Mass Effect 3 - A Video Game Review

it's often rare that I get requests to review movies, but when I do, I consider it a challenge, but a challenge that is worth taking on if I can get my hands on a copy of the film. But it's even more conflicting when I get demands to review a video game. Unlike movies where I can just go online to find them and, if I'm lucky, watch them, with video games, I have to buy them, which means using money I don't have since most money I do get, I send towards paying off my car payments or paying my college tuition, which is generally why I'm inclined to say no when asked to review a particular video game. But when three people ask me, no, beg me to review a video game just because they want to set an example against a company who made it, I can't help but feel some sense of expectation to deliver what they want and the feeling to speak my mind.
With that out of the way, let's talk about "Mass Effect 3," one of the more controversial games in recent years for two reasons: first one being that many conservative parents accused it of being the game that inspired Adam Lanza to go and shoot around 30 people, many of them schoolchildren, on December 14th 2012, even though the guy was a firearm collector and a huge fan of the Call of Duty games, which apparently has more young children playing them than Mass Effect.
Second reason being the ending, I had never heard of so much hatred for an ending since the ending to "Remember Me." It was because of this ending that I spent an entire year having to ignore any reviews or journals or videos about it because I didn't want to know the ending to avoid being ruined of any emotional experience. So I had to avoid learning anything about what happens in Mass Effect 3 just so I could feel the emotional satisfaction of playing it in my own sweet time.

So, I finally got the game…how did it play out?

Plot:
A year or two after the events of Mass Effect 2, The Reapers have arrived as they invade Earth, forcing Commander Shepherd to flee the planet and go build an army to fight The Reapers. To do this, he builds alliances with any alien faction he can, from the honor-bound Turians, the intelligent and nimble Salarians, the battle-hardened Krogans, the tech-savy Quarians to even mercenaries of all races. But in the end, will it be enough to stop the Reapers from eliminating all life from the universe?
I may be the black sheep when it comes to the Mass Effect series, but I love the first Mass Effect more than the second game, which I personally find overrated.

I walked into that game completely blind about what it was about and found myself totally immersed in the game, it's storyline and it's characters. Forever in my mind will the moment of having to choose whether to shoot Wrex while arguing over destroying the genophage cure, will always stick in my mind as being the most tense I've ever been in a video game. Mass Effect 2, well, I didn't get the same sensation in that game. In fact, the entire game felt like busy-work.
I'm sorry, but I just never really liked many of the characters, they all felt like big whiners to me, "I'm dying and my son is trying to follow in my footsteps," "My daddy cloned my from his genetics and he wants to do things to my sister cause he's an asshole," "My daddy never hugged me enough," "go do this for us," "go do that for me so I won't die on your mission," "what, you don't agree with me? Well f*ck you, I'm not loyal to you anymore." ARGH! Shut up!
Hell, the threat of the Collectors never really seemed like a huge problem to me. They only popped up whenever they wanted to so I never threatened by them.

This time, I actually felt some emotional yearning to save the universe, gather as many troops as I can to stand a chance against the Reaper forces. I actually cared about curing the Krogans of their Genophage and bringing peace between the Quarian and the Geth and bringing resolution to these matters through the paragon options was some of the best examples of writing I'd seen, while many other designs, though they leave a negative impact, build total pathos and pull at your heartstrings when you realize that it could have been avoided.

But then comes the ending, but we'll get to that soon enough.

