Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Four (The End)

 I finally finished playing through Mass Effect 3 (for the second time).  I already knew that the ending of the game had some issues, so there was not the big let-down that there was the first time.  Though to be honest, I did not have nearly the same rage against the end of the game that most seemed to.  I felt like Mass Effect 3 was, on the whole, a success, even the first time through.  I played for over 30 hours on the game.  If the last twenty minutes were subpar but the rest of the game was really good, I called it a success.

Note: there will be a lot of spoilers below.  Read on at your own risk.

CHOICES IN MASS EFFECT 3

So what did I decide to end up doing?  There were a lot of big choices.

The Genophage – I was working with Wrex, having seen him survive the previous two games.  He was one of those characters I did not grow incredibly close to in the first game, but always wished I knew more about.  He was a tough character – stubborn (like my Shepard).  I liked seeing the two of them butt heads.  I didn’t really want it to happen, but I knew there was no way we would both get what we wanted.  He wanted the Genophage cured.  I wanted peace in the galaxy after the war.  The Krogan were not going to be that peace.

Heck, even when Mordin arrived to try to cure them, almost every Krogan wanted to kill him.  Eve and Wrex talked them down, but it would be nigh impossible for the two of them to hold back the entire species from trying to wage war.  Once I found out that Eve was dead too by the end of the mission, I knew the Krogan could not be allowed to repopulate.

I tried to delay Mordin, but he saw through my attempts.  I have to say when he turned around and shouted that he wanted to cure the genophage because he had made a mistake, I got chills.  A fantastic revelation for the character.  Unfortunately, I was trying to do something bigger.  I needed to save all life, not just Krogan.  I tried talking Mordin down, he refused, and I shot him in the back.  Made me feel about the worst person in the galaxy at that point.  I hated seeing him try to crawl to the console to release the cure.  Shepard tossing her gun away after shooting Mordin was just about exactly how I felt.

The Quarians and the Geth – I knew this was coming and was dreading it from the beginning.  The friggin Quarians are dumb.  Every time I feel a little bit of sympathy for them, they go about trying to bring about their deaths faster again.  They attacked the Geth at every turn, and then came crawling back to me again to try to save them.

Once the Geth were freed from the Reaper, I was given the choice of letting Legion upload the upgrades to the rest of the Geth (and give them the ability to overwhelm the Quarians) or leave them to die.  To me it was not much of a choice.  At every turn I had argued that the Quarians should not be following this path.  The Geth had tried peace with the Quarians several times only to be attacked each one.  I was done with it – the Geth had as much a right to live as the Quarians.  They had tools – let them use them.

Fortunately I was given the chance to say pretty much exactly that to the Quarians.  “I’m done trying to save you.  If you don’t stand down in 30 seconds, your ships will be blown out of the stars.”  The Quarians finally listened and sought peace.  Seeing the Geth and Quarians work together at last made me quite happy.

The End – I have to say, I liked the new scenes added in to the end.  Being able to say goodbye to Liara (who I ended up choosing this game over Garrus) was touching.  The extra conversation pieces with the kid at the end were fun to explore (especially in light of the Leviathan DLC).

The first time I had played through this game, I went with the Destroy option.  It felt the most in-line with what I had done up to that point.  I couldn’t justify spending so much time working towards the death of the Reapers only to give in at the end.  I couldn’t take Control because I had just argued with the Illusive Man that it was a bad choice.  And Synthesis just did not feel right to me.

This time through, after a lot of conversation, I ended up going with Synthesis.

Sadly, there’s not much to really say about the ending.  While I had a lot of emotion during the part with Mordin (disgust at myself, desperation to keep the Krogan in check) and in dealing with the Geth (anger at the Quarians, defensiveness for the Geth), I didn’t have nearly as much in the end of the game as a whole.  I had already said my goodbyes to the characters and come to terms with the fact I was probably going to die.  I was confused to see that the Krogan started repopulating anyway (so… what was the point of all that?), but it was nice to hear EDI’s voice-over end with “Because of Shepard, I am alive.”  A nice touch.

