Having uninstalled the malware called 'origins' sometime shortly after PAX east 2012, My impressions of the EC are based on Youtube videos. I'm pretty much in agreement with the OP on almost every point. and in disagreement with the one critic who thinks you didn't really play the game and want a happy ending.
we didn't want a happy ending we wanted a EPIC ending, an Olympic Gold ending. Which the game almost was, until Bioware's athletes disqualified themselves three steps short of the finish line.
actually four years of intense preparation for Olympic gold only to have the medal taken away on the instant replay probably is the best analogy I've ever encountered for the feelings I and believe the OP and many others share.
oh well I still have, the first two games. (playing ME 1 right now. ) The money spent on my CE preorder I guess is 'wasted' since I won't be able to play it without re-installing the origins malware. but... I still the first two, my headcannon, a valuble lesson learned about buying games sight unseen. (or ANYTHING from EA)
Mass Effect 3 was never going to have an epic ending, I mean I was sure of that after I saw and got a feel for the opening sequence of the game on Earth. The Endings are supposed to represent a new age for everyone who has seen the horror of war. And for that I see a beauty in them, but I'm a sucker for rebirth kind of stories.
I'm sorry that Mass Effect 3 wasn't what you wanted it to be, but honestly you probably should have seen a sad ending coming.
But we want to see it happen in front of our eyes, we want to see our war assets fighting (an epic final battle with Harbinger would also be very nice). We want to see the fleet of council forces going toe to toe with the Reaper fleet, in an incredible Star warsesque clash. We want to see the entire Geth Armada come out of FTL, flanking the Reapers and obliterating several capital ships who were trying to take down the Destiny Ascenscion. We want to see Quarian commanders suicide crashing their burning ships into the Reapers, in a last desperate attempt to finish off the enemy, Keelah Se'lai!!! We want to see Turian fighters, ruthlessly rushing into the fray, dropping nuclear ordinance on capital ships.
Not just in space, we want to see this epic battle unfold on Earth. We want to see tens of thousands of Rachni soldiers swarming a Reaper Destroyer as it helplessly struggles to survive. We want to see Jack and her biotic squad shielding an anti-air outpost from an onslaught of Ravager artillery, so that the outpost can gun down several Harvesters and watch them give out one last guttural scream as they plunge to their deaths. We want to see Grunt charge at a Brute, shouting "I AM KROGAN!!!" as he single-handedly wrestles it to the ground and curb stomps its face into the concrete. We want to see an army of husks rushing a group of powerless Alliance marines who are being overwhelmed. As the marines close their eyes, preparing for the worst, the husks are gunned down by a platoon of Geth Primes. We want to see Liara fighting off multiple Marauders and get saved by a miracle sniper shot from Garrus. We want to see Vega and Ashley/Kaiden back to back, firing off at Cannibals from 360 degrees. We want to see Elcor Tanks relentlessly firing down upon Reapers and decimating them. We want to see Wrex and Wreav taking cover from on-going fire in a trench, then curtly nodding to eachother as they go over the top and lead a battalion of Krogan shocktroopers in a bloodrage battle charge.
Thanks for reading and responding!
I agree so very much, just wonderful to the point, kudos to you!
I think the ME3 ending leaves one empty, all the work each individual has put into the ME universe ... one encounters a sort of burn out after ME3 ends.
Each one of us has to be on the job each day, we are all trapped less or more in a thing called reality. Each one of us faces good times and bad times, we know how life works here on this side of the keyboard. That is why entertainment has such a precious place in our life, it should add to our life (and should do that in a positive way, never mind the story is about something good or bad).
I'm quite sorry Mass Effect came to such an end, yet, I'm grateful to read your thoughts and ideas, they made me smile a lot and I wished ... BioWare had realized it in such a way. Thanks a lot for posting this thread!
^This!
I can completely relate to your post, OP! My ME experience is similar to yours. I know I probably care a bit too much about this franchise than one should about a "game", but I can´t help it. The escape to this virtual world helps me cope with all the curveballs real life throws me day in and day out. No other game gets me invested in its story and characters the way ME manages to.
I can´t really understand how it could end in such a disaster. It doesn´t matter that I might have somewhat come to terms with the current endings by now just because I can´t stand the thought that a f*****-up ending destroys the whole trilogy for me. But no matter the enjoyment I get out of it even now...it´s still tainted compared to the previous experience.
