Mass Effect 3

[gobbleskat]

Actually Rez, that's exactly what I assumed happened. It didn't throw me at all to see myself back with the alliance, especially after I stuck it to the Illusive Man at the end of 2. When Anderson makes reference to "what I've done" there is no straight up indication that he is referring to The Arrival...unless you KNOW that the game is picking up after The Arrival. I did infer that there had been SOME sort of hearing, and I'm willing to accept it was in response to the Batarian thing, but I certainly didn't need to know that to move forward.

I'm MORE curious to see how the events of Shadow Broker play into the story, because certain developments in that DLC are very matter of fact now.

In the end I'd say I got my face to within about 93% of its original look. It actually took very little time.

[Juese]

I assumed I missed something from the books via trial-type stuff, forgot their was even a DLC I missed. I think that covered fine, though I could see some advantages of going over your past stuff via the trial. Which I was hoping for, some refreshers.

I'm going to assume my face took the longest of everyone. And I'd put mine closer to 75-85% max. Between the 40 minutes or so on the face, the day trying to circumvent it and losing my boner for the game, and not getting the recap I was looking forward to, I was pretty unimpressed with the opening. I just wasn't sucked into the Ultimates version of Shepard, and running around that first area just didn't feel right. Shockwave didn't work on the first dudes and looked weird. Also after replaying the 2 opening, I was reminded how much I love the saving Joker intro. And the Newt kid was dumb.

After the logo things have gotten better. Having a couple people and a few new things to level helps. I was sufficiently upset I had to go to work as it was all picking up, and am really looking forward to diving in tonight. I just need to get over this face thing. And maybe go through my journals from 1 and 2.

[gobbleskat]

My biggest gripe thus far is some sort of glitch with the conversation wheel. in short, it is autoselecting at random, and no its not the setting that makes choices for you. I will look at the wheel, and the cursor JUMPS to a random selection and activates it. It happened 6 or so times last night. I can only assume this is a Kinect issue, as you use it to select dialogue and can the icon indicates that it is almost always picking up ambient noise. I'll try recalibrating, but hopefully I don't KILL anyone as a result of an involuntary selection.

[gobbleskat]

That shockwave thing was weird. I assumed it was because they were on a higher level, but later on shockwave had no problem traveling through the air. Only thing I can think of is that they were sitting juuuust beyond the outside range, but its repeated failure was probably maddening.

I got my freedom to move about the Normandy last butt and things started feeling a lot more normal. The ship is dark and empty without all my friends from 2 hanging about, but I already picked up a few extra crew members just by trolling the Citadel.

Combat has felt clunkier. Heavy pistols don't seem to have the punch they did in 2, and I can't wait to have a sub without burst fire, and a sniper rifle that isn't goddamn bolt action. In general Shepard is soaking up damage like a sponge, and my power armor is definitely not the force it was by the end of 2. I'm sure most of these issues will peter off with time and more upgrades.

[barnaclelapse]

My brother has it, so I'm routinely fighting the urge to go play it. My laptop keyboard quit on me, and I just got it finally fixed the other day. I've got quite a bit to catch up on.

But it's definitely calling me. And visiting a damn thread about it isn't helping one damn bit.

[Ekkebus]

I also thought the opening action scene was a little bit flat. I almost think it was more the bland ass color palette and area design than anything. Also, Mass Effect 2 had a really good intro so it's a rough comparison. The game has been steadily picking up steam and I'm definitely at the point where having to set the controller down is excruciating.

I think combat feels better. Notably Shepards movement feels a lot smoother and when you're sprinting it's a lot easier to maneuver left or right. I ditched the Heavy Pistol and Shotgun almost immediately in favor of the Assault Rifle and SMG. Plus through customization and upgrades they're making no impact on my encumbrance, doubling my cooldown bonus. Between that and the way I've been spending my points I practically don't have a cooldown at all. I like the new Shockwave, I think it looks cooler albeit stolen from inFamous. I love how you Pull can seek two targets. Nova was weird to use at first but now that it's powered up it's basically the 'kill everything standing around me' button. Plus thanks to Kinect I get to yell "NOVA!!!!!" when I charge into a group of enemies. Speaking of Kinect, I haven't had the issue with the dialogue wheel but I have accidentally set off powers once or twice but I think generally my living room has less ambient chatter than yours.

The only issue I've had up to this point is my squadmates getting stuck behind closed doors after I charge into a room. Now I make sure to direct them through before moving ahead but it's still kind of annoying. Also annoying is all the disc swapping I've had to do so far. Seemingly all the sidequests are one disc 2 and main story stuff is on disc 1. It's not the worst thing in the world but it breaks up the flow just a little bit.

