Video Game Review: Mass Effect 3

Video Game Review: Mass Effect 3 by Eric Deters Published: March 23, 2012

The end has come. The Reapers have arrived en masse, and the cycle must begin anew. For fans of Biowares epic science fiction trilogy Mass Effect, the day the final installment in the trilogy was released was among the moments that they had anticipated from the very beginning. The series had been billed as a roleplaying experience where every choice the player made throughout each of the nearly 30-hour long games would carry significant weight in the final outcome of their story, as well as have incredible influence on various minor encounters throughout. Along with that hefty promise, the developers intended to improve on the third-person cover-based combat, making it even more visceral and smooth than in the second game, and put it to further use in a multiplayer mode reminiscent of the Horde mode in the Gears of War franchise. Thats obviously a whole lot to live up to, and considering the unimaginably lofty expectations that fans have for this sweeping conclusion to what has so far been a transcendent roleplaying experience, its pretty impressive that Bioware managed to meet the majority of their promises. That minority, however, does consist of some fairly important issues that really should have been addressed.

Following the end of the previous game in the series (as well as its final DLC pack, Arrival, which you should play to understand its impact on the introduction of the game, if not for the fact that its quite good), Mass Effect 3 sees Commander Shepard attempting to bring together the multitude of races in the galaxy to finally wipe out the Reapers, the race of sentient machines carrying out a cosmic cycle of development and destruction (hence why some fans choose to call them Mecha-Cthulhus) that have just invaded Earth by the beginning of the game. By the time the game begins, Shepard has managed to kill ONE of these monstrosities, and they invade Earth with a force clearly in the hundreds if not thousands. This kind of magnitude serves to emphasize the hopeless situation the galaxy is in; destroying a single Reaper takes entire fleets, and with the various races being as divided by petty conflicts as they are, getting enough firepower to take down a single Reaper is a serious challenge. However, the galaxy is given a chance thanks to blueprints for a Prothean super-weapon found on Mars (in the archives where humans first discovered Prothean technology) known as the Crucible, which is said to be the only way to truly defeat the Reapers once their invasion has begun. There are many other minor plot arcs that make up Shepards quest to win the war, such as resolving the Turian/Krogan/Salarian conflict, getting the Asari to join your cause, dealing with the Quarians and the Geth, and way too much concerning Cerberus, but they all feed in to the main arc of putting together the Crucible and uniting the galaxy to defeat the Reapers.

Among the my favorite elements of Mass Effect 3 is the way it weaves the myriad threads of the prior games by reacquainting you with former allies (for me, at least; some saw this string of coincidences to be a bit unrealistic). As you would expect, every party member from the first game, save the one you sacrificed on Virmire near the games conclusion, will make a rather major reappearance in this game; Garrus joins your party for the third time, making him the only character to do so in every game, Liara applies her knowledge of the Protheans to aid in the completion of the Crucible, and Wrex (if you didnt kill him on Virmire, and if you did, shame on you) is the galactic ambassador for the Krogans. Its like a big reunion of some of the best characters in games, period, and everyone feels important in regards to the plot. Well, with the exception of James Vega, that is (aside from a controversial DLC character, but well get to him later). Vega is the only new party member in the game (the character that makes me hesitant to say that would constitute a pretty big spoiler, along with one of my favorite moments in the game), and hes the typical meat-headed war buddy character common in more action-oriented games like Call of Duty or Battlefield. The thing is, hes not really filling a role that was left open after the other two games and he simply doesnt fit in this universe. His gimmick of calling Shepard Loco (which, if youre a Renegade or simply not in the mood, you can shoot down completely) is only slightly endearing, and he doesnt have the relevance to the plot that our buddy Garrus, who Id call the only one that comes close to his archetype, has in spades. Hes also not given enough depth to make him a worthwhile addition, and considering the fact that the game takes the squad size back down to the originals size of 6 (considering you have the aforementioned DLC, which were still not talking about yet) means that there are no truly great additions to the main cast, unlike in the prior games, where EVERY new character stood out in some way.

Okay, time to talk about From Ashes, the day one DLC containing a new ally and a single mission. This all costs $10, which means that it is WAY over priced (I got it through the Collectors Edition, so thats why I actually have it). The catch is that the ally you get is a Prothean. For non-fans, this means nothing, but for fans, this knowledge is astounding. This is the race whose technology gave humans the capability to travel through space and find the Citadel, and they were all supposedly wiped out by the Reapers. You may be starting to understand why this is a point of controversy among fans. The fact of the matter is that the Prothean companion, named Javik, should be in the game, and not because of the reason that fans pointed out (with EA and Bioware trying to get as much money out of fans as possible). He provides an incredible amount of insight regarding the conflict and various characters on the ship that feels vital to understanding the story as a whole. His position as a character you have to pay $10 for and play through a boring mission with a pretty boring adversary sours this deal a whole lot, and thats what makes this easy to say; you should have Javik in your party, but you shouldnt have to pay for him. Paradoxes are usually fun, but this one is just annoying.

