Mass Effect Thread

[WARP10CK]

WARNING SPOILERS FOR MASS EFFECT 3

Just finished Mass Effect 3 and was having a great time until the last 5 minutes of the game.

The ending you get is probably the most depressing ending and since this is mass effect that´s probably the bad ending right ?

Nope all the endings are almost identical no matter what you do and the outrage on biowares forums are huge.

I would not mind a sad ending but there is no explanation to what happened this is the gaming equivalent to the sopranos ending.

Nothing is really resolved and there is not even an epilogue.

Oh well just look at biowares forums then you know

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/category/355/index

[der_ketzer]

Well we do have the Origin-Thread that is already misused as the ME3-thread.

I heard the ending is bad. I have not seen it or know what it is but if it is The Whispered World bad then that's just bullshit.

[Darth Marsden]

Read a few of the threads. Weak, Bioware. Weak.

[DAISHI]

Sad endings aren't bad endings.

[Darth Marsden]

The lack of anything good about sad endings are bad.

[DAISHI]

I'm just going to come out and say it. It's video game writing. There's rarely anything good about such.

[KuroShiro]

Originally Posted by DAISHI

I'm just going to come out and say it. It's video game writing. There's rarely anything good about such.

That is not an excuse. Great writing is always the exception rather than the rule, but that doesn't mean a half-baked narrative should be acceptable just because it's a video game. Especially not with this whole 'cinematic experience' BS that is pervasive in the games industry right now.

[Alcoremortis]

Hmm... maybe this will mean the game will go on sale sooner?

[hopeful look]

Nah.

[DAISHI]

Yeah but if you've been paying any attention, these cinematic experiences have almost -all- been half baked writing. Doesn't matter if it's Mass Effect, Call of Duty, JRPGs or the like, somehow people have been deceived into thinking it's good writing, but it's not. It is entertaining sometimes, in the same way I think Transformers is entertaining, but good? High quality? Not really. I'm not saying that being entertaining isn't good enough; it is. But even stories that get high marks for storytelling are often still in the 'entertaining' category rather than the 'quality' category.

Alright so I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone. But, the ending to the game mirrors events that happen in science fiction like the Foundation series (which was amazing) and historically mirrors events in the Roman Empire (which the Foundation series was modeled after in terms of imperial decline). I don't see it as a bad ending in that regard.

[KuroShiro]

I don't expect great literary works to be contained within video games. All I expect of them is to be entertaining and not face-palm-inducingly banal. I'm not directing this at ME3 in particular, as I haven't played it yet. Just a general point.

[Vainamoinen]

I just finished the game, and I agree: This is bad, bad writing.

Although you get to "choose" between two three endings, the choice comes through a stupid deus ex machina (quite literally, actually) at the very end of the game.

Also, they employ a reality which was completely absent in the three games to shoehorn this "choice" in. This is not about a "sad" or a "happy" ending, this is about an ending that has zero to do with the series. There can not be a feeling of accomplishment for the players. Bioware is now taking a beating because fans demand a "happier" ending. I think what they REALLY want is one that actually makes sense.

Lastly, who survives and who doesn't depends on a certain score which seems to be massively raised through the stupid Origin multiplayer mode. I did whatever I could to raise this without the multiplayer, and I thought I did things pretty perfectly. To no avail.

A failure for the ages, unfortunately.

[DAISHI]

I'm going to make a reassesment right now, now that I understand some of the finer points of why people are upset.

While I still stand by my original statements in general, the deus ex element is heavy handed, and some of the characters are heavily out of character. The 'who survives' thing is ridiculous.

My reaction was indeed to all the whining about 'oh no the Galaxy' but a lot of the rest of the complaints I can see are quite valid.

[Silverwolfpet]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

I just finished the game, and I agree: This is bad, bad writing.

I went through some threads, never playing this game before. I understood the story, I understood the direction they wanted to go with it... But the ending is absolutely stupid.

Did someone accidentally sat on the script and crushed the last pages? What kind of an ending is that?!

Bad...bad...BAD writing indeed.

