Whatchu Whatchu Whatchuwant?

I've been asked if I intend to delve more into ME3's ending in a new Clockwork Geek article, given recent events. Nah- I think what's been said already is fine (and in most cases said far more eloquently than I could ever muster). At this point, it's almost a trope to continue hacking away at the already exposed viscera of this poor horse. I've said my fill on the matter, and still love the game itself. I'm already chopping through my followup playthrough with my FemShep engineer on a higher difficulty.

I'm not sure what the next article on my blog will cover, (been kind of a slow geek news week for me) but the ME3 issue's already been thoroughly tread through. If there's something in particular you'd like discussed otherwise, I'm always open to suggestions, and I'm sincerely thankful for the people who're slogging through my blog.

Make yourselves heard, people, and I'll gleefully take a +2 axe-of-greater-article-dissection to whatever interesting topic-beholder you manage to summon. I've got a few personal articles on the docket concerning my writing process, love of movie-making (and why I write and draw instead) and even some interesting bits from my upcoming novel, but I'd much rather sprinkle those slivers of myself onto this salad sparingly.

Hit me up.

On Misleading Titles, Steampunk, and Unnecessary Subculture

((no pics on this one. I want this to stand on it's own, given the subject matter. Funny pics later, quasi-serious discussion with humorous input now.))

I have been contacted by the outside world, a veritable pantheon of the walks and ilk of humanity under a single standard, and raising their voices in a single chorus, and the message they bring is: “We are confused”.

Ok, so maybe only a few people are confused. I just enjoy couching that in dramatic imagery.

So, given that the title of the blog is “The Clockwork Geek”, it's easy for me to understand the confusion. I'm not entirely blind or blameless to misleading copy. It's easy to assume that the blog would be yet another entry into the sphere who's pre-programmed targeting guidance would seek out only the most valuable of targets in the Steampunk genre alone. Where are the DIY brass-and-gear tchotchkes? Where can I find the filligree-slathered corsets? WHERE ARE MY FAUX-BRASS RETROFITTED NERF GUNS?! WHY THE HELL IS HE WRITING ABOUT MASS EFFECT 3?!?!?!

...Some may cry. Dramatic, no? Yes.

I'm sure the title image for the blog does no favors to clear things up either; what with it's arabesque swirls and hipster-come-lately subtitle typeface. Perhaps next time I'll employ comic sans or papyrus, and listen to the soothing sounds of millions of font-obsessed designers cry out in ultimate suffering. Well, not really. Again, it's just nice dramatic imagery. Besides- I'm not popular enough to inspire more than a derisive sneer and a closing of the browser.

Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous helvetica.

(warning: Xero is not a hipster, but is not above self-depreciating humor.)

So I get the confusion, given the title; it's a misleading bait-and-switch when taken at face value. Well, that's kind of the gag. Steampunk's only one small part of the wide and sprawling landscape of geekery that I choose to stroll through. It's a side-destination; a curiosity to visit and revisit as I cruise down the mental Route 66 of my fandoms. It's one more flavorful bit that's thrown into the collective stew.

I now want a road-trip and a bowl of soup. Ffffffffffffffff-

Don't get me wrong- I'm not diminishing it by any means. I love Steampunk. I've loved it since I first discovered Jules Vern and Steampunk-flavored off the shelf RPG supplement books back in the early 90's. But that's not the catalyst for the blog title. You see, I'm fascinated by clocks. More specifically, their inner workings. So the leap from “gear-driven devices are cool” to “gear driven technology/aesthetic is cool” was a simple one for me. “The Clockwork Geek” is about as literal a handle as it gets. I'm a geek, and I adore clockwork machines. It's just that simple.

But since we're here, and you and I are having such a lovely discussion about it, I'd like to delve into Steampunk for a bit, if I may.

I'm going to assume you said I may. I'm also going to assume that you've officially blamed me for bringing sexy back. You can assume I'd thank you for both of these suppositions.

The first novel I'm currently writing is a Steampunk Fantasy work. You better believe I loves me some punk-o-the-steam. (note: no one in their right mind ever calls it “punk-o-the-steam”, but I've never been accused of being in my right mind.) The works of Vern, Wells, and Gernsback are as stimulative to me in terms of my fascination with futurism as the contemporary works of Pullman, Westerfield, Hunt and Priest are to my adoration with alternative reality period pieces.

I love the former authors, because I genuinely consider them dyed in the wool futurists. Regardless of the fantastical trappings they employ, these guys were trying to preemptively call the future. I'll grant that there were luddite overtones in there, but by and large it was all about looking ahead. They used terms and descriptions that appealed the a broader audience while relying on the technology of the time as they understood it, with a narrative push that took it from mundane to the wondrous “what if” of tomorrow. The example I often use to explain the mindset of these forefathers of science fiction is Warren Ellis. Seriously, check out this guy's work not only on Extremis, but on his personal writings too. Ellis is constantly keeping his finger on the pulse of developing technology and using that to give his narrative a little push to explain fantastic concepts. I could easily name other like authors, but Ellis and his I-shot-a-fanboy-at-Comicon-just-to-watch-him-die beard always pops up in my mental contact list first.

Meanwhile, the contemporary counterparts take a route dictated by the developed fandom; this results mostly in alternative history pieces; i.e. pieces using the radical far-end spectrum of steam technology and how it's used in an alternate version of locales from our past. They also, like me, delve giddily into completely new lands with their own quirky rules, birthing new realms of fantasy. All of this is, of course, the byproduct of fans of the genre and tone rather than the purposed future outlook of the authors who began it all.

So what you have, at it's core, are writers inspired by looking back at writers who were looking forward. Your mind, she is blown.

Well, my mind is, anyway.

And that's what I personally love about the genre. Mind, I'm talking about this in terms of when I personally discovered it and fell in love. This would be a time when the genre was very niche, and by and large not on the collective world's radar in terms of saturation and popularity. Oh, but the drums... the drums! The drumbeat of the emerging widespread fandom loomed in the distance, and was getting ever closer.

I remember sitting at my table at A-kon in Dallas in in the early 2k's, ( I want to say 2003, but don't pin me down. Cons blur together.) sketching out something for a customer, and a friend tapped me on the shoulder and pointed over at a young lady who was dressed to the nines in Victorian fashion laced with copious amounts of brass-and-gear couture. He asked, understandably, if that was some new take on the Gothic Lolita craze he had seen around the con.

I smiled and replied; “Nope. That's Steampunk.” Yes, I said it in such a way where the capitalization was self-evident.

He fixed me with a dubious look and said, “What the hell is steampunk?” He said it in such a way where his confusion would suffer no capitalization to pass.

I laughed and replied- and this is verbatim, “Give it a few years. You'll know exactly what it is, and it will be everywhere.”

I knew it was coming. All the signs were there. This was going to be the next big thing on the con circuit. When Weta pumped out their own line of retro-futurism laser guns shortly thereafter, I knew I wasn't alone in seeing the portents that told of the coming explosion.

And explode it most certainly did. I was thrilled, because that meant even MORE people I could geek out with about yet another subject I dearly loved. However, I was also equally terrified, because I knew what would come next. Steampunk, to me, is more than just taking something established or mundane and coating it in brass tubes and clockwork.

But that's still cool, too. I'm not immune to what I'll hereafter call the Steampunk Aesthetic. That basically means “fandom for the look rather than the substance”, and that is a perfectly viable fandom to have. But to me, it's not what Steampunk's about. At least not in it's entirety. Steampunk Iron Man is still pretty neat, though.

