This contains spoilers from Mass Effect 1 and 2, so if you haven’t already played two of the best games to ever come to any gaming platform, stop reading now!

Let’s face it. Mass Effect is one of the best franchises to ever exist. Not in the form of sales, though is has done very well, but for the fact that BioWare has put their hearts and souls into these games, and no one expects ME3 to be any different. With titles under their belt such as Baldur’s Gate, Dragon Age, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic—which I personally lost several months of my life to—and the upcoming MMO based off the same time period in the Star Wars universe, aptly named The Old Republic, no one can say with a straight face that Mass Effect 3 won’t be just as amazing, if not more so, than each of these.

No game has ever made me feel as deeply as the Mass Effect series. In Mass Effect, you had to choose to leave behind Ashley or Kaidan to detonate a nuclear device to insure that the Krogan cloning facility on Virmire was destroyed, slowing Saren’s efforts to hand the galaxy to the Reapers. I made the assumption that I would be able to save whoever I sent, so I carelessly sent Kaidan to his death in my first playthrough. When I didn’t save him, I felt my stomach twisting. Even though all the characters are fictional, I still became very attached to them, because I always make a point to get to know my teammates in RPGs. Thankfully I didn’t have to kill Wrex when he tried to stop me from destroying the facility, because I don’t think I would have been able to handle that. He is easily one of my favorite characters of all time.

Then came Mass Effect 2. I spent the whole game putting together a team of the deadliest people in the galaxy, ready to take the fight to the Collectors. No one was going to attack human colonies on my watch. I spent the entire game getting to know the characters, and when the Normandy’s crew was abducted, I was ready to get payback. When I attacked the Collector base, I didn’t have the ship upgrades, and I paid for it. I watched Thane, Jack and Legion die, and there was nothing I could do about it. After that, I was actually enraged, and I stomped some Collector heads, and put the human Reaper they were constructing in its grave.  Afterwards, I immediately made a new game so I could save them all.

I haven’t even discussed the amazing combat in ME2, the tough decisions that had to be made in ME1, and the fully explored universe, right down to turian biology and how exactly the asari can reproduce. I didn’t cover the driving force that is the Illusive Man, or how much Grunt made me laugh every time I spoke to him, and how odd Mordin truly was. With all that to back it up, how could Mass Effect 3 do anything but succeed? Its release date even make good business sense. Due in March, it will come out after Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, just when people are getting tired of them again, but long before the hype about the new version of the same shooter has taken its place in the market. I’m not saying Mass Effect 3 will be the best game you ever play, but it will certainly be a top 5 choice for years to come.

2 COMMENTS

  1. And to be honest, I really feel that Romance also plays an important part of how you get to feel for the characters and build the story overal :)

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