That would have been lame, I just finished it and I much prefer the ending Bioware gave it.
Great job, awesome game, awesome ending.
Can you clarify (with spoiler tags, obviously) why you think the ending is awesome?
I can understand people enjoying a bleak or even nihilist ending, but the one we got made absolutely no sense at all and was entirely inconsistent with the rest of the series. I'd very much like to hear someone whose views and opinions I generally respect attempt to defend it.
I like the idea of things going on at a high level and the people having little idea of what it is, but having to deal with the consequences (the movie Signs for example). I always enjoy sci-fi like that, where at the end nothing was what it appeared to be and stuff was going on that no one expected.
I don't think it was inconsistent with the whole series; I thought they hinted at it enough during the whole game that I wasn't completely surprised by it. I thought the whole deus ex machina nature of the Crucible (we're building this but we don't know what it does) through the whole game foreshadowed it. Conversations with the Reaper and the Prothean VI made it more clear.
Was it perfect? Maybe they could have ramped up to that end more slowly I guess, at some point shift Shep's focus from the war effort to the cycle maybe (maybe at the detriment to the war effort and everyone gets mad), but I'm not sure if that would have been better, just different.
I think it partly boils down to what kind of fiction and sci-fi people like, and it might boil down to the kind of character people see Shepard as.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
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The more i play this game the more i am disappointed with how stupid the plot has turned out.
Like i get that you have to meet up with old friends, but having them all show up in every single side quest is really stupid and very predictable, sure the Mordin and Tali ones make sense, but Jacob, Miranda, Jack, Samara etc. just annoy me to no end, like way to rub in my face that i spent an entire game building "relationships" with these guys to never be able to use them again...
All the quests feel the same way as well, go talk to a person, walk into a room and shoot someone, go into a room talk to someone, rinse repeat.
At least ME1 had some variability in its quest structure, plus you could at least walk around with your gun drawn and holster if whenever you wanted, ME3 is just all pre-canned areas for fighting which is really annoying IMO.
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The more i play this game the more i am disappointed with how stupid the plot has turned out.
Like i get that you have to meet up with old friends, but having them all show up in every single side quest is really stupid and very predictable, sure the Mordin and Tali ones make sense, but Jacob, Miranda, Jack, Samara etc. just annoy me to no end, like way to rub in my face that i spent an entire game building "relationships" with these guys to never be able to use them again...
All the quests feel the same way as well, go talk to a person, walk into a room and shoot someone, go into a room talk to someone, rinse repeat.
At least ME1 had some variability in its quest structure, plus you could at least walk around with your gun drawn and holster if whenever you wanted, ME3 is just all pre-canned areas for fighting which is really annoying IMO.
I will agree in that the side quests have really taken a step back from ME2. In 3 the sidequests are brutally bad. You basically get dropped off in a small location, kill waves of enemies, then complete an objective. Repeat that 3 or 4 times per mission. It also bothered me that I ran into all of my old squad members only to have none of them join me. It's like Bioware was rubbing it in your face that these people were awesome but that you're stuck with EDI and James .
In response to Photon:
Spoiler!
Personally, I liked the fact that the Reapers were unknowable. It made them menacing and finding out some blue glowy kid god is actually the creator kinda ruined them for me. I agree with the writer in that article I posted. Creating synthetics to destroy organic life to prevent conflict with synthetics is a ridiculous cyclical argument. It also creates a number of plot holes that could have been avoided with a different ending. To me the ending comes off as lazy. Almost as though they were running out of time so they quickly threw together a 5 minute video that was completely unsatisfactory.
I am not necessarily looking for a happy ending either. All I want is proper closure for the characters that I've spent 3 games getting to know and care about. If the crucible idea failed and instead you were to see your forces getting decimated and seeing your squad members making defiant last stands before being overwhelmed would have made for an emotional conclusion and a far better way to end the game.
The reason I like the alternative ending that was posted is because it shows that your previous decisions have an impact on the conclusion of the game. You have basically spent 3 games building up alliances and forces only to have them play zero impact on the outcome of the trilogy. Having some god child randomly appear in the last 15 mintues kind of undoes everything that comes before it.
