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Platform: Xbox 360 | Edition: Standard
Amazon.com Product Description
Mass Effect 3 is a Role-playing Game (RPG) / Third-Person Shooter hybrid set in a Science Fiction universe. Mass Effect 3 is the third game in the popular Mass Effect series, and is rumored to be the final installment. In it players continue the adventures of Commander Shepard utilizing extreme character customization which is the hallmark feature of the series. Additional features include: the ability to import decisions from both of the previous games into the new game, ownership/play of previous games not required, customizable weapons, improved mobility and melee combat, many returning characters (if they were not killed off in previous imported games), an improved cover system that allows for more action, compatibility with the Kinect Sensor for Xbox 360 and more.
Join Commander Shepard in the struggle against the Reapers in the conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy.
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The Final Chapter in the Mass Effect Trilogy
Not everyone will survive. An ancient alien race, known only as "Reapers," has launched an all-out invasion leaving nothing but a trail of destruction in their wake. Earth has been taken, the galaxy is on the verge of total annihilation, and you are the only one who can stop them. The price of failure is extinction. You are Commander Shepard, a character that you can forge in your own image. You determine how events will play out, which planets to explore, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all. How you wage this war is completely up to you: go into combat with guns blazing or use cover to plan a more tactical assault. Utilize your squad to full effect or take a lone wolf approach. Rain death from a distance or go toe-to-toe with enemies using devastating melee attacks. Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation.
Key Game Features
- A Rich, Branching Storyline - Experience a sci-fi epic with multiple endings determined by your choices and actions throughout the game
- Massive in Scope - Battle on many worlds across the galaxy as you unite the ultimate force to take back the Earth before it's too late
- Large-scale and Intelligent Enemies - Battle enormous enemies and take on a smarter type of foe that will consistently challenge your best combat tactics and put you on the edge of your seat
- Unlock a Customizable Arsenal - Tailor each weapon with devastating upgrades including scopes, grips, barrels and dozens of other unique attachments. Each weapon boasts its own powerful impact and visual flair
- Unleash Death from Afar or Go Toe-to-Toe - Customize your soldier and squad to engage the enemy on your terms. A huge variety of weapons, abilities and equipment allow you to combat the enemy in your preferred style of play
- Play with Kinect - Mass Effect 3 features compatibility with the Kinect Sensor for Xbox 360
Additional Screenshots
 A customizable arsenal. View larger. |  A rich branching storyline. View larger. |  Large-scale enemies. View larger. |  Multiple play options. View larger. |
Product Description
Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, your only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth.This item does not come with a gun or controller accessory.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
653 of 814 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:Xbox 360|Edition:Standard
Fun:
Be warned, this review contains some spoilers so read at your own risk. This is also a bit long winded; I apologize but, as a fan, I invested quite a bit of time in the series. Time for me to give back what they took from me.
My Real Rating: 4.5/5 until the last hour or so, at which it becomes 2/5
Game reviews can often be subjective so this review is coming from someone primarily with an RPG background who, in terms of game play, enjoyed the first game better than the second. The second wasn't terrible in terms of story but it was much less of an RPG and more of a shooter. The first thing I noticed about Mass Effect 3 is that BioWare gave us a game that gives us the best of both worlds and should be recognized for that. There are also some things here and there that I either loved or hated but these were not things that impacted the overall experience so I exclude them.
Some Observations
=================
1. Some people complain about graphics but that isn't as much as an issue for me. I am a hard line gamer who still pulls out the classics from the 80s and 90s and can generally forgive not-as-good graphics for a good story or game that is simply fun to play. Mass Effect 3 is, for the most part, both. That being said, the graphics weren't terrible and I feel that this is really a non-issue.
2. The re-design of the Normandy is great! I love the lounge (reminds me of a line from Mass Effect 2 when Shepard told Jacob that the next Normandy gets a lounge). Nice touch.
3. The writing was generally good. There were some places where I felt it was lacking but I'm saving my anger to discuss the ending. Also, character development is good, especially across the three titles; this is insanely difficult to accomplish in a game trilogy so kudos for that. There were several points in the game where a scene elicited an emotional reaction from me. In the last hour, that emotion was sheer terror that all this character development had been for nothing (see below).
4. As I mentioned, many of the RPG elements that were taken out of the second title were brought back but vastly improved. One such feature was weapon modding. While it didn't bother me like it did some people, I must still admit that modding in the first game could become rather tedious, especially for someone who feels the need to collect everything (not a good idea in the first game).
