OK, so with all the huff and puff over the game's ending, I wanted to keep an open mind. I avoided all forum discussions and it was a total surprise when I finished it this afternoon. I'm not sure what possibilities existed, but here are the choices I made, and what happened:

Super high war assets and readiness
Did ALL side quests and missions
Shot the tank on the right: Killed the fuckers dead

So after the relays were destroyed, the Citadel and it's millions of inhabitants blowed up, and the probable billions and billions and billions of deaths... rationally, the ending was probably the best case scenario. Sure widespread travel is now impossible, but most civilizations are at least partially intact with the survivors. They survived. I think most of us are conditioned to expect some happy flowery ending filled with bunny rabbits and cartoon birds. I liked it. It tugged at my heartstrings and was upsetting. It was realistic in the sense that after the Reapers were destroyed, the galaxy was fucked up. I think it created a more emotional response to the game's ending. Just my thoughts.

I agree to an extent, just kind of feel like you kind of get "led on" to believe that all the things you are working for are going to make a long term difference... but they don't. Everything you accomplished goes out the door, except for stopping the reaper threat.

The biggest reason the game endings sucked, is that there really was no choice. The ending sequences were all pretty much the same, just had different colored "blast waves".... just like Mass Effect's 2 ending. THAT was really lame. If I go through the trouble to get a different ending, I expect a DIFFERENT ENDING. I don't want the same ending, with a slightly different color of something. I would have been much happier had there been more endings with drastically different outcomes and ending sequences.

Also another thing about the ending, is that it's somewhat cliche and VERY predictable (come on, when we first heard about the Relay network and the reaper's connection to it, who didn't think the series ending would result in the relay network's destruction?). A technology that brings humanity and other races, monumental advancement... of course it's going to have a dark side, and of course the ending is going to include it being blown up/not used ever again/etc. It's almost a staple of the Final Fantasy series. So civilizations all find hope by being stranded on their particular planets. Though it is probable that FTL drives will still continue to exist. So the only way for civilizations, now, to connect with one another will be the much slower FTL drives.

The ending also ignores the progress made with the Geth. Towards the end, the Geth have become allies with organics. So that shows that the cycle was starting to be done away with.

Yes I think you're right that an ending should not be a rose garden, but neither should it have as many holes as these endings gave us.

The face they showed as tali's was very pathetic i think the hands are not right at all and it doesn't help that they used a freebie stock picture they found on the net and Photo shopped it for like 5 minutes. I also hated the epilogue it made no sense.

Wasn't expecting sunshine and bunnies but I found the ending quite dissappointing and lacking in clarity, Shepard gets the choice to die to destroy the reapers or die and get absorbed into the catalyst and control them.....and you see 3 survivors one of whom is always Joker and in both of my endings one of the characters who was with you in the final push where Harbinger frags all except Shepard and Anderson.

No fight with Harbinger directly.
No clarity on survivng or dead team members.
The catalyst was an AI????
The Citadel had this massive area inside it that nobody ever thoguht to look for in the 37 million years plus the Reapers are said to have been doing this???

The other thing is an outside thought, but nobody throughout galactic history ever thought of a torpedo or missile firing at high sub-FTL speeds???  The fleet armaments in the game fire more slowly than ships travel, how the fuck is that???  

Jumping a shuttle to FTL into a reaper, would be more than sufficient to kill a reaper.  Guess that would make for a short story though.

The "Cosmo's" reference at the end where humanitys savior is referred to as "The Shepard".

So what I am reading in this thread is none of your choices really even matter and everyone gets more or less the same ending?  

Lulz.

There's actually a part in the game where they talk about using capital ships as kamikazes. I think it was in the codex... Basically it wasn't pinpoint accurate, and it would take more ships than they had.

You lose the mass relays and die regardless, best ending seems to be sysnthesis, the middle path.

Tail's face? When?  Where?



Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

how do you get to a hirer readiness? i beat the game and destroyed the reapers, but i didnt know how to

Yes.







 

if your do a couple of things correctly she gives you a picture of her self that gets put in your cabin if you google you you will see what i mean. they should have just not shown her face or actually put some time and effort into not something i could do in 10 minutes on photoshop.

Finished ME3 today, and I am very disappointed with the last five minutes of the game. The first red flag that something stupid was about to transpire was when Shepard began to have those inexplicable dreams about a small boy on fire. If a game ever starts to use metaphors, as is the case with the boy on fire, prepare your anus, because you are about to be rectally screwed over by some pseudo intellectual bullshit!

