Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Review

I've always been a fan of the Metal Gear Solid franchise.  These games are sort of their own genre because there is nothing else in gaming quite like them.  They're basically a mash up of two of my favorite things; stealth action games and B-movie storytelling.  Well, it may not be like a cheesy Hong Kong Kung Fu film (I miss Jackie Chan), but nothing is perfect.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is still one of these things and is decent at the other thing until the second half.  Luckily this entry brought in one of my other favorite things (sorta) by making the game with "RPG elements", although seemingly every game now can claim to have ""RPG Elements"".   Another thing every game has now is open worlds, which I think will be every AAA game from now until the heat death of the universe.  But as far as action stealth mechanics go, MGSV might be the best stealth game I've ever played.

I'm not kidding. While the original Metal Gear Solid may have revolutionized and sort of invented the way we see stealth games, MGSV lives up to its history and surpasses it.  Every small mechanic that I've ever seen in a stealth game is here*, plus some new ones.  Throw an empty magazine to distract a guard.  Move slower and lower to make yourself harder to detect.  Hide in tall grass, in dumpsters, in porta-potties.  Stealth takedowns can kill or knock out an enemy, or, you can interrogate him, or, you can hold up an enemy by sneaking up with your weapon raised, or, you can wait for nightfall to be harder to detect, or, you can wait for a sandstorm which drastically reduces visibility, or, rainfall to mask your steps, or, hide in a cardboard box, or...or...or...

*I lied a little here.  MGS V does not have disguises like the Hitman series does but those are too stupid for Metal Gear Solid.  I repeat, those are too stupid for Metal Gear Solid.  Hitman is stupid.

The other half of a good stealth game, the enemy AI, is also really, really good.  There is a new reflex system that when an enemy sees you, you get a slow-mo effect for about 5 seconds so you can try and take him out before he alerts the entire base.  Using a non-silenced weapon will screw you here anyway, but it's a clever way to keep in stealth mode without having to fight a base on full alert.  It's such an easy fix to a long standing problem in stealth games that it seems stupid to call it innovative but it weirdly is.  You get one more chance to stay in stealth mode instead of being severely punished for one little mistake.  Likewise, you can always run and hide if enemies are on full alert.  If they lose sight of you, they well enter search mode.  If they still can't find you, they will return back to low alert.

"I'm sure he just left the area because we are so badass.  Just gonna return to guard duty."

While enemy AI will occasionally be stupid, like not being able to see you when they should, they sometimes see you from a mile away making this one of the harder games to always go full stealth. It's okay though because even if you don't like stealth games, the shooting mechanics are...better.

Yes, for the first time in MGS history, you have the option to go in guns-a-blazin without it being impossibly hard.  All the noisy lethal weapons get used quite a bit.  I personally think that the times when I fail at stealth and everything goes to shit is some of the best times in this game.  Do I run/hide or do I shoot it out?  I've used both depending on the shit I'm in and the game is remarkably good at it.

Nobody here.  Might as well waltz right in.

Still though, shooting from cover is weird.  It's too easy to shoot into the cover you are behind even though you're aiming above it, if that makes sense.  It's best to just back slightly off of cover to fix this problem but it seems like a weird lack of polish on the mechanics here.  It's not a major issue, but worth mentioning.

Most of how you plan your attack is through your iDroid (nice one Kojima *rolls eyes*) and through your binoculars.  You can mark targets from a distance which always stay on your HUD, unless you get too far away, which eliminates the need for a mini-map like previous games.  The iDroid has your map, which is very active with things you have marked, showing their approximate location or exact location depending on your intel.  You also use your iDroid for all sorts of other stuff (which I'll get too).  Using both of these tools allows you to plan your moves with an impressive amount of detail, as well as be your support system.

There are SO many options that the """RPG elements""" activated from the iDriod seem to borrow from every game ever.  Have the wrong equipment for a mission? Request a supply drop to change your loadout at a specific point on the map.  Want a new weapon or item?  Select R&D from the iDroid.  Need a helicopter to pick you up? Select a drop point.  Need a different buddy (more on them later)? Request one from the iDroid.  Want to say "fuck this shit" and just napalm a village? Request fire support from the iDroid.

Fuck alllllll this noise

Yes.  This game has air strikes and they rule.  Well, you can't get an S rank with one (the flare grenade which calls in your helicopter to minigun everybody also affects this) but seriously getting S ranks are hard as balls and only for perfectionists.

Also from the iDroid, you can build up Motherbase, which is basically the Normandy of this Mass Effect game only shitty.  You can build up your base with money and resources earned/collected on missions and side ops.  You also build up the soldiers for the Diamond Dogs mercenary group you control.  The soldiers can be prisoners you rescue, or random soldiers that you whisk away with a Fulton balloon which is never not funny.*  Motherbase is the home of the """"RPG elements"""" and you need to go there every once in a while to wash blood off and raise morale because I guess my mercenaries miss me...which reminds me, I need to call my mother.

*I don't know where else to put this but the Fulton system is great. You can tie a balloon to people, gear, materials, and goddamn tanks to be taken to Motherbase and used for future missions.  It's awesome.....oh and also you can capture live animals with it because for some reason Motherbase has your own personal zoo.  I repeat, this game gives you a personal zoo because Kojima is a crazy person.

Motherbase itself is actually really big (not at first but you build it up) and really boring.  There is almost nothing to do there.  You can't even visit major secondary characters for some reason, other than Quiet who does nothing but sunbathes where there is no sunlight (more on her later).  Yeah, you can do some shooting gallery things but whoopie de fucking do.  A lot of wasted potential here.

WHY IS THIS HUGE AREA HERE WITH NOTHING TO DO?

One thing I absolutely have to mention is the squad missions, which remind me of the war table missions from Dragon Age: Inquisition.  You can send your combat unit to do random missions in god knows where, that run in real time, and provide you with personnel/material/money/etc.  What is odd, is that the game says the rewards are not good, the game outright says this, yet I found these rewards to be much better than what I got in DA:I.  It's weird.  Also, there are some that are harder and give you a tactical advantage like sending your guys out to destroy some warehouses so that enemies in an area don't have body armor.  This is closer to what the war table should have been in DA:I and what I HOPE the rumored "war table like thing" in Mass Effect: Andromeda works.

The final gameplay thing I have to talk about (told you, SO MANY features) is the buddy system.  You accumulate them over time if you choose to do so and sort of gives you a party like another """""RPG element""""".  One is D-Horse, who does horse things and can poop on command.  One is D-Dog, who is my favorite even though he gets in the way at times but makes up for it by being a double for Snake so that you can take down two enemies at the same time.  One is a mini-walker that I never use cause it's stupid.  And the last one is the controversial sniper support, Quiet.

Quiet is a mixed bag*.  Super useful on some missions and annoying on others.  She basically sends an entire enemy unit on alert by providing covering fire for when you get spotted.  You can request her to take out a specific target but even then, the enemies are alerted to a sniper.  It's good for a distraction as they pay attention to her and not you, but it doesn't always seem to work right.  Also, she hums a 10 second long looping musical track that gets REALLY ANNOYING really fast.  She is, however, one of only a handful of boss battles and a good one at that. You have to beat her before she can join you, kinda like a Pokemon.

