Mass Effect 3 [Massive Spoilers]

[oft wears hats]

Originally Posted by Raguleader

So, just played the EC, and got a few thoughts:

SPOILER:

The scene where they evac your two teammates (due to being badly wounded) was a nice touch, though it could have been done a lot better. Or really, in any way that didn't stick a wrench in the pacing for that whole sequence. I would have had Shepard call for an evac, made sure his team-mates were alright, and said a quick goodbye without spending a couple of minutes having a heartfelt conversation in the middle of the battle. I would have had the Normandy (or one of her shuttles) picking them up after Shepard went through the Conduit, since there was already a transition cut there.

I did like that they at least showed other wounded soldiers being brought aboard, instead of the implication that Shepard's two friends were the only ones worth landing to save.

ETA: Did anybody else wonder why Harbinger didn't bother to at least try to blow up the Normandy while she was parked in front of him like a giant middle finger? Another problem that would be sidestepped by waiting until after Shepard went into the Conduit before the evac arrived.

The Refusal ending was interesting, though I was hoping to see the Shepard VI. That was easily one of my three favorite things about ME3 just for pure comedy value.

SPOILER:

I thought that scene came at a bad time, as well. I was sitting there thinking "Why the hell are they stopping to talk right now, get out of there, this is a damn war zone!" It pushed my suspension of disbelief a bit, and I agree that showing it at the same time as the Hackett scene would have been better. Still, probably my least favorite part of the EC.

A decent fanwank for why Harbinger didn't blow up the Normandy could be that the Reapers' priority was to ensure that not a single person made it to the beam, and so an evac ship, juicy target of opportunity that it was, wasn't worth wasting time on. However, that still doesn't explain why Harbinger stupidly flies off once everyone's down without first raking the area with lasers until everything is turned to ash.

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

Originally Posted by Ike Witt

I got the breath scene and I hadn't played any mutiplayer.

I can't recall my source, but I read elsewhere the max readiness you need to get the 'best' ending has been reduced to 3200

[Smapti]

Finished playing the game for the first time last night. I put off buying it at first after hearing the trash talk about the ending, and the release of the new DLC is what finally motivated me to pick it up.

The good:

* The graphics are beautiful, even in relation to the previous two games. The use of light and shadow is well executed and the alien races look more detailed than in the past.
* The game does a great job giving you the feeling that the entire galaxy is going to hell and millions of people are dying, from the beginning of the game onward. Maybe it's because I live near Seattle and I recognized the 520 bridge being melted by a Reaper during the opening cutscene.
* Evading the Reapers during the scanning minigame is fun. It brings a new sense of urgency to it and makes it less of a timesink.
* I enjoyed catching up with the characters from the previous games. Thane's and Mordin's deaths were moving. Legion's sacrifice was inspiring. The conclusion of my romance arc with Liara was satisfactory.
* Combat is much more managable than in ME2. Ammo upgrades make it less likely you'll run out of ammo in the middle of a fight. The Black Widow is a sniper's dream come true. Companions are more versatile.
* Javik is an extremely interesting character, as is Gomez. It's nice to see an openly gay male as a sympathetic character and a non-stereotype.
* Actions from the previous games turn out to have had unintended consequences. Destroying the genophage cure and rewriting the geth heretics turn out not to have been good ideas.
* Shopping is more like ME1. It's no longer possible to buy every upgrade in the game and you actually have to prioritize your purchases.
* "I've had enough of your tabloid journalism." (SHEPARD PAWNCH!)
* Just enough humor to keep the game from turning into a non-stop gloom-and-doom fest.

