Part 1: Look, Gamplay and such
Part 2: #Solcomms
Part 3: Plots, Subplots and related commentary pt1, pt2, pt3
Part 4: The Extended Enging and Wrap Up
Finally... I've decided, not having played Mass Effect 3 in
months, now might be the time where I have enough emotional distance from the
game to actually talk about it in depth. And by depth, I'm saying that I'll possibly be
splitting this into a couple of posts - the first talking about general stuff
(first impressions, look and feel and game play in general) and then about the
story itself. So, no spoilers in the first, uberish-spoilers thereafter.
Got it? Good.
Here we go.
First I have to give credit where
it’s due. Some of the critique I give here comes from the youtube post ‘Where
Mass Effect 3 went wrong’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M-jtGoYX_Q . It isn’t an emotional video about the
story but rather a somewhat objective commentary from a game play angle.
Logical and well thought out. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t
finished the game yet.
Note: I have not played Multiplayer – in
fact, I don’t have the ability to do so. So I’m going to make some speculations
in here that might not be accurate at all.I'm mostly going to talk from the perspective of one who can only play single player. I'm not going to sit and do the research for a portion of the game I'm probably never going to play. I'm lazy like that.
What’s the gist?
Shepard finds herself (Femshep! Whoo!) in the precarious position
of not being trusted by the Alliance, as she worked with an unsavoury group of
people before, and all her jumping up and down about the Reapers doesn’t seem
to have helped much either. And then the Reapers pitch up. No one is prepared for
the baddies’ invasion which takes place rather quickly and without any
resistance. Or rather, all that humanity can throw at them has zero effect.
It is again up to Shepard to save the day by uniting the races
across the galaxy, regardless of how much they distrust and/or hate each other,
and strike back in a desperate attempt not only to retake earth but to save
everyone. Because, if humanity falls, the rest of the galaxy is doomed. We’re
cool like that.
The Look and Feel
I can’t say I’ve always been blown away by the scenery of Mass
Effect games. Oh, they had some moments of pretty. The scenes in which you
enter or leave the Citadel, Omega, Illium, etc; and then the Citadel itself and
the feeling surrounding the Citadel of tranquillity are all masterfully done.
But there was rarely a moment for me within the actual gameplay where I
inadvertently said ‘Whoa! That’s spectacular’…maybe with the exception of Eden
Prime when you see Sovereign leaving the planet.
Mass Effect 3 doesn’t have that problem. The designers went out of
their way to show you how small you are and how big your opponent is. Beyond
that, they also really went all out to give you those marvel moments.
You start off your game in Vancouver and the first thing you see as
you go outside is a big-assed Reaper blowing the crap out of buildings a couple
of miles from you. You literally have to stop and really appreciate the scale of
what you’re seeing – ships buzzing overhead, explosions everywhere, debris
falling from the sky. You’re horrified but enthralled. The look is a lot
grittier than any of the other games in the series. I have to admit that I
haven’t seen any pictures of Vancouver. I don’t know what the place looks like
at all. However, given the level of detail, I think someone who has might be
even more blown away by 1) how they developed it 2) how the Reapers destroy it.
I was really surprised by how awesome they made Tchuchunka and
its… native fauna ;) Some of the most breath-taking moments in the game take
place there and the scenery and look of just everything that happens there is
really well done.
And the scenery does play a big role in terms of the story. You
realise that this fight is bigger than you; that you’re fighting for more than
your crew, and Hackett with his ships, and the Citadel and its stupid council.
This is a galaxy-wide threat you’re fighting against… and you’re losing – which
is always a really good place to start a game.
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| Chakwas ME2 |
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| Chakwas ME3 (six months later) |
Jack looks breath-taking. Oh my word, was it a surprise to see
her! I was SO proud of her and that was just because she was less bald! :-P
Guess that’s not too much of a spoiler.
