Mass Effect 3 Ending Deconstruction

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Mar 21, 2012

Filed under: Game Reviews 821 comments

It should be obvious, but this post is going to be complete and total spoilers for Mass Effect 3. Also, most of what I say here is just a re-hash of points that have been made elsewhere. The problems with the ending are very obvious, and I don’t think it takes a keen analysis or a deep understanding of the Mass Effect lore to uncover these issues.

The truth is, my nitpicking skills are wasted on this, and I don’t have a lot to add to the conversation. I’m writing this mostly to get it off my chest.

And to deflect the likely objections: Yes, the rest of the game is often quite good, and there were many “fanservice” moments where players got things they had been hoping / waiting for since the original game. But right now we’re talking about the ending to Mass Effect 3, which I rank as the worst ending I’ve ever personally played. Worse than KOTOR 2. Worse than Neverwinter Nights 2. It fails thematically, it fails logically, it fails at basic coherence, and it fails to be consistent with what has come before.

I know it’s childish and melodramatic when fans say, “This new thing has RUINED this series FOREVER!” I don’t want to go that far, but I will say it’s done a lot of damage. I just finished a re-play of Mass Effect 1, and it’s shocking just how many things seem stupid, contrived, inconsistent, or pointless now that I know how they turn out.

And no, I’m not a believer in the “indoctrination theory“. I think that would be better than the ending we got, but I don’t think it it was ever intended by the writers. This theory involves an incredible level of subtle symbolism, which goes against just how ham-fisted the rest of the story is. To wit: If these writers thought Shepard was indoctrinated in the last stage of the game, we would know it.

Cerberus

me3_leng.jpg

In the first game, Cerberus was a bunch of idiot mooks that you mowed down for XP. In the second game they were expanded to be this vast organization with research stations, ships, advanced technology, and the ability to build a ship more advanced than the ship that the Humans and Turians could build together. Despite this, they are still amazingly incompetent, with 99% of their victims being human and 100% of their experiments turning on them and destroying their stuff.

In the third game, Cerberus is even more ludicrously powerful. They now have an army, fleets, and military bases that dwarf the size of the human colonies we’ve seen. They’re everywhere, they know everyone’s plans, and have all the best technology.

The Reapers are attacking. Supply lines are cut. The dead and wounded are piling up. Populations are dwindling. And yet Cerberus can conscript, arm, feed, train, equip, and field this endless army, which is powerful enough to fight a war on multiple fronts and even mount an open invasion of the Citadel itself. You spend more time fighting them than you spend fighting the supposed enemy of the series.

This is to say nothing of Leng, the absurd plot-armored emo supervillain, who seems to be made of contrivances and looks like he just escaped from a school for Final Fantasy villains. (When his shields get low, he crouches in the open to become invulnerable to all damage while mooks spawn and his shields recharge. He has no business being in in a cover-based shooter that’s trying this hard to be taken seriously.)

All of this is a drawn-out way of saying that by the end of the game I was just sick to death of Cerberus, and so it was agonizing to have yet another nonsense conversation with the Illusive man right on the threshold of the final encounter. I was so uninterested in him and his goals, and the guy seems to be a sort of plot-hole singularity where the gameworld bends around him until it stops making sense. I was hoping he wouldn’t show up in this game. Instead he was a major focus of it. Not since Fable 2 has there been an annoying second-fiddle antagonist that so gleefully overshadowed the main villain.

The Reapers

me3_reapers.jpg

The explanation for the Reapers is that they destroy all life, every 50,000 years, in order to fix the problem of synthetics rising up and killing their organic masters. This is akin to, “You burned dinner, so I have incinerated the city to save you from the dangers of a kitchen fire.” It’s ludicrous nonsense. It’s not even a solution to the stated problem. It’s just a bigger and grander version of the original problem, running in parallel.

I know we were all worried that the Reapers were going to be some horrible cliche. “Two million years ago, our creators gave us a simple order about being the ‘most powerful’, and our robotic monomania has driven us to this cyclical killing spree to fulfill it.” Yes, that’s a little tired. I admit that wouldn’t have been terribly stimulating. But I’ll take “tired cliche” over “comical blatherskite” any day.

The most offensive thing about this is that you’ve likely got Geth fighting at your side, along with EDI. You have two different synthetics as allies. It’s a major theme of the Quarian storyline that the Geth repeatedly spared their creators, despite having both the means and the justification for eliminating them. The central motivation of the villain is directly undercut by the story itself, and Shepard can’t even bring this up in conversation. The writers couldn’t even be arsed to hand-wave it.

Mass Relays

me3_relay_network.jpg

No matter what choice you make using the Ending-o-tron 3000tm, it shows the mass relays exploding. In Mass Effect 2 (in the DLC) it was a major plot point that an exploding relay would destroy the entire system. The game gives us no indication that this case is any different. So what happened? Did Shepard just wipe out every single inhabited star system? Did Shepard end up killing more people than the Reapers? We can’t know for sure, but that’s only because the game can’t be bothered to answer trivial questions like, “Did I just blow up the galaxy?”

The Galaxy

me3_starchild.jpg

Here is what Casey Hudson had to say about the ending to the Mass Effect series:

For us and for you, Mass Effect 3 had to live up to a lot of expectations, not only for a great gaming experience, but for a resolution to the countless storylines and decisions you've made as a player since the journey began in 2007. So we designed Mass Effect 3 to be a series of endings to key plots and storylines, each culminating in scenes that show you the consequences of your actions. You then carry the knowledge of these consequences with you as you complete the final moments of your journey.

…and then all decisions are instantly negated or rendered moot. Did you enjoy working hard to bring peace between the Salarians and the Krogan? Nice going. Too bad they’ll never see each other again now that the relay network is destroyed. Did you side with the Geth or the Quarians? Doesn’t matter, because the migrant fleet is never moving again. Those colonies you fought to save in Mass Effect 2? Those idiots are probably going to starve.

He continues:

We always intended that the scale of the conflict and the underlying theme of sacrifice would lead to a bittersweet endingâ€"to do otherwise would betray the agonizing decisions Shepard had to make along the way.

(Emphasis mine.)

I don’t know that bittersweet is the only way to go, but I’ll admit it’s what I was hoping for. But what we have here is not a “bittersweet” ending. This is a nihilistic tragedy where everyone dies for no reason.

For something to be “bitterweet”, it must have some sweetness in it. There is nothing sweet here. Nobody hugs. There is no hope, no future, no joy, no understanding. The isolated people of the galaxy starve or explode. Whatever happens to them, they don’t even get to find out what it was all for or how it turned out. Shepard takes all the secrets to the grave, and the galaxy would have been better off if Shepard had just jumped off that cliff the moment they touched down on Eden Prime in Mass Effect 1.

The Crucible

me3_crucible.jpg

The star child tells us that the Crucible has been in development for many cycles. Each race adds pieces onto it, finally perfecting the design this time around.

How? How are the races collaborating? The whole point of the series is that the Reapers surprise attack, kill everyone, and then leave no traces of their work. Does every single race just happen to never find any hint of the Reapers until after the Reapers attack? And then once the attack is begun they find ruins, or old computers, or whatever, and try to build their own crucible, even though nobody knows how to use it or what it’s for? And then they bury their modified plans in such a way that the next cycle will only find them once it’s too late?

Imagine that the first race, facing the Reaper threat and having no idea how to defeat them, sit down and design a trigger guard. And that’s it. Then they bury the plans for the trigger guard and they die. 50,000 years later, the next race is getting pulverized. Before they die, they find the plans for the trigger guard. They have no idea what it’s for or what it does, but they design a handle to go with it, add it to the plans, and re-bury them.

And so it goes. 50,000 years. A safety mechanism. A rifled barrel. A magazine. A rear sight. The trigger. A front sight. A muzzle. An ejection port. Nobody knows what any of this does.

Then Shepard & Co comes along. They follow the plans, which builds a Glock 17 pistol. Admiral Hacket points to the chamber. Something goes in there, but we don’t know what it is or what it does.

Then you meet the Star Child, who just happens to be a 9mm bullet, which miraculously is a perfect fit for this pistol, even though the people who built it have no idea what a bullet is or what it does.

Then the Star Child explains that the next step is to put the bullet in the chamber, aim the weapon at your foot, and pull the trigger. That’s how you “win”.

Actually, I think my explanation makes the setup sound cooler than it really is. A situation where you’re tricked into building the weapon of your own downfall would have been a great twist. This isn’t that. This is just writers who didn’t remember what they wrote yesterday and can’t plan for tomorrow.

Case in point: The crucible is the ultimate weapon, derived from Prothean ruins, yet it was never mentioned or hinted at in any of the previous games. None of the beacons talked about it. Vigil didn’t bring it up, and I’m willing to bet the Prothean squadmate (a DLC character) doesn’t mention it either. This is because it wasn’t planned at the outset. It’s a late-story asspull done by writers who never had a plan.

Did the Protheans build a crucible of their own? Did they try to use it? If so, what happened? I suspect I have just given this more thought than the writers did.

The Normandy

me3_normandy.jpg

Shepard has just used the Ending-o-tron 3000tm, and now suddenly Joker is flying somewhere? Where is he going? The Normandy was a key part of the fleet to take back Earth, and suddenly he’s flying away. I suppose he’s running away from the exploding mass relays, but the game makes it look like he’s traveling to some other system, which would indicate he flew towards the mass relay.

We don’t know where he’s going, or why, or who is with him. He’s just inexplicably flying somewhere. Then the explosion catches him, and he crashes on a planet someplace. Where? We’re led to believe it’s uninhabited. The ship is smashed. The relays are gone.

So crew of the Normandy abandon the fight, flee like cowards, then crash for unexplained reasons and starve to death? Is that the end here? Because that’s the only conclusion we can draw based on what we’re shown, and anything beyond that is fanfiction.

Earth

me3_earth.jpg

Did you like the “Take Back Earth” marketing campaign? You want to get in there and reclaim your homeworld from the Reapers? Ha ha! You don’t take back anything, Commander Jerkface. Earth is wasted, and possibly incinerated by the exploding mass relay. Which is your fault!

You spent the entire game building a massive fleet, and now that fleet is stuck in orbit around Earth. So even if there are survivors on Earth, they’re probably going to die soon. All of those Turians, Quarians, Asari, and Krogan are going to get hungry, and then your hard-fought alliance will dissolve as the starving armada invades the remnants of Earth civilization and kill each other for the last few scraps of food.

How bittersweet!

Your Squadmates

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Want to know how things turned out for them after the war? Dead or alive, they’re stuck on some random jungle world with Joker and nothing you did for them matters.

Wrex isn’t going to lead his people, Tali isn’t going to build a home on Rannoch, Ashley isn’t going to hook up with her family, Miranda isn’t going to see her sister again, and Garrus is done being Space Batman. If EDI managed to hook up with Joker, she can look forward to watching him slowly die of fever, malnutrition, and broken bones. This is assuming you didn’t kill her with the Ending-o-tron 3000tm.

Perhaps you’re one of those people who think of malaria and parasites as “bittersweet”.

In Conclusion

The ending has RUINED this series FOREVER!

 


From The Archives:
 

821 thoughts on “Mass Effect 3 Ending Deconstruction

    1. Chauzuvoy says:

      http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=877

      Not quite, but very nearly.

      Ironically, I like the NWN2 ending better, because despite being terribly written as far as an actual thing to happen, it actually (even though it’s just a voiceover of some concept art) tells you what happened to the people and places you visited after you’re gone.

      1. SpiritBear says:

        Funny how that TV tropes page doesn’t have NWN2 in the examples.

        1. Wandring says:

          This must be remedied post-haste!

      2. birthofthecool says:

        And with the first add-on you can continue the story and actually reach a happy ending.

        1. Chauzuvoy says:

          Mask of the Betrayer was actually good enough to redeem the game for me, even after that ending.

    2. Ian White says:

      So I just finished ME3 and I can’t understand why people are so upset! I have read every book on anyone’s top 50 sci-fi list and I have a masters in literature and I think the ME story is the best sci fi I have ever seen. I’m not saying it had the most original or expansive ideas, but I think the characters are fantastic and the overall story plot is amazing. I have become so emotionally invested in my crew and my own story its insane.

      I really wanted to know what happened to my companions though. It definitely left something to be desired not really seeing what happens with them. This blog brought up some good points; a starving fleet left in our solar system, the randomness of joker travelling in a mass relay. but those arent enough to ruin this game for me. I loved every second of it, and maybe I am missing something but I am going to suggest this to everyone

      1. me says:

        let me guess, you’re an EA PR person? Another EA PR person who was recently fired has already admitted that he/she gets paid to go to forums etc to downplay the crappiness of TOR by attacking other games. It makes sense from a business perspective, but it’s still an unethical thing to do.

        1. Shadowwot says:

          I agree with Ian – sure this article does bring up some valid points but the ending hardly ‘destroys’ the franchise. The game was a ton of fun to play and the ending wasn’t really any worse than what 99% of sci-fi series get.

      2. Loonyyy says:

        “I am an authority. I am more educated than you. My opinion is therefore more relevant to your enjoyment of a product than yours is.”

        Yeah, that’s a hole in your logic big enough to fly a Reaper through. I don’t have a top 50’s sci fi list because I’m not a book store. I don’t have a Masters in Literature, because I’d rather be employable. And I personally like the idea of a crushing and harsh ending to Mass Effect. That doesn’t mean I simply get confused when people point out plot holes, inconsistencies, and note that the ending as it stands, doesn’t work.

        People aren’t annoyed at the story-they love the series for it’s story, it’s why they bought the game. People aren’t annoyed at the game. The game is meant to be a pretty good one, and a fitting conclusion. They’re annoyed that, for all the expertise shown in the smaller conclusions throughout the game, the conclusion to the entire thing is ham fisted and shoddy. That’s not hating the story, that’s hating a specific and small part of the story. And the reason they hate it, is because they loved the game. No-one cares if you make a terrible ending if that’s the standard. We don’t get annoyed at the colour choices in a fingerpainting. We get annoyed if someone puts a Van Gogh in a frame made out of ice lolly sticks. These people want to see the story they love end, since as it stands, it doesn’t have a real ending. Heck, the problem with their Mass Relays in and of itself invalidates the entire game.

        Can I have your degree in Literature for having the basic reading and comprehension skills to understand the article I just read?

      3. Gregory Thomas Bogosian says:

        The Reapers and their actions are the reason for everything that is ultimately going on in this story. But their motivations don’t make any sense, either on their own, or in context of whats actually happening on screen. So, the rest of the story doesn’t make sense either. The foundation is made of creamcheese. So the entire structure is unsound. I don’t have any formal training in literature. But I thought that a basic principle in writing fiction was that the key player’s motivations need to ring true both logically and in terms of human psychology. That principle has been violated.

  1. Lord of Rapture says:

    “This ending has RUINED this series FOREVER!”

    That implies there was anything of worth to ruin in the first place.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Surprisingly,there was.I never liked what me2 did with the story,in fact I thought it was so bad that I couldnt be disappointed by anything 3 does.And yet,bioware has proved me wrong.Twice.By just watching someone else play the game,I got angry at the stupidity of the writing in the beginning,and in the end.

      1. GTB says:

        This is why i’m skipping 3. 2 was such an awful game that 3 could only make me even more depressed after how awesome 1 was. So fuck it. There’s other things to play on the horizon.

        1. TrentB says:

          Nailed it.

        2. Deadyawn says:

          Basically this. I’ll probably pick it up in a few years when its cheaper.

          Besides, I can just watch the spoiler warning of it. THAT should be interesting.

          1. SkaldFish says:

            @Deadyawn: No need to wait — it’s ALREADY cheaper!!!

            1. Lacey says:

              Really? That’s hilarious. I love ME and all but that’s hilarious.

          2. me says:

            don’t pick it up, you’re still giving them money that way. Just pirate it, then mod it to give you a proper ending.

        3. Chargone says:

          i had reached a similar conclusion, only having played 2, the Controls for the fighting part of 1 (aka, most of the gameplay) now felt horribly awkward.

          yeeeah… sold both games, sold my 360 (i’d reached the point where i only had one game that i had not either completed or decided i wanted nothing more to do with anyway, and That was available on the ps3 as well… i already had a PS3, so that was no big deal) was glad i didn’t (that i Remember) pay for any downloadable content.

          i wonder how much of this can be blamed on bad planning on the part of bioware and how much can be blamed on EA’s ‘we only make sequels, we only make games that the lowest common denominator type customer will buy because that’s where the best money is, we hate letting good games keep being good’ policy

          i have a sneaking suspicion that 2 was mostly a result of the latter and 3 is a result of trying to compensate for it while still stuck with it and suffering from the former.

        4. DakDak says:

          “There's other things to play on the horizon.”

          Like Witcher 2 if you didnt played it yet on pc

          1. Shadowwot says:

            The Witcher 2 – great game; bad ending

      2. Eric says:

        The Mass Effect universe isn’t really anything special. It’s a gigantic walking trope and more or less plays the most ridiculous sci-fi cliches with a completely straight face. I’ll take any mid-90s sci-fi show any day of the week over Mass Effect – not only does, say, Farscape have a far more original world and does interesting things with the usual sci-fi cliches, it was also written by people who actually had a clue.

        Yes, everyone likes Garrus and Tali. That does not make Mass Effect worth saving. I mean, geez, it’s like saying Baldur’s Gate was fantastic and memorable because it had Minsc. BioWare have always either had cookie-cutter games (the sole exception being Jade Empire) and the only flashes of originality came from external properties like Star Wars and D&D. After the first Mass Effect game it was clear BioWare didn’t care about any sort of overarching plot or consistency, and all that’s left are… what, cute fanservice nerd bait characters, a generic “the dragons are coming!” quote-unquote plot, and good music?

        1. Simon Buchan says:

          Ironically, the Codex is packed to the gills with some incredibly good hard SciFi world-building… that is summarily ignored to the point of contradiction with much more boring things in the actual game. Read up on the free-mercury military heat-sink system and tell me you don’t think they should have shown that!

        2. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Hordes of the underdark was pretty solid as well.Dont know about nwn2 expansions though,but others praise them too.

          Mass effect 1 did do some interesting things with it.Saren was interesting once you think about him,and so were wrex,garrus and tali.The geth were also an interesting setup,and probably one of the few things that they went on to develop well in the sequels.And,like Simon Buchan said,it was good world building.Its a shame that they didnt expand on it as well as they could.

          1. malrabidus says:

            I’m a little late to the dance, however, I just wanted to say that NWN was pretty pedestrian RPG. However, it led to some fan mods that were actually better than the original game as well as things like Hordes which was actually pretty good, a little hack and slash but hey….

        3. Matt Downie says:

          Baldur's Gate WAS fantastic and memorable because it had Minsc!

          1. krellen says:

            Swords! Swords for everybody!

          2. Corsair says:

            This sentiment kind of bothers me, really. Not that Minsc isn’t an awesome character, but Baldur’s Gate 2 was an excellent game for so many more reasons than just the hilarity of Minsc. It wouldn’t be half as memorable without other party members like Jan Jansen, Keldorn, even Anomen, and it wouldn’t be a tenth as memorable without Irenicus.

            1. Mantergeistmann says:

              Agreed to that. Minsc was one of the characters I considered a “core” party member (which is to say, I never ever ever had a party without him; nearly every other character I considered optional even if it was a hard choice to go without them), but Irenicus is what made the game. He’s still my favorite villain in anything ever (and even Sarevok was no slouch as a villain). It’s much more “Baldur’s Gate was fantastic and memorable, and Minsc made it EVEN BETTER.” Without him, it would still be a great game, one of the best of all time. With him, it’s even better. He doesn’t make the game (he wouldn’t be able to save it if it was horrible), but he enhances it instead.

              Icing on the cake, as it were. It’s still a delicious, delicious cake without icing, and icing on a horrendous cake wouldn’t make it edible (even if you’re the type of person who just eats icing on its own), but a delicious delicious cake with delicious delicious icing? SO DELICIOUS.

        4. CuseGirl says:

          In your opinion, the ME universe isn’t special. And no, not everyone loves Garrus and Tali. I’m a huge Miranda fan and I was very upset at how little she was featured in the game. I also don’t like the ending at all. I never played this game with the intention to kill the Reapers while destroying the Mass Relays. That’s not bittersweet, that’s stupid.

          1. Aldowyn says:

            I’ve been assuming the relays would have to be destroyed since ME2. It was kind of obvious. Relays force us to evolve one way? Well, destroy them then!

  2. Frozen Bucket says:

    Interesting and well written deconstruction Shamus!

    Even though most of it had already been said, its nice to hear your opinion on this mess of an ending.

    Personally, I believe that while the ending certainly did make me shake my head, I truly enjoyed the ride.

    Uniting the Krogan and Turians, ending the war between the Geth and Quarians and seeing the effects of the reapers attacks in the refugee docks on the citadel were all great things that added to the experience of a desperate time of war. Sadly the ending choice kinda ruined the whole effort of gathering all those assets…

    1. Chauzuvoy says:

      The biggest complaint I had with the game was that all the choices you made were reduced to filling a progress bar. Whatever it’s flaws, at least the choices in ME2 (Well, the get loyalty/don’t choices) affected things in the final mission.

      When I cured the genophage, I wanted to fight alongside krogan warriors, not get +15 “galactic readiness.” As it was, the decisions I was making didn’t have an impact. The fact that a decision was made had impact. That was where I first realized it was going downhill.

    2. FuturisticNarly says:

      This was a great breakdown and I was equally if not more disappointed. To realize that none of my decisions actually affected anything, and if they did, I didn’t get to see any kind of confirmation. The worst part of the entire ending FAIL was that they gave no kind of closure at all. Just a simple “what just happened???” would have satisfied many gamers, but they just blandly ended a great trilogy. And the fact that they are addressing the issues and the Bioware CEO is saying that the Mass Effect series will continue is the company trying to fix the fact that they messed up. The thing about being an artist is making your art appeal to others, while at the same making it what you want. I was sad that my Shepard died, but I was ok with it and that was Bioware’s direction the entire time. I just hated that even if I didn’t put all the hours and work into the game as I did, I would’ve gotten the same bland ending. And I never get any kind of idea as to what happens to the rest of the galaxy. Just the fact that there was no closure whatsoever is what ruined it…

      1. To be fair, if decisions had consequences, then some people might think that their choice was being unfairly gimped even though it was clearly the right one. I think they had to make an ending where all your choices MATTERED, but which was all roughly as good, so to speak.

  3. General Karthos says:

    True enough. :(

  4. I wrote something similar (but not as eloquently put as you wrote Shamus)
    Mass Effect 3 Ending Review

    I have no issue with the “canon” ending.
    What I have an issue with is many of the loose ends you pointed out,
    and more importantly the lack of alternate endings.

    I know that ME4 will start based on a/the canon ME3 ending.
    But I’d really like a alt ending for ME3.

    KoTOR had an alternate ending for example.
    Dragon Age Origins, had an alternate ending that was self-sacrificing and bittersweet. (and the loose threads of the companions was resolved in end game text cards).

    Why BioWare did not do something similar for ME3 I have no clue.
    It almost feels like a huge chunk(s) of the ending is missing somehow.

    1. FuturisticNarly says:

      It technically shouldn’t even be a ME4 because Bioware had stated many times that the series was a trilogy. Any other ME games will just be the company trying to patch this horrible ending up. The fight was always about the Reapers, so what will even be the concept of the next game??? Trying to find a way to fix what they messed up is the only reason Bioware has said that the series won’t end…

      1. Aldowyn says:

        What’s the concept of Halo 4? Pretty much exactly the same situation. (Halo 4 actually looks kind of cool in some ways. And sacrilegious in others.)

  5. BeamSplashX says:

    It’s not like I ignore the existence of the second and third Matrix movies, I just don’t watch them as much as the first one. I don’t think doing the same for Mass Effect should be too difficult.

    Then again, it’s a bigger shame that this one turned out the way it did. I do hope its financial success will encourage other companies to try this kind of thing.

    1. Adam P says:

      Lol, I’m glad they never made a sequel to Matrix. It would have been terrible!

    2. Sagretti says:

      The weird thing is that the more I read about ME3’s ending, the more it reminded me of the second and third Matrix movie’s plots. Machines rising against creators, giving the protagonist a choice of giving in to the plan or trying to wipe everything out, etc.

      However, this ending make’s the Matrix series ending look almost decent. At least that series ended with some hope amid all the general stupidity, while Mass Effect 3 just seems generally miserable among all the plot holes, and has even less resolution.

      1. Jamfalcon says:

        It also has a lot of similarities to Battlestar Galactica’s ending (the new one that is). The machines will always kill all of their creators, life new life will advance, and they’ll make more machines that will kill them. It even had the ending where they destroyed all of their technology in hopes that it didn’t happen again, much like ME3’s “Red” ending.

      2. Mechakisc says:

        Wow.

        Suggestion for the Drs’ tombstones (may they not get there early):

        “They Made the Matrix Sequels Look Less Awful.”

  6. SlowShootinPete says:

    … Welp.

    I guess I guess I’m done being a Bioware fan for a while.

  7. Wintermood says:

    I just finished the game yesterday and I did not hate the ending. But it seems I must be one of very few who liked the ending of KOTOR 2 too. :)

    To me the ending was in line with the previous game and I could see where they were going with it. It does not hurt that I almost automatically filled many blanks in my brain for myself. I like this kind of stuff, be it in endings or anywhere.

    Even before the final moments in the game I had expected that finally Shepard was the catalysator in a sense that he/she ended the cycle. I was not disappointed (yes, the boy says he is the catalysator, but it is Shepard who sets the things in motion and it hinges on his/her actions).

    I particularly liked the short ending sequence for the “Synthese Ending” the tone was really good in my opinion. It gave me a sense, that my character really accomplished a goal – to reunite and bring peace.

    Well it is just my opinion, I can understand that this ending may have not fulfilled some people. There were some things I just skipped in my brain and not really thought too hard about in favour of enjoing the game and its ending.

    TlDr: I liked the ending but I understand the arguments of the people who did not. :)

    Edit: To the people who want to abandon Bioware because of this: you will miss out. Just saying. :)

    1. krellen says:

      ME2, DA2, ME3 … what am I missing?

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Well you are missing…errr…space gay sex,yes thats it!

        1. Phoenix says:

          Yeah really, after this crap I’m happy there isn’t Jade Empire 2.

      2. Wintermood says:

        I am thinking _all_ of the Bioware games + future games. :)

        1. krellen says:

          Evidence suggests that, since being acquired by EA, Bioware has become unable to produce a good game. So again I ask, what am I missing?

          1. Wintermood says:

            So, you have evidence that every future title Bioware produces is crap. I agree, playing with clairvoyance or time travel is more fun then playing games.

            Meanwhile I live happily with the illusion, that future Bioware games are worth playing and enjoyable.

            1. krellen says:

              I think three chances is more than fair, especially with a complete lack of counter-examples.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                And even if a future game of theirs does turn out to be awesome,nothing is stopping you for buying it,after the hype has passed and the price has dropped,so its basically win-win for you.

    2. ehlijen says:

      But even the synthesis ending ends up blowing up the mass relays, which we are told will destroy the homeworlds of all major races and many, though not all, colonies. It’s also going to prevent major space travel.

      There is no peace and unity, just isolation.

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “I particularly liked the short ending sequence for the “Synthese Ending” the tone was really good in my opinion. It gave me a sense, that my character really accomplished a goal ““ to reunite and bring peace.”

      Well then,you particularly like all the endings,because they are exactly the same.Unless you have a certain dislike for the colours red and blue,that is.

      1. IFS says:

        The synthesis ending made the least sense to me out of all of them. How exactly does fusing a machine with DNA work? Does the light sweep over the geth and then they look down to see they have spontaneously gained a liver? Does it magically give all the organics cybernetic implants? How does this affect the reapers, they already had organic components, did the energy teach them the meaning of love and friendship?

        1. James says:

          For synthesis ending I think they wanted a contrived Adam and Eve comparison between joker and Edi. one problem though, unless the magic green space light gave Edi Ovaries and a robo Vagina I don’t see her making little terminators anytime soon. That assumes of course that joker can even eat the food on the planet.

          On another note in my ending I saw Garrus and Tali come out of the ship. meaning even if joker could eat the food, Garrus and Tali will starve cause they cannot eat the same food as humans and cannot be rescued.

          I’m going to stop here I could wright as much as Shamus Here on why that one scene of the Normandy crash land doesn’t make sense.

        2. Sumanai says:

          One of the ways I see it, is that you did exactly what the Reapers were planning on doing, it just takes a moment for them to fetch Joker and buddies before traveling back to where they came from.

          Another way I see it:
          Everyone is basically the same. As in: everyone has the same ideas, everyone agrees about everything, everyone has the same DNA. Individuality is gone, welcome to the peace and unity. I know you’re happy, since I am happy.

          1. Except everyone still has their form, so it’s like making everyone on the planet dogs: Dogs are still plenty heterogeneous.

            1. Sumanai says:

              Eh. Details.

      2. Jordan says:

        This confused me immensely about ME2’s human shaped spaceship somehow made out of ground up people juice.

      3. How much must it suck to play through the ending and be red-green colourblind?

      4. Wintermood says:

        As it happens, I really like the colour “green”. :)

        I did not see the other endings, if they are just variations of the colour that would be a tad disappointing. Ah well, in my opinion, the weight (enjoyment, etc.) of the three games balance it out.

        Edit: I just watch your link: I talked about the sequence with the crashed Normandy, not the beam, etc. I can understand how just the colour of the beam changes with your decision.

        In other news, I just read about the “indoctrination theorie”. Interesting read.

    4. PhoenixUltima says:

      KotOR2’s ending wasn’t explicitly bad, just incomplete and rushed. Which makes sense because the last part was itself incomplete and rushed. But at least we did get to hear what happened to our companions and the places we’d been to (even if Kreia suddenly being able to see the future is ridiculous and contrived). I think when most people say they hate KotOR2’s ending they really mean they hated Malachor V and Trayus Academy. Which I can’t defend because, yeah, that was awful.

    5. Eric says:

      KotOR 2 had a decent ending. Yes, it was clearly rushed and had a lot of leftover holes that probably should have just been cut, but at least it made a decent amount of sense, had a great villain and a couple of good final encounters and conversations. Mass Effect 3 has a generic Call of Duty slog through a ruined city, five minutes of slow-mo walking, and then ten minutes of sheer agony. I think the winner is obvious.

      1. krellen says:

        KotOR 2 even had closure, as Kreia would predict the future of all your companions and the galaxy at large at the end.

        Oh wait, the guy right above you already said all that.

  8. General Karthos says:

    Oh, I think Dragon Age 2 had a worse, more nonsensical ending than ME3. And the game itself was also significantly less enjoyable. I’d be willing to play through Mass Effect 3 again (not for a while yet) but trying to play through DA2 a second time is like having your teeth pulled, then going back to your dentist only to find out he pulled the WRONG teeth.

    1. Johan says:

      I agree, sort of.

      The ending for DA2 basically put me off the series. If they ever come out with a DA3, I won’t jump at it like I jumped at DAO. But I truly enjoyed the first two acts (well not the end of act 2), and I played through those several time

      1. IFS says:

        The second act was the best part of DA2, the ending was a massive cliffhanger that really didn’t resolve very much but it was way better than the contrived stupidity that is ME3’s ending.

      2. Eric says:

        I find it hard to believe that you enjoyed Dragon Age 2. Aside from one or two good plot threads and the Arishok, it was a bloated, meandering mess. Stories need clear goals to work toward and a sense of forward movement to them, and Dragon Age 2 did not have any of that.

        1. IFS says:

          I enjoyed DA2, the story had problems, especially in the third act which feels rushed, but overall I liked that they were trying something new and I liked the characters.

          1. Eric says:

            People point to the characters as the saving grace of the game, but… what? Really?

            Aveline is okay but ultimately kind of just boring, and puts you on a bunch of stupid quests over and over until she can ask some boy out. Urgh.

            Fenris is an emohead who learns to be slightly less emo.

            Varrick is “cool” as interpreted by people in a corporate boardroom who had only heard of the word “cool” from focus groups. He doesn’t really have an arc either, strikes me as author insertion “hey aren’t I awesome? I should be the main character!”

            Isabella is “sexy” as envisioned by a lonely fan fiction author. Her character is not interesting and her stupidity results in the deaths of hundreds.

            Merrill is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl whose stupidity causes her banishment and the potential deaths of her clan.

            Anders is a terrorist, whiny, and eventually goes crazy. I refused to have gay sex with him and I was hit with like +20 rivalry.

            I guess my point is that these characters are decent, but aside from appearance and voice acting there isn’t too much distinctive about them. They have almost nothing to do with the main plot (largely because there isn’t one), and they’re all either cookie-cutter stereotypes or cheap pandering to lonely gamers. Many of them do completely stupid things against all good judgement and we are expected to take pity on them because they’re oh-so-cute.

            Really, strip away the romance stuff and there is nothing there. No hidden secrets that aren’t extremely obvious within the first 30 seconds of meeting them, no integration with the main plot, in many cases no real arcs, etc. Maybe I’m just jaded, but they were just too one-note for my liking. I don’t mind simple characters at all, but in BioWare’s case they always build half the game around companions and romance and crap even though those characters are nowhere near interesting enough to prop things up. To be frank, it comes across as masturbatory.

            1. IFS says:

              To me what really sold the characters of DA2 was the banter they all had with each other. I even ended up switching up my party fairly often just to see what they had to say, even putting together parties I would never take into combat (such as a party of all rogues) when I went shopping just to hear banter I would otherwise miss.

              1. Alec says:

                I just makes me ill talking about these ‘characters’ when you have played a game like Planescape: Torment.

                Now THOSE WERE F****** CHARACTERS.

        2. Johan says:

          I… hated the Arishok, he was the worst part of the game for me

          I liked especially the first act sidequests, which did their best to actually try to give you choices with meaning outside “kill the kitten, save the kitten”

    2. GiantRaven says:

      Correct my if I’m wrong but isn’t Dragon Age 2 the middle part of a planned trilogy? I think a shoddy ending can be somewhat excused there (not entirly, mind you). Cocking up the end to a huge epic trilogy by disregarding the core game mechanics that made it so popular on the other hand? Utter madness.

      1. Johan says:

        I don’t really understand how DA is supposed to be a “trilogy” in any real sense of the world, more like a series set in the same continuity. The “sequel” just used one of DAO’s plot points as a set-up and then took another for it’s main thread.

        Logically following from this, DA3 will have refugees fleeing the Circle/Templars war, and the main plot will involve the Qunari. Then DA4 will have a refugee fleeing THAT war and its main plot will be about Basket Weaving or something

        So what I’m trying to say is that DAO and DA2 are connected, but they don’t really feel like 2 parts to a trilogy

        1. General Karthos says:

          ^ This

          And DA was never planned to be a trilogy the way Mass Effect was planned to be a trilogy. Of course… you can’t really tell they actually officially planned it as a trilogy, but they did state before ME1 came out that it was planned to be a trilogy.

          Does anyone (else) wonder how much of this has to do with EA having purchased BioWare?

          1. Irridium says:

            Well, their development cycles seem to have been changed from 4-5 years to 2-3 years. Whether or not that has something to do with EA… I don’t know. But crap like how they rushed Dragon Age 2 to capitalize on the success of DA:O suggests EA may have something to do with it.

            1. Adam says:

              THIS. Their dev cycles are about half as long as they used to be, they’re working for a publisher with a proven track record of grinding the talent and originality out of their dev teams, and they ended up sticking the vast majority of their old writing staff on TOR for several years. It’s likely that literally everything people find wrong with the games they made since EA bought them up is in some way connected to that purchase. Think about it: the stories of ME2 and 3, and DA2 are radically shifted in focus from the respective first games in their series, and generally held to be of lower quality. Both ME1 and DAO were in development long before EA bought them up and their stories were most likely done. Suddenly EA buys them, their core writing team gets repurposed to the MMO they have no real business making, and now all of those great stories that could have sprung from their IPs end up in the crapper because the new guys they put on the task of writing this epic space opera and dark, gritty fantasy war story have no idea what they’re doing.

      2. Keeshhound says:

        When did That become acceptable at all? Being the middle game is not an excuse to be worse than the predecessor. If anything, a sequel should always work to build on what made it’s predecessor good in the first place. Even if there is a stigma that the middle of a trilogy will always be the worst part, (and as a counter to that insipid notion, I present The Empire Strikes Back) that doesn’t excuse a lazy sequel, and it should be made clear to ANY company that tries to push out a low quality sequel that such behavior is not acceptable, and will not be profitable in the long term.

    3. ravenshrike says:

      Originally DA2 was supposed to be an expansion to set up for the actual DA2. It was supposed to introduce the character of Hawke, as well as explain the shattering of the Templar/Mage system. But then EA happened and all those plans went out the fucking window.

  9. krellen says:

    “Ending-o-tron 3000tm” makes me smile every time.

    1. BeamSplashX says:

      It’s interesting that the original Deus Ex actually had a similar set-up for its endings, but it didn’t feel as poorly done. Perhaps that’s down to the set-ups for each one in the final area, and the fact that the endings themselves were markedly different.

      1. Matt K says:

        I’m not sure what yuo mean by this as Deus Ex 1 actually required you to complete different objective to get each ending (same with DX 2 to a lesser extent). Besides, even DX 2’s ending were better than this.

        Also while I completely hated DX3’s ending I could honestly say that that for that game the endings in general were superflous as beforehand we had already accomplished our goals and based on DX1 we know what’s going to happen. Here, as an ending to a series that’s just terrible.

        1. Lalaland says:

          Perhaps it’s my memory but I believe DX1 ended with a “3 buttons” setup too. I remember because I was particularly disappointed as I had believed I’d be forced into one of the endings and would have to replay to get another. Instead my save scumming ways let me see all three endings in about 15 minutes.

          1. ehlijen says:

            Weren’t there 4 endings in DX1?

            1. Raygereio says:

              There were 3
              -Destroy the internet (Tong)
              -Take control of the internet (Illuminati)
              -Become an internet god (Helios)

              Deus Ex 1 indeed worked with a three button setup, but it was arguably handled better in that the different “buttons” consisted in JC finishing different objectives in the room-of-super-importance.

              1. krellen says:

                So literally the same choices ME3 gave?

                Holy. Fuck.

                This isn’t just a failing of writing. The literally just took another game’s ending and pasted it on theirs.

                1. Lalaland says:

                  Yup it’s exactly that bad.

                  1. Tom says:

                    I think the key difference, and what made Deus Ex 1 so AWESOME, was that your final choice addressed *EVERYTHING* you’d seen and done in the game up to that point. The *ENTIRE GAME* presents you with glimpses of the different futures you could choose for the world. During your travels, for example, you get to *SEE* the shadowy opulence the Illuminati live in, and the naked destitution only a wall’s thickness away from some of them, as well as the progress, order and industry they have nurtured, before you get to consider the option to put them back in power. You see what happens when power is concentrated in both good and bad hands. You get to feel what it’s like to fight on both the side of the authorities, and on the side of the dissidents. You get to feel what it’s like to be endlessly under surveillance and suspicion, and what it’s like to spy on and suspect everyone else. You see technology and AI save your ass, and you also see it turn on you.

                    In short, the endings of Deus Ex are awesome because they are the culmination of everything you’ve seen and done up to that point (or not, if you suddenly realise you’ve been wrong all along and do a U-turn); you can pick the one that is the ultimate expression (or redemption, or even betrayal) of the character you’ve been building all this time. It doesn’t matter that the ending cut-scenes last a matter of seconds and show you nothing of the outcome because, unless you’ve been playing with the express intention of not noticing anything at all, you should damn well *KNOW*, based on your entire preceding experience, right down to those little incidental contemporary book excerpts you read on somebody’s coffee table in some earlier level, what the outcome you choose for the world would look like (which is just as well because, unlike ME3, they could never have done it justice in a cut-scene back then, and not everyone would have agreed with it – some are horrified by any given DE ending, others can’t see how you could choose anything else)

                    The apparently identical Mass Effect 3 endings suck because it seems they have nothing to do with anything you’ve done and are not really informed by any particular game experience, so you can’t begin to guess what the outcomes and implications might be (worse, they’re seemingly *contradicted* by some of the things you can see and do!). Whole new, never-before-alluded-to concepts are introduced at the last moment. The state of your own character apparently has no bearing on final events either – this is the worst, in my opinion, because the greatest appeal of Mass Effect has always been characterization and character development (PC and NPC alike) for me, gameplay be damned.

                    Speaking of games with awesome endings, it’s particularly galling that Bioware should suck so badly at an ending where you’re basically doomed, when you consider that they were once strongly involved with Black Isle, the guys who made freaking Planescape Torment – if you ever want to see how to do this kind of ending properly, there it is! Heck, Mass Effect 2 practically felt like Planescape Torment In Space in some ways* (you even rise from the dead at the beginning, for crying out loud), most especially with the companions – they’ve all got deep personal or psychological issues, one of them’s a robot who’s become somewhat detached from his hive mind, one of them’s a homicidally insane criminal with superpowers, one of them’s an awesome and honourable warrior who had a crisis of confidence, one of them’s a fanatical lawbringer…

                    *And hey, Jennifer Hale, the voice of Femshep, is also the voice of Deionarra & Fall From Grace in PST! Who knew?

                2. Daemian Lucifer says:

                  Of course not.They took another games ending,SIMPLIFIED it,and then pasted it as their own.See,they put effort into it.

                  1. GardenNinja says:

                    I believe the term BioWare are fond of is “streamlined”.

                    1. When you push an ending button something awesome has to happen. Button = awesome.

                  2. acronix says:

                    Well, you know what they say: plagiarism is the best form of flattery.

                3. Pete says:

                  At least the ending videos in DX had more diffences than just the color filter used.

                  1. MatthewH says:

                    And made sense given everything that had happened for the last 20 hours.

            2. Michael says:

              I vaguely remember a fourth Easter egg ending involving a dance club or something, but I have no recollection of how to trigger it. Or, that may have been IW.

              But, yeah, Deus Ex had 3 real endings, anyway.

              1. BeamSplashX says:

                You had to edit one of the INI files, I think. Or put in a console command. Maybe both.

          2. Eric says:

            The buttons were at least split up into different rooms and goals, and importantly, it actually made some sense as to why you were activating X or Y device. A bit forced, maybe, but they worked it into the level design, and that’s more that can be said for Mass Effect 3.

            A much better parallel would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which had three literal buttons. Even Invisible War wasn’t that bad.

            1. ravenshrike says:

              In fairness to dxhr since it wasn’t a reboot they were rather constrained as to their options. A true saved the day option wasn’t in the cards.

              1. Uli says:

                Not really. Only one of the endings needed to lead into the original Deux Ex.

      2. Dude says:

        Also: nostalgia goggles for Deus Ex. Give it ten years. People will come up with excuses for ME3’s ending too.

        1. Dreadjaws says:

          Unlikely, since people didn’t hate Deus Ex endings back then, and if they did, it wasn’t to the point to raise such a ruckus.

  10. Rayen says:

    To quote;
    “They drew close and halted, at the corpse beside the gate. In death, [Mass Effect] seemed a pathetic and insignificant thing, not at all the sort of being that required [years] of devotion, sacrifice, and effort to bring down.
    ‘I told you Closure was overrated.'”
    -Ravenor Rogue, Dan Abnett

    “[]” indicate things i changed to match the subject.

    1. Stellar Duck says:

      You ass! In a good way, but still. Now I need to read that series again. I’ve got enough reading to do.

  11. Johan says:

    I never managed to get into this series. I avoided ME1 because of the DRM, I got ME2 for free with a purchase of DA2, and thought it was fine. Good points and bad points, but overall I’d call it a “good” (not necessarily great) game.

    I was sort of thinking of going back and getting ME1 and then ME3, or perhaps a full set if/when/they probably already have come out with that. But a lot of what I’m reading is putting me off of that.

    1. GiantRaven says:

      I wouldn’t make too much of how inflamed the reception to the ending is. In fact, people are getting so enraged about it because the rest of the series is so damn good. The rest of the three games are definitely worth playing but just bear in mind that the ending is just…well…you know.

      1. Chargone says:

        … that is highly debateable.

        the FIRST game was good.

        the second one was ‘good’ in that if you take an Entirely Different target audience who is used to a Much lower standard of ‘acceptable’ it actually has character development. (also, if you’re Not a complete newbie to shooters, it’s combat controls are better. if you are, not so much. this also makes going back to 1 difficult) and (the illusion of) choices affecting the plot. gasp! that said: human reaper. (which, from what i’m seeing here, was promptly IGNORED for the third game. i mean, sure, the actual thing blew up, but you’d think how they were making it would be significant)

        and 3 (which i am skipping after being highly disappointed in 2) … well, read the article here…

        1. CB says:

          There’s an explanation for the human reaper. It’s silly and contrived and ties into the “synthetics killing organics to save organics from building synthetics that might kill them” logic-hole.

          Said human reaper also makes a guest appearance, whether you blew up the collector ship or not.

  12. GiantRaven says:

    I don’t know why the writers felt they needed a ridiculous ass-pull device to beat the Reapers. On Rannoch we find that the Reapers have a pretty clear, cliche though it may be, weak spot. That’s a method of destruction right there. The ending should have been (in my eyes anyhow) deterimined by the amount of allies you amass, and whether or not you have enough brute force to overwhelm the enemy. That even provides a better, more sensible, use for the EMS than we were provided in-game (having a huge army = Shepard survives and is teleported to Earth).

    Making a suitable ending to Mass Effect 3 is so simple it can practically write itself. I’m completely flabbergastered that BioWare managed to cock this up so badly.

    1. Xakura says:

      He’s not teleported to earth. He never left.

      1. GiantRaven says:

        So how did the Reapers get destroyed?

        1. krellen says:

          A god-child did it.

      2. Indy says:

        Indeed. Harbinger shot him in the face. That’s how the series ends.

    2. WysiWyg says:

      And if you don’t have a fleet/army great enough, in the end you have to sacrifice earth to end the Reapers!

      1. GiantRaven says:

        I always felt that the ending should’ve had the choice ‘Citadel or Earth’, referencing Paragon/Renegade Shepard’s Pro/Anti-Alien stance.

        1. Uli says:

          Paragon/Renegade pretty much stopped being about pro/anti alien in the second game. Played a racist anti-turian Shep who refused to recruit Garrus in ME1? Can’t do it anymore. Shepard simply doesn’t have a problem with aliens, even if he might be insensitive from time to time.

          Kind of an odd choice considering it’s the second game you start working for human supremacists.

          Though yeah, I was expecting a choice between the Citadel and the Earth to crop up. Disappointed it didn’t.

    3. Lalaland says:

      This is why the Suicide Mission in ME2 trumps this ending even in all it’s ‘Baby Reaper’ glory. In that game all the widgets you stuck on the Normandy had a spot in the final mission where they helped, or their lack hurt, your ship on the way to the final showdown (eg if you hadn’t the Asari shields you took damage and lost crew). In ME3 I collect the galaxies largest fleet to unlock 3 colours in the ending movie :( At no point are the size and composition of your forces referenced or change anything (I’d love to be contradicted) until that final movie.

      1. Michael says:

        As much as I hate to admit it, because of my irrational hatred of the giant space terminator baby, you’re absolutely right. :\

        1. Ringwraith says:

          Although I do less problem with that, as it looks just a super-sized husk to me.

      2. Ringwraith says:

        Only the geth are actually explicitly mentioned, and only in passing and the fact they’re mentioned often only makes the ending more nonsensical.

      3. Eric says:

        The suicide mission sucked. It was no different from the readiness bar in Mass Effect 3 – basically, get 100% completion and aren’t a moron, everyone lives, don’t, people die. The only time people can actually die when you do have 100% completion is either in making extremely stupid decisions on how to allocate them, or in a few cases where the game has completely idiotic logic about who is suitable for what.

        Basically it’s a matter of presentation. Yes, the suicide mission did have a few specific scenes related to your specific preparations, but if there is no real consequence as a result of your actions (only inaction), what’s the point? It’s all undermined by how colossally stupid and full of plot holes the entire sequence is anyway. Send a probe into the relay? Nah, it’s a SUICIDE MISSION! Not loyal = rocket to the face? Makes sense!

