Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: Seriphyn on 27 Jun 2012, 06:50
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Just finished all four(!) endings. Excluding the new ending, the time from waking up at the beam to the credits is around 30 minutes. Anyway, some thoughts...
- The "Destroy" ending I didn't find all that great. Very Disney, and "We will rebuild". It was late last night, but I don't remember Shepard's name being put on the Normandy's memorial wall...oddly, the "breath" scene is retained. Not sure what that's about. Secondly, I'm not sure if the additional two variations on the Destroy ending (devastated Earth, extermination) are retained, and dependent on EMS scores.
- The "Control" ending was awesome. Was particularly moved by it. Not sure if the "devastated Earth" variation with lower EMS score is retained in this one either.
- "Synthesis" comes second for me, also awesome and very close behind Control. Destroy is a distant third.
- The "Reject" ending I found amusing at first. It's basically a giant "Fuck you and your self-entitlement complexes" from Bioware to gamers. I'm not sure whether to like that, or to find it somewhat offensive (I wasn't apart of the backlash). Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing it. Funny how all life in the galaxy is doomed because of Shepard's pride, right when he could have saved it. Definitely a metaphor for the backlash.
New dialogue with the Catalyst/Godchild is welcome, especially the ability for Shepard to go "hey wait a sec, r u tryin to cheet me agen" (or w/e). There's a giant clarification with your party members before Harbinger whacks you; I appreciated this, and had Liara (my romance) in my part, so had a nice farewell scene there.
I'm very satisfied, and honestly I wonder why they didn't do all of this before. Well done to Bioware for retaining their artistic integrity while actually telling us what the three choices mean. Their implications for the future of the galaxy are very distinct from one another.
Alas, people are still going to complain. I bloody hated the backlash; up until the extended cut was released, EVERY SINGLE MASS EFFECT VIDEO IN THE UNIVERSE had top-rated comments about the fucking ME3 ending. Christ, that's enough before I rant xD
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Welp, I personally find myself in agreement with Spoony and a lot of others. There is no way to not play as a concussed retarded marmot during the end and piling more feces on the giant turd that was the original endings does nothing but drag it out. The Starchild is still the most ridiculously stupid concept in gaming history (yo dawg i herd u don't like being killed by synthetics so i made synthetics to kill you with synthetics every 50k years so you don't get to be killed by synthetics etc...) and there's no way to go on from there that makes any kind of sense.
Knowing that the original script actually made sense and had actual reasons for the Reapers to harvest races just makes Bioware's insistence that "this is the only ending we can make." basically turns them into a collective gathering of fuckpumps with no more value to gaming.
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There is no way to not play as a concussed retarded marmot during the end and piling more feces on the giant turd that was the original endings does nothing but drag it out.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a concussed retarded marmot.
(yo dawg i herd u don't like being killed by synthetics so i made synthetics to kill you with synthetics every 50k years so you don't get to be killed by synthetics etc...)
No. The idea was that non-Reaper synthetics would kill ALL organic life (advanced or not), whereas Reapers would spare pre-civilized organic life so that organic life is always preserved. The whole point of the Catalyst giving Shepard the decision was "well, seems the logic isn't infallible"
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There is no way to not play as a concussed retarded marmot during the end and piling more feces on the giant turd that was the original endings does nothing but drag it out.
I'm pretty sure I'm not a concussed retarded marmot.
Shepard is and there is nothing you can do to stop him/her from acting like there's been some seriously percussive lobotomy going on.
(yo dawg i herd u don't like being killed by synthetics so i made synthetics to kill you with synthetics every 50k years so you don't get to be killed by synthetics etc...)
No. The idea was that non-Reaper synthetics would kill ALL organic life (advanced or not), whereas Reapers would spare pre-civilized organic life so that organic life is always preserved. The whole point of the Catalyst giving Shepard the decision was "well, seems the logic isn't infallible"
"isn't infallible"? It's non-existent. Damn near infinitely older, greater, bigger, stronger etc ad nauseum creatures (and their pet/god starchild) has not come up with an alternative? Yeah, no. That's so mindbogglingly retarded that it borders on anencephaly.
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Meh, no artistic integrity there at all. They ****ied out before the game was launched. Knew it would happen. The only problem was, the players called them on it. This was their way of fixing their own laziness without actually admitting they did anything wrong. Not the first time, but it's the last time I trust them to put out a quality product and get **** in return.
On to the topic though!