In this game, for example, suppose you mod a series of weapons with, say, a Rifle Scope I. If you pick up or purchase a Rifle Scope II, all weapons with the earlier mod are automatically updated as well as your inventory.
From the start, you can choose to upgrade weapons you are using to better weapons right away. Moreover, weapons are no longer constrained to a particular class (i,e, infiltrator, soldier, vanguard, etc) so you can enter a combat situation with the weapons that are best suited to the task. There are some weight limits that you should observe when carrying weapons that depend on class, however.
Overall, the game play is fantastic.
5. Halleluiah, planet scanning is gone! It has returned in some form but one does not need to spend large chunks of time collecting resources to upgrade weapons and ship components. Planet scanning is mainly used to collect war assets in Reaper controlled territory but even this can still get a bit tedious at times.
6. I am not a huge fan of multiplayer games, cooperative or not, so I do not feel like I am in a position to adequately critique it.
Comments on the Story
=====================
The story was great. I was on the edge of my seat digging it, that is, until the last hour minutes or so when, in my view, the totality of the trilogy came crashing to the ground. There is a huge, heated debate about the ending of the game where both sides are calling names like rather ill-behaved children. I do not intend to call names here as games, like movies, are very subjective. However, I do have some thoughts about the ending and the story. If you don't share these thoughts, great. But don't be pompous, acting like your opinion is the only one out there. And, beware of spoilers.
//[Work Hard and Still Get the Shaft]//
The first thing that really annoyed me was that I played through every mission/side quest and got most (but admittedly not all) of the war assets from the various worlds using the planet scanner (this also got tedious at times but was nowhere as bad as the scanning in ME2). The way I understand the galactic readiness rating (GRT) is as follows: it is basically a multiplier that takes your raw military strength and is used to produce an effective military strength (EMS). If you spend more time in the multiplayer (which I did not) you can, in principle, spend less time on side quests and vice-versa. Good idea, I thought, as it gives players some leeway on how to proceed.
However, when I went into the final battle, I feel that the EMS rating was rather misleading. Mine was roughly at about 3200 or so with a default GRT of 50%. The green bar was completely filled. However, my ending sucked (I'll get to this in a minute). In fact, the first time I played through, I was so shocked that I re-loaded the Citadel mission to see if I missed something. Nope, as I feared.
Now, my initial reaction was knee-jerk. I was furious that EA/BioWare made a game where, as I perceived at the time, a decent ending could not be achieved without multiplayer. I have since then been corrected. A decent ending, where Shepard presumably lives (there is still some ambiguity here), can be achieved with an EMS of 4000 or better (at least, according to sites like IGN). However, my complaint is that the game misled me about this as my EMS bar was completely filled going into the last mission. Even if you can get the good ending without playing multiplayer, much of your readiness rating depends on previous choices from earlier titles. Also, admittedly, there is a box that told me that my chances against the Reapers was even but I didn't think much of it because in Mass Effect 2, they still called it a "suicide mission" even if you made all the necessary preparations.
I should note that the supposed "good" ending includes a very brief cut scene where Shepard is still alive but appears to be in bad shape; I don't have much of an incentive to work hard to get my EMS up for a 20 second cut scene that leaves some ambiguity about Shepard's ultimate fate.
//[Past Decisions?]//
I didn't feel that all of my decisions really mattered. My feeling is that your decisions mattered mainly insofar as a character might briefly appear in the game and promise to help you but you may not ever encounter that character again in the game and a positive number would be tallied, in your favor, to your military strength. So, basically, I feel like I made decisions not to see further development of a character who was willing to fight and, possibly die, along side me but rather, to see a sum magically increase by a few hundred points.
A good example is the Rachni Queen. She appears if you save her and you are again given an option to save or let her die as she has been taken over by Reaper tech. If you let her live, she appears in a list under the war assets and that is that.
The collector base, for example, does play a role in what choices you have in the ending but I didn't really feel like my decision to destroy it made much of an impact throughout the game. This was, at least I thought, a huge decision and all it does it determine which three crappy choices will cause you to "win" if you even "win" at all. That is, the crappy choices are permuted depending on your choice to destroy or not destroy the collector base.
You also see Major Kirrahe who promises to fight by your side no matter which way the political tide turns. What is frustrating is that I expected a full scale, epic battle where all sorts of people I have rallied were fighting by my side. Literally. I don't think that this was a wrong or misleading assumption. But this isn't what I got. Perhaps my expectations here were far too high.
