Mass Effect Series

[Keveh Kins]

^I want to high five you for making use of The Boulder

 

[Carlie]

 

[Ami]

Spoiler: Just finished ME3 on Insanity and platinumed it...

My God, I forgot how hard it was to finish this game for a second time. I chose the Destroy option, there was no way I could choose any other (chose Synthetic the first time) and daaamn, that sad theme at the end. I'm so happy I chose this ending because really, I should always pick this one. Seeing Garrus telling Joker to leave really hit me in the feels...

Seeing the Reapers destroyed is just another amazing moment. But seeing the crew on the Normandy without Shepard while escaping... just wow. Not many games hit me heard, but fuck you, Bioware. Thank you for making cry over your shitty ending. I'm glad I never got the game before the Extended Cut.

Also saw some new images that never cropped up in my last playthrough, which was nice. The narration by Hackett was really lovely, too, and that shot of Shepard's helmet was too emotional. Heck, even adding Shepard to the list of the fallen was the worst blow. Poor Kaidan.

AND I FINALLY GOT THAT SHOT OF SHEPARD ALIVE. WOOHOO!

 

[Keveh Kins]

On Horizon naow.

The Collector General looks really like an alien from another franchise of some sort that I can't remember, it just struck me immediately how familiar it looked.

I really like Mordin's mid-battle comments, always good for a chuckle.

Scion husks are feckin' terrifying, sweet jaysus. Very like Saren/Sovereign at the end of the first game. Speaking of the first game, holy crap has the autosave improved drastically from the OG's. No more restarting at the beginning of the level every time you die

And Kaiden! I'm a comin' my overly calm amigo!

 

[The G'randiest' Daddy]

Ah, Mordin... Mordin is the best.

 

[Carlie]

 

[Joe]

If you pester Mordin on the Normandy when he doesn't have new dialogue for you, he'll still come out with the occasional unique line anyway.

I have ruled out the possibility of an artificially intelligent virus, unless it's *very* intelligent... and toying with me.

 

[Roger]

http://ctrl500.com/art/the-shape-that-unified-mass-effects-look/

 

[Kuja9001]

Just a quick reminder that Tali is the best outta the ladies

 

[Joker]

obligatory post after seeing tha tali-signal

it's like the bat-signal only with a better butt and a shotgun

 

[Joe]

She's a strong second/third.

 

[Roger]

First with Liara as close second for me. Then Jack and Kasumi. Then Samara. Then ash, then Morinth, then the Rachni Queen, then Miranda.

 

[Joe]

Liara -> Tali/Jack -> Kasumi -> Everyone else

 

[Carlie]

First with Liara as close second for me. Then Jack and Kasumi. Then Samara. Then ash, then Morinth, then the Rachni Queen, then Miranda.

Morinth and the Rachni Queen over Miranda? That is the most offensive thing I've seen in this thread since Joe did not appreciate Miranda in the previous page.

 

[Roger]

Morinth and the Rachni Queen over Miranda? That is the most offensive thing I've seen in this thread since Joe did not appreciate Miranda in the previous page.

At least you get to the option of killing Morinth and the Rachni if they don't suit you. With Miranda, you point a gun at her, you don't get to pull the trigger, she gives you the option of going with her or going your own way, actually you HAVE to go with her. You get to object to working for Cerberus half a hundred times with Jacob and the Illusive Man but when she says she believes in what Cerberus stands for and thus doesn't trust you, it's end of dialogue.

I get that the limitations of the medium mean that you're gonna have at least some mandatory teammates, but dangling the options in front of me like that anoys me greatly. Also, her backstory doesn't make sense. Miranda's superold. Born long being a biotic was considered a sign of perfection of even useful at all.

 

[Lex]

But she's just so faaaaaabulous

I have a thing for la femme nikita type characters. Which means Miranda <3, Samara <3, and Tali and Liara shine as this type in 2 and 3.

 

[Kuja9001]

Samara is my second fav. Sucks that she's not a LI.

 

[Hisako]

strawberry milfs pls

 

[Joker]

Technically she CAN be a romance option...sort of?

Also shhhhhh spoilers

 

[Lex]

MoCap stuffs

 

[Elessar]

Sometimes I take surveys online for a little extra money.

One day last month I got one with this:

The Next Mass Effect Context:

The next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster (a cluster of 100s of solar systems in the Andromeda Galaxy), far removed by time and space from Commander Shepard&#8217;s heroic acts and the final events of the Mass Effect trilogy. You are a pathfinder, a combat trained but un-tested explorer leading an expedition into the Helius cluster to establish a new home for humanity. As you explore this sprawling series of solar systems (over 4x the size of Mass Effect 3), collecting resources and building colonies, you will encounter the savagery of untamed lands in the form of cut-throat outlaws and warring alien races. To survive and colonize the wild reaches of space, you will need to grow your arsenal, your ship, your crew and make strategic (and often uneasy) alliances to fight against increasingly menacing foes. Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy. As you uncover who the Remnant were, and the mysteries their ruins contain, you are drawn into a violent race to find the source of their forgotten technology that will determine the fate of humanity.

