Out of Pod Experience

ME1 is Bioware at it's best, imho. Mako or not (i like it personally tbh), it feels the most alive and most cohesive of any Bioware game i've ever played aside from Baldur's Gate 2. It still looks good aswell, with proper and consistent art direction and levels that don't feel like corridors even though they are - A very good thing.

DA:O was where Bioware started showing some cracks. The hilarious sex scenes not included, they leaned far too heavily on the story structure of Kotor and ME. The game overall was pretty decent and in the right view it felt like a new Baldur's Gate, but something was missing...

It's ME2/DA2 where it got ugly for Bioware, where they lost their focus. The mass-market bug caught up in the form of EA. DA2 was dumbed down beyond belief, so was ME2. There were still some good points in both (one more than the other...) but the corporate machine called EA/Bioware was born, no turning back. The games lacked focus and were designed with consoles in mind, rather than developing it somewhat ambiguously for all platforms. ME1 and DA:O were FANTASTIC PC games - DA2 and ME2 were not.


---Spoilers!---


Now with ME3.... The rushed game design, tired art direction and schizophrenic writing has caught up in full force. It has good things. The main story had a good structure right up untill the end. It was motivating over the whole, but it was riddled with little annoyances that grew bigger and bigger (especially where combat is concerned) - The gameplay felt like it was balanced and designed for the odd multiplayer addon rather than singleplayer goodness. Flat areas, loads of chest high walls - Technically, the levels were decent, for the most part. The actual level design however was not.

The Geth dreadnought was awesome, right up untill the chesthigh walls started AGAIN. Even the ME2 Geth interiors were vastly superior. Palaven's moon was pretty cool right up untill the entire terrain was riddled with chest high walls.... The cave where you rescue the Rachni queen looked like it was from the 90's. Why did HL2ep2's caves look so much better? They even had the same theme for crying out loud.

And then we get to the major issue... Player choice.

You got to decide a lot of things in the first 2 games.

None of which mattered AT ALL in the third. They were reduced to side missions and some number in some chart. Nothing else. Other things got retconned outside of the game between me2 and 3 (like Anderson/Udina for councillor) which made things feel even more forced and contrived, not to mention a complete breach of character for Udina.

TIM could have had such a great backstory. Instead he's just another indoctrinated pawn. The theories went around that he could be a renegade reaper or an avatar of an older generation... Or he truly had some other goal in mind. Now he's just another bad guy.

The reapers should never have been explained. They don't need it! They could have just been killed off and that's that - We'd never know any better and it would retain the elegant mystique around their origins. The citadel would have things to discover still, especially when the reapers would be no longer... A perfect jumping point for a spinoff game. The crucible would be exactly what has been said in the game, plans for a weapon passed on from cycle to cycle and improved by all those races.

The Protheans should not have been revealed like Javik. They too lost a lot of their mystique. Some things are better left unknown! Good questions are better than bad answers.

The guardian... Yeah, screw you Bioware. Worst plot twist ever, worst timing for one ever. Even Pariah's ending felt better for crying out loud and that one was BAD. The endings having no bearing whatsoever on anything you've seen or done in the previous games, or even this one. It comes out of nowhere and introduces completely new concepts that have nothing to do with what the story has been about.


ME3.... Left a very sour taste in my mouth. All the fun i had with it has been flushed down the drain once i saw the ending and the choices there. Everything feels so hollow now. Not in a "good bleak ending" way, but in a "bad writing ending" way. Bioware giving the finger to everyone who's stuck with the series and their own characters. They're saying they don't care anymore, they got your money and people will still buy their stuff even if they sell excrement with a Bioware badge on it.


---End of Spoiler---


It seems like the only great (big and old) development house left is Bethesda. Say what you want, horse armor or not, but at least they know what kind of game they want to make and they do it well.

After burying Blizzard a few years back, i guess it's time for a eulegy for Bioware now. Say goodbye to the people who made Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect 1, say hello to EA business suits rushing crap out of the door because so many people will buy it anyway.

Bad reviews?? what bad reviews??? I have found one bad review on a gaming site on the whole internet, which should tell you something about the state the gaming industry and media is in, in a pool of ****.