The Bad:

* Planet scanning uses the slow cursor rather than the upgraded one you get partway through ME2.
* Quest tracking is a nightmare - quest status doesn't update in your log and the map is counterintuitive. I had to tab back and forth to the ME wiki to finish my fetch quests (Let's see, the volus wants a statue, the salarian wants medical research data, the krogan wants a puppy...)
* James is an uninteresting character, and he just shows up on the Normandy as if he's always been there and Shepard is supposed to know who he is and how badass he is. He acts like a stereotypical Latin macho man despite the fact that it's 200 years in the future and "Hispanic" shouldn't even exist as a distinct ethnicity anymore considering how much racial mixing has occurred in the meantime (white Londoners with Arab names, a swarthy Irishman with an African surname, etc.) A waste of Freddie Prinze Jr.'s time. His universal translator somehow fails to translate the gratuitous Spanish slang he peppers his dialogue with. Freddie Prinze Jr. must have been desperate for work.
* Combat seems to have adopted the "waves of enemies spontaneously appearing from every direction mid-fight" direction that was so annoying in Dragon Age 2.
* Fewer clear-cut paragon/renegade options. There are maybe five points in the game where you get a persuade option in dialogue, and less than ten interrupts, all of them being such a clear-cut choice that I took every single one. Most conversations only award generic "reputation" points which i'm still not sure what purpose they serve, and there was never a persuade option that was greyed out on my dialogue wheel.
* Kai Leng is the most unoriginal, BS villian ever in a Bioware game - and that's counting Aribeth, Neb the gnome, and the Sith Emperor from SWTOR. A teenage-looking Japanese cyborg assassin who fights with a katana belongs in a bad anime, not a gritty space opera. From the moment I saw him I was hoping i'd get an interrupt of Shepard just shooting him in the face and saying "Never bring a sword to a gunfight."

The Ending:
* The space combat scenes were great. I loved seeing pretty much every race in the galaxy cooperating to take down the Reapers.
* Lt. Gomez's death was arbitrary and pointless.
* The final conversations with your squadmates are great.
* Lack of an epic final boss fight was disappointing. I was expecting a multi-phase ground battle against Harbinger, or the Illusive Man going all cyborg like Saren in ME1. Instead you fight a few waves of the same Reapers you've been fighting, shoot a couple Husks in slo-mo, and then TIM goes down like a little bitch from a single Renegade interrupt.
* I understand they stuck it in to fix a continuity error in the original ending, but the Normandy flying in to evac your squadmates makes no sense. Why not land the Normandy and send the entire squad at the Conduit?
* The Catalyst's logic sort of makes sense to me. Each Reaper is the genetic record and history of an entire species, distilled into a single entity, "a nation unto itself". If you assume that synthetics will eventually destroy all organic life, including the races that have not yet developed space travel, preserving them in this manner makes sense. Its logic isn't perfect, but it doesn't seem to be a true AI itself - it came to a deterministic conclusion based on the information its creators gave it, and then turned them, against their will, into "the first true Reaper".
* Being a transhumanist at heart, I went with the Synthesis ending, and I got a little teary-eyed listening to EDI's narration about the Reapers working together with the organics to create a new future. Exactly what the Synthesis IS, though, is complete technobabble. "Creating a new DNA"? "Synthetics will gain an understanding of organics?" Why does everyone suddenly have green stuff floating around their faces? Does Synthesis make people suddenly sprout cybernetic enhancements? Is everyone now wired into a geth consensus, and if so, why are they still talking instead of thinking at each other? How can Shepard's DNA be written into every living being in the galaxy, when some species like the vorcha and the protheans don't even HAVE double-helix DNA?
* The old man telling the story to his granddaughter at the end is voiced by Buzz Aldrin himself, which was a pretty nice touch, and the note from the programmers at the end is much better than the "Now go buy some DLC" tag which I'm told was originally included at the very end.

All in all, i'd call it a satisfactory conclusion to the series. It's not perfect, and even the "best" ending is more bittersweet than happy - i'd have preferred to take the Capt. Sheridan in Babylon 5 approach and tell the Reapers to "Get the hell out of our galaxy!", but I get the impression that the writers wanted to end the story in a way where they wouldn't get roped into making another sequel every year until the year when the games are actually set comes around. Assuming that EA doesn't ultimately screw up and close Bioware down because the suits who run the company demonstrably have no clue what the RPG-playing audience wants, I look forward to seeing what's next from them.

[Ike Witt]

Originally Posted by Smapti

* "I've had enough of your tabloid journalism." (SHEPARD PAWNCH!)

As satisfying as it is to deck the reporter, it is a mistake. She is a war asset, even higher value than Allers.

