Mass Effect 3

[Serebii]

FFS. I was on wave 9, highest score, loads of XP gained and BAM, it booted me again, losing all connection to EA's servers.

 

What the fuck is this shit

[Aimless]

Perhaps it's a server load issue? I haven't had any problems with the multiplayer on PS3, but then I imagine the 360 version is far more popular; even if we ignore other factors, the series started on that platform and it's where people's saves are.

 

Sorry for banging on about it, but I'm surprised by how negatively the ending has effected me. For 99% of the game I was actively looking forward to importing my Vanguard FemShep and doing a second run through, but once the credits had rolled I lost all enthusiasm for the idea. It seems petty as otherwise I consider it one of the best games I've played in a long time — my favourite in the series, easily — but that inevitable end point has tainted everything for me.

 

On a lighter note, the character work in this game is fantastic. Even listening in on pedestrian conversations can be both interesting and tie into things elsewhere. The world is very cohesive and feels much more alive than most other games; this is especially true of your crew, who don't always stand around waiting for you to affirm their existence but actually move about and interact with one another.

[Happenstance]

I had no real problem with the ending.

 

I really hope the Mass Effect games carry on in some way because I think it would be interesting to see how all the species lives have to change with the relays destroyed and having that massive fleet at Earth possibly having to settle there. Not like there wouldnt be room with all the people that died.

The only problem I could see would be carrying on that universe with the choices that you made at the end, it would mean more save based stories but on a pretty massive scale this time. Just whatever happens I found the choices at the end interesting enough that I would love to see what happened next.

 

Either that or set a new game in one of the previous cycles, maybe play as a Prothian before they encountered the Reapers.

 

[Shorty]

I've just read something saying, when you get to the end of the game and you see a 'white platform', just turn the game off. Turn it off right there and pretend that's the ending. That way the franchise won't be ruined for you.

 

Is that sound advice? :p As a big fan who hasn't finished the game, all these negative reactions are rather worrying.

[Magnus]

Well, you're not going to be able to resist seeing the ending when you've made it that far, but yeah, anything past that point really sours the experience.

 

Just pretend the game ended with the full dialogue Aimless posted in this post.

[Shorty]

I know, you're right, of course. I'll have to know, even if I'm sure I'll feel the same way.

 

I think I was secretly fishing for an 'oh no, it's not that bad', however desperately.

[Happenstance]

I know, you're right, of course. I'll have to know, even if I'm sure I'll feel the same way.

 

I think I was secretly fishing for an 'oh no, it's not that bad', however desperately.

 

As ive said, I actually quite liked the ending. Its all going to be up to you. I do seem to be in the minority though but I think what happened next would make an interesting story.

[Aimless]

I've just read something saying, when you get to the end of the game and you see a 'white platform', just turn the game off. Turn it off right there and pretend that's the ending. That way the franchise won't be ruined for you.

 

Is that sound advice? :p As a big fan who hasn't finished the game, all these negative reactions are rather worrying.

It does remind me a bit of the film A.I. which has a pretty cool ending... and then ruins it by going on for another 20 minutes.

 

The funny thing is that I've never really cared about the Reaper plot, it's the series' universe and characters that have held my interest. If the ending was for another game I'd also be fine with it. But as the way to cap off this trilogy? I find it kind of baffling, especially when a 'safer' end would have received a much better reception; ME1's finale was totally predictable, but it fits the rest of the game and is fondly remembered by many.

[Shorty]

As ive said, I actually quite liked the ending. Its all going to be up to you. I do seem to be in the minority though but I think what happened next would make an interesting story.

 

Didn't we totally disagree on the Smallville finale though? Which I thought was a series low point after following the show for ten long years..... :p

[Happenstance]

That is a good point, you never do get the close up shot of Shepard with the cape on

[Aimless]

Just pretend the game ended with the full dialogue Aimless posted in this post.

In Shorty's case I think it would need to be

, actually.

