Games Mass Effect 1, 2, 3... Your salvation through destruction (Spoilers)

But you're ASSUMING BioWare goes for the IT as their saving throw and You. Do. Not. Know! that they will! And yes, there are people who buy games from them that can't or won't get online to either play the wretched MP or download stuff like, say, a piece of DLC that revises the ending. So you're saying it's okay if they're screwed over?

We're not assuming, they DID state that there would be no new gameplay in the Extended Cut. If that Bioware PR drone is saying stuff to the contrary it's because she's misdirecting us or is an idiot that didn't read the official statement behind the Extended Cut:

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/04/05/mass-effect-3-extended-cut/

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=662095

"Additional cinematic sequences and epilogues scenes" =/= gameplay!

Or it's intellectual games-playing of a vicious kind....

Look I'll give you some directions to a really cool bar, go down here, go left, then right, 2nd right, 3rd left, under the motorway, through the mall, taking the right turn by the 57th shop you see on your left. Oh and by the way, when I said left, I meant right, got it?

Now, at this point you may be thinking I am an intellectual genius for constructing such a test of thought and attention OR I'm full of it! ME3 sounds, by all accounts, to be far more the latter than the former.

I know!

I mean, I know that I don't know. I just couldn't be more convinced.

If the clues were just accidental, they'd point in all kinds of directions. As it is, all the clues point in one direction. And then there's the game beating you over the head constantly by telling you there's only one way to beat the Reapers.

No, it's not okay. It would have been better if they had included the 'real ending' with the game. They could have let people unlock it from the main menu with a code that they could have released after a certain amount of time.

But I suspect they couldn't do this because they didn't get the extra 6 months from EA. So I suspect that's why they went with the 'Inception' ending. Plus, this gives them the chance to incorporate some of the player feedback into the ending. (Like all the people who want to see their war assets in action).

Yes, I've read both of these and nowhere does it say explicitly there will be no gameplay content.

To be honest, I'm really not expecting gameplay content. I think the whole thing could be handled very well with just cinematics, as I demonstrated with that link I posted.

But I wouldn't be surprised if we got gameplay content after all. Not counting on it though.

Your analogy really isn't working here, sorry. Giving someone wrong directions is just a random prank.

What Bioware does, is they're giving you the right directions three games long, and then they test your intelligence and your resolve. Are you true to your character? Did you pay attention to the story? Can you withstand Reaper suggestion?

It's not like they're doing it in such a way that you won't be able to tell. There are constant warnings throughout the game. The ending itself is so hugely surreal that players should be able to tell something is off.

It's brilliant. They're letting you experience the effects of indoctrination first hand! If they incorporated it in a way in which the player would simply lose control of Shepard, it would totally ruin the effect, and it would be utterly frustrating to not be able to control your character. Indoctrination is the art of making suggestions and letting the victim willingly make the wrong choices.

Is there some kind of law that says every character you meet in a game should be trustworthy? No.

I mean, come on. Three games long they're feeding you all this lore, they're letting everybody and their mother tell you what to do and what not to do if you want to end the Reaper threat. Then in the last five minutes of the game suddenly some god-like character appears who basically tells you that you were wrong all along, and all the bad guys you killed over the course of the games were right. Then he even admits that he was mind-controlling the bad guy, but noooooooooo, not you! And you're going to just take his word for it? I mean really?

The final battle is a battle of wits. They're indoctrinating you, the player. What a twist!

Mind = blown!

So who else is enjoying the random Banshees in the middle of Cerberus and Geth matches?

The biggest problem I see with the IT is that Bioware has never shown that much skill in story writing before. Don't get me wrong, Bioware is good at making star wars-esque adventure stories, but nothing else in the series or in other Bioware games makes me think that Bioware is capable of something so elaborate. There's also the fact that they have to run everything by EA, who i doubt would Bioware to have a game with a trick ending.

So now it's a memory test but coupled with misleading instructions, after all, the colours do get swapped around, don't they? Your term of prank pretty much seems to fit.

I think you're overlooking something quite crucial in gaming - the rules are set, they don't change; we have real life for forever changing situations with imperfect info to hand for that. But, more importantly, those rules in turn inform expectations - if you work out how the system works and you get good at it, the game becomes easier due to the skills you've developed. ME3's finale just seems to throw that out for some new mind-trickery.

