Mass Effect 3 Angry Review
Release Date: March 6, 2012
Platform: Xbox 360, PC, PS3
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1 Offline Player, 4 Players Online
Angry Joe takes on the horrible ending to the Mass Effect Franchise. How does the third game stack-up to the previous two? More importantly, is it worth your money despite the way it ends?
This is the Original Photo taken by Matthew Leete before and after Bioware Photoshopped it (Click):
SPOILERMajor Spoilers in this image:
And:
SPOILERMajor Spoilers in this image:
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613 thoughts on “Mass Effect 3 Angry Review”
I always wondered what she looked like. And while that googled photo looks pretty and kind of what I’d hoped for, at the time, well, I thought BioWare actually drew it. How pissed off I am that they couldn’t even draw her. They’ve kept her face hidden for years, and they shit on her with a googled photo!?
I seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to games. Sadly this game carried on what Dragon Age 2 did to me. I will never get hyped again.
Mass Effect 2 is superior in every way expect in combat, scenery & cut scenes. ME3 is a HUGE disapointment and that pisses me the f*cking hell off!
Joe, I’d disagree on some things, like the inventory system, or Javick (He has got more content behind him just as a companion than Kasumi did) and the idea of co-op throughout singleplayer (it’s a… divisive topic) but overall, yeah, I’m with you. Great game, but wow… that ending.
One point though; if the ending ends up being free DLC to anyone with an online pass, would you still be against the practice?
In my opinion, no matter how BS the ending and Day 1 DLC is, ME3 is an amazing game and a great final of trilogy. The combat is fast and fluid and there are more weapons to choose (although i wish that they dont map all actions into one button). The writing is still clever and hilarious. My favorite character has to be Garrus, he is loyal and funny as hell.(‘I’m Garrus Vakarian and This is My Favorite Spot on Citadel’ line made me laugh so hard).
However, i couldnt help but fell this game’d been rushed. There are fewer conversation/choices and they dont have huge different between good/evil decisions. There is no neutral options in dialogs, you had to choose side most of the times. And most missions are repetive and boring as hell.
Overall, ME is an excellent franchise and i looking for more of it.
PS: IMO, the endings are not that bad. its up to players to decide what is the aftermath. Also, if you read some topics about it on bioware forum, you will know that bioware was trying to fool all gamers. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER:
In reality, all of it are a test of the Reapers. If you choose the left or middle ones, Shep’ve indoctrinated/controlled and let them live, he die. The right choice is to destroy it, and shep will live.
YES.
I been waiting eagerly for this review.
Actually been waiting for this more than the actual game.
And with that ending who can blame me?
I’m glad to say that the ending didn’t completely ruin it for me like it did most people but there is just no denying how god awful it was. I signed the petition I joined the facebook page to change the ending. Bioware has to be thinking something is up to have this much of a farcry over a damn ending.
Its not even that its bad.
We just want what they promised us.
Which was the choices we made actually mattering.
And the worst part is as I play my 2nd playthrough I’m discovering the ending isn’t even the thing that makes that promise a lie.
The Rachni queen for example.
I bought this game even after the awful Dragon Age 2. I wont be giving Bioware a 3rd chance.
Either the ending/s are patched in or FREE DLC or I’m done with them. I wont be fooled again. Because thats the only way I can show my displeasure by taking my money elsewhere.
Kinda went off the rails here but I feel so strongly about this. I fell in love with this universe and its characters. I invested so much time and heart into this franchise. The ending feels like a stab in the back and as it stands right now I no longer have faith in Bioware.
The ending(s) was(were) so bad it(they) actually gave me cancer. You do have to give BioWare credit for ruining not one, not two, but three games in only fifteen minutes of gameplay. And no BioWare doesn’t need to release a DLC to “fix it”, that would just be taking more of my hard earned money. They need to release a free update and a public apology, but because BioWare takes criticism about as well as a KKK member takes cultural diversity, that will never happen.
Please learn what “literally” means before throwing it around.
He said “actually,” actually.
