1966 réponses à ce sujet

[AWESOME_DOUG]

I loved the game... up until the last 5-10 min and SPACE MAGIC came into play
Sorry to say the ending sucked and "artistic vision" is a lie to the fans because you messed up big time

[Lookout1390]

I had some concerns right off the bat. There was alot of things that were very disappointing in the game, and I won't bother to list them out because it's been said a million times.

Tuchanka/Rannoch were done very well, but that's about the height of it.

The writing took a nose dive after Thessia, and then some more.

Then I got to the ending.

Good god, what happened Bioware?

[kaztas]

I don't even know if these are even really read anymore. I have been a fan of BioWare since I first played KoTOR I & II. When I played Mass Effect I was in awe. Then I played DA:O. Now I had been an avid WoW player and for some reason, after a bit, I started to play DA:O almost like a WoW raid. I loved the Pause type gameplay if I chose it, added to the fact I could give my characters a list of "If this then that" type command queues if I wanted real-time play. I have been an avid RTS and Turn-Base player for years (Loved Alpha Centauri, Age of empires, Homeworld, Masters of Orion ) DA:O was amazing to me.
I write all of this to show I have been a fan, that I have enjoyed the style and story of your writers for many games, to give you background to the words that follow.
I preordered ME3, I got the Collectors Edition, I am a fan of Clint Mansell's work in Requiem, The Fountain, Moon, Pi, Smoking Aces. This was to be the culmination of so many great things.

I was however disappointed with ME3 because I truly believe BioWare did not only NOT put out the full game it intended, but the game it was capable of making. Rannoch, Every aspect of Tali and Legion, from saving both to one or the other was incredible. THAT is what I expected of Bioware. Moridin..even Paddock, the Genophage and him singing in the end or crawling in futility. THAT is the Bioware I know. Those were very well written and acted. They carried the emotion and the impact a player who put time into the games would hold. I don't think BioWare simply stopped caring..or suddenly lost the talent..but the questing system, the odd story arc..the lack of so many other elements and characters. I have to say...having played many styles of games and many BioWare games, I cannot help but feel this was unfinished and even rushed.
I never called for anyone's head or anything, but I was let down simply because I loved the games and the characters so much and I know BioWare was more than capable of completing this saga right. AfterDA2 I was worried, it failed to carry the impact DA:O had for me. It too felt rushed, but I still had hope enough to pre-order ME3. I am sorry to see it turn out this way. Sadly I will not buy anymore BioWare games right off the shelf anymore until I am sure the plague of rushing a game is done with...and with EA's online codes limiting the point of buying used, the chance of buying at all is lessened. Twice I pre-ordered games based on their predecessors great success with my own gameplay, and twice have I been ultimately let down (I cannot finish DA2 because of the lack of immersion). Games were a release for me, a world I could escape in. When I start to feel the corporate hand in it, it loses its appeal (I have read The Wheel of Time series, it's a long series and the finale was due this year, but the writer wrote that he will have to delay it again for accuracy and to make sure it is the best it can be...I applauded that and would wait another year if I had to). I know time is money and the longer a game is in development the more money is lost.What was done was done, there was no other choice.

Essentially I am trying to say all of this so you can see I'm not trying to just be a "whiner" The cold hard truth is, I was disappointed overall.
The fighting was nicely paced and an improvement. The story, non-rushed was exceptional - The parts that felt rushed: tacky, forced and nonsensical. I wish you all had the chance to really do everything you wanted, but that is not how it works all the time. Thank you for what you have given me so far. I will use those great moments as a benchmark for the next best thing I find out there.

[sUiCiDeKiNgS13]

Buy the DAMN GAME!

Feel free to quote me on that for your GOTY Edition

[carbonickid]

I don't have time for a lengthy review, but I'd like to say that I love the Mass Effect game series. All of it. I purchased 1 and 2 for xbox 360 and when it came out for PS3 I purchased 2 again and then 3 also on the PS3. I think the end was a culmination of everything from the entire story and was a great way to wrap up the theme of the sentient machines vying for their place in a sapient dominated universe.

That said I do think the epilogue was really a bit of a snafu for anyone who had seen certain characters die and then they pop out of the Normandy at the end. That's my only true complaint and I think that if the ending had the same feel and effort put in as the rest of the game it wouldn't feel so unnatural nor would people be having such a hard time with it.

Anyway, all that said, loved the games and Sheperd's story. Hoping that whatever is next in the ME universe continues to push the envelope on how games are presented and played.

[cyrslash1974]

Fan of ME franchise, as well as all Bioware games, you will find below my opinion on ME3 :
 
Rate of the game before the ending : 90 / 100

Goods :
-          Amazing introduction on Earth,
-          Beautiful graphism and incredible soundtrack,
-          Relations between squad members,
-          Epic moments like Sur’Kesh mission and Tuchanka,
-          Dark ambiance (fallen of Earth, sacrifice of Thane...very emotionnal ) but with a lot of funny moments,
-          Squad of ME1 : the best for ever,
-          Multiplayer is fun.

Bads :
-          Patch importation face from ME2 to ME3 does not work
-          Autodialog (and sometimes auto-decision)
-          Multiplayer is repetitive.

The ending now : 0/100

After more than 50 hours of amazing gaming time, the end of the Shepard’s journey (ie the end of Mass Effect 3) gave me a feeling of incompleteness and plunged me into sadness, depression and anger. I have literally lost all interest to replay the games. Even if 90 % of the game is awesome, even if multi-players cession is funny, the ending of Shepard’s journey seems to be sloppy, rushed, unrelated to the seriousness and quality which Bioware have shown so far.

-          Whatever our decisions during the 3 games, no final impact on the ending.
-          Peace between Geths and Quariens ? For what ? I can’t challenge the catalyst’s logic, which is wrong.
-          The ends are all the same without epilogue.
-          Where is the happy ending ?
 
I don’t also understand (i) how my screw partners have been teleported from Earth to Normandy after Harbinger's attack, (ii) why Normandy flees from the war zones and no the other ships (iii) how Normandy can land on an Eden planet after the destruction of the relays (which are ever destroyed, whatever our final choice) … A lot of other questions. Ending rushed.

I am very disappointed for the first time with a Bioware game. The ending of the game ruins the franchise for me. Sorry to write that.

Please Bioware, fixe the endings in the Extended Cut DLC. At this stage, the 3 games have no replayability. Save this wonderful universe !

[Dryball]

Posted this before....but seemed more appropriate to add to here...my review:

The fact that after all the hype, all the glamour and words of praise, and the glimpses of the "final" story of Shepard....culminates in what feels to be a 6th grader's writing assignment...is mind-blowing at the minimum. It's as if they had the writer's go on vacation and some kids literally come and finish it out. Where's the answers to any of our questions? I just have tons more. Where's the sense of closure where we either choose to live "happily ever after," or go out in a blaze of glory, or just let it burn? Instead I see this contrived nonsense that looks to be thrown together in no more than thirty minutes of actual work. (that's the part in the 6th grader's paper where you shake your head because they had a flowing decent, not great, narrative followed by, "and then they died, The End...")


Really? That's it? That's the best that my personal $200+ could come up with when added to the other millions of buyer's $200+ in franchise purchases? I think we would been better off buying hundreds of seeded timeshares or property and plane tickets so we could all run around the globe collectively...even with the guaranteed bickering to occur. 


I was cheated. Plain and simple. Unless I see some massive about face and the plausible "indoctrination theory" comes into being reality or some other game plausible reform...I was duped by a bunch a 6th grade writers at Bioware into buying something for no reason at all other than it being called "Mass Effect 3." When in reality it's simply a FPS crap clone that uses ME2 characters... I own COD...if I wanted to run around shooting people in the face and TBing them I'd play it, NOT the ME series. COD and BF have been in that genre long enough to have it nailed... I got the ME series for itself and the fact that I don't need to put up with PWNZR to play...The story just dead-ends...BEFORE the end... 


I sure hope the current endings are some kind of sick joke by Bioware...I could forgive THAT. I could forgive them if it was the hypothetical "IT"

But if the end is the end for the sake of being the end in someone's "artistic vision"...yeah right...I did those too(artistic vision thingy's...) when I was in grade school and writing a paper due the next day that was 10 pages long and something was better than nothing...ie. a cop-out due to lazyness...
I've not missed purchasing a single DLC in the series. I've bought all the games(pre-ordered collector edition for this one), all the wallpapers and themepacks...
With this ending...I have no interest in any "new" DLC to add into the middle of a game when I already know the ending is this week contrived childs play that has no business being in a story that was ME up till now...It's sad really.


Your saving grace and bountiful success was a game people would play over and over again for the story(I did in 1 and 2). What's the point of playing this one over again...three identicle endings? I have 3-4 different run throughs on each of the first two games and all are very different from each other in how they end and feel because they all include various changes in choices. I see no purpose to try that here. The ending's are virtually the same with different color energy bursts. That's it. 

"artistic integrity..." biggest joke of a lame excuse I've heard since, "the dog ate my homework." I woulda waited an extra year for a real ending. I mighta been chomping at the bit, but I'd have waited.

Modifié par Dryball, 22 mai 2012 - 11:59 .

[shadow217]

Ok, its time to chime in on this whole thing. As far as a
numbered score, I'd rate the games as follows:

ME1 - 90/100

Positives: Fantastic original story, great characters, good
graphics, innovative choice dialog system

Negatives: Weapon customization and weapon selection, landing
on planets and roaming endlessly for resources, no thermal clips.

ME2 - 95/100

Positives: Again great story, more weapon and armor choices,
return of some old characters and introduction of great new ones, lots of
choices to be made that had a real impact on the end of the game, thermal
clips.

Negatives: Planet scanning was tedious but an overall
improvement over method in ME1.

ME3 - Hard to say, if you exclude the ending then 85/100. If
you include the ending then much lower. I will note that of the three games
this was my least favorite.

Positives: story was good but lacked punch of the other two
games, great cinematic sequences, several emotional tear jerkers, weapon
customization system, armor customization system.

Negatives: Long list, read below. I will note here that I
thought the final planet scanning system so to speak was ok but actually i
would have preferred it closer to ME2 where you could scan the planets and land
if you found something of interest. In other words, the same setup as ME2 minus
the scanning for resources thing.

My detailed review of ME3


I'm a huge fan of the Mass Effect
trilogy. I bought an xbox for the sole purpose of playing ME1 when it first
came out and I was incredibly happy with the game. Great characters, storyline,
lots of choices to make and i really enjoyed the ending. Then came ME2 which i
chose to play on PC. I also thoroughly enjoyed that game as well. In fact, i
would say that my favorite section of all three games is from the point which
you travel through the omega relay to the point at which you escape the
Collectors exploding base. I loved being able to choose who in my team did what
task to help the group see the mission through to the end.

Now being that i had played ME1 on xbox and ME2 on PC, my
decisions didn't carry over from one to the other and that if i played ME3 with
my ME2 playthough, i believed that the ending wouldn't fully reflect my
shepherd. So  i ended up purchasing ME1
on PC and played though 1 and 2 in the month before ME3 launched so that the
story in ME3 would completely reflect everything I had done in the past  two games. 
Finally when ME3 launched I was ready to experience a story that I had
helped create. The battles were excellent, revisiting old characters was
enjoyable, watching a few perish was heart wrenching (sheds a tear for Mordin),
and the visuals were also quite good.

But I must admit that as game time elapsed, there were more
and more things that made me scratch my head and wonder why?

The first being that I wondered what effect , if any, my
decisions in ME1 and ME2 had in 3?

As a couple examples, the first part that really irked me
was with the Rachni. I saved the queen in ME1 and so I accepted the storyline
they came up with when i played the mission in 3. But then I was curious what
would happen if i hadn't saved the queen and looked it up online only to find
that in that case, the reapers simply created a rachni queen and you played the
level out in the same manner. I was shocked, that meant that that choice, which
i honestly thought would have huge implications in future games at the time,
was pretty much irrelevant. I mean sure the rachni help you build the crucible
if you originally saved the queen and betrayed you if you hadn't but that
really doesn't matter. It has little to no effect on the outcome of ME3. You
don't even  see anything happen, you just
get messages saying that these events took place.  In the case of this decision, why didn't
Bioware simply allow you to play the level if you originally saved the queen
and bypass that level if you had killed her?

Saving the council and the Destiny Ascension didn't matter
none too much either. Sure I get to see the Destiny ascension in the vid where
the two fleets battle in the space around earth but what effect did that really
have on the gameplay? Almost none from what I can tell. It would have been nice
to see the ascension take out a couple reaper capitol ships with its upgraded massive
gun. And for those who didn't save the ascension, how about a scene with those
same reaper ships destroying a couple ally dreadnoughts, with possibly with a
crew member dying in the process. 

I was really looking forward to seeing all my decisions over
the course of the first three games have real impact on the outcome of the this
third and final installment and yet I was terribly let down in that regard.

Now I will admit that for the most part, ME3 is a great game
and I will probably play through all three games again, if only to save Ashley
instead of kaiden this time around. For ME3 i loved the gameplay, graphics,
characters and storyline; right up until the Prothean VI encounter at the
Illusive mans Station and then of course the last 20 minutes of game play or so.


