mass effect ending

nice post about it, and why it is so disappointing to many fans...


This quote comes courtesy of unigolyn over @ Penny Arcade.

The Crucible is not deus ex machina, it is a MacGuffin. It's largely irrelevant except as a plot device. It is the exhaust port on the Death Star.

The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen).

Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.

This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?

In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.

The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.

But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.

The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).

No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.

And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a shit if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a shit if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.

And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.

You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.

How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?

The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.

The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making shit up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.

This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.

Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.

I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.

TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose.


the internet turned a movie about hitler into a meme...

dovahkiin

named their baby dovahkiin to get free games from bethesda for life...not bad compared to some stupid celebrity baby names

http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/skyrim-baby/


Talk about a dragonborn. While most of the country’s gamers were entranced with Bethesda Softworks’ newest RPG blockbuster Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a couple actually named their newborn son after the game.

Back in February, Bethesda issued a challenge to its fans to have a baby on 11/11/11 and name it “Dovahkiin”, which is what the main character is called throughout the game. While the company issued it more in jest than anything else, they did offer a serious prize: “A Steam key that will grant you, and presumably Dovahkiin him/herself, every ZeniMax/Bethesda game — past, present and future — for life.”

“Once your child eventually achieves cognition — and grows old enough to play intense video games — we think it will agree that this key blows away a pink pleated onesie.”

Sure enough, Megan and Eric Kellermeyer answered the challenge, and on 11/11/11 at 6:08pm PST, Megan gave birth to Dovahkiin Tom Kellermeyer. The couple shared their blog post about the baby, sent in the necessary documents and won the coveted lifetime swag. The Bethesda team also has a picture of the infant surrounded by the first batch of his great gaming reward.

“Be it the real world or the game worlds we create, we wish young Dovahkiin the best in all his adventures,” the company says on their blog post.

random comic spoof...you'll get it if you know the game...from dorkly.com

web vids

several cool vids came out this week

first is the avengers trailer...

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/10/11/the-avengers-trailer/

there are many websites that are dissecting and analyzing it...my take is that it looks pretty cool, but samuel jackson's delivery of the voice over portion seems flat...like he's just reading it...the part where capt. america criticizes stark seems out of place since he's just a guy on super steroids...really interested to see how they handle the hulk

second is the dragon age web series with felicia day that ties into the newest dlc for the dragon age 2...you won't be able to follow it if you haven't played the game

third is the last episode of this season for the guild...it's out on xbox but doesn't come out on msn until thursday...this season was pretty good...tons of special guests

mario

from a cool little website....http://magicalgametime.com/post/10992740895/i-think-i-finally-realized-the-moral-of-super

i wish it was really that simple

vids

a couple vids...

i haven't played portal, but this is still a good little indie movie...much better than many big budget hollywood movies based on games...

also, amc has some of the walking dead panel from comic con on their website

http://www.amctv.com/the-walking-dead/videos/the-walking-dead-comic-con-panel-2011

fallout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9UwlAAnlmg&feature=related

pretty good fan film based on the fallout game series...great sandbox type rpg from bethesda set in a post apocalyptic world

racing sim

http://www.iracing.com/cars-and-tracks/tracks/

online racing simulation...i would need a new computer and a proper wheel set up like this fanatec

http://www.fanatec.de/webshop/new_eu/index.php?osCsid=7faaf5badc40cb98fce9c068c72abbef

iracing is supposed to be one of the best ones out there, and many pro drivers train with it...small monthly fee, and you move up by winning races and earning points

ipad arcade

i don't like apple, but this ipad accessory is pretty cool...you can attach an ipad and use the analog controls to play games like a mini arcade machine...even has the controller layout for street fighter (asteroids didn't use a stick for a controller...just 5 buttons for left and right rotate, thrust, fire, and hyperspace or something like that)

http://www.destructoid.com/those-rad-ipad-arcade-cabinets-aren-t-too-far-off-197027.phtml

consoles and pc games have made the arcade obsolete and kids now won't be able to experience the fun of walking into one...when i was a kid, the arcade was matched in awesomeness only by toys r us...today, you're limited to dave and busters and chuck e cheese...and the games are usually limited to shooters, fighters, and simulators...

some of my favorites while growing up in no particular order...maybe you'll recognize them..most are from late 80's early 90's...i think that is when arcade games hit their prime...games weren't overly complicated, had good graphics, and were made to make you drop quarter after quarter to try to advance to the next level