In a vacuum ME3 is a good game, but when something is built on investment it needs to deliver on it as well. ME3 is one of the most dissapointing games I have ever played and not based on any high expectaions, but just in comparison to the previous games. While combat is slightlty improved in ME3, just about everything else was done better in ME2, including both the gameplay and story. In general the the game just seems rushed:
- only one hub world
- very few paragon/renegade choices
- talking to Hacket/Anderson after every mission and having them say the same basic thing makes the game seem repetitive in a way the first 2 never did
- Graphics: the darkest I have ever seen, everything is just a black smudge even with brightness at its highest setting, no filmgrain
- no holstering weapon, giving limitited FOV and breaking immersion, unexpected because it seemed like such a trademark feature of the original games
- story: no spoilers but there is just a lack of consistency and respect for things established in the first 2 games
- slow motion sequences (just terrible)
- eavesdropping: this was in ME2 to small some degree, but here it is everywhere. Every conversation you overhear=fetch quest. Conversations that you overhear the next part of every time you visit an area is just such a jarring design choice.
- world design: I have been to 3 different gameplay worlds in a row which all have the same external environment (snowy mountains)
- loading times in armor custimization screen are ludicrous
-universe map: limited interaction, no sidequests (now you just discover items for fetch quests)
- N7 missions: are the multiplayer maps (so these are basically what Bioware is counting as sidequests).
- Importer won't recognize my ME2 saves that were carried over from ME1 (and I always use default Shep so it isn't that) but will recognize saves that started from scratch in ME2
- ending
In a vacuum, ME3
woudln't be that great, simply because the narrative wouldn't hold up. I can't imagine playing this game and never having played either of the previous two; things just wouldn't make sense and would feel awkwardly rushed. And in a vacuum and only in a vacuum would some of your complaints hold water - as it is however, most of them do not.
1. You complain there is only one hub world. While the citadel may be geographically smaller than hub worlds in the previous games (Illium, Omega, and... I'm forgetting the third atm?), there is much more to do. Bioware have basically given you a reason to go back to the Citadel after every Priority-grade mission. Also, using the Citadel as a means to interact with party members rather than on the Normandy was a good idea. While we may not have entire missions vis-a-vis the Loyalty missions from ME2 to get to know our characters, I found the Citadel scenes very touching and well written, perhaps more so than many other parts of the ME series.
2. If by Paragon/Renegade choices you mean the red/blue choices that you only get when reaching a certain amount of reputation, then I'd agree that yes there are few of them - but there were never many in the other games, either. These are meant as a "reward" of sorts for players who have basically stuck with one way or the other throughout the game. As far as making choices that net you either Renegade or Paragon points, i.e. choices on the right half of the wheel, there are plenty of those. In fact, they are much better done than in the previous ME games. Rather than giving you two polar opposite choices, the responses seem much more plausible. I play a Renegade Shep, but there are a few times when the Paragon choice is something I feel my character would choose over the Renegade option. In ME1/2, usually the Paragon choices were so Goody Two-Shoes it never felt like "my" character, however in ME3 they've constrained Shepard's responses in such a way that you can actually deviate from your alignment and feel like your character would say/do those things.
3. Only when Hackett/Anderson initiates the conversations do they say "new" things, otherwise you just have the option to go through the conversation wheel with them. While some of the time I will agree that the dialogue does feel a bit repetitive (i.e., all the "Good going Shepard..." talks), talking with Hackett after every mission does help to keep you focused on saving Earth and bring what you just did on your mission back into perspective. Could have been better, sure, but hardly a deal breaker.
4. Change your TV/Monitor settings. Granted, I am playing the PC version, so graphics are expected to look much better. On that topic, and having all the previous ME games on PC as well as Xbox, I think ME3 is a gorgeous game. I had begun to doubt whether Bioware could really make a good looking game, especially on PC, after the ridiculously muddy textures of ME1/2 and the ho-hum graphics of DA:O. DA2's stylistic look was nice, but it was poorly optimized for PC (I can max out ME3 but not DA2?), and not "technically" impressive. On ME3, Bioware made the textures much, MUCH better, and gave us the most colorful and visually diverse entry in the series. That was actually my biggest gripe with ME2 was how repetitive everything looked (want some more orange tinting?). The graphics reach a high mark in this game for the series, as well as Bioware games in general. In addition, the game looks better than most of its contemporaries - Skyrim, Dragon Age 2, Kingdoms of Amalur, and the Diablo 3 (beta). It can't hold a candle to The Witcher 2, but then again only Crysis 2 really can. The art design is also the best its ever been in the series.
5. How does holstering a weapon "break immersion?" In pretty much every combat mission, there are no scenarios in which Shepard would realistically holster his weapon. The missions are pretty much all combat, and there are no situations in which an enemy might not pop out and try to gank you. Therefore, he's perfectly justified keeping his gun out at all times on combat missions. It was nice that they gave Shepard his casual outfit for the Citadel, where its pretty unlikely he'll see action. I don't think the FOV thing is really an issue that people are affected by, but if it bothers you so much, you can change it on PC through some editing of the config files. Easy to do and not a big deal.
