1966 réponses à ce sujet

[Kadi]

ow a review

The game play is vastly improved from mass effect and mass effect 2, felt more i dunno loose, and free. the story is wrote very very well, and the music is incredible. I enjoyed the cg cut scenes and the voice acting, especially Jenifer Hale. and the load screens were an improvement from ME2.

but the game suffers, with few game play bugs in which Shepard gets stuck, or randomly falls in a ditch on Palaven. the face code not recognising at the charater creation, and it just not reading an imported face. the endings seem hit or miss with alot of people online as far as i can tell though with me they are both HIT AND MISS, because i loved what bioware were doing, i just disagreed with the outcome of the relays, and how short the over all ending was.

and while I loved what they did with The Illusive Man, and how much he had to do in the story. I disliked the lack of Harbinger, Harbinger should have been a prominent villian, if not the face and voice of the reapers, after Mass effect 2 I wanted to face and defeat Harbinger, for good. in maybe a climactic battle, with the Normandy or him controlling some one, where his focus is on Shepard (like Soverign in the first game, with Saren). I loved it when the final push came and were all runing to the conduit and then Harbinger appears and lays waste to everyone. I was like OH NO! and it isnt often a game makes me yell outloud lol.

I  didnt see Jack Wall credited on the soundtrack which hurt me, as the soundtrack for Mass Effect 2 is my favorite soundtrack of all time, and I was hoping to atleast get a new version of the Main theme (like the suicide mission is a more epic version of the main theme) maybe a 3 way collaberation of Sam Hulick, Clint Mansell and Jack Wall.
but that is a personal dislike and one that I wouldnt pressure my over all scoring with as the soundtrack is by no means rubbish, it is still excellent.

i give this a 8/10

The writing, voice acting, story, gameplay and music were the strong points, and they do out weigh the weak points of the game i think.

Modifié par Eleventhchild, 18 mars 2012 - 11:54 .

[jason2058]

Just finished my first playtrhrough of me 3 with my paragon male shep.Where to start?.First I would like to thank all the people at bioware for making such an epic trilogy .The storytelling,characters and the mass effect universe itself were all superb. For me there were three outstanding moments in the game,mordin's sacrifice and redempton in his eyes,thane's death and finally the last moment between anderson and shepard as they sit looking at the earth .When I watched that last moment I thought to myself " this is perfect" all it needs now is for the the crucible to fire and destroy the reapers.Galaxy 1 reapers 0.
But of course it did'nt happen that way.A lot has been said about the endings in me 3 mostly bad very little good,for me the ending I chose for my shep was destroy as it fitted best with my shep and the decisions he had made.The other two choices for me were non-runners as they were totally opposite to everything my shep believed in free will, choice etc.My only concern with the choice I made was that it meant the destruction of the Geth and who I had gotten to make peace with the quarians and negated legion's sacrifice.Sure I would like to have an ending where my shep destroys the reapers ,saves the galaxy and gets to live with his LI afterwards and since this is a game after all I'm not sure why bioware could'nt do just that.
My biggest issue is actually with the multiplayer part of the game,why is it there at all?.Mass effect is about a lot of things but at its core is a "singular" character shepard who sets out to stop the reapers.The fact that the mutiplayer ties into your galactc readiness and by default your EMS score which does affect the outcome really bugs me as the multiplayer component of the game should 'nt be tied to single player campaign at all.
In conclusion I would give ME 3 8.5/10 ,I shave the 1.5 off for not enough proper endings and for including a multi player that this brilliant single player RPG trilogy did not need.

[Irishkev]

I won't deny this game is great. you feel the tension that you have they get a fleet together that you have they build allainces. That you have they make chocies do I cure krogan or trick them do I side with geth quarian or do I find a middle ground. Watching my old squad die in heroic ways I won;t lie I shed a tear.

Then the final battle comes I am expecting ME2 style nope I don't get they control any ships or commands fair enough I aint the highest ranking officer. but I was expecting so much from this battle espically since all trailers made it sound SO bloody important but all it was guard a tank rush down a hill.

Then the ending it self I mean I don't mind the three chocie system but come on we were promised closure and answers. Yet we get Nothing all we get is the Galaxy is dead if we take arrival DLC as cannon on what happens when a mass releay is destroyed.

If by some magic it doesn't destroy all life then earth is dead either way ALL them aliens stuck on earth they all going to slowy die and blame us for it and kill us for it.

then you have joker leaving the sol system and a few other systems as well WHY? with the crew I had on earth who I thought be dead by harbinger beam stranded on some planet.

then you have the fact throught the entier game any time a big descion comes along we can change the out come yet this Space child we have to go with the flow WHY? espically when we prove his logic is flawed. machine and organics will never get along HELLO quarrian and geth they at peace now.

It also made me feel like all the chocies I made in ME3 didn't matter forget the carry over from 1 and 2 but 3 on it's own it felt like It didn;t matter if geth or quarrien made peace or that I cured the krogan.

I mean 95% was great but it just felt like you guys forgot the ending and pasted a few random CGI together

Also I can't see any reason they buy any DLC if I know the ending always the same. I can give you quotes links to quotes to interviews where we were promised ending based on are chocies and not the same ending for everyone yet We got the oppiste so because of the Lies we got told in january and the bad endign I am going to give it a 7/10 as I can fault it too much as the majorty of the game is great just the last 30 mins .

[Vipus]

The game mechanics were good didnt run into any real bugs.....  lucky I guess.  The story was good until the ending which esentially ruined the game for me.  The game over all was way to short   only 25hrs to complete, that way to short. There need to be more side quest that you should have been able to do. Sorry getting a quest then going to the spectre console to compleat it .....   no that was just lazy story writing. The character interactions to short. Though the love interests were going to fight for the attention of Shepard .....   didnt really happen.
 The bigest let down was of course the ending...... talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Behind door number one. you never see your friends again and you die. Behind door number two you never see your frienda again and you die. Guess whats behind door number three?  Yep you die. Only difference is the colour of your dead red blue or green. Many people have invested a lot of time and money in the game. For them to be subjected to an ending like this, Bioware needs to apologize big time. As for the DLC thats coming up well  ...... unless it changes the ending  NO THANKS!.

[Damien Nightwind]

My score would have to be i'd say 20/100

The only reason for that score is because of the ending. If the ending had been better i would probably give it an 80/100. There were a few other smaller issues with it, but compared to the horrible endings they are meaningless. I wont bother going over what made the endings bad because so many other people covered them already.

[Armass81]

K here goes my review. Im gonna be honest in this, and let me just say that in my score is 5 is average, less than 4 is bad game, and more than 7 is a fairly good game, over 9 is excellent.

Good things: Improved combat, great graphics, dialogue, characters, fun multiplayer, good war story. JAVIK.

Bad things: Weak and rushed ending, plotholes, streamlining and railroading, strange decisions, promises not kept. Bugs, like the face import thing. NO FEMALE TURIANS. Broken Journal that doesnt update. No local Co-op MP.

