Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All flash, no substance"

After playing through Mass Effect 3 and being a follower of the series both through the first and second installments let me be frank in saying I was let down. Now my review is not to bash or smear the company name nor to wreak havoc on the franchise. My review is just simply as previously stated....honest.

So lets be honest,

1. Were the side quests in depth?

The answer is honestly no. Lets take a close look at the sidequests in Mass Effect 3 shall we. *Ring Ring* "Shepard this is Admiral Hacket we need you to go down to (insert cluster here) and play the multiplayer maps for roughly ten minutes, which will greatly benefit the Galactic Alliance. Sound familiar?

Simply put virtually every sidequest in the game has you playing the same exact multiplayer maps, and essentially has you carrying out the same exact objectives. And suffice to say I believe the creators went on the record numerous times saying multiplayer will not be a required to get the best ending.

In this case no Bioware the multiplayer isn't required...*pause* the multiplayer has been completely integrated into the entire single player campaign.

And again lets be honest, it is perfectly acceptable that they did this, but does it have any depth, do you meet any new characters, do you save any colonies. Well your told you always save countless lives, but if someone told me I was saving everyone the whole game by my actions and I never saw it, well thats a conundrum isn't it.

2. Do previous decisions made in Mass Effect 1 & 2 have any effect in Mass Effect 3?

And again the answer is no. If any of your crew survived during the suicide mission from the previous entries or didn't is entirely irrelevent. If you reference old articles from the previous entries, the creators were pretty adament in the fact that if you made a decision you were stuck with it.....well not now! Killed off your crew? Well don't worry we've replaced them with substanially duller characters that mimic the same exact actions as if your crew members didn't die. So what's the point? There really isn't any. The fact is that if your going to make a series where your decisions matter you stay consistent to that fact.

If it works don't fix it right? Wrong corporate America ie EA always strives for more profits, so why not just make essentially Battlefield 3 in Space. Or better yet how about those new DLC ME3 action figures hitting shelves soon, those will be great! No they won't.

3. After three installments do we ever actually fight on Earth?

Nope, I don't even have to go into details here, as there is no justifiable argument against this. We're told we're in London at some point, and oh hey there's Old Ben in the distance, that's awesome. If you're ok with that then God Bless, but there just could have been more on this, and honestly there wasn't.

4. How many major decisions do you make in the game?

To put it simply three. Quarians/Geth : Krogan/Salarians : And of the course the amazing ending. Now let's just be frank here, my only question to the creators is this. If this is indeed a Galactic Alliance of all possible fighting species in the galaxy why do we not proceed to more homeworlds then those among the council.

I was all for the quests, to save the best of the galaxy, but there was so much more. So many more angles to touch base on, and so many more galaxies that basically amounted to fetch quests in the respected clusters, that granted you some dismal amount of galactic readiness points for retrieving.

I mean go retrieve this war relic and we will offer aid. Wow that's deep. Let me get out my scanner, and fly away if the Reapers get close. Sound familiar, I bet.

5. How was the ending?

For the flagging, spamming, and hatred expressed already on the issue let me just be blatantly honest to all of those who haven't played it. Would you like a blue, green, or orange flavored snow cone, that ends up tasting like the color brown. If the industry has come as far as to justify choosing a color as an ending, and claiming the game is a piece of art, well then I'm glad I returned my copy, and don't plan on buying anymore Bioware games.


6. For all the bad is there any good?

Yes, if I said there wasn't it wouldn't be an honest review. The good parts of the game are essentially all intact from Mass Effect 2. There have been minor tweeks in the cover system, in combat, and even in weapon layouts, but essentially and in all honesty, there's really no big leaps from the previous entry.

So what I'm trying to say here is everything that was good about the series remains good. Weapons are back, there's no access to heavy weapons readily at your disposal unless you find them in the environment, but essentially all the weapons are great. Yet, let me just say no one has played this long in the series for weapons and armor.

7. Any vehicle missions?

The mako, hammerhead, and pretty much anything you yourself drove in the series is gone. Why.....don't ask me. Driving around a mako blowing the crud out of Geth I thought was a staple in the series. why now, do we not get any of that well.....probably because they can charge that as DLC.

And I'll go onto say that pretty much anything in the series you were curious about returning will more likely than not be returning as DLC, and that's an honest perspective, because it's not in the game now.

8. How about DLC Characters, do they make a return?

At last my final question, and to be once again honest they do return. Are they playable? Absolutely not, you have to buy them again first silly. Rest assured all the DLC characters you bought previously return....for cameos.

And again to be honest most if not all of the characters in the game only offer face to face conversations at setpoints along the main storyline. They offer no in depth conversational pieces outside of the programable restraints. Pretty sad for an RPG that built a franchise on this fact but hey......lets be honest....we have to pool all that talent into our MMORPG The Old Republic.

9. How about the customization of weapons and armor?

I had to add just this last question in after the fact but here goes. Weapons, yea I mean the sheer amount is ok. Upgrading them from I-X is eh blaseh, and kind of lazy on the side of the developers. I mean I guess everyone forgot how cool upgrading grenades, and adding chill/fire effects to weapons was in the ORIGINAL Mass Effect, but eh it is what it is. Now you can just do it with skill points, which in my honest opinion is a waste, but tomato tomatoe. And holy mother of God don't get me started on the armor.

Ok so all the paid DLC armor from Mass Effect 2 returns to be purchased from vendors throughout the game.....sweet you say....well so did I. HOWEVER, aside from previous armor sets from the previous titles where the hell is the new stuff.....*crickets* oh...yea...we forgot to actually create any new sets of armor for the game. No big deal will add them later as DLC. My god for a game that I've sunk over $180 across three games you would think the last title in the series would add some new armor layouts, but no. We can charge, which seems to be what all this game was about, that last dump Bioware could take has been taken, and god help the sales expectations for Dragon Age III, I'm thinking something like the Titanic.

So to be perfectly honest that's my review take for what it is, I'm sure the points are arguable to an extent, but not really for what I've stated above that's exactly the way it is, like it or not.