You can take helmets off in the armor sets if you go into the NARRATIVE option in the settings menu.
One thing that did confuse me, Joe, is that you seem to point out the declining rpg elements in ME3, when really they were much better than the rpg elements in ME2. In my personal opinion, I think the rpg elements struck a chord between the rpg mechanics in ME1 and ME2 pretty, well.
Besides that and your complaints about the new characters (I found EDI to be quite interesting, as she tries to understand her newly found humanity, but again that’s just me) I agree with everything else you said, Still I give a point higher, guess the rest of the game just made it up for me more.
On a different note, this is one of your funniest reviews ever. Love other Joe as Vega.
Mass Effect 3 ending was like having 500 different roads all ending at the same point. All your choices throughout the course of the trilogy weren’t worth a damn.
I stridently believe that the three main endings we got are NOT the actual end. It’s so out of place in a game which was handling every storyline issue perfectly and features so many plotholes. This coupled with the “Indoctrination” theory, several cryptic tweets from the ME3 team and the rumour about “The Truth” DLC fills me with hope that Shepard is not going to go out with a whimper after all, especially if the rumour that the DLC will be free is true. I think the relief that will be felt IF they do it will overwhelm the question SHOULD they have done it.
Great review overall though, although you didn’t bash Vega for sounding the least hispanic hispanic ever. Just sounded weird having him say Spanish with no accent at all. Other Joe would have been a better casting choice (nice guns bro!).
Chobot isn’t the best actress I ever saw but her character is so barely there I doubt Helen Mirren couldn’t have done much better. She has nicer knees though…
I was okay with Tali, yeah it was lazy, but I liked the way it was delivered and let’s face it, she’s hot. I rolled them dice and got two sixes there.
The way I dealt with the awkward side quests was to use the map flick through the different levels and if there was someone on there I hadn’t seen before to run up to them like an excited cocker spaniel.
I am now doing a speed run through 1, 2 and 3 with a mirror character (Renegade FemShep) to see what has changed. Something much like you I wasn’t going to do after seeing the ending, as it pretty much invalidates everything you do in all three games. But I’m gonna choose to believe the rumours, because it just CAN’T end like that.
Possible spoilers for those who don’t know the ending:
Indoctrination seems highly unlikely. Because first off it still would present Shepard as making these choices and only half-assedly disagreeing (only in his head or whatever), it probably wouldn’t provide a different explanation for the Reapers or different choices, it would mean that the game has never ended and they would make an entirely new game or big addon (which they don’t do anymore with DLC and would be entirely pointless for them to do), and it wouldn’t make it any less convulated and unsatisfying but more so.
There is probably more to the story of these “god” creatures (before release there were some informations about the development of the backstory of the franchise that got cut but apparently have returned in this form), and they’re probably supposed to be kind of nuts, judging from that dialog, but it’s all very unclear and random…
Each to his own.
Here’s the requisite but: BUT
Although I agree it’s up in the air at the moment it would not be the first game to have additional end game content, Fallout 3 for instance had an extremely large expansion which retconned the ending everyone disliked.
IF it’s Indoctrination and there are some pretty persuasive arguments that it might well be, this would as you have said mean it has never ended and there has to be more to come.
Of course I could be completely incorrect and they handed the ending over to three Howler Monkeys and a Frog but I have enough faith in Bioware’s storytelling to believe otherwise.
I agreed with a good deal of the review, however the ending I can give some slack since in life, epecially in war, we are sometimes given the “Between a rock and a hard place” choice so I though that it was ok…til they destoryed both the citedel and the mass relays. they killed what made the tech in that world, epcieally if you choose to kill the reapers. so I am really afraid for my favorite series and hope it does not become my Final Fantasy. Still joe I loved the review. keep up the good work Commander!!!
You can get the best ending without multiplayer. It integrates to the single player in 2 ways.
1) The higher your galactic readiness level is, the less war assets you need.
2) When you max out a class (or prestige it), you can upload them into the single player game as a war asset worth 75 points and then start that class again (keep the weapons, but start from level 1)
My problem with the ending’s is they just make no sense, how did my crew get back aboard in time to flee the effect? why are they fleeing the effect? why didn’t my actions throughout the saga have any real impact on the ending?
