There is more to this ending than what was there?

Last week I took a look at why I like the ending of Mass Effect 3 and today I will continue to do so, so if you haven’t read last week’s blog here is the link. http://understandingoftheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/it-may-have-been-year-but-that-still.html

Like last week this blog will content spoilers, so you have been warned.

Now before I get into meat of this blog I would like to talk about a part of the game that everyone didn’t like or didn’t see a point to when it came to the end of the game and that was the War Assets system. The way in which War Assets system works is that throughout the game every time you complete an objective or mission you are given War Assets with a number that is attached to them.

Even though they are called War Assets if you go and open up the console that house all this information you will discover that there is more to this system than just numbers and that is it also has an account of what those assets can do. An example of this would be that if you did destroy the heretics Geth base in Mass Effect 2 (synthetics machines created in our era by the Quarian’s (A race that inhabits our galaxy)) you will then discover that the Quarian’s have gone to war with the Geth in Mass Effect 3 and by doing so they lose some of their fleets thus reducing their forces and the number that goes with it.

Now the another way in which you can look at these War Assets is how determined the galaxy would be when it came to fighting the Reapers at the end of the game and the way in which this was reinforced was the fact that the synthesys ending would unlock(where you were able to join human and machines together).

Does the story allow for your choices at key story moments?, your choices do matter when it comes to the end of the game, is the whole game the same as the ending.

By reading those three points you might be asking yourself what am I talking about but what if I was to tell you that those points also comes into play when talking about three of the most talked about complains about Mass Effect 3 ending and those complains are “My choices throughout the three games didn’t count for anything at the end.” “All three ending are 95% the same with minor details changed.” “Why can’t I tell the star child to fuck off.” Those three complains all link to my own point that I have just out line.

Your choices do matter when it comes to the ending of the game

The one thing that I have noticed throughout all the complaining about the ending of Mass Effect 3 was “My choices throughout the three games didn’t count for anything at the end.” As you can see by the sub-title above your choices did matter but did you realise that there are two ending within Mass Effect 3, the first ending is before you start the final mission in the game and the second ending is right at the end of the game when the final cut-scene rolls. Now I know that a lot of people are going to disagree with me but before you do let’s just take a moment to think about it.

The first ending is located before you start the final mission and is also where you start the game again after you have completing the final mission, now why do I say this is the first ending, well throughout all three games you have been trying to get all the race to work together in some form or another to try and stop the Reapers and the whole point of Mass Effect 3 is trying to get the whole galaxy to work together so that you can stop them. So when you have done all the missions you now know what state the galaxy is going to be when you complete the game.

An example of what I am mean is that the Geth and the Quarian’s are now working together to rebuild their home world, the Krogan have been cured from the genophage and can start to get rebuild their people and their home world, your choices throughout all three games made these events happen. The first ending is the whole galaxy working together so that they can stop the Reapers and then go about rebuild everything that was once lost and the second ending which is the end of the game only has the one choice to add to the whole game and that is if the Reapers are going to be around to help you or not.

Another example of this would be if you get the Geth and the Quarian’s to work together think about what decisions you made in Mass Effect 2 and 3 to make that happen, did you destroy the Heretic Geth? Did you re-programmer the Heretic Geth? did you allow Legion to reactive? Plus may more. All those decisions help in some way to get these two races to work together and to start rebuild their home world but the final decision decides at the end of the game if the Geth will be around to help with the rebuilding or not which then leads into how long will it take Quarian’s to do it by themselves. All you have to do is think about the conversations you have with Tali’s afterwards on the Normandy if you chose that path.

Is the whole game the same as the ending?

You might be thinking what the hell am I going on about with this sub-title, well this is all to do with the complained about the ending being almost the same with whatever choice you take “All three ending are 95% the same with minor details changed.”

If you are going to say that about the ending then you might as well say that for all three games and every Role-Playing game (RPG) that has been created to date if not in the future, I will apologies if this comes off as a rant but I hope you see where I am coming from?

The one thing that you have to realise when you pick up and play any RPG is that you may have the given a choices in the game but deep down the only chances you end will have is how the overall ending turns out and even then it is only slightly. Think of any RPG that you have played over the years, how much of the story has changed because of those decisions, the only things that may have changes is some of the dialog in that section of the game and the end epilogue but as a whole the game stays the same.

An example of what I am trying to say is that if you look at all the Mass Effect games you are given the choice of what your character looks like and background. Once you have set up your character you go on to playing the game from beginning to end and once you have finished you may then do back and change some of the decisions in what your character looks like and his background along with those choices in the game, but what you will then discover is that 95% of the game will be the same each time you make those changes.

The only things that may chance is that you may get the odd side quest that is different or some words in a conversation with a Non-player able Characters (NPC) may also change but overall the game is the same, which nicely leads into my final point.

Does the story allow for your choices at key story moments?

Like with the last point you have to understand one massive thing, this story was created by the people working within Bioware and they are the ones that then went onto made this story into a game. Like any story or game it will always have its beginning, middle and end. Because of this all the choices you have made though out the game where choices that would allow the story to change slightly but at the same time keeping the story on the path that was created for the story.

Yes they gave you the chance to kill of one of the characters because the story needed you to, the only difference was that the person how wrote the story had already decided who they were going to kill but for the game to enter the realm of the RPG they knew that they had to allow you the player to choice who would be killed off at this point of the game. Another example would be the suicide mission at the end of Mass Effect 2, you had to choose who of your squad you wanted in each team throughout the mission and that if you had chose wrong then you couldn’t end up losing someone. Again this is another example of giving you the player choice but at the same time the write already knew who would be in each team so that the story could continue the way they wanted it to.

At the end of the day this game was a story that was created by Bioware that they wanted you to experience but at the same time allow you to have some control over some of the variables within the game. So if you happen to be one of those people that said this was your story and that you want to tell the star child to fuck off then you are completely wrong because this was their creation and they can do what they like with it.

The last part that I will look at is that we as the player didn’t get the closer we wanted from the characters we had meet along our travels. The problem I have with this point is that to a point I believed that there was closer for a lot of the characters we meet in Mass Effect 2, examples of this would be Jacob starting a family, Mordin curing the genophage that he worked on in his earlier life and Samara relooking at her code after the Reapers attack an Asari colony. This to me was closer because we knew what their futures had for them.

When it comes to your squad members in Mass Effect 3 it’s kind of a mixed bag for me because part of me can sees where someone of the complains are coming from while at the same I wouldn’t want them to change the ending due to the fact that as the play you did get the chance to say your final farewells to those that have help you to this point.

Yes I will agree that the Extended cut did allow the ending to bring that closer that fans wanted but at the same time took away some of the mystery that the ending original had felt us to dream up.

To round this up I found the end of Mass Effect 3 really good and gave me the chance to look at the ending of the series in many different ways and I will acknowledge that people didn’t like the ending of the series because they too have their own opinions but I hope that this weeks and last week’s blog help others see that there was more to the ending of Mass Effect than what was shown to us.

Until Next Time.