Mass Effect 3 Spoiler - That Singular Moment

Have you ever played a game that made you cry out in surprise or horror? Normally we are cursing or screaming when we die or are in an unfair situation, but to evoke emotion from the plot, is quite impressive. And that is exactly what Bioware did today.


!Spoiler Warning!


You've read alot about how people are unhappy with the ending of the game, how they is a petition to change it. People are upset that you've won the game, but the ending isn't that Shepard is alive and the super hero that he was in the previous two games. Its something much much different. Something alot of people cannot accept because it has never really happened in a game.


There are alot of people that die in this game. Brave, selfless people, sacrifice themselves to protect those that they love from a menace of unfathomable power and evil. 


I saw a turian commander, manually disarm a planetary bomb but fall to his death with it. He save millions of lives but is gone. Or a krogan commander distract a group of modified rachni to save his own troops and Shepard, only to be ripped apart. Shepard even needed to kill a dear friend to save councilors from an insidious plot.


On a most dangerous mission, we needed to disperse a pathogen into the atmosphere that would allow the Krogan to be able to breed again. But the tower that would do so was self destructing. You kinda guessed at the back of your mind what would happen.. but one of your favorite characters was still in it. He was going to release the pathogen and become a hero. He rushes into the tower's top floor, cracks the code, shuts down the hidden traps and releases the pathogen. He did it. He smiles. Blink.


BOOM.


And you cry out.
No!
You stare hard at the screen, wide-eyed in disbelief... he didn't make it.
He's gone.
And then there is only grief and sadness; another great person.. gone.


I realized at that moment, that is ME3, is a very different game than anything else i've ever seen. Its dark. Noir. And also that Bioware must be commended; there was only one other time I can think of a game that evoked an emotion as powerful as grief, and that was Wolfenstein (when the zombies started coming through the walls; fear). Fear is easy to evoke, grief and shock is something totally different. Its not a good feeling at all.

Shepard has a few really messed up dreams which shows his state of mind. He grieves for all the innocent people that have died. The comrades that have sacrificed themselves for the greater good. And how he is lives with survivors guilt. You've never seen this before in a game. But you understand what he's going through. You feel it, deep inside.

I kind of am afraid of what is to come; if great people like that scientist will die.. who else will. What else will Bioware make me feel?