jpoppawusc wrote...
This is the risk that BioWare took to bring thought-provoking RPG subject matter to mainstream audiences.
believe me, people appreciate Bioware taking risks. It's what makes these games amazing. This isn't about not appreciating them taking a chance at making their game something "more." It's about that "more" feeling schizophrenic, disjointed from the game series, and unsatisfying.
jpoppawusc wrote...
There are no plot holes in the ending.
Apologists constantly try and say this and I don't get how you miss it. Think of plotholes like potholes in the road. Everytime you hit one, you get jossled, jarred, and otherwise disturbed in the driver's seat. If you hit a bunch of them in the road, it becomes almost impossible to relax and enjoy the ride. In the Mass Effect 3 ending, these potholes are things like the mass relays exploding without an explanation as to how this is different than the Arrival DLC, why Joker is running away from the battle, and why the squad mates that were with you mere moments before have ditched you on the field and are aboard the Normandy. We can apologize these things away later, but as we are experiencing them "on the road" and focusing on the questions they create (like hitting a pothole), we can't enjoy the narrative experience. Just because you can manufacture answers later or google them to fill the plotholes, doesn't mean they were never there to begin with.
jpoppawusc wrote...All three options, and their multiple variations, all make sense with the events and lore of the series. The Catalyst is not some sort of galactic god; it's just the culmination of thousands of synthetic civilizations that have evolved and combined over millions of years and have logically decided on a way to keep their future creators from being eliminated permanently (thus allowing organic life to persist while continuously adding to the immortal collective of synthetics). The Indoctrination Theory is a way for people to explain away an ending that they don't understand. And the constant appearance of the Catalyst boy is just a mental image that Shepard has subconsciously crafted for himself/herself as he/she comes into full awareness of the same knowledge that the Catalyst represents - that ultimate sacfrice and change are necessary to preserve life past the current cycle.
Apparently you think people don't like this because we don't understand it -- a common mistake that comes from egoism. Granted, enough people make the argument "Controlling the Reapers doesn't make sense because that's what the Illusive Man and Saren wanted!" to cause confusion here. Most of us know how poetic that ending can be, and that Control of the Reapers wouldn't have been possible by anyone other than our strong, integrity-filled Shepard. We realize all the endings are like that and have their own little poetic twist. The thing is, it all feels essentially the same... the reason being, it is all ESSENTIALLY the same. When protestors sent cupcakes to Bioware, I thought that was absolutely the perfect physical interpretation of Mass Effect 3's ending -- cupcakes with 3 different colors of frosting available, but the exact same vanilla flavor.
jpoppawusc wrote...
I never expected or wanted Shepard's trilogy to be tied up with a neat little bow. All of the endings require contemplation, and the choices you've made throught the series make a huge difference in how you experience, perceive, and interpret the conclusion. Mass Effect 3 is, for all intents and purposes, a 40 to 50-hour ending sequence, and I'm tired of hearing people say that the payoff wasn't high enough. There's an ending where Shepard lives, an ending where Shepard dies, and an ending where Shepard exhalts all life to a new pinnacle of evolution while he/she becomes an integrated part of everything (not really dead or alive, but carried on as a messiah for all who remain). Crew members live and die by the choices we make at the end. I can think of no more fitting, complete, or satisfying conclusion for the trilogy.
I can't waste time digging into all this. It's just a closed-minded thought from beginning to end. But I will say this: you will be hard pressed to find anyone in these forums who wholeheartedly thought Shepard was going to live through this game. Nobody expected bows and ponies and rainbows. And the problem with the kid is the fact that 1) the writer's spent a whole bunch of time trying to convince us to care about this little kid enough to use him as a vision of something Shepard cares about when the problem is... we as gamers... aren't emotionally invested in him at all. Why did they use him? They could have used Soveriegn (our enemy all along) or even the vision of one of our dead squad mates which we would all find emotionally attachment to. And 2) It's switching the antagonist and the LAST SECOND. When has that ever worked in a narrative? The Star Child isn't necessarily failure, it's just terrible execution.
jpoppawusc wrote...
If BioWare adds more context to the ending in the upcoming DLC, that's all well and good, but they've already stated that they're not changing or canonizing it. Ultimately, all of the answers that they could/will provide are already there... it just requires a little thought and personal reflection to see the truth in what they've crafted. Personally, I love discussing it with friends as-is, and when I beat the game, I was absolutely astonished at how much negative press the ending had received, since I was truly impressed with the high degree of intelligence that BioWare had infused into its conclusion.
Gamers wine about everything, yet BioWare broke conventions by respecting and trusting the intelligence of its players by allowing some elements to be open for interpretation. Clearly, that was an unpopular decision.
Trusting fans' intelligence and leaving things open for interpretation is one thing. Failing to create logical threads between story elements is another. For example, take Garrus and Liara ending up on the jungle world with the crashed Normandy (if you played that way). It's good and interested for me to sit here talking with friends about "what happens now." How does Garrus, a Turian with a very specific diet, find food? Is Liara carrying my child? I wonder what happens with Joker and EDI's relationship? All interesting questions left open for interpretation. HOW THE **** DID THEY GET THERE AND WHY DID THEY ALL LEAVE ME ALIVE AND SUFFERING ON THE BATTLEFIELD??! Not a good #$%'ing question left open to interpretation. It's a narrative failure. Also noteworthy, how funny it is that apologist arguments eventually all take the tone of "you weren't smart enough to get it." Anyone who makes that argument, even tangentially, immediately deflates their own argument because it insantaneously paints them as egoistic and short-sighted. Just a heads-up, plenty of extremely well educated, insightful, and empathetic people hate what Bioware did here. Same can be said for those of you who like it. Saying otherwise is a failure in debate.
Beyond all that, we expected greater variety and we expected that because that is what we were trained to expect and that is what we were litereally promised. It's like you and other apologists don't read anything we are saying.
Modifié par karmattack, 23 mai 2012 - 05:16 .
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