6. Lack of consistency? One of the things ME3 does so impressively (and ME2 did for that matter) was take a character that was partly user-created and carry his personality over through two sequels. It does amaze me to some extent that Bioware were able to keep Shepard the same guy he was, going all the way back to ME1. As far as the narrative being consistent, you're given a chance to catch up with pretty much ever major character from ME1 and ME2, and given a good back story/mission to find out what they've been up to since you saw them last. I thought with little exception that their respective stories were entirely consistent with their character and stories in ME1/2. I'd go into specifics but that would be spoilerific. If you have a specific example though, I'd like to hear it. You don't provide any other criticisms of the story past the "lack of consistency" argument, but I'll go on record as saying ME3 probably ties ME1 in terms of how well the story is done. I think ME1 has a slight edge on it considering how new and novel things were, but as the bookend of this trilogy I think ME3 stands on its own legs narratively. Sure, the pace of the game feels a bit awkward considering you should be effing the Reapers up most of the time, but if the game was solely focused on that we'd have a pretty short game. I think Bioware did a great job of interweaving story/side quest bits in light of the impending doom of the galaxy, and maintaining the sense of urgency you should have for the most part. ME2 had basically no story except that of your squad mates.
7. Honestly I don't even really know what you're talking about here. The dreams? I thought those were pretty well done. Something new for the series, certainly. Its nice to see Shepard show some signs of the war weighing on him, he felt a bit inhuman in the previous games. If you're talking about the game play bits where sometimes the action slows down so you can shoot/dodge/whatever, then those are so short and insignificant that it is petty to complain about them. That'd make just about as much sense as saying the part where you walk through the scanner to get back to the galaxy map "ruins" ME3 because it is annoying and takes 3 seconds.
8. This is pretty much the only point I tend to agree with you on. Getting "side quests" through eavesdropping is obviously the result of Bioware being short on development time. All things considered, though, I'm glad this is where the game took the hit rather than in other areas. The "quests" you get from eavesdropping are never more than stupid fetch quests, which are never more than scanning planets under a different name. I understand the need to implement some kind of "grinding" in order for the game to properly feel like an RPG, however. How dumb would it be, though, if you had entire conversations with people that led to a "mission" where you just launched a stupid probe? I think Bioware could have found a completely different mechanic to implement this feature...
9. The world and level design are at their best in ME3. I don't know which planets you're talking about (care to specify?), but earlier in the game the order you do things in is pretty open ended. If you went to three planets in a row that looked similar (which I doubt they did), that might be your specific experience - not that of the general public. The world/level designs in ME3 for the most part have captivated me unlike any other RPG I've played in recent memory, Skyrim included. The Palaven moon? I'd name other places but they're probably spoilers, so I'll just say that there is more diversity in this game than any other Mass Effect game - which is appropriate considering ME's Star Trek roots. Furthermore, level design as a game play function is also at its best in ME3. ME2 was a joke, every battle played exactly the same. Take cover, use powers, shoot, move up. ME3 completely rewrites the book on how battles are executed. If you're finding otherwise, then you're probably playing it on too easy of a setting.
10. Not sure what you're talking about because I'm playing on PC once again, but this really seems like a nitpicky issue. How often do you customize your armor? After every mission? I've customized my armor what I consider to be a fair amount, and I'd say I've done it less than 10 times in a game that's 40 hours long or so. This is really a stupid complaint.
11. The N7 missions weren't side quests? What else were you expecting from the universe map? It does all the things it did in previous games, without the annoying parts (planet scanning in ME2), and they even added a sort of mini game to make it less boring (Reapers). Otherwise, the universe map is the same its always been.
12. Yes, Bioware reused the levels from the N7 missions for multiplayer, or vice-versa if you like. I too find this annoying to a degree. I'd prefer the multiplayer to take place somewhere completely different than the single player so it might feel fresh and new. I'm guessing that Bioware chose to incorporate the multiplayer levels back into the story to pad the single player a bit. On the other side, putting multiplayer-like missions in the single player campaign makes sense, so that when people play they know the levels, etc.
13. I'm sorry the game won't import your Shepard. You wouldn't want to hear what I went through to get my Shepard's face into the game (hint: it involved an Xbox-to-PC save converter, two different save editors, 2 Xboxs, purchasing all the DLC for ME2 on PC, and buying three different copies of Mass Effect 3). Bioware clearly fucked up badly here. Although in your specific argument, I think you're experiencing something unique - which makes me think you're just doing something wrong. The game won't import your face if you're coming from an ME1 Shepard, because it never saved the "face code" you used in ME1, and that's what it bases the face in ME2 off of. How the hell no one at Bioware thought to play test the game with a Shepard imported from ME1 is beyond me. Also, the Xbox version of the game will not import your save if it is in the cloud, or if you transferred it from the cloud. This has been all over the internet with pretty detailed instructions as to how to fix/get around it. If you're here on Neogaf but haven't figured out how to get around it, then I don't know what to say to you.
14. I haven't finished the game yet (trying to get my readiness level up to 100% - almost there! It really will probably only take me ~2 hours of online play), so I can't say anything about the ending. I can sympathize to a degree with Bioware in that ending something this massive can never be easy - I just hope they didn't worry so much about pleasing everybody and wrote some kind of a strong finish...
Anyways, this was super long, so I apologize to anybody whose actually read it all. Seriously though Sojgat, you come off as a bandwagoner. Everybody (and by everybody I mean everybody here on the internet) is jumping down Bioware's throat about this game, and I'm really failing to see the issue. I'm pretty critical of games, especially RPGs, and I was surprised with how good ME3 is. You're complaining over the most minute issues that really don't detract from the experience as a whole.
