Mass Effect 3 Spoiler Thread of Spoilery Goodness

If you're of the "cover? what cover?" breed of Vanguard, there is one particularly infuriating battle sequence in the DLC where you absolutely must cower behind walls or face arbitrary death from, um, I don't know precisely what was going on there.



I think something lurking above was killing me outright but it's hard to tell and well... fuck that sequence. I died a dozen times because I couldn't figure out what the bloody hell was going on (also, I'm stubborn). Sometimes I'd die immediately, other times I would fight a while before the game decided I'd lived long enough. Whatever, fine, I'll hide behind cover like the rest of my squad. Grr.

Moving on, I share Quitch's opinion that this is an intensely mediocre DLC at best. I like the environmental design (pretty) and I was really happy to see Bioware take a female Turian out of cold storage (where they've apparently been hiding for three games now), but overall I find the narrative a bit stilted and uninteresting. They pulled this Oleg guy out of nowhere and I find it hard to care about him or his war with Aria*. They are nothing to me. What most disappoints me is that I would have really loved an extended multi-part mission like this if I had any emotional attachment whatsoever to any of the main players.

Alas, we have an Asari I never liked in the first place, some Cerberus guy who lacks even a tiny fraction of the IM's gravitas, and the Turian agent I would have enjoyed having around for more than just one mission. This misfires on basically every front for me.


* maybe at some point later on they explain why this is a thing. I'm not quite finished with the DLC.

Moving the discussion here from the main ME thread, due to massive spoilers. Anyway Jasper: Yeah, probably the Star Kid is lying. The problem is that this just makes it all worse. From a player/character agency standpoint, in order for the three magic beam colors to have any meaning, then we've basically got to be able to take Starkid at his word. If we can't (and I agree we probably can't, though I suspect that's more due to awful writing than deliberate omission), then the choices are meaningless and at that point the game might as well have just served up:

Oh, I wouldn't say that makes the choices meaningless. I like Gene Wolf style prose where what's going on isn't immediately obvious, and you're maybe not 100% certain of the consequences. Hell, I'd venture that Star Kid bending things with you a bit is the best part of the ending. Gives him at least a bit of character.

At root the problem is simply the abrupt and awful deus ex machina ending. Once you're saddled with "Pick one of these three magical colors!" there's just nothing to be done, not to mention that it's enormously deflating and anticlimactic that Star Kid merely lets you win. Even were one to do away with all the miserable discontinuity, paradox, and logical shortcomings of the ending you'd still be left with something fatally flawed and beyond redemption.

It's strange though as such a pastiche ending is so fitting for Space Opera, and yet somehow the rest of Mass Effect managed to move enough beyond its roots for the effect to be jarring. I've certainly seen similar endings in other games and not had such a visceral reaction!

Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a similar "pick a magic button" ending. I think the problem is that the writing for 99.5% of ME3 was really solid, it did a great job of building to that moment and then.... Oy.

And like ME3, DE:HR's weakest part was its ending. At least ME3 had a non-boss tough end fight in an epilogue where you got to talk to all of your party members before venturing forth. DE:HR puts you through a gauntlet of zombies (strike 1), then against a gimmicky boss fight (strike 2), then gives you a LOL PRESS ONE OF THE BUTTONS HUMAN ending that totally disregards any choices you made earlier in the game (strike 3). And DE:HR made it hard to go back and chat with any of the movers and shakers you interacted with earlier in the game. It's hard to miss the guy who created augs, but unless you specifically go out of your way to hunt down Sarif and Taggart, you won't find them. And the final goodbyes they give are meh in any event. Not like Garrus being, well Garrus. Or Liara/Mary Sue revealing her infatuation with you even though you went out of your way not to pick her as your real doll for all three games.

Liara's obvious infatuation doesn't actually bother me that much; though I don't find her romance paths all that appealing. Yes she's infatuated, but keep in mind that by Asari standards she's like 16 and Shephard is pretty much the dominant presence in her life, once Benezia gets capped.

Holy shit. This is one of the more impressive Shepards (I don't like using "FemShep" as it implies that the male is default and all of my third-person avatars are almost always female ...and redheads :P)

He is the default.

LIES!

It has clearly been too long because, in ME3 at least, you're right that he's not the default. It prompts you for your gender before anything else.

I use FemShep, but I go out of my way to never refer to ManShep (or DudeShep if I'm feeling informal) as just "Shepard" either. If I say it without a qualifier, I'm talking about the character in terms that encompass both.

