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Mass Effect 3 (view source)

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* [[Aside Glance]]: After making his "[[Hunt for Red October|Russian National Anthem]]" joke during the geth dreadnought boarding cutscene, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqt3aW6clAo Joker glances deliberately into the camera].
* [[Attack Its Weak Point]]:
** Cerberus' [[Mini -Mecha|Atlas Mechs]] have a large cockpit that can be shattered with enough hits, but shooting their rear eezo drives will kill them even quicker. Also, while the logical tactic for defeating Cerberus' Guardians is to flank them, it is most expedient to just take aim and [[Boom! Headshot!|shoot them in the head]], [[Subverted Trope|right through]] [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me|their shields]] viewport with a [[Hand Cannon]] or [[Sniper Rifle]]. If you can't get that shot, their feet are also unprotected. There is even an achievement for doing this 10 times: "Mail Slot."
** How Shepard racks up {{spoiler|his/her first on-foot Reaper kill}}.
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: Cryo powers, in a welcome shift from the second game. Several other powers can now be spec'ed to work better on frozen stuff, and enemies will slow down when hit even if they're shielded or armored.
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** Prior to release, the devs released a [http://blog.bioware.com/2011/12/22/shepard-off-duty/ blog post] by Commander Shepard detailing his/her off-duty hours. Naturally, the writing is [[Gender Neutral Writing|vague]] so that it can fit most playthrough styles.
** A Twitter account was made for the [https://twitter.com/#!/AllianceNewsNet Alliance News Network], which was used by Emily Wong to chronicle the Reaper invasion of Earth.
* [[Character -Magnetic Team]]: By the time the finale rolls around, Shepard can assemble a truly massive team. Not only can the player character convince almost all the races in the galaxy to help, but you can amass a sizable group of squadmates (including a newly-minted Spectre, an N7 candidate, the feared "Archangel of Omega", a newly-honored Quarian admiral, a {{spoiler|living Prothean}} and an advanced AI capable of giving ground support), but you can have delegates from races come aboard, have past squadmates show up and hang out on your ship, and even bring back two of the engineers from the previous game if you pardon them.
* [[Charged Attack]]: A few weapons, such as the Arc Pistol, the Graal Spike Thrower, and the Kishock Harpoon Gun, can be charged up for a more powerful attack.
* [[Chekhov's Armory]]: Played for laughs during Conrad's appearance. If you completed three separate, completely unrelated sidequests in the first game, they will be referenced and used as part of Conrad's dissertation on dark energy. After which Conrad gets into a scuffle, and his survival is dependent on the outcome of yet another unrelated sidequest.
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* [[Curse Cut Short]]: Jack repeatedly does this to herself in order to maintain a professional appearance in front of her students. One notable exchange between her and Joker ends with a [[Hard Cut]] [[Quip to Black|to Black]].
* [[Cyberspace]]: {{spoiler|'''You enter the geth consensus'''. Legion helps by filtering the experience into something Shepard's mind can comprehend, though. As the disembodied Legion voice converses with you, you may notice that the walkway tiles appearing for your convenience flash in unison with Legion's voice: You are actually walking on Legion.}}
* [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]:
** Paragon and Renegade interrupts were rebound from R2 and L2 to R1 and L1 in the [[PS 3]]. Might cause you to miss one or two.
** In multiplayer, different characters have their powers mapped to different hotkeys.
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** If you choose the ending in which {{spoiler|Shepard (possibly) survives, you'll be sacrificing EDI and the geth.}}
* [[Giant Mook]]: The Brute, Atlas and Geth Primes.
* [[Girl -On -Girl Is Hot]]: When Ken asks Gabby if she has seen attractive new crewmember Samantha Traynor, Gabby tells him not to bother, [[Incompatible Orientation|since he is not Traynor's type]]. When he then suggests that ''she'' make a move on Traynor, Gabby says she just might since nobody else is expressing any interest, and Ken then tells her to make sure she takes pictures. Later, when Ken asks Gabby if she helped repair some damage to EDI's architecture, he asked if there was any lubricants involved, and maybe some moaning, and that he wishes his imagination was good enough to picture it.
* [[Glass Cannon]]:
** (Human) Vanguards are this now more than ever thanks to the addition of the "Nova" ability, which completely discharges your barriers into an [[Area of Effect]] biotic explosion.
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** The Codex entry "Desperate Measures" discusses just when the point is reached that makes horrendous destruction and sacrifice an acceptable result of stopping the Reapers. The two proposed strategies, destroying the mass relays to strand the Reapers where they are and using starships as [[Ramming Always Works|suicide weapons]], are both dismissed not because of the massive losses in life they would entail, but because they would simply not be effective at stopping the Reapers.
