Shepard Can Lose in Mass Effect 3

[James Crook]

Slighty Science Fiction...? How is Mass Effect 'slightly' Science Fiction?

Are you seriously saying that this sort of thing is the most 'out there' thing in the Mass Effect universe?

It was out there all along, but consistent. Most good SciFi is consistent tho.

But when a holo-UI became a "visceral stabbing weapon" ... I'm outta there. BTW, did you hear about HuttaBall?

I think the hologram produces some kind of electrical forcefield or something like that to stab people.

 

[4173]

Wonderful. So they are okay with Shepard failing, but still forced my Shepard to kill those Batarians in Arrival. Boo.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

I would so love if they took this oportunity to give a gigantic middle finger to everyone who played Renegade.

'So you think it's funny to alienate every ally you could have had and piss of the entire galaxy? Well now you stand alone against the Reapers and they kill you without a second thought. How do you like that you anti-social *****?'

They won't, but I can't shake the feeling that the Renegade ending may be somewhat of an ass pull or otherwise rather horrific in terms of casualties.

A Paragon can call on:

The Rachni
The united Krogan
The Shadow Broker
The Council
The Alliance
Potentially the geth and the quarians, since your actions in ME2 may have been a sign of a wider reconciliation to come.

A Renagade can call on:

The Shadow Broker
Possibly Cerberus, though according to the pre-released facts not likely

Seems a little unmatched, hmm? A Renagade spends every game alientating all their potential allies, so why in the third game would they rally behind Shepard? What possible reason could they have that is not pulled out of the story writer's arse? A paragon Shepard is a hero, a renagade is a dickhead.

I think of it this way:
Paragon Shep will likely win through diplomacy and building a united galactic army to fight the Reapers off.
Renegade Shep will win through victory at any cost tactics and punching as many reporters as it takes.

Really I think its going to be Middle-of-the-Road Shep that gets screwed.

 

[Iron Criterion]

Interested again. Though personally, I would actually prefer a no win scenario. No matter what you do, how hard you fight, who you recruit, all you can do is minimize losses and buy time for a few ships of refugees to escape while the universe burns.

I'm pretty sure that if the Reapers win, there will be no refugees to save.

Reapers come by roughly every 50,000 years give or take. Thats not long enough for a entire galaxy of intelligent life to evolve from basic animals.
So therefore there has to be some survivors from every purge.
They cull the universe true, but they do not exterminate everything.

The game seems to hint that they leave leave non space-flight capable species alive. Humanity survived the last purge because they were at the cromagnon stage if I recall.

OT: i like the concept, but I'm guessing you'll only get this ending if you're actively trying to. Of course, I also hope they don't go in the exact opposite direction and make it impossible to see coming without knowing exactly what each option will do beforehand, like say if Shephard doesn't have black hair then you're screwed, or for a a real life example, what Disgaea did.

I'm not sure to be perfectly honest. I think the reason you got the Sheppard dies ending in ME2 by playing the game intentionally poorly was because it was the second game in a trilogy, and therefore the ideal ending is for your character to survive to the next game; instead of having to find some contrived way of bringing him/her back or having another Sheppard for the final instalment. With this being the end of a trilogy it makes sense for the character to have an equal chance of losing since it is the end of his story either way.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Wait ... exactly the same feature as ME2 had? Only now they expect me to believe that holograms can stab? I'm sorry. I liked Mass Effect when it was still slightly Science Fiction.

With "visceral" "edgy" "insert bad hype here" stabby holographic UIs they completely lost me on Science part.
When they started outsourcing their design decisions to Facebook votes, then added EA Origin, the case was shut for me.

Sad that all BioWare PR is now handled by EA, people that brought you Dead Space 2 comercial ...

I'm pretty sure that the blade is a combination of kinetic barriers (force fields) and holograms, hence the cutting.

 

[Avatar Roku]

snip

The Omni-blade is as much part of the game as anything else in the Mass Effect universe. There's nothing you should believe. It's all a bit silly. Faster-than-light travel? Really, do you believe science today has proven this is possible? I find the omni-blade more feasable than that to be honest. Still it's about as feasable as a lightsaber, but it doesn't sound as impossible. You just sound allergic to chagne.

snip

As for the Omni Blade, it isn't about what is possible in our universe, it's about what has been established in theirs. The first thing they established in the first game was FTL travel. They also established, later and in the codex, that an Omni Tool is just a hologram. Ergo, in THEIR universe, an omni blade makes no sense.

 

[Zeraki]

Slighty Science Fiction...? How is Mass Effect 'slightly' Science Fiction?

Are you seriously saying that this sort of thing is the most 'out there' thing in the Mass Effect universe?

It was out there all along, but consistent. Most good SciFi is consistent tho.

But when a holo-UI became a "visceral stabbing weapon" ... I'm outta there. BTW, did you hear about HuttaBall?

I think the hologram produces some kind of electrical forcefield or something like that to stab people.

I find it funny how people are making a big deal about the Omni-Blade. The Omni-Tool was already pretty much a galactic magic wand in the first place. It's Mass Effect's version of the Sonic Screwdriver. Hell I think the thing can actually create physical matter, if I remember the codex properly.

Why didn't people complain about the holographic armor in Mass Effect 2, or the Shadow Broker's shield for that matter? It's pretty much the same thing.

 

[Gazisultima]

Brilliant idea and all, but all people are going to do is look on the internet how to get the "good" ending, like in Mass Effect 2, loads of people researched how to make everyone survive. To some, it may also seem like a giant middle finger, for them to play through 3 games and then be crushed at the end. Bioware might as well replace the ending with a giant trollface. Having said that, if done right, it is an excellent idea, it really adds some tension. Hardly any games actually let you fail. Most just let you fuck up, then let you win in the end anyway.