I do have some minor problems with the story that were easy to get over in the long run. Cerberus, your employer from the second game, has a HUGE role to play in this game, and I dont like it, personally. It takes away from the main conflict with the world-ending Reapers (who have far more interesting combat units), even more so than doing odd jobs for the different races to bring them into your cause. In the first game, Cerberus is something you hear more about than you actually encounter. Theyre talked up as terrorists and war criminals, generally people you dont want to mess with. Then, in the second game, when they bring Shepard back to life, he has no choice but to work with them, though their methods dont seem as brutal or gratuitous as the various news stations made them out to be in the first game. The Illusive Man does put man lives at risk through his attempts to gather information on the Collectors, but it all made sense in the end; his ideas were logical and you could see that he had a clear, noble goal in mind. In this game, however, Cerberus is seemingly everywhere just to be a pain in your ass. Given the ending, it makes a tad bit more sense, but the Illusive Man and his right hand man Kai Leng show up at the worst moments doing things that wouldve been downright insane considering their mindset in the second game. Another enemy that I felt took the focus away from the Reapers was the Geth. I get the idea now that these factions were thrown against Shepard because everything WOULD go wrong in these circumstances and there needed to be some variety, but seriously, weve had enough of the Geth. They were amazing enemies in the first game, since they had an interesting backstory and were incredibly menacing due to their ruthlessness. But in the second game, Shepard meets Legion, a Geth that sees himself as against the heretics (this is getting into spoiler territory for Mass Effect 2, but seriously, if you havent played it, something is wrong with you for reading this review), or Geth that follow the Old Machines (the Reapers). Then, through his loyalty mission (which, by the way, are completely removed in Mass Effect 3, much to my chagrin), Shepard and Legion either a) destroy the heretic splinter group or b) rewrite them, effectively brainwashing them to follow Shepard. This is probably the best moral choice in the entire series, but thats beside the point. In Mass Effect 3, your decision didnt accomplish jack and the Quarians have instigated war on the Geth to reclaim their home planet, which results in the Geth rejoining the Old Machines (except for Legion, because hes cool like that). In a game about choice and consequence, this entire segment shouldve been removed. Shepard already solved their conflicts; it hadnt gotten the Quarian homeworld back to the people, but it was close enough. Whyd they have to screw the pooch and give Shepard more problems to solve?

For my last point on the story (I know this review is getting long, but gosh do I love talking about this game), theres the ending. I cant say much about it, but I will say that it does feel like Bioware has kind of cheated us players in some way. The development team promised a huge number of variables figuring into the very end of your game, resulting in a multitude of endings with vastly different outcomes. In the end, thats not the case at all. Your choice at the end is between (as some forum users so elegantly put it) three different colors and the effectiveness of your choice is determined by doing a lot of sidequests in this game only. Sure, factors from the first two games play a part in the story as a whole for this game (which, like I dont believe Ive truly stated yet, is fantastic for the most part), but in the very final cutscene that brings about the total conclusion of this trilogy, none of it really affects the outcome. Not to mention the fact that no real resolution is given to players, especially not for the fate of the galaxy following that devastating war or how it affected your team members or other people you met in your journeys. That is, however, only one of the ways to read that ending.

The other way involves something called the Indoctrination Theory (I wont include a link here, but look it up if youve finished the game), which, if true, is among the most mind-blowingly meta things Ive ever experienced. However, even if it is true, the idea of resolution is missing. So, no matter how you look at it, whether optimistically or pessimistically, Bioware has shipped something of an unfinished story, and thats a shame.

I think its finally time to talk about the gameplay. I mentioned earlier that the gunplay had been made much smoother and quicker, which I believe makes for a far more enjoyable game to play, even from the vastly improved Mass Effect 2. Abilities have been added, such as Nova for the Vanguard (only class I played for the most part), which combines wonderfully with their Biotic Charge ability. These kinds of additions directly improve the flow of combat regarding each class unique abilities, and propagate the brutal, visceral nature of the games new combat system. The biggest addition comes with the weapon system, wherein any class can now use any weapon with efficiency. The weapons can also be modded with different damage, accuracy, or capacity upgrades. However, Shepard cannot wield all of the heaviest weapons he wants if he also wants to make the fullest use of his biotic and tech abilities. As you equip Shepard with weapons, his ability recharge percentage will go down, all the way to -200%. This reconciliation between armed combat and ability-based combat helps players craft their own experience to a great degree, and it allows for some excellent specialization. The designers sought to bring the impactful and exciting combat experience and the roleplaying roots of their science fiction franchise into harmony with one another, and theyve done it wonderfully in my opinion. The new multiplayer mode takes this improved combat experience and takes away much of the story and context in each situation, for better or for worse. It distills that side of the game for those who want it, along with the choice-based level up function (which takes the final stage of the abilities from Mass Effect 2 where you were given two radically different advances and implements them three times for each ability) and weapon system translate well to the challenge of a Horde mode in this series, and in the end, it wasnt a bad addition.

After the first level of Mass Effect 3, I was ready to say that the aesthetic representation hadnt improved much from the second game in the series. While the lighting and cinematic scale were astounding, the facial animation, which is one of the staples of the series and is paramount to selling the believability of the alien races that Shepard interacts with, was just off. However, as the game went on, I stopped noticing anything wrong with that (other than Jessica Chobots role in the game as Diana Allers, a newscaster that tries to get a room on the lower deck of the Normandy and the new Ashley Williams. Seriously, theyre hard to look at) and was simply more blown away with the amazing vistas of destruction and magnitude throughout the main story missions. The incredible score by Jack Wall has also returned, and alums of the original game Faunts have returned to compose this games final credits song, and its just as cool as their previous efforts. I shouldnt even have to mention it, but the voice acting in this game is the industry standard, with a number of both skilled specialists in this field as well as celebrity cameos (including Martin Sheen, Tricia Helfer, Keith David, Steve Blum, and Seth Green).

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Video Game Review: Mass Effect 3