The third installment of Mass Effect is no doubt the most controversial—in many ways, it built the foundation of geek entitlement that led to the No Man’s Sky debacle. As the controversy primarily revolves around the ending of the game, we’ll come to that in due time. As the King in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland says, it’s best to begin at the beginning.

The opening sequence of Mass Effect 3 gives us no time to breathe. The Reaper invasion is in full force, and they’re already ripping the universe apart. Shepard’s quest for the duration of Mass Effect 3 is to rally the races of the galaxy into a united front to keep intergalactic Armageddon at bay. After a lot of killin’ and bangin’, Shepard trudges into the final moments of the game alone where they must sacrifice themselves for one final decision that will shape the fate of the universe forever.

For the bulk of Mass Effect 3, the gameplay, graphics and characterizations are even more impeccable than Mass Effect 2. The reason that Mass Effect 3 doesn’t quite live up to the bar that its predecessor set does ultimately come down to those final moments. All three of the possible endings did feel a bit same-y, which irked many fans who were expecting more variety in their conclusions, filling the conduits of social media with frothy nerd rage. The outcry became so volatile that the developers actually went back to retool and release another series of possible endings. Little did they know that this one act of fan service would help contribute to the rat’s nest of geek entitlement that we loathe today.

Mass Effect 3: What’s Worse—Angry Reapers or Angry Nerds?

Throughout the life of the trilogy, Mass Effect has been great at setting the bar higher for each installment. From a gameplay perspective, Mass Effect 3 is superior to its predecessor, but it also manages to feel bigger from a narrative perspective. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard had to get a diverse squad of scientists, soldiers and assassins ready to take on an unbeatable foe. Shepard’s task in Mass Effect 3 is just slightly larger—they have to get a diverse coalition of alien races ready to take on a legion of unbeatable foes.

It’s not easy getting all of these different races to play nice with each other. Races like the Krogan are still understandably pissed off at the Salarians and Turians because they created a bioweapon that drastically increased the Krogan infant mortality rate. It was an executive decision, since the Krogan’s reproductive speed and their genetic desire for combat and bloodshed threatened to overrun the galaxy. It’s complex racial issues like this that make the stakes of Shepard’s different missions so high.

The racial prejudices at play throughout Mass Effect 3 do happen to take place in an intergalactic, sci-fi setting, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t ring true for those of us consigned to planet Earth. Again, the narrative is great at portraying the different perspectives at play when a racial conflict erupts. Like all good sci-fi, these different racial issues help to illustrate what Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “the danger of a single story.” It’s Shepard’s job to convince each race to overcome their propensity to reduce the others to a single story so they can present a united front against an enemy that wants everyone dead in equal measure.

Despite telling a story that emphasizes racial tolerance and ideological flexibility, Mass Effect 3 became the target of much controversy because it didn’t align with many fans’ expectations. I’m not saying that these fans’ complaints are totally unfounded. The narrative structure of Mass Effect 3 left quite a few loose ends that we were hoping to get resolved, and the multiple endings didn’t feel that much different from one another. For me, it was a lot like the final season of Dexter. As a whole, I would call Dexter one of the best TV shows that I’ve ever seen. But that final episode was complete garbage and it pissed me off. Despite this terrible finale, I as a fan had to respect the fan/creator relationship. I will forever call bullshit on the last episode of Dexter, but I still love it as a whole.

When something like this happens with video games, it becomes a different beast. Dexter was on whether you were a fan of the show or not. If the ending sucked, what did you care? Fans of a video game franchise, on the other hand, have actually invested their hard-earned money into that franchise. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with expressing your frustration about a lackluster ending to a property that you cared about, especially if you’ve put some money down yourself. However, organizing a Facebook campaign to unite equally pissed fans under one banner in order to pressure the developers into busting their asses for a “better” ending is completely off base. The fact that BioWare eventually caved to these demands only empowered these actions, thus fueling any and all of the subsequent nerd rage freakouts (See No Man’s Sky, Ghostbusters, Captain America, et al.). It’s something that caused birthmoviesdeath.com writer Devin Faraci to declare Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s Misery the patron saint of fandom, and I couldn’t agree more.

Andromeda

I’ve been reading some mixed reviews of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I’ve been reading about plenty of players who have lampooned everything from the character animation to the dialogue. They could be totally right, but I can’t help but feel this early access is either opening old wounds for some, or an excuse to drink the hater-ade for others. Regardless, it’s safe to say that Mass Effect fans are still divided. It sounds like Andromeda probably won’t win you back if you’ve turned your back on the franchise, but those who are just itching for a chance to dig back into a well-designed sci-fi universe will likely be pleased.

Since agendas abound when writing about a hornets’ nest like Mass Effect, I’m not planning on investing too much credibility in any pre-reviews. For now, all I will say on the subject is that Mass Effect has my pixelated heart, and I’ll be gazing longingly at my mailbox like Rose gazes at Jack as he stands at the top of the dining room stairs in Titanic. 

