Ok, Bioware you're *somewhat* forgiven

[Merrick_HLC]

Unless I'm mistaken, the last 2 Mass effect had Pick A B or C endings, (Well A or B in Me2) without the anger or pain seen here. You could still play as a good guy for the full game then ignore all that and be evil at the last second.

Not really.
It's been ages since I played ME1, but the way I recall it while, yes the 'big" difference was if you saved the council or sacrificed them, there was still other differences, even just the textures/colors of things, if you had been playing Paragon.

With ME2, while the collector base is one difference, if you were playing paragon (and made the right choices during the collector base) you'd probably have your whole squad survive.

If you had ignored your squadmates loyalty or made the wrong choices, any number could die.
---

Now compare that to ME3 where the last choices only real noticeable difference is "What color beam shoots out"


Also note none of those games ENDED with just that choice.

ME1- You still talk to Udina/Anderson & chose who will be Humanity's councilor.

ME2- You still have that final stroll through the normandy and talk with TIM.

ME3- Nothing else happens to give you a sense of closure.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Unless I'm mistaken, the last 2 Mass effect had Pick A B or C endings, (Well A or B in Me2) without the anger or pain seen here. You could still play as a good guy for the full game then ignore all that and be evil at the last second.

True but we always new it was a trilogy, those choices weren't definative ends to the series..

Saving the council or not happened quite a while before you actually defeat Saren and Sovereign, so even if ME2 never got made due to poor sales or whatever, it would have still been a satisfying ending. And choosing a councilor happened after the credits as a short and not too intrusive sequal bait.

As for ME2, you've defeated the Collectors so that's the ending but if saving the collector base or not was the last thing we ever got to do in the Mass Effect universe you can bet people would have thought that was a shit ending because there's so much left unexplored simply because ME2 is the middle child.

 

[Setch Dreskar]

No one seems to have posted this in this thread but this is a very good explaination of why the endings are so bad and the fans are angry.

http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-hatred-5-reasons-the-fans-are-right/

Its a very well thought out read.

 

[Emiscary]

Does Bioware not realize that they fumbled the hail mary? Honest to god, it's a single player CHOICE DRIVEN story based game franchise. And at the single most critical moment in the narrative they opted to just kind of up and stop trying. Stopped trying to tie your choices into the gameplay, stopped fleshing out the story, stopped being original or creative or- anything but lazy really. And now they're claiming that was what they were aiming for. Which, if true, is WAY more depressing than any amount of self hating gamers or dream sequence conspiracy theories.

 

[Phlakes]

"it negates all your choices from the previous games"

What choices are you people talking about? Do you happen to mean the ones that come up throughout the entire game, because side stories can actually be concluded before the very end?

 

[GartarkMusik]

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Absolutely. It plays well and there are some incredibly great moments in the game. For a lot of people though, it just makes the ending that much more insulting. But yeah, the rest of the game is awesome, and I definitely recommend it. Bad ending be damned, this is still one of my favorite franchises ever.

 

[Matt King]

so your willing to forgive them for somthing that hasn't been done to you -__-

i still stand by the fact that up until the final scene it is the best game i've ever played

 

[Smiley Face]

5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

as in 'and then shepard woke up and realized it was all a dream' bad?

We wish it was only that bad.

Spoiler: This guy isn't kidding

I'd say Indoctrination Theory comes pretty close to 'It was all a bad dream', wouldn't you?

I'm not part of the 'It ruined the series' camp. I don't have a problem with it being a downer, and I realize that having it be contingent on your many, many choices is infeasible and would take away from a generally unified and powerful ending experience, and I can compartmentalize so I can dislike the ending but LOVE the rest of the game, it really is something else. But from a critical, technical standpoint, the ending was EXECUTED very, very poorly - so much so that the departure from the outstanding quality of the rest of the game gives you mental whiplash, and that's before you get into any plot holes or questions of tone. It's not an abomination, but it does suck.

I applaud whoever wrote this for putting in some actual thought into his/her work rather than applying the same cookie cutter 'Shepard saves the universe! hip hip hooray!' storyline from the ME1 and 2.
Congratulations Bioware, I hereby pardon you for the heinous crime of trying to sell me $10 day 1 dlc.