I suppose I see Shepard as the kind of hero that spits in the face of inevitablity. Seeing Shepard blindly accept the choices the god present him goes against the way I see the character. Then you have the idea that has been present throughout the triliogy that when we are united, our uniqueness and differences make us stronger. The ending basically says that those differences and uniqueness are a weakness and forces you to choose how to purge them. To me it the ending totally comes out of left field. Not everyone is going to agree and that's cool. I just wish there was more closure.
Also, how exactly do the squad members I took on the final mission end up back on the Normandy during the cinematic?
I like the idea of things going on at a high level and the people having little idea of what it is, but having to deal with the consequences (the movie Signs for example). I always enjoy sci-fi like that, where at the end nothing was what it appeared to be and stuff was going on that no one expected.
I don't think it was inconsistent with the whole series; I thought they hinted at it enough during the whole game that I wasn't completely surprised by it. I thought the whole deus ex machina nature of the Crucible (we're building this but we don't know what it does) through the whole game foreshadowed it. Conversations with the Reaper and the Prothean VI made it more clear.
Was it perfect? Maybe they could have ramped up to that end more slowly I guess, at some point shift Shep's focus from the war effort to the cycle maybe (maybe at the detriment to the war effort and everyone gets mad), but I'm not sure if that would have been better, just different.
I think it partly boils down to what kind of fiction and sci-fi people like, and it might boil down to the kind of character people see Shepard as.
i might be more inclined to agree with you if Bioware didn't specifically state that your decisions would have an impact on the final ending of the game. technically they do, since if you don't have enough war assets then you just outright fail, but that's what made me feel like Bioware copped out and took the easy way out. if Mass Effect had been a simple narrative i would have been quite satisfied with the ending, but having a series become so personalized to each person playing it and giving it such an unpersonal ending feels like a ripoff. i might as well have just played Gears of War
I think its sad that I was such a big fan of 1 and 2, and everything that my friends and even what I read here makes me want to wait until 3 hits the discount bin at Target.
A game is a bad game if it makes you regret playing its prequels.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I've been avoiding spoilers, though it's hard to avoid the general idea that the ending sucks... Can't play through the game very quickly due to a newborn in the house... so I'm enjoying the odd hour or two I get here & there.
Even though I don't have my savegames from ME1 & ME2, I'm still really enjoying the game so far (about 16hrs played). And that's already making me think I'll likely re-play the first two at some point in the future, make different decisions, see how it all pans out, probably on a harder difficulty, etc.
Even if the end does suck, I'm loving getting there.
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Just read this over on the Bioware forums and I completely agree.
Spoiler!
"I've seen a couple of posts recently that discount the idea of defeating the Reapers conventionally, citing the idea as being contradictory to what the games have said over and over and over again.
I do not think it is contradictory at all, and in fact fits with the themes established in the games quite well.
In storytelling, particularly in visually oriented mediums like movies and games, there's an important tenant to remember:
Show, don't tell.
Showing the viewer/player something will almost always carry more weight and affect their perceptions of the story than something they are told. Oftentimes in storytelling this is actually exploited because the conflict can result from characters being shown to do things that they are told cannot be done.
In videogame storytelling there is another layer to this I suspect that should probably go like "Play, don't show." Letting the players actually experience something firsthand affects their perception of the story more than either showing or telling.
This is one of the many reasons that the endings are so frustrating to so many people. Because the endings tells the player information that they have played and been shown to be wrong...but that's for another thread.
This in mind, let's apply this tenant of storytelling to the subject of defeating the reapers.
We are TOLD that we cannot defeat the reapers in conventional warfare constantly throughout the games. We are told this by Admiral Hackett, Anderson, the Illusive Man, Saren, and most of all by the Reapers themselves. We are told this over and over again, as some of have pointed out.
However, what are we SHOWN? We are shown:
-The Alliance fleet defeating both the Geth and Sovereign in ME1 (with your help).
-A derilict reaper in ME2 that seems to have been defeated conventionally and gets blown up.
-Shepard and two squadmates defeating a WIP Reaper in ME2 with small arms fire.
-A Thresher maw, a (admittedly larger) kind of creature you routinely defeated in the Mako, going toe to toe and winning against Reaper.
