Mass Effect 3
"This may not end well"
After 5 years of shaping their galaxies as they have seen fit, the third and final game in the critically adored Mass Effect trilogy has finally made it's way into the hands of gamers all over the world. Mass Effect has always been an RPG series that stands alone in terms of narrative and player choice. In the first 2 games you alone have the ability to save or destroy entire races of alien life, to build meaningful (even romantic) relationships with the crew of your ship and to forge or sabotage alliances between various alien races all while saving the galaxy. The foundation of this series has always been player choice and it's effect on the game world. Does this latest installment of Bioware's flagship series live up to it's predecessors? Well, yes and no.
Even the characters themselves seem a little disappointed
The game picks up without a hitch after the events of Mass Effect 2 with the synthetic race known as "The Reapers" finally launching their full on assault on Earth and in turn, the rest of the known universe. From this point on players reprise their role of Commander Shepard. Assuming you played the previous 2 games, you are able to import you save files to carry over all of your major decisions and relationships from Mass Effect 1 and 2. Based on these decisions the game can play out very differently for each individual player, Past crew members may be alive or dead, old flames may want to re-kindle relationships and whole races of being may be there to help or completely extinct all based on your prior choices. Needless to say, it is highly recommended to play the first two games prior to the third as this would be a pretty confusing point to just jump into the story.
The Reapers don't fool around
The game play here continues down the path forged by Mass Effect 2 and is decidedly more of an action game than those that came before it. During combat this could easily be mistaken for Gears of War or any other major Science Fiction shooter. Although you can still freeze time to command your squad it feels less necessary than in the past two games. Upgrades and gear management have also been further streamlined from the second game, this makes for more time out on your adventure and less spent fooling around on your ship or in menus so for me this is a welcome change. The communication remains unchanged, still revolving around the familiar conversation wheel mechanic and the old adage "if it aint broke, don't fix it" applies well here. The dialogue is well written for the most part and the voice acting is superb as usual. As a bonus to the single player experience you also get a surprisingly fun series first, a multiplayer mode similar to the popular and often imitated "Horde Mode" from Gears of War. Unfortunately, Bioware made the ridiculous decision to make playing multiplayer essentially a requirement to get a "positive" end result in the single player campaign, effectively screwing gamers without a broadband internet connection out of a proper ending.
"What do you mean I have to play multiplayer?"
During the 30 to 50 hour campaign there are some truly spectacular moments along with countless agonizing choices to make. As opposed to the first two games where you had mostly clear good, bad and neutral choices, a lot of the choices here are either between the lesser of two evils or between a big sacrifice for the greater good and a seemingly "good" but irresponsible decision. There were times in this game when I sat for nearly 5 minutes to think when faced with a complex decision, not many other games can offer that kind of true immersion into their world. Sadly it is the weight of all of your decisions over the course of the game that also help to make the climax a fairly disappointing affair.
"But......but I thought my choices meant something"
Sweet Tali, what became of thee?
Overall Score: 9.5
Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the ending was not very satisfactory for me. After investing close to 150 hours of game play over the course of the series I really expected to see a bit more of the, ahem "massive effect" of my hundreds of decisions. I wanted to see what became of the worlds I had saved or doomed along the way, I wanted to watch as my longtime squad mates fought their way to victory or defeat, instead I got a sloppily written ending that both opens up several plot holes and abruptly ends the series without a concrete resolution to your story.
Sweet Tali, what became of thee?
All my nitpicking aside, Mass Effect 3 was a brilliant game and when you look at the series as a whole it undoubtedly goes down as one of the best in gaming history. Bioware has shown once again that if done correctly, a video game can be like stepping into a great novel and changing the story where you'd like. As much as I disliked the ending this game is a must play for any real fan of video games and makes the case for games as a true art form better than any other you are likely to play this generation.
Overall Score: 9.5
I figured I'd try my hand at writing a game review, it doesn't have much to do with class but it was kinda fun.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. It ended up having to do more with class than you probably ever could have imagined when you came in that week and ended up taking on the issue of video games and violence.
ReplyDeleteI like that you wrote about this though not as an assignment but because you were interested, and I like that you gave the review plenty of thought and detail. It is interesting to me that so many of these modern video games do involve a lot of decision making (and I guess thus morality) and consequences, etc. When I played video games, it was Pac Man and the biggest decision was when to eat the fruit to turn blue and be able to chomps some ghosts. The genre has evolved into something much more complex.
I of course don't know much of anything about Mass Effect (1, 2, or now, 3), but clearly you do. And the fact that you were talking art form here is just another connection to the PBS you decide. Synchronicity.