Jamie9 wrote...
Mass Effect 3 has been a huge event in BioWare's history. Arguably one of their most anticipated games since their inception, nobody could have foreseen what ended up happening.
I'll get to the point: What is your opinion on BioWare as of now?
How do you feel about:
- Day 1 DLC: From Ashes
- Multiplayer
- Single player campaign
- ...the ending
- The unreleased Extended Cut
Took 'em off my Pre-Order list and put them firmly into my "wait until reviews come out" list.
The former is now limited to "Valve" since Blizzard can't see beyod WoW for their inspiration.
The Day 1 DLC thing only bothers me if it was obvious it should be included in the game. After YouTubing all of Javik's material, I'm sort of torn on that. His dialogue injects some seriously interesting lore, but all he added was one more side-mission.
The Single Player campaign is par for the course. Some bits are extremely good (Tuchanka and Rannoch being the best, like the Suicide Mission and LotSB, or Ilos and Noveria), and some bits make me want to jam my finger into a wall socket. Most notably the upteen number of fetch-quests which don't serve any purpose at all aside from raising your EMS. No interesting missions specifically for them (you just happen to find them while on other missions), and it's not even difficult. Fly in, scan, play tag with the Reapers, run out.
The ending is a mess. It will always be a mess. They just plain done fudged up on that one, which is a pity.
I'm expecting the EC to be little more than a few text messages and maybe some cutscenes if we're lucky. I doubt it will change that much, and it certainly won't 'fix' much.
It's BioWare's reaction to the fan's reaction that really put me off. BioWare isn't famous for its relations department, but they always had an air of humble sensibility. They didn't apologize if they thought they were right. The whole "it's art" defense is one of the most idiotic defenses I've heard in a long time, and the whole debachle will go down as "How Not To Respond To Your Mistakes 101".
The Origins stuff is just annoying, even on the Xbox 360. Over my last play through, my EMS has actually been 0% several times because EA's servers didn't respond and timed out.
I'd say the series peaked in pure "awesomitude" at Ilos. That was bloody epic, and everything from meeting Vigil to the run to the Conduit played agonizingly good. Then LotSB probably matched the same level of sheer glee I had at playing it. The shuttle chase, the Shadowbroker's ship, the Paragon-Interrup Liara kiss complete with sparks in the background... those two missions alone are worth the price of entry.
Tuchanka and Rannoch are pretty close, with Tuchanka taking the lead for me, but they come too soon. The excitement I got from them didn't sustain me until Earth.
Speaking of which, Earth was completely forgettable. No vehicle sections, no bringing down Reapers with the help of the fleet, no gimmicks to break up the "fight - talk - speech - fight - talk - speech" pattern. There weren't even any surprise events. The Reapers never beamed through a building while Anderson was having tea with Shepard so they had to fight or run, I never lost any teammates (maybe?), nothing happens. There isn't any tension beyond the tension we're told we should feel about Earth. I keep thinking how kick ass it would be if I got to fly the Normandy around the battlefield during the fleet's arrival and take down one of the smaller Reapers, or how much I would've squeeled with glee if ALL of my companions stood with me for Hammer and I got to choose who did what like they did in ME2.
Nope. None o' that, and I mourn those potential moments because we have the ending we do.
So much potential they don't tap, and I know it's partly due to EA putting pressure on the team to release, so I sacrifice BioWare to prove that I can't support what EA's done.
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