There is a bit more “stand here and kill waves of enemies for 5 minutes” than i would like. It isn’t game breaking by any means, but it just goes to show that the poorly designed defend encounter in the first level was not a fluke.
The priority missions have been very well done, back to me1 level of narrative. The side missions are also back to me1 side mission level… while it was good in the previous category, it it is not here. In fact, i’d say the me3 side missions are significantly worse than me1’s. They could almost be randomly generated. Instead of finding some cool pirate base or something, i’m running through a few 5 minute defends for various reasons.
Still, the completionist in me has me doing them all.
I really like the changes to mining. It is kind of a loot minigame finding new bonuses. It can be hard to find events sometimes though. There are a few systems where i can’t find the remaining events even though i’ve searched the obvious places. I wish they had removed fuel though. It doesn’t really add anything to the game having to go to a friendly system and refuel after every mining mission. At least they removed probes being consumable i suppose.
Can I only get system readiness through multiplayer or is it something i haven’t encountered yet?
One thing i noticed is that defenses are A LOT less common than in previous games. In previous games basically EVERYTHING had 2-3 defenses on insanity, but now a lot of things only have health. I haven’t put a ton of time in to the game yet though so maybe that changes, but it is nice being able to use my abilities more.
I can’t figure Sabotage out. The conversion of synthetics seems to randomly work. Sometimes it just won’t work at all. I’m not sure it if it is being resisted, there is a max amount of times you can do it on something or something else. I don’t believe the skill is worth using anymore except one point for taking over turrets. The backfire thing is somewhat decent, but not worth using over other skills. On humanoids it seems to disable/damage them the first time they try to fire and then it goes away even though the duration is around 20 seconds. I don’t think it stops the first shot either, i think it just stuns them after it.
Just past Tuchanka, I’d mostly disagree. I’m not nuts about wave defence either, but the prologue/demo one was boring, partly because there’s only two people with basic powers, partly because it’s just a long easy mop-up (compared to any other comparable situation later I mean.) I’ve had one or two yawner sidequests of the sort you’re talking about but the average is feeling good. I guess on future playthroughs I’ll be sure what’s really a “sidequest.” I thought I was doing “sidequests” on Tuchanka but I’m not sure if they actually are.
Miramon
2003
I dunno about that, but the character designer makes the face look quite different from in the game world. In the designer, complexion was smooth and young-looking, in game, covered in dark freckles or acne or something, with many more lines. Maybe characters in general just look more gritty and old in game than they do in the designer, like some texture layer or something isn’t shown in the designer?
I also noticed one horrible rigging/animation nightmare; Shepard is striding boldly into the gunroom to talk to Garrus, and suddenly her arms go all long and nasty-looking, like an evil shape-shifter in a P. C. Hodgell novel who has gone all insane and rubbery-like. Not quite up to the horror of a Bethesda/Obsidian NPC head twisting off in the middle of a conversation, but I think it’s the same kind of problem.
Miramon
2004
I agree. The game could use fewer tougher enemies, not all these waves of husks and cannibals or assault troops and combat engineers all the time. It’s more fun to fight a harvester than a dozen little popcorn monsters. Also, these waves train you to use powers instead of ammo to fight, because some maps have almost no spare “thermal sinks”, and who knows when the waves will finally stop; and yet shooting is more interesting gameplay than power use, because you hardly have to aim the powers.
Sure, once in a while the zombie-defense thing is fine, but it’s overused here. In one of these, on, umm, palevan’s moon, a husk got stuck and was hiding someplace I couldn’t see on map/radar, so the waves froze until I finally found and killed it.
It is true they are more tense since you’re dodging grenades and blasting husks rushing at you, but they are still basically the same thing. They are just too long. I kill DOZENS of enemies and they still take a LONG time.
The different thing about the first level one is that every class i’ve played through it runs out of ammo mid way and i end up making a sandwich while my partner kills everything. If you use biotics, you can use those when you run out of ammo though obviously, but shooting is still pretty important in a me game.