Wasted potentials in trilogy: Plot threads that go nowhere (Dark energy, batarian rebellion), No batarian squadmate, Cerberus streamlined into a villain without the use of intrique, no real mystery about anything, Illusive Man a Saren 2.0 villain, Kai Leng a faceless enemy, TIM's attack dog. No talk or fight with Harbinger in the final game. Despite great dialogue and characters the plot stays pretty simple with couple of quite predictable twists and turns, except in the first game. Its a bad thing when fans write some of the plot elements better than the actual writers. Like one ending I read from deviant art. Much better than what we got.

Personal eybrow raisers in the trilogy: Oversexualization of female characters, Asari race as clear fanservice, EDI as a sexbot. I know that sex sells but this is almost as shameless as Team Ninja with female characters...

Also I have to ask, Bioware, why the hell did you ditch the people with Jacob romance? You seriously did it so he cheats on you!? Why?

8-/10 Good game, but with more polishment and tweaking, could have been alot better.

Overall ME Trilogy score, taking account all the games: 7.5/10

Does it work as a trilogy? Barely. Too many plot holes, retcons and handwaving destroy the overall coherency. But if you look at it like an action movie, then it works. Just dont look too closely.

Overall Id say tough ME trilogy is good sci-fi, but despite it having million dollar budget, great graphics and a star voice cast, its "grandfather" Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters, an old 1990s scifi game for pc still provides a more intresting and better universe with better villains. Too bad.

P.S I think you own your fans a different ending, Bioware, after all this.

Modifié par Armass81, 20 mai 2012 - 06:41 .

[Cheviot]

My Mass Effect 3 Score: 95/100

Remember back when books were still a thing? If you were lucky, you found one you enjoyed so much that you literally lost track of time. You were so lost in a world that you felt sad as the stack of pages on the right hand side got thinner and thinner, as you knew your time in that world was running out.

I had this experience with Mass Effect 3.

I can't think of another game ever which made me laugh so much and come so close to crying. I'm sure people have mentioned the big examples of each (including (but definitely not limited to): Garrus and Shepard's sharpshooting contest; Mordin's last scene; Joker's response if you ask him whether he knew about EDI's plans; Thane being a stone cold badass one last time; Blasto 6) so I won't go into detail. What I will say is that the combination of story with improved gameplay (the new AI is great, and the mission design excelled in throwing you into situations that seemed hopeless at first, but could be solved with a bit of tenacity and tactical thought from the player) and design made a game so great that it's flaws didn't matter.

There were flaws, of course: the variable quality of graphics and animation; the new scanning mini-game (which, though an improvement over ME2, still could use a greater sense of jeopardy); the casting of Jessica Chobot (while I have no problem with her inclusion in principle, I didn't find her that good an actress); Tali's picture.

As for the ending, I liked it. A lot. I'll admit it took me a few minutes to see what was going on, but it made sense to me, explained the Reapers, and gave an epic scene of Shepard's place in (fictional) history. The sepia cutaways were a bit much, though. It's a shame that opinion on this forum is so against the ending, but that's the risk with these things, I suppose.

Modifié par Cheviot, 19 mars 2012 - 02:33 .

[Arad-Tzui]

Background:

I play these types of games for the story, and the prospect of the continuity of my actions is the single greatest draw in any RPG game to date. It has also meant that I've spent a lot of hours making sure my playthroughs perfectly reflect my intent and my goals. I am largely a Paragon player, although not married to the decision, but to the shaping of the world I want to create.

Mass Effect 3 Review:

The Squad:

I didn't particularly care about the return of the Virmire Survivor, nor the loss of the Cerberus characters from ME2. Not having Jack, Mordin and Legion around was a negative for me, same as neither Wrex nor Grunt returning. A Krogan would have fit my squad well in this game, and as result, the new squadmate, James, ended up seeing a lot of play instead. On the other hand, that Prothean whos name I haven't even bothered committing to memory, was largely left out of any action.
Overall, the squad was ok, although it felt rather restricted after the massive squad I had in ME2. There were also rooms which stayed empty on the ship throughout, and it felt as if there could have easily been another few people on the Normandy. These may have been left open for DLC squadmates, but the idea of recruiting new people to your team in ME3 when several old friends have no real good reasons not to join (Grunt in particular, especially if you chose to save the Rachnii twice, he just lost his whole team, surely it'd make more sense under these circumstances for him to return to the Normandy?).

Navigation:

This ones a major bummer for me personally. A better map function or similar would have been greatly appreciated, and better quest tracking. Since I play on a PC I also wouldn't mind more buttons, I'm not nearly as constrained as the console players, so could we get over this already?
The new maps available while on the citadel are nice, but aren't utilized fully. It's also highly annoying to keep on running around checking for active things on the citadel for the n:th time because the game doesn't tell you there are any new developments. I understand these are kind of easter eggs, but you could just have them show up on the map once I enter a certain ward, so I don't have to run through the entire area again.

Combat:

Overall, combat is fine. There are a few enemies which are perhaps a bit "op", causing a minor mistake at the wrong time to lead to the death of the protagonist, especially if you play more squishy classes. This is less of an issue in SP than in MP though.
What stood out for me was that where as I've usually tried to play a relatively balanced squad, in ME3 the power of biotic/engineering squadmates seems weaker than before, and only against the Geth did I feel like I wanted to deviate to any extent from my normal setup of Garrus/James, and even this was mostly due to the fact that entirely synthetic enemies allowed me to play with EDI and Tali, whom I would generally want on my squad more often due to my attachment to both of them.
My main character is a Soldier, but I've also fiddled around with Vanguard, Engineer and Adept, as well as playing all classes in MP. Adepts still feel weaker than they should to me. Some classes can't really help but end up with large holes in their personal weaponry against given types of enemies, where as others get good abilities to use against armor+shields+barriers. Vanguard probably has the greatest potential for fun gameplay, but the suicidal nature of the class should probably be counteracted a bit more in singleplayer.

Sidequests:

One of the great dissapointments of ME3. There are some good sidequests, but mostly it's just scan and fetch stuff, which is about as fun as <insert some highly unpleasant thing being done to your person>. Just getting off the ship more often would have felt good, even if the story associated would have been in a minor role.
Since this area is so brief, I'll also state that the mini-puzzles from the previous games (NOT THE SCANNING FROM ME2, OH GOD NO!) were somewhat missed. It's not that I really like them, but they just felt part of the game, and not having them there was surprising.

Main Storyline:

As a whole, the story is great. I really enjoyed seeing the Genophage cured, brokering peace amongst Geth and Quarian and so on. What bothered me was that the Salarians were generally not very involved, nor were the Asari. These are minor issues though, and to be honest, I never liked the Asari anyway. There were great moments during the story when I laughed, and moments when I had to really hold back the tears. The story is one of the greatest ever told in a video game.
What I didn't care for were the artsy "dream sequences", or the whole deal with the kid. The strugle is already personified for me in the people I fight with, I didn't need a human child being so obviously jammed down my throat with symbolism in order to get on board with saving the galaxy. This whole thing did more to detract from the game than to build on it for me, personally.
I also got rather annoyed by the whole Kai Leng episode on Thessia. Being beaten in such a scripted fashion just felt out of place.

