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

[Sjofn]

By the way:

- Going by how Jeff Kelly put down other characters' personalities in regard to romance, Jacob's actually the most well adjusted. Least amount of baggage.

Until they do a bizarre bit of character assassination in ME3, anyway.

[rk47]

oh yeah Jacobs.
They suddenly gave him a hell lot of baggage in that one.
I'm both surprised and confused really.

And Liara continues to confound me with her flip flopping between 'hardened Shadow Broker' on Mars and 'Oh, I'm clumsy and naive girl' while on the Normandy. Make up your mind.
also

[tmp]

I like Jennifer Hale a lot in general, but I'll be honest, I don't find anything especially special about her VA in the ME series.

For me her voice work was more of a "generally spot on and doesn't get in the way in a manner that'd turn me off from playing the character" deal. I don't check game VA credits so didn't know what to expect in that regard -- picked female Shepard simply because it was infinitely more appealing idea than yet another Brave Male Space Marine, and the delivery i got never broke the immersion or made me reconsider that choice.

[Fabricated]

I didn't like Jennifer Hale's Shep because it sounded like a character where Meer's while kinda stilted sounded more like a human being. Jennifer's Shep is like Hayter's Solid Snake; NO ONE SOUNDS LIKE THAT- it's a cool character and everything and we like Snake but no one on fucking earth sounds or talks like that.

[Nayr]

Well considering the messed up shit Jacob found his father doing in ME2, I can see why it'd bother him.

Ronald Taylor. . .

. . .purposely kept people on an alien planet when they have families to go home to.

. . .threw out all the men and created his own harem of the women.

. . .forced everyone to eat food which caused brain damage.

. . .spent nine years sexually abusing people who had the mental capacity of children.


Then through Shepard's choice, Jacob can. . .

. . .send his father to prison.

. . .leave his father to be killed by the people he hurt.

. . .give him a gun and force him to kill himself.


But that just amounts to a single line in ME3. Shepard: Ever think about what happened with your father? Jacob: Haunts me, more like.

But Jacob has made nice progress in other areas though. He's realized Cerberus is a pack of assholes. He's got himself a girlfriend and a kid on the way(unless you're a femshep who romanced him, in which case he's a cheating dick.)

[Lantyssa]

Storm is being awfully quiet. 

How many times are we going to make the poor guy defend Ashley and get into a discussion about perception versus intention?

[Merusk]

I was thinking more along the lines of the, "Yeah we made a teenage male spank fantasy race, but it's totally not pandering because LOOK, LORE JUSTIFICATION!"  discussion.

[Paelos]

It probably would have been better if they didn't go into a designed whore mode for hundreds of years.

[TheWalrus]

In what way would that have been better? 

[Paelos]

Because then it wouldn't be a ridiculous LCD parody of the industry at large.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, but... BLUE SPACE-WHORES!  Why do you hate blue space-whores? 

[Fabricated]

I don't really care if I could cure Ashley of her xenophobia; I'm sure I could probably turn a lot of baby boomers by physically dragging them around "A Christmas Tale" style to see the misery their shitty views inflict, but personally my preferred solution and the one I'm going with is hoping they die off quickly.

[Polysorbate80]

I didn't like Jennifer Hale's Shep because it sounded like a character where Meer's while kinda stilted sounded more like a human being. Jennifer's Shep is like Hayter's Solid Snake; NO ONE SOUNDS LIKE THAT- it's a cool character and everything and we like Snake but no one on fucking earth sounds or talks like that.

C'mon, she was FAR better than ManShep in 1 and 2.  ME3, not as much; he stepped up his performance while hers did feel like it slipped.

My favorite dialogue is the "old married couple"-type FemShep/Liara interactions in Shadow Broker.  Arguing in the taxi, bullshitting while trying to get into the Broker's ship, etc.

[tmp]

I didn't like Jennifer Hale's Shep because it sounded like a character where Meer's while kinda stilted sounded more like a human being. Jennifer's Shep is like Hayter's Solid Snake; NO ONE SOUNDS LIKE THAT- it's a cool character and everything and we like Snake but no one on fucking earth sounds or talks like that.

Interesting, my impression was --if anything-- quite the opposite. At least in the first game, Meer felt too detached and not really present in the world he's supposed to be part of. Hale's deliery on the other hand was pretty normal, but unlike her male counterpart she seems to actually be giving some fucks. I'd attribute the "no one talks like that" more to the writing itself, and that's shared by both characters.

