Benchpress610 wrote...
Dee, sorry for using your thread to write this, but I think it’s the perfect platform and it relates to your plea in a basic level. Also, I apologize in advance for style, syntax and grammar errors as I’m not a writer and although I’ve been living in the US for a several years, English is not my native language.
I have read a lot about the Mass Effect trilogy ending controversy. I’ve never seen this level of frustration in so many people (myself included) with the ending of a video-game, and I’ve been playing video-games since Pac-Man and Space Invaders. So I tried to analytically analyze my own emotional reaction to the ending and compare it with other people’s. I have read countless posts in this and other forums. Then I tried to peel away the layers of superficial emotions in an attempt to get to the basic – instinctive knot of the frustration. I think it boils down to trust. By transforming the genera of the story from hard sci-fi to all out fantasy in the last minutes of the game and out of left field, BioWare violated (I like to think unwillingly) the implicit trust of the audience.
Mass Effect started as a hard sci-fi game. The first game was set in a not too distant future (175 years) and sets up the premises and rules under which this universe will work. It introduces the “element zero” and the phenomena they call “mass effect” which allows for instantaneous transfer of mass between two points in the time-space continuum. It also explains how humans came across this technology with a well designed back story and abundant codex entries.
This set of rules and back story established the suspension of disbelief necessary for us, the audience, to accept the concepts being espoused by the author/s. Theses concepts are based on extrapolations of actual science so it is plausible that in 200 – 300 years in the future something like this could be discovered and used for space travel.
Then, the game goes into excruciating detail describing how galactic society works, how it’s organized, a well constructed back-story for every different species/civilization, the different areas of the galaxy with its lawless Attican Traverse and Terminus Systems. The writers did a masterful job in making their universe believable and certainly attainable in a not too distant future. In other words, this was NOT a story set in a fantasy world where anything you can think of can happen.
The first words I read on the screen when I started Mass Effect for the first time seduced my imagination with the promise of untold and countless adventures. They are still the best introduction to a video-game I’ve ever read:
“In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient space faring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time.
They called it the greatest discovery in human history.
The civilizations of the galaxy call it... MASS EFFECT.”
With this the writer/s establishes the framework where the story will develop. Now, the difficult part, and this is where the talent and dedication of the writer is revealed, is developing an engaging story within the confines of the framework established beforehand. This was achieved for the most part during the first two games and most of the third, which brings me to the main point of my post and why I believe Mass Effect 3 ending fundamentally fails: GENERA
I’m not a writer, nor a story-teller. Hell, I’d probably starve if my life depended on writing. But I have read many books, gone to many plays, watched many movies and played many video-games. I also have a degree in engineering, which if nothing else, says I’m not a complete nincompoop. If one thing I’ve learned over the years of reading, watching or playing is you don’t change the genera of a story in the middle of it, and least of all at the end to resolve the main plot.
As Dee very eloquently puts it, by establishing the hard sci-fi genera at the beginning, the writers create expectations and implied promises. Therefore when at the end of the last game in the trilogy the story becomes a fantasy tale, most players/spectators feel cheated and betrayed, or at least confused. This is compounded by the fact that it took five years to develop the trilogy. Five years when the players had time to run multiple paly-throughs on the first two games thus becoming familiar with the universe and making it their own.
There are other posters that have explained this better than I ever could, like Zan51. There is also a YouTube video that makes a masterful presentation. But taking away all the other downers like Shepard’s survival, state of the galaxy and so on and so forth, I think this is the yeast of why there is so much dissatisfaction amongst fans. The ending fails in a fundamental – instinctive level thus invalidating the rest of the story.
It is clear by the EC and the Leviathan DLC the direction BioWare is taking; reinforcing the concept and trying explain away the Catalyst. All I can tell is from my perspective, the Mass Effect universe has lost its luster. While I wholeheartedly support Dee’s campaign and would welcome an additional ending where we can achieve a “victory”, I have lost the zest for playing Mass Effect I used to have.
Great post and you said it very eloquently indeed. Those of us that dislike things as they are instantly felt this gut reaction, this disconnect. It feels wrong and you cannot argue with feelings. We should be feeling a lot of things at the end and it should be an adrenaline rust, an overwhelming sense that if you make a mistake you are dooming the galaxy. Instead, it's ho hum, make a choice. Cool.
Once the dust cleared, and the shock wore off we could start to put these feelings into words. And a lot of fumbles were made in doing this. I know why. The game made you think that you would be hitting this adrenaline rush, this action, this excitement, and all of that had nowhere to go at the end. There was no outlet for all that build up of excitement for the game-after 5 years you'd fight the foe, you'd save everyone and you'd win the prize for doing this. It's called eye candy in many games, but in ME that was way too trivial and was not what the other games promised. They promised meat and substance and authenticity and fighting and catharsis.
Benchpress you said it so well. We trusted not only in BW, but in ME itself. And the kid stands there laughing at us.
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