Mass Effect 3 Review

[samaugsch]

snip

Hey don't pay attention to the haters too much Susan, you've got integrity and a reader base in the thousands if not tens of thousands. You wouldn't have gotten to where you are by leading your readers astray consistently.

I'd think if Susan were dishonest, I'd hear a lot more negative remarks. If people have that much difficulty trusting reviewers, they should just play the damn games themselves and decide if it's any good, or if they have any close friends, ask if they'll do it.

OT: Nice review. Yeah, that's all I have to say.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Come on. You're not stupid, don't just dismiss any skepticism as "conspiracy theory".

But that's exactly what it is. How dare you accuse someone of being corrupt without even a shred of evidence?

I know for a fact from private conversations that Susan loved ME3, as do I. Not because it suits us, but because it's fantastic fucking game. We're both huge fans of the series. NO one wopuld be more disappointed if it were shit.

I wonder what you lot will say if Yahtzee tears ME3 apart like he's done other Bioware games?

You'll probably say Activision paid him to shit on it.

Posts like this make me kinda wish the Escapist had upvotes, cuz I'd give em to ya. Preach it, brother!

You realize there's no way for me to answer that question that will "disprove" your theory, right? If I say we don't get ad money from EA, you can say we're bumping up scores to try to persuade them to spend some. If I say we do, then clearly we're bumping up scores to keep the money flowing. If you're determined to believe that we're dishonest - which, frankly, many people are - then there's really nothing we can do about it.

[snip]

Either someone chooses to give us the benefit of the doubt, or they don't.

It's not even worth your time, Susan. If the internet is still in this big of a hateful denial that ME3 isn't the sucky Bioware-destroying game they've been praying it would be for the last two years, your logic will do nothing but evaporate like tears off of their raging red cheeks.

I doubt anything but the end of the world or extreme boredom will get them to accept that some people are capable of loving the game without being paid off. And I mean, seriously, your video review exudes excitement. You're gushing over it! I watched it at work and immediately wanted to break my own leg so I could go home and play more of it. How anyone could mistake that genuine excitement for a payoff is so far beyond me, my brain hurts contemplating it.

What I'd like to know is if Nintendo Power ever took this kind of heat. I used their reviews heavily in my decision making process back in the day. And Nintendo owned them.

It's astounding to me how ignorant this community as a whole can be. It seems no internet community is immune to some sort of 'Hive Mind' effect, and hating Bioware is the Escapist's hive mentality of choice recently. People hate their games because Bioware have the balls to try to improve on the formula and modernize the RPG, so obviously the only people who LIKE Bioware games are being paid off. It's the only reasonable explanation. And then they dump on people like Susan for liking the game they're 'supposed' to hate for no other reason than that she liked it. It's fucking disgraceful, and it's nothing more than bullying on their part. Shit like this is why I don't post more on the forums; I just can't stand the blatant flaming and pettiness of most of the community.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I just think it's a kick-ass game.

Sorry, just reading through all the comments, but this put a question in my mind: How does the actual retail game release compare to the demo? Obviously, they are hard to compare, but I found the gameplay in the demo to be pretty stiff. I like to think I'm pretty unbiased, as I've not played the games, but that's because I didn't have an Xbox when ME or ME2 came out and I didn't want to jump into the series on PS3.

Anyway, as a game, ME3's demo felt... stale? Clunky? too me. The graphics are sharp and crisp, but that seems to make things a bit hinky. Also, I must admit that I'm not a fan of cover based shooters (though I thought Vanquish was rad).

Anyway, I can't see myself really being super into the ME series, though I wouldn't be upset to be pleasantly surprised. Anyway, based off the demo, I would never buy ME3, at least not at full price.

How much of the positiveness about ME3 comes from the fact that you're a fan and did you find you had trouble being objective about your review? Do you think that if you weren't a fan of the series or hadn't played the other gams you would have rated it as highly?

ps- just for the record, I think that most game journalists are honest and not bought, but unfortunately the feeling that good reviews are bought or at least influenced is rampant and hard to escape. I've seen too many games get undeservedly good reviews. I'm not saying bad games get great scores, I'm saying mediocre or average games seem to have scores that don't really reflect how good the game actually is. They may reflect an opinion but don't necessarily reflect an objective review. That being said, I don't think reviews should be taken as gospel, just one more piece of information to factor in when making a decision to purchase a game.

Hello. I didn't play the ME3 demo, but I played an estimated good third of it at a friend's. If you'd like to, we could exchange notes, but I'd need to know what kind of stuff you like in games (ME1+2 especially) in order to give you a useful view.

For the record, I'm very mixed about BioWare games as I see some strengths, a lot of solid stuff, but also a lot of bad stuff. I played ME2 till the end and a bit of DLC but quit ME1 at a certain point I can tell you if you're not afraid of spoilers.