Collect Resources to Fuel your Growth:

Scour solar systems and planets within the Helius Cluster to find valuable resources and blueprints of long forgotten alien technology that will allow you to craft better equipment and weapons, such as improving your leg armor to allow you to jetpack jump, or upgrading your cryo-beam (laser cannon) to target enemies or do area damage around you to clear out close threats. As you build your arsenal and resource infrastructure, you will be able to explore deeper into the increasingly dangerous and resource-rich solar systems of the Helius Cluster.

A Capable Crew:

Throughout the story, you will recruit seven distinct crew members to fight by your side. Each crew member has a unique personality and specific abilities that open up strategic options as you choose which two of them to bring into each mission. For example, Cora has the ability to deploy a biotic shield that protects everyone in the bubble while still allowing you and your squad to fire out of it. Your crew will grow alongside you as you explore the Helius Cluster, and you can choose how you upgrade your crew&#8217;s weapons, gear and abilities to increase their individual combat effectiveness. Create the perfect squad to react to any situation and to support your preferred gameplay style.

Your Crew, Your Story:

Your crew members aren&#8217;t merely hired guns &#8211; they are part of the living universe in the Helius Cluster that develops in response to your actions and choices. Increase each crew member&#8217;s loyalty by pursuing missions that are important to that specific character. For example, when a Krogan colony ship has been stolen by one of the outlaw factions leaving the colonists stranded without resources to survive, your Krogan squad mate, Drack, is determined to strike out against them. If you take the mission and help him track down the outlaws&#8217; hideout to return the ship to its rightful owners, Drack&#8217;s loyalty toward you and your squad will increase and Drack will unlock a brand new skill tree.

Explore each individual&#8217;s backstory and develop your relationship with them through conversations and unique missions. True to Mass Effect, what you choose to say will directly affect your crew&#8217;s loyalty and relationship with you, and will open up different conversations and narrative opportunities at the end of the game depending upon how you approach each encounter.

Deployed Strike Team Missions:

The Helius Cluster is 1000s of light years across, and you can&#8217;t be everywhere at once. As you develop more colonies, resource bases and settlements, you have to be able to keep them safe. Spend resources to recruit mercenaries and develop an AI controlled Strike Team that you can deploy to take on randomly generated, time-sensitive missions. Strike Team missions take many forms, including settlement defense and Remnant artifact recovery, which will take real-time to complete. Send your Strike Team out on a mission while you continue playing the main game and they will return, 20 &#8211; 30 minutes later, having gained rewards such as XP, currency and equipment based on the success of their mission. Spend money and resources to train your Strike Team and acquire better gear for them, which will increase their success rate and allow them to take on more difficult missions for greater rewards.

Active Strike Team Missions:

When you encounter a Strike Team mission in the Single-Player mode, you can leave your Strike Team at their base and decide to tackle the mission yourself with your Multiplayer roster of characters. You also have the option of tackling the mission by yourself, or recruiting up to three friends to play with you. The more friends you bring, the greater the challenge and the greater the reward. These missions will play out using the Next Mass Effect&#8217;s multiplayer Horde mode (more details on this later). These missions will include a variety of thematically appropriate objectives, like defending a Settlement against Khet attacks, or recovering a Remnant artifact off of a planet before an outlaw gang gets there first. By taking an active role in strike team missions, you can earn special Single-player rewards in addition to the usual multiplayer specific characters, weapons, weapon mods, and pieces of equipment which can be customized between missions. Additionally, players who join another person&#8217;s Strike Team mission will receive bonus in-game currency and multiplayer XP for helping others with their missions.

Multiplayer &#8220;Horde&#8221; Mode:

The next Mass Effect&#8217;s &#8220;Horde&#8221; multiplayer pits you and up to three of your friends against waves of enemy troops on various battlefields throughout the galaxy. Players fight together to survive increasingly difficult enemy attacks and accomplish objectives, like disabling a bomb near a colony base or assassinating a target. Progress through multiplayer missions to gain XP and earn new multiplayer specific weapons, characters, weapon mods, and pieces of equipment, which can be customized between matches. Multiplayer play will also earn you APEX funds (in-game currency), which can be used to purchase items and gear in the Single Player game.

Establish Settlements:

Search solar systems for rare habitable planets to establish a settlement that could serve as a base for humankind&#8217;s new home in the Helius Cluster. As you build permanent settlements, you will make strategic choices on where to focus your new base&#8217;s resources. For example: Recon Settlements will clear fog of war from the space map and give the player more strike team missions to choose from, while Mining Settlements will periodically supplement the player&#8217;s supply of crafting materials.

