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[AndrewDean84xX]

I never found anything wrong with the game. If anything, I don't like that Bioware bent to the will of internet folk.

 

[Fusion Pizza]

Really felt like they were phoning it in on so many missions, characters on the whole were very uninteresting, disappointing end to a series that could have been so much more.

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

At least it brought us this...

 

[Photolysis]

The largest problem from my perspective was the Crucible superweapon plot. It was a bad move in retrospect because:

If you go back in time, in addition to enjoying your lottery winnings can you please ensure you get onto the Bioware writing team?

Because that's a shitload better than what we got.

 

[Flame Lord]

I pretty much hated the whole thing before I even got to the ending. I thought the shooting and leveling were the worst in the series, most of the side quests were shit, I thought the story was shit.

 

[Asbear]

I completely agree with you OP, and like you I was also annoyed at how every single problem of ME3 was projected onto its ending even back in March 2012, but that's not to say the ending isn't the biggest flaw.

My eyebrows were raised when I first scouted over BSN and NeoGAF to see so many say ME2 was the game that did everything wrong and that ME3 just "follows that trend". Hell no. From ME1 to ME2 I feel the consistency. Sure there are some small cosmetic changes and the whole thermal clips thing, but once you reach the end of ME2 and having played its DLC ME3's very first opening minutes are just all kinds of wrong.

Consistency feels lacking because of a subtle yet obvious change in art direction, tone and musical direction. One might argue that ME2 also had a more dark and gritty tone than ME1 but ME3 just doesn't feel like Mass Effect for a really long time until you reach the Citadel again, but then you realize even the Citadel feels alienating and side quests are almost nonexistent.

Tuchanka and Rannoch are pretty much the only redeeming factors but even they have this totally un-Mass-Effect-ish vibe of being all 'larger than life' with Shepard being this super ant in a war between spaceships and terminators. It's straight outta Michael Bay movies and it is NOT better for it >:-(

...and I'm not talking about that child or the dreams or that painfully manipulative Clint Mansell music. It's not what Mass Effect is about.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

The whole game is fucked, not just the ending. "oh, we found these plans for a giant reaper killing weapon!"

 

[IndoAssassin]

I'm not the type for digging deep into plot lines or the genericness of them if I'm entertained. Only problem I had with the ME series as a whole was I had a crew of 6 or more peeps sitting on the normandy, yet I was only ever taking 2 of them with me while the rest sat on the normandy twiddling their thumbs.

It would have been awesome if every story based mission utilized my whole crew throughout it like the end mission in ME2, and there was always a possibility I would have lost someone. But that will always be a dream.

 

[Hero]

Combat was overall dumbed down and too shooter-oriented. Picking up quests at the Citadel by overhearing other people randomly was dumb. Then it basically boiled down to finding random ass item during the excavation shit was even worse. Quests were lazy.

Got really sick of DEFEND THE POSITION WHILE ONE TEAM MEMBER HACKS OBJECT X AGAINST WAVES OF ENEMIES.

 

[Rapstah]

I had problems with parts all over the game, but I would probably have been fine with most of them if the ending had been amazing.

 

[Arthr2ShdsJcksn]

You're not alone. The entire game was boring and I hated every moment of it.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Mass Effect 3 fails to deliver on the story as a whole. It's super boring that Paragons who made a bunch of really dumb choices based on nothing but blind faith basically have everything go right for them.

 

[LordJim]

The only improvement was the combat, pretty much.
So no, you are not the only one.

Though the DLCs fixed one big issue, enemy and combat scenario variety

 

[The Artisan]

The only improvement was the combat, pretty much.
So no, you are not the only one.

Though the DLCs fixed one big issue, enemy and combat scenario variety

I wouldn't even say the combat improved much. I liked the combat way more in Me2. The only improvements in my opinion were medigels and ammo supplements not requiring a recharge, and unlimited sprint.

 

[Mifune]

I liked that they opened up the levels so they weren't quite as corridor-ish as ME2's. But then they just filled these levels with a seemingly endless supply of bad guys, eliminating any gains.