[Smapti]

Originally Posted by Ike Witt

As satisfying as it is to deck the reporter, it is a mistake. She is a war asset, even higher value than Allers.

You now only need an EMS of 3100 to get the "best ending", which is easily doable in single player if you do all the side quests, scan every planet, and run all the fedex quests. So SHEPARD PAWNCH it is.

[Raguleader]

True, but she is a very sympathetic character if you decide not to take a swing at her. Hilariously, if you take a swing at her, she ducks, showing that she's learned something in the past two or three years, and if you miss the next renegade interrupt, she'll slug Commander Shepard, the Reapersbane, right in the face and make him-or-her go down like a house of cards on a windy day.

If you skip the renegade interrupt, you instead get the option to stab the hug button and reassure the reporter that you understand that she's afraid, but that the Alliance is doing what it can to help. She gets an asset bonus if you never slugged her before. Also, I missed this when I played through, but when you arrive at the Citadel during the Cerberus raid, you can hear her on the TVs reporting on the attack and trying to get a hold of C-Sec.

As far as the pilot dying (was that who you were talking about? His name was Cortez), that didn't happen in my playthrough. Evidently he will survive if Shepard takes the time to talk to him and help him past his grief issues. It's hard to tell, but he's supposed to be a bit of a death-seeker, not entirely unlike Vega (who was this close to being an interesting and deep character except they never actually spent any time doing character development on him after you leave the Sol system).

Vega was mostly entertaining because of the shit he tended to be involved in. Playing poker with the refugees (and losing his money), getting a tattoo from a Batarian, being responsible for Ash passing out drunk and waking up with a terrible hangover, and the various back-and-forth with Cortez. That, and sending him to disable the Geth Jamming Tower is comedy gold.

I'm not sure how much it played out in the game, but I was getting the impression that at least a few of the Renegade interrupts were there to bait you into putting yourself in a worse position, i.e. punching somebody in the face and costing you their support. No clue how often that actually plays out in the game.

Regarding whether or not we should have a spanish-speaking hispanic character by the time ME3 takes place (one of two hispanic characters, actually, with him hanging out with Cortez and all), why should hispanics no longer exist (and that's a cultural group, not an ethnic group anyways; I'm hispanic and I'm also as white as I can possibly get) when so many other ethnic groups are shown to still exist? Ken is Scottish and waxes poetic about how Haggis tastes like "mighty fine ass", Amy Wang is an asian reporter, Khalisa Bint Sinan al-Jilani is dark-skinned like you'd expect a person of Arabic descent to be. It's not exactly easy to tell until the third game though. She does have blue eyes, and I'm not sure if that's very common or not in real life.

Keep in mind that this is only a couple of hundred years in the future at most, so there's no reason to expect all of humanity to turn into a uniform monotan skintone.

[Smapti]

Cortez, yes. (Where did I get Gomez?) I thought I did all his conversations, but I must have missed one.

I wouldn't say that Hispanics don't exist anymore per se, but there's been so much race-mixing in the 175 years between now and when the game takes place that I wouldn't expect someone to exist who looks, acts, and talks exactly like a Latino musclehead circa 2012. You've got Udina (swarthy, with an American accent, an Irish first name, and an African last name), Zaaed (White with an Arab name and a Cockney accent), Anderson (black Englishman with an American accent), Dr. Chakwas (white Englishwoman with an Indian name) Kaidan (swarthy with an American accent, a Russian name, and born in Singapore)... and James. Vido Santiago, the only other character with an obviously Hispanic name, is black. I definitely get the impression that his character was inserted as the result of an executive mandate from someone at EA. "Let's see, more and more Latinos are playing video games these days, so we want you to put a badass Mexican hero in so Hispanics will relate to him and that Angry Joe guy will give us a good review." (Which he did.)

[Ike Witt]

Amy Wang? No, no no. Emily Wong. I was sad to see that she wasn't in ME3.

