When I saw that title I thought it was for some kind of Mass Effect/ Pink Floyd crossover... how disappointed I was...
Mass Effect 3: The Wall
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Alas his very existence pretty much ruins the ending's narrative coherence, though he isn't the only problem by far, he is by far the biggest one.I.Muir said:
-His very existence renders the keepers pointless and therefor unravels Mass Effect 1's main conflict in its entirety, as well as destroying the significance of ilos and its prothean scientists.
-His arguments still make no sense, even given the additional background we get in EC. In fact, his new background makes him the perpetrator of his own motivation, "created always rebels etc."
-There is no legitimate reason ever given as to why he, as the citadel, is incapable of using the crucible
-He completely devalues the existence of the otherwise well-done harbinger character, rendering him redundant, pointless, and nullifying a full game's worth of great characterization of him in Mass Effect 2
-He is revealed as "the big bad" essentially, the main antagonist, leader of our enemy, in the last 5 minutes of the last game of a trilogy
-If he controls the reapers and is the citadel, then there should be no reason why he kept the transport beam on during the battle for london
-If he's so damn certain of his fucking motives, why even give the destruction choice, which he claims won't solve anything? Why not just offer to fly the reapers into a black hole if we ask him to, so we can save the geth and joker's girlfriend?
Rushing it out the door and cutting corners in the process? Sometimes the simplest explanation is best - call me crazy but I don't think these are the subtlest writers of our generation..Sandytimeman said:
If by 'a handful of human ships', you mean the entirety of the Alliance's fleets, as well as the Turian/Asari fleets assigned to defend the Citadel, then yes. And even then, they still only won the battle because Sovereign made the mistake of possessing Saren's corpse to try and kill you, which backfired and overloaded his shields when you destroyed Saren for good. And even after all that, the Alliance's fleets still took heavy losses. And that was for one Reaper. One that wasn't even the biggest or the strongest. No, the reapers were quite thoroughly built up as an insurmountable threat right from the beginning, and ME3 is what happens when you have thousands upon thousands of them all coming at once.Darkmantle said:
They did give explanation during the course of the assault on Cerberus HQ. EDI describes during the mission how Civilians lured to Sanctuary by promises of safety are rounded up, indoctrinated to be loyal to Cerberus and given reaper tech surgical implants that make them individually tougher than any Alliance soldier, and are then turned into new shocktroops for Cerberus's forces. Also, for many (though certainly not all) of the places where you fight Cerberus, they literally WERE unopposed. Everyone was so focused on the Reapers that there weren't enough forces left to defend areas from Cerberus. The only major exception to this is when they attacked the Citadel, but even then they had a member of the Citadel council help them sneak on-board to launch a surprise attack.
I still hate the constraint on each of the color coded endings with a passion.praetor_alpha said:
Blue: No you can't save the world without playing god. You always have to stoop to the monster's level to beat it. Everyone can't live as they were with shepard as a martyr, or shepard living her life in peace (and with blue babies), she has to become fucking(creepy) robot god.
Green: Everyone knows this bullshit doesn't make any sense. How the fuck does an energy burst change dna to interact with computers anyway? Synthesis is the epitome of what the reapers want anyway. Mordin describes why it's wrong to seek perfection in ME2 when he talks about the collectors. LIMITATIONS! Besides, its a decision way too big for any one person to make, it's unfair to the masses.
Red: It is so PAINFULLY obvious that the only reason the geth and EDI die in this one is to prevent everyone and their grandmother from choosing it. It makes the most sense to choose, imo, after all the reapers' destruction has always been your goal. So, to create false tension, bioware decided 'oh btw legion sacrifice and Joker's romance will also mean nothing in this endingkthxbye'.
It's also incredibly stupid. Why wouldn't the crucible be designed to target something less general then "all sufficiently advanced technology", like, say, maybe, large mass effect drives! Like, the kind that ALL reapers have. The alliance ships crash anyway, this way it limits the damage, however.