I haven't even made it to the ending. The lengthy combat scenarios are just a slog to me.

 

[The Artisan]

You're not alone. The entire game was boring and I hated every moment of it.

Thank you.

Boring though I wouldn't say is the best word to describing, more like, letdown. Or disappointing.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Oh definitely, I've said fears that ME3's ending is the least of its problems; it's simply a lazily produced game.

 

[Fahrenheit]

Yeah ME3 has a lot of issues. I know no accounting for taste and all but I don't get how ME3 (and to a lesser extent ME2) get the praise they do. Feel like i'm taking crazy pills.

 

[Mahonay]

The whole thing felt really forced and the writing was painfully cheesy. I bought ME3 and never even made to the end. I didn't feel invested in anything that was going on.

In comparison, ME2 is one of my favorite games of all time.

The thing I really enjoyed about Mass Effect 3 was the multiplayer. That part was legitimately good.

 

[NoPiece]

OP, you are right, the game was a mess from the cheesy opening where Shepard leaps onto the shuttle to escape the attack Earth. The dream/premonitions were terrible. The realization that choices in the first two games weren't going to matter was terrible. The ninja sub-boss apparently escaped from Konami's junkpile. The forced conclusion to all the companions right before the finale was terrible. Salt in the wound was a the turret sequence they threw in to break it up. The ending was just the punctuation to a big mess.

It had some good moments, and to their credit, the shooting was really polished, but they totally blew the interesting story set up in ME1 and most of ME2.

 

[IvorB]

Don't forget also that it was riddled with game-breaking bugs.

 

[silvermember]

My dear Op, you are probably not the only one. Somewhere in this world you can always find someone who has a an opinion similar to yours.

For me the biggest thing other than the ending was the lost of the turrians weapons from me2. And my hated for at bioware for constantly changing squad mates.

I wouldn't even say the combat improved much. I liked the combat way more in Me2. The only improvements in my opinion were medigels and ammo supplements not requiring a recharge, and unlimited sprint.

I feel like everything you said about the combat can be assumed to be your opinion. I say the combat was significantly better just like the person you replied to believed.

 

[foxtrot3d]

The largest problem from my perspective was the Crucible superweapon plot. It was a bad move in retrospect because:

• It was never mentioned in past games and showed up out of nowhere in the first act of this one
• It leads directly to Star Child ending stuff, which was handled poorly and is arguably a bad concept to begin with
• It trivialises the other choices you make in the game, since everyone is just acting as a meat shield while you get your plan into operation
• It trivialises the plot of the previous games, because now the Reapers could always just fly back whenever they wanted and nothing you did hurt them, it just delayed them a bit until you randomly happened to stumble upon the thing to kill them with.

Every time this comes up I have to present my alternate ME3 concept, which is that you are fighting for a conventional military victory over the Reapers. Since the Reapers were so potent in ME1 this requires explanation.

Throughout the series, we got a series of events that seemingly led to the Galaxy becoming more prepared for the Reapers.

• In ME1, we discovered the Reaper threat and the council finally realised it was something that needed to be dealt with.
• The body of Sovereign allowed the Turians to reverse engineer the Thanix Gun, which was a weapon that could be fitted to a Frigate which gave them the firepower of a Cruiser. If this weapon was scaled up to Dreadnought size, it is feasible that they could seriously damage a Reaper, bypassing their extremely potent barriers which shrugged off conventional firepower.
• In ME2 cerberus network, we discovered that the Batarians were developing a massive orbital laser network. Lasers ignore barriers, which means they would be ideally suited to combatting Reapers.
• In ME2 we find the massive mass driver cannon in orbit around a planet from a long lost battle which caused the "dead reaper" you find.
• The Alliance developed the brand new torpedo weapon system which was substantially more powerful than anything previously developed.
• Depending on your decisions at the end of ME2, Cerberus could have access to Collector technology including their particle beam weapon (which once again is ideal for bypassing barriers).
• Depending on past decisions you could have the support of the Rachni, the Krogans, the Heretic Geth and so on.

