surf dtoid with 
Rising (10+)
People you follow
The ending would have been fine if it was one of multiple UNIQUE possible endings based on the players choices.
But Bioware essentially played the "your decisions have some profound effect on the universe around you" then let everyone down with one ending in which your choices apparently only really effect the colors of the explosions ~.~
Where in games like SW:KOTOR they had the decency to at least have two unique ending cinematics.
But Bioware essentially played the "your decisions have some profound effect on the universe around you" then let everyone down with one ending in which your choices apparently only really effect the colors of the explosions ~.~
Where in games like SW:KOTOR they had the decency to at least have two unique ending cinematics.
bindingoflaex, look at ancient's comment. change luke for shepard and change death star to the last area then change millennium falcon for the normandy. Thats about right.
Here's how the game should end. Shepard goes "hey reapers, let's go to chuck E cheese" and the reapers are like "okay" and they go and have a blast. The last line of the game is shepard going "today was a great day" and licks his ice cream cone. Also gay sex
I took a full day upon finishing the game to contemplate the ending. I came to my own conclusion and realized that Bioware had made a ballsy, yet bloody brilliant move with it. I seriously don't think that was the true ending and there are others who feel the same. I honestly think the true ending is still to come. I just hope, for Bioware's sake, it's not some $10 DLC, but instead implemented in an upcoming patch. If so, I salute Bioware for what they have done.
Dumb generic ending that all modern syfy games & movies use. No originality anymore. Mass Effect is just the video game version of the Matrix. It just got worst each sequel.
I'm fine with the ending. I liked it, but there were so many plotholes that Shepard had to be indoctrinated. Still, great game :D
Maybe it's just me, but everyone seems really hung up on the visuals of the endings. Yes, I can agree that VISUALLY they were all so similar that they they come across very lazily done. But depending on the choice you made the universe will be a very different place. *SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY*
In one version all synthetic life is destroyed, including your potential allies such as the Geth and EDI. In another version Shepard lives on in a sense but as a Reaper. And in yet another you create an entirely new hybrid species. All three choices leave the galaxy in a very unique state that is bound to have different consequences and outcomes (if you use a bit of your imagination and consider what it would be like to live in the aftermath of each choice).
That's how I saw the endings anyway. Visually, yes, very little difference, but if you think beyond the cut scene each choice could result in three very different galaxies.
In one version all synthetic life is destroyed, including your potential allies such as the Geth and EDI. In another version Shepard lives on in a sense but as a Reaper. And in yet another you create an entirely new hybrid species. All three choices leave the galaxy in a very unique state that is bound to have different consequences and outcomes (if you use a bit of your imagination and consider what it would be like to live in the aftermath of each choice).
That's how I saw the endings anyway. Visually, yes, very little difference, but if you think beyond the cut scene each choice could result in three very different galaxies.
I wasn't a fan of the delivery, but I was fine with the ending. I actually thought it would be more interesting if the galaxy was destroyed no matter what you do. It takes more guts to introduce the concept of futility in a game where there are 1000 decisions than taking a Dragon Age approach and have a 20 minute ending that's like "here's all the shit that happened to the people you met".
@AngryEMOgirl
The thing is this is the third and final installment DLC and Franchise resurrection withstanding ..... if there was ever a time to phone in the end of the game with lazy cinematics ..... this is not it.
The thing is this is the third and final installment DLC and Franchise resurrection withstanding ..... if there was ever a time to phone in the end of the game with lazy cinematics ..... this is not it.
@scuffles
Nothing to explain. I was just a little tired of threads about ME3 so I posted a few cat pictures in the hopes of changing the subject. Then well... ya know. The Dtoid community did what the Dtoid community does best.
Nothing to explain. I was just a little tired of threads about ME3 so I posted a few cat pictures in the hopes of changing the subject. Then well... ya know. The Dtoid community did what the Dtoid community does best.
@Scuffles
Yeah I can't really argue with that. I personally would have liked a little more closure/info on status of your squadmates at the end. But it still didn't make me hate the ending.
