Mass Effect 3 critique (Defense)

Of course it was going to end this way. Harbinger was too powerful and the Illusive Man was too weak for either one to be the final boss, which is why the game doesn't really have one. But then, this chapter in particular was less a video game and more an interactive story.

Contrary to what was said in the Prosecution, there are actually only a handful of choices you can make here; whether to sabotage the genophage cure, how to end the quarian-geth war (though your options are limited based on stuff you did in 2), and what to do with the Catalyst. Everything else was set in motion by the things you did in the previous two games. Your choices are limited considerably if you scrapped the genophage cure, Tali was exiled or you didn't preserve the Collector base. And while this game is considerably more "on rails" than the previous two, and while that is a disappointment, the fact that it builds inexorably towards its climax is kind of the point.

The fate of the universe hinges on you delivering the Catalyst, so there just isn't time for the freeform exploring on the previous games. The music reinforces this: whereas it was upbeat and heroic in 2, now it's mournful and elegaic (at least the new music that was composed for this game is). The entire game feels like a slow-motion pre-emptive funeral, a bit like Doctor Who's "Logopolis." Watch the end cutscene the first time and you might go "yeah, that was kind of crap." I know I did. But then it all started to make sense. A great deal of the 82+ minutes of cutscenes in this game set the stage for Shepard's death. Mordin dies ("Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong"), Thane prays for you on his deathbed, Legion sacrifices itself to upgrade its species... with so many supporting characters making their peace with the universe, it's not at all surprising that Shepard's death is woven into the end.

It should have been obvious that there was not going to be any post-game exploration the way there was in ME2. Since this is the end of the trilogy and of Shepard's story, that means Shepard's death is on the table. But the game goes further than that. The Reaper threat is eliminated one way or another. The Mass Relays are destroyed. The world that the survivors face is a very different one than the one that existed when Shepard first set foot on Eden Prime. The entire nature of the galaxy has been changed. Shepard - our Shepard, the doomed death-seeker who was wracked with guilt - doesn't have a place in this brave new world.

By the way, a word on Shepard's new characterization. Largely that's been up to the player before now, but since this is the last game in the franchise (we hope - and I mean that in a good way, more on that later) they can take risks. I like the more realistic approach that's been taken towards Shepard's psyche ever since "Lair of the Shadow Broker."

The "synthesis" option, obviously the "golden" option since you can't get it unless you have a very high score, is the giveaway. The "nonsensical" revelation that EDI was Hannibal actually means that EDI and Shepard are linked in a greater way than is readily apparent. EDI gained self-awareness at the same time that Shepard got a class specialization. The Illusive Man put EDI and Shepard (back) together at the same time. EDI tries to become more human, while Shepard must choke back their emotional responses and become more machine simply to deal with the enormous stress on their shoulders. It's pretty much canon that the only reason Shepard survive's Harbinger's laser is because (s)he recieved so many cybernetic upgrades courtesy of Cerberus - and just in case you forgot, there was a fairly pointless scene reminding you about this half an hour ago (because Shepard apparently forgot what happened at the beginning of the second game), and the Star Child reminds you of this fact five minutes later. Meanwhile, the reason EDI doesn't turn on you and rejoin the Cerberus fold has nothing to do with logic - note that fulfilling the Illusive Man's plan is the Paragon choice - and everything to do with the fact that this machine empathizes with her crewmates. And then the only ending where Shepard might survive - the Renegade choice - is also the only one that kills EDI.

As I said, this was never a video game as much as it was an interactive piece of fiction. It hurts, gameplay-wise, and the lack of closure makes the backlash understandable. But as the third part of a story you the player had a huge hand in writing, it's not surprising that the game was heavily dedicated to closing off branches rather than opening new ones.

Okay, Star Child's explanation seems to have some holes in it. Apparently, a "hey, don't create AI or we'll swarm in here and kill you" sign wasn't ever considered. I'm not sure why Sovereign thought he needed to start the Rachni war since the quarians hadn't created the geth by that point (maybe the Rachni found a Reaper artifact and went insane). If the whole point of leaving Mass Relays around was so that organic civilizations develop their technology along the paths the Reapers want, couldn't the Reapers have just chosen a tech tree that didn't lead to artificial intelligence? (Or were the Mass Relays not part of Star Child's plan, and the Reapers built them on their own, based on the technology of the Citadel relay, in order to make their inevitable exterminations easier?)

I do like that there are still questions. I didn't want the Reapers completely stripped of all mystery, and I'm pretty happy with the explanation that we did get. My random guesses in the paragraph above are nothing compared to the fanwank gymnastics I've gone through trying to guess why Baltar doesn't eventually divulge the identity of the final Cylon on BSG. Speaking of...

People who don't like religion in their sci-fi, I'm sorry, you were just playing the wrong game. Given the memorial wall(s), the dreams about chasing a little kid around, the "cycle must be broken" vibe, the protagonist who returned from the dead only to question who (s)he really was, the fact that the clingy girl (this is an unfair characterization of both girls in question, but you know who I mean) can end up driven to suicide (shortly after setting foot on the planet she was so desperate to get to), the mutiny by a slimy politician, and the sexy robot played by Tricia Helfer... well, why don't they just bring Kasumi (a thief) up to the Normandy and let her have that conversation with Joker?

One of the saddest things that can happen to a beloved franchise is that it can be exploited by money-mad producers, a la Star Wars and Star Trek. Thankfully, we don't have that here. Like this franchise, Battlestar ended on an extremely mystical game-changer that ensured there would be no soulless sequels or further stories to tell (despite The Plan and despite the inane "Stargazer" tag at the end of ME3's credits). While I'm happy to fault the way in which they ended, I'm also very happy that they had a definitive end.

By the way, note that both franchises end on the same shot: a survivor or survivors surveying an unpopulated landscape from a hill, with the camera above and behind them. Then there's a tacked-on epilogue where two characters have a brief and completely unnecessary conversation that blows away any sense of subtlety.