Review: Mass Effect 3

2007 was a great year to be a gamer.  Infinity Ward was set to release a modern Call of Duty title with an advanced multiplayer suite, Bungie was going to conclude the Halo trilogy and Valve decided to bundle up all their recent achievements and release them in a pack called The Orange Box.  There were plenty of great experiences to be had but hidden amongst the crowd of assassins, underwater cities and police crackdowns was an RPG from a developer whose previous game had become near legendary last generation.  Bioware, having come fresh off of a fantastic Chinese mythology RPG title called Jade Empire, released Mass Effect, a sci-fi epic that had you exploring alien worlds, meeting new sentient species and fighting against an unknown, extra-galactic threat.  It was released to rave reviews and fans eagerly awaited its impending sequel.

Fans got it just a few years later in 2010, and while some design decisions put gamers at odds with one another it was still one of the best experiences to have that year.  Over a year’s worth of downloadable content kept gamers coming back to Mass Effect 2 for more but what gamers really wanted was the epic battle for the galaxy and the conclusion to the series we have all come to love.  The final journey of Shepard and the crew of the SSV Normandy is now upon us and the anticipation for it couldn’t be higher.  Does the conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy deliver us unto salvation?

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Assuming Direct Control

Six months after the destruction of the Alpha Relay during the Arrival DLC in Mass Effect 2, Shepard finds himself on Earth, court-martialed for his actions in the destruction of the relay and the subsequent annihilation of a Batarian colony.  Ordered before a frightened admiralty board, Shepard realizes that the day he has spoken frequently of to deaf ears has finally come: the arrival of the Reapers.  Humanity’s fleets are decimated in a matter of minutes and before the board can even react, the galactic menace lands in Vancouver.  Shepard barely manages to escape aboard the Normandy and is given one last order before he leaves the planet by long time friend Admiral Anderson: bring together the species of the galaxy and take back Earth.

Uniting the various races in this galactic war is no small task and it in and of itself will be a task almost as large as fighting the Reapers alone.  Long standing divisions are your biggest obstacles to overcome and with the Reapers attacking every sector of the galaxy each race has to sacrifice their own worlds in order to bring together their collective firepower.  To convince them to do so, Shepard has to solve long-standing issues and do his best to build up enough resources to insure a strong fighting force for retaking Earth.

One thing that absolutely has to be mentioned is the overall nature of the game’s story.  To put it mildly, Mass Effect 3 is a dark game.  Death is all around you, comrades you’ve grown to love will die for the cause and you’ll be left to ask whether their sacrifice was truly worth it.  Shepard himself is haunted throughout the story by the image of a child he tried to rescue but ultimately was killed as he was attempting to escape Earth at the beginning of the game.  Having to abandon Earth alone eats at Shepard as the game goes on and your eventual return is just as devastating to his character.  Many of the decisions you make can also have a significant effect on entire races, possibly leading to the downfall of entire civilizations.  In several cases there is not right call to be made at all so you have to live with the consequences no matter what direction you go in with them.

Given the controversy raging throughout the gaming community I fear that it wouldn’t be prudent to not address Mass Effect 3’s ending.  Though I will probably go into the details of the ending in a later post I would like to say that the way Bioware chose to end this fantastic trilogy is certainly a ballsy way of doing so. The impact of your decisions has never hit home quite as strongly as your choice in the ending and there is no one right ending to choose.  By comparison (and not to put too fine a point on it), the endings present feel a lot like those the player is forced to make in the Deus Ex series as your choice will affect the galaxy as a whole, not just your allies and the survivors fighting on Earth.  While it isn’t what many people would feel is the proper, best way to end Shepard’s story, it can be said with absolute certainty that it’s an ending that you will be talking about for a long time to come.

Regardless of your choice of conclusion, Mass Effect 3 is a fantastic, desperate story of struggle against an almost insurmountable foe.  If you weren’t already a fan of the series you will be by the end of the game.

Salvation through Destruction

Mass Effect 3, like its predecessors, is a galaxy hopping, exploration-focused epic that takes you everywhere you didn’t know you wanted to go.  From the ruined battlefields of occupied Earth, to the home planets of the Turians and the Asari and even the refugee-laden docks of the Citadel, Shepard will travel to every known corner of the galaxy to help destroy the Reapers.  Many of the places you had only read or heard about can be or is visited throughout the course of the story so for those who have wanted to visit and see what the worlds of various races look like (albeit at war time) you certainly get your chance in Mass Effect 3.

