Ah so another update! First of all, LOOK AT THE SECOND POST I GOT A COMMENT! This is pretty awesome. Anonymous, whoever you are, you are pretty awesome (especially since you agreed with me). I also have a lot of views which is awesome... I must admit, this blog is a lot of fun even with no one else reading it, I wont jinx myself, but this might be a keeper!
Now on to Mass Effect 3. Im trying to post on the bioware forums and convince people that I think Bioware is up to something, however no one is listening. (its seems they only care when i post links... which i might just do again hehehe) It really is annoying! Its just like High School, I was nerd enough to be generally ignored when it came to things other than school, and that meant my social skills suffered... And then who is awkward? Me and its not even my fault... bah humbug... Anyway, Ive started my New Game +, so I can make everything perfect for my shepard, but I dont think Ill play the ending until things have changed. Multiplayer is a lot of fun, in fact Ive been playing it a lot. Lets face it, Im getting my money's worth
with multiplayer since the single player is such a wowing force at the moment (which again, im convinced that things will turn around.) Equally depressing is this the Final Hours of Mass Effect app. Now i dont have an Ipad so i cant see what it really says but Ive heard things, and Im very scared. But then again, this could all be part of some cruel joke on Bioware's part. I at least have to keep up hope so I dont get really depressed. But part of me doubts... It just totally confuses me that such good writing in the beginning becomes a mess in the last minutes of the game... Im way obsessing over this too much, but I feel I have to for the sake of my Shepard and his crew. The musings of a screenwriter thread on the forums was a very interesting read (here) and should be read. I just dont understand how they failed... It cannot be lack of time, because I dont understand why they would only push back Martin Sheen's voiceovers (got this info from Final Hours) instead of everyones. Plus the extreme arrogance from the senior bioware staff just seems fake to me. They either are having a real fun time with this or are total douches... My bets are that its on both. But the most interesting thing from the Musings thread was the discussion of video games as an art form:
But are they art??
You see, video games want to be on the same level as movies, and photography and other forms of art, however I feel that its totally different. The main reason I think is because video games are interactive. Now it doesnt hold them back from being an art form at all, I think they should just not be treated exactly like, for instance, a film should. I say that just like other art forms, video games should try to send a message to people. Of course there will be games just for the sake of being games but generally most should try to send messages. Now back to movies: people watch them, understand their points (or not), and go along their merry ways. Video games are different because we do the actions, and in the case of Mass Effect, we decide the way that the plot goes. The players shape the story, and the game developers merely make it able to happen. Because we play the games and feel for them, the developers should be obligated for what they make, just like any other art form. Its not like a movie or a book, because we have no way to change anything to begin with. Its on a set rail, so we dont feel anything for the story like we do for Mass Effect. Mass Effect 3 failed because we could not shape the end of the story, in fact it wasnt even an ending. Everyone complains about no closure, and bioware blames us for trying to change their "vision". Now that "vision" of theirs is total crap, and when something of another art form (that theyre trying to make video games like) is total crap, people dont like it and dont support it, and speak out against it. No one tells them to change it, because thats not what its like for art, or books, or movies. Then the artist either tries something else or goes bankrupt for their failure. So EA and bioware shouldnt say anything because they are total hipocrits. Plus, they should be grateful that they got all of this money from pre-orders in the first place! But my final point is that a single video game is a changing affair, they send out bug fixes, maybe release some dlc, or something along those lines. Books dont send out typo fixes do they?
Its a totally different world for video games compared to art, and video games are something that CAN be fixed. Thats why we are asking! If Bioware wanted to make art, they should have made a game like Shadow of the Colossus. Now that is art!
... and it even had a bleak ending to it.
EDIT: two more things to consider.
Now heres some other stuff to ponder that has nothing to do with Mass Effect 3:
First of all Casey Hudson's response found here. Just the fact that they locked the thread so no one can "discuss" Mass Effect is a dulling point for me. But the message itself comes off to me as "We messed up and dlc will make it better. We are sorry." At least its what i want to hear: some confirmation that the ending sucked and will be fixed.