-Shepard defeating a Reaper himself with the help of the migrant fleet.
-Shepard using missles against one and destroying it in the final mission before Harbinger appears.
What we are shown and experience as the player is that while the Reapers are a threat unlike any that the races of the galaxy have faced....they are not invincible. Shepard is routinely shown defying all the odds and beating them in straight up fights.
If you want to blame someone for promoting the idea that the united galaxies fleet could defeat the reapers in a straight up fight, blame Bioware."
Anderson and Hacket routinely mention that we cannot defeat the Reapers in a conventional fight. Everytime that came out of their mouths I thought bull#####. I've defeated plenty of Reapers. I have a massive fleet the likes of which have never been seen before and I have the cooperation of every race in the Galaxy. Why can't we defeat them in a straight up fight?
I think its sad that I was such a big fan of 1 and 2, and everything that my friends and even what I read here makes me want to wait until 3 hits the discount bin at Target.
A game is a bad game if it makes you regret playing its prequels.
It's still worth playing. For me, ME3 was 39 hours and 45 minutes of pure distilled awesomeness followed by 15 minutes of absolute suckage. Everything up until the ending was just amazing, by far the best experience in the entire series. I don't think it's fair to rate the entire game as a failure because the ending was such a huge disappointment.
ME3 went ST:V on the Borg on the Reapers. Neutered them.
You know what though,
Spoiler!
Even if it turned out that my fleet was unable to defeat the Reapers in a straight up fight I'd have rathered watch them be completely obliterated then give in to the choices this god child presents me. My Shepard would never accept any of those options and that's what bothers me. Let me cast the die. Throw the entirety of my war assets against the Reapers and see what happens. If we manage to scrape up a victory, fantastic. If not, then I am more than happy to see everyone go down fighting.
That would have been lame, I just finished it and I much prefer the ending Bioware gave it.
Great job, awesome game, awesome ending.
I agree and I'm happy to read positive comments from reasonable people. The strangely aggressive reactions that I've encountered elsewhere have almost exhausted me.
My ending worked for me both emotionally and in the large thematic sense. And I was just as invested in the games and the universe as anyone else. Many of the criticisms that I read simply aren't as intelligent as they are presented as. Of course there is always space for genuine disagreements, but from what I've seen the loudest and most active critics don't seem interested in good-faith discussion. Many of them don't even know what a discussion between adults is supposed to be like.
Typically I'm very critical about popular culture (this is something I genuinely enjoy) and I completely support people expressing strong criticisms on something they didn't like. I think that's great. I've been there. But the atmosphere right now is so toxic. People speak like only an idiot or a very casual player could have enjoyed the ending. Well I am neither and I felt the game ended really well.
In an atmosphere of negativity it becomes very difficult to give the ideas the kind of basic good will that any story needs in order to be appreciated.
Wow, what a backhanded and 'sincere' apology. Twice referencing the critic scores was a nice touch too.
Bioware shouldn't have to apologise for anything. Criticism is welcome and healthy but campaigning and activism against work that you didn't like is immature and should have no place in civilized culture.
Whatever good will I had left for the "gaming community" has all but evaporated. It's a shame because I think games are the best thing around as far as entertainment is concerned. I can't sit through an action film anymore but I can get into a video game.
Last edited by Henry Fool; 03-27-2012 at 06:11 AM.
I like the idea of things going on at a high level and the people having little idea of what it is, but having to deal with the consequences (the movie Signs for example). I always enjoy sci-fi like that, where at the end nothing was what it appeared to be and stuff was going on that no one expected.
I don't think it was inconsistent with the whole series; I thought they hinted at it enough during the whole game that I wasn't completely surprised by it. I thought the whole deus ex machina nature of the Crucible (we're building this but we don't know what it does) through the whole game foreshadowed it. Conversations with the Reaper and the Prothean VI made it more clear.
Was it perfect? Maybe they could have ramped up to that end more slowly I guess, at some point shift Shep's focus from the war effort to the cycle maybe (maybe at the detriment to the war effort and everyone gets mad), but I'm not sure if that would have been better, just different.
