Mass Effect 3

[=sw=warlord]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYXPsls5p_4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[neuro]

this game = games for windows live, if i wanted to do teh onlinez, right?

[=sw=warlord]

I don't think so.
It think it uses about as much GFWL as Crysis 1 did, name on the box but not actually use it.

E:
http://www.gameseyeview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/me3_eapcpftfront_copy.jpg

[Zeph]

fuck origin.

[neuro]

oh Origin?

not buying this then.
EASY PEASY!

[Kornman00]

Played the demo, wasn't impressed vOv. Will get it used.

[Warsaw]

Played way better than ME2 so far. Cover is still all kinds of fucked up, but at least now I can roll out of the way until cover snaps to.

Fake E: And what the fuck is up with Femshep's plain-clothes model...she's like some anorexic barbie doll.

[Cortexian]

Mad about this being Origin exclusive, but we might as well accept that all good new games from EA will be coming out on it. I'm really not sure why they thought it was a good idea, I mean, they probably had a better deal going with Steam. Their digital distribution profit margin is likely down since they switched things to Origin.

However they do have both Star Wars: The Old Republic and Battlefield 3 on it.

[Warsaw]

Origin is buggy, but I feel like it can only get better. It's not so bad right now. What would be smart is if one of them added a plug-in for the other so that we can have a unified list.

[neuro]

ill never get anything on origin, simple as that.
and if there's any origin-exclusive titles, then that's EA's loss.

[ejburke]

Mad about this being Origin exclusive, but we might as well accept that all good new games from EA will be coming out on it. I'm really not sure why they thought it was a good idea, I mean, they probably had a better deal going with Steam. Their digital distribution profit margin is likely down since they switched things to Origin.

However they do have both Star Wars: The Old Republic and Battlefield 3 on it.TOR is the only one that is actually Origin-exclusive. The others are just not on Steam.

[Donut]

but you need origin running to play battlefield 3 even if you buy it in a store.... technically...

youre SUPPOSED to have origin running to play battlefield. origin-exclusive or not, you still need it to play the game. i assume the same would be true for mass effect 3 and dead space 3.

god damnit EA, stop publishing games i care about.

[Pooky]

Played the demo, wasn't at all impressed. Though that mainly comes from the field of view, which is so ridiculously narrow that I almost felt motion sick while playing.

[JackalStomper]

Played the demo, wasn't at all impressed. Though that mainly comes from the field of view, which is so ridiculously narrow that I almost felt motion sick while playing.
Welcome to modern gaming

[Cortexian]

All Mass Effect games have been able to expand the FOV, hopefully that won't change with ME3.

Anyhow, I stopped playing the demo after the first portion where you escape Earth on the Normandy. I liked it, story-wise it was pretty decent so far, and story is what drives ME in my opinion.

And Battlefield 3 is also Origin exclusive...

[Warsaw]

I thought the story was still pretty blah and is unsalvagable at this point, but the weapons handling in combat was far superior. I hope they fix those cover-snap issues by release or with a quick patch right after, at the very least. That's going to cause some controllers to go flying, especially for those who want to play it on Insanity.

Am the only one who feels that, while more work has obviously been expended on ME2 and ME3, more love was put into ME1?

[annihilation]

This demo game series is shit.

[Cortexian]

LOL how do you think ME has a bad story, probably one of the best storylines in a series of video games.

[Warsaw]

It's rather uninspired. The universe itself is pretty great, but the central story is this:

Humans discover uber tech.
Humans find out they aren't alone, and that everybody else found this tech first.
Tech turns out to be the legacy of some ancient race.
Humans fight war, make aliens butthurt because we are more boss in every way.
Get seat on interstellar government through force or merit.
Ancient race turns out to be malevolent and now you are fighting against time to prevent them from killing everybody.

Welp.

I mean, jeez, that's almost every major science fiction universe ever. Babylon 5, Star Trek, Stargate, Halo, even BSG (FTL is a hand-me down from the original humans/cylons). This wouldn't be so bad if they had dressed it up, but instead they play it straight. Oh, and they call the bad guys the Reapers. How is that not one of the corniest names for the Ancient Enemy ever? I cringe every time "the Reapers" is used in the dialogue; I just can't take it seriously.

That all said, Mass Effect is far more interesting to me than any other RPG or sci-fi game on the market right now.

[Pooky]

The story is pretty generic, but it's at least executed well. At any rate, I don't think Mass Effect is really about the story. It's about making you feel like you're in a big budget sci-fi blockbuster movie, and it succeeds pretty well at that I think.

The character interactions are still the highlight of the gameplay just like they were in KotOR. The story is just there to give you a reason to go to lots of different places and talk to people.

[Warsaw]

Here, here, I can agree with that.

But I also feel like Mass Effect 1 has more of the "this is a big goddamn universe" feel to it and more time was spent fleshing out the little details in that installment versus the sequels, which spent more time on character development. Ironically enough, the characters I care about the most are the ones that carried over from ME1; the new people were, for me, either nerve-wracking (Miranda) or throw-aways (Grunt, Zaeed, Kasumi). Legion is the most interesting new guy, and he only gets featured very briefly (a result of cuts BioWare had to make).

[TeeKup]

This trailer.
51VNpCV_-dY

[=sw=warlord]

someone didn't look at the front page.
:ohdear:

[Cortexian]

I'd like to know why Ashly doesn't look like Ashly anymore. Is that just me?

[Zeph]

I'd like to know why Ashly doesn't look like Ashly anymore. Is that just me?

because thats not her?
edit: nevermind. Why is she S1 now?

[Cortexian]

IDK, probably went more mainstream after Shepards team fell apart after ME1. After-all she has a really small role in ME2, and indicates that she'd like to get back together with Shepards team but has other commitments.

[NullZero]

Ri0vrJ-y2zM

[Zeph]

Wasn't going to buy it because of origin. This is worse ^.

Was just discussing how EA looked like they were going to turn around and be an amazing publisher, but then they started shitting it up again with DICE and all. Maybe this will be the depleted uranium that blows up their camel's back.

[Nero]

Played the demo....
Bleh.
I guess I will play it for the cut scenes, lol.

[TeeKup]

God fucking damnit EA. Really?

[Pooky]

Given that the ridiculously tiny fov already made it borderline unplayable for me (people said they had that problem with ME2, but I never did), this is a deal breaker. Guess I'll cancel my collector's edition pre-order. And you have no idea how hard it is for me to say that.

[Warsaw]

Welp. I guess I'm not buying Mass Effect 3. I'm tired of this shit, and I know it's not all up to EA. BioWare had to approve of this, too.


BTW, they did just about the same thing in Mass Effect 2. The Shadow Broker arc? It wasn't on-disc, but it might as well have been because they started that story arc in the game (and it wasn't just a brief mention), and then didn't finish it unless you bought the DLC.

[Pooky]

BTW, they did just about the same thing in Mass Effect 2. The Shadow Broker arc? It wasn't on-disc, but it might as well have been because they started that story arc in the game (and it wasn't just a brief mention), and then didn't finish it unless you bought the DLC.

It's not the same. Shadow Broker wasn't finished and in the game on release day, but only available if you paid extra money for it.

Also, this is an entire and very significant character. Lair of the Shadow Broker was a fun DLC but it can't even remotely compare to a whole party member.

[Warsaw]

I said it was almost the same, but agree and agree. But if you ask me, though, you shouldn't start a major plot line like that and then leave the player hanging. Either go all the way or don't include it at all.

[Pooky]

When I first got to that part I figured it was just something they were going to finish in ME3, so I didn't really feel that way.

[Warsaw]

I thought that was the end of that plot-line, but I also thought it was an odd way to end it; we do such a menial task and there's a cliff-hanger? What is this? Who puts cliff-hangers on stupid trivial side-quests like that?

Then I saw the DLC, put two-and-two together, and was miffed at them for pulling that stunt. Instead of making me want to purchase the DLC to find out what happened, it made me not want to buy it and instead just go to the Mass Effect wiki and read about it.

[=sw=warlord]

WAT (http://petition.masseffect.com/)

[ejburke]

I've had my CE pre-ordered since September and I'm playing through ME2 for the tenth time, despite owning no less than 25 games that I have yet to play.

Whoops. I didn't realize I had to be *THIS* butthurt before replying. I'll go sit on a bicycle seat for an hour and then come back.

Okay, I'm back. GRRRRRR! Video games! GRRRRR!

[Cortexian]

I was wondering what that race was when I was visiting Bioware. Especially when I asked about it and then they shuffled me along in the tour and told me I'd have to wait.

I'll be getting the whole game free most likely so meh.

If that deal falls through I'll buy the standard version and just pirate the DLC like I have in the past, though that might be harder since it's now Origin based.

[Pooky]

I've had my CE pre-ordered since September and I'm playing through ME2 for the tenth time, despite owning no less than 25 games that I have yet to play.

Whoops. I didn't realize I had to be *THIS* butthurt before replying. I'll go sit on a bicycle seat for an hour and then come back.

Okay, I'm back. GRRRRRR! Video games! GRRRRR!

Sorry, what? Nothing you just said makes any sense.

[ejburke]

Does it matter? I'm realizing more and more that being able to see issues from more than one myopic, self-absorbed, indignant, misconstrued perspective is a curse more than a gift. Especially around here.

