Mass Effect 3

Available on: Xbox 360, PS3, and PC
Played it on: Xbox 360 (full trilogy import, ME -> ME2 -> ME3)
Approximate Playtime: 70 hours

RATING: 8.5/10

Commander Shepard runs toward the end of his life. The laser at the end of his run will kill him, this he knows. But it will also save everyone he loves, and because of his sacrifice, the galaxy will live on, civilizations will be built, people will thrive, and he will be remembered.

And while this happens, the player thinks, "Well that could have been a little better."

And here in lies the problem with Mass Effect 3. It's only mostly great, not one of the greatest games of all time, like it should have been, and strived to be. No matter how good it is, there's the very nagging sense that it could have been just a little better. And it's a difficult game to review, as well, because it doesn't have just a single glaring problem, like bad combat or bad writing or loose controls, there's a little bit wrong with everything.

So, to start, the writing. The over-arching story tells a very powerful tale of Commander Shepard's last mission. And in the end, it did make me cry, which is something that can be extremely hard for a game to do. The characters seemed like real people, and the Mass Effect universe is still very much alive in this third installment. It doesn't quite have the same problem as Mass Effect 2 did in shrinking the universe, as there are tons of different locations to visit. However, at the same time, there are many points in the game where the entire thing feels directionless. In Mass Effect, the object of the game is to find and kill Saren Arterius. No matter what Shepard did, there was still definite pressure to continue the main story. In Mass Effect 2, there was a more limited narrative, but the mission to get revenge on the Collectors was definite, looming, and always a part of the game. Everything Shepard did in the first two games was to get closer to his objective, and everything felt purposeful and necessary. In ME3, however, this is lost. There are countless missions that just turn Shepard into an errand boy, and have nothing to do with destroying the Reapers. In fact, the entire first half of the game feels mostly like stalling, and there is a huge section between dealing with the Krogan Genophage and finding Tali'Zorah vas Normandy again where none of the side missions even really seem to matter. Fly around in space and grab a statue from a random planet, grab some wiring for a Turian engineer, it feels like the developers just wanted to slow down the game for the sake of more play time. It just doesn't matter. Maybe if these missions had been memorable in some way, they would have been better, but they aren't, so why are they even in the game? It's not a good idea to start out with the horrifying scene of leaving Earth, and then have Shepard run interstellar errands.

The combat is very up to date, very modern, and also very generic. Sure, the varied and powerful weaponry Shepard can find out on missions is great, but... dare I say the combat felt like Gears of War 3. It's very gun based until later on when the powers actually got useful. I used Liara T'Soni's singularity power constantly, as well as Infiltrator Shepard's cloaking, but otherwise none of the other powers were very combat changing. Even Garrus Vakarian's Overload, which was incredibly useful in the last game with all the Geth Heretics, is practically useless now. There's a whole one mission when Geth show up. The entire game is spent fighting the annoying Reaper enemies, which aren't that challenging until indoctrinated Asari, called Banshees, show up, or fighting Cerberus, which are just glorified foot soldiers that are barely better at combat than the usual civilian. Pull out a sniper rifle, and they drop like flies. When playing on Normal difficulty, at the end of the game I was able to kill the toughest Cerberus enemy, the Atlas combat suit, in just two shots. Count 'em, two. It was pathetic. Why must I ramp up the difficulty for better combat, BioWare? Shouldn't that difficulty curve be a part of the game anyway? My, my...

Character design is overall great in ME3, and for many characters, because Shepard already knows them, it's easy to get more in depth with them and flesh out who they really are. This is fantastic for characters like Garrus, who really start to reveal who they are at heart, and all their weaknesses and fears to Shepard, especially later. But is it too much to ask for more relationship dialog? For example, the Shepard that I imported into this game romanced with Liara T'Soni for all three games. Mass Effect 3 should have been a wonderful point to have great, deep, meaningful conversations with her between missions, on the Citadel, etc. But no. The dialog is fantastic early on when Liara comes aboard after Shepard rescues her from Mars, but it doesn't stay that way. Liara and Shepard start talking less and less as the game moves forward, and eventually, after Shepard commits to the relationship (which, hint, hint, should have been a great point for insightful and romantic conversation) Liara has a great line when Shepard says that he wants to be with her. And then they don't speak again AT ALL until just before the final mission when Liara spends the night in Shepard's cabin. What? Seriously? Shepard essentially says that he wants to spend the rest of his life with this person, and then they just stop talking? It's so lack luster! For all of the great characters and possibilities, BioWare really screwed up there.

However, with all of these problems, there's still a lot that's really great about this game. The multiplayer, for example. It's accessible, it's very fun, and BioWare found a way to integrate it into the campaign without making it completely necessary. Multiplayer is comprised of a cooperative team of one to four people (though playing alone is literally impossible) fighting against different enemies around the galaxy. It's fun, it's very quick and easy, and at the same time, it's addictive. Especially with all the free DLC updates that add new maps, characters, and guns. Plus, the more Multiplayer matches a person plays, the higher "Galaxy at War Rating" Shepard will have in the campaign. It gives a sense of immediacy to the multiplayer that other shooter games lack. The graphics are beautiful even on console, and they're especially wonderful on PC. This doesn't make or break a game, but it does add to the experience significantly. The voice acting is off the charts good. It's real, the characters are real, it's emotional, it's alive, and it's wonderful. This series would not have been half of what it is if the voice acting was different. And lastly, while I must say that I didn't play the original endings, the extended cut endings are awe inspiring. They are a microcosm of what Mass Effect has stood for all these years. They make the game worth it.

Does this game have problems? Yes. Many. But that shouldn't deter you from playing and loving it. Rumor has it that there will be some kind of Mass Effect 4, but this game was the end of a fantastic trilogy that I'm proud to have been a part of. Don't just buy this, buy all three games because the first two make the third so worth it. It's not perfect, but it's very solid.