Mass Effect 3 or Why Multiplayer Obsession is Ruining Video Games

Fuck that guy.

For the past month or so I have been blasting my way through the Mass Effect games; a steam sale during this past summer let me pick up the first two for very cheap, as well as the 3rd game later. The franchise, or at least the first two, were pretty fantastic although if I'm being honest, I could tell it was going downhill right from the second game. Really? No choice to refuse to work for Cerberus? Didn't I just spend like 6 side missions in ME1 killing off their scientists? Cause I'm pretty sure I did.

But even with that all said, Mass Effect 2 still felt... complete. The consequences were real, the feeling was intense, and you always knew everything was on the line at all times. Apparently, during the suicide mission at the end, you can have everyone on your squad up to and including Shepard die. Of course, if you do all the side missions in the game this doesn't happen, and since I'm the type of person to always do that... yeah, I made it through just fine.

The worst part? I actually enjoyed Arrival

Then we get to Mass Effect 3. The game which, right off the bat, starts off on a bad foot by having Shepard start as having been grounded for actions she took in Mass Effect 2... but only during the DLC. Only if you paid an additional ten bucks for the half our of gameplay provided by "Arrival" do you get to understand why the hell everyone is suddenly accusing Shepard of "killing 300,000 Batarians". So right away, you get that fun bit to deal with.



That's all fine, though, because the action starts _immediately_. A meeting with the defense council for Earth ends sourly as the Reapers, the enemy we've been warned about since early in Mass Effect 1, finally arrive at Earth. The forces are overrun easily, and it becomes apparent that no matter whether or not you win this war, MANY people are going to die here. As Shepard is sent from Earth in the Normandy to seek out assistance from the galaxy's many other inhabitants, she (as my Shepard was, in fact, female; the female voice actor was just SO much better) spots a child she tried to help early evacuate in a shuttle which is then, promptly, shot down - there are no survivors. This fact haunts her dreams throughout the game, which frankly are done in a pretty hammy fashion but I get the idea.

Sassiest Bird in the Milky Way

I wasn't a fan of the exodus from Earth sequence, but from there I felt the plot got much better. Cerberus immediately lets itself be known as it strikes at various colonies in order to recruit for their own studies on the Reapers (whom they intend to control), and the other species, while wishing to help, find themselves unable to do so as their homeworlds are also put under heavy attack by the Reapers. And so you must go, recruiting Garrus Vakarian for a third time (romancing anyone but him as female Shepard seemed rude, considering his dedication to your cause; likewise, male shep will definitely have to go with Tali if I ever play these games through again). and then finding your own squad throughout the game. It also handles all your previous squadmates from ME2, some joining the war effort (Jack, for example, now works as a professor in the biotics school, her tough as nails style making her a very effective teacher) and others, unfortunately, meeting their ends in various ways.

Shepard faces... IN SPACE!!

The scenes are powerful, and the deaths moreso, but the glitches... the glitches start getting out of control. At one point Garrus came to my Shepard and made his move to rekindle their past relationship; it was a touching scene, except anytime the camera shifted to Garrus, some weird visual glitch kept kicking in that made his movements have after images and Shepard's face was imprinted like it was burned into the screen in the skyline behind him.

Then there would be other scenes where Shepard would be making one gesture, but the next scene assumed I had chosen a different response (and thus a different gesture) and so she'd suddenly snap around. For example, in one scene a guy holds a gun to your character's back and threatens to kill her. Choosing the Renegade response, I had Shepard call his bluff and turn around on him... but then the game assumed I didn't choose that, so when he left, she had his back to him again like she had never turned. Just stupid crap like that.

But, and this is just a fact, this is all very typical of BioWare. They have a longstanding history of great plot or details, with very untested technical issues - I was okay with it. My problems came in two other ways:

"Alliance command, this is Master Chief. I think I'm in the wrong game"

1) The dialogue choices. In Mass Effect 1, Shepard never spoke unless you had made a choice; then someone would respond, and you'd be given a bunch of choices to choose from again. Similairly, Mass Effect 2's Shepard I think spoke once or twice without a prompt, but otherwise nothing.