I understand that making a game that is custom tailored to the player is a difficult, technical task but this is how they marketed the game. I remember feeling that my ME1 decisions, with the exception of Wrex, didn't really have an impact on ME2 except for a few casual encounters with Conrad or an Asari communicating on behalf of the Rachni Queen. I really felt like I would feel the heavy weight of my major decisions from ALL three titles. Instead, there were many times when it felt like "Oh yeah, I remember doing that." The only decisions that seemed to carry sufficient weight were ones that I made in this particular game.
//[Total Annihilation/Gooification of Humanity Isn't So Bad So Long As it is Justified by a Child]//
The ending didn't make much sense to me. In fact, I felt like more alcohol would assist me in understanding it. So, to save organics from the hands of super advanced synthetics or AIs we have to brutally destroy entire species with a race of ultra-sophisticated synthetic-organic hybrids? Okay, perhaps "destroy" is a bad word; more like, gooify you and collect you as a museum exhibit of what once was. So, instead of being destroyed in the usual "the machines have revolted" sense, we will be brutally harvested by super advanced machines. Yeah.... that is a great....uh.... solution? Chaos is not necessarily a bad thing; it is found in nature. This was hard to stomach.
In Mass Effect 2, we discovered that the collectors were really Protheans who were re-purposed and it was generally agreed by Shepard and crew that this was a fate far worse than extinction. Read more ›
My Real Rating: 4.5/5 until the last hour or so, at which it becomes 2/5
Game reviews can often be subjective so this review is coming from someone primarily with an RPG background who, in terms of game play, enjoyed the first game better than the second. The second wasn't terrible in terms of story but it was much less of an RPG and more of a shooter. The first thing I noticed about Mass Effect 3 is that BioWare gave us a game that gives us the best of both worlds and should be recognized for that. There are also some things here and there that I either loved or hated but these were not things that impacted the overall experience so I exclude them.
Some Observations
=================
1. Some people complain about graphics but that isn't as much as an issue for me. I am a hard line gamer who still pulls out the classics from the 80s and 90s and can generally forgive not-as-good graphics for a good story or game that is simply fun to play. Mass Effect 3 is, for the most part, both. That being said, the graphics weren't terrible and I feel that this is really a non-issue.
2. The re-design of the Normandy is great! I love the lounge (reminds me of a line from Mass Effect 2 when Shepard told Jacob that the next Normandy gets a lounge). Nice touch.
3. The writing was generally good. There were some places where I felt it was lacking but I'm saving my anger to discuss the ending. Also, character development is good, especially across the three titles; this is insanely difficult to accomplish in a game trilogy so kudos for that. There were several points in the game where a scene elicited an emotional reaction from me. In the last hour, that emotion was sheer terror that all this character development had been for nothing (see below).
4. As I mentioned, many of the RPG elements that were taken out of the second title were brought back but vastly improved. One such feature was weapon modding. While it didn't bother me like it did some people, I must still admit that modding in the first game could become rather tedious, especially for someone who feels the need to collect everything (not a good idea in the first game).
In this game, for example, suppose you mod a series of weapons with, say, a Rifle Scope I. If you pick up or purchase a Rifle Scope II, all weapons with the earlier mod are automatically updated as well as your inventory.
From the start, you can choose to upgrade weapons you are using to better weapons right away. Moreover, weapons are no longer constrained to a particular class (i,e, infiltrator, soldier, vanguard, etc) so you can enter a combat situation with the weapons that are best suited to the task. There are some weight limits that you should observe when carrying weapons that depend on class, however.
Overall, the game play is fantastic.
5. Halleluiah, planet scanning is gone! It has returned in some form but one does not need to spend large chunks of time collecting resources to upgrade weapons and ship components. Planet scanning is mainly used to collect war assets in Reaper controlled territory but even this can still get a bit tedious at times.
6. I am not a huge fan of multiplayer games, cooperative or not, so I do not feel like I am in a position to adequately critique it.
Comments on the Story
=====================
The story was great. I was on the edge of my seat digging it, that is, until the last hour minutes or so when, in my view, the totality of the trilogy came crashing to the ground. There is a huge, heated debate about the ending of the game where both sides are calling names like rather ill-behaved children. I do not intend to call names here as games, like movies, are very subjective. However, I do have some thoughts about the ending and the story. If you don't share these thoughts, great. But don't be pompous, acting like your opinion is the only one out there. And, beware of spoilers.
//[Work Hard and Still Get the Shaft]//
The first thing that really annoyed me was that I played through every mission/side quest and got most (but admittedly not all) of the war assets from the various worlds using the planet scanner (this also got tedious at times but was nowhere as bad as the scanning in ME2). The way I understand the galactic readiness rating (GRT) is as follows: it is basically a multiplier that takes your raw military strength and is used to produce an effective military strength (EMS). If you spend more time in the multiplayer (which I did not) you can, in principle, spend less time on side quests and vice-versa. Good idea, I thought, as it gives players some leeway on how to proceed.
However, when I went into the final battle, I feel that the EMS rating was rather misleading. Mine was roughly at about 3200 or so with a default GRT of 50%. The green bar was completely filled. However, my ending sucked (I'll get to this in a minute). In fact, the first time I played through, I was so shocked that I re-loaded the Citadel mission to see if I missed something. Nope, as I feared.
Now, my initial reaction was knee-jerk. I was furious that EA/BioWare made a game where, as I perceived at the time, a decent ending could not be achieved without multiplayer. I have since then been corrected. A decent ending, where Shepard presumably lives (there is still some ambiguity here), can be achieved with an EMS of 4000 or better (at least, according to sites like IGN). However, my complaint is that the game misled me about this as my EMS bar was completely filled going into the last mission. Even if you can get the good ending without playing multiplayer, much of your readiness rating depends on previous choices from earlier titles. Also, admittedly, there is a box that told me that my chances against the Reapers was even but I didn't think much of it because in Mass Effect 2, they still called it a "suicide mission" even if you made all the necessary preparations.
I should note that the supposed "good" ending includes a very brief cut scene where Shepard is still alive but appears to be in bad shape; I don't have much of an incentive to work hard to get my EMS up for a 20 second cut scene that leaves some ambiguity about Shepard's ultimate fate.
//[Past Decisions?]//
I didn't feel that all of my decisions really mattered. My feeling is that your decisions mattered mainly insofar as a character might briefly appear in the game and promise to help you but you may not ever encounter that character again in the game and a positive number would be tallied, in your favor, to your military strength. So, basically, I feel like I made decisions not to see further development of a character who was willing to fight and, possibly die, along side me but rather, to see a sum magically increase by a few hundred points.
A good example is the Rachni Queen. She appears if you save her and you are again given an option to save or let her die as she has been taken over by Reaper tech. If you let her live, she appears in a list under the war assets and that is that.
The collector base, for example, does play a role in what choices you have in the ending but I didn't really feel like my decision to destroy it made much of an impact throughout the game. This was, at least I thought, a huge decision and all it does it determine which three crappy choices will cause you to "win" if you even "win" at all. That is, the crappy choices are permuted depending on your choice to destroy or not destroy the collector base.
You also see Major Kirrahe who promises to fight by your side no matter which way the political tide turns. What is frustrating is that I expected a full scale, epic battle where all sorts of people I have rallied were fighting by my side. Literally. I don't think that this was a wrong or misleading assumption. But this isn't what I got. Perhaps my expectations here were far too high.
I understand that making a game that is custom tailored to the player is a difficult, technical task but this is how they marketed the game. I remember feeling that my ME1 decisions, with the exception of Wrex, didn't really have an impact on ME2 except for a few casual encounters with Conrad or an Asari communicating on behalf of the Rachni Queen. I really felt like I would feel the heavy weight of my major decisions from ALL three titles. Instead, there were many times when it felt like "Oh yeah, I remember doing that." The only decisions that seemed to carry sufficient weight were ones that I made in this particular game.
//[Total Annihilation/Gooification of Humanity Isn't So Bad So Long As it is Justified by a Child]//
The ending didn't make much sense to me. In fact, I felt like more alcohol would assist me in understanding it. So, to save organics from the hands of super advanced synthetics or AIs we have to brutally destroy entire species with a race of ultra-sophisticated synthetic-organic hybrids? Okay, perhaps "destroy" is a bad word; more like, gooify you and collect you as a museum exhibit of what once was. So, instead of being destroyed in the usual "the machines have revolted" sense, we will be brutally harvested by super advanced machines. Yeah.... that is a great....uh.... solution? Chaos is not necessarily a bad thing; it is found in nature. This was hard to stomach.
In Mass Effect 2, we discovered that the collectors were really Protheans who were re-purposed and it was generally agreed by Shepard and crew that this was a fate far worse than extinction. Read more ›
84 of 102 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:Xbox 360|Edition:Standard
Fun:
I want to preface this by saying that I've been a huge fan of this series from day one. I really believe that these games are the best anyone has produced in the last five years. For the most part that excellence carries through into the third game. The graphics and sound are still great. The characters you've grown to love are all back, most with excellent new chapters to their stories. Combat comes close to perfection and the new score is fantastic. Even the multiplayer is a fun distraction.
When I was about three quarters of the way through the story I was entirely prepared to give this game five stars, minor problems with the side quest structure aside. Around that time I saw that the game had a two star average on Amazon. I knew that people were angry about the day one DLC, and despite my best efforts to avoid spoilers I had heard some grumbling about the ending. But the ending couldn't be bad enough to justify a two star rating for an otherwise outstanding game, right? Right?
Wrong. Very, very wrong. As one professional reviewer (writing for the California Literary Review) put it, "the ending, by which I mean the final five to ten minutes, of Mass Effect 3 is easily the worst finale I've seen compared to the preceding quality that came before it - in any medium. At literally every level, it's objectively terrible." It's honestly hard to believe that it was written by the same people that developed the rest of the series. Some have tried to dismiss complaints about the ending as the whining of entitled fans who wanted a happy ending. I promise you it isn't that simple. Let me explain why this goes beyond players' preferences as to how the story should wrap up.
***SPOILERS TO FOLLOW***
First off, there are plot-holes galore. Huge gaping plot-holes. Squad mates who were with you on Earth magically appearing back on the Normandy. Joker randomly deciding to flee before the Crucible even goes off. Anderson saying he's behind you then magically appearing in the room ahead of you. The Illusive Man appearing on the Citadel with no explanation. Etc.
Secondly, there is a complete lack of choice as to how the game ends. Nothing you've done in the previous 120 hours has any bearing on the options available to you in the end. Nothing. Your choices did not matter at all. No matter what you did you are offered three choices as to how to finish off the Reapers. They sound different, but the only difference between the three endings is that you get to watch a different colored explosion. Really, that's it. In a series that was all about real choices with real consequences this is completely unacceptable.
Thirdly, you get no sense of closure. You watch the Reaper attack end, the Mass Relays blow up, the Normandy crash land on a planet, and possibly Shepard draw a breath, proving that he lives. Roll credits. What? Are you kidding me? Is my crew just going to die on that planet? Will Shepard ever see his love interest again? What will happen to Galactic civilization without the Mass Relays? Are all the peaces I brokered between the different races meaningless now that they're never going to see each other again? (In this way choices you made hours ago are completely negated.) What about that giant fleet that gathered at earth and is now stuck there? Are they just going to starve to death? I have no idea what the future holds for all the characters I've come to care so much about.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the ending goes completely against everything the rest of the series has stood for. For three games Shepard has been running around trying to convince everyone to work together against a common enemy. He has forged deep friendships with members of every species and solved centuries old conflicts (including, importantly, that between the Geth and the Quarians). They drive home the point that the Protheans were doomed by their homogeneity and that this cycle has a better chance because it consists of diverse races working together. Peaceful coexistence and cooperation are encouraged again and again and again.
Then Shepard reaches the the Crucible and the Starchild says that war between synthetics and organics is inevitable. You have three choices for how to deal with this: genocide (kill all synthetics, including friendly ones, [red]), slavery (take control of the Reapers, [blue]), homogenization (merge all synthetic and organic life [green]). Shepard responds by fighting back and saying that there must be another way. His presence there is proof that cooperation is possible. He demands another solution that doesn't involve destroying the Mass Relays or synthetic allies like EDI and the Geth. Oh wait, that's not what he does at all. HE JUST GOES ALONG WITH IT AND PICKS ONE OF THE THREE AWFUL CHOICES. Are you @#$*ing kidding me Bioware? After all that Shepard just abandons everything he believes in without a fight and picks a color coded ending? This is about as believable as your whole crew suddenly turning into cowards and running away before the fight ends.
Finally, the (only) ending is incredibly negative and depressing. If you want to say that I'm whiny and want an ending that's full of rainbows and unicorns and ice cream, fine, but hear me out. First consider how bleak the existing ending really is. The Mass Relays are gone. The civilization that you've come to know is torn apart completely. All the races you've just united really aren't going to interact anymore. The giant fleet hanging over the smoking ruin that was earth has no way to get home. Are they just going to starve to death? Where the hell is your squad? Will they ever get off that jungle planet? Are Tali and Garrus just going to starve to death (they can't eat the same food as us, remember)? We're left with small numbers of survivors cut off from each other on ruined planets. Call me crazy, but I don't think this is much better than letting the damn Reapers win.
I don't object to the fact that this ending is possible. I object to the fact that its the only ending possible. As I've said, choice is a huge part of this series. If you did things a certain way in ME 1 you could convince the final boss to shoot himself in the head. If you were adequately prepared in ME 2 you could have a 100% survival rate on a "suicide mission." If I've been a solid paragon and completed every side mission for three games straight (which I did) I want the possibility of a happy ending. Screw this "the hero has to die" nonsense. This is Mass Effect! The hero doesn't "have to" anything! I want endings that differ in respects other than color of explosions, and I want at least one of them to be somewhat happy.
***END SPOILERS***
I can't see how anyone at Bioware thought that this ending was a good idea. It's so bad that it degrades everything that comes before it. I have no motivation to play this game again, or the earlier ones for that matter, simply because I know what they lead to. I've honestly been kind of depressed since I finished the game a few days ago. I desperately want a rewritten ending, and I may have to part ways with my favorite developer if I don't get one. It's really that mind-blowingly bad. Bad enough to overshadow everything else in an otherwise superb game.
NOTE: Yes, the single star is a protest vote. Go ahead and buy the game. For most of it's run it's just as brilliant as the first two. Just don't expect to feel satisfied when the credits roll.
When I was about three quarters of the way through the story I was entirely prepared to give this game five stars, minor problems with the side quest structure aside. Around that time I saw that the game had a two star average on Amazon. I knew that people were angry about the day one DLC, and despite my best efforts to avoid spoilers I had heard some grumbling about the ending. But the ending couldn't be bad enough to justify a two star rating for an otherwise outstanding game, right? Right?
Wrong. Very, very wrong. As one professional reviewer (writing for the California Literary Review) put it, "the ending, by which I mean the final five to ten minutes, of Mass Effect 3 is easily the worst finale I've seen compared to the preceding quality that came before it - in any medium. At literally every level, it's objectively terrible." It's honestly hard to believe that it was written by the same people that developed the rest of the series. Some have tried to dismiss complaints about the ending as the whining of entitled fans who wanted a happy ending. I promise you it isn't that simple. Let me explain why this goes beyond players' preferences as to how the story should wrap up.
***SPOILERS TO FOLLOW***
First off, there are plot-holes galore. Huge gaping plot-holes. Squad mates who were with you on Earth magically appearing back on the Normandy. Joker randomly deciding to flee before the Crucible even goes off. Anderson saying he's behind you then magically appearing in the room ahead of you. The Illusive Man appearing on the Citadel with no explanation. Etc.
Secondly, there is a complete lack of choice as to how the game ends. Nothing you've done in the previous 120 hours has any bearing on the options available to you in the end. Nothing. Your choices did not matter at all. No matter what you did you are offered three choices as to how to finish off the Reapers. They sound different, but the only difference between the three endings is that you get to watch a different colored explosion. Really, that's it. In a series that was all about real choices with real consequences this is completely unacceptable.
Thirdly, you get no sense of closure. You watch the Reaper attack end, the Mass Relays blow up, the Normandy crash land on a planet, and possibly Shepard draw a breath, proving that he lives. Roll credits. What? Are you kidding me? Is my crew just going to die on that planet? Will Shepard ever see his love interest again? What will happen to Galactic civilization without the Mass Relays? Are all the peaces I brokered between the different races meaningless now that they're never going to see each other again? (In this way choices you made hours ago are completely negated.) What about that giant fleet that gathered at earth and is now stuck there? Are they just going to starve to death? I have no idea what the future holds for all the characters I've come to care so much about.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the ending goes completely against everything the rest of the series has stood for. For three games Shepard has been running around trying to convince everyone to work together against a common enemy. He has forged deep friendships with members of every species and solved centuries old conflicts (including, importantly, that between the Geth and the Quarians). They drive home the point that the Protheans were doomed by their homogeneity and that this cycle has a better chance because it consists of diverse races working together. Peaceful coexistence and cooperation are encouraged again and again and again.
Then Shepard reaches the the Crucible and the Starchild says that war between synthetics and organics is inevitable. You have three choices for how to deal with this: genocide (kill all synthetics, including friendly ones, [red]), slavery (take control of the Reapers, [blue]), homogenization (merge all synthetic and organic life [green]). Shepard responds by fighting back and saying that there must be another way. His presence there is proof that cooperation is possible. He demands another solution that doesn't involve destroying the Mass Relays or synthetic allies like EDI and the Geth. Oh wait, that's not what he does at all. HE JUST GOES ALONG WITH IT AND PICKS ONE OF THE THREE AWFUL CHOICES. Are you @#$*ing kidding me Bioware? After all that Shepard just abandons everything he believes in without a fight and picks a color coded ending? This is about as believable as your whole crew suddenly turning into cowards and running away before the fight ends.
