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 Well, I took a slightly longer break than advertised, but I put the time to good use, I swear. Let's finish this fucker off. Shut down machines! Break fans! The game starts with Shepard in lockup. It's a cushy lockup, but she's been grounded and the Normandy taken away due to blowing up 300,000 Batarians in Arrival. If you didn't do Arrival then it's jail for working with Cerberus. Then the Reapers finally show up and are absolutely destroying everything. We have to get to the Citadel and ask the Council for help. Hahaha. Like every time before they basically tell us to get hosed and it's up to us to unite everyone and get help for Earth. The rest of the game is trying to fix all the ills of the galaxy. Pretty much what we've always done, but this time on a macro scale. For the LP I decided to try something different. I've already played through the game once with a Butts import and will re-import that save for our game. This means we're already level 60, have all the guns, upgrades, and armors unlocked. And we're playing on Insanity  So what's new? Combat, very much unlike ME1 and somewhat unlike ME2 is a goddamn delight. In 2 triggering a combo was difficult at best, and the only thing it would work with is biotics. In this game, you can combo off of almost anything. Tech, biotics, ammo powers, you name it. You just need to prime something and then hit it with a detonator. The detonator doesn't need to be of the same type as the primer, so everything synergizes. For example, a squadmate could prime with fire ammo (tech) and then you could detonate it with charge (biotic). The resulting explosion not only does massive damage to the target, but also to anything around it. Because of this even insanity is no longer a slog and you don't have to worry about bringing weapons or teammates to handle individual defenses. Just do your thing and death will follow. They also added a heavy melee to wreck things and an over-cover instakill grab which I lovingly refer to as the reacharound. And if you thought Charge was good, they went and added goddamn Nova. Nova is a detonator power that involves Shep slamming her fist into the ground and knocking back enemies in addition to doing fucktons of damage. Shep also screams when she does it, making Angry Shepard the most destructive force in the galaxy right behind Harbinger's honk beam. There's a new mechanic called War Assets. There is a minimum you need to beat the game and you unlock them by completing missions. The higher your score, the better you do (well, technically, but we'll get into that). You can also raise them by playing multiplayer, which was a new addition and will have its own section. Paragon and Renegade are still around, but they work much differently now. You get an overall reputation score from interacting with people, and P/R is really just there for flavor. As long as you've done enough talking to folks then it doesn't matter if you want to be an rear end in a top hat which is a very good improvement, IMO. Now you're not locked out of options or forced to pick a response so you can pass a check later. I heard this game sucks and the ends are bad ME3 released on March 6th, 2012. It concludes the story of Commander Shepard and was originally intended to be an end to the IP altogether. Now the latter part isn't true since the release of Andromeda, but for now the former part stands. So what's the problem you ask? Well, in reality there were two problems. Mac Walters and Casey Hudson. I mentioned in my ME2 LP that the original idea was that the galaxy was getting hosed by the overuse of dark energy, causing stars to die prematurely. There was that whole thing on Haestrom about it. This info got leaked, and in a fit of pique Walters decided they weren't going to use it. As they couldn't decide what the ending would actually be and with the rest of the game sitting there ready to go while the clock ticked down to going gold, Hudson and Walters literally locked themselves in a room and crapped out the ending. This was corroborated by Patrick Weekes, one of the major writers of the trilogy a while after the game came out. They didn't ask any of the writing staff for input or even have someone look it over. And the results were...less than stellar. Things that made no sense. Glaring plot holes. Lore contradictions. And the canonical death of Shepard. To add insult to injury, about a week before the