Up until this point, the score is overall very positive, a 9/10 approximately.

The Final Mission:

Needless to say, I'm not a fan. There is no noticable impact on the landing in London of all the war assets gathered. This makes no sense, doesn't reward your hard work, and generally reminds you this is a linearly scripted game, as opposed to what was promised.
While you get to talk to your squadmates and friends, they aren't really utilized in the final mission, and it doesn't matter one bit who you have with you. ME2 was vastly superior in this respect, although the final constraints in order not to lose anyone while the rest hold the doors were a bit harsh. This comparison was firmly in mind for me the entire time, and the whole thing felt rather bland and abrupt. It felt very rushed and contrived in general to have the game so suddenly jump to taking back Earth; I believe there were other avenues which were left unexplored because of this. But this is something I expect DLC will try to deal with (although this is a problem in itself, as you'll soon find out).
The final sequence of events to me just wasn't any good at all. Why introduce Kahlee Sanders if there is no route to re-unite her and Anderson? Well, this is on the whole a minor issue. I can live with Anderson dying, but it seems out of place that I can't in any way save him. Reaching out to indoctrinated people is nothing new, I did so with Saren, and clearly I was able to break TIM's "spell" enough to shoot him later on, so why not be able to do so when it would have saved the both of us? Or at least been able to cause him to be non-fatally wounded. I understand the need to not have him present for the final portion, but it's bad writing overall in my opinion.
And then we get to meet the Sky Child or whatever his moniker has become. First of all, the form is just annoying. There's no reason for it, it's more of the same crude emotional manipulation through the 4th wall and it just detracts from the scene. Secondly, the whole scene makes no sence. Your actions should already have affected your possible outcomes heavily by this point, but baring being totally inept, you've largely got the same 3 outcomes.
I would have liked to see one lead to an inevitable defeat, just because one should. I also hate the options presented, because none of them are in line with how I've played the game. I don't want to make the choice in this manner, and I don't want to make any of these choices, and the premise of the scene is weak. I'm not going to call the Reapers having an overlord contrived, this had been set up earlier, but the preachy nature of both this overlord and the ending really annoyed me. It didn't come accross as deep, just forced.
But by fat the biggest problem of the ending is that it isn't determined by your actions. Instead, it nullifies all your previous actions. It ruins your hard work, and had I the choice, I would not have spent nearly as much time on the games as I have, simply because of the ending. It did not simply sour the final game for me, it very nearly ruined the entire series, and this is without even being hyperbolic. If asked before the release of ME3 whether a friend should play the series, I'd of beaten them over the head for not already haven done so. If asked after finishing ME3, I don't know what to tell them. Part of me genuinely wants to tell them to either not play the series at all, or to avoid finishing it.
And ofcourse there is no conclusion. You probably wanted the storylines to be concluded earlier during the game, but those were in my opinion only the inevitable decisions we'd been promised we would get to make. They don't tell us what the reprecussions of our decisions were, and without reprecussions, decisions are meaningless. This is the other part about why I genuinely abhore the ending. Nothing mattered.

Score of the ending: -7
Score of the single player game: 2
Score of the series before ME3: 9,5
Score of the entire series after ME3: 6

[Kadi]

Irishkev wrote...

Then the ending it self I mean I don't mind the three chocie system but come on we were promised closure and answers. Yet we get Nothing all we get is the Galaxy is dead if we take arrival DLC as cannon on what happens when a mass releay is destroyed.

If by some magic it doesn't destroy all life then earth is dead either way ALL them aliens stuck on earth they all going to slowy die and blame us for it and kill us for it.

.

This! somthing i missed but Irishkev is right, with the relays going up, didnt it destroy an entire system in Arrival?, that just but an ever bigger downer on the ending for me than not having much harbinger O.o that means like, alot maybe billions die. all to stop a race of self righteous machines. damn =(

[MyEternalReward]

Jesus, you people are all really giving this game <60? Wow, I thought this was one of the greatest games I've ever played!

[Noctifer3]

[EDITED: had gotten wordy, so added quick-skim highlights]

  Mass Effect 1 score: 90/100   
  Mass Effect 2 score: 97/100  
Mass Effect 3 score: 95/100 

-Likes-

• This game Felt incredibly epic
• I loved all the twists and turns, coming back to the Citadel to discover it under attack (ie not expecting a mission and then *poof* Mission!)
• The combat was wonderful, mixed it up, and just downright dramatic - toward the end I was literally running for that missile switch with no shields, my health almost at zero, trying to throw my companions in the way of the banshees, and hitting the button as a Reaper laser was two feet from my head
• I Loved all the little touches everywhere - the side stories you could listen in on throughout the Citadel, your crew moving around your ship, discovering your team-mates hooking up and then being sheepish about it, or drinking with them and having little life-moments..
• The drama.. wow, I have never been left so stunned by a game, feeling so sad and helpless and wanting to save someone but knowing I can't, or even worse knowing I had to send them somewhere to die.. I finally understand how all those Final Fantasy fans felt long ago
• The choices - this is the first game where my choices did not feel cut and dry. (ME2 had a *little* bit of that, but nowhere to this scale - many of its choices were 'I am a benevolant saint' or 'I am doing this because I want to make baby angels cry and I am so 8th grade evil'). And it was not choices of what game effect I want, there were just things were I would have to think about what I really consider the moral choice in a situation, what could I live with
• The cutscenes were just beautiful. I loved the little singing at the end of the genophage quest.. and the incredibly subtle expressions on the doctor's otherwise alien face.. Everything was just.. I am speechless
• The graphics overall, the dream-scenes... mmm... delicious
• I liked how you could walk around and action could spontaneously start happening. Not quite as good as ME1 but better then ME2
• The quotes - there were just so many wonderful one-liners, jokes, and so on that I was telling my gf and room-mates about afterward..   Just great writing, what can  say!
• Level layouts were wonderful in most places - feeling large and open without taking away from the rail-road feeling that keeps the plot moving.
• Ammo - much better!  I did not feel like I was running out of bullets every few seconds.  Broke realism a few times but you know what?  That is perfectly ok if the gameplay would suffer otherwise.  (Realistically I would bring extra ammo anyway)
• The voice acting, music, and animations were all very well done for a game of this scale.  Except Zaeed.  He still came off like cardboard.  

