Mass Effect 3: The Ending(s) [** Spoilers **]

BrianG23

I think Kotor was better than ME series in most ways. I do like my Tps though. Even so, Kotor was a charming game. And it had HK47. Hard to choose between them :l

Nody

Kiith wrote: »

Huh, didn't realise there was any way to keep him alive.

No way i could go with that option though. Kill Wrex? Pft, not a chance. And Mordin's sacrifice was probably the best scene in the game. Brilliantly done.

I tend to agree; after saving Mordin from Wrex in ME1 and the constant wrangling through the series by Mordin not giving him the oppertunity to redeem himself (in his own eyes) would be rude.

degrassinoel

Mordin was a brilliant character, he'll never get to run tests on those seashells

pixelburp

Mickeroo wrote: »

No afaik, if you kill wrex in ME1, destroy Maelons data in ME2 and don't tell anyone on the mission in ME3 you've sabotaged the genophage cure then you can persuade him to not sacrifice himself. Think you have to be playing renegade for it to work.

It does indeed cheapen his character arch, but that's the great thing about mass effect, you can influence those things and the story doesn't necessarily play out in as crowd pleasing a way as you might like.

Unless I've been duped and all the videos on youtube of him deciding to not go through with the suicide are fake of course!

Huh, well seems I was wrong - so you can keep him alive; watching the video provided though, it looks like a pretty lazy alternative. Not only does it cheapen the character's arc, it was pretty shoddily executed too. The same scene plays out, only Mordin wanders away, exiting stage left (apparently no Krogans notice a notorious Salarian leaving the planet?) and then just mothballed in the Crucible McGuffin. Blergh. Kinda disappointed now and was happier thinking there was no way to avoid his fate.

It does remind me how much better written the alien characters in ME were than their human counterparts. The only other losses I suffered were Kaiden and Jacob, and I barely cared. Mordin's death genuinely moved me. Most of the human members of my crew were dull, miltary meatheads; Miranda, Ashley and James were no different and the fact I had to google Jacob's name says everything about how memorable and interesting he was.

degrassinoel

lol Jacob, anyone i know that's played ME2 and 3 just didn't like him. He started out as a potentially awesome character but he was incredibly dull, even his loyalty mission with his dad was awful. Miranda wasnt much better but she at least had some personality poured into that catsuit she wore all the time

Kirby

Jacob added nothing. His loyalty mission with his father and his harem definitely highlighted some interesting bits about the human condition.....but that had nothing to do with Jacob himself. He was just....bland. Blergh. Boring.

I kind of liked Ms genetically engineered cheerleader ice queen. Without Miranda, we wouldn't have had the conflict between her and Jack. That was fairly entertaining for me. She was also the Illusive Man's right hand so she was your direct link to him. Again, Jacob added.....nothing. And of course she was modelled and voiced by Yvonne Strahovski so there was that too. :P

And Ashley may have been unlikable, a bad poet and a borderline racist.....but she had some personality. You can't deny that.

J. Marston

Nobody liked Jacob, I would've left him die but I'm a perfectionist.

Miranda was a good character, she had plenty of side stuff to stay interesting (Illusive Man, her sister and her crazy Dad plus a romance if you fancied CGI Yvonne Strahovski). Never really liked Ashley, I have the PS3 so my ME experience started with ME2, she was in it for about a minute and she was pissed off at me, which left me confused at the time.

degrassinoel

there was a nifty little app you could use to figure out who'll live and die on the ME2 loyalty missions - i always made everyone but Jacob live lol
that's a lie, i let him live once because i wanted to see if he'd changed in ME3, and he hadnt, in fact i even romanced him in ME2 and he blanked me in ME3 for his cerberus bimbo.. the very hack of him!

Kiith

I quite liked Miranda (for more than the obvious reasons). She was definitely more interesting than Jacob, and her progression from Illusive Man's bitch to an actual person was decently done. And her arc in the third game was pretty good. I liked that she didn't need Sheppard to do all the work for her.

Plus, Yvonne Strahovski

YouSavedMyLife

Wanted to jump back into this for another playthrough with all the DLC only to find that the 4 main storyline DLC packs will cost me €50! I am so dissapoint right now :mad:

ancapailldorcha

YouSavedMyLife wrote: »

Wanted to jump back into this for another playthrough with all the DLC only to find that the 4 main storyline DLC packs will cost me €50! I am so dissapoint right now :mad:

Citadel is well worth the money. Avoid Omega as it's terrible and adds nothing. Leviathan's ok as it adds to the lore but there's nothing special you can't see on youtube. From Ashes adds Javik who's a decent character who doesn't do much so they could remove him for DLC purposes.

