5 réponses à ce sujet

[Alixen]

I've been a Bioware fan for a long time. Not since BG, but since KOTOR certainly. I have always considered Bioware and Bethesda my 'go-to duo' for quality gaming, dependign on whether I wanted an open sandbox (Beth) or a fantastic story and companions that I wanted to follow the stories of. KOTOR delivered this, and made me gasp at the plot twist. Jade Empire is a great game that I have replayed mutliple times and (until now) I waited for a sequel. Dragon Age Origins was a wonderous experiance, and I thank you for it Bioware. Thank you for these experiances.

Now I come to the Mass Effect franchise. I bought an Xbox 360 purely because a Bioware Sci-fi game was being released on it. I played it through a half dozen times with different classes, genders, and romances. I bought all the DLC. I found the characters all interesting - and developed a real liking for Liara, Joker, Garrus and Tali. When news of ME2 came I was very excited, and wolfed up all the news and videos I could. It was fantastic when it came out, and I fell in love with the series once again, with the returning characters, and to my suprise the new ones. I had few complaints, and enjoyed all the DLC. I spent hundreds of hours in ME2. And I recently went back and prepared multiple playthroughs with different LIs for ME3.

Then came the sequel to .DA:O. I ignored grumbling and worry on the forums through the later stages of development, as Bioware had never failed me. Then after the Demo I felt a little uncertain, and the cutthroat marketing of the 'Signiture Edtion' set off alarm bells. Still, I got my SE... and was utterly crushed with disapointment. I won't go into the flaws of this game, I think they have been fone over often enough, nor is this the place for it. I only mention it, because this was the 'Fool me once' stage.

My solace was that Mass Effect was made by a different team, and was my main interest. I was led to believe that Mass Effect was being treated as a franchise like Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo and so forth. While the three games would focus on Shepard, there would be books, and comics, and then after the main trilogy was over there would be more games with fresh faces.

We have two graphics novels and four books, and two side-games on the iOS. I devoured them all. Up until the recent Deception, all was promising. I enjoyed everythign until then and the future looked bright.

Then, with Deception, we got a new author - and a book full of mischaractizaton, lore errors, name mixups, and no real plot to speak of. The uproar was facinating, and I took part. Revisions were promised, and things again seemed bright.

Now, Mass Effect 3 finally arrived, and I dove into it. I have been playing it constantly since it arrived on friday. It is a masterfully crafted game, though of course there will always be minor things I felt could have been done better, and with whispers of a 'downer' ending reaching my ears I expected there to be an element of tragady to the ending. That was... fine, I supposed. Still, that was probobly if you didn't prepare fully, I told myself. There is no point having multiple endings and making a person WORK for it, if they are all going to make that work feel pointless.

Then... I got blasted by Harbinger.

Things got a little... strange after that. And highly horrifying and depressing for all the wrong reasons. I'm hoping the 'dream sequence' theories are true, otherwise... wow.

We stepped out of Sci-Fi and into a tranhumanism mushroom trip. All the work of getting the best results with the Geth and Quarians, Salarians and Krogan, and so forth, comes to nothing. EMS and Galactic Readness both seem poitnless, aside from getting you to that point, and I still don't fully understand GR. Unless it unlocks the rest of the game where Shepard wakes up, dusts themself off, and steps into the beam to get the REAL ending... then I honestly don't care to.

The ending, and results, if they are to be taken at face value make no sense at all. Its like if the Great Escape ended with the last ten minutes of the Neverending Story. Or if Lord of the Rings ended with the last bit of Starship Troopers.

Effectively, the Mass effect series is now ruinend for me. I own two CEs, all the Art Books, all the novels, the comics, and so forth. I've invested close to a thousand hours of my life into playing these games and reading the material. Few series' had grabbed me as tight. Yet, now all I feel is annoyance, bitterness, and a certain feeling of loss.

All choice and all work is thrown down and stomped on to deliver this terrible endng to such an otherwise great game. Despite the setting and whackiness it happened in, Andersons death was moving - and I felt for Kahlee. If Shepard had died in a proper ending, then it would have been sad, but I could have accepted it and grown to like it.   Especially if the best ending had Shepard surviving, and a happy ending with Liara/[Insert LI], even if
other memorable characters fell. Because frankly that ending should have
existed with all the hoops we have had to jump through for THREE games
in order to do things perfectly. Instead, it seems to matter very little
what you do. 

However, its not because Shepard dies, or any of the other characters, or the losses. As angry as I am at the lack of control and an (even bittersweet) happy ending... Its the loss of the status quo that gets me most. The Mass Effect franchise as a whole.

All this material has built a universe. The races and cultures. The worlds and cities. The ships, the weapons, the biotics, and the tech. The characters and big names. A very stable and established setting that so many stories coudl be built off of. So much detail and story and immersion that future books and games could be built on... and every single one of the endings (as they currently stand) smash all that to pieces or fundamentally change it.

THAT hurts. This entire ending, for so many reasons, feel like a slap to the face.

To add insult to injury, ME3 lulled me into a false sense of security by being an otherwise fantastic game, only to suckerpunch me with the ending.