Second of all, I read a very touching post on the forums that I would like to share made by bwfex. Im going to paste it into here, so bear with me, its gonna be small:
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I really have been trying to let myself get over this nightmare, but since you guys promise you're listening here, I'll try to just say it all, get it all out.
I have invested more of myself into this series than almost any other video game franchise in my life. I loved this game. I believed in it. For five years, it delivered. I must have played ME1 and ME2 a dozen times each.
I remember the end of Mass Effect 2. Never before, in any video game I had ever played, did I feel like my actions really mattered. Knowing that the decisions I made and the hard work I put into ME2 had a very real, clear, obvious impact on who lived and who died was one of the most astounding feelings in the world to me. I remember when that laser hit the Normandy and Joker made a comment about how he was happy we upgraded the shields. That was amazing. Cause and effect. Work and reward.
The first time I went through, I lost Mordin, and it was gut-wrenching: watching him die because I made a bad decision was damning, heartbreaking. But it wasn't hopeless, because I knew I could go back, do better, and save him. I knew that I was in control, that my actions mattered. So that's exactly what I did. I reviewed my decisions, found my mistakes, and did everything right. I put together a plan, I worked hard to follow that plan, and I got the reward I had worked so hard for. And then, it was all for nothing.
When I started playing Mass Effect 3, I was blown away. It was perfect. Everything was perfect. It was incredible to see all of my decisions playing out in front of me, building up to new and outrageous outcomes. I was so sure that this was it, this was going to be the masterpiece that crowned an already near-perfect trilogy. With every war asset I gathered, and with every multiplayer game I won, I knew that my work would pay off, that I would be truly satisfied with the outcome of my hard work and smart decisions. Every time I acquired a new WA bonus, I couldn't wait to see how it would play out in the final battle. And then, it was all for nothing.
I wasn't expecting a perfect, happy ending with rainbows and butterflies. In fact, I think I may have been insulted if everyone made it through just fine. The Reapers are an enormous threat (although obviously not as invincible as they would like us to believe), and we should be right to anticipate heavy losses. But I never lost hope. I built alliances, I made the impossible happen to rally the galaxy together. I cured the genophage. I saved the Turians. I united the geth and the quarians. And then, it was all for nothing.
When Mordin died, it was heartwrenching, but I knew it was the right thing. His sacrifice was... perfect. It made sense. It was congruent with the dramatic themes that had been present since I very first met Wrex in ME1. It was not a cheap trick, a deus ex machina, an easy out. It was beautiful, meaningful, significant, relevant, and satisfying. It was an amazing way for an amazing character to sacrifice themself for an amazing thing. And then it was all for nothing.
When Thane died, it was tearjerking. I knew from the moment he explained his illness that one day, I'd have to deal with his death. I knew he was never going to survive the trilogy, and I knew it wouldn't be fun to watch him go. But when his son started reading the prayer, I lost it. His death was beautiful. It was significant. It was relevant. It was satisfying. It was meaningful. He died to protect Shepard, to protect the entire Citadel. He took a life he thought was unredeemable and used it to make the world a brighter place. And then it was all for nothing.
When Wrex and Eve thanked me for saving their species, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Tali set foot on her homeworld, I felt that I had truly accomplished something great. When Javik gave his inspiring speech, I felt that I had inspired something truly great. When I activated the Citadel's arms, sat down to reminisce with Anderson one final time, I felt that I had truly accomplished something amazing. I felt that my sacrifice was meaningful. Significant. Relevant. And while still a completely unexplained deus ex machina, at least it was a little bit satisfying.
And then, just like everything else in this trilogy, it was all for nothing.
