It seems the board can't go a day without half a dozen threads about Mass Effect 3 springing up like toadstools, most of which are about the much hated ending. Personally, while I'm of the opinion that the ending sucks, I kind of feel that criticisms of the ending are overshadowing the flaws in the rest of the game. Don't get me wrong, I thought ME3 was pretty darned great up until those last few stomach churning moments, but there were still a few things that had me raising my eyebrows.
So this is a thread anyone who wants to express and discuss criticisms of the other parts of Mass Effect 3, hopefully without getting derailed into yet another "the ending sucks" thread.
So, to start us off with a handful of my own gripes (Spoilers Ahoy!):
That bloody kid. Look Bioware, if you want to tug at my heart strings, you're gonna have to do better than that. Hell, I know you can do better than that. Ashley, Kaiden, Wrex, Mordin, Thane, Legion, Tali, Anderson and so on. When/if these characters bite the dust it's absolutely gutwrenching. Why? Because we've gotten to know them. We've come to like and care about them. The kid? Didn't even have a name. If you want me to care about someone, you've got to give me a reason to. Just being a child doesn't cut it. It's subtle as a brick in a sock and lazy to boot, and I won't even get into those goofy dream sequences.
Diana Allers. Okay, I admit that the character wasn't awful, but neither was she particularly interesting. There wasn't anything special about her, and the series already had two female journalists in Khalisah al-Jilani and Emily Wong, both of whom are more interesting than Miss Allers. Considering that the player can choose between Dr Chakwas or Dr Michelle to take on board the ship, I can't see why Bioware couldn't have done the same thing with al-Jilani and Wong. That Emily Wong doesn't even get mentioned in the game at all as far as I could tell, I can't escape the cynical feeling that the only reason she got that big Twitter send off was because the writers completely forgot about her until it was too late. Add in the inevitable concerns about conflicts of interest and stunt casting born from Allers's voice actor and how her face comes straight out of the uncanny valley and my darkest nightmares, and yeah, I just can't see the point of the character. Imagine if in the last Harry Potter book Neville got sidelined and a new character who acts like Neville, talks like Neville, and fills the same role as Neville suddenly appeared. Wouldn't that be weird?
Heat Sinks/Ammo. Was I the only one wincing every time the little "Out of Ammo" indicator flashed up on screen, and when Anderson said that he was out of ammo during the tutorial/Earth sequence? For me at least, it's a pretty hefty immersion breaker when a game (or a film or novel for that matter) set in an invented world can't keep the details and terminology straight. I also find it hard to believe that no one picked up on this during play testing and script revisions.
Kai Leng. Maybe he's more interesting if you've read the books, but I found the guy completely unintimidating. In the game he just feels like a bland, evil Adam Jensen knock off, who never shuts up about how badass he is, but never actually follows through. Whenever I fought him, he never so much as touched me, even playing on the second-highest difficulty. The only times he comes close to being a threat is in cutscenes, and even then he rarely feels dangerous. On the citadel he got beat up by Thane and then got spooked by a badly wounded Captain Bailey and some random C-Sec officer. On Thessia he "wins" through nothing more than luck. Hell, in my playthrough at least, he couldn't even take down Miranda when she was alone in a Reaper infested base. He hardly comes across as the unstoppable badass he's clearly intended to be.
Udina's hair. Now this is obviously extremely nitpicky, but it was constantly distracting me whenever the guy was on screen. Why is his hair suddenly black, when in the other games his hair was consistently iron grey? Was there even an explanation for this? Has he dyed it? Is he wearing a wig? Maybe it's the first sign that he's turning to the dark side, like an evil goatee but more subtle. Again, it's a really minor issue and yet it's still bugging me. Damn, I've just realised that aside from the endings themselves, this is the thing that bugs me most about the game.
So! Discuss and share your own gripes I guess. Minor or major, nitpicks or deal breakers, go wild!