I think it partly boils down to what kind of fiction and sci-fi people like, and it might boil down to the kind of character people see Shepard as.
Spoiler!
I agree about that ambiguous nature of the Crucible. It seemed to me that apart from the general weariness and guilt over leaving Earth behind, there was some other nagging thought at the back of Shepard's mind. They were building something they didn't understand. They were fighting a conventional war against something they didn't understand. And the world had already been lost.
I hear complaints about the "star child" and it's hard to discern how much of it is genuine criticism and how much is simply angry rhetoric. The fact that the Catalyst was self-aware was a revelation but not what I would call bad writing. The larger design had already been hinted at on Thessia and they didn't know what they had built in the Crucible and what the Catalyst really was. The fact that it chose to speak to Shepard in the child's form is beside the point. It could have been any form.
It's not like what he tells Shepard is anything radically new either. The child just explains their motivation, tells her that their solution won't work any longer, and presents the options for ways to change the situation.
I chose the synthesis ending and my immediate emotional reaction to it was very strong. The crucible introduced a third option that was excluded before. There was the destroy option, the red one, represented by Anderson; and there was the control option, the blue one, represented by the Illusive Man. This echoes the binary choice that the game's moral system was based on. Those two are basically the options given to Shepard in ME2 when he has to decide about the rogue Geth. The green option is not middle ground, it's something genuinely different, and it ends the cycle as Shepard is absorbed into the machine's energy. I thought it was very fitting.
I understand that people might not feel satisfied on a concrete narrative level. Questions about what happens to other people are left unaswered. But to me it's Shepard's story: she is gone and we're left with what she knows, or what she hopes will happen, which is that life continues. We don't get to join the crew again because Shepard doesn't. It's a hollow feeling but appropriate.
So life gets to go on without the threat from the Reapers. Even though the relays are gone and the civilizations are cut off from each other, they get to build their own destinies without outside control. I think it's also fitting that the relays that made it all possible and which were used as a tool of control are destroyed in the end.
It's not an ending that blew my mind on some theoretical level, but it's natural enough. By the time Shepard gets to the final place, she basically has nothing left, she's broken, whatever life she ever had is gone. It works on an emotional level. It feels like a real death. You really feel the horrible fact that she'll never get to see the people she cares about again. She won't know what happened to any of them. All she knows is that she can make some kind of desperate final decision with absolutely no guarantees.
Last edited by Henry Fool; 03-27-2012 at 06:47 AM.
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I'm starting to think the current endings are not the real endings.
Spoiler!
Shepard's indoctrination theory is making a lot more sense at this moment.
Spoiler!
the kicker is that the ending where you destroy the reapers (aka reject the child god's alternatives) is the only one where Shepherd lives, taking a breath at the very end in a pile of rubble that appears to be back on Earth, signifying that the entire trip up to the Citadel was in her mind
at least that's what i HOPE is the truth. if Bioware makes some DLC that confirms it as such i'd gain a lot more respect for them
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Beat ME3 last night, totally agree that the ending was a cop-out. It was like no one had any idea what to do so they just threw a bunch of crap at a wall. On the whole I liked the game - there were a couple of moments that rank for me among the best in RPG history - but that was super disappointing. Like, give me 4-5 hours and I could write a better ending script. Everything from the "big reveal" to the resolution with no dialogue... I dunno that just sucked. BW should make a free DLC that says "sorry, we f'd up, here's the rest of the ending".
I agree about that ambiguous nature of the Crucible. It seemed to me that apart from the general weariness and guilt over leaving Earth behind, there was some other nagging thought at the back of Shepard's mind. They were building something they didn't understand. They were fighting a conventional war against something they didn't understand. And the world had already been lost.
I hear complaints about the "star child" and it's hard to discern how much of it is genuine criticism and how much is simply angry rhetoric. The fact that the Catalyst was self-aware was a revelation but not what I would call bad writing. The larger design had already been hinted at on Thessia and they didn't know what they had built in the Crucible and what the Catalyst really was. The fact that it chose to speak to Shepard in the child's form is beside the point. It could have been any form.
It's not like what he tells Shepard is anything radically new either. The child just explains their motivation, tells her that their solution won't work any longer, and presents the options for ways to change the situation.
