So, now that the Mass Effect 3 Demo is out...

[AD-Stu]

I believe Bioware has stated that the Illusive man is NOT indoctrinated. That said I believe his minions just might be. (his own mind-controlled slave army, oh how quaint...) So why would he fight you then? Well maybe because he doesn't see fighting the Reapers as a viable choice, that humanity must take a new form as a Reaper and Shepard is in the way of that? Or maybe the same reason as Saren before he completely lost it, that only by working with them can he make himself useful enough to spare. I remember that doctor Breen in Half-life helped the combine by making humans seem useful instead of letting humanity be destroyed... *shrugs*

There's also the events of the Invasion comic to consider - I haven't had a chance to read it all yet, but based on the overviews...

Spoiler

...Cerberus took over control of Omega from Aria at some point between ME2 and ME3, and has been using it as a base of operations to diddle around with Reaper technology beyond the Omega 4 relay. And we all know how well diddling around with Reaper technology normally works out.

Plus whether or not he's indoctrinated, he's definitely been in contact with a Reaper artifact similar to the one Shepard encountered in Arrival.

Anywho, I'm still confident it'll all be explained in-game.

 

[UsefulPlayer 1]

I freaking loved ME2.

ME3 left me incredibly disappointed. Besides some of the nice backdrops and cinematics, the game looks like shit. I don't have the greatest tv but there's definitely something seriously wrong with the coloring. The human characters are hard to look at and all of the characters move and speak in a clunky manner. The combat seems to be exactly like ME2 besides a small tweek to leveling system and the blade. I'm pretty sure COD games have had more improvements with each game. Shepard's movements were awkward at every instant, from the sprint, walking, taking cover....everything was clunky. And the gun, why does it not move! ME2 wasn't perfect in this regard but atleast it was a massive improvement over ME. ME3 seems like ME2, except with a weirder sprint and retarded looking rolls.

Multiplayer....wow......I was actually looking forward to that.

:'(

 

[Frozengale]

Also Cerberus.... wtf... why are they trying to stop the saving of the Universe. I'm sorry Bioware you won't be able to explain that one away very well I'm sure.

In the books, the Illusive Man has been toying with Reaper tech for a while, installing it into living subjects so they can be manipulated by the Reapers and then be observed so that Cerberus can "counteract" it. It's possible the Reapers are indoctrinating the Illusive Man and members of Cerberus subtley purely from them having this technology.

It's not too impossible to pull off. Also, everyone asks about the Illusive Man's eyes. Just what is he?

Maybe Cerberus are using Reaper tech to "improve" themselves and therefore making themselves a back door for the Reapers to possess them. They are obsessed with improving humanity afterall...

Okay that's okay. But I still think an Earth Centric plot is stupid. I don't give a crap about Earth. I liked how in the first one I couldn't even go to Earth, only to the Moon. Screw Earth! Also I'm still not buying the fact that in the weeks it will take them to gather an alliance to defend against the Reapers that Earth will still be there. Also the opening sequence is horrible and makes me laugh... not in a good way like the opening sequence of Kingdom of Amalur did.

 

[spartandude]

I
4. FemShep. I get it, you want her "hotter" so you can use her to market the game, but at least give me the OPTION to play her with the look she's had for two games prior.

yh it seems like they really improved the male creator (its now possible to make someone handsome). but the female... i used to be able to make some pretty attractive characters now when i tried it i could only make shit


also whats up with the reaper invasion? it seems like they just land with no fuss, no resistance fromt the humans or anything. yet they seem totally nerfed. remember the utter destruction only one of them unleashed in ME1? now they can bearly destroy a building

ps, to all those saying we cant judge it because its a demo, if we had said it was the best experience of all time you wouldnt be telling us its just a demo

Well, It is easier to destroy a ship in space than a building on earth, a single piece of space debris the size of a size can cause catastrophic damage in space.

these are warships how should be able to withstand nuclear warheads. they are built for combat, while i imagine building are probably sturdier in the future, id still wager that warships are more durable

Well, The structural improvements that can be made into a warship would certainly be passed on to a base of military operations, wouldnt it?

If you have the tech to make a warship that can shrug off atomic warheads, why wouldnt you build a base that can do the same if its the nerve center for your military operations?

i would imagine it would be expensive and difficult to make an entire city as durable as there ships, and considering that the reapers could just breeze through the fleet with no trouble it seems the cities would be too much trouble

tbh it almost seems as though the reapers are camera shy. when off camera they take out the moon and a giant ass fleet with no trouble at all, but when we see them they suddenly dont do that much

 

[Steampunk Viking]

Also Cerberus.... wtf... why are they trying to stop the saving of the Universe. I'm sorry Bioware you won't be able to explain that one away very well I'm sure.

