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[tryrar]

Heh, just marathoned through and got to the ending(s). (Wish I remembered to save at that point to see all 3). Well, After the credits and everything, I had to take a walk, otherwise I might have broken my controller while screaming WTF. I'll let you guys discover why

[Empty]

Meh. I can guess without even finishing mass effect 1/2 and 3.

There will probably be a mass effect 4.
The series has been too profitable for them otherwise.
Why kill off a perfectly healthy cash cow?

[fenrif]

So what exactly is wrong about using a stockphoto for your content? That's why stockphoto's exist.

Because it is lazy and boring, and that Taliens look just like humans is silly, unimaginative, and well, also boring.

What do you expect? That a coder goes around photographingc pretty women? No, they outsource that stuff. I just don't see how buying a photograph of a woman because you need one for your game can be called lazy.

I expect the art department to design a character, not just slap in whatever photo of an attrative woman they can find. Especially since they've kinda made a point of not showing her face in the previous two games. Either don't show her face and keep the mystery, or actually put at least a modicum of effort into it.

[Domenique]

The ending was fine by me, ended the story well, I don't understand why so many people were unhappy. Maybe because there was no

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 happy ending, all of them were kinda sad, either with shepard dying, or the galaxy left in uncertainty. The same was with Deus Ex, except the target audience maybe was smarter and accepted that.

It reminded me of Deus Ex and I consider that good. Actually, ME reminds of DE in a lot of cases.

[Nistenf]

I was doing one of the first missions when the game crashed (and took my computer with it, had to restart it). Not the first time it does this. But the problem now is that it won't detect my save games (they are in the ME3 folder at My Docs). Any ideas?

[Heliman]

So I finally saw what's behind a quarian's mask.

Seriously though, why couldn't they just wear fucking clear masks?

[Darkmere]

Warning! This is so spoilerific it's not even funny. Seriously.
The Ending:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Note: I chose Synthesis/Paragon/full strength)
Was far too rushed. Stuffing themes of that magnitude into what amounts to the last 3 missions of the last entry in a trilogy is a disservice to the writers, really. I'd have much preferred more spacing and a bit of subtlety. As it was, I felt like there was about 4 hours or so of plot missing, and I got an outline of the universe condensed into 5 minutes. I can see people being pissed over completely dropping all the vested emotional interest in Harbinger. The antagonist of the entire second game gets mentioned once in 3. All those characters you grew attached to? May not get a mention.

Having it all be a story is cliche'd and horrendous. That bit added nothing. It's as bad as declaring the whole thing was "all just a dream." I've seen "distant history" done right, but this ain't it.

I can't say I hated the ending, but it certainly wasn't as satisfying to me as the others. It didn't mesh well with the established themes, especially since a huge part of the game is choosing your own path. No matter what you do, everyone's still completely secondary to the ..... whatever unknowable intelligence that is/isn't the Citadel.

Also, is there a difference in the endings/mission if you go in with less war readiness? I had... beyond maxed it quite some time before I finished.

Rest of the game was a blast. Just wish they'd handled their themes and pacing a bit better.

[Tilla]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm not even sure what I think of this. I imagine the 'Synthesis' ending was meant to be the true ending and that's just..weird. Guess there won't be that Mass Effect MMO, unless it's set before the Reaper invasion.

All said it was probably the most emotionally invested I've been in the outcome of a game in years - probably since the Metal Gear Solid games. Sure it may not be the best written thing but damn if I didn't tear up saying goodbye to my friends of the past 120+ hours of gameplay. I'm a girl, shut up :|

For those curious about singleplayer running time, it's about 41 hours on my count - having stopped to do everything I possibly could along the way.

Edit: Okay, watched some of the other endings. Fuck Bioware forever. I was completely willing to defend most anything in this game but seriously? Screw them.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But seriously, there's..not really a good ending. I mean, I guess with Synthesis the maximum possible amount of people live..stranded on whatever worlds forever. Is there really an ending where Shepard lives? The ending cutscene stuff was immensely cheap.

[Heliman]

Just hit the final ending too.

Spoiler'd for spoilers and rage:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

FFFFF- all those paragon points and I STILL fail a check at the final talk-off with the Illusive man. I REALLY pumped that, too: I was just shy of maxing it out.


My character is a full playthrough. I've done a marathon through all 3 games in the past few weeks.

Mass effect 1: Romance with Liara, Kept Ashley alive, Used massive paragon dick to stop a bloodraging Wrex from getting himself killed. Never failed a paragon check, and the council lived. Ended game with paragon more or less at maximum.

Mass effect 2: Got shadow Broker and made Liara the head of that. Got loyalty from all of my squad, Did damn near every side quest, got my entire crew back from reapers, and no one in my squad died from the suicide mission. Oh, also romanced Tali. Go Tali. At the end of ME2 my paragon bar was maxed and then some.

