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Crazedwraith wrote:Finished ME3 at last. Game play was alright. Aside from those reaper enemies. Brutes, Banshees. Fuckers.

And yeah. The end of the storyline is just bad. In fact the whole overarching plot is bad. Suddenly reapers attack. We find plans for a dues ex machina on mars and decide that's the plan we're going with.

Did i miss why the reapers don't just destroy the citadel? and why they have absolutely no troops on it? Ugh.

The Citadel's the centrepiece of how they always fuck up the galaxy every cycle. If they blew it up they'd be making everything a lot hard for their future omnigenocides.

Like, once the crucible docks with it they should probably have fragged it, but the Catalyst itself was obviously interested in talking to Sheperd so maybe it was telling all the Reapers to back off or something.

The lack of troops was surprising given it was supposedly being used as a processing centre but out of universe they were obviously going for a forboding, isolated atmosphere which wouldn't have worked if Sheparddó was running and gunning around Zerka Ward or whatevers.

I liked the ending with the DLC extension overall, but the original the biggest non-ending since Halo 2.

For all the storylines myriad faults I can forgive ME3 because the combat is so much fun and playing through it with different classes & builds still feels fresh after so long.

Hmm. What classes to do you play then? I generally went for soldier. I did try to mix it up and be an infiltrator once in me2 then I realised I ws just being a solider with less guns and using cloak as a subpar stand in for adrenaline rush.

..yeah I suck at games.

Soldier and Infiltrator play a lot alike since they are more focused on fighting behind cover. You can try Vanguard if you want to run-and-gun a bit more, since its kit is a lot more focused on getting up close to the enemies (particularly with Biotic Charge and being able to use shotguns). Most of the other classes focus more on battlefield control than straight-up shooting.

You could always try Engineer if you have the Omega DLC for ME3, since they get a pretty funny class-specific Paragon interrupt in that.

Vanguard is my favorite way to go through the campaign in ME2 and ME3. It's 100% ace, and a blast to play, and viscerally satisfying.

Second favorite is pure spacewizard. Biotic detonations are beauteous and crunchy feeling.

Third favorite is probably tied for infiltrator or engineer. Cloak+sniper rifle is pretty satisfying, especially if you go all out for damage, and the engineer I believe has a taser power that is just hilarious once you set up for chain-lightning.

Soldier is the most boring way to go through the game.

Shotgun infiltrator is hilarity incarnate. Spec the cloak upgrades for damage, use cryo ammo & energy drain and even things like Banshee's or Atlas' just evaporate. Even moreso if you use one of the DLC shotguns like the Reegar. I ended up using the Cerberus shot-fun pistol on my last game, which felt funny - Shepherd's just this invisible asshole who goes around the galaxy casually executing dudes

I did a Sniper Vanguard run not long ago; that was fun and surprisingly effective once you get a decent concentration mod- snap off some headshots, charge to restore shields, nova to get some breathing room, rinse, repeat. Surprisingly hair-raising compared to a shotgun vanguard, as you've constantly got to be dancing between a minimum range to use the rifle's scope effectively and nova-to-the-face point blank. You struggle a bit more against bigger targets but less like to get caught in a sync-kill (as you're not at point blank as much of the time)

A "weaponless" Engineer game is an interesting challenge - using just the Engi's abilities, drone and turret to control fights. Geth Prime are just exercises in tedium though.

Crazedwraith wrote:Hmm. What classes to do you play then? I generally went for soldier. I did try to mix it up and be an infiltrator once in me2 then I realised I ws just being a solider with less guns and using cloak as a subpar stand in for adrenaline rush.

..yeah I suck at games.

Infiltrator was great fun in ME2 - between the time dilation on the sniper scope and the cloak it plays like you're creeping spectre of death, flickering around the battlefield and 360 quickscoping everyone.

Never felt quite the same in Me3 - I think it's a combination of the map designs being less open and the time dilation being less ridiculous.

joviwan wrote:Vanguard is my favorite way to go through the campaign in ME2 and ME3. It's 100% ace, and a blast to play, and viscerally satisfying.

