347 réponses à ce sujet

[Taboo]

It has no benefits.

Well so as long as Wrex and Eve are alive. If they aren't and Wreav is in charge....Mordin might get shot or convinced to back the hell off.

The CB means jack because TIM gets it anyway. Although by the post SM dialogue it looks pretty apparent to me which choice Bioware liked more. You still leave Cerberus regardless of the decision. I see no reason to give TIM anything if he's simply going to use it for his own ends.

I can't be the only person to think he went absolutly LULZY at that point. Shepard says the same thing in either ending.

"Strength for humanity or strength for Cerberus?"

INDEED.

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...
It has no benefits.

Wrong. You get full salarian support. It may not amount to much TMS-wise, but it's narratively significant.

[Uncle Jo]

Nice review Ieldra.

Two questions though:

- What is your opinion about the point of the Cerberus Coup?
- You've talked from deshumanizing the enemy and the esthetic of the abomination. What do you mean?

As far as I can remember, anyone who got reaperized is pretty much already dead. You're fighting against techupgraded zombies. Banshees are no exception. They're just a result of the Reapers great care about organics.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 03 mars 2013 - 08:30 .

[Ieldra]

Added to the OP:

*Interlude: Citadel Visit #5 (return after the coup, but before Rannoch)

@Uncle Jo:
Here's my take on the coup: TIM got more information from the Mars archive before we stopped his agent. I think he knows the Citadel is somehow significant for dealing with the Reapers, even though he doesn't know yet it's the Catalyst, and so took the opportunity to "support" Udina, culminating in the coup attempt.

As for the abomination aesthetic; I've posted at length about that in other threads and I don't feel like repeating it all, but so much: the aesthetic suggests that the Reaper minions are "corrupted" forms of "natural" organic life, things that should not exist in some fundamental sense because they don't conform to some normative notion of what's natural. Accepting this intuition means that you accept a dividing line between life forms that should and should not exist, you put a moral dimension on something's physical nature. Thus, something's destruction, with no regard of what it has actually done, only because of what it is, can be seen as a moral obligation. Justifications abound like "It's an act of mercy to put them down", masking that thinking like this, with no hard evidence from the life form in question, is actually evil.

[Steelcan]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...
It has no benefits.

Wrong. You get full salarian support. It may not amount to much TMS-wise, but it's narratively significant.

. Except for that elusive Salarian 2nd fleetfleet

[Steelcan]

Taboo-XX wrote...

It has no benefits.

Well so as long as Wrex and Eve are alive. If they aren't and Wreav is in charge....Mordin might get shot or convinced to back the hell off.

The CB means jack because TIM gets it anyway. Although by the post SM dialogue it looks pretty apparent to me which choice Bioware liked more. You still leave Cerberus regardless of the decision. I see no reason to give TIM anything if he's simply going to use it for his own ends.

I can't be the only person to think he went absolutly LULZY at that point. Shepard says the same thing in either ending.

"Strength for humanity or strength for Cerberus?"

INDEED.

. Yeah... I ended the conversation with TIM telling him to get ready for war and be ready to support me against the Reapers, he agreed.  Somewhere then I went full retard.

[Ieldra]

Steelcan wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...
It has no benefits.

Wrong. You get full salarian support. It may not amount to much TMS-wise, but it's narratively significant.

. Except for that elusive Salarian 2nd fleetfleet

You get one fleet for saving the Council in ME1, the other for sabotaging the cure.

[Jorji Costava]

About the banshees: Very interesting thoughts about their 'unnaturalness,' and I don't necessarily disagree, but I would suggest that this imagery has been running through the whole series, from the Lovecraftian imagery of the Reapers to, well, everything having to do with the Collectors. Mordin's whole "replaced by tech" speech from ME2 pretty much gives us the idea that the Collectors aren't persons or agents in any sense, and yes, I think we're meant to believe that Collectors, Cannibals, etc., shouldn't exist, for the same kind of reasons biological weapons shouldn't exist.