The first indicator of the kind of baffling ending i was in
store for came when i was talking to the Prothean VI on the Illusive mans
station. When they said the Catalyst was the Citadel i was pleased because that
was in our hands so we could just take the Crucible there and figure this whole
thing out. Then out of nowhere the VI says that that's not possible because the
citadel was JUST NOW taken over by the Reapers and whisked away to earth.
Seriously? The citadel played such a key role in the first game with us
fighting Sovereign for control of it and here in one line you say that we lost
the citadel to the reapers? What about the immense battle that ensued? What
happened to all the refugees and citizens living on it? What about Captain
Bailey and the council? Are they all just dead?

The next section i have mixed feelings about was in the
command center in London prior to the final push to the citadel beam where you
get to talk to many of your current and past squad mates.  I was content with being able to talk to a
few squad mates in person and a few others via hologram. However, I was
surprised that Shepherds love interest, Miranda, wasn't there in person.  I mean, i could understand the hologramconversation if she wasn't his LI but why let this be Shepherds final moments
with her? Immediately after that conversation i hoped that in the end Shepherd
would be reunited with her in person but that never materialized and I was a
bit let down.  Miranda played a huge role
in ME2, she helped bring shepherd back to life and in the end of that game
sided with Shepherd and turned her back on the illusive man. That alone should
warrant some better interaction at the end of ME3.  Seriously, players LI that are current squad
mates in ME3 at least got to spend the night before the attack with Shepherd in
his cabin but all i get is a holographic goodbye? Shepherd and Miranda deserve
better than that.

I must also say that I feel like a proper final "boss
fight" so to speak wasn't in the game. I mean, the final real fighting
takes place when your defending the rockets from Reaper ground forces. Sure you
end up killing a small reaper but that's just a cinematic cut scene. ME1 had
your fight against Saren, ME2 had your fight against the Reaper Larva. ME3 had
you attacking normal reaper minions, albeit a good amount of them. That final
"boss fight" just didn't have the punch that a boss fight against
say, Harbinger, would have had. I mean why make us just fight the little guys
when Harbinger is confronting us head on. That scene with him landing next to
the beam was the perfect setup for a battle of epic proportions and yet it
never happened.

Now I started the game knowing full well that it was a
possibility that shepherd would die, probably due to self sacrifice more than
being killed in action. But, I also hoped that due to previous actions in all
three games that he would also be allowed to live if certain conditions were
met. I can't believe that as it stands now, all the endings result in Shepherds
death. Granted the red ending has shepherd gasping for breath in the end but
based on what the star child says about destroying all synthetics and that
shepherd is part synthetic I'm assuming that means that's the synthetic parts
inside shepherd shut down and he ends up dying.

During the final run for the beam leading up to the citadel,
I was surprised when i was hit by the beam and actually woke up in that daze. I
mean, the whole time i thought that it was honestly going to be chance if I was
hit and that if I was, that it would end in mission failure with me reloading
to try again. At first i was a bit weirded out but whatever, I was still alive
hobbling along so I went with it. Then I made it up to the citadel. I was again
surprised to see Anderson up there in surprisingly good shape considering the
state shepherd was in. How did is that possible? Whatever I just went with it.
Then came the illusive man, which i honestly didn't expect, what with the
reapers now after Cerberus for trying to find ways to control them. I mean how
did he make it onto the citadel? Whatever I'll deal with it, i mean the
prothean VI said that the illusive man warned the reapers that the citadel was
the catalyst and that we were after it so maybe they were on cooperating terms
again. Now what I didn't expect was the whole being controlled by him thing. I
mean, even direct contact with a reaper takes a while to affect the subject so
how on earth was the Illusive Man able to control regular people? What followed
next completely perplexed me. Not only does he make Shepherd shoot Anderson but
no matter what you say or do, Anderson dies. Seriously, what did he do to
deserve that? He made it through hell in all three games  finally surviving on earth during the reaper
occupation only to be shot by shepherd and die? The only consolation was the
touching last few words he shared with shepherd after the illusive man's death.

 After that I figured
that since Shepherd had opened the citadel and the crucible was now attached
that it would fire up and somehow lead to the reapers demise. But no, nothing
happens and Shepherd blacks out on the ground and for that split second before
the light elevator thing raised him up i thought to myself, oh damn, what
decision did i make to result in the reapers winning in the end? What am I
going to have to change in my next play through 
in order to make this right? Then the elevator thing raised up and we meet
the "star child" thing and were presented with three ultimatums. None
of which i believe my shepherd would actually choose. I mean, why not give
Shepherd a chance to offer counter arguments to the catalysts notion that
synthetic life will always kill their creators. 
I mean what about the geth, legion and EDI. They all evolved during the
course of the games and had, in my case anyway, learned to live and cooperate
with organics and even evolve their own sense of being and purpose to that
resembling organics own train of thought and emotional states. It is possible
to live together peacefully and yet we're given no option to explain our selves
to the catalyst. On this forum somewhere, someone suggested that the fourth
option be to say screw you to the star child thing and let the fleets battle it
out to see who wins based on your preparedness and decisions made though all
three games. While I think that would suffice, I would also like to offer another
option: The catalyst is not a little kid, it takes the form of that kid that
shepherd saw killed at the beginning of the game. Now we can assume with that
being the case that the catalyst probably 
scanned shepherds mind to take that form. So why can't it just scan his
mind some more, see all that shepherd has accomplished as far as bringing
Organics and Synthetics together, and come to its own realization that its own
train of thought is flawed. Why not then have the catalyst give us the option
to either let the fleets battle it out or offer some other alternative?
Preferably one without the destruction of the mass relays and if the facts in
The Arrival DLC are to be believed what with mass relays going super nova when
destroyed, the destruction of the solar system and much of the galaxy as well.

Finally, one must bring up the scene with the Normandy
flying away from the energy wave. That scene made literally no sense what so
ever. Why was he trying to escape it and why did it damage the Normandy? It
didn't damage the other ships back on earth around the citadel. How did my
crewmates end up on it after being down on earth during the final battle? I
don't see how joker could have possibly picked them all up in such a short time
in the heat of battle. How is it that Garrus emerges from the Normandy
unscathed when he was with me in the final run to the beam? Why is EDI even up
and about? She is housed in the Normandy, not in the robotic body. With the
Normandy destroyed and presumably without much power, how can the ship still be
actively transmitting her consciousness into that robot body? And how is it
that while merely running can cause Joker to break a bone,  crash landing a ship results in no physical
trauma whatsoever?

Back when Bioware delayed the release of the game i was a
bit disappointed but i figured they were taking their time to make the best
game possible so I lived with it. Then after asking the fans on this site and
in these forums what they wanted to see in a so called "Uber Collectors
Edition" of the game they abruptly decided to nix the entire idea and
nearly ban any speak of it on the forums. Again i was disappointed as i was
really looking forward to having that edition but again I'll just live with it.
Finally, they present us with this SINGULAR ENDING which I can only hope was
done due to time constraints and provides little if any closure to the fans of
the series. Now this is something I simply can't live with. In the end all I
can say is, why? You, Bioware, put so much time, effort, money, and talent to
work on such an amazing series that brought joy to millions of gamers and this
is how you let it end? I can't in my mind believe that everyone at Bioware took
a look at the final ending they created and thought: now that's something to be
proud of! Seriously guys and gals, there is no way 100% of you thought that. I
know you're out there quietly containing your despair at what you let out into
the world. I really wish some of you designers and writers  would come and join us on these forums in
expressing your true feelings but I also understand that expressing yourself in
such a away could elicit a negative response from your employer.



I'm a deeply devoted fan to this franchise, I wouldn't have
written this if I wasn't. Really in the end all I want is to see some thought,
justice and closure brought to the end of this amazing saga. Once again, i
applaud the people that created this engrossing series which is quite possibly
my favorite of all time. I only wish that you could somehow alter or at the
very least explain the ending that we, your fans, have been presented with and
truly give this saga the conclusion it deserves.

Modifié par shadow217, 23 mai 2012 - 07:55 .

[rapscallioness]

Sooo...okay. I don't know where else to post this, so here goes

I must confess, ME3 ending storm, or no, I still prefer BW games over any and all others. It's true. And I've talked alot of smack lately, but, wow. I've been trying to find a game to pass the time.....and...they all pretty much get on my nerves.

I tried out Max Payne 3. Good game. You know, the action. The slow mo moves, heh, heh..I like that. The graphics were nice. And the in head Max narration was good. But! it was so short. I didn't realize when I got it that it would be more focused on MP with a side dish of SP.  And although the action was nice, it got to be too much for me. I like a balance. Some downtime in between the heated battles.

Oh, and I don't like gunning down kids. I don't care how realistic for the situation it is. I'm not having it.

So, then I try out this Dragon Dogma thing. I've just started and...well, something about it bothers me. Perhaps it's the washed out looking graphics? I thought I read somewhere that they spent some insane amount of money on the game? The graphics looked like some over exposed picture. I...I adjusted the brightness....

And I can't see the faces of the NPC's when I talk to them. They're way off somewhere. That bothers me to no end. And you tried to do some of this, BW, with the clicky-click DLC convo's for the NPC's. Please, throw that little idea out. I beg you. It's cool for party banter when you click on your squad while wandering around. But when I step up to "investigate" an NPC, I want to see their face! It's a big pet peeve for me. It makes me curse out loud.

Oh, and for future reference, I do like the ability to click on my NPC's and hear little one liners while we're questing. You had that in ME1. You took it out in ME2 and ME3. Please try to bring that back. It's not a big deal, but I really like that. Especially if it's situation appropriate one liners.

Now, the Witcher 2 is Nice. It's beautiful to look at and seems like a good story is percolating. It seems to be alot of herb picking...but, okay, whatever.

Thing is, I  still love BW games the best. DA and ME. You hit that right mix for me. The sweet spot. I wish you guys would add another title, tho. A different genre to the mix. We've got Fantasy and Sci-Fi. 

Although, following your games gives me a bit of whiplash. You go from one end all the way over to the other end. In ME1--cluttered inventory. ME2 no inventory. Well, pretty much no. I mean, I get tired of gathering herbs and fish. And crafting every little darn thing. But I love customizing my squaddies armor and weapons. I love doing that. I mean real customizing. Not that cycle appearance stuff. Come on.

Apparently, I give a darn about BW games. Which would explain why I follow you. Why I'm actually on a video game forum....I don't do that. I don't join video game forums. Which explains why I want you to succeed.  That, and well, you're a good bunch. You're nerds, and nerds are cool people. Geeks on the other hand...geeks are little too anal retentive for me.

I think I digress. What I mean is, ME3 was good game. It had some great parts, and it had some parts where I know for a fact you could have done better. Because you have in the past.

The journal system was very hard to follow. Exploration was nil. I was hoping to have the player actually land on some of these planets where I had to get the statue, or the ancient book..whatever. I was hoping to have to battle it out. Maybe save some survivors. Find some good loot. And see a cool new planet.

Also I was hoping to see some more hubs. I love the Citadel, but...even if the hub was half in ruins, still I wanted to see it. Didn't have to be huge, just varied.

And yes, Show me consequences to my choices. Like in ME1 I saved the Rachni. It would have been entirely appropriate and cool if in that game my Shepard was then hounded by some old school Krogan that were ticked off because of that decision. I don't mind consequences in the same game.

You did that well in ME2. If I didn't upgrade the Normandy...sheesh. I got to delegate my squaddies at the end. If I made the wrong choice..sheesh. And it wasn't something you just had to reload and try that scene again. You had to go all the way back and get it right. I also loved that there was actual post gameplay. Places I hadn't gone to before. They weren't huge missions or anything, but it was nice.

And i like hacking. That was fun.

So, yes, I do prefer your company over all others. You've got something here. I want you to succeed triumphantly. I want other devs to take note, because they really aren't stepping up the way they should be. There are some, but not nearly as many as there should be. Too many have gotten complacent. Don't take note from them, BW.

