Mass Effect

[chronos]

So... I wrote a thing: “The Meaning of Mass Effect: A Cursory Look at the Themes of the Mass Effect Trilogy”.

In it, I argue why the ending of ME3 was actually good on a conceptual level -- i.e. the writers didn't come out of nowhere with it. It was a good idea that naturally capped the trilogy, and the writers simply botched the execution of it.

And also in it, I argue why Synthesis is the natural ending to the trilogy.

[bronnt]

So... I wrote a thing: “The Meaning of Mass Effect: A Cursory Look at the Themes of the Mass Effect Trilogy”.

In it, I argue why the ending of ME3 was actually good on a conceptual level -- i.e. the writers didn't come out of nowhere with it. It was a good idea that naturally capped the trilogy, and the writers simply botched the execution of it.

And also in it, I argue why Synthesis is the natural ending to the trilogy.

There IS some set-up to the idea of conflict between synthetics and organics. Unfortunately, that's just one out of like 4 major subplots, and not necessarily the most interesting. There's the Genophage subplot which is a complex issue and plenty of reasons to argue for either side, and it ultimately comes down to how much you trust social evolution to keep up with environmental effects. Then there's the Rachni subplot, which asks the same kind of questions that Star Trek asks with the Borg: If we could annihilate an intractable enemy, would it be ethical to do so? There's also the history of the Krogan rebellions and the politics of Cerberus, and none of them were dealt with in any way other than hamfistedly.

Almost everything I've ever wanted to say about this series was said in Shamus Youngs 50-part Mass Effect Retrospective two years ago.

https://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792

He points out that Mass Effect 1 was a complete and coherent story, and then Mass Effect 2 was a hot mess of a plot that had good characters, and then Mass Effect e failed to deliver on any promises either in-universe or out of universe. "Meaningful Choices" needs to matter more than adding 150 points to your War Assets score that you never get to actively use.

[chronos]

So... I wrote a thing: “The Meaning of Mass Effect: A Cursory Look at the Themes of the Mass Effect Trilogy”.

In it, I argue why the ending of ME3 was actually good on a conceptual level -- i.e. the writers didn't come out of nowhere with it. It was a good idea that naturally capped the trilogy, and the writers simply botched the execution of it.

And also in it, I argue why Synthesis is the natural ending to the trilogy.

There IS some set-up to the idea of conflict between synthetics and organics. Unfortunately, that's just one out of like 4 major subplots, and not necessarily the most interesting. There's the Genophage subplot which is a complex issue and plenty of reasons to argue for either side, and it ultimately comes down to how much you trust social evolution to keep up with environmental effects. Then there's the Rachni subplot, which asks the same kind of questions that Star Trek asks with the Borg: If we could annihilate an intractable enemy, would it be ethical to do so? There's also the history of the Krogan rebellions and the politics of Cerberus, and none of them were dealt with in any way other than hamfistedly.

Almost everything I've ever wanted to say about this series was said in Shamus Youngs 50-part Mass Effect Retrospective two years ago.

https://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792

He points out that Mass Effect 1 was a complete and coherent story, and then Mass Effect 2 was a hot mess of a plot that had good characters, and then Mass Effect e failed to deliver on any promises either in-universe or out of universe. "Meaningful Choices" needs to matter more than adding 150 points to your War Assets score that you never get to actively use.

Yeah, Shamus's trilogy retrospective was so great I've read through it twice. I love it! I especially agree with his points about ME2 / ME3 being pulled off the rails by the writers pulling Mary Sue stuff with Cerberus / TIM / Kai Leng plus derailing the trilogy by killing Shepard and inserting the Collectors.

