Some people who know me may know that, all in all, I tend not to rock the boat. While I have opinions, and a lot of them, I usually don't voice the strongest ones. While this is a big change from high school (See also: Petition about Choir Director, freshman year; Petition about fixing the traffic light at school that went no where, senior year), I've found that it's far better to funnel your energy into certain things. So while I might get very passionate and opinionated about being anti-human trafficking, my belief that sapient life should self-determinate, and other assorted big-ticket items, I'm not one to start petitions or stand on street corners or whatever unless it's one of those big-ticket items.
That's why some of my friends are . . . interested . . . in how vocal I've become about the Take Back Mass Effect movement. Because, seriously, it's a video game. (And I know it's a video game.) I mean, in the back of my head, I know that the $70 my mom shelled out (the preorder was a Christmas present because, come on, I'm in grad school) could have fed 70 kids for one month in a third world country and people are starving and dying and enslaved and all, and that's what I think about when I've got my Christian Graduate Student hat on. When I've got my I Need A Vacation From The Real World hat on, I turn on my Xbox. And for at least the last year and a half (since I got into console gaming, starting last Christmas), my series of choice has been the Mass Effect series.
In fact, I started gaming -- serious gaming, I'm not counting Majesty or AoE here, sorry guys -- with Bioware. My first legit game was the first Neverwinter Nights series, and I loved it. It had a story, it had compelling characters and dialogue (Deekin remains one of my favorite video game characters to date), and it had great endings. Then, NWN2, which I know wasn't Bioware but still took place in the same universe (D&D/Forgotten Realms). Then a roommate/friend had me play Knights of the Old Republic on her 360, and I was hooked. I even bought myself an old Xbox off E-Bay so I could play it ($60 well spent for a college student).
I'd seen said friend playing Mass Effect, and was interested. So when I got an upgrade to a 360 last Christmas, the first three games I bought were Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age: Origins (because it was ALSO a Bioware game). I didn't think another game series would topple the first KoTOR from my Top Game Ever spot, however, because at heart I was a Star Wars geek through and through.
Then I played Mass Effect.
I fell in love with the characters -- all of them, even Liara and Ashley, though they occupied a lower rung on my OH I LOVE YOU roster. I cried on Virmire, even though I only minimally liked Ashley (sorry, girl, totally dead in all my games). I immediately turned around and played through Mass Effect 2, falling in love with almost that entire cast (though I had to break up a fight my first playthrough between Miranda and Jack and decided to pick the crazy biotic out of a sense of self-preservation, which I then couldn't explain to Miranda, and then the stupid Cerberus broad goes and gets herself killed holding the line . . .). Then I replayed. Again. Repeatedly. Through ME1 and 2. I was able to actually be excited about Arrival because I was going to get to play it when it was released, not months afterwards. Then, I bore out the anticipation of Mass Effect 3 . . .
Even participating in the twitter storm that was #solcomms, to epic proportions. East Coast Resistance FTW.
The point here is that the game series is freaking amazing. I even wrote epic-length fanfiction (see http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6896685/1/Chiaroscuro) and a one-shot about the geth character, Legion, my last semester at college because I was anticipating ME3 and had Mass Effect on the brain.
Spring break was last week. I managed to get the game the day it came out and, because I'd decided to call out of work that week to have an "actual" vacation, I plugged it right in that night. I dedicated 3 days of break to playing ME3, crying when <spoiler>Mordin, Thane, and Legion</spoiler> died, when <spoiler>Grunt</spoiler> almost died (little bastard) . . . hell, I cried when Charr the Poetry-Spewing Krogan died, and I'm not even going to go into what happened when I got the message that Kal'Reegar went out like a boss.
I solved the sterilization of the krogan. I saved the Council (again). I got back with Kaidan. I ended a 300 year war between synthetics and organics.
The reason I say "I" is because, unlike "other" FPS games, this game is also a roleplaying game. I put all that work into this game. It was my choices that convinced the quarian fleet to withdraw, saving both them and the geth, even after socking Han'Gerrel in the stomach. It was my actions that ended Kai Leng's miserable existence with a biotic punch to the teeth (followed by omni-blade at close range. The most satisfying renegade interrupt in existence).
If it was another FPS, this post wouldn't matter.
