Mass Effect 3 Review
I actually finished the game over a week ago, but have been holding back on posting a review because I really needed to get a bit of distance from this game to collect my thoughts.
Like pretty much everyone else, I really hated the ending. I still hate the damned ending, but with the distance of a week and a bit of perspective it's not overshadowing the rest of the game anymore.
The Good
There is so much to love about this game up until the last ten minutes that it's almost hard to figure out where to start and I'll probably miss mentioning tons of awesome stuff that I liked.
The plot - Overall, it's pretty fantastic. For the first time ever in a video game, I had the feeling that it really was the end of the galaxy. They did a great job of making the player feel the large scale of the Reapers destruction by using everything from seemingly insurmountable problems that Shepard has to find solutions to, to the ambient chatter on the Citadel where you find out all of the many ways that this war is affecting pretty much everyone (my favorite is the naive human teenager on the docks who's being looked out for by the more worldly Turian guard). Your companions and comrades are scared and pissed and pretty much everyone is freaked out. Even Shepard starts to crack under the strain, which was an awesome surprise. Even better was the way everyone around her tries to help her keep it together. By the end of the game when she's sitting there all broken and dying with Anderson, you can really feel how weary she is due to Jennifer Hale's awesome voice acting.
The characters - With a couple of notable exceptions, the characters were also dead on. Garrus especially was a standout. I played through the romance with him, and while I've always liked Garrus and thought his character was cool, I was never really invested in the romance. But wow, did Bioware really knock it out of the park with the Garrus romance. Even if you don't romance him, he's still pretty damned awesome. He's Shepard's BFF, the guy who watches her back, the guy who's stuck by her side along with Tali through three games. The scene where they shoot cans on the top of the Citadel was amazing. His dialogue is amazing. His chatter with other squadmates like Vega, Tali and Liara is hilarious.
"There is no Shepard without Vakarian." - Damn straight, Garrus.
The other two standouts for me were Mordin and Wrex. Pretty much everything that happens on Tuchanka and the Turian/Krogan alliance is freaking awesome. Finally we get a resolution to the whole Genophage plot that at least on the Paragon side (haven't gotten that far on my Renegade yet), that is damned satisfying. Wrex giving Shepard shit as she fights through waves of mobs to help save his people, Wrex calling Shepard his sister, Eve being just generally awesome, the thresher maw taking out the reaper (which one fan aptly summarized as "Welcome to Tuchanka, Motherfucker!") - all of these were truly sublime and probably the most fun I've ever had in a video game. And to top it off Mordin gets one of the most fantastic, dramatic and fitting endings anywhere ever and I'm not going to lie, I cried as he went up that elevator and sang the song under his breath.
Emotional engagement - I'm not really a weeper when it comes to movies and tv shows, but I cried three times as I played this game, and choked up a lot more often than that. Which is a pretty amazing achievement, really. That Bioware has managed to make a video game emotional engaging enough to make a player cry as they play it is something they should be truly proud of.
The Bad
But as excellent as I found a lot of this game, there were some major missteps (the ending notwithstanding).
Import Face Bug - Seriously, I cannot believe that the game shipped with a bug this huge and obvious fucking up the face imports. This is the third in a series, and to not be able to import Shepard's face that I've played through two other games, was complete bullshit. At least there was a player made workaround, but still, NOT COOL, BIOWARE.
Jacob - WTF is this shit? The whole "I knocked this random lady up so I can't join your squad" is lame and ridiculous. Even more horrible is that that's still what happens even if your Shepard romanced him - which is really fucking cruel to those players and so out of character for him that it doesn't make any sense. I mean, I get it. Not all relationships work out. But still, this was really poorly handled. From the beginning it really seems like Bioware didn't know what to do with this character, and this is just some sort of lame excuse to keep him off the squad in ME3. Horrible and sloppy writing.
The ME2 Squad - I was rather disappointed that other than Tali and Garrus, you couldn't recruit any of them for your team. And it's not really that I object to the new members like Vega and EDI, it's that I'm more attached to the old ones. Some of them wouldn't make sense to let on like Mordin or Thane or Legion who all got a decent amount of screentime, but people like Miranda, Jack, Jacob, Samara, and Grunt should have all been recruitable, and it was a shame that they couldn't join the squad again if they lived through the last game.