That said, the blue star child is beyond ridiculous, and his reasoning behind the reaper invasion is illogical. Case in point, the Geth and the Quarian fighting together against a common enemy. EDI and Joker. Both prove that synthetics and organics can co-exist. What pains me the most though, is no matter what path you take, the end result renders the entire story a moot point. Every choice you made was all for not, as it has no effect on the ending what so ever. Also, a BIG WTF on the Normandy bugging out with my squad members on board. I guess they didn't get cut down in the final push and Joker swung down and picked them up while leaving my dead corpse on the ground

add one more to WTF.





i picked control because i thought the boy said if you kill the reapers it will take out the geth and blow up the relays. so i picked control and the relays still blowed up i was like WTF.





edit also i bonned tali after she fell off a cliff when i said the geth are cooler then the Qurians. not to mention the characters who died in London EDI and Garus were on the Normandy in hyperspace or what not.





 

necrophiliac

That might be the best one of those yet.

it was really funny. i was like why are you in my cabin you are dead tali and she was like Shepard i need you now.



but it still made more sense then the ending.



 

I think the ending was a dream, brought on by Shepard being knocked out by the reaper's laser, ..... I think we will see a later DLC to finish the game, or ME4.  

Ending 1 - Control the reapers.  I think this is a lie, I think this will make your Shepard a puppet like Saren, or the Illusive Man.  Everything comes around again, its just this time instead of fighting Saren you end up going after a indoctrinated Shepard.

Ending 2 - Organics/machines combine.  This will kill Shepard, the reapers make him think that all is well, that the fight against man, and machine is over.  They want you to believe this lie so Shepard can give up.

Ending 3 - Destroy the reapers.  They want you to think this is a renegade option, but think about the whole mission since day one:  Stop the reapers at any cost!  The other 2 options make you compromise with the reapers, and this is the only ending where Shepard can survive.  Why?  Because this is the only ending that you stayed the course, that you stayed with the mission, that you stayed with your resolve, ..... and you broke the mind control attempt.  Last, the scene after the credits, the old man says that is the end of the story, the boy asks him to tell another "The Shepard" story, and the old man says "Okay, one more".  One more???  .....  Shepard's story is not finished.  

I think BW played us, they made the player choose how the ending of this story begins, and most didn't even realise it.

I destroyed the reapers and my shepard lived.

I made up 4 alternate endings. What do you guys think?:

1. Horrible ending: Everyone dies. Admiral Hackett orders the Normandy to escape to a planet close to the Yahg homeworld, much like the Prothean station on Mars. EDI is essentially Vigil.

2. Bad ending: Shepard dies, but his/her final act destroys the Citadel and the entire Sol system and mass relays. The only positive: most reapers are killed. Any remaining reapers are scattered and cut off from each other. A centuries long guerilla war breaks out, but the 50,000-year extermination cycle is broken.

3. OK ending: Shepard lives, and barely manages to get the Citadel/catalyst to command all reapers to return to dark space. The 50k-year cycle isn't broken, but the slaughter is stopped. Billions are still alive and have a lot of time to come up with something.

4. Super-happy feel good ending: Shepard uses the catalyst to shut down the Reapers. Lots of survivors. Go humanity!


FYI: I'm OK with Shepard dying, but so far the endings boil down to die, die in a different way, and change the color of the deus ex machina waves.

The ending sucks in so many ways that it's hard to decide where to start, but the biggest suck is that it completely negates any choices that you made during the ENTIRE SERIES.  Played as Paragon Shepard, Renegade Shepard, killed the Geth, killed the Krogan, saved everybody: doesn't matter, here's three different flavors of shit sandwich.  I suspect the game plays out a little different depending on what you do with the reaper at the end of ME2, but ultimately you still end up with three ending choices that are essentially the same.  

On top of that, the whole sequence leading up to the end where you lose all your stuff and are forced to limp excruciatingly slowly armed with only a shitty pistol is balls; Webster's entry for "anti-climatic" can now simply read: the ending to Mass Effect 3.

Also, if you chose to destroy all non-organic life, why the fuck is EDI still alive?