Finally, the (only) ending is incredibly negative and depressing. If you want to say that I'm whiny and want an ending that's full of rainbows and unicorns and ice cream, fine, but hear me out. First consider how bleak the existing ending really is. The Mass Relays are gone. The civilization that you've come to know is torn apart completely. All the races you've just united really aren't going to interact anymore. The giant fleet hanging over the smoking ruin that was earth has no way to get home. Are they just going to starve to death? Where the hell is your squad? Will they ever get off that jungle planet? Are Tali and Garrus just going to starve to death (they can't eat the same food as us, remember)? We're left with small numbers of survivors cut off from each other on ruined planets. Call me crazy, but I don't think this is much better than letting the damn Reapers win.
I don't object to the fact that this ending is possible. I object to the fact that its the only ending possible. As I've said, choice is a huge part of this series. If you did things a certain way in ME 1 you could convince the final boss to shoot himself in the head. If you were adequately prepared in ME 2 you could have a 100% survival rate on a "suicide mission." If I've been a solid paragon and completed every side mission for three games straight (which I did) I want the possibility of a happy ending. Screw this "the hero has to die" nonsense. This is Mass Effect! The hero doesn't "have to" anything! I want endings that differ in respects other than color of explosions, and I want at least one of them to be somewhat happy.
***END SPOILERS***
I can't see how anyone at Bioware thought that this ending was a good idea. It's so bad that it degrades everything that comes before it. I have no motivation to play this game again, or the earlier ones for that matter, simply because I know what they lead to. I've honestly been kind of depressed since I finished the game a few days ago. I desperately want a rewritten ending, and I may have to part ways with my favorite developer if I don't get one. It's really that mind-blowingly bad. Bad enough to overshadow everything else in an otherwise superb game.
NOTE: Yes, the single star is a protest vote. Go ahead and buy the game. For most of it's run it's just as brilliant as the first two. Just don't expect to feel satisfied when the credits roll.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Platform for Display:Xbox 360|Edition:Standard
Fun:
Mass Effect 3 has a heavy, heavy weight to carry. It is the culmination of over five years of hard work from Bioware, and the many fans who have been there for the journey. It has been laden with difficult decisions to make, many people have come and gone, and good friends have been lost.
I will say that my expectations for this finale were high. When the first Mass Effect came out, I could not believe that a game with so many variables was attempting to do what Bioware was promising. We hadn't really seen anything of this scale before. It was definitely interesting, and I believed that Bioware could pull it off.
When Mass Effect 2 came out, I was a little concerned because many of the big decisions you had made in the previous game were either briefly mentioned, or merely whispered about. And I hated the forced scenario of working for Cerberus. Hated it. The playable character lineup was bloated with too many new faces. But, it was a great game. I could go back and play ME2 today, and still enjoy the heck out of it.
Mass Effect 3 starts off with your Shepard in a situation that you have absolutely no control over, whether you agree with him/her getting their self into this position. I know I didn't. There's no way. It serves as a great setup for the experience you are about to partake in, which can be described in one word, "linear."
Mass Effect 3 is a linear game in non-linear clothing. To say that the decisions you've made over the past five years play very little into your experience this time around is an understatement. Bioware made the mistake of promising that every decision had a consequence, but those consequences are merely replaced with filler characters. That's right. Nothing you have done to this point matters.
One of the big focuses in this game is collecting "war assets". I made the mistaken assumption that by wasting time and raising the galactic readiness, and going around wasting even more time scanning planets for war assets and objects, to only waste more time bringing said objects to nameless NPCs scattered around the Citadel, that it would make a difference. Some kind of a difference.
No.
Ultimately, for a game that has been advertised as having this incredible spectrum of decisions to make, it seems that the only decision you need to make is to plow through the game. Because the content along the way is completely inconsequential. It doesn't matter what you do in this game *at all*. If you don't do something that Bioware wants you to do, another character will do it for you. If you have a character killed, Bioware replaces them with a random new guy. If you waste as much time as I did actually bothering to collect war assets and raise galactic awareness.. Well, you figure that one out.
Despite all this, I can not say that Mass Effect 3 is a bad game. Absolutely not. I loved it. I had absolutely no problem with my game. The combat feels complete this time around, and there is no behemoth, three ring circus of characters to choose from/ignore this time around.
I was, however, disappointed by the ending. I felt that for all that we had worked for, for so long, we deserved something more. The ending in Mass Effect 3 feels like a Nintendo-era ending, where all you get is a title card telling you "CONGLATURATION!" or something. Except instead of congratulating you, the game asks you to spend more money on DLC. That's disgusting, Bioware. Shame on you. Seriously. Shame-on-you.
