Vaas

For me, the ending was just too nonsensical. Some of the very theories and ideas directly challenged the lore and some of it was just ridiculous. Here are my major gripes;

1) The reapers were created by the Leviathans to devise a solution to conflict. So despite the obvious illogic of creating death dealing robots powerful enough to destroy you to solve the problem of races being surpassed and killed by synthetics, the leviathans are shown as god like controllers of organics with the Leviathan of Dis in the DLC taking control of a Reaper and crashing it into the ocean. If they could do that, how did they lose? More importantly if they could indoctrinate any being provided it was in range of a space magic artifact (for all the sense that makes anyway) how did this problem arise. If you can control beings naturally it might be better to do that than build a super robot.

2) The Catalyst has no credence to its argument. It claims the reapers are there to restore order by exterminating organics which have the potential to build superior synthetics hence preventing chaos. It also claims to store the knowledge of the creatures inside the reapers. Firstly, assuming they made a reaper out of each race thats quarian, asari, volus, krogan, human, elcor, hanar, salarian, drell, turian, batarian and ive probably missed a couple but thats 11 races which equates to 11 reapers. Shepard killed three. Two are seen on screen dying in the space battle. There is no way the reapers can maintain that casualty to harvest ratio presuming shepard isnt the only one intelligent enough to say shoot the big glowy thing where it fires out of. They would be extinct within a few cycles. Secondly if they attack organics and leave synthetics alone then the synthetics will naturally develop to much higher levels than the organics instigating 'chaos' anyway. Thirdly why not target advanced synthetics, the whole universe probably wouldnt go to war with you if you blew up their mouthy toaster. Fourthly it says shepards presence changes the variables except for in terms of the catalysts logic shepard is junk data, an enemy with the capability to damage you only if you tell it what to do has no effect on the extermination of advanced organics to preserve order. The only way shepard could shift variables is if the reapers were programmed to allow an organic which reached their control core to take control, a line of code which any logical AI would remove or alter as soon as it concluded organics were the problem, or if their logic of synthetics surpassing organics had been disproved by Shepards presence which would either lead to a hardware and software upgrade (retreat and rearm in military terms) or them telling shepard to prove he had surpassed them by actually operating the damn thing. This wouldnt be logical anyway as they moved the citadel to earth so they could defend it. Furthermore the catalyst stipulates that the universe will be better for its actions except the majority of wars were organic fighting organic and the very fact it leads a synthetic army to kill organics to stop synthetics killing organics is nonsense.

3) The illusive man. The catalyst states he wasnt expecting shepard so WTF is the illusive man doing standing on the citadel at random semi-converted and spouting nonsense. If he was positioned there to stop people breaching the control centre then why was he by himself and who were they expecting? If he wasnt what was the purpose of having an indoctrinated half-husk wandering around like an idiot in the bowels of your control centre? If he can control people then why didnt he control shepard before and stop him destroying cerberus along with Kai Leng, and if he just acquired the power why was he gifted with it when the collectors who had been indoctrinated since the last cycle had no such ability?

4) The collectors [mass effect 2 ending]. The number of collectors you fight on the ship is about equal to the collectors encountered elsewhere so either the collectors had an incredibly small army, were incapable of defending the reaper they had been indoctrinated to build in the first place or were all elsewhere for no reason. Also why did they conduct research on current organics, what was the purpose? What did the reapers do with them all? Surely they were a useful asset to defend the reapers particularly considering the protheans sent 900,000 of their own into stasis (Javik confirms this) and the collectors were prothean at one point as well as their being prothean seperatists. This means the protheans who were far more advanced than any current cycle races were incapable of defeating the collectors who are clearly shown to have enormous numbers. They probably thought of nuking the ship as well. Furthermore the collector numbers couldnt have decreased much as they are so rare in the current cycle in ME2 most species consider them a myth.

5) The beam. just why? Even a child could tell you beaming people into the only thing capable of defeating you is a terrible idea. Also, if soldiers start actively targeting the beam presuming you are stupid enough to not beam them onto an irrelevant nearby ship or so forth, why not shut it off. Its clearly possible because you turned the thing on.

6) The choices. Synthesis being the stupidest. How is that possible? HYBRID DNA????? AI has no DNA, its codes and protocols. By definition hybridisation is cybernetic alterations which is simply putting machinery into people. Machines cannot be given DNA or a body or flesh or blood, putting DNA into a machine is like putting a cat into cement. Yeah its in there but serves no purpose. Machines cannot do anything with genetic code, and people with machinery inside them do not have different DNA because of it. Therefore the solution is circular because synthetics still exist and organics still exist so conflict will according to the catalyst eventually arise. Even presuming the symbiosis is possible then what is to stop the synthorganics from creating pure AI? Control, how would it work exactly and why would it kill shepard? when inside the geth platfom to delete the reaper code his body was in stasis hence he could run the reapers from stasis using the platform conversion stored inside every one of the thousands of geth currently attacking or could have the catalyst realign the parameters as the platform used by the geth was created with reaper code anyway. Also he was standing by a control panel. And there was a control panel below him. Not that hard to link the software to either giving him control and his body. Destruction, he randomly ends up on earth. The reapers die. The reapers told him how to kill them. Is it technically suicide?

7) Shepards armour. A reaper beam hits him, he loses his helmet as well as most of his armour but has no physical damage except a headache? Since when was his armour held together by velcro? Oh and despite being knocked back by the reaper he ends up closer to the beam.

There are more but these are the main ones. I loved the game and appreciated the ending at face value. It was just the fact the choices were all stupid, the way he was given them was illogical and the decisions you had made up to that point were irrelevant. having said that it hasnt turned me off getting another mass effect game, unlike the horrible lag of fallout which has turned me away from future titles.

