"Mass Effect 3" carries on the cover-based squad shooting play refined in "2," and the iteration is no fault. Well-designed shoot-out landscapes, perfectly challenging enemy configurations and BioWare's remarkable talent for pacing action keep every burst of fire from Shepard's gun a thrilling transaction. Polished AI shields most foes with cover, but deadly new enemies like the Brute and the Banshee advance frightfully ever forward. Between those beasts and a new chargeable melee kill ability, the bloodshed often turns intimate.

For all the time players spend shooting, the true meat of the "Mass Effect 3" experience is conversation, as it's been since the first game was released in 2007. The radial response system allows players to pilot Shepard through the game's events, from the tone of his/her chit-chat to weighing whether to kill or spare an enemy. The flashing of right and left trigger prompts during cinematics is another welcome return, turning some decisions - many life-or-death - into more instinctive gut reactions than the usual long-pondered choices.

Longtime "Mass Effect" players have caught on that the top right choice is almost always the "good" one, and bottom right the "bad" one, but BioWare manages to weave a few twists of fate into "Mass Effect 3" that will provoke some reflection on just where along the moral spectrum Shepard's decisions fell.