Yeah I can't really argue with that. I personally would have liked a little more closure/info on status of your squadmates at the end. But it still didn't make me hate the ending.
Do people not understand? We all live our lives differently and make different choices, but in the end we all die. We all arrive at the same conclusion regardless of what we did while we were alive. It's what you leave behind that's beautiful, but you dont get to see it. Its both wonderful and tragic. The ending of ME3 sounds as though it resonates with this.
I haven't finished the game yet, but it sounds as though I will love it.
I've been planning to write a cblog about the importance of choice in ME and how I think a lot of people play the game wrong (if that's even a possible thing) and I think this whole ending debacle not only ties in, but is possibly a direct indicator of that.
Also, cocks...
I haven't finished the game yet, but it sounds as though I will love it.
I've been planning to write a cblog about the importance of choice in ME and how I think a lot of people play the game wrong (if that's even a possible thing) and I think this whole ending debacle not only ties in, but is possibly a direct indicator of that.
Also, cocks...
Haven't played it yet, but the ending must really be bad if it generated all of this drama. Either way, I also think that maybe the fans are being hated on a little too harshly. Sure there are some whiners who are acting like babies, but if somebody asked me if I wanted something bad to be replace by something better, I would obviously say yes in any polls, and I'd sign a petition to show interest if there is the possibility that Bioware can add extra endings via DLC, because what's the harm in alternate endings (Not like EA needs an excuse to charge people for DLC).
Yo dawg, I heard you like comments so we asked you to comment on a post about comments so we can make a post about yo comments in a post about yo comments
Without going into any big spoilers, I decided to put my thoughts on the situation into a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4eG5s0Z3s&list=UUFVfmFB-6Inq4TbDFuDbEGQ&index=1&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4eG5s0Z3s&list=UUFVfmFB-6Inq4TbDFuDbEGQ&index=1&feature=plcp
Looks pounding my star wars analogy for three days straight has paid off in the end, suck it Tristrix! ;-P
The ending isn't bad.
It just doesn't live up to the rest of the story which , for the most part, is well crafted.
Although from the people who decided to finish mass effect 2 with a giant robotic joan rivers I don't understand why people expected any better from this entry.
It just doesn't live up to the rest of the story which , for the most part, is well crafted.
Although from the people who decided to finish mass effect 2 with a giant robotic joan rivers I don't understand why people expected any better from this entry.
In trying to make the post as balanced as possible, you left out a lot of complaints about the ending.
The plotholes and uncharacteristic narrative choices are a pretty big deal, and cover a lot of ground. It is much more than just the crew getting away.
There are also things like the reversal of the franchise's message. The whole franchise, up to that point, had been Shepard being told something was impossible, and then Shepard goes and does it anyway. Right up until the end, when Shepard just rolls over.
There are things like the poor quality of the writing at the end, where suddenly SciFi 101 plots take over. It is like reading a novel by one writer, and then the ending is 10 pages written by some other guy who was given only five minutes to wrap up the story. A guy who only had passing knowledge of the story, no less.
In amongst all the hated, there are a few good posts and articles on the net that do good breakdowns of just where and how Mass Effect 3's ending fails. (And you don't have to be a Mass Effect fanboy to see it.)
The plotholes and uncharacteristic narrative choices are a pretty big deal, and cover a lot of ground. It is much more than just the crew getting away.
There are also things like the reversal of the franchise's message. The whole franchise, up to that point, had been Shepard being told something was impossible, and then Shepard goes and does it anyway. Right up until the end, when Shepard just rolls over.
There are things like the poor quality of the writing at the end, where suddenly SciFi 101 plots take over. It is like reading a novel by one writer, and then the ending is 10 pages written by some other guy who was given only five minutes to wrap up the story. A guy who only had passing knowledge of the story, no less.
In amongst all the hated, there are a few good posts and articles on the net that do good breakdowns of just where and how Mass Effect 3's ending fails. (And you don't have to be a Mass Effect fanboy to see it.)
@llort het
Welcome to that worst case scenario that every anti-DLC advocate has been projecting for years. Essentially the whole selling you a book and then charging you additionally for the last chapter analogy manifest in game form.
