Mass Effect 3 Review

[prisoner__24601]

I actually finished the game over a week ago, but have been holding back on posting a review because I really needed to get a bit of distance from this game to collect my thoughts.

Comments

[mutive]

Hah hah hah. I loved that Cortes got the emo-boy treatment, too. (After all, someone needed it with Thane gone

[prisoner__24601]

Is TOR a horrible financial mistake? I mean, assuming that they have like a million paying subscriptions (which is a guess, true). That's like 15 Million a month, without even the 60 bucks for the base game. Seems like if that number just stayed constant and didn't grow at all, they'd net 180 Million by the end of this year from subscriptions alone.

I mean yeah, there's still the constant operating cost of creating more content and no one really knows if subscriptions are dropping off or picking up (despite the doomsday attitude of the forums). But it seems to me like they could quite easily break even by the end of the year.

Am I missing something? Is my math wrong?

[mutive]

TOR probably is a financial disaster. (I say "is", as until it's done earning money - which hopefully won't be for a long time - it's hard to say for sure.) Your math isn't wrong, but you're not thinking about interest

[prisoner__24601]

Heh, I figured I must be missing something. I guess until it all shakes out that we won't know the true numbers of what they put into the game and what their rate of return will be. I suspect they're counting on some World of Warcraft like numbers - not immediately, but eventually. It'll be interesting to see how many subscribers they have in a year (or five). Personally, I'll never go back to a game like WoW after playing SW:TOR. But I really wouldn't count Blizzard out of the running yet. Despite the constant bitching on their forums, they're very good at what they do.

[clafount]

I agree with pretty much everything you've written here, other than the fact that the ME2 stuff was just enough for me as it was in game. But I understand that other fans wanted more.

And yeah, I'm very worried at how this may affect Bioware's future creative endeavors. I can only hope that they go back to what they did in DA:O and ME2 as far as endings go, and keep the rest of the stuff they did in ME3, rather than completely changing *everything* to be...some other type of company.

[prisoner__24601]

I think for some of the characters from ME2, it was pretty good. Legion, Mordin, Thane, Grunt, Samara and even Jack all get their moments to shine. Jack especially I enjoyed, and I laughed so hard when she shows up an Purgatory and gives Shepard shit about being a terrible dancer. It was like finally they gave me a sismance between Shepard and Jack - which was something that I think they just fell short of in the last game.

I just really wanted more of them, and would have rather had most of them on the crew then the new squaddies. Then again, since everyone can potentially die in the last game, I can see how from a development standpoint, it would be tough to do.

I'm really curious to see what the fallout from this debacle will be. I never once, in a million years, thought that there'd be more variety to the end of DA:O than the end of the Mass Effect series, and I would love it if they went back to that.

[clafount]

Oh I totally loved Vega, EDI and Javik, so it didn't bother me so much. Seems like Vega and EDI haven't been universally loved, though.

And yeah, I think the fact that any ME2 squadmate could die might have affected things. But then again, Tali and Garrus could have died too but they were still squadmates. Of course, those companions go back to ME1 as well, so that makes sense too.

God, I had a playthrough where Tali died and it just about gutted me. Didn't realize how much I liked her until I had that ending ;)

[prisoner__24601]

I liked Vega. Not at the beginning, but eventually with all of his banters with the crew. EDI I was less excited about, but was okay with, and Javik I didn't have because I had the regular copy of the game. So it's not that I didn't like them, I just really missed the old squad. I think I would have liked them better if I could have had both them and the old squaddies too.

Oh man, Tali. I never had a playthrough where I lost anyone (and that, was totally by accident, lol). But I did almost lose her in those vents. I loved that about the endgame of ME2. Knowing that she could die in there if I wasn't fast enough really created an awesome sense of urgency. It's something I really wanted to see in this game.

Have you played the Tali dead import yet? I'm curious about how it's different. I think eventually I'll have to play an import where Wrex, Mordin, Tali and Legion all die and see how the game handles it.