After reading the dialog, considering all the options, I remembered that Liara had that little time capsule thingy. I smiled, said "Got you, you stupid fuck" and I shot the Starchild. Never looking back. ME3 is dead to me. Not bitter, just satisfied with that ending.
I could explain exactly why, but I'd rather just paraphrase my favorite line, one that made me nearly cry:
"They fought a war so we wouldn't have to."
As a father, that spoke to me. I'd give my life for my children. There's also that whole messianic thing, making a sacrifice for the greater good, etc. Since Liara was my characters LI, I saw that as the most badass bittersweet love story ever.
:cry:
I'm not crying goddamnit, I've got something in my eye! :P
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Going to try the new endings today. I hope they retained the artistic integrity they had in this one (for once, at the opposite of cheesy ME1 and ME2 endings...), and reworked all the rest that was stupid/bad/stretched. One can dream... My feedback in a few hours.
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Going to try the new endings today. I hope they retained the artistic integrity they had in this one (for once, at the opposite of cheesy ME1 and ME2 endings...), and reworked all the rest that was stupid/bad/stretched. One can dream... My feedback in a few hours.
Bratalyst is still there so..nope ;)
Joking aside, did not do much for me. It is better but considering how bad it was to start with that was not hard to achieve. If they had had this from the start it would have been just a mediocre ending instead of a crap one.
I had alot of other issues about the game and i of course knew those would not be changed.
At least now we can bury this and start the prehype for....DRAgon Age 3!. It will be awesome!!, Innovative!!!, And this time we listened to the fans, no really, we promise!!!! Oh, and there will be MP, buy your sword and armor packs naow!!!!!!
:lol:
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I really liked Shepard's line if he refuses, and I can't get over the Child/Harbinger's response...SO BE IT. Tis wonderful.
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At least now we can bury this and start the prehype for....DRAgon Age 3!
Ah yes, "optimism"... :D
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Bit busy at work, so going to do a semi-quick bullet-point.
What I liked:
- Better explanation of what the fuck each of the original three options were, and their ramifications.
- Explanation of what the hell happened with Joker and the ship - the extra scene with the LI there was touching, and it meant a lot to see that.
- Addition of the "fuck you" ending option, and the use of Liara's beacons. (The modified Stargazer scene was... interesting.)
- Better explanation of the aftermath in each of the endings, and what happened afterward.
What I didn't like:
- Much of the additional "ending" cinematics weren't really cinematics at all, just still images. That part was a little lame, and a bit of a cop-out. I would've been happy with either pre-rendered (like the space combat scenes) or in-engine (dialogue scenes), but still images with a slow camera pan is just dumb.
- There doesn't seem to be any extra material prior to the final run on the conduit in London. Perhaps I missed it, but it's a little misleading to be told "start back before the Cerberus base" when I'd had a savegame in London waiting to go.
- The "fuck you" ending did seem a bit like a "screw you guys" toss from Bioware and/or EA, and felt a little off to me. But at least it was added.
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After having seen them all :
Pros :
- They explain better what was the intended message and conclusions brought by each of the choices, and also make the whole bit about organics vs synthetics less dumb and stretched. Now it makes a little more sense (even if it is still a little stretched).
- They ultimately fixed a lot of issues with the script and the story and I found it welcome.
- They kept the artistic integrity that was already here and improved it. I personally find the endings touching, or at least they bear the emotions intended (unlike in ME1 and 2).
- Special mention to both the control and synergy endings that are really meaningful. The destroy one is... well, standard, classic, almost tripe in comparison.
- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
- On the raison d'être of the reapers, it is a WHOLE LOT better now. I find it really interesting seen that way. Spoiler : they seem to be the result of ancient people that noticed that they had to do something to protect the galaxy from the inevitable wars between organics and synthetics, creators and their creations. LI explains quite well with an innocent tone how him, the future reapers, found an unique solution that implied to kill even their creators, and how a noble intention slowly became something grim and gloomy. And the irony...
Cons :
- They did not really fix what was the main issue with the end, meaning the gameplay issues. They try to do like Deus Ex 3 while it is actually a whole different game. Here you have to make choices on the story itself and the universe changes (to a certain point) according to what makes Bioware games main selling point : the ability for the player to make "significant" choices. In DE3, a very linear game focused on a specific story where the game chooses to give to the player the choice between different political and oriented endings full of shades of grey, it works well. In ME3, they still barely show what are the results of all the choices the player has made since the first one, and in addition LI almost tells the player that the synergy solution is the best, so it actually tries to influence the player in what is apparently (and probably, even if debatable), the best choice. After all if I remember correctly, you do not have access to all the endings if your score is too low ? Whatever.
