Seemingly out of nowhere, BioWare officially announced the upcoming release of the Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut DLC which will be available for download on June 26th (this coming Tuesday). This is the much-anticipated updated ending to ME3 announced in April after fans complained about the lack of closure and plot holes contained in the ending of Mass Effect 3 that shipped with on the game disc.
After the jump, we have all of the official details from BioWare and our analysis. Continue reading
A Reddit user named derptemp6698 was the first one to break news about the Rebellion DLC. His original Reddit post was almost three weeks before the accidental posting by Sony Hong Kong. Now he’s back with details of a new multiplayer DLC pack and an official looking description of the Extended Cut DLC. Continue reading
Last Friday, I posted my spoiler-free review of Mass Effect 3. By going spoiler-free, I didn’t discuss many of the more controversial moments of ME3 as that would involve spoiling most of the game to give any sort of context. While many gamer complaints about the game are written-off by larger gaming media outlets as “gamer entitlement” or gamers looking for a “happy ending,” many gamers have valid complaints about what was promised by BioWare and what they actually shipped in March.
After the jump, I take a look at some of the controversial moments in ME3 ahead of today’s EA press conference at E3. Continue reading
A couple of months behind the rest of the world, I finally managed to finish playing Mass Effect 3. Being late to the party meant that I got to hear all the controversy over the ending and first day DLC. BioWare had a near impossible effort to make everyone happy with the concluding part to such a great trilogy. Were they able to pull it off or were the public right that EA is the worst company in America? Continue reading
My hard drive failure forced reprogression through the Mass Effect trilogy brings me to Mass Effect 2. After the launch of Mass Effect, BioWare was bought by EA, who were recently named the worst company in America. The apparent influence of BioWare’s new corporate parent is readily apparent in changes made between Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 (though we may never get the true story as to how much EA influenced the design of the game and how much of the changes were BioWare’s own choice). While Mass Effect could be described as an Action RPG, Mass Effect 2 edged toward Shooter RPG as many of the RPG elements from the first game underwent a complete overhaul.
Today, I review the second part of the Mass Effect trilogy with three year’s worth of hindsight and the accompanying DLCs. Continue reading
Let me set the scene for you: It’s the last Friday of January. My 2010 HP Pavilion laptop is my third consecutive laptop which starts to experience major issues. It still ran but it was slower than my nearly 30-year-old Macintosh SE. I tried starting it up when I get home from work but it’s dead. It won’t go past the splash screen. The hard drive has seized up and won’t go any more. Apart from some photos and some old radio show clips, I’ve lost nearly everything from the last two years of my life.
Why do I bring that up at the start of a Mass Effect review? I’m one of the many who played the Mass Effect series on PC. My three Shepards and two games worth of story were lost. When I got my computer back two weeks later (with a new hard drive), it was back to Eden Prime to stop the Reapers. And since I had to do everything over from scratch, I thought it would be fun to re-review Mass Effect some four years after coming out for PC (five years after XBox 360) to see how hindsight affects how we perceive the game and how it influenced games since. Continue reading
This weekend at Spike TV’s Video Game Awards, we were treated to the first proper trailer for Mass Effect 3. The first two editions of the Mass Effect franchise have been critically acclaimed, award-winning games so the expectations are massive for the (supposedly) final installment in Commander Sheppard’s battle against the Reapers. Let’s piece together all the clues that have been dropped or accidentally leaked so far. Continue reading
The Lowdown 