Mass Effect 3 *Spoilers*

[Enhance]

I still haven't gotten to the ending yet (grinding through online play -_- ). But, from the ending choices I have seen, choosing to destroy the reapers (despite it killing ALL synthetic life) seems like it should be more of a paragon option than a renegade option. I just don't know fully understand what the devs were thinking when they created these endings. Paragon endings, to me, signify doing everything that makes the most sense morally. Of course, going full paragon means you have to die, but all life is saved.

Doing the paragon route should save Shepard's life, imho. Yet, choosing to destroy the reapers (aka renegade option), results in the perfect ending where Shepard lives (or, it's insinuated he lives). It just doesn't really make sense to me. Destroying the reapers should be a Paragon choice, because "controlling" them seems like the brain child of Lawson and the Illusive Man at this point. How can siding with them give you a paragon ending?

I've never gone down the renegade route in any of the ME games (mainly because it always seems like Shepard is just being a d!(k).

 

[sdhusker82]

Sweet baby Jebus, Enhance--any way you can just update the thread title and put 'spoilers' in it so we're not having to hide each and every one of our posts? LOL...

As for Mordin--

Spoiler

There's no way to save him, per my understanding.

As for the ending... (long exposition but I cover all the points I think...)--

Spoiler

Yes, it's a crock of s**t that EA forced everyone into using their 'online pass' for multiplayer, because that's the only way you can realistically get your readiness up to where you get the "good" "meh" "least s****y"? ending where Shepard is still alive and takes a breath.

FYI, for the "least s****y" ending, you have to pick destruction, and have your war assets above 4500 (if you convince the Illusive Man to pull a Saren, which requires strong Paragon or Renegade), or 5500 if you can't get the IM to pull a Saren.

And no, the ending makes no sense, and there's no closure. What happens to your dextro-based squadmates (Garrus, Tali) on Eden 2.0? I guess they starve to death after their food runs out while Joker, Edi, Ashley (really--did *anyone* save Kaiden?), and the rest of the crew watch on since the ship is broke and the Mass Effect relays blew up?

And why the holy f**k is Joker in the ship with your squadmates, anyway? Did he abandon the fight and directly disobey Shepard's last order?

Plus, the destroy ending has you taking out the Geth as well. What the holy f***k?!?! If you have a high enough Paragon or Renegade, you can save the Geth and you find out later via Tali that they're working hand in hand (or AI in environmental suit, as it were) with the Quarians to get them shelter, food, and to get themselves acclimated back to their homeworld. And now in the "best" ending you f*****g have to kill them because they're synthetics and hey, "in order to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs"? F**k you, EA and BioWare.

And what about the whole f*****g fleet that you spent the whole game amassing that's now hanging out around a f****d up Earth? What are they going to do--the Mass Relays were blown up, so it's going to take them months or years (per established canon) to slog it home via FTL. Hell, it may take the Quarians the better part of an Earth decade to get back to their home planet they *just* took back but left anyway to help out Shepard and Earth. And you still have food/supply issues, again, including the dextro-based lifeforms (whose Earth foods, whatever is left, won't support).

And finally, the Mass Effect relays--when they go 'boom', they take out an entire solar system (see Arrival DLC's aftermath and the Batarian homeworld). Since the Mass Relays were at the edge of many of these established homeworlds, wouldn't the Turian and Asari homeworlds be taken out? (Note: Our relay was a little beyond Pluto, past the asteroid belt, so I *suppose* that our Solar System could still be around, sans a few planets like Pluto, Neptune, Saturn, Uranus...and wouldn't an explosion like that be enough to ignite Jupiter? Or am I getting too 2001 in here?)

---

Mind you, I don't want, nor expect a happy, Hollywood ending with blue Asari babies (yeah, my FemShep got it on with Liara--don't hate) and Wrex (yeah, I saved his a$$ in ME1--don't hate) baking me a f*****g cake. I just want concrete answers about the aftermath that conform with established canon. That isn't too f*****g hard to do...that is, unless you're on a tight deadline and EA wants you to shoe-horn in MP so they have an excuse to put an online pass into the game.

Matt, the way I interpreted it, was that the mass relays just sent out the "effect" you chose. Like if you chose the red it would destroy all reapers in that vicinity. Thats the problem with the ending though, its too ambiguous and leaves everyone wondering what exactly happened.

Check again--the relays blow up when they shoot their neon-colored death across the galaxy.

See at 2:05 to 2:15 or so--pieces of the relay go flying out from the neon-colored death ray explosion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPhWndG6EIY

The only difference I know of that's substantial is that in the 'control' ending, the Citadel remains intact (but the Mass Relays still go boom).

