101103 réponses à ce sujet

[kramerfan86]

Eirileth wrote...

DirtyBird627 wrote...

Eirileth wrote...

It's not so much that it's disturbing... It's part of being a human being. We need closure. I am not blaming Bioware. EA is to blame. Bioware wouldn't have done this to us on their own. EA found a new way to exploit people and get more money from us... Therefore, they give us a fake ending and will later make us spend a couple hundred dollars just for new DLC to get the true ending. It is clever... And it is cruel.

You're right of course, though I was trying to avoid evoking the name of the evil overlords, the less I think about the fact that Bioware is under their thumb, the better for my sanity. Still, it would be a ploy that only EA or Activision would have the audacity to try, and probably get away with unfortunately.

EA is proving to be the metaphorical "Death's Scythe" for game companies... Bioware isn't the first they have done this to, and Bioware isn't the last. I am keeping up hope that Bioware will somehow come to their senses. EA... You have ruined one of the few good things I had in life. I miss ME1 and where it was SUPPOSED to go. EA Games is probably the most cruel game company in business at the moment... And Mass Effect 3 is the perfect example of their sadism.

EA are the reapers of video gaming, consume and absorb gaming studios at the pinnacle of their development.

[Arlind Webb]

MissNet wrote...

So, this is my second morning after beating the me3. I wake up wondering if this all was a awful nightmare ) *sigh*
Are there any news from bioware? Any hope? Something?
Part of me still hope, that it's some kind of joke. Bad one.

It'd be nice if it was just a bad dream.. wouldn't it? 

[demonpo]

Drew Karpyshyn come and give all of these screenwriters kick in the ass

[Aztlanna]

Let's ask Ashton Kutcher if Bioware is punking us.

[kramerfan86]

MissNet wrote...

@SonicAF, thanks. i am trying.
Bioware speaking:
"We wouldn’t do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets? But I can’t say any more than that…" - Mike Gamble
*crazy laugh*
from the "Actual developer quotes! Let's laugh!" thread

but but but there are over 10 different endings!!!!!  I mean such lush variety between them.   I mean either the reapers fly off or they get destroyed, and the laser light show comes in 3 possible colors!!!  Oh and the normandy crashes after running away in every ending, but in some of the endings joker has a greenish digital effect on him!  The variety is really breath taking, Im tempted to make 20 different playthroughs of the trilogy just so I can experience the amazing multitude of finalies.

[12D3]

I support this, posting just in hopes we get some kind of action.

The entire series is based on amazing choices & outcome design, the end of ME3 is a complete contradiction to our choices building our own stories. ME3 deserves better than to leave such a rotten taste in our mouths with this old friend of a series.

[CDHarrisUSF]

dos1990 wrote...

Pyewacket wrote...

You know what? It's a hallucination. Shepard passed out and is hallucinating while he slowly bleeds to death in front of the Crucible controls. Tragic.
.

LOL i said the same thing. cept maybe he is still blacked out on earth near the conduit! the hallucination was his mind testing him to see if his resolve was strong. I mean he was given 3 choices by the kid (where the hell he came out of IDK) the first was destruction of the reapers to see if he was still fighting to win. the second was control to see if he was giving into the temptation of power. and the last was compermise where he was being tested to see if he gave up and was allowing the reapers to semi win. obviously picking control or compermise would end up in his death since he gave up the fight but choosing destruction meant he still had fight left in him making the movement of his body at the end be him waking up ready to keep fighting. (i doubt him moving at the end was at the citadel since u can see the citadel explode after the energy wave. plus how could shep live with no oxygen in a destroyed citadel. Im just saying lol

That was one of the first rationalizations I came up with and wanted to cling to, as well. One minute he's obviously having trouble crawling to the controls, is having difficulty even talking over the radio, and looks like he passes out before he can activate it. After he apparently passes out is when the weird **** begins. You get lifted up on a magic elevator, he suddenly snaps out of it for some reason, stands up surprisingly easily, and starts having a conversation with a representation of someone I'm not entirely certain existed in the first place and who he has been seeing in his reoccurring nightmares.

If you recall, no one else ever acknowledges the kid's presense. He silently disappears when Anderson comes back to check on you the first time. Moving around in a metal air vent should have at least made noise if he ran away while you're looking at Anderson. His few words also seem symbolic of Shepard's fear that he won't be able to save the world this time. The next time we see him, no one interacts with him (or even looks at him if I'm remembering the scene correctly) as he slips into the shuttle right before the doors close. Why would they leave a child to be the last one in with no one watching out for him? It's usually women and children first.  I noticed a lot of things like that about him when I first played those scenes and thought something felt odd about him. At the time, I was already questioning whether he was real.