If you'd like an opinion from this kinda person, feel free to pitch me a message.

 

[Therumancer]

They didn't get rid of the planet scanning mechanic? Jesus Christ.

Personally I was most disappointed with how it seems you have to run from the Reapers pursueing instead of there being a space combat mechanic implemented.

They couldn't implement space combat with the reapers that chase you because you CAN'T FIGHT THE REAPERS ALONE. That's what the whole damn series is about, how to stop this insanely powerful race of sentient machines from killing everyone. The WHOLE GAME is about rallying the forces of the entire galaxy to fight them.

But yeah, let's just have the little ole' Normandy fight 4 of them at a time. No biggy.

OT: I LOVED this game right up until the ending. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly left me less than fully satisfied. That being said, I'd still give this game a 9.5/10 easy, not even counting the many hours I'll be putting into the multiplayer. It actually has that emotional investment that the Bioware Docs have been talking about for years. I was almost tearing up at several moments, and the lead up to the end was one of the most "oh my god how is this going to end?!?" sequences I've ever had in gaming. Truly spectacular.

I tend to disagree with your comments about not being able to fight the Reapers alone. It depends on the Reaper in question. The Normandy after the upgrades in ME2 is carrying state of the art technology, a lot of which was based on the Reapers own tech. While the warning was ignored and such tech was not implemented on a truely huge scale, it should be noted there WAS enough preparation that the military forces in ME are also doing a fairly good job of holding out under the circumstances... it's taking the Reapers a lot of effort to dig everyone out and it's an actual war of sorts despite the good guys clearly on the losing end to begin with. I very much doubt there aren't Reapers being destroyed, it's just that in the course of making the point for the story we aren't seeing that.

In the scope of the Normandy scanning, The Reapers are probably responding with their smaller ships... drones, small destroyers, etc... to be able to intercept something like The Normandy to begin with. I DO think the Normandy should be able to fight those. Indeed it already demonstrated it could during it's confrontation with the Reaper/Collector ship at the end of ME2, and if your fully upgraded you don't even lose any crew despite a hull breach allowing one of the drones on board (which is so mighty you kill it with hand weapons).

We might have to agree to disagree here, but to me it seems like sloppy game design. Having played the sequence to me it seems like some half arsed mini-game they glued on because they really had no idea what to do with the mining/planetary aspects of things.

 

[Ridrith]

Mass Effect 3 was a fucking amazing game, and a great way to complete the trilogy. Until you actually get to the last ten minutes of the game. It was at this point in time that I figured out I hate Bioware, and that they managed to ruin a series of games that I've enjoyed over the past five years.

What in the fuck were they thinking?

 

[XUnsafeNormalX]

Mass Effect 3 was a fucking amazing game, and a great way to complete the trilogy. Until you actually get to the last ten minutes of the game. It was at this point in time that I figured out I hate Bioware, and that they managed to ruin a series of games that I've enjoyed over the past five years.

What in the fuck were they thinking?

They were thinking "At least we have their money, let's start making some DLC"

 

[Ridrith]

I will never forgive them, unless they release a new DLC ending that is used as the proper canon for the storyline and lore.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Mass Effect 3 almost, but not quite, as good as Dragon Age 2, says The Escapist.

 

[The Wooster]

Mass Effect 3 almost, but not quite, as good as Dragon Age 2, says The Escapist.

Yeah, I have it on good authority that Susan Arendt and Greg Tito are actually the same person. Good point.

 

[The Wooster]

Imagine that yet another absolutely glowing professional review for a major publishers marquee game while it's has generally terrible user ratings. If it isn't corruption, why is there such a divide between the professional reviewers and players? Quite honestly I just don't think Ms Arendt is as demanding in her games, which doesn't really bode well considering her position.

The vast majority of user reviews are giving the game zero out of ten. They're calling it "the worst game ever." Why the discrepancy? Because hyperbolic idiots outnumber professional journalists a thousand to one.

 

[Baralak]

Then how are you financed, Susan? Do you get no advertising revenue from EA, entities affiliated with EA or acting on behalf of EA? If you do, then you have a potential conflict of interest. Giving out near perfect scores to EA games raises concerns that a 'potential' conflict of interest might in fact be 'actual'. For example, to this day I struggle to think of a non-"nefarious" reason as to why your site gave Dragon Age 2 a perfect 5/5.

You realize there's no way for me to answer that question that will "disprove" your theory, right? If I say we don't get ad money from EA, you can say we're bumping up scores to try to persuade them to spend some. If I say we do, then clearly we're bumping up scores to keep the money flowing. If you're determined to believe that we're dishonest - which, frankly, many people are - then there's really nothing we can do about it.

