Mass Effect 3 Series Review Part I

Before I begin, I’d like to thank you for your patience. This has been an incredible journey, and I now have a great appreciation for the Role Playing Game (RPG) genre because of it. Now ladies and gentlemen, my series review.

Several months ago a couple of my friends were talking to me about Mass Effect. At the time I was anticipating The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, so I wanted to play an RPG that give me an idea of what the genre is all about. My friend Nick spoke very highly of Mass Effect, and let me borrow the first game. The graphics were very good for a game released in 2007. The gameplay was a little rough, and the controls took me a while to get use to, but all in all, I was very impressed. Then I arrived at the citadel, and everything changed. I was in awe with the size of the citadel, and how detailed it was; but it may have been too much for me at that time. I’m what you might call a "distracted" gamer. I will start out with the main quest, and then get side tracked with each and every side quest that I stumble upon. It’s like the domino effect; I want to complete a quest for someone, and then another quest spawns from that; then in trying to complete my new found quest, I would meet more people, and discover that they needed help too. Eventually, I was overwhelmed. Even though I could start and stop quests whenever I pleased, I was still exhausted with how much could be done. Another thing I didn't have an appreciation for was conversation. I wanted to get straight to the point, and get through the game. In the end I put ME down, and played other games.

Then Skyrim was released. Skyrim had a lot of what I was looking for in an RPG, and I can honestly say that it helped me appreciate the things I hated about Mass Effect. As I explained in a previous post, after an invitation from my friend Mike, and a brief threat from my friend Tanner, I decided to download the demo for Mass Effect 3, and join them in the multiplayer portion of the demo. I was in awe. I couldn’t believe how much the gameplay had improved since the first Mass Effect. I knew within the first few minutes of playing that the demo that I wanted more, and I wanted it now! I wasn’t able to pick up Mass Effect again until the day after Mass Effect 3 was released; and then my journey truly began.

Mass Effect’s story as a whole is completely unique. The first game leaves you wondering what is next, as does the end of the second game, but even more so. As many of you may have heard the ending of the third game was so disappointing that, due to the outcry of Mass Effect fans, BioWare has announced they will be releasing DLC in June that will hopefully calm the waters a bit. Even though I agree that the ending was a horrible way to end the trilogy, I am still left speechless and want to play through the entire trilogy again just to see how my decisions effect the series as a whole.

The first Mass Effect is an excellent game for its time, being released two days shy of two years of the release of the Xbox 360 it was truly ahead of its time, and in my opinion it still holds its own. While some of the gameplay mechanics were rough, and hard to get use to, the flow of the story and character development still compete with a lot of RPG’s today. The story is about Commander Shepherd facing a Reaper, known as Sovereign, who is planning on initiating a mysterious cycle of destruction, and bringing the Reaper race out of a hibernation in deep space who will then attack every planet in their way. Using pawns like a character named Saren, Sovereign is able to plan his attack, and Shepherd is the only person in the galaxy who has uncovered his plot piece by piece.

Saren and the Geth

Things get tricky when you approach the citadel counsel with news that Saren is working with the Reapers. They can't take your word for it, because the Reapers haven't been around for a very long time, and so they ask you to provide evidence. Throughout your journey to gather proof you obtain several squad mates to help you with your cause, you can build relationships with some of them, and you're given one of the coolest space ship I've ever seen. Something I wasn't expecting with Mass Effect was how deep the story is. Not only do you learn everyone's personal background, but also the background of every race. They go so far as to go into detail of wars that certain races had with each other, and how they've effected the present day. Each time you discover a new race, or learn something new about someones history, a codex is added to your menu system to where you can read about that new subject. I dare say that the Mass Effect effect world is deeper than just about any sci-fi story out there. And that's saying a lot for someone who is a big Star Wars and Star Trek fan.

The coolest spaceship ever... Until the next game anyway. :)

Any time Shepherd kills an enemy, talks to a person, hacks software, or completes a quest, the player receives experience points to spend on upgrades on things such as weapons, armor, personal abilities, and squad mate abilities. There are also choices the player makes that change the course of the entire trilogy. The awesome thing about the Mass Effect trilogy is that your first games choices can be loaded to the second game, and the first and second games choices can be loaded over to the third game. When doing so you end up playing one huge, epic story, and you're choosing where it goes. Most of the choices in conversations that you can make require that you reply with a paragon (good), or renegade (bad) response. Basically you can be a extremely nice and generous, or you can be a huge tool throughout the game.

The music in Mass Effect at times can, at first, seem very boring and dry, but eventually grows on you. Even now I find my self humming the music when I'm aboard the Normandy, or the citadel, or getting into a firefight on a planet. The sound effects in Mass Effect are very futuristic, but not so far fetched that you're left thinking "Yeah Right". Another thing I really like that about Mass Effect is that the dialogue isn't dry, and the voice acting isn't repetitive, like you see in other RPG's. With celebrities like Seth Green voicing characters in Mass Effect, it's very high quality dialogue. The ending, and choices that you must make at the end leave you wanting even more than this epic game has already provided. I'm giving Mass Effect a 4 out of 5 Stars, and that's comparing it to today's standards.

The second game has huge improvements, but also some things that aren't as great. Check back next time for my review of the second game, as I continue to review the Mass Effect Series!

Until next time, keep on gamin' on!