Mass Effect 3

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Mass Effect 3

Post by deject »

Mass Effect 3 - PC

Introduction
And thus, the third installment of the great Mass Effect series has been released. The Chronicle of the human Shepard, Savior of the Galaxy, fighting against the seemingly invincible and incomprehensible Reapers comes to an end. Needless to say, if you care at all about the story of the previous two games, regardless of anything else you simply do need to play this game.

Gameplay
Mass Effect 2's passably decent third person shooter gameplay makes the transition to this game largely intact, though they've taken the criticisms of both previous games to heart and have amalgamated both games' core systems into the most refined of the three.

The control scheme is pretty much the same as ME2, down to hitting Shift to bring up the powers menu and to issue orders to squadmates. The skill trees look and behave the same as ME2, but the skills themselves are a mix of ME1 and ME2 abilities and a lot of the abilities themselves have been changed.

ME3 retains the cover system of ME2, but it adds helpful overlays of what Shepard will do if you hit the spacebar while holding down different directions. You'll still be frustrated while trying to get in and out of cover as the situation demands. I often find myself doing all sorts of undesired dodges and get sucked into the various crates and chest high walls while trying to sprint around. Still, it's usually not going to get you killed.

Instead of ME2's health mechanic, ME3 reaches back to ME1 and Halo, where you have a regenerating shield but under that you have a finite health bar, and only quasi-regenerating health in that each health pip can regenerate if it isn't fully depleted, but if it goes away you need to use some medi-gel to get it back (or just finish your mission).

Unlike the previous games, a lot of the missions end up playing out as just going to an area and surviving an onslaught of enemies until they're all dead then moving to the next check point. Unless there's some sort of external health bar (i.e.: your shuttle being shot up while you run for it), you can usually just find a good cover spot and shoot people and spam the applicable skills until all the enemies around you are dead. This becomes abundantly clear when you realize that many of them are the same as the multiplayer arenas. Unless you're playing a Vanguard, there is little incentive to run around because Shepard can be fairly delicate, especially against the middle-tier of bad guys. In effect, while the actual shooting and what not is the best of the series, it seems like a general step back in terms of the mission design.

Oh and hacking is just 100% completely stripped out. The doors labelled "Bypass" just take a few seconds to open instead of opening instantly. Disappointing that Bioware just gave up completely on this, as ME2's hacking mini-games weren't especially difficult and were fairly well thought out, though they could have used an introductory tutorial to tell you how they work.

Shepard gains equipment in a similar fashion as in ME2, but instead of just being stuck with the same stats and whatnot, they let you upgrade the equipment you have, giving better accuracy, damage, and ammo capacity. This is also a good middle ground between getting 30 trash weapons every 5 minutes in ME1 and the utter dearth of loot in ME2. You find weapon mods that are easy to equip as well, allowing you to customize your gear for how you like to play.

The dialog system is exactly the same as ME2, though I noticed far fewer opportunities to Persuade/Intimidate people. The prompts to perform Renegade and Paragon actions during dialog and cutscenes reappears from ME2 as well.

Making an appearance is a co-op wave based survival multiplayer mode, pitting up to 4 players against increasingly difficult waves of either Cerberus, Geth, or Reaper troops. Every few waves, some additional objectives are issued to the team, requiring the team to target and kill four specific enemies, activate four devices, or hold an area for a set amount of time to hack a computer. These objectives are timed, and failing one ends your round. The array of multiplayer characters are cool. Each one can be thought of as basically a squad member from the single player. You get the same number of skills to put points into, and each one has a unique set of skills. All the classes and main races are represented. Completing (successfully or not, surprisingly) a round of multiplayer will increase the galaxy's Readiness Rating, potentially having an effect on your single player game. The multiplayer is pretty fun and worth at least a go to check it out. Successfully completing a round is pretty satisfying.

Sights and Sounds
Graphically, ME3 is just ME2 but slightly prettier. The default male Shepard model & textures look really good, but many of the others don't compare favorably. It's decent but not anything near as good as the current gen of graphic beasts like Battlefield 3. I did get a pretty solid 60fps the whole time, which I'm assuming it's locked at like most console ports are these days.