[plutospawn]

Maybe it's because I heard everyone bitching about the shitty ending that I really didn't mind it so much when it actually happened. Lowered expectations do wonders

[prisoner__24601]

I was totally caught off guard by how crappy the ending was. I mean, the shit storm was just getting warmed up when I started to play, and honestly I totally wrote it off as typical fanwanking over something that I didn't think was that big of a deal. But now? I think that this is one rare case where the fans have a legitimate point

[prisoner__24601]

Also, you should be playing SW:TOR. You would love that game even though it's an MMO.

[plutospawn]

They offered a free weekend of it and I almost tried it, but was too busy blowing through ME3.

Am doing another playthrough of the second game to see if it tweaks things. Am planning on romancing Thane this time around to see if I can land two dudes, albeit briefly, in the third game.

Some of the romance options sounded sleazy, but maybe it was because I didn't see them through? I just had the Kaidan "date," headed back to the ship and Traynor and Dianna both wanted me in my cabin back to back. The "paramour" achievement was still warm with Kaidan and I've got "climb in shower" with Traynor as an option.

Cool thoughts; allow me to add some of my own

[nivenus]

I came around to see if you or anyone else had published their thoughts on ME3, having just beaten it myself yesterday. My thoughts were apparently too long for livejournal, so I've downsized it a bit to the highlights.

“Even Shepard starts to crack under the strain, which was an awesome surprise.”

I thought that was great too. After everything Shepard's seen, you'd expect s/he'd come close to cracking sooner or later. I also appreciated how your team noticed and tried to help, and not just your LI. The conversation with Joker after Thessia was one particularly good example of this.

“I'm not really a weeper when it comes to movies and tv shows, but I cried three times as I played this game, and choked up a lot more often than that.”

Neither am I, but some moments did really get me. I felt genuine loss but respect for Thane's sacrifice, pangs of instant regret when, for a moment, I thought I'd doomed the quarians on Rannoch, and was crushed when Thessia fell to the Reapers and Kai Leng escaped with the prothean AI.

“I was rather

Re: Cool thoughts; allow me to add some of my own

[prisoner__24601]

I get what you're saying about the persuading power mechanic, but I have to admit that's something I've always disliked about the Mass Effect series. There are just some decisions that I think should bite Shepard on the ass, and not having any real consequences to choosing one side over another as far as whether it works out or not, seems to cheapen those decisions - especially on the Renegade side, which I think are the tougher decisions to make

Re: Cool thoughts; allow me to add some of my own

[nivenus]

I agree that persuading power shouldn't be a fix-all for all situations; the rachni queen and Council decisions should have had more consequence, as you say. But I think it works in many situations, the geth/quarian conflict being one of them (since it essentially stems from misunderstandings anyway).

I do think that some Paragon decisions should have several backfired along with Renegade decisions. How cool (if shocking) would it have been if killing the rachni queen in ME1 meant that you never ended up fighting any ravagers in ME3? Unfortunately, BioWare didn't go that direction and instead apparently (from what I've heard as I've only done my Paragade run so far) shoehorned in another rachni queen to supplant the one you killed in ME1.

I'm a little more divided on the salarians and the genophage. Again, I think their feudal hierarchy allows for some leniency there, though I think it would be totally appropriate if you received less support from the salarians. But I could really go either way there.

The Witcher definitely has

Re: Cool thoughts; allow me to add some of my own

[prisoner__24601]

I think the Witcher is like ten bucks now on steam. I'm willing to give it a shot, but at the moment it really comes down to time. SWTOR is already doing it's best to eat my brain. But maybe sometime in the future when I get bored with the MMO, I'll give it a shot.

When you get around to playing, let us know. A bunch of us have toons at various levels on Sanctum of the Exalted, and I have a few more over on Lord Prevan. I'm always up for doing a run with friends. The game plays awesome as a single player experience, but it's even more fun with friends.