I can see how you'd think that, but that's not the case. While they get 2 points for taking a path we didn't necessarily expect, they lose far more for the other contrivances they pull, and far more for sucking at it.

That said, buy the game, so very worth it until the last 10 minutes - just be prepared.

Captcha: act of god. Apropos, in a way?

 

[Merrick_HLC]

"it negates all your choices from the previous games"

What choices are you people talking about? Do you happen to mean the ones that come up throughout the entire game, because side stories can actually be concluded before the very end?

SPOILERS GALORE

Spoiler

Did you cure the Genophage? Well considering the Krogans now are all pretty much stuck on Tuchunka it pretty much doesn't matter to the rest of the universe.

Did you make peace between the Geth & Quarians? Doesn't matter, the entire Quarian fleet came to help Earth, they will never see Rannoch again.

All the colonies and places you helped over the course of the series? Well now they have no supply chains and are all likely going to die.

Note these are just the ones I thought/of remembered in the seconds since reading your post. There are undoubtedly more

Funny thing, if the would've ended when

Spoiler

Anderson died, Shepard dies beside him while they're watching the crucible destroy the reapers and then maybe some scene showing what happened with your crew after Shepards death (for closure)

it would've been a great ending, sure lack of choice, but well written. If they just had cut the last ten minutes from the game, fired the guy who thought it would be a good idea, the ending would've been just amazing. Sure it's a downer, but were you really expecting anything else?

EXACTLY!
I thought that was the end...and I was HAPPY with it!
Then the rest happened and I was like "I'm never buying Bioware products day 1 again"

 

[Abedeus]

No. no no no sir. It's not the "artistic" type of ending. Where you feel like they were trying something new and innovative. Or challenging the status quo.

It's the total half-assed lazy ending. Shit you'd expect from a company that doesn't spend much on the writers budget.

You will feel no gratification from the ending. plot holes are plentiful (more than we've come to expect from Bioware) and the "choice" in the ending is just utter complete shit.

But... everyone knows that GrimDark McSadness endings are art! And you can't critique ar... ooooh, that's why they say it art....

 

[wooty]

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Until the last 10 minutes, it's the best game I've ever played.

Does that help your decision

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Yes, it is absolutely fantastic. Worth £38.99 of the £39.99 I paid for it. Even after completion I'm still playing the multiplayer with friends... but when they start asking me questions...

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

IMHO its fantastic to play, dlc or not, unfortunately the last 5-10 minutes are pretty pish and do tend to taint everything thats come before. Its the kind of ending I would think up for my scifi epic if I had a tony montana size mound of cocaine and someone said to me "Wrap this shit up beans"

It should easily eat up in excess of 30 hours, I completed it last night with 41h in total.

I found it an amazing emotional ride, up until the infamous ending fiasco. I actually teared up at some points during this game, which is rare.

The DLC (from ashes) isnt essential, its not bad, not great, nothing compared to lair of the shadow broker for ME2, which is the best DLC i've played in a long time.

Ive onlt just picked up ME2 and I am currently building up to ME3, but the one thing I want to know from this whole ridiculous saga is this:-

Is Mass Effect 3 good to play?

Thats all, to hell with the dlc, I wont use it. To hell with the "bad" ending, I'm very sure Ive seen worse over the years. To hell with the gay choices, I just wont select them.

Just, is the game fun to play and will it take up more than 30+ hours?

Absolutely. It plays well and there are some incredibly great moments in the game. For a lot of people though, it just makes the ending that much more insulting. But yeah, the rest of the game is awesome, and I definitely recommend it. Bad ending be damned, this is still one of my favorite franchises ever.

Sold and sold, thanks for clearing this up for me everyone. Its quite hard to get a clear answer without sifting through all the bile, "controversy" and hate threads, and theres a lot of them floating around.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm afraid you've got it wrong.

