Mass Effect 3

Great game, but most people that are enthusiastic enough to post about games on a forum already played this last year on their 360/PS3/PC. Great choice in game, but you aren't likely to find too many people to plan on grouping with. Thankfully, the multiplayer can be a ton of fun on the Bronze difficulty with just randoms online.

You're missing out a lot by not playing the first two games. Characters, missions, story, background info . . . the series is one of my favorite new IP's from this (last?) generation of consoles. Especially being able to carry your Commander Shepard across the 3 titles.

I don't know why they didn't release the Mass Effect Trilogy on Wii U, but they should have. Still, ME 3 is awesome, but you're not getting the best experience.

I played tons of the Gold-difficulty multiplayer on PS3 exclusively with randoms with great success, and aside from the expected occasional bad egg had a blast. Given the general tone of Miiverse, I bet what players are there would be more friendly in general. The equipment upgrade system in multi is truly one of the most evil things I've ever see in gaming, though.

I do kind of feel like you're missing out a lot starting from the third game, though. Even though I only started with ME2. ME is about feeling the weight of your choices, and starting at the end of the series must rob it of a lot of its heft. Half the fun of many of the missions in ME3 is seeing where your old ME2 squadmates show up, but that of course doesn't mean much if you have no idea who they are or what their deal is.

They have the same type of "interactive comic" prologue for ME2 on the PS3, but I dunno, doing that for one game in a trilogy seems OK whereas doing it for two seems like significantly more of a loss. Doesn't hurt that I hear ME1 doesn't hold up very well but ME2 is arguably the best game in the series.

Mongo - ME1 holds up great. After finishing ME3 I ran through ME1 for a second time early last year. It also just came out on PS3, five years later. It's $15 on PSN. Go give it a play.

I highly recommend spending the $20 and grabbing Mass Effect 1 on the 360 then. The story-telling in play there is amazing. It's the roughest of the series in terms of gameplay elements, but I would say that it is the strongest in building a world and characters that you care about. At the same time, keep playing the multiplayer part of ME3 on Wii U, as that is a ton of fun and you don't want to waste it while the community is still of a decent size.

I gotta ask, what made you pick up ME3 on Wii U when you could've bought the whole trilogy for the same price on the 360?

I'll put ME1 in my "someday" pile. I played through ME2 four times in one year and logged hundreds of hours on ME3 multi, so I need a break from the franchise for a while. I did think ME2 was set up brilliantly to work for both new and returning players from the start (storyline reasoning for not remembering the events of the first game or even looking different) whereas ME3 just kinda drops you right into it. That was part of the reason I didn't feel like I was missing too much starting with ME2 -- in a weird way it kind of enhances it -- even though say the Archangel and Shadow Broker missions meant less as a result.