Well I think so, but let's get a discussion going. *****SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY***** Aside from the fact that destroying the relays makes everything you've done that doesn't lead directly to the Crucible IRRELEVANT, my biggest problem was how the Catalyst-kid insists that synthetics and organics can never live peacefully. Even though I JUST made peace between the geth and the quarians. Not to mention EDI and Joker.
So you destroy the Mass Relays to slow/stop the Reaper invasion, huh? That makes SOME sense, in a military way, but overall makes NO SENSE since the Reapers' sublight is probably still faster than the rest of the races' and they will win anyways. Not to mention that the races' wouldn't be able to go anywhere.
no the reapers get destroyed(yet to see the other ending) alongside the the relays. on topic, the ending was kind of dissapointing. I mean you kick ass for 3 games and in the end you don't even get a freaking parade with all your remaining friends being there as you recieve a medal?!?! wtf! A generic ending à la star wars or lord of the rings with everybody cheering and the council kissing your ass, would have ben way more fun then what we got. If they had to kill of shepard, atleast make some giant ass funeral with all the races praising him. But well i guess they want extra 50 bucks from me to see that happening!!!
Unsatisfying ending is the general sentiment among players right now. Here's one of my preferred custom endings:
Not just the ending for me. The whole game was a disappointment. Maybe my expectations were too high, but going off ME2 and Bioware's talking up of ME3 pre-release, I was expecting something truly epic. But the story was flimsy in places, I didn't like the division of elements of the singleplayer campaign, you either grind the singleplayer or play the mediocre multiplayer, the controls weren't very elegant (sprint, enter/exit cover, use/activate, and all the vaulting actions were mapped to the same button), the promised RPG elements aren't really there (upgrading weapons is pretty skin-deep, as was the powers), and a lot of seemingly piotal choices made in the previous games had little bearing on the ME3 story. Don't get me wrong. ME3 is a great game. A fantastic game. But it's much more iteration than innovation. There are hints of it being a moneygrab. It's Mass Effect 2.1, plus multiplayer and that weird galactic readiness mechanic.
It was a great same, the only bad thing was the ending but the ending was just poorly written but understandable when you realize that the entire mass effect story is told by a grandfather to his grandchild.
*Before reading anything other than the title* I'll let you know once I beat it. I'm on the final battle. My thoughts up to this point exactly. Edit: I'm gonna' beat this shit, right here, right now! I'll be back in fifteen minutes.
There was a helluva lot I both loved and disliked in this game. But the ending drove it into the ground for me.
Dug up this post on the ending, it's long and I have no clue how to make a spoiler thing, so bear with me on this.
I feel like whoever made that list put more thought into the endings than all of Bioware's writers combined. Even if this is right (and I highly doubt it) you are given no closure whatsoever. Plus, that would still mean so little of what you did factored into the climax. Yeah, this definitely gives Bioware to much credit. He says "You can't help me" because he's supposed to be a symbol for all the people Shepard can't save. Why didn't Anderson report in and how did Hackett know? Maybe he did report in, or more likely they were just script hiccups. Unlimited ammo? Well, the guns do use thermal clips. Plus, it would kind of ruin the moment to just run out of ammo at this point; it works better for the plot to not even have that as an issue. He only wakes up in destroy because he was disintegrated in the other two. It's like a choice between synthetics and yourself. Harbinger played a small role? The Collectors, dark matter, the Cipher, and the Spectres were all but forgotten. Sorry, but I need something more solid than a few trees or a two second pause. :/
Shepard either destroys the Reapers and all synthetics (and possibly survives), takes control of the Reapers (and dies), or takes the next step in evolution and combines synthetics and organics so as to allow peace (and dies). Eridian suggested the "Indoctrination Theory", which is a fanfic that tries to explain that what actually happened during the endings is that Harbinger attempted to indoctrinate Shepard. I disagree with this because it feels a lot more like some Deus Ex/Matrix rip-off.
Fanfic is the wrong word, interpretation is the one you're looking for, and if the ending is as convoluted as it seems, then it's probably open to it. But it still remains an interpretation of the ending, just as valid as the literal one until we have word of god.