[vieri262626]

After my first playthrough of ME3 I heavily suspected the lack of polish in the single player campaign was because it took a back seat to the multiplayer. Considering:

- many loose ends or poorly tied off side plots from stuff that could have been huge (especially dark energy and Aria/Omega/Terminus systems, not to mention many cool things that were mentioned in the Cerberus News and in the planet descriptions)
- way too much reliance on emails/shadow broker terminal/war room/spectre room to progress the story. These were a great supplement in ME2, but they were not used for major things (like the rachni turning on us).
- go fetch sidequests, many of which were identical (ie. recover the religious writings of every species, cure these diseases...). Compare with the awesomeness and uniqueness of the writing in each of the ME1 sidequests. The execution of these quests is also super lame and doesn't make any sense - we're being chased around the galaxy map at faster than light speed.
- the removal of the need to accumulate resources - I know a lot of people hated planet scanning, but the resources could have at least been loot like in ME2. I'm sure you could have come up with something, instead Liara's drone just manages the upgrades as you go. Speaking of which, the shadow broker's terminals were such a good idea in ME2, why weren't more of them brought back? The two we got was so little compared to that DLC.
- less choice and dialogue options than what we're used to (the dialogue wheel was your pride and joy in ME1 and 2)
- way less character development and less squadmates when a few did not have a good reason not to rejoin you (Zaeed just hangs around the refugee camp after his sidequest, are you kidding me? Heck, he didn't even have that many good stories this time around. Miranda's another one that could have easily joined after (or even before) dealing with her father. Jacob - what happened to, "Practically a suicide mission... I volunteer"? Morinth? All we get is an email and a banshee labeled, "Morinth"?)
- no enemies other than that which is available for multiplayer (what about named enemies? bosses? Eva and Kai-leng only two I can think of. Feel like I'm fighting the same 3 multiplayer enemy groups over and over. Enemy encounters are no where near as varied as ME1 and 2)
- side-quests that were just a multiplayer map
- major weaknesses in the main plot of the game (ie. intro, catalyst, the kid, the ending, Cerberus). Rannoch and Tuchanka quests aside, I expected to pick up on a lot of foreshadowing from earlier games that was setting us up for a real shocker of an ending, but the whole story just felt so disconnected from the series. I've read up on the original "dark energy" ending and it would have been brilliant. All the foreshadowing was there - dark energy, uniqueness of humans.... Instead you went with something that seems completely forced and foreign to the series. You've obviously had the ending planned out from day one, why lay the foundation for it and then go with something else? It completely baffles me.
- decisions from ME1+2 didn't really matter
- many characters from ME2 didn't really matter
- 1 hub area
- the journal which was already perfected in ME1 somehow got screwed up in this game
- the ending which was basically the exact opposite of everything you said it would be over and over again in interview after interview

Anyway, those were things that didn't sit right with me given the level of quality I've gotten used to after playing ME1 and 2 repeatedly. I will admit that I still consider these games, including ME3, to be in a league of their own. But I'm just saying ME3 is nowhere near worthy of the hype, the promises or it's predecessors. And as I was saying, I had suspected the multiplayer addition was to blame, that it became priority #1 and this game was hijacked.

The last 2-3 months since release have done nothing to prove the contrary. Every update to the website is about multiplayer DLC and multiplayer events. What did we have with ME2? A ton of single player DLC playable missions and news updates every day to enrich the storyline.

It's a shame that such a trilogy got hijacked in the last game like that. I guess the joke's on me, I preordered before the announcement of multiplayer. I played multiplayer a few times on the demo and haven't played it since.

[Helios969]

Pros: Beautiful graphics (cutscenes were awesome,) storyline (except last 5-10 minutes,) and gameplay. I loved the smooth movements of dodging side to side in and out of cover, as well as leaping over obstacles and jumping across crevices and gaps between buildings.

Now the bad: ME3 is inferior in story, content, and flexibility of character interaction to the first two games. The story arc(s) become evermore constricting and forced upon us. I understand the intent. War, afterall, often presents its leaders with options that are tragic to horrifying. Dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a perfect example, but the consensus between political and military historians are that hundreds of thousands more would haved died if they had not. Still, beating the odds, doing the impossible is what ME1 and 2 were all about (if the right choices were made.) It seems to me, creating a game where ALL possible outcomes are attainable is the only appropriate way to go. Is Bioware a business looking to sustain its own long term viability or a nonprofit for "artistic visionaries?"

Tying war assets in the SPG to playing the MP to get all possible endings was a ridiculously bad idea. EA/Bioware: You are transparent. And all you did was ****** off the bulk of your fanbase who embraced the ME series for its single player content. I have no intention of playing a bunch of mindless first person shooter missions with a group of people I don't know, don't want to know, and couldn't care less about. I didn't fall in love with ME because of all the inane killing and destruction in the missions. The missions were merely a diversion from the story, character interaction, and consequences of choices and the POSSIBILITY of the outcome.

The ending. I will not go into depth since it has been endlessly discussed. It was bad. Period. You really cannot even call it an ending. There's no definitive resolution. Imagine your favorite book...take out the last 10 or 20 pages and tell me you'd be satisfied.

The lack of choices and consequences of all those previous choices runs counter to what the entire game had been about. Being force fed three choices (with identical cutscenes,) only one of which is viable to my (and most others') character. Why wasn't there a fourth option? Peaceful coexistence. My choices were commit genocide on the Reapers (given what they're attempting to do, I wont lose sleep;) enslave the Reapers (what the hell kind of message is that?) enslave the entire galaxy by forcing synthetic/organtic evolution.

Finally, I have no problem sacrificing my character for the greater good. Afterall, that's what most of us have been doing for the past 5 years. So how about some sort of epilogue with my surviving friends commemorating me and raising a glass. Nevermind, that I somehow unconsciously sent them a telepathic message to evacuate earth and get through the relays because destruction is imminent. The entire ending from the Illusive Man showing up to the ridiculous old man and little boy scene screams junior college creative writing 1. The release date was obviously rushed. Or maybe the creators were simply burnt out and wanted it to be over. At any rate, they managed to take what should have been one of the greatest games ever and left it mediocre.

Perhaps this mythical DLC for the single player will bring some sort of satisfying closure, but I seriously doubt it. (Funny how the MP DLC is on the way and supercedes most fans desires.) I'll be very hesitant buying anymore BW games in the future. If they intend to actually create anymore SPG's. Dragon Age 1: Awesome; Dragon Age 2: Couldn't even finish it. ME 1 & 2: Awesome; ME 3: Ruined by poor decision making and amateurish writing at the end. I see a trend.

[Arkwright99]

I finished my first playthrough of ME3 last night (early hours of the morning) so I finally feel qualified to talk about the series as a whole now.

I will say, upfront. that the ending didn't annoy me half as much as it might have because I knew what was coming. I'd heard all the complaints (and sympatheised with them) over the last couple of months about the Catalyst (Star Kid) so I was prepared and I think that helped me manage my expectations but I daresay if I had come to the ending cold and without any foreknowledge I would have felt majorly cheated. (Also I've only been playing Mass Effect since March this year so obviously don't have the same emotional attachment to the series as people who have been living with the games since 2007.)

In advance TL;DR: There's stuff I liked about ME3 ; there's stuff I didn't <_<; and then there's the ending.

Things I liked about ME3:

• From Ashes - not the fact this was Day 1 DLC so much but rather the way it added fslavour to the game; probably because it was supposed to be part of the game proper anyway (which is why having to pay extra for it is a kick in the quads) but at least Javik interfaced with the game better than Zaeed or Katumi did. (Zaeed spun a good yarn but interaction with him outside of his own loyalty mission was minimal and I never used Katsumi planet-side after I finished her mission.) Javik actually felt like a proper squad member.
• No more bloody calibrations! - I very much preferred squad members having 'not today, thank you' stock responses for Shepard rather than me having to pull up the dialogue wheel only to be told that Garrus was, yet again, "in the middle of some calibrations" or that Miranda had 'a lot of things to do'.
• Uniting the Geth & the Quarians - this felt very rewarding, more so than curing the genophage which left a bad taste in Shepard's mouth (everything she'd done in the first two games had been to preserve the genophage so her volte-face in ME3 felt out of character).  One of the things the game did well was the tranformation of Shepard's understanding of the Geth thanks to Legion.
• London scared me - even though I resolutely play on Casual (I'm here for the story and to role-play not because I like Call of Duty-style FPS games) a lot of the more combat-orientated missions would give me the heebie-geebies mostly due to 'fear of the unknown'. Having finished them they were invariably not as bad as I'd feared and I'll be less apprehensive next time (assuming there is a next time), but London really unnerved me beforehand and I got quite stressed by the prospect of doing it. That's an effect that very few art forms have on me and it's a credit to BioWare's writers, designers and developers that their stories can have that affect me on me.

Things I really liked about ME3:

• EDI - EDI was simply wonderful; Shepard pretty much took her everywhere post-Tuchunka and not just because she liked looking at EDI's shiny metal chassis. EDI worked equally well against Reapers as she did against Geth as she did against Cerberus; if they had shields she could zap them and if they didn't she could burn them. And failing that she could shoot them. As a cybernetic warfare suite on legs I think she should have been given access to Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles and Shotguns but I guess that would have over-powered her in comparison to the other squadies.
• The Normandy post-Thessia - Thessia was if anything more affecting than Tuchanka/Rannoch which everyone else holds up as the pinnacle of the game; I loved the whole atmosphere onboard the Normandy as everyone processed their first major failure. It felt real, whereas Tuchanka/Rannoch were just nice to get the 'happy endings'. This was probably my favourite bit of writing in the entire series.

Things I disliked about ME3:

• Over-reliance on cinematics - I didn't like that quite often I (Shepard) felt more like a passenger in someone else's story than an active participant in my (her) own; too often early in the game I felt like I was dragged from one place to another (Earth > Mars > The Citadel) without a chance to grab a breath or get to know my environment. A bunch of introductions happened after the first visit to the Citadel that just felt like they should have happened earlier. I would have preferred more opportunities to drive the narrative during the cinematics rather than watching a prepared script play out in front of me.
• Kind of related to the above but cinematics where my squad mates - i.e Liara and EDI - are suddenly touting Assault Rifles rather than SMGs or Heavy Pistols break my suspension of disbelief. I wish EDI could be kitted out with ARs and SRs (I'm not really sure why she can't to be honest, I mean, if it's good enough for Legion...) but it kind of rubs your nose in it when she only does so in the clip-scenes.
• Dreams - These were a pain in the ass. Not sure what narrative purpose they were supposed to achieve but if they had some point it surely passed over my head.
• No Omega - The retaking of Omega is clearly signposted as a major mission in ME3 but it just didn't happen. I know it will eventually come out as DLC in the future (some time) but its absence in the game proper was sorely noticed.
• Shepard's bow-legged 'running' - I don't know what it was but while Shepard could run properly in combat mode, in civilian mode she kind of hobbled about like her hips were dislocated whenever she tried running. I don't know what the Devs were trying to achieve but it was bloody undignified. Go back and look at how human anatomy works, guys!
• Cerberus - the problem here was that my Shepard hadn't fallen out with TIM at the end of ME2; she'd given him the Collectors Base, so Miranda hadn't resigned, and although she didn't fully trust TIM's motives she still thought they were trying to achieve the same thing - the end of the Reapers. Somewhere between Arrival DLC and ME3 something changed but it was never really voiced. I figured that Shepard's turning herself (and, ergo, the Normandy) over to Hackett as she'd promised at the end of Arrival had pissed TIM off but it all rather felt as though my Shepard's story was being forcibly shoe-horned into BioWare's default narrative.That said, I did like the video logs on Chronos Station where Shepard discovers how TIM had 'duped' her by loading the Normandy 2 with sympathetic faces. Very clever.
• Underwear - I know this is all about societal differences but bras in showers and in love-making have no place in these sorts of games. Either you're making a PG-rated game, in which case just avoid those moments entirely or you're making a game for mature adults, in which case stop treating us like children! At the moment we have some half-arsed compromise that satisfies neither side. Not a game breaker but decidely irksome.
• No 'View Achievements' in game - come on guys, you enabled this in ME2, we even had the same desk furniture in ME3 so why do we have to exit the game to view our achivement progress?!! Fix this.

Things I really disliked about ME3:

• Kai Leng - the guy was a major douchebag; that wasn't his fault as much as it was the way all his scenes were written. I felt like Shepard should have been able to take him down on the Citadel and she would have taken Leng down on Thessia if he hadn't brought a frigging gunship to a knife fight! (Dropping a hundred tonnes of masonry on her head doesn't count as a defeat unless you do it yourself a la Samson in my book.) I suppose Kai Leng's best moment in my game was when he exploded in a fleshy bag of blood and guts when Shepard shot him at 'no shields' point blank range with her Black Widow. (The effect was rather marred when he reappeared fully reconstitued in the following cinematic although I did get to kill him a second time. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png[/smilie]) I think if Kai Leng had been a presence in all three games he would have carried more dramatic weight; as it was it was more 'Who are you?  And why can't I kill you, you flouncing diva?'
• Shepard's romance (with Liara in my games) - It sucked major league that despite getting together in ME1 and re-affirming their relationship in ME2/LotSB, that Shepard & Liara's romance was still so... chaste in ME3. I mean, in Dragon Age: Origins the Warden & their LI could have a smooch (or, if you modded your game, a 'bonk') whenever they liked at Camp but in the Mass Effect universe it seems like lovers have to pretend their Significant Other doesn't exist. I would have liked SHepard to have been able to invite Liara up to her cabin (cf. Kelly Chambers in ME2) for a kiss 'n' cuddle when she felt the need, even if there had been a 'fade to black' cut scene when they did, to at least have given the impression of two people in a 'proper' relationship.
• No post-Arrival court martial - The start of ME3 really bugs me. Big Time. I'm still trying to get my head around this. Anderson says Shepard should have been court-martialled and thrown in the brig for her actions at the Alpha Relay, implying then that she hasn't been court-martialled, but neither does she appear to be a part of the Alliance (she tells Anderson later that she doesn't take orders from him anymore, whereupon he immediately reinstates her in the Alliance). I'd liked to have started the game with the court-martial, which dialogue wheel responses as Shepard justified her actions/non-actions, with the VS having given evidence for or against Shepard depending on the state of their relationship post-Horizon, and then have the Reapers turn up in the middle.

