[KCrosbie]

I've waited long enough. Finally, the series conclusion is only a few weeks away and I for one can't wait. First, let's start off with the extended 3 min trailer...

Mass Effect 3 extended trailer

Amazon's giving a $10 pre-order credit.

The demo was just released for this game, however, I'm willing to wait because I'll plow through it and want more which will make me upset.

So the story takes place shortly after the last ME2 DLC named "Arrival". The reapers have attacked Earth and the tag line of the game is to "Take Earth Back." They've introduced multiplayer in this one, however, I'm not sure if it may be worth playing. Anytime a developer introduces multiplayer in a single player game, it usually doesn't turn out well, i.e. Bioshock. Considering there are multiplayer achievements on this game, I'm hoping some of you MacNNers are gonna hit this up as well. Speaking of acheivements, I just found the list...

Mass Effect 3 achievements

If you haven't had a chance to play this series, I highly recommend it as it has one of the best storylines and gameplay you'll come across.

March 6 can't get here soon enough!

[exca1ibur]

I preordered it for $45 a few weeks ago. I agree it's a great series

[P]

That script leak was worrying, but honestly, I'll buy it soon enough anyway. This is the last chance I give Bioware in a long time, though - DA2 was horrible enough that it really warranted a boycott, but they get one more chance on the strength of past performance (and that ME3 is made by a different team than DA2).

This trailer paired with a Civ 5 expansion announcement that actually looks good means that I might be able to go back to Skyrim now and stop stretching it to cover this post-holidays dry spell.

[KCrosbie]

Originally Posted by exca1ibur 

I preordered it for $45 a few weeks ago.

Where?

[Leonard]

Definitely going to buy Mass Effect 3, but not necessarily right away - I need to finish off some Saint's Row 2 DLC, and I just started Assassin's Creed Revelations. I'll probably buy it end of March or beginning of April.

Originally Posted by KCrosbie

Anytime a developer introduces multiplayer in a single player game, it usually doesn't turn out well, i.e. Bioshock.

I'll have to disagree with this. I think they created a very good MP implementation in Bioshock. It fits Bioshock's style. They took the traditional TDM, domination and other game styles and modified them so that they fit the Bioshock universe.

I also think they implemented MP in Assassin's Creed in a style that fits AC and alot of gamers seem to agree with me. Which reminds me, I have to try out MP in AC:Revelations. I've only been playing the SP so far.

[lpkmckenna]

io9 wrote an interesting article: Mass Effect is the Most Important Sci-Fi of Our Generation. Having never played ME, this was pretty interesting to me.

[KCrosbie]

Get an early copy of Mass Effect 3: Space Edition starting 2/23/12

BioWare is giving gamers a chance to get their hands on the game early by presenting Mass Effect 3: Space Edition, which will see copies of the game launched into space (via high altitude balloons) in San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. These games will be trackable via GPS locators, so fans can hunt them down.

That's pretty cool!

First DLC "From Ashes" will be available on launch date

Listen to this bullshit about why DLC is available on launch date...

It takes about 3 months from "content complete" to bug-fix, certify, manufacture, and ship game discs. In that time we work on DLC.

DLC has fast cert and no mfg., so if a team works very hard, they can get a DLC done in time to enjoy it with your 1st playthrough on day 1.

On #ME3, content creators completed the game in January & moved onto the "From Ashes" DLC, free w/ the CE or you can buy seperately.

Damn EA milkin' it for what the game is worth. If I didn't love the game so much... I swear!

[exca1ibur]

Originally Posted by KCrosbie 

Where?

Newegg.com. They ran a 2 day promo at the time

[Rumor]

I broke down and pre ordered the other day when I saw a guy wearing a N7 hoodie. Though I have still yet to finish Arkham City, Skyrim, and Space Marine. Ug.

[KCrosbie]

I'm trying to finish up Arkham Asylum before the 6th because I know I'm not playing anything else once it comes out.

[KCrosbie]

Official Launch Trailer

Daaaaaaamn!

[P]

Anyone got it and played anything yet? Europe launch is tomorrow, for some reason, but the US launch has come and gone so...Anyone? Bueller? Anyone? Normally I'd jump on it, but DA2 and this Origin bullshit is making me wary.

[gradient]

The reviews I've read so far are good but I think I'm going to wait for a few more before deciding to get it. I loved the first two games, but the gameplay in the 360 Demo didn't impress me and kind of soured my excitement over the launch. The controls just felt sluggish, though I have to assume it's been polished up quite a bit for the full launch.

[KCrosbie]

I've definitely gotten around to playing it. Here are some quick first impressions...

