Mass Affection (Mass Effect Series)

[Mighty Hatman]

I heard this is the last DLC for ME3, is that true? If so, I look forward to the potential for an all in one deal with ME3 and every bit of DLC. Hopeful thinking with EA I know.

I haven't touched any of the extra content with ME3. I don't even remember if I finished the game before or after the ending was changed. I would like to play through it as a trilogy though with all the fancy content.

[GlowBear]

Yeah the last one.

[Edd Strid]

That means it's soon time for me to venture into the game. I always burn myself out on similar games when an ME launches, so I don't play it right away, I dive in when all DLC is available.

[ZombiePlatypus]

I spent a lot of time clearing space on my harddrive Monday night, a decent chunk of time downloading this monster last night (split in two downloads!), maybe tonight I'll play it.


Yeah. Maybe tonight.

[Brightside]

[ZombiePlatypus]

Pure fan service.

It really is, and it's wonderful.

I played more of this last night and it's easily my favorite DLC they've put out for the series (though I have a soft spot for 'Bring Down the Sky'). It's very much a lighthearted, almost b-movie romp. Your squad is full of quips, the missions are varied and fun, and it's all very self-aware. Lots of references to all the games in the series for long time fans. I can't express enough how much I dug this, and there's still a little bit more for me to do.


MINOR SPOILERS:

After all the combat is done there's a scene where Shep is trying to beat James' record of 182 pull-ups, and the player does this by hitting the left or right trigger when the prompt flashes on the screen. One hundred and eighty-three times. I hate quick time events, but I sat through the several minutes this took, being broken up every once in a while by quick quip by James. Minutes on end, with no reward other than the respect of a digital character, and I enjoyed it.

Baffling.


But yeah, each remaining character gets their little moment, and it's a nice feeling. Then Shep throws a party and it gets even better. A highlight for me was when a few of the "tough guys" were playing like kids, hiding behind sofas and shelves as if they were playing cops and robbers or something. Zaeed, Wrex and Javik, drunk and playing badass in Shep's den. It was funny.


Good shit, Bioware.

[Fandango]

I loathed Citadel for many of the reasons people seem to like it, but then I’ve never really enjoyed spoofs. For me, Citadel was a poorly conceived, painfully contrived, tedious send-up that had no place sitting within what was a much darker narrative.

To those who enjoyed it - how do you reconcile the difference in tone between Citadel and the main game (I just can’t do it)?

[TheRemedy]

Why do you hate fun?

[Fandango]

Why do you hate fun?

I like fun. Second rate sitcoms? Not so much.

[The Defenestrator]

I loathed Citadel for many of the reasons people seem to like it, but then I’ve never really enjoyed spoofs. For me, Citadel was a poorly conceived, painfully contrived, tedious send-up that had no place sitting within what was a much darker narrative.

To those who enjoyed it - how do you reconcile the difference in tone between Citadel and the main game (I just can’t do it)?

I agree with you. First of all, fun is for pussies. Suck it up and be miserable. Secondly, this is clearly meant to be outside the main narrative of the game but they couldn't make it being post-ending without blowing up the internet all over again. So, instead, they seem to be hoping that people have already beaten the game and will just jump in for this DLC and quit again. Anyone who has never played ME3 before and starts it up with Citadel installed is going to get whiplash from the tonal changes. (And then whiplash again when the Starchild shows up.) They don't care if it makes sense because that's not what they're going for. All they care about it salvaging their rep and getting on gamers' good side again.

This is, in a nutshell, my problem with Mass Effect, post-Karpashyn. When he left for SWTOR, he seemed to take all the common sense with him. They may be able to write decent characters and give good fan service but they can't plot their way out of a fucking paper bag. All of their decisions after the final Illusive Man scene seemed to be done in a perpetual state of panic which leads to short-sighted, hacky nonsense like this.

Most people I know liked Citadel because either they were fine with the endings, never got that pissed about the endings in the first place or all they really wanted was more time with their favorite character. Storytelling nerds like me are still shit out of luck.

