Mass Effect is the most massive game I’ve ever played and I
mean that in every aspect. The universe
is huge, the writing is very extensive, and the game play is extremely
unique. You don’t need me to remind you
of how the game is played or what the story is so I won’t dive into that. Hell, if you haven’t played any of the Mass
Effect games you probably wouldn’t be reading an article about the third
game. Certainly some of you would have
to agree that this space odyssey could possibly be one of the best stories told
through video games. Just recently on
G4tv.com, Mass Effect won the Video Game Deathmatch: The Greatest Story EverTold, which was voted by fans, probably all of those same fans who have ranted
and raved about the ending. So since
Mass Effect is one of my favorite franchises, I felt compelled to throw in my
two cents on the game’s ending, despite it being three months since the game
released. I hate having that feeling
that I should rush to play my game in order to keep up with the crowd. I hate that games get released and people
beat them in DAYS, when it takes me months to do so. So if you’re an asshole who’s going to tell
me that this topic is sooooo three months ago, let me just save you some time
and give you my response now. Have fun
being a virgin.
The entire Mass effect 3 game is a solid 9 out of 10 on my
scale. The combat is smooth and the
story is riveting. After two games of
trying to stop the Reapers (which was just as hopeless as John Connor trying to
stop the rise of the machines) we are finally at war with them, and they are scary. The best part of the Mass Effect trilogy, in
my opinion, has been the emotional connection you get when you put time into
the games. You get to know the
characters and with great story writing, you can literally feel their
struggle. Bioware is amazing in this
area because their writing is so vast and imaginative that in the first game
you can travel to a random planet, find a body, and read about the dude’s
history off of the data pad he had on him.
Each and every planet has a description too. On top of that, each alien race (even the
insignificant ones) has a detailed history that you can read about. Bioware even wrote the history of the extinct
race that used to control the galaxy.
The back ground stories make the current one much greater in my
opinion. As a gamer I was able to tell
that these races, all of them, had everything to lose. I felt sorrow watching the Asari home world
get destroyed, I felt sad when Mordin died, I felt anger when earth was being
overrun, and I felt frustration when Cerberus presented itself to being just as
much of a threat to the survival of the galaxy as the Reapers. I felt all of this because of the great
writing, but it was also the writing that turned a 9 into a 5.
I’ll play Mass Effect 3 again, and probably again, just like
I did the first two games, but it won’t be for the same reasons. I talked about the writing in the last
paragraph but I failed to mention the most superb writing in the trilogy takes
place during the dialogue trees where you get to make decisions and talk to
people. Decision making in this trilogy
is important because it affects the future.
I’m not sure if you played the game more than once like I have, but let
me give you an example of how decisions have a direct impact on things, even
minor ones. Kelly Chambers. She was the chick in the second game that
stood next to the map control on deck 2.
During the second game she, along with the rest of the Normandy crew, gets
kidnapped by the Collectors. I made the
decision to go after them immediately and because I didn’t screw around before
going to save them, Chambers lived. Had
I waited to go save the crew I would have arrived just in time to watch her
die. Pretty crazy right? It gets better. If you save her in the second game you can
talk to her in the third game. After
Cerberus attacks the Citadel, I found out that they flushed Chambers out and
executed her because she quit working for them.
I was so pissed off because I didn’t know how to save her; I just
thought it was her time (like she’s real).
On my second play through though, I paid more attention to my dialogue
with her and found that I could convince her to change her identity. She did and she lived, all because of the choices
I made.
That example is minor though, compared to the large scale of
how the trilogy played out. In the end,
I played my cards right on every game. I
played the first game five times (mainly for achievements) and re-arranged how
I wanted the story to play out. I wanted
to bang Ashley instead of Liara (because asking for a threesome was out of the question
for Ashley). I wanted to make sure Wrex
lived, I wanted to get my paragon so high that in the end I could skip an entire
fight by making Saren see the light just long enough for him to blow his own
brains out. That’s how I treated the
second game as well because the choices from each game carry over to the
sequel. I read that we were promised
sixteen different endings for this epic trilogy and I expected it to be magical
or something. I thought I would be
getting the good ending since I played like an angel throughout the
series. I kept people alive when I
really wanted to kill them and I always said the right thing. I figured I’d get a paragon ending because
that’s how I evolved my Sheppard. I say “my”
Sheppard because with all the choices that can be made in the trilogy, it will
be hard to find two that are exactly alike (that is to include appearance).
