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stevenpa

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 28, 2011
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I only have time for one of these games this summer and I've been a big fan of both series. Which one would you recommend and why?

Would be playing on PC mostly, maybe a little on my MBA
 
They are quite different games...do you like sandbox RPGs or do you like games with a focused narrative? I prefer the latter, so I'd go with ME3...

Note that I doubt that you'd be able to play either on a MBA.

Edit: And I assume you've played ME1 and 2? If not, start there...
 
They are quite different games...do you like sandbox RPGs or do you like games with a focused narrative? I prefer the latter, so I'd go with ME3...

Note that I doubt that you'd be able to play either on a MBA.

Edit: And I assume you've played ME1 and 2? If not, start there...

Yeah played through all games in both series. I'm not a big gamer so both could be good. Just been super busy and will have three weeks free or so starting this week and wanted to play one of these games.

As for playing on MBA, not really going to unless I get really into it. Framerates and resolution aren't that good of an issue with me.
 
Skyrim is a 100hrs + game, ME3 is a 30 hour long game.
I played both and they were pretty enjoyable, but no one of them are amazing.
Me2 was a better game imho, and I must admit I never liked TES (except Morrowind), Skyrim is however much better than Oblivion (which most likely is the RPG i have liked the least of all RPGs I've played).

(The game I've enjoyed the most the last year is Witcher 2, but that ain't even gonna do 5 fps on your MBA..)
 
Skyrim is a 100hrs + game, ME3 is a 30 hour long game.
I played both and they were pretty enjoyable, but no one of them are amazing.
Me2 was a better game imho, and I must admit I never liked TES (except Morrowind), Skyrim is however much better than Oblivion (which most likely is the RPG i have liked the least of all RPGs I've played).

(The game I've enjoyed the most the last year is Witcher 2, but that ain't even gonna do 5 fps on your MBA..)

Yeah I was looking online at playtimes. I'd probably get in 100 hours but in the TES I always end up wandering most of the time so I doubt I would finish the game in time...leaning towards ME3 as of right now.
 
Skyrim I'd say. It takes a lot for a game to really pull me in and Skyrim achieved that (Oblivion hasn't done yet)... it's cinematic, very well made, huge, absorbing, massively customisable and free-roaming. I spent my first 15 hours just exploring the land and levelling up, found loads of small quests too.

It's an amazing game with some of the best looking, most absorbing environments I've seen in a game.


Personally I can't buy any EA game right now. Once they've cleaned up some of their practices we'll talk.
 
I love Skyrim, it has a lot of interesting content and plenty of hours of gameplay available. I've played 70+ hours so far but I've ignored the main quest since the beginning so it could probably be completed much faster. So far all of it has been a thousand times more interesting than anything in Oblivion.

Still, if you're looking for a shorter game that's probably faster paced I'd go with Mass Effect 3
 
I love Skyrim, it has a lot of interesting content and plenty of hours of gameplay available. I've played 70+ hours so far but I've ignored the main quest since the beginning so it could probably be completed much faster. So far all of it has been a thousand times more interesting than anything in Oblivion.

Still, if you're looking for a shorter game that's probably faster paced I'd go with Mass Effect 3

Man you guys are tempting me with Skyrim, I really liked a lot of Oblivion at first and also when the released the expansion packs. Isn't a dlc supposed to come out for skyrim soon as well? :confused: Can't decide, think I will go to Best Buy tomorrow and make a decision in store.
 
even if you buy skyrim in the store, it still goes through steam... might as well just buy it in steam.
 
Best Buy ended up having Skyrim limited for $50 so I ended up going with that. Kinda wish I got ME3 now :cool:
 
Best Buy ended up having Skyrim limited for $50 so I ended up going with that. Kinda wish I got ME3 now :cool:

You are in for a great time. I hated everything about Oblivion. The engine was flawed, to put it nicely, and the world was not that great, but decided to give Skyrim a chance. All I can say is, they did their homework :-D
 
Best Buy ended up having Skyrim limited for $50 so I ended up going with that. Kinda wish I got ME3 now :cool:

The grass is not always greener on the other side.

As games go Skyrim is better, there is too much revisiting location, elevator rides and inconsequential endings in ME3 that make your play through feel pretty irrelevant. I enjoyed it, but was little underwhelmed. And of the 30 hour gameplay, 10 of it is on your ship talking to crew members and riding elevators between decks. This grows tiresome after 1 hour, after 10 you pretty much never want to see the inside of that bloody ship ever again.

