Mass Effect 3 (XB360/PS3): Reaping our emotions.

I've never been a big fan of sci-fi. There is a small number of games, movies, or comics that take place in space that holds my interest at all, and those that do the space aspect of it is fairly marginal at best. So it was a bit odd that I took a chance on the first Mass Effect. However, after forging through a VERY sluggish beginning, it ended up proving to be a pretty solid game with likable characters and probably one of the best dialogs for a create-a-character ever. Following along with Mass Effect 2, it contained almost everything I liked about the first and vastly improved the combat, I had become completely entrenched with the series. Now we hopefully finish the trilogy.

MASS EFFECT 3:(XB360)

Two years after the events of Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard (who for the sake of this review was a she in my game) after going into the collector base and saved her crew by thwarting to the collectors attempt to build a new Reaper, was rewarded by being forced to return to earth, relieved of duty, and kept under surveillance. Quite the thank you for saving the world twice, huh. So after two years of trying to warn everyone about the impending disaster,  the galactic council did nothing to heed Shepard's warnings about the Reapers, which are giant squid-like machines who's sole purpose is to purge organic life every millennium or so, and begin to panic and scramble as the Reapers have chose to start this time at earth. As they begin to lay waste to human civilization, Shepard gives the earth council a big I told you so and takes to the sky to try to assemble the entire galaxy to stop them in a massive man vs. machine war to determine the fate of the galaxy.

You'll have to forgive that bit of a in a nutshell intro to the story of this series, but I would be hard pressed to give a accurate full synopsis of the deep story this game actually has. Mass Effect's biggest strength is it's incredible storytelling and it continues again in this installment. Usually when I play a game with multiple sequels, I have to piece together what happened between them or anything I have done in the prior games is only marginally acknowledged. Mass Effect does an excellent job of linking together your decisions in the previous games and adjusts the cast and situations based upon them, and they do a great job of putting some weight behind some of these actions. So if you are like me and you like to slut around in your Mass Effect adventures, some of the people you come across during the course of your adventure might have something to say about it (Liara was mad I cheated on her with Garrus, but she forgave me. She didn't forgive me when I had lesbian fun time in the shower with Traynor. The Asari are such prudes). There is one decision involving the Geth and the Quarians that I won't spoil that my actions of Mass Effect 2 directly effected, and left me with a real "Sophie's choice" on how to a approach it because there really wasn't a win/win. It really is one of the few games where every little decision that you make in previous games affects how things play out in the new versions. The conversation wheel it uses is still probably one of the best mechanics for RPG discussion I've seen used to date and I was glad to see a series give a created character a voice and actually have it sound good. To the games credit you can skip a lot of text if you want, and you don't have to go through all the side quests which would drastically cut dialog times.

The voice acting for the most part is a cut above average. It's not Uncharted series level in how good and natural the acting sounds, but for the most part the emotions of the characters are conveyed well. Its only real faults come into when Shepard tries to raise his voice, it just comes out forced and hokey. "Ok male Shepard? You a really mad here so read this line like your doing a high school play."(and next time happier and with your mouth open). They don't hit on the all of the voices though. Some of them sound a bit samey after a while, like one voice actor is doing multiple character voices. But its definitely better than say Elder Scrolls: Skyrim where they basically had one male and one female to do every voice in the universe of the game. And the chief screw up in the voice acting comes in the play of the DLC character Javik. While I don't have any problem with his character or his portrayal of the Prothean *spoiler alert* he speaks in a what sounds like an incredibly thick Jamaican accent, and I can't help but think of or make a "Cool Runnings" joke every time I hear him talk regardless of how serious the conversation at hand is. It just comes off as goofy to me.

Mordin's voice is annoying, but is probably one of the more interesting
characters in the series. Shame he's not playable this time.

The game also rewards you for continuing to play and keeping your saves as well. I got to start off my Mass Effect 3 starting off at like level 25. The enemies tend to scale with you but it was nice to have a lot of abilities right out of the gate. If you are playing the game from scratch you essentially can be one of three starting classes (Combat, Tech, Biotic) or a hybrid of two of them. They can call them different all they want, but essentially the only thing that changes from class to class is what weapon you are better suited with and what abilities you get with them. My Shepard was an infiltrator so I used mainly pistols and sniper rifles. Those two coupled with a fireball ability and two well picked teammates, I pretty much didn't need anything else for the duration of the game since I could headshot an enemy from a mile away on a whim. That being said, they really polished up the gun combat that made Mass Effect 2 so much fun. I still find some trouble moving in and out of cover and the run can be kind of finicky when it wants to, but the game has never been more polished than this version.  I would still say its a little behind the true third person shooters like Uncharted or Resident Evil as far as fluidity and control go, but those games don't splice in the RPG and team controls into the scheme so I'm willing to over look it. Basically after one mission in I was running and gunning and smashing husks like I never put down Mass Effect 2. 