-Dislikes-

• The quest system was, I hate to say it, broken. I had no idea when I had gotten the material for a quest, when it was ready to deliver, or where to deliver it to. Had to turn to internet strategy guides instead and even then it felt lackluster since most of the time you could just buy the quest ending anyway. ME2 did a good job with things - here is what you need to collect, here are some hints on where to collect it, and here is where to deliver it to. The fun is in the collection, not sorting out what the game is trying to ask for. For your next game go back to that
• The war assets.. again, lackluster. The mails you got were nice, but a bit more reaction out of the game would have been nice. I got the banner of so and so... great. Er.. did that do anything? Oh, the guy in the bar now says thank you if I talk to him. Aaaand... that's it. Less war assets with more impact would have been fine with me.
• For all the greatness, the end did feel a bit rushed. I don't just mean the three possible ending colors that everyone is already talking about, but I did not really get a feel that all I had done for the war effort had played out in any way. In ME2 this was handled beautifully, characters lived and died along the way based on what you had done by then, but in ME3.. I assume the voice-overs during the fights were talking about that, but I play tactically rather then real-time (and the voices pause while you have the command screen up) so in that chaos I have no idea what was being said on the radio.
•         It would have been nice to have little cut-scenes (ala ME2) showing how the Krogen come in as the humans are over-run, or a Geth sacrifices its self to save a crew-mate you have started caring about... something like that. You still could have had the three endings you wanted and given a real sense of completion without a lot of extra work. The formula worked in ME2, just needed to be applied forward.
•         And better yet?  Have the choices actually impact end-game gameplay.  In that rush where I am being over-run and a Reaper is coming and I am about to die.. how about some Grunt and some Krogan come in to hold the line with me?  Mad dash while being shot at from all sides?  Let some Geth land and hold them off while I go for the next objectives.  I got the flotilla?  They hold off a wave of enemies (and see it happening), but if I didn't get them they then I have one extra fight to deal with.  Again - not much extra work on your end, don't even need to add voice overs (its a fight, they are busy, re-use something) - but I'll feel like what I did made a difference.
• The weapon system.. I liked ME2s better. I get what you were trying to do, divorcing the numbers from the game, but I just had a hard time *feeling* the difference between one upgraded gun and what a non-upgraded gun might be. So I just picked a few guns I liked, gave them the basic mods, and ignored everything else for the rest of the game. And I should add that I normally love playing with customization. (I should say that I Did like not having a dozen things to constantly compare / contrast - just saying that I did not feel Any incentive to compare / contrast)
• I did not like that I had no hints as to what something would do versus something else when it came to buying equipment.  Not only no comparisson numbers, but nothing at all other than fluff info.  So, with limited funds until nearly the end... I just did not bother. The descriptions were interesting and all but I am not wasting 5K to find out if something affects shields or not - especially since even after I buy it I won't get to find out how much of an effect it really has
• The Origin system was broken. I don't mean the bordering-on-illegal spying on my computer bit, there are threads on that already. I mean having to download the entire game from the site while ignoring the two perfectly good DVDs that I just paid for. Seriously, did you not realize your installer was... well.. not installing your game? I mean really? There are threads on how to break around that by copying zip files and manually unzipping them but... you have an installer? And the first experience of the game is that even the installer does not work? Really had me scared about how the actual game would play out and had me in a horrible mood by the time it was loading. And then the face importer was broken.. The first 15 minutes of a game are critical, and ME3 started off on a horrible foot. Fortunately it caught up
• The cut-scenes were great but not intuitively skipable.  While I would not want to skip them accidentally the first time through, the second time.. or the third time.. they are kind of long?  As in 'I have already seen this, it will be a while, I am going to go grab a coffee and come back when I can click on something' long.  For example, the intro.  I see it, am impressed, happy, realize my face is wrong... and then it dawns on my that I have to sit through it again for five minutes after I *just* saw it.  Or I miss-click a verbal dialogue and want to go back... again.
• Poly.  Ok, I know no one is going to pay attention to this during this cycle, but the whole jealousy thing.. I kind of liked Blue (sorry, I just prefer calling her Blue) because in ME1 when I asked if I could have both she said yes.  And in ME2 she doesn't care about what I do with my glorified secretary.  But in ME3 she gets upset about my new secretary.  I know it is a little thing but you know.. alien races and moralities, and far off in the future.  I am saving the galaxy here, just about dying every other second, sacrificing everything, short life expectancy... and jealousy is an issue?  Really?  For every possible love interest who is also convinced that I am going to die tomorrow saving their species?  Just saying.  I liked that Bioware was brave enough to tackle gay love (and did it wonderfully and not over the top in any way), so here's your next challenge to take on.  Let me have my cake and eat it too.
• Some of the levels..  Well, first off, assets were luck-of-the-draw if you accidentally mouse over them or not.  Also the multi-player maps forced into the single-player game were obvious and did not feel good to play through (especially the CTF maps were you would do something on one side.... and then have to do the exact same thing on the other). 

-Misc-

• I want to just add this in since there is a lot of cry-out about this - I do not care in the least about the multiplayer option, I will never care about the multi-player option in a Bioware game along these lines. There are multi-player games out there, Bioware does story - and does single-player story very very well. No one else comes close. If you want to throw in multi-player for people go for it, but please do not lose this.  The FPS zombie mob have formed a mountain of clones, don't try to climb it, you are already at the top of yours.
• I broke down and installed this game on a computer, but I am uninstalling it now that it is done, and will not be installing any other EA games requiring Origin on my PC. I had to because porting to console was just too difficult and I had to see how this ended.. but the rest of your games (while you are with EA and it keeps Origin) are going on my console.. which I honestly and unfortunately do not play often. But I did want to say thank you for the end of this series, I am glad we are parting our PC relationship on a good note!

Modifié par Noctifer3, 19 mars 2012 - 05:14 .

[buchoi]

6/10

Not happy with:
Less squadmates with no more depth, new squadmates aren't interesting.
Most previous squadmates are relegated to cameos with no meaningful purpose.
Stupid new characters Kai Leng and Diana Allers
Seemingly fighting against humans (Cerberus) for what seemed like most of the first 25-30 hours.
Readiness rating stuck at 50% without playing multiplayer
Rachni decision lacks punch because regardless the Rachni will be there
Conversation seems a lot more limited and at least railroaded into one path -angry yes or happy yes
The battle against the reapers was done very poorly. I should have seen Krogan and Turian fighting side by side, Quarian and Geth fleets working together, minor races and assets telling the difference in desperate fights, specific people like allies and (old)squadmates should have died or lived or won or lost based on my choices and war assets (sort of like suicide mission except on a bigger scale). Instead it was a number and a quick cinematic of all the fleets but without effect.
The ending was god awful - others have gone for more in depth and better worded but star child, deus exness, writing, lack of choices, the choices themselves, the lore contradictions, the same damn cutscene with different colours, the cutscene showing people Shepard cared for (without romance option showing up), nonsensical Normandy crash, squadmates somehow appearing on the Normandy who were with you/are dead, the general lack of connection it made to ME1, ME2, and up until that point ME3, the grandfather/child +dlc mention after the credits and much more I probably forgot.

I liked:
Mordin got exceptional comeback, Tali/Legion Quarian/Geth events/story very well done.
Wrex (but still needs more).
I don't know what else for example ME2 I couldn't really name specifics but just in general the characters, story, emotions, choices, writing was well done and left me satisfied and happy - easily 9or10/10 but ME3 leaves me with a feeling of lack of this, unsatisfactory that that left me confused and upset.

