Mass Effect 3 - PlayStation 3

. Mass Effect 3 takes what franchise developer BioWare has done with the series’ past two installments and fine-tunes the trilogy’s finale to a fantastic equilibrium between the best both previous games had to offer. Sit back and read about why the Mass Effect universe comes to life when you enter it and why it’s always a pleasure to take that one small step right back into its fantastic immersion. You still play as Shepard – the vanquisher of a Reaper (skyscraper-sized sentient robotic beings that purge organic life from the Milky Way galaxy every fifty thousand years) during the battle of the citadel and a rogue alliance militant turned questionable agent of the pro-human organization Cerberus. But, things have changed in the Milky Way. The Reapers for the first time are widely accepted as a truth and are not seen as a mythological fable of omen-speaking sycophants. The overtone of the impending apocalypse following in the wake the Reapers is much more dire than in previous Mass Effect titles as the Reapers have come out of the blackness in the void between galaxies to create the lucidity of a waking nightmare. This waking nightmarish event strikes the human home world you may know as Earth. The Reapers begin their genocide by laying waste to our greatest cities and turning humans into zombie-like husks. Shepard escapes while Earth is being ravaged by the semi-omnipotent Reapers. The Commander leaves with a goal of uniting all the fighting forces of all the races across the galaxy to combat the Reapers. And so, that is what you set out to do. The overtone of the game has a “united we stand, divided we fall” ring throughout many aspects of your encounters across the galaxy and can be quite inspirational at times. The overall experience of the Mass Effect series is like a Rorschach test – one person might experience the game and have had completely differing insights than yourself and another person could look at the Mass Effect series and have interactions with the story and characters that is similar to my own yet surmise a totally alternate perspective on the same situations. Mass Effect’s gameplay is still about your group of people and their ability to use technical aptitudes, firearms, and biotic skills as a coordinated and cohesive squad of futuristic death to take down groups of enemies in a third-person cover-shooting fashion. You can either use these skills while in real-time combat with mapped buttons or you can pause time to manage your team. You will be choosing between six different classes who use either a mixture of these different skills and weapons or tend to focus in one category with more powerful skills not varying far from their specific skillset. A balanced team of matching strengths to counter enemies’ weaknesses is important to success. You will be managing your two other teammate’s skills as well as your own during combat. When you use specific skills in combination with one another they can amplify their intensity or make the area affected larger. For example, you could conjure a singularity in a chokepoint to have enemies swirling through the air helplessly when meeting with it and then another ally could throw a skill called “warp” into the singularity to make it detonate on impact for massive area damage. The combining of skills and tactics with a group of teammates makes for an intelligent experience and allows for different group compositions that can encourage the idea of synchronized teamwork. Also, different weapons are proficient at taking apart different types of enemy shielding and it is a good idea to bring a team that has a range of skills and weapons that can thwart these different types of enemy protections. Guns will play a large part in your fight for the universe and this time around affect powers in a very influential way. You are no longer restricted to specific gun-types pertaining to your specific class like in ME2. Now you can equip whichever and as many guns as you have slots for. The catch is that now guns have a weight which affects your power’s recharge rate. So, the more guns you’re carrying the longer it takes special powers to be ready for use again and the fewer guns you have the faster they recharge. This seems fitting because many aspects of Mass Effect 3 seem to find an equal measure throughout its gameplay and RPG features. Mass Effect 3 takes the barebones customizations of the second installment and the surplus of the original to find a level place between the two. I’ll start by saying multiplayer is strictly online ONLY and you cannot play through any type of co-op story either. Multiplayer is your standard co-op fare. You choose from 5 different maps (all of which can be found in the single-player game), an enemy-type, your class, race, and jump into a match. If you’ve ever played a third-person game with online co-op you’ll be right at home. Matches objectives run the gamut of things like holding a specific point of interest, activating terminals around an enemy infested battleground, and eliminating key targets all while on a timer. In between objectives you will simply fend off enemies until a new objective is issued. Waves become exponentially more difficult and the better you do and faster you complete objectives the more money and XP you’ll get at the end. How much influence multiplayer has on your single-player campaign is dependent completely upon you. You can completely avoid it if you wish, but if you do enjoy the multiplayer it can help your single-player game passively as you take down waves of foes with friends online. Mass Effect has become something of hybrid. The classes, squad-based combat, gear mods, character-driven storytelling, and time-stopping superpower-infused mechanics of the RPG elements are what make it stand apart from any other third-person shooter, but also the cover-based shooting, slick cover movements, and the hand-to-hand melee are what make it stand apart from a traditional RPG. This seems fitting because Mass Effect in its entirety has found a place as a franchise with its own distinctive gameplay and storytelling which transcends what is “traditional” and has redefined itself into its own unique play that no gamer or lover of a great space opera should miss.

Though some people weren't satisfied with the ending, I found it to be satisfying and am happy with how it all ended. But either way, if you put all that time into the previous games you owe it to yourself to play through to the end. Still the same great gameplay (improved actually)/decision making.

This is a superb game: outstanding graphics, excellently-written storyline and characters, very detailed gameplay, great production values...this game has it all. Any fan of the Sci-Fi, RPG, or action/adventure genres will not be disappointed by playing this game. The ending may disappoint some, but there is some DLC content that essentially resolves that.

I remember playing a demo for this game months ago, however it wasn't quite intriguing enough to purchase at that time... Fast foreword to the present, the game has now since dropped significantly in price and was also on sale when i purchased it.. I could no longer resist.

The biggest downfall to this game is the ending. Don't know what happened to this one but felt like the designers put the end part together in 10 minutes. Did not live up to the first two of the series. Game play and storyline were A-OK until the very end.

I had never play Mass effect games, I like playing RPG games a lot, this game is very interesting, an action shooter RPG, with and amazing story, and the space and new planets, I just loved everything about it, if you haven't try this game, do yourself a favor and buy this game.

The story is the best part with a massive amount of details on all the planets, races, weapons, vehicles and more. You don’t have to play the first two campaigns to enjoy the game but I think you get more out of the story and characters by playing all three.

im not that into these kinda games anymore but someone recommended it so i could get back into it. best game ive played in a long time. good game for a person not to familiar with RPG type games!