- It is still impossible to save before choosing the ending you want, which is totally retarded. The game still makes a quicksave, but it is eventually crushed by a new quicksave when you get back into the normandy. Wtf ? So yes, you basically have to redo all the citadel level to see all the endings. I was not courageous enough to do so, so I had to watch the 3 remaining endings on youtube, like in the first version of the game... Fail.
- A lot of plot holes are still not covered.
Overall, I am more or less happy with the new end since it is now a decent one that is understandable and works. Of course it is not the indoctrination theory, but the Bioware version works too (the plotholes put aside). On a personnal level, I enjoyed them fully, instead of being frustrated to see a very good screenplay before while barely understanding anything and being confused about everything. So, in the end, it is an improvement, even if there are still a lot of things (gameplay especially) unadressed.
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it is possible to save a game during the end sequence, with a bit of trickery.
play ME3 in windowed mode, so you can tab out and stuff.
then, after a point where it has autosaved, you can go into Documents\Bioware\Mass Effect 3\Save , find the profile you're using, and copy the Autosave.pcsav file, rename it to an appropriate save game name, like Save_0089.pcsav
then you can reload at that point later, allowing you to choose endings a bit more easily.
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Ah, they didn't remove the EMS variations, where if your score is low enough, you can only pick destroy or control depending on whether or not you saved the Collector base. If so, destroy wipes out Earth and destroys the relays, and there is a very depressing speech by Hackett. Control devastates London, and there's a shot of soldiers standing in its ruins rather than overlooking it being intact.
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
If that were the case, you'd think this would've been mentioned in the relevant epilogue(s).
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
Huh ? I completed absolutely everything and had over 7000 of EMS points (the gauge was already full before I completed Rannoch). Shepard HAS to die in all ends, since the citadel blows up. And then I get the scene in the Normandy where they mourn him.
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
Huh ? I completed absolutely everything and had over 7000 of EMS points (the gauge was already full before I completed Rannoch). Shepard HAS to die in all ends, since the citadel blows up. And then I get the scene in the Normandy where they mourn him.
Don't worry about it. It's just yet another of a fuckton of bad plotholes. In one of the endings Shepard lives if you have a high enough EMS (which you can't get unless you play Multiplayer, because your EMS is cut down to 50% if you don't.). It still doesn't fit neither the second ending nor these latest ones, but it's there nonetheless. (Yes, second ending. The original ones actually made sense, but since they were leaked Bioware decided to go with retardation.)
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
Huh ? I completed absolutely everything and had over 7000 of EMS points (the gauge was already full before I completed Rannoch). Shepard HAS to die in all ends, since the citadel blows up. And then I get the scene in the Normandy where they mourn him.
Don't worry about it. It's just yet another of a fuckton of bad plotholes. In one of the endings Shepard lives if you have a high enough EMS (which you can't get unless you play Multiplayer, because your EMS is cut down to 50% if you don't.). It still doesn't fit neither the second ending nor these latest ones, but it's there nonetheless. (Yes, second ending. The original ones actually made sense, but since they were leaked Bioware decided to go with retardation.)
supposedly the EMS required for the different endings was lowered, and it is possible to see all endings without doing multiplayer to get readiness above 50%
also, original endings?
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The leaked ones. There was a whole bit about Dark Energy and how the Reapers were actually protecting the galaxy (and the organics) from a greater threat and so on. Had great potential for awesome, moral and ethical choices and so on and so forth. Lovely stuff, foreshadowed in ME2 with Haestrom's sun going kablooey, amongst other things. The current endings were apparently hashed together in a hurry because Bioware didn't want to go through with the leaked endings. That they now keep claiming these endings are the only ones they could imagine for the ME saga is bloody infuriating given that we've already seen what the endings were supposed to be.
Pillocks.
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"As Mass Effect 3 is the end of the planned trilogy, the developers are not constrained by the necessity of allowing the story to diverge, yet also continue into the next chapter. This will result in a story that diverges into wildly different conclusions based on the player's actions in the first two chapters."
- Casey Hudson
"We wouldn't do it any other way. How could you go through all three campaigns playing as your Shepard and then be forced into a bespoke ending that everyone gets?"
- Mike Gamble
The endings were better, but they were still shit. They were just... less shit, I guess.
