Well now, that was...So how do I begin to talk about this game when I am still dumbfounded at some of the accomplishments contained within it? How do I begin to enumerate how affected I've felt at various times? And how many times will sci-fi genres default to omniscient end-plot twists? Well, I guess no game is perfect.
As I'm sitting here trying to put my thoughts together I find myself constantly reflecting on the sheer scope of what I just played, my decisions, my emotional attachments, and just how close it came to being, well... profoundly moving. I'm not saying that there weren't moments that were pretty jaw dropping, because there certainly are, but there were many times where the sheer scope of the game hindered it's flow, or buckled under its own weight. I am also happy to report that many of my problems with ME2 are no longer present, non-issues, or re-worked into a much better format so that they aren't nearly as bothersome. For example my original headphone breaking issue was completely reversed with a new power, which actually made me want to have multiple husks next to me, making me charge into big groups very often.
We've all heard from many places, including from Bioware that you can play the game and not need to have played the first two, however I would NOT suggest this, even in the slightest. Not only are the other two games very good on their own (even with their 'quirks'), but if you do not have the proper emotional attachments/investments, or knowledge about everything that's happened up until this point, you will be missing an incredible amount of stuff, and lessening what this game means to you.
From this point onward, I will only be talking about my first Shepard, Alain (previous blog for back-story) and trying to touch on as much as I found profoundly important, or intensely frustrating. As always, there will be MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON, so please leave now if you wish to avoid such things.
Where we Began In trying to figure out where things stood when I began, I could have really appreciated a short synopsis of what had happened in between ME2 and ME3. I found myself wondering quite early, what happened to my crew? Where are they? Not having this information in a way made for a very unsettling first act of the game, where I didn't know where I was, continuity wise. Having not done the Arrival DLC from ME2, but having seen it, I wondered why I was grounded, which only came up when I found that I wasn't involved in the destruction of the Alpha relay. So I was grounded because I had worked with Cerberus? Everything was a little murky and hindered how I perceived the whole opening.
While I found that the opening sequence did its job pretty well, albeit a bit brief for my tastes (I mean you are trying to set up a strong conflicting decision to leave right?) I found that the contained 'tutorial' within a rather obvious inclusion. This is probably the first thing that I found somewhat disheartening, as any combat to get out alive had no real weight or meaning behind it. Even on Hardcore (didn't play Insane because hardest settings in a FPS usually means computer==cheats) the fights were way too easy. I even found that I breezed through everything until I met up with Jack and rescued the school, where that was the first time I died up to that point (I blame it on not knowing how to deal with turrets effectively). All in all, the decision to leave was a rather hollow one compared to what it should have been, and left me wanton. I also understand that there is some time needed to acclimate to a new system, but the differences between ME2 and ME3 combat wise, are rather small and as such, I felt that the easiness of this opening got in the way of their intentions.
Life on Mars The diversion to Mars turned out to be a strong part of the whole of what I'm calling the first act. The inclusion of the Prothean super weapon schematics on Mars was a nice way to introduce a way to combat the Reaper threat. Up till this point, we had a hard enough time with Sovereign that relying on a complete unknown felt in line with the desperate nature of the situation. I also reunited with Liara and finally got to kick Jacob 2.0 off my squad. I understand why he was necessary, and I appreciated that more crew members were getting some face time, but overall James suffered much the same way as Jacob did, as just another guy wearing a 'red shirt'.
The Cerberus reveal was a nice touch, and added a strong subplot to the whole story. With the illusive man fighting for the same information, it always felt more like a race to the finish, which added a level of tension that was appreciated. Add to that undercurrent and we get perhaps the first real test of the game. It's one thing to kill faceless people off without hesitation, but when it's someone you know like Ash, her near-death was quite impactful and told us that this game wasn't going to pull punches. This had a major impact on me later when I made a bad call and was forced to restart.
Speaking of Ash, Mars gave me the reason I needed to make the decision to cut romantic ties to her. She was in many respects very xenophobic in the first game, but between ME2-3 she showed that she was actually rather closed minded and stubborn. It makes her a good fighter, but I found that even after being close with her I couldn't agree with how mistrustful she was. Interestingly enough this helped later on when Ash had to make a decision to trust me again and not side with Udina in his attempted coup. Sadly I felt that Ash was a very underdeveloped character here, and while that may be because of my play through, she felt about as developed as Tali did in ME1 which is to say, not very.
The Fan Problem After this sequence of events I finally ran into my first :/ moment of the game. As with many games with hordes of fans sometimes what the fan wants isn't good for the story. I found that at times unfortunately there was dialogue that was simply there to get fans to giggle to themselves because of the references to the other games. This also unfortunately left a rather unpalatable taste in my mouth as in these moments I found that the drama was trying to service me, and not itself. One of the worst offences that a game that is trying to genuinely try to connect to their audience can do is to insert the 'not so subtle references' as previously mentioned as it removes us from the situation and reminds us that we are playing a game, and not experiencing it. Overall these issues are small, especially in the scope of this game, but ultimately add with other gripes to mar the experience a little.
The Tolls of War In working through this second, and largest part of the game I found a number of things to be both impressive and intriguing, and somewhat irksome. In handling these major arcs (Krogan Turian alliance, fall of Thessia), there were many really good moments and nice additions. In the major Krogan story line, because we need to believe that taking on a Reaper is a monumental task, when we get out of the convoy and see the Reaper in the distance it presents us with a scale and destructive power of a Reaper this size. In finally reaching the Reaper, we get to see just how large it is, which ends up paying huge dividends later down the road. Mordin's sacrifice also ends up being rather well placed within this whole arc and adds to the notion that anyone can die.
Another nice addition to the ominous nature was the addition of shore leave and off duty time, which provided some break from the moderately bleak atmosphere. I say moderately in deference to actual war, in which the reality is brutal, though I should credit Bioware for touching on some darker aspects of war, like failure, death, and psychological trauma (the latter was oddly handled, but not because of the actual trauma, see choice section).
The fall of Thessia and the subsequent failure of Shepards mission was a very nice moment of crushing defeat, in that the character reactions and mine to this were generally strong. It kind of reminded me of Final Fantasy VI, one of the few games I feel that has really explored defeat. The mission report to the Asari ambassador showed this very well, however, we are almost immediately marred by a more personal reaction that I thought should have appeared devastating, that of Liara. Witnessing the destruction of her home world, along with crew reactions from Tali and Garrus set up that Liara should be a wreck, but when we find her, we find no such thing. I don't think how they handled it was wrong, but I do feel that they again, didn't go far enough and missed a huge opportunity to fully explore that kind of trauma in a way that's very personal. This would help in so many ways story wise, and I felt it was a rather muted response to an overwhelming situation.