[gamer247]

My theory is Bioware is looking to pull off a Fallout 3 and release an alternate ending as paid dlc.

[Farlander]

I see a lot of people think the fans of ME (I'm not a big fan of ME, btw) are pissed off because the endings are 'sad' or some shit like that... they're not. The biggest complaint so far that I've seen, is that the ending doesn't take any choices you've previously made into consideration. And you know what? That IS a very valid complaint.

BioWare's concept of 'take a character from ME1 to ME3 with all the choices you've done, influencing the ending of the final chapter' that they were going with ever since ME1 was the most advertised thing. It's something that fans loved about the series. And they really wanted to see how their choices would influence the ending, sad or not. And the endings that BioWare has presented in ME3 render that concept totally pointless.

There is absolutely no reason now to go through ME1 to ME3 with different choices, because they don't matter in the end. And that's why fans are so pissed, because this is precisely the thing that BioWare has hyped up - that your choices in this and previous games WILL matter. And they don't.

[Johro]

Perhaps it's statement of life. No matter who we are, what we do, how we act, it all ends in disappointment?

...or maybe it's just bad writing.

[DAISHI]

Originally Posted by Johro

Perhaps it's statement of life. No matter who we are, what we do, how we act, it all ends in disappointment?

This is the summary of life.

[dahoughtonuk]

From when I saw the advert for ME3's start, I wondered what the how bad the endings would be, and so for once I hunted down spoilers. Then the script leak came...

Well, I could point and laugh at those who spent money on it, despite having seen the spoilers but I won't. People can hope. I waited to see what the actual endings were. he endings were exactly what it said in the script. Taking away choice at the end.

On the other hand a lot was done right.

Legions "death". He dies straight out in one of the endings, and in the other two it's not strictly death, but Legion does cease as an individual.

Now if Me3 had been a standalone game the endings would stil have been lazy, but there wouldn't bee the same ire, but it isn't...

[Rather Dashing]

Somebody is going to have to explain to me what is so shitty about the ME3 ending.

[Darth Marsden]

From Wikipedia. Note the emphasis:

Left with no choice, Shepard gathers up all of the forces available and attacks the Reapers on Earth, with the aim of recapturing the Citadel and combining it with the Crucible to complete the weapon. While the fleets battle the Reapers in orbit, a large ground attack force lands in London where the bulk of the remaining human resistance is waiting, and where a transport beam connected to the Citadel is located. Shepard reunites with Anderson and they both fight together to reach the beam. However, the intervention of Harbinger wipes out much of the attack force attempting to reach the beam, leaving only Shepard and Anderson. Inside the Citadel, Shepard and Anderson are stopped by an indoctrinated Illusive Man. Shepard manages to kill the Illusive Man, but not before Anderson is killed as well. Shepard manages to open the Citadel, allowing the Crucible to dock with it, before losing consciousness.

Shepard is then approached by an artificial intelligence, which identifies itself as the Catalyst and the entity controlling the Reapers. It reveals that the cycle the Reapers enforce is an attempt to prevent organic life from wiping itself out by creating synthetic life, as the creators are always doomed to be destroyed by the created. The Reapers are in fact preserving the advanced organic races by using them to create new Reapers, and leaving space for the more primitive species to evolve.However, the Catalyst points out that since Shepard has managed to come this far, its priorities have now changed. The Catalyst then gives Shepard three choices: Destroy the Reapers and all synthetic life, take control of the Reapers, or initiate synthesis between organic and synthetic life, creating an entirely new life form. However, regardless of Shepard's choice, all three endings result in Shepard's apparent death and the destruction of the entire mass relay network. The Normandy, which is in the middle of a mass relay jump when they are destroyed, is forced to crash land on an alien planet, stranding the crew. They exit the crashed ship and look up to the alien sky. If the player's Effective Military Strength is high enough and the "Destroy" ending is chosen, it will be revealed that Shepard may still be alive.

In a post-credits sequence, a man and a child are seen on an alien planet looking to the sky. The man tells the child how there are billions of stars and planets in the galaxy, and how all of them are populated by countless alien races and cultures. The child then asks the man to tell him another story about "The Shepard".