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Showing posts from March, 2012

Finally: Mass Effect 3 Review!

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Finally, enough time has passed for me to cool down and evaluate Mass Effect 3 with a clear head. It is no secret that the game has come under considerable fire lately, specifically over its ending. You can see that I have already written a few posts here that demonstrate both the best and worst of ME3. Mass Effect originally started out as a sci-fi action/RPG based on classic sci-fi films of the 70s and 80s. It was to take your hero, Commander Shepard across a trilogy of adventures, allowing you to make hard choices, the results of which would culminate in its third act. A lot of hype was built up around Mass Effect 3, as it carried the weight of not just one, but three games on its shoulders. Mass Effect 3 really is a great game, a great game that suffers from monumental problems. Problems that I never would have expected coming from Bioware, of all studios. In fact, I think Mass Effect 3 may very well have become a vessel of Bioware ineptitudes in many ways. It is also an

Defending Mass Effect 3

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Only days after writing an open letter to Bioware about how disappointed I was with the ending of Mass Effect 3, here I am writing up a defense letter. Am I consistent or what? The truth is, I feel really bad for Bioware right now. Sure ME3's ending was confusing, anticlimactic , and flat out disappointing. When the two most popular interpretations for the endings are either a) a dream that does not exist in reality and therefore never happened, or b) completely illogical nonsense that makes no sense to anyone, there is a serious problem. However, the ending is not the only part of the game. Mass Effect 3 is a great adventure nearly all the way through. I really enjoyed playing it. The reason I decided to write this defense letter was because I saw a Twitter post from Jessica Merizan, community manager at Bioware. On her tweet, she asked what the fans' favorite mission in ME3 was. I wanted to respond her because I have a pretty great story behind why my favorite mis

A Letter to Bioware

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Dear Bioware, I just wanted to step in and voice my concerns for Mass Effect 3. I feel it is necessary that I give my opinions because I think that with all that has happened over the last few days, it would be good for you guys to hear from a clear head. There seem to be a lot of angry fans out there, and while I am not angry, I am disappointed. First of all, I would like to begin by saying that Mass Effect 3 was immensely enjoyable. It was brutally intense and the story was better written than I could have ever hoped. I also really appreciated the more emotional side to the story. I felt that ME2 was a bit emotionally shallow in comparison to ME1, but for ME3 I am not afraid to admit that I cried more than a few times. That being said, the ending really was a kick in the head. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what was going on. It seemed like Shepard was being indoctrinated. If that is the case, I applaud the ending, at least to some degree. It was cool how you designe