release, Hudson did a press release stating that you wouldn't just have a choice of ending A, B, or C, but that all of the decisions you'd made over the course of 3 games would make your ending special and unique. After all, if you'd imported the same character all the way across there were over 1000 flags to take into account. Critics gave the game high reviews. And then the game came out. People played it, and they poo poo. My personal reaction after mainlining the game for 3 days was pretty much  What you got after all was just ending A, B, or C (actually red, blue, or green) referred to as Destroy, Control, or Synthesis which were little more than palette swaps of each other. There was no end boss, the last thing you fought was a mid-tier Reaper critter leading to internet memes about Marauder Shields. Other idiotic poo poo like Joker looking back over his shoulder as he tried to outrace the explosion or EDI stepping off the crashed Normandy even if you picked Destroy which the also-idiotic Star Kid warned would destroy all AI in the galaxy. No answer as to what happened to any of the races or your squadmates. Just an explosion, a stupid interstitial, and then a message to Buy Our DLC. Hudson's/Walters's response was to double down and accuse its fans of being entitled whiny bitches who didn't understand ART. The backlash was so bad that people made complaints to the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. Ultimately the FTC took no action, but the BBB agreed with the complaint and said that Bioware's advertising and claims were "false and misleading." After a month or so of wailing and gnashing of teeth, BW announced they'd be releasing a free DLC to deal with some of the issues. Their "fix" was a new expansion of the ending cinematic called the Extended Cut. The EC did fill in some of the holes big enough to drive a Reaper through, but you were still stuck with 3 endings that really had fuckall to do with anything you'd done in the trilogy. However, it elevated the conclusion from brain-damagingly stupid to just "meh." You can still find the originals on YouTube, so go look 'em up if you're curious. It also lowered the requirement to get the "best" ending from 8k War Assets to 4k. Now if you have lovely assets your teammates get obliterated on the run to the beam. If you have really high assets (now or pre-EC) and choose Destroy you're treated to a cutaway of Shepard taking a breath in the wreckage so she's maybe not dead after all. Updates I loving told you so (post) Mars needs women (post) Where da  at (post)"Ah yes, the 'Reapers'" (post) The Love Boat (post) Ancient Assholes (post) Meet n' greet (post) Mooning about (post) The uncanniest valley (post) Hot for teacher (post) Sidequest for fire (post) Badassfully (post) Mad World (post) Aw yiss (post) It's ok to be a failson (post) The doctor is in (post) Orkin Man (post) Anthropocentric bag of dicks (post) Dropping the C-bomb (post) Tuchanka. Doom. Krogan planet. (post) Joke's on you (post) The ending isn't the dumbest part of ME3 (post) (Don't) gently caress the Batarians (post) Blue by you (post) Nuthin' but a she thang (post) Shoots and ladders (post) Adjudicative proceedings (post) Come on Nyreen (post) Monasteryia (post) Hitting the bottle (post) You dumb motherfuckers (post) Normandy nonsense (post) 505 error (post) Halleluja Koris (post) More like 300 beers in the making (post) Blah blah blah (post) Jerry's kids (post) gently caress Dis poo poo (post) Garneau no no (post) Getting ahead (post) This would be funny if you hadn't hosed us all (post) This takes me back (post) gently caress this, eat poo poo, blow me (post) Refu-JESUS (post) The last time I have to do this poo poo, hooray (post) Dude, where's my Citadel? (post) The beginning of the end (post) Kleenex Krew (post) I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite war for the Citadel (post) Kissing our Butts goodbye (post) Just another day (post) Wrex in effect (post) I? Should go? (post) Go gently caress yourself (post) R and R (post) HGTV (post) Veni, vidi, victuals (post) We party down (post) MP videos Shooting (the) poo poo (post) Mr. Freeze (post) Bonus MP #3 (post) SubponticatePoster fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jul 21, 2019 |
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Dec 4, 2017 02:03
