Post by Mister Buch on Jul 18, 2012 0:03:57 GMT 1
It is over and I may be about to stop talking about it.
I was just at Lily's thread and I got typing. And speaking of crying, I just finished the third game (and my 'definitive three-game run') myself, and there were some tears during the goodbyes in London.
Having the game and the trilogy all fresh in my mind, I feel like I have to do one last review, and attempt to really make it my last. I feel like the game, for reasons both good and ill, has been on my mind for too long a time, and I wanted to play through all three and get everything 'just right'. And then stop going on about it.
I think Mass Effect 3 is just a hair short of a masterpiece. It's probably my favourite videogame of those I own. It has taken KotOR's place in my shelf, if you can imagine such a thing. Games never made me cry before this one, or made me genuinely mourn or laugh out of sympathy - laugh at a character rather than at the script.
The gameplay etc. is also very good. The soundtrack is perfect and it achieves something new and (to me) incredible in making three games into one, solid 100-hour RPG - one character, one story, three games, where a decision I made in hour 4 saved Conrad Verner's life in hour 90. This all just happens to be exactly what I have always wanted in role-playing, so I may be slightly too generous to it. It pushes my buttons: Mordin and Thane's redemption, wide cosmic and religious themes, Anderson, sentiment, great music, Canadian steak sandwiches, Joker in a dramatic role, Shepard's vulnerability, a male gay character, English red phone boxes, indulgent 'I love you always' goodbyes -- it just happens to have everything I wanted, save one....
Without a doubt the ending is sudden, choppy, restrictive and simply disappointing. Even with the extended sections added. I felt a little bit 'meh' at the end now, even after all these months of defending it. I like all four endings - I really do - but none of them are what I hoped for. Plus, charging extra for one of the lead characters was a pathetic bit of marketing which tarnishes the game. Neither of these is a game-ruiner for me. It would be a disservice to the rest of the work - my own biases and preferences aside, it's too good to be ruined.
And that's it. Loved it utterly and in a serious, personal way, and disappointed at the end. Somehow I stretched that verdict into several months of typing. Bless you for reading...
The Mass Effect franchise has been a big thing for me, via this website and many of you and the writing it's inspired. Feel like I'm ready to shut up about it now and play something else.
EDIT: Now taking bets on how long before I start ranting again and the above assertion turns out to be............. horse-shit.
I was just at Lily's thread and I got typing. And speaking of crying, I just finished the third game (and my 'definitive three-game run') myself, and there were some tears during the goodbyes in London.
Having the game and the trilogy all fresh in my mind, I feel like I have to do one last review, and attempt to really make it my last. I feel like the game, for reasons both good and ill, has been on my mind for too long a time, and I wanted to play through all three and get everything 'just right'. And then stop going on about it.
I think Mass Effect 3 is just a hair short of a masterpiece. It's probably my favourite videogame of those I own. It has taken KotOR's place in my shelf, if you can imagine such a thing. Games never made me cry before this one, or made me genuinely mourn or laugh out of sympathy - laugh at a character rather than at the script.
The gameplay etc. is also very good. The soundtrack is perfect and it achieves something new and (to me) incredible in making three games into one, solid 100-hour RPG - one character, one story, three games, where a decision I made in hour 4 saved Conrad Verner's life in hour 90. This all just happens to be exactly what I have always wanted in role-playing, so I may be slightly too generous to it. It pushes my buttons: Mordin and Thane's redemption, wide cosmic and religious themes, Anderson, sentiment, great music, Canadian steak sandwiches, Joker in a dramatic role, Shepard's vulnerability, a male gay character, English red phone boxes, indulgent 'I love you always' goodbyes -- it just happens to have everything I wanted, save one....
Without a doubt the ending is sudden, choppy, restrictive and simply disappointing. Even with the extended sections added. I felt a little bit 'meh' at the end now, even after all these months of defending it. I like all four endings - I really do - but none of them are what I hoped for. Plus, charging extra for one of the lead characters was a pathetic bit of marketing which tarnishes the game. Neither of these is a game-ruiner for me. It would be a disservice to the rest of the work - my own biases and preferences aside, it's too good to be ruined.
And that's it. Loved it utterly and in a serious, personal way, and disappointed at the end. Somehow I stretched that verdict into several months of typing. Bless you for reading...
The Mass Effect franchise has been a big thing for me, via this website and many of you and the writing it's inspired. Feel like I'm ready to shut up about it now and play something else.
EDIT: Now taking bets on how long before I start ranting again and the above assertion turns out to be............. horse-shit.