1966 réponses à ce sujet

[Gamer391]

Landon7001 wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

There is so much that is good about all three ME games, so much that is quality and that just draws you in and makes you care. Unfortunately, all that has gone before is over-shadowed by what we are left with in the end.

I’d be lying if I said these games are not worth playing, but in telling or advising anyone to play them I’d leave them with this caveat; the ending very likely will diminish the desire to replay them. I wouldn’t feel honest in just letting them be “surprised” though I think it would be hard for anyone that plays games to have ignored the buzz over the ME3 ending.
ME is a journey, but one capped off by disaster. No matter how much fun it was along the way, the fun is all too soon forgotten.

As well, what the ending does is makes other game flaws and warts more visible and less forgivable and forgettable. Day one DLC, LOTSB DLC, required multiplayer that was not supposed to be required. And all of this would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that there is a segment of game buyers out there that have no broadband connection (can’t afford it or can’t get it) and/or no xbox live gold. What will these people do for the EC?
There is also the in-game hunt for war assets that just becomes reaper tag and gets old very quickly and war assets are just reduced to numbers which really have no major significance once you hit certain thresholds. At some point you can almost stop playing the game and looking for war assets.

Then there’s even the insertion of the “real” kid upon whom the ending star kid is based. Shepard winces at his death, but when Shepard shoots someone s/he actually cares about, Anderson, there’s just nothing. I assert the kid was not needed anywhere within the game. Shepard had plenty of people to care about, to put a face on things as Mordin said.
The Crucible-all this work expended on something no one knows anything about. It appears to be a weapon-the greatest minds think it is, but in the end that’s really what it isn’t. It’s a magical DNA synthesizer, a reaper control beam creator, and is only partly a weapon. It is however not targeted by the reapers as Hackett thinks it will be. It’s left alone.
And then the ending itself. TIM magically appears-how is unknown. TIM controls Shepard and Anderson-how is unknown. TIM and Shepard have magical guns. Then, Shepard gets up to where the kid is and magically Shepard is turned into a spineless weasel. The kid says the created creator stupid stuff and Shepard doesn’t disagree, though Shepard has disagreed on this very point several times over the 3 games. The kid says he controls the reapers so he has been turning countless cycles of people into goo and now wants to turn people Shepard cares about into goo. And Shepard does and says nothing other than that people wouldn’t like that, they want to keep their current form. Way to go, Shepard. That’s telling him. The kid then says he’s there to save people from his own solution, the reapers. In effect, he is there to save people from him. Wow, this is brilliant. Seriously, what child wrote this?

Why wouldn’t Shepard at least yell something, anything. Hey, kid, you control them, then stop this. The whole star kid scene is one of sheer and utter stupidity and foisted upon us as something super intellectual. It is as another user stated, a shaggy god story and a deus ex machine ending and has as such over the years been excoriated by SF and other writers as the most common and lazy way to end stories. Publishers consistently reject any story that features this kind of thing because it is as if the writers of it used a template and merely changed the actor’s names and motivations. Not my words-it is those that make a living at this stuff that have called it lazy.

Then we come to the choices. This is something best explained away if you impose them upon any other type of game. EA makes sports games. How about football-the player is running for a touchdown and gets near the endzone and the game stops and up pops 3 choices. These choices will determine whether a touchdown is made or not. This is in effect what happens at the end of ME3. The player and Shepard are given 3 arbitrary, ambiguous, artificially created choices that were not created out of all that the player has done through the 3 games. A football player and his team will determine through their actions on the field whether they will make a touchdown and so imposing the 3 choices makes everything that came before unimportant.
Onto the choices themselves. First off, it’s necessary to repeat that there’s no way Shepard would even make one-the kid’s evil or crazy or both and certainly not a kid. He could be Harbinger, so is not to be trusted.

But should Shepard make a choice, all but one must lead to death. Why? Only because Shepard must die.

Control-godhood and Shepard never wanted to be a god. Also, anyone that had been fooled into thinking they could control the reapers had already been indoctrinated. Furthermore, nonsense-Shepard dies but controls the reapers. Neat trick.

Synthesis-another type of godhood and the destruction of individuality. Also discussed repeatedly throughout the 3 games and anyone who’s tried to even partially achieve this has been crazy, evil, and/or indoctrinated. Stated goal of Sovereign through Saren. Eschewed by Mordin. Attempted by TIM. And Reapers are one possible form of an attempt at synthesis.

