Mass Effect 3 - AKA Fill Your House with Crap

Mass Effect 3 comes out March 6th.

When the original first came out, I wasn't really into it. I wasn't prepared for the combination of clunky shooting and lots of talking. I couldn't find my way around the Citadel, I couldn't figure out who to trust and who not to, and I definitely couldn't figure out why I should give a shit about saving everybody. I gave up at Noveria.

I tried again last year. This time, I heavily got into it. I did everything, saved everyone, and even bought all the DLC - on both games. I am extremely excited for the third one. Or at least, I was. I am one of those laughable people who like to have complete games. Not in the sense of mint box, manual and game, but more like, if there are features or content that are not on the disc (DLC or expansions, primarily) I have to get them, even if it's not one of my favourites. It just bothers me if I can't have/see it all: I have stalled on Skylanders, for example, because I am unable to find a fire Skylander anywhere and it seriously gets to me if I find a fire-only gate which I can't use, which invariably has cool stuff behind it.

Bioware is jumping on the nickle-and-dime DLC bandwagon. If you want all of the downloadable weapons and skins and such for multiplayer (and possibly singleplayer, I'm not entirely sure), you have to do as follows.

• Pre-order the game: Free depending on store
• Get the Collector's Edition: £69.99
• Collect 8 figurines: ~£87
• Pre-order the artbook: ~17

That's £173.99 to have a content-complete game at launch. AT LAUNCH. Yes, you get pretty figurines and artbooks and goodness knows what else that you'll look at once then put in a box in the attic, but it's more than a little ridiculous to ask me to buy so much stuff if I want to have a complete game from the getgo. I'm especially reticent because this is a mode I never wanted and never asked for, and I haven't yet seen a game that's had multiplayer shoehorned in which the singleplayer didn't suffer at least a little bit (disclaimer: I never quite got over Bioshock 2).

Here's my bet: the story mode in Mass Effect 3 will be significantly shorter than in 1 & 2 because the developers decided to make multiplayer and have that effect your in game efforts. There will also be an online pass so if I buy the game, my other half will have to spend twenty quid just to shoot reapers with other people. It's a bet I'll be devastated to win.