askbadlydrawnmasseffect:

By now the whole gaming world knows about the controversy surrounding the ending of Mass Effect 3. The backlash has been so strong that Bioware is now going to be releasing an “extended-cut” to appease the anger of some “fans”.

HARDEN THE FUCK UP PEOPLE.

 (Maybe some spoilers but not really (nothing to do with the story)).

The ending is brilliant. It is beautifully written, and the cinematography is absolutely stunning. It is exactly how BIOWARE intended it to be. Not what you expected? Deal with it. Everyone is so watered down by Hollywood storytelling these days that they don’t know what to do when the story actually requires you to THINK. Not everything is spelled out in front of you; this is part of the artistry of the storytelling. The ending made sense to me! And not only did it make sense, it made me feel as though my mind exploded and I was hit full in the face by a truck. Not many stories (especially in games) do that now-day. Yes it was unexpected. Why is that a bad thing? It seems that when a spanner is thrown in the works, people throw tantrums.

It seems everyone wants a fucking predictable, feel-good fairy tale story these days. Mass  Effect is so brilliant because of the story. It is exciting, immersive, emotional and original. It requires you to make tough decisions, and these decisions are tough because of the emotional attachment that you build with the characters in the same way as characters in a good book or movie. This is what makes it so good! No big final boss battle? OH MY GOD THEY AREN’T FOLLOWING THE SAME FORMULA AS EVERY GAME ON THE PLANET. Grow some balls and open your minds people. This is what the writers wanted. They decided to make most of the ending an, epic, interactive cinematic. So what? A lame “fire all your bullets into a big monster” thing would not have had the same emotional drive or story telling artistry. I’m sorry that doesn’t sit well with your 5 second attention span that most shooter games now cater for. Go back to Gears of War or something else more brain-numbing.

So congratulations Bioware. For creating a piece of art that in this day-in-age when supposedly “Everything has been done”, upsets people. Tips the scales, disrupts the conveyor of commercialised, predictable, Hollywood-esque bullshit story-telling. For creating something that makes people care. This is your story; don’t let the closed-minded fools make you feel bad about doing what you believed in. They can go back to their fairy tale endings. Thank you for concluding my favourite game series with an ending that surpassed anything I expected and pushed the boundaries for deeper story telling in games.

EDIT: (In reply to celluloiddreamx) Yes I know that one of the main reasons people are angry is because of the plot holes. I still think that it tied things together well enough for the ending to make perfect sense. That’s what I meant when I said that people expect everything to be spelled out for them these days. If ME3 was to do that it would take about a movie length cinematic, and each one would have to be completely different depending on the decisions you make. It’s just not feasible, the game wouldn’t be out for another year at least. Also it would take away from the intensity and emotion of the final part due to information overload.

I think they did a great job of tying all the necessary things together, and still having a big decision at the end that resulted in different endings. Changing the ending now would be the worst thing Bioware could do. This “extended cut” thing should be OK as long as they don’t change the story in any way. That would be major selling out.

I also think that this has been tainted by the fact that even before most people had finished the game there had already been widespread anger at the ending, which distorts peoples’ view. Since a couple of people ripped it to pieces and listed every plot hole in the story, everyone then sees that and starts thinking that way too. You could do that to most story worlds this large and get the same results, but unfortunately for mass effect it has got way out of control due to the rabid fanbase it has.

I guess I also just feel sorry for Bioware XD You can see by the press releases that they are really saddened by the response it has been getting, as this ending fiasco has kinda over-powered the rest of this incredible game. The whole game is now currently tainted by this silly “bad ending” tag, ignoring the rest of the game - which I reckon is the best in the series. So someone has to fly this flag. It’s easy to dis something, but not as easy to express a positive opinion on something that’s currently bearing the brunt of negativity.