Worse so because people are almost begging for it because the ending provided to them for the trilogies crescendo was just so damn phoned in.
Welcome to that worst case scenario that every anti-DLC advocate has been projecting for years. Essentially the whole selling you a book and then charging you additionally for the last chapter analogy manifest in game form.
Worse so because people are almost begging for it because the ending provided to them for the trilogies crescendo was just so damn phoned in.
I would would be crushed if someone told me they could do better than me at the only thing I'm good at, never mind having the majority say so. Whose idea was it to revise history like this anyway?
I haven't played it but I have been following the discussion. For a game that's all about choice and consequence it sounds like the endings did not vary enough depending on what choices you made in the game. However it would be a lot to ask of a developer to create an ending that could wrap so many different scenarios up into a neat & tidy ending. But there probably should have been more variety.
I definitely agree with some of the criticisms the ending has gotten, but all in all I still liked it. You just gotta fill in more blanks than what you'd normally expect.
The indoctrination theory is interesting, but greatly flawed. Most of the "evidence" being presented is just the result of over analysing and wishful thinking. But there are a few valid points here and there that have caused me to raise an eyebrow.
Finally, there are rumours circulating that Bioware will in the end release a free "True" ending DLC, alongside the previously leaked multiplayer DLC content. The rumours claim that they were upset with the original ending being leaked, so they slapped together a new temporary one to act as a kind of "teaser" while they worked on a second, true ending that will be introduced (again, free of charge) some time in April/May.
Like I said, it's just a rumour, but given how brief the ending was, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be true.
The indoctrination theory is interesting, but greatly flawed. Most of the "evidence" being presented is just the result of over analysing and wishful thinking. But there are a few valid points here and there that have caused me to raise an eyebrow.
Finally, there are rumours circulating that Bioware will in the end release a free "True" ending DLC, alongside the previously leaked multiplayer DLC content. The rumours claim that they were upset with the original ending being leaked, so they slapped together a new temporary one to act as a kind of "teaser" while they worked on a second, true ending that will be introduced (again, free of charge) some time in April/May.
Like I said, it's just a rumour, but given how brief the ending was, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be true.
They're trolling us for publicity, so when they "fix" the ending with DLC they can make the most $$$
@scuffles
Yeah, with all of the DLC hating I do, the idea of adding an alternate ending should be something I don't approve of, but this seems an extreme enough case where it would make all parties happy, and I don't think that EA would have intentionally sabotaged their ending just to charge for an extra dlc pack. Then again, if they started a habit of supplementing poor endings in the rest of their games, I'd be an unhappy consumer.
Yeah, with all of the DLC hating I do, the idea of adding an alternate ending should be something I don't approve of, but this seems an extreme enough case where it would make all parties happy, and I don't think that EA would have intentionally sabotaged their ending just to charge for an extra dlc pack. Then again, if they started a habit of supplementing poor endings in the rest of their games, I'd be an unhappy consumer.
http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/ I believe this article says it very well without being childish and/or OH GOD ONLY THE COLORS ARE DIFFERENT.
Personally I've noticed a lot of responses from people that are okay with the game ending don't seem to be "into" the game as much as those who are upset. Some folks are passionate and immersed in the galaxy while others just thought it was a fun right.
Being one of those who was immersed I was disappointed. Not rabid angry, but was left with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.
Personally I've noticed a lot of responses from people that are okay with the game ending don't seem to be "into" the game as much as those who are upset. Some folks are passionate and immersed in the galaxy while others just thought it was a fun right.
Being one of those who was immersed I was disappointed. Not rabid angry, but was left with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.
I do want to respond to the whole "open ended endings are fine, you just don't get it, they want you to wonder, etc..." argument.
I would be fine if the ending was JUST open ended.
But when it's open ended AND riddled with plot holes and direct contradictions to the themes and characters that have been established over 3 games AND gives everyone the same ending if you play enough multiplayer AND is just flat out anticlimactic THEN I have a real problem.
