If
you haven’t heard the controversy to the ending of Mass
Effect 3
by now, then you’re just not a gamer—or you don’t waste as much
time on YouTube
like I do.
But
studying the ending to this otherwise masterpiece of video game based
interactive storytelling can be extremely helpful, because you will
then know what not to do when it comes to endings. And knowing what
not
to
do can be more valuable than knowing what to
do.
For
starters, the ending suffers from a bad lack of clarity. Most gamers
were left confused over what was really going on. After Harbinger
decimates Hammer Squad likes it’s nothing, and then just leaves
like a pimp after assuming everyone’s a corpse, and Shepard wakes
up badly wounded struggling to his feet, my own first set of
questions popped up:
1)
What the hell happened to my cool personalized and modified armor?
Why is he (or she if, like me, you played “FemShep”—What? Did
you think I was going to look at a man’s
butt for 50+ hours?) suddenly in a badly beaten and burned version of
the standard N7 armor he started with at the game’s beginning?
2)
Where’s my rockin’ awesome Widow sniper rifle? Why is it that the
only gun near him in the whole death field just happens to be the
worst handgun in the Mass Effect universe? I might have even been
okay with the ending(s) if I hadn’t had to die fifteen times to
three wimpy Husks and one wussy Marauder because my gun sucked and
Shepard’s crippled ass couldn’t aim steady! That’s a whole lot
of work to go through for just a “meh” set of endings with no
resolution.
3)
Oh. AND WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY TWO SQUAD MATES! One second they
were with me, and then suddenly gone, disappeared, no where to be
found, not even two dead corpses.
4)
After getting beamed up onto the Citadel and having to deal with the
Illusive Man (which was actually the only part in the entire ending
that seemed to have been handled well), and Shepard’s nearly bled
out, do we suddenly get dumped with a Deus
Ex Machinae
in the form of a ghost boy calling himself the Catalyst who then
gives Shep three choices on stopping the Reapers, all of which ends
up in his death (well, except for the “perfect” ending in the
Destroy option, where it shows him taking a gasp of breath even
though the Destroy option was supposed to destroy all synthetics and
Shep is half synthetic. And for the record, I didn’t pick the
Destroy option. Screw the organics! I ain’t killing off the Geth
and EDI just to take out the Reapers, not when other options are
available, you heartless psychopaths!).
And
those are just a tiny tiny sample of the almost infinite amount of
questions the ending left you with.
And
that is the true problem with the ending before it got “fixed”
with an extended cut that finally fixed some of the plot holes and
offered resolution, but still leaves you stuck fighting off the husks
and marauder with the crappy gun and non-modified armor. It wasn’t
that Shep died (now he only clearly dies in two of the endings). It
wasn’t because you were left with only “three” choices. It
wasn’t even that annoying ghost boy I wish I could shoot (which I
now can but….). It’s because no matter how it ended, the plot
holes were still glaringly obvious. And
they wouldn’t have even been noticeable by most if the ending had
been done well.
And
it all comes down to the editing. Vital parts were missing, parts
that might have provided the needed clarity. I could see what they
were trying for, and I even applaud the attempt. And if it had been
done correctly, fans would have been arguing over the philosophic
merits and flaws of the ending instead of…well, it’s fictional
structure. They managed to keep the players in a suspension of
disbelief all the way through 90+ hours of gaming, only to completely
break that suspension in the last five minutes of it.
If
anything proves just how important the ending to a story can be, ME 3
shows it with perfect clarity.
A
couple months ago Bioware came out with a free DLC that provided an
“extended ending,” adding cutscenes and dialogue to help bring
more clarity to what actually happened (Was Shepard being
Indoctrinated and it all was just a dream? Did it really happen, and
the galaxy really is that screwed? And how did the Mass Relays blow
up without destroying all the star systems they’re in like what
happened when Shep walloped a Mass Relay with an asteroid in “The
Arrival” DLC? Or was it a bizarre combination of real events mixed
with Shep hallucinating from an Indoctrination attempt by Harbinger?
And where
the hell did Harbinger go?!).
While
they did manage to pull it off to some extent. I still
wondered at first if the damage was already done, and there was no
going back? No more suspension of disbelief? But what I discovered
with the extended ending was that, yes, suspension of disbelief can
be returned with a good enough fix, but I still haven’t stopped
caring about being stuck with the crappy gun and not having my cool
armor anymore. I’m just willing to set that part aside now.
Personally,
I think they should’ve gone with this ending.
After all, why not? The damage is already done anyhow.
So
let this be a lesson to all storytellers, no matter the medium they
tell their stories in:
Never,
ever, ever screw up the ending.
And
always, always give your audience the resolution they need.