If we pretend like the indoctrination theory is false, and we're really supposed to take the ending at face value, this entire game is a lost cause. The krogans will never repopulate. The quarians will never rebuild their home world. The geth will never know what it means to be alive and independent. The salarians will never see how people can change for the better.
Instead, the quarians and turians will endure a quick, torturous extinction as they slowly starve to death, trapped in a system with no support for them. Everyone else will squabble over the scraps of Earth that haven't been completely obliterated, until the krogans drive them all to extinction and then die off without any women present. And this is all assuming that the relays didn't cause supernova-scaled extinction events simply by being destroyed, like we saw in Arrival.
And perhaps the worst part is that we don't even know. We don't know what happened to our squadmates. We didn't get any sort of catharsis, conclusion. We got five years of literary foreplay followed by a kick to the groin and a note telling us that in a couple months, we can pay Bioware $15 for them to do it to us all over again.
It's not just the abysmally depressing/sacrificial nature of the ending, either. As I've already made perfectly clear, I came into this game expecting sacrifice. When Mordin did it, it was beautiful. When Thane did it, it was beautiful. Even Verner. Stupid, misguided, idiotic Verner. Even his ridiculous sacrifice had meaning, relevance, coherence, and offered satisfaction.
No, it's not the sacrifice I have a problem with. It's the utter lack of coherence and respect for the five years of literary gold that have already been established in this franchise. We spent three games preparing to fight these reapers. I spent hours upon hours doing every side quest, picking up every war asset, maxing out my galactic readiness so that when the time came, the army I had built could make a stand, and show these Reapers that we won't go down without a fight.
In ME1, we did the impossible when we killed Sovereign. In ME2, we began to see that the Reapers aren't as immortal as they claim to be: that even they have basic needs, exploitable weaknesses. In ME3, we saw the Reapers die. We saw one get taken down by an overgrown worm. We saw one die with a few coordinated orbital bombardments. We saw several ripped apart by standard space combat. In ME1, it took three alliance fleets to kill the "invincible" Sovereign. By the end of ME3, I had assembled a galactic armada fifty times more powerful than that, and a thousand times more prepared. I never expected the fight to be easy, but I proved that we wouldn't go down without a fight, that there is always hope in unity. That's the theme we've been given for the past five years: there is hope and strength through unity. That if we work together, we can achieve the impossible.
And then we're supposed to believe that the fate of the galaxy comes down to some completely unexplained starchild asking Shepard what his favorite color is? That the army we built was all for nothing? That the squad whose loyalty we fought so hard for was all for nothing? That in the end, none of it mattered at all?
It's a poetic notion, but this isn't the place for poetry. It's one thing to rattle prose nihilistic over the course of a movie or ballad, where the audience is a passive observer, learning a lesson from the suffering and futility of a character, but that's not what Mass Effect is. Mass Effect has always been about making the player the true hero. If you really want us to all feel like we spent the past five years dumping time, energy, and emotional investment into this game just to tell us that nothing really matters, you have signed your own death certificate. Nobody pays hundreds of dollars and hours to be reminded how bleak, empty, and depressing the world can be, to be told that nothing we do matters, to be told that all of our greatest accomplishments, all of our faith, all of our work, all of our unity is for nothing.
No. It simply cannot be this bleak. I refuse to believe Bioware is really doing this. The ending of ME1 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won. The ending of ME2 was perfect. We saw the struggle, we saw the cost, but we knew that we had worked hard, worked together, and won.
Taken at face value, the end of ME3 throws every single thing we've done in the past five years into the wind, and makes the player watch from a distance as the entire galaxy is thrown into a technological dark age and a stellar extinction. Why would we care about a universe that no longer exists? We should we invest any more time or money into a world that will never be what we came to know and love?
