Mass Effect 3 is the greatest game ever made.
#1 Posted 17 December 2013 - 10:37 PM
Has there ever been anything more perfect than the third installment? I think not.
I cried like a little bitch after I beat it. I have no idea why people think the ending is shit. It's profound, moving, and just open ended enough.
If you romanced Liara throughout the series the last hour of the game is absolutely heartbreaking. In the second game, I romanced Jack, and then went back with Liara in the DLC. When I failed to save Jack in ME3, I had the biggest pit in my stomach. I didn't save my game enough for a do over. When I saw what happened to her near the end, due to my failure, I wanted to throw up. Between the audio logs and the tone of Shepard's voice after it was all said and done...total guilt trip. It was the worst end for her possible. Worse than death. She was so misunderstood. Just a scared little girl underneath that tough exterior, which was all bullshit. Whoever wrote her character deserved a damn Pulitzer. And if you don't spend time with her, you'll view her as a psychopath like everyone else. That kills her inside. She's one of the best characters ever put into a video game.
I'm going to rebeat the game within the next few months and save Jack. Never before has a game given me a guilt complex.
This trilogy is 100 hours of awesome. If you haven't played it yet, do it. It will bring out your inner alpha male and make you cry like a little slut. It will give you an unstoppable rush of adrenaline, then swiftly turn you into the saddest panda and tear you apart. If you're an assertive, extroverted type A personality, ENFJ master race like me, the amount of planning and control creates a mental orgasm that is incomparable. You have full control of everything. It loads your old save files every time you move onto the next installment. Small decisions you make in the first game impact the second and third in profound ways. Every cutscene is within your full control, be it dialog or quicktime actions.
JC Denton and Adam Jensen can't give you this level of control. There's always something missing. In Mass Effect, you are John Shepard. You, and only your morals are imbued into his being. This is your narrative, it is your story, and no other franchise can do that. Your given an almost infinite amount of permutations, and when it's all said and done, your morality and philosophy are imprinted on the final draft.
The combat in ME2 and 3 is superb and gives nearly every FPS game a run for it's money. The unique way third person view is implemented brings out all kinds of shit that isn't possible in an FPS. Combined with everything else It's everything a modern game should be and then some.
On a final note, the art style is amazing. All the races look awesome. The use of color is intense and off just enough to where everything seems surreal. The soundtrack is epic. The sound effects are nearly as good. This is a series that demands an expensive stereo - my Paradigm Atoms sing like a chorus of violent angels with these kickass games.
TL;DR: It's the best franchise in the history of the industry, and the ending is awesome. If you disagree you're a fucking pleb loser.
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 17 December 2013 - 11:10 PM
#3 Posted 17 December 2013 - 11:00 PM
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 17 December 2013 - 11:02 PM
#4 Posted 17 December 2013 - 11:16 PM
Quote
A lot of the people who didn't like it may not have had all the information before-hand. Without saying much, it actually requires you to think, listen, and pay attention. In addition to fill in the gaps yourself. Does not spell out every little detail. Sadly, a lot of people didn't like this approach.
Those who have all the information before-hand will be rewarded, those who didn't pay attention will be left out in the cold. They make you work for it.
This post has been edited by Jeff: 17 December 2013 - 11:48 PM
#5 Posted 17 December 2013 - 11:21 PM
The fact that most people bitched about the ending proved there is something seriously wrong with the current crop of gamers.
They even gave you complete control after you beat the game. You're supposed to debate with your buddies over which ending was the best, which choice was the most moral, which outcome would have been the superior choice...and then argue for hours over what really happened in centuries to come.
Good guy Bioware left the final interpretation up to popular debate and gave us a solid roadmap. Only to be shit on by hordes of retards who wanted CoD in space.
This trilogy isn't a series of video games. It seriously transcends that. It's every art medium combined into a gift basket of awesome. Thank you Bioware. Thank you.
It's one of those rare things where you will be forever envious of those who haven't done it before. I want to wipe my brain so I can do it all over again.
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 17 December 2013 - 11:34 PM
#6 Posted 17 December 2013 - 11:37 PM
Dial V for Viper, on 17 December 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:
I'll try not to put out too many spoilers, so this will be the only one.
This post has been edited by Jeff: 17 December 2013 - 11:46 PM
#8 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:12 AM
#9 Posted 18 December 2013 - 08:05 AM
You're fighting fucking Reapers.
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 18 December 2013 - 08:07 AM
#10 Posted 18 December 2013 - 09:18 AM
Dial V for Viper, on 17 December 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:
Let's not get way over the top here.
#11 Posted 18 December 2013 - 09:34 AM
#13 Posted 18 December 2013 - 10:09 AM
He's nothing but eyes and teeth. You think he'll fit?
#14 Posted 18 December 2013 - 12:02 PM
Dial V for Viper, on 17 December 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:
#15 Posted 18 December 2013 - 12:15 PM
Mass Effect is on the list for when I finally decide to buy a computer that's more than half-operable.
This post has been edited by Element of Kindness: 18 December 2013 - 01:10 PM
#16 Posted 18 December 2013 - 01:09 PM
Element of Kindness, on 18 December 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:
Blue Lightning is back. Time to change our plans.