Like some people around here I still cling a bit to the hope that future DLC will do something to remedy the **** we have, but I also expect to be disappointed, it´s just foolish to get ones hopes up again. It´s really ironic that a game series that managed to raise my spirits whenever I played it happens to instill the complete opposite feeling in me at the end. But enough of my moping.
Oh, and I fully agree with your war scenario...I´d just add kakliosaurs, ok? Krogans on kakliosaurs! I didn´t search some reaper infested system for a damn fossil for nothing...
I did not think that the biggest problem that most people had with the ending was the lack of closure, because that is what the Extended Cut supplements. I am very surprised. There are a lot of areas that Mass Effect 3 could have improved upon, but let me just talk about the ending for now.
My Mass Effect History
First, some back story. Mass Effect was(technically it still is) my favorite video game series. I discovered the joy of the Mass Effect series during a very depressing time in my life, and it gave me hope. I had something to look forward to again when I wasn't busy. My life was still very stressful when I picked up the first two, but when I was escaping that life and immersing myslef into the universe of Mass Effect, I felt a happiness that I hadn't felt in a long time. I was so excited for Mass Effect 3, but then, something happened. About a week before its release, my 5-year-old Xbox finally broke. Not just that, but I was in need of a new hard drive as well. This created complications. I had saved just enough money to buy a Collector's, addition, but now I had to buy another Xbox (among some other more important things). I had to drop my preorder, and make enough money to buy a new Xbox for $300. Going through March was terrible, I was so tempted to find out as much about the game as possible, It was very difficult to refrain myself from spoiling anything. Then, the news about the ending came, I heard all the talk about how it almost ruins the whole series, a betrayal of Shepard's character, etc (it still does). I didn't want to believe it,
Finally, come mid-June, I bought a new Xbox along with a regular copy of Mass Effect 3. I played the game, it was amazing, until I got to those last ten minutes, those last ten f***ing minutes, where I watched the series I loved so much get destroyed. I cried a bit the night before, knowing that the incredible journey of my favorite franchise was coming to an end. That day, I cried myself to sleep, in disbelief of what just happened to the series that I revered so much. I understood Kaidan/Ashley's devastation in Mass Effect 2 when they found out Commander Shepard died, it was almost "like losing a limb," so to speak. And please don't ridicule me for that, I'm being very vulnerable right now, no one I know in real life understands how I feel about Mass Effect, I am hopeful that someone on these forums will.
My Problems with the Ending
I do not like the ending because it is tainted by nihilism. It is narratively and thematically inconsistent with the rest of the story. It goes against everything that my Shepard believed in and fought for throughout the trilogy. Not only that, but it made all of his/her choices pointless. Over a hundred hours of amazing gameplay, rendered obsolete by the last ten minutes. My original choice was Synthesis, because out of the three, it seemed the least evil. I still loathed it. Back then my options were:
Destroy: Destroy all technology in the galaxy, including the Mass Relays and myself. This would also destroy most life as collateral damage.
Control: Sacrafice your identity to take the role of the Catalyst and control the Reapers.
Synthesis: Impose all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy into a singular existence.
My biggest regret was not being able to tell my squadmates goodbye. I was very attached to my crew, I felt a connection with each one of them, because almost all of them had something about their past or their character that I could relate to; and friends are very dear to me, I only have a few, close ones in real life. But Shepard never got to see them again, Shepard never got to open that bottle of Brandy with Dr. Chakwas, he never got to retire some place tropical with Garrus, be reunited with his/her LI, etc, etc.
These endings were horrible and full of plotholes. After watching the credits, the last thing I get is a message from EA/Bioware asking me to buy their DLC. Yeah, you betrayed your fans, and now you want more money? F*** you.
Extended Cut
I beat Mass Effect 3 the day after Extended Cut released. I watched the videos on YouTube; they didn't help. Although clumsily (with retconning and the use of proverbial smoke and mirrors), Extended Cut did fix some problems and add clarity, but the main problem was still there: there were still plotholes, some old and some new, the catalyst still had an irrational and circular logic, and the fundamental problems remained.
