Mass Effect 3 is one hell of an adventure to put it in short. Whenever I try to describe it in this review, several things pop up in my mind and I don't even know what to say about it. No words -- literally! It's yet another fantastic game from BioWare designed perfectly except for the climax which never actually pleased me and others.
I've played the two Mass Effect games before, and I had high expectations on this one. And yup, it indeed was more than what I expected. I guess this is the final game with Shepard (Isn't it?). Mass Effect 3's story starts from where Mass Effect 2 ended. Shepard's back to earth, well, apparently, relived form duties and in a sort of home arrest or something.
The Reapers come in suddenly out of nowhere, destroying the beautiful Earth. Admiral Anderson tell's Shepard to leave Earth and to call in other alien races and to put together a whole army to fight the reapers. Eventually, with the help of Dr. Tsoni, Shepard finds out that the Protheans (The first ever species) actually built a device in order to bring down the Reapers which was incomplete. Shepard finds the data about the Prothean device, called Crucible and with the help of Alliance, started building it. In the meantime, Shepard must find support for the war and bring together all the other races to join and help him to build the Crucible and win the war. Well, our old guys, Cerberus are in the plot too, trying to stop Shepard and Alliance from destroying the Crucible. The Illusive Man wanted to control the Reapers instead. In the end, Shepard brings together most of the races and finishes building the Crucible. Shepard finally kills the Illusive Man and helps to sort out the Reaper threat and becomes a legend.
The Reapers come in suddenly out of nowhere, destroying the beautiful Earth. Admiral Anderson tell's Shepard to leave Earth and to call in other alien races and to put together a whole army to fight the reapers. Eventually, with the help of Dr. Tsoni, Shepard finds out that the Protheans (The first ever species) actually built a device in order to bring down the Reapers which was incomplete. Shepard finds the data about the Prothean device, called Crucible and with the help of Alliance, started building it. In the meantime, Shepard must find support for the war and bring together all the other races to join and help him to build the Crucible and win the war. Well, our old guys, Cerberus are in the plot too, trying to stop Shepard and Alliance from destroying the Crucible. The Illusive Man wanted to control the Reapers instead. In the end, Shepard brings together most of the races and finishes building the Crucible. Shepard finally kills the Illusive Man and helps to sort out the Reaper threat and becomes a legend.
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| Shepard's back in action. This time, for Earth. |
Well, quite a story wasn't it? Well, the End's not simply justified in that way. Anyways, before I go to the end of the game, I'll tell you about the other stuff about the game.
The Graphics seems same to me, just like it was in Mass Effect 2 but with a fewer tweaks. The gameplay was smooth on my system, having a GTX 560 Ti and a Core 2 Duo with 4 Gigs of RAM. I never met with any crashes while playing the game and so, it was smooth and rich gameplay.
There are many changes with the combat system, to speak of. The Omni-Blade was my favourite! I loved using it against the foes. And there's also an option for a normal melee and a hard one by long pressing melee button. There are a lot of weapons to say, and now all classes can wield all types of weapons. That was cool, though, there's another problem called 'weight' to limit it's use. Carrying more and heavier weapons increases the weight and thus, your power recharge speed will decrease. So, you'd have to choose your weapons carefully. Modifying the weapons were fun. Though, I wished there would be more to it. Grenades too are awesome as they can get the job done for you quickly. Also, the combat system has improved vastly that Shepard is more agile in combat, so are your partners. Still, the weapons and combat system in ME3 is far better.
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| The Combat System has improved a lot. And the Omni-Blade is awesome. |
The enemies, well, most of them are Cerberus and the Reapers themselves. Though you'll face a lot different Reaper types. Small ones to huge ones. I don't remember the names of all of them, though I can't fogeth the Banshees. Thing is, I hate them! They maybe the quickest enemies you'll ever face. When they enter their power mode, they are fast, faster than anything. And try to get out of their sight or their area, cos if you're near one of them, they'll kill before you can say OMG. Believe me, I've faced many of those and they are the creepiest ones I've ever seen since the Beserkers in Gears of War.
The difficulty of the game has improved. Even in the normal difficulty, I experienced a bit of a Hardcore mode in most places. Still, I had a lot of fun playing it and had no trouble in advancing the levels. There ain't any Veteran difficulty, so I guess they cut that to increase the difficulty in the other levels.
Most of your allies are the old ones. Well, there is no Miranda, Jacob, Tali (Died in ME2), Legion and others. But they appear in the game, although they won't join you on your missions. Infact, Shepard meets them on his missions and sometimes, they give you the mission. Still, Ashley's back on the crew. EDI, acquires a female robotic body in ME3 which enables you to select her for your missions. ME3 is packed with a cool crew. Did I mention Garrus was there too? He's my favourite. (Love the snipers!)
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| You gotta keep yourselves away from this one too. You never know what it would do when it get's angry. |
A few dissappointing facts are there too. A few missions are bugged in the game. I forgot their names, but you can't complete the mission anyway and they fade out when you reach a stage where you can actually access them. I've googled a lot for a fix but there hasn't been one yet. The most disappointing factor, is the climax. Sometimes, you feel it's good, a nice one and well executed. But later, you feel bad, and feel it was not a good ending for a well-planned game. There are about 7 possible outcomes for the game, I believe, some depending upon your decisions in ME2. Though, there are 3 main ones. When Shepard reahces the Crucible, he can either control the reapers by sacrificing himself and take them away from the galaxy. Or, you can simply destroy the reapers, but unless you don't have a high EMS(Effective Military Strength), it'll cause a lot of destruction to the galaxy and destroys the mass relays. If not, there's a third option, Synthesis. Adding Shepard's energy to the crucible to alter the DNA of all organics and changing the mind of Reapers to that of Shepard to make them leave earth. (I never understood it perfectly when I chose it at the end... Yeah, I chose synthesis, sounded cool.) But this also will cause major destruction and wipes out the mass relays. Still, it's unclear whether Shepard dies or lives in the game. With an ending like this, the next Mass Effect's story is unpredictable I've really expected to see more from Harbinger, who's the real villain and the leader of the Reapers. But Harbinger appears only in just a single scene, a few minutes before the end. Boy, I wished to kick his a** this time, but disappointed. And I too, along with many others, never felt the ending to be justified or in other words, unclear.
Still, with a few bugs and glitches here and there and an unjustified ending, Mass Effect 3's a must-play RPG. The story and the action will drive you to a future you never known off and it's really fun and enjoyable to play it till the end. It's one hell of a ride!
Also, enjoy the Mass Effect 3: Take Earth Back trailer from YouTube below!
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