Third in the series is sure to have an Effect

It’s rare for a gaming franchise to be one that almost everyone gets excited for. Call of Duty, FIFA and The Elder Scrolls series are names which generate a certain amount of buzz at various places which you’d least expect it and I am getting this feel that Mass Effect is next in line waiting patiently for its time to come around for people to start spreading its name like a smooth pate on toast.

This is both a good and bad thing for the game. People over Twitter are replaying the previous games to refresh their memories on their custom-made Commander Sheperd and altering their past storylines to influence the future. That’s a feature which more games need to take hold of and run with, it’s what makes videogaming unique in that my story could end up being a completely different direction after losing certain key members of my squad from the previous installments in the series.

It’s also becoming a series which is ripe for exploitation of the consumer with downloadable content only being available to you through certain, obscure means. Locking a crucial character behind a paid transaction is almost criminal.

Mass Effect 3 is also trying to reach a brand new type of person to their userbase, which is odd considering it’s the third in the series. There are three game types to play each catering to their own unique audience.

1) Story Mode - The game is focused mainly on giving you the story elements in their original form while making the combat easier to bypass to ensure you’re delivered the next piece of the story.

2) RPG Mode - The traditional Mass Effect experience. Both combat and story elements are remained untouched and treats the player as a regular Mass Effect fan.

3) Action Mode - The combat from the game remains untouched but here the story, the most crucial element, is handheld by the game itself allowing you to sit back and enjoy the story.

While the introduction to these new game types is a welcome idea I can’t help but feel it’s too little too late for this kind of implentation. Mass Effect fans, who have played the two previous games and the DLC are fully aware of how to play the game and people who are yet to play the games will not start from Mass Effect 3 unless they don’t mind missing out on over 50 hours of important story beats from Mass Effect 1 and 2.

Either way you play, this game is set to be Game of the Year material and the inclusion of Survival Mode Co-Op has turned out better than expected judging by the demo. It’s out very soon, March 9, so keep it fresh and exciting for when The Reapers come down and attack Planet Earth for real.