Man, who uses that crappy Assault Rifle? She needs to upgrade her gear.

Ingmar stole my post, I do essentially the same thing. Although I prefer "LadyShep" for some reason.

Speaking of Femship, I saw this while driving home earlier this week:

Might need to fix your link there.

Thanks. Fixed before Elyscape showed up to complain about hotlinking!

RIP my favorite character in Mass Effect :( :(

"Hey Shepard, got a minute? You might learn something."

Yeah saw that the other day, he did such a great job with that role. :/

Citadel DLC spoilers from this point forward





All thoughts based on my Infiltrator run on Insanity difficulty where Jack and Zaeed were dead and I was in a romance with Tali.

Is Bioware capable of introducing a new NPC and not have them betray you? I mean, I'm pretty gullible and they almost fooled me, but even I saw that one coming. Shepard really needs to learn to check credentials and operate a default of non-trust.

I thought the boss concept was pretty neat though, having Shepard actually mirror your class. I had him infiltrating towards me and hitting me with incinerate when I was trying to get a bead. Though this is something Bioware have done before (having the player fight themselves) this is their best implementation of it by a long shot. I could have done without that bit where Bioware hammer home the "power of friendship" message that runs throughout the DLC though with "What makes you different from me?" *cue squad running up to save Shepard*. Was that really necessary?

I found that the Guardian replacement was harder to kill. I'm not sure if I am just rusty or that eye-slit was smaller or they were moving a shield a lot. Whatever the reason, where as I would always kill a Guardian I hit the shield most times against these guys. Even if you knocked the shield off they could regenerate it since it was an energy construct rather than a physical one; a nice touch. I also liked the four-way grenade because unlike the regular grenade where you could often just slide along some cover, this forced you to really get moving. It kept the combat pretty lively for the most part. I'm also glad they kept it to one mech encounter only, I find those things pretty grindy.

This is the first DLC to introduce a weapon or an add-on that I actually found useful. I didn't use the pistol much in the end, but I did take it as my backup.

Another plus was the difficulty. The opening area was the first time I've been tight on ammo in ME3, and damn if sabotage didn't prove to be useful in that situation! I thought that the Shepard Vs. Shepard fight was also the best boss fight Bioware have done in the series with the right degree of challenge without frustrating me, and because of the nature of that fight it should make for an interesting experience on replays, depending on how well the AI handles other abilities. All-in-all the combat areas were well designed and fun to battle through.

It was great having Wrex back from a character perspective, but also from the way he changed the dynamic of the battles. Throughout ME3 you generally take on a somewhat defensive combat role with the enemy using various means, either flanking, close-combat or grenades to flush you out. However, with Wrex you had more offensive options opening up to you because his AI had him constantly charging the enemy down and leading to a change in the way battles played out. I imagine that if I played through those battles again without taking Wrex that they'd feel very different indeed.

I appreciated all the little touches, like Tali taking my arm walking into the casino (which means that scene isn't just a model swap because presumably many of the other characters wouldn't do that), the way when I was mingling she wouldn't just stand behind me but would lean against a table or hit the dance floor, even the subtle switch back to the original ME1 "Shepard Shuffle" dance rather than the ME2 replacement. One area they lapsed though was the archives when I was surprised to find my squad didn't have anything to say about the archives we viewed. I would have thought Tali would interject on the AI recording, while Wrex would surely have something to say about the genophage clip.

There were also a couple of minor irritating bugs that I hit, one where Wrex just disappeared and didn't respond to squad commands (I reloaded and he reappeared) and another where "Hang out with your squad" wouldn't disappear from the screen (again, reloading fixed it). Finally, someone didn't place Kasumi quite right in her final scene, her feet are in the floor and her hands below the railing. Otherwise it was all smooth sailing, though I do wonder if Liara is supposed to have additional dialogue which isn't firing after the party, I only got one line out of her, and everyone else had more than that with a very short final (looping) statement.

This DLC was packed to the gills with in-jokes and fan service and I'm sure some will find it a bit much. Indeed just a quick search on YouTube to revisit the bit where Tali sings revealed some complaints about the saccharin nature of some of the content. For me it worked because this was clearly a send-off DLC, so having jokes referencing three games' worth of content and sections dedicated to spending time with the squad fit the mood perfectly. Hell, there were jokes about things I hadn't even noticed before like "I should go" and the party reminded me of the fan art of a party on the Normandy intended as an alternate ending, there was a lot that had the feel of a love letter to the Bioware forum crowd. Anyway, I can live with fan service if it's as awesome as battling through the Normandy. As Wrex said "And it's not even my birthday!". I mean, they had an elevator scene with squad banter! That's my kind of fan service!

