Mass Effect 3: Plus Some Other Stuff

Colour me a fanboy, but I feel that the Mass Effect trilogy is one of the shining examples of quality gaming in a market too often dominated by absolute garbage covered in the putrid, fetid, stinking bile that is the result of the hyper- games of the CoD generation. Sadly, it seems even this last bastion of solid RPG enjoyment has been tainted. More on that story later.

I bought Mass Effect 3, for the tidy sum of £28, by deftly avoiding any actual shops and doing some incredibly simple online shopping. I cannot believe there are people I know and whom I consider avid and savvy gamers who just blindly pre-ordered from high street shops like Game for nearly £40 (and boy did that go well for them). All I did was use Google Shopping, click the drop down button and select "Sort from Low To High" and saved myself £12. I still got the same experience as you, I still got the game at the same time as you. People baffle me.

Anywho, on with reviewing the game, not the current financial status of the gaming market.

The Tale So Far

I'm in your Citadelz Attack Your Councilz

The third and final installment in the Mass Effect series was hotly anticipated by many thousands of gamers the world over, but what I shall be doing in this review is giving you, my most cherished reader, an insight into what I enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy, and what I got downright angry about from the perspective of a fanboy, in addition to my usual critical analysis of the game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story let me offer a brief summary. Lots of aliens species and humans co-existing as an Alliance under a Council, living and larking about in the galaxy when all of a sudden giant synthetic death-machines called Reapers show up and start pissing on everyone's parade. During the first game they take the form of Sovereign, a single Reaper vanguard who indoctrinates an entire synthetic race (The Geth) and uses them to get right up the noses of the Council by generally making a nuisance of themselves on a galactic scale. The protagonist is Commander *Insert Pointless Name Here* Shepard, a human soldier promoted into the ranks of The Spectres, part-Jedi part-Judge Dredd, and told to sort this shit out. Which he/she does, mostly. The game culminates in a fantastic battle between the Council forces and Sovereign and it's Geth fleet. Job done, game one over.

Not so tough now, bitch.

Mass Effect 2 changed some things (understatement). Completely new race introduced (The Collectors) indoctrinated and controlled by another Reaper, Harbinger, but this time the metallic bastard just ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL from way out in inter-galactic space where the entire Reaper armada is kicking its heels. More trolling of the Council, some abductions of entire colonies and a personal vendetta against Shepard catches the attention of a supposed terrorist faction (Cerberus) lead by The Illusive Man, an individual who appears to have humanity's best interests in mind and is combating The Collectors with the help of Shepard and his crew. After figuring out what's actually going on, who The Collectors are and what they want with all the irritatingly voiced NPCs another big final missions is undertaken, only this time culminating in a violently disappointing "shoot the glowing weak-spot three times" battle. And then some funerals.

All up to speed? Good, on with Mass Effect 3.

The Story

Stereotypically Italian: Are you looking at me?

This...is an odd one, frankly. The entire game is basically a mad scrabble to appease everyone with even the slightest quibble with something, somewhere (usually you) in order to cobble together a force strong enough to repel the Reaper invasion which has already begun. In theory, as a fanboy, this is great; travelling the galaxy as an official ambassador with the power to do pretty much anything in order to secure military and scientific assets to combat the Reapers. As I began playing the game I envisaged Krogan infantry battalions storming through breaches in enemy defenses, Salarian STG squads wrecking havoc with sabotage, Turian fleets bombarding from orbit and (something that still makes me giggle) THE MIGHTY ELCOR BATTLE GROUPS, ALL ARMED WITH CHAIN GUNS AND MISSILE LAUNCHERS. 

What it was, in effect, was a spreadsheet. You do some missions, you get some numbers, you get a high enough number, and you can finish the game. Get all the numbers and less people die. Bit disappointing, really. I did enjoy the replacement of that bastard mineral scanner from Mass Effect 2 with...well...the same scanner but now you only have to find one or two things per planet, and at least one is usually something vital to the fleet, like the one Dreadnought the Volus could manage to not sell.

The War Assets spreadsheet is directly affected by another number; Galactic Readiness. Galactic Readiness (think of it as WAAARGH!) begins at 50% and causes any war asset you recruit to only be worth half it's actual value until Galactic Readiness is increased to 100%, which can be done by (excuse me whilst I try not to bring on a hernia whilst I type this) playing.....the....*HMPGH*....online....multi....player....URGH, that was hard to get out. 