In the books, the Illusive Man has been toying with Reaper tech for a while, installing it into living subjects so they can be manipulated by the Reapers and then be observed so that Cerberus can "counteract" it. It's possible the Reapers are indoctrinating the Illusive Man and members of Cerberus subtley purely from them having this technology.

It's not too impossible to pull off. Also, everyone asks about the Illusive Man's eyes. Just what is he?

Maybe Cerberus are using Reaper tech to "improve" themselves and therefore making themselves a back door for the Reapers to possess them. They are obsessed with improving humanity afterall...

Okay that's okay. But I still think an Earth Centric plot is stupid. I don't give a crap about Earth. I liked how in the first one I couldn't even go to Earth, only to the Moon. Screw Earth! Also I'm still not buying the fact that in the weeks it will take them to gather an alliance to defend against the Reapers that Earth will still be there. Also the opening sequence is horrible and makes me laugh... not in a good way like the opening sequence of Kingdom of Amalur did.

I wouldn't say it's an Earth centric plot exactly - the Reapers have come to Earth because it's very obvious that they're interested in humanity for some reason and it's the heart of the species, it'd make sense for them to go straight for Earth. All the homeworlds are visited (well, of the main species anyways).

I do get your point about how long it'll take to take Earth for the Reapers, however they have also said since ME1 that the process of the Reapers harvesting the galaxy can take decades and isn't a quick process, which implies the Reapers, although powerful, aren't so powerful they can just rip apart planets like nothing.

Let's not forget they "harvest" technology, there is probably precision and scavaging involved meaning the Reapers won't just mindlessly destroy everything.

That's my take on it anyways.

 

[TheProffesor]

Judging from the demo, I think Mass Effect 3 will be good. The gameplay is very fluid compared to Mass Effect 2, and I think the opening really sets the tone of the game.

It's pointless to compare the opening to Mass Effect 2's because nothing can really match up to it. The protaganist died. Nothing beats that shock value.

The new skill trees are a nice edition to the leveling system. I can say that major role players are going to scream "NOT AN RPG!" at this game for the gameplay. It's very actiony, but I like that.

The gameplay feels more mobile than Mass Effect 2's. I don't feel like I'm pinned down behind cover for the entire fight. There are other options. Heavy Melees are mostly icing on the cake, but they are effective against armor.

All in all, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

 

[boag]

I
4. FemShep. I get it, you want her "hotter" so you can use her to market the game, but at least give me the OPTION to play her with the look she's had for two games prior.

yh it seems like they really improved the male creator (its now possible to make someone handsome). but the female... i used to be able to make some pretty attractive characters now when i tried it i could only make shit


also whats up with the reaper invasion? it seems like they just land with no fuss, no resistance fromt the humans or anything. yet they seem totally nerfed. remember the utter destruction only one of them unleashed in ME1? now they can bearly destroy a building

ps, to all those saying we cant judge it because its a demo, if we had said it was the best experience of all time you wouldnt be telling us its just a demo

Well, It is easier to destroy a ship in space than a building on earth, a single piece of space debris the size of a size can cause catastrophic damage in space.

these are warships how should be able to withstand nuclear warheads. they are built for combat, while i imagine building are probably sturdier in the future, id still wager that warships are more durable

Well, The structural improvements that can be made into a warship would certainly be passed on to a base of military operations, wouldnt it?

If you have the tech to make a warship that can shrug off atomic warheads, why wouldnt you build a base that can do the same if its the nerve center for your military operations?

i would imagine it would be expensive and difficult to make an entire city as durable as there ships, and considering that the reapers could just breeze through the fleet with no trouble it seems the cities would be too much trouble

tbh it almost seems as though the reapers are camera shy. when off camera they take out the moon and a giant ass fleet with no trouble at all, but when we see them they suddenly dont do that much

Well, there was a Flutter Dragon mod for Skyrim, so I guess there could be a Flutter Reaper mod for ME3

 

[Zydrate]

The Fem Shep hairstyles are crap.

My 'main' Shep has a ponytail anyway. Looks fine.

 

[spartandude]

is it me or does the default female shepard look a little like Cillian Murphy?

 

[Nfritzappa]

Why is everyone acting like the "no trial" is a new thing?

We've known its been cut for months now.

 

[Zhukov]

Why is everyone acting like the "no trial" is a new thing?

We've known its been cut for months now.

Who exactly is "we"?