How am I wrong? Fastest selling means little, so they marketed the crap out of it, people got fooled by bought and stupid reviews and so forth. It will just lead to more people boycotting it further on and DA2 sold faster than DAO but overall performed worse in total sales just for the record. Also a title marketed as an RPG should have had some appeal to the 10+ million consumers of Skyrim you would think but it sold less than a million.

Then you also have to take into account that it was marketed as the last part of a trilogy, even people who hate it want to see the end, kinda like people who watched Star Wars episode 3. Still, financially DA2, SWTOR and ME3 will have been bad. I know you like to argue that based on EA's own PR spins but anyone in the market will tell you that they were bad and EA is not performing well. Both the industry as a whole is in a recession and EA themselves are doing bad and will continue to greater losses. We can only hope they go bankrupt

Seriously though, this game might have sold a million copies (at what cost???) but they have only managed to create more hatred for their products and entities not to mention gaming as a whole. Gaming is going to not only have to but will go over some major changes in the coming years, hopefully for the better or else we can be looking at the new crash.


Mass Effect 3 review by "thebestgamers.net"!

(This review is truly spot on and better objectively than all the professional reviews combined.)

edit: Checked sales, Mass Effect 1 sold 2.5 times more than ME3 on the xbox 360 alone than ME3 sold on ALL platforms. Peace!

Right and one Friday afternoon come spring time 2014 SWTOR will start selling copies again

Tyran, you are so bright!

No, you did not get the sarcasm

Yes it is still on the shelves, do you really believe people will buy ME3 in such great quantities in the future as to surpass ME1? Really?? Do you think a game like Mass Effect will ever be re-released on 3d in the future on Bluray disc???

Listen, I will try and make this simple for you. You see I work as an investor, video-gaming is a hobby of mine but I cannot help myself to analyze my hobbies now and again.

IE I as an investor invests in a car company, they manufacture 3.4 million cars of a certain model. They end up selling 800,000 cars is that good? How much was spent developing the car model? How much spent on marketing? How much time was spent developing? How much profit is made on each car sold for the investor? How was the manufacturers brand affected? Yeah logistics, my favorite part of business!!!

Fact is, they made 3.4 million cars because that was the expected sale, fact that only 800k was sold is a big failure and you can trust me that someone (more than one) with a business degree in logistics will analyze why and how to prevent it from happening again and who was at fault etc. Heck if they make less than what the market wants you will also have to analyze why not enough products were made and how to improve your logistics. EA expected 3,4 million, now I cannot wait to see EA blame used sales and pirating for that discrepancy in their estimations because EA is run by morons. ME2 broke 40 million USD in development, ME3 is more but can't find any exact figures, this is not counting marketing costs and EA spends a ton of cash on marketing.

Never mind, I can't be bothered anymore, you work it out!

In the meantime EA shares are on the decline. I presume that to be a result of bad numbers, do they make a profit? Maybe, also have to take into account the 700+ million USD spent by EA just buying the studio and even then... Like I said, you work it out, in the meantime their stock is going down.

By the way, that is not "the most that can be said", in fact I made a prediction based on good data and Bioware and EA would be in a much better state if they would have made similar predictions instead of acting like scumbags.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/10/the-problem-with-biowares-mass-effect-3-day-one-dlc-from-ashes/

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/mass-effect-3

You know for 60 USD + 10 USD (or 70 EURO) you could have bought and played a ton of video-games on both console, PC and smart-phones etc. ME3 GOTY (according to the gaming media) played by 1 million people while at the same time at least 1 iPhone game this year will sell more than 50 million copies and have more hours played than ME3. Gaming experienced by hundreds of millions and surpassing other entertainment in revenue having GOTY titles being played by less people than who live in Denmark is... extreme fringe art has more spectators than ME3. If anything, this is a MASSIVE sign pointing to the terrible state our beloved medium is in and it needs to be addressed soon!


http://thebestgamers.net/watchvideo.php?vid_id=asseffect3 This is a big sign screaming "hey, this game sucks in every single way!!"

It will never have the needed longevity you speculate it could have to be considered a success.

The complete lack of payoff for my decisions in the very end has really killed the replay value in the series for me.

Major spoiler alert: http://paragadeshep.tumblr.com/post/19099827322/alternate-explanation-for-the-me3-endings

But if this turns out to be true.... I will apoligize to Bioware.