* [[Good Cannot Comprehend Evil]]: After Ashley discovers what Cerberus was doing at {{spoiler|Sanctuary}}, once she is back aboard the ''Normandy'' she explains to Shepard that she simply ''cannot'' understand the kind of thinking that went into something like that. She also says that she is ''glad'' that she cannot follow that line of thinking, since it makes her feel human.
* [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]]: One of the bits of info you can read on Liara's Shadow Broker Terminal details two Alliance intel operatives interrogating a Cerberus Phantom. They start the good cop/bad cop routine... and then her face explodes. Looks like the Illusive Man was listening in when Mordin said that ocular nerve flashbangs work better than suicide pills hidden in teeth.
* [[Good Guy Bar]]: The Purgatory Bar on the Citadel, judging by the amount of Alliance and turian military soldiers hanging out there. However, with the capture of Omega by Cerberus, Purgatory is now serving Aria T'Loak and other criminals. [[Open Secret|Despite its size and popularity, Avina doesn't recognize that it exists.]]
* [[Good Running Evil]]: {{spoiler|Potentially how the series can end, if Shepard takes control of the Reapers in the finale.}}
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* [[Guilt Based Gaming]]: More so than either of the previous games. ''Besides'' the ability to [[Et Tu, Brute?|kill off several close allies]] if you so choose, missing the Grissom Academy side-quest leads to {{spoiler|Jack being kidnapped and experimented on by Cerberus AGAIN after she had finally managed to build a life for herself. You get to hear records of her being tortured when you hit the Cerberus base... shortly before having to kill the Phantom they turned her into.}}
* [[Gun Accessories]]: Gun modifications return, and each one visibly attaches to the weapon (if external, like a scope) or causes changes in the weapon coloration (if internal, like a heat sink expansion).
* [[Gundamjack]]: During gameplay, Shepard is able to hijack [[Mini -Mecha|Atlas mechs]] by shooting out the cockpit's glass and killing the driver.
* [[Gunship Rescue]]: So many. The retrofitted Normandy makes it first appearance in this manner, but the biggest example is Shepard {{spoiler|being given a laser targeting device for the Normandy to take out a Reaper construct and when the "construct" turned out to be a Reaper itself, Shepard called in the whole damn Quarian Migrant Fleet for an orbital strike}}.
* [[Hacker Cave]]: Liara sets up one on the Normandy to continue her work as the Shadow Broker while traveling with Shepard.
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* [[Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee]]: The game starts with Shepard trying to help the Alliance Defense Committee make sense of the Reapers.
* [[Heads I Win, Tails You Lose]]: Fighting Kai Leng on {{spoiler|Thessia}}. He has gunship support that will target you every time you take down his shields, and eventually it [[Cutscene Incompetence|switches to a cutscene]].
* [[Hero -Killer]]: Kai Leng. {{spoiler|Ignoring his novel exploits and looking only at the game, his potential victims list can include two former squadmates, namely "designed to be perfect" Miranda and super-assassin Thane. If Thane is not around, then his spot may be taken by Major Kirrahe, certified STG badass of "hold the line" fame.}}
* [[Hero of Another Story]]: The way multiplayer is justified; players take on the roles of an elite team assisting Shepard in tackling hotspots.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]:
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** Jacob mentions that {{spoiler|his girlfriend wants to name their baby after Shepard... as in, naming the kid Shepard.}} He intends to talk her out of it, though.
* [[Last of His Kind]]: Javik, the [[Precursors|Prothean]] squad member from the "From Ashes" DLC pack.
* [[Last -Minute Hookup]]: Both for the player character and supporting cast.
** Shepard will have the opportunity to bed his/her love interest (even if it's a new romance) right before the attack to retake Earth.
** Provided they survived ''ME2'', and you pardoned them in the Citadel Spectre office, Ken and Gabby finally admit their love for each other if you go visit them at the very bottom of Engineering prior to the final mission.
** If you didn't romance either of them, Garrus and Tali are seen embracing when you walk in on them at the forward batteries. Tali says in the conversation afterwards (likely half-joking) that "This is just a fling, Vakarian. I'm only using you for your ''body''."
* [[Last -Second Word Swap]]: Jack. Repeatedly.
* [[Late Arrival Spoiler]]: None less than the Xbox Live frontend is already spoiling the fact that From Ashes gives you a Prothean squad member.