The Ending:
Okay, the elephant in the room. I had a couple of issues with the ending as presented but my reaction wasn't as severe as some people's.

• My first issue is that after Shepard gets hit by the Reaper's Insta-kill beam in the charge for the Conduit (I was sure that was a 'Critical Mission Failure' moment) her armor changed from her standard pink gear to something black. I'm like, 'Woah, when did you have time to change?' I suppose it's possible that either all the paintwork and/or armour plating got burned off or something but it just felt rather jarring, like I was living someone else's story not my own.
• I disliked - strongly disliked - Shepard saying 'So the Illusive Man was right all along' when the Catalyst revealed the Control option to her. My Shepard had not five minutes previous told TIM that he couldn't control the Reapers but here she was apparently prepared to acknowledge the was right and she was wrong. Again, this should have been a dialogue wheel option rather than a pre-scripted dialogue that I couldn't affect.
• Likewise, when the Catalyst asked her whether she could imagine living without her synthetic implants I wanted her to be able to say that yes, she could actually. After all, she hadn't been born with them and had only had them for less than two years (during which she was mostly unconscious) so she did know what it was like.
• Rannoch proved that synthetics don't always exterminate organics. Legion proved that synthetics needn't be automatically hostile to organics. EDI & Joker proved that synthetics and organics can have inter-dependent relationships. The Catalyst's world view of how the universe works is thus demonstrably wrong. You have to question if the advanced races are wiped out every 50,000 years before machines can exterminate them how does it know that the process is inevitable? Hasn't this present cycle just proved the Catalyst is wrong?
• That said, I didn't actually mind being offered the choice between Destroy - Control - Synthesis; it was more choice than I was offered at the end of Dragon Age II, though not quite as much choice as I was offered at the end of Dragon Age: Origins(!). I think, had I played the game blind I'd probably have gone for the Synthesis ending; I would have wanted to keep EDI and the Geth alive (so to speak) but would have already rejected TIM's Control solution and the game has, up to that point, strongly pointed to co-operation and co-existence between organics and synthetics as the ideal, so Synthesis feels like a no-brainer. If I'd then discovered that the Destroy ending gave the 'best ending' (i.e. Shepard survives - somehow) then I'd probably have felt acutely pissed and even, dare I say it, 'cheated'. As it was, knowing in advance what happens, Shepard stuck to her guns and completed her mission, even though it majorly sucks about the Synthetics. Once again they get the sharp end of the stick from an organic through no fault of their own.
• However, what really galled me was what happened to the Normandy -the whole 'Garden of Eden' epilogue makes no sense. At all. Whatsover. First off, why does the Normandy/Joker need to run away from the 'Crucible Energy Wave'? None of the other Alliance ships seem to be affected by it, just the Reapers. Joker can't know that EDI is going to be destroyed by the Wave because he's not privvy to Shepard's conversation on the Citadel, so why does he put the pedal to the metal and try and out pace it? (Where exactly is he out-running it to anyway?) But that's nothing compared to the conundrum of what the hell is Liara doing onboard when she was in London with Shepard at the Conduit? (Post-Thessia Liara and EDI were my permanent squadmates.) In fact, given that both she and Javik are seen disembarking from the Normandy I have to query at what point exactly in the PRIORITY: EARTH mission did they find time to double back and get a shuttle back to the Normandy? This one scene completely breaks my (already fragile) suspension of disbelief in the game. What I am presented with just isn't plausible. I simply don't believe it. The Normandy makes a mockery of everything that's come before it because it appears to be saying, 'Hey kids, Space Magic!' . The EC will have a steep mountain to climb to clarify what the hell happened there but it isn't necessarily an impossible feat. We'll just have to wait and see.

Concluding TL;DR: Mass Effect 3 is good but not perfect, could be a lot better given enough time and resources but currently it feels unfinished in places and confusing in others. The ending is either extremely clever and original (truly original things often have a hard time of being accepted by the mainstream) or unforgivably inept and half-baked. Time will tell. Maybe.

Modifié par demos99, 25 mai 2012 - 01:23 .

[BrianAA777]

CONTAINS SPOILERS:

My score for Mass Effect 3: 100/100

That's not to say it's perfect but I'm comparing it to other top-tier games.

Summary: a great conclusion to a great trilogy.

Liked:

• -the writing for the Mass Effect series is top-notch. 95% of games I couldn't care less about listening to the dialogue but I listen to every word in the ME series. Some of the grand story arcs are somewhat generic but the world, characters, and dialogue are exceptional.
• -voice acting is generally excellent. Sound is also excellent.
• -the art for ME3 is excellent, from the large (concepts, vistas) to the small (models, textures, shaders/effects).
• -the story has a range of emotions (e.g., triumph, sadness, laugh-out-loud moments).
• -music is top-notch (as with ME1&2).
• -the multiplayer portion is surprisingly fun.
• -The ending: In reading some comments I can see why people don't like the too-similar ending(s) but I thought my ending (Synthesis) was beautiful. I can see why people want more explanation or epilogue but I wouldn't change it. I think the ending gives you enough for your imagination to fill in the gaps as you please. Could there be different endings just as good? Yes. But my ending was unforgettable and bittersweet, and I praise any storyteller who is willing to forgo a Hollywood style happy ending.
• -the combat gameplay is a lot of fun (as with ME1&2).
• -there is quite a bit of content.

Disliked:

• -some dramatic moments failed to deliver. Example 1: the death of Legion--here the events build up dramatic tension but then he just sort of keels over. Example 2: Liara's vision gift near the end starts like an intro to something substantial but it just ends prematurely. Example 3: my Illusive Man's demise (suicide) seems out of character and unsatisfying. Example 4: Vega's story arc was disappointing. Example 5: all the dream sequences except the final one seem to fizzle out prematurely.
• -I don't like linking multiplayer to single-player progress ("effective military strength").
• -some weapon sounds are lackluster (lack a sense of power) (most are good though).
• -I don't like having to make a circuit of the Citadel and Normandy after every mission to hear all the dialogue. As I said above I love the writing so I want to hear it all but all the walking/loading becomes quite tedious.
• -I don't like it when the game moves you without warning in a one-way fashion to a new area before you have fully explored the current area yet. I think ME2 had a button that would pop up "press B to exit the mission" but there was no equivalent in ME3.
• -I don't like having to search the levels methodically for all the goodies such as armor parts. I know this is a game design choice but I would just have them rewarded automatically at the end of the mission. Sometimes there is interesting stuff players might miss.
• -the simple fetch sidequests add nothing to the game.
• -no option for "film grain" visual effect (ME2 had this option although I couldn't see any difference--I want the option for ME1 style film grain which is quite distinct).
• -sidequest journal did not give enough location info. In general the journal system was almost useless.
• -at least one sidequest was simply broken, and others got cancelled by doing a certain priority mission.
• -the heavy weapons left me wanting to use them more (it left me wondering why Bioware would spend time making such awesome heavy weapons but you get to use them very rarely).
• -the Reapers chasing you upon exploration just made me avoid exploring.
• -some things just seem missing: e.g., at the series of goodbyes near the end, Wrex gets just a handful of non-interactive lines. That's disappointing.
• -as in ME1&2, the characters stand too rigidly in their default pose.
• -I would like more biotic-focused squadmates (did not buy DLC).
• -there were two Reaper boss fights that were extremely frustrating to me (normal difficulty): Reaper on Tuchanka, Reaper on Rannoch. The instant death with no feedback or warning is poor game design. These were very out of place because the difficulty otherwise was very well balanced (as it was in ME1&2).
• -I don't like Shepard going into cover automatically (such as sprinting into cover). I would like the option of "only enter/exit cover when you press A". Why: if you're trying to sprint away from danger, sometimes you get stuck in cover.
• -I don't like how in the dialogue wheel, options that you have already heard are not grayed out or otherwise marked. This is very distracting to me to keep track in my head of what I've heard already.

[Landon7001]

I've already written my review but I just wanted to say I hope bioware is still reading these Or just the last, most recent couple pages of reviews like Ive just gotten through reading because they are really very poignant, articulate {despite misspelling due to immense quanity of words} and convey so very well the heartfelt sentiment and thougths of so many ME fans worldwide.....really hope they REALLY ARE listening as they have said they are......but then again theyve said alot of things at this point......{one note: played earth/mars again recently-very good}

[trogwolf]

SyyRaaaN wrote...

***CONTAINS SPOLERS****

Score: 4/10 (More bad than good) . (Very conservatie rating. I'd rate Starcraft2 a 5/10, GTA IV for PC a 6/10, and ME1/ME2 8,5/10)
0 replayability

This game has 0 replayability and it isn't because of the endings, its all of it. Won't be importing any of my other Sheps nor finishing my second. One of the reasons is the lack of Dialogue wheel. I simply don't care anything about dialogue choises anymore. All Shepards feel the same. If i wanna kill off Mordin or Tali or whatever, i might aswell watch it on youtube. You streamlined our Shepard way off to much. Seriously, this series took a heavy hit from this. Also choises like Rachni Queen/save the Council/etc doesn't seem to impact the game enough. This is problematic to say the least. So the game is basically 20-25 hours of gameplay including the DLC... Thats bad. Really bad.

The Ending - I changed my mind - it is really bad. (Sorry for the hard words, wrote this when i was tired)

Even a Reaper wins ending would have been better than this.

It is amazing to me how differently I must think compared to people like SyyRaaaN.
 
When I first heard about all of this negative feedback about the game's ending, I waited until I had played through once, so I could be objective, and then I looked at some of the complaints. The most common feedback that I remember seeing was that people felt that there was not enough impact from previous in game decisions apparent in the ending. I even remember reading a couple of people who said something like, "I won't even bother to play the game through a second time" 
I have now played through ME3 4 times: male and female, each paragon and renegade. I have never played a game with such a high degree of replayability as the Mass Effect series. After I played ME3 through the first two times, with the two male ME2 characters I was able to import, I went back and replayed ME2 with my two female ME1 characters so that I could import them into ME3.
 
ME3 is a little shorter on a single play through than ME1 or ME2. This is actually a good thing. If you have replayed ME1 and ME2 enough times, you might appreciate a shorter play through in ME3, because then you will be able to replay it more often with your ME2 characters. 
 
People who have complained about the lack of impact of ME1 and ME2 decisions in the game ending have made a critical error. The place you see the impact of those decisions is throughout the game, not in the ending of the game. It wasn't until my 4th play through of ME3 that I felt the decision of rescuing my human crew and NOT addressing Tali's treason charge. Tali died on the collector base, which had two interesting effects. One was that Admiral Raan (I'm pretty sure) was with me on Rannoch when I took out the Reaper base and the Reaper. And because I was making renegade decisions, Legion attacked me when I refused to upload the Reaper code to the geth. Legion was killed by Raan and the Quarians wiped out the Geth. It was only in this play through(my fourth) that I learned that the Geth had built a single server home for all the Geth, that the Quarians had bombed, which resulted in their turning to the Reapers. It was only in this play through that I learned from Javik that in his cycle, a race of sentients had used implants and then allowed AI to occupy those implants, which later resulted in the AI taking over that generation of that race and using their offspring as a subservient to the "now" almost entirely synthetic beings.  All of Javik's advice to throw Legion out of the airlock was colored by that memory from his cycle.
 
In response to SyyRaaaN's 0 rating, I say that the storylines in ME3 are so incredibly complex and varied, depending on the decisions you made in ME1 and ME2, I am in awe. Anyone who says, "I am so disgusted with the lack of decision-based impact in the ending that I am never going to play again." has completely missed the point. Try replaying as male, female, paragon, renegade. Try letting different squad members die in ME2 and see how it changes ME3. Enjoy the game that was created and stop trying to get BioWare to make the game you think you would have created instead.  If you can't see the impact of those different decisions on the game (ME3) that you are replaying, then you can't see the forest for the trees. The variety is within the game. 
 
There was no need to put a choice in the ending at all, the fact that BioWare did so speaks to their commitment to the priority they established from the beginning: that all along the way, Shepard would be faced with tough decisions. At the end, the decision happens to be: Destroy all Synthetics and leave the galaxy to the Organics or become the Catalyst and Control the Reapers and take a chance that Organics and Synthetics can live in harmony or eliminate the need for the cycle by combining Organics and Synthetics in a new genetic matrix. All of these choices have one cataclysmic event in common: the release of a quality and quantity of energy that will destroy the Mass Relays, making it impossible to travel throughout the galaxy until the technology is duplicated and new Mass Relays are built. 
 
What other ending could have been possible and still seemed realistic to any rational mind? Seriously, you are dealing with a fleet of organic/synthetic robotic entities who know only one thing: harvest higher level sentient life. They have been executing this programming every 50,000 years for at least 37 million years. And apparently they are renewed as a consequence of each iteration. They have done it abut 800 times. They are quite good at.  They have it down to a science, you might say. They can not be defeated by any conventional means that has been developed by any race that can develop in a 15,000 to 50,000 year evolutionary period. They might be able to be defeated by a weapon that has itself been evolving for, I am guessing, at least 6 cycles - a weapon of such unknown power and purpose, that it is as likely to destroy all life as it is to destroy merely the Reapers, but it is either build and use this weapon or be harvested.
 
