If what I heard holds true, the fate of your crew ending choice (except for the worst ending) will be carried over to the start of a new game. So if that idea remains ME3 gives the potential for a large cast and several key starting points.

Who wants a rifle?

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product...amp;mode=retail

I'll wait for the $20 plastic knock off, thanks.

http://www.trueachievements.com/n6096/mass...ails-emerge.htm

Still not sure if want...

Sounds fun to me!

I just want a pretty nifty create-a-character mode to play with the different species!

Never plan to use it anyway.

I just hope that it works offline coop.

So excited.
The wait for this game is going to test me.

While I do find the idea of the create a character to be neat I feel like the parts of mass effect that shine are the story and characters. not the shooter gameplay. it sounds like this relies entirely on the latter and comes across as repetitive and hollow. I'm willing to give it a shot and if it turns out alright hey so much the better, but I really don't think it's at all necessary for the franchise. Also if they start churning out multiplayer "mission packs" for DLC instead of actual singleplayer content I'll be pissed.

Late to the game.. read quite a few pages of this topic and I figure everything I'd have to say has already been covered. But, to sum up:

Beat the game
Crew all died
No team members died
Jack was my girlfriend then I dumped her for Tali
Let Cerberus keep the station intact for future study
Did not get Zaeed's loyalty.
Messed up on the Shadow guy quest for Liara and he got away
Killed the giant sand monster during Grunt's trials
Let that stupid merchant murderer get away when I should have killed her on the spot
killed the bartender who tried to poison me
Paragon bar is full, Renegade bar is at half

That's my first play through... not sure what I might do or if I'll have time for a second one.. I pretty much spent all my 4 day weekend and then some blowing through this game and loving every minute of it.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/ne...Rise-Again.html

While I can appreciate that the promo materials need to be exciting I'm beginning to get worried that the game will be one overly bombastic battlefield set piece. Every video I've seen has been about the combat tweeks they've made, I really want to see some menus or something to indicate that this game is still an actual RPG.

For anyone that wasn't aware, the toyline has been revived.

http://kotaku.com/5865014/mass-effect-acti...k-from-the-dead



Whoa, I didn't know that he could get away.

Thanks for the heads up! I had seen some of the Series 1 figures at a comic shop. They were nice, but nothing I was terribly interested in paying lots of money for. However, Both Mordin and Garrus will be mine! I hope they make a FemShep.

I don't know...I actually liked it.

There was no combat involved, it was very much a motion puzzle which is keeping with being a RPG. Yes it's bombastic, but after two games worth of build up I'd expect no less. Indeed, I'd be disappointed if this game isn't trying to fry my synapses through sheer visual assault.

Activating the Pillar to sic the Thresher Maw on the Reaper device was icing on the cake really.


I will admit I am worried they'll keep going more for "Action Shooter" and less "RPG", but despite being stripped almost to the bone between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, I still enjoyed Mass Effect 2. That gives me hope that whatever else changes about the series, Bioware's not going to lose focus on Mass Effect's story.

And really, that's all RPG fans really care about. Yeah, we might get enjoyment from min/maxing stats or grinding for epic loot, but we will tolerate a lot of poor game mechanics if the story tickles our fancy.

rpg, fps. who the hell cares??? this game is gonna be hugging awesome!!

Amen.

I care. I can't play FPS worth a damn. I managed to adjust to ME2's controls enough to get me to the next story point.

It's a 3PS, not an FPS.

Mass Effect has always been a RPG/Shooter hybrid, though, with the RPG elements being actually RPG-like, with the whole defining who Shepard is thing. That doesn't need to be refined, so there's nothing to talk about. The shooter part... That needed some work. Much as a I love the first game... that part needed some work. And there's a lot that can be done there, so there's a lot to talk about.

In conclusion, I'm not panicking about ME3 turning into some kind of shooter. They don't talk about the RPG part because there's nothing to say. Stats and exp don't make an RPG, at least not in my mind. Interactivity and choices do.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/ne...er-Weapons.html

Preorder bonuses have been announced. As usual Gamestop stuff wins but I already preordered the CE from amazon months ago. The defender armor seems nice but not really worth switching over.

Yeah.. turns out I sent her to the wrong contact when I called in and it tipped everyone off and they left. It never let me continue from there and she was just all "Well, he got away this time but I'll never give up"

It's nutty that two years later, even after playing through the game a few times, there are outcomes that I wasn't even aware of.

With the Mass Effect 3 demo coming in the next couple weeks, I was reviewing my favorite Mass Effect 2 screenshots:























Mmm. Super grainy.

Wrong?

If getting a Batarian murdered is wrong, I don't want to be right.

is this when your trying to what eventually leads to her assisstant?

All I can think of is this:

speaking of armor from fantasy RPGs.. looks like it's not dragon age this time.


http://reckoning.amalur.com/r/exclusive-of...d-mass-effect-3


maybe bioware will remember the helmet toggle this time around?

So according to this, which was posted today, the Mass Effect 3 demo will be out February 14th:



Time is slowing to an agonizing crawl.



Yeah, I need to try this again once I can find a Lego dude in gray instead.

I'm probably going to avoid the demo, unless it lets me play as my Shep.

But even then, it'd just make the wait harder.

Yeah, no importing into the demo, sadly.
Still no sign of the promised Femshep trailer, but there is a ton of new footage here:

No embedding!

It's an edited version of this video, with 9 minutes of Mass Effect 3 and all the other crap cut out:

http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/gametrailers-tv/144?ch=1


Wow.
Nothing too spoilery there, but it contains some great stuff from the campaign and multiplayer. The game looks so polished.



YES.

My Collector's Edition is now paid in full! Now all that stands between me and the sexiest intergalactic romp ever, is time.



Salarian Infiltrator!
Yup, that's what I'll be playing.

I really wish they'd elaborate more on the character building element of the Multiplayer, I don't want to get my hopes up for something that won't be present.

Cool trailer otherwise!

From what they've shown, you "level up" your character. I'm not clear on if you learn more abilities as a result of this, or if that simply strengthens the ones you have. You earn currency through kills, completing objectives, and victory that can be spent on upgrading your weaponry. As far as customization goes, you can alter your armor primary and secondary colors, as well as selecting a pattern and color for it. Pretty much like Shepard's customization in Mass Effect 2. There's also a "skin tone" color selection grid for the alien races, but it doesn't look like humans can go sans helm.

That sounds about as much as I expected.

Can all of the alien species play with the different styles (Sentinel etc...)?

From the beta menus, humans can be any class they like.
Soldier - Turian, Krogan
Sentinel - Turian, Krogan
Infiltrator - Salarian, Quarian
Engineer - Salarian, Quarian
Adept - Asari, Drell
Vanguard - Asari, Drell

That's not to say they can't branch out and that more races can't be unlocked, we don't know that yet. But given that I think Bioware wants it to make sense within the Mass Effect universe, so for example, we probably won't be seeing Krogan or Quarian Vanguards.

Either way, I'm most comfortable with a Sentinel, but I'd like to try my hand at other types, and Multiplayer is the way to do it. I think I'll assign certain aliens with certain playstyles to try out.

Do we know how many Multiplayer characters we're allowed to have.

(I'm gonna bump us to the next page if it kills me!)

It's unclear right now. The only thing I've gleaned from the devs who play it regularly is that it's more than two. And they switch up often, classes and difficulty settings.
There's a funny and interesting piece by one of the lead writers about multiplayer roles, titled "So Your Friend Is A Vanguard".

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/01/27/special-forces/

It pretty much sums up my concerns, as an Infiltrator, about playing with one.

The "So your friend is a Vanguard" blog was great!

Very excited for ME3. I have been looking for every scrap of new info I can. That is not to say that I don't want a few surprises when I play, but I am so excited for the game I find it difficult not to go looking for more spoilers.

A little frustrated that they are not including the rapid fire shotgun that comes if you pre-order it from Origin with the Gamestop pack. That sounds like a really handy weapon to have.

But if it is like most, pre-order content, it will be available later. If you have a choice, get Gamestop's pre-order, more bang for your buck.

-----
Was a irritated about Freddy Prince Jr playing the voice of James Vega. Who would ever take him seriously as a big bad@ss marine? But after watching the interview clip with him, got to say I am okay with him.
Turns out he is a big Mass Effect fan, even if he does refer to the squad mates as "henchmen"

-----------
Lastly, been going through, cleaning out old files, getting my transfer characters ready.
Click to view attachment
My favorite of my Shepard, Jerith, my Vanguard.

Playing ME3 at work made me want to play the first two. So I did.

Looking forward to the retail release.

Nice! That's what my Infiltrator looks like exactly, just swap the black for blue. Well, and my patterns were silver.

I've avoided major story spoilers thus far, but two new squad mates (one of which was slightly shocking, to me) had art revealed this week and I couldn't help myself. That's as deep as I'll go, though.

I need to complete my definitive save in ME2 still. And get a preorder in for ME3.

Official reveal or leaks?

If its official, bring on dem links!

EDIT: FINALLY a new page (the last one had all those huge images it was a pain to load on my phone)

The images come from the art book packed in with the Collector's Edition. I won't post them here, on the off-chance that people want to be surprised by the new squad mates. I'll fire a PM in your direction, and you can decide whether or not you want to look at them!

Voice actor trailer!



Nothing spoilery, and we do get a (brief) glimpse of the new official Female Shepard.

The date at the end threw me off as it's not the "day/month/year" I'm used to. I was like "September!?"

Who's this new chick, this game's Kelly?

No, she's an Alliance News Network reporter. She's stationed on the Normandy.

So after finally having money since Christmas, I tried to pre-order ME3 SE at Gamestop today. They told me there was a Bioware mandate that preorders for the SE were cut of yesterday. What the s**t!?

pretty sure the collectors editions have been sold out for a week or two now actually.

Yeah, Gamestops around here cut off pre-orders from the Collector's Edition about a month ago. I think I put the initial deposit on mine down last.... August?

I'll probably be able to get it via work. I know we had the ME2 CE available for about a year.

Ok Strafe, I'll bite. My curiosity got the best of me.


--SoS