The ending that was changed the most was the Destroy ending. I haven't played Mass Effect's story since completing the third, but if I could change my choice, I would most likely choose Destroy now. Now, only the Geth and EDI are sacraficed, the Mass Relays don't obliterate the rest of the galaxy and Shepard doesn't die. However, I would need to metagame. There ultimately is no 'best' choice.
Destroy: Why do I have to sacrafice the Geth and other AI? According to the Catalyst, organics and synthetics cannot peacefully coexist, but my Shepard's actions refute that. My Shepard created peace with the Quarians and the Geth, he taught the Geth to value and respect the perspective of organics, as he did with EDI. This seems like a cheap and arbitrary consequence tacked on so that the player will be more prone to considering the other choices, even though destroying the Reapers is what we set out to do in the first place.
Control: Control leaves a lot of interpretation to what can happen. Shepard sacrafices himself, he is the blue box for the fruition of an AI/VI that controls the Reapers. Shepard becomes the new abomination that is the Catalyst. He/she says that they will use the Reapers for good, but how long will that last? Who is to say that its perspective won't change and eventually it will use the Reapers for the same purpose, or an even worse one? So does this mean that the Illusive Man, the same person a lot of us have opposed throughout the entire series, was right all along? I believe that a common belief for Commander Shepard is that no one should be able to control that kind of power, it is too dangerous, it is playing with fire, it is better to get rid of it. That was my reason for destroying the Collector Base at the end of Mass Effect 2. "The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few." doesn't sound very comforting coming from a Reaper god-complex.
Synthesis: I now think that this is the most evil choice of all. Shepard uses the Crucible to fuse all organic and synthetic life into a singular existence. No one deserves to make this choice. One of the underlying themes of Mass Effect is diversity, the beauty and disversity of the galaxy and the universe. In all three titles, Shepard leads a team of people of different religions, races, backrounds, and cultures, to accomplish the impossible. When you find Navigator Pressly's datapad at the Normandy crash site, he wrote that he would be willing to fight and die for any of his crew, regardless of what world they were born on. He learned to appreciate that uniquity, and came to regret his pervious, bigoted and xenophobic beliefs. When Legion discusses the issue of the Geth heretics, it mentions that it cannot form an opinion whether to rewrite them or not because of the consequences. The Geth heretics left to pursue their own future, the other Geth allowed them to do so because they respected their decision. They did not agree with it, but they understood it. The heretics offered unique perspective, a perspective that benefits all Geth. If they are rewritten, that perspective is destroyed. That is what Synthesis does, it fuses organics and synthetics, eliminating their uniquity and perspective to form a 'perfect society.' In technicality, this choice turns everyone into the same thing as the Reapers.
All three of these conform to the Catalyst's logic of 'the created will always rebel and try to kill the created.' Destroy solves the problem by destroying all synthetics. Control solves the problem by having Shepard assume control of the Reapers, in turn keeping synthetics in line. Synthesis combines organics and synthetics, eliminating the conflict.
Refusal: I don't think I need to go into much detail for this one. Essentially, it is the game's articulation of Hudson and Walters' "You don't like the artsy ending that we made? Well fine! Screw you, then!" All those hours that you put into Mass Effect were for nothing, everybody dies, because you didn't want to play by glow-boy's/the writers' rules.
Refusal brings me to my next and final point.
What the ending should have been
Why does a series that is centered around consequences and player-choice have to end on one final, big decision? I think it is better if the end is determined by all your choices throughout the trilogy (maybe have it explained afterwards, Fallout style). Mass Effect 3 didn't need to have a final choice, and it didn't need to have a DEM that made everything you did pointless.
Here's how it should have played out:
The Catalyst should have simply been a necessary component of the Crucible, and the Crucible should not have been a magical space canon. Some time during the campaign, we should have learned that it was a device that would be used to weaken the Reapers, not destroy them at 'the push of the button' (I believe one of the developers specifically said that there wouldn't be a 'Reaper off switch'). According to the game, the Crucible was built by all the previous cycles, and each had added something to it. What if the Crucible sent a pulse through the galaxy that would disable the Reapers' kinetic barriers. Perhaps the previous cycles had contributed to it by adding Reaper code and tech salvaged from those that they managed to kill conventionally, so that the Crucible could detect any Reapers in the galaxy and hinder them. If this were the case, then the war assets we spent 30 hours collecting would actually mean something. EMS would matter! After using the Crucible, if your EMS is too low, the Reapers take losses, but they manage to wipe out the galaxy's forces, and the cycle continues. If your EMS is moderate, the Reapers take heavy casualties, the galaxy's forces are annihilated, but the Reapers are to weak to continue the cycle, this cycle still dies, but the next one is guaranteed victory. If your EMS is very high, let's say +6,000; the Reapers are completely destroyed and the galaxy's forces take heavy losses, albeit a pyrrhic victory, the dreadful cycle of genocide has finally been broken, forever.
