User blog comment:Markurion/Extended Cut or Prolonged torture?/@comment-2174252-20120411182357

When I finished the game four weeks ago, I remember going to the forums and, looking for answers, overwhelmed with anguish and confusion, trying to find out what had I done wrong in my play through to so royally screw up my finale. I remember describing my state of mind as feeling EMPTY. Not until I spoke on the phone with a close friend I realized how much this game had affected me. She immediately noticed it in my voice and asked…”What’s wrong with you?...Is everything OK?”...At first I was surprised and then I was embarrassed to admit and explain that I felt depressed because of a dammed video game. To that point I wasn’t aware of how much emotionally invested I was in the Mass Effect universe.

It’s been four weeks now. I was hoping against hope that BioWare would stand by its more ardent fans and make things right. From their statements, it is clear by now that they never had anything in the works to turn the ending around and make it into a grand finale. Obviously they were unprepared and caught by surprise by the monumental backlash against the ending. Now they are working in an Extended Cut to provide “clarification” and “closure”. They are adamant about not changing the ending, so no clever twist, no indoc theory, just clarification and closure. I will download the DLC as it’s free to see what they mean by “clarification” and “closure” but, given recent history, I’m not keeping my hopes up. I don’t know if anything BioWare would come up with will erase the disappointment and despair of the moments after I finished the game last month. I think the damage has been done. I’m not emotionally invested in it anymore.

I am a pragmatic man, so I’m not gonna seat here and say “I will never buy anything from BioWare again”. Who knows, they might rediscover themselves and come up with something real good in the future. That being said however, one thing is for certain: I will never buy pre-order again, from them or anyone else. I will do what I always did before: wait until the game comes out and check the fan reviews, not the critics, but the fans. Then, if I deem it worth it, I’ll buy the game, probably at a discounted price.

Oh… one more thing: Unless they come clean and disclose what really happened that caused the inclusion of that disconnected ending in the game, I will never go anywhere near anything that Mac Walters and/or Casey Hudson are associated with.