Mass effect 3: NO PLAYER, YOU DO NOT GET A BONUS IN YOUR PARAGON FROM ME2, YOU ARE BACK TO SQUARE ONE. That pissed me off a little. Anyways, I did full completion on this one. All systems plowed for resources 100%, every sidequest I could get my hands on were done, and the green bar for my military strength literally hit the end of it's container and kept going. None of that mattered. I still have the standard ending you guys have too.

The ending bit with the stargazer just made me want to punch my screen. It was HORRIBLE writing.

I HEARD that a datamine of the files actually revealed an ending where he lived. I. Am. Fucking. Getting. That. Ending. as soon as a method is posted I'll get to you on it. Personally I think it must have to do with the "Galactic readiness" thing, because if there was some other method TRUST ME, I would have found it by now.

[Domenique]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sometimes there's no really good ending and you don't get to know what happened to people that went along with you, that's emotionally complex and much more interesting than "building a house with the quarian chick" (a rough quote from youtube). Deus Ex ended in a similiar way, nobody felt unhappy, even though you didn't get to know much what happened.

[Heliman]

ENORMOUS SPOILERS

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, just for clarification, I found the datamined video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prohgapL54Q&feature=related Not much, but ALIVE, damnit.

EDIT:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It wouldn't even be that hard to find a scenario in which you could live, either. Hell, I've already thought one up.
Shep:"Hey, can you lower this platform down again?"
CycleKid: "Why?"
Shep: "I need a cadaver to throw into this fun-beam. Anderson looks good for the job."
CycleKid: "...What!?"
Shep: "Do not question my methods. I am Commander-Goddamn-Shepard."

[Darkmere]

More ending thoughts, after I've had time to process it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I did find the Synthesis ending starkly beautiful, in its own way. I'll see the others after other playthroughs. I didn't think that one destroyed the relays; it looked like they were just used to propagate the synthesis wave. Still agree with the Stargazer crap. I'd rather they'd taken that time to show the surviving squad-mates crawling green-eyed from rubble. That would have been far superior and taken less effort, more than likely. Ambiguous future kept, emotional investment not squandered.

Also, either the reaper on Rannoch or Tuchanka should have been Harbinger, and that scene should have been used for exposition, instead of a repeat "big bad red herring" speech we've been hearing for 2 games now. A bit about the reapers being shrines to biological life would have set the tone for the endings, given the player a bit of payoff for ME2, and still maintained the drama/awesome of those fights.

I don't feel betrayed or anything, like some people seem to. I just wish they'd done a better job developing themes throughout the game, instead of all those random missions where Cerberus is doing random naughty stuff and you shoot em all.

[umiman]

What's wrong with the ending? I thought it was pretty pleasant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If anything, I think any happy happy joy joy ending would be another example of the supreme arrogance of the human race. It'd be basically saying we, a civilization that hasn't even lasted 1/100th the length of the dinosaurs, can defeat a race of perfect, sentient machines that have existed since time immemorial. And not even we, a civilization. ONE GUY. ONE GUY!

That's the epitome of arrogance I would think. Too Hollywood for me.

I dislike bad endings, but this one wasn't bad. I think it was pleasant. An interesting set of outcomes that people would naturally knee-jerkingly hate because it was tossed on without warning or foreshadowing. If Bioware had gave some indication of the decision that had to be made, I think people wouldn't hate it that much. It was the same with Deus Ex.

Edit: Yeah, I have the same sentiment with Darkmere. If they had replaced those dumb pointless Ceberus missions with more plot devices to hint towards what the end goal is, then it would probably be better accepted.

[Domenique]

To put it simply, most people think that this game is about social interactions with the crew rather than Shepard's fight against the reapers, that's why the ending wasn't about companions, it was about the end of the fight, and the ending showed what the fight was really about, what was the reapers motivation, and that basically ended the storyline. The companion's life is left for speculation, only fairy tales and movies for children let the consumer know what happens afterwards, most mature storylines end with a question mark and that is fine by me. If Shepard was to die in the end without knowing whether the reapers were defeated or not, that would've been fine by me, because I am Shepard in this game and I should not know more than he does.

[Virtz]

only fairy tales and movies for children let the consumer know what happens afterwards, most mature storylines end with a question mark and that is fine by me.

...whaaat?

Bringing full closure ain't any more or less mature. But it leaves you at ease more so than leaving in obvious hooks for sequels, spin-offs or books, or just plain not caring to explain things. It was really awesome how in Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas they explained how your actions affected the world and your companions later and it made the ending really satisfying (even though the FO1 ending was a downer).

By the by, speaking of continuation (through spin-offs or otherwise), didn't some Bioware guy mention that you might wanna keep your ME3 save? Like they were already planning to bring in more ME stuff ahead of time?