Why is the cycle necessary? why can’t synthetic life be accepted as just another form of life like it was in my game?
Unless you play multilayer you can´t get the “best” ending.
Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute, THAT’S Tali’s face? O_o I played as the female Shepard, so I never got to see what she looked like. That looks more like an Avatar reject than a proper face for Tali.
Joe, you nearly read my mind when it comes to Mass Effect 3 and the series as a whole. I was absolutely loving Mass Effect 3 before the ending hit. There were some very difficult decisions to make in ME3, and there was still great interaction with the characters. I loved how they fixed the mining mini-game with the artifacts, although it could have been perfected a little more. That and I do agree that the missions should have been organized a LOT better. I did find an easier way to find people at the Citadel though. What I would do was go to the Citadel and check my maps. The maps let you know if there’s anyone of importance in the various floors on The Citadel, and that includes most of the side-quest people. I really didn’t like how I would suddenly get 10 different side-quests though just because I happened to “over-hear” some people talking. Most of the time I didn’t even remember what the people were even talking about or what they looked like. Omg, and a DLC on the same day of the game’s release date? Seriously? I am a major Mass Effect fan, but I decided not to buy the DLC immediately just because of that. (That and I’ve heard that it doesn’t add too much anyway despite the new character.) Oh well, despite these flaws I was having an absolute blast playing ME3.
…Until the ending.
I won’t go into detail about the ending until the next video, but I was in shock at how bad the ending for this spectacular series was.
I do have a desire to replay ME3 sometime in the future, but until Bioware comes out with a patch or DLC to fix the ending, I’ll just play every part of ME3 except for the ending. XD
I like joe’s reviews but i think he jumped the shark on this one. He was not concentrating on the whole game overall but was concentrating on small parts he thought were not good. The politics that come with the game should not affect the quality but we should be looking at the product’s itself. Lets take a look at skyrim( and the little cookie cutter narative it as). I think joe is more lenient when it comes to open rpgs but turns the other way when talking about narrative driven rpgs. My final point the politics around the game should not affect the quality of the game
The politics didn’t effect the quality. If it did it I would have rated it 7/10 or lower. I stated that in the video. The game got an 8/10. One point lower than Mass Effect 2, because of the drop in character/character quality, the poor ending, nagging issues and lack of innovation from 2nd to 3rd.
I thought Joe was fair about it lol. He even came out and asked us if any of the DLC stuff should effect the score, and we all agreed that it shouldn’t. I thought 8 was a perfectly good score. Honestly, I think if the ending was a lot better, like the rest of the game, he would have given it a nine, even with the the other things aside.
Regarding the innovation thing: I remember you listing that in the 5 Reasons it Might Suck video, and I honestly didn’t feel like it was non-innovative. I agree that things should change from game to game in sequels rather than following the same model repeatedly, but at the same time it needs to keep a lot of the gameplay consistent so players feel like they’re getting to continue the gameplay that got them hooked on the franchise to begin with. I thought there were some really interesting gameplay switchups in this one, even if most of them were subtle. The multiple skill tree options were a significant improvement, I thought. I liked how sometimes they mixed up the gameplay with the little turret shooter moments or shooting from a flying shuttle. Plus they occasionally threw in some interesting little bits that don’t even really qualify as gameplay changes but still mixed things up: like the part where you’re boarding the Geth ship and there’s no gravity in the tube. And honestly, for everything that was wrong with the final execution of character development and such, there is one thing they really did well in ME3 that bugged me in the other games: they managed to make the situational dialogue between teammates really fluid. In Mass effect 1 and 2 you would have moments where your teammates would comment on things, but it felt very scripted and you could easily picture how the comments they were making with each other were completely interchangeable based on who you had in your party. In ME3, however, you really get meaningful, natural-sounding conversation among squadmates no matter who is in your party, which is a truly astonishing