Mass Effect 3 Review (10/10)

One of the best games of the year by far, with just one tiny niggle (and you already know what I'm going to say)...
So, it's time. Has BioWare's final sci-fi epic shooter Mass Effect 3 lived up to the wait? Sufficed to say that fans who have been waiting since 2007 to see what consequences their actions towards the Rachni Queen, the Council, Wrex, Cerberus and countless other elements of this timeless franchise would have are going to be hugely satisfied with the various resolutions and the way in which their choices make a difference in the game's storyline. From cameos to all-out setpieces, there are dozens upon dozens of ramifications of every action you have taken in the past sixty hours invested in the first two instalments. Surprisingly enough, though, BioWare have managed to ensure that they didn't get too bogged down in fan-pleasing continuity implications to provide a killer standalone narrative, this time riffing on Star Wars, Alien, Dead Space and ever so many other science-fiction classics while throwing in a good handful of their own innovations along the way. Gameplay wise, the series has never been tighter either, with the battles now more intense, challenging and focused than ever and above all providing the final hardships Shepherd deserved to face in the famed Reaper war against the galaxy. Yep, in terms of both the plot and the RPG shooter mechanics, there really is so little to fault here that at times you'd be inclined to think that ME3 damn near borders on perfection. You'd be right, too: frequently, I found myself so immersed in the world (make that universe) that BioWare had created and refined to its fullest that any tiny shortcomings that might have emerged in my playthrough seemed almost irrelevant. The multiplayer online segment is much better than expected as well, contributing heavily to your 'Galactic Readiness' in the main campaign if you want it to and thus then having a useful impact on the game's ending. Thankfully even Kinect has been implemented well, pretty much revolutionising the team strategy gameplay on Xbox 360 using its voice commands in a way that could really evolve and develop in the future if the peripheral continues to be used. However, Mass Effect games have often had one little flaw that has held them back from attaining pure gaming perfection- in the original (9/10), it was the rubbish boss battles, in ME2 (10/10) it was the over-stretched secondary loyalty mission campaign, and now we've got a problem that for some will threaten to derail players' enjoyment of the game at its very last moments. That my friends, is the ending. Oh, I could go on about the ludricity of the sparse sci-fi element it introduces out of nowhere, the lack of effect your choices have on the three fairly similar resolutions and indeed the sheer shock of realising that much of your aims for the trilogy's overall story arc have come to nought, but you're going to see that all for yourselves, and get your own perception on it. I simply cannot deduct points from Mass Effect 3 on the basis of its concluding ten minutes simply because the preceding twenty-four hours are just so damn fantastic, with so many highlight moments that really do feel like they live up to your expectations that the pretty depressing denouement can just about be overlooked. This does mean that ME3's 10 has very different restraints than its predecessor, whose only problem lay in pacing rather than in storyline flaws, but nevertheless Mass Effect 3 warrants full marks, and will go down as one of the most unforgettable experiences of 2012 and indeed this gaming generation in my books despite its end. It's just a tiny shame that its placement as a contender for Game of the Year is a little less concrete than many of us (myself included) had hoped.