CARRYOVERS FROM OTHER MASS EFFECT GAMES

There were a lot of choices that moved from the first game to the second and then the third.  I was surprised at how much actually impacted the future.  There were some big events – like not killing Wrex in the first game.  Keeping my crew alive during the suicide run led directly to a lot of them returning in the third game.

But there were also minor changes that happened.  For example, in the first game, I played through a bunch of the minor missions.  One took me to Luna where there was a rouge AI.  In the second game, when I first met EDI, there was an extra line of dialogue that talked about how I was untrusting of AI, partially because of the rouge I fought against in the first game.  I thought that was a nice touch but didn’t think much of it.

Then, in the third game, I was rewarded with a full couple-minute scene with EDI where she revealed to me that she was, in fact, that same AI from Luna I had fought with before.  She explained that was when she first “woke up” and that it was a particularly confusing time for her.  It was a nice add-in and felt like it was helping to bring pieces of the story full-circle.

That’s one of the things I liked most about this playthrough.  I found the green-skinned Asari because I helped her on the plant-world in the past.  The Rachni sent someone to speak with me in ME2 because I had saved her in ME1.  Convincing Miranda to speak with her sister in the second game led to different interactions between them in the third game.  Everything built on itself.

DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT

In order to prepare for my trip through Mass Effect 3, I downloaded all the extra missions I could.  Since this might be my last playthrough (though I am already thinking about going again down the line), I wanted the full experience.

Omega – Of the three Mass Effect 3 missions, the Omega one was certainly the worst.  Which, to me, says a lot, since it was still a significant addition to the game and felt fun.  I was disappointed that I could not take my team with me, though, and overall the missions felt a bit more hollow than the rest of ME3.  I enjoyed it, but mostly because I enjoyed any time I could play Shepard.  It didn’t really add much to the story.

Leviathan – This one, on the other hand, provided a ton of great stuff.  It slid straight into the overall plot and added a lot of answers to the mystery.  It took us to some pretty creepy locations (heading to the place where you first started sussing out Leviathan where all the people seemed eerily calm, or the floating ship in the massive ocean), but also stuck is in some real boring spots too (the place we sought out the scientist’s daughter).  The end conversation was fantastic and added a lot to the mythology.

Citadel – I can’t say enough good things about this piece.  Getting to see all the characters again in a light-hearted, self-referential mission was fantastic.  My favorite parts were certainly when Shepard used Joker as bait at the beginning and he figured it out, and when Shepard was finally captured by evilShepard and stuck in the airtight vault.  The most important thing to Shepard at that point was making sure people agreed with her that she sounded better than evilShepard.  A top-notch “epilogue” to the story, and a great chance to see everyone again.

INDOCTRINATION THEORY

After the game ended, I went back to read more about the Indoctrination Theory.  I haven’t gone through everything yet (some of these videos are almost two hours long!) but I intend to watch more.  I have to say, I think some of what it’s suggesting is pretty compelling, and I do not think that the extra material in the ending completely closes the door on it.  At the same time, there’s obviously nothing in the game that completely points to it.  There’s just a lot of circumstantial evidence that if it’s lined up right leads to the idea of Indoctrination.

I think I’m okay with the ending being ambiguous like that.  I know some people will say with complete certainty that the Indoctrination Theory is wrong.  Others will say with complete certainty that it is right.  Bioware hasn’t weighed in on it.  Yet.  Maybe they will some day.

But for now, I think I prefer thinking of the Indoctrination Theory as true.  It does leave some rather big holes (like: what happens in the end, then?  If Destroying the Reapers was just in his mind, doesn’t that mean they’re still out there?), but I always prefer games that are a psychological mind-twist to those that come out straight-forward.

So there we have it.  My trip through Mass Effect is over for now.  I had a great time doing it, and while my intention started off that this would be my last journey through the Mass Effect world, I may well start back up again sometime in the future.  Can’t close the door on all this yet.

But what’s in the future for me?  I had considered starting up Fallout 3 again.  I always liked that game.  Or I heard that Dishonored had a new set of missions that you could play.  But Dan is whispering in my ear that I should give the new Bioshock game a try.  That might be the next playthrough.  Whatever it ends up being, be sure that I’ll be writing about it here.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Three

I have been continuing my Mass Effect playthrough and discovered something: it’s not as much fun to poke fun of this game as it is other games.  As such, I’ve been a little light on updates of late.  Then Dan had the nerve to call me out on Facebook, so now you’re stuck here listening to me for a brief period of time.