[Smapti]

As for al-Jillani, she's little more than a Fox News paparazzi to me, and I've never seen any reason to trust her or give her a chance. In all three games, she more or less ambushes Shepard and attacks him/her with loaded questions ("Why did you abandon the Council to die?" "Why did you sacrifice so many human lives just to save aliens that refused to help us?" "What are you doing luxuriating on the Citadel instead of fighting back on Earth?") and so on. She's not a responsible journalist and I wouldn't want her on my side lest she decide that she can get better ratings with candid photos of James working out bare-chested, or Tali getting drunk in the lounge.

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by Ike Witt

Amy Wang? No, no no. Emily Wong. I was sad to see that she wasn't in ME3.

Sorry.

But yeah, just because she's a potentially sympathetic character doesn't mean that you have to open that line up. ME3 has a lot of interesting scenarios basically as easter eggs to encourage alternate playthroughs Evidently some of the funniest lines in the game only happen if you had some debatably non-ideal results in the first two games.

[Tanbarkie]

I was wary of Vega in the beginning, as Bioware hasn't exactly had the best track record when it comes to making their "default human party members" (Kaiden, Carth, Jacob, etc) compelling. But I actually grew to really enjoy the character - we haven't really had an Alliance foot soldier type since Ashley, and he doesn't have the whininess or xenophobia that made some people dislike her. I thought he was a refreshing change of pace from the super commandoes and mad scientists of the rest of the cast (not that I didn't love them too), and Freddie Prinze Jr. does a great job imbuing him with a sense of humor. Hell, some of the funniest dialogue scenes in ME3 involve Vega - the aforementioned results of ordering him to perform tech-oriented tasks, his conversation with Javik in the Normandy's kitchen, and his "man off" with Garrus in the lounge room, among others.

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by Ike Witt

Amy Wang? No, no no. Emily Wong. I was sad to see that she wasn't in ME3.

Oh, and there's a reason she didn't turn up in ME3 proper. She actually had a twitter-feed running (via the AllianceNewsNetwork) right before ME3 came out, tweetcasting the beginning of the Reaper invasion.

SPOILER:

She is mortally wounded trying to escape from a Reaper attack, and decides to ram a Reaper with her skyvan.

[Ferret Herder]

I liked Vega for the reasons that Tanbarkie gave, plus for a near-refreshing change, he's not romanceable by either gender! Shep's so goddamned popular, you have to watch how you talk to half your crew lest you find them falling hard for you. I liked his unabashed macho (in both senses) attitude hiding a bit of concern about how capable he really was. And yeah, the Garrus vs. Vega man-off scene in the mess kitchen was hysterical.

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

I liked Vega for the reasons that Tanbarkie gave, plus for a near-refreshing change, he's not romanceable by either gender! Shep's so goddamned popular, you have to watch how you talk to half your crew lest you find them falling hard for you. I liked his unabashed macho (in both senses) attitude hiding a bit of concern about how capable he really was. And yeah, the Garrus vs. Vega man-off scene in the mess kitchen was hysterical.

Not to mention the ongoing discussion of Vega's piloting skills after the one time they let him drive. Even Joker managed to get a cheap shot in at Vega's expense.

It didn't help him any that Vega was the one who kept setting himself up for those digs.

[Sir T-Cups]

In my second (and subsequently third cuz I'm doing two at the same time) playthroughs I'm actually using Vega a lot more and like him a lot more than I did originally. I thinks is character of "dumb jarhead" is played very well, he's the but of some jokes about his macho-ness and dumb jockness ("you would like grizzly bears" "wait...what?) and I'm a big fan of how FPjr does his character, but he also has a heart too (Being guilty over killing the colony on his mission and volunteering the nice portion of the man-off).

Anyone else totally heartbroken over the "teen girl" conversation on the refugee docks? and totally heartwarmed over the Salarian/Human "new armor" conversation outside of Purgatory? Hands down my favorite exchanges in the game

[Tanbarkie]

Originally Posted by Sir T-Cups

Anyone else totally heartbroken over the "teen girl" conversation on the refugee docks? and totally heartwarmed over the Salarian/Human "new armor" conversation outside of Purgatory? Hands down my favorite exchanges in the game

Both ME2 and ME3 have some brilliant little non-interactive dialogues between NPCs. Some of my favorites include:

-The Blue Rose of Illium, with a heartbreaking payoff in ME3 that made my girlfriend weep openly
-The medic on Earth trying - and failing - to assist a woman stuck in Reaper territory over the radio
-The conversation between the aging salarian and his asari stepdaughter at the Illium gift shop (another serious tearjerker)
-The asari with PTSD in Huerta Memorial Hospital
-Blasto VI: Partners in Crime
-Liara and Matriach Aethyta at the Presidium bar in ME3

Despite the fact that you can miss them completely if you're the "run past NPCs without stopping" type, these vignettes comprise some of the best storytelling in the Mass Effect universe.