But I think he's wrong about the ME3 ending because he's looking at it from a plot perspective and not a theme perspective. "Organic vs synthetic" is the plot of the Starchild conversation -- plot is action, and "organic vs synthetic" is an explanation for the Reapers' actions. But the theme of the conversation -- the meaning that the audience gets from the story -- is a question along the lines of, "Does all conflict come from misunderstanding, or is it possible for two sides to remain in conflict even if each side perfectly understands what the other wants?". And the existence of the "Synthesis" ending answers that question, even if the player chooses a different ending.

I mean, you wouldn't get that theme from the Starchild conversation if you hadn't played the rest of the game and you were just handed the controller, I get that. It's a complex theme, you can't develop a complex theme in a five minute villain monologue. But the conversation comes in the context of the rest of the trilogy, and the central theme of the series (established back in ME1) was all about conflict, understanding, and trust: the rachni queen on Noveria (do you understand her enough to trust her?), the Thorian on Feros (it's sad that the Thorian refused to trust us), the gambling terminal AI sidequest (it's sad that the AI refused to trust us), the rogue VI sidequest on Luna (it's sad that we killed it, not understanding that it was smart enough to beg for help), Shepard's conversations with Tali about the geth (it's sad that the quarians attacked the geth first, without trying to understand the geth perspective) plus the quarian music at the end of UNC: Geth Incursions (wow, are the geth sentimental about the quarians? maybe we can make peace someday). ME3 grabbed that baton from ME1 and ran with it: Tuchanka (who understands krogan behavior better? Shepard, or the salarians?), Rannoch (the geth want peace, can Shepard make the quarians understand that?), and the final conversation with Starchild (can Shepard understand the Reapers well enough to trust them with a peaceful solution?).

Yeah, those are unrelated plots, but they weren't mashed up together into the same game by accident. They're tied together in the mind of the audience because they're all elaborations on that same central theme, that understanding begets trust and ends conflict. ME1 in particular is best understood through a thematic lens: if you ignore theme, then Feros and Noveria are pointless side stories, and so is the krogan breeding project on Virmire. None of that ties in with the pending Reaper invasion, which is the main plot of ME1. But those side stories are unified by the themes they share, which makes them mean something to the audience instead of feeling like pointless filler. And I think it's fair to say that the writers intended the audience to see the ME1 Reaper invasion plot through that same lens -- to ask themselves at the end of the game, "what the hell do the Reapers want? and is there a way to give it to them without them killing everyone?".

Anyway, yeah, I could go on for days about the trilogy's themes, but you probably get the idea.

[bronnt]

And I think it's fair to say that the writers intended the audience to see the ME1 Reaper invasion plot through that same lens -- to ask themselves at the end of the game, "what the hell do the Reapers want? and is there a way to give it to them without them killing everyone?".

I'm sure it was meant to pique the curiosity of the game's audience, but I'm not sure if they ever planned on giving an answer to it. The answer they did give functions on the kind of insane troll logic you get from a first year creative writing student. It certainly sounds like an idea pulled out of their ass at the last second while functioning under a deadline. Giving NO answer to what the Reapers want and why they're doing these things would be better than the "Dissolving people into organic goo is somehow necessary to make new Reapers (but only spacefaring species)" from ME2 and the "Synthetics always kill organics so we're going to kill organics before they can all die to other synthetics." from Mass Effect 3. Even something as cliche as being permanent robotic berzerkers would have worked better than nonsense.

I get that Synthesis thematically might seem like the "good" ending but it makes no sense. It's freaking gibberish and there's no set-up that such a thing is even realistic or plausible, and it sounds much more like a trap-which is why so many people were drawn to the indoctrination theory-especially because TIL was spouting off about "Controlling" the Reapers as a result of his own indoctrination, and then you get an option to Control them. There's also a lack of a sense of earning this ending since you wouldn't have reached the Cruciple if you hadn't been specifically teleported to it, and if other people hadn't done all the groundwork to get it in place for you.

There's too many problems within the story for me to give it any credit for appropriate theming, especially when the theme is all over the place. At times it's about reconciliation, but other times it's about fighting on even when hope is gone. Sometimes it's about the power of individual choice, and other times it's about how small individuals are in the grand scheme of the galaxy. Thematically the series is all over the place.

