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by **Strict31** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:53 pm

Holland Oats wrote:I really don't get the whole War Room or whatever aspect.. I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but I guess I'm going to have to. I don't get what that War room console is all about though. I click on the various allies and sectors and whatnot and just see numbers without any sort of description of what I'm supposed to do with it.. just 50%.. 40%.. 2431.. etc.

The one thing this game severely lacks - direction in the menus.. It's evident in the Journal and here.

This is where a goddamn instruction book would have come in handy, because I have no idea what any of these stats mean. An instruction manual would have been a nice place to...I dunno...instruct you about new shit they threw into the game. Or old shit, if It's been a while since you played the last one.

by **fieldy snuts** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 9:57 pm

Holland Oats wrote:
I want the Spectre rifle you can buy in the spectre office, but it's expensive as fuck. I'm almost at 200,000 credits though so I may spring for it.

The shotty or the sniper rifle? I found the Widow on Thessia for free, and I actually thought I was going to buy it after that level :lol:

by **Strict31** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:02 pm

fieldy snuts wrote:
The shotty or the sniper rifle? I found the Widow on Thessia for free, and I actually thought I was going to buy it after that level

It's my opinion that all the Specter gear is too got-damn expensive. It was bad enough in the first game that they're charging you for shit you should fuckin' be able to requisition (or just take, since Specters can do that). But now, you're fighting a war, and these tightwads are still charging you an arm and a leg for the shit you need to fight that war?

This is where game mechanics overrides sense-makin' IMO.

by **Chris** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:30 pm

Strict31 wrote:
This is where a goddamn instruction book would have come in handy, because I have no idea what any of these stats mean. An instruction manual would have been a nice place to...I dunno...instruct you about new shit they threw into the game. Or old shit, if It's been a while since you played the last one.

I bought the strategy guide and I'm glad because it seems to offer at least a little bit of info, I just need to read it.

by **Chris** » Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:30 pm

fieldy snuts wrote:
The shotty or the sniper rifle? I found the Widow on Thessia for free, and I actually thought I was going to buy it after that level

ah ok, I haven't been there yet.

by **Stephen Day** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:01 am

Holland Oats wrote:Another thing that irks me about the whole franchise, not just this game - armor.

Why the fuck can't I customize armor sets? Your default stuff, and random armor pieces you find, sure.. but like, if you buy a complete armor set, you can't take off the helmet. It's stupid. What if I really like the armor, but I don't want the helmet?

I bought the sweet looking Inferno armor at the Citadel, though.. the preview in the shop made it look all Iron Man-y. It's almost all red, and the helmet visor had a yellow tint to it.

But then once I wore it, it was pretty generic.

Would've still liked to wear it sans helmet if I could, but I hate helmets.. it completely ruins cutscenes to not be able to see Shep's face.

Go into Options, then pick Narrative, there's a choice there that says, "Shepard's Helmet." If you set it to, "Off in Conversations," then Shepard doesn't have a helmet in all cut scenes, no matter what armour he/she has on.

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 3:50 am

After going through all the possible endings I truly have no idea which one was supposed to be canon.

At first I thought synthesis was in order to break the cycle but Shepard stays dead regardless of your war readiness. Everyone lives except Shepard who becomes one with the Matrix...er...I mean the Catalyst.

Destroy says it'll wipe out anything even vaguely synthetic including the Geth (so why the fuck did I broker a truce for them with the Quarians?) etc. . At 5000 points Shepard survives at the end otherwise his synth parts from being rebuilt kill him at anything below 5000.. So you save Earth (as long as you have an EMS of 2350) in a way at the cost of mass genocide.

Finally, there's Control the Reapers which is what the illusive Man wanted to do the entire game which we were told was BAD. So you tell them all to fuck off back to darkspace but the cycle remains to run rampant without Reaper interference. This seems to be the option that somehow gives you the with with the least blood. Once again, at 5000 points Shepard survives but anything before lets him die.

