Mass Alex: Mass Effect 3 - Part 02

Ugh these videos just make me want to play multiplayer. Sometimes you just gotta bash a banshee with a big ass krogan hammer

At some point Alex should actually go to the shooting range and just spend the time playing with guns because the stats on the stats screen don't tell you the whole story. The guns within a class are extremely diverse and it's almost like the gun classes don't really matter that much.

One thing Alex needs to watch out for is to not always default pick the top right option and think about what's being said. It's very easy to just accidentally flirt with someone too much in Mass Effect 3 and get hard locked into a romance path with them (with no choice to call it off in this game to stick with your preferred choice).

Bottom right won't always give you renegade, especially not in this game. Now the main thing is "Reputation" which you just get from dialog regardless of paragon or renegade choice. The actual red and blue don't matter as much anymore and your bar will just get gradually larger on it's own, so pick what sounds best to you personally upon reading it, not what will fit an alignment chart, lest you end up locked in a James Vega romance for your third outing.

I forgot he wasn't free I bought the collector's edition so he was free for me, that sucks.

Yep I feel the same when he has his squad members auto level. He needs to take shield off quick power use and put something like lift or overload on instead.

@bludgeonparagon said:

Not to change the subject, but this is exactly why I argue to people that the writing in the beginning of the game is secretly worse than the writing at the end of the game. Personally, I never found it clear at all what was going on with Shepard at the beginning the ME3. If they are under arrest, why are they living in an apartment? If they are still part of the Alliance, why aren't they wearing dog tags and/or a uniform? If they've been cashiered, why can Anderson just toss you dog tags and call it good? And just who the hell is this Vega idiot?

One of the reasons that the series had been successful up to ME3 was because of how great it was at aligning the player with Shepard. Once you are introduced to the character, you are experiencing all of the important events in Shepard's life along with the character. Even the beginning of ME2 where the character dies, does this successfully. For both the player and the character, the transition back to life is nearly instantaneous, and the player and characters are equally shocked to find out two years have passed.

But fast forward to ME3 and a lot of important things have happened to the character that the player wasn't a part of. At some point, Shepard clearly went back to the Alliance (why?), clearly got in trouble (how?), clearly lost the Normandy (when?), and his crew has clearly split (where?). Yet none of that is explained or contextualized for the player. Instead, the game is in a big damn hurry to get to OMG GIANT ROBOTS ARE BLOWING UP EARTH AND LOOK A MYSTERIOUS GHOST KID!!! ISN'T IT THRILLING?!! Unfortunately, it isn't because the illusion that the player is living Shepard's life has been broken, and I'm not sure the game ever really recovered from that.

I never had Javik so this is weird.

@djredbat: I never played with him. Can’t say the experience seemed significantly worse - in a way if I did have him from the start I would probably feel pressured to always pick him in case he had good backstory or interesting dialog pertaining to the current mission.

Maaaaaaaannn.. did this game always look this bad? Is it the texture mods they're using? The characters look like wax statues and their facial expressions and lip movements are worse than Oblivion at release.

Did ME3 really age so poorly?

I forgot how much... boobier... characters are in this game. Bioware sure did decide to update the characters models for some reason. Shep in particular has quite a lot of protrusion in a shooting stance, because exaggerated molded breasts on combat armor is definitely good design and not at all bad and dangerous to the wearer.

@humanity: Ya that's what I ended up doing my first playthough but not only cause of dialog he is the most powerful biotic on the squad. His Dark Channel ability can be used against shields, barriers, and armor and he also is one of the more durable squad members in that he starts with 600 barrier strength.

You should see how it looks now on the 360 I put it on to compare and this is a night and day difference. I don't think it looks bad it looks like a game that came out 8 years ago. When was the last time you saw Oblivion those facial expressions don't hold up and look far worse then this.

All the DLC for Mass Effect 3 was SO essential, EA should be ashamed for cutting it out. From Ashes and Leviathan especially. The game is literally not complete without them.

Glad Alex is getting the full story.

yeah as wack as the writing could be in this game, they made a banger of a third person action game

I would love Alex to have more fun with the combat.

I remember all the non-facial textures for characters being downright embarrassing at the time on PC. So any time there was a reasonably close-up conversation shot from the chest up, the clothing looked really really bad. Some real N64 sized pixels. It probably was the same as the 360.

The whole idea of DLC party companions kinda sucks. I like that they can add more after a game is released, but they did this for Dragon Age as well and it just feels icky to charge for something like that in an RPG.

I played all the ME games a few years after release though so I was able to grab em all for my first playthroughs at least.

that was pretty cool alien stuff but i can tell he's a racist

I think Javik was a pre-order bonus. But you had to buy it if you didn't pre-ordered. The Wii U version came with Javik on disc as well as the new ending. A lot of people criticize ME3 but I remember loving it at least until the ending and the new ending they added were less bad but still not good. After Andromeda it seems like a masterpiece though. I wonder how the people would have reacted at ME3 if they had known about Andromeda being so much worse. Part of me would want the series continue with Andromeda but I understand if they don't want to play it. I had to force myself to finish that game. I did actually think it was not as bad as people said though but still not a great game. I didn't have many of the bugs and it looked good on PC but the story and gameplay were still below the standards of ME1-3.

@goulash_enjoyer: it looked worse actually, the texture packs they're using here improve the base textures alot

@syndrom said:

Sometimes "HD" texture packs give the game a little more definition than it should have had and ends up looking worse, in a way. I was thinking it was something like that.

'They used to eat flies.'

Damn, this Prothean hits low....

@vinny Javik wasn't just DLC, he was part of their shitty Project 10 dollar initiative. So if you rented the game via Gamefly as I did, you didn't get him. Total shit.

Nice to see him finally on here though for the first time.

In my memory ME3 was a bummer regardless of the ending, but revisiting it through this feature makes me realize that there really is some great stuff in it. Javik is tremendous. (Though I completely forgot about James' awful use of spanish.)

I mean, if we think this through, how are you going to "rent" a license for DLC in the day and age of 2012?

Wow, I'm not sure I ever upgraded weapons—I don't remember seeing that screen at all.

I guess there must have been a snafu with filming Mass Alex, that's too bad. I'm willing to wait but if they didn't get it up by now I imagine they were banging their heads against an issue for awhile.

Maybe, this is a good week to re-watch Mass Alex 1...or what the Quick Look from 2013? LOL

Now I want to play a Mass Effect Eden! A prequel, where we play as a Prothean during their invasion cycle fighting reapers and preparing for extinction. Winning battles but losing the war eventually only to plant the seeds for future civilisations. A sad, cautionary tale that ends with a little ray of hope against an inevitable enemy. Side quests obliviously include experiments on homo-sapiens and primitive Asari.

Hey, I got that Monster Magnet reference. I see you Alex.

I completely forgot Jessica Chobot was in this game.

I'm one of those people that played through ME3 without Javik. Hell, I didn't realize he was a thing until this episode! I'm really excited to keep up with the series now and see how he mingles with the crew.

Doc Chak is kinda.... cute. In a milfy way.

@aistan: Beef McLargehuge

@relic: Wow.

This game is genuinely fantastic but oh my god I'm on the second episode and already the fumbling is off the charts.

@milkman: I can see how one might have that dismissive attitude if they're terrible at video games and/or basic comprehension of instructions. Anyway, this game is an undisputable classic.