[Quimby]

There are so many great conversations on the Citadel. I was impressed how many of them had real plots, some complete with twists (the Asari and Human woman for example). It was touches like that that made me greatly enjoy the game even if the ending was originally poor.

[ekedolphin]

I was early into ME3 when a friend told me about the (original) ending, and how much she hated it. (Without spoiling it for me.) Irritated, I put the game on hiatus for more than a month, and around the time I got back to it, the Extended Cut version had been released.

So I've never been unfortunate enough to see the original ending, aside from YouTube "because I'm curious" viewings. I also haven't seen

SPOILER:

SO BE IT

aside from YouTube watchings, either, and given that result, I won't ever choose it for my games.

I chose Synthesis; yeah, it's morally questionable, but I didn't find it as reprehensible as some others. I mean, I didn't want to destroy the geth and EDI. Might choose Destroy next time.

My Shepard:

SPOILER:

--Talked down Wrex on Virmire
--Chose to save Ashley
--Romanced Ashley in ME1
--Let the Council live
--Chose Udina as humanity's councilor
--Saved the hostages in "Bringing Down the Sky" by letting Balak go
--Completed all the ME2 loyalty missions
--Saved Maelon's data
--Convinced Miranda to talk to her sister
--Arrested Jacob's father (as much as I wanted to kill the bastard)
--Got Tali found innocent without revealing the truth about her father
--Didn't romance anyone in ME2
--Completed "Lair of the Shadow Broker"
--Destroyed the Collector Base
--Completed the Suicide Mission with everyone surviving
--Completed "Arrival"
--Let Balak live again in ME3 (as much as I wanted to kill the bastard)
--Made peace between the geth and quarians
--Talked Ashley down during the Cerberus coup d'etat
--Personally shot and killed Udina
--Cured the genophage
--Romanced Ashley again in ME3
--...um... did other stuff which I can't remember
--Shot and killed the Illusive Man
--Chose Synthesis

Anybody else digging multiplayer? I love my vorcha sentinel; on Bronze, I feel like Wolverine. I regen so fast and have such a powerful pair of weapons that only two or three types of enemy (or multiple mooks flanking me) pose any kind of threat to me whatsoever. And he's not bad on Silver, either.

I also love my geth engineer, human basic vanguard, female N7 Demolisher, and probably one or two others that I can't think of right now.

Occasionally I'll get a game-breaking glitch that frustrates the hell out of me, though. Man, did I have a whopper of one last night on Firebase Ghost. I couldn't get into cover, climb ladders, or see enemies.

[Gukumatz]

I had one where my bullets were appearing to go backwards out of my character model, in Silver multi. Puzzled the hell out of my team-mates, since I had to run backwards at the enemy and spray shotgun shots in order to hit anything. Hilarious, though.

[Raguleader]

Most annoying thing is that if the server disconnects, you lose whatever temporary power-ups you had set up for that game. I have had at least a couple of games crap out on me in round 2 or 3.

[F.Pu-du-he-pa-as]

Have any of you played the new Leviathan DLC yet? I played it this evening, and really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the plot and the gameplay, and it was totally worth the $10.

On the other hand...

SPOILER:

... I thought they left a huge, gaping plot hole by recruiting a race which apparently made its living through the subjugation and mind-control of "lesser" races. Once the Leviathans wipe out the Reapers, aren't they going to subjugate and mind-control us?

I was also disappointed about how you discover a race which was the creator of the Reapers, and which had incredible power over the Reapers, which is such a powerful revelation it could change the course of the entire war, and...in the end, you only get an additional 400 war assets and an extra six lines from the Catalyst Kid. I was hoping that the Leviathans' involvement would make an entire new ending possible. Either the Leviathans make it possible to defeat the Reapers through conventional military force, or they have some insight into the Catalyst that alters its functioning.