For example, I can't help but picture a game developer and a gamer having a face-to-face conversation. The developer tells the gamer about plans for Day 1 DLC. The gamer, angered by this news, informs the developer that he will be stealing his copy of the game. The developer, angered TO VIOLENCE, proceeds to Beat. His. Fucking. Ass. And, this hypothetical scenario being set in a perfect world, the developer gets away with it because no court will convict him. The end.

[Warsaw]

^Presumptuous statement.

I understand that it's the goal of all game developers to make money, but you don't have to nickel and dime your loyal fans, either. I may cry foul at some of the gameplay decisions in ME, but I'd still like to play it because I have invested time into building my character they way I want. When I buy a game disc for full price, I like to know that I can use everything on it. What they did was make a finished game, then decide which pieces are non-critical so that they can charge extra for them. If you are ok with that behaviour, awesome. Buy the game, have fun. Some of us will just buy other games and have our fun elsewhere.

[Pooky]

If you are ok with that behaviour, awesome. Buy the game, have fun. Some of us will just buy other games and have our fun elsewhere.

^

If you want to suck EA's dick and continue buying products at inflated prices with increasing amounts of bullshit each year, go ahead. I'm not going to support this kind of crap with my hard earned cash.

[RedBaron]

I was wondering what that race was when I was visiting Bioware. Especially when I asked about it and then they shuffled me along in the tour and told me I'd have to wait.

I'll be getting the whole game free most likely so meh.

If that deal falls through I'll buy the standard version and just pirate the DLC like I have in the past, though that might be harder since it's now Origin based.

Shouldn't be much of a problem if you cracked your legit(or not) version to run independent of Origin. I'm sure someone's going to figure it out and crack the game and all the dlc in this manner, the game's way too popular for pirates not to...

[DarkHalo003]

EA is a monster that needs to be destroyed. End of line.

[neuro]

i don't give a fuck about the DLC tbh.

'm not buying it because of Origin. that's all.

[Sanctus]

Milkers gonna milk, but whatever. I enjoy the Mass Effect series too much to let plot-altering heresy completely ruin it. It all boils down to MY experience with the game, so I'm just going to completely ignore, and if I can, just not install the Prothean squad member. I shouldn't have to do this in the first place and it's annoying, but like the story too much

[Pooky]

Milkers gonna milk, but whatever. I enjoy the Mass Effect series too much to let plot-altering heresy completely ruin it. It all boils down to MY experience with the game, so I'm just going to completely ignore, and if I can, just not install the Prothean squad member. I shouldn't have to do this in the first place and it's annoying, but like the story too much
Yeah don't get me wrong I love the series. Keep in mind that I pre-ordered the collector's edition so technically this isn't even an issue for me. But on principle I just can't let myself support this kind of bad business.

[Warsaw]

I hadn't planned on getting anything other than regular, but now I will either have to boycott this or buy the Digital Deluxe version in order to justify that extra cost with something other than content already on every disc...that does not make me a happy camper.

[Zeph]

Played the demo on my 360 last night. God the default femshep is ugly as fuck in game. Doesn't even look close to the concept art everyone "decided" on. Also, the game is ugly as fuck on console. Lighting is horrible, textures suck, and there are serious shortcuts being made to make the game run.

[=sw=warlord]

Played the demo on my 360 last night...., the game is ugly as fuck on console. Lighting is horrible, textures suck, and there are serious shortcuts being made to make the game run.
I'm glad I'm not the only on who saw that.

[DarkHalo003]

Console gaming really does end up destroying PC gaming quality; not because it's superior by any means, but because the market demands the cross-platforming so much. The consoles have seriously bad graphics in comparison to what you can have on today's PC (if you know what to buy) and the devs have to dumb-down a LOT to make it work on console. I suppose this is what keeps the console race going though; once consumers find out the current console is insufficient for the latest games, it makes looking forward to the next one all that more "important."

[Warsaw]

Played the demo on my 360 last night. God the default femshep is ugly as fuck in game. Doesn't even look close to the concept art everyone "decided" on. Also, the game is ugly as fuck on console. Lighting is horrible, textures suck, and there are serious shortcuts being made to make the game run.

Pfff, this has been the case since the first game, though it's worse now that they are putting resources into "heavy hitter" effects, resulting in a less uniform look. I still can't believe that nobody outside of Epic Games can make a UE3 game that looks good and runs well after all this time. And yeah, what the hell did they do to Femshep?

[Cortexian]

Not using character customizer = u bad.

[Warsaw]

It's the body, not the face. She looks like a disproportionate, anorexic barbie doll. And her clothes don't sit naturally, they disobey gravity to follow every curve, if you know what I mean.

[Zeph]

I still can't believe that nobody outside of Epic Games can make a UE3 game that looks good and runs well after all this time.

Lol, did you not look at UT3 on 360? That was laughable.

[Pooky]

It's the body, not the face. She looks like a disproportionate, anorexic barbie doll. And her clothes don't sit naturally, they disobey gravity to follow every curve, if you know what I mean.

So that's what was bugging me about her :S

[Higuy]

Ashely and FemShep look like there supposed to be anorexic barbie dolls of the 24th century (or whenver mass effect takes place). Either way, there both pieces of crap now and look nothing like they use to nor look like a female military leader(s).

And yeah, the demo was pretty dissapoiting in terms of graphics. In comparison to Mass Effect 2, it was more or less a downgrade in how well things looked...

[Warsaw]

Lol, did you not look at UT3 on 360? That was laughable.

Nope, only on PC. Looked pretty good on PC at the time.

[DarkHalo003]

This game came out today in NA and will be most elsewhere by Thursday. Anyone played it yet? 1UP gave it an A, but what does the ever-so-critical Modacity community think?

[Amit]

I bet G4 gave it 4/5 or 5/5. As they always do with hyped up titles.

[PlasbianX]

Ive heard theres a crap ton of problems with importing shepard into this game. Heh

[Rainbow Dash]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5433-Mass-Effect-3-And-The-Case-For-A-Gay-Shepard

[TeeKup]

I love this game. I just resolved the Quarian-Geth conflict. At this point in the game, I'm loving everything. This is the first video game in a while to give me good emotional cues. I've actually teared up a few times.

[Cortexian]

Ive heard theres a crap ton of problems with importing shepard into this game. Heh
You heard wrong, I imported my ME2 savegame (which was from a ME1 savegame) with absolutely no issues. The game just assumes that the savegame you want is the one from the obviously installed version of Mass Effect. So you need to make a Mass Effect 2 folder beside the Mass Effect 3 folder in "Documents\BioWare" and drop your backed up Save folder in there.

My biggest issue is with quests that bug out and don't let you complete them (objectives don't show up etc). Luckily I've only had this with some side-quests and nothing effecting the main storyline.

The DLC was decent, got my Prothian and all that even though people were saying it crashed to desktop during the DLC mission.

[Champ]

You heard wrong, .
No, he heard right. There is.

[PlasbianX]

No, he heard right. There is.

I was referring to the xbox version. Everyone I know has had problems.

And also, I thoroughly enjoyed the fucker from here who decided it would be cool to message me on Steam ruining the ending for me before I even got to play it.

[Zeph]

I'm working my way through it on console. I played ME1 on 360 and ME2 on PC. There were only two things that differed between my ME1 playthrough and default ME2 (Wrex and something else). I didn't think there'd be too many differences between that and ME3 (kinda forgot that Wrex was killed off in ME2 after playing the demo), but holy fuck. In ME2, the only person who died on me was Taylor. I even managed to save the crew, so the default memorial outside the deck 3 elevator really shows how fucked up things can get if you don't import saves.

Considering that EA is making us pay for a uniform online network service, the best they could do would at least let you be able to import saves from PC to the cloud and then use them on console and vice versa.

Gonna play through ME3 on default and then go back through 1 and 2 on console to see how things would work out the way I wanted.

[Champ]

I'm working my way through it on console. I played ME1 on 360 and ME2 on PC. There were only two things that differed between my ME1 playthrough and default ME2 (Wrex and something else). I didn't think there'd be too many differences between that and ME3 (kinda forgot that Wrex was killed off in ME2 after playing the demo), but holy fuck. In ME2, the only person who died on me was Taylor. I even managed to save the crew, so the default memorial outside the deck 3 elevator really shows how fucked up things can get if you don't import saves.

Considering that EA is making us pay for a uniform online network service, the best they could do would at least let you be able to import saves from PC to the cloud and then use them on console and vice versa.

Gonna play through ME3 on default and then go back through 1 and 2 on console to see how things would work out the way I wanted.
I know the feeling. I played ME1 and 2 on an offline profile and I can't import my saves to ME3 without using that profile. Looks like no co-op for me :smith:

[Warsaw]

I bought ME1 and ME2 twice so I could have it on PC. I don't plan on getting an Xbox version of ME3, and I'll grab ME3 when it drops in price that way they don't get full value out of me...because fuck that DLC move.

[Higuy]

Been playing it and I have been loving it, however like others said there is problems importing old characters. My face got messed up so I had to redo it a bit, only the hair though, for some reason the face, eyes, and etc where still in tact.

