McMillan’s Codex 47 by C.T. McMillan

Me, Myself, and Assassin’s Creed

Did you ever like something when you were young then feel embarrassed at an old age? Some look at Star Wars or pop music and realize how stupid they were as a kid. I remember all the Dragon Ball Z I used to watch, and I cringe.

In terms of videogames I lost interest in the Assassin’s Creed (AC) series, but not from growing up.

AC grew up too fast for me to keep up. What was the progenitor of the aggressive stealth genre has become a cavalcade of inconsistent successive content and deliberate narrative retardation. My aversion to the series started after just three games and since abandoning AC, nothing has changed.

The basic conceit of the series is what drew me in. The first Assassin’s Creed takes place in present day, but you play in a virtual simulation of Altair, an Assassin during the Crusades. You travel across the Holy Land killing targets of the Knights Templar and their sympathizers. The Assassin/Templar conflict has been going on for centuries and your character, Desmond Miles, is the captive of the Templars in the present using the simulation to find a weapon by tapping into your lineage.

Assassin’s Creed was the first game to experiment with aggressive stealth, a sub-genre of regular stealth with an emphasis on speed and power. Instead of sneaking, you run and climb your way to approach a target before landing the killing blow. This sets off an inevitable chase where you must evade pursuers and hide out in a number of designated spots. Line-of-sight plays an essential role: as long as you are not seen, you will not be detected. Hiding and running are your only options because the game’s combat is not very good.

The historical fiction aspect is why I got into the games with the use of real people, places, and cultures. I like history, particularly ancient Rome, and the Crusades are a great setting. As the series progressed, the period gimmick persisted with Assassin’s Creed 2 taking place in Renaissance Italy. As Ezio Auditore you become entrenched in the Assassin/Templar conflict after your father and brothers are wronging executed. Visiting Florence, Milan, and Venice you track down Templar operatives embedded in the Catholic Church while unveiling the legacy of the Assassins.

Assassin’s Creed 2 was like the first game, but bigger. The number of people you kill is extensive, the cities larger, and your range of abilities increased. You now have two hidden blades that pop out of your wrists, meaning you can kill two targets at once, and use them in combat, which was easier to manage. When performing a combo you could switch targets and engage another, something you could not do in the last game because enemies were so aggressive. You can also disarm targets and use their weapons or shoot them with a wrist-mounted pistol.

Then came Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, a spinoff of 2 that was the same game, but scaled back and with notable additions. Set in Rome, the story follows Ezio battling the House of Borgia, a prominent family from the 15^th Century. You also become friends with Leonardo Da Vinci and prevent his inventions from becoming weapons. The titular brotherhood is an army of Assassins you can employ and train by sending them on quests throughout Europe. In combat they can be used to take targets out from a far or engage in melee.

Brotherhood was my Revenge of the Sith before Force Awakens. I thought this was the end of Ezio’s story and the follow up would take the series in a new direction. On top of that, the present-day story ended at a pivotal moment that opened up a lot of narrative potential. I wanted to see where Desmond would explore next in his lineage and then came Revelations.

To be totally clear, Brotherhood was the last AC game I ever played because of Revelations. The story focused on Ezio (for a third time) in Constantinople investigating his ancestry, while Desmond was in a coma experiencing a virtual hallucination. As a result, the overarching science fiction story stops so the writers could make up things they obviously did not plan out the first time.

This was also the start of AC becoming an annualized series. Since 2011 there has been a new entry that adds and takes away content. Your Assassin army and fancy gadgets are gone in Assassin’s Creed 3 where you play Desmond’s Mohawk ancestor Connor in the American Revolution.

My biggest problem was how the present day story purposefully negated making progress. The narrative reaches a point of relative no return because of what happened in Revelations. To keep the series going, the writers added a deus ex machina that made no logical sense and was a poor excuse to continue an already dying series.

Had the writers not painted themselves into a corner AC could have gone to more interesting places. I expected the Assassin/Templar conflict to become this Illuminati war where governments, corporations, and religious factions battle for control of the world with ancient weapons whose origins are telling of our origins as species. That and the use of historical simulations was why I fell in love with AC and that did not happen. Instead, three more games came out.