feat considering the fact that you could potentially be playing ME3 without Garrus and Tali at all and the fact that every single line Kaiden says in the came needs to be interchangeable with Ashley. That was something I worried about before this came out that really surprised me. Literally any of your squadmates from ME2 could be dead in ME3, and so can Wrex, come to think of it. The number of variables that they had to account for in order to make conversation with these potentially expendable characters genuinely engaging, is astronomical, but they really hit it. I played a pretty much perfect version of ME3: Wrex lived in 1, nobody died in 2, and I felt like my interractions with these characters when they came back in cameo roles was perfectly satisfying. To say nothing of Garrus and Tali. I can’t even begin to imagine what ME3 would be like if Garrus died in your ME2 import, he fit so perfectly in the narrative you’d never guess he could have died. I kind of wish Tali didn’t join the crew so late, but I still felt satisfied with her part. I think my favorite moment when I realized just how well Bioware had meshed the npcs was during one of the early missions where you go with Wrex to the Salarian homeworld. I had Liara and Javik in my group, and during the shuttle ride we had the little pre-mission chat. Eventually Javik interjected a comment of some kind, and Wrex just turned to him, gave him a weird look, turned back to Sheperd and said “What’s that?” like he’d only just noticed the living Prothean in your crew.
1: joe read/listen to codex reapers:indoctrination
2:remember the nightmares shepard had and the “ending choice” and think an extra time likr the shadows in the nighgtmare says things like “someone else might have gotten it wrong” as a refferce to the death of mordin there are more like for thane and legion
3: read this: http://my.spill.com/forum/topics/mass-effect-3-endnig-the-indoctrination-theory-1?id=947994%3ATopic%3A5210346&page
the ending is not “bad” joe you just did not get it bioware did not just indoctrinate shepard they indoctrinated the majoraty of the PLAYERS thoug this does lead op to a dlc for the real ending it propobly wont be one cutscene but a long mission and the “real” ending
what? He gave the game a solid 8 and you think he was focusing on the bad?
I’ll wait for a game of the year edition.
I am disgusted with all the crap EA has been pulling, but after I looked up the ending its the last straw, after all of the online passes and day 1 dlc I at least expect a satisfying ending, so I can’t bring myself to support it. As someone who has played through mass effect 1 and 2 on numerous occasions this is a difficult decision, and I hate that bioware and EA have force me to do this. I encourage you all to keep your money, and if you can’t stop yourself from buying the game at least don’t give in and buy day 1 DLC
I dont understand why people hate the ending, i think it was nice because it left space open to think. Props to bioware for making people discussing the ending and not giving us some cliche hollywood happy super fun time ending. And whats with the hate towards online passes. You talk about supporting the companys joe but if you buy used games you do the oposite. Pc has had online passes since the dawn of time so you console nubs need to stop bitchin. Its a totally justified method for the producer to ensure that people actually buys and pays money to the people who actually made the game and not som other failstore like Gamestop or Spaceowrld.
It’s not about it being the “Happy Ending”. That’s only 1 of the reasons out of 10+ or more.
Dear joe, You said yourself that this game probably isn’t the end, so lets say that there will be a mass effect 4. Do you still think its a bad ending. Making you ask questions getting you hyped for the next game. Sounds like a good ending to me. If you think back to the previous ME games and mix it with a little logical thinking you can figure out many different ways as to why things that happened in the ending happened. For example if the cycle was broken and the reapers left the galaxy forever they had to remove the mass relays because the reaper tech would make the species evolve to fast. Remember back to when moridn talks about krogans and tech. Shepard had to ” sacrefice himself” because the AI that controles the reapers does not have the programming to end the cycle, but shepard can because he is not limited by that programing that the AI have. i do agree that they should have given us a little more information but it is in no way a terrible ending.
Bioware stated ME 3 is conclude Shepard story not entire mass effect universe. The ending is make no sense at all, why would Shepard have to listen everything that Catalyst say & not even single doubt on it? Because it mentioned that i m Catalyst? Further “this catalyst” can be hacked AI or indoctrinated.
