Agreed, Franz. There's a whole mess of awesome but entirely non-interactive space combat and flying. I want in on some of that action!
I actually agree with you, Wrsh. I unfortunately had to play a dude Shepherd because of my previous saved game. :( But I think the conventional wisdom is that Jennifer Hale's voiceover performance makes chick Shepherd the preferable way to experience a Mass Effect.
That is quite the dilemma, J_A. However, I'm pretty sure there are websites where you answer a series of questions about your choices in the previous games. They then generate an import file that will be 100% your story
I wouldn't sweat that too much, Unchosen. Leaving aside the nonsense about "best endings" -- I look forward to being able to talk more about that on the forum once more people have finished the game -- I don't feel there are any grindy quests in Mass Effect 3. They're more like collectibles with lore flavor that you can gather in the course of playing normally.
Plus, the multiplayer is pretty good!
There are save game dumps, but I haven't been able to find any with that degree of customization. There's a ton of switches in ME1 and 2, and finding a save that matches yours is very hard, especially since the kind of gamers that share saves tend to max out one thing.
That said, I'm perfectly happy to use an approximate save (I lost mine in a drive format a few months ago). It's not my story, sure, but it's a million times better than just accepting whatever Bioware decided is the generic template.
The MP being good is kind of incidental. It's nice to have the option to co-op with friends, but SP results shouldn't be impacted by it. I don't want a worse outcome to my SP game because I didn't play enough co-op, and for that matter I don't want a better outcome to my SP game just because a friend and I got really into playing co-op.
The planet scanning not being tedious, though, that I'd like to hear more about. I'm hearing the opposite from most quarters, but I'd dearly love to believe that they didn't make the same mistake yet again and include something grindy and obnoxious for the sake of grindy obnoxiousness.
One does not simply ROCK into the collector base.
Well that is good news on both counts. I'd love to be able to jump into the multiplayer, but my Gold subscription lapsed last month and I haven't renewed it yet.
I think it's Shepard.
Sorry to "cross the streams" by linking to the forums, but here's a post that explains a bit more about the interaction of single-player with multiplayer, and why I feel it's sort of a non-issue:
Be careful what you wish for, lest you end up with a quick-time event. :-0
Supposedly there's a way to convert X360 saves to PC. See masseffectsaves.com. There's a savegame editor if you think you can remember it well enough to set every decision and flag correctly.
I find it interesting how you are down on one of my favorite aspects of ME2, the story. Now I HATED the stupid collectors main plot, and that godawful final boss. To me the story isn't about those things, the real story is in those characters, and their side missions.
I'm a person who will forgive many plot gaffes if there is a strong sense of character, and that it is developed. I'ts why I hate most Rom-Coms, the male lead is usually unbelievable as a character. It's also why I love many schlocky sci-fi shows and movies. Sure the main story may be a pointless quest for a macguffin, but Mal and Jayne make me buy it.
So ME2 had some great character arcs in it. The side missions for them were phenomenal IMO, especially Mordin's. That mission was all the best parts of Sci-Fi boiled down. Shades of Hiroshima mixed with Nazi experiments, with a question of what would YOU do. There were enough such moments in ME2 for me to forgive the flaws.
Besides I hate shooters, the decision to ramp up shootering, and pare down RPGing bugged me to no end. It sounds like all the things that ME2 did that made me forgive this are amped up for ME3. If the ethical situations, and noble sacrifices are really the no punches pulled kind you insinuate then I'll be happy as can be.
As long as they don't kill Tali that is.
I was thinking of something akin to Skies of Arcadia's ship to ship combat, or something like what Infinite Space does on the DS. Wouldn't have to be super involved, but if you give me the most advanced frigate in the fleet let me do more with it that get dropped off at various locales. Just once I want to randomly encounter some pirates and blow them to smithereens! Oh well, the FTL's KickStarter is going, pretty soon they'll have the money to rival BioWare's production quality!
It's getting review bombed just like Dragon Age II did. Of course, that game had problems, just not the ones all the idiots who never played it thought it had.
As always, Metacritic user reviews remind us why the Founding Fathers were so afraid of direct democracy...
Oh, if that thing works, I may marry you.
Though I kind of meant to play through 2 again, anyway. I mean, I managed to save everybody, and most everything was the way I wanted it. Not min/maxed, though, I took the good with the bad consequences... except one thing. I can't go on with this as 'canon' in my universe. See, in 1 i romanced Liara, but then in 2, I was just really curious about Tali, so I went with her. But then I went into my cabin a bit later, and found that my picture of Liara on the desk had been turned face-down!
God, I felt awful. That tiny little touch affected me more than anything else they'd done in the game, because it was such a personal, and realistic thing.
So, yeah, I have to replay an entire game so a picture on a desk is standing up instead of lying down. I have issues.
80% of mass effect gamers disagree, now be quiet and go play femshep the vampire slayer - the option for people who like their main characters as more unrealistic, less capable and worse voice acted than the male option.
(I used to think tali fans were the worst mass effect fandom had to offer but for a long time now Ive known its clearly the deluded and opinionated femshep fans).
As for the writeup, thanks for that, Ive had and still have some doubts, but after reading this Im convinced ME3 wont leave me without *some* successes. ME2 left me with more failures than successes, even though it did do some things well, so I hope ME3 brings the series back to a more positive light for me to finish on.
If you have the shadow broker dlc pack you can romance someone else and then break that off to re-affirm your relationship with Liara, That's what I did. I wanted to stay faithful (lol) but decided to do that to get the paramour achievement as continuing the relationship with Liara through the shadow broker mission doesn't net that achievement.
"As a design, it is their most sure-footed, confident, and cohesive design since the original Knights of the Old Republic."
I can't help but read this as a huge backhanded compliment. Then again, I feel Bioware hasn't released a game really worth playing since the original BG2. With the only possible exceptions being DA and ME2.
Less capable because, um, a genetic predisposition to greater muscle mass really matters in future sci-fi combat scenarios?
Worse voice acting because, um, you're utterly deaf? Jennifer Hale blows Mr Monotone Meer so far out of the water it's embarrassing. I guess the point is to appeal to the generic, bland, zero-personality white space marine fanboys, but I prefer my protagonists to have a little more personality than a brick.