palfrei

I'm answering to this 2 years and several replays later.

BioWare "denied" the IT for marketing reasons and nothing else otherwise they would've hurt their customer base.

Now on the pertaining subject: in order to settle natural laws, science works under a very basic principle, cause and effect. If an effect can be the direct result of certain number of particular causes and not others and if such causes are not only plausible but actual and the effect still takes place after them then the law of cause and effect is applicable (logical thinking).

And there's relation of cause and effect for the IT and it has nothing to do with Harbinger, TIM, the Citadel or the Starchild but with Shepard himself. It is not necessary to reach the point of getting on the Citadel to confirm it.

Shepard was in fact being indoctrinated and it showed in his dreams prior to the end of game; in fact, the last dream on the Normandy is the definitive proof that he was being indoctrinated and that his unconscious mind was fighting it because the burning child AND BURNING SMILING SHEPARD by his side symbolised DEFEAT: stop fighting, stop suffering, stop living.

This relation of cause and effect is perfectly logical and that's why it makes sense.

I remember that during my first playthrough, the dreams seemed odd at first but later raised a huge red flag with blinding red warning colours when every single element in the dreams either visual or audible wanted Shepard to stop pushing forward and fight and I still remember vividly having said to myself in a loud voice, alone in front of the screen: "he's being indoctrinated".

What happens with Harbinger later and in the Citadel with the corpses and the Shadow Broker's Ship similarities (which also stroke me as odd) can be debatable because from that point and forwards everything gets murky but the dreams aren't.

Shepard was indeed being indoctrinated and this is the result of basic dream interpretation, which is a science in itself but in order to realize this, one must be somewhat familiar with dream imagery and (Freudian) symbolism.

Besides, it is EXTREMELY rare that in a multimedia production like ME, things like all the details that lead logically to the conclusion of Shepard's being indoctrinated are present due to sloppiness: as they created the world we see according to the their whimp, we can only see what they put in there for us to see.

Such is the rule for writing fiction and creting self-contained universes.

Is anyone still reding this?

I've played the game many times already but I remember the feeling of something going wrong about the plot during my first run through it.

It does not matter whether BW denied the Indoctrination Theory ["IT" from now on] because no script writter in their most basic common sense would have ever put together a story with so many gaps in it unless it was done on purpose.

Scripting is also done with vignettes, specially for visual media, so that the story flow can be seen clearer and more complete. Everyone at BW involved with the tittle's development, specially the project directors, percieved these gaps and filled them in the very same way players did hence the IT is not the product of wishfull-thinking gamers hoping to make more of the game they love so much for the sake of reality avoidance regarding its poor ending.

As few commentors pointed out, the IT fills those gaps better than anything else written by BW.

And here's another interesting twist, even though the Leviathans showed the power to control and destroy the reapers, they did not because the Reapers are fulfilling the task for which they were created. If EDI had shackles, the Reapers must have [had] theirs. The Reapers are nothing more than the Levianthans' tool to keep every single race in the galaxy below their evolutionary status; they remain hidden while being the apex of evolution just as Sovereign and the Reapers do between cycles.

The Reapers are the Leviathan's agents for galactic dominance.

What they told Shepard was just another lie, like the Illusive Man's like the Reapers'.

@dagbiker: The galaxy LOST him in space.

@Trylks: Star Wars VII: A New Piggy Bank.

Too Human has a great visual style and an interesting plot concept but the game's difficulty level loves murdering the playable character, the customization interface is a mess and the Valkyrie won't move any faster whenever she's picking the PC back to Valhalla. The story was quite messy and the environments, puzzling.

Eternal Darkness has a great plot concept but so many things happen at the same time with different characters that following everything through is quite difficult and the game is too long for its own sake.

There certainly is a problem of execution within the Silicon Knights design and development senior staff; they are too baroque for their own sake.

@FancySoapsMan: Xenoblade Chronicles, 82 hours and on while trying to level up all characters as much as possible before the final boss and the no-return point.

@BulletproofMonk: Too repetitive, too many dungeons. I've never finished it.

Psychonauts is so much fun that it simple pushes you to achieve 100%

Kudos.

Does this mean there's a ME film coming soon?
 
Regarding the trailer, I'm not impressed but it is a good thing Bioware has decided to go a little retro with its advertising using live-action shooting as in the CD game era of the 90s: C&C, Crusader, Wing Commander.
 
Still, and again, I'm not impressed.

I really liked the second SR, its inverisimilitude made it fun.