Mass Effect 3 Review

[Zom-B]

I didn't try the demo, so I can't answer that. When I found that due to sheer dumb luck, I was close to release and had yet to see the game in any fashion, I made an effort to avoid any mention of it. You don't get to do that very often in this business, so I jumped at the chance.

I've given good reviews to games that I don't personally like before, and given mediocre reviews to games I personally adore. Part of being a good and consistent reviewer is separating you, the player, from you, the reviewer. Now, obviously, I'm not a robot, and any review I do is ultimately just an opinion, but I've gotten pretty good at knowing when my personal feelings might get in the way of a proper review. I recused myself from reviewing BioShock 2 because I knew there was no way I could judge it fairly, based on my feelings about BioShock. (Now, so long after the fact, I could do it, but at the time of release? Doubtful.)

Also, you're right, no one review is Ultimate Truth. They're guideposts, nothing more.

Hmm. Okay, well from playing the demo, the character animations were ludicrous. I was laughing on the couch watching my female Shepard and Anderson (? is that his name?) sprinting through the first level. Anderson was so rigidly upright, his arms pumping up and down like toy arms on an action figure. Also, no matter what I tried I couldn't get the sour expression off my character's face. She had this permanent frog mouth thing that was really disconcerting.

By my standards the demo only served to turn me off the game, whereas playing the demo for ME2 had me wanting to play the game, but not for $60. I'll probably pick up the first two on Xbox soonish, but personally I haven't been blown away by what I've seen or experienced from the ME series. I feel like a bad demo is better than no demo at all.

 

[krellen]

This is poor reason to say fuck you to Bioware. What letting her go suddenly makes here completely immune to the repearers? No it didn't.

While I can say "FU" to Bioware for whatever reason I please, the real reason behind this is that it does not make sense, other then in a purely dramatic "it's dark and your choices are wrong" sense. The Rachni should be immune to indoctrination, at least to an extent - the Rachni Queen is evidence already that they are.

Firstly, the Rachni are completely unlike any other life in the galaxy; they are advanced and star-faring, and yet their technology has nothing whatsoever to do with the Mass Relays and other technology seeded by the Reapers; they are an actual independent evolution (among the evidence of this is the fact that the Rachni uniquely can persist in vacuum and hostile environments without technological assistance and the fact that the Rachni apparently knew nothing of Mass Relays until the Council went to them.)

Secondly, the Rachni Queen's story of her children's history already suggests a strong resistance to Reaper/Mass Relay technology. She describes a "Sour Yellow Note" that drove the Rachni insane, sending them on their slaughter. While it's not directly said this is indoctrination, it at the very least implies some sort of incompatibility between the Rachni and the Reaper technology - perhaps it was the opening of the first Relay in their territory that created the note that drove them mad. Either way, the reaction of the Rachni to this influence suggests they are not susceptible to indoctrination in the same way as the other species in the galaxy.

Thirdly, this really only serves to render the choice meaningless anyway. Whether you save her or not, the Rachni exist as adversaries rather than allies, crafting a single path out of what should have been two (or creating instead a false path - existent Rachni - where there should have been none.)

Finally, by throwing your charity back in your face, the game only enforces a tone of despair, where no good can come of anything. By making the Rachni you saved become your enemies, Mass Effect 3 is spitting in the face of the optimism the ending of the original game spoke (an optimism that was, in fact, present whether you chose a Renegade or Paragon ending) for a more "contemporary" - and, by now, trite - "dark", "gritty", and overall pessimistic view on the universe.

As I stated earlier, the optimism of the first game was a very large part of what drew me to it, and every instance I see of Mass Effect becoming a pessimistic universe is yet another "fuck you" moment for Bioware.

So fuck you, Bioware.

 

[Nimcha]

As I stated earlier, the optimism of the first game was a very large part of what drew me to it, and every instance I see of Mass Effect becoming a pessimistic universe is yet another "fuck you" moment for Bioware.

So fuck you, Bioware.

Optimism? Please. Halfway through you already have to sacrifice someone. You destroyed ONE Reaper, knowing thousands more are on their way. It even says at the end of the first game the fight has only just begun. Part 2 was even more pessimistic, it included a suicide mission for god's sake. It actually shows the thousands of nearly invincible Reapers arrive.

