Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

I was pumped up when I picked up my mass effect 3 at midnight on launch night. Finally I was able to finish my shepards epic story and save the galaxy from the reaper threat. All last week i was stuck in the world of mass effect and i wasn't mad at it. Up until the last moments of the game i was having a blast. Unfortunately the ending of the game just killed the whole series. Bioware makes you believe your choices matter throughout all 3 games, but that is a HUGE lie. I wont spoil the ending but just know that all the endings are the same. so really it's just one ending with a different color energy blast.

Story 8/10
Like I said the end of the story is a huge let down, but up until the last moments of the game, it is fantastic. You get the chance to cure the genophage, unite the geth and quarians if you feel like doing so, save your former squad mates, and recruit armies/fleets for the final battle. I wish they woulda shown tali's real face instead of some dumb photo, but whatever. They also shoulda had an epic final battle against the illusive man or harbinger. I dunno why they didnt do that. still a good story until the end.

Gameplay 8.05/10
The gameplay is improved, and the shooting for the most part is pretty smooth. The only knock I have on the gameplay is that shepard is zoomed in too close to the camera and he can get in the way of sometimes. It kinda feels like they wanted to make a more call of duty run and gun shoot em up style game, but you also need to use yur biotics and tech powers to advance through some of the fire fights.

graphics 8/10
They look the same as mass effect 2. not much has changed. some cut scenes some characters will disappear or the mouths will be off with the dialog but for the most part the game looks great.

other.
The war assets and galatic readiness is a joke. They basically don't mean crap. so dont stress over this feature
-multiplayer is fun and I was hooked for a bit. You can unlock weapons/attachments and other useful items by saving up yur credits after every mission and buying veteran packs. playing online affects your galatic readiness rating as well butttt...... After i found out that the galatic readiness doesn't actually mean much cuz the endings are all the same, i stopped playing.

- I dunno how the heck the creators of the game can claim there are 16 different endings. The worst part is that nothing you did in any of the games really affects what happens in the end and that is the most depressing thing about the mass effect series.I would have liked to see what happened to my surviving squad mates, the quarian/geth relationship, and how the krogans were doing. blah blah blah. It woulda been nice to have some sort of closure to the game, but i guess we will have to wait and see what bioware decides to do with the series.

-In the end its still a fun game. sad ending but still worth a play through if you have played since mass effect 1.

-Spoiler* I read online that maybe the ending of the game was all a dream and that shepard was really trying to fight off the mind control from the reapers. If you choose the right ending, theres a chance shep can live.... but its still all the other same garbage scenes. If you put it that way then the ending doesnt suck as much, but it still sucks.