3

[Mosesandstick]

If you made me put money on it, I'd say that's a troll. The post reads like fan-service.

"Dragon Age 2, which was not yet in alpha status"

I'm not a video game designer but I don't think DA2 was in alpha.

[tmp]

In addition to the idea that member of species serving as comic relief through the series would suddenly become the major threat, the cast/player's team supposedly includes:

Xy - Hanar exiled for his "problematic" confidence and impoliteness.
Filbert - Biotic elcor too small/weak to live amongst his own kind.
Bresha - Female krogan, distant granddaughter of Wrex.

draw your own conclusions.

[Simond]

Or, you know, it's from 4chan. No real need for any deeper analysis than that.

[Jeff Kelly]

Counterpoint: If the end of ME3 had been leaked prior to the game, none of us would have believed it because it would have sounded stupid.

[Sjofn]

God, did anyone else feel like this scene was incredibly stupid, forced and predictable?

Sure; but the guy is such annoying cockbag, getting to press that red interrupt was still extremely satisfying.

Yes, yes indeed. Who has the power of cutscenes now, asshole!

[Ratman_tf]

Counterpoint: If the end of ME3 had been leaked prior to the game, none of us would have believed it because it would have sounded stupid.

I dread any DLC fix for the end that Bioware puts out. I think it's only going to make things worse.

[Simond]

IGN seems to have suddenly realised that they look like utter corporate whores and are frantically trying to backpedal: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/122/1221492p1.html

[Paelos]

What, did they suddenly lose funding?

[Tannhauser]

IGN seems to have suddenly realised that they look like utter corporate whores and are frantically trying to backpedal: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/122/1221492p1.html

AHHHHHH HAHHAHAHHAHA  "Bu..bu..but yeah we know Colin gave it a 9.5 but it wasn't ALL that!  In fact here are some problems we have with the game now that we've been called out on our whoring!"

I wonder what profession has a higher suicide rate; comedians or game 'journalists'.

[jakonovski]

What, did they suddenly lose funding?

More like some suit found out that his underlings are acting as EA PR Central without getting anything in return.

[koro]

What, did they suddenly lose funding?

More like some suit found out that his underlings are acting as EA PR Central without getting anything in return.

Sounds more like: "we've gotten all of the ad dollars we're probably going to be getting out of ME3, so it's safe to voice our real opinions on the title now that the court of public opinion's beating the shit out of it."

[Paelos]

I don't know what's more pathetic, the fact that they don't even stand by their inflated score in the first place, or the fact that they thought anybody would buy into their PR backpedal now.

[tmp]

What, did they suddenly lose funding?

Maybe the check bounced. After all why would EA actually want to pay now when all is said and done and the review is out.

[Maledict]

I don't object to the original review score - for 95% of the game, ME3 is one of the best games I've ever played. What I object to is the absolute *scorn* flung at gamers by the games industry over the last two weeks, in particular so called 'games journalism'. Ive never seen an entertainment industry so happy to attack the consumers so viciously and unpleasantly. It's really mystifying to me what places like IGN and Destructoid think they were achieving when they decided that the best course of action was just to attack gamers head on.

It's pretty sad when Forbes are the best journalists out there - and look at the personal abuse heaped on their journalist by other games media people.

[Jeff Kelly]

Well the elephant in the room nobody talks about is the codependent relationship of the games industry and game reviewers. The forbes guy catches a lot of heat even though he explicitly denies that payola or advertising money is the reason for the disconnect. The problem is that it usually is.

It makes me sad that even guys who literally got fired over bad review scores like Giant Bomb's Jeff Gurstman somehow don't like to talk about that issue. With the way the industry works today the publishers can and do exert a lot of pressure. It's not like Bioware has its own advertising budget, all of that will be managed by EA, just like any other EA published game. So a bad review could cost you the whole EA advertising budget.

Secondly nearly no game reviewer plays all of the games through to the end, which is understandable given the sheer amount of games that get released every month. Most of them like to give you the impression that they did though, if just to block all of the "how can you give a review score to a game you didn't finish" kind of questions.