Voice acting and music are generally excellent, as is expected by now. Clint Mansell's work seems surprisingly limited based on the soundtrack that came with my copy of the game (only two songs have his name on them) but it is still top notch work by all involved. Most of the characters you encounter have great voice acting as well, especially MaleShep, who has a generally cleaner performance.

Stuff that sucks
It seems like the writing team for Mass Effect 3 weren't all on the same page at times. Some parts of the game are brilliant, emotionally impactful, and just works really well (Mordin continues to be a show-stealing character, and I still tear up when I think about his role in ME3). Other times they go and do something really dumb like
Spoiler:
give EDI a body so she's now a party member like the others
, I mean what the hell? Some of the stuff that happens and a lot of the lazier stuff (like making up really weak reasons that your giant space ships can't shoot stuff on the ground directly) are really disappointing for the finale in a highly plot-driven series. They've also stolen DX:HR's method of presenting an ending to you, i.e.: regardless of your choices (to some extent in ME3) you are presented with the same options to choose from. Unlike DX:HR, you can't save before you make the choice, so if you don't like what you chose you're looking at replaying a good couple hours or so at least to get back there, depending on your save games.

The ending itself is worth addressing on its own, considering the quite vocal outcry against it. I can sort of see what the writers were trying to do with it. Creating a deep, intelligent story certainly gives license to having dark or depressing endings where everything doesn't turn out perfectly, or even optimistically. The problems with it is that instead of a dark coda to Shepard's saga, you get something that just really doesn't make any sense. I can't explain why it's wrong without spoiling the ending, but suffice it to say that you probably won't be satisfied with the argument presented for the Reapers case of why they're killing everyone, nor will the choices you're given in the ending be very satisfying either. Honestly, up until the last minute before you make your final choice, they could have pulled off they ending they wanted to, but what the game ends up with feels like they really just didn't know what to really do once they got to the very end and had to do something.

Conclusion
In the overall scheme of things, I really enjoyed playing Mass Effect 3. Most of the good stuff you probably already know about going in. If you enjoyed the first two games, you pretty much MUST play this one. While Bioware stumbles in a few places in the story, most of it is pretty good, and in particular, the main mission on Tuchanka is incredible, at least as good as anything else in the Mass Effect series. I'd have a hard time recommending someone who isn't already a fan of the games to start here though. I can't imagine being able to know WTF is going on at all without playing the first two games. Mass Effect really should be played 1, 2, 3 or not at all. I know it seems like this review is a bit down on the game, but as someone who has really enjoyed the series, it may not be as close to the sheer brilliance of the first two, but it's still quite good. I think they should have gone back to the drawing board to come up with a better ending for the game but other than that I heartily recommend it. And hey, they put another song by Faunts in the credits. Brilliant.

Score : 9/10 :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starfull: :starempty:
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Roman Totale »

Not played it for long yet, but I am really enjoying it. Couple of brief observations from me:

* Cover system can be really annoying at times. Not sure if it was like this in the previous game and I've forgotten how to play, but I end up glued to random bits of scenery more often than I'd like

* I forgot about the Paragon/Renegade quick time events things mid-conversation and nearly spilt a cup of tea because of it

* Mordin is ace

* Jack now has better hair

* The walking animation on some characters makes it look they've received a good bumming

* Seeing Reaper craft towering above the cityscape is fantastic

* Thank fuck you don't have to scan every inch of a planet any more

*I actually miss the hacking mini-game

* The Prothean DLC character doesn't seem worth it. Bit of a twat.