* [[Leaning On the Fourth Wall]]:
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* [[Mighty Glacier]]: Krogan multi-player characters, who have much less agility than the other races but have far higher HP, Shields, and resistance to damage.
* [[Mildly Military]]: Discussed if you have Ken and Gabby rejoin the crew. Engineer Adams, who unlike Ken and Gabby did not leave the Alliance to enlist with Cerberus, will praise both of their skills, but he will comment that Ken needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, and that he needs to remind Ken about proper military procedure and the chain of command.
* [[Mini -Mecha]]: Cerberus has ten-foot tall mecha at their disposal. You can actually kill the pilot before destroying the mech, letting Shepard run rampant in one.
* [[Mistreatment -Induced Betrayal]]: You can encounter (and recruit) numerous ex-Cerberus scientists and soldiers who left the organization once the realized that the Illusive Man was having their co-workers killed [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|once they finished their assignments]].
* [[Mobile Factory]]: The Volus Fabrication Units (discovered by scanning a planet in the Aethon Cluster) can be used to replicate custom plastic parts for the Crucible using mobile production platforms.
* [[More Dakka]]:
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== Tropes N - Z ==
* [[Nail 'Em]]: The Kishock Harpoon Gun, which will pin enemies to walls if its projectiles are charged enough.
* [[Neck Lift]]: Legion will do this to {{spoiler|Shepard if you let the quarians wipe out the geth.}}
* [[Nerf]]:
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** The Revanant's damage per hit was reduced, probably to make it less of a [[Game Breaker]] if Marksman is used.
** Shockwave got hit with the biggest nerf. As opposed to a huge chain of biotic explosions, it's now a projectile that releases shockwaves as it travels.
* [[New Game Plus+]]: You'll restart the game at your current level with all your weapons and attachments, the max upgrades for weapons will rise from 5 to 10, and you will get an achievement. However, you will lack credits, Intel Terminal upgrades and War Assets.
* [[NGO Superpower]]: Cerberus has been upgraded to a fully-realized military force in this game, with its own fleets of cruisers and fighters, and enough military force to challenge the Systems Alliance throughout its colonies. {{spoiler|It also manages to launch a full-scale assault on the Citadel and come close to assasinating the Council, but Shepard afterwards remarks that that was probably the bulk of their total forces, and they would not be able to do anything of the like again}}.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Some of your choices throughout the trilogy and this game ''will'' catch up to you, and not always in a good way. Some specific examples:
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** The Infiltrators, if built right, are quite capable of dishing out headshots, launching grenades or performing stealth assassinations with the omniblade while remaining invisible for nearly the entire time. Coupled with a short cooldown for the tactical cloak, they can become virtually unstoppable on the battlefield.
** The Cerberus Phantom or as the [[Sarcasm Mode|fans lovingly]] [[Fan Nickname|call it]], "Ninja Bitch".
* [[No -Holds -Barred Beatdown]]: Happens to {{spoiler|the Virmire survivor}} early in the first act (causing them to be out of commission for the rest of the first act), then later to {{spoiler|Shepard}} in the climax.
* [[No Indoor Voice]]: Batarians in MP.
* [[No Points for Neutrality]]: Averted for the first time in the series; paragon and renegade choices, as well as other neutral actions, all stack [http://www.gamezone.com/products/mass-effect-3/news/bioware-details-mass-effect-3-s-new-reputation-system into a single reputation meter]. So, instead of determining ''if'' you can persuade someone by how high your paragon and renegade scores are, they merely determine ''how'' you do it.
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* [[People Puppets]]: {{spoiler|After getting Reaper implants, the Illusive Man gains this power. He uses it to keep Shepard and Anderson still during his final monologue, then forces Shepard to shoot his/her mentor.}}
* [[Pin Pulling Teeth]]: A turian is seen biting off the pin of a grenade in the ending battle of the game.
* [[Pistol -Whipping]]: One of the available melee attacks. It is faster than using the Omni-Blade, but for obvious reasons, does less damage. The melee damage can be upgraded with the combat tazer attachment.
* [[Planetville]]: Some planets [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/306475/previews/mass-effect-3-why-biowares-finale-will-make-you-sad/ have] multiple accessible locations, [[Averted Trope|averting]] this for the first time in the series.
* [[Platonic Life Partners]]:
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** Others get the Argus assault rifle, which is also a midrange weapon.