[Cortexian]

I'll only buy this game if all of these conditions are met:

• It comes to Steam.
• Price is reduced or launch DLC is included in price so both cost $60~.
• It goes on sale (including DLC) for less than $50.

I have all my other Mass Effect games registered on Steam (granted I registered my ME2 key in Origin, but I still can't do that with my ME1 key). I'd rather not split them up, or re-buy any of them for the sake of convenience. The only reason I even have Origin installed is because of Battlefield 3, and as soon as alternatives come out I'll make use of them. Steam is just better and it should be used by all the game devs, if the rumors about Steam making it harder for devs to get their games on Steam are true than Steam should lighten up.

I'm playing it anyway right now, I hate to prevent BioWare from getting any kind of funding on my part but I can't give any to EA.

Seriously when is EA/Ubisoft/Activision/Bad Publishers Global™ going to just fucking die in a hole somewhere.

[Rook]

It's not even about it being on steam or not. If a boxed copy of the game could be played without origin that would be awesome.

[Zeph]

Steam makes it really simple to get your game on it. The EA/Valve crap comes from EA wanting to install origin through steam. Valve said no, and EA took their games out.

[Cortexian]

So I just finished the game... And I'm literally upset. Three games worth of choices all culminate in a possible of 16 total different possible endings, however there's a massive problem. I feel robbed. My choices literally made no difference... Big spoilers ahead, you have been warned.


The endings are split up like so; There are two ending "sets" based on if you preserved or destroyed the collector base in ME2. That's 8 for each (16 total). Those 8 endings all have to do with your military ranking, galactic preparedness, etc, etc.

However, the best endings possible narrow down to three endings. In each of these:
• Commander Shepard Dies.
• The Mass Effect Relays are destroyed, cutting off the galaxy from each other.

You can choose to destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy, including the Reapers, Geth, Legion (if you still have him around), most of your technology, and even yourself (since Cerberus rebuilt you and you're partly synthetic).

You can choose to control the Reapers, but you effectively die. You become "one" with the Catalyst in order to control the Reapers.

Or you can choose a "Synergy" option where all synthetic and organic life in the universe is combined. But the catch is you need to run into a beam of light and be broken down for analyses first. This is the option I chose, and it shows Joker trying to out-pilot the synthesis shock-wave. A useless task since it uses the Mass Effect Relays to spread galaxy wide (as with all the outcomes). Eventually it shows the wreckage of the Normandy on a "garden world", Joker walks out with EDI. He has some green tech markings on his skin, whoever you romance came out behind them as the camera panned away. Those are the only survivors I saw. According to the Catalyst the synergy option is the final stage of evolution for organics and synthetics, I figured I'd go with that version to try and spare as much war/bad things as I could in the future.

Credits roll, then the previously mentioned scene rolls with the "winter space" backdrop.

Basically I'm pissed off because the best possible outcome you can do is written in and ignores your game choices almost completely. It's also the end of the Mass Effect series as we know it, they've effectively cut-off any future events from that point forward.


Basically I'm mad about Mass Effect 3, specifically the ending. I really hope that future DLC releases bring more effective and appropriate endings...

[Pooky]

Does this remind anyone else of when Half Life 2 came out and everybody cried that they'd only get it if they could get it without Steam?

[Cortexian]

Does this remind anyone else of when Half Life 2 came out and everybody cried that they'd only get it if they could get it without Steam?
The difference here is that Steam is the accepted, and best available, digital distribution system in place. EA wanting Origin is just petty and greedy.

EDIT: Adding some mood to this thread.
uYKP6iqamy0&autoplay=1

[=sw=warlord]

I personally welcome the ending to Mass effect 3 being actually final.
We've seen so many franchises where an ending has been open ended and resulted in the series being milked, I'm looking at you Halo, Gears of War, Call of duty and countless others.

E:

anyone notice the child that dies at the beginning of the game is the same child that controls the reapers?

[Cortexian]

I personally welcome the ending to Mass effect 3 being actually final.
We've seen so many franchises where an ending has been open ended and resulted in the series being milked, I'm looking at you Halo, Gears of War, Call of duty and countless others.

E:

anyone notice the child that dies at the beginning of the game is the same child that controls the reapers?
Yeah, I do like that it's actually got an ending... However:

Who created the Catalyst AI? Based on everything this game depicted, some organic race created him and then he created the Reapers to wipe them out. Then used the Reapers to enact the 50,000 year purge to prevent it from happening again and giving organic life a chance. I could see a prequel series going over this, though it would basically be an exact repeat of the cycle of events that happened in the existing series. I guess it all depends on if EA decides to milk this series.

As for the child, I had just assumed that the Catalyst read some of Shepard's thoughts and created an avatar that Shepard could relate to. Just like Legion does when you take out the Geth Fighter Squadron server.

[=sw=warlord]

If they do a prequel it would most likely result in the same way as the star wars prequels.
Personally I don't mind if they do a prequel or two as long as it's of the same caliber of the rest of the series.

I would imagine the Protheans were the ones who made the catalyst and the catalyst made the reapers to take the protheans on.
Something to that effect, basicly reapers were made to keep biodiversity.

[Cortexian]

I would imagine the Protheans were the ones who made the catalyst and the catalyst made the reapers to take the protheans on.
Did you not play the DLC/Talk to your Prothean crew-member at all?
They hated AI/Synthetics and destroyed anything more than a VI in capability. Plus the Prothean said that they had discovered races before them destroyed by the Reapers and that the Crucible project had been going on for MANY cycles before them.

So it DEFINITELY wasn't the Protheans.

Interesting turn of events:
There's a file/cutscene that doesn't appear to be used in the game right now. It's an end-game one where it shows a man in N7 armor take a breath.

EDIT - I uploaded the videos I was talking about in my last spoiler:

9hwTey1rrAo

bnblibN7QyQ

There's no audio because they were converted directly from the source BIK files.

[Champ]

EA wanting Origin is just petty and greedy.
Welcome to life

[Cortexian]

Welcome to life
It just makes me SO ANGRY!!

Especially with a game like MASS EFFECT for fucks sake. The entire game is about GALACTIC cooperation and EA can't even get along with Valve and give the gamers what they want. Fuck.

[Amit]

So how many times has Shepard died and survived now?

[Kornman00]

Have they tried killing it with fire yet?

Wait, we're talking about how to finally end the ass effect series right?

[Higuy]

This games still got nothin' on Mass Effect 1.



Wow. Cant really believe how disappointed I am in this game's ending. It was awful.

The last 20 minutes of this game ruined the entire Mass Effect series. With the Mass Relay's gone, how the FUCK is all of those fleets going to get back to their home planets? Why the fuck was Joker trying to escape Earth through a Relay too?? Shouldn't he be fighting?? Why did my Shepard character just die, and how did my entire squad get obliterated in less than 10 seconds by a laser beam, including the person I romanced?

This game answered almost no questions and left me confused. It was also down right horrible for a RPG experience as well, as most of the gameplay with the Reaper type enemies was just horrible. Sometimes they threw FOUR FUCKING BRUTES at you along with multiple types of infantry and even sometimes multiple Banshee's.

[DarkHalo003]

Lol. EA took the only course of action they could conceive.

[Cortexian]

Wow. Cant really believe how disappointed I am in this game's ending. It was awful.

The last 20 minutes of this game ruined the entire Mass Effect series. With the Mass Relay's gone, how the FUCK is all of those fleets going to get back to their home planets? Why the fuck was Joker trying to escape Earth through a Relay too?? Shouldn't he be fighting?? Why did my Shepard character just die, and how did my entire squad get obliterated in less than 10 seconds by a laser beam, including the person I romanced?

This game answered almost no questions and left me confused. It was also down right horrible for a RPG experience as well, as most of the gameplay with the Reaper type enemies was just horrible. Sometimes they threw FOUR FUCKING BRUTES at you along with multiple types of infantry and even sometimes multiple Banshee's.
The loss of the relay's was the most distasteful thing about the endings. Honestly, if it had just been Shepard dying (and not actually dying, as seen in the last videos I posted) then I would of been fine with the ending.

Not to mention, the only way to get that alternate ending where it shows Shepard taking a breath is to destroy all synthetic life in the galaxy. The Renegade option. Which would pretty much wipe out the Quarian's as well as well as the Geth/EDI/Reapers/etc... It would wipe out the Quarian's since their suits rely heavily on tech and so do their fleets.

Also, I've been reading some other forums where people are hopeful that the remaining forces could build some new relay's. They built the Crucible after-all right? Wrong. The biggest issue with relay's is that you need one at your destination as well... Theoretically you could place relay's at the destinations via FTL, but it would take hundreds of years without Reaper style FTL tech. Now it's not impossible to assume that they couldn't reverse-engineer that tech from all the Reaper corpses left around but it's highly unlikely given that they're basically set back to pre-ezo tech.

[=sw=warlord]

You realize the Citadel stayed intact on both the good and bad endings? instead of blowing up it simply closed up again, No reason the relay in the citadel couldn't be examined to make new ones

[Hotrod]

Well I just finished the game and I love it so much. However, they fucking butchered the ending with a fuckton of bullshit. I can't say I've ever been more disappointed than this with the ending of a series, especially one so great as this one.

