If it was only possible

This week marks the conclusion of my Mass Effect March and yes I know that it is April but I had five topics planned for the five Fridays of March but I only started releasing content from 8^th of March, so you could say that the month ends on the 8^th April but enough of my babbling on, let’s get on with this week’s topic.

For those that have been following the Mass Effect series you would have know that at the beginning of last month Bioware released the last pieces of Downloadable Content (DLC) for the series which also means that the series has now come to some kind of an end for the time being. At the same time you might have also noticed that within my blogs I have pointed out that I haven’t yet played any of the new Mass Effect 3 DLC that has been released since the first pack (From Ashes DLC). The reasoning behind this is because I like to play the game as a whole and if I know that there was still going to be DLC released later down the line then I would wait until it has all been released before playing it all.

The way in which this will work is that I will go thought each one on of the DLC packs in the order that they were released and give them a brief overview of what the pack is about while trying not to spoil it too much (So there could be spoilers for those that haven’t played the DLC yet). After that I will then tell you what I thought about the pack and then move on to the question that always comes up with any DLC, should the pack be DLC or if it should have been on the disk when it was released.

First up we have the Leviathan DLC which puts us on a mission to find out as much as we can about the history of the Reapers. This DLC is related to the main story of Mass Effect 3 and has been pulled of very well due to the fact that it answers a lot of the questions that you may have had at the end of Mass Effect 3. The only drawback I had with this DLC pack was the fact that a lot of what I believed to be correct was correct but at the same time it took away some of what I believed to be true too as well but at the end of the day we now know all most all of the answers to the end now. For if this should have been DLC or on the disk to begin with I would have to say this should have been on the disk when the game was released due to the fact that this piece of DLC is part of the main story of Mass Effect and because of that this should have been included on the disk and not sold as DLC.

Next up on the chopping board is the Omega DLC, this piece of DLC covers what happens to Omega between Mass Effect 2 and 3 and was something that was set up and played out within the novels and graphic novels of the series. The main focus of this DLC Pack is to help Aria T’Loak get back her station that was taken from her by Cerberus, did I enjoy this DLC pack the answer to that question is a mixture of both yes and no. The reason for my answer is when you play Mass Effect 3 before the DLC came out there was a mission in which you needed to get all three factions on Aria’s side so if you did that you knew that you would have to take back Omega but after completing that mission nothing else happened, so you kind of knew this was coming. The reason that I liked this DLC is because it was nice to return to some of the areas that you spend a large amount of your time in, in the second game and plus it also good to see how far both sides were willing to go to keep or get back the  station. When it comes to the question if this should have been DLC or on the disk when the game was first released my answer would be that this should have been DLC from the beginning and that includes the faction mission that was in the main game. The reason for this is because this story was set up in novels and graphic novels and because of this it should have been treated as an add-on to begin with.

The final and last piece of DLC that has been released is called the Citadel, in short this DLC is made up of two parts, the first parts has you  trying to stop a terrorist organisation from trying to kill and the second part is a massive get together with everyone. When it comes to saying how good this DLC pack is I just can’t create a sentence that would give it any justice so I will break it down into just words. It is changeling, comical, Interesting, referential, emotional and a love letter from the creators that I enjoyed playing every minute of. Should this have been DLC or been released on the disk, my answer would have to be DLC and that is because it doesn’t add anything to the story and second it is a laugh that stays within character that was needed for a game that spends a lot of time being serious and emotional.

To bring this Mass Effect March to a close my final thoughts are more along the lines of a thank you, a recommendation and a request. First of all I would like to thank those that have taken the time to read everything that I written down in the last five weeks along with thanking everyone at Bioware for creating sure a great piece of art that I and so many others have been able to enjoy. I would also like to recommend to anyone that hasn’t played or read any form of the series to go and do so and the last thing that I would like to ask even though I know that it may be impossible to do and that is to create a novelisation of all three games. I know that a lot of people would disagree with this at first but to have a story as good as this and not in a novelisation would be a crime, plus if it was you would then be able to find out what the correct story path would be and you could take it away from the television if you wanted to carry on the story. As I said this would be impossible but you never know it could happen in about ten years or so but who knows.

Thank you again and until next time.

It may have been a year but that still doesn’t mean I can’t have my own Opinion?

In the last two weeks I have spend a large amount of my time trying to figure out the best way in which I could approach this topic and each time I started, I found myself going into following topic that I want to talk about. So to get the ball rolling I decided that I would link both these two topics together and knowing that this blog would be too big for just one week I decided to spread it over two weeks instead. I should also take this moment to mention that this topic will also contain spoilers, so you have been warned.

This week marks the one year release of a game called Mass Effect 3, for those that are unaware this game is a third person role playing game that's story is told over three game with the third game being the finally. If you have done any reading online since its release you will discover that a large majority of people dislike the way in which the game ended and wanted a new ending.

So today and next week I am going to go though my thoughts as to why I liked the ending of Mass Effect 3 while at the same time talking about each point that others have raised about why they dislike the ending.

The main reason that I like the ending to Mass Effect 3 was because it left this air of mystery that got me thinking about what the ending meant to me and where I as a person or fan could take the story. A good example of what I am trying to say is that I could write my own fan fiction or writing up my own thoughts on a blog, which is what I am going to do.