Yeah I suppose you could be right. Aside from the endings, this game was probably the most fun i've had playing a game though. I'm excited to see the DLC coming out for it. AS LONG AS ITS FREAKIN FREE. f*ck EA.

 

[VectorVictor]

How can you choose not to destroy the Reapers?!?

If you think like the Illusive Man, you wouldn't want to destroy--you'd rather control. Kind of like when you had the choice via Legion to either wipe the rebel geth to get them to align to the 'core' geth collective's ideas, or just fry them completely. (NOTE: If you choose the former in ME2, Geth supposedly aren't available for recruitment...)

Plus, did you see what they did with the Asari they converted to Reapers? How could you not want a squad of those to go mop up the universe with?

 

[Enhance]

30 hour and three minutes later, I beat Mass Effect 3. I chose to control the reapers because, given the consequences of everything else, it seems like the most paragon-esque ending choice.

To answer my earlier question, it turns out that you are transported back in time to just before the assault on the Illusive Man's base once you completely finish the game. That way, you can do DLC and anything else you forgot before.

As far as the ending goes...meh. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.

 

[VectorVictor]

To answer my earlier question, it turns out that you are transported back in time to just before the assault on the Illusive Man's base once you completely finish the game. That way, you can do DLC and anything else you forgot before.

Right--but in your save file, your Shepard is dead, so while DLC will come out pre-ending, anything happening post-game (and remember--developers told us to hold on to ME3 data well beyond the upcoming DLC), will have a dead Shepard on your file. The only supposed "good" ending that has Shepard live is the one where you destroy all AI.

As for the ending, let me ask--did you play ME and ME2?

 

[Enhance]

To answer my earlier question, it turns out that you are transported back in time to just before the assault on the Illusive Man's base once you completely finish the game. That way, you can do DLC and anything else you forgot before.

Right--but in your save file, your Shepard is dead, so while DLC will come out pre-ending, anything happening post-game (and remember--developers told us to hold on to ME3 data well beyond the upcoming DLC), will have a dead Shepard on your file. The only supposed "good" ending that has Shepard live is the one where you destroy all AI.

As for the ending, let me ask--did you play ME and ME2?

Yep. I only played ME once, but I beat ME2 four times I liked it so much.

 

[VectorVictor]

To answer my earlier question, it turns out that you are transported back in time to just before the assault on the Illusive Man's base once you completely finish the game. That way, you can do DLC and anything else you forgot before.

Right--but in your save file, your Shepard is dead, so while DLC will come out pre-ending, anything happening post-game (and remember--developers told us to hold on to ME3 data well beyond the upcoming DLC), will have a dead Shepard on your file. The only supposed "good" ending that has Shepard live is the one where you destroy all AI.

As for the ending, let me ask--did you play ME and ME2?

Yep. I only played ME once, but I beat ME2 four times I liked it so much.

Ah, just curious. You're honestly the first person out of the scores I've talked with that has played both ME1 and 2 and rated the ending was something other than a "kill the mother*****r with fire" sort of response, even though 'meh' isn't exactly a ringing endorsement.

Nothing wrong--just noting it's not in line with what I expected based on anecdotal evidence in the community is all. And that's not a bad thing, per se.

And I'm going back through ME just to see if I missed anything and to make a d!(k/renegade FemShep...problem is, the interface is garbage compared to ME3, which nails the balance between RPG and Shooter IMO. Much better than the streamlined ME2 that just about jettisoned RPG elements IMO.

 

[Enhance]

Mass Effect is just unplayable for me now, as sad as that is to say. It still has a very compelling story line, but so many things about it bother me. For example, every time you go to the Citadel you have to take a five minute walk to get back to the Normandy. A great game, but the improvements in ME2 and ME3 make me not want to play ME again.

I rate the ending 'meh' originally, but after reading about the indoctrination theory, I've changed my mind about the ending and I like it.

Here's the link, if you're interested. http://www.gameseyeview.com/2012/03/15/why-i-liked-the-mass-effect-3-ending-eventually/

 

[VectorVictor]

Thanks, I saw that earlier.

I would subscribe to that theory, except that BioWare has a history of s****y endings (see Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire) to games, and this requires a level of foresight that I don't think BioWare would posses considering their main writers from ME1 and 2 weren't even on board with ME3.

Plus, have you noticed how BioWare and EA have gone back on saying that Shepard's story in ME is going to be a trilogy? Between the Buzz Aldrin ending giving the kid space pneumonia while telling them a bedtime story in the middle of a f*****g frozen field saying there's another story about Shepard and the about face on the length of the ME/Shepard series, I bet we hear rumblings about a ME4 or see DLC that sets up a ME4 with Shepard, perhaps as soon as E3 this June.

And yeah, that's kinda pessimistic. But this is EA we're talking about.