Jack does not come with you. You have very little more contact with her.
NOOOOOooooooooo!
I think I prefer my squad from ME2 than from ME1. Jack, Mordin, Samara and Grunt, in particular, are way more colourful than Ash/Kadian and Liara. Tali and Garrus are cool too.
Yeah I would have liked more options for my team, especially a krogan or two. Preferably a certain battlemaster we all know.
So I finished the game. At the end I listened to the exposition avatar explain things and then ran right into the center. Which ending was that? Where do I go to officially complain?
Anyone else play through all the movie dialogue on that billboard on the Presidium? It is is on the left side apartment level and worth seeking out. It is very funny.
Oo, I haven’t. Is the billboard interactive, or does it just broadcast?
UncleRojelio: In the “Bioware backlash” thread, someone linked to a charitable effort called Retake Mass Effect, where you can make a donation to Child’s Play (gets video games to kids in hospitals) in the name of respectfully requesting a better resolution to ME3, and to showing Bioware that fans will put their money where their mouth is. Donations have topped $57K since starting on March 13th! I’ll be donating on payday.
There are forum threads too, I guess, but the Official Word seems to be “we’re listening” without much in the way of specifics.
It’s interactive. It is in the left hallway on the right side.
Hah, I just went to check it out, and yes, it’s worthwhile. It’s the billboard for the latest “Blasto” movie. 
(And keep clicking, it has several installments. It’ll eventually cycle back around to the start again.)
Some more thoughts on the ending; [spoiler]Shepard is indoctrinated. TIM and Anderson aren’t really there, it’s an internal dialogue like Saren’s struggle. “Listen to yourself, you’re indoctrinated!” - Shepard’s mind resisting the indoctrinated aspect. This is also why Anderson and TIM are on the Citadel and conveniently up at the same time.
If you choose Control or Synthesis Shepard dies; because he compromised his vision of wiping out the Reapers. The only ending in which Shepard lives is the Destroy ending; because he has remained true to his vision and thus has resisted indoctrination. He wakes up under some concrete rubble (like London) but he was supposedly on the Citadel (which was blown up).
The only conclusion that makes sense therefore is that everything after Harbinger blasts you is a dying hallucination where Shepard fights indoctrination, successfully in the destroy ending and unsuccessfully in any other ending.[/spoiler]
What’s the further conclusion? A ‘true’ last level and ending DLC after Shepard wakes up.
I think I am alone in not hating the ending.
I’m really hoping this is right. I thought the game was good and the last few missions amazing. I was all set to immediately start my replay… but the last 5 minutes, oh no. I just turned off my XBOX and haven’t touched it since I finished the game. I have no desire to replay it. I just don’t know what they were thinking. I was left with an empty sad feeling. The whole game you are beating the odds and creating hope for a better tomorrow. You are going to win even though the situation seems incredibly hopeless. Some call it bittersweet. I just call it bitter.
The Facebookgroup is 38,000 strong right now, and they’re asking everyone to send a letter or email to Bioware, stating what you thought was problematic about the ending and asking for DLC to fix it.
As far as the Indoctrination Theory, I think there is plenty of textual evidence for it. I also think that it’s not at all what Bioware intended, but simply that they rushed in writing a new ending after the script leak, and were under so much pressure they created something that has so many weaknesses, inconsistencies, and downright continuity errors that it happens to be easily interpretable as a dream sequence. I have a .5% hope that they’ll capitalize on that and make it definitive in a free DLC.
Well, I can now read the thread again, because I have finished the game.
[spoiler]Through three games, I whipped asses of bullies and wiped noses of the downtrodden under the assumption that the game designers would allow it to matter in the end. It did not. Everybody I helped is irrevocably fucked no matter what I do. Every ending is an apocalypse with only a cursory nod to hope.
I was disturbed at the stark moral consequences in the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2. It haunted me, and I was glad to see it addressed in Mass Effect 3. They kind of let Shepard off easy, because the Batarians were too fucked to leverage the response that the incident deserved, and their one representative wussed out for what seemed like too little reason, given his previously established persona.
But this final ending? This wasn’t a moral dilemma. This was a curt dismissal of the entire premise of the game that they somehow managed to drag out intollerably. Catalyst has come to a non-sequitur conclusion based on false premises. Many of the things Catalyst says are just grindingly stupid. Final Evolution? [morbo]Evolution does not work that way![/morbo] Everything synthetic turns on its creator? Organics are so busy turning on eachother, what’s the difference? Colonies rebel, client states demand independence. Why the hell does that mean synthetics must eliminate all organic life? In fact, the game already answered that – it doesn’t. The synthetics are only responding to fear for their own existence.
