Alek_the_Great said:
You know what? All that stuff about your big choices not really mattering in ME3? That's what pissed me off.
It's not just ME3, the entire Mass Effect series is pretty much the same in this regard.
You fight through an area, then at the end you make a single choice, generally consisting of two binary options (generally one Paragon, one Renegade) neither of which will actually impact on the game at all outside of dialogue. Did you save the Feros colony? Doesn't matter outside of dialogue. Did you kill the Rachni queen? Doesn't matter outside of dialogue.
None of these events changes the story, what they do is to build up a background which is referenced in dialogue to make you think the choices were meaningful. Outside of dialogue it really doesn't matter what choices you make because the game will, for the most part, proceed as planned anyway. The Mass Effect series was like that from the very beginning, indeed the first game had virtually no acknowledgement of your choices at all.
I think it's testimony to the excellence of Mass Effect as a series, and particularly its dialogue and level of characterization that noone seems to have actually cottoned onto this until ME3.
And it's not just Mass Effect. Did you pick Behlen or Harrowmont in Dragon Age: Origins. How did it change the story? Did you side with the Elves or the Werewolves? How did it change the story? Did you save or kill Connor? How did it change the story? The answer in every case is that it didn't (save for the somewhat meaningless allies you got in the final battle). None of your choices really mattered, because you were never allowed to make important choices. You always recovered the ashes and saved Eamon, you couldn't decide to let him rot and find some other way because that would have changed the story. You always went to Orzimmar and found the anvil of the void, you couldn't just cave Behlen/Harrowmont's skull in with a tire iron because that would change the story. You always chose to fight the final battle in Denerim.
This is how cRPGs fundamentally work. Choices can never be as meaningful in a game as they could sitting around a table with an actual GM. Thus, having your "choices" matter generally means having very small and superficial choices which are recognized in dialogue or through small gameplay tweaks like maybe having to fight through the same a map from a different direction or with different enemies. The massive amount of labour required to make a modern game, as well as Bioware very publically hanging their hat on the save import technology (which also means all choices have to be applicable not just to one game, but also to all future games in the same series) has only made this more true.
Alek_the_Great said:
Have you perchance played Witcher 2 by CD project red? That game has a whole different 2nd act (there are 3) depending on your choice.
I sometimes feel like I should give the Witcher series another chance, but frankly there's just so much about it I can't stand.
However, the mere fact that the third act is the same suggests to me that perhaps you're overstating the difference between those two choices. Fundamentally, the story must go on as it was programmed to.