It's almost certainly wishful thinking, but it makes more sense to me than the real endings... though that's not saying much.

Modifié par CDHarrisUSF, 10 mars 2012 - 08:15 .

[Eirileth]

kramerfan86 wrote...

Eirileth wrote...

DirtyBird627 wrote...

Eirileth wrote...

It's not so much that it's disturbing... It's part of being a human being. We need closure. I am not blaming Bioware. EA is to blame. Bioware wouldn't have done this to us on their own. EA found a new way to exploit people and get more money from us... Therefore, they give us a fake ending and will later make us spend a couple hundred dollars just for new DLC to get the true ending. It is clever... And it is cruel.

You're right of course, though I was trying to avoid evoking the name of the evil overlords, the less I think about the fact that Bioware is under their thumb, the better for my sanity. Still, it would be a ploy that only EA or Activision would have the audacity to try, and probably get away with unfortunately.

EA is proving to be the metaphorical "Death's Scythe" for game companies... Bioware isn't the first they have done this to, and Bioware isn't the last. I am keeping up hope that Bioware will somehow come to their senses. EA... You have ruined one of the few good things I had in life. I miss ME1 and where it was SUPPOSED to go. EA Games is probably the most cruel game company in business at the moment... And Mass Effect 3 is the perfect example of their sadism.

EA are the reapers of video gaming, consume and absorb gaming studios at the pinnacle of their development.

Yes, indeed. Don't blame BioWare. They are the victim in all of this. Everything was fine until EA started breathing down their necks. EA Games is to blame for our collective pain.

Is anyone else reminded of the Borg? "You will be assimilated. You will ruin your own games. Resistance is futile."

Modifié par Eirileth, 10 mars 2012 - 08:19 .

[ScooterPie88]

Wow Bioware managed to systematically destroy one of my favorite franchises of all time.  Hundreds of hours, hundreds of dollars, and all I get for being an enthusiastic fan is large helping of steamy ****; unsalted.  We get to see characters that I care less about starring in the new Jurassic Park movie.  Liara? Tali? Garrus? Who cares right.  No one would want to find out what happens to the people from the Trilogy.  Here's to hoping they release a non **** ending DLC pack though at this point I'm not really sure I could stomach the idea of putting the disc in the tray again.  What a colossal disappoint 35 hours and completely go bonkers in the last 20 minutes.  Anyone else feel completely cheated?

[Katsuya Kaiba]

ScooterPie88 wrote...

Wow Bioware managed to systematically destroy one of my favorite franchises of all time.  Hundreds of hours, hundreds of dollars, and all I get for being an enthusiastic fan is large helping of steamy ****; unsalted.  We get to see characters that I care less about starring in the new Jurassic Park movie.  Liara? Tali? Garrus? Who cares right.  No one would want to find out what happens to the people from the Trilogy.  Here's to hoping they release a non **** ending DLC pack though at this point I'm not really sure I could stomach the idea of putting the disc in the tray again.  What a colossal disappoint 35 hours and completely go bonkers in the last 20 minutes.  Anyone else feel completely cheated?

Your avatar's face makes this quote all the more better! XD

[Arios1570]

This is my "screw vanilla" ending, at least in my first play-through. Male Shepard, Tali LI, Ashley died at Virmire. Haven't covered everyone, but I enjoyed writing this. This may be very Rainbows and Sparkles, but hell, I got everyone together, did everything, my bar was green, so this is what I'm accepting as my ending, vanilla be damned.

After the Catalyst finishes his speech:

Shepard turns back to the Catalyst:

Shepard: You arrogant fool. For someone who was once so obviously wise, you understand nothing of life. Organics, synthetics, they're not destined to war. You look at examples of the past and see only bloodshed, I've seen with my own eyes a peace between us, and no, we don't have to be merged. The Geth now live side by side with the Quarians who once lost their world in attempts to destroy them in a symbiosis you have not anticipated.

You have accepted that your solution will no longer work. You were foolish for seeing this as a solution. This solves nothing, it causes a larger problem, more pain, and enslavement. The reapers aren't ascended, they're made into your play things.

Here's my solution: send these abominations into the nearest black hole to be crushed and never seen again. Destroy all the monsters they have melded from organics, and free your indoctrinated slaves. Shut down any reaper that can't reach a black hole, completely. The souls within could use the rest. Leave the mass relays and Citidel as compensation for all the pain you have caused.