*About her nakedness....I'll save it for another blogpost.  I don't have a whole lot to say about it actually but I don't want to go on a long-ish tangent here.  I'll just say that a) her character is actually really interesting and a shame that it's overshadowed by b) the justification for her going into battle wearing a bikini being ridiculous, for now.  I don't think it's that big of a deal, but it is stupid.

The games presentation is great.  The Fox Engine is amazing.  For you sticklers out there, NO frame rate drops and consistently runs at 60FPS.  The musical score is outstanding as usual but this entry is the first to also use licensed music, which you can play at anytime while stealthing or fighting.  Granted, you have to collect tapes to do so, but they are not too hard to find.  Luckily, you get this sweet David Bowie cover automatically.

Amazing intro sequence with this song.

The open world is a bit restrictive....which I know I'm in the minority but like in an open world game.  Lots of cliffs make paths more like corridors, though some areas are more open than others.  It's open world-ish.

But like every goddamn open world game, the side quests vastly outnumber the main story missions.  I'd prefer something like 60/40 with main story being the majority, but can I at least get 50/50?  Ever?!?  There are about 40-ish missions but only about half directly involve the main story.  10-ish directly relate to character development and the Diamond Dogs, which is very Mass Effect 2 and I love those, but at least another 10-ish are random bullshit like tutorials.  Then, there are OVER 100 side opts which are 10 rescue the prisoner missions, or, 10 assassinate this dude missions, or, 10 destroy these tanks missions, or, 10 eliminate this squad missions, or, 10 extract this enemy missions, or.....Every review that said the side quests are not repetitive is lying.  This is yet another """""RPG element"""""" that this game borrowed but this one really should not have been.  I don't care if it makes the game shorter.  Make side quests interesting PLEASE!  ANYBODY!  Can I have one fucking open world game that has a "TON OF CONTENT" actually have content that is worth a damn???????

As for the story....well, the story of MGS V is worse than any of them, and I LIKE MGS's story.  It takes place in the 1980's, so in the middle of the MGS timeline.  It's after MGS: Ground Zeroes (which I did not play but has a Bioware like save upload thing), and more importantly, MGS3: Snake Eater.  Snake is Big Boss in this game.  The main story is about revenge against another mercenary group named Cipher and XOF.  Both groups are kinda sorta the same thing but not entirely because one has Zero involved (the MAIN secret villain over all of MGS even though he is kinda sympathetic and whatever) and the other doesn't but they ARE kind of the same thing........

Hey.  I said I like the story but I like shitty, melodramatic, and very, VERY convoluted B-movies so....to each their own.  MGS is no exception.  It's just like those movies only with an insanely higher budget.  Kojima loves plot twists and addressing plot holes....with more plot holes.  Again, he is a crazy person.

The storytelling is where this game really takes a turn away from the previous games.  Don't what to play a Metal Gear Solid game because you hate cutscenes in video games?  Well, this one has hardly any!!!! The first mission is cutscene heavy and linear as hell, also long as hell, but once you get into the open world stuff 2 hours later....you get a handful of cutscenes.  None of those cutscenes are all that long either. Nothing like the notoriously long, epic cutscene at the end of MGS4: Guns of the Patriots exists in this game.  Diehards may hate this, I KINDA HATE IT because this is Metal Gear Solid damnit, but people scared off from the series due to the cutscenes shouldn't be anymore.

From MGS4: Guns of the Patriots.

I know what this means but out of context sounds dumb as hell.

Almost all of the backstory is told through audio tapes which is soooooo boring.  If there is one gripe I have with Bioshock, it's popularizing the audio log idea. At least you have to find those though.  In MGS V, they're just given to you periodically.  Why in the hell didn't they make Motherbase more like the Normandy in ME?  Go home, talk to your people, have backstory explained organically.  Audio logs, even in Bioshock, are cold.  They have to be presented in a very specific way to be interesting.

The open world nature didn't actually hurt the narrative all that much, what hurt the narrative is the fact that this game takes place in the middle of the MGS timeline.  Prequels never have good endings, and without spoiling anything, this one doesn't either.  Yeah, this story has just as many Kojima plot twists and it's convoluted as all hell, but it lacks the punch other MGS titles had.  No MGS story in any of the games make any goddamn sense, but they are entertaining as hell and are narratively solid.  There is a good story told with every bad storytelling convention ever used.  It's an anomaly, and obviously, not for everybody.  MGS stories are a weird mix of serious and silly that....I haven't really seen in any work of fiction.  Not at this level of weirdness anyway.

Again.  You can tie balloons to sheep in this game.

And what makes me really, really sad, is the story was likely a lot better.  It's rumored that MGSV has a ton of cut content, almost all of it story related in the second half of the game.  Is...is it possible, that Konami cut story crucial content for DLC?????  I mean, Konami has already advertised horse armor DLC and no I'm not kidding that is a thing-where-is-the-self-awareness-or-awareness-of-their-industry-or-any-fucking-thing-holy-fucking-shit.  YOU DON'T DO THAT KONAMI.  You don't fucking save half the story for DLC.  You've already killed my Silent Hills dreams Konami.  Don't do this to me.  You used to be great.  What....like, what happened to you?  Who hurt you?  Have fun being a company that makes slot machines I guess.

I will fucking quit buying AAA games if slicing off story for DLC becomes a trend.  EA already did that TWICE with Mass Effect (Javik and Leviathan.  Both are story critical that should have been included in the main game) and I don't play it, but it seems like Bungie has done that with Destiny as well.  This is unacceptable for any story driven game but it seems even more egregious with Metal Gear Solid since it's story has always been a big part of the fun.

Apparently, I'm the only person who thinks story matters in games that bother to have one.  (Obviously, I'm not going to say Tetris is terrible because it doesn't have a story.  If a game has a story, make it.....at least decent or fun).  How in the hell this game got perfect scores in almost every review is stupid as hell.  The gameplay is FANTASTIC, but this is Metal Gear Solid and goddamnit I want my stupid, stupid epic story.  Why was this """""""RPG element""""""" ignored?

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Overall, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is still a great game.  It has, since the original, the best gameplay of the series.  It's presentation is great even though there is some wonky stuff here or there.  The story is okay in general, terrible in the 2nd half, and I'd argue BAD for a MGS game mostly because the story is told so poorly.

It's been a long time since I played the original Metal Gear Solid, but MGSV might be better.  MIGHT BE,  Hard to tell.  When a classic game franchise is perfected in so many categories except for story, how do you know?  Regardless, this is Hideo Kojima's swan song to MGS and I'm not sure Kojima can do much better.

Give this game a play.  You'll probably like it, but even if you don't, you'll know you experienced something unlike any other game...except for other Metal Gear Solid games, with less """""""RPG elements""""""".