But we want to see it happen in front of our eyes, we want to see our war assets fighting (an epic final battle with Harbinger would also be very nice). We want to see the fleet of council forces going toe to toe with the Reaper fleet, in an incredible Star warsesque clash. We want to see the entire Geth Armada come out of FTL, flanking the Reapers and obliterating several capital ships who were trying to take down the Destiny Ascenscion. We want to see Quarian commanders suicide crashing their burning ships into the Reapers, in a last desperate attempt to finish off the enemy, Keelah Se'lai!!! We want to see Turian fighters, ruthlessly rushing into the fray, dropping nuclear ordinance on capital ships.
Not just in space, we want to see this epic battle unfold on Earth. We want to see tens of thousands of Rachni soldiers swarming a Reaper Destroyer as it helplessly struggles to survive. We want to see Jack and her biotic squad shielding an anti-air outpost from an onslaught of Ravager artillery, so that the outpost can gun down several Harvesters and watch them give out one last guttural scream as they plunge to their deaths. We want to see Grunt charge at a Brute, shouting "I AM KROGAN!!!" as he single-handedly wrestles it to the ground and curb stomps its face into the concrete. We want to see an army of husks rushing a group of powerless Alliance marines who are being overwhelmed. As the marines close their eyes, preparing for the worst, the husks are gunned down by a platoon of Geth Primes. We want to see Liara fighting off multiple Marauders and get saved by a miracle sniper shot from Garrus. We want to see Vega and Ashley/Kaiden back to back, firing off at Cannibals from 360 degrees. We want to see Elcor Tanks relentlessly firing down upon Reapers and decimating them. We want to see Wrex and Wreav taking cover from on-going fire in a trench, then curtly nodding to eachother as they go over the top and lead a battalion of Krogan shocktroopers in a bloodrage battle charge.
I think you get the point. There's a lot we want to see. But we want to see an amazing cinematic battle take place before our eyes, one that will be talked about and lauded for years to come, all while playing to the glorious sound of www.youtube.com/watch.
We want pay off. We want to have the same feeling that we did when we watched that awe-inspiring launch trailer (). The one that made us say "This isn't just going to be an incredible game, this is going to be an incredible experience!"
Conclusion
In the end, you can only polish a piece of **** so much, it will still be a piece of ****. That is exactly what Extended Cut did, it added clarity with a few slides and a 30-line monologue from three voice actors (I know EC added more than that but that's the gist of it). A Mass Effect fan on YouTube made a better ending in a day than what Bioware did in over three months, simply by taking out the conversation with the Catalyst and the Crucible's space magic. If I had to rate Extended Cut, I would give it a 4/10, or a D+. Is Mass Effect a D+ game? No, not by a long shot, looking at the other 99% of the trilogy is indicative of the contrary. Bioware could have made a better ending in their sleep. CASEY AND MAC could have written a better ending if they weren't so caught up in their pseudo-intellectual philosophical bull**** and pursuing some far-fetched artistic vision for a game with so much potential.
Some of you may argue that without these endings, there wouldn't be enough sacrafice. I disagree. Look around you when you're at the end of the game. Remember all those burning ships? What happened to the other half of Hammer group? What about the hundreds of millions of lives that the Reapers took in our cycle alone? Even with the 'conventional' ending that I suggested, at the end of this war, the galaxy is going to be a much emptier place. What do you think?
What is your opinion? Do you agree with me? Or do you think I am just some self-entitled, whiney Retaker? Do you think there's still a change that Bioware might change the ending? Although I will defend my position, I appreciate all feedback, both positive and negative. This thread took me over 3 hours to write, and I rarely try to express a point with such passion in my writing.
Thanks for reading and responding!
The Catalyst can't be disproved by using EDI and the Geth as an example, both intelligences are pre singularity. The only thing that came close was the Geth's Dyson Sphere, destroyed by the Quarians before a superintelligence could emerge.
