Like my review for Mass Effect 2, it's difficult for me to speak in a balanced manner about BioWare's Mass Effect 3 because it's one of my favorite games of all-time.
This game exhibits all the strengths in atmosphere that the prior games do. Its worldbuilding is second-to-none in gaming; this feels like a real galaxy, with real politics, and real culture and history, and it's a pleasure to exist in. The soundtrack—although done by Clint Mansell this time around instead of the typical Jack Wall effort—is phenomenal and does a lot to help shape the atmosphere. And Mass Effect 3's characters—carried over from the prior two games (if they survived)—are some of the most genuine-feeling characters in the medium.
That brings me to my first caveat: Don't play Mass Effect 3 if you haven't played the first two games. You're going to be dropped into a strange situation for which you have zero context. You're not going to know any of the characters or the world, and all of the moments which are meant to be emotionally resonant will fall flat for you because you lack important context provided by the prior two games. With this series perhaps more than any other, it's paramount that you start from the first game and play your way through completely. Doing otherwise will rob you of all the great emotional moments and reveals of the later games in the trilogy because you haven't been properly set up for them, and even if you go back and play the earlier games afterwards, you will still be robbed of the genuine reaction you would have had had you played the games in order.
That brings me to my first caveat: Don't play Mass Effect 3 if you haven't played the first two games. You're going to be dropped into a strange situation for which you have zero context. You're not going to know any of the characters or the world, and all of the moments which are meant to be emotionally resonant will fall flat for you because you lack important context provided by the prior two games. With this series perhaps more than any other, it's paramount that you start from the first game and play your way through completely. Doing otherwise will rob you of all the great emotional moments and reveals of the later games in the trilogy because you haven't been properly set up for them, and even if you go back and play the earlier games afterwards, you will still be robbed of the genuine reaction you would have had had you played the games in order.
Lots of praise is given to the writing of the Mass Effect series, and a lot of it is deserved. However, with Mass Effect 3, I noticed the writing dip into the unevenness for the first time.
Plenty of fuss has been made about the ending not being satisfying, and I mostly agree with that. But I tend to find the "Mass Effect 3 has great writing and a terrible ending" statement to be untrue. There are some really, really great and satisfying arcs in this game, which I can't really mention by name without spoiling the experience for players. But for each one of those, there's an equally dissatisfying, contrived plot point which seems like it has had too much material cut and fails to make sense without the story. For example, at about the midway point of the game, there's a sudden and drastic attack which feels like it has no set-up and lots of holes. And late in the game, a key battle takes place off-screen leading to a sudden and colossal loss, which is barely even commented on by the characters. It has always seemed to me that this battle was meant to be in the game and unfortunately cut due to development concerns.
In addition to these, does anyone like Kai Leng? Anyone!? He's by far the worst, most artificial character in the entire series. He has no backstory, serves little point other than to rile the player with cheesy one-liners. Go away, Kai Leng. Nobody likes you. In addition to this, the Illusive Man loses all the nuance which made him such a fantastic, morally gray character in Mass Effect 2. This poor character turn was extremely disappointing to me.
Those criticisms aside, the two arcs I previously mentioned as being excellent (one in particular, involving synthetic hivemind robots and certain aliens who must wear suits all the time due to their failing immune systems) are a couple of my favorite stories in gaming history. I've been playing games for nearly 35 years, now, and I still tear up at portions of this game because of how strong the emotional impact of the story is, and how much history I've built up with these characters over the past two games.
With Mass Effect 3's writing, you've got to take the good with the bad. Some portions will fall flat—Sure. But the portions that strike you are so damned good that they're enough to elevate this game for me. It may not be as consistently well-written as the first two games, but it's damn close to hitting the same highs. And for me, that's more than enough to suggest this game.
