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LordofHats wrote:Its okay Manchu. I like Tali too. There there.

LOL I cannot say anything so do I maybe a little to much.

Been playing most of the weekend, well for what I can put in anyways. About 17hrs in (although I do a lot of checking on the chatting elements) and still loving it so far.

Its really weird as I am generally not interested in Gears of War, but love the cover/combat game you can run in Mass Effect.




Oh, I lucked out on the Multiplayer as well. Got a Turian Warrior in my free booster, was about to play when I thought I had 450 MS points at the mo sitting there doing nothing, so brought a Veteran booster and two spectre boosters. Got a Quarian Infiltrator out of the first, and then the Black Widow sniper rifle out of the second.

So Quarian Snipers ahoy.

I came to the point of seeing Tali for the first time in ME3, stopped playing, deleted my save, and re-installed ME2. I really feel like I need an imported character to enjoy this game.

Hmm, I think I'm getting close to that point, have several side missions I need to clear up first, but my next priority is for her people, so I am guessing she'll be there.

Have been loving the game, accidently spoilered myself a little bit, thanks to the weird fact Dakka doesn't hide spoilers when you pass the mouse over a thread title and it shows you a line from the first and last post.
Damn my quick reading eyes!

However I don't really mind, someone one in that thread said it best, the ending is more about the journey, and I'm loving every minute of mine so far.

Going through the walkthru in the hint book, it does mention in almost every mission "if so and so died in ME2 then you can't do this, but instead you'll talk to someone else and you can do this instead" .. it even goes all the way back to ME1, which I never even played.

So yeah, I think if you can import an old Shepard then you'll probably get the most outta ME3.

That's what I like most about the game. How I keep running into character's I've met before. Recently, I found the body of the Krogan whom I helped hook up with the Asari on Illium.

Manchu wrote:I came to the point of seeing Tali for the first time in ME3, stopped playing, deleted my save, and re-installed ME2. I really feel like I need an imported character to enjoy this game.

Why didn't you do that in the first place? You spent all that time doing all that roleplaying for a reason: so that you did what you did and not something else.


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Anung Un Rama wrote:That's what I like most about the game. How I keep running into character's I've met before. Recently, I found the body of the Krogan whom I helped hook up with the Asari on Illium.

Yes, and there a note to return his body to her. That was sad.

Also in sadness:

The hard drive of the PS3 that I used to play ME2 crashed while I was playing FF13. And I bought ME3 for PS3 so that I could get the DLC without having to go through XBL. So in order to export a character to ME3, I need to replay ME2 -- which doesn't bother me much. I like ME2 as well as any of the ME games. Again, it's all about the characters for me.


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I'm a little conflicted about trying to play a renegade Shepherd, which I guess could give me more incentive to get through ME2 again.

For example, when Garrus wants to shoot that guy who betrayed him -- that guy knows he screwed up and wants to move on with his life. Personally, I don't think that Garrus has the right to kill him just because he can't forgive him. Renegade Shepherd lets Garrus kill him. Now, even if I didn't care about the life of the guys Garrus kills, I do care about Garrus -- do I really want him to be a murderer?

I know that playing against one's natural inclinations or personal beliefs is great roleplaying challenge ... but is it any fun in this case? Guess I'll find out.

Manchu wrote:The hard drive of the PS3 that I used to play ME2 crashed while I was playing FF13. And I bought ME3 for PS3 so that I could get the DLC without having to go through XBL. So in order to export a character to ME3, I need to replay ME2 -- which doesn't bother me much. I like ME2 as well as any of the ME games. Again, it's all about the characters for me.

I won't use this opportunity to rub in the evilness that is both Sony and FFXIII....oh wait. Well, on the bright side this is another opportunity to save eveyone in the suicide mission if you didn't pull that off the first time around.

Yeah, I saved them all on my second play through. Jacob died on my first play through.

Manchu wrote:


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I'm a little conflicted about trying to play a renegade Shepherd, which I guess could give me more incentive to get through ME2 again.

For example, when Garrus wants to shoot that guy who betrayed him -- that guy knows he screwed up and wants to move on with his life. Personally, I don't think that Garrus has the right to kill him just because he can't forgive him. Renegade Shepherd lets Garrus kill him. Now, even if I didn't care about the life of the guys Garrus kills, I do care about Garrus -- do I really want him to be a murderer?

I know that playing against one's natural inclinations or personal beliefs is great roleplaying challenge ... but is it any fun in this case? Guess I'll find out.

My biggest problem with ME2 is that it doesn't encourage rolplaying if you care about saving all of your crew. Instead of just deciding what you'd do in a situation the goal is to max out either your paragon or renegade points. If you go evil then you have to go full evil.
I hope ME3 doesn't have that problem either. I've just been winging so far, rather than trying to max out my meter.