You're right that accepting ad dollars from game publishers can create awkward situations and conflicts of interest. That's happened to us when we've had site skins running advertising a game that we just gave a bad review.

There isn't a gaming site out there that wouldn't rather be completely ad-free, or at least only have ads from what are called "non-endemics", which are non-gaming companies. But that's simply not possible. I was a founding member of a gaming site that made not accepting game company ad campaigns part of its mandate - Crispy Gamer. The site failed, in large part because it couldn't get enough revenue flowing. Non-gaming companies simply don't want to bother with gaming sites because we don't reach a big enough chunk of the population. (And they think you're all poor and therefore not making purchasing decisions within your household.) We get a few non-endemics here and there (and, amusingly, get a lot of negative feedback from the community about "running ads that have nothing to do with games"), but not nearly enough to keep the lights on. If we want to stay in business, we have to accept ads from game publishers.

As for Dragon Age, if you really can't accept that, hey, maybe we just liked the game that much, there's really nothing I can say. I will say that if we'd been using half stars at the time that review came out, it's very likely the game would've gotten a 4.5 and not a 5, but that's just speculation. I get why someone wouldn't enjoy Dragon Age 2, given that it's quite different from Origins, but to assume that the only reason someone would score it well is graft is foolish and ignorant.

But, like I said, people see what they want to see. If you want to believe that all reviewers are lying assholes with their hands out, then it's not much trouble to adapt the facts to suit your perspective. And, really, what are we supposed to counter with?

Either someone chooses to give us the benefit of the doubt, or they don't.

For what it's worth, The Escapist is my favorite gaming site, and I understand that money's required for a site such as this. I love the video series you guys do, I love the editorials and the articles. I also enjoy all of your reviews. They're well written, always point out the reviewer's qualms with the game, and seem to rate every game fairly. No, not every review will be accepted by the general population (For example, I have yet to find a reason for me to dislike DA2, in the few hours I played of it. Combat was intense, it was literally hack n slash Mass Effect combat, without covers. But I do believe you rate games fairly, with honest opinions, and without a skewed scale (Sorry GI, 7 is NOT "average". 5 is average. You guys are the first site I go to for reviews, and you're usually spot on with them. Keep up the good work!

 

[satsugaikaze]

I love the people (hint: no, I don't) who attempt to tout their subjective experience as objective, passing off their perspectives as facts. Even the professional journalists here don't lay claim to that.
The Internet, with a captial I, is opinions. Sometimes it's facts, but it's usually buried by several metric tons of opinions. Maybe this is just my opinion! *head explode*

I think if people are going to get this cynical about reviews: Don't listen to the Metacritic trolls giving 10s and 0s. If you guys think that Susan and Greg and whatever were being paid off, don't watch their reviews or listen to what they say. Play the demo, or buy the game. And then play through it more than once. First impressions sometimes change, and it's fairly easy to assume that with an average time of about 30-40 hours, the reviews on Day 1 of release were little more than first overall impressions, even if they were pirates.
In the past, what I found to be a steaming pile of crap later on made a little more sense once I got a little more open-minded. Sure, Mass Effect 3 might have a brain fart or two, but I don't think it deserves either the 10s or the 0s. And maybe not even the 2.5s or the 4.5s.

My game is almost finished being shipped, I'm really eager to find out whether or not these gripes are exaggerated. And then I'll probably play it a second time before trying to pass a personal judgement. I do have three characters, after all 8D

Also, slow figuring is slow, but

I've had it [Origin] installed on my computer for a month now, and I haven't seen any noticeable change on my computer, whether or not it be spyware, adware, the thought police, my privacy instantly ruined and distributed to a hundred billion internet companies, or whatever people are getting butthurt about.

I'm not about to avoid something on some extremist principle, if that something involves a genuinely entertaining gaming experience.

You do realise that the whole point of spyware is that the user doesn't notice its presence, that it just sits there quietly watching and recording and reporting? That you won't notice your privacy suddenly being ripped away because it's already happened, that your hardware stats, software usage habits and favourite internet sites are already sitting happily as part of a corporation's aggregated database, with your assumption that it doesn't matter as naive as the Jews who registered their faith with the German government.

Just saying.

You just compared my anonymous usage details given to a large money-making corporation, to Jews registering their full identities to a genocidal dictatorship.

This is what I mean about extremist principle. I already know what the worries are about Origin, but why don't you backpedal on some of that hyperbole before an actual Jewish victim speaks up and makes you feel like an idiot?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Imagine that yet another absolutely glowing professional review for a major publishers marquee game while it's has generally terrible user ratings. If it isn't corruption, why is there such a divide between the professional reviewers and players? Quite honestly I just don't think Ms Arendt is as demanding in her games, which doesn't really bode well considering her position.

