Soviet Heavy said:
Mass Snippage 3's final battle sucked.
While I can see your point, I personally disagree with it. One thing you bring up with regards to the Hades AA system is that it's just "push through some baddies and blow something up." With such a simplistic view, can't EVERY mission in the game be boiled down to exactly that? What do you do on Tuchanka? Push through some baddies and kill a Reaper. What do you do on Rannoch? Push through some baddies and kill a Reaper. Hell, what do you do on Virmire back in ME 1? And the Collector Base in ME 2? "Push through some baddies and blow something up".
And yeah, I think the silence and atmosphere is being used specifically to put you in a downer mood, show you how absolutely hopeless and desperate this assault truly is. Sit there and listen to the news over the radio in the FOB as it tells of how Hammer is already getting royally fucked over in almost all sectors. Which brings me to the question of "Where is everybody?" They're all spread out trying to hold the line, the entire strike-force isn't at the FOB. The way I interpreted it was that the people at the FOB were strictly Alliance soldiers and important military leaders like Wrex and Primarch Victis. The rest of your forces are spread out fighting in other sectors, which is what pretty much everyone tells you when you call them on the holo-phone. Miranda, Zaaed, Grunt, Jack, Samara, and even what's-his-face (Jacob
) are all on Earth doing their part to help the fight.
From the looks of things, though, Shepard and her squad are actually towards the back of the line when it comes to that final push. You see the cutscene of the Krogan and Turians and Humans all making the push forward, escorting Makos, chucking grenades, etc. Then it cuts to Shepard hopping over some rubble and starting your part in the fight. Hammer wasn't traveling single-file, it was a wave attack that was spread across the city, all pushing towards the beam. It would actually be quite foolish for everyone in Hammer to take the same route, that would have allowed the Reapers to focus their troops to just do a hard-block of Hammer. I mean hell, by the time you reach the missle-tanks, a pretty damn large force of asari, krogan, alliance, etc have already taken position in buildings surrounding the Reaper Destroyer and they open fire upon it from all directions, smothering it in a hail of bullets and rockets. It's an absolutely pointless gesture, but it shows that Shepard most specifically isn't alone.
Also, I think it's the 2nd Mako you come across, but if you take out the Harvester that lands in front of it, the Mako survives and actually uses it's minigun on the enemies. It doesn't do much damage, but it does help.
I agree, though, about the turret part...that's just absolutely pointless. But listen to the music while you're wandering the FOB, it really impresses heavily that for better or worse, the end is here. Personally I thought the atmosphere was great. You really can't compare Earth to Thessia or Palaven. We don't actually see how bad Palaven is (though, in "recruiting" Victis, Shepard says "You see all this destruction? Double that for Earth." And every time someone asks "Was it this bad on Earth?" Shepard always says "Worse.") and Thessia was just getting hit, so the damage wasn't horrible just yet.