How anyone can derive optimism from all this is a great big mistery to me.

 

[Simonoly]

Wow. Just wow. Not the review, but some of the comments. On behalf of the Escapists who aren't combative know-it-all assholes, I'd like to apologize to the Escapist staff. You guys are awesome, and I have seen no reason to doubt your integrity. Sure you like games the community here seems bound and determined to hate, but to me that gives great credit to your honesty and dedication to journalism. You guys are awesome,, I'm sorry you guys get this same bullshit when your review a big EA game, and don't let the bottom feeders bring you down.

OT: Can't wait. My birthday can't come fast enough. So I'll probably end up blowing part of my quarterly bonus on it.

I was just about to say the exact same thing. I have no idea why people feel they need to question the integrity of every reviewer purely because the opinions of the reviewer may not match exactly what they expected. It also shows a real lack of understanding of the responsibility of a professionally written review. It's also quite ironic how you seem to have been accused of being biased in someway for reviewing a game positively by people who seem intent on disliking the game purely because it comes from EA. You're simply reviewing the game, whereas their prejudices against EA are shaping their views of the game and your review. I enjoyed your review - it set the scene, discussed technical problems and was spoiler free! Kudos!

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

They didn't get rid of the planet scanning mechanic? Jesus Christ.

Personally I was most disappointed with how it seems you have to run from the Reapers pursueing instead of there being a space combat mechanic implemented.

They couldn't implement space combat with the reapers that chase you because you CAN'T FIGHT THE REAPERS ALONE. That's what the whole damn series is about, how to stop this insanely powerful race of sentient machines from killing everyone. The WHOLE GAME is about rallying the forces of the entire galaxy to fight them.

But yeah, let's just have the little ole' Normandy fight 4 of them at a time. No biggy.

OT: I LOVED this game right up until the ending. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly left me less than fully satisfied. That being said, I'd still give this game a 9.5/10 easy, not even counting the many hours I'll be putting into the multiplayer. It actually has that emotional investment that the Bioware Docs have been talking about for years. I was almost tearing up at several moments, and the lead up to the end was one of the most "oh my god how is this going to end?!?" sequences I've ever had in gaming. Truly spectacular.

 

[Quellist]

I'm glad i read this review, now the tiny desire i had to play ME3 is gone and i can happily let the game pass without bothering

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Lol. You guys and your wacky conspiracy theories.

 

[BaronIveagh]

Lol. You guys and your wacky conspiracy theories.

Yeah, it's so hard to see where it comes from when the Escapists parent company, Themis Media, a part of the Themis Group, has statements like "Themis Media can help advertisers deliver a memorable and effective advertising campaign that goes beyond the ad box" on their site.

And then we have Greg's newest article which claims to have no understanding of why fans might be upset that Tali's long awaited unmasking having been apparently done by an office temp with a copy of Photoshop and a stock image from the Getty and contains with a more polite version of the old forum standby 'It doesn't matter what you think, so STFU.'

BTW: your new captcha is even advertising Mass Effect 3.

 

[TheSchaef]

The million dollar question:

Can one still get stuck in terrain and forced to reload?

Has happened to me a handful of times in each of the previous two games. Not necessarily a deal breaker but man, it breaks the flow to stop right in the middle of recruiting Garrus to hack my own game and turn off clipping because my most recent save was like two hours ago.

 

[tehroc]

Imagine that yet another absolutely glowing professional review for a major publishers marquee game while it's has generally terrible user ratings. If it isn't corruption, why is there such a divide between the professional reviewers and players? Quite honestly I just don't think Ms Arendt is as demanding in her games, which doesn't really bode well considering her position.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Then how are you financed, Susan? Do you get no advertising revenue from EA, entities affiliated with EA or acting on behalf of EA? If you do, then you have a potential conflict of interest. Giving out near perfect scores to EA games raises concerns that a 'potential' conflict of interest might in fact be 'actual'. For example, to this day I struggle to think of a non-"nefarious" reason as to why your site gave Dragon Age 2 a perfect 5/5.