The next piece of the puzzle is "Why didn't the Reapers just fly back 2000 years ago when the Rachni wars failed, instead of waiting and letting the galaxy tech up for ages?" The answer in ME3 is "I dunno lol". My answer is that the Reapers could get back, but only at an extremely severe cost. Since drive cores build up a massive charge using conventional FTL travel, and the Reapers are in dark-space, there is nowhere to discharge on the return trip. Thus, the only way to get back home would be to cannibalise the drive cores of some Reapers to give "spares" that could be changed for the long trip. In this scenario, only one third of the Reaper Armada can make it back to the Milky Way, and the remaining 2/3 are floating dead in the water near the Darkspace Citadel Relay. This means that the legacy of the Protheans and the actions of the first game are *extremely important* to the defeat of the Reapers in the final game, because it forces them to use only a small part of their potential strength in the showdown with the galaxy.

The final consideration is that the relay network is in-tact. This means that unlike in past cycles, the defenders can use the relay network for strategic movement and to coordinate actions over large distances. This was handled by Liara in comics or some shit, but at least it would be nice to properly acknowledge it in the game.

The structure of the game need not change greatly, you would still be going around rallying support against the Reapers, and the war would still be tough. But there would not need to be a magic plot device cannon; past continuity would actually be important to the resolution; your allies would NOT just be generic fodder while you deploy the magic weapon, you would have a reason to have cool space battles (something fans have been crying for since the start), and so on.

I agree with everything you said and it seems ME2 went to great lengths to drop tid bits of info that would prepare the Galaxy for the Reaper Invasion. Yet, despite ALL of this I would be willing to accept the Crucible if it was simply executed correctly.

 

[ProtoCents]

The real problem with ME3 was that you never charged into battle with all of your allies. It was a cutscene. It would have really been a special moment if Legion saved your ass with a clutch snipe, if Wrex charged through the front lines to buy you time, if Kasumi hacked a turret providing you covering fire... etc. etc.

Instead we filled up a fucking bar.

Such a disappointment.

 

[Tuck]

The largest problem from my perspective was the Crucible superweapon plot. It was a bad move in retrospect because:

• It was never mentioned in past games and showed up out of nowhere in the first act of this one
• It leads directly to Star Child ending stuff, which was handled poorly and is arguably a bad concept to begin with
• It trivialises the other choices you make in the game, since everyone is just acting as a meat shield while you get your plan into operation
• It trivialises the plot of the previous games, because now the Reapers could always just fly back whenever they wanted and nothing you did hurt them, it just delayed them a bit until you randomly happened to stumble upon the thing to kill them with.

Every time this comes up I have to present my alternate ME3 concept, which is that you are fighting for a conventional military victory over the Reapers. Since the Reapers were so potent in ME1 this requires explanation.

Throughout the series, we got a series of events that seemingly led to the Galaxy becoming more prepared for the Reapers.

• In ME1, we discovered the Reaper threat and the council finally realised it was something that needed to be dealt with.
• The body of Sovereign allowed the Turians to reverse engineer the Thanix Gun, which was a weapon that could be fitted to a Frigate which gave them the firepower of a Cruiser. If this weapon was scaled up to Dreadnought size, it is feasible that they could seriously damage a Reaper, bypassing their extremely potent barriers which shrugged off conventional firepower.
• In ME2 cerberus network, we discovered that the Batarians were developing a massive orbital laser network. Lasers ignore barriers, which means they would be ideally suited to combatting Reapers.
• In ME2 we find the massive mass driver cannon in orbit around a planet from a long lost battle which caused the "dead reaper" you find.
• The Alliance developed the brand new torpedo weapon system which was substantially more powerful than anything previously developed.
• Depending on your decisions at the end of ME2, Cerberus could have access to Collector technology including their particle beam weapon (which once again is ideal for bypassing barriers).
• Depending on past decisions you could have the support of the Rachni, the Krogans, the Heretic Geth and so on.

