We need to end these apologist review scores - especially ME3!

Here's why I think Mass Effect 3 isn't a great game:

The highs:

I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favourite spot on the Citadel.

Multiple death scenes for various characters.

The lows:

Shift to action, action and more action.

Significantly less renegade/paragon options in conversations.

Aside from the Citadel, there is zero on foot exploration.

They made the scanning thing worse than ME2. Somehow.

Stupid side quest system.

Import bug.

Inferior selection of squad mates, and a lack of them overall. I think 3 ends up at 5-6 depending on DLC, Mass Effect 2 had like 12 and all of them are more interesting than James Vega and Edi in physical form.

Edi being a squad mate is dumb as hell.

James Vega suddenly appearing as a character, wasting a spot. At this point in the series that spot is better off given to a past character than some random guy we are introduced to with zero back story at the start of the game, gee thanks.

"Hey remember that time Shepard..."

Levelling up didn't feel exciting as we never really got anything new (if you imported at least) and the weight system is really stupid.

Bottom of the barrel:

The ending.

That last mission, fight wave of enemy move on, fight more waves of enemies, move on, fight 5 waves of enemies, move on. 2 suffered from this, but it wasn't as bad as 3 and at least the suicide mission gave you a lot of choices and you can see the outcomes. Even the big bad Reaper boss what the fuck holy shit Terminator thing was more compelling.

Significantly important day one DLC that didn't come with the standard version of the game. I didn't buy it and I'm glad my I didn't support this consumer gouging practice.

TL;DR: Compared to 2, this game is a step back in almost every possible way. Only the combat got a slight improvement, and very slight it is.

2 is my favourite game of this generation.

Watch this video and tell me 2 didn't have far more funny, cool or badass moments than 3:

telling involved storys isnt really this mediums strong suit

Review scores are the opinions of the reviewer....there is nothing apologist about them.

ME 3 so far is a fairly decent game with some good moments and some serious crappy moments.... your mileage varies depending on what you want out of a Mass Effect game. I'm not getting what i want out of it..... but i can see how some people would...

Yeah Patrick's article about Miranda left a bad taste in my mouth, but I let him know in that thread.

Yeah, well, you know that's just, like, your opinion, man.

@ShadowSkill11 said:

3.5 million copies on it's debut says it's a hit. So yes, you are in the minority. Next time rent the game first.

You realise the amount of copies it sold straight away means nothing of the game's quality, but merely how many people were hyped for it.

@lockwoodx said:

Yeah Patrick's article about Miranda left a bad taste in my mouth, but I let him know in that thread.

What the fuck does Patrick's article have to do with anything?

Honestly couldn't finish Mass Effect 1 when it came out. It was only after I bought ME2 that i really fell in love with the series (i played the game 24 hours in the first 48 i had the game, and couldn't wait to play more). ME2 got me the energy to go back to the first and finish it, then back to ME2 to bring my ME1 character over. and Now Mass Effect 3 is here, and while it hasn't brought me the same joy i got from 2 it adds to the reason why 2 was so great for me. Mass Effect 3, While it has bits here and there that are pretty good, the game just stands as being a decent game. A game i do not regret buying, but also a game that did not capture me in the same respect as its predecessor, but in no means does that make this game terrible.

I don't even know how to reply to these topics anymore. I could have easily closed the tab, but I decided to type this out instead. You're welcome.

@logicbombx said:

Incomprehensibly, faceless Cerberus shows up at every mission to create a Horde mode level

You....haven't played ME3. Get outta my face with that shit. Come back when you actually play the game, if you still hate it then at least your arguments will hold more water.

Sooo...I'm gonna address this stuff.

1) "Action is boring and rote." Perhaps compared to Dead Space, inFamous, or Gears of War, but it's still a lot more fun than Kane & Lynch 2, and that's still a whole lot more functional than Mindjack. It's not top of the genre, but it's certainly a lot better than most other third-person shooters.