And then in Mass Effect 3, you get like 5 dialogue choices a mission. Maybe. Otherwise, your character responds automatically (presumably using queues from your past responses to determine the harshness of them). And it just isn't the same. Instead of it being Mass Effect, with my character's responses tailored to how I want her to respond, I feel more like I'm playing Square Enix Presents: Halo. It's very frustrating.

2) And  this is where the alternate title comes in - they actually had the nerve to tie multiplayer into getting the "good" ending of Mass Effect 3. Thankfully they nerfed this later, but for the longest time without playing any online games you were unlikely to get the final ending. Your "war readiness" would remain at 50% and you'd need double the required "war assets" to get that ending. Which leads me to my final point...

Why the hell do we always need multiplayer? This isn't the first time multiplayer has ruined an otherwise good game, either. The earliest example would be Halo 2 - while this game did, admittedly, revolutionalize FPS multiplayer (as did the first one), it's a known fact that the plot suffered greatly because Bungie spent all their time working on the multiplayer engine. Call of Duty, games which used to be a pretty decent series that spent a lot of time on their single player campaigns, ended up degrading into ridiculousness all for the sake of their stupid multiplayer "experience". And let's not forget Spec Ops: The Line, the game with a great antiwar message that completely cancelled itself out by outsourcing a multiplayer engine to another company, fearing that the game wouldn't sell if it didn't have multiplayer.

And so that's my problem here. Mass Effect 1 and 2? Great games. Mass Effect 3? Fine, but definitely not even HALF as polished. And really, I blame multiplayer. We need to stop trying to force multiplayer in all games - some thrive on it, sure, but we don't ALWAYS need to play with each other. I'm so tired of games demanding I do a mission in "co op" when I'm like yeah or I could just do this normally like I would have if the game came out 10 years ago. It's insane.

But even with this all said, I didn't feel the same intense loathing when I finished this game that everyone else did. Granted, I played ME3 after the extended cut came out so I had the benefit of playing the ending through in a "better" light, but it still wasn't great. It did, however, provide some closure... And while I think the game could have been better, I also know how much worse it could have been.

That said, let's not even talk about the Mass Effect movie due to come out soon. Let's just... let's pretend that's not a real thing.

"Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons" or "Spider? I hardly know 'er"

It is worth noting, right off the bat, that the nature of this game makes it impossible to write a proper review without spoilers. So, for the sake of those reading who just want my take on it without having the whole game spoiled, I will say right now that I give this a 7.5/10. The nonspoiler breakdown is:

Replayability: This isn't the type of game you replay, unless you missed trophies along the way. It's extremely linear. There's nothing wrong with that, though, it's just how it chooses to handle itself.

Graphics/sound: I refuse to make those two separate sections like many reviewers do, for the simple reason that they
both can be used for the same thing: ambiance. And, in this case, it's fantastic.

Controls: See, many people gave this game downvotes (and thus not a perfect 10) purely because of how this game treats its controls. That is, you play as two brothers, and so you control one with the left stick and the other with the right. It gets confusing at times (unless you're hella ambidextrous), but honestly I liked it. Gaming companies should never be afraid to try new shit rather than just the same controls over and over and over.

Plot: It's a short game, but it's powerful. I wasn't a fan of some of it, which I'll get into below, but that's about it.

Altogether, I give this game a 7.5/10. I'd go higher but there was a bit that bugged me and it hit it hard, in my mind. So from here on out, though, you can expect spoilers. Do not read below this line if you intend on playing this game, which I highly recommend you do.

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Pictured: Nyaa (Left), Naiee (Right)

The game begins with you learning of a tragic event in the past of this family, where the mother apparently drowned and the younger of the two brothers was unable to save her, The boys' father, however, is still alive but oh no! He's sick! And so, as a tutorial to the game, you must push your father (who's lying in a wheel barrow) with the two characters, learn how to navigate the various puzzles to get past things, and get to the local Miracle Ma-- I mean healer. Sure enough, the healer gives you a picture of the item you need and so begins the quest of these two brothers.