You realize there's no way for me to answer that question that will "disprove" your theory, right? If I say we don't get ad money from EA, you can say we're bumping up scores to try to persuade them to spend some. If I say we do, then clearly we're bumping up scores to keep the money flowing. If you're determined to believe that we're dishonest - which, frankly, many people are - then there's really nothing we can do about it.

You're right that accepting ad dollars from game publishers can create awkward situations and conflicts of interest. That's happened to us when we've had site skins running advertising a game that we just gave a bad review.

There isn't a gaming site out there that wouldn't rather be completely ad-free, or at least only have ads from what are called "non-endemics", which are non-gaming companies. But that's simply not possible. I was a founding member of a gaming site that made not accepting game company ad campaigns part of its mandate - Crispy Gamer. The site failed, in large part because it couldn't get enough revenue flowing. Non-gaming companies simply don't want to bother with gaming sites because we don't reach a big enough chunk of the population. (And they think you're all poor and therefore not making purchasing decisions within your household.) We get a few non-endemics here and there (and, amusingly, get a lot of negative feedback from the community about "running ads that have nothing to do with games"), but not nearly enough to keep the lights on. If we want to stay in business, we have to accept ads from game publishers.

As for Dragon Age, if you really can't accept that, hey, maybe we just liked the game that much, there's really nothing I can say. I will say that if we'd been using half stars at the time that review came out, it's very likely the game would've gotten a 4.5 and not a 5, but that's just speculation. I get why someone wouldn't enjoy Dragon Age 2, given that it's quite different from Origins, but to assume that the only reason someone would score it well is graft is foolish and ignorant.

But, like I said, people see what they want to see. If you want to believe that all reviewers are lying assholes with their hands out, then it's not much trouble to adapt the facts to suit your perspective. And, really, what are we supposed to counter with?

Either someone chooses to give us the benefit of the doubt, or they don't.

 

[The.Bard]

Imagine that yet another absolutely glowing professional review for a major publishers marquee game while it's has generally terrible user ratings. If it isn't corruption, why is there such a divide between the professional reviewers and players? Quite honestly I just don't think Ms Arendt is as demanding in her games, which doesn't really bode well considering her position.

Are you kidding? I hope you're kidding. Tell me you're kidding.

If you're not kidding, then... wow. Absolutely mind boggling. After seeing universally fantastic critic ratings and abysmal user ratings, you're actually proposing that all of the reviewers are corrupt and gave great scores to a terrible game, which the users are simply being honest about? Because obviously nobody is pathetic enough to spend hours and days of their lives creating multiple user accounts on metacritic and bombing ME3 because they are spiteful little gits? [http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/03/metacritic-says-it-has-removed-rule-violating-mass-effect-3-user-reviews/]

Your logic is just. Wow. I really thought the Bioware haters would just give up and leave by now. The game is out. People love it. The war is over, guys. You haven't convinced everyone to hate Bioware just because you do. You all can go home now, hopefully to families that are worried about you. Your troll princess is in another castle. Get a hobby. Take a class. Learn how to knit. Seek happiness!

How can so many people have so little going on in their lives that spending months of their lives that carrying this everflame log of burning hatred is justified?


Commander Shepard is sad for all of you.

 

[The.Bard]

You realize there's no way for me to answer that question that will "disprove" your theory, right? If I say we don't get ad money from EA, you can say we're bumping up scores to try to persuade them to spend some. If I say we do, then clearly we're bumping up scores to keep the money flowing. If you're determined to believe that we're dishonest - which, frankly, many people are - then there's really nothing we can do about it.

[snip]

Either someone chooses to give us the benefit of the doubt, or they don't.

It's not even worth your time, Susan. If the internet is still in this big of a hateful denial that ME3 isn't the sucky Bioware-destroying game they've been praying it would be for the last two years, your logic will do nothing but evaporate like tears off of their raging red cheeks.

I doubt anything but the end of the world or extreme boredom will get them to accept that some people are capable of loving the game without being paid off. And I mean, seriously, your video review exudes excitement. You're gushing over it! I watched it at work and immediately wanted to break my own leg so I could go home and play more of it. How anyone could mistake that genuine excitement for a payoff is so far beyond me, my brain hurts contemplating it.

