In Mass Effect, your choices matter! Until the end. Then they don't.
I'll leave the ending for...the ending.
For now, the start.
The game intros perfectly. In 5 minutes, the game establishes its tone. You, Commander Shepard, have been grounded for your actions in alliance with Cerberus. But, even though you spent 5 years screaming, fighting, and proving it, the alliance is completely caught off guard by a Reaper invasion of Earth.
The intro, despite my slightly dismissive tone of Bioware pulling the "we don't trust Shepard's story cause he's human/with Cerberus/no longer military" card yet again, the cinematics and music are top shelf. The Leaving Earth score is easily the second best in the franchise, bested only by the later to come An End, Once and For All, both scored by Clint Mansell. Both scores are haunting, line up with the game's theme, while having a fugue with the original theme from the first game.
So, from here, Shepard must yet again see his favorite people in the galaxy, the Council. And, despite him saving their lives from an eye witnessed Reaper attack no more than 5 years previous, they decide that they have better things to do than band together against the greatest threat to all living beings in the galaxy, but tell Shepard that if he wants to try, well, go for it.
At this point, the game feels like a rehash of game 1. Except Earth is being destroyed, you're not there to defend it, but all these other races are happy to offer their help, but only after you go out to the far corners of the universe to fold their socks, and get their females in the mood, first.
Oh, and there's this thing they uncovered on Mars. A Prothean device, called the Crucible, that they magically discover just in time for the invasion. No one knows what it's purpose is, or what it does, but Cerberus wants it, the Reapers seem scared of it, so we's a gonna build it.
We got time. It's not like the universe will end tomorrow...oh wait.
Fortunately, the sock folding and wingman missions are, for the most part, spectacular! Saving the only female Krogan cured of the genophage is absolutely amazing. Getting involved with the Geth and Quarrians, and bringing an end to their conflict on the Quarrians home world is amazingly well done, incredibly moving. I actually welled up on the Quarrian home world, when I lost my favorite squad mate.
The missions are all good, some of them are so great, they make you forget that Earth is being destroyed as you do them. Most of them are good enough to keep it in the back of your mind.
Which leads me to my first major flaw. Intensity. The game opens it's biggest, most anticipated can of worms right at the beginning, Earth invaded by the Reapers, and instead of being a part of that, it forces you away from it, and basically gives you well dressed up fetch quests. Now, they are mostly quite awesome fetch quests, but they are in no way as awesome as the thought that kept persisting in the back of my mind when I did them...
...The battle on Earth better kick some serious ass.
But, let's cover the DLC here.
Generally, it's pretty awesome. The Prothean Javik is all sorts of awesome, the Leviathan DLC gives you the origin of the reapers, and it's engaging and horrifying. Omega was my favorite, for many reasons. It was intense from start to finish, you get to play with Aria as a teammate, you see to my knowledge, the first female Turian, and from beginning to end, it just reeks of expressive and well executed integrity, covering alot of storytelling ground, and giving you heap loads of well executed action.
Citadel is enjoyable. Some people loved it. I enjoyed it, saw it as well intended fan service, and liked it as that. My problem with it, has nothing to do with "it" as an xpack, because it is very well done and entertaining watching Shepard and his crew enjoy their lives with humor and levity. It's that, as my Shepard is being all funny about the way he sounds, or getting a group photo with the gang...the Earth is being ass raped by Reapers. As a player, this was always in the back of my mind playing the entire game. It was MOST in my mind in the Citadel dlc. But, why not on Shepard's?
I understand it was intended as fan service, and on that it succeeds. It just takes place at the least opportune time in the history of the galaxy. Literally.
Which brings me back to my major complaint in the story. Bioware pulled it's Ace out too early. Earth was, for the player, and for Shepard, the greatest stake in this story. If, instead of an entire hoard of Reapers, maybe a couple scouts come, signaling what WILL BE the greatest invasion in the game, then it's still in the future. We have the time to cure or betray the Krogan, to help the Quarrians, Geth, Asari, and Turians. We can enjoy bumping into our old squad mates on various planets spread across the galaxy, because we have TIME to enjoy it, we have time to strengthen bonds, time to catch up, to fight, to party, to be heros.
The problem is, as a player, I am painfully AWARE that Earth has no time. Errand running and frivolity seems irresponsible. Shepard, I imagine, would agree.
My second problem. The Crucible.
No hint of it at all. Two games. Nothing. Then we suddenly discover half completed plans for it. We have no idea what it does, but we'll risk losing scientists and manpower we could use on weapons, fighting, and strategy, on a machine we don't have complete plans for, have no idea what it's purpose is, and might destroy all life. It seems like an out of nowhere narrative device. And, in the end, turns out to be one, introducing one of the worst characters in the last five minutes of the game that completely unravels any sense of coherency, consistency, integrity, and meaning that was carried from our first hour playing, to the 90 hourish mark, when Bioware pulls the ultimate Contact device, the machine of the gods, out of nowhere as our ONLY means to defeat our enemies, then pulls out of that device, the greatest crime they would ever commit on the series.