A superintelligence can't be predicted as it is a mind so far beyond our own that we can't even try to guess about its intentions. The Geth and EDI behave like they do because their intelligence hasn't reach the point that changes their view of us from equals to primitive apes, after that there's no telling what will happen however if the end result is war it would be a very short one. I tend to believe the catalyst, simply because it seems compelled to cooperate once the crucible is in place, and that little bastard has seen a lot. All that data points to inevitability, in my opinion it would be very irresponsible to not even consider the possibility.
However I understand why it's so difficult to take the idea as something inevitable, there are some bits of info through the game but not enough to create a solid opinion before we are forced to make a choice.
Your choices about the ending are your own and I'm not going to criticize you for that, however I'm forced to point out that you didn't seem to understand synthesis; organic and synthetic life is not melted together, organics gain the ability to evolve as far as machines while synthetics gain the ability to understand organics. After this there's no need of a catalyst or a solution because we adapted to the singularity, avoiding extinction.
Did you really miss the point of the whole series? It's about morals (paragon/renegade) and choices. There is no "happy" ending for Shepard. Shepard must, in the end, make a moral decision as it was throughout.
Red/renegade - sacrifice another (EDI, Geth) to achieve victory Blue/paragon - sacrifice self to achieve victory Green/blend - sacrifice self, choose for another to achieve stability/victory Reject - failure to sacrifice resulting in defeat
Many stories do not have happy, perfect endings and are still great stories. Hamlet, Romeo and Juliette, Oedipus are examples. They are classics with "bad" endings. Think about it.
Cant tell if your trolling or just stupid. The stories you listed have more than just "bad" endings in common. They are all also tragedies! They were written from the beginning that way. ME was never a tragedy. It was never billed that way.
And as far as your "moral" choices go, I fail to see any logic in anything you said. Shep spends 25-30 hrs telling TIM that control is a bad idea, yet at the end it's the Paragon choice? And the synthesis and it's lack of a 5th grade knowledge of biology and evolution has been discussed ad nauseum.
I don't agree with you, OP. I really liked the EC, and the closure it added.
Indeed. I wish the OP's fanfic is not shoved down our throats.
This is rather crass. The original post is compartmentalized, you couldn't infer that the section titled "What should have happened" would be fan fiction? You can easily skip down to the conclusion.
Alas, this isn't a dissection of the endings, just my initial feelings after beating the game. It's unrefined looking back at it now, more of a personal thread.
Modifié par Conniving_Eagle, 23 août 2012 - 03:25 .
Total agreement OP, nail-on-head, thank you for taking the time
To put it all here.
Also, I think some of you guys are glazing over a big issue. It was BW's choice (not ours) to show their war as art (not sarcastic) we don't need a game aka entertainment (keyword) to show us how ugly war can be-ever. Or that sacrifices will be made, this is common knowledge or damn well should be. If you make the decision to show war as art to illustrate its evil then...I don't know....uhh...SHOW THE WAR! Show what our decisions, assets within those moments achieve or lose. Show it's power through your art aka war. It could have been their most vivid illustrator, their most powerful tool and they showed slides....huh?! Furthermore, don't lecture us through the entire game, only to tell us "guess" or "use your imagination" in the end.
Furthermore, if you want someone to sacrifice for you- they'd better care first, just saying....I cared about my crew, Krogan, etc etc etc Earth? Eh not so much
Also, can we please stop with the whole "conventional" statement? IIRC Hackett said something along the lines of "...we can't unite the galaxy conventionally..." welp, did it. Conventionally. Next?
So many issues...eagle covered it, Nuff said.
Fact is, those that like the game will like it, fine, but there's another side to every coin.
I don't recall posting in this thread. I read the OP. I have nothing to add to it. I have some similar views on the subject.
This series was unique to me in that it allowed for those "Star Trek" moments, it allowed for those "Ripley" moments, those "Sharon Stone" in an Arnold movie, and allowed for almost total immersion into a story a lot of the time. I absolutely loved the story, the characters, all of them including the villains. Then Mac Walters broke my heart in the last 10 minutes of Mass Effect 3. That was not mended with the EC. I put part of myself into Commander Shepard. I will never do that again in a RPG.