- First off, the attention to detail in this game is nothing short of amazing. Without giving any spoilers, let's just say the opening scene and gameplay were off the charts!
- The first hour or two of gameplay is pretty linear, but after that it opens up for exploration and missions.
- Didn't play the demo like gradient, but the controls are pretty much the same as the other two games. The main difference is being able to run infinitely, which is a nice touch when you get into battle.
- The firefights you get into with enemies are pretty damn fun. For example, I ran into a group of armored solders and one of them had a riot shield. Took out my sniper rifle and equipped fire ammunition. They have a little peep hole they look through and I blasted his head off by shooting through it. His entire head exploded. They call it a mail slot shot, lol!
- The character classes are a little more limited because they added more classes. Leveling up your characters remain pretty standard except now as your increase a certain stat, the higher the bar the higher points you need to spend to upgrade.
- I imported my ME2 character and all the big decisions I made in the previous 2 games carry into this one. This is what I think is going to give the single player experience more longevity and you wanting to run though the game more than once. After I beat this game using all renegade choices, I'm going to start over by creating a new character from scrath (maybe female Shep?) and choose more reputable choices. I'm wondering what standard choices from the first two are implemented in the game if you never played the first 2 games.

I seriously can't recommend a game more for it's overall plot, depth of alien characters and gameplay. I'm really sad knowing this is the final game of the series.

[Rumor]

Got my copy in the mail this morning. I am hoping to get some time in tonight or tomorrow.

[P]

I bought it as well, figured I'd give them one more chance since I really like ME2. Installing it was a joke. I had to download, in order:

* The client for the place I bought it from - a beta
* An update far that client, because the link you can download is not the latest version
* The game itself
* The Origin client - again, beta
* An update for that - again, how about just putting the latest version in the official download?

After that, I had to register in Origin, pointing out that it should be the real name (which I obviously didn't use, but the wording of the text was really that) and select what ways people could find me through (email, Facebook, etc). Since I want to play single-player, I unchecked all. That was apparently not something they liked, because the first time I tried to launch the game, it asked again - again defaulting to everything on. All of this for something I will never use again beyond launching the game.

As for the game itself... It's an expansion pack to ME2. NOTHING in the engine is new. They've removed the mining thing and the loyalty missions seem to be gone as well (so far), but nothing is added. Even the major complaints of ME2 - no shortcut keys for weapons, cover system is basically broken because the cover key is shared with so many other things - have not been fixed. I don't think they touched the engine code.The one and only thing it brings is the story - so it's a good thing that it's an excellent story. Even so, it really feels like they're trying to push that final DLC for ME2 here - the story has big holes for me who didn't bother getting that.

ME3 is so far only decent - even that great story can't quite carry the game across all the idiocy EA has saddled it with and gameplay that is starting to feel repeteitive. It's actually a good thing that this is the last in the series, because they really need to reevaluate what they're doing here. Bioware has a reputation for good stories, but that's only partially true. The scripts back in the golden years were from Black Isle (later Obsidian), and on their own, Bioware has stumbled several times in their storytelling. They're in business because they used to execute well, but that is starting to crack. They're now living on their name and the ME story - neither of which will last.

[P]

But it was worth it in the end. I know that there were complaints about the ending, but I thought it fitting.

[Leonard]

Anyone use a Kinect with ME3? Is it useful?

I'm pondering setting up my Kinect.

[KCrosbie]

Does anyone here even have a Kinect?

Finally getting deeper into this game as my time has been scarce.

 

I killed Mordin to protect the deception of the Krogan genophage "cure." I'm making the run of doing all renegade decisions first. I hated killing him as he was my favorite squad mate in ME2. Can't wait to see if he still dies or lives if I choose to help him on the next run.

[P]

Well, I don't want to spoil anything, but did you read the introduction text to the game? The first line?

[Leonard]

Man, the game didn't take long to ask for Disc #2. I'm only 3-4 days into the game (5-6 hours play). I guess it's because I picked the side mission. I want to get all the side missions done.

It's definitely a fun game. Love the new melee attack animations and the new graphics. The new scanning for resources is better.

I never did care for all the conversations/talking, but I'll bear it.

Killed 3-4 Brutes, but still haven't killed a Brute while it's charging. I haven't been able to create the setup without getting killed or killing the Brute without him charging.

[KCrosbie]

You can go back and forth between discs, depending on which order you take each mission. My first playthough I had to change between the discs about 6 times, which was annoying.

Killing a charging Brute is easy. Just take its health down to one bar, keep your distance and let it charge. Once it does, light it up and the cheevo will pop.

On my 2nd playthough as we speak. The ending wasn't as bad as some of the whining fanboys claim it to be. Although I do hear that there's an extended cut that'll be released in the near future that'll show a lot more of what happened to a lot of the characters, which is good in my book.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by KCrosbie 

Killing a charging Brute is easy. Just take its health down to one bar, keep your distance and let it charge. Once it does, light it up and the cheevo will pop.
.

