main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Gaming Mass Effect Series

Discussion in 'Community' started by Valyn, Sep 7, 2012.

  1. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Yeah, I only played two out of my six Sheps as full-on paragons (and even they fried the Weyrloc speaker and Sgt. Cathka). As a femShep/Garrus playthrough, missing the paragon interrupt with Harkin is particularly funny. "You're lucky. I would have shot you somewhere else."

    As far as Brooks, I haven't done it yet but if you take that route and miss the Renegade interrupt, one of your squadmates shoots her and then provides the requisite Bond one-liner. I also haven't tried out all the elevator conversations on that mission - I always take EDI plus the LI. Those are all pretty funny, although I think Tali and Liara have the best one.
     
  2. vypernight

    vypernight Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    Also in 3:

    Garrus: "Do you come here often? I imagine anyone who does is an alcoholic."

    (Both Shep and Player face-palm)
     
  3. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 21, 1999
    How does that Liara/Tali conversation go? I figure it must be part funny/part awkward, especially if one of the two is your LI.
     
  4. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    It's even worse if you encourage him to act like a bad boy.

    As far as the Liara/Tali conversation -
     
    SithLordDarthRichie likes this.
  5. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    I am approaching the end...

    Kai Leng lies dead, Cerberus destroyed - only the Reapers remain.

    The Kai Leng duel should have been epic but was quite messed up, found it hard to tell what I could and couldn't use as cover. Plus an enemy that teleports all over the place in a restricted view 3rd person cover shooter was never going to be great anyway.

    What was fun was Javik's comments as he, Edi and I slaughtered Cerberus troops - though the hanger vent business was utter crud.

    Did love the Renegade interrupt for Leng's death though.

    What really worked exceedingly well was the non-combat bits, that EDI was the Luna AI from ME1! That from the start ME2 was an attempt to manipulate Shepherd, some really strong pay-offs across the trilogy here. As was the conversations with the crew - Garrus and Tali was funny, Joker's lines were great.
     
    07jonesj likes this.
  6. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    The Kai Leng fight is a rare one where I don't really use cover. Given that he's jumping around trying to melee you with a sword and there are groups of mooks dropping in, it's better to just stay mobile and keep unloading.

    I think my favorite bits of that mission are as follows:

    1) EDI's revelation that she spammed Cerberus's systems with porn (for reference, all the information currently on the internet amounts to 1/2 a zetabyte, so she hit them with 14 internets of "explicit images"). :eek: Gotta love quantum computing.

    2) The Illusive Man - "Shepard. You're in my chair." [face_mischief]

    The Joker conversation before the final mission has a nice little callback that I didn't catch until I read about it - the camera angles are the same as your talk with him and Kaidan at the start of ME1.

    As far as Priority: Earth, be prepared for one of the hardest fights in the trilogy. Expect to see a lot of Brutes and Banshees, along with everything else in the Reaper inventory.
     
  7. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    I found it more amusing that it was Joker's porn stash that EDI raided!
     
  8. Nobody145

    Nobody145 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2007
    Yeah, finding out EDI was that AI from the moon was great. Its a wonder she turned out so well, given her origins and Reaper tech and all that. The final Renegade interrupt for the Kai Leng fight, though cool, was also kind of... contrived for my taste. I know Renegade interrupts are usually the badass approach, but as I'm mostly paragon (although for killing mooks who can't be persuaded to stand down I just take them out faster too), its slightly annoying the implication that paragons can't be badass too. Its not quite as bad in ME3 since they combined the Paragon and Renegade bars so it mostly doesn't matter as much anymore for persuasion purposes, but still, for some cutscenes its kind of annoying. As even if you don't take the Renegade interrupt, Kai Leng's death still plays out mostly the same way anyway (such as there's no way Udina will survive). There's not even the excuse that Shepard could be the best hacker there as EDI is required for every playthrough as for why they all had to just turn their backs and ignore everything. But yeah, though it was obvious, nice to get confirmation on why the SR-2 wasn't stacked with more Cerberus loyalists.

    Uncle Urdnot was probably one of my favorite part of the Citadel DLC, and bringing EDI along for the final battle is always fun to see her fritz out and then she's supposedly fine. I usually keep Brooks alive, just to see Shepard successfully guilt trip her. Though another fun moment, though haven't done it myself yet, is if you bring Javik into the Archives with you and you threaten Brooks and your clone, he says finally in regards to the renegade response.
     
  9. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    So, over the course of the last 4-4.5 months, having played ME1 for the first time, then taken that character through a re-play of ME2, I have just finished ME3. Final battle took about 2.5 hours but it was quite a hand

    One major proviso to what follows: I had the Extended Cut already installed! Had heard talk of it vanishing a few months back so grabbed it just in case it going to be charged for, you never know right?

    Turns out that the EC does quite a bit more than simply add scenes to the ending, it also re-jigs the levels of war assets required. This means I can play single player and attain a sufficient level of assets to get the best ending without engaging in multiplayer!