Even if the ending is retconned, it doesn't make things better. Just knowing that the starchild was our real foe the entire time is so utterly mindless, contrived, and irrelevant to what we experienced in ME1 and ME2 that it cannot be forgiven. If that really is the truth, then Mass Effect simply isn't what we thought it was. And frankly, if this is what Mass Effect was supposed to be all along, I want no part of it. It's a useless, trite, overplayed cliche, so far beneath the praise I once gave this franchise that it hurts to think about.
No. There is no way to save this franchise without giving us the only explanation that makes sense. You know what it is. It was the plan all along. Too much evidence to not be true. Too many people reaching the same conclusions independently.
The indoctrination theory doesn't just save this franchise: it elevates it to one of the most powerful and compelling storytelling experiences I've ever had in my life. The fact that you managed to do more than indoctrinate Shepard - you managed to indoctrinate the players themselves - is astonishing. If that really was the end game, here, then you have won my gaming soul. But if that's true, then I'm still waiting for the rest of this story, the final chapter of Shepard's heroic journey. I paid to finish the fight, and if the indoctrination theory is true, it's not over yet.
And if it's not, then I just don't even care. I have been betrayed, and it's time for me to let go of the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and start working through the depression and emptiness until I can just move on. You can't keep teasing us like this. This must have seemed like a great plan at the time, but it has cost too much. These people believed in you. I believed in you.
Just make it right.
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Anyway, thats all that i wanted to edit in.
Now for other things.
So I was inspired by the failure of Mass Effect 3 to pursue a sci-fi story that Ive started. Ill be honest, I wont say anything just yet, because I want to get my whole act together with it, but I must say it should be pretty awesome... hopefully. I just want some people to read it is all as well. And it will actually have closure that i can say from the start xD. But keep your eyes out!!
So there was this pretty awesome Half Life 2 mod out there called Neotokyo. I cant say much about it, since when I had found out about it the fanbase was mostly gone. In fact there was only one server that had people on it, and it was completely full. Must have been some hell of a community then. O well, the gameplay looked like a lot fun. BUT there was one pretty awesome perk to getting the mod: the Soundtrack. (ah another soundtrack! like you havent heard about that before.... (pun intended) hahaha) Now Ill be honest you dont get the full soundtrack, but it inspired me to get the full one. Its certainly worth it!
The game itself is more or less a team based affair, with three different classes. The plot is eh, but its existent. Courtesy of Wikipedia:
Inspired by such titles as Ghost in the Shell and Akira, NEOTOKYO° is set in a near-future Tokyo, Japan. After the failure of a proposal to alter the Japanese constitution to allow foreign deployment of Japanese soldiers, a military coup d'etat is attempted by extreme nationalist factions in the JSDF.[1] In response, the Prime Minister of Japan pools former military intelligence operatives and police officers into a sub-group of the Interior Ministry's National Security Force (NSF), called Group Six, to seek out subsequent coup plotters and uphold the law in both domestic and international soil.[2] Immediately, rumours surface that an unknown faction in the JGSDF's special forces unit "Jinrai" is preparing for another coup attempt against the government. According to the information, the said members of this group are from Special Operations Group 43, fierce ultranationalists determined to succeed with the coup once more.[1] The ensuing strife between these two factions sets the backdrop for the game.[1]
So yeah I couldnt have said it better (in fact way, way worse xD). Anyway, its soundtrack is great as Ive stated before, I absolutely love the Japanese music themes that coincide with the digital landscape that the music makes.
Heres a link to the main Neotokyo site: here
Heres a link where you can get the soundtrack and listen to samples: here
Finally, I feel that i need to share this with everyone: real life batman. Im not even trying to make fun of the man, I totally respect him trying to do the right thing for people that he cares about. Just even doing what he did would be terrifying. I think we should all do something like this to be honest... just to separate the man from the boys. (and Im not joking there)
Well might as well go get some sleep! (but after i post this to the bioware forums so people can see the points im trying to make.) Ok so its morning now, and after this comment about making it easier to read by Anonymous, I tried to add pictures and cut up what I want to say.
Anyway, Night everyone!
NotCras