The next piece of the puzzle is "Why didn't the Reapers just fly back 2000 years ago when the Rachni wars failed, instead of waiting and letting the galaxy tech up for ages?" The answer in ME3 is "I dunno lol". My answer is that the Reapers could get back, but only at an extremely severe cost. Since drive cores build up a massive charge using conventional FTL travel, and the Reapers are in dark-space, there is nowhere to discharge on the return trip. Thus, the only way to get back home would be to cannibalise the drive cores of some Reapers to give "spares" that could be changed for the long trip. In this scenario, only one third of the Reaper Armada can make it back to the Milky Way, and the remaining 2/3 are floating dead in the water near the Darkspace Citadel Relay. This means that the legacy of the Protheans and the actions of the first game are *extremely important* to the defeat of the Reapers in the final game, because it forces them to use only a small part of their potential strength in the showdown with the galaxy.

The final consideration is that the relay network is in-tact. This means that unlike in past cycles, the defenders can use the relay network for strategic movement and to coordinate actions over large distances. This was handled by Liara in comics or some shit, but at least it would be nice to properly acknowledge it in the game.

The structure of the game need not change greatly, you would still be going around rallying support against the Reapers, and the war would still be tough. But there would not need to be a magic plot device cannon; past continuity would actually be important to the resolution; your allies would NOT just be generic fodder while you deploy the magic weapon, you would have a reason to have cool space battles (something fans have been crying for since the start), and so on.

I wish you worked at Bioware. You clearly put more thought into the ending than they did.

The series as a whole suffers from them not planning things out from the beginning, leading to really jarring bridging between the games rather than 3 parts of the same story.

 

[AAK]

 

[foxtrot3d]

I want to expand a little bit more on my last post because a lot of people give The Crucible undue hate so I will attempt to defend and explain the purpose of The Crucible. Now, I wanna make clear I'm talking about the concept of The Crucible not its eventual execution, because the actual concept makes sense.

So, ThoseDeafMutes pointed out various hints and clues that were planted throughout ME1 and especially ME2 which seemed to point to an ability for the Citadel races to face off against the Reaper conventionally. But, assuming the Citadel races can do so then what would be the story of ME3? What I mean is that of all the various choices you made and all the plotlines and problems introduced before the Reaper Invasion how would they be resolved through this conventional war? Afterall, if the Citadel Races can at least defeat the Reapers through conventional tactics why do they need to band together? Why must the genophage be cured? Why solve the Geth/Quarian conflict? Why must Earth be saved?

While it's hard to imagine a different scenario that would resolve these questions the Crucible does allow for a single plot device that provides context to all of your actions. You need those races to bad together to save Earth, you need their scientific knowledge to complete the Crucible, and all of your past decisions can be slotted into this context to give differing outcomes for this one last push. For instance, if you notice in ME3, depending on your ending choice in ME1, the Alliance fleet was either at almost full strength if you told them not to protect the Destiny Ascension or still at probably half strength because many cruisers were sacrificed to save the Council. Ideally this would have larger consequences when it comes to the end game of ME3 and the final battle above Earth but in reality it just resulted in a minor difference in your War Points that tallied up to whether you got three different arbitrary color endings.

The ultimate end execution of the Crucible was disappointing but the concept was solid. If the Crucible were executed properly then Earth would play out exactly as the Suicide Mission played out in ME2 but with more variables. If the Alliance fleet was at half strength then you'd have a harder time pushing through the Reaper forces and more people would die. You'd also ideally make choices based on the resources and allies you gained, gotta bunch of Reaper Ravagers in the way? Well, you can send the Krogan to push through (good option), send some Salarians to sneak around (worst option), or assuming you got both to work together allow the Krogans to create a massive diversion allowing the Salarians to sneak around the position (best option). Thus, here in this final MASSIVE mission all of your choices, decisions, and collective resources would come into play. Save the Collector Data? Great, Cerberus was able to help build one badass ship in that limited time that could hold itself against a Sovereign Class Reaper, or perhaps they were able to develop a way to counteract Reaper Indoctrination whereas without this data you would have a harder time finding a run around.