Instead of putting in all that bullshit about the stupid Crucile kid being all like "Oh, destroy Reapers or control them, I'm a stupid kid who controls everything", they should have just made it so it actually was a weapon that would kill the Reapers and everybody lives on happily ever after without destroying the Mass Relays, which is pretty much what they were leading up to throughout the game. Yes, you've saved the galaxy, but you've also pretty much doomed it too. Fucking hell... I'm going to go cry in a corner now...

In short, everything Higuy said.

[Cortexian]

You realize the Citadel stayed intact on both the good and bad endings? instead of blowing up it simply closed up again, No reason the relay in the citadel couldn't be examined to make new ones
It blows up for both the "synergy" and "destroy all synthetic life" options. Not sure about the "control the reapers option".

[Zeph]

my mind is full of fuck.
what the fuck? the writer for the ending is horrendously stupid.

the "reasoning" behind the catalyst was that without them, organics would make synthetics which would in turn destroy organics. however, with the reapers, organics are still getting killed by synthetics.

the option to destroy all synthetics breaks the mass relays forcing a galactic reset to inter-species relations.
because of this, organics will likely continue on the same paths to make more synthetic life

the option to control all synthetics breaks the mass relays forcing a galactic reset to inter-species relations.
shepard's persona controls the synthetics, but oh wait he has no way to save any other species from new hostile synthetics.

the option to "synergize" with synthetics breaks the mass relays forcing a galactic reset to inter-species relations.
i honestly don't know what the fuck. i didn't even get offered this. i can only imagine is has to be a resolution what EDI suggested was the issue with trans-humans.



the point of Mass Effect 3 was to forge inter-species relations so organic life could survive.

why would there be no ending that allowed inter-species collaboration?
sheperd's whole quest was to prove that it could fucking be done.
he does all the work to get it and instead he just gets a citadel to the face while the entire galaxy gets reset.
there's no mantle to be passed down the generations.
breaking the cycle just becomes a story passed down to kids.

and for some reason joker tries to outrun a superluminal effect and gets the normandy crashed on some planet even though the ship was 'hit' while in ftl.

why did we even bother playing this game?

[Zeph]

no, seriously

what's the point to gathering allied fleets?
there's no varying degrees of success.
you get the same shit ending with minimal military requirements as you do maxing the damned bar all the way to the right.
no matter what, it's the end of galactic society

[Cortexian]

That's the biggest problem people are bitching about Zeph, there is no varying degree of success, there's only one real "bottom-line" ending. They don't take any of your choices into account.

Honestly, this game felt rushed. There's so many glitches and broken quests, not to mention the terrible character animation... Half the time characters aren't even interacting with whatever they're supposed to be interacting with. When they are they're geometry is usually intersecting other people or environment.

[Hotrod]

I'm wondering if the guy who wrote the ending was the same as the one that wrote the rest of the story. Up until the last ten minutes, it was a masterpiece of story telling that all fit in together perfectly. And then it seems like they fired the writer and hired a guy who had absolutely no idea what the rest of the story was/had no knowledge of the universe and told him to write some random shit.

And yeah, what Zeph said.

I felt like yelling and crying when I beat the game, need I say more?

[Teltaur]

Honestly, I didn't even care about the graphical glitches and quest bugs and everything, because for the most part the story delivered in the places that I cared about. But as for the ending, I'll just copy/paste what I said on another board:

That was, by far, the worst ending to any video game I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, did they just want to ruin the entire series with that load of bull? I'm sorry, but after you get so emotionally invested in the series and its characters (damn, that's what the whole series is focused around in the first place) it's hard to not feel completely betrayed by how much the 3 simple pick-and-choose endings completely invalidate every single thing you've done over the course of the storyline.

I mean, really? Every choice results in a completely screwed up equivalent of a galactic reset button, which ruins just about everything that you've plugged in hours upon hours to achieve across all 3 games. Not only do your relationships and friendships not matter in the least bit, but your possible unification of the Quarians/Geth, cure of the Genophage -hell, EVERYTHING- has absolutely no significance because, hurr-durr, the whole damn universe is ruined and every fleet in existence is stranded over Earth. There was absolutely no closure to the end of the game, and if I could, I would go back, play until the last 5 minutes, then immediately shut off the game and imagine a half decent ending for myself. And that's not even getting into how illogical the god-child-AI's reasoning was in the first place: "We have synthetics kill organics so that synthetics won't kill organics"

Before I got to the last 5 minutes of the game, I would've said that Mass Effect 3 was one of the greatest games I've ever played, not in terms of the technical aspects but in how completely immersed I became in the story and characters that I've grown to actually care about over the past 4/5 years. But after that ending... I can tell you that I've been turned off entirely from Mass Effect as a whole, knowing that literally nothing I do matters in the end, and will almost certainly never buy another Bioware game again (with this, the day-one DLC, and Dragon's Age 2, I have plenty of reasons now).


I think my favorite theory out of all of this is that Bioware purposefully decimated the series in the last 5 minutes so that they can release a $10 "Decent Ending" DLC.

[TeeKup]

Did you people have at least 5000 Allied assets when you beat it? If not you did it wrong. Guess what, you NEED to play multiplayer to get that 5000 or up. :iamafag:

Whatever, I still love this game despite the ending. And trust me, after brooding it over trying to find logic in it. I hate it as much as everyone else.
I damn near cried, when Tali told Legion he did have a soul, and he said "I know Tali.." Just the way that entire scene played out was beautiful.

[JackalStomper]

I think my favorite theory out of all of this is that Bioware purposefully decimated the series in the last 5 minutes so that they can release a $10 "Decent Ending" DLC.
.

[Higuy]

They should have ended the series more like this:

You and your squad get to the beam and get up inside without being hit by the laser. Once up, you start navigating some tunnels and talking to Anderson, while moving towards that control panel. Except its not just a random day in the park like it was - there would be enemy forces guarding it and such. Once at the top, you find the illusive man and talk to him, and then even possibly have a small boss battle (I hated how there was no boss battle in this game as there was in both the first and second). Once you've done that and Hackett tells you the Crucible isn't firing, you realize you need to get to the presidium, similar to what you did when Saren was attempting to open the Citadels relay for the Reapers in the first game. Once there, you can fire the crucible and decide the 3 options. You wouldn't die though, and afterwards there would be some closure for the series similar to what was done in Mass Effect 1 when you talked to the council.

I know its pretty similar to the ME1 ending, but its a hell of alot better than what Bioware offered. (ME1 had my favorite fucking ending ever of all video games. It was beautiful)

[Amit]

Shit, it's a good thing I never cared to jump on the Mass Effect bandwagon or I would have been sorely disappointed.

[Zeph]

Did you people have at least 5000 Allied assets when you beat it? If not you did it wrong. Guess what, you NEED to play multiplayer to get that 5000 or up. :iamafag:

Whatever, I still love this game despite the ending. And trust me, after brooding it over trying to find logic in it. I hate it as much as everyone else.
I damn near cried, when Tali told Legion he did have a soul, and he said "I know Tali.." Just the way that entire scene played out was beautiful.

What does the 5k assets do? Should only effect small details of dialogue post harbinger.

I'm playing on a default save, so I had no characters built up from prior games. The game gave me the Geth VI, so I got the quarians killed for the fun of it.

That sucks because if I did finish up ME1/2 and go through again with the proper game saves, it wouldn't make any difference.

[Hotrod]

Did you people have at least 5000 Allied assets when you beat it? If not you did it wrong. Guess what, you NEED to play multiplayer to get that 5000 or up. :iamafag:

Whatever, I still love this game despite the ending. And trust me, after brooding it over trying to find logic in it. I hate it as much as everyone else.
I damn near cried, when Tali told Legion he did have a soul, and he said "I know Tali.." Just the way that entire scene played out was beautiful.
I had around 5700 allied assets, and I didn't touch multiplayer once.

And I was on thee verge of crying there too, as well as when Thane passed away. :(

[Teltaur]

So, this is apparently sitting in the game files... Spoiler warning, obviously. *Note, the beginning and end of this are ingame, but the entire middle segment was cut*


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=booBmcFw_Lk

WHY? WHY CUT THIS FROM THE ENDING?
Seriously, just have this play out, cut to the beam firing and destroying the Reapers, tiny bit of epilogue, and end the game. Would've been leagues better than what they went with.

[Higuy]

That was in my ending, I don't know what your talking about. Only difference was that the dialouge was slightly different and Shepard was a female (my main character is a girl, yeah.)



It happened to me becuase I shot the illusive man. I'm assuming if you don't he kills Anderson on the spot.

[Teltaur]

That was in my ending, I don't know what your talking about.



It happened to me becuase I shot the illusive man. I'm assuming if you don't he kills Anderson on the spot.



The very beginning and very end do happen, but the entire middle segment was cut. I'll clarify it in the OP

And the Illusive Man shot himself in my playthrough, I passed every Paragon check in the dialogue.

[Higuy]

Oh, yeah I guess that part was cut out. Thats pretty gay too though, just that bit of dialouge adds ten fold to the entire segment.

Bioware needs to make a fucking patch that fixes there story. I'm surprised its even this atrocious; I can't believe no one complained about how bad it was on the inside.

[Higuy]

http://i748.photobucket.com/albums/xx128/NAM1025/americanfleet.jpg

You guys should go check out the Bioware forums. Its a shit storm over there about the ending in the story discussion, and well, everything else.