[Rodan56]

To be honest, I had already guessed at some kind of circular logic idea from the Reapers after ME2. My theory was a little bit different, but I believed in all honesty that the Reapers felt they were doing organic life a favor.

Forgetting everything you learned in ME3, my belief was this was a sort of forced "Childhood's End" situation. The Reapers saw Organic beings as poor, selfish and self-destructive creatures. Utterly unable to survive in the long term. They killed each other, through war or avarice or just plain neglectful behavior. So the Reapers sought to fix that somehow, give them a purpose beyond petty pursuits of the physical and give them a gift. Something that all organics wanted in the end, power and control. They ascended them into higher beings, into Gods just like them. The process was painful, yes, but in the end they joined something greater than themselves. They were helping organics escape a doomed existence and transcend into a glorious unified purpose.

I guess I was sorta right, but the explanation leaned way too heavily on "we need to save organics from synthetics" and not "we need to save you from yourselves." My idea was the ending would revolve around resolving this key conflict, by proving to the Reapers we could survive, grow and become better without them. The ideal ending in my mind would involve no real final choice of A,B or C. It would rely on multiple choices you made throughout the games, perhaps a final one involving how you resolved the final boss, but ultimately it would be the culmination off all your decisions that would lead to how the ending wrapped up.

I know some people seem to believe the original intent, with either sacrificing all of humanity or killing the Reapers and trying to stop Dark Energy from consuming us all in the future, was a better ending, but that's just the same problem as the one we got. You pick a door and that's it. I'd prefer if the ending was a lot more nuanced than that. It's why I kinda like the Happy Ending Mod as it's the closest thing to my original belief as to how the game would end.

That's how I saw things at least. Now, maybe next time, I'll bother to share why I liked Andromeda for its characters despite agreeing with the general consensus that the rest of the story just wasn't as good.

[chronos]

I'm sure it was meant to pique the curiosity of the game's audience, but I'm not sure if they ever planned on giving an answer to it.

Ah, but here I have to disagree. As Shamus wrote, ME1 is a genre mash-up of optimistic space opera sci-fi and Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The genre conventions of sci-fi require that the villain be defeatable through knowledge -- whether that means understanding its motives, discovering a weakness, or something else. The genre conventions of cosmic horror require that the villain be inevitable -- no matter what you do or what you know, you cannot stop it. The end of ME1 picked a side: it chose the sci-fi ending. The knowledge gained from Vigil on Ilos allowed Shepard and crew to destroy a Reaper and delay the invasion, demonstrating that the Reapers were fallible.

At that point, the writers didn't know why the Reapers did what they did; they hadn't planned that far. But they did know that they'd committed themselves to answering that question by the end of the trilogy.

The answer they did give functions on the kind of insane troll logic you get from a first year creative writing student. It certainly sounds like an idea pulled out of their ass at the last second while functioning under a deadline. Giving NO answer to what the Reapers want and why they're doing these things would be better than the "Dissolving people into organic goo is somehow necessary to make new Reapers (but only spacefaring species)" from ME2 and the "Synthetics always kill organics so we're going to kill organics before they can all die to other synthetics." from Mass Effect 3. Even something as cliche as being permanent robotic berzerkers would have worked better than nonsense.

Oh, don't get me started on the organic goo. ME2 was the worst of the series.

As bad as ME2 was, ME3 had to work within the framework set by it. The Reapers come every 50,000 years (ME1). When the Reapers come, they kill all technologically advanced life (ME1). The Reapers are made of the people they harvest (ME2). Once you're painted into that corner, you have to come up with some explanation. ME1 already demanded that the Reapers have a motive, but ME2 demanded that it be a damn good one.