Destroy-still another form of godhood, the decision of who lives and who dies. Also, genocide and fratricide depending upon Shepard’s choices in the game. In effect, Shepard will kill the noble life Shepard helped to create-EDI and the geth. EDI is more directly the product of Shepard’s non-intervention. Every conversation with EDI could have Shepard extolling the virtues of self-determination and allowing what will be to be. She’s a child that has been given birth and now let’s just smash her face in.

But along with the Destroy option comes one of the stupidest events of all and the most glaring intermingling of MP and SP for no good reason. Unless one meets a certain EMS threshold that can only occur with the help of MP, Shepard will die from a powerful blast-one that Shepard gets near to by logically walking forward while shooting. If MP and war assets get factored together for a good enough EMS, the blast is apparently not as strong so Shepard just winds up as a charred torso that gasps. Wow, just wow.

Then, there’s the whole Joker scene (ridiculous and it’s been stated often), the incredibly impossible juxtaposition of certain teammembers and Shepard’s LI on that planet just defies all logic.

As does the effect of the destruction of the mass relays. There are two references to such an occurrence within the game, but in order to make sense of life going on after their destruction, the player must make stuff up. The Arrival (some more necessary, unnecessary DLC) says a star system will be destroyed due to a relay explosion. A codex entry, Desperate Measures, says a rupture of a relay will ruin any terrestrial planet within a system. These two things pretty much say life in the galaxy is screwed because all life is based upon terrestrial planets-that’s the organic thingydoo. However, in order to explain this people must make up the idea that somehow a rupture is not a rupture, even when it looks like one, and an explosion that looks pretty powerful is either a limited (small one) or a “different” type of one, whatever that means.

This last point is the biggest failure of the ending as a whole. It requires people forget what the games say and have shown before and it requires true meaning be made up and made to fit in order for it to even make the slightest bit of sense.

I wanted a true ending and a possibly happy ending. I’m not ashamed to say that I think at least one ending that is happy is the one way to do honor to characters that have already given up their lives in pursuit of an enemy no one else wanted to fight or even admit existed. At some point they just basically deserve to live. Sure, add a sad ending possibility too, but happy is definitely needed.

THIS  you really just said it all, and eloquently
you just spoke the thoughts and feelings of tens of thousands if not more around the world....but i wouldnt hold your breath that bioware is reading this, or if they are they even care, or even if they do that anything will change....its a great disaster. a sad travesty

This. I may also like to add: There has been no consequence of being a Paragon or Renegade. Its like the writers are making fun of us: "Choose Paragon or Renegade, it doesn't matter, because we have control of the story and we WILL mess up your game in the end by not giving even the slightest of consequences for all the 100hrs and hard-earned money you spent playing ME and ME2, and kill your character by giving a senseless ending without thinking twice about it. ***Evil Laugh***"
Same goes for LIs.
Really, so mad at the writers:alien:. They messed up big time. And its not just me, 99% of the ME community is mad at them. And they call these endings "art"! Are you serious? I think there should be a "mass effect" convincing Bioware into giving us better, DIFFERENT endings than the current ones, instead of the "Extended Garbage" that they are offering. We didn't deserve this. Adios Bioware, see your games in the next-after-next extinction cylce, provided you fix ME3 endings. RIP: Mass Effect Games .

Modifié par Gamer391, 04 juin 2012 - 01:32 .

[NovaBlastMarketing]

I actually did this with my oringinal post  the link is in my  signature. Here is also the answers to the survey that I was too late for. 
My 140 characters For Bioware : Return jedi type end/shep ash beach vacation epiol/ enhanced romance and affection dlc options & cutscene/ full non-multiplayer content opt

Modifié par NovaBlastMarketing, 06 juin 2012 - 06:27 .

[CeeO-connor]

Nicely done, users! Keep up the great review! 

I was surprised and amazed by your brilliant and exciting comments! Especially to users SyyRaaaN and kjdhgfiliuhwe, 3DandBeyond, and also others.

No need to support what I said, but to appreciate what you have said.

Modifié par CeeO-connor, 08 juin 2012 - 03:40 .

