Yeah - didn't quite know what to think of the ending. Not how I imagined one of my favorite series ending.

This trilogy of games is damn good. In the end though, the journey was far more rewarding than the destination.

Bioware's story, and how it twists and turns depending on the choices you make was awesome. I still havent seen all the variations for what happens when you make some choices differently.

If the repercussions of your actions affected the end, as much as they affected the journey getting there, this series wouldve hit legendary status.

As it stands, its still a helluva trilogy in regard to gameplay but sadly I have to file the final ten minutes behind the mental block that contains things like Rocky 5 and X-MEN Origins:Wolverine.

I just pretend they never happened, and the pain just goes away. Quite amazing, actually.

I just stop the game when Anderson dies and Shepard passes out. Seems like a perfect end point. Shepard saves the earth and the galaxy, no Catalyst weirdness.

Either way, even with the wacky end, it's just an amazing journey. I think it's still going to end up being my favorite game trilogy of all time, even though they didn't stick the landing.

Love the Hitler reaction vids. Newest one Ive seen.

I didn't realize this until late last night, but if any of you are looking to start the multiplayer, this is the weekend to do it. There's a 25% xp bonus through 7am Monday.

Not much detail yet:

Apparently it's free dlc from whenever it launches until August 12th.

So basically they're adding a denouement to the end.

It pretty much kills the indoctrination theory, sounds like. We'll see what it is. I think it's a good move. Hard to criticize free dlc.

Free multiplayer pack coming, as well...

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http://blog.bioware.com/2012/04/06/m...surgence-pack/

What a load of shit. Im glad I did not purchase ME3, and the other two are going into Gamestop for whatever pittance they will offer for them. Bioware will never see another dime of my money. Dragon Age 2 stung, but I thought it was an abberation. It was clearly the start of a trend. Have fun collaborating with EA to utterly destroy your most popular franchises fellas. This is not how its done.

When you advertise wildly different endings, and not getting an A, B, or C style of ending and you fail that in every way, it is your obligation to fix your mistake, not hide your shoddy, plothole ridden work behind artistic integrity.

Artistic integrity my ass.

Had they done what they said, this couldve been ONE of the endings. Probably the bad one, and then Casey Hudson couldve released a crappy youtube video about how in his mind, this shitty ending is canon for the end of the Shepard trilogy. We would all laugh at his dumbassery, but ultimately nobody would care because the rest of the endings wouldve been there for us to choose.

All this is, is Hudson forcing HIS choice on us at the end and excluding any alternatives. Nothing more. Everything you worked for over the course of three games, ALL NEGATED.

Wow. What an epic fail. As far as videogame fails are concerned, this one might even surpass E.T. for the Atari.

<div style='width:650px;font-size: 12px;'><embed src="http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.7.swf" flashvars="config=http://www.themis-media.com/videos/config/5497-4e68c65a9fbd8c974a51872902fc695c.js%3Fplayer_version%3D2.5%26embed%3D1" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" width="650" height="391" wmode="opaque"></embed><div><a href='http://www.escapistmagazine.com'>The Escapist</a> : <a href='http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation'>Zero Punctuation</a> : <a href='/videos/view/zero-punctuation/5497-Mass-Effect-3'>Mass Effect 3</a></div></div>

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Anyone else play through the extended cut DLC yet? Covered some of the plot holes that existed in the original ending, although it didn't change them entirely. They also introduced a new choice for the ending, although it's pretty obviously the worst.

I wasn't an enormous fan of the original endings, although I didn't hate them as much as most people seemed to. I think that if the extended cut DLC had been the original, people wouldn't have complained nearly as much.

On a side note, are any of you still playing the multiplayer? I've actually invested quite a bit of time into it over the last several weeks, and I find that it's got better replay value than you'd expect. It's fun to try out new character builds, and I've enjoyed the free DLC they've put out to expand it. Rumor is, there's another one in the works that focuses on Earth.

Haven't played the EC yet, but I do still play a bit of the multiplayer. Unfortunately, I always have to play with randoms since none of my friends play anymore. Gold can be tough with randoms, so most of the time I end up on silver these days.

Bump for the new multiplayer expansion that is being released today. It looks amazing, and the trailer for it is ****ing sweet.

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Anyone still playing this? I'm addicted to the Multiplayer, never knew it could be this fun.

Yeah, the multiplayer has been a pleasant surprise. I've played it fairly regularly since it came out, with the occasional break for something else. I always come back to it though.

So I'm replaying this from the beginning as a Renegon Shepard (can't bring myself to do certain things like wipe out all the colonists at Zhu's Hope and waste Wrex).

I'm struck by a few things:

1) I forgot how clunky the combat metrics of the first game and how annoyingly long all the recharge times for powers were.