Assassin’s Creed has been dead to me for a long time. The stagnation, Baywatch levels of narrative choices, and the gutting of content proved too much. The once unique action adventure series that grabbed me as a history buff has become a hollow shell with age. I would have said this was the end of my affinity if developer Ubisoft did not announce they pulled Assassin’s Creed off the annual circuit. How much time they will take is unclear, but I have hope that a whole year will be enough time for a proper realignment, and maybe my faith will be restored.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #46 by Charles McMillan

Shadow of the Colossus

Films like Valhalla Rising, Only God Forgives, and The Revenant seem like the pretentious exercises of auteurs. Studying them reveals these films to be rather simple stories. One was about how war is inherent in religion, another was about rebelling against God, and the last dealt with balance in nature. The difference between them and Star Wars is that art house movies like to be considered complicated. Videogames with artistic leanings do the same things in an interactive sense. There has been a spike in such games from the independent scene, and I am of the opinion that Shadow of the Colossus was their progenitor.

If one were to describe the game in a word, one would choose “minimalist.” All you do as the protagonist is explore an open world to fight the Colossi. There are 16, each different and more difficult than the last, and killing one will unlock another. After a Colossus is dead, your grip and health meters increase so you have the power to take on the next.

The Colossi are creatures of varying heights and anatomy, but taking them down is the same. You play as an ordinary human who must stagger and mount them to stab their weak point. Each Colossus has a unique design. The stone armor they wear serves as a means to climb the Colossi with platforms and edges.

A smaller part of the game is exploring the open world. I say small because much of the world is easy to ignore. Shadow of the Colossus takes place in a closed off region abandoned by civilization. Only ruins remain after the Colossi took up residence, leaving buildings to fall apart, and the environment to take over. The architecture is Asian- and-Middle Eastern-inspired that looks beautiful with the element of decay and the natural world. Imagine Angkor Wat, but in a desert.

The minimalist approach to gameplay is a part of what makes Shadow artistic. The simplicity is best seen in the monochromatic-lite scheme of washed out colors and large contrasting details. The standout is black, coded to the Colossi, your horse Agro, and lizards that populate key areas of the environment. Your character is coded white, but as you defeat the creatures you grow darker.

The audio deserves a special mention. What you hear most of the time is three tracks for three scenarios: The world, battle, and finishing. When riding across the open world there is ambient noise of wind and Agro’s hooves hitting the ground. This track does a great job of conveying isolation because you are so alone. The battle music is generic, but the finishing track is better for how the song is utilized.

The track plays during a cut scene of the Colossi dying, invoking a feeling of despair. Even though they are your enemy, the Colossi are beautiful creatures that are unique. They are animals just going about their business before you come along a plant a sword in their face. Seeing them fall is depressing and the finishing music does a good job of making you feel bad.

Shadow of the Colossus more or less created a whole other genre. Before then, games of similar aesthetic and minimalist gameplay were not in high demand. Now independent videogames thrive in the art house realm. Shadow of the Colossus is an experience that does not come around often, especially from a major publisher. With the release of an HD re-master, the game is a must play for anyone interested in a break from the norm.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #44 by C.T. McMillan

Trailer Analysis: Dawn of War 3

Covering Dawn of War: Dark Crusade reignited my interest in Warhammer 40k. For a long time my fandom was pushed to the side in favor of more practical matters. 40k is an expensive hobby regardless if you just want to read the many novels. After revisiting Dark Crusade, I remembered why I like 40k, and I find myself overjoyed at what had been dormant for so long. By sheer coincide, when I was writing the review, the trailer for Dawn of War 3 premiered online and here I am putting my expertise to the test.

The darkness of 40k is rather understated in the videogames. You never get a clear picture of the desolation and horror unless you pay attention to the lore. The galaxy is locked in perpetual conflict where humans and aliens die in the billions. Pulling the strings are literal gods that represent all the worst aspects of life who feed off the endless nightmare. Taking a closer look at the individual worlds and races, the broader issues seem minuscule in comparison.

Dawn of War 3 seems to make a point of the series’ dread. The trailer opens with a quote saying “There is a terrible darkness descending upon the galaxy, and we shall not see it ended in our lifetimes,” alluding to the constant state of war. The proceeding footage shows a mountain of corpses that is continuously replenished by a flow of bodies falling from a cloudy sky. The mountain is symbolic, but based on the purple color scheme and what I know of the lore, the mountain exists in the Immaterium, a dimension in which warp travel is possible, the afterlife, and home of the Chaos Gods.

