Paragon of virtue
Character creation is a visual feast though, with more than enough nuances to make me feel like I am a completely unique Shepard. The texture and render quality in the faces and piercing eyes of the characters are carried through into the game play with authentic expressions to match the exceptional voice acting by Hollywood royalty.
Have a heart to heart whatever this alien has in its chest
Engaging in role playing over the combat and story choices is significant decision to enjoy the whole experience, as it’s the role playing that really makes Mass Effect 3 amazing. Selecting the dialogue options of Paragon (hey, let's all work together) over Renegade (stop moaning and fight damn you) was easy, as I'm a friendly type and an honest soul. Still, there's part of me that knows I am going to spend the Easter holidays using this game’s amazing replay value to start a new with a bad attitude.
Yet deciding my class out of the six available wasn't as easy as in Mass Effect 2. I played an infiltrator – all stealth and sniping – but this time I was persuaded to role a hybrid bio/tech Sentinel. I’m glad I did, as the visually stunning explosive Tech amour and a biotic blast did me proud.
Light armour
The cinematic introduction is like one big copyright infringement, with standard War of the Worlds alien invasion noises, and me coming over all Ripley with a lost kid in an air duct. I was guided by an old friend through the first mission and on to the Normandy to find my hours of mining from Mass Effect 2 had amounted to nothing, as it seemed to be missing my 'illegal' upgrades. It was the mining in Mass Effect 2 that left me cold, and I am delighted to avoid that grind this time round.
Being back on-board the Normandy feels like coming home and I quickly get to grips with the familiar locations on-board, including having a quick dance in my cabin to my personal sound system and checking the Galaxy Map on the bridge to formulate strategies against the advancement of the Reapers. The Normandy is the hub of my Mass Effect 3 campaign and from where I plot which course is best to save the multiverse.
Colder dash
To begin with, the game play and storyline are quite linear. It's not until I get to the Citadel and pick up a few missions that I get the choice of where in the galaxy to start my campaign. By using scans, planets worth visiting are revealed. As I begin to navigate the galaxy, it quickly becomes apparent the Reaper invasion has broadened and nowhere is safe. Exploring galaxies is a good way to get assets that can be used in the war against the Reapers. However, I need to be careful as the Reapers are tracking me and too many scans will alert them to my presence.
Next page: Dress to kill
COMMENTS
Of course, what you could do is buy ME1 and/or ME2, which you can now get for cheap, and thus learn the story from the start. Then, if you like them, you could buy ME3 at a later date - which, by that time, will also be available for cheap. Thus you will get the whole trilogy for less than the price of ME3 today. I'm too good to you people ;-)
Re: I completely agree
I know right, the build up to the end was amazingly well put together, except for the fact you somehow end up wearing clothes you never wore and your armour vanishes, go up, have a chat with the [spoiler] and then sit watching planet [spoiler] with [spoiler], that would have been the perfect place to end the game with a long CS, with the Catalyst firing off and doing it's thing as Shepherd and [spoiler] die together. Then they could have fast forwarded to a couple of years in the future and show the results of your hard work.
Tali on planet [spoiler] wearing a hat as a Geth tends to her garden.
Liara and the Prothean (if you have DLC) exploring old Prothean ruins together.
The 2 Krogans having military drills with Garius whilst Krogan women watch on holding babies
(or cutscenes depending on which chars are still alive and the choices you made through the series).
Since 2007 we have been investing ourselves in the "lives" of our character and his/her comrades, the ending we got was weak, weaker than weak, it's no longer a matter of "oh, I so want to try X in 1 to get Y in 2 so I get ending Z in 3" it's "meh, not even worth playing again, the endings are just so bad".
I've played and completed ME3 and the ending destroyed the entire series for me, totally and utterly ruined any replay experience through ME1-2 to try different scene endings for ME3. For instance, in ME1, don't save the council, in ME2, kill half your crew, does that have any effect on the ending for ME3? Nope, none of the choices you made in ME1-2 actually matter when it comes to the ending of ME3, you get the same 3 "options" all of which suck, it's almost as if BW couldn't think of a way to end the game.
It was supposed to be a final that answers all the questions and closes the story on what has been an epic adventure, it left a bad taste in my mouth and a "what the fuck?" as the only question answered.
Don't get me wrong, the game itself was fun, it's just the ending, that horrible ending that ruined everything I had done over 3 games, 5 minutes worth of gameplay totally screwing over hundreds of hours worth of gameplay, choices, hard decisions....
I had planned (after beating ME3) to work a new ME1>2>3 char going "renegade" to see the effect on how the story ends, now I'm just going to delete ME3 because it has NO replayability factor, none, zero, zilch.
Re: Not sure on this
> PC version suffers from Origin - I have Steam on it, been told you can't have both.
Whilst Origin is a steaming shit sandwich that EA has kindly rammed down our throats for no fathomable reason, it does co-exist with Steam without problems.