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Multiplayer Not long before ME3 was released, info leaked that there would be the inclusion of multiplayer. I was kind of annoyed about this, as a lot of games were tacking on MP at the time and most of them were garbage. I figured it would be dumb and boring and the resources could be expended elsewhere to better use. I was wrong. They released a beta of the MP a couple weeks before the game proper came out. In an unusual move, EA made it so you could play the beta without an XBL/GFW sub. PS3 didn't need it anyway. It's a horde mode, with 10 rounds of increasingly difficult enemies. Rounds 3, 6, and 10 also have an objective. This could be assassinating targets, hacking an objective, or deactivating devices. If you failed the objective the game ended. Bonuses were awarded for completing it faster. You then had an 11th wave - extraction. Everyone needed to get to the extraction point and hold off the enemies until the shuttle arrived. Extraction lasts for 2 minutes. It's possible to die or have no one make it to the point and extraction to fail, but you'll still get all the credits and XP you earned through wave 10 even if you don't make it out. There were also 3 difficulties; Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Only 1 faction (Cerberus) and 2 of the maps were available for the beta, but it was enough. Many goons got together and played the poo poo out of it on all platforms. I remember the night before launch we managed to make it through a full game of gold and everyone was yelling and screaming as we barely survived. You can choose one of the following classes: Adept, Soldier, Infiltrator, Sentinel, Vanguard, or Engineer. Each class has several different characters with their own powers. Weapons range from common to ultra rare. At first there were only 5 maps, but later expansions added more maps, characters, weapons, even a new harder difficulty and faction. Everything was free. The game does have lootboxes that you can purchase with real money, but you earn plenty of credits just by playing. It's probably the least-annoying lootbox system ever, and they made so much from impatient folks that even to this day the servers are still running - 7 years after the fact. On PS3 you can find a game in under 10 seconds. They stopped patching it a long time ago, and there isn't anyone monitoring the game. The servers are laggy even when hosting and the N7 HQ takes forever to load. But it still works. For a year after launch they also had weekend events with special goals or conditions. Holiday events were themed, like on Halloween the packages were pumpkins  They also added in nameplates and titles for reaching certain milestones or participating in the events. The most difficult was Best of the Best, wherein you had to complete all of the other challenges, plus solo 10 bronze, 5 silver, and 2 gold matches. I didn't realize higher counted for lower so I did every single one  Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair: As of right now, the big ol' dummy who thought this would be a stupid tacked-on waste of time has played 887 hours, 20 minutes (and 19 seconds) over 2320 games. I'm ranked in the top 1% of all players worldwide for both promotions and challenges. However, RNGeezus hates my guts and my manifest still isn't loving maxed out. I have all the weapons but some are languishing at III or IV. MP affects SP by how much you've played. Once a character hits level 20, you get the option of "promoting" that class. All of the characters in the class get reset to level 1, but it adds to your score. This results in a number, which is divided by the Galaxy at War percentage we saw in the opening. It defaults to 50%, and goes up the more you play. So if your base score was 1000 but you hadn't played in 6 months, it would only be 500 for war assets. I've been playing a fair bit the past couple of weeks so I'm close to 100%. We'll be able to take a look at this score after we deal with Mars and get sent out on our own. Since they lowered the number needed for the ending, you can ignore MP altogether though only losers do that  Butts needs you! I want to do bonus videos with MP. Now I can manage with pubbies, but I'd like to include goons. So if you have this on PS3 and want to participate, please let me know in the thread. We'll schedule a time to get together and I'll record the matches. If you're worried about not having played, don't. Even low-level characters can do fine on higher difficulties as long as you know what you're doing (and if you don't, just follow instructions  ).