What I'd like to know is if Nintendo Power ever took this kind of heat. I used their reviews heavily in my decision making process back in the day. And Nintendo owned them.

 

[somonels]

It seems to me like there is a very sharp decline in interest in ME3, compared to other recent titles and even ME2, by the PC crowd. Then again I'm just basing this on the number of streamers and the amount of viewers they get.

 

[Aisaku]

Finally, by throwing your charity back in your face, the game only enforces a tone of despair, where no good can come of anything. By making the Rachni you saved become your enemies, Mass Effect 3 is spitting in the face of the optimism the ending of the original game spoke (an optimism that was, in fact, present whether you chose a Renegade or Paragon ending) for a more "contemporary" - and, by now, trite - "dark", "gritty", and overall pessimistic view on the universe.

As I stated earlier, the optimism of the first game was a very large part of what drew me to it, and every instance I see of Mass Effect becoming a pessimistic universe is yet another "fuck you" moment for Bioware.

So fuck you, Bioware.

Let me join you in this FU...

Spoiler: ENDING LOGISTICS=SPOILERS

I know that any moderate estimate would require a LOT of cutscene work for an ending where you actually reunite with your love interests:

Number of cutscene variations= PotentialLIs*(ShepardAlive+ShepardDead)*EveryEndingVariation
That's about 96 different ending sequences, just for a 'happy ending' variation.

But still I would've been happy if Bioware had given SOMETHING... a voiceless sequence where you see Shepard and his/her loved one embrace as the rest of the Normandy crew look on.

And if not that, some sort of idea of what happened to the rest of the galaxy... if video cutscenes weren't feasible, did they ever consider a Fallout Style text snippet to summarize what happened to each faction? Did they think it would reflect negatively on the game? WTF!?

I hate this... I'm beyond words. All this potential, squandered. It hurts.

So, all in all, FU Bioware.

 

[krellen]

As I stated earlier, the optimism of the first game was a very large part of what drew me to it, and every instance I see of Mass Effect becoming a pessimistic universe is yet another "fuck you" moment for Bioware.

So fuck you, Bioware.

Optimism? Please. Halfway through you already have to sacrifice someone. You destroyed ONE Reaper, knowing thousands more are on their way. It even says at the end of the first game the fight has only just begun. Part 2 was even more pessimistic, it included a suicide mission for god's sake. It actually shows the thousands of nearly invincible Reapers arrive.

How anyone can derive optimism from all this is a great big mistery to me.

Apparently you don't know the definition of "optimism".

Optimism, n.
1. Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.
2. The doctrine that this world is the best of all possible worlds.

Bad things can happen in an optimistic story. In fact, bad things almost always happen in an optimistic story, just because bad things almost always happen in stories. It isn't what happens that determines whether a story is optimistic or pessimistic, it is the reaction to those events that does. Sure, you had to sacrifice a squadmate. Sure, you only killed one Reaper of thousands. But the end of Mass Effect - and this holds for both Paragon and Renegade endings - came with a definite tone of "we can do this - no, we will do this." It was optimistic about the outcome of the crisis.

And then Mass Effect 2 was completely pointless and forced you to work with your sworn enemy to do the pointless thing (my Shepard was a Sole Survivor. There is no excuse whatsoever for including that background and then forcing the PC to work with Cerberus) because there was "no other option". That's pessimism.

 

[AetherWolf]

Also: See here? Yeah, this is why things are out of hand.

Wow. That picture makes me sad.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Come on. You're not stupid, don't just dismiss any skepticism as "conspiracy theory".

But that's exactly what it is. How dare you accuse someone of being corrupt without even a shred of evidence?

I know for a fact from private conversations that Susan loved ME3, as do I. Not because it suits us, but because it's fantastic fucking game. We're both huge fans of the series. NO one wopuld be more disappointed if it were shit.

I wonder what you lot will say if Yahtzee tears ME3 apart like he's done other Bioware games?

You'll probably say Activision paid him to shit on it.