I'll have to disagree here.Gizen said:
In the first game, either due to limitations of the engine or simply poor choice of camera direction, the "fleet" looked like a comparably small number of ships.
The citadel defense fleet was virtually non-existent due to the Geth assault (Hell, the Destiny Ascension was destroyed/not destroyed depending on the intervention of Hackett) and, if I remember correctly, only one fleet, those stationed around Arcturus, were sent in to fight Sovereign. Specifically, it was the 5th fleet, also known as the Arcturus Fleet. After the citadel fight, reaper tech was used to create better weaponry...ie. thanix cannons...which were supposedly fit on most turian/alliance vessels, giving them a pretty damned huge power boost if they were remaining consistent with their own lore.
ME2/3 added or outright changed details surrounding that which altered the context of the engagement.
Lastly, it was said several times prior to 3 that the primary reason, if the only reason, that the Reapers were able to take out galactic civilizations was due to their ability to cut off all forms of travel and communication simultaneously. They'd never had a galactic armada to contend with, and specifically didn't want that to happen, because they always cut off the snake's head by annihilating the seat of galactic government/travel by warping in on the citadel.
We even see the fleet killing reapers in the cinematics.
With that in mind, I don't really see why a skin-of-the-teeth victory is so impossible, given the context/previous information we've been subjected to in the same series. D:
They won't as they treat IT as a valid interpretation of the endings. It is not canon - no interpretation is - but it is something you can believe if you wish. It is simply not the only thing you can believe.Sandytimeman said:
Not going to watch a 1 and 1/2 hour video on an interpretation of various things in the game, so which pillar of light? The ME3 Conduit, or the One leading up to the Crucible? Before you go up, or once you are up?
Either way, likely because the Reapers are harvesting humans on Earth, sending them up the Conduit into the Citadel and are likely to create a new Human Reaper inside.
Texture re-use. Its quite common. Re-use old textures to save space on disk. Nothing new here.
Because TIM is taking control of you?
Yeah, they're in the dream sequences too. Big whoop. They are a visual indicator of stress being put on Shepard's mind. You could argue that this could be indoctrination, but it could also be PTSD [In dreams] and TIM controlling [On Citadel].
Does everyone forget that Shepard was shot by A GIANT FREAKING LASER BEAM. You were hurt long before you shot Anderson. You are hurt long after you shot Anderson, which leads me to...
You are still wounded. Note how your limping, and moving at the world's slowest pace, and bent over half the time? Why are you not crawling along the ground or unconscious? 'cause then the game couldn't progress. Its like asking why you don't fall over and have to crawl everywhere after you get down to one bar of health in a fight. 'cause the game wouldn't move on if that were the case.
I could have said the same about Indoc Theory, however any questions I would have asked would have been met by an answer from the IT perspective that followed their interpretation of events. Likewise, IT's "Evidence" can be seen from a different perspective as entirely normal events.
Nothing against IT, but it is not an infallible-must-be-true-only-real-ending sort of thing. Its an interpretation of ME3, but nothing more.
I think they made one of the worst and most non sensical endings ever into a decent ending on the same level of for example Dragon Age Origins.
The Catalyst was no longer an awful character thanks to some extra dialogue options and it's amazing what just some simple details helped the plot make sense.
The shots showing what happened to all the galaxy help a lot to make all your actions in the trilogy have some consequences.
The scene with your friends putting Shepard's name on the memorial was very emotional, something that was lacking in the original endings.
I liked the refusal ending because it was like a bad ending for me, very sci-fi. I wished more endings were added though, like the typical heroic ending with Shepard surviving and getting many medals and a celebration and after that meeting the guys at the bar in Rio. But overall they're good enough endings and I hope all developers take note and focus much more on making decent endings, especially in RPGs.
The Catalyst was no longer an awful character thanks to some extra dialogue options and it's amazing what just some simple details helped the plot make sense.
The shots showing what happened to all the galaxy help a lot to make all your actions in the trilogy have some consequences.
The scene with your friends putting Shepard's name on the memorial was very emotional, something that was lacking in the original endings.