Some spoilers from Mass Effect below:

I finished off the Mass Effect one game and there were, as far as I could tell, five major choices I had to make:

Who to mack on

Well, I was playing female Shepherd (her voice is so much better than male Shepherd’s) so I had only two choices.  Kaiden and Liara.  My wife thinks it’s hilarious that video games let you play lesbians all the time.  I managed to convince her that she was like Liara, she finally agreed, and then I had to choose Liara.  Besides, Kaiden was a whiny bitch.  So that was easy.

Who should die

Going back to the above issue, Kaiden is a whiny bitch.  That was no contest.  Let him die.

What to do with Rachnai

As I was playing through the Rachnai mission, I had full intention to kill off the Rachnai queen if I ever found her.  I mean, how could I let her live after all this.  But when I got to the end, I had an Ender moment and couldn’t quite pull the trigger and wipe out a whole race (yeah, not sure how I’ll deal with ME3 at this point).  I let her go, but reasoned that if she ever went crazy, I would hunt her down and kill her.

What to do with Urdnot Wrex

I saved him.  This was mostly an “on a whim” choice.  I wasn’t going to let the genophage get cured no matter what.  I was fine killing him to make sure of that.  I didn’t have to, so I kept him alive.  It was fun seeing how he talks to me more like a respected enemy in the other two now though.  I found I liked the character more after I “betrayed” him than before.

How to deal with the Council and who to put as the Human Representative

I wanted to save the Council, but in the end, I didn’t feel their lives were worth possibly failing to stop Sovereign.  I would have liked to keep them around, but they hadn’t done much to endear themselves to me, and in the end, they drew the short straw.  As for who to put on the council, there was never any question.  Anderson was a far better choice.  Udina was a weasel.

So with those choices in tow, I headed on to ME2.  I didn’t really get a chance to deal with Liara much, just on the Shadow Broker extra stuff.  I could tell that overall the choices I made has some impact on the second game, but not a tremendous amount.  Whoever I let live between Kaiden and Ashley would end up mad at me for being with Cerberus.  Urdnot Wrex had some fun conversation options since he was still alive.  Anderson being the Councilor did not seem to do a whole lot.  And the Rachnai were mentioned briefly, but they didn’t matter too much.

I did manage to get a whole new set of choices in the second game that got carried on to the third.

Who to mack on

This time I went with Garrus.  The romance scenes with him were comic gold.  Besides, he seems like he’d be cool enough if we don’t stick together in the third one.  Liara’s my girl.

Maelon’s Genophage data

Oh, I wiped that.  I wiped it right out.  Having seen how easy it was with Urdnot Wrex to have an ally in the Krogan turn enemy, I wanted no chance of another Krogan Rebellion.

Tell the Quarians what happened with Tali’s father

I wanted to tell them.  Only my loyalty to Tali kept me silent about her father.  I didn’t want her to end up in trouble, but her preference was to be exiled over having her father exposed, so I honored those wishes.  Fortunately I’m the mack-daddy at making people realize how dumb they are when I speak, so I convinced them to leave Tali alone and let her remain in the fleet.

I didn’t end up weighing in on the war effort, though.  I had my own problems to deal with.  I wasn’t going to get myself into their mess too.

What to do with the Geth Heretics

I decided they were too dangerous to let live.  I didn’t want them coming back and screwing with Geth programming again, so I opted to wipe them out.

Save or Destroy the Collector Base

I destroyed it.  That Illusive Man is pretty untrustworthy, regardless of whether he sounds like he’d make an awesome President.  I swear, the first time I heard him talking, it took me a while to not see him as President Bartlet and automatically assume he was wise beyond his years.  I think by about the third or fourth time he strung me out to die, I was ready to do whatever it took to piss him off.  If it destroyed a huge base in the process, so much better.

Did anyone die

I really worked hard at it and managed to keep everyone alive.  I had them all loyal until Tali went all buck-wild after she found out Legion was sending information about the Migrant Fleet back to the Geth.  I sided with Legion, saying that she was doing the same thing that he was, so let it be, but she evidently wanted me to side with her regardless of how much she was trying to screw over the Geth.  Unreasonable woman.

