Mass Effect 3 is
dragging on pleasantly enough. This
isn’t a failure of the game – I’m loathe to complain about more of a
game I enjoy – so much as it stands as testament to ME3’s rich, addictive multiplayer.
It takes the shape of many “last stand” style games, a genre which
should, by rights, have been explored to death by this point with such inventions
as Space Marine’s Exterminatus, Gears of War Horde mode and Halo’s Firefight mode. But, by merit of some mysterious mechanic
contained within the Ur Code of the “sustained arena battle/shooter” subtype,
the core gameplay behind ME3 remains
fresh, fun and rewarding over sustained periods of manic play.
I don’t just mean “manic” in terms of the focus ME3 inspires. It certain scratches that addictive
itch. The credit reward system is a
dandy little construction, and the varied systems of progression are crafted in
a way that… Well, I’ll get to that in a
second. But no, when I say manic, I mean
“manic” in terms of its frenzied, unforgiving gameplay.
Those polished mechanics I celebrated last week are on full
display as you and three other dickheads leap around a map hoping to not die
horribly from wave after wave of nasties.
Stepping away from the keyboard for even a second can spell death. I’ve died instantly upon loading into games,
died after going to do something else after respawning, and died because I was
texting while playing. Only two of these
are things that you might call “failings” on the games part, but they’re all
noteworthy markers of a challenging, unforgiving style of play that demands
constant attention and focus.
The stakes go up and down, depending on the difficulty
players select. At Bronze, the maps are
forgiving. You’ll usually only die if
you do something extremely stupid, or if you get extremely unlucky. It’s a nice, easy showcase of game mechanics,
and a group of four players should have no trouble taking care of
business. Hell, one player can likely
deal with a Bronze map alone. But the
moment you crank up the difficulty, things get more complicated. Silver is a challenge, tough but fair. Unforgiving, sure, but that’s what you signed
up for. The game’s frenetic pace pushes
players to the limit. Gold is absolutely
punishing: if you aren’t playing a maxed out class or you don’t know the
mechanics of the game thoroughly, Gold will be an impenetrable milieu of
bullshit that you will abso fucking lutely not be able to enjoy, but given
time, and an appropriately specced character, Gold can be a rewarding and fun
edge of your seat experience. Platinum is
designed for people who play this game and only this game, who don’t
particularly like themselves or others, and who have learned a set of bugs and
map design flaws that allow them to fire on enemies through walls and around
corners.
Driving all this play is a vibrant economy that functions a
little bit like a CCG. Players accrue
credits, which they spend on “packs,” which are essentially card boosters. Through these packs, you unlock gear,
characters and equipment (the limited use powerups of Mass Effect 3). That means
there’s a lot of grind that might not necessarily reward players for their
time, but the rush of opening a pack is there.
Bioware nailed the feeling of leafing through cards and picking gold out
from dross. And boy howdy, will there
ever be a lot of dross. At this point, I’ve
been working on accumulating as many weapons as I can, but all the same I’ve
found a plentitude of useless powerups (I can’t imagine anyone needing that
many thermal clip powerups given how well stocked ammo is on maps) and
experience boosts to existing characters (the game’s way of handling duplicate
cards, which effectively disincentivizes playing classes to level them up in
favor of kicking players into a mostly idiot proof system.
The end result is a game that reminds me a lot of DotA.
I sink shitloads of time into it, I make tiny bits of progress that are,
in the end, largely immeasurable, and I can’t really do anything else while I’m
playing. If I try to multitask even a
little, shit goes tits.
Oh, and the player base is quite DotA-esque. Maybe MWO has
spoiled me, with its polite, kind players who celebrate the return of their
favored game. Or maybe Mass Effect 3 just has a penchant for
drawing assholes. I’ve had players swear
at me for being new in high level games, run in front of my fire so they could
steal my kills, and generally just play antisocially. It’s not a pleasant community to interact
with, despite the cooperative nature of the game and occasional polite,
communicative player. I’m okay not
talking to most of ME3’s players.
There are other problems.
The user interfaces were clearly designed for console audiences, which
means they’re uniformly poor. They’re
simultaneously oversimplified and sloppy and limit customization aggressively. Navigating the map menus isn’t easy, and the
map selection criteria, which could be better served with check boxes, is
dumbed down so that you can only select one criteria for each category at a
time. Want to fight anyone but Reapers,
but not choose an enemy to face down?
Tough shit, you can’t only select a specific foe, or all-random. Want to play any map except for the ones with
environmental hazards? Again, single
point selection or totally random. Wop
wah. These two aren’t too bad, but the
game difficulty selection desperately needs to be tiered. At this point, I can comfortably play any
game under Platinum difficulty, but I don’t like to self-select a specific difficulty
because I find that the game selection is a little wonky, and that I sometimes
find myself bugging out under certain circumstances. Being able to say “Gold or easier” instead of
just “Silver” would make a huge difference.
And bugs. Oh god,
bugs. I’ve had game breaking bugs
interrupt play around a dozen times in two days of play. Lag is a serious issue, optimization is
lackluster at best, and, in a game where time is invested so seriously,
dropping from a game to spite a bug or to let your team have a fully
functioning player is punished by total denial of rewards. It’s clear that Bioware strength is not in
developing for multiple platforms simultaneously.
Of course, it’s still fun.
But it’s a kind of fun that feels a lot like work. Which, I suppose, could be said of Mass Effect in general sometimes.
Ah well.
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