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Forums - Gaming - Mass Effect 3 metacritic score should be audited

GaaraD.Dragon said:
NotStan said:
jonager said:
lol is the ending so bad?

It's really not that bad, people are making a mountain out of a molehill.

You're right but when it comes to a story driven and decision driven game it is at least a solid point lost.

I doubt anyone really regards metacritic highly but it is an eye poping example of how fanboystic enthusiasm dominated the reviews and ratings of the first days.

I really am not sure how people expected Bioware to implement all the decisions that they might have done in the ending sequence. Although it should have varied more depending on the play style of the player - renegade or paragon. Other than that I am finding it hard to think of what other ending I would have prefered, some of the theories on the internet in regards to the ending do make sense too.



Disconnect and self destruct, one bullet a time.

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DarthVolod said:

Post became kind of long, but bear with me ...

You are all fixating way too much on the terrible ending which is blinding everyone to the fact that the entirety of Mass Effect 3 was awful (at least when compared to the second and especially to the first game).

The way I see it is that Mass Effect 1 was a near masterpiece that had a game-play style divided into 2/3 RPG and 1/ 3 shooter. This worked quite well, and nearly all the elements of the game worked perfectly to make a spectacular experience.

At some point (after Bioware was scooped up by EA), the series was pushed into a totally new direction, and the previous 2/3 rpg and 1/3 shooter ratio was flipped on its head, and cover based shooting became the new focus of the franchise as was seen with the arrival of Mass Effect 2.

In fairness, Mass Effect 2 did have some compelling characters and story elements, but it remains a vastly inferior effort to Mass Effect 1 precisely because it moved away from what made the first game so special, a great sci-fi adventure story mixed with a fun RPG shooter hybrid gameplay style.  No longer were players hunting down rogue specters, learning about the history of the Mass Effect Universe, and experiencing revelations about other great threats to galactic peace, but instead Mass Effect 2 foced Shephard into the role of recruiting and doing favors and errands for his rogue’s gallery of supporting characters in order to go on a suicide mission which, in hindsight, was ultimately pointless when one considers the ending of Mass Effect 3.

We went from a fun and rich universe in Mass Effect 1 that players wanted to explore to errand boy duty in Mass Effect 2, and, lastly, errand boy duty 2.0 in Mass Effect 3 where Shephard has to prostrate him/herself in order to please a bunch of random aliens to fight against the formerly mysterious, and now totally generic Reaper threat.

Even more dramatic than the dumbing down of the plot was the transformation of the series from RPG/shooter hybrid to a Gears of War knock-off. While Mass Effect 2 effectively lobotomized the game play of one by removing armor customization, weapon customization, and 90% of the abilities and talents, Mass Effect 3 finished what Mass Effect 2 started by including a boring multiplayer mode that plays like Gears of War horde mode minus the fun, and further stripping the series of its RPG roots by adding in new game mode that let you entirely skip dialogue choices (not that the choices effect much anymore) while also removing player choice from virtually every aspect of the game. The player no longer plays a "role" as they would in an RPG, as Commander Shephard has effectively become the silent protagonist from every Call of Duty game that can simply watch while having no impact on the story taking place around them. RPGs were always about player choice, and Mass Effect has pretty much done away with that. It wasn't just the ending of that nullified the events of the previous games as pretty much every choice made in the previous Mass Effect games had no impact on any part of Mass Effect 3. 

At this point, I really don’t see any reason left to play Mass Effect anymore. The series had an identity crisis, and it was decided by the powers that be at EA that the series was going to become an ultra-casual third person shooter. The sad part is that the guys in charge of this franchise never seemed to realize that it was the story and RPG portion that made Mass Effect 1 so memorable, and since that is now gone we are just left with a boring and lifeless third person shooter. As much as I hate Gears of War and Uncharted, I would much rather play either one of those games over Mass Effect at this point. Neither Gears nor Uncharted are all that fun, but at least they are not in denial about being mindless third person shooters, and they do what they do better than Mass Effect does.