The problem, if you want to look at it like that (I only do in some aspects) stems from the subculture phenomenon. Note I say “subculture” here and not “fandom”. I firmly believe and can provide evidence that the Steampunk craze has achieved subculture status.

Small aside: I consider myself a well-rounded geek, but also one that doesn't fall into any one particular sect over another. I was never sequestered off into any one group growing up. I had friends from all the myriad “cliques”, and not fitting into any one category brought it's own set of unique challenges. This simply evolved into the odd genre-and-fandom spanning person I am today. I've been called a gamer, an otaku, a gear head, a fanboy, a trekkie, a browncoat, a Whovian, a comic nerd, a fantasy nut, a music snob, cosplay enthusiast, ren-faire dork, D&D geek, and many more self-contained descriptive soundbites.

They're all true, they all fit, and not any single one of them is the whole of me.

Because of that, I've never approved of or supported emerging subcultures that seem to attempt to crawl out of the primordial ooze of the various fandoms. Subculture, by definition, breeds exclusivity. I see no reason for exclusivity in any geek fandom. Let's be honest, as geeks we're ostracized enough, and there's no sane compelling impetus to engage it it ourselves with newcomers. That, to me, is just stupid.

Before I go on, I need to point out that I'm not painting the fandom with broad strokes. No, not all enthusiasts are like this, but the love of the genre has reached the critical mass of subculture, so many are. If you're not, like my friends who gleefully embrace all aspects of Steampunk, then take no offense. I promise you, you've seen these things happen, and therefore you should take it as a call to arms rather than a critique on your person.

Steampunk has reached subculture status. It has boiled over and out of the confines of conventions, and has spilled into the world beyond to propagate itself. And, like any good subculture, it does so by differentiating itself from the established norm and rules of society by creating a new one with it's own established norm and rules. And the merchandising! Lands!

There's products above and beyond the pale of standard merch fare. You can go into any costume shop and buy odds and ends that are aimed at the Steampunk Aesthetic. Hell, even seasonal horror shops have been cranking out Victorian and Steampunk-flavored props for the Halloween fan who wants to mix his Slasher-flick sensibilities with a gilded flair. And don't get me started on the Steampunk Aesthetic * cough * sexual aids...

Now, I will never, ever, begrudge anyone who is introduced to the genre, or even the subculture, by way of “that looks cool! I wanna try!”. That's perfectly fine, and a really great way to introduce anyone to something you personally love. Getting in on the basis of only embracing the Steampunk Aesthetic is absolutely fine.

I mean, it was the look and the theatrics that turned me on to bands like Doctor Steel, Abney Park, Gwar and by extension Lordi. I'm not one to throw stones. However, that exclusivity raises it's ugly head again, when the genre fandom stumbles onto the subculture. Let me illustrate by way of personal experience:

At my second-to-last Oni-Con that I hit, they were holding a full blown Steampunk Ball. Awesome, says I. It was a fine chance to go meet other enthusiasts, and check out the latest hard work from the truly talented designers and costumers of the fandom. Sky Pirates, Adventurers, and Brigands, oh my!

Upon arriving on the perimeter, I spied a young lady who was in a fantastic setup, complete with light-up goggles with adherent superfluous gadgetry. I approached and struck up a conversation, breaking the ice by asking if she had purchased the goggles or made them herself. It turns out it was both. Fantastic! I love the spirit of creation by way of adaptation. I then, being a genre enthusiast sensing a possible kinred spirit, asked her what some of her favorite works of the fiction were. She blinked, and asked me what I meant. Undaunted, I said, “Oh, you know. Like, what are your favorite works by Wells or Verne, or Westerfield.?”

She blinked and asked “Who?”

Alert alert alert! Conversation approaching phase Awkward. Deploying topic circumvention countermeasures.

“Ok,” I continued, “who are some of your favorite Steampunk writers?”

“What? There's books about Steampunk fashion?”

At this point, you have to imagine the sound of a large balloon deflating. That's about as apt a description I can give for what my expression did. I chalked it up to her being a fan of the Steampunk Aesthetic rather than the genre. Perfectly fine. I've met Cosplayers who've never read or seen a single work featuring the characters they're made up as. Totally fine.

Then, a friend of hers (also bedecked in fantastic clockwork finery) sidled up to join the conversation. I'd like to think it's because she was really interested in what we were talking about, but given my demeanor it was probably for the intent of saving her friend from the “weirdo”. Yes, I am fully aware of the irony of that idea at an anime convention, but trust me: it's not that far fetched, and I am a weirdo to some.

Introductions are made, and explanation of the conversation is delivered. When I profess that I'm a huge fan of Steampunk, the friend gives me the up-down eyeball once-over, ending in a particularly exaggerated eye-roll, and says “I doubt it, poser,” before tugging on her friend's arm and losing themselves in the core whirl of taffeta and metal that was the Ball itself.

True, I was wearing my casual attire of jeans, sneakers, and my ever-so-rad “Know your Roots” Nintendo controller tee, but... seriously? What in the direct fuck was that about? Is it still ok to use insults like “poser” post late 90's? When did being a fan require a dress code?

And then it struck me- being a fan doesn't. Ever. Sadly, being a member of the CLUB does. Houston, we have reached subculture. Welcome to Club Gear.

I liken it to a very apt pic I saw the other day regarding the difference between a hipster and a geek. Hipster's a chosen subculture, whereas geek is just an appellation that's broad-term. If you've not heard a particular band, read a particular book, or indulged in a particular piece of entertainment or culinary creation, the Hipster is more like than not to dismiss you as a waste of their time. If you've not heard a particular band, read a particular book, or indulged in a particular piece of entertainment or culinary creation, the geek is more like than not to begin vibrating in place and going out of their way to share these things with you and introduce you to why it's so amazing. I felt that, upon seeing that I was not wearing the same ceremonial skins as they, the Steampunk Hipster Tribal Females ™ retreated back to a safe distance, away from the outlander. I was, in essence, that poor preppy sap who tried to approach the Goth kids.

Replace any of those descriptive phrases with the one of your choice and it's opposite, and you get the idea.

Is that an isolated incident? Could those two simply be stuck up iconoclasts of the scene? Absolutely. The problem is, it wasn't an isolated incident. I can point to three others I've personally had, and a score more relayed to me by friends both in the scene and out of it. I recall the slight cry of “bullshit” from some Steampunk fans over what they saw as stereotyping the fandom that came from the end of the last season of The Guild. (Don't know this show? Look it up and watch it. It's fantastic! Or I'll send you a link. You've got to watch this show!)

Sorry to break it to you folks, but that's not stereotype. That's caricature. It's parody by way of exaggerating evidenced characteristics. That's the end run and backlash to subculture saturation. It is the inevitable by-product of subculture entropy cycles. It's a coping mechanism for the outlanders.

Hi. How ya doin'?

And that's what I feared. Subculture breeds exclusivity. Exclusivity breeds ostracizing. Ostracizing, and witness thereof, breeds backlash, caricature and parody. The end of the heyday of any subculture based on a fandom is finally stereotype and bias for the sake of popular bias. Think I'm being unkind or without precedent? Ok. How many of these have you heard?

“I don't feel comfortable going into that comic store. It's like they don't want me there.”

“I was really proud of my costume, but these other cosplayers made fun of the cheap materials.”

“Anime? What. Big eyes, tiny mouths, raver hair and airplane-wing sized swords and tentacle porn.”

“Comic nerds are all virgins.”

“I wanted to give that game a try, but they just called me a noob and wouldn't teach me the rules.”

And now my own: “I wanted to talk about Steampunk with them, but they blew me off because I wasn't wearing the right clothes.”

This all sounds very one-sided, but please believe me when I say (again) that not all adherents to the Steampunk fandom or subculture (be they in it for the look or fans of the work) are like this. My problem is, realistically, NONE of them should be like this, because Steampunk shouldn't be it's own rebellious thing that's set aside. It was born in the convention. It should be one with the consensus; unique but accepted and flourishing.

Now, aside from the lucrative fan-service and promotional blitz, comic, fantasy, anime and general geek conventions work on one solid principle (or should, if they want to go past their first year): ALL ARE WELCOME. We understand you, and not only do we have kiosks and sights that appeal to your specific taste, but other panels and demonstrations and items that will introduce you to all the myriad sub-genres of the Great Geek Galaxy (patent pending). While snobbery and attitude can appear at cons, it's quite easy to find someone else to talk to about something you are interested in; most notably the professionals or staff who are running/overseeing/selling whatever you're curious about. We're all geeks, and you are welcome among us.

The subculture spilled out beyond that, and my problem with that is the backlash is going to hurt the people we have to THANK for the explosion. Artists, musicians, and the very writers I'm working hard at joining; all stand to lose once this has run it's course and the violent anti-fandom backdraft erupts.

Does this mean an end? No. I'm not prophesying the doom of all things Steampunk. I am, however, calling it a damned shame bordering on tragedy. In a time where you have a great flourishing of the creative side of a fandom, and a real opportunity for it to establish itself as medium influence rather than an oddity-turned-meme, it's downfall or decline will not be due to the work itself, but rather the outskirt fans of it: the Steampunk Aesthetic Subculture, and the Brassier-than-thou set.

You've seen it. Hell, you might have engaged in it. The point of interplay within a subculture wherein the only way to set yourself apart is to out-steampunk the rest of the people there. More gears. More lace. More tubes. More filligree. MORE MORE MORE. Finally, it becomes a self-propelled self-parodying monstrosity. Gears that connect to and drive nothing. Gears for the sake of their existence. That one lacks gears in the appropriate amount and propensity; we shall declare them anathema among us.

And who is Jules Vern? In the room where the women come and go, having no clue of Michaelangelo.

Meanwhile, there's this group. This lovely group. They've loved the aesthetic and works all along. They're reading The Time Machine. They've loaned out their copy of Boneshaker to a friend to introduce them to the genre. They're burning a song by The Cog is Dead or The Clockwork Quartet or figuring out how to work a track from Aether Shanties into Rockband for their friend to play. They're checking in on Girl Genius or Lady Sabre & the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether for updates, and sending the link over to their new-webcomics-hungry friends on Facebook. They're writing books. They're creating music. They're adding hand-crafted pieces of real working clockwork onto their old Fender Stratocaster to turn it into a Nautilus-themed masterpiece. They are the fans of the work, the inspired works, and the look, and a fair few of them avoid the larger gatherings of “the scene”, for fear of not being accepted.

I'm one of them. And you, yes YOU (hopefully) are not one of the ones who are pushing the newcomers away. They are the lovely group that is repeated with anime, comics, Sci-fi, Fantasy, novels, movies, cartoons old and new and developing and fantastic.

You and I have a lot of work to do. It's equally our due and onus to make them feel welcomed and appreciated.

Steampunk forever! Trekkies Forever! Whovians and comic nerds and gamers and Otaku and technophiles and and and...

Maybe, but how about...

Geeks forever, forever united. See you at the con.

ME3 Article: aftermath.

Wow.

I've already received comments, positive, negative, and flaming, concerning my ME3 ending article. I'd like to touch on the rage that it seemed to inspire in at least three people( so far, Lawd, run fo' yo damn lives!)

I thought I was pretty clear with why I did/wrote the things that I did, but perhaps some clarification is in order, along with another gratuitous use of Space-Kany, er... Jacob.

No one man should have all that Eezo.

Some people took issue with the Cracked-style irreverent humor. Ok, I get that. But to be perfectly frank; tough. Humor is how I deal with things. Good, bad, ugly, etc. It might seem odd to people that I'd be so lampoon-ish with something I took so many paragraphs professing my love for, but any humor writer, especially one in the geek vein, could tell you why.

We poke the most fun at the things we love.

Exhibit A: A Character I genuinely like, who has now been reduced to a gag for my article's needs.

On that front, the rage I received was mostly aimed at my use of any humor whatsoever. That somehow, by poking fun, I'm diminishing and doing more damage to ME3 than my critique of the ending ever could. Wait...what?

Listen. The only way my humor, my thoughts, or even my direct actions could "harm" Bioware's magnum opus is if I walked over to my Xbox, right now, ejected the ME3 disc 1, grabbed it and disc 2, and unceremoniously tossed them into my microwave followed by a light tap on the "popcorn" setting.

Nothing I say, or poke good innocent fun at (Innocent, barring the Shepard/Geth Porn Joke) is going to somehow affect or taint what you personally like. If that is somehow the case, that is between you, your medulla oblongata, and your grasp of the frightening minus world you find yourself inhabiting.

I PROMISE you. It's fine. really. The bad man can't hurt it.

And on the harmful words note:

One of the responses was pretty insulting, vitriol-laden, and made some interesting (if incorrect) couch-psychoanalysis of my character and sexual appetites, all in direct response to me "disliking pickles". (See what I did, there?) To that person, I've only one thing to say:

Thanks for taking the time to email me, and thank you for proving my point regarding dismissive ad-hominem argument. Also, I applaud your creative and inventive takes on the English language, and your act of single-handedly creating such new and exciting compound words and phrases. While I doubt Oxford will be ammenable to entering them into the established lexicon, you at least put forth the effort. I salute your ingenuity and ambition.

I'm Commander Shepard, and that was my favorite insensitive homophobic slur of the day.

Mass Effect 3: The Greatest Game I've ever Hated Conclusion

You can read part one here, part two here, and part three here.

But that's not all. The Citadel boasts central air, a food court, and a bevy of one-time-use plot devices.

Putting aside the breakdown-inducing Catalyst plot, the destruction of the relays seems like a cruel afterthought; a slap in the face after you've already been curb-stomped. All of this only made worse by the revelations I mentioned in the cliffhanger charge. No matter what you decide upon, no matter who lives or who dies, the Relays are set off like giant M-80's, and oh yes, by the way, people are stranded and you'll never know what happened to them, and the Galaxy as you know it – the interconnected ultra-civilization you were trying to save, is now set back a few hundred years and cut off from one another, regardless if people from differing races are stuck on foreign planets or not. All this from a plot to what, stop Geth Porn from inundating the galaxy?

Super sorry.

www.expansion-slot.xxx

I could accept this. It seems like the one sensible thing in the entire ending if they were shooting for finality to it all. It's not the ending you wanted, not the one you fought for, but at least people are alive, and there's hope. You won that much out of the cruel metallic tentacles of the Reapers.

But the Reapers, the cycle, the war, the lessons you learned and bled for, none of it mattered, so...

One more time.

All of this boils down to an inescapable fact that I've already touched upon. You can defend the ending. You can wax ad hominem and insult; say the doubters are simply too dull witted to grasp the intricacies of the finale. You can dismiss any naysayers as uninformed, meme-adherents idiots with no basis or leg to stand on, who could not possibly understand or effectively communicate their issues. You can do all that, and smile as you type it out.

But here I am, kids. I'm a proficient and prolific writer, who took the time to research and attempt to see the case from all angles, and who chose patience over lashing out in a knee-jerk fury, that I could better sift through my thoughts and question sincerely where I could be wrong. I am and have done all of this, and I came to one conclusion: the ending to Mass Effect 3 pisses people off, and they have a right to that anger, if for differing reasons from my own. As a gamer, it failed me. As a writer, it angered me because it committed sins that every single professor I've ever had for writing and literature warned against. It failed to convey it's intent in the same way that the rest of the franchise delivered. And unlike the con-happy people you might be dismissing, I feel I communicated my personal feelings on the matter quite succinctly.

But none of that matters. It is not the job of the audience to sift through hidden layers and meanings with a product like this. It's not an art-house piece. It's not the poetry of Cummings or Eliot. It's not the archaic scripture of a society long past. It's a sci-fi video game introduced to us in the action/shooter/rpg genre. That's not to say such a game can't be deeper, but that's not what the MEU showed us, and made us comfortable with. It is not our job to change our minds, and we are right to our opinion and views, and you are right to yours.

But before this all seems to be a beatdown of the MEU writers, let me close on a positive note.

To craft something that people love and are passionate about is a monumental task. To keep their interest and involvement, physically and emotionally, is one of the monumental feats of creative writing that often goes unsung. The writers on the MEU are to be rightly praised. They managed to juggle an incalculable amount of plot threads, outcomes, characters, interactions, locations, history, choices and world-building without misstep over the course of half a decade's worth of storytelling, and all of it designed to be different and changing (to a point) as driven by interactivity. Think about that. How many teams in any other format, let alone interactive ones, can say that? How many times have you heard “this show was great, but man did the writers lose it by the (x) season”?

The MEU writers managed that, and more. They were the great narrative plate-spinners of the medium. It was inevitable that at least one of those plates would fall during that time. My only heartbreak, and the reason for this article, is the sad fact that all the plates seemed to crash and shatter here at the end.

It was a great show... too bad the finale is all I'll remember when thinking on it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got another playthrough to start. Maybe this time I'll be a renegade vanguard... or a paragon Infiltrator...

Or maybe I'll be all of them in all combinations, and simply exit the game with a finale of my choosing.

A Winner is You. Unless your EMS and Paragon scores weren't high enough. If so, Welcome To Die.

Mass Effect 3: The Greatest Game I've ever Hated part 3

Be sure to read Part one and Part two before continuing!

CRIME THREE: Impersonation of a Cliffhanger

A cliffhanger, cliché or not, works based off of expectation. If the expectation isn't there, it fails. I'm talking about the expectation of continuity and continued story. The cliffhanger reveal of Kill Bill vol. 1 works so well, because we already KNEW that there would be a volume 2. The cliffhanger of The Dresden Files that leads into Ghost Story works, because we KNEW the next novel was on its way. Mass Effect 2's slight cliffhanger- with the shot of the Reaper armada closing in on the Milky Way works because we already knew, at that point, that the MEU was a trilogy.

Why do I bring this up? Because the ending, be it on purpose or through sheer blind accident, presented us with elements that are the hallmarks of cliffhanger- especially when you consider the evidence that every follow up ME game's story assumes that your Shepard (by and large) took or got the best outcome. So ME3 has the temerity to show Shepard taking a gasping breath, and the survivors on the Normandy looking out over the vista of some alien world with no way to get back home, because the relays are destroyed. (no, really. The ME team likes to play loose with physics, but they are sharp on their science. At the speed of light, or just over with FTL, look up how long it would take to get just from Earth to the closest star or nebula. We're fucked.) Again, all based on good or best endings, mind. I've seen them all at this point, but a lot of the key elements remain the same.

(Small aside... but why in the ever loving space-Hell did Joker decide that it was a fine time to plot a trip through the relays anyway? What? Interstellar milk-run in the middle of the battle? Decided “hey, the reapers are dying, looks like, I guess that's time for us to run the fuck away, lol”? Sorry – that's just a point that irks me no matter the ending's explanation.)

Yep.

In any case, we're not given closure and finality, and are instead handed elements that lead us to believe the story continues, and to stay tuned after the screen goes black. Problem? We've already been told that this is a trilogy. In fact, the ONLY piece of public information that's been doled out even hinting at a continuation has been from a Bioware employee who only said “keep your save files”. That's hardly a concrete nod let alone an official press-release. Hell it's not even a clear intention of “we're thinking about it”.

We're left questions relating to issues that were never raised or foreshadowed before, (bad for a cliffhanger) and the ultimate fates of the characters we're so invested in are up in the air (great for a cliffhanger) all bundled up with no way of knowing upon completing the game so close to it's release that there will, in fact, be another game in the MEU at all. (Fucking catastrophic for an effective cliffhanger).

This isn't the guilty pleasure frustration of a good cliffhanger, this is a head-scratching cryptic goodbye.

CRIME FOUR: Dereliction of Duty to the core message

Now this point is hotly debated, but I have to raise the point again: it is not up to the audience to discern your reasoning or meaning in what has been presented as straight-shot entertainment. I'll put it to you this way. Imagine you're watching Aliens. Instead of the climactic battle with the xenomorph queen being conducted with a badass mech and a snappy one-liner leading to the oh-so-satisfying destruction of the beast, you're treated instead to twenty minutes of post-modern German expressionism in talking-head format, who's postulations and quantifications only barely connect back to the action-horror you've just been watching.

Game over, man. Game over.

Space-Kanye would like you to run that by him again. He dares you.

Now, conversely, I feel the same thing happened with the message, as I understand it from being an active (although directed) participant. I've mentioned nihilism a few times already, and this charge is why. If Bioware's intention was simply a long-con, a layered and drawn out sucker punch to illustrate nihilism as the message, then they absolutely nailed it. Otherwise?

Bullshit.

If I had to peg down thematic elements, again as they were conveyed and as I understood them, it would run like this: ME1 is about discovery, willpower, and perseverance. ME2 is about Morality, Hard Choices, and Standing Up for a Belief. ME3 is about Faith (more references to faith, spiritual and abstract then any of the previous titles) Hope (same) and True Unity. Threaded throughout it all, from top to bottom and even worming it's way into the DLC with some of Javik's exposition, is the idea that the cycle has always been about the ultimate in Darwin's handbook: the weak will be conquered by the strong. Javik goes so far as to allow that Prothean scientists considered this to be the great “cosmic imperative”, and the only way species could evolve- even as his own was on the wrong end of that equation do to Reapers.

What we had as a message, in Shepard, is that there is this one hero- this iconoclast with an omni-tool, that stood AGAINST that bleak cycle. Hell, the tagline for ME2 is “fight for the lost”. Renegade, Paragon, altruism or revenge- it doesn't matter. In Shepard we have the message of “enough is enough. I will fight against this. The galaxy is not ruled by the law of the jungle”.

When the ultimate expression of that defiance is finally reached, the message is utterly ignored. We're told that it's not even a matter of the Reapers being higher on the food chain. We're told that they're simply a widget in a greater construction that has one purpose, and one purpose only: Spring Cleaning the Galaxy, so the synthetics don't get uppity.

Wait...what?

You know what? The Reapers can have it. just.. I don't want to live in this Galaxy anymore.

That's it. We're given no excuse or preamble or even an attempt at pleading the pro-side of the case or resolve the message we, or rather I, had understood all this time. Did this happen before? Are you running with the assumption that every cycle is doomed to The Matrix? Well..if it is...ok now I see your point, but I digress. Fuckin' Keanu. The message of the previous games, and the previous 98 percent of the final game is completely ignored at this point for a new one: This is for your own good, I guess, I don't have to explain anything, but since you actually made it this far let's actually try something else that has nothing to do with the theme.

Maybe the message is a critique on faith. Who knows? And that's the problem- it's gone from a crystal clear imperative, a driving element, to a complete mess that ends in a question mark. And that leads us to the fifth, and most damaging charge.

CRIME FIVE: Wanton and Unnecessary Collateral Damage to established Mythology

This is where things truly fall apart for my view of the storytelling, and where my heart is broken and the spring from whence my writer-rage gushes forth. Let's just start with what I perceive to be the worst of the damage to the decor on Olympus: The neutering of the Reapers.

In the Reapers, Bioware has not only given us a perfectly serviceable villain, but an ultimately perfect and believable antagonist for the MEU. The Reapers are the ultimate expression of that message I mentioned earlier: standing up against the idea of the strong always conquering the weak. They are more powerful, more intelligent, and decidedly more brutal than we. What they do can be perceived as evil and cruel, but in reality a better nickname for their race could be The Farmers, because that's exactly what they do.

I'll freely admit, it's not as terrifying a handle, but it's true. Though now i'm picturing space-faring giants in overalls and straw hats.

We're told that everything, from the Citadel to the Relays, are merely tools the reapers have put in place to ensure that each cycle has one crucial similarity. It's beautiful in it's simplicity, layered though it may be. This ensures that each developing race, upon reaching a certain level of tech and sophistication, will “discover” the relays. This in turn forces them to base their newly developing technology on the relays themselves, to ensure use. What's more, the Citadel's position and connection to the relays ensures that the predominant species of the cycle will likely establish the Citadel as a center of the whole, if not outright a center of their control and influence over the rest of the galaxy. When the race or races achieve a high enough level of evolution after this- wherein they've adapted and improved the technology to start approaching the realm of a possible (but not absolute) threat to the Reapers, they swoop in from out of dark space and reap the crop of new biological material, topped with a savory level of tech that is already compatible to them by design. They leave the primitive, non-threatening races to their own problems.

After this, they erase all information of their activities that they can, and retreat back into the dark corners of the Universe to await the next race or races to come into their own. Cycle complete, next cycle begins.

Sorry, but the relays and the citadel are the troughs and pens the Reapers constructed, and you're simply the livestock that's unwittingly funneled through them and into the slaughterhouse. They wait until you ripen, and then come in for a good solid plucking. And all of this- ALL OF IT, goes hand in hand with one biological imperative. It's a race of sentient beings preying on others in order to survive and thrive. It's no different from the rest of the galactic animal kingdom. It only sucks because we find ourselves on the losing side, and no one likes to find out that they're simply a crop to be harvested.

Wow. Hell yes I will fight against the fate of me and my family being turned into lunch, or enslaved. You better believe it.

Now, given the Reapers seeming omnipotence versus us lesser beings, I've seen it argued that it made no sense for our particular cycle (our as in the cycle where there are humans) being able to defeat the Reapers just by bringing the Galaxy together. Hell, it took so many ships just to take out Sovereign in ME1, and it took a small armada (with Shepard on the ground providing laser targeting) just to destroy a smaller Reaper. Here's where I disagree- it makes perfect sense to me, again, given what the theme is and given what characters like Javik have explained. He contends that, perhaps, the ultimate failing of his cycle was the hegemony of the Prothean empire. Sure, other races were represented, but they were under their control. They all fought the same, thought the same, and finally died the same. The strength then, is that this cycle is very possibly an unprecedented event at exactly the right time: total unification and cooperation while remaining individuals. Bringing the diversity and strengths of the races into play in a coordinated effort while not diluting their individuality, and all focused on not only the threat at hand, but also working in concert to complete the Crucible. The Crucible, we are lead to believe, was simply the pet project of the dominate race at the time of the cycle, who added to it to defeat the Reapers, but simply ran out of time before they were defeated.

So how about all the technologically advanced races in the Galaxy pooling all their resources, knowledge, and materiel together not just to create a solid offensive front the likes of which has never been seen, but to ALSO complete the weapon? Yeah, suddenly it getting built in such a small time frame doesn't seem so far fetched. Nor does such a front seem automatically doomed to failure against their foe. Will it be easy? Of course not. But we the audience are reminded, yet again, that there is ALWAYS hope, and this alliance of the Galaxy stands as our best chance to finally end the cycle of biological harvest and genocide.

But, no. The Catalyst/godhead/Boyking/thing tells us that the Reapers aren't all that. Hell, they're not even acting upon the impulse to follow their own dark biological doctrine. They're little more then the door-to-door parishioners of a quasi-altruistic dogma that was decided upon oh so many aeons ago, without any evidence to the contrary or supportive history. They didn't lay the trap. They didn't set up the farm. They're not even farmhands. At most, this great antagonist is just a series of combines driven by someone else that we never even knew existed. You're all still crops, sure, but you're not going to feed anyone, and all the suffering you're going to endure is part of a greater plan to...save you from the machines.

Kind of like the Reapers? No. That's silly.

The ending takes the Galaxy's most unstoppable badasses from this...

...and this, and turns them into-

the janitors for a holographic projection of this little bastard.

The next blow to the mythology, following on the heels of reducing such a great villain to sidekick status, is the Crucible/Catalyst itself. Here's where things just go from bad to utterly nonsensical/ paradoxical. We find out that the Crucible is the pet project of all the defeated dominant races up until this point. Ok, that's actually kind of cool, from a narrative standpoint. Our cycle will fulfill the promise of beating these space-crab bastards. We then learn that the Catalyst is the Citadel, bringing things around in almost a full-circle kind of way. If taken to mean that the races along the way co-opted the Citadel, a creation of the Reaper's chowtime assembly line, to use in the weapon that would destroy them, then that's a lovely slice of poetic justice eons in the making.

Nope. Sorry. It's not that. The Catalyst is contained in the Citadel. Ok... sure..yeah... that's how they co-opted-

No.

The Catalyst is some self-aware construct, or massively powerful AI, or hell, GOD, that explains that the Crucible itself is also a part of the larger plan. The plan that uses the Reapers, and therefor is personally responsible for the relays and citadel, to save organics from the synthetics.

This pic gets a LOT of use, and for good reason.

Wow. Where to even begin. I'll try playing Devil's Advocate here.

So, let's say the Catalyst is a construct, or an AI. That would mean that it's a creation itself. So the initial race that installed it aboard, or built it with the Citadel, intended it to (or by virtue of it malfunctioning) start a cycle that would require Reapers, and for the races to build a weapon that required the catalyst to defeat the menace that was all started by-YEEAAARRRRGH. Aneurysm.

Ditto.

Ok, let's say that, somehow, I don't know, the AI simply came into being on the citadel through a wacky set of binary coincidence, virus, or space-porn and used the technology of the Citadel to start the cycle, unbeknownst to the organics of the time. That also means it allowed for the slow but steady creation of the Crucible, and that it knew beyond doubt that it would be eventually used by an Organic, even though it would not follow the established cycle it worked so long to set u-AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Still ditto.

Let's try this: Let's say the Catalyst itself is simply a being. That being created, or influenced the races of the time to create the Citadel, and put it in an ideal location and give it a function not only connected to the Mass Relays, but later to the function of the Reapers themselves. It expresses untold influence and power, and its altruism is only outshined by its ability to play out a mind-boggingly long farce. It then allows an Organic, under the supposition of free will, to board, interact with it, and then it suddenly changes it's mind to offer up choices that it could have put in place all this ti-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGRRRGGHHGGHHJBOIUGGFGFDGS.

So very ditto.

Ok. One last try. I can't handle any more pink goo seeping from my head-orfices. Let's say that the Catalyst is just a test, or dream, or hallucination that Shepard is experi-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Oh God... just make it STOP!

No matter what angle I approach it from, and there are even more than what I've written that I've considered, the Catalyst thing is an unnecessary sledgehammer taken to the otherwise beautiful sculpture that is the MEU's mythology. It's paradoxical, it's random in the implementation, it's cryptic in its reasoning, and it's completely nonsensical against the established lore. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot.

The final blow to the mythology, but one I could accept if not for the rest, is the destruction of the Relays themselves. This ties in with every other charge I've laid, and it could work SO well otherwise as an end- a final end – to the MEU. No matter what choice you pick, the firing or activation of the Crucible uses the Mass Effect Relay Network to effect whatever Galactic change you've decided upon. The power of the change itself destroys the Relays in the process.

So the Construct/Ai/Godhead/BoyKing/Narrative Albatross began the cycles and technology and mean necessary to save organics from the ipods, and allowed them to create a weapon, only it wasn't a weapon, and though it seemed to suddenly change its mind on this process it in fact had the ability to do any of these choices by activating them and destroying the tech that all made it possi-AARRRRRRRRRRRRARARARARARARARGH.

I too, concur.

---To be continued in the final exciting chapter- Part Four: Your mother called and she misses you, and she misses sensible endings.

Mass Effect 3: The Greatest Game I've ever Hated part 2

You can read part 1 of this three-part quasi epic here.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS and SPOILERS.

To explain, I have to not only delve into the lore set up by the three games, but also the DLC, and ending itself. If you've missed any of that, you've been fairly warned. Here there be spoilers, matey.

SPOILERS, DAMN YOU.

Ok. Are the uninitiated gone? I hope so.

Shepard might object, but the Reaper's greatest evil achievement was spoiling the end to Harry Potter and the Eezo Escalator for the rest of the galaxy.

The Mass Effect 3 ending, to me as a writer, is guilty of five crimes. The associated charges are, in ascending fuk-da-space-police order:

CRIME ONE: Reckless Abandonment of Established Tone

We're going in. first off, let's tackle the first charge. There's already some interesting theories (interesting here ranging from thought provoking to ass-slapping insanity) concerning the nature of the ending and how it was presented. Was it a dream? Was it a hallucination? Was it the metaphysical world touching the physical as Shepard ascended to the ranks of legends? Was it all the fan-fic of Dr. Archer's autistic brother-turned-heavy-metal-album-cover? I would offer the following:

Does it even remotely fucking matter?

Seriously. Let's step away from endorsing any one theory for a second here. This is Mass Effect, not Inception. The finale should be at least concise enough to let us sit back and enjoy it. If there are any lingering questions, NONE of them should ever be “wait, was that real or not?”. The tonal shift was such a 180 from how the game, and its predecessors, presented the narrative. One could argue that this was hinted at with the recurring nightmare Shepard experiences, but I call bullshit. Those could be easily- and rightly – construed as they seemed to be used; they were contextual pieces offering insight into Shepards deteriorating state. That's his guilt. That's the very real and very identifiable reflections of what Shepard believes to be his failure, and yet another flagstone on the long road that's lead him to stand up and fight the Reapers. This child died, and there's nothing I can do about it, but I can and WILL do something for the rest.

By switching over to such a vague and muddled presentation, the story stops cold while the audience attempts to figure out what's what. What's worse, is that the lovely filters and visual cues do not carry over into what happens next, which is all presented in the stark clarity and YES THIS IS HAPPENING NOW of the rest of the game. No matter how you slice it, even with all the examples of mental trickery and plot revelation used by the Reapers, Asari, and Rachni, this shift is counter to what the players have come to already accept as the established format for delivering basic character interaction, let alone the critical moment that concludes the entire tale. More importantly, the nature of the delivery STILL has no impact on what happens after, as the tone then slams back into what we're all familiar with.

Hi there. I'm Reality. We had an appointment?

Dream, hallucination... I'm the guy with the gun and the puzzled look on his face. Mass Effect delivered a Sci-Fi war epic, not an allegory or a metaphor or strange thought experiment, so why does the ending need to? It doesn't. Period. If I want to appreciate that kind of gameplay, I'll fire up Jacob's Ladder Funtime Experience (better with Kinect!) or The Freudian Adventures on Wii. Not surprisingly, the whole “shake your remote to sexually fantasize about your mother” minigame is disturbing enough, but at least there's a “repress” function to clear save data.

Oh God it that my mom? Naked? In hi-def?! I... I don't want to play anymore.

In short, the work should speak clearly and concisely, given that is how you've presented it. Mass Effect was never a supernatural or cerebral experience, and should not even be construed as taking on those aspects unless you give clearer indication. See also: Dallas, St. Elsewhere, etc. It is not the job of the audience to discern your motives or meanings when you randomly change perspective and tone. That's basic creative writing.

CRIME TWO: Abuse and Abandonment of Narrative

Next, let's talk about charge numero dos: the ending was counter to the narrative. This is where I have the hardest time understanding why the people who enjoy the ending are comfortable. This to me is such a sin of writing versus what's come before that I might just have to start a religion centered around declaring it anathema.

I might do that anyway. The cash intake would be... substantial.

This has to do a bit with the tonal shift, but mostly focuses on the story as it was delivered to us, and what the viewer is supposed to take away from it. At this point, it's no surprise to me at all that the game, including advertisements, are so focused on London. While I'm not accusing the writers of drawing exact parallels, if they did not have WW2 in the backs of their minds for some of the key set pieces and story developments, I'll eat my laptop. The galaxy itself feels like Bastogne. You're beset on all side by the enemy, and even the leisurely act of scanning planets is no longer a safe prospect.

The upshot? No more lines on the Underground! Silver lining, kids.

The war plays out like the greatest hits of an Ambrose novel. We have capitulation and collaborators (knowing and unknowing), Allies that too often work at cross-purposes until they are united in the face of utter annihilation, a monolithic threat that is winning victories with seeming ease or little to no active resistance, revelations of mass atrocities and genocide, refugees trying to flee and realizing that there's no where to flee to, drives for soldier recruitment and utilizing the press to push the importance of fighting and resisting ,and the ever present macguffin of technology that could prove the key to ending the great war.

Hell, even the Turian moon mission plays out more like the trenches then a Sci-Fi lazer-war.