There are a couple of things that bother me about the game though. Most annoyingly to me was the load time issue. I thought this was something we've worked through? Open ended sandbox games I can cover huge maps seamlessly without ever having to stop game play. Every single little change of map you have to wait through some stupidly long loading time. Its particularly annoying when you are on your ship, the Normandy, and you are trying to change floors to talk to your whole team. You will often find yourself looking at the map first to see how many of your crew are on the same floor so you can hopefully do them all in one trip. Sorry Vega, your douchebag macho bravado can wait till I actually have to upgrade my weapons for me to make the trip to talk to you. I hate using the elevators. Really, it wouldn't be so bad if instead of just giving me some boring loading screen, they just covered it up with a small animation of my characters in the elevator like the did in the first installment. Hell, with the amount of time spent waiting at loading screens, it would have been a great idea to put in random dialogues between the team like you did in Dragon Age Some of those just made having certain party members together all the more worth it. 

While I just raved about how good the combat was, I do think that whole duck behind 4 foot wall mechanic a la Gears of War (IE: Gears of BORED) is getting incredibly played out at this point. I don't mind getting to use a little cover but this game of long distance whack-a-mole is being used to the point of nausea in literally every single 3rd person shooter in this current generation. Don't get me wrong, its a strong mechanic and still fun to play, but with regenerating health, med-kits, and no shortage of cover, the game didn't really present a challenge until the final missions of the game. I'd also like there to be a harder line in decision to use either regenerating health or the med-kid systems. Giving us both pretty much makes the game a walk in the park the entire way through it.

At this point in the series, I didn't really see the need to introduce us to a bunch of new teammates. The game was already feeling pretty epic enough with the cast we have already established, and it was kind of heartbreaking to see an old face come back only to let you know you aren't going to get to use them. Most namely the Jack character as she seems to be going through a major point of development where she's trying to change her image and outlook, and has grown attached to people now, but you only really get to learn about this during one mission. Which is a real shame because she's a billion times more interesting than the aforementioned Vega asshole. Some of the new ones are good though, once EDI became playable she never left my party. Bottom line is you spent two whole games letting me become attached and empathetic to characters in your universe, least you can do is actually let me use them. Quit sticking me with Tali, Tali sucks.

This is actually a Photoshop, because nobody uses Kaiden.

The last thing I should probably address is the ending of the game. If you have access to the Internet (which you should, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this), you no doubt have already learned that fans were not at all happy with how the game ends. I don't intend to spoil anything but to give an idea of it, I felt there's a bit of a lack of epilogue or closure. However, they entire course of the final missions of the game began to feel like one very long extended ending. Everything that took place was so crazy and intense it was really difficult to put down. It was all capped of with an incredibly difficult moral choice that was so iffy for each option that I had to pause the game, sit down, and take several minute to reflect what was going to happen to the rest of the universe. That to me is sign of excellent story writing and immersion, the fact that I had to have a serious argument with myself to make a true moral decision without being able just shoot from the hip. I became Commander Shepard in that moment, not just playing her/him. I can see how people would be upset by the ending, but I don't think I was as outraged as everyone else was. What DOES bother me however, is that all the bitching of whining and online petitioning that took place has actually forced Bioware to address the issue, and they intend to change or add on to the ending. This to me sets a very bad precedent because now the artistic creativity can be compromised just because the fans can raise a big enough stink about it. I loved the first Grudge movie (fuck you, I did), but I thought the second one was complete and utter garbage. Does this mean I can continue to write Sam Raimi letters and raise petitions to get him to come up with a better ending for the movie? No, of course not, and gamers shouldn't do it either. Somebody took the time to write out a complex and long tale for Commander Shepard and one would assume that they had the time and finances to see it through without cutting corners. So I take it as this is the way they intended to end the story. People may not like it but that's why we get to have an opinion, but we shouldn't be able to change a finished work.

Ultimately, I have to say I was incredibly satisfied with my experiences with the Mass Effect franchise and that is pretty impressive for a guy who gets bored with almost everything space related.  Each of these incredibly lengthily games I have managed to play through twice just so I can experience all the various different dialog trees if I was a hero or villain. It gave weight to my decisions and gave me a cast of characters to fall in love with. They continued to improve on the games mechanics to make a very entertaining and enjoyable 3rd person shooter. And most importantly, closure or no, it gives us a defining start and finish to this trilogy, and this day of DLC and numerous sequels, this is something I can really respect. You owe it to yourself to play all three of these titles but even if you play just one of them, you'd be hard pressed to not to enjoy yourself.

Oh yeah, and the Krogan are still fucking awesome.