In closing, don’t trust reviewers that gave this game its undeserved 93/100 metacritic score since they are all actually less qualified than me and you when it comes to writing reviews of videogames. We don’t get gift baskets, add revenue, and free copies of games from video game publishers so at the very least we are going to be far more impartial than the reviews of videogame “journalists.” Trust your own opinion, and the opinions of reputable people who don’t have relationships with video game publishers that would lead them to bias. I would put more faith in the user reviews on metacritic than I ever would in the so called professional reviews. Don't trust the professional reviewers in regards to this (and really any other game), and don't put so much emphasis on the crap ending as nothing in Mass Effect 3 deserves your admiration.

I haven't played ME3 yet but you nailed it on the head with the transition to ME2. Which is exactly why I haven't felt the urge to pick up ME3 yet. I love ME but not what it has turned in to. And although it's hard to find reviews that talk about anything else then combat, multiplayer, constant war threat, epic action yadayadyada, what you do find about the story and exploration is that those parts are all smaller again. Less dialogue options in favor of more cut scenes, less variety in missions, fewer hubs to explore.

Nothing you can do about it, the Halo/Gears market is bigger in the end, the sales numbers have only gone up with the transition. I'll be waiting for a new space rpg featuring a universe that's not filled with human sized chest high walls every where you go.



98% of the game was great but the ending was lame.
A lot of great games have had disappointing endings leaving the game open for a sequel.



Rath said:
The ending is pretty bad, but you seriously shouldn't let the last ten minutes ruin your otherwise fun time.

Yeah, that is my reasoning behind giving the game a 9.4 on this site. I feel it is justified given the enjoyment I have/will get out of the game and that I am unlikely to repeat the the ending on my other playthroughs unless ending DLC is released.



Sorry man, but substracting 20% of the score just because of bad 10 minutes, which is actually 0.5% of Mass Effect 3, is just ridiculous.



Game of the year 2017 so far:

5. Resident Evil VII
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
3. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
2. Horizon Zero Dawn
1. Super Mario Odyssey

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Most of the so called user reviews consists of the following gamers-

PC Elitists who can’t accept Mass Effects console origins.

Homophobes who think Satan is at work.

Hypocrites moaning about the supposedly over the top high scores who then proceed to award the game a 0. Yeah like that’s really fair.

Nerds who feel inadequate about themselves and so hate the new character models for being too ‘Jersey Shore’ like and thus downgrade the game as a result.

Moaning about the day one DLC (I agree here).

Moaning about the ending and so award it a 0-3



So they Halo 2'd an ending to a trilogy. Nothing wrong with that.



They cant change the review scores, not after all the money they got to give those scores.

To certain other people - If you were eating a plate of food and its the best thing youve ever tasted... But as youre just about to take your last bite, the chef tells you he spit in it just before serving, would you still say it deserves a 10/10? Just because you enjoyed it until the end?



                            

it was a 7-7.5 game with a 7-7.5 ending for me. (I do rate a bit harshly, my favorite game this year I rated an 8.5 and it's probably 6th fav game this gen, so I still liked it a lot)

(Below is highly speculative)
I do think the review industry has a major conflict of interest because they rely so much on videogame ads compared to movie reviews, and things like that.

I think ME3 is one of the games that reviews got influenced by money. However, I doubt this is the only game and the reason why this is noticed more is because the fan backlash is so severe.

I don't think the metacritic (for whatever its worth) should be adjusted until reviews in general become up to par with other mediums.

I personally don't get this hysteria about the ending. And ME2 and ME1 are amongst my favoriet games this gen. Bioware's done this in the past not just with ME3. So I expected this.



Now watch the "new and better endings" dlc sell like hotcakes, Bioware and EA know you want it.

"this game sucks, you stole my $60!!! now hurry up and give me DLC"



Atto Suggests...:

Book - Malazan Book of the Fallen series 

Game - Metro Last Light

TV - Deadwood

Music - Forest Swords