Ok, I've finished it, and now I must make a constructive post about it on these forums. Let me start off by saying, it was nice, it was a very pleasant ending with three options to choose from, I thought of what I was given carefully and decided to destroy all synthetics. I think I made a good choice, the planets in the later cutscenes were nice, they were quiet and they were peacefull. I have no clue why some people are making a big deal about the ending, I really don't know why. The ending was a very touchy moment, and it is served it's purpose for entertainment. Now, let us discuss the Mass Effect trilogy. Let me start off this by saying it was a thrill to ever come across this game. When I first obtained Mass Effect 1 as a gift on my birthday many years ago, when it was still just an Xbox exclusive (it has a tag right on the top of the case saying so) I was puzzled. I thought to myself, hmm, looks like a Star Wars-esque videogame. Then I tried it, and I was absolutely enthralled. I then became a huge fan of the game and never stopped playing it, even up to the point when ME3 came out. This may not seem like much, but it is out of the ordinary for me. So, when news broke out of Mass Effect 2, I was pretty hyped about it, same goes for this game. However, what I seem to notice about these three games is, they take a very good idea, remove it's contents and put a new idea in it, leaving out the rest instead of leaving them in. Which is a major dissapointment for me, when I saw those Mako tanks in London, I nearly shat myself, I really wanted to drive one of those things and bounce up and down and fly upside down all across the planet like you could in Mass Effect 1. I also found it quite dissapointing that you could only land or dock on planets and stations which play only vital importance to the story. I would have really loved to land on a planet with the Mako and shoot Thresher Maws and shit and then procede into a rediculously placed structure just to find some Obelisk for an Elcor. But, it didn't go that way. I can see how someone would be pretty angry at that, and would have imagined it a different way, but the ending was fine for me. Feel free to add on the ME universe if you will. Now, let's talk about Cerberus. Namely, the Illusive Man. I found him to be a pretty interesting character, he reminded me much of Saren from ME1, and Kalalification, oddly. Cerberus reminded me of EA, and the Illusive Man's base, it seemed that EA was just watching the Mass Effect universe like that star that sits so illuminating as the Illusive Man watches. Mass Effect is similar to that star, it is a wonderful, amazing thing that does wonders to people, and now that EA put a seat infront of it, nobody can help it live. All it can do is die, die for the amusement of EA. On a final note, I would like to talk about some of the weapons and the combat system in Mass Effect. The weapons have changed like most of the things have in the Trilogy. The M-8 Avenger, which looked much like almost all assault rifles in ME1, now uses thermal clips, which is a much less interesting concept. The Particle Rifle, which is, to say the least, kickass by itself, is an amazing weapon and very usefull for the heavy units like the Ravager, Atlas, Brute, etc. But a pain for enemies that move slightly faster than the heavier ones, at least for an Xbox controller... The weapons in ME3 are refined, and fit for an action-based third person shooter, like Gears of War. On that, I will get into the movement and combat system of Mass Effect 3. To start, it played very similarly to Gears of War 3, the shooting, the movement in and out of cover, vaulting over cover, and melee combat techniques are nearly identicle to that of Gears of War. It may not be perfect, but it is very noticable once you start playing ME like GoW. I've also noticed some bugs when moving around in and out of cover, like when I vault over something, sometimes I get flung a foot or two backwards and have my legs implanted in the ground, which accomplishes absolutely nothing that I intended. The combat is fun, however. For me it was a minor step up, I have been known to be an Action oriented gamer, as I grew up with a console, so it is very fitting and not a dissapointment in that field. That is all I have for now, I know I said I'd take only 15 minutes, but it lasted a bit longer than that, mostly due to the cutscenes. Edit: About the Synthetics thing, and how the possibility of Shepard's indoctrination is a product for the benefit of the Reapers and the continuation of the Cycles. Perhaps the best thing to do is kill off all synthetics. As told by the so called 'Crucible-Boy' or whatever you want to call him, he does state that Synthetics will eventually control and overcome organics at some point in time. Something that is clear amongst the Reapers. He also says at a later point in that cutscene that if you choose the destruction of Synthetics, Organics will once again develope synthetics. Now, I believe this is for the better, seeing as Synthetics have already fucked everybody over in the past unclear ammount of cycles, equalling up to the point of when the universe is created, it would be best to just start Synthetics all over, and have absolutely complete control over them. So, that ending was pretty satisfying to my imagination, I am happy about that.