The overall experience is not unlike that which you got in Mass Effect 2 as the combat remains the same with the addition of several new abilities and smarter AI for both your enemies and your teammates.  Your teammates seem to be even smarter this time around and rarely seem to be knocked out in battle.  Many enemies, such as some of the more powerful Reaper creatures, offer significant challenges to overcome in a game based on cover-based combat as they will charge you ruthlessly.  Still though, ME2 veterans will find themselves right at home with the core ME3 combat mechanics.

Two new additions to the combat system make for an interesting twist.  Melee, only briefly feature in the previous games, actually gets a proper reworking in Mass Effect 3.  You (as well as your teammates and enemies) can utilize heavy attacks using your omnitool which are particularly devastating, all but killing most of your lower tier foes.  Players can also deploy explosives to the battlefield in the form of mines and grenades.  Coupled with biotic powers such as Pull or Throw Shepard can easily clear an area of enemies in a way that biotics couldn’t.  These explosives are mighty handy when faced with a horde of enemies such as Cerberus or Geth troops in tight conditions and can be a great equalizer at the right moment.

Like the structure of Mass Effect 2, Shepard’s final mission hinges on a certain aspect you are supposed to be doing throughout the entire game.  Whereas ME2 had you focus on collecting allies and upgrading the Normandy for the suicide mission, ME3 has you collecting what are called War Assets.  These assets range in number and diversity from personnel to tools, equipment, soldiers and even entire fleets of ships in your struggle to take back Earth.  War assets tie directly into the number of endings you have available at your disposal as well as just how these endings play out.  Your war asset count is also affected by the Galaxy at War multiplayer component which I will get into in a moment.

Many of these resources you gain are earned or even multiplied by the characters present in the game.  Almost every character you have encountered in the two previous games makes an appearance here, many of whom you probably forgot about, and your interactions with them help determine whether or not you earn new war assets to help fight the Reapers.  Characters that died in Mass Effect 2 will not appear if a save is imported but a replacement character will take that role over.  These replacement characters will not join your party though and, beyond their initial appearance, aren’t necessarily memorable and don’t yield as strong a war asset count as you’d get with the core characters they are filling in for.

Importing your Mass Effect 2 save data into the third title yields far more benefits and consequences than what was done between the previous two games.  Whereas only eight decisions in ME1 carry over to ME2, nearly a thousand decisions are counted and calculated when imported into Mass Effect 3.  Many of these decisions you won’t remember even committing to but simple ones like rescuing the crew of the Normandy immediately in ME2 can yield significant benefits like retaining old crew members and even aiding refugees at the Citadel.  Your skill level is retained if you import your save and for those wanting to try a new way to play you can change your character class as well.  There are even incentives for players to go through the story a second time as your character level, skills, credits, armor and weapons are all ported into your next playthrough.  This also applies to your reputation which gives you access to new Paragon/Renegade decisions that you previously couldn’t choose from.

On a disappointing side note though (at least to me) a Mass Effect 2 save that saw Shepard dying at the end of the suicide mission cannot be imported into ME3.  This is understandable as the main character is dead but I’d have loved to see how Shepard would have been brought back to combat the Reapers.  Clone?  Rebuilt again by Cerberus?  We’ll never know but it certainly would have made for an interesting twist.

We Fight Together or Die Alone

Bioware is well versed in creating a masterful singleplayer story (despite their design controversies with some of their recent games) but their experience with the multiplayer realm has, up until now, been quite limited.  Mass Effect 3 changes this as it introduces multiplayer to the universe for the first time.  Called the Galaxy At War, it is a four player cooperative experience that sees you playing as a member of an N7 Spec Ops squad sent on missions to secure resources in the galactic war against the Reapers.  While N7 distinctions are primarily reserved for humans, the Spec Ops nature of these unofficial operations allows for any of the primary races to be played as.  This includes Asari, Turian, Krogan, Human, Drell and Quarian so for those who were hoping to play as a badass Hanar, Elcor and any of the other races I’m sorry to say you’ll be disappointed. For the rest of us however we have a variety of characters to choose from across all six classes, though each race will only correspond to their appropriate class (ie. Asari Adept, Quarian Engineer, etc.).