I agree with SyyRaaN's 85/100 rating for ME1 and ME2 - I would rate them even higher, in fact, and I would rate ME3 just as high, right along with ME1 and ME2. ESPECIALLY ON REPLAYABILITY.  Thank you BioWare for an awesome games series.

Modifié par trogwolf, 30 mai 2012 - 08:38 .

[janeym27]

Have literally just completed my first play through. I will post a proper review at some point in the fute, but right not, gut reaction, minutes after the end (an end that took me an AGE  to finally have the courage to get to). Wow. It's been such a wild ride. And the ending worked for me. It made sense for my Shep. I was not disappointed. I know I'm in a minority here, but after 4 years of this story, I'm happy that this is where I ended up. I've just about cried on three occassions playing the final push. In a good way.

And now to go outside and look at trees and things...

[Landon7001]

trogwolf wrote...

SyyRaaaN wrote...

***CONTAINS SPOLERS****

Score: 4/10 (More bad than good) . (Very conservatie rating. I'd rate Starcraft2 a 5/10, GTA IV for PC a 6/10, and ME1/ME2 8,5/10)
0 replayability

This game has 0 replayability and it isn't because of the endings, its all of it. Won't be importing any of my other Sheps nor finishing my second. One of the reasons is the lack of Dialogue wheel. I simply don't care anything about dialogue choises anymore. All Shepards feel the same. If i wanna kill off Mordin or Tali or whatever, i might aswell watch it on youtube. You streamlined our Shepard way off to much. Seriously, this series took a heavy hit from this. Also choises like Rachni Queen/save the Council/etc doesn't seem to impact the game enough. This is problematic to say the least. So the game is basically 20-25 hours of gameplay including the DLC... Thats bad. Really bad.

The Ending - I changed my mind - it is really bad. (Sorry for the hard words, wrote this when i was tired)

Even a Reaper wins ending would have been better than this.

It is amazing to me how differently I must think compared to people like SyyRaaaN.
 
When I first heard about all of this negative feedback about the game's ending, I waited until I had played through once, so I could be objective, and then I looked at some of the complaints. The most common feedback that I remember seeing was that people felt that there was not enough impact from previous in game decisions apparent in the ending. I even remember reading a couple of people who said something like, "I won't even bother to play the game through a second time" 
I have now played through ME3 4 times: male and female, each paragon and renegade. I have never played a game with such a high degree of replayability as the Mass Effect series. After I played ME3 through the first two times, with the two male ME2 characters I was able to import, I went back and replayed ME2 with my two female ME1 characters so that I could import them into ME3.
 
ME3 is a little shorter on a single play through than ME1 or ME2. This is actually a good thing. If you have replayed ME1 and ME2 enough times, you might appreciate a shorter play through in ME3, because then you will be able to replay it more often with your ME2 characters. 
 
People who have complained about the lack of impact of ME1 and ME2 decisions in the game ending have made a critical error. The place you see the impact of those decisions is throughout the game, not in the ending of the game. It wasn't until my 4th play through of ME3 that I felt the decision of rescuing my human crew and NOT addressing Tali's treason charge. Tali died on the collector base, which had two interesting effects. One was that Admiral Raan (I'm pretty sure) was with me on Rannoch when I took out the Reaper base and the Reaper. And because I was making renegade decisions, Legion attacked me when I refused to upload the Reaper code to the geth. Legion was killed by Raan and the Quarians wiped out the Geth. It was only in this play through(my fourth) that I learned that the Geth had built a single server home for all the Geth, that the Quarians had bombed, which resulted in their turning to the Reapers. It was only in this play through that I learned from Javik that in his cycle, a race of sentients had used implants and then allowed AI to occupy those implants, which later resulted in the AI taking over that generation of that race and using their offspring as a subservient to the "now" almost entirely synthetic beings.  All of Javik's advice to throw Legion out of the airlock was colored by that memory from his cycle.
 
In response to SyyRaaaN's 0 rating, I say that the storylines in ME3 are so incredibly complex and varied, depending on the decisions you made in ME1 and ME2, I am in awe. Anyone who says, "I am so disgusted with the lack of decision-based impact in the ending that I am never going to play again." has completely missed the point. Try replaying as male, female, paragon, renegade. Try letting different squad members die in ME2 and see how it changes ME3. Enjoy the game that was created and stop trying to get BioWare to make the game you think you would have created instead.  If you can't see the impact of those different decisions on the game (ME3) that you are replaying, then you can't see the forest for the trees. The variety is within the game. 
 
There was no need to put a choice in the ending at all, the fact that BioWare did so speaks to their commitment to the priority they established from the beginning: that all along the way, Shepard would be faced with tough decisions. At the end, the decision happens to be: Destroy all Synthetics and leave the galaxy to the Organics or become the Catalyst and Control the Reapers and take a chance that Organics and Synthetics can live in harmony or eliminate the need for the cycle by combining Organics and Synthetics in a new genetic matrix. All of these choices have one cataclysmic event in common: the release of a quality and quantity of energy that will destroy the Mass Relays, making it impossible to travel throughout the galaxy until the technology is duplicated and new Mass Relays are built. 
 
What other ending could have been possible and still seemed realistic to any rational mind? Seriously, you are dealing with a fleet of organic/synthetic robotic entities who know only one thing: harvest higher level sentient life. They have been executing this programming every 50,000 years for at least 37 million years. And apparently they are renewed as a consequence of each iteration. They have done it abut 800 times. They are quite good at.  They have it down to a science, you might say. They can not be defeated by any conventional means that has been developed by any race that can develop in a 15,000 to 50,000 year evolutionary period. They might be able to be defeated by a weapon that has itself been evolving for, I am guessing, at least 6 cycles - a weapon of such unknown power and purpose, that it is as likely to destroy all life as it is to destroy merely the Reapers, but it is either build and use this weapon or be harvested.
 
I agree with SyyRaaN's 85/100 rating for ME1 and ME2 - I would rate them even higher, in fact, and I would rate ME3 just as high, right along with ME1 and ME2. ESPECIALLY ON REPLAYABILITY.  Thank you BioWare for an awesome games series.

I, too, find myself so wanting to just love this game and love what we have and appreciate the me 3 that we got along with its attributes.....what you say has some merit, there are alot of varied details between playthroughs....mostly pertaining to alive or dead characters, and w/ my 7 careers ive played through me 3 7 times now.....BUT it took me a month after my first me 3 playthrough to do it. it took that long to get over that ending and just exist in the various, isolated moments and appreciate their varied details on diff playthroughs just bc overall i lovete me universe so much......but look man, for all intensive purposes the ending does KILL the replayability....when you look at your shepards story proper as a novel, legend or movie/story and examine it as a whole and how good it is and how well ,satisfyingly it ended......IT SIMPLY FAILS DUE TO THE ENDING......it abandons its extremely detailed lore {just sit and listen to the codex} and leaves a vague, plot ridden, character emphasis dropped{have some conversations},plot hole ridden mess...
In addition to it all, we were blatanly lied to over and over about the contents and nature of the ending, it is exactly the opposite of wat we were told, it was an a,b or c ending....it was not an extremely branching ending thanks to no sequels afterwards as they stated.....the delays and early start on me 4 bf realease of me 2 apparently didnt matter
....and you and evryone else know exactly what kind of conclusion we were expecting.....and theres no reason bioware couldnt do it, they just didnt.....look to the me 2 ending as a great, rewarding, fulfilling ending with many variations that reflect evrything youve done before, me 2-theres reasons its the most popular game and replayability is HIGH on that last, and its all about the ending.....for me, and i think most-the ending of a story makes or breaks a story.....even if its been bad before then, but oh if a great story is ruined by a bad ending......

[dorktainian]

Mass Effect 3. My Score and rant.

Gameplay 5 out of 10 (not bad.... not as good as I thought it would be tho)
Story 3 out of 10 - sorry but the story sucks on so many levels.

Overall 4 out of 10 (that is being over generous)

There are just so many things wrong with it - masked by this obsession to turn ME3 into a pure shoot-em-up rather than an RPG. If it didnt have the Mass Effect badge on this game, it would have died a death a long time ago and be ridiculed for the rest of gaming time. (it deserves to be)

So many plot holes.

Bad editing.

So many story inconsistancies.

So many contradictions within the narrative.

So many questions raised.

So many bugs.

A shockingly bad questing system.

and the ending to end all endings. It just sucks on so many levels, in fact it isnt really an ending. It just causes the gamer to wonder what the hell the writer was actually thinking. Seriously it is not an ending.

You have...

1. Just blown every mass relay and released unquantifiable amounts of energy which would obliterate everything. (see the actual diameter of the explosions - ignore the colour variations).

2. Just blown the largest mass relay (the citadel)

3. Just lost the power of rational thought (star brat and his choices)

4. By blowing the mass relays you have just murdered trillions of sentient beings - far more than the reapers would have done because where they were selective - blowing the relays in about as unselective as you can get as far as killing everything goes. Congratulations gamer, You are a sci-fi universe mass murderer.



It sucks. It really sucks. Yeh you may love the Mass Effect franchise but Bioware dropped the ball on this big time. I'll playthrough the games again, i'll download the EC to try get some closure on this mess, but for me the point of Mass Effect 1 is completely destroyed by Mass Effect 3 - so whats the point of playing through the series anymore?

[BerzerkGene]

Heres my two cents.

Mass effect 3 is a great game, with Grand Battle sequences, more polish  graphically than Mass Effect 2, with a ton of interesting and well written dialogue. Shepard's combat abilities are improved, he(or she) is faster and more aggressive play style is possible.
Abilities can be made into unique 1 shot kills or be capable of widespread destruction and all are useful in some way. There is a huge variety of weapons for  any and all classes from rapid fire sniper rifles to grenade launching  pistols, heavy weapons are downgraded but still prevalent, usually when  conventional weapons would take a long time to win with. The AI has been vastly upgraded, enemies are what you would call smart. Husks return and in more varieties!(I kinda  hate them but the tougher ones make great enemies to me. Plus beating regular ones to death makes me feel like a badass). One random thing that bugs me was pulling and M-8 Avenger and Predator pistol out of my arse every time you are meant to be wielding those weapons, even when you have a better assault rifle and/or pistol and are holding it when the scene commences.

The story is great, gathering the galaxy to fight by your side, of course it is never that simple, but this is Mass
Effect, it never is. Characters return based on whether they survived or not, but only a few make it back into your  squad, okay fine, but some of the things you have done should have inspired a helluva lot more loyalty than that. On the plus side, there's usually at least one rather amusing and one heart warming moment with  the members of your squad, and some of the new members of the crew. You get James Vega, who's basically a tanked Freddy Prince Junior with Spanish thrown in. Many don't like him. To me he was okay, you can't expect a fully fleshed out character like the others who have had 2 games and tons of other material to provide everything about them, he
also is a great meat shield.
Diana Allers aka Jessica Chobot also received a lot of backlash. She does come across as a very shallow love
interest, but the reasons for her character make sense, but she should technically have a lot more involvement with all the things you do, especially rescues and the like. But still, justified, albeit not enough really.
The Gay love interest the pilot Cortez, now I'm not gay but I liked the guy, partly because you finally get to see who's driving the shuttle and because he has some depth to him, having a bad case of survivors guilt.
Specialist Traynor, she's kind of like a Hyper Competent Kelly Chambers with less flirting(if you're male anyway). I rather liked conversations with her, especially since the end result wasn't banging her.
Speaking of banging, Sex scenes. Some think this is bad, many think this is good. I'm inclined to think it's good. It's very tastefully done and hell some of them are just fade to black. There is apparently less than a handful
of these scenes, I have only seen Liara's myself (Which makes it seem as though sex with an Asari is either the best thing ever or just really trippy, or both). Watch them if you want, if you don't, don't romance them, or turn off the screen.
A few characters didn't make a return, at least not visually, some that garnered a following such as
Kal'Reegar(who was pretty badass) fought and died off screen, was rather disappointing. Shiala also never makes an appearance.
Other issues: Less focus of ME2 romances, Miranda for one. Samara was never given an actual romance. In fact, it is never brought up again if you tried. The Quest system tells yopu what you're doing, but never where to go, the next step, or anything.

