MASS EFFECT AND THE JOY AND HEARTBREAK OF CATHARTHIS

Let me get this out of the way first.  I want to thank the team at Bioware responsible for this magnificent saga.  They hit it out of the park and smashed all my expectations.  This is one for the ages and I can't wait to see what you all have in store for new projects and your existing franchises.

Now I get to defend myself from the Internet.  

Bioware's Mass Effect series has caused me a lot of heartbreak and joy and not because of a controversial ending.  I think the best response to the broughhaha over the latter is found here so I won't say anything else about that.  Reviews and impressions of the first two games came from writer Greg Rucka, found here and here, and a review from Adam Sessler of G4's X Play reflects a lot of my own thoughts of the final game.   

What's amazing about this series in the five years it took to release the saga, Bioware evolved the game as they went along, almost as if Game 1 was a Beta Test and Game 3 was the final product.  But the foundation laid in Game 1 was so strong that it was like making improvements on a mansion.  Incredibly smart writing gave us thrilling action in a convincing universe and top notch voice acting cemented emotional connections to characters that by game three felt like old friends. 

It made subsequent plot developments heartbreaking.  Their greatest success is they made me care about the characters and by extension the consequences of my decisions.  I wanted to do everything I could to help them.  Even if in trying to help resulted in some very ugly situations.

The overall illusion this game series did best was making you feel responsible for the state of this corner of the universe.  By the time this game ended I think it's safe to say that this Commander Shepherd was yours, regardless of how the avatar looks.

I didn't have a problem with the ending, either, as I felt my first decision made with the final problem was the right one as my version of Shepherd would do it.  And I applaud Bioware for doing it the way they did.

Now, to justify this opinion I'm going to have to mildly spoil it.  So, if you haven't finished the game don't read any further.  If you don't care, read on. 

Still here?

I part company with the outraged fans here because of something very simple.  They misunderstood where this ending of the series actually took place.  It's not in the last fifteen minutes.  By my clock it's about twenty hours or so in to the third game itself where the ending really starts.  For those of you keeping score each game takes about 40 hours max to complete, allowing variance for completionists to speed runners.  So, all told it's about 120 hours to complete this saga give or take.  So, at about hour 100 you get a sense that things are wrapping up--permanently. 

The ending started not with combat but with a conversation.  It occurs between you and Admiral Hackett who is coordinating earth's defenses while you rally galaxy forces to take back the planet.  After priority missions that take you to the Far Rim you can ask why you got drafted into this and Hackett explains, including call backs to what you've done before and who you were before you took command of the Normandy back in game 1. 

It's at this point even knowing how the plot is more or less going that I thought Shepherd wasn't going to make it out of this alive.  And it made the connections already established even more endearing.  If you pursued a romance (and I did) there's an air of melancholy about it.  Your crew from the second game makes appearances with missions and other things and it felt like saying goodbye to them whenever they were around--sometimes in the most brutal way possible.

Every mission felt like a sense of closure.  As if you knew you were going to die and wanted all your affairs in order before you pass.  When the others in your crew get a chance to shine, especially the one you chose to romance, it's some of the best writing in the game.  Later on you're given one final time to say goodbye during the multi-stage ending that results in some well wrought emotional catharsis.

Bioware pulled off an interesting trick with the ending because they had to find a way to make the ending logical even accounting for all the decisions the player made from game 1 onward.  And they do this by bypassing it entirely and making half the internet mad.

But I maintain that this was probably the only way they could do it.  I think people misunderstood where they wanted their closure to the story happen.  The closure has been happening for hours at this point, not in the last fifteen minutes.  The last decision falls to you to decide the state of the universe.  Everyone else at this point has had their final moments, of sorts.  Now it's time for yours.

We all know how this was going to end--in a confrontation with the reapers.  And what's making people angry is the outcome is generally the same with each path you take.  But there's something else going on here when you approach that platform.  It's not about the action of dealing with the Crucible.  It's how you feel as a player (and by extension how Shepherd feels).

I said earlier I was happy with my initial choice and I still am because it actually did reflect everything I was trying to do--being the ultimate diplomat.  I base my feeling on how I felt after two key missions from this game and the overall sense of what happened in games 1 and 2.  In those key missions one outcome resulted in a hopefully bright future for a race, the other resulted in the destruction of a race.  The decision I made at the very end could be the result of how I was feeling about that as she walked to the platform for the final time.  Namely, this has to end because one path clearly wouldn't work based on who I was and the other carried the risk of repeating what already happened. 

I don't know what Bioware has planned next for their RPG franchises.  But this one is closed for now.  And if this is all we get I will be satisfied.  They have created something special and have set the bar incredibly high not only for their future works but for other game studios working on RPGs.  I am grateful for having the opportunity to play it.

PS
While I have the floor, PAX East, PAX Prime and E3 are coming up. Bioware would make my year if they would announce Jade Empire 2.  Or Dragon Age 3. 

Post Post Script

Well, I will be one of the ones who won't need this but it is interesting that there's some appeasement for those that absolutely hated the ending to this saga.  

Suppposed Failure of "Boys Films"

Another blog entry posted here asked a question of Walt Disney Studios.  "Why can't Disney make Boys movies?"  He was using the apparent box office failure of "John Carter" and "Tron: Legacy" as an example. 

To be fair he isn't far off, at least for the box office take on these shores.  The global market tends to balance this stuff out and having seen both of these movies I really hope they continue with more stories. 

Box office take is by no means a measure of success but it is the primary barometer used to gauge how fearful a studio executive will greenlight the next similar themed feature.  And according to this theory the box office failure of one film directly impacted the future plans of another. 

I think the original blog poster's point is valid but it doesn't go far enough.  Regardless of which studio backs the "Boys" film, these kinds of movies "fail" for one overall reason--the audience doesn't show up.

Now, I'm a guy and I grew up on great adventure stories so consider this opinion incredibly biased.  It perplexes me why a traditional action adventure tale doesn't resonate with an audience as much as it does.  Let me use John Carter as the current example for illustration purposes.

First of all, this movie does a fantastic job keeping everything about the original 1916 novel intact while modernizing a handful of things.  The biggest differences being they introduce a foe (who appears in later novels I'm told) that attempts to give a plausible explanation for Carter's transportation to Mars and give a science background to Dejah Thoris.  What's cool about this version of the saga is they keep all the period details intact.  It's fun to spot all that's been stolen from this story by modern filmmakers. 

Special effects are convincing and the action is well choreographed.  Casting is a home run.  Carter and Thoris have a convincing romance that is improved upon from the novel without losing the spirit of these characters.  There's humor without being stupid because it grows out of the situation.  In short, there's a little bit of everything I love when I witness the execution of a good story.

A family film, and by extension a boy's story, should appeal to the most audiences because they work very hard to walk a thin line between being exploitative and bland with objectionable content.  John Carter gets this right, including a moral center that doesn't hit you over the head with its message.     

I can't answer with any certainty why this film and others like it don't pull in the business but I can tell you three different theories.  The first theory is families don't go to movies in great numbers.  What's on screen is part of the problem as different people have different tolerances for what they want to be exposed to.  But the other part is simply economical.  The second theory is when girls go to movies they tend to go multiple times and they go in packs with their friends.  The final theory (one of my own) is boys don't go to movies unless they cross a few lines that films of this calibre typically don't. 
   
Sequels have been bankrolled despite an apparent failure on the first run.  (The Hellboy series is a good example, cited above).  Hollywood has a long memory and I hope they adapt more books in this series.  Edgar Rice Burrough's creations will always be available in printed form.  But there's something sublime of seeing a filmmaker's interpretation of material both literal and inspired.