Ok, now that we're done with that horrible pun, I just thought I needed to write this blog out about the beta backlash that's been going on this past weekend. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride over here, as an ME diehard: the weekend started with people getting their hands on the game, and realizing that, hey, it was pretty awesome (just as I thought a few months ago), then, as a old script got leaked took a fast nose dive as it became apparent that many of the things Bioware had promised were simple ignored. Though I have not read the script (and have absolutely no intention to), reports are that it is linear, childish, and offers little choice, with one Bioware forum poster comparing it to DA2, which is enough just to send me into a tizzy. Seriously, you say the words Dragon Age 2 in the same sentence with Mass Effect 3 and I get crazy anxious, because, like so many of you, I want this series to end on an awesome note.

This anxiety is not a new thing. It started at the end of ME2, with that last cutscene where the Reapers are approaching and BAMB; it ends. Actually, scratch that: it started just before that, when Shepard's walking down the ship towards the big windows and you can see who's survived and who hasn't. By making it able for any character to die at any time during that suicide mission, it made it basically impossible for Bioware to fully integrate those characters into the next game unless they did a full reset. Think about it; what if you created specific arcs, descisions, and romances that many a player would never see? No developer would want to do that, as awesome as that sounds to the end user. I want ME3 to be good, I want ME3 to have real consiquencial choice, but that's just an unrealistic goal, which the series hasn't really proven to be possible.

But then I begin to think about the linearity of this leaked draft, and how decisions made in previous games are simply retconned or glossed over, something Bioware has promised repeatedly not to do. Game hype is like a presidential campain: awesomness is promised, little of it is fulfilled (normally). And I've bought into the Bioware's earnest...ness on how their going to close out the series, with choice and such. When the hype curtain is pulled back, it makes me scared - ESPECIALLY since for the last few months I've been vehemently defending the game on the internets, saying that Bioware is going to pull it off after all. Now, with this leak, it seems they might not, that they'll succumb to the DA2 route, that they'll...Oh, I'm probably taking this too dramatically, but I just don't want to see a game I've really believed turn out to be a POS.

/anxiety