They worked the mood well though with boastful joking during the mission, melancholy meetings on the citadel and bonding at the party. They hit all the right notes and I don't think I could have asked for a better final DLC. I'm just amazed they didn't include an option to turn the squad photo into my Windows background, or at least pull it up as a static full-screen so I could screenshot it.

Total playthrough time was between six and seven hours. I haven't played the combat simulator yet, nor tried to takeover all the high score boards.

I don't think there's anything more left to say other than I'm looking forward to what the fan trailer crowd does with this content. I want my Mass Effect 3 in 10 Minutes video.

tl;dr It's a great send-off for the franchise and I highly recommend buying it

Oh, one thing. Was it just me or did that apartment feel like the kind of thing only in the price bracket of a millionaire playboy?

Yeah. Anderson mentioned he had an ex-wife. Talk about breaking immersion!

Favourite moment: It's tough because there's a lot of great ones, but I think it's when the team is finishing a briefing all RAH RAH! and Shepard turns around and the volus pizza guy is standing there.

EDIT: Found footage I was looking for!
sweet heavenly father almighty praise the lord

Won't be buying the DLC myself, unfortunately; I don't own the game, and even if I did, I feel uneasy playing through something so...final. It's a little like confronting death for me.

i take this game and its characters very seriously haha.

I know that feeling, I'm very sad that the journey is over, but this really was a fantastic send-off. You owe it to yourself to play it, it's the perfect final hurrah.

Just finished watching the Garrus Romance-specific bits and I went from a tittering schoolgirl to a sobbing baby in literal seconds.

He's all like "I'll be waiting for you" and I'm like "awww" and then I remembered how the game ends and
AND
I am now even more hesitant than I was before to play it, but if anything, I'll just watch footage online. At least that way, I can kind of pace it out, you know? Go through as much of it as I can at a time. i am still crying over that scene, why

That's why, as I said, plot wise it's set before the end, but tone wise it's clearly designed as the final send-off for the series.

The fan trailers community is going to have a field-day with this DLC, so much footage they can use.

I'm still swooning over the dance scene.
They didn't have to animate all of that. They could have made it this thing where they use the same Shep-shuffle with Garrus in the middle of a crowd while they have awkward conversation. But instead, they threw this dance in and it blew my mind (occasional clipping can be excused).

If I ever get the game for myself, I'll play my way through it. You've convinced me. :)

Shit like that is why my ending is always the red ending.

And yes, the Garrus scene is goddamn adorable. I will still never do that romance, but I thought it was their best piece of fanservice in a DLC that was pure, uncut fanservice.

I haven't seen all the romance content yet, and I do love the Garrus scene, but thus far I think Jack has the best stuff. It's clear fan service to people who pick destroy, but I also love her choice of activity :)

The Normandy scene makes me weepy every time though. What a goodbye.

The high point of the Citadel DLC is unquestionably your conversation with Wrex and Grunt in front of the fireplace. Shepard. Shepard. Commander Shepard. Shepard Shepard Shepard. Sheeeeepaaaaaaaard.

The best part was that (AFAIK) it keeps going until you cancel the conversation.

It certainly seemed that way. And I let it go on for quite a while.

I've played through the party with two different Shepards and neither of them got that conversation. I love the party.

You only get it if you are doing the laid back thing; I think they are punishing you for not letting them have any fun.

The Garrus/Zaeed thing that gets going is great, too.

Haha, I did one WILD ALL THE WAY party (for LIAM SHEPARD) and one MELLOW ALL THE WAY party (for SALLY SHEPARD), and the Garrus/Zaeed thing cracked me up. I was like "oh my God, my party is THAT BORING." Boring parties are in character for Sally Shepard, though. She is a boring woman for someone who kicks as much ass as she does.

I was going to do mellow the second time, but I had Jack and couldn't face stiffing her with such a boring event.

Man. I'm downloading this right now. It's really over, isn't it? Maaaan.

You're six hours further from the end than I am, so I envy you.

So uh. I started this with my blind run Shepard until I realized I was using a save where Thane, Legion and Mordin had gone to meet their makers. So I tried a really early save but then the email wouldn't trigger. Is there a "best spot" to use?

Post-ending (the save from before the point of no return). The DLC triggers after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, but the content in the second-half is really best left as the very last thing you do, and personally I'd consider (if you were doing a new run) finishing the game and then playing the Citadel DLC.