[Hotrod]

Yeah, I checked out those forums this morning, and I gotta say that I'm not surprised to see the shitstorm that's happening over there.

Oh, and I joined that group demanding a better ending on Facebook, and I highly recommend that you all do the same. Get your friends and family in on it too! If enough people go on about it, maybe they'll take action and give us something that doesn't make us all go like this :

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gFh_1_TPeqk/Ty_rdlupnfI/AAAAAAAAAKA/F2GJdA3cbeM/s1600/jackie-chan-meme.jpg

[Cortexian]

Did you people have at least 5000 Allied assets when you beat it? If not you did it wrong. Guess what, you NEED to play multiplayer to get that 5000 or up. :iamafag:

Whatever, I still love this game despite the ending. And trust me, after brooding it over trying to find logic in it. I hate it as much as everyone else.
I damn near cried, when Tali told Legion he did have a soul, and he said "I know Tali.." Just the way that entire scene played out was beautiful.
Partially correct. After doing some research I found out how to get that extra ending, you need to have at least 5,000 points AND 100% Galactic Readiness which you can only get from playing multiplayer right now. This is bullshit since BioWare employees stated multiple times in official statements and forum posts that you wouldn't need to play Multiplayer to get the best possible ending.

If your Galactic Readiness is at 50% (not having played Multiplayer) then the points you have only count for half. I finished the game with approximately 5,120 points, divide that by two (50%) and I only actually have 2,560. People have already gone back and tried their best to do absolutely every mission, scan every planet, and acquire as many Military Asset points as possible, and it's only possible to get slightly more than 7,000. Without being able to get 10,000 it won't be possible to get the best ending unless you play Multiplayer as well.

The bottom line is that we are currently forced into playing Multiplayer to get the best ending right now. This will likely change when new DLC is released that includes more single player content to add to our Military Asset points. If they add new endings... Who knows, the message you get when finishing the game hints that it may be possible with new DLC in the future.

[TeeKup]

Ah, thanks for the correction. I just imported my perfect Soldier from ME2 and now working on making it my "perfect" for ME3 so I'm literally scanning every system like every 2 or 3 missions.

It would have been fucking fine if when Shepard activated the Crucible after killing the Illusive man, the Citadel sent out a signal that shut down all the reapers on their tech, which reverberated throughout the mass relays WITHOUT destroying them. It can clip to a cutscene on the citadel at a later date commemorating the war and key individuals and shit. Maybe various scenes of the galactic capitals (Palaven, Earth, Thessia) getting back on their feet and such. I can't even comprehend what brought them to this conclusion.

Also, was Sur'Kesh even attacked by reapers?

[NullZero]

Sorry if already posted, how to get the prothean without any DLC bullshit (see description):
zRRpGlmtws8

[Cortexian]

You can't play the mission to unlock him if you do that though IIRC.

Are you talking about unlocking the day 1 DLC for moral reasons, or getting the Prothean without having to deal with the crash to desktop issues? If you're talking about morally unlocking content that was shipped with the game BECAUSE THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE, than the Reloaded executable is the way to go since it lets you play the mission as well.

[Cortexian]

You know what, the more I research the endings the more I think EA forced BioWare's hand or pushed the game out before it was finished.

There are already scripted alternate endings for the fucking game INCLUDED IN THE XML FILES:


"Designer Cutscene:
Shepard comes to.
A handful of survivors from hammer, including Anderson and the henchmen, have gotten bogged down just a few dozen meters from the conduit and have dug in, but are dying quickly.
Suddenly, the Normandy streaks overhead, evading fire fromthe Reaper and blowing a hole in the Reaper enemies' lines.
Anderson shouts for Shepard to make a run for it, and orders the rest of Hammer to cover him."

"Shepard and Anderson approach the conduit's beam. Shepard gets in, but Anderson is grabbed by a husk. Shepard turns to help, but before he can do anything, the beam activates, whisking Shepard away to the Citadel. On the other side, Shepard tears the metal from his leg and casts it aside, and then injects himself with Medigel."

"Shepard comes to. Anderson is dragging him forward. A jagged, bloody piece of metal is sticking out of his thigh. The conduit anchor retracts, stranding the henchmen. Shepard tries to walk, but his leg buckles. Anderson hands Shepard his pistol, and lifts Shepard's arm around his neck, supporting his leg. The two begin to shuffle towards the conduit beam."

"Designer Cutscene: Shepard limps to the conduit, and takes one final look around for other survivors. Seeing none, he enters the beam and is transported to the citadel."

"Shepard regains consciousness. He's bloody, and obviously badly injured. The Reaper is overhead, blasting away at retreating elements of Hammer. Shepard looks around: he's surrounded by burning vehicles and corpses, alone. He reaches for a syrette of medigel, but finds them broken or empty. Determined, he struggles to his feet, and starts limping towards the conduit.""


That's all hidden in the game XML files and such, along with a lot of other stuff that pretty much gives away future DLC's. Like a mission for Zaeed.

[TeeKup]

I can't believe this game is mired in this bullshit. It was absolutely amazing aside form the From Ashes bullshit and the ending.

[Hotrod]

I can't believe this game is mired in this bullshit. It was absolutely amazing aside form the From Ashes bullshit and the ending.
This, 100%. Except that I got the Collector's Edition so the From Ashes stuff didn't affect me.

[Higuy]

I can't believe this game is mired in this bullshit. It was absolutely amazing aside form the From Ashes bullshit and the ending.

Yeah, no one's saying the overall game was bad. Personally I loved all of it except the last 5 to 10 minutes, but the scale of those last minutes affected the entire series story and thats why people are flipping a shit.

[Pooky]

Pull the camera back. 10 degrees. For the love of god. Just 10 degrees, that's all I'm asking.

[JackalStomper]

Welp I just exterminated the entire quarian race. And after having the ending spoiled long ago I find that I just don't give a shit. About anything really.

[Zeph]

That video does raise a few good questions. However, it depends on if the prothean content is on the 360 disks as well. Microsoft would have required it to go through the exact same testing as the main game instead of as an addon. It being on the PC disk isn't even that big of a surprise considering how UE3 bakes packages. It could have even been autopatched in by whoreigin.
is it even possible to have both geth and quarian fleets together at the end of the game? I passed every reputation check and interrupt that showed up when dealing with the admirals, so I'm not really inclined to try again. If not, it feels like people who took the time to do the loyalty stuff in ME2 got shat on.

[JackalStomper]

It might be if you mix up your paragon and renegade choices, which is what bioware is seemingly trying to force down your throat encourage.

[Cortexian]

is it even possible to have both geth and quarian fleets together at the end of the game? I passed every reputation check and interrupt that showed up when dealing with the admirals, so I'm not really inclined to try again. If not, it feels like people who took the time to do the loyalty stuff in ME2 got shat on.
Yeah it's possible, they start coexisting on the Quarian planet and everything. The Geth pretty much resettle the entire Quarian civilian fleet in weeks, according to a comment Tali makes.

[Hotrod]

That video does raise a few good questions. However, it depends on if the prothean content is on the 360 disks as well. Microsoft would have required it to go through the exact same testing as the main game instead of as an addon. It being on the PC disk isn't even that big of a surprise considering how UE3 bakes packages. It could have even been autopatched in by whoreigin.
is it even possible to have both geth and quarian fleets together at the end of the game? I passed every reputation check and interrupt that showed up when dealing with the admirals, so I'm not really inclined to try again. If not, it feels like people who took the time to do the loyalty stuff in ME2 got shat on.
I had them both together, just did all the Paragon options when Legion was uploading the Reaper code into the Geth to make them all sentient. Geth and Quarians become friends again and live happily ever after... Until they get stranded at Earth due to the Mass Relays assploding.

[JackalStomper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1kbfNmOOU

[NullZero]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1kbfNmOOU

Thank god I was the only one to notice this retardedness. They're always backwards when I entered the room.

[Hotrod]

This guy kind of pisses me off : http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/03/12/mass-effect-3-opinion-video

[Amit]

Mass Failure 3 is what they should call this.

[Teltaur]

The best part is that Bioware is still in complete denial over this. They keep retweeting articles like this (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/why-the-ending-of-mass-effect-3-was-satifying-and-worthy-of-the-series-mass) and this (http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/03/12/mass-effect-3-opinion-video), and not articles like this (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-and-the-pernicious-myth-of-gamer-entitlement/).

It's looking like the ending is what it is, and any disagreement with that is just whining. I'll just be interested to see how poorly ME3 DLC sells now, since a hit on their wallets is going to be the only thing they'll really pay attention to at this point.

[DarkHalo003]

Lol, so the game was fantastic, but every fan is assmad over the ending and are threatening Bioware in various ways just because one small point unrelated to gameplay is not what they wanted? Well goodness, why are video gamers so bratty?

[=sw=warlord]

Lol, so the game was fantastic, but every fan is assmad over the ending and are threatening Bioware in various ways just because one small point unrelated to gameplay is not what they wanted? Well goodness, why are video gamers so bratty?
Welcome to shooter/RPG.
Mix Call of duty players with WoW addicts and you get mass effect addicts.