 

Which reminds me: the voice performances in this game are pretty damned great. Mark Meer does a much better job with the male Shepard and a lot of the squad interactions are a huge improvement over what has come before: drunk Tali is one of the funniest parts of the entire series and the game has several genuinely touching moments, depending on your choices. It can also be incredibly brutal, although I don't have first hand experience of those consequences on account of my male character being Space Jesus.

[Happenstance]

Ok so ive been talking on the Giant Bomb forums and have started to realise what some peoples problems were that I didnt know about before. I hadnt played the arrival so I didnt know that when a Mass Effect relay is destroyed it takes out the system its in and the people I spoke to over there were under the impression that basically all life was destroyed in the galaxy by these explosions except for the Normandy crew. Is this the same problem you guys have with the ending?

 

The way ive seen it and to be honest still continue to is that the relays blew up but didnt destroy anything (I think the choices were explained in too much detail to leave out that whichever one you choose everyone dies. Everyone is stranded where they were and depending on the choice you made are either now part synthetic or all synthetic life is now dead.

 

As I said earlier, I like the ending. I just sat there for a good few minutes when I had to make the choice, just thinking what to do. I dont remember ever having something like that in a game here I really had a hard time choosing. I thought it was great that to finally defeat the Reapers there would be have to be long lasting effects to the Galaxy and to survive they had to pretty much cripple their societies for the time being.

 

[Cube]

It's not just what happens, it's the concept. The theme/moral/whatever of Mass Effect is this:

 

Synthetic life created by organics will always rebel, become more advanced and destroy organics.

 

No ifs, no buts. That is what happens (think of how Terminator 3 decided that the war will happen, whereas the first two were about still being able to stop it). And the solution the "Catalyst" and it's super powerful army of Reapers have come up with to stop organic life getting wiped out is to destroy all advanced civilisations and their creations every 50,000 years.

 

First of all, there's the evolutionary point of view. Civilisations develop at much different rates, so doing it every X amount of years is an unreliable way of doing it. The Protheans made the mistake of synthetic life "early in their cycle", but promptly completely destroyed it. So the dominant (by far) force in the galaxy had already come to the conclusion that synthetic life is bad, and had already solved the problem.

 

With the Prothean cycle to our cycle the evolution makes some sense, all species in the type of the Protheans were very basic. In our cycle we have the Yahgs (Shadow Broker species), who are ignored by the Reapers. So they'll start the next cycle with the technology of "20th Century Earth" - just a few hundreds years behind the humans.

 

The 50,000 years thinks makes no sense.

 

Then we have that synthetic life will always try to destroy organic life. During Mass Effect 2 and 3 we have two different kinds of Artificial Life to relate to: The Geth and EDI.

 

The Geth were hunted down straight away by the Quarians so were the victims. They had to take over their planet and let the Quarians escape instead of wiping them out. They are extremely willing to not fight the Quarians, and want peace instead. It is again only in self-defence that the Geth fight: the whole stand-off at the end of the Geth/Quarian storyline is that the Quarians at the aggressive force unwilling to cease fire, while the Geth attack in self defence.

 

EDI, thanks to Shepard, becomes more and more "human", even changing her programming so that "self preservation" is not a requirement (i.e. she is willing to sacrifice herself to become more organic). The only aggressive synthetics in Mass Effect are controlled by the Reapers or Cerberus. Both of these developments are a massive contradiction to the moral of the series, and the theory of the Reapers.

 

Finally, the whole synthesis thing. What the ending video for that option (the one Happenstance posted) seems to suggest that the DNA is mixed and the outcome is basically....robotic humans. This completely ignores why robots and the like are created: to make life easier for everyone else. The need to create machines will still exist, thus starting the cycle again.

 

The game doesn't build up in any way to the actual concept the ending throws at you - it actually builds up the opposite theory.