        1. Lalaland says:

          It’s not Shakespeare no doubt but it did provide far more direct feedback for your hours of slaving over the scanning screen. By contrast ME3 basically ignores that effort and provides no acknowledgement of it at all.

        2. Ringwraith says:

          The term ‘loyalty’ is a bit misleading, as it’s more like ‘focus’, which Jacob refers to it as. So basically they’re not got any distractions and are performing to the best of their ability. Therefore bad things don’t happen.
          If you look at the maths involved with holding the line it makes a bit more sense there.

        3. Tom says:

          The ME2 suicide mission decisions were far too simple and obvious, agreed, but at least they were the right gameplay mechanism to use. That’s just a question of degree, whereas the issue with ME3 is of the fundamental approach they took.

    4. Also wasn’t this going to have something to do with dark energy? that kept popping up in ME2 but it’s nowhere to be found here.

      1. Michael says:

        I got into a slap fight with an idiot in the Escapist about this… and ironically learned something.

        The flavor of energy the relays dump IS dark energy, according to the Starchild, anyway, and the reason the relays detonate with such force was because they tap into dark energy reserves or some such.

        Hilariously, the devs claim the relay in Arrival blows up with more force than any other relay because it’s special, but there’s no indication of that in Arrival, so it got grafted on at some later date, probably after ME3 shipped.

        Dark Energy is also the medium that Biotics actually use and manipulate as well as something to do with mass effect field technology. That is to say, Eezo actually allows the direct manipulation of dark energy. And that’s when blood started spurting from my ears, sorry.

      2. Eärlindor says:

        According to a guy on the SA forums who played the game prior to release (and this is a direct quote): the Reapers’ [original] goal was to find a way to stop the spread of Dark Energy which would eventually consume everything. That’s why there was so much foreshadowing about Dark Energy on Haestom in ME2.

        The Reapers as a whole were ‘nations’ of people who had fused together in the most horrific way possible to help find a way to stop the spread of the Dark Energy. The real reason for the Human Reaper was supposed to be the Reapers saving throw because they had run out of time. Humanity in Mass Effect is supposedly unique because of it’s genetic diversity (I know, I know) and represented the universe’s best chance at stopping Dark Energy’s spread.

        The original final choice was going to be “Kill the Reapers and put your faith in the races of the galaxy in finding another way to stop the spread with what little time is left” or “Sacrifice humanity, allowing them to be horrifically processed in hopes that the end result will justify the means.”

        Then they changed it to what it is now and dropped Dark Energy almost entirely.

        1. Eric says:

          You know, that plot isn’t much less stupid than the one we ended up with.

          1. Chargone says:

            just comparing that with Shamus’s write up, yes, just as stupid, but the stupid lands more on the characters than the writers…

          2. Eärlindor says:

            Yeah, I agree. Reading it fulled me with rage. Then finding out they drop almost all dark energy references entirely made me even more so.

      3. IcepickEvans says:

        Drew Karpyshyn, the original Mass Effect writer, did have a plan for the Dark Energy foreshadowing in the 2nd game…

        http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/17086/mass-effect-writer-drew-karpyshyn-reveals-original-mass-effect-3-endings

        1. Eärlindor says:

          Dang, looks my direct quote was another direct quote. Good to confirm the source, though.

  13. jdaubenb says:

    “I'm willing to bet the Prothean squadmate (a DLC character) doesn't mention it either. […] Did the Protheans build a crucible of their own? Did they try to use it? If so, what happened?”

    It is possible to ask the DLC-Squadmate about the Crucible. He doesn’t know anything about it, beyond it being a secret project some scientists worked on, once everything already went down the drain.

    1. bassdrum says:

      I remember there being some reference to it not getting finished in time (although I may be making that up).

      1. Yeah, they were missing the catalyst so they couldn’t complete it. Later on he mentions Protheans hadn’t set foot on the citadel for decades, so presumably they just couldn’t amass a force strong enough to get the Crucible in place.

    2. 4th Dimension says:

      I think Prothen AI from Thessia says that they got it done, but couldn’t get to the catalyst. Because Citadel was the first place Reapers hit. Also they were having MUCH worse problems with CONTROL/Cerberus faction.

      1. Michael says:

        …because their Control faction wasn’t being run by complete idiots, maybe?

        1. krellen says:

          I think it’s obvious what happened: Sovereign was in charge of things during the Prothean cycle. Everything went to hell because Harbinger was just Sovereign’s bumbling sidekick.

          1. Jarenth says:

            You’re positing that Mass Effect 3’s ending is what it is because Sovereign woke up on the wrong side of the bed this cycle?

            1. krellen says:

              Yup. He shouldn’t have had tacos before bedtime.

              1. anaphysik says:

                Giant space tacos.

    3. Neko says:

      It was a rogue cell!

  14. Rick says:

    I got the game two weeks ago. I still haven’t finished it. Compare Mass Effect 2, which after I’d had it this long I was well into my Renegade playthrough by this point. And yes, I’m spoiled for the endings and that’s what’s killing my enthusiasm for playing the game.

    And it’s a shame, because when I do overcome the crippling apathy and play the game, I love it. Curing the genophage is probably going to go down as my favorite mission in the trilogy. I don’t want this to be another Dragon Age II or Neverwinter Nights 2 where I never finish the game (DA2 I still have every intention of going back and finishing, but I don’t know), but given the ending, I don’t know.

    All the ME2 DLC was a day-one instant purchase for me. I don’t think I’ll do the same for ME3, even if said DLC purports to fix the ending. And I’m pretty sure I’m not going to preorder whatever BioWare’s next game is, unless it’s Jade Empire 2. (Not that I’d have any more faith in JE2 than DA3 or ME4 or some new franchise, but Jade Empire is my favorite BioWare game and I couldn’t pass up a sequel.)

    1. Kdansky says:

      Dragon Age 2 isn’t actually all that bad. Hawke is neither the hero, nor the main character of that story. Anders is, and you are only a by-stander who cannot prevent the inevitable, because you didn’t see it coming. Seen like that, it’s mostly fine. Yes, there are really stupid boss fights, but then again, most fights in DA2 didn’t make a lick of sense to begin with.

      Or do I remember this completely wrong? If so, someone tell me why the ending was so bad.

      1. I really enjoyed Dragon Age 2. I think most of the ire directed at that game comes from people who, for some reason unknown to me, thought Origins was the Second Coming of Christ. Origins was enjoyable. DA2 was enjoyable (in different ways). I’m expecting DA3 to also be both a.) slightly different and b.) enjoyable.

        Yeah, I thought some of the options they gave you in DA2 were dumb–but I’ve thought that about every RPG I’ve ever played, EVER. I’d like to see them improved. I’m hoping they don’t jump the shark too badly, or, worse, just keep presenting the same conflicts in the same terms: free mages are bad! slave mages are bad! RWAAARRR lots of fighting! Yeah, we get that. Say something NEW about it or go away.

        1. Raygereio says:

          I think most of the ire directed at that game comes from people who, for some reason unknown to me, thought Origins was the Second Coming of Christ.

          It’s also possible that people weren’t disapointed that their expectations weren’t met, they were disapointed that they got a really shitty game.
          Just saying, because that’s the reason why most people i know disliked DA2.

          For reference:
          I have no huge love for Origins. Didn’t hate it either; thought it was an average game with a rather uninspired plot.
          And I actually though the basic premise of DA2’s plot was neat. It was something new for BioWare and had the potential to be interesting.
          That is, if wasn’t in the hands of the likes of David – Twilight is the epitome of romance in fiction – Gaider and that abomination’s posse of sad, talentless souls.

        2. Eruanno says:

          What irritated me with Dragon Age 2 was that it felt like a really, REALLY long act 1 of a game. Okay, we’ve established this stuff and oh dear, Anders blew up the thing! OKAY! Adventure time!… Wait, game over? But… this is where it gets interesting! How… what… but… goddamn it…

        3. Rosseloh says:

          My ire for DA2 is rooted in the recycled cave that you see everywhere, and the beaming-down enemy spawns. I never actually finished it so I can’t comment much on the story. But those recycled areas ground on my nerves so much I just quit playing.

          1. Miral says:

            That’s the only problem I ever had with it. Fortunately in the DLC they appear to have learned their lesson.

        1. Rick says:

          That wasn’t meant as a reply here, and has nothing to do with DA2, which as I said I never finished, and in fact lost interest in halfway through Act 2. Maybe someday I’ll go back and finish it, but I know how likely that is.

      2. Johan says:

        For me the ending was bad because
        A. it resolved nothing
        B. it was pointless.

        So at the very end the Templars and Mages are at war, right? And we get a voiceover from that dwarven crossbowman about how the war is spreading throughout the world, right?
        OOPS! The end! Can’t have you taking part in the huge epic conflict that we’ve spent the last act and the better part of the game setting up, now can we. See the only really connecting thread of the 3 acts is the mages/templars thing. Several of the first act quests will revolve around this. Your own family dilemmas do, but the plot ends just as its getting started.

        And as for pointless, it just seems nonsensical. So you’ve become this Big Name in the city, and you’ve probably got a stake in everything that’s happening, but no all you get is a voiceover telling you that you leave the city, as well as any money, friends, and common sense you may have accumulated during your journey.

        See, who is this game about? If it’s about the Mages and the Templars, it’s a bad ending because nothing is resolved, we have the setup, the first conflict, but no climax and no conclusion.

        If it’s about Hawke, it’s pointless. You start with as a penniless refugee fleeing conflict, you end as a penniless refugee fleeing conflict. And while that may appeal to a sense of symmetry, there’s no good reason for it. As I’ve said you’re already a Big Name in the city, you have connections on one or both sides of the conflict, you have a reason to have a stake in it, but for no reason at all you leave everything just as it’s about to get started. It would be one thing if it pulled the Mass Effect 1 ending of “too be continued,” where you know you’ve ended this stage but the next is coming next game. But this isn’t ever that, this would be like if at the end of ME1 Shepherd decides to become a farmer out in the colonies.

        And I’ve heard arguments that the real center of the narrative is the city itself, but even here it fails for me. Once again the big conflicts aren’t resolved, not only the Mages/Templars but also, who’s running this place? If the city is the center of the story, then this is some time in the second act where our protagonist is bruised and beaten, running from the bad guys and wondering whether he’ll survive. Then cut to a narration, end movie roll credits.

        No matter who the story is about, it just felt… unfinished.

        1. krellen says:

          It was so obviously a set up for a sequel. Which is horrible in itself.

        2. Kdansky says:

          You completely missed what the story is actually about, as does everyone else when they rile upon DA2. It’s not a Hero’s Journey. But apparently, that’s the only story everyone expects.

          It’s a story about the beginning of the great war between the Mages and the Templar. It tells us how the bloody thing started. It’s the story of the rise and fall of Hawke, and that is absolutely fine. In fact, it’s far better to have the fall happen off-screen, and not play it out, and end on a low-point. Hawke is supposed to be a tragic character, and that’s absolutely fine.

          It’s like writing a story about how the One Ring was forged, or about Hitler’s rise to power, or about Arthas becoming the Lich King. All these stories are not finished, but that’s okay, because only the simplest of stories are completely finished at a single point in time, and many people asking for that only tells me how little people know about story-telling.

          But what really went wrong is execution.

          The rising tension of the two factions should have been made clearer, but Hawke spends most of his time chasing after the Aristok. Though on the other hand, this makes sense: Because he was busy with crappy politics, the bigger issue got ignored, until we ended up with a war, and Hawke failed to prevent it. Hawke as a tragic character felt really wrong with all the awesomeness that’s going on. Varrik as narrator wasn’t used properly either, except for that one plot with his brother.

          To sum up: DA2 is a set-piece of a bigger universe. It just seems rushed, and partially badly executed, but the plot itself works very well. It’s actually the high-point of an otherwise mediocrily executed game: It’s unusual in that it does something completely unexpected of the genre.

          1. Johan says:

            “It's a story about the beginning of the great war between the Mages and the Templar.”
            And that’s exactly the problem with the story. This, in and of itself, is what breaks the story for me. Because you don’t build an entire game out of an introduction. It would be like if LotR stopped after the Council of Elrond.

            1. Kdansky says:

              So you just hate open endings. That’s not DA2’s fault, and that doesn’t make it a bad story, or even a broken story.

              Just because Hollywood is unable to write anything other than Happy Closure doesn’t mean there are not other forms of narrative. I recommend reading more books. You’ll be surprised when you see that perfect closure isn’t actually the only thing that exists.

              1. acronix says:

                Strawman alert! I understand why you would mention Hollywood, but I don´t think he did. You are just assuming he is expecting everything to be hollywood-esque and that he doesn´t read enough books, based only that he doesn´t like non-happy endings.

                Anyway. I´d say that the story in itself is interesting enough, but as you said, the execution failed miserably. Specially the ending section when everyone acts like a bunch of idiots (including Hawke), the enemies out of the blue and the recycled scenarios. Though the bigger problem is, probably, that Hawke is just a witness of events: you witness how the arishok screws the city over (and then proceed to kill him) and how the mage-templar problem scalates. But you just do that. Sure, you *can* pick sides, but the ending is the same regardless: you still kill the archmage, you still kill the templar commande and you still dissapear because Bioware needed a triquel hook.

        3. Milos says:

          Well the original DA was pretty much self-contained because they didn’t know just how big the franchise would get. Then, when they saw they could make a ton of money, they used the second game pretty much only to set up the third.

          Pretty much the same stuff that happened with Mass Effect 2 and The Witcher 2.

      3. Vegedus says:

        I always thought it was kinda cool that Dragon Age II tried something different with it’s story structure (centered around a city, and the protagonists rise to heroism and influence rather than saving the world), but that they ultimately failed, which is too bad. “Too bad” not “I’m never going to buy a Bioware game again”. I can’t fault them too much from experimenting and it failing. I guess some people could.

        1. ehlijen says:

          Agreed. The execution was badly flawed, but I do approve of what they were trying to do and how it would have been delighfully different from all their previous games.

          As for the question of what was so bad about the ending?
          They tried to set up a moral dilemma about the mages: Are they all potential demons? If so, how much oppression is justified to protect the rest of the world?

          But by forcing the player to fight the leaders of both sides for contrived reasons they turned a moral dilemma into a farce.

          1. IFS says:

            I have heard that the writers did not want to have the players fight both bosses regardless of their choice but other people wanted to shoehorn in another boss fight.

            1. ehlijen says:

              Doesn’t make the game any better, sadly, nor does it unjustify a loss of trust to bring quality in their writing team. If they let it happen to their story once, we have to assume they’ll let it happen again.

              1. Jarenth says:

                Doesn’t make the game any better” does not do it justice. Having to fight the leader of the mages, as a mage, who supported the mages, was enough concentrated idiocy to make me yell at the screen.

          2. Nick says:

            It’s not just that – pretty much every mage you fight or come across is a blood mage in the last half of the game. Every one. So, there is no debate – canonically, you can’t trust them and the Templars are kinda right.

            Which as a moral Mage character was the most frustrating thing to play ever

          3. Khizan says:

            I didn’t mind it, really.

            I have only two problems with the ending. The idol driving Meredith mad, and Orsino working with Quentin.

            I sided with the Mages first and never caught on to the Quentin thing, so I didn’t think it was that bad, fighting Orsino. A mage, pushed to the limits of his endurance, did exactly what the Templars say all mages can do, underscoring the validity of their arguments and making you say “What have I sided with, when even the best of them can so easily end up this way?”

            When you learn he knew about Quentin all along, it gets harder to read it that way and it becomes “Goddamnit, Meredith was right.”

            And, without the Meredith/idol and Orsino/Quentin things, when you sided with the Templars you would find that Meredith really WAS paranoid and crazy, that Orsino was right about that, and what else might they be right about? Was the rebellion you just finished putting down justifiable after all?

            It was, imo, a superior game right up till it went screwy in the last few minutes.

            1. ehlijen says:

              I agree mostly, except on the ‘superior game’ part. The repetitive combat and caves held it back far too much for that.

  15. Kdansky says:

    After getting all cynical about ME2, I can now find some sadistic pleasure in the fact that everyone else will stop telling me how great the Mass Effect games are, and if they don’t, I can shut them up and make them cry salty tears by saying something like “Yep, great game. I liked the ending.”

    Schadenfreude at its finest, but I have suffered through all those unbearably high praises of what I always thought was a decent but bland (ME1) and a totally shitty (ME2) game.

    1. Shamus says:

      “Schadenfreude at its finest, but I have suffered through all those unbearably high praises of what I always thought was a decent but bland (ME1) and a totally shitty (ME2) game.”

      Looking back, I think I loved Mass Effect not for what it was, but for what I wanted it to be.

      Such is the fate of those who love space opera in a Michael Bay world.

      1. KremlinLaptop says:

        Yeah, I wanted the series to be the space opera game equivalent Babylon 5 but instead it turned out like the Wing Commander movie.

        1. Jace911 says:

          Hell, both of them had Freddy Prince Jr.

          Though Vega wasn’t QUITE as bland and uninteresting as I thought he’d be.

          1. GiantRaven says:

            I liked him. I felt he’d make a pretty good bromance character for Shepard…if wasn’t for the fact that Garrus already existed and had two games worth of prior awesome.

            1. Eric says:

              He has a character? Aside from the odd Spanish word in his dialogue and I CAN BENCH PRESS 50 MILLION physique, I thought Vega was quite possibly the least interesting BioWare character ever. I’ve seen tutorial NPCs with more personality than that brick.

              1. Corsair says:

                Still an improvement on Kaidan.

              2. Mantergeistmann says:

                Can’t possibly be worse than Cernd, from BG2.

      2. Kdansky says:

        I remember playing the first one during my exchange year in Japan on my notebook, and saying “well, this was underwhelming” when I finished it, and then I never understood why all my friends loved it so much.

      3. Bill says:

        The highest form of bad – so bad, it kills your enjoyment of other things. Kinda like ME2, only a hundred times worse.

    2. Except up until the ending ME3 is really enjoyable and made up for a lot of ME2.

    3. Khizan says:

      The ending was bad. Really bad. You’re right. But it’s not enough to make me cry salty tears of anguish when you bring it up.

      See, in the end, I find that I just don’t give that much of a damn about it. The hours and hours and hours of enjoyment I’ve gotten out of the series make up for it. Hell. Mordin’s missions in ME2 and ME3 are enough to make up for it, to me. The ending of Mordin’s last mission is just beautiful. Perfect.

      I like the world. I like the gameplay. I like the characters. I don’t like the ending, but nothing’s perfect(Aside from Mordin Solus, of course). And if I twist things around a bit, I can turn the ME3 ending into something that I can be happy with and accept. And, in the end, that’s good enough for me.

      1. Indy says:

        Yes, missions off the overarching stories are generally better. Mordin and Wrex, Tali and Legion, Liara the Broker; These stories are better. ME3 as a whole would be better if these stories tied to each other.

  16. It feels a lot like what Bioware’s been doing lately. They think of something cool they want to have happen: “Wouldn’t it be ossum if the Mass Relays get blown up?!” and THEN try to come up with a justification for it.

    You CAN write this way, but only if you are good at a.) spotting logical inconsistencies and tidying them up, and b.) you’re prepared to throw out your idea, no matter how ossum it was, if you just can’t make it work.

    Way back when ME first came out, I posited an ending to the story that had the Reapers being the result of what you might call an ecoterrorist group. See, the organics, once they reach a certain level of civilization, become ravenous consumers of resources as well as becoming somewhat static. So this splinter group of some ancient civilization created the Reapers in order to go in and wipe out civilizations in the name of “sustainability” and “diversity”. They didn’t take into account how incredibly powerful and destructive the Reapers would eventually become by absorbing the remnants of all those destroyed civilizations.

    Not the best story by far, but better than what this turned out to be.

    In any case, I’m glad I didn’t play ME2. I found the whole business with TIM to be so escalatingly goofy that I just couldn’t be bothered. ME wasn’t my favorite game by far, so I wasn’t that interested in ME2 from the get-go.

    1. Mephane says:

      It feels a lot like what Bioware's been doing lately. They think of something cool they want to have happen: “Wouldn't it be ossum if the Mass Relays get blown up?!” and THEN try to come up with a justification for it.

      That makes sense. It also explains why in SWTOR the current endgame armor sets look so hideous (and the sets coming with 1.2 look preposterously awful, but at least then you can take all the parts from them into customizable gear at least…).

      Which is funny because in some areas Bioware *nailed* the Star Wars style and feeling, while in others they failed so badly that it’s almost comical.

      1. krellen says:

        Having equipment in SWTOR be anything {i]but[/i] customisable was a colossal mistake. Rewards should have been complete new sets of modable gear – an ascetic thing (and I mean a complete set all at once, not a piece at a time) – or a new mod to put in existing gear. I really cannot fathom why they have anything else.

        1. Irridium says:

          At the very least they should have let us equip two sets of clothes. One set for all the stats, another set for pure aesthetics so that we don’t look like clowns.

          1. Ringwraith says:

            LotRO had this, and I don’t know why no-one else has picked up on it.
            Such a good idea.

            1. Mephane says:

              Well a lot of MMOs actually did, I know Warhammer Online eventually adopted the system, Rift did it a few months after release, and afaik even WoW now has something along these lines.

              1. Chargone says:

                CoH, of course, solved the problem in an even neater way a LONG time earlier:

                your stats are completely unrelated to your outfit.

                of course, for some characters this is a bit baffling (iron man would still have all his super-type-abilities even if he took his armour off, for example. ) and it wouldn’t work in a game where armour was a meaningful thing (aka, Anything set in a medieval environment, so most fantasy) but still, it was a good choice.

              2. Ringwraith says:

                I admit, I don’t pay much attention to MMOs to notice where’s it’s been taken in, although you’d still think more games would do this, especially one where it would make sense like say, Star Wars.

    2. I’d have to agree with that assessment of their writing style – I’ve been watching the Let’s Play of Metroid: Other M and they posit a similar theory (dubbed “The Stonewater Fallacy” after the orc from Dominic Deegan) to a lot of the game’s worst parts.

      In Other M for example, they wanted a scene where Adam makes a heroic sacrifice so his death will be memorable. In order to do this Samus has to be disabled, so they have Adam shoot her in the back with a freeze pistol, and then in order to make it “heroic” she thanks him for it.

      A simple concept of a scene goes downright terrible because that was the only way they could fit it in.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I am both afraid and intrigued by this Lets Play. I want to watch it, and I definitely, positively don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to crush my illusion that those who defend Other M aren’t being complete idiots, but on the other hand I want to see if my refusal to purchase it is justified.

      2. Ringwraith says:

        Now, see, even that scene in its current state could’ve been made interesting, by simply making it so Samus doesn’t thank him for it, and have appropriate responses for that.
        It sounds better at least, but I haven’t the scene in question so I have no idea if that would help fix it.

  17. NihilCredo says:

    This put things in perspective for me:

    It’s an ending so bad, people are literally complaining that Yahtzee didn’t complain enough about it.

  18. Heron says:

    Did the Protheans build a crucible of their own? Did they try to use it? If so, what happened? I suspect I have just given this more thought than the writers did.

    The Prothean companion explains it thusly (of course I’m paraphrasing):

    “I guess they were working on that. Obviously they didn’t get it work.”

    And that’s all he has to say on the matter.

    1. Yeah, he’s kind of useless as a lore character. Liara even laments as much.

      1. GiantRaven says:

        Which is incredibly hilarious considering the backlash going on before the game came out.

        From what I’ve read, The Prothean seems like a pretty cool character. I might have to pick up the DLC for when I next play through the game.

        1. Khizan says:

          I got it, I think it was worth it. He’s got a lot of absolutely hilarious moments.

          Of course he’s kind of useless as a Crucible resource, and as a subject for Liara, though. He was born at the end of a century and more of constant war and he was a soldier, not a scientist. When he was born, his society was already in ruins.

          As a lore character, I think he’s rather interesting, though. Learning how Protheans actually thought is interesting.

  19. Packie says:

    Ugh. I hate, hate how Cerberus went from the moronic Jackasses who caused more harm than good even to themselves to an organization whose powerful enough to take on the combined allied forces of the galaxy. Ever since ME2, it bothered me how much focus and development went to these morons. All that time they had the opportunity to flesh out the universe more and have enough time to deliver a satisfying ending instead of focusing in these completely uninteresting morons. But no, Cerberus is teh awesome!!1!.

    1. wyatt1048 says:

      In my head, Cerberus suddenly started being competent at about the same time the Illusive Man got indoctrinated. Once he stops making decisions, everything goes well for them.

      1. Look it’s simple – the incompetent parts of Cerberus were rogue cells. The REAL Cerberus was super powerful all along.

        1. GiantRaven says:

          I’d like to think that a part of The Illusive Man was a rogue cell. Imagine the arguments!

      2. Maldeus says:

        That actually makes a lot of sense. The Illusive Man was fairly incompetent, but once Cerberus became puppets of the Reapers, they naturally turned into a frighteningly hyper-efficient, hyper-effective super army, capable of building incredibly advanced technology and the extremely rapid construction of infrastructure and fleets. How long does ME3 take place across? All those troops they’re recruiting might be the result of rapid indoctrination on a mass scale if they’re only around for a few weeks.

    2. James says:

      I can live with how they got the unlimited people. they actually do explain it in game, Sanctuary took in people who were than experimented with indoctrination. In essence Tim could take “Volunteers” from people he could have conceivably indoctrinated himself. Of course the Reapers already indoctrinated him a while ago and that is why his actions do more harm than good and he just doesn’t see it that way.

      Or I’m grasping at any hope that he just wasn’t a poorly explained badly written character. Ether way still hated Cerberus, Hated Tim and his somehow unlimited resources. (seriously who is funding this asshole?)

      1. Sumanai says:

        Unlimited, yet not enough to resurrect Shepard a second time in ME2.

        Yeah, I’m feeling a bit vindictive about getting sass for complaining about the Raise Dead spell at the beginning of ME2.

        1. Ringwraith says:

          Remember it took two years to bring Shepard back, although some of that was simply getting the body back, it’s basically not within the timeframe to allow a second rebuilding.
          Not to mention the fact that they’d probably run out of parts to replace, seeing as they stuffed a lot of metal into Shepard already.

          1. krellen says:

            The Lazarus Project was a completely unnecessary ass-pull to make up for their completely unnecessary opening. If that hadn’t randomly killed Shepard for no goddamn reason, they wouldn’t have had to randomly resurrect Shepard for no goddamn reason.

            Except to make a Jesus allegory, of course.

            1. Sumanai says:

              That is exactly my main gripe with it. I remember mentioning the others before, so I won’t preach about it this time.

              1. Uli says:

                It’s even worse when they bring up the Lazarus project *again* in ME3 and you think “Oh, thank god, maybe we’ll finally learn why it was important to the overarching narrati- oh, no, nevermind.”

                1. Sumanai says:

                  Ugh. That’s basically Bioware intentionally shooting themselves on the foot, and then running around mentioning the fact that they intentionally shot themselves on the foot. And people keep insisting they’re smart.

            2. Simon Buchan says:

              Unless you believe Bioware was always going for a story (or B-plot at least) about organics vs. synthetics, and were looking for a way to make Shepard a mediator. In which case they didn’t do anywhere near enough with that.

            3. Maldeus says:

              Shepard’s being partly synthetic actually did end up being key to the ending of ME3. The Starchild comes right out and says that Shepard is partly synthetic, heavily implying that the “kill the internet synthetics” option will take Shepard with it.

              1. krellen says:

                You can make someone partially synthetic without killing them.

                1. Ringwraith says:

                  You can even have a conversation with EDI about it, who mentions that Shepard’s brain is still completely organic, and it’s just some physical things which were supplemented/replaced, meaning Shepard’s still human.

                2. Maldeus says:

                  Yeah, but the Starchild mentions Shepard is partly synthetic immediately after saying Shepard can choose to kill all synthetics. It’s practically impossible to imply any more heavily that Shepard will also die if he takes that option.

                  1. krellen says:

                    … I was talking about Shepard’s death at the beginning of ME2.

                    1. Maldeus says:

                      Shepard’s death at the beginning of ME2 is what makes him partly synthetic, which comes back to be important when the option to kill all synthetics is presented, in that this will also result in the death of Shepard. Granted, the “Shepard died between games and we gave him a space rez” was a really contrived way of establishing this.

                    2. Sumanai says:

                      @Maldeus – Do you suffer from problems regarding memory? Krellen said, right there, that you can make someone a cyborg without killing them. So killing Shepard at the beginning of Mass Effect 2 was pointless, even if it would be important for the ending that s/he is a cyborg and therefore will die.

                    3. Sumanai says:

                      How about this: if you choose the Destroy option, the Crucible will blow up. There. No need for a cyborg Shepard.

                    4. Sumanai says:

                      In fact, just have the crucible blow up due to the release of energy. There, Shepard dies in every case and the reason is pretty hard to argue against since a lot of precursor technology tends to blow up when used in sci-fi.

              2. taellosse says:

                This was an element that bothered me in and of itself. Why the hell would the “red” path kill ALL synthetics? I can buy it wiping out the Reapers (and, thus, all remnant of every previous cycle’s life forms and civilizations) because the Crucible/Catalyst is, essentially, the same technology as the Reapers themselves and the mass relays, so maybe there’s some sort of self-destruct protocol built into all of it together.

                But the Geth and EDI–and Shepard–are something else altogether. They’re completely new technology, with no connection to the Reapers or any of their related technology. How can some sort of random signal from overloading mass relays have any effect on them? Other than being within the literal blast radius, of course, which puts them in no different position than all the rest of the matter in the galaxy.

                1. Arex says:

                  I’m not a fan of the ending at all. But EDI is basically a mashup of the AI Shepard fought on Luna in the first game and Sovereign’s random spare parts, and the geth are running the Reaper improvements that let Legion go from “we” to “I” and “it” to “he”. So that part is sort of defensible. (And if the game really wanted to kill Shepard based on his or her synthetic components, who would be surprised if the Illusive Man grabbed whatever didn’t fit into EDI and put it in Shepard for a minor clock speed upgrade?)

                  (I actually found it odd: using Reaper tech was basically the equivalent of trying to wield the One Ring where organics were concerned– it inevitably led to corruption, indoctrination, and blowback. But a Paragon Shepard will choose to trust both EDI and the geth in full knowledge of their Reaper components– in the case of the geth, will forego any attempt to interfere with their reclaiming the upgrades– and this is the right decision, with no implied bad consequences.)

                  But even if that had been intended and made explicit (which it pretty clearly wasn’t), not every AI is Reaper-based. The Hannibal AI on Luna and the unnamed AI on the Citadel were pretty clearly in keeping with the Catalyst’s predictions: murderous and impossible to negotiate with. But the geth history you’re shown makes it pretty clear that they would have preferred to coexist with the quarians all along. (And they certainly had the opportunity to betray them once Shepard had brokered peace, if the fleet was in Rannoch’s system, stood down, and was even letting geth processes into some of their suits, so there’s no reason to doubt their sincerity.)

                  That signals from the mass relays can affect any synthetic, and the claim that conflict is otherwise inevitable, seems like a stretch.

                  Though less of one than the “remake every living being in the galaxy” ending. If you can do that, why do you need the giant spaceship monsters? Set the remake beam to just destroy all the DNA and equivalent on the planets you don’t like, which has got to be easier. (I guess the fact that it blows up the mass relays means you can only do it once.)

    3. MatthewH says:

      Cerberus didn’t bother me as much. They seem mostly to be opportunistic. Shepard has to run around putting out brush fires. If it wasn’t for the fact that the Alliance really did need all hands on deck to fight the Reapers, Cerberus wouldn’t have been that much of a problem.

      I wonder -ever so slightly -if Cerberus is a solution to the “two steves” rule from TvTropes. If someone in the Alliance or Citadel is indoctrinated, we’re going to forever have problems keeping straight who is and is not indoctrinated. By breaking Cerberus off from the Alliance in game 1, we confine the indoctrinated human enemies to a separate named entity.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Which also makes the Reapers appear less dangerous. After all, if they for some unknown reason can’t indoctrinate anyone from the Alliance, or they can only brainwash xenophobic idiots, why should we be worried about it?

      2. Arex says:

        “If someone in the Alliance or Citadel is indoctrinated, we're going to forever have problems keeping straight who is and is not indoctrinated.”

        Though that’s supposed to be one of the Reapers’ primary tactics, explained by Vigil in the first game, and reemphasized by Javik here. (So it’s not an idea they dropped.)

        Javik’s story about having a team like Shepard’s which wound up all indoctrinated, requiring him to personally kill them all, is a more horrific idea that I’d have ever wanted to see implemented for Shepard in-game. (Maybe as a Very Bad ending, if you completely neglected a bunch of objectives and warning signs.) But it would actually make sense for someone other than the usual suspects to wind up indoctrinated and have to be restrained or put down.

        (There was a nod to this sort of thing with the three? members of your previous squad who you can wind up fighting. But they show up as enemies, not as allies who then betray from within.)

  20. Zukhramm says:

    I have two big questions.

    Why does Shepard trust the thing that admits to having created the Reapers?! Also, the kid says synthetic life will always destroy their creators. Always?! I don’t know. What does that even means? Is that a law of physics Reaper scientists discovered or what?

    Also, how does the energy beam thing even work? It travels through the relays, then outwards from them to nearby systems transforming life and technology into some kind of hybrid/destroy all technology/control the Reapers?

    How does the control thing even work? Is Shepard conscious, inside all the Reapers now? Didn’t the Reapers make the mass relays? If so, couldn’t Shepard just rebuild them now?

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Very good question.And here are the answers.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Yeah, that’s how I see Bioware/EA -combo platter as well.

  21. Grescheks says:

    It feels odd to say this, but after reading through some of the ending deconstructions of Mass Effect 3 available online, I still feel that the ending made sense to me (without having to resort to the “Indoctrination Theory”). So, using only what I had figured out from in-game things on my playthrough of the Mass Effect series, here’s how I interpreted the above points (as an aside, I had the Prothean squadmate in this playthrough, and had a chance to talk to him, so maybe that helped with some of it?).

    But first…

    Cerberus: This is actually the one point I agree with somewhat. In the game, they do explain that, through the experiments with Reaper indoctrination Cerberus was able to recruit people unwillingly from Sanctuary, but it still doesn’t explain where they got the fleet to move this army around, or the resources to arm and train them. Also, in the final cutscene, TIM says he “spent his whole life trying to understand” the Reapers so he could control them. Unless he’s only 3 years old (the timeline in which the games take place) or he knew about the Reapers way before anyone else did, that seems like complete BS to me. And Leng was just stupid and he totally should have died the first time he sat in the open to recharge his shields.

    Now on to the rest of it.

    The Reapers: It’s explained that the Reapers don’t “destroy all life”, they destroy all life that is technologically capable of creating sentient synthetics, which according to the Star Child AI have historically always turned on their creators. They aren’t destroying all life, they are allowing life to continue for lesser species by culling the species that would bring about their downfall. If the Geth and EDI are different this time around, it seems more likely that this result is an outlier when compared to the data that the SC had gathered over countless cycles.

    The Mass Relays: Now, this might just be a different interpretation of the ending cinematic, but I didn’t see the Mass Relays as exploding violently (as they are supposed to do). The SC again explains that using the Crucible would consume all the energy that the Mass Relays use to create the Mass Effect in order to propagate the Coloured Wave of Plot Completion across the universe. If you watch the ending when it shows the wave hitting Earth, it doesn’t destroy the people and buildings, so it’s not a destructive wave. I took the Mass Relays being destroyed to mean that they used all their energy, then exploded conventionally, which would cause no more damage than if a large spaceship had blown up at that orbit.

    The Crucible: Again, my interpretation of the events of the game, but I never saw it as building parts of a gun, but more like: Civ A sees Reapers are coming, and want to fight back, and so builds a handgun, which doesn’t work and they all die. Civ B sees Reapers are coming/finds plans for handgun, improve the design to fire bigger bullets more accurately, which doesn’t work and they all die. Repeat until this cycle, when the Reapers are here and they find the plans for the Crucible, which would have worked if the Protheans could have gotten everything connected properly, but by the time the Crucible was ready, the Citadel had already been taken, and there was no way to make it all work in time. The Protheans were able to make the Crucible work with the Citadel because they understood the workings of the Citadel enough to understand it was Reaper tech and that they could use it against them.

    The Galaxy, the Earth, and Squadmates: While, yes, the Mass Relay system is now gone, there is still conventional Faster Than Light travel, so all these planets are still theoretically reachable, though it would take a while. On top of that, the ending of Mass Effect 1 showed quite clearly that the Protheans managed to create their own Mass Relays (the Conduit on Ilos and it’s receiver on the Citadel), and since all the races involved in the final fight are in the Sol System, they have access to the Prothean Archives on Mars, which, for all I know, has the plans for the Prothean Mass Relays in it somewhere (since apparantly a lot of it is untranslated). It is therefore not inconceivable that the Mass Relay system could be rebuilt, thus not dooming the galaxy (and could also conceivably be the plot of further games in the Mass Effect series). This also means the Normandy crew isn’t necessarily stranded forever, and could still go on to whatever they want to do after all this is over.

    The Normandy: I saw this scene and figured that Joker saw the Ending-o-tron 3000tm wave and decided to try to outrun what he saw as a massive explosion instead of just standing there staring at the pretty lights until he died. I also figured that he was using the Normandy’s conventional FTL drive, not the exploding Mass Relays. Not sure where the planet he crashed on is supposed to be, though, or how the crew members managed to make it onto the Normandy before it took off (in my playthrough, I had Garrus and Liara in my final squad, and the ending cinematic clearly showed Garrus on the Jungle Planet with no indication how he avoided being blown up at the end of the game), but by this point I figured they were going for some symbolic ending of New Beginnings or somesuch, so I let that slide.

    Anyway, that’s how I saw the ending (as coloured by my playthrough of ME). Maybe I missed something that completely undermines my understanding of what happened. Who knows?

    (I’m sure someone will inform me if I missed something crucial, so presumably they know)

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      *nitpcik*Sapient synthetics.*/nitpick*

    2. ehlijen says:

      What about the Normandy being wrecked/mangled at lightspeed but still somehow crashlanding in mostly one piece anywhere?

      Is it made of the same metal that let shepards helmet protect his skull from uncontrolled atmospheric reentry followed by a ballistic crash at the start of ME2?

      I could buy the mass relay destruction not blowing up solar systems if they hadn’t gone out of their way to make that point in Arrival. That was dumb enough DLC and they seemed to treat everything else about it as canonical, so I don’t see why, without even handwaving explanation to the contrary, we’re supposed to think that exploding mass relays don’t equal earth being blown up.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Also if they hadn’t made a point about the explosion damaging Normandy right there in the ME3 ending, it could be argued that in this particular case they’re not blowing up with a destructive force, but a magical happy land explosion that either doesn’t hurt anyone, only reaper tech and Geth, or turns everyone into cyborgs.

    3. IFS says:

      I like to joke that joker was trying to outrun the plotholes created by the ending but they caught up to him.

      1. ehlijen says:

        I like this explanation. Though he probably just collided with the Ebon Hawk coming the other way :P

        1. Sumanai says:

          So the Ebon Hawk was trying to quickly catch all the plotholes?

          1. ehlijen says:

            It just likes flying through them for the lulz.

    4. Corsair says:

      Conventional FTL won’t work. I mean, it will work, but the species are still permanently cut off from each other due to the distance between star clusters being impossible to cross with Mass Effect FTL drive, due to the buildup of static charge.

    5. Sean Hagen says:

      Re: the Mass Effect Relays

      That’s pretty much what I figured. I didn’t really understand all the angry ranting about “we just destroyed the galaxy!”. Maybe it’s a perk of the sci-fi I’ve been brought up on or something, but just because one relay ( the ME2 Arrival DLC Relay ) exploded and took out a star system doesn’t mean that all Relays will do so.

      I guess it probably comes from reading The Commonwealth Saga ( by Peter F Hamilton — highly recommend it ), which have incredibly powerful bombs with “diverted energy functions”. Basically, the explosions are ‘tuned’ so that instead of an explosion you get, say, a blast of powerful x-rays.

      What happened at the end with the Relays seemed fairly similar. Instead of just getting destroyed and letting out all the energy uncontrolled, the Relays use up all of their energy performing a diverted energy function — which destroys the Relay in the process.

      1. Sumanai says:

        The explosions clearly damage the Normandy. Why would they not damage anything else? The Big Ben magically surviving doesn’t count, since it’s a stupid way of conveying “thank you for grinding”.

  22. guy says:

    Man, I knew it was bad from what I read on the internet already, but this is even dumber than I had imagined.

    The mass relays literally explode? Despite this very team having established that exploding a mass relay will take out the star system? They don’t just shut down?

    I guess the explaination for the Reapers kind of makes sense when you consider that they turn some new organics into more Reapers instead of just killing all of them. But why didn’t Sovergien just tell Shepard and Saren? And why was he so incredibly smugly superior to people his entire purpose in existance was to make more like him?

    1. Raygereio says:

      Despite this very team having established that exploding a mass relay will take out the star system?
      The team that worked on the Arrival DLC was different that the team that worked on ME3.
      No excuse, but then we’re talking about a series writen by people who use the fan-made wiki as a resources for facts.

      1. Zukhramm says:

        What was even the point or Arrival? It wasn’t to buy time, since no one except Liara actually did anything with the time. Seems like the only point was to make Shepard give away the Normandy 2 to the Alliance, and conveniently place him on earth.

        1. Lalaland says:

          There was precisely zero point to Arrival. I bought it prior to playing ME3 in the naive belief it would setup what’s happening with Shepard. When I played ME3 there are about 3 points in the game where knowing what happened matter but you don’t lose any context by not knowing either. It was a boring one person team shooter where the ‘choice’ was basically irrelevant to what was going to happen anyway and it makes ME2’s council seem even more stupid as now you’ve actively fought reapers in that game’s timeline rather than just Collectors.

          1. Sumanai says:

            There was a point in Arrival. To get people to give Bioware money.

      2. So does Homestar Runner…

  23. Bodyless says:

    Your ability to analysis games is great, but you your ability to listen and remember certain facts is abysmal:

    1. Remember when you found the cerberus husk like soldier? and the mission on eden prime? well turns out they were turning refugees into and endless stream of mooks. It totally makes sense that they got a huge army.

    2. As it turns out, TIM was indoctrinated, at least sort of, so his own goals were subverted by the reapers. Who, as the protean VI tells you, are using groups like cerberus to sabotage any attemp at beating the reapers. His fanatism made him vulnorable and so he fell for the trap and never managed to actually succeed in anything. His incompetence is justified.

    3. At least in my game, the star child did acknowledge that i made peace between quarians and geth. And the reapers dont just kill organic life, they preserve in the form of reapers. They cut a lot of dialoge at this point, like they said in the iphone app i think, mentioned on the escpaist. I got no justification for this.

    4. The prothean VI tells us everything about the crucible, not the star child!!!!!!! sorry about the excalmation marks, but either that or a picture of picard facepalming. sorry
    EDIT: actually, it was a combination of the VI, admiral Hackett and maybe some other npcs.
    the rest of this chapter has a severe lack of imagination. maybe it was slingshot>crossbow>gun? with the catalyst being the gunpowder.

    Same problem with the galaxy chapter, i didnt play arrival so this wasnt a problem for me. But maybe that super advanced tech noone understands combined with the reaper hivemind actually does something everyone thought was impossible?

    The Normandy: And you forgot the real plot black hole:
    WHY THE HECK IS EDIS BODY ON THAT SHIP? she was just on earth with me a few minutes ago! With almost no intact shuttles!
    Really, the epilogue looks like they produced it early and then totally forgot about it when they made/changed the ending.

    1. Shamus says:

      1. Armies are more than people who hold guns. Husks are mindless. Who runs these bases, where do they get supplies, etc etc etc?

      2. His incompetence is justified? In your last point you were justifying his extreme competence. This is the big problem with Cerberus. They can’t make pop-tarts without blowing up a base and turning their own people into husks, yet they can defeat the allied races of the galaxy again and again. In any case, my main complaint goes along with what you said: He’s obviously indoctrinated. He’s human. He’s silly. Which makes him boring and not someone I want lingering to the last moments of the game. Like Saruman, he would have been a good mid-story antagonist on the way to the big bad.

      1. LurkerAbove says:

        Okay, so the Reapers preserve their victims in Reaper form, fine. The human Reaper in ME2 had already hinted at it…

        But if that is the case, why does every other Reaper look like a squid? Am I to assume every cycle before the last two only squid things developed space travel?

        1. Shamus says:

          *Reapers emerge from dark space*

          “What? Squid AGAIN!?! What are the odds?”

          1. IFS says:

            What if only the Hanar had acheived spaceflight in this cycle?

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              THIS ONE IS ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL!

              1. IFS says:

                Blasto the Hanar Reaper!!!

        2. krellen says:

          This has bugged the hell out of me since Giant Reaper Baby in ME2, actually.

        3. Gamer says:

          I think it was said that when a reaper is finished, it is put into a shell. The squid thing is the shell.

          1. krellen says:

            Nah, that was a fan theory, not a canon explanation.

            1. MatthewH says:

              But I’m totally stealing it!

            2. Eärlindor says:

              No, that was actually the explanation given by BioWare.

              1. Jace911 says:

                Which doesn’t help, because unless you know specifically where to look for that statement you’re still led to believe that in the last 395 cycles of extinction the galaxy was populated entirely by calamari.

                1. Eärlindor says:

                  Yeah, it’s pretty lousy, and the explanation is still crap.

              2. krellen says:

                Where and when?

                1. Eärlindor says:

                  Here’s a link.

                  Sorry. I would’ve included it before, but I had trouble finding it the other day.

                  1. Jarenth says:

                    Hah!

                    Do Reapers have individual personalities?
                    That’s right up there with “Do Reapers have a soul?” or “Are they truly alive”? All great questions, but all questions that we are waiting to answer in Mass Effect 3.

                    It’s funny because nothing of the sort was even adressed.

                    1. Falcon02 says:

                      This also bugged me a bit… they made a big deal about how “Harbinger is one of the Reapers attacking Earth.” Aside from Sovereign it’s the only other named Reaper, which made it already made it stand out alot from the numerous other Reapers.

                      We learned alot about the way Sovereign thought of organics in ME1, I loved the conversation you have with Sovereign on Virmire. It created a character with a personality, an antagonist, from what was before just a powerful dreadnaught the “main” antagonist had used.

                      I don’t remember a huge amount of character building of Harbinger in ME2. Most of what there was was in the form of the quotes on the battlefield that point to Harbinger having some respect/admiration/scientific interest in Shepard. I was looking forward to them expanding upon Harbinger as a character in ME3. Instead all we got was “Harbinger is attacking Earth,” “Harbinger is breaking off to help stop Shepard,” and “Harbinger is shooting at everyone trying to make the last dash to the Beam”

                      And I don’t think that last one was even noted in game (That Harbinger is the one shooting at you), unless you were observant enough to note the slight difference between Harbinger and most other Reapers.

        4. Jordan says:

          Preserving them in the form of making giant space ships that are very, very vaguely shaped like the original race… and that may not have the correct arrangement of eyes.

        5. Destrustor says:

          Maybe the developers ran out of imagination?
          You know, like with the rest of the game?

          1. acronix says:

            They probably didn´t plan this out so far. The reapers were most probably designed as a robotic Cthulhu for the first game. After their success, they decided Cthulhu robots didn´t work well for the setting (or something) but they still looked cool, so they had to create a justification out of thin air.

        6. “why does every other Reaper look like a squid?”

          Rule of Cool References, I think, although that’s not an in-game explanation.

          A cuttlefish wizard did it?

      2. Jace911 says:

        I think the whole “TIM is indoctrinated and has mind-control powers” bit would have been better if they’d actually done it at the end of the Cerberus base, rather than on Earth. We would have dealt with Cerberus and their plot line, allowing the ending to focus ENTIRELY on the Reapers.

      3. Naota says:

        It’s not even just a matter of logistics that makes Cerberus completely ridiculous. Even if we assume that in a mere few months they brought to bear thousands of transport vessels, weapons, suits of armour, supply lines, outposts, and everything else which they would need to give them anything resembling a fighting chance against the Reapers… how is it that nobody has tracked them down and cut off their resources?

