Mnemoidian

I'm really starting to despise the way most games handle branching stories (consider this: Black Ops 2 has a lot more branching storyline than most other games this year.) - and I think that Far Cry 3 is one of the worst offenders. Basically, what the game demands you do at the end is take responsibility for the decision the game makes for you about halfway through the game (when Jason decides to stay). I normally don't like it, but it's usually the main character ending up in a situation where you end up somewhere because of other's decisions. Here, the decision is just meaningless. Meh, MEH! I say.

That said, I did feel a bit guilty for letting myself be fooled about Vaas' sister being sane. Of course she's going to be nuts. Everyone is nuts on Rook Island!

In the end, I'm going with the Citra end, because... while I don't think Liza deserved what she got, I think that Jason deserved everything he got. :P

Anyway, I think that Vaas is probably the best character I've been introduced this year. Despite it being spoiled in trailers (WHY!?), the "Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?" section was excellent... And so was pretty much every other part he appeared in. So menacing! So awesome! Unfortunately, I think that Sam and Hoyt couldn't quite pick up the slack for Vaas, though Hoyt was pretty good.

On the other hand, getting the wingsuit just after Vaas died... also made the rest of the game so much more awesome. It's almost like the game turned into Just Cause 2 - giving you crazy levels of mobility... honestly pretty torn about the game. Overall pretty great, but the bad parts are pretty bad. It's kind of a shame they didn't go the Tyler Durden route... but, there we go.

@Thanatos3: Yeah, a pure clone - no modification (except for the part where they accelerated his aging...? *shrug*), unlike what they were doing with Liquid and Solid. But it turns out that you need more than DNA to be a perfect soldier. Environment and experience are also important.

He's a really odd choice to turn into a puppet-president :P

@Sarge506: I agree, and I especially agree that if it is Big Boss (which I'm leaning towards), then it's really problematic that he's so greyhaired, considering that Kojima went out of his way to provide additional material for us to see that Big Boss isn't greying in Ground Zeroes (ie: your avatar).

I've been pretty sold on it being Big Boss, but having just recently rewatched...

I'm wavering a bit. On the other hand, at that point we've seen advanced cybernetics, cloning and limbs fully transplanted, so who's to say what's possible by then.

As for location... I was going to bring up the map, as I'd seen people speculating about South Africa, but seeing @Sarge506 mention Cyprus, 3-prong power outlets and @MooseyMcMan talking about left-hand traffic. Turns out... all these things are true in Cyprus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#BS_1363 Cyprus and the UK uses the same Power Plug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Jurisdictions_with_left-hand_traffic Cyprus has left-hand traffic.

Also, Cyprus was leased to the United Kingdom 'till 1960, which explains the flag in the hospital... so Cyprus is looking pretty good right now :)

I'm still trying to piece together the timeframe. The Psycho Mantis child-lookalike suggests we're talking about a chronological prequel to Metal Gear Solid (by 10-20 years, I'd guess?), though it could certainly be just a lookalike. More interestingly, I've seen some in-depth comparisons between the gear used by the soldiers attacking the Hospital and the gear worn by the XOF unit in the Ground Zeroes... which we know a lot more about when that takes place (because Chico is still a kid, if nothing else), as it seems to be taking place shortly after Peace Walker in 1974... of course, that's not a great dating mechanism, especially as I don't know how often a military unit typically replaces their gear :P

I find the straight speedometer in the car (carcrash scene) to be quite interesting, but I can't find any good articles about when those fell out of style...

Looks an aweful lot like Naked Snake/Big Boss...

(See below for images of the "family".)

Obviously, seeing how MGS2 is a PS2 game, it's not as easy to compare, but I'd say that our Phantom Pain-subject is a lot more similar to Big Boss, than he is to Solidus. There's also the matter of Solidus' increased aging, and us not being entirely sure which decade Phantom Pain is set in, what with there being what looks like a child-version of Psycho Mantis appearing in it, the straight spedometer in the car, the soldiers wearing the exact same gear as the soldiers in the Ground Zeroes trailer (which we know a lot more about the timing of!)... etc.

I'm not saying I know what's up with it, but I think it's a lot more likely that we're looking at Big Boss than Solidus Snake. Also, looking at Old Snake's appearance, you can see that the clones don't age identically to Big Boss, Old Snake looks different enough that it's easily possible to tell them apart, even if Big Boss didn't have the eyepatch. Also, some people have pointed out that Phantom Pain-guy has a scar on his cheek that is very similar to the one found on Big Boss' cheek... though that tends to use the mirrored image as reference, which is... problematic.

See here: Phantom Pain (???), Ground Zeroes (Big Boss), MGS4 (Big Boss), Peace Walker (Big Boss) MGS2 (Solidus), MGS4 (Old Snake), MGS1 (Liquid Snake).

@studnoth1n said:

@Mnemoidian: Well I haven't played those other games, so maybe it only seems disproportionate. Also, just because one game is worse the another doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with that other game. There's greater amount of nuance to these problems, and discussion, than most people are willing to give credit.

You still haven't (as far as I can tell) mentioned a single detail about the multiplayer that is so horrible that it's ruining the value of the product for you. I agree that throwaway multiplayer components aren't a good thing, but I don't think this is a throwaway component.

And I didn't say the other shooters released in November are bad.

*shrug* Carry on raging, I guess?

FWIW; you can handle all the DLC for ME3 directly from Origin, no need to install seperate packs anymore.

Not sure if they've added the ME2 DLC to Origin, but I did see some of the ME1 DLC (Pinnacle station?) in Origin the other day (when looking for Omega/Leviathan, which I didn't find at the time (but did later) :P)

Not impossible that it'll get a discount, but I wouldn't count on it.

Then again, you can find the game in brick and mortar stores (in Sweden) from about € 30 (Insane Edition at € 50). It's not a Steamworks game, so you won't be able to register it on Steam, but if the price is critical to you, that might be worth checking out.

Put about 2 hours into it last night. I still don't see what the problem is, other than the lack of people/some laggy people ruining it for everyone.

It's not like it's worse than the other big shooters that has been released in November. Bit less polished than Call of Duty, but what do you expect? They've had almost a dozen iterations to learn from.

ps: saying "it's still shit" is not describing what's wrong with it. It's fine that you don't like it, but ... uh, why? If you care enough to make a thread, mabe describe what makes it bad? :P

Male/Female is down to 3 things I guess: 1) Do you prefer a female or male protagonist? 2) Jennifer Hale does FemShep's voice, Mark Meer does BroShep's voice. 3) Depending on your gender selection, different love interests will be available to you.

Not a fan of Custom Shepards, especially with teh disonance you may feel watchig marketing and other footage of other people's Shepard. (though, I can see why you would want to play a Custom Shepard, certainly much more "yours").

Unfortunately, classes changed a lot between ME1 and ME2, and I don't exactly remember how they played in the first game. Overall, playing a Soldier makes the games act much more like Shooters though. Adepts can be a lot of fun in ME3, once you figure out combos/biotic explosions.

... and don't care too much about what anyone says on here, just start the game and play as you want to. You don't really need to know anything. You're just running the risk of spoiling the experience for yourself!