But that’s a fool’s errand. We don’t know what was said in the writer’s room. We don’t know what kind of pressures the writing team was put under, or what sort of ideas were imposed on them from the outside. We could just as easily end up cursing the name of an overworked writer who, in reality, did the best they could with the time and material given to them and who might even agree with a lot of this analysis. <\/p>\n
<\/div>Moreover, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to be done. It doesn’t matter who broke this story, or why. In the end, you can’t “take back” Mass Effect because not even the authors themselves have the power to do that. For good or for ill, this is the story we got. The point of this series isn’t to identify the guilty or single them out to be the focus of the widespread nerdrage that surrounds this franchise. The point is to put all the nagging issues to rest, simply by identifying and acknowledging them. We can’t fix the problems, but we can catalog them, and that brings a sort of calming sense of order to the madness and offers a grudging kind of closure. This is about moving on by way of clearing up all the questions that might be preventing us from doing so. I don’t know about you, but when this series is over I will be well and truly out of things to say about Mass Effect.<\/p>\n
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U Mad?<\/h3>\n
<\/div>I said at the start of Mass Effect 2<\/a> that it wasn’t a horrible game, and that I wasn’t angry. I feel less sure about both of those statements this time around. Parts of this game are pretty horrible, and the failures do make me mad sometimes. We’re still talking the story apart and looking for problems, but this time the problems are more more pronounced, more numerous, and more baffling. <\/p>\n I suppose it’s not good to get mad at a videogame, but my anger doesn’t come from the fact that the game wasn’t everything I wanted. I mean, I thought Deus Ex: Invisible War<\/a> and Master of Orion 3<\/a> were pretty huge disappointments, but I didn’t write novel-sized reviews enumerating their flaws. No, what angered me in Mass Effect 3 was how many problems are shockingly obvious and easily avoided. The problems with the game aren’t bugs, or janky assets, or asset recycling, or padding, or any of the other problems you might expect from a game that ran low on budget and time. Mass Effect 3 could have been drastically better for no additional expense. It was a game that was exceedingly weak in exactly the areas where the original was strong. <\/p>\n I've said before that if Phantom Menace had just been a random sci-fi movie and not a STAR WARS movie that it wouldn't have drawn nearly so much rage. It would be a Fifth Element kind of thing: Campy, illogical, but otherwise inoffensive space opera with pretty visuals and fun action. We wouldn't be outraged over the many plot holes or annoying characters (Ruby Rod and Jar-jar) because we'd be happy Hollywood threw us sci-fi nerds a bone this year.<\/p>\n Likewise, if Mass Effect 3 had been an off-brand Gears of War knock-off, we probably would have given it credit for being, “Pretty smart, for a shooter.” But this isn’t some random shooter. This was supposed to be something special. This franchise originally stood in stark contrast to the lowbrow bombast of stuff like Quake, Gears of War, Dead Space, Space Marine, or Bulletstorm. This was the conclusion to the Mass Effect franchise. This was the “Star Trek” of videogames. We weren't just mad at the game we got. We were mad because of the game we didn't get. The game we would now never<\/em> get.<\/p>\n Previously we could look at Mass Effect 2 as this awkward bridge as the series transformed from middlebrow science fiction to broad action adventure. But now the transformation is complete and it turns out that the writer isn’t really sure how to make action adventure, either. <\/p>\n Sometimes when you criticise a book or a movie or a game that stands as a sequel to an earlier, better work, you’ll hear the defense, “What’s the big deal? It’s not like they burned the earlier stuff. They still exist and they’re still as good as ever!”<\/p>\n Let’s set aside the problem that, “You can pretend it doesn’t exist if you want” is a really sad thing to say in defense of a work. The more important point is that it isn’t actually true. Terrible sequels can and do harm our enjoyment of their predecessors. This is particularly true if the sequel is a continuation of a story begun by the earlier work. If some hack takes over for Tolkien and writes a version of The Two Towers where it’s revealed that Gandalf is actually a fool and a liar, then our perception of the first book will be changed. <\/p>\n In Fellowship of the Ring, there’s a scene where Gandalf and Frodo sit in front of the fire at Bag EndIn the movies this was compressed into the scene where Gandalf jump-scares Frodo and asks him, “Is it secret? Is it safe?”<\/span> and Gandalf slowly reveals the history of the ring and the danger it poses not just to Frodo, but to the whole world. By the end Frodo’s perception of his place in the world has dramatically shifted, and he realizes that the seeming safety and calm of the Shire is an illusion, and that he is naked and helpless in the face of an implacable enemy capable of dominating armies. His wise and powerful friend is even more wise and powerful than he ever understood, and yet still far too weak to defend him from this looming threat. <\/p>\n But in light of the alternate version of Two Towers, the scene loses everything that makes it special. The revelations that seemed so profound are just stories. The feeling of looming danger is dispelled and replaced with the mild irritation that this massive exposition dump is now a waste of time because none of it is true or meaningful. <\/p>\nWe Still Have The Original<\/h3>\n
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