That was my problem. "Red ending," was obviously the most logical and optimal choice, especially since Shepard can live through it. However, it takes a giant shit on you. I do a shit ton of work to get the Geth to help me, sacrifice Legion to uplift them, and they sacrifice themselves to aid me in the fight against the Reapers. Then there's EDI who has done so much to help the cause and her presence makes the game enjoyable. She gets to make Joker happy. But fuck all that they have to die along with all other synthetic life that might be out there.

And the plot holes. Where to begin? How about the fact that if the citadel is a sentient being/AI, that the cycle never would have been delayed by the Protheans by ME1 and delayed again by Shepard in ME1? How about the idiotic cycle to begin with? Synthetic life kills/harvests all organic life to save it before organic life can create and be killed by synthetics.

We have a gaming forum on here? Sweet!

I posted this over on the GD thread, guess I'll repost it here to.


I first thought it was awesome. Anderson and Shepard are collapsed on the floor exhausted after going through hell together. Anderson says something like "It's quit a view isn't it." Shepard replies back "Best seats in the house" as they stare over the curvature of the Earth. Anderson is bleeding out and loses consciousness, Shepard checks his wound and isn't far behind. I"m thinking "Wow, what a journey. It took 5 years, 150+ hours of game play, and the course of 3 games to get here, but you guys pulled it off Bioware! Just roll credits and at the end maybe a quick epilogue to see how the galaxy is doing and you'll have the best game series I've ever played."

But that didn't happen. Instead, the crucible doesn't fire and we get elevated up to meet with the Catalyst/AI/God/Star-child thing. The next 5 minutes stomp a mud hole through me. All your choices are reduced to nothing, because in the end you only have 3 choices to choose from. None of which are any good and were extremely out of character for MY Shepard. I stood there for a good 10 minutes questioning what I should do! I was so frustrated I ran a mozambique drill on star child just to see what would happen. Anyways, I did the synthesis ending. I must say it is the most kookiest bunch of space magic I've ever seen in a game, and it is more fitting of a Battlestar Galactica show than the mass effect series! To add insult to injury the SSV Normandy/crew is marooned on another planet!

I think I can break down my complaints as follows:

1. Star-child: Why is this AI taking the form of a child that Shepard has seen die on Earth? Who is this AI? The third act is not the time to introduce new people!

2. Bad logic: The point of the reapers is to harvest advanced organic life, because as star child says "Synthetic life would otherwise inevitably destroy all organic life because they seem them as a threat." Wow, so synthetic reapers harvest all advanced organic life in 50,000 year cycles to manufacture more reapers to prevent organics from developing synthetics that would destroy organics . Never mind that EDI and the Geth working with the other organic races make this argument false.

3. Squadmate glitch: While running to the beam on Earth Garrus and Ashley are in tow. Harbinger hits, everything turns to ash and they're no where to be found. I assume they died, 10 minutes later here they come filing out of a crashed Normandy.

4. Joker's joy ride: Why did Joker feel the need to take the Normandy on a cruise to another system during the final battle?

5. Crash landing: My crew is marooned on a planet with no mass relays or FTL drives! Why? I guess I can write off Garrus and Tali, considering after their food stores run out all carbon based food that can be grown is toxic to them.

6. Mass Relays destroyed: This is probably my biggest problem. Bioware effectively killed the series with 1 cutscene. I wanted to see the Quarians build a home on Rannoch, that's not happening with most of the fleet stuck in the Sol system. Oh, and Wrex sorry you can't get back to Tuchanka I know rebuilding the Krogan clans after the genophage was cured meant a lot to you.

IMO those last 5 minutes weren't real, they were just the last crazed thoughts of a dieing man who had given all he had to give. At least that is what I tell myself, anything else is just too painful to bear

Who knows, maybe we'll get a DLC like this:

Shepard: "Hackett, this is Shepard. Order all fleets to begin firing on the citadel."

Hackett: "What, Commander?"

Shepard: "Concentrate fire on the citadel! Knock this fucker out of orbit!!"

Star-child: "NO, that's not one of the choices. Wha.." - gets his virtual ass blown into actual dust

* 2 years and 7 billion credits later*

Dr. Chakwas: "You had us worried there Shepard. How are you feeling?"

Shepard: "I thought I died."

Zaeed Massani: "Rage is hell of an anesthetic."

I shot at him too thinking it was what I was supposed to do. I swear to god. I thought to myself, "You gotta be fucking kidding me!" I turn around and start shooting at him. Nothing happens. FUCK. Limp over to the right and shoot the shit out of the power conduit.