[Hvlukas]

Me:

Okay, so I’ll bite and write my own user review of Mass Effect 3. Bear in mind, that I’m no hardcore gamer and I’m quite convinced that every time someone says: “Core fan base”, an angel loses a tooth and a child accidentally colors outside the page and leaves ink marks on the family heir loom and makes another one of mother’s hair turn gray. So I can’t as such address the technical aspects of the game in terms common to developers and players with years of experience, but only point out what I thought to be glitches interfering with my enjoyment. To further indicate who this particular reviewer is and in what context the review should be read, I’m a 33 year old married guy from Denmark who works with film, art and design. Role playing games  are my favorite games, though I’ve also been found to enjoy the more puzzling games like Machinarium and Limbo, but before Mass Effect, there really hasn’t been a role playing game with which I could identify and therefore my list of purchased games is very short. I mention I’m married, because that means, that whenever I feel giddy enough about a game to spend money on it, my husband will give me the “look” and wonder if we couldn’t have spend the money more wisely. He was somehow convinced, like myself, that the entire series of Mass Effect was worth it, because of the good reputation and praises Bioware receives in the gay press, plus he got to buy himself Skyrim and have fun with that .. but that’s an entirely different story.

The short story is, I’m new to this outfit, having never met a game that dared to include someone like me.

The game:

This is the game I played: Mass Effect 3, standard edition (called “Nordic Edition” at my gaming pusher) for PC. I installed the “From Ashes” and all the patches available to me (the first two) before loading the game the first time. I’ve played Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 before, and had save files on desk, with their story related DLC’s bought as well.

The review:

Technical aspects and game play:

The first thing I’ll mention would be the first thing I encountered when popping my DVD in the PC: Origin.

I don’t mind installing what appeared to be a superfluous program to run my game, but I had quite some problems making it work, as the installment stopped, froze and started over again before telling me it had stopped at 67 percent and was unwilling to discuss the matter with me any further. None of this ruined my opinions on Mass Effect as a game as such, but it did make me a bit nervous if this final game was going to cause more technical problems than enjoyment. I’m the kind of guy who just wants to press a button, let the thing do its thing, and start playing; so I could hope that future games from Bioware with Origin could have an “An Idiot’s Guide to .. Just Relax and Wait, Okay?”. Yeah. I said I was new to this outfit, but my first impression was bad, none the less.

My second impression of Mass Effect 3 was great though. It looked great, ran smoothly and started with a bang. I thought the introduction to the various ways of controlling Shepard (like introducing his new jump skill) worked really well without feeling patronizing even the slightest. In Mass Effect 2, I had the distinct impression of playing the introduction like it was a lesson in basic gaming and felt I simply had to just get the introduction over with to get to the real game afterwards; but in Mass Effect 3 this seemed more seamless. The story had me involved in less than two minutes and the various fades between cut scenes and controlling my Shepard was exemplarily well done, a trend I thought the entire game lived up to throughout. There was also quite a nice balance to emotion, action and the plot’s forward movement.

I personally only encountered very few technical things with the game play that annoyed me and hindered me in staying in the illusion of the game, and one was the constant ability to have Shepard get stuck wherever I made him duck from enemies. This would often mean that my Shepard would get killed due to his inability to get away from an enemy or an enemy’s grenade. On the other hand, I really liked the easy new way to jump over tables and blocks and how his new ability to jump affected and manipulated how I sometimes perceived an area as a dead end, before realizing there was more to it than it appeared. This particularly made some areas more interesting, because I felt I had to make more of an effort, where the two previous games sometimes gave away too many clues to where I should go and how many enemies I could expect to meet (specifically I’m referring to how blocks of stone or railings in front of the characters often gave away the surprise of a sudden attack, because when they occurred it usually meant enemies were ahead). This was a great upgrade from the previous games and gave me the experience of occasionally feeling lost in the levels – which is a good thing.

Another minor irritation I had with the game play was the slight shift towards a more autonomic Shepard and his way of engaging with his surroundings. I’m ambivalent towards how he picked up side quests on the Citadel by merely passing strangers, as I often found it irritating to have assignments thrown in my direction, without realizing most of the time who or what specific character had thrown it at me, thus giving me a clue to if the assignments themselves were for the greater good or part of a conspiracy. It made the quests lack transparency and lacked a direct contact to the stories of Reapers and Cerberus (I imagine, that some of these quests could have been questionable, since I could in effect be helping Cerberus agenda by not questioning their motives). On the other hand, I’m glad that more resources wasn’t invested in these bystander-characters with their important causes, since I can envision how endlessly dull I would have found it, if I had to spend endless time talking with them.