Oh, and because I just know there'll be some clever clogs acting all agrieved and groaning about Mass Effect 3 threads, let me put it like this: if everyone who claimed they were sick of Mass Effect 3 threads stopped posting in Mass Effect 3 threads, I guarantee there would be a lot less of them around. If no one's interested in this thread, then it'll die a rapid death.
So this is a thread anyone who wants to express and discuss criticisms of the other parts of Mass Effect 3, hopefully without getting derailed into yet another "the ending sucks" thread.
So, to start us off with a handful of my own gripes (Spoilers Ahoy!):
That bloody kid. Look Bioware, if you want to tug at my heart strings, you're gonna have to do better than that. Hell, I know you can do better than that. Ashley, Kaiden, Wrex, Mordin, Thane, Legion, Tali, Anderson and so on. When/if these characters bite the dust it's absolutely gutwrenching. Why? Because we've gotten to know them. We've come to like and care about them. The kid? Didn't even have a name. If you want me to care about someone, you've got to give me a reason to. Just being a child doesn't cut it. It's subtle as a brick in a sock and lazy to boot, and I won't even get into those goofy dream sequences.
Diana Allers. Okay, I admit that the character wasn't awful, but neither was she particularly interesting. There wasn't anything special about her, and the series already had two female journalists in Khalisah al-Jilani and Emily Wong, both of whom are more interesting than Miss Allers. Considering that the player can choose between Dr Chakwas or Dr Michelle to take on board the ship, I can't see why Bioware couldn't have done the same thing with al-Jilani and Wong. That Emily Wong doesn't even get mentioned in the game at all as far as I could tell, I can't escape the cynical feeling that the only reason she got that big Twitter send off was because the writers completely forgot about her until it was too late. Add in the inevitable concerns about conflicts of interest and stunt casting born from Allers's voice actor and how her face comes straight out of the uncanny valley and my darkest nightmares, and yeah, I just can't see the point of the character. Imagine if in the last Harry Potter book Neville got sidelined and a new character who acts like Neville, talks like Neville, and fills the same role as Neville suddenly appeared. Wouldn't that be weird?
Heat Sinks/Ammo. Was I the only one wincing every time the little "Out of Ammo" indicator flashed up on screen, and when Anderson said that he was out of ammo during the tutorial/Earth sequence? For me at least, it's a pretty hefty immersion breaker when a game (or a film or novel for that matter) set in an invented world can't keep the details and terminology straight. I also find it hard to believe that no one picked up on this during play testing and script revisions.
Kai Leng. Maybe he's more interesting if you've read the books, but I found the guy completely unintimidating. In the game he just feels like a bland, evil Adam Jensen knock off, who never shuts up about how badass he is, but never actually follows through. Whenever I fought him, he never so much as touched me, even playing on the second-highest difficulty. The only times he comes close to being a threat is in cutscenes, and even then he rarely feels dangerous. On the citadel he got beat up by Thane and then got spooked by a badly wounded Captain Bailey and some random C-Sec officer. On Thessia he "wins" through nothing more than luck. Hell, in my playthrough at least, he couldn't even take down Miranda when she was alone in a Reaper infested base. He hardly comes across as the unstoppable badass he's clearly intended to be.
Udina's hair. Now this is obviously extremely nitpicky, but it was constantly distracting me whenever the guy was on screen. Why is his hair suddenly black, when in the other games his hair was consistently iron grey? Was there even an explanation for this? Has he dyed it? Is he wearing a wig? Maybe it's the first sign that he's turning to the dark side, like an evil goatee but more subtle. Again, it's a really minor issue and yet it's still bugging me. Damn, I've just realised that aside from the endings themselves, this is the thing that bugs me most about the game.
So! Discuss and share your own gripes I guess. Minor or major, nitpicks or deal breakers, go wild!
Oh, and because I just know there'll be some clever clogs acting all agrieved and groaning about Mass Effect 3 threads, let me put it like this: if everyone who claimed they were sick of Mass Effect 3 threads stopped posting in Mass Effect 3 threads, I guarantee there would be a lot less of them around. If no one's interested in this thread, then it'll die a rapid death.