My ending, what you would have thought was predictable:

You put a bullet in the Illusive Man. Anderson doesn't die. The whole sequence with the sentient Catalyst never happens. It doesn't exist. Before activating the Crucible to wipe out the Reapers, you have a one on one conversation with Harbinger similar to ME1 with Sovereign and ME2: The Arrival DLC and as a delaying tactic until he can get there, he explains to Shepard how the Reapers came to be, why the cycle must persist, etc (not for the bullshit reason the Catalyst gives, but maybe because of dark energy building up due to the muse of FTL drives and Element Zero tech with no way to subside and thus destroying stars/the galaxy). Suddenly Harbinger shows up and latches onto the station like Sovereign in ME1.

You manage to activate the Crucible before harbinger can kill you. Energy shockwave deactivates/fries all of the Reapers in the Sol system. Repeat the process of spreading the energy wave throughout the galaxy as in the ME3 ending, only the fucking mass relays don't explode. Any remaining Reapers are wiped out by the resultant spread.

The Citadel and Normandy aren't destroyed. The Citadel remains in orbit around Earth and Earth is now the new center of galactic politics. The Normandy lands with our hero and crew. Memorial service is held for those that were slaughtered, harvested, and/or gave their lives to fight the Reapers with all galactic leaders in attendance. Naked women throw themselves at the crew. Shepard is gifted the Normandy so as to continue being his own personal space yacht and bangs all of said naked women or bangs the crap out of his love interest until the end of his days. Epilogue explains how a new age begins with Earth and Humans leading the way with reconstruction and galactic unification with each race retaining its identity similar to how states in the United States were originally supposed to be.

I don't think it would work like that. The whole basis for space flight and tech in the game is the "mass effect field." It reduces the mass of an object within the field making FTL travel possible. A shuttle going FTL using a mass effect field would not have the same amount of energy (infinite) as a shuttle going FTL without a mass effect field (not even possible).

I honestly thought there was a hidden ending somewhere kind of like Hitman:Blood Money, I was looking all over for a power conduit or something else to shoot and deactivate the AI.

I think your ending is a little cliché, but it works and it would leave people with a sense of epic accomplishment. I can live with an ending that is almost grandiose in proportion! Something bittersweet I can deal with, but Bioware should have left all the metaphysical pseudo-philosophical BS out.  When John Creasy died at the end of Man on Fire that was bittersweet and it fit the story. The same can be said of Braveheart or Gladiator, it was sad yes but it left you some kind of hope at the end.

Someone over on Bioware's forum even made a 4th choice ending that involved the keepers that I thought was really good. If I can find it again I'll go ahead and post it here.

I found it! Props to CasbynessPC for writing this


I reject your reality, and replace it with my own:

Conditions - 5,000+ assets/readiness, Game+ mode only.

[the game plays out as normal, up to the point where Shepard is left to begin staggering to their chosen fate]

[As Shepard approaches their choice...]

Female voice: STOP.

[Shepard turns slowly, looking tired, hurt and dazed. Behind them, behind the Catalyst child, is the translucent form of a Keeper]

Keeper: Commander Shepard. There is another option.

Shepard [weakly]:What...?

The Catalyst [turning]: Keeper. Do not interfere. The Crucible has been completed, a solution must be chosen to begin the cycle anew.

Keeper: No. That is now...uncertain.

Shepard [confused]: A keeper...you can talk...

Keeper: Catalyst, as you fulfil your programmed function in this cycle, we Keepers must now fulfil ours.

Commander Shepard, human of Earth. What the Catalyst has told you is true. However, its’ knowledge, the boundaries of its' function are narrow, it knows only what is was programmed to do.

Millions of years ago, when the first organic space-faring species merged with their synthetic superiors and exiled themselves to spare more primitive races, the Catalyst was not the only creation they left behind.

The Catalyst: I am the Catalyst. You Keepers are merely caretakers, drones crafted to maintain the Catalyst and trigger the return of the Reapers.

Keeper: We are that. But we are also something more. In their wisdom, our creators installed us on the Citadel...as observers. Silent, watchful, we studied each galactic civilisation since the creation of the Citadel. Programmed to assess...to wait for when the time was right. We...I believe...that time is now.

Shepard: What do you want? Can you help me?

