Tag Archives: Mass Effect 3

Mass Efflections: So…About That Ending

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To say that the gaming community was somewhat disappointed in Mass Effect 3’s ending would be a sizable understatement. People HATED it with a passion normally reserved for Friedberg & Seltzer movies and serial rapists.

Want proof? Here’s some from Know Your Meme…

c17 6f7 52a 50aAnd my personal favorite…

839Of course, much of the indignation was bullshit better represented by this one:

e38Seriously, read this and see if you get anything more than “Wah wah. I made all these decisions and things didn’t turn out exactly the way I envisioned they would.” Welcome to existence, dude.

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I’ll be the first to say that ME3’s ending left a lot to be desired, especially pre-Extended Cut. However, most of the complaints were pretty childish. Continue reading →

Mass Efflections: Intensity, Subtlety, Tragedy

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Masters of Intensity
The Mass Effects are the most intense games I’ve ever played. Sure, Skyrim was probably more epic. Various Calls of Duty and Battlefields are louder or have more explosions and background action.

Mass Effect takes those more traditional elements of intensity and combines them with player investment. Mass Effect establishes a massive universe, an interesting story, and a bevy of potentially great characters. The characters take a game or two to flesh out, but overall, Mass Effect makes you give a crap about what you are doing because bad decisions have negative consequences on locations or characters you care about.

That sort of investment pays dividends in missions like Feros and the Citadel, where pitched battles and climactic cutscenes (and inspirational speeches on Virmire) come together to make the player feel like they had just saved the universe themselves.

For all my criticisms of Mass Effect 2’s occasionally misplaced bombast and bravado, that suicide mission felt like a suicide mission. Dropping into a black hole. Getting ripped apart by Oculi. Fending off hoards of collectors. Walking through a blizzard of Seekers. Frantically escaping after felling a massive human Reaper. Damn, son…

Mass Effect 3 manages to top them all. The game’s designer’s noticeably increased the challenge of every difficulty level. I found myself fighting for my life more in 3 than I did in any other game in the series.

Every step feels appropriately apocalyptic. The Reapers have harvested countless civilizations before and we are given little evidence to believe Shepard can prevent this one. On Pavalan, two Reapers crack a Turian frigate in half while the hulk of another lies beneath one of the behemoths. The Geth, the galaxy’s most advanced AI, are hacked. Shepard fails to complete an objective for like the first time in his life. So on and so forth. Hell, Earth falls within the game’s tutorial mission.

Meanwhile, earnest, mournful motifs punctuate Mass Effect 3’s score, replacing the energy of Mass Effect and the bombast of Mass Effect 2.

And of course, the game’s final mission features a battle between the Reapers and an inter-galactic armada, immediately followed by a somehow even more desperate ground offensive in London.

You basically don’t breathe for the last several hours of the series.

Masters of Subtlety
Despite all that intensity, the Mass Effect series usually manages to avoid overplaying its hand. Continue reading →

We Are Special

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In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is an everyday space kid dealing with everyday space kid problems. Then, he finds out that he is special and that only he can save the universe.

In The Matrix Trilogy, “Mr. Anderson” is just some computer programmer/hacker until he learns he is the “One.” Whoa…

In The Lord of the Rings universe, average hobbit after average hobbit is drawn out of their comfortable hobbit holes to go on some great adventure because, for whatever reason, it has to be them. No one else can be trusted.

The examples go on…

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The Mass Effect series is, in many ways, similarly the story of a reluctant hero. Or more specifically, a reluctant hero race.

Humanity finally takes to the stars, derps its way into a war it cannot win against an all-around superior foe. Humanity recovers from this early setback and seeks to assume its “rightful” place in the galaxy. If you aren’t sure what that place is, it’s the top, of course.

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We are special.

This idea is drilled into our heads by our parents from the day we are born. Then, our teachers and schools pick up the mantle from our very first folded-paper snowflake.

Of course, we’re not special. At least not in the way we think. Continue reading →

Mass Efflections: Good Enemies

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I’ve always believed that a story is only as good as its antagonist. Heroes are cool and all, but they serve no purpose unless they are faced with a legitimate threat. Weak bad guys kill a story’s suspense and leave us underwhelmed by the hero’s victory. Oh, you defeated The Goldfish? The supervillain who can’t remember his plan the next day? Great work.

Luke Skywalker is nothing without a wheezing juggernaut to oppose him. The Borg gave us some of the best episodes in Star Trek history until Voyager ruined them. Gul Dukat elevated Deep Space Nine beyond its peers. Battlestar Galactica might have had killer robots, but the true enemy was our own nature – slow to forgive, adapt, and change. The Wire painted our true enemy as the system itself; the very institutions we created to maintain our society.

A story is only as good as its antagonist.

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Mass Effect showed us two powerful villains before beautifully pulling the rug from underneath us. The first time we see Saren Arterius, he murders a fellow Spectre. Saren is aided and advised by Matriarch Benezia, possessor of centuries of wisdom, immense biotic power, and impractical attire. The entire first game is spent pursuing Saren and Benezia to stop them from handing the universe over to the Reapers.