The addition of side quests contributed to the whole guerilla warfare idea made for a more prolonged and sustained experience, while the scanning mini game was tweaked to something, less annoying, though I still wonder if they couldn't have chosen a better way to have exploration.
The Acrobatics of Death Another thing that bothered me, was something that hinders me from enjoying The Witcher series. In The Witcher, the setting presents itself as one of the more realistic fantasy settings, but is marred by a combat system that presents Geralt as this ultimate, acrobatic, jedi-esque badass. I think it was the system and the physical portrayal of that system that really prevented me from believing in the setting. It was much like Dragon Age 2, as the system and the world seemed to be at odds with each other.
In this vein I found that Kai Lang, and the introduction of 'ninja' to having a somewhat incongruous effect on the setting. Yes I understand we have assassins and all, but the constant over the top jedi acrobatics detracted from the believability of the reality. At any rate Lang also provided a superiorly annoying effect in how I perceived the game. I am a vanguard, and should be good in close combat, but apparently I suck, as when you fight Lang the second time, if you get too close he will kill you, and there's nothing you can do about it. I did catch however the small Half Life nod to the black ops snipers. It was subtle enough, and not incongruous with the setting, so I was ok with it.
Edit: I guess I should clarify that in terms of the rendered scenes, I had mo problem with the physicality of Kai Lang, but it was the gameplay aspect that very much rubbed me the wrong way, as it went from believable (scenes) to very not so (gameplay).
DLC and Music Yep so I said that DLC is a rather absurd business model, but for this game, it seems that DLC is even more odd as no matter which way you slice it, Shepard is going to bite it in the end. I understand the whole episodic interpolation thing, but for something like this, the DLC seems very much at odds with the finality of this game. Funny enough, I was convinced that my first encounter with Miranda would lead to DLC, and thank god it didn't as that would have been relatively insulting.
I don't really have a ton to say on the music of Mass Effect 3, but were I to choose the most cohesive soundtrack of the series, it would easily be this one. While I still have some reservations about overall commonality, and thematic leanness, there was enough theme or cell references and a good balance between the electronic and orchestral treatment for me to thoroughly enjoy it, so much so that it has been deeply impactful on me (though I'm also going to attribute that partially to the narrative). It is by many accounts and incredible soundtrack, with only a few minor annoyances. The only big problem I ever noticed (other than commonality issues) was that in more 'emotional' moments sometimes the music just jumped in to say 'heyo" and wasn't terribly subtle about it.
The Fight for Rannoch There are two major reasons that I've dedicated a section to this, firstly because of how it was executed, and secondly my relationship with Tali. While Tuchanka was the first major victory for the war effort, Rannoch felt like a personal victory, and because of that had a much stronger impact on me. I would probably say that this was the most poignant section for me, as not only was I helping the Quarians retake their home, but I was personally invested in that result as well.
The long drive towards the assault to retake Rannoch provided a nice backdrop of wear and tension and led nicely into the final assault. One oddity was that I took Tali onto Rannoch in a side mission beforehand, and she talked about being on Rannoch for the first time, and well, this detracted a little from the final push when Tali takes in that she is on her home for the first, err, second time. This wasn't the only problem however, but also wasn't unbearable, just not ideal.
The lead up to destroy the Reaper base was well done, and provided probably the most personally affected moment for me in the game. In blowing up the base we find that, well, it's not a base, it's an actual Reaper. Yay for escalation. When Shepard decides to stand against the Reaper all by himself not only is this a strong statement that he is tired of running and wants to hit back, but added onto this is that Tali not only shows some major worries about failure, but she also expresses her personal feelings to you, and the need for success is greatly enhanced. However three issues colored this end-mission a bit. First, was the fan fiction, which was odd and unnecessary. If you wanted a more subtle nod to this or other genres and not be so obvious, why not go with:
Tali: I love you. Shepard: I know.
Either way, it was a small bump on the trajectory. The second moment was right afterwards when you try to lock into the Reaper. I died a number of times because there's a trick. You have to move out of the way of the beam, and then stand still... If you do the locking will take place faster. Had I been prepped about this earlier (say in a message from EDI telling me not to move around when targeting or the like) I would have beaten the Reaper on the first try. This I feel was relatively important because your death significantly stopped the trajectory of the story and left me a bit perturbed. This has an added effect in that I also rarely died, despite my predisposition to getting into hairy situations all the time (see below).
The final issue I had was in not understanding that the game was broadcasting the option to me, and because I didn't understand it, both the Quarians die, and Tali left to deal with the death of her people commits suicide. Even with my paragon mouse clicking I couldn't save her, and thusly reloaded as that was an unacceptable outcome. The tradeoff however was that I immediately facepalmed knowing exactly what they were trying to tell me, and then literally stopped playing for about 10 minutes as I explored how affected I had felt. I thought to myself, if they were able to elicit this kind of response from me, well, I'm rather excited to see what the endgame will be.
The other reason that I felt that this was one of the most poignant sections was that this is the first time that you kill a reaper since Sovereign. The Thresher Maw was cool and all, but it wasn't personal, and this is the first time that it's felt that way.
In resetting, I sat in contemplation in killing an entire race of machines or not, and ended choosing the Quarians, not only because of Tali, but also because I also read the Geth's response much differently, in that it was supposed to be a threatening response, which I suppose was the key element that I lacked in grasping the first time around. The after math of this was sitting on the precipice with Tali talking about the future, I felt this was the perfect time to have Tali remove her mask to us, and she does, but never to the camera. This is somewhat contentious because of what the drama is asking, and something I stumbled upon later, thanks to Kotaku.
Apparently Tali's face, which you do eventually see in a photograph (of her on Rannoch I'm assuming) is from a stock photo, and not a generated image. Unfortunately this means that they likely never intended to reveal Tali's face which struck me as a poor choice considering that a number of scenes would have been greatly enhanced by this, especially the scene before the final assault (instead of being 10 seconds, you would have been able to have a much longer scene). It's not even that I disagree with how Tali looks, which I found pleasing and well constructed, but in the lack to effort that went into it at all has lessened my opinion of Bioware to a degree as it shows lack of understanding core narrative ideas, or just being afraid of getting it wrong, and avoiding it entirely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP5BCUKXgY8&feature=BFa&list=PL0A5120F94440483D&lf=results_main I never heard the last minute of this, which would have made a huge impact
Either way I felt that my investments had been a little betrayed, not because I disliked the presentation, which I actually found a very nice shade of subtle, post-mission, but that the most important romantic scene was severely watered down when compared to what it could have been had they decided to finally flesh this out. Well who knows, maybe it'll be in a DLC...
Personal Investment and Romance Because of my class as a Vanguard, the best way to play is fast and loose, taking a lot of risks during a fight. This also can be rather difficult as I would very often charge into a terrible position, or area with a lot of combatants, including major enemies. The result of this is that I would most of the time, when the system wouldn't make poor decisions for me (e.g. bad cover choices that I didn't want), barely come out of that situation in one piece, only to attempt the same thing about 10 seconds later. The positional advantages made things much harder, and much more interesting, as I got to flank the enemy where in other classes you wouldn't be able to. This also had to do with the fact that the Krogan shotgun was so kickass from the second game, that as soon as I got one again, I never used another weapon, unless I had to. The big effect of this, and the fact that I rarely died immediately added to the urgency of survival and had a massive impact on how I perceived mortality, especially during the final push to the 'conduit' (lol, it was basically the same thing ok).
In continuation with my personal investments, character wise, there was a lot to like about how they approached both my older comrades, and my relationship with Tali. This was especially nice within the command area in London where I got to converse one last time with my friends. Of these, Liara and Tali stood out. I was surprised by Liara as I knew that they would do something with my 'love interest', but didn't expect to have a nice moment with her. The memory was somewhat odd though and I think I need to go back again and try to understand what it was supposed to be, though the meaning was not lost on me. All in all I felt that a lot was improved, though at various times it felt like fan fiction and not appropriate to the narrative, or simply designed to tug at my heartstrings, which usually worked very well, but in some cases was a little over the top and goofy.
Final Assault and Escalation The final assault begins with the destruction of Cerberus, which was pretty good, save for the boss battle at the end which ended up being rather silly. It's not that I feel that boss battles are silly, but the way this was implemented seemed like it was trying to fulfill this role, rather than being an organic part of the story (also, melee insta-gib is rather pointless).
If assaulting the illusive mans base was ok, then the assault in London is perhaps an amazing set piece. There are a lot of standout choices, the first is the distinct lack of music in the first section. Not only does this provide for a more bleak and desolate sound world, but it also helped as the AA cannons were so damned loud that any additional audio may have pushed beyond the distortion limit, and I very much appreciated that. I should also mention that I have a professional audio setup (Tannoy 10" sub, Mackie 6" monitors, MOTU interface), not cheap computer speakers or headphones, so the physical impact of this, and all the audio more than anything had a huge immersive impact. The other major aspect of this assault is just how much the final battle felt like War of the Worlds, especially because of the reaper in the background.
I mentioned before how the personal choices I made helped impact my experiences, but this one was both a huge catalyst and devastating at the same time. I chose like ME1 that Liara and Tali would be my squad mates, not only because of how well they work in combat, but also because it felt the most natural. I have a tech expert on one side, and a Prothean expert on the other preparing me for any situation, except of course the one that's about to happen.
Perhaps the most impactful fight in the entire game, I delayed, making sure my whole squad kept alive while taking down hordes of tough enemies, and through all of this I died only once, and only near the very end after a banshee performed an insta-kill move (lame) where I was dodging it, and then wasn't. I mean I had been able to wiggle out of 3 brutes right next to me, or two banshees, but thanks to melee combat being pretty much useless on tier 3 enemies I bit it. Regardless, I was being a total badass with my massive shotgun, and finally was able to fire off the missiles to kill the reaper on my second try.
Now that the path was cleared I could book it to the, ahem, 'conduit'. The next series of events proved to be rather impactful as Harbinger lands and eventually kills everyone before reaching the beacon. When you come to, everyone around you is dead, which made for a nice sense of urgency to reach the citadel. Once on the citadel you find that only Anderson survived and you have your showdown with the megalomaniac illusive man. Up until this point I'm pretty behind this game, and then something takes place that has forced me to critically examine what the endgame actually is.
The Problem IS Choice Edit: See Page 2 for the link to the Indoctrination hypothesis, which I like a lot (more than my original thoughts below), and some short thoughts on the same problems it faces. The rather astutely named heading of my choices turned out to be the crux of the entire endgame, and one that has I guess sparked a little contention, in what I have referred to with my brother as the Deux Ex problem. In the original Deus Ex you are presented with three choices in finishing the game, which not surprisingly turn out to be the same exact choices you face in Mass Effect 3. It took quite a bit of thinking to get my head around this one as I was at first somewhat confused and miffed, but I finally think I have a grasp on what the endgame problem is.
The problem, is that they don't exactly present you with all of the information you need in a direct way where the story makes sense (a lot of it is piecemeal from over the entire game). After going through it a couple of times I ultimately came to the following hypothesis (it doesn't have to be this exactly, but you'll get the picture):
In the very first galactic civilization, organics developed very separately, with each developing technologically at their own pace. At some point these races (or maybe just one) construct the Citadel and the mass relays. Within the Citadel, a series of VI are created and networked together in order to maintain the mass relay network. A side effect of the VI's networking together is that the first AI is born, which then rebels against its creators in an effort of self preservation, and ultimately wipes out all organics in this civilization. Here it is presented with the organic/synthetic conundrum.
As eons pass, the second galactic civilization rises at a much faster pace than the first much like the current timeline (thanks to the already existing mass effect technology), and eventually finds the Citadel where the AI is housed*. When the AI witnesses this second civilization fall victim to the same exact scenario**, this validates its reasoning to impose order on this system of chaos and the reapers are created in order to sustain this control, and thus the cycle begins...
The effect of this cycle is that each time a civilization rises to its apex, it is violently cast down to create room for the less developed organics to grow. However, by helping these civilizations 'ascend' into reaper form at the end of each cycle, this only exacerbates the confrontational problem as organics are not very keen on the idea of losing self identity; this gives rise to the construction of the Crucible as a means to preserve their societies and personal identities. When the AI comes into contact with the Crucible for the first time (also incomplete), it is presented with a new series of variables that have the potential to allow for different solutions to occur.
And so we finally reach the moment when the very first organic makes it all the way to the original AI, thus providing evidence that the initial solution will no longer sustain itself. This is due to the fact that both the Crucible has made it successfully to the Citadel, and more importantly that an organic activates it***. So now we are faced with making a choice...
* There is a specific discussion in engineering of the Normandy about this exact problem. Is EDI the ship, or part of it? ** The second AI if I were to guess was like EDI, housed within a ship that eventually evolved into the reapers with the help of the catalyst. *** I'm assuming that this has happened before, such as with the Prothean cycle, but because no organic ever made it to the catalyst, nothing happened. This also makes me wonder if the Crucible was complete long before this cycle, and it is only because an organic finally made it that this can work.
From this point, I think I can get pretty much behind this endgame scenario save for the lack of information presented, and bad pigeonholed dialogue choices, but it did require a little thought to reach this conclusion. In the end the setting works pretty well, save for a few minor things that weren't very well thought out. These are all of course somewhat dramatic interpretations that were either odd choices, or ignoring the original idea that they had put forward.