By the end of the mission the Crucible would be deployed and depending on its state it's task would be fulfilled. Now, at this point I stop offering suggestions because the ultimate use of the Crucible could go many different ways from what we got. It could have turned out the Crucible was just another Reaper trap like the Citadel, and was always meant to fail? It could have simply done as it was stated and thus use the Relays to kill all the Reapers with it's ultimate success depending upon the damage it sustained due to your battle choices; too much damage and it disables all the Relays after use and screws up friendly ships, while very little damage allows it to do exactly as it intended. Perhaps the Crucible is actually just a power source to turn the Citadel into a massive Mass Relay allowing the races to escape this galaxy and start/seed life in another galaxy away from the Reapers?

Again, the choices are limitless but the concept of the Crucible allows all of this to happen in a believable context. The problem with ME3, well one of many, is how it utterly drops the ball in ultimately capitalizing on the Crucible's potential. The Earth Mission is no Suicide Mission 2.0 it's a standard run and gun affair that proves that the allies you gathered made no difference. Then you are told at the end that your Crucible suffered damage based on a War Point check done off screen that either enabled or disabled it from allowing for higher functions, yet none of these functions seem plausible, coherent, or in any way better based on a different score.

That is the ultimate problem with the Crucible, it fails to achieve what it was initially set out to do, provide context and resolution to your decisions.

EDIT:
Honorable Mentions (Good and Bad):

• Complete bastardization of Cerberus and TIM was just uncalled for and stupid, suddenly a small "terrorist" organization has a military alongside dozens of cruisers, fighters, and dreadnaughts to match the Alliance. And TIM is turned from a truly grey individual into a mustache twirling Bond villain whose ultimately not responsible for any of his decision because it turns out he was indoctrinated (always?).
• The Tuchanka arc is fucking BRILLIANT. And shows that BioWare does know to make decisions matter and resolve a complex situation. We're talking about resolving a conflict introduced way back in ME1 where both of the central characters, Mordin and Wrex, can be both dead, can be alive, one alive or one dead. Then there is whether the player saved the Genophage data, destroyed it, or ignored Mordin's mission altogether. But, the scenario gets more complex as it trows new choices at you such as revealing the Dalatrass' plot or keeping silent. All of this results in a myriad of different endings and scenarios which presumably leads the player to foresee a drastic different future for the Krogan. Will they return to the glory of the Ancients as a more wiser and less violent species or will they return to their violent expansionism of the Krogan Rebellions? Will they be cured and allowed to reproduce freely or forever suffer the effects of the Genophage? And, at the more immediate level did you get Krogan support or Salarian or both?
• The Geth are completely assassinated as characters as we are led to believe that individual AI is the superior and only true form of life whereas before we had learned to respect their unique intelligence and form of life. Why humanoid individual life has to be the end all be all of all lifeforms is just beyond me.
• Complete and utter destruction of the Reaper mythos, I don't need to expand because it's tied to the endings but explaining the Reaper origins and their motivations was ridiculous alongside just plain bad. I don't understand why people don't learn that the mystery will always be scarier than the reveal, it's why the Colverfield monster turned to shit the minute you actually saw it.
• Piece of shit Earth intro, no chance to view or explore Earth in its pre-Reaper prime and suddenly I'm supposed to care at the end because it's EARTH.
• The Citadel has its ups and downs. For one, it makes no sense that the Reapers don't immediately target the Citadel and blow it up, but I'll give that a pass. Second, I don't like being confined solely to the Presidium, it's weird how in this final game the Citadel is smaller than ever. However, I do like how as the war progresses the Citadel, especially the Docks, become more and more crowded with refugees which has an effect on resources based on how you manage certain decisions on the Citadel.
• Miranda not being a mainline party member; fuck you.

 

[Dash Kappei]

Waid, wad?