Lack of realistic consequences - There are so many times during this series where I really thought that making a renegade or paragon decision should bite Shepard in the ass. Like curing the Genophage. I thought it was awesome when the Salarians were all "okay now you don't get our help." The consequence of losing a possible ally with the stakes of the war being so high makes the decision to cure the genophage hard, gives it some weight. And yet? The salarians ended up helping Shepard anyway. This isn't anything new really - Bioware has constantly let their players have their cake and eat it too even when they shouldn't (saving the Arachnae queen, saving the council, etc...), but it's sort of frustrating that it hasn't changed. Really the only way things can go pear shaped is if Shepard doesn't have enough rep - which seems like a silly game mechanic.
But all of these could have been forgiven or at least overlooked if it weren't for the ending.
The Ugly
In my head, this is where the game ends.
Oh holy hell, that ending. It was terrible in so many ways, but since it's already been discussed to death elsewhere, I'm really not going to go into a breakdown of why I hate it. I'll just say that having a new godlike character show up in the last ten minutes of the game, speak some bullshit that doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the series, and deliver three almost identical endings is extremely lame. Even worse, we don't get to see the consequences of all the decisions we've made up to now. No, instead we get a gigantic plothole and a lame and insulting conversation between a little boy and his Grandpa about "The Shepard" followed by a pop up telling us to buy more DLC.
*facepalm*
Honestly, I don't think this was the nefarious influence of EA. From what I've heard (according to some posters over on the Mass Effect community with experience), EA is actually pretty hands off when it comes to the writing and design of Bioware games. Which I find easy to believe. As mutive has pointed out elsewhere if EA's marketing and accounting departments had any say, they would not have greenlit an ending that pretty much blows any sequels out of water.
No, I think the writers probably genuinely thought that this was a cool ending. It's probably a situation where the writers were too close to the series and had little outside feedback to provide a sanity check. I also think that they tried to get too deep and twisty and forgot that at heart, Mass Effect is a Space Opera. And while space operas don't require the big damn hero to live, they do require a big damn hero ending. But hey, no one bats a thousand, right? Even good writers sometimes fuck up. The people who wrote the ending to the Matrix or the Battlestar Galactica series probably thought those were cool too. It's just fucking painful to see them fumble the ball in the last ten minutes.
What I'm far more worried about is how this epic shitstorm (and holy hell is it epic when both the BBC and Forbes are reporting on it) over the last ten minutes of an otherwise solid game is going to affect games like TOR or DA3 or any Bioware products in the future. If it's true that EA corporate has been hands off the story for now, I can't imagine it'll be the case after this which is quite troublesome.
Only 18% of players make and play a f!Shepard and yet Bioware gives female players full treatment, full romance possibilities, same weight in the plot, etc... They allow s/s romances and have some of the most inclusive games out there. It's one of the main reasons I've played Bioware games for the last decade. Frankly, I'm concerned that the result of this fallout will be more corporate oversight from EA, not less, which to me, seems like it could lead to a major reevaluation about where the design resources go. I mean from an accounting standpoint, does it make sense to use all of those resources on parts of the game that only 18% of the players will see?
Am I the only one who found it hilarious that the gay love interest got the Carth/Valen/Sky tragic past treatment? Oh Bioware, you love that trope, don't you?
On top of that, there isn't anyone else out there pushing the envelope when it comes to story driven video games the way that Bioware has. I mean, think about it. Just this last year they've created a fantastic story driven MMO (which I never thought was possible) as well as finished a plot arc across a three game series. Nobody else is taking story risks on that scale. And I'm afraid that after the fallout over the ending, which I have to believe will spill into the sales of other games, companies will be less likely to take those risks.
So that's what truly bugs me about the ending. Yeah it sucks, but I'd rather let ten minutes of a shitty ending stand and have Bioware keep their creative autonomy from EA, and get another decade of great and inclusive games, than win this battle and lose out in the end because accounting and marketing are now dictating the creative end.