    Put those 2 things together and the picture changes substantially - the ending is considerably less harsh than, by all accounts, it used to be - the ME relays are only damaged, not destroyed plus the Geth live and if the Geth live, then EDI certainly survives, besides which Joker slung Normandy into that window at the centre of the blast wave.

    Final battle? That was quite a punch-up. Love the fleet check-in sequence as you see all the work pay off as thousands of ships check in. With Garrus and Javik the battle was a slaughter, everything died and this was with level V guns, I set these guys up with Level X Spectre weaponry and it'll be shooting fish in a barrel. Maruaders, Ravagers, Cannibals, Husks, Brutes, Banshees - they turned up, they got killed. Granted, there were often overlapping fields of fire, flanks were covered, but it was still very satisfying watching the carnage.

    The final run to the conduit? Quite epic. The slow-mo bit - nowhere near as good, but it was short. As to the Citadel, a very creepy vibe indeed. It was very satisfying to talk the Illusive Man into blowing his head off! Bye bye you arrogant feckwit.

    The Catalyst? My, my, what a dumb little bastard - claims to know everything but is unaware the Geth and Quarians are co-existing, which is why I called bullcrap on his claim that the Crucible would kill the Geth, they and EDI are either high enough to pass as life or they can be rebuilt, either way: Screw you, you little bastard.

    To some the EC additions de-fang ME3 too much, to that I'm inclined to retort: How many had died by the time that final battle at Earth took place? Likely quadrillions, but they don't count - why not?

    There is one hanging Q: Why didn't anybody search the wrecked Citadel? Well, there is the 'if we didn't see it, that doesn't mean it didn't happen' card. Bioware have admitted they're working on a new ME game, likely for PS4 /XB1. They're claiming it'll be something new and won't feature Shepherd. In football transfer parlance, that means of course he will! Equally the established cast? Will they really throw those characters away? Nope. I suspect the new game will have a new character, but that character will cross paths with everyone at some point, including Shepherd.

    I do think there is something to the counter-argument about the 3 end-game choices rendering all that preceded it being worthless which is that certain choices are distributed across the game. If you've done things differently in ME1 and ME2 then certain outcomes in ME3 are either going to be possible or impossible to gain. You need certain combinations to cure the genophage. That is even more so with the Geth and Quarians. Plus the level of war assets determine the destructiveness of the endings - so I destroyed the Reapers, but Earth wasn't destroyed.

    It's still not great, but I don't think the final 1% eclipses the 99% of cool stuff and the EC additions pretty much rip out the harshest elements of that 1%. You want dark endings? Ah, let me guess, you killed your Shepherd at the end of ME2 didn't you? You can still wreck the galaxy, just be a total git to everyone, kill a couple of races and you'll probably be set.

    Oh, and this wouldn't be complete without: Thanks to Darth Cane for truly inspired recipes for utter carnage, in this respect I remain a Padawan, but will likely keep training. After all, I still need to keep Wrex alive and talk Saren into blowing his head off!
     
    Shadow Trooper and 07jonesj like this.
  10. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    It's a bit ambiguous ... she does follow it up with "That was a joke," but the question is whether she was joking about getting most of it from Joker or whether it was a joke on Cerberus. Stand behind him long enough in ME2 and you will hear him listening to something NSFW while he's supposed to be piloting, and Citadel includes a pretty funny comment when Shepard reminds Joker and Traynor that EDI sees and hears everything that happens on the ship: "Note to self, delete browser history."

    I've recently been lollygagging my engineer through a NG+ playthrough of Citadel, trying to rack up enough credits to upgrade a lot of guns and test some alternatives in the process. No real new faves discovered yet, though - my arsenal was probably a bit overstocked already.
     
  11. Mat Skywalker

    Mat Skywalker Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 8, 2005

    You basically summarize how I felt about the endings and and while I still think highly of ME3, the endings did not work for me. Or correction the "good" ending didn't work for me. I had the same problems with the ambiguity of Shepard in the Destroy the Reaper ending with sufficient assets. It's the one thing the EC overlook and I believe Bioware did it intentionally.
     
    07jonesj likes this.
  12. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    EDI & The Geth only live depending on the ending you choose.
    I have the Extended Cut and chose Destroy and they both died.
     
  13. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
    Frankly, I'm inclined to give Bioware and their space-brat the finger on EDI and the Geth.

    The Reapers, for all their power, were less sophisticated than EDI and the Geth at the end - the latter had attained autonomy, the former remained wedded to a drive to obliterate they didn't even understand.
     
  14. Shadow Trooper

    Shadow Trooper Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 18, 2013
    The Shepard "breath scene" was an extremely lame way to end the game and was one of my biggest annoyances with the Original Endings and the Expanded endings. Even more annoying than this was the lack of war assets being shown fighting the reapers. No matter what alliances you have created over the course of your journey, the final battle will always play out almost exactly the same way, provided you played enough multiplayer.
     