Some of you may argue that without these endings, there wouldn't be enough sacrafice. I disagree. Look around you when you're at the end of the game. Remember all those burning ships? What happened to the other half of Hammer group? What about the hundreds of millions of lives that the Reapers took in our cycle alone? Even with the 'conventional' ending that I suggested, at the end of this war, the galaxy is going to be a much emptier place.
Not to mention how empty earth looked. Seems that almost everyone has been harvested by this point (Prothean VI states that the reapers are preparing to complete their harvest of our species). It would be a big rebuilding process not to mention repopulating our world...
I don't agree with you, OP. I really liked the EC, and the closure it added.
Indeed. I wish the OP's fanfic is not shoved down our throats.
This is rather crass. The original post is compartmentalized, you couldn't infer that the section titled "What should have happened" would be fan fiction? You can easily skip down to the conclusion.
Alas, this isn't a dissection of the endings, just my initial feelings after beating the game. It's unrefined looking back at it now, more of a personal thread.
Destroy: Why do I have to sacrafice the Geth and other AI? According to the Catalyst, organics and synthetics cannot peacefully coexist, but my Shepard's actions refute that. My Shepard created peace with the Quarians and the Geth, he taught the Geth to value and respect the perspective of organics, as he did with EDI. This seems like a cheap and arbitrary consequence tacked on so that the player will be more prone to considering the other choices, even though destroying the Reapers is what we set out to do in the first place
After 300 years of battle. 300 years that possessed the capability of eradicating the entire Quarian race. It took one very special individual in this cycle to bring peace between the two factions, and this has never happened in any other cycle. If anything, the peace established between the Geth and the Quarians was pure luck on Shepard's behalf. Any other cycle would have seen the same grim demise.
Yes, the Geth only acted in defense towards the aggressiveness of the Quarians, but that's my point. Look at what happened. As the synthetics grew more intelligent, the organics felt more threatened. We start the conflict and we are the ones who should be killed/harvested. Unfortunately, the Quarian/Geth situation serves more as a support argument for the Catalyst's logic than a counter-argument. We claim that peace can be established because of what was done, but the circumstances will never be that ideal ever again and we might not have another Shepard to paragon his way through it.
besides the endings just coming off as lazy and leaving a bad taste in your mouth, it just feels like someone else made the last 10 minutes of the game (pre EC). it feels like they outsourced the ending to eidos montreal and said "make us a real deep ending but make it quick, we got a deadline coming up"
Despite that, the Council already had their own, more civil solution. Creating synthetics was illegal, those that did were punished for it (not killed). They never bothered to destroy the Geth because they isolated themselves.
I agree with you that the other 99% of mass effect was great. The original endings were pretty depressing, however, liked the EC and it added closure but I still dislike the catalyst and the reapers purpose, I would have preferred for the reapers to have remained unknown
Destroy: Why do I have to sacrafice the Geth and other AI? According to the Catalyst, organics and synthetics cannot peacefully coexist, but my Shepard's actions refute that. My Shepard created peace with the Quarians and the Geth, he taught the Geth to value and respect the perspective of organics, as he did with EDI. This seems like a cheap and arbitrary consequence tacked on so that the player will be more prone to considering the other choices, even though destroying the Reapers is what we set out to do in the first place
After 300 years of battle. 300 years that possessed the capability of eradicating the entire Quarian race. It took one very special individual in this cycle to bring peace between the two factions, and this has never happened in any other cycle. If anything, the peace established between the Geth and the Quarians was pure luck on Shepard's behalf. Any other cycle would have seen the same grim demise.
Yes, the Geth only acted in defense towards the aggressiveness of the Quarians, but that's my point. Look at what happened. As the synthetics grew more intelligent, the organics felt more threatened. We start the conflict and we are the ones who should be killed/harvested. Unfortunately, the Quarian/Geth situation serves more as a support argument for the Catalyst's logic than a counter-argument. We claim that peace can be established because of what was done, but the circumstances will never be that ideal ever again and we might not have another Shepard to paragon his way through it.
And that "very special individual" is even neither Quarian nor Geth.
Diversity 1 Synthesis 0
On your other point, the Quarians handled their situation in the worst way possible, hence the resulting war with the Geth. Call them immature and stupid for that. I do. Akin to suddenly-parents reacting really badly upon an unexpected pregnancy. It's not enough that every situation "simply needs to be handled". Every situation needs to be handled properly.