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One last thing.  Hideo Kojima is the man.  A crazy man, but THE man.  Despite Konami firing him and removing his name from the title (It is not a "Hideo Kojima Game" except it is), he still promotes the game, wants people to play it, and is just a super cool dude.  For every Metal Gear Solid release since the 2nd one, he would go to a game store in Japan and sign copies of the game for fans.  It was promoted by Konami and usually had huge lines.  This time, he had already been fired from Konami, but you know what he did?....

He walked into several stores on release day, completely unannounced like some random customer and signed copies for random people buying the game.  Since there was no big event, he chatted with them too in a more "I'm just hanging with my people nonchalantly" way.  Cool as fuck.

We will see more Kojima games, I'm sure.  It's too bad Metal Gear Solid will never be the same, and almost certainly awful, without him.*

*Just do something new bro.  Please.  Every other jilted developer seems to just want to launch a Kickstarter to make the exact same type of game they became famous for only under a different name.  Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained, whatever the hell the Bioshock people are working on that looks exactly like Bioshock.  Just get weird with it dude.

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Fuck Konami.

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How I Would Change the Ending to Mass Effect 3 (Part 3: Addressing the Plot Holes)

Authors note:  Real life bullshit kind of slowed my Mass Effect posts down so I didn't get everything written in August that I wanted to.  BUT, I hope to have two more posts in the relative future, luckily I do this for fun and not as a job otherwise I would be SO fired by now.

One will be an epic, 10,000 word novel e-mail exchange with AJ about all the little stuff we didn't cover this month.  There will be a lot of gushing but we will give some opinions on the negatives as well.  Expect that when we feel like being done.

The second is a hard one to write because it will be the most personal thing I've ever written on this blog.  I have started it 3 times only to delete it.  It will be about how Mass Effect saved my love of gaming as well as....how it helped me with depression.  I want to write this.  I'm just not sure how yet.  Maybe in a few months it will be up.

ANYWAY:  TO THE TOPIC AT HAND.

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I highly recommend reading part 1 and especially part 2 if you haven't already.  Otherwise, this won't make any sense.  

Since I got absolutely ZERO questions about my ending, thanks a lot dicks, I came up with ten questions a reader might hypothetically have.

1.  "If you make the right choices in the Earth Mission, shouldn't you have a bunch of people to take on Harbinger?"

Yep!  Aaaand it's something I didn't think about.  So to fix it, say there is a short cutscene where Shepard and Anderson decide to climb inside Harbinger with just their two teams while all the rest of the forces that made it there set up defenses to hold back a Reaper counter-offensive.  There.  Fixed.

2. "I get Harbinger wanting to use the Crucible as a Reaper weapon, but why bother considering the risk?  Wouldn't the Reapers win without it anyway?"

I'm banking on the Reapers arrogance here. Think of what Sovereign says in ME1 about their intelligence being on a level that is incomprehensible to the races in the galaxy, "I am beyond your comprehension", and so on.  Harbinger, knowing that he has control of the Illusive Man, doesn't even think failure is an option.  The Illusive Man is convinced he is doing this for the betterment of mankind, when in reality, he is just Harbingers stooge.  (Also, remember Harbinger needs a human to use the Crucible at all).

When Shepard makes it inside Harbinger, Harbinger tries to use indoctrination to stop Shepard. Once the Illusive Man is killed/shoots himself, Harbinger then tries to use indoctrination on a wounded Shepard to complete the task.

3. "Yeah, wait. Why does Harbinger need a human again?"

It's said many times in the game that by using the Mass Relays, as well as all Mass Effect technology, that races are using the technology of the Leviathans/Reapers.  The Crucible should be technology that is completely independent of the Reapers.  There would probably have to be some minor dialogue changes throughout Mass Effect 3 concerning the Crucible, but it should be doable in theory.  It will kind of be like why a MacBook shouldn't be able to communicate with the alien mothership in Independence Day.  Harbinger needs an indoctrinated human, or any other race really, because he cannot control it without an intermediary.

4. "About that Reaper motive.  Evolution wouldn't make the thrall races of the Leviathans into Leviathans.  What did you mean by those races not reaching their apex?"

While the Leviathans consider themselves the apex of evolution, they want all their thrall races to become more self reliant while still basically being slaves.  They want their thrall races to reach their apex so that they can be the best slaves, so to speak.  They are not expecting them to magically turn into Leviathans, defying all evolutionary science.

This, I hope, would also drive home the point of the Reapers arrogance.  The Leviathans are also arrogant and never realized that by forcing these races into slavery was the very reason they stopped evolving on a desired path.  (This is over millions of years BTW, so evolution can absolutely be a motive here).


5. "Why exactly does the Leviathan AI rebel?"

In my version, the Leviathans have no qualms with using AI.  This AI is made specifically to figure out why the thrall races are not evolving on a desired path.  I assume, these races would still create AI, like they do in the real version.  The Leviathan AI sees this, claims organics are not integrating or incorporating or whatever Sci-Fi nonsense you want to use, with their AI's correctly.  Because of this flaw, the Leviathan AI concludes that this is why the thrall races are not reaching their apex, and comes up with a plan.  That plan, is the Reapers.

The Leviathans balk at the plan because this means they too have not reached their apex, nor are they the perfect beings in existence.  They try to shut down the AI, then....

6.  "So, WHY is Harbinger?"

I made a mistake here so lets fix this too.

One Leviathan, a single scientist, likes what the AI has to offer and agrees to "merge" with it.  By doing so, Harbinger becomes the first Reaper and infects all the other Leviathan computers with the AI code to start the war.  It uses the Leviathan artifacts (those orb things) and other technology to indoctrinate the thrall races and lead them in overthrowing the Leviathans and processing them into more Reapers.  A tiny number escape of course, but the Leviathans stay arrogant as ever by claiming the war isn't a mistake because a single Leviathan agreed with the AI......or something.

7.  "Why the cycle?"

For the same reason as before only now it's not to stop organics from killing themselves with AI.  Now it's because those organics that use Reaper technology (Mass Effect tech, Mass Relays, etc.) are the best suited to be processed into new Reapers.  The Reapers wait for organics to prove they are worthy.

(I know this makes the Reapers less altruistic, but it makes them more evil and keeps their sense of god-like superiority.  I never liked the altruistic nature of the Reapers anyway.  I like this line from Sovereign, "We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution.  You exist because we allow it.  And you will end because we demand it." It sounds far less like the Reapers are secretly wanting to help everybody and more like forcing everybody into their goals.  The Reapers are better villains when they stick to this kind of writing.)

8.  "Those 3 choices are still dumb."

I know.

9.  "How do you NOT choose one of them."

It's easy.  When the game leaves the conversation scene, simply walk back up to the star child and choose the right dialogue options.  It'll be an option like, "Something doesn't feel right about this", for example.  From there, you can press the issue until an option comes up where Shepard realizes that he/she is being indoctrinated and that all of this is some sort of dream.  I wouldn't make this THAT hard, maybe only three dialogue choices in or so.