 

Fair enough if Shepard dies, fair enough if they wanted to use "space magic", fair enough if they wanted to destroy the mass relays (they have mass effect fields in guns, so it's possible to build new ones) as it will be a massive sacrifice to the galaxy. But making us choose a solution to a concept that hasn't been mentioned before in the series is a terrible writing choice.

 

For a great example of how this concept is done right, look at Battlestar Galactica. The entire show is based around the concept (instead of just the very end), there are still cycles of destruction, but the way it's dealt with is much better.

 

It addresses why cylons are made - hell, the cylons that left the colonies and founded a new planet (old Earth) created "slave" cylons, which rebelled and started a nuclear war which wiped out the planet (hence why the synthesis ending of ME3 shouldn't break the cycle). Some of the cylons want to destroy the humans, whereas others want peace with the humans and another group want to go their own way. Even though peace is reached in the end, and all technology is abandoned, life still eventually leads to machines again but it's left open as to if the cycle is actually broken.

 

 

 

 

 

To @Happenstance

 

I don't think the mass relays destroying the systems is a case in this. In Arrival, you're blowing it up itself so the energy has to go somewhere. At the end of this, the mass relays seem to just break up - their energy is used in the beam, so it shouldn't have the violent explosion.

 

[Happenstance]

It's not just what happens, it's the concept. The theme/moral/whatever of Mass Effect is this:

 

Synthetic life created by organics will always rebel, become more advanced and destroy organics.

 

No ifs, no buts. That is what happens (think of how Terminator 3 decided that the war will happen, whereas the first two were about still being able to stop it). And the solution the "Catalyst" and it's super powerful army of Reapers have come up with to stop organic life getting wiped out is to destroy all advanced civilisations and their creations every 50,000 years.

 

First of all, there's the evolutionary point of view. Civilisations develop at much different rates, so doing it every X amount of years is an unreliable way of doing it. The Protheans made the mistake of synthetic life "early in their cycle", but promptly completely destroyed it. So the dominant (by far) force in the galaxy had already come to the conclusion that synthetic life is bad, and had already solved the problem.

 

With the Prothean cycle to our cycle the evolution makes some sense, all species in the type of the Protheans were very basic. In our cycle we have the Yahgs (Shadow Broker species), who are ignored by the Reapers. So they'll start the next cycle with the technology of "20th Century Earth" - just a few hundreds years behind the humans.

 

The 50,000 years thinks makes no sense.

 

Then we have that synthetic life will always try to destroy organic life. During Mass Effect 2 and 3 we have two different kinds of Artificial Life to relate to: The Geth and EDI.

 

The Geth were hunted down straight away by the Quarians so were the victims. They had to take over their planet and let the Quarians escape instead of wiping them out. They are extremely willing to not fight the Quarians, and want peace instead. It is again only in self-defence that the Geth fight: the whole stand-off at the end of the Geth/Quarian storyline is that the Quarians at the aggressive force unwilling to cease fire, while the Geth attack in self defence.

 

EDI, thanks to Shepard, becomes more and more "human", even changing her programming so that "self preservation" is not a requirement (i.e. she is willing to sacrifice herself to become more organic). The only aggressive synthetics in Mass Effect are controlled by the Reapers or Cerberus. Both of these developments are a massive contradiction to the moral of the series, and the theory of the Reapers.

 

Finally, the whole synthesis thing. What the ending video for that option (the one Happenstance posted) seems to suggest that the DNA is mixed and the outcome is basically....robotic humans. This completely ignores why robots and the like are created: to make life easier for everyone else. The need to create machines will still exist, thus starting the cycle again.

 

The game doesn't build up in any way to the actual concept the ending throws at you - it actually builds up the opposite theory.

 

Fair enough if Shepard dies, fair enough if they wanted to use "space magic", fair enough if they wanted to destroy the mass relays (they have mass effect fields in guns, so it's possible to build new ones) as it will be a massive sacrifice to the galaxy. But making us choose a solution to a concept that hasn't been mentioned before in the series is a terrible writing choice.