The thing is, the extended endings really don't change anything - they give a tiny bit more closure and an explanation of what happens afterwards, but it's essentially just more of the same. The endings don't differ based on what your Shepard has done across the whole of the three games. You've still got a shoehorned and utterly senseless explanation for why the Reapers exist and what must be done about them - including some things that, for many Shepards, will directly and absolutely contradict things that they've seen and done across the course of their career.
If EA and Bioware had wanted to genuinely fix the endings, instead of appease gamers in the face of massive public outcry and their failing business strategies, they would have had to scrap the last two hours of the game and start from scratch. You may have noticed how War Assets are just a bar that fills up, instead of things of actual tangible value. If they wanted to make the final battle and the ending feel meaningful, the battle and the ending itself would have been like the Suicide Mission from Mass Effect 2 times a hundred - each choice you made throughout the course of all three games would have consequences in the final battle. Battallions of Krogan mowing through waves of Husks! Shepard's crew being able to skip a hard miniboss because a Turian sniper team destroys it for him! Rachni shock-troops tossing Marauders about with their weird tentacle things! Asari biotic commandos utterly wrecking shit! The Destiny Ascension bailing out a human fleet for a change and one-shotting a Reaper with its main gun! Shepard's treatment of characters throughout the course of the series determining how willing they are to stand by him when he needs them the most. Every choice he makes throughout all three games having some impact on things throughout the course of ME3 and the final battle.
The endings themselves should have been completely and wildly divergent. They're still pretty much all the same (society struggles, but rebuilds), except for the new one in which everybody dies - which is hardly optimal.
It was nice that they actually bothered to listen, but the problem's too deep to be fixed by a few extra cutscenes. Bioware is dead, and EA killed it.
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- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
Shepard did not die in my ending. I suspect your Effective Military Strength was too low.
Huh ? I completed absolutely everything and had over 7000 of EMS points (the gauge was already full before I completed Rannoch). Shepard HAS to die in all ends, since the citadel blows up. And then I get the scene in the Normandy where they mourn him.
You had 7,000 Effective Military Strength or 7,000 Military Strength? If you don't do multiplayer, you take a 50% hit to EMS, which would mean that with 7,000 points, you'd have 3,500 EMS.
At the end of the game, right before the credits, you get a scene with Shepard lying in the rubble and he/she suddenly starts breathing. There's no explanation for how they survived.
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I don't remember, I just had the gauge completely full at the end, even if I was, as you said, at 50% since I did not try the multiplayer mode. And I do not know if what is shown on the galactic map in the command room is the effective MS or just the base MS.
At the end of the game, if I am correct, that breathing scene only happens if you choose destroy. I had it when I tried destroy, but not with the other endings. It is weird that they kept this scene btw. It does not make a lot of sense.
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It does not make a lot of sense.
Correction: It makes even less sense with the new ending than it did before. You'd think they'd have -found- Shepard and mentioned it if s/he were alive. :|
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I just had the gauge completely full at the end...
The gauge. It shows nothing!
....I did not try the multiplayer mode.
You might do so. I thought it was fun.
But yes, you can't get that ending clip if you don't play MP as your Effective Military Strength will never be high enough.
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And yet I got the breathing scene with the destroy ending.
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They dropped the requirements for the "best" destroy ending I believe.
Before there were 6 endings. Three for destroy, two for control, one for synthesis. I believe they cut out one destroy ending.
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Huh ? I completed absolutely everything and had over 7000 of EMS points (the gauge was already full before I completed Rannoch). Shepard HAS to die in all ends, since the citadel blows up. And then I get the scene in the Normandy where they mourn him.
- Shepard dies. Even in the 3 happy endings, it adds a bittersweet taste to the story and it is very welcome.
And yet I got the breathing scene with the destroy ending.
...okay.
It's possible they lowered the EMS requirement when they released the EC because it was a common complaint previous to the DLC coming out. They originally said that you could get a perfect ending without play MP, and then ME3 came out, and that turned out to be incorrect. If they fixed the problem, I'd say that's a good thing.
They dropped the requirements for the "best" destroy ending I believe.
Makes sense. I thought it was rather annoying they tied it into MP that way.
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I don't know, even when I tried the destroy ending before the extended cut on my second playthrough (after watching the indoctrination theory and all that), I still got the breathing scene. I am pretty sure the need to play multi to get the best ending is a myth. Unless you can get the breathing scene with the other endings as well, but I havent heard of that yet.