I've still got tons more to play (everything is still at 50% in Galactic Readiness), but so far it has been most enjoyable.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by deject »

Roman Totale wrote:I've still got tons more to play (everything is still at 50% in Galactic Readiness), but so far it has been most enjoyable.
You'll need to go beyond the single player game to increase that. Play a few rounds of multiplayer (each lasts 15-20 minutes) and you'll bump that up to 75-80% easily. I max'd mine out in just a few hours.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Dog Pants »

All that stuff about the ending, do you not think that it's because they saved the good ending for the people who play the MP extensively, as has been reported? The idea of getting a maximum 50% anything because I don't want to indulge in some third person action defender game is pretty offputting to me.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Roman Totale »

Hrm, I skimmed over those bits of your review as I didn't want to ruin anything. As Doggers said, rather off putting.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by deject »

Dog Pants wrote:All that stuff about the ending, do you not think that it's because they saved the good ending for the people who play the MP extensively, as has been reported? The idea of getting a maximum 50% anything because I don't want to indulge in some third person action defender game is pretty offputting to me.
Nope. The only difference from the ending I got (I had an effective military strength of about 3800, after the 50%) is literally a 10 second clip of
Spoiler:
Shepard taking a gasp on a rubble pile, implying that he doesn't die if you choose to destroy the Reapers
. It really doesn't matter. If you want a "good" ending you can just do all the side quests and all the scanning (not difficult at all) and skip the multiplayer. Just a warning about the side quest stuff, you're going to want to make sure you do all the side quests possible before doing any main story quests because many of them will disappear, unfinished forever.

The trick with scanning is to let the Reapers take you until you've found the location of everything in the system because there is no penalty to doing so, and the location of stuff doesn't change so you can find everything, let the Reapers catch you, and then go back and avoid any unnecessary scanning as there can be times where getting an item with the Reapers after you is really tricky. It's really not hard at all to 100% everything, and if you care about getting a "good" ending it's an easy choice to make.
Roman Totale wrote:Hrm, I skimmed over those bits of your review as I didn't want to ruin anything. As Doggers said, rather off putting.
I should clarify, having your Galactic Readiness at 50% won't prevent you from getting a "good" ending at all. If you don't want to touch it, then by all means avoid it. That said, I enjoyed the multiplayer quite a bit.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by mrbobbins »

Hmm, must finish ME1, and start ME2, then think about ME3.

I'll just do a little bit more in Skyrim first...
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Mr. Johnson »

I just finished it, and I share the same idea as you have. I figured the ending would be something like this, and it bothers me because I don't know if my choice was the right one, or if there even is one at all. And
Spoiler:
killing off characters like Thane and Mordin
was expected but downright heart wrenching, as I doubt there have ever been characters I cared about more in a game then the ones in the mass effect series.
My verdict at the moment would be that ME2 is still my favourite of the series as I felt that every decision I made had the outcome I expected, getting your team through to the end was just epic and satisfying on a scale I hadn't experienced in a game before, and in this game it felt like all my hard work and sacrifices were ultimately in vain. And what's with
Spoiler:
the PDA message at the end? Why don't i get a cool picture like in ME1?
deject wrote:Also, FUCK BANSHEES.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by deject »

Here's what I would do to improve the ending:
Spoiler:
Completely remove the section on the outside of the Crucible with the child avatar for the Catalyst. Move that whole scene to the control room with Anderson and the Illusive Man. The Catalyst can appear and become a part of the scene and make it far more climactic. Having those three characters there in the control room would allow them to be representations of the three choices available to you. Anderson would represent the destruction of the Reapers and the consequences of doing so, the Illusive Man would represent control, either directly, or allowing him to do so, and the Catalyst would represent Synthesis. Tying the Catalyst and Synthesis together more closely would make using the child's appearance more acceptable as well, since Synthesis would be a new for of life.

By moving the choice of Destruction/Control/Synthesis into that control room scene, it would also make the choice itself seem to be of an organic outcome of the choices you've gone through before. Having the scene be more than navigating a dialog tree to eliminate the Illusive Man gives it more meaning. The player would have the choice to decide the fate of the galaxy with (up to, depending on how well you did throughout the game) three competing ideas represented by three characters. It would give the choice at the ending more meaning and more context. As is, the ending seems too detached from everything else that has happened up to that point. My idea would make it a more integral part of the game.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by FatherJack »

I don't like it when stuff ends, not stuff I like. I have countless games and recorded TV series where I'm just before the last bit so I can say I am still playing/watching them and they haven't finished.

So Mass Effect 3 is a bit of a wrench for me. Do I get it and draw a line under the series, or just keep replaying the first two, creating situations where I can play the third title from numerous starting points?

Sadly, from what's been said about the ending - that it feels bolted on and depends mostly on stuff you do in third game, is enormously offputting. I didn't think to sex anyone in the first game, but with my desk disappointingly devoid of any picture of my No.1 Cutie in the second one I sexed anything that wasn't quick enough to get out of the way. I would like to think (and did think throughout the first two games) that those decisions (plus some other ones about the galactic strife and who lived/died, but weren't directly related to my sexing) would have had some impact on the ending.

The worst possible is the Deus EX:HR endings, where it's all decided on your final choice (and they weren't even very good choices). It is not made any better by you having to replay an hour or two of the endgame to pick a different one. It should be organic and defined by the thousands of choices you made right from character creation in the first game. If you want a different ending, you should have to play all three games over again. Then, I could finish, yet still be playing it - and it wouldn't end.

Of course, it can't work like that. These aren't expansions, they're standalone games and not everyone has all three. Plus making 3,000 different endings isn't exactly practical, either.

I'm reminded a little of FFVII, and who you got to go on a date with in the Golden Saucer. Aeris was kind of the default, but you could fulfill your real final fantasies by being a bit meaner to her, and get to go out with Tifa. However, if you jumped through a great deal of hoops going right back to the very first conversations you have the game, you could wangle it so your date was Yuffie, or even Barret. I know it was only an inconsequential minigame, but it showed how things could be done.
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by HereComesPete »

Bought and downloaded. Is the multi-player spoilery?
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Joose »

HereComesPete wrote:Bought and downloaded. Is the multi-player spoilery?
Not really. Like deej said, the maps used are all from the single player campaign, but they are generic "scifi base" and "future city" things, so you won't pick up any plot points from them. The most spoilers it gets is the higher end bad guys that spawn. Once you have seen them in action in multiplayer, their big dramatic reveals in single player could lose a bit of thier edge. Again though, I don't think you will pick up anything plot related from that, it'll just elicit a slightly smaller "argh".
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Mr. Johnson »

Spoilers!

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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Joose »

:lol:
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Re: Mass Effect 3

Post by Joose »

Right, well I've finally got around to finishing it off, so here is my thoughts:

Firstly, anyone who is complaining that the ending is too short and/or ignores the choices made through the other two games is a loon. I don't know about the rest of you, but for me the ending of mass effect was not a few minutes of CGI. For me, the ending of mass effect was about 30 hours of gameplay, where all the choices I've made in the last two games have some pretty significant consequences. That's because Mass Effect 3, and not just the last ten minutes of Mass Effect 3, was the ending of Mass Effect. The whole damn thing is a conclusion. That's kinda what the third part of any trilogy is, saying otherwise is a bit like complaining that the last page of a book wasn't bigger.

That being said, I would have preferred it if it was handled a bit more like ME2. In that, if you missed a bit or something up during your game, you directly saw the effect of that in the final mission. For example, if you didn't upgrade the guns, then the guns wont be as effective, and people die as a result (I cant remember if that's exactly correct now, but you get the idea). In this, the stuff you do gets converted into a little text entry in your war effort log and an increase to a number. I would have liked to see a bit more of that kind of stuff.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with it. I can kind of see why people are complaining, because no matter how well you do or what choices you make the endings all have an element of :( . But I like that. I like that some of the choices are not just Good/Bad, and I like the fact that you cant save everyone. I think if the ending was a lighter, "everyone gets home happy, everything is fine and good, Shep gets a ticker tape parade through smiling fans" I would have been rather disappointed. Maybe I'm weird, I dunno.

EDIT: Oh, thisis possibly relevant.
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