Monday, March 26, 2012

The Retaking of Mass Effect 3

Okay, so I know I'm not the only person on the internet to think that this whole business has been a giant cluster-cuss. Things have gotten so skewed and murky and loud on all sides that I don't think there's a "right" or "wrong" anymore. But there is something that I found a bit. . . well, unique. It'll take me a while to lay it all out, but I think it's fairly interesting.

Now I've gone on record already as saying I'm okay with the way Mass Effect 3 ended. Not thrilled (at least, not by the last 10 minutes or so - nearly everything else was orgasmic), but it felt. . . I guess "appropriate" for my personal Shepard. It also raised some questions and introduced some, shall we say, poorly-established wrinkles to the series in terms of how it chose to handle some story reveals and wrap up (or not) various plot and character threads. It definitely bears the hallmarks of either a confused or rushed ending development cycle (anyone who played Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is all-too familiar with this), and this is unfortunately a symptom of how game development has progressed this generation.