In Progress Let's Play Mass Effect 3: Emotional Engagements

[TNO]

Awesome LP. Indeed, awesome series of LPs.

 

[Sceptic]

Cinematically, though, these sequences are really well-done

I was really surprised by this throughout the game, I must say. TNO pointed out some nice little touches in his ME1 review, but back then it still felt amateurish, an early attempt at trying to get computer game cinematics to look "just like movies!" But the quality of some of them in ME3 is unmistakable. As much as the Crucible is a stupid Deus Ex Machina plot device, I really like the direction in the cinematics that involve it - from Hackett overlooking the construction, to the sense of finality as it docks into the Citadel and Hackett says "this is it" - the line's redundancy should ruin it, but it's exactly the kind of cheesy line you expect and it works.

But then all this only reinforces the major criticism we've been throwing at Bioware for years now: it's clear they're more interested in making movies than in making games, and while their movie-making has improved, it's still far, far below what their egos tell them it is. And while they make maybe-average-maybe-not movies, their games still suck.

 

[AstralStorm]

Do you prefer AAA games or AAA movies?
Since this plays at best like A game and watches like a B movie...

RK, why didn't you use the obvious "Daisy" theme instead putting some silly kpop? (esp. in the troll endings)

--
Hurray for sequel-compatible writing. Feels almost like Deus Ex Human Revolution endings, except there we knew it was forgone conclusion due to the prequel nature.


Destruction ending solves nothing, only a minor delay, since everything will continue and nobody knows the "reason" for synthetic destruction.
Must've been some failsafe against crummy AI that never got finished in the first place, heh.

Neither do Reapers (since museums suck, it's a time-limited solution by the nature of it even if consistently adapted due to energy reasons), nor Synthesis (evolution continues, there might be more pure organics and pure machines), nor Control. (nothing changes in this case)

 

[sea]

I honestly would have been happier if they had never come out with this ending DLC. I was kind of just happy to have completely forgotten that Mass Effect 3 ever happened, now all the derp just comes coming back and it's impossible to contain. How can something worked on by so many people be so fucking incompetent and broken? It's like there's a god, and he exists solely to troll me.

 

[Esquilax]

I honestly would have been happier if they had never come out with this ending DLC. I was kind of just happy to have completely forgotten that Mass Effect 3 ever happened, now all the derp just comes coming back and it's impossible to contain. How can something worked on by so many people be so fucking incompetent and broken? It's like there's a god, and he exists solely to troll me.

Design-by-committee. Most of the writers in ME3 are not the ones that wrote ME1 or even ME2, IIRC. Indeed, if the trilogy's storyline was written by one or two people to keep all the details straight, the end result would have made a lot more sense than what we got here.

Honestly, it's not even the huge plot holes that get to me so much as the fact that the game showers you with cheesy melodrama and pseudo-philosophical bullshit at the end. Fuck, I thought this game was conceived as a fun B-movie space opera adventure where you shoot bad guys, fuck bitches and spout cool one-liners, and I have no idea what the fuck happened here. Really, ME should have just been about badass Space Marine Shepard chasing down the evil human-hating turian extremist known as Saren before he unleashes an ancient Prothean weapon to destroy Earth. Simple, fun, and it works.

 

[Oriebam]

Design-by-committee.

That's overestimation, I'm sure they would have found a way to fuck things up

 

[dextermorgan]

Cinematically, though, these sequences are really well-done (not the weak slideshow stuff, but the other sequences).

For me, they only serve to juxtapose and hammer home just how bad the dialogue and story are - when I look at them all I do is keep asking myself: how the hell did you fuck (the rest) up so bad? It's like seeing a gold-threaded silk bow tied over a stinking pile of turd.

 

[lightbane]

How can something worked on by so many people be so fucking incompetent and broken?

Remember that the original ending was supposed to be something completely different but instead we got this because one of the writers thought he was better than anyone else, so who knows, perhaps it would have been good enough to not to require a DLC to make it less shit (althought that wouldn't stop Bioware EA from releasing more DLCs).

 

[Brotherman Bill]

According to sources, Casey Hudson wrote the ending with practically no oversight. So it wasn't committee but rather a lack of committee and the hubris/buttlicker culture of bioware.