I really thought synthesis based on needing the highest possible non-multiplayer based EMS rating and letting everyone live...but now I find out you only get the "Shepard Lives" endings with the other two at 5000, nothing else.

Plus there being no closure on just where every character ended up or the state of the galaxy after all the Mass Relays were destroyed (it happens in every ending no matter what you do)...the ending just seems so hollow. It was an amazing trilogy while it lasted, but you know how something is so good you don't want it to end? I was getting that feeling for a whole different reason when I entered completionist mode to finish all lingering plot threads.

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 4:03 am

To put into context why this ending let me down I'll compare it to the endings of 1 & 2:

ME1: After defeating Saren/Sovereign & picking the new Earth councilor Shepard vows to be ready to end the Reaper threat.

ME2: After surviving a suicide mission against the Collectors tells Martin Sheen to suck it and it's revealed he now has the schematics for a Reaper to prepare for their arrival as we see them all finally awaken to make the trip for mass Effect 3.

ME3: A fancy light show over the opening soundtrack with a montage of the same scenes in different colors with no sense of direction or closure other than a few thrown around words before you make your decision which ending to go with.

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 4:08 am

Oh yeah, regarding the Black Widow sniper rifle, it allows you to shoot the pilots of Atlas mechs and then jack them for yourself. Only gun that lets you do it.

by **Strict31** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:17 am

The ending was truly disappointing.

I'm not even gonna put that shit in SPOILER tags, because you should fucking-well know it going in. There are some things about the ending that don't make sense. There are some things that seem hastily and sloppily written. It's not a matter of not understanding the endings, although, from what I've seen on other boards, there's a lot of that going around. I understand what happens in all three endings. It's just a matter of the shit not making a whole lot of sense story-wise.

I'm gonna SPOILER tag the long shit, and just leave the short version below.

[Reveal] Spoiler: Click to Expand

The motive of the Reapers and their creator (or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be) doesn't make sense. They tell you what that motive is, and you understand the individual words. But once you get past all the cosmic bullshit, you realize that these Reaper chaps are giant fucktards.

They want to destroy organic life to preserve organic life for the "next cycle". Because that is the only way to: A. assure that order reigns over chaos and B. protect organic life from synthetic life.

In order to do this, they leave the fucktarded species alone. They take the most advanced species, rape them to death, and store their genetics within new Reapers, like the human Reaper in the second game. This is "Harvesting." And ultimately, what becomes of the advanced species is the same thing that happened to the Protheans; the end up as Collectors, or something similar.

Meanwhile, the fucktards of the galaxy are left to evolve from simple monkeys or whatever into modern day humans and Asari and so forth. Until they grow too advanced, and it's time to rape them into genetic soup too.

But, every Cycle of extinction and rape, the advanced species grow a little bit more advanced than the ones who came before. And they get gradually closer to finding a way to end this cycle.

Well...that is...if they choose to end the cycle.

Because they might not.

Or they might. Who knows, because there's always the next cycle, I guess.

Now, I wrote that all in English, so you understand every word. That's their motive. To preserve organic life by ass-raping it with a giant reciprocating saw every fifty thousand years. One imagines they're not interested so much in preserving specific organic life forms, but rather, the concept of organic life.

One also imagines an easier and perhaps slightly more reliable way of preserving the concept of organic life is to stop shoving Reaper dicks at its collective ass every Cycle. You'd think that some cosmic super-intellect might have figured that shit out a couple billion years earlier.

Breaks down like this:

Reapers: "We gotta destroy you, bro."

Shepard: "Wait, WUT? But why?"

Reapers: "Because each one of us is a nation unto ourselves."

Shepard: "...No really: why?"

Reapers: "To preserve order from chaos."

Shepard: "Okay. But remember that time I asked you 'why'?"

Reapers: "...because we have to preserve organic life."

Shepard: "By...destroying it...?"

Reapers: "Umm...Oh, dude, I can totally make the BRMMMMM noise from Inception! Check it..."

