Babble: All things Mass Effect 3 Part 3 – Plots, subplots, and related commentary (pt1)

The whole Mass Effect 3 Babble:
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

Oh dear, when you start having “something” part three “sub something” part one then you know it’s getting a little thick. But I have so much to talk about that it will just be too much to put all together. I mean, if my notes were more than a single page in length, then you ought to know that the actual post(s) are going to be epic! Plus, it’s my blog damnit! :-P Glad we’ve established that. *winks*

Also, let me add that I’m well aware that the Extended Ending DLC is coming out today (has already actually) and that could make a substantial difference to what I’m going to talk about… if I allow it to. But I’m not going to. I’m going to make a clear split between how the game was and how it turned out after Bioware tried to save itself from mob justice. I will be watching the DLC this week, but I’m going to keep going on as if I hadn’t and come back to that right at the end of this series.

Why take this approach? Well, a couple of reasons.

The first being that it would might require a lot of thought – seeing as Bioware decided to throw in their version of the meaning of life (42! 42 damnit! Weren’t you paying attention?!).

Secondly, I don’t have my xbox connected to the internet. In fact, I only have random moments of connectivity at home. So if it weren’t for the miracle of Youtube, I wouldn’t even have been able to watch the bloody thing. Maybe if I were actually putting my Shepard through all that trauma again, I might have been differently affected by the whole thing, but because I’m not, I’m going to try to keep it two different entities.

Thirdly, because I feel they are two different entities altogether. I feel that this is an attempt to put a Band-Aid on a third-degree burn.

Yes, I will most certainly comment on it somewhere, but not immediately.

So in this post I’m going to give a brief summary of the game (ha! Me brief!). I do plan on doing a full on babble about some feelings relating to story specifics later in this series (yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s become a series), but since the story is so interwoven with the characters, it makes more sense to just touch on it here and dive into it later.

I’ll also be chattering about the characters: specifically going into their look and how they sound. Yes, it does sound like a repetition of the previous post, but this time seeing as it’s spoilery!!!, I can actually make some game references. I especially need to be able to do that with the more unsavoury sort.

You’ll notice however that Javik is conspicuously absent from this whole series. That would be because, while I have the Collector’s Edition of ME3, my lack of internet connectivity prevented me from downloading his existence into the ME universe. All I know about him and what I’ve seen of him is his odd sense of humour and his African accent.

But the same applies to the other DLC characters from Mass Effect 2 – Katsumi and Zaeed. I don’t know them so I’m not going to talk about them.

One more point. I've already noticed that there are some edits that I need to do in previous posts. If there's something I miss in a particular post that're worth babbling about, mention them and I'll work them in.

Summary – vague impressions

There is so much to love about Mass Effect 3 and so much to hate about it. As upset as many are about the game (myself included), I don’t think it’s because the number of negatives outweigh the positives… There is a lot to marvel about. It is more that the consequences of the negatives are so dire that it completely overshadows the good. My hope is that I’ll be able to do the good some justice.

Mass Effect 3, as discussed before, has the reapers finally invade the galaxy, first taking out the batarians before focusing their attention on humanity and then on everyone else. Side note: why did they first have to focus ALL their attention on humanity before taking everyone else on AT THE SAME TIME? Hmm… They are so technologically advanced – due to all the knowledge they’ve absorbed – that there is very little opposition the Alliance can give and soon most of earth’s forces are decimated – with the exception of some random ships that were somewhere else for some other reason.

Shepard again has to take on the mantle of soldier and protector – along with the new role of diplomat – despite how she has been treated by just about every major government structure within the galaxy. She does this with as much grace as someone could given the circumstances and manages to do the impossible (again) for the third and final time. She unites the races – who have the tendency to hate each other – and convinces them to throw all their resources into building the ultimate weapon against the reapers and sacrificing all they possibly can – including some their homeworlds – to defeat this common enemy who has no intention to leave before all the races are wiped out. Well, those they don’t find another use for – ala the keepers.