The real stinker missions i’ve found are the N7 Prefix ones.
Question: The only thing stopping me from using 3 tech users is enemies using shields. You can sometimes arc a cryblast around their shield, but it is too rare to rely on when they come in groups (which they always do). In contrast, biotics in general do VERY well against these guys, but i don’t really want to use one if i can because in situations other than shield guys, they don’t work well with my group. Ideally i’d also like to have 2 companions who have tech related squad bonuses.
There are weapon mods that talk about my shots penetrating armor for a certain distance, albeit with reduced damage. Does this mean my shots will go through the shield and hit the guy behind it?
Miramon: yes, abilities are indeed impressive. My engineer has cryoblast with area upgrade and +damage upgrades and incinerate with area and double damage to frozen targets. I basically freeze an entire group of whatever unshielded targets and then kill them all with incinerate. Often times they survive the initial hit, but the burning effect (another upgrade) kills them nearly every time. If they have shields, i just overload before that combo.
The biggest advantage of course is that you can arc most of these abilities around cover which is a huge boon because in me3 enemies seem to have supernatural aiming ability in some cases. Enemies seem able to perfectly track you behind cover so that even if you sneakily move along cover while an enemy is firing a burst, when you pop out on the other side of the cover, the enemies burst will hit you. I think if you were in a mile wide room with a missile using enemy on the other side and no cover at all, you could sprint around trying your best to dodge and still get hit in the head with a missile. Enemy aim without cover is just that good. Even rolling doesn’t help much. Cover is all there is.
Oh, that one’s Bioware. The horror of Bethesda/Obsidian NPCs is… when they talk to you in a game that isn’t called Skyrim.
Some miscellaneous thoughts:
-Wow the game is hard, at least it’s harder than the previous MEs. Normal now it’s like ME2 hard, i think.
-The enemy AI seems better, or at least it seems more interesting to fight. They move more, they throw nades, they flank a bit more, etc.
-Kaidan is still a boring, flat human. Now a whiny, boring, flat human.
-Animations are subpar (well, for an AAA game like this)
-Few dialogue options
-dialogue options barely different
-dialogue options where the text options feels too different from the true dialogue
-Poor (as, non-existent) use of music in some supposedly “epic” scenes.
-Pedestrian and predictable plot devices.
-I hope humanity is killed, they are just a group of self-centered bitches.
-Good scenario design.
-Aiming feels off
-The camera have some occasions where is positioned badly in combat, when you use cover.
-Button interaction still problematic. Usually the usage of cover, but also it gives me problems when I sprint or try to mantle or try to use a button.
Well, I have only some first impressions. I didn’t finish it, not even close :P.
I like it “as much” as Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2.
And the Mass Effect series… well, they do some thing right, but in general I think it’s one of the most overrated game series of the actual generation.
I didn’t say it in the post above, but some of the points are the same flaws of the preivous ME games. So nothing too surprising.
Razgon
2010
Well, thats kinda what I could read from your notes ;-)
Loving the game myself - Just very very bummed that my savegames are gone due to me having played the game on my old laptop, and I didn’t know about “masseffectsaves.com” before today - I can tell there’s a lot of stuff missing from my playthrough, that is in others because of the savegame files.
Cal
2011
Well i just cleared the first Mars area and a few thoughts
The textures on clothing are absolutely shocking. also much of the game seems to be VERY low resolution and poorly detailed.
Lighting looks AWFUL on the characters faces and clothing, and just highlights the poor textures even more.
I dont like the camera, and the FoV seems very low, the camera frequently takes me out of the immersion of the game.
Animation oof the characters seems rather poor, some of the conversations look really poor, and some in game setpieces has the enemies almost floating rather than walking.
The game is HARD, im playing on Hardcore, and considering moving back to normal due the grenade instadeath spam im struggling with.