But why does the nanogoo have to be made from sapient life? Technologically advanced sapient life, no less. If Reapers are made from organic material, why not harvest trees or fish or something that doesn't get angry and fight back?

Well, ME3 rightly concluded that the only way out of that was that something of the host must survive the creation process. A Reaper's mind must in some way contain pieces of the hosts' minds. Like, this was so obvious it wasn't even a plot point, it was just casually put to the audience on Rannoch with Shepard and the Reaper already knowing it was the obvious conclusion from ME2.

So... why do Reapers make themselves from organic nanogoo that somehow contains the mind of the host species?

Do they want the hosts' memories? (Maybe.) Do they want the hosts' culture? (Maybe.) Do they want the hosts' values? (Clearly not.) Do they want the hosts' emotional reactions? (Clearly not.)

Okay, why would an ancient threat from beyond the stars want the culture or collective memories of a lesser, insignificant species?

Preservation is the only thing I can think of, and not just because Starchild said it at the end of the game.

Clearly the execution of the Starchild conversation is flawed, otherwise there wouldn't be this much disagreement on what the conversation meant. But all the pieces are there. Were there as far back as ME2. When Starchild says that the Reapers preserve life in Reaper form, I think it's supposed to play out as a moment of sick realization that the truth was staring you in the face the whole time.

And the reason for that preservation had to be tied in to the plots and themes of the rest of ME3. The big questions of the Tuchanka arc are centered around whether or not the future path of the krogan is understood well enough that the krogan can be trusted. The big questions of the Rannoch arc are centered around whether or not the goals of the geth are understood well enough that the geth can be trusted. The subplot with EDI making self-modifications was centered around understanding and mutual trust between EDI and the crew. The question at the end had to be one of understanding and trust.

I get that Synthesis thematically might seem like the "good" ending but it makes no sense. It's freaking gibberish and there's no set-up that such a thing is even realistic or plausible, and it sounds much more like a trap-which is why so many people were drawn to the indoctrination theory-especially because TIL was spouting off about "Controlling" the Reapers as a result of his own indoctrination, and then you get an option to Control them. There's also a lack of a sense of earning this ending since you wouldn't have reached the Cruciple if you hadn't been specifically teleported to it, and if other people hadn't done all the groundwork to get it in place for you.

Ugh, indoctrination theory. At that point, why not just shout "it was all a dream!" and make Mass Effect part of the Tommy Westphall universe.

The hesitation in the ME3 ending is supposed to be there, because ME3 is asking the player "can you trust the Reapers?"

Just like the choice with the rachni queen back in ME1, the game itself answers that question. Yes, you can trust the rachni queen; if you play through the trilogy, you find out that she is not lying to you, and that there is no downside to saving her in ME1. Yes, you can trust the Reapers; you find out that they are not lying to you, and Synthesis is the option that saves the most people.

You can roleplay a Shepard that doesn't trust the Reapers all you like. That's essentially what you're doing on a blind playthrough, even if you're roleplaying it as "what would I do if I were in Shepard's shoes?". But as a player who has finished the game, you have knowledge that Shepard doesn't. You know how each option plays out.

I agree that there wasn't really any setup for Synthesis being possible. You walk into that conversation with no idea that the Citadel is apparently packed with FTL-capable nanites that can transform all life in the galaxy but somehow need one (1) human life inserted into the appropriate slot to start the process. The Reapers having that or similar technology absolutely should have been established before Priority: Earth. I mean, it's established that the Reapers themselves are made of nanites back in the Reaper IFF mission of ME2. But what nanites can do in the Mass Effect universe is never explained, so yeah, the option comes out of nowhere.

And, yeah, the final decision is unearned, but I think that was always going to be a problem with the series. Starting as far back as ME1, the Reapers had been built up as a force that couldn't be defeated through military might. The ending of the trilogy was always going to be a deus ex machina if anyone was to survive. There are situations where the audience doesn't mind a deus ex machina, but ME3 botched the execution.

