Mass Effect 3

[Matthias]

i'm genuinely shocked by all the bad press about the ending. i actually thought it was great. was it the greatest-of-all-time, ending-to-end-all-endings that a game of this magnitude should have? no, there was room for improvement for sure but for what it is i loved it.

for me all i really cared about was finding out the deal with the reapers, why they were doing what they're doing, and as long as they gave a good explanation for that i would have been happy, and i LOVED their explanation. it's a starcraft-matrix-starcontrol mix.

it seems word around the net is that people were expecting a hollywood ending, where the reapers are soundly defeated, shepard & his buddies survive and have a big joyful celebration... frankly i think anyone who was expecting that is out of their freakin' minds. there is no way this story was going to have any kind of happy clean-cut ending. i knew from the very first game that this story was gonna end in a big mess.

[mightyg]

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/20...ca-d4wgu41.png

Anyways, the Cerberus Harrier assault rifle is boss as hell except for the ammo reserves and capacity. Also got the Cerberus Vanguard and it is a really cool idea, but tough to use effectively because of the range and start-up time on smash. Still like it though probably not gold material as it is now.

[BaneTheBrawler]

for me all i really cared about was finding out the deal with the reapers, why they were doing what they're doing, and as long as they gave a good explanation for that i would have been happy, and i LOVED their explanation. it's a starcraft-matrix-starcontrol mix.

Synthetics and organics can't get along is an acceptable explanation to you? I made the Quarians and Geth go back to being buddies. That explanation doesn't fly.

[Brill Weave]

Did they release the commendation packs already? I had a victory pack but no commendation, and I definitely promoted 3 classes...

I only got a Victory pack as well. We'll see what happens.

[Brill Weave]

i'm genuinely shocked by all the bad press about the ending. i actually thought it was great. was it the greatest-of-all-time, ending-to-end-all-endings that a game of this magnitude should have? no, there was room for improvement for sure but for what it is i loved it.

for me all i really cared about was finding out the deal with the reapers, why they were doing what they're doing, and as long as they gave a good explanation for that i would have been happy, and i LOVED their explanation. it's a starcraft-matrix-starcontrol mix.

it seems word around the net is that people were expecting a hollywood ending, where the reapers are soundly defeated, shepard & his buddies survive and have a big joyful celebration... frankly i think anyone who was expecting that is out of their freakin' minds. there is no way this story was going to have any kind of happy clean-cut ending. i knew from the very first game that this story was gonna end in a big mess.

Plot holes and failure to deliver upon their promises is what pisses me off the most. Supposedly everything we did in all the prior games would lead up to how the ending would go down. It doesn't. If I could go right to the last battle as soon as I started the game with nothing more than my multiplayer war assets the end results would still be the same. A, B, or C. Your team supposedly follows you to the ends of the Earth into one suicidal run after another. And then they magically decide to abandon you and fly off in the Normandy? Broker peace with synthetics and organics yet it's not even acknowledged. Come on man, let it sink in a little bit more and you're going to start getting irritated. Trust me.

It was a rushed slapped together ending that Bioware thought their fanboys would just eagerly lap up and blindly proclaim to be the best ever. Their reputation has taken a HUGE beating over this. It's not the end of the world for them, but they've lost a lot of credibility with a lot of fans.

[Rulke]

Did they release the commendation packs already? I had a victory pack but no commendation, and I definitely promoted 3 classes...

I was able to get both packs yesterday night when I logged in at oh.. 10pm pdt ish

[Ikarys]

Unlock male Quarian engineer, doesn't feel like an engineer class at all. Tactical scan is interesting, and if you have teammates who are savvy, it really cuts down on the time to kill higher tier enemies. Arc grenade is like overload on steroids.

[Brill Weave]

I don't have it yet Ikarys. What is the benefit of tactical scan?

[Xanthe]

I don't have it yet Ikarys. What is the benefit of tactical scan?

Tactical Scan increases done to the target from all sources, slows its movement, and can give a scan pulse that temporarily reveals nearby enemies a la hunter vision.

[Brill Weave]

Hmmm. Interesting. Could definitely come in handy against Banshees on Gold etc.

[Xanthe]

More on Tactical Scan.

[Lonely]

Quarian engi male is now the worst engineer character. Scan is annoying because of how you have to keep spamming it and it has a 2 sec animation. Proxy mine does the same thing but is also a Aoe and does damage for a longer cooldown. The grenades are godly but again they are grenades, 1, 2, 3, gone. There is a upgrade for more grenades but the refill crates will only give you 1 or 2 assuming no one else took them first. Also incinerate? really? The quarian infiltrator has the same exact skills but cloak instead of incinerate. Guess who is better.

[Xanthe]

Tactical Scan is much, much better for single targets. The effect lasts at least 26 seconds, and depending how you configure it you have 5% more base damage, an additional 7.5% more damage from either weapons or powers, and potentially 25% more damage on head shots.

[Brill Weave]

Anyone else having issues on 360 getting dumped into games already in progress? Every game I joined today dumped right into a game that was going. Fucking irritating since those are usually fail groups to begin with. I also have not received my commendation pack. I promoted four people.

[Obev]

Tactical Scan is much, much better for single targets. The effect lasts at least 26 seconds, and depending how you configure it you have 5% more base damage, an additional 7.5% more damage from either weapons or powers, and potentially 25% more damage on head shots.