The softer side of ogres you don't usually see in games

Throughout the quest, you travel across a gorgeous landscape filled with traps, strange creatures, and odd realities. The conclusion one can reach, as you play this game, is that the name of the game is personal growth. Things start relatively innocently, with you first running through a town and dodging a dog chasing your brother and you as you jump from hay barrel to hay barrel, moving on to you using mischief and trickery to handle a few evil ogres and reunite two good ones as they help direct you on your quest.

Easily one of the most beautiful parts of the game

Later, you meet an inventor who lets you use his flying machine in exchange for helping him get back to his home. With this device, you are able to fly a great distance until the device becomes damaged and you land at a strange, giant-sized gatehouse (equipped with a giant bed, table, etc. in the main building). Inside, you find a cage containing an obviously injured hippogryph... and it's from here on that things get darker.


Quickly, the game forces Naiee to learn that the world isn't all fun and games as, after the hippogryph gives you a ride to your next location, it falls dead from exhaustion. From here, you travel down a large cliff into

Crossing over the literal river of blood

what seems to be the remnants of a (fairly recent) war of giants. Literally massive creatures fill this area as you have to "solve" such puzzles as pushing the arrow in one giant's arm to make his arm, which is clutching his battleaxe fall and cut off his foot so you can pass. You walk through this gore more than once as the river switches from blue, to blue with some red, to just a pure river of blood by the end of this trek. Until, finally, you meet the character my review is named for.

The blood ritual's sacrifice

Your characters run into a blood ritual below, with many spear weilding men chanting and offering a young girl (about the age of Nyaa) seemingly as sacrifice. You rescue her, for obvious reasons, deciding to side with the girl over the crazies with a blood ritual. Right off the bat, however, Naiee thinks something is up... but he follows his older brother as they travel with the girl right into her home. Or perhaps, I should say... her lair. It is here the girl changes into her true form: a spider and attempts to eat the brothers. Through a short boss fight you defeat her by ripping off each of her legs, until in her dying breath she delivers a talon strike right into the heart of Nyaa.

The fatal blow

It is from here that I disagree with the plot line. For you see, as you might guess, Nyaa dies from this blow. Dies. As Naiee, you manage to get the potion needed for your father and, through his own strength, surpass all the puzzles you previously needed his older brother for. He finds the strength to swim on his own, to jump a huge cliff without needing a boost up, and bursts into the healer's home before passing out on the ground. The game then ends with Naiee and his father standing over the grave of the older brother and the mother, with the father looking back at the younger brother and then immediately breaking down into tears. Cue credits.

This is my problem with the game. I understand wanting to post a message of growth, to show Naiee that life isn't easy, but a near death experience would've accomplished the same thing. And on top of that, he's already lost his mom - I'm pretty sure he knows full well death is real. To this end, I feel that the death of his older brother is a weak tearjerker ploy, serves no purpose except to gain emotion from the player. And don't get me wrong - it worked. I cried like a little girl, especially during the part where you have to play as Naiee and use the controls to physically pull his brother into his grave, and bury him yourself. It's very well done in that respect, I just don't feel like it needed to happen. 

So that's where my review pulls short. As you can tell from the way I wrote this, I find everything leading up to the ending to be all but perfect. I played through Ico and I fully enjoyed it myself, and this is very similar. It's a beautiful, touching game and the death that I don't agree with is still handled quite well.

So I stand by my 7.5/10. Should I perhaps give it higher? Maybe. But I'm harsh when it comes to plots blowing their own story for the sake of cheap points (be them laughs, cries or easy plot twists), and so this one took 2.5 right out of their score.

But then, that's just my opinion. 

- Tim

"Remember Me" may not be worth remembering...

Note: Spoilers for the first mission of the game.