So with all those choices in tow, I have fired up Mass Effect 3.  I’m already about 15 hours through it, having made my first really tough decision (I like to think that if I was going to shoot Mordin in the back, I’d at least have the decency to shoot him in the head so he wouldn’t suffer – he was a great singer!) but I simply refuse to risk another Krogan Rebellion, especially with Eve, a stabilizing voice, having died.  The fact that only she and Wrex were able to put the Krogan in place implies to me that once both of them are gone, the race will descend back into chaos.  I’m not ready to risk that, especially when I can gain their support against the Reapers without worrying about it.

Anywho, with that, I’ll be heading back to Mass Effect 3 and trying to save the galaxy.

All this does make me want to run a sci fi roleplaying game though.  Dan told me I’m not allowed to stop running Legend of the Five Rings.  Jerk.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part Two

My playthrough of Mass Effect continues.  I managed to get through the first game for the first time. Honestly, it left something to be desired.  If I had played ME1 before playing 2 or 3, I'm not sure how much effort I would have put in the other ones.  The game was shorter than I expected, the inventory system was clunky, and the stupid car driving parts were terrible.

I did find, however, that the game controls were a lot easier to master than I remembered them being the first time I tried to play the game.  I think part of that is because I had just finished ME3 before I tried ME1 the first time, and my brain was wired to work with the updated format from that game.  Now I'm finding the shift from 1 to 2 a little harder.

I did enjoy the story, though, and I'm happy to see some of the things I did in ME1 actually impact the story in ME2.  I saved Wrex, mostly by being a jerk to him.  I tended to do that to a lot of people in ME1.  (And so far I'm doing that to a lot of people in ME2 too).  Romanced Liara, let the annoying guy, Kaeden or something like that, die.  Sacrificed the Council and put Anderson in as the lead of the new one.  Just seemed like a much better idea than to put the sniveling politician who sold me out in place as the leader.

The game took me just about 15 hours.  I'm already about halfway to that playtime in ME2 and have only found five crew members - the two Cerberus ones, Garak, Mordin (who is certainly my favorite) and the bounty hunter.

I'm getting into familiar territory now.  This is the game I finished already three times.  I know this one pretty well.  But now I've got some more DLC to play through, and I have a few changes to how the story will go based on what I did in the first game.  Still rolling through - still enjoying it.

It is having the side-effect of reminding me of all the different ideas I have for a sci fi roleplaying game.  My L5R campaign is still going strong, but I think sci fi may be on the docket for next.

Mass Effect Playthrough: Part One

I have been playing through Mass Effect lately.  My intention was to stop on my blog from time to time and talk about the funny things I was involved with (assassinated canines while my real targets fled, etc) but I am finding it hard to do with Mass Effect.  I've never played the first game all the way through - I am only about three missions in now and already farther than I ever have been before - and I'm having trouble finding those funny moments in the game.

Okay, so I can complain a little about driving my Rover around and how impossible to navigate that thing is.  Or I can talk about how frustrating it can be trying to move past some of my own allies when they decide that the place they need to stand is the spot right in front of me and I can't get around them.

But it's not really funny to talk about the actual game that much.  In Assassin's Creed I could talk about how frustrated or angry I was with the characters and wanted to just jump off the edge of the skyscrapers.  But that doesn't happen in Mass Effect.  The characters are much more interesting, even in the shorter time I've been working with them.

Besides, there's less humor involved when I say things like, "I chose to murder the entire colony of people that were being mind-controlled by plants."  No one laughs when you pull that one out at a party.

Mass Effect Replay

With the DLC Citadel released recently, I've been thinking a lot about the Mass Effect line.  I played through the second one with all of its DLC - it still stands as my favorite game I've touched.  The third one was good as well, though it didn't reach the heights of the second one.  I played through it once (compared with the three times for the second one) and was satisfied with it.  I never got any of the DLC.  I tried going through the first game, but I never got very far before I ended up turning to other things.

So when Citadel was announced, I decided I should go ahead and give the game another run-through.  No doubt it'll take a while to play through all three games, but I'm looking forward to it.  There's a lot I've never seen - most of the first game, and any of the DLC from the third game - so I'm hoping there are still enough surprises in store.