Alien: Resurrection is kind of a crappy movie, but there’s a bit of dialogue between Johner and Ripley that I absolutely love:

Johner: So, I hear you ran into these things before?
Ripley: Yeah.
Johner: What did you do?
Ripley: I died.

This bleak discourse captures the whole tone of Mass Effect 2, in which Shepard and their entire ship gets ripped apart during the game’s opening cinematic. You read that right—Shepard effing dies at the beginning of the game. Not only that, but the only reason that there’s a sequel at all is because Shepard gets resurrected by a shady group called Cerberus, which is basically Mass Effect’s version of the alt-right. Just let that sink in—the hero of the story gets killed, only to be resurrected by a group of terrible people so they can take up arms against the creatures that killed them in the first place. How can you not want to see what happens?

It’s the general consensus that if you play only one game in the original trilogy, Mass Effect 2 is your best bet. I completely agree—it’s a nearly perfect blend of sci-fi action, diverse characters, emotional storytelling and intergalactic exploration.

ME2: Suicide Squad if Suicide Squad Didn’t Suck

Like the first game, Shepard recruits teammates (some new, and some from the first game) to accompany them. Unlike the first game, Shepard is leading that team on a suicide mission through the Omega 4 Relay—a journey that no ship has survived. The combat and loot management system received a complete overhaul, effectively removing the vast majority of gripes that I had with the first game. And yes, most of the character roster is totally bangable, a dynamic that also received an influx of tension and emotion.

The first half of the game feels like an intergalactic version of Ocean’s 11—Shepard spends a good chunk of time zipping around the galaxy to recruit a team that is crazy enough to plunge headlong into the abyss. Also like Ocean’s 11, it’s very easy to fall in love with every member of Shepard’s crew. In order to get the most desirable ending, you’ve got to join each individual crew member on what’s called a “loyalty mission,” which essentially helps the crew come to the conclusion that Shepard is someone that they can follow into certain death. Not only are these missions crucial to a perfect ending, they’re damn fun to play. Each mission gives the player a personal look at the events that made your team who they are, and they’re written with the hard-hitting punch of an episode of True Detective.

Adult-centered storytelling like this makes romantic encounters in Mass Effect feel very at home within the narrative. Up until this point, I’ve probably made it sound like romance and sex in Mass Effect is purely tawdry and cosmetic, but the ability to shoop with one or more characters actually adds a lot of nuance to the game’s story. The options for male same-sex romances weren’t as inclusive as they became in the later Dragon Age games, so take that as you will, but it was surprising how organic each different relationship felt. I credit this to the game’s stellar writing and voice acting, which made any and all of Shepard’s romantic pursuits feel like natural extensions of the story.

One of the most powerful uses of this narrative-driving sexual content comes from a character named Jack. She’s your basic emotionally damaged telekinetic woman with a history of violence, and she’s not a huge fan of being fully clothed—when we first meet her, she’s wearing prison pants and a few strategically-placed straps. At first, it’s easy to write her character design off as some pervy, behind-the-scenes machinations, but the more Shepard talks with her, the more we see that her character is perfectly visualized. Jack is a badass, self-empowered woman who just happens to be into casual sex—but if the player succumbs to Jack’s initial sexual advances, she ends up resenting them for it later on. However, if the player sees through the fact that Jack uses sex as a way to cope with her own personal issues, the two can actually pursue a more meaningful relationship.

Oh, and it’s also possible for Shepard to get straight up murdered by banging a character named Morinth, who is essentially an Asari sex vampire. So, there’s  something for all audiences, really.

Outside of romantic relationships, the wary professional relationship that Shepard has with the Illusive Man (voiced by Martin Sheen, no less!) is a fascinating exploration of moral ambiguity. The Illusive Man leads the extremist human rights group Cerberus. Shepard’s motivations for helping Cerberus stem from the fact that they’re the group that salvaged Shepard’s body and spent a fortune bringing it back to life. As the game progresses, it becomes easier to interpret Cerberus as the one organization in the galaxy that actually believes in the Reaper invasion, but it doesn’t change their history or reputation.

The alt-right comparison comes from the fact that Cerberus maintains a xenophobic ideology toward other alien races, but I also think Mass Effect 2 helps shed some light on why people choose to walk that path. Granted, I think that today’s alt-right largely consists of garbage humans, but working with garbage humans in Mass Effect 2 kind of lets the player step back and focus on the human part of that equation. And, as we’ll see after delving into Mass Effect 3, xenophobic ideologies tend to result in self-destruction.

Next week: Mass Effect 3, racial tension, and the dangers of geek entitlement (that ending tho!).