But you, I want you to stay active, I want you to see the impossible: I want you to look out and see that unfathomable peace as it spreads across the galaxy, that peace I worked so damned hard to build.

Catalyst (silent for a moment): That is not an option.
Shepard: Then you give us no option!
Catalyst: You believe your cycle can achieve peace? You think you have the resolve? We will see. If your forces can defeat the reapers, then they may live, but you are throwing every species away...

Shepard looks out to the battle in horror, but straightens and looks to the control console area. He lifts his gun to fire.

Catalyst: What are you doing?!
Shepard: creating my own solution.

Shepard fires at the controls, disrupting the control signal. The view changes to the battle, reapers are in disarray, crying out as if awakening to a nightmare, seeing what they are for the first time. Their shields drop as they turn on each other, each seeing in the others the horrible machines that entombed them in metallic devices of genocide. On the ground, husks are torn apart by their synthetic parts exploding. In a bunker, an indoctrinated prisoner pounds on his door, then falls, holding his head. As he stands, he is more calm, and looking around as though he woke from a dream.

Catalyst: What have you done?! Your society will fall to the machines you create, it is inevitable!
Shepard: We'll find our own solution, obviously, no one ever liked yours.

Shepard leaves the platform, holding his hand to his ear.

Shepard: Admiral Hackett...
Hackett: Shepard? Where have you been? You're missing a hell of a show.
A squadron of fighters fly by a reaper, destroying it in a massive explosion. Shepard looks to Earth, seeing Harbinger rocket angrily toward him, badly damaged. The Normandy fires a shot straight through the side of his face-like area. The eyes flicker out and he roars. A squadron of fighters blast him again. Eyes flicker back on, and he proceeds, seemingly un-phased. Then two reapers latch on, pulling him apart.
Shepard: I've got a nice view up here.
Hackett: What do you mean? Where are you?
Shepard: We did it, the reapers are...
Shepard collapses, as he falls, radio signals call out.

Looking from the eyes of a hospital patient as they open slightly, Tali holding Shepard's hand as she sobs, Garrus and Liara there to comfort her. The others stare on in somber silence. The heart monitor beeps rapidly and unsteadily, then eyes fully close


Shepard opens his eyes, he's badly injured but still alive. Doctor Chakwas turns away from her monitor and smiles.

Chakwas: Good to have you back, Commander. There's someone-
Tali: SHEPARD!
Tali rushes over to his side, almost ready to hop over him in a tight hug but stops.
Tali: Oh...right, I...bad idea right now...Keelah, I...
Shepard: I know, good to be back...did...did we win? Are the reapers gone?
Tali: They destroyed each other, mostly, there were hundreds left, but they were weakened so badly that they were easy prey to our fleet. On the ground, it was madness, husks were ripped apart as their synthetic parts combusted, and I heard that indoctrinated prisoners all are their old selves again. (pause) What did you see up there, Shepard?
Shepard: The Catalyst, he was...he told me his solution: the reapers, were no longer valid, that a new one must be formed. He wanted to keep organics from creating races that would overthrow us. I told him to let us be, let the reapers fade into memory and watch as he was proven wrong, but he refused, and I improvised.
Tali: You saved us, this entire galaxy is in your dept.
Shepard: No, you saved us, you, your people and the geth. Ha, didn't think the geth would represent the hope of life. You gave me all the hope I needed.
Tali: Well, I guess people will start to look at Quarians a bit differently now.
Shepard: I didn't mean to boost your ego, sure you don't need to take off your helmet to make room for your big head?
Tali: Why not? (removes helmet, this time, the camera actually shows her face. They kiss, screen fades to black).

Weeks later. Shepard looks out his window in Huerta memorial, crowds are gathered below holding signs of support, Shepard smiles and turns to a desk. There's a note that reads "Damn, Shep, even I couldn't steal an army of reapers, nice one. ~Kasumi. P.S. Thanks for all the tech loot." Shepard shakes his head and smiles.

Nurse: We've prepared an escort, Commander, the council would like to see you.

Shepard nods and leaves for presidium tower. Shepard is awarded a metal, announced as the highest award possible, yadda yadda. He walks down the steps, to both sides, high ranking officers and politicians applaud, many notable faces bow slightly or nod, whatever is custom, screen fades to black.

