Reviews VideoGame / Mass Effect 3

Alright, so if I understand it correctly, here are all the reasons you listed for why we shouldn't buy the game: graphical glitches and oddities that have been around since the first game, the fact that there's no conversations to initiate some of the sidequests, the Reaper alerts, Cronos Station, the multiplayer, and Diana Allers.

1. The thing about Chobot is a pretty clear example of nitpicking, considering she plays no part in the plot and you don't even have to have her aboard.
2. The graphical glitches and oddities did happen to me (very rarely), but no more than they did in the first two games. The 'sidequests' you mention, the ones where you overhear a conversation and go get something, aren't really sidequests so much as a replacement for planet scanning. The actual sidequests (such as the ones with the volus ambassador, the hanar ambassador, Conrad Verner, Balak, the N7 missions, etc.) all have plot relevance and several conversations (unlike the second game, where the sidequests usually had nothing to do with anything and didn't even get a voiced mission briefing).
3. I honestly don't get why anyone would have a problem with Reaper alerts; it adds to the suspense and actually gives the galaxy map a point, not to mention, it's less repetitive than planet scanning (which I actually liked).
4. I also honestly have no idea what's wrong with multiplayer' it's repetitive, yes, but it's a ton of fun and offers a lot of replay value. I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
5. How did Cronos Station invalidate the main choice of the last game? If you saved the Base, you can get the Control ending far easier, and if you destroyed it, it takes 1,000 more points- which makes perfect sense, since you handed the base to Cerberus and they want to control the Reapers. Logically, them having more data on it should give them a much better chance of actually succeeding.
6. The dialogue about Shepard's death was "too little, too late"? The second game already happened, did you expect them to have Shepard angsting about the whole thing all throughout Mass Effect 3? Frankly I was surprised they even put that bit of dialogue in.
7. I agree that Kai Leng was a mediocre boss fight and antagonist, given his lack of menace and incredibly dumb AI. Also, he for some reason lacks the abilities normal Phantoms have. But one bad fight seems like a dumb reason to declare the entire game shit.

Also, as Humourous Wrex said, you do not touch on the gameplay (you know, the most important part of a game), nor do you talk about the main story, production values (aside from incredibly rare graphic glitches), the characters, or anything else. This review is not helpful in the least. The only hint I get as to your feelings about the gameplay itself is a few forum posts, and I've already deconstructed how those complaints range from minor to flat out false.

Just assume anything I didn't mention I thought was fine. I'm sorry it wasn't comprehensive enough for some people, but with only four hundred words, I ran out of space.

So the gameplay, story, characterization, voice acting, sound effects, graphics, upgrade system, level design, and value was all fine? If you're going to make a short review, have it actually cover why a game isn't worth buying rather than nitpicking really small things like single fights, occasional graphical oddities, Diana Allers (ugh), and one line of dialogue.

There, edited it again, and probably will be continuously revised as my opinion changes.

Huh. The whole gun thing isn't so for me, I'm always toting whatever I happened to have equipped, with certain exceptions whre it's still the rifle I actually have, did they patch this problem? In terms of bugs, I had a horrible one in the Grissom Academy but that's been it so far. On the whole though, I can get behind the whole "missing potential" thing. In some fashion, I've felt this way about all three games. They are definitely good. Hell, in certain moments, great. But all three could have easily been a whole lot better.

Anyway, about the sidequests- one, how is having some of the N7 missions be multiplayer maps a bad thing if they're still fun to shoot people in? It's not like the shooting galleries of the last game were any more complex. And two, did you forget about those plot important sidequests consisting almost entirely of conversations like in the last game? The Batarian Codes one? Conrad Verner? The Hanar homeworld? The Elcor homeworld? The Volus ambassador? Aria's missions?

Also, what does "Gears of War-sy" even mean (note: has never played Gears Of War)? Does it have anything to do with the power system and weapon modification? Those are pretty important aspects.

Gears of War-sy would be referring to the style of gameplay in Gears Of War. Third person, run n gun, cover system, as opposed to the first game where you spent experience points into building skills with the different weapons (they have been replaced with new powers) and rather than a slow plodding combat system that got in the way of level grinding by talking to every NPC twenty times the developers attempted to make this aspect of the game more appealing.

I have a serious question for those who have strong opinions about Mass Effect 3 and I think we would all like to hear a serious answer.

Suppose you go to a job interview. Is the ending or what people think of it really honestly so much of an issue that it is going to affect your performance?

Yes. Yes it is.

You could give the best interview of your life and utterly enchant the interviewer, but if you end it by giving them the finger, that's what's going to stick out in their mind.

Yeah, um, I'm sure it would.

Hmmm, what I mean is would what people think of the Mass Effect 3 ending really have that much impact on your life? I mean would you obsess over it so much that it will affect your job, your family life, how you interact with friends? Would the fact someone didn't like the ending drive you to drugs and alcohol?

I'm sure you wouldn't feel this way and I'm quite certain most others wouldn't feel this way either.

mod edit to remove ill-advised statement

Massive rewrite.

Which means all the comments above are moot! Suck it!

You could never Vanguard or chain biotics in Gears of War

And you can't chainsaw, curb stomp, or stick spiky mace-grenades to people in Mass Effect.

Give and take, and all that.

Suck it? Seriously? What are you, twelve? Act your age.

I'm pretty sure you're taking umbrage at something which was meant as a bit of joke

You it was.

Also, your not my mother. Bog off.

Yes. I hate comment sections.

Since the comments before the rewrite don't matter allow me to address the ending. Now I could see where they were going with this but there are three main problems I see with this.

One is that in the second game particularly the Reapers were built up to be such a threat that it almost had to pull off the ending it did. To make a comparison in Skyrim dragons were the same, however I jut got the game and think it's a great game, and killed my first dragon and it took a few tries but working out to snipe it with a bow made it easy, I had more difficulty with bandits. I think fans wanted Shepard to be able to do this.

The second was we were promised a Golden Ending. None appeared.

The third was a Playable Epilogue, but the ending negated that.

So yes I think fans were entitled to an ending that delivered as promised.

The Dragons were a credible threat because you actually fight them, and get your butt kicked by them on a regular basis. The Reapers threat level wavers all over the place, eventually settling into "ship with really big guns and techno-zombie crew"— a far cry from the mechanical Great Old Ones the first game made them. The dragons had a mouth and a face: Alduin The World Eater. The Reapers get jack shit, with ham factory Harbinger showing up for, what, five minutes? Kicking Alduin's scaly butt was the focus of the main quest, while Mass Effect's main goal, Stop The Reapers, was so broad and so big, there was no way they could write a way around that.