Definitely, the journey is worth playing through it. It just has a touch of Bioshock Syndrome; the majority of the game is awesome, but it fizzles at the end a bit. Thankfully, the majority of ME3 is awesome. The last 1/4 or so in Bioshock was pretty mediocre. It's more like 1/8th or less that is lame in ME3. I think Bioware spent more resources than they should have trying to tie up their overall story arch in a questionable manner. Their biggest strength in ME2 was their characters and interactions and choices relative to them. Think about how much that was great about ME2 was related to building up your squad and gaining their loyalty and trust. What would ME2 have been without that component? Battling the Reapers was never as compelling as the individual stories of the crew you assembled. Some aspects have been improved in ME3, which may have been necessitated by developing a multiplayer component (better mechanics, weapon customization, more balanced powers, weight system, ect.), but overall I thought ME2 was definitely the better single player experience.
True. Bioshock was good right up until the deus ex machina type ending. But the ending didn't make me hate the game. And part of the problem with Bioshock was that they were trying to do a retread of System Shock 2 with the plot, but it didn't make much sense in the world they had created. The weapons are one thing that has definitely been dramatically improved in ME3. I'm playing as a soldier and it's very noticeable. They handle a lot better, and there are noticeable differences between them. It's a big change from ME1 where the weapons were all basically the same, but might have ever so slightly better stats. There's some semi-automatic battle rifle that I picked up (I think it's called a Mattock?) and put a scope on that's probably the best weapon I've used. Can't remember what it's called, but it's dead on accurate and powerful.
Sounds like Pdraggy called it when he said the disappointing ending was a ruse to sell more DLC. Bioware says they're listening to fans and their complaints will be addressed in DLC. Money grubbing and lame. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/bioware-responds-to-mass-effect-ending-complaints-as-protest-continues-to-grow.ars
I love how with this and the release day DLC (supposedly unfinished content) is really stuff that wouldn't piss anybody off if done correctly. Just an amatuerish PR nightmare. HAHAHAHAH
I haven't played any of the Mass Effect games, but I think the controversy over the ending has an easier explanation: the entertainment industry simply isn't very good at writing endings anymore. It's all about building the atmosphere and sucking people in, not delivering a plausible or satisfying conclusion.
Exactly. Take Half-Life 2 for instance. That had a disappointing and depressing cliffhanger ending that didn't resolve anything and made it seem like Alex was killed. But I'm pretty sure Valve made it clear all along that there would be expansions to continue the story, so you never had fans in an uproar.
I have to admit I played ME2 last night for the first time in ages and I really enjoyed it, I had more fun than I'd had before. I was helping liara resolve some issues on illium.
If you plan to continue on to ME3, make sure you do all of the crew loyalty missions and fully upgrade the Normandy. If anyone dies in ME2 it screws up the plot of ME3 and whole missions may be either unavailable or completely different. Also, make sure you keep the data on how to cure the Krogan females. It's a big plot point in ME3.
I think you would like this ending. It's one of the best game endings I've come across in years. I haven't searched around the Internet yet but I really don't understand why people are complaining. What the hell did they want? A typical happy ending where the guy gets the kingdom and girl? Were they even paying attention to the rest of the story? The ending was a perfect finish to the story that was being told. It’s a little confusing but there is a second part to the ending after the credits that makes sense of it all. The Mass Effect series is done.
I know what battle you are talking about and I wondered how an Adept would even win it. It was no problem for my Vanguard because I had Charge->Halfblast->Spam power! Sadly I never even got to hear the verbal exchanges.
What was good about the ending? The way it didn't derive from any of your choices in the games? The way parts of it made absolutely no sense? Where was Normandy going for instance, and how did your squadmates magically end up back on it? Was it the jarring change in tone? The cheesiness with the magical star child? The way all three endings were the same except for the color of light emitted by the exploding relays? The ending was a fucking abomination that ruined an otherwise good game. I didn't expect a fairytale ending. I just wanted an ending that was coherent. And which second part after the credits are you talking about? The easter egg thing with shepard moving a little bit in the rubble if you get the best possible ending? Or the grandpa storytime thing? Neither of which make any sense because blowing up the mass relays would have wiped out all life in the galaxy. The games state very clearly that destoying a relay destroys that star system. Clearly whoever put together the ending wasn't even very familiar with the games. Probably someone from EA I'm guessing. Even if the Mass Relays didn't blow up and kill everyone, the fleet was left stranded at Earth, which was a scorched waste. They would have all starved to death. And entire planets would have starved to death without the relay network to bring in supplies. So either trillions explode or trillions starve to death. Great fucking ending EA. Letting everyone get killed by the reapers would have been more humane, thereby making the entire Mass Effect series a pointless waste of time.
