Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 - They should not change the ending and screw that DLC.  But the ending was awful.  Now that that's out of the way, this is a complete lateral move on Bioware's part and maybe even a step back.  I liked the first two games quite a bit, especially the second one.  This is me trying to work out why.  In no way is the game bad, it just bored me and by the time it started getting close to the end I just wanted to finish it.

One of the problems is I think is that a lot of what Bioware stakes the series on just cannot hold up this late in the game.  The morality system has no basis when it is tied to a bar.  At least you can't wipe it out or change it like you can in other games, and they at least came up with a way to often remove what you say from carrying some sort of "nice" or "not nice" connotation by using neutral reputation.  Still, there's that gauge to show you just how you stack up, like some goofy arbiter of whether you are the good guy or the not so good guy.  And that's the rub.  The gauge reinforces the notion that you need to play the game a certain way, and it also doesn't help that, sure enough, every single choice you make is obvious because paragon is on top and renegade is on bottom, same as always.  So instead of making a choice that you might actually want to make, the game pushes the notion that you should make the choice that corresponds to "how I'm playing this guy" which is generally either straight one way or the other, which is just dull.  Games like Skyrim and The Witcher 2 instead force you to make excruciating decisions that can backfire on you and have vastly different outcomes.  And there's no stupid bar to influence what you do.  Instead, you evaluate based on what you've seen and then see what happens.  I felt way more invested in those games from a personal perspective for the short while I played both of them than the entire time I played Mass Effect 3 and it's two games worth of back story!  Another element to the problem is that it is easy to game the system, so to speak, in the Mass Effect games.  If you pump your conversation skill and don't just run straight through the story, you can basically resolve any situation in a way that eliminates the "bad stuff" (probably interesting stuff) from happening, or at least I was able to throughout each game.  That takes a lot of the tension out and removes you from the experience.  It also lowers the stakes in a way that revokes supposed core features of the game.  And while I always say I'm not a graphics guy, LA Noire's conversation choreography and facial modeling crush this game.  That's minor, but I kept thinking about it because it's what drives the game.

Outside of that area, a few other things bugged me.  The side-quests have been integrated with the planet-scanning activity, but instead of minerals or natural resources you're scanning for stranded forces or groups you can use in your fight against the Reapers.  It's an interesting idea that makes sense, but is just as tedious as the sections before, though at this juncture I assume that's the point.  There's also no way to track which quests you've finished and need to turn in or where in most instances they're turned in outside of a general area.  That is simply a bewildering design flaw.  The controls still are not very tight, especially in the ever-crowded land of cover shooters.  You feel heavy and weighted while walking and rolling but then immediately become a speed demon when running, able to spin three hundred and sixty degrees on a dime.  The cover system still has problems "recognizing" you, leading to frustrating deaths where you constantly roll into a barrier or can't move out of cover or keep moving from side to side when you want to move out.  The other big thing is a personal annoyance, but I have to bring it up.  The game just cannot bludgeon you with enough heroic motivational speeches, glorifications of heroic sacrifice and determination, and bravery and courage in the face of overwhelming odds because damn it we are going to succeed!  Cliche doesn't get even close and it all gets old after a while.  I get that Mass Effect as a series is as far from subversive or deconstructive and that the stakes can't get any higher at the end.  The whole thing falls apart in places because each time it's a gigantic repetition (a tying metaphor to the Reapers themselves?????????????????????????  I kind of doubt it).  Lastly, the characters of your squad don't get fleshed out nearly as well as before.  The loyalty missions are gone, replaced with some interactions that do grant a sense of development and closure, but don't have the same kind of impact.  I thought the personal missions were some of the best parts of the Mass Effect 2 because they got to the heart of the characters and had an impact on your game.  How development plays out in Mass Effect 3 seems more trite and expected, like the developers knew they had to go through the motions and just slogged it out to resolve things.             

So did I actually like anything?  Yeah, I did.  The combat is still very good and the squad AI is very helpful, only prone to the occasional frustration.  Raising the default difficulty was a good move, as the previous games felt a little too easy at times.  There are some challenging encounters in the game that force you to use all your weapons, ammo and powers to survive and the new enemy types, particularly the Banshee, put the pressure on something fierce.  Additionally, there several encounters where the environment, while not directly impacting the action, adds to the feeling of being in combat very well and creates an involving atmosphere.  The story makes the best it can out of fighting a faceless and comically overwhelming enemy by showing the conflicts between the races of the galaxy and how old grudges and misconceptions permeate everything when they should be forgotten.  The Reapers get counterbalanced with Cerberus and the Illusive Man, which is certainly more interesting than going against massive bug machines that have to be developed by pull-out-the-rug exposition at the end.  Having to gather forces and broker alliances works well within the huge scope of the story.  Keith David and Martin Sheen are still awesome.  After being disgruntled by Bethesda apparently hiring about five voice actors for the entire game in Skyrim, it was refreshing to witness the variety and depth of full voice acting on display.  And if I had to single out one character I thought was well done, it would be Mordin, whose arc throughout the second and third game was one of the high points of the entire series.  Wrex was another strong figure, the story of the krogan being one area where I thought the games really worked well.  Wrex's growth across the games and the struggles he and his race endured were where I thought the games really showed their potential, in taking a figure and letting him grow into someone that you trusted and wanted to help because you felt like he was sincere and you knew him on a personal level.

The fact that these characters might not even be in your game speaks back to the interest to be had initially in Mass Effect 2 when you realized that your choices carried over and shaped your game.  It gave a screen of individuality to your experience that defined Mass Effect.  It's too bad Mass Effect 3 often pulls back the screen, especially in the ending, and removes those modifications.  Your story gets boiled down to numbers on a board that plod into the ending and then disappear.  In general some of my misgivings have been with the series from the start and just caught up with me and I also think Mass Effect 2 was the pinnacle of the series and that colors my reaction to Mass Effect 3.  In the end, I'm kind of glad the mass relays are done.