Mass Effect 3

[Sir William]

Why did no one tell me how epic and awesome this game is?  Holy cow...its like I'm in my early 20s, I start playing for a while, I look up and holy crap, its 2am!  I've only been playing it for the last couple of days but its like any time I can get on it, I'm on it.  lol

I'm wondering if I should go back and play the first two...its like, what if Star Trek were really cool...it'd be Mass Effect!  Ok, that might be a touch blasphemous but seriously, what a solid great game so far.  I haven't been into a game like this since...I think Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, or later, Red Dead Redemption, or Oblivion.  The first Assassins Creed.  I was really over the moon w/those ones (GTA3, AC1).  This feels very similar; the exploration is similar to AC IV: Black Flag, but instead of the Southern hemisphere of Earth, you get a whole lot of outer space.  I didn't know what to expect, don't know the story or the characters (beyond doing some reading up so I could understand what Sir Ed's N7 costume armor that he made was about), mechanics or anything else for that matter.

I can't wait to go home and play it, I'm busy as hell at work and still, I've got a small corner of my mind plotting my next jump-  I think the exploration part of it is probably more fun than the main campaign (thus far).  I'm still at only 50% readiness so the Reapers are safe for now...

[Sir James A]

Talk to Sir Edward.

My brother played through them all and enjoyed them; multiple times on at least a couple of them. The storyline can change, and if I remember right, can change based on what you did in previous games (on the same console/account, of course).

[Sir William]

I would love to...don't know if I'll have time, but this game is making me want to.

[Don Jorge]

I own a few of them but never got into them...combat is too slow...same problem with dragon age...

[Ian]

I really enjoyed Mass Effect 1 and 2.  I made it half way through 3 but something or other distracted me and I never went back to it.  I certainly will at some point, those games are great.  I always thought Bioware handled ME much better than Dragon Age.  Although DA3 looks promising!

[Sir Edward]

Yes, the trilogy is one of my favorites... all time favorites.

ME3 is fantastic by itself, but OMG, you miss SO MUCH detail if you don't play the other two first. Entire groups of characters that you got to know in the previous games will return in the third. And they don't show up at all if you never met them (and imported your savegames). It adds a lot of depth and context to what's happening, beyond just the start of the story and how you've been investigating the reapers from the start.

The first game takes a little time to get into (I think it's a bit slow for the first few hours), but taken as a trilogy, it blows away just about anything else I've played.

[Sir William]

Don Jorge, are you sure we're talking about the same games?  I've not encountered slow combat- I mean yes, you have the option of exploring different questlines based on who you talk to, but I like the breaks in-between combat situations.  You have options when it comes to combat, weapon loadouts, power arrays, for you and your landing party and you get to choose what each carries; you can even reassign what powers they'll use.

Sir Edward- I got the feeling going in that I was probably missing out on something- considering the amount of time I've already put in (30 hours and I only started it last week lol) I don't know if I'll have enough time to go back to the other two.  But maybe...because I have to say, I haven't been awed like this since GTA IV came out.  V was nice, but they went light on story to add more gameplay elements that, for me, didn't need.  Cool stuff, just wasn't really for me.

As I said, this is like Star Trek for me- if I were able to have my own ST type of life, this would be it.  The developers and artists have created an incredibly detailed world- it must look life-like on PC.  I spent  a LOT of time looking out of observation decks/windows, walking around and listening in on conversations.  I didn't even speak to the crew at first (other than the required cut scenes)- I thought they were just like, you know, automatons to take up screen space...I'm getting a kick out of EDI.  And I think I missed a romantic opportunity with Liara (the asari Shadow Broker), kinda blown about that.  The reporter's flirting, and so is the new girl. 

This game is just too awesome.  I liked DA, but this blows it away on all fronts.  I don't know why they don't just make a medieval game in the style of Mass Effect.  But with technical advisers who know what they're talking about, not the D&D crowd that usually gets to do the descriptions of armor, weapons and objects.

[Mike W.]

And here I am halfway through a Halo marathon.

[Sir Edward]

As I said, this is like Star Trek for me- if I were able to have my own ST type of life, this would be it.  The developers and artists have created an incredibly detailed world- it must look life-like on PC.  I spent  a LOT of time looking out of observation decks/windows, walking around and listening in on conversations.  I didn't even speak to the crew at first (other than the required cut scenes)- I thought they were just like, you know, automatons to take up screen space...I'm getting a kick out of EDI.  And I think I missed a romantic opportunity with Liara (the asari Shadow Broker), kinda blown about that.  The reporter's flirting, and so is the new girl. 

