Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Best in series"

The first thing I want to talk about in my review is the ending. You've probably heard a lot of other reviewers complain about it; I know I did. So I was a bit apprehensive about finally ending the game and seeing the supposedly terrible ending. Although I did not anticipate this ending, and it was a bit confusing and bittersweet, I thought that it provided closure to the series and was pretty revolutionary. I know I've never seen an ending like this one before, and ultimately I liked it. It's certainly not a happy ending in the traditional sense, but in a fight with the ultra-powerful Reapers, happy endings shouldn't be expected in my opinion, and I guess the writers agreed with me there. However, let's say that you completely hated the ending and couldn't stand it. Even so, the rest of the story was so outstanding and epic that it would make up for an ending you might not like. I've heard of some people who have refused to play this game because of what they've heard about the endings, and I think that they're robbing themselves of a great experience because of it. So I would suggest that you play it yourself and be the judge. Even if you hate the ending, the rest of the story will suck you in so much that it won't matter. It's just that great.

Although this is a world with very advanced technology and interesting alien politics, the real draw of this series, for me, has always been the characters, so let's review them. The old characters you know, and they're all great, of course, though some of them meet sad endings even before the final ending. James Vega is one of the new crew members, and he was a pretty good character, though not great. Although he wasn't as bland as Jacob Taylor, he didn't really have any character traits that really stood out to me. Another new character is the Prothean, Javik. I found him really interesting, and not just because he's a Prothean. Javik's entire outlook on life is indicative of a totally different time, and the writers did a great job of showing that. Javik can be a bit of a jerk, but even that comes across as being more a product of his situation than anything else. As Liara said, he's not what she expected in a Prothean, but he's still very interesting. Among the old characters, as I said, they're great, even better perhaps than they had been before. My Shepard romanced Tali in both the second game and this one, and I felt that the romance aspect in this game was better than in the previous one. You really get a sense that they truly love each other, whereas in the previous game it only seemed that they loved each other at certain points, during specific dialogue. In ME3, you get a sense of that even during regular missions, which I thought was an improvement. So overall, all of the characters were at least good, with most being great. I'm not sure what it is about Bioware, but they know how to write great characters, which is one of the reasons I like that studio.

Finally there are the technical aspects of the game, such as the combat, graphics, sound, stuff like that. The combat has a Gears of War feel to it, but I always found that combat style fun, so I'm not complaining. There are a good variety of enemies and they require different strategies to take down, which keeps the combat fun and interesting. The graphics are really good, though that doesn't really affect how fun the game is. The musical score is really epic and fits with the overall epicness of the story.

Overall, if you're a fan of the Mass Effect series, you absolutely have to play this game. Heck, if you're a fan of good games in general you should play this game (though I would advise you to play ME1 and ME2 first to build the story). Although this game concluded in an unexpected way, the ending provided closure and ensured that I will have fond memories of this series for a long time to come.