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 5:42 am

What made it even more stupid is that when you think about it the race that created the Mass Relays decided somewhere down the line to create sentient machines known as Reapers to kill people so those people can't make machines that kill people.. And Sovereign, Harbinger and the other Reapers would constantly say "Our purpose is unfathomable to your organic mind".

The real kicker though is that the old games seemed to have been hinting that Dark Energy (like in the level where you recruit Tali in ME2) and it was hastily rewritten like this...a little google research gave me this:
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/somet ... 250066288/

It seems reliable too...look at the date of that link. It had details of the ending pretty early.

by **Strict31** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 7:13 am

fieldy snuts wrote:What made it even more stupid is that when you think about it the race that created the Mass Relays decided somewhere down the line to create sentient machines known as Reapers to kill people so those people can't make machines that kill people.. And Sovereign, Harbinger and the other Reapers would constantly say "Our purpose is unfathomable to your organic mind".

The real kicker though is that the old games seemed to have been hinting that Dark Energy (like in the level where you recruit Tali in ME2) and it was hastily rewritten like this...a little google research gave me this:
http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/somet ... 250066288/

It seems reliable too...look at the date of that link. It had details of the ending pretty early.

That idea is foolish.

Even the most cursory google search of dark energy will show that it in no way is considered to be a phenomenon that consumes a goddamn thing. In fact, it's believed to be what causes the universe to expand. It is believed to permeate every bit of space-time; everywhere at once.

The exothermic force that causes space to percolate in an expansive manner, like the heat that sets a pot of water to boil. Without it, life on earth and the very structure of space-time would not exist.

The idea that the Reapers would be dipshit enough to think dark energy is a threat to galactic existence is foolish.

Of course, in billions of years, the universe will have expanded so much that it is theorized to dissipate into a cold nothingness. But this is so far into the future that it cannot explain why the Reapers have been performing this purge for thousands of years. The quote states that the Reapers have run out of time. This is absurd, The universe has billions upon billions of years of life left in it.

If this was to be the original story of Mass Effect, then it is good it was abandoned, because it is ate-up-with-a-dumb-ass. And the choice they would have given the player? oppose the Reapers and put faith in humanity's ability to solve the problem vs. sacrifice mankind's diversity and freedom to join the Reapers/ That choice is also as dumb as a box of rocks, because it is a no-brainer for the player.

Dark energy was (and remains) a buzzword for sci-fi writers, because the concept of it is so intriguing. The problem arises when you have ill-informed sci-fi writers. Sure, it's all fiction and the writer can do watever he wants in his story, stupid or otherwise. But if you're going to mine real science for shit like dark energy only to get it utterly wrong...especially in Mass Effect, where they try so hard to get things "right"...well, it's just dipshittery.

So, is the ending we got any better? In some ways, I suppose. The journey there wasn't bad. Despite some fucktarded game mechanics and idiotic marketing ploys, there are many moments in this game which are stellar.

But, it still comes back to that ending, and the methods for earning "a good ending."

by **fieldy snuts** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 8:57 pm

Gave multiplayer a shot and the lag was a bit of an annoyance. A lot more than I get from my PS3's crappy wireless G.

Expected better directly from my PC to be honest.

by **Chris** » Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:55 pm

I tried multiplayer today as well. No lag, but it was lame.

I have no desire to keep playing multi.

by **doombug** » Sun Mar 11, 2012 3:42 am

Strict31 wrote:Really was pissed off with the Thessia mission. Felt as though the end was just a waste of goddamn time which they could've handled in a fucking cutscene since nothing you do matters..

It's supposed to make you mad at Ling, I guess, but all it did was make me mad at Bioware for wasting my goddamn time. There is literally no point in fighting that mini-boss.

I guess I've been putting off finishing the game to run around and get bullshit artifacts and shit like that; doing all the N7 missions and what-not.

Is there a way to increase your fuel capacity in this game? The ship kept all the upgrades you made from ME2 except for that one for some fucktarded reason.

From a storytelling standpoint and cut scene wise, I highly recommend bringing J with you (I call him J, the prothean. Not a big fan of his full name. lol)