I don't want to buy the Invasion comic. I don't want to download the Datapad. I don't want to play the Multiplayer that I was otherwise looking forwards to. Unless the DLC makes Shepard wake up with his companions and allows you to actually get a proper ending - and is free - I have no interest in this either.

So... thank you for good stories Bioware, but at the same time the disapointments that were Dragon Age 2 and now the Mass Effect 3 ending have destroyed any interest I had in future Bioware products, since after being burned twice I can hardly trust that I won't be left angry and disapointed after using your products. I'm done. I'll consider the enjoyment I DID get, and the fanfiction people can write, as sufficent payment for the wasted hours of my life, but no more.

I've already taken part in the poll - and registered my game purely to make this post - and aside from that I believe i'll just lurk for now. Of course this post is for my fellow annoyed fellows, and partly for written record, since I doubt anyone with any sort of control over ME3 or the DLC will read it. Still, I can hope that my expressed displeasure will help things like this from happening.

[Berserkuh]

What you have to understand is that Bioware wanted to make the Reapers such a force that if you prepared for it as best as you can (over 5000 EMS) you could merely match them equally, and even then you don't get a guaranteed win. I'm personally satisfied with the ending, though I would've liked a bit more closure. It's nice seeing a bigger-picture in play, as it leaves room for the future of the franchise to explore other options.

You're being warned throughout the game multiple times. This is a war. You're not getting out unscathed, and most of the time you're not even sure if you're going to win. I'm on my third play-through and I've enjoyed it so far.

[Lexxbomb]

Mass Effect is a Space Opera...as such the ending should have been different...Yes the Reapers are the big bad... but BW should have scraped the three endings (basicly ripped out of other games) and just had 1 stock ending in which you defeated the Reapers and then explorered your charaters chievements and long lasting effect...Like what happened in say Fallout or NWN2... Heck even a KoTor style one in which there was just a Paragon/Renegade ending...Heck they could have just done what they did in Dragon Age Origins with its ending... that would have been preferable to this stupid Deus EX ending...

Don't get me wrong I loved the game and will replay it many times.

[DaringMoosejaw]

Berserkuh wrote...

What you have to understand is that Bioware wanted to make the Reapers such a force that if you prepared for it as best as you can (over 5000 EMS) you could merely match them equally, and even then you don't get a guaranteed win. I'm personally satisfied with the ending, though I would've liked a bit more closure. It's nice seeing a bigger-picture in play, as it leaves room for the future of the franchise to explore other options.

You're being warned throughout the game multiple times. This is a war. You're not getting out unscathed, and most of the time you're not even sure if you're going to win. I'm on my third play-through and I've enjoyed it so far.

I'm glad you're able to rationalize the whole meaninglessness, randomness and total lack of closure this ending leaves to the entire series, but Christ I have been trying and I cannot do it.

[Lexxbomb]

The whole premise of the game series has been around the power of the human spirit... the endings just basicly say that doesn't matter..

The game really needs to show that the human spirit endures... and im sorry the ending with the crew founding a new planet does not count...
The true ending should have the Citadel floating above Earth as the new seat of Galactic power... and then a 5-10 min slide show of how we affected the galaxy for the better or worse...

Heck the endings don't even firt into the 7 plot types...for a compnay that is so passionate about story and the evidence of this high level of passion is clearly and lovingly shown throughout the story its a shame the endings do not live upto the series's potential...

BW simple is always better...
next game
1 ending with follow up consequences...

[Mav4061]

Mass Effect 3, for all intents and purposes, was an amazing and emotional game. The action was intense and gripping. The loss of beloved friends and crew mates along the way was emotional and heartbreaking. The way they lifted you up and made you feel like the galaxy actually had a shot at beating the Reapers and then the next minute they smack you into the dirt was fantastic. It gave a more realistic feel to the fact that you are actually fighting a fight against some impossible odds but you still have some hope.

Then the ending happens. They effectively make any and all decisions you made throughout the series utterly pointless. The war assets and galactic readiness mean absolutely nothing. If you could just go fight the Reapers with the Normandy alone you would get exactly the same outcome as somebody who found every single asset there was to find and had max GR. All the decisions you made through the first 2 games are basically just reduced to a slightly higher number next to their respective was asset total, which I've already stated means nothing. The ending didn't suck so much in the sense that Shepard dies or that it's not a super sappy happy ending. It sucked because it did absolutely nothing to explain things right. Who/what is the Catalyst really? An AI? A sort of collective Reaper consciousness? How were the Reapers actually created? What happened for the Catalyst to decide that wiping out all advanced races every 50,000 years was the only solution? What happens to you crew and the galaxy as a whole? Why was Joker running away from the battle with your entire crew while every race was sacrificing themselves to stop the Reapers?

I would never go so far as to say that just because the last 10 minutes of the game sucked it ruined my entire experience or that the series as a hole is forever ruined to me. I just think that it was an amazingly fantastic series that captured my heart and imagination for years, but it just had a crappy 10 minute ending.