Still, I think you're on to something here. Maybe it would be a good idea if we'd had to spend at least some time fighting indoctrinated soldiers: not people who had been turned into some kind of abomination, but just folks who had been brainwashed into fighting for the other side. Javik's "What answer would you prefer?" dialogue on Thessia gives us the idea that part of the horror of their war was having to fight their friends and comrades, and it's a great speech, but it doesn't resonate as much as it could have, because we don't ever have to do that.

[Bleachrude]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

I would like to add the Human Councilor decision should've also branched the story a bit. And it's a shame that resource limitations is what probably shot ME3 in the foot.

Sigh

Resource limitation is one way to look at it, although I think the heart of the matter is that they simply planned too big over the span of ME1 and ME2 to integrate everything appropriately with reasonable resources (ME2 and 3 had similar dev cycles, and 3 was granted months of extra time).

Honestly, I agree with this....

I think it was TOO ambitious and you won't see any developer going that far with save imports...Honestly, it's not worth the extra effort I think many would argue...

[Newkirill]

I like your thoughts, OP! Keep up your interesting perspective!

[ioannisdenton]

good thread is good, i d like to see another person's point of view on all missions and the impressions that person gets.
TL; I did read!

[Ieldra]

Newkirill wrote...
I like your thoughts, OP! Keep up your interesting perspective!

I'll bring this through to the end, hopefully with all DLC, though updates will be coming at a significantly slower rate when it's not the weekend, and the Citadel DLC may result in a two-day break. 

[JasonShepard]

Hmmm... Good thread. I might offer more opinions in a while (eg, the Eden Prime mission is one that I find incredibly stupid...) but for now, regarding the banshees (and, by extension, all the other Reaper forces):

Regardless of the implications of corruption, etc, there is a good in-universe reason for them looking like that. Psychological warfare. The Reapers are using our dead against us, and not only that, but they're perverting our dead in the process. As Garrus puts it - which each one, you lose two soldiers. The one that died, and the one on our side who can't pull the trigger on his/her buddy.

Psychologically crippled troops are, well, crippled - and forcing them to hate their own dead is a good mixture of emotions for achieving that.

Modifié par JasonShepard, 04 mars 2013 - 11:11 .

[Indy_S]

ioannisdenton wrote...

good thread is good, i d like to see another person's point of view on all missions and the impressions that person gets.
TL; I did read!

I'd be happy to give it a go but I'd probably be a lot harsher than Ieldra. Very few missions would get points for visuals, for instance. Too much monochrome.

[Ieldra]

Indy_S wrote...

ioannisdenton wrote...

good thread is good, i d like to see another person's point of view on all missions and the impressions that person gets.
TL; I did read!

I'd be happy to give it a go but I'd probably be a lot harsher than Ieldra. Very few missions would get points for visuals, for instance. Too much monochrome.

That depends on which games you compare ME3 with. I'm saying that ME3 has the best maps, the best sense of place and generally the best visuals of any Bioware game to date (honorable mention to DAO but that wasn't limited to the 3rd person perspective which makes things difficult to compare), and blows both its predecessors away in that category as well as DA2. There's just no comparison.

Could it be better? Sure, but probably not with console limitations. Also, the points I give for visuals include the factor "sense of place". A believable sense of place is very important in my opinion, and I'll gladly live with things like limited color schemes (which are appropriate on Mars and Tuchanka btw) if I have a good sense of place. Most ME3 maps have a very good sense of place, in stark contrast to its predecessor's maps.

[Steelcan]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...
It has no benefits.

Wrong. You get full salarian support. It may not amount to much TMS-wise, but it's narratively significant.

. Except for that elusive Salarian 2nd fleetfleet

You get one fleet for saving the Council in ME1, the other for sabotaging the cure.

yeah, 1st and 3rd.  Where is that 2nd.

[Indy_S]

Ieldra2 wrote...

That depends on which games you compare ME3 with. I'm saying that ME3 has the best maps, the best sense of place and generally the best visuals of any Bioware game to date (honorable mention to DAO but that wasn't limited to the 3rd person perspective which makes things difficult to compare), and blows both its predecessors away in that category as well as DA2. There's just no comparison.