I sobbed like a baby when I got to the ending.
Now, I didn't cry because Shepard "doesn't get to retire to a nice planet with Kaidan and have 1.5 kids, a robotic dog, and a white picket fence" in the current ending. I didn't cry because so-and-so got killed and I didn't want them to. I cried because, no matter what ending I picked, everyone that I'd gotten to care about in the world I'd gotten to care about was dead. I won't outline why for the most part (I will post a video explaining it, however), but suffice to say that the ending disturbed me on very moral grounds. Then, I figured that the other endings must have been better and I just picked the "wrong" one because Bioware always has the chance for a good ending. I youtubed them, and realized I'd just been thrown into "Choose The Color Of Your Own Apocalypse Lolz."
1. The mass relays explode.
Arrival showed us what happens when that happens. Relay exploding = supernova = EVERYONE DIES. So, basically, that means that Any Choice Shepard Picks = EVERYONE DIES. No one's come forward saying "no, that doesn't happen." Even if it doesn't, look who all's stranded at Destroyed Earth in my mostly-paragon game: asari, salarians, krogan, those dinosaur things the salarians cloned, elcor, volus, likely drell, turians, and quarians. Those last two can't even eat the same things humans do. Guess they're all starving to death, huh? Or else all the ships turn on each other, blast one another out of the sky, and the winner takes Earth, I suppose.
2. Teleportation.
I really wish we'd had word of this in the other games. It would have saved me a lot of trouble with, you know, the mako, and the Hammerhead, and all that walking. Because Kaidan and Garrus were on Earth the last time I saw them (read: base camp, before the final charge) so one of those two bastards must have invented teleportation technology and got to the Normandy before things went to hell. Firstly, thank you Joker and Kaidan for stranding me on the Citadel without even so much as a "Hi, Shep, wanna come with?" Also, teleportation? I'm looking at you, Garrus. "Calibrations" indeed.
3. WTF Bioware.
What really disappointed me was that this was not a good Bioware ending. Let's think about this.
Neverwinter Nights (original):
Original: You escape the stone as it's collapsing around you and go on to continue your adventures because, seriously. You just saved an entire city. You didn't romance a damn person.
Shadows of Undrentide: You kill the woman who turned you (and Deekin) to stone for a very long time then escape to the Plane of Shadows, presumably finding a way back in time for . . .
Hordes of the Underdark: You kill that SOB Mephistopheles and get to hang with your LI of choice, having escaped hell, with an epilogue that documents everything your companions do.
KoTOR:
Original: Light Side: You beat Malak up, win the war, hang out with your LI of choice, and then disappear into the Unexplored Regions, presumably to beat the crap out of the True Sith Empire. Dark Side: You claim the Star Forge, destroy the Republic Fleet, maybe hang with your LI if it's Bastila and you're a guy, and then disappear into the Unexplored Regions a year later, presumably to beat the crap out of the True Sith Empire.
The second one was made by Obsidian, so we can just say that the ending sort of stopped like Firefly and leave it at that.
Dragon Age: Origins (I haven't played Awakening or 2, so I don't know how they end):
Original: Well, if you play as a straight chick, you're basically screwed if you romanced Alistair, so that's sort of a downer. My friend actually rage-quite because of that. I didn't. I figured it was merely a weird little stumbling block in the relationship and moved on. If you take the sadistic choice there (as a female gamer. As a male gamer it's probably more of a . . . meh) you both live and, if you're a human noble female, you get hitched. If not, it doesn't matter. You might die, one of you might die, you might have taken any number of paths with it, and . . . oh yeah, big after-ending conclusion about what 1. the party members do 2. what minor characters do 3. what races do based on your decisions throughout the game.
Mass Effect:
Original: You beat the snot out of Saren, maybe blow up the Council, and probably hook up with your LI a few more times.
2: This depends on what you consider "the end." As Arrival is technically the end, I feel like the DLC completes it. So . . . Main Campaign: You beat the crap out of the guys who killed you, probably curbstomping them into submission if you even tried a little bit, and getting a lot of people out alive. Arrival: You blow up a mass relay, which is an Oh Shit moment if we've ever had one, but it sets up ME3.