SubponticatePoster fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 6, 2019 |
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Dec 4, 2017 02:03
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I loving told you so Shepard's in jail because we killed a couple (hundred thousand) Batarians. But trouble's afoot. Something big is coming. Of course, we know what that something is. Reapers are invading and Earth is hosed. We run into Kaiden who now outranks us. James is a good guy, but his role is to fill new players in on the state of things so he's not super exciting. He's way better than soldiering than Ashley though, who is terrible in 3. Her hair is dumb, her outfit is dumb and her powers don't work right so I'm glad we left her to die on Virmire. Well, that and "being a goddamn racist" didn't help either. Many improvements have been made to gameplay overall. Shepard is way more mobile. You can jump gaps, mantle up onto things, dodge roll, and now can infinitely sprint. Combat is fast, frenetic, and full of explosions. Especially for our new and improved Vanguard. The morons who stuck us in jail get blown up and Anderson and Shepard have to make it to the Normandy to get the gently caress out of Dodge. Husks used to be shambling zombies, now they are very fast zombies. They also sit on your face if you let them get too close so don't let that happen. You'll still take damage while you're dislodging them and can die, especially on Insanity. We run into the most hated child ever in videogames. If you haven't played the game you'll see why later. Anderson thinks we should go to the Citadel and ask the Council for help. Y'know, since they've been so helpful in the past. I'm sure that won't be a wasted trip. After some forced resource depletion we get our ship back and Hackett orders us to go to Mars where our girlfriend has been doing research. There we're supposed to find something that will help us defeat the Reapers once and for all. I'm sure this will all go off without a hitch.
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Dec 4, 2017 02:04
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gently caress YEAH! I actually played most of this basically blackout drunk, so I don't really remember most of it.
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Dec 4, 2017 02:09
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Dreadwroth posted:gently caress YEAH!
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Dec 4, 2017 02:16
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 I've been waiting for this. Let the charge/nova/fire explosion loop begin. Will you be rotating through the bonus powers? You can probably skip Nuke and the barrier clones but Lash is almost worth it's own price of admission.
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Dec 4, 2017 02:30
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I can since I have 'em all unlocked. I'll mostly stick to DC for major missions though, as it's invaluable on higher difficulties.
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Dec 4, 2017 02:35
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I was so disgusted by the news about the ending that I didn't manage to play more than up to meeting a certain biotic who is now a teacher? Maybe? I forget. So I played a shitton of the multiplayer instead. Watchin' this.
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Dec 4, 2017 02:41
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WHAT TOOK YOU SO loving LONG Woo!
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Dec 4, 2017 02:42
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Much as folks and critics like to argue about plot details and player agency, Mass effect still is a great game series. The fact that it got everyone so invested to argue so vehemently over small things says a lot. I'll be following along, though this reminds me I should drop back into ME3 multiplayer sometime. That was still some of the most fun I ever had on console and now I have it on PC. (four vorcha, EVERYTHING BURNS)
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Dec 4, 2017 02:42
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ME3 up until the ending was an incredible game, I don't care what anyone says That being said holy drat is there a graphical difference between console and PC. What system are you playing this on SP, PS3?
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Dec 4, 2017 03:10
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Can't wait to see what all the hubub was all about.
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Dec 4, 2017 03:19
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Not having paid attention to any of the hype for the game I was unimpressed by the ending, but not infuriated. It's Bioware, after all. A guy at work was a huge proponent of the indoctrinated Shepard theory, to which my response was "come on, it's Bioware."
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Dec 4, 2017 03:30
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MA-Horus posted:ME3 up until the ending was an incredible game, I don't care what anyone says And for the most part I agree about the rest of the game. There are a couple of parts that seem kinda  but there are so many moments that kick you right in the feels if you've played the whole trilogy.
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Dec 4, 2017 03:45
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The soundtrack is also on point, there's a bit in the combat track of the next stage that always makes me smile when I hear it.
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Dec 4, 2017 03:47
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Hurrah! Now I won't have to play the game myself. Bioware really shot themselves in the foot by not putting it on Steam, unlike ME1&2. A depressing start, and perhaps would hit a little harder if not for the imported model of Commander Butts J. Sheppard's face looking crosseyed at inopportune moments. I think the face gets a little more warped each time it's imported to a sequel - if we had a Mass Effect 6, all our Sheppard's would look like they were made in Dark Souls when the randomise button had been hit a couple hundred times. A shame that the launch of Andromeda was so poorly received/launched far too gods-damned early and thus looked awful and never recovered from early reviews. 