I liked the refusal ending because it was like a bad ending for me, very sci-fi. I wished more endings were added though, like the typical heroic ending with Shepard surviving and getting many medals and a celebration and after that meeting the guys at the bar in Rio. But overall they're good enough endings and I hope all developers take note and focus much more on making decent endings, especially in RPGs.
True, true, but I still like the IT explanation much better than the colored endings,Joccaren said:
and really wish Bioware had just rolled with it instead.
It would only seem like SLIGHTLY more of an ass-pull than harbinger deciding to stop shooting JUST long enough for Shepard to very *slowly* and *dramatically* hoist her squadmates on to the Normandy before resuming on her epic desperate last-bid charge towards the citadel.
Apparently "retreat via starship" is a free action.
The catalyst will always be awful by virtue of existing.pilouuuu said:
Other than being a blatant deus ex machina, I listed some of my personal reasons why about 7 or 8 posts up. Past the post about the colored endings.
Is it bad that I laughed during that scene?Innegativeion said:
It was just so utterly rediculous.
"Joker, I need an extraction"
"The fightings hard up here commander" [Or W/E]
[Insert Shepard repeating that he needs a pickup here]
"I'm on my way"
literally 0.5 seconds later the Normandy has all but landed. Then Shepard slowly and dramatically lifts his squad onto the Normandy, tells them to stay onboard, then watches it dramatically lift up right in front of Harbinger - who, like all the Alliance grunts, must have been standing there in awe of how hilarious the scene was, as none of them took the opportunity to get to the beam, and Harbinger did a whole lot of f*** all whilst this was happening.
It was so surreal I couldn't help but laugh. I could not take that scene seriously if I tried.
I am pleasantly surprised with how satisfying I found these ending to be. The control ending is by far my favorite though. It just seems fitting that Shepard would get the final speech. It's not perfect, but it's a decent end to my favorite sci-fi series of all time.
Great article, quite poignant.Susan Arendt said:
That's exactly how I took everything while playing. It was the little things and the personal reactions I got through my choices that I got a kick out of. The endings before bothered me only slightly. I will get to do a replay when I'm at a place with a proper connection that can actually download large things quickly and conveniently.
But yeah, the little things. One of the best and most hilarious things I experienced was seeing Tali drunk at the Normandy bar after the Horizon mission.
"That's a straw Tali."
OK. Firstly in me1 it is just referred to as the entire Arcturus fleet which would be all fleets stationed at Arcturus which could be multiple fleets. However ignoring this we still have a minimum of 1/6th of the human armada attacking 1 reaper, yes they would have lost a few to the geth but watching the cinematic they pretty well tore through the geth who had been weakened by the Citadel defense fleet. You then see, taking casualties into account, at least 1/8th of the human fleet all firing on a stationary sovereign and doing pretty well Nothing. It's only when you disable sovereign that the fleets fire seems to have any effect whatsoever. So best case scenario a fleet that size might be a match for a reaper capitol ship, extrapolating from there the forces of the galaxy united are still completely screwed.LostGryphon said:
Moving on, there isn't really much proof of individual reapers power in me2 just a whole lot of talk about how they're virtually unstoppable.
In me3 we still get the picture that the reapers are way too tough, yes in the start of the battle you see, not a reapers being destroyed, but 1 reaper having a couple of legs blown off. Reading in the codex we also discover that when the reapers first attacked Palaven through a trick maneuver the turians managed to destroy a couple of reaper capitol ships, and lost a good chunk of their dreadnoughts in the process. Not a sustainable casualty rate.
Yes we learn that the reapers normally take the Citadel first to cut off transport was never shown as the only reason, just a brilliant way to get a foothold and to minimise reaper casualties. Also the thanix cannons were only able to be installed on destroyers, can't remember why. So yes the reapers would have taken a lot of casualties, but no the combined fleets still couldn't have come close to beating them conventionally.
However I do agree with you that the strength of reapers is inconsistent and that really annoys me. Particularly the destroyer on Rannoch has no right to stand up to that much firepower. Only thing I can assume with that is that most of the fleet was too busy fighting the geth (even though thats not what they said).
