Mass Effect 3 "endings"

Like many gamer I too have suffered the terrible Mass Effect 3 ending. It’s not terrible because it’s bittersweet, it’s terrible because it is wrong. The indoctrination theory gives me hope but the general developer consensus regarding DLC takes that away slightly.

You see there are plenty of things wrong with the ending. These things are so wrong that they don’t make sense and if correct (i.e. Indoctrination didn’t happen) shows that the writers could not come up with an ending. Seeing as how Mass Effect generally has good writing this would make the ending one of the biggest crashes ever seen.

Of course that’s only if Bioware haven’t been planning this all along. The ending gives strong hints that something isn’t right and below is a lot of all the things I’ve spotted so far.

This gives an interesting dilemma for Gamers and Bioware. Assuming the ending is a fake then a real ending is bound to come either in the form of DLC or another sequel (very very unlikely). Essentially and rather Ironically Bioware have given themselves a Paragon/Renegade choice, whereas gamers can say what they want about the ending, it has stimulated the community, got so many people talking and even raised a lot of money for charity (So much so that the charity in question is a little embarrassed)

If this has been a plan all along Bioware are genius’. They have given their game so much exposure over the last month while simultaneously given gamers power, or the illusion of it at least.

If it hasn’t been a plan and that really was the intended ending, Bioware deserve to be shot out of a cannon and into the sun. I’d rather have faith in a team than assume they simply lost it.

So where’s the Paragon/Renegade choice, well it’s in the DLC and what they are going to charge for it.

If it is Free than all Bioware have done is made you wait a little longer, while getting the game more exposure and stimulating the community. Everyone wins.

If it is Paid than Bioware gets added to the list of Greedy developers. Purposely holding back content just to make more money later on is sadly a typical practice of developers these days. Just look at Capcom, there are 12 characters in Street Fighter X Tekken ready to go and on the disk, but are locked out so they can be unlocked through paid DLC later.

Let’s not forget this is the ending, not some bonus mission, the ending of one of this generations most exciting new trilogies. Months to Years have been invested in making our shepherd’s personal to us. It has been an incredible journey and it deserves a proper ending, not one that becomes an optional bonus for extra cost (and definitely not that pile of shit we currently have).

Anyway here is my list of things wrong with the ending and all the hints that point at Indoctrination (Highlight to reveal):

1. Your Teammates suddenly disappear. While EDI, James, Kaidan and Liara may not agree to a suicide mission (highly unlikely mind), Garrus and Tali already did (Mass Effect 2). Why would they abandon Shepherd right at the end? Shepherd also makes no attempt to contact them, bit strange don’t you think?

2. The Reaper hits Shepherd with its laser, or enough to badly injure him/her. Then it just leaves him/her to enter the beam. That Reaper could’ve taken out Shepherd then and there but it doesn’t. The husks and Marauder that appears afterwards are ridiculously easy to defeat for someone as badly injured as shepherd is.

3. Shepherd identifies that there is something odd about the citadel before reaching the control console. (Need to double check this)

4. After ascending to the options area Shepherd appears to be in space without space gear

5. The Catalyst takes the form of a child Shepherd fails to save at the start of the game. This implies it is an apparition from Shepherds mind, unless you believe the Catalyst has been playing Shepherd along from the start of the game (why not the start of the series?). Ask yourself why would it, and why would it make itself so awkward to find?

6. Throughout the game there are a couple of dream sequences featuring that child. This could be the start of the Indoctrination. Of all the people to die because of this war, friends and foe alike, why this child and why is it that child at the end? Need to double check this but I’m sure the child appears after the reapers attack earth, and the dreams also closely follow Reaper attacks. (Checked – They don’t, the first dream sequence happens after returning to the Normandy the first time you go to the Citadel)

7. The Blue choice and therefore Paragon choice is for controlling the reapers. This was the Illusive man’s goal and we know he was Indoctrinated. Plus the child seems to smile if you pick this one implying he really represents the reapers.

8. The Red choice and therefore Renegade option is for destroying the reapers. This is the last thing the Reapers want. After destroying it the child completely disappears.

9. The Green choice and therefore Neutral option is for Synthesis between Synthetics and Organics. The Catalyst claims this is the Final evolution of life. This is the same thing Saren says in Mass Effect 1, again we know he was Indoctrinated.

10. In all endings we see the Normandy attempt to escape the explosion. It crash lands on a planet and Shepherd crew gets out. This is practically impossible, how did Shepherds crew get off Earth during the attack and get far enough away to avoid the explosion? How did Joker know there would be an explosion to run from?

11. Only the “Perfect” Destroy ending shows Shepherd still alive amongst rubble. This implies that the Destroy ending means you fought the Indoctrination and are ready to finish the fight for real.

12. If the rubble was the Citadel I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be affected by gravity. The rocks and stuff should’ve been floating. There are strong hints that Shepherd wakes up on Earth, so either he fell to Earth and somehow managed to survive re-entry (very unlikely), or he never left.