If that’s not enough, Shepard takes the fight back to earth, running headlong along with other ground forces consisting of earth resistance fighters and the races she managed to gather into what would become her final charge. Somehow she survives the crazy battle and laser strikes and whatnot to make it to her destination just to discover that nothing is as it seems. She is given the terrible choice that will somehow save some but not others and certainly not herself.

General chatter

I have covered some of these things already, but they deserve being mentioned again.

Having played all three Mass Effect games, I have to marvel over how these characters developed through the years. Ashley looks stunning. They’ve still kept her basic bone structure, but I initially didn’t recognize her – definitely not from the trailers! Most of the characters received a major amount of attention. Their skin doesn’t look so plastic anymore, their eyes (which Bioware has always thankfully managed to get right) now has a lot more expression and interest in them.

But it’s more than that.  They managed to bring in real body language beyond a character standing with their arms crossed or leaning against a table. And they’ve managed to do that with every portion of the body, not just hands and hips. There are still some things that are a little clunky. Arm movements seem a little awkward. However, there’s no denying that everything has been improved. One of my favourite scenes is Liara’s moment where she enters Shepard’s information into her galaxy record. It is in here that you’ll find the best example of how much attention was spent into her character specifically. 

“But there’s one entry I wanted your opinion on.”

In the moment Liara says “your opinion on”, she turns her head from the record to Shepard and her expression was brilliant. It showed everything it needed to. Uncertainty, hope, deference… her eyes are narrower than usual, her head slightly tilted. Everything from her face to the way her shoulders shifted was just right.

But it’s not just the movements that maketh the character. A lot of it has to do with voice acting as well. I dare say most of it. Bioware managed to assemble a wonderfully talented cast – many reprising their roles as characters and so are already well in tune with what they needed to do. Here too there’s been a lot of improvement from the acting side. Simply compare the characters from Mass Effect 1 – Tali, Garrus, Liara, Wrex, Kaidan, Ashley, Joker, Anderson, Chakwas – to Mass Effect 3. They’re not just reading lines anymore. Now even in ME1 there were still some shining moments in terms of acting, but it felt like a lot more attention was given to the voices from ME2 onwards and in ME3, it just stands out.

I have to highlight three actors specifically who I felt really raised the bar: Jennifer Hale (Commander Shepard – Female), Ali Hillis (Dr Liara T’Soni) and William Salyers (Dr Mordin Solus). Okay, let me explain why before you tell me I’m being biased (even if I am somewhat).

There’s always been some heated debating (we shan’t call them all out wars) about who’s the better Shepard. Now give Mark Meer his due: he makes for a really strong, impressive Commander Shepard… but that’s it. What has always elevated Jennifer Hale is the fact that her angle on Shepard was always more than rough and tough. She managed to layer her lines in such a subtle way that you could pick up that there was more to what she was saying than just the words whether it be amusement, hurt, frustration, etc.

In Mass Effect 3, the story didn’t allow for only a rough and tough Shepard and Mark Meer definitely stepped up to the plate to give moments where you could hear the frustration, the weariness, the hopelessness that Shepard was feeling.  But there were also moments where the line was so flatly delivered that you didn’t know what to make of it.

When Shepard is on the Normandy for the first time in ME3 – as Normandy is leaving earth – Joker speaks over the intercom. In-game this would be the first time in six months that Shepard hears Joker’s voice and Shepard’s first reaction is “Joker, is that you?” With Hale, you could hear pleasant surprise in her voice. Meer delivered it so flat that you had no idea whether he was surprised, amused, bored, or just neutral. He could’ve been the dead-eyed cashier muttering “paper or plastic”.

