Posts Tagged ‘Mass Effect 3’
Lord, that isn't my Shepard
By Alec Meer on March 16th, 2012.
Jim’s done singleplayer, I’ve done the From Ashes DLC, and now I take on Mass Effect 3′s vaguely controversial four players vs AI-controlled enemy waves co-op multiplayer mode. I’ve been playing it what might be said to be a little too much over the last week, having taken several characters to level 20 and gotten righteously indignant that I keep unlocking pistols rather than sniper rifles. Allow me to explain.
I lay there, dying and enraged. My last surviving team-mate, a Salarian Infilitrator, stood right next to me. Actually, that’s a lie, intended to cover my indignity – he was standing right on top of me, feet stomping on my face, taking wild potshots at a Cerberus Centurion hiding behind a nearby wall. All he had to do was press one button for a couple of seconds, and I’d be back in the fight, at his side, helping him to win this war and go home with the spoils of victory. I hadn’t wired up a mic for this match, so I couldn’t scream and beg at him. Still, what was required was beyond obvious – yet he would not do it. The seconds ticked away. My blood trickled away.
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Bioware, feature, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, wot i think.
Who Spoiled The End?
By Richard Cobbett on March 14th, 2012.
Mass Effect 3 closes off Bioware’s epic sci-fi series with a bang, and one of the most controversial endings of the last few years. Many fans have been clamouring for an update that outright changes it, and not simply because the war with the Reapers didn’t end quite as they wanted. Bioware maintains that it just wanted to get people talking.
So let’s talk a little about That Ending, shall we?
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ABOUT SPOILERS.
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Bioware, endings, feature, If you ignored the spoiler warning and read on it's your own damn fault, Mass Effect 3.
In The UK We Just Call Them "Pants"
By Richard Cobbett on March 9th, 2012.
My Shepard isn’t saving the universe in Mass Effect 3. I wanted her to, but as I play through the final instalment, she’s still stuck half-way through the immeasurably dull scanning missions that would ensure Mordin and my other best people survive Operation: Certain Death. Instead, I’m playing with someone else. She looks the same – red hair, the right eyes, the same voice and the same no-nonsense approach to saving the galaxy. She’s even had many of the same experiences. But she’s not my Shepard. She’s Bioware’s – the sum of their choices.
And while I’m sure I could find a Shepard closer to my own, ready to import, from Mass Effect 2 Saves, that’s even worse. Mass Effect is inherently a sum of Bioware’s choices – a few more in character creation hardly makes much of a difference. But to just climb into someone else’s story? That feels… weird. In an era where ownership of our own characters is an increasingly rare privilege, you may as well ask to borrow another gamer’s underpants…
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does anyone else routinely take their characters clothes off in games to see if the npcs respond to it or is that just me being weird?, feature, game underwear is hideous, Mass Effect 3.
By Alec Meer on March 6th, 2012.
Jim’s already judged Bioware’s new guns’n'conversation epic, while I am a mere 10 hours into Mass Effect 3. What I have done that he hasn’t is pick up the contentious From Ashes DLC, allegedly developed after work on the main game was completed and included in the £55 Collector’s Edition, or as a £6/$10 addon to the standard edition. I forked out for the latter, and thus have an extra dude in my crew. We’ve already pondered about whether it should have been part of the core game in concept, but now it’s time to look at it what it actually includes.
I’ve avoided all ME3 storyline spoilers outside of the core concept of From Ashes – if you already own it and want to go in totally blind, I would strongly advise against reading the below. And if you are 100% spoiler-averse about ME3 in general, I would also avoid reading the below. I’ve steered clear of any discussion of plot outcomes, but I do talk about the nature of the new character – stuff you’d find out for yourself not long after meeting him, but I do understand that might be too spoilersome for some. If that’s you, you can find a very quick summation of whether I think the DLC is worth acquiring at the very bottom of the post, underneath the (perfectly safe) YouTube video.
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dlc, feature, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: From Ashes, semi-spoilers sort of, wot i think.
By Craig Pearson on March 6th, 2012.
A lot of the Mass Effect 3 reviews are focusing on the bleakness of Bioware’s story, and quite a few are shocked at the game’s darkness in regard to the choices they made. Some guy called Tom Francis over at whatever the heck PC Gamer is, has figured out exactly why it’s even darker than expected, and it’s a bit of a dodgy trick that BioWare have pulled if true. No, it’s not new-news as such, but it is worth reiterating strongly now the game’s out in some territories. I’ll go into details after the jump, as I’m aware some people view even the words Mass Effect 3 as some sort of spoiler. As long as no-one spoils the ending of Se7en in the comments: I’ve had it on pause for on my VHS for about 16 years. I keep intending to return, but it’s just so tense!