[Warsaw]

Lol, so the game was fantastic, but every fan is assmad over the ending and are threatening Bioware in various ways just because one small point unrelated to gameplay is not what they wanted? Well goodness, why are video gamers so bratty?

The fact that it has nothing to do with the gameplay is precisely the problem, if you read through the complaints.

I could turn the question around and ask why some of you players are so apathetic towards the products you buy, but that wouldn't get a much different result from the inverse.

[JackalStomper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzYLTbQQEZQ

[NullZero]

What do you guys think of this:
ynYgr1rqEec

[Zeph]

yeah, I've gone through plenty of that stuff since someone mentioned the bioware forums.


The theoretical indoctrination crap just doesn't work. If it is indeed the true intention of the writer for the ending, it completely ignores the entire history and codex for the series.

The ending not being the actual ending only makes sense when considering the 'sheperd lives' ending where he gasps in a pile of rubble by the beacon as nothing more than a dream. If Bioware announces a ME4 in a couple of months, where you actually take Earth back following the near total anihilation of the allied fleets, it works. However, that can't fly because going by the 'game saves matter' crap, if Sheperd dies you can't continue on. It would mean that in order to play ME4, you'd have to beat ME3 multiplayer components for a high enough EMS. In order to fix this, it has to be nigh approachable DLC.

The Prothean VI does not recognize Sheperd as indoctrinated. His lack of proximity around indoctrination fields puts his only possible indoctrination periods on Virmire (localized fields; many people there were segmented from the indoctrinated), the Reaper wreck, the destruction of the human-reaper factory (collectors were genetically modified to follow reapers, not indoctrinated), the short time on the Quarian homeworld to blow up the destroyer (not even known if those things deploy indoctrination fields), and then by the catalyst itself.

The ME Codex says that rapid indoctrination leaves the victims with little more capacity than husks. On Virmire, we saw some of the fastest indoctrinations and that was nothing close to the minutes Sheperd took getting to TIM.

The ending was either a dream to be patched with DLC, or utter and complete ignorance to the prior couple hundred hours of gameplay in the series.

[Cortexian]

Yeah, the problem isn't just that we disliked the outcome of the game. It's that there are insanely huge holes in the plot and that NONE OF OUR FUCKING CHOICES ACTUALLY MATTER.

[Kornman00]

It was alllllllllllllll a dream

[DarkHalo003]

It was alllllllllllllll a dream
Heh remember when the community thought this for the Halo 3 ending? Lol, someone had to do it eventually I suppose....NO THEY DIDN'T IT'S A TERRIBRU IDEA.

You guys sure EA didn't drop in and dictate this? The ending is one thing, but if it's complete bullshit that hardly involves integral details of the plot, well I'm just going to say I doubt Bioware would make something this mediocre....

[Teltaur]

This is actually the best summation of everyone's problems with the ending(s?) that I've seen so far:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H_A7SeawU4

[Cortexian]

I agree Teltaur, that pretty much sums it up.

Actually, all they need to do is add a dialog option into the discussion with the Catalyst at the end. Tell him he's wrong about the cycle and that he hasn't observed it for a long enough period of time. Point out that yes, the Geth rebelled against their creators, but they now wish to get along with them BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW SENTIENT and realize their errors.

Point out that with the Geth as mentors, future synthetic races can learn from them/be upgraded into sentient AI platforms.

This could all be based on the Paragon (good) ending since to get to that point with the Geth you need to do mostly Paragon stuff.

The Renegade ending could be more similar to what happens now, except you decided to wipe out the Geth earlier so you can't explain to the Catalyst that the Geth are now good. Therefore you get to fuck up the galaxy because YOU FUCKING IDIOT YOU RUINED THE GETH AND PROVED THE POINT FOR THE CATALYST.

EDIT:
Also, I just replayed the ending after hacking my Military assets to over 11000 (half = more than the 5k requirement for the extra "Shepard lives" ending). I took the "Control the Reapers" option and didn't get the aforementioned extra ending. Not surprising only the "destroy Reapers" ending leaves Shepard in one piece. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you need to take the "destroy Reapers" option to get that.

I also noticed a few neat things (that may or may not have been pointed out already);
• In the "control Reapers" ending, the Citadel just closes up and doesn't explode.
• They don't show the Relay's exploding, they cut the video off just before it happens unlike in the other two endings. There's no explicit mention of the Relay's having to be destroyed for this ending either. I'm going to go ahead and bury my head in the sand and assume that in this version of the ending the Citadel remains in the Sol system above Earth, the fleets use it to resupply, and then take the Mass Relay's home.
• The two crew-members that you take with you when assaulting the "beam" are shown with Joker during the ending on the Jungle planet, implying that they are alive.

So yeah, I'm gonna go with what I saw. What I saw was the Relay's intact, the Citadel intact (but closed, HOW 2 OPEN?!?), and the majority of your crew alive but temporarily stranded. And with Shepard in control of the Reapers, and no reason to doubt that he can't communicate through them (we know they can vocalize), this is by far the best ending. Except for the fact that there's no way to pursue your romantic interests as a non-material hive-mind for the Reapers.

^ I edited that btw. ^

[=sw=warlord]

You can clearly see the Mass relays exploding from the shockwaves in the galaxy view but if the citadel didn't explode then there is at least one mass relay which didn't blow.
In the scene with the child and the old man I keep hearing the Child say "tell me another story Commander Sheppard" which I'm thinking he's addressing Shepard himself so Shepard may be alive.

[Cortexian]

You can clearly see the Mass relays exploding from the shockwaves in the galaxy view but if the citadel didn't explode then there is at least one mass relay which didn't blow.
In the scene with the child and the old man I keep hearing the Child say "tell me another story Commander Sheppard" which I'm thinking he's addressing Shepard himself so Shepard may be alive.
The galaxy map doesn't show them exploding lol, it just shows the colors surging from one system to another and then start branching out. Even when I did the synthesis route and the Relay's were supposed to be exploding it didn't occur to me that I was actually seeing explosions from that far away (being able to see the entire galaxy). That's how I took it at least, just a visual representation of the failure you've brought on the galaxy.

The kid says "Tell me another story about the Shepard" in all the endings, there are no variations of that scene unfortunately.

[=sw=warlord]

Watch the scene again, you can clearly see blue rings expanding as the relays send the signal on and then detonate

[Champ]

Just beat the game and I'm pretty much in the boat with everyone else. Game was great, endings..not so much.

I feel like if they just had Shepard die after whatever you decided to choose and not destroy the relays it would have been fine. It would have been even less trouble than what they decided to go with

[Cortexian]

Watch the scene again, you can clearly see blue rings expanding as the relays send the signal on and then detonate
The key is that in the other two endings you actually see them explode, pieces fly out in all directions, especially the rotating ring bots.

[Higuy]

Lancer, they exploded in the control option. I think you had a similar issue that I did - some parts of the cutscene skipped over during it. My end scene with Joker only played halfway through and part when the Reapers lift off and away in London also cut out. I'd go watch it on youtube or try it again.

[Cortexian]

Lancer, they exploded in the control option. I think you had a similar issue that I did - some parts of the cutscene skipped over during it. My end scene with Joker only played halfway through and part when the Reapers lift off and away in London also cut out. I'd go watch it on youtube or try it again.
Oh it looks like you're right, just another bug/glitch to tack onto this terrible game. Oh well, there's still a Relay on the Citadel that wasn't in use.

[Higuy]

Yeah, another bug with unreal and bink lol. Anyway the one on the Citadel is rendered useless due to the fact that there is no other relays.

[Cortexian]

Yeah, another bug with unreal and bink lol. Anyway the one on the Citadel is rendered useless due to the fact that there is no other relays.
Not the point, the tech is there so they can build more and send them to destinations unmanned at FTL.

[neuro]

http://i.imgur.com/stzbj.jpg

relevant

[DarkHalo003]

Heh.

[Champ]

I agree Teltaur, that pretty much sums it up.



The Renegade ending could be more similar to what happens now, except you decided to wipe out the Geth earlier so you can't explain to the Catalyst that the Geth are now good. Therefore you get to fuck up the galaxy because YOU FUCKING IDIOT YOU RUINED THE GETH AND PROVED THE POINT FOR THE CATALYST.

EDIT:
Also, I just replayed the ending after hacking my Military assets to over 11000 (half = more than the 5k requirement for the extra "Shepard lives" ending). I took the "Control the Reapers" option and didn't get the aforementioned extra ending. Not surprising only the "destroy Reapers" ending leaves Shepard in one piece. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you need to take the "destroy Reapers" option to get that.

I also noticed a few neat things (that may or may not have been pointed out already);
• In the "control Reapers" ending, the Citadel just closes up and doesn't explode.
• They don't show the Relay's exploding, they cut the video off just before it happens unlike in the other two endings. There's no explicit mention of the Relay's having to be destroyed for this ending either. I'm going to go ahead and bury my head in the sand and assume that in this version of the ending the Citadel remains in the Sol system above Earth, the fleets use it to resupply, and then take the Mass Relay's home.
• The two crew-members that you take with you when assaulting the "beam" are shown with Joker during the ending on the Jungle planet, implying that they are alive.