I played until after Palavan with Broshep before I started off my Femshep game (Alyssa) and I agreed to starting the game together and giving a running commentary of what we were seeing, feeling and noting as we played). I continued playing BroShep (or Bastard Shep as my character has come to be called) up until Tuchunka. I’ve further watched several ME3 vids with Broshep, filling in the blanks I hadn’t gotten to.  I feel that those who’ve only played the male Shepard are missing a helluva lot. Yes, femshep’s romance options were severely limited in the previous Mass Effect games (ugly, pathetic, chocolate far too sweet for one’s teeth, and slash) but you got a far better idea of what was actually going on with Shepard or simply understanding the character’s tone. You could do a single scene with a million different ways without changing a single word on the script. You can also lose every nuance if you just do rough and tough.

Liara has always been an interesting character because of how she developed, not because of how she started off. A big reason I didn’t like her much in the first Mass Effect was because it really did sound as if Ali Hillis was just reading her lines for a second time and thought to add a couple of pauses and attempts at different intonation along the way. I found Liara bland as a result. If you look at who she was, what situation she found herself in, there was a lot more that one could have done with it. I understand that Liara is an incredibly soft spoken character, but something was just missing. In ME2 she definitely improved, though sadly one could only truly appreciate the change had one played/watched the DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker.  Oh, you did hear change without the DLC as Liara had become really cold two years after the events ME2 started off with, but the range Hillis had in the DLC just made a much greater impact. With ME3 there are several emotions that Liara shows, a lot of shock, anger and desperation along with the moments where she is the glue holding Shepard together – whether she is Shep’s romantic interest or not – and Hillis really did a great job.

I think we tend to forget that these actors sit in a booth. The whole world basically plays in their minds and so it is really hard to generate reactions that sound authentic. Maybe it’s because of this that I really appreciated Hillis in ME3. During the battle with Kai Leng on Thessia, Liara saves Shepard from falling off a ledge by grabbing onto her arm. She shouts at Shepard to hang on with an almost growl to her voice, you can imagine that Liara was really straining and desperate. This was no longer Hillis sounding like she was merely reading lines.

Mordin popped into the Mass Effect universe in the second instalment and instantly became a beloved character due to his quirky dialogue and rapid, uneven manner of speech. Salarians have such short lifespans that every second is important to them, which makes those moments where he pauses to punctuate a particular point all the more precious. William Salyers took over from Michael Beattie and to be honest, the only reason I realised that there was a different actor playing Mordin was because I had gone to IMDB to check who the cast were for all three games (I was in a stalkerish mood *winks*). Salyers does have a slightly higher pitch but he must have really taken time to learn Beattie‘s take on the character. He truly was brilliant. Mordin also had a lot of different directions he was going, from his awfully chipper self to sad to regretful to angry. Salyers pulled it off in style and for that he really does deserve proper notice.

So I tackled the good things regarding the characters created. I need to take on four less-than-stellar creations.

What on earth did they do to Joker?! When it comes to his design, as I said before, it looked to me like he had had a rash on his face – or was fresh from having a rash that he scratched at mercilessly. I also don’t know what they did with his eyes, whether they made them wider or just whiter, but he was far too eerie for me. Seth Green is a really talented voice actor and I think it a shame that they didn’t take better care of his character. What annoys me about that is that he was hands-down one of my favourite characters. I am totally one of those who felt he should have had a shot at Shepard in ME2. He would have been a much better option than all the other males they threw at her. 

Vega… good grief… what can I say about Vega? Well, I’m going to tear into him a little later, but… let’s first give Freddie Prince Jnr his credit. He managed to act the shit out of a really lame character. However, that grunting he did when he was doing pull-ups was really disturbing. Seriously. As for looks, he looks like a tank – which is basically the role I used him for as a squad mate. So I guess in that respect they did okay. And they definitely did his eyes better than Joker’s, but I still felt that there was something off about him, whether it is that his body is too big for his head or his dialogue is horrendously… stupid (there isn’t another word for it, sorry).

And then the worst for last: Diana Allers… … … … … She is the most painful video game creature I have ever had the displeasure to look upon. Bring that cannibal on the ship, please. Let’s have a talk with it.