 

[Sacul64GC]

Don't forget also that it was riddled with game-breaking bugs.

Dear god I forgot not having the ability to import my ME1 Shepard's appearance. That felt game-braking and just set the tone that they did not care about fans of the original. It took me over an hour to recreate him as close as I could get.

 

[DedValve]

Obligatory Lime Quote Post:

It was a fucking shitty rush-job with no heart and thought. It was a simplistic, primitive example of how to create a game with no aspirations for anything other than fulfilling the quarterly report of your parent company. In the course of a playthrough, it manages to include all of the following *basic* deficiencies:

• Broken quest log. Even freely available browser games do a better job.
• Recycled N7 missions, i.e. horde-modes multiplayer maps masquerading as singleplayer missions.
• Asspulls out of nowhere. The Crucible is somehow the solution to the Reaper problem? Really? That's the best you could do as a writer?
• Lazy writing: Cerberus are apparently no longer a paramilitary organisation, but have millions of personnel and are able to cover the entire galaxy wherever Space Jesus goes
• Even more lazy writing: In-your-face exposition, like having a newly introduced character referencing what happened in the earlier games. For example, James asks during the trip back to Eden Prime: "So, Shepard, this is the place where [lists all the things that happened in ME1] took place?" Shepard: "Yes, that is correct, James." I know Bioware wanted to be more inclusive towards people unfamiliar with the universe, but this is just lazy writing and it is entirely possible to convey that information in a believable and intelligent manner
• Fetch side-quests that *only* involved fucking planet scanning.
• Animations were even worse and unpolished. Many, many instances of buggy weapons or items or even switching up weapons between gameplay and cutscenes.
• Removing features that were in the previous two games
• Random turret sequences. A lot of times. One particular main campaign mission involves defending two points from enemy waves, followed by another turret sequence from the air. Yes, 3 turret sequences in one mission
• Holstering was removed, which goes to show that not once does the game *not* focus on shooting while you're in a mission. Your gun is always constantly pointing towards something, which speaks volumes about Bioware's design philosophy
• Fanservice én masse.
• Plot pacing was completely terrible. It's either rush to save Earth, unite the warring races versus getting a trinket from some planet for a random citizen
• Kai Leng was not properly established, so he just comes across as an extreme nuisance with a lot of plot armour
• The earlier established villain didn't even say a word in the entire game and has like a 2 minute cameo in the end. Apparently Harbinger's importance in ME2 was entirely worthless.
• A lot of internal logical inconsistencies
• Dialogue moments that used to be interactive with at least some sort of camera work is relegated to pushing a button and a wave-file playing. It screams that Bioware rushed the game by not having the usual dialogue presentation that they had in earlier games.
• The way to start sidequests revolves around walking by some strangers
• Linear, corridor-based level design
• Emphasis on shootbang, meaning a lot of shooting, intense action, explosions, etc. The game design never stops to let the atmosphere and setting breathe, but is instead focused on yelling at the player as much as possible, as if he/she suffers from ADHD
• Lame, shitty attempts at affecting the player's emotions. The introduction sequence at Earth with Vent Kid dying is probably the worst example of shitty writing that I've come across in the history gaming. I felt so offended that someone thought such a ridiculous attempt at creating empathy would be successful.
• The ending of ME2 was rendered completely irrelevant. Apparently blowing up a colony of Batarians wasn't such a big deal.
• Shitty, shitty writing. Examples like "We fight or we die!" are plenty.
• Meaningless war assets. They amount to being nothing more than a number-filled spreadsheet. A complete travesty.
• And this is not to talk about the monumental clusterfuck of an ending. I mean, you have to actually commit a tremendous amount of effort to do such a terrible fucking job.

All of the above seems pretty self-evident to me if you expect to be engaged and respected as a human being capable of rational and critical thought when experiencing different fictional media. Yet the following was somehow the judgement by "game critics":

Seriously, they must all be blind and/or incompetent to gloss over the many deficiencies of Mass Effect 3. But then again, it might all make sense: A game created by incompetent developers will be well-received by incompetent critics.

