affecting mass, 3
so, i've been playing mass effect 3 during my bouts of 'i've been studying too much, time to be lazy.' i finished it a few days ago, and gave myself some time to try and accumulate my thoughts on it a bit
As it currently stands, I didn't like it.
yeah that's it, deal with it
More specifically, there were a few things about the game that just made me unable to enjoy it as much as I pretty thoroughly loved Mass Effect 2. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of aspects about the game -- the stretch from the Krogan arc through to the Quarian arc is just fantastic, and the gameplay is a blast, but overall the game left me feeling pretty dissatisfied.
On the periphery (get it), the side missions (GET IT) took a huge, huge, huuuuge dive in quality compared to Mass Effect 2. A huge bulk of these side missions is 'you scan a planet while hoping you don't fill the Reaper Alertness gauge, then dump some crap off on a random faceless npc with the bare minimum of dialogue and absolutely no gameplay.' The N7 missions are just trips into random, generic bases where you fight Cerberus and/or Reapers for a while, which I'm told is like multiplayer mode just... single player.
A good bulk of my squad mates felt pretty forgettable, which is obviously pretty subjective, but -- it was still disappointing that a lot of the characters I found interesting (Wrex, Mordin, Grunt, Legion, etc) were not allowed to be a part of my squad -- and in fact several of them had deaths that were unavoidable if you wanted to go through the game a certain way (though those deaths were in large part pretty well executed). James Vega felt out of place and, despite some funny lines, largely forgettable. Ashley Williams was intolerable and I understand Kaidan isn't much better. With the exception of Garrus and Javik the entire squad is variants on 'human' or 'human-looking' which, given the diversity of Mass Effect's races, gets pretty boring.
also don't get me started on javik; i love him but he was so obviously a character that was meant to be in the game initially and then got cut to milk more money as a dlc that it is enragenating
that is a real word
Gameplay was fun but there weren't a lot of engaging bosses, and in fact... ... I don't think there -were- any bosses with the sole exception of Kai Leng. I don't really consider Brutes, Atlases or Harvesters as bosses when you face them multiple times -- sometimes more than one at a time, more than once per mission. There's nothing that really stacks up to how fun and engaging the Human-Reaper was, or the Shadow Broker, or even trying to shut down the core of the derelict Reaper while Husks slowly try to overwhelm you -- even Harbinger ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL to make brief sub-bosses out of Collectors was more fun than most of the encounters in ME3. (speaking of Harbinger, it was also incredibly disappointing that he is built up throughout ME2 only to have an bizarrely brief cameo role right at the end of ME3 (poor harbinger, this hurts him :())
Speaking of, this brings me to my main and most obvious problem with ME3 -- the ending. In about 10 minutes Bioware manages to vomit out the Reaper motivation - motivation which frankly made no sense whatsoever - cull any dialogue options, introduce a new character, and have it force a choice on you with differences that basically amount to 'what is your favorite color'. I won't go into how this basically flies in the face of everything else Mass Effect's theme and plot has established; I don't really care that it was 'open to interpretation.' That's not my problem with it. I watch anime, I don't care about vagaries in endings. But this was abrupt, anticlimactic, and removed all semblance of choice from the game.
there's also the fact that it made absolutely no fucking sense how your crew ends up magically teleported into the normandy, which inexplicably has decided to flee the battle at least long enough before you make your AMAZINGLY VARIED CHOICES that it makes it to the mass effect
there's also the fact that i don't care what color the explosion is, mass relay explosions mean every system that a mass relay is in got totally wiped out
just... ???
I've heard about the Indoctrination Theory thing, which frankly makes a lot more sense than what was presented at face value. I honestly hope that this is the case -- it'll be a brilliant move if it is, I think, and would probably help my opinion on the game a bit. There's a lot of reasons why it makes a lot of sense, but chief among them is the fact that the current ending frankly is completely nonsensical.
on the other hand, if this is true, and if they end up releasing some 'clarification' or 'real ending' dlc and charge money for it, i probably won't buy it and i probably won't buy any other bioware product for the foreseeable future
so there's that
Overall, it's a fun game. I just think it falls short in a lot of ways that ultimately made it a bit unsatisfying. For now, I'll just wait and see what they have to say about their DLC before I make any definite conclusions.