Your opponents in this game – from the Reapers’ side – are very
creepy looking, but each distinct and you can sort of understand why they look
like they do. However, whether it is by players’ demand or Bioware’s own
designing choice, the husks weren’t nearly as creepy as they had been in the
other two games. Oh, they’re still creatures you don’t want to have near you,
but they’re a lot easier to kill and they’re not quite as terrifying. They always used to freak me out, especially in ME2 with those zombie-like moans they made, but not in ME3. In fact, they kinda move like they’re on roller blades…
As for the human enemies you encounter, they made some really
strange choices that didn’t quite make sense. Ninja enemies? True, they are
very difficult to kill, very quick on their toes (literally) and deadly with
their Japanese swords (I’m assuming? Apologies if I 
have that bit wrong). But
they also totally pulled me back to reality every time I saw them and I had to
wonder about Bioware’s choice every time. That’s not something you want the
gamer do while playing.
have that bit wrong). But
they also totally pulled me back to reality every time I saw them and I had to
wonder about Bioware’s choice every time. That’s not something you want the
gamer do while playing.
I’m assuming it’s to sort of match Kai Leng so that he doesn’t
stand out… but I think it would have been better if they just made him unique.
I don’t know his backstory but it just would’ve made more sense to me.
The soundtrack for Mass Effect 3 is amazing – as most of the music
in the series has been. The final instalment really is an emotional
rollercoaster simply by the fact that it is the last one and the fans are really
attached to the series as a whole. The
music stays with you every step of the way and it does a great job in capturing
every moment.
The Normandy
I was horrified to see what the Alliance did to the Normandy.
While I understand the need for some key room changes and I do like a couple of
the ones they put in, I did feel that they could’ve done a little bit more in
at least not making it look like the Hulk walked into the CIC level. Here too,
things felt a lot grittier, but almost needlessly so. There’s at least a
six-month gap since the Alliance got their hands on the ship. The least they
could do is get the wires off the floor.
As I’ve said, there are some room changes and additions that I
really liked. I liked the shuttle bay area. I felt that it does give the Normandy a bit more of a
ship-like feel to it – no, I can’t really explain it better. The one thing I
have an issue with – which was also pretty much an issue with the other
Normandy versions – is that I still don’t have an idea of how large the crew
is. It’s a big ship, how can the crew deck not have more beds. I don’t want to
be able to walk and count every bunk on the ship, but I’d like to have an idea
that there’s more than one room which has only something like 12 bunks in it.
The war map is also an awesome idea, but I’ll babble about it a
little later.
Gameplay
A lot of attention was given to combat and it definitely shows.
The cover system was enhanced so that your Shepard could roll or
run from cover to cover and also nip around the corner of your cover without
having to be exposed to weapon fire. I have to say in terms of cover, it took
me quite a while to get my hands to be as light on the buttons as they needed
to be. I would have Shep in cover, have her run up to a box, crouch and take
cover there, but in the end I would press some button that makes her stand up
right as she hit the box. And then I’d get frantic and try to get her to crouch
and end up with her getting shot repeatedly before the wench finally ducked
down. This I can only ascribe to my extreme button pounding and it happened
quite a lot.
I used the features of running or rolling quite a bit. I didn’t
use the feature of moving around the corner of cover except for the tutorial
section where you had to. The reason being that it was even harder to convince
my Shep to keep her ass down. I’d rather lose my cover for a second, get her
where I needed her and have her duck, then trying to get her to turn a corner
and stay down. Plus it probably saved my controller a tad (though not much
since it conked in May, but that’s another story).
Where before, when enemies came too close to shoot at, you could
strike at them with your gun or elbow. Here the omniblade comes in. Your
omnitool now has a blade of some sort that you can stab enemies with. It’s
handy with some of your enemies – like husks – but I found that most of the
enemies you encounter later in the game were simply far too powerful. Where the
omniblade did become useful is for stealth kills, where you could creep against
a low wall until you’re behind your enemy and then pull him over to your side
and stab him. You could also do the same thing if your enemy was using the
opposite side of the same wall/container for cover.
An interesting design feature they brought in with the omniblade
is that it looks different for every class you play. Some have blades for both
hands; others’ blades are rather wicked looking. My favourite has to be the
vanguard who doesn’t strike with an omniblade at all but whose hand glows with
biotics as they strike out.
The only nitpick I have to make here is that when Shepard is not
in cover and uses the strike, broshep gets to do a full on punch where femshep apparently
needs to swipe at her opponents. I know, I know, not a big issue, but it did
bug me somewhat. I didn’t play a femshep vanguard, so I don’t know what they
did with her when she strikes with biotics, but if they did the swipe thing, I
would have been severely unimpressed. Everyone knows you can’t do a badass
biotic strike as a backhand. Everyone does! Ahem.