By the end of the game, however, we discover that both had sympathetic reasons for their actions. Continue reading →

All’s Well That Ends Well

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Even before you press a single button, it is clear that Mass Effect 3 is going to be very different from Mass Effect 2. Gone is the title screen’s stirring music. Gone is the grandiose idle menu cutscene full of action and danger.

In its place is one of the most sober pieces of music imaginable. No cutscenes. No bombast. No firefights. Just a sad song playing while a planet burns and what seem to be meteorites burn up entering a planet’s atmosphere.

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Remember when I mentioned the major shift in music from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2?

Well, Mass Effect 3 switched it up again.

Mass Effect had to establish a universe, set almost 200 years in the future, where humanity was the newcomer. We are galactic infants and the music needed to show some sense of wonder and possibility. Jack Wall and Sam Hulick succeeded in that regard with a score inspired by sci-fi electronics.

Mass Effect 2 was all about assembling a superteam of badasses, a sort of a sci-fi Expendables, in order to save humanity from new threats and old. You recruit a who’s who of galactic experts to defeat the bad guys. That calls for some Hans Zimmer. I’ve probably overused the word “bombast” in relation to Mass Effect 2’s music, but it’s either the most accurate term or the most accurate in my limited vocabulary of music descriptions. In any case, Wall & Hulick again delivered the score ME2 needed.

Mass Effect 3 is about the apocalypse. It is about the end of everything we know and love. It is about billions dead. Mourning. Hopelessness. The inevitable. Even if victory is achieved, the cost will be beyond comprehension. This requires a softer touch and almost oppressive tragedy. Clint Mansell takes over for Jack Wall and joins Hulick to create a score befitting the end of days, perhaps none more so than the gorgeous “Leaving Earth.”

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The opening of Mass Effect 3 is probably the greatest video game “scene” I’ve ever played. Continue reading →

Mass Efflections: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

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Mass Effect 2 is a better game than Mass Effect. After all 56 hours of gameplay Mass Effect 2 had to offer, that much was clear.

Mass Effect 2 is sleeker. The graphics are better. Combat mechanics are more stable. You no longer have to tediously outfit your entire crew. The mini-games for hacking consoles and bypassing security feel more like hacking than Mass Effect’s “random series of buttons.” The storytelling is more personal, tightening the story and making it more engaging.

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Not only did Mass Effect 2 tell a better story; it told a bigger one. The Collectors, agents of the Reapers, are abducting tens of thousands of human colonists as… ummm… part of the Reapers’ plan somehow? Okay, maybe the story wasn’t as good as the storytelling, but it did feel that way.

The music was one major reason why. The synthy electronics of the Mass Effect score are gone and replaced by bombast; soaring strings, pulsing drums, plenty of brass, and thicker, meatier electronics. Think “futuristic Hans Zimmer clone.”

The game’s final mission is another reason. Continue reading →

Mass Efflections: Introduction

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In July of 2009, I wrote a piece about the “10 Best Video Games I’d Played.” It wasn’t a bad list, but four and a half years later, little would be recognizable.

Black Ops II has replaced Modern Warfare. Splinter Cell: Blacklist is up there somewhere now. I’ve played enough Operation: Flashpoints, Gears of Wars, Halos, and Batmans to know that only Fallout 3 and Eternal Darkness would remain on that list today.

There is one other similarity, though: A Mass Effect game would occupy the top spot. In fact, the Mass Effect series would occupy three of the top four spots, with only Bioshock: Infinite making me think twice about a sweep.

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My first Mass Effect playthrough was pretty predictable. I played as a male Shepard, making sure to go paragon on everything. My initial Shepard was super nice, as are pretty much all of my Action RPG characters.

I romanced Liara in Mass Effect. If I had to guess, I was drawn to her innocence in a cold, unforgiving universe. Or something like that. Sadly for her, I moved on to Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2 because Yvonne Strahovski. I don’t think I need to explain more, although I’m sure I will later.

This time, the rules are simple: Continue reading →

Bioshock Infinite & Video Games as Art

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(Ed Note: Spoilers ahead! All of them!)

The floating city of Columbia’s welcome center is perhaps the most beautiful setting in video game history. Sunlight breaks through the stained glass to the floor below. Marble statues tower over you. Beautiful music and the swishing of running water are all you hear. Flowers float past you.

Upon leaving Columbia, you step into the sunlight, greeted by statues of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson. Citizens drenched in red, white, and blue enjoy old-timey carnival games at a fair.

It’s paradise.

Until, of course, you are asked to assault an interracial couple. Then to defend yourself from attacking police officers. Then told you can initiate all sorts of gory executions using your Sky-Hook. Through all the violence and blood, the sun shines on.

Columbia is soon aflame, literally and figuratively, from civil war. As the embers of a burning city swirl around you, you come upon a young woman sitting on a crate amidst the chaos, singing a startlingly beautiful version of Fortunate Son.

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As soon as I set down my controller, eyes still filled with tears, I knew I had to write about Bioshock Infinite. Continue reading →