Fans of Mass Effect can Finally be at Peace.

** WARNING: SPOILER ALERT**

As a big-time fan of the Mass Effect series I completely forgot that the Extended Cut was released on June 26^th. That’s how fed up with the game’s ending I was. I had completely distanced myself from the game, because of its poor attempt at ending the series that had taken up nearly 100 hours of my life to complete.

I was disappointed that I had no idea how my squad mates got back on the Normandy after trying to make a mad dash towards the beam that led to the Citadel. I was angry that I had three choices that all led to the same outcome. I was frustrated that I saw Joker flying away from a battle when the galaxy needed him to stay and fight. I was infuriated when I saw Joker and EDI step off the ship onto a new planet in an Adam-and-Eve-like rebirth as if to suggest that synthetics are going to start mating with real-life organics. After it was finished I just stared at my TV for 15 minutes with a look of amazement and yelled, “That’s it?”

I wasn’t the only one who had these feelings. In fact millions of Mass Effect 3 fans were furious at the ending. So furious that there were rumors of people trying to file lawsuits with EA games, stating that they falsely advertised that the ending of the Mass Effect series would be fresh and unique for every player.

Bioware answered the call and promised a more thorough ending that would explain all the questions that we’ve been having for the past three months. This new, free Extended Cut would finally be able to put fans at peace.

Like I said before, I had totally spaced that the extended cut was coming out until I was getting ready to watch Netflix with my fiancé. On my dashboard I saw the advertisement stating that the Extended Cut had arrived. I’ve started to tone down my video game playing days so I was able to hold in the anticipation. Not to mention I was still a little skeptical to think that they were able to resurrect a butchered ending and make it better. I was able to continue watching Netflix with the fiancé until it was midnight. After she had gone back to her apartment I went back to my room to play it.

Before I started I needed to find out exactly where I should start in order to get the maximum cut-scenes. I was told that I needed to restart the mission where you take over the Cerberus base and defeat Kai Leng. As I went through my saves I found that the two closest saves to that point in the story was after the invasion of the Cerberus base, right before you head to Earth and way before it when you’re just barely helping the Quarians. It was almost a 9-hour difference between the two saves. I decided to start playing the earlier one where I was helping out the Quarians, and only got about five minutes into it before I realized, “This isn’t worth it. I want to know what happens now.” So I rebooted the save from where I started “taking back Earth.”

I quickly changed the difficult to “Narrative” because there was no way in Tuchanka I was going to fight through Earth on “Insanity” again. I remember how long it took me to get past the part where you’re defending the missile Makos. Those freaking Banshees took me hours to get past. So there I was blasting away the buggers, but nothing dramatic had changed. I was starting to get nervous that either my Extended Cut wasn’t working or this Extended Cut really isn’t going to change anything.

Then finally it happened. I entered the cut-scene where I was running like a bat out of Noveria towards the beam to take me to the Citadel. I was dodging Harbinger like a boss trying not to get vaporized when all of the sudden there was something different. I grabbed my squad mates Garrus and EDI and stuck them behind a crashed Mako. I then called into the Normandy and asked them to pick up my team. I finally knew how my teammates got onto the Normandy!

I won’t go through all the nitty gritty details of everything that was explained, but all I can say is that as I was playing the final minutes of this game it seemed like every question that I had about the ending was being explained to me right then. It’s like Bioware had read all the articles and watched all the Youtube videos of fans raging about why they hated the ending. At first I had hated The Child, because I felt it was some brand new character that was introduced for the sake of telling me that this ending is pathetic, but after listening to him explain my choices more thoroughly and the consequences of those choices more descriptively I was able to empathize more with bringing in a new character.

I ended the game by choosing the “Synthesis” route; where organics and synthetics came together in order to bring about a more peaceful galaxy. Organics became more advanced, and synthetics finally knew what it felt like to be alive. It seemed appropriately just by the way I played my Mass Effect game, but I’m very anxious to see what the other endings would have played out like. The Extended Cut has made Mass Effect worth playing, and who knows, maybe a few months down the road I will open up the trilogy again and play for a different ending just to see what happens. Before the Extended Cut, I had had no inkling to play the game again.

There weren’t many things to dislike about the extended cut, but there were a couple of things that raised my eyebrows. I wasn’t too fond of having every ending end with Shepard dying. Sure, there’s one ending that may give you a little hope that Shepard survived, but for the most part Shepard is revered as the savior of the galaxy, and that it was mandatory that he gave his life up for it. I would have liked to have seen an ending where Shepard survives, and is sitting on a beach with Garrus while a destroyed Reaper is floating in the ocean. I’m not so much disappointed in this, because you can never have a perfect ending. As long as the ending makes sense and is written well, I can’t disagree too much with it.

Another thing I didn’t like was after you had made your decision. While one of your squad mates narrates what happened after Shepard made his choice you have some clips, but the majority is just a slide show. During my synthesis ending I just saw a bunch of slides of Krogans rebuilding their home world. I would have liked to have seen that actually be animated out. I would have loved to hear the sound of machinery as the Krogans were rebuilding their structures. I never got to see the Geth and the Quarians rebuilding Rannoch as well. I don’t know what Bioware was going for during this slideshow, but I was a little sad about it.

