[Luis Dias]

25 hours in and this game is...actually impressing me quite a lot. the sense of scale both in terms of the physical gameplay space and the narrative is really well done.

That can't possibly be true. I mean, according to BSN the game is worse than DA2. You most be a biodrone forssurrr

[pecenipicek]

i have to agree with battman, the game is really well done so far.
Except for that snooki-like reporter on the citadel.

Spoiler:

CERBERUS MUST DIE! CERBERUS MUST DIE! CERBERUS MUST DIE! CERBERUS MUST DIE!

If you dont get it, you will. Soon enough anyhow.

[Dark RevenantX]

The metacritic reviews are amusing to peruse.

In order of frequency, here are the different review scores:
1. 10/10
2. 0/10
3. 2/10
4. 1/10
5. everything else

Some of those 0s cite the gay scenes, the endings, "THE WRITING!!!!", Origin, the day-1 DLC, etc. as reason to award a 0.  Some even admit to pirating the game and still award it a 0.  Honestly, even if the story ended up being horrible 0/10 by visual novel standards, it would still get a 5/10 for the multiplayer and gameplay alone.

[phatosealpha]

Metacritic bombing over non-game issues is nothing new, and Bioware really hasn't don't themselves any favors whatsoever in that department.

I'm holding off on judgement on the plot, but so far it is not looking good.  The core gameplay is much improved (though **** you Alliance for taking all my weapons and armor and then making me buy new ones.)  While you're shooting things at least - the side quests have plenty of issues.

Multiplayer is still fun, if now stupidly imbalanced between enemy factions.  Quarian Infiltrators are basically "I win" vs the Geth on gold, and the reaper faction is vastly more dangerous then the other two for the same rewards.

[General Battuta]

This is one of those games where you're just going to have to grin and bear the Reapers' utter failure to use their tactical capabilities. Really any time you're sharing a horizon with a Reaper you should be dead, lasered through the face by one of the hull weapons (never mind the main ship-to-ship guns). but hey whatever

[Ace]

This is one of those games where you're just going to have to grin and bear the Reapers' utter failure to use their tactical capabilities. Really any time you're sharing a horizon with a Reaper you should be dead. but hey whatever

Oddly enough

Spoiler:

EDI lampshades this by wondering why the Reapers seem to be holding back their forces during the final assault.

[TrashMan]

The metacritic reviews are amusing to peruse.

In order of frequency, here are the different review scores:
1. 10/10
2. 0/10
3. 2/10
4. 1/10
5. everything else

Some of those 0s cite the gay scenes, the endings, "THE WRITING!!!!", Origin, the day-1 DLC, etc. as reason to award a 0.  Some even admit to pirating the game and still award it a 0.  Honestly, even if the story ended up being horrible 0/10 by visual novel standards, it would still get a 5/10 for the multiplayer and gameplay alone.

Extremists are always morons. The game pisses me off to no neds, and I still wouldn't dream of giving it such a redicolously low score. At the very WORST it deserves an average score. But I'd never give it a 10/10 or 9/10. Doesnt' deserve that either.

[phatosealpha]

This is one of those games where you're just going to have to grin and bear the Reapers' utter failure to use their tactical capabilities. Really any time you're sharing a horizon with a Reaper you should be dead, lasered through the face by one of the hull weapons (never mind the main ship-to-ship guns). but hey whatever

As far as I can tell, the whole plot is an exercise in passing around the idiot ball.

[Ace]

Well, it's a far more competent effort than Dragon Age II by far.

Really I have only three complaints the first is:

Interviews said that multiplayer wasn't going to be mandatory for getting the best endings in singleplayer. However, the only way to increase galactic readiness is to play multi otherwise war assets are at half strength. The best endings require a war asset rating around 5,000 or so and the cap seems to be around 6,000 so... you can do the math.

The other two issues are SPOILERIFIC:

Spoiler:

Kai Leng. I'm probably a bit poisoned to the character because of hearing how bad the novels with him in it are. But it seems like a case where the writers and artists are trying too hard to make him some sort of badass. He would have been better if introduced in ME2 as someone shadowing you for the Illusive Man.

My main issue with him is on Thessia where it's supposed to be this massive defeat but it's really just him and a gunship and other than act of plot I would have had him. If say he planted explosives throughout the whole building and it came down on you during the fight while the gunship was doing a strike it would have seemed like less of a chump thing. They needed to establish better that yes, he had total control of the situation and you were completely screwed.

The second major issue with the plot:

Spoiler:

The damn kid! I was fine with the cheap shot emotional death. But the dream sequences just took you out of the game. Shepard turning in bed hearing their voices would have done the same thing without trying to seem "artsy" and cheap at the same time.

