Personally, I always thought Shepard would die at the end of the trilogy. Given the fact that so much can happen because of his/her influence, they're simply not the type of characters that can be kept alive if you want to continue the franchise. Shepard's death isn't what annoys me about the ending.
No, what annoys me is how lazy the developers got when they made Priority: Earth. Problems were beginning to surface long before we got to the Citadel. The entire mission felt rushed. It's like a completely different team worked on the ending, with no knowledge about what BioWare had done with ME3's story before getting to Earth. I'll start with everyone's favourite example:
Anderson: "I was born in London."
Shepard: "Really?"
This example also proves why it is a bad idea to rely too much on auto-dialogue in a game that gives you the option to ask these questions long before Priority: Earth. But really, BioWare? They made both Anderson and Shepard look dumb in this scene. This scene shouldn't have even been in the game. I don't even know why they didn't remove it with EC when they had the chance.
Then you have the linear generic action gameplay. You even had an unnecessary turret sequence, my guesses placed there to keep the CoD players distracted while they go through all the "boring" dialogue with their crew. Because you know, who wants dialogue, an important part of the Mass Effect games, when you could be blowing husks up?
Then there was saying goodbye to the squadmates that didn't come along for the ride in ME3. A hologram... Really? At least the Citadel cleared this up but this sort of thing should have been in the game anyway. The squad mates make up a big chunk of what makes Mass Effect important. It was a rather cheap way of implementing them, to be honest. Where are the scenes involving them fighting the Reapers in other locations?
Which brings me to my next point. Where are the scenes involving my war assets in general? I saved the Rachni, but I never saw one Rachni that was fighting for me instead of against me in this game. So despite saving the queen, there still seems to be more Rachni on the Reapers' side than my side. Why are there scenes where masses of Krogan are charging Marauders, like a re-enactment of the Krogan Rebellion? Where are the ex-Cerberus soldiers fighting Reaper forces and trying their best to redeem themselves in the eyes of nearby Alliance soldiers? Where are my War Assets, you know, that little number I spent the majority of the game suffering through fetch missions in an attempt to get it to the best possible number I could achieve?
From the charge down to the beam, it stops going downhill and just outright plummets into the ground, and still keeps going. Who invented that tactic? Charge down the beam and hope for the best? Really? I mean, I'd expect Warhammer 40,000's Space Marines to do something like that, but here's the thing... They'd actually get through, on the account of being genetically enhanced super soldiers. Alliance Soldiers? They're tough, but they're not *that* tough. It gets worse in the EC, because the Normandy, the ship that delivered the killing blow to Sovereign - no wait. Sorry, that ship was destroyed in ME2. What we have now is a Normandy that is twice as powerful as the original (not to mention controlled by an advanced AI and the best damn pilot in the Alliance), and you're telling me that it's picking up two squad mates, rather than distracting Harbinger while Shepard and crew get to the beam? This doesn't even take a rocket scientist, BioWare. I've just thought of that one right on the spot. It's common sense. The Normandy could have fired at Harbinger, throwing it off Shepard and the others, allowing them to reach the beam without getting killed and in Shepard's case, seriously injured.
Then things just get worse and worse. The majority of the last playable section is just basically you making Shepard limp everywhere. Did BioWare even realize just how boring this would get? Then there was the anti-climatic final battle with the one and only... Marauder Shields! Good idea for a boss, BioWare! I can't wait to see what you'll come up with next! Ooh, maybe the return of the dreaded ME1 Rachni Worker?
Then we get to the Illusive Man part. Really, he should have been in the Cerberus base when we attacked it. We should have finished him there and then. Why was he here? HOW did he get here? It's never explained, just like a lot of things that are about to follow. Just like how the Normandy can swoop down (in before “swooping is bad”) and save Shepard's squad mates without getting noticed by Harbinger. Seriously, I found this part just as ridiculous as the last part of Halo 3 when 343 Guilty Spark randomly fires a big ass laser out of his eye. And they clearly ran out of ideas with the Illusive Man, since you basically do the same thing to him that you did to Saren.
But it gets better...
Anderson dies. Okay, that was emotional. Good job on that one BioWare, the only good thing I can say about the entire ****ing mission. They actually pulled off Anderson's death quite well. See, this isn't about getting a “super rainbow happy ending with unicorns”. I don't mind people dying, as long as it's done well. Like Mordin and Legion. Their deaths were also done well. What follows is not what I'd call a well-written death. Hell, it's not what I'd call a well-written scene in general.
