Ho ho ho, see what I did there?
With the announcement of Mass Effect 3 (what feels like forever ago) I decided I needed to play through both previous games to get myself a “Proper” save to carry over, making all my ramification choices well in advance of getting to them and being properly prepared. This obviously meant playing through 2 again first.. Arrival was the main reason for doing this and all the other DLC being on sale around the same time.
But let’s go back to where it all (to as much as I can remember) began!
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My original Mass Effect playthrough as a soldier, being genuinely shocked when Nihlus was killed, getting to the Citadel wanting to help EVERYONE. Not wanting to leave any squad mates behind for any reason. Garrus being an obvious favourite. Feros and watching the geth ship fall from the building, seeing my first armature unfold in front of my eyes, the THORIAN!? Noveria and being confronted by guards on landing and panicking, reaching Peak 15, the rachni bursting out of the floor tiles, the hotlabs, the betrayal, BENEZIA!? Virmire was the killer though, THAT choice. Didn’t see that coming at all, although luckily for me one of them had never been used since I had the choice (sorry Kaiden). It just went so well. Then Bring down the Skies came, and it was fantastic, but I skipped Pinnacle Station, no idea why, just felt like a good idea. But then obviously when 2 was going to be released I HAD TO play through one again for the sake of it all being fresh! so my launching of ME2 was delayed, because I totally misjudged how long the first game would take me :[ so it sat there in its shiny collectors edition tin staring at me.
Then ME2 began, luckily with lots of money and bonus XP from my imported save and it was so good, it was even better than what was a personal favourite game. The choices seemed even trickier, and the pleasant surprises of bumping into old faces again (yes I mean you rachni asari woman) and wondering what will pan out into the third game.. well.. its just mad. Suicide mission RUINED me, I lost some very good faces on my first attempt, people I had hoped would be with me forever.. let’s just say I wish I’d done more loyalty missions and paid more attention to what certain people were being asked to do :[
Then came the DLC, Katsumi was pleasant, nice change of pace for the most part and some good unlocks to go with. Good length (ooh err missus) and enjoyed. Overlord was..err weird, Overlord itself was OK but the Firewalker bits building up to it were more of an annoyance I found. Lair of the Shadowbroker was a good change again, and it was long, and by long I mean loooonnnnngg well worth the playthrough although the bits on the roof of the ship felt a bit dragged out.. nice twist at the end though! But then Arrival, how cool it was to do a stealth mission solo and then the ending of it, that clock.. it just felt finished. That meant I totally needed to play ME3 NOW. Which can’t happen :[
So I went back to 1 to 100% it, and got Pinnacle Station, it was.. short.. I don’t know if it’s because of the difficulty I was playing on or if it just wasn’t particularly challenging. But nevermind!
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Mass Effect is one of my favourite series of games but I just hope 3 isn’t too “dumbed down”. The steps removed from 1 to 2, like upgrading weapons, changing weapon/armour mods, ammo types (don’t tell me about ammo types in ME2..) after going back enjoy to ME I really enjoy those tweaks, and the way certain characters can fill a role for you or just by changing a couple of bits here and there you can change a weapons functionality no end. But workbenches are back in ME3 that we’ve seen so that looks promising. And it’s not that ME2 was OVER simplified it was just more of a Gears of War with conversations, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but it wasn’t what a lot of fans hoped for. The combat was slicker, the action was faster, the explosions were more frequent.. it was as if Michael Bay was involved in some way. Bah, I enjoy Michael Bay movies, I loved, LOVED ME2. I can’t really fault a game like that, even with the niggles and annoyances at things that were taken out because it was just at such a high standard.
Mass Effect 3 had better be THE BOMB because there’s no reason it shouldn’t or couldn’t be. The only problem I can forsee is cramming in too much new content, too many new faces, too many extra decisions. It’s a grand finale. It’s wrapping up the whole series (don’t do a Terminator on us with awful reboots). The events of this game LITERALLY will effect the entire galaxy. What I wonder though is how plot holes will be filled after the events from the last mission of ME2 it’s possible that.. well.. certain characters may have issues performing in the third. But you can’t just add a placeholder character.. so that could be interesting to say the least.
Roll on March is all I can say..
-Shaun
.decimal.point. 