Have I Done Mass Effect Right?

We all know that the finale of the Mass Effect trilogy is just a few months away and many millions of people worldwide are speculating on what will happen over the course of the battle to save the galaxy.

Bioware have of course forced you to choose your own path over the course of the previous two games as Commander Shepherd has been put in some rather hairy situations. In Mass Effect 3 we will finally see the results of these decisions in their fullest and while I love the series I have found myself worrying about my Paragon Vanguards quest to save all sentient life.

First of all he managed to save the Citadel but put a Human Council into power after a few brief moments of button bashing only to return to his usually lovely self by obtaining a complete Paragon score before he took on a suicide mission in which all his crew survived. Basically he’s a lovely guy but he suffers from a short temper and has no patience which sometime causes him to make terrible decisions.

He has been my Shepherd now for almost 5 years and he means a lot to me. Is he anything like Bioware’s Shepherd though?

I’ve played through the first two instalments twice now (once with my super hero and once with a Renegade Soldier) but have noticed that most of my friends are on their fifth or sixth run and I’m gradually becoming more aware that I have less of a chance to have the Bioware style Shepherd that I probably need.

Mass Effect 2 followed on from Mass Effect quite nicely and the majority of the decisions I made had some sort of impact as the story continued. What I’m worried about now though is that all my decisions will have to play out in some way to finalise the trilogy and this could impact the final arc Bioware intended for the sage. If this is the case then we can expect to see our decisions have less of an impact then we may have expected.

Take Dragon Age for example – Bioware created their fantasy epic with the foresight to also allow decisions to effect the stories in their future sequels. Unfortunately this has now started to sow the seeds of doubt in my head as my decisions in Origins were almost scrapped when I played the multiple DLC offering and the Awakening storyline. My Grey Warden decided that although he had the hots for Morrigan that the evening before their final battle he would not consummate their relationship. Basically her request to spawn a demon child was vanquished and her sexual frustrations caused her to leave the group forever disappointed. My Warden then took it upon himself to save the world by leaving for the void.

This is where my story became bothersome. Upon starting Dragon Age: Awakening a few weeks ago I found that I could still import my recently deceased hero and play the whole game with the impression that he’d never decided to banish himself to the void for the greater good. This was both weird and awkward as more and more story spots pointed to a variation of situations that had nothing to do with my decisions from the original game. You do have the option of using a completely new Warden from Orlais but this also doesn’t mean your story continues where it left off; you actually start a completely fresh tale. This left me without the great sense of immersion that I expected from the series even when I loved Origins so dearly (and I still do).

It didn’t stop there either; firing up the Witch Hunt DLC I found that although my anti-hero had not impregnated the witch she had still managed to persuade some unfortunate adventure to do the dirty. And there I was thinking my tough decision had paid off and my Hero’s restraint had stopped the world from suffering again in the future. Guess I was wrong!

The illusion of decisions in Dragon Age slowly unravelled as more content became available and from what I’ve heard the second games makes things even worse. It’s become clear that Bioware are telling a tale and the more depth that comes with it the more it must be told in a certain way. If you don’t follow the program they’ll just reconnect you with some dodgy excuse. I suppose it might be our fault, it’s clear that most developers want us to play the good guy so maybe that’s what we should be doing in our progressive stories. In the situation of Dragon Age it could simply come down to the fact that it was originally suppose to be a single game tale that lost it’s finality in the process of scripting a sequel.

So Mass Effect 3 has been 5 years in the making for most of us now and this fills me with both excitement and dread. I want the whole experience to be perfect, accurate and fitting. I’m scared of how my Shepherd might contradict the experience that Bioware are set to offer us. I guess the March release is when we will finally find out.

Come on Bioware make me happy and don’t wash over my actions, I’ve spent five years creating my Shepherd and I should get to see how this makes the final game pan out.