Mass Effect 3: The Last Shot [SPOILERS]

"You know me; I always like to savour the last shot before popping the heatsink... Wait, that metaphor just went somewhere horrible." - Garrus Vakarian


[WARNING: MANY MANY SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF MASS EFFECT 3 FOLLOW]

Since the release of the Extended Cut there are now two possible endings to the Mass Effect series.
Well, actually, there are now seven possible endings to the Mass Effect series, but you know what I mean.
Well, strictly speaking, there are actually about a billion different endings, depending on the state of the galaxy when you reach the final level. The "red" ending with Quarians on Rannoch is a very different ending to the "red" ending with Geth on Rannoch - they just have the same ending sequence.
That's not the point, though. The point is that the Extended Cut changed things.

I wasn't happy with the original cut, for a bunch of reasons. Because Garrus and Liara died, and it broke my heart, and I felt terrible, and then they were there, unhurt, at the end. Because Joker was running away from... err... everything, for some reason. Because after three games of emotional investment in all these characters - these friends - that I know and love, only three of them appear at the end, and then for only a second.
But mainly I wasn't happy because it was so obviously rushed. Everything after you pick a colour felt desperately patched together to meet a deadline. It felt like a different game.

But, d'you know what? I wasn't happy with the Extended Cut either.
It gets some things right. It fixed the problems. Nobody miraculously comes back from the dead (because nobody dies) and Joker has a reason to be doing what he's doing and, most gratifying of all, we see the crew mourn Shepard. We get to see the emotion on their faces as Garrus (or your lover of choice) puts your name up on the wall. It was the emotional punch that the ending sorely needed. I cried and everything!

But the Extended Cut also fixes things that weren't broken, and it cocks them up in the process.
The concept-art slideshow is pretty hideous, but I could actually live with that. What I can't live with is being told that, actually, those things totally blowing up which gave your final choice so much weight and permanence the first time round - turns out they're just a bit damaged. They'll be fixed in no time! Oh, you picked "blue"? Then they're fixed right now, lol, smiley-face!
That's... um... not what happened. I was there, man. I know what happened. I spent weeks thinking about what happened, trying to decide if I'd done the right thing. And now you're saying it didn't happen that way? Screw that!
And then, even worse, it tells me what Shepard does next. I realise this only occurs in one out of three (four) cases, but it happened to me. For the first time in three games, Mass Effect took control of Shepard away from me! (Ok, I admit, there were times I clicked a dialogue option and she said something completely different and I'd scream, "That's not what I meant!" but that's entirely different.)
Maybe this was the point. I picked "blue" and Shepard couldn't handle the power. She's a puppet now. There is no control. And if that had happened the first time, I would have accepted it.
But, damnit, I knew what Shepard did next. I decided what she (I) was going to do before I picked "blue". And when I saw those Reapers leaving Earth, I knew exactly where they were going. But now the game says they went to fix the relays. The relays which cannot be fixed because the unpatched Catalyst told me so and then I saw them utterly destroyed!

Extending the ending is one thing; but the so called "extended" cut actually changes things. And the original ending had drilled its way into my brain so completely that I simply couldn't accept those changes.
So the ending for me is not one of the two. Not one of the seven. Maybe not even one of the billion.
My ending is the Actually-Extended-And-Not-Totally-Changed Cut and it goes like this:

The Normandy picks up Garrus and Liara, and then Joker gets the orders to leave, so he does. Then Shepard picks blue. Then the relays are destroyed - completely and utterly - and in the expanded universe there's a logical reason given to shut the fanboys up. The Normandy crashes, the crew have a ceremony to honour Shepard, and then Joker goes outside and stands dramatically on a hill with funky music. Cut to black.

...and then this comic happens.


It was meant to be a quick thing - a silly little heatsink joke - but while I was making it, someone died.
I've lost people before, grandparents and elderly aunts, but this was different. It was before his time. And suddenly this became a much heavier comic about loss, and sadness, and love.
So, even though he'd never touched a computer in his life and thought games were a waste of time, this is for Colin. The father-in-law I'll never have.

If you've read this far, thank you. And sorry for the sudden, unexpected downer at the end there. I'll probably fix it with some free DLC