I'll try to keep a log going of how the game turns out for me.

Oh, and for those who liked my Assassin's Creed 3 log, sorry that one kinda hit a sharp stop.  The game never really gelled for me.  I enjoyed some of it, but I had really been waiting for one specific encounter between two characters, and when it happened, I was left completely unsatisfied and lost interest in continuing.  I may go back to it one day - I feel like I'm over halfway through - but it won't be for a while.

Mass Effect 3 - The End

So last week I finally finished playing Mass Effect 3. I know there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied with the ending, with the story, with the game, and with the series as a whole now. I figured I’d toss in my thoughts after taking a little while to digest them.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!



SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

When I first finished the game, I was struck with a sense of “… that’s it?” There was no big boss fight. The last time I had actually been in any appreciable combat felt like it was the beginning of a long-winded fight to get to the end. But it basically turned out to be a string of cut scenes through to the end, and then it didn’t really matter what you chose to do. Whether you chose to control, synthesize, or destroy, the only change was that in one of those three choices, you had an outside shot of surviving. Other than that, nothing you did mattered.

Add to that the fact that the final confrontation with the Illusive Man was terrible. I said nothing to him that I had not said to him in the past, yet for some reason this time he listened to me? There was nothing different this time around than any other, so why did it end differently?

So after the game ended, I felt dissatisfied. But the feeling only stuck with me for a few hours. It was like any other session I sat down to play the game. When I killed the Quarians, I felt dissatisfied because I felt like I was giving a choice to the Geth and they chose a path I didn’t want them to take. But when I prevented the cure for the Genophage from being sent up, I felt satisfied because I felt like I was stopping the next great war from occurring. Both those lows and highs stood with me for a little while and then disappeared into the backdrop of the entire Mass Effect series.

And that’s pretty much how I feel about the ending now. It just faded into the entire story. When it comes down to it, if I played 70 hours of ME2 and 3, there were probably 5 hours I disliked the game. Most of those were the driving the hovertank in the second game, the planet scanning in the second game, and the last 5-10 minutes of the third game. Other than that, I had a fantastic ride.

So that’s pretty much where I’ve come down now. The game was a blast and fell apart at the end. But the story was good enough that to me, I can deal with focusing on the journey rather than the destination.

I don't regret my time playing the game, and in fact, I just picked up the first Mass Effect so I can create a character and go through the entire story with one character. Looking forward to the play-through.

Oh, and I have seen the Indoctrination Theory of the ending. Very well-done, I think, and I like using that as my interpretation of the end to Mass Effect. I approve.

Three Computer Games

I've been having a blast with Mass Effect 2 recently, and got to thinking about which of my three more recent roleplaying games I liked the most. So here are the contestants:


Fallout 3 - This was the first one I played recently. A post-apocalyptic world, sandbox-style game. Great theme, great graphics, and all around good time. Have to stop an evil massive group and figure out a way to help bring life back to the DC region.


Dragon Age - Next came the Dragon Age series. Classic fantasy setting with a wide-open character creation. You can move through a very vivid storyline making choices that will determine things like who is king, all while fighting massive dragons in a huge war against evil.


Mass Effect 2 - The most recent one on the block. I realize I'm about a half a year behind on this one, but I figured I'd try a sci-fi bend to the roleplaying game, and I'm glad I did. Large cast of characters, learning all about their back stories, all while dealing with a sci-fi/horror/conspiracy plot that keeps you on your toes.

So which is best? Well, each one has their own benefits and drawbacks.

Genre. What can I say? I love post-apocalyptic worlds. They're dismal, depressing, and all around good fun. I'd give the nod to Fallout 3 here. When it comes to Sci Fi or Fantasy, I'm really pretty flexible. I like them both at different times. Once I've played enough fantasy, I want a switch, and vice versa. I can't really favor either one over the other.

Gameplay. All three games are so vastly different here. Fallout 3 is a pure first person shooter. Dragon Age is a squad-based tactical battle map. Mass Effect is a combination of the two, controlling your squad as you go through a shooter-style game. Overall, I liked Dragon Age the best with Mass Effect 2 coming in second. I guess I just like the tactical gameplay more in the long run.