Bottom line is, I just KNOW the story isn't over. There's just no way that the same team that created the first 98% of ME made that last 2% and said "Yep that looks fine." There is just no way in this universe or the next that Bioware is that clueless about their own game.
I would be fine if the ending was JUST open ended.
But when it's open ended AND riddled with plot holes and direct contradictions to the themes and characters that have been established over 3 games AND gives everyone the same ending if you play enough multiplayer AND is just flat out anticlimactic THEN I have a real problem.
Bottom line is, I just KNOW the story isn't over. There's just no way that the same team that created the first 98% of ME made that last 2% and said "Yep that looks fine." There is just no way in this universe or the next that Bioware is that clueless about their own game.
What nauseated me most about some of the comments I saw was that some of them, particularly one long one, read like a religious zealot would write a sermon: a whole lot of misdirection and pointing to charitable acts, while stabbing you in the eyeballs with their "beliefs" and saying how EA and BioWare are greedy (because they'll sell us the real ending later) and will suffer (when fans make their stocks dip). What made it worse however was the fact that the beliefs here were about the ending to a DAMN VIDEO GAME.
This isn't Uncle Tom's cabin. This isn't the Ninty-Five Theses on the church door. This isn't an Bradbury dystopia where books need to be burned. Its the ending of a series that had its prior iteration end with a battle against a GIANT HUMAN/REAPER BABY! A RIDICULOUSLY EASY BATTLE AGAINST A GIANT BABY! This isn't going to change the world and/or kill our souls.. And if it does its because its so stupid.. But seriously, walk away if you don't like it, don't waste your time trying to get this one thing in the world, of all things in the world that need changing, changed. So many better things that could be done with that energy --including playing another game that you'll possibly agree with by the end of it.
This isn't Uncle Tom's cabin. This isn't the Ninty-Five Theses on the church door. This isn't an Bradbury dystopia where books need to be burned. Its the ending of a series that had its prior iteration end with a battle against a GIANT HUMAN/REAPER BABY! A RIDICULOUSLY EASY BATTLE AGAINST A GIANT BABY! This isn't going to change the world and/or kill our souls.. And if it does its because its so stupid.. But seriously, walk away if you don't like it, don't waste your time trying to get this one thing in the world, of all things in the world that need changing, changed. So many better things that could be done with that energy --including playing another game that you'll possibly agree with by the end of it.
Speaking of LOST, I just realized something
Both series star a man named Shepard/Shephard.
These men are the leaders of the good guys.
Both have people with them through thick and thin.
Both sacrifice themselves to save the world.
Oh, and both are involved in controversial finales.
Dear God...
Both series star a man named Shepard/Shephard.
These men are the leaders of the good guys.
Both have people with them through thick and thin.
Both sacrifice themselves to save the world.
Oh, and both are involved in controversial finales.
Dear God...
I wouldn't write off EVERYONE who is ok with the ending as people who just aren't as passionate as the ones who are angry.
I'm one of those ME fans who didn't mind the endings and I'd consider myself very passionate about the series. I've played ME1 and ME2 several times and am planning to replay ME3 several times as well. Part of the reason I am ok with the ending is because I felt so immersed in the universe that - though it was partly disappointing not to get as much closure from the game itself - I felt I was still able to use my own imagination and knowledge of the universe I've grown so familiar with to fill in the gaps. I don't think having to do this is entirely a bad thing. Nor do I think its terrible that Shepard dies in some version or that in the end it turns out some of what you thought you knew about the Reapers wasn't true at all.
I don't think either party is right or wrong in the end. It's still a matter of personal taste to me, and while there is some level of responsibility on the developer's part to make a game that makes people happy and respects their fans love of the game, I don't think they failed miserably at that. Living up to EVERYONE'S expectations was a mighty feat to begin with. With so many people playing as so many different Shepards it was going to be difficult to make an ending tailored to everyone, even if they were given more time to make 16 unique cinematics.