The vast majority of user reviews are giving the game zero out of ten. They're calling it "the worst game ever." Why the discrepancy? Because hyperbolic idiots outnumber professional journalists a thousand to one.

I think it's fair to say that both the Metacritic scores are equally useless.

 

[Wicky_42]

Also, slow figuring is slow, but

I've had it [Origin] installed on my computer for a month now, and I haven't seen any noticeable change on my computer, whether or not it be spyware, adware, the thought police, my privacy instantly ruined and distributed to a hundred billion internet companies, or whatever people are getting butthurt about.

I'm not about to avoid something on some extremist principle, if that something involves a genuinely entertaining gaming experience.

You do realise that the whole point of spyware is that the user doesn't notice its presence, that it just sits there quietly watching and recording and reporting? That you won't notice your privacy suddenly being ripped away because it's already happened, that your hardware stats, software usage habits and favourite internet sites are already sitting happily as part of a corporation's aggregated database, with your assumption that it doesn't matter as naive as the Jews who registered their faith with the German government.

Just saying.

You just compared my anonymous usage details given to a large money-making corporation, to Jews registering their full identities to a genocidal dictatorship.

This is what I mean about extremist principle. I already know what the worries are about Origin, but why don't you backpedal on some of that hyperbole before an actual Jewish victim speaks up and makes you feel like an idiot?

Except that your details aren't anonymous (only information passed on is anonymised, they make no other promises with their snooping and storing), and the dictatorship wasn't genocidal when it asking for info. I don't care if you find the analogy distasteful or whatever, it's the same assumption that everyone is by default benevolent when really there are no safeguards, no protection, no oversight.

I imagine facebook could do some absolutely horrendous blackmail if it so wished, and one day its ceo might decide that the long-term damage that would do to the company is out-weighed by the short-term gain. It's unlikely, but there's very little anyone can do to stop it. We expect Steam to keep allowing us access to our games, but they can decide at the drop of a hat to delete our collections. They don't (generally) because of good business sense, but again, there's no higher power watching out for us. So yeah, welcome spy-ware with open arms if you wish, and cross your fingers that it never becomes more profitable for the company to sell your info than to merely collect and anonymise it, but please never assume that some mysterious caped crusader is going to swoop in and save you if they do decide to take liberties with the fig-leaf of pseudo-security you so desperately cling to.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

You sound angry from reading your post, which I certainly hope your not.

I am annoyed... not at your post in particular but by the stupid assumption by many people (not just on this site) that a game they don't like getting a good review means someone was bought off.

This seems especially stupid when you remember it's the final chapter of one of the most critically acclaimed series of all time. OF COURSE it was going to get good reviews. It's an incredible experience for most people who play it, despite its flaws.

I'm just trying to make sure people understand WHY people are skeptical and reinforce this isn't some "nasty reddit troll" personal attack.
It's a legitimate concern. There is a huge discrepancy between critics and a large chunk normal customers as of late.

I completely understand.

But the problem is people don't seem to be taking Susan's word for it when she explains her side, which annoys the shit out of me. If people want to throw snide insinuations around they should be prepared to give benefit of the doubt.

And any argument about advertising 'influencing' the staff and all that jazz is rendered utterly void in my mind by the fact that every week the site's most popular show takes the absolute piss out of the same developers and games advertised here, sometimes viciously so.

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Imagine that yet another absolutely glowing professional review for a major publishers marquee game while it's has generally terrible user ratings. If it isn't corruption, why is there such a divide between the professional reviewers and players? Quite honestly I just don't think Ms Arendt is as demanding in her games, which doesn't really bode well considering her position.

The vast majority of user reviews are giving the game zero out of ten. They're calling it "the worst game ever." Why the discrepancy? Because hyperbolic idiots outnumber professional journalists a thousand to one.

I think it's fair to say that both the Metacritic scores are equally useless.

All reveiwers are useless. Only you, or someone that knows you can tell you that a game is good for you or not. Bugs are the only objective part of game reviewing, and even they are subject to case by case scrutiny.

 

[Slash Joel]

The ending part you are died right on. Man i was dissappointed I wanted to see the little blue kids running around at the end.

 

[Zom-B]

Hello. I didn't play the ME3 demo, but I played an estimated good third of it at a friend's. If you'd like to, we could exchange notes, but I'd need to know what kind of stuff you like in games (ME1+2 especially) in order to give you a useful view.

For the record, I'm very mixed about BioWare games as I see some strengths, a lot of solid stuff, but also a lot of bad stuff. I played ME2 till the end and a bit of DLC but quit ME1 at a certain point I can tell you if you're not afraid of spoilers.

If you'd like an opinion from this kinda person, feel free to pitch me a message.

I was mostly wondering if the demo was indicative of the final quality of the game. I really wasn't that impressed with the demo, so I wanted to know if people felt like the demo didn't do the actual game justice.