Mass Effect 3 -- All-In-One.

The five year journey comes to a close with the final entry in the Mass Effect trilogy. Mass Effect 3 was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. I played the Xbox 360 version. For the most part the trilogy should be considered a great success. Let's start with the positive. The game shines at character and character interaction. The trilogy features a large cast of characters who manage to remain interesting throughout. That alone could be considered an impressive feat. Mass Effect 3 crosses all the T's and dots all the I's as far as wrapping up all the character arcs. Not only for the main characters but for almost every NPC of note. An impressive amount of effort was paid to hitting all the little details. I really enjoyed the trilogy's overriding story until the very last moments of Mass Effect 3. I did not like the ending. I didn't like the ending for two reasons. As an artistic choice I found it to be boring and safe and a bit too unoriginal. The ending treads on what has been the absolutely most common theme of science fiction for the last forty years. Almost every other occurrence of said theme has been handled better elsewhere. Blade Runner, War Games, Tron, Star Trek: The Next Generation, A. I., The Terminator, you name it. Mass Effect 3 doesn't add anything new to the theme. The other aspect I didn't like was more on the game mechanics side of things. The trilogy has been sold on having your choices matter. And they do, until the ending. The ending presents you with three choices. Three choices the writers have given you regardless of the consideration of how you might have actually played your character. The choices fit their ending. They don't fit my character. They've failed to account for my Shepard. A simple fourth choice of not accepting the choices would have saved the day from a mechanics standpoint and a story standpoint. This comes off as very jarring to me. This is where BioWare needs to learn from the fervor over the endings. Hopefully they see the people making this valid complaint amongst all the morons screaming over the artistic aspects of the ending. As far as the public uproar over the endings are concerned, BioWare should stick to, and be held to, their artistic statement. They shouldn't cave in to pressure to change the endings in Mass Effect 3. They should learn what real lessons are there to be learned and make use of that knowledge in future projects. Graphically Mass Effect 3 looks great. It still features some of the best voice acting you're ever going to hear. The music works wonderfully. Although I would have liked to have heard newer music. The score uses a lot of music from the first two games. The gameplay is the most polished of the three games but it's not perfect. The cover system is still a twitchy mess and the squad AI still doesn't like to pay attention to your commands sometimes. Some of the complaints towards Mass Effect 2 was the loss of the RPG elements and other aspects from the original Mass Effect. While I could understand those complaints I didn't exactly feel them to be true for me. They start to feel a bit more true to me in Mass Effect 3. There are a couple of design choices I don't understand in Mass Effect 3. The planet scanning has been neutered and tied to war assets. The problem with BioWare is they try to listen to their fans a bit too much. It results in aspects like this. There wasn't anything wrong with scanning in Mass Effect 2. But because they've felt the need to listen to some vocal fans they've tinkered with it so now it's less than it used to be. I also miss the sense of exploration the original game conveyed. That is wholly absent from Mass Effect 3. Another aspect they've tinkered with is the game's journal. The quest log is a major step backwards from what it was in the previous games. It doesn't convey the level of information about the quests it used to. It is sort of a pain in the ass to navigate and comes off as actively annoying. Overall though the Mass Effect trilogy has been a great experience. I'm looking forward to all the DLC being out so I can jump back in and do it all in one go. And I'm interested in seeing how the renegade playthrough changes things up. I'm giving Mass Effect 3 a 9.

The Pre Mass Effect 3 General Update.