But the nail in the coffin was having the Catalyst look like the damn kid. I'd have been happier if, in fact, it was a conversation with Harbinger affected by the Crucible. It'd also have been nice to see them using it as a relay from darkspace, summoning the rest of the Reapers to Earth and hammering home that this really was the last chance to stop them. Having a Reaper controller AI on the citadel just seems like it introduces too many questions that they don't answer unlike vigil. It still could have been handled fine, but just about any representation other than the kid as "your collected guilt" would have been better.

This seems like Square-Enix crap.

Okay I lied, one other big issue bugging me:

Spoiler:

The Normandy crash landing thing also made no sense. Unless the Crucible is damaged and going to blow Earth up why the hell would Joker FTL? If Shepard got a comm through to him that firing it might hurt EDI I could see Joker going rogue, taking the ship out of the battle and trying to run away irrationally. A line or two of dialog after Shep's decision could have covered this. As it is, it felt like the ending of Knights of the Old Republic II.

It feels like the Normandy re-seeding humanity was supposed to be for the worst possible ending, and proper "Shepard's burial on Earth" and "Shepard's funeral on Earth and oh wait here s/he comes!" endings were supposed to be made but left out.

Honestly my main plot complaints are the Square-Enix crap

Spoiler:

Kai Leng trying to be badass

and

Spoiler:

the kid as the personification of Shepard's guilt

. Overall though it wasn't as intrusive as the nonsensical fights in Deus Ex: Human Revolution or its nonsensical end fight.

I do have a few intellectual issues with some directions the new writers took though:

Spoiler:

Basically individualistic AIs being viewed as inherently superior with the Geth being re-written to be like EDI. The most interesting thing about the Geth was how they were totally different cognitively but could still be reasoned with. The way the writers treated AI left a bad taste in my mouth, especially as a Shepard hell-bent on preserving *ALL* sapience. There should have been more of a moral dilemma around letting Legion re-write the Geth to his template based on "doesn't this go against your own ability to determine your path as an overall species that you originally planned?" Which is also why the 'renegade' ending seemed like the only proper moral option.

So, one bad design decision. One WTF? thing, but overall my complaints are more issues of some of the directions they went with some things which are utterly balanced out by:

Spoiler:

Tuchanka and Rannoch pure awesomeness

.

[Hades]

Extremists are always morons.

FDAA warning

this post contains nearly the lethal dose of irony

[achtung]

I'm abut fourteen hours in, and I'm mildly impressed. Lots were chalking it up to be ****, but I'm really enjoying gameplay, and the narrative is sucking me in a bit too.

I just wish I hadn't used the wrong save to start.

[NGTM-1R]

Interviews said that multiplayer wasn't going to be mandatory for getting the best endings in singleplayer. However, the only way to increase galactic readiness is to play multi otherwise war assets are at half strength. The best endings require a war asset rating around 5,000 or so and the cap seems to be around 6,000 so... you can do the math.

Tell me you're lying. The odds are I won't be doing multi; I'd have to get gold for my hexbox again (don't look at me like that, it's where my previous saves are) and this will suck.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'd have to get gold for my hexbox again (don't look at me like that, it's where my previous saves are).

Try to look on the internet about ways to convert XBox saves to PC. I heard it was possible.

You could still make a ME2 save from scratch with a save editor of course. Works just as well.

[pecenipicek]

hrrrrng... just finished the game. around 24 hours of gameplay. No i dont play fairly. I'm in it for the story mostly



Overall? The writing wasnt that terrible. They made me mull over some decisions for a good while at times. The gameplay was pure bliss honestly. At least compared to ME2.



things i could've done without:

Spoiler:

Dream sequences. Oh so forced!
Very lazy texturing on a lot of things, especially on any of the background scenery.
The asari husks. Oh god the noise, please make it stop, please make it stop.
also, the reaper noise when they get in system, and really, any scene where the bigass reaper was there. God that noise gave me the creeps.
Kai Leng. Ace wrote up well enough what was going on.

The good stuff? Too many to list. Honestly, despite my very low expectations, the game is glorious. Could partly be because i refused to spoil myself prior to playing much and partly because i tried not to look into the plot holes.

Also, on the subject of spacebattles...

Spoiler:

They really sucked. I honestly expected much much more. I've seen more hectic and hilariously insane space battles with freespace. this was just... *draaaaaag* *draaaag* *BANG BANG* *PEW PEW PEW* *piddly beam noise*

whoever said in the demo thread about the reapers using piddly LRed's or whichever.. honestly... i felt tons more dread when i heard a beam charge up and let loose in FSO than i've seen any "starship grade" weapon in those battles.

Also, as the old trope goes, "SCI-FI WRITERS HAVE NO SENSE OF SCALE!" is extremely well represented here.

