Poll: A social/national stereotype experiment in regards to ME3 and its ending.

[Random berk]

I'm Irish, and I quite liked the ending -enxtended cut that is. Once the starchild was revealed as a rogue AI rather than... whatever the fuck it was supposed to be in the first place, the endings made a lot more sense. I think the war should never have been a total victory against the Reapers, though at the same time, in the original ending, it was more mutually assured destruction, which was even worse. The destruction of the relays basically just meant that all civilisation was wiped out by its own hand instead of that of the Reapers. No, victory at the cost of millions, even billions of lives, and the sacrifice of the galaxy's greatest hero, was the ending that Mass Effect needed.

My Shepard has reached her end, ambiguously existing in a state between life and death, the Lich of Uncertaninty if you will.

I like this reference. I like it a lot!

 

[Nooh]

I'm Swedish and I did not like the ending at all, to be honest, even with the Extended Cut which I felt was just a cheap way of trying to polish the garbage they threw at us.

Well, everyone has different tastes.

 

[M-E-D The Poet]

I'm irish borne and I liked the concept of the original ending, though poorly executed I found the concept interesting

 

[DioWallachia]

I am Argentinian and i think that even ALIENS from Lovecraft Lore would tell you that the ending just plain suck regardless of what dimention you came.

Bashing bad writing is the RIGHT of all sentient beings.

Also, why do people keep going with the "its a SAD ending, therefore, we from America hate it" its a BAD ending in the writting sence, that its all. It clashes with the tone and the genre that all the series represent.


And for the record, i LOVE fatalism and questions about free will being really an illucion or not, being a Legacy of Kain fan and all.

 

[BlindWorg]

I'm Irish, and I quite liked the ending -enxtended cut that is. Once the starchild was revealed as a rogue AI rather than... whatever the fuck it was supposed to be in the first place, the endings made a lot more sense. I think the war should never have been a total victory against the Reapers, though at the same time, in the original ending, it was more mutually assured destruction, which was even worse. The destruction of the relays basically just meant that all civilisation was wiped out by its own hand instead of that of the Reapers. No, victory at the cost of millions, even billions of lives, and the sacrifice of the galaxy's greatest hero, was the ending that Mass Effect needed.

My Shepard has reached her end, ambiguously existing in a state between life and death, the Lich of Uncertaninty if you will.

I like this reference. I like it a lot!

Glad you like my ripoff off ''DM of the rings''

I was mostly referring to the Destroy ending with her beneath a pile of rubble. Thats propably the only option i will ever choose. In the other ones she is positively dead as a door nail as she currently is/was.

 

[NickKuroshi0]

Have not watched extended cut yet...

American, I liked the ending, it all seemed like the logical thing that would happen. I mean really it was obvious, lack of resources and rushed development of the structure = something goes wrong, that something was the destruction of relays. Plus they could always rebuild the relays now that the genocidal machines are gone they can focus on rebuilding. I also liked it because it left open to alot of interpretation to what happens to the characters afterwards(except for Joker and ED of course). Also I am pretty sure that "unity in spite of differences" was the theme, if it was them we would not have to do all those missions to earn the other races favor, it seems to me more like "Anything we can do to survive without becoming hypocritical monsters" sorta thing.

 

[Jynthor]

I'm Dutch and hated it as much as people hate the Dutch.

 

[DugMachine]

I'm american and honestly don't really care. Playing through them again and I still don't get the attachment that some people felt to their shepard and crew and being SO pissed off over a shitty ending.

 

[VanTesla]

I'm Dutch and hated it as much as people hate the Dutch.

But I like the Dutch , but hate the ME3 endings for bad writing...

 

[DioWallachia]

I'm Dutch and hated it as much as people hate the Dutch.

What did the Dutch do?

 

[Starik20X6]

Australian and not an ME fan:



I think Yahtzee hit the nail on the head in this Extra Punctuation column [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/9511-Mass-Effect-3-Gets-An-Ending]. After reading it, as someone looking in from the outside, the original ending seems a very appropriate finale to the story.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I hated it because it made no logical sense. I don't believe in nationality because I think countries and national borders are a ridiculous concept designed by primitive scared power hungry people.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

I am french, and even though the extended endings aren't bad at all, i would have prefered an Indoctrination Theory ending...

 

[fluffybunny937]

American, didn't like the end. Because it was bad writting at the end. Extended Cut fixed many of the problems, like not having investigate options with the Catalyst, but not all. The big problem I had was shift in conflict. From it being us versus the reapers to the conflicts that arise from the differences in synthetic and organic life.

 

[zehydra]

American and ambivalent. Why? Because I didn't play any of the Mass effect games.

 

[GameMaNiAC]

I'm Serbian, and I am ambivalent. It's quite okay, and fixes the issues with closure. But on the other hand, 'okay' is not good enough for a series such as Mass Effect.

captcha: speeding bullet

Huh.

 

[gritch]

I'm an American and I am ambivalent. I'm perfectly fine with a fatalistic ending. A big Hollywood ending is nice at times but I can appreciate (and enjoy) a tragic ending. ME3's ending just left a few too many plotholes for me and didn't give really enough closure. It felt rushed to me.

I'm not terribly sure if your WW2 premise is very accurate here however interesting it is. For many of the people who play these games WW2 is a distant war that was fought by their great grandparents. Its impact on the culture (at least so it seems here in the US) has greatly diminished as the years have gone by. That's not to say it doesn't still have influence on today's culture, but I don't believe it has a large enough impact at this point to affect something like ME3's ending.

 

[Joccaren]

Australian, and I hated the ending.

Not because it was fatalist, but because it did make the journey invalid. I'm not playing this to watch a movie or something, I was under the impression my choices might matter. When they end up doing f*** all - yeah, I'm going to be disappointed.
The EC somewhat fixes this, adding a few slides of pictures that last about 2 to 3 seconds each, but ATM there really is no point to replay the series. I've seen the ending. I know the whole story. The gameplay really isn't that great. Why should I replay it?
Had War assets actually done something, and affected whether you won or lost against the Reapers, preferably in a conventional victory because I facepalm every time I see a Deus Ex Machina [Taken in terms of the whole story: ME1, 2 and 3] or Magic Bullet [Taken in terms of purely ME3] - they just cheapen the fight and are like hacking BF3, CoD or Halo online. Yeah, you win, but there's no satisfaction in it. You didn't win because you tried, you won because you cheated.

Not to mention reject was a slap in the face. Least work went into that ending. Shortest speech, then Stargazer scene with a different voice offer. Come on, at least show our final blaze of glory, show our war assets doing something.
Of course, they wouldn't do that as that would make it an interesting ending, so they'll just make synthesis more of a sunshine and bunnies ending. Seriously, that's lame.

 

[sabercrusader]

I'm American, and with the Extended Cut out, it was pretty decent. I won't say I love it, but I actually do like the Synthesis ending (Haven't seen Control yet), and the Destroy ending was okay.

 

[Smeggs]

I don't understand what your country of origin has to do with the hate for the awful endings. It should be no surprise American is the second highest right after Other. Considering the majority of the Escapist community speaks English it was either going to be Western European, Australia or America the most likely candidates for votes. And considering that Mass Effect is a western game it shouldn't be too surprising that Americans are the highest solid group.