[X_30002000]

I can not even rate ME3. Game itself and ending are so horribly mismatched that I can no even rate them together, for me they are 2 separate things nothing to do with each other. I played it 2 times hoping to get happy ending but it is very depressing. I was going to play ME3 many times trying different classes but I do not feel I can do it – no matter what you do Sheppard is dead or loos all loved once, what is the point? Worst part this is absolutely not inline with ME, so artificial, so not ME. Those who played ME1 and 2 knows that Normandy would never left Sheppard alone on citadel, so the ending when Sheppard alive and Normandy left without him – where you got if from? Choices are so wrong as well. Reapers are lying that synthetic life will destroy organic: even from ME3 we have EDI and geth who not organic hostile and you even can make them fight Reapers. The only organic hostile geth were Reaper controlled. Those who got Prothean knows as well that by the time Reapers attacked, Protheans were winning war with synthetics, so it all lies. That means that all that talk by catalyst is a last resort manipulation to make Sheppard choose to keep Reapers. Result would be wipe out of current civilizations. Sheppard can not control Reapers, nobody can. Choosing synergy would only result in Reapers creating Sheppard based collectors. Reapers need organics to create new Reapers, this is the only thing they care about. Only Reapers destruction would be saving for galaxy and no synthetic life would die – Reapers obviously lying. The weapon is fine-tuned to Reapers network and only Reapers themselves and maybe indoctrinated organics get destroyed. Geth, EDI or Sheppard would not be affected, they are not part of them. In this scenario, Normandy would never leave Sheppard on the citadel. This how ME3 ending supposed to be. As for current one, It looks like it was created by someone who have no clue about ME3 not even mentioning ME2 or 1.
I do not think anything else need to be changed in ME3 it was so good till ending ruined it. 


New EDIT
Well after some thinking I can rate game: 4
It feels so unfair because the rest of the game was so wonderfully done, it was so coherent with ME1 and 2, so many touching moments like with genophage scene or when legion sacrifice himself to upgrade geth and many more. Then you did exactly what Illusive man did – you sacrificed too much (these are exact words Sheppard tells to Illusive man), that is why we fight Illusive man in ME3, this is why there is such fight against your ending. How else I can rate the game that I do not want to play again? If bioware feels that reaction is to hard, it is because nobody expected such catastrophic ending from you guys. It is bad when 3-rd grade game company fails but when bioware that can do wonders does this is just makes everyone to revolt and demand proper job done -- we know you capable of it, otherwise nobody would bother to demand.

Modifié par X_30002000, 19 mars 2012 - 09:36 .

[liggy002]

My mass effect score: 50/100

Why:

Ambiguos ending with no real closure.  The ending should have reflected the choices we made throughout the game series and shown what happened to our crew members.  Why didn't we see the fleets in the ending battle that we worked so hard to obtain?  Granted, we don't have to see the less important ones but it would have been nice.  Example, seeing a group of Rachni in space attacking the Reapers or not depending on what you chose.

The ending didn't make sense with a wide variety of plot holes. Example of plot hole not relating to the ending: Why were the Husks being created by an energy source in Mass Effect 2 and infinitely spawning when an explanation for this was disregarded and completely brushed aside for the traditional husk?  Javik was on the Normandy after he was with me and got blasted by the laser, this doesn't make sense.

Harbinger was swept aside in favor of the Illusive man and Kai Leng. The Illusive man was cool as was Kai Leng but they should have been secondary villains.

There was no final boss fight with Harbinger. There was an encounter in which he spews laser at you, this was cool but not what I was looking for. A full on boss fight DLC is necessary as well as DLC to fix the ending.

You took away the planetary exploration with vehicles. The game was even more linear than Mass Effect 2. At least with Mass Effect 2, we could choose who we would recruit first. Planetary exploration would have made this game as good as the first Mass Effect, but it wasn't as good as the first one.

I'll give it at least a 50 because I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the story excluding the ending (unless it is a dream and you intend to show us what happens when Shepard wakes up). To sum up, the game was fantastic except for the ending and it needed more vehicle and planetary exploration. I greatly enjoyed the weapon and armor customization but I also wanted the game to be less linear.   Add Harbinger in DLC and have a conversation with him.  Let us fight him with a real battle.  Wrex should have been a playable squad member.   Shepard dying in one of the endings or all doesn't bother me so much just the quality and quantity of the ending.   That's all. Thanks for listening.

Modifié par liggy002, 19 mars 2012 - 02:17 .

[DRUNK_CANADIAN]

Graphics 5/5
Gameplay 5/5
Story 3/5
Sidequesting 2/5
Character Interaction 1/5
Multiplayer 5/5
Total 21/30
Verdict: Good, but the focus was lost on what made past games great, emphasis on appeasing the BSN fanbase and adding lots of optional content and fanservice took up lots of disc space which could have been used developing on what you have or adding more missions or more potential for exploration.
Explanatory review in the future hopefully.

[Pl4gu3 D0g]

 My Mass Effect 3 score is 80/100

I enjoyed your game because the majority of it was well constructed and beautiful. When a character died, I literally cried. When I killed the reaper with the Thresher Maw, I stood up and cheered. Despite little things (like the Codex containing information about the game that hasn't come to pass yet) to the more frustrating things (like the plodding, miserable dream sequences that I hate so much, or the 'decontamination' room between the Warroom and CIC, what gives??) I was very, very content with what I was experiancing.

Until the very end, and that ruined everything.

I'll try to be as clear and concise as I can, but forgive me if I rant;

After being 'hit' with the Reaper beam, I went from wearing my Collectors armor, and using the Arc Pistol, to wearing the Generic N7 Armor, and using what I can only assume is the Phalanx or Carnifex. Why, or more importantly, HOW, is this possible? Not to mention the shoddy fill in textures in the background that looks like piles of bodies. Or the nigh infuriating speed in which this all takes place. And once aboard the Citadel, everything goes from being milding confusing and certainly very frustrating, to stark disbelief. What worse, it felt lazy, out of place with the rest of the game, than suddenly, and by far worse yet, the game becomes so constricting you have NO choices. None.

I played as a Paragon through my playthrough, with only one or two choices I felt compelled (but not FORCED) to take, I never took advantage of the Renegade options. But during the discussion with the Illusive man, I choose not to use either Renegade choice. And when he shot anderson, I was upset, but figured that was the price I paid. But when he shot me, and it showed the game over screen, my jaw dropped. You had essentially stripped all the great qualities of the game away, and I was no longer in control of my own experiance. I felt betrayed, and that feeling grew ten fold as this 'ending' continued. 

Again, 'constricting' comes to mind when trying to express what I feel about the 'choices' offered at the end of ME3. But so do words like 'insepid,' and 'meaningless.' And truely, the 'ending' you provided us with are both of those things. Inspeid due to the sloppy, and oft garbled presentation, and meaningless because suddenly the choices we made in the last three games are seemingly wiped clean, and empty of any weight in the final moments of the game. And this is really what bothers me. To quote an article from Kotaku, 'BioWare's failure here, then, isn't in terms of its story-writing, or its pacing, or that Shepard dies (indeed, my Shepard clearly did not die). It lies in changing the way the game's most important decisions - the very things that gamers were so invested in - are made at the eleventh hour, with no indication or feedback to let players know this is going on.'