10.  "Doesn't this ending have the same problem with being impossible to continue?"

Well it hasn't stopped EA/Bioware from working around the existing ending for Mass Effect:Andromeda (putting the next game in a different galaxy is a great way to get around that problem but shitty because all the established races should be back home.  If I find out the Asari has been in Andromeda for hundreds of years in secret I'm going to fucking riot!).  I didn't really make up this ending as a way to make ME4 in the Milky Way make sense, knowing entire races may or may not exist in the future.

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And since I have no where else to put this, I really don't know what to think about the future of Mass Effect.  There will be another post about this topic, but for now, the trilogy should be considered it's own thing, ending be whatever.  I'm confident Mass Effect:Andromeda will be great......wait no I'm not.  It looks like fucking Dragon Age:Inquisition, a good but heavily flawed game.  Shit.

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Future links to remaining Mass Effect posts will be updated here if I remember or give a shit months from now.

How I Would Change the Ending to Mass Effect 3 (Part 2: My Solutions)

See Part 1 here.

Another spoiler warning.  While this is "head-canon" territory, I will have to reference the actual ending.  Leviathan DLC spoilers are in here as well.

Assuming Direct Control of this ending

With this alternate, hypothetical ending, I fix my two main gripes while also making the ending better overall. This is TL;DR territory but I hope you give this a chance.  Assume certain things about the ending are the same but here is the 8 steps I would take to make this a better ending. 

Step 1: Change the Catalyst to Harbinger

While not a huge gripe with me, I didn't like that the Citadel is the catalyst.  I basically called that at the beginning of the game, along with I assume, everybody else who played the game.  Why use the Citadel again when the Citadel was the MacGuffin for the first ME?  

The easy fix is, make the catalyst Harbinger.  After having a huge part in ME2, he (it) is barely in ME3.  Sure, he became something of a punchline with his taunts in ME2, but it's weird to have him featured so little in the finale.  He doesn't need to talk much, plus he'd be a better surprise than the Citadel.  He's already mentioned a few times early in ME3 so he already has proper foreshadowing.  You can even explain this as Harbinger having the "master Reaper code" or some shit because he is the original Reaper and why he is needed for the Crucible to only target Reapers.  

I am aware that my solution is cliche but it's still better.  And hey, I said easy fix.

Step 2: Make the Final Mission More Like the Suicide Mission

And maybe add a little color.

While this doesn't address my two main gripes in part 1, and the Earth mission is pretty good as is, it is still a let down after the great ending to Mass Effect 2.  ME3 does not have the same style of build up for its final mission, so it was going to be a let down regardless.  Still though, the final mission could be better.

Instead of choosing squadmates to do specific tasks, how about choosing what war assets to use at certain points.  Say you have Harbinger surrounded on Earth and he's trying to process humans faster because he really, really, hates Shepard or something....whatever....just a reason for him to be on the ground.  Harbinger has now replaced the conduit since the Citadel is no longer necessary and he takes the role of the defending Reaper the missiles are used on.  Reaper forces have built up strong defenses to defend Harbinger, so Anderson brings Shepard in to talk over the assault.

Since there are SO many war assets in this game, lets say you get to pick TWO for each choice.  Here are some examples of what that could be like:

• Say the north approach to Harbinger is wide open with little cover and has a lot of Brutes and Banshees.  Who do you want to send?  The Krogan forces right!  And who better to send with them than the Turians who now have experience fighting alongside them and are the second best at handling a fight like that.  The Geth would be good at this too since they seem to shy away from cover anyway.
• Maybe the eastern approach is impassible except through some buildings with a lot of tech issues....choose the Quarians/Geth.  Both though?  Hmmm, maybe there is still some bad blood there and some friendly fire may turn this to shit.  Maybe choose one and the Shadow Broker team or the Spectre unit.  Even Salarian STG.
• Maybe the western approach has a lot of narrow corridors, perfect for Asari commandos and their biotic barriers.  Jack and her students could get used there too.   
• Say there is a air strike squad to distract Harbinger like on the Tuchanka mission.  You can choose a slew of fighter ship assets.   
• Finally, I would do a support squad who maybe take positions atop the buildings as sniper/artillery support.  The Turians would probably be best for this but Salarian STG would be good too.  (I'm ignoring the main Salarian forces because you can only get them by sabotaging the Genophage Cure and fuck that).  The assets you choose for the support role will boost the ratings of the other forces and help determine if anybody dies.

Obviously, Shepard and crew would take the southern approach, maybe along with whatever leftovers and the humans (obvs).  Choose poorly, and former squadmates will die.  Maybe Kasumi is helping with the tech approach, for example.  Jack is with the biotics.  Grunt with the Krogans, and so on.  Pick really poorly and current squadmates die.  I don't really know what to do with the ones you don't choose to go with Shepard, (lead the other squads maybe) but I would have liked to see them be extra friendly AI on Shepards approach.  Maybe you can't control them, just the two you pick, but at least they are there participating.  Maybe they even get a few kills.*

*I have my doubts the game would run well with that many allies and enemies with Shepard in the area but this is all hypothetical anyway.  

This makes the finale so much more like the Suicide Mission.  Everyone is involved, your final choices could get people killed, and just....SOOO much epicness would happen.  Man....I want this.

Step 3:  Add a Harbinger Section

It can be similar to this but not dead.

Once you reach Harbinger, who is knocked out but not dead from the missiles at the end of the Earth mission, you need to kill some time so...Collectors!  Why not fight a handful?  I highly doubt a spacefaring species would have EVERY SINGLE MEMBER in one location.  A few Collectors are probably still alive, only as Harbingers personal black ops squad or something.  Also note, I am eliminating the run to the conduit entirely.

During this brief mission, Harbinger wakes up and starts flying toward the Crucible.  Everyone is wondering what the hell he is doing but continue on mission soldier!

But here is where we smartly change the rules.  Say there is a cutscene and a Collector rushes the squad out of nowhere.  You shoot him, but only after hitting the Paragon interrupt....that's weird.  Shouldn't it be Renegade?  Anyway, you come up on something, maybe a weird door and Shep starts talking to Garrus and a Renegade interrupt pops up.  You hit it, thinking maybe Shep will just break the door down, but no, HE/SHE TRIES TO SHOOT GARRUS but luckily misses.  After each of these. that weird headache wah-wah sound effect happens as well as the "squiggly lines" that happen in the current ending but only after each interrupt......

This sound effect was weirdly hard to find.

While it's obviously not canon, I'm talking about the excellent fan theory, the Indoctrination Theory.  It's a pity Bioware didn't do something like this because it would have been obvious to end with.  While Shepard and the crew is travelling up Harbinger, in a last ditch effort, Harbinger is attempting to do the fast indoctrination on the squad.  You can even have cutscenes where the squad is out of character or even try to kill Shepard.  That said, the game should not OUT RIGHT say Harbinger is attempting to do this.  The player should figure this out on their own with the clues the game drops.