More worrying to me was that I often found Shepard engage in conversation with his crew members without me wanting him to beyond the point of interest, or when I engaged in conversation and saw it played out without player control. I didn’t object to the things the character said or even thought the automatic banter and occasional quirky remarks were out of place; but each time the game took over control, I felt I lost my connection to the game. This remains true, especially because of the way these auto-dialogues arise when they are not cut-scenes: Shepard as a default stands with his back towards the player, which much like in a film alters the way we perceive the character. In short we go from being the character, to essentially eavesdropping on a private conversation with the main character cutting us off from view. I think game developers could or should consider if the camera should automatically shift to the side, whenever an auto dialogue starts and if that would fix the player’s detachment to the moment, or if other things should be considered. In Mass Effect 3, I often felt I was shifting towards watching, more than playing.

And while I’m still talking about the game play, I think I should have to just briefly mention, that the Journal upgrades this time around seemed messy. I was perfectly happy with the previous lay outs in Mass Effect and
struggled with the new one. I can understand the wish to integrate Shepard’s personal messages, news and assignments, given the theory that the sheer amount of information about what’s going on beyond what’s happening on the Normandy will create an even bigger universe to get lost in; but –if true- I’d rather see future Journals as it was in Mass Effect 2 and figure out a way to bring galaxy news into the Normandy in another way, and perhaps integrate this new news-outlet, so certain missions came from keeping up to date with them.

And personally? I so dearly missed the spam mails persuading me to get a bigger penis so I could please even the weirdest of species out there. They were hilarious.

I should perhaps also, just briefly, mention the new scanning system when the Normandy is flying in a solar system. I was perfectly happy with the scanning system in Mass effect 2, but can see why Bioware chose to update the feature. I did however miss landing on some of all these planets and enjoy some small missions with minor enemies, and I sometimes felt that it was just slightly too easy to find everything. The Reapers’ alert system was however a total win for me, since it brought tension to one of features most commonly thought of as “slow”.

My main let down with the new technical ideas to Mass Effect is the multiplayer part. I have no doubt, that “Galaxy at War” is an exciting multiplayer experience, and I won’t be too arrogant to dismiss the quality of that particular branch of Mass Effect 3, since I only played it for five minutes, before remembering why I hate multiplayer games. One thing is that I don’t enjoy shooting games, if the shooting leads to nowhere but more shootings (unlike the story portion of the Mass Effect 3 game, where a fight is relevant to the outcome of the story, and therefore a more fun fight), but I also play games to get far away from reality, and feel instantly depressed with racial and homophobic slurs being shouted in microphones around the world. To summarize: I really loathe multiplayer games, but can appreciate that it has its fans; but I was seriously disappointed that “Galaxy at War” wasn’t a bonus, but an integrated part of how well my story would end. I felt I had bought an engaging role playing game, but was being forced to play a totally different genre of game to get my money’s worth. It is perhaps my strongest argument to newcomers of Mass Effect 3: Do they really want to pay for a game of which a substantial part of it isn’t even in the same genre?

Characters, romances and finally story:

All of that was mostly technical aspect of the game, and I have to admit, that they don’t grind me down nor do they excite me, since I’m playing this for the story and the experience and the universe created by the Bioware team.

Characters and romances:

I won’t go into a detailed description of each character and write out thoughts on each one of them, but focus on the ones I personally engaged mostly with and the ones I connected with the most, leaving the ones I don’t mention to fans or haters of those particular ones.

A huge plus, and not the very least, a big selling point for me, was the inclusion of male same-sex options. This exact thing is what made me interested in Bioware and specifically take notice of Mass Effect (and I’m happy to say, that the game itself was what kept me as a fan, even if it was the inclusiveness of the game that initially inspired interest), so I’ll mention Kaidan and Steve Cortez as characters that meant a great deal to me.

I don’t really think I can underplay the importance of being able to identify with the characters in games (and films, commercials, songs, novels – you name it) and how welcomed I personally felt in the Mass Effect universe by the male same-sex relationship options (I mean, I am the generation who saw the early stumblings of 70s and 80s games, stick men and cool worms you could code to move from left to right, through 12 flobby disc Indiana Jones adventures, the first Wolfenstein, Tomb Raider and Elder Scrolls; and yet, no one has ever before really thought of including me? My entire life, and this is the first time, done seriously?)

