The Mass Effect series in my opinion is one of the best things to come out of the current generation of gaming. The series premiered on the Xbox 360, migrated to the PC and then eventually ended up on the PS3 as well. Developer Bioware made a name for itself many years ago with games like Balder's Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, so it was a no-brainer that Mass Effect was going to be an amazing title. The game has spawned two sequels creating one of the best trilogies in gaming history (again, in my opinion). The third chapter of the Mass Effect series may not be quite a strong as the previous iteration, but the game still continues the tight shooter mechanics, amazing world, and great story that made the series so special to begin with.
There isn't a whole lot to say about Mass Effect 3 that hasn't been said about the last game. The same core gameplay is intact with some minor tweaks. Traveling the universe, recruiting characters of multiple species to join your cause, using dialog trees to converse and make decisions along the journey, and leveling up class specific powers to defeat the reaper threat is still the name of the game here. Simply continuing the strong story with a strong cast of characters, taking the player to new and amazing locals and carrying over all of the previous decisions made by the player throughout the series are all more than enough to make this game one of the best of the year. All of that being said, the game isn't without it's flaws.
A lot of controversy surrounded this title in 2012; however not all of it was justified in my opinion. Some gamers cried out that making one of the most crucial characters in the story downloadable content (included with new copies) and screwing over people who bought used copies unless a premium was paid is a bad move on EA's part. I personally played through the entire game before I decided to finally download the extra character and mission and I honestly feel like I should have had this character in my party throughout the whole game, making me feel like I missed out on a lot of story. The other big commotion was over the game's ending, which basically failed to take into effect any of the decisions made by the player throughout three entire games by giving each player the exact same canned ending. Also, gamers ranted over the way EA closed the game by not giving players a satisfying ending to such a long story. EA attempted to correct some of these complaints by creating a free downloadable extended ending, but it didn't seem to patch the crippled ending nor please anyone. I personally did not mind the game's ending at all and liked the way the game closed it's final chapter; that being said, I do agree that forging an ending based off the individual decisions made throughout three titles would have been a much better route to go.
One thing that Bioware was able to do was make a believer out of me when it comes to their multiplayer suite. When the multiplayer component was announced, I rolled my eyes thinking it was going to be another tacked-on, uninspired multiplayer package thrown in to create false value out of the title. Usually the assets spent on multiplayer I feel would have been much better suited by creating more memorable and quality single player components (like fixing that ending, heh). Thankfully I was wrong because Mass Effect 3 is also my favorite multiplayer experience of 2012. Instead of shoe-horning some awful competitive multiplayer shooter into the mix, Bioware gave us a very fun enemy wave-based co-op experience similar to Horde mode in Gears of War. The thing that made Mass Effect 3's take on this popular co-op mode is that it still retains character creation, experience and leveling, power and stat building, and multiple classes to master. Thankfully, EA allowed Bioware to hand out a lot of extra multiplayer downloadable content like extra maps and character classes free of charge. Another cool feature found in the multiplayer suite was EA's inclusion of special weekends that challenged gamers to hit a specific milestone online; if the assigned milestone was completed within that weekend, players were given free items and unlockables to any player who participated, which kept players coming back for more.
With all of the complains and controversy surrounding Mass Effect 3, I bet many of you are wondering why the game is so high on my list, or why it even made the list at all. Honestly, flaws and all, the game is still an amazing role playing game with brilliant set pieces, a jaw-dropping universe, some amazing characters, and one of the most memorable stories told in gaming. The gameplay is tighter than ever and the multiplayer was a complete blast to play. Any science fiction fan will fall in love with the Mass Effect universe and any RPG fan who loves to explore deep worlds and explore large amounts of lore made for those worlds will also adore this series. I could care less about how the game itself ended, but the journey as a whole was a memorable experience that ended up being easily my favorite series of games to come out of this generation and one of my favorites of all time. This is why Mass Effect 3 is my 2nd favorite game of 2012.
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