Left the galaxy forever mean they still out there and what if they also evolute and try to dominate all race since there is no cycle existed. Secondly, did you play Mass Effect trilogy for 100 hours & ignore that fact in the previous 2 series tell you DESTROY is the only option? George Lucas make Star Wars ending which Luke Skywalker choose peace with empire is a make sense ending?
The ending make us think? I think the more suitable way is the ending is justify our hard work in entire trilogy or the thinking theory of yours instead of giving us 16 different ending but Bioware just create 1 basis ending which is pathetically 5% different from the others & BBB is after they ass to ensure them to do a good job, is that a good ending?
“little more information” – the ending is taste like shit, smell like shit & look like shit and now Bioware release the extended cut ending to give you information that there is no shit.
Console nubs? PC etlitist? These things are irrelevant! Online codes suck either way! It wasn’t about the happy ending either! It was that the ending gave NO CLOSURE. You are apart of the problem because you didn’t actually see all of the plot holes and retcons that went into the ending.
Used games is damaging the developers…. ofc they are punishing people who dont actually pay them for ttheir product. None the less if the game drops to 30 bucks you still only pay 10 extra bucks in online pass so you still save money
The ending is like a main boss whitout any loot.
No, Angry Joe’s description of the ending is pretty apt–it is very weak and unfulfilling. I was willing to somewhat forgive the ending up until some of the final scenes. Truely WTF material, and not in a good way.
I’d also add it looked very rushed quality to it, as if it was cut down to the bone and then some.
You just reacted that way because you dont understand it. I reacted the same way, take some time to reflect and think it over.
People don’t dislike the ending because it wasn’t happy – people disliked it, because it made absolutely no sense. There are so many plot holes that it’s more holes than actual plot, it doesn’t fit in at all with the entire ME franchise preceding it and i won’t even start on the star child. The biggest problem however is all your choices are meaningless – I may as well have let all those races fight it out between themselves, because whatever you do will not change the ending and regardless of what your EMS is everyone is still screwed at the end of the game.
Were you deaf for the entire last mission. Because they explained why the Relays had to be destroyed. The ” star child” was a reaper and he only took the form of that child from shepards subconscious and manifested itself as something that he plagued or something he was obsessed over. Just like when he was in the geth network. If the cycle is not goign to continue they have to remove all reaper based tech from the galaxy so that they can develope in time and dont get the tech boosts from ex the relays. Just look at how the krogan was almost destroyed by tech when they got super advanced stuff while they were still at the caveman stage. I agree that the ending should be more and it could be better, but to say it destroyed the game like mr Joe did is the just idiotic and retarded to say.
I totally agree…It’s not just BioWare, but to a larger extent, EA (who owns BioWare) who have been SO enthralled with squeezing every. Freaking. Penny. Out of all of the people who had brought their games.
But this ending was like a huge, huge, HUGE, middle finger to the fans (like me) of the series. The ending basically negated all of the work to play your character from ME1-ME3.
Oh well, it seems like another company sold out…That seems to be the way of the video game industry these days (God! I miss the times when a FULL game came out, or a game that didn’t require Jesus patches).
I need to know Joe would you class this as a action game or a RPG?
Its Probably now, 70% Action, 30% RPG.
Yeah I felt about the same its sad most of the RPG elements were taken out and at some case’s shepard played himself in the conversation scenes and said stuff i wouldnt normaly ask about. But its still a cool game the story is still strong. Thanks Joe
.
Honestly I agree with Gabe from PA. I normally agree with Joe spot on but a lot of the ending to me feels like how life ends up going and….Gabe puts it a lot better then i do. Anyways it was still a great review.
A Great review as always Angry Joe. I do agree with you on the ending to som degree. But i was not that disapointed, i felt that the journey was well worth it, I do disagree with you on both the reveal of tali and of E.D.I. First i dont care that it was a stock photograph i thought it worked fot the character and instead of like a full blown spectacle it was i small and personal moment, it shows that se trustet your character enough to let you be the only one to see her true self. As for E.D.I i thought the relationship with her and joker was greatm and her struggle and confusion with understanding what it is to be alive/Organic. Really played well and workd with the theme of the game.
