Recommended Posts

I have one request from Bioware for the Omega DLC. Please, PLEASE at the end of it, let Wrex meet with Aria and realize who she really is. After that I can say the Mass Effect trilogy is truly complete.

I didn't actually read your full post. I'm also staring at my keyboard while I type this. Hah. But, any post in a movie, television, play, game section, etc. that includes the phrase, "In the end..." will contain spoilers. I just started to play the game. So, just for future reference if you could do some of us a favor and just throw up a spoiler alert or spoiler blackouts, or something. Heh.

The DLC is worth playing. The Leviathan DLC explains a lot about the origin of the Reapers and the galactic extinction cycles, and Javik is pretty much a must if you really want to bring a close to the story of the Protheans

  • 2 weeks later...

After giving myself a bit of time and space, I finally played through the DLC-revised ending. For a little bit of reference, I wrote up a fairly well-received opinion about the original ending and why I believe the fans were justified in their outcry. Without having read up on any other forums or doing more research, here's my revised opinion.

For an ending that wasn't going to fundamentally change in concept, I was actually rather happy with how it all turned out. I can't say what they did would have been my first choice to conclude the series (in my opinion ME 1 and 2 were telling a different story than how ME 3 turned out), but they finally made their case. I wrote that the original ending was broken and flawed, and that is no longer true. You can still argue the merits of the premise, but for the most part the ending is done well -- and that's as much as I can outright demand from a company.

The ending, no longer rushed, has a nice emotional attachment to it. While the base concept is still a little far-fetched, it's rationalized just enough that it doesn't make you suspend your disbelief. At times, it felt like the "questions" were copy-pasted from angry fan emails, but it did ultimately get the point and the message across. A few glaring plot holes were easily addressed with an extra scene or three -- nothing even had to be retconned, it was stuff that was simply omitted the first go-around. I still really wish that your specific military assets played a more specific role in the final mission, but perhaps that was asking for too much. Regardless, the heart-stopping moment where you have to make the final choice (such a wonderfully impactful reveal, expertly executed!) finally has the gravitas on the storytelling side that it deserves.

I'm baffled at how the original ending made it in to the finished game -- I still think that was financially motivated -- but with how they expanded it I can at least accept this as the true ending for the series. There's still plenty of room for folks to believe the ending is "bad", and I admit I'd have liked to see something VERY different from what we have... but you can no longer say that the ending is broken. The sense of disappointment that something so great could fall so far is gone, and for that I'm thankful.

I just started an insanity run, which I will take slow because it takes me twice as long to complete each mission now. I'm starting to realize how bad the team AI is though, they are completely useless in most spots. It would be really nice if you could jump into your teamates like in Dragon Age.

I am really liking the changes to MP so far, I'm not having much luck picking up the new characters though. I got the N7 Infiltrator which doesnt really fit my play style but I do like the N7 Soldier. I'm a big fan of the Vanguard class so I'm hoping I get a couple of them soon.

  • 4 weeks later...

Next Mass Effect 3 DLC Has "High Potential for Tears"

"It's all hands on deck for this one."

BioWare is already working on the next story DLC for Mass Effect 3, the first details of which have appeared online.

While we don't know the name or proposed release date of the new content patch, we do know that BioWare is enlisting the helping of several names that have previously been involved in the series.

In a post on the BioWare forums, designer Jos Hendriks explained that a team of about eight writers were penning the script, most of whom had worked on some aspect of the game before, saying, "It's all hands on deck for this one. Pretty much every ME3 DLC writer here in Edmonton is involved. (which would include both Patrick Weekes AND John Dombrow)."

While that handles the story of the game, what about the music? Well, it seems series veteran Sam Hulick is set to return to score the new DLC, tweeting last night, "What I'm up to lately: working on an unannounced Mass Effect 3DLC! More details on this coming later on."

Hulick has previously worked on the first and second Mass Effect games, as well as Mass Effect 3, though he was noticeably absent from the soundtrack for the recent Leviathan and Omega expansions. He also dropped in a little tease about what he's planning on bringing to the table this time, tweeting, "Tossing in piano and muted strings for this one particular piece. High potential for tears. #ME3DLC"

The final piece of info we have covers some of the voice actors that are set to return. It seems Seth Green, who's voiced Normandy pilot Joker since the series began is back as BioWare producer and voice director Caroline Livingstone tweeted him to say, "@SethGreen thank you for yet another fantastic session. And thank you for being such a kind person. You are lovely!"

Additionally, Raphael Sbarge who voices squadmate Kaiden Alenko tweeted back in October that he was recording new lines for the game. With none of the squadmates appearing in Omega, it looks like this was also for the unnamed upcoming DLC

This will be the fifth major single-player DLC pack BioWare has released for Mass Effect 3. With such a host of big names being called back in, do you reckon this could be the studio planning to see the title off with a bang?

  • 2 months later...

Mass Effect 3 'Reckoning' and 'Citadel' DLC on Feb. 26, Mar. 5

BioWare and EA have announced two more bundles of DLC for Mass Effect 3, with one focused on multiplayer and the other serving as "one final, sentimental journey with Commander Shepard and their squad," according to the press release.

The first batch of content, "Reckoning," is a free bundle of multiplayer DLC that'll be available for free when it lands this Tuesday, February 26. The pack adds new characters, weapons and item upgrades for use in multiplayer, though what any of those things are specifically remains to be seen.