Also, when James is in the researcher's office, if you talk to him enough, he'll play with the Husk head, provoke it into biting him, and then suggest you bring it on board the Normandy as a souvenir! That was great.

[ekedolphin]

I just got an N7 Shadow yesterday. I had more fun with Shadow Strike than is probably healthy!

[F.Pu-du-he-pa-as]

I love the N7 shadow! I named her Slash! Slash!

I also have an N7 Fury, whom I named Scary Eyes.

All my Turians are named Teddy Roosevelt.

[D_Odds]

Finally played through this and all I can say is I'm thankful I got it on sale, but it was still too expensive. They created a movie where they let you play through a few parts. ~30 minutes at the end of doing nothing, but don't leave the room because you are needed for one timed button click? Who thought that was a good idea? And have they been reassigned to janitorial duties yet.

All game long I'm thinking that there are too many fucking cutscenes, so I guess that had to be the only way to finish it...with an interminable, often unpausable cutscene.

I stayed away from this thread because I didn't want spoilers ahead of the game, and I didn't read all 473 posts though I'm sure I'm the the only one bitching and moaning about this absolute waste of $15. I feel sorry for anyone who paid full price.

[Fear the Turtle]

Did you play through the trilogy, or just ME3?

I agree with you about the cutscenes (I like a little more game and a little less exposition), but it didn't dampen my enjoyment as much as it did yours. I got it for $30 and thought it was worth it (especially if you play through the 1st 2 @ $10 each)

[Kinthalis]

Originally Posted by D_Odds

Finally played through this and all I can say is I'm thankful I got it on sale, but it was still too expensive. They created a movie where they let you play through a few parts. ~30 minutes at the end of doing nothing, but don't leave the room because you are needed for one timed button click? Who thought that was a good idea? And have they been reassigned to janitorial duties yet.

All game long I'm thinking that there are too many fucking cutscenes, so I guess that had to be the only way to finish it...with an interminable, often unpausable cutscene.

I stayed away from this thread because I didn't want spoilers ahead of the game, and I didn't read all 473 posts though I'm sure I'm the the only one bitching and moaning about this absolute waste of $15. I feel sorry for anyone who paid full price.

Did you just jump into to the last chapter of a trilogy?

I guess the cut scenes are numerous, but they are the culmination of an emotional ride spanning years. We've been growing close to these characters and this universe for hundreds of hours of gametime, so it was easy for me, at least, to excuse the exposition.

Also, on PC you can pause the cut scenes

But regardless, I really didn't see ME3 as having too many of these... This is no Metal Gear or Final Fantasy.

[D_Odds]

I played ME1 and ME2 multiple times. I did every maleShep romance, and either full paragon or a paragon/renegade mix. I played multiple classes.

The last 30+ minutes of the game were one long cut scene where maybe it had me push a button just to keep the screen saver from kicking in. The beginning was a long cut scene. And the cut scenes in-between were long. Every time you finished one of the main story missions, you could count on a bathroom break.

I did appreciate that they took away having to survey every damn planet (ME2) or having to drive the damn car over every inch of land (ME1), but the exploration aspect still added nothing overall. I thought side missions in both earlier games were better fleshed out. The majority of the ME3 side missions were fetch missions.

I'm only on the PC, and hitting escape didn't pause the cut scenes, especially that ending. LOTR: The Return of the King's ending wasn't that long.

I don't know if I will go back and try out other endings or romances (and I don't watch other people playing computer games on YouTube). I went into the game wanting to know how the story would end for all the characters, but Bioware/EA dropped the ball on delivering it in a game format.

[hogarth]

I just finished playing through Mass Effect 3 on the Xbox (actually 1, 2 and 3 in immediate succession). I had heard bad things about the ending, so I was prepared for a disappointment, but I actually didn't think it was that bad -- just a little abrupt.