EDI has a vast range of capabilities and capacities almost beyond imagination. Yet, Shepard is not in the least bit threatened by her. This is akin to say, me hanging out with a group of friends, all of which I consider to be much smarter and better people overall than I am, or could ever be. I'm not threatened by them. Quite the opposite, in fact. There's so much I can learn from each of them.
Another example. Although please excuse that it isn't from Mass Effect. Data, from Star Trek TNG. Data is essentially super-human. His friends aren't threatened by him. In fact, they all enjoy and benefit from each other's company.
I'm gonna try and keep this to a paragraph or five because what hasn't been said about the endings? But essentially, J'agree, OP.
ME1, ME2, and most of ME3 were all about the "small" decisions; the small pieces that make up the big picture. From having a picture taken with Conrad Verner (or telling him to get a life), to curing (or not) the Genophage. I played ME1 knowing it was a trilogy, so I was anticpating the accumulation of all those individual decisions throughout all the games to lead to something.
You see, Mass Effect was blessed with having the option of choices. The option of having different courses for different players. The option of having different endings that showed different outcomes. It was a unique position that the franchise built for itself. And it was a unique position that was unfortunately squandered because of time constraints, resources, or maybe even it was just too damn hard. All are probably true, and with those reasons it's even more tragic that we ended up here.
All it needed to do was, at the climax of ME3, have it come down to one thing; do we win or lose in the fight against the Reapers? Do the decisions we made throughout the journey add up to victory or defeat? Again, unfortunately, that isn't what we got; Who wins in Synthesis? Who wins in Control? Who wins in Destroy? Some might say that ambiguity was intentional. I say that ambiguity is the result of poor writing, and as others have said, I didn't pay for and play this game, the entire series, to imagine - sorry, speculate, about what happens next. I wanted to come away from it thinking 'after literally years, I have beat the Reapers'. Then, I would go back, play it again, and see what would happen if I made different choices, and saw the Reapers wipe out the fleets, turn Earth into ash, and to see Shepard fall.
No rainbows or bunny rabbits necessary, I wanted to win outright, and I wanted the option to lose outright. As simple as that. But somewhere along the line, things got complicated...
I don't like that squadmates were dropped and replaced (particularly Miranda being shunted!), I don't like the autodialogue, and I don't like the eaves dropping for inane side/fetch quests and complete lack of exploration. In terms of characters and 'adventure', I think ME3 is a significant step back from ME2 and ME1, respectively.
I could go on for days, but I cba, and it's all been said before.
Silent Rage wrote...
Don't the endings just make you want to take back Omega so you can see a slide of Aria sitting down somewhere?
Really tickled me, that comment. Gamers love a shiny new DLC, don't they.
I agree with the OP also, ME was a way to escape every days boring life and what annoys me is knowing that playing ME1/2 again won't affect the ending in 3.
I'm guessing a new 'shiny' DLC will come indeed with taking back Omega.. Maybe something similar to Leviathan, getting the Rachni to do something.. or w/e. This however doesn't change a thing... nothing affects the ending.. And yes ME1 was awesome, ME2 even better... ME3.. not so.
What I see could have made different is the whole ending itself. I don't want some button pressing/final minutes choice. I would rather want an ending based on everything or the bigger things I've done through the trilogy.
The ending should be the sum of what you have done before it, not a final minute choice were everything you've done is thrown out the airlock.
What I see could have made different is the whole ending itself. I don't want some button pressing/final minutes choice. I would rather want an ending based on everything or the bigger things I've done through the trilogy. The ending should be the sum of what you have done before it, not a final minute choice were everything you've done is thrown out the airlock.
Exactly. Besides, it should've been a game that makes you want to replay it over and over again out of it's pure awesomenes. When you finish a game it should leave you feeling good and triumphant, not depressed and sad.
A young, lovely lad. He was taken much before his time.
As a fresh face to the BSN he clearly displayed a lovely and emotional opinion. It is truly a pity how this forum churned him up, and spat him out into a cynical shadow of his former self.
May his unfair and unwarranted permaban be a symbol of the marketing tool these forums have become.
Lest we forget.
Modifié par Jade8aby88, 30 septembre 2012 - 01:33 .
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