Discover the Best Mass Effect Game Series | DLC Leaked!

[Greg Bernhardt]

It's no doubt my favorite game series. The action was lots of fun, great characters and the story line was flat out interesting! I'm anxiously awaiting the first DLC. The concept has leaked and it seems worthwhile getting.

 

[Pythagorean]

I've played the first two. I think I rented the third. Always a good time. Though, I like their (Bioware's) Star Wars series better, personally. Mechanics are mostly the same, but you get LIGHTSABERS!1111!oneone!1

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Star Wars series better, personally. Mechanics are mostly the same, but you get LIGHTSABERS!1111!oneone!1

Is that the MMO or do they have a single player game?

 

[Pythagorean]

They had a series of two single player games, the series was called KOTOR: Knights of the Old Republic and is set something like 500 years before Skywalker, et al.

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm tempted to try the MMO... but those things look like black holes from outside the event horizon.

 

[jbunniii]

I played all the way through ME1 - easily one of my favorite PC games. After playing the second one for maybe 10 hours I got distracted with other things and never came back to it. One thing I found disappointing about ME2 was the inability to do much exploring in the Citadel and on random planets. Hopefully this is improved in ME3, which I will get to one of these days.

 

[Pythagorean]

I believe ME3's citadel is still pretty restricted as far as foot travel if I remember correctly. There's no longer planetary exploration like ME1 either (I think that came with ME2).

 

[Jack21222]

I played all the way through ME1 - easily one of my favorite PC games. After playing the second one for maybe 10 hours I got distracted with other things and never came back to it. One thing I found disappointing about ME2 was the inability to do much exploring in the Citadel and on random planets. Hopefully this is improved in ME3, which I will get to one of these days.

ME3 is similar to ME2 in its restrictions.

I, like many people, thought the ending of ME3 was lazy. It was a nonsensical deus (diablos?) ex machina.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I, like many people, thought the ending of ME3 was lazy. It was a nonsensical deus (diablos?) ex machina.

It was bad, the free extended ending DLC was a bit better, but not all that satisfying. Still, it was a great series and wonderful story.

 

[Jack21222]

It was bad, the free extended ending DLC was a bit better, but not all that satisfying. Still, it was a great series and wonderful story.

I agree with that. Unlike some people, I don't claim that the ending ruined the previous ~60 hours of gameplay/story. But, it did leave a bitter taste in my mouth for a bit. It almost felt like they had the entire game written and set up when EA told them to hurry up and finish it already. So they rushed and threw together something quickly.

I've been a huge Bioware fan for many years, but ever since EA took over, I feel the quality has been starting to diminish.

 

[Drakkith]

I looked up the new endings on Youtube since I had already beat the game twice. They are MUCH MUCH MUCH better than the original. They actually fixed most of the issues people had with the original ending. I think the new endings actually work pretty well for the series. Maybe not perfect, but vastly better. I applaud the developers for taking the time and money to actually fix their product instead of just letting it stay terrible. (Regardless of the fact that it probably shouldn't have been terrible to begin with, but whatever, look on the bright side!)

I have to say, I LOVED ME3. It was so epic...and the music was amazing.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

If you liked mass effect, then you will like KotOR even more. I personally found ME to be fairly bland. Especially when I tried to woo the blue chick. There was like... zero tension whatsoever in that situation. I just sort of said "hey blue chick let's be romantic" and she said "oh yes I've been uh feeling those feelings or something"

maybe I was spoiled by the relationship between the main character and bastila from Kotor, but I had a lot of fun antagonizing her. And there wasn't even anything sexual in that relationship. The only thing fun about the blue chick in ME was that... woo hooray you get to lay a blue alien chick. Boring...

mind you I stuck like 24 hours into it, but most of that time was spent doing random missions and driving around on the planets, which was heck of fun

 

[Drakkith]

Did you play the 2nd and 3rd?

 

[SHISHKABOB]

Did you play the 2nd and 3rd?

I haven't even played through the entirety of the 1st. It just wasn't very interesting. IMO, ofc.