Mass Effect 3:
You solve centuries-old conflicts, scan planets for survivors and technology, possibly hook crew members up (Joker/EDI, Garrus/Tali, I'm looking at you), possibly get everyone in the galaxy to work together to face the Reapers, build a giant gun that uses an entire space station to fire it, and then . . . choose the color of your explosion.
Wow.
Yeah, great writing there.
Don't get me wrong. ME3 was an amazing game. Flat out amazing. Just, that ending bit . . . if you have an ending that fans have trouble rationalizing, that makes them nauseous or disfunctional or unable to sleep (I, personally, had the Doctor come and fix everything), something is wrong. Yes, while art may be angsty, we don't turn to fictional pieces to feel angsty. Video games are my escape from the fact that every day, through research and my educational choices, I see the worst of what people can do to one another. I want validation that all that suffering is worth something. That's why I'm a Christian. That's why I'm a humanitarian. That's why I'm an avid reader, writer, and gamer. And that's why the ending of Mass Effect 3 almost destroyed me.
Sure, I saw War Horse in theatres. It isn't a movie I'll own. Why? Because I don't like to cry that often during movies. It's the same reason I don't own Passion of the Christ, or any of those other movies that are obvious Oscar Bait. It's why I own movies like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Serenity, Indiana Jones, and Cowboys and Aliens. Because at the end of the day, not only am I a geek, but those movies eventually have the hero stand up to the villain, scream "No more," and emerge victorious on the other side. Yeah, it's a lot of hard work, but it happens.
So do I want a happy ending? Not necessarily. I didn't start ME3 expecting one, just knowing the scale of what the galaxy was going into. However did I expect that, if I worked hard enough, I'd possibly get an ending where Shep & Kaidan retire to a rebuilt Vancouver and Garrus and Shep took a vacation to a sunny place and drank some beers on the beach? Yeah, I expected it. Because it's a Bioware game. A "good" ending might be hard to get, but hey, it's still gettable.
Primarily, I want people to stop calling us entitled. I'm not entitled. In fact, I believe I'm one of the least-entitled people in the world. I live in the US, I have an apartment, I have the ability to receive higher education. I've never lived in my mother's basement (or any basement, for that matter). Hell, I'm a female gamer -- what does that tell you? I sort of killed all your "stereotypes" right there.
What I want, as a gamer and fanfiction writer emotionally invested in the character growth and story arcs of the Mass Effect series, is an ending that validates my belief that the universe is a generally good place, that people can work together for the greater good, that I can fight my way through a life that oftentimes sucks and still get a decent ending that's worth the agony and torment (a lot of what living a life is about), and I can kick a lot of Reaper ass along the way. I don't want what might be the greatest video game trilogy of my generation to crash and burn with a Gainax ending that invalidates all established canon -- more than that, it straps the canon into a gasoline tank and attacks it with a flamethrower.
It's be like George Lucas ending a trilogy by saying that "she died of a broken heart." Oh, wait . . .
It'd be like Fox cancelling what might have been the best show in years in a single half-season. Oh, wait . . .
Uh . . .
I'm running out of analogies.
All I can say is, I hope if any of the "major news outlets" like Kotaku or whomever who have called us "entitled gamers" or accused us of "nerd rage" and told us to "get over it" stumble across this perspective from someone who probably loves the games just a little less than the people who made them, who admire those peoples' time and effort and dedication into creating what might be the most well-rounded science fiction universe since Star Wars . . .
And then bashing it into little pieces with a sledgehammer.
. . . was the ending written by George Lucas? Because that would be a plot twist.
“We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all the incompleteness. We turn to fiction to have an author assure us that it means something.”
-Orson Scott Card
Oh, and Bioware? Please issue a statement before we all go crazy. This isn't going to die down, trust me. You saw what happened with SOPA and ACTA . . . you don't get us nerds/geeks mad. So, just a statement, more than an acknowledgement that "We're listening." Tell us you have a plan. Redeem yourselves in our eyes. I don't want to not love you anymore, promise. But I don't know if we can get around this betrayal if you don't.
Keelah Se'lai.
Also, here's the video I mentioned. Shout out to @Xarathos.
http://angryjoeshow.com/2012/03/top-10-reasons-we-hate-mass-effect-3s-ending/
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