Before I return to my previous style of blogging about up-and-coming video games, I thought that as I finished Mass Effect 3 a few weeks ago, I’d do one more Mass Effect blog. Hope you don’t mind!
I’m going to ramble a bit first of all, then I’m going to throw up my ideas of what a sequel would be like… the weird and wonderful insights of my head. You lucky bums.
I loved Mass Effect. I thought I’d hate it because it had guns and it was a horrible Western game, but I think it’s become my second favourite series – overtaking… Final Fantasy. There! I’ve said it! I await your judgement.
Although there is no way in which I could compare these two series, as they’re fundamentally different. I mean, in no way do the decisions you make in Final Fantasy affect the story; that’s part of the point. You play through the story and witness the story as it unfolds and you have no influence over the events that unfold. However, nearly every event that occurs in Mass Effect has a consequence. You aren’t a spectator watching a story unravel, you are the story.
The next paragraph is a spoiler, in case you haven’t played it!
Although saying that, the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucks. Not going to lie. You invest at least a hundred hours (if you’ve played all three through) and you get to choose the fate of the Reapers – whoop de doo! But Shepard gets left to die. Not so fun. You have three options, one removes you from the physical plane of existence, the second kills you and the third one lets you live… but you’re alone on the citadel when it blows up, so I’m assuming that you pretty much die anyway.
Do not get me started on how my Shepard finally got to be with Kaidan, just to be ripped asunder from his loving embrace. Not impressed.
So, what’s the point in this seemingly rantful blog? I want to tell you how I would imagine the next game to go. Especially since Casey Hudson asked the fans of the series for what they want to see in the next game.
Well, this is what I want to see:
I chose to destroy the reapers and I saw my Shepard breathe at the end of the game.
The next game would start with the rebuilding of the Mass Relays. When successfully reconstructed, the Normandy is the shuttle to test the new and improved Relays. After all, the best and brightest in the galaxy came together to repair them. What could go wrong?
Taking a step back from video games for a second; Stephen Hawking has hypothesised that Wormholes do, in actual fact, exist, and while I am no astro-quantum-awesome-physicist, I have read the Wikipedia article on it and am thus now an expert. Back to the fun!
In my game, the Normandy would test the Relay and due to the newly increased acceleration potential of the Relay, the Normandy travels faster than light. However, during the travel, the shuttle encounters a Wormhole. And as they’re travelling faster than the speed of light when they entered, this then sends the shuttle back to the first harvest of the Reapers.
In honor of Shepard’s memory, the crew decide that it is the task of the Normandy to once again tackle the might of the Reapers. However, in this time line, Salarians are still tiny lizards, Humans don’t exist and the Asari are still blue humany-squid like hybrid things.
So the crew has to team up with the Aliens of that timeline, to try to survive and purge the galaxy of the Reapers. However, much like in the previous games, your decisions influence the future. Except, being who knows how long in the past, the decisions you make alters the course of the history of the previous titles.
The sad bit of the story that seems to plague all of the Mass Effect games? Due to the teams’ interference with the past, they have altered the course of the future, and are thus prevented from returning to their own time period. Bye, Normandy!
A few of the potential consequences? Who knew stepping accidentally on that lizard would prevent the Salarians from developing into the super smart scientists that they once were? Who knew that by defeating the Repears so early before Shepard and his team, that there is a bigger and more dangerous threat now honing in onto the Milky Way? An enemy so dangerous that the Reapers were attempting to control the chaos by wiping out advanced organics, to prevent the detection of the Milky Way system by this new super bad?
Who knew that by this course of action that Shepard would never have to make that final decision and that Kaidan and Shepard would still be together?
Who knew?
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