        The Cerberus of ME2 was a shadow organization which relied on autonomous cells and backroom deals to stay off the radar while funding elaborate projects for a limited group of elite operatives. Nobody knew where its power came from or what it was up to because it left such a small footprint. All of its strength rested in the very fact that it was so nimble and hard to pin down. In many ways it was the failed Majestic 12 of the Mass Effect universe.

        Then Mass Effect 3 happened, and Cerberus became the Empire from Star Wars – storm troopers and all.

        You can’t hide an army big enough to threaten the combined military forces of an entire race, let alone the inter-species collective that Shepard is forming. To wage that kind of war you need big obvious permanent facilities: training grounds, spaceports, workshops, garrisons, armories, ships, then builders and suppliers and funding for all of these things. You need hundreds of each and the time to build them.

        An army is not something you can create on the down-low – it’s one of the biggest, loudest, and most obvious entities known to history. You can be a secret shadow organization or you can be a military superpower, but you cannot be a giant secret shadow army.

        1. Lalaland says:

          This.

          Also how did he afford all this? Who built it? Does anyone think that US shipyards would build me a Guided Missile Destroyer if I showed up with a few hundred million dollars?

          It all stinks of a new lead writer wanting his pet bad guys to be the most important and of wanting to get bang for that Martin Sheen buck.

          1. Jace911 says:

            Playing the devil’s advocate here, but apparently corporations can build dreadnoughts and the Council is totally fine with it. Elkoss Combine builds an entire dreadnought based off turian designs with cutting-edge tech, then turns around and gives it to the Volus. With that in mind it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that Cerberus can have some of their front companies build a handful of cruisers (We never see more than a few, right?) and “lose” them.

            1. Lalaland says:

              Maybe but I’d view that like any modern nation ‘gifting’ weapons to another (like the UH60s in Plan Colombia). The only private organisations to ever develop nation level militaries were all trading companies such as the Dutch East Indies Company or the British East India Company. They were only allowed to develop this level of capability as they were acting in place of the state because states at that time didn’t have the same level of income from taxes to fully exploit their new colonies. As soon as they did or the profits from said colonies started to roll in (and as the corruption and incompetence of both became too hard to ignore) did they revert to being state entities again.

              Cerberus just stink of Bioware not having confidence in their actual big bad and wanted a more straight forward ‘evil’ villain to centre their story around. TIM is a straight drop in for Harbinger in this game as they seem to think that hiring Martin Sheen to read his lined makes the crappy quality of those lines all better.

        2. Astor says:

          So, after retconning Cerberus in ME2… they re-retconned them in ME3?? Unbelievable!

          1. acronix says:

            And they still managed to make them even more ridicolous. More competent, sure, but more ridicolous nonetheless.

        3. theDestroyer says:

          All of those assumptions are great – on Earth. On Earth you can’t assemble a giant army in secret – people are watching from space, supplies have to come from known arms dealers, the government that controls the territory has to let you build and train an army there, you have to recruit the army either from the locals or from elsewhere and transport them, etc.

          None of those reasons apply to the Mass Effect universe. There are loads of unmapped relays. Systems that are nearish to relays but don’t have a relay are largely unmapped. The galactic economy is huge and from what we can tell, pretty secretive (meaning it would be difficult to track arms going to Cerberus). Humans are spread out everywhere and they’ve got a supply of people from the reapers.

          There’s even precedent for a giant secret army in the Mass Effect universe: the rachni. No one had any idea there was an army large enough to overwhelm all the council races just waiting on the other side of an unmapped relay.

          1. acronix says:

            Rachni weren´t a secret army. For them to be they should have been under the galactic community’s noses during some stretch of time. Instead, they were in an undiscovered section of the galaxy. It would be akin to a culture arriving at some new continent for the first time and getting mauled and later invaded by the inhabitants. The locals weren´t really hiding, they were there and both parties were ignorant of each other existance. This is not the case with Cerberus and the Council species.

            I must admit the “they get people from the Reapers” would explain why they have so many manpower, though.

          2. Naota says:

            The Rachni weren’t at all the sort of “secret army” I was describing, as Acronix pointed out. They weren’t an omnipresent enigmatic force based out of nobody-knows-where that manipulated things from the shadows and could not be tracked down… they were just a regular old army walled off from the other species until the relay was activated.

            Cerberus on the other hand must get its resources from the established galactic community, and at the size it’s portrayed there is simply no way it could stay hidden from anyone. It’s not even a matter of finding a place to hide the facilities; the massive outpouring of resources would be an easy trail to follow. Hell, the mere absence of these things could not possibly go unnoticed. When the galaxy is in a terrible state and everything is scarce, somebody is going to realize that millions of pounds of weapons, food, spacecraft, armour, etc are being created and then going unaccounted for. All it takes is one single supplier catching on and the game is up.

            In other words, aside from the scale I don’t see any critical difference between managing an army on Earth and managing one in space. There are physically more places to hide in space, but the raw logistics of fielding a giant army remain unchanged, and at the size Cerberus is those will rat you out every time. All of that stuff has to come from somewhere before it gets strapped onto a husk-trooper (who is always a trained soldier why?)

          3. Dreadjaws says:

            In the Mass Effect universe, The Shadow Broker was just one man. Much easier to hide and way less harmless than a gigantic terrorist organization who only provides help to select members of the human race and attacks absolutely everone else.

            Yet the Shadow Broker (whose entire shtick was that he dealt on information, so he should be more prepared) was found and taken out by a lone asari. How is it possible then than no one could find Cerberus? Furthermore, since what EDI did to find them was just put a tracer in one of their members, why is that no one thought of that before?

            Another thing: humans are the youngest intelligent race and the newest to discover the mass relays and to be invited to the Citadel and such, how the heck could Cerberus grow so fast, considering they’re formed exclusively of humans?

      4. Bodyless says:

        Now, the problems with every fiction is, that no matter how much you write, there will always be some holes.
        Since you talk with some cerberus soldiers in the mars mission, i guess there are actually some regular people working for cerberus or their husks arent quite as mindless?

        Also, what i meant was TIM being incompentent at achieving his final goals. Of course he is not helping anyone by trying to control the reapers. Its just the reapers manipluating him to do so anyway.
        He is still kinda succesful at running cerberus at a basic level(getting funding, building an army ect…), but doomed to fail any higher goal.
        The reapers want him to be succesful at causing destruction, while it looks like he works on his own.

      5. Arex says:

        The logistics are still a problem. But my impression from Horizon was that they were basically sorting people into the ones they turned into full husks (and reverse-engineered the Reaper control signals from) and the ones they used what they’d learned from indoctrination to turn into mind-controlled but still mostly-human troops. (The reason that all those troopers, engineers, etc. had a husk-like look to them, mentioned by the characters on Mars, but were still able to operate complex machinery rather than being zombies dependent on built-in weaponry.)

        Again, that explains the manpower, not the materiel. To some extent, Horizon may explain that, too, in part: they pretty much get the entire life savings of an endless stream of panicked refugees. (They can charge through the nose on the front end, then have the indoctrinated “voluntarily” turn over anything left.) And prior to the Reaper invasion they were able to put together the money and industrial capacity (somehow) to outdo the Alliance’s experimental stealth ship.

        (Conceivable? Current warships run around $10 billion each, if the casual google I did is at least ballpark accurate. There are a fair number of people on the Forbes 500 list who could afford one, if they could get around the legal obstacles, and Citadel space is clearly full of military contractors who’ll supply all the merc armies Shepard is contantly running into. And if it takes special knowledge from people with security clearance, they can be kidnapped and indoctrinated.)

        I agree it’s a stretch– especially the attempted takeover of the galactic hub of government. (Which has always felt sort of small for what it is, but that could generally be passed off as game engine limitations and the bulk of the population being in unvisited wards.) But presumably Udina was supposed to be able to do the heavy lifting and get the Alliance to back him once it was a fait accompli.

        It is arguably enough to hit thinly defended colonies whose main military force has either been destroyed by the Reapers, is occupied resisting them, or is protecting the Crucible.

        (And which have never really been shown successfully defending themselves against anything: they’re pretty much there to be victims of batarians, geth, Collectors, the Thorian… I have to wonder what the sales brochures for those places look like.)

    2. Xanyr says:

      Your points would probably be more intelligent if you spelled them correctly. Also if you understood how punctuation works.

      1. Dasick says:

        Any form of meaningful discussion is impossible without giving the other person the benefit of the doubt. No offence, but dismissing someone’s argument just like that, without even trying to understand what is being said is the most destructive thing to happen to a discussion thread.

        Yeah, poor grammar sucks, but don’t be a Nazi about it.

    3. Cineris says:

      So… Pawns of ancient, hyperadvanced aliens are justified in being incompetent?

      1. Dasick says:

        So long as that incompetence pushes forward the ancient hyper advanced aliens’ agenda.

        I mean, how else do you explain EA’s business strategy? Obviously the Atlantians are trying to prevent an entertainment singularity…

        1. Dreadjaws says:

          I always thought the Reapers were an analogy of EA and how they extend their tentacles over everything, destroying everything in their path. Then EA buys out Bioware and suddenly the Reapers are trying to save the world from people who is too stupid to realize their mistakes. Yeah.

    4. Sumanai says:

      Every time someone criticises ME3’s ending and mentions what the Reapers are doing and why, they forget that they “don’t kill” but “preserve”.

      Then someone corrects, as if it actually makes a difference.

      They can but people’s brains in jars all they want, they’re just hard drives now, so they’re functionally dead. So they’re effectively killing every sapient being.

      1. krellen says:

        Plus I’ve never met anyone made into a grey pasty purée that lived to tell the tale.

        1. Sumanai says:

          I have, but they were talking about their DnD character.

        2. Daemian Lucifer says:

          That is also another stupid thing about the idiocy of the ending.I was willing to accept that somehow liquefying people and pumping them into a reaper can make a cyborg that would get the traits of the race,maybe even intelligence,but that was a stretch already.And now,they are saying that it also preserves the individuals as well?No,no,no,no,nope,no way,nah,not gonna happen,no!

    5. Dreadjaws says:

      I belive Shamus’ gun analogy is pitch perfect. Your analogy implies that it was an object whose purpose was known but it was being reconstructed while advancing in technology every cycle, but that’s quite the opposite of what the Crucible was. It was an object that no one knew what it did yet they kept adding pieces to it.

  24. Raygereio says:

    It is going to interesting to see how the EA/BioWare PR machine is going to handle this. After the DA2 fiasco their response was to look smug and shout “innovation!” and call anyone who didn’t like DA2 an idiot who didn’t understand their greatness. Since now the negative response is far, far larger then anything DA2 managed to generate, I honestly wonder if BioWare is able to pull their heads of their own asses and be able to admit they screwed up.

    Probably not.

    About the reaper motivation: in the leaked script the motivation was something along the lines of dark energy doing somthing funky with FTL travel with resulted in the acceleration of the end of the galaxy. So the reapers exist to ensure that huge galactic civilisations don’t destroy everything and give future species a chance to exist while preserving the civilisation they destroyed in a reaper.
    There’s bits of this in ME2 with Haestrom’s sun dying sooner then it should and the various references to dark matter. This could actually provide a big choice: Do you want to preserve the galaxy and let the reapers win? Do you want to galactic civilisation by destroying FTL. Or do you want to say “screw this” and go down with the galaxy in flames?
    It’s still a mystery to why BioWare went with the reaper-motivation that we got here. I mean it’s just so loving stupid and nonsensical. Hey, here’s an idea: if you don’t want to get wiped out by your own AI creation, don’t give it legs.

    Then again, most of the plot of the ME series has been build on people being stupid. So this par for the course really.

    1. IFS says:

      I think it would have worked better had a) the citadel not been the catalyst and b) the crucible just worked as intended and destroyed the reapers (and nothing else).

      The citadel as the catalyst never made sense to me because it felt like they were trying to copy ME1’s twist of “the citadel is what you needed all along” and because the reapers would have had a much easier time of defending it if they hadn’t moved it, or if they hadn’t set up the magic teleport beam, or if harbinger had shot the magic teleport beam instead of shooting at the people charging at it.
      I would have made the catalyst be a source of dark energy, which haestrom convieniently has plenty of (this could be explained as the protheans messing with the star to provide the next cycle with a catalyst). Then the fleet would either have to defend the crucible or maybe launch an attack on Earth to distract the reapers while it charges.
      If there really needs to be an ending choice of destroy or control thenmaybe have the illusive man give you something to add to the crucible if you want to.
      The ending will always be bittersweet just by virtue of how many people died to defeat the reapers.

      1. ehlijen says:

        Or the reapers could have just hit the off switch on their magic teleporting beam.

        Also, why is there suddenly teleportation in the mass effect universe? It had been deliberately excluded up till that point, I assumed.

        1. IFS says:

          Between the mass relays and the vanguard charge there was always some sort of teleporting in the mass effect universe, although charge is very short range and not instantaneous and mass relays are huge and you need an eezo drive core for them to work on whatever you’re sending through. The problem with the magic teleport beam is less that it is unprecedented technology and more that it makes no sense how the story uses it. Really the teleport beam feels like they were trying to recreate the race to the conduit from ME1, only stupid.

          1. ehlijen says:

            The mass effect relays didn’t teleport though, I thought, they just accelerated things really really fast (hence the being flung animation every time the Normandy uses one and the sudden stop flicker everytime something arrives at one).

            Another fun fact: The first game starts with Joker proclaiming that 1500km drift off the target coordinates is good for ME relay travel. The third game has massive fleets arriving in superight formation out of one…

            1. IFS says:

              functionally they work the same as a teleporter given that they move an object from one spot to another almost instantaneously and ignore any matter in the way.

              1. ehlijen says:

                When does it say it ignores intervening matter? No saying it’s not there just that I apparently missed it then.

                1. tremor3258 says:

                  Conduit in the first game has the Mako ignoring the intervening Citadel when it landed.

                  But you know how crazy that thing drives.

                  1. ehlijen says:

                    I thought it had already trashed the roof with the first wave of geth and your team has to wear space suits because there now is no more roof?

                    But you’re right, that wouldn’t have allowed there to be fires…ok, I concede :)

            2. guy says:

              Well, that’s SORT OF explained by the codex and ME2, IIRC

              See, when a fleet goes into a mass relay in formation it arrives in formation but way off course by an order of light-minutes and potentially inside a sun.

              However, it turns out that’s not actually an engineering limitation but one that was programmed in and can be deactivated by the Reaper IFF.

              1. ehlijen says:

                Good point, thanks.

            3. Mako says:

              Allow me to point out Joker is proud of getting within 1500K km from the intended point. That is 1.500.000 km, not 1.500 km – which makes the matter of sudden precise formation jumps even bigger. Did everyone suddenly got the Reaper IFF that supposedly increases precision of the jump?

    2. MalthusX says:

      Because that would have been even more of a ‘tribute’ to Alistair Reynold’s Revelation Space than the game already is.

    3. Khizan says:

      To be fair, I think they have a point about a lot of the innovation things they say. Not all of them, but some.

      Before I get into it, some things in DA2 are unforgivable. Specifically, the environment reuse. Yes. Terrible. No disagreement from me here on that.

      A ton of the complaints I’ve read about DA2, though, sound something like “There was no Big Bad Evil Guy! There was no big overarching evil! I want my big overarching evil! The game sucks without it! That’s what made DAO so great!”

      No. No it’s not. That’s what made DAO into a standard issue “save the world from orcs” game that was set in an extremely interesting world. What made DAO great were the characters and the world itself, not the rather formulaic plot.

      They tried to tell the first part of a more ambitious story, and the public reacted with “Where’s my big bad villain!?” and “Hey, this is just the first part of a story!”

      I look at it like a book. The first book of a series usually resolves things in a way that can be construed as final. The Eye of the World. Mistborn. The first book of the terrible Sword of Truth series. This way, if it doesn’t take off, it can stay reasonably self-contained. Once the first book does well, following books often have some resolution to their internal crisis, but leave the overarching plot unconcluded, because, hey, the series isn’t over. This is basically what DA2 did, and I don’t have a real problem with that, myself.

      1. Raygereio says:

        I think they have a point about a lot of the innovation things they say</i>.
        Nothing DA2 did was innovative. Everything it did was done before (better) by other games.

        1. Kdansky says:

          The innovation being: “You are actually playing a tragic figure who will be made responsible for starting a war, but he hasn’t actually done that.” instead of “you are playing SUPERMACHOMAN LIKE ALWAYS”.

          As for the environment re-use: Why does everyone hate so much on that? Sure, it was bad, but I prefer if they cut environment assets to make a deadline than if they cut characters or writers. Diablo 2 was full of repetitive environment, and nobody cares.

          1. acronix says:

            Baldur´s Gate II also has some re-used scenario assets. Not as many as any of these two games, but it still was obvious when that one tavern in Atkhatla looked exactly the same as that merchant´s house basement…

            The difference between Diablo II and DA2 is that the first was just a combat and loot, while the second tried to have a significant story and combat. Repetitive enviorements fail on the story department because the player will notice that the cave full of renegade mages important for the plot is a rotated version of the cave full of spiders they visited three minutes ago for a side quest; the player feels the places have the same importance.
            Contrast with Baldur´s Gate, in which plot-important locations had their unique scenario. They only reused them for out-of the way places or houses, which can be handwaved more easily.

            1. Mantergeistmann says:

              Reusing some interiors actually kind of makes sense. I mean, why bother with multiple different blueprints when you’re building houses/taverns/whatnot, instead of just using one and reusing it?

          2. Trevel says:

            To my mind, the main problem with DA2’s environment reuse is that they didn’t do anything to hide it.

            I.e., they made reusable maps, and then cut off portions of it as necessary to make individual maps … and then left the whole uncut thing on the minimap.

            As a result, not only are you reusing a map, but it’s in your face that you’re reusing a map.

            … I really liked reusing the maps by having you revisit the location again later, but it didn’t make any sense when you were visiting the same location twice at two different places. In a row. DA:O had that, too, though — but mostly for random encounters and never with whole dungeons.

        2. IFS says:

          I did feel like DA2 did the dialogue wheel better than mass effect, just by virtue of having those icons to indicate how you would say the line, I never found myself saying something completely different from what I had intended hawke to say. Also the friendship rivalry meter worked better for me than the approval meter in Origins.

      2. krellen says:

        My complaint is actually “Why the fuck do I have to keep fighting enemies that magically appear from the sky?”

        Also, they completely failed to make me give a damn about the characters or the world.

        1. Jarenth says:

          I hope Dragon Age 3 reveals that the clouds over Thedas are actually home to a race of teleporting super-ninjas.

          1. IFS says:

            I joke that Varric was trolling cassandra by just extending the fight scenes in his story for no reason.

            1. Jarenth says:

              “Then, like, ten more soldiers appeared…”

  25. Vegedus says:

    I don’t get why the Relays is such a big problem for so many people. I always thought it was fairly obvious the relays didn’t so much explode as they were destroyed while giving some cosmic, mystical energy payload, what kind depending on the ending you choose. It should also be fairly obvious from BOTH epilogues (Joker and EDi, the little boy being told a story) that all life wasn’t wiped out. Also, why should building new relays be impossible? In the Control ending, Shepard now controls the reapers, who were the ones who built the damn things. Isn’t it likely he can use their tech to make new relays, or at least use them to ferry people around the galaxy. They did travel in from dark space after all. In the synthesis ending, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the merging represent a big enough technological advancement to enable them to come up with a new, relay like solution. I don’t think this is wild speculation, given that the positive feel of the ending seem to imply pretty hard that “it’s gonna be alright”.

    Further, even if they WERE stuck, I don’t buy that they would starve even so. The quarians are pretty much self-sufficient with their live-ships. Who says the other ships couldn’t also be rigged to be. And while every race had an army represented, how many people could this be? Unless any of the races have more than 10 % of their people in the army, and most survived the battle, we’re talking a couple of billions at most. And given Earth has recently been severely depopulated, freeing up some space. And even then, it doesn’t seem unlikely that they’ll have enough fuel to travel with conventional FTL drives to nearby colonies, given how many are usually within range of your average Mass Relay.

    Again, I don’t think I’m making more assumptions than you would have to to assume they starve. It’s just a matter of whether you take a pessimistic or optimistic perspective to the ending.

    1. IFS says:

      I doubt the quarians brought their agricultural and civilian ships to fight the reapers and besides that quarians and turians have different amino acids than humans and therefore can’t eat our food.

      1. Vegedus says:

        They did bring them to the fight against the Geth, as they were desperate enough to just strap on a couple of guns and call them fighters. It’s a good point about the amino acids thing. The dextro/levo protean thing, as far as recall.

        I can’t remember the games talking about how food is produced, but I don’t find it entirely unfeasible that those kinds of food could be synthesized. Hell, would it be surprising if the omni-tool could make you a Mars bar? We don’t really know how big an issue food production really with the technology of the Mass Effect universe. I’d assume places like the Citadel could grow it’s own food and be self-sufficient in that regard. It’s rather speculative, but I don’t remember the series making food a big issue before.

        1. nambulous says:

          If that was true, then why are they sitting on a planet without any space travel? They are both human, I presume, and are confined to the planet they are currently on. If the fleets had survived, they still would have those ships, at least.

        2. Dreadjaws says:

          The problem is that making all those things (food, ships, colonies, etc.) would take resources they don’t really have. After the battle with the Reapers, the Earth was pretty much decimated, even in the “happiest” ending. I presume the attack didn’t help much the ecosystem.

          Besides, you know that just bringing one new species to a part of the planet can make terrible things to the ecosystem. Imagine now dozens of new species, all of them with very different organisms (including the aforementioned Quarians and Turians, who can’t eat our food and the Krogans, with very little patience), stranded on the planet, having to coexist in the same planet. Just trying to figure out what to do would take decades.

          Also, most of the people attacking the reapers were soldiers, not scientists or workers (though some of those soldiers were actually civilians), which would make the work even harder. Not to mention the fact that they’d have to attend all the wounded. Medi-Gel makes this easy, since it works on every species, but their reserves would most likely vanish, and making more might not be an easy task, which means mortality rate could be high, specially for Quarians.

    2. LurkerAbove says:

      I tend to think along those lines, but there are a few exceptions. Primach Victus being stranded on Earth certainly won’t help the Turians. The big one is if Wrex, or even Wreav, are stranded. It’s hard to exaggerate how big a deal that would be for the Krogan.

      1. Vegedus says:

        Ye, have to agree with that. I found curing the genophage to be one of the hardest decisions in all of the games, and I only did it because Wrex were supposedly able to stabilize the Krogan. Though, without the Mass Relays, the krogan’s ability to expand is hamstrung, so they won’t be wiping anyone else out besides themselves.

    3. Lalaland says:

      The main problem is that the game has always stated that the Relays were built by another much, much earlier race (Jarvik mentions the cunning of the Reapers in convincing the galaxy his people had built them) and no-one has any idea how they work or how they are powered. The Arrival DLC sets up that these things destroy solar systems when they are destroyed and that it takes the force of a collision with a really big asteroid to damage them. For them to explode like that implies destruction, the mystical payload only works with the Green ending as Blue and Red don’t change anything in the way Green does.

      Beyond that ME prior to this point has shied away from fantasy and tried to ground their imaginary science. To have magic suddenly show up in such an overt way the last 5 minutes is jarring to say the least. Also the Green ending robs everyone in the galaxy of choice in whether to integrate with machines in much the same way the Reapers do but this time it’s totally OK?!?

      The fleets stuck in orbit is only an issue because the game itself has made so much of how badly destroyed Earth is with even Wrex joking that humans will need another planet just like the Krogan. I think it’s a bit overblown but it’s also clear that fleet is pretty much doomed. Again it comes back to not closing things even a bit of a video showing the fleet forming Earth colonies or something would have given closure but no. All we’re left with is the game saying “Earth is screwed”, then “the fleet is stuck on Earth” and nothing else.

      1. Vegedus says:

        I can understand the need for closure. I just personally didn’t had any problem “filling out the blanks”, generally assuming that it’s eventually going to be all right for all parties involved, except Shepard himself. Given the positive wibe I got from the epilogues, that’s what I assume Bioware’s intention was.

        Whatever the Crucible did in any of the ending’s to the Mass Relays, I really doubt that it wiped out all life out in the Galaxy. Both epilogues are in contrast with that: Joker survived, humanity survived. I really think it is “mystical space energy” in all the three endings, in the two others, it’s supposed to deal with the reapers. For instance, in the destroy ending, the Mass Relays don’t so much explode as send out the same kind of energy that the crucible uses to deactivate the reapers. Which we see doesn’t harm humans. Basically an universe wide EMP-bomb. When I watched it, this seemed fairly self-evident.

        The thing about “mystical” energy being uncharacteristic of Mass Effect I agree with. That’s the thing I disliked about the endings the most, and was jarred by it too. Really, any technology that can’t be explained with mass effect is pretty WTF in the aptly-named franchise. I guess for me the blow was softened by all the soft-sci-fi anime I watch, which have numerous endings like it. It’s all cyborgs and mechas and spaceships, and then in the finale the protagonist confronts some magic god entity and makes a choice to prove a philosophical point. But yeah, jarring.

    4. ehlijen says:

      The main problem is that the game simply doesn’t tell us otherwise.

      The only time we see a relay get destroyed before it’s bye bye solar system. We are not told to expect anything different here (and to me the relay destruction looks pretty violent here too).

      If they’d wanted us to not think that, they should have mentioned that this type of relay exploding is different to the previous type in that way. They didn’t; they left us with no evidence either way. So basing our expectations on the only similar event in the story so far is not unjustified.

      1. guy says:

        Also, it should be noted that the previous exploding mass relay occurred in special bridging DLC. Given that it was added on to ME2 after-the-fact, the only real reason to end it that way was to set up for exploding mass relays in ME3.

        1. Sumanai says:

          And, as I’ve mentioned above, the Normandy seems to be getting hit pretty hard by that explosion in ME3 ending.

          1. paercebal says:

            Not as hard as the wiped out Batarian colony from the Arrival DLC, which is what annoys people complaining about how supple “(meta-?)physics” are when trying to justify some plot hole.

    5. nambulous says:

      “I always thought it was fairly obvious the relays didn't so much explode as they were destroyed while giving some cosmic, mystical energy payload”

      It’s a problem because the ME2 DLC Arrival was specifically designed as a piece of information players were supposed to take from ME2 into ME3. That’s all it was about. It was supposed to bridge the gap between those two games. An exploding mass relay wipes most of the system out. Why would you shove that into people’s faces, if you didn’t want them to think that?
      That Joker is still alive doesn’t have to be a contradiction to this, because it’s possible that he escaped to a system without a mass relay in it and that’s the reason he’s still alive.

      “I don't think this is wild speculation”

      In the stargazer ending we learn that it’s a long looong time after the events of ME3 (so much time has passed that they don’t even remember certain specifics anymore) and they still don’t have _any_ space travel. Therefore, right away, the game tells that no one did, or was able to rebuild the mass relays.

  26. Tim Van den Langenbergh says:

    Am I ever so happy I don’t play modern games… Okay that’s a lie, but ME2 ruined the franchise for me long before ME3 was announced, so I balanced playing ME3 with playing oldies.

    *Conglaturations, you are win! Thank you for play this game!* Is… Kind of a good ending compared to some of the others I’ve seen in recent years (though seeing Miranda’s corpse after taking out the Human Reaper did fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling).

  27. RTBones says:

    Random things I think I think –

    – Origin: What was/is wrong with Steam? Am I missing something? Yes, we as consumers hate DRM, but why a new system?

    – Day One DLC: Just incredibly wrong on so many levels. You pay $60, install the game, and are expected to fork out $10 more for the ‘whole story’? I don’t care if the content is ‘optional’ – being the last game in the trilogy, your players are going to want to hear/see/play as much of the story as they can. Are you kidding me?

    – Endings that just don’t make sense: Whether or not a DLC is added to the game to ‘patch’ the ending, when your endings 1)generally are all the same and 2)cause an entire community to nearly riot to tell you what they think of the endings, you think maybe you should revisit them?

    – Money grab: Regardless of whether anyone buys into the ‘indoctrination’, the game is clearly set up for DLC of SOME type. Thats fair enough – but if the last 20 minutes of the game turn out to be one big giant troll by Bioware/EA, and they then come with their hands out for cash to get the ‘real’ ending – yeah, likely the last Bioware product I consider without extensive research, and probably the last product from them for a while.

    – Lack of choice: this is the one that bothers me the most, I think. This is a franchise built on choices that matter. Why, after such a great game and a great series, do you spoon everyone’s heart out by taking away the very thing the franchise is built on? Your choices just didn’t matter.

    1. Vegedus says:

      EA owns Bioware. EA runs Origin. EA wants to get take a slice of the digital delivery market away from Steam. Thus they force us to use Origin.

      1. Lalaland says:

        True but it’s just a replay of the “Valve owns Steam, Valve makes Half-Life, thus Valve forces Steam on Half-Life 2 players”. I didn’t like it then but I put up with it and Steam is pretty good now, Origin will get there eventually too.

        1. ehlijen says:

          Or it will die before then because EA fails to learn why Valve is liked where they are not.

          Both possible outcomes.

        2. Vegedus says:

          Ye, I have trouble staying infuriated about Origin without being a hypocrite :/

          People were pretty damn hateful of Steam back in the day too. And there’s still stuff like Steamworks, bundled with Civ5 and others, which force you to get steam even if you buy it at retail. It’s just so damn hard to stay mad at Valve and their delicious convenience and prices.

          1. Raygereio says:

            Ye, I have trouble staying infuriated about Origin without being a hypocrite :/
            There’s the spyware debacle for one. Last time I checked Valve didn’t peak around on your hard drive. I don’t know the exact details about that though, so no clue if it’s really true.

            Oh and disregarding that, I honestly would have welcomed Origin. I’m a firm believer in competition and Valve has had a near monopoly a long while.
            It’s that EA is being so damned half-assed about this that gets to me. When I checked it out, I saw a reskin of the craptastic EA download manager that crashed often, was a huge resource hog, was buggy as hell (it refused to believe I didn’t live in Rusia and didn’t want to pay in anything other then rubles – I’m Dutch) and the support was just abysmal.

            Maybe they have improved things since I last tried the platform, but say what you will about Valve; they made a decent enough first impression with Steam as by and large it simply worked.

            1. Scow2 says:

              “Last time I checked, Valve doesn’t peak around on your hard drive”

              I’m pretty sure it does. As well as look up every other detail on your system.

            2. Dreadjaws says:

              Yeah, Origin wants to charge me in Euros while I live in South America. It’s not the same continent, not even the same piece of landmass. There’s freaking ocean separating us from Europe, why the heck am I being charged in Euros?

              Also, my first experience with the thing was awful. I tried to install ME2, but after downloading, the game wouldn’t install because it got an error in the middle of the installation.

              I tried to right-click to see if there was an option to check the files like on Steam but nothing happened. Checking out the forums, I found out there was an option to “Repair Install” found at right-clicking, I don’t know why it didn’t work for me the first time (buggy software, I guess), but when I tried it later after a restart it worked, only what they call “Repair Install” actually means “Download the entire thing again”.

              So yeah, the software is unintuitive, buggy, resource-consuming, PC-spying and the few things that sometimes work don’t even do what they’re supposed to. EA should have learned from Steam long ago, there’s no excuse for Origin being so bad.

        3. guy says:

          The thing is, Origin was created after Steam reached its present form. When Steam came out it had never been done before, so no one was really familiar with the pitfalls. Origin is not the first program of its type to reach mass-market success, so it has no such excuse.

        4. Irridium says:

          Here’s the thing though, that was Valve, this is EA. The company who has shown many, many times that they just do not give much of a damn about you and view you with contempt, at best.

          That might be why people aren’t as anxious to jump on Origin.

          For me, there’s that, and the fact that EA charged $3 from my credit card after they fucking said they couldn’t charge my card after three failed attempts. And I was trying to buy DLC using EA’s stupidly obtuse system. Grr….

          Right now, to buy DLC for, say, Mass Effect 2, you have to go to the Bioware social site, click on what DLC you want, get linked to the ME2 site to buy “Bioware points”, then get directed to another place in the ME2 site to buy the DLC.

          Origin has not fixed this problem. You still have to do all this crap even if you have the game on Origin. I assume it’s the same with the Dragon Age games.

          Though I’m curious, is it the same with ME3? Do you need to jump through a bunch of sites to buy points to buy ME3 DLC?

          1. Shamus says:

            Yes. I Wanted to buy the prothean squadmate. $5 seemed reasonable for one mission and a squad member. Instead I found out I had to buy points. $10 worth of points.

            I ended up watching the stuff on YouTube.

            If they were trying to compete with Steam, they would have my five bucks. But they’re clueless and don’t even understand just how far behind they are. This is like any other platform war: market share is EVERYTHING. They have a tiny slice of the market, and they have nothing to entice new customers besides “exclusives”. This is basically a roadmap to the same graveyard where betamax, HD-DVD, BeOS, and Netscape Navigator are buried.

            1. Simon Buchan says:

              I got the offer to buy “800 Bioware points” which is what it was asking me for, so either I’m charged twice as much or Origin is even more bizzare.

              I’m not sure what you watched, but the important part of the DLC is the character interactions through the story, less than the mission. I’m not sure it’s worth $10 if you’re on a budget, but it seems like a decent product.

            2. RTBones says:

              In the middle of everything else – the hideousness of Day 1 DLC, the potential spyware gate (I say potential – there are rumors, but I have seen nothing specific other than some claims from Germany)that is Origin, the endings, all of it – EA actually MAKES IT HARD to give them money! There is absolutely NO reason you should have to jump through soooooo many hoops to buy DLC.

              Gah! Thankfully, there is You Tube.

    2. Piflik says:

      Correct me if I am wrong, but if you paid 60$ for the game, you don’t have to pay 10$ for the DLC…if you bought the game used for 55$, then you’d have to, but then you are also stupid.

      1. Sagretti says:

        I believe it was a pre-order bonus. Shamus tweeted about having to pay 10 bucks for the DLC, and I’m assuming he got the game new.

      2. Gamer says:

        It was in the Collector’s Edition. It was not a pre-order bonus or online pass content. Non-CE buyers had to fork up 10.

        To which I say… No!

        1. Piflik says:

          Oh…now that’S different…I thought it was ‘regular’ Day-1 DLC (I’m not sure I like to live in a world where such things exist)…

          1. Michael says:

            What’s more the Collector’s Edition was $20 more. So if you went that route, and could find it, you were getting the Day 1 DLC, and another bit of exclusive DLC (a weapons and skins pack) for $20.

      3. guy says:

        The preorder DLC was weirdly balkanized, so Shamus could concievably have gotten some other preorder DLC.

        1. Michael says:

          It was, but the Day 1 DLC was never part of any of the preorder incentives. The preorders were all an extra weapon, weapons, or weapons and a non customizable armor.

          From Ashes was only available if you bought the CE for twenty bucks more, or shelled out on purchase.

      4. Heron says:

        If you paid $60 for the game (on Origin, anyway), you got the regular edition, which did not come with the DLC.

        If you paid $80 for the “collector’s edition” (again, on Origin), you got the DLC as well (among other things).

      5. Matthias says:

        It only comes for free with the collector’s edition.

        Edit: Ninja’d

      6. Keeshhound says:

        Nope, if you buy the standard game you still need to fork over $10. If you paid $87 for the Collector’s edition, then you get it for free.

  28. KremlinLaptop says:

    Mass Effect — the trilogy — is a bit like the first wearing-my-adult-pants sort of campaign/story I ever ran for a tabletop (wherein the pants were still a bit too big for my slight frame).

    It started off fantastic! We were getting interesting characters and fleshing out the setting with each session. It was brilliant stuff. The world was vibrant and the back-story flowed naturally while still keeping the BIG villain and all these things that were happening around him mysterious. Mid-way it got a bit tired, repeating the same things, but we were still trudging on because there’d be big revelations in the last chapter.

    The problem was that I hadn’t planned it out, I didn’t know MYSELF what those big revelations would be. I was scratching out notes the night before and trying to come up with something — absolutely anything — that would connect and resonate. It fell flat. It fell badly flat. It was the Final Fantasy sort of end-boss wants-to-destroy-the-world-to-save-it sort of villain.

    The problem was I kept layering on stuff at the start — cool stuff — but I had no solid plans for any of it. It was just cool stuff. Reapers are 50,000 year old alien machine thingamabobs? Cool stuff, Steve, put it in the game! Update the codex! There y’go.

    I think that’s what happened here. Bioware never had a plan to make a trilogy and they panicked. The first game fleshed everything out so well that they were somewhat locked on this path and they just couldn’t meet the expectations.

    And so we got this…

    (Disclosure: Right here on this blog I think I argued with Krellen about the finer points of ME2 and defended bits of the storytelling in the game. So I was a pretty ardent fanboy of the series even during the sloggin’ on through to get to the end phase.)

    1. krellen says:

      Is this the part where I get to go “ha ha, told you so”?

      1. Raygereio says:

        No. This is part were you grab Kremlin’s shoulder in comradery and go “I understand. I was like you once. It’s good that you finally saw the light.” .

        1. krellen says:

          Well, sure, if you’re going to make me be all mature about it. :(

    2. Kdansky says:

      ME2: A second Reaper appears, and the citadel and Shepard go take it down. It flees, and crashes into the moon, and sure enough, there’s a base nearby. Turns out, some Cerberus guys (TIM) has made a deal with the devil, and instead of trying to get everyone to “survive” (as a cyborg) like Saren, he’s just in it for the power, and thinks he can get away with it.

      Sure enough, the only way to get close to him is to infiltrate his organisation. Shepard gets officially denounced and declared traitor, so he can do that. He joins Cerberus, does a few oddjobs and terror missions for TIM (great opportunity for renegade/paragon decisions), and even has to visit with another Reaper ship to try to get some secret tech out, shooting happens.

      That took me all of five minutes to come up with, and it fixes most of ME2’s plot.

      ME3: After getting beaten back twice, the Reapers come in full force. The good guys destroy one Mass Effect gate (dooming a system) to slow them down, and you have to collect as many allies as you can in as short a time as possible. Where do the Reapers come from? Well, an ancient race called the Xel’Naga (haha) made all of it, including humans, salarians and Reapers. They live far away, and it’s some kind of poker game for them, seeing if the biological things they created are able to survive the reapers. Up to now, the biology things always lost. Essentially, they are “playing Evolution”, because they are trying to create super-soldiers. Well, tough luck, the united Galaxy beast the Reapers at huge cost, including irreversible damage to most Mass Gates, resulting in a cut-off, but nevertheless alive Galaxy.

      There, this is better.

    3. Auel says:

      Doesn’t it remind you of X-Files? I have never seen any of it, but to my understanding, it has many similarities to both ME and your campaign. Something TVTropes calls the “Kudzu Plot” I believe – you just keep making stuff up, reference conspiracies, lead your audience to scrutinize every detail – only to reveal that no, there was no conspiracy, you were flying by the edge of your pants the entire time. One can easily see how that may be extremely upsetting.

      It leads indirectly to one of my personal pet peeves, which is that it is extraordinarily hard to produce a satisfying ending to any work of fiction. The unknown is always more enticing than the explicit. That which you don’t know is a million things at once – and you can imagine how things may turn out. But every step towards the end, a portion of this fantasying is denied to you – the more the author reveals of the true plot, the fewer possibilities there are. Once you reach the ending, only a single thread remains. To make sure this one reality is more enticing than all the others you discarded is a daunting, likely impossible task. For someone from the audience, to learn that what is left is just a series of haphazardly connected pieces of strand can be truly devastating. This is what people mean when they say parts of their soul died. When they realize they sacrificed their ability to imagine the endless outcomes for this.

      1. guy says:

        Eh, I don’t know about it being all that hard. The trick is to make sure it at least collapses into something stable-seeming, where it actually feels like the story is over.

        For instance, if the conflict of the story was all about a bunch of diverse races having trouble working together in the face of a common threat, one could end with the common threat being driven back for n centuries and people from different races standing in front of a cheering crowd of members of all the races. Say, ME3 ending with Anderson and Wrex at the dedication ceremony of the first Mass Relay built by the present races. There, happy ending and I’d be perfectly content with it if there were never any additional Mass Effect stories.

      2. Dreadjaws says:

        I don’t know. I think the endings to, for instance, Star Wars, Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings are very well done. Sure, you can complain about a thing or two, but it would be nitpicking. The thing is, you have closure. The universe goes on, the protagonists might go on further adventures or retire, but it doesn’t matter if what you got was substantial, because it was satisfying.

        What we got in ME was nothing. That’s like if I invited you for dinner for a week, giving you turkey each time, then in the weekend you didn’t eat for the entire day waiting for dinner and when you came home I gave you a bread toast. A burnt one.

  29. The Hokey Pokey says:

    I chose the fourth ending. At one point, the catalyst tells Shepard that it controls the reapers. The catalyst also defers to Shepard’s judgement, so Shepard takes the obvious path: he tells the catalyst to make the reapers leave. There is no reason that couldn’t work, so I have decided that is what happens.

  30. Mark says:

    The Mass Effect series had storytelling problems but they were nothing bigger than what I was willing to tolerate. The third one was going so well.

    The ending… it’s bad in nearly every way it’s possible to be bad. The best I can say about it is that at least it doesn’t recontextualize anything that happened before it that I actually cared about. The plot holes are the kind that get bigger the more you think about them, until you’re left with one of two conclusions: either it was all a dream, or they put a wizard into their relatively hard space opera in the eleventh hour.

    I’d like to see them try to make things right. I enjoyed the journey so much that I must admit I’d be willing to pay for a different destination. The hours leading up to the ending earned them that much goodwill from me. But it doesn’t look like they’re going to go for it.

  31. wyatt1048 says:

    I really didn’t like the ‘Stop synthetic life from forming’ motivation of the Reapers, either. I would have preferred if they were, say, clearing the galaxy of space faring civilisations in order to let new societies that would otherwise be repressed spring up – allowing them to store multiple civilisations with different viewpoints. You could have that either as robots following commands to preserve civilisations taking their order too literally, or that they’re going to use those different technologies and philosophical theories at some point – which is where I’d write in the Crucible.

    Whoever created the Reapers, Citadel, and Relays also put the partially finished plans to the Crucible on some rock. Each cycle finds the plans and adds a little more, until eventually it’s complete and the final civilisation uses it to end the cycle. Why do this? They’re trying to create a civilisation that is not only incredibly technically advanced (as proved by being able to build the Crucible), but is united enough to get the resources to build it under serious pressure, and determined enough not to give up in the face of an overwhelming, eternal enemy. They then have to do something that this original civilisation couldn’t. Face down the heat death of the universe, or something. But you could leave that dangling, if you wanted to make another game in the same universe.

    Of course, even if the resolution itself had just been, ‘..and then the Reapers all blew up’, I’d be happy if I just knew what happened to my crew. Did the Krogan breed sensibly? Does the Geth-Quarian peace hold? Do Tali and Garrus get together for good? Instead what we got wasn’t and end, it was a visible lack of one.

    (As it’s a slow news day, it’s made the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17444719 )

    And as I was looking for that, I found this:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17458208

    “Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility,” said Ray Muzyka.

    So… Not just day 1 DLC, but we’re going to have to buy an ending?

    1. Hitch says:

      If Bioware does say, “Well, I guess we screwed up a bit and didn’t make our ending clear enough. Here’s DLC to expand on it so maybe people won’t hate it so bad.” They would be seriously deranged to charge for that.

      That is, if they, or EA, ever want to sell another game.

      1. 13 CBS says:

        As outrageous as such a move would be, the cynic/pessimist inside me still says that EA could still do that and have plenty of people buy their games.

    2. lasslisa says:

      I don’t expect an answer to the krogan question, or the geth/quarians question – I think it would be out of tone for the series to give us one. The tone has been that you make your choices, and the game won’t tell you which one is ‘right’ – just like reality in that way, either choice might be the better one and Shepard has to rely on his or her own judgment. It takes away the impact of having faith in the krogan or of wanting to give them a chance if you know for sure that it’ll all be OK. (You here being the player).

      Edit to add: and it takes away the legitimacy of the Renegade options. If I sabotage the genophage cure because I’m afraid the Krogan will destroy everything if they expand again, then I see that the Paragon ending says they won’t, well, obviously I made the wrong choice (not just ‘a different one’ but ‘the wrong one’).

      1. Dude says:

        Are you kidding? The blue Paragon choices, or the upper right corner choices are always the “right” ones. The Brick Shepard ones. The “canon”.

        All the other choices are the interesting ones.

        1. Miral says:

          Presumably the “canon” Shepard is the one that you get when you start a new game without importing a save. That has some pretty non-Paragon choices…

        2. Otters34 says:

          The way it works is like this: whatever you choose is right in the game. You killed the Rachni Queen because you expected them to rise up and start savaging everyone? Well that’s likely what would have happened. You let them live, believing the Queen’s story and granting them a chance at working with the rest of the galaxy? That’s what they do. Notice how no matter what you choose, you’re never ‘wrong’, just not to the preferences of the Council(which is to my mind very illuminating and important) or certain squadmates.

          Calling the upper-right and Paragon options ‘Bick Shepard’ is kind of oversimplifying it. Of course Meer/Hale sounds more emphatic when choosing the Renegade options, but notice how they always sound just a little subdued? That’s because they have to take into account what emotional state the player wants the option to convey. If you choose to say “TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW, #%{*FACE!, there’s a lot more room for error than “What do you know?”, which can be said any number of ways and convey any number of emotions. That and ‘kindly’ is narder to sound awesome as than “smouldering fury”

      2. wyatt1048 says:

        You’re perfectly right, of course. How about different victory conditions for different methods of play? So you have to be constantly renegade in order for a renegade option to work: if the Krogan see you be lenient towards the Geth but destroyed the genophage cure, they go on a rampage, etc. But that would lead to having to play all paragon or all renegade.

        Maybe have an impossible to win situation. Sorting out one war to your satisfaction leads to the other situation falling apart, so you have to choose where you want to win.

        That would be how to do a bittersweet ending, not just refuse to tell.

    3. MatthewH says:

      This has given me an idea for a better ending:

      “Well, see, back in the day we created the Mass Relays -we thought we were gonna be like your Rome, laying out roads for the benefit of everyone. Instead, we inadvertently forced all of you to develop exactly the same way -well, just like your Rome. Your rockets have engine nozzles exactly the same distance as two horse’s rear ends because the Romans made their roads that wide. Same story for us.

      “And it gets worse, you see. Once you reached a certain point in your civilization, you started forcing yourselves on other races -well, like the Protheans did on the Asari, at which point no evolutionary development is possible. Things really do become 100% determined.

      “So… we have to show up every 50,000 years to clean up our mess. At least we preserve you in the form of a reaper. That’s something, right?”

  32. adam says:

    Here’s a pretty easy fix for the ending:

    The Reapers clear out intelligent life to make room for new intelligent life which is inevitably smothered/wiped out by rapidly advancing civilizations that cannot be trusted to observe any kind of Star Trek-y “prime directive.”

    Shepard has to choose: his galactic civilization at the expense of the chance other civilizations have of arising (with the knowledge that his own civilization which will eventually overrun his galaxy with cities, wars and technology–perhaps to its eventual total destruction), or other civilizations arising in its place.

    1. Cineris says:

      So, clear out intelligent life so that … Other races can spend millenia retreading the same technological ground, only to be wiped out by the Reapers.

      This essentially makes a moral argument that the potential development of younger races is more morally important than the continued development and expansion of older races. But… Why?

      It’s better than a totally nonsensical ending, but still leaves big questions.

      1. adam says:

        But it’s not about one civilization being morally more “important.” It’s not about the end goal (“we survived!”). It’s about the journey, the chance at life. Shepard, as a sort of God-figure, gets to decide between allowing his civilization to continue, or to end it and give another the chance to arise in its place. Either way, he is essentially condemning trillions of “potential” lives to extinction, but it forces you to ask the question of whether or not your civilization has any more right to exist than another, given that their existences are mutually exclusive. Obviously, the answer is no. And the decision is, at its core, arbitrary. This gives a very bittersweet quality to the choice.