"Citadel," meanwhile, is Mass Effect 3's last chunk of single-player DLC, arriving on March 5 for $14.99/1200 MS Points. The pack returns Shepard and crew to (where else) the Citadel, on a mission that will give players the "opportunity to reconnect with some of their favorite characters from all three of the Mass Effect games." Well, provided you didn't get them horribly murdered, we figure. You know what you did.

I for one am waiting on a sale (Xbox 360, so could be a while) on all DLC so I can get all this overpriced DLC cheap, and get one last run at the full story.

  • 2 weeks later...

Interesting, I might give it a go since it's some more SP play though I wonder if they'll ever do a new ME specially for the next gen systems. As far as I remember if you get the extra little bit in the ending then you know they can do more. Also the way the old guy and the child talk after the credits where the kid asks for another story and the dude says ok. Wishful thinking I know but I'd be onboard for another one if done right. Though the way 3 ends I suppose if they did another series they'd have to actually pick one of the endings as the de facto canon ending and go with that one.

Interesting, I might give it a go since it's some more SP play though I wonder if they'll ever do a new ME specially for the next gen systems. As far as I remember if you get the extra little bit in the ending then you know they can do more. Also the way the old guy and the child talk after the credits where the kid asks for another story and the dude says ok. Wishful thinking I know but I'd be onboard for another one if done right. Though the way 3 ends I suppose if they did another series they'd have to actually pick one of the endings as the de facto canon ending and go with that one.

There's going to be an ME4, that's already been confirmed. I think it's using Frostbite 2 as well. But it'll be in the ME universe, not another Shepard story.

There's going to be an ME4, that's already been confirmed. I think it's using Frostbite 2 as well. But it'll be in the ME universe, not another Shepard story.

Sweet. Looking forward to everyone going mental about hw much that sucks when it comes out :laugh:

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • Here is the new Surface Laptop Ultra wallpaper in high resolution by Taras Buria Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, its brand-new high-end laptop powered by NVIDIA's brand-new RTX Spark processor. As usual, Microsoft gives each new device a unique wallpaper, and the Surface Laptop Ultra is no exception. While the device is not publicly available yet, somebody has already extracted its wallpaper, giving everyone a chance to get a piece of the upcoming laptop in its full-resolution glory. The Surface Laptop Ultra has a very dark, abstract wallpaper that resembles the stock wallpapers in Windows Server, albeit with much less color. Having this dark, grim wallpaper highlights the laptop's mini-LED display and its ability to cut off parts of the screen's backlight to achieve OLED-like black levels. However, if you also like light wallpapers, we made a white version by simply inverting its colors. You can download both wallpapers below (click the image, right-click it, and select "Save as"): The Surface Laptop Ultra is expected to launch later this year. Microsoft is not revealing full details yet, including the price. However, Microsoft confirmed up to 1 petaflop of AI performance and RTX 5070-level of GPU performance. The heart of the laptop has up to 20 CPU cores and 6,144 GPU cores. Additionally, Microsoft and NVIDIA boast high CPU efficiency for all-day battery life. As for the display, it is a 15-inch mini-LED display with a pixel density of 262 ppi and a maximum brightness of 2,000 nits. Of course, not everyone needs this amount of power, and certainly not everyone can afford it. For those who need a more affordable device, Microsoft is also preparing the next-generation Surface Pro powered by the Snapdragon X2 Elite processor. Weeks ahead of the announcement, details about this computer were leaked by a retailer. Do you like the Surface Laptop Ultra's stock wallpaper? Share your thoughts in the comments. Image provided by @nextgenos2026 on X
    • From all that I've read on the subject--not that much, really--it looks to me like companies and parents are trying to protect themselves from children using their parents accounts to run up giant bills, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, and the first the parents know about it is when they get sued... Internet companies have been sued for tailoring their ads to children, which is kind of old news. My belief is that policing starts at home with the parents, and the reason that so many laws that can't be enforced are being passed is because parents are eschewing their responsibilities, claiming not enough time, not enough knowledge, etc. Giving kids cell phones sans Internet connectivity is a good place to start--confine Internet activity to PCs in the home that the parents regulate. My kids are all grown and gone, I'm happy to say... They have their own kids to worry about.
    • ChartNet’s 1.7 million synthetic samples let compact open-source models outperform GPT-4o on every chart task   A team from MIT and the MIT-IBM Computing Research Lab has built a training dataset that solves one of the most persistent gaps in enterprise AI: the inability of even the best commercial models to reliably read a chart...... https://www.techtimes.com/articles/317752/20260604/ai-chart-understanding-breakthrough-mit-ibm-dataset-lets-small-models-beat-gpt-4o.htm  
    • BTW DXVK is also available on Windows and offers similar benefits like on Linux when it comes to performance, at least in some titles. The Raceroom racing sim for example even offers DXVK as one of its officially supported options and it can achieve ridiculous improvements in certain situations, like quite literally doubling (or more) the framerates
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      nothanks earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      B2Proxy earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      MadMung0 earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      jefred earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Apprentice
      JoeyNeo went up a rank
      Apprentice
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      476
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      233
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      79
    4. 4
      FloatingFatMan
      68
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      58
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!