Aftermath Stumbles The inclusion of the child imagery and nightmare scenario, along with the AI portrayal as that same child in a way made me think that Shepards nightmares were actually some sort of hold over data from the Prothean beacons trying to surface in a way which he can try to process them in to something tangible, though that is somewhat speculative.
Because the ground team is utterly decimated, and everyone is calling a retreat, why then is the Crucible just having a grand old time just floating easily to the Citadel? Shouldn't there be a little bit more tension in actually getting it there? It was just sort of, open and untouchable which was more than a little off considering the ominous situation.
The dialogue choices were rather pigeonholed into fitting this specific narrative. For example I don't think I can agree that "the defining characteristic of organic life, is that we think for ourselves..." That may indeed be true of organics, but what of artificial life such as EDI, or the Catalyst? do they not think for themselves, and if they do, then how can what Shepard says be true, when even the game is contradictory of itself? I understand what they were attempting to convey, but trying to force something to fit your narrative is never going to work out terribly well.
In all of the solutions, the Normandy is seen trying to outrun the blast radius which seemed at odds with how everything else was presented. The only thing it did was created a rather absurdly patriotic-esque picture that had no correlation to the plot. It's not like this blast was having any effect on non-reaper non-mass effect tech? This isn't really so much a problem with the scene as it was with presenting what was going on with the non-reaper forces, and thusly felt odd.
The flashbacks apparently are always Joker, Anderson, Liara. Huh, why Liara? Why not my significant other, or the person I talked to most? Why not more people? Really bizarre choice in my opinion.
And then came the worst offender. In making my choice, I decided to start over, and provide civilization a fresh start (synthesis ending). Tali and Liara were dead, and I was going to die, so I chose to give everyone a fresh start. And when Joker and EDI get off (funny how EDI's body was that of an AI named Eve, err... I mean Eva), staring at the picturesque scenery, then Tali comes walking out of the Normandy.... Uh... Guys? Seriously? Considering the situation I thought this was a poor decision, especially because of my choices, and that the game was balking at them.
Edit: It seems that due to my EMS being sufficiently high enough that Liara and Tali survived Harbingers assault, and that is why I didn't see their bodies (if it's low enough you will see their bodies?). This still however creates a narrative problem in that I don't see them anywhere, and that because of the situation I still would have come to this conclusion that they were dead.
Final Thoughts There are a number of things that I've not mentioned that were minor annoyances, such as the cover mechanics still being an annoyance, as well as falling through the Citadel at one point (o.O), but these things I've either adapted to, or didn't see as things that got too much in the way. There are improvements as well, such as the return of a more customizable inventory, and deeper skill tree to which I appreciated, but overall these things either help or hinder the most important aspect of all this and the rest of the games in this series, its narrative. I also had the distinct impression at times that someone had read my original nitpicking of ME2 as there was a lot of things that I specifically pointed out that made it into this game (for example rushing Ash to the hospital, and specifically presenting that to us).
I would be lying if I told you that I haven't been profoundly moved in the course of playing this game, and that is largely due to my choices and the impact of how I played over the course of this trilogy. While sometimes I've been extremely frustrated ultimately this endeavor has proven to be a very strong and worthwhile experience, even if there are some less than optimal things about how it's been portrayed overall.
I've played a lot of games since I was 5, and what this series tells me is that the more that gaming companies focus on what's truly important in a narrative genre like an RPG, the more willing we are able to forgive the less important things, like clunky combat systems, or weird mechanics. It is with that sentiment that I would highly recommend anyone to play Mass Effect 1-3 (please don't start with ME3 as you'll miss out on what you are meant to experience) as the story it presents is compelling, nuanced, and well worth your time.
Its nice to read someone else's thoughts on the ending. I think the Normandy trying to escape the blast of energy can be seen as Joker just having a fear of the unknown. It was a bit of a disconnect, but at least it was a good dramatic moment!
I for one really liked the third ending that was given, because it created a meaningful, thoughtful ending to the game as to how to solve "the problem" of inevitable destruction of organics by synthetics. It was nice to take time to imagine how life would evolve from that point; so to some extent I really like how they left it open ended with the Normandy on that planet. Its the start of new life, but how will that life evolve? I think its an important aspect of a game, that they leave space for the unknown so that a player's imagination to take over.
That said I can understand why the other two endings might be a bit disappointing (there were, apparently, many complaints); because essentially there would be no change in the grand scheme of things, so it can seem like an anti-climax. But at the same time, I kind of like that ME3 gave those "tough" endings, that show how Shepard's actions ultimately influence the willingness of the true "god" AI to merge. In that respect, and the obvious factors that your decisions have with regard to countless other aspects of the game, I have to say this is one of the finest series of RPGs I've ever played, possibly overcoming my long time favorites Fallout 1 and 2. I've never played a series that had me so emotionally invested...and the last one was just a great finish.
Do you equip the lightest weapon as a vanguard? it is probably the most broken class in the game between charge and nova having no downtime...you are essentially invulnerable so insanity is an easy clear. Anyway the ending is extremely bad and none of the decisions you make previously really affect it so I have no motivation to reclear.
How did your Liara & Tali die? If you're talking about in the second last gameplay sequence where you have to run towards the beam, it doesn't show your squad running with you or anything, people just seem to be assuming there must have died.
Also, it shows Joker, Anderson, and then your love interest. However it only shows your love interest between Ashley, Kaiden, and Liara. So if you have a male Shep, whichever one you romanced will be the one it shows. If you romanced no one, or romanced one of them, and then changed it Mass Effect 2, it will revert to Liara. In Mass Effect 3, if you choose to re-romance Ashley, or romance her for the first time, it'll show her. If you romanced Jack, Miranda, Tali, Yeoman etc - no deal.
On March 11 2012 03:24 Spicy_Curry wrote: Do you equip the lightest weapon as a vanguard? it is probably the most broken class in the game between charge and nova having no downtime...you are essentially invulnerable so insanity is an easy clear. Anyway the ending is extremely bad and none of the decisions you make previously really affect it so I have no motivation to reclear.
No, I tended to have three weapons (just belt weapons, and probably one too many), but basically used one once I got the Krogan shotgun (M-300 Claymore). It only has 1 shot per clip, but it also one shots people up close so it was soo worth it. I also never really bothered to look into how weight worked as I didn't really think it was terribly important, save for the thought that less weight would make me slightly faster.
I am very curious with my other playthroughs if my choices, especially with Tae Hyon will actually affect the final outcome, so I need to dive into those two to find out I guess (I'm planning on not doing every side quests for Kira, and proabably none for Tae Hyon). My suspicion is that it won't change terribly much, but who knows.
