BioWare Disappoints RPGers Yet Again

OPINION

Having played through Mass Effect 3, our very own RPG fanatic, Marcus "Captain Patch" Mulkins, isn't happy with many things. Not happy at all.

March 21st, 2012 by Marcus Mulkins

5. The basic premise of Mass Effect 3 is, simply put, stupid. That premise boils down to, "Go get help, then come back here and defeat the Reapers." First, consider just what is happening on Earth from the first minutes of the game: A massive onslaught of WTC-sized Reapers breezes past the entire Alliance Fleet like a sledgehammer through tissue paper. Then, before any of that news arrives on Earth � sent via a vast array of modern 22nd-century telecommunication devices � the very first awareness that "they're here" is when those same Reapers travel from the mass effect relay somewhere outside of the orbit of Pluto and are physically dropping down on all of Earth's major cities.

Their arrival is such a surprise that half of London is in flames before the military in Vancouver even notice the arrival. And then two minutes later, even Vancouver gets swamped. Thereafter Shepard has to make numerous stops, fight numerous battles and spend a LOT of time flitting around, pulling everybody else's bacon out of the fire. Every minute that Shepard is flitting about, each Reaper on Earth is playing Crush, Crumble, and Chomp, taking out city blocks at the rate of about one block per minute. There are supposedly thousands of those Reapers stomping about. Just what is likely to be left on Earth to save after several months of stomping while Shepard flits?

6. For some insane reason, Cerberus � which had been diligently trying to clean up its rep in Mass Effect 2 -- has reverted to The Epitome Of Evil Incarnate. It's like if you took Al-Qaeda and put it on steroids, then multiplied that by 100 or 1000, you would get the new-and-improved Cerberus. With an infinite budget. Oh and nearly perfect military intelligence on pretty much everything that's going on. There's an explanation given to account for just why there are so many of them and why nearly 100% of them seem to be fight-to-the-death fanatics, but in practice, it seems more like pure magic than any kind of reasonable explanation. Deus ex machina in its purest form: "They are this way because we said so! End of explanation."

7. THE END. It's like sitting all the way through a Beethoven symphony, but when you get to the end, the conductor wraps it up with "Shave & a Haircut, Two Bits". Even for those people that like the game, I would guess that nearly all of them will be left scratching their heads and asking, "What just happened?" I get the impression that the developers couldn't think of a logical conclusion, so they decided to baffle us with metaphysical BS and left it at that.

Those are the several points that immediately come to mind. Rest assured that there are many, many other things I dislike about this $60 expenditure. As I said at the beginning, I have no doubt that the majority of players think this game is "GREAT!" But then, I am also certain that if BioWare had extracted ALL of the story and plot elements and left nothing but the combat missions (which accounts for about 90% of the game), they would still think the game is "GREAT!" and worth every penny of the purchase price. More power to them, and I'm glad somebody is having a good time with it.

As for me, I think this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I've had a long history of enjoying pretty much everything that BioWare produced. But now it has finally sunk in that BioWare has sold its soul to the Devil (EA, in this case). Now, when I see "BioWare", my mind screams, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"