Keeper: That is our function. Catalyst – you are created to maintain the cycle, or begin one anew. To preserve order, saving the organics from themselves, from their synthetic creations.

But...the Keepers have been waiting, waiting for a moment in history when the probabilities shifted. A moment when organics and synthetics broke the cycle for themselves and found another way.

This Commander Shepard, this human, has achieved something no other organic has achieved before. The civilisations of this time, by resolving differences between organics and synthetic, by cooperating to build the Crucible, have achieved something no other species has done before. Something that the Keepers have been waiting for. Waiting for aeons to be accomplished.

Shepard: Keeper...what are you saying?

Keeper: The fate of the galaxy remains in your hands, Commander Shepard. But the Keepers offer you a fourth option, one perhaps less certain than the others.

Shepard: And that would be...?

Keeper: Possibility. Hope. Make this choice...and the Reapers will depart the galaxy.

Shepard: That’s it? I give the word, and no more Reapers?

Keeper: No. The Reapers will leave, peacefully, but the cycle will continue. 50,000 years from now, Harbinger shall return...return to evaluate your progress, which remains far from certain.

Shepard – PARAGON: A chance to prove ourselves?
Shepard – RENEGADE: That sounds like a stay of execution...

Keeper: Precisely. The probability of stable coexistence between organic and synthetic has reached a critical point in your cycle. We offer you the chance, with no certainties, to resolve this probability to its natural conclusion.

Shepard: And if we fail? If we can’t control AIs and synthetic life?

Keeper: Then you will be doomed...and the cycles will continue...

[Cue main ME3 theme]

[cut to player control – a glowing pillar emerges behind the Catalyst and Keeper]

[Shepard staggers to the pillar, reaching out to touch it]

[The Citadel opens – emitting a pulse wave of white light]

[Shepard is enveloped by the white light]

[ending sequence scenes play – the Reapers depart, unharmed. The Relays light up the Galaxy, but are not destroyed. The Normandy flees the pulse wave...]

[Joker departs a crashed Normandy – on Earth, in London. All the Reapers' foot soldiers lay inactive around the ship]

[Squad mates walk/run up to meet the Normandy crew]

[Everyone gazes up at the incandescent Citadel, a glowing ball of light]

[Shepard’s LI, or Joker, points up towards the light, seeing a shuttle flying downwards]

[The shuttle approaches, lands. As the Normandy crew watch, the door opens]

[Commander Shepard exits the shuttle]

[the music transitions slowly from the ME3 main sad theme, to the ME triumphant theme]

EDIT: After the credits roll, Liara reads out your entry from her time capsule, summarising what you did afterwards, what happened to your squad mates, what happened to each major civilisation/homeworld, and finally how everyone is now working hard together to prepare for the next Reaper visitation (Paragon = working for galactic peace, Renegade = tooling up for Reaper WAR...)

Make sure you do all of the Geth/Quarian Rannoch missions before taking on the reaper tank on Rannoch, I had max paragon and 3/4 renegade and still lost Tali, Legion, or both every time.

Or just play mp.



Synthesis is considered the "best ending" and you still get St Elsewhere'd at the end of the credits.



Old man shep and a little boy are staring up at the stars and the kids basically asks him to tell him another good story blah blah blah.



In short, it was all just an old man's story about to a little kid.



Or you can get artsy and imagine it's something else, but they left little wiggle room in the after credit roll.



 

I was talking specifically about Rannoch, not the overall ending.

The whole Tali's face thing IS a bag of dicks. Mass Effect 3 is a great game ruined by the ending.

He didn't die in the book.



Yup.

I thought when mass relays were destroyed they destroyed entire solar systems...Bullshit ending to what is/was one of the best game series of all time, I cant think of another game that had me captivated and so involved for close to 120-150 hours for one play through, just to get screwed over like that, its like they just quit and gave up on the story at the end.  I would of been happier to wait another year for the game to come out and have the game end in a way that was as captivating as the first 150 hours were.   So many examples throughout the game where it just seemed like they said screw it lets ram the game through romance cut scenes, Tali's face, the confusing and contradictory geth situation, the cheap way they revealed trusting the rachni was a mistake(at least give me a cut scene, if not a mission to eradicate them again, or the way they cheaply integrated the rest of my contacts from throughout the series) all of it ends in serious disappointment for me,  its one of the few games I've ever played to completion because I never got sick of it, now I almost wish I had never discovered it.