There's too many problems within the story for me to give it any credit for appropriate theming, especially when the theme is all over the place. At times it's about reconciliation, but other times it's about fighting on even when hope is gone. Sometimes it's about the power of individual choice, and other times it's about how small individuals are in the grand scheme of the galaxy. Thematically the series is all over the place.

Huh. I only see "fighting when hope is gone" as a theme of the final story arc, from Priority: Thessia to the endgame, not as a theme of the game overall. And I don't really see it as opposing the main "misunderstanding leads to conflict" theme. The emphasis isn't on the "fighting" part, it's on the "hope is gone" part. I was unspoiled on my first playthrough, but as soon as Shepard reached the FOB in Priority: Earth started I knew Shepard was going to die at the end. Shepard had no hope, was losing a battle with PTSD, and was probably just shy of suicidal and ready for it all to end, one way or another. Priority: Earth was bleak, in a way that Priority: Tuchanka and Priority: Rannoch weren't.

And I'm not sure that "power of individual choice" was ever a theme of the trilogy's story, so much as it was a gameplay mechanic to get players invested and to make the story nonlinear. Do you have any examples of story arcs where individual choice was the main theme?

Anyway, if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. When it comes down to it, I'm really just here to share my (seemingly rare) perspective, not to convince everyone that I have The One Correct Way of looking at it.

[chronos]

To be honest, I had already guessed at some kind of circular logic idea from the Reapers after ME2. My theory was a little bit different, but I believed in all honesty that the Reapers felt they were doing organic life a favor.

Forgetting everything you learned in ME3, my belief was this was a sort of forced "Childhood's End" situation. The Reapers saw Organic beings as poor, selfish and self-destructive creatures. Utterly unable to survive in the long term. They killed each other, through war or avarice or just plain neglectful behavior. So the Reapers sought to fix that somehow, give them a purpose beyond petty pursuits of the physical and give them a gift. Something that all organics wanted in the end, power and control. They ascended them into higher beings, into Gods just like them. The process was painful, yes, but in the end they joined something greater than themselves. They were helping organics escape a doomed existence and transcend into a glorious unified purpose.

I guess I was sorta right, but the explanation leaned way too heavily on "we need to save organics from synthetics" and not "we need to save you from yourselves." My idea was the ending would revolve around resolving this key conflict, by proving to the Reapers we could survive, grow and become better without them. The ideal ending in my mind would involve no real final choice of A,B or C. It would rely on multiple choices you made throughout the games, perhaps a final one involving how you resolved the final boss, but ultimately it would be the culmination off all your decisions that would lead to how the ending wrapped up.

*nods*

I know some people seem to believe the original intent, with either sacrificing all of humanity or killing the Reapers and trying to stop Dark Energy from consuming us all in the future, was a better ending, but that's just the same problem as the one we got. You pick a door and that's it. I'd prefer if the ending was a lot more nuanced than that. It's why I kinda like the Happy Ending Mod as it's the closest thing to my original belief as to how the game would end.

Augh, the Happy Ending Mod. It burns us, precious. I don't like MEHEM because it feels to me like a cop-out, because it ignores the bleak tone built up throughout ME3 and especially in the final arc. Like I said in my reply to bronnt, Priority: Earth is about forcing yourself to carry on through a hopeless situation. In the FOB, it's clear that Shepard has given up all hope of personally surviving the war... probably doesn't even want to survive the war. Shepard is up to their neck in death and suffering, and is clearly dealing with some major PTSD and survivor's guilt. Turning that into "okay, Reapers are dead, let's have a memorial for Anderson and hug it out" seems like a cheap resolution.

That's how I saw things at least. Now, maybe next time, I'll bother to share why I liked Andromeda for its characters despite agreeing with the general consensus that the rest of the story just wasn't as good.