 

For a great example of how this concept is done right, look at Battlestar Galactica. The entire show is based around the concept (instead of just the very end), there are still cycles of destruction, but the way it's dealt with is much better.

 

It addresses why cylons are made - hell, the cylons that left the colonies and founded a new planet (old Earth) created "slave" cylons, which rebelled and started a nuclear war which wiped out the planet (hence why the synthesis ending of ME3 shouldn't break the cycle). Some of the cylons want to destroy the humans, whereas others want peace with the humans and another group want to go their own way. Even though peace is reached in the end, and all technology is abandoned, life still eventually leads to machines again but it's left open as to if the cycle is actually broken.

 

 

 

 

 

To @Happenstance

 

I don't think the mass relays destroying the systems is a case in this. In Arrival, you're blowing it up itself so the energy has to go somewhere. At the end of this, the mass relays seem to just break up - their energy is used in the beam, so it shouldn't have the violent explosion.

 

I cant argue with a lot of your points about inconsistencies but my take on the one about it "always" happening was that by the end, we had broken the cycle and humans and synthetics were proving they could work together but weird catalyst kid was too caught up in the loop. It kind of feels like another ending was needed for if you had enough points to convince him that things really had changed.

 

The Synthesis ending seemed to be the catalysts only opinion on how the cycle could end for good. Once again personally I think just a bit more dialogue could have fixed this. Its presented as the perfect way to attain peace in the galaxy but it could have been explained as the catalysts way, one that was no longer needed.

 

Im rambling a bit anyway, finding it hard to get all the reasons in my head why while I understand a lot of complaints I can look past them to the consequences of the ending.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I didn't mind the ending at all, it wasn't anything epic ( though the lead up was ) but it wasn't as bad as say Halo 2.

[Happenstance]

I didn't mind the ending at all, it wasn't anything epic ( though the lead up was ) but it wasn't as bad as say Halo 2.

 

What the lead up was missing though was some rousing music like we had during the suicide mission in ME2.

[Hero-of-Time]

What the lead up was missing though was some rousing music like we had during the suicide mission in ME2.

 

I thought the music was fantastic, especially when...

 

Hackett was giving his speech and again when Sheperd gave his speech. So much so that I cranked the volume up on my TV.

 

I also loved it when all of your fleets were reporting in and then the main attack began. Epic as hell!

 

[Cube]

One thing that I do love that gets overlooked by the ending:

 

The fight that took place on Earth, and the fact that it took place in London. How, while it was mostly destroyed, there was some noticeable architecture (i.e. the design of the buildings, not just Big Ben's Clock Tower, which is amazingly still standing) bits that looked like it was from the future (before getting blown to bits).

 

I was really chuffed that, out of the entire galaxy, the final fighting takes place in our little country.

 

[Happenstance]

I thought the music was fantastic, especially when...

 

Hackett was giving his speech and again when Sheperd gave his speech. So much so that I cranked the volume up on my TV.

 

I also loved it when all of your fleets were reporting in and then the main attack began. Epic as hell!

 

Maybe its just because I loved the music in ME2 so much but it just never felt properly epic while I was playing.

 

I have this version from the London Philharmonic which I listen to all the time:

 

[Aimless]

Cube's covered a lot of the ground I was going to, but here's a few more specifics:

• Casper the nonsensical ghost: putting aside how his explanation for the Reapers runs pretty much counter to the events in my game, why is he even in it? Why not have Harbinger contact Shepard at the end, have him judge me based on the culmination of all my choices and then offer possibilities to me based on that. You could have a dialogue with an antagonist that doesn't spring from nowhere, and you could easily justify things along the lines of, "You are the first cycle to successfully complete our test of building the Crucible, so to you we extend these choices beyond extermination, blah, blah, blah."
  
• Ambiguous, but not in the right way: rather than the ending having room for interpretation it comes across more like pure omission. Why is Joker racing away from the energy blast? Why are my squad with him and not me? Why does this promised conclusion spawn ten questions for every one it answers?
  