Here’s one thing where Kirk and Picard have it over Shepard. When they find an ancient, powerful mysterious entity imposing its will on ‘organics’ or ‘humans’ or ‘young races’ they get to call these godheads on their bullshit – and win.[/spoiler]
My idea for the ending:
[spoiler] I think it should have been possible to demonstrate to the thing at the end that the cycle was now not needed: that this time around, organics had developed synthetics that had individuality and morality, looking at the sacrifice of Legion and the romance of EDI and Joker and (possibly) TIM’s suicide and even Shepard’s own possible status as a replic–as an AI as evidence. So now it’s not an inevitable downward spiral of synthetics getting the upper hand and destroying organics: now synthetics ARE organics in the most important ways, and while there will surely be wars and things, there will not be a single unified synthetic push to destroy all organic life.
This is even foreshadowed in the way Javik did not understand why or how Shepard could trust Legion.
Anyway, once the Cycle-creator sees that the cycle is no longer needed, all the Reapers need to find empty planets and start cloning 100 million years of extincted species. Not all at once, of course, but over the course of the next million years or so. Otherwise, what was the point of saving all that genetic information, of juicing all those people? If the cycle allowed for the idea that someday they could be brought back, as species if not as indiiduals, then it fulfills the “horrible calculus” theme: the Reapers were the only way for those species to have long term futures, though at a horrible cost. Also, it would give a point to all the people juicing, beyond “wow, that’s gross”. [/spoiler]
See? That would have been an epic enough change to justify all the general epic-ness.
Yes.
[spoiler]Why is the cycle even needed now that I’ve demonstrated that everyone can work together? The whole idea of the cycle I found dubious in the first place. Starchild sends synthetics so organics can be saved to be obliterated in another 50000 years. Dumb.
So I can die and destroy the reapers.
Or I can die and force some odd evolution on everyone which obliterates the message of difference species working together.
Or I can fly the reapers off, but I die anyway, millions die or are stranded far from home never to return - well except that they’ll die too which I’ll get to in a moment.
None of the options were the least bit satisfying. Everyone I helped is fucked because we’ve already seen what happens to a system when a mass relay explodes. So I picked to destroy the reapers, but the fleet and everyone else got wiped out too. What was the point of curing the Genophage or restoring the Quarians to their home world and bringing peace with the Geth? Nothing. They’re all fucked when the shock wave from the relay hits them. The millions on the Citadel bye bye! It’s never explained why the relays and Citadel have to blow up, and the destructive wave from Arrival is hand waved away I’m guessing.
The only thing that makes any sense is the indoctrination theory which would turn a horrible ending into a great one - except for the blatant money grab to get the DLC.
I find it really greedy that they tied the best ending - Shepard lives! - to multiplayer. I don’t like multiplayer. Some people don’t want to or don’t have the money to spend on XBOX live. Want the “good” ending?? Pay for it! I shouldn’t be surprised, but this is a new low. [/spoiler]
[spoiler]At least the terrible ending to Dragon Age II only completely invalidated everything you tried to accomplish in just that one game. The end of Mass Effect 3 makes all the triumphs and sacrifices of three whole games go up in a puff of smoke.
Does the multiplayer keep Shepard alive? I mean, Shepard making an ultimate sacrifice is the only part that makes any sense.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]And people LOVED the end of DA2 so much that they decided for 3x the gut punch for ME3. I chalked DA2 to middle game syndrome, and I didn’t care as much about it. I wasn’t invested as I was with my ME characters. Yay, everyone is dead or trapped on some dead end world. I really want to buy the next Bioware game so I can feel like a failure again. I was a fan for years and they could do no wrong in my eyes, but this is a little much for me to forgive.
Playing multiplayer is the only way to get enough end-game assets to get the “good” ending. You can Google it, but basically if you choose to destroy the reapers then an additional scene pops up after the scene of the Normandy crew exiting the ship. It’s Shepard buried under the rubble of London and taking a gasp of air as he regains consciousness. It’s where the indoctrination theory “it’s all a fight of his subconscious” comes from - and the only thing that makes a bit of sense.
[/spoiler]
The secret ending:
BTW, my husband is upstairs playing and hasn’t finished yet. I can hear the noise of the relays and the foghorn of the reapers as he moves the Normandy around the galaxy setting everything right.
I feel so sad knowing that he’s headed for that concrete wall of an ending and will soon be as sad about it as I am.