But again, this is not the end. Rumors are now circulating that a 'real ending' to ME3 will be provided via DLC that may or may not be free. This simply fuels my sense of betrayal.

I could rant for pages and pages (and indeed, I already have) but I feel I should end here before I start a novel.

[Avilia]

Here goes then, just a short review. Oh it goes without saying that this is all imho:

I've played through to finish twice and started at least two that finished halfway (just for context). I'll try to keep it as spoiler free as possible.

Characters:

Bioware's strength is characters and ME3 continues the tradition. Lots of people with loose ends to tie up after 1 and 2 and I think they made a decent fist of it. Not every character was given fair shake but certainly some characters that might be considered 'minor' had nice moments that made me smile (or sometimes shed a wee tear).

I can only assume they had to triage who to include and who not to.  Whether they made the right decisions is another matter that's been the subject of more than one thread on these forums.

However, for those that were included, overall, fabulous job. Unfortunately I think the good job done on some characters highlights the poor job done on those others.

The significant new characters introduced were reasonably well fleshed out with enough background that I wanted to chat and see how they were doing. I liked the idea of calling people up to Shep's room for a heart to heart and was sorry that wasn't used more often.

I really liked that crew members moved around the ship and chatted to each other. Eavesdropping was never so much fun.

Combat:

I'm a PC gamer with a background in FPS (more context for ya) so bear that in mind when I say - eh. I say eh, because the game felt even more 'console porty' than 2.

The cover mechanic caused me to think my Sheps had inadvertantly leaned into some velcro covered bricks. This may be a fault in me rather than the game itself, but I found it irritating to constantly be mashing buttons in an effort to 'de wall'. That was an issue for me in 2 as well, so perhaps not really a useful comment here, but I'm saying it anyway.

Thankfully my last playthrough was on my Vanguard who laughs in the face of cover ;-)

Overall though, I enjoyed the mechanics of the combat. I really enjoyed being able to use a sniper rifle on my Vanguard (who, me, obssessed with the "mail slot" achievement? >.> ).

The encounters (if that's the right term?) I found a little samey after a while. Not enough that it annoyed me but I did find myself able to predict which mobs would come next. Oddly on my first playthrough I kept getting strong Halo 2 vibes, liberally mixed with some HL and Doom 3. Possibly the design of the encounters felt more FPS'y than previously.

Missions/side missions:

Tying the little side missions to the time line of the larger missions was interesting. And by interesting I mean annyoing. It makes sense in the context of the game but until I'd worked that out I lost half of them. Thankfully I'm in the habit of doing a 'rubbish' run as my first go. Work out the kinks and see how it all hangs together.

I didn't like the mechanics of the side missions and I certainly didn't enjoy running away from lobsters...erm, Reapers. I do understand how it fits in the scheme of things, I just didn't like it.

I particularly don't like that if you don't MP and you want to see everything in SP you're pretty much required to do all the side missions, every, single, time, you play.

The Priority missions were fun - lots of bits of random info to pick up off data pads and terminals, nice character moments and they wove together well as we headed towards the final battle.

Story:

Ah, here we go. The 'story'. I've said that I think Bioware's strength is characters and I stand by that. They do interesting, fun, irritating, infuriating, annoying, captivating...I could go on. Suffice to say that rarely do I find a character in a Bioware game I'd call boring. Sometimes I think their story is a little weak but its carried through by the strength of the characters driving it along.

A three part arc must be a particularly difficult thing to pull off successfully. To do them due credit, I think, for the most part, they've managed it. All those choices to bear fruit, not just the main quests but all those side quests in ME1 and 2. Some even the players would have forgotten about (seriously - an Elkoss Combine licence!?).

I think the story scoots along nicely during the main part of the game. We gather our assets, allies and make some enemies. Nothing earthshaking (erm, pun not intended) but still entertaining and absorbing to take part in.

Before I comment on the endings, I should say I was throughly spoiled before playing for the first time. So, I wasn't surprised by them (or it if you like).

For me the issue isn't so much the lack of closure, the lack of 'hearts and flowers' or even the oddness of teleporting team mates. For me the ending just feels out of place in the context of the world created by Bioware in ME 1 and 2.

Still, their call, if that's how they want to end Commander Shephard's story, that's how it ends.

TL:DR

What I liked : Character moments, chatter, ME1/2 stuff, combat (mostly).

What I didn't like : Mutliplayer affecting single player, the ending, lack of care for some characters, sticky wall syndrome, side missions/scanning.

I'd give it 7/10.

My final word - I went into ME3 with an expectation that it would be mediocre. I know its unfair but DA2 was such a dog's breakfast that I couldn't help but view ME3 with a jaundiced eye. Nothing I heard before release made me think otherwise. I'm pleased to say I was wrong. ME3 is a good game, great in places and less than great in others, but overall, a good solid game.

Would I recommend it to others? Probably but not without caveats.

[ChopyChopZ]

Every love interest besides Liara seems underdeveloped or at least in comparison to her.She is a wonderful character but I doesn't mean she is the best. I Was really looking forward to catching up with Ashley but as soon as she gets abroad the ship she becomes mute. The only interactive dialogue after that is about her sister and the final push.The mass effect 2 love interest cover was far worse.
I Just hope for equal treatment of characters
Garrus is the only exception because me and him were brothers to the end. (Really nice job with garrus )
The ending was a disappointment because of the lack of closure between Shepard and his/her crew regardless if alive or dead. It just leaves me with too many questions like who lived or died.
The ending seemed to undue everything shephard accomplished and the logic behind it is flawed.
Everything else about the game is amazing.If anything insanity needs to be a little harder.

[HouseOfCrows]

My Mass Effect 3 score: 70/100
I really liked and disliked ME3 and here is why.....