• Zero pay off and granularity: All those hard choice I made? Yeah, they don't really matter because the game is ending one of three ways, which themselves are more or less the same. It's not like it would have been hard to implement some form of feedback, just have a few short vignettes at the very end showing the state of Tuchanka or Rannoch and some brief text explaining what my surviving squad went on to do. As is I don't get 'my' ending as it isn't tailored to me, doesn't reflect what I've done bar a last minute choice between three flavours of the same FMV.
  

That last one is the crux of the matter. I could probably swallow their illogical reasoning behind the Reapers were it presented better — I wasn't really expecting some mind-blowing reveal — but they more or less give the player one of three ways to dick over the galaxy and don't given anything back. I can't be proud of or regret my choices because the ending doesn't reflect them, doesn't acknowledge or give closure to the path that I chose. And that's why I lost the desire to play through with my female character, because ultimately I'm destined to relive the exact same ending without so much as a paragraph of flavour text.

 

 

[Cube]

I'm still doing a second play-through, though mainly to see how ME3 is changed by choices in ME1 and 2.

[Aimless]

Oh, I'll definitely play through it again at some point; in case I haven't spelt it out enough, outside of the ending — and the very beginning — I think this game is truly excellent. It looks fantastic, the character work is excellent, the combat's genuinely great fun and I really appreciate the life they've brought into the universe.

 

The ending just totally took the wind out of my sails, which is pretty much the complete opposite reaction I had to, say, Dragon Age.

[Ganepark32]

Which reminds me: the voice performances in this game are pretty damned great. Mark Meer does a much better job with the male Shepard and a lot of the squad interactions are a huge improvement over what has come before: drunk Tali is one of the funniest parts of the entire series and the game has several genuinely touching moments, depending on your choices. It can also be incredibly brutal, although I don't have first hand experience of those consequences on account of my male character being Space Jesus.

 

Have to agree. Based on what I've seen so far from my playthrough (18 hours played so far), the squad interactions are much better this time around. They always been able to make good characters, for the most part (really don't see the need for Diana Allers/Jessica Chobot in this though) but I think they've nailed it here in terms of making interactions as believable as a game can be, even with some cheesy dialogue. And yes, there are definitely some brutal moments.

 

When I first met Miranda on the Citadel, I decided to say it was over to see what would happen and it was genuinely heartbreaking to see her walk off crying. Thankfully, I saved just before talking to her and loaded up to say it was still on as that was the relationship I wanted to continue on.

 

 

Will say, not digging the music as much as I did with ME2. Loved the soundtrack to that, and still listen to it regularly, but so far the soundtrack here hasn't wowed me as I'd hoped it would with Mansell in charge. Quite a few remixes, which is fine, but I was hoping to hear more of Mansell's original score. Perhaps it'll come later.

 

Not too worried for the ending, even though it's getting a lot of negativity. It's the universe, the story and characters that Bioware have created (the ride, if you will) that's grasped me more than the forthcoming end.

[Happenstance]

For anyone who saved Kelly in ME2 and found her in 3, were you a bit sad that she didnt get much of a send off? I was actually quite sad to overhear that when Cerberus took over the Citadel they had her killed and then even more so when her name wasnt added to the wall on the crew deck.

[Aimless]

For anyone who saved Kelly in ME2 and found her in 3, were you a bit sad that she didnt get much of a send off? I was actually quite sad to overhear that when Cerberus took over the Citadel they had her killed and then even more so when her name wasnt added to the wall on the crew deck.

I was really gutted to hear she'd died, far more so than for the deaths of two major characters just before. The latter had a send off, chose how they wanted to go out, but Kelly didn't even get a cutscene, I just heard two NPCs talking about it. Whilst likely not intentional, the glibness of her passing made it hit home more than the cinematic deaths.

 

Across the games I saved everyone I could, she was the only crew member I failed. However, it can be avoided...