I know that her looks were supposedly based off of Jessica Chobot who also did her voice, but have you seen pictures of Chobot?  

   That is not an ugly woman in the slightest. I don’t know which pictures they used as reference, but it must’ve been those that should have been burnt. Yes, I see some of the features there, but there couldn’t have been a harsher rendition of her, without question. Alyssa and I had to find something good about this character… after much painstaking deliberation; we decided that her hips would be good for childbearing.

So now that I’ve defended Chobot’s honour, let me turn around and rip a hole into it. Let’s just first get this out of the way: Chobot isn’t an actress. She’s a writer and a camera host. But being a host does not an actor make. Not a damn. And then to put her in a booth and have her do what I consider the most difficult type of acting not only makes her look bad, but verges on stupidity for whoever thought of that bloody idea.

I don’t have the background details. I don’t know why or how Diana came into existence.  I don’t know why she had to walk around must-hang with very little to hang; or why she needed hips wider than her shoulders. But it didn’t do anyone justice or credit.  If anything it created a new breed of Chobot-haters.

If you needed to have a journalist on board, you know who I would have loved to see? Khalisha al-Jilani. No really! Just imagine it: An antagonistic reporter given no choice but to document the Normandy’s journey; someone who challenges Shepard’s every move – basically the exact opposite of Liara’s role. And yes, there could be some punches thrown (I would love to see Kalisha kick Shepard’s ass. I’d pay to see that. Oh wait, I did. *giggles*).

Then imagine her beginning to talk to the crew; her walking around everywhere trying to prove her bitterness justified and maybe, just maybe having her start seeing different angles to Shepard or at least to the mission.

Wouldn’t that have been much better than we got?

Khalisha for RESIDENT!!

Babble: All things Mass Effect 3 Part 2 - #solcomms

The whole Mass Effect 3 Babble:
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

Maybe the idea isn’t so fresh and original as it strikes me. Maybe it was simply my first encounter with this kind of marketing. There have been other ARGs (alternate reality gaming) used for marketing such as Halo 2’s ilovebees. Maybe it was simply because I was interested in the subject being marketed.

But #Solcomms totally blew me out of the water.

Let me start at the beginning.

Emily Wong

In ME1 while walking through the Citadel, you encounter human reporter Emily Wong whose interest is finding stories that really matter. She has her eye set on a particular piece, but she needs information she can't gather by herself and asks you for help.

Fast forward to ME2. It’s two years later and Emily Wong is no longer the young reporter desperately chasing after elusive leads. She’s worked her way up to the Citadel News desk. As you pass several news screens, you see her behind the desk giving you the news that helps fill in the blanks of what happened during Shepard’s… period of recuperation. She’s not a character you speak to during a game, but it’s still kinda nice to know that she made it after you helped her out… if you had bothered to.

Mass Effect 3 marketing

The guys at Bioware really went all out when they marketed Mass Effect 3. You had the amazing trailers, the interviews, the demos, copies of the game being shot ‘from space’ and floating down with a parachute into the eager hands of a gamer (or in the eager branches of a tree). They even set up a blog acting as Alliance News Network (the Alliance being what the human government is called in Mass Effect) which started posting in-game stories on the Alliance, on alien races such as the Batarians, Asari, Turians, etc., as well as on Cerberus (a human terrorist organisation). Again this was an attempt to whet the gamer’s appetite and to give context as to the circumstances in which ME3 was going to start off in. They also started a Twitter account @AllianceNewsNet ten days before the game’s release giving short headlines and linking to some of the articles posted throughout this time.

So far it looked pretty cool that they were using these online platforms to continue marketing the game. You were curious, but it wasn’t exactly mind blowing.

Comm buoy technical difficulties

The batarian homeworld was the first to go dark due to their communication buoys having stopped working. Hostile relations between humanity and the batarians made the Alliance the first to be blamed. Five days prior to the game’s launch brought news that the batarians were fleeing from what was described as “obviously an Alliance attack”.