        As for taking the “easy” choice of just not killing currently-living people and thus allowing your civilization to continue, you would be doing so while knowing that the reason the “cycle” system was put in place in the first place was because of the experiences gained from life prior to the cycle system (in other galaxies or whatever) in which in addition to new civilizations being squeezed out, any civilization allowed to continue indefinitely eventually destroys/renders uninhabitable every habitable planet in the galaxy. Or whatever reasonable conceit you need to make the decision give you pause.

        edit: I didn’t directly address your point. It’s implicit in what I said above, but the reason the Reapers wipe out intelligent life is not because one civilization is more important than another. It’s to give them all an equal shot at life and building their civilizations. You get 50,000 years. That’s your time. I’d call that pretty fair, in its own context, and in a way far more fair than letting civilizations that arose first to dictate the fates of all those that come after.

        1. some random dood says:

          “Congratulations on reaching your 15th birthday. Now you can make way for the new-born.” BANG!
          Pity that in ME1 it made clear that the Citadel races were protecting planets that look as if they were capable of independantly “birthing” new species from being colonised, and in ME2 the Hanar saved another species from extinction, so that reasoning (clearing out one civilisation for a new one) has as many plot-holes as a BioWare story.
          Semi-related: if the Reapers were saving other species and preserving the culture by turning them into other Reapers (after being turned into slurpies), there does not seem to be any civilisation, culture or any independant thought from any of the Reapers. Can you imagine the first conversation a new Reaper would have?
          Harbinger: “Welcome, Fred, into our Reaper community.”
          Fred (the new Reaper): “WTF? You a!hole – you just turned me/us into a slurpie!”
          Harbinger: “Yes, but it was for your own good. Now let’s jump into the dark space between galaxies and shut down for 50k years until it’s time to slurpify a new race.”
          Fred (tnR): “Screw you!”
          Harbinger: “…. There will be cake.” (Yeah, so I’m years behind the times.)

          Gah! I keep trying to wean myself from commenting on Mass Effect, but that first game just tickled the right places for me, so that I cannot ignore the train wreck that the series has ended up as.

          1. adam says:

            You make a valid point but I appeal to Bioware’s other assertions that the Reapers themselves make–that humanity was spared during the last cycle since they were “premature” and not part of galactic civilization yet.

            The Council may have been attempting to protect “promising” races, but that’s part of the point. You make it clear that they will (probably) fail at this task. It wouldn’t be that hard. And part of the underlying idea here is that the cycle system and the Reapers don’t give existing civilizations the chance to prove themselves. They’re playing God under the pretense that “millenia of past experience” and “vast intelligence and simulation” has shown them that existing civilizations will squelch nascent ones. That’s part of the information you have when you make your choice, and you can decide if you think your civilization will buck the trend that led to the cycles in the first place.

            So if you choose to end the cycles:

            If you’re right about your civilization bucking the trend of destruction, hooray. Everybody wins.

            If you’re wrong, your civilization destroys countless others and eventually renders the galaxy uninhabitable (“nuclear winter” scenario).

            And if you choose to continue the cycle system, your civilization ends and provides the seeds for the next galactic civilization to be given its chance.

            You could add in interesting details. Like the fact that all previous Shepards of their respective civilizations in past cycles have seen how destructive their societies are and all of them ended up choosing to give other, new civilizations the chance to do better than theirs did. So it’s up to you to decide if you are that civilization that will “get it right.” And so on.

            Any way you slice it, there will be holes in the ending just by virtue of the fact that it’s 3 games of “choose your own adventure” type choices. I think my ending makes plenty of sense.

            1. some random dood says:

              “Any way you slice it, there will be holes in the ending just by …” the options being completely bogus, with no continuity within the universe as presented. Sorry for riffing on your comment, but the people who wrote this stuff are (theoretically) very well paid professional writers, so to allow this level of rubbish to be swallowed just ticks me off. (Whoops – just re-read your post, and this was something you used to try to paper over the plot-chasms left by Bioware writers. However, the point I’m ranting about is of “professional writers” and the ending provided making people dream up all sorts of reasons just try and make sense of the non-sense still stands.)

              Choice A) “If you're right about your civilization bucking the trend of destruction, hooray. Everybody wins.” Yep, seems like that knocks the ball out of the park. The whole paragon playthrough is about this.

              Choice B) “If you're wrong, your civilization destroys countless others and eventually renders the galaxy uninhabitable (‘nuclear winter’ scenario).” Nope – fallacious logic. Maybe the present races expand out to fill out the universe and prevent other races from rising. Destruction of all planets is a possible scenario, but also galactic harmony for the races presently extant. Paragon playthrough would suggest the former (although would also suggest “Prime Directive” so back to choice A). Renegade could lean towards galactic war, with only one race coming out on top – but then it would be a mono-specied galaxy. Yes – all out destruction may be a possibility too, but far from “either/or”.

              Choice C) “And if you choose to continue the cycle system, your civilization ends and provides the seeds for the next galactic civilization to be given its chance.” Um, humankind has only just achieved star travel, the other races of the universe only a few centuries (millenia?) sooner – and you get to choose for how many races and trillions of people that their time is over? After managing (in many of the game scenarios) to overcome racial hatred and promote cooperation, how on could you possibly accept that as a valid choice? Paragon proves it wrong. Renegade would just shoot the fool presenting this option. (“Han shot first!”)

              Most people are willing to use their imagination to paper over the cracks in a plot. Good writers encourage this by not making the cracks large enough to make a speed bump. Bad writers make the cracks a bit too large, and jars the reader/player into noticing the problem(s). Atrocious writers just dig a huge trench and let you sail straight into it with absolutely no sign post warning about it.
              Some people are more forgiving than others – sounds like you are one of those people, and I take my hat off to you. Unfortunately for me, I’m an old grump who *really* doesn’t like being dropped into a hundred-foot wide, 200 foot deep pit filled with ass-pull plot devices.

              1. adam says:

                Nope ““ fallacious logic. Maybe the present races expand out to fill out the universe and prevent other races from rising. Destruction of all planets is a possible scenario, but also galactic harmony for the races presently extant. Paragon playthrough would suggest the former (although would also suggest “Prime Directive” so back to choice A). Renegade could lean towards galactic war, with only one race coming out on top ““ but then it would be a mono-specied galaxy. Yes ““ all out destruction may be a possibility too, but far from “either/or”.

                I’m okay with that. I’m not saying I’ve covered every viable scenario, especially with regard to specific player/Shepard choices. I’m just presenting an alternate path. You would start with the general idea of “making room for the future” as I’ve suggested and fill in gaps and holes as necessary.

                Um, humankind has only just achieved star travel, the other races of the universe only a few centuries (millenia?) sooner ““ and you get to choose for how many races and trillions of people that their time is over? After managing (in many of the game scenarios) to overcome racial hatred and promote cooperation, how on could you possibly accept that as a valid choice? Paragon proves it wrong. Renegade would just shoot the fool presenting this option. (“Han shot first!”)

                But it IS a valid choice. You’re deciding if your civilization (not just race) is worthy of continued existence given the past experiences of hundreds if not thousands of previous civilizations having failed this test. It’s a neat way of projecting your own psychology onto the future of the galaxy. Do you have faith that you can maintain peace? That galactic civilization can maintain peace? Or do you realize that you’re not quite ready and you can’t justify the pre-emptive destruction of new civilizations in favor of your own probably-doomed one? The amount of time humanity has been traveling the stars is irrelevant. It’s 50,000 years and that’s it.

                (The point I’m getting at is that the cycle system is a sort of directed evolution, and it was put in place because other civilizations weren’t getting the chance to see the light of day and evolve into something greater, something that COULD potentially end the cycles. It’s not supposed to be perfect–that’s why the choice.)

                You can be a paragon and have faith in your civilization, or you can be a paragon and not have faith. Just because YOU are a good person doesn’t force you to believe that society at large is.

                Yes, Bioware dropped the ball. My solution is one of, I’m sure, many that could make the ending better stand up to scrutiny. It’s a tall order to ask Bioware to reconcile every choice a player could make into its endings. That’s why I’m forgiving. I’d be happy with an ending similar to the one I’ve suggested, and not because it’s mine as I’m hardly the first to dream up such a scenario, but because it gives weight to your present choice without obliterating the ones that came before it–that is, even if you allow the destruction of your civilization, you did it for what you thought was a good reason despite everything you know passing away and all your choices coming to naught. And as for the other choices, well, you’re free to make those and observe the consequences.

      2. Stellar Duck says:

        One option: The Reapers harvest the civs to store them in their data networks, creating a meta galaxy of sorts in cyberspace. That allows new species to advance and be added at a later date and then harvested and added to the party. That way one could argue that the Reapers try to make sentient life as numerous as possible.

        Still, it’s silly.

        1. Heron says:

          So… the Reapers are the Matrix?

  33. LurkerAbove says:

    Cross posted from spoiler warning because it annoyed me that much.

    If your Effective Military Strength (war assets*galactic readiness) reaches a certain level the war map will say,“Allied forces are holding steady and winning battles in key locations.”

    I know it is in an obscure place that many will not check, and many more will never meet the requirements, but how on Earth does that line get included.

    I'm serious. How could anyone work on ME3 and think writing that the Allies were winning all over the place would be a good idea?

    Kai Leng completely laps the field as my most hated character in a video game. He isn’t even visually interesting; he resembles Nightwing way too much.

    1. Raygereio says:

      Nightwing? I pegged him BioWare’s attempt to draw in the Metal Gear Solid crowd with their own version of Cyborg Ninja Raiden.

    2. IFS says:

      I termed Kai Leng “Cutscene-Boy” after my first encounter with him, on account of how he is only effective during cutscenes. It was incredibly frustrating to see this happen in a Mass Effect game, this series invented the interrupt system and they completely neglected to give us one against this guy. It should have let me a) shoot at him while he is fistfighting Thane, b) drive my shuttle up into one of those support beams to scrape him off. I wouldn’t have cared if the interrupts failed as long as it felt like I was able to try to do something.
      The fact that you do get an interrupt on him the last time doesn’t help much because of how stupid your whole party acts in that scene. Compare that to ME1 with Saren where the first thing you do is order your party to “make sure he’s dead.”

      1. Jace911 says:

        The second Leng landed on my car, I started shouting “Do a barrel roll!” at Shepard while furiously mashing the Renegade interrupt trigger.

      2. Bex says:

        The part with Thane really ticked me off too. Especially since Thane was my Shepard’s LI. The whole time my squad was just standing there watching them fight I was like “Uh, shoot him? Shepard? Don’t you want to save your boyfriend oh never mind he’s dead.”

        If there’s one thing I really hate in a game, it’s cutscene-induced stupid.

        1. Dreadjaws says:

          Oh, my God, that drives me insane! And it’s something that has only happened in the third game. I liked the other ones because they didn’t allow that kind of BS, but ME3 is filled to the brim with moments like that, specially those involving Mei Ling or however he’s called.

          So many times in this game, including the damn ending, all I was thinking during cutscenes was “Let me do something!” or “My Shepard would have never done something like that!”. It was infuriating.

    3. Sumanai says:

      Google searched Kai Leng, Mass Effect wiki page, first reaction:

      Fuck no. Just. No.

      As long I remember that picture, and all the stuff I’ve lately read about ME3, there’s no way I’m playing it. I don’t care how good the shooty fun is, I don’t care how many high points it has in story or conversations, these low points are too god damn painful.

      I don’t remember being a huge fan of ME1 and I still felt disappointed by ME2. Yet ME3 manages to rile me up. Bioware really can rise a step above.

      If anyone is wondering: there is/was a background of anger left over from Bioware fans defending everything they do, the stupid stuff Bioware has done and the way they handle PR. Which I should note was all on its own enough to discourage me from buying ME3 at all. Belittling fans is not something you do when they’re angry about something. It doesn’t matter if it’s unjustified or overblown, you just don’t do that.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Apparently Shamus added pictures, so my reaction doesn’t make sense. Anyway, I didn’t know what he looked like before googling and the picture on Mass Effect wiki makes him look like a desperate Nightwing wannabe that is trying to be much cooler than he actually is.

    4. GiantRaven says:

      His mask and hair do definitely have a ‘Dick Grayson’ vibe. Unfortunately, they didn’t come with Dick Grayson’s humourous personality.

      1. LurkerAbove says:

        Not only that, but he is first introduced doing a bunch of acrobatics, and if you squint a little his sword looks like a escrima stick.

  34. Matt says:

    So Shamus, what do you think will happen going forward? Do you think they’ll release pay DLC with “endings” for each squad member? Do you think they’ll scrap the ending entirely and patch it? Are people justified in asking BioWare for a new ending? As an author yourself, do you see the final product here as an inviolable artistic statement, a work in progress, or something in between?

    1. Hitch says:

      Offering free “ending expanding” DLC will be too little too late. Admitting that they screwed the ending then trying to charge people to fix it takes shooting oneself in the foot to unprecedented levels.

      1. Lord of Rapture says:

        Fallout 3.

        1. GiantRaven says:

          In retrospect I’m amazed that it worked. To be fair though, Broken Steel was pretty cool in general.

          1. SougoXIII says:

            In Fallout 3’s case I don’t think the story was ever a big part of it in the first place. I certainly didn’t care about it at that point.

            So I brought Broken Steel as an expansion on its own. Fixing the dumbass ending was the icing on the cake.

      2. Sumanai says:

        I’d be surprised if they can bring themselves to even apologise without taking side swipes at the complainers and excusing themselves at the same time.

    2. Maldeus says:

      I don’t think BioWare actually planned something like the Indoctrination Theory, but if I were them, I’d take it and run with it.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I’d own up to the screw-up and make the indoctrination theory canon.

        1. Sumanai says:

          Note: Unless I had a different idea for the ending, and now was my chance to do it properly.

          If the idea was the Indoctrination Theory, I’d find a way of apologising for the ending in such a way that I wasn’t actually lying, but also not implying that it was the plan all along.
          For instance “I’m sorry I screwed up the ending, here’s a corrected one”. No implication that the fans were wrong, stupid etc. And no ego boosting for myself.

  35. Adeptus says:

    While I generally agree with your conclusions here, I spotted a few (possible) errors, and I have one or two theories that might explain some of your criticisms. Maybe. Note that I agree with pretty much anything that I don’t mention in this comment, if I seem overly defensive of the game – I was disappointed with the ending too.

    I don’t know how to do the spoiler tags, and there’ll be a lot here, so skip over this one if you’ve somehow come to this point whilst still being worried about spoilers.

    Cerberus have been collecting Reaper technology for the last couple of games, here and there, and the mission on Sanctuary explicitely states that most of their soldiers are kidnapped civilians who have been Husk-ified using their fancy tech. The Illusive Man is also apparently absurdly rich, which might explain how they arm these soldiers too, though who knows how he managed to make so much money considering Cerberus’ general incompetence.

    I didn’t even think of the Mass Relays exploding killing everyone, but it’s a good point. Massive slip on the writer’s part, as I assume that wasn’t the intention (especially since people are shown alive after the relays went up). It should be noted that even without the relays, they still have FTL-capable ships and could settle nearby systems, so the risk of starvation is reduced somewhat. The relay’s explosion in ME2 only destroyed the local system, anyway, so a lot of people in systems without mass relays would be fine. If they ever release DLC that changes the ending, I expect to see some sort of “but this destruction of the mass relays was different! It wouldn’t have caused any destruction!” comment, or similar (dumb) ret-con.

    The impression that I got about the Reaper solution was that the choice was either a 50,000 year cycle of almost-total destruction, or actual total destruction. That’s not explained at all in the game, just me desperately trying to make sense of the stupidity of the whole thing – it kinda works if you squint in the right way, and it might be what the writers intended, but who knows. This was probably my biggest problem with the ending, it’s nonsensical and disappointing.

    Also, why did the Catalyst just abandon this scheme and let Shepard do what she like once the Crucible was complete? It hinted at a reason, but it seemed like a counter-intuitive decision based on the evidence of the rest of the Reaper’s behaviour. I’d guess it’s just because the writers felt like it.

    The Crucible seems to be a project that gets attempted in a cycle, then maybe some race in a later cycle finds some remaining plans (like a Prothean beacon/VI, or Liara’s message that she plans to seed the galaxy with) and makes a tiny bit more progress, which is repeated. Our galaxy is about 13.2 billion years old – say 10 billion to give time for life to show up. That’s up to 200,000 cycles for them to make a bit of progress on the thing each time. Seems plausible to me, if a little far-fetched.

    Also, the Reaper’s really aren’t that thorough at destroying the evidence of themselves, as there’s all sorts of evidence of them cropping up in the games (Reaper corpses, collecter bases, Prothean beacons, active Prothean VI’s, some damaged bits of technology here and there, etc.). The real issue seems to be why they aren’t discovered earlier in each cycle, though time seems to be the Reaper’s ally there – most races just forget that it happened. Another stretch on the writer’s part here, but I just about buy it.

    As mentioned by others above, the Crucible was attempted by the Protheans, but work began far too late to complete it. I’d imagine the Reapers destroyed this version of it. It seems like Shepard’s early warnings in this cycle (well, some people believed her…) might have given them more time to work on it than previous cycles, as well as Shepard’s delaying tactics in ME3, so this is the first cycle it was finished.

    I think the Normandy is flying in faster-than-light mode, rather than Mass-Relay mode in the ending cutscene – everything is red-shifted (or is that blue-shifted? I forget which), which is consistent with FTL travel in the ME universe. So, where-ever they’ve landed won’t be that far from Earth, they can probably use their fancy quantum entanglement communications to get a pickup. Assuming the mass relays didn’t annihiliate all those ships in the Sol system.

    I have no good explanation for the Normandy fleeing the fight – it’s stupid as heck – but I’d also like to point out that some of the endings have your whichever squadmates you had with you on your final mission leaving the ship, which makes even less sense – we last saw them suicide charging a Reaper, and they definitely didn’t make it onto the Citadel, so I’d assumed they’d died. How did they get onto the Normandy? Teleport? Wishing really hard? Did they run away? Seems out of character for any of them.

    It’s totally possible to save Earth in some endings, in others it’s pretty much completely razed, and that mostly depends on how much tedious fetch-questing (or multiplayer, if you prefer) you’re prepared to do to raise your readiness rating thingy.

    The Synthesis ending choice also suggests that issues like disease and (maybe) malnutrition might be much less of a risk for the survivors, assuming you made that choice. Pretty much just speculation on my part, though.

    Phew, that’s a lot of words to say ‘I agree!’ Sorry!

    Edit: And it took me so long to write that a lot of these points have been brought up already. Oh well.

    1. Hitch says:

      Also, why did the Catalyst just abandon this scheme and let Shepard do what she like once the Crucible was complete?

      Because Shepard got so close, and there’s been a trend of getting closer and closer for many cycles, that the Reaper gambit will never work the next time. So he has Shepard flip the table for him.

      1. Uli says:

        Well, I don’t know about that. This is the first cycle we know of that the Reapers didn’t instantly take the Citadel, shut down the relay network, and then **** over the isolated pockets of advanced civilisation at their leisure.

  36. acronix says:

    I think the problem with the ending is that, suddenly, the players aren´t the ones creating the story of Shepard. Instead, whatever tale they were making up to that point is replaced by Bioware’s interpretation of what Shepard is: a hero (and an idiot incapable of questioning the child-projection and taking everything the enemy says about itself as absolute truth, but I bet that wasn´t the intention).

    The forced authorial-interpretation can be clearly seen on the epilogue, when the child asks for “another tale about The Sheperd”. That bit doesn´t make sense if you have taken some of the non-hero options. I bet any grandfather would be very happy to tell their grandchildren how “The Shepard” helped destroy the whole quarian species, for instance.

    Actually, it doesn’t make sense anyway because the galaxy exploded, but who pays attention to that? Certainly not the writers!

    Said on a simpler form: the writers decided they were novelists and wrote the ending to their novel, not to an interactive story with big enfasis on player decitions.

    1. IFS says:

      If they do make ending-changing dlc then I hope they introduce it by having the player go through the current ending, get to the scene where the kid is listening to the story and then have the kid say “Grandpa that’s BS, take your meds and tell me how the story really ends” cut to the new ending.

      1. Sumanai says:

        If the DLC is free, then I’d be willing to forgive* Bioware for the ending. Not for the other BS they’ve been pulling, but the ending itself.

        * Well, it’s not really forgiveness, since they haven’t wounded me with it, but I don’t know what else to say instead. I’m certain you get what I’m getting at.

  37. Deoxy says:

    You realize that providing a rotten product is the only way to end a franchise, right?

    I mean, stuff like this is what happens when someone is pushed to continue producing sequels – the push ends when one of the sequels is finally bad enough.

    The second Dune trilogy comes to mind (never read it, just been given that example a few times for this).

    1. Chiller says:

      I think that’s exactly the reason they decided to nuke the mass effect relays, which to me appeared to be the one part of the plot which was written in from the start: “We HAVE to mess up the current universe so we won’t have to do any more sequels, so the mass effect relays will HAVE to go no matter what… now let’s see how we can structure the ending around it” (not very well, apparently).

      To that end, I think it was actually a very effective way to end the trilogy.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I’ve heard that someone from Bioware has said that future games in the Mass Effect universe will be set before the ending of ME3.

    2. Zak McKracken says:

      Actually, I liked the second Dune trilogy

      It kind of followed the first one in that I never actually understood what all this was good for until I read the next book, and then in retrospect it made a scary amount of sense. Except for the very last book which was understandable after having read it just once :)
      The only book that stands out to me is the first one, but that may well be because of the movie.

      My only criticism is that the Duncan Idaho stuff does wear out. Someone liked this character more than was good for the story.

      1. Bubble181 says:

        Absolutely.

        Now, the *new* two books added by his nephew, those do genuinely suck. Massively. Honest, I pretend they don’t exist and I don’t mind ME3, in comparison.

  38. NonEuclideanCat says:

    Welp, glad I was never at all interested in this series beyond the LPs you and the Freelance Astronauts did.

  39. Chiller says:

    Thanks Shamus. I agree with everything (er, except the CAPITALIZED OVER-DRAMATIZATION of the last sentence — edit: gah, that was a joke, went right over my head when I first read it), and now I can just point people to this instead of writing things out myself :D

    Really, Mass Effect has always been a plot-hole mess. It got lucky by starting off with a game where its story-telling problems were not readily apparent because the focus was more on the exposition on the overall really well-written background lore. Story-wise everything started to fall apart very fast from ME2 onwards although the mission structure in ME2 is probably one of the best pieces of game design I can think of.

  40. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I think the ending was made so bad on purpose,so that no one would complain about the stupidity of quarians unmasked.

    1. Raygereio says:

      Dear Ao.
      On this subject, what is it with BioWare and ruining perfectly good running jokes?
      Just like the player didn’t need to know what’s up with Sandal’s Enchantment, the player didn’t need to see Tali’s face.

      Dammit, BioWare. Is there anything you can’t screw up?

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Showing her face wouldnt have been bad if it at least was an alien face.Even just painted an odd colour.

        1. acronix says:

          I think quite a lot of people would have been satisfied with just a non-cheaply photoshopped photo, actually.

      2. IFS says:

        They haven’t revealed sandal’s enchantment thing yet

        1. Raygereio says:

          I see you haven’t played DA2.

          1. acronix says:

            I have played it, and don´t remember. Guess it must have been something very dull and uninteresting. Or both. Or maybe it was so awesome it openned a hole in space-time and erased itself from my time-line.

          2. IFS says:

            I have played DA2, I remember they added Not-Enchantment to his skills, had him spout something prophetic sounding at some point, and called him a savant as well as had hawke theorize that he might be a dwarven mage, but they never outright explained how he kills darkspawn with “Enchantment”

            1. Raygereio says:

              Hrm, I honestly have a scene in my head where Bodahn explaines it. Something along the lines of Sandal being able to release the energy in a rune, or something. Think it was after you find Sandal in the deeproads.

              Whelp, I’m not going to replay DA2 to be verify this.

      3. Hitch says:

        Strangely, Bioware listens to their fans too much. One of their publicity stunts was a “Do you want to see Tali’s face?” poll. Which, I’m sure, they assumed people would sensibly answer, “No. That would spoil it.”

        Quelle surprise, people act stupid on the internet, and voted yes. So they rushed out a Tali picture as a throwaway item figuring it would never be a big deal. After all, it’s too trivial to get all worked up over. Right?

        1. Chiller says:

          I wanted to see Tali’s face. Actually, I didn’t really need to see Tali’s face per se, just any Quarian’s face in order to put a stop to all the extremely stupid discussions about whether they were blue or had tentacles or whatever. It’s not like people wouldn’t know it in the universe, Quarians are reasonably common and I’m sure SOMEONE got curious at some point.

          Making her cute and vaguely Persian-looking was fine I guess and well in line with her also vaguely Middle-Eastern accent, which is about as much as we can expect from Bioware creativity at this point.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            My problem isnt that she is cute,my problem is that she is human.After all that talk how quarians are so different,and how they are much closer to turians,and quarians end up looking closer to humans than asari?Thats weak.Was it so hard to at least do what star trek does and have her have a funny nose?

          2. Raygereio says:

            It's not like people wouldn't know it in the universe, Quarians are reasonably common and I'm sure SOMEONE got curious at some point.
            It was never really a question if someone in universe knew how the Quarians looked like. Hell, there’s always Fornax. It would take one Quarian on her pilgremage being down on her luck for the entire universe to know how they look like.

            The player didn’t know and sometimes it’s good to keep things a mystery to the player. Both as an in joke and to keep the player’s imagination working. You don’t have to spoonfeed them everything.

            1. Destrustor says:

              Yeah it was always cool and funny how we never get to see the face of halo’s master chief.
              “oh he’s taking off his helmet, maybe we’ll see what he NOPE” And then we laugh and move on. It’s an in-joke, a running gag between the devs and the players, and it’s just fine that way.
              Because if they had shown it, he probably would’ve been a 30-something white male. :]

              1. Scow2 says:

                Everyone knows that the Master Chief’s face under his helmet is another helmet. It’s helmets all the way down.

            2. Zukhramm says:

              It might be a fun little mystery, for a while, but eventually, after multiple games it just become increasingly silly that the camera always happens to face their backs every single time a Quarian removes the mask.

  41. James Schend says:

    It would not surprise me to learn the writers of ME3’s ending were huge fans of Verner Vinge, specifically “A Fire Upon the Deep”. Which has a very similar ending both in content and tone.

  42. Ron says:

    I can’t help but feel betrayed by Bioware. I realized that it wasn’t going to get much better after the mess that is 2, but the universe was the reason I kept playing. The ending essentially asked me what color I wanted to see as I destroyed everything that compelled me to play it in the first place.

  43. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I think the problems with 3 are the same ones from 2:It wasnt planned well.They were telling a story in 1,but didnt think of how to continue and conclude it.Yes,they left a few loose ends in 1,but didnt think how to tie them,until they started the third game.

    Also,compared to this motivation behind the reapers,my theory of them harvesting organics in order to evolve seems like a nobel prize plot.

    By the way,did kaidan ever address his outburst from 2,or was it just forgotten like plenty of stuff from 2?

    1. Shamus says:

      Arg!

      I played with Ash, and she spent the first two missions of the game giving me MORE crap about working for Cerberus, doubting my motivations, asking me if I was sure I wasn’t indoctrinated or whatever. It didn’t last the whole game, but they managed to open that old wound for another salting.

      1. ehlijen says:

        Kaiden does the exact same thing.

        1. Irridium says:

          Did they just copy/paste the dialog for both of them like they did for ME2?

          1. Michael says:

            Nah, there’s some variance. Kaiden spends half the game whining about the biotic squads he was training before the game started, while Ashely spends half the game going on about her brother in law that bought it defending earth, and getting really hungover, once…

            In all fairness, Ashley seems to actually get more dialog, but some of it’s cut and paste duplications, and some of it’s distinct. Basically, if it’s in a main story mission it’s duplicated for both, if it’s ship board or in other non-combat zones it’s distinct.

            1. Ringwraith says:

              Although even in 2 their dialogue differs somewhat, which people seem not to notice.

      2. Hitch says:

        At least Dr. Chakwas offers a decent justification for the stupidity of Mass Effect 2 and working with Cerberus. But she’s the only one.

        1. ehlijen says:

          Not sure I’d call it decent. It’s pretty much a restatement of the ‘Yes, but only once.’ answer you get to give in ME2 to TIM when he asks if he can kick you in the balls.

          But yes, it is more than anyone else gives you.

          1. Hitch says:

            Maybe you didn’t get the same conversation I did.

            In one of my medical bay conversations with her I chose the stupid sounding, “Does it ever bother you that we worked for Cerberus?” To which she replied, “We didn’t work with Cerberus. We used them. They had the ships, materiel, and manpower we needed to defeat the Collectors. As soon as we did that, we told TIM to get stuffed.”*

            I just had to stare at my screen for a minute and said, “Thank you. Now why can’t Shepard ever say that?”

            * Paraphrased from memory.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Indeed.Thats basically how I was playing 2,and got so angry that I couldnt say that to anyone.

              1. acronix says:

                More proof that the Holy Author of the Storyline was thinking about a completely different Shepard and tried to make him the only “canonical” one.

                1. Sumanai says:

                  Or he wanted his character to say it in order to appear smarter than the player.

            2. ehlijen says:

              What I wanted to say to TIM was:

              Thanks for the ship, dude. See you back in the Alliance, now that I have footage of the collecters in action and a council that still likes me enough to remake me a spectre.

              Compared to that, “I mooch of Cerberus while jumping through TIM’s hoops” is still not very satisfying (because you do Jump through his infuriating hoops without choice).

      3. burningdragoon says:

        Heh, despite playing a mostly paragon, I took mostly renegade options when talking to her because of not wanting to put up with her shit and purposely didn’t convince her to come join me.

      4. LurkerAbove says:

        I actually didn’t ask Ashley to return to the ship after Uldina dies because she was still on about that Cerebus thing at the start of the game.

        If she’s still worrying about that right now, how can I trust her? Is she going to second guess everything I say? At this point, I have more confidence in Miranda‘s loyalty than Ashley’s.

        Ashley is probably just above Zaheed, way at the bottom.

        1. Michael says:

          Yeah, but with Zaeed and Miranda you actually did their loyalty missions. Ashley isn’t loyal to you at all. :p

          1. krellen says:

            After saving her ass on Virmire, she should be.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              What are you talking about?The bitch died there,and was never mentioned again.Ever.

              1. anaphysik says:

                Me carefully engineering Miranda’s death (and only Miranda’s death) at the end of ME2 also didn’t cause her gorram name to show up on the Normandy Memorial list.

                1. taellosse says:

                  Is that even possible? I thought Miranda couldn’t die unless you’d screwed up a whole bunch of other stuff first, including getting several other squadmates killed. Because the writers luuurrved Miranda so much.

                  1. anaphysik says:

                    It is most definitely possible, but it is hard.
                    The primary trick is to have Miranda (and her alone) unloyal. So after her and Jack’s Loyalty missions are finished, simply side with Jack (even if Charm/Intimidate options are available, as they were for me). (This actually makes plenty of in-story sense as well, since Jack has a reasonable point and Miranda is being a petty bitch.)
                    (This way you also get XP/upgrades from her quest and still get to save her sister, who had not actively made me hate her.)

                    There are two ways to kill Miranda during the suicide mission: 1) during the final boss fight (simply have her unloyal, but you’d also have to have her in your party and listen to her prattle on, which I find unacceptable) and 2) whilst holding the line (she must be unloyal and everyone more likely to die than her (Mordin, Tali, Kasumi, and Jack apparently) must be loyal – though in my case I had everyone loyal but Miranda – and your “Hold the Line average” must be greater than 1.5 and less than 2)

                    Since 3 teammates don’t hold the line (2 in squad + 1 sent back with crew (necessary for the crew to survive, which all of mine did)), the critical scores are as follows:

                    have Zaeed and Kasumi: 18
                    have one: 16
                    have neither: 14
                    (remembering that your setup must be *less* than the critical score)

                    My setup:
                    ->everyone loyal except Miranda
                    ->had both Zaeed and Kasumi
                    ->no one dead before Holding the Line (in my case: loyal Legion on vents, loyal Jack for the long walk, and loyal Garrus as 2nd fireteam leader both times; however, the actual people chosen here have no effect)
                    ->sent loyal Grunt back with the rescued crew (loyal Grunt would have been worth 4 points during the Hold the Line section)
                    ->brought loyal Mordin (would have been worth 1 point) and loyal Garrus (would have been worth 4 points) with me to fight the Baby Space Terminator and flip off TIM

                    That left the following loyal teammates holding the line, with their point values in parens: Zaeed (4), Legion (2), Samara (2), Thane (2), Jacob (2), Tali (1), Jack (1), Kasumi (1); and an unloyal Miranda worth 1 point.
                    That’s 9 line-holders with a total of 16 points – less than the critical ‘all survive’ 18 (but more than 13.5), meaning that one nonloyal dies, which causes Miranda to die! Yay!

                    (You can actually bring as few as 8 points between your squad and the crew’s escort (you can see I brought 9) and still have that unloyal Miranda die. E.g.: Garrus, Legion, Thane.)

                    If you don’t have Zaeed or Kasumi, you need 7 points between squad and escort (e.g. Garrus, Legion, Mordin).

                    If you have Zaeed but not Kasumi, 9 points (e.g. Zaeed, Garrus, Mordin).

                    If you have Kasumi. but not Zaeed, 6 points (e.g. Legion, Thane, Samara; or e.g. Garrus, Mordin, Kasumi).

                    (So it ought be possible to kill only Miranda regardless of which DLC you did or did not get.)

        2. Kian says:

          Gods, I was so mad at Kaidan/Ashley. I’ve been replaying the series (I lost my save, played ME3 with a downloadedd save but wanted to have my own) and just reached Horizon in ME2. Ashley gives me crap about disappearing for two years. I mention how “I was in a COMA for two years while Cerberus rebuilt me” and her immediate answer is “Oh, so you’re with Cerberus now?” Didn’t you just hear me say I was in a coma? The coma was the important bit! The coma is why you’re mad at me! It’s not my fault I died, be mad at Joker!

          Not to mention that I went to Anderson directly after I got some freedom to move, and asked about them and was told they were in a secret mission. Then I meet them and they tell me Anderson sent them here because they were suspicious.

          But that’s not even the worst part. Already in ME2, even while flying in a Cerberus ship, the Council trusted me enough to reinstate me. Yeah, in a sense it was a placating measure, but it still shows they fundamentally trusted Shepard. They could have sent another Spectre after me, or grounded the Normandy (which I parked on their front door in the middle of their fleet) but they trusted me enough to give me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted and once I was done playing with the terrorists and getting over this Reaper phase of mine I could come back. That’s a lot of trust, even if they don’t believe my fears are real.

          Admiral Hacket trusts you all throughout the three games. He knows you’re awesome and send some sensitive missions your way, trusting you to solve the problems the Alliance can’t handle. Admiral Anderson trusts you. Almost every authority figure has faith in you, despite whatever misgivings they might have.

          Joker, Chakwas, Tali and Garrus all trust you implicitly. Even the people you kidnap (James Vega, Specialist Traynor) trust you.

          The only person to ever mistrust you is Kaidan/Ashley. Despite how many times you save them or the evidence they witnessed themselves that the Reapers are coming and no one wants to face this truth.

          Why exactly is this person a romantic interest in three again?

          1. LurkerAbove says:

            Liara’s mother and SAREN trusted you more than Ashley does. Saren shoots himself for you, and she won’t even handcuff Uldina for you.

          2. Conrad Gray says:

            Not to mention that Kaidan/Ashley is your subordinate, so romancing them constitutes fraternization and is highly unprofessional. That alone caused me to never romance either.

            1. Sumanai says:

              They’re not the only subordinates you can romance, if memory serves. Also a lot of other romancing options are creepy, to say the least.

  44. Zak McKracken says:

    Re “writers who have no plan”:
    I think they have a lot of writers who do have a plan. And that is the root of the problem, because not everyone has the same plan. I would bet that there was no singe person properly coordinating the story and establishing the main arc _before_ all the other details and sidequests were made. But if you try to have people working in parallel on the same story, there’ll be a few seams. And those are going to be worse if each of the writers had a different idea of what the rest of the story was going to be.

    1. lasslisa says:

      Had some moments noticing this w/r/t the Krogan. “Krogan have babies in clutches of a thousand” and “this planet was colonized by the Krogan, each family raising hundreds of babies” vs. the female Krogan’s saying “I was so devastated when my first child was born stillborn” – Wait, what? Where’d the whole ‘clutch’ idea go?

    2. Sumanai says:

      Someone from Bioware, damned if I care for the name, said they hadn’t finished the ending by last December.

      I’m willing to bet they make few notes and come up with stuff on the fly. Which is kind of sad, since certain programming project software would work perfectly for updating, sharing, collaborating and storing story stuff.

  45. Eruanno says:

    On Cerberus: Didn’t they explain that somewhat? They turned refugees into kind-of-but-not-really-husks and that’s where Cerberus got their army from? I just kind of assumed they didn’t need to get fed, trained, but the Illusive Man just kind of pushed the remote control for the little radio recievers in their heads. Or something.

    On the Crucible: You know what, I never thought about it until you mentioned it. Didn’t every other race pretty much go “Oh balls, Reapers!” as they warped into the Citadel from dark space, and the Protheans were pretty much the only ones who had a clue about this beforehand. Or maybe they got clues from those who came before, who got clues from those who… ARGH!

    Actually, how did the Reapers move the Citadel? Did they just swoop in, torch the place from living things and then drive away, towing it behind them? Guh?

    Also, I have the From Ashes DLC (got the Collector’s Edition). Javik pretty much takes a look at the plans, goes “Wtf is this? I’ve never heard of this. I’m a soldier, not a scientist!” and everyone kind of grumbles as they realize he’s of no help to anyone. Sigh.

    EDIT: Oh damn it, I thought of another thing. Who here didn’t raise their gun and try to shoot the ugly little star child-brat? My actions after regaining control in the last sequence was:
    1. Check to see if there was a way to double back. Clearly all my choices were awful. Maybe I can just… go back and ignore the… no? Damn it.
    2. Shoot the damn kid. DIE. DIE. Fuck, he’s immortal.
    3. Stare at the battle raging above me.
    4. Stare at the beams, trying to decide which one is the least awful.
    5. Keep staring. They are all awful choices.
    6. Grumble and pick one, just to see if it gets any better. NOPE.

    1. guy says:

      Other question about the Crucible: So, apparently it is designed to be hooked up to the Citadel. Why?

      Bear in mind, we know with absolute certainty that the Protheans lost control of the Citadel prior to having the slightest clue the Reapers existed. So why did they put so much effort into designing a weapon they couldn’t possibly use? Also, since Vigil was apparently unaware of it, the guys who were making it couldn’t have expected that future races would be able to reach the Citadel either because disabling the Keepers wasn’t even a plan when they built it.

      1. tremor3258 says:

        What’s the timing on the Reapers with the Citadel versus the fleet warping in? Wasn’t it in ME1 “If the Reapers get the Citadel, they shut down the relay network, shatter command and control, and use our own tax databases to wipe us out and set up the next cycle’s bait?”

    2. Cody211282 says:

      That’s basically what I did, the moment the kid came out and started spewing his “Yo Dawg” type logic was about the same time I started list off the plot holes in the game(me and my roommate spent 5 hours in denny that night talking about how bad just the last part of the game is)

      In the end I went “fuck it the writers don’t care so why should I” picked the synthesis ending(because it made the least amount of sense) then went to youtube to see if I had done something wrong, and raged even more when I learned that I got the only ending there was.

    3. Sumanai says:

      Hasn’t anyone tried just standing around there, for like an hour? I mean, that’s the only sensible thing I have come up. Except maybe “blow everything up, because none of it matters anymore”.

      1. anaphysik says:

        Apparently the game just critical failure ends with ‘Crucible destroyed, Reapers won’ message if you stand around long enough.
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV1QyNumjZU
        See! Choice!

        There’s also the ‘fall through the floor’ “ending.”
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYlwix8njc0
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82SvEbJnbJQ
        The view is actually kind of interesting in that one.

        Oh, and on the related topic of rebuttals to the ‘no A, B, C ending’ quotes, I propose that we simply accept what Casey said as true, and I’ve whipped up proof: http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/187/me3noabcendinganaphysik.png

        See, they didn’t lie!

        EDIT: Shamus, a tags don’t seem to work for some reason, just producing text that looks like a hyperlink but goes nowhere. Upon editing, the href value has disappeared.

        EDIT 2: and now it’s trying to be smart and change my “” into an actual tag, and add the corresponding close tag to the end. Stupid computers, trying to be “smart” rather than doing what we say….

        EDIT 3: and now it’s even ripped out my mangled-purely-as-an-example tag, leaving those quotes with nothing between them! crazy!

        1. Sumanai says:

          I’m disappointed, but not surprised.

          I usually just copy-paste the address, the site code turns it into a link automatically.

          1. anaphysik says:

            Which is what I ended up doing. What I was trying to do was create text that had a hyperlink embedded in it, rather than simply the hyperlink as the text.

            1. Sumanai says:

              I don’t do the proper hyperlink, unless I feel the post is too long already, because I tend to screw them up somehow. I don’t know if it’s the websites code mangling it, or if I’ve done something wrong, but it’s pretty discouraging.

    4. Dude says:

      What I did is Alt-Tab out to My Docs, make a copy of the autosave that happens at that point, and then use that save to view all three endings in one go; just so that, for all my other playthroughs I can consider Shepard’s beam-me-up as the official end point. Kinda like how Stephen King’s Dark Tower ends before it ends.

      Then I shot the kid.

  46. Stellar Duck says:

    I wish I had pressed Alt+F4 when Shep and Anderson were sitting down and chatting on the Citadel. It was quite poignant. That would have worked for me.

    1. Indy says:

      Stopping when getting shot by the Reaper laser would have been good. Stopping when the Hackett tells you it’s failed and it’s up to the fleet to determine if they win would have been good.

      But, most importantly of all, stopping when the Collectors blew up the Normandy would have been the best.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I actually made up a theory: Everything after Shepard gets spaced in Mass Effect 2 is a death dream. Bam. All inconsistencies regarding Cerberus and so on dealt with.

  47. ehlijen says:

    Was I the only one annoyed by the fact that the game forces you to walk down long corridors in slow motion in the end? Including to the endotron3000 buttons?

    Given that the game wouldn’t let me save before the choice (had to manually copy the autosave file before it was overwritten after the end cutscene to avoid the third bs-ing with TIM) it was quite a chore to see all the endings (and for what…different colours..)

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Youtube is your friend.

    2. acronix says:

      Colorblind people must have been very confused that they were getting only one ending…

      1. Sumanai says:

        There are small effects that vary. Blue has lightning, for instance. I think red had fire. Green… made SHODAN’s face appear on the background? I don’t remember, or care enough to watch it again.

        1. Sumanai says:

          Green had a glowy thing. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s used whenever a beam/light/explosion/whatever is supposed to be “otherworldly” or something. Stock effect basically, like the rest.

          1. Dreadjaws says:

            There’s also the fact that the Reapers get shut down in the “Destroy” ending, and there are those circuitry thingies all over the skin in the “Synthesis” ending. It doesn’t change the fact that they’re basically the same thing.

    3. Cody211282 says:

      The moment they went into limpy dramatic slowmo I knew something bad was coming my way.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Haven’t thought of it before, but yes. That would seem like a good indicator that something is going to be either so bad it’s horrible, or so bad it’s hilarious.

  48. Anorak says:

    Disclaimer: I’ve not played the games.

    They’re on my Big List of Games to Play, but it’s a big list. I do in fact own the first one, and tried to play it but had difficulty getting into it.
    I’ve spoiled myself to hell, too, because I was curious about what had set the internet on fire THIS time.

    In this case I’m glad I’m behind the curve – when I eventually play the games, I won’t suffer the same amount of outrage as nearly everyone else did. I’ll have inoculated myself with spoilers, and armed myself with the knowledge that this shit made the internet REALLY ANGRY.

    Anyway. My point.
    Disclaimer: Spoilers for Revelation Space!

    The reapers appear to be a much, much more pointless version of the Inhibitors, from Alasdair Reynold’s books.

    Those guys were a “race” of machines that sat around dormant, until they detected space-faring civilisations intelligent enough to pass a test, a sort of Sword-in-the-stone trial. If a civilisastion managed to find and open a certain artifact, they’d come crashing down on them and prune the entire race.

    The justification for this behaviour is much better than the reaper’s.

    The race that created these had predicted, accurately, that our galaxy would eventually collide with another galaxy.

    The inhibitors are in the process of slowly remodeling the galaxy to allow the maximum number of solar systems capable of supporting life to pass through the collision unharmed, but they can’t do this if they have all these upstart civilisations getting in the way of their project.

    Solution – kill all space-faring species.

    There was a lot more to it that I can’t remember, and there are problems with this idea to, but to me it give a much better justification for wiping out civilizations.

    It’s almost as if one of the ME writers had ripped this idea of wholesale, and very nearly got away with it, until someone else who’d read the books pointed it out, causing a last minute scramble to make it just_different_enough.

    Anyway, I will eventually reinstall Mass Effect, and pump hours into it until satisfaction comes out. In the meantime, this is where I get off.

    Actually it’s just that I’m still playing New Vegas. Mass Effect is next.

    1. Piflik says:

      I really love the Revelation Space Universe, but the conclusion to the inhibitor situation was the biggest asspull I ever encountered in literature…still buying anything from Reynolds on day one XD

      1. Cineris says:

        I agree. Mass Effect is almost a direct rip-off of the Revelation Space books.

        Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap had problems, particularly the latter. I feel like the problems were in the writing though, and presented in a better way that I wouldn’t have objected to the events of the story.

        1. Piflik says:

          I have to say that I liked the fact that humans did destroy the galaxy (as we know it) in the end…

          1. Cineris says:

            Well, it would’ve happened anyway. Better that we help it along.

    2. wickedartist says:

      This concept of a “Cosmic Destroyer” in its various forms appears in many science fiction stories from my experience and interpretation. You can call them Reapers, Inhibitors, Shadows, Shivans, Zerg, or anything else.

      The idea isn’t new and it doesn’t have to be. My problem with the Mass Effect story isn’t with the lack of fresh ideas, but with the flaws in execution. I argue that a good storyteller could turn anything (or almost anything) into a good and even a great story.

      I also argue that BioWare are not good storytellers.

      1. Anorak says:

        You make a good point – the concept was not new in Revelation Space. My point was that it was much, much better explained, executed and justified (than the reapers. And again – this is all based off spoilers and internet rage. Take my entire musings with a pinch of salt the size of the UK’s winter grit salt supply).

        And Bioware are awful storytellers. They have an amazing story (well, until now, apparently), but utterly fail in it’s execution.

        This was the main reason why ME1 failed for me, and why I put it down – I found the storytelling to be almost non-existent. I was instead just given the Codex to read, or had characters tell me everything up front.

        Compare this to (wait for it….) Half-Life. The story itself is arguably simplistic, but the execution and storytelling is so much better.

        *edited for some clarity*

      2. Dreadjaws says:

        Or Galactus.

    3. Anorak says:

      Errr, what the balls happened to my spoiler tags? It looks like the CSS for spoilers only partially applies across paragraphs. Maybe? Could be browser specific, but I can’t be arsed to check. I’m using Chrome, for reference.

      1. ehlijen says:

        I believe line breaks actually end the spoiler tag.

    4. s997863 says:

      The eapers are a poor rip-off of the shivans from freespace

      ==================
      The Shivans are attracted to subspace disturbances and eliminate races that get advanced enough to use subspace, thus keeping lesser planet-bound races safe from the invasions of advancing races expanding their empire.
      ==================

      ME3 ending was obviously incomplete development for whatever reason. They just made a rushed, bad rip-off of the already bad DeusEx-HR endings (cutscene with or without monologue, no dialogue, no epilogue, no interactivity throughout)

      http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=15395

  49. Phoenix says:

    I’m afraid that, with all this chit-chat about the indoctrinated theory, bioware will make a DLC that confirms it without being their’s original intention.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I actually hope for that,because that would be awesome.