And I’m also quite thrilled, that the writing for it wasn’t badly done, but respectful, neutral and in the example of Steve Cortez actually serious about standing by his sexuality. I missed Kaidan being written as a bisexual (meaning: he didn’t have lines to imply his sexuality outside the choices I made to make him my love interest) and felt he was written to hide it away from the “normal” players, though I also felt the time and thought put into the male Shepard and Kaidan’s sex scene was amazingly realized with no hint of an animator just wanting to get the scene over with. Both Steve Cortez and Kaidan were also excellently voice casted.

I can respect the choices Bioware took with bisexuality and homosexuality and accept how it turned out, since I realize very little actual experience with the subject has ever been produced in games. I’ve written extensively on the subject elsewhere in these forums, and will try not to repeat myself endlessly, so if I had one wish for the future of norm-breaking sexualities, it would be that the characters, like Steve Cortez, dared to admit their sexuality, if the story allowed them to be in a position where such a subject would come up. And I’d also hope to one day see a fully fledged crew member with action skills who was gay, without having to hide it.

I should also mention James Vega as a character, though I’m sorry he, like Steve Cortez, could have been enjoyable in a bigger role. He was hilarious to be around, and I enjoyed how another negative stereotype was taken down: That white, straight men have to be homophobic bigots. The banters overheard on the shuttle deck were a real plus from my perspective.

Story:

The story this time around, compared to Mass Effect 1 & 2, was very, very simple, yet soap opera complex with its politics. This worked well, I thought, since this would be the last installment to a trilogy, and every plotline should be focused to the one thing the two previous games build up to: The Reapers. Cerberus had a bigger role to play this time around, and I liked the more sinister direction The Illusive Man took this time around. I haven’t read or seen or heard anything about the universe of Mass Effect outside of the games, so the introduction of the henchman Kai Leng had me sigh very deeply, as he reminded me of another trilogy who shortly had a henchman call Darth Maul, who also looked really cool, but was inconsequential in that anybody could fill his shoes, and he wouldn't be missed if he was never there. But alright, I’ll accept him as the new random evil henchman.

I won’t go deeply into the story, as I mostly thought it was rather good, but just write about the events I thought were brilliantly done, and those I was disappointed in. The story developed well and seemed nuanced, though the universe seemed much smaller in scale from previous games, since I could only really dock at the Citadel – but I accept that, while appreciating the attempts of the developers to slowly, but surely, crank up the results of the war and their consequences to the people at the Citadel. The refugee camp was a nice addition, though I could have wished to see a far greater number of lost souls spread out over the entire Citadel.

The Mars mission in the beginning was really well done: story wise, but also in design, animation, lighting and transitions to cut scenes. It ran smoothly and touched on emotional layers, while remaining true to its intent of being action thrilling.


The Rannoch mission, where you could create peace or lose an allied was especially a high light. It was engaging, meaningful and very well written. It worked to get closure to an arc that has been affecting the story throughout the entire series, and provided a bittersweet moment of vague hope in a grand war. This sort of writing
gives the player content and context to why any of the characters or their action matter and seemed to stay in the same realm of emotion, action and character growth Bioware also showed us in the DLC to Mass Effect 2: “Lair of the Shadow Broker”. Just excellent.

Outstanding was also the subplot of the Genophage and all that leads up to it. Slowly throughout the games the character Shepard has been getting more and more involved and we are now forced to make awful choices, going from passive to actively choosing life or death for millions. Again there was a great balance between spectacular action, design (the whole level of the underground tunnels was effective and well designed, I must say) and character growth. I really appreciate the ambiguity and the tough choices I’m as a player is forced to take.

The ending however was a sore moment for me. It wasn’t so much that I completely rejected it, but as a player, I felt kept out of the loop, while watching the rest of the game play itself to the credits. I can fully appreciate that Shepard has to sacrifice himself, but not having the means to reject or affect the events as they happened, meant that the game decided for me and I never felt Shepard’s sacrifice was ultimately worth it. I disliked the child coming forward to me, not because of design, but because he as a concept felt too abrupt and lacked any resonance with the themes otherwise played with in the series. The choices he offered Shepard was, to put it as simple as possible, neither realistic in this particular universe, nor were they logic or necessary. I couldn’t see any of the endings as anything but as everybody losing to the Reapers, either directly or indirectly because of what damage the solution of choice would cause to the galaxy. And I’m sorry that the brilliant series of games had to end in a B-film like manor.