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Dec 4, 2017 04:01
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I recently replayed through the trilogy (plus Andromeda) on PC, and the cool thing about it is that there are mods out there that just bitchslap the worst part of the ending out of existence and then dumps you into the Citadel DLC if you have it and goes "yeah, THIS is the real ending of the game, not that dumb colour bullshit."
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Dec 4, 2017 04:06
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I'm down for some multiplayer action, but likely won't be available until later this month and a couple weeks in January because of school. Aces High fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2017 04:49
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After Andromeda, ME3 feels almost competant.
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Dec 4, 2017 05:05
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nine-gear crow posted:I recently replayed through the trilogy (plus Andromeda) on PC, and the cool thing about it is that there are mods out there that just bitchslap the worst part of the ending out of existence and then dumps you into the Citadel DLC if you have it and goes "yeah, THIS is the real ending of the game, not that dumb colour bullshit."
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Dec 4, 2017 05:27
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I don't think the ending is all that bad. I think there's just a few major missteps that prevent player investment. The biggest of them is that the ending requests you to have a degree of sympathy for the Reapers, when you're never really given a reason to do so. You also have to review the entire game as the "ending" in a sense, since major character interactions depend on how those characters developed over the previous games.
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Dec 4, 2017 05:42
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Dreadwroth posted:After Andromeda, ME3 feels almost competant. Honestly, i had fun with Andromeda, but I put off replaying it once I finished it because of the gigantic loving "THERE WILL BE DLC HERE" sign at the end painted in 255pt font. And the fact that they said they were working on polishing up the glaring bugs and weird mannikin faces. Then they put out that press release of "Actually no we're never going to patch single player also there won't be any DLC please buy our book instead."
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Dec 4, 2017 05:56
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I'm glad to see this LP's still trucking! I played the first two around the time they were released, but skipped the third one when I heard about multiplayer being added and assumed it was going to be tacked on nonsense. I think I might need to get it and check it out now.
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Dec 4, 2017 06:13
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I actually like this one for the most part, it has some really great setpieces and the Citadel DLC was fun. I love how whiny James is, like don't you know who the gently caress you're talking to idiot? Also, thus game has one of my least favorite enemies in the entire series, yaaaay!
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Dec 4, 2017 06:24
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I was just wondering when this was coming out. I miss the drinking theme of ME2, but I suppose I don't have to stop drinking just because no one is directly telling me to drink I liked the original ending, but I hated how the ending happened, if that makes any sense at all. This is the only game I ever bought microtransactions in, I loved the combat so much. I'm really looking forward to the multiplayer videos, the last time I booted the game up it was nothing but rocket glitchers, and you couldn't get a real game in anymore Also  , I'm pretty sure that Kaiden doesn't actually outrank Shepard, at least in the US military. Commander in the navy is equivalent to a Lt. Colonel in the army, which is one rank above a MajorOf course, it's nonsense scifi ranks that are probably based on the Canadian military, since Bioware is based in Canada. Regardless of how the ranks actually work, I always took his meteoric rise through the ranks to mean that he's tried to become the new Commander Shepard after the feeling of betrayal from seeing us with Cerberus. We'll see how well that goes for him, along with the set up for one of my favorite bugs in the series
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Dec 4, 2017 06:24
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Shepard starts the game in jail and stripped of rank, so Kaidan technically does outrank her.
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Dec 4, 2017 06:30
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SubponticatePoster posted:originally intended to be an end to the IP altogether. Now the latter part isn't true since the release of Andromeda Ehhhhhhh
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Dec 4, 2017 06:31
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The Door Frame posted:Also It's actually dumber than that, in the codex for ME1 they explain how the Alliance Navy ranks work and it goes Commander -> Major -> Captain which is not how navy ranks work in Canada, the USN, or in the UK so it's just stupid sci-fi "it must be different, even if it makes no sense"
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Dec 4, 2017 07:06
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Kurieg posted:Honestly, i had fun with Andromeda, but I put off replaying it once I finished it because of the gigantic loving "THERE WILL BE DLC HERE" sign at the end painted in 255pt font. And the fact that they said they were working on polishing up the glaring bugs and weird mannikin faces. Andromeda is a wonderful example of someone noticing a sunk cost far, far too late.
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Dec 4, 2017 07:49
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Dreadwroth posted:Shepard starts the game in jail and stripped of rank, so Kaidan technically does outrank her. You are the best kind of correct. I was just sperging about how the ranks in this game making no sense, but before you get on the Normandy, Kaiden does totally outrank our court marshalled rear end It's so obvious, but I never put together that "Meathead wasnt supposed to call us Commander" meant that we'd been stripped of title and rank. I always assumed they'd just grounded us, shuffled us to earth, and "launched an investigation" so that we wouldn't be punished for our war crimes, but we're in the process of being punished and the Alliance are dragging their feet?
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Dec 4, 2017 09:08
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Ah, yes a  Reaper invasion.Some of the dialog is kinda cringe worthy. But they made the trigger when you run out of ammo? What's stopping you from just wasting it into a wall? Poil fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 11:58
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There was supposed to be a courtroom scene I think originally, but it got cut or something? I can't remember exactly, it's been a while.
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Dec 4, 2017 12:28
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Dreadwroth posted:There was supposed to be a courtroom scene I think originally, but it got cut or something? I can't remember exactly, it's been a while. ME3's story is a huge mess in general. It does have its moments, but anything involving Cerberus is complete nonsense and I'm not a fan of how Shepard's (and, by extension, the player's) agency in the plot has taken a nosedive. You're no longer in charge or making the big decisions (with a couple of exceptions), instead you always have some important person telling you exactly where the next plot thingamajig is and then you go shoot the bad mans. Thankfully, the combat is pretty drat good, but that was never the draw for me with Mass Effect. I still hold out the vain hope that some day, I get the Mass Effect 1 sequel I wanted, with more focus on exploration and world-building. At first, Andromeda looked like it might provide something like that, but... yeah, we all know what happened with that one. 
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Dec 4, 2017 12:55
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Yeah we haven't really seen it yet but combat in this game is a loving joy compared to 2, we're getting true biotic pinball Butts this time around. Hope y'all don't get motion sick. Also there's new graphical packs for ME2/3 on PC which apparently look pretty loving fine at 4K resolution.
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Dec 4, 2017 13:04
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MA-Horus posted:Also there's new graphical packs for ME2/3 on PC which apparently look pretty loving fine at 4K resolution. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 13:25
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Doc Morbid posted:I still hold out the vain hope that some day, I get the Mass Effect 1 sequel I wanted, with more focus on exploration and world-building. At first, Andromeda looked like it might provide something like that, but... yeah, we all know what happened with that one. MA-Horus posted:Hope y'all don't get motion sick.
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Dec 4, 2017 14:14
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Doc Morbid posted:It got cut very late in development, I remember there were previews showing it off (which I didn't read because I didn't want to get spoiled) a month or two before release. Why did it get cut, then? The story goes that EA wanted to go all in on the whole "ME3 must be accessible to newcomers" thing, and since the courtroom scene was going to be all about your previous decisions... well, that wasn't going to work, was it? So, instead of that, we got this trainwreck. MA-Horus posted:Yeah we haven't really seen it yet but combat in this game is a loving joy compared to 2, we're getting true biotic pinball Butts this time around.
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Dec 4, 2017 17:13
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Unfortunately when MP doesn't work so well you slowly float off into the sky.
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Dec 4, 2017 17:20
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I will just  before even reading the thread or watching the first update
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Dec 4, 2017 17:39
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Hey, that was just vanguards ascending to heaven as is righteous! They finally patched it out.Alexeythegreat posted:I will just
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Dec 4, 2017 17:40
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