Where should I begin? Yeah right: What the bloody hell was that? Are they serious? I swear I thought at the end of the game, that this was some bad joke or another of Shepard's dreams, and the real ending is only now coming.
One thing is sure, I'll never forget how Joker emerges at the end from the Normandy almost hand in hand with Javik, If I wanted to do a parody of Mass Effect I would've thought up that sequence myself.
But let's start at the beginning, because there were other disappointing things in the game as well.
A few weeks before the release of the game one of the people on the writing team said in an interview that he doesn't like video games. And at that time I was the fool defending it, saying that a writer doesn't need to like games to do a good job. But it was a mistake to defend them. During the playtrough I felt more than once that their intention was to make me hate the game. I believe if someone never played a video game in his/her life, then starting with this game can deter them from ever wanting to play another game again. And before I get accused of speaking strictly out of hate, I will elaborate on the aspects of the game that fuel this thought.
It started just fine, I'm not a fan of time warp, when the story jumps in time between sequels, but here we didn't miss much, not much has happened since the end of ME2. The only thing worth mentioning, is that your really need to have played both The Arrival and the Lair of the Shadow Broker, because the events in those have a crucial role in setting up the set for the beginning of ME3. At the beginning of the game I didn't feel any negatives, the game just kept throwing new missions at me, I could barely come up for air. But sadly it was all an illusion, I soon found out that all the side assignments are trivial, they almost solve themselves. Almost all is solved by picking up an object or using a computer, which I would do anyway regardless of having an assignment for it.
But the aspect of the game that made me hate it most of the time is the action. The game doesn't present healthy challenges, but tries to annoy you at every corner, by forcing you to use a specific strategy. You can't solve problems in more than one way, you can't even use your favourite strategy in firefights. I think an RPG should be about using your favourite tactics, and tailoring your character to suit that tactic as well. No you can't do that here, because enemies are designed to be annoying. There is one specific enemy that is invulnerable by conventional attacks, and it's not even a boss, just a footsoldier. To become completely immune to weapons fire just by holding a steel plate in front of you is just stupid. And many of the opponents are too durable. The combat simply seizes to be fun when the enemies need 625 bullets to die. The hero Shepard dies in 3-4 hits, while the enemy grunts take hits like one-man armies. I don't know maybe someone likes it if there is a bossfight like battle at every corner, but I'm not one of them. And like this was not enough, most enemies are lethal if they get close to you. This means that Vanguard style warfare is already pointless in the game most of the time, because you have to keep your distance from enemies. And it's only my luck, that I just happened to start the game for the first time with a you guessed, a vanguard. Ant it's not like I'm a casual gamer, I finished the previous two games on insanity more than once.
The most annoying thing in the game is that at specific plot points you're destined to fail No matter how well you fight. This should be the biggest selling point of such a game, that things really depend on you, and not just on a pre-written storyline. I hate that I have to cite DeusEx as an example again. In that there are epic fights, were you're destined to fail, but you CAN win them regardless. And if you do, then you get very satisfying rewards, without much change in the storyline. But it means that your efforts are not in vain, because you CAN win. Here if the writers thought you can't win, then you can't win, period. It would've been a huge positive in the game, if for example you could've defeated Kai Leng on Thessia. But no you fail no matter what you do, and how well you fight. This just makes me mad. In DeusEx there are numerous occurrences where you have multiple opportunities to kill off someone. And if you get them early, it means one of your later missions will be much easier. It's a huge thing, and really makes you feel part of the story, rather than a tool in it. Or a fool in this case.
I know that there were multi-purpose action buttons in ME2 as well, but it was never annoying. In ME3, half of the time I died because Shepard took cover when I wanted to run, or rolled when I wanted to take cover. It's annoying even out of combat, It happens so many times, that you want to use a computer console, but instead Shepard takes cover under it. What's up old buddy you finally lost your marbles? Did the rEApers get to you?
And what about player choice? Jack would say bullshit, there are no real choices here.What you have is a scam. You think you made a choice but the same thing will happen regardless what you choose. I tried more than once to try both choices in the game, but in all of them the bottom line remained the same. The only difference you make is what war asset is listed among your allies. And we arrive at another sour point of the game. In Mass Effect 2 acquiring people, and winning their loyalty had a point. You really needed specialists, and their loyalty to successfully complete your mission. But here the whole search for more war assets was completely pointless it makes zero difference in the way the story plays out. There were no point were Aria's mercenaries helped me, there were no point, where any other assets meant anything. The only point in getting the assets is to unlock all the endings.
Of course there are good aspects in the game as well, and some great character moments. But some idiots infiltrated the design team, and turned the rest of the game into a disaster.
All previous minigames were removed, like hacking, lockpicking, scanning. In replacement we get a stupid evade the reapers on the galactic map game. Which is even more trivial than the previous ones. I don't know what did they want, to make the game solvable with a toddlers brain capacity as well?
