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When we were playing the good old Dungeons & Dragons dice & paper game, we sometimes had to face a Dungeon Master whose usual "Endgame" was to throw the party in hell or unavoidable destruction of all characters, after a few weeks of having raised these characters from novice to pros, meaning that in subsequent games, we just could not use these characters anymore. We were usually furious after that, and of course the Dungeon Master was not called upon for a while to have us be his "toys" one more time. Even with the best arguments he would submit to us after such a bad "endgame" choice, he would not walk away with it to do it again. But we were still friends, at least.
I used to prefer rewarding arcade-like games to the ones that always have you on the brink of death at all moments, where the "last savegame" loading capacity of the computer was more sollicited than the player's interest to find any kind of strategy to avoid death. Thus the popularity of open choices, role-playing and character building, since you really get the feeling that, at some point, things will go easier and the player will finally have a chance to focus mainly on the story, and a little less on the key combinations. But that implies that the game has content regarding this aspect, not only thousands of enemies to shoot endlessly at.
Amidst all these modern games I have seen in the last decade, the Mass Effect series was able to reach both objectives, in a quite balanced fashion, to give us action and story with a sense of freedom to choose the outcome. Even if we all know that these "different outcome possibilities" are all fixed in the gamecode and, being so, not really giving a chance to be surprised from different playthroughs, we at least expect to see the same game from a different perspective if we approach it from radically different playing styles (or "characters"). Since the series is putting lots of emphasis on the characters and personalities, and add to this the possibility of "love interests" along the way, the players can really feel an emotional "hook" to these games, understandably. Then, like all things, comes the "end of the game", always too soon, always incomplete, always (a bit or more) frustrating.
I found Mass Effect 3 to be the shortest of all three titles, having completed it in less than a week (with all sidequests), playing in the evening after my work and the kids put to sleep. I was a bit sad to sense the rush to "finish things" all along. Even the sidequests did not benefit the short cutscenes with the "quest givers" that we had in the other 2 games, which makes them kind of minimalistic, given that the planet scanning interface was also "simplified" and made most of these quests a simple click and grab thing, and back to the main screen. I almost feel that, despite what has been promoted, the fact that Bioware gave in so generously to the "player's feedback" has resulted in an almost predictable gameflow, with almost predictable encounters and outcomes. I was not even surprised by the endings, and maybe that is why I felt deception after I closed the game : I felt on a "ride to the end" all along, with false choices that almost evenly resulted in a roadside cutscene while walking to the final meeting, plus an adjustment of the difficulty level of the last fights, nothing more.
I expected a lot from this game, after having been completely grabbed by the previous ones, and I have been anxious to get this one since they announced a release date (and another, and...). But as soon as I started playing, I felt compelled to go forward and to do it fast. There are no real "breaks" in the game, the Citadel's interludes were but a walkaround to finish errands and try to get new ones, and hop back on the normandy to close another brief chapter. I felt good at resolving Tuchanka and the Quarian / Geth problems, but other than that, and given a few heartbreaking casualties, I completed the game asking myself : was that REALLY fun, or did I just spend the last week putting numbers at the end of a few known equations?
Of course, the "themes" are of sadness, grief, destruction and the likes. And I think that it looks like a good support for this "endoctrination theory", since endoctrination infuses its victims with feelings of depression and hopelessness. Even with that in mind, the whole experience, since the first apparition of the child in the vent at the very beginning, is tainted with anything but joy and hopeful resolution of this war. Shepard is the main protagonist of this "hope", and all along he seems just a shadow of himself, even after winning a battle. This is reinforced by the small mandatory "discussions" with Anderson and Hackett on the Normandy after almost every mission, where smiling on a victory was not an option.
So, of course, I hope to see more of Shepard (and others!), in DLC or whatever form, and I hope that these additions to the original content will help to tilt the mood of the game towards a little more "joy". One of the very best moments of the game, for my part, was Hackett's speech to Shepard, when he asks : "Why me?". Hackett tells Shepard the reasons behind hope, and why leaders like Shepard are needed. Yet, I felt at the end of the game that, mostly, Shepard's voice was heard, but the light did not come out of the dark until that tri-colored explosion thing. That, in fact, was the exact kind of event that would have sent the Dungeon Master drink his beer alone outside, while the rest of the "dead party" would celebrate the game and fun, but not the final assault on the principle behind human games : to simply have fun, to get our heads out of the grayness of reality.
Thane's combat with Kai Leng was epic, too.
Modifié par Iconoclaste, 19 mars 2012 - 06:29 .
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