Great Review Joe,
I personally enjoyed the fuck out of the game, was everything I could hope for. However, I have yet to see the ending, at the edge of the game, but I really doubt It will ruin it THAT much.
Also keep in mind the dlc didn’t really bother me at all.
So I’d give a 10/10 at the moment, but once I see the ending ill probably drop it to a 9/10.
I don’t doubt your decigeon on the score, but I was expecting at least a 7 from how you described the game. Non-existent RPG elements aside from conversation and side quests, terrible quest log system that can potentially ruin the side quests, and less interaction with your squads. I imagine all of those affect the game heavily. Even if parts of these are minor flaws in your opinion, if the ending was such a disappointment, I was expecting a lower score.
I am definitely not the one to judge here because I don’t own the game, but as an RPG player, the game sounds bear minimum to me. Despite the ending they have brought the fans what they wanted; the epic story, which they were suppose to deliver. They even improved the combat and map system, but all those flaws sounds like counteracting against the improvements, thus reducing the quality of the game to bear minimum. I can’t say this for sure, but thats what I got from your review.
I liked Vega enough, but I would have much rather had Wreck, Wreave, or mostly Grunt as another member. Joe, you really hit it on the nail with this review. I feel like you would have given it a better score if the ending was better, which was the same thing as me. I thought it was a great game… It really was too. I felt so involved, and was so emotional during it. Then the ending ruined it! Besides that, the rest of the minor faults I thought the same. Like Tali’s face, or the fact that even if you put Anderson as the councilor in ME1, for some reason in ME3 he quits his position and gives it to Udina?
Hey, Joe… Any updates for the video playback issue many of us are having… I’m still getting the 303 Error preventing me from watching the video on your site.
Yes, I got this Response Back from Support:
“Hi Joe,
We have had reports before of users having problems with Kaspersky, specially with the ANTI-BANNER option enabled under settings.
Please advise the viewer to check if he has any antivirus application installed and if disabling it fixed the behavior he was seeing.
Thanks”
I’ve now been playing with the anti-banner in Kaspersky. No joy. I’ve tried disabling in both the browser and the actual applications settings. Still getting 303. Then tried re-enabling and adding all of the relevant domains to the anti-banners trusted sites list. Still won’t work. I don’t think it’s kaspersky. If it was kaspersky, it should have at least worked when I full disabled the anti-banner and the firewall. But as it is, I’m getting no change.
Try use Google Chrome instead of IE.
This review shows me lots of things that I may been passed. Im really thankfull for your opinion Joe. Lets hope that a series-reboot will make
this franchise even better as it is now. Anderson-Effect? Yep thats make
sense to fans. Saving earth from the reapers using gurellia war tactics while our Shepard gathering allies… But what the f… This could be an alternative playtrough campaign in the game. Im really sure that gives us more effort that the protein dlc. Why we need another game? Why we need a f.ckin upcoming dlc anyway?
WHY COULDNT BIOWARE MAKE THIS GAME GOOD AT FIRST TIME?
Dont get me wrong. I dont want a CoD like earth defense force game.
Because of the ending and the lack of teammates we got no need to keep our Shep. Bioware standardized a teammate roster in the second game with much more characters. We all wanted to see and interact with thoose characters not exmpl Vega. We have no f. clue why he jumped in in the very
end of the series. Loyality my a..! We spend hours of gameplay in the first two game keeping alive as much teammate as we could and what we gather is a dialog chatter?
Theese all shows the effort what Bioware spent on this. And its not much!
Great review Joe. I pretty much agree with every point but the multiplayer. I think it was pointless and largely unasked for. Sort of like Dead Space 2 multiplayer.
I think Bioware got very lazy and badly rushed by EA just like Dragon Age 2.
…………Thats what they did to Tali.
…
…
WHAT THE FUCK ART DEPARTMENT? ITS A PICTURE. YOU’RE NOT RENDERING A MODEL, ITS A PICTURE. THAT COULD’VE BEEN FARTED OUT IN A FEW DAYS BY ONE PERSON.