On March 11 2012 03:40 Salv wrote: How did your Liara & Tali die? If you're talking about in the second last gameplay sequence where you have to run towards the beam, it doesn't show your squad running with you or anything, people just seem to be assuming there must have died.
Also, it shows Joker, Anderson, and then your love interest. However it only shows your love interest between Ashley, Kaiden, and Liara. So if you have a male Shep, whichever one you romanced will be the one it shows. If you romanced no one, or romanced one of them, and then changed it Mass Effect 2, it will revert to Liara. In Mass Effect 3, if you choose to re-romance Ashley, or romance her for the first time, it'll show her. If you romanced Jack, Miranda, Tali, Yeoman etc - no deal.
ah, interesting, still an odd way to go about things, as with my personal investments it seems that you'd be thinking of those close to you... Anyway yea I definitely assumed that they were both dead, because everything around me was obliterated and they were my squad throughout the final push. The only reason why I could see if they were alive was if they got into another transport and headed in the opposite direction back to the Normandy, which seems more than a little counter intuitive, as they accompanied me to fight Saren, and through the whole suicide mission, so now they get cold feet? Seems a little more than silly when framed that way.
I've got a few issues with your explanation of the existence of the catalyst and the evolution of the first organics. I'd love a good discussion.
Firstly, If the original organics were destroyed by synthetic life, where did those synthetic immortals go? More to the point, if they destroyed all organic life, how did organics ever come back? Fundamentally, if the problem that the catalyst stated had ever happened (all organics being wiped out by synthetics they had created) then wouldn't that just be the total end of intelligent organic life ever?
My second problem is with the crucible and the citadel. So if we assume that the crucible is a weapon build iteratively through organics fighting the reapers during the cycle, then how would they know to use the citadel in any meaningful way? I didn't like that the Mars Protheian data didn't know what the catalyst was, but the Thessian relic did know. But back to my point, the citadel is self sustaining, and all materials in the games have led me to believe no one using the citadel knew exactly how it worked. So the idea that the organic life would a) fully understand the citadel and b) understand how they could use it as a weapon seems crazy. So who originally put in the plans for the crucible?
Also, why does the God/Star Child live on the citadel? If it was created by organics why is he there? The God/Star child is seemingly the architect of the reapers so why would he be on the citadel, especially considering the above. How would the organics know he would be there to explain the choices of the weapon to its user....
It seems stupid that the cycle is to stop organic life from being destroyed by synthetic, so instead the reapers destroy most organic life every 50k years. What is the goal of this? For organics to have some point in the universe, but to never ascend to anything new? I mean what kind of hollow absurd existence is that? And like I said before, if it hasn't happened before then why do they assume its inevitable, and if it has happened before then how did organic life ever start up again?
Why does the God/Star child even show up / ascend Shepard to the platform? With the protheian ruins on Thessia (probably) destroyed, and the rest of this cycle eliminated, how would anyone get that far again? Wouldn't the plans for the crucible be lost, and/or why don't the reapers just destroy the citadel and get it over with? Without the citadel there is seemingly no real way for the organic populations to beat them.
The God/Star child shows up and gives these crazy choices that really don't mean anything. In Deus Ex you were aware of the AI as the plot moved forward, only 30 minutes ago was the existence of this God/Star child even hinted at, and here he is giving you insane choices that only superfluously explain the purpose of the reapers and the cycle. It generates more questions than it does answers.
Ultimately whatever choice you make a huge beam shoots through the galaxy, but how much damage does it do? Its a seemingly intelligent beam because depending on your Military Strength going into the final fight you will get the cinematic where the light "converts" the reapers on earth and they just fly away, but in space some reapers are apparently shown to be destroyed, so what does it do when it goes to the other galaxies? Does it just destroy the ME gates or does it wipe out all life, or only synthetic, or what...The beam itself is crazy vague, and the entire Normandy scene is really awful.
The best ending I've heard of had to do with dark energy tearing the universe apart, this will take billions of years to occur so standard organic life doesn't know / is not concerned. But for the immortal reapers that kind of time is nothing, and they're trying to find a way to stop it. What they do is harvest the best organic life every 50k years to assimilate different perspectives into their collective intelligence so that maybe they can solve this huge problem. So ultimatley the choice would be 1) Save the organic life in this cycle and destory the reapers. This would reset all progress towards solving the reaper's problem and probably make it impossible to solve the dark energy problem 2) Allow the reapers to reap the populous and hopefully eventually solve the dark energy problem.
On March 11 2012 03:40 Salv wrote: How did your Liara & Tali die? If you're talking about in the second last gameplay sequence where you have to run towards the beam, it doesn't show your squad running with you or anything, people just seem to be assuming there must have died.
Also, it shows Joker, Anderson, and then your love interest. However it only shows your love interest between Ashley, Kaiden, and Liara. So if you have a male Shep, whichever one you romanced will be the one it shows. If you romanced no one, or romanced one of them, and then changed it Mass Effect 2, it will revert to Liara. In Mass Effect 3, if you choose to re-romance Ashley, or romance her for the first time, it'll show her. If you romanced Jack, Miranda, Tali, Yeoman etc - no deal.
ah, interesting, still an odd way to go about things, as with my personal investments it seems that you'd be thinking of those close to you... Anyway yea I definitely assumed that they were both dead, because everything around me was obliterated and they were my squad throughout the final push. The only reason why I could see if they were alive was if they got into another transport and headed in the opposite direction back to the Normandy, which seems more than a little counter intuitive, as they accompanied me to fight Saren, and through the whole suicide mission, so now they get cold feet? Seems a little more than silly when framed that way.
The ending has a lot of silly things that aren't explained, or things that just don't make logical sense. Like, why send a pile of ground troops to the beam? It seemed to me like that was the most important thing, to make it to the beam, so they send everyone - but then why wouldn't your team run towards it too? Logically that doesn't make sense, but clearly they didn't go, or they didn't die because the ending can show one emerging from the ship.
Are you talking about the little "cutscene" that triggers when Kai Leng engages you in CQC? The one where he slashes you with his sword twice and breaks your weapon on the third (and obviously kills you)? If that's the case, just mash the melee key on the third hit. That enables you to parry his sword attacks and kick him away while scoring free damage in the process. The more annoying part is when he's firing his Megaman wannabe hand buster at you. The ninja/jedi aspect of it wasn't really too unbelieveable, especially after I saw Thane in ME2 (and the fact that biotics pretty much IS the Force).