As it currently stands, I didn't like it.
yeah that's it, deal with it
More specifically, there were a few things about the game that just made me unable to enjoy it as much as I pretty thoroughly loved Mass Effect 2. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of aspects about the game -- the stretch from the Krogan arc through to the Quarian arc is just fantastic, and the gameplay is a blast, but overall the game left me feeling pretty dissatisfied.
On the periphery (get it), the side missions (GET IT) took a huge, huge, huuuuge dive in quality compared to Mass Effect 2. A huge bulk of these side missions is 'you scan a planet while hoping you don't fill the Reaper Alertness gauge, then dump some crap off on a random faceless npc with the bare minimum of dialogue and absolutely no gameplay.' The N7 missions are just trips into random, generic bases where you fight Cerberus and/or Reapers for a while, which I'm told is like multiplayer mode just... single player.
A good bulk of my squad mates felt pretty forgettable, which is obviously pretty subjective, but -- it was still disappointing that a lot of the characters I found interesting (Wrex, Mordin, Grunt, Legion, etc) were not allowed to be a part of my squad -- and in fact several of them had deaths that were unavoidable if you wanted to go through the game a certain way (though those deaths were in large part pretty well executed). James Vega felt out of place and, despite some funny lines, largely forgettable. Ashley Williams was intolerable and I understand Kaidan isn't much better. With the exception of Garrus and Javik the entire squad is variants on 'human' or 'human-looking' which, given the diversity of Mass Effect's races, gets pretty boring.
also don't get me started on javik; i love him but he was so obviously a character that was meant to be in the game initially and then got cut to milk more money as a dlc that it is enragenating
that is a real word
Gameplay was fun but there weren't a lot of engaging bosses, and in fact... ... I don't think there -were- any bosses with the sole exception of Kai Leng. I don't really consider Brutes, Atlases or Harvesters as bosses when you face them multiple times -- sometimes more than one at a time, more than once per mission. There's nothing that really stacks up to how fun and engaging the Human-Reaper was, or the Shadow Broker, or even trying to shut down the core of the derelict Reaper while Husks slowly try to overwhelm you -- even Harbinger ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL to make brief sub-bosses out of Collectors was more fun than most of the encounters in ME3. (speaking of Harbinger, it was also incredibly disappointing that he is built up throughout ME2 only to have an bizarrely brief cameo role right at the end of ME3 (poor harbinger, this hurts him :())
Speaking of, this brings me to my main and most obvious problem with ME3 -- the ending. In about 10 minutes Bioware manages to vomit out the Reaper motivation - motivation which frankly made no sense whatsoever - cull any dialogue options, introduce a new character, and have it force a choice on you with differences that basically amount to 'what is your favorite color'. I won't go into how this basically flies in the face of everything else Mass Effect's theme and plot has established; I don't really care that it was 'open to interpretation.' That's not my problem with it. I watch anime, I don't care about vagaries in endings. But this was abrupt, anticlimactic, and removed all semblance of choice from the game.
there's also the fact that it made absolutely no fucking sense how your crew ends up magically teleported into the normandy, which inexplicably has decided to flee the battle at least long enough before you make your AMAZINGLY VARIED CHOICES that it makes it to the mass effect
there's also the fact that i don't care what color the explosion is, mass relay explosions mean every system that a mass relay is in got totally wiped out
just... ???
I've heard about the Indoctrination Theory thing, which frankly makes a lot more sense than what was presented at face value. I honestly hope that this is the case -- it'll be a brilliant move if it is, I think, and would probably help my opinion on the game a bit. There's a lot of reasons why it makes a lot of sense, but chief among them is the fact that the current ending frankly is completely nonsensical.
on the other hand, if this is true, and if they end up releasing some 'clarification' or 'real ending' dlc and charge money for it, i probably won't buy it and i probably won't buy any other bioware product for the foreseeable future
so there's that
Overall, it's a fun game. I just think it falls short in a lot of ways that ultimately made it a bit unsatisfying. For now, I'll just wait and see what they have to say about their DLC before I make any definite conclusions.