So you do all the missions and get all the things and make a big number, and then comes the final battle to save earth. Understandably, it's a tad difficult, the secret weapon you've been building doesn't quite work, and surprise surprise it's up to Shepard to get some jump cables from the back of his '62 Ford Cortina.

Then the end happens. I'll discuss it below the spoiler warning.

The Shooty Bits

One with whom you should not fuck

For those of you who've played Mass Effect 1, I don't think you'd disagree with me when I say the combat wasn't exactly polished. It was solid, but for the most part I found biotic and tech powers to be pretty redundant unless my squad had died and there was Geth Prime or Krogan Battlemaster charging at me. For the most part, it was a cover based shooter, hilariously unexpected from a game using the same engine as all the Gears of War games I know! Chest high walls a-plenty. Enough said. 

Still, don't fuck

Mass Effect 2, whilst still running on that engine and based loosely around the same combat style, brought in a whole new necessity for powers. Overload for dropping shields or frying Geth, Incinerate for burning through Krogan or YMIR mech armour and various ammo types for added oomph. The biotic powers were vastly improved, Shockwave demolishing enemies along a straight line, Pull and Levitate isolating and exposing targets even when behind cover and the Vanguard Biotic Charge for those of you who enjoy headbutting a charging Krogan. Being able to whip powers around corners was illegal levels of fun.

(Click to enlarge)

All of these changes I loved. What I didn't love, was the stupid need for ammo. Mass Effect 1 worked fine based on cool-down weapons, there was absolutely no need to include 'thermal clips.' Nor was there really a need to include 5 pointless heavy weapons. A grenade launcher that had a tiny AoE, a rocket launcher that sounded and felt like you were firing slow-moving spit balls, a freeze ray of pointlessness, a laser pen and a nuke launcher that you could only fire once due to it's huge ammo-chomping power cells. The only up-side from the weapon alterations was the limitation, and therefore specialisation, of each class into only two weapons (except Soldier class who gets more, but that's only for boring people who want to ignore 2/3rds of the combat potential in the game). But even this irked me. There was only one class that could take sniper rifles, my standard favorite in every game, and that class had no biotic powers, and biotic powers are hilariously brilliant. Personal peeve, really.

In Mass Effect 3's combat, and you've pretty much got a refined version of the previous game. Each class has two pre-determined weapons, but can equip up to five (assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, SMGs) but the added weight of each weapon drags your biotic/tech abilities cool-down way low. Example, I spent my entire play-through with an AR/SR combo and had +91% recharge rate on all my powers. The minute I equipped a shotgun for one missions it because -4%. The tech and biotic powers are mostly the same, and Shepard can still choose to learn one of the powers his team mates possess, only this time there are no loyalty missions, you just have to go talk to Garrus about calibrations and then you can use his AP ammo (godsend).

Related to the combat system is the upgrades. The armour customisation seen in Mass Effect 2 is sill the same, however the weapon system is a hybrid of 1 and 2. In the first game, Shepard finds different weapons from different brand names each with a different emphasis on damage, rate of fire or accuracy, and each weapon from a brand had a scale of roman numerals to indicate its level. In the second game, you got PISTAL and then BIGAR PISTAL. Thankfully, in Mass Effect 3, the numeral system returns but this time you just pay credits to up the stats of your favorite gun. In order to unlock new weapons you must find or purchase them throughout the game. Weapons also come with two slots for customisation now, included scopes, extended clips, weight reducing materials and melee attachments, allowing you to tailor your weapons to suit your class and play style. A perfect weapon system, that balances customisation and simplicity very well.

Palavan burns and I shed a tear

The visuals during combat are exceptional, character models rendered in a very pleasing way, scenery even more so especially some of the more expansive battles, with near, medium and far objects all detailed enough to really sell the scene.

Here's a sneak-peak of some of the criticism to come later; there's no way to holster your weapons during a combat missions because (apparently) there wasn't enough memory to cope with it. I don't even.

The Talky Bits

Warning, Being a dick may
wreck your face

Story, story, story, story, story, story, semantic satiation (look it up). That's Bioware for you! Leaning heavily on the school of thought that games should be a narrative, and not an arcade shooter, the Mass Effect series is about as in-depth as games can get, without being artsy and pretentious (cough...Dear Esther...cough). Conversation choices and decisions you make within the game effect your Paragon/Renegade morality rating. During the first and second games, it was nearly required that you be one or the other in order to get access to the highest level conversation options. For Mass Effect 3 the system has been altered to incorporate a Reputation meter which fills up when you perform Renegade OR Paragon actions, and combines your two scores to give a total Reputation. So, you can be bad to the bone and be 100% Renegade and still have as much influence over certain characters and situations as you can as 100% Paragon. A solid re-evaluation.