Images of Allied fleet

Hackett: The forced gathered against the reapers suffered heavy casualties, some fleets lost more than others. Upon returning from the war, the militaries watched cautiously for others to make a move, but no one lifted a finger. Everyone had seen enough bloodshed, and they were all grateful for the aid each offered. We were no longer divided by race, we are now a true galactic alliance.

Images of Tuchanka, Wrex issuing decrees over his people, who are, for the most part, in agreement.

Wrex: The Krogan people spread rapidly, populating and rebuilding Tuchanka, then spreading to other worlds...uh, uninhabited worlds, nothing taken by force. I think softer races were relieved at that. We even got an ambasidor, Urdnot Bakara. The years that followed saw things never thought possible. Krogan intellectuals, politicians, engineers, each, of course, could kick a Turian's ass with both arms lopped off.

Bakara and I contributed to the population, about six thousand by now...I think. She got her wish, the first to hatch was named Mordin, second was Shepard, third, though it pains me, Garrus, then (voice fades out.)

Images of Palaven being rebuilt.

Garrus: The Turians returned to Palaven in force, eager to rebuild. We had help though, Geth, Quarians, Rachni, and after a few years, Krogan, though we used them for heavy lifting at first, they later proved themselves with engineering. My heart nearly stopped when our engineers checked their plans and said they'd actually work. I still wouldn't want to live in a Krogan design any time soon.

Me, well, I retired, I travel from one scenic place to another, Illium, the Citidel, Omega. They're...scenic, no greater sight than a busted up crime boss crying for his mother.

Images of Geth and Quarians working together on Rannoch.

Tali: It only took us a year to build up our immune systems thanks to the Geth. However, once the reapers went into that black hole, they were returned to their previous intelligence. Rannoch is now a cultural paradise. We aren't "suit rats" or nomads, and we have the geth to thank for that. They could have destroyed this world with mindless pollution in search of resources, but they kept it for us. As long as I live, I will not let our people forget that.

I built that home on Rannoch, overlooking the shore, it's beautiful. A geth helped, he wouldn't talk to me, but I once saw him doing a dance known to humans as "the Robot".

Shepard lives here as well, Raan says she disapproves of us, but I see her smile when she thinks I'm not looking. When we heard how many Quarian children were orphaned, we stepped in, adopting a young boy and his sister, both children of the Neema. We know we can't have children of our own, but it's fun to try. We visit the others often, and they all seem to be getting by just fine. I'm so happy for Joker and EDI.

Images of mass cleanup of Thessia.

Liara: Thessia's rebuilding was slow, but everyone worked together, the cooperation was remarkable. A former bar owner and matriarch gave the rallying cry for the building of new mass relays into uncharted systems. With so many ears listening, it became a reality, she named the first Asari-built relay, "The Little Wing". We've found many intelligent races, evolved far from relays. It hasn't all been smooth, but we are creating protocols to aid in the progress. And we thought we were in a golden age before the war...I think I will enjoy the next nine hundred years.

Image of Javik in a meditative pose near destroyed cryogenic pods.

Javik: I returned to Eden Prime to put my men's spirits to rest along with mine, but a faint glimmer caught my eye. An active pod, revealed by a crashed Cerberus ship.


(and just for added flavor, inspired by the end of Red Dead Redemption)
20 years later

The camera pans across the navigation area of an advanced starship. The crew is made up of every race from council space. The galaxy map is covered in relay markers, at the head of the team is a Quarian man, unmasked.

Navigator: Calan, we are clear to proceed, just give the order.
Calan: It's Captain now, we're not kids anymore, remember, Nasaan?
Nasaan: This isn't a military vessel, brother, we're scientists. You're still Calan to me.
Calan: Great, hello, history, remember that day we sent a manned mission to another galaxy? Its navigator checked her bed for spiders every night.
Nasaan: And its captain couldn't ask a girl out without wearing a reinforced mask.
Calan: (sighs) I'm sure everyone has heard enough to last the trip. (Presses intercom) Crew of the SS Williams, it is my honor to lead this great mission in the name of discovery, the first of its kind. Our races once worked together to end a cycle of destruction that stifled advancement. My father stood in the presence of those mighty enemies and said "no more", with all our races allied behind him, they fell, the impossible happened, and now, this voyage, deemed just as impossible is going to reveal to us a whole new galaxy. We don't know what we'll find, but we'll be ready. (deactivates intercom)
Nasaan: Now if you could just be that determined around women. (Activates communicator) Unit 4395, we're good to go.
Unit 4395: Acknowledged, Creator Nasaan.