The next image is of a Space Marine from the Blood Ravens, a chapter created for Dawn of War, landing on the pile. Then you see the same Space Marine standing before a statue of the God Emperor in an environment I assume is reality. Behind him is a whole squad of Blood Ravens who takes a knee and prays to the statue. As they kneel, a torrent of wind blows through and gradually weighs down on them. Some falter and collapse while the first Space Marine remains steadfast and takes a cut to the face.

Compared to the traditional look, these Space Marines are lanky. They look like humans wearing armor when they are the complete opposite. The average Space Marine starts out human, but after intensive gene therapy, physical training, and surgery, they become eight-foot tall immortals of pure muscle with a second heart, another lung, and a host of other organs.

Above the statue comes a massive wave of Orks descending upon the Blood Ravens. After a cut you see the aftermath of a battle with the Space Marines dead. A couple Orks walk across the field with axes, hacking at survivors. One Blood Raven reaches up before an Ork tears off his arm with burst of gore.

After another cut, you see a Howling Banshee, an Eldar warrior, standing in the hollow of a wall. Then she draws her sword and makes her way down, followed by other Banshees. Unlike Dawn of War 2, their armor appears to take a step back from the form-fitting, asymmetric look of the models in favor of sharp angles. Furthermore, the texture is shell-like and organic. Eldar technology is based on Wraithbone, a material that can be psychically formed into whatever shape the controller desires. The organic texture of the armor is a nice touch that fits with the Eldar’s naturalist aesthetic.

Next you return to the Orks on the battlefield before another squad of Space Marines charges in. One of them meets a Deff Dread, an Ork mech, and is subsequently cut in half. Not even a second later, the Dread is destroyed by a Wraithknight, a giant Eldar mech. Then the same Wraithknight is attacked by a pair of Imperial Knights, their human equivalent. For Dawn of War this reveal is a big deal because before now, 40k’s larger mechanized units have not been included. How they will be used in gameplay remains to be seen.

In the short melee between the mechs, the Wraithknight is impaled and falls back in slow motion. Directly below the oncoming wreckage is the same Space Marine from before who brings up his sword in a block and smiles. The final image is of him lying on the mountain of dead with his smile before another corpse smashes on top as the cycle of death continues.

Most trailers settle for symbolism instead of outright telling you what they are all about. Often times you only get a small piece representative of gameplay or story depending on context. All I can infer from the Dawn of War 3 trailer is the tone is darker, the three main factions are Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks, and we will finally get to use mechs. But this is just one trailer and in the following months I expect to see more.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #42 by C. T. McMillan

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

Warhammer 40k is a tabletop game in which you build an army of miniature figures to do battle in a variety of scenarios. I never learned how to play, but the appeal for me is the ancillary materials. The art books, novels, and rulebooks are a treasure-trove of lore that speaks to me as a fan of science fiction. 40k imagines a universe in the 401^st Century where humanity has spread across the known galaxy, surrounded on all sides by forces that oppose their existence. Billions die in unending wars for dominance over what is left of dead and dying worlds. I was introduced to 40k when I played Dawn of War from the now defunct THQ. There were a few expansions to the base game and the one I kept coming back to for more was Dark Crusade.

Fitting the concept of large-scale tabletop battles, Dark Crusade is a real-time strategy game (RTS) that adapts the 40k brand. Base building, resource gathering, and army building mechanics are easy to understand for veterans. The only thing separating Dark Crusade from any other in the genre is the brand. The structures you build and the maps in which you battle are taken from Cities of Death. The factions you pick are inspired by the same playable armies from 40k along with the units you make for your army. There are the human Space Marines, elf-like Eldar, Orks, and undead Necrons.

What sets Dark Crusade apart from standard RTSs is how the game approaches the single player campaign. Instead of a straightforward narrative, you must choose between the available factions that are at odds with each other on the planet Kronus. Regardless of whom you pick, your mission is to kill everyone else and conquer the planet. The most you get in the way of story is vignettes for faction introductions, those you defeat, and the final endgame.

You start on the over-map showing a continent divided amongst the factions into provinces. When moving your commander character to the territories you wish to invade, the game switches to the standard battle-map. Here you engage in the kind of battles you expect from run-of-the-mill RTSs. At the faction stronghold provinces the battles become more difficult than a regular skirmish. There are also other objectives to consider like an artillery emplacement or a diversion of sorts. Taking the stronghold means one less enemy in your way.