Yeah, the only problem is your squad kills him before you. Or other distractions. I'll get one eventually.

Almost have the mailslot achievement done.

Man, do the side missions ever open up after visiting the citadel a second time. Over a dozen of them...

[abby]

i haven't played this before. i think i'm going to try. it looks very promising.

[KCrosbie]

Just saw this game for today is the Amazon Gold Box deal. $30! Totally worth it if you don't have it!

[Leonard]

I started the Multiplayer part of Mass Effect a couple days ago. I guess it would be better to call it 2-4 player CO-OP. You aren't playing against each other, but playing as a team against an enemy (GETH, Cerberus, or Reapers I think). It seems to take about 20 minutes to play the 10 or 11 wave missions. I've just been playing Bronze level and collecting credits for weapons and other stuff.

Now I'll have to see how it affects the single player. It seems to update the Galaxy Map Readiness and if you have a high enough MP character it sounds like you can import him to the Galaxy Map and the character counts a resource.

[Leonard]

I have to say I'm a little disappointed by how little DLC there is for this game. ME2 had a lot more DLC. So far we only have 1 SP and 1 MP DLC for ME3?

[Leonard]

The Good ending isn't so good, if you really think about it.

 

All the Mass Relays are destroyed so all races are stranded on their own planets, and the armada that helps Earth is also stranded. It's also interesting how little the races know about the citadel. But if the reapers harvest all the intelligent races, that makes sense.

I guess the endings explain partly why there is so little DLC.

[P]

Not sure that spoiler tags are still relevant, but:

 

That the Mass Relays are destroyed doesn't mean that everyone is stuck in their own star system. They have faster-than-light travel, it's just slower than the Mass Relays - and there is no fundamental reason why they can't develop even faster engines now that there is an economic incentive.

I enjoyed the endings with the single exception of the Normandy fleeing with your squad mates on board. That could have worked if they had built up to it - say that the Reapers stopped attacking when Shepherd beamed up, or when he picked his ending, but that the explosion took some time to start - but there was nothing like that.

Bioware have said that they will be fleshing out the endings a bit - will be interesting to see what they do.

[Leonard]

I see Bioware is pushing the multiplayer/co-op. They just released a second DLC for the multiplayer - the Rebellion pack which includes 2 new maps, 3 new characters, a new objective type, and a few new weapons and equipment. Thing is the multiplayer is repetitive. Shooting wave upon wave of enemies to power up your character.

At least it's free DLC.

[KCrosbie]

Not really diggin' the multiplayer. Mass Effect is meant for a single player experience.

[KCrosbie]

Originally Posted by P 

Bioware have said that they will be fleshing out the endings a bit - will be interesting to see what they do.

Yeah, they're not going to change the ending, only expand to the ending and fill in some plot holes that fans wanted to know about.

[KCrosbie]

Extended cut DLC is out June 26

- It's free
- It's 1.9 gigs in size
- Extra scenes begin when you assault the Cerebus base.

Definitely going to check it out.

[Leonard]

I'll have to check it out sometime when I have time.

I'm not really sure I want to go through all those Boss fights again, though, just for new cut scenes. I could wait till the cut-scenes are on YouTube.

[P]

If you have finished it, you get a save just before

 

assaulting the reaper base

. You can load that and see the ending, or so I've been told. Haven't played yet, though - it just finished downloading, I'll get to it later.

[P]

It turns out that you do not start at that point.

 

You start at the "point of no return", which is the assault on the Cerberus base. That base itself is not too bad, but you have to battle that annoying cyber ninja dude before doing the never-ending assault on Earth. That wasn't too bad when you're fresh from the rest of the game, but right now I'm unused to the control scheme and this is a lot of work for just wanting to see a couple of cutscenes. I hope they're worth it.

[Leonard]

Originally Posted by P 

 

You start at the "point of no return", which is the assault on the Cerberus base. That base itself is not too bad, but you have to battle that annoying cyber ninja dude before doing the never-ending assault on Earth. That wasn't too bad when you're fresh from the rest of the game, but right now I'm unused to the control scheme and this is a lot of work for just wanting to see a couple of cutscenes. I hope they're worth it.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my thoughts.

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but is all that work worth it? Like I said, I may just watch the new cutscenes on Youtube.

[P]

So I finished it now, just in time for the game. Basically, what is new:

 

When running to the beam to go up to the Citadel, your teammates follow you (they didn't before). There is an explosion that throws a car into their way, and at least one is injured in the explosion. Shepard calls down the Normandy to evacuate them (and does not bring in any replacements, which would have been logical) and goes on alone. At that point we're back on the old script on through the confrontation with the Illusive Man.