Yeah, you can start the romance with Liara in ME1. She has a brief appearance in ME2, and then you can continue the romance in ME3 when she's back on your team. The third game ties all of the little sub-plots and character stories together, and brings back a large portion of the ME1 team.

In ME2, technically all of your squad members can live or die based on your decisions, and who survives will have noticeable impact on the outcomes and choices you can make during ME3. It's crazy how complicated it is.

But yeah, you have to expect to spend about 40 hours in each game.

[Sir William]

As I said, this is like Star Trek for me- if I were able to have my own ST type of life, this would be it.  The developers and artists have created an incredibly detailed world- it must look life-like on PC.  I spent  a LOT of time looking out of observation decks/windows, walking around and listening in on conversations.  I didn't even speak to the crew at first (other than the required cut scenes)- I thought they were just like, you know, automatons to take up screen space...I'm getting a kick out of EDI.  And I think I missed a romantic opportunity with Liara (the asari Shadow Broker), kinda blown about that.  The reporter's flirting, and so is the new girl. 

Yeah, you can start the romance with Liara in ME1. She has a brief appearance in ME2, and then you can continue the romance in ME3 when she's back on your team. The third game ties all of the little sub-plots and character stories together, and brings back a large portion of the ME1 team.

In ME2, technically all of your squad members can live or die based on your decisions, and who survives will have noticeable impact on the outcomes and choices you can make during ME3. It's crazy how complicated it is.

But yeah, you have to expect to spend about 40 hours in each game.

Just curious, who will I miss out on?  There's been references to the previous games but I wonder how much I'm missing.

So, I'll admit I've gotten a bit lazy as a gamer...there's a lot more games I want to play than I have time to play them, so I've taken to watching gameplay/cutscene movies on YouTube.  Gives me the gist of the story, some of the gameplay and its generally a lot shorter than it would take me to get thru a game.  So I'm watching ME1, its about 4 hours, which is a lot easier to deal with than 40 (and trust me, I could easily stretch that to 80 just because).  Sometimes I envy those guys who get paid to play video games, even tho I know they don't make a lot of money.  At least, not the testers; not speaking on those 'pro' gamers.

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, this is a good way to enjoy the series if you don't have time to play it, is this "movie series" edited together like a TV show:



All of your surviving squad members can return with cameos, or to join your team again. Plus, minor characters that you rescued or helped may come back and give you some dialog and some war asset points.

The video series above has all the main characters, but doesn't include all of the DLC missions (just a couple of them). If you watch it, I'd recommend watching it to the end, so you can see what you missed in ME3, but don't go past where you've played. You don't want the spoilers.

Also keep in mind that the videos only show one outcome for every situation. Scenes can play out very differently depending on your choices, and that will also impact future interactions with those characters, or other events that depend on past choices. The biggest being who lives or dies (the video series above saves as many of the characters as possible, so that you can see their return in ME3).

[Sir Nate]

Guess I need to pay mass effect.

[Sir William]

Naythan, yes you do.  I beat it early Sunday morning and restarted it after I woke up Sunday afternoon.  lol

It is difficult to go the Renegade route- I always have problems with that stuff; I know its just a game but a lot of the responses for that part are more pragmatic than I ever could be.  Still, an awesome game- thanks for that vid link Sir Edward, I'm going to check it out. 

Turns out, there're 8 different endings?  They were sure people would play it that much to find them all?  Well...having seen one already, I know I'll see at least two of them. 

[Sir Edward]

It's really more like 3 endings, with some variations in the level of destruction and who survives in the end, depending on your war assets. It's those 3 selections (assuming you even get all three available to you) that matter the most.

There was a huge public flap about the endings when the game first came out. People felt like all those massive amounts of decisions you made along the way, got distilled down to 3 endings that were very similar to each other. After the "extended cut", which added detail to the endings, I think they're fine. Most of the reaction, I think, was from a vocal minority who didn't get the exact ending they wanted.

[Sir Nate]

Well isn't that more meaningful? If the whole game your making decisions, and sacrifices, then finally there is that big decision.