I'm done.

[BrotherBryon]

Figures, finally got my CE in the mail today and then my glasses break tonight at work.

Looks like they polished the choppiness of the dialogue sequences up to at least a satisfactory level. That was my only major gripe with the demo, though the mouth movements still don't seem to line up correctly with the speech it is at least close enough to be tolerable. Liking it so far but I only had a short time to try it out before leaving for work.

[Ace]

The more I think about it the very end sequence could have worked almost as-is with a few minor tweaks and would have made things appear a little less Deus Ex Machina-like:

Spoiler:

Instead of starchild/Earthguilt the lift raises up and there's a scrambled VI similar to Vigil. It scans Shepard and its speech turns into English and it does take on a humanoid form (random person you've lost over the series). It reveals itself to be the VI constructed by the first Reaper species as a guardian to ensure a means to continue the cycle and tries to argue for why it must continue. The plans for the Crucible were constructed by the Reapers as a means to move organic life that was ready for the next step (fusion with synthetic). The Reapers themselves were afraid of taking that step, and each cycle serves as a test of whether species are able to take that final step. You find out that there have been some cycles that species construct the Crucible and use it to merge with synthetic life and move on. Others who fail or do not chose this become preserved as Reapers to enable new forms of organic life to flourish and contain the threat posed by belligerent forms of synthetics. Basically the Reapers began the cycle because of the dangers of organic and synthetic life potentially wiping out all other forms of life and it leading to stasis. So they impose order in the chaos that would lead to the destruction of all potential life. Basically keeps the Reaper motivation pretty much the same, but slightly less straw-man than "to save organics we must kill them!" by focusing on their whole "potential life" flawed logic.
Nearly every cycle has individuals like Shepard, the one who makes the decision to merge, ascend as a Reaper, or make a final stand to preserve stasis. The relays are kept active as long as there is hope for a Crucible and synthesis, but once that battle has ended the Reapers shut down the relay network for harvesting. However, the Citadel's VI recognizes that each cycle has altered the Crucible plans, the Protheans perfecting the weapon to destroy the Reapers forever and now Cerberus subtlety altering the plans to allow for control of the Reapers. The cycle is now unsustainable since Liara sent the probes/timecapsules everywhere with these new crucible plans that will destroy the cycle.
The Reapers are intentionally holding back at the start of a cycle to muster organics together to build the crucible and decide to merge on their own, the relay network really being designed for this type of ascension. Otherwise the full fleets are summoned from darkspace and the current species are preserved in that form. You still have the button press endings but the VI gives Shepard the chance to send one final message to his crew members and warn the fleet to FTL out.

So basically the choices become: Anderson (kill Reapers), TIM (control Reapers), or Reaper (merge peacefully with synthetics, move beyond, and allow new life to evolve)

BAM! All weird inconsistencies such as

Spoiler:

If there's a damn Reaper AI on the Citadel why bother with Sovereign! Especially since it seems like the Conduit was important for getting into the Citadel to use the AI there for the Crucible, so claiming that the  Prothean team on Ilos disabled it makes no sense.

more or less fixed and some of the existing ending oddness solved.

[LordPomposity]

Wow. I take back everything I said earlier. This is the worthiest conclusion we've had to a science fiction game trilogy since we found Bosh.

e: spelling.

[TrashMan]

Extremists are always morons.

FDAA warning

this post contains nearly the lethal dose of irony

Yeah, given that you are labeled as an Troll, I'm kinda not worreid with your skewed impressions of me.



@Ace:

Spoiler:

Normandy re-seeding humanity? Given the crew is maybe 50 people, I don't see that happening.

[pecenipicek]

Extremists are always morons.

FDAA warning

this post contains nearly the lethal dose of irony

Yeah, given that you are labeled as an Troll, I'm kinda not worreid with your skewed impressions of me.



@Ace:

Spoiler:

Normandy re-seeding humanity? Given the crew is maybe 50 people, I don't see that happening.

am i the only person who is utterly ignoring that cutscene? i had garrus and tali with me.

Spoiler:

for the end and the whole talky bit when you get vaped by harbinger heavily implies that whoever was with you on the team is gone. permadead. turned to dust. pushing up daisies. an ex-parrot. and then i see garrus stepping out of the normandy? dafuq? yeahno. i'm ignoring that cutscene totally.

I have to ask tho Trashman, have you actually played and finished the game? If you didnt, please do so. Just watching the endings/LP's on youtube does not give the game justice.

[The E]

It was never said or shown that whoever you chose to go with you on the final run was going the whole distance to the conduit. It would have been nice to have a scene where shep tells his guys that he'll do this one alone, but ultimately, not necessary.