Camera moves to a view of the ship, a design with influences from all major races flying to a colossal mass relay, the power source being dyson web. They fire off toward another galaxy, the view being from over the top of the ship, showing them rapidly approach the galaxy.

Upon slowing, they see several worlds around a blue sun. Zooms in on a small rocky planet.

Calan: That must be the world the signal came from. According to the readings, it's capable of supporting life!
Unit 4395: Captain, I do not believe the local life needs a planet to exist.
Calan: What to you mean?
Unit 4395: This unit's databanks offer no accurate way to describe what it has detected.
Calan marches to the cockpit, Unit 4395 points to an approaching creature, colossal in scale, light blue and best described as a combination between a whale and a manta-ray..
Calan: If only father could see this...

[Voodoo2015]

When I got to the Citadel I thought: Well now I can put an end to this Reaper crap and live with Tali on her homeworld. But nooo BioWeare do not like happy endings for the hero.

I got two choices. Controlling the Reapers and die a slow and painful death. Or blow up everything may die, but will be stranded without all my friends it's like dying anyway. 5 y

In five years I've been playing Mass Effect and then they go and do this how can they just think the fans would like this.
BioWeare give us a better ending.

[xDarkspace]

www.youtube.com/watch

[ascended1]

kramerfan86 wrote...

The idea that the reapers were actually trying to do something good isnt a terrible twist, but it definitely needed an actual logical reason. Not some stupid "oh well organics and synthetics will always fight" crap so we have to kill everyone to prevent everyone from getting killed. Under that scenario why wouldnt they just chill in darkspace and ONLY attack once a massive organic-synthetic war broke out? If it does you purge, if it doesnt you dont. Auto purging because its destined to maybe happen someday makes no sense at all.

Exactly.  Purging just to purge is ridiculous.  If it's so necessary to purge 99% of organic life so that 100% of organic life wont be wiped out by the synthetics, why not wait until it's necessary.

[Dae0]

Personally, I place atleast a decent portion of the blame on the decision to implement multiplayer, which may or may not rest on the shoulders of EA. Either way, I believe it diverted a good deal of attention and resources away from the single player campaign.

In fact, I would be willing to bet that Bioware began to implement the multiplayer element just about the time the final mission sequence was being worked on. Leading to a time to completion for the single player campaign that was greater than what "corporate" allotted. Hence the ending that feels like it was rushed to completion and is lacking detail & complexity...

But thats all just speculation on my part.

Modifié par Dae0, 10 mars 2012 - 08:28 .

[Aztlanna]

kramerfan86 wrote...


Exactly.  Purging just to purge is ridiculous.  If it's so necessary to purge 99% of organic life so that 100% of organic life wont be wiped out by the synthetics, why not wait until it's necessary.

Clearly I need to punch people in the face to prevent them from punching me in the face. Cos that totally tracks. Seems legit. I will go now and implement this new life strategy. I'll let you know how it works out! 

[Ultra Prism]

Funny, I remember Casey Hudson saying, your choices will determine which civilizations will survive, yeah choice was either control reapers or destroy synthetic life, that means killing geth civilization ... and game ended so quickly, we have no idea what happens after war or whatever?

[primalgoose]

Finally, my 24 hours is up..

I freaking loved ME1 & 2.
In ME3 I came to the last 10 minutes of a 2 hour adrenaline rush and suddenly
I felt sick to my gut and so very, very empty..

Bioware is like a parent, and Mass Effect their child.

They told Mass Effect at birth that they can go be free, do what you like enjoy life and have fun.

This child loved life, made lots of friends and was loved by all.
It explored and wondered of all it could achieve and all along the way people helped them develop.

And the second that kid hit 18 Bioware forced them into the military and got their face blown off.

Modifié par primalgoose, 10 mars 2012 - 08:31 .

[Dae0]

Aztlanna wrote...

kramerfan86 wrote...


Exactly.  Purging just to purge is ridiculous.  If it's so necessary to purge 99% of organic life so that 100% of organic life wont be wiped out by the synthetics, why not wait until it's necessary.

Clearly I need to punch people in the face to prevent them from punching me in the face. Cos that totally tracks. Seems legit. I will go now and implement this new life strategy. I'll let you know how it works out! 

So by that logic, we would have been better off striking first at bioware by not buying ME3, therefore preventing ourselves from getting screwed....actually, thats not a bad idea for more than one reason...

[dos1990]

CDHarrisUSF wrote...

dos1990 wrote...

Pyewacket wrote...

