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Intruder posted:I find Ashley very vanilla, and the fact that she's a space racist in the first game is the only interesting thing about her. She wasn't in the second game when characterization actually got interesting (aside from being useless against the collectors), and her role in the third game seems to be limited to "Bitch at Shep on Mars, get nearly killed, defend Udina and then get drunk" Still better than Kaidan awkwardly hitting on my Femshep (who romanced Liara).
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:16 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 23:31 |
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Thundercracker posted:That wasn't a real Reaper per the codex. More like a VI weapon than a sentient reaper. Well I think the point is the Reapers would have made it out of the same material that they make Reapers out of it just didn't have the exoskeleton armor over it like the other Reapers do. Makes sense that by shooting inbetween the armor you can hit the Reaper core and take it out just like the big ol babby.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:17 |
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JackMackerel posted:It's still a lot better than the weird loving hate hard-on the fanbase has for Ashley, because even though I don't have ME1, she and Kaidan were both irrational superbitches at Horizon. I'm not one to go "omg it's because she has a vagina DEGRADATION FROM MALE PIGS", but it's really loving weird. Well, I can only speak for myself, but I never liked her that much because the "Skipper" thing is annoying and Shep's life is not improved by her clumsily reciting Walt Whitman at him. She's also abrasive, shoots Wrex in the back, and wavers between boring and unlikable. Why don't I complain about Kaidan? Well, I think Ashley kinda sucks but I still chose to save her over him. I hear he's better in ME3 but in the first game he's all "headaches and homicide." I don't need you bringing me down, Kaidan!
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:18 |
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Ashley is bland and Kaidan is blander than bland. Of course, I've never let Kaidan survive ME1 so maybe he's better in ME3? Also Ashley was introduced in pink armor which is dumb
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:19 |
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Well I'm finally done so I can start reading this thread. Not gonna go too indepth because I'm sure everything I'm going to say has been said a ton already in this massive thread. I'm sure it's been said a million times but words cannot describe how bad the endings are. They are so stunningly bad that even though I read ahead of time and spoiled myself on them I'm still surprised at just how bad they are. I chose synthesis. My overall impressions on the game are that the Geth/Quarian sub plot and Tuchanka were both well done, but the entire Illusive Man plot is horrendous garbage and so is Kai Lang. I'm still pissed that they decided they could introduce some random character out of nowhere in Mass Effect 3 and decide that he can beat my Shepherd because of :plot armor:. gently caress that noise. This game is a classic example of the writers not even knowing what they are writing. They wrote a space opera game with Me 1 and 2, and then in 3 they decided they wanted to go Deus Ex all of a sudden. You write a space opera game you do a loving space opera ending, not some transhumanism bullshit that doesn't jive at all with the rest of the series.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:22 |
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JackMackerel posted:fake edit: I think I am the only one who is totally fine with Quarians being humanoid. (I am still vaguely annoyed that was a stock photo) I really don't care that the quarians are similar to humans (which was already established in one of the stupid novels anyway), but they had a build up for three games over what quarians look like and if we were ever going to see Tali's face. Then they do the most  thing and barely photoshop a stock picture of a model. At least give her an in-game face, they even had a scene where she will always remove her visor on Rannoch.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:23 |
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Vigilance posted:One of us ... one of us ... 
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:24 |
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I had no problem with Tali's face. It's vaguely alien yet still pretty enough to make the player feel ok about romancing her, and only appears very briefly. There's not really any need to show it much, and it reminds me of the friend zoning quarian in ME2 mocking humans for always wanting to know what they look like under the mask
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:25 |
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Dr. Abysmal posted:I really don't care that the quarians are similar to humans (which was already established in one of the stupid novels anyway), but they had a build up for three games over what quarians look like and if we were ever going to see Tali's face. Then they do the most This, basically. Bioware, you had two years, that's more than some devs get in games. 