Then, you have the culminating final push across – you guessed it – a “no'mans land” in a futuristic London that looks like it's been through a very past-tense Blitz. I approve, I applaud, and I was reasonably hooked. That last fight to the convenient teleportation beam (seriously, it's a small gripe, but WHO leaves a teleportation beam in the ON position when it's not in use?) was one of the most satisfying and pulse-racing experiences I've had in a videogame in a long time, augmented by the very real pathos of speaking to all those you knew, and perhaps loved, for what could very well be the last time. Sci-fi trappings aside, Mass Effect 3's narrative was one we've seen played out countless times. This is your world, the one you love and know, turned upside down by war and invasion, and it is up to YOU to fight back. In the face of staggering odds, betrayal, and loss, it falls to you, as Shepard, to push back this menace and end this war- break the cycle of death and entropy that pushed us to this brink.

All of this erudition finally funnels you into a literal 100 yard dash for the goal. Even after things seem to fall apart, Shepard shambles to his feet, more battered and bloody then we've ever seen him, and with only pistol in hand he pushes through to that beam because the war needs to end. The horrors need to stop. Here in London is the wish fulfillment of the British from past-Earth, who suffered and held out and hoped and prayed in the face of their destruction. Here, in London, is the promise to the galaxy kept: trust in Shepard, and we WILL prevail over the Reapers. Every promotional ad, every pre-release interview and special, and every second of the trailers has pushed us collectively to this point. We WILL win. We WILL beat the Reapers. WE WILL TAKE EARTH BACK. UP YOURS, REAPERS! VIVA LA OMNI-BLADE RESISTANCE!

Mothafuckin'. Laser. Sword. Arm. Bring it, Harbinger.

Shepard steps into the beam, deals with more nightmarish imagery and the (possible) death of yet another dear friend, and then... and then...

We're presented with well... some call it the “God” of Mass effect, some call it the “Sentience of the Galaxy”, but I simply call it utter nonsensical deus ex machina in the most literal sense of the phrase. The final conflict, or whatever Shepard's heroism or sacrifice might be in this struggle, is reduced to three choices in a room that, not so subtly, is patterned after the conversation wheel you've been utilizing this entire franchise. Your taking back of Earth, or failure to do so, is not hinged on some boss battle, or even a cathartic expression of a massive ground battle, or even that final agonizing push through to the goal and the slamming of a button. The war, and everything about it, is now all about eenie, meenie, miney, moe.

...the fuck?

Get used to this pose. It happens a lot from here on in.

Again, this might be simply a matter of stylistic choice. That's fine, and would be completely adequate (if not satisfying) if the narrative was leading us down this path. It wasn't. Not in the slightest. Not even remotely. This is an 11th hour bait-and-switch, and smacks of either trying to hard to be clever, or simply running out of time to craft an ending schematic that gelled with the established thematic copy. I don't think the latter's what happened, given that we are asked to believe (via interviews) that this ending was on the table since the initial script-writing of ME1. Ok, fine. Somewhere, along the way, the right hand completely forgot about whatever the hell the left hand was supposed to be doing.

Moreover, and as for the macguffin side of the narrative – the Catalyst – fine. I get it. The reveal on the Crucible was the first sign of something problematic to me, but I decided to give the benefit of the doubt. We get the Catalyst, we finish the super weapon, we win the war. Again, I'm just seeing slight nods to past takes on WW2. To reveal what the Catalyst was is a fine piece of what you need the narrative to do. To do a FURTHER reveal, once that effectively retcons and makes the player forget the impact of the first reveal, isn't a clever twist. It's broken writing.

It's been argued by another reviewer that ME3 plays it safe and doesn't risk raising any new questions. I disagree. The narrative raises plenty, and all are true to form for the MEU. The ending, however, raises TOO many that were not even hinted at previously, and offers no explanation or apology for it. This isn't the real-life equivalent of “some mysteries remain mysteries”. This is the “I have no idea what you are talking about, and it doesn't even relate to what we were just discussing five minutes ago” brand of storytelling that I would never have expected of such a solid team of wordsmiths. And because those questions are raised...

---Continues in in Part Three: Revenge of the Return of the Son of This article.

Mass Effect 3: The Greatest Game I've ever Hated part 1

I had so much material for this one, that I had to split it up into four parts.
Part Two.
Part Three.
Part Four.

Before you click over to whatever net destination you'd prefer over what appears to be yet another nerd-rage laden Mass Effect 3 rant, let me pacify you: It's not another nerd-rage-laden Mass Effect 3 rant. It's not even a rant, per se. I'm removed enough now from my initial anger and I've come to a place of more constructive critique and less rampant stabbing. Yes, I feel less stabby. Don't let the title of the piece fool you. I'll explain how it comes into play. First, let me clarify one very important thing here, before I get hip-deep into self-serving prose and irreverent humor (which is how I deal with disappointment. Bear with me.):

I love Mass Effect 3. I love Mass Effect 1, and 2. As I write this, I've got my N7 patch sitting nearby awaiting attachment to a coat or hat, and the soundtrack that came along with my Collector's Edition of 3 playing on Winamp. I love this franchise. I believe, without equivocation, that the Mass Effect Universe (hereafter referred to as MEU because that's just ridiculously fun to say) is the most important sci-fi franchise of the current generation. I'd put it up there in terms of depth and detail right alongside Star Trek and Star Wars without batting an eyelash, and without a single trace of irony. Now, before the blue-box crowd lights their torches, I'll point out that I'm also a huge Who fan, but I've always considered it to be its own genre-hopping creature. Bow-ties are cool, and I desperately want a TARDIS.

This, however, is all about Shepard's galaxy. I LOVE Mass Effect. How much do I love Mass effect? I love it enough to prattle on at great length to terrified random strangers, and then to the cadre of police that arrive shortly thereafter to deal with the call about the babbling psychotic who's preaching about the glories of quantum-entanglement skype calls. Check and mate, Trek and Wars. Sorry.

Cool story, Skywalker. My entire arm turns into a laser sword.

Now, to also curtail the backlash, you'll have to excuse the imagery or the free-slinging of masculine pronouns I'm about to use. I played my initial run of Mass Effect 3 as a male Shepard. I freely play both, and enjoy the game as either. (Insert “switch-hitter” jokes here.) For the purposes of this piece, you may freely interject “her” for “him” and so on as pleases you. Either Shepard, to me, is Shepard. It's that simple. There is no “correct” Shepard gender- the Tao of the Shepard is not the true Tao. The Galaxy is not saved by fleshy bits or lack thereof, alone.

I'll also say this here, though I will point it out from time to time hereafter: SPOILERS. If you've not played 3 through to completion, then your cognitive span is needed elsewhere. Go, my child. There is a galaxy to save. I'll still be here when you get back. But, if you've finished the game, and genuinely have a satisfactory opinion over the game's controversial ending, I invite you to stay. I'd like you to see that dissent, in this case, does not automatically mean bandwagon hate.

You see, I love Mass Effect 3. I also love the ending of Mass Effect 3. There's just one small issue: it's not a Mass Effect 3 ending.

I can hear the sound of the needle gouging your mental record, so let me explain.

I don't say this with the same thousand-yard stare and upraised threatening fist I might use when I declare that Highlander 2 doesn't exist. H2 doesn't exist because it was a bad movie, and a bad move in the franchise. The ending to ME3 was a GOOD ending. ME3 is a FANTASTIC game. The problem is that, when taken as a whole, the ending is an oversized titanium-coated square peg that's suddenly, and unnecessarily, forced into a tinier, rounder hole made of a completely different material.