Characters:
Shepherd is a blank slate, in all honesty, but that's not a bad thing since his character and personality are shaped by the choices and dialogue you say in the games. He can be a good-little boy scout that only wants to do what's best for others or a bastard who puts himself first in front of others. These choices shape him but the choices made also effect the game and the other characters around you.
I always liked Garrus and Wrex from the first game, not so much in the second game but they truly feel fleshed out this time around. That part of the game where Shepherd and Garrus engage in a friendly shooting match on the Citadel, you make the choice to purposefully miss or hit the target, whatever choice you make, it further shows the brilliance of options the screenwriters give you and how you interact with the characters over the course of the game. There is this moment in the game where a conversation with Garrus involves the both of them talking about how the war is taking a toll as Shepherd tells Garrus about these nightmares he's having about a child he failed to save. Garrus comforts Shepherd by telling him he's not the only one as he tells him anytime he needs the talk, he can find him at the bar with a drink waiting for him. It's writing like that that really takes this fictional character and breathes life into him.
Although the game gives you the option who to romance, I always felt the romance options were sketchy since I never felt like they gave me a choice and the game would just push you to one person. This is a problem I had with Mass Effect 2 where the game seemed to push me to romance Tali'Zorah when I wasn't interested in romancing anyone. Even in this game, I felt I had no choice since, whenever I talk to people, I try to be a good person and use the paragon options and by accident, I would romance that person when I really didn't want to.
When it came to the romance in this game, I made two files.
The first file was my main game, I chose Ashley in the one, why? Because I felt, in terms of screenwriting, I felt she had a legitimate reason to be romanced. She and Shepherd had history together, the interactions between me and her felt natural and felt like an actual conversation that we tried to get back together since the last time she saw me, I was with Cerebus. This kind of interaction was interesting and it felt like something from a traditional Hollywood story along the lines of "Casablanca."
The second file was romancing Tali, who, I'll be honest, is not a very strong character. She's just a girl who doesn't really work to get what she wants, she just stands around while others do the work for her, acts cute and sensitive. Pretty much the only reason guys actually like her is because guys objectify her body. Seriously, try to even Google her with the safety off, you'll be disturbed what you'll find.
I only romanced her because I wanted to see her face and how much bullsh*t is it when the only time I get to see her face is a f*cking picture that Bioware took off the Internet and photoshopped it? I immediately deleted this file afterwards and continued with my main file. But nevertheless, on my final mission, I brought Tali and Garrus along me to commemorate how they had been consistently by my side through each game as friends.

Gameplay:
I said before that I preferred the gameplay feel of Mass Effect, while I admit the gamely improved in Mass Effect 2, I felt saddened that the game became an over-the-person shooter. I dunno, but I've always had frustrations with over-the-person shooter games like "Resident Evil 4" and "Gears of War" in the past and I felt the same frustrations here. I can't exactly explain it, but pop in "Grand Theft Auto IV" and I think you might get what I'm saying. Another piss-off I have with the game is the blocking system, no matter what I do, I can't seem the jump over or run past obstacles without running into it and hiding behind it when I have to jump over it. It's really annoying. The Biotics attacks, I felt, worked occasionally, but more often than not, it barely hit the target, so most times, I just used incendiary shots or armor-piercing rounds. Barely did I ever use my team-mates powers since, whenever I needed them, they were never available and whenever they were, they never seemed to work when I needed them to.
The dialogue options are still as intriguing as ever and the Renegade and Paragon pop-up options really force you to act fast if you want good points. But throughout this game, i was so worried about trying to pick the best options because I wanted to win this war against the Reapers. So yeah, what did I do? I cheated, which I hate doing because it really robs the experience of the surprise of your choices (but I kept the ending in ambiguity because I wanted to know why people got angry).
Speaking of which, that leads us to…