Zero-Cool

Bit of a bump but as I've given up on a trilogy remaster, I've been playing ME again. Playing through 3 at the moment and makes me wish the ps3 had a share button, so many epic backdrops. Really looking forward to playing the Citadel dlc as i never played it before. Still early on in it but how did they get Andromeda so wrong.

Potential-Monke

I'm gonna keep my patience for a hopeful remaster/remake, because I'm sure if I went back and played them now, it would ruin the amazing memory I have.

Actually, what kind of specs would one need on PC to run the ME games (excluding Andromeda) on Ultra, or whatever the highest was then? Have fans done any graphical overhauls in mods?

Retr0gamer

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I'm gonna keep my patience for a hopeful remaster/remake, because I'm sure if I went back and played them now, it would ruin the amazing memory I have.

Actually, what kind of specs would one need on PC to run the ME games (excluding Andromeda) on Ultra, or whatever the highest was then? Have fans done any graphical overhauls in mods?

If you have a toaster it will run ME.

I never rated the mass effect games. Found them alright but the stories weren't great and it was typical bioware fare. They just don't have good writers. I'd say with the Witcher 3 showing people how good western RPGs were and can be that mass effect won't have aged as well.

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If you have a toaster it will run ME.

I never rated the mass effect games. Found them alright but the stories weren't great and it was typical bioware fare. They just don't have good writers. I'd say with the Witcher 3 showing people how good western RPGs were and can be that mass effect won't have aged as well.

The writing can be a bit dodgy but it's an epic space opera. The lore is incredible and feels like all of these species are alive and connected in the background. Fallout was truly ruined for me by the Witcher. Couldn't get over how bad the writing/story was in FO 4 after paying the Witcher. Replaying ME Trilogy though, the story still holds up, still absolutely epic.

Potential-Monke

Suppose it depends on what you want from a game. Like Zero above, I was drawn into the world, the lore, settings, characters, everything. I was especially taken by Wrex, Tali and, after a while, Garrus. But what made it for me in the end was Legion and his arc. Most people went the Solus route, and I had the feels with Legion. An amazing character. I know the games had their issues, but I can't remember them, which to me is a sign of a good game. And the Citadel, god I loved exploring that. I genuinely felt part of the world at times, and very few games have managed that for me.

Zero-Cool

Only ever romanced Tali, said I'd try someone different this time but as soon as Tali appeared, everyone else got the cold shoulder, she's such an interesting character. As above the legion/Geth/Quarian story is one of my favourite parts and looking most forward to completing that again (outside the citadel dlc). I can't even remember how i ended things between them on my last playthrough so no idea how it's going to play out.

Retr0gamer

Actually found the lore was the worst thing about mass effect. There's plenty of it but it's all shoved down your throat in boring codex entries that are both boring and poorly written.

I got to a point where near the end of mass effect 2 and all through mass effect 3 I ignored them and it made the games way more enjoyable. It's like a producer made a massive lore Bible and didn't want it to go to waste not realising that the lore Bible would come through naturally through art and dialogue. And not knowing the lore let's your mond create the lore which is always going to be better than the poorly written thrash bioware came up with.

I think the epic space opera thing is the biggest weakness of mass effect as well. It's got a sci fi world and aesthetic yet does nothing with it. It's the same ancient evil story that bioware Rob wholesale from game of thrones and it's ilk and wheel out time and time again. It's just a fantasy story with a sci fi skin. Would be nice to have some actual hard sci fi in there like the better sci fi games but they just wasted it in favour of space elves and space dwarves.

I enjoyed the games. Even mass effect 3. But there's so much wasted potential. And the ending of mass effect 3 never annoyed me that much because I just couldn't be invested in the world. Mass effect 2 is definitely the highlight with it's dirty dozen style mission. Mass effect squandering a lot of mass effect 2 was more annoying than the ending. Harbringer was a great villain that they just forgot about.

As for fallout 4, that game ruined itself by being bad. It's a disaster and one of the most over rated games this gen.

pixelburp

Yup, also romanced Tali. IMO the most interesting and likeable of the romanceable characters (speaking as a hetero), so wasn't a hard choice insofar as that kind of gameplay can be: The writing was pretty variable though and ultimately a large chunk of the human characters were blocks of wood or deeply boring; so I think you can easily pick your evidence as to the games having either good or bad writing. Certainly if you focused on the likes of Jacob, Kaitan or Miranda the story was kinda poor. The alien characters were almost universally intriguing and charismatic.

