I finished Mass Effect 3 yesterday, and I think Bioware really did a good job ending a trilogy of this size. Most netizens disagree though, but more about the ending later on. First I’ll cast my eyes of scrutiny onto the game play elements.
Like the two before it, ME3 is a RPGFPS hybrid , that is to say, there are equal amounts of talking with heads as there are blasting them off. The ME series has always been a narrative driven one for me, but if you’re the kind that has a bloodlust stronger than a Krogan, you’d be psyched to know Bioware has presented players with 3 game modes : Combat driven, Normal Gameplay and Narrative Driven. Pretty nifty really.
Fighting is similar to ME2, it’s what you do before fighting that’s different. Players must now choose loadouts before going to battle, and the amount of guns you carry will effect the effectiveness of your biotic powers. Carry too much and you’re a lead spewing machine, but your powers take a negative hit to recharge. Take too little and you’d be throwing enemies around but you’re almost useless in a straight up firefight. It’s a brilliant execution on Bioware’s part really. Oh, weapons are very modifiable this time round, with plenty of mods to tailor to your fighting styles. Me, I went for the big guns + crapload of damage mods, because that’s what I am.
Now to my favourite – the narrative. It was amazingly splendid. The game began with the Reaper invasion of Earth, and as Shepard left Earth to appeal for hep from the Council in The Citadel, the game feeds you tiny pockets of information about the rest of the galaxy. The Batarian Hegemony, gone. Palaven under attack. Thessia preparing. Colonies wiped out. Soon you get an idea about the size of the invasion, and how unprepared the galaxy was. The threat of the Reapers is a looming veil of despair, and it shows in the faces of people you talk too. There’s a sense of loss, tension, fear and uncertainty in every conversation. You can feel the weight of the galaxy riding on your shoulders, sacrifices made haunting you wherever you go.
Sacrifice. That’s the one element that pervades throughout this game. Numbers get tossed around , hundreds, thousands, millions, and subsequently billions dead as the Reaper continue on their cleansing of the galaxy. You experience it for yourself, as friends and comrades give their lives up to stop the Reapers. You read about it in the news : Admiral Hackett sacrificing the entire second fleet so the first and third could retreat. You see it happening in Thessia, the Asari homeworld, you hear the despair in Liara’s voice as she watches her home burn. During the final battle on Earth, soldiers die left right and centre as you charge right up the centre of the battlefield. And like true ME fashion, you’re occasionally forced to make decisions that would result in the death of thousands either way. It’s all a game of choosing the better devil and living with it. I’ve never remembered so many sacrifices and deaths in a game before.
Which brings us to the ending(s). Like the two games before, ME3 presents you with three endings (depends on how much work you put into the game) . Every ending has a good pro, with an equally devastating con. You are asked to decide which is the best compromise.Each one is a bed of roses, full of thorns. I felt that all three had their own incredible way of ending the series. There is no “Perfect Ending”. There is only a final silent cheer to end all the sacrifices made by those who had hope for the future.