Main Storyline. Okay, here's there's really no contest. Mass Effect 2 takes it easily. Part of this could be the freshness of the game, but I don't think that's it at all. There are tons of sidequests, and each time the main story advances, it feels right and escalates. I see twists and turns blindsiding me all the time. Dragon Age comes in second here, with Fallout 3 taking the last place.

Side Storylines. Again, no contest, though this time Fallout 3 takes first with Mass Effect 2 sitting in second. I'm counting all the side missions for each character as "side storylines" since you technically do not need to complete them to continue. Though why wouldn't you want to?

Enemies. It's a tough one to call here. If I'm talking about single enemies, it's hard to talk trash about a dragon. If I'm talking about massed enemies, I think the ones from Fallout 3 will win out. I'll just call it a draw there and put Mass Effect at the end.

Overall. Well, sitting back and taking stock of the three games, I'm going to have to rank them as such:

Fallout 3 takes first for a lot of reasons, though primarily for the theme and the sandbox way it plays. Everything about the game was great, from the music to the atmosphere. I really felt like I was there.

Mass Effect 2 takes second, this one mostly for the characters in the game. They each have such vast and deep stories to them that keeps me wanting to learn more about the world. Plus its main quest missions come across quite unsettling. From the derelict space ship to the attack on the colony, all good times.

Dragon Age takes third, and that should not be a knock on the game. All three of these are top shelf. Dragon Age has a great interface, being able to control an entire group of four very easily, all with vastly different abilities. The storyline is good, but I feel like the game lacks deep characters and interesting side missions.

Anywho, that's my take. Hope you enjoyed.

A New Game

Yesterday on the way home from work, I decided to stop by Best Buy to pick up a new game. I had been running through my fifth or sixth game of Civ IV, which usually means it's time to pick up something different to play. I did a little research and narrowed down my choices to two: Mass Effect 2 or StarCraft 2.

In the end, I decided I was going to pick up ME2. I never really liked the original StarCraft that much, though I think that largely had to do with the fact that I was playing it back before I had played many computer games, and never really understood how it worked. Every game went the same: I got hosed by the rush. It got boring, so I put it away.

Besides, Mass Effect 2 sounded much more my type of game. A single-player story that you run through, meeting characters, and playing in a large world. You know, the Fallout 3, Dragon Age type of game.

It helped that, when I got to Best Buy, they had no more copies of StarCraft 2 that weren't the $100 massive box filled with stuff I didn't need.



So I broke out the game last night. I never played the first one, so I'm a little fuzzy on the plot, but I'm filling in details as I go through the story. And man, it's fun! I've only played through a couple of the basic missions so far, grabbing two new characters for my team, but already I can see just how many are out there for me to find. Even moreso than Dragon Age, I'm enjoying talking to the characters. The conversation options are much more dynamic.

Top that off with one of my favorite features. A lot of games try to push the "good" or "evil" track onto characters, letting their decisions influence what they can do in the game. ME2 takes it another step. During the course of the game, you gain "Paragon" and "Renegade" points based on your choices. Then, during cutscenes, depending on if you've got enough of the particular points saved up, you can cause the scene to move in a different direction by clicking your mouse when the option comes up.

So, for example, there's one part where I'm trying to help a guy get free of a bunch of thugs. We're perched up on a building and he sees several of them coming across the bridge. He hands me the sniper rifle so I can see through the scope. Normal cut scene is that I just look and hand it back to him. But if I have enough Renegade points, I can choose instead to squeeze the trigger and knock off one of the bigger bad guys before the fight starts.

Clearly I'm playing for Renegade at the moment. I've already decked a reported on television because I didn't like the interview, and stuck a knife in the back of a thug whose group I had infultrated when I learned he was trying to skew the fight against the side I was going to betray them to.

The fights are fun too. Pretty simple, all said and done, but it has a fun part where you can drop into cover and use stuff around you to keep hidden, lean out and fire. My favorite tactic so far is using my sniper rifle, keeping hidden, then popping out, taking aim and blowing someone's head off before ducking back into cover. Ha!

I'm hoping the game keeps up as fun as it has been so far. We'll see, though...