In the words of the AVGN: “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???”
Those first minutes of the clip totally matched my own experience.
All those up’s and down’s – only to end up in a huge Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment that ruined it all for me.
Oh, and incidentally, Joe, you actually can turn off helmets. In the settings area there’s actually a surprisingly robust series of options that allow you to leave your helmet on all the time, to leave it on during gameplay and take it off during dialogue scenes, or to hide it completely. You can do the same with your companions. So there’s that.
Well done. Good Catch.
When I first saw Tali’s face (whom I’ve been infatuated with even since ME1), I was actually smiling. But that’s because I’d avoided all the spoilers about the image, and it was hard to see up close.
But now that I know, have seen the original image and can spot all the crap photoshop skills..
Sigh..
Why would you do that, Bioware? Why? When your fanbase have even created such amazing pieces for you!
Like this one. I couldn’t tell you how much I’d love THIS to be her official face.. sheesh.
Can’t comment on the ending just yet, on the last mission right now.. really hoping I won’t be as enraged as others..
Oh and the useless reporter? Uuugh.. her whole character design/scan just makes me cringe..
YES. YES to that picture. If they would have had that in the game, and showed her character model, or a scene like that in a romance setting, awesomeness.
It’s kind of interesting how universal the fan backlash for the ending is. Check out ME3′s user rating on Amazon: right now it’s sitting at two stars out of five. Now, I totally don’t agree with that score; like Joe said, most of the game is incredible. Important as the ending is to the story, I can’t justify giving a game such a low rating when you have 30-40 hours of awesome and ten minutes of BETRAYAL, so on a five star rating I’d give it an honest 4. They’ve acknowledged the backlash officially and gave kind of a derpy justification for the ending: They wanted to make sure people remembered it. Well…mission accomplished. However, with a reaction this severe, I don’t think they can let it sit where it is. Bioware has historically been pretty good with taking fan feedback to heart, and they’re getting a LOT of feedback here. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, three or four months from now, they release a free patch that gives us at least one new ending, a “good” one, likely one you can only get to with really high reputation points and galactic readiness rating. I doubt they’d go so far as to scrap the ending, and they really shouldn’t have to; I didn’t actually have a problem with the endings presented, I had a problem with the fact that they were the ONLY endings available, regardless of your actions. Patching in a fourth or maybe even fifth choice that gives fans what they want shouldn’t be too hard.
That ending pissed me the hell off. And I haven’t even played the game. Now I know what my customers have been talking about.
Joe what was your galaxy prep precentage and your total war assests?
First play through: 5087 Total Military, 2950 Effective Military Strength
Ahhh IC, have you get 4k EMS and save anderson…not going to say more, have fun
It’s seriously not worth the hassle, and that does is add a short clip at the end of the game. It doesn’t change the ending for the better, instead, it just raises even MORE questions.
Hey Joe, just so you James Vega acts differently if you play as femshep. Though he is NOT a love interest, he still flirts very heavily with her.
And I actually ended up using EDI quite a bit on missions. Javik on the other hand? Twice. He says some interesting lines (especially if you brought him with you to Thessia) but otherwise he’s definitely not worth the 10 bucks BioWare is asking for. I also don’t mind the smaller squad though.
I liked Javik, (can’t say no to a completely new alien) but having him as separate $10 DLC was utter bull. Angry Joe had a similar thing to say about Sebastian in DA2, except that Javik is much more enticing from a lore perception.
Imagine if Zaeed cost $10 in ME2…
I like Javik and usually have him in my squad, especially when I am up against Cerberus. His Pull is perfect to grab the shields from those dudes so you can kill them quicker. Plus it is pretty fun to see how he views the universe and other races.
But like so many others have said, not worth the 10 bucks
Joe you be shocked just how many people are backing you on the ending, and have decided to take all the anger they have and put it to something good it’s called the “Retake Mass effect” donation fund raiser for Childs play.
It’s up to 52,222.84 Just goes to show gamers can do great good even when angry.