I can honestly see what the writers were trying to do here. I understand the message, nihilistic though it may be in terms of some of the choices. I even understand the hints, subtle and overt, that are pointing the player to a foregone conclusion. The hints they give in the series, and its end, are completely different and separate from each other. What the ending does, in the 11th hour (11th hour herein actually referring to the last 15 or so minutes of the game) is present you with something unexpected, jarring, and ultimately too simple for the mythology that has been established up until this point. In short, it's not a twist, it's not clever, and it's handled so poorly that the reaction has been justifiably visceral.

This is the last thing a Bioware forum mod sees before mercifully drinking themselves into a full blown blackout.

I'm not in the “fix it”camp; that growing group of gamers online who have confused frustration with self-entitlement. While I don't necessarily approve of some of the commentary coming out of the EA and Bioware bastions, I sympathize with them and agree on one crucial point: They owe us nothing in terms of additional work. That's to say, if there was an issue that was game-breaking or prevented me from playing the game, I'd be among the multitude singing hosannas of PATCH THIS. What the “fix-it crowd” wants, illogically to me (but hey, it's the internet) is for the companies to effectively work for free to produce some form of DLC that completely unmakes the finale and replaces it with a more palatable proxy. I hate to break this to you, but even with my disappointment with the ending, it is what it is. You don't get to lobby for change to creative decisions. It's there, it's canon, and your rage in this department is impotent. I could easily say the same for myself as I'm writing out this article, but the key difference here is I'm simply clearing the air concerning my thoughts. I'm not about to flood Bioware's already straining inbox with yet another futile example of “I r angry give me wut I want, assholes”.

And don't even get me started on the Facebook legions.

In the future, Reaper-Facebook is preferable. Soul-crushing posts aside, there's no Zynga, no games, no Timeline, and reaper chicks have no lips, so no more duck-face pics.

Nor am I in the group who skewed their reviews based on their anger concerning the day-one DLC. I just don't care. I really don't. Even if I had been in a position of knowing what the DLC entailed, but without a way to access it yet (Happens to me all the time. I'm a freelancer, which is to say broke. I didn't play Borderlands or Mass effect 2 DLC until long after it dropped) I would not care. Bioware and EA are in it to make money. Don't like it? Don't support it. But given what I like to call the “Battlefield 3 Effect”, you'll rage and snarl and brandish weapons and still be playing the game the day it goes live. Spare me.

Look at Space-Kanye's uncaring expression. LOOK AT IT.

I'm talking about the general wave of anger. Now, I've already seen a few articles floating about in the ether that are dismissive of this anger to the point of insulting. I understand that. It's easy to dismiss what you perceive as a trend, or even a “let's hate this game because it's popular” meme. That's the easy road; it's a top-down critique on what you see as bandwagon antics because you could not possibly fathom why the point of view is so radically removed from yours. So, it's unfounded, biased, and ultimately unimportant and easily regarded as trite. It's just the internet doing what it does best. But what if- just what if, some of those in the throng had a point? For example, I'm not dismissing those who enjoyed the ending, or those who have qualified it utilizing an impressive arsenal of florid praise and nods to what they see as a philosophical thought-project. I get you. I get what the ending tried to convey.

What am I getting at? Simply this: don't be so quick to dismiss without taking a harder look. You may not agree with me, and that's fine, but the current attitude of “you're not right to your anger/criticism” is absolutely ridiculous, and completely undermines your stance and the content your are so valiantly defending. That's like saying “you're wrong to turn pickles down, or say they're bad, because I like pickles, and you're just being an asshole and joining the anti-pickle brigade because it's trending”.

Again. Spare me.

Still Space-Kanye. Still uncaring.

I won't talk overlong about the “our choices don't matter” bit, either. Guys, Mass effect, for all it's virtues, is an extended Choose-your-own-Adventure tale. (Yes, I'm freely dating myself with that reference). The choices ARE illusory free will, and half the fun is going back and seeing how things play out through other choices- but those choices, and the outcomes, have always been finite. I hate to sound nihilistic here, but in terms of bringing things to a close, no- your choices could not matter. Like in all things, your choices could only affect the collateral damage. The building's still going to blow up, player, but how well you do will decide if the orphanage next door gets nuked or just has a REALLY interesting day.

The "Mundane Daily Grind" DLC was not all that well received.

Come along with me, if only for a little while, and I'll walk you through my writer-rage. That's right. Not nerd-rage or gamer-gall or even player-pique. This is all about writer-rage.

When I finished the game in the wee hours of the morning, my wife (who's not an avid MEU fan, but who had heard me talking so much about it and had caught some very cool parts of my playthrough, decided to sit next to me as I finished so SHE could find out what happened next) noted that I did something that I have never, ever, done after finishing a game, or movie, or novel.

I said nothing but “hmm”, and without further comment I went outside for a smoke, I came back inside, and went straight to bed. No commentary, no fist pumping explosions of “that was awesome!” that Dr. Chakwas might approve of-

The sad thing is: I didn't have to do anything to this pic. It came made to order. Thanks, Internet!

-no launching into an obscenity-laden tirade over how miserably fail the ending was (I'm looking at YOU, Sword of Truth series). Nothing. My conclusion to Shepard's story; the arc that brought me such joy, pathos, heartbreak, hope and vicarious feeling of accomplishment, ended with hardly a word uttered.

Not with a bang, but a whimper. A fucking confusing whimper, at that.

Shepard was understandably shaken, and perhaps a little gassy.

On the consumer side, on the gamer side, on the individual who was looking to be entertained and enjoy a little late-night escapism side, I found myself stunned into almost a catatonic state, and turned off my console without so much as displaying any sign that the game's final imagery had affected me at all. The game had failed to deliver.

I slept. Upon waking, I began to think over it. I went online and read viewpoints, pro and con. I contemplated what came before, and how things turned out. During all this, one inescapable and ultimately ruinous (for my weekend, anyway) thread began to take shape and take hold: I was angry. I separated the gamer experience and looked at it for what it was, and for what had entertained and engrossed me up until this point. I looked at the story as a whole, and how the ending effectively ruined it for me. Not because it was a bad ending, but because it was not the ending that I could logically pin to the end of all things in the MEU, and because it unnecessarily undid so much genius on the part of the writers that had so successfully hooked this writer.

And that spawned the title of this piece. When you meet another person, the first impression is often what you most strongly remember and associate with that other carbon-based bipedal unit. When it comes to entertainment, that last bit is what usually shapes the whole of the experience for you. I mention the Sword of Truth series, because I found the ending to be a flaccid affair to what was shaping up to be an epic conclusion. Naturally, I fail to mention my love of the first three novels in that series- why? Because that last impression is the one I carry with me. There's a reason so much work and effort goes into a finale for any form of entertainment. The creator wants you to leave with a very specific impression, because they know that's what you'll remember after it's all said and done.

Mass Effect 3's left me with a decidedly poor view of the game overall, even when I could rationalize and remember the absolutely fantastic experiences I had leading up to that last little bit. It made no sense. It was completely non-sequitur. The the game I had just been gushing about, and who's narrative had managed to even draw in an outside observer like my wife, could not possibly be ruined, could it?

Of course not. Stay with me here.

And after much discussion, much back and forth and consideration, I was really only left with one way to look at it, and let that anger go: the ending didn't belong in the story. In short, it was a great ending to some other game- a game that I had simply not played yet. So why is it such a poor choice for Mass Effect 3?

--Continued in part 2.

Oh my word- it begins.

Abandon all hope, ye who Google here. So begins a more friendly, more laid back bid to demoralize and scatter humanity; or at the very least entertain it. Stay tuned.