They didn't get rid of the planet scanning mechanic? Jesus Christ.

Well, that's a weight off my mind, seems like its not a compelete wreck. Now i'm giddy excitement about playing this weekend :D

ResonanceSD:

Susan Arendt:
Mass Effect 3 Review

The ending the series - and its fans - deserve.

Read Full Article

Susan recommended it? Sure thing. When it makes it onto steam that is. None of that origin muck on my pc, thanks =D

Origin is a No-Go for me too. When EA stops trying to fuck over its customers I'll buy their products again, even I have standards.

Varewulf:
Wait, the dancing actually matters?

How else did you think they were going to fight the reapers? With silly guns? No, with the power of DANCE! :3

OT: Sounds good to me. I had the game pre-ordered, and was all set to enjoy it, but I had some fear in the back of my head that the game would bomb (hey, anything is possible!). Nice to know it is indeed going to be awesome. Confirmation bias rocks. :)

Been playing it.

My. God.

It's pretty much everything I could have hoped for. I'm having a ton of fun!

GAH... have to wait until friday for my CE..... delighted that the crap ending rumours were false though.... im looking forward to spending some serious quality time with this :)

This one guy:
Is conversation with squad mates on the Normandy Zaeed style or is it like its always been?

A mixture of both. At the start more convos are like Zaeed's, but they seem to get deeper as the game progresses. I say this having used the hong kong proxy method of activation and having played 12 and a half hours straight. Given how sidequests have bloomed like dandilions at the point I'm at, probably about a 1/3 of the way through the entire game more or less. It imports you level from ME2 with a level cap of 50.

I don't want to spoil anything about Mass Effect 3 for you, so all you really need to know is this: Yes. Yes, you should get it. Yes, it lives up to the hype. Yes, it's the ending the series deserves.

Now I don't have to read the review.
You really shouldn't put such an all encompassing summary in the first paragraph if you want lazy people to read the whole thing. It's like confirming who the murderer of a detective novel is on the first page.

You know what Susan? You convinced me. I like your reviews anyway after all and I'm curious to find out what ever happened to Conrad...and the Quarian I helped on the Citadel in ME2...and I'm also curious to see what happens if I play through ME and ME2 without getting romantically involved with anybody at all...Either way though, I'm going to wait the week and see if my local indie-shop has it used. I want to see this thing through but I'll buy the game EA wants me to have (fun fact: I've had Bulletstorm for a few weeks and have yet to activate the online pass)

Eh, I think I'll wait for a second opinion. Or, like, a bunch more. I'm not really willing to buy this (not to mention download origin) until I know it's had most of the stupid from ME2 removed. If it's the same or worse I'll just wait till it drops in price or something.

Susan Arendt:
Mass Effect 3 Review

The ending the series - and its fans - deserve.

Read Full Article

Sorry Susan, I need to point out one thing:

It isn't the end of the Mass Effect Series. Just this particular Story/Saga/Trilogy (whatever the kids call it now).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OT: Great read, minus that one mistake. I am slightly curious now to see if all those "Day One DLC" haters will bring the score down on MetaCritic.

Ending the series and its fans deserve? Now this sounds like BDSM to me.

Varewulf:
Wait, the dancing actually matters?

It apparently worked in World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, why not Mass Effect? :P

i'm actually going to need a plot analysis before i throw down my money. I'm still paranoid after that shit they pulled in ME2

Well, the review is accurate.....except for a few things.

1 - A significant amount of your choices from the previous two games have no impact on the ultimate outcome, even the seemingly important choices. Most things are relegated to one-liner acknowledgements.

2 - Your squad pool is stupidly small, and definitely limits you a lot more in composition than ME2 or even ME1.

3 - All of the game's ending's suck. Every. single. one. Not only are they terribly written, each of them causing massive plot holes/inconsistencies by their existence or implied outcomes (Hint: One of the biggest bombs in the game comes right at the end, where it makes everything that made sense before not make sense any more, ever), but exactly none of them are fulfilling and one is likely to leave people frothing with rage because it is so bad.

4 - The story assumes the player knows a lot more about ME than many will - a shit ton of players who didn't read all of the books are going to be confused as the why Anderson is no longer Councilor even though they picked him in ME1.

5 - There are several annoying glitches, including one that often causes the game to not be able to read your face gen date from ME2 characters, meaning you have to have the code written down or memorized exactly how to customize your character.

*twitch* Must...resist *twitch* don't...want...Origin *twitch* ARGHHH!!!!! *smashes table to kindling* FUCK YOU EA!!!