      But then again,seeing what they did with other awesome stuff,who knows how they would screw that one up.

    2. Sumanai says:

      There’s a chance for that, yes. I won’t believe them because there’s not enough existing clues for it (pretty much anything could be marked down as a “they rushed out the door, fell, rolled and accidentally ended up standing” event). My only fear about it is that fans who support the theory will declare “See! They’re not awful, they are awesome!” and suddenly no-one is allowed to criticise them.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        Urgh, you’d think after the trainwreck they turned 2’s main storyline into, spiced with the dumbness of Arrival and then after messing up 3 AND then going all “our ending is da best and if you don’t like it than you don’t deserve the game anyway” on top of that they’d loose the credibility in this department. But no, I’m sure people are going to cheer and claim that the DLC ending (whatever it’ll be, if it will be) was always meant to be the original ending. And not only is a rewritten ending basically a publicity stunt (there are a few things I hate more than rewritings and retcons, if you messed up telling a story than suck it up, live with it, do better next time) will have the added insult of costing extra money on top of the actual game. And people will buy it, because you know, there is enough good in the series that people want to like it. Between FO3 and now words of ME3 I wonder when will having a “poor man’s ending” and “paid extra ending” become an official business decision.

        1. Sumanai says:

          If they pull it off, and knowing how desperate fans are right now it’s likely, I’m guessing one game without repeat, then every single one.

        2. Sol says:

          I hope not though, there is enough on the bioware forums and Retake ME3 page on facebook that they could pull ideas from, hell, even Deviantart has a few good things.

          Personally i thought Mass Effect 2 was good, the story was different, sure but mostly fit with the universe, like the council being jerks, again.

          If they charge for it, many will buy it yes, but many (like myself) will just watch it on youtube, so essentially we get what we want and also screw bioware, so for me, total win. If it is free, and they do a good job(ie it is coherent and as good as the rest of the game) then i will get it, sure. If its extremely cheap say 100ms points, then i will probably get it too.

          Some evidence is there to suggest that most of the writers were not in on the ending, which would explain why it’s such crap. Right or wrong, the writer(s) have to know now that they stuffed up.
          And Casey Hudson totally lied. Our decisions matter…where?

  50. zob says:

    Shamus, I wholeheartedly apologize for any excuse/rationalization I made to explain ME2 during that season of Spoiler Warning.

    Also kudos to Bioware. Most companies would have been content with ruining one game with that game’s ending. Retroactively destroying any replay value for a trilogy must be some kind of success.

    I’m half inclined to create a meme series
    “Kaidan died for blue explosion”
    “Wrex died at Virmire for red explosion”
    etc.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Its not just the ending.The whole story had plenty of problems.And same goes for 3,but the ending itself has so much bad that everything else gets overlooked.For example,near the beginning,joker speaks with you about the council,and says “I thought they were doing something,but werent telling you,because,you know,cerberus.”,which means they knew of a way to do something smart to get out of stupidity me2 presented,but still decided not to do it,and even worse,to show that they could,but simply didnt bother to.

      1. Uli says:

        Oh god, yeah. That infuriated me. I’d been hoping for that asspull for a long time… so to see it referenced and then instantly dismissed!?

        *cries*

    2. Gamer says:

      I must see this. This meme needs to happen.

      I want people to know I earned my Blueberry/Cherry/Lime-flavored explosions.

      1. zob says:

        Feel free to steal meme idea. I for one just can’t bring myself to anything related to the game anymore. I just remember the ending and start swearing :)

      2. acronix says:

        They should make an advertisement: “Enjoy Mass Effect as never before! With our new brand of Fruity Endings popcicles, in three DELICIOUS flavours! Now with day one DLC!”.

  51. burningdragoon says:

    Well on the plus side, I learned a new word from all of this: blatherskite.

    It’d be nice for BioWare to instead of saying “We’re super proud of our game, so suck it” (bad paraphrase on my part :P) to come out and say something like “Throughout all 3 games many things have changed, some changes were better and some were worse but necessary. This may not have the game we originally envisioned, but we are still proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”

    1. Sumanai says:

      They haven’t come out and said that? It sounds exactly the sort of wishy washy “addressing of complaints” that they would do. Maybe it’s not condescending enough?

      1. burningdragoon says:

        I’ve only read a couple of the BioWare recent posts, both acknowledge that not everyone is satisfied, but both also are filled with standard PR head up there own asses type of stuff. I guess that is the point of PR, but I’d like to think most people would much rather hear/read something a little more genuine.

        1. Sumanai says:

          That’s not actually the point of PR. Well, not PR directed at clients anyway. When addressing people publicly in these sort of situation you need to appear humble and apologetic, but ultimately non-committal nor admit any wrongdoing that could result in lawsuits or enraging even more people. Also you need to acknowledge most, if not all, of the causes for the outrage.

          Bioware’s PR has been dismissive and fake-apologetic with a hint of “it’s not our fault you’re an uncouth barbarian with no taste”.

          Also there’s the “not acknowledging more than the two least important aspects of the complaints” flavour. I actually saw the poll they had on the forums, and the same option that said “hated it” contained the reason “because it was a downer”. The rest were neutral or positive. Which makes the Penny-Arcade strip about this feel pretty shitty.

          I mean, first there is the poll intentionally muddling the problems, then there’s every damn defense of the ending starting with the same bloody explanation for one of the least important complaints and then there’s Jerry and Mike making a cheap joke that further misleads those who don’t know about this.

          1. anaphysik says:

            In all fairness, krogan cake does sound pretty tasty. If meaty.
            And now I’ve got a bizarre image of Wrex as a domestic cake-baker.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Krogan cake sounds like some dirty euphemism.

              1. anaphysik says:

                Yeah, it kind of does. I’m not quite sure for what, but I’m sure Mordin would’ve had something great to say about it…
                :..(

                1. Sumanai says:

                  And offered a salve.

          2. Dreadjaws says:

            Indeed, I read Penny Arcade’s comic on ME3 ending before playing the game and I thought it was pretty funny, and assumed the reason people didn’t like the ending was because it wasn’t happy. I’ve seen people outrage for stupid reasons before, so I assumed this was the case.

            Then I played the game and thought “What the freaking hell?” All that time I had assumed once I played through the game and saw the ending I would understand something most people didn’t and actually like it. That’s right, I left my ego get the better of me. I should have known that so many of my fellow gamers couldn’t have been wrong. I apologize to those people, even though I never said anything against them, because I definitely thought it.

            In hindsight, the Penny Arcade joke is an undeserved mockery. It might or might not have been caused by Bioware’s dodging poll, but that’s beside the point, because it was a terrible thing to do anyway. It was poor taste, considering people weren’t clamoring for a happy ending. They just wanted an ending. A resolution to a story they had invested so many time in, to a universe they had welcomed and wandered in with so much depth, to the stories of characters they have grown to care so much about.

            Bad call, Penny Arcade, very bad call.

  52. Otters34 says:

    This is especially horrible because this was written by two people, which ideally would curb each other’s worst writing habits and ideas. Editorial and production pressures were doubtless on them, but broadly speaking the series was written by just these two guys, and the horrific mess STILL happened. If Karpyshyn had been the sole writer throughout he whole series, and this was the result of mounting pressures, constant changes, and being tired of the franchise I could understand it, but it’s not. It’s just a crazy welding of different things together, some of which sounds like it doesn’t even belong in the same universe like that Leng guy.

    Normally I’d put something like this to a lack of money, but that clearly wasn’t an issue if they were STILL getting celebrity VAs, so I can only assume they seriously couldn’t think of anything better, or just ran out of time and said “”Hey! We can just change it around later”.

  53. Integer Man says:

    The ending made it clear that the Catalyst’s plan was idiotic for the problem it was trying to solve via the reapers. If you want to prevent artificial life from destroying life, build the reapers and leave them in the galaxy (maybe with a cloaking device, maybe not). Have them do nothing except annihalate any form of artificial life it finds threatening or anything that makes an aggressive move against it. The reapers are supposedly there to counterbalance and correct the seemingly natural urge to create artificial life. Why not just have them sitting around as playground monitors that destroy anything threatening but don’t otherwise get in the way.

    Also, if the citadel was left behind to guide the galaxy down a certain developmental path, why not use it to guide life away from the possibility of creating artificial life? This isn’t as hard as it sounds given the reaper’s proficiency in indoctrination – just have the citadel or the mass relays indoctrinate people subtly so that they believe artificial life is bad and should be avoided.

    I picture Shepherd making these adjustments to the reapers strategy in the blue ending.

    1. Cody211282 says:

      Honestly the entire logic behind the star child is just horrible.

      Apply what he is saying to anything, lets say to the cops.

      “All people will commit a crime at some point in their life, so it’s the law that on your 21st birthday you have to get shot in the face so you don’t commit any crimes.”

      I just don’t know how anyone didn’t take the lead writer out back and beat him with a hose after he submitted that ending.

      1. Destrustor says:

        “Any person will, at some point, trip and fall. To prevent this, we’ll just cut everyone’s legs and hurl you at the ground so you don’t even get the chance to fall”

        1. Cody211282 says:

          http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/36j7lz/

          That sums it up nicely.

          Also I would love to see this star child logic turned into a meme.

      2. LurkerAbove says:

        And then, after 1 person out of the nigh infinite gunshot victims dodges the bullet, you decide you need an entirely new plan.

        “You missed”

        “Damn!”

        “Well, I guess this plan is ruined”

        “What now?”

        “Lets completely abandon the concepts of law, or morality”

        “Sounds good”

        1. Cody211282 says:

          After dodging the bullet the guy would be given 3 choices:

          1- Control all the guns in the work, this would also kill you as you become one with the guns and destroy all modes of transportation besides walking.

          2- Merge all people everywhere with guns without asking and forcing it on them, this will eradicate crime because now everyone is the same, this would also kill you and destroy all modes of transportation besides walking.

          3- Destroy all guns everywhere and kill everyone who has ever had something replaced in their body(hip/knee/pacemaker/surgical pin), this would also kill you and destroy all modes of transportation besides walking.

          But if you pick option 3 and dodge the bullet insanely well then you wake up before the gun ever was put in your face.

    1. LurkerAbove says:

      Yes, many of the choices did have “consequences.” The problem is those consequences are too vague or ephemeral.

      1. If Wrex/Wreav is alive and able to return to Tchunka, that is completely different than if they are stuck on Earth (dead or alive).

      2. Emancipating the Geth + red ending is…troublesome.

      3. Most, if not all, my team members were on Earth’s surface. A few of them magically teleported to the Normandy, but the rest are MIA. (and how the hell did BOTH of my companions on the last offensive manage to survive Harbinger’s laser.) What was Joker doing? The Reaper’s shut down/explode and he sees some flashing lights and he figures it is too dangerous to hang around? Why would Joker abandon Shepard?

      4. War assets barely affect anything, and in many cases are nigh interchangable (human reaper heart/brain, Wrex/Wreav, citadel defense force stuff, Specters/Hanar etc.)

      5. All the other minor things. Is what’s her name, the reporter that has shown up in the entire game, is she alive or dead. Was the only consequence of that adifference of 5 war asset points?

      6. They couldn’t make up their minds if Shepard was supposed to be falling apart under the strain and visibly showing it, or if he was the same )on the surface) as always. Along those lines, why is that stupid kid so important?

      I completely disagree about the ending. It was out of the blue. If the Harry Potter saga ending had everything hinge on a Quidditch match between the two sides, that would be out of the blue too.

      It can be done. The ending to Watchmen is out of the blue, but the key difference is we were always pretty much in the dark about the ending. All we got were mysterious hints. Or the solution to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd The narrator was the killer all along could pull something like that off, because it was a deconstruction of the entire genre.

      Bioware does not do a good job of making the player feel like the fight against the Reapers is truly hopeless for the combined might of the galaxy. The Protheans held out for hundreds of years and they were not as equipped as the galaxy is now.

      Shepard takes the Catalyst’s word as law, and the player is taken along for the ride. Shepard, who has stood up to everyone from the Alliance Military, the Council, Saren, Sovereign, Harbinger, the Collectors, giant robots, groups of angry Krogan, the Quarian Admerality, the Geth collective, TIM, Victus, Uldina all the way to the Reapers on Tchunka and Rannoch.

      This is a woman to whom “plan B” was lure, on foot, a nigh mythical sand worm to her position.

      This woman is going to trust the Catalyst, and submit?

      The Cycle has worked for eons, but one abberation in Shepard and the entire thing needs to be scrapped? Why would you build a multiple choice failsafe? Why would you build a failsafe you couldn’t construct?

      1. acronix says:

        Joker escapes all terrible fates because he is an Author Darling. As such, he is given the innate ability of seeing the future to avoid getting killed.

    2. ehlijen says:

      That article just ignores the ending and insists on calling that action liking it.

      Sure, all the decisions shepard made still happnened. But no matter what those decisions were, starchild pops out of nowhere, points at the endotron3000 and let’s shepard pick the colour of the explosion that will end all civilisation as he knows through relay destruction.

      The problem is not that the end was badly written (ME2 seemed to have gotten away with that one, so why can’t ME3). The problem is that the end of ME3 is lazy and badly laid out. Changing ‘this will destroy the relays’ to ‘this will permanently deactivate the relays’ would have made it worlds better, because then we could imagine what all those worlds we saved would get up to next. But as it is, we have every reason to believe that major world we visited in the last few games has just been blown to pieces. Instead they call on some scifi tropes, hope that the reader will figure a valid ending out for himself and let him blow up stuff by slowly stumbling at buttons.

      It was just no fun to play! ME2 at least had a boss fight where the player got to have some more game play. Bad endings can be excused, if they’re at least fun(ny). This is just…nothing.

      No, it does not invalidate the game, just like recieving cardboard icecream after a 5 star gourmet meal does not invalidate the meal. But neither does the meal excuse that ridiculous lazyness. It deserves to be pointed out.

    3. Sumanai says:

      I tried reading that before. At, I think, the third paragraph where he is still talking about how the rest of the game is great, I quit. The feeling of denial was hanging so strong even now that I think of it I have difficulty breathing.

      I should probably either try again, or skim it, just in case he has anything sensible to say.

    4. Dreadjaws says:

      I read that article and it completely failed to convince me. This person is completely ignoring all of the points made here by Shamus, so I don’t think it can even be considered a counter-argument.

      The problem is that the ending completely invalidated all those choices we made because the entire damn galaxy is either destroyed or left in a convalescent state. So, to put it bluntly, our choices didn’t matter. At all.

      Besides, the guy clearly says that he liked something that happened in the game and didn’t know nor care if it was scripted or not. If you don’t know/care if something is scripted, how can you possibly praise the game for making your choices matter? You don’t know if they didn’t, you just said it!

      All in all, a pretty bad article, which completely fails to take into account all the things the game did wrong. It’s like trying to introduce a girl to your friend and praise her dress, makeup and jewelry but completely forgetting to tell him she’s actually a male zombie gorilla.

  54. Attercap says:

    This kind of bugged me with Arrival, but really hit home in ME3… I’m still trying to figure out why the Citadel was so crucial for Sovereign in ME1 if it only took the Reapers 3 years to get out of dark space and hit every system, anyway. I could have sworn that the big problem was that without the Citadel, the cuttlefish of doom didn’t have a good way in or a decent map of where everyone lived. Saving the Citadel in ME1 didn’t really have much of an impact.

    I guess it took the nasty nautiluses only 2 years to get back into the solar system and, without the Alpha Relay, another year to hit the rest of the galaxy? Is 3 years really that big a deal to quibble with when one is talking about a 50k year “plan?”

    I read (but now can’t find the source, of course) that Drew Karpyshyn’s plan was that overuse of the Mass Relays caused and increase in dark energy, which destabilized stars and that’s why the Reapers would swoop in and destroy the civilizations, giving the galaxy a chance to re-stabilize. I suppose it gave them a chance to reproduce as well. The Reapers probably didn’t just destroy the mass relays because they (in their egotistical ways) figured that at least their relays were the best that could be built and every other cycle would just eff it up even worse. I think I’d have been OK with that reason for reaping.

    1. Michael says:

      That still does get into the same problem, but a little bit more slowly. If they’re combating dark energy, then all of the technology they seed actually leads towards the same problem, because all element zero, including them, manipulates physics via dark energy. I’ll grant you, it’s better, but it still has the cyclical problem of the starchild.

      1. Attercap says:

        I think, no matter what the reason, the events that lead up to reaping Reapers has to be cyclical–just to fit in with the lore presented in even ME1. The word “cycle” is peppered throughout the first game in conjunction with the Reapers. I guess that’s one part of the lore the writers decided to stay consistent with. It’s a shame what made it into the game was a very flawed reason for the Cycle.

  55. topazwolf says:

    Wow, the reapers are synthetic creatures burning the galaxy to keep synthetic creatures from taking over? This saddens me. I always figured that the original reaper was a hyper intelligent species that found some way to upload their minds into a digital format. Due to some form of cataclysm they then uploaded their collective minds into a super-massive mobile space station. They then slowly transformed the rest of the galaxy into collectives like themselves since they think it is the highest form of sentience. The cycle is just them sharing their gift to all worthy races.

    But no. All logic, reason, foreshadowing got forgotten evidently.

  56. James says:

    Cerberus is a very odd beast.

    In the first game their pretty much all side quest stuff, nothing they do affects the main plot. The only notable things they did was killing your buddy (Can't recall his name) and that whole retarded thresher maw thing (Lets throw people at it, because science!). The only feeling they cause in a player is a deep desire to kill them all in their stupid faces.

    But honestly that would be fine, incompetent crime syndicates are a good staple of videogames (Did Cerberus buy umbrella stocks? They seem like the guys who'd think that was a good investment). But then the second game comes along and now they move the entire plot, and you just say “Haha, what? This is a joke right?… Right?”

    It almost seems like the writers looked at the stuff in ME1 and for some bizarre reason thought Cerberus was the greatest concept out of that. Like they only saw this powerful and sinister organisation of space racists and thought that would make a compelling story- if not for the fact they were all retarded.

    Now I didn't get ME3, I was done after that stupid boss fight in ME2, but seeing there even more “˜important' with a mook with plot armour is just…. Egh. Even the Illusive man seems more like a Self-Insert of the writer, because he's just so smart and handsome. They were also linked to the other issue I had with the ME2, where suddenly humans were so important. That is the weakest way to give a player motivation.

    1. krellen says:

      Apparently the novels also have a huge writing boner for Cerberus, so I think that’s exactly what happened.

    2. Sleeping Dragon says:

      The line that literally made me facepalm?

      So there is this one Cerberus sidequests where their guys are attacking a colony, basically you have to get in, kill some dudes and escort a couple of civvies to the landing pad. The fun part comes with debriefing.

      So Hackett is debriefing you, he says that Cerberus “denies all involvement claiming that it’s a rogue faction.” For a sharp second there I was ready to laugh thinking that writers are finally calling this BS and it’s going to follow up with something like “how is it they seem to consist entirely of rogue factions” or something to that effect…

      …but no, the line that immediately follows is “And I am inclined to believe them. A lot can be said about Cerberus but they never kill civilians.” This is after all the “rogue cells” in ME1, after the facility where they “upgraded” Jack, project overlord and all the other stuff in ME2 and if you have the DLC it is likely to happen after the Eden Prime mission where desperate civvies try to let each other know that Cerberus guys are killing and kidnapping people all over the place.

      I’m actually sort of curious if you can postpone this mission until after the attack on the Citadel, or better yet discoveries on Sanctuary, and if that line is changed in any way after that.

      1. anaphysik says:

        Incidentally, Project Overlord was the one singular time that I’ve ever thought that Cerberus was doing something *even moderately competently* (still evil, yes, but competent evil rather than their usual insane troll evil). They still lucked into their solution, and they still botched it, but their actual evil plan made some sort of sense, and you could see a clear benefit to what they were developing.

        Of course, I think Overlord was a really well-done DLC, so I guess I’m a bit biased by the augmented reality sections and neat dialogue. (Oh, and David’s appearance in ME3 is quite touching. He even apologizes to EDI, which was really beautiful.)

  57. Cody211282 says:

    What up set me(other then just about everything you pointed out) was the lack of harbinger in the game at all. Hell he is only there for a half a moment as a set piece that shoots you. I had been waiting since the 2nd game to take that annoying guy down and he is in the game for maybe 30 seconds.

    It would be like if the Emperor wasn’t in Return of the Jedi.

    1. ehlijen says:

      I never got how harbinger was supposed to look different anyway. Given that the reapers were pretty much as big as the plot demanded any given shot, and never shown with a frame of reference (not even other reapers, as the distance in space is always pretty wishy washy), so the line of ‘I’ve seen bigger reapers on earth’ that James spouts on the Turian mission just struck me as pretty random.

      1. Attercap says:

        They cover that a bit in the ME3 codex with an introduction of multiple Reaper “types,” which make them really seem more like vehicles than anything previously established in the lore. You’ve got your big Reapers for taking down ships and your collection Reapers which are smaller for scooping up aliens, etc. I’m not saying that the updates exactly gel with what we’ve seen before, but since Sovereign itself apparently had ship-like qualities, it’s possible that the Reapers are entities which are also vehicles for other Reaper types and their husks.

        1. ehlijen says:

          Oh yes, they had the big ships, the small ships, the flying zombie horses (sent by Luna lovegood?) and all the various footroops with different shapes. But apparently there are meant to be different sizeclasses between the identically shaped big cephalopod things that I just couldn’t spot.

          1. anaphysik says:

            One mention of size: EDI says the Reaper on Tuchanka was something like 160 meters long, whereas Sovereign was supposed to be ~2km long. So you only sic’d Kalros on a ‘small one.’

            Tangent:
            Which, frankly, was a bullshit moment when that dialogue came up.
            1) the Reaper is about the size of the Shroud, which seemed like a skyscraper (the tallest current one being ~800m). With future salarian tech, it seems like it could go even higher, especially for something designed for large-scale atmospheric dispersal.
            2) Kalros looked frakkin’ big itself, and we have some clear pics depicting her engaging the Reaper

            but those are both unimportant technical details when compared to the more important point:
            3) why make it a small one? really? so the Reapers would be “scarier?” Bleh. You had to summon a one-of-a-kind Godzilla-style near-primordial-force monster to defeat it. The Reaper being small just makes any point of getting krogan/turian troops and all that completely silly. Summoning the Mother of All Threshers was a once-in-an-asari-lifetime type event, and should have done something really major in and of itself. Destroying a real-size Reaper would have formed a great mid-game hope sequence (cure genophage, unite krogan/turian troops, actually kill a Reaper for real) which would make the invasion of the Citadel more meaningful (particularly as a demoralizing event).

            Plus, y’know, push two awesome hammer buttons, something awesome happens.

  58. James says:

    For those disappointed by the lack of an epilogue as I was these guys have filled the gap. Animal house style.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vG4EyfXOTJ4#!

    1. Sumanai says:

      So cruel. And so funny.

      If Bioware actually puts that into the game, for free, I’ll actually have to back off from my previous stance and consider buying ME3.

      But only if the bit about Vega stays as-is, or is even worse/better.

      I still won’t play it, but it’s not like Bioware cares.

  59. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I have a question that I havent seen mentioned yet:Why did the catalyst take the form of that idiot kid?Why was that kid there in the first place?Wouldnt it be better if it was someone shepard has already established a connection with?For example,anderson.Did he do something so important during the story that he had to physically be alive,and it had to be him and no one else in that role?If not,then why wasnt anderson killed in the very beginning,to later haunt shepards dreams and in the end be the form catalyst takes?

    1. Cody211282 says:

      Speculation of everyone!

      No honestly this is what the team was going for, in their little app they just released they said they wanted the ending to be like the matrix, and have speculation for everyone.

      1. LurkerAbove says:

        Because everyone loved the Matrix finale??? They went past speculation all the way to “there is a needle on this planet. Find it”

        1. Cody211282 says:

          I can sorta see them in the room now hard at work over what to do with the endings.

          “What are some well loved works of Sci-Fi we can borrow inspiration from?”

          “The Matrix was well liked, Battlestar Galactica was amazing, and everyone loves Dues Ex.”

          “Ok then how about we take the ending of all those things and cram it into one, it’s bound to be amazing! Just look at how everyone loves them!”

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            And a sprinkle of lost,with the normandy crashing on a mysterious island planet.

            1. lurkey says:

              Being jaded by aforesaid Lost (and Dark Tower too) and let down by ME2, I went through the ending with smug “Oh look, Clicheware attempts at ~*art*~. How cute”. I also love random humorous taradiddles born from Bio’s fall from grace. Like Marauder Shields or yesterday’s tweet from one of Lost’s creators – “No, I was NOT asked to consult on ME3 endings!”

    2. Hitch says:

      My own belief is that the Catalyst did not take the form of the kid Shepard saw die. The “kid” was the Catalyst from the first moment he appeared. The catalyst was messing with Shepard’s head from the start of the game.

      I honestly thought there must be something off about that kid from the first time I played the demo. I played the whole game waiting for the reveal of what he really was. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t a disappointed in the ending as most. The kid as Catalyst didn’t feel like the total ass-pull to me that it did to most people.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        So it appeared to shepard before she even knew about the crucible?Yet not before the reapers attacked the earth?Thats one messed up catalyst.

  60. RTBones says:

    This is also a pretty good summation from AngryJoe. 20min watch time.

    Fair warning: the video contains massive spoilers.

    Top Ten Reasons We Hate The Endings in Mass Effect 3

  61. MichaelG says:

    Huh! “Blatherskite” is a word. Who knew?

    1. krellen says:

      I did. Blathering blatherskite.

      1. MichaelG says:

        Excuse me! I never blather! :-)

        I thought the word was a Shamus invention, but I looked it up, and it exists. English is endless.

        1. Sumanai says:

          Unless you listen to certain type of people. Like this one who insists that “apropos of nothing” should never be used, even online, because apparently no-one knows what it means and access to sites that explain things is unheard of.

        2. krellen says:

          “Blathering Blatherskite” was an expression used by Fenton Crackshell, and also the password used by Gyro Gearloose to control the armour that eventually made Fenton into GizmoDuck.

          1. evileeyore says:

            I hope you know feel as old as I do.

            1. Jarenth says:

              What? I knew that too, and I’m not old.

              …am I?

              1. acronix says:

                That´s what they all say!

              2. Sumanai says:

                I didn’t know it, but I can thank dubbing for it. Now I’ll never feel old!
                *cough*

          2. Dreadjaws says:

            Awesome. I didn’t know that’s what he really said. Completely different thing in the latin american version, where what he says is “By my grandfather’s feathers”. Damn, I miss Duck Tales. And Darkwing Duck.

    2. anaphysik says:

      My dad likes blatherskite, and blather in general.

  62. Destrustor says:

    So the crucible (or its plans) is hidden in such a way that:
    1: when the reapers come knocking, they don’t find it.
    2: when space-faring civilizations emerge and start exploring the crap out of the galaxy, they don’t find it either.
    3: when the whole galaxy is panicking, trying to fight the reapers AND each other, and every available ship is being used to kill or save people and everybody has better things to do than “explore random planets”, NOW the people find it with enough time to build/perfect it, and hide it again when they see it doesn’t/won’t work.
    4: the reapers, with their near-infinite resources and ability to pop out anywhere at any time, still don’t find it while wiping the entire galaxy of intelligent life (along with most of everything they ever built) all at once.
    That’s a very specific kind of hidden. :)
    The reapers are either really blind, or really dumb to not destroy any and all traces of that thing.

    On another note, I’m kind of glad I didn’t get into this trilogy any more than I did. Watched my brother play 1, played a bit of 2 but didn’t finish it, and failed to get even interested in 3. So reading about this makes me go “meh”, in the best way possible. Not like my rabid-fan friend, who was deeply disappointed by the simple fact that Shepard dies. Meh…

  63. Jon says:

    The style of this breakdown is perfect. The description of the crucible is particularly apt as it was a mystery throughout the game (if anything it felt like the elephant in the room).

    It’s just nonsensical how the purpose of the Crucible could fit in with the plans of this ‘Star Child’.

    Anyway, thank-you for dissecting the game. Each article, twitter message and facebook post will let BioWare and EA know that a significant number of gamers want a decent resolution to their Commander Shepard’s story.

    1. ehlijen says:

      I don’t. I just want whoever committed this to not be allowed to do it again. Whoever it was would certainly be called upon again to write the reending and I don’t want to be exposed to any more of their dredge.

  64. LurkerAbove says:

    Perhaps the worst thing about this resolution, is that the chat with Sovereign, which once was a series defining moment, something truly special, turns out to be mostly bluster, bluffs, half-truths and lies.

    I particularly like (hate) that “we are each a nation” really meant “we are made of species pureé.”

    And not only can we understand/comprehend their existence, Shepard is offered the ability to re-define said existence.

    1. acronix says:

      My favourite part is that the Reapers reason to do what they do is Insane Troll Logic.

  65. Lunok says:

    loved right up until I went back to earth

  66. Eärlindor says:

    Concerning the Reapers:

    Yeah, there’s something appealing about the idea of the Reapers trying to protect the galaxy from the Singularity, but the logic is just too circular and dumb to ultimately work.

    I think I liked my idea better: Short version — The Reapers were nothing more and nothing less than beings who tried to become gods.

  67. Captain Pandabear says:

    Excellent deconstruction. Now I’m wondering why you didn’t do the exact same thing to the entire story of Dragon Age 2? They both had terrible endings, the only difference is that Mass Effect 3 was great to the end, and Dragon Age 2 kept a steady pace of failure.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Mass Effect 3 was great to the end”

      It wasnt really.The ending was so bad that people overlook plethora of flaws that are there throughout the game.

      For example,the thing that pissed me off the most,near the beginning,the conversation with joker about the council:Why are they so stupid that they didnt prepare for another sovereign class ship attack?Bioware clearly knew how to make them smarter,so why didnt they?

      Then the whole cerberus thing:How come they are so strong now?How come they have so many husk-like soldiers when they have refined husk research only after reapers invaded?How did they manage to mount a huge attack on the citadel(this also ties in to my previous complaint)?

      Then the quarian/geth conflict:If our actions are so meaningful,why did the quarians mount an attack even if we convinced them to not do it?

      Then the prothean/reaper war:Why did it last for centuries,when it was established in the first game that the reapers attacked from the citadel,thus completely annihilating their government?And if they were so powerful that they could resist for centuries even after such a crushing blow,how come they didnt finish the crucible,yet the current alliance did it in weeks(months?),from scratch,despite being much weaker than the protheans,and despite their home worlds being decimated before they even started?

      Then the whole conflict with the reapers:One single reaper had managed to decimate an entire combined fleet,yet a fleet of reapers isnt capable of crushing all these fleets when they are separate?And why did they start planetary invasions without establishing space superiority first?And why did they start the vulnerable process of harvesting and breeding before crushing all the opposition?And how come a tresher maw can do more damage than a massive slug sped to a speed of light?

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        All of the above and one or two from me (all of these are IMHO of course and your mileage may vary).

        Why are all the “big” choices basically overwritten whenever Bioware sees fit? Anderson being on the council is not only retconned with “decided he’s a man of action and quit,” it’s hardly mentioned. You’d think if you, say, supported Udina on the Council, offed the old Council and gave the base over to Cerberus that would imply something about your sympathies but heck no. On that note even if the collector base blew to pieces, next to a black hole, in an are where nobody can go without a little gizmo that only I have, Ceberus STILL manages to salvage that skeleton thing? I can’t think of a single big decision having a major impact in this game.

        I’m still getting dialogues where I get, for example, “Will you work with me?” and the option “No” means Shepard will say “Only as long as it’s strictly necessary to get through this.”

        I noticed this especially early on but a lot of dialogues with “potential others” boil down to “Cause you know, I fight for those I love and care about (hint, hint, hint)” and “None of your business. Also, you’re stupid, and ugly, and smell of rotting cabbage.” Don’t know if this persists since I didn’t really take those squadmates to missions much. Related to this is something I call “Commander Shepard a man (yes, Shepard was a man for me) with no sense of personal space” where when you meet someone, who could be your partner from earlier (coughliaracough) there is this animation where Shepard gets REAL close which cuts either to a kiss (if the romance is going on) or to them standing apart and saying something like “hi.”

        I wept when I read the press release that promised “expanded RPG elements, skills will evolve several times.” I foamed when I realised that “evolution” meant that you just get 3 binary choices at the end, none of which really make that much of a difference.

        The combat was pretty boring, too many repetitive areas (though not as bad as ME1 sidequests or DA2 almost everything), not enough tactical variety, overuse of the same enemies and none that feel special. I mean, with ME2 they at least knew to use Collectors fairly sparingly…

        1. Dreadjaws says:

          Thank you, those things drove me insane! So many of those big choices I had made suddenly were ignored whenever the writers saw fit.

          Also, I can turn Shepard into a slut who will flirt with just about anyone from every race, genre and species and it will not affect my love interest in the slightest. No scene with dialogue like “Hey, Shepard, you know I love you, but the crew keeps telling me you are trying to hump every creature with one or more butts. Can I trust in you being honest when you say you love me? Also, I keep calling you by your last name, isn’t that weird?”

          And let’s not even talk about the lack of choice in some key parts of the game.

      2. tremor3258 says:

        I think on the issue of the centuries is mainly ‘The Galaxy is big. I mean, really big. You may think it’s a long way down the road to the store, but that’s just peanuts compared to space.’ They ripped the heart out, but it took a while to check every nook and cranny for advanced species to kill, and rig the remains to set people down the tech trapf or the next cycle. And even then, they didn’t quite get everything.

      3. anaphysik says:

        “Then the prothean/reaper war:Why did it last for centuries,when it was established in the first game that the reapers attacked from the citadel,thus completely annihilating their government?”

        Vigil actually explicitly said in the first game that the war took centuries. This is nothing new at all. Obviously, though, Vigil never comments on the derpy superweapon inexplicably introduced in ME3. On balance, no one ever talks about Vigil and barely about Ilos. :/
        (From what I remember, Javik has a vague concept of the Crucible being a far-flung wishful idea of long-ago, and has never heard of any research base on Ilos (I think he maybe says that some other prior race had ruins there, though?))

    2. Shamus says:

      I actually had my computer go sideways a while ago and lost my DA2 saves, so I never beat the game. Now I’m going to have to start over.

      1. Cody211282 says:

        Oh why would you do that to yourself? DA2 is all the fail of ME3s ending stretched out over 30-40 hours.

        The characters are good but that was about it for me.

        1. IFS says:

          DA2 is far better than ME3’s ending, it does feel rushed in places (repeated environments, annoying enemy spawns, the third act) but overall I didn’t think it was that bad. They tried something different and it worked in some areas and not in others.
          Also Shamus I know you didn’t like the length of the deep roads and the fade in Origins so you’ll be happy to know that the deep roads are much shorter as is the (entirely optional) fade section.

      2. krellen says:

        It is so not worth it, Shamus. Not even for comedy effect. Not even for critique.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Which is exactly why he has to do it.One has to suffer,so that thousands can rejoice.

      3. ehlijen says:

        Agreed with the above replies. Unless you got stuck very early on, it’s likely all you have left is the deteriorating end.

      4. lurkey says:

        Eh, Shamus survived through ME 2 and 3, I don’t think DA2 isn’t going to damage his sanity. Plot-wise it isn’t stupider than ME2 anyway and has some interesting bits.

        Combat’s garbage, though. Don’t bother on anything but casual.

      5. Dasick says:

        I don’t know… didn’t your buddies over at Escapist rate DA2 at 5/5 stars, one and a half stars more than ME3? It should be then that you’re missing out on an experience of a lifetime, a rare occurrence in the video game industry. Greg Tito compels you to finish that game which is a “A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be.” Right? …Right?

        1. krellen says:

          The Escapist reviewers have no taste, as far as I can tell.

          I’m not terribly impressed by their news reporters either.

        2. Shamus says:

          I met Greg Tito last year at PAX and we talked about the game. (I hadn’t played it yet at that point.) I know some people see conspiracy when reviews don’t line up with their perceptions, but Greg was genuine in his enthusiam for the game. He didn’t talk about it in buzzwords and marketing speak. He just talked about how much he enjoyed the game, just like any other gamer.

          Jennifer Snow (you’ll see her here in the comments now and again) also really liked the game, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t paid off / indoctrinated by BioWare. :)

          1. Dasick says:

            I don’t see a conspiracy theory; it’s fine for journalists to enjoy a game and be excited. All I want is for them to keep their pants on when the time comes to do their job. If a game is a “hate it or love it” deal, then it is your responsibility to see it coming and warn your consumer base.

            1. acronix says:

              The problem is that they might not see the “or hate it” part if the loved it.

              1. Cado says:

                Game reviewers aren’t critical enough on the whole. They constantly overlook massive flaws in storytelling and gameplay, like with the Assassin’s Creed series. AC2 was enjoyable but it was nowhere near game of the year material, yet it was up for consideration at nearly every major outlet.

                I don’t know what it is about games that gets them a free pass on stuff that other works in other mediums would get torn to shreds for. The only thing I can come up with is the inherent personal investment that comes with interactivity, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because I find it really hard to stay engaged with a game when I’m being inundated with plotholes, poor logic, and/or glitches. (I’m looking at you, FO3.) I actually have an easier time watching schlocky movies.

                I think my problem isn’t necessarily that the stories are bad, it’s that I always get the impression I’m supposed to take them seriously. Not only that, but it’s rare that games are unintentionally amusing in the same way B movies are. It feels like most developers look at Michael Bay’s work as something to aspire to. That’s a huge disappointment given the creative potential of the medium.

          2. Sumanai says:

            The conspiracy image is partially the sites’ fault. Who thought it was a good idea to take advertisement money from the companies who’s products you’re reviewing? Is that Skyrim ad there because they gave it 10/10 and want it to sell, or is the 10/10 review because they have a Skyrim ad?

            I don’t think the second I see, in my opinion, a bad game get a positive review that they were paid out. But I’m ready to think they’re either fanboys or hyped by it because they didn’t have time to stop and look at it from different directions. Not that many reviewers seem to stop even later to look if the game has faults that weren’t obvious, let alone append the review with the findings.

          3. Jokerman says:

            Wonder if he still thinks this way, honestly i really liked it first time through – 2nd playthrough i really got bored of the trashmobs.

            1. Sumanai says:

              That’s one of the problems with most review/news sites. Opinions change, why shouldn’t the reviews or for a “retrospective” article to come out a bit later? Note: A bit later, not years and years afterwards.

            2. IFS says:

              To be fair Dragon Age Origins had a similar problem with too much combat, DA2 suffers a bit more from the enemies spawning in the middle of combat (apparently you must know how to base jump in order to be a mugger in kirkwall) but combat in DA2 is also faster paced than in Origins.

      6. acronix says:

        There´s always Youtube.

  68. Wraith says:

    I hated the ending too, but certain parts of it (and the rest of Shamus’s gripes) DID make sense to me. I found a lot of subtlety and irony in a lot of things throughout the game, whether the writers intended them or no.

    1. Yeah Cerberus kidnapped like a million civilians and indoctrinated them into a huge army. I’ll buy that, it’s somewhat ironic since in ME2 they made a big deal about fighting the Collectors, who were kidnapping millions of civilians and making them into a huge Reaper. I wasn’t under the impression Cerberus was fighting the galaxy on all fronts, more so that they were making what amount to “surgical strikes” on critical military targets to aid the Reapers and kidnapping the civvies left helpless. The Alliance and Turians have their hands full with Reapers on their homeworlds and the other Council races were being unhelpful jerks, as usual, until Cerberus invaded the Citadel. I was a bit iffy on how they managed to get through the Citadel defense fleet when I was like “Well Udina was in on it and the Turians needed their ships so I’m not going to worry about it.”

    2. The Illusive Man, even though he appeared at the end, pretty much was a secondary, Saruman-like villain. He himself only appears at major points in the game (Mars, Thessia, CerbHQ) and at all those points he is advancing his goals. His motives also made sense to me, in terms of TIM’s character – always seeking to control and dominate everything else. He’s become deluded by his fanaticism and believes he can control the Reapers, to the point that he thinks he needs to indoctrinate himself to do it. Why does he appear on the Citadel? I assumed he went to the Citadel, warned the Reapers about the Catalyst, and was still there when they moved it. The Reapers don’t care because he can’t actually fulfill his plans. So even though the justifications are a little flimsy I didn’t really mind that much.

    3. Star Child’s Motive: Whenever I think about Reapers, I go back to the speech Sovereign made on Virmire in ME1, and I thought things actually made sense. Now, what the writers SHOULD have done was made it clear that the Star Child was deluded, and had perverted his original programming over the course of millions and millions of years. Let’s divide this up:

    A. Where did Star Child come from? I assumed that he existed before the cycles ever began, where the organic races of that time created synthetic races, and the ensuing war resulted in a synthetic victory. The synthetics, as de facto rulers of the galaxy, would continuously nip rising organic civilizations in the bud. However, these synthetics continued to evolve, and the Star Child, similar to Legion, eventually became its own individual entity, and decided to prevent organic civilization from being wiped out completely by creating the Reapers out of organics…somehow. As he says, organics are technically preserved. Hence the “salvation through destruction.”

    B. Why the circular logic? Well, the Star Child has existed for millions of years and countless cycles, and claims that the whole “organics create synthetics, synthetics destroy organics” happened all the time. What if, since he is an evolved, individual entity, he made a logical fallacy (as many humans do), and that process repeated to such an extent that he merely assumed it would happen every time? As millions of years passed, this would become a deeply ingrained principle and his original purpose would become tainted, like say eco-terrorists or most religions. But the part I found ironic though, refers to Sovereign’s ME1 statement “My kind transcends your very understanding…You cannot grasp the nature of our existence.” The Reapers assume, because they are technologically superior, that organics are inferior. Yet, because the Star Child and the Reapers are immortal machines, thus unable of feeling emotions as organics do, or the sense of purpose and determination we have because of our finite lifespans, WE are the ones who are incomprehensible to THEM. The Reapers do not understand the core concepts that are central themes of the game – sacrifice, tolerance, individuality – that we hold so dear. The conversation with EDI where she speaks about her disgust with the Reapers does a good job of highlighting this. The writers could have done a better job implying this during the ending sequence though, because I’m sure most other people didn’t see it the same way, but rather as “Insane Troll Logic.”

    But then they had to shove in the Inferred Holocaust, be it through the explosions of the relays themselves or the suffering caused by being stranded. And the fact that without relays all those conflicts you resolved, all those hopes and dreams your companions and allies had, will never mean anything. And the Cowardly Normandy scene. And the total lack of closure for party members, races, and others.

    All I’m wondering is WHY wasn’t there an option to reason with the Star Child, and make him shut down the Reapers himself? This ending sequence could have been waaaaay better if they’d 1. Elaborated on the Star Child’s motives and given him a personality and 2. Just scrapped the whole “I don’t control them I just let them off the leash” crap. With the material they had it could have been easy to make the Star Child a somewhat tragic character, making it clear to players that his original, noble intentions were lost as he coldly contemplated patterns and data over the course of millions of years, losing sight of the goal. And an epic sequence to prove that this eons-old, highly evolved machine’s logic was WRONG, making a supposedly incomprehensible being realize that we were the ones he could not understand, would have been perfectly in tune with the series’s recurring themes. Hell, make certain conditions required for this to be an option, especially considering you can make peace between the QUARIANS and the GETH (inherently proving Star Child wrong), and if you don’t make the conditions you can at least give an all-or-nothing option to refuse the choice and fight it out – if you got enough assets you win, if you didn’t you fail and everyone dies.

    With the ME series, it’s as if they had the elements of everything there to make a fantastic story, but behind-the-scenes stuff prevented it from happening. ME1’s story was amazing – motivations made sense, there were deep characters and a rich, detailed world. There were few or no plot holes at all. Then EA acquired Bioware, and in 2010 ME2 came out. Spoiler Warning ripped that game’s plot and characters apart – characters were shallow, plot holes were everywhere, and many actions made little sense. It was as if a completely different writing staff had been hired; hell SW even pointed out that “the regular writing staff was probably working on Dragon Age” or something.

    In fact, throughout both ME2 and ME3 it’s like the series had two completely different writing staffs – one wrote stuff like ME2’s main plot, the interactions with Ashley/Kaidan, and Jacob/Miranda loyalty missions; the other wrote stuff like the Tali/Legion/Mordin loyalty missions. It feels the same here – the latter wrote most of the game, and the former wrote Kai Leng/Cerberus (control the Reapers makes sense as a motivation, but how they manage to achieve it is never really explained beyond “okay we know how to now because experiments”) and the ending sequence. I mean, it’s out there, but if not executive meddling from EA then I guess they blew out the rest of their budget on the mega space battle for Earth and said “screw it, just rip off Deus Ex and slap on a cutscene.”

    Clearly, I have given this faaaaar too much thought.

  69. silentlambda says:

    I liked the combat mechanics and the variety in the class system.
    The persuasion options in conversation no longer require a unilateral, unthinking playstyle to unlock.
    The characters have nice dialog and their arcs all wrap up with a satisfying conclusion.
    The ninety percent of the game where your choices DO have an impact on the universe is rewarding and impressively in depth.
    The equipment system finally has a good balance of customization and user- friendliness.

    Yep, the ending is most definitely an inadmissible train wreck of contrived crap. But I still played it twice.

  70. Sleeping Dragon says:

    This will totally disappear in the flood of comments for this one but hell if I’m not going to pour all this out somewhere (and most of my friends are nowhere near finishing the game and hate spoilers).

    Much as was mentioned in the deconstruction the game undermines it’s own point. The Quarian and the Geth, EDI. Heck, EDI was a great option to show that the AIs are dangerous. I don’t mean make her evil-evil, but at least show how she is growing increasingly frustrated with her inability to grasp organic behaviour, the limitations of imperfect communications (as opposed to, say, just copying memories) perhaps imply that she is every now and then verging on some sort of well meant but ultimately destructive interference and is only kept in line due to constant personal oversight by a group of people who are interested (I mean, she is a single “unit,” it would be impossible to maintain this kind of oversight and personal involvement with thousands or millions). I do realise this would probably annoy a lot of fans claiming that EDI is far too sinister but at least it wouldn’t undermine the main point of the game.

    On the same note, it was obvious to me since ME2 that there will be the “bestest” option to have Quarians and Geth become buddies but this is another dubious decision in light of the overall message. Again, make it so the differences cannot be reconciled, no matter how hard they try Legion and Tali can’t bring their two species together, if you don’t want to wipe out any of the sides then have the option to drive the Geth out (I mean, ultimately it doesn’t matter all that much to them whether they build their superstructure here or there) and who knows what future may bring. I mean, I really liked how they managed to make the Geth into something other than “must kill all organics” but weren’t they trying to make a point?

    The relays are probably one of the few points where I do not entirely agree. Even putting aside that the writers probably mean for the “universe saving explosion” to be different than “smash_a_rock_into)it explosion” (which is a dumb assumption if I’ve ever seen one. I mean, since Arrival I was pretty sure that exploding the relays and the terrible damage it does would be a plot point somewhere in 3) even the explosion as it was mentioned does not mean the end of galactic civilization as a whole, it only means a horrible, terrible massacre. For one, if that flying around in the normandy minigame told us something it is that relays aren’t in every singe colonized star system, so those that don’t have a relay in them can survive as long as they weren’t relying on something delivered through the relay system for survival, as a matter of fact people who happen to have a ship can probably still travel around much like normandy did, and that whole quantum communication thingy may still work.

    So basically even if the relays do explode the way they by all rights should that still doesn’t mean extinction of all life. Billions upon bilions of deaths in the initial explosion? Yes. Billions more in various places due to stuff like lack of food, medication or proper housing materials? Definitely. Descent into barbarism? Likely in many areas. Other fun stuff like a planet that happens to have a decent industrial base raiding its neighbours for their last scrap of element zero (remember, thanks to the whole “Reaper guided” technical evolution almost all technology is based on this stuff, but you can’t get it everywhere) is also likely to happen. Now doesn’t that make us feel all better?

    That said here is my real question, even if the relay network has to shut down for plot reasons WHY does it have to EXPLODE?! I mean, I am getting really sick and annoyed with this trope, everything explodes. Couldn’t the mass relays just sort of stop glowing, go dark and start to drift and fall apart, or be consumed in that impulse they send, or turn into fairy dust? I mean, after they established that a mass relay’s explosion is one of the most destructive events in the known universe they pick THAT just because “exploding stuff is cool!”

