Review: Mass Effect 3

Developer(s)               BioWare

Publisher(s)                Electronic Arts

Platform(s)                 Xbox 360, PS3, PC & WiiU

Release date               March 2012

Genre(s)                     RPG, Western RPG
 

Mode(s)                      Single Player

Rating(s)                    ACB: MA15+, BBFC: 15[10], ESRB: M, PEGI: 18, USK: 16

Back then, I only knew the series three years after official the release of the first Mass Effect on xbox 360. I bought a used one for 50 Saudi Riyals (13 US Dollars). It was a damn good price but only to play it after a couple of more months later & after spending more than a hundred hours on Dragon Age Ultimate Edition. By the time I played it I felt in love and my interest grew bigger when I finished the second installment. So here I am (after a longest vacation from my gaming blog) to review the third and final chapter with my personal thoughts to it.

                                              Citadel, still looking good from this angle.

Presentation:

Okay, the selling point. Where they shine and spent most of their efforts just to make $$$. Bringing big names in Hollywood for voice acting, great OSTs, profound graphics and more solid battle system gameplay and I know we get it. They gathered them all to give us a ride to put us on the edge of our seat & have our Shepard’s last journey for one last time. Overall I was impressed and seeing its transformation all the way from the first one. At most, it has improved as mentioned.

                                               Larger than life cut scenes

Graphics:

It is obvious to find that their first priority is to impress the naked eye to the point of overlaying the fundamentals of what we were supposed to look at. However, none the less, it is what it is and I am again impressed. Not to mention memorable cut scenes.

                                             A small gimmick from the Devs, yeah but still fun.

Gameplay:

First is their single player, I can say that it’s relatively shorter in length (that’s what she said) than the first ME and became a little bit less RPG-like and a bit more of a Third Person action Shooter. However, it didn’t fail by keeping me occupied till end also because of how the story was told. Even with a few hiccups, the modifications in controls felt a lot fluid than the last & triggering fire felt way better as well. As always, one of the best things I like about this is carrying over your progress all the way from ME 1 felt very rewarding in character records, achievements, abilities and money but sadly most of those didn’t matter when as you reach to the end of the game.

Secondly, the biggest new thing in the game is the obvious online multiplayer mode. When I first tried it I thought of two games, Gears of War in terms of controls and Killzone 2 & 3 in shifting game modes. Yes, Killzone and GOW just had a one night stand somewhere and made Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer mode baby.

Actually the mix was a pretty good & exhilarating experience. Given that third person shooters always has camera issues but it hold up well to be a competitive multiplayer experience. I personally say right now that GOW still keeps the crown in 3^rd person shooter online MP feel if I were to compare it to this game. But none the less, the gameplay really works very well & the AI won’t disappoint players.

                                             Best played if you have previous data from ME 1 & 2

Audio:

Also, we can’t call it Mass Effect if there were no big names in it like Keith David Williams (Captain Anderson), Martin Sheen (The illusive man), Seth Green (Joker)…etc. Despite there were some crews that didn’t impressed me much, most have given life to characters they were assigned to in which most of the fans will forever remember them to be part of the awesome modern RPG game. I personally wished for Hans Zimmer or Ramin Djawadi to do the score but everyone could only hope, but surprisingly things worked out well in the end with so many composers contributed for the game.

                                            Surprisingly fun Multiplayer mode

Overall:

Okay, on a professional standpoint it’s a sure shot to the eyes of the bull and for the new comers they would definitely enjoy the experience (preferred to play previous ME for an epic feel and experience). Even after playing the first run they can spend more time on the Multiplayer mode. However, on a personal note, yes it was intense, emotional, great graphics, gameplay, storyline but wait… the ending however shattered my expectations to a low seeing all endings made me realized that they haven’t spent enough time and effort on the last hours of ME3. “Effortless work” per se, I mean it looked like Bioware slacked off yet again (first there was Dragon Age 2). I don’t mean not to try this game out, but at the first day priced DLCs only to find that they’re already in the CD/Game are obvious making of a dirty business and a dirty scheme to milk out consumer’s wallet. But have it your way, buy it or not, I’m sure you’re content on your decision.

Update: after replaying the last mission with the extended endings, I felt that they pretty much redeemed themselves. More elaborated endings which pretty much fill in the blanks. After seeing the ending I chose I felt like replaying from the first game, I think it’s that good.

 So here’s my score.

Score             8.5 (before extended endings) – 9.0

Pro(s)

Eye popping graphics

Tremendous sounds effects and music

Improved battle system mechanics

Multiplayer mode will keep you busy

High profiled voice actors and actresses

So many emotional encounters in the series

Update

Good work on the extended endings

Before entering the citadel at the last mission, there was a small but powerful scene (love it!)

Con(s)

Shortest of all three Mass Effect games

Leaning towards as a mainstreamed third person shooter less of an RPG (i.e. critical decision making events, more limited explorations)

Effortless last hours of the game till the end (before the extended endings update)

First paid DLCs weren’t necessary (I bought the collector’s edition only to felt that the DLC characters played important roles in the game.

Article: Four Types of gamers in Steam Community

There are four types of gamers I found in Steam. Given that they are all gamers, they all carry a role which gives a color in the gaming community.




As I mention them, they will get relatively clear to those who are curious and to those who seek enlightenment on the subject.



First off we have The Collector; the collector is clearly the ones who collect games and has less time to play them all. Be it that he/she already played them before, they tend to itch their way to buy them even just for displays. I have nothing against those who are given that I tend to incline my way on getting even publisher’s collection. To name a few, I was supposed to buy only Dungeon Siege 3 this year but ended up buying even its two previous releases. If there was a collection of Command & Conquer I would certainly buy & mostly likely if they’re on sale.