[Nayr]

Storm is being awfully quiet.  

How many times are we going to make the poor guy defend Ashley and get into a discussion about perception versus intention?

Hey, I liked Ashley in Mass Effect 1 & 2 when he wrote her. Her shock and anger over Shepard and Cerberus were understandable, and her email made it all better.

But when ME3 happened, when Ashley was under someone else's pen, they made her a total bitch with no sense of common logic for half the game. Her faith never comes up again, her dislike of aliens seemingly became redirected to Cerberus(to Shepard's detriment,) and they turned her into a supermodel. She's tanned, different nose, new hairstyle, and she's got a skanky new uniform to go with her promotion to Lieutenant Commander.

I'm a PS3 user, so I started out with ME2 and never really got to know Ash and Kaidan until ME3. And in ME3 I preferred Kaidan because wasn't constantly mistrusting Shepard. When I finally got to play ME1 last month, I saw a side of Ashley I actually liked. Tho I gotta admit, "I cant tell the aliens from the animals" is pretty rude of her, just sayin'.

[Jeff Kelly]

My misgivings about the characterisations aside (which were totally and intentionally over the top), Kaidan and Ashley serve a story purpose in ME1. They frame the larger story about humanity's place in the ME Universe.

Ashley serves as the skeptical xenophobic side who is wary about the technological and cultural speedup and suffers from culture shock. 'The Aliens don't want us and we don't want to be there either'

Kaidan serves as the window into the darker side of the galaxy and shows us that the new humanity and also the Aliens can be evil or amoral and that not only humanity has their xenophobic and dark sides.

Anderson is the realist who acknowledges that you can't turn back time and put the genie back into the bottle and that the galaxy can profit from the fresh blood the Alliance brings as much as the Aliance profits from them.

Udina is the opportunist whose credo is 'Humanity first' and who believes in humanity's exceptionalism and its claim to power.

Since you can push the story into any of those directions it makes sense that the characters give you a certain frame of reference.

[Fabricated]

I didn't like Jennifer Hale's Shep because it sounded like a character where Meer's while kinda stilted sounded more like a human being. Jennifer's Shep is like Hayter's Solid Snake; NO ONE SOUNDS LIKE THAT- it's a cool character and everything and we like Snake but no one on fucking earth sounds or talks like that.

Interesting, my impression was --if anything-- quite the opposite. At least in the first game, Meer felt too detached and not really present in the world he's supposed to be part of. Hale's deliery on the other hand was pretty normal, but unlike her male counterpart she seems to actually be giving some fucks. I'd attribute the "no one talks like that" more to the writing itself, and that's shared by both characters.

Meer sounds a stilted because of how straight he reads his lines in ME1/2 (I still have not bought ME3), but Hale always kinda sounds like she's hissing or grunting out her lines to me. I only really think about it since my WoW guild had a big vent discussion about ME1/2 I believe when we were farming ToTC, and the wife of one of my guildmates described FemShep as having a "pornstar voice". For some reason that really made me laugh and I had a hard time listening to her VA after that.

[Nayr]

My misgivings about the characterisations aside (which were totally and intentionally over the top), Kaidan and Ashley serve a story purpose in ME1. They frame the larger story about humanity's place in the ME Universe.

Ashley serves as the skeptical xenophobic side who is wary about the technological and cultural speedup and suffers from culture shock. 'The Aliens don't want us and we don't want to be there either'

Kaidan serves as the window into the darker side of the galaxy and shows us that the new humanity and also the Aliens can be evil or amoral and that not only humanity has their xenophobic and dark sides.

Anderson is the realist who acknowledges that you can't turn back time and put the genie back into the bottle and that the galaxy can profit from the fresh blood the Alliance brings as much as the Aliance profits from them.

Udina is the opportunist whose credo is 'Humanity first' and who believes in humanity's exceptionalism and its claim to power.

Since you can push the story into any of those directions it makes sense that the characters give you a certain frame of reference.

Well that's usually what you see on the outside. In some of those cases, there's more underneath.

Ashley's dislike of aliens came from the fact that her family lives as pariahs because her grandfather was the only human to ever surrender to aliens and the Alliance used him as their scapegoat, claiming he was incompetent when he had plenty of reason. After she resolves this issue, she does pretty well. When she became a Spectre, she was willing to die defending the Council from Cerberus.