I love Mass Effect 3 and I suggest that every fan of space
adventures play it, but it’s literally the last five minutes of the game that
totally destroys the credibility of Bioware’s writers. Here is my list of why the ending sucks ass. In case you didn’t read the first paragraph, spoilers
will follow.
1.
Those
sixteen different endings are ALL THE SAME.
I’ve watched the sixteen different endings on Youtube and I can tell you
that they are all pretty much the same with minor differences here and
there. So much for the “wildly”
different endings right? The outcome is the
same in all of them except the renegade option, which leaves us thinking that
Sheppard may still be alive because we see him take a breath while lying in
some rubble.
2.
Why the hell did the Normandy flee? The entire game we grow to love the
characters in the trilogy and one thing I’ve learned is that they would NEVER
leave their commander behind. Ever. Especially when the entire galaxy is fighting
for survival. How does the man that told
Sheppard that he expects him to come back just run away and leave him to
die? It doesn’t make sense and it
destroys Joker’s credibility as a loyal person.
3.
How is the crew that was on the ground with
Sheppard as they got obliterated by Harbinger all of a sudden on the Normandy
with Joker after he crash lands on some shitty planet? This tells me that Joker had time to go down
to the surface, pick up my crew whilst in the presence of the most powerful
Reaper, and then make it all the way to the Mass relay. I don’t believe for a second that Joker would
flee, and I definitely don’t believe that he would pick up other crew members
but NOT his commander. I don’t buy it,
not for a damn second. The crew on the
ground wouldn’t have left and if they were on the ship, they wouldn’t have let
Joker flee. My God, I feel as if the
writers had someone shit on their brains while they wrote this ending.
5.
The Mass Relay Explosion: As seen in the Arrival DLC package in Mass
Effect 2, destroying a Mass Relay pretty much destroys the system that occupied
it. So in every possible ending, all of
the Mass Relays get destroyed. Wouldn’t
that mean that the entire galaxy that houses a Relay would simply be
destroyed? According to that logic, you’d
think so, but nope, it doesn’t happen.
6.
The entire galaxy came to Earth to fight the
Reapers, which totally sucks for them because after the relay is destroyed, no
one can leave. Everyone is going to starve
to death because most of them can’t eat human food and Earth is so fucked up
that it may not even be able to feed the Humans. To me it seems as if the Reapers still win in
the end, total downer.
7.
All the choices made in the game mean nothing:
As I’ve stated before my hate list, the gamer gets to choose the actions of
Sheppard and it affected the plot. Until
you get to the end that is. Instead of
the choices you’ve made leading up to that point, the stupid star fucker gives
you three option, leaving Sheppard to die in every outcome. You can blow the Reapers up, you can control
the Reapers, or you can make it so the entire galaxy is half organic and half
synthetic, which would end the war.
STUPID! The entire trilogy leads
up this and those are the only options Sheppard has? Is it so wrong that with sixteen “wildly”
different endings that one of them could be a happy one? Whatever.
My Sheppard would have told that kid to fuck off.
8.
Minor details that don’t make sense to me: Such
as Harbinger leaving the battle after he burns Sheppard’s armor off. The Reapers brought the Citadel to Earth and
since the Citadel was the final key in destroying the Reapers, they made a
conduit that leads pretty much right to the exact place Sheppard needed to be
to open the Citadel arms. Once Sheppard
gets up there, he is communicating with Anderson, despite having his shit
burned off, which I would have assumed included the tools that allow him to
radio people. How does Anderson beat
Sheppard to the control room? The path
Sheppard is on is literally a straight shot.
Walk in a straight line and you’ll get there, yet Anderson was there
before Sheppard despite the fact that the only way to get there was the bridge
that connected to Sheppard’s entrance. Then
the Illusive Man shows up after Sheppard reaches Anderson. Where did the Illusive Man come from? Again, one entrance and there were only dead
people and a Keeper where Sheppard showed up.