I have been following the "ending hallucination" thread on BSN and while they make some compelling arguments, I really don't think Bioware made fake endings. I think the fans are just trying to tie all the plot holes together into a fake ending as they can't grasp that Bioware just put a crappy ending on the series.

1. If they intended to make a fake ending why would they go through the trouble to make 3? With 3 somewhat different cut scenes? All ending with the whole goal of mass effect "Stop the Reapers." In all 3 Shepard sacrifices himself to stop the Reapers and protect organic life. Yes, the mass relays are destroyed and it would cause a lot of problems since the fleet would be stuck in the Sol system but life does go on as we see from the ending scene with the Stargazer telling to story to the kid.

2. Making a fake ending means everyone would have to download a DLC later so the people who don't have internet would be screwed. Not to mention they wouldn't be able to charge for it otherwise fans would be more outraged that Bioware sold them a game with the wrong ending just so you would have to pay more for the real one later. While an alternate DLC ending isn't out of the question since we saw this with Fallout I don't think it would be released specifically to replace the current ones.

3. The argument of Shepard being indoctrinated by Harbinger seems stupid to me. Why would he try to indoctrinate Shepard instead of just kill him? What purpose would it serve if the reapers hell bent on destroying all organic life? Also why try to indoctrinate him in the middle of the battle?

4. The argument that Shepard starts to turn into a husk in the synthesis and control endings because he is getting indoctrinated but not in the destroy ending doesn't make sense. He doesn't look like he turns into a husk but "burns" which makes total sense as he is "electrocuted" in one and in an energy beam in the other. In the destroy ending we don't see him die. All we see is the explosion engulf him so he could have survived.

This also makes the "secret" ending of him being alive only possible in the destroy ending as it's the only one we don't see him getting vaporized. I believe he is still on the Citadel as he is buried under rubble and it's quiet. People have been saying he woke up on the street after breaking Harbinger's hold but that doesn't make sense. He would have passed out in the middle of a warzone on the street yet it's quiet and he is buried under rubble?

5. The infinite ammo gun/dream feeling makes sense as the ending is supposed to be more cinematic and you aren't supposed to run out of ammo. And the slow motion seems to add more of a "I'm half dead and making a last stand mood."

6. People claim the Guardian tries to keep you from going to the destroy ending and killing the reapers but there is a youtube video where the player only gets the destroy ending and the Guardian says "you only have one choice." To me this shows the endings are in fact real since there is no way one can claim the reapers would indoctrinate Shepard and then get him to destroy them.

7. I really don't know what the scene with the Normandy crashing on the planet is other than bad writing. I guess it shows not everyone in your team died and is sort of an epilogue? However, it doesn't make sense that people in my team on Earth would magically appear on the Normandy flying away from battle; maybe it's just random.

All in all I think Bioware just put a bad ending on their game and people are grasping for straws to make sense of it. Granted Bioware could run with the indoctrination theory and spin the situation claiming it was their plan all along and offer a pay for DLC ending. But I hope it's not a "pony and sunshine" happy ending as I think the best way to end Mass Effect is for Shepard to sacrifice himself to save everyone not show him on a beach having a drink with his LI watching his kids run around like some people want.

As for Bioware they have been quiet since release probably due to everyone going on vacation and the major ****storm people have raised over the endings which can't be dealt with until their staff gets back. We saw something along the same lines with CCP when the NEX store hit and P2W fiasco. I bet we will hear something next week and it will either put the nail in the coffin for Mass Effect or be a "We got you so good" spin on the ending.

And the shippers raged!

Just finished and liked it. Visually and gameplay-wise, this one is the best. Story-wise, eh, I preferred the first one and I'm slightly peeved by the lack of an epilogue -- something every Bioware game has always had. Was good ride otherwise.

Unless you have a pirated copy of the game in the first place its not worth doing, EA will probably ban the Origin accounts of anyone they catch doing it. Bye-bye any games you tied to that Origin account.

I remember not so long ago when that guy got banned from actually playing Dragon Age II after his BSN account got banned because he criticised DA II on the BSN forum. I can see the same **** happening with Origin accounts now they are all tied in together.