Just to clear that article really isn't IGN
Andy Shandy said:
Look, I'm not a particularly big fan of IGN but you're being disingenuous when you say they wrote this. It wasn't them at all, it was a blogger that posted it on the blog section of their site.
^^^This^^^
Also,
I'm rather surprised he's even discussing this now. What's left to talk about? The entire debacle surrounding this whole issue felt (to me at least), like its run more than it's fair share of course and then some. That being said this is just one man's perspective and opinion on the ending. I don't think it helps that because of the way he's written this article he's dismissed a lot of the detractors of the ending and many of the very well documented and extremely valid arguments made against the ending as well as the people who have made them (like so many others have done before), as people who are too stupid or who are not capable of comprehending the "true" meaning of ending and in the process protraying himself as being a pretentious jerk.
I will admit that I do in fact agree with one part of his argument, particularly when he states that "...the player not only doesn?t achieve their goal, but also fails in living up to a persona that they have built up during their play through.". I concur that the player may not complete their goal however, where I completely disagree with him is that the player themselves are never able to "achieve their goal" NOT because of some short disability on the player's part but rather BioWare's as they never give the player the opportunity to achieve the goal of defeating the Reapers. IMHO the original endings are so convoluted, pretentious, contrived, non-sensical and so poorly written that they effectively toss many elements of the established lore completely out the window it would be hard for ANY player to feel a sense of accomplishment or achievement when BioWare has effectively thrown all of the choices that the player has made throughout the series under the bus in favor of what Casey Hudson and Mac Walters had planned for the ending.
Again IMHO, Mass Effect 3's ending is by far, without a shadow of a doubt the worst conclusion to any story (regardless of medium or genre), that I've ever seen and it should be held up on a podium as an example of exactly how NOT to conclude any story.
When games like Mass Effect come along and provide the illusion of choice to the player and then never ultimately deliver on the promise of having those choices and consequnces that actually matter, will undoubtedly result in a agitated audience. It's like saying you sell vanilla, chocolate and strawberry when in reality all you have is vanilla.
No pun intended but Mass Effect 3 was really the... Catalyst for me (pun totally intended!), because as a huge fan of the ME franchise to watch something you love completely explode from the inside out because of the very people who created it is extremely dissappointing to say the least.
Now can we FINALLY be done with Mass Effect 3 already?
-Hawk
