Thoughts on Mass Effect 3's Ending

Let me start off by saying that Mass Effect is my favorite modern-day series in any medium, including books, television, movies, and obviously video games. I fell in love with the Mass Effect universe after playing the first game in 2008 shortly after it was released. Bioware did a phenomenal job crafting an intricate story that allowed the player to make decisions that could change the outcome of situations throughout the game. The back story on the characters, alien species, human history, technology, etc. was done so well that it really creates a believable setting for the backdrop of the story. I enjoyed the first two games so much that I decided to read all three Mass Effect novels and two of the comic series. I intently awaited the release of Mass Effect 3 and was able to finish it this past week. Much has been made about the ending, so I figured I'd offer my thoughts since I am such a huge fan of the series.

If you don't want anything from the Mass Effect 3 story spoiled, then you should probably stop reading now.

Mass Effect 3, as a whole, was incredible. Huge story arcs that have been touched on through the first three games are able to come to a dramatic close in Mass Effect 3. The genophage is finally cured. The Quarians are able to retake their home world and make peace with the Geth after 300 years as nomads. Cerberus falls. These sequences all provided for some incredibly moving and powerful scenes because the impact of your actions have literally helped billions of people have better lives. You've given hope to entire species. And yet, in the end, it doesn't matter at all.

None of those actions matter because at the end of narrative, you're forced to undo all of that by destroying the Mass Relays. You may defeat the Reapers, but the Citadel is destroyed, and with no Mass Relays, none of those species that helped you in the fight to take Earth back will be able to return home. Nothing in the galaxy will ever be the same.

I could mention all of the incredibly glaring plot holes in the end as well, or bring up lore inconsistencies with the end, or mention how reverting to the Deus ex Machina is a horrible story-telling tactic, or talk about how Bioware promised really varied endings, but really I think my above point is all that's necessary to convey why there is such anger over the ending.

I was fully prepared for Shepard and his crew to die. They were on a mission to stop an unstoppable force that has been undefeated for millions of years. Sacrifices had to be made. But that doesn't mean that Bioware had to tear to shreds the first 100 hours of work in a matter of minutes. It is unsatisfying and leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. I was really looking forward to starting the first Mass Effect shortly after concluding the series so that I could play through all of them consecutively. But after seeing how it ends, I don't really see what the point of putting in all that work knowing that in the end none of it will matter anyways.

Bioware has said that they will provide more closure and clarity as to what exactly happened after the story concluded. Despite what a lot of people think, this does not mean that they are rewriting the end, but instead are providing more content to expand on the conclusion. I honestly think this is the best course of action, as completely rewriting the ending would, no matter how much better the outcome may be, sour the experience even further by knowing they didn't get it right the first time.

There is one saving grace in all of this that, if Bioware confirms, will completely change the way I view the end. I've already tried to take this theory and use it to supplant my initial anger over the final minutes because it does in fact make a lot of sense. Some people are really behind the Indoctrination Theory that states that the last ten minutes of the game happened in Shepard's mind as he fought off indoctrination. There is a lengthy thread on Bioware's social network that goes into detail about the theory, but if you really want to take the time to see what it's all about then check out the following video. It may be lengthy but it's well worth watching for those intrigued by the ending or who find themselves unsatisfied.

If the Indoctrination Theory is correct and that is really what Bioware is going for at the end, then it is quite possibly one of the most brilliant things ever written. There is a lot of evidence to support it (enough to make a 20 minute video), but there also are some good reasons to show why this is probably not what was intended with the end, the biggest being that the Reapers would have not actually been defeated following Shepard's mental victory. But if it is true, then Bioware really dropped the ball by not making it more clear that it was a twist ending. So either way, Bioware is to blame for not properly executing the end of the final chapter.

I will conclude by saying that I'm really looking forward to seeing how Bioware handles the fallout from the controversy over the ending. I'm anticipating whatever content they're working on and will be faithful to support Mass Effect until they make the last bit of DLC for the series, and really hope that they do a good job of fixing the issues people have with the end since there certainly are more questions than answers.

Twitter 101

Twitter has exploded. There are a lot of new users or users who don't really understand the basics of the social network, so here are a few common misconceptions or misunderstood aspects of Twitter for your viewing pleasure:

1) Starting a tweet with "@username" will not be seen by a lot of your followers.