My first me3 play through was my paragon soldier femshep. Now I've imported my paragon soldier maleshep and reclassed him to vanguard. Oh my goodness, you are right. Charge/nova/katana shottie is ridiculously effective and fun. And i have pull. Take that, stupid guardians and ur stupid shields.

so yeah, I just want to thank you.


eta: oh and are omega/citadel/leviathian worth it? They're like £8-£12 each and cheapskate as i am, that's like the cost I'd pay for a complete game.

I've heard only good things about Citadel. I've heard only negative things about Omega. I've heard nothing about Leviathan.

I have played none of them because I'm still butthurt over the ending.

EDIT: And you are very welcome, of course.

The only time I regretted being a Vanguard was that scene where shep says "Fuck this" and takes the target-painter to the reaper on Ryloth, and that regret is only because the game didn't give me the option to biotic charge the reaper.

I haven't played them (yet) but from what I hear Citadel is basically mandatory, so is From Ashes, Leviathan as well because it helps set up the ending in ways that lead most to think 'well why is this even DLC and not actually part of the main game', and Omega is just rubbish. Omega is one of those things I got before word of mouth got around, but hell I still haven't actually completed ME3 despite having it for over two years so maybe I'm not the best judge. But ask yourself how much you can tolerate the character of Aria T'Loak and whether you want to spend money on DLC that caters almost entirely to her.

From playing ME1 and 2 and ME3's MP, my favourite classes in order are Soldier, Infiltrator and Sentinel tied for 2nd place, Vanguard, Adept and right down at the bottom are Engineers. Soldiers are straight forward in how they play, but that's what I like about them. If I want to do something a bit more exotic that's what I've got the infiltrator and sentinels. Vanguards I've only played in ME3 mp, they can be a lot of fun but they can also be really frustrating as well. EDIT Actually I played them in ME1, but they weren't particularly interesting in that game. Similarly adepts, they can be fun to play but also frustrating. In ME1 where it was practically god mode. But that's actually why I disliked them. In ME1 biotics were stupidly overpowered, then they got hit with the nerf bat in ME2. From one extreme to the other. Engineers are just painfully boring. They don't have the weapons or HP to cut through enemies like the soldier can, infiltrators do the tech+combat hybrid thing better, sentinels do the tech(+biotic) spellcaster thing better and finally the engineer's unique powers just aren't that appealing. Soldier gets a freeze time power that is heaps of fun with certain weapons like the mattock and the revenant, infiltrators have a cloaking device that gives them so much flexibility in gameplay, sentinels can already do the spellcaster thing like engineers but their tech armour makes it so that they can actually survive doing so (and it looks cool), vanguards have charge which is just awesome - as joviwan says, really viscerally satisfying when you pull it off (less so when you don't, and that's the only reason why I rate them a 3rd), adepts have singularity which can be really good for crowd control. Engineers get a drone and (in ME3) a castable turret, in other words they're a pet class really, the drone either kills things for you by blowing up or distracts mooks while you shoot them from cover. It's just not that exciting, IMO.

I have From Ashes when I saw how few squad mates ME3 seemed to have compared to Me2 I got it before my first play through. Same with the extended cut. Though that was free.


Done some reading around:
Citadel seems to be well liked for being none-to-serious and having a lot of fandom notes and metahumour. Not sure that's my cup of tea.

Leviathan's supposed to be good for the backstory and mythos. But I don't really give a shit like that.

I kind of want to get/like Omega, its another thing that feels like it should be in the main game given how Aria behaves in the Citadel, but it sounds like its ultimately just a bit more shooting with no real impact on thins, so not worth the money.

Crazedwraith wrote:Citadel seems to be well liked for being none-to-serious and having a lot of fandom notes and metahumour. Not sure that's my cup of tea.

Leviathan's supposed to be good for the backstory and mythos. But I don't really give a shit like that.

I kind of want to get/like Omega, its another thing that feels like it should be in the main game given how Aria behaves in the Citadel, but it sounds like its ultimately just a bit more shooting with no real impact on thins, so not worth the money.

I personally found the Citadel mission to be relatively weak, but really liked the crew party. I consider the party to be the "real" ending of the series.