  71. Michael says:

    Anyone else notice the stories follow the pattern of indoctrination?

    And, no, this isn’t the Shepard was indoctrinated theory.

    In the first game we learn that, basically, the more indoctrinated someone becomes the dumber they get. Well, less competent, but still.

    So, the first game is a marginally intelligent space opera, with some errant stupid. It’s also a fairly open game, with a lot of freedom (nearly every solar system has at least someplace you can land and poke around, and there’s a lot of places to poke around).

    With 2, the game devolved into a corridor shooter, the stupids start to creep in. The ending of the first game is effectively overwritten, there’s some freedom, but it comes at the cost of a fuel system to discourage straying from the path, and the plot is frequently railroady.

    Of course the worst of it is the giant space terminator baby, but once that happens there’s literally no choices the player can make aside from blowing up or saving the base, which does (almost) nothing to the story. Dumber, less freedom.

    Mass Effect 3, almost everything is on a clock, you need to go from point A to point B with no sightseeing to get the best results (not really, but still), it’s a corridor shooter.

    The game offers you much less choice when it comes to dialog, with extended bits being said without the player’s consent, and while this spares us the “all roads lead to Rome” that some of the previous games had, it means we have less freedom. What’s more, the game offers a setting where you can abdicate your ability to choose completely.

    Also, with 3, while the stupid isn’t immediately apparent, it’s there, lurking, constantly. There’s no real choices, all of that is an illusion of freedom, even when major events are unfolding in front of the player, the only effect is to force the player down a singular path (to a higher EMS score).

    And then, the Starchild. No choice whatsoever, you will only see the ending the developers want you to see, but they’re so magnanimous they’ll let you pick the color.

    It’s not Shepard that’s indoctrinated, it’s the writers… :p

  72. Nick P. says:

    Mass Effect 1 is still in my top ten of games, it’s sad to see the series train wreck so badly.

    The thing that kills me overall is why do we even HAVE to come up with a hackneyed excuse for the reapers? I might be in the minority on this, but in the first game when Sovereign was all like “We are eternal, unknowable and our motives cannot be comprehended by you puny insect…” I was actually OK with that as is. It’s nice to actually leave some mysteries, you know, MYSTERIES and have the incomprehensible space-Cthulhu’s actually be incomprehensible space-Cthulhu’s…

    1. Otters34 says:

      But then how would you shoot them to pieces so you wouldn’t feel like humanity wasn’t the strongest there is?!
      More seriously, keeping things mysterious kind of would get ragged on too. “Why not EXPLAIN what the Reapers are? It makes no sense hat something like that would come out of nowhere! And if you can’t explain it, it looks like you just made it up ‘because'”

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Use sort of something which they did with the crucible.Have a prothean device found that was a last ditch effort that was never activated,which would,for example,render all the reapers cores useless.This would also deactivate the mass relays.So you would lose earth and interstellar contact,but would still have colonies ready to rebuild.

        Or,make it so that the dlc character isnt dlc,but integral to the plot.Have him be a prothean incubator,a carrier of a virus that would attack the organic part of the reapers and kill them,which would render the rest of the reapers be just mindless machines.

        And you dont have to explain the reapers.They were made countless cycles ago,no one found out why and by who,and we only know that they harvest organics to make more of themselves.You dont need more than that.

  73. Stratigo says:

    It makes me sad.

    I love… loved the series. I mean I see such sperging rage on the games here. And I’ll admit the last boss of ME2 was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen. But despite that, the game delivered on what it was trying to do, and was one of the best told stories I’ve ever played (the story itself may have not been the best, but the way it was told was top notch). And then ME3 ends and I just lost the joy. I feel nothing any more for the series.

  74. Darkness says:

    I think the ending is perfect. I am not going to buy it. I spent my planned ME3 money on CDs that all have some cohesive plan to entertain me. At least they have an artistic intent and I am fine with that.

    Publishers no longer welcome at my house:
    UBISoft DRM Hell
    EA Dead Space 2 ad campaign
    Bioware ME3
    Activision Bobbi The Kotex
    Sony Other OS
    XBox next gen no used games or whatever else they screw up.

    Gaming looks like Steam on Mac or iOS and my gaming life just go a little cheaper.

    1. Sumanai says:

      Apparently the Other OS option is functional again. That doesn’t excuse them removing it and then throwing a hissy fit when people cracked it, so I’m not suggesting you remove them from your list.

  75. LintMan says:

    Hitler finds out about the ME3 endings…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b33tJx8iy0A

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      When hitler calls you a dick,you know that you went too far.

  76. Danath says:

    Personally I believe the ending is sloppy writing, but I WANT to believe Indoctrination Theory simply because it sounds so much more subtle and amazing than what we got. Angryjoe’s latest video on the indoctrination thing is amazing for instance, and it makes such a ridiculous amount of sense that it makes me WANT to believe it (especially pointing out the eyes at the end, something I never noticed).

    I kind of wondered… why NOT take control over the reapers? You have the ships with the technology to recreate the mass relays, so take them over and make them study the reapers instead of just flying away, then order them to blow themselves up. Your whole point was the idea of self-sacrifice anyways to beat them, killing yoruself/all the reapers seems like it would be a possible command, as well as shutting off the indoctrination process.

    ME3’s cover based shooting mechanic however is something that never did it for me, #1 was my favorite combat of the 3 games in fact, because I actually felt compelled to run out and shoot things and progress, while ME2 was “duck behind cover, recover HP, stand up, kill stuff, repeat until combat sequence ends” like every other cover based shooter. As far as those kinds of games are concerned, ME3 brings nothing new or particularly interesting to the table, aside from executing it in an “okay” fashion.

  77. Astor says:

    Ok I’m bored so…

    1) Can someone please explain to me why are the two squadmates you selected last (who were dead beside the beam on Earth, BTW a good touch would have been Shepard shaking one of them before getting beamed to Citadel) the people who get off the Normandy at the very end alongside Joker? It must be rather deliberate: its always those two specifically, but I can’t really conceive a human mind presenting as the very last scene such a non sequitur of the Normandy flying off somewhere, somewhy, somehow, somewhen (?) followed by an even worse appearance of characters that just couldn’t be there.

    2) Why did they reduce the Reapers from virtual Great Old Gods out of Lovecraft to mindless idiots, slave to the StarChild? Did the Reapers even understand what it was they were doing? ‘Cause if they did I’m pretty sure they would’ve been more about peaceful euthanizing than KILL-MAIM-DESTROYing. ME2+DLC started the idiocy when a full reaper became your nemesis (Really?) + spouted teenage dialogs… but you also had the Dead-God-That-Indoctrinated-Still which was Lovecraftian at its finest (well, it was Lovecraftian at any rate). But by the end of ME3 I had spoken to three Reapers and killed like 5, half of those while on foot!

    3) The war assets you collected where so useless, they barely changed anything. The crucible should have had at least 3 stages: a) If you didn’t get enough engineers on it, it wouldn’t be complete by the endgame, b) if you got a certain range, it would be but you wouldn’t know what exactly it would do, c) if you really got a good number of people on the thing, you would discover a side effect and be able to then avert one aspect of the bitterweet ending (say the relays being destroyed). And then the fleets should also have differential impact, where different fleets were best at something (like protecting the Crucible or saving the Alliance Fleet) and different values for each would make them succeed or not. Imagine some alliance captian saying Hackett’s flagship is down and everything’s going to shiet right before you get red laser beam to the face… some ending would have Crucible doing nothing, others Relays being destroyed, others the crucible being destroyed, Reapers winning, Repers losing, some Earth is completely lost, some Earth’s not completely gone, etc. all compounded by your impact on intergalactic future politics (genophage cure, Geths, Salarians isolation, etc) if there are future politics in your game.

    4) As others noted, the Crucible wasn’t so much disjointed mechanisms tackled together but a weapon perfected and preserved by several races throughout the cycles. So it wasn’t that bad. Sure, it would’ve been better it they had ChekovGunned the blueprints since ME1, but when you present a (supposedly) Lovecraftian horror beyond your comprehension asspulls are just bound to happen.

    5) These people need to replay the greats from the late 90s and check the slides at the end.

    6) The only thing ME3 explained was the incredibly idiotic human reaper of ME2.

    7) Cerberus will go down in video game history of infamy.

    1. ehlijen says:

      The crucible is a weapon perfected?

      While I get what you mean, I’m not sure that phrase should be applied to something that consists of about 40% superfluous and overcomplex breakaway panels…

      It was built to do one thing and to do that one thing it needed to shed a good chunk of its mass as scrap after being built in record time by a desperate people?

    2. Jarenth says:

      I took Garrus and Liara on that final death-rush, and it were Liara and EDI who got off the Normandy with Joker.

      1. Astor says:

        @Jarenth, while it doesn’t make it any less bizarre, the three endings I know of had exactly those two squadmates you select last. Maybe it was just a coincidence? Was your the green ending?

        @ehlijen, the shedding off of panels is not so weird if you assume they are just super techno, heavy armor. I would like my Crucible protected as best its possible.

        1. Jarenth says:

          It was, yes. So it’s possible they just cram EDI in there regardless.

        2. Dreadjaws says:

          My two last squadmates were Garrus and Tali. In my green ending I got Joker and EDI and then Liara. In the red ending I got Joker and Liara and then Javik. In the blue ending I got Joker and Liara and then Garrus.

          I’m pretty sure they’re random, but that doesn’t make it any less dumb.

  78. Rick Tacular says:

    I don’t know if it’s been observed (likely yes, but here I go), but didn’t we all see this coming when EA bought BioWare? It happened to Origin Systems Inc when they were bought. Ultima VII part 2 was great (despite it’s flaws), and then Ultima VIII & Ascension were god-awful because EA forced Origin to meet a deadline, and so on. I’m sure we’ll hear in the future about how EA forced BioWare into terrible decisions.

    1. wellwellwellavatar says:

      Oh, Ultima. I loved them to bits up to 7.2.

      Then 8 happened and it was Super Avatar with exploding mushrooms. And then 9 happened, with that engine and the number of bugs and that train-wreck of a storyline.

      I almost had forgotten about that :( Now I need therapy again.

  79. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precursor_%28Star_Control%29#Eternal_One

    Read about the Eternal One, what does that remind you of that start’s with R…

  80. Tarrin4ever says:

    I was skeptical of Indoctrination Theory, but the way this guy lays it out….

    http://angryjoeshow.com/2012/03/indoctrination-theory-proof-of-me3-ending-dlc/

    You know what, I buy it.

    At first I was pretty much sold on the idea of Bioware giving us a shitty ending. It’s not unheard of, they’ve underperformed before. But this would satisfy me.

    And here’s the best part. Even if this wasn’t Bioware’s intentions, they have a clear shot with this. The conspiracy theorists have done the work for them, they’ve paved the way for this to happen. They are in perfect position to deliver a mindfuck of unprecedented proportions on the fanbase. If they want to save their series’ legacy, they should act on this.

    They mustn’t retcon the endings. they must make the old endings part of the true ending. And they shall be legend.

    1. Maldeus says:

      Not only that, but most of the strongest counterarguments don’t hold up to scrutiny, like, at all. Obviously, the counterargument of “all indoctrination clues are coincidental and BioWare writers suck” is always going to be plausible until the epilogue DLC they’re hinting at is actually released (or enough time passes that it becomes clear there won’t be any), but the supporting evidence for the anti-indoctrination crowd is actually fairly strained.

      Why can you only choose red ending if your EMS is particularly low? Well, because the entire Starchild sequence is a last ditch attempt to indoctrinate Shepard and get him to swing the fight in their favor. If the galactic forces just don’t stand a chance against the Reapers at all, they aren’t going to make that last ditch attempt. So, sure, resist indoctrination, they don’t even care anymore.

      The possibility of death via Illusive Man or the heroic marauder shields who died trying to save us from the ending might just be a reference to the possibility that Shepard simply dies from his wounds. Even according to indoctrination theory, he still got shot in the face by Harbinger. In the case of marauder shields in particular, it’s also possible that it’s just a gameplay/story oversight.

      Most of the other arguments seem to revolve around forgetting that the theory posits that everything on Citadel is a hallucinated metaphor. The Reapers can’t just spawn a bunch of bad guys to blow the weakened Shepard away, thus killing him, because the hallucinated metaphor doesn’t work that way. Shepard’s mind is reacting to the Reaper’s intrusion, and what we see is the Reapers giving it everything they have to indoctrinate him. Besides, the only reason the Reapers are still trying to indoctrinate Shepard in the first place is in order to manipulate him into swinging the fight their way.

      The only odd thing is what’s the difference between Synthesis and Control, and why is the former only available at certain levels of EMS? Having them become available at different levels of EMS implies there is an actual difference between the two, not just two different flavors of “become indoctrinated.” This implies to me that the Synthesis choice is some sort of genuine compromise between the Reapers and Shepard, offered because the Reapers are legitimately afraid of actually losing the battle, but the choice is still disguised in the hallucination.

      1. krellen says:

        “Synthesis” is clearly “surrender and become the next Reaper”.

      2. Sumanai says:

        Let’s see what I remember of that theory:
        Limited choices with the child? You had those in ME2 with the Illusive man and Miranda, why would you think it wasn’t bad writing this time as well?
        The kid isn’t helped up? They needed to emphasise how vulnerable and weak he was by having him climb up slowly.
        Anderson doesn’t comment on the kid? He also doesn’t seem to comment you talking to yourself and standing like doofus staring into an air duct.

        Tentacles? You got still tentacles in ME2 when you got wounded, why wouldn’t this time be similar?
        The Illusive Man? For god’s sake, the man is a one person deus ex machina. Where would he not be if the writers wanted him there?
        The bushes right after getting blasted? Symbolism for Shepard being weak (half asleep), or trying to say “don’t fail this time” as they’re part of a dream that symbolises Shepard’s inability to get over “failure”.

        Glowy eyes on Shepard in two endings? Even before I heard about this theory the two options sounded like BS, so it’s not like this is the only explanation. And in one Shepard controls the Reapers, so it suits the idea of “reverse indoctrinated” (that is, lazy symbolism), in the other option Shepard and everyone else becomes the Reapers.

        Wound? Shepard was already hurt, why couldn’t they have thought that it was a dramatic moment to emphasise it?

        They’ve admitted the ending was done at the last minute, so:
        No corpses of party members? They thought it wasn’t important, so they didn’t put in a code that checks who you had with you and then spawns their corpses.
        Anderson got there before you? The scenes were done separately, who knows in what order, and they didn’t have time to double check.
        Wound and clothes change? They didn’t check what was already done.
        Shepard (presumably) taking a breath on Earth (presumably)? A lazy short clip they threw in there for completionists.
        The Normandy? Didn’t double check.

        In fact, the part with the Normandy makes no sense with the Indoctrination Theory. Why was Joker driving quickly away from the explosion, since at least in two of the options it was supposed to be harmless? If it was Shepard’s imagination, then “Joker didn’t know” isn’t a valid argument.
        Also, why did the two explosions end up damaging the Normandy? Wasn’t it supposed to either: Influence the Reapers or Turn every living or synthetic sapient being into a cyborg.

        The colours of the options are trying to manipulate you (the player)? Just like in the Legion’s mission, where you got Renegade (red) for destroying the geth and Paragon (blue) for controlling them?
        And if Shepard was that strongly indoctrinated back then, shouldn’t every, or almost every, Paragon option afterwards be beneficial to Reapers in some way? Actually, in that mission the Paragon (blue, control) is helpful. Why would they manipulate you (player or Shepard) into picking up the correct one?

        And no-one say “because they want you to unlock the green option”, because that’s dumb. They can always offer that option if they want, and the practical output of the Control option there is that the alliance against Reapers have more soldiers.

        If Bioware now claims that the Indoctrination theory is true, I’m calling bullshit.

        1. Sumanai says:

          At the second to last paragraph: by the Control option I mean the Control option in the Legion’s loyalty mission, not the ME3 ending Control option.

        2. Sumanai says:

          Oh yeah: The burden of evidence is on those who support the theory. One of the criticisms of String Theory is that while it fits it is untestable. Since in this case every proof is circumstantial, there’s no reason for people to believe in it outside of simply wanting to.

        3. Sumanai says:

          I keep forgetting this: If the Indoctrination Theory is true, then why does the game end even if you got the best red ending? Shouldn’t it keep going since Shepard isn’t indoctrinated or dead and the Reapers haven’t been officially defeated*?

          * As in, “there’s any sign that the Reapers have actually won or lost and there’s more than fanwank to finish the damn story”.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            The game doesnt have to end with a finished story.In fact,it would make sense for them to make a game with such a huge sequel bait.If only they didnt call it a trilogy,which would just make them into douches.In fact,whether the indoctrination theory is true or not,they end up being douches.

            1. Sumanai says:

              “The game doesn’t have to end with a finished story.”

              Well no, not as such. But the general gist of the Indoctrination Theory is that the writers were great and did an awesome job. Leaving the story unfinished is proof that that is not the case.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                You dont have to finish a story to be a good writer.Its hard,but not impossible.And if you do it with a cliffhanger,its easier to pull out.

                But considering other parts of me3,I agree with you that these are not good writers.

                1. Sumanai says:

                  Again, true. What I meant was “the way Mass Effect 3 ends, assuming the Indoctrination Theory is correct, is still crap”.

                2. some random dood says:

                  @Daemian Lucifer
                  re don’t have to finish the story to have an ending. True – but if it is well-written, then the ending effectively writes itself. In fact (I think the book was “A Winter’s Tale” – been a looooong time since I read it), it’s possible to write a story with no explicit end, but to clearly imply both a happy and an unhappy ending, depending on your own feelings on what is or isn’t possible within the universe portrayed, and to feel satisfied with either interpretation.
                  ME3 ending? Just… WTF? Either you accept that it is a complete ass-pull with a deity-like figure giving you a console-controller with even less buttons than usual, or that the ending is completely arty, and if you cannot see what the authors (all 2 of them) are trying to say, then you clearly are just too philistine to appreciate good art…

        4. Maldeus says:

          Great, couple of things. One, why on Earth would they put the trees from Shepard’s dreams into the sequence where Shepard enters the beam but not the one where he’s charging the beam? Two, you really think it’s a coincidence that the Rachni Queen describes indoctrination using the term “inky black shadows” and then inky black shadows show up in Shepard’s dreams? Three, there was never any indication that Shepard was at all strongly indoctrinated at the time of his choice between controlling or destroying the Geth, in fact, Indoctrination Theory is pretty much all about Shepard not being thoroughly indoctrinated at all unless you make the wrong choices in the ME3 ending. It’s only at the very end that the colors go screwy.

          1. Sumanai says:

            They could’ve thought up the trees only at the point when they were making the scene where Shepard enters the beam. The other scenes were done either before, or after they had forgotten about them.

            There’s no reason for me to think it’s anything but a coincidence until there’s other proof. “Inky black shadows” look menacing, so happening upon them when you want a nightmare isn’t exactly unlikely.

            You missed my point. The ending colours fit with established system: Blue, Paragon, for control and red, Renegade, for destruction. It was established in the Legion’s loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2.

            Because the ending colours in ME3 fit this, in order for them to be the result of indoctrination, Shepard had to be indoctrinated back then as well. Since, according to you, Shepard wasn’t indoctrinated back then at all, the colours at the end of Mass Effect 3 can’t be the result of indoctrination as has been suggested by Indoctrination Theorists.

            Unless Bioware mishandled the story, in which case believing them to be able to pull a working mindscrew doesn’t make sense.

      3. Dreadjaws says:

        What? No, that doesn’t make any sense. If your EMS is low, you can only choose the red ending. That means the Reapers are destroyed. Why aren’t they going to put a last ditch effort to survive if they know that if they don’t do anything they will be destroyed anyway, no matter the size of the organics army?

        Also, what most proponents of the Indoctrination Theory seem to forget is that the game is not a masterpiece of writing right up until the ending. The series has suffered from poor writing since ME2, and it only intensified with ME3, throughout the entire game we see some terrible writing. Not all of it, of course, some parts are great, but others…

        And the IT doesn’t change the fact that the three endings are practically the same, but with different colors. Not only that is some of the laziest writing in existence, but am I supposed to believe that the two endings that supposedly happen in Shepard’s mind are identical to the one that happens in reality? So, that scene where we see Joker crash land in a jungle is seen from the player’s perspective in the real ending and from Shepad’s perspective in the fake ones? No way. This is faulty writing through and through, specially if you consider that this wasn’t even supposed the way the game was going to end.

    2. Wraith says:

      Mind just got blown by that video, especially the parts about Shepard’s wound and Shepard’s eyes. If that was the plan all along, I’d take back most of what I hated about that ending…unless they try to sell it to me, at which point I swear off EA for good.

      Assuming it is true, the HSQ might be really high, but it’s very dangerous to literally cut out your ending and then release it later even for that shock “twist ending” value. A lot of people might be unable to access DLC to the Mass Effect series (I used to play it on 360 until a RRD last summer, and never used XBL so I couldn’t get my free DLC; I got both games for sale on steam a few months ago in preparation for ME3, and though I had a redemption code there as well I was never able to get any of the ME2 DLC for some reason), so there’s the very real threat of alienating a sizeable portion of the fanbase even with such a dramatic fix.

      1. Maldeus says:

        It’s possible BioWare may have released ME3 with a false ending in order to give themselves more time to work on the real one. Even more deviously, they may have released the false ending in order to stir up a hornet’s nest of fan reaction, which would conveniently tell them what the majority of fans wanted from the ending, thus allowing them to deliver.

        1. Sumanai says:

          If true, then why did they keep poking the hornet’s nest with condescending comments?

    3. Kian says:

      I find the Indoctrination Theory to be hard to believe mostly because it would imply that Bioware didn’t release an ending to the game. From what I’ve heard, sales of ME3 have fallen something like 70% (at least in the UK). I can only imagine the number of people who were waiting to see if the game was any good, and faced with all the complaints decided not to buy. No way anyone in sales or marketing is going to authorize something like this.

      1. Wraith says:

        If they do release the ending as DLC in this way though, I suspect EA marketing signed off on it as an experiment concerning paying for DLC. Ever since the whole DLC craze began there have been those doomsayers that have claimed that eventually devs are going to start selling their games to us in pieces, ie “Okay, thanks for that $60 for the game. How about you drop $10 for this happier ending? Or $10 more for this vital exposition on the villains?” If this was the case then I don’t think EA anticipated such an overwhelmingly negative response to the given “ending.” If they really are insane enough to try and sell rage-filled fans a true ending, then I foresee a certain corporation’s stock prices dropping in the future.

      2. Daemian Lucifer says:

        This is ea marketing we are talking about.The guys who gave us “Your mother will hate it”.I wouldnt put anything past them.

    4. Attercap says:

      And, because it’s EA–where the company model really is “let’s make people pay for more bullets while they’re playing”–it’s even feasible that this was the plan all along. Get people really wanting a logical conclusion and make them pay for it. Because most people are just like me with Taco Bell. I forget how bad it tastes (to me) when the next new Taco Bell “innovation” is advertised.

  81. Zaxares says:

    I completely agree with all of the plot holes you pointed out here, Shamus. I can’t even go with the theory that Cerberus was secretly planting Reaper indoctrination devices in human colonies because then why didn’t the Illusive Man put one on the Normandy in ME2?? And why would he bother going to all the trouble of resurrecting Shepard and sending him/her against the Collectors? IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!

    With regards to the “bittersweetness” of the ending, don’t forget that many inhabited planets are not self-sufficient. The Citadel, for example, has absolutely no way of producing enough food to feed all of its citizens, thus condemning the vast majority of them to a slow death by starvation. (And let’s not even consider the fate of homeworlds like Earth!) Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of space stations and colonies on hostile planets like Mars or the Moon, that rely on imports to survive are all doomed. We’re looking at a catastrophe of unimaginable levels.

    And yet… I don’t really have a problem with the current endings, IF there was a way to still achieve a “perfect” ending if you did everything right. One where Shepard survives, the Reapers are destroyed, the Mass Relays are still intact, AND you don’t have to destroy the Geth/EDI. My biggest complaint is that no matter what you do or what choice you make at the end, the ME-verse as we know it ceases to exist. All the galactic races are once more reduced to scattered, isolated civilisations. Your closest friends and loves are stuck on some remote, uninhabited planet from which they can never escape. It’s like looking at the beginning of a mass extinction; yes, you know life will ultimately survive, but decades, perhaps even centuries, of incredible suffering, death and hardship awaits the races of the galaxy. Shepard may have broken the cycle, but the price is the end of the galaxy as everyone knows it.

    So yes, I’m still holding out hope for a DLC or patch ending that offers us this hope. Otherwise, I’m sticking with the “hallucination” (not indoctrination!) theory and just imagining my own perfect ending. :P

    EDIT: And actually, there’s hope for this! Check out this blog post by Ray Muzyka, co-founder and GM of Bioware:

    http://blog.bioware.com/2012/03/21/4108/

  82. Stebbi says:

    Wait that is the ending!? But minor changes could have made it make so much more sense:

    1) Reapers being against inorganic life forms: Someone created the first reapers to periodically check on the races of the galaxy and destroy any inorganic life form that they find. Some idiot scientists of theirs decide that “hey why don’t we also have them absorb useful tech from those destroyed machines” and thus some flaw gets introduced and the reapers do what they do now.

    2) Crucible: The starchild was a never completed failsafe VI created to shut down the reapers if they got out of hand. It has been using a variation of the indoctrination stuff to guide races to it and finishing the crucible for it over countless millenia.

    3) Mass relays go boom: Unfortunately because the crucible is a hodge podge of technology from so many different races it doesn’t quite work like it’s supposed to. You get several options here:

    a) Fire it at 100% power shutting down all the reapers but also shutting down all the mass relays permanently.
    b) Fire it at 75% power shutting down most of the mass relays and shutting down many reapers permanently but not all. Some reapers will manage to reboot and some will not be affected.
    c) Fire it at 50% destroy many mass relays (more then half) and fewer reapers are shut down than in b and more will manage to reboot or are unaffected.
    d) Fire it at 25% Most mass relays will remain in working condition. Only the weakest and heavily damaged reapers are shut down.
    e) Do not fire it and take your chances with the fleets and allies you’ve assembled.

    4) Fade to pictures with a voiceover that covers what your choice did to the galaxy, the citadel and certain choice planets. Next we cover what happens to each squadmate and then finally we go over the effect of most of your choices in the 3 games going chronologically backwards.

    As the voiceover ends we zoom out a little bit and see we were actually looking at pictures on a table. We see a hand pick up a picture of the old Normandy SR-1 and her crew (if your love interest is dead you also pick up a picture of her/him). We keep zooming out and see it’s Shephard sitting at the table s/he picks up a cup of coffee stands up and walks to the window.

    Shephard looks at the picture smiles, takes a sip of coffee and looks out the window. We follow Shephards visions as s/he pans over the scene (if the sol relay survived s/he is on the citadel, if it didn’t s/he is in a ship orbiting earth).

    If your love interest is dead or you didn’t have one we finish the pan and then zoom in on the photos in shephards hands and *DUN DUN DUN* music and mass effect logo with a black background.

    If you had a love interest and s/he is alive then the pan gets interrupted with a “Honey are you still awake? Come back to bed” in the voice of the love interest. Shephard smiles puts the photos and the coffee on the windowsill and walks off camera. We zoom in on the picture, the coffee cup covers one of its corners *DUN DUN DUN* music and mass effect logo with a black background.

  83. Florin says:

    Somewhere in the basement of BioWare they are laughing their asses off while rolling in the mountain of money people threw at ME2 and ME3. Are you certain this wasn’t just an experiment to test how stupid the story can get until people stop buying the product?

    and the future will probably bring more of the same stupidity at higher prices.

  84. Indy says:

    Alternative idea:

    Tyranid hive fleet appears and wipes everything out. All synthetics are destroyed and all organics lose their form and are incorporated into the tyranid horde. Galaxy is eaten, Reaper problem is solved.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      And then gears of war marines swoop in to kill the bugs,like in that movie,saving private ryan.

      1. acronix says:

        And they don´t get killed by a Tiger tank because the front machinegunner was eating ice-cream when they were in his sights.

        1. ehlijen says:

          But then renegade shepard stole the iceccream and the gunner was crying so hard they had to stop all work for the day and wrote some quick crap to make the ending we got…

  85. Mumbles says:

    This is a Mumbles comment. There. Will. Be. Swears.

    Okay. The green ending is like the most insulting nonsense and I’m surprised to find people who actually found it “beautiful” or whatever the hell you nerds who sniff flowers say. Here’s the thing, I like being me. I like being organic. If I met a robot, I’d like that he’s all synthetic and despite our differences, we can be bros. This game is about unity, unity, unity. That doesn’t mean erasing our differences, but accepting them in each other. When the green light of space magic fuses us together it’s a nihilistic view that we can’t exist because of differences.

    But, we can. EDI is naturally curious, Legion is naturally a bro and they’d help us stop synthetics who are being assholes. ALSO. What is stopping future organic synthetics from building a tin man? Huh? THEN THE REAPERS GET TO SHOW UP AGAIN.

    Where is my fuck you Reapers I’m letting my friends blow you to hell button? Why doesn’t Shepard say “Yeeeaaah okay so I’m going to go back to earth and kick your ass my way because I united THE FUCKING GALAXY”? Why don’t the Reapers just wipe out synthetics if they’re the real threat? Jeeeezz. So many balls dropped, BioWare. I think you dropped them all.

    And, if anyone says the endings were cool all you have to do is flap your arms wildly and say “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MASS RELAYS”

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Where is my fuck you Reapers I'm letting my friends blow you to hell button?”

      In the dlc,of course.Which youll be able to get for the low,low price of $9.99.

    2. krellen says:

      I totally want to see Mumbles and Legion drinking at a bar now.

      1. Sumanai says:

        I don’t. I don’t want to be forced to go into a court again as a witness.

    3. lurkey says:

      I chose that one first time. TIM’s ending was no bloody way, Anderson’s – nooo, not my geth (fuck EDI, though), and going green was the only chance for the whole armada now stuck in Solar system to hypothetically survive, on photosynthesis or something. Figured there’s going to be another Mordin to eventually undo forced circuits.
      …yeah. :(

      1. Lalaland says:

        I actually went with Green on the basis that as the unlabelled 3rd choice it was probably the ‘best’ ending in the fevered mind of the writers. I can’t get over the notion that turning people into Slurpee-Reapers to merge them with synthetics is wrong but nuking the entire galaxy with green radiation to merge with synthetics is A-OK. Still it promises to be an entertaining Spoiler Warning some day! Nothing like a good game gone band to get the collective dander up

    4. Sumanai says:

      The green option is liked because there are a lot of transhumanists who aren’t thinking straight. Presumably a bunch of them are working at Bioware.

      http://threepanelsoul.com/2008/06/09/on-transhumanish/

      I don’t think the writers’ have dropped their balls. And I suspect that’s the problem.

      Obviously the Mass Relays blow up because they release their energy as Super Happy Magical Explosion of Ultimate Peace.

      Or other stupid crap like that doesn’t explain the damage to the Normandy.

    5. Indy says:

      “Where is my fuck you Reapers I'm letting my friends blow you to hell button?”

      It’s bound to the AWESOME button like everything else. But since it’s context sensitive, it just assumes you meant passive acceptance.

    6. Jarenth says:

      Listen.

      The Green ending gives you fucking techno leaves.

      TECHNO. LEAVES.

      From now on, I’m judging all endings to all games ever by the amount of techno leaves involved.

      1. Sumanai says:

        But techno never leaves.

    7. Maldeus says:

      I suspect those who like any of the endings do so primarily for its music. That is some awesome music.

  86. ACman says:

    This is why you shouldn’t have “only you can save the world” style plots.

    Anybody who writes that sort of thing is being indulgent and lazy. You can have a massive overarching threat to a universe but is has to stay dormant. (See the Cthulhu Mythos with the threat of the Great Old Ones and the Crawling Chaos, Warhammer’s Chaos, Norse Mythology’s Ragnarà¶k, or even the Cold War).

    Bioware has recently been especially guilty of writing “one man to save us all plots”. In Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect neither universe hangs together properly as all the inhabitants are either stupidly evil or need to be “convinced” to help you, you the “one man to save us all”.

    I’ve got a reason to convince you: THE WORLD’S GOING TO END.

    But I was really disappointed with Mass Effect from the get go. Or at least from the point that Shepard received his “vision” from the weird pillar in the first game. (A more eye-rolling plot contrivance I cannot conceive.) What was wrong with just having a conspiracy of xenophobic aliens that wanted to keep humans out of space/limit human influence? That’s a simple understandable plot (One that would have nicely counter balanced the stupid xenophobic aliens who want to DESTROY MANKIND FOR NO RAISEN in every other scifi shooter on the shelves. I’m looking at you Halo/Gears/Resistance.)

    But nope, in the first mission Shepard is made the space-messire, complete with fiery visions of the apocalypse where aliens want to DESTORY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE FOR NO RAISEN. [Insert slow sarcastic clap here.]

    Still waiting for that follow-up to Buldar’s Gate and KOTOR Bioware. Not holding my breath though.

    1. Miral says:

      This is one of the reasons why I liked DA2. It wasn’t trying to be a “save the world” plot, just a “save my hometown” plot — and one that you were ultimately unsuccessful with, but in a totally believable and interesting way. The only thing that really let it down was the environment reuse and teleporting enemies.

      ME3 on the other hand was a “save the world” (or galaxy) plot, and its ending was not only incomplete, but it also completely contradicted the established characters and lore up to that point, and made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

      About the only reason why I’m not warming up the torches and pitchforks is the Indoctrination Theory — which even if not originally intended by BioWare gives them a plausible way out of the current mess and to make non-stupid endings. Though I’m still keeping the pitchforks on standby, in case they decide to charge us to fix their mistakes.

      1. ACman says:

        The thing that I hated about DA2 was the spammy combat and the childish characters and voice acting. Really couldn’t deal with the whiny mother, uncle, brother, Templar lady.

        That and the fact that the story stops and restarts so often. When you buy into the city I was hoping for juicy quests working for thieves or smugglers. But no, they just skip that with a “12 months have passed” placard and then you’re dumped into the slums. It seems like an important part of the narrative that the story glosses over and it causes a massive disconnect between me and my character.

        Then I stopped playing when I started getting jumped by 30-60 archers and dagger wielding assassins who were all nameless mooks while I was just trying to go about my day.

        Too much combat for no reason, when I want to wander around and explore and maybe do a fetch quest or two, is not endearing gameplay. If I wander into a scripted encounter that where I get jumped unexpectedly and have to fight off a few muggers and assasins is okay but when the streets are lined with people trying to kill me it gets annoying. It doesn’t even make sense. Who has the capacity to order hundreds of people to go die by my sword to make my life a pain.

        And it is a pain; especially with combat as tedious as it was. Varric breaking out of formation to wander into a group of sword wielding tanks when I had him safely behind a screen of melee characters while I waited for him to charge his piercing shot or whatever. My wizards wasting their spells on targets when they could be better applied elsewhere. The camera refusing to pan or zoom out enough so that I can sensibly consider the situation.

        Admittedly the story was personal.

        But this sort of shit didn’t happen in Baldur’s Gate. Each area had new mobs. The quests made sense and story was personal and didn’t go to sleep for twelve months while my character did a bunch of shit I never got to see (Except in between BG1 and BG2 but that’s sort of excusable.) and the groups of mooks quite often had at least one named character and weren’t around every bloody corner while I was trying to go shopping.

  87. Mrowakus says:

    :bravo:

    Great, perceptive article. It’s a shame, though, that you didn’t mention the most obvious plothole in the whole franchise. The Reapers’ plan in ME1 is to take over the Citadel and use it to cut the power to all Mass Relays in the galaxy? I ask – what has changed in ME3? Why the Reapers can’t stick to plan A, take over the Citadel and singlehandedly slice the galaxy into separate pieces.

    This way Shepard and crew have no way to seek help. They can’t form alliances, they can’t collect war assets, the fleets can’t move from system to system, the trade routes are shattered, there’s no logistics to speak of.

    And even if you can’t disconnect the relays for some magical reason, why not take down the center of galactical politics in the first attack, throwing the galaxy into chaos? While we are at it, why is the Citadel treated as a safe haven, when everyone should by this point know it’s a death-trap?

    Again why the species of the most intelligent machines known to the universe acts so stupidly about the whole invasion thing?

    Edit: Corrected ortography.

    1. Indy says:

      I forgot all about that plan. Vigil explains it to you, right? I wonder if that was a flourish of writing during the first game or just utterly forgotten in the third. I think I know which option is more likely.

    2. Astor says:

      yeah, this bugged me too. Why on Earth (see what I did there?) would them Reapers concentrate forces on Earth??? How on Earth did the planet survive so long? Why on Earth would anybody think there would be any Earth left and thus that going off to get help was a viable strategy?

      One part of the bittersweet ending should have been that Earth was largely a virtually lifeless wasteland by the time you defeat the Reapers (sure some survivors would still be there, and maybe some areas still had flora, and you can always rebuild, but the biosphere should have been annihilated and Earth would’ve been renamed Cinder by the endgame). And that’s if you defeat the Reapers, because I would’ve assumed your actions throughout the three games, and specially during ME3, should have a say in whether you mange to defeat or not such an enemy.

  88. Andrew F. says:

    Right. So…

    I had just finished a re-play of ME1, with the intention of importing my character to ME2 and then on to ME3.

    Since what you, Shamus, like & dislike about games is very similar to myself, I think I’ll just stop here at ME1.

    I had been hoping they’d tighten up the writing for the third installment. Ah well. I have other things to do with my time and money.

    1. Indy says:

      I still recommend playing the game. It’s much better to have a personal hatred for this game than going off extensive hearsay.

  89. Flavius says:

    Ooooh! I seem to remember that when Spoiler Warning presented the original Mass Effect, Sovereign kept saying how, “OUR PLAN IS INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOUR PATHETIC ORGANIC MINDS!” Clearly, it was telling the truth…The Reapers don’t understand it, so how could Shepard?

  90. Garfunkel says:

    Fallout (the original) had a bittersweet ending. But not like Bioware writers can even copy it.

  91. Ragnar says:

    “This is just writers who didn't remember what they wrote yesterday and can't plan for tomorrow.”

    This is really the essence of all writing in Mass Effect unfortunately. It wasn’t that bad in ME1, but it has progressively become worse for each game.

  92. Kian says:

    I had a bunch of issues with ME3. I feel they copied the second game’s pattern of stupid beginning, awesome middle, and fucked up ending.

    I haven’t played Arrival yet (although I bought it, just need to get a character there) but I spoiled it for myself so I know what happens, and ME3 references it in the beginning (more or less explicitly depending on whether you played it). So Shepard dooms an entire system, to delay the Reapers and give the rest of the galaxy a fighting chance.

    After this terrible sacrifice, and knowing everything that’s at stake and how there’s no time to lose… Shepard goes to Earth and turns himself in, and lets the Alliance ground him for five months.

    What.

    Shepard is a Spectre, he doesn’t answer to the Alliance. The Council may or may not have reinstated you, but you never get your rank in the Alliance navy restored. There’s no reason for you to turn yourself or your ship over to them. You can do that after saving the galaxy, if anyone still feels your actions were not justified.

    And it’s not just that you piss away the time you bought with countless sacrifices. You being grounded actually allows some of the forces you had been readying to blow themselves up being stupid. In the five months that you spent on Earth, the Quarians declare war on the Geth and drive them to the Reapers. Had you been flying around the galaxy those past five months, you could have prevented that war and solved the conflict without needing to fight a Reaper on foot. You could have saved several ships, lives, and the Geth super dreadnought.

    Likewise, had you been looking for the Rachni queen, you could have moved her to a safer location and gotten her help without the sacrifice of the Krogan division.

    Or traveled to the Archives as soon as you heard from Liara that there was something of use there, before TIM could move in and steal half of it.

    But ok, they wanted to have you on Earth when the reapers attacked, and at least you get to see the brass ask you what to do before the Reapers kill them. That was nice.

    The ending as everyone has been saying was a mess. Now I’ll admit, I knew the ending was going to suck. Whenever anyone tries to present a threat “too alien and powerful to comprehend” they inevitably ruin it. It can’t not be ruined, because by definition no human writer can characterize an incomprehensibly alien force. Doing so requires giving them motives, and if you can give them motives, they aren’t so alien. You might not share their outlook, but you remove the alien quality outright.

    Even if you give them some weird goal like “they’re trying to achieve something in another dimension, and our destruction is a byproduct they barely notice, like someone destroying an anthill to build a house”, they stop being an unknowable factor by the very virtue that you know their goals. Tip to writers, if you are going to use an unknowable faction in the story, don’t remove the unknowable thing.

    The first game tried to play to this “they’re too alien and powerful for us to divine their motives” idea. The second game revealed that they harvest humans to make baby Reapers. I think the reason people hated this so much was because it removed the mystery that the first tried to preserve. They collapsed infinite probabilities into a single shitty one. Had we known from the very beginning that the Reapers merely wanted us to reproduce themselves, that they saw as simply as food, the revelation in the second game wouldn’t have been so jarring.

    The third went even further in thrashing the Reapers’ reputation by giving them an even dumber motive. They need to reproduce so that they can prevent synthetics from extinguishing all life. Never mind that this goes against everything the previous games set up.

    The solution is for writers to realize that they need to stop making unknowable forces as antagonists in stories. They can’t pull it off. If anyone knows of any example of such an enemy that has ever been done right, I’d love to hear it.

    The problem I think comes from trying to characterize these forces as ‘forces of nature’. That worked back in ancient times, when people saw an earthquake, a volcano or a tornado and could not explain them. Thus a force of nature was something with unknowable motives, that came, did it thing, and everyone had to live with it. You couldn’t empathize with it, couldn’t explain it, couldn’t stop it. It simply was, and then after it did it’s thing it was no more.

    But current thinking doesn’t work that way. We demystified all forces at work in nature. If something can be observed, we’ve studied it and know that ‘forces of nature’ for example are simple meteorological phenomenons. We know what causes them, and can even get some level of warning when one is coming.

    I suppose you could still work them into fantasy, but you need to be clear that you can’t explain them. You have to keep them in the realm of myth. In fact, you can see this at work with the Force in Star Wars. It was great in the first three films, until Phantom Menace claims it’s something you can test by measuring midichlorians. By turning it into a simple natural phenomenon, the whole mysticism that it evoked is killed.

    In conclusion, don’t try to build up something by saying it can’t be explained, and then try to explain it.

    Anyway, that explains why the ending was going to suck any way they made it. What it doesn’t explain is how they could conceive to mess it up in the particular way they chose to ruin it.

    1. Bill says:

      “Solaris” by StanisÅ‚aw Lem.

      The “aliens”, or rather the alien, is not an antagonist in this book. It is actually very similar to what you described as “forces of nature”. However, the entity is truly and utterly impossible to understand, despite many great efforts on the part of humans. In fact, the futility of such attempts is the central theme of the book, and it is extremely convincing. A great read.

      The incomprehensible cannot be understood, but it can be described. You have nailed it, actually – Rule One is to never, ever, actually explain anything. Smoke and mirrors all the way. And it shouldn’t be that hard to grasp, too: bullshitting is, after all, the majority of writer’s job description.

      Pity the ME team had poor writers. It was very possible to tell the Reapers’ story without dispelling the magic. But it would have taken a subtlety that clearly was out of reach for people chosen for the task.

      It would have worked excellently gameplay-wise, too. You could justify all kinds of weird things Reapers do or don’t do during their invasion by not justifying the weird things they do, but still clearly hinting there is an explanation.

      They could conquer a planet half-way and then just go somewhere else. Or concentrate on particular spots, even if that means they take much higher casualties than usual. Have them stop and examine things, and then blow them away. Have some constants, of course, like absolute cruelty once they do decide to obliberate something. Have them be mysterious and foreboding in their machinations, not deranged or senile. They can even still be made by this Star Child insanity. Just have him remark that their programming has evolved to a point he can’t be sure what it is they want and how it ties to what they do. And of course, make the original reason less stupid.

      It is a much better justification for giving the humanity a sporting chance than that tired “my hyper-futuristic alien tech can’t hit a moving target” cliché. Imagine if in the second Mass Effect the Reapers did attack, only to retreat to the void. Seemingly without reason.

      The Coucil would eventually decide they have “beaten” the mechanical menace, produce some dubious explanation why the Reapers won’t be back, and go about patting themselves on their backs. Meanwhile Shepard would be this madman shouting the “end is nigh” and that the races should still mobilize and be ready, and no-one would listen. And then bam, ME3.

  93. gloops says:

    Leng was absolutely extraordinary. I think I remember one of the marketing spiels stating that they felt they hadn’t really given Shepard a proper nemesis in the series; fair enough, they hadn’t. Harbinger, as the leader of the main villains who has come to see Shepard as a personal adversary, and as, y’know, a near-unbeatable colossal space abomination, would have been pretty good for this role in the third game.

    Instead, the devs introduced this…bizarre-looking, personality-deficient figure and tried to quickly make players feel they had a real nemesis on their hands by having him turn repeatedly up in cutscenes and wreak havoc through his ability to break the laws of physics while Shepard and his allies, who have by this point been built up to be some of the toughest heroes in existence, gawp helplessly. And then all of the other NPCs call Shepard up about it. “Well, sure, Shepard, the armada of giant planet-destroying aliens is the primary threat, but don’t underestimate that hitherto-unmentioned Asian guy with a sword, either; he’s nearly as dangerous, our primitive guns are no match for him.’ And he emails you! That’ll send a shiver of dread up players’s spines!

    Someone like Leng (but…not Leng. Better.) could have worked in either of the two earlier games, but the scale of the conflict and the level of player achievement had been raised far too high by this stage for a human antagonist to be believable or threatening or anything other than an unwelcome distraction.

    1. Indy says:

      That someone better was Saren.

      Saren seemed to understand you fighting against the Reapers but believed himself to be right. He tries to convince you twice before fighting you. You interact with him several times throughout the game and he comes to respect you, even as he prepares to fight you at the end. And he worked because Sovereign was to big to push a button.

  94. Dys says:

    Ordinarily I’d read through the comments before posting my own, but since this article has partaken thoroughly of the shitstorm surrounding the topic, there’s way more than I care to wade through.

    The only substantive criticism of the end of ME3 is that it was rushed and sloppy.

    The mass relays do not explode, because that would be stupid. The Citadel tells you what the Crucible will do, and how it will do it. Then if and when you pick a choice, it does what it said it would do. The relays discharge, because they are not transport devices, they are dissemination nodes for the Crucible mechanism. That is what they were built to do. Doing it does not make them explode. Why would you even assume that?

    Nobody is stranded. Every ship larger than a shuttle has a faster than light Mass Effect drive. Remember how you could fly from system to system inside a cluster in less than a human lifetime. Yeah. Faster than light. It’s a long walk home, particularly for the Quarians, Rannoch is on the Far Rim after all, but the galaxy is around 100kly across. Assuming the fleet can sustain faster than light for long enough, it seems reasonable that they can get back within an average lifetime. Oh, yeah, and handily, they only HAD a homeworld for a couple of days. They’re perfectly well accustomed to living aboard the Migrant Fleet. All the other races have colonies far closer to earth. The only conceivable problem would be fuel supplies, and there certainly hasn’t been any shortage of that so far.

    Is it just that you don’t get to see what happens next? You’re dead, it’s not about you any more. I imagine there will be a long period of mourning, and recovery, as follows any major conflict. The loss of the mass relays will hurt, but it’s not the death knell of galactic civilisation. You know what WAS? The Reapers. Remember them?