  15. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    To me the alliances and war assets, and the ending itself, aren't about the final battle - they're about what's left afterwards. As much as I hate to quote Allers, the best revenge is indeed living well, and final breath scene or not the best middle finger to the Reapers and Caspalyst is leaving the galaxy in a state of peace and prosperity. And it's not just the Reapers - seeing the slides of Wrex and Grunt returning from the war, Tuchanka being rebuilt. and peace and little Krog-babies is the perfect up-yours to Dalatrass Linron.
     
  16. Clone_Cmdr_Wedge

    Clone_Cmdr_Wedge Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2006
    True, but why half-arse it the way they did? If the (in)famous breath scene was supposed to imply that Shep lived, why not in no uncertain terms state it in the actual game? As for the others, again, I'd say it wasn't bad, but compare what Obsidian did at the end of Fallout New Vegas (Spoilers, obviously):


    Similar idea, pictures with voice over narration, but it actually tells what happened to the various people/groups that you met along the way. ME3's EC just gave a slide-show with little-to-no context that (as a whole) felt like a thinly veiled insult and an attempt to cover their rears.

    Now, in an attempt to steer away from That Subject, anyone here play Civ V? :p Apparently someone's been making some mods that add in ME Civs that work with both expansion packs for it. I've been trying them out the past couple of days, and I don't think they're that bad. There's some text issues, and there's only so much you can do with the in-game models, but it's still pretty good.

    Plus, it's funny to see messages from "Garrus Vakarian the Enlightened" or "President Admiral Hackett." :p
     
  17. MarcusP2

    MarcusP2 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 10, 2004
    There's a video floating around of the renegade interrupts everyone takes, I'm quite sure all these are on it.

    I always throw the guy out the window, use the stun gun on the guy repairing the ship and blow up the Krogan.
     
  18. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Never played the Civ series (my three RTS picks have been Total Annihilation/Spring, Supreme Commander, and Age of Empires III), but ME civilizations would be a riot. God help the fool on the wrong end of the Turians or Krogan, although being the Salarians might be fun - just **** the other guy up in sneaky fashion before things even get going.
     
  19. MarcusP2

    MarcusP2 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 10, 2004
    Civilization isn't an rts, just so you know.
     
  20. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002

    Hmm, turn-based strategy, yes. My mistake. Points still valid for awesome if the ME mods are well-done, but in that format it's even better (more opportunity for elements like the Salarian STG and Asari Commandos to be factors).
     
  21. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    In case some people didn't know, Gamespot is doing a Greatest Game Series of the Decade voting tournament. If you believe Mass Effect or any other series to be the best you can vote for it and hope it makes the various rounds.
     
  22. vypernight

    vypernight Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I just tried this, "Honorary Krogan Warlord," build in the arena and had a lot of fun with it. My only beef is that sometimes my game would glitch and I couldn't charge someone directly in front of me. Also, I was using Carnage as my bonus power only to give myself a long-range power, but allies can do that.

     
  23. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    I find reave works better as a vanguard bonus - it gives you a long-range anti-armor/anti-barrier power and also gives you a means to set up or detonate biotic combos on protected targets at a safe distance, with the bonus that it provides damage protection. I did try the Claymore out on my engineer with Wrex and Grunt for backup; still think I prefer the Graal as my Krogan shotgun of choice. Equivalent blam factor, more ammo, and much better accuracy. It's about the only conventional shotgun where I pass on adding a smart choke.
     
  24. DarthCane

    DarthCane Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 30, 2002
    Weaponry question - I'm evaluating the two sniper rifles that I typically use for hunting Geth and Cerberus, the M-13 Raptor and the M-90 Indra. Both are essentially marksman rifles; I use them with scope and piercing mods to target enemies that are cloaked, behind smokescreens, or cowering behind thin cover. Trying to figure out which one I like better. Both are about equally light and they deliver about the same damage per shot. The Indra has a larger clip and more ammo; the Raptor has a theoretically higher fire rate (depending on how fast you can click) and a lower damage penalty for firing from the hip. The Indra is a lot easier on my trigger finger as it's full-auto rather than semi-automatic; I haven't looked closely but the Raptor seems to have a faster reload speed. There's also the intangible that no matter what you do the Raptor still has the Cerberus insignia on the stock. Thoughts?
     
  25. moosemousse

    moosemousse CR Emeritus: FF-UK South star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2004
    I'd go for the higher damage per shot, whether it's looking down the scope or otherwise. Accuracy is important too. A faster rate of fire doesn't help if it misses more, and semi auto doesn't mean much if it's one shot to kill.

    I don't know if anyone will find this handy, but Greenman Gaming has the trilogy on offer right now:
    http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/gb/en/pc/games/action/mass-effect-trilogy-na/
    It's North America only, but if you haven't got it then it should be a good deal.