The downside is that they tend to have too many games to play and little time to play them. The good thing is they’re prone from getting compliments from other users as they find the list of games.



Secondly, The Reviewer who simply buys games and reviews them. Be it new releases or old just to give their personal thoughts on and provide insights mainly to those who hasn’t bought the game or curious of why the game is so good (or less) to others.

The downside is not all users will agree on their reviews though in the first place it’s just their personal thoughts and do not represent on a greater scale of majority.



The Giver is the ones who give away games for free, usually you find them as admin in a group or two. Organizing events to giveaways with or without a purpose for the benefit of the group they’re in.

Like The Collector, they are also prone to get compliments but little more from the others & tend to get to know good friends along the way. The thing is, they can also be targets of beggars or other users with bad intentions in the community.



Lastly, The Trader; this user means business and often trade games, in game & special items with others for both or their own benefit. The trading system in Steam can be very addicting especially on annual events where they tend to shine. Apparently almost all of the users in the community will try to trade what’s in their inventory for something they want.

Trading is addicting and fun, like an introduction to gamers on how trading business works however the downside is that Traders tend to spend so much money especially on special occasions. Therefore it is best for them to earn more money till the next event comes and make some huge trades.



At some point, you’ll come across a user who represents more than one category. But at the end of the day we’re all gamers and just want to play the games we love. After all, games are for everyone and I’m happy to see them around in the community.



Play on, play hard and game on!

Review: Batman: Arkham City

Developer(s)                 Rocksteady Studios

Publisher(s)                 Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Platform(s)                   PlayStation 3,Microsoft Windows, Wii U,Xbox 360

Release date                 PS3 & Xbox 360 (Oct. 2011) PC (Nov. 2011) & Wii U (2012)

Genre(s)                       Action-adventure, beat 'em up, stealth

Mode(s)                        Single-player

Rating(s)                      ESRB: T PEGI: 16

It took me a couple of weeks and experinces just to produce the thought of reviewing this game and get it posted. In all honesty I’m actually terrified to post this review but WTH I’ll just get over it & be done.

A year has passed since the incident in Arkham Asylum and now the prison has been moved within the city of Gotham. Gathring the criminals and put them all in a huge prison called Arkham City controlled by Hugo Strange and his troops of mercinaries. Before the game was released, I have thought and speculated many times & yet I never guessed the exact plot. When I thought that things got complicated from the looks of the trailers well it gets worse once I started it even at few minutes in. And yet the dark knight’s adventrue begins as he unfolds and show you the darkness of that world.

                                                                 When i first saw this i felt i was lost because it's huge!

Presentation:

My appreciation kicked in at the game menu, the music in the background & its visuals were impressive enough to get me in the mood to start it. In game, there are tons to appreciate about the dark corners. When I first checked the map I was left with astonishment and asked myself on how will I proceed and what should I do first (actually it was like “WTH is this!? Now I feel so small” but in a good way.). There were like 400 Riddler trophies scattered in the area and that alone left me scratch headed.

                                             Yeah sure, just glide your way though, it feels better 

Graphics:

Just like the previous title, it’s well appreciated from little things like ripped off bat suit after taking amount of damage from enemies all the way to wall marks when deactivating the Detective Mode (I usually put on detective vision but without it showed me wonders of my surroundings). Each territory and area handled by certain villain and at some area will also give trivia from a certain character from the series. Fans of the Batman world will stop in a corner for a moment and figure out the surroundings for clues and what references that may might find in every corner & that alone wows me.

                                            Detective mode, that's always on when i play at most

Gameplay:

I will have to describe the game in three things. First Action Adventure: where you’re given several missions to explore and discover the main plot of the game by using your starting gadgets and unlocking more to get better grip and effects plus getting more gadgets too. Second is Beat’em up, when engaging a fight, the mode will automatically shifts itself with commands to take down certain enemies, this time there are more combos to execute and most of them are pretty cool in which defines Batman a master in close counter combats. And third is Stealth, whereas you as the hunter and they’re the hunted. A feel of Tenchu and Metal Gear style though with his own awesome tool that helps him to perform awesome stealth takedowns at your disposal and given areas that will help you improvise based on your creativity. Aside from playing as the Detective, you will also play as Catwoman, Robin & Nightwing (as DLCs) with their own cool perspectives. Overall the gameplay is fairly as solid as from Arkham Asylum but with additional gadgets & characters to control.

                                                One of Catwoman's naughty take downs 

Audio:

Props to all who voice acted but I personally give a bit more to Mark Hamill who is back as Joker and to me he alone stole the show in terms of voice acting & to me, that alone is epic. I’m actually an OST junky so like when engaging enemies, the background music can transcend when action intensifies itself and they sounded awesome.

                                                I so want the animated costume so baaaaad 

Overall:

Batman Arkham City is bigger in terms of exploration, customization and discoveries; a lot more to the gadgets and things to do. So far, it’s been nothing short but epic journey in the world of Arkham City and with so many surprises. Some friends asks me how good is the game and I usually reply them that there’s too many good things in the game to mention but giving them away means a spoiler by itself; it has surpassed my expectations so I’ll leave it to that. I would say that it’s for those who are interested to find out so that I would not spoil anything especially my co fans of the hero. However, for new comers, if you have some extra cash I suggest to play the previous one if you want to get more juice from the storyline.

Score             10

Pro(s)

Bigger world

More gadgets

So many surprises along the way

Great plot

Creative stealth kills at its best

Con(s)

So many Riddler trophies to look for

Minor camera angle issues