#1 STUNNA

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TSXy Luster

haha that's what I am now. Female Renegade Adept.

I recommend playing some MP in between SP big missions to relax and kinda wind down the brain from going crazy. I like it. Plus it will contributes to war assets, etc..

TSXy Luster

that's just stupid. all it shows is that they have the character in the game. But Bioware is still right in some part then. The mission is not on the disc. Sigh. People always find something to whine about these days...

#1 STUNNA

OK so then why is this important character disabled in the game. If people want the extra levels then sure charge for DLC, that's usually what DLC is but essential characters should not be disabled from the retail game.

Lightus

When you buy the dlc you are downloading a full mission and the unlock for the new character. The mission you download is directly related to how you get to have the new character in your squad. If you were to unlock the character without playing the mission, it wouldn't make any sense.

I'm not sure the character in question is "essential" either. I haven't beaten the game yet, but so far he is just interesting. Having him on my squad hasn't changed the plot of the game in the least bit. You get to learn some of the character's culture but that's it. Unless something changes towards the end of the game (which it may I don't know) he is just an "extra".

Not saying that it shouldn't have been included in the game though. A lot of the love for this game is because you get to learn the character's cultures. I can see how people could feel scammed for having to pay for it.

TSXy Luster

^what he said^


the DLC character just has some interesting lines for some instances. Just like every character in the game have their own interesting lines in each situations.


I enjoyed it because I got it included with the Collector's edition, which is the best way to go about it anyways.

TSXy Luster

I just went and spent 200000 bucks to get this Palladin......


yeah, it's pretty much gonna be my main weapon till death do us part

Lightus

I just beat it. I picked the "middle" ending. You'll know it when you get there.

That was crazy! I don't know what all the fuss is about. I think the ending was great! What were people expecting?

On top of that, it has been announced that the DLC will flesh out the ending a bit.

I don't know how I feel. Mostly sad I suppose. I started playing this series when I was 16! It's my favorite video game series and now it's over! Guess I gotta start another play through. Let me know whenever you guys beat it!

Costco

finally getting in on this game

For those of you who imported your Shepard's face, how'd it go? I know Lightus commented on this, but I imported my female Shepard and her face looks fine, just seems like there's less mascara. I guess I'm lucky.

So I'm going in as a vanguard, just like my second playthroughs in ME1 and ME2. Briefly considered infiltrator again and even adept for the singularity.... we'll see how it goes.

Costco

and glad to hear that, Lightus. I was a bit surprised, hearing all the bitching and moaning from fans. But I'm going in with my hopes as neutral as possible. All I know is people are also saying this is their favorite ME game.

Lightus

You finish ME2 then?

Yeah, the ending was a lot different from what I was expecting, but I still liked it. I can see how people don't like it, but some people are just taking it way too far. When it comes down to it, odds are you put in at least 60 hours into this series. If 10 minutes ruin 60 hours of awesome-ness, you may want to reconsider why you play video games.

I just hope there is gonna be a lot of DLC. This game had the best game mechanics out of the three. I just wish it was longer so I could enjoy it more! Now I really wanna go through and have like 10 different careers, just so that I can see the differences in all the decisions.

There were some things that happened that I though were plot driven, but it turns out the outcome could have been different if I had done something different in the other games. It's not necessarily that I did anything wrong, it's just different.

I'm not going to say it was my favorite of the series, I like them each equally for different reasons. I can say I really enjoyed playing it though. (as shown by my play time: 44 hours in one week) Now hurry up and beat it people so that we can start talking about spoilers!

Costco

yeah I beat ME2. Went ahead and got all the DLC actually, Overlord was a real downer but I thought it was good, aside from the Hammerhead parts. You were right about Arrival not being so polished, but at least it fills in a few gaps. LoTSB was an amazing DLC, plus I romanced Liara. Made sense with my femshep... I just wanted to be this guy:



Gotta get the hang of the mechanics in ME3 but I agree, they seem the best. I was steamrolling bad guys in ME2 on insanity but now I feel lost. Took me a while to really understand the synergy between my own and my squad's abilities, now the game makes you start from scratch kinda.