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:25 |
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JackMackerel posted:Bioware, you had two years, that's more than some devs get in games. Two years really isn't long enough for a epic story-based game with new gameplay systems, sorry guys. They should have released in in Christmas of 2012. 2 years isn't long enough for most AAA tiles, Call of Duty gets away with it because it's basically a few tweaks and the story is a paper thin railroad. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at Apr 13, 2012 around 21:34 |
| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:28 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Two years really isn't long enough for a epic story-based game with new gameplay systems, sorry guys. They should have released in in Christmas of 2012. Or this. I actually expected a huge delay in March, oddly enough, since some of the games then were being pushed to May/June.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:30 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Two years really isn't long enough for a epic story-based game with new gameplay systems, sorry guys. They should have released in in Christmas of 2012. It was obviously not enough time for ME3, but the engine / gameplay change between ME1 -> ME2 was much bigger than going from ME2 -> ME3, and that worked out alright for ME2 for the most part. Much better than for ME3 anyway.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:31 |
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Two years really isn't long enough for a epic story-based game with new gameplay systems, sorry guys. They should have released in in Christmas of 2012. Valve should have acquired BioWare instead of EA. We'd be getting ME2 right about now, and it would be on the source engine. I do not say these things to imply that they are bad.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:32 |
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Oh I forgot one other thing that bothered me. What the hell happened to Harbinger? They built him/it/whatever up as a huge villain in part 2 and then you don't talk to or see Harbinger at all in 3. I think Anderson or someone mentioned that Harbinger was one of the Reapers flying down at the beam thing to gently caress you up at the end but that was all I heard of it. Don't understand how you can introduce a character and make them seem pivotal and then completely discard them.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:34 |
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Valve should have acquired BioWare instead of EA. We'd be getting ME2 right about now, and it would be on the source engine. And no ME3 ... ever...
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:35 |
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Valve should have acquired BioWare instead of EA. We'd be getting ME2 right about now, and it would be on the source engine. Yeah, and we'd never have ME3. A crappy ending is ... slightly better than no ending?
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:35 |
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Don't they technically have a new engine? I don't know what the engine Portal 2 and CS:GO run on, now, but whatever. Anyway, don't non-HL-related games take less time to develop? I mean, the gap between L4D and L4D2 was quick in Valve time (granted, not that big of a change).
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:36 |
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Malek posted:And no ME3 ... ever... But think of the hats.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:36 |
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Malek posted:And no ME3 ... ever... Episode 3 is coming just as surely as Indoctrination Theory is true. Hope springs eternal.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:37 |
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Vigilance posted:Oh I forgot one other thing that bothered me. Yeah, if you look closely, you can see Harbinger's :> face fly down to annihilate everyone making a dash for the teleport. And I suspect it's because writers were getting shuffled about, something about Dragon Age?
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:37 |
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Vigilance posted:Oh I forgot one other thing that bothered me. You do see him, he's the one that shows up and fucks you and everybody else up as you run for the beam. Then he just leaves again and either gets blown up or fucks off back to wherever with the rest of the reapers. As to why he was "discarded," it's because of new players. If you start a fresh character in ME3, all references to Harbinger (there aren't many) are removed because you don't know who Harbinger is if you didn't play ME2.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:37 |
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Dr. Abysmal posted:You do see him, he's the one that shows up and fucks you and everybody else up as you run for the beam. Then he just leaves again and either gets blown up or fucks off back to wherever with the rest of the reapers. That's just garbage though. New players don't know who the Illusive Man is either but he still has a huge role. Harbinger had way too much build-up to not be used in the plot more.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:39 |
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If you kill Kaidan when he's defending Udina, does he also hope the Reapers send you to hell? I found that very jarring since Ashley is basically hoping humanity loses the war with the Reapers since Shephard is the one marshalling everyone together.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:41 |
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JackMackerel posted:Don't they technically have a new engine? I don't know what the engine Portal 2 and CS:GO run on, now, but whatever. I thought that all of Valve's games were running on modified versions of Source, unless they're on Source 2 now or something.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:41 |
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Oh, what was the official explanation for the statues in ME1 and ME2 and the Codex picture that portrayed Protheans as weird Cthulhu-Geth-Reaper things? I had a friend who swore up and down she remembered seeing something like Javik/Collectors in one of the flashes in ME1, and I heard that Javik said they're a pre-Prothean race or something.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:42 |
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JackMackerel posted:Don't they technically have a new engine? I don't know what the engine Portal 2 and CS:GO run on, now, but whatever. It's still Source, at its heart. Technically, HL2, L4D, L4D2, Portal, Portal 2 and CS:GO all run on "different" engines in that they're all slightly different variations of Source (like L4D2 and Portal 2 share the same iteration of the engine but that one has tons of new features over HL2's iteration), but it's still the same basic engine. JackMackerel posted:Anyway, don't non-HL-related games take less time to develop? I mean, the gap between L4D and L4D2 was quick in Valve time (granted, not that big of a change). Valve has an unconventional way of assigning their staff to different projects. I think Gaben basically said that people are, for the most part, pretty free to choose which project they want to work on and Valve encourages people to work in a field where they themselves feel they can contribute most, so you'll see a lot of fluctuation between projects and some get more dev time while others are laid on ice for a while. With that in mind, nobody really knows how much work hours Valve has even spent on HL3 in the last couple of years.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:43 |
