Mass Effect 3

Product Details

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• ASIN: B004FYJFNA


• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches ; 3.7 ounces


• Media: Video Game


• Release Date: March 6, 2012
  

By : Electronic Arts
Price : $49.99
You Save : $10.00 (17%)

Product Description

Platform: PlayStation 3Edition: Standard
Amazon.com Product Description
Mass Effect 3 is a Role-playing Game (RPG) / Third-Individual Shooter hybrid set in a Science Fiction universe. Mass Impact 3 is the third game in the preferred 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. Further attributes involve: the capability to import decisions from both of the earlier games into the new game, ownership/play of earlier games not required, customizable weapons, enhanced mobility and melee combat, a number of returning characters (if they were not killed off in earlier imported games), an enhanced cover process that makes it possible for for alot more action and significantly more.


The Final Chapter in the Mass Impact Trilogy
Not absolutely everyone will survive. An ancient alien race, identified only as "Reapers," has launched an all-out invasion leaving absolutely 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 a single who can quit them. The value of failure is extinction. You are Commander Shepard, a character that you can forge in your personal image. You establish how events will play out, which planets to discover, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to remove the Reaper threat once and for all. How you wage this war is entirely up to you: go into combat with guns blazing or use cover to program a more tactical assault. Use your squad to complete effect or take a lone wolf approach. Rain death from a distance or go toe-to-toe with enemies applying devastating melee attacks. Mass Impact 3 will react to each and every selection you make as you play by means of a really special knowledge of your personal creation.
Important Game Capabilities

• A Wealthy, Branching Storyline - Knowledge a sci-fi epic with multiple endings determined by your possibilities and actions throughout the game
• Massive in Scope - Battle on a great number of worlds across the galaxy as you unite the ultimate force to take back the Earth prior to it is also late
• Significant-scale and Intelligent Enemies - Battle huge enemies and take on a smarter variety of foe that will regularly challenge your greatest combat techniques and place you on the edge of your seat
• Unlock a Customizable Arsenal - Tailor every weapon with devastating upgrades like scopes, grips, barrels and dozens of other unique attachments. Every weapon boasts its personal highly effective 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 massive selection of weapons, abilities and gear permit you to combat the enemy in your preferred style of play

More Screenshots




Earth is burning. Striking from beyond identified 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 particular final mission to take back the Earth.

 

Mass Effect 3

 

Product Attributes

• Battle as Commander Shepard on many worlds across the galaxy as you unite the ultimate force to take back the Earth before it really is also late


• Enormous enemies and take on a smarter type of foe that will regularly challenge your most effective combat techniques and place you on the edge of your seat


• Customize your Commander Shepard, your squad and weapons to engage the enemy on your terms


• Makes it possible for the alternative to import decisions from each of the prior games into the new game, but can also be played as a standalone game


• Expertise a new emphasis on melee combat, movement and an improved cover technique

Customer Reviews

(If, you don't want to read all of this, skip down to the Summary section)
Ok, a couple of things before I actually review the game:
1) I will not talk about any spoilers at all.
2) I played through the entire game. I started when the game launched on March 6th and finished it tonight (March 10th)
3) I did not play Mass Effect 1. I played through Mass Effect 2, all the way through, 3 times and even though I had problems with the game, they were insignificant to my overall enjoyment of the game. (I would place ME2 in my top 10 favorite games of all time). If you see a 3 star review and think I'm a troll or just trying to be one of those guys who didn't give a Mass Effect game a 10 out of 10, just look up my review of ME2 to see how much I like this series)
Anyway, so Mass Effect 3 is a great game, with some problems. There are graphical hiccups here and there, sometimes your squad mate's AI isn't the best, paragon and renegade interruptions take a back seat, the music isn't as noticeable and recycles about half the tracks from 2, and the cover system, with the new rolling and jumping from cover to cover mechanics, either works great or does some unintentional things at the worst possible time. In the end, these points aren't enough for me criticize Mass Effect 3 too much. The game would of course be better if these weren't issues, but it still has a lot of the elements that made ME2 a great game for me.
There isn't too much of an improvement graphics wise between 2 and 3 (on the PS3 at least), but the game runs smoothly and the occasional pre-rendered cut scenes look fantastic. Even though the AI and cover system isn't perfect, the fighting and squad mechanics are just as good as they were in ME2. In some respects, the shooting and abilities are better than what they were in 2. The missions and character interactions are great and the story has some more meat to it compared to ME2. Not that this makes 2 inferior and 3 superior. This aspect mainly compliments ME3's war torn setting.
So, while the game isn't perfect, Mass Effect 3 is exceptional, especially when it comes to cinematic gaming, writing, dialogue, character development and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And here comes the "But..."
But, there is a major problem with Mass Effect 3. It's not with the premise, the conflict, the missions or the climax. In fact, the problem I have with Mass Effect 3 is at the 99% mark. I'm talking about the very ending of the game. The last 15 minutes of game that took me about 40 hours to play through. Of course Mass Effect 3 has multiple endings, and I've only experienced two of them (after I finished the game, I immediately loaded a previous save and tried to get a different ending). I hated my ending. I hated my ending so much. I didn't hate it because it was a sad ending. I hated it because of how it was handled.
I'm not going to say exactly what happened, but I will try to outline all of the problems with it. And so I don't go on for the next three hours, I'll just make a list:
1) The game just...ended: Putting aside whether that was a good or bad way to end the Mass Effect trilogy (side note: it was a bad way), I'm just going to focus on what happened after the end of the conflict. Almost nothing. Remember how Mass Effect 2 ended? That two or three minute cut scene after the suicide mission? That cliffhanger ending to an unfinished story had more closure than my ending to Mass Effect 3. It felt like the entire game and the last big struggle, the final showdown, had no importance. And this is partially because...
2) Nobody reacts to anything: Of course there's no golden rule on how to write an ending to a video game, but typically it is a good idea to have an extended ending after the conflict is resolved to wrap up the characters. You can do this in a couple minutes (as with Portal 2) or an hour (as with Metal Gear Solid 4), it really depends on what type of game you have. With Mass Effect 3, there was no reaction. People didn't say anything, people didn't talk to each other, I didn't even get a montage or a slideshow or where are they now movie. So after spending about 35 hours recruiting everyone for the suicide mission in ME2, being introduced to characters from ME1, then expanding on those relationships for an additional 40 hours with ME3, and even taking the time to talk to people on the Citadel and catch up with people on board the Normandy after I finished an important mission, the resolution I got was absolutely nothing. I don't know how this planet is doing, how this alien race is adapting, if this race is even around anymore, if this side character, like a turian or quarian admiral, is still alive, and, perhaps most importantly, what my crew and friends think of what just happened. Regardless of what ending people got, whether nobody died or everything, everywhere died, there should be some reaction. Because of this, it feels as if nothing mattered. Not only that, the ending made me feel like...
3) In the end, none of my relationships and conversation decisions mattered: This was perhaps my favorite thing about Mass Effect 2. If I had to summarize ME2 in one sentence, it would probably be something along the lines of "Saving the galaxy and having some really interesting conversations with really interesting people." By not wrapping up and providing closure to all of the characters, it feels kind of pointless. I wanted Garrus, Tali, Legion, Grunt, Mordin, Thane, Kasumi, Samara, Jack and everyone else to survive Mass Effect 2. Their presence in ME3 enhances the experience, but it is incredibly disappointing every single story, character, and subplot just ends. This strips away the consequences and the dynamic and interactive story elements which made Mass Effect famous, and I bet people care a lot more about this than combat. This leads on to the next number.
4) The ending made me feel like none of my preparations, side quests, and decisions in the game mattered: When the credits rolled, I sat down and looked at my TV thinking about the impact I had. Doing this deal with someone, or saving this person's life, or deciding not to kill this person, or running off to this star cluster, to fetch this book, and bring it back to somebody on the Citadel didn't feel like it mattered. This goes a little farther back than the game's last 15 minutes, but it undoubtedly still applies to the game's ending. When I was doing the last set of missions, I didn't feel like everything I built up was having an impact. It was as if my readiness meter was there only for me to look at, but had no affect on the story. In comparison, with the suicide mission in ME2, people talked about the Normandy's status, characters talked to each other (like people didn't trust Miranda, or Miranda disagreed with Shepard if he picked someone she didn't like for a job), and the success of the mission depended on your decisions and getting people loyal. If you picked the wrong person to do something, somebody died. If a person wasn't loyal to you, they were likely to die. If you didn't follow someone's advice about the mission, the crew, or the ship, more people died. It felt like your actions mattered. Even if somebody simply says, "Good thing you did X" it still mattered. With 3, I didn't feel that at all when the game ended. Did doing X make the last set of missions any more or less successful? I have no idea and I shouldn't have to look at the game's programming, or read a strategy guide cover to cover, or play through the game 5 different times to realize how all of these variables work in the end. The decisions I made with the digital comic included with the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 which summarized ME1, the decisions I made in ME2, and most of my decisions I made in ME3 didn't matter. In ME2, I created a second character (Male Shep, renegade) who handled situations differently, who picked the opposite key decisions, and purposely killed certain people during the suicide mission to see how my story in ME3 will be different. So granted, I will see some of the differences when I play the game with that character. However, after playing through 3, my guess is all of those differences will likely appear in the first 90% of the game. And besides that, I shouldn't have to play the game 2 or 3 times to understand the impact I had on it the first time.
I know at this point I'm beating a dead horse, so I'm just going to move on. Unfortunately, there are still more problems with the ending, but some of the problems get into story details. So I'll just talk about one problem in extremely vague and unhelpful terms. So, finally...
5) That stupid thing that appeared at the end: I don't want to say what that "stupid thing" actually is. Oh well. BioWare decided to include something in Mass Effect 3. Whenever this something appears, it is either unintentionally funny in how bad or stupid it is or it is painfully annoying. This something would not go away, and I started to hate this something, not only for how it was used, but how BioWare keeps forcing this something into the story. Ok, I'm going to stop here, since I can't actually talk about it unless I say what it is. So I'm just going to wrap this up.
SUMMARY/CONCLUSION:
Mass Effect 3 is an exceptional sequel to Mass Effect 2, but the game is ultimately undermined by it's horrible ending. When you include the mythos, the characters, and the dozens of plots and subplots, the ending goes from bad to devastatingly bad. Honestly, it is one of the worst endings I have encountered in a video game. (NOTE: I'm not saying ME3 has the worst ending in a video game ever. I'm just saying it has one of the worst endings I have played through and have seen with my own eyes).
It feels like BioWare abandoned what they established... Read more›

Possible SPOILERS below but definitely long review, please bear with me. I'll do my best to keep it spoiler free but putting the warning up there just in case what I write is perceived as such. Read at your own discretion.
Honestly I don't even know how to rate this game. The star system is too black and white for this one. I'd give it 4 stars for the part that is Mass Effect, and 1 star for the last 10-15 minutes of the game as the ending dishonors YOUR Shepard and the way Mass Effect rolled in general.
Mass Effect 3 to me, starts off with a heavy feel to it, meaning just this sense of mourning in the air. Obviously it's a given, and not a problem, just letting you know it's there. It has its time for laughs, but it is a more heavy feel this time compared to the others. It takes a lot for me to get emotionally enthralled by a game, and there is only one other game besides Mass Effect, that managed to get me truly mourning for its characters and people overall.
Going to start of with the "easy" stuff first, which is the gameplay. I played as an Adept on PS3 so I can only speak from that point of view, and I actually liked the way the powers were tweaked. The biotics special effects were nice, actually liked the lingering energy aura that remains with my Shepard after she uses an ability, and then watch it fade. I did have some issues with Shockwave. It doesn't have the same range it does in ME2, as I loved to "bowl for Husks". The ability in ME3 won't light up unless your opponent is very close. I had mine range-maxed and it still was quite touchy to meet the situation where it would light up to use it...so is my experience. All the other standard Adept abilities were fine. Warp seemed to have a better homing-arc, meaning that shooting around corners or bomb-diving someone who's in cover, is more efficient. I wanted to import my other two Shepards, one is a Paragon Engineer and the other a Renegade Infiltrator, to see how the gameplay was for those jobs, but honestly I can't bring myself to replay this game because I know what's waiting for me at the end of it all. Going through it once was bad enough to deal with. But I'll get into that later.
The weapons-weight system is a love-hate thing for me. I loved it because it's realistic and you have to really consider your class or play style, and what is a priority for you. Being Adept, for me it was easy as my biotics are a priority so I want a fast cooldown time. The heavier the weapons are, the longer it takes for your abilities to cooldown. I had it arranged to where I could literally spam my abilities because my cooldowns were pretty instant. So Adepts would be keen to carry a light side-arm, or your favorite weapon and work with getting it as light as you can (sacrificing carrying other weapons), which you can do through their weapons upgrading system. Again it all really depends on your playing style. You also need to consider how you want your teammates specialized: considering higher weapons damage or you want them to be more ability focused, you'd weaponize them as you see fit. Upgraded weapons will affect all teammates, but you can use the workbench system to customize everyone's add-ons that will compliment them more, including your Shepard. Just a heads up, I learned that some of my favorite weapons I used in ME2, were not ideal for ME3 due to the whole weight system. That's the "hate" part for me. There's a sniper rifle I really wanted to use but it encumbered my cooldown time too much. Same for some of my teammates, as the weight would affect their cooldowns as well and wouldn't be idealistic for the play style I had. It's neither a negative or positive thing, it's just preference. Over-all it's a cool system, easy to get used to. Guess I can't have my cake and eat it too. ;)Can't blame a girl for trying though.
The cover system: Okay I thought it was a nice upgrade that we could roll out of our current cover, immediately into new cover, and even slide around corners, really nice feature. But unfortunately it sometimes becomes an issue when you need to run some distances or maneuver quickly and you end up getting sucked into taking cover when you don't want to. There have been several times I've had to sprint and as I'm passing a cover-point, I ended up getting involuntarily pulled to a cover (that left me exposed), then tried to quickly get out of it, just to roll into cover on the opposite side, equally as exposed...then came the onslaught of profanity. I swear there are black-holes attached to the covers, and unless you leave a wide-enough distance between you and it while you're running, you'll get sucked into cover, and it's not always beneficial, I'm sure you understand. After a while I think you get used to it though but in the beginning, the black-holes have been a healthy amount of reasons why Shepard was in the red. I think if they lessened the black-hole radius (sensitivity), it wouldn't be so invasive. Otherwise, cool feature and I liked it overall.
Another feature I really liked was the Resuscitate ability for your fallen teammate. If you don't want to use any medi-gel for a quick revival of your fallen teammate, you can move to their immediate position and choose to resuscitate. This revives them without consuming medi-gel. Otherwise, without leaving your location, you can use the First Aid ability and it'll consume the medi-gel to revive your fallen member. It was very rare that I couldn't make it to my fallen teammate's location to use resuscitate as I liked to keep a full stock of medi-gel, because when you find more medi-gel, you get actual experience points for it instead of credits like in the previous game. Extra xp is always a plus in my book. :) And if you're level-capped, than I guess it doesn't matter. Also I like to Resuscitate just because it feels more realistic to try and make it to them, revive them and then cover them until they're up and taking cover. That's just extra fun things to do for me.
Something I thought was refreshing about ME3 was the fact that your teammates actually moved around the Normandy and interacted with each other. It doesn't feel so static or isolated. Also they take shore-leave with you when you hit the Citadel. You won't have to select a team to escort you around.
Importing: Your choices from the previous games are still honored so no issues there. There was one incident however, that gave me pause which had to do with the Human Councilor (only if you chose this person), but I read about the reasons, and it was squared away. Nothing big. Now my actual Shepard's appearance didn't translate well from ME2 to ME3. Don't know if this was for everyone else, but I ended up going in to customize all over again because she looked like an extra from some Lego's game. So yeah, but the graphics on customization are pretty realistic. Some said they found it ugly, it is if your Shep didn't translate well during import. And I guess on the intro where you first meet your Shepard, it wasn't too flattering but things smooth out later on in the game it seems. I personally didn't have issues with the graphics, and nothing that re-customization doesn't fix. The atmosphere graphics and ambiance were beautiful for me. No complaints there.
Overall game-play was good. I had no problems adjusting to the changes except they did move the Paragon/Renegade triggers from the L2/R2 buttons to L1/R1 buttons on PS3 which is what I played on. Because of that I did unfortunately miss a few at the beginning but that's on me being ingrained from the previous game. Otherwise, smooth gameplay. The tone of the game however, and maybe this is just my perspective, is ME3 seemed to transition more into an Action game vs. an RPG. I mean you still have your RPG elements, don't get me wrong, but the feel of it just seems more action-oriented. Whether that's a positive or negative, that will be up to you on what you prefer your games to be like. For me it felt like they couldn't make up their mind about what genre they wanted to go with it in regards to their target audience. So it felt like a Jack-of-All trades type of thing to try to appeal to everyone. I don't know if it's to snag new audiences or what, but I think Mass Effect originally had a very strong foundation and it gained fans everyday while keeping their original ones. From veterans to the newly introduced. And as is with everything, you just can't appeal to everyone and that's normal. It's unrealistic to expect otherwise. So when you try to, I feel you sacrifice something along the way, its strengths, or in-depth foundation, for a more shallow one that candy-coats everything else.
Journal has been consolidated. All missions are listed on one page, there's no real separation of Primary or Secondary missions. The Primary missions will just have "Priority" in front of them to let you know those are the main missions. In the beginning, if you weren't aware of this, it's very easy to miss side-missions you pick up on shore-leave because you can easily run past the people that may have them. It's not like in the previous games where you have to walk up to them and have an actual conversation with them to activate the side quest. In ME3 you pretty much eaves dropping on NPC conversations and some of them actually activate as side missions that can help you with your war assets. So I was literally in everyone's business assuming everything random NPC's say as I pass them as being relevant. Also there will be times you come into the middle of NPC debates and have to choose one to support, even if it feels like you don't really know the whole story so it can be a gamble as your choice will affect some things in-game.
Okay, now into the part that crash and burned for me. The ending. Before I get into this, those of you that are completely content with the ending, I'm... Read more›

 

Mass Effect 3

 

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