You know what? It's a hallucination. Shepard passed out and is hallucinating while he slowly bleeds to death in front of the Crucible controls. Tragic.
.

LOL i said the same thing. cept maybe he is still blacked out on earth near the conduit! the hallucination was his mind testing him to see if his resolve was strong. I mean he was given 3 choices by the kid (where the hell he came out of IDK) the first was destruction of the reapers to see if he was still fighting to win. the second was control to see if he was giving into the temptation of power. and the last was compermise where he was being tested to see if he gave up and was allowing the reapers to semi win. obviously picking control or compermise would end up in his death since he gave up the fight but choosing destruction meant he still had fight left in him making the movement of his body at the end be him waking up ready to keep fighting. (i doubt him moving at the end was at the citadel since u can see the citadel explode after the energy wave. plus how could shep live with no oxygen in a destroyed citadel. Im just saying lol

That was one of the first rationalizations I came up with and wanted to cling to, as well. One minute he's obviously having trouble crawling to the controls, is having difficulty even talking over the radio, and looks like he passes out before he can activate it. After he apparently passes out is when the weird **** begins. You get lifted up on a magic elevator, he suddenly snaps out of it for some reason, stands up surprisingly easily, and starts having a conversation with a representation of someone I'm not entirely certain existed in the first place and who he has been seeing in his reoccurring nightmares.

If you recall, no one else ever acknowledges the kid's presense. He silently disappears when Anderson comes back to check on you the first time. Moving around in a metal air vent should have at least made noise if he ran away while you're looking at Anderson. His few words also seem symbolic of Shepard's fear that he won't be able to save the world this time. The next time we see him, no one interacts with him (or even looks at him if I'm remembering the scene correctly) as he slips into the shuttle right before the doors close. Why would they leave a child to be the last one in with no one watching out for him? It's usually women and children first.  I noticed a lot of things like that about him when I first played those scenes and thought something felt odd about him. At the time, I was already questioning whether he was real.

It's almost certainly wishful thinking, but it makes more sense to me than the real endings... though that's not saying much.

i thought the same thing when no one helped him get on the shuttle at the begning. so i also had a feeling he was more of a earths fate metaphor for shepard. then he kept having the nightmares and the last one where shepard is holding the kid while the real shepard looks on seemed to me like shepard was embracing the inevitable destruction of earth and its innocents.

the magic evalator was stupid! where did that come from
might as well have had aladin come in on his magic carpet and let the genie grant shepards wish to destroy the reapers. but i digress lol hopefully someone will listen to us at bioware and do something but it. but unless they had this planned and already have the dlc almost ready then i think it will take a couple months for the dlc to come out. till then i guess ima stick to multiplayer lol

[Katsuya Kaiba]

Bioware...I know you probably won't read this but I need to state this: I defended you when everybody was pissed about your 'From the Ashes' DLC. I defended your Multiplayer. I DEFENDED DRAGON AGE 2! Every time somebody had a problem with your games, I defended you.

I can't defend this.

[CDHarrisUSF]

The idea proposed in this poll would work for me.

[Richenda]

I'm very disappointed with the wrapup of Mass Effect 3.

I truly enjoyed the game (and it's prequels) up until the last five minutes of ME3 - it's a staggering accomplishment, really, to take the good will garnered over hundreds of hours of gameplay, and squander it in that amount of time.

In the end, we got Bioware's story - not ours.  While that is always true to some extent in a computer RPG, Mass Effect has, in it's prior incarnations, done a much better job of providing a rich variety of possible outcomes.  No such luck here.  No matter what you did or how you got there, in the end, you have - at best, three unpalatable choices.

If you had told me these were the possible outcomes, I don't know that I'd have played the game.  As-is, I'm finding it difficult to find the motivation to play the game a second time - and usually, I run these games off the rails.  But here, there seems little point in exploring other gameplay decisions in other runs, as none of them will matter in the end.

Liara asks if the fight is futile when we meet her on Mars - are we wasting our last days waging a battle we cannot win, when we should be enjoying the little time we have left.  Knowing what I know now, the answer to her question was yes - and while that would have been fine as one of the possible endings, to have all of them feel that way is a dissapointing end to what could have been an epic adventure.

This didn't spoil the fun I had over the years, but it's made me highly gunshy of future games from this team.  Mass Effect and Dragon Age games were all guaranteed pre-purchases.  With the most recent installments of these series, that is no longer the case.  I'll be waiting for the reviews next time, and maybe waiting for them to hit the bargain bins.