[TheRemedy]

But you hit the nail on the head. It's pure fanservice, but they had no where else to put it. It's easily ignorable as a silly thing that happens.

[BadStar]

The tone of ME3 was already all over the place pre-Citadel. Personally, I would rather be partying with the crew and hearing some humorous dialogue than running to the ends of the galaxy for another "find the artifact of my peoples" fetch quest. The urgency of the narrative was already broken and unbelievable, so why not have some fun with it?

[Fandango]

But you hit the nail on the head. It's pure fanservice, but they had no where else to put it. It's easily ignorable as a silly thing that happens.

Sure, but if the one-shot comedy styling’s of Citadel was to be its appeal, why would Bioware make it cannon and dump the fecking thing slap bang into the middle of what is essentially a war story? Wouldn’t adopting a Darkspawn Chronicles ‘alternative history’ approach to things have served the overall narrative a little better (story is the big draw of Mass Effect for so many of us after all)?

[The Defenestrator]

But you hit the nail on the head. It's pure fanservice, but they had no where else to put it. It's easily ignorable as a silly thing that happens.

Which is fair enough. I'm a pretty huge minority on this point. I would have preferred for Citadel to exist as maybe a separate option on the main menu rather than part a dark, dire, depressing war story.

[BadStar]

Wait....

people take the ME story seriously?

[Zodiac Eclipse]

Alright, starting my next trilogy playthough. This time I'm gonna tack on all the ME3 DLC.

[TurboKill]

If I expected a likely chance that'd I'd be brutally killed soon, I would absolutely throw a party. Seriously. Hell, it's also a good morale boost.

[GlowBear]

Citadel DLC was pretty fun and I'm really glad it came out and all the cast got together again. It was a bit glitchy for me I found.

Spoilers: (doubt needs tagging now)

During the boss fight with your clone and Brooks, if you killed Brooks first (which isn't obvious) your Clone kinda vanishes and you're stuck in a purgatory or having to kill one more enemy in order to complete it, but she's nowhere to be found. I knew Brooks would end up being a traitor, but when she was being bumbling Brooks it was pretty cool.

It also seems that I can't invite Traynor up for a nice bath ;_;

The threw a lot into the DLC, the apartment, the party all the dialogue, then the added bits of the Silversun Strip. Was a nice round off. Though at times it felt more like a DLC that should have come out at the end of defeating the Reapers.

I had gotten Leviathan a while ago, same time as Omega. Omega intrigued me more so I played it, then begun Leviathan and just kept coming back to it. I wrapped it up yesterday.

It was a cool enough DLC but they didn't half overdo going back and forth and back and forth. Having to go to Bryson’s lab several times looking in the same place, all seemed a bit silly. When you go underwater I had an instant flashback to KOTOR I and Manann, which gave me a nostalgic feel but also one of dread as I remember how slow and clunky manoeuvring under water was. But thankfully it wasn't bad.

The end scenes to that DLC were quite impressive but also not sure how I feel about the fact that we just found the creators of the Reapers and wondering how that impacts the ending of Mass Effect 3 in terms of all that philosophical stuff. But the 3 Golden Girl Reapers appearing before Shepard and then aiding her and her squad from leaving was pretty cool.

I wonder if they actually appear now in the climactic battle. See the problem with all this DLC is I want to now replay the whole game yet again, for like the 5th time, just to see all these added effects.

[ZombiePlatypus]

Finally got the 'Veteran' achievement for killing 5,000 enemies last night, which puts me at 100% completion of all achievements (including DLC) for all the games. 'Bout time. For my last two hundred or so enemies I just kept playing solo matches in the Armax Arena. That "fatal error" map is pretty great, I love it.

A couple of gripes I have with the Armax Arena though; Your squadmates don't say anything. It sucks the fun out of having your favorites fighting alongside you when they're silent like that. I guess it's because it's not the "real" them? Which brings me to my second gripe; Where's Legion? Yeah he's dead, but if these squadmates are just programs in the arena they should've brought him back. Dude was one of my favorites.

[Fandango]

Mass Effect Retrospective Panel - PAX 2013: