The Reapers have come to Earth, and despite having a galaxy of friendly and well-armed allies, only Commander Shepard is equipped to save the human race in this final instalment of the Mass Effect trilogy.
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| Mass Effect 3 | ||
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Developer | Bioware |
| Publisher | Electronic Arts | |
| Rating | MA 15+ | |
| PC, PS3, Reviewed on Xbox 360 | ||
So Commander Shepard is through with battling the Geth, Collectors and Reapers across the Milky Way and is now firmly trying to convince the bureaucracy of the threat of Reaper invasion. Well it's all a bit late as the alien threat is seemingly unstoppable as the giant synthetic ships come to Earth to 'end the cycle'.
During the first hour of the game, I had some issues with the amount of non-game moments, but the overall experience of this third instalment is complete satisfaction. Without spoiling too much, whilst your experience may differ, I was quite happy with the games ending. This is a large sprawling space-tale and tying things together, particularly with the amount of possible combinations of player decisions (digital illusion or not) is a daunting task the Bioware managed to pull off.
Bioware has done this with a number of quite obvious influences from classic movies and books. Across the mission structures, Shepard will take his crew across duties that evoke imagery from The Empire Strikes Back (escaping Hoth), Dune, War of the Worlds and even Tron.
But the canon of Mass Effect remains true to the original game, now with refined action. Calling Mass Effect 3 and RPG is somewhat of a misnomer. In fact no so-called interactive electronic RPG has come close to a round of pencil and paper role playing game. ME3 is now a fully-fledged third person shooter, with the added element of strategic use of biotics and powers, in deference to the RPG element however, levelling up powers/abilities/upgrades is now a more granular and binary choice experience.
The cover system is an improvement over the past and while not up to the standard of a Gears Of War, with Shepard sometimes doing a forward somersault instead of getting into a defensive position. Overall however, the combat is something to look forward to each landing.
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