@Giantstalker: Do you know the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing expecting s**t to change. ...Everywhere i looked, everywhere i looked industry pri*ks doing the same fuc*ing thing again and again. Just end the story properly ;P

Okay everyone, sorry to text wall but here we go:

The entirety of the plot is designed upon a riddle which not only needs explaining as a riddle in the first place but is no way hinted at during the game nor brought up through subversion of ideas or the narrative. I didnt see the weirder bits of Far Cry 3 and go oh this is challenging the genre stereotype I simply went WTF? As far as I saw this was the plot. Dislikeable American morons show up on make believe Island which is a zoo for dangerous animals that are cool to have in a game so they dont need explaining despite worldwide origins, and end up captured by probably the best villain in a game to date. Brother frees himself and utilises army training to get shot in the neck. Jason runs away. Jason kills someone and starts to cry about it. He then murders everyone in sight just because after a marine sergeant/victim of racism mechanic from somewhere other than his Kiwi accent suggests tattooed his arm for no reason and told him he could kill him if he wanted. Jason gets a machine gun for climbing a tower and cant craft large holsters from multiple pigs because that would be too simple. He meets a crazy tribal lady who wants to kill him until he mentions friends at which point she cares about him supposedly and tries to help. Jason kills a lot of people with Vaas popping in and out of cutscenes but having no actual screen presence making him feel like a shadow and not a real person trying to stop Jason finding a knife he saw in hallucinations because he was forced to drink something heavily implied to be poisonous because apparently he cant save his friends without it. he also cant save his friends without the pointless presense of a drugged up geriatric who appears twice in the plot for no discernable reason other than to say 'go there', once as his final words.

The knifes location is only known to a rapist with his name and a male deer tattooed on his chest who avoiding the obvious fact he would have to die just so you could give the knife to a crazy lady because the plot demanded it happened to have your friend. To find an australian rapist who knows where the knife is anyway, gives history lectures and has a friend who will gut your friend if you dont go on wild goose chases so he can rape your friend more times only when he finally lets you in hes alone you need to talk to a CIA agent in a pimp suit who apparently knows the discrimination victim mechanic. CIA man threatens to kill you then lets you in straight away because of a sad story and tells you to set fire to weed to irritate someone with no relevance to you to achieve a goal you couldnt care less about. One of his recordings has the only interaction between Vaas and Hoyt where Vaas is being a pussy. CIA man resurfaces to randomly run to Russia offering Jason a lift and telling him he can contact Sam at a bar only ten minutes ago he had no idea what had happened to his agent on the South Island after Jason has killed the Australian on a weird dance floor projection and killed Vaas in a dream sequence except he didnt because the eyes moved and Jason had a knife in his chest except he did because everyone from then onwards says so after you randomly arrive back at the temple where you claimed you were the leader and saviour of the Rakyat because you found a knife which Vaas had when he stabbed you. Anyway, plane ride, wingsuit, meeting with the agent who serves only to yell Blitzkrieg when there are no goddamn enemies to shoot at and diffuse bombs or be otherwise distracted when there are. He makes constant poker references to everything you do, disappears at random and comes up with steadily worsening plans such as nick a recruit uniform from the central dock except it isnt a recruit uniform because as soon as you obtain it and stand with everyone else after randomly being told you can become a traitor by a guy with a big mouth and a beard you look like a seasoned privateer especially considering at the compound recruits have clown facepaint and recruit stencilled on their armour. Not that this stops them referring to you as new fish and mentioning Vaas who died before they even arrived. Of course any privateer could have been killed for a uniform but a stealth mission had gone amiss thus far. You take out traitors who are hilariously inept to get noticed by Hoyt who explodes a ship full of people he was ransoming for no apparent reason to Ride of the Valkyries and decide not just to cut his throat there and then but hold on because you psychically knew despite testimony to the contrary he had Riley who just happens to be a pilot and very useful to the plot. Sam is killed, there is another button mash boss battle on a weird dance floor and you get shot at by enemies who have set up positions all along your escape route as if they knew your plan even though you didnt until ten seconds ago.

Riley masters flying a helicopter in ten seconds and the Rakyat take your friends who had the boat fixed days ago but decided not to leave so that you can execute them to earn tits and a stab in the back or you can save them for crazy tribal lady to step in front of you and get stabbed by the plot irrelvant mechanic because she loves you which is apparently reasonable grounds for abduction because she has dual personalities. Every choice you have made up to that point is discarded by a choice of button press after yet another drugged up load of nonsense where the tribals talk in idiosyncracy and there are lots of flames. You are then given a short cut scene to quickly explain why you can keep playing and dropped back into the island with Hoyt dead even though you knew nothing about him except for he ran the privateers and was a collosal tit. He was a block of wood with features for all he mattered. And apparently getting stabbed means you lose the privateer outit. Oh and with all the outposts down there are no enemies and only a few shallow side quests to earn money i have nothing to spend on because i dont have any targets to shoot at but restarting means losing all my hard earned skills.

Ugh. What crap. It even squashed my flicker of hope as I hoped having not seen his body that Vaas wasnt dead and he was the one capturing your friends at the end but nope more plot illogic. The idea, i have discovered upon reading many an article, was to challenge everything people expect of FPS and the industry only it didnt work. I look for hidden meanings in games and the only bit i got was Citra and only at the end because she threatened to delete my save file. I invested much time in considering each character only to be told they were steretypical archetypes with no relevance. Spec Ops the Line was fresh air, it brought a new twist to FPS and I thought far cry 3 was set to do the same and it tried but simply churned nonsense. When the name of the island is a riddle unto itself known only by those who look up common words in the dictionary you've probably taken the concept a bit far. Loved the game but the plot is unacceptable, messages should be subtle and clever not rammed into skins and paraded on the screen with their tits out.