 

[Drakkith]

I haven't even played through the entirety of the 1st. It just wasn't very interesting. IMO, ofc.

You may like the 2nd and 3rd better. I REALLY liked the 3rd game. I thought the story and the presentation of the game was simply amazing. Just ignore the original ending if you don't get the DLC. (I'm not sure if it's free or not)

 

[SHISHKABOB]

I think I didn't enjoy it so much mostly because of the Sheperd character. I felt he was pretty boring and it was hard to enjoy the game while being forced into what he was like.

I dunno, it's been a pretty long time since I played it, maybe I'll have a different appreciation for it if I pick it up again.

 

[Drakkith]

I feel ya. I thought the other characters were very well done, but unfortunately Shepherd was kind of bland. Probably because you had some many choices. It is hard to fit everything together into a single solid character if you don't have strict guidelines to what that character should be.

 

[Pythagorean]

It might be beneficial from a marketing point of view. Like it might help with immersion, for instance, that the players character doesn't conflict too much with the character being controlled with the player. Best way to guarantee that for the most people is to bland them out.

 

[Mentalist]

Shepherd for me was always a Paragon with a bit of a bad side. I never let the renegade score get too high as I tried adding a bit of spice to a 1-dimensional character I created. He was an old guy, but with spunk.

Spoiler

I did not make Anderson a counsel member to which I regretted in ME3 (such a coward Udina was!)

Saved the counsel as I had my reasons at the time.

Let Ashley die. I made some errors when talking with Wrex and she killed him! So that played a bit of a role because she was just too much. First the marker now Wrex? (I don't reload and try again because I'd rather let it come close to being as possibly organic as it can).

I loved ME2 but the last mission was a tough one. 3 of the team ended up dying (Tali and Thane being two of them and Zaaeed.)

ME3 Shepherd went out with a good ending, the old man took control of the reapers which is what I wanted the whole time. The bastards.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

So I went and played it for a while today because I had nothing else to do. I was at that Noveria planet which was all icy and stuff and I had just entered the secret lab or whatever after driving towards it in the vehicle thingy. I spent like an hour playing and got to the survivors when... the game glitched out when I tried to enter an elevator and apparently I had not quick saved and the game had not done any auto saves during my ~hour of play... <:|anyways, I think the game has relatively fun combat gameplay, though I had set it to casual because I could remember getting my face reamed when I had played this part last. I still think the characters are pretty dumb. For instance, I had Liara and Tali as my sidekicks. At one point I'm talking to the Captain dude of the survivors about the Benezia chick and Liara pops in randomly and says "the matriarch has skills that allow her to survive for long periods of time" all out of the blue and stuff. I felt like the line didn't really add anything and just plain sounded strange and dumb.

Little stuff like that makes me lose my interest in the characters because I feel like it was sort of put together haphazardly. I still don't like it how Sheperd says *everything*. It would be nice if they could show me precisely what he is going to say for each option, because then I could go over it in my head and decide whether that's really what I want to say. But no, I basically have to wing it with some of the options.

That said, I like shooting stuff with my sniper rifle, it's enjoyable. I also like how the actual game itself progresses along with opening doors and pressing buttons and stuff. The puzzles aren't too tough, especially when all you need to do is pour in a bottle of omnigel or whatever.
After my frustration of losing an hours worth of playtime subsides I'll probably play some more.

 

[Drakkith]

Oh god, the save system in ME1 makes me want to throw my Xbox through the window. I replayed ME1 a few months back and I think I lost about 5 hours total throughout the game having to replay things I'd already done either because I died and hadn't saved for an hour, or something would bug out. ME2 and 3 were far better with their saves.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

Oh god, the save system in ME1 makes me want to throw my Xbox through the window. I replayed ME1 a few months back and I think I lost about 5 hours total throughout the game having to replay things I'd already done either because I died and hadn't saved for an hour, or something would bug out. ME2 and 3 were far better with their saves.

seriously, I even checked and saw that I had the auto save option *on*

what kind of auto save system doesn't auto save during an hour's worth of playtime <:|

 

[Mentalist]

Auto-save cuts out the suspense in my opinion.

