lookingglassmind wrote...
I'm gonna peruse. 
Wonder how many naysayers you had at that time.
Ha. I laid that out over on the Escapist's forums and killed an entire thread dead in its tracks on it. That I
can find easily enough.
I wrote...
My perfect ending?The eleventh-hour revelation is that between exposure to Saren and Sovereign, Cerberus having unlimited access to Shepard's body during Project Lazarus, exposure to the Collector base, and exposure to all the other Reapers in ME3, Shepard him/herself has become Indoctrinated as a sleeper agent, was activated during the Reaper invasion, and been subconsciously sabotaging the war effort in very subtle ways from the beginning. Like the infamous Revan plot twist, but way[/b] more insidious.The whole thing comes to a head when Ashley or Kaiden, and/or Shepard's main love interest, is forced to confront them just before the point of no return which triggers the true ending sequence the backdrop of which (and red herring for) is the final battle, based upon whether:
1. (Paragon) Shepard surrenders and removes him/herself from command, breaks out of the Indoctrination thanks in no small part to his/her squadmates, and uses the Reapers' own strategies and tactics against them to advise Hackett, Anderson and the rest of the Council to victory. Who lives and who dies, and how well the battle ultimately goes, depends on Shepard's previous choices in the first two games.
2. (Neutral) Shepard commits suicide to prevent doing any more damage, bookending and completing the parallels developed between Shepard and Saren over the course of the trilogy. The player takes over the part of Kaiden/Ashley or the LI for the final sequence, the outcome of which depends on galactic readiness and Shepard's decisions in the first two games, still leaving Shepard to be the ultimate mover and shaker in the conflict but ultimately a tragic figure.
3. (Renegade) Shepard murders his love interest, Kaiden/Ashley, and sets the Normandy to self-destruct while escaping in a shuttle. Shepard docks with the Councils' flagship (Destiny Ascension or whatever else), assassinates Hackett, Anderson, Udina, and the rest of the Council, and turns the flagship's guns against the rest of the fleet under the auspice that Indoctrinated people have infiltrated the Council fleet (it's super-ironic!). With the fleet in disarray, the Reapers clean house and complete the cycle of extinction. Shepard is rewarded by becoming the dominant personality of the next Reaper and the vanguard of the next cycle, replacing Sovereign.
I wrote...
Why, thanks.The thing is, you could pull some serious Fight Club/MGS2/Silent Hill psychological horror, fourth-wall annihilating mindf*ckery on that and Bioware has the writing chops to pull it off.
Start it out subtle, with a crew member or two acting suspicious and having optional objectives and sub quests that look[/i] like Shepard's doing the right thing but really they're subconsciously helping the Reapers. Something like a side quest that pops out of nowhere involving making sure the Citadel's mainframe is secure. It looks like Shepard's checking it out and making sure, but really they're downloading the Citadel's database and forwarding it to the Reapers.
Over the course of the game, start ramping it up. Clue the player in that one of the Normandy's crew is Indoctrinated, and have the squadmate who will later confront Shepard start acting really suspiciously -- off-log data transmissions and communications, sneaking around the ship, shadowing Shepard, et cetera. It looks like they're secretly helping the Reapers, but they're really keeping an eye on Shepard and attempting to dispel their suspicions.Then, right before the point of no return, the squadmate shows up for "the Bioware cliche pre-ending sequence talk/nookie time"...and pulls a gun on Shepard[/i].
Work the player's expectations, especially the metagame expectations of Bioware titles, against them. And that's where it would get really cool.Because, the player thinks that[/i] character is the Indoctrinated one. They can either trust the NPC and surrender, or attack and kill that NPC which initiates a sequence where the Normandy's crew turns against Shepard, trying to talk him or her down but attempting to kill him/her if they must, and really[/i] pulling the rug out from under the player. Don't even make it anviliciously obvious that Shepard really is[/i] Indoctrinated until s/he's murdered his/her way through at least half the crew.
Shepard can surrender at any time during the dialogue, but if Shepard gets killed by their squad mates and/or Normandy crew the player doesn't get the "critical mission failure" screen, it goes straight into the "Shepard dies" ending -- and that's true from every point on.If Shepard surrenders at any point on the Normandy, it goes into a sequence where the squad tries to break Shepard out of the Indoctrination. That boils down to what squad mates are still alive, who's loyal, and Shepard's mental state up to that point. If Shepard can't break out of the Indoctrination, Shepard either kills him/herself or has to be put down by the crew and queue the "Shepard dies" ending.
Modifié par humes spork, 11 mars 2012 - 05:00 .
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Ending drained me of all want.
