[Gogan]

Finished ME3 tonight. I'm with Grupp in thinking ME2 was the best of the series. There were things in ME3 that I really liked, but things I really disliked as well.

The idea behind the story and gameplay was a cool one -- Reapers invading the universe; need to unite the races; collect enough "war assets" until you have enough to fight them. However, the need to play multiplayer and only being able to do that with your friends list -- no matchmaking service available -- in order to max out your "readiness" rating was super lame.

I hated the numerous Citadel errand quests. I spent way too many hours in that place. Go to system X and scan planet Y for item Z, then bring it back to some person on the citadel. Far too many of them, and there was no payoff in story.

I really liked the way they incorporated all your past squad members in the story, even if they didn't join your team. Loved seeing how some had evolved since ME2, e.g. Jack and Mordin especially. The romance storyline fell really short though. Maybe it was just my choices (ME1 was Ash, ME2 was Miranda, ME3 back to Ash), but there was very little time spent on that storyline. I will say, though, that I laughed a lot at some of the characters' lines. The romance between Joker and EDI was hysterical, especially seeing it evolve to that point from ME2. Catching Garrus and Tali kissing was funny. Listening to Tali when she got drunk -- hysterical. There were lots of little one-liners throughout the game that were just really funny. Don't remember that kind of dialog in ME1 or 2.

They did a fantastic job with the environments in ME3. The opening sequence when the reapers first land on earth and you're running around the buildings outside was stunning. Getting up close and personal with the reapers throughout the game -- seeing their enormity, feeling their power as the screen shakes, hearing the War of the Worlds alien sound as they begin to fire their beam -- it was truly awesome.

However they really dropped the ball on the universe exploration. In theory, flying around uncovering assets while trying to evade the reapers seems like it would be cool. But it was more annoying and useless than anything else. That whole "scan" mechanic blew. ME1 probably did the best job with the side-mission exploration. ME2 wasn't too bad, but it was more focused on resource collecting.

I also felt like they went back to ME1's devaluing of money. I ended the game with almost 1M credits and not buying anything except for the occasional quest item from the spectre terminal that I missed from side quests. Maybe it's because I was pure biotic this time around and didn't have much need for lots of guns and mods. Even if I wanted to buy something though, you couldn't see the gun's stats until after you bought it. Useless.

I did like the new skill tree though. Having to make tradeoffs on which way to improve your skills was enjoyable. And I like that they brought back weapon mods from ME1. I kinda missed the heavy weapons from ME2 though. It was always fun fighting heavy mechs with rocket launchers.

I didn't mind the ending at all. Not sure why the internet hated it so much. The whole citadel/crucible thing was an interesting twist and I kind of liked it. I always loved the idea of man vs machine and history repeating itself (e.g. BSG). I haven't watched all of the different possible endings yet, so maybe some were bad. I didn't accumulate enough assets to get access to all possible endings -- I chose the synthesis of organic and synthetic life. The final scene with the Illusive Man was really anti-climactic though. Kinda felt like there should've been a boss fight somewhere in that last conversation. He's supposed to be this super-powered organic/synthetic guy who can now control organics (Shephard and Anderson) and reapers, but I can suddenly just kill him with a single bullet at will? Kinda lame.

Anyway, this is way too long of a review of a game series that everyone already played 5 years ago. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can certainly see why it's so high on all "best games" lists. Wish I had more time to play through it all a few more times to see the different story paths. Some day.