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Mass Effect 3
Release Date: March 6, 2012
Developed by: Bioware
Game Type: Action RPG
Price Paid: $60
Every once in a while you get a game that just works. Since the arrival of the first installment in the series, Mass Effect has established itself as one of the premiere franchises of this generation. Each game has opened up this rich universe of both worlds and characters that span over the course of three games and ultimately ends here. The universe you’ve grown to call home along with the characters you’ve watch transform from strangers to friends comes to en epic close in the final chapter of the trilogy you never want to end. It’s tough to say goodbye to something you’ve come to love, but I couldn’t have really asked for a better final overall package, whose pros far outweighed its cons.
The opening segment of the game sets the stage of what’s to come. Earth is being attacked by the Reapers and the only way to save it is to leave. It’s a great opening haymaker to the player because in order to save the planet, you must abandon it and come back when you are capable of taking the enemy head on and overmatch it blow for blow. This is where the game essentially begins. You must travel around the galaxy and gain the trust and followers of every race that you can and then prepare for what three games has built up into; a final battle of epic proportions. Pushing that to the side, the story is pretty damn good. You have to meet up with races, create peace situations, scratch the backs of others before they scratch yours, and get into a game of politics that’s smarter than you know. The Reapers aren’t just at Earth, they are everywhere, and because of that, it opens the door for most of the games missions and side quests. The main missions all involve the biggest of the races (Ones of the council) that really do inject a serious amount of consequences to the choices you make. While I loved that they had consequences, I would have loved it if the choices weren’t so clear. I know if I choose this choice, the end result with be this. I don’t want to have to always be evil to have my choices upset me on a personal level. If I’m a good guy, most of the choices end in a happy result, but how awesome would it be if being the good guy meant an entire planet had to be left to die or characters didn’t die in such a bow wrapped way. They were still good cinematically but some really could have stepped up the game with a few minor simple choices. The real meat for me was in its side-quests. A lot of them involved familiar faces from previous games and helped fill a sense of closure for most of them. Putting aside the repetitive coincidences of running into them in such a massive universe, it helped remind me how well developed they were from previous games. The choices I had made from the first two games actually effect a lot of these quests and help me feel connect to those games. They do a much better job than the main missions, but I have to think its easer to manipulate side stories than the big main one. Gaining the trust and armies of these races are a tad bit repetitive, but that mostly comes with the smaller races that I feel like are useless to me. I don’t see how a Hanar is going to help me win a war; they are floating squids that put me to sleep.
Skipping past the ending for a bit, one of the weakest parts of the game is from the very generic minor villain, Kai Leng, who is the anti-Shepard. He’s basically a human rebuilt as a machine whose obeys the Illusive Man to his exact word. He can handle his own with that sword and ninja moves, but it’s his motives and dialogue that diminishes him. He spews out lines of dialogue fit for a B-Movie and feels like his only motive in this war is to be there to frustrate Shepard and bide time until you get to the real villains, the Reapers. Do you remember the giant Terminator boss from the end of Mass Effect 2? Swap that thing with a Reaper ship and there are your boss fights. It’s very lazy and disappointing to me. They have failed to nail the boss fight down in any of the games. You essentially just run back and forth and aim a laser into its weak spots until you have won; very, very frustrating. When you fight other enemies, it’s polished to its finest form yet. The guns feel really good, shoot really smooth, and the cross hairs are accurate. The thing that could deteriorate some folks hopes is I held the same gun the entire time. I didn’t feel the need to change or swap to a different rifle because the Avenger rifle is so damn good. I felt like an immortal god running into battle. The question wasn’t if I would die, but rather how fast can I kill them? The game felt way too easy to me. Granted it wasn’t insane level, but I seemed to cruise to easily for such a long game. I never one time squeezed the controller after losing a firefight because I never lost. Some may ask, what about the biotics, but I’m probably one of many that completely ignore them. I’m a soldier through and through and don’t mess with them. I prefer the gun, so it’s not something I can comment on with a level of clarity. I don’t feel comfortable with them.