I'd be remiss not to mention the gameplay, too. Mass Effect 3 plays easily the best of the three games in the trilogy. Shepard is granted added mobility, cover finally works well, and friendly AI is hugely improved from Mass Effect 2. It's so much fun to play as a Vanguard, for example, zipping around the map, blasting enemies here and there while creating biotic detonations. Ditto to Engineers, who finally get detonations of their own now, or Adepts, who are detonation machines. Soldiers are the same as always; lots of firepower and hardiness. And those who play Infiltrator can cloak and snipe all they want. It all works phenomenally well and is rather well-balanced.
With Mass Effect 3's writing, you've got to take the good with the bad. Some portions will fall flat—Sure. But the portions that strike you are so damned good that they're enough to elevate this game for me. It may not be as consistently well-written as the first two games, but it's damn close to hitting the same highs. And for me, that's more than enough to suggest this game.
I'd be remiss not to mention the gameplay, too. Mass Effect 3 plays easily the best of the three games in the trilogy. Shepard is granted added mobility, cover finally works well, and friendly AI is hugely improved from Mass Effect 2. It's so much fun to play as a Vanguard, for example, zipping around the map, blasting enemies here and there while creating biotic detonations. Ditto to Engineers, who finally get detonations of their own now, or Adepts, who are detonation machines. Soldiers are the same as always; lots of firepower and hardiness. And those who play Infiltrator can cloak and snipe all they want. It all works phenomenally well and is rather well-balanced.
In addition to this, Mass Effect 3 has the best set-pieces in series history. The scale is much larger here (for obvious reasons, if you know what occurs in the plot), but the actual enemy engagements are more varied than in previous games. Some of the situations which you are put into make you feel the moment so much more: Engaging in combat on a fallen planet with an orbital cannon firing and shaking the entire screen, deafening you. Or making a mad dash back and forth and trying not to get blasted by a giant laser cannon as an enormous enemy bears down on you. How about spacewalking, in vacuum, down a tube which is falling apart as a space battle rages on just outside. Mix in the fantastic combat with moments such as these and you find yourself fully immersed in an epic space opera like no other game has ever managed before. It's fantastic, even playing this stuff 8 years later. If you like space opera, the stuff in this game will blow your hair back, guaranteed.
There's so much variance with how to play this game. The plot changes due to all of the past decisions incorporated into it, your chosen character class will strongly affect how combat flows and which companions you use, even your Shepard's chosen gender will change things up. This kind of variance has led to me putting hundreds of hours into this game (500+ on console, 250+ on Origin, and now, Steam), replaying the campaign endlessly just because I enjoy the combat and its strongly affecting plot moments so much. I've never played and replayed a single player game like this before and I don't really expect to with any other game ever again. And, man, I don't even have enough space to talk about the multiplayer! It's great! I expected it to be tacked-on crap when I first picked this game up in 2012, but it's actually quite good. Give it a whirl if you get a chance!
Basically: If you've played the first two games, you've got to play this one. If you haven't, pick up Mass Effect and enjoy the ride. Maybe this trilogy will become your favorite gaming experience, as it has been for me over the past decade. And make sure you play this game with all DLC included. There are some really, really important lore reveals packed in with the DLC that should not be missed!
There's so much variance with how to play this game. The plot changes due to all of the past decisions incorporated into it, your chosen character class will strongly affect how combat flows and which companions you use, even your Shepard's chosen gender will change things up. This kind of variance has led to me putting hundreds of hours into this game (500+ on console, 250+ on Origin, and now, Steam), replaying the campaign endlessly just because I enjoy the combat and its strongly affecting plot moments so much. I've never played and replayed a single player game like this before and I don't really expect to with any other game ever again. And, man, I don't even have enough space to talk about the multiplayer! It's great! I expected it to be tacked-on crap when I first picked this game up in 2012, but it's actually quite good. Give it a whirl if you get a chance!
Basically: If you've played the first two games, you've got to play this one. If you haven't, pick up Mass Effect and enjoy the ride. Maybe this trilogy will become your favorite gaming experience, as it has been for me over the past decade. And make sure you play this game with all DLC included. There are some really, really important lore reveals packed in with the DLC that should not be missed!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
No comments:
Post a Comment