StrangeFairy

Fantastic game - tons to do and explore, terrific customisation, good dialogue, lovely characters, good visuals (apart from the hair) - I'm running a gtx970 and a i73820 and 12 GB of RAM - not exactly top of the line and I'm having a largely smooth and enjoyable visual experience. Bit of a slow burn at the start, the story really picks up after about 10 hours or so (which is a tiny fraction of the game's length). There are some technical issues - bugs, glitches, KB&M not as intuitive as a controller (hope they fix this), hair/beard textures not the best. But make no mistake, this is an excellent game, the pro reviewers (imo) got it bang-on this time. Please ignore the trolls giving it a 0 - unfortunately there are some idiots who seem to devoting their time to trying to make a damn good game fail. Which is a shame. This game shouldn't be punished for the sins of Dragon Age 2 and the ending of Mass Effect 3 - whatever happened to judging a title on its own merits?

This was a good thing to do - and it adds to the ending in a positive way. There is far more closure now, and a more hopeful outlook for the galaxy, as well as for Shep & Co. Bio did not have to do this - and nor did they have to release it for free. Does it render the endings perfect? No. But assuming the endings were the worst things ever in videogaming history (which they weren't imo but you'd be forgiven for thinking they were given many of the reviews of the game here on metacritic) the EC makes them much, much better. Assuming the endings were kind of average but nothing special, which was the case, the EC takes them to .. well, decidedly above average :p Hence, an 8.

The Extended Cut has definitely improved the endings, allowing more closure, a more visual representation of player choices, and a prevailing feeling of optimism rather than the overly ambiguous and even bleak nature of the originals. Perfect game? Not quite. There is still too much auto-dialogue/protagonist passivity, and the journal isn't exactly helpful. But this is nitpicking a game that has so much going for it. Increased squad interaction (particularly with each other, a nice touch), some great characters, missions such as those on Tuchanka, Rannoch and Grissom Academy, a MUCH improved Citadel from ME2, and hugely fun combat make this a game well worth playing.