The positives of the Extended Cut far outweigh the negatives. I’m glad that Bioware took the time to go back to the drawing board and make this ending better. I was very skeptical when they said that they would keep the same endings, and very surprised that they were able to still make it great without completely changing everything. The thing I was most scared was that no matter what choice you chose, the mass relays were going to be destroyed. Instead they modified it to where the mass relays relayed the synthesis over the galaxy. I’m not sure what happens in the other endings, because I haven’t played it, but I’m sure it wasn’t as bad. The most important part is that it brought back a peace of mind that Bioware really did have a good ending planned out for this game. It was just poorly planned the first time. It’s reintroduced my faith in this game, and just talking about it makes me want to go home and start playing it again. Thank you, Bioware for having the humility to accept criticism and answer the call of your fans. You did not disappoint.

THE NEW COLLEGE PLAYOFF - A step in the right direction, but still not good enough.

The 11 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director have finally finished grinding out a 12-year deal to bring a playoff to college football.  A momentous day in college football history has taken place. No more polls or computer rankings to decide who plays for the national championship. It sounds like a great idea, right? All that can be said is that it is a step in the right direction, but it is not good enough. There are still many questions that will need to be answered.

Why not eight teams? Why not 16 teams? How can you guarantee the power conferences will not receive better treatment than the smaller conferences? What will happen if we have a year like we did in 2010 where five teams went undefeated in the regular season? (Alabama, Texas, Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State) Will this cause even more conference realignment? Will the SEC be guaranteed not one, but two teams in the playoff every year?

These are all great questions to ask the commissioners who are creating this four-team playoff. I for one am excited to see what will happen, but am also a little skeptical about what will take place. For some reason I believe that there will be just as much controversy over a 4-team playoff than there will be over the current BCS system.

The greatest advocate for the BCS or 4-team playoff is that it keeps the regular season as important as ever. The NFL is still the most popular sport in America. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch their favorite teams, and twelve out of the 32 NFL teams get to go to a playoff and compete for the Super Bowl. Why does it seem so ludicrous to think that the regular season will be diminished when 16 out of 120+ FBS programs get to compete for a national championship?

I did a little research and on a 16-team playoff where every conference champion gets an automatic berth and five at-large teams are selected. If you went by the BCS rankings at the end of the regular season Alabama, Stanford, Arkansas, Boise State and Kansas State would be your five at-large teams. Not one of those teams lost more than two games throughout the regular season.  A four-team playoff will make the regular season more meaningful, but how could you argue that the BCS made the regular season meaningful when a four-loss Connecticut team was able to make it to a BCS game just a few years ago.

A four-team playoff is a step in the right direction. It will definitely be more exciting to watch then the horrendous 70-35 Orange Bowl or the two non-deserving teams that played in the Sugar Bowl last year. I was so fed up with the BCS that I had boycotted watching any of the BCS games, including the Alabama LSU Part II. The four-team playoff will still have its controversies. Below is what like and what to dislike about the four-team playoff.

What to Like:

It’s a playoff! - College football is the only major sport that does not have some sort of playoff to determine its champions. We will now have the most deserving (sort of) teams duke it out on the field to prove who the number-one team is.

No more polls and computer rankings – No more will we have to here Brad Edwards tell us why Boise State’s strength of schedule weakens their computer rankings. No more will we have corrupt coaches voting their teams ahead of more-deserving teams just so they can play in the big bowl games. It was a hypocritical system and we can now rely on a more reliable selection committee to pick the four teams.

No more conference tie-ins – At least to the playoff games anyways. While some conferences will definitely have more push/pull on getting put into the playoffs, they will not be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs.  We won’t have to worry about a Big East or ACC champ being guaranteed big bucks for having a sub-par champion.

The championship game going to the highest bidder – About 50% of all college football fans think of this as a positive thing. I’m one of those people. I hate the bowls and I’m glad to be able to have a more neutral site location for the national championship. I’m sick of seeing all the bowls being played in the southern part of the United States. No more LSU getting virtual home games every five years in the Sugar Bowl. Now any city can host the national championship game. What if we had a national championship game in New York? Indianapolis? Seattle? Those would be some terrific sites that fans of northern teams may now be willing to make the trip to visit.

What not to like:

It’s only four teams – Like I mentioned before, a 16-team playoff seems a lot fairer, and a 16-team playoff would generate millions of more dollars. Hopefully once the commissioners realize how much money is being generated from this four-team playoff they will have to consider going for more teams.

Many deserving teams will be left out – I feel bad for those who will have to be the ones to decide who the first four in are and the last four out are. Look at last year’s teams for example: According to the BCS rankings, it would be LSU, Alabama, Stanford and Oklahoma State. What about Oregon? Oregon was the Pac-12 champ and beat Stanford during the regular season. Who do you take? What about Arkansas? Their only two losses were to LSU and Alabama who had a combined total of one loss before the national championship. Do they deserve to be in more than Oklahoma State, who lost to Kansas State, who had a combined total of two losses before the bowl games? There are many deserving teams that deserve to be in the playoff and four is just not enough to include all of the deserving teams. What will happen to the non-aq’s? Before they were at least guaranteed a spot in a BCS game if they went undefeated, but now non-aq’s may go undefeated and still be left out of the playoffs. The power conferences will continue to get more revenue, while the non-aq’s will still be left in the dark. Revenue sharing is still broken in college football.

The semifinals being played at neutral locations – I know I may raise some question marks according to my stance on the location of the title game, but I think it would be amazing to have the national semifinals at the higher seed’s field. Can you imagine how crazy the fans would be? Or how about the agony of those fans when their team is upset at their home field?

We’ll have to see what the next few years bring. Hopefully it won’t take 12 years to realize the great potential of a 16-team playoff. At least we can raise our glasses for a day and know that we will no longer have to complain about the old BCS system, and that college football is on its way to something big.