[gobbleskat]

Maneuvering has been a snap. Did Shepard have Gearsy dive rolls in 2? Those have saved me on a few occassions already. I snapping in and out of cover, however, has been unreliable at best. When I'm taking fire the last thing I need is to sit there, looking at the cover with the prompt that says 'press a to take cover' and be pressing a repeatedly with no response. Got me killed a couple times in the Cerberus lab I was in last night.

I love the quickclimb, and that I can vault while runnig with a well timed double tap. Throw now launches two projectiles and seeks better than before. Overload and Neural Shock were bonded into one move, so that's one less power swap for me.

Love that customizing weapons is back, and looking forward to some upgrades. The frequency with which I've been grabbing upgrades has also been nice.

[Ekkebus]

Yeah, the upgrades and enhancements have been a huge plus. I've seen people bitching about how ME3 is a step even further towards shooter territory and I can't agree. There's already more weapon and armor customization options than there was in all of ME2.

[gobbleskat]

Possible spoilers about the opening.....I guess?


The opening was a mixed bag for me. I was excited that the Reaper attack was right off the bat, but it also made it feel like it didn't matter much because it was a catalyst and HAD to happen to launch the game. Anderson and Shepard climbing around the outside of the building, totally exposed, did not seem like a better solution than...I dunno...shooting their way through the desk blocking the exit? Their conversation on the Normandy ramp was just poorly timed in general. The sequence in general felt like it lacked direction and didn't deliver the energy you'd expect. I enjoyed the battle around me a lot more than the one I was fighting.

I think there is some merit to say that the first hour or so of the game is action heavy, but you are also accumulating resources and distributing points so there is a lot of character building already in process. The Eden Prime mission in ME1 was comparable in length to the Mars mission, and in my memory was a lot more tedious. I think the key is to be patient and let them tell you their damn story. You'll get to go shopping soon enough.

[Reznor]

Playing as an Engineer has allowed me to storm my way through firefights with sheer ease. Rocking an Assault Rifle, and a Heavy Pistol. The pistol itself hardly ever gets used, since my Powers do most of the work before I even have to think about pulling the trigger.

Incinerate fully powered up chews through armored targets, and can usually one-shot kill any enemy without shields/barriers or armor. Overload Takes care of the Shields, and Sabotage handles turrets and blowing up the opposition's weaponry. With the weapon mods and such that I have, I've got just under a two second power recharge time.

14 hours into this game, and I'm finding it really hard to discuss anything else in the game. There are tons and tons of things that could be spoiled bigtime in this one. I've been finding myself cringing when I realize a few decisions made back in Mass Effect 1 could really come back to bite me in the ass.

Every time I alert the Reapers while scanning the galaxy, I find myself compelled to lead them on a Benny Hill-like chase around the current system's sun a few times before leaving the galaxy itself to escape.

Listed below are past ME 2 squadmates I've met up with once again. Could be considered a spoiler. (Highlight text to read)

Found Jack, Mordin, Thane, and Kasumi. Jack looks a lot like Tank Girl now. Wrex and Grunt are now some very humorous krogan. Wrex easily being towards the top of my list for Funniest ME 3 character.

Suggestion: Anything that could be considered any kind of spoiler, just set that text to black. Forces people to highlight the text to read, and no chance for accidental spoilers.

[gobbleskat]

Yes, if I was discussing things that didn't cocnern the first 10 minutes of the game or game mechanics I would mask it. I'm also pretty a font/bg color match has been the message board standard for posting spoilers for like....a decade.




Rez is AMAZEBALLS HUGE astronaut.

[Ekkebus]

So I had a weird moment tonight where the rachni came up in conversation and Shepard was all like "I met the queen and I let her live"....which I didn't. Shortly thereafter it came up again and Shepard was all like "Yeah, I killed the rachni queen". Some streams clearly got crossed there.

[gobbleskat]

Juese was noting to me that, apparently, more than just facial data got messed with in the transfer. In some cases it is as severe as people who should have died being alive and so forth.

[Ekkebus]

I don't know if it was a transfer problem just because it got corrected in all further instances of the event coming up. I feel like the initial comment about letting her go might have been some kind of glitch, possibly because a character from the first game was there with me. Thrill as I talk around anything that could be construed as a spoiler. Hopefully this is the only time something like this comes up. I didn't save everyone in ME2 for nothing.

I'm quite suddenly closing in on 15 hours played. Loving pretty much everything. My only gripe is that I wish I had a few more squadmates as I currently only have four to choose from. I'm running into plenty of familiar faces but for the most part they're all filing in under 'War Assets'.

[Reznor]

There have been at least two instances I've fucked myself on completing quests, simply because I did not pick up a certain item while on a ground mission.

Also, if you never touch the multiplayer portion of ME 3, your effective "War Assets" readiness rating is effectively halved. Now, mind you, this just means you have to complete a lot more sidequests to get the best possible ending.

Different voice actor for (Spoiler)Mordin? What horse shit.