 

[Metalrocks]

i so cant wait to play it. definitely a good thing that you can fail. but i was expecting this anyway when they say in the trailers "you decide how it ends".
but now i am wondering if they talk about the choices you have made from part 1 like killing wrex or killing the ragna queen (or how ever you say it), or in part 2 if you decided you keep jacobs father alive etc, etc. you know what i mean.
well, i have many saves of my characters were i did few different decisions. so i think i will be fine at some point. lol. i have my paragon femshep, my self were i made decisions of good and bad and my renegade femshep. i also made a asshole male shep were i was bad at everything and fucked up a lot that i had only 2 left of my crew. lol

cant wait for this awesome game to come

 

[Cenequus]

And funny thing is you don't even need Origin to install and play the game. So don't mind the Steam fanboys and enjoy your games.

Are you sure about that?
Like Steam, Origin is a DRM system as well, one BF3 will use.

You think ME3 will not?

This is about TOR but it will apply to ME3 afaik. Read the devs posts(yellow): http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8488436#edit8488436

 

[major_chaos]

I do like the option of a bad ending but it remains to be seen if its super hard to get like in ME2. Unfortunately I wont be finding out because this game will most likely require origin.
damn it EA I really want this game but I refuse to install your stupid BS spyware

 

[Zydrate]

First thing I'm going to do is research how to avoid that D:

 

[Mad1Cow]

*cough* Origin *cough*

That's what's going to sell/kill ME3 now.

Bollocks. I can understand wanting Battefield 3 for the PC, but Mass Effect isn't much for mods and is a pretty hardware intensive game... Just get it for a console, where most of the sales are anyway. I doubt a few sensitive PC gamers are going to be a deciding factor in how well ME3 does. There's really very, very little chance it won't do well. (That isn't to say that it's going to be a good game for sure, although that's also likely, but it's most definitely going to sell out of franchise following alone.)

Not to mention the fact that all of my characters and saves are on my Xbox 360, so it just wouldn't be practical to get it for PC!

Wouldn't be practical for you but I decided to get ME on my computer because it was cheaper on Steam then it was in the stores for the consoles...that and I couldn't find the first one because number 2 was all over the shelves.

It's a sci-fi RPG, saying RPG alone usually appeals to the vast PC market and not so much the consoles, add in sci-fi and that's just a skyway to less interest. Everyone I know plays this game on the computer except for 1 person (that's 1/50 in case you were wondering [rounded]).

For Mass Effect, it's a very sizeable chunk they're going to miss out on if they don't sort out this whole Origin store exclusive thing. More so than other games because of the genre really.

 

[Mariena]

Well, shucks. Losing in ME2 was pretty damn difficult. You'd have to lose so many people and be genuinely not interested in them to fail completely.

You probably have to completely neglect a lot of major points in order to fuck up in ME3, I'd imagine.

I hope there's an actual ending to it, though. Not just "CRITICAL MISSION FAILURE" and a reload option. Also, in Arrival, if you let the timer expire .. that's the end of the galaxy as well. Obviously. The 5 second cutscene that plays afterwards wasn't very impressive.

 

[Druyn]

This is absolutely true. Origin does seem like it'll be the nail in the coffin for ME3. I have to admit though I assumed that considering you could lose your entire squad in the suicide mission in ME2 that something like this would be possible for the 3rd.

Not to be rude, but what coffin? ME3 is shaping up to be the most anticipated game of 2012, and while I can totally see it failing on the PC front because of it, not only will the profits from the other two compensate, but I doubt EA or Bioware would let that happen. That's a massive market their missing for this, especially with the heat their catching, they'll at least make some kind of exception.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Oh no.. I can see where this is going. I can be a very good Shepard, who acts noble and goes out of my way to help everyone out. Next thing I know, the ending of the game ends up screwing me over spite all the efforts I put into bringing peace. That's not.. cool. It can also be said for people who act tough, or just don't see the bad ending coming.

I am not against people who prefer or like the idea of failing.. but in an RPG game where you're the only fate that not only humanity has, but the whole galaxy has.. there is a quote that defines the main role of Shepard:

Failure is not an option.

Considering that, outside of not purchasing upgrades for your ship, you had to go renegade for most options to kill your squad, I have a feeling the good ending will be easier for the Paragon Shepard.

Think about the choices you've made, like the Rachni Queen. Going paragon for the Rachni Queen area is obviously going to be a huge factor in ME3, as you'll have a fleet of Rachni warships at your disposal.

 

[Druyn]

Brilliant idea and all, but all people are going to do is look on the internet how to get the "good" ending, like in Mass Effect 2, loads of people researched how to make everyone survive. To some, it may also seem like a giant middle finger, for them to play through 3 games and then be crushed at the end. Bioware might as well replace the ending with a giant trollface. Having said that, if done right, it is an excellent idea, it really adds some tension. Hardly any games actually let you fail. Most just let you fuck up, then let you win in the end anyway.

Quite honestly, I don't think it'll be that easy to get this ending. Bioware doesn't want people to fail, they want people to think and make actual decisions. They aren't going to punish you for playing the game well. This option is there I think for the people who lost ME2, by rushing through or not paying attention.

 

[Exocet]

Honestly,I'm not phased.It'll probably be another :
"oh my god,it's totally a suicide mission! But look,here are some upgrades that will help us.I'll even put them in their own little section and have conversations about them."

So yes,you can lose if you rush everything in the game,don't upgrade anything,fail to collect companions then send the ones you have on mission they specifically can't do without dying and/or getting someone killed.


On another note,I'm going to have to go back to ME1,since my main paragon save killed the Rachni queen.Shit.

 

[Marowit]

Omg, a game where you can fail & lose? What is this 1983?

In all seriousness, that's flippin' awesome.