I agree with Joe. The ending is shockingly poor and has a very rushed quality. Prepare yourselves for possible letdown.
I also agree that EDI and James Vega are probably the lesser of the squad members, though they are still fairly interesting.
Great review Joe.I fully agree with all the points that you’ve made regarding the game including the disappointing ending that has left me trying to figure out a way/theory/anything that could make sense.
This game shouldn’t end like this,Shepard doesn’t deserve this after all he’s been through and I really hope that they will fix it with a dlc/patch.I don’t really care if I have to pay for it because it is less likely that it’s gonna be released free,but a man can hope.
Regarding the ending I fully support the dream/indoctrination theory that is floating around the web,too many facts leading to that.Now we just gotta wait and see if Bioware really cares about their fans or not.
well, im hoping the theory about the ending being a dream is true and we all get the ending we deserve. but until then, my imagination is going to have to do that for me.
I’m right there with you, Joe. The franchise as a whole is one of the most amazing franchises to date. And I had overlooked a few of the things you’d pointed out, like the inventory system and the ME2 characters getting glossed over to a degree, but the ending… I’ll save my thoughts on that for when you have your ending video up. Don’t want to put up too much of a spoiler for anyone else reading this.
Gotta say I really enjoyed this review, I’ve been looking forward to it for a while, I even sat down and watched it with dinner.
My major problems with the game were the decreased RPG elements, not loot because I personally find over abundance of loot to be very annoying and distracting, but the fact that you can only go to one “city” hub, the Citadel. You can’t revisit Tuchunka and speak with Wrex, you can’t go back to Palaven and see how everything is going on there. I also still think the points system of ME1 was the best, although this game has an improvement over ME2.
That and the ending, which is such a load of bull. I must have written on that “Demand a New Ending” facebook page about seven or eight times by now expressing every furious thought in my mind. In addition, is it just me or did it feel like this game goes out of it’s way to dick on Mass Effect 2, seriously, there’s no original ME2 characters as playable in this game and then (SPOILERS) a fair chunk die, And the only returning characters are ME1 characters. I mean, at least have Miranda, she was the second protagonist in that game and now she’s just kinda tossed aside.
Anyway, I still loved the game and it’s a 9/10 for me. But it shows how good the series has been if I’m complaining about a 9/10 when I consider 1 and 2 to be 10/10s. It’s clearly the Return of the Jedi of the bunch but not the step down that was from Empire.
To be fair, Thane is the only that doesn’t survive to the climax no matter what (no surprise considering his condition). Everyone else from ME2 can survive to the end of the game, tough I’m not sure about Morinth.
Thanks for spoiling the end of thane.
How was that spoiled? Everyone KNEW Thane was sick. We KNEW he was going to die soon. Did you really expect him to live for 4 more games?
I was really disappointed with Tali’s reveal too. I was like, “C’mon Bioware! You have the fuckin time and money to model in Jessica Chobot who is a useless minor character but can’t even spare the effort to give Tali, a regular cast throughout the 3 games a proper face!”.
I agree with this review but score the game a 7/10 because of the practices and the ps3 version has way to much freezing/glitchs especailty on the pc this game needs a huge patch to patch.
Despite the slightly dodgy cover controls and the boring fetch quest side missions I really felt this was a great game. I was hooked all the way through and ready to declare it a triumph and the perfect finish to a great series… Then I reached the last 10 minutes and it was like I got kicked in the balls. I don’t even have enthusiasm for Mass Effect 2 any more and that used to be my favorite RPG.
http://www.facebook.com/DemandABetterEndingToMassEffect3
I’ll get this after Downpour
I thought you were just making a generic remark about her being a stock photo… but god damn, they really half assed her reveal.
At first I hated the ending as well. Then I played through the ending again at the checkpoint just before it. Overtime it sort of grew on me in a sense. Its the fact that both choices are literally the same ending but with different colors. Cutscenes included. Im fine with the ending it has as ONE outcome but not both. I would have liked to have seen the characters afterwards as well and what they have done and will do