I made sure it was my day off when I started ME3 and I ended up playing around 5 hours before exiting.

Lightus

I liked Overlord. They could have toned down the volume on that AI though. I'd be playing on normal volume then all the sudden "-SCREEE-AHH-GLARBLEGLARBLE".

Yeah the hammerhead got annoying too. I'm pretty sure I could have taken that thing down with spit balls.

Shadow Broker was amaziiing. I wish Liara didn't have a new voice actor though. I got used to it by the third game, but I still don't think it's as good as the original.

Vanguard still has the potential to be really strong in ME3, you just have to depend on your teammates a little more. You're worthless against turrets and mechs, so I always brought Liara (warp for armor) and Garrus (overload for shields).

Just letting you know, there are some straight up depressing scenes if you make the wrong decisions. I looked through some on youtube, and they are pretty ruthless.

Costco

You're telling me. I played Overlord late, late at night with headphones on, as I'm sure you did too. Creeped me out every time that green cyberface popped up out of nowhere and mumbled that garbled junk, usually louder than even the gunfire was. If I turned it down the dialog would be near whisper quiet. Creeped me out even more when I found out it/he was saying "MAKE IT STOP"

Ugh.... even the beginning of ME3 was depressing for me. Seeing what seemed like a more animated Shepard (emotion-wise) really made the feeling set in.

Gonna soldier on with the Vanguard then, just need to adapt to the learning curve.

Lightus

What level did your shep start as? I started as Level 30, so it was pretty easy for me.

Yeah, don't skimp on getting those rep points. They are pretty crucial if you wanna avoid emotional agony. They definitely put more work into the cinematics in this game, some times the animations mess up though. I had a keeper ram me off the screen during an emotional dialogue. It was funny, but totally wrecked the scene.

Man, now I want to stop doing homework and play Mass Effect!

I tried making a nice looking femshep but it turned out horribly. Apparently I'm not as good at modeling women faces as I am men. Now I gotta scour the internet to find a nice looking one I can copy.

Costco

I started as level 30 too, it's just that charge just isn't the same. I tried to stay away from charge + nova cheapness and rather tried to play vanguard like I did in ME2, leveling up charge only and picking strategic targets behind cover. I'm too used to the slowdown and enemies seem to spawn behind other enemies.

I try not to bring up the action bar to pause the game just to help the flow of action.... but I'll probably have to for the time being.

Costco

and here's the femshep I've been using


http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/6...1001250143.jpg

Lightus

I know what you mean. I normally start out in cover picking off most the enemies with the Mattock. After most of them have been killed I clean up with charge. If there is a particular enemy that I need to kill I'll normally hit him with some of my teammates' powers then charge. For a lot of enemies (mostly of reaper type) it would be considered suicide to charge.

In multiplayer I used nova quite a bit, but I never used it (not even once) in single player. I melee a ton though. If you have high enough charge you don't really even need a shotgun. The charge should hurt the enemy enough so that you can just punch him to death.

Anyways, yeah combat has changed a bit in this game compared to ME2. I think playing the multiplayer demo a lot before the game came out helped me adjust quickly.

EDIT - just saw your femshep. Not too bad! I'll add her to the list one faces to choose from. For some reason, I never even though of having an Asian shep.

Costco

I figured her look would fit anyways cause quite a few humans in ME look mixed-race. Bioware and their diversity.

and yeah, about melee.... I can't get myself to get used to it yet, been away from Halo and Call of Duty too long. It would have been better if I didn't finish ME2 and start playing ME3 the next day. Too used to only meleeing to finish off near-dead enemies or to do the Claymore shotty's reload trick.



aaand I just saw the tags on this thread....

wtf, spoilers!!!

Lightus

Haha wasn't me! They do eventually let you tell him you aren't interested if you aren't into that sort of thing. It was sorta awkward before that though. I was just trying to be nice, but my Shepard was clearly leading him on.

Yeah the differences between the games are more glaring if you pick one up right after the other. I played ME2 right after ME1 and it took me a while to get used to. I had quite a break before picking up ME3 so it was easier to adjust.