The Catalyst... Where, oh where to even begin...
Okay, first question: Why does it look like the kid from the first mission? (another poorly written mission in my opinion – why was it the Earth sections, of all things?!) That's like a serial killer wearing his victims' faces. It's never even explained. Hell, Shepard dreaming about this kid is never explained. Wasn't even needed. My Shepard lost his entire unit on Akuze. He'd be dreaming more about them than some random kid.
Okay then, now we have the solutions. They're lame. No, seriously. Every single one, except for Refusal, pushes what I can believe beyond the limits. Let's start with Synthesis, because it's the weirdest one.
You're telling me that you're going to rewrite the DNA of every single organic being in the galaxy, so they they are part synthetic? Did BioWare even realize how stupid this idea was? Were they high? Okay, I'm going to give you one big reason why Synthesis could never, ever be possible. Each being's DNA is unique. There are currently nearly 7 billion humans living on Earth. Trillions of organic beings live on this planet alone. Now let's look at the galaxy. -long whistle- That's a lot of living organisms to rewrite. And we built that machine in a few months? Impressive. Also impossible. It doesn't matter how far humanity advances technologically, that “solution” will never be possible. The Catalyst also sugar-coats it to high heaven. It states that there will be no more war between organics and synthetics, but how does it know that? There will always be war in some way. Those re-written beings will just form factions with each other over differences of opinion, or competition, and they'll fight. Granted it'd be nothing like an organics vs synthetics war, but it'd still be war nonetheless.
Control seems to be plausible at the very least, but my problem isn't with Control itself, it's that the game basically forces you to argue against the Illusive Man's ideas of controlling the Reapers from the beginning of the game. If you could agree with him, it wouldn't be so bad. But considering I just had to talk the poor guy into shooting himself moments before because the game didn't really give me any other dialogue choices besides saying he was wrong, it feels contradicting picking this option. I also said it was plausible, meaning that it probably could be done because it's nothing compared to the grand scale of what Synthesis supposedly does. But that still doesn't mean it's not ridiculous, because it is.
Destroy seems to be a community favourite, but I didn't even like that. Mainly because it forces sacrifice simply because it's not as nonsensical as Control or Synthesis. It's like BioWare really didn't want you to pick this ending, because oh no, that means we'll destroy those poor, misunderstood Reapers! Newsflash: The Reapers should have never been rewritten to poor, misunderstood synthetics who are merely trying to “save” organic beings. The whole theme of Mass Effect changed in just the last fifteen minutes of the game. It went from everything uniting against the Reapers to “organics vs synthetics, and why they'll never, ever get along”. Once again, I'm brought back to what I first said in this post, that the people who wrote this last section of the game couldn't have known what had been going on in the first, second and majority of the third game. If whoever wrote the final section of ME3 actually bothered to look back to the Rannoch script, they would have found that peace between the geth and the quarians could be achieved, provided Legion and Tali were still alive. This option effectively nullifies that achievement, and punishes people who actually took the time to make sure the appropriate people survived to achieve this. Quite frankly, it's a kick in the teeth.
Then you have Shepard surviving. It's not much of a survival, to be honest. The camera just zooms to a torso, which takes a breath, then bang, credits. Out of all four endings, Shepard's survival in Destroy doesn't make any sense. The Citadel falls down to Earth, with Shepard in it. How does Shepard survive re-entry without a suit?
Because the suit is the only reason why Shepard's brain was mostly intact when Cerberus recovered their remains in the second game. The Citadel is freaking huge. How did none of that debris fall on Shepard? Shepard's “survival” just felt like a last minute addition to make Destroy feel balanced out when compared to Control and Synthesis.
Don't even get me started on Refusal. BioWare had a ton of potential with this and they blew it.
So yeah. That's what I hated about Priority: Earth. Just about everything. It was poorly-written and seemed extremely rushed. I wish they'd have pushed the game back further just to fix this nonsensical pile of mess, but I'm guessing that EA wouldn't have let them in a million years. That, and they seemed pretty insistent that Priority: Earth was a work of art.
Modifié par Apocaleepse360, 19 mars 2013 - 03:57 .
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