Does this series even need a remaster? Some of these HD do-overs feel so weird with IPs that are ostensibly not that old to begin with. Less fidelity in some textures perhaps but I'd have imagined they still look great. The art direction and scope will do more work than the number of pixels in a texture IMO.

Zero-Cool

2 looks a bit shoddy and the fps was shocking in parts. 3 looks lovely but still suffers from poor frame rate. 1 could definitely do with a gameplay and graphics upgrade and would be nice distraction until the next mass effect comes out.

Fully agree with the humans/aliens analysis above. The human characters, including Shepard (especially paragon shep) are by far the most boring while the aliens are just fascinating. Between the geth vs Quarians, everyone vs krogan, Turians & Salarians with the genophage, etc. etc. there is so much going on to get wrapped up in. Actually the illusive man is fairly interesting and almost trump like with his space force looking to conquer the universe.

Calhoun

I would prefer a new game than a HD remaster or id prefer both. I replayed it last year and it still holds up fairly well.

The human story was always going to be a little off because of the player story (Sheperd) had to be the main experience. Although the Kasumi story or the likes of Jack i felt were interesting because of their tragic past.

Retr0gamer

Bioware initially thought everyone wouldn't like Tali and Garrus and would gravitate to the boring human characters. They had to be rewritten back into mass effect 2.

Zero-Cool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Bioware initially thought everyone wouldn't like Tali and Garrus and would gravitate to the boring human characters. They had to be rewritten back into mass effect 2.

Is that true?? Tali and Garrus were the only 2 i took with me on missions.

ERG89

Zero-Cool wrote: »

2 looks a bit shoddy and the fps was shocking in parts. 3 looks lovely but still suffers from poor frame rate. 1 could definitely do with a gameplay and graphics upgrade and would be nice distraction until the next mass effect comes out.

I'd rather a remaster as the Bioware that made those games are long gone. They likely restructured the company for gambling on Anthem & I worry now the new Dragon Age game will be the final hail mary for the company.
I look at EA similar to Konami, they could make a tidy profit if they remade some of their old games. Burnout, Skate, Dead Space, SSX, Mass Effect, MGS, (a working) Silent Hill remake & Suikoden. They won't tho cause video game business is completely differently now.

Jester252

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Bioware initially thought everyone wouldn't like Tali and Garrus and would gravitate to the boring human characters. They had to be rewritten back into mass effect 2.

Really?

They where the worse two of the group. One was a space racist and the other was as interesting as dish water

Retr0gamer

Found Tali one of the more interesting characters.

Also found space racist a far more interesting character than blandy mc white dude/girl. At least he had a character trait that have him personality.

And then there was the blue space Harlot. Shy but willing. It was like she was plucked from the worst harem anime to give nerds a boner.

Calhoun

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Found Tali one of the more interesting characters.

Also found space racist a far more interesting character than blandy mc white dude/girl. At least he had a character trait that have him personality.

And then there was the blue space Harlot. Shy but willing. It was like she was plucked from the worst harem anime to give nerds a boner.

Which one is the space racist? the XO?

Dave_The_Sheep

Ashley Williams. Though she tones it down a lot in the second and third games, to be fair.

The XO is also a bit of a xenophobe as well though.

I'm a Liara man myself.

pixelburp

ERG89 wrote: »

I'd rather a remaster as the Bioware that made those games are long gone. They likely restructured the company for gambling on Anthem & I worry now the new Dragon Age game will be the final hail mary for the company.
I look at EA similar to Konami, they could make a tidy profit if they remade some of their old games. Burnout, Skate, Dead Space, SSX, Mass Effect, MGS, (a working) Silent Hill remake & Suikoden. They won't tho cause video game business is completely differently now.

Yeah, and apparently many of those who actually worked on the ME games are gone anyway, so Bioware is effectively no more in terms of both personnel and logistics. At this stage I'm just watching the clock until the inevitable "Bioware closed by EA" headline

Fun fact: Bioware (I think, "Victory Games" was the dev) were actually producing a new Command and Conquer game and had even got to alpha multi testing before EA canned it (not after an initial re-jig into a free to play model)

That's crazy to think that the alien characters were presumed less interesting to gamers, but based on what sells I can totally get the logic. No game company has gone hungry betting on the use of a generic white male / female military protagonist. ME & Tali was one of the few times I've ever found myself getting emotionally attached to a game character(s), so hats off there - or else ring the funny farm, whatever's the better option

Retr0gamer

I left her to get nuked.

And nothing important was lost that day.