Also, have Anderson lead a 2nd team in there (maybe NOW the mistakes in the previous section kill characters?) with more hints about indoctrination.  Maybe he radios Shepard about James trying to cha-cha with a Collector or something.  

Not sure how to end this section, maybe a crappy boss fight?  Maybe it's Harbingers core or something, I dunno.  It's the part I have the most trouble with.  Either way, this MUST end with Harbinger connecting with the Crucible.

Also, Shepard and Anderson get severely wounded from an explosion or something.  The rest of the crew says their goodbyes and Shepard tells them he/she will finish the job.  The reasoning is that being inside of Harbinger when the Crucible goes off probably isn't too safe.  

Step 4:  Illusive Man 

This can be virtually identical only now it takes place in Harbinger....near the top, I suppose.  Anderson still dies I guess.  You can still maybe shoot the Illusive Man or talk him into shooting himself.  Whatever.

At this point, Harbinger is docked with the Crucible.  The game drops a few hints that the obviously indoctrinated Illusive Man was there to do something on a control panel....but what, the player doesn't know yet.

Shepard passes out from his injury and starts the Star Child sequence the same.

Step 5:  Star Child and The New Reaper Motive

I am indifferent to the Star Child as a thing.  It's okay I guess.  Now though, we can use the Star Child as a manifestation of Harbinger since his indoctrination attempts means he has read Shepards mind.  Shepard is speaking to Harbinger but isn't aware yet.

So evil.

Here, the Star Child explains to Shepard what the Reapers are and why they are doing this.  This is where I change one of my two main gripes.  The Leviathan DLC should be INCLUDED in the main game to help explain this too.

In the Leviathan DLC, the Leviathans explain that they created the Reapers.  Yes, yes, that is the same, but here I run with their big deal of being the apex race, as in the apex of evolution.  

The Leviathans controlled the galaxy and enthralled all the lesser races, but over time, they determined those other races were not reaching their apex of evolution fast enough or progressing correctly or whatever.  So they had top Leviathan scientists look into it and to help them, they created an AI to watch over every race in the galaxy.  After a while, they asked the AI why other races were not catching up to them.  The AI concluded that they are incapable of reaching their apex and that EVEN THE LEVIATHANS are not the "apex of evolution".  The Leviathans ask the AI what is the apex, the AI describes something like a Reaper, the Leviathans attempt to shut the AI down, it then goes to war killing off the Leviathans and so on.  

The Star Child (Harbinger) explains that the Reapers are the apex of evolution and monitor the advanced races of the galaxy.  If they are not progressing in a way that makes them LIKE Reapers, they are destroyed.  The Reaper motive is about evolution now.  No more "we don't want you to get killed by synthetics so we created synthetics bullshit."  Sure, this is another rogue AI story now, but at least the motive is unique.  A rogue AI that monitors evolution?  Shit man.  Hire me now Hollywood.

......wait.

Step 6:  The New Choices

For shits and giggles, lets just keep the choices to the main 3 but with several tweaks.  And for the record, I would get rid of the refusal ending entirely....because it's kind of important in my completely different version.

The Star Child (Harbinger) would explain all three endings the same only now the "headache wah wah sound effect" and those "squiggly lines" would happen after questioning him.  Shepard is still unaware that he/she is being indoctrinated but dialogue choices should sound skeptical of the Star Child.

Then the Star Child explains the hidden 4th choice that violently murders every puppy in the Galaxy.

If the player chooses one of these, the indoctrination will have worked.  

• The Destroy (red) Ending now has the crucible target all organics. With the Geth alone, they don't last much longer and are destroyed or assimilated as well.  Everyone dies.  Bad ending.
• The Control (blue) Ending now is reversed with the Crucible letting the Reapers control every human.  Shepard and every human squadmate turns against their allies.  Maybe a cool cutscene happens in the Normandy with the humans turning on the alien squadmates but they escape. The rest of the aliens in the Galaxy continue the war but over time they eventually lose just like the Protheans.  Maybe we get a few more cutscenes of characters going out in a blaze of glory/desperation
• The Synthesis (green) Ending lets the Reapers control everyone. It ends the war right there.  Maybe we get a cutscene with Shepard and friends living out the rest of their lives, waiting to be processed, with a narration talking about how they have accepted their fates and how the Reapers are actually correct and blah blah blah.  

Step 7: The Bittersweet Ending

Or, if the player realizes they're being tricked, they can refuse to do any of those choices.  Shepard questions the Star Child more and uses dialogue like "something isn't right here", "why should I trust you?" and "(confused muttering)".  Shepard then can have another dialogue boss fight, similar to the Illusive Man one, and break free from the indoctrination.  Shepard snaps out of the dream conversation with the Star Child to find him/herself just about to push a button on that same control panel The Illusive Man was going to use!  

Shepard realizes the plot twist that Harbinger was going to use the Crucible against the races of the Galaxy, but needed a human to change the controls because the Crucible was built by Humans and others and what not.  By doing nothing, the Crucible charges up, and targets only the Reapers now that it has uploaded the master Reaper code from Harbinger.  Bam!

The Crucible fires, killing Reapers throughout the Galaxy just like in the destroy ending but this time doesn't destroy the Mass Relays cause that plot hole was not necessary.  However, as Harbinger too starts dying, Shepard races to an escape pod, or, one of those Reaper fighter "jet" things you see in cutscenes and during the suicide mission of ME2.  

In this ending, Shepard dies.  He/she makes the escape pod but succumbs to his/her injury.  The Normandy finds the pod but he/she is just a corpse upon arrival.  There is a funeral scene, then the slideshow still happens showing all your choices affects on the galaxy.  Then it cuts back to a sombre party with the crew as they await the unveiling of a Shepard statue on the Citadel.  The end.

Kind of like this but without the gasp.  

Step 8:  The Good Ending

Or Shepard survives!

I'm not sure what the criteria for this should be but I think using the choices in the final Earth mission is a good idea.  Get a certain number of characters killed, Shepard dies.  If you only get a few characters killed, or all of them survive, Shepard lives.  I'm open to other options on this though.  Maybe you have to make specific dialogue choices in your final talk with Star Child?  

Anyway, Joker fears the worst but notices only one Reaper signal remains on the censors.  They fly up to the escape pod, open it, and find a barely alive Shepard.  -Cut-.

One month later or so, we see the Citadel Council talk about rebuilding efforts as well as (choices dependent) the Krogan, Quarians, Geth and so on getting embassies on the Citadel as well as opening the council up to every race.  Maybe they say something smart-assed like, "I wish Shepard was here to help us" only to keep the suspense going.  Then, the slideshow happens.  

Afterward, we see the crew having a sombre party just like the bittersweet ending only this time, the camera pans up to see a statue of Anderson (!!), then you hear Shepard say, "he was like a father to me", then the camera turns around and shows him/her still in bandages and putting his/her arm around the romance option character. Credits (skippable).  

In only this ending, you get a long after credits scene where a now fully healed Shepard has a joyful party with the crew, ending with a kiss to the romance option on some balcony overlooking a beautiful night sky and holy shit I'm going to Starbucks to write this screenplay.