Like pretty much everyone else, I really hated the ending. I still hate the damned ending, but with the distance of a week and a bit of perspective it's not overshadowing the rest of the game anymore.
The Good
There is so much to love about this game up until the last ten minutes that it's almost hard to figure out where to start and I'll probably miss mentioning tons of awesome stuff that I liked.
The plot - Overall, it's pretty fantastic. For the first time ever in a video game, I had the feeling that it really was the end of the galaxy. They did a great job of making the player feel the large scale of the Reapers destruction by using everything from seemingly insurmountable problems that Shepard has to find solutions to, to the ambient chatter on the Citadel where you find out all of the many ways that this war is affecting pretty much everyone (my favorite is the naive human teenager on the docks who's being looked out for by the more worldly Turian guard). Your companions and comrades are scared and pissed and pretty much everyone is freaked out. Even Shepard starts to crack under the strain, which was an awesome surprise. Even better was the way everyone around her tries to help her keep it together. By the end of the game when she's sitting there all broken and dying with Anderson, you can really feel how weary she is due to Jennifer Hale's awesome voice acting.
The characters - With a couple of notable exceptions, the characters were also dead on. Garrus especially was a standout. I played through the romance with him, and while I've always liked Garrus and thought his character was cool, I was never really invested in the romance. But wow, did Bioware really knock it out of the park with the Garrus romance. Even if you don't romance him, he's still pretty damned awesome. He's Shepard's BFF, the guy who watches her back, the guy who's stuck by her side along with Tali through three games. The scene where they shoot cans on the top of the Citadel was amazing. His dialogue is amazing. His chatter with other squadmates like Vega, Tali and Liara is hilarious.
"There is no Shepard without Vakarian." - Damn straight, Garrus.
The other two standouts for me were Mordin and Wrex. Pretty much everything that happens on Tuchanka and the Turian/Krogan alliance is freaking awesome. Finally we get a resolution to the whole Genophage plot that at least on the Paragon side (haven't gotten that far on my Renegade yet), that is damned satisfying. Wrex giving Shepard shit as she fights through waves of mobs to help save his people, Wrex calling Shepard his sister, Eve being just generally awesome, the thresher maw taking out the reaper (which one fan aptly summarized as "Welcome to Tuchanka, Motherfucker!") - all of these were truly sublime and probably the most fun I've ever had in a video game. And to top it off Mordin gets one of the most fantastic, dramatic and fitting endings anywhere ever and I'm not going to lie, I cried as he went up that elevator and sang the song under his breath.
Emotional engagement - I'm not really a weeper when it comes to movies and tv shows, but I cried three times as I played this game, and choked up a lot more often than that. Which is a pretty amazing achievement, really. That Bioware has managed to make a video game emotional engaging enough to make a player cry as they play it is something they should be truly proud of.
The Bad
But as excellent as I found a lot of this game, there were some major missteps (the ending notwithstanding).
Import Face Bug - Seriously, I cannot believe that the game shipped with a bug this huge and obvious fucking up the face imports. This is the third in a series, and to not be able to import Shepard's face that I've played through two other games, was complete bullshit. At least there was a player made workaround, but still, NOT COOL, BIOWARE.
Jacob - WTF is this shit? The whole "I knocked this random lady up so I can't join your squad" is lame and ridiculous. Even more horrible is that that's still what happens even if your Shepard romanced him - which is really fucking cruel to those players and so out of character for him that it doesn't make any sense. I mean, I get it. Not all relationships work out. But still, this was really poorly handled. From the beginning it really seems like Bioware didn't know what to do with this character, and this is just some sort of lame excuse to keep him off the squad in ME3. Horrible and sloppy writing.
The ME2 Squad - I was rather disappointed that other than Tali and Garrus, you couldn't recruit any of them for your team. And it's not really that I object to the new members like Vega and EDI, it's that I'm more attached to the old ones. Some of them wouldn't make sense to let on like Mordin or Thane or Legion who all got a decent amount of screentime, but people like Miranda, Jack, Jacob, Samara, and Grunt should have all been recruitable, and it was a shame that they couldn't join the squad again if they lived through the last game.