Shame boss enemies don't take extra headshot damage, and everything else dies plenty quick if you headshot it already. Seems a bit of a waste of a power to me, especially compared to the array of awesome that other non-Quarian engineers roll with. For a species that gets their technical prowess trumpeted by the story (and exemplified by Tali) their technical experts are incredibly faily.

Weave: I've been dumped into ongoing games on PS3 quite a lot. It's usually annoying, but not too bad. Most of the time I get the lobby but maybe one time in five I'll be thrown in on the middle of wave 2 or 3. One time I got thrown in as Salarian infiltrator on a wipe on wave 1 FBW Geth. Killed the remaining enemies, got to the end of wave 10, 100k+ score, the crowd went wild.

[Kuya]

Thsi reeger shotgun is fucking beastly. And not just because spitting hot lightning is so satisfying.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Anyone else having issues on 360 getting dumped into games already in progress? Every game I joined today dumped right into a game that was going. Fucking irritating since those are usually fail groups to begin with. I also have not received my commendation pack. I promoted four people.

I always make games and then start without people. I've sat and waited for 45 minutes, not a single person joined my game. Once I start it up, I usually get a full group by wave 2-3. Sometimes it's fail, sometimes it's not. If I die before anyone joins, usually it fills up after ~a minute of waiting in the lobby or whatever.

I hate joining random people, because sometimes they're idiots about game options. Why would anyone NOT do random map random enemy?

[Matthias]

Synthetics and organics can't get along is an acceptable explanation to you? I made the Quarians and Geth go back to being buddies. That explanation doesn't fly.

there was no evidence to assume that the peace was going to be everlasting and/or that what the reapers predicted would never come to pass. i highly doubt that every last geth-hating quarian, or even half of them for that matter, suddenly changed their minds about their position and accepted the treaty that was formed. putting hostilities aside to form a unified front against a far greater danger is a far cry from joining hands and singing 'man in the mirror' together.

[Matthias]

Plot holes and failure to deliver upon their promises is what pisses me off the most. Supposedly everything we did in all the prior games would lead up to how the ending would go down. It doesn't. If I could go right to the last battle as soon as I started the game with nothing more than my multiplayer war assets the end results would still be the same. A, B, or C.

on the one hand yeah this sorta disappointed me too

on the other hand it was an ending to the story. it's not like they're gonna continue this any further. the war ends, or you fail. not a whole lot more that needed to be done. but yeah i don't disagree.

Your team supposedly follows you to the ends of the Earth into one suicidal run after another. And then they magically decide to abandon you and fly off in the Normandy?

major coats was heard ordering everyone to a full retreat, there's no way they could have known whether shepard would make it or not. and once they retreated and found out that shepard was on the citadel (disregarding the indoctrination theory for a moment), there was little they could do about it. and then as the citadel was exploding... yeah what would you expect them to do other than run? fly into the citadel, as it's exploding in an energy they didn't recognize and hope to find one human in that gigantic thing somewhere?

Broker peace with synthetics and organics yet it's not even acknowledged.

why would it be? the reapers don't care what happened, as far as they're concerned, whatever is happening now, the inevitable will eventually happen.

as far as shepard, why would that concern him at the moment? you think him bringing that up would have changed the catalyst's mind? please. shepard had one focus: make this stop.

Come on man, let it sink in a little bit more and you're going to start getting irritated. Trust me.

you're assuming way too much. in this case you're assuming the only reason i disagree is cos i haven't thought it through as much as i should have. as it is i have now played through the game 5 times including one marathon where i played through all three games in quick succession, read up on all the complaints, watched hours of youtube videos arguing back and forth between indoctrination theory & those against it. it's long since sunk in, and i still love it. trust me.

It was a rushed slapped together ending that Bioware thought their fanboys would just eagerly lap up and blindly proclaim to be the best ever. Their reputation has taken a HUGE beating over this. It's not the end of the world for them, but they've lost a lot of credibility with a lot of fans.

conversely it could be argued that the other fanboys, had expected the the game should play out in a very specific manner according to what they, the self-proclaimed experts, have decided it should. and because the game didn't turn out that way, suddenly they're decrying the whole series for assumptions they shouldn't have been making to begin with. i went into this game with zero expectations other than the loose ones i mentioned earlier (the story would end messy, no happy ending, etc.), and i loved the game all the more for it.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Except they already know the Geth can and will expel the Quarians from their space, and Shepard makes no secret of their Reaper upgrades. The Quarian government, while often hawkish, has never been suicidal. The Geth are also aware that individual Quarians cannot always be controlled, and are generally not prone to warlike behavior. Pretty sure there's a few planet descriptions and codex entries that mention that the Geth are maintaining the Quarian cities/planets/etc. They were built to be laborers, not warriors. War is a learned behavior for them, and they are eager to return to their role of servitude. After a few generations, the integration would be almost seamless, and no sane Quarian would think of hurting their Geth buddies.

Could it explode into war? Sure. But, retarded ending aside, I'm a cyborg who has already defeated Death once and I intend to live forever (And if I don't, I'll still be around for at least another 60-100 years. Long enough to cement the foundation for a permanent peace). Either side fucks it up, they have to deal with The Shepard.

In any case, in a game in which the entire attraction is the gravity and effects of your choices, three endings is not enough. And the explanation is still stupid. Synthetics and organics can't get along, so let's wipe them all out, instead of, yknow, just taking the synthetics to Dark Space periodically or something.