Now one of the best parts that I really enjoyed was when I arrive at the Citadel main control room and found myself talking to both Anderson (my commanding office) and The Illusive Man (leader of a human criminal organisation called Cerberus), the reason that I like this part is because you get to see how far The Illusive Man is willing to go to meet his own goals while laying down the foundation of what is going to come next.

Now the complaint that I have heard about this part is how did The Illusive man arrive at the Citadel when it was under the control of the Reapers, the answer to that questions comes to you while you are on the Cerberus base talking to Prothran VI because he tells you that The Illusive Man has left his base and gone to the Citadel to tell the Reapers (the bad guys) what you have planned for them.

The next part that really got me thinking was when I met the creator of the Reapers and his explanation of their goals. The reason that this part really got me thinking was because one the creator of the Reapers comes to you in the form of a child and second is because of his reasons as to why the Reapers are wiping out the galaxy, which in turn sounds like circular logic but if you take a moment or two to think about it you will discover that his logic and appearance are what I believe to away in which you can see and relate to him while at the same seeing his side of the story.

When It comes to the internet on this part they really hated the idea of the Reaper creator and his logic and the fact that all they could do as a player is to listen to what he has to say, for me to tackle this I will first talk about why I believe the creator has appeared to you as a child and then why his logic isn’t circular.

The first thing that I wanted to get out there is the fact that I don’t believed that this child looks anything like any of the AI (Artificial Intelligence) or VI (Virtual Intelligence) that I have come across thought out the series and my reasoning being this, is that one we have never seen an AI or VI take the form of a child and second that if you watch him you might notice that there is some form of energy moving around him which has lead me to believe that this so called AI is actually an original Reaper that has found some way to ascended. This explanation alone would also explain why no one on the Citadel has seen him before and why he has taken the form of a child to relate to your character.

Now when it comes to truly understand why the Reapers have reached this circular logic, you must first go back to when the Reapers ruled the galaxy, (this is what I would like to call the Reaper era) at this point in time you would have to take into consideration that the Reapers themselves where organic and not the Synthetics that we now know them to be (like we have seen in both the Prothran and Human era’s.)

As I said in the Reaper era, the Reapers themselves are organic and have now created their own synthetics to help them but at some point these synthetics turned on the Reapers and the two went to war. As the war raged on the Reapers came to the conclusion that they could not win the war, so they came up with the idea of making themselves part synthetics which in turn created the Reapers that we now know. With this new technology the Reapers won the war and saw how costly it was to them and other race, with this knowledge and from what they have seen from other race that had gone thought the same thing, the Reapers decided to harvest all the races that were at a certain technologic point and add them to themselves. Once they had completed this task they left the galaxy to the younger races knowing that in 50,000 years time the galaxy would end up in the same state as it was before they became the synthetic Reapers and that when they returned they would then harvest these races to save them from being destroy by their own synthetics, thus creating the cycle.

The last two parts that I want to look at this week is to do with what happens after you have made your choice, I should make a point here that the choice part of this blog will appear next week due to it being a very large section.

The two parts that I am referring to is when you active the Crucible (A weapon you hope will destroy the Reapers), at this point a beam of energy leaves the Crucible and Citadel and heads out to the Mass Relay (this allows faster than light travel), upon hitting the Mass Relay it collects up the energy that is stored within the relay and then moves on to the next relay. As it does this the relay is destroy and a wave of energy is realised that ever destroys the Reapers or re-programmers them.

Now when I completed the game I went with the destroy the Reapers ending first and then went though and did the other two ending afterwards and the reason that I liked these ending is because of two reason, one being whichever choice you made you already knew that the Crucible had a large amount of energy stored within it and that it had to go somewhere and second you also need some way to delivery your chosen choice.

As I said if you were like me and went with the destroy the Reaper ending you have to take into consideration that you are not just destroying the Reapers but everything that is Reaper and that includes your own technology which is based on Reaper technology along with the Mass Relay which they created.

You might be asking yourself how do I know this, well Sovereign tells you all this in Mass Effect 1 when he tell you that the Mass Replays were created by the Reapers so that all race that came after them would follow the path they had laid out for them. Now if you went with the two re-programming ending everything stay’s the same but the only difference is that the Mass Relays are still destroyed because the energy that is realised from them is so that they can deliver your chosen choice but on the flip side you still have the Reapers around to help you rebuild the galaxy quicker.

The Internet on the other hand had the believe that by destroying the Mass Relays they ended up killing everything within the galaxy and removing faster than light travel and in turned dooming both the fleet’s around Earth and those on colonies though out the galaxy to die.

First let’s look at the destruction of a Mass Relay, in Mass Effect 2, Arrival DLC you watch as an asteroid hits the relay which in turns destroys the relay and the white energy that is stored within the relay becomes unstable and blows up the whole system without you seeing anything from within the exploding. While in Mass Effect 3 the energy that is within the relay is removed from each relay before they are destroyed allowing you to see the relay itself being destroyed making the two explosions completely different thus not destroying the whole galaxy.

When it comes to the fleets and alien worlds you have to take a few things into consideration, one being that after you win there isn’t going to be much of a fleet left around earth and second yes all the different races colonies will be unable to get to one another but they do still have their own people on those planets. So what you could say is that those that are left on these planets can rebuild their homes and within time get everything that they had once lost back.

That brings me to the end of this week’s blog but come back next week to see my final thoughts on the ending of Mass Effect 3

Until Next Time. 

Link to the ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhf-GZpNCxU

Link to the Arrival DLC Mass Relay exploding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGr9T1k8QOY