So we’ve reached an impasse.
I’ve absolutely loved playing Mass Effect 3 let me say that right now, they’ve done another fine job with the storyline. Heavy hitting choices, grand scope, funny buddy interactions, and all fantastic stuff, kept me hooked all the way.
New characters are well fleshed out and seeing what’s happened in the characters lives from ME2 in some ways surprising, some ways bitter sweet, I’ll let you play the game and you decide but overall really happy with what they’ve done there.
Combat is improved since ME2 & I’ve been won over by the melee weapon idea which I was pretty sceptical about during the run up to the game release. I used to be the long range fighter with the occasional close quarters only when needed.
I actually found myself getting my squad to provide covering fire whilst I used Tactical Cloak + Shotgun to get in close with sprint, hit them with the shotgun to drop their shields and finish them with the heavy melee attack against three or four enemies.
For those who know how I tend to play FPS games this is a fairly major attitude shift, but serious amounts of fun & an adrenaline rush as you’re in close quarter combat with multiple enemies whilst your squad mates shoot around you.
The missions structure is pretty good overall, with a bit of practice I found the Cerberus heavies easier to take down, as long as I planned where to hit and who to put where. I even got to the stage with the sniper rifle where I was getting on with the ‘postal slot’ achievement, which is where you shoot a Cerberus Guardian, who attacks with a heavy shield, through their line of sight slot.
Even though I’ve not been able to dedicate long sessions to the game it’s been structured in such a way that I’ve been able to get close to end game with completion of a lot of the side quests and a fairly hefty War Fleet.
This is where we come to the impasse.
Without ruining what the potential multiple endings are there is a widely discussed & even publicised on the BBC website issue with how the ending is structured. How the game pans out is basically worked out on a percentage scale of your overall readiness, which is worked out using multiple factors, not like before based on in mission achievement, more of a long road way.
However, to get the ‘best’ ending, which is always what I strive for after all, you either have to ‘Gem Hunt’ the galaxy for War Fleet assets in single player, or play Multiplayer which increases your readiness. So it pretty much boils down to how many points you have in the ‘bank’.
If you do the hunt, you’re pretty much wandering the galaxy scanning planets till you get what you need, yawn! However because your readiness can’t go above 50% without playing multiplayer it’s your only choice in single player.
If you instead do multiplayer to increase the percentage readiness, all fine, but there’s a kick in the tail, as soon as you sign up to play multiplayer there is a ticker in the background that drops your readiness by 1% every x hours, 6 hours from what I remember.
Given my status as a parent with a toddler and a bay on the way I really can’t see playing multiplayer enough to get away from the minus ticker.
So do I a) do the galaxy hunt which will be boring and tedious, but will mean no minus so can be done over time
Or
b) Start multiplayer at a time I’m certain I can do it in a night and do the final mission as soon as I’ve got the points needed, how likely is that do we think given I have problems doing a N4SW race J
Either way it’s going to leave a little bit of a bitter taste in my mouth in which was otherwise a fantastic game experience, I tend to treat my games these days like a book and it’s feeling like a great book with a crappy ending at the moment, I’m sure when I finally see the end game I’ll love it, here’s hoping!
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