Yeah, there was no benefit to having a mix of paragon and renegade in ME2.

In ME3, there seems to be a separate reputation score.

Yep, screw it, I just played the last mission again and I can safely say that most of the last half hour of the game have been thoroughly erased and replaced with a far more satisfying conclusion in my memory.

@Manchu
Anyways, I believe I helped Garrus kill him. He deserves to die for what he did. And Garrus is just one of those guys. He's only a few steps away from being The Punisher, though I could see why you'd want to stop him from becoming The Punisher (The Punisher isn't exactly what you'd call a happy person). For me, I actually felt Garrus pushed me into his crazy revenge plot. I felt like I didn't even have the right to stop him from taking vengeance.

I always saw Garrus as Batman.

Manchu wrote:I always saw Garrus as Batman.

IIRC he was mowing down people on Omega. He's definately the Turian Frank Castle. The one I had more of a problem with was Zaeed Massani. IIRC you have let civilians fry to help him out. Something I wouldn't do normally but only did to gain his loyalty because I knew that'd save his life later. On second playthrough anyway. First playthrough was roleplaying second was more like power gaming.

Zaeed could be loyal with a high enough Paragon, even if you helped the civilians survive.

Garrus.. I saw him as my drinking buddy.

Yeah, I got Zaeed's loyalty as an ultimate boy scout.

I think you can get everyone's loyalty regardless of paragon/renegade as long as you have a high enough ratio in either direction -- which is why I said, choosing some of one and some of the other has no in-game benefit in ME2.

Aye, Lucas my second character was a mix, and there where times he had to struggle through. He did have a ending where everyone survived mind.

Even though I took Legion on Tali's loyalty mission, so Legion wasn't loyal, I think I didn't do Jacobs either.

Wrapped them up afterwards, Although I don't think Lucas ever did Arrival or the last couple of shuttle missions, might double check before I take him into ME3.

Need to finish Leiths ME3 run first of course.

As a first time player of the ME series I have to say im enjoying it immensely. I think the gameplay is good except for the furious tapping of A shouting "WHY WONT YOU TAKE COVER!!!". The weapon mods (although its a shame you can only have 2) make weapon selection a very interesting part of the game. I was disappointed you cant "mix and match" armour pieces from different armour sets.

Im enjoying the story also but i constantly feel like im "missing" something from not playing ME2. The bad things I have to say are two main things: The whole "scanning" and recovering artefacts interface was never properly explained (making it very frustrating) and not all systems are unlocked from the beginning making certain recovery missions undoable for a while. Secondly it seems like a bit of a hassle between every mission wondering round and talking to every member of my crew, couldn't there just be a helpful interface which says "X, X and X have new dialogue options"?

Between email and Traynor, you know a lot of what's up on your ship. Doesn't mean you know it all, of course. I feel you there.

I think the only issue I have with ME3 gameplay wise is that the A button does entirely too much. It's used to run, activate objects, and take/move through cover which can lead to some very frantic button mashing if you need to activate a control panel mounted to a piece of cover while being chased by bad guys (NO DAMMIT! I WANTED TO CLOSE THE DOOR, NOT JUMP THE WALL!). Granted, it doesn't come up too often. Other than that, it's probably my favorite combat system in any game so far, especially the multiplayer since they don't give you a pile of extra options you will likely never use.

For example, I played a Vanguard in ME1 and ME2, so I carried that over in ME3. I used Biotic Charge, Nova, Shockwave and Warp Ammo (from Liara) in the single player. I also had Pull, Incendiary Ammo and Cryo Ammo, none of which saw any use at all (I used pull maybe a half dozen times to rip the shield from Guardians, whenever I was too lazy to just charge them and shotgun them in the face). In multiplayer, a Vanguard only ever uses Charge and Nova, and occasionally an ammo type added for the match. So I only used one more ability in Single Player than I do in Multi-Player, and for most classes I can see this being the case. Infiltrators will pretty much use Tactical Cloak and Incinerate in addition to their Sniper Rifle, and Adepts are going to use Singularity and Warp almost exclusively.

My point is, the single player gives you TOO many abilities on demand, which necessitates the command wheel. I can get by mapping three abilities to LB, RB and Y, and I only ever use the wheel to tell my squad what to do if necessary (usually I don't have to). I think a more interesting system would be to have a larger pool of abilities, and you are allowed to take 2 into combat, selected the way you select weapons (Y would be reserved to Medi-Gel). Then allow you to select one of each of your teammates abilities and map them to left and right on the D pad so you can use them on command. It would be more tactical and get rid of the wheel.

Just a thought.

I find that everyone has something new to say after every mission. Sometimes it's just an offhand remark but still.

Anybody remember way back in ME1 there was a DLC mission that put you in the classic moral conundrum of saving innocent people or letting the terrorists escape to go on and do more evil? I choose to stop the bad guy and it was brutul. Guess I won't be seing those scientists in ME3.