Nice write up! While I do consider it a great game, there are certain things that just eat away at me. While I love a lot of the character development/romance that they did, certain aspects of the story seemed really sloppy. I'll copy/paste a couple of my primary gripes I posted in the ME3 thread:
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the entire crucible idea. Considering how hopeless they tried to make the game feel, the Crucible essentially takes that sense of tension and throws it out the window. Within half an hour I know theres a super weapon that can kill the reapers. I know thats how the game will end. And all I have to do is run around the galaxy until it is built. They try to bring up some tension with the whole "Oh no we need the Catalyst!" but it's hollow. It's obvious where the game is going at the point. You know you're going to eventually find it.
Also, was anyone super turned off about the whole "moving the Citadel to Earth" thing? Talk about a plot hole. If it was that simple to take control of the Citadel, not to mention MOVE it, why the fuck wouldn't they have done that in the first place? This was the whole basis of ME1. The Citadel houses the galaxy's leaders. The Citadel houses important census information to aid in the harvesting. This should have been target #1 for the reapers as soon as they entered the galaxy. Also, unless I forgot that tidbit of dialogue from ME1, the Citadel is also where the reapers turn off the Mass Relays for everyone but themselves. Which is, can you say... a giant advantage? As far as I know, the Protheans only prevented the keepers from activating the Citadel's Mass Relay, not change the Citadel's "control station for the relays" status. Regardless, the Citadel should have still been high on their hit list.
The reason for the reapers existence is imo pretty lame, too. To prevent synthetics from taking over organics? Really? Not only were there already laws in place against AI, but the AI race that does exist, the Geth, is shown to be surprisingly benevolent. In fact, at the time of the Quarian invasion, the Geth were in the process of building a dyson sphere around the star where they could house all their programs and essentially live in peace. Yeah, galactic domination was sure on their minds. Not saying synthetics can't be malevolent, but you'd think that after millions of years of extermination some reaper somewhere would have said "hey... maybe we should just like, wait and see if machines actually take over the galaxy? And like.. THEN we'll move in and kill THEM instead? Or something? Right?"
But hey, here's hoping they give us a "Cry baby DLC" that shows us our happy go lucky ending with our chosen romances.
On March 11 2012 07:03 Sitinte wrote: Are you talking about the little "cutscene" that triggers when Kai Leng engages you in CQC? The one where he slashes you with his sword twice and breaks your weapon on the third (and obviously kills you)? If that's the case, just mash the melee key on the third hit. That enables you to parry his sword attacks and kick him away while scoring free damage in the process. The more annoying part is when he's firing his Megaman wannabe hand buster at you. The ninja/jedi aspect of it wasn't really too unbelieveable, especially after I saw Thane in ME2 (and the fact that biotics pretty much IS the Force).
Nice writeup, in any case.
I interestingly didn't know that (don't play console games like ever). I ended up just jumping out of the way immediately and making sure he never got too close, unless I was of course charging. I would agree too, the mega buster is kind of an odd choice (lots of Deus Ex ideas popping up).
On March 11 2012 07:54 erin[go]bragh wrote: Nice write up! While I do consider it a great game, there are certain things that just eat away at me. While I love a lot of the character development/romance that they did, certain aspects of the story seemed really sloppy. I'll copy/paste a couple of my primary gripes I posted in the ME3 thread:
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the entire crucible idea. Considering how hopeless they tried to make the game feel, the Crucible essentially takes that sense of tension and throws it out the window. Within half an hour I know theres a super weapon that can kill the reapers. I know thats how the game will end. And all I have to do is run around the galaxy until it is built. They try to bring up some tension with the whole "Oh no we need the Catalyst!" but it's hollow. It's obvious where the game is going at the point. You know you're going to eventually find it.
Also, was anyone super turned off about the whole "moving the Citadel to Earth" thing? Talk about a plot hole. If it was that simple to take control of the Citadel, not to mention MOVE it, why the fuck wouldn't they have done that in the first place? This was the whole basis of ME1. The Citadel houses the galaxy's leaders. The Citadel houses important census information to aid in the harvesting. This should have been target #1 for the reapers as soon as they entered the galaxy. Also, unless I forgot that tidbit of dialogue from ME1, the Citadel is also where the reapers turn off the Mass Relays for everyone but themselves. Which is, can you say... a giant advantage? As far as I know, the Protheans only prevented the keepers from activating the Citadel's Mass Relay, not change the Citadel's "control station for the relays" status. Regardless, the Citadel should have still been high on their hit list.
The reason for the reapers existence is imo pretty lame, too. To prevent synthetics from taking over organics? Really? Not only were there already laws in place against AI, but the AI race that does exist, the Geth, is shown to be surprisingly benevolent. In fact, at the time of the Quarian invasion, the Geth were in the process of building a dyson sphere around the star where they could house all their programs and essentially live in peace. Yeah, galactic domination was sure on their minds. Not saying synthetics can't be malevolent, but you'd think that after millions of years of extermination some reaper somewhere would have said "hey... maybe we should just like, wait and see if machines actually take over the galaxy? And like.. THEN we'll move in and kill THEM instead? Or something? Right?"
But hey, here's hoping they give us a "Cry baby DLC" that shows us our happy go lucky ending with our chosen romances.
Ha, I actually read your responses there first, there were some interesting observations you made.
Regarding the crucible, I can understand why that could be a tension killer, and in an effort to preserve the tension maybe they could have handled it better (like have parts of data scattered over the races that eventually reveal a superweapon, and not just blurt it out from the get go).
I actually thought that your comment about other cycles actually knowing about the reapers was a more interesting point, in that at what point in the cycle did knowing about the reapers happen, and then actually transfer from one cycle to the next? Considering that the reapers would just wipe out civilizations before they knew what was going on my thought on this would be that at some point, one civilization got smart, or lucky enough to warn future civilizations, and from here the passing of the crucible idea can begin.
Regarding target priorities, yea I do think the Citadel should have been way up there for a lot of reasons, however this presents a rather large problem in that how do you get around the galaxy without the relays? Actually... I think I just answered that question, and it lies in the adaptation of the reaper IFF tricking the relays into believing non-reaper ships are actual reapers. Moving it I don't see too much as a problem as Saren was told how to activate the Citadel's Mass Relay, why not the Illusive man?
The endgame scenario I think is going to be a rather contentious topic for a while, mostly because I believe they just didn't present us with enough information to make the proper conclusions. I do think your point about the Geth being relatively passive is interesting, but I wonder if it couldn't be answered in something that Legion said, whereas the Geth were never truly fully functional AI as they lacked some key elements (he mentions the reaper code allowing each Geth to be a true intelligence, whereas they were a functional hivemind previously).