Then comes the change. When speaking with the child/Catalyst avatar, you can ask for details and challenge his reasoning quite a bit. There is also a new, fourth ending - refusing to choose. This triggers the cycle to go as usual, harvesting all civilized races and ending with Liara in a capsule telling whatever civilization comes after to avoid their mistakes.

The biggest change is in the movies after you choose. First up, there is a delay which the fleets surrounding earth use to hyper out before the relays go bye-bye. The Normandy is the last to leave, which is why it is caught in transit when the explosion happens. These movies you can see on Youtube, but basically: The green ending is as before, but it is pointed out that the Reapers are now allies, helping to rebuild the broken worlds and the Mass Relays. This is probably the paradise ending now. The red ending is as it always was, except Hackett points out that the relays are damaged rather than destroyed, and it seems to be possible to repair them. All synthetics are terminated by this, so Legion and EDI are gone. The blue ending is the one that gets the biggest change. Shepard now becomes a god, controlling the Reapers and the Mass Relays. There are a few ominous phrases about "righting wrongs", hinting that the new god may not be entirely benevolent. Finally, in all endings your crew put the names of all of the fallen on a wall of the Normandy, finishing with Shepard, there is a slight teaser from Bioware about more adventures "in the Mass Effect universe", and credits roll.

All in all: It doesn't change anything. It plugs the big hole in the storyline and fleshes out what the three choices really mean, but the story is what it is, and there are no happy endings to be had.

[Leonard]

Ok, thanks for information. It sounds like they actually filled in some of the detail that I wanted.

 

I guess the GREEN ending is supposed to be the "good ending", but I just had some worries about everyone being modified to include both synthetic (especially Reaper DNA) and organic DNA, and the Reapers getting to live.

For some strange reason I chose the RED ending, but I thought legion and EDI got to live, but maybe I'm remembering that wrong.

[P]

 

There is no Reaper DNA, because the Reapers are synthetics. What happens in the green ending is some sort of nanotech enhancement of everyone and every living thing, which is enough of a change that the Catalyst avatar boy feels that there will not be a new war between organics and synthetics. He does retain control over the Reapers though, so I guess he remains the god in this scenario, but OTOH he does recognize that this cycle is something different, something that can not be handled in his normal way - and anyway, there should be enough tech transfer that the Reapers would be hard pressed to win another war.

The red scenario always meant the death of all synthetics, which would include EDI and all the Geth, but I guess it was only mentioned in passing before. It is also mentioned that this will kill Shepard, as he is full of synthetic enhancements after the death and resurrection by Cerberus. I guess it depends on how you handled the Geth conflict if that works for you. Me, I worked to reconcile the Quarians with the Geth, so it seemed wrong to turn around and exterminate them.

Not all endings are available at all times, it depends on your Galactic Readiness factor. You always have the red option, but Earth will be destroyed to a greater extent if your rating is low. Bring the rating up to enable the blue option, and max it (with the percentage at 50%) for the green option. If you bring up the percentage high as well, you can select the red option and have Shepard survive as a human, although burned to a crisp and lying in the wreckage of the Citadel.

[Leonard]

I played alot of online coop so I had my readiness at just under 100% and I had collected most of the resources.

 

Like you I made peace between the Geth and Quarians!. Man that must of been some surprise for the humans when the Geth Primes joined the humans to fight the Reapers.

Yeah, I think my Shepard survived in the rubble of the Citadel. They showed part of him moving

[Leonard]

Finally, some new single player DLC! Leviathon will be Available next week. I don't have a link, yet, I just saw the news.

[Leonard]

link http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/04/biowares-upcoming-leviathan-dlc-will-impact-the-mass-effect-3-ending/

There is comment in the article that you have to replay the game to play the DLC. I wonder if that is true?

[Leonard]

I forgot that I have saved game files, though. I could go back to an old saved game file and start from there. I could start, say from the last time I was on the Citadel. I could even replay the ending if I'm going to play this DLC.

[KCrosbie]

It's coming out on Aug 28. Bout time they release a single player DLC.

[Leonard]

I can't wait. I definitely grab it and play through it.

I might even go back to playing the online coop, to see the changes they did for coop.

[Tyraell]

Great series. I like it

[KCrosbie]

Leviathon is half off today only for 400MS points! I've been so busy with other games, I never bought this DLC. Score!

[Leonard]

Thanks for the info... I don't think I bought it yet either.

Hopefully I can remember when I get home...

[Leonard]

The Leviathon DLC was fun and a nice addition to the ME3 story!

I guess I'll have to get the Omega DLC.