The other thing it comes across as is a misplaced use of an unreliable narrator but without the option to call said narrator on being full of crap - from all I've seen, my first response to the kid would be: Why should I believe anything you tell is true? An unreliable narrator is basically a Kantian liar, they've lied once why would anyone believe them?

Have to disagree... KotOR had a historic plot twist at the end that really cemented Bioware's reputation. Neverwinter Nights had a fake ending where if you fell for a certain illusion, the game told you that you won and rolled credits. If you didn't fall for it, there was a real ending. Sound familiar?

Maybe. In my opinion they do get swapped. But one could argue that wanting to control the Reapers is the paragon solution because it solves the conflict without violence, so the red option for destroy seems to make sense as a renegade choice.

However, if you paid attention to the ending of ME2, you might be aware that destroying the Collector base was the paragon option and leaving it intact was the renegade option. The reason for that is that wanting to keep the Collector base around is indicative of being power-hungry, and so is wanting to control the reapers in ME3. If you look at it like that (which I do), the colours are reversed.

However, the colour reversal is just one thing that is meant to throw you off, and anyone who bases his ultimate choice to determine the fate of the galaxy just on the appearance of a certain colour, isn't thinking about the implications of his choice at all. Especially when everybody and his mother in the game keeps telling you that wanting to control the reapers is an illusion.

Here's an idea: if the Protheans fell because they thought they could control the Reapers, and it turned out they were indoctrinated, and if the Illusive Man (who thought he could control the Reapers) turns out to be indoctrinated, then guess what.... wanting to control the Reapers might not be your best option.

The game does tell you these things, you have been warned explicitly. Just play the game again, and you'll see what I mean. Just about every character in the game tells you the war can only be won with dead Reapers, without compromises.

Question is, having introduced an element of uncertainty, why should I believe it's anything so simple as a switch? For all I know it could be a double or triple bluff - which is what they've opened the door to.

Well, that's a valid concern, but you're going to have to pick something, or the Reapers will destroy the Crucible. (They will if you take too long)

I wasn't buying what he was selling, it went against everything we learned in the story. Furthermore he refers to the Reapers as 'us', and he certainly isn't selling 'destroy'. What was it again that Shepard said? The right choice usually isn't the easiest one, or something along those lines.

Okay people, I realize I may come off like I'm on a high horse here.

I'm just really enthusiastic about the ending of ME3 and the idea of indoctrination as a huge plot twist.

I probably sound like I have it all figured out and I realize that must be really annoying to some of you.

It's all just my enthusiasm. Of course I do not know what's going to happen with the EC, and I might be totally mistaken about everything, even though I don't believe that, but that's not really the point.

I don't mean to act like a jerk. I'm just being all geeky about the whole thing.

My sincere apologies for ruffling anyone's feathers.

See, my response to this is to get together with a mate who really knows how to program and do unto ME3 what Kirk did to the Kobayashi Maru!

Yes, a bit too enthusiastic since day one, buddy. Which is why I've told you to be careful. Playing on your high horse analogy, you might get yourself mighty thor if your ride vanishes into thin air, since it subsists on theories that hang on a thread of being validated or invalidated.

Perhaps the discussion on this subject is still fascinating to some and god knows I came close to going beyond my ISP's monthly download limit watching too many youtubes on the subject. But right now, reviewing the subject feels like being reminded of this girl with which you had a great thing going but then she cheated of you = you're reminded of the good times but the really bad memories immediately rear their ugly head, filling you with enough anger and hatred to start throwing Sith Lightning around.

But then, Casey Hudson and perhaps a few other folks over at EAWare definitely deserve a good, agonizingly long dose of Sith Lightning applied at point blank range.

Haha. They really broke some hearts, it seems.

But who knows, maybe you'll get a free fix.

Good. No doubt some folks will YouTube the damn thing before the day is done so I can either laugh at the damn thing or grow miserable all over again. Or both.

I look forward to ME fanboy rage version 2.0

I just bet you do.

And here I was about to post something about the EC. Oh well, got a couple of Sheps ready to go.

One way or the other, Tuesday will be interesting.

The company recommends that players “load a save game from before the [final Cerberus mission of the game] and play through to the end of the game.”