Monday, October 1, 2012

Mass Effect's Ending Sucked.... and here's why.

First things first, this is about a review of the ending of a game. It's basically the definition of spoiler. I don't expect many people to care, but I felt the need to inform you. Second, if you haven't heard of Mass Effect or are familiar with a lot of the jargon, I tried to make it as jargon free as possible, but it still might not make any sense. Finally, yeah, I know. No video, I could've made an amazing one for this too. Maybe next time.


“If you're like me, you have invested so much time in the Mass Effect trilogy and now you've beaten Mass Effect 3(further referenced as ME3)..... and you hate the ending.” That is the general idea of the video made by JeremyJahns on YouTube. His thesis, however, outlines in much more. He'll give his opinion on the endings, why they sucked, and what they could have done to make them better. Bam! The three ideas of the video in a sentence.

Alright, so he first talks about why he hated the endings. Oh, right, if you didn't watch the video, he expresses a deep hatred for the endings, first talking about choice, or the lack thereof. He continues on to say that the three options in a game that was all about telling your own story were not up to par. His evidence is that, the way they are presented to you, you aren't given a choice as to why each of them are there. To quote one of the complaints “In everything I know about Commander Shepherd ~ Commander Shepard would be like bullshit! How about we've earned the right to shut the reapers down!” He continues to poke holes in the endings by pointing out that they had the resources to follow through with the suggested ending and conclude it right there.

His next argument was why the endings suck. The best I can tell, this is a strawman argument. He begins with “People have told me, and it is said that there are 16 different endings in ME3.” Next, he completely destroyed the argument. He confirms that, yes the endings are different, of course he elaborates by saying “....if by 16 different endings, you mean one ending that is 95% the same ending and varies slightly in certain different parts.” A little research into the endings I haven't seenyet on YouTube reveals that, yes, there isn't much of a difference inthe endings. That link will take you to a playlist of every ending. Enter at your own risk. Finally, he decides to make sure the argument is set in stone brings logic into the equation. After the endings, all the mass relays have been blown up and the armada you brought in to defend the earth are all stranded in Sol Space(the part of space where earth is). This leads a large rant about how all those alien species can't survive long on just the resources of Earth, so those species that came are all going to starve to death. After saving the galaxy. Because you blew up their ride home. Yeah.

So, his final body is about how they could've done it better. First: If you brag about the massive amount of possible endings, make them different. Second: Make your choices matter. At the end of ME2, you have to decide to give the collector base to the illusive man or blow it to space dust. Maybe you give it to the illusive man and at the end of ME3, when you've won, he's on trial for war crimes, you and Anderson are there “throwing the book at him.” This part of the video doesn't have much more to present other than possible endings, so I'll continue on.

A lot of the points he brings up, I am familiar with because I've played the games several times over again, of course, it helped that YouTube was there to show me the way to each ending. Most of this stuff you can find watching let's plays or just reading a summary of the game or watching video clips. It's as simple as typing “Mass Effect 3 endings” or “Mass Effect let's play” into YouTube. I should also mention this is an old video and, several months after the game's release, Bioware released free DLC that elaborated on each of the endings. I haven't watched them yet, but it could've remedied the problem.

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