User blog comment:Garhdo/Extended Cut - opinions?/@comment-77.8.58.113-20120627044144/@comment-2076032-20120627052237

1) Space magic. Bioware could have done anything they wanted to do with their endings, they could kill everyone off, no problem BUT everything has to be in the limits of their own established rules. And in Mass Effect there is no magic

Wrong. What's eezo? I mean, I know it explains biotics, but what is it? Does it exist? Are biotics actually possible?

2) Central Conflict. The struggle between organic and synthetic life and the inevitable annihilation was never the central conflict of ME. Yes, there was the Quarian/Geth conflict but this was not the main issue of the whole series yet in the last minutes of the game suddenly this becomes the most important thing. This remains untouched by the EC.

Wrong again. This has been a theme of the story ever since ME1 when you engage the rogue VI on the Citadel. It is apparent in many elements of the game, particularly with Shepard being rebuilt with cybernetics to be an organic-synthetic hybrid. The EC does, indeed, explain it with much more clarity, in the conversation with the Catalyst, and the theme becomes much more apparent when comparing it sci-fi principles introduced by Isaac Asimoc, and both hypothesised and theorised by AI scientists today, including George Takei.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics

Takei talks exclusively about AI "taking over humanity" in order to protect us from ourselves, as a theory of AI logic. In order to overcome this, our ultimate evolution would be to combine with the machines, and "synthesise." The EC covers this brilliantly.

3) Introduction of new integral character. It doesn't really put the writing or the series in a good light if in the last minutes of the story a new character, some can call him new nemesis, is established who changes everything.

Usually, I would say you're right, but in this case it has worked. First of all, it's not really a "character", it's a collective intelligence with no opportunity for background in the story. It doesn't properly fit the deus ex machina bill, because it doesn't really save the day, it is really more of a "shoulder angel," presenting options and their consequences as a function of story. As a feature of the story, and with the EC providing better clarity of the Catalyst's origin, it also helps better explain the reason for the very being of the Reapers, and their purpose.

4) Choice. For many people, excluding me because I feel the above mentioned things were more important, this was the most crucial point. Regardless of all of your choices in the past games you get the same endings.

Wrong. You get different endings. There are three very different outcomes at the end, and if you think about it in terms of story continuation, three very different ways in which galactic civilisation will now proceed. Nevertheless, if people want to complain about their choices not mattering, then perhaps they should be complaining about the whole series - there isn't one single choice that you get to decide on for yourself, but rather, you get the illusion of choice based on a preconceived set of options given to you by the writers of the story. In the end, it's their story, you're just an interactive participant of that story.

The ending was good from the beginning - without the EC, it lacks clarity, but it ends the story well. Many literary experts agree - and I'm not talking about cranky Forbes opinion writers. A bunch of whinging gamers doesn't change that, it just means they lack sci-fi literary taste. Not trying to be rude, but technically, neither was bioware when they gave us the EC instead of telling people "seriously? you have never read an Asimov book? gamers these days - just want everything handed to them." And no, it doesn't take having read an Asimov story to understand this one, it just takes the ability to shift perceptions. I'll admit, if BioWare expected everyone to understand the concepts behind the endings with the originals offered, they were deluding themselves, but that doesn't mean the endings prior to EC were bad. They weren't great, but in terms of sci-fi literature, the story was great. The EC just clarified it, and did a damn good job.