I'm one of those ME fans who didn't mind the endings and I'd consider myself very passionate about the series. I've played ME1 and ME2 several times and am planning to replay ME3 several times as well. Part of the reason I am ok with the ending is because I felt so immersed in the universe that - though it was partly disappointing not to get as much closure from the game itself - I felt I was still able to use my own imagination and knowledge of the universe I've grown so familiar with to fill in the gaps. I don't think having to do this is entirely a bad thing. Nor do I think its terrible that Shepard dies in some version or that in the end it turns out some of what you thought you knew about the Reapers wasn't true at all.
I don't think either party is right or wrong in the end. It's still a matter of personal taste to me, and while there is some level of responsibility on the developer's part to make a game that makes people happy and respects their fans love of the game, I don't think they failed miserably at that. Living up to EVERYONE'S expectations was a mighty feat to begin with. With so many people playing as so many different Shepards it was going to be difficult to make an ending tailored to everyone, even if they were given more time to make 16 unique cinematics.
The narrative of ME3 is not about finding the Crucible, it is about building the greatest alliance ever seen in the galaxy (which the Crucible, as a plot device, allows to happen).
Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.
This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?
In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.
The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.
But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.
The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).
No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.
And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a shit if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a shit if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.
And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.
You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.
How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?
The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.
The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making shit up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.
This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.
Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.
I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose.
Credit for this post goes to: user 'unigolyn' over @ Penny Arcade
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satifying-and-worthy-of-the-series-mass#/discussion/embed/157076/the-pa-report-why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satisfying-and-worthy-of-the-series-massive-sp/p3
... In the end, what we got was a 1 minute long quasi-philosophical expo video where everyone starts anew, as if this was the ending of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy... you don't know what happens to anyone or anything, your friends or enemies, krogan, human, quarians or salarians (whom you dont hear from for half of the game)... it just gives you 0 closure whatsoever, and raises more questions than it answers.
[b]Not to mention that from purely gaming standpoint, there was no final boss fight. The defending the rockets part felt forced and uninspired, and all you had to do is dodge the damn laser for 5 minutes. And we are led to believe that 2 rocket launchers are our only hope, when just 10 minutes ago I took out an entire Reaper single-handedly with a single shot from M-920 Cain? Why don't everyone have those guns? There were at least 2 lying next to the broken shuttle...
Why the Catalyst AI and his Monty Hall spiel of the Adjust Hue/Saturation is a deus ex machina is that it is the resolution to the narrative. The fact that he is also literally a "god from the machine" is irrelevant, albeit ironic. He is a deus ex machina in the literary sense, i.e. a handwaved contrivance that shows up out of the blue to quickly whisk away all the dangling story threads, and to abruptly end the story.
This is abysmal writing. This is abysmal game design; a Pick Your Own Adventure book where all choices take you to the same final chapter. It is counter to everything this game is. And what is this game?
In a recent Extra Credits, Portnow discussed core elements of a game. The Mass Effect series is really not a third person shooter. It is also really not a roll-the-dice-and-level-up CRPG. Mass Effect is, at its core, interactive fiction. All the memorable moments in these games take place in cutscenes that play out in myriad ways based on prior choices. You are role-playing in the most literal sense of crafting a character's personality based on your choices. The climax of Mass Effect 2 was not shooting the Human Reaper in the eye, the climax of Mass Effect 2 were the cutscenes that played and showed the results of your actions. Did you defy TIM? Did your crewmates survive? If your choices were poor enough, you could defeat the final boss, only to make a desperate leap towards the Normandy with no one to catch you.
The desperate leap in Mass Effect 3 is your dash towards the Beam. The only input that matters at all past this point is the encounter with TIM. That encounter is true to Mass Effect, and honors your previous choices, and provides closure for the secondary antagonist.
But for the main antagonist (Reapers), nothing you did matters. You are given three arbitrary choices to solve a problem that, depending on your actions, may be proven to be a false dilemma in the first place. If you saved both the Quarians and the Geth, witnessed Legion's messianic sacrifice, and humanized EDI - the Catalyst's claim of organic/synthetic conflict being unavoidable is patently false.