Enemy and squad AI (or VI if you want to get technical) has been
upped quite a bit too. Your squad actually works with you now instead of just
randomly trailing behind you. They fight with you all the way. They also have
the brains to take cover when they’re being shot at and to take -decent- cover
– not like in ME2 where they stood like idiots behind ineffective ‘cover’ while
they were being shot to pieces.
Talking about being shot to pieces, this is probably a good place to talk about their revamped health bar. So instead of having a single 'line' for your health now, the health bar has been devided into sections. Given a change to regenerate, your health does not go back to full, but rather heals up the section that it was in. An interesting idea which makes the game a little more challenging. I haven't decided whether I like it yet.
I did feel like, when it came to powers, they weren’t as keen on
using their own initiative. I don’t know whether I just never gave them the
chance and kept giving them instructions like the control freak I am or whether
there was a setting somewhere that enables them to use it more freely, but it
was something I noticed.
I have to say that the special abilities did get a lot of
attention as well. Every ability was well thought out and useful. And they were
given a lot more punch. Liara’s singularity is incredibly epic – but those who
played ME2’s DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker would already know that. The Carnage
ability is a lot more potent than I’ve seen it before – I used to ignore it
completely. The vanguard’s Nova ability is my favourite combat ability in the
game. You basically use your biotic barrier to cause a biotic explosion around
you. It is awesome if you use Biotic Charge to land amongst a group of opponents
and then Nova. It’s risky; you really have to decide whether those guys’ health
is low enough that they’re not going to get up after you struck them with that
because otherwise you may find yourself knee-deep in trouble.
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| How can you concentrate with this going on? |
One piece of critique I can give (totally stolen from ‘Where Mass
Effect went wrong’) is the fact that the beginning of the game throws
everything at you at once and while that can be potent story-wise, it’s not for
the standard tutorial mode that is in every game. The Vancouver scene is really
potent and important both to the story and setting as well as to the gameplay.
When you finally finish that bit, as a new gamer you’ll most likely feel more
overwhelmed than anything. The youtube vid makes a really good comparison to
between the beginning of ME2 and ME3. In ME2, though the introduction is kinda
lengthy, the player gets (re-)introduced to the Normandy. The story comes first
and sets up the big trigger to future events. Your actions are limited only to
movement and dialogue. Later in the game, you have your space station sequence
which initially starts off very light on story and where you’re introduced to
the combat mechanics. With ME3 you get both the story introduction and the
combat mechanics thrown at you at the same time. Also, all your powers are
available to you – which might be nice if you’ve played the other games, but
could also be a bit of the WTF moment for those who are trying to (re-)acquaint
themselves to the game.
Space! And mini-sidequests.
Space travelling in ME3 is... similar to ME2 in some ways and
sorta not. You still have your mass effect relays taking you to various
clusters throughout the galaxy and the ability to go from planet to planet and
sector to sector – if you have enough fuel. The galaxy map shows you clusters
which have a strong reaper presence. If you’re in a cluster where there are
reapers about, they’ll pick up on your scanning (will explain this in just a
moment) and eventually rush in to try and kill the Normandy. Mostly they’re
pretty easy to avoid, but don’t let them surround you. You now also have the
ability to scan a cluster which will show you if there is any useful debris
about or whether a planet might have something useful on it. It’s kind of like
sending out a sonar pulse. It doesn’t cover the whole solar system, so you have
to do it a couple of times to cover the whole space. The more you send out
pulses, the more aware the reapers become of you. This scan feature is
important for the mini-sidequests.
Basically the mini-sidequests are started when you walk around the
Citadel and overhear someone whine about something. “Oh we’ve lost this book”,
“Oh this was so important to my people”, “Our men are low on morale because we
don’t have this piece of cloth”… that type of thing. In essence, a
mini-sidequest can basically be explained with “Fetch doggie! FETCH!” It tends
to have no meaning to you whatsoever except that it adds to your war assets. You’ll
go to the sector that was mentioned in the conversation, send out pulses until
a nearby planet lights up, then you’ll go to it and probe.
