Can someone explain the Mass Effect controversy to me as someone who will never play the series?
I'll give it a go, sure.
Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3 did a crazy thing. Every choice you made would somehow be reflected in a lter game. Especially the bigger choices. Of note, there are a few scenes in the first game that make certain outcomes impossible to get in the third game if you mess them up. And then Mass Effect 2 had it so every single party member, including Shepard could die in the final mission. (Obviously, Shepard dying can't be transferred to ME3). And so after two games of setup. One where you defeat the Vanguard of the Reapers, one where you discover the Reapers' plan, and finally the all out war of the Reapers, expectations were pretty high.
And for most of the game Mass Effect 3 delivered. You ran into old friends, missions changed dramatically depending on what you did in the previous games. There's a whole part here getting the good ending requires several things to happen in ME2, and generally Mass Effect 3 was fantastic... up until the "Priority: Earth" mission. In which you fight zombies in mid-apocalyptic London, because that's clearly what you'd want to end on in a space opera. But still while kind of meh, it would not be enough to ruin the game.
But the part after London... You make a mad dash for a teleporter to get to the final area, where you take a bad hit from a cannon the size of an aircraft carrier, but you get to the Citadel, burned, but alive. You talk the bad guy into suicide, or rudely interrupt the conversation with a gunshot. And then... the Star Child ruins everything. You rise on a floating platform to meet a glowing child who tells you that you win, but you have to choose how you win. Depending on how much you played multiplayer and what you managed to pull off in this game, you get the following options:
- Destroy the Reapers (This will also destroy any and all AIs in the entire galaxy, so the whole making peace with an AI race you pulled off earlier? Nope!)
- Control the Reapers (Placing yourself as God-Emperor of the galaxy, but you have to die to do it.)
- Synthesis (Rewrite the DNA of every creature in the galaxy, and their hats, to make everyone partly synthetic and organic. Which is a gross violation of everyone's right to their own bodies and basically what the Reaper Star Child wants you to do.)
Note that
none of these endings are affected by anything but the points you have scored in Mass Effect 3. And that can be done entirely in multiplayer. No actions in the previous games affect it, no specific actions in the current game affects it, and the big difference is the color of the explosion when you blow up/dominate the Reapers.
And no, I am not kidding, these are ALL the endings of the original Mass Effect 3:
There was a free update released later that added a fourth ending, though: Shoot the Star Child. The Reapers win.
Oh, and the final shot of the entire Mass Effect Trilogy? It's a text box reminding you to buy DLC. You know, just in case you were expecting anything great.
The entire trilogy is basically ruined by what happens in the last 30 minutes of the final game. Nothing you did matters. Not a single choice you made affects the ending.