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Aldarionn wrote:I think the only issue I have with ME3 gameplay wise is that the A button does entirely too much. It's used to run, activate objects, and take/move through cover which can lead to some very frantic button mashing if you need to activate a control panel mounted to a piece of cover while being chased by bad guys (NO DAMMIT! I WANTED TO CLOSE THE DOOR, NOT JUMP THE WALL!). Granted, it doesn't come up too often. Other than that, it's probably my favorite combat system in any game so far, especially the multiplayer since they don't give you a pile of extra options you will likely never use.

For example, I played a Vanguard in ME1 and ME2, so I carried that over in ME3. I used Biotic Charge, Nova, Shockwave and Warp Ammo (from Liara) in the single player. I also had Pull, Incendiary Ammo and Cryo Ammo, none of which saw any use at all (I used pull maybe a half dozen times to rip the shield from Guardians, whenever I was too lazy to just charge them and shotgun them in the face). In multiplayer, a Vanguard only ever uses Charge and Nova, and occasionally an ammo type added for the match. So I only used one more ability in Single Player than I do in Multi-Player, and for most classes I can see this being the case. Infiltrators will pretty much use Tactical Cloak and Incinerate in addition to their Sniper Rifle, and Adepts are going to use Singularity and Warp almost exclusively.

My point is, the single player gives you TOO many abilities on demand, which necessitates the command wheel. I can get by mapping three abilities to LB, RB and Y, and I only ever use the wheel to tell my squad what to do if necessary (usually I don't have to). I think a more interesting system would be to have a larger pool of abilities, and you are allowed to take 2 into combat, selected the way you select weapons (Y would be reserved to Medi-Gel). Then allow you to select one of each of your teammates abilities and map them to left and right on the D pad so you can use them on command. It would be more tactical and get rid of the wheel.

Just a thought.

Sometimes when all hell's breaking loose I just want to stick to the wall and it doesn't quite work. But that's me screwing up though. Some games "auto-stick" you to the wall but that has it's own disadvantages.

I love that squadmate powers can be mapped to the D-Pad but it is also the "go-there" button to I get a bit nervous using it in realtime because if you miss the bad guy you're basically sending your teammate to their doom. Once again that's me though and I don't have any other problems with the controls.

Manchu wrote:Yeah, there was no benefit to having a mix of paragon and renegade in ME2.

In ME3, there seems to be a separate reputation score.

I think reputation boosts both Paragon and Renegade by however much it says (if you have any Paragon/Renegade points) whereas if you get "+5 Renegade" it obviously only boosts the renegade amount.

Zaeed could be loyal with a high enough Paragon, even if you helped the civilians survive.

Yeah, I got Zaeed's loyalty as an ultimate boy scout.

I let Zaeed burn. My Shepard had a change of heart about what is acceptable civilian casualties after seeing the Collector base. It's a point of view which carried on into ME3. ME1 and 2 was pretty much max renegade (except for Mordin's loyalty mission in ME2 and choosing to destroy the collector base) then in ME3 I ended up with full paragon and half renegade.

The gameplay is easily the best out of the entire series, in my opinion. The fights are less obviously designed, with more options for flanking and more aggressive enemies which makes for some much more challenging fights.

The weapon customisation is the best out of all the games, too. In Mass Effect there was loads of weapons which all worked in the exact same way (e.g all assault rifles are full auto) but with lots of mods. In Mass Effect 2 there was pretty much no weapon customisation but a more varied arsenal in terms of the actual function of the weapons. Now in Mass Effect 3 we can pick whatever type of weapons we want to use, regardless of our class with the weapons having the variety of ME2 with the customisation of ME1.

The story is really bleak, which makes the little bits of light in it that much more bright and emotional, whether it's seeing an old friend or bringing hope back to an entire species.

I would have liked some more proper conversations with Garrus (my Shepards love interest) but the ones you do have are so well done that I can forgive that (the final one before the very end of the game had me crying, damn you Bioware! You're taking away my internet man points!)

yeah apparently this happened. one of the main producers said this on twitter.
https://twitter.com/#!/GambleMike/status/177942797880541185

About the ending of the game.

Ah: they have essentially "fixed" the paragon/renegade system in ME3. http://blog.bioware.com/2012/03/01/reputation-in-mass-effect-3/
It's all about your rep. It's safe to roleplay in your rpg again.

Manchu wrote:Jacob died on my first play through.

Jacob died when the character was conceived.

Noooo!

And

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
And

Spoiler:

Yeoman Chambers!

What happened to her?

Nooo!




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dogma wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
And

Spoiler:

Yeoman Chambers!

What happened to her?

Spoiler:

She died in my ME2 save.

No one on your crew needs to die in ME2 including the non-squadmates.