The "super mega happy ending" has become a rare thing in big budget games these days. Now it's all about the dark sacrificial plottwisting conspiracy endings.

exibit A - God of War 3
exhibit B - inFamous 2
exhibit C- Metal Gear Solid 4
exhibit D - Mass Effect 3

So you see, ME3's ending is more cliché then you think it is. Giving it a super mega happy ending would actually have been quite original in today's gaming environment.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

You've not played it, presumably, and are apparently unspoiled, so I don't want to be the guy who wrecks that for you.

You may want to know that A) is not an issue at all, and B) is only the tip of the iceberg.

Here's some general facts for you...

1. I liked the Sopranos ending.
2. I liked the Lost ending.
3. I generally enjoyed DA2 quite a lot.
4. I thought 98% of ME3 was surpassingly excellent.
5. I thought the ending was so terrible it comes close to retroactively destroying my enjoyment of the entire series.

funny thing, those 5 things i could highly agree on. and really when you factor in this game is the 3rd one in the series, and not the first one, that just adds to how absolutely mind fucking how shitty the ending is...(i'm not giving it the benefit of being called multiple endings, because thats how bad and similar they all fucking were.)

 

[matell]

mistake post, ignore

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

Well that's an understatement of the decade.

 

[barash]

It's such a fucking travesty that I'd rather replay DragonAge2 10 times in a row.

And I fucking hate DerpAge2.

 

[Asita]

Unless I'm mistaken, the last 2 Mass effect had Pick A B or C endings, (Well A or B in Me2) without the anger or pain seen here. You could still play as a good guy for the full game then ignore all that and be evil at the last second.

Mass Effect 2 also had a denoument and very distinct implications for and reactions to each option, all of which are lacking in ME3's ending.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I still haven't played ME3 because of that day-1-dlc farce, but judging from the vague descriptions I hear about the game's ending, I *might* be willing to forgive Bioware and actually pay $70 for this.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the ending is:
a) a downer
b) negates some of choices you made along the way

I might be in the minority on this, but I consider that a GOOD thing. Not every story needs to have a happy ending with the overpowered stalwart hero saving the universe for the evil supreme beings. Maybe the message is that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you just can't win. That's a perfectly acceptable ending in my opinion.

It helps build atmosphere and suspense if I can't laughably predict how a game/movie's plot will unfold. It makes commander Shepard into a character that I can actually sympathize with. I didn't even like him that much in the first two games because he reminds me of:

a) the popular jock that can get away with stealing my lunch money because he can throw a ball (renegade shepard obviously)
or
b) the virtuous straight A, handsome, nice jock (who can also throw a ball) that everyone points to and asks 'why can't you be more like him?' (paragon shep)

The story is much more interesting to me if the protagonist is struggling against an ACTUAL insurmountable force rather than strolling invincibly through the enemy base or *pretending* to be vulnerable and then pulling a BFG9000 out of his ass to slaughter the bad guy to avenge his family.

I applaud whoever wrote this for putting in some actual thought into his/her work rather than applying the same cookie cutter 'Shepard saves the universe! hip hip hooray!' storyline from the ME1 and 2.
Congratulations Bioware, I hereby pardon you for the heinous crime of trying to sell me $10 day 1 dlc.



Agree? Disagree? or am I just a cynical, overcompensating a-hole?

If a planet sized, talking, pink elephant called Andy and his transvestite pixie lover Alan had appeared and killed all the reapers with a duet of I would walk 500 miles by The Proclaimers, that would have made more sense than the three different endings, that all end the same, that we were given.

 

[cynicthnkr]

To clarify Ending is senseless. It won't have been that much of problem if it was sad or unwinable.
After playing for hours the triology (and reading the books) It leaves with the feeling What the **** just happened.

Mass effect 1 and 2 spoilers below.


Imagine playing mass effect 1 chasing the saren to the last and ending video shows collectors homeworld destroyed And normandy and shephard getting away.You would think where did that came from with a blank look.

Or the story.
There was a king and a queen both died in an attack. And the ending video would be their sons baking potatoes in their funeral fire.

PS: Don't play on a black and white monitor or you can get only one ending out of seven or so.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

This thread really makes me want to see that ending.
Can't be worse than Clive Barker's Jerhico.