Mass Effect 3

We've come a long way since 2007 when the original Mass Effect was released, and Commander Shepard et al. have had quite the ride along the way. From saving the galaxy from Sovereign in the first game to defeating the Collectors in the second, Mass Effect 3 finds our stalwart commander ... in prison? What kind of opening scene is that? Oh, right. I guess he did work with a known terrorist group and—spoiler warning if you haven't played ME2 DLC "Arrival"—destroy a mass relay in batarian space and wipe out that entire solar system. I guess it's not that big of a surprise that the Alliance brass stripped him of his command and tossed him in the brig. But when the Reapers do finally arrive and start harvesting Earth, who do you think the Powers That Be expect to save them? Funny how life turns out, huh?



Some of you may have already read my reviews of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 from FragTheNoob, so you know that I generally take a favorable view on Bioware's games, and this is honestly no exception. I don't want to get too deep into story issues here, partly because I want to avoid spoilers, partly because of the controversy about the game's ending, and partly because I plan on writing a huge post about my opinions on the ending sometime soon. :) So I'm going to focus this post on the mechanics of the game—how well it plays—and just give a general overview of the story.

To start, I should tell you that this game is a direct, direct sequel to Mass Effect 2, meaning that the character you start the game with is the same one that you ended the last game with, with skill points and level preserved (as closely as possible, given the new skill allocations). There's no ability reboot like in the first transition. (There is a workaround if you want to spend all your points at the beginning of ME3: Before you make your final ME2 save—the one you're going to import into ME3—use the Retrain Powers research option and then save before spending any of your skill points. Just make sure you increase your skills right at the start of ME3. I forgot to do that on my playthrough, and I was really confused why Shepard was suddenly so terrible at killing things.) Even though you're not given the option of allocating skill points at the beginning of the game, this particular system hasn't seen much of a reworking. Some powers like Lift have been moved to grenade form rather than a cooldown-based power, and the progression trees have a few added branches. Other than that, you'll still be paying 1 skill point for level one, 2 for level two, and so on.

One area that was given a massive (and awesome) revamp was the weapon system. In the first game, any character class could use any weapon, but could only put skill points into certain ones, making your character better able to use them. The second game took out the skill requirements but limited each character class to only a few of the available weapons, with an additional weapon available via a special option during a certain mission. ME3 gives us back the "everyone can use every weapon" concept but also keeps the weapons training out of the equation. What they've done for this game is to give each weapon a weight, with your total weapon weight affecting how long your powers take to cool down. There are also some restrictions about which weapons you can carry at one time, but the weight factor is what really determines how much gear you want to pack around. My first playthrough of ME3 was as a Sentinel, so I was very dependent on my powers to deal damage. Because of this, I chose to run with either a sub-machine gun or an assault rifle with a pistol on my belt as a backup. And with the weapon upgrades and mods further reducing weapon weight, it wasn't uncommon for my powers to have a drastically reduced cooldown period. I found this system to be very useful, bringing back some of the customization of the first title while trimming some of the fat from the concept as well.

And while we're on the topic of equipment, the armor system from ME2 remains intact in the new game, with a much larger variety of components to include. There are still a few full armor sets floating around (Collector, Blood Dragon, Terminus, etc.), but I really enjoyed being able to mix and match the various armor pieces to get the specific bonuses I wanted. (And also so I could see Shepard's face during dialogue scenes. The full armor sets bug me because they always have the helmet displayed, which makes it really weird when Shepard talks to anyone.) I really felt that customization was one of the highlights of this game, and I'm glad to see the improvements Bioware made to the system.

The visuals of the game are fairly similar to Mass Effect 2's, but they've been upgraded a bit. This was unfortunate for my computer sometimes, since all the particle and lighting effects flying around the screen dropped my frame rates every now and again. But on the whole, the character models and environments were beautifully detailed and textured, and the new areas I was able to explore were a welcome addition to the Mass Effect universe. I did have issues with some of the characters' heads, though. There were times during cutscenes when some of the models would pull an Exorcist-like neck twist to keep their faces focused on the person they were talking to. It wasn't a game-breaking issue, but it looked absolutely ridiculous when it happened.

Another welcome addition to this entry in the series was the inclusion of multiplayer. At several instances in the single-player campaign, you'll come across areas that you can liberate from Reaper (or other enemy) control. When you do that, your Alliance Military commander will mention that he'll send some teams in to make sure those areas remain free from hostile influence. And that's what you do during the multiplayer portion of the game: you're put on a squad with three other players and must defeat ten waves of enemies, sometimes being given supplemental objectives during each round. You can choose from among the six different character classes, and there are even options to play as a member of the different races. One thing I thought was interesting was that every race/class combination has different abilities. For instance, a human engineer will have access to a combat drone, Incinerate, and Overload, but a quarian engineer can use Incinerate, Cryo Blast, and have a sentry turret out. Characters gain experience points as you play them, and when you level up, you're given skill points to use in making your abilities more powerful. One nice touch is that you level classes rather than characters, so you won't have to worry about your vorcha sentinel lagging behind your turian one. You also receive credits for your performance during missions, and you can use these credits (or Bioware points bought with real money) to unlock new weapons, characters, and equipment for use in multiplayer. The unlocking process is slow, however, relying on random drops from equipment packs to give you access to different options. This is the biggest criticism I can level at this portion of the game. While I understand that they couldn't have people paying credits directly to unlock the weapons, it would have been nice to start out with more possibilities or to receive unlock tokens more frequently.

Even with its problems, I've had a lot of fun in the multiplayer, and I enjoy the interaction it has with the main campaign mode. Beyond being mentioned by Admiral Hacket in dialogue scenes, playing in multiplayer mode also affects your readiness rating, a percentage modifier that helps determine how effective fleet you assemble will be against the Reapers. Your military strength is determined by the war assets you're able to gather throughout the single-player campaign, and as this number increases, you unlock progressively better endings for the game. Don't fret if you don't like multiplayer, though. You don't have to participate in that facet of the game to get the best ending; it just makes it easier to achieve the requisite military strength rating.

I won't be able to get through this post without mentioning the writing, so I'll just put a little bit here at the end. Overall, I found the game to be very well written. I enjoyed the dialogue and the interaction between Shepard and the other characters. There were quite a few instances where I found myself grinning like an idiot or honestly laughing out loud at the clever lines they were spouting. And yes, I was disappointed with my first ending choice, too, but I have reason to hope that the ending so many people appear to hate isn't what it seems. (More on that later.)

So, bottom line: Am I glad I bought and played through this game? Absolutely. Were there things that I wish would have been done differently? Of course. Do I think that Bioware ruined one of my favorite game franchises? Absolutely not. I'll take a step back from the "I'm a Bioware fanboy!" statement in my Mass Effect 2 review. Instead, I'll say that I'm just a fan, one who's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt regarding the controversial conclusion to this game. Long live the Shepard.