Ultimately, I believe that Mass Effect 3, in it's present state, is a forgettable end to an unforgettable series.
I will say that my expectations for this finale were high. When the first Mass Effect came out, I could not believe that a game with so many variables was attempting to do what Bioware was promising. We hadn't really seen anything of this scale before. It was definitely interesting, and I believed that Bioware could pull it off.
When Mass Effect 2 came out, I was a little concerned because many of the big decisions you had made in the previous game were either briefly mentioned, or merely whispered about. And I hated the forced scenario of working for Cerberus. Hated it. The playable character lineup was bloated with too many new faces. But, it was a great game. I could go back and play ME2 today, and still enjoy the heck out of it.
Mass Effect 3 starts off with your Shepard in a situation that you have absolutely no control over, whether you agree with him/her getting their self into this position. I know I didn't. There's no way. It serves as a great setup for the experience you are about to partake in, which can be described in one word, "linear."
Mass Effect 3 is a linear game in non-linear clothing. To say that the decisions you've made over the past five years play very little into your experience this time around is an understatement. Bioware made the mistake of promising that every decision had a consequence, but those consequences are merely replaced with filler characters. That's right. Nothing you have done to this point matters.
One of the big focuses in this game is collecting "war assets". I made the mistaken assumption that by wasting time and raising the galactic readiness, and going around wasting even more time scanning planets for war assets and objects, to only waste more time bringing said objects to nameless NPCs scattered around the Citadel, that it would make a difference. Some kind of a difference.
No.
Ultimately, for a game that has been advertised as having this incredible spectrum of decisions to make, it seems that the only decision you need to make is to plow through the game. Because the content along the way is completely inconsequential. It doesn't matter what you do in this game *at all*. If you don't do something that Bioware wants you to do, another character will do it for you. If you have a character killed, Bioware replaces them with a random new guy. If you waste as much time as I did actually bothering to collect war assets and raise galactic awareness.. Well, you figure that one out.
Despite all this, I can not say that Mass Effect 3 is a bad game. Absolutely not. I loved it. I had absolutely no problem with my game. The combat feels complete this time around, and there is no behemoth, three ring circus of characters to choose from/ignore this time around.
I was, however, disappointed by the ending. I felt that for all that we had worked for, for so long, we deserved something more. The ending in Mass Effect 3 feels like a Nintendo-era ending, where all you get is a title card telling you "CONGLATURATION!" or something. Except instead of congratulating you, the game asks you to spend more money on DLC. That's disgusting, Bioware. Shame on you. Seriously. Shame-on-you.
Ultimately, I believe that Mass Effect 3, in it's present state, is a forgettable end to an unforgettable series.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Awesome
I never was a really big fan of the Mass Effect series; however, I reeaaally enjoy the online experience! Read more
Published 45 minutes ago by Elvin_r14
Great story
This game was great. The story is fantastic and one of the best that I've seen in a video game. The best way to play this game (in my opinion) is to play it in rpg mode. Read more
Published 2 hours ago by BrianDamage
Will Be Remembered For Quite A Long Time
Mass Effect 3 brings the Mass Effect story to a conclusion and does so successfully. Nearly everything in the game works well and adds to the fun. Read more
Published 2 hours ago by N. A. Manon
great
I love this game. Been i a fan since the first.cant how many times i played them through. Some people seem to dislike the game because of the end but every aspect of the game is... Read more
Published 4 hours ago by Alex
so far so good...
I'm only about halfway through the game but it is the most action-packed of the trilogy. much better graphics and game play. Read more
Published 8 hours ago by ruben
Just Dont Bother
I loved the franchise up till this game. To put it simply the ending ruins it all. Great game mechanics but falls short from how it started.
Published 18 hours ago by Carther
The Ending Sucked And Tanked the Entire Series
I agree with the review from James Crowley 100%. If I had purchased this game on Amazon I would return it for a full refund. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Storm Raven
Epic FAIL !!!
As stated by others, Bioware had one of the best RPG's ever created with ME1 & ME2. I thought that ME3 would be a great conclusion to the series. WRONG!!! The ending was terrible! Read more
Published 1 day ago by Timothy A. Nelson
Disappointing after the great Mass Effect 2
I really enjoyed ME2, even with its few faults. ME3 is lesser in every way. Why didnt the major website reviewers pickup on this? Read more
Published 2 days ago by techmannn
Awesome!!!
This game is great I don't think the endings sucked and whoever thinks they do has some issues because if this games endings sucked then I guess they think the Avengers sucked and... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Caveman2345
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