Two days prior to the launch brought the first mention of #solcomms as suddenly our solar system began having trouble with its own comm buoys.

The return of Emily Wong

Tweets started to come in supposedly written by Emily Wong. She started off pretty excited and amused; talking about the people who were around her and how they were communicating via a quantum entanglement communicator (QEC) which was at that point the only way to communicate off world. This method of communication was also limited to text only – this obviously being a smart move by Bioware to justify why Twitter was being used. There was some speculation as to why the comm buoys were still out, but at that point it was still not really taken seriously. And then… well I’ll let Emily tell the story:

Emily continued giving a blow-by-blow update on what she was seeing. There was confusion as to what was happening, and what the ship was. She also noted the reactions of the people. Emily began sending out warnings as she realised what was happening – that this was actually an attack on earth. The warnings were things such as not to go to crowded areas like hospitals or schools, or avoiding certain roads. She witnesses a variety of creatures that would end up in ME3. Through her tweets the reader picked up on the shock and horror of what she was seeing.

Fan participation

Fan Participation - yfrog pics still work

But it was there that something amazing started to happen. The fans following the events began making their own reports of sightings within major cities along with manipulated pictures of invading reapers and husks (humans transformed into creepy monsters). People replied to Emily urging her to stay safe, sending her reports of places within the city she was in that should also be avoided. There were also warnings to others who were reading the #solcomms tweets. People started calling out for help, began sharing the horror of what they were witnessing and also started asking questions on who these invaders where (as if they didn’t know already); others sending out message of support and assurance that they were “on their way”. Suddenly family members in other cities were in jeopardy; people began “travelling” together, sharing their experiences. There were also quite a few deaths witnessed or experienced along the way. Hundreds of people jumped in and began roleplaying to be part of the Reaper invasion.

And then you had those people on twitter that weren’t aware of ME3 or #solcomms who couldn’t understand what was going on. Like the equivalent of ‘War of the worlds’ when it was first aired over radio, people started asking questions, trying to figure out what these crazy people were panicking about and what on earth #solcomms was. Since most of the posts didn’t specifically mention alien invasion, it is easy to understand the confusion and worry those out of the loop were experiencing. And so even more attention was pulled towards what had become a game in itself with fans warning people of attacks as if they were ignorant of what was "really" happening. They started directing them to places, telling them where to hide, speculating why the reapers hadn’t reached those areas yet.

People living in the southern hemisphere couldn’t quite play along as we were only getting the game a couple of days later and so the Reapers hadn’t “arrived” by us yet, but there were manipulated pictures flying about regardless (I saw an awesome one of Cape Town with a reaper overhead – was so impressed and amused). We started writing news headlines of governments speculating what was really happening up north, whether the reports were a hoax, whether steps should be taken to assist or to start mounting a defence.

The last act: At ramming speed.

You follow Emily’s story throughout.

How she travels to various places, how people who are with her die, how they go from one location to another trying to find loved ones and supplies. She manages to get her hands on a weapon, tries to defend herself at some point and is fatally wounded.

As you can imagine, this was a massive shock to the fans who knew of her, who had been following her tweets and – whether they liked her or not – were rooting for her to make it to safety. She had become a symbol of humanity against an overwhelming threat. She was supposed to survive, damnit!

And in her final tweets, her final act, she was truly painted as a symbol of humanity. She became a symbol of its resistance, its resilience and its determination to continue fighting regardless of how impossible the circumstances were – even to the point of death.

#solcomms didn’t end with her, however. While Bioware’s marketing was now at an end – it was the launch date after all and there for everyone was expected to go grab the game and forget about what had happened on at Twitter. But still the fans tweeted on. They mourned Emily’s loss, swore at the reapers, and kept roleplaying for several days further before the roleplaying finally petered out.