>.>'

Well I'm exited, but also nervous....

On one hand, I really want to play it, but on the other hand, FUCK ORIGIN.

Paragon Fury:
Well, the review is accurate.....except for a few things.

1 - A significant amount of your choices from the previous two games have no impact on the ultimate outcome, even the seemingly important choices. Most things are relegated to one-liner acknowledgements.

2 - Your squad pool is stupidly small, and definitely limits you a lot more in composition than ME2 or even ME1.

3 - All of the game's ending's suck. Every. single. one. Not only are they terribly written, each of them causing massive plot holes/inconsistencies by their existence or implied outcomes (Hint: One of the biggest bombs in the game comes right at the end, where it makes everything that made sense before not make sense any more, ever), but exactly none of them are fulfilling and one is likely to leave people frothing with rage because it is so bad.

4 - The story assumes the player knows a lot more about ME than many will - a shit ton of players who didn't read all of the books are going to be confused as the why Anderson is no longer Councilor even though they picked him in ME1.

5 - There are several annoying glitches, including one that often causes the game to not be able to read your face gen date from ME2 characters, meaning you have to have the code written down or memorized exactly how to customize your character.

I knew the DLC was referenced (which is bad enough), but the novels are too? Damn. I'm going to be going "What?" a lot.

Waiting for my copy. From what I've seen this is going to be a really fantastic trainwreck.
Whatched the first few hours and it's everything I've hoped: Cringe-worthy dialogue, corny lines, shamefull pandering to morons, pathetic efforts to cram in "emotional engagament(TM)".
I think this could be even worse than Dragon age 2.

I'm not really surprised with this review, the escapist last night was announcing how Miracle of Sound was going to be on Bioware TV. Between that and the non-stop gushing about the trailers, not surprised at all.

Capitano Segnaposto:

OT: Great read, minus that one mistake. I am slightly curious now to see if all those "Day One DLC" haters will bring the score down on MetaCritic.

Ponder and you shall be informed.
If the haters had posted these things a few days after release, I might have been concerned that there were actually genuine problems with the game, but spontaneously bursting into a legion of 0 scores on the same day of release smacks of nothing but a really terrible attempt at trolling.

If Origin delivers on genuinely good product such as ME3, (or more accurately in my experience, the ME3 demo), I have no qualms with using it.
I've had it installed on my computer for a month now, and I haven't seen any noticeable change on my computer, whether or not it be spyware, adware, the thought police, my privacy instantly ruined and distributed to a hundred billion internet companies, or whatever people are getting butthurt about.

I'm not about to avoid something on some extremist principle, if that something involves a genuinely entertaining gaming experience.

Paragon Fury:
Well, the review is accurate.....except for a few things.

1 - A significant amount of your choices from the previous two games have no impact on the ultimate outcome, even the seemingly important choices. Most things are relegated to one-liner acknowledgements.

2 - Your squad pool is stupidly small, and definitely limits you a lot more in composition than ME2 or even ME1.

3 - All of the game's ending's suck. Every. single. one. Not only are they terribly written, each of them causing massive plot holes/inconsistencies by their existence or implied outcomes (Hint: One of the biggest bombs in the game comes right at the end, where it makes everything that made sense before not make sense any more, ever), but exactly none of them are fulfilling and one is likely to leave people frothing with rage because it is so bad.

4 - The story assumes the player knows a lot more about ME than many will - a shit ton of players who didn't read all of the books are going to be confused as the why Anderson is no longer Councilor even though they picked him in ME1.

5 - There are several annoying glitches, including one that often causes the game to not be able to read your face gen date from ME2 characters, meaning you have to have the code written down or memorized exactly how to customize your character.

Good post.

But I'm not surprised to see the Escapist ignoring problems in a Bioware game. Again.

I might end up getting this one used (not giving EA my money) once the GOTY is out. I've seen a lets play from one of the Space Edition winners already. He was pretty disappointed with it.

satsugaikaze:

I'm not about to avoid something on some extremist principle, if that something involves a genuinely entertaining gaming experience.

Basic privacy rights are extremist now? Wow.

The world we live in eh?

I love my video games, but I can't believe someone would place so much importance on it.

satsugaikaze:

Ponder and you shall be informed.
If the haters had posted these things a few days after release, I might have been concerned that there were actually genuine problems with the game, but spontaneously bursting into a legion of 0 scores on the same day of release smacks of nothing but a really terrible attempt at trolling.

Um, you do realize that some people have been playing it for a few days now, right? Pirates do have opinions too... LOL