GAMING: Mass Effect 3

Most of Mass Effect 3 is BioWare at its best - it gives believable characters, deep emotional themes and flashes of brilliance almost throughout.

GAME: MASS EFFECT 3

SYSTEM: PC

PRICE: R317

AGE RESTRICTION: 18

The Reapers, villains from the past two games, are back. The rulers of the galaxy, the Council and the Alliance, rulers of humanity, have ignored your warnings for three years, only to get their backsides handed to them by the very things you were warning them about.

Now it is for the galaxy's various races to stand together and fight against their own extinction, or be annihilated as they cower. Either way, survival is not terribly likely, yet while there is life there is hope.

This is the central theme to the whole series - facing insurmountable odds and not giving in to despair. It inspires not through an abundance of light, but by how the living face that long, dark night of almost inevitable extermination.

The real weakness before the last 10 minutes I found was the little boy at the start. His death is haunting to the main character, but there are deaths you, as a gamer, may feel far more emotional about. A child who is supposed to haunt us for the sake of its being a child has a lot less going for it than characters with whom you develop empathy.

Usually I do not go into endings in my reviews, in part because it is difficult to do so without spoiling them, and in part because I do not think the last 10 minutes of a game are necessarily as important as its entirety.

Unfortunately, no review of this game can be complete without mentioning the main issue that has become infamous - which is the ending. The ending is one of the worst of the past decade - it is full of plot holes.

THE GOOD

Almost everything except the end. It really pays you to play through the first two games because decisions made in those will translate over to the end seamlessly and brilliantly.

While it is a game you can jump straight into, it is worth the extra effort.

THE BAD

The ending is an abomination that cheapens everything that came before it. Thankfully BioWare has agreed to change it.

RATING 9/10