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JackMackerel posted:Oh, what was the official explanation for the statues in ME1 and ME2 and the Codex picture that portrayed Protheans as weird Cthulhu-Geth-Reaper things? I had a friend who swore up and down she remembered seeing something like Javik/Collectors in one of the flashes in ME1, and I heard that Javik said they're a pre-Prothean race or something. They fudged it. Javik says that all races united by the Empire were known as "Protheans." They based his look (aka that of the "real" Protheans) on the Collectors. He also mentions that the statues there were of a pre-Prothean race, I believe, so the bases there are thoroughly covered.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:44 |
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EDIT: /\/\/\ Yeah, that, too; I don't remember the various dialogues with Javik that well but I'd still say it's a pretty blatant retcon rather than covering their bases.JackMackerel posted:Oh, what was the official explanation for the statues in ME1 and ME2 and the Codex picture that portrayed Protheans as weird Cthulhu-Geth-Reaper things? I had a friend who swore up and down she remembered seeing something like Javik/Collectors in one of the flashes in ME1, and I heard that Javik said they're a pre-Prothean race or something. What your friend saw was probably a flashback sequence in a side-mission of ME2 where you discover some Prothean artifact that triggers the same exact flashback sequence you see in ME1, but this one is modified so the Protheans in the sequence look like the Collectors while the ones in the ME1 scene look vaguely like the statues in Ilos. It's pretty much a flat retcon. Burning Mustache fucked around with this message at Apr 13, 2012 around 21:52 |
| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:50 |
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Intruder posted:Why can you blow a reaper up with a single shot from a Cain? Are you talking about the AA gun when you first get back to Earth? That's not a Reaper it's just a gun battery, I thought the game made that pretty clear.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:50 |
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sdr782 posted:Are you talking about the AA gun when you first get back to Earth? That's not a Reaper it's just a gun battery, I thought the game made that pretty clear. Me too, I'm wondering what they're going on about as well.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:52 |
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Malek posted:Me too, I'm wondering what they're going on about as well. There is the Reaper you blow up with a couple missiles a bit later though.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 21:54 |
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Burning Mustache posted:snip Huh, interesting. Thanks (I do mean it. The more you know, etc.). And yeah, I had a feeling it was a pure retcon. I only have ME2 and got that artifact, but I barely remember anything about it.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:00 |
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Superstring posted:There is the Reaper you blow up with a couple missiles a bit later though. Yeah, but those are Thanix missiles, not the Cain.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:01 |
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Cellophane S posted:Well gently caress if that isn't a thousand times better. Now please write me an Eve x Mordin fic. Thank you.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:02 |
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One thing I think that hasn't been discussed a lot in this thread is the entire London/Earth setting of the final mission. Was anyone else really underwhelmed by the return to Earth? Most people have railed against the ending as only the last few minutes before Reaper Kid and the RGB choice, but I felt most of the content after the Cerberus base was somewhat lacking. As other people have mentioned, the writers really had a problem with making us care what happens to Earth as most of the series hasn't really dealt with it much apart from the odd Codex entry. Hell, Shepard (if we look at all his possible backgrounds) has a higher chance of never having seen Earth or had any emotional connection to it apart from a general THIS IS WHERE HUMANS ARE FROM. I kinda wish they'd made the return to Earth akin to Rannoch where you have a couple of side missions that you can take care of before committing to resolving the Geth/Quarian conflict. The Forward Base could serve as a little mission hub that would allow Shepard and crew to see more of London than what we got. BioWare should probably also have gone with the Modern Warfare HUGE SETPIECE BATTLES WITH EXPLOSIONS AND poo poo approach, as battling through indistinct warzone rubble left a lot to be desired in my case.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:03 |
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Yeah, but those are Thanix missiles, not the Cain. Plus they attacked the reaper's weak point for massive damage.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:03 |
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accidental_zombi posted:Now please write me an Eve x Mordin fic. Thank you. Eve x Padok makes more sense.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:04 |
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Foulbrood posted:One thing I think that hasn't been discussed a lot in this thread is the entire London/Earth setting of the final mission. Was anyone else really underwhelmed by the return to Earth? Everything has been discussed in this thread. Twice.
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:04 |
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Yeah, but those are Thanix missiles, not the Cain. Speaking of which, Thanix cannons shoot a superheated stream of liquid metal at a fraction of light speed. How did they put that into a missile?
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:05 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 23:31 |
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Foulbrood posted:One thing I think that hasn't been discussed a lot in this thread is the entire London/Earth setting of the final mission. Was anyone else really underwhelmed by the return to Earth? It was awful. So underwhelming. I found it to be as underwhelming as the Sabbat Hotel in Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines. 
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| # ? Apr 13, 2012 22:07 |
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