For those who have played ME2, you’ll remember the mining feature
was a pain in the butt. You needed the resources to upgrade and so you’ll go
from planet to planet and spend quite a bit of time mining resources by sending
out probes based on what that particular area is rich in. ME3 uses a watered
down version of that to find the item you’re supposed to find. So you’d go to a
planet, it brings up the probing screen, you’ll whiz around with your scanner
and send out a single probe to pick up said item.
So what’s the problem with that? Well, it’s completely pointless.
In this case they could’ve just as well have gone with ME1’s method of going to
a planet and simply activating a scan. You’ll get the feedback that whatever
object has been found and you can move on. There’s no real reason to jump to
the mining feature at all as you’re basically doing it to find a single thing
that you know you’re going to find without any limitations such as time or
probes.
I’ll be talking about quests and sidequests in the next post as
that’s more spoilery.
What are war assets?
This gets a heading of its own because it’s almost something of a
philosophical question. Something like ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ where
everyone will have a different answer.
Oh come now, why the mystique?
War assets are basically what they sound like they should be. As
said above, Shepard’s main mission is to pull the races together so as to take
on the Reapers. So you progress through the game and you do your quests and
make your choices and do your mini-sidequests, and so on. All of these things
add to your score of war assets you have gathered. Some of the choices you’ve
made the previous games can also add of detract from that score – some in
unexpected ways. One would think that some Paragon actions would give you a
higher score, but there are instances where, in fact, it does the exact
opposite.
You can find your score on the war map located in the war room.
Which brings me to the whiny part of the whole war room/war assets
thing.
My theory is that the guys at Bioware had this awesome idea. It
was awe-inspiring. And then someone took that awesome idea… and flushed it down
the toilet.
What I don’t understand about all of it is why the traces of
unfulfilled ideas are still present in the game.
DLC gaps
Which brings me to my last bone of contention: DLC gaps. What do I
mean by this? I’m going to use a comparison to a situation in ME2 so as not to
spoil it for you.
So you know in ME2 how you encounter Liara in her office? Pre-DLC,
there already are some changes you note and some character interaction that
take place. Seeing how Ashley/Kaiden treated you a while before and how Wrex
(if he survived) has his responsibilities to see to; it’s a shock but still
acceptable that the asari isn’t going to drop everything to follow you. You can
resent her for it, but part of you will eventually accept that she’s a wench
and move on.
The DLC for Liara therefore might not be such a surprise, but it’s
not an obvious setup. You don’t go in pre-DLC thinking “hm, they’re going to
put something here, I can see it”. You can suspect, but you can’t know.
Fast forward to ME3 and you have shameless setups. Holes and character interaction that just screams
“watch this space!!” Now some people will be excited to have that particular
DLC come along (not me since I don’t have internet to link my xbox to – hence
no multiplayer). It’s an awesome character or potential side-quest; definitely
going to be an awesome story; yadda, yadda, yadda. But really? I find myself
seriously unimpressed. Let me speculate, don’t let me know. Let me like with
Liara, think that that would be a perfect spot to put a DLC. Don’t let me see
that as the only reason you’ve put the character there. Especially given the
reason that you do interact with them pre-DLC has no effect on the game
whatsoever. That’s just annoying. You buggers.
Conclusion
Alright, I admit it. After writing this, I can see that I don’t
have the emotional distance I thought I had. And that’s a shame, because Mass
Effect 3 is actually a fantastic game. Its creators made some really strange
choices but you can’t really blame the child for the parents’ actions, right?
When I get into the story bit, you’ll really see me light up. I will be
avoiding some parts I’ve talked about before and just focus on what I thought
made this game pretty darn impressive.
To summarize this part:
-
Look:
Amazing. Supports the storyline and
impresses upon you the epic scale of the game.
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Music
and sound: Awesome. You really find
yourself captured within the emotions and energy of the game. Also, the sound
they came up with for reaper blasts is the best thing I’ve heard.
-
The
Normandy: *trips over cables and gasps at
the sight of her CIC* WHAT HAVE YOU DONE??????!?!!!!! Ooh some rooms are nice,
ooh hello cargo bay!
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Combat:
Brilliant. Damn it Shepard! Get your ass behind that crate!
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Enemy
AI: Impressive. Stop flanking me you bastards!!
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Space
travelling and mini-sidequests: Meh.
What’s the point?
-
DLC
gaps: Grrrr.
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