Reflection

In my opinion, #solcomms was truly a stroke of brilliance. I can’t say that I was as deep in the trenches fighting husks and cannibals, worrying about food and supplies, asking for help or saving others. My story was rather boring, but boy! did I have fun! It might have been something silly, but it was something I could step into and be part of. The creativity of some participants was outstanding, whether it was by the images they created or the stories they told. It was such a pleasure to be part of it all. And that is truly part of what made this particular marketing mission a massive success.

The other other thing I have to commend the creators on (because I’m not sure whether it was Bioware or a contracted company, but anyhoo), is the story of Emily. The fact that they took a character that the fans would know and brought her to life outside of the games was already ingenious. That they gave her such a powerful role was truly amazing. She got something that very few got in this game


(Massive spoiler, don't highlight if you're don't want to know)


  and that Shepard didn't even get

(end spoiler) – an honourable ending.

The one thing that they didn’t do which I thought would’ve been nice, was to include references to her story in ME3. Now obviously the marketing must have been thought up after the game was created, but it would have still been awesome to see the thread that had been pulled from the previous games to Twitter then be tied off in ME3. That would have really made it for me.

It's a shame that most #solcomms tweets have been purged, but one can still find multiple tributes the Emily Wong. My particular favourite is this one by David Thomas (@davidnrogers) who is also doing a series of fanfiction news reports post-ME3. I heartily recommend reading it.

Babble: All things Mass Effect 3 Part 1 - Look, Gameplay and such

The whole Mass Effect 3 Babble:
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.

Chakwas ME2

With regard to the characters, there’s definitely been an upgrade to their features – some for good, some not so good. Joker looks like he’s gained weight and just recovered from a skin condition. Dunno what happened there. Also, Chakwas’ hair went from grey is to a white grey I’ve only ever seen on my 70-year-old grandmother. And the style… Look, I’m not the girly type at all. If I start complaining about hairstyles then you know something is wrong.

Chakwas ME3 (six months later)

Ashley looks awesome, Liara looks like she’s had a breast lift (at least she doesn’t have the problem that Samara has where they keep wanting to fall out, poor thing), Anderson looks older but somehow better, Udina still looks like a shmuck (but that can’t be changed by cosmetics). I have to also say that I REALLY like the default femshep’s look. Yes, she does have ‘harsher’ features, but maybe it just works for me because I can relate. Plus, in some way, her flaws make her all the more real and that makes her beautiful. Miranda looks awesome, but then she is Miranda and she’s genetically engineered to look awesome so no surprise there.

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.

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.

I liked the war room – specifically the communications room that leads off of it. It felt more ‘right’ to me than ME2’s communication/meeting room – even if you had that cool effect of “oh hey, now I’m in the Illusive Man’s office all while I never turn around to see what else is in the room and I just cross my arms and glare at the man”.

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.

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.

Firstly, the war map looks pretty awesome, but serves no point whatsoever in the single-player game. It shows the galaxy broken up in sectors and if you shift around between the sectors it shows you percentages of Reaper dominance. You’re given this idea, this expectation that it’s going to play a role somehow – because why else have it there? Those percentages never changed at all. It made no sense to me why I should be given that map view. It clearly is for the use of multiplayer but then don't put it into single player mode. That's just dumb and lazy. You're not supposed to be lazy. You're supposed to be Bioware, for goodness sake!

There is a similar issue of not having any use with regards to the war assets. From what I have gleaned, if you’ve gathered enough assets, there is some kind of reward. I just don’t know whether the reward that they decided on giving you is really sufficient for the amount of effort you put in. And again, I think someone had a brilliant idea that got flushed.

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.

-         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!

-         Combat: Brilliant. Damn it Shepard! Get your ass behind that crate!

-         Enemy AI: Impressive. Stop flanking me you bastards!!

-         Space travelling and mini-sidequests: Meh. What’s the point?

-         DLC gaps: Grrrr.