Review>>>Mass Effect 3_

[WARNING: this review may contain spoilers]

Mass Effect 3 (ME3) is an Action RPG realesed in March 2012 by developer BioWare, published by EA. ESRB rating: Mature. Platforms: XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. Reviewed: PC.

Ahhh, Mass Effect 3... Or maybe it should be Massive Disappointment 3?

About a month after I finished playing through the final part of the story of Commander Olivia "Liv" Shepard of the Normandy, I still can’t shake that feeling of disappointment. Not that ME3 is a bad game, mind you, on its own it’s a great game, but as the closing chapter of a trilogy? Let’s just say: proceed with caution and don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

What was good: 

· The missions; 

· The cutscenes; 

· The level design; 

· The soundtrack; 

· The weapon and armor customization.

I loved the missions, they were very exciting and challenging, although in some of them I was very lost as to what I had to do due to vague mission objectives, but in the end it all worked out. The one mission that really sticks with me is the main quest in the krogan planet Tuchanka, where everything felt different enough to make it very interesting, and where I made an extremely difficult decision and it went back to bite me in the ass. 

In my opinion, the cutscenes were great. I felt they were well inserted into the game, especially in the tutorial. The final scene before the credits was nice too, if you strip yourself of the disappointment. Overall, the cutscenes made the game feel more movie-like, which you can take it as you will, but I admit, seeing a thresher maw taking down a reaper was awesome.

 Ummmm... tasty.

The levels for this game were very diverse and well designed, and made for a much tactic combat. They felt less streamlined compared to Mass Effect 2, and more focused than in Mass Effect 1. However, they suffer with the lack of a map to orient the player around, which was fine with the straightforward levels in Mass Effect 2, but confusing in this installment. I’m pretty sure I missed some rooms. 

As always, Mass Effect delivers a great soundtrack. Clint Mansell’s music was able to effectively pull a few strings of my heart and make me teary-eyed when in actuality I just wanted to facepalm at how stupid a dialogue or plot was, or when I just didn’t give a damn. 

Armor customization for the player is as it was in Mass Effect 2, which I liked, and companion armor customization is almost the same too, with the exception that the different options give different bonuses, such as +25% power damage or +25% power recharge, for example, which I greatly enjoyed as I like the idea of companions having distinct armor rather than everyone wearing the same thing. The bonuses are a plus.

 Bitch, I'm fabulous.

As for weapon customization, kudos BioWare, you provided the customization possibilities of Mass Effect 1 with the weapons of Mass Effect 2, and made them change their appearance, which I thought was one of the greatest improvements they made, although the customization was not that diverse or useful sometimes. 

What was bad:

· The UI; 

· The hopping in the battlefield; 

· The multiplayer; 

· The portrayal of the military; 

· The plot; 

· The day-one story-adding DLC; 

· The portrayal of Shepard.

Maybe I’m far too accustomed to RPGs’ organizational system of quests and missions as Main, Secondary and Side quests, but I was under the impression that Mass Effect 3 was shipped as an RPG, so why the clunky journal? Is it really that hard to divide the quests by their hierarchy? That just seems lazy to me. I also disliked the fact that there were no quest updates: you could advance in the quest and the text continued the same, which made tracking progress in side-quests hard. The mission pointers could’ve been more helpful and less vague, as would the HUD map.

Okay... what should I do now?

I play in the PC, so all that combat action concentrated in the spacebar got me killed at least two times, because instead of switching to another cover place, I vaulted right into enemy sight. All the hopping around could’ve been a lot less frustrating if they’d only assigned a different key to vault, cover or jump. 

I’m not a multiplayer kind of gal, but I have no problems in it being added to game, provided it doesn’t diminish the amount of time and effort the developer puts in its singleplayer campaign, or if it is required to enhance the singleplayer experience, which, unfortunately, is the case. I completed every single quest in the campaign, and went to the final battle with 6500-ish Effective Military Strength, and because my Galactic Readiness maintained in 50%, because I didn’t play the multiplayer, it wasn’t possible for me to have the “best” ending. 

