Monday, April 23, 2012

The Massive Mass Effect Fiasco

You knew it was coming. I had to tell you all about just what I thought about Mass Effect 3 and the ending that has seemingly rocked a fan base at its very core.  First off for what its worth ME 3 is not a bad game at all. The story is a solid continuation of the narrative from the first two games. Its also worth noting that the gameplay is also very solid. Mass Effect 2 tightened up the gameplay from the first game and made it into more of a narrative based shooter, and Mass Effect 3 took the best of both worlds . Its much easier to run at angles than in ME2 and though sometimes its spotty you can now run over cover without having to sit down the other way and duck first. Despite this addon  the cover system seems to have gotten much stickier. Often times while attempting other actions I found myself sticking to cover on the side fire was coming from resulting in a few stupid deaths. Also in the stupid death department is the ability to die after you've been "saved by the cutscene" There were a few instances in the game where I completed an objective just in the nick of time only to find that after it finished playing the game gave me the ole critical mission failure screen.

Mass Effect 3 also attempts to rectify the whole disdained mining system from two by having you simply ping planets for objects and then gather anything useful that you find. Its an interesting incentive to search the galaxy, as it gives you war assets that determine your final strength for the final push.

Mass Effect 3 also has a multiplayer mode for the first time in the series. As skeptical as I was to begin with I can honestly say I've spent more time in this mode overall than I have with the main storyline. After finishing the main game and having its ending leave a bad taste in my mouth I've been playing the multiplayer. Its a blast to say the least. Its very simple, you and 3 others against ten waves of enemies, while you try to complete various simple objectives. You can do these games on Bronze, Silver, or Gold and the higher the difficulty the more XP and Credits you'll earn. You can use these credits to buy weapon packs which include weapons, mods, upgrades, and ever new characters. They have also released a free DLC pack called Resurgence, which adds several new weapons and a new character for each class. For the first time we get to actually control the other races in the series and its quite fun. Want to play as a Geth or maybe an Asari? How about classic ME enemy race the Batarians? With the free resurgence pack, you can!

Now about that ending, no I wasn't on the side of those who actually liked it, but as far as the whole fiasco I'm quite surprised something this catastrophic has happened within the fanbase. Games have been giving us less than satisfactory endings since the dawn of the video game narrative, but I don't think one has ever elicited such a fierce backlash .  I won't spoil too much here but the problem I have with is isn't really the route they took with it, but the fact it went so much against the whole your choices matter in the end. I made a point to get nearly 100% of all the war assets and get maximum readiness, but the ending I got was still equally depressing and for the most part the same as the "bad" endings. There are also a few off the wall continuity errors with a certain scene involving your crew as well.

So yeah. The ending may leave a foul taste in the mouth of some because of a lack of influence and continuity errors, but I'd still say its worth the time of a playthrough.  The game has , if anything caused EA To hit the "Bad publicity" spotlight, which may be a positive thing. With all the nickel and diming by EA and other DLC pushers its might be a good wakeup call that the customers can turn things on you if you do something so bad you get enough of them to care.

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