I've learned over the past year or so that not many people know this. Starting a tweet with "@username" is meant to be a reply to someone, so the only people who will see the tweet in their timeline are the people following both you and the person you are tweeting at. If you didn't know that then you're not alone; some social networking managers for large companies don't even know this. Take for instance ESPN's College Game Day account that has more than 200,000 followers. The following tweet from a few months back is an example of what I am talking about:

Chris Fowler has around 125,000 followers. Based on those numbers alone, that means that at least 75,000 people following College Game Day didn't see that tweet, and that would only be if all 125k of Fowler's followers were following CGD as well. So if you really want to start a tweet with someone's username when it's not a reply, put a punctuation mark before it so that it's visible to all of your followers.

2) Don't beg celebrities for a retweet.

Why? Why do people do this? Do you get win something for getting retweeted by begging? Scott Van Pelt seems to wonder the same thing:

3) If you're a celebrity, don't retweet people begging for retweets.

If celebrities didn't oblige the beggers by retweeting them, then I wouldn't have had to make rule #2. You didn't get 1,000,000+ followers because everyone wanted to read all the tweets from people begging you for retweets.

Riley Cooper poked fun at the retweet beggers a while back after Chandler Parsons had retweeted a few people:

Ok, now back to actual Twitter rules.

4) If you have your tweets protected, no one else can read them unless you approved them to follow you, even if you include a username in the tweet.

I don't really understand why someone would lock their tweets in the first place, but I'm not going to discuss that. Basically, if you're a preteen girl who's parents allowed you to have a twitter account as long as it is protected, all of your tweets at Justin Bieber are going unnoticed by him not because he's ignoring you, but because your tweets are protected and he can't see them. Likewise, if you're not a preteen girl, the same rules apply. If your tweets are protected and you decide to ask a reporter like Adam Schefter a question about your team, he won't be able to see it which obviously means you won't be getting an answer.

5) You can't retweet locked accounts.

This is against the Twitter Terms of Service, which is yet another part of Twitter that users with protected tweets miss out on.

6) You can tweet via text messages.

Sending an SMS to 40404 will tweet from your account as long as you added your number to the settings. That means that if you are without a smartphone you can still tweet on the go.

7) If you have an iPhone, Tweetbot rules all.

Don't ask questions. If you use Twitter on your iPhone, then you need to be using Tweetbot. That is all.

Why You Shouldn't Buy the Verizon iPhone 4

It's been a long time since I posted in this joke of a blog that I spawned however long ago it was that I did. That aside, I'm back for probably a very brief time to offer my thoughts on the Verizon iPhone 4.

Basically I'm here to lay out some solid points as to why you SHOULDN'T be running to your Verizon store on Thursday to finally experience Apple's smartphone on a network that isn't AT&T. I'm not here to argue about which is better and will not be discussing any of the arguments about Verizon allowing you to actually make calls on your iPhone, or AT&T allowing you to surf the web while talking, etc. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to tell you that you need to contain your excitement and keep that money you're shaking at Verizon and Apple in your pocket.

So why should you not get the Verizon iPhone 4? Well let's say you get it. You walk into a Verizon store on Thursday and pick up your shiny new, top-of-the-line iPhone 4. It's beautiful. It's glorious. It's magical. It's revolutionary. Yada yada yada. But do you want to know how long it will be top-of-the-line and revolutionary?

Approximately 4 months.

Why, you ask? Because Apple will be releasing it's 5th generation iPhone this summer, most likely in June like they always do. So your lovely new phone will be outdated in 120 short days.

"I don't care about having the latest device or technology and could care less about it being outdated in 4 months. I just want it now" you say to me.

That's fine. I understand that not everyone has to have the newest and latest gadgets. But what's REALLY gonna suck is NEXT summer, in 2012, when Apple announces the 6th generation iPhone that will obviously be better than the 5th gen version, which obviously will be better than the iPhone 4 you'll still have in your pocket. Since you'll be locked into a 2 year contract that only allows you to upgrade every 2 years, you'll have the iPhone 4 for a full 8 months after the 6th gen version has been released. And at that point Apple will not be supporting the iPhone 4 with software updates as they only do so for two years. We've seen this recently with the iPhone 3G that came out in the summer of 2008. While it technically runs the latest iOS 4.x, most of the marquee features in iOS 4, like multitasking and background images, are not supported on the iPhone 3G. It lost full support for software updates that the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 have been receiving.