So yeah, I'm gonna go with what I saw. What I saw was the Relay's intact, the Citadel intact (but closed, HOW 2 OPEN?!?), and the majority of your crew alive but temporarily stranded. And with Shepard in control of the Reapers, and no reason to doubt that he can't communicate through them (we know they can vocalize), this is by far the best ending. Except for the fact that there's no way to pursue your romantic interests as a non-material hive-mind for the Reapers.

^ I edited that btw. ^
From what I've read in order to get the "Shepard lives ending" you need to let Anderson die.

[Teltaur]

I agree Teltaur, that pretty much sums it up.

Actually, all they need to do is add a dialog option into the discussion with the Catalyst at the end. Tell him he's wrong about the cycle and that he hasn't observed it for a long enough period of time. Point out that yes, the Geth rebelled against their creators, but they now wish to get along with them BECAUSE THEY ARE NOW SENTIENT and realize their errors.

Point out that with the Geth as mentors, future synthetic races can learn from them/be upgraded into sentient AI platforms.

This could all be based on the Paragon (good) ending since to get to that point with the Geth you need to do mostly Paragon stuff.

The Renegade ending could be more similar to what happens now, except you decided to wipe out the Geth earlier so you can't explain to the Catalyst that the Geth are now good. Therefore you get to fuck up the galaxy because YOU FUCKING IDIOT YOU RUINED THE GETH AND PROVED THE POINT FOR THE CATALYST.

EDIT:
Also, I just replayed the ending after hacking my Military assets to over 11000 (half = more than the 5k requirement for the extra "Shepard lives" ending). I took the "Control the Reapers" option and didn't get the aforementioned extra ending. Not surprising only the "destroy Reapers" ending leaves Shepard in one piece. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you need to take the "destroy Reapers" option to get that.

I also noticed a few neat things (that may or may not have been pointed out already);
• In the "control Reapers" ending, the Citadel just closes up and doesn't explode.
• They don't show the Relay's exploding, they cut the video off just before it happens unlike in the other two endings. There's no explicit mention of the Relay's having to be destroyed for this ending either. I'm going to go ahead and bury my head in the sand and assume that in this version of the ending the Citadel remains in the Sol system above Earth, the fleets use it to resupply, and then take the Mass Relay's home.
• The two crew-members that you take with you when assaulting the "beam" are shown with Joker during the ending on the Jungle planet, implying that they are alive.

So yeah, I'm gonna go with what I saw. What I saw was the Relay's intact, the Citadel intact (but closed, HOW 2 OPEN?!?), and the majority of your crew alive but temporarily stranded. And with Shepard in control of the Reapers, and no reason to doubt that he can't communicate through them (we know they can vocalize), this is by far the best ending. Except for the fact that there's no way to pursue your romantic interests as a non-material hive-mind for the Reapers.

^ I edited that btw. ^

Not quite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPelM2hwhJA

You can see the Mass Relay still clearly being destroyed/falling apart in the Control endings, only the resulting explosion is cut (and part of that may just have to do with the time restraints of the ending to match with the soundtrack, for the same reason that many of the Joker scenes are cut differently in each ending). That may just mean that there wasn't an Arrival-like explosion for each relay, but the relay is still clearly falling apart no matter what.

Also, the EMS only really changes the reactions of the soldiers and if Big Ben blows up after the beam goes through, and that depends on your choice of ending. It's kind of weird, but a system has been figured out that at certain EMS levels, certain endings are good and certain ones are bad, and at some levels other options aren't even really available. As long as the Synthesis ending is available to the player, it's always "good," while Control can be good or bad and Destroy can range from good to "lulz-I-just-destroyed-all-life" bad.


And, you get the Shepard breathing scene if you choose Destroy, have an EMS over 5000, and/or imported or have a NG+

[=sw=warlord]

Psst, Big ben isn't the name of the tower, St Ivans is the name of the tower, big Ben is the bell inside the tower.

[Teltaur]

Psst, Big ben isn't the name of the tower, St Ivans is the name of the tower, big Ben is the bell inside the tower.
Bleh, you can let an American be ignorant, can't you? :P

[=sw=warlord]

Bleh, you can let an American be ignorant, can't you? :P
Only enlightening the naive. :p

[Zeph]

Psst, Big ben isn't the name of the tower, St Ivans is the name of the tower, big Ben is the bell inside the tower.

I don't call people by their clothes. :p

[=sw=warlord]

I don't call people by their clothes. :p
You don't call them by their organs either.
HAH, Organs.

[JackalStomper]

Just finished the game, didn't really like it. I just don't believe in burning the city to save the city.

[Hotrod]

Hey guys, I have some potential good news here : http://www.gamefront.com/rumor-mass-effect-3-dlc-the-truth-due-in-april/

[Cortexian]

Very "potential" indeed.

I'm not holding my breath, but if that's true then I might buy the game at that point. It's unlikely though, since it's only on whorigin for PC.

[Kornman00]

Just get a copy for the Xbox or PS3, as I could have sworn you have one. We already know whorigin is a turd. And that's The Truth.

[Warsaw]

Just get a copy for the Xbox or PS3, as I could have sworn you have one. We already know whorigin is a turd. And that's The Truth.
http://kornnersoftware.com/images/boner.png

Still holding out for the price drop.

[Zeph]

In the mean time, grab a copy of ME1/2 for console. At least you'd have a campaign to your liking when you go through 3.

[TeeKup]

FUCK if that's true I totally want to be a Geth Infiltrator.

[Kornman00]

Russians! Goddamn Russians are in London! (http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7694386/on-mass-effect-3)

[TeeKup]

I really enjoyed that article.

[Amit]

2705

[Cortexian]

LMAO.

[Hotrod]

Oh man, that made my day.

[Cagerrin]

what really sucks is that the "ending as indoctrination" theory means the sequence with the Illusive Man would be simulation and it's only after that that the ending sucks.

pretty sure it physically injured me with how bad it was

first playthrough was accidentally off the wrong ME2 save so Tali ended up suiciding, redoing off a proper save but I'm just going to nope away from the ending on all playthroughs now

[DarkHalo003]

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/outrage-over-mass-effect-3-ending-reaches-ftc-173411384.html

:ugh:

[Cortexian]

I just read an article that begged all of us outraged fans to calm down, the ending was fine according to the article, and the biggest problem with the game in the authors mind was that they changed Mordin's voice actor.

:downs:

[Hotrod]

Wait... They changed Mordin's voice actor?

[Cortexian]

Yeah, it was such an obviously huge change... :-3

[Hotrod]

Well Mordin was dead for me, having died in my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2 (only one who died), and I continued that save for the first time. Still, as long as he'lls ound Mordin-y, it'll be all good for me.

[JackalStomper]

I didn't notice a difference

[Teltaur]

I seem to remember them using Meer for Mordin's voicing in the demo footage, and that was pretty obviously off, but it seemed pretty close to the original VA in the final game.

[Cortexian]

There's such little difference that unless you played both ME2 and ME3 back-to-back and took Mordin with you everywhere you wouldn't notice a difference.

[Sanctus]

At first I thought there was something different but that quickly faded away. I guess there was a legitimate reason for that now. I finally beat it the other day so now I can click on all those spoiler tags! :D

[Hotrod]

http://blog.bioware.com/2012/03/21/4108/

Looks like Bioware does listen after all.

[Kornman00]

Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics...
The only difference between an "official" critic and a fan is that the latter gets paid or is backed by some company who was paid off to hype the game.

...with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score...
That should be a red flag right off the bat. No game is perfect. If a game gets slapped with a perfect score, then that critic isn't doing their job or is in the wrong line of work.

[JackalStomper]

You would think they would take this opportunity to realize there is demand for some dlc with new endings....





for a price of course.

[Kornman00]

For only 10 easy payments of 9.99, YOU TOO can decide the ending of ME3! (if you have the same decisions as our writers)

[Hotrod]

You would think they would take this opportunity to realize there is demand for some dlc with new endings....





for a price of course.
Isn't that essentially what they were saying they were going to do?

[Higuy]

Finally.

[Zeph]

You honestly believe they're going to do anything about it? They're going to continue on with the DLC they had planned and at most make a vocal reason saying such DLC addresses their concerns.

They're only going to be able to fix this with a ME4.

[Hotrod]

You honestly believe they're going to do anything about it? They're going to continue on with the DLC they had planned and at most make a vocal reason saying such DLC addresses their concerns.

They're only going to be able to fix this with a ME4.
Mass Effect 4, save the galaxy from you having fucked it up!

[DarkHalo003]

Mass Effect 4: End the game your own way!

[Amit]

Mass Suicide will become a a big thing if they continue on with the way they're going.

[BobtheGreatII]

Hey, sorry I'm late to the party but,

FUCK THE ENDING.

That is all.

[JackalStomper]

It's not THAT bad, just poorly executed.

though I guess if you wanted some happy ending where shepard says some dramatic ending speech then flies off into the orbital sunset then yeah you pretty much got shafted.

One another note

Multiplayer.

It's addicting.

[Hotrod]

It's not THAT bad, just poorly executed.
No, it's not THAT bad, it's much much more terrible than that.



Multiplayer.

It's addicting.
Yes, yes it is. I've been playing a lot of it with my brother, it's so awesome!