But, we'll get to that.
So, we go back to Earth, and it's awesome. It's ravaged. It's at war. Reapers are giant, everywhere, and everything looks bleak and hopeless. Teammates are saying their goodbyes, sure that they'll die, and if they happen to live, sure that you will.
It's tense. It's awesome. Then we attack. We fight hard. Everything is building. The enemy is pushing harder, and we keep fighting. We run out of ammo as we blast a Reaper to hell, paving the way to our only hope. A road too far. We're running for it, Harbinger comes. We expect more threats. He just fires lasers. We keep running, toward our only hope. It's awesome. Your love interest it hit, so you say goodbye as the Normandy swoops in (isn't the new Normandy no good in atmosphere? Who cares...this is awesome!), you keep running, about to get on the Citadel, activate the Crucible, and turn this war around...it's so close, I can taste it! The space battle! Kicking the shit out of Harbinger once and for all!
A laser fires...
And at this point, the game completely falls off the rails. Not just in the sense of the game...in the sense of every minute you spent playing, replaying in a different way, seeing how all those choices led to different outcomes, different lovers, different lives and deaths.
When that laser hits...every choice you ever made...in every play through of every game in the entire series from the beginning to this exact point, does not matter anymore.
There is one last scene with some integrity, when Anderson and Shepard sit on the citadel, overlooking the battle, with success at a high cost, saying they have the best seats in the house...I was in tears. Such a high cost, a rest earned...
...and then, we get the worst Deus Ex Machina introduced in the climax of the finale. Not a cool space battle, not a last death and fate defying decision to ignite the Crucible, and turn the tide of battle. Not all the war assets laying waste as they are Annihilated by the overwhelming enemy, no Joker ramming the Normandy into Harbinger's face, to buy Shepard the time to light up the reapers. No Leviathan taking out the Reapers like a dad who just came home to his kids fingerprinting on the walls and couches...
We get the god in the machine, in the form of a god boy. God boy tells us, that despite finally ending the war between the Quarrians and the Geth, that synthetics will always wish to wipe us out. The Geth said otherwise. So much for that. He tells us that our striving to unite our diverse cultures against a common cause for three games, the crux of the ENTIRE series, was not the point. The Reapers were only "harvesting" us to save us from ourselves. Lasers and mass destruction was just their way to make sure our heritage was kept intact. They didn't seek to destroy us. Harbinger and Soverign didn't mean all those mean and threatening things they said all that time. They just wanted to protect us...from ourselves, buy killing us, and robbing us of our hope.
But, there is hope! We built the Crucible! We brought about the machine god boy that, apparently, none of the great minds who built the Crucible had any idea we'd bring about. We did it as organics! So we must be evolved enough to know there are only three ways to deal with things from here...
We must kill synthetics, control them, or merge with them.
Whoa...wha teh fuh?!?
So, lemme get this straight. Every culture before us failed, because they grew too homogeneous, and lacked the diversity to be flexible in the face of extinction. The Prothean TELLS US THIS! We FINALLY achieve it. We achieve unity, through our differences, gain strength through our differences, and come together to defeat a threat that will rob us of our ability to choose, to determine our individual fates, together.
But, it is implied that our best hope for success to end the cycle, is to do exactly what killed every species before us to this cycle?
Yep..I checked out.
The new endings, while they add length, and do add some exposition and some touching resolution beyond the climax, are well done. The actual finale in the climax, sucks. It offers no new glimpse of forethought, or consistency to the universe I played in and loved for five years. It doesn't make the choices by god boy make any more sense, or give me the feeling that the game wouldn't be better served by Shepard taking Anderson's hand, and using it to press the button that activates the Crucible, which can do any myriad of things. It could give the Reapers living organic consciousness, and in their weakness, we can then choose to destroy them or allow them to leave. It could simply blow them up. It could do whatever.
Point being, the ending, while improved, still sucks. It sucks hard. It sucks because, in 5 minutes, it robs us of a moment of true turnaround, where we fight for the lives we decide to live. It sucks because it robs us of a fitting and unique resolution or choices promised. But it sucks most, for completely betraying the central crux of the universe Bioware presented to us...
...A universe shaped by a hero who, in the face of any obstacle, brought people together to fight for their right to live and die by the choices we make, as individuals. And, we are stronger for that.
I know I'm bashing a ton, but I won't apologize for that. This game, while fun to play, and offering the finest examples of mission variety yet, failed to cash in on it's greatest promise in the end. Our choices matter.
They don't.
Bioware was capable of better. Fans wanted better. And, really, the series deserved a better conclusion that what we all got.
Like I said, for me, it ends with Shepard and Anderson on the citadel together. Then I imagine something better, more epic, and more conclusive from there.
I have, never in my life, seen anything like this. Never have I seen a finale end in a way that is not just unsatisfactorily or sub par...it is both, but it is more than that. It is a complete betrayal of everything they, as the creators, led us to believe was most important in the universe they created. Our choices determining our outcome.
Nope, a paradoxical contradicting boy will choose our fate for us. Pick a color...