Conversation and decisions have always been important throughout the series, with several decisions made during the first game coming back to really bite you in the arse during the third, something that I both approve of and am irritated by. Example; during a certain missions to a certain planet in a certain second game, I may or may not have decided to destroy some research data, thinking it was the right choice at the time. Conversation in the third game with a key (and favorite) character nearly ended with said character blowing my head off/me having to do similar to him because of the decision I made during the previous game. This is a great, really great, game mechanic.....but it irritates me when choices I've made have such drastic unknown consequences. Now I'm aware of them, my next play through will be all centered around making sure I've laid down the groundwork for all the best things to happen during the third game.

The plight of the galaxy is well conveyed, allowing you to justify any renegade choices you have to make in order to secure the allies you need. There are several in-depth missions which culminate in a straight choice between helping one race or another, and whilst these choices are basically a test of fanboy love for one species over another, they are irritating in themselves as it appeared to me to be quite difficult to appease both sides, effectively alienating several races and leading to the deaths of certain main characters.

The Online Dickbag Bit

Yep, there's online multiplayer. Ohhhh how I raged when I found this out. A stupid, pointless addition to a series that needs no multiplayer whatsoever. It has no place being in this game, I denounce it's existence, I shall play one game to see just how much it ruins the game fo-OH WAIT, it's really good.

That is to say, it's really good but unnecessary nonetheless.

The multiplayer is basically Gears of War engine running 4-player Gears of War style wave survival across a handful of maps against either The Geth, The Reapers or Cerberus. The same classes seen in the single player are transferred over to the online multiplayer (Adept, Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel, Infiltrator and Vanguard) and within each class there are several different skins with different powers. Example, Human Male and Female Sentinels have the same powers, Turian Sentinels are...Turian, and have different abilities.

Turian 4 Lyfe, Brah

By playing matches you accumulate credits which can be spent in the store to purchase Packs of varying price and contents, from basic supplies of consumables (medigel, instant ammo replenishes etc) to new weapons, weapon mods and even new characters. Here we find a slight irritation with the appearance of the now-ubiquitous "pay real money for in-game stuff" trend. By spending "Bioware Points" which cost actual money with the actual Queen on it, you can purchase packs without having to play any matches.

Gotta frag 'em all

Once a character reaches a certain level they can be added to your single player save file as an additional War Asset, and there are 30 different multiplayer characters to level up.

Criticisms

I'm sorry, you lost me at Yeah

There is much that I adore about this game, and much that I just don't. For one, the story appears to be one giant dick-sucking fest for fanboys, instead of a solid and relatable tale. Countless times during the game emotions are ham-fisted into cut scenes in the most trite and gauche way possible. I honestly would regard this as two games; one of reasonably high quality that I would definitely recommend to anyone who has played the first two and got on board with the story enough to care and who wants to see the saga through to it's conclusion....and another of over-the-top emotionally charged bullshit that new comers to the series will find hilarious to behold and frankly bemusing. Prime example, the endless number of self-sacrificing characters with heroic music playing as they hug a bomb, or fight a Rachni swarm single-handed whilst Shepard beats a hasty retreat. That sort of emotive cut scene only works if you care about the character, something that first time players certainly will not as there is basically NO character development for any of the Old Gang from the first two games (except maybe Ashley) and the new team members are a violently 2D man-mountain resembling Brick from Borderlands but with LESS charisma (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr I hasten to add) and a reincarnation of an old friend who's got their own arc anyway.

Also, Cerberus are now Helghast.

Multiplayer criticisms are limited only to IT HAS NO RIGHT BEING IN THIS GAME and the way in which it s integrated with single player. My usual standard operating procedure with games is simple; finish the single player, learn the game and how you wish to play it, and if the multiplayer looks interesting give it a go. Prime example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Loved the single player, got addicted to the multiplayer AFTERWARDS. With Mass Effect 3, however, the game encourages you to break the flow of playing the single player game to spend hours playing the multiplayer to increase your Galactic Readiness. Granted, 25 games on the middle difficulty will give you 100% Galactic Readiness, and that should only take roughly 12 hours of multiplayer action, but the principal still very much annoys me. Though I will say, I am very glad it's not just another bland, PVP online multiplayer hack-fest.

