Mass Effect 3 (2012)

Finished Mass Effect 3. Great game, including it's ending. Maybe some people didn't enjoy because none of the ending matched their Shepard personalities, but the one I chose sure did. Full of great moments, and despite having to buy the DLC to get the full game, I think it was worth it. Really glad I played this amazing series, one of my favourite franchises of all time.

ME3 might give the audience un-satisfaction with its downright awful ending that basically shows little to no information as to what happened next. I mean what's up with the random catalyst boy right? I am a huge fan of Bioware and I don't think that they are to blame for this. EA rushed them too much that they fail to deliver a promising ending. However I can say that I was extremely frustrated by the way they treat some of their characters (nudge nudge Thane). This made absolutely no sense for the Thanemancers in ME2 as he was just saying about how he wants to live. Now he wants to die? Great. Aside from that I think it's a great game. The choices you have to make, people's life and death are in your hand and you are forced to question your morality and in some cases perhaps abandon them for that better, more logical choice. The combat is great, banter is great. I still would recommend this to my friends.

Oh my god. I am stuck at my fight with Kai Leng. I have tried perhaps over 50 times and I suck. And so I can't advance forward. No tips or tricks can help me, I tried them all. And so yes I reiterate: I suck. So this will be dust for a while, unless someone can tell me a sure-fire way to get me over this!

This serves as my review to the whole Mass Effect series, with focus on the third installment. It contains mild spoilers.

Mass Effect is a colossal undertaking in the world of CRPGs spanning 3 games of the period of 5 years. Assuming the role of Commander Shepard, the player sets on the quest to save the galaxy from the Reapers, synthetic life-form that invades the galaxy every 50 000 years to wipe out all advanced civilizations.

Mass Effect 3 is the last installment in the series, detailing the conflict between galactic civilizations and the Reapers and concluding the storylines that began in the first and the second game.

The best: Hands down, the best part of the series and in particular in ME 3 are all the characters you get to interact with. When I have ended the game, I had the feeling that I've ended a friendship with so many different people, all of whom had different, memorable and developing personalities, as well as abundant story-lines. The game makes you care about those commander Shepard meets on his quest. This video is an excellent flashback to most the characters you met in the series (spoiler alert):

http://youtu.be/pNxTlsWLIH0

The music through all the series and especially in ME 3 is outstanding and it serves well to enhance the atmosphere of the setting. Though ambient sounds of space exploration, to intense combat situations the music did deliver excellent experience.

The good: Through Mass Effect series in general Bioware has managed to create a unique thoroughly designed and though-out universe. When playing the first game I couldn't believe that the setting has been created from scratch. All the pieces, from different races, organisations and locations to weapons and specific characters are very well-outlined and explained, either though in-game interactions or the massive in-game codex that provides further detail in even the smallest aspects of ME universe.

The no-so-good: While certainly challenging at higher difficulties, the enemies of Mass Effect 3 do lack in variety. There are only three types of enemies in single-player campaign: the Reaper forces, Cerberus and the Geth, with later making rather small appearance in some two missions of the game. For the most part of the game you fight the same enemies over and over again, which gets old rather quickly, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics. Mass Effect 2 had a proper variety - while similar in gameplay, many enemies had different aesthetics, ranging from mercenary groops, to stranded colonists.

Adding to that you have quite an extensive weapons arsenal, that, while bringing variety, seems cumbersome to master. Once again, in my opinion, Mass Effect 2 has handled it better, with decent, yet not-over-board variety of weapons.

The bad: Though it has been stated many times all over: the endings. Certainly, all three (four) endings are very logical and it's hard to think of different conclusion to the conflict with the Reapers, but, while Extended Cut DLC alleviate this somewhat, I couldn't help but feel cheated by the lack of how your choices of the previous games had little to no impact on the actual ending (Before you ask, no War Readiness rating shown as numbers isn't good enough).

The undefeatability of the Reapers. You don't see a single capital-class Reaper die conventionally until the battle for Earth cinematic (or Leviathan DLC). I get that it was done to emphasize on the importance of creating the big bad superweapon to defeat all the Repears in one stroke, it wouldn't hurt to show that the galaxy was actually fighting back and did manage to kill at least some of the capital-class reapers in process (a feat which, while extremely difficult, is not impossible).

The ugly:

Seeing Shepard dance at all occasions :)

All in all this is an excellent trilogy and I recommend that you play it regardless of your preferences.

First off I would like to say I played through this on the Wii U and the off-screen play made it so much better. Not having to stop playing when my wife wanted the tv was awesome.

Anyway, on to a bit about the game. As far as I am concerned it was the best in the series. The rpg mechanics were a great step up from ME2 and the choices were the heaviest and most influential of the trilogy. I did not have the issues with the ending that everyone else did, but it seems to me that in comparison to the fate of the entire galaxy, the decisions you make throughout the series are fairly minor. In this sense, why would these choices play any key role in what exactly happens in the end?

Regardless, this game was a fantastic blend of shooting and rpg. It was a great trilogy in general, but this was definitely it's crowning achievement.