Chunko said:
RJ 17 said:
BloatedGuppy said:
The lack of a Marauder Shields option kills this poll.
I can just picture Marauder Shields sitting with Saren and Human Reaper in Villain Hell...
Marauder Shields: You know what's REALLY funny? I actually had a higher chance of killing Shepard than either of you losers...
*Saren and Human Reaper grumble incoherently...and I think one of them muttered something antisemitic >.>*
This has to be my favorite post lol.
NinjaDeathSlap said:
Let's see here...
Synthesis: You're irreversibly changing all life in the Galaxy at its most base level against their will, and getting rid of the diversity that has been lauded previously as its greatest strength.
Control: You are enslaving a sentient race against their will (even if they are your enemy), and making the unilateral decision to bestow upon yourself the kind of power no one being should ever possess.
Destroy: You are sacrificing all synthetic/partly synthetic life (that's a lot of people) to destroy the Reapers, and gambling the future of the entire Galaxy on your belief that future generation won't make the same mistakes you did.
Destroy (with Shepard surviving): Same as above, only you also get to wake up grievously injured and completely alone.
this is without even considering the problems all the endings share (i.e. how they work not being explained, and what their consequences will be not being explained properly or even shown etc.)
Well I'll give credit where it's due, the ending choices were at least well balanced. I just wish it had been a difficult moral dilemma for all the right reasons, rather than all the options being equally terrible.
I honestly liked how they were all terrible, it was a change of pace from moral choice to a regular choice (lesser of two evils).
I don't mind all the options being morally complex and involving sacrifice. That's fine and to be expected considering the stakes. However, when it gets to the point where I can find absolutely no reason to argue in favor of any of the options, that's when we've crossed into being dark for the sake of being dark; and if there's anything I really hate about modern entertainment/art/culture/whatever, it's being dark just for the sake of it.
Dark endings work when they actually fit and are done well. In the ending to Red Dead Redemption, you are betrayed, you get brutally put down like a dog, and saddest of all, your 'sacrifice' ultimately achieves nothing. That's about as dark as you can make an ending, but the reason why it worked and is held up as one of the best endings of all time is that it is totally appropriate. The ending to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, while having the same problems of the ending choice coming out of nowhere and having little payoff, still works because the moral conundrums associated with the final choice fit with the themes of the story, and the player has had the whole of the game previously to figure out where they stand on the issue.
In Mass Effect 3, there's no rhyme or reason behind the choices. The consequences don't matter because you don't have enough info or time to make the decision properly, and you don't get to see the consequences of your actions. The whole thing just makes you think 'this is pointless'; and when you're saving trillions of beings from annihilation, no matter what method you choose to do it by, the last thing you should be thinking is 'this is pointless'.