The move from Steam to Origin for PC versions of the game irritated me as well, it seems to make no sense to swap clients for the last game in the series. Origin is just a shoddy, orange (bleaugh) impostor to the golden, shining edifice that is Steam.

Conclusion

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoyed both the other games. It's a solid shooter with a ridiculously interesting plot that sucks you right in and makes you lose entire days at a time. I would, however, strongly recommend you play the other two games first. Mass Effect 2 was fairly easy to pick up and jump into without worrying about the story (though why you would baffles me) but with 3, it's too much of an integral part of the game's appeal to expect new comers to enjoy without the slightest idea of what a Reaper is, or why Chris Griffin has osteoporosis. 

Longevity has certainly been extended due to the addition of online multiplayer, but I will always play these games regularly as I enjoy the story just as much as Garrus enjoys calibrations.

The Ending

The Internet Community

What the bloody hell was all the fuss about, internet?! Why the desk-flipping amounts of rage at what was, in essence, a perfectly good ending? Just because whatever you do Shepard dies doesn't mean you need to start a charity to petition EA to re-make the ending! And even if they do submit to your demands, how are they going to appease all of you? Are you expected tailor made endings to each and every one of your desires? I mean....they always said it was going to be a trilogy, and Shepard sacrificing himself to save humanity is quite the full stop at the end of the Mass Effect saga (although, Joker, Garrus and EDI did look set to repopulate the galaxy at the end of my game) A good ending doesn't have to be one where the protagonist survives for fucks sake!

Garrus and I share views regarding your complaints

Counter-rage over, now I'll talk about the actual ending. 

After landing on earth I was subjected to some of the most climactic, cluster-fucking combat in the entire series. No one should have to take on 4 Brutes and 4 Banshees at once, not to mention the hoards of smaller enemies. Difficulty curved ramped, which only made for a much more satisfying end to the series. The final push towards to definitely-not-stolen-from-Halo elevator was pretty intense and I was all fired up to jump through and continue the fight on the Citadel.......and then suddenly I was doing my third lap of a slow motion forest full of whispering people, chasing a child with acutely mis-proportioned limbs who resembled Dr Zoidberg "whoop whoop-ing" out of his shell. Because emotion. Here was more of the ham-fisted emotional bollocks I've previously mentioned. I'm sure some people got all emotional themselves when playing this section of the game, but I was a full Renegade BAMF and cared not for some kid with 6 elbows.

Oh my god who cares

Furthermore, slow motion running....ghostly figures whispering doubts....lost in a forest....CAN YOU GET ANY MORE CLICHED?! Turned me right off, that did. Even worse is the fact that you have to NAVIGATE this forest, reaching certain points to watch the child (and later on the child and you) burn in front of your eyes, continuing the originality of the dream sequence (because that's what it turns out to be).

Oh, then you get up and run through the lift, stagger along the inside of the citadel with Anderson and finally face down The Illusive Man. Some things are said, some stuff is done, turns out you were re-built by The Illusive Man with Reaper technology so he could control you through indoctrination.....and then they both end up dead by your hand.

About sums it up

Then comes "totally expected unexpected reveal #3," there is a higher power controlling the Reapers. Some fluff explaining why they are necessary and then you're given the choice to either destroy them, control them or merge all organic and synthetic life together in one big orgy...but that also kills everything and destroys the mass relays. To be honest, I've watched all the endings on youtube and they all seem to kill everybody just with different coloured explosions. Also, Shepard dies in all three endings. So, really, there isn't much difference if you're colour blind.

My Experience

Here are some of the key decisions you face during the series and how I chose to deal with them:

Mass Effect 1

- Fully Renegade

- Earthborn, Ruthless

- Garrus and Wrex both alive

- Sacrificed Kaiden on Vermine

- Romanced no one

- Killed Zhu's Hope colonists

- Killed Rachni Queen

- Captain Kirrahe saved on Vermire

- Council sacrificed

- Anderson made Councillor

Mass Effect 2

- Destroyed Genophage cure on Tucanka

- Killed Samara, recruited Morinth

- Recruited Thane

- Sent Legion to Cerberus

- Preserved Collector base

- Grunt and Tali died during suicide mission

Mass Effect 3

- Preserved Genophage cure, Mordin died

- Sided with Geth, Quarians attacked, Legion died

- Encouraged EDI and Joker to date

- Thane died

- Killed Kai Leng

- Killed The Illusive Man

- Chose 'green' ending, synthesis

(I'll up date this as I remember, there are quite a few)