2) The second game was really ****ing hard on higher difficulty levels. I zoomed through an Insanity playthrough w/ a Sentinel in ME 3 w/ two or three deaths total, but I've died dozens of times on Hardcore in ME 2 w/ an Infiltrator. The balky use of cover, the need to constantly switch weapons, and the lack of powers are all really frustrating.

Ultimately, it helps me realize and appreciate how great the gameplay of ME3 is. Ending issues aside, it's a quantum leap from the first two games.

If I had to rerank these I'd probably put them in this order:

ME 3
ME
ME 2

I realize that's the opposite of most people, but my favorite Star Wars film was ROTJ.

Ewok lover.

Although I wouldn't disagree with you. About the ME series. Ironically I've played 3 more than the other two combined due to the feature I bitched the most about (that being the multiplayer). I think the game itself is a masterpiece, even including the giant misstep in the single player game that was London until the end. ME would get the #2 spot due to nostalgia and world-building. And ME2 isn't a distant 3rd by any means. In the end it's one of the best game trilogies of all time.

I can't wait to see what they're doing with 4. And I can't wait to see whatever their new mystery IP is.

Loved the Ewoks as a kid, hate them now, but I really appreciate the culmination of the two character arcs of Luke and Anakin.

That shit aside, what do you mean mystery IP?

I think the final act of ROTJ is amazing, the arc on the planet, on the death star and in space all intertwined. Movie magic in every sense of the word, music and plot and action...

There isn't much out yet on the new IP:

I mean what is IP short for?

Intellectual Property I think.

Gotcha. ME 4 is going to be a hard transition for me. Mass Effect is, obviously, about Shepard above all. I think Commander Shepard is probably the best character in the history of video games, owing to my own personal sympathies as his actions make him an extension of myself.

It's very hard to have a series with such an identifiable protagonist continue after the end of that protagonist's story.

I'd hate for them to go prequel, because you know how the story ends, and there's too much of a temptation for retconning.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they do with it. They do have a well-established style of gameplay and a successful multiplayer element to build on, it's just a question of what they can do in terms of story. Which is sort of backwards from a bioware perspective.

Isn't it going to run on the Frostbite engine? How do you think that will affect the game?

Yeah, it's on Frostbite 3, but I don't really know enough about that to say one way or the other.

I loaded this game up again the other day. I do enjoy the multiplayer. The combat is great, despite the crappy spacebar-does-everything bullshit. I love the hookshot mechanics of the biotics combined with TPS gameplay.

I enjoyed the series on the whole, despite giant plot holes and their insistence on morally judging my actions with blue and red bars - and the fact that it really gets tiresome jogging around a ship with doors that open slower than a ghetto supermarket making sure that Garrus was still calibrating and all the gays and lesbians were doing ok.

There was some crappy writing and a pile of exposition, but there was also some good fun and then they totally make up for it with scenes like Mordin curing the genophage.

No idea where they start with a 4th.

I'm about to launch the reaper IFF mission in ME2 in my "one year anniversary" game.

Renegade female Shep (with soft spots for Tali and Liara). Trying to save all the crew this time.

I have really enjoyed playing through again. Love this trilogy and will miss Shepherd greatly.

Who did you lose? Was it due to loyalty or choosing characters that weren't quite fit for their roles (using Jacob as the biotic shield rather than Jack or Samara)?

First time I played the suicide mission through I lost Legion, Zaeed, and Garrus and dog cussed myself mercilessly.

Pro-tip:

No matter what your alignment, when you are on the Normandy and are put at the point of no return for the Omega 4 mission and you are shown at the Galaxy map from a low angle, choose the Renegade dialogue option. It's the best line in the entire series, IMO.

Oh, I'm talking about the nobodies that man the ship. I didn't realize that jacking around with extra stuff before the suicide mission prevented me from saving Ensign Chambers and etc.

I made it through the suicide mission unscathed (got lucky in assigning people the right roles).

Oh, and I'm romancing Liara this time around. Girl on blue girl action.

Legion is awesome. Does a nice job of putting a sentient face on the robots.

I made it to a second round of interviews as a writer with Bioware about 5 years ago. That would have been a load of fun.

ME1 will always be #1 for me. Shit, it's probably my 2nd most enjoyable single player experience of all time (the first being KOTOR, of course).

Sure, looking back at it, the gameplay was a little clunky. The story was so engrossing, though, that it made the clunky gameplay completely irrelevant. I didn't notice any of it when I was trying to discover WTF were these Protheans and what in the world were the Reapers all about. I sure as **** didn't notice it as I was exploring the Citadel and all the planets, getting every sidequest and listening to every possible bit of dialogue in the game.