Dialogue:

Building upon the rich history of strategic dialogue that has defined the Mass Effect series, you can make meaningful choices in every conversation you have with characters that impact the way your game evolves. The next Mass Effect adds deeper control over your conversations through a greater ability to interrupt and change the course of the conversation as it is happening. During certain conversations, you will be able to take action based choices, such as the option to pull out your gun and force someone to open a door instead of convincing them to do it through conversational guile. Action based choices give you more options for how you approach dialogue with characters in the game and can lead to more extreme outcomes on the story as it evolves around the decisions you make when interacting with a huge cast of NPC characters.

Seamlessly Travel Through the Next Mass Effect Universe:

As you pilot your space ship, Tempest, across the 100s of solar systems that are seamlessly connected in the next Mass Effect, you will encounter new planets filled with valuable resources, intelligent life, conflict, and alien technology that all give you opportunities to increase the power of your character, your ship and your team so that you can build them into a force that perfectly suits your gameplay style. Transitions between activities, like flying your Tempest (space ship) across a solar system to land on a mineral rich planet, then jumping into your Mako (land vehicle) to explore the surface of planet, all happen smoothly without loading screens.

Customize and Share Your Experience:

Discover new things in Andromeda Galaxy, like alien artifacts and natural wonders, that serve as trophies and decorations that you can use to modify the look of your character, Tempest (Space Ship) and Mako (land vehicle). Customize the way your squad and your character look with clothes and aesthetic modifications that you unlock throughout the game. Photos you take from the far reaches of the galaxy can be used to decorate your starship or sold to certain characters.

Remnant Vault Raids: Find and activate Remnant Monoliths to unlock Remnant vaults. Explore abandoned Remnant ruins to find and locate a powerful artifact, but once you remove it you will trigger the vault defenses that will arm traps, activate defense robots and even change the architecture of the vault itself to stop you from escaping. Fight your way out of the vault and you will be rewarded with valuable loot, including powerful gear, crafting resources and Star Keys that can be used to unlock massive orbital facilities in space that grant permanent stat bonuses.

Optional Elite Remnant Vault Raids are scattered around the Helius Cluster located in special orbital facilities that are unlocked by Star Keys. Similar to the standard Remnant Vaults, you enter them to retrieve a special artifact which will trigger the vault defenses that arm traps, activate defense robots and change the architecture of the vault itself to stop you from escaping. However, Elite vaults ratchet up the difficulty of the encounter with increasingly powerful defense robots and traps, as well as roaming outlaws and deadly Khet patrols that are also in search of the elite artifacts. Elite Remnant vaults will test the limits of your combat and puzzle solving acumen, but with greater difficulty comes greater rewards. Gain rare loot, narrative acclaim and huge rewards for completing these daunting challenges.

Khet Outposts:

As you explore planets throughout the Helius Cluster, you will encounter Khet Outposts. These outposts are optional combat experiences where you enter the outpost and fight off waves of enemies. Destroy Khet outposts to earn XP, rewards and thwart their growing power in the region. Your allies will reward you with praise and increased narrative options as you fight to remove the Khet presence from the region.

Drive and upgrade your Mako (land vehicle):

Explore the surfaces of 100s of planets in the Helius Cluster in your versatile land vehicle, the Mako. Whether you are looking for a place to set up a colony, searching for a Remnant vault or attacking a Khet Outpost, you will enjoy getting there in your Mako. Equip and upgrade your Mako in dozens of ways, like adding turbo boosters, upgrading your shield generator or adding a Hostile Detector to your radar to create the ultimate planetary exploration vehicle. Finally, get your Mako looking the way you want with a custom paintjob.

...

They asked my satisfaction with each of those descriptions.

You can choose for yourself whether or not to believe me.

But please look at my posting history first. I'm no troll.

Reddit

 

[Lex]

Andromeda huh? I know this idea was discussed (by both us and others) but it seems so unnecessary considering it's been stated time and time again that there's a shitload of the Milky Way that wasn't tapped at all because of the setup of the Mass Relays in the first game.

Don't get me wrong, I like the sound of this, particularly:

Transitions between activities, like flying your Tempest (space ship) across a solar system to land on a mineral rich planet, then jumping into your Mako (land vehicle) to explore the surface of planet, all happen smoothly without loading screens.

and unlike most of the people on that Reddit, I'm not at all opposed to ME getting a bit of Inquisition's treatment re: exploration etc. but I don't trust this yet, even though it seems pretty legit.

This would make an amazing game, there's no doubt Bioware could pull something like this off. I just don't see the need for it to be set in Andromeda, even though the idea does appeal to me. I see people complaining that canon is being thrown out if they're exploring Andromeda, but I don't see how considering this is probably set a hundred or so years ahead of ME1-3. Still, how they got there is going to be a point of contention, especially if they can travel back and forth. Wormholes a la Interstellar anyone?

 

[Ami]

Mass Effect at this year's E3?

Yes, bloody please.

 

[Carlie]

With Inquisition out this is likely.

 

[Ami]

It's about time we got some more details (I feel somewhat greedy asking though, haha) and possibly a release date? With Inquisition possibly mostly done, I'd like to think a lot of the makers jumped onto this and working hard to give us our next installment.