The tone of Mass Effect 3 is far different from almost anything in the entire series thus far, with the exception of the original Mass Effect's last 1-2 hours. Since the ending of ME1 was easily the best sequence in either of the first two games, this means that ME3 is around 40 hours of concentrated high-drama epic storytelling, filled with hectic action and fueled by desperate circumstances. This is not the Mass Effect universe we've known before; this is a galaxy that's living in fear of the Reaper invasion and is completely unsafe. Everywhere you go, you meet wounded civilian refugees, desperate soldiers on the brink of losing, and enemies that threaten to kill you in horribly grotesque ways.
The squadmate roster has been reduced to a maximum of 7, which is good. It pays off greatly, too, since that it allows for a greater amount of dialogue between squadmates during missions. The writers did a great job of really getting into the characters' heads and figuring out what they would have to say at every major plot point.
The visuals receive a huge bump up from Mass Effect 2, with better textures and improved animation. Finally characters' faces don't look odd; now they look natural enough for the audience to forget they're looking at a game and start simply falling into the story. There are times when you actually feel like you're watching a very well-made, emotionally gripping film rather than playing a game. This actually connects rather directly to the slightly revamped way ME3 deals with choices. Choices this time around have been far reduced. Rather than having Shepard make a moral decision every other line, now the player just watches Shepard go through the story and only makes choices where appropriate. It actually works very well, letting the cinematic quality of the story flourish rather than come to a halt every ten seconds, while still letting the player make all the important choices.
The combat is mostly unchanged from Mass Effect 2, which is largely a good thing. This time around, however, the action is faster and more intense. In ME2, the player could merely hide behind cover and, with enough patience, easily pick off enemies. Now enemies flank you and throw grenades, constantly keeping you on your toes. It's not enough to hide behind cover and play it safe; now you're forced to become constantly mobile and very alert. In many ways, this is great. It definitely fits ME3's more chaotic and desperate wartime feel. In other ways, however, this becomes a bit of a stumbling point for the game. Mass Effect 2's combat system was not made for exactly this type of gameplay, and it notably suffers. One notable aspect of this is the melee system, which doesn't seem quite calibrated correctly. Meleeing isn't helped by the fact that the maximum sensitivity speed for the camera/aiming isn't quite high enough to allow for the quick turning that you need in close-quarters combat. The best you can do is line up a target first, then sprint forward and do a heavy melee attack. The worst aspects of combat are without a doubt the cover and sprint systems. Sprinting no longer has a limit, which is great, but you need to orient the camera in a specific direction before Shepard can accurately sprint there. If you tilt the analog stick too far in either direction while sprinting, he'll just stop sprinting rather than turn. Worst of all, if you try to sprint away from an enemy but hit an obstacle, Shepard will hit the wall and "take cover" in front of it, now making himself "stuck" to the wall while still being gunned down. Considering that there's a cover object about every five feet in the game, this makes retreating for cover extremely difficult at times. Also, Shepard can only climb up short ledges if he has taken cover next to them or if you double-tap the cover/sprint button, effectively triggering a rapid cover-jump move. This can be easily mistimed or misread by the game, and it's very frustrating. It could have been easily solved by simply setting sprint and cover to different buttons and assuming that a sprint to a low ledge was meant as a jump. The solution is so mind-bogglingly easy that it's a wonder that Bioware didn't do it.
For those wondering, this is how I'd do it: Since both the left and right analog stick buttons have the same function, either move Melee to the right stick or Sprint to the left stick, move cover to B/Circle, leave A/X for either Sprint or Melee. Easy.
In any case, despite the problems with control in combat, all of the issues can be resolved by paying attention to how the game works and working around its limitations. In the end, the combat really does do an incredible job of pulling you into the story, making you feel the desperation and life-or-death intensity of the situation. There are few games that truly make you feel the epic quality of a war-to-end-all-wars narrative, but Mass Effect 3 does it rather brilliantly.
Overall, the story in ME3 is staggeringly brilliant. It's a Lord of the Rings-scale war drama, with massive life-or-death struggles for entire civilizations. There's not a single plot point along the way that rings false or is anything less than entirely compelling... until the ending.
The ending of the game has been a source of immense controversy with players. Generally, most fans of the series have found the conclusion dissatisfactory. I don't entirely disagree. Mass Effect 3's ending, while powerful and epic, is so entirely disconnected from the rest of the game (and the series as a whole) that it really feels like a section from a different game altogether. ME3, far more than the previous two games, really does a lot to make you emotionally connect with the characters and the general plight of the galaxy (notably Earth) in a very strong way. The ending throws that all out the window and asks you to make a gigantic philosophical choice about the fate of all existence. In the end, you never get even the slightest bit of closure about the characters you've come to cherish. If anything, the ending only raises more questions about the characters' fate and the fate of the galaxy in general, confusing the audience more than anything else. For some gamers, this is fine. For many, including myself, this is unfortunate. However, comments from Bioware have confirmed that upcoming DLC will directly address fans' complaints concerning this, which is good enough at least to soothe the ending's sting, for me at least. Although this DLC won't be out until April 2012 at earliest, for the purposes of this review, I'm simply going to ignore my problems with the ending in terms of final scoring.
Furthermore, playing this mode increases a multiplier in the single-player game which makes a lot of things much easier to achieve. If you don't want to spend twenty hours extra just doing side quests in story mode or twenty hours in multiplayer, just play a few hours of both. It's less monotonous, saves time, and adds a level of variety that makes the entire experience a lot of fun.
Mass Effect 3 has flaws, to be sure. The overall experience, however, though not unblemished, is something truly amazing. Every single element combines to create a masterful interactive narrative that will likely be the template for role-playing games for decades to come. Although there's plenty of other games on the horizon, what I'm most looking forward to at this point is DLC for ME3, simply because more than anything, I want more of this game.
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