I still hate it, although I had a feeling I would, because BioWare said it would just expand on the original endings.
The last 15 minutes of the game serve as a complete disconnect from the context, tone and even genre of the preceding 100 hours. They had a random character show up in the last moments to spurn half-baked ideologies in an attempt by the developers to have higher-concept storytelling, despite it being unrelated to everything up until that point.
Although I like the little character stuff, this ending expands on a fundamentally flawed conclusion. To put it bluntly, they polished a turd. I don't accept it as the ending to Mass Effect 3.
The last 15 minutes of the game serve as a complete disconnect from the context, tone and even genre of the preceding 100 hours. They had a random character show up in the last moments to spurn half-baked ideologies in an attempt by the developers to have higher-concept storytelling, despite it being unrelated to everything up until that point.
Although I like the little character stuff, this ending expands on a fundamentally flawed conclusion. To put it bluntly, they polished a turd. I don't accept it as the ending to Mass Effect 3.
Which (IMO) would have been perfect; the Crucible storyline ultimately ruined the game.Roboto said:
Funny...
all this DLC did for me was spell out what I was perfectly capable of imagining before. When I first completed ME3, I was happy. My Shepard had doe what she had set out to do, destroyed the Reapers, no matter the cost.
Organic life could now continue to exist unmolested by the Reapers. With time and dedication proven throughout the series, the lifeforms of the Galaxy could rebuild.
My crew had mostly survived due to heroic rescues of Joker. And while they had to do an emergency landing, they survived and lived to eventually make it back to civilization on FTL engines.
And I knew Shepard was not gone...and she would see her friends again because of that.
I didn't need pretty pictures telling me that. I didn't need for BioWare to spell it out to me like apparently some people do.
The endings were fine. They left things to something called "imagination". Some plotholes aside, it was perfectly in line with the overall tone of Mass Effect.
A Space Opera does not always need to make sense. Anyway, I'm sure the frothing mouth brigade of would-be-much-better-writers is going to rant and rave some more regardless.
On the topic...the article was good and I am happy for the people who wanted exactly this, namely to make the endings clearer and less up to the player to imagine.
all this DLC did for me was spell out what I was perfectly capable of imagining before. When I first completed ME3, I was happy. My Shepard had doe what she had set out to do, destroyed the Reapers, no matter the cost.
Organic life could now continue to exist unmolested by the Reapers. With time and dedication proven throughout the series, the lifeforms of the Galaxy could rebuild.
My crew had mostly survived due to heroic rescues of Joker. And while they had to do an emergency landing, they survived and lived to eventually make it back to civilization on FTL engines.
And I knew Shepard was not gone...and she would see her friends again because of that.
I didn't need pretty pictures telling me that. I didn't need for BioWare to spell it out to me like apparently some people do.
The endings were fine. They left things to something called "imagination". Some plotholes aside, it was perfectly in line with the overall tone of Mass Effect.
A Space Opera does not always need to make sense. Anyway, I'm sure the frothing mouth brigade of would-be-much-better-writers is going to rant and rave some more regardless.
On the topic...the article was good and I am happy for the people who wanted exactly this, namely to make the endings clearer and less up to the player to imagine.
How do you actually activate it? After a few tries, I think I've managed to download it, but what next? I read that you have to load up some special save but I can't find anything.
Joccaren said:
My thought went "why isn't he shooting at the normandy" to, Why the hells isn't the Normandy using all the sweet guns i put into it on the reaper? But, yah, the EC wasn't horrible at least.
Simply play from any earlier save. Personally I played from cerberus base because I think thats what they originally said would be the limit of where changes happened. I don't recall seeing changes up until the final push toward the beam. I *think* Bioware also kind of gave everyone an autosave just before you enter the beam/just after you get hit and the vast majority of the EC is after that. I'm guessing it should just appear as an autosave if you go to load game. Although personally I liked the drama of the scene they added just before it that explains why your squad members are back on the Normandy.AnarchistFish said: