(Spoiler Alert for the Mass Effect franchise. If you are touchy about spoilers, avert your eyes and go back to watching porn.)
Lately I have getting on my soapbox and writing about a fairly diverse set of topics and the list of said topics is far from empty. However, this week I feel like doing something a bit more recreational. Since my first attempt at something like this was so popular (and is still getting hits to this day), and it has been a long time, another character analysis is in order. This time I will be discussing every Mass Effectfan’s favorite AI companion, Legion. Legion is one of the series most interesting characters in the franchise, in my honest opinion, and there are a couple of reasons I have for this.
But before I get into that, we need to learn about the story of Legion. Any character, even a synthetic one, is a product of their story. Due to the nature of the Gethin the Mass Effect franchise, Legion’s tale is the tale of Geth, and goes back to when the Geth gained sentience. Originally, the Geth were nothing more than a collection of AI constructs developed by the Quarianrace to serve them. They were programmed to always find the most efficient ways to complete tasks assigned to them. It was eventually realized that when Geth programs come together, they can “think” and perform tasks better than they could individually. Reaching its logical conclusion, these programs kept networking until they reached a point where they gained sentience and could communicate with their Quarian creators. This unsettled the Quarians to the point where they started attacking the Geth out of fear. (I suppose that Quarians are equally as aware of standard AI horror tropesas we are.) While some Quarians showed sympathy to the Geth, most of them displayed only fear. This fear only grew once a Geth platform asked its creator, “Does this unit have a soul?” Out of sheer terror was born a warbetween the two. Though the conflict was started by the Quarians, the Geth held their own and forced them off their own home world, leading the Quarians toward the path of a migrant species.
Shortly after this victory, the Geth embraced a policy of isolationism towards organic life. They had no desire to fight or even deal with other people and just wanted to be left alone, safeguarding the planet their creators called home. This does not mean that they were doing nothing. In fact, they were working towards their ultimate goal. They wished to build a system large enough to house every single Geth intelligence on one platform, becoming as smart and capable as they can possibly become. Striving towards their desire for a very long time, the Geth remained little more than bogeymen to the galactic races until the Reapersarrived on scene. When the Reapers approached the Geth, they made them a huge offer. In exchange for giving the Reapers aid in furthering their goals (which makes little sense when taken into context with Mass Effect 3), the Geth were promised to be elevated by the Reapers and have their goals fulfillled. When trying to reach consensus on this issue, a small collective of the Geth broke away to join the Reapers and were dubbed Hereticsby the many who rejected the Reapers. Then the events of the orignal Mass Effect game occurred, with Commander Shepard going against Saren, the Reaper Sovereign, and the Geth who defected. (You know the plot, if not from my prior articles, then from your own experiences.) This colored the preception of organic races towards the Geth and brought credence to the Quarian race’s belief that they were wronged by their synthetic creations.
The isotionist policy changed once the Normandycame under attack by a mysterious third partyand Commander Shepard was lost, presumed dead. Since the commander had experience with the Heretics and was instrumental in the defeat of Sovereign, the Geth decided that it would be prudent to make sure the Shepard was alive. To successfully traverse the systems that organic life inhabit, the Geth realized it would be best to send as few units as possible and lessen their mark on the world. They built a single platform capable of housing over one thousand individual Geth AI constructs all networked together. This platform traced Shepard’s footsteps, looking for clues as to where he/she went and what happened, eventually finding the Normandy’s crash site and salvaging a piece of Shepard’s N7 armor, using it to repair itself after a firefight. After concluding that Shepard died, it stayed around to investigate another problem it discovered.
The platform learned of a plan by the Heretics to use a virus, granted to them by the Reapers, to rewrite the true Geth, making them accept the Reapers as their leaders. This led the platform to a derilect Reaper in order to acquire knowledge on how to counteract this virus. It encounters Shepard and is surprised to find him/her alive and well. Seeing the commander in a tight situation, the platform takes aim at the hoards attacking Shepard, then retreats further in to hack a terminal and learn about the Reapers and their technology. Once Shepard and company arrive on scene, they see the platform attacked by a Reaper husk and disabled. They acquire a Reaper IFF for their own purposes, collect the platform and leave.
Once the crew make it back to the new Normandy, there is a debate as to whether the Commander should activate and interrogate the platform, sell it to Cerberus, or just leave it be. Since nobody in their right mind would sell it to Cerberus, the four Shepards I played all decided to activate and interrogate the platform. The platformed explained its purpose and why it was sent outside the Perseus Veil, where the Geth live. For the purpose of communicating with organic life, the platform accepted the name Legion to distinguish it from other Geth platforms and agreed to help Shepard fight against the Collectors. (This is part of Mass Effect 2‘s main plot, which I do not want to get into for various reasons.) Through several optional conversations, Legion tells Shepard, and the player by proxy, all about how the Geth work, their “society,” political beliefs, and the like. Eventually, it gives the player the optional objective to head to the base of the Herectic Geth and stop them from using the virus, with the choice to either destroy it, blowing up the Heretic Base and all the Heretics in it, or repurpose it to turn the Heretics back into true Geth and force them to retreat, then destroy it. Since the individual programs inside Legion were unable to form concensus, they trusted Sheppard to make the final decision.
If Legion both survives the events of Mass Effect 2 and was not sold to Cerberus, he will become a central figure in the events regarding the Geth/Quarian conflict in the third game. Since the Quarians attempted to erradicate them, the Geth decided to forge an alliance with the Reapers out of fear. The deal was that they would gain intelligence and fighting prowess in exchange for allowing the Reapers to completely control them. When Shepard arrives on scene to convince the Quarians to join the war efforts, he/she is briefed on the situation. The commander, his/her Quarian friend Tali, and one other person infiltrate a Geth ship sending a broadcast to all the others in order to figure out exactly why it seems like the Geth and the Reapers are working together. They encounter Legion, who tells them that the Reapers are using him to project a signal to all Geth, ordering them to attack. It asks the team to free it so that it is no longer a Reaper conduit and can begin aiding in a counterattack on the Reapers, which Shepard does. As a show of good faith towards Shepard and as a token of their friendship, Legion orders the ship’s engines and weaponry to be diabled, which the Quarians took as a queue to attack with full force (despite the fact they know Shepard is on board). Once everyone is safely back on the Normandy, gives Shepard an optional side-mission to enter the Geth Consensus and weaken the Reaper’s influence, allowing some of the Geth to join him/her. Afterwards, the Quarians, Shepard’s team, and Legion work together to destroy the Reaper signal to the Geth by destroying the source, later revealed to be an actual Reaper. Once Shepard defeats the Reaper, Legion tells him/her that it can use the Reaper’s code to make the Geth’s thought processes more organic in nature, giving them true individuality and conciousness, whether or not it succeeds is up to Shepard. It will die regardless and it’s story comes to an end either way (using the code, for some reason, kills Legion and if Shepard tries to stop it, Legion will fight back and Shepard will kill him). Should Sheppard allow it, Legion will call itself “I” instead of “We” in its final moments, showing that the process is working and demostrating true individuality before passing away.
One of the things that makes Legion so interesting is that it is the player’s window into Geth culture. While characters like Garrusand Tali partially serve to further the player’s knowledge regarding how their races work, there are many other people from those races to interact with to forge a deeper understanding than with those characters alone. Legion is unique in that it is the one and only way in which Shepard learns about the Geth because they are isolationists and they are so closely networked together that talking to one Geth platform is essentially talking to the Geth as a whole. This makes conversations with Legion facsinating because prior to Legion’s inclusion, the Geth were always at least somewhat enigmatic. The player fought against their forces (later revealed to be Heretics) in the first game, but never understood exactly what caused them to side with Sovereign. Legion gives the player an opportunity to learn about the Geth in an interesting and creative way. On the part of the writers, this was very cleaver.
The other intelligent decision the writing team made, which further raises the interest I have towards Legion, is to defy traditional genre conventions regarding Artificial Intelligence. As I aluded to earlier, most media that involves an AI growing sentience have it quickly decide that its creators are too inefficient and immediately start trying to murder everyone. As other people on the internethave already said, this makes very little sense. Why would the default stance for an AI be “murder the shit out of everyone” the moment it learns how to think for itself? Bioware knew about this genre convention and thoughfully decided to avert it. The choice to do that gave Legion (an other AI characters) the ability to be much more fleshed out and interesting than similar characters in other genres, leading into my final point.
Legion is one of the most interesting characters in the Mass Effect series because of what it represents: The moral quandary of whether or not sentient machines count as life in the same way that organics do. They explore every aspect of this question from their ability to feel emotions to whether or not they have civil rights. The ability of the Geth to feel emotions is intentionally left up for debate. When talking with Legion, it will insist that it does not have emotions and is unable to feel anything. According to it, logic and rational thinking allow the invividual Geth programs to come together and build a consensus as to what the next course of action should be. However, there are times where that can be called into question. For example, when Shepard sees the N7 armor on Legion and questions it about it, Legion explains that he used it because there was a hole and it needed to be prepared. When further pressed to answer why it used that in particular piece of armor over other parts more redily available, Legion finally admits that it has no data on that subject and cannot answer that question. In other words, it does not know for sure. This indicates that it was a decision influenced by something more than logic, possibly emotion. There are also other more subtle cues from Legion in other dialogue scenes in Mass Effect 2 and 3 that indicate possible sorrow, anger, and other emotions.
The other half of this huge moral dillema is the question of the civils rights of synthetic beings and their ability to integrate into society. It is a tough question that does not have a clear answer. Characters debate this throughout the entire series. Most organic races, particularly the Quarians, tend to fall on the side of no rights to synthetic beings. This makes sense since they believe that the Geth forced them off their world. They believe that it is either impossible or too impractical to arrange for peace, despite dissenting opinions. Legion on the other hand, tries its best to be as considerate as it can be. However, it does not always succeed. There are time where it says or does otherwise rational things that can be seen as strange or ruthless to organic beings. During its optional mission in Mass Effect 2, Legion talks about the possibility of destroying the Geth Heretics with cold callous, which the player’s other companion comments on with shock. It also states that Shepard and company should not feel bad about killing the Heretics because they “do not share your pity, remorse, or fear.” Legion also expresses a childlike inability to understand human customs, which Shepard can chose to explain to it, such as the concepts of cemetaries, religion, and drug use. Since it is an AI, it has trouble understanding how these things factor into our lives and the emotional (and physiological in the case of the last one) impact of these things, calling into question the ability of Legion and the geth to truly integrate with organics. Through Legion, the game presents all the relevant information and ultimately allows the player to decide for themselves the answer these question, adding depth to its character and making it much more impactful.
Overall the character of Legion is a great example of Bioware’s strength. They can write interesting and relatable characters and use them to raise interesting moral questions. Though they havemanyweaknessesin terms of how they tell stories, especially in recent games, characterization has always been a strength of their brand. This is why they were such a strong brand before the issues with Mass Effect 3. If you write good characters, then players will grow attachments to them and want to play through your game to deepen those bonds. Take this lesson to heart, game developers. 

(Spoiler Alert for: Assassin’s Creed 1, 2 and Brotherhood, Final Fantasy X, XIII and Tactics, the Halo franchise, and Skyrim. As usual, you have been warned.)
I think it can be said that games are becoming more and more prominent as a valid form of speech and expression of ideas and beliefs. With that in mind, what games say regarding certain topics should reflect the dispositions of the people who both create and consume them. One particular topic springs up with a fair degree of regularity in video games, which I find quite interesting. That topic is religion. Religion is a very huge topic in modern society that permeates all of our lives, regardless of what each person thinks regarding the subject. It influences people and their opinions. That is why I find what games have to say on this topic to be worth discussing and why I have made this subject the topic of discussion.
But before I begin, I want to make one thing completely, totally, unequivocally clear. I have absolutely no problems with religion. This analysis of the subject is intended to be as unbiased and objective as I can possibly make it. I have no desire to offend anybody and I hope what follows is indicative of that. What I am going to do is look at the common themes surrounding well known takes on religion in video games and take a look at examples of them. Then I will try to look at the big picture surrounding this and put this all in context.
One of the most common themes that games touch on regarding religion is that it leads to war. Many games build major plot points around this concept. An example of this comes from the most recent game from The Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim. In the game, there is a Civil War tearing apart the nation of Skyrim. The central reason for this schism, at least on the surface, is that the Nordic people have been banned from publicly worshiping the god Talos, who is the ascended soul of the first emperor of the realm, by the Empirebecause of a recent treaty with a rival faction. The churches were all forced to disown Talos as a god and go from praising the Nineto praising the Eight. The outrage and religious fervor was so great that it lead to the birth of the StormcloakRebellion. This is far from the only example of this. The original Assassin’s Creedwas publicized beforehand as taking place during the Third Crusadeand using it as a backdrop for their story, one of the more famous/infamous Holy Wars in history (depending entirely on your viewpoint), and they milk that setting for all it is worth. The characters in the game often muse on the nature of war and the people who fuel it, pondering the causes behind and reasons for it. They constantly question the necessity of the Holy War and it is really fascinating, though Ubisoft was not the first company to question the nature of crusades in a video game.
In fact, the Haloseries did this well before Assassin’s Creed came out. One of the major threats to humans in the Halogames is an organization of religious alien races referred to as the Covenant. This group attacks humanity because they believe that their gods have condemned humanity and wish to have them eradicated. This is one of the series central conflicts and even gamers who are not fans of the franchise (like myself) have a passing familiarity with this plot point. Even Final Fantasy gets in on the action. In the franchise’s thirteenth main installment, there are two worlds, Cocoonand Pulse, that each have their own godsthat preside over them. These two worlds have been at war with each other for years. As the game’s main plot progresses, it is revealed that the gods themselves are orchestrating the war in order to get enough people to all die at once for the gate to the next life to be blown wide open so they can meet the deity who created everything. The gods themselves organized a war between two worlds. That sends a pretty powerful message as to the subconscious of the developers.
The other theme that tends to surround the portrayal of religion in video games is the theme of the church as a tool for political corruption. Going back to the Civil War plot line in Skyrim, the political intrigue surrounding it is relevant to this point. The founder of the Stormcloaksis revealed towards the end of the Civil War plotline (should the player choose to side with him), to not really care all too much about the Talos worship ban. It bothers him to be sure, but it is far from his main motive. All he truly cares about is political power. To that end, he stirred up a religious movement and used it in order to take over the land of Skyrim as High King. Political motivations for religious movements is also a trope which the Final Fantasyfranchise is very familiar with. At least two different Final Fantasy games that I know of (Final Fantasy Xand the spin-off Final Fantasy Tactics) use this trope to great effect in their stories.
In Final Fantasy X, the world of Spirais perpetually threatened by an entity referring to as Sin. According to the reigning religion, Sin was born because of humanity’s reliance on machines and weaponryand that it needs to be exorcised by following precepts and praying for humanity’s collective atonement. The game reveals later on that it was all a complete lie. Sin was created as a way to preserve the collective memories of a fallen cityand the religion was founded in order to gain political control through false hope that it could be defeated through strict adherence to it. The other example of this trope in this franchise comes from Final Fantasy Tactics. The game revolves around the political intrigue between severalnoblehouses, all of which practice the leading religion of the land. According to the tenants of the religion in question, the leading Saint, St. Ajora Glabados, and his 12 disciples wielded the fabled Zodiac Stonesto defeat a massive evil a long time ago. The modern church officials attempt to use the Zodiac Stones to consolidate power and maintain their influence on politics. While they are shown to be corrupt, even they do not know the truth and genuinely believe the stones will provide salvation. However, as the game goes on, a horrible truth is revealed. The Zodiac Stone are conduits for the Lucavi demonsto form contracts with humans. These human gain great powers, but are eventually turned into nothing more than avatars for the demons will. Saint Ajora used this long ago and merged with the demon Ultima, head of the Lucavi, and, with that power, gained Sainthood and massive influence on the people until well after his death. The protagonist of the story works behind the scenes to collect the Zodiac Stones and prevent another catastrophe from being unleashed on the world.
My final example comes from the Assassin’s Creedseries again, particularly the second installmentand its follow up, Brotherhood. A major plot point in the these games is that the main adversaries, the KnightsTemplar, have taken control of the Vaticanvia the papacy. They use their influence from this position to assert control over the area. They bribe officials, threaten the people into compliance, warping religious texts to their advantage, and many other things. They did not make up most of this either. The people involved, Rodrigo Borgiaand his family, were notoriously evil people who abused their positions in the church to better their own ends. The only thing Ubisoft made up was that they were a part of the Knights Templar. It is interesting to see a franchise comment on history the way that Assassin’s Creeddoes. It provides food for though and conversation.
To be fair to game developers, there are also plenty of examples of religions in games displayed in a more positive light as well, but these are typically left unexplored and exist superficially and/or as a way to give players a place to get healed and buy healing items/spells. More often than not, when a game explores the concept of religion intently, it is shown in a negative light. While this would indicate that gamer culture does not think highly of religion, I honestly do not think that is true. Many of the people I know who play games are highly devout in their chosen faith. Most of them are also very kind people on top of that. So then why do games tend to be so highly critical of the concept when compared to other media? Is it because of some subconscious reason that we are only superficially aware of? Is it because the medium itself allows more a higher degree of nuance and intrigue in this topic? Is it simply because corrupt churches make for interesting plots? I honestly do not know the answer to this question. My job is simply to highlight an aspect of games and get you to think more of the subject. I am no where near intelligent or unbiased enough to give a good explanation. I leave it up to you to think and debate with yourself and others to find an explanation behind this conundrum.

(Series Spoilers for the God of War franchise. You have been warned.)
The concept of sequels and franchises is a very core part of our industry. Since the development and release of video games is primarily a business, it only makes sense that the head honchos of the field would look for concepts and ideas that could easily spawn sequels, continuations, spin-offs, and the like. Sometimes this leads to great gamesthat the audience grow to love for many reasons. Other times it leads to games that are obvious attempts to grab moneywithout any real concern for quality. Most often, the games released are somewhere in the middle. I say this because this weeks topic is largely about a game that, in my opinion (which I confess is not popular), suffered from continued sequels: God of War.
Before I go into detail as to why I think this, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I do not consider God of War, or its sequels, to be bad games.This franchise demonstrates very solid game design principles. The combat is solid, fast-paced, visceral, and very fun to play. A smart decision was made to break up combat sections with platforming and puzzles (of debatable quality, but most people agree that most puzzles were not bad). They also did, in later installments, a very good job of increasing the sheer scale of each game in terms or both the enemies/bosses fought and what Kratos was doing in the story. From the perspective of a gamer looking for a good time, the God of War games are easily some of the best, but that is not the lens I look at games with. While I always want my games to be fun, I expect much more from them. Games need to have a high-quality plot and story to go along with stellar and interesting gameplay. The original God of War did this very well, the later installments falter on this front in a pretty interesting way. (I am only including the main series games in this article as I have not and probably will not play the side stories for the PSP and the new PS3 game, Ascension, slated for release.)
The first God of Wargame was an example of superb storytelling in video games. The story of Kratos was a very tragic, relateable, and believable one despite the fact that the player was killing thousands of creatures at a time. It begins with the protagonist throwing himself off a cliff, and we as the players must go through his life to learn why he did this. The story of one man who needed power in a desperate bid to stay alive is an interesting one that most people can understand, even if it is not one that can necessarily be empathized with. Players can comprehend the emotions Kratos feels when he is tricked into slaughtering his family by the very god he serves. We follow him as he abandons Ares and fights for revenge, but it is more about revenge. This is also a story about one man dealing with his personal demons through war. When the time comes to confront Ares, the audience is just as eager to best him as Kratos is because they have followed him and went through his story. And it is a tale of futility. Though Kratos fought and did his best to avenge his family and repent for his sins and his family’s death, ultimately he is still left a broken man and commits suicide as he is overcome with grief. When Athena saves him from this fate, we can empathize with the anger and despair he feels as he realizes that he can not find peace even in death because of the need for a replacement God of War. The violence and war that he has grown to love in life are what inevitably cause his suffering and destroy his family, some of the few people that he ever held dear to him. This is an example of a great story being strengthened and told through the interactivity of video games.

The sequellacked the same strength of storytelling. God of War 2 begins with Kratos learning nothing from his experience in the original games and losing all pretense of grief. He is rampaging across Greece, aiding Sparta (his home country from before his ascension) in its conquest of the other city-states. Athena, desperate to keep him from suffering retribution, warns him that any further transgressions in the mortal world would force Zeus to take action and deliver divine retribution. When Kratos disregards Athena and tells her to go screw herself, the god-king fulfills his promise. Kratos is stripped of his powers and cast into the Underworld. This is where the titan, Gaia, gives him the strength to crawl back out. She tells Kratos to get revenge for Zeus punishing him just like he threatened to do. In order to do this, Kratos must find and kill the three Sisters of Fate and take control of his own thread of fate, allowing him to go back in time and get his powers back. After succeeding in this, Kratos goes back, reclaims his power, and attacks Zeus like the petulant child that he is. The final shot is him riding the Titans to the top of Mount Olympus, preparing to assault the gods in a final showdown.
This plot is much weaker than the original’s for one huge reason: Kratos lacks the depth of character his first incarnation had. In the beginning, Kratos was more than just a perpetually angry war machine. The Ghost of Sparta was overcome with grief for killing his family and anger at the one who tricked him into doing it. His mind was constantly occupied with reliving and re-experiencing the memory of his greatest failure, giving him constant nightmares. Even the sex mini-game was appropriate as Kratos was trying to keep himself occupied. In the second game, he becamea war machine. The newly crowned God of War spent all his time taking his anger out on the world and taking control of nations. The grieving warrior was completely lost, replaced by this reckless and stupid asshole who is disregarding warnings in order to vent on poor defenseless people. They do not even mention his family or their loss at all in the second game, which is essential to his character and what makes him so fascinating. The whole plot is Kratos getting revenge on Zeus for doing what he said he would do all along. This interesting and nuanced character became so flat and one-dimensional that it was painful to watch, which to me is the ultimate tragedy of the franchise.

The third gamedid its best to remedy this, which was unfortunately too little too late. The whole plot of the third is that Kratos goes on a rampage at Mount Olympus, killing all of gods and causing an apocalypse. Though Kratos is well aware that his actions are damning the people at large, he does not care in the slightest. Slaughtering Poseidon caused the ocean to grow catastrophic with tidal waves, decimating the people of the coastal regions. Ripping off Helios’s head erased the sun and ushered in a literal Dark Age. The evidence was there and he saw the results, but refused to stop. Then, he learned via the ghost of the goddess Athena exactly how he needed to defeat Zeus. He needed to open up Pandora’s Box, like he did in the first game, and claim the weapon hidden inside. To reopen the box, he needs to find Pandora and get her to use her power on it. Meeting Pandora reminded him of his own daughter and the circumstances behind her death, bringing back the one thing that makes Kratos an interesting character. This aspect of his character humanizes him and gives him a relateable persona. They made the right decision in this regard and played with it very well.
The back and forth between Kratos and Pandora was interesting since Pandora believes in hope and has an optimistic look on life while Kratos has been beat down so much that he no longer believes in the concept of hope. This comes to a head when Pandora reveals that she has to sacrifice herself to open the box and help Kratos beat Zeus. Kratos is highly resistant to this as he does not want to feel like he lost his daughter a second time. When Zeus shows up to officially join the fight, it was heart-wrenching as the player had to force Kratos to let go and allow Pandora to do her thing. As the box opens and is completely empty, the audience could feel the sheer gravity of the situation that left Kratos and Athena dumbstruck. Athena flips out and describes how Hope should have been in the box. She then realizes that when Kratos opened the box the first time to gain the power to fight Ares, he took Hope instead of the elements of discord that were held in the box. With this knowledge in mind, Kratos goes to fight and defeat Zeus once and for all, destroying civilization while leaving Hope for the world, because Hope is all that matters when disease, famine, and death take their hold on the land.
The best thing about the plot was that it returned to the best parts of Kratos. While God of War is superficially about one man beating up a shit load of people, there is more to it than that. They forgot about the family aspect in the second game and the story suffered for it. Bringing it back in the third was a very smart decision and added to the overall narrative, adding an element of nuance to the character once more and giving Kratos making him more believable. Sadly, this whole theme of suffering and personal repentance is completely undercut by the fact that Kratos is knowingly causing the destruction of life as we know it. They were already on that course by the time that God of War 3 began, so there was not much that they could do to remedy the plot. The ship was already sunk before it left the port, which is quite unfortunate because the writers, who were not the same people who made the original (The sequels were made by an entirely different team.), clearly began to understand the character much more after working with it in God of War 2.
In an oddly fitting way, the development of the God of War franchise follows the plot of a standard Greek Tragedy in which the protagonist is undone by the qualities that make him iconic and great in the eyes of many. People latched onto the violence and rage of Kratos when that was far from what made him an interesting character. This decision to focus on that aspect is what inevitably ruined the character. The writers did not realize what they were doing until it was far too late and the plot was not able to be fixed. It is an important lesson in game development. If you are handed a great and iconic game and asked to make a sequel, take the time to analyze the game on a deeper level and figure out what makes it so great. Look beyond the gameplay and into the plot, setting, and characters. All of this is crucial to game design.

(As always, when I do a subject like this on characters/plot, spoilers are abound. Be advised)
            Recently, a certain individualhas been cropping up a lot in discussions about video games. There has been a bit of controversy surrounding her and what she says about female archetypes. Among that controversy, there has also been some legitimate criticism of her and her methods. Regardless of your opinion regarding that matter, it is hard to deny that she has started a discussion: A discussion as to why female characters are the way they are most of the time. Most gamers are all aware of the fact that finding a good female character in a game can be… difficult at times. But what is the real reason behind this? I am going to spend this week proposing a hypothesis as to why that is.

            The hypothesis is this: We see many bad female characters all the time simply because many of the characters in mainstream gaming are very poorly characterized period. We see the poor characterization of women more clearly because our culture has become far more attuned to bad female characters than male characters, due to all the baggage we have carried on from the past and the many issues regarding woman’s equality we still have to address in the modern day. This sensitivity is bolstered by the fact that the fairer sex tends to not be as represented in video games as men are, so any prominent female character, for better or worse, tends to stand out to the community.

            To prove the first point of this hypothesis, I will be looking at games that are praised for characterization and analyze the characters in them, both male and female, and then do the same with games that are notorious for poor characterization to show the difference between the two. I do not feel the need to go into the other points as they have more to do with culture, not video games, and I would hope that most people would who read this already know them well. Also, I admit that I feel painfully unequipped to tackle the subjects of women’s rights issues and perception of gaming culture as I do not have any experience studying culture or psychology.

            The first game that I want to analyze is one that I never tire of talking about: Mass Effect. One of the few things most of the people who play Mass Effectcan all agree on is that Bioware did a really good job with the characters of the series. So much so that most of the characters that the player can ally with have huge fanbases. Whether they are a smooth talking police officer that serves as both a close friend and rival like Garrus, a scientist who committed terrible war crimes but had good, logical reasons for doing so like Mordin, or the ace pilot with a snide sense of humor, a crippling disability, and a huge chip on his shoulder like Joker, all of the male characters are well-developed.

            And the exact same thing can be said of the female characters of the game. That is why one of the most endearing characters of the entire series happens to be female. I am, of course, referring to Tali. In the first game, Tali is the one who gives Sheppard evidence that Saren is a terrorist. She is shown to be smart, able to handle herself, and displaying a high degree of technical aptitude. When the player settles down to talk to her on the Normandy, she also shows that she is very relatable individual who has a crush on Sheppard, but is too shy to voice it. As the series goes on, she matures into an Admiral for her races fleet. The same can be said of Liara. Liara starts off as a shy, timid archeologist and evolves into the galaxy’s best information broker by the third game. The women in Mass Effect are as much characters as the men because Bioware took the time to write good characters.

            Another example of strong characterization is the Uncharted series. While people have mixed reactions to the series as a whole, the main characters are by far the strongest part of the franchise. The protagonist Nathan Drake has, over the course of the series, become much more fleshed out and interesting as a result of Naughty Dog’s writing. In the first game, he was just an everyman. By the third game, the audience knew enough to form a real connection with him. He was abandoned as a child and grew changed his name, making up a story about being related to Sir Francis Drake and changing his name to reflect that. He grew to love treasure hunting and danger to the point where he has a pathological need to do it despite the risks. There is also the character of Victor Sullivan, who serves as Nate’s mentor and main tie to the criminal world. He is also one of the most popular characters in the series due to his personality, which was why the third game focused so heavily on his relationship with Drake.

            The women in Drake’s life are also quite interesting. The most notable female from the Uncharted series is Elena Fisher, who serves as the love interest and foil to Nathan Drake. When the audience first meets her in the original game, she is a journalist looking for Sir Francis Drake’s coffin with Nathan’s aid. She is shown to be quite capable in a fight despite having no experience with weapons. Elena also displays great observational skills when listening paying close attention to what people around her are saying and by actively giving Nathan tips and advice on how to solve puzzles that he encounters. Though tough, she also has a genuine personality. Ms. Fisher is relentless in her pursuit of the truth and in coming to her allies’ aid in the first two games. She often puts herself in great danger until a grenade going off close to her puts her in mortal danger towards the end of the second game. Afterward, in the third game, she becomes more subdued and concerned for Nate and Sully, but still willing to help them out. When Sully get’s kidnapped and Nate disappears, she draws up detailed plans to stage a rescue. She is Drake’s conscience and foil to his optimistic side. To that end, she is similar, yet opposed, to Chloe Frazer, who represents the devil on his shoulder and his inner pessimist. Though Chloe lacked the screen time Elena did, being absent from the first game, her character was very fleshed out and she quickly became another fan favorite.

            Both of the above franchises created strong characters and built relationships with these characters. As a result, the females among them possess strong characterization and became real, believable people. When the writer knows how to build strong characters, the gender will not be something that needs to be written around. It will instead be a logical extension of the person in question, like race, sexuality, or religious affiliations, or other traits. It should inform, but not define a character. Not all games realize this, and we get really some really painful to watch characters, both male and female, in video games as a result.

            A very well publicized example of this would be Samus Aran from Metroid. Specifically, the Samus Aran from Metroid: Other M. Most fans of the franchise refuse to talk about this little piece and for good reason. They took one of the few respected female characters in games and made her a stupid, completely subservient slave to the orders of a man who once commanded her, but no longer has the legal power to order her around. While people cried foul at this portrayal of an established icon, the problem ran deeper than that. Almost every facet of the story was poorly conceived. The characters were not interesting. The plot was filled with awkward attempts to shoehorn in the obvious mother motif. (Samus receives a “Baby’s Cry” distress signal emanating from a “Bottle Ship”. Also, Other M is an anagram for Mother, if that was not obvious.) And Samus does not use lifesaving and otherwise perfectly fine gear until Officer Moron allows her to. (For example, she receives clearance to use a lava-shield after she crosses a lava pit.) This whole thing was poorly conceived. Every single person in this plot acts like a fool, result in a female character so horrible that some even go as far as to consider it sexist, though your opinion may vary.

            Another, quite egregious, example of bad writing being the central cause of horrible female characters is Tomb Raider: Underworld. I am limiting the discussion to just this game in the series not because I do not believe other games in the series have similar problems, but because it is the only game in Lara Croft’s more recent incarnations that I have had the displeasure of playing. Ms. Croft, throughout the adventure, demonstrates a “strong” personality. By that, I mean that she continuously acts like a complete jerk. She seems perpetually angry throughout the journey, which is not helped by the fact that revenge is the primary motive for her actions. The two villains in the game are both women who suffer similar fates, although one is more manipulative and able to hide her anger. The few male characters in the game are not much better. They are not angry, but they seem superfluous and have no depth because they are either mooks or Lara’s friends who show up in the start of the game and never again. I do not mind an all female cast, but I would prefer the protagonist to have a greater depth than “Grrrrrrrrrrr,” regardless of his/her gender. The main plot is pretty forgettable. All I remember is that it involved Norse mythology and there was a segment that had Lara kill tons of mooks with Thor’s Hammer. This game was a huge failure in terms of writing and the portrayal of its feminine lead reflects that.

            The problem is not that games portray women poorly, it is that they portray people poorly. It is a symptom of a broader problem than you may have been lead to believe. Fortunately, this issue is not a difficult one to remedy. If the problem with women in games stems from bad writing in general, then the solution is simple: All we need to do is improve the quality of the writing teams in modern gaming. Take a page from the staff at Obsidian, Naughty Dog, and the part of Bioware that writes character and character interaction. Focus on making strong characters and believable relationships and alliances between them. If we can begin to make stronger characters, these issues will start to fade. This can apply equally to all genres and types of stories one could find. Strong characters are free to exist in any story, whether a dark and serious or light-hearted and goofy. To that end, I encourage discussions between gamers, developers, and anyone else who loves games to talk to each other about what works and what we need to change. This is the only way we can better the medium. So I say let the likes of Anita Sarkeesian speak. If they are wrong, let us tell them why and how they are wrong and correct them. We would be capable of much better in terms of storytelling in this medium through this type of discourse.

There are many different people working in this industry. They all bring their own perspectives and biases regarding video games and what make them good. This is no less true for the designers of video games. Each design team and each person on those teams brings different ideas and different viewpoints to the table. This week’s article is about how these differences can lead to radically different games. Fortunately for me, there are two games that are perfect for this article as a way to compare/contrast design philosophies. They are very similar, yet fundamentally different due to the teams who created them and the circumstances behind their development. These games are the recent Fallout games: Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.
I want to start off with a disclaimer: This is not a debate as to which one these games is better. This is just as analysis of different design philosophies resulting in fundamentally different games.These games are ideal for an analysis like this. Both of these games were developed with the same engine and are in the same “Open-World RPG” genre, meaning that they look and play very similarly. New Vegas improved on Fallout 3‘s mechanics, but did not significantly change them, so they are close enough that it does not impact the comparison to a significant degree. They are part of the same series, which means they are using the same lore and building on the same world. On most levels, these games are the exact same. The only differences between these two games are the result of design decisions, which puts them in the perfect position to compare and contrast on a purely design level.

Fallout 3is made using Bethesda Softworks’s standard rulebook for RPG design. They applied the same philosophies that governed the creation of hit titles like Oblivionor Skyrimwhen developing the third installment of the Fallout franchise. They favor building open sandboxes that the player is free to explore at will, which is reflected in the choices they made. The layout of the Capital Wasteland is wide-open and generally flat terrain, allowing players to see many of the world’s set-pieces from a distance and encouraging them to travel around and explore each of them. When the player first exits the vault, he/she gets an amazing viewof the nearby town Megaton, a school building to explore, and the image of the DC ruins in the distance, establishing several possible destinations that the player go choose to go to.
Another strength of typical Bethesda design is that they are very good at telling small, self-contained stories within their games through careful design of the environment and the people in them. I have talked about this briefly in the past in a previous article, but it cannot hurt repeat. Bethesda puts enough detail into the places and set-pieces that they all tell their own stories. It is hard to describe this in any way put through example. In the DC ruins, there is a nuclear shelter that takes $0.10 to open. In this shelter there is a male skeleton, a female mannequin, a bottle of wine, and a clothing item called “Sexy Sleepware”. I do not think I have to spell out what all of that means. You can figure the story out without any guidance. Another example comes from a scene I once came across. When exploring the Capital Wasteland, I came across a group of wanders who were selling an item called “Strange Meat”. They claimed that it was some of the best meat in the Wasteland. Those who are familiar with either Fallout 3 or my earlier worksknow that “Strange Meat” is actually human flesh. Since I knew this, I killed every single one of them and gained good karma for it. I like how Bethesda just leaves details in the game and allows the player to use common sense to infer what happened. It gives the player a motivation to explore and see what else is out there.
The final strength of Bethesda’s style is that they are very good at using the RPG mechanics to bolster the spirit of exploration. One of the most noticeable and well-known parts aspects of this is the level scaling mechanic they used in Fallout 3, which most people agree is vastly superior to the one they used in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In Fallout 3, every location has a level associated with it. As the player’s character level rises, the levels of these locations also rise. However, when a player first visits an area, that area’s level is locked, which prevents it from rising any further. The way this works gives the player freedom to explore where ever they want without fear of being completely overwhelmed (with some exceptions).
Another good way they use RPG elements is that they give the player a clear sense of progression and a feeling that they are growing stronger as the adventure goes on. The player gains experience for doing most of the things an adventurer would do like killing enemies, completing quests, hacking terminals, picking locks, etc. As with most RPGs, getting enough experience will cause the player to level up. As Bethesda explained it in the interviews leading up to the release of the game, they wanted every level up to be a special moment that players look forward to. On that count, they succeed. Each level gives the player skill points based on his/her Intelligence stat and a perk. Perks are little bonuses that give the player a diverse and interesting set of advantages. Players will crave experience, hoping to level up and gain skill points and perks and making them want to explore the world even more. Beyond that, the perk system and the skill point system give the player a clear sense of progression. A player can feel the difference a single level in make in the character’s stats.
As good at Bethesda style games are in terms of exploration, they do have downsides. For one, while they give a lot of attention to the smaller environmental details, they are not very good at looking at the big picture in terms of environment. For example, in the whole Capital Wasteland, there is no farm land anywhere. The game explains that most of the food is from two-hundred years ago and scavenged from the DC ruins. This makes no sense. Food that old, even if it was stuffed with preservatives, could not possibly be edible. They have animals and creatures around that drop meat when killed, but there is no explanation as to how they live in an area with no vegetation. Water is also a huge problem. According to the game, since DC was hit the hardest in the nuclear apocalypse, all of the water has a lot of radiation and is somewhat toxic to humans. There is a explanation for this since a major plot point in the game is providing fresh water to the Wasteland, but it still poses a significant problem. With the fact that basic resources cannot be found overlooked/omitted, the Capital Wasteland realistically could not possibly sustain life. There is no notable way to provide food or water to the people of the Wastes. Another crucial environmental detail that was overlooked was in a place called Tenpenny Tower. In this tower, located in the Southern half of the Capital Wasteland, there is a group of people who live in the tap of luxury… only there is no reason for them to be rich. As far as I am aware, the residents of Tenpenny do not engage in any sort of trade and have no real way to profit. They are only rich simply because the game needed stereotypical rich people to serve as evil-aligned characters for a few side quests. All three of the details here are crucial details about the world that Bethesda failed to take into account, either because of constraints or through focusing too much on the exploration aspects of the game, when creating the DC area in Fallout 3.
The other problem with Bethesda design is that while they excel at the use of environmental storytelling, but the storytelling of their main plots are not up to the same quality. Fallout 3in particular had several moments in the story where either what was happening or what the player is expected to do does not make sense. For example, there is a scene in the game where the player is going into a old vault to look for his/her father. On arrival, the player is greeted by a robot and told to get into a “Tranquility Pod”. The quest objective updates to tell the player to comply. The problem with that is that there is no motivation for him/her to do that. The player is looking for his/her father. Looking around at exploring the vault seems like a better idea than resting in a pod.
There are a couple of other problem spots similar to that one. Later in the game, the player needs to go into a separate vault to retrieve an artifact called a GECK (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) to make the giant water purifier that everyone wants work. The problem is that the entrance is covered in so much radiation that it would instantly kill the player if he/she got close. The player needs to sneak around through another entrance hidden in Lamplight Cavern. The problem with thatis that Lamplight Cavern is home to a group of children who formed their own kid society. They will not open the little, indestructible plywood dooruntil the player speech checks them or goes to save their friends from slavers who kidnapped them to sell off to the highest bidder. Let me repeat that for you so that you fully understand it: Infiltrating a compound filled with trained, murderous slavers is easierthan infiltrating the town of a group of little kids. This is stupid. There is no reason that a group of kids should pose any sort of obstacle to the player. These are just a few examples of the problems with Fallout 3‘s plot. There are more than that. This is the consequence of Bethesda’s design philosophy. They build fantastic worlds to explore, but tend to forget the details that help it to be a coherent and believable place with believable people.
New Vegas, on the other hand, was made with Bethesda’s engine, but not their philosophies on RPG design. Rather, it was created by Obsidian Entertainment and using their design style. Obsidian’s style has emphasizes creating a believable and having the player impact that world through choice. To that end, they are very detail oriented. The first strength of this design style is that the world is much more plausible and fleshed out. The player can look around and see how people might live in a world like the one in New Vegas. Small towns are seen to have farmland and sources of fresh water. Wandering around the first settlement the player encounters, Goodsprings, he/she can look around and see farmers cultivating their harvest of fruits and vegetables. The player can travel to the springs and water pumps to take a swig of fresh, clean water. The saloon in town is a great place for the player to rest. Talking with the owner reveals that they trade with other settlements in order to get meat and other forms of protein and that she keeps caravan drivers happy by providing drinks and entertainment (for a small fee). It is more than a set-piece, it is a town. Other towns have different ways of maintaining their economy. One town, Novac, scavenges technology from a local rocket base and trading with other places for their resources.
Beyond the towns, the inhabitants of the Mojave Wasteland are equally fleshed out. The owner of Novac’s general store and gift shop has a collection of dinosaur toys from before the war that he tries to peddle off to every person who comes around because they simply take up so much space. In Goodsprings, the local doctor mentions that he grew up in a vault and learned medicine there. Later, he found a woman that he grew to love and later marry, but she died later on. There is a farmer, located on the outskirts of the Vegas strip. He is a part of the New California Republic’s sharecropping program. As he goes about his daily tasks, the player can strike up a chat and learn that the NCR is bad at resource management and that the farmer might be under quota because of it. These people are not at all vital to the plot of New Vegas. They are background decorations, but they all have stories and personalities of their own. They are people inhabiting this world that the player has also chosen to inhabit. This is a reflection of Obsidian’s ability to make a believable place with interesting locals.
The second strength of this philosophy is that they are very good at guiding the player in the direction that they want him/her to go while keeping the plot consistent. One of the best examples of this is in the beginning of the game. The very first scene of the game involving the player character has him/her being shot in order to secure the package he/she was supposed to deliver to the New Vegas strip. Naturally, the player will want to seek revenge on the guy who did it and his obnoxiously loud checkered suit. This whole scene sets up the plot in a way that when the quest objective says “Find the man who shot you,” the player goes “I thought you’d never ask.” It hooks the player into the world without creating any of the inconsistencies that plagued the plot of Fallout 3. While some parts of plot are weaker than others, most of the things that the player is asked to do make sense. The player naturally goes from town to town in order to track the shooter down. Though the people often make requests of the player in exchange for the information necessary to keep going. It is an easy enough motivation for people to understand (though it does relies on the player having a tolerance for revenge stories).
Obsidian’s third strength lies in its ability to use choice in its narrative and have those choices produce realistic consequences. The second half of the game is almost completely dedicated to this principal. Once the player tracks down the shooter and extracts revenge, he/she learns that his motive for trying to kill the player was to attempt to take control over New Vegas. From this point on, as I have gone over before in olderposts, the player can choose which faction of the big three to side with in the war for New Vegas. Alternatively, the choice can be made to screw all of them over in a bid to maintain New Vegas’s independence. This choice radically affects the route which the player will take to get to the end of the game. However, each faction will ask the player to deal with the various side-factions of the game (as does going Independent). The final battle and the ending changes radically depending on which faction the player sided with and how he/she dealt with all of the side-factions (or, sometimes, if they were even dealt with at all). This system is great because it encourages the player to think about what they are going to do and how it will affect the citizens of New Vegas and the Mojave.
The choice of which faction to side with has real, lasting consequences after the story is over, but the player is never locked into a choice until the quest line they are on is near completion. At any time they can switch to a different faction (provided their reputation with that faction is not too low) if they feel that the story will not go the way they want it to go. The player can convince most of the side-factions to align with the major factions and turn the tides of the war one way or another. The player feels like they are playing an active role in determining the future of New Vegas through the choices they make in the plot, which increases his/her immersion and involvement with it.
The theme of choice extends to day-to-day operations in New Vegas. Obsidian has a style that focuses as much on customization as Bethesda focuses on exploration. Many of the weapons the player can use have weapon mods that the player is allowed (and encouraged) to find/buy and install, increasing the weapons effectiveness and physically changing its appearance. Another change that reflects choice is the crafting system. While Fallout 3had crafting, it was nowhere near as robust as what is seen in New Vegas. The former only allowed for the creation of specific weapons through crafting, the latter does much more. New Vegas allows for the creation of new weapons and armors, custom ammunition, medical supplies, healthier and more nutritious food and drinks, narcotics, poisons, and repair kits. The player is completely free to skip crafting entirely, but taking advantage of it will give him/her an edge over those who neglect it. It can even be enjoyable to gather ingredients and create custom stuff for some people, letting them build their own fun.
The next place where Obsidian’s preference for choice shines is in the changes they made to the leveling system. The reduced the number of skill points accrued at level up and reduced the perk gain rate to every other level. Plus, they changed a few skills around, added a new Survival skill and many more perks than Bethesda did. This means that every point the player allocates and every perk they choose become much more crucial choices than they were in Fallout 3. In Fallout 3, the player was guaranteed to be incredibly strong by the end and able to take on most threats. In New Vegas, the player’s power is more limited. The player has to choose which skills they will specialize in and which perks to select over the others (unless the player install the DLCs, which raise the level cap by twenty).
The way skills interact with the world also reflect choice. Obsidian made each quest in the game so that there are several ways to approach a given situation. For example, when a military doctor asks the player to find out who has been stealing his supplies, the player can has a choice between different solutions. He/she can just sit in the tent and watch for somebody to come around. Another option is to sneak around the base and look for clues. Lastly, the choice exists (provided the player has enough Medicine skill) to learn the symptoms of addiction to the particular stolen drugs and catch the thief by going around and looking for somebody with the symptoms and diagnose them. These are all viable options and all of them solve the quest in a good way. Other quests will need high skills to get good resolutions and/or to skip objectives. It allows for players to see their skills having an impact on their experience, encouraging experimentation with different character build and propagating a notion of choice.
But while this style has its strengths regarding story and choice, it has its own, critical weaknesses. The most damaging of these weaknesses is that while the world is very rich and detailed, it is simply not fun to explore. Several choices made that help to promote verisimilitude are detrimental to exploration. The biggest example of this is the topography of the area. Where Fallout 3was a vast, open area, New Vegas is much filled with much more hills and valleys. This in itself, while it makes the world feel smaller and discourages exploration, is not inherently detrimental. What is detrimental is the fact that there are several mountains and hills that the player should be able to climb thanks to the games engine, but are blocked off from the player by invisible walls which Obsidian put in. This makes the world less fun to explore because it feels like the game designer actively discourages players from doing so.
Another way exploration is discouraged is in the placement of enemies. In a Bethesda game, the enemies scale to the player’s level. In New Vegas, enemies have predetermined spawn locations and minimum levels. This means that if the player decides to make a trek directly to New Vegas (because the fact that the shooter is from New Vegas is fairly obvious if the player is familiar at all with the region), then the going will be difficult because of creature tens of levels higher than they are. It is not impossible, but it is difficult enough to dissuade even the most determined of gamers. The game uses these spawns, coupled with the layout of the Mojave, to funnel the player through a decidedly linear path during the course of the first act. It also inadvertently makes wandering, even on at higher levels, an annoyance instead of a pleasant excursion.
The interiors areas of the game are no better in this regard. In fact, more often than not, they are far worse. Many of the locations are incomprehensible rat mazes with several different paths that all look incredibly similar, yet lead to different locations in the building and the map often does not help. Several times when I gave up and decided to use the map, I ended up slightly less lost, but still so lost that I had to rely on luck to get through the area. This is nearly every interior space large enough to take multiple floors. While all of the above criticisms of this style essentially come to “The world is simply not fun to explore,” this is a critical problem. After all, the player will be spending hoursexploring in order to get from location to location and dealing with the trials on the way. For this part to be boring is almost akin to intentionally sabotaging the game.
While this is not immediately noticeable in Fallout: New Vegas, there is another problem with this plot and choice focused style. All of these choices and branching paths take time and money to create, especially since it requires voice acting and other assets. In the AAA gaming industry we have right now, this kind of commitment is incredibly difficult to pull off. This often results in Obsidian releasing products that are either unfinishedor lacking of a degree of polishthat other games have. This was a first noticeable in New Vegas with all the bugs and glitches (many game breaking ones) that it had upon release. Since then it has mostly been patched out, but there is one feature that was left on the cutting room floor, one many fans were angry about, because of time and budget constraints. The team at Obsidian was originally going to allow post-ending play so that the player could see the aftermath of the game much more visibly than through the slideshow they used and continue to explore the Mojave. The reason they avoided this was because lacked the time, money, and processing power to make alternate versions of the places that would be visible affected by the ending (notably New Vegas and Hoover Dam). New Vegas got off easy, usually this kind of concern ruins Obsidian games in other ways.
As for which design philosophy or which game is better, it is completely subjective and dependent on what you are looking for in a video game. And these two styles are far from the only ones. There are tons of different design styles that developers use and they each have their own pros and cons. This is just to show how much the design has an impact on the final product. Thought these two games have the same engine, the same gameplay, the same lore, and the same genre, they are radically different and showcase two totally separate ways of thinking about games and game design. Keep this in mind when playing your next video game. Think about the design and the intent behind each choice the developers made. Think about how it affected the experience. You might be surprised at how much you learn.

Throughout this console generation, many companies have tried to create new IPs that successfully stick with audiences, feel fresh and unique, and generate income for other projects they wish to work on. While many of them failed due to a number of reasons, one of them stuck in a big way: Assassin’s Creed. Thought the original game had its flaws, it was a unique type of game that innovated on several fronts and was more successful than Ubisoft imagined it could be. One common complaint, among the tedious investigation missions and seemingly psychic guards, was that Altair Ibn La-Ahad was a rather bland and boring protagonist that did not have much in the way of personality. When moving from third Crusade-era Syria into Renaissance-era Italy for the sequel, Ubisoft took steps in order to avoid making the same mistake again. The result was the very well-received Ezio Auditore da Firenze. While many people loved the Florentine murder-machine at first, the longer his contribution to the series went on (in both Brotherhood and Revelations), the less people took kindly to him. I wondered to myself why that was, which inspired this week’s article.
One of the most obvious reasons for this is that as Ezio’s contribution to the story went on, the gameplay became less and less fun. Assassin’s Creed 2 gave Ezio plenty of ways to go through a mission and a variety of equipment types to use. The player could blend in with crowds in order to hide from guards on the way to a target. He/she could use parkour-style platforming to sneak across rooftops and alleyways in order to reach the target. Ezio was able to just storm in and fight his enemies head-on through swordplay, throwing knives, a gun, and/or a very offensive use of smoke bombs. The player could use any of these tactics and even combine them or switch them out on the fly thanks to Assassin’s Creed 2’s systems. While this was true in the original game, the sequel expanded on it with new moves like pulling someone over a ledge, pieces of equipment like smoke bombs and poison, and systems like notoriety. Many people would complain that the new additions made the game too easy, which was justified to a degree, but overall they were very well received.
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood added even more to the game. Though Ezio was in his mid-forties at the time the game took place, he gained many new skill that made combat an even more viable option. He could now do chain executions. After killing an enemy he could immediately attack another one, killing the foe instantly regardless of health. This could go on until either Ezio got hit out of it or there were no more enemies left to kill. Another new addition which was well publicized before the games release was the Brotherhood system that allowed Ezio to recruit commoners to his cause, train them to become Assassins, and call on them for help during missions. His experience even gives him the ability to wield the gun at the same time as his sword and throwing knives at the same time as his shortblade. Lastly, he could purchase and use a crossbow that functioned like the gun, but was completely silent and did less damage when Ezio was detected and, if the player completes an optional quest chain, parachutes to move greater horizontal distances and descend slowly from tall buildings. While they tried to balance these new additions with more and stronger enemies, the result was still a game that was even easier than Assassin’s Creed 2. It was still interesting, but it was noticeably less fun.
And then they released Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. In addition to the thing from the second game and from Brotherhood, Revelations brought even more stuff to the table. The biggest things added to the game in Revelations were the addition of the hook-blade, which allowed Ezio to scale buildings even easier, use zip-lines throughout the city, and run past guards, using the hook to maintain momentum, and bomb crafting, which allowed Ezio to make up to three different bomb types (Lethal, Distraction, and Tactical) with different ranges, shell types, and effects. Ubisoft Montreal even changed the inventory into primary and secondary weapons to compensate for the vast quantities of armaments Ezio could have on his person at any given time. While they tried once again to compensate by making new, tougher enemies and again, the game was easier despite their best attempts. In fact, the game was so easy that it became almost boring. The new additions felt superfluous because Ezio was already on the verge of being overpowered in Brotherhood. There was never a need to go out and craft bombs because Ezio could shoot people with poison darts, bullets, or a crossbow, stab somebody with a hidden blade, a sword, or a dagger, blend in with crowds, parkour through the world, call Assassins to bail him out of tough situations, and chain executions together into a string of murder, despite the fact that he was in his sixties. The hook-blade seems worthless when Ezio was already a parkour god. There was no difficulty to the game no matter how skilled the player might or might not be. With each game, Ezio became stronger and stronger thus the game became easier and easier. Without a sufficient challenge, it is nearly impossible to get real enjoyment out of a video game’s gameplay.
The other reason people were getting sick of Ezio was that it seemed like the series was wasting its potential on him. This is because of the main plot device of the series: The Animus. The Animus is a device that allows people to relive the memories of their ancestors in a video game simulation. Using this device, the writers literally have the potential to set Assassin’s Creed games and stories in any period of history they desire. All they have to do is plausibly explain the ancestry of the person in the Animus. Up to the point in time I wrote this article, the series has always used historical setting that are criminally underused in video games. In the first game, we explored Syria during the Third Crusade through the eyes of Altair. At the time, this was an incredibly unique setting which drew the interest of countless people. The second game was equally unique in that it was set during the Italian Renaissance and told from the perspective of Ezio, again drawing in interested eyes.
The fans were hooked by this point, wondering where and when the next Assassin’s Creed game was going to be set and what would the new Assassin be like. Speculation was rampant when Ubisoft announced… the Italian Renaissance again starring… Ezio… again. While the fans were mostly disappointed with that announcement because they had expected to play as someone new in a new location in space/time, they were content to play as Ezio again because he was an interesting character that they had grown to love in Assassin’s Creed 2. Then Revelations came and people were getting a little tired of Ezio. Not because he was a bad protagonist, but because they were eager to see a new face. Even though they moved to Istanbul and left Italy, Revelations still took place around the time of Renaissance. (It had to since Ezio was the protagonist.) While it was a setting that is not often used in video games, it was also eerily reminiscent of Syria from the first game. While the fans wanted a new Assassin in a new setting, we received the same old and tired (literally) Ezio in a seemingly even older setting.
Both of the above reasons are why Assassin’s Creed fans are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming third main installment in the series. On one hand, we are hoping that with a new game, the developers trim the fat, reduce the amount of equipment the player has at his disposal and make the game slightly more difficult so that it becomes fun again. We also expect that the new Assassin will have his own style and his own skill set similar to how Ezio felt fundamentally different to Altair. On the other hand, we are eager to see the story move past the Renaissance so that we see a new take on Templars vs. Assassins from a new point of view in a new setting. And the American Revolution is indeed a new setting for video games. The protagonist is even more unique because he is half-Native American, a demographic rarely represented in video games, let alone as a protagonist character. Being able to reinvent itself while maintaining its core principals is the biggest strength of this series. The last few titles have not been utilizing this strength and thus felt weaker as a result. It is a lesson that is hopefully well learned.

This is a bit of a deviation from my standard posts, but I think this is important enough to make a mini-post of it’s own, especially since I talk about Mass Effect 3 so much. Besides, I can always delete it if it does not mesh well with my articles. This is not something I plan to do often and will probably be a one time thing unless anything else of enough importance comes along that needs to be discussed as it happens.

I’ve finally seen all of it, and I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised by it overall. I knew it wouldn’t fix all my grievances, but it fixed enough of them and vastly improved the ending. *Obviously spoilers*

Pros:

  • They finally fixed several plot holes. Joker’s strange contribution to the ending, how your party magically ends up on the Normandy, and Hackett knowing that Sheppard and Anderson made it to the Crucible are all explained. Furthermore, they removed the part where the Mass Relays blow up.
  • Sheppard is now allowed to question the Catalyst on each of the ending choices. Furthermore, he can express cynicism towards each choice, culminating in the forth, “Reject” ending choice which damns the current cycle but guarantees success to the next one.
  • EMS required to get all the endings is lowered to 3100, meaning that MP is no longer required.
  • The extra epilogues, the monologues for each one, and new investigative options differentiate the endings enough so that each one feels unique. Furthermore, the epilogue’s slideshow changes to reflect the consequences of your actions. No two players should get exactly the same ending.

Cons:

  • The ending still comes out of nowhere with no adequate build up to the choices you have to make. It is still very abrupt when it happens.
  • While they try to explain the Catalyst’s motive for the Reaper harvest, it ultimately proves futile. He still comes across as grossly misinformed.
  • It still has the feel of being “space magic”, even with the Crucible and the Citadel being explained a lot better.
  • The scene with the Illusive Man still doesn’t really feel all that relevant in the grand scheme of things. The confrontation with him still feels like an ass pull, even if the concept is one I agree with.
  • EMS still feels pointless. If Bioware wants to put a “Reject” option, it’s effectiveness should be determined by the military strength of Sheppard’s forces. It should be possible to defeat the Reaper’s in a firefight, even if it means suffering heavy losses at a cost.

Overall, I’m satisfied. It’s not perfect, but it’s free and really does help the ending in the best way it could have. Props to Bioware for actually listening to fan feedback and reaching an adequate compromise that would make most people happy. If this was the original ending, I doubt the fan outcry would be nearly as bad as it was. If you want me to elaborate more on one of my points, please respond in the comments below.

(Disclaimer: At the time of writing, I have not yet played the Extended Cut DLC because it has yet to be released. It may full well addressed the concerns I elaborate on here. Also, Spoiler Alert for both the original Deus Ex and Mass Effect 3. You have been warned.)
Recently, I played through the original Deus Ex, a game lauded for its incredible story and ability to cater to a variety of different playstyles. While I had a great time and would wholeheartedly recommend it, this article is not about that. What I want to focus on is the ending to Deus Ex. Specifically, I want to talk about its ending in comparison to the ending of another, more recent game that was very similar, yet altogether different ending: Mass Effect 3(Because from the looks of my viewership, people are not sick of me bitching about Mass Effect 3 yet.). This week I will present my opinion on my matter. Though I am aware that this is not exactly treading new ground, I feel that it is worth talking about regardless, especially with the new Extended Cut DLC making it topical again.
But before we can into any of this, it is important to detail the endings and background information of both games so that viewers unfamiliar with either or both franchises can keep up with those that are familiar with them. Deus Ex takes place in the year 2052 and has transhumanismand government controlled conspiracies as major control themes of the plot. The player plays as JC Denton, the new nano-augmented agent of the United States branch of the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO). The player begins by going against terrorists who are withholding the vaccine, called Ambrosia, for a new deadly virus called the Gray Death. When the player encounters the leader of the terrorist cell, the leader says that he was holding the vaccine from politicians to give to the people. After he has been apprehended, JC undertakes several missions and quickly learns that the people ordering him around might not be entirely honest with him. Once he was ordered to kill a prisoner (an order the player can choose to obey or not), he starts to go against UNATCO and work with the terrorists. Denton learns that the Gray Death is a manufactured virus and that UNATCO, along with many of the world’s leaders, is involved in a conspiracy revolving around it. After being taken into the custody underneath the UNATCO base, Denton escapes with the help of an AI codenamed Daedalus, learns that an organization named the Majestic 12 is running the show, and heads to Hong Kong where Triad LeaderTracer Tong is trying to devise a way to cure the Grey Death.
After completing some errands for Tracer and getting a sample of the virus, they discover that the Grey Death is a man-made virus manufactured by the Illuminati. (As dumb as this may sound, this makes sense in context and works quite well.). Tracer sends Denton to Paris in order to enlist the Illuminati and their technical expertise in the battle against the Majestic 12. Upon making contact, JC learns that the Majestic 12 is led by Bob Page, a former member of the Illuminati, and that the Grey Death was nano-technology that Bob Page stole and repurposed for his own ends. The Illuminati leader, Morgan Everett, realizes that Bob Page no longer has the materials to build the virus and Ambrosia and figures that he will go to an Air Force Base with former Area 51scientists in order to gain what he needs. (Yeah, this game is like a conspiracy kitchen soup, but it is still awesome.) Once there, Everett asks Denton to unleash Daedalus into the network in order to fight Bob Page. Upon completion of this task, Page unleashes his AI, Icarus, and the two merge to form the AI known as Helios. After completing addition tasks to prepare to defeat Page, Denton eventually tracks him down to Area 51, where he is being directed by Tracer Tong, Morgan Everett, and Helios, who each have a different strategy for defeating Bob Page. If Page is not stopped, he will merge with Helios and gain total control over the world’s network and information, which is all being controlled from Area 51. Each of these tactics has with them different consequences on the world at hand and JC Denton has to choose who he will side with in the final battle.
As for Mass Effect 3, I have already covered most of the plot and premise of the series before, so I will just link to the article where I went over it hereto catch up the unaware. As for the events leading up to the ending: The Alliance Navy and the other galactic military installations need to get the Crucible, which is a magical plot device whose blueprints have been added to with each passing Reaper death cycle by the space faring species of each respective cycle. In order to activate the Crucible, which everyone hopes will stop the Reapers and end the war, they need to attach it to the Catalyst, which is revealed to be the Citadel, which the Reapers moved to Earth and closed shut. The only way to get to the Citadel and open it back up is by using an energy beam that the Citadel is aiming at Earth in order to do something. To get inside the Citadel, Command Sheppard leads a final charge into the beam and most of the people involved die when hit by a Reaper death-ray.
Sheppard survives and keeps limping towards the energy beam. He/she ends up in a part of the Citadel that no one has seen before. Then Admiral Anderson contacts Sheppard through the radio and says that he followed Sheppard into the beacon when there was no trace of him during the limping scene. He somehow beats the player to the Citadel control console when the Illusive Man somehow arrives as well and paralyzes both Sheppard and Anderson in some biotic field. The player can have a conversation which ends up with both Anderson and Illusive Man being shot and killed. (Side-Note: While the scene is pretty poorly written in my opinion, the concept of having a final boss conversation over a final boss battle is a very good idea and quite clever on the count of Bioware’s writers, especially considering that the dialogue is the most important part of Mass Effect.) Sheppard limps to the console and activates it, opening up the Citadel and allowing the Crucible to dock.
He/she is then magically transported to the top of the Citadel where he meets a magic god-child. God-child explains that he is the true Catalyst and leader of the Reaper forces. He says that the Reapers were created to kill all space-faring organic life every 50,000 years and turn them into Reapers so that synthetic beings do not kill all organic life because the created always rebel against the creators. (Note: Depending on what the player did over the course of the game, he/she will have several ways to refute this claim.) Sheppard blindly accepts this, but tells god-child that he is taking away “their hope”. The catalyst tells Sheppard that he/she has up to three choices (depending on the player’s galactic readiness) for ending the conflict and saving organic life from the Reapers. The player’s choices are explained and Sheppard makes a decision that should have wide-reaching, galactic consequences.
Now that the stage is set for both games, I will now go over the possible ending choices, listing one from Deus Ex and then its Mass Effect 3 equivalent. The first ending option in Deus Ex is given to the player by Tracer Tong. He explains that as long as global communication remains a reality, the rich and powerful will always try to assert their will on the people and that even if Denton defeats Bob Page, someone else will take his place. Tong explains that all of the world communications are controlled and sent through Area 51. The only way to give the people freedom would be to destroy Area 51 and the network, plummeting humanity into a New Dark Age. This will bring government down to a small, local and much more manageable scale free of the ruling class. The cost is that global communication would be disabled meaning that humanity would be scattered without the ability to connect. When choosing this option, the game shows a scene of Area 51 blowing up with JC running to escape. It is unknown what happens passed that.
The equivalent option from Mass Effect 3 would be the Destroy option. As god-child explains, choosing this options destroys all synthetic life. The Reapers, the player’s AI squadmate, even the race of AIs that the player may or may not have spared would be destroyed. Furthermore, since Sheppard is also partially synthetic (the beginning of Mass Effect 2 makes him/her a cyborg), it is implied that he/she may die as well once the power is unleashed. Making this choice also destroys the Mass Relays, disabling super long-range transportation and plummeting the galaxy into a sort of Dark Age. If the player chooses this option, Sheppard is seen destroying a red panel on the Crucible and the machine fires off a red, cherry-flavored explosion that spreads throughout the galaxy, leading to some nonsense scene with Joker trying to escape the Crucible’s energy beam.
The second possible ending in Deus Ex is given to the player by Morgan Everett. The Illuminati’s leader tells JC that it would be best to just kill Bob Page outright so that he cannot merge with Helios and even extends an invitation to Denton to join the shadow organization should he do this. When Denton questions this, Everett explains that it is ideal for humanity to be guided by the invisible hand of a benevolent dictatorship. If Denton chooses this option and kills Page, then the game cuts to a conversation between him and Everett. He says that worldwide Ambrosia shipments have been proceeding as scheduled, but it could be expedited by doing it directly. Everett explains to him that the Illuminati operate indirect, subtly influencing the world with an invisible hand. When JC asks what people will think of all that happened and how the Illuminati will say hidden, Everett goes into detail describing how people have short memories and that overtime they will begin to forget the events and move on.
The equivalent ending in Mass Effect 3 would be the Control option. As god-child explains, choosing this option means that Sheppard will sacrifice him/herself and “lose all the he/she has” (I am assuming this means that he/she downloads him/herself to the Reaper sub-conscience, but this is very ambiguous, so I do not know), but the Reapers would obey his/her will. The Catalyst also explains that overtime, Sheppard might come to accept that the Reapers were right all along and the cycle would continue, but he cannot confirm this. Making this choice also destroys the Mass Relays, disabling super long-range transportation and plummeting the galaxy into a sort of Dark Age. If the player chooses this option, Sheppard is seen grabbing to electrical conduits on the Crucible which appear to melt his/her flesh and give him/her glowing blue eyes before he/she disappears. The machine fires off a blue, blueberry-flavored explosion that spreads throughout the galaxy, leading to some nonsense scene with Joker trying to escape the Crucible’s energy beam.
Lastly, the final possible ending for Deus Ex is the option given to JC Denton by Helios. Helios knows that Bob Page wants to merge with it and believes him to be insufficient. Its mission is to make the world as good and safe as it can and does not believe fusing with Page will give him the best ability to do that. By contrast, Helios thinks that by merging with JC that it will become better equipped to protect humanity and use its power over the world’s network in the best, most efficient way possible. Helios shares Morgan Everett’s belief that people will not be able to take control of their government and that the enlightened few would need to guide them, however it thinks that Morgan and the Illuminati are also not enlightened enough to guide humanity. It explains that since it is an AI designed to protect people and has no stake in anything beyond that directive (meaning it cannot be bribed or influenced), it is most equipped and prepared to keep humanity safe and secured at the cost of privacy and free speech. When choosing this option, Denton steps into Helios’ AI core and fuses with it. They then say some cryptic stuff about having things to do before the scene ends.
The equivalent option in Mass Effect 3 is the Synthesis ending. As god-child explains, Sheppard has the choice of throwing him/herself into a glowing energy beam. If he/she does this, then Sheppard’s essence would be fused with the Crucible’s energy. Unleashing this energy would imbue every life form, synthetic or organic, in the world with a “new DNA”, turning them into half-synthetic/half-organic hybrids. The catalyst explains that this is the final evolution of life and that doing this would force the Reapers to stop their attacks. Making this choice also destroys the Mass Relays, disabling super long-range transportation and plummeting the galaxy into a sort of Dark Age. If the player chooses this option, Sheppard is seen jumping into the energy beam. The player watches as Sheppard is torn apart on a molecular level and fused with the Crucible. The machine fires off a green, lime-flavored explosion that spreads throughout the galaxy, leading to some nonsense scene with Joker trying to escape the Crucible’s energy beam. As you can no doubt see, there are parallels to be draw between these endings. They are similar in a number of ways. However, one was very well received and the other is known as perhaps one of the worst endings in video game history. Why is that? Well, there are a number of key differences in the games that explain the difference between fan reactions.
The first thing we need to go over are the key differences in the endings themselves and the lead up to them. In Deus Ex, the themes of control of a few over the masses and technology influencing the world are brought up again and again. The endings do not come out of nowhere and are a logical extension of the world in question. Tracer Tong and the terrorists play their role in the plot because they are sick of a few powerful people taking control. The Illuminati, while equally opposed to the Majestic 12, believe in an invisible hand guiding the world. Even the AIs that compose Helios give the player their viewpoints via transmissions well before the ending. There is a lead in to every choice. Take this in contrast with Mass Effect 3. In that game, the Reapers are always top priority. Synthetic and organic life opposing each other are not major themes in the main plot at hand. When god-child comes and asks Sheppard to resolve the situation, it comes out of left-field. The Crucible is never established to have any of these abilities. It is only thought to be a Reaper kill button. Never once was it hinted at that Sheppard would be able to fuse organic and synthetic life and while the Illusive Man thought he could control the Reapers, he was confirmed to be indoctrinated at not of the best mental health. The goal was always to destroy the Reapers and that was only one possible path to take at supposedly grave consequences.
Secondly, the endings in Mass Effect 3 are much more homogenous than the ones in Deus Ex. As you can no doubt see from my descriptions, the ending scenes that the player sees are nearly identical with minor variations. They lack any real contrast. This is particularly jarring when compared with Deus Ex. In each of Deus Ex‘s endings, the scene played is radically different. Furthermore, the thing Denton has to do in each ending is different as well. Tracer Tong directs the player to move passed Page and head to the reactor, turning it up to eleven and causing a meltdown. Everett advocates dropping Bob Page’s shields by turning off his four power supplies and then finishing him off afterward. Helios tells the player to sneak passed Page and turn on the systems that allow it to merge with people, sneaking back afterward to complete the objective before Page’s cybernetic upgrades are finished. This allows for a greater feeling of diversity with the endings because everything, including the objective, changes.
Another difference between the endings is that in the Deus Ex ending, there was not an obvious alternative to the solutions at hand. The three decisions cover the gambit of possibilities in this world. One allows for people to rule themselves, another allows a shadow organization to take control, and the last shifts rule away from humanity and lets technology take over (like a literal Deus Ex Machina, or “God from the machine”). On the other hand, Mass Effect 3 has one glaring alternative: Why is Sheppard unable to convince god-child to just call off the Reapers? God-child is confirmed to be the leader of the Reapers, thus he has control over them. The fact that the player cannot make the obvious choice results in an overall weaker ending.
This ties nicely into my next point: While JC Denton questions each choice, Sheppard blindly accepts the god-child’s word. In Deus Ex, when each faction states what they want to do, Denton is skeptical, which is in character for him. He forces each faction to explain their reasoning and why their choice is the best. This forces them to not only explain their own logic but why the other two choices are not ideal solutions. All of them present their points well and the player’s choice is tough because of it. In Mass Effect 3, all three options are explained by the god-child. While Sheppard does ask questions in the final scene, he/she accepts the answers given without a follow up question and just accepts that the god-child is sharing an unbiased opinion (which, as a side note, runs contrary to Sheppard’s character). While Deus Ex leaves no doubt towards the intent and bias from each side as well as the logical consequences of each choice, Mass Effect 3 has a very ambiguous ending where the player is unsure of the consequences of what he/she did. Too many questions are left in the player’s head, which is a problem. The ending should be a conclusion and tying up of the events at hand. Questions should be answered, not added to, which Deus Exdid very well.
There is one final difference between the endings of the two games and it is an important one. Mass Effect 3 only explains the direct effect of the player’s choice of ending. On the other hand, Deus Exnot only explained the direct effect of what the player chose to do, but the aftermath and eventual consequences of the choice as well. This is a very important and very subtle distinction to make. God-child makes small hints towards what each ending would do, but never directly states what the galaxy at hand might look like as a result of what Sheppard does. What are the consequences to destroying all synthetic life? Also, if Sheppard might die to due being a cyborg, what about others with cybernetic implants like biotics or Quarians? What are the possible repercussion of gaining control of all the Reapers and could this new power corrupt Sheppard? How would society change as a result of everyone become synthetic/organic hybrids (ugh)? This is never explored or elaborated on. But in Deus Ex, all three factions go into express detail into what would come about. Tracer Tong’s destruction of the network would lead to small city-states and local governments arising once more. While it would be difficult and many would struggle to survive, they would be free of the influence of the few. Joining the Illuminati would allow their reign to continue, but JC’s influence would allow the group to stay together and continue to advance humanity into the future with nano-augmentation and new technologies. Merging with the AI would free the world from the Illuminati, but introduce a new ruler in its stead who is devoid of any directive besides “protect and advance humanity”, leading to a police state, albeit a benevolent one. These are all elaborated on, so the player can decide for themselves what they want to shape the world into. The ambiguity of Mass Effect 3 leaves much to be desired, which partially led to the backlash we saw.
Aside from the key differences in the endings, there are also to more abstract reasons why people respect Deus Ex and its ending more than Mass Effect 3and its ending. The first one is that while both games have a huge emphasis on choice, they emphasize different types of choices. Deus Ex‘s plot is inherently linear. The player has little influence on the events at hand and how they play out. The choices are not involved in what happens and what the player does. Rather, and this is another very important distinction, the choice is in howthe player does what he does. Every Deus Ex player will go through the same plot and complete the same objectives, but they can complete them in different ways. Does the player arrest a terrorist leader by killing all his guards, sneaking past them and catching him by surprise, finding a alternate path through lockpicking and hacking, or some other method entirely? This is an important distinction from Mass Effect. Mass Effect advertised itself as a series where the player affected the plot through choices with direct consequences on the events at hand. This is why Deus Ex players loved the ending because it allowed them to express their opinion and assert their will on the world whereas Mass Effect players were disappointed that the final choice did not have as much of a perceived impact.
The other non-ending reason people preferred Deus Ex‘s ending is that the audiences had altogether different expectations due to the time gap between the two games. When Deus Ex was released in June 2000. At that time, people did not have a very high expectation regarding games and their ability to comment on the world and express viewpoints as an art form. Back then, games were just fun things that people did in their spare time. Fast forward to March 2012, when Mass Effect 3 was released, and people have a different outlook on games. The audience for games expect good and interesting stories in AAA game releases. We expect the plot to make sense and contain few plot holes. We expect characters with interesting personalities and quirks that differentiate them from all the others. We are much harsher and scrutinize games more closely now than we ever did before and in the age of the internet, this scrutiny is magnified. While I personally believe that Deus Exhandled its ending better, this new environment can be directly linked to the sheer backlash we have seen with Mass Effect 3.
Upon reflection, I am not entirely sure what the take home message of this article is supposed to be. I just noticed the similarities and stark contrasts of the two endings and wanted to comment on them. So for my final message, I will say this with regards to the Mass Effect 3 ending and with the benefit of hindsight: Yes, the Mass Effect 3 ending was not really that good and it have very glaring plot holes and thematic inconsistencies. No, it did not give closure to the narrative. Yes, criticisms and analysis of the endings were a completely justified and necessary part of the process. No, with the benefit of hindsight, I cannot say that the sheer amount of hatred and backlash towards Bioware was warranted in the least bit. And while Bioware does not owe the fanbase anything, I do believe that expanding on the ending is very good idea. Most creative endeavors are never static and constantly in flux. Creators respond to critics and adjust all the time, changing details, redoing certain thing, and so on. This change that Bioware is promising (and that I am very optimistic for) is a sign that games ARE becoming more of a valid form of expression, not heading backwards as many people believe. Hopefully, we can all learn and grow from this.
Edit: Now that I have seen all of the Extended Cut endings, I will go through and discuss how it changes the thoughts presented in this article. 