I have other playthroughs and had intended to start at least one more playthrough from the beginning of 1 till 3 but at this point it doesnt matter, none of my choices made any difference, its the same shitty ending no matter what I do.  Might as well go on youtube and watch the different path's since essentially the stories all end the same now.  But I'll just hold off try to forget about this game and hope that they put out some meaningful DLC in the future to correct this.

Where do future Mass Effects go from hear?  The Mass Relays are gone, human civilization wasnt around long from the time they became a player in space till the end to have any kind of story.  I have no interest in playing the Protheans or any other ancient race, short of a new ending what kind of DLC could they possibly release to get people to buy knowing nothing will make a difference in the end anyways.

What about the largest fleet ever constructed stuck in the Sol system are they all going to live on Earth and Mars?  How will the different species adapt will they die off?  Battle over the limited resources left?  Did I mention the ending was horrible?

The ME series was one of my favorite game series of all time.  Approximately 90 hours for each character build across three games.  And they fucked it up in the last 10 minutes.  That is especially depressing, because IMO they hit a home run with the entire rest of the game.  I had a great time playing it.

For me, the endings had two glaringly massive faults.  

- The endings were generally sucky for everyone involved.  Shepard, even if he lives, is separated from the normandy crew permanently.  Earth is at least partially fucked, the relays are destroyed.  Now, this ending wouldn't necessarily have been bad because it helps bring home the idea of how bad the war was (other than the Normandy thing, which was pure bullshit no matter how you slice it).  

The problem with the endings though are that they simply DON'T FIT the general flow of the series.  In the previous two games, the endings are triumphant and hopeful.  In ME1, you defeat Saren and Sovereign, and though you know that the reapers are coming you get the sense of "I can do this."  Ditto on ME2.  You survived a suicide mission!  Thus, the ME3 endings which are all basically siting on the bad-to-terrible scale seem to come completely out of left field.  Fucking terrible.  And some people say "well, you didn't complain about Deus Ex."  True.  But Deus Ex made it very clear from the very first scene that the game was going to be extremely dark and was probably not going to end on a high note, and it reinforced those ideas throughout the game.  With Mass Effect, it wasn't like that AT ALL.  For the entire first two games, the theme was generally "we can triumphantly win this if I make the right choices."  Even for most of the third game that idea was reinforced.  Then in the last part they pull the rug out.  Plus to top it all off, there is very little actual closure.  The endings are poorly written on top of being out of character for the series.

- The second problem is the simple lack of choice presented in the endings.  This is a game which supposedly champions choices.  So why do I just get three different colors of poorly explained space magic in my endings, with everything else the same?  The relays are ALWAYS destroyed.  The Normandy is ALWAYS stranded.  Your two companions in the final mission on earth ALWAYS die and you see their bodies (though they then miraculously get resurrected and warped to the Normandy in time to land on Gilligan's planet).  Nothing you did in the game for side quests or anything else really affects anything except whether you survive the destroy ending.  Even that only happens in one case.

Whatever, it's just a game.  If they release some "Broken Steel" type of ending DLC I'll buy it in a heartbeat; if not then I simply won't be doing any more replays of the game.  But still, what a letdown after putting so much time and effort into the entire series.

Fuck you, Bioware.  How could you think this was a good idea?

There are rumors of a Mass Effect MMO in the future.  No thanks on my part; Mass Effect without Shepard isn't really Mass Effect.  

Around the time ME1 came out, someone at BioWare said they'd like to do an MMO in the Mass Effect universe.

edited for clarity

No thanks.  Again, Shepard is what makes Mass Effect.  JMHO.

I haven't beat it yet, but I will probably pick the merge ending so I don't kill EDI. I just had to replay the Reaper mission on Rannoch because I forgot to rescue the damn Quarian admiral first and ended up losing the Quarian fleet.

yeah i was like wait all the reapers are at earth?



blow up the Sol Relay sure we would lose earth but we have the other colonies, sadly that wasn't a choice.



that would have been a way better ending just to show that humans were not all that important a IE mass effect 1 and parts of 2.



 

Mucho lulz in this thread. Bioware fucked the pooch good huh. Was thinking about picking up ME2 and the new one. Played about half of the first one.

Think ill pass, moar monies for ammo!