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Bioware, Electronic Arts, Mass Effect 3, not spoilers but look away if you must.
Don't Fear The Reaper
By Jim Rossignol on March 6th, 2012.
I have avoided any plot-specific spoilers in this review, and reading it will not reveal any details about how the story unfolds or concludes. Clearly if you want to avoid knowing anything at all about the game, or seeing images from it, then look away now. Otherwise…
It’s done. Commander Shepard has taken the final steps in the grand science fiction tale of the Mass Effects. Now there is only the aftermath, the discussion, the opinions, the DLC, and the inevitable retrospectives. Here’s Wot I Think.
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Bioware, Electronic Arts, feature, Mass Effect 3, review, wot i think.
Stalinist revisionism
By Alec Meer on March 5th, 2012.
Tomorrow (or Friday in blighted Blighty) is Mass Effect O’Clock, and the day when we discover whether or not the purported conclusion of Shepherd’s adventures can live up to over a year of having enough marketing to make twenty Daikatanas a success fired continually at our exhausted eyes and ears.
Which means we have scant hours/days to ensure we get the ME3 we want. I’m in a tricky situation whereby the crew I wound up with at the end of ME2 is not the crew I’d want in ME3: is endlessly replaying the climactic ME2 suicide mission until the right folk make it out alive my only hope of rewriting my destiny? Nope! Mass Effect 2 spoilers and savegame-fiddling below.
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Bioware, feature, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3.
By Jim Rossignol on March 4th, 2012.
So I am busy playing through Mass Effect 3 at the moment, with my collected thoughts on the events, happenings, and systems therein to appear on Tuesday. I’ve been doing a bit of retrospective browsing over the first two games, too, and comparing events in those to the events in the third game. This process led me to wonder this: what has been your favourite event in the games so far? And why?
As a follow up question: who is your favoured character? Garrus seems like the obvious choice for acerbic/murderous sidekick, and I generally take him on missions for the sound of his voice, but I think Thane was the highlight of Mass Effect 2. Anyway: speak your brains, show your working.
Bioware, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, RPS asks.
By Craig Pearson on February 29th, 2012.
Oof. High-street retailer GAME’s troubles are deepening, with reports that Electronic Arts will not be supplying them with games, including Mass Effect 3. Pre-orders the store has already taken for the title will only be refunded in store credit. While both EA and GAME have yet to confirm, the official Mass Effect 3 website has updated informing anyone that has pre-ordered ME3 to reorder the game from Amazon.co.uk, Play.com, Zavvi.com and ShopTo.net.
It’s not looking good.
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Electronic Arts, Game, high street, Mass Effect 3, retail.
By Alec Meer on February 27th, 2012.
No. Nooo. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo way. Destructoid writer but not X-Files creator Chris Carter (who is probably incredibly bored of that reference) has been doing a bit of maths, which immediately makes him a more capable human being than I am. The purpose of this mathleticism was to collate all the disparate bits of DLC, pre-order bonus, unlocks and whatnot available for the upcoming marketing monolith that is Mass Effect 3, and just how much it’d cost someone to lay hands on the whole shebang. Take a seat before you read the next line.
$870/£550/€650. Whaaaat.
It must, however, be pointed out that much of that horror-price stems from having to buy bonus code-sporting hardware such as special gamepads, keyboards and headsets, or Mass Effect 3 merch such as multiple action figures and iPhone cases.
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Bioware, dlc, Hardware, Mass Effect 3, or you could buy a new pc or a car or really expensive underwear.
By John Walker on February 23rd, 2012.
A cause of occasional, but rather fervent ire of recent times has been day one DLC. Why do people get pissed off? Because times were you’d buy a game, and get a game. Now, the perception is you buy a portion of the game, and are then asked to buy the rest in premium lumps over the next few months. And when one of those premium portions appears the same day as the game – well, it looks like the publishers are taking the piss. “Here’s most of our game! Now pay more to complete it.” So it is likely with these arguments in mind that BioWare are making it clear that Mass Effect’s day one DLC, From Ashes, was developed after the core game was completed. But does that change anything for the player?
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Bioware, day one DLC, dlc, Electronic Arts, Mass Effect 3.