I do recommend Mass Effect 1 and 2, but I'm holding out with 3 until we know what happens this coming Summer. Because really, i hate the ending with a vengeance.
Okay so all your allies assemble, the Crucible is complete and Hackett gives a rousing speech. Charge! You get to see who entirety of the fleets you gathered all together baring a few. If you gathered every war asset humanly possible and available You get to see the Turians, Asari, Alliance, Quarians and (possibly, I don't know if I
saw them) Salarians. The Geth are oddly absent if you resolved the 300 year war, as in you see a shot with a Geth in a pilot seat and that's it, you never see them again for the rest of the game.
The Volus, Elcor and Batarians also lack appearances. The Volus can be excused as the only real war asset you gain from them is the ground bombing fleet, which never makes an appearance. The Elcor back you if you do something at their home world that the ambassador asked you to help them do, yet nothing. You never see and Elcor or a ship or anything. The Batarians, most notably Balak, join you(even though he really wanted to shoot you)
and the what remains of the Batarian fleet, which is substantial enough to provide over 100 military rating, you never see , they never report in, nothing.
These lacking elements make the fleet seem...less impressive. My last 2 issues are with the weapons and tactics. The weaponry of the Normandy now has a Thanix cannon added to it, this Thanix cannon was able to shear the collector cruiser in half with 2 shots. A reaper would not be many more and there are a few entries that  state that the ships in your fleet have quite a few, you can even have the council give the Geth more, you never see them except the Normandy's fire a few shots, at those Oculi or whatever(giant eye thing near the
end of ME2).
Last issue with the space battle is the tactics. You have the greatest military leaders in the entire galaxy with you and the best they come up with is ships massed together and firing at whatever they want? Sure the fighters attack the Oculi, but you don't really see any frigates like the Normandy using hit and run tactics, or an entire
fleet focusing on one reaper at a time. If I can come up with better tactics with no military experience other than common sense, it shows a distinct lack of imagination. Despite all this, it was a very cool sequence that I did and do enjoy watching.

The ground battles on earth were good, but the other species involvement was highly downplayed, hell, practically all the named characters do all their fighting off screen, Never see Samara and a bunch of Asari commandos/Justicars ripping through husks with their biotics. Never see Grunt(Or Wrex) leading a Krogan charge, you never see anything like that. They also never come to help you, even when your right and left flank collapse and you have to fight off a crapload of tough enemies...with 3 people. Sure it's doable but damn, no one cares enough to help?
The Geth and the rest are also absent again, even when you are meant to have a contingent of primes and an army of Geth troopers at your back, they never appear. The bombing fleet the Volus provided never makes an appearance here either, where it would make the most sense, providing close air support for ground forces, or maybe see those dinosaurs you had cloned with Krogan riding them charge in(That one would be a bit of a stretch to do, personally i wouldn't put that in, a one scene wonder of a whole new species would be too time consuming). The Elcor would also make great fire support, carrying in heavy weapons and the like, you never see them, many people were disappointed at that,as was I. The concept of an Elcor "Living Tank" blasting away with hugeguns seems really cool. Aria's Merc army also never makes an appearance
Up until you get to the Transport beam or whatever is good, running and gunning, taking out Reaper destroyers(apart from the lack of people reinforcing you, but everyone else always has reinforcements). Then as
you get close, Harbinger literally drops out of the sky and lasers everything in the area, destroying the entire force you brought. Most people wanted a boss fight here, while I would agree it would be pretty awesome, how to actually fight him seems incredibly hard, seeing as he just wins in one shot. It totally fits with what we know about Harbinger though. I would've liked to chat with him though, he always had something epic to say, even if it was always along the lines of "YOU WILL LOSE, YOU ARE BACTERIA, WE ARE INFINITE".

What happens next(not directly next for most but somewhere along here) is what has over 90,000 people, myself included, rather upset. Shepard wakes up as Harbinger flies off to kick more arse, you squad mates are either dead or heavily injured. Shepard is extremely injured(and gone!), barely able to limp and shoot a gun(which conveniently had infinite ammo). Shepard makes it to the beam and is taken into the citadel. Sure, fine. When he/she reaches there it is filled with Human corpses , littering the hallway, and hey it turns out Anderson survived, where? I did not see him, and I looked around before I went into the beam, still though, it IS Anderson, and I kinda wanted him at the end too, Keith David does great voice acting. How he gets ahead of you is a different thing  altogether.

Then the Illusive Man shows up, which was expected, it is stated he went to the citadel, how he survived the great off screen battle (Presumably, it's never stated what happens, does everyone get killed? Are they still fighting? What happens? Is Kelly and everyone else dead? That needs to be fixed.) is never stated, but his new indoctrination powers may have helped. Many people didn't like this scene, but I did, you finally get to tell him that, hey maybe what you're doing is like, wrong. He actually listens and in a somewhat cool callback to Saren, he shoots himself. Then you get the whole sequence of Anderson(again presumably) dying, which is sad, and touching, It looks like Shepard MAY die here too, being hit with a laser blast that slices through starships will do that to you. Then Hackett calls in, The Crucible is not doing anything and THE FIRST THING Shepard does is try
to help him, then passes out from blood loss or trauma I guess. How Hackett knew Shep was there and why Shep and Anderson have no medi gel is a puzzle.

Here is where things go from instead of being simply a little bit odd, but
definitely acceptable to a Diabolous Ex Machina(For those who don't know, it's the opposite of a Deus Ex Machina, which resolves everything and makes a happy ending, coming out of the blue. It makes the
heroes/protagonist/good guys even MORE screwed than they previously were.) Shepard is raised on a small platform by a beam of light like he/she is ascending or something and wakes up looking at the crucible(which is in space, so by this point Shepard SHOULD most definitely be dead). This glowing ghostly spectre of the kid that
Shepard couldn't save at the beginning is there, basically explains he's the Catalyst, who is behind the Reaper thing. His explanation can be basically summed up by "Yo dawg, I heard you don't want to be killed by synthetics. So I made synthetics that kill you every 50,000 years so you don't get killed by synthetics." At this point, I don't see how anyone would not go "What the F***?". There is no foreshadowing or any indication of this thing existing aside from why the Reapers moved the citadel instead of blowing it up(if it was the only thing that could help kill them, that's what I'd do).
He gives you three choices, Disintegrate your body, and take over the Reapers, Blow up some big pipe and kill ALL synthetic life(This includes and Geth and EDI, which probably makes you feel like a huge arse, but it is the only ending which Shepard *possibly* survives), no explanation is given to as why the Catalyst can't just send out a "make yourself blow up" order to all reapers. Then there is the Synthesis ending, which you only get if your  EMS is high enough. Shepard regains enough energy to run and leap into the huge beam of Energy, which apparently makes all synthetics partly organic(maybe all part Shepard?) and all organics partly synthetic, thereby making the Reaper's purpose obsolete. What. Aside from the fact that there is no technology, no matter how powerful that could fundementally alter the genetic structure of every organic being in the galaxy, it can only be called Space Magic, The real issue is that if the kid knew he could do this, WHY DID HE NOT DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?! He's a billions year old AI, yet he seems to have an incredible lack or foresight and common sense.

You can't say, "I just made peace between a race of synthetics and their creators, whose war had been going for 300 YEARS! Who is to say that there can't be peace, because you killed the people who created you? Then that's your beef, Synthetic life is not always the same. The Geth did not want to kill Organic life, the overall majority of them just wanted to live, when they allied with the Reapers again, it was out of survival. You can't just assume, you don't know. There are always variables." EDI even states she would die for Joker, how is that bad? It really shows how she has grown.You don't get to use any of Shepard's Charisma personified status to your advantage. You simply have to accept this annoying kids bs. Awesome, guys, totally awesome(entirely sarcastic). Also if you just stand there say...shooting the kid in the face for long enough, you automatically lose.

Afteryou pick whichever way you want to screw up the galaxy, The Mass relays blow up, all of them. People have said that it's a different kind of explosion than in the Arrival DLC. Even so it is still a large enough explosion that it can be viewed from outside the galaxy. I also have to mention the fact that it takes months just to travel from one relay system to another without using a relay itself, that's the best case, Worst case it takes years. None of the ships in the Sol system have enough supplies or fuel to last that long, meaning you have a half dozen races all trapped in the same place with ships and huge guns. There are basically three likely outcomes. #1-War, fighting for survival, the races begin a huge war, in space and on the ground to fight for what little resources there are, extremely bleak. #2-Cooperation, They try tolast as long as possible and figure out a way to make a relay or
something to get back home, majority starve in the process, if it is successful at all, because no one knows how to make a relay, really bleak. #3-The races rush off to try and get home, all die in the attempt, dying from lack of supplies or old age. Super bleak. Doesn't sound good does it?

TheNormandy Crash. This is the part of the ending that makes the least sense. The Normandy, by this point, is the Spaceship definition of "Lightning Bruiser", It is fast, agile and can obliterate targets with ahuge gun, namely the Thanix cannon. Hackett would have Joker hitting any Reaper he could get at that was weak enough. He would not run off and leave you behind, especially since he felt guilty for you saving his life. But there he is, running off through a Mass Relay for some reason and gets hit by the wave of destruction, control, or synthesis, which
launches the Normandy at an earth-like planet which may or may not be in another galaxy(if it is, there's a Stagate SG-1 episode like that). Joker then steps out and EDI will join him(if the destroy ending was not taken). They then having a hugging(touching, whatever) moment as they survey their new world...then Garrus walks out. Point of order: What the hell? Garrus was with me as i made my charge toward the Citadel, he was either dead or seriously injured. Am i meant to believe that he got up, decided that he was too hurt, put in a call for a pickup, went back to the Normandy all in the time it took for the ending sequence? That was like 15 minutes MAX. Should have been a lot longer for all that to happen and the relay to go boom. Other squad mates can walk out to, Your Love Interest for one, who just decides to abandon you, which would NEVER HAPPEN. Javik can too, the avatar of vengeance for the Prothean people doesn't even bother to finish the fight, yeah right. None of that makes any sense. If Garrus and Tali are there, and can't find anything for their dextro amino based acids, they starve to death. If it's the other way around, Liara, Ash/Kaiden and everyone else starves, cool. Best case scenario: everyone lives and tries to fix the Normandy, if they can. Which still sucks a lot.

Mr. Hudson stated a "bittersweet" outcome is what he intended, I would not expect a 100% good ending. Not considering what you're up against. but bitter sweet implies there is some good. The reapers die or leave, that is all the good we see at this point. Even after that, with the relays destroyed, even more will get screwed up, more will die. Best of all, you are dead(unless you got minimum of 4000-5000 EMS) and your friends are stranded in the middle of nowhere. Oh yeah i see lots of positives here. Like...not everyone dies and...Reapers are gone? Sooo two things. Geez even Dragon Age 2's ending was more positive, and that is set in a Crapsack world.

Most people molded their Shepard on how they are, i know i did. Basically He did as much good as he could, even though he was a huge jerk to random people, he still saved their butts when it came to the hard choices and
was always loyal and helpful to his friends. Crafted over Three games, made into the ultimate soldier and savior or badass or combination thereof. Forging the bonds of friendship and being forced to make hard choices for the good of the galaxy. All that comes down to... Red, Greenor Blue... No other options present themselves. Very few people just sped through all three games killing everything and everyone that moved. We worked to make the galaxy better somehow, no matter how bleak it seemed. The end invalidates all that. You die(more than likely) and you die alone. Your choices matter? They don't. Far galaxy reaching consequences? Doesn't matter. Never has an ending to ANYTHING made me more depressed, aside from relationships. It felt so incomplete, so unfulfilling and so wrong. The end of a trilogy, especially one that puts emphasis over triumphing in the face of impossible odds with the bonds of fellowship and determination. It was crap

Overall i would give Mass Effect 3 a 6.5/10,  half a point off for the little things and 2 points off for the ending. I would give the series overall a 6 now, where I would have given it a 9 if the end had been implemented
properly. I'm a proud supporter of the Retake Mass Effect movement. We are not spoiled children complaining about some small indiscretion. We are the audience, who have paid $200 or more and invested hundreds of
hours individually to a series we loved and supported. The ending flies in the face of everything the series has stood for, choice, consequence, interaction. We will hold the line until it is made right. Thousands joined our cause. We will not falter.

"Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell"

Modifié par BerzerkGene, 01 juin 2012 - 02:55 .

[mmmu]

My Mass Effect 3 score: 97 / 100
ME1 : 95 | ME2 : 93


I really loved Mass Effect 3 and here is why. This review will be the opinion of two players, an experienced hardcore gamer and my wife, a newbie to videogames having played only a few games in addition to the ME saga. I've been an avid Mass Effect fan since the beginning of the saga on PC. Needless to say,
I was waiting for Mass Effect 3 for more than any game ever, and can't see myself waiting for a game like this in the near future, if ever.
My wife became a fan after she played the second game because she fell in love with the story from my praisewords. She then went back to play the first game as well.
Her score for Mass Effect 3: 98 / 100. (ME1 : 97 | ME2 : 94). 

I'll cut the things to review in diffrent branches - Story / Gameplay / Presentation

Story:

+ Story  : The overall story of Mass Effect 3 was predictable, since there was only one way it could be, but it was pulled off in such spectacular fashion. All the leadup toward the end, every conversation, all your actions, reminded you of the journey you've gone on since the first game. There were an adequate amount of twists and jaw opening moments to keep me wanting for more.

+ Conclusion : Yeah. Lots of controversy. I liked the ending. I wasn't prepared for anything else than the bittersweet that I received. The buildup to the ending had extremely tense momentum, and personally I found the conclusion satisfying.  Interpretation, lots of it. I can see why people are frustrated about it, the lack of choice and confusing elements, but I didn't think the Reaper threat could have been ended with seemingly simple or dreamful scenarios many - us included - have come up with before.
"It's the journey, not the destination".
While many feel it wasn't the ending they had strived for, I never thought Shepard could reach what she hoped for, no matter how hard she tried. It did not feel like my decisions were stolen from me, I made the journey and this is where it ended. It's not to say the ending isn't without it's flaws, and it could be expanded upon. Still very much looking forward to EC.