The multiplayer part of Mass Effect 3, as previously stated, is a cooperative one and not a competitive one in nature.  Much like that of the Gears of War horde mode, Galaxy at War pits you against ten waves (and one extraction wave) of either Reaper, Cerberus or Geth enemies in one of six locales seen in the singleplayer experience.  Players earn points for kills and assists in eliminating enemies and completing objects which, in turn, level up your character in the same manner the player would upgrade Shepard in the main game.  Participants also earn credits to spend in the multiplayer store which purchase packs of randomized weapons, items and characters to use in combat.

Perhaps the most interesting (and controversial) part of the multiplayer is its relevance to the singleplayer.  For the first time in recent memory, the multiplayer component actually has a strong influence on the singleplayer campaign.  As you complete N7 missions and level up your character your galactic readiness in each sector of the galaxy rises, starting at (and never going below) 50% and rising depending on the circumstances of the mission.  This percentage acts as a multiplier on your in-game war assets which, if left untouched, can significantly alter Shepard’s mission to retake Earth.  This all but forces you to actually play the multiplayer instead of leaving it alone, something that can be an issue to some players who simply want to experience Mass Effect 3 alone.

This would have been an even bigger issue in people’s eyes had the multiplayer turned out to be crap.  I’m happy to report however that this is anything but the case as Bioware has yielded a surprisingly interesting and fun component.  Combat is fun, mission objectives are randomized to insure different experiences every time and enemies are tough yet exciting to fight.  Each race of enemies has unique minions to combat and can drastically change your battleplan going in based on what they choose to spawn.  In short, the multiplayer is never boring and with a little more fleshing out could be a remarkably interesting experience to come back to in a genre that is, more often than not, sees players playing only once through and then never again.  A couple more pieces of DLC and a few refinements and the multiplayer could be just as celebrated as the singleplayer is.

The Vanguards of Our Ascension

It was clear from the start of the series that Bioware wanted to craft the Mass Effect universe into one that both they and their customers will love.  Three games in and five years since players first got to play as Commander Shepard, the game still looks as remarkable as it did before.  While the Unreal Engine 3 has been showing its age as of late Mass Effect 3 still looks fantastic and has some of the best looking character and object models in the industry to date.  Faces still look great, animations seem to have been improved over what we saw in the previous games and particle effects and still wonderful eye candy.

One noticeable thing players should be made aware of is the setting of the environments.  While Mass Effect 1 and 2 were about putting the combat of the game in the moment and focusing the player in on it this series-ending entry takes that focus and de-blurs the rest of the world, allowing you to take in far more.  Whereas in the previous games you saw yourself as the focus on the conflict going on Mass Effect 3 allows you to see that you are but one small (if very important) part of the war as a whole.  In several missions of the campaign you will be able to look around and see Soverign-class Reapers landing and destroying a city, fighters desperately trying to evade pursuing Reaper Harvesters and even entire starships being blow to smithereens.  You really get the sense of being in a losing war against a merciless, nearly omnipresent foe and it makes you feel both enthralled as well as intimidated.  Kudos to Bioware for taking the blinders off this time around.

The work on the game’s sound and music was really hit home as well.  Though Jack Wall, the composer for the previous two games, did not return for Mass Effect 3 his replacement, Clint Mansell, does just as good a job.  Though Mansell’s soundtrack doesn’t have much in the way of Wall’s electronic soundtrack (save for the classic galaxy map track) he does deliver a power, brass score that sells the chaos-ridden struggle against the Reapers excellently.  His inclusion of piano work conveys a sense of loss and sacrifice explicitly well and all but demands that you put some money down on the soundtrack when it is eventually released.  This might be Mansell’s first foray into designing music for video game but if this is typical of his future works then I look forward to what he’s going to bring to the table.

Breaking the Cycle

Mass Effect 1 was an RPG of exceptional caliber.  Mass Effect 2, despite having fierce competition and launch in January, went on to be one of the best games of 2010.  For all the controversy Mass Effect 3 has landed itself in though it still garners the outstanding praise its predecessors enjoyed.  It’s an epic conclusion to a groundbreaking trilogy whose campaign is immensely memorable and whose multiplayer is very well done for a first effort such as this.

With this generation of games more than likely coming to an end next year Bioware’s epic saga is one that deserves to be heralded as one of the pinnacles of the last seven years.  This wonderful game more than worthy of your hard-earned cash for series veterans and for those who have yet to put their feet in the boots of Commander Shepard it is all the more reason for them to sit down and find out why this series is so remarkable.  I’m Chris Davis and, only three months into 2012, this is easily my favorite game on the Citadel.