[BobtheGreatII]

It's not THAT bad, just poorly executed.

though I guess if you wanted some happy ending where shepard says some dramatic ending speech then flies off into the orbital sunset then yeah you pretty much got shafted.

One another note

Multiplayer.

It's addicting.

No. It was freaking ridiculous. All choices you made for 3 games made no difference at the end except for some different colored explosions. I certainly hope they fix this whole thing some how. Not to mention the fact that it made absolutely no sense.

[Siliconmaster]

Yeah, I finally finished the game the day before yesterday, and the more I think about the ending the more frustrated I am. Each piece taken by itself wasn't terrible, but as the ending to the Mass Effect Trilogy it sucked monkey balls. I hope the dlc/fixes/new endings actually fix some of the BS.

[Hotrod]

A lot of theories have come up saying that the last 10 minutes of the game or so were a vision caused by indoctrination... Seems like it would make sense if we got a real ending afterwards.

[JackalStomper]

It's all a dream after he passes out at the control panel and gets lifted by the elevator.

[Cortexian]

It's all a dream after he passes out at the control panel and gets lifted by the elevator.
Even though it's really tacky, I'd buy it for the sake of some proper ending sequences.

[Zeph]

Ima gonna fix this here for you.
Remember that short extra ending with 5k+ EMA?

It's all a dream after he gets laser raped by harbinger.

[JackalStomper]

But thats boring. I liked the confrontation with shepard/illusive man/anderson.
Then again having ANYTHING that resorts to just 'it was a dream' is boring.

Don't replace the old ending, just have it be an option for a certain direction your past choices has taken.
Make a different ending available for others, then just have a different sequence of events throughout the last mission that leads to it.

[TeeKup]

The Destruction ending could have your love interest and some other crew pull you out of the rubble. Galaxy is all better, reapers dropping dead etc etc. Could have actually tried to indoctrinate shepard, and him resisting and saying no could have some weird feedback loop that blows up all the reapers. IDK. SOMETHING BETTER.

[Sanctus]

The Destruction ending could have your love interest and some other crew pull you out of the rubble. Galaxy is all better, reapers dropping dead etc etc. Could have actually tried to indoctrinate shepard, and him resisting and saying no could have some weird feedback loop that blows up all the reapers. IDK. SOMETHING BETTER.

THIS. Or something along those lines

[Warsaw]

Javik is officially the coolest squad member in the series. The man is a total boss.

"They used to eat flies."

[/thread]

[Hotrod]

Javik is officially the coolest squad member in the series. The man is a total boss.

"They used to eat flies."

[/thread]
All I have to say to this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7sjNIxMTCo

[Warsaw]

Yup, that too. Total, total boss.

[Kornman00]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/549463_972713023627_48610722_38168095_233671776_n. jpg

The Dude hath spoken.

[=sw=warlord]

All this moaning.
Needs more Miranda.
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/4/45270/1233525-82350917_medium_super.jpg

[Kornman00]

Silly Chief, that's not how you read Miranda her rights!

Well, unless the right to be fisted was ammended between now and 2552

[dark navi]

Silly Chief, that's not how you read Miranda her rights!

Well, unless the right to be fisted was ammended between now and 2552

I think fists are covered under the second amendment's 'arms'. :iamafag:

[Kornman00]

http://www.modacity.net/forums/images/customavatars/avatar1793_4.gif (http://www.modacity.net/forums/member.php?1793-dark-navi) (http://www.modacity.net/forums/member.php?1793-dark-navi)

[Cortexian]

All this moaning.
Needs more Miranda.
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/4/45270/1233525-82350917_medium_super.jpg
I can fap to this.

[TeeKup]

Then you've got more issues than I do.












And that's saying something.

[Kornman00]

moaning Mirandas

Sounds like a meme waiting to happen. Guess it's a good thing they killed her off in H3, huh?

[Pooky]

She probably could have dodged that Spiker if she didn't have back problems from her sudden unexplained breast explosion.

[=sw=warlord]

miranda was pregnant.
Johnson just can't keep it in his pants after a mission.

[BobtheGreatII]

moaning Mirandas

Sounds like a meme waiting to happen. Guess it's a good thing they killed her off in H3, huh?

DUDE. SPOILERS.

LIEK OMG.

[Kornman00]

Maybe it was...an april fools :mech2:?

[Cortexian]

It's not april are u dumb?

[Kornman00]

There are other time zones in the world you...Canandian.

[Cortexian]

Hi global rollover into a new day doesn't occur until the last time zone rolls over into the new day.

sorry for your lack of global time knowledge and official dating techniques.

[Kornman00]

sorry for your lack of jokes

[Cortexian]

hi this is modacity you must be new here

we are a very serious place for serious dscussion only please no sarcasm or bad jokes here

[Kornman00]

sorry for your forum

[TeeKup]

gdfibQrcWTg

I lol'd hard.

_CE9DTV1lwM

GODDAMNIT JAVIK.

Btw Tali is still the best romance option.

EDIT:
8DojgG3xsDE
O_O
8YBK2jaDmLo

[Cortexian]

JAVIK KNOWS.

It should be a new meme.

[Warsaw]

See? Told you Javik was the coolest character.

[Hotrod]

Ah man, during next playthrough Javik is coming with me a lot more often than he did the first time around.

[=sw=warlord]

JAVIK KNOWS.

It should be a new meme.
http://static.quickmeme.com/media/social/qm.gifhttp://static.quickmeme.com/media/social/qm.gifhttp://i.qkme.me/3ojyjw.jpg

[=sw=warlord]

http://www.oxm.co.uk/40450/mass-effect-3-ending-gets-free-dlc-extension-brace-for-the-extended-cut/

(http://www.oxm.co.uk/40450/mass-effect-3-ending-gets-free-dlc-extension-brace-for-the-extended-cut/)FREE DLC?

[Zeph]

wont matter if the writer still sucks. The whole dark energy thing proves that they didn't look back to bring about the content in the ending. They're not interested in making your choices matter. The only way they can fix this is ME4.

[Hotrod]

Yay for more free DLC! : http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/04/06/the-mass-effect-3-resurgence-pack-announced.aspx

I absolutely love the multiplayer and am very much looking forward to this.

[TeeKup]

Dear god, Krogan Battlemaster Vanguard?! Cerberus = Fucked.

[Higuy]

Thats a first for EA... free DLC? Must be becuase people are still pissed about the ending and want to have good rep for PAX.

[TeeKup]

Mass Effect 2 actually had a LOT of free DLC. What wasn't was relatively cheap.

[Zeph]

Mass Effect 2 actually had a LOT of free DLC. What wasn't was relatively cheap.

it was only free if you had cerberus network access.
If I have to use my multiplayer code just to get this dlc, I'm gonna be mad.

[Pooky]

it was only free if you had cerberus network access.
If I have to use my multiplayer code just to get this dlc, I'm gonna be mad.

The only way you would not have Cerberus network access is if you bought the game used like a tard.

[Siliconmaster]

The only way you would not have Cerberus network access is if you bought the game used like a tard.

That was me :( I was broke, and didn't play the first two games until this past summer. It sucked when the code was already used up.

[Higuy]

Mass Effect 2 actually had a LOT of free DLC. What wasn't was relatively cheap.

Never noticed then, assuming it was EA and all and normally there stuff isn't free from what I've seen, I just assumed I'd have to purchase it.

[JackalStomper]

everyone says me3 is buggy but they have no idea how bad some people had it with me2


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFR4socSv_E

[Zeph]

The only way you would not have Cerberus network access is if you bought the game used like a tard.

or if you didn't buy the game through steam and never got around to entering your key code and subsequently forgot where the fuck you put it.

[TeeKup]

Well that's you're own damn fault :|

[Cortexian]

Actually it's EA/BioWare's fault for making you need to do that dumb shit in the first place.

[Kornman00]

I may think EA can go blow a cow dong, but this right here is bullshit (http://www.develop-online.net/news/40422/Thousands-of-anti-gay-threats-storm-EA). Whomever is authoring these letters, they're nothing but fucking ignorant unprogressives. Someone needs to flush all this santorum.

[Pooky]

For once I support EA on something.

[TeeKup]

So the Batarian sentinel is pretty much ridiculous. So is the Striker Assault rifle.

[Hotrod]

I haven't been able to play it yet, since I'm waiting on my brother to try out the new maps... And he got his Live account hacked the other day :/ Microsoft told him it'd take a few days for him to get his account back...

But yeah, I definitely want to get my hands on that Geth Infiltrator and the Krogan Battlemaster. I can just imagine what Biotic Charge + Krogan would do.

[JackalStomper]

I can just imagine what Biotic Charge + Krogan would do.


*whoosh* GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA
*whoosh* GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA
*whoosh* GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA
*whoosh* GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA
*whoosh* GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAAAAA

For Tuchankaaaaaa!!!!

repeat

[Hotrod]

Seems pretty epic if you ask me!

[TeeKup]

I make it work with the Striker Assault Rifle. I don't use Shockwave, at all. I leave it empty and just max out everything else.

[Kornman00]

All your game endings are belong to BioWare troll developers

[DarkHalo003]

All your game endings are belong to BioWare troll developers
I thought you were gonna say EA....oh wait I see what you did there.

[Teltaur]

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3523/screenshot20120414at927.png

I'll just leave this here.