I really wanna read the latest ME book, but I saw that list of lore violations and I can't bring my self to get it. They are supposed to be updating it and fixing a lot of the errors, but I'm not sure when the next print is being shipped.

Lightus

Some excerpts (no spoilers don't worry):

Story: http://blog.bioware.com/2012/03/21/4108/

First, I respect Bioware for actually listening to their fans. Many developers would do exactly what he said in the first paragraph and "defend [their] work and point to the high ratings offered by critics". Instead, he recognizes that a lot of fans genuinely feel betrayed and is working to fix that.

Second, I liked the ending of the game but I certainly wouldn't mind a bit more follow-up. The more content the better!

Third, he mentioned "new full games". I'm very happy to hear this. I've heard rumors of new Mass Effect games, but I'm taking his mention of it as a confirmation.

Finally, I like how he made to sure to state that this is on top of new DLC. I was a bit worried the only DLC would be an ending expansion and that'd be the end of it.

All-in-all,

SRK85

I just launched the final assault without all the war assets. I am so mad, I thought there would be sometime in between Cerberus and the Reapers. Looks like I have to play the game again. IMO Mass Effect 2 was the best. I loved the scanning of planets for resources, the mini puzzles for bypassing, and the storyline a tad bit better.

Lightus

After some thought and reading a whole bunch of material, I have completely changed my opinion of the ending. I think there is something going on. Obviously I can't say anything or else I'd be throwing around a ton of spoilers.

I really want to see what Bioware is going to do for the ending expansion.

Also, to SRK85: did you not have any saves before Cerberus?

Costco

Just a reminder.... please use white text or put a spoiler warning on plot details.

Interesting insight into the whole ending ordeal and how EA/Bioware is handling it.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...dex/10084349/1

Lightus

WARNING: INCOMING RANT

----
Overall I think people are getting bent way outta wack over this. It's a game, not real life. I love video games. It's right up there with books as my favorite means of entertainment (I barely watch tv and I watch even less movies). On top of this, Mass Effect is one of my favorite video game franchises (the only reason I don't right out say it is my favorite is because I've very indecisive when picking favorites). On top of this, my opinion of the ending has changed and I don't care for it all too much.

Regardless of all this, I still haven't been too upset. People try their best to make everything a "conspiracy" or an "us versus them" thing. In reality, the writers wrote an ending to a game they made. They didn't purposefully go out to make everyone mad or to "destroy the franchise" like some people are stating. They simply wrote what they felt would be the best ending. Don't like it? Oh well. They owe you nothing. You have a right to complain, but if a game has such a big impact on your life you may want to think about your priorities.

It's pathetic. Real atrocities are being committed in the world right now. If some of those people could focus their attention on those things then the world may be a bit better of a place.

/rant
----

Sorry about that, it's just that every video game site I go on has hordes of rampaging "fans". Gets annoying after awhile.

Anyways, enough talking about the ending and back to talking about the fun parts. How far in are you Costco? Feel free to add in spoilers, just make it white text like you were saying.

TSXy Luster, haven't heard from you in awhile. Have you beat it yet? I never got my Normandy avatar prop by the way. I did just download my free limited collectors edition soundtrack though. It's pretty good!

Costco

I'm about 7 and a half hours in now.

Holy crap, EDI has a body now. though I figured having that advanced Cerberus mech onboard was bad newsand the face my Shepard made after exploring one of the convo points.... "something-something about forgetting to recycle the Normandy's oxygen.... that was a joke"

Learning about this weight capacity deal. Picked up a long-range shotgun, looks like the eviscerator from ME2. It weighed a lot but so far I unequipped every other weapon and it seems fine.

Costco

I think I'm gonna have my Shepard make lesbians with Traynor, either in this playthrough or the next. It was good to see Liara again, and seeing (rather, hearing) Garrus put a smile on my face. I've got a ton of ideas about how we're going to recruit the Krogans, especially with turians and salarians involved.

Lightus

Yeah the weight thing is interesting. I hated it at first, but over time it grew on me. I normally only used two weapons anyway so it worked out. Try playing a level with full charge and only a light pistol. You can spam charge like crazy. I didn't play like that, but it cool to see how powerful Shep can be.