Dark Crusade gets interesting after you conquer a province with the selection of victory conditions. You have the option of recruiting units that will show up in the event of a defense, ready for deployment. While this was a nice touch that helped the overall annoyance of defense, I discovered a method that made the task easier and broke the game in the process.

Before victory you have the option of basically dominating the entire map with structures. For every listening post you capture the more resources and land you have available. Play a province long enough and many times over you also learn where the enemy spawns. A common stratagem I adopted was building turrets and mines all over the map. When I had to defend a territory, the enemy would basically lose before they started. Of course, this is very unfair, but the tactic made the tedious affair of defense efficient and fast.

My only gripes with Dark Crusade stems from my 40k nerd bias. The game came out in 2006 and at the time Games Workshop, the company behind the tabletop game, updated a few elements of their armies. There were new units designs and an expansion called Apocalypse that emphasized huge armies and armor. Seeing as how Dark Crusade had to follow Dawn of War, I understand why the developers could not update the look of models, and the timing was not ideal. But the more I imagine building massive armies, super-tanks, and mechanized walkers, the more I become depressed that they were not in Dark Crusade. I also become irritated at the how certain units do not look the way they should.

Furthermore, there are inconsistencies in the lore involving the Imperial Guard faction. In 40k the Guard is recruited all over the human sectors of the galaxy with each system building a regiment with a distinct look and style of combat. There is the Catachan, Death Korps, Mordian, and Steel Legion, each with an aesthetic that makes them different from each other. In Dark Crusade the Imperial Guard faction is represented by the Cadian who stand in for the Kronus Regiment. They are box-standard with nothing that makes them exclusive to the planet in which they were recruited. I know this is not very important, but I would have liked to see a regiment that represents the planet’s culture.

Warhammer 40k has a wealth of culture and creativity that I would not have discovered without Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. The basis of how I write fiction came from reading ancillary materials about the game’s complex history and universe. None of that would be possible had the game not piqued my interest as both a gamer and fan of all things science fiction. If you play real-time strategy games, Dark Crusade is a must have before you pick up a copy of Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising for a primer on 40k.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #41 By C.T. McMillan

Spec Ops: The Line

Have you ever watched or read something that changed you so profoundly you could not look at the world the same way? Apocalypse Now was a film that made me realize the psychological and spiritual damage of the Vietnam War and war in general. As someone who has friends with PTSD, the movie rang true with the insatiable need to return to the front and the hypocrisy of superiors denying soldiers the opportunity to continue fighting. Movies at the time were too scared to approach the subject and the technology had to catch up a long time before videogames could explore the same themes. Metal Gear was the first to touch on war and trauma, but Spec Ops: The Line took the subject into places that transcend the medium.

From the outset the gameplay is nothing special. Like Order 1886 and Mass Effect, the combat is tacked on and ordinary with the same third-person cover based mechanics seen in any number of titles. There is also multiplayer that arguably did not need to exist. There is nothing to break up the banality of the gameplay because that is exactly what the game is trying to do.

The Line unapologetically takes after Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the story of a boat captain in search of an ivory trader in the Congo, and the same story that inspired Apocalypse Now. The source material was an examination of imperialism and the movie was an updated version with similar themes in the context of the Vietnam War. The game draws more from movie in a modern sense while looking at the genre of military shooters with an introspective eye. The game uses tropes and clichés to explore the genre with a degree of realism.

One of the ways the game does this is making the enemies American soldiers. They are very talkative, taunting, pleading, and screaming aloud, a choice I feel was intentional. Often times the enemy is foreign to identify whom you are supposed to fight. While this is unavoidable when choosing an adversary, there is also a dehumanizing effect. You, the English-speaking protagonist, is the hero up against foreign hordes hell-bent on spreading terror. There comes a time you stop seeing the enemy as people and just things that must die. The Line subverts this concept by making the enemy relatable. You understand what they are saying and never feel comfortable about killing them.

The game treats the events and their effects on the three main characters as if they were real. Once levelheaded military types, they become visibly and emotionally broken while you move from one point to another. The story begins to take a toll with the characters demoralized and their traumatized personalities coming to the fore. The protagonist Walker begins very clean-cut before he is dirtied, bloody, and unrecognizable at the end. In dialog, his voice becomes gravellier and will curse to himself instead of calling out hostiles and reloads.