Dialog choices seem random, i pick one thing and Shep says something completely and utterly different to the sentance i clicked on.
All that said im enjoying the game, although possibly due to me playing the first two and wanting to know how the story progresses. The gunplay is definitely improved, ignoring the too frequent instadeath encounters i have run across.
Razgon
2012
What platform are you playing on? On the PC the game looks fine - nice animations (Running not included) and all in all a good experience to look at.
As for the dialogue not being what you choose - If you have played the previous games, you’d now that this is a staple of the series. He approximates, which I like, since sometimes you cant write down all the stuff that you select but only the gist of it
In the pc version, I also noticed some low resolution textures for clothes here and there, I didn’t comment it because there are more important stuff to point at. Also, a few low res background in some maps.
Razgon
2014
I’ve said this before but dear lord gamers are hard-to-please people.
Hammet
2015
Yeah. So some happy random thoughts from happy random gamer comin right up:
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The sound design, if that’s a word or term, is astonishing. There’s always something going on and the music so far has been nothing but great.
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Even if I’m still a bit unsure of my footing, apart from the glorious overhaul of both the dialog and the rpg/equipment system, I can see the shorter Interrupt windows, the whole press-V-to get a very short cutscene/reveal and the less corridor-y map design really growing on me. Since I haven’t read a single spoiler or hint I’m certainly missing some stuff but there’s so much stuff to pick up and people to listen to that I just don’t mind.
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Disabling in-game AA and using nVidia Inspector for those settings makes the game looks crazy good on my medium PC. Google for the optimum setting for your system, plus update your nVidia drivers.
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Combat. Hell yes. Inferno Grenade + Carnage + Incinerate into tightly packed enemies for teh win. Also love the weapon upgrade system AND the ability to choose your own loadout. (Even if it begs the notion of what the hell were they thinking with ME2.) I’ll do my first run on Normal, even if I’ve always played on Veteran or above in earlier iterations. I’ve never been great at handling large numbers of enemies with my Infiltrator.
I’ve only just met a very old friend on Palaven’s moon, so it’s not like I’ve seen a lot.
Joe_M
2016
Every time I think they can’t trump the level design I’ve already seen, they raise the bar. Now I had no complaints about the space dungeons in ME2 but these are just on an entirely different level. I also like that they switch up encounter design a fair amount: I just finished a mission that involved killing maybe a dozen enemies and the other 90% of the time was just strolling around a very cool area.
Re Sabotage: unsure if there are only diminishing returns on the more, ah, imposing synthetics, or if it applies across the board. I have definitely noticed it failing to work the 3rd or 4th time on that one enemy type, though.
Cal
2017
PC,
and no i mean the dialog choices seem to be wrong, ie i choose a “yes i can help you” and shep tells them to bugger off… etc
The animation to me seems a lot worse than ME2 and im not a graphics ho, but the low res textures are sometimes shocking and detract from the gameplay and story which i love.
Razgon
2018
Weird - Especially consdering all the high marks the graphics have recieved in reviews as well. Oh well, all I can say is, that they look fine on my machine. Of course, I run the game in 1600 x 1200 resolution, and not some crazy high one
Cal
2019
Odd i have a very good PC, but also run it in 1680x 1050 and this is what i see. All settings maxed, AA and AF forced to full in drivers.
Well, I played the Arrival for ME2 last night while I await Amazon delivery of ME3. Going through the Codex and revisiting some places really helped me remember why I loved ME2 so much. It was an epic journey and I definitely enjoyed the whole “getting the band together” aspect Tom didn’t seem to. It was a chance for a player to get a grip on a very complex and well thought out setting. ME1 was tightly focused and neatly epic. A great introduction but left me full of questions and wanting more. ME2 was sprawling and meandered into many different corners of the universe. Now you’ve got a strong handle on what’s out there. Sounds like ME3 goes back to a more focused storyline for the big finale. That is a structure that makes sense and builds on its own momentum.