Damaging Legitimate Consumers with Disc Locked Content

DLC, it’s a term so integrated into gaming now it’s hard to see a future without it. The ability to download an additional missions, new costumes, Extra Characters and New maps has been one of the highlights of this generation. Unfortunately though what’s so great about DLC has become corrupted by corporate greed.

DLC should be intended to extend the life of a game long after its release. Developers spend additional months creating new content and charge a minimal amount. Everybody wins, a games’ community gets stronger, gamers get more life out of a game and developers pocket a little extra money.

I don’t like what it’s become and what it could snowball into later on. Developers are heading down a dark path where we start seeing significant game elements held back, specifically to make more money. I get that they’re a business and all that but as a gamer I can’t help but worry about where this is all leading.

Take Street Fighter X Tekken. A lot has been said about Capcom locking content on the disc you buy. This is nothing new for them; Resident Evil 5 and Marvel vs Capcom did the same thing. What’s locked for SFxT is 12 new characters and a whole range of costumes. These 12 characters are the equivalent to around 25% of the current Roster.

Essentially a quarter of the game is ready now but is locked until later this year and will cost quite a bit of money to unlock.

First off let me just clarify something about ownership of a game. Many people don’t get this but when you buy a game at retail you only own the disc. You do not own the content on that disc. You can take that disc and play it on the system the developers want you to play it on, but with regards to the actual content you own nothing.

You do not own the Characters, Stages, Music, Costumes, Code, etc. So the Argument that you have paid for it already is wrong, you’ve got what you paid for, a disc you can play in your console, nothing more. Think of it this way, when you buy a 360 copy of a game are you entitled to the PS3 copy for free? Why not you own the game right, all that content belongs to you?

It’s why I dread a download only future as you won’t actually own anything for your money, but that’s a different argument altogether. The point is that the developer owns the rights to the content and can do whatever it wants with it.

So Legally there is nothing wrong in what Capcom are doing. Their argument is that they intend to revitalise the franchise later in the year. They deem these 12 characters as additional content and want you to pay for them. Instead of downloading them, they are there waiting for you to unlock them with a 104KB bit of code you pay for later.

Saves the consumer downloading them, means people who don’t pay for the DLC can play with people who do and minimises server rental costs (someone has to pay for the costs of housing data on the marketplace, doubt its Microsoft)

So there are benefits of handing DLC this way, the problem lies in the fact that content is available NOW and is being WITHHELD. Also the scale and significance of that content is getting a bit high, 20 to 25% of the game held back.

If you do wish to hold some content back and charge us extra for it that is fine, but people are impatient. They aren’t happy waiting for content available now, especially when there is no reason for it to remain locked. Charge for a part of the game sure, but don’t make us wait. People have already hacked SFxT and gained access to the additional characters

And try to keep the “Extra” amount small. In some ways Mass Effect 3 got this right. You expect to get more in a collector’s edition; a single bonus mission available for those that pay extra through the collector’s edition or through DLC is fine. 1 mission isn’t significant.

On the other hand Mass Effect 3 has very strong hints that the ending is not what it seems and that you will have to pay extra to get the real ending. This is wrong. Deliberately holding back the ending of a beloved trilogy to sell later on is really pushing the boundaries of morality.

Note: For those that don’t know some folks at Reddit discovered hidden dialogue on the disc which points to a different ending. The current ending does hint at a real ending, I’ll be detailing my thoughts on that later (yes I do think the Indoctrination theory is real).

So where am I going with this. Well put it this way. If something as big and significant as the ending of a trilogy or 25% of the character roster in a fighting game can be withheld until later, what else can?

How long before developers start charging for every character in the roster, plus additional charge for the costumes. Charges for each mission, stage, game mode, character attacks, etc. Imagine a game where your £40 only gets you one stage, one mode, a couple of characters and the rest you have to buy separately.

It’s like that joke The Simpsons did ages ago where Milhouse is playing an arcade game of Waterworld, he takes one step and is told to insert 40 quarters to continue. If a line isn’t drawn soon gaming may very well feel like that.

I’m happy that games remain one of the few things that haven’t gone up in price over the years. It actually surprises me that they are still £40 each, despite development costs getting higher and development teams getting bigger. But this would be a sneaky way of increasing the cost of a full game from the standard £40 to somewhere closer to £100.

DLC can be of a significant size but then I expect that to be work down after a games full release and a large download, not content developed at the same time as the rest of the game and purposely held back.

Look at Rockstar and GTA IV’s Lost and the Damned and the Ballad of Gay Tony expansions; they know how to handle DLC. Significant content developed after GTA IV’s release.

If someone at Capcom is reading this know that I love the majority of your games but your attitude to DLC stinks. I love gaming and I don’t want to see it become a mess of locked content.