Perhaps for the technologically-challenged people I lost you with that last bit. Basically it comes down to this: don't buy technology 8 months into a product cycle that sees a new annual refresh/upgrade of the product. It just doesn't end well. You really want that iPhone in your hand RIGHT NOW. But in 4 months you'll regret it. And if you don't regret it then you'll certainly regret it 16 months from now when your phone will REALLY be outdated and you have to live with it for 8 more months, at which point it will probably turn into a full year so that you don't make the same mistake again by not waiting. You'll be thinking to yourself "if only I had waited those 4 short months and gotten the iPhone 5 (or whatever they're gonna call it)."

In the end, I think this flowchart sums it up pretty well:




So with that I have one thing to say: Happy Waiting!

A Word for Brian Kelly

"I feel like we need redemption from the way we played Saturday. I don't want to walk out of here with the taste of the way we played … as the last time I coached a game here at the University of Florida. And I don't want to leave this coaching staff short of a coach, either. I owe it to this coaching staff. I owe it to the University of Florida, and I owe it to the players to finish out." -Charlie Strong

That's how a coach is supposed to go out. Take notes, Brian Kelly.

"The U" Gets Chomped

Here's an interesting little piece of news out of Gainesville this weekend. While everyone was in Hoover, Alabama for SEC Media Days worrying about Tim Tebow's virginity, trying to solve the mystery of who left Tebow off the preseason All-SEC ballot, or discussing Nick Saban possibly having to wear LSU colors for a movie role, UF had a high school football camp on Friday Night appropriately called "Friday Night Lights." While the biggest news is that Urban Meyer landed running back recruit Mack Brown, who committed to the Gators after the camp ended, another noteworthy story involves Jacksonville native Tavadis Glenn. Glenn went to Terry Parker last year and will be attending Raines in the fall. The DT prospect has already committed to Miami but decided to go to the UF camp anyways. At one point during the camp, Glenn threw up "the U" in celebration of a play. The UF coaching staff took note of this and quickly let him know that he could watch from the sidelines for the rest of the camp, effectively booting him from the field.

A lot of Miami people are upset about this. However, if a recruit who has already made a solid commitment to UF were to attend a Miami camp, do you not think the same reaction would come from Miami if that recruit did the chomp in the camp? It's one thing for a player to get excited and taunt some of the other players who he's playing with, but it's another thing to taunt everyone at the camp, including the staff that is putting the camp on. You just can't do that in the midst of the Swamp and expect for there not to be backlash. I'm sure Glenn will fit right in with his future Miami teammates.

Buy a car, get an AK-47

You've seen them before in your own hometown. Test drive a car, get a Florida Gators window flag. Buy an SUV, get a set of golf clubs. Purchase a brand new sedan, get a free iPod. But perhaps the greatest promotion I've ever seen is happening at Max Motors in Butler, MO, just outside of Kansas City. Buy a car, get a free AK-47. Yes, you read that right. If you buy a new car at Max Motors, you receive a $450 voucher to take to your local gun store and redeem it for an AK-47 assault rifle. The best part about this promotion is that it's clearing out his inventory. He told Fox News that he was "going to run out of cars" because so many people are buying from him. Within the next 2 days he has 19 people flying in to buy a car from him simply because he's giving away guns with his cars. In the midst of an economic recession that is crushing American car dealers, Max Muller has found the solution: arm people when they buy a car.

Whatever happened to swine flu?

Remember a few months ago when the media and Joe Biden had everyone fearing the H1N1 virus? We were told that it was going to turn into a pandemic of epic proportions, that you shouldn't leave your house without a face mask on, and that you should prepare for the worst. Schools were going to shut down, businesses were going to close, and an already ailing economy was going to come to a standstill as people stayed home to try to stay healthy.

So what happened to all that? Within only 2 weeks or so the media moved on and Joe Biden started flying on airplanes again. There have been only 5 fatalities in the U.S. because the virus reacts to Tamiflu, the current seasonal flu vaccine. More people have died from the seasonal flu this year than from swine flu and people no longer are afraid of the "pandemic." Just another example of overblown hype from the media. Most likely Michael Jackson's death will follow suit to the swine flu story; within another week or so no one will care.