Mass Effect - Series Retrospective @Twenty Sided

@Twenty Sided Shamus Young chronicles his thoughts on the Mass Effect series. To date this Mass Effect retrospective has 34 parts and is well worth your time. The first game is covered in the first 14 parts. The second runs from 15-31. Below is an excerpt from the latest entry 34#.

Just to drive the point home, the writers have the Alliance ask Shepard what they should do about the approaching Reaper fleet. This is really annoying, since Shepard doesn't actually have anything useful to say and answering that question was supposed to be the plot of the previous game. Not only were they not doing anything, but they still aren't doing anything. They have no plans, no ideas, no initiative.

Mass Effect 3 decided to focus on Earth, and then refused to make Earth an interesting place. None of these people have names, personalities, or agendas. They just look at Shepard like dumb kids who forgot to study the night before an exam. The player is being asked to struggle to save a planet of apathetic people who can't think for themselves. Make us care about these people before you blow them up, so we can have some sort of tangible motivation for saving Earth.

And of course there's the infamous trailer-bait line where Shepard proclaims, "We fight or we die!" I feel like everyone has already dog-piled on this, but for the sake of completeness:

Yes, that line is flat-out dumb beyond parody. It's not an answer to their question. (I'm pretty sure they were asking how you fight the Reapers, not if you fight the Reapers.) It's not a terribly inspirational or interesting thing to say. (Compare this clunky one-liner to Shepard's speech just after taking command of the Normandy in Mass Effect 1.) It's monumentally bad advice, bordering on sabotage. (If you're attacked by an invulnerable foe, you don't fight them. You run. You hide. You don't gather into a fleet to be killed en masse, you scatter like cockroaches so they have to chase you down and kill you in detail.) And it's 100% wrong by way of being a false dichotomy. Just ask the Protheans. You don't choose between fighting and dying. You do both.