The Catalyst AI is completely incongruous with the narrative and the themes of the game. It shows up, provides a complete strawman of a conflict, and then offers three vapid, plot-hole ridden resolutions to this conflict, which abruptly end the narrative in a blinding flash of Space Magic (pick your color!).
No one is complaining about the preceding 30 hours of gameplay. Choices did seem to matter. Your treatment of the Rachni queen from two games ago ended up gaining you a seemingly valuable ally. Saving Wrex can gain a hopeful future for the Krogan. Your choices regarding Legion and the Migrant Fleet in ME2 have incredibly strong consequences in the seeming conclusion of the Geth/Quarian storyline. This is why we loved the game up to the ending.
And the ending completely demolished all of it, and made it completely illusory. Who gives a shit if you saved the Rachni? They just end up giving you Space Points and don't affect your ending at all. Who gives a shit if the Quarians or Geth or both survived? They're all dead anyway. Who cares if you cured the genophage and saved the one leader who could lead the Krogan into a less brutish, more hopeful future? He's either trapped on earth or dead, and the radioactive husk that is Tuchanka cannot sustain their race without supplies anyway.
And even more egregiously, the choices you made in the development of YOUR Shepard don't matter. She acts EXACTLY the same when facing the ultimate antagonist regardless of whether she's a Space Racist Renegade or Never Surrender Paragon or whatever your Shepard actually is, and what (insert pronoun) stands for.
You accept Space Hitler's premise without argument, and dejectedly pick one of the three Slightly Less Turning Everyone Into Paste final solutions he has to offer.
How does it matter in the slightest that I've done the frickin' impossible and united the Geth and the Quarians into a hopeful future, shown that we need not fear synthetic life, seen a nascent artificial sentience freely decide to set "Love and compassion" as their main motivation, and fought for the reactionary, bleak idea of "AI will always rebel" to be proven wrong? Space Hitler shows up, says "AI will always rebel, here are drastic fixes to this undeniable problem". And I go "yessuh"?
The ending of the story is not actually sad, it's just anticlimactic, contrived, incongruous, and ridden with plot holes.
The part that's sad and what's tearing me apart is that this is not a case of people writing themselves into a corner. This is not a case of glorified hacks like Ronald D. Moore or Cuse/Lindelof making shit up as they go along, to find themselves at the end with no way to tie all the crap together in a cathartic way.
This is a beautifully written game, for the majority of the experience. Bioware has bona fide talent within their ranks. And the story, up to the very end, is redeemable in dozens of ways. Even the contrived, out-of-the-blue Star Child could be made into an interesting character by presenting it as a shackled AI who was given a specific, limited goal born of fear (stop AI from wiping out organic life forever), and it arrived at the grotesque solution of Reapers not because AI is evil, but the constraints never allow it to look past the false dilemma it's attempting to solve.
Most importantly, this is not a TV show or a movie. This narrative is, by design, told in a unique medium which is NOT doomed to give us a singular ending. Our Shepards can be varied, yes, but there is a finite amount of paradigms that lead you to the end, and they could all have a cathartic, poignant, and persistent ending. Let the Renegades ascend to rule the galaxy. Let the Paragons defeat primitive fear and xenophobia.
I do not care if the Relays have to go down, but don't do it in such a thoughtless way as to destroy everything meaningful I accomplished. I do not care if my Shepard dies. In fact, I expected her to go down in a blaze of glory, in the greatest battle that shall ever be fought, for the most meaningful (to her) victory a soldier could ever earn. She did not get this. I did not get this.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of people didn't get this. We are not asking for a Disney ending. We are not asking for a dance party with Ewoks. We are just asking for our Big Damn Heroes to go out on their own terms, win or lose.
Credit for this post goes to: user 'unigolyn' over @ Penny Arcade
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satifying-and-worthy-of-the-series-mass#/discussion/embed/157076/the-pa-report-why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satisfying-and-worthy-of-the-series-massive-sp/p3
... In the end, what we got was a 1 minute long quasi-philosophical expo video where everyone starts anew, as if this was the ending of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy... you don't know what happens to anyone or anything, your friends or enemies, krogan, human, quarians or salarians (whom you dont hear from for half of the game)... it just gives you 0 closure whatsoever, and raises more questions than it answers.
