Damn, looks awesome, but then, I was pretty much expecting that. What I find interesting is that this seems to be set canonically after the end of Mass Effect 2, rather that during the main plot. I still need to run the original Mass Effect and then Mass Effect 2 one more time (at least), so this'll have to wait until I'm finished with that. But I'm optimistic, mostly because of how kickass Lair of the Shadow Broker was.
Boooring. Boring, boring, boring. THE REAPERS HAVE FOUND THE MAGUFFIN! ALL HANDS ON DECK, WE ARE BEING RAMMED BY THE MOST PREDICTABLE AND OBVIOUS PLOT TWIST IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING!
You know all those things you've done to keep the reapers from getting into our galaxy? Like, the entire reason for the other 2 games?
Well, it is a fucking trilogy so there needs to be some sort of crescendo to cap it all off, and Shepard retiring his life of gallivanting about with a colorful cast of supporting characters and kicking the Reapers in the shins probably wouldn't quite cut it.
That said, I'm impressed how BioWare managed to make a DLC promising the face-to-face introduction of the almighty civilization-rending robot overlords of the universe, and they still have us shooting alien mooks for 2 hours.
So after making a big moral stand with the fucking Collector station, suddenly my Shepard goes with an ends justifies the means. Bull fucking shit.
I am allowed to have Shepard die in the suicide mission, but I can't save the Batarians? Clearly they don't mind having possible outcomes that are incompatible with the canon story.
Even if the DLC had ended (with the other choice) with "Reaper's come, you lose, everyone dies, Game Over," I would have preferred that to completely invalidating the Shepard I was unlucky enough to pick for the mission.
Yes, I have other characters, and I don't have to play the DLC with them. Mass Effect 3 is not ruined for me. But this character that I took through Mass Effect and imported is unplayable.
I thought I was the only person who felt this way. Why, oh why, should my Colonist Shepard care about Earth? Earth is just one more planet among many with lots of humans living on it! Humanity just happens to be the species I belong to, nothing special! I want to save the galaxy and all of its sentient life!
Oh, except the Batarians. Those things can get Reaped. Like I care about those frogthings.
I thought I was the only person who felt this way. Why, oh why, should my Colonist Shepard care about Earth? Earth is just one more planet among many with lots of humans living on it! Humanity just happens to be the species I belong to, nothing special! I want to save the galaxy and all of its sentient life!
Oh, except the Batarians. Those things can get Reaped. Like I care about those frogthings.
My Shep, well my cannon anyways, is Earthborn and would probably be pissed just because it's the human home-world.
Though I believe that flaming earth in the ME3 trailer was just for shock value. The reapers will probably go after the most obvious threats first such as humans, turians, asari and salarians. So it's probably not just Earth that gets attacked.
I agree that I hope ME3's plot doesn't center around Earth. It just seems to cliché to me. I can understand the logic of using said plot device to drive the story though. Like you can only save Earth OR another planet/station/ect... not both.
Well, seeing the ME3 trailer and knowing that the Reapers have invaded Earth, I think it's pretty obvious what the outcome of this final ME2 DLC is, without even playing it.
And it's titled "Arrival" - how much more of a giveaway can it be?
I uninstalled ME2 long ago, and I can't be bothered reinstalling it for one DLC. So I'll skip this one.
Well, seeing the ME3 trailer and knowing that the Reapers have invaded Earth, I think it's pretty obvious what the outcome of this final ME2 DLC is, without even playing it.
And it's titled "Arrival" - how much more of a giveaway can it be?
I uninstalled ME2 long ago, and I can't be bothered reinstalling it for one DLC. So I'll skip this one.
Well considering the VGA 2010 trailer showed the Reapers razing London to the ground, I'd say that's where the game will end-up focusing it's attention.
I never argued that it doesn't make sense, though i would if i was in the mood to get into a lengthy discussion. Judging by the state we're in right now and the nigh-invincibility of the reapers as seen in ME1, all we've done with the first 2 games was delay the inevitable. Of course, Shepard's gonna find the special maguffin grenade that one-shots all the reapers when it's used and everything will be fine, but that doesn't make the first 2 games any more redundant.
But my main argument was that the plot twist is utterly uninteresting. "The Reapers just walked the distance" is utterly anticlimactic and not worthy of a game that wants to be deep and rich in story.
Yeah I see your point. It's a little too "easy" a twist.
I think the idea behind it (if there is one, it's probably just lazy design) is intriguing though. It kind of emphasizes the danger that we have to use every slightest advantage we get to stop the invasion. It doesn't just focus on the one and only solution, but shows the efforts to stall the invasion in order to make time to find one. I got that feeling at the end of the first game already, when in the end it was still all yeah we killed Saren but the Reapers are coming anyway.
That is not to say, however, that ME2 as a whole was not pretty pointless plot-wise. If the Reapers could've just started going the distance quietly instead of telling us with fanfares and Collectors that they're still there, the whole thing would've been much more surprising.
I can totally see why you'd find that premise uninteresting or even boring, but in my twisted mind the anticlimactic nature of it kind of works, because I was already thinking the Reapers could just take some time and get their asses over here. So now they do, and we're trying to hinder their progress until we find the inevitable Deus Ex Machina/McGuffin device you mentioned.
I dunno I guess I just think it's nice that they actually make the Reapers out as this unstoppable force that will inevitably destroy us no matter what. Only they won't of course. But they still tell it that way. You get the idea.