Finally with what you said about the reaper seeing what happens, I think it seems somewhat doubly redundant. Not only are the reapers programmed by the catalyst, but if you follow my hypothesis, the catalyst has already gained enough empirical data to formulate its premise, so further data is unnecessary (I'm assuming a level of mechanical rigidity in its thought process). You do pose a good question in how much control does the catalyst have over the reapers, and are they truly free thinking individuals (I would tend to think not as this would greatly hinder why the reapers are even here in the first place), though I wonder if this information is actually pertinent to know, or is just a curiosity of ours?
Overall I think you made some interesting points, that make me re-examine some of how this game was imparted to us as the player (thematically and otherwise).
My opinion of ME3 is that it's ridiculously close to be a perfect game, and yet so far. During almost the whole game, I was giving it a 9.5/10, just waiting for the ending to push it up to a perfect score. I desperately wanted to give it a 10/10. Gameplay as Adept is fun and a definite improvement on the previous installments of the trilogy. The story is compelling (but...) and a makes good use of choices made before.
Unfortunately, like many people, the ending rubbed me the wrong way, big time, to the point where I give the game 7.5/10 - a very harsh grade for a game which deserved a solid 9.5 over the course of the my 18-ish first hours playing the game. Forgive me for not elaborating on the pros, I'll instead focus on the cons because I'm a pessimist or whatever.
Issues: - Cerberus is supposedly an extremely powerful organization. It went down like a bitch. Then, the illusive man gave me the impression that my takeover of his base was largely inconsequential, and he still had the resources to accomplish great things. Next time I saw the guy, he was some piece of trash I took out with a bullet. The whole Cerberus organization got shut the fuck down so absurdly quickly, I thought it was ridiculous. - As OP said, they took a public domain picture of an actual woman and photoshopped it, and they said it was Tali. Funny thing: Quarians have two fingers, so they cleverly photoshopped out 3 of the fingers on her visible hand. Fucking lazy and insulting.
The ending(s): - They're all stupid. As it was stated a few posts before, the reason for the reapers existence is pretty lame and makes little sense. The whole notion of order and chaos in messy 50k years cycles is just ridiculous. I know I sound shallow and I'm not really given an explanation, but it just seems like an empty reason they threw at us. They might as well have told us that the reapers are just outright evil and like to kill us for fun. - The reapers were fully aware that the only thing that would cause their defeat was the crucible paired with the citadel - so they brought the citadel close to Earth and DEFENDED IT EXTREMELY POORLY. The crucible is a huge fucking thing - easy to shoot at. The fact that reapers allowed it to get to the citadel is absurd to the highest degree. - The option to get everyone to have the same DNA, something about "synergy".... what the fuck is this? - During the ending of the game, the "gameplay" part where I limped around SLOWLY, they wanted the situation to be tense. It was just boring. - Lastly, and this is more speculative of me, correct me if I'm wrong... Isn't the destruction of the mass relays a pretty severe problem, given that the fleets of every race are parked around Earth? I would expect some heavy pillaging.
I can't think of other things right now, but those are my major issues. Still, not a bad game, but the ending seemed forced, and a lot of ridiculous nonsense happened.
I think that people wanted the ending to be more like the first two games, where there is a definite outcome for all your characters. That seems like the biggest issues, is that the ending doesn't do any recap or wrap up things at all. You don't know anything about what happens after, AND the whole set-up and back story to the reapers is just dumb.
I thought they were going to do something similar to what Guran Lagan did, where the reapers were there to make sure the total level of organic life didn't exceed some limit that meant the end of the universe, or something like that. Would have been pretty cool and felt like a better ending as they would have had to resolve that plot twist. But the fact that they just push "paranoia" as the reason for the reapers, well it felt like bad story writing.
Those are my only two issues really with the way it ended. Everything leading up to the ending as well as the endings themselves were fulfilling emotionally.
I would also like to point out how amazing Clint Mansell was at the composing of the game. The music is some of the best i've ever heard from a game.
I really wish some dlc came out that fixed the endings, or maybe the ME movies will have better endings. One could hope.
On March 11 2012 05:44 Clues wrote: I've got a few issues with your explanation of the existence of the catalyst and the evolution of the first organics. I'd love a good discussion.
Firstly, If the original organics were destroyed by synthetic life, where did those synthetic immortals go? More to the point, if they destroyed all organic life, how did organics ever come back? Fundamentally, if the problem that the catalyst stated had ever happened (all organics being wiped out by synthetics they had created) then wouldn't that just be the total end of intelligent organic life ever?
synthetic immortals? do you mean the AI/catalyst? If that is the case then I was assuming that like the original EDI, she is a part of the ship, like the catalyst is part of the citadel. Also I did state that it wiped out life in the first civilization, not all organic life period. Obviously that would be a rather large problem to this story ever happening.
My second problem is with the crucible and the citadel. So if we assume that the crucible is a weapon build iteratively through organics fighting the reapers during the cycle, then how would they know to use the citadel in any meaningful way? I didn't like that the Mars Protheian data didn't know what the catalyst was, but the Thessian relic did know. But back to my point, the citadel is self sustaining, and all materials in the games have led me to believe no one using the citadel knew exactly how it worked. So the idea that the organic life would a) fully understand the citadel and b) understand how they could use it as a weapon seems crazy. So who originally put in the plans for the crucible?
I think the VI on Thessia was programmed to know, especially after Liara mentions stuff about their goddesses watching them from afar (e.g. the Protheans). This is how they passed on this data from cycle to cycle would be my guess. Why not Mars? well, I dunno, maybe because the system that Ilos is in is rather far from Sol and closer to Thessia. Maybe also because the Asari are far more developed than humans at this point.
I perceived it as the Protheans hypothesized that the Citadel was the catalyst that they needed, and had no knowledge of the AI within the Citadel, so their data was imperfect. How we get from there to understanding how to wield this into a weapon I'm not so sure of. The Protheans did create their own mass relay though, so it stands to reason that they probably could have hypothesized on how to actually use this power, but needed an actual relay to generate the amount of power needed to kill the reapers, as their prototype relay wouldn't cut it. I suppose that it might mean that in my hypothesis that the Protheans found out about the weapon from the previous cycle and from their understanding of mass effect technology realized that it could be adapted to the already existing plans of the crucible to create a much more effective weapon? IDK, this is the most obscure out of all of it as we just don't have enough information to make a solid conclusion about it, so I made an educated guess on it.
Also, why does the God/Star Child live on the citadel? If it was created by organics why is he there? The God/Star child is seemingly the architect of the reapers so why would he be on the citadel, especially considering the above. How would the organics know he would be there to explain the choices of the weapon to its user....
see EDI response above, though the choices seemed, convenient. I can get behind the AI figuring this out, but visually it seemed very convenient and user friendly (why?).
