I’ll admit that I’m pretty quick to judge a book by its cover, especially when that book happens to cost 60 dollars and might take up hours of my life. More often than not I’m prone to judge a multiplayer portion of a formerly single-player game because in the day and age of Internet connected consoles, everyone and their dog are throwing on a multiplayer mode for the heck of it.
Assassins’s Creed: Brotherhood, BioShock 2 and now Mass Effect 3 have all proved that just because a game’s wheelhouse is the single-player narrative, it doesn’t mean that you can’t also dip your toes into the online arena. When AC:B and BioShock 2 were about to launch, there was a lot of noise made about how their online modes would probably suck, but they proved us wrong.
Mass Effect 3 is much the same way. I didn’t want to lead in with it, but Eddy, Anthony and I all played the co-op for a couple of hours last night and we had a blast. I finally unlocked the Nova for my Vanguard and Eddy and Anthony’s classes (Soldier and Sentinel respectively) clicked for them so we were operating in concert as a deadly, efficient team of sci-fi bad-asses.
Given that people (me included) were so ready to write of ME3’s co-op, I’m surprised by how quickly it got its hooks into me. The booster pack unlock system really adds to the longevity; it’s kind of like buying a pack of Pokemon cards and hoping you get a shiny Charizard. Most of the time you get like, a Chancey or something, but it’s the hope you might get something cool that keeps you going.
My whole point with the article, aside from pumping up the ME3 co-op jam, was to ask you guys if you ever decided to give a game a fair shake and chastised yourself for hating on it unfairly. What games did this happen with? What are your thoughts on ME3’s multiplayer?