Could it be better? Sure, but probably not with console limitations. Also, the points I give for visuals include the factor "sense of place". A believable sense of place is very important in my opinion, and I'll gladly live with things like limited color schemes (which are appropriate on Mars and Tuchanka btw) if I have a good sense of place. Most ME3 maps have a very good sense of place, in stark contrast to its predecessor's maps.

I didn't consider which games I would compare it to. I certainly wouldn't try it against other BioWare games (my history with them is basically Baldur's Gate and ME. I played both DA and KOTOR but couldn't connect with them). I doubt I'd even compare it to its predecessors given that I feel like it would mean some categories at a permanent high and some at a permanent low. I'll be upfront and say the standard I'm holding it to is absurd but I'll also make it clear that improvements to any area would have a profound effect on the individual level.

And two points from your second paragraph: I don't believe the limits of the game are because of any limitation in the consoles and I don't believe that Mars lab is a very believable space. I'll elaborate on that when I start the game.

[ZLurps]

Indy_S wrote...

...snip... I don't believe that Mars lab is a very believable space. I'll elaborate on that when I start the game.

I look forward to this.

[FlyinElk212]

Thank you for the incredibly fascinating read, Ieldra. Your analysis with the Role Playing aspects resonates well with me, not so much as in there aren't as many opportunities in this game, but moreso how you mention that WHEN the situation arises, the role playing choices offered are limiting and not conducive to a rational player's thought process (Earth Opening Mission, for example).

Question: since the purpose of the game, i.e. End the Reaper Invasion by any means necessary, could be construed as the "mission" of the overall game, do you intend on doing a bigger, recap-esque review of said mission at the end of this?

[CronoDragoon]

Ticonderoga117 wrote...

From what I've seen of the Witcher 2, I'd say they did it better. However, it's hard to give them praise since they didn't even try to handwave the corners they cut. It just happens.

If we're still talking about choices spanning games, then no, the Witcher 2 was actually terrible at this. Nothing you did in the first game mattered in the second. There's nothing ambitious about the Witcher 2. Even the branching narrative (which amounts to one huge branch that eventually curves back to the same third act location-wise) has been done before; The Witcher 2 just did that well.

Nothing like the ME series had ever been tried before. I can let it slide that a few choices didn't have a major impact because a lot of them do.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 04 mars 2013 - 03:34 .

[Ieldra]

Added to the OP:

*Omega: Aria T'Loak

The complete Omega sequence. I must say that paying attention to details for this review made me realize just how good it is.

[Obadiah]

Iedra2...
...
Annd.....Grunt's survival is a great moment. It surprised me when I played it for the first time, and the feeling I got when I saw him stagger out of the caves, asking for something to eat, still lingers.
...

Quite unexpectedly, I started to tear up the first time I saw Grunt's "last" stand. I was so glad when he showed up alive afterwards, and with the ME1 Shep survival soundtrack!

I've always thought there was something ironically poetic with the idea the race that was uplifted to destroy the Rachi, the Krogan, ended up sacrificing the best of their own, Arlakh company, to save them and enable their joining the galactic community.

Modifié par Obadiah, 05 mars 2013 - 12:33 .

[Ieldra]

An observation while I'm reading what I've written so far:

There is an almost consistent pattern. The parts most often criticized by players (ending excepted) show one or both of the following flaws:

(1) Drama insufficiently grounded in in-world events, thus coming across as contrived or railroaded.
(2) Autodialogue that contradicts how players envision their Shepard.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 05 mars 2013 - 11:44 .

[Ieldra]

Added to the OP:

*Priority: Geth Dreadnought

Now I think I'll pause this playthrough for the Citadel DLC....which still isn't up for the PC; damn it.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 05 mars 2013 - 06:21 .

[WarGriffin]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Added to the OP:

*Omega: Aria T'Loak

The complete Omega sequence. I must say that paying attention to details for this review made me realize just how good it is.

Omega is good... but It deserved the Citadel Treatment in size

Hell Leviathan should have been that big as well.