Kaidan didn't know it, but the reason this were the way they were at BAaT because Cerberus pulled a lot of the strings when it comes to biotics in general. They detonated eezo rigs over cities and killed hundreds at a time just to spawn a few biotics. One of whom was Kaidan. Kaidan implies that he thought Conatix Industries, who funded BAaT, had something to do with it because of their timely attention to events. So if you put two and two together, Cerberus was behind Conatix. Or at the very least, Conatix was one of Cerberus' benefactors. Hiring mercenaries to train the students allowed them to understand how other species use biotics, and kept it out of official channels.

As for Anderson, I think his role is mostly as a mentor. The Shepard before Shepard. Revelation showed how good he is at his job, even if Saren did scapegoat him. Retribution and Deception show that he's still sharp, even after he's become an old soldier who gives orders instead of taking them. As for his attitude, when he's not voicing the needs of the Alliance, I think he doesn't give a damn about politics, it's a headache for him, and he'd rather be back out where the action is.

As for Udina. That fuck was in Cerberus' pocket. Not surprising though. When I first saw him playing ME2 I thought that he was just the kind of guy who'd support them. Second best renegade action ever was putting a bullet in his heart.

[Nayr]

oh yeah Jacobs.
They suddenly gave him a hell lot of baggage in that one.
I'm both surprised and confused really.

And Liara continues to confound me with her flip flopping between 'hardened Shadow Broker' on Mars and 'Oh, I'm clumsy and naive girl' while on the Normandy. Make up your mind.
also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYT66ALUUss&list=LLXXYoalP50gbzxFdDwzO30Q

[Sjofn]

He's got himself a girlfriend and a kid on the way(unless you're a femshep who romanced him, in which case he's a cheating dick.)

Yes, welcome to why his romance goes from "closest to normal and well adjusted" to "FUCK YOU."


Also, I will perhaps agree Hale was the better Shepard in ME1, but not in ME2. She swapped between sounding nasal and bored, creepy cougar, and occasionally actually normal in ME2. ME2 is her weakest performance as Shepard by far. I could barely stand being LadyShepard in ME2, I actually like her again in ME3.

[Polysorbate80]

creepy cougar

Yeah, but since you're the only person in the entire Internet who romanced Jacob, nobody else heard it.  So it gets a pass  

Edit: speelng iz tuff

[Ingmar]

I just wish they had hooked him up with Kasumi instead of random new girl. Not least because it would make her ME3 situation WAY less dysfunctional.

[Nayr]

I just wish they had hooked him up with Kasumi instead of random new girl. Not least because it would make her ME3 situation WAY less dysfunctional.

Well following up on Keiji's graybox data was a good thing to do with her, especially considering how it ties into things.

http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy146/chellick/MassEffect22011-04-0306-39-18-94.jpg

As you can see, there's an image of a Reaper in those files.

So an Alliance raid gone bad on a Batarian Research station that has a Reaper. The Leviathan of Dis. The billion year old living starship corpse the Batarians found on Jartar and covered up. As Balak claims, it is responsible for indoctrinating high ranking people in the Hegemony, which is why the Reapers fucked them up so badly.

And anybody who's played Leviathan knows the LoD was killed by a surviving member of the Reapers' creator race. And the Alliance discovering the Leviathan of Dis' existence is why Task Force Aurora was looking for the being that killed it, and Hackett, the one commanding the task force put Shepard on the job, leading him to discover the Reapers' origins.

[Sjofn]

creepy cougar

Yeah, but since you're the only person in the entire Internet who romanced Jacob, nobody else heard it.  So it gets a pass  

Edit: speelng iz tuff

She does it with Thane too.

[tmp]

Meer sounds a stilted because of how straight he reads his lines in ME1/2 (I still have not bought ME3), but Hale always kinda sounds like she's hissing or grunting out her lines to me. I only really think about it since my WoW guild had a big vent discussion about ME1/2 I believe when we were farming ToTC, and the wife of one of my guildmates described FemShep as having a "pornstar voice". For some reason that really made me laugh and I had a hard time listening to her VA after that.

The "pornstar voice" thing immediately made me recall the "flirting with Jacob" sequences in ME2, so i think i'd have to disagree with that guildmate's take -- as in, because there's really big change in Hale's voice work when it happens, and yeah it's really grating then... but she doesn't sound anything like that outside of these bits. So her normal voice acting feels to me, well, normal.