Leviathan's alright, but it only added a little bit in terms of gameplay. It mostly just fleshes out the Reaper backstory.

For Omega, the best part is if you play Engineer, since that class gets a Paragon interrupt at one point that allows you to basically give the finger to the Cerberus general. Other than that, it doesn't do much outside of tying up the Omega plot thread that's just left hanging in the main game.

The human engineer in ME3 co-op is pretty fun on harder difficulties (gold and plat), and was always my best/most powerful class. I played really scrummy, with the lowest possible recharge times and the Heavy pistol, using chain lightning to sap shields and stunlock enemies while my turrent was mostly an aggro-vessel. Roll in, duck around, zap zap zap, hit someone with fire, tech explosion to ruin everyone around him.

The AoE control it has and the low survivability meant constant awareness was critical, as was the ability to dodge and reload-cancel.

vanguard in ME3 co-op, unfortunately, is a broken mess. See, bioware couldn't write netcode to save their life, and the Vanguard in co-op is supremely frustrating because if the server thinks an enemy killed you, but your client thinks that you biotic-charged and stunned them, you glitch out and start flying off into the sky and you aren't able to participate in the rest of the match.

My actual most favorite class in ME3 co-op is the Human Destroyer. You're a walking suit of power armor that can basically turn into a human turret. Take the biggest and most shootiest machine gun, turn on Turret mode, and walk slowly around the battlefield screaming as you unload ammo into monsters while shoulder-mounted rocket launchers fly around blasting people all of the time. Somebody get too close? Cluster grenade, bitch!

I haven't played co-op in a while. I basically rage quit after spending like 10-30 million co-op credits trying to unlock the space ninja and not getting it.

I love the Destroyer as well. Really fun to play with a Lancer.

joviwan wrote:I haven't played co-op in a while. I basically rage quit after spending like 10-30 million co-op credits trying to unlock the space ninja and not getting it.

Yeah the unlock system is straight up bullshit. I've gotten to the point where I've unlocked everything except the ultra rare stuff.

So I just finished Spec Ops: The Line, and while I don't personally agree that it's calling you a horrible person if you enjoy modern military shooters like CoD, I can certainly see how many people got that impression.

PT is scary as fuck! I really hope this shit with Kojima and Konami doesn't stop production on SIlent HIlls.

Anyone play Pillars of Eternity?

I've been playing it off an on. I had to re-roll because I didn't understand the system.

I'm enjoying the game, but it's not grabbing me the same way the infinity engine games did.

Fuck Konami! Silent Hills is no more. That sucks because it's time for that series to be reinvigorated.

I enjoyed the Omega DLC quite a lot, actually - Aria is bleh but it has some exciting set pieces and gunfights and the enemies fun to face (although not innovative). Plus two the two new (to singleplayer) powers for your Shepard.

While I haven't played it, Citadel by comparison sounds like horrid fanservicey nonsense. Ooh, you can through a big party for your teammates! And then wake up in bed the next morning with your ~waifu~! Retch. Also the villain sounds like Captain Cliché of the USS Cliché. IN SPACE.

Just watched a 16 minute long video of Fallout 4 gameplay...

If I was still able to have emotions I'd be crying with happiness right now.

This is literally the kind of Fallout I've always wanted to play.

[fangirling intensifies]

Seriously, this is the fucking shit.

I mean, they even integrated the old "building your own base / community" idea that's been in the fandom long before Fallout 3 was even announced by Bethesda.


I swear to fucking god if they manage to fuck this one up.......

E3 was pretty rad this year. Fallout 4, new Mass Effect, Doom 4 gameplay trailers, and the XBONE's getting backwards compatibility.

Only disappointment thus far is the new Star Wars Battlefront since DICE is going multi only with it.

The Last Guardian is coming. Shenmue 3 is coming. This is not a drill.

Like all three of Battlefront's presentations explicitly stated--multiple times--that there was going to be a single-player experience.

FF7 HD Remake. HELL YES

man last week I was thinking how I haven't turned my xbox on in months because I don't have the time/energy to game

then fallout and battlefront were announced and I am for sure going to have an xbone by november

ugh, FF7 remake. What a waste of time.