 

[Drakkith]

Auto-save cuts out the suspense in my opinion.

I think you and I have a different idea of what suspense means lol.
I play games to enjoy the storyline usually. The gameplay is a big part, but without a decent story I usually don't care at all for the game. So when I have to replay an hour+ of game time I get extremely frustrated. It's like having to re-read chapters in a book when you just want to get on with the story.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

I think you and I have a different idea of what suspense means lol.
I play games to enjoy the storyline usually. The gameplay is a big part, but without a decent story I usually don't care at all for the game. So when I have to replay an hour+ of game time I get extremely frustrated. It's like having to re-read chapters in a book when you just want to get on with the story.

You can always manually save. Granted, you have to be paying attention and recognize where there might be danger, or at least be cognoscente of the fact that you have been playing for a while without having reached a save point, for it to work well.

I have only played ME1. I'm on my 3rd play-through, because I want to make sure that I've beaten it on the highest difficulty before progressing to the next game. As far as I have heard, the quality of the games decline from ME1, with storyline and dialogue taking a backseat to graphics and action, much like almost every other game. From what I have seen of ME2, it actually looks wonderful (I can't wait to spam that Vanguard charge), but I'm a little worried about ME3. The dialogue seemed very forced, and Shepard often only had two lines of dialogue to choose from, which was hardly ever the case in ME1.

(I have watched numerous review videos, and some gameplay of ME2 and ME3, so I do have some basis for analyzing them).

That said... has anyone else noticed how they changed how Shepard runs from ME1? In ME1, he had a very distinct run... it was a little unusual, but not something that people would point at and make fun of. Then, in ME2 and ME3, he all of a sudden has this wide, football player gait where he looks like he's taking a dump while running. It doesn't make sense to change that, unless when he was revived, they altered a few things.

 

[Mentalist]

Have you played Dark/Demon Souls by any chance? (Off-topic but I am wondering).

I get what you're saying though. I don't mind having to replay whole segments again, although I don't want to. I believe I really just like to stay within the universe instead of finishing the story quickly. I became sadden once I completed ME3 because I missed the ME-universe right after finishing to which I searched online for ME4 rumors.

 

[Drakkith]

You can always manually save. Granted, you have to be paying attention and recognize where there might be danger, or at least be cognoscente of the fact that you have been playing for a while without having reached a save point, for it to work well.

Which is why it doesn't work well.

I have only played ME1. I'm on my 3rd play-through, because I want to make sure that I've beaten it on the highest difficulty before progressing to the next game. As far as I have heard, the quality of the games decline from ME1, with storyline and dialogue taking a backseat to graphics and action, much like almost every other game.

Honestly I think I enjoyed the dialogue much better in the last 2 games than the 1st. Perhaps the voice acting quality increased. But remember that the universe the game is set in is changing as the games go along. I'd elaborate but I don't want to post any real spoilers. Suffice it to say I thought the story was much better in the last 2 games than the 1st. ME1 just seemed too open ended which made it difficult to put any real quality into all the side missions and stuff you went on.

From what I have seen of ME2, it actually looks wonderful (I can't wait to spam that Vanguard charge), but I'm a little worried about ME3. The dialogue seemed very forced, and Shepard often only had two lines of dialogue to choose from, which was hardly ever the case in ME1.

I don't remember ME3 being this constricted. Some of your options are only available if you do certain actions beforehand or have a certain status I think, so if you don't do those you may not have certain options available.

That said... has anyone else noticed how they changed how Shepard runs from ME1? In ME1, he had a very distinct run... it was a little unusual, but not something that people would point at and make fun of. Then, in ME2 and ME3, he all of a sudden has this wide, football player gait where he looks like he's taking a dump while running. It doesn't make sense to change that, unless when he was revived, they altered a few things.

They probably had to change it when they upgraded the engine and models between the games. I don't remember that bothering me.