Mass Effect 3 (no spoilers)

Anyone care to comment on the MP? I'm renting the game, so I won't be playing it. Just curious what it's comparable to (Team Fortress, CoD, etc).

It's not bad. The missions seem redundant, though I admit I've only played it a few times. Also, the readiness rating drops by a percent a day until it resettles at 50%, so it's best to either play MP often or just leave it until just before you end the game.
 

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It's not bad. The missions seem redundant, though I admit I've only played it a few times. Also, the readiness rating drops by a percent a day until it resettles at 50%, so it's best to either play MP often or just leave it until just before you end the game.

It's actually a little more than that. I think it's 3%, iirc. Though whether 1 or 3, it basically means you do one mission and you're back up to 100% anyway.
 

It's actually a little more than that. I think it's 3%, iirc. Though whether 1 or 3, it basically means you do one mission and you're back up to 100% anyway.

Ah, like I said, I only played a few matches, getting it 62, at which point it started dropping 1 per day. But if you get it higher, it probably drops more rapidly.
 

I preordered the game, and had it beaten by around March 12th. Wasn't too happy with my ending, but we don't need to talk about that. I really liked the character loyalty system - as opposed to "loyalty missions" in ME2, in ME3, you just get the chance to participate in a dialogue-based cutscene that is really kind of fun, and brings out the characters a lot more than I saw happen in ME2 - with the notable exception of Jack's ME2 storyline.

The Multiplayer in ME3 is a lot of fun, and it's been eating up a good chunk of my videogaming time - I love how you can use earned money in the game to purchase "booster packs" that unlock new class options, weapons, and weapon modifications. When I unlocked my favourite little Carnifex Pistol last week, I was a very happy Wik. One thing I don't like is that when you gain a level in a class, that level transfers to the other 3 race/gender options for that class. Since classes seem to cap out at level 20, this means that I see limited advancement opportunities in the game - all of my characters are around level 19 now, with the exception of the Infiltrator, a class I absolutely hate to play.

I also hate how buggy the Vanguard is in multiplayer - it's my favourite class, but one I very rarely play because that bug is so annoying. I actually restarted playing ME1 as a Vanguard because the class is so much fun, but I've come to realize that the classes in ME1 are nowhere near as fun as they are in 2 and 3. This is making replaying ME1 something of a chore.

As for ME3, I like most of the game, but I kind of hate how I'll be walking down a hall and some Volus will be like "Damn, I left my keys on the Planet Agaris 7". And then you suddenly have a quest to get back that damn Volus' keys so he can help you in the war effort. At one point, I had about two pages' worth of these stupid little item retrieval quests - that just involve you going to a planet, scanning it for stuff, and then giving the item back to the necessary character. Annoying for a completionist such as myself.

Squad control is the best it's been in the series, though, and unlike an earlier poster, I found myself using different group combinations for different mission types. I also found myself bringing in characters I thought would be interesting depending on the mission at hand - sometimes, this even opened up huge dialogue options between your two squadmates! I love it when that happens.

There is a fun fact that may be a tiny bit of a spoiler, but I think it's one worth sharing: After the credits, there's a tiny cutscene. The main voice in that cutscene is our friend, Buzz Aldrin. The fact that Bioware got Buzz Aldrin to voice a character in a video game is probably one of the coolest things ever.

Oh, and the music in ME3 is the best in the series. The reaper theme music, with piano notes in minor keys interspersed with thundering synth-organ chords is incredibly cool. Every time it came on, I just wanted to pause the game and listen - and did, quite a few times.
 

With regards to "common sense", knowing that some characters have a swan song isn't a spoiler.

Yes it is.

As to my comment about "steering away from ME2" characters, that's hardly meaningful unless you knew how far in the game I actually was.

If someone didn't know that before reading this, then their game would've been spoiled by the fact that they now know that characters won't be returning as team-mates.

Of course, by its very nature, ME is sufficiently open-ended enough that, for all I know, the events I experience are particular to my game.

Warning: spoilers in the following link:

Games On Net :: Editorials: RPG on Rails: Mass Effect 3 and the Illusion of Choice

To what ends? "Kzach, there's a thread about ME3! Why aren't you posting in it?"
No, someone sent me a PM with spoilers in it. So there's not much point in me avoiding threads like this.
 

Squad control is the best it's been in the series, though, and unlike an earlier poster, I found myself using different group combinations for different mission types. I also found myself bringing in characters I thought would be interesting depending on the mission at hand - sometimes, this even opened up huge dialogue options between your two squadmates! I love it when that happens.

This was my "but...but...but..." thought. Advice isn't a spoiler, right? When you pick squad mates for mission, pick the ones that you think should go or match up well. You'll be glad you did.
 


Just the name of that article could maybe be considered a spoiler, but even though I haven't finished it yet, I know about this; it's hard to avoid. But then, I consider it much ado about nothing. The Mass Effect Universe is continuing in new games. Do people really think they'll make a different game for each of a bunch of different endings in ME3? The carry over of choices made needs to end somewhere.

No, someone sent me a PM with spoilers in it. So there's not much point in me avoiding threads like this.

Okay, that's a dick move. Let us know who it is so we can all rick roll him.
 

I also hate how buggy the Vanguard is in multiplayer - it's my favourite class, but one I very rarely play because that bug is so annoying. I actually restarted playing ME1 as a Vanguard because the class is so much fun, but I've come to realize that the classes in ME1 are nowhere near as fun as they are in 2 and 3. This is making replaying ME1 something of a chore.

Yay, Vanguards! But I have to ask (since I don't know if I've encountered it and haven't heard about it)... what bug?

Anyway, it is an awesome game. Seeing a follow-up from even some minor little thing in ME1 is just too cool. It is wonderful how BioWare managed to incorporate so much of everything that has happened over the years in the ME series.

I was a bit disappointed to see the available party members was such a small roster... though they were excellently handled.

The Primary story missions had plenty jaw-dropping moments and pulse-pounding action. Gunplay was sharper, powers even more fun, more variety to locations and plenty of different enemy types made for engaging combat... even if healing is still a bit on the easy side.
But... the ending... I was not pleased. Not at all... and that's all I will say about it in this thread.

I was really skeptical of the multiplayer when it was announced, but I was impressed with how BioWare made it work. It's fun, has some variety and some challenge and rewards a team for really working together. However, it is a bit repetitive, due to only a few locations and a limited enemy set.
 

Ah, like I said, I only played a few matches, getting it 62, at which point it started dropping 1 per day. But if you get it higher, it probably drops more rapidly.

Ah. I didn't realize that. I ended up playing Multiplayer before the campaign for a while because I was annoyed that I couldn't port in the image of my Shephard from my previous games. So I ended up getting my score pretty high quickly.

Then I had to take a picture of my character from ME2 and then try to recreate it as best as I could in ME3. Annoying...
 

Then I had to take a picture of my character from ME2 and then try to recreate it as best as I could in ME3. Annoying...

Yes, extremely annoying. I mean, really, the entire POINT of ME has been that it's an ongoing story with a character that you've become attached to and yet this most basic of functions they've screwed up in not one, but two iterations of the game.

Also annoying and stupid was tying what has been a focused single-player game to a multiplayer platform. If they're so desperate to include MP then, whatever, but don't tie the two together and punish all the people who've supported a SP game from the start by forcing them to do MP.

Those two things I'm genuinely annoyed at and yet the ending isn't something that bothers me.
 

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