Skyrim for me was more complete, BUT likewise I felt the supposed final showdown / end game to be underwhelming. I was like 'oh that's it?'....
 
The grass is not always greener on the other side.

As games go Skyrim is better, there is too much revisiting location, elevator rides and inconsequential endings in ME3 that make your play through feel pretty irrelevant. I enjoyed it, but was little underwhelmed. And of the 30 hour gameplay, 10 of it is on your ship talking to crew members and riding elevators between decks. This grows tiresome after 1 hour, after 10 you pretty much never want to see the inside of that bloody ship ever again.

Skyrim for me was more complete, BUT likewise I felt the supposed final showdown / end game to be underwhelming. I was like 'oh that's it?'....


Yeah I figure I'll get to playing both games eventually. A few friends really hated ME3's ending as well so I guess it's impossible to satisfy all
 
Yeah I figure I'll get to playing both games eventually. A few friends really hated ME3's ending as well so I guess it's impossible to satisfy all

I had a great time playing thru ME3, but yes the ending was a bit disappointing.
I'm pretty sure you can play thru SKyrim in the same time, if you skip some of the one million pretty similar side quests.

I think they had a contest in finishing SKyrim the fastest, and I think the winner used like 2 hours and 30 mins, but he pretty much skipped all possible things that can be skipped.

I'm pretty sure you can finish Skyrim in 30 hours too, with most of the major side quests and the main story.

If you are short on time I would suggest loking in a guide how to start (not how to do them..) the major side quests, like Bards, Mages, Assassins and Thieves Guild quests. And other than that, focus on main story and don't spend a whole weekend on mining ore and hunting deer for skins to level up your professions.

I must say after 100 hours, when I faced the last boss at a level 60 or something, it was very easy, and would probably be more fun and challenging at level 30-40.. (or even lower)
 
Although the original ME was very good, if you made me choose it would be Skyrim for its immersive nature.

Disclaimer- I played the first 2 MEs, but not the third.
 
I had a great time playing thru ME3, but yes the ending was a bit disappointing.
I'm pretty sure you can play thru SKyrim in the same time, if you skip some of the one million pretty similar side quests.

I think they had a contest in finishing SKyrim the fastest, and I think the winner used like 2 hours and 30 mins, but he pretty much skipped all possible things that can be skipped.

I'm pretty sure you can finish Skyrim in 30 hours too, with most of the major side quests and the main story.

If you are short on time I would suggest loking in a guide how to start (not how to do them..) the major side quests, like Bards, Mages, Assassins and Thieves Guild quests. And other than that, focus on main story and don't spend a whole weekend on mining ore and hunting deer for skins to level up your professions.

I must say after 100 hours, when I faced the last boss at a level 60 or something, it was very easy, and would probably be more fun and challenging at level 30-40.. (or even lower)

Yeah I don't really get fully into games so I usually don't have problems playing then stopping and resuming again later. I probably put in 150 hours to Oblivion and the expansion packs, never more than 40 hours to either of the previous two mass effect games.

Good tip about the how to start though, should help guide me a bit.
 
Skyrim is a nice expansive world filled with a fair amount of quests, even though some suffer from copy & paste. There's enough variety in there to keep you engaged for at least a week. The primary story is pretty well fleshed out and the ending is reasonable. The soundtrack (music) is also really, really well done.

ME3 is a giant linear corridor disguised as an "RPG". If you don't import your save game from ME2 (which in turn required you to import a game from ME1), then your game WILL SUFFER as a direct result of not doing so. Major characters won't be present, and the game simply "assumes" that you made several critical decisions in the past two games (without asking you) by default. It really cripples the experience.

Also, ME3 has a bunch of other gimmicky ******** I could care less about. They make you play multiplayer (which is really, really poorly thought out) in order to influence the single player and get the best ending- your only other option is to use a savegame editor to edit your in-game numbers high enough to bypass this.

Then there's the whole mess with the day 0 DLC ("From Ashes"), which will cost you another $15 to buy just to get a character that should have been included by default. Oh and there's that horrendous ending, which explains nothing and tears open plot holes so big they threaten to swallow the entire in-game universe.

In a nutshell: Skyrim is worth the retail asking price. ME3 is worth maybe $30. If you pay more then that, you're getting ripped off.

-SC
 
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