I chose the synthesis ending and my immediate emotional reaction to it was very strong. The crucible introduced a third option that was excluded before. There was the destroy option, the red one, represented by Anderson; and there was the control option, the blue one, represented by the Illusive Man. This echoes the binary choice that the game's moral system was based on. Those two are basically the options given to Shepard in ME2 when he has to decide about the rogue Geth. The green option is not middle ground, it's something genuinely different, and it ends the cycle as Shepard is absorbed into the machine's energy. I thought it was very fitting.
I understand that people might not feel satisfied on a concrete narrative level. Questions about what happens to other people are left unaswered. But to me it's Shepard's story: she is gone and we're left with what she knows, or what she hopes will happen, which is that life continues. We don't get to join the crew again because Shepard doesn't. It's a hollow feeling but appropriate.
So life gets to go on without the threat from the Reapers. Even though the relays are gone and the civilizations are cut off from each other, they get to build their own destinies without outside control. I think it's also fitting that the relays that made it all possible and which were used as a tool of control are destroyed in the end.
It's not an ending that blew my mind on some theoretical level, but it's natural enough. By the time Shepard gets to the final place, she basically has nothing left, she's broken, whatever life she ever had is gone. It works on an emotional level. It feels like a real death. You really feel the horrible fact that she'll never get to see the people she cares about again. She won't know what happened to any of them. All she knows is that she can make some kind of desperate final decision with absolutely no guarantees.
I'll start off with saying I harbor no anger towards Bioware for the ending they put in. It's there but I don't have to like it. I disagree with you here.
Spoiler!
I think it's bad writing to introduce a character in the final 5 minutes of a story but I'll put that aside for arguements sake. Now, I get to the Crucible and this god tells me that organics and synthesis cannot coexist peacefully. Oh really? Then why did I just end the Geth/Quarian war? It's not just a momentary cessation of hostilities in order for us to fight the Reapers. The war is done and they've made peace with each other. Having something tell me that it's impossible completely flies in the face of what I've just accomplished. I've proved that it's possible.
I have to be honest, I had a real hard time deciding which of the 3 endings I'd go with. Allow me to explain my difficulty and why I feel that the endings just don't work for my character.
1. Control the Reapers. My Shepard is pretty adamant that controlling the Reapers is the wrong course of action. He doesn't believe it's possible and even if it is, that we are not ready for that kind of power. So that ending was pretty much out of the question for me.
2. Synthesis. The trilogy has highlighted how individually we are weak but together our diversity makes us strong. Shepard defeated Sovereign, Saren and the Collectors with a team comprised of various races, backgrounds and beliefs. He's done the impossible because he's had the support of different species. This option is telling Shepard that diversity is a weakness. That if he makes everyone the same, they'll all get along and be better for it. He cannot accept that. Not given his personal experiences.
3. Destroy Synthetics. This is the only realistic option my Shepard is presented with and even then it goes against what he believes in. Shepard finishes his mission by destroying the Reapers leaving everyone as they are. However, he has to sacrifice his allies, the Geth, who he believes have every right to an existance and to which he just spent part of the game defending.
None of these choices are ones I think my Shepard would choose which is why I would have liked a 4th choice. Do nothing. I am serious. I've said this already but I spent 3 games building alliances and the entire 3rd game securing war assets. Shepard has personal proof through experience that everything the god tells him is wrong. So instead he decides to take his stand here and now. If the Reapers wipe out everyone then at least they went out on their own terms. Shepard doesn't bend to anyone and he believes that nothing is impossible to accomplish. Why all of a sudden does he just gives in at the end? It doesn't make sense. It's completely contradictory to his character. I'd be more satisfied if the game ended with Shepard and Anderson dieing on the Crucible after they activated it.
Even worse is that with the mass relays destroyed it's probably more than likely that everyone will die anyway. What happens when supplies run out? Many of those alien races cannot survive on human food and it will be impossible for them to get back to their home systems.
I don't know, it felt like a completely different team of writers took over in the end. But you're absolutely right, it is Shepard's story. That's why I dislike the ending because it fails to take into account his character.
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