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Liger Watch. Mass Effect 3 Eniding Rant/Review. SPOILERS!!!
13 years ago
SPOILER ALERT. DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THE ENDING SPOILED.
Fairly warned be ye.
Alrighty now on to it. I've just finished the game and well I thought I'd write something about it as there's a lot to this and I need to talk about it. I've been a fan of Mass Effect since Day one. Since the first game and I'll say this. I love the game. All of them. Even this one. Mass Effect 3 had a lot of exceptionally cool and indeed epic moments. In my play through I cured the Krogan Genophage and forged an alliance between them and the Turians. I brought the Geth and Quarian to peace on Rannoch the Quarian home world. I got to see two Reapers bite the dust via the mother of all Thresermaws and an orbital strike from the Quarian fleet respectively. I had fun. Even Kai Lang. A Cerberus agent who I hated was kinda cool in that it's just so satisfying when you finally do get to kill him.
Now all that said the game has some flaws. Weapons model improvement doesn't seem to do much to them. Upgrades never seem to improve the weapon a significant amount and some moments, mostly Kai Lang related, will feel very frustrating. The sticker to it all is the ending. And this is where there will be major SPOILER stuff.
At the end of the game. Regardless of anything you've done you will have 3 choices. The ending sequence will only very slightly depending on prior game play and choice. Your choices are. Destroy the Reapers and all Synthetic life including Edi and the Geth. Merg all life. Every lifeform in the galaxy will be an organic synthetic hybrid. Though they won't look a lot different. The last choice is to Control the Reapers. This means Shepard will merg with the Reapers and which will cause them to stop and leave.
Now the Merger and Control choices will result in the Reapers being changed and leaving for good. Obviously the first one kills them and all synthetic life. All the endings effectively kill Shepard save for the Destory one which hints that he might have survived. All the endings result in the Mass Relay Network being destroyed.
Now I don't have a problem with Shepard dieing. It's the Heroic thing to do after all. But I hate that none of the choices are ideal and that all of them effectively destroy the existing stuff we love. That said though there are ways out of this ending. If the Destroy option is chosen perhaps the Asari could build and place new Mass Relays and walla universe restored enough. If the second two options are chosen then the Reapers themselves could conceivably construct new Mass Relays to put into place. Me I chose the control ending as I thought it was the best option and it leaves open the possibility for me to pretend Shepard's mind within them had them put shiny new Relays in place.
Well that's what I think anyway. If you have any thoughts feel free to comment.
Fairly warned be ye.
Alrighty now on to it. I've just finished the game and well I thought I'd write something about it as there's a lot to this and I need to talk about it. I've been a fan of Mass Effect since Day one. Since the first game and I'll say this. I love the game. All of them. Even this one. Mass Effect 3 had a lot of exceptionally cool and indeed epic moments. In my play through I cured the Krogan Genophage and forged an alliance between them and the Turians. I brought the Geth and Quarian to peace on Rannoch the Quarian home world. I got to see two Reapers bite the dust via the mother of all Thresermaws and an orbital strike from the Quarian fleet respectively. I had fun. Even Kai Lang. A Cerberus agent who I hated was kinda cool in that it's just so satisfying when you finally do get to kill him.
Now all that said the game has some flaws. Weapons model improvement doesn't seem to do much to them. Upgrades never seem to improve the weapon a significant amount and some moments, mostly Kai Lang related, will feel very frustrating. The sticker to it all is the ending. And this is where there will be major SPOILER stuff.
At the end of the game. Regardless of anything you've done you will have 3 choices. The ending sequence will only very slightly depending on prior game play and choice. Your choices are. Destroy the Reapers and all Synthetic life including Edi and the Geth. Merg all life. Every lifeform in the galaxy will be an organic synthetic hybrid. Though they won't look a lot different. The last choice is to Control the Reapers. This means Shepard will merg with the Reapers and which will cause them to stop and leave.
Now the Merger and Control choices will result in the Reapers being changed and leaving for good. Obviously the first one kills them and all synthetic life. All the endings effectively kill Shepard save for the Destory one which hints that he might have survived. All the endings result in the Mass Relay Network being destroyed.
Now I don't have a problem with Shepard dieing. It's the Heroic thing to do after all. But I hate that none of the choices are ideal and that all of them effectively destroy the existing stuff we love. That said though there are ways out of this ending. If the Destroy option is chosen perhaps the Asari could build and place new Mass Relays and walla universe restored enough. If the second two options are chosen then the Reapers themselves could conceivably construct new Mass Relays to put into place. Me I chose the control ending as I thought it was the best option and it leaves open the possibility for me to pretend Shepard's mind within them had them put shiny new Relays in place.
Well that's what I think anyway. If you have any thoughts feel free to comment.
Seems like a bit of a rushed ending sequence, or fanfiction bait. Hmmmf.
I should backtrack a bit in regards to the endings though. It's not that I didn't like them or that I wasn't amused with having to choose between the lesser of three evils. It kind of seems more true to life. Things don't always stay on the straight and narrow and you sometimes have to make do with the cards you were dealt. The main thing I have against the ending to the game was that it seemed like all the choices you made in the first and second installments weren't at all important ultimately with how the story was concluded. All they seemed to determine was how much of a head start you got with gathering your war assets or how much easier things would be in any given mission. It sort of cheapens the novelty of a game that can branch in so many different directions. Seeing how as, in the end, all roads lead to Rome.
Still, I was satisfied with finishing the game. I was tempted to just destroy the reapers because that's what Anderson wanted but I decided to follow Captain Decker's example and jump start sentient life to the next level of evolution. Yeah, it sucked that a lot of people died and the Mass Relays all got destroyed but something stirred within me, seeing the survivors of the Normandy emerge from the crashed ship (albeit with silly circuitry patterns on them) into essentially the Garden of Eden. It just seemed right. Plus that last scene with Buzz Aldrin and grandson at the end of the credits talking about going back to space put me in a good mood for the rest of the night.
After thinking about it and re examining clips I think what wound up happening was Shepard being knocked out on his run to get to the Citadel and the Reapers attempting to Indoctrinate him. It makes the most sense especially in light of the few second clip with get if you choose to destroy the reapers in which we see Shepard's chest buried in rubble that obviously isn't from the citadel and he takes a breath.
But yeah aside from this ending I really did love this game with so many emotional moments to just jerk those tears out. Heck even from Minor characters. Like the Old woman on the Citadel who kept asking the Asari about her son. And continually remembering less and less. And the Turian guy talking to his Asari girl before being shipped out. All good stuff. EA just fell flat on the ending which will likely get a fix with DLC. And I say EA could I doubt Bioware could or would do something like this on it's own. That and EA's track record for squeezing every penny out of a franchise it can.
Yes... That's not playing cover-ass at all.
Even if the "You were halucinating" idea is right, that is a gigantic FU to everyone playing for the story.
According to bioware's own spokesman: "We are turning the ending into a giant publicity stunt"
People deserve better.
"Dear Mass Effect fans,
We apologize that so many found this ending so dissatisfying on such a large scale. Your opinions are important to us and we value the trust placed in us. We ask that you please be patient as we work to address your concerns. Again we still welcome your feedback and again we apologize.
Sincerely, Bioware Mass Effect Team"
Now if they'd said that fans would be a bit happier.
ANd yeah, instead of aknowledging that the representative from BIoware basically said "Ha, we made you care about what we did, now cry and get us free money."