After playing this, this is my educated guess for the plot of Mass Effect 3. Reapers delayed=War with Batarians. Soon after/during said war, reapers come, attack earth. You have to swing by the citadel wrangle up council fleet. Save earth. Reapers move to citadel. Ultimate final battle with councils anti reaper weapon/strike force, which you lead. You fuck up the reapers Shepard style. Council kisses your/humanity's ass. Then you have repeated intercourse with many alien wimminz, Shepard style.
So if you dont want to fork over more money you get to miss quite an important bit of of the plot, also did anyone else think it was some sort of saw knock DLC off a the begining of the film
Great tactics Bioware! Make a game with a pretty pointless story and then sell the actually for the overarching plot important events as DLC. That's how you make the money!
I've never understood these kinds of people. If you don't want to play the game don't play it. I for one find Call of Duty games to be the largest stains on the history of gaming since Leisure Suit Larry, and that anyone who honestly dares to consider their storylines to be anything beyond "cliched" and their gameplay beyond "luck-based an unbalanced" to be of a mindset not trustworthy in modern society. Do I go on every thread about them so I can mock and insult the games at every opportunity? Fuck no! That is what we call "having your head up your ass."
I'll buy and try this for myself this weekend. Avoiding the spoilers shall be a *****.
Also, if the ending of this DLC ends up pointlessly murdering crew members, somebody let me know now.
Hint: I did play it. I wouldn't complain if I hadn't. If I hadn't played the game I wouldn't care at all.
I'm not mocking anything, I'm not insulting anyone. What I'm doing is pointing out something I dislike in a game. I was not aware that only positive opinions where allowed.
played it... thought it was okay. the solo aspect of the mission didn't feel natural to me after assembling this awesome team throughout the rest of the game. oh well, story was decent, if not wonderful.
Why do you make me wear the fanboy pants mummy? I don't want to wear the fanboy pants!
*le sigh*
I made the mistake of scrolling over /v/ before downloading Arrival, and it terrified the hell out of me. I honestly thought Bioware had completely jumped the shark. However, being the lore-addict I am, I still downloaded and played it, and to be honest, I think a lot of the criticism lore-wise is completely unfounded.
Spoilers for all games incoming.
Firstly, the Alpha Relay is not the macguffin everyone seems to think it is. The citadel is not primarily a means of travel from dark space, though it does serve that purpose. Any relay can serve to transport the Reaper fleet around the galaxy. It is, however, the hub of the network, having the power to activate and deactivate the other relays at will, thus killing rapid interstellar travel. That instawin card got taken off the table with the death of their vanguard Sovereign.
Invasion plan A averted. (ME1)
The collectors were seemingly rigging up a secondary vanguard with the terminator baby, which you rudely abort by killing it in the face and blowing up/irradiating the station. Assumedly Shepard's body was to be Saren mk II, hence the Collectors' interest.
Invasion plan B averted.(ME2)
So with the fleet forced now to attack by main force, the only special things about the Alpha Relay is that it is 1) right on the galactic rim, and 2) connects directly to all the other relays, thus enabling the reapers to hit critical points quickly. Why was this developed? Fuck, the keepers are biologicals, maybe they were worried about a stray gamma burst killing them all or something, maybe sovereign was the red-headed stepchild of the Reaper family, maybe they're paranoid, who knows? In any case, Blowing up the alpha relay on the outer rim denys them this quick attack option.
Invasion plan C averted.(Arrival)
So now we come to invasion plan D. Drop straight in and flotilla the fuck out of everything from one galactic rim to the other. "Hurr, but how did the reapers get out of deep space?" some people who have been blissfuly not paying attention may bleat. "Simple, like your mum." I answer. Mass effect already has a macguffin which gives the middle finger to Einstein's bullshit cramping our alien-shagging style, whilst simultaneously making Sir Isaac Newton the deadliest son of a ***** in space. Element Zero.
In case you came in late, eezo lowers the relative mass within a field when a negative current is applied, and vice versa. The stronger the current, the bigger the shift, and the more eezo, the bigger the field. The lower the mass, the faster the object has the potential to go, relativistically speaking. This is how we travel between planets in hours, and between stars in days. The relays are just there to provide instantaneous travel between 'clusters', given enough fuel, supplies, and time, any ship capable of FTL travel could cross the galaxy under its own power.
"But the protheans said it would take them centuries to do it under their own power." they will add. To which I reply "Fuck the Protheans in their insectile eye-sockets." Have we ever been provided an upper limit as to the speed capable of an eezo-enabled drive? Human ships run on deutrium(H3) fuel cells. Who's to say the Reapers aren't running matter/antimatter anhillation drives, so just turned their shit up to 11 when the collectors humped the bunk? Also, the Protheans might have known more about the reapers than current galactic civilization, but they're not sages of the fucking universe on the subject.
"But why didn't the reapers just do that (plan D) in the first place?" The argumentative will shriek. "Because your face." I wittily retort, my stable of nubile love-slaves clasping at my legs and moaning their admiration. And also, for the same reason people on the east coast of a country don't circumnavigate the globe to get to the other side. It's fucking inefficient. No doubt the reapers want to be in and out and birthing their grotesque spawn fueled by the collective matter of destroyed civilizations without having to fuck about too much with last stands in every goddamn cluster and endless transmissions of "Why are you doing this?" and "Ow my face oh god it burns."
What I will agree on is that endless shooty corridor play was a hell of a lot harder solo. I promise Garrus, I will never make fun of your shitty AI ever again.
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