Tag Archives: BioWare

The Mass Ending Effect

Posted by on March 19, 2012 5 comments

Its done.

3 years of playing Mass Effect have come to a close.  I finished Mass Effect 3 last night.  I have managed to avoid all of the spoilers and got to judge the ending on my own.  I will do my best to make this spoiler free, or at least make it so you have to do something special to see the spoilers.  I love WordPress.  I looked for a spoiler plugin to handle that sort of thing and Boom!  So Spoilers are marked, click to read if you want. (It should be noted that the Spoiler tags ONLY work if you view on the site.  If you are reading Via RSS feed, I marked the paragraphs that are spoiler-ific)

As I had mentioned in my Single Playthrough post, I have been playing Mass Effect using only the Auto-saves and one single story.  If I made a decision, I stuck to it. No regrets.  This was the story I played with in Mass Effect 3.

To Address all those who are complaining about the ending.  I really have only one thing to say.  If you don’t like the ending, go make your own epic story arc video game and make the ending you want.  Seriously.  I enjoyed the ending as it was. the roller coaster of the game WAS the ending.  Mass Effect 3 WAS the ending of the story.  The last 20 min of the game was just the, the last 20 min of a 40+ hour ending of a 3 year game.  If you are complaining about the “ending” of the game, then you didn’t do it right.  That’s not Bioware’s fault.

Many people are complaining that the ending should have encompassed all of the decisions.  Now think about this.  ME3 accounted for decisions made in ME1 and ME2.

Spoiler: For example, in Mass Effect 1:

In ME1, I let Kaiden die.  Because of this, Ashely was the crew member that was brought through to ME3.  There was story in ME3 that specifically was aimed at Ashley.  It affected my missions and the conversations between the crew.

Spoiler: And then in Mass Effect 2:

I will tell you that I lost quite a few people at the end of Mass Effect 2.  I started ME3 without Thane, Grunt, or Jack.  They gave their lives at the collector base and that’s just how it was.  Their names are etched on the Normandy’s wall and they will be remembered.  Without them in the game I didn’t have many conversations that some of my friends had.  Other interactions between crew members were different, and my friends didn’t see them, because those crew were missing.

Spoiler: So, in Mass Effect 3:

Wrex was in charge of the Krogans, Miranda helped me with the Cerbrus base, Tali helped me with the Geth, and a number of other main story plots were altered due to my decisions in the other games.  When it came to the ending.  I looked at my options and weighed them with the other decisions I have made.  I went with the Synthesis ending, simply because it was the best option for letting the people I fought for survive in the best way possible.  I knew before I even attacked the reapers, I was not planning on living.  Shepard’s job was to do the best by her people.  When I met with my crew on Earth, just before the final push, I was saying goodbye.  That was my closure.  Those people were there because of the decisions I made.

Spoiler free version: It wasn’t just about picking a path in the last 20 min of the game, it was about the entire journey. The ending of the game was DAYS long, not 20 min.
So, like I said, if you are unhappy with the ending, Go make yourself a multi-tiered epic video game and write your own ending.  Bioware did right by me.

The Single Play-through.

Posted by on March 7, 2012 2 comments

The long awaited trilogy ender Mass Effect 3 came out yesterday.  I picked up my copy from GameStop, pausing quickly to ensure the cover is set to FemShep, came home and got everything ready.  I set about migrating over my save games from the previous ME games, just as I had done before.  Thankfully, it didn’t take long since I only have the single character, the single play through.  One run, one set of decisions, one story….my Shepard story.

Mass Effect is one of those epic adventures that BioWare has created to have a bazillion different choices along the way and different outcomes.  They do this to increase the playability of the game.  It’s a great idea and it makes the game full of possibilities.  The problem I have with this is that the story is not done yet.  I haven’t reached the end.

People have told me that it’s like reading a book more than once, or watching your favorite movie again.  The difference being that, when I do that, it’s the same story.  It hasn’t changed, branched off, turned evil.  All of the decisions in the book/movie are the ones I enjoyed and delight in experiencing because they still lead in the direction of the ending.

Mass Effect allows you to change the path you take to the ending so drastically that it could be considered (and often is) a different story.  This isn’t so bad except that I knew that it wasn’t over yet.  Mass Effect 3 is supposed to be the ending we are all waiting for.

Imagine if you will, you are watching Star Wars: Episode IV.  The first watch through is great, you are rooting for this young do-gooder Luke who flirts with Leia, crys over his aunt and uncles deaths and then goes off and helps the rebels win against the evil empire.  Now, say you watch it again, only this time, Luke abandons his aunt and uncle, flirts with Chewbacca, sells out Han Solo to Jabba, and steals the Falcon to use on the Death Star run to blow up the Death Star, only to demand money from the rebels to do so.

Now you have to wait till Empire Strikes back comes out.  You are now invested in two very different story lines.  Yes, you can play them individually, but when it comes to an important decision in the next installment, The good side was ok, but the bad was so much fun and OH MY GOD WHAT DO I PICK?!?!?!

By playing through just the once, from 2007, when ME1 came out, to now, I have had one story.  My Shepard story.  I lived with my decisions, be they good or bad, I have made my choices, and lost a few people.  When I wander around the ship, I get flashbacks to events that happened there.  They are not muddled with other play-throughs, they are the memories of Shepard, they are my memories.  No confusion, no regrets.

Now, I need to get back, apparently the world needs saving…..again.