 + Characters : They have been the driving strength of the franchise, and in the final installment it all came together nicely. The cameos of the old squads were a nice addition. Once again all a personal preference, but since my favourites have been Liara, Garrus and Tali from the very beginning, I can't be anything else than blissfully happy. Liara and Garrus are the greatest characters ever written for a videogame. Romances for all genders and all orientations.

+ Liara romance : Great conclusion to a trilogy long romance that matured along the way.

+ Lively Normandy : No more running, or walking in my case, around the Normandy just to hear someone needs to do some calibrations. Characters always had something to say, and the automated dialogue was a great way to enhance the lively feeling, since obviously you can't have fully fledged dialogues after every mission.

+ Conversations : Well written and of good length. The conversations were not short, but never dragged on.
Big improvement from ME2.

+ Dreams : Psychological approach to Shepard's emotions. Loved every second.

- Where is Harbinger? Even if Harbinger's final descent was nightmare inducing, we were certainly expecting a more personal confrontation, since there was such a buildup and several questions surrounding Harbinger's interest in Shepard.

- Autoflirt : Not a big issue, but something that could be improved upon. Shepard can flirt to Liara all she wants though.


Gameplay:

+ Combat (difficulty level: hardcore) very fun and more varied than before
+ Movement
+ Good mixture of RPG elements between ME1&2
+ Pace was good
+ Less coverhumping (well, on Vanguard anyway)
- Galaxy exploring less rewarding compared to ME2

2nd opinion (newbie):

+ Combat (difficulty level: normal) more challenging, supported the story
+ More space, less tunnels
+ Varied levels


Presentation:

+ Graphics (PC) what the game lacked in texture resolution, it made up for in
mood
+ Artistic vision, character design, colour palette
+ Animations
+ Cinematics : A truly movie-like experience, seamless transition
+ Facial expressions : such a great improvement from previous games, small emotions readable from the characters
+ Voice acting : Best in the history of videogames
+ Sound : Tributed the previous games by building on them, but had a distinct atmosphere to provide thematical (apocalyptic) support to the final installment
+ Soundtrack

FemShep power! 

Modifié par mmmu, 01 juin 2012 - 11:36 .

[thehomeworld]

I won't give the game a rating not because I think its horrible its because there has been some major time that I haven't been playing it I will say its not a 10/10 though instead I'll list from off the top of my head currently what caught my eye both good and bad.

Positives

Team dextro is back!

Garrus moves around the ship and jokes really liked this also loved the other npcs moving about was a lovely touch.

The game did a fantastic job of making you feel like a commander lots of things happening all the time that need your attention.

The environments

The music was great

The improved AI and intense fighting I really felt like I was fighting for my life in this game.

The action and calm worked well.

Character interaction scripts were fine.

I loved finding my crew on the citadel wish I could've found more of them like this.

Being able to go to Earth wish there was more time pre war though

Loved the dream sequences

Laser till we meet TIM on citadel time frame.

Like the father/son type of talk with shep and Anderson on the citadel

Tali w/ Mshep on Rannoch

The hammer head toy is gone! Yes!

Garrus/Fshep love handling a 9.5/10 loved it multiple up/down moments, hurt/comfort sharing moments, break date, the only thing wrong the uber rushed prefight love time. I thought this was the template for all the romances! I was wrong.

Loved the new loading screens I just wish they were more varied.

Mshep's voice I could hear more inflection and feeling in his words this time loved it. However fshep outdid him again as if it was possible for her to do so but she did and she's a solid VA for fshep. Too bad Mshep only got 1 game and 3 dlcs to finally get be allowed off the shep brick leash.


Major Negatives

The beacon lore being destroyed by Thessia that one didn't work at all like a column beacon should you combined two beacons into one this was a terrible horrible thing.

Shep not using the beacons like we all know he was in range of both of them yet they don't pick up on him? Really idiotic. It seems so obvious BW wanted the fact shep was a mental prothean and got the cypher back in ME to just go away more lore destroying this makes me very upset.

No uncharted world exploration and no mako to use to boot.

The shortening and rushing of Tali/Mshep relationship this pairing is the most complex most charged relationship in the game and not only do we meet Tali at the end the relationship was rushed and shortened and don't even get me started on the 1second prefinal battle love scene! Soooo disappointed and let down by how much BW rushed this pairing they should've really gone into this one it seemed like they were going to that they even wanted to but then threw up their hands because this was the last or next to last relationship to be worked on before release. I thought this one was going to go into the social and political issues this relationship would have on the world, and how these two would fight for and with each other to make it through it. Didn't happen.

We can breathe on Rannoch? Way to retcon that one BW remember back in ME how Tali said the plants would be very harmful to non Quarians because of their symbiotic tendencies?

We didn't get to explore Rannoch we were trapped in the dessert all the time. That was ok but I would've love to been able to travel for my own reasons into the ruined cities, jungles, and whatever else they should've had.

We didn't get to see Tali's face unmasked on Rannoch or at least during their pre final battle moment love scene.

Speaking of short love scenes what are we 4 now? M rated games can't be bare minimum like ME was have you guys seen Witcher or watched a PG13 movie lately? Seriously.

PGing of the entire sereis yet again Jack can't swear, no love scenes, no showing of shep drinking, the strippers disappeared (not that I liked them all that much to begin with but when I meet Aria I've just accepted they'll be in the area.), ect forgot the M rating BW just admit it you want to make E10 games.

Having 4 antagonist and not using the main one you set up for 1 1/2 games! WTF you scream for 1 1/2 games that Harbi is going to be our antagonist and instead we get TIM, space ninjas, a projection boy, and a cameo Harbi how ridiculous its like you guys couldn't decide who should be the main villain.

Space ninjas...why? Thane wasn't enough? Was the series truly crying for more?

BW it seems like you wanted the LP, shep being a cyborg, a mental prothean, the beacons themselves, and the reapers as incomprehensible villains to just go away for the sake of new players. Really terrible and sad for those who've invested tons of time in your series the newbies should've just gotten a free book that explained what things were from ME's codex.

The total fail Jack, Jacob, Thane, Miranda, Ash, and Kaiden's romance conclusions was really you guys were just screaming we gave up right here. I get it now all were ship bound and other were but you wanted these arcs to go the way of the dinosaurs big time lucky for you I've got a nice list here on how you could've and should've handled those issues: http://social.biowar.../index/11149071

Galactic readiness meant crap and the crucible always got fixed no matter what how idiotic a concept. Readiness could've helped/hurt big time on weather or not you won w/o the crucible.

The crucible should've been a trap it screamed that from day 1. Was very disappointed.

We got tricked into starting the cycle way to say fu to all 3xs over.

The copy/pasting of the endings this sucked the way it all played out would've been fine for one ending not 3.

No epilogues spanning 3 games worth of people, places, galactic stability, and species relationships we cultivated or shunned.

You pulled a LOST and killed off everybody way to go BW didn't you read how much people hated that? When it doubt on how to resolve character arcs just kill them is that how thats suppose to work now? Poor writing is more like it.

MP a waste to add this in to be trendy.

The scanning sidequest instead of uncharted worlds really BW this sucked I hated being an ease dropper an not being able to have boots on the ground you could've at least done a 3 way split sometimes the mission required us to scan other times it required us to go down to the world in the mako ME large environment free roam style, and other times we got bused straight to the site like we did in Kasumi's mission.

Mordin's VA got switched the new guy was too slow and not a spirited as the original guy.

The lack of personal wheel usage between shep and his/her LI why couldn't at least we get the wheel with these npcs? I didn't want to just talk to Tali at the bar I wanted to drink with her and talk to her with the wheel and have it be more personal. I wanted to invite my LI to come with me on shore leave or talk to them while on missions I took them on.

The lack of a trial! How could you take this out? It would've been a great point to get new players into the world of not just shep's life and past but also to meet the npcs in his life like his present and former crew mates, present and former adversaries, and we could've also been properly introduced to new people like the kid, vega, and even that Doctor EVA, we also could've gotten them up to speed on the reapers, beacons and how they work, and shep's state of mind. Familiar players would also be able to defend their actions and give insight into why the did what they did for a host of major choices like why did I launch that nuke at the colony and not the storage depots? Was I A) A jerk who just loved the idea of killing millions, it was more important to save to port for the future it would bring a wreaked port would've just had a failed colony anyway or C) I was practicing for when the reapers would show up sense I know I'll have to decide later what civilizations live and die.

The villains forgetting or not caring about established weaknesses shep has and failing to exploit them we know he can be hacked, he may have a chip in his brain, he's a cyborg emp anyone?, he's under horrible stress due to the galaxy becoming extincted, he's been exposed to reaper tech no one tries to indoctrinate him?, really the list keeps going and all the villains fail to use these weaknesses so disappointing.

Modifié par thehomeworld, 02 juin 2012 - 03:54 .

[Gamer391]

I would like to give Mass Effect 3 75/100, which is low, so don't get overjoyous. I had expected at least a 90, but I was dissappointed. Only 75. Here's why:

The Good:
+ Great graphics
+ Great, if almost similar, gameplay
+ No mining/scouring planets for minerals
+ Awesome closure to the the story arcs of all crew members and other characters. Jack, Mordin, Thane & TIM in particular
+ Galaxy At War & Corresponding Side Quests
+ Consequential Multiplayer
+ Team members and other NPCs move about the Normandy, instead of being glued to the seats
+ Improved AI. Really gave me a fight this time
+ Smoke Grenades take the fight to a new level
+ Citadel interactions with crew members
+ Dream Sequences
+ Drunk Tali! Absolutely adorable!
+ Improved loading screens and awesomely low loading times

The Bad:
- The most obvious: Ending
- No consequences for following Paragon/Renegade/Mixed path
- No severe consequences of saving/killing the Rachni Queen
- No Normandy action. I think Joker and the Normandy deserved at least two Destroyers in their hit list. I wanted Harbinger, but then considering the slacky and hurried work done on the game, I pass on that
-  Strength of Allied forces in terms of numbers: Almost the same regardless of the acquired assets
- No different modes in multiplayer
- Priced DLC right from the date of release

- Not a deserving ending for the story arc of the Protheans
- Not enough video content before, during and after the so called "grand" Battle for Earth
- No aftermath
- Ending defeats the title of a "Role Playing Game"
- All crew members except Joker and the 2 from your last squad are shown to have died
- Joker and the other two seem happy at the end, aside from the fact that every other crew member on the Normandy is dead along with Shepard being MIA or KIA
- No closure to the Romance arc if you rekindled an exclusive one from ME2

I would like to explain more of what I felt was wrong with the ending:

The Choices - They were plausible, even good, but still they were almost exactly a carbon copy of each other whether the player chose destruction or control or synthesis. Agreed that what happens when you choose is different, but the final ending is sad. I was expecting an "Extermination of Reapers At The Hands of Shepard" kind of ending, instead all I get is two seconds of one breath. And no consequences of being a Paragon or Renegade. I assume you did not add any aftermath content out of sheer greed so that you can introduce more DLCs and make money off them. Writers, you dissappointed us loyal gamers. Just tell me in what sense do you think that a civilization can be preserved by wiping off every living part of it off the face of the galaxy and processing them into gooey liquid to make some giant, idiotic machines that are hell bent on destruction?  You may think the ending was artistic, but remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And no matter how hard a beholder may try to be positive, appreciative, accepting, there would be no way to call this a beauty without making a fool of himself in front of the entire world.

The Catalyst and The Reason - Purely unnecessary & senseless content. S*** that little ********. You didn't need that little ******* to tell Shepard what he/she could or couldn't do. You could have done better using existing mythology concepts. Or made Vendetta the Catalyst. That would have been cool. But no, you just had to introduce a new concept in the final moments of the final chapter of a story which had the potential of becoming one of the greatest video games trilogy, only to spoil it all over. The moment that SOB walks over to Shepard & says he is the Catalyst, the game starts its orbital drop. After an idiotic conversation that makes no sense at all, it finally hits rock hard ground when the immature kid says that you also have the option of saving the Reapers. Why this paradigm shift? The whole journey, right from Eden Prime up till the introduction to the real Catalyst was all about destroying the Reapers. So what happened? And why for the love of Keelah did you add Synthesis? And the reason for the extinction cycles, the "a solution to a problem" thing and every dialogue explaining that, that was ****. If you had to give that reason, then you shouldn't have given the different options for Rannoch. You should just have plainly blasted Rannoch out of the galaxy. You guys really didn't take the time to explore other options, or may be you just weren't "advanced" enough to think of anything else. I was afraid ME3 would end without giving any reason for the extinction cycles. That would have been fine. But this is worse.

There's so many other things that were lost, not thought of, purged, or just plain ignored that I can't even remember them all at one time.

Final verdict: Doesn't Live Up To The Expectations For "The Most Anticipated Game Of The Year". Hugely Dissapointing Once You've Played It Through. Writers, you screwed up big time.

And majority of it due to the ending and mystery revealation. You call this an "artistic ending"? You could have done better. You lost a fan. 