My complaints were more on the technical side (e.g. quest targets not showing up, swapping disks around like I was playing Ultima IV, etc.). And I thought giving Tali a completely human face on a monstrous body was rather horrifying in an "uncanny valley" kind of way; I'd rather have a completely unhuman look instead of a thalidomide accident.

I think they really did a good job with all of the callbacks to the previous two games, and the emotional tone was very consistent (as opposed to ME2, which felt very unfocused because of all of the unrelated side stories). As noted above, the little NPC conversations were surprisingly touching.

I'm going to run through the 1->2->3 series again with a different Shepard (female vs. male, jerk vs. goody-goody, Kaidan vs. Ashley, etc.).

[Quimby]

Originally Posted by hogarth

I just finished playing through Mass Effect 3 on the Xbox (actually 1, 2 and 3 in immediate succession). I had heard bad things about the ending, so I was prepared for a disappointment, but I actually didn't think it was that bad -- just a little abrupt.

FWIW, the ending you saw was probably the "corrected" one that was released after as a response to people's complaints.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Quimby

FWIW, the ending you saw was probably the "corrected" one that was released after as a response to people's complaints.

How would I be able to tell the difference? The one I played through was the "synthesis" ending. All it involved was:

SPOILER:

(a) a little bit of preliminary talking with a ghost-baby about the three choices, (b) walking into a beam of light, and (c) a cut scene with some green energy spreading around the galaxy, ending with Jeff and EDI walking out of the Normandy onto some planet.

Are you saying that the original ending was even more abrupt than that!?

[Ferret Herder]

Did you download the (free) ending DLC?

The complaint was that pretty much all choices had the same result as that, more or less.

Extended ending details:

SPOILER:

The original ending is pick a color, the narration is a little different but it's more or less the same. Your preparedness didn't matter all that much.

The extended ending had much more upbeat or downbeat prognosis for galactic recovery, depending on how well-prepared you were, etc. Like if you were super-prepared, there'd be talk that the mass effect gates were already undergoing quick repair, planets were working to rebuild as best they could, but unprepared endings were very pessimistic in prognosis. I think Prepared endings (or all endings?) showed the Normandy taking off again after repairs.

You also got more shots of how various races were doing, that kind of thing.

In case the StarChild made you totally stabby, the DLC added the "screw you" option to not choose, the Reapers destroyed everyone, and the next cycle found the data Liara compiled and beat them.

Plus if you were super-prepared and picked Destroy, your romantic partner wouldn't put your name on the memorial wall, and you'd still get the quick shot of you gasping for breath in concrete rubble.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Ferret Herder

Did you download the (free) ending DLC?

I've never hooked up my Xbox to the internet, and none of the stuff you mention sounds familiar. So no, I didn't see the "corrected" ending and yet I still wasn't terribly disappointed because I knew what I was in for.

[ekedolphin]

Ever see the "Shepard is a jerk" videos on YouTube covering the three games? In ME1 and ME2, even as a Renegade you're still rather heroic.

But in ME3, if you choose a full-on Renegade path, Shepard can be an absolute monster!

Let's see...

SPOILER:

By means of not doing the Paragon interrupt, you can allow Samara to commit suicide to avoid killing her own daughter. And then kill her daughter anyway.

You can kill Mordin to prevent him from curing the genophage. And if Wrex is the Urdnot leader, he'll find out, and confront you. And you'll be forced to kill him.

You can choose the geth over the quarians, and as Tali sees the Migrant Fleet burning in the skies over Rannoch, she'll jump off a cliff-- and there's nothing you can do to prevent her from it.

You can kill Ashley/Kaidan as s/he defends Udina.

And in the mother of all "fuck-you" moments, in the Extended Cut only, you can choose not to activate the Crucible. "SO BE IT!" exclaims the ghost-child, and the Reapers succeed in exterminating galactic civilization.

Right now I'm deep in the second act of ME3 with a very Paragon, female, Vanguard Shepard named Lorelei. Romanced Liara in ME1, didn't cheat on her in ME2; saved Maelon's data, saved Wrex.

Only my second time through the game. I remembered a good deal of it, but the moments still hit you. But Mass Effect has that effect on you. I've played Mordin's loyalty mission in ME2 a dozen times, and it still chokes me up.