I remember sitting there completely mind-blown while listening to or reading the codex entries. Every little detail was explained with such elegance. The universe was fleshed out to the fullest. I had my own goddamn space ship. With a goddamn Galaxy map. I could go and explore all these different planets. Holy shit the dialogue was amazing... Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that ME1 was a true masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. Don't get me wrong, I think the next two installments certainly lived up to the standard but never completely captured that perfect ME1 essence.

I didn't know that you wrote. I've thought about applying there, but given that I don't have the technical credentials (no MFA in creative writing and I've never attempted to send off creative works for publication) I figured it would go nowhere, even though I have an advanced degree in English.

Edit: I also can't *not* romance Liara. Romanced Ashley on the first playthrough, but she was a little too much of a culture warrior for my tastes. Besides, I love Liara's bookish shyness in the beginning and her development from girl to woman (which you can even notice in the pitch of her voice from 1 to 3).

I definitely understand and empathize with this sentiment. ME was nevw and as novel as a space opera gets. Aside from the gameplay, I love the latter part of the second and early third act of ME 3, when you see Shepard plugging away but slowly deteriorating (mentions of metabolic scans on his armor showing tremendous stress) under the, literal, galactic weight of his/her burden.

The codex entries are definitely worth reading all on their own.

I've thought about buying Karpyshyn's (sp?) novels, but never actually pulled the trigger.

As an aside, I find myself wasting too much brainpower considering how Ender Wiggin would have fought the Reapers, because, goddamn, do I hate deus ex machina.

Have you seen the theory that BioWare's original plan was to have the Reapers win? As I understand it, they made the ending way more ambiguous but it can still be construed as Reaper victory. In order for it to work, you only have to consider the possibility that everything taking place after London was all in Shepard's indoctrinated mind. The notion is rather unappealing to me (as it probably is to the rest of the stupid masses) but the evidence is out there and is pretty convincing.

Is that a double entendre? Haha.

The indoctrination theme has been debunked by the updated ending of ME3. It was a really clever theory and I honestly wish they'd had the stones for that to be true.

I think Ender's approach would have been much like renegade Shepherd's. Sacrificing. Relentless. Unwilling to yield.

I dabble with fiction as well but have never had the stones to submit anything of yet. I have a fantasy epic that I've been kicking around for a few years, marinating, etc. but have had trouble making consistent progress before stopping and restarting.

But writing for a video game? The way Bioware breaks it up is pretty cool. They have an overall creative director who is in charge of the outline of the story and the major plot points. They typically assign each writer to a few of each of the characters for their RPGs. Those writers will also handle individual missions and story arcs within the overall story.

Essentially, you end up writing a module, like you would for a pen and paper game.

I could definitely get down for that. But oh well...

Here was my plan that I wrote up on the BioWare forums for how to engage them:

Send in a scout fleet to zoom by Earth, drawing fire but trying to pull off some ships in a chase to weaken a flank.

The next thing I would do is recommend targeting the entire opening salvo on a Reaper flank. Rather than distributing the fire all around, angle the ships in a way (you have 3 billion miles to figure your angles out if you use scout ships) that allows you to weaken their left or right, increasing your chances for a partial encirclement.

I'd hold back a small contingent of Forlorn Hope evenly taken from each species, save for the Volus and Elcor who are numerically too small, to go directly into the teeth of the Reaper fleet after their attention has been drawn to whichever flank we attacked. These ships would be armed with dozens of nuclear weapons that they would seed amongst the fleet, which would detonate within their lines, hopefully causing mass confusion and some damage. If they turn to address these massive explosions, the main force can try to further outmaneuver the main Reaper contingent, again fighting them in smaller groups with a numerical superiority.

I think that you have to fight the battle where you have, or could conceivably have, tactical advantages. We know that a single dreadnought cannot take down a Sovereign class Reaper. However, it may be fair to assume that a dreadnought would at least be an equal match for a Destroyer, provided that the dreadnought destroyed on Earth in a 1-1 matchup was a bit of an outlier.

If that's the case, I think that you could target and destroy a large number of their destroyers. That should help remove a lot of their tactical flexibility, as they are the true shock troops in their invasions and make up the numerical bulk of the fleet.

Avoid head to head matchups wherever possible.

IMO, ships escorting Hammer forces into London should drop thermobaric weapons a safe distance from Command FOB, but enough around the city to wipe out a large amount of the Reaper ground forces. Such a weapon wouldn't destroy the beam, but would likely incinerate all Reaper soldiers it came into contact with.

Infiltrators and Geth Hunters should act as paratroopers to try and make it to the beam first, as they have the element of surprise. Avoid direct contact and you may be able to slip in largely undetected.