Lack of realistic consequences - There are so many times during this series where I really thought that making a renegade or paragon decision should bite Shepard in the ass. Like curing the Genophage. I thought it was awesome when the Salarians were all "okay now you don't get our help." The consequence of losing a possible ally with the stakes of the war being so high makes the decision to cure the genophage hard, gives it some weight. And yet? The salarians ended up helping Shepard anyway. This isn't anything new really - Bioware has constantly let their players have their cake and eat it too even when they shouldn't (saving the Arachnae queen, saving the council, etc...), but it's sort of frustrating that it hasn't changed. Really the only way things can go pear shaped is if Shepard doesn't have enough rep - which seems like a silly game mechanic.
But all of these could have been forgiven or at least overlooked if it weren't for the ending.
The Ugly
In my head, this is where the game ends.
Oh holy hell, that ending. It was terrible in so many ways, but since it's already been discussed to death elsewhere, I'm really not going to go into a breakdown of why I hate it. I'll just say that having a new godlike character show up in the last ten minutes of the game, speak some bullshit that doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the series, and deliver three almost identical endings is extremely lame. Even worse, we don't get to see the consequences of all the decisions we've made up to now. No, instead we get a gigantic plothole and a lame and insulting conversation between a little boy and his Grandpa about "The Shepard" followed by a pop up telling us to buy more DLC.
*facepalm*
Honestly, I don't think this was the nefarious influence of EA. From what I've heard (according to some posters over on the Mass Effect community with experience), EA is actually pretty hands off when it comes to the writing and design of Bioware games. Which I find easy to believe. As mutive has pointed out elsewhere if EA's marketing and accounting departments had any say, they would not have greenlit an ending that pretty much blows any sequels out of water.
No, I think the writers probably genuinely thought that this was a cool ending. It's probably a situation where the writers were too close to the series and had little outside feedback to provide a sanity check. I also think that they tried to get too deep and twisty and forgot that at heart, Mass Effect is a Space Opera. And while space operas don't require the big damn hero to live, they do require a big damn hero ending. But hey, no one bats a thousand, right? Even good writers sometimes fuck up. The people who wrote the ending to the Matrix or the Battlestar Galactica series probably thought those were cool too. It's just fucking painful to see them fumble the ball in the last ten minutes.
What I'm far more worried about is how this epic shitstorm (and holy hell is it epic when both the BBC and Forbes are reporting on it) over the last ten minutes of an otherwise solid game is going to affect games like TOR or DA3 or any Bioware products in the future. If it's true that EA corporate has been hands off the story for now, I can't imagine it'll be the case after this which is quite troublesome.
Only 18% of players make and play a f!Shepard and yet Bioware gives female players full treatment, full romance possibilities, same weight in the plot, etc... They allow s/s romances and have some of the most inclusive games out there. It's one of the main reasons I've played Bioware games for the last decade. Frankly, I'm concerned that the result of this fallout will be more corporate oversight from EA, not less, which to me, seems like it could lead to a major reevaluation about where the design resources go. I mean from an accounting standpoint, does it make sense to use all of those resources on parts of the game that only 18% of the players will see?
Am I the only one who found it hilarious that the gay love interest got the Carth/Valen/Sky tragic past treatment? Oh Bioware, you love that trope, don't you?
On top of that, there isn't anyone else out there pushing the envelope when it comes to story driven video games the way that Bioware has. I mean, think about it. Just this last year they've created a fantastic story driven MMO (which I never thought was possible) as well as finished a plot arc across a three game series. Nobody else is taking story risks on that scale. And I'm afraid that after the fallout over the ending, which I have to believe will spill into the sales of other games, companies will be less likely to take those risks.
So that's what truly bugs me about the ending. Yeah it sucks, but I'd rather let ten minutes of a shitty ending stand and have Bioware keep their creative autonomy from EA, and get another decade of great and inclusive games, than win this battle and lose out in the end because accounting and marketing are now dictating the creative end.