The Mass Effect 3 Ending:
Yes, at long last, you get to hear me bitch and complain about the ending. If you haven't played this game yet, I suggest you stop reading this review now, go read something by Kurvos or HailtotheChimp or Burnouts3s3, because I am not going to hold back on Spoiling the ending. Okay? Are you sure? All right.
So at the end of the game, you make a mad dash for the teleporter beam, you and the entire squad are wiped out as you are told everyone is pulling back, I assume that also means the squadmates you took with you since I didn't see their bodies anywhere, those cowardly bastards. I limp forward, shoot some husks as I go into the teleport beam and continue to limp my way through the Citadel before I reach this thingy. I get stopped by the Illusive Man who has done some seriously botched plastic surgery and has the power to take control of your body, kinda like that bloodblending bitch from that episode of "Avatar The Last Airbender." Depending on what you say to him, he'll just blow his brains out, sorta like what Saren did in the first Mass Effect, then Anderson dies next to you as you find yourself up at the Heart of the Crucible, or whatever, to find that snot-nose kid who kept bugging you in your dreams all through the game is here as he gives you three options to how to defeat the Reapers…and each one suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
-If you take the blue pill; the story ends. You dissolve to dust and yet you take complete control of the Reapers and can make them go away, making all the mass relays explode and leaving your friends to outrun the blast and land on a jungle planet to repopulate, or whatever.
-If you take the red pill; the story still ends and you deactivate all synthetic life, including the Geth which I spent hours trying to get them to be on my side, the mass relays are destroyed, sometimes planet Earth will be destroyed and other times it wont, sometimes your friends will die and sometimes they won't, either way, they land on a jungle planet.
-If you take the green pill; then you stay in wonderland and you'll see how deep the rabbit hole goes…and by that, it means you dissolve to dust and create some new brand of species where everyone is synthetic and yet organic, if that makes any sense. the mass relays are destroyed, your friends fly away and they pop out on a jungle planet with the intention of getting to business.
And each ending gives you some brat asking some old man to repeat the tale about 'The Shepherd' around a night sky which, I had learned, had taken some art from Google and then the game thanks you for playing and go buy DLC. F*ck you Bioware.

Deviantart artist Epantiras made the point in describing that these choices don't really decide how you'll defeat the Reapers, but how you'll die. I've never seen a more disappointing game ending since the ending to "Batman Arkham Asylum." Hell, even Bethesda Game Studios with it's disappointing ending to "Fallout 3," offered DLC to continue the game after you die, or, better still, allow Fawkes, the friendly Super Mutant who hangs out with you, to go activate Project Purity, for as disappointing as Arkham Asylum is, it offers you the chance to continue running around the Asylum and look for any remaining Riddles. But the fact that this was supposed to be the epic conclusion to a beloved series of games, it begs the question if Bioware actually cares about their fans to give them this sh*t.

This game ending is so notoriously bad Bioware released extended endings through DLC to offer some resolution for gamers and their choices. While they offer some resolution to what you chose, the endings are still the same, you're dead, without he exception of this one ending where you can see Shepherd taking a breath before it cuts to black. At least continue on! Show us the happy ending we were promised goddammit!
This ending is so bad, it practically killed off any respect and love I had for the games. Even trying to replay the first two felt pointless since no matter what you do, it al leads up to disappointment. That's how bad this ending is.

Final Thoughts:
Mass Effect 3 has the makings of a great game. The story is very engaging, even my sister, who had never played the previous Mass Effect games, found herself really intrigued in the storyline. The gameplay wasn't my favorite, but the story was the only thing that kept me wanting to keep going because I was so involved with the emotion of the characters and the story. Sure, most of it is just mindless busywork, but for some of the characters you get to meet format he previous games, being able to say goodbye to them, such as Thane and Legion, was utterly satisfying. The choices you make over the course of the game offer great satisfactory resolution for the characters and their goals. I cured the genophage, bringing a satisfactory resolution to the Krogans' suffering. I helped the Quarians return tot heir home world and built a bridge of peace between them and the Geth.
It's moments like that that really gave me emotional closure to these conflicts that were raised over the course of the game and I felt satisfied with them. Even certain characters that I didn't like in the last game, I really liked them even more here.

But all of that is ruined by the ending, which spits in the faces of anyone who even gave a sh*t for the Mass Effect universe and story. The ending is like the Ultima 9 of gaming, but unlike Ultima 9 where the entire game spits in the face of Ultima fans, the ending to this one game spits in the fans of Mass Effect fans.
Webcomic artist Jay Naylor did a comic article that described the ending to Mass Effect 3 to be like "Having some of the best sex of his life building towards the end and it's ruined by farting on his balls right before climax."  Not sure if I would put it like that, but it is a good way to put it.
I put it like this:
Bioware says they love you, but EA games has complete distain for their fans.