So a cock-up like with ME3 exposes a lot of the inner workings of the games industry in a way that even normal people notice it, which makes a lot of people in the business really defensive.

There has to be an institutional bias either financially motivated or for other reasons otherwise reviews would be more diverse. Even though the general opinion about the end is negative there are people who liked it so even though a lot of reviewers seem to be awed by the game there should be the odd "I hated that game" review out there.

They are so rare though that the few there are get handed around in fan circles. Hell a non gaming publication (Forbes) seems most unbiased which is rather telling.

I just finished listening to the latest Giant Bombcast and I think there is another reason. There is a real disconnect between gamers and game reviewers. There clearly is all of the bullshit that comes with the way the industry works but in addition to that there is something else.

Nobody at the table knew enough about the franchise to really grasp that the end is not only badly written but also invalidates the story of all three games and doesn't even connect to the story of ME3. They all basically made the "the fans wouldn't really have liked any end" argument, a few of the people even admitted to not having finished the game or even rememering the finer plot points of the previous games.

The biggest issue I noticed though was that nobody got why people got so emotionally invested in a game ("I don't get it" was said repeatedly) because none of them was. That's why they don't get that gamers see those games differently than them. They play so many games that ME3's end while being bad is still not that bad for a video game and that they've lost the motional connection to the object of their review.

It struck me that game reviewing has become more like car reviewing. It has lost its emotional connection. It's more like a list of bullet points in which the story is just one of many different things and usually not more important than for example great multiplayer support.

[Tannhauser]

Hollywood didn't mock the fans who thought ROTJ was crap compared to the first two.  But it's OK to mock gamers that it's 'just a game'?  I spent six times on this game than I would at a movie, I think that gives me permission to hate it.  Maybe it's because gaming is still a bit of a social stigma?

Tastes are different, but when you have around 90% of your consumers hating your games ending, that's a problem. 

Lastly, why are reviewers giving out scores when they haven't finished the game?  Going back to my movie analogy, whould you trust a reviewer who left early from "The Sixth Sense" and says "Meh, psych doctor tries to get thru to troubled kid.  Boring."

[Fabricated]

It really is weird how the whole payola thing never gets discussed when it's so patently obvious and Gurstman's firing literally proved it. They ran tons of ads for Kane and Lynch, Gurstman gave it a shitty review because it was a bad game, he got fired.

Publishers pay the big sites for good reviews for major AAA titles...and no one really cares.

[Margalis]

There are like a million things wrong with game reviews, most of which could be solved by more talented people.

But why would a talented person write game reviews? Not to say that there are zero talented reviewers but there sure aren't many. And there probably shouldn't be, given that it sucks the fun out of a hobby, pays poorly, and puts you in the company of mostly talentless hacks.

I always loved this farewell from Kieron Gillen:

Games Journalism pays badly because masses of people want to do the job. And the very best candidates will do the job – at least for a while - for that money. You are entirely disposable. So why pay more?

This is entirely beside the point and will only drive you mad if you think about it. It is beyond your control.

What they don’t tell you is that they don’t pick the writers randomly. From that mob of people who want to be games journalists, they can pick. And, because these are not stupid people, they pick the best available. They’re not going to pay for better writing, but since it doesn’t cost them any more, they may as well have it.

In other words, don’t think about the fact you’re replaceable. Think about the fact that out of the enormous mob of people who wanted your job, you’re the one who got it. No matter how much they treat you with disdain, they actually think you’re the best.

In other words, have some pride.

And be aware that you’re almost certainly pretty talented and could have done anything with this ball of nerves and words in your head. Instead, you’re wasting years of your life because you’re stupid enough to care about something no-one else does. If you didn’t have this strange compulsion, you could be doing anything. And afterwards – because games journalism isn’t a career for life yet – you probably will.

The reason I love it is that it's delusional. It's like - just wow. It could be the single most wrong thing I've ever read. The fact that someone could put these words to paper absolutely blows my mind.