[b]Not to mention that from purely gaming standpoint, there was no final boss fight. The defending the rockets part felt forced and uninspired, and all you had to do is dodge the damn laser for 5 minutes. And we are led to believe that 2 rocket launchers are our only hope, when just 10 minutes ago I took out an entire Reaper single-handedly with a single shot from M-920 Cain? Why don't everyone have those guns? There were at least 2 lying next to the broken shuttle...
@tristix
I'm really interested in this whole debacle and find it fascinating. Should there be a time when I grow tired or reading about it I will simply stop opening those articles.
What I won't do is spam the fuck out of them, derail the conversation or "change the subject" because that is a dick move. Take the 4chan, Spiderman mentality elsewhere and grow the fuck up.
I'm really interested in this whole debacle and find it fascinating. Should there be a time when I grow tired or reading about it I will simply stop opening those articles.
What I won't do is spam the fuck out of them, derail the conversation or "change the subject" because that is a dick move. Take the 4chan, Spiderman mentality elsewhere and grow the fuck up.
So, finished ME3. All the way up I thought there's no way the endings could be as bad as people where saying. It was great all the way through, how could they mess up that badly?
Oh god, I was so wrong. The game up until those last few minutes is really good but damn, that ending.
It's like finding a layer of dog crap at the bottom of a triple-layer chocolate cake. Sure, the cake was nice before you knew about that crap, but once you know, it ruins the whole thing.
I played ME1 and 2 at least 3 times each. I have no interest in playing 3 again. It just left a pretty bad aftertaste.
Oh god, I was so wrong. The game up until those last few minutes is really good but damn, that ending.
It's like finding a layer of dog crap at the bottom of a triple-layer chocolate cake. Sure, the cake was nice before you knew about that crap, but once you know, it ruins the whole thing.
I played ME1 and 2 at least 3 times each. I have no interest in playing 3 again. It just left a pretty bad aftertaste.
Well it's cool to see my name there, and I do appreciate that it was actually balanced(unlike the apparent tone of all other articles regarding the endings on this site). Bioware has said they they will discuss it(and hopefully it will be an actual discussion, like the BSN community got with Mike Laidlaw after DA2, which ended up making the first 2 DLCs, not counting Sebastian's, as good as they were) so that we can actively get responses and rebuttals to our points as opposed to a mod just posting "Well here's what the team said about your points as you laid them out." and then we never hear about it again.
okay i'm going to play devil's advocate here. I don't agree with the people who want the ending changed but I can understand their anger. Ever since mass effect 1 this game has been characterized as something that you the player has a direct control in influencing. This is a property that some people have invested hundreds of dollars and years of their time into. It's understandable that if you do that and the ending blows that you will be upset.
^ Pardon the Great Wall of China above me
Here's the point of ME3's ending from someone who really doesnt give a shit.
THE CHOICES YOU MAKE IN LIFE DON'T ALWAYS FUCKING MATTER. GET OVER IT
Here's the point of ME3's ending from someone who really doesnt give a shit.
THE CHOICES YOU MAKE IN LIFE DON'T ALWAYS FUCKING MATTER. GET OVER IT
What tge fuck is this. Chris? Way to try and minimize our dissa with the game dick. Lets jut post overwhelmingly. Good posts and ignore thr vast majority of users qho were not just dissapointed but feel completely cheated. Dissapointment? Thats an understatement But WHOOPS cant post that on a main stream gamin site
i liked the ending. i felt like the last decision in the game carried a lot of weight, regardless of its affect on the ending cinematics. The ending had more in common with classic scifi, and I was just happy it wasn't a cookie cutter "all is well with the universe again" ending I was expecting. Sure, it doesn't bring much closure, but those are the types of endings that end up sticking with me the most. blade runner and 2001 being the best examples of this. I do have my criticisms as well though. Most of them having to do with the crash landing of the crew. Why doesn't joker show any sign of being upset about the loss of edi, and where the hell were they going?
follow