I don’t know about you, but when I think of military in wartime, they are strict, no-nonsense and respect the chain of command, and I seriously doubt that in the future that would change much, so why would any soldier call their commanding officer “Lola” without permission to speak freely is beyond me. Also, why does everyone relay their romantic problems to Shepard? I was under the impression that she was the commander of the Normandy, not their couple therapist. Ultimately, it felt like it was more urgent to hook up with someone than saving the galaxy from the Reapers. 

The plot seems to have some issues. Granted, I haven’t explored all the different angles, but there are some holes here and there, and the nature of the Catalyst is just something I can’t sanely accept. Why would a Cerberus supporting Shepard turn himself to the Alliance? What about the Dark Energy you kept talking about in the previous games, the thing I honestly believed would be used against the Reapers? And speaking of Reapers, how can I accept the reason BioWare gave us of their existence? The ending was truly disappointing, all the choices from all the games were invalidated then and there, rendering my time spent on the series pointless, and the part “And it was all a story, the end.” was annoying, Dragon Age II does it better. These things would not matter that much if Mass Effect 3 was a standalone without any previous successful installments, but alas, it is not, and just left me wanting to pull my hair off. 

There is much that can be said about day-one DLC. My opinion is against paid DLC in general, especially story-adding, but I do not own a videogame developing company, so my opinion is solely as a gamer, but as a gamer, I feel that cutting me off some parts of the story that should’ve been in the original release unless I pay is rude as best, and an unethical way to extract money from faithful fans by not delivering the true story and experience the game should’ve been on release, especially day-one DLC, which was obviously completed and could’ve been added to the disk right in the beginning. 

But the thing that pained me the most about Mass Effect 3 was how Cmd. Shepard was portrayed in this final installment. No matter how great those cutscenes were, the auto-dialogue of Shepard killed my enjoyment of the game and completely broke the immersion for me. Why? Let me explain: in the previous games of the series I spent about 100 hours building up the personality of my Shepard with whom I played now in Mass Effect 3. She was what any fan would call a “paragade”, nice but tough when needed, willing to make the hard choices to save the most people, but most importantly, no-nonsense and extremely pragmatic on duty, and with her eyes always on her goal. But now the script for this game did not include a neutral response, there was a lot less dialogue choosing points and a lot more auto-responses from Shepard that did not feel like my character at all. My Shepard just seems thrown into to this melodrama that isn’t congruent to her established personality, the dream sequences were particularly terrible. Mass Effect 3 marked the point where the game about Cmd. Shepard died and became the movie about Cmd. BioWare. They stripped the personality she had and replace it with whatever they wanted. And for a fan that invested so much in her character, this is what disappointed me the most.

Other notes:

Graphics-wise it was similar to Mass Effect 2’s, and though the demo made me worry, the shading in the final game was far better. I can still notice it’s a console port, and even though my laptop isn’t a high-end machine, I was able to play it in maximum and still felt low-resolution-y. 

I wish there was more loot, but this isn’t a big issue for me as Mass Effect 2 had already made me expect little loot to grab during missions. 

I also noticed the lack of mini-games that could’ve enhanced the gaming experience, like the hacking or bypassing from the previous games. 

The characters were good, but some of the Normandy crew felt like they came from the Jersey Shore; at least this time I was able to stand the Turian Councilor for a change. The voice-acting is solid, although there were some bad performances, and once I stopped being annoyed by everybody’s relationship issues, I started enjoying the romantic subplot of the game.

Jersey Effect 3!

Final note:

I judged Mass Effect 3 coming from both Mass Effect 1 and 2, and, as reviewer, it scores 7/10; as a fan, 6/10 for disappointment, it just didn’t feel like the epic closure it should’ve been.

	Score X/10
Story
Progression	6
Consistency	7
Dialogue	7
Characters	8
Gameplay
Control	6
Difficulty	6
Replay Value	2
Level Design	8
Presentation
Graphics	6
Sound/Music	8
Voice Acting	8
Interface	5
Final Verdict	6

To me, my other characters, Kara and John, ended their epic story after defeating the Collectors, because I won’t play Mass Effect 3 again. As for Liv Shepard, it was an honor serving you, may you find happiness wherever you’re headed, and know that the memory of what you were will always be in my heart. May you rest in peace, Commander. 

This video describes best most fans opinion on the ending:

Please leave your comment on Mass Effect 3 or my review. I’d love to know what you think!