Damn, I still need to finish Andromeda. On my first playthrough I gave up at the end of the tutorial, when I got to the Nexus. I didn't mind the story up to that point, but there was something about the gameplay and level design that I just found deeply off-putting.

[SlackerinDeNile]

I believe the reason the Reapers wanted to melt desired species into organic goo and use them to construct new Reapers was to 'preserve' them and also create a massive neural network to act as an extremely advanced and powerful CPU from which the new Reaper can function.

It's kind of like in the unused concept for the Matrix where the machines were artificially breeding humans so that they could use there brains to construct a massive CPU to enhance their own hive mind, however that worked.

This brings up the issue, why didn't the Reapers just do the same to create new Reapers? Presumably because they also wanted the thoughts, experiences and cultures of their chosen species as well.

Remember, in the original ME3 ending the Reapers did what they did to prevent the build-up of dark energy in the milky way galaxy, apparently the mass relays and biotic powers were destabilising stars and other areas of space. It's likely that the Reapers were powered by Dark Energy which could sustain them for a VERY long time, it's also possible that the Leviathans originally created them for this purpose in that ending. The Reapers were possibly researching ways of preventing this build-up or other, 'cleaner' forms of hyperspace travel by assimilating what they viewed as the most advanced or powerful races of each harvest.

[Rodan56]

The Happy Ending Mod isn't perfect, yes. But I do feel the gravitas is there. That Shepard has lost a lot and you can see his/her sadness of Anderson's death as an extension of his/her own survivor's guilt. Then again, we all have our interpretation of Shepard. We prefer to gauge how we'd want their journey to end on our own thoughts concerning how it should end. So, really, if someone feels Shepard has more or less earned their happy ending, the mod gives them that and I'm fine with it. But maybe I just don't like bleak endings. Meh.

Remember, in the original ME3 ending the Reapers did what they did to prevent the build-up of dark energy in the milky way galaxy, apparently the mass relays and biotic powers were destabilising stars and other areas of space. It's likely that the Reapers were powered by Dark Energy which could sustain them for a VERY long time, it's also possible that the Leviathans originally created them for this purpose in that ending. The Reapers were possibly researching ways of preventing this build-up or other, 'cleaner' forms of hyperspace travel by assimilating what they viewed as the most advanced or powerful races of each harvest.

The proble with that is... the Reapers MADE the Relays. So really, they're helping to continue the very problem they've created. I feel it makes much more sense to have them more akin to thinking they're saving and preserving life for it's own sake. It really doesn't need an external crisis to work. It could just be the conclusion they came to after watch civilizations burn out and die so pointless and they felt it was such a waste in that.

I guess I just like my evil space robot squids to be a bit more esoteric in their morality.

Now a quick thing about Andromeda, I kinda like how the main crux of the game ISN'T about war. You stumble into one, sure, but the main driving point is exploration, discovery, knowledge. You're not trying to destroy something, you're trying to create something, form something, explore something different. I like that, it's different from a lot of games of this calibre. What a shame it kinda ruins that by making you get involved in a war scenario again to save the galaxy. I could've been fine with different kinds of dire stakes. Then again, the mindset did lead them down a bit of a No Man's Sky path, where they kept tweaking and tweaking, neglecting other parts of the game that needed more attention and care.

[SlackerinDeNile]

I've been reading and watching some opinionated Mass Effect analysis now and then and watched some outlandish conspiracy stuff regarding it and I've been doing some thinking.

I have some personal suggestions for how the original ME trilogy could have been better beyond the obvious 'change the damn ending' stuff we all agree on.