My personal feelings matched up. I marathoned through ME1 and 2 several times. To this day I have only ever beaten ME3 once. I even started 3 shepard marathons and I just get too burned out by ME3. I still haven't played citadel.

The MP was the only good spot in that mess of a game outside a few heartwarming character moments.

 

[The Artisan]

Waid, wad?

had to compensate for number of characters in the title.

 

[Higgins113]

What the fuck bioware

 

[Pinktaco]

My biggest complain, besides the ending, is how the things we decided in previous games complete fluffed. That ant queen? Yeah don't think too much about it. Deciding captain Andersons career? Got you covered. Decided to destroy the base in the second game? Guess not haha.

It was clear that bioware couldn't live up to the expectation and decided to boil everything down to something useless and not fun.

 

[Syril]

[*] The Tuchanka arc is fucking BRILLIANT. And shows that BioWare does know to make decisions matter and resolve a complex situation. We're talking about resolving a conflict introduced way back in ME1 where both of the central characters, Mordin and Wrex, can be both dead, can be alive, one alive or one dead. Then there is whether the player saved the Genophage data, destroyed it, or ignored Mordin's mission altogether. But, the scenario gets more complex as it trows new choices at you such as revealing the Dalatrass' plot or keeping silent. All of this results in a myriad of different endings and scenarios which presumably leads the player to foresee a drastic different future for the Krogan. Will they return to the glory of the Ancients as a more wiser and less violent species or will they return to their violent expansionism of the Krogan Rebellions? Will they be cured and allowed to reproduce freely or forever suffer the effects of the Genophage? And, at the more immediate level did you get Krogan support or Salarian or both?

What happens if you don't reveal the dalatrass' plot, but cure the genophage anyway?

 

[foxtrot3d]

What happens if you don't reveal the dalatrass' plot, but cure the genophage anyway?

If you don't reveal it I believe ether Mordin or Padok pick up on the tampering when you reach the site and then fix it, assuming you don't tell him you already know and try to shoot their ass. Thus, the Krogan never know. Wait, actually I think if Mordin is dead Padok may not actually pick up on the tampering and the cure fails.

 

[Jeremy]

I hated the shift from RPG to action that occurred in ME2 and didn't get far into ME3 at all. I don't know how it ends. The first Mass Effect is definitely in my top 3 favorite games.

 

[foxtrot3d]

I hated the shift from RPG to action that occurred in ME2 and didn't get far into ME3 at all. I don't know how it ends. The first Mass Effect is definitely in my top 3 favorite games.

I hate when people say this, what shift? Mass Effect was always at its gameplay core an third person-cover based shooter. While ME2 may have streamlined things a bit much. the improvement of the shooter mechanics were much needed and perfected in ME3.

 

[razzmahtazz]

That is the ultimate problem with the Crucible, it fails to achieve what it was initially set out to do, provide context and resolution to your decisions.

These were my exact thoughts when I finished the game. Given what you said plus some of the alleged Patrick Weekes posts from the Penny Arcade Forums, I wouldnt have much cared for the what the starchild was blabbering about. Much like the ending of ME2, eff the reaper baby, the suicide mission made up for it.

No its not just you.

But seriously, did people really expect them to have a way of wrapping up a plot featuring huge space faring machines with enormous fire-power vs 3 people running around with hand guns?

The whole concept was clearly nothing they could wrap up while retaining a small squad and on ground based combat.

They have precedent of taking on reaper while on a ship. ME1 ending had that part where you were ordering fleets around with the conversation options. ME2 had the upgrade your ship stuff which had consequences in the suicide mission. Why couldnt they just have done those in a more epic scale?

 

[Instro]

No, most aspects of the game are worse or even more overly simplified than 1&2. The writing is bad all around, outside of a few points.