"Then Shepard, Master Chief, and Batman stepped inside the Bang Bus......"

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I love this idea and wish it was real.  The Reapers motive is no longer stupid and based on flawed logic.  The choices are now a ruse.  A game that made player choice a big deal suddenly uses an in canon reason to not trust any choice and forces you into an ending that is essentially more linear,* but would be better received across the board.  And this alternative ending isn't even entirely my own idea since I borrow heavily from the Indoctrination Fan Theory (which again, is not true....but damn is it clever).  

*I know some people will bitch here but come on.  What did you expect from Bioware?  For them to make 67 totally different 50 minute long ending scenes?  That is not going to happen.  I like the idea of changing the rules this time.  Indoctrination, plus giving you choices but all of them are bad, and the only way to win is to choose no choice.  It makes narrative sense.  

I'm planning on a part 3 of this series but I need your help.  I assume my alternate, hypothetical ending still has big plot questions that haven't fully been solved or explained so I'd like you to ask me.  Either in the comments below or on Twitter, ask me a question you have regarding this ending.  I'll probably think of some questions of my own too, but I'll include yours and mine in the next part and try to answer them the best I can.  Uh....hopefully you read this far.

Part 3 is now up.  

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Part 1 is here.  

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How I Would Change the Ending to Mass Effect 3 (Part 1: What My Main Complaints Are)

Spoiler Warning for the end of the entire Mass Effect trilogy, as well as some major Leviathan DLC spoilers further on.

The Extended Cut fixed a lot.

First off, let me just say that I don't hate Mass Effect 3's ending as much as some do on the internet.  For a frankly odd number of people, the ending to ME3 made the entire series dead in their eyes.  Uh, why?  Did these people never hear the phrase "It's about the journey, not the destination"?  The ending isn't THAT bad....but it's still pretty awful.

Before writing my awesome ending idea (IT is awesome.  You will nod in approval), I must address the controversial ending that shouldn't even be controversial.  We SHOULD be debating how Shepard got brought back to life in ME2 and how that technically makes him a zombie but no.  The ending to ME3 is the hot topic despite the fact that the conduit is fine if not outright stupid if you get nitpicky, the talk with the Illusive Man is good, and even the Star Child's existence is acceptable even though that is weirdly Final Fantasy for Mass Effect to do.  No, my beef is with two points.

1.  The Final Choices

This doesn't look good.

While I didn't NEED a happy ending, after 120 hours.....why not?  I know the perfect happy ending is cliche, but it's now a cliche to purposely NOT have it.  Regardless, I expected several bittersweet ending choices but the bitter far outweighed the sweet.

The destroy (red) ending is weirdly the closest to what the Shepard character wanted despite it being a token ending, excluding the dumb refusal ending that is utter bullshit.  This ending is fine, UNLESS you went to the trouble of brokering peace between the Quarians and the Geth.  This ending doesn't just kill all the Reapers, but it ends all synthetic life including the Geth.  What was the point in spending a third of the game to broker that peace if it was going to get wiped out in one fell swoop?  Bittersweet ending?  I just committed genocide!

The control (blue) ending is super weird.  Shepard's conscience controls the Reaper code and AHHHHH why?  While uploading a conscience into some uber-super computer seems plausible in the future, there is no reason for the Reapers to not have some sort of fail safe to kick the motherfucker out.  "Yeah, you can control all the Reapers until you do thing X then BOOM.  Deleted".  Not just that but why would the Reapers allow Shepard to do this?  Just because he/she got closer than anybody to destroying them or some shit?  That's dumb as hell.  Also, this ending makes the Illusive Man right so fuck this.

Because reasons.

The synthesis (green) ending is supposedly the best ending but in my opinion, it's the worst one of the 3.  I disagree with other Mass Effect fans about this ending making Saren right, but it does fly in the face of what the ENTIRE Mass Effect trilogy was building philosophically.  The entire series was exploring, with degrees of subtlety, how diversity is GOOD.  In ME1, diversity was subtle with different cultures working together in the citadel and establishing deeper racial issues without it getting preachy.  In ME2, the diversity message is heavier with a larger cast and a pro-human rights (terrorist) group in the fore front that you work with but gradually subterfuge and out right rebel against (choice dependent).  Then in ME3, the diversity message is overt with you literally uniting races, some of which who have hated each other for Millenia, for a common threat.  Over all of this, you have a synthetic versus organic debate that can only end in war unless we understand each other (see below).

Well the synthesis ending destroys any thesis Mass Effect may have accidentally told by saying FUCK DIVERSITY, WE ARE ALL ORGANIC/SYNTHETIC/WHATEVER NOW.  We all understand each other perfectly.  The best way to handle diversity....is to fucking CURE it.  I.....UH,...*cough*....ahem.

WHAT

THE LITERAL

FUCK?!?!

This isn't a message of tolerance or even understanding.  This is a message of rewriting everyones DNA so war can't happen because space magic.  Even if every organic being just now has synthetic parts that make them understand robots, which is what the ending implies, HOW DO THE GETH/REAPERS UNDERSTAND ORGANICS BETTER?  This makes no sense!  Actually, this makes negative sense.  The sense meter is below 0.  I once saw the Edmonton Oilers win a hockey game.  THAT made more sense.

You cannot just change the theme like that!  The entire series was based on how diversity is good.  How through our common traits, and our differences, we can accomplish a greater good.  But no, fuck that.  SPACE MAGIC!

And everybody glows green now.  Because reasons.

2.  The Reapers Motive

I hope those reading have played the Leviathan DLC, in which the DLC explains the Reapers origins, have done so cause here is your final warning.

In the ending, as well as the Leviathan DLC, it is explained that the entire motive for the Reapers is to wipe out organic life, before synthetic life does, despite the fact that the Reapers are a organic/synthetic hybrid HOLY SHIT this is stupid.  Also....this sounds oddly familiar.

Sup bro?  Somebody using backwards logic?

The Leviathan DLC doubles down on this stupid with the Leviathan race, which could be cool on their own (see next post), trying to find out why other races are not reaching their "apex".  They conclude that every advanced race invents AI, that same AI eventually wages war on it's creators, so to solve this problem the Leviathans INVENTED A GODDAMN AI THAT OVERTHREW THEM AND FUCK THIS IS STUPID

"These guys are going to be so happy not to get killed by robots."

......

What do you want me to say?  Do you want me to say that before they fired their head writer Drew Karpyshyn, something about dark energy/dark matter was going to be the motive?  Do you want me to say that Mac Walters and Casey Hudson basically wrote the ending by themselves and straight up stole the 3 ending choices from Deus Ex:Human Revolution?  Do you want me to say they used the exact same flawed logic that the villain from Final Fantasy X used?  Do you want me to say they had no clue how to end the series and had to make something up on the fly?

Because to me, that sounds exactly like what they did.

Don't worry though.  Unlike every other piece complaining about something on the internet, I have solutions.  Check back for part 2 where I fix this whole mess.

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The ending to Mass Effect 2 is fantastic though.