2) "Cerberus shows up at every mission..." This is a legitimate complaint. I used to think the Illusive Man was all right, we always got along, and I certainly didn't think they were the goddamned Galactic Empire. While they do "legitimize" this in-universe, that doesn't make it good game design, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth based on what occured in ME2.

3) "The story is dumb." It always has been. Mass Effect has always been some of the goofiest space opera since Star Wars. While the characters in-game always took things very seriously, it's always been pretty dumb. If you mean "the story is poorly written", then you're probably right; even though the dialogue is still pretty solid, the story is not especially well-plotted from what I've seen so far.

@Brodehouse: Funnily enough, I've just completed that part with the Krogan female too during a 2nd playthrough and I noticed the same thing (thought that's also a rare occasion). And that's all well and good for certain circumstances, but the fact is Shepard, my Shepard, was stripped away during a lot of ME3. No matter how you chose to roleplay your Shepard, there are countless times where he'll respond on his own using the ''canon'' direction of his character. All of a sudden my Shepard is making jokes and shooting out a ton of one-liners that seem out of character for how I was portraying her during the first two. It's especially jarring if you're going renegade (which I currently am) and how Shepard will revert from his usual dick-ish behaviour to then become all sincere, mopy and compassionate. A lot of the automated dialogue isn't just for exposition, or to automatically fill in some of the military talk. There is a ton of dialogue that clearly establishes Shepard as his own pre-determined character, notably during talks with Hackett & Anderson. Plus there are whole conversations where you barely have any say (some none at all) that felt really off, like the part where the Council yet again deny me any help, yet I wasn't allowed to rage up the wall and shoryuken those fools.

Some of the automated dialogue helps the flow a little better during conversations that are on the move I'll admit, but as I said earlier, even when you're given the option to actually decide what Shepard will say, it's near always just two choices instead of the three from prior games. Plus I was very accustomed to building my own Shepard across the previous games, because they allowed you to choose what he said for like 95% of his dialogue. To then have maybe 60%-70% of it to be completely automated was a step down in allowing me to continue role-playing my Shepard. If they at least took from DA2 and intepretated Shepard's automated dialogue based on how your Paragon/Renegade bars were measured, then it would of been more acceptable (though best case scenario would of been like the first two and I can select everything [generally speaking] that's uttered out of Shepard's mouth). ME2 made such a vast improvement with the interruption feature, but now ME3 has only made it appear more shallow.

I mean as we all know, ME isn't really a series about shaping the Galaxy, because we really have very little impact in how anything significant pans out. For me it was more about allowing me to sculpt my own Shepard by selecting what my Shepard (and the 4 others) would say at almost every turn. The worst scenarios during ME3 are when you talk to characters outside of dialogue wheels/cutscene... and there are some pretty impactful conversations that are laid out in that fashion and yet I have no say whatsoever (talking to a drunken Tali about Miranda's death comes to mind).

The reason why I loved playing through the prior games so much was because of how I was able to deviate my Shepards and give them mildly differing personalities. They don't offer up that much freedom of course, but it was enough that I felt my 5 Shepards were unique from one another. For ME3, I'm more so playing through again because of the classes and the weapons. Ironically enough it's the gameplay that's spurned my desire for multiple-playthroughs, though the gameplay is also pretty damn good. But at the same time, that's not supposed to be the primary reason as to why I'll play through a ME game again but for ME3 it's more or less the only reason.

The ending sucked balls, but it was a great experience. I'll agree that the Cerberus hordes got tedious every now and then.

@S0ndor said:

The ending sucked balls, but it was a great experience. I'll agree that the Cerberus hordes got tedious every now and then.

For as absolutely asinine and incoherent as that ending was, I really liked the way Shepard died during the Synthesis ending. Great use of music too; Shepard's death (the way he died more so than the why) was about the only good thing about it.

Mass Effect 3 is still pretty awesome. The ending is bad, sure, but the rest of it is near perfect for me. Yeah the side mission stuff is bad and I have some other complaints, but I don't know I was impressed for a while. I'm probably in the minority on this site, but I loved most of it. The ending doesn't ruin the franchise for me. I mostly agree with review scores.