Overall, I would say that Mass Effect 3 was done beautifully. I really enjoyed what they did with the character relationships (friendships and romances [I’ve only seen the romances with Jack and with Garrus so far but I was very pleased with both, they’re exactly as I wanted them to be]). One of my favorite scenes in the entire game was actually when Garrus asks you to meet him on the Citadel and you go up to the top of the Presidium to relax and settle the ‘argument’ of who is the better shot. That entire scene is just so perfectly written (as a friendship and a romance), I just adore it. Also, all of the action sequences and cinematics were fantastic. Very gripping, and there was a lot of emotional involvement in some of them. I’ll admit that I cried my eyes out a few times within the course of the game, and that’s a good thing. Being able to make your audience feel something rather than just playing through the game and blowing **** up is an admirable quality. Unfortunately, this is also where it gets into one of my biggest problems with this game. As I said, the cinematics were fantastic and very gripping, but I feel like the team at BioWare tried much too hard to make this game like a movie. It took away the accessibility and interactivity that I loved so much in the past two games. For instance, while you could go around and speak to teammates as much as you pleased, there were few times that you could actually dictate what it was that Shepard would say. He/she would just speak of their own accord more often than not and that in itself annoyed me and is one of my biggest problems with this game. BioWare decided what Shepard had to say, not the player anymore. Taking power away from the players like that (especially when they had that power in the past two games) is inexcusable if you ask me. It made this game feel much less personal and, with at least one of my Shepards, there were far too many times where the script just went off making Shepard say things that I knew my Shepard would never, ever say. It made him no longer feel like he was my Shepard, he was just a generic video game hero now and it took away from my personal attachment and investment in the game. On that same note, I was also annoyed that, when I imported my renegade Shepard’s face from ME2, all of his hard-earned renegade scars were now mysteriously gone with no explanation for it. My Shepard grew rather fond of his renegade scars and would have never done anything to get rid of them. He didn’t even look like him anymore without them, thus making me feel even less attached to him and, by extension, caring less about playing through his game. I would also like to take this opportunity to note that, not only did BioWare limit the players to only two choices in most places (the ‘up/good’ choice and the ‘down/bad’ choice) but, in some cases, regardless of which you chose, Shepard would say the exact same line. That just doesn’t fly with me. If you’re a paragon Shepard than I’d expect to say something nicer, if you’re a renegade Shepard I’d expect to say something more rude or mean, for them both to say the same thing is just ridiculous, especially given that there are so little options to choose from in the first place. Really, BioWare, could you not even be bothered to write a couple of different responses? That, to me, is just lazy and sloppy, I expected much better from this game. And, as I’ve said before, there were some times that Shepard would just talk on his or her own and it would be something that I know my Shepard would never say. This also just takes all of the personalization that I’ve worked so hard for over the past two games and makes it feel like it isn’t worth anything, that this Shepard was never really meant to be mine anyways and BioWare was now taking him or her away from me and forcing them to conform to how they thought Shepard would act. This simply isn’t fair and, as I said, it takes away from how personally invested I am in the game. There was nothing at all wrong with the dialogue wheel and decision making in general in the first two games, so if it isn’t broken why in the hell did you think you should fix it? Your “improvements” really just made the entire game a whole lot worse for me, to the point that I don’t even want to play as my renegade Shepard because it just…isn’t him anymore. I hope that something can be done about this because it certainly would be a shame to not play through such an amazing game another time. I love this game, I really do, but I shouldn’t have to force myself to play through it for the good parts, trying to ignore that I no longer have enough of a say in what is coming out of my Shepard’s mouth or that I will inevitably come to that train wreck of an ending. I honestly don’t even know if I even can play that far into the game again.

Not only was the ending so poorly written that it left, not only myself, but as I’ve read online the majority of the fan base confused, but it also left us with no closure. I didn’t go into this game expecting a happy ending, of course, there was always that reality that Shepard was probably going to die. And that’s fine with me, honestly, I don’t need a happy ending. I just at least want the ending to make sense and be properly explained. I want all of the decisions that I’ve made from every game (including this one) to make some sort of difference. I don’t want practically identical endings regardless of whatever decisions you may have made. I want a selfish, renegade Shepard to have a choice to save himself, being too self-concerned to sacrifice himself, regardless of the cost to everyone else. I like the idea of my paragon Shepard sacrificing themselves to save all that they can, but I want for it to actually make sense that that is what they’re doing and in what capacity they are saving others. I also want there to be a choice to do none of the above and refuse to play along with the Catalyst’s game. I want Shepard to go down fighting, trying to rid the world of the Reapers, even if he or she ultimately fails. All that I want is an ending that ultimately brings closure. Something that actually factors in all my choices and isn’t the exact same ending for every person (or at least an ending that is different depending on your overall military strength). I don’t even ask that you completely change the ending, I just want more choices to factor into it, I want more of an explanation of what is going on, I want to be able to choose more than just those three paths, each one ending identically. I want an ending befitting of each and every one of my Shepards, as different as they all are, they deserve equally unique endings.

I honestly feel bad because this game could have been amazing, it could have been great, it was so close. But the two things that really bother me in this game are two really big, glaringly horrible things that should never have happened. I know that the development team for Mass Effect actually looks here. Please take what I say into account as you think of ways to improve the game (I’m assuming all improvements will be DLC that you will release in the future? Please keep us posted on that as well). I hope that I was of some help. I know that this is just my opinion but this is very, very important to me. I’ve really invested a lot into these games, this is one of my favorite series’ and I’d like for it to stay that way. Just, as I’ve said, I’m finding it harder and harder to play through this game again knowing that my Shepard’s speech and actions will not always be dictated by me and knowing that I will inevitably come upon the underdeveloped ending. Again, I hope that I helped and sorry that this ended up being so long.

Modifié par HouseOfCrows, 19 mars 2012 - 04:48 .

[Degs29]

My Mass Effect 3 score:    96/100

My overall impression?  Best game I've ever played.

Likes:

-This goes without saying in the ME universe, but the dialogue and storytelling was superb.
-Combat system much improved.  ME2's combat was monotonous, but ME3's always kept me engaged.  More tactical resources, better ease of movement, and guns that actually feel/sound powerful.
-The enemies were diverse and well designed, not to mention a challenge.
-The perfect gun-modding system.  Much better than ME1's.  Also Liked being able to upgrade my guns.
-The skill system is exactly what I was looking for.  I also appreciate XP being awarded more frequently, rather than on a per mission basis.
-The characters, as always, are well fleshed out and even more intricate in ME3.
-The attention to detail is amazing.  I particularily like how the characters quiped about things the ME fanbase have been talking about for some time.  (IE. Mako vs. Hammerhead discussion between Vega and Cortez).  Actually, I laughed more in this game than in the previous two combined.
-Obviously the plot was incredibly compelling and emotional.

Dislikes:

-Would have liked to be able to sell equipment and have a greater pool of equipment to draw from.
-Would have liked to be able to equip my squadmates with their own armor and equipment seperate from Shepards.
-Many characters in the series take a backseat in ME3, some who were favourites of mine.  The characters in ME3 were beautifully wrought (especially Liara, kudos to everyone who had a hand shaping her character), which makes it feel like the other characters were cheated somehow.
-The ending, although powerful, is unsatisfactory.  To be honest, when I first completed the game I really kind of liked the ending.  But after awhile, I started realizing nothing was tied up.  I know what happened to Jeff and Edi...that's it.  After playing near a hundred hours with really compelling characters, it's imperative to know what the future holds for them.


Anyway, fantastic job.  I can't wait to see where the franchise is taken from here.

Modifié par Degs29, 19 mars 2012 - 04:53 .

[paxbanana3915]

I cannot give Mass Effect 3 a good score. ME3 did improve some things compared to the first two games: combat, weapon customization, and armor customization. And that was it--things that wouldn't have affected my view of the game even if they were awful.

There were lots of technical/editing issues as far as characters warping across the room, heads turned in the wrong direction, and so on. That didn't bother me horribly, but it hurts immersion, and in my opinion, shows a lack of polish with the final product.