And the freaking dream sequences and the ending. In both you're crawling with an ant's speed endlessly. I don't get it why not make those sequences as cutscenes. The interaction is pointless, since all you do is strain your finger on the movement key.
And the other thing missing from the game is the vehicle. There is no drivable/flyable vehicle.
The conversations, have much less player oversight, in many of them you only have one or no opportunities to choose an answer, when the conversation itself goes on for long minutes.
I expected some epic battles from the game, where the Normandy, and the crew goes head to head with both the collectors, and the reapers. But instead in the majority of the game your enemies are damned Cerberus soldiers. It all feels like that the main adversary of the game is not even the reapers but cerberus.
In the first half of the game I was hoping that I just saw the tip of the iceberg and later there will be some real epic battles, but no. In the whole game you only get to fight one single reaper, and even that battle is pathetic. You're confined to a relatively small area, and all you have to do is dodge its beam, and point a laser at it when asked.
And now let me speak about the ending this can be considered as spoilers by those who haven't played the game yet (is there anyone?).
The ending is completely pointless, not just the starbrat, but the fact that there is no real ending, no complete accounting of losses, you get no information about the faith of any of the characters, that you become attached to. Not just Shepard's faith, but all the others as well. And the extended cut is just a miserable attempt to rectify some problems, I can't take a slide showing a character in some distant vista as closure. And most importantly we have absolutely no idea about the faith of the galaxy. How do things fare after the battle ends everywhere. And what are the differences between control, synthesis, and destroy? From what I saw, extended cut included, the only difference between the endings is the color of the relay explosions.
So to sum it up, the ending we get, is zero, nil, nothing, it's worse as having no ending. And this is where one of the greatest fan fictions come into play: The Indoctrination theory. I'm quite a fan of that theory, (not so much of the others floating out there). Yes it means there is no conclusion to the story this way, but I gladly give up the ending we get, when the theory reconciles all the fucking bullshit we get, and all the glaring plotholes and inconsistencies in the story. And it fits so well into the narrative, that it's unbelievable. Like they planned this to be the story originally. All the small hints, and weird things that fit past events point by point.
I think this interpretation of the ending is magnitudes better than taking it at face value, demeaning all the previous experiences and choices. Yes it doesn't give a conclusion to the outcome of the battle, so what? Did HL2 ending on a cliffhanger erase the value of the game? No it didn't.
+
- Music
- Character moments (some of the greatest character moments in the series, it's pure fan service, especially in "The Citadel" DLC, so much so that I decided to write a completely stand alone review of that)
- Graphics
- Gameplay
- Action sequences
- Atmosphere (it truly feels that you're in a war, the drowned sounds the overall vibe, the refugees pouring in at the citadel)
-
- Trivial, self-solving assignments
- Too durable, almost indestructible enemies with overwhelming firepower
- Boring and meaningless galaxy exploration, all you can find is war assets, but as I said hunting for those is nearly pointless
- The ending, which is an insult at face value
- Dream sequences and the last level (they needed to be cutscenes, and cut 10 times shorter.
- it has the potential to be something truly great, this is a negative, because it makes it all the more infuriating that this is what they shoved in our faces.
When I read the novel Deception, I was hoping that the game will make up for that piece of shit, but sadly no. I'm not saying that the game is as bad as Deception, but if the previous novels and ME1 and ME2, are 10 and Deception is 1. on a scale of 10. Then ME3, is about 5, on the same scale. I don't want to speculate whose fault is it, it's probably due to the poor judgement of multiple persons from both EA, and Bioware, that we got this poor excuse as a closure to the series. I was expecting the game of the decade, but got the disappointment of the decade instead.
Scoring card:
graphics/realization: 7/10, I expected some improvement over ME2
story/atmosphere: 8/10 disregarding the end.
gameplay/controls: 7/10
Overall impression: 7/10
It's certeanly not a bad game, but it's very far from what I expected. It seems unfinished, with a lot of untapped potential. The war room is a great idea, only to be completely under utilized.
And finally a few words on the DLCs
There was a big uproar from everyone that one of the crew members was not included in the game, but came as a DLC. I don't understand that. ME2 had two crew members as DLCs, so this is nothing new. Also the DLC did come as standard with the collectors edition, which was $60, so you only missed it if you cheaped out and got the regular edition without all the good stuff. Sure I'm not a fan of DLCs, I just don't understand why did it became such an issue here.
Leviathan: The first DLC is quite extensive, I don't want to spoil it, but it's pretty entertaining investigation into some strange occurrences around the galaxy. And it gives you an insight into the first species hunted to extinction by the reapers. 9/10
Omega: A very action oriented DLC, not much to say here, if you liked the action in the main game, this is more of the same, it feels a bit like the multiplayer, some of the battles you encounter in it. And it has a proper classic bossfight at the end. 8/10
Citadel: I'll write a lengthy analysis of this in a later post.