Modifié par Gamer391, 03 juin 2012 - 01:01 .

[3DandBeyond]

There is so much that is good about all three ME games, so much that is quality and that just draws you in and makes you care. Unfortunately, all that has gone before is over-shadowed by what we are left with in the end.

I’d be lying if I said these games are not worth playing, but in telling or advising anyone to play them I’d leave them with this caveat; the ending very likely will diminish the desire to replay them. I wouldn’t feel honest in just letting them be “surprised” though I think it would be hard for anyone that plays games to have ignored the buzz over the ME3 ending.
ME is a journey, but one capped off by disaster. No matter how much fun it was along the way, the fun is all too soon forgotten.

As well, what the ending does is makes other game flaws and warts more visible and less forgivable and forgettable. Day one DLC, LOTSB DLC, required multiplayer that was not supposed to be required. And all of this would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that there is a segment of game buyers out there that have no broadband connection (can’t afford it or can’t get it) and/or no xbox live gold. What will these people do for the EC?
There is also the in-game hunt for war assets that just becomes reaper tag and gets old very quickly and war assets are just reduced to numbers which really have no major significance once you hit certain thresholds. At some point you can almost stop playing the game and looking for war assets.

Then there’s even the insertion of the “real” kid upon whom the ending star kid is based. Shepard winces at his death, but when Shepard shoots someone s/he actually cares about, Anderson, there’s just nothing. I assert the kid was not needed anywhere within the game. Shepard had plenty of people to care about, to put a face on things as Mordin said.
The Crucible-all this work expended on something no one knows anything about. It appears to be a weapon-the greatest minds think it is, but in the end that’s really what it isn’t. It’s a magical DNA synthesizer, a reaper control beam creator, and is only partly a weapon. It is however not targeted by the reapers as Hackett thinks it will be. It’s left alone.
And then the ending itself. TIM magically appears-how is unknown. TIM controls Shepard and Anderson-how is unknown. TIM and Shepard have magical guns. Then, Shepard gets up to where the kid is and magically Shepard is turned into a spineless weasel. The kid says the created creator stupid stuff and Shepard doesn’t disagree, though Shepard has disagreed on this very point several times over the 3 games. The kid says he controls the reapers so he has been turning countless cycles of people into goo and now wants to turn people Shepard cares about into goo. And Shepard does and says nothing other than that people wouldn’t like that, they want to keep their current form. Way to go, Shepard. That’s telling him. The kid then says he’s there to save people from his own solution, the reapers. In effect, he is there to save people from him. Wow, this is brilliant. Seriously, what child wrote this?

Why wouldn’t Shepard at least yell something, anything. Hey, kid, you control them, then stop this. The whole star kid scene is one of sheer and utter stupidity and foisted upon us as something super intellectual. It is as another user stated, a shaggy god story and a deus ex machine ending and has as such over the years been excoriated by SF and other writers as the most common and lazy way to end stories. Publishers consistently reject any story that features this kind of thing because it is as if the writers of it used a template and merely changed the actor’s names and motivations. Not my words-it is those that make a living at this stuff that have called it lazy.

Then we come to the choices. This is something best explained away if you impose them upon any other type of game. EA makes sports games. How about football-the player is running for a touchdown and gets near the endzone and the game stops and up pops 3 choices. These choices will determine whether a touchdown is made or not. This is in effect what happens at the end of ME3. The player and Shepard are given 3 arbitrary, ambiguous, artificially created choices that were not created out of all that the player has done through the 3 games. A football player and his team will determine through their actions on the field whether they will make a touchdown and so imposing the 3 choices makes everything that came before unimportant.
Onto the choices themselves. First off, it’s necessary to repeat that there’s no way Shepard would even make one-the kid’s evil or crazy or both and certainly not a kid. He could be Harbinger, so is not to be trusted.

But should Shepard make a choice, all but one must lead to death. Why? Only because Shepard must die.

Control-godhood and Shepard never wanted to be a god. Also, anyone that had been fooled into thinking they could control the reapers had already been indoctrinated. Furthermore, nonsense-Shepard dies but controls the reapers. Neat trick.

Synthesis-another type of godhood and the destruction of individuality. Also discussed repeatedly throughout the 3 games and anyone who’s tried to even partially achieve this has been crazy, evil, and/or indoctrinated. Stated goal of Sovereign through Saren. Eschewed by Mordin. Attempted by TIM. And Reapers are one possible form of an attempt at synthesis.

Destroy-still another form of godhood, the decision of who lives and who dies. Also, genocide and fratricide depending upon Shepard’s choices in the game. In effect, Shepard will kill the noble life Shepard helped to create-EDI and the geth. EDI is more directly the product of Shepard’s non-intervention. Every conversation with EDI could have Shepard extolling the virtues of self-determination and allowing what will be to be. She’s a child that has been given birth and now let’s just smash her face in.

But along with the Destroy option comes one of the stupidest events of all and the most glaring intermingling of MP and SP for no good reason. Unless one meets a certain EMS threshold that can only occur with the help of MP, Shepard will die from a powerful blast-one that Shepard gets near to by logically walking forward while shooting. If MP and war assets get factored together for a good enough EMS, the blast is apparently not as strong so Shepard just winds up as a charred torso that gasps. Wow, just wow.

Then, there’s the whole Joker scene (ridiculous and it’s been stated often), the incredibly impossible juxtaposition of certain teammembers and Shepard’s LI on that planet just defies all logic.

As does the effect of the destruction of the mass relays. There are two references to such an occurrence within the game, but in order to make sense of life going on after their destruction, the player must make stuff up. The Arrival (some more necessary, unnecessary DLC) says a star system will be destroyed due to a relay explosion. A codex entry, Desperate Measures, says a rupture of a relay will ruin any terrestrial planet within a system. These two things pretty much say life in the galaxy is screwed because all life is based upon terrestrial planets-that’s the organic thingydoo. However, in order to explain this people must make up the idea that somehow a rupture is not a rupture, even when it looks like one, and an explosion that looks pretty powerful is either a limited (small one) or a “different” type of one, whatever that means.

This last point is the biggest failure of the ending as a whole. It requires people forget what the games say and have shown before and it requires true meaning be made up and made to fit in order for it to even make the slightest bit of sense.

I wanted a true ending and a possibly happy ending. I’m not ashamed to say that I think at least one ending that is happy is the one way to do honor to characters that have already given up their lives in pursuit of an enemy no one else wanted to fight or even admit existed. At some point they just basically deserve to live. Sure, add a sad ending possibility too, but happy is definitely needed.

[Landon7001]

3DandBeyond wrote...

There is so much that is good about all three ME games, so much that is quality and that just draws you in and makes you care. Unfortunately, all that has gone before is over-shadowed by what we are left with in the end.

I’d be lying if I said these games are not worth playing, but in telling or advising anyone to play them I’d leave them with this caveat; the ending very likely will diminish the desire to replay them. I wouldn’t feel honest in just letting them be “surprised” though I think it would be hard for anyone that plays games to have ignored the buzz over the ME3 ending.
ME is a journey, but one capped off by disaster. No matter how much fun it was along the way, the fun is all too soon forgotten.

As well, what the ending does is makes other game flaws and warts more visible and less forgivable and forgettable. Day one DLC, LOTSB DLC, required multiplayer that was not supposed to be required. And all of this would be bad enough if it weren’t for the fact that there is a segment of game buyers out there that have no broadband connection (can’t afford it or can’t get it) and/or no xbox live gold. What will these people do for the EC?
There is also the in-game hunt for war assets that just becomes reaper tag and gets old very quickly and war assets are just reduced to numbers which really have no major significance once you hit certain thresholds. At some point you can almost stop playing the game and looking for war assets.

Then there’s even the insertion of the “real” kid upon whom the ending star kid is based. Shepard winces at his death, but when Shepard shoots someone s/he actually cares about, Anderson, there’s just nothing. I assert the kid was not needed anywhere within the game. Shepard had plenty of people to care about, to put a face on things as Mordin said.
The Crucible-all this work expended on something no one knows anything about. It appears to be a weapon-the greatest minds think it is, but in the end that’s really what it isn’t. It’s a magical DNA synthesizer, a reaper control beam creator, and is only partly a weapon. It is however not targeted by the reapers as Hackett thinks it will be. It’s left alone.
And then the ending itself. TIM magically appears-how is unknown. TIM controls Shepard and Anderson-how is unknown. TIM and Shepard have magical guns. Then, Shepard gets up to where the kid is and magically Shepard is turned into a spineless weasel. The kid says the created creator stupid stuff and Shepard doesn’t disagree, though Shepard has disagreed on this very point several times over the 3 games. The kid says he controls the reapers so he has been turning countless cycles of people into goo and now wants to turn people Shepard cares about into goo. And Shepard does and says nothing other than that people wouldn’t like that, they want to keep their current form. Way to go, Shepard. That’s telling him. The kid then says he’s there to save people from his own solution, the reapers. In effect, he is there to save people from him. Wow, this is brilliant. Seriously, what child wrote this?

Why wouldn’t Shepard at least yell something, anything. Hey, kid, you control them, then stop this. The whole star kid scene is one of sheer and utter stupidity and foisted upon us as something super intellectual. It is as another user stated, a shaggy god story and a deus ex machine ending and has as such over the years been excoriated by SF and other writers as the most common and lazy way to end stories. Publishers consistently reject any story that features this kind of thing because it is as if the writers of it used a template and merely changed the actor’s names and motivations. Not my words-it is those that make a living at this stuff that have called it lazy.

Then we come to the choices. This is something best explained away if you impose them upon any other type of game. EA makes sports games. How about football-the player is running for a touchdown and gets near the endzone and the game stops and up pops 3 choices. These choices will determine whether a touchdown is made or not. This is in effect what happens at the end of ME3. The player and Shepard are given 3 arbitrary, ambiguous, artificially created choices that were not created out of all that the player has done through the 3 games. A football player and his team will determine through their actions on the field whether they will make a touchdown and so imposing the 3 choices makes everything that came before unimportant.
Onto the choices themselves. First off, it’s necessary to repeat that there’s no way Shepard would even make one-the kid’s evil or crazy or both and certainly not a kid. He could be Harbinger, so is not to be trusted.

But should Shepard make a choice, all but one must lead to death. Why? Only because Shepard must die.

Control-godhood and Shepard never wanted to be a god. Also, anyone that had been fooled into thinking they could control the reapers had already been indoctrinated. Furthermore, nonsense-Shepard dies but controls the reapers. Neat trick.

Synthesis-another type of godhood and the destruction of individuality. Also discussed repeatedly throughout the 3 games and anyone who’s tried to even partially achieve this has been crazy, evil, and/or indoctrinated. Stated goal of Sovereign through Saren. Eschewed by Mordin. Attempted by TIM. And Reapers are one possible form of an attempt at synthesis.

Destroy-still another form of godhood, the decision of who lives and who dies. Also, genocide and fratricide depending upon Shepard’s choices in the game. In effect, Shepard will kill the noble life Shepard helped to create-EDI and the geth. EDI is more directly the product of Shepard’s non-intervention. Every conversation with EDI could have Shepard extolling the virtues of self-determination and allowing what will be to be. She’s a child that has been given birth and now let’s just smash her face in.

But along with the Destroy option comes one of the stupidest events of all and the most glaring intermingling of MP and SP for no good reason. Unless one meets a certain EMS threshold that can only occur with the help of MP, Shepard will die from a powerful blast-one that Shepard gets near to by logically walking forward while shooting. If MP and war assets get factored together for a good enough EMS, the blast is apparently not as strong so Shepard just winds up as a charred torso that gasps. Wow, just wow.

Then, there’s the whole Joker scene (ridiculous and it’s been stated often), the incredibly impossible juxtaposition of certain teammembers and Shepard’s LI on that planet just defies all logic.

As does the effect of the destruction of the mass relays. There are two references to such an occurrence within the game, but in order to make sense of life going on after their destruction, the player must make stuff up. The Arrival (some more necessary, unnecessary DLC) says a star system will be destroyed due to a relay explosion. A codex entry, Desperate Measures, says a rupture of a relay will ruin any terrestrial planet within a system. These two things pretty much say life in the galaxy is screwed because all life is based upon terrestrial planets-that’s the organic thingydoo. However, in order to explain this people must make up the idea that somehow a rupture is not a rupture, even when it looks like one, and an explosion that looks pretty powerful is either a limited (small one) or a “different” type of one, whatever that means.

This last point is the biggest failure of the ending as a whole. It requires people forget what the games say and have shown before and it requires true meaning be made up and made to fit in order for it to even make the slightest bit of sense.

I wanted a true ending and a possibly happy ending. I’m not ashamed to say that I think at least one ending that is happy is the one way to do honor to characters that have already given up their lives in pursuit of an enemy no one else wanted to fight or even admit existed. At some point they just basically deserve to live. Sure, add a sad ending possibility too, but happy is definitely needed.

THIS  you really just said it all, and eloquently
you just spoke the thoughts and feelings of tens of thousands if not more around the world....but i wouldnt hold your breath that bioware is reading this, or if they are they even care, or even if they do that anything will change....its a great disaster. a sad travesty