‘Mass Effect 3’: The epic finale

By Trenton Smith Posted February 15, 2012

This past year, many video game juggernauts have gone all out for their various epic finales, each one outdoing the last. And on March 6, another giant comes out of its cave to take their turn. Sure, they are a little late for their finale, but they are going to put on a show like no one else.

In the first “Mass Effect”, Commander Shepard and his ship, the Normandy, are trying to stop the Reapers, a mechanical race attempting to destroy the human race living in the Milky Way. In “Mass Effect 2”, Commander Shepard and the Normandy must stop the Collectors, aliens who are abducting entire human colonies in the attempt to help the Reapers take the Milky Way. In the third and final “Mass Effect” game, Commander Shepard and his Normandy crew prepare for the final battle with the Reapers. Seriously, this is going to be big. If you are like me and love playing the single-player campaign over and over again, you are going to want this game.

As for the multiplayer mode (which is all-new for the “Mass Effect” series), Canadian studio BioWare is trying something completely and utterly different from everyone else in the entire industry. According to Joe Juba, a journalist from Gameinformer magazine, all the time you spend building up your stats and reputation on multiplayer actually has an effect on your single-player campaign. BioWare isn’t telling anyone how this revolutionary connection works, except that your characters in multiplayer become a part of Commander Shepard’s army. This means that they are at your disposal during the single-player campaign and that they are always ready to be deployed across the galaxy for any battle, any time. BioWare has made it clear, however, that you won’t need to play any multiplayer in order to see the best ending in Mass Effect 3. This essentially means that your multiplayer profile doesn’t affect the ending of your single-player campaign.

Saving the galaxy isn’t a one-person job, and BioWare isn’t going to try and make it that way. Along with the new multiplayer mode, the geniuses at BioWare are also adding a co-op campaign to the mix. This campaign has its own story. The single-player campaign is all about Commander Shepard and the Normandy fighting in all the major battles of the war against the Reapers. This new co-op campaign is an attempt to give players a look at the war from new perspectives.

A screen shot from Mass Effect 3. /Courtesy • masseffect.bioware.com
A screenshot from Mass Effect 3. /Courtesy • masseffect.bioware.com

In Mass Effect 3, there will be “racial equality.” Instead of only being a human-like in the other Mass Effects, when you make your Commander Shepard at the beginning of the game, you can create Asari, Turian, Drell, Salarian, or even Krogan characters. BioWare isn’t talking, but each race will have its own different edge over the others. Juba has his own idea of what Krogan’s edge will be. As he put it, “a Krogan who can’t charge recklessly into battle is hardly a Krogan at all.”

According to the VG Chartz figure, the original Mass Effect game sold 2.27 million copies. The VG Chartz figure also says that Mass Effect 2 had 1.96 million copies sold. This means that, according to the figures given by VG Chartz, the Mass Effect series, since it’s launch in 2007, has sold 4.23 million copies total. This is quite an accomplishment for an RPG game already, but they are going to add to that tally, big time. My prediction is that they will sell another two million copies. And you guys can hold me to that.

The final battle against the Reapers takes place March 6. This is going to be one of the best finales to a story that is already considered by many to be an epic. Don’t miss it.

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