Review: Mass Effect 3

Mass Effect 3 is the finale to an epic sci-fi series made by Bioware.  The purchase suggestion itself is pretty short: if you haven't played Mass Effect 1 or 2, don't get 3 (start with 1 if possible and work through all three); if you have beaten Mass Effect 1 and 2, you need 3.  Unlike most video game trilogies, the Mass Effect trilogy really is a series.  There is a grand sense of continuity and that your choices matter.  Obviously, the major choices you make in 1 and 2 (did you kill this person or that person, who did you romance, etc.) will impact the third.  But I noticed numerous times where even my more minor choices impacted the game or at least felt like they did.  And that is the key here, player perception.  If you can make the player feel like his choices mattered, then they mattered whether it actually changes any dialogue/events or not.

In the Mass Effect series, players take the role of Commander _____ Shepard.  They can choose whether it's a female/male Shepard, what the first name is, and what they look like.  The forced last name and title allow the main character to be mentioned by name in the voiceovers, which was a clever trick when Mass Effect first came out.  The first two Mass Effect games have you fight a threat to the galaxy, while building suspense towards the much larger threat you fight in Mass Effect 3.  Mass Effect 3 is essentially just one big set of cameos from all the characters you've come to know from the first two games.  The really interesting thing that comes out of this is that if you talk to anyone else who has played Mass Effect 3, the stories can be very drastically different.  The most obvious example being choice of gender - every time my friend talks about Shepard and says he, I get confused because I play as a FemShep (Female Shepard voiced by Jennifer Hale, my voice crush).

These choices and differences in story really help to solidify the Mass Effect story as a whole as a player story. I think because of this, the ending to Mass Effect 3 hit players much harder than a typical video game ending.  Typically, video game endings are nothing to talk about (Rampage only gives you a single Congratulation.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES gives you a Game Over when you beat the game.).  There are a few exceptions I can think of (first off, don't click those links if you don't want endings to Splosion Man, You Have to Burn the Rope, Portal 1, and Portal 2 spoiled, secondly, I think I see a pattern in the video game endings I enjoy...).  Mass Effect 3's ending represents the culmination of 120+ hours of commitment to your particular Shepard's story.  I think just like Lost's ending, there's no way to appease everyone.  Maybe it's because I knew this ahead of time in both cases that I was able to enjoy both endings for what they were.  Yes, that's right, I enjoyed Mass Effect 3's and Lost's ending.  Not just "was okay with them", but was actually pleased by both of them.  Obviously, I can't really discuss the endings here without spoilers, so if you want details, you'll have to talk to me personally, but I'd love to do that to see where our stories differed and what you thought.