 

[lightbane]

Ah, yes, I finally noticed what was missing:



Once more: RK, congrats for finishing this saga (at least until more DLCs show up)

 

[Idiott]

 

[Ulminati]

Ah, yes, I finally noticed what was missing:



Once more: RK, congrats for finishing this saga (at least until more DLCs show up)

Grats. You just made me snap the pencil I was writing with in rage at suddenly remembering that godawful show.

 

[lightbane]

Relevant:

 

[RK47]

 

[AstralStorm]

Let's rename Reapers to Trolls and we have ME3 plot on teh internets!

 

[Wyrmlord]

Awesome LP. Indeed, awesome series of LPs.

I like how he put the maximum efforts in producing the first game's LP, and then gradually lost interest as the series passed by.

I remember there used to be a 12 hour gap between ME1 LP updates. Now, weeks passed before the last set of updates.

 

[Ulminati]

It accurately reflects his loss of humanity as reaper indoctrination took effect.

 

[Grunker]

Just finished ME3.

lol

For three games I've been pretty satisfied with horrible pulp writing (and, to be, fair some fairly good character writing!) and Hero Saves the Galaxy while grabbing collars in cheesy ways. Apparantly so has a lot of other folks. I was already suspecting something fishy when ME3 suddenly got all dark and serious, but I waved it aside as Bioware's attempt at turning the Epic-O-Meter to 3000. "Fuck it, let's grab some Reaper collars," Grunker thought.

Then the ending came, and I was fucking speechless. I literally thought "they're pulling my leg, in five seconds I'll grab that kid's collar and show him Plastic-Head Shep doesn't take no orders from badly written AIs!" But no, they were actually fucking trying to shove some sort of meta-philosophical bullshit into an ending of a fucking B-movie Hollywood action flick about huge space-monsters.

Wow. I thought only some crazy fans took ME seriously. Guess I was wrong. Well, RK47, I hear you have created an exceptional LP. Time to find out.

 

[RK47]

It accurately reflects his loss of humanity as reaper indoctrination took effect.

Or maybe it's because RK47 got a full time job.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Will you do the Leviathan DLC?

 

[RK47]

Will you do the Leviathan DLC?

Huh there is one coming out?

"Something lurks in the dark corners of space, something powerful enough to kill a Reaper," read a post on BioWare's blog.
"Shepard must discover the most closely guarded secret in the galaxy before the Reapers silence it forever. Discover more about the origins of the Reapers as you race across the galaxy to find the Leviathan. Unravel the dark history of the Reaper Race before it is too late."

Not sure what they're thinking. The game is over, why the heck would I be interested in 'secret Reaper weapons' and 'Dark origins of the Reaper?' Skip. Not worth the $10.

Spoilers friend...

A reaper named Winston will join your team. He will bicker with Javik in the mess hall about how to properly cook space noodles.

Best comment ever.

 

[Brother None]

Yeah, it's "a little odd" to do story DLC after such a definite ending. Unless they do post-ending DLC, but that would be a bad idea for wholly different reasons.

Still, I'm sure it'll see. You can play it with like your pre-endgame save, lulul.

 

[lightbane]

Yeah, it's "a little odd" to do story DLC after such a definite ending. Unless they do post-ending DLC, but that would be a bad idea for wholly different reasons.

Still, I'm sure it'll see. You can play it with like your pre-endgame save, lulul.

You probably missed that comment from Bioware, in which they mentioned they wanted to make a special DLC related to the "Destroy" Ending, one of your comrades (most likely the Love Interest) goes to rescue Shepard and... That's it.

 

[Kthan75]

Just finished the game myself last night after some months of hiatus.

Just like BN said, I could give some credit to Bioware for at least trying to do something more special, unfortunately there's a lot of retarded stuff there.

I chose the synthesis ending, since I find the concept interesting. The idea seems to take inspiration from

Spoiler

the ending of the Dune novels (Dune 7 & 8, the new ones).

But how the fuck the entire galaxy is "synthesized" from the explosion... That makes very little sense.

Anyway, thanks for the ME LPs, RK, great work.