 

[EatinOlives]

Spoiler I think? I doubt anyone cares but I removed the direct link just in case.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...l_progressive,q_80,w_636/17fpotfw143rqjpg.jpg

 

[Mindlog]

The largest problem from my perspective was the Crucible superweapon plot. It was a bad move in retrospect because:

• It was never mentioned in past games and showed up out of nowhere in the first act of this one
• It leads directly to Star Child ending stuff, which was handled poorly and is arguably a bad concept to begin with
• It trivialises the other choices you make in the game, since everyone is just acting as a meat shield while you get your plan into operation
• It trivialises the plot of the previous games, because now the Reapers could always just fly back whenever they wanted and nothing you did hurt them, it just delayed them a bit until you randomly happened to stumble upon the thing to kill them with.

The Crucible should have disrupted the gestalt Reaper AI and unleashed the thousands of ancient civilizations trapped within. This would parallel what happened to the Geth as each platform became an individual. Imagine each Reaper becoming a collective representation of that society instead of just another cog in the Reaper war machine.

This leads into the traditional battle where your forces are only battling the remaining enemy hell bent on Earth's destruction. Maybe they want Earth for themselves. Maybe they've grown to accept the Reaper motives. Hell maybe they even start fighting on your side against the Reapers. Maybe they immediately open fire on ancient enemies. It's pure chaos and if your forces are strong enough then maybe you can start to rebuild. Now Mass Effect: Next starts in a galaxy with hundreds of potential villains and divided allies desperate to rescue what's left of their own societies.

I hate when people say this, what shift? Mass Effect was always at its gameplay core an third person-cover based shooter. While ME2 may have streamlined things a bit much. the improvement of the shooter mechanics were much needed and perfected in ME3.

I hated the changes to dialogue. Most of the other 'RPG elements' are unjustified holdovers. I'm happy with many of the changes made. Don't shoehorn in stuff to fit genre conventions. Still hate seeing a level 1 weapon. "Yeah, I'll take your three worst .50 cals and your worst standard sidearms please."

 

[The Artisan]

I also absolutely hated the fact that they gave you the option of having an action, or more story driven approach to playing the fucking game. What the fuck?! The game losing its RPG roots and becoming more of just an action 3rd person shooter was a PROBLEM, not a PERK. But Bioware decided to just roll with it.

 

[Lime]

We fight or we die!

 

[BrassDragon]

BioWare Marketing Head David Silverman, 2011:

“What we’re trying to do with Mass Effect 3 is that it’s a new beginning for the series. It’s probably a natural entry point. Given the fact this is the beginning of an all-out war with this ancient alien race. We’ve been foreshadowing this war with this race that’s been dormant for 50,000 years. Well now they’ve finally woken up, launching their full scale invasion and trying to wipe out all life as we know it. It’s a natural point for people to jump in.

“To use that Star Wars analogy, when you started on episode IV, you didn’t realise you were missing anything, right? There was the Death Star, and there was the empire; they were attacking and Luke Skywalker was going in to take ‘em down… You didn’t need to know that there three movies before that setting up who Darth Vader and Anakin were. It’s kind of a similar thing. In ME3, you’re going to start the war and end the war in the same game. It’s pretty self-contained.”

 

[hotnheavyload]

A really sad state of affairs for a franchise that had SO much potential. Some good reasons listed in here. I would like to add the complete lack of urgency in the game. I didn't feel like I was going to save the galaxy until 25 minutes before the end, even that was utterly ruined by an obviously rushed Earth scenario and ending.

The pacing and atmosphere were so much more accomplished in ME1, unbelievable to see how quickly the franchise devolved.

 

[The Artisan]

A really sad state of affairs for a franchise that had SO much potential. Some good reasons listed in here. I would like to add the complete lack of urgency in the game. I didn't feel like I was going to save the galaxy until 25 minutes before the end, even that was utterly ruined by an obviously rushed Earth scenario and ending.

The pacing and atmosphere were so much more accomplished in ME1, unbelievable to see how quickly the franchise devolved.

Harbinger not being the main villain was part of the lack of urgency. But yes, that definitely took me out of the feel of the experience.