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Some Thoughts on the Mass Effect Classes

Unlike your typical RPG, Mass Effect has some very unique, and kind of strange, class types to play as.  There is no obvious fire/ice spells.  There is no obvious support class (none of them are actually).  There kind of is an obvious tank class but it sucks.  Here are some thoughts.

Soldier

"In this Sci-Fi future, my power is shooting dudes"

But, why tho?

This is the most popular class even though it has none of the unique gifts that playing Mass Effect can offer.  OH!  This classes' main power is slowing down time so you can shoot better? Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat.  That has only been done dozens of times.

This is one of two tank classes.  Soldiers can take more damage than any other class which makes them sound very appealing to newbies.  They also are strong against NOTHING.  Every battle is a war of attrition.

To be fair, I can see why somebody might play this class if they are a coward.  To a newbie, what the hell does Warp do?  "Is it like teleportation or something?"  Lift/Pull and Throw sound lame, like they are powers that can't do any actual damage but can be used as distractions.  The opposite is sort of true too though, with something like Shockwave sounding awesome, but pretty useless except against husks.

What I played:  Like, 2 hours of this class just to see what it's about.  Yeah, battles take forever until you get better guns, and even then, meh.  Turns out the "argument from popularity" fallacy is still a fallacy.

Infiltrator

"Infiltrator" is also a mobile game because EA

This class is about stealth and sniping...which is sort of like telling your squadmates to be the leaders.  I dunno, this class always seemed too "ninja" for me and didn't fit the Shepard character.  And this is coming from somebody who LOVES many stealth heavy games....but also hates them too.  I'm very picky on stealth.

What I played: NEVER....which is why this entry is so short. This seems like it would be in my wheelhouse as a stealth game fan, but the rest of the game isn't built for it.  Also, Shepard as a common character (as in, the stuff you have no decision over) is so NOT this.

Engineer

Ohhh.  It's so good

This is the least played class yet I have absolutely NO IDEA why.  This class can destroy almost any defense.

The two most common defenses are armor and/or shields.  The Engineer can Incinerate armor and Overload shields.  This class is weak against Biotic Barriers, but bring some Biotics with Shep and it's no problem.

My favorite part of this class is leveling the playing field.  The Engineer gets a Combat Drone, which isn't good for killing enemies but great at distracting them as it charges enemy positions.  Then you have Sentry Turrets in ME3 that can also be great at distracting plus help deal damage when you are setting up defenses.  But, the class gets even better with AI Hacking.  Turn Geth against themselves.  Get Tali and/or Legion in there and you can really create havoc behind enemy lines.  Also, those annoying Cereberus turrets?  You can hack those too.  The panic and confusion from Cerberus forces is fantastic (when they notice. Sometimes they don't notice...until they're dead).

What I played:  My 2nd favorite class.  More people should give it a try.  It's a tad gun heavy but those tech skills absolutely OWN enemy defenses.  And while I didn't use Cryo Blast much, I did use it in multiplayer on ME3 and it is great too.  This class might be slightly overpowered.

Sentinel

Sooooo, we doing Tron now or......

I really don't understand this class.  It's a mix between biotics and tech, making it okay at both but not great at either.  A jack-of-all-trades class, this is also the 2nd heaviest tank class with a class specific skill called Tech Shield.  It's okay.  I never quite figured out how to detonate the Tech Shield with any sort of consistency.  I mean, I knew HOW to do it, but what is its range?  And how much damage does it do compared to the expense of not having an extra shield anymore?

The Engineer has better tech skills.  The Adept (see below) has better biotic skills.  Why pick this class?  Just for the Tech Shield?

What I played:  I played through ME2 once as a Sentinel, realized I didn't like it, then started over.

Adept

Blue Splinter Cell?

Sort of the mage class of Mass Effect, Adepts can fling enemies all over the goddamn place and in the last 2 games, "prime" enemies with a biotic attack and follow it up with another biotic attack for what is called a biotic explosion and it's goddamn awesome.  It does massive damage and if done right, is the most powerful attack in the game other than a headshot from the Black Widow sniper rifle.

Adepts are great at taking down biotic barriers and even shields with it's Warp ability.  Adepts are pretty squishy though.  They cannot take a lot of damage so you absolutely need to be adept (LOL) at using cover effectively. They are also weak against armor so bring heavy hitters with Shep.

Also, playing as this class....what is guns?  Just throw biotics everywhere.  Get the Locust, a lightweight SMG introduced in a ME2 DLC, which does significant damage and has a high shot rate, and yeah.  Golden.

What I played:  Most of the time, with advice from AJ *brofist*.  It's my favorite class.  I don't play the "mage" class often but this one is great.  Cannot stress how much I love the Locust though.  That gun makes this class.  In ME1, this class is pretty tough though.

Vanguard

Yeah, things go boom.

I'm gonna cut straight to the chase, sorry Chase.  This class is absolutely overpowered in ME3.  Charge has a cooldown time of roughly 2 seconds but recharges your shields.  Nova uses up the shield but has 0 cooldown.  So...Charge-Nova-Charge-Nova-win.   You are basically invincible in ME3.  It's stupid.

This class is mostly the tank version of a biotic.  I know I said earlier that the Infiltrator is the "ninja" class but this one makes far more sense.  They can't take too much damage even though it SEEMS better than an Adept.  One vanguard character in multiplayer, the N7 Slayer, is an ACTUAL ninja.  Sword and all.  (It's basically like playing as Kai Leng).

What I played:  I played as a Vanguard my first time through.  It sort of ruined me on ME3 when I found the OP exploit early but ME3 was a lot better with every other class I played.

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A bit off topic, but Mass Effect was never very balanced.  By the time ME3 rolled around, each class was so into their own thing, that some broke the game while others, like the Adept, made things more difficult than they needed to be.  This is okay though because many players could have drastically different opinions just on the gameplay, forget story for a second.  Once ME3 hit, the combat was basically a Gears of War clone but with space magic.  I am, 100%, okay with this.

Also, the unbalanced nature of the classes would have been a HUGE problem if multiplayer was competitive.  Multiplayer was co-op horde mode only though, so it didn't really matter EXCEPT when some idiot Vanguard keeps charging off to the other side of the map and getting him/herself killed.  "We are supposed to defend this point idiot. Why are you getting mad nobody came to revive you when you're fucking around in bum-fuck Egypt?"

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What do you think of the classes?  One you love?  One you hate?  Hit me up on Twitter.

Why the Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 is the Best Final Level in Video Game History.

This should be obvious but spoiler warning for Mass Effect 2.

Way back in January, I wrote that the suicide mission at the end of Mass Effect 2 is the greatest "level" in video game history while only providing one paragraph for why.   Well, I also hinted at that topic being covered in more depth so, here you go.  Why the suicide mission from Mass Effect 2 is the best level in video game history (You: "YES JASON, I read the title").

