2012.10: Mass Effect 3

Time took to complete: 32hours:51mins

I spent 23 hours in two days with this game, the citadel being open excited me....Nothing but fetch quests. Then the prospect of more HUBs like that excited me; no sir. Then I kept playing because I wanted to feel like Shepard same way I did in ME2 but it just never came (more on that later).

Everyone (rightly) is going on about it so I'll start with the ending. The way the ending was presented annoyed me more than the ending itself. I mean yes it was underwhelming (and some bits didn't make sense) but the "PICK AN ENDING" presentation was the worst offender (Deus Ex did it too) personally. ME2 naturally lead to an ending depending on your choices, this one couldn't be arsed.

I asked in ME2 for crew members to move around and guess what, they do in ME3, yay. I really enjoyed interacting with them in the Citadel and even in the ship they seemed to have their own life somewhat so that was very nice immersion wise along with a lot of nice moments you have with them. So that was a very pleasant and happy improvement to get.

I however just never felt fully in control of Shepard's destiny. Not just because of ending, this was my early impression and it never went away. I swear in ME2 I had more control, even if they were dummy choices, it was still nice to get them. Here they were just at 'obvious' bits.

Ultimately what I am trying to say is in ME2 everything melded together better without you knowing for sure what decisions you were making or what their consequences would be. Here everything was a bit too obvious which was highly disappointing. I kept waiting to be surprised by some unexpected consequence, but no, every choice I made lead to what it was obviously going to lead to and there were no unsure ones. It was a huge part of ME2 for me, I was nervous after making a lot of choices, made me feel like a real commander. Here, not so much.

The gameplay I think is pretty much the same. The battlefields have a bit more breathing room but not much else.

I can't say more without wrapping this whole thing in spoiler tags so yeah I think that's all I can say really.

This didn't blow me away like ME2 did and I didn't really feel like the commander I felt like in ME2 which is like 99% of the ME experience for me. Plus the ending that disconnects you even more from the whole experience, and some might rightly argue throws everything out the window, along with nothing really new...I honestly feel it deserves a very disappointing (but still good):

7/10.

This will go down as the most anti-climax trilogy of this gen, of that I have very little doubt.