Mass Effect 3 - Save import problems, Metacritic woes, MP impact

[fadedc]

I'm not sure if it will ever balance out. The "political" votes already number over 600, and there are likely to be many more. No matter how much the people who actually play the game like it, I'd be surprised if it's final score ever goes above a 5.

^This. These are purely "political" votes, mostly directed against Origin since hating on Origin seems to be the "in" thing these days. Then add some anti-EA, anti-BioWare and anti-ME for good measure and you end up with a score as low as that.
It will take a while before this initial mass effect (pun intended ) of hate-dom is going to balance out with the votes from people who have actually played the game and rate the actual game itself.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

This article indicates Metacritic is removing some of the reviews:

http://kotaku.com/5891060/metacritic-says-it-removed-rule+violating-mass-effect-3-user-reviews

Metacritic Says It Has Removed Rule-Violating Mass Effect 3 User Reviews


Aggregating website Metacritic says it has deleted some Mass Effect 3 user reviews and will "continue to monitor" what seems to be a unified effort to spam pages for BioWare's action roleplaying game, which hit stores today.

This morning, a large number of Metacritic users gave negative reviews to the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC listings for Mass Effect 3. Many of the users appear to have reviewed no other games, apparently creating accounts specifically to give poor marks to the latest Mass Effect.

As of this writing, the user score for each version of Mass Effect 3 is "generally unfavorable" and significantly lower than the critical reception. Kotaku also had some very positive things to say about the game.

In a statement to Kotaku, Metacritic editor-in-chief Marc Doyle said:


We have already removed user reviews which have broken our terms of use. We will continue to monitor user reviews and take the steps needed to ensure our users both comply with those terms and do not have to read other reviews which break them.

We encourage all users to familiarize themselves with these terms and report any abuse they find. Those terms can be found here.

If you spot something which you think is an abuse of those terms while logged into the site, please report it using the 'Report Abuse' link next to each User Review.

 

[TheMadGamer]

And so goes another developer and IP through the EA RPG slaughter machine.

RIP Origin/Ultima
RIP Westwood Studios/Lands of Lore

 

[Zloth]

Somebody in the comments for the PC Gamer article said that all the endings are actually pretty bleak. Plus the author says that the game is still very fun and suggests simply playing how you want to play. Still, even the faintest scent of "forced grouping" in a single player game really worries me.

Regarding Metacritic removing bogus reviews…. I'm not sure how they are supposed to do that. They can't confirm if the person bought the game or not. Heck, they can't confirm if the person EXISTS or not. If they are tracking IPs of people who make accounts then they can probably catch folks that are making a bunch of accounts just to rank the game down. But lots of people seem to go on Metacritic and down a game just because they hear a rumor that it does something they don't like. Or maybe one of the Xbox people didn't get to use his save game - so he went and down arrowed all 3 versions of ME3 (and maybe ME1 and 2 while he was at it).

So yeah - I consider the metacritic scores pretty hopeless. When I want a quick number, I go look at Gamerankings.com. Not only do the average a bunch of review sites/magazines, they also give links to the reviews when they can. (It still tends to fail if it's a game that has gotten several patches since release.)

 

[Carnifex]

I dunno, as someone who played ME 1, 2, and now 3, I never expected candycanes to be littering the streets after it was all said and done. I'd prefer some realism, like when your planet is attacked by vastly superior forces, perhaps your planet gets nuked to freakin oblivion. My idea of a positive ending would be a farmer finding 2-3 acres of land to plant some crops, a little parcel of dirt that isn't glowing =p. And, while on his way back to his home, he's chased by a pack of mutant wolves!

Kindly keep your damn tickertape parades and unicorns outta my realism!!


-Carn

 

[rune_74]

I guess those of you looking for a bad score have your metacritic score to use now...hahaha, have fun.

 

[staylost]

I totally agree Carn. Best imaginable ending for me would be destruction of all modern life in galaxy, Shepard finds out as much about the truth of the reapers that can be humanly understood than Shepard dies, and his love is somehow left as the only one alive but with all the reapers hacked to be under their control.

Infinite power with no purpose.

For the record, I am currently a lost sale for EA/Bioware on ME3 because of Origin. I am American. I am currently in China and their online shop auto sends me to the EU site. They will not let me verify my financial address in the US or my current location in China to buy Mass Effect.

Both Steam and GOG work perfectly well in China (so do GG and IMP.) but Origin is absolute trash over here.

 

[zakhal]

Me2 felt bland and repetative. With the DLC scheme of ME2 and now forced multiplayer Im happy I canceled ME3 order last week. Ill buy this thing from steam when I can get it with all DLCs for 10 euros.

the balance is incredibly harsh: I did every proper quest I could find in Mass Effect 3, made sensible decisions that didn’t conflict with my choices in the previous games, and brought people together. But I still got a gallingly bleak ending. That’s because I’d never played the multiplayer.

 

[zakhal]

My idea of a positive ending would be a farmer finding 2-3 acres of land to plant some crops, a little parcel of dirt that isn't glowing =p. And, while on his way back to his home, he's chased by a pack of mutant wolves!

Kindly keep your damn tickertape parades and unicorns outta my realism!!

-Carn

Between Wing Commander 3 and 4 thats exactly what the "hero" was doing. I still remember the cutscene from the start of WC4.

 

[Gokyabgu]

So we have mainstream media who give perfect scores to the game (because of the generousness of the EA) in one end, and absolute Bioware (the company that betrayed them) haters who give zero scores in the other. In these racket all I'm wondering are the roleplaying aspects of the game. Can anyone tell me are there real choices/consequences in the game, or do I have to wait reviews from real Rpg sites like RPGWatch and Gamebanshee?

 

[wolfgrimdark]

I prefer a real choice in endings. Like in DAO - with somewhat of a positive, neutral and negative ending.

Sorry but I will be dying in real life and real life has a ton of suffering and despair as it is. I prefer the option to have a good ending in my games and escapism. I don't mind some darkness and gray to my games, I enjoy that. But I prefer my character to have the chance to come out on top. I got little enough control in life so like to see my character in a game make a positive impact and have some positive reward for it.

 

[DArtagnan]

That's some seriously negative backlash. I'm not fond of the new Bioware, but that's just ridiculous.

Obviously, the game is still - at least - a reasonably competent cinematic shooter.

I'm in no hurry to try it, but I'm still expecting to pick it up cheap down the line - if I ever get through my ME2 replay.

 

[vurt]

Media keeps on trolling with 10/10 reviews, this is the response they get. The balance in the universe has been restored!

 

[LostWelshman]

I'm waiting for my pre-order as i'm in the UK, to this day it is the only game i've actually pre-ordered. Based on the demo which i liked, being more of the same (ME2) and despite initially hating the idea of multiplayer, i have to admit i quite enjoyed it in the demo; because it's squad based rather than MMO.

I am a bit worried that the ending might be affected so much, depending on the multiplayer you do, does that mean for each subsequent play through you have to do multiplayer missions??

I've not seen anything about the From Ashes DLC - have people played it yet or does it appear later in the game so there aren't reviews for it yet ? I'm not a big fan of DLC has to be said.

 

[Risine]

Seems like Bioware / EA association has some kind of impact after all.
Anyway, they'll have to react in one way or another with Skyrim & Witcher2 new "sta
ndards."
Beteshda did it with Skyrim after the atrocious Oblivion.
Bioware, wake up !!! Players want you back.

 

[zakhal]

Survival based MP doesnt make any sense in regards to the singleplayer story. The only thing it does is break immersion.

If MP had a strong relation to singleplayer story then it would be different. Killing waves of enemies with bunch of strangers is not a good relation.

For EA MP is "cheap" way to produce content. Saves development time and money. You dont have to create story, cut scenes, characters, etc expensive stuff. Instead they can just group up bunch of random people for MP and force them to shoot at waves of enemies and call that "part of the story". Cheap bastards!

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

All these gamers are not part of an Anti-Bioware conspiracy, sorry I can't buy that.

Of course they aren't members of a "conspiracy group". I really don't believe that a load of gamers would be able to organize themselves into such a group.

What I do believe, however, is that gamers there just want to give Bioware a beating.

 

[Thaurin]

What's all this about forced multiplayer? Don't be ridiculous. From what I've seen, there is no such thing in ME3. Don't be stupid.

 

[Lurking Grue]

I did every proper quest I could find in Mass Effect 3, made sensible decisions that didn’t conflict with my choices in the previous games, and brought people together. But I still got a gallingly bleak ending. That’s because I’d never played the multiplayer.

Nooooooooooooooo!

 

[Drithius]

Couldn't give a rat's ass about ME3, but that bit about Metacritic removing negative reviews is worrisome... quite the slippery slope.