THE FINAL CHAPTER
And so we finally come to the end of this dissection of BioWare’s vomit-inducingly disappointing finale to the Mass Effect series. While I may not have covered every single gripe, complaint and nauseatingly awful aspect of the game, I feel that I have detailed the core problems and hopefully successfully shown you all that BioWare has been tainted by the virus-like corruption that is EA Games. (Think “Uroboros” and we’ll be pretty much on the same page.)
But I’m not quite done yet, as there are two final problems I would like to highlight that, for me, ruined the entire experience, to the point that I am contemplating suicide at the very thought that I even inserted these games into my console in the past. The fact that I enjoyed everything about these games in the past has been negated by everything this blog has discussed, and I now resent the fact that BioWare tricked me into enjoying something so obviously bad. I have been duped by Corporate Bastards, and I am Not Happy.
14. Shepard’s Acceptance of The End
So you’re Commander Shepard and you’ve fought, struggled and hauled yourself to the game’s finale. Throughout your life you have striven to do what’s right, battled evil and corruption wherever it reared its ugly head. You have defeated the wicked, befriended the noble, overcome all challenges and are faced with one final choice: Red, Green or Blue.
That’s an oversimplification, of course: the actual choices are slightly more nuanced. You can choose to destroy the reapers, plus all synthetic life in the galaxy (which seems a bit harsh to the Geth), you can choose the Synthesis option, in which all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy smooshes together into some kind of race of cosmic Terminators, or you can choose to Control the Reapers, whereby nothing changes except for the fact that the Reapers stop creaming all life in the galaxy.
That’s it. Those are your options. No Renegade option. No Paragon option. Just those three choices.
But hang on a fucking minute! This is Commander Shepard! There should be other options! Shepard has always been given other options for important decisions. Where’s my Renegade and Paragon choices?
If I was a Renegade then I’d draw my pistol and shoot that little VI bastard right through the head, which wouldn’t do anything to it since it is no more than a projection of photons, and Shepard has no idea where the source of the VI is, but it would sure as shit make Shepard feel better. Then he’d grab a fire ax and start smashing up the console, refusing to select any of these choices. As a Renegade, Shepard would say, “Fuck You!!! I reject your choices! I’m going to destroy the Crucible so that I don’t have to listen to this shit. Yeah! And when the Crucible’s gone, you just see if you can force me into a decision-making process, fucker!! So what if the Crucible is our only hope to defeat the Reapers? I’ll dash those hopes into the vacuum of space and then float out there and take on the fucking Reapers myself. Yeah, I’ll wrestle those bedbug-looking motherfuckers right into the ground. You can’t defeat me! I am invincible!!!!!”
That’s what should happen: the Crucible explodes, Shepard is thrown from the explosion, tumbles through the inky blackness of space, expertly dodging laser fire, until he lands on the big red eye of a Reaper, and using his Biotic powers and a really Big Fucking Gun he rips that deadly beam right out of the Reapers ugly fucking face. And when that Reaper’s down he pushes off and drifts right on over to the next one and does the same thing. I’d happily accept a sequence of QTE’s just to see that fucking ending. I’d take those bastards down single-fucking-handed. You just watch me!
Alternatively, you could take the Paragon option. In this ending, Shepard would sit down and, through an hour-long series of discussions, explanations and dialogue-wheels, I’d convince the VI that his three choices suck. Despite the fact that the VI is stuck in an artificial cycle of false logic, I’d break through that confusion and explain how synthetic life can be good and how it should be preserved. Finally, after much negotiation, the little VI would turn around and say, “you know what, Shepard? I was only kidding – there’s actually other choices, since the Crucible can be infinitely calibrated to produce any outcome you wish. I was only fucking around when I said that there were just those three options. If I press this button right here,” (he presses a button on the console, even though he’s just a light projection and not a real corporeal being), “we can access the Rose Petals and Perfume option, in which the Reapers are suffocated by a beautiful shower of blossom and floral scents. Then, if we press this button next,” (he inexplicably presses another button on the console), “Earth is magically rebuilt, better than it was before, and the Galactic Fleet is returned to its homeworlds. And finally, because you’re such a wonderful person who has shown me the light and explained the inexplicable, I shall press the ‘Make Shepard Immortal’ button, so that you can never die and you can live in peace, harmony and tranquility with <insert romance option here>.”