It was very unpleasant and took me multiple tries. I would have done a re-spec with Energy Drain had I known what was waiting for me there and what a pain in the ass it would be. Not a lot of thought went into that boss battle. Seems very sloppy to give certain classes such major advantages. It might not be as bad on lower difficulties, but it was not enjoyable as an Adept on Insanity. I've never played ME3 on any other difficulty setting. BTW, in multiplayer I tried using biotics with a friend to take on Gold difficulty, and we did quite well. 70,500 credits on the first try. He's not nearly as experienced in Mass Effect games, but we used a nice Reave/Warp system I developed that tore enemies to shreds most of the time. Most people just picked the Soldier in ME games to go dudebro style and don't understand how potent biotics can be. Shields, armor, or barriers can't stand up to rapid fire biotic explosions. The Drell Adept is probably the most underestimated class in the game. It has the lowest health, so you have to be more cautious, but the offensive potential is unreal. If we had a good infiltrator and a good bullet sponge to round out our party, I think we would have cleared it.
Also, I wish I could believe that the ending was a big trolling/schadenfreude thing on the part of EA and Bioware. Essentially a big "fuck you dorks for wasting your time!" type of thing, in which case I would probably have just laughed at it. But I really think it was just a case of terrible, terrible writing and EA being greedy dirtbags and wanting Bioware to focus solely on that cash grab MMO. I think that the people at EA/Bioware legitmately don't understand why their ending was a trash bag full of aborted fetuses and diarrhea, because they never gave a fuck in the first place. The ending was so bad that I'll never play any Mass Effect games again. What's the point? I'll also never be buying anything from Bioware ever again. Clearly they don't give a fuck about quality. And I used to be a huge Mass Effect fan. Frankly, I wish I could get a fucking refund and my time back. Mass Effect 3 belongs in the dumpster next to ET for Atari, Big Rigs, and Duke Nukem Forever. I'd like to find whoever wrote that ending and kick their testicles in with a steel tipped boot.
Didn't bother that much. If I had known the choices didn't affect the ending I would have played the same way. It’s a negative but I’ve also played some great games where choices made no difference at all. It was odd though considering it was made by Bioware. To me it seemed as if the Normandy was trying to outrun the relay explosion. As for how the crew got back on board I don't know. It's not totally improbable that they got back on the Normandy somehow. That’s the best part! You have to think of the cycle of the reapers and how many civilizations they have destroyed over times. Humanity didn't go untouched. It was mostly destroyed. There would obviously be some survivors but they would be spread out across the galaxy with no way of ever reaching each other again. Despite the destruction the ending showed there was still hope. Some survivors lived on and Shepard became a legend. I’m pretty sure the Grandpa planet was the same one the Normandy landed on.
I see it as a betrayal on the part of Bioware. These games were supposed to be all about how the choices you make matter, which was I thought why they carried over between games. The godawful ending negated that. Someone who half asses their way through the games and makes terrible choices gets the same shitty ending as someone who works hard to create a perfect character. That's lame. The Mass Effect games were also not set up as some kind of Greek tragedy type of thing. They were a space opera along the lines of Star Trek. A tragic ending didn't fit. It's also worth noting as I said in another thread that large parts of the story were plagarized from the Freespace games. But those games were mostly tragic. The first game ends with billions killed and Earth cut off from the rest of the galaxy. So when Freespace 2 has a bittersweet ending, it doesn't feel out of place. Mass Effect is pretty optimistic until the massive downer of an ending. The change in tone is jarring. The motivation for the Shivan harvesting cycle also made a lot more sense than the motivation for the reaper harvesting cycle. The Shivans would eliminate more advanced civilizations so that they wouldn't prey on weaker civilizations. This meant that every civilization had a chance to thrive at some point. The motivation for the reapers made no sense. They wipe out organics so that organics don't make synthetics that will wipe them out? How does that make sense? Cerberus is also a knockoff of the Neo Terran Front, and the Illusive Man is a knockoff of Admiral Bosch, but the motivations behind the NTF and their leader are better explained and make more sense than Cerberus. Bioware plagarized, but they didn't even do a very good job of it. Freespace already did this story a decade ago and it did it much better. Of course nobody played Freespace 2, even though it was one of the best games ever made.
The temporarily available "Premium" Specter Packs in multiplayer are pretty awesome. I got upgrades for the Geth Plasma Shotgun, Carnifex, and Hornet in a single pack. The Hornet is getting pretty stable at level 5. It's really nice. Also, it seems like every powers-oriented character is carrying the Carnifex on Gold difficulty. I am carrying the Carnifex and Hornet with my Drell Adept and get around 195% cooldown.
Is my favourite gun from ME2 in ME3? The Blackstorm Singularity Projector. It's like a slightly more realistic(?) version of the BFG9000, one of the greatest guns of all game time.
I was always going for the 200% recharge rate. The Paladin was as good or better than most snipers and it's weight doesn't affect recharge much. I'd carry that and the Tempest. The Tempest is weak but it's light and good for weaker fast moving targets especially with the cryo ammo.