-I know a lot of people like the Asari for various reasons but I don't, they just feel like a super effeminate fan-service race and I never found them particularly interesting or intimidating or even that sexy, (I'm a sucker for Godiva hair, which the Asari have none of ) personally I think they should've been weirder and more alien. I watched Taureor's video on them (some of you will know what I'm talking about) and I think they should have been parasitic, amphibious shape-shifters with their real form being more like a glowing blue cross between a squid and a jellyfish, their requirement for alien genetic material in order to breed would go even further back in their history as they literally took it from the animals on their homeworld, yes that's bestiality and it's messed up but it would be fascinatingly Lovecraftian to have an alien race that not only requires bestiality to survive but also has a completely different view on it from ours. Their shapeshifting ability would be limited primarily to living forms in order to coerce other beings into mating with them and maybe some static entities which would have been used to fool predators during their primitive past. With this ability there could have been Asari in other forms throughout the games such as ones designed to attract Turians or Krogan and it would explain why all the humanoid ones throughout the game are so pretty, also their tentacle heads could be explained away as them not being biologically capable of mimicking human hair. The main problem with all of this is that the shape-shifting thing might have reminded people too much of Galaxy Quest...

-I never really liked the way the Quarians turned out, I feel they should have been more alien as well. The Quarian fleet and Rannoch levels were cool but it all felt like pretty generic sci-fi fare, it would have been more interesting if the Quarians had a more unexpected appearance and their suits were designed to allow them to better interact with the rest of the galaxy like the Volus's suits. I also think the Quarian fleet levels should have been limited to 'diplomatic areas' where Shepard or other non-Quarians were allowed to interact with the Quarian government whilst they were in their suits.

-Making humanity considerably less powerful and influential throughout the trilogy would have been a good move too, have them earn their strength and respect as the story goes on, partly through Shepard's exploits and interventions and partly as they use the Reaper threat to take advantage of the other races. I didn't mind the Reapers wanting to use human genetic material to make a new Reaper over that of the other species as they had valid reasons for wanting to do so, but maybe have it so that humanity's creativity, drive and capability for passion, aggression, intimidation, destruction and suffering is what primarily convinces the Reapers to make their decision (not that I'm trying to say we're all bad or that I cherish these qualities but given what the Reapers primarily do...)

-Have Cerberus play a large role in ME3 but not in the idiotic way they ended up doing. Maybe have them trying to do what Shepard is doing but in slightly more extreme ways than a Renegade Shepard would like stealing resources from aliens, kidnapping desired professionals to work for them or just for their own safety, trying to provide anonymous help and intel to the Earth Alliance when it suits them. Perhaps there should have been options in ME3 for a Renegade Shepard to do side missions for them and possibly become allies with the Illusive Man over Anderson at the end. I'm not a fan of Cerberus but they didn't strike me as irredeemably evil in the second game, just speciest, highly opportunistic, greedy (did anyone else get a Gordon Gekko vibe from Illusive Man?) And more concerned with humanity's (more importantly the Illusive Man's) power over everything else in space.

-The gameplay, good GOD the gameplay. Don't get me wrong being a badass space marine is fun and all but it gets old after a while, I wanted to do more in this universe other than shoot scary things with cool guns and make things 'splode. I liked it when I was able to walk around environments and explore for a while but I could have done with some more interactivity, ME1 may have had the most dull combat and environments (half the time) but it had the most variety. The other games could have done with more space exploration stuff, maybe some Deus Ex style manipulation minigame for telepathic Biotics, stealth segments, better puzzles, etc.

-Actually have Shepard lose or fail or make a truly guilt-ridden mistake once in a while, playing a heroic fantasy is fun don't get me wrong but I would have liked Shepard to feel more human instead of a mythical legend. I know this is a silly fantasy video game and all but good story-telling should feature characters who err every once in a while, either on purpose or by accident.

-More key choices and less obvious ones. Make it so that ME2 was slightly less of a heroic rollercoaster ride and ME3 was even less of one, have the badass Shepard moments be earned through player action and observation throughout the game, not just have them pop up on the fly all the time.

-Feature more of the non-humanoid\biped races, I know they were much harder to animate but I would have loved to see how they handled combat or went about their lives. As you can probably tell I love weird, creative aliens and fantasy creatures.