In a way The Line cheaply punishes you for playing to make the overall point. The most significant example of this happens when you must clear a path using a mortar. As per military shooters, your perspective changes to a bird’s eye view with an infrared filter to choose where to drop white phosphorous. There is a clever touch where you see your character reflected in the screen picking targets, but the power of the scene is brought down significantly. Without giving anything away, you are confronted with a questionable situation that you cannot circumvent if you want to progress. Though the pay off for your actions is compelling, the shock does not change the fact you had no choice because the game’s script made you. Not only do you feel awful, you get angry at the game for making this event take place.

However, I think this plays into the game’s critique of the military shooter genre. In similar situations from other games, we as players have been conditioned to attack anyone on screen that is highlighted in white. Since Modern Warfare this has become a blatant cliché, one of many used in The Line to make us reconsider what the genre is all about.

Would I say the game changed my perception of war and shooters? Well, no because I do not need a videogame to remind me war is terrible and videogames are not real. But Spec Ops: The Line is one of few titles to even approach the subject in a manner that exploits the very nature of videogames. The game is an achievement that should have been better acknowledged at the time of release and now is as good a time as any for appreciation.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex#40 by C.T. McMillan

The Order: 1886

When criticizing a work of entertainment, one standard practice is often to acknowledge the piece from a basis of style versus substance. Either the title has qualities that transcend superficiality, or the work is more concerned with looking good. Take for example the Watchmen movie: the comic was an examination of superhero archetypes in the context of the real world, but the movie was an adaptation that did not translate the ideas that made the comic so important. The film was style over substance because the movie was focused on being faithful to the visuals without considering the themes. The substance of videogames is gameplay and story, and style is graphics and presentation. One must establish a balance between the two and The Order 1886 cannot stay on two feet without falling over.

I first heard about Order at the Sony presentation during E3 2013. I was taken aback by the idea of playing Victorian Era monster hunters in a steam-punk London using sci-fi weaponry. While I am not fan, the genre is at least interesting and the anachronistic qualities mixed with futurism is very appealing. When the game was finally released, however, the critical reception prevented me from making a purchase. After the game was cheap enough to buy with a single 20-dollar note, I picked up a copy to play for review.

From the outset the game visually amazing with pitch perfect graphics and animations. Character’s bodies and faces move realistically compared to traditional motion capture. The lighting is elegant, reacting to glass and metals with a beautiful shimmer. A hazy filter over the picture not only unifies the game’s visuals, but also creates an air of antiquity consistent with the period. The sound design is very physical with distinct effects in addition to expert voice acting. While these are the makings of a good game, the same craft and artisan touch is lost on the rest of the game.

As a standard third person shooter, the combat should have been the easiest to get right if the developers were not so concerned about looking good. The fluidity and realism of the animations may be a nice touch, but when you are trying to move you must contend with restrictions to how you move. Navigating your character is like driving a heavy truck that requires precise timing to turn corners. When not facing the right way, you must go through a slow turning animation. In combat this choice is especially frustrating when trying to get into cover takes forever. There is also stun locking where if you are hit, your character goes into a reeling animation to convey pain. This is an old practice in videogames that was for some reason brought back. All stun locking does is stop combat and compound frustration when you just want to play the game.

The reason I did not buy Order the first time is because the total runtime is 7 hours and I heard the story was incomplete, which are true. The game tries hard to be visually impressive while the narrative was unfinished in anticipation of a sequel that will not happen. Trying to build a following with an original yet incomplete first entry is suicidal and the developers have paid dearly.

The game has everything awesome: a knightly order that gains immortality by drinking from the Holy Grail, werewolves, vampires, and airships. Order seemed like a playable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but when the game came time to use those elements in a narrative, the game was left open on purpose to point of ignoring the qualities that made the concept interesting. The werewolves are a small part while the vampires show up twice and do nothing. Both are background details that make way for an uninspired plot involving human enemies. There was a nice touch with an airship providing air support for your team of knights, but only in a cut scene and not in gameplay. Also, there are not many interesting weapons apart from a lightning rifle and thermite cannon. You use them only a couple times before you are stuck with conventional assault rifles and pistols.