Meeting the old crew is fun. They did a really good job letting you "reminiscence" with them. The dialogue is really good in this game. Everyone seems a bit more alive.

SRK85

Nah but I am definitely playing it again and make sure I get all the war assets so I can get that achievement.

Costco

That's one of my favorite things about this game. They did it even better than they did in ME1 and ME2. One moment that stuck out to me was towards the beginning when you're on Earth and as that kid is being evacuated from the shuttle... then boom, Reaper laser right through the shuttle. The pain on Shepard's face really said it all. The dialog and emotions conveyed in each character as well as the transition from dialog, then swiveling down to the 3rd person view as you enter combat just makes it that much more engaging.

Lightus

Agreed. Have you gotten to the Kia Leng parts yet? That has to be one of the most frustrating parts in the game. I'm surprised I haven't read more complaints about it.

Lightus

Also, this is the face I decided upon for my new play through:



I figured she looks as if she could be renegade, but at the same time not be a bitch.

Costco

Your Shep looks good, I dunno why they made the default femshep kinda goofy looking. I played the opposite way, my Shepard was mostly paragon but to people who were assholes, she was heartless.

one hard part I remember was on Grissom Academy where you're in an auditorium-like garden room with the Atlas in the middle and constantly spawning mobs. I was using the crusader at the time, a heavy ass shotgun that shot slugs. You could get head shots from real far away with it.... but it wrecked my cooldown time.



just recently I landed on Tuchanka where you find yourself in a room with a Brute and briefly after that, a Harvester shooting missiles at you. I didn't notice there was a Reaper Blackstar just sitting there until after I cleared the room took me like 10 tries.

can't wait for the Kia Leng part overall, I remembered ME2 insanity being slightly more difficult. But after watching videos of people playing vanguard in ME2, enemies like harbinger were pretty simple. might have had something to do with being able to start at level 30 in ME3.

Costco

also, this subreddit rocks

http://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/

proof:

SyupG.jpg

and because Garrus is Space Batman. Not a real comic, just thought it was cool.



I would watch a movie about Garrus. Bro for life

Costco

wading through Mass Effect stuff is like walking through a minefield. but I found this... what a fan thinks of Bioware's endings:

KmK6q.jpg

Lightus

Those were pretty funny.

I didn't know there was a mass effect sub section on reddit, but that make sense since I barely visit there.

I thought ME3 was pretty easy. Of course I started at level 30, and normally have different strategies based upon which enemy I'll be fighting. I was playing on Veteran so that may have something to do with it. Normally, my first play through with any game is "normal" so that I can get the plot without rage quitting too much.

After I finish up my play through with my new femshep I'm gonna go through one more time with my real Shepard and play through everything on insanity with every right decision and every side quest. That will be my third play through for that shepard. I got him up to level 59 in ME1 on the last level, so this one should bring him up to 60.

Man, I have so many other games to play in my backlog but all I want to do is play Mass Effect! I can't wait for some DLC.

Costco

I want to finish the game and see what all the damn fuss is about.

I got one of my friends into ME1 again but now all he cares about is Diablo III. Guy stopped playing almost any and all games, just wished it would come out already. Another friend of mine finished the game but was disappointed by the ending as well.... argh

Lightus

Don't rush through it. Enjoy the game. The ending certainly doesn't flow with all the rest of Mass Effect. I think that's why it rubs people so wrong. It doesn't really make sense, I have a hard time believing the ending came out the exact way the writers wanted. They must have been rushed or something. My problem is the lore breaking. I don't mind the ending for what it is, I just don't like that they contradict some things already know as "fact" to get there.

If they just fixed those and left the rest as is I'd be fine. I don't think the ending is game breaking though (obviously). It is still worth your time to finish and I still want to replay the Mass Effect series.

Costco

no worries, I'm taking my sweet ass time with this. can't rush this greatness!

and... SPOILER "I am the very model of a scientist salarian" noooo

Lightus

You forgot to white it out!

More spoiler: You can actually avoid him dieing, but you have to kill Wrex in the first one and then say certain things to him during that mission. Did you betray him? Good God, if you betrayed him, that is a very sad scene.