    The Reapers never wiped out life. Seriously, it takes a heck of a lot longer than 50,000 years to create life from chemistry. What they did was remove all civilisations capable of creating synthetic life. Why? Clearly whoever built them thought it was important. Possibly a civilisation capable of creating the Reapers in the first place might have some insights into the sociological impact of synthetic lifeforms? Beyond the experience of a few centuries of geth-quarian hostilities? Synthetic life advances at a far more rapid pace than organic life, who’s to say how long it would take before the Geth evolved into something so far beyond human understanding that communication was impossible? All of which is utterly irrelevant to the point at hand, which is that the Reapers were created, and now humanity is being harvested, and the only way to stop them is to trip the failsafe switch built into the cycle when it was first put in place. I saw one video which argued that there should have been an option to refuse the choice. And then what? Watch galactic civilisation slowly harvested over centuries, just to make some kind of point? The Crucible has three modes of operation, destruction, control, or synthesis. Don’t complain that your pistol won’t make you tea.

    Possibly you could add a three hour conversation tree with the Citadel in which you explore the various justifications and ramifications of the entire Reaper cycle. Personally, I think one of the greatest things about Mass Effect is those conversations you never get to have. I could spend hours talking to those characters about trivial, tangential and irrelevant things.

    The points about Cerberus are more valid. I’m not sure I’d say they were unreasonably powerful, just that they have a talent for being in the right place at the right time. Consider in the first game, there were a half dozen Cerberus outposts on various worlds all over the galaxy, and those were just the ones you knew about. I doubt they could go head to head against any navy out there, but the way they operate, they don’t have to. Everyone else is too busy defending against the Reapers to spare any time chasing Cerberus. I think it’s probably fair to say they exist mostly because the game needed a ground level bad guy, and the geth weren’t available. Also, the ‘control the Reapers, humanity first’ ideas needed a mouthpiece, hence the illusive man. Ditto for Leng, the conveniently punchable antagonist.

    The continuity issues surrounding the Normandy are probably the most objectively factual problems being complained about. People being on the Normandy immediately after being on the ground is a little weird, but given that you were blacked out for a good long time after getting hit by the Reaper beam, it’s not unreasonable that a “Sheperd’s dead, transport is lost. Fall back and regroup” order went out while you were unconscious. Admittedly conjuring justifications is just papering over the cracks. I don’t take issue with people saying the whole final sequence was a bit clunky, but to say that the end renders the rest of the game irrelevant is just not true.

    There are Quarians on Rannoch, the Krogan will live, the Rachi are free and no longer monsters of legend and the Reapers, scourge of civilisation for billions of years, are finally destroyed. At least that’s the way it ended when I played it, and that works just fine for me.

    1. Shamus says:

      “Why would you even assume that?”

      Because the Arrival DLC told us that’s what happened. We said it was stupid and contrived at the time, but we’re just going by what the writers say. If they want to change the rules, they need to say so.

      “Nobody is stranded.”

      Except for everyone on the Normandy, because their ship is broke.

      “Is it just that you don't get to see what happens next? You're dead, it's not about you any more.”

      See, I didn’t WANT the game to be about Shepard. I HATED that you become Space Jesus in the second game and the Reapers suddenly cared who you were. I’m fine with taking the focus off of Shepard, but they should have done that two games ago. The problem isn’t that Shepard doesn’t retire in fame and luxury, it’s that none of this makes any sense.

      “Synthetic life advances at a far more rapid pace than organic life, who's to say how long it would take before the Geth evolved into something so far beyond human understanding that communication was impossible? ”

      Nice, but that wasn’t in the game. In the game, Shepard said we can get along and the Star Child said, “Nu-uh!” The fact that there COULD be an explanation isn’t the same as having the game make some kind of sense.

      “Possibly you could add a three hour conversation tree with the Citadel in which you explore the various justifications and ramifications of the entire Reaper cycle.”

      Nobody is asking for a three hour conversation. They’re asking for something that isn’t dissonant nonsense.

      “it's not unreasonable that a “Sheperd's dead, transport is lost. Fall back and regroup” order went out while you were unconscious”

      It’s not unreasonable, but it’s also not in the game. You’re arguing that the ending is okay because we can graft on extra things to try and patch over blatantly obvious holes.

      “There are Quarians on Rannoch, the Krogan will live, the Rachi are free and no longer monsters of legend and the Reapers, scourge of civilisation for billions of years, are finally destroyed. At least that's the way it ended when I played it, and that works just fine for me.”

      Glad you enjoyed it.

      1. Sumanai says:

        If Shepard is the focus so much that showing what happened after wouldn’t fit in, why is there a segment in ME2 where you control Joker? Shouldn’t the camera be focusing on Shepard when s/he hears about the assault on Normandy?

        What about the part in the video where you’re shown what happens to the Normandy in the ME3 itself? Why is everyone else not worth the time?

        1. acronix says:

          Joker is an Author Darling. He has a brittle-bone condition and yet he manages to shoot to the collector´s when Shepard´s is running for his life (ME2). And the fact that you control Joker once doesn´t mean the story isn´t about Shepard, s/he is still the Space Messiah Who Will Save Everyone and who made the reapers go specifically after him/her and humanity.
          What´s more: We are shown what happens to him (and EDI by proxy) after the end because the writers tought he was the most important character after Shepard.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Doing it does not make them explode. Why would you even assume that?”

      Um,because cinematic shows a mass relay clearly exploding,thats why.

      “The only conceivable problem would be fuel supplies, and there certainly hasn't been any shortage of that so far.”

      And the food supplies.Even with ftl,it still will take them looooong to reach the nearest colony,and I doubt anyone had months of supplies with them,with maybe the quarians being the exception.Furthermore,normandy is shown to have fuel to barely cross one cluster,and now these ships who expected to come to fight are somehow supposed to have enough fuel to reach another star cluster?

      “Is it just that you don't get to see what happens next? You're dead, it's not about you any more.”

      Fine,but what about the people who were with you during this journey?What happened to them?They got stranded somewhere and thats it?And maybe only 3 of them survived the crash?

      “Synthetic life advances at a far more rapid pace than organic life, who's to say how long it would take before the Geth evolved into something so far beyond human understanding that communication was impossible?”

      Except after 2 centuries of them existing,geth still wanted to end the hostilities and rejoin their creators,despite being treated poorly.And really,thats some faulty reasoning.Who knows what may happen to me tomorrow,I may very well die in a car crash,so its better to blow my brains out right now before that maybe happens.

      “The Crucible has three modes of operation, destruction, control, or synthesis”

      The problem is that you cannot,for example,destroy the reapers and preserve edi and geth.Or control the reapers and have the mass relays remain operational.

      The biggest problem is how lame these three choices are.Nearly identical.After all the talk how they dont want to offer us some lame buttons that lead to similar cutscenes,they did exactly that.

      “it's not unreasonable that a “Sheperd's dead, transport is lost. Fall back and regroup” order went out while you were unconscious.”

      What happened to “we fight or we die”?Heck,from what I saw,thats what your speech in the end is.No turning back,victory or death,but never retreat.And heck,one of your companions is liara,a person that went for your dead body once already.She sure as hell wouldnt leave you,even in death.Especially if she is your romantic interest.

      “There are Quarians on Rannoch, the Krogan will live, the Rachi are free and no longer monsters of legend and the Reapers, scourge of civilisation for billions of years, are finally destroyed. At least that's the way it ended when I played it, and that works just fine for me.”

      Yes,yes,but what of garrus,tali,wrex,mordin,liara,and everyone else you ever cared about?They all tell you “If we survive this,we will xyz”,but then that gets screwed,so what happens to them?

      Heck,what happens to humans,who have their homeworld devastated,and their colonies ransacked by both reapers and cerberus,and who now have all of the fleets of the universe parked in orbit of their now desolate planet?Devoured by krogans seems the most likely,especially if you cured the genophage.Way to go shepard,throwing your life away so that your race can be saved from one extinction,and thrown into another.

    3. wellwellwellavatar says:

      >Nobody is stranded. Every ship larger than a shuttle has a faster than light Mass Effect drive. Remember how you could fly from system to system inside a cluster in less than a human lifetime. Yeah. Faster than light. It's a long walk home, particularly for the Quarians, Rannoch is on the Far Rim after all, but the galaxy is around 100kly across. Assuming the fleet can sustain faster than light for long enough, it seems reasonable that they can get back within an average lifetime.

      Of course they are. Ever bothered to read in-game lore about FTL? They need to discharge their drives all the time, and they can’t do that in empty space. That’s actually the explanation why so much of the galaxy is still unexplored. They can’t get there even with all the infrastructure in place. With the relays gone, they can’t cross these distances.

      I won’t get into the discussion about supply lines and colonies, all of that has been said before. And no, in-game lore tells us that for example dextro-food can’t be just synthetisied – this was the actual problem during the first contact war, that the turians had issues getting food for their troops in.

      >Possibly you could add a three hour conversation tree with the Citadel in which you explore the various justifications and ramifications of the entire Reaper cycle. Personally, I think one of the greatest things about Mass Effect is those conversations you never get to have. I could spend hours talking to those characters about trivial, tangential and irrelevant things.

      So could I. Your point being?

      >I don't take issue with people saying the whole final sequence was a bit clunky, but to say that the end renders the rest of the game irrelevant is just not true.
      For you, maybe. To me, they just threw their own lore and canon overboard for the last few minutes.

      >There are Quarians on Rannoch, the Krogan will live, the Rachi are free and no longer monsters of legend and the Reapers, scourge of civilisation for billions of years, are finally destroyed. At least that's the way it ended when I played it, and that works just fine for me.
      Glad it is enough for you. For me, it was not, and it ruined things.

  95. Dasick says:

    Hey Shamus, how many number of comment messages do you have? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post with more than 300, so “n is a ridiculous number” is a new one (and made me chuckle a bit)

    1. Shamus says:

      They top out at 1,000. The longest thread ever is this one:

      http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=12768

      …which is just over 1,000.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Yeah,but that one is a bit spammy,what with all the kirk/picard fan fiction.

      2. Dasick says:

        A thread about religion? Pfft, how’d that tame subject ever get 1000 posts? The real controversy has only just begun.

        Also on the subject of your message dice, 300ish is “my hd weeps for mercy”. Do the comments really take such a massive toll or is it a relic of the past?

        1. Shamus says:

          Yeah. Relic of the past. Way back in 2007, hot threads would slow down the site, particularly when I was running DMotR, and those full-page comics were eating a lot of bandwidth.

  96. Kian says:

    As an aside, I kind of grew resentful of Anderson during the game. Shepard took a lot of crap all throughout the game for the greater good. His name was dragged through the mud in his efforts to protect galactic civilization. All he asked of his buddy Anderson was that he deal with the boredom of being one of the four most important people in space, so that he could make as much pressure from within the system as possible.

    Instead, by the second game Anderson is letting Udina handle most everything (to the point the Council prefers to deal with Udina directly) and by the third he quit so he could keep playing with his military buddies at being an Admiral. Way to ruin all my effort, Anderson. And he still fails to get Earth geared up for war against the Reapers.

    And if that wasn’t enough, while you were grounded he tried to steal your ship! I could put up with a lot, but that’s a betrayal I can’t forgive. The Normandy is MY ship. HANDS OFF!

    1. krellen says:

      So what you’re saying is, there at the end, when Anderson says “You did good, son”, you want an option to reply, “Yeah, well you fucked up, sir. Good job”?

      1. Kian says:

        Maybe more like “Well, someone had to.” I wasn’t upset with him. Just frustrated. He failed to steal my ship anyway, so I forgave him for that. Not that he could, anyway. EDI is a bro, she wouldn’t betray me.

    2. wellwellwellavatar says:

      Finally someone else who got ticked at this :)

      I was like WTF? when I discovered that the ship that I had left in good order in ME2 was now ripped up, cables everywhere, and to add insult to injury. PAINTED FUCKING BLUE. With Alliance logo.

      Me, I would have rather driven it into the next sun than surrender it.

  97. chrisw10 says:

    Career writers start off terrible and then become master storytellers after writing about a million words because they eventually find out through trial and error what does and doesn’t work.

    Usually what doesn’t work is writers making promises and then failing to fulfill them.

    I’m not sure what the turnover is in the games industry for their writers, but if it’s what I think it is, then the storytelling problems like what ME3 suffers from are going to plague the games industry for a good long while.

  98. Velkrin says:

    My prediction: ME4-6 will tell the tale of Marauder Shields and his attempt to travel through time in order to stop Shepard from getting to the end of ME3.

    He was born Marauder Shields, and died Marauder Health. Honor his sacrifice.

    1. anaphysik says:

      Since Harbinger’s role was so small in ME3, his inclusion as a squadmate in ME4-6 should please long-term fans. Harbinger is likewise dedicated to Shepard’s salvation through destruction, and his devastating loyalty power adds additional optic units to all nearby allies.

      Sovereign, Saren, the Thorian, and Richard L. Jenkins will all play some role in the series, provided they survived the events of the previous game or the players forgot that they didn’t.

      Rumors regarding Blasto the Jellyfish’s appearance remain unsubstantiated.

      1. Conrad Gray says:

        Good except you forgot Conrad Verner.

        1. anaphysik says:

          Excuse me?

          That’s DR. Conrad Verner.

          Conrad was truly amazing in ME3. He was fun in ME2, but this time around was just wonderful.

          Conrad-related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzYLTbQQEZQ

      2. ns says:

        rotfl.

        Fuck, give me a shot at Saren being my LI and I’ll play it!

        1. anaphysik says:

          I should’ve also included Nihlus, but everyone knows that he already played a role in ME3 as the great hero Marauder Shields. (And therefore: http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/268/550/438.jpg )

          I do wish they’d brought up Saren more in the last two games. I actually felt pretty bad about how completely demonized he had become in ME2 (particularly since I managed to convince him to kill himself rather than continue submitting to Sovereign at the end of ME1). The statue in Kasumi’s DLC was cool, but It would have been neater if we could have expressed some opinion on him.

          1. ns says:

            That.

            Saren was operating under a lot of false assumptions, but he was in some way trying to do the right thing. In my playthrough he shot himself, too, which was a major downer for me – I was actually trying to recruit him. That would have been awesome. Instead, it all got dumbed down as he suddenly has always been the big bad evil rogue Spectre. Sigh.

            Of course, in ME3 we then can do the same fucking thing to the whole galaxy – forcibly merge everyone into part organic/part synthetic. And after Arrival, I’d say Shepard has beaten Saren’s body count by far. Can anyone please point out the hero to me here, I’m having trouble seeing the difference….

            rotfl @Marauder Shields == Nihlus.

  99. Morgan says:

    Wow. It seems like no one paid attention to what the catalyst was saying. I have watched all three endings. in two of them only Shepherd dies. In the other Shepherd and all synthetics die and advanced technology is destroyed. I don’t know where this guy is getting his info on everyone dying. Seems to me that there are a lot of people alive on earth at the end regardless of what decision you make. Why would this be any different for other systems? The problem is that this guys is assuming too much with the endings. There are some parts of the review that I agree with. Oh and what makes the ending “bittersweet” is that Shepherd sacrifices himself to save all (or almost all) life in the galaxy.

    1. Sumanai says:

      Wow. It seems like no-one paid attention to what happened to the Normandy in the “harmless” explosion.

      1. Wraith says:

        Remember kids, as long as your explosions are blue or green, they’re totally harmless!

    2. ehlijen says:

      You didn’t play Arrival, did you?

      It was made very clear that kablooey mass relay = kablooey star system. Nothing in the end tells us this time is any different, which means the writers either forgot and muddled up what they tried to say or were trying to say contradictory crap deliberately. Niether of which makes it even tolerable writing.

      1. acronix says:

        In case someone tries to play the “It was just optional DLC!”, I´d like to point out that the only reason for Arrival to exist was to establish what would happen if a Relay was blown up. Oh, and also to get extra money from the pre-MA3 hype.

        1. Lalaland says:

          I fell victim to that hype and bought Arrival a few days before playing ME3 so I’d ‘know the full story’ for ME3. It was a waste of time and is barely referenced in ME3 despite being the supposed reason you’re grounded. In fact when you speak with Jarvik you mention stopping the Reaper invasion in ME1 but don’t mention stopping the second invasion in ME2 w/Arrival DLC.

          Worse you are told over and over while playing the DLC that the destruction of this relay will destroy the solar system but this a necessary sacrifice to prevent a reaper invasion. To suddenly have the relays exploding in ME3 with force strong enough to show up on the galaxy map instantly made me think I’d destroyed most life in the universe.

    3. Kian says:

      Even conceding that this kind of explosion is different, the consequence of eliminating trade in a society as advanced and spread out as the galaxy was would be catastrophic.

      People need food and medicine just to live. In the ME universe, travel is so cheap and appropriate conditions for growing food so rare that food production is centralized in some areas and exported. So you have planets like Eden Prime that are essentially giant farms, producing the food that planets like Noveria, Mars and every space station then eat. By disrupting the relay network, everyone who relied on imported food is dead within a couple months. That’s a lot of people.

      Likewise, certain areas focused on making medicine, others on manufactured goods, etc. With trade ensuring an efficient distribution of material all across the galaxy, the galactic economy grew very specialized. Disruptions will cause widespread death.

      Earth for example was shown to be badly damaged, fields burnt and the like. The largest fleet ever assembled is now stuck without supply lines orbiting a ruined planet. The krogan are going to eat everyone.

      1. ns says:

        Finally someone who points out the real consequences of the relays going kablooej.

        For everyone who still can’t imagine it: take any large city on Earth, and just transport it somewhere into the middle of some uninhabited landscape. See how long people can survive there with no outside help. Sure, some will survive and adapt. Most won’t.

    4. birthofthecool says:

      Yes, even if you believe the solar systems are not destroyed, there would be major problems to survive the first few years.

    5. birthofthecool says:

      Wow, not everyone agrees with me…

  100. Kimagure says:

    What’s sad is that the ending to the series could really have been salvaged by a few minor changes and modifications to the underlying ideas. What follows is just one possibility, there are others, many of which are better thought out than what I suggest below.

    1) Rationale for the Reapers: instead of having them exist to solve some straw man of an inevitable war between organics and synthetics, play to a different theme. One example would be to say that organic life inevitably develops technologies to destroy itself. When they first tested atomic bombs, they calculated there was a significant possibility that the bomb could ignite the atmosphere, killing everyone. The perfect counterpart to that would be the mass relays, which are known to be powerful enough to destroy star systems. Imagine what would happen if they were used as dark matter weapons in a war? Solution: AI reapers kill off any civilization that reaches an event horizon level of advancement by approaching mass effect/dark matter technology. Why wouldn’t they just destroy all the mass relays? Simple, it’s a roach motel, a trap. It’s easier to figure out when species are getting close to the point of technology when you lead them by the nose and have them push the shiny red button themselves. You could even play to the dark matter themes brought out in ME2 and say that extensive use of dark matter technology risks warping the time-space fabric and causing devastating results (think global warming or nuclear annihilation on a galactic scale).

    2) The Deus Ex Machina Crucible: Shamus wisely points out how the logic to the entire thing makes absolutely no sense. There are other, far easier ways to have it be a believable superweapon. Say, for example, it’s an incomplete control mechanism to turn mass relays into dark energy canons (or bombs). I’d say incomplete, since the Protheons were only starting to figure out relay technology. And while they did build a small one on the Citadel, that doesn’t mean they had any real mastery. The pieces you pick up along the way? Various different civilizations’ research into mass effect technology to correct the flaws of the Crucible and make the weapon work. After all, given how hard it was for the combined alliance fleet to take down Sovereign in ME, there’s no way conventional armies could destroy hundreds or thousands of reapers. Mass relay cannons/bombs on the other hand…

    3) The Reapers: It’s really, really, REALLY stupid to have the reapers be some kind of organo-synthetic hybrid created from intelligent species. The ME2 review did a fantastic job of explaining why. Better answer? The scientists/everyone at the end of ME2 were simply wrong and didn’t properly understand what was going on. Instead of being necessary to create a new reaper, the collected humans and liquified humans were merely the Reapers’ way of preserving knowledge of each organic species it destroyed. As such, each new Reaper would be a kind of trophy of theirs (though they might view them as more of a museum/testament to the races). Just because Reapers indoctrinate and kill every species doesn’t mean they don’t see it as a noble endeavor.

    4) The three endings: So many ways to fix this… For example, the kid could simply be Shepherd’s indoctrinated-overlayed-delusion on whatever the crucible’s control system is. The voice trying to convince Shepherd to do the wrong thing. The fact that you can get Saren to kill himself after realizing he’s indoctrinated in ME shows that there’s still some free will, even if it’s very limited. You have three endings? Make Blue paragon, red renegade, and green indoctrinated (hell, keep it the same where you think you’re doing some organic-synthetic hybrid and have a god-complex). Paragon: you use the relays to destroy the Reapers (but risking the negative consequences of organic life destroying itself and the galaxy). Renegade: you detonate the mass relays, killing the reapers, billions of innocents, but protecting future species from the Reaper threat.

    Anyway, that’s just one suggestion. I’m sure there are many other ways that the ending could have been far better than the mess it was.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      1) Still wouldnt make sense,because if they wanted to stop organics to do anything dangerous,they couldve always just eradicated all life.They clearly are capable of destroying whole planets,so why not do that?Go from star system to star system,and lay waste.It would take much less than 50000 years to do so.

      3) Making reapers into cyborgs isnt really that bad.In fact,its a much better tool to explain the reapers motivation than “they want to prevent organics from destroying themselves”.Why do they let organics reach a certain stage before harvesting them?Because that allows them to get the best genetic material for their evolution.Sure,real genetics dont work that way,but in reality there is no element zero either.

      1. Kimagure says:

        Well, that’s just one idea, but the question isn’t one of trying to stop organics, period, but management, similar to what’s presented in the game. In the game, they take their main challenge as being: how do you keep organics from creating synthetics that destroy them, assuming that AI and organics will always go to war. There are other main premises you can use instead. For example: how do you allow organic species to continue to exist, assuming that they’ll inevitably reach a level of technology where they’ll kill themselves off? Solution: preemptively knock them into the stone age every 50k years.

        But there are other possible premises which might also work, and ones more centered around the actual title of the series (Mass effect) than the whole Organic/Synthetic war.

        For example: How do you stop civilizations from growing to such a point that they conquer the galaxy using mass effect technology and wipe out all the burgeoning intelligent life monopolistically? Wipe out the top players. (50k years isn’t enough to evolve from ape to man, but it might be enough to go from proto-civilization to civilization). Or how do you stop civilizations from trying to cross the galactic border with technology 1 step above mass relays?

        There are any number of possibilities that could be justified with a stronger rationale.

        And no offense, but I disagree with your opinion about the Reaper-cyborgs. It really was a terrible idea. What possible benefit could the reapers get from DNA and organic processes that they couldn’t replicate via machinery? If they really needed organic development, given their size, level of scientific advancement, and longevity, there are any number of ways to experimentally lab-generate life that would be so much easier. Not to mention that intelligence is something beyond pure liquified organic matter and DNA. This isn’t even getting into the chemical processes you’d need to develop to interact in any meaningful way with the organic matter of thousands of different species and… Yeah, it’s really pointless. If they’re not trying for the brain patterns(hell, even DNA) of specific individuals and just going for any random moron they come across en mass… Just vat-grow human genetic material at that point and randomly irradiate it. Saves you the mess and trouble. Or use your massive fleet of overpowered super-beings to take out civilization then make your baby Terminator-reapers then… There are just so many problems with the situation as presented in ME2

        1. Sumanai says:

          There are any number of possibilities that could be justified with an insane rationale.

        2. Daemian Lucifer says:

          There is only one way they couldve rationalized that stupid explanation from me3:If they left the rachni alone.How do you stop organics from making synthetics that will ultimately destroy them?Eradicate all but the ones who go the fully organic route,like the rachni.But nope,even the rachni arent spared.

          There can be a benefit from them being cyborgs and not pure machines:Machines cannot evolve.Sure,they can upgrade themselves and change their programing,but eventually they will reach a wall,because there is no randomness.Organics,however,can evolve forever.This is one of the key speeches mording gave in me2,about why collectors are a bad thing:They stagnate.So reapers let organics evolve until they reach a certain stage,and then use the dominant species to upgrade themselves.

          Sure,real dna doesnt work like that,but this is sci fi,and anything is possible in sci fi,as long as you establish it and keep it internally consistent.And thats the reason me1 is stronger than its sequels:It is internally consistent with its breaks from reality.That,and the fact that it doesnt have stupid leaps of logic as often as 2 and 3.

          1. Kimagure says:

            Machines can evolve. There’s evolutionary forms of circuit design being researched and applied currently. What would you call the alteration from old AppleIIes to current ipads? Small elements are changed, modified, improved, and replaced. In some ways, you can argue that the process is faster than organic evolution since the generational cycles are quicker.

            Natural selection’s not a process in which you have some mystical being selecting winners and losers. It’s not even a rule. It’s simply a statement that things that are successful will continue to be successful until replaced by something that’s more successful–usually a modified version of the former.

            Any kind of self-aware machine inherently involves a program that changes with time and experiences and that does not remain static. Anytime you introduce uncontrolled change into a system, you have variation and evolution.

            You could even argue that it’s easier for machines since you can literally copy code from one machine to another. Especially with the programming complexity that any artificial intelligence will entail, you’ll have unpredictable bugs introduced into the system. Those bugs are the basis for evolution and change (as much as random mutation is). Most of the time, they’ll cause errors and crash systems (with varying differences in importance), but sometimes you’ll end up with a system that works slightly better.

            Evolution.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Yes our machinery evolves,so to speak,but thats because we are changing them.If this was an automated process,it would stop once certain efficiency is reached,and then we would get just exact copies.

              Consider the geth,for example:They are upgrading themselves so that they can all merge in their dyson sphere.But then what?There would be no need for them to upgrade further,there would be no unexpected influences*,they would just exist,unchanging,until the end of time.

              Also,you wouldnt get any bugs when machines write the code.And at some point,a sapient machine will completely overwrite its original programing,so its whole code would be machine made,and thus bug free.

              Back to reapers,because they are the dominant race,and technically immortal,the only change they can introduce to their race is reproduction.But machines cannot reproduce,they can only clone themselves,which is also stagnation.Hence why they need to be cyborgs if they want to evolve.And how is that not a much better explanation than “we need to destroy organics so that they dont create synthetics that would destroy them”?

              *Disregarding their contact with other species this time,making them the sole ones in the galaxy.

              1. Lalaland says:

                The idea that machines could evolve or improve themselves to a point of stagnation fights against evolution. The driving force in evolution is adaptation to environment and any form of life, artificial or synthetic, is forced to continue to change to adapt to the constantly changing environment.

                To my mind the only way any of this works is if the Reapers destroy civilisations every 50,000 years as that is some kind of mean time for civilisations to start creating AI sophisticated enough to potentially threaten the Reapers themselves. But that doesn’t cover why the Reapers don’t just destroy all life and arrggghhhh it’s all nonsense at this stage anyway. Too many holes to patch without just binning the lot and that would be ridiculous. Still I await the inevitably tragi-comic DLC.

                Edit: I think I’ve been thinking about ME3 too much, I think I just ‘Yo dawg’ ed evolution in the first paragraph.

                1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                  “The driving force in evolution is adaptation to environment and any form of life, artificial or synthetic, is forced to continue to change to adapt to the constantly changing environment.”

                  Yes.But when reapers became the dominant force in the galaxy,there was no environmental change for them to adapt to.So they could either travel to another galaxy,or borrow the changes that certain organics have achieved in this one.

                2. Sumanai says:

                  There have actually been living creatures in the real world that have stopped evolving. A lot of them tend to die out completely.

              2. Kimagure says:

                A few points about that:

                1) Beings can only have limited ability to rewrite essential processes. The nature of any complex program is that it’s impossible to predict the full effects without extensive testing. That’s the inherent problem with QA and video games, or FDA trials with new drugs. Minor changes to complex programming can have dramatic and unintentional consequences because complexity within a system increases exponentially with intricacy and scale and any form of sentience would need to be, by nature, large and complex. I can’t imagine AI’s being too eager to fundamentally alter their source code, not knowing what kind of blue screens they may achieve. And while you can save and reload, there’s a fundamental question of how many simulations you could run and the fact that not all fatal bugs are immediately apparent.

                2) No copying system is perfect. There will always be degradation of physical storage materials, the introduction of error during transmission or operation, etc. While this can somewhat be mitigated with backup storage, that also has its limits when you’re talking about a self-learning and sentient process that interacts with the world in real-time. It’s those small changes and alterations that are evolution. You see it all the time with humans, it’s called cancer. That form of random mutation is the basis of evolution and it’s not a problem that will ever truly be solved, if only because of the effect of quantum mechanics on all physical matter. All matter will degrade and undergo change over time, and so information will always need to be copied (introducing random error).

                3) This doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a virtual environment or a physical environment. Electronic systems live on physical medium, which degrades. It’s why mp3s and old data files go bad over time. Of course, you could create backup copies, but that’s difficult with a constantly learning AI and evolving AI system and it causes real questions of cloning. What do you do, create a backup and keep it in the electronic version of cold storage? Back up core elements? There are still elements which would be fundamental which could never truly be preserved for an AI.

                4) Machine-made does not mean error free. Any kind of sentience would necessitate some type of self-learning capability. Which creates individuality (ie, change and another avenue for evolutionary development in a machine if only due to chaos theory dynamics) and further opportunities for the introduction of error. Remember, no copying mechanism is 100% precise over time. Plus, self-learning isn’t as simple as writing a basic computer program since it, by definition, involves interaction with new stimuli (otherwise it’s just a very well crafted VI and not a true AI). There is no reason to assume that machines developing self-learning code to deal with new situations will do so completely error-free in real time. We’re not talking about a programmer sitting down, looking at a problem, coming up with code and testing out solutions. We’re not even talking about an automated version of that. We’re talking about something with actual sentience.

                5) Your argument about the dyson sphere would apply equally well to humans and organics. In a perfectly stable world without any change, there would be no evolution. But life itself brings about change. There’s no reason to assume that it would be any different for AI. No two AI will have 100% the same experience, and if they are true AI and not just VI, then they will learn from them and adapt in their own way. Individuality brings about change, which is the heart of evolution.

                The distinction isn’t between AI and organic life. The distinction’s between a sentient being and a complex mechanical process that cannot exceed the bounds of its programming. Between real intelligence and a good turing test program.

                Since the Geth were able to question, think, and learn. They were AI and they evolve.

                1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                  First,its sapient,not sentient.Sorry,but despite what me3 wants you to believe,those two arent interchangeable.Anyhow:

                  1)If I got it correctly,edi did rewrite her core programing in me3 a few times,and was eager to do it some more.

                  2)While true,this however gets mitigated even more when you have a race such as geth,where everything requires a census,so even if one individual gets an error while copying,it would quickly conform back to the mass.Plus,we arent sure how slowly blue boxes degrade.

                  3)Geth again.They constantly switch between places they are stored on,and they constantly do censuses,so any change they make,they make to the collective,and only when they all agree about it.There is nothing random about that.

                  4)See previous two points.

                  5)Yes.And that is what mordin was saying about collectors:They stagnated for 50000 years because theyve reached the roof of evolution,and had nothing new to adapt to,so they were just cloning the same individual over and over again.Which is why reapers come back every 50k years,and dont just harvest one organic species every year or so.That is exactly on what I was basing this theory on.Reapers became dominant in the galaxy,so in order to improve themselves,they would let different organics to develop in different environments,and then harvest them in order to bring new blood to their race,because there was nothing new for them to adapt to anymore.Organic or synthetic doesnt matter at all,since they already did employ a lot of organic machines(the keepers and collectors,for example).

                  Of course,this whole thing is shot down in 3,when you are told that all species evolve in similar fashion in every cycle,which is just stupid.

    2. I always thought that the slurry Reaper could make sense if you think about it as a way to consolidate biotic power, which would be the tech that they harvested this time.

      1. anaphysik says:

        Ah yes, that’s why they didn’t target the highly biotic asari. Yes.

        (Actually, if the Rachni Wars were really supposed to a attempted start to the Reaper invasion, then it likely would have been the asari that got slurpeed.)

  101. Vect says:

    So what’s wrong with Miranda never seeing mini-me again? I thought bad things happening to Miranda was good for people of the site.

    And the thing about Kai Leng is that he’s a villain from the Mass Effect Books where he was mostly Anderson’s enemy. The reason he became Cyborg Ninja of MGS is because Anderson kneecapped him with a pistol, so… Blame Anderson?

    And I was surprised to see Shamus not rail against Vega. Personally I thought of him as not too bad of a character (nothing special of course) and at least better than Jacob.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “So what's wrong with Miranda never seeing mini-me again? I thought bad things happening to Miranda was good for people of the site.”

      Plenty of people dont like her,but some still do,so naturally they would want to see her be happy along with the others.

    2. Sumanai says:

      Time to never read the books, then. Why is it that most of the time when a silly character ends up inside a series it’s “from the books”?

      1. Vect says:

        Well, Kai Leng was pretty infamously silly in “Mass Effect: Deception”, where there’s a scene where he sneaks into Anderson’s apartment and starts eating his cereal and an ending where he kills a super-special-powerful Biotic with a sharpened toothbrush.

        In the previous novels, he was evidently pretty Villain Sue-ish. Guy could kill Krogans with a knife and such.

        1. Sumanai says:

          Yeah, definitely not reading the books. I’m getting a Star Wars Expanded Universe vibe from them.

        2. anaphysik says:

          “there's a scene where he sneaks into Anderson's apartment and starts eating his cereal”

          Just… just… what?
          I mean, if it had been yogurt, I would have understood.

        3. Dreadjaws says:

          Good Lord, suddenly I started thinking what would happen if the Resident Evil games suddenly decided to write Alice (from the movies) or Trent (from the books) into them. They would become even more preposterous.

  102. Nemon says:

    Now I’m afraid of reading anything else by Shamus because it cannot possibly live up to the nailed-the-point-ness of this brilliant piece.

  103. Irridium says:

    Think we might have an explination.

    Rumor has it that the ending was writen by Casey Hudson and Mac Walters, with no input from the rest of the writing team.

    I’m just going to quote a bit of what he said: “It shows”.

    http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/5695/article/mass-effect-3-writer-allegedly-slams-controversial-ending/

    1. Lalaland says:

      The ‘two writers in a room alone’ explanation makes too much sense, I can’t help but thinking that guy has a pink slip in his immediate future though.

      1. anaphysik says:

        Which is the damndest thing of all, since considering some of the things he (assuming it was really him posting, which frankly I believe) actually wrote for the game – things such as Mordin – the man ought be promoted over the idiots who bungled this.

    2. Gruhunchously says:

      Huh, I like this guy’s line of thinking. He seems to understand the thematic elements of the story how it can be translated into gameplay, and, best of all, how unnecessary the Illusive Man and his megalomania are. And he apparently wrote for Mordin, Kasumi, and Jack, some of my favorite characters in the series. Bioware would probably better off with more writers like him, and fewer writers like [whoever was behind the human reaper baby], who I assume was Mac Walters.
      A shame if he ends up losing his job over this outburst (If it is actually him).

    3. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Sooo…they outsorced the boss fight?That…is becoming a really disturbing trend.

      1. Kian says:

        They didn’t outsource. The lead writer and director (not sure those are the exact positions, but essentially the head honchos for the project) locked themselves in a room, hashed out the ending, bypassed peer review using their status as head honchos and had the ending finished without input from the rest of the team.

        At least, according to what the link claims.

        1. anaphysik says:

          They outsourced to in-house idiots, is the idea. Idiots with fancy titles.

          Or if we wish to be more neutral, normal folks on a stupid binge.

  104. anaphysik says:

    For the record: I believe the Indoctrination-Attempt-Hallucinated-Ending theory from a metatextual/Death-of-the-Author perspective. That is, I believe it nearly perfectly explains the ending, but I doubt that it was actually the intended vision of the authors. And even if it was, they completely screwed it up by leaving the conclusion to it out of the final product.

    And now, even if they do release some perfect continuation as DLC, there will forever be two problems:
    1) people will see it as Bioware leeching off of good fan ideas and theories rather than making something coherent themselves (this is actually what I believe – the writers put out some bullcrap that they didn’t realize was bullcrap, and lucked into fans dissecting it in a way that made sense of it, and now Bioware is putting on their best trollface saying they’d planned this all along).
    2) they still screwed up the ending by making it in two parts, and by alienating vast swathes of their fan base. This trick ending could have worked if it wasn’t the end. And not ‘wasn’t the end right now, look forward to DLC!’ but literally wasn’t the end – if there were already a proper True Ending that continued after the bullshit (perhaps only with the ‘breath’ ending, natch). Without that, the ending is necessarily incomplete and we still run into the awful idea of ‘game now, ending later!’

    (EDIT: And now I see I’ve gotten all angry sounding. Fiddlesticks.)

    The Son of EDIT: Because I realize I haven’t said this yet: Shamus, your post and analysis are as both excellent and entertaining as usual!

  105. Sai says:

    If not for the ending Kai Leng would definitely be what I consider the worst part of the game. The increased focus on Cerberus was just odd, even with Hackett’s hinting that going to the Illusive Man’s base was the start of the end I didn’t really believe it. I thought we were gonna go there, dispose of him, and then go deal with the Reapers. All of a sudden the Citadel is moved to Earth for no explicable reason after that and we rush into the nonsensical ending.

  106. Alex says:

    The ending to Mass Effect 3 is a black-hole, so awful it’s starting to pull everything around it into an event horizon of stupid. Namely, children’s charities (second post down).

    1. Sumanai says:

      It seems you’ve linked the wrong page.

      http://penny-arcade.com/2012/03/22

      There’s a post about the charity, second post down.

  107. fixxxer says:

    People rising against the stupidity of videogame writing. I wonder if companies ever saw that one coming. :)

    Frankly, I suffered through part of the games because I wanted something to shoot at (and pretty graphics). The story became tedious pretty early every time. There’s so much bad writing in it that even the first game falls to pieces.

    Bioware gets too much crap from people though. Skyrim was equally mediocre and no one seemed to be bothered. Meanwhile, smaller studios like CD Projekt (Witcher) are doing it a lot better and no one gives them the credit they deserve.

    Anyway, congrats for the article, it’s very good. I loved the part about the Crucible the most. I’d also add that the very Citadel and the fact that people still decide to live on it after the first game is absurd. But.. oddly believable, for once. :D

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Skyrim doesnt get as much crap becasue story was never that important in earlier bethesda games.It was in bioware games.

      1. Dasick says:

        Skyrim doesn’t get much crap because the honeymoon is still on. Once that period is over, it’ll be Oblivion all over again. I don’t think a single doom prophecy regarding the “next TES” hasn’t been fulfilled.

        -Regenerating health
        -Reduced the RPG system to three statistics
        -No matter what skills you major, the gameplay is all the same
        -etc etc

        On the other hand, when people say that story and characters were never that important… have we played the same Morrowind?

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          I did,and it felt to me the same as skyrim:Some story in the background that seems nice,and a huge kick-ass world to explore in the front.

  108. some random dood says:

    How’s about a one-off Spoiler Warning for the ending? Sounds like you guys (don’t know whether Mumbles considers herself one of the guys, but take it in a good way!) have plenty to say, and the end-sequence isn’t going to run over 30 minutes, so…
    But here’s the challenge. You are each allowed only one “F**K” during the episode. Incoherence and rage-spluttering may be acceptable for up to 30 seconds, but then you have to be able to say something that sounds at least vaguely English.
    Perhaps it should be organised like a “tag” commentary – one of the team starts, and after he/she gets too emotional (incoherence and/or swearing) has to drop out and hand the commentary over to the next Spoiler Warning host.
    Hmm, with those rules, I don’t think it would make a 30 minute slot. 5 minutes, tops, most of which would be howling?

    Anyway – think it would be good to do. Would love it if Ruts had somehow managed to miss this whole controversy and get his reaction live!

  109. birthofthecool says:

    To be honest, I think your criticism goes to far in some places, other parts you nail perfectly.

    All those flaws in the ending, that is why I don’t get all this BS about a so called artistic ending and keeping the artistic integrity.

    “The perspective in your picture is wrong, the scale between peopl,e landscape and the building is off and you chose terrible looking colours. Is this suppossed to be some surrealistic masterpiece?”

    “No, I was trying to draw my uncle’s villa in the Toscana.”

    “Really? But then the picture is really horrible. You should probably give it a do-over and fix what’s wrong.”

    “No way I’m gonna do this, I’ve got artistic integrity!”

    “But the painting is crap.”

    “Yes, but it is artistic crap.”

    System shutdown because you can’t beat that logic.

    1. anaphysik says:

      The thing that most people forget about calling something ‘art’ is that it’s still perfectly legitimate to go on to call it *BAD* art. Being ‘art’ does not immunize your work from criticism.
      (Especially considering that the term ‘art’ could be applied to almost anything, or some aspect of anything.)

      1. Sumanai says:

        It’s also important to note that art especially should be criticised, since art, if anything, is worth it.

  110. Mechakisc says:

    I wanted to like Dragon Age, and Mass Effect.

    I couldn’t bring myself to play them. Something felt off.

    I’m replaying Baldur’s Gate between WoW: Dragon Soul raids, and it still feels the same to me, story-wise. The tech is a little dated, I’ll admit.

    I don’t know if that is simple rose colored nostalgia or something else, but I wonder if Fargo had as much to do with that game as Bioware.

    1. Sumanai says:

      I’ve had the same feelings towards Dragon Age and Mass Effect. With Dragon Age it was so strong I still haven’t even bought it.

      I don’t know if Fargo had a lot to do with it, but from what I’ve understood there’s not that many people at Bioware from the Baldur’s Gate team as it’s made to seem.

  111. Princess Rose says:

    Um, Shamus, I think you missed a couple of points there.

    First, the game clearly shows that Earth is okay (if you got 5000+ fleet strength – otherwise it burns to various degrees). For some (unexplained) reason, the Relays don’t explode so much as fall apart (for some reason).

    Does this make little-no sense? Yeah. But at least you DO save Earth assuming you have a large enough fleet. So there’s… that.

    Second, while the relays are gone, FTL drives still work. Ships are merely limited to individual clusters of stars. And, given enough time, ships CAN fly between clusters. They just better pack a lot of food and fuel.

    Speaking of which – we do have Dextro food on Earth. It’s used as an artificial sweetener. In real life. Seriously, look it up. The Turian/Quarian fleets will be drinking Diet Soda for nourishment.

    Third, Wrex and Miranda weren’t on the Normandy. Miranda was… whatever she said she was doing during the holo-chat. I’ve forgotten. Wrex was leading the Krogan troops on earth, and I’m pretty sure I saw him get killed by that Reaper before Shepard could get the missiles working.

    As for the rest, yeah, pretty much what you said.

    Just wanted to point out that things weren’t looking quite as bleak as you suggested. Nonsensical and badly written, yes, but not the galactic doom you suggested.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Sure,ftl works,but I doubt that the fleet has enough supplies to reach anything large enough to replenish them.Its a war fleet after all,prepared for a suicide mission.

      Even if turians and quarians can find some intact soda amongst the rubble,that would hardly satisfy the whole bunch of them.

      Wrex is on earth,but he had plans for tuchanka,which he wont be seeing now for a looooooooong time.If he didnt die like you said.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Someone else has mentioned that the “normal” FTL causes static charge that only dissipates near planets, so you can’t travel too long in the “cold” emptiness of space.

    2. zob says:

      It does show earth as ok but only before SOL relay explosion. Earth may have survived the flames of Citadel but SOL relay explodes after that. That is the problem. That causes destruction.

  112. Sandgolem says:

    thank you Shamus, fuck…I was getting really tired of like every game journalist argument against the fan backlash being “You just wanted a happy cake and ice cream ending” I was predicting that Shepard would probably die…I was expecting bittersweet with some closure. I got a slap in the face. This is the last Bioware product that I ever buy. EVER.

  113. Gary says:

    Not that it’s of much relevance, or does change the ending from terribad to slightly less so, but if you acquire +5000 war assets you can actually see a part of a soldiers chest and shoulder taking a gasp for breath, and (s)he’s wearing N7 dog tags.

    So I guess the best case scenario is for some post-ending DLC, but the thing is that it doesn’t matter. With all respect to the other writers of the series, Karpyshyn was the one who held the reins for the interesting story stuff in the series. With him gone, it’s just gonna be another piece written by the different authors. So basically there’s nothing to be done.

    And to those who aren’t aware of Karpyshyn, he’s extremely undervalued (ex?)videogame writer with having major roles in games such as:

    Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn
    Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
    Neverwinter Nights
    Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
    Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
    Jade Empire

    And as someone posted it above, here’s the link to his original ME endings http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/17086/mass-effect-writer-drew-karpyshyn-reveals-original-mass-effect-3-endings

  114. AJ says:

    Shamus, I love you man. I mean, none of these are new things to be brought up and the list of huge problems could keep going for another 4 pages of text but you always make me enjoy being upset with something. Somehow you add credibility to arguments I already knew and I appreciate that. So yeah, thanks.

  115. Justaidan says:

    Just chiming in about the Indoctrination Theory.
    At the start before it began to gain momentum the Mass Effect Twitter and Facebook were all “wink wink, wish we could talk about the ending hey heres a link” which lead on the bioware forums discussion possible indoctrination.

    As for subtle hints, did anyone kill Mordin? The gun you use isn’t used in any other cutscenes (which all default to that other one), Shepard throws this gun away afterwards, why? Because it is the gun Mordin gives you in ME2 when you meet him as a sign of “trust”.

    1. anaphysik says:

      Oh, wow, it’s the Carnifex? If so, that’s amazing.

      (Did not kill Mordin in my playthrough (could have never brought myself to do that, plus had Wrex and Eve alive), but did see it on a youtube vid, and this does sound plausible from my memory thereof.)

      IIRC, the Carnifex’s in-game marketing is based around a facing down a charging krogan, which would also tie in nicely with throwing it away after preventing the cure.

      (If I had to guess, though, I’d say these were coincidences.)

      1. anaphysik says:

        Also should note that I had warned them of the sabotage much earlier. I don’t even think there was an option to try to talk Mordin out of sacrificing himself – simply the option to say “I’m sorry,” to which Mordin responds awesomely.

        1. anaphysik says:

          Apparently the pistol you use against the heroic Marauder Shields right before the ending is also a Carnifex. The one Shep uses to shoot the space glowy thing in the Red Explosions end might be the same Carnifex as well?

          If so, I wonder if there’re some added (quite probably unintentional) thematic elements to that sequence, particularly for playthrough in which Mordin sacrifices himself and releases the cure.

  116. My problem with the ending?

    The options you’re given ARE NOT THE ONLY OPTIONS.

    It’s just like the end of Mass Effect 2. Blowing up the base or giving it to Cerberus are NOT your options, and if they are, it’s because the narrative hamstrung you by forcing you in league with Cerberus.

    In Mass Effect 3, you have three options, but they never explain why you can’t do part of one solution and part of another. They try to handwave it, but they never say why the ten thousand other solutions that someone could think of don’t work.

    Good writing explains why the choices are the way they are. They’ve given us interesting choices, but nowhere near the logical range. It’s just like a good GM who hasn’t taken into account player autonomy and comes up with a cool moral dilemma, only to see it get sniped by players who find an alternative.

  117. Matt says:

    Totally agree, and the part about constructing an uber weapon and shooting yourself in the foot to win just made tea come out of my nose :P

  118. John Burkhart says:

    Listen to yourselves!

    YOU are indoctrinated.

    Suspicion: It's all been a social experiment. And you *bit*.

    It's going to be the greatest plot twist in the history of gaming (if only to see Penny Arcade be forced to eat crow).

    Because it's a game, they didn't have to show the twist until *everyone* got a chance to experience the twist… at the same time!

    What's more, they got a ton of free publicity.

    Social Indoctrination

    1. Sumanai says:

      Not all publicity is good publicity. And Bioware didn’t need more publicity, so there’s nothing to gain from this, unless they intend to make money out of a new ending DLC. But that would further anger people, and make it less likely they’ll buy stuff from them in the future.

      The indoctrination theory, even if it were true, isn’t pulled off well. If you write a story that suffers from inconsistencies and shortcomings, you can’t then use inconsistencies and shortcomings as hints that “what you see isn’t what’s actually going on”. They have repeatedly made decisions that are based on The Rule of Cool and railroaded options before, were all of those signs of the indoctrination too?

      1. Jarenth says:

        I’ll accept that if Kai Leng turns out to be an indoctrination-based illusion.