  • First, the endings still come out of nowhere when it comes to the ideas and themes behind them. There is still no buildup.
  • Second, the added epilogues and monologues within them decrease how homogeneous the endings seemed. The epilogue also contains a slideshow that plays during the monologue. It changes depending on what the player did during the game, reflecting Sheppard’s decisions and their consequences. This means that even if two players picked the same ending, they probably will not get the same epilogue. While there is still a degree of homogenization, each ending on it’s own feels unique enough to stand out. Furthermore, they removed the part where the Mass Relays blow up on all three original endings.
  • Third, the player still cannot take the obvious route of convincing the Catalyst to stop. This is a shame because it would have given players a good reason to build up their Reputation to Charm/Intimidate him. 
  • Fourth, Sheppard does not have to blindly accept the god-child’s word now. He/she can question the Catalyst and even express skepticism towards each option. The player can even openly reject all three choices if they wish, dooming the current space-faring denizens of the galaxy but guaranteeing success for the next ones.
  • Fifth, due to the new investigative option, the aftermath and long-term consequences of each ending are much more clear, allowing the player to make a more informed choice.
So basically, it nearly invalidates this entire article. I still have my complaints about the ending (even with the new explanations, it seems like space magic the way events unfold and the aforementioned inability to take the obvious route), but I am satisfied with Bioware’s attempt to salvage the ending overall. Most of the problems were addressed.

 Out of all the various styles of gameplay there are in video games, few are more likely to excite and delight me more than stealth. Whenever I play a game like Oblivion and Skyrim, I always play as a thief/assassin character. In both of the Deus Ex games, (because Invisible War, very fortunately, never saw release no matter how many times I am told it exists) I always try to sneak around all of my enemies completely undetected, silently picking them off one at a time. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than being able to accomplish my objective with discretion. Recently, stealth as a gameplay mechanic has seen a bit of resurgence. However, this resurgence is not in dedicated stealth games like Splinter Cell. Rather, lately we have seen games where stealth is an option among a choice of different playstyles. Some people have criticized this, saying that dedicated stealth games are much better, but I disagree. I believe that regulating stealth to being another tool in the player’s repertoire is a good idea in the modern gaming climate for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is that a game dedicated to purely stealth simply would not sell as well. This is because compared to other gameplay types, stealth has a much greater demand on the player than just fighting it out with swords, gunplay, or magic. In order to be successful at sneaking around, the player needs to have a great deal of patience. The player has to take cover and stay out of line of sight. He/she has to take risks by popping out of cover every once and awhile to watch the guards and figure out their patrol routes. He/she has to wait for the right time to move and when he/she does, he/she has to do so quickly and have the next move planned out for when the guards come back for the next sweep in their patrol. Most gamers have the skill necessary to pull this off because, for the most part, it is just waiting and planing. However, not all of them have the patience to go through and sneak across an area. Even amongst the ones that do, they are even fewer who find that a fun way to spend their freetime. This is perfectly fine. Games, at their core, are supposed to be entertainment and if people do not want to use stealth or play stealth games, the ones the do have no right to force them to. Making it another in a choice of routes to take adds to the potential audience. This allows the developer to make more money and make more games that allow players to use stealth. Furthermore, non-stealth players of the game may even be tempted to try a sneaky and silent approach and see if they like it, potentially adding to the pool of people who want stealth games, increasing demand for it and causing developers to want to make more stealth games. For fans of the genre, this can only be a good thing.
Another good reason for having stealth as an option is that it makes choosing to use stealth much more gratifying. It is more satisfying to voluntarily choose to sneak through without harming the guards (or, if the particular player is anything like me, silently pick them off one at a time) in a game full of options than it is to be forced to sneak through a level, getting a game over upon being detected. The former is a conscious, self-imposed choice that is a natural extension of the game world, the later is the narrative forcing the player into an uncomfortable and railroad-y situation that leaves them feeling more and more irritated with each time they get detected. Having a stealth option over forced stealth is preferable. The knowledge that if being sneaky fails, the player has several more options he/she can fall back on makes sneaking in much more satisfying because it is usually the route which takes more finesse than any other. Successfully beating a stealth sequence demonstrates a greater level of mastery over the games systems and leads to the player feeling more like a badass than if he/she just charged in guns-blazing. Furthermore, the knowledge that the player can fall back on other options like fighting his/her way in alleviates the frustration that playing a game as a stealth character tends to invoke. Being seen and having to reload a save several times is much easier to bear if the player made the choice to do it than if the game forces the player to sneak in and gives the player a Game Over after being detected. Since making stealth only an option turns it into a more interesting and less annoying way to complete missions and quests, it only makes sense to do it.
I can understand the frustration of stealth fans when they want games that focus primarily on sneaking around. However, it is important to look beyond that and see why its transition from the focus in certain games to an option in many others is a good thing overall for them. It is a very rewarding type of gameplay, yet it has a very narrow audience compared to other playstyles. Making it another possible path among many other paths allows it to prosper in a gaming climate where it would otherwise be snuffed out in a sea of bland shooters that begin to feel like the exact same after awhile. Plus, just because it is not the primary focus of a game does not necessarily mean that its quality will be diminished. Indeed, if Deus Ex: Human Revolution and what I have seen of Dishonored are anything to go by, developers have become much better at designing levels to allow for stealth. Developers are beginning to take note that fans of the less conspicuous means of acquiring wealth exist and they want to cater to us as well.

Last week marked the start and end of this year’s annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). It was the time of year that most of the major power players in the world of gaming emerge for a few days to talk about the near-future of gaming. While I have my own opinions on this year’s E3 (which are well documented on my twitter account), this week’s article is not exactly about that. No, this week I will be focusing on one specific company in the console race, Nintendo. Now, this one is a tough one for me to write. Even though I stopped buying and playing Nintendo consoles and games long ago, I still have a soft spot for the company in my heart because of there influence on me in my formative years. However, the more I hear from them, especially lately, the more concerned I become. This has invoked a number of mixed feelings. This week’s article is my attempt to organize my thoughts and write my feeling down regarding Nintendo.
I should start with what I really like about Nintendo. The best thing about Nintendo, and I do not think this is hyperbole, is that they are some of the most creative people in terms of gameplay and how players interact with the games they play. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Wii and its successor, the Wii U. Both of these pieces of hardware attempted to revolutionize gaming with a new twist on control schemes rather than release the same console again but with better hardware and an internet connection. The Wii used motion consoles to try and immerse players more deeply into game worlds (to arguable success, but I digress) and the Wii U is attempting to build on this by adding a touchscreen to one to two of the controllers to allow for “asymmetric gameplay” or the ability of one player to see/do something completely different than the other players. This concept is a totally new and unexplored territory in gaming that has many people rightfully curious regarding its application. This is one thing Nintendo does very well. Nintendo understands that not all games have to be serious and that not every game needs to be a “gritty” and realistic. As such, they are willing to play around and think of concepts that might be fun for the consumer. I have great admiration and respect for this.
However, this strength can also be a weakness. While Nintendo is interested in breaking new grounds in gaming, most of the third-party publishers that console makers rely on to make games and push their products lack either the same drive or the same creativity. They are unable to make experiences that cater to this new technology, making it effectively worthless. This becomes more obvious upon inspection of the lineup advertised on the Wii U. Two of the most notable games on the lineup, Mass Effect 3 and Batman: Arkham City, are both ports of games that have already become old news. Once the Wii U is released this holiday, they will have long been absent from the game industry’s radar. The rest of lineupalso consists of several ports like Darksiders 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, Assassin’s Creed 3, and more. All of the potential of this new and interesting technology is being used to port games with audiences that already have consoles capable of playing them. It gives the impression that nobody can really use this technology to add to the experience in any significant way besides Nintendo.
Which transitions nicely into my next point: While Nintendo is very creative and ambitious, it appears that they may be trying to proverbially bite off more than they can chew. Nintendo’s strength of creativity is also a weakness because no one seems to be able to reign in their creativity and put it towards something much more manageable. The best demonstration of this is the “MiiVerse” announced for the Wii U. The unique feature of MiiVerse is that people will be able to send messages that will be able to be seen by anybody playing the same game (to ask for help, give help, brag about high scores/accomplishments, etc.). While I would prefer to avoid a deluge of messages clogging my single player game, I admit that this is an interesting concept. The problem with this is that the internet, being the way that it is, will always have somebody that will swear up a storm and draw penises on everything. Nintendo, trying to stay as kid-friendly as possible, will naturally be trying to avoid that. In order to keep their console kid-friendly, they will of course be using the standard language filters used in many chat programs. In addition, they intend to have teams of people dedicated to going in and actually reading every single message ever sent on MiiVerse. Every! Single! One!I should not have to tell you how impossible such an undertaking would be. Even if it was possible, such a brute force censorship would require an untold amount of resources to be anywhere near as successful as it should be. When planning a feature like MiiVerse, Nintendo should have put more thought into how it would be policed. I am not against Nintendo policing its own service, (After all, we all know how the internet tends to behave.) but I think that they need to be much smarter about it than that.
My last gripe with Nintendo is in the use of its IPs. This is something that I know I will be in the minority when I say it, but Nintendo does not do nearly enough with their IPs. While they definitely alter the gameplay with each iteration, it is hard to not feel like they keep treading and retreading the same ground over and over again. They rarely do any significant change-up of their core franchises. To be fair, this is partially the fault of their fan-base that complains if they do so much as change the art style of a franchise. However, it often feels like if once one has played one Mario/Zelda game, they have played every other one as well. Even when they change up a franchise, it often feels like it is just another reiteration with a gimmick attached to showcase some new technology. In other words, it becomes a glorified tech demo. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was a good example of this on the Wii and New Super Mario Bros U, Nintendo Land: Luigi’s Mansion, and Pikman 3 are examples from the Wii U. There is nothing wrong with Nintendo using its own IPs to showcase its own technology, but they need to do something more than the same old thing with a slight twist.
There is a chance I am just being unnecessarily harsh on Nintendo. However, most of these grievances are legitimate concerns that Nintendo does have to address to its fans at the very least. The Wii U has the potential to be an awesome platform with a variety of completely unique, interesting, and fun gameplay experiences, but potential is the only thing I have seen. I want this to succeed. I want the Wii U to deliver on the potential that anybody who keeps tabs on this industry can see is there. I am just concerned that Nintendo may not be able to deliver. I will close with the following statements: Nintendo should have definitely revealed the price for the Wii U at that press event. This is because Nintendo has never been known to sell their products at a loss, unlike the other two console manufacturers and that touchscreen GamePad looks to be expensive. Announcing a price point would have allayed many of the fears people have. Nintendo can succeed, but they have to be smart about their next few moves.
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