Why Mass Effect 3 typifies everything wrong in gaming

Old News is Good News

This was a post I had written around when Mass Effect 3 came out, but never published. Not sure why. Anyway, here it is.

Since the original Mass Effect arrived on the 360, gamers and media alike have conveniently ignored what BioWare are capable of and almost-universally gushed over a mediocre third-person shooter with RPG-light elements. Of course, anyone who has played the brilliant Knights of the Old Republic for any length of time can immediately deduce that Mass Effect was not of the same quality, in any regard. Bad, clichéd writing, laughable dialogue, and combat that can - and is - bettered by guff like Syphon Filter on the PS1 leads to a space experience, quite frankly, not worth having. The awful B-movie dialogue, sloppy pacing, and general throwaway cinematic experience remained intact for the sequel, but the actual game side improved in Mass Effect 2; combat was tighter, glitches less frequent, graphics were cleaned up, and side-content was actually worth completing for fun, rather than for the necessity to achieve 100% completion.

A lot has seems to have changed since Mass Effect 2 and the recent release of Mass Effect 3. Sure, day-one DLC and pre-order incentives were around - and employed - by EA for Mass Effect 2, but with the third game the whole concept of the aptly named 'ripping-consumers-off-as-much-as-possible' is in full swing. There has been a common news story doing the rounds saying how your Mass Effect 3 experience is not 100% content filled unless you are willing to fork out £200+ for all the extra DLC deals, pre-orders and such. Of course, day-one DLC exists already on the disc, and requires a small download (see: unlock key) to access, but this is seemingly fine and dandy in today's gaming society. A few gamers complain, but are eventually drowned out by the mindless festering cretins that populate this medium - as long as you can have sex with blue aliens (as long as it's not male gay sex; heaven forbid!), shoot robots while you clumsily move from cover-to-cover, and convince yourself the story isn't grade A horse manure, then all is good for gamers.

Cutting-edge and deep narrative in full swing during Mass Effect here.

But all this is just a standard affair for gaming developers/publishers these days. Every other week Capcom are doing their best to ensure as much content is ripped from their discs, then released as extra premium content to stuff their wallets further (with little protest from the media, obviously). However, with Mass Effect 3 BioWare and EA have gone on further. Ignoring the ridiculousness of people actually taking Mass Effect's narrative seriously, the ability to deliberately input a fake ending in the knowledge that fans will clamour and - more importantly - pay for a 'proper' ending is a sound strategy to employ. Immoral, and utterly utterly fucked-up, but sound.

Amusingly, if something like this happened in the film industry, or with music, or TV, the sheer absurdity of it would render the makers of such content a laughing stock and - most likely - bankrupt within a working week. Hey, here's a new season of Mad Men! We'll give you 4 episodes as usual, but if you want to see the rest you'll need to pre-order the DVD from Amazon for episode 5, and Play for episode 6. Also, the season finale is bullshit, but if you give us an extra £15 we'll happily fix that for you and release a small premium update to give you the proper ending! (Note: I believe the 'ending' DLC for Mass Effect 3 was free upon release, but my argument about charging for everything else remains valid. In fact, if I were a betting man I would suggest that my prediction of a 'paid-for DLC ending' is not far off, especially from the likes of EA. Maybe a possible avenue for Mass Effect 4?)

I mean, really? Are gamers that idiotic? Really? I wish I didn't part-take in this hobby so much. I wish I could disassociate myself with this gaming trend. But alas, I still love gaming. More fool me.