Jumping into the big belly of the controversial conclusion, I’m in the same wave majority of others are in. I did enjoy the moments with the Illusive Man, but I still think of him as this giant mystery that they never skirted very deep into. He’s such an intriguing character, but over the course of two games, hes one of the few characters I still don’t know nothing about. I don’t know why he is the way he is or the state of the mind that requires him to act the way he does. It’s very irradiating, but he felt like a tragic character with loads of unused potential. The real problem once again comes with that option of choice. If I want to get the consequence I like, I’m forced to choose options that don’t seem rational. The cinematic cutscenes after that feel amazing, and get you pumped to see the closing minutes of the trilogy, but they seem to mess it up a bit. I’m not too upset with the Shepard part of the story, but it’s the others that bug me. They seem implausible, messy, and set up for cinematic purposes that don’t fit. The ending is far from terrible, and even if it was the only ending, I’d more than satisfy myself for these three games, but I’m really curious what they are going to reveal in the free DLC that is the “unofficial” ending to the trilogy. We’ll have to wait and see. I just hope they don’t cave in and give us a ending to please the masses rather than an ending Mass Effect deserves.
One of the more surprising aspects of the game is the addition of a multiplayer similar to Horde. There is a set amount of waves you are assigned to complete in various levels from the single player. It’s not quite addicting as Gears or as complex, but it can be fun with a group of friends. It’s very basic that essentially tells you to kill the enemy and survive till the end. Before each game you can buy weapons and upgrades that will carry over into games, but as you use them, you run out and forced to buy more. When you play on the harder levels, you must be careful on how you use them because once you’re out, you get no more, but the easier ones seem to let you blast away. As you play, you can build up your war readiness in the single player that helps you skip the side-quests but why would you want to skip them? They combine to make up a good chunk of the game. Along with the single player benefits, you can rank up your character and become stronger and better. For someone like me, this is the opportunity to use those biotics that you wouldn’t normal use and play the game in a fresh perspective. It’s probably something that won’t last for a year, but it’s something to put the disc back into your console once you’ve beat the single player experience.
For a few more topics I’d like to talk about but don’t warrant an actual paragraph, here a few things I’d like to mention.
-The achievements. It’s a pretty easy game to get most of them. Without trying all that much, I managed to get more than half of both the achievements and score. If you don’t get into the online portion of the game you can forgot about a decent size of them for such a single player game, but luckily the multiplayer is pretty damn fun.
- The soundtrack is one of gaming’s best. Whenever it plays I get all giddy, feeling all the butterflies in my stomach. Usually the music means an epic scene is about to happen. They have kept the same score throughout the entire franchise and it’s one that will always trigger back to the death of Normandy-1 and the effects of that scene.
- Miranda is my girl always and forever. Sorry Ashley, you’ll always be the truck stop to my heart.
- The one big question mark to me is how each game seemed to get bigger and bigger, yet the heart of the universe, the Citadel, seemed to get smaller and smaller. God how beautiful it was in the first game.
- The Mass Effect 2 Launch trailer is my favorite video game trailer to date.
- My first and only playthrough so far lasted a whopping 44 hours.
- The new melee addition is very fun if not clunky.
- Speaking of clunky, the quests list is a messy pile of doo that seems every bit unorganized as a guest of Hoarders. It doesn't tell you anything about how they work, when they become unaccomplished, or where they can be completed.
The bottom line……………Mass Effect 3 is an epic game where the 43 hours leading up to the controversial last hour more than makes it such a great game to play. What’s so surprising is that while I do think the proper way to play this franchise is starting with 1 and ending here, it’s a kind of game that if you really wanted, could just jump right in. Sure you might be a bit lost, but the gameplay is smooth, easy to learn, and if you want, can be a very casual experience. I’m torn to learn that I am just about done with my Shepard, but I have to thank Bioware for even creating such a unique franchise that I have grown to come very close to. No other game has sucked me and kept me there throughout its entire run than the great Mass Effect. If it’s something you haven’t experienced yet, that’s a huge bummer for you, because regardless if you think so or not, it’s an experience you should go through at least once fi not multiple times. Tears from now when we are 2-3 consoles farther in, we’ll look back at Mass Effect the same way we look at Mario and Zelda now. It has solidified its legacy to last a lifetime as long as games exist. Until we meet this universe again with a spin-off of the series years from now, we can just soak in the experience we were grateful to enjoy. I thank you once again, Mass Effect, you were my best gaming experience to date.
Overall Score: 9/10
Recommended Price: Anything
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