@spartanlolz92 said:

telling involved storys isnt really this mediums strong suit

Considering it has been done about 100 million times in the past and will continue to do so. this is just a flamebait post.

Reviews are opinion pieces based on the experiences and "standards" set by the reviewer. Arthur Gies(much love) gave ME3 a 10 out of 10. By his "standards," he thinks it's an amazing game. However, you have every right to be angry because it does get frustrating that some games get high review scores despite many flaws. I can empathize with you. I kinda wanted Skyward Sword to review poorly because I believed that if the game was reviewed poorly. Nintendo would wake up and understand that the flaws in that game were unacceptable and need to be addressed. However, it was well-received and I ended up loving the game despite the glaring flaws. Bottom line is, there is no "one size fits all" standard. If you don't like how well-received ME3 is. Just ignore it, you're not doing yourself any favors by getting upset about it.

3.5 million copies on it's debut says it's a hit. So yes, you are in the minority. Next time rent the game first.

I need to purchase ME2 again (I know, I am a bad person for selling it), maybe, and then buy ME3.

That Matrix comparison is utterly awful and is something you'd expect from those fanboys who hate sequels because they are just that: sequels. Mass Effect 2 was brilliant. Mass Effect 3, which I haven't completed yet, seems really good. Maybe not as good as 2 but that's a high bar to jump over. I doubt the ending, despite its negative reception from a few, will sour my opinion on the entire game. In fact, people have been whining about it so much that my expectations are low and I expect to be okay with it.

@Humanity said:

@Brodehouse said:

Mass Effect 3 is great.

I'd be hesitatnt to say it's great, but it's certainly a solid "good." As a standalone title ME3 would be a much better game than when put up against the backdrop of the trilogy.

Pretty much that. Mass Effect 3 isn't a bad game, it's just not as good as the first two.

Speaking of the first two, I still don't see how anyone could have more fun with the first game than the second game. Opinion and different tastes, I know, but the systems and design of Mass Effect 1 do not hold up after a few playthroughs. Its writing and writing alone is what saves it, which is very unfortunate.

Mass Effect 2's combat doesn't carry the game, its writing does, but it definitely shows that Bioware did their homework on how to make a third person shooter and - let's not kid ourselves - Mass Effect was a third person shooter from the start as far as gameplay goes.

Now, if we can toss the consistently good level design and combat of Mass Effect 3 with the smoothness and writing of Mass Effect 2 and the plot of Mass Effect 1 all into a great big sci-fi bowl together and mix it up real good, we'll have a genre-defining game worthy of a 10. But we all know that's not going to happen.

Mass Effect 3 is awesome. I don't know what you are talking about. Best trilogy every made. Not kidding.

Opinions, how do they work.

@believer258: I think the gunplay changed drastically from ME1 to ME2 but the way it worked in ME1 was a lot more RPG driven. I played through ME1 for the first time as a soldier, I don't know why, guess I never liked Mages in RPG's so I thought I'd go the warrior way. IT was kind of a slog and I didn't have that much fun. I decided to try it again and chose the Adept to have all the powers and I literally fell in love with the game. While the shooting was not that great in Mass Effect, the biotics were amazing. The difference is almost like night and day between ME1 and ME2. The two things that upset me most about ME2 was that they nerfed biotics changing them into silly magic missiles, and that they took out the inventory system.

People who use Citizen Kane as an example of what video games should be did not see Citizen Kane nor do they understand why that movie is so loved by film critics.

I just love the idea that because you don't like the game, that means other reviews are wrong and aren't "holding games at a higher standard."

@Brodehouse said:

Mass Effect 3 is great.

I disagree, and the circle continues.

@Brodehouse said:

Mass Effect 3 is great.

I disagree, and the circle continues.

@TheSouthernDandy: Damn, I'm sorry. I gotten so used to posting all throughout the ME3 forums so openly (since a lot of the discussions are centred around the ending) that I lost my footing and didn't think.

@Abyssfull: Ah its ok. I kinda had the feeling from chatter around the net that the ending was gonna go that way. I should probably stay off the net till i play it.