Okay, so I'm a little late to the dance on the Mass Effect 3 thoughts, but to be honest I wanted to finish the game before I said anything because on the surface (headlines and such), the complaints seemed unwarranted....And then I beat the game.

To try and sum up, I am quoting what I had just written as a product review:

"The Mass Effect Trilogy wraps up with this title. A lot of hype was generated with the release of this title and I was incredibly psyched to play this game. This game's story is phenomenal....until the last 5 minutes. **Potential spoiler material ahead. Do not read further if you are concerned about finding out too much information about the conclusion of this series.**

The beauty of this game is how everything that was done in the previous two installments of the series has an effect on the story during Mass Effect 3. All the alliances previously made, the history of all the species involved, even a chance to repair rifts between different alien species in this game leads to what should have been an ultimately satisfying finale to a truly wonderful mythology and universe that is Mass Effect. This was all destroyed in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I say this because the last five minutes of the game takes every alliance that you've formed, every history explored, and every bridge built to create peace in the galaxy is destroyed in the last five minutes. The three decisions you are forced to make to end the game ultimately destroys at least one of the alien species, destroys Shepard, and destroys any chance of the alien civilizations being able to communicate with each other in the future. This ending was not just a completion of a trilogy - it was the destruction of the entire universe that Bioware carefully created. All Mass Effect Relays were destroyed, thus travel to different galaxies can no longer happen. Every one is isolated from each other, similar to the Tower of Babel in the Bible.

Bioware has mentioned that they can make more games in this universe. But how? They completely destroyed their universe. Are they going to create an entirely new mythos? Do they create games within timelines before the Reaper invasion? What would the point be if we know how everything is going to end?

Ultimately, this game should have been a crowning achievement for Bioware. Instead, they decided to take the beautiful world they had created and reduce it to rubble. I felt empty after completing this game. Like the moral was "No matter whether you are good or bad, everything is going to die in the end. Your decisions are pointless."

Thanks for wasting my time, Bioware. Oh, and thank you for making life feel completely pointless."

I guess ultimately the reason people react so viscerally to this ending is because they feel like everything they worked up towards really didn't matter in the end. Whether you let Wrex die, save the council, have sex with Liara, Jacob, Ashley, etc., none of it matters. If you save the Collector's base for the Illusive man, kill the Rachni Queen, activate Grunt or Legion, none of it matters. Everything that was done to help defeat the Reapers at the end of Mass Effect 3 doesn't matter. In the end, you are still going to die and you are going to kill at least one alien race in the process. And everyone that is left will be taken back thousands of years in technology, since the mass effect relays were all destroyed. I can't help but wonder why I even wasted my time with this series. If I had known when the first game came out that this was going to be the end result, I would have never bothered with this entire series. And for that, I feel cheated and robbed of my money and my time.

I know this post probably sounds like a thousand others out there, but frankly I haven't read them. I'm too depressed by this whole situation to really feel the anger that people on either side of this argument have. It's just depressing.

So, one of the parts in Homefront focuses on the collapse of the American government after "The Great Arab War." I can't help but think of this now considering all that's going on in the middle east and northern Africa these days. I know this game was written in the past year or two, but the coincidence still creeps me out. Every day, you can see the gas prices start climbing as the unrest continues in Lybia, Yemen, Bahrain, etc.

I also worry about how our attacks in Libya are going to look to the Arab world. Granted, we did have the conesnt of the Arab Nations to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya, but when will they feel like things have gone too far? How does it look that we help stop the civil unrest in Libya, but turn a blind eye to Bahrain and Yemen? Will countries start taking sides with different Arab countries? Will there indeed be a "Great Arab War?"

Here's to hoping that Homefront remains fiction.

Paranoia - out.

I remember when "retro graphics" were just graphics.

This is my first Gamespot post and I'll just say hello to anyone who stumbles across this page! I'm not sure about the lineup of games in 2011. So far, the only things I can think of that I'm interested in would be Infamous 2, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3, and L.A. Noire. I was overwhelmed in 2010 with all the games that came out. I was consumed by ME2, FF XIII, Bayonetta, Vanquish, God of War 3, Heavy Rain, and Borderlands. Yes, I know that didn't come out then, but I didn't get a chance to play until last year! So, as far as this year, nothing has really stuck out to me. Not interested in Star Wars because I'm not into MMOs. Hopefully some games can come out during this year and really surprise me. I am a bit interested in the 3DS, so maybe that'll be enough. We'll have to see! That's it for now. Have a good game!