* [[Press X to Not Die]]: If you cannot {{spoiler|talk the Illusive Man down in the finale}}, failure to hit the correct prompt results in this {{spoiler|after he kills Anderson}}. And yes, {{spoiler|he kills you too if you do not take the second prompt. Hope you like going through the dialogue again!}}
* [["Previously On..."]]: If you did not play either of the previous two games, there will be two video prologues explaining the story so far and the races of the galaxy.
* [[Punched Across the Room]]: Adepts and Vanguards have biotic heavy melee attacks; the former gets an open-palm strike that focuses on distance, the latter gets a super-punch (that can be used right after Charge). Batarian characters can also do this to enemies with their enforcement gauntlets, which generate a giant holographic fist for a huge punch.
* [[Put On a Bus]]: Early in the game, the Virmire Survivor is critically injured and has to spend most of the first act recovering on the Citadel. Later, the player is given the option of bringing them back into the party or keeping him/her on the bus, in which case, they go join Admiral Hackett and become a war asset. {{spoiler|Of course, this assumes that they are still alive by that point...}}
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* [[Shockwave Stomp]]: The Vanguard's new unique power, Nova.
* [[Shooting Gallery]]: In the Spectre's office on the Citadel.
* [[Shout -Out]]:
** One of the voice commands supported by the Kinect is [[Evil Dead|saying 'boomstick' to switch to a shotgun]].
** A group within the 103rd Marine Division called the [[Malazan Book of the Fallen|Bridge Burners]].
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We've already been down that road. No more. }}
* [[Storming the Castle]]: The attack on Cerberus HQ.
* [[Story -Driven Invulnerability]]: Dr. Eva is impossible to kill during the sequence where you're chasing her due to her instantly regenerating shields.
* [[Suddenly Voiced]]: '''[[Inverted Trope]]'''. Remember how Harbinger boasted and taunted at Shepard ''repeatedly'' in ''Mass Effect 2''? Despite being mentioned a few times and [[One-Scene Wonder|even appearing once]], he has ''no lines whatsoever'' in ''Mass Effect 3''.
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Several instances occur throughout the game, based on who lived and died in any one person's particular playthrough throughout the series. If certain squadmates from ''ME2'' died in the suicide mission, other characters fill in for some of them where they are supposed to appear.
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* [[Talking the Monster To Death]]: If your Reputation is high enough ([[Guide Dang It|and you didn't miss any conversation options]]) you can convince {{spoiler|the Illusive Man}} to commit suicide instead of continuing to oppose you.
* [[Team Pet]]: KEI-9 in the Collector's Edition, who is a robotic dog that was left behind by an Alliance engineer during the Normandy's retrofit, and exists to walk around in the ship's shuttle bay and be referred to by Shepard as a "good dog".
* [[Technicolor Eyes]]: In addition to the regular eye colors Shepard can have more exotic iris colors like white or [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red]].
* [[Theme Naming]]: Prothean VIs. In addition to Vigil, we now have Vendetta (part of the Crucible project) and Victory (in the flashback to Javik's time).
* [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch]]:
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** [[The Engineer]] gets one of these they can throw into position, and see through walls.
** The Cerberus Engineers can deploy them as well; in a subversion they are quite powerful and tough to destroy.
* [[We ARE Struggling Together!]]: Despite the Reaper invasion, some of Shepard's potential allies are trying to kill each other. Shepard will need to resolve their issues to get their support.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The Thessia mission. {{spoiler|Not only does the homeworld of the galaxy's most prosperous species fall, it turns out that the asari owe their prosperity to Prothean technology that they have been hoarding to themselves, in blatant violation of their own laws against withholding such technology. For the first time in the whole series, Shepard flat-out ''fails'' thanks to Kai Leng's dirty tricks. It is very quiet on the Normandy afterwards.}}
* [[What Happened to The Mouse?]]:
** During the mission to Sur'Kesh, Cerberus attacks the STG facility and both Mordin and Shepard's squad mention that Cerberus must have been helped by a [[The Mole|mole]] in STG to get there that quick, but this is never brought up again later and whoever it was remains unrevealed.
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** Shepard and Liara / the Virmire Survivor, if you pursued a romance with them and then a different crewmember in the second game.
** Potentially applies to Tali or Garrus, if you pursued one of them in the second game and choose to dump them in ''3''.
* [[X -Ray Vision]]: Enemies are visible through walls with the geth's Hunter Mode.
* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: Some of the hair colour choices have become downright neon.
* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: After Cerberus began to really dig in to the technology left from the Collector base, the Illusive Man began having his scientists killed after they had finished their assignments. "Contract terminated" was the euphemism in use.
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