That’s what BioWare should have done. Anything else is bullshit.
15. Similarity of Endings
By now we have established just how abhorrent this game is, but the icing on the cake is the fact that, even with these three retarded options, the endings are all fundamentally the same anyway, differing only, fundamentally, in the color of the beam that is dispersed among the Mass Relays. It’s almost as if the writers are making a mockery of the entire concept of Choice in their video game, because at the end of the day we find that, despite all our choices, all our decisions, all our relationships, friendships and alliances, what it all comes down to is “Mass Relays destroyed, Galaxy gets Royally Fucked.”
It’s almost as if there are some things, especially Big things, that are inevitable, and our choices make no difference. It’s like saying that, in Real Life, there are some things that we just can’t change. What a ludicrous assertion! In Real Life, my decision to befriend John Smith from Basingstoke, rekindle a friendship between him and Frank McDonald, start a romance with Becky Riley and have bacon and eggs for breakfast could quite legitimately have a bearing on whether or not WalMart goes into receivership. To deny this possibility is to deny the nature of the very webs we weave as we wander through our daily lives.
Why, for example, and as we have already touched on, does it make no real difference how many War Assets we have accumulated? Surely, if we gather every available asset then we should be able to take on the Reapers by ourselves, without the aid of the Crucible? Or are they implying that even the amassed fleet of the Galaxy won’t be able to stop them? Madness!
Also, if Liara is able to access the plans for the Crucible, and Shepard is able to understand Prothean doodads, why does having a relationship with her not result in your ability to make the Crucible work better? I have some of my best ideas just after a good, hard sex marathon, so it stands to reason that Shepard and Liara could have some sweaty, vigorous shagathons followed by a good old-fashioned brainstorming session. I bet that if we really put our heads together we could create that “Rose Petals and Perfume” beam.
If Shepard were to have a romance with Garrus I bet that, together, we could calibrate the shit out of the Crucible. With Miranda, we could use our Biotics to defeat the galactic threat; with Samara, we could Jusitcar their butts off; with Jacob we could overload their systems with the ambiguous promise of some kind of Prize.
By reuniting the Quarians with their creations, the Geth, we could show the Reapers that co-existence is possible. We could get a Quarian and a Geth to present them with a symbolic wreath, along with a plaque etched with phrases of togetherness and co-operation.
When all is said and done, my disappointment reinforces a long-held belief that I have about life – it’s all about the destination: fuck the journey. If the destination is not exactly what I want and expect it to be then the journey, no matter how creative, inspiring or enjoyable, suddenly becomes completely worthless, an irritating distraction worthy only of my ridicule, hatred, spite and derision.
BioWare have spent the past several years constructing an immersive, thought-provoking universe in which you play as a character who can embody the player’s own hopes, desires and dreams within a fantastical world full of possibility. You confront issues and dilemmas that parallel real-world problems; you are made to face metaphorical and allegorical quandries, put into a situation where you have to consider things beyond your own experience, your own comfort-zone and beyond your own life; they make you think of others, think of consequences and side-effects; they give you the opportunity to be good or bad, honest or deceitful, and to see the way these decisions affect other people.
BioWare have made a deep and brilliant series of video games that ends with an uncomfortable ultimate decision, a decision which wrenches at every fibre of your being because you know – you absolutely know – that these are truly the only real options open to you. That final decision took me several minutes to make. The consequences of each one, the possibility that I am being deceived by a higher intelligence, the weight on my shoulders of making a decision by myself that will affect the entire galaxy, and the belief that I should try making the absolutely best one, selflessly, for I will not survive beyond that choice.
Fuck you, BioWare. Fuck you for making me think and feel and emote and empathize. Fuck you for making me use my imagination, for making me immerse myself in the incredibly deep and complex world of relationships, politics and moral dilemmas. Fuck you for giving me over a hundred hours of pleasure and enjoyment, for giving me a sense of achievement, for making me enjoy myself.
Fuck you very much.
Mass Effect Sucks Arse – Part 1
Mass Effect Sucks Arse – Part 2
The Daily Heretic 