The suicide mission is the centerpiece to the entire game.  Nearly half of the actions taken in this game, outside of the first 15 minutes, is to build up a squad of the finest soldiers in the galaxy to take on a mission nobody fully believes they will survive.  This game is yet another of the dozens (hundreds?) of fictional stories that take inspiration from Kirosawa's masterpiece, The Seven Samurai. Just like Mass Effect 2, that excellent film has a final battle that it spends most of its run time building up too.  There is a reason so much fiction copies it.  That movie is routinely in top 10 films ever made lists and usually the only foreign one.

The other half of the game is based on establishing the squads loyalty, resolving any loose ends they may have, before possibly dying on this impossible mission.  It helps build up the suspense and tension of what the final mission is going to be like.  There is also a few Collector missions thrown in there too which tend to be a bit harder.  That final section of Horizon is rough.  The Collector ship mission has a horror game feel to it at first and I love it too.  The Reaper IFF mission was the hardest mission in the game in my opinion and I was woefully under prepared for it the first time through.

This is punctuated by a near invincible villain named Harbinger, who can ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL......whoa.  Sorry, I just blacked out for a moment.  Also, I have a weird obsession with human DNA all of a sudden.

I forgot to ask Javik in ME3 if Prothean blood is made of lava.

Anyway, the game builds up the stakes for the final mission. Collector missions establish the threat you are going up against, and the excellent characters constantly give insights of determination, support, fear, and uncertainty as you build up to the final showdown.  The stage for a final mission could not have been built better.  I am seriously having a hard time trying to think of another game that did this concept this well.  I'm sure another RPG has done this before....right?

As for the suicide mission itself, it's absolutely amazing.  It blends cutscenes and gameplay beautifully.  The initial Reaper "jet fighter" attack is entirely dependent on the upgrades made to the Normandy. Then you have a boss fight in the hanger, sort of, with one of those fighters which is the 2nd weakest part of the mission.  You have to fight it with heavy weapons, making most previous big fights moot as you are restricted to one form of combat.  THIS...IS...FINE!  I don't mind having to do things differently.  The only problem with the fight is how hard it is for stupid reasons.  The Reaper fighter has absurdly good aim and the high ground....and it's significantly faster.  It's not bad, it's more annoying than anything.

After a cutscene of taking down the Collector ship, the decisions begin.  This is so cool to do in a video game, particularly an RPG.  Every member of the crew is "involved" even if they are not a part of your party.  Who you have lead the 2nd party is important (I chose Garrus 1st time).  Who you send into the vent, who should be a tech specialist, is also important (I chose Tali).  Fail at these decisions and squadmates will die.

Here is a chart.  No cheating Randy.  Click on the picture to enlarge.

The fight during the vent crawl is pretty intense.  You have a time limit to vent heat from the, uh, vents so that the tech specialist doesn't burn to death.  At the same time, you are fighting waves of Collectors, some of which are beefed up as Harbinger.

Then, the decisions get harder.  If you saved the crew (I did not on my first playthrough), you have to choose a squadmate to escort them back to the Normandy.  It's very easy to get Mordin killed here.  Mordin is the ideal person to send, otherwise, you need to keep him with Shepard to keep him alive or have a really loyal 2nd team at the end.  I got lucky (I chose Mordin 1st time).  But it doesn't end there as you have to pick a team 2 leader again (still Garrus), and a biotic specialist to put up a biotic shield against the Collector swarm.  This is relatively tough because you have 5 biotics on your team, excluding a potentially biotic Shepard.  I stressed on this one, trying to decide if Samara or Jack was better for it on my first playthrough.  Later I learned, EITHER are solid (I chose Jack, if you care).

I can't help but think Jack is just Sci-Fi Sinead O'Connor

I am surprised anybody failed these decisions to be honest.  Dialogue is important here.  When they say you NEED a tech specialist to send into the vents, why would somebody send Grunt?  At least the biotic field decision helped the player by limiting the choices but shouldn't you know something about these characters by now?  Why would you choose the limited biotics of Jacob, Miranda and especially Thane who never talked about his biotics.  Samara is obviously a good choice and Jack is a straight up OBVIOUS choice.  Were these people not listening when the game was talking about her being the most powerful human biotic they have ever seen?

That said, the decision of who to escort the crew back was vague.  I'm not gonna lie, after thinking it over, the only reason I chose Mordin was because I love him and it seemed like an obvious video game freebie save.  I IMMEDIATELY regretted it, thinking I needed somebody hardcore like Grunt because obviously Bioware wouldn't be that cliche...would they?  (They were).

Regardless of good or bad decisions, it is an amazing experience to see a video game's final level deliver on its promises.  The actual fight in the biotic field is tense and one of the few times I still die on this mission.  The fight on the moving platforms afterwards, which has a killer speech Shepard gets to deliver beforehand, is good when the music kicks up holy shit!

YYYYYYYYEAH.

The soundtrack really takes it up a notch.  While it's probably not THE best final level theme ever, it's definitely in my top 10, possibly top 5.  The theme is simultaneously epic and most importantly, desperate.  If I were ever to go out in a blaze of glory, I would be rocking this in my headphones.  I'd get pumped up for most of the track, then at 2:47, I'd start my dirtbike.  I would rev my engines some and let the epicness take over.  Then I would take off but I would time my jump over the Grand Canyon at approximately 3:44 so that the horns kick in just as I come off the ramp.  Then land, and let the horns take me away into their sweet embrace........

Uh...anyway, you know a final mission gets it really, really, right when even the music is damn near perfect.  Even with other final themes I may like a bit more, this one truly captures the tone and emotion of the final level.   I was so into it my first playthrough, I swear the music made me see the gameplay in slow-EPIC-motion.  It's hard to explain but it was amazing.

Even with the best final level in video game history, it's still flawed with an awkward boss fight against a giant Terminator...er, "Human Reaper" who dies in two hits from the nuke gun. It took me until my 2nd playthrough until I even noticed that Harbinger and other Collectors attack you when it's at half health.  Credit to the games friendly AI for keeping them off me though!  Well done Jack and Grunt.

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This mission capped my favorite game of all time, and it is my favorite largely because of the suicide mission itself.  It's kind of weird that this game ended sooooo fantastically while the trilogy ended questionably.  (See post coming soon).  Although, Empire Strikes Back is by far the best Star Wars movie, so it makes sense that the middle Mass Effect game is the best.  Mass Effect 2, and the entire trilogy, saved my love of games singlehandedly (another post coming soon).

The suicide mission has a sense of closure while also leading into one of the best epilogues ever with a fleet of Reapers bearing down on Earth.  You think you just won this incredible battle?  Think again.  Shit is going to hit the fan in Mass Effect 3!  It's going to be awesome!  (And 99% of it was awesome).

But, the suicide mission had the build up, an entire games worth of build up which is rare in video games, and the level itself hits on all counts, boss fight be damned.  And that's the thing, without the rest of the game, this final level probably isn't so great.  But it is the best final level in video game history simply because it is the only one that I know of that took an entire game to make special.  

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Follow my personal Suicide Mission here.

If you missed my Top 5 Favorite Mass Effect Characters, it is here.