Beyond that, the ending raises some questions, although I can ignore them once I’ve accepted that it’s just B-film logic, like the whereabouts of the Normandy and the people on board; and in general how people seemed able to tele-transport themselves at will to any place at any time.

 

To finish this review, would I recommend it to others? Yes, definitely. I’d advise them to consider if they really wanted to pay full price for a game with a big chunk of it being what feels like a forced multiplayer, but otherwise, still yes. The ending felt sloppy and sporadic, but I’m more disappointed than anything near enraged.

Am I on board to buy new adventures in the Mass Effect universe? Yes, definitely, if multiplayer is optional.

So. 8 out of 10.

 

 

 

 

Modifié par Hvlukas, 07 juin 2012 - 11:59 .

[NovaBlastMarketing]

I originally put my review in its own thread but it has not got alot of views so i guess that wasn't the best idea .....as a result I thought i would copy it in here like everyone else has ... sooo... here it is...

I just finished my first play though of mass effect 3 really as much as I looked forward to this game It really let me down in a number of ways. Now just so you can understand my play style I am more into the story character interactions and romances than I am in the actual shooting stuff part of the game so I normally play through on normal and occasionally switch to casual if i hit a part that takes me more than a couple tries. My views and priorities may differ from the people you who try to beat the game on hardcore or insanity

. If i was to rate the game out of 10

NovaBlast Shepard
Paragon
Sentinel
Ashley

Combat and general game play 7

I think 2 improved on one an 3 improved on 2

Character interaction 5

I felt there was more general character interaction in the 2 and first games basically whenever you spoke to anyone on the ship they acted like kasumi and zaheed did in me2. Although the conversations were interesting,

General plotline and quests. 8

The story itself has been great in all three games

Romance 5

The fact that you don't get Ashley till partway though the game was a bit of a bummer but at least it made sense with a plausible reason that fit into the plotline.The biggest disappointment was the fact that there was really only a small number of interactions and comments about it and I think the final night scene in ME1 was better than that of ME3.

Although There was so much more they could have done this has been an issues in all three games as well as both Dragon age games. The ultimate would have been some sort of major scene after every mission and at least new comments after sub missions.

Some of those scenes could have been they go dancing at purgatory , they have drinks there they go shopping in the presidium, they find a scenic place and just cuddle.unlike Liara EDI and Joker she didn't even hang out on the citadel

There were no comments about your relationship form the rest of the crew. No one said i think you and ash make a great couple or anything else. Also what's up with her just sitting alone in the lounge area. They could have had her move in with you and hung out there .

That in itself could have opened up a ton of other opportunities . They could have make a repeatable and permanent menu with activities you can choose from at any time . cuddling, making out , taking a shower dancing, similar to what they did with the Kelly Chambers interactions, It just felt like it was too short and not given enough attention.

Also why would you take a major romance character like miranda and just reduce her to cameos, the alliance proved that they were willing to take on ex cerabus scientests and Miranda could have been a valuable asset to the team and been a catalyst for more sub quests. just sayin,,,


The ending 2

OMG the ending was so disappointing and anti-climatic for the build up in all three games. After that epic battle with the destruction of the reapers I was hoping for an ending similar to that of Return of the Jedi followed by a scene of Sheppard and Ash ( full body shot of her in a bikini of course) lounging on the on chairs in front of a pool or on a beach enjoying a well deserved vacation smiling an having a loving conversation of some sort .

Total averaged rating for ME3 5.4

Overall i had greater enjoyment and left the game happier and was more eager to replay both ME1 and ME2 than ME3

Modifié par NovaBlastMarketing, 07 juin 2012 - 07:43 .

[Sil]

This page should be stickied.

[guybrush threepwad]

Sil wrote...

This page should be stickied.

Even the Dragon Age 2 fan review thread is still stickied... Too much criticism for Bioware I think

[Aznable Char]

guybrush threepwad wrote...

Sil wrote...

This page should be stickied.

Even the Dragon Age 2 fan review thread is still stickied... Too much criticism for Bioware I think

I found it interesting that I didn't see this at the top of the page anymore . I may have to write something myself and commenting often to keep these reviews present and current for people to read .

[BilboBloodBath]

This page should be stickied.

[Grubas]

BilboBloodBath wrote...

This page should be stickied.