The 'hissing and grunting', my impression was just she used a low pitch. It doesn't seem far off from her own voice, and it also happens to be something i have soft spot for, so maybe it invoked a more favourable reaction.

[Nayr]

According to wikipedia, Erica Cerra has been cast to play Ashley Williams in the upcoming ME movie Legendary Pictures is making.

Makes sense looking to the face model to play the role. Should appease zealot fans some. Although if they get Mark Vanderloo to be Shepard, they need to dub him with Mark Meer. Or just, y'know, get Mark Meer to play the part.

[Nayr]

DLC teasers, courtesy of Casey Hudson and Michael Gamble.

Story DLC:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BBtkNdDCMAAXLPY.jpg:large

Multiplayer DLC:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BBtkol9CAAAPYru.jpg:large


Edit - Update:

Evil Chris Priestly said on Twitter there might be more information around mid-February. Which is only a couple of weeks away.

[Nayr]

Triple post, really? Damn, this topic is dead.

But I shall contribute nonetheless!!

New patch out for ME3. http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/324/index/15743944/1

Hello Mass Effect fans
 
There is a new Mass Effect 3 patch now available for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 .

Content:
Fixed a multiplayer issue where users could have all of their weapons use rocket ammunition.
Fixed an issue with high memory usage when initializing DLCs.

[Shrike]

Hey, I liked Ashley in Mass Effect 1 & 2 when he wrote her. Her shock and anger over Shepard and Cerberus were understandable, and her email made it all better.

Seriously? After that attitude on Horizon? She burned bridges with that stunt. Email? Email?!? Too little, too late.

You find out who your friends really are in ME2 and she ain't one of them. Some folks have faith in you and some don't. No coming back from that.

[Sjofn]

I have never understood this need some people have to have companion characters be fucking doormats that nod and politely go along with every goddamn thing you do. Friends don't necessarily immediately get over the fact someone is a) actually alive after two years of thinking they were dead and b) working for an organization they know was doing some fucked up shit and have precisely zero reason to think they've changed. I can't blame Ashley or Kaidan for being all "uh, wtf?" about it, as I am pretty sure I would be too. They also just saw half a colony they were trying to protect get abducted, so it's not like they're in a great mood to start with.

There should've been more in ME2 to soften Horizon, I think, but I am willing to handwave it somewhat due to knowing there were probably restrictions on how much they could do with Ashley and Kaidan in ME2 to start with.

[Lantyssa]

I like spirited opinions in my crew, but the way things went was a little too drastic.  There was no benefit of the doubt given at all, despite Shepard having given everything to stop the Reapers, and them being intimately aware of how little support the Council gave.  They were too close to Shepard up to that point for it to have played out the way it did.

[Tebonas]

Ashleys reaction actually worked for me because she was my love interest. I don't know how I would have felt if she weren't, though.

[Nayr]

Hey, I liked Ashley in Mass Effect 1 & 2 when he wrote her. Her shock and anger over Shepard and Cerberus were understandable, and her email made it all better.

Seriously? After that attitude on Horizon? She burned bridges with that stunt. Email? Email?!? Too little, too late.

You find out who your friends really are in ME2 and she ain't one of them. Some folks have faith in you and some don't. No coming back from that.

And you find out in Mass Effect 3 that Ash and Kaidan were right about Cerberus manipulating Shepard. You find the terminal showing the Illusive Man handpicking a crew that Shepard would be comfortable with and make him sympathetic of Cerberus. And reassuring his scientists that he can keep Shepard committed.

And there's the scene in the cerberus base when you run into the Proto-Reaper and they lament not joining on Horizon.

I don't blame Ash and Kaidan for not joining in ME2, unlike Dr Chakwas, who'd gotten a proper leave, Ash and Kaidan had responsibilities, and if they had joined me they would have been guilty of desertion and aiding terrorists, both capital offenses and they had none of the goodwill Shepard had to avoid punishment.

Also it would be a little hard to believe that a person can come back from the dead, religion or no.

My only problem is in ME3 when they're acting like morons. Seriously, if I was on Cerberus' side, why would I be killing the Illusive Man's men by the dozens and undermining his plan?

[Stormwaltz]

Robin Sachs (Zaeed) died on Friday. It was just announced on his website.

http://robinsachs.com/

[Ingmar]