Why wasn’t Anderson fucked up like Sheppard? The dude didn’t have one scratch on him, he
was perfect. It’s almost like he didn’t
run from the same exact spot Sheppard did moments before, even though we saw
him standing next to Sheppard before making that sprinting failure towards the finish. It just seems that with all the great writing
this series has seen, minimal details like these would be easy to fix, but they’re
not. So it leads me to the question, is
it bad writing or is there some other reason for it (more on that in a minute).
9.
The Illusive Man: He is so totally indoctrinated
by the Reapers (I shouldn’t have to explain what indoctrination is) that it is
evident that he isn’t in control of himself.
In fact, as far as the series goes, indoctrination appears to be the
ONLY way someone can control the actions of others and it’s ONLY the Reapers
who can do that. So how does the
Illusive Man gain control over both Anderson and Sheppard? It doesn’t make sense that one indoctrinated
being can control two beings that aren’t indoctrinated. What the hell Bioware? That seems like an important detail.
10.
The old man and his granddaughter, daughter, or
whatever: What the hell is this? I’m not sure if the whole thing was a made up
story because of this, or if the girl I chose to bump ugs with wound up making
babies with Joker on whatever planet they landed on and these people are the
product of a continued civilization centuries later. Who knows, either way it’s stupid. Especially when they refer to the hero of the
galaxy as “The Sheppard”. This was a
terrible thing to put into the ending because it’s confusing.
I’m not sure why Bioware ended their game like this. I was one of the last people I know to have
actually completed the game and I had already had the displeasure of hearing
everyone freak out about it. At first I
couldn’t help but be mad at them because this is a product of Bioware and they
can end the game however they feel like it.
Then after completing the game for myself, I realized that Bioware did
make a mistake. They introduced a
character in the last five minutes of the game and on top of that they created
more loopholes than were there to begin with on top of not plugging up any at
all. I feel that bringing the entire
galaxy to war was a waste, despite how awesome it was to watch the fleets charge
into battle. We didn’t get to see much
of that effort being made. I feel that
with the Relays being destroyed, my efforts to bring peace to the Quarians and
the Geth were useless as well as helping the Krogan and Turians get along. It makes me feel hopeless when something I’ve
spent hours on and got emotionally invested in wound up causing more
confusion. What happened to my
choices? They didn’t have any merit in
the ending at all.
Now after beating the game I scoured the internet to finally
read the buzz. I had avoided it before
because I wanted to experience this tragedy first hand without having it
spoiled for me. After seeing everyone’s
thoughts I can concur with the rise of fans up against the company that roped
them in and then ended something good with garbage. Were they rushed? I don’t know, but I can say that this
magnificent game they created was reduced to something that hurts to think
about because all I see is an awesome story that took a nasty turn for the
worst. It’s no surprise to see that
Bioware is releasing an extended cut to clarify why their shit is so shitty
after seeing how their fans reacted.
This movement will forever change the relationship between developers
and the fans, but I’m not sure if it’s going to be a good thing or not. The only thing I know is that they’re keeping
the same crappy endings; they’re just clarifying stuff for us. It won’t fix the fact that we didn’t get the “wildly”
different endings, but we never did get a final boss to fight. Unless of course you consider Marauder
Shields (watch video if you don’t get it).
Now I may be a tad more forgiving if in fact Bioware intended
that ending for a greater purpose, such as the Indoctrination theory. I won’t get into all the gritty details, but
I will post a video that you should watch.
The theory is completely fan made but with all the evidence given, one
cannot look away from it and say that it’s not a possibility. The little boy that Sheppard sees die in the beginning
is probably the most prominent evidence I can see. Sheppard is literally the ONLY person who
ever sees him, then he even dreams about him, and in the end he’s the star
child. Sheppard has come into contact
with Reapers and reaper tech and has been exposed enough to be
indoctrinated. In the description it
states that the process could take years.
What if Sheppard was knocked unconscious whilst running for the conduit
and everything that takes place after that is in his head. It would explain being beamed up to the
direct place he needed to be, it would explain how he was communicating with
Anderson, and it would explain the star child.
The only way Sheppard is to win is by choosing the renegade option,
which is the only option that you can see him breath afterwards. Please watch the videos I posted because they
are awesome and convincing. After
watching the video, tell me what you think.