In my longtime tenure as a Mass Effect fan, I’ve often envisioned the conversation that took place between creators Casey Hudson and Drew Karpyshyn after they wrapped up their wildly successful Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise. They had just created two of the best Star Wars games of all time, and their unfiltered access to the LucasArts library had no doubt left them with more than a few fascinating ideas.

I imagine them speaking back and forth about what made their work with KOTOR so special, until Hudson simply says, “You know what? We could do that. We could do Star Wars with our own planets, aliens, characters—” at which point Karpyshyn holds up a finger and asks, “These characters—can they bang each other?” Hudson simply smiles and nods his head. At this point in my dramatization, both Hudson and Karpyshyn leap into the air for a high five as an explosion of stars and rainbows erupts behind them.

It’s been ten years since the first Mass Effect game was released on the Xbox 360, and now, BioWare is bringing players back to the Mass Effect universe just like Bill Paxton (may he rest in peace) brought Rose back to Titanic. The next chapter is Mass Effect: Andromeda, and it’s scheduled for release on March 21 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Whether you’re new to the franchise or a full-fledged N7 operative, join me here each week to get psyched up for Andromeda with some nostalgic rehashing of the greatest video game trilogy of all time.

Mass Effect 1: Rise of the Intergalactic Underdogs

From the get go, Mass Effect reached out and extended a brave middle finger to the sci-fi video game tropes that had bogged down the genre for decades. Mass Effect is refreshingly free from roided out ex-cons with improbable size proportions (Gears of War), faceless supermen that exist only to gun down everything in their path (Halo) and female characters that are fetishized as prizes to be ogled after a hard day of testosterone-drenched slaughter (pretty much every game ever). Instead, we got one of the few truly cinematic gaming experiences of the Xbox 360’s life cycle—not to mention the fact that players from all walks of life can find something relatable in Mass Effect’s operatic, character-driven story.

In the opening moments of 2007’s Mass Effect, we learn that humanity has discovered giant, transdimensional gateways called Mass Relays, which manipulate space and time to transport ships from one point of the galaxy to another—they end up calling this process mass effect. Through the use of the Mass Relays, humanity learns that there is a bigger galaxy out there—one that has been operating just fine on its own, completely unaware that human beings were a thing.

The game takes place just after humanity is granted an embassy on the Citadel, which is the intergalactic hub of politics and culture. At best, the galaxy’s political powers consider humanity to be a bunch of impulsive upstarts, at worst, they don’t consider them at all. The player takes control of Shepard (who can be generated as a male or female character), a proficient operative in the human-controlled Earth Systems Alliance. The Citadel Council offers Shepard a spot with the Spectres, special operatives that work on behalf of the Council. As the first human to ever join the Spectres, Shepard becomes a symbol of humanity’s ascendance in the political ranks of the galaxy.

Shepard’s first assignment is to track down and arrest Saren, a rogue Specter who is actually little more than a puppet to an even more dastardly evil out beyond the stars. Along the way, Shepard recruits a diverse roster of intergalactic outcasts, and their relationships—romantic or otherwise—span the life of the trilogy. Throughout the series, the team’s primary struggle is to prevent the invasion of the Reapers, giant, sentient warships that exterminate organic life every 50,000 years. On paper, it sounds pretty generic, but it’s all just an elaborate backdrop for what is essentially a character-focused drama.

Mass Effect’s treatment of the human race is unique to most sci-fi tales. The game casts humanity itself as an intergalactic underdog, which perfectly sets the stage for Shepard’s work as a Spectre. When the Council shrugs off Shepard’s knowledge of the Reaper invasion, it’s completely believable. After all, humans are still sitting at the political kiddie table with the squat, mouth-breathing Volus and the emotionless, quadrupedal Elcor. Shepard’s dialogue options come heavily weighted with racial tension, giving the player the choice between tolerance and isolationism with nearly every conversation. This dichotomy helps create a close relationship among the player, Shepard and humanity. Every victory we make as a Spectre counts as one more thing that humans are doing right—but it’s ultimately your choice as to whether you want to be a dick about it.

Even though going back and playing through Mass Effect now is a janky experience—all the human characters appear to have perpetual walleye vision, and I do not miss the loot management system—it remains a fantastic entry point into the universe that Hudson and Karpyshyn have created.

Next week: Mass Effect 2, the alt-right and hot, narrative-driving sex.

The latest trailer for “Mass Effect Andromeda” is here and it looks amazing. Check it out and then play the first three games until the this one comes out.

“Mass Effect Andromeda” releases 2017.

The title says it all. This is meant to help you get through a Friday. This is a pretty good look at the possible problems with choice based RPGs. There is pretty amazing use of the Mass Effect menu system in the episode as well. Enjoy!

If you’re still feeling down, you need to watch Episode 1 as well. “Solid Snake Gets Cancer.” Making light of medical tragedy generally gets the day moving in the right direction.