Don't count on it. To much negativity. Maybe.... MAYBE after the EC comes out which will include epic high quality artistic cutscenes, that will differ wildly and take into account all choices you made along the game related to the situation that will give you such an amount of variations that you will want to replay the game multiple times regardless of everything over and over again.

Then we will have reviews worthy a sticky.

Modifié par Grubas, 17 juin 2012 - 05:52 .

[Jadebaby]

This page should be stickied.

[SpamBot2000]

So... a big hit then?

[Seifer006]

Details Matter: Mass Effect 3 Review

[Seifer006]

why does it say in the OP "may contain spoilers" when this is in the spoiler section............??????

[iiNOMADii]

Mass Effect 3 was very poorly made, compared to the outstanding work done in ME1 and ME2. I don't know whether it was EA giving you too small of a time frame/not enough resources to get the job done or not, but not only was the ball dropped with this game, you dropped it on the 1 yard line in the final play of the fourth quarter of a tied game...make that a championship game, too.

About the endings, you know how people feel about them, so I will just reflect what you have doubtless heard many times since ME3's release: the endings were horrible, the catalyst was horrible, and the plot holes were horrible. Change the endings. This is mostl likely a waste of the calories it takes to type this sentence up, but it needs to be done, plain and simple. Enough on that. Moving on,

Overall, ME3 felt like a cheap knockoff of a Mass Effect game. The lack of quality is truly astounding considering your previous two games. Kai Leng made the game feel like a comic book adaptation. Bringing back the Rachni (even if they were destroyed) because they looked cool was a serious and utterly ridiculous move. The amount of fetch quests (relative to the other two games) was another half-assed element of the game. Edi getting a body was a terrible idea as well, and of course it would be sexy robotic body at that.

I would also like to point out that the trend which showed itself in ME3 actually began in ME2, when EA bought Bioware. Since then, we saw a move more towards action style gameplay instead of the original RPG which made ME1 so great. Thermal clips is a great example of this, taking away the RPG element and putting in the action oriented thermal clips. Also, the removal (in large part) of environmental suits which were worn in ME1. In ME2, we have women like Samara wearing outfits which are utterly ill suited for combat, and she isn't the only one, or even the only female with outfits like this. These are a few of the aspects Bioware implemented into the game which in my view were merely foreshadowing the type of content we would see in ME3.

This trend not only destroyed ME3 but will very likely continue in the future, and is the reason why I most likely won't be buying any more Mass Effect games int he future. It is a trend which moves away from Plot, RPG aspects, and the feel of the galaxy which you so eloquently created and into COD style action gameplay, sex appeal at the expense of practicality, and multiplayer. This may make you more money in the short run, but this is at the expense of losing core players who dish out more money in the long run.

Who knows, maybe this will change in future releases (which I will keep a keen eye on) and I'll come back to the series, but as it stands, I can't even bring myself to play the previous two games anymore.

Despite what I wrote above, I don't want to take anything away from the Bioware employees, who I am sure worked very hard to produce ME3 and did the best job they could have. EA is the root of the problem here, and they are sucking you (Bioware) dry.

[Weltenschlange]

My Mass Effect 3 review-of-sorts (spoilers and such):

Well, it has been more than a year now and I thought I'd finally do this to get some sort of closure or catharsis or somesuch. Considering that the game is now officially finished, I thought that I should write this now or never. When ME3 came out originally and I experienced the ending for the first time, I was definitely too angry to write this review without sounding like an idiot.

The following is of course just my opinion about the game and should not be read as a statement of facts.
Anyway, here we go.

The Good:
The combat is what I would call the best out of the trilogy. The sheer range of weapons with their vastly different applications and mechanics, the great selection of powers and the overall way the six classes play shows what a long way this element of the game has come since ME1. The weapon-weight-cooldown-system made the overall package nearly perfect by providing the six classes with flexibility while keeping powers and weapon use balanced.
I wasn't a fan of the loot system in ME1 (I think that while loot is fine for a fantasy RPG like Dragon Age, it isn't very well suited to a space opera RPG) so I was happy to see that the item progression worked overall more like in ME2 than ME1.
The absence of planet scanning or hacking mini-games was a welcome change since they were mostly annoying and seemed a bit immersion-breaking in a world filled with automation and VIs (I could have used that aquarium VI in ME2 though, R.I.P. fishies).
The homeworlds and the missions involving them were some of the best sections of the game. Especially Tuchanka and Rannoch were very satisfying.
The Traynor and Cortez romances were a pleasant surprise, especially considering how poorly ME2 had done in that regard.
I actually liked the war asset system in principle. I was never under the illusion that it would be possible to use all our of choices for the endgame without some sort of abstraction. I also enjoyed the flavor/lore the individual assets provided.
Much to my surprise I really enjoyed the multiplayer. When the news first hit BSN during 2011 that ME3 would have MP my reaction was a resounding "Meh!", but after seeing how it all ended, the multiplayer (including its DLC, excluding the store system, the omni-spacebar and stunlock) was actually what saved ME3 from being a total write-off for me.