Because it's abundantly clear that many of us didn't know a damn thing.

 

[Zydrate]

Use some more buttons, you have a whole bloody keyboard.

I don't. I play games on the Xbox.

Still, it was pretty annoying even for us.

 

[tendaji]

Why is everyone acting like the "no trial" is a new thing?

We've known its been cut for months now.

This, as well as how do you think destroying an entire system that has batarian colonies (which are already angry at humanity) is going to end? I mean come on, it's not like Shepard would be praised for his actions, he's going to get reprimanded and the only reason he isn't discharged is because of his knowledge of the Reapers. Sure it would be a nice little sequence of talking (and there would be a chance that Shepard wouldn't even get the option of making a defense with charges like this) but it's really unnecessary...

 

[TheCommanders]

I've heard (and confirmation or otherwise on this would be good) that some of the texture on the consoles looked off because they had to be reduced to fit the demo size limit. I realize it's a short demo compared to the size of the game, but compared to the between 5 and 20 minute demos of most game, it's bloody enormous. Anybody know if this is true?

It makes perfect sense. The lower res textures would be a hell of a lot smaller in size than the high res ones. Usually games use both, the low res when you are far away from an object and the high res once you get close up. Perhaps Bioware just dropped the high res textures as a sure fire way to keep the size down. Although they've obviously kept some in. You may notice that Ashley looks a hell of a lot better than Anderson.

I hope this also has something to do with the sub-par lip synching.

I'm pretty sure it does, because gameplay trailers all looked fine in that regard. We'll find out either way in 3 weeks. (TOO LOOOONG)

 

[Gitty101]

The only thing that bugs me about it is Anderson's weird sprinting animation XD. Guy sure is spry for someone in their late 60s.

It seems to be a perfect blend of ME1 and ME2. Can't wait.

 

[nightwolf667]

Who is James Vega, and why is he chummy with Shepard when we've never met him before?

Book. "Mass Effect: Conviction"

I have some serious issues with that and have had with Bioware about this including plot relevant information into the tie-ins since Dragon Age Origins: Awakenings. Well, since Mass Effect 2 really when they started including plot crucial dialogue and background into outside source material (novels, comics, and other poorly written tie-ins/cash ins) instead of the game itself. After all, the introduction of the Illusive Man was not in Mass Effect 2, nor was it in Mass Effect, but in one of the Mass Effect novels. The entire issue between Cerberus and the Quarians, Shepherd being revived by Cerberus, even the complete shift of the organization from faceless mooks to Martin Sheen, etc was reliant on the player buying a $6.99/$7.99 novel plus a comic book on top of it and if you didn't, well too bad. Of course, after or before buying the $49.99/$59.99 game.

This is a bad practice.

It hurts the integrity of the story itself, not to mention feels shallow and cheap way of trying to get more money by telling players that they need to pay more after everything they've already spent just to understand the plot of the game they're playing. It also makes the story worse and full of holes, worse it cheapens the character of Vega and handicaps him right out of the gate. To those who didn't read the book he feels out of place (as he did for me) and strange for Shepherd to accept him so quickly when we, the audience, have never seen him before. Worse, because they feel he's already been explained, they may never explain it in the game proper! Like that comment in the beginning of Mass Effect 2 about Cerberus, the Quarians, and blowing up the flotilla. Never gets explained because they'll assumed then that the people who bought the game that they were such fans that they'd buy the books. For the record, I've tried to read them but anything penned by Drew Karpyshyn is terrible without the assisstance of voice actors and cinematics.

I think the number of people who are rejecting James Vega outright on the basis of not knowing who he is or why he knows Shepherd speaks for itself on that subject though. Unfortunately unless you are a die hard fan (and that's a bad definition of a fan, saying it's in such and such book is not enough of an answer.

 

[CaptOfSerenity]

I really enjoyed the demo. More tactical than ME2, more intense than ME1, it was perhaps the perfect fusion between the two games. I was really pleasantly surprised.

It also left a really deep emotional impact on me I dunno I wanted to cry at one point in the game.

Spoiler

When the ship carrying the boy blew up, and Shepherd left Earth, I dunno it felt so profound, I haven't been that affected by a game since The Witcher 2

Oh come on, that's an emotional moment for you? The calculated, manipulative "heart-tugger?"

OP: I was not happy. Shepherd talks a lot, but I don't press many buttons to make him talk. He kind of just did his own thing. Not what I play Mass Effect for. And it really seems like my fears have been confirmed: that the scope has been reduced to just "Earth," with everything else as peripheral action advancing that one small plot.