Mass Effect 3: More Impressive Than All of Humanity’s Efforts Combined
Mass Effect 3 is undoubtedly the greatest accomplishment in video game history. It’s like someone built the Colossus of Rhodes on top of the Great Pyramid of Giza that also supports the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Don’t agree? Then stop reading right now, we probably aren’t going to see eye to eye on this one.
When I say that Mass Effect 3 is the greatest accomplishment in video game history, I don’t mean it’s the greatest game ever made, that honor belongs to Backgammon (Think about it, will people be playing Mass Effect 3 in 5 years? 10? 50? No, they will however be playing backgammon. That’s staying power). What I mean is that the scope of the game is unlike anything we’ve seen before. In the future I imagine other franchises may attempt to include a fluid narrative based on previous installments. Kojima opened the door when he had Psycho Mantis tell me that I liked to play Project Overkill. But Bioware not only walked through the door, they moved in, enrolled their kids in the school system and planted a garden. The bar is set very high for dynamic story telling in the future.
Enough gushing about the scope of the project, let’s get down to the nuts and the bolts. I already covered the gameplay in my review of the demo, so I’ll just move onto story.
The game picks up 6 months after the events of Mass Effect 2. Shepard has been relieved of command pending an investigation of his/her ties to Cerberus. Very quickly the Reapers arrive. The motherfuckers have come to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy just as they’ve done every 50,000 years. Instantly Earth is turned into a hellish war zone. Presumably Baltimore is untouched as they figure they hit it already. However, there’s only one thing standing in their way. You.
Let’s be honest, this isn’t Commander Shepard’s tale. This is your story. Bioware allowed us to shape our Shepard however we wanted. We could make a male, female, gay, straight, xenophobic, xenophilic, renegade, paragon, and anywhere in between. You berthed it in Mass Effect 1. You taught it to walk in Mass Effect 2. Now you have to live with what you’ve taught it as it faces the world of Mass Effect 3. Ok, its not a perfect metaphor, but it still works. If there is one theme in Mass Effect 3, its consequence. Everything you do, say, ask about, look into, visit, help, hurt, attack, or ignore has an effect on how events play out. As Earth is churned into rubble, you manage to make it to the Normandy to rally the galaxy to your cause.
Right out of the gate you feel rushed. Every mission you get seems to take priority over the mission you have now, and then it piles on until it seems like you will never be able to get anything done. This simulates both the burden of command (not that I would know) and urgency of the mission. It’s ok to take your time with the game. Explore every nook and cranny and do all the side missions. You won’t fail to bring peace between the Krogan and the Turians because you were off learning more about Cerberus and the Illusive Man. Had another developer made this game, I’m sure a ridiculous time limit type event would have limited exploration. But this is fucking Bioware, they don’t put up with that shit.
The rest of the game is similar to Mass Effect 1 in the instance that you are running around the galaxy accomplishing various missions instead of earning the loyalty of the squad. The shift back to the original formula works from a story telling perspective as well. We’ve established that Shepard is a capable leader. No one will go along with the mission if they didn’t have faith in their commander, so no one needs a side mission collecting space flowers to make them extra super loyal. If you ported in a character from Mass Effect 2 you can change everything about them including appearance and class. You will retain your level and have the ability to respect your character (and companions) at any time in the med bay of the Normandy.
Most of the cast and crew from previous games show up in one way or another. I say most because some of your characters may not have made it out of the first game, let alone the second. Again we arrive at consequence. If certain characters aren’t alive, then they aren’t there to stop certain events from playing out. Just because they survived previous games does not mean they are immune from death on this go around. Make no mistake; choices you make WILL get some of your friends killed. It’s very similar to Vermire in Mass Effect 1. Someone who lands on that planet was not coming home; it’s just a matter of who.
However, if this is your first Mass Effect game, you can start from scratch. I do urge that you play the first two, even if you run through them quickly; it will enhance the world for you that much more. You are asked play style (Which I covered in the demo review) and who didn’t make it from previous games. You have the option of picking Ashley, Kaiden, or various. I assume that various would mean that certain characters from Mass Effect 2 didn’t make it back from the Omega relay, I’m just not sure how they determine who did and who didn’t.
While the overarching story is about stopping the Reapers, there are plenty of subplots to keep you busy. Why is Cerberus trying to stop you? Will you be able to get the Krogan and the Salarians to work together? Why are the Geth acting up? Are the Rachni working with the Reapers? There are also plenty of “Holy Shit Did That Just Happen moments.” However they aren’t as over the top as say, Gears of War or BulletStorm … ok, maybe the Reaper fight on Tuchunka is, but it was still fucking cool. Everything comes to a head for a showdown for the ages. I can’t even tell you where the fight takes place, lest I ruin your gaming experience.
There will be some arguments about the ending. Some hate it, some love it. I am somewhere in between. I think I like it because I don’t hate it. I won’t spoil what it is specifically, but there is a choice how events will play out. You are given three options. Again, I’m not going to tell you what those options are. I stood there for about 5 minutes deciding what to do. It was insane. Presumably I got to this point with a clear goal in mind. I knew what I was going to do at this point before I was even asked the question didn’t I? Didn’t I? I guess I didn’t. As I sat and pondered my options, I watched as a battle raged on around me. I saw my allies fighting for me, to give me this one chance to end the war. And here I was; selfishly, coldly weighting my options while they fought and died. Never did it occur to me that they were just pixelated images rendered by an artist with a computer. No, these were my friends. The worst thing I could do was nothing, and I was doing just that! I made my decision … so help me, I made it. And then I changed my mind. It wasn’t too late to do so, but I feel for the men and women who perished as I delayed my choosing the course of the galaxy.
The fate of the galaxy is in your hands. Are you ready?
Multiplayer
The multiplayer aspect of Mass Effect 3 is a simple hoard mode variant. Its been hinted at that there will be more DLC modes made available at a later date. It consists of 11 waves. Three of those waves are objective based and the final wave is a standoff while waiting for a evac. Those objectives vary from activation of 4 points located in different areas of the map, defending an area for 5 minutes, or hunting out and killing high value targets. The further you get, the more money and XP you earn. It’s a fun break from the single player and ups your galactic readiness. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the difference is between a low and a high readiness, but I’m all for trying something new.
There are 6 classes, Soldier, Adept, Infiltrator, Vanguard, Sentinel, and Engineer. Each class has 4 possible races. Two of the races for any class are humans, male and female with identical powers within the class. The other races of each class are made up based on what race performs best as what the class does. For example the other two races for Soldier are Turian and Krogans, while the Vanguard has Drell and Asari as their extra races. Once you level a character to 20, the max, you can send them off to the single player game, and they appear as a war asset in your War Room. Doing so however resets the class back to level one.
Weapons, races, character upgrades and various power ups are achieved from buying packs. They are available at 5,000, 20,000, and 60,000 galactic credits. The more expensive the pack, the better the chances are you’ll get something rare. However, you can still get good items from a cheap pack (I got an M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle from a 20,000 package). The main advantage of the co-operative aspect of the game is that you all earn the same amount of XP and money. The drawback of this is that I’ve played with people that will just sit in a corner and let others do the work for them. It would be nice to have a feature to kick a player while in game, but since there are few instances where a new player joins an already existing game, this can just make things harder.