Everything else that made Mass Effect Mass Effect, most glaringly the dialogue options, seemed to be thrown out the window. Side quests were completely deleted. The way they were introduced was pretty awful; while the dialogue may have played in the background, I usually didn't hear them at all. I miss back in ME1 when I could run up to someone on the Citadel, talk to them, do a task for them, and find out they lied to me all along, making the whole quest worth it for that alone.

I liked all the mini-games from ME2. Why did door hacking suddenly become automatic? I honestly didn't mind mining in ME2, and I can easily say that trolling a solar system was far more tedious and annoying than launching probes at a planet.

The squad member list was short, and interactions with them incredibly limited. I was irritated that often new dialogue with squad members would play in the background as I ran around Normandy. So, no interaction, no investigation, no face-to-face with squad members in those scenes. In the final battle, we see nothing of the resources we've procured through all three games, and the "battle to retake Earth" was basically one set of waves of enemies. Maybe expecting to strategically retake several major cities on Earth was unrealistic, but I got to the last part of the game feeling like Bioware ran out of time and abruptly ended the game. Also, why was there no ending boss fight, especially in a game that feels so much like a 3rd person shooter instead of an RPG? The ending to the Shadowbroker DLC, including its boss-fight, felt more epic than the ending to the entire ME3 game and thus the trilogy. That's pretty disappointing.

The ending really isn't worth mentioning other than to say, I went out of my way to avoid being spoiled, and I was shocked by it. I assumed--though I chose the synthesis option which is apparently only available if you gathered almost all of the war assets--that I'd done something horribly wrong. I reloaded the save and tried another of the A, B, C endings, and I was disgusted to see exactly the same ending again! How is it that anything other than laziness to see the exact same cut-scene for all endings?

Throughout my game experience, I admit there were some great, epic moments (Mordin for one), but I was altogether underwhelmed. Attempting to replay it for my Renegade Shepard, I realized why: it all stems from the lack of dialogue options (and almost complete removal of Investigates). What was an interactive scene in ME1 and ME2 was suddenly a cut-scene that I could read a book through without it making a difference in the game-play. If there's already a 'combat-only' option for game-play, why was the RPG element that made ME1/ME2 so good and unique mostly removed from ME3?

For that, and the ending, I have to give this one a 4/10 at best. And, for an RPG, it has zero replay value, and I fell like I chugged through all the tedious, boring moments just to occasionally see a really good scene, like Mordin's redemption.

Short version: lack of dialogue options was the most glaring fault in this game, which, in my opinion, was the beginning of what turned out to be the awful ending. I wonder now if the railroaded "decision" in the Arrival DLC was an early warning sign for what was to come.

[Rulid]

Overall score 80/100

(cf. Baldur's gate: 95/100, BG:SoA/ToB: 99/100, KOTOR: 95/100, JE: 91/100,
ME1: 100/100, ME2: 92/100, DA:O: 92/100, DA2: 93/100)

I've played BG1 in my freshman year in college.
I am now a professor of what I used to learn back then. I bought the Xbox360 to specifically play
ME1. When that rig burned out on me, I bought it again to play ME2. In preparation for ME3, I
purchased the Kinnect.

Just to let you know where I'm coming from.

 Any great reveal so late in the game would naturally seem forced. 
The brilliance of KOTOR or ME1 was the astounding reveal in plot that left me senseless.
I still remember the chills that ran down my spine when I first encountered Sovereign on Virmire.
It would be difficult for ME2 or 3 to top that grand "reveal", so it's noticeably understandable that
ME3 can't top ME1 in terms of plot. Any great reveal so late in the game would naturally seem
forced. Hence, whatever plot design was held in the beginning of the series, the fact that
the Crucible, without any hint of its existence up until this point in the series, suddenly makes an
appearance will inevitably seem forced.
This is more so as there was a complete absence in ME2 in terms of plot progression. Should the
Crucible had been in any way relevant to the overarching plot, ME2 would have been a perfect place
to have it's initial inkling appear, if not fully revealed.

I did not play mass effect for 5 years to watch a music video.
As with SoA/ToB, this latter placement of ME3 does not detract from its significance in itself.
SoA and ToB successfully panned out the full extent of what it meant to be the Bhaal-child, and
also dealt with the remaining party members in tying up loose ends. And that was just in an
epilogue text format.
As written by others in these forums:
1. the endings make no sense.
2. the endings offer no choice.
3. the aftermath of the ending is left unanswered.
In the ending, I was treated with piano music (nice music, though) and colors. Yay.


Consider your loyal fan base. 
I have played mass effect for several dozen times. I have 5-6 characters, each with 2-3 endings.
The reason for this absurd multiplicity is that they all incorporate some form of varied choice that
I wished to see resolved.
What happens to my LI? my crew? - my decision in the end, and the utterly pointless repetition of
playing Datapad- was solely aimed at achieving the "sheperd breaths ending" so I could at least
watch for certain for 5 seconds that earth was not decimated. That's all I had going to confirm that
they are not all lot.
As someone wisely put it, games are NOT movies.
Mass effect is not a "choose your own adventure" story book where you passively watch the
videoscreen pass by from your resulting choices. You want to actively see your choices
implemented. I want to see some minor character waving his/her hand in the background
because I went out of my way to deliver his/her mail.
This may seem redundant to the games that you guys usually make. But to deviate too far from
that course is to deviate completely, and you eventually tarnish the medium to the point where
it becomes incomprehensible.

In any event, I can't rant on indefinitely.
I had always planned for ME3 to be my last video game. I am disappointed that it was such a
let down. But on the bright side, I can leave rest assured that Bioware would not be making any
more games that I would be missing.

Modifié par Rulid, 19 mars 2012 - 05:55 .

[superfuzznpd]

Narkeh wrote...

Never understood where people get the impression that Mass effect was a trilogy...This game struck me more of a series of games rather than a complete story to end in three installments.

Um, because they announced it as a trilogy from the get go, and reaffirmed it at each games release.

Nice review by the way and I agree on the rating you gave the game. It's a fantastic game despite the ending. My issue with the ending is the vast amount of either glaring plot holes it left open ( see my review ), or at least the lack of closure on some significant issues if you don't want to call them plot holes. Hopefully Bioware will close some of those up with some DLC. The way the game ended makes DLC ackward though, because well, you were disintigrated and the Normany is destroyed. So how did you end up back on the bridge of your destroyed ship in fully functional form? The died and been brought back thing has been done, so that's (hopefully) out. Yeah, the ending just leaves way too many serious questions unanswered, and makes answering them through DLC problematic.

[BaKaNoOB]

My overal Review
ME1 and ME2 - 9.5/10 (-0.5 for bad texture struking) one of my favorite games

As for ME3
Gameplay - 10 (no texture struking this time)
Story before the neding - 10
After Ending (all of them) - -5
Overal : 5/10

Worth of replaying - very small (not as ME1 or ME2 cause of the ending)