So today I started the game "Remember Me". In most ways it's nothing particularly special, but there is one thing about it that grabs my attention. See, the plot is that a company called "Sensen" is essentially running a good chunk of the world with their product that allows you to store your memories, wipe your memories, and share your memories. Tyranny and all that becomes the name of the day, blah de blah blah... We've all seen this plot before in many, MANY games over the past few years 

Nilin, the protagonist.

Where it gets interesting is with your character, Nilin, and her ability to remix memories. (Side note: Nilin is both female AND biracial, so kudos to them for that. And yes, it totally does suck that I still have to say "kudos" just because a main character is black/not white, but such is the age we live in).

The first time you come across this is when a bounty hunter (Olga) shows up to bring you back to jail for crimes against the regime or whatever, and before she can kill Nilin your character grabs her with her special "remixing glove". This launches you into the memories of that character where you see her watching helplessly as her very sick husband (who was also an asshole, so you don't feel too bad for her or him) under goes surgery. Or, what surgery is for that time. Apparently the best way to fix whatever illness he has is by mixing his memory with his wife's (Olga) and the "positive memories" will have a great influence on her. You know, the usual pseudo science nonsense you see in this kind of game.

ANYway, ultimately you find out it's a very costly procedure but Olga can pay for it by killing your character and collecting the bounty. It's at this point, as Olga is leaving to find you, the video "pauses" and lets you rewind the memory until you find certain "memory glitches". Ultimately, your goal is to make her memory be such that she remembers her husband dying on the operating table, killed by the doctor, so that she not only has no reason to kill you but instead wants to help you out.

It's this that's the one cool thing in the game. You remove or move certain things in the memory (in this case, you change which medicine the character receives, remove his anesthesia mask, etc.) and completely alter how they (the victim of your "remixing") remember things happening. It's both plot relevant and an interesting little mini game that you can do. The coolest part is that, of course, you have to rewind/fast forward the video clip slowly and you can edit it, and certain things change even if it doesn't go the way you want to (You can, for example, make them kill Olga... but obviously that doesn't work, since Olga can't "remember her own death" so you have to try again).

Where the game fails, however, is in the OTHER parts of the game; specifically, its linearity and hand holding. I'll get to the latter in a moment, but the game incorporates parkour and has a beautiful world design... but insists on being only one way. You can't talk to random people, so far there's been no side quests to like "enter random memories" which would be really cool, pathways are blocked by people and so you can't go down different alleys... nope, just one path to follow. I don't mind linear games necessarily, but it seems like a HUGE waste for something like this.

Those orange arrows constantly guide you on your "difficult" quest

The hand holding, on the other hand, is a much bigger problem for me. I chose hard mode when I started this game, as in the highest difficulty, to ensure I only had to play it once (I knew how linear it would be going into this), and yet CONSTANTLY the game is holding my hand. Arrows point in the direction of where to go at all times, the game slows down when a big attack is coming in to make sure you can dodge it (as well as giving a huge ! over the head of the enemy at the time of the attack), and of course if you accidentally run off the platform when doing a jump don't worry! Your character will magically spin around and grab the edge of the ledge. We wouldn't want you dying, after all!

But still, this is a game that was created by a first time Dev company, which you can tell is a small one because they (Dontnod Entertainment) don't even have their own wikipedia page yet. Because of this, I will always give them a bit more leeway than I would if this was a Triple A game or, really, anything made by one of the big ones. Since this game was published by Capcom as well, it's entirely possible (nay, likely) the handholding was something the publishers forced them to put in in order to attract the casual market.

So all in all, I give this a 6.5/10. It gets points for graphics and for using a new plotline (referring to the memory control thing - obviously, evil corporation vs good rebels is NOT new. At all.) and occasional game device, but loses it for having the same parkour stuff every game has these days, as well as its linearity and hand holding. Plus, honestly, the plot is nothing to write home about.

But a score of 6.5/10 doesn't mean they failed. No, this company still has a lot of potential, as evidenced by their risk taking in terms of protagonists and trying new things. I look forward to their next title!