It's Mass Effect 3 day! I'll be starting Mass Effect 3 today just like many a gamer. In preparation for that I need to churn out an entry bringing me up to date. I played Resident Evil: Revelations when it originally came out on the sixth of February. I didn't create an entry for it because I intended to complete its raid mode before doing so. That sort of fell by the wayside. I did however complete the main game. Resident Evil: Revelations was developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo 3DS. Resident Evil: Revelations came about because Capcom had just gotten the 3DS development kits and wanted to mess around and see what was possible on the system. So they set about trying to get the Mercenaries from Resident Evil 5 up and running on the system. They were able to do that and found that it controlled relatively well and that there was something to that. They decided to fully flesh out the Mercenaries and it became a full on release. Seeing as they were able to get the Mercenaries up and running on the system that gave them the idea of being able to deliver a full on console Resident Evil experience on a handheld system. Resident Evil: Revelations is pretty much just that. A full on Resident Evil experience on an handheld. The game delivers everything one would expect from a Resident Evil title. You have the cheesy storyline. You have the goofy characters. You have tense survival horror action. And you have it all in the palms of your hands. I played through the game with the Circle Pad Pro, Nintendo's add-on to the 3DS system that provides extra triggers and a second circle pad to the hardware itself. It also makes the 3DS far more comfortable to hold. I didn't have any control issues at all. The game represents the most capable Resident Evil to date as far as controls are concerned. You can even move and shoot at the same time. I know right, advanced stuff. For Resident Evil it actually is. Overall Resident Evil: Revelations is a great success. It gives you the full Resident Evil experience with a level of 3D that makes the rather impressive graphics really pop. The sound design works wonders, especially with headphones. The quest is sizeable. The story helps bridge the gap between Resident Evil 5 and the upcoming Resident Evil 6. The Circle Pad Pro makes it so your hands don't cramp up playing the 3DS longer than an hour. I'd fully recommend the game to any Resident Evil fan. Play it at night with headphones and enjoy the cheese.

I spent a bunch of time playing Gotham City Impostors with Riddel over on the PlayStation 3. Gotham City Impostors was developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Gotham City Impostors is a downloadable title wherein you play as a wannabe super hero or super villain. Batman and the Joker have seemingly left town so you're out there with the other delusional vigilantes and criminals picking up the slack. The resulting game is a frenetic, yet surprisingly strategic, and chaotic first person shooter. There are numerous body types that offer different advantages and disadvantages. The faster you are the less damage it takes to kill you, for example. Mix in various gadgets and skill sets, such as the ability to run around cloaked or to have the ability to fly, with numerous weapon types and you can start to see the depth of the potential strategy in the game. What's impressive about it is how truly chaotic the game becomes. It's fast, frenetic, and fun. It's a simple concept that's executed rather well.

I played through Alan Wake's American Nightmare for the Xbox 360. Alan Wake's American Nightmare was developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. The game picks up a couple years after the events of Alan Wake. The game is presented as an episode of Night Springs, an episode written by Wake himself. The game is a subtle shift from the survival horror set in the pacific northwest of the original. It's now taking on more of a pulp fiction flavor and is set in Arizona off Route 66. I really enjoyed the story campaign. Although it does suffer a little bit from sort of having to further explain the events of the original game and its download content. Essentially along the lines of for those of you who still don't understand what happened in the original here it is point blank. Beyond that it's still a fun and interesting ride. The game's combat is still as fun as it ever was. If you liked it in Alan Wake you'll like it here. The game looks great. Especially for a download title. The other half of the game features a horde mode. The combat is intense with wave after wave of the taken coming at you. You have to keep killing them without taking damage to raise and maintain your combo meter to score well. The game works wonderfully as both a story campaign and as an arcade game.

I filled the final week before Mass Effect 3 with Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom for the Xbox 360. The game was developed by Game Republic and published by Namco-Bandai Games. Game Republic made Genji and Folklore among other titles. Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is an action game where you befriend a giant creature who is an ancient guardian. You have to work together to save the kingdom. You're able to run and jump and fight using a sword and throw rocks and the like. Pretty much all the action game standards. What's different is that you're able to command the ancient guardian. You'll command him in both combat and puzzle solving. You'll have him attack specific creatures and you'll have him using different types of magic. You'll be doing combination moves and finishers. You'll also command him to stand here or there so you can use him to climb up to higher ledges or have him open doors or otherwise help in solving puzzles. The AI for the most part does what it's told without getting stuck or screwing up. It functions rather well. I really liked the structure of the world. It has a decent amount of puzzles and it's interesting to explore. The boss battles are surprisingly impressive. Each one was rather an epic encounter. Graphically the game isn't all that impressive. The music comes off much better. The voice acting is on the lower end of the scale. Overall the game is solid and fun.

Resident Evil: Revelations -- 8
Gotham City Impostors -- 8
Alan Wake's American Nightmare -- 8.5
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom -- 7.5

Next up... Mass Effect 3, of course.