The Bad:
As much as I enjoy the multiplayer, I think connecting it to the singleplayer war asset system was a bad idea. The main problem for me isn't the galaxy at war system per se (although I could have done without it), but the fact that you get 75 war asset points for a single promotion which is about as much as small fleet in game standards. It's simply immersion breaking when at some point your rag-tag spec ops teams are supposed to be more valuable than all fleets combined.
While the new scanning mechanic was okay, the connected reaper escape minigame was just annoying and didn't make any sense based on game lore. The absence of a Normandy-based vehicle for ground missions made me miss the Mako and the Hammerhead. Getting small collection missions by eavesdropping on random people was a very poor use of resources, I would have preferred nothing at all to that. The use of automatic dialog in certain situations was frustrating especially considering how well the first two games had avoided this. The magically appearing Avenger and Predator are still there, which is all the more confusing in light of the fact that in some cutscenes Shepard actually does use their carried gun instead. I also don't care for newgame+ modes, yet I am a completionist, therefore I could do without having to play newgame+ in order to be able to maximize the weapon levels. And why in Conrad's name is the mission journal so much inferior to how it used to be ME 1 and 2? It is small stuff like this, that when combined makes the game look quite rushed.
The lack of visible war assets during the final assault on Earth was another disappointment, taking into account the diverse assets we had recruited over the course of three games, this section could have been much better. And another similar point was that we still did not get female Turians in ME3 (DLC don't count), when they should already have been in the first game considering what we know about Turian society.
While the Mass Effect trilogy isn't hard sci-fi that doesn't mean that a space opera can't tackle serious themes. Shepard's transhumanism as a cyborg should have been explored a bit more, that clone of theirs was probably more organic than them. The devs also wasted a great opportunity with EDI's development. Instead of an unshackled AI trying to learn, we get a gendered gynoid that wants to have a romantic relationship with a human male (Wat?).
And of course the ending. It was very disappointing to me. The Extended Cut didn't really fix anything it even made some of the plot holes and self-contradicting aspects more obvious. I won't go into detail what was all wrong with it since other people have already done that so much better than I could. Suffice to say that going thematically from an optimistic space opera to a theme of forced sacrifice, powerlessness and inevitability within the last ten minutes is so jarring and disconnected that it could only have been conceived in the absence of peer review.

The DLC:
From Ashes - While this DLC offers decent value for its price, I personally am not a fan of squadmate DLCs. I also think that the Protheans should have stayed dead and buried.
Leviathan - Disappointing. It's like the whole game in a nutshell. 95% of it is actually great fun and then at the end you get more nonsense about synthetics versus organics and we get to know the creators of the reapers who are apparently idiots and should have stayed dead and buried like the Protheans.
Omega - A solid and fun run'n'gun DLC. We get to retake Omega by Aria's side and we finally get a female Turian, oh nevermind, she just needlessly sacrificed herself for some reason.
Citadel - The best of them. Lots of fun and opportunities to reminisce. Includes an improved version of Pinnacle Station. Elements of it could have been part of a proper ending to ME3, one where the hero(ine) survives, like they normally do in a space opera.

Conclusion:
Disappointing - That is the word that sums up ME3 perfectly. It could have been a great ending to a great trilogy. If the ending had been similar to the one of "Dragon Age - Origins", all of Mass Effect 3's other shortcomings would not have mattered much. Being able to have a happy ending in a game series like this is important, not the least because it fits the established themes. ME3's actual ending would have worked if its theme and tone had been established long before the conclusion. That's why the very similar ending of Deus Ex (the original) worked, because it fit the game which you had played before you came to that point. With Mass Effect 3 you had an ending that did not fit the three games that served as its build-up.

If you would like some further reading, this essay sums up some of my own thoughts and feelings better than I could hope to do myself.


And now I'm done with this game ... right after I max my MP manifest.