The game takes place when imperialism was rampant and the main conflict involves antigovernment dissidents retaliating against a corporation with enough influence to manipulate institutions of authority. You are a part of one such institution who discovers the truth, but you do not change anything. You find the villain, learn what he wants to do, and by the conclusion he basically wins and the only agency you had was killing his lead henchman. The last time you see the villain is the moment you discover who he is an hour before the end. All you are left with after the credits is regret for wasting money.

The Order: 1886 works best as a playable movie that gets by on looks if you ignore the glaring problems. The gameplay is standard and that would not be a problem if the story were actually complete. When you are spending a lot of money on a game, you expect to enjoy at least the story or gameplay, but when the former is mediocre and the latter ruined by hubris, Order is not worth consideration.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #39 by C.T. McMillan

Mass Effect 3

Rich Evans of Red Letter Media put it best when he referred to the games following Mass Effect 3 (ME3) as a funeral march. Up until then, you had this sprawling and complex universe for which you could change at will. Your decisions in ME1 carried over to the second game and you would expect those choices to pass on to ME3 before coming to the cold realization that it was all for nothing.

First off, the combat was the only improvement of note. The shooting is smooth and responsive with the ability to modify your weapons. You can add scopes, barrels, and other items that improve fire rated and accuracy. Such enhancement is another dimension to already serviceable mechanics, but does not make up for the glaring downgrade in the narrative.

Everything is wrong when you discover none of your original team is present. At the end of ME2 it was implied the people you worked hard to recruit, form relationships with, and struggled to keep alive in the final mission would stay by your side to fight the Reapers, sentient robots that cull the galaxy of life every 50,000 years. Instead, a majority of your team shows up in cameos with about three available for your squad, another from the first game, and two who are brand new.

The new character Javik is quite interesting, but the other, Vega, is so flaccid he did not need help from the voice of Freddy Prince Jr. to be boring. The teammate from the first game, Ashley, is a one-note human I did not care for in the slightest. Those from ME2 are background characters that help with the main conflict and nothing else. You do not talk to them for very long or see them often, serving as glorified plot devices. If they die it is meaningless because you do not spend enough time together for their deaths to be impactful.

The fact you cannot use them in gameplay is more frustration as they have the most useful abilities like Kasumi’s cloak or Grunt’s charge. They are also better characters with a ton of realized personality. Mordin was the fan favorite with his quick speech and whit, and Legion had a unique naiveté. Furthermore, any romance you pursued is rendered irrelevant because ME3 separates characters. I developed a relationship with Jack and all I could do was talk to her a few times with no chance to take things further. There was, however, a downloadable add-on that let you have a reunion in a fan-service kind of way, but it did not provide adequate satisfaction and did not it matter in the end.

The story is where ME3 falls the farthest. What could have been a compelling narrative about gathering resources to save Earth in the midst of a Reaper invasion turns into an unfulfilling pay-off that does not change no matter what you did. The ending is a selection of three outcomes: Control, where you take over the Reapers, Destruction, where you kill all synthetics, and Synthesis where you assimilate with synthetics. How you get there is superfluous because it does not have any general affect on the finale. You recruit allies, attack the Reapers, and push a colored button for your desired ending.

This is another case of missed opportunity because the lead up could have been dramatic and compelling. Your goal as Commander Shepard is to gather military assets to save Earth as the galaxy itself is trying to stave off the Reaper incursion. While that is exactly what you do, you are never really involved in making a difference. You go to a planet under attack, get what you need, and leave. There is no heroism or innocence to save like you would expect as you progress in a technical manner.

What if you had to sacrifice more people to gain allies? Earth is just one of a billion worlds and you have to convince aliens to abandon their own cause in exchange for yours. If the previous team were available, the process of saving worlds by giving up your friends would have emotional weight and meaning. You have to decide if letting go of the people you care about is worth saving the galaxy, when in reality both choices lead to significant loss. The fact this is not the case makes the actual losses especially insulting when you do not spend time with those characters like you used to and the ending makes their sacrifices worthless.

Mass Effect 3 is good for the wrong reasons. The improved combat and epic scope is punctuated by probably the worst executed narrative I have ever played. Not only does this game contradict the intent of the series; this game destroys everything you loved from its predecessors. ME3 is an affront to fans and I cannot in good conscious recommend it unless you are a completionist. I would have imagined Mass Effect: Andromeda to be a return to form had the lead writer and development director not left before the game was finished.

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C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.