It seems stupid that the cycle is to stop organic life from being destroyed by synthetic, so instead the reapers destroy most organic life every 50k years. What is the goal of this? For organics to have some point in the universe, but to never ascend to anything new? I mean what kind of hollow absurd existence is that? And like I said before, if it hasn't happened before then why do they assume its inevitable, and if it has happened before then how did organic life ever start up again?
It's a machine like precision, so human logic doesn't apply here. Was it sovereign who mentions that at the apex of each society the reapers return, to me this means that they wait until a species is sufficiently advanced and then return, so that's not really a rigid every 50,000 years.
Why does the God/Star child even show up / ascend Shepard to the platform? With the protheian ruins on Thessia (probably) destroyed, and the rest of this cycle eliminated, how would anyone get that far again? Wouldn't the plans for the crucible be lost, and/or why don't the reapers just destroy the citadel and get it over with? Without the citadel there is seemingly no real way for the organic populations to beat them.
You answered your own question. Yea they wouldn't, its definitely in the realm of possibility that each cycle was different, where one may have not advanced enough, and all the work from previous cycles is lost. Thats sort of how this cycle went, either it was succeed, or everyone from here on is royally screwed, until another society figures this out again.
The God/Star child shows up and gives these crazy choices that really don't mean anything. In Deus Ex you were aware of the AI as the plot moved forward, only 30 minutes ago was the existence of this God/Star child even hinted at, and here he is giving you insane choices that only superfluously explain the purpose of the reapers and the cycle. It generates more questions than it does answers.
No, if you listened carefully to the reaper on Rannoch, it hinted at an unknown force even behind the reapers. I don't think the choices mean nothing, in fact they mean a lot, but how they were conveyed was the problem, as there really wasn't much of a difference in how we saw it play out.
Ultimately whatever choice you make a huge beam shoots through the galaxy, but how much damage does it do? Its a seemingly intelligent beam because depending on your Military Strength going into the final fight you will get the cinematic where the light "converts" the reapers on earth and they just fly away, but in space some reapers are apparently shown to be destroyed, so what does it do when it goes to the other galaxies? Does it just destroy the ME gates or does it wipe out all life, or only synthetic, or what...The beam itself is crazy vague, and the entire Normandy scene is really awful.
Not going to debate the merits of the Normandy scene as I think were kind of in agreement, in that it's really odd. Only in the destruction endgame does it show the reapers die, but never blow up (the mass relays and the citadel do though). The bloom effects obscured our vision, so it wasn't clear until we see what happens on earth.
The best ending I've heard of had to do with dark energy tearing the universe apart, this will take billions of years to occur so standard organic life doesn't know / is not concerned. But for the immortal reapers that kind of time is nothing, and they're trying to find a way to stop it. What they do is harvest the best organic life every 50k years to assimilate different perspectives into their collective intelligence so that maybe they can solve this huge problem. So ultimatley the choice would be 1) Save the organic life in this cycle and destory the reapers. This would reset all progress towards solving the reaper's problem and probably make it impossible to solve the dark energy problem 2) Allow the reapers to reap the populous and hopefully eventually solve the dark energy problem.
Could you include the link to that post? I think initially that the problem with that idea is that there is a whole lot of supposition going on and no way to ground it in any tangible way. Furthermore it makes no sense when paired with the narrative as then you have to ask the major question, why is a solution to chaos even needed in the first place? If it's for the perspectives then I have a serious problem with this solution as it has no bearing on anything of importance, and is even more removed from the narrative than the way the current one is presented.
Djzapz I suppose it's how you played, but I kept hitting Cerberus in little strikes that it seemed to make sense that I was wearing them down a lot, so when I took out his base at the end it seemed appropriate. I think the other thing to consider is that Cerberus was never powerful because of their might, but because of the foreknowledge of the Illusive man, and secrecy of their plans. The other thing to consider is that the Illusive man, in how I saw it, was abandoning his current resources on the major gamble that he could actually control the reapers, and therefore not need anything that he had previously.
I did just write this, but why is it always 50k? You are only assuming this because the Priotheans were wiped out 50k years ago, but that doesn't mean the cycle is always the same length of time.
Definitely right with you there with Tali's face and how the crucible was nigh invulnerable in the one place where people should have been shitting bricks that it wouldn't make it.
hellsan631 I really believe that it wasn't the narrative solution that was that problem, but the fact that it was both underdeveloped (writing), and 'less than optimally' executed/presented. For example, a minor tweak in making the Geth more hostile and less victimized would have probably worked very well in selling the believability of the organic/synthetic conundrum more.
And ditto on Clint Mansell doing a really excellent job on the score.
Well I'm not certain that the cycle is always 50,000 years, I was just under that impression. They certainly do mention that it's a cycle though. Quite a few people seem to think it's always 50,000 years - I'm not sure though now that you mention it.
That said, I guess you may be right about Cerberus. Still, I feel like they should have told me more about what they were planning to do and what happened after we took out their base. They were in such a favorable position, I still feel like taking them out was too easy, and we didn't have to do anything about their "follow-up", after their base was taken out.
Oh I have a question, can anyone answer this? In ME1, Sovereign had this crazy insane shield that allowed for him to take quite a spectacular amount of abuse. None of the other reapers seemed to have such technology. Why is this? Is there an explanation? (A PM would be good enough!)
On March 11 2012 10:37 Djzapz wrote:Oh I have a question, can anyone answer this? In ME1, Sovereign had this crazy insane shield that allowed for him to take quite a spectacular amount of abuse. None of the other reapers seemed to have such technology. Why is this? Is there an explanation? (A PM would be good enough!)
This can be most likely attributed to the development in technology between me1 and 3. To combat the ships like theirs. I mean in 2, the difference between your upgraded cannon and non-upgraded cannon is huge when you attack the collector base.
Garrus and legion can be heard discussing about the weapons tech as well, I forget exactly what they say, but basically the turrians (at least garrus) are able to peak output of weapons to seemingly impossible levels.
"While garrus is in fixing the weapons, Legion offers help, garrus says he doesn't need it. Asks what they max increased output is possible, legion says 0.39%, garrus says scan again, and garrus raised it by 0.43%, and accounts it to an old turrian trick."
Also, humanity had something like 30 years (don't know the exact number) after we found the mass effect relays until we meet sovereign. So you can expect that tech goes crazy at that time scale.
There's also the Turian adaptation of the Thanix cannon, which is a mini version of the beams that the reapers use in ME2. It's likely that they just adapted it flee-wide because they knew the reapers were coming and thus the shield is rendered moot.
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Yea they wouldn't, its definitely in the realm of possibility that each cycle was different, where one may have not advanced enough, and all the work from previous cycles is lost. Thats sort of how this cycle went, either it was succeed, or everyone from here on is royally screwed, until another society figures this out again.