#17 Posted 18 December 2013 - 01:12 PM
#18 Posted 18 December 2013 - 01:18 PM
I love being on his ignore list.
50oz of Bud Light Limearitas. Never again. Holy shit those things are like the Pelé of hangovers.
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 18 December 2013 - 01:25 PM
#19 Posted 18 December 2013 - 04:50 PM
Element of Kindness, on 18 December 2013 - 12:15 PM, said:
You're in luck, because any of the Mass Effect games don't require a very powerful system to run. Intel did a demo in 2010, where they had their integrated Sandy Bridge GPU running Mass Effect 2 on it's higher settings smoothly. Now of course, if you're like me who runs with high quality shadows, high levels of AA (need to edit config files. No in-game settings for these), then you might need something more powerful. However, to run it on the default settings without any config file editing, if the SB GPU can do it, your system would be able to handle it. Unless you run a Geforce 2 MX or something.
There is no AA setting in ME1 as it runs on UE 3.0, while ME2 & ME3 run on UE 3.5, which has a hidden AA setting in the config files. Default ME3 uses FXAA (enabled in game. ME2 doesn't have a menu option for this), but there is a setting in the config files to turn on high quality supersampling AA.
This post has been edited by Jeff: 20 January 2014 - 05:03 PM
#20 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:01 PM
I've thought all the time about upgrading to something awesome, until I realize Duke Nukem and writing music are the only two things I do, and all my virtual machines and renders can just be done in the labs at school. I'm not spending money on a whole new system just for Mass Effect (though Viper's half-drunken post is really making it look good).
This post has been edited by Element of Kindness: 18 December 2013 - 05:07 PM
#21 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:11 PM
Just buy a new computer, seriously. Even if you aren't a power user, who the fuck wants to run a ten year old system?
Jimmy just went from a P4 to a 3.2 Core 2 Quad and a GTX 460. That thing flies. Seriously, my LG Optimus G has more grunt than your entire computer.
You're only doing old shit because your computer is fucking garbage. You can get a good refurbished quad core desktop for like $300-400 and just throw a cheap ass video card in it.
Also you'll have to dump close to $100 on games because EA are greedy shitbags, and if you play ME2 or ME3 without the DLC you are missing content that was SUPPOSED to be included (Enjoy your plot holes!)
Or you could just grab that 48GB torrent that's on a certain website.
This post has been edited by Dial V for Viper: 18 December 2013 - 05:15 PM
#22 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:13 PM
Element of Kindness, on 18 December 2013 - 05:01 PM, said:
I've thought all the time about upgrading to something awesome, until I realize Duke Nukem and writing music are the only two things I do, and all my virtual machines and renders can just be done in the labs at school. I'm not spending money on a whole new system just for Mass Effect (though Viper's half-drunken post is really making it look good).
I don't recall you mentioning your system specs in this thread. Sorry.
#23 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:16 PM
$300-$400 is definitely money I could keep. Especially when I'm planning for a two week band trip in Romania and Italy during the summer.
Look, I'm totally with you Viper. Finally getting a new comp is one of my New Year's Resolutions. I'm just gonna have to cope with it for a little while longer.
This post has been edited by Element of Kindness: 18 December 2013 - 05:18 PM
#25 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:23 PM
The country is more than just gypsies, really man.
This post has been edited by Element of Kindness: 18 December 2013 - 05:25 PM
#26 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:40 PM
The texture pop may also have something to do with the level size. If you load into a big level (ME1), as opposed to smaller levels stitched together (ME2, ME3), then it might happen. I don't know all the details, but this issue is not anything to do with the game, but the engine these games use. I don't even think it's related to hard drive speed, because I tried running ME1 from a RAMDisk, and there was still texture pop. Like I said, since it's multithreaded, having more cores may get rid of it. I did notice that when loading into a level, the CPU usage spiked to 75%+ on my 8 core Sandy Bridge CPU, then settled down after the level loaded.
Also tried something else today. I noticed that when loading a level in ME1, the PCIe bus usage went up as a level was loading (between 2-12%), then once the level and textures were fully loaded, the bus usage dropped off to normal (around 2%, since parts of the level are still being streamed) as well as the VRAM usage had stabilized. The UE only loads the things around you, and not the entire level at once.
Perhaps it has nothing to do with CPU cores, disk speed after all. So in short, getting a PCIe 3.0 motherboard with a PCIe 3.0 graphics card may help speed up the texture streaming. I have a PCIe 3.0 graphics card (GTX 670), but I still have a PCIe 2.0 motherboard. Hence, I'm a bit bottlenecked by the PCIe bus and still experience texture pop-in. Not that bad though, since it only lasts a second or so once I load a level.
This post has been edited by Jeff: 20 January 2014 - 05:19 PM
#27 Posted 18 December 2013 - 05:50 PM
#28 Posted 18 December 2013 - 06:17 PM
Yeah, I got hard off that link, if that satisfies you.
#30 Posted 18 December 2013 - 07:37 PM
Element of Kindness, on 18 December 2013 - 05:23 PM, said:
oh god. now i feel dirty all over
This post has been edited by Forge: 18 December 2013 - 07:45 PM