Someone else has probably already said it, but I'm going to say it again. I spent 5 years playing these games. I've replayed 1 & 2 multiple times. I've bought all the dlc. I've done everything there is to do in these 2 games. I have the story just the way I want it going into ME3. The only thing I would have done differently was to go back and kill that asari receptionist on Virmire from ME1 (turns out she was indoctrinated and killed some high up Turian Military members). I spent a long time in ME3 making decisions. In the end, I don't think I could have done it better. I played a few hours in the shitty multiplayer so I could bring up my galactic readiness up to 96% and had a combat effective war asset rating at 5,200+. The main selling point of this game for me was that the choices you make have a real difference in the next game. So to find out that no matter what I did in the past 5 years, no matter how many hours I spent in the multiplayer, no matter how many side quests I did, no matter who I sacrificed to to gain those precious war assets, I get 3 choices that give me the same outcome was heartbreaking. I honestly don't believe that they could have written a worse ending.




P.S. HOW THE FUCK DID EDI AND ASHLEY MAKE IT BACK TO THE NORMANDY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? They were right next to me when that reaper blew my shit away! I thought they were dead since no one else followed.

ETA: If all Reaper bases technology is destroyed, why is EDI still alive? They discover she's Reaper bases in the Cerberus Station.

It's also a pain in the ass to get the different endings. Almost like Bioware INTENTIONALLY wants to discourage you from finding out that all the endings are pretty much the same, and that we were MASSIVELY screwed over on the endings.

This is what EA seems to do for games that are parts of a series. They always figure they can rely on the hardcore fans to buy the last game... so they fucking take dumbass shortcuts, and cheat us out of a massively awesome experience that we deserve. They figure they can milk us of our money, but in the end still screw us over. They did THE SAME DAMN THING with Command and Conquer 4. Gave us a pretty crappy ending, crappy gameplay, etc. So crappy, I beat the NOD campaign and didn't even bother playing the GDI campaign. The game was THAT shitty. They figured, "Meh, we've pleased them for the past 20 years, we can take it easy on this last game. They'll trust us to give them something good, we'll just give them a ton of shit, and roll in the big bucks from all the die hards who will buy our piece of fuckign shit game".

Keep an eye on the internet for word about possible ending DLC though.  They could fix it down the road, in which case you should definitely pick it up.

Ok that works... I'm going to pretend this was the ending.... and not that shitty one that EA crapped on us.

They WERE dead, I think.  Or unconscious or something.  I seem to remember crawling over their lifeless, eyes-open bodies.  I guess they just warped to the Normandy and magically resurrected/healed.

If you choose the "destroy" ending, it is supposed to destroy both EDI and the Geth, at least according to the star child.  Apparently not though, since EDI popped out of the Normandy at the end of mine along with Ashley, who I romanced.

That's a much more straightforward ending.  It makes more sense, too.  I will say though that I don't think the endings were EA's doing.  This was Bioware all the way, wanting to be "edgy" and dark.

they will probably end up doing a lame ass "prequel" game.

They said the Mass Effect series isn't over... Just Shepard is over....

I think they will do lame ass prequels and or paralell story (Something that happened at the same time while Shepard was running around doing stuff.) But really, this ending has me really miffed.

We all got bit of a premonition of this, when both of Mass Effect 2's endings were basically the same save for the color of the blast wave. However, Mass Effect 2 rewarded you by giving you the chance for either your entire team to survive, or for everyone to die.

Thanks a lot EA! Thanks for ruining yet another epic game series! STOP BUYING UP GAME COMPANIES YOU PRICKS! YOU JUST MAKE STUFF SUCK WORSE!

EA has a tendency to screw the pooch on the endings of epic series... and screwing up the last of the game series. Command and Conquer 4, for instance, was a complete abortion of a game. COMPLETELY BORING. And they were COMPLETELY Cheap about it. The ending of the game took place in a fucking white background.... with a lame ass "portal" that looked like a piece of clip art. Seriously, I've seen MS Paint drawings here on ARFCom that were better looking than that shitty ass ending. Not only that, they chose the LAST Game, to completely change the genre of the game from Real time strategy, into a piece of shit "tactics" game. Did away with bases, did retarded crap with "Rock Scissors Paper" concepts. And all sorts of retarded crap.

Fuck EA!

Seriously,... at this point, I'd even argue a "cut to black" (like the Sopranos ended) the moment you enter the citadel would have been better.