Commander Shepard is a badass…that’s pretty much Mass Effect…It’s her galaxy, the rest of us just live in it. From punching reporters to pulling heat on everyone Cmdr. Shepard has proven that she takes no crap from anyone, so where the hell is that damn promotion? Now before we get into this I’ll be referring to Shepard as a lady. Why? Cause she’s hot and I love the ladies. Besides Garrus “Beast Mode” Vakarian is the only guy breaking her shields and Garrus is the coolest dude in the game to me, you only wish your bro was so cool. But I digress…the final chapter of the Commander Shepard vs Damn Near Everyone saga has come to a close and I’m not…too pissed…Aside from the ending (go beat the game cause I’m not gonna spoil a damn thing.) I absolutely loved the game.
Mass Effect one and two had…questionable soundtracks, none of the super “futuristic” beats did it for me, I had my Ipod plugged in and had a playlist for most of the journey. But ME3 wasn’t having that and made a huge improvement with the music, it was heavy when it needed to be, epic when it wanted to be, and each track fit the area and situation. I was thankful Bioware went all out on it. The graphics took a jump up as well, Bioware seems to up the output every game so I wasn’t surprised to see a prettier Shepard. The detailing is excellent, you can see the scars from Garrus’ previous injury in ME2, the dirt on Cerberus’ goon squads armor…little things that you’d normally not not notice in a Mass Effect. The game play is relatively the same, cover and shooting still work like a charm…no blindfire like I’d hoped but Shepard can now ROLL! Also the dashing was the biggest fix for me personally. It’s faster and last a lot longer than it did in ME2, now Shepard can take her red haired, trigger happy self to cover in a much speedier way. The AI has taken a step up as far as your squadmates go, vary rarely did I need to order them to cover. They picked the best place and used the right powers when I needed them to…especially Liara and her new boob job, she took the cake on smart choices and surgeons.
The enemies weren’t too stupid either, they tried their best to flank Shepard and her team but you don’t try to engage a Vanguard up close, that how you get effectively Nova’d…but I was impressed with their tactics and surprising amount of tenacity. Now the game has a FEW bugs…nothing major a clip here and there but how many games come with no bugs?
The Multiplayer aspect was excellent, sure it’s just Gears of Mass War horde mode but it’s fun and an utter joy to play. Also it “effects” the outcome of the game by upping the galactic readiness in the campaign and gives you an achievement for your troubles. The narrative is great and it was cool seeing characters from the books appear in the game, along with the excellent voice acting the series is known for. Seeing your choices from 1 and 2 affect the rest of 3 was cool too right up till the end when such and such happened go play it you’ll see what I mean.
THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS
I love Mass Effect and I’m happy with the way the game turned out, it was fast paced, full of action and even had some comedy form almost every character. The multiplayer is fun and not tacked on and everything was polished. I highly recommend this game…hell this series. Do yourself a favor and run through all three, you’ll be glad you did. I’m giving this 9 shots out of 10. Garrus earned some booty anyway…man got shot in the face by a chopper AND SURVIVED!