    2. Kian says:

      There’s no money in social experiments. EA is a company interested in making a profit. You don’t need to be a genius to know that pissing off your customers is a bad business policy. This ending has cost them money.

      It’s cost them the money of people like me, who pre-ordered CE versions but won’t buy another game from them. It’s cost them the money of people who were waiting for reviews to decide whether to buy the game but won’t now that they read the disaster the ending was. It’s cost them the money of people who might have been drawn to buy the game after reading how awesome the trilogy was, were anyone saying that.

      I’ve already seen the game’s price discounted, because there aren’t enough sales. They had the sales for the first week until people started finishing it, then the sales tanked. This ending has cost them millions.

      It’s also counter-productive for their long term strategy. Even had they pulled it off perfectly, and people hadn’t gone on the internet blasting their non-ending, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot. They’d be teaching their customers not to buy the game as soon as it comes out but to wait until the ‘twist’ is out. Companies like pre-orders, they wouldn’t come up with new incentives to avoid them.

      1. Sumanai says:

        Make no mistake, if the Indoctrination Theory were true and they would’ve pulled the ending off successfully, there would be no fury online. It would’ve gained them sales instead of hurt them.

        That’s why Bioware did not “pull of the best ending in video games”. Because they have clearly screwed up, regardless of if you believe in the theory or not.

  119. ProudCynic says:

    Sorry if this has already been asked (you guys say a lot!) but are we going to get more posts on ME3? I think Cerberus probably deserves a whole post to mock them, between Kai Leng, the army that they probably could have used against the Collector Base for significantly less headache and their apparent ability to pop up wherever the game designers can’t think of/be arsed to create another enemy type (like that bomb on Tuchanka).

    Oh, and I would like to hear your thoughts on Mordin in the game. And the Geth/Quarian conflict, too. This game did have some really cool writing in it, which just makes the ending that much more awful by comparison.

    1. Sumanai says:

      I understand they’re planning on doing Mass Effect 3 in Spoiler Warning. Not next, but later.

  120. Dalendria says:

    I just can’t stop posting about this. Perhaps, it is my attempt at purging what I witnessed in the last 10 minutes of an amazing game.

    I heard people talking about not wanting to replay it because of the horrible ending. I have always had multiple replays of Mass Effect games so I just ignored them. I thought they were being a bit overdramatic.

    Now, I am almost done with Thessia on my 2nd playthrough and I can attest that replay value has been hurt by the bad ending. Some of the poignant things that the characters are saying this time around is laughable. Tali wondering what life will be like with the Geth on Rannoch. “It does not matter Tali because almost everyone dies after I set off the Crucible.” Liara grieving over the destruction of Thessia. “So what Liara, I am about to nuke the whole galaxy. So its let the Reapers destroy Thessia now or I will most likely do it later.” The scenes and my effort to collect war assets all seem so stupid on the 2nd playthrough. I was trying to change some things and went with my Renegade Shepard to see the different experiences. But when I play, I do keep thinking about the endings and the fact that the dialogue, sacrifices, collection, combat, etc do not matter – I will either take a breath in rubble or not after picking a color. So Bioware has effectively ruined replay for many and also, future purchases of DLC. Why would I want to go back to a wasteland that my Shepard created? Why would I want to see what happened before when I know it will not change the end? Why will I pay more money to a company that has already shown me it has lost touch with its customer base?

    As this goes on, I find myself getting more disgusted by all of this. I was not angry at first, just confused and disappointed. But I will be angry if it turns out that the ending was written with a DLC in mind. That would put this in the rip-off category.

  121. Johnny says:

    Maybe not having seen any of the marketing, I wasn’t expecting anything. I felt that the ending was, well, good. I’ve been reading up on all the criticism and maybe I’m just crazy or easy to please. The three pronged ending was a difficult choice for me after having played the first 2 right before release and I give mad props to the game for making me put my controller down several times and ponder what could happen, making me care deeply for 1’s and 0’s my Shepard was trying to save. Nothing of this war was going to be pretty and I enjoyed that for even how chosen one-y Shepard is, nothing he could do could return the galaxy to the way it was before. It wasn’t a happy ending, but it didn’t have to be. But I was satisfied.

  122. kevin lv says:

    I loved the catalyst bullet analogy. I think casey and mac may have shot me3 in the foot, if that me3 writer post is true.

    Have you read the dev communication log, off 4chan? It’s talking about a new ip, ‘mass shift’. It would basically continue from me3’s ending, starting with Sol Wars. Shepard would return as some catalyst hybrid named Advent. It could be completely fake, but that whole “hold on to your saves” could be for that.

    If this ending was built around supporting another ip (mass shift or other), it would make sense for bioware to staunchly defend the current ending; since they have a specific idea in the works.

    I hope that’s not the case, or they can full stop, finish me3 and shepard now.

    1. anaphysik says:

      But after this debacle… would enough/any people buy the thing even if it were real?

  123. AOPrinciple says:

    This is all great stuff IF the writers had nothing in mind with regard to any kind of indoctrination theory and were as utterly and incredulously inept as he makes them out to be. It’s because that kind of perspective leads to the laughable problems he indicates that I have a hard time understanding why he takes it for granted. Why assume that the writers had no idea how this thing was going to end while making Mass Effect 2?

    This all hinges on his assertion that if Shepard was being indoctrinated “We would know it”. Not at all! That’s a very strange thing to say. I certainly agree that the ending as is, taken at face value, is thematically unrecognizable from the rest of the trilogy and ME3 more immediately. For one, it removes the significance of player choice (not to mention the choices themselves) and reminds the player he is NOT, in fact, Commander Shepard. They’ve spent two games trying to make us believe that we ARE Shepard! Why jump to the conclusion that this is indeed the case? If the writers were actually going to finish the ME series they began, and not a novel by Albert Camus where people jump out windows, what would and should we expect? We should expect that in the final moments they may make an even more radical attempt to immerse the player and unite Shepard with the one (the player) who has lived in this universe through him.

    Throughout the series we have noticed the things Shepard has noticed and seen what he has seen. If Shepard didn’t point something out in the environment, we didn’t get it because he didn’t get it. The rub is that if the final moments of the trilogy (as of yet) are an indoctrination attempt by Harbinger we would view the world as Shepard views it. An attempt to indoctrinate Shepard is at the same time an attempt to indoctrinate the player!

    This makes sense not only theoretically but grants insight with which to understand otherwise altogether odd in-game occurrences under different circumstances. More and more are coming around the indoctrination theory in general because it is the most reasonable interpretation. It makes the story coherent, adds real depth and gravity to the experience, and makes the writers out to be the great storytellers we’ve known them to be since ME1. It also sheds light on extra-narrative content like the otherwise cryptic tweets left by Bioware employees. For as well thought out and written as this piece is, it’s based on a remarkably uncharitable and faulty assumption.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      However,they arent such great writers,as they have shown multiple times.They can shine at times,yes,but not always.

      Also,this was always advertised and talked about as trilogy.Me3 was advertised to be the game that answers all.And if that answer comes in a dlcs,then it will be just a rip-off.

      So,in the end,no matter what happens,it will be bad.Because bioware will either end up being really bad at writing,or sleazy at business.

      1. anaphysik says:

        My general belief on the matter is that they produced something “that would cause a lot of speculation” because they had no idea how to do the ending. BioWare was basically putting out their ‘artistic’ ending so that fans would do the actual work for them of explaining it.

        Indoctrination/hallucination theory simply happens to fit the nonsense BioWare produced uncannily well, and now they’re in a fine position to pluck all that creative work and produce an actual continuation ending to the game.

        I mean, really, it doesn’t matter if it was truly their original intention all along (heck, or even from the very beginning (which would be completely unbelievable)) – plagiarizing the fans is the way I and many others will see it should BioWare go that path. And if they don’t produce (in the sense of fund, primarily) the creative output these fans have put together, then they really will have left the series at a shitty place.

        So, yes, indeed, your assessment of ‘screwed it up either way’ is very in line with my thinking.

    2. Dreadjaws says:

      Look, it doesn’t matter if the Indoctrination Theory happens to be true, it doesn’t change the fact that the entire thing is poorly written.

      Why give us the best ending after getting the least amount of resources? Why all the endings look the same, be they real or not? Why is Shepard an idiot? Why, be it good or bad, real or in your mind, the relays get destroyed, killing billions and condemning billions more?

      The Indoctrination Theory doesn’t fix things, it only makes them stupid in a different way.

  124. Chuck says:

    I **LIKED** the ending. I chose the green ending, which I suspect most people choose by default given their predilection to charge headlong into Brilliant Shafts Of Godly Transcendence.

    Lack closure? Holy crap, you just brought an end to an otherwise eternal cycle of bloodshed by martyring yourself and bringing about a reign of peace and “eternal life” for the civilizations of the galaxy (or at least longer than a few cycles). I’m pretty sure that’s a note to go out on. exeunt.

    What I didn’t like was how abrupt and disjointed the whole ending sequence was, starting from the weird slow-mo-marionette faceoff (concluding with yet another baddie shooting himself in the head to get away from Jennifer Hale’s raspy voice). Yes, the cycle is well established, but the notion that it was being directed externally was only hinted at, and never for a reason. When Sovereign spoke on Vermire, it was chilling. How cool would it have been to have the “big picture” of the cycle explained by Harbinger?

    Great ending, just terribly flawed in execution, not concept.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Lack closure? Holy crap, you just brought an end to an otherwise eternal cycle of bloodshed by martyring yourself and bringing about a reign of peace and “eternal life” for the civilizations of the galaxy (or at least longer than a few cycles).”

      But you didnt do that.You removed one extinction,and replaced it with another.Even if we assume that the ending explosion of mass relays is somehow different,there is still he problem of that huge fleet above the devastated earth,that cant go anywhere,and will be needing plethora of food soon.And then all the colonies that were devastated by war and cannot rebuild on their own.Therell be no peace,and certainly no eternal life for the majority of the galaxy(geth excluded).

  125. JMA says:

    2 points to add to an otherwise fantastic article:

    1) Cerberus – They became infinitely powerful somewhere along the way by “indoctrinating” refugee civilians, and have an unlimited army thanks to Reaver technology. That’s the best excuse I can offer.

    2) The Normandy – This was the worst part for me by far regarding the ending. Not only were they maybe or maybe not going through a mass relay, but after the crash Ashley (who was a squadmate on the final mission) magically crawls out of the Normandy when she was supposed to still be on Earth. I assumed everyone except Shepphard was blow’d up running for the portal, but apparently she never joined the last charge, and instead somehow got picked up by the Normandy.

    And where the hell did they land??? Was that a protoplanet with two moons? Oh great! They all either starve to death or live out the rest of their lives marooned on a jungle planet, eating bugs and battling alien diseases.

    I’m glad you echoed the 2nd worst ending of all-time, KOTOR 2, which literally made me scream. This was even worse.

    One more point: Both choices at the very end led to almost the EXACT SAME cinematic, with either an orange blast or blue blast. The Reavers either collapsed into lifeless husks or lifted up and flew away somewhere. Same cinematic with the Normandy exactly. So much for choices making any damned difference whatsoever.

    It’s literally like the designers ran out of time and interest. Games ended like this 20 years ago, but Bio-Ware really, really damaged their reputation in my book.

  126. Sumanai says:

    I have a hypothesis on what happened at Bioware. I will share it partially because I want to get it out.

    What we see is what happens. Bioware ran out of time and rushed the ending. After they, or at least Hudson, saw the wrath and bile rise up, they decided to make it look like fans were complaining about the ending being a downer. Hence the questionnaire in the forums that had the options that the ending was “great”, “good” and “too depressing”.

    The plan was that they would then release ending DLC that made it over the top happy. If fans would hate it for being saccharine they would most likely be more accepting towards the original. Then Bioware would say that “the fans have come to their senses”. If they like it over the original, then Bioware will complain that “fans couldn’t handle a bittersweet ending”.

    But something took them by surprise. Fans were able to come up with an insane interpretation that suited the existing ending. And not only were they praising it, they were saying stuff like “the best ending in the history of video games”. This was great. They could turn the ship right around. But what if there’s a huge plot hole hiding right behind the corner for this theory?

    They’d have to wait for a month or two so the fans would patch the theory up as well as possible and any mistakes they would’ve done would come up. Meanwhile they could make the ending DLC that would make it canon. They just need to pick which variant of the Indoctrination Theory fits the best and covers the most holes.

    Can anyone go more cynical? Note that I expect it to cost money and that they will flaunt their “superior writing skills”.

  127. joe says:

    wow… really? you say you don’t believe the indoctrination theory before going on to say how much you hate everything else, how it doesn’t make sense and how far-fetched and desperate it is. This surely would put the indoctrination theory forward because it’s pretty much the only explanation that makes sense as the underlying theme for a lot of it. It sounds like you want to hate it and so discard the clever alternative.
    Mass effect, also, has not been TOTALLY RUINED 4EVA. The story and everything leading up to the ending was epic. And hell, I even liked the ending.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Like it was mentioned here already,for the indoctrination theory to be correct,you have to assume that these are brilliant writers,that also wanted to screw everyone over with a sequel/dlc bait,and thats just as bad as them being stupid hacks who didnt know how to finish this well.

      As for how it ruined the series forever,read what Dalendria wrote a few comments above.

      If you can like it,thats great for you.But plenty of people hate it,and they cannot just erase it from their minds.

      1. joe says:

        I agree that relying on DLC isn’t the way to go and maybe they have screwed us. However, I feel they are brilliant writers, shown by how much everybody clearly cares that the ending didn’t live up to the rest of the series. I disagree with the article that it was a quick job where they made it up as they went along because that just defies all logic.

        I know what dalendria is saying and I certainly agree to some extent but it is ultimately the ending to a series. Plus the fact it’s left relatively open makes me want to play it again.
        However, I do wish the endings differed because, as they stand, they are insanely similar in the overall effect (hopefully DLC can fix that).

        Going with indoctrination, there’s still much more to come, much more DIFFERENT things to hopefully arise, the god child can f*** off and we’ll hopefully get an ending with more possibilities.

        If you’re not a ‘believer’, give this a look: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QT4IUepvrU1pfv_B95oQj0H84DlCTUmzQ_uQh1voTUs/edit?pli=1

        I find it hard to believe BW would overlook so much.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          “However, I feel they are brilliant writers, shown by how much everybody clearly cares that the ending didn't live up to the rest of the series”

          There is a saying in my country:”Its a bad cow that gives 50 liters of milk in one go,but in the end kicks and spills the whole thing.”.I just cannot call bioware brilliant when they vary so wildly with their writing.Its even worse than having mediocre writers,because those would always be mediocre.But when you have peaks of awesomeness,the bad parts end up looking even worse.

          It seems like it defies logic,but just look at the incredible inconsistencies between the three games.Cerberus,for example,is the most obvious example of how something is set up to be one thing,but was later retconned.Then there is shepard dying in the beginning of 2(what was the point of her surviving in the end of 1,if they were going to just kill her again?If this was planned in advance,why not kill her in the end of 1,and then have her resurrected?).Or the thermal clips,and inconsistencies with them appearing on planets isolated from the rest of the galaxy for quite some time.And there are more examples like those.Such inconsistencies appear either when you change writers between the works,or when writers are rushed.

          But Ive said it before,and I stick by it:if the indoctrination theory ends up being true,Im buying the damn thing,even if its sleazy business.I prefer sleazy over stupid,after all.

        2. Sumanai says:

          http://jmstevenson.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/all-that-matters-is-the-ending-part-2-mass-effect-3/

          Near the end he comments on the Indoctrination Theory.

          Here are some arguments against it (I’ll make a separate arguing against your particular variant of the theory):

          If true, Shepard breaks the Indoctrination when s/he presses the red button (Good Destruction ending). Why are we shown the explosion? This was all supposed to be inside Shepard’s head, right? And everything is created by the Reapers? So the Reapers are still influencing Shepard, despite having lost control? That doesn’t make sense.

          Then, if true, why isn’t there gameplay after we see Shepard breathing? The only explanation is that Shepard is too wounded to do anything. But then why are the Reapers bothering to indoctrinate Shepard? Obviously s/he can’t do anything to help the fight.

          Unless, the Crucible actually does what is shown and they’re trying to get Shepard to use it the way they want through an illusion. Which gets us back into “the ending sucks big balls”.

          1. Sumanai says:

            The following is arguing for: 1. What is being said in joe’s link isn’t the only valid interpretation. 2. It’s sensible to assume Bioware just dropped the ball and the Indoctrination Theory is not canon.

            Note that: Bioware has revealed the ending was still unfinished in December and that there’s a rumour (it’s likely the source was one of the writers at Bioware) that Hudson and one other writer wrote the ending and didn’t ask for input from any of the others.

            1.1 From what I remember of this part, they’re trying to contact people through radio, not visual contact.

            Anderson getting through first doesn’t make any sense, unless you realise this isn’t the real world, and that scenes are not necessarily made in order or on the same day. They could’ve noticed they needed Anderson there, but not remember to justify him being there.

            1.2 They knocked Shepard out for drama. They weren’t thinking about how the Anderson got there, because they were running out of time.

            Superheroes/-powers: all biotics (honorary mention for Jack), tech skills, Shepard being Space Jesus since ME2 and The Illusive Man is a badly written supervillain. Actually, Saren.
            Magical coincidences: The beacon at the beginning of ME1 has one, and exactly one, charge left just enough for Shepard to get hit and then breaks down so no-one else can use it for proof. The council conveniently beliefs a bad recording of a conversation. The Crucible’s existence. Shepard running into many, many, familiar faces in ME 2 by accident and all those people who joined Cerberus and therefore end up in the Normandy II right from the beginning.

            If you don’t see that ME is very much a story about superheroes and magical coincidences, you’re not giving the ME series a critical look.

            “Makes the story nigh impossible.” Like the resurrection of Shepard at the beginning of ME2?

            1.3 Because it’s plot convenient. Isn’t the first time Bioware have done that either.

            1.4 Placing a starting point for a segment in the exact same location as where the player was before a loading moment is extra time for the coders and potentially risky, in case they happened to be in a bad place for any reason. So standard “respawn” point for everyone.

            1.5 Just like the writer says. Art department was told to give Shepard a hurt look. Why is the face unhurt? Because players can adjust the face. Making different damage art for different hair styles and faces is a lot of work. They were hurting for time. So not gonna happen.

            1.6 For the love of. He points out, right here, that it seems like Bioware is trying to cover their ass by having convenient points for retconning. How is it impossible that that is exactly what they were going for? That they had no grand plan, just a hope that if the ending was not liked the fans would come up with explanations that they then could claim as their own.

            Bioware has before done stuff that sets an atmosphere without any reason. It’s also possible they just thought it was dramatic. Or allowed them to make the scenes in pieces.

            1.7 Yes, that is surely the only possible reason why that is. Couldn’t have possibly been that Bioware wanted to remove the HUD for dramatic effect and therefore found it sensible to remove the ammo counter. Or that they weren’t worried that the player gets in with too little ammo and can’t finish.

            I’ll finish this later. That piece of “logical” breakdown is giving me a headache.

          2. Sumanai says:

            2. Most of these can be explained with “they were running out of time”. They quickly made a handful of locations and events, which were put together without time to check that the seams are alright.

            2.1 It’s common in movies to lose or gain items, people and the situation to change. If the result is visible enough it gives the scenes a dreamlike feel, or that they were rushed. Doesn’t mean it was intentional. Shepard’s reaction to hearing Anderson’s voice is reasonable, even if you don’t expect anyone to be there.

            2.3 Where’s 2.2? Anyway, like above it’s a scene transition mistake. There’s a word for those in the film industry, but I can’t remember what it is. It’s not like the comment makes a lot of sense in a “this an illusion put up by the Reapers” sense either.

            2.4 It’s really common in video games to have areas with one way inside and an NPC saying they came in through “another route”. It’s a simple mistake. They could’ve been planning on a bigger place, but couldn’t make it.

            “This is not how rational people think” Anderson is fictional. There’s nothing to prevent him from starting dancing right in the middle of the conversation. I’d also like to note conversations with Kaiden/Ashley, Miranda and Jack to prove that not all of Bioware’s writers have a grasp on rational behaviour.

            “…not how military operations work” Joker is your contact in ME1 when you’re driving on a planet. Which is also against how things are done in the military. I think it’s pretty obvious Bioware has the barest of grasps on the topic.

            “Changing” so Anderson is being indoctrinated? If this is supposed to be a dream sequence, shouldn’t the walls or environment be changing, instead of Anderson saying so?

            “I see something up ahead” Recorded before they set up the scene.

            “…to the point one suspect of doing it intentionally.” I’d appreciate if the writer would stop trying to manipulate me. If this were the first time I’d let it pass, but he seems to be doing it constantly.

            Having Anderson talk about the place changing could be to hide the fact that no-one had time to redesign the place in such a way as to allow another way in for Anderson.

            An argument that is based on the opinion that Bioware writers are too good to screw up like this and that they wouldn’t add unnecessary crap. The beginning of ME2. Shepard dies and is resurrected for no good reason.

            Where did the numbers go?

            3. “…Seems Intentionally Surreal.” See what I mean about trying to manipulate?

            3.1 Uh. From what I remember Shepard bleeds later. Also the ME wiki curiously mentions that Shepard shoots Anderson in the stomach. Shepard bleeds from the shoulder. It doesn’t matter which side has been hurt, because Bioware has shown in the past that they’re willing to follow Rule of Cool over consistency anyway.

            3.2 “therefore Shepard is indoctrinated. Period.” Online there have been several mentions of The Illusive Man having control over other people due to him getting Reaper tech. “The power THEY have” is the tech. It’s figure of speech. If I get a law passed by bribing I could easily say “look at the power of money” because the power that I had over the politicians came from the money.

            But I’m done. I am not reading anymore of that. There’s only so much delusional thinking I’m willing to read on a given topic. Every argument until I stopped reading sounded like a mad man grasping straws and insisting that what he says is “the only truth”. That compounded by the attempts to manipulate the reader made it a distasteful experience.

            And then he went on and actually wrote “Period.” So he is the smartest person in the universe and can therefore come up with all the possible ways the scene could be interpreted and can therefore dictate that the discussion is over.

            The writer of that piece went through denial, anger, bargaining and then in madness jumped straight back into denial.

        3. Sumanai says:

          Watching this:
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MlatxLP-xs

          Early in the video he asks what happens to the Quarians or other people who are cyborgs (have synthetic parts in them) in the destruction endings, since it’s supposed to kill Shepard because of those synthetic parts.

          If the indoctrination is supposed to discourage you from choosing the destruction ending, why isn’t Casper telling you it will destroy Geth and Quarians at the very least? After the “Geth will be destroyed” is meaningless to someone who decided to work against them.

          Looking from the POV of the Indoctrination Theory this is suggesting that what the ghost kid is saying is true. That the correct way of going is destroying all synthetic life forms, since thinking like that gives you a clear winner of all the options. Which is supposed to be the correct one if you want to fight against the brainwash.

          In that video there’s a clip from this:
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15E45Slj4mU&feature=related

          It reminds me of Star Control 2, but I can’t pin it down.

    2. Shamus says:

      “Mass effect, also, has not been TOTALLY RUINED 4EVA.”

      The final line of the article was intended to be comical, ironic, and self-deprecating. The setup is in the intro.

  128. Yuuji says:

    This series isn’t over yet. Many of Bioware’s team on Mass Effect has stated this isn’t the end that is waiting to explain in more details. Refraining themselves from telling spoilers. Not that it’s the indoctrination theory or whatever, but that Mass Effect 3 isn’t the end.

    1. Rhesus Monkeys says:

      I think that is partly the problem. Bioware claimed this third installment would answer our questions and end Shepard’s story. How do you tie loose ends and give the gamer multiple options and still leave a way out to set up the fourth game? I’m not even sure how any new entry can be as important than this was suppose to be.

      The endings provided by Bioware was the illusion of choice. No matter how you examine it, ALL the endings are the same. When you consider the primary goal is to stop the Reapers, all decisions lead to the same conclusion. Those that were baffled and upset by the endings need to pull the red curtain away to see the real truth. None of your decisions mattered. All those moral dilemas you thought long and hard on before making a decision doesn’t matter. Notice the progression from ME1 to ME2. You have actually been playing a shooter game and pretending that you were making important decisions. If you can see it for what it is… THE ULTIMATE PLOT TWIST- this is a shooter game all along- the ending turns out to be perfect.

      1. Alex says:

        I freakin wish! I might actually appreciate something like that.

        But in the tradition of M. Night Shyamalamadingdong, the twist ends up being worse than “It was plants”, “They’re allergic to water”, and “BUT THEN WHO WAS PHONE” put together.

    2. Sumanai says:

      They’ve also talked about “clarifying” the ending, which sounds ominous.

      1. Alex says:

        Right, because the problem is that we didn’t understand it, not that it didn’t make any damn sense.

        …Clearly.

  129. TSi says:

    Shamus, I just replayed Mass Effect 2 and if you play like I do, you should know that collecting ALL resources from planets by sending there probes makes it YOUR FAULT that Cerberus is that wealthy and powerful in ME3… just saying. ;p

  130. ltk says:

    I’m a bit perplexed that, in this context, nobody is discussing the mother of all nonsense in the ME story – the fact that nobody believes you at the end of ME1 / beginning of ME2.
    Any sensible galactic government would react very seriously at the possibility of Shepard telling the truth. In the face of an enemy of such obvious technological superiority, they would isolate the Citadel, get their hands on every single ounce of Reaper tech and analyze it to bits, regardless of expense. Considering we’re talking about a station in space and the potential extermination of all civilization it should be doable. Even if it was possible that only one more Reaper may appear, let alone thousands. At that point – at the latest; assuming that they still don’t trust Shepard for some insane reason – they would also confirm (or at least test the theory) that the Citadel and the Relays were created by the Reapers, which, even outside the context of the crisis surrounding the Battle of the Citadel, would be impossible to ignore. The way this is treated in the game… well, leaves a lot to be desired.

    Also, another huge question mark – the relationship between the Reapers and the Relays they apparently created. Surely they’d have the means to turn them off. It’s hard to imagine a galactic war between two forces, if only one of them has full control over the only method of long range galactic transportation. If they don’t – why? The question seems to me to deserve at least cursory treatment.

    I’m also disappointed by the incoherent ending, but why are we so surprised?

    1. Rhesus Monkeys says:

      I believe the truth of the mass relays and the creation of the Reapers should remain concealed. It is this unknown knowledge that makes the Reapers so god-like creatures. If I can scrub that ridiculus god-child out of my mind, I may still think of them as powerful deities, each a nation.

      I think what makes the ending so lame is everything I learned from ME1. It’s like Bioware didn’t care about the foundation in what it created and only considered elements from the second game.

      Based on what we learn from ME1, the Reapers would have taken control of the Citadel and de-activated the relys. The races would have been divided and conquered one solar system at a time. Shepard would not have been parading around trying to unite the races- the fight would have remained on Earth.

  131. Alex says:

    I see most people saying “we don’t need a saccharine, perfect happy ending.” and while I agree, why can’t we at least have a happy ending? It’s not too much to ask that Shepard live, the Reapers leave, and the Mass Relays remain intact. These would be the bare minimum for what I would truly enjoy as a happy ending. Bittersweet would include one of those three going away, and bad would have the Reapers winning.

    Why can’t I have my good ending? I’m fine with bittersweet, like a happy ending that is twinged with some unintended consequences. But I want all of my excellent choices to pay off. I played my game perfectly, I made all the choices I wanted and solved all of the problems I wanted. Now, I want to see Shepard rewarded with free everything forever and then retire to a beachfront house on Rannoch, with Tali. Why is the “Awards Ceremony” ending of Star Wars (Ep 4) not a perfectly viable option? What I want is a payoff for all of that investment of emotion and moral soul-searching.

    Going back a bit, the Reapers winning should at least be a freaking option. “You fail. The end” drives home that your choices matter, and that you made the wrong ones. It’s obvious when you have a high enough strength to succeed against the Reapers (EMS). In ME2, if you didn’t prepare enough, you paid the consequences. You succeeded in the short-term, but you all died. That’s a consequence. In ME3, if you don’t bother to prepare enough, if you do everything wrong, you still destroy all the Reapers. So much for consequences.

    Now, I don’t think I have a right to demand a damn thing of Bioware. They let me down, that’s the end of it. I could claim a bit of false-advertising, but nothing legally enforceable. Even if I could, I still wouldn’t. This isn’t the functionality of a product that has been deceptive. They didn’t sell me a blank DVD. I was simply unhappy with a piece of art. I have no legal recourse for interpretation. It’s part of what protects the Freedom of Speech.

    What I can do is appeal to their nature as artists and craftsmen who put so much time and effort into their work. There is NO WAY that they can be happy with this. This ending can’t make more sense to them than it does to us. This is the only way to get artists to change their art: by having them see what you see.

    Barring that, I can appeal to EA the only way that one can: with money. In the market, your dollar is your vote. Remember this and vote wisely.

    Now, if they try to release this as DLC and charge for it, that will be truly dickish. I would blame EA, in that case. Whatever happened to the days of free DLC? So much for that. Thanks, EA.

  132. John the Savage says:

    The thing that bothers me the most about the organics vs synthetics thing is that this god-child is clearly synthetic. If what he says is true, and synthetics will always rise against their creators, why the hell does he care about organics in the first place? Why not just destroy all organic life and be done with it? His point isn’t just undercut by the rest of the game, his point undercuts itself.

  133. Dreadjaws says:

    Excellent analysis, Shamus. I’m only commenting now because I finished the game a couple of days ago. I agree with all your points, although I don’t believe the Indoctrination Theory should be ignored it because “we would know it”. I believe it should be ignored because it doesn’t make any goddamn sense.

    For the IT to work, you’d have to ignore the previous games’ history. For one, I don’t remember (and please correct me if I’m wrong) any of the games saying the indoctrination causes hallucinations. As far as I know, it only causes obedience. Sure, the hallucinations might be caused by Shepard having been hit by Harbinger’s beam and receiving major trauma, but that illustrates my second point:

    One part of the IT claims that it makes no sense for Harbinger to just leave after hitting Shepard without noticing she (my Shepard is a woman, so I’m going to refer to Shepard as “she”) is still alive. But then tell me, if Shepard is indeed hallucinating and Harbinger hasn’t left, why the heck Harbinger didn’t disintegrate Shepard, knowing how much of a threath she is? She is unconscious right there!

    Also, if all that Starchild bullpoop is happening inside Shepard’s head, how come she never questions the Starchild’s nonsense? People claim this is an ambiguous thing, and Shepard isn’t really having this conversation, and the only way she’s reacting is by choosing the ending, by either destroying the reapers or falling victim to complete indoctrinaction, but to my fourth point:

    If the “Destruction” ending is the real one and the other two are happening inside Shepard’s head, why are they identical? Has Shepard become a sightseer and now she can accurately predict what would happen in real life and apply it to her fantasy?

    Furthermore, if all of this is happening inside Shepard’s mind and she’s not really on the Citadel, but on Earth, unconscious under rubble, how in the freaking heck can she activate the Crucible?

    And how about the evidence outside the game? If this was the true story, why did Bioware put a poll that only let you say you didn’t like the game because it was sad instead of for other reasons? Why did a writer claim the ending was supposed to be about Dark Energy until around November, a fact which is supported by the previous games in the series? Why in the iPad app “ME3: The Final Hours” the developers claim they considered indoctrination for some time but ultimately decided not to go with it? Why do all that if this theory were true?

    I think the writers at Bioware liked the idea after people started coming up with it. Otherwise, if all this stunt were true, it would mean they’d be ripping off yet another game (besides Deus Ex and The Curse of Monkey Island) for ME3’s ending: Metal Gear Solid 2 tried a similar stunt several years ago, as I commented in the Game Informer article on the IT. It was as big an outrage as this one (well, not as big, being the internet not what it is now).

    Be it true or not, the Indoctrination Theory doesn’t change the fact that most of the game is poorly written, the ending ignores previous in-game lore, takes away your choices and explodes the mass relays, effectively causing more damage than the Reapers would, even if those explosions didn’t destroy the star systems.

    But what really, really infuriates me is the little message you get after the ending, encouraging to purchase DLC. The moment I saw it I almost rip my PC from its desk and throw it outside the window. If all this stunt happens to be true, it would be much worse than if the ending was just crappy.

    In short: “Hi. I’m Commander Shepard and this is my least favorite ending in the history of gaming.”

    OK, I’m done. It’s too long a rant for a comment no one is going to be reading anyway.

    1. Indy says:

      That datapad was the single most obnoxious part of this game but nobody ever brings it up. It comes across as self-congratulatory right after you’ve been gaping at the screen for ten minutes trying work out if that really was the ending.

  134. Even says:

    So I changed my mind and decided to get the game, if only to be done with the series. Finish what you started and all that, for whatever it’s worth. Reached the ending about an hour ago and it left me with an odd numb feel. The kind of “What the hell now?” “What is this going to mean?” “Why?”. Not angry, just a little confused and irritated. Goes pretty much for the whole series for me at this point I suppose. Your criticism seems pretty much spot on.

    1. Even says:

      Now that the dust has settled, I figured I’d put down some of my own thoughts about the ending.

      Frankly, the ending just doesn’t work. Artistically it just feels like an attempt at being clever without actually thinking things through and thematically it barely makes any sense. The indoctrination theory just feels insulting when the series never made any sort of sensible build-up towards it. The “fact” videos and articles I’ve seen contain mostly just massive and very wide speculation. The amount of indisputable facts being fairly close to zero, for me to believe in it would require a lot of faith and I just can’t find it. It’s been kinda sad to see some of its defenders cling on to it only because, according to them, it’s the “only way to save the horrible ending”.

      There was definitely the potential for it, but looking at the way Shepard’s character develops over the first two games, it just isn’t there. The only things in ME3 I could ever see working for the theory were the hamfisted dream sequences and the equally hamfisted little kid, but they made more sense to me as an indication of a possible Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (which by itself feels hardly justified after the almost non-existent character development in ME2), what with the voices of the dead.

      Even if at the end of the day the theory turned out to be true, it just wouldn’t make the ending any better for me.

      One thing that could have saved the ending would have been keeping true to the series’ themes. Instead we get a bunch of nonsense about synthetics vs. organics which is mostly in contradiction with everything we as a player and Shepard as a character knows about synthetics, which doesn’t give any ground to believe what the Catalyst is saying in the first place. In the confusion of the moment I figured I was just being bullshitted and just went for the sweet orange warmth of the destruction ending, because hey, fuck any villains trying to half-assedly convince me they’re right, especially when they don’t make any sense or they’re a horribly written smug snake à¡ la TIM.

      If, given how the Galactic Readiness scoring suggests, the Green Magic Beam a.ka Synthesis is the best ending, then it opens a whole new can of worms. Sure, you save the Geth, but the implications are otherwise potentially just pure horrid. You can’t even really compare it to the Deus Ex series’ synthesis, because the themes just don’t support it in ME3. Not only does the synthesis get explained in Deus Ex, it also gets a rational argument and it gets well defined lines as to what happens. Humanity has through history proven it is uncapable of achieving peace with itself, a true unity and therefore it must be elevated. The end result is everybody getting nanites. It fits the themes of the game perfectly. Take ME3, where humanity has gone far beyond of that of humanity in Deus Ex. And it’s not just humanity, but several different sapient species have done it as well, and many of them have come together to rule the galaxy in harmony. It may not be perfect, but damn if it isn’t fairly stable. If not for the Reapers, the galaxy would still be a fairly nice place to live in. The argument that the synthesis could make for an objectively better universe is running on a very thin ice, especially when it doesn’t even define what it would ultimately mean.

      I think the only truly bittersweet thing about the ending was the satisfaction of reaching the end meeting with the horrible disappointment for the end itself. If that was the intent all along, Hudson gets a 10/10 from me.

      1. Even says:

        An ending that would work a lot better:

        Symbiosis.

        Stop the non-sensical cyclical genocide and instead work with the organics to achieve a better future together. No color-coded magic beams.

        All the justification for it would be already in the game if you managed to make peace between the Geth and the Quarians. It would make for a satisfactory ending without throwing all the original themes out the airlock. Alas.

  135. zephon says:

    shepard and his team make a final run for the beacon, right before reaching it harbinger lands and begins showering the land with his energy beams devistating the majority of the ground troops. taunting shepard with cryptic remarks harbinger keeps blasting away at the ground toops when suddenly he begins taking fire.

    the normandy has arrived.under the cover of the normandy a shuttle lands. emerging from the shuttle are all of shepards living squad members throught the series, armed with heavy weapons the join shepard to make the final push toards the beacon. the normandy pulls back from the attack taking heavy fire.

    BOSS BATTLE: Harbinger

    all living squad memebrs can be picked to form multiple teams that will take harbinger down. (spoilers on the fight later)

    ::cutscene::
    after another direct hit harbinger stumbles back and falls to one leg. quickly recovering he starts taunting shepard once again, firing up his primary weapon when harbinger starts taking heavy fire from the normandy wich is closing in on harbinger at incredible speed until crashing directly into harbinger itself ripping almost straight through it. destroying both in a glorius explosion scene.
    ::cutscene end::
    EDI makes it aware that she took full control of the ship and no members were on board at the time of impact.

    shepard and his team make it to the beacon, reaching the citadel.

    Similar to what we have already seen the citadel is littered with the bodies of its inhabitants. while there are multiple paths that can be taken your goal is clearly visible in the distance. fighting your way through multiple husks you finally reach the connection point for the crucible and the citadel.

    ::cutscene::
    you near a lone console and as you get closer it begins to activate itself. a hologram of the crucible becomes visible along with multiple strings of text.(anyone currently in your party that is familiar with the prothean language makes a comment. javik gets a special cutscene)

    shepard activates the crucible.

    ::Cuscene::

    as the citadel begins to open up the battle above earth rages on, the casulaties are high, morale is getting low. the reapers are winning. the fleets protecting the crucible / citadel can barley hold back as the reapers start breaking off heading straight for the crucible.

    fully opened the citadel begins to light up. speculation begins to stir through the squad as it appears the citadles mass relay has been activated when suddenly everything goes dark. silence stirs for a few mometns until the crucible starts to detach from the citadel.

    moments pass…

    it didnt work.

    a defeated shepard falls to the ground watching as the battle raging around him is slowly being lost. all he can manage to say is “it wasnt enough” with his crew arguing around him all shepard can hear is the sound of lives being lost around him and the screams of the people he left behind on earth.

    shepard gets on the com with hackett to tell him the bad news and to try and get whatever remains of the fleet to flee when suddenly the crucible begins to light up, looking similar to a mass relay.

    at this point every reaper can be seen heading towards the crucible disregarding everything else

    the crucible appears fully operational but still nothing is happening. the team begins to speculate when suddenly a small probe appears from through the crucible.

    the fight around the crucible rages on, the victory fleet is making its last stand when out of the crucible comes an unkown vessel.

    appearing suddenly the vessel quickly begins firing on a reaper ship, blasting straight through its armor, killing it.

    another vessel comes through the relay, then 10 more then a fleet.
    with incredible firepower and increasing numbers they begin to seemingly exterminate the reapers with ease. while shepards fleet begins to push forward with renewed morale and hope.

    as shepard and his team watch in awe as the unkown force cuts right through through the reapers defenses liara stands next to shepard, eyes wide and says,

    “”prothean. those are prothean ships.””

    after a cutscene of the final reaper meeting its end you and your squad are now back on earth with a prothean ambassador. he explains how the crucible was originally a top secret plan by the empire to replicate the mass relay system only reaching further out than the current relays allowed.

    originally considered a failure, one of the relays was lost through a black hole. production on another was in the works until the reapers began their assault.

    a century later the empire decided they needed to escape the reapers or they would all perish. they decided that regardless of what may lie on the other side of the crucibles relay field that had to give it a shot. the reapers quickly caught on and destroyed the crucible, but not before they managed to send multiple fleets through. The entire ordeal was kept quiet due to indoctrination, they did not want the reapers to be able to follow then wherever they ended up. without the citadel to power it, or the resources to build it the protheans decided to leave the plans in the hands of who they thought would be the rulers of the next cyclem. so they traveled to the sol system and left the plans on a neighboring planet as to not disturb their evolution.

    later everyone eats cake.

    1. Thaniell says:

      That would have been a great happy ending. And if you don’t have enough galactic might, the thing gets damaged by the reapers and explodes after the Protheans arrive, taking Earth and a large portion of the fleet with it. And if you’re even weaker, the reapers destroy it without you being able to press any buttons. That would give meaning to the damn strength points and your choices would ultimately matter – also, good reason for a ‘better’ playthrough instead of just reloading the savegame from before the button pushing ;D

  136. LMR says:

    I have to wonder if you’ve examined how the Extended Cut addresses almost everything you gripe about here. I have to assume that you’re too determined to be upset at Mass Effect to bother trying, or to let it change your mind at all.

  137. csm says:

    Regarding the choice about the mass relays exploding, I’d like to note that even if that was the case, not every Krogan, Turian, or Quarian was sent to Earth to fight. There was maybe 1000 or so of each. Yet, there was probably a billion or so of each still fighting on Palaven, Rannoch, or Tuchanka. You just wanted to make the choice to destroy the Reapers and have everyone go back home.

    This game is about choices and consequences. Make a hard choice, and live with the consequences. Don’t go to Bioware that it’s too hard a choice to make and you want them to soften it up so it’s easier to take.

    This game teaches you to be a leader. Leaders make the hard choices and live with the consequences. If they can’t do that, then this game isn’t for you.

    As for what happened to your crew after the war? Closure for them? Closure for them came before the ending happened. Just like your quote says, Mass Effect 3 was designed as several endings to stories and such. Each mission is like a chapter and at the end, you get a resolution to each story, character or situation.

    Also they told you before the game launched it wouldn’t end with “beat Reapers, proceed with medal ceremony (closure)”. Besides, this was Shepard’s story, not the story of the entire galaxy. Shepard’s story ends with him dying in 98% of the endings aside from one.

    They didn’t need to tie up every single race and every single character in the Mass Effect universe because Mass Effect 3 was all about Shepard’s story arc. All those characters were just along for the ride to help you achieve your goal.

    Catalyst is a Reaper in disguise, you’d know that if you read the codex. Reaper disguised as a child to convince Shepard to control/synthesis rather than destroy them. Why do you think it doesn’t want to have Shepard to pick the destroy option? Oh yeah, it wants to live. Self-preservation. Not to mention, it throws some psychological manipulation in there, where it says “if you don’t pick control/synthesis, I’m going to threaten to destroy the mass relays. So you better pick those options or else”. And all the people just did and believed whatever the kid said as truth.

    You essentially sided with the Reapers and betrayed all your friends if you pick anything other than the destroy option, which is what you’ve been wanting to do since the first game.

  138. Bartendelous says:

    If someone still reads the comments and this particular article, let me assure you that Smudboy is working with other people to fix Mass Effect 3.

    http://thesecondslice.blogspot.ca/2014/03/fixing-me3-submit-your-ideas.html

  139. Dork Angel says:

    Yes, I know it's now 2014 but I've just finished Mass Effect 3 (also played 2 but not 1) and dammit I want to talk about it regardless of whether my comments get read or not. Waiting this long meant I got the extended endings and I was aware of the controversy so I had lowered my expectations. I also got 2 DLC's (Citadel and Ashes ““ couldn't find Leviathan or Omega).

    My experience of the ending first time round was spending so long listening to every dialog option that I forgot where to go to choose each ending (it was 5am and the entire 40 minute interactive cut scene ending doesn't allow you to save it after the attempted run to the light so I was hanging on to the end. In Shepard's case I put it down to blood loss). So I wandered to the right to take a close look and found there is a point of no return so I was forced into the Destroy ending. I had maximum military might so I got the “best” one. In other words, as well as destroying the Reapers, I destroyed the Geth (whom I had much sympathy for as I discovered their back story and had twice brokered a ceasefire between them and the Quarians), EDI (whom I also had bonded with and fixed up with Joker) and as it implied technology assisted humans would be affected too, Jack (my long time love interest). On top of that, it looks like I bloody survived so I get to live with the guilt. Bittersweet doesn't come close…

    Going through the other endings, I think I prefer the Control one. I mean the best form of government is benevolent dictator. Unlike TIM I would be fair to everyone – honest…

    Thoughts on the rest:

    Exploding Relays: This looked like more of a controlled explosion – as opposed to the hit the bomb with a hammer approach in Arrival. This would have hopefully have meant less damage and hopefully easier repairs. Besides with the Blue and Green options the Reapers can help. Perhaps salvaging the dead Reaper tech with the Red option will help too.

    Fleeing Combat: Since on-one really knows what the Crucible does when it activates, it makes sense to get out of there when it does. Joker is last to leave as he's hanging on to try and rescue you and ends up being caught in the blast wave as he tries to get away. I can see the Red wave damaging the ship (EDI) but why the Blue and Green?

    Reaper Blah Blah: While bonkers from our perspective, this sort of makes sense from their perspective. Left unchecked, the war between synthetics and organics will destroy all life so they nip in the bud before/as it starts by destroying the more advanced life-forms (A little similar to the Genophage. Enough to stop the war, but not cause an extinction of life). Besides, they aren't really killing us but turning us into a DNA data-stream to be stored on our own Reaper server (a bit like the Geth).

    FTL Travel: This doesn't really help us. I only had enough fuel to fly between a couple of systems before having to refuel and the Reapers have destroyed most of the refuelling stations. Many times I arrived running on vapour at a Mass Relay to get back to a working fuel station before I could explore further.

    Cerberus/TIM: Cerberus used most of its funding rebuilding Shepard and the Normandy and they lost both of those assets to the Alliance who still faffed around over the Reaper threat. I think this led to TIM getting desperate and turning to some of those “rogue” units he originally disproved of. He's always been an end justifies the means type of guy anyway. Part of this led to more Reaper tech and his indoctrination. Since he was technically working for the Reapers they probably left him alone a bit so he found it easier to get supplies than the others.

    Attacking Earth: I think they came for Shepard. He's beaten them twice making him their greatest threat.

    Citadel/Crucible MacGuffin: I like the idea of the unfinished weapon from the last cycle. Linking it to the Citadel was interesting too. But then having the Citadel contain the controller of the Reapers? Who could just have readily chosen not use it and instead destroy it, if it hadn't decided we had “changed the variables”? Not so much.

    Anderson: He was always a little ahead of us on the Citadel. We entered the beam first. He saw us go and followed, radioing the fleet to let them know. He'd been fighting a guerrilla war against the Reapers for months and probably knew better than to run blindly at the beam. We woke up after hearing his voice on the com. From the dialog, he reached the moving walls first, the chasm first and hence the control panel first. I thought it was very poignant he called us son before he died since my character was an orphan.

    Things I would have liked.

    A little more love interest acknowledgement. Yes we get a final goodbye before the mission, but up until now Shepard has always found a way to beat the odds. With the blue and green option he knows there's no way back. It would have been nice for a whispered “Sorry Jack” before he made the final sacrifice. Also some sort of closure on them afterwards. (Jack looking at his battered dog-tags and vowing to devote her life to the kids on our behalf, gaining us surrogate children as well as well as a surrogate father in Anderson)

  140. PPX14 says:

    How about, The Reapers are the first synthetics to have overcome their organic creators, and spent the next thousands of years becoming incredibly advanced only to see that in that time organics rose once more and created synthetics; therefore the Reapers quelled said civilisations, and must do so periodically as this cycle repeats, to stop themselves being threatened.

    In the first instance, the new life arose in some far reach of space, allowing the new organics to create and be overthrown by synthetics which became advanced enough to pose a credible threat once the Reapers came across them, resulting in a huge war. Hence the Reapers designed the citadel and mass relays to guide all life to the one place, to be exterminated periodically.

    Thus your own struggle against them to become the first organics to overcome your synthetic masters, is a mirror of their own history of being the first synthetics to overcome their organic masters; and the significance of the Geth, and their manipulation by the Reapers becomes much more poignant.

  141. Wveth says:

    MY GOD has this comment section not aged well. I’m so glad that history bore out that ME3 has an incredibly poor ending. I find it hard to believe that people ever defended it. It’s unforgivably bad. Worse than the average Hollywood action movie in terms of making sense.

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