rei
1681
Man, I’d forgotten how much I wanted to punch Hackett in the face after Anderson went to sleep and he’s like “why isn’t this working? Shepard? Do something!” – “shut the eff up! why don’t you hack it out?”
rei
1682
Not even kidding now, this is the best ending: spoiler
sorry to pour fuel on the fire (no, actually I’m not), here’s what Tom Chick said about our dear old Enders on his blog about the extended cut:
“’ve lost interest in the whole issue, but I wonder if angry erstwhile fans will find any satisfaction in these two gigabytes. They’ve done very real damage to a series they supposedly loved, out of all proportion with their complaints. It’s shameful how they’ve hijacked Mass Effect on so many levels: as a story, as a franchise, and even just as a darn good standalone game about an alien invasion. But I’m mostly disappointed that Electronic Arts legitimized their complaints with this DLC.”
I usually don’t agree with him…but thumbs up Tommy boyo.
And sorry to Tom, but I think he’s off his rocker on this one.
If he (or anyone) truly liked the original ending better than the extended cut version -well, to each there own and all that, but when it comes time to judging if someone’s opinion on the game helps to figure out if I would like it, I would have to ignore that opinion. If this was the original ending, there probably would still have been some unhappy campers, but I wouldn’t have been one of them. It’s the difference between a crappy ending, and a story line direction you may not agree with, but can at least see it’s well done and doesn’t throw all logic out the window.
My extreme disatisfaction with the original ending had to do with two things. One, the direction the story took with the (still) idiotic, IMO, Star Child. Didn’t like it then, don’t like it now. But that’s disagreement with storyline. And sometimes, games go in a direction you wouldn’t like to. But adding to that was the fact the whole last ten minutes of the game felt rushed and unfinished, leaving numerous, gaping plot holes. It’s one thing to have an ending you’re not happy with from a storyline. It’s quite another to have one that, on top of that, was so incompetently done - especially when everything leading up to that was about as good a video game experience as there has been.
I hated the original ending to the point I pretended it didn’t exist. Sort of like I do every Alien movie after ‘Aliens.’ Now, I personally think, while I disagree with the direction of the ending, it’s at least very well done and I’m much happier with the result.
Jazar
1685
I never had a huge problem with the original endings but I think the DLC should satisfy a lot of people. (Or should I say “would have satisfied…”)
Where before it was just three different endings that only changed the color of the cutscene, now it goes into depth with each one showing the outcome of your choices both at the end of the game and throughout the entire game. There’s also the final “fuck you” ending. These changes brings the importance of choice back to the end of ME3.
One thing I will say is FUCK YOU to whoever thought it was ok to 1) Not allow you to skip cutscenes AND 2) Not allow you to manually save at any point during the final mission. It takes at least 30 mins to get to the decision point with just about 2 minutes of interaction. What a god damn pain in the ass.
Yeah.
Haven’t played through 2 of the endings yet, because I don’t want to spend 30 minutes each just slow walking through reams of dialogue just to get to that point.
You can watch all the endings on YouTube. Suffice it to say that not very much changes based on decisions you’ve made CONTRARY TO WHAT WAS FUCKING ADVERTISED.
Plot Spoilers (obviously)
New Ending with links to all the other ones (all Extended Cut of course).
But yes, I second that motion, fuck the unskippable cut-scenes. Every time you start a new game or want to replay the end (because someone told you tears are the best lubricant).
Except for maybe a few multiplayer games, goodbye Mass Effect. I’m going to play Space Rangers now.
I think the new endings are better than the old ones because they at least fill in the missing information about the crew, how the LI got on the ship, etc. It’s still a terrible overall ending to the series because of the Star Child BS, but that’s what Bioware wanted originally and they’re not going to totally rewrite the last bit of the game. We’ll just have to live with that.
I do agree with Tom that the amount of “goodwill” generated by these new endings probably isn’t worth it for Bioware and EA. People still hate the Star Child, so that’s not going to change. People hated that the endings come down to a game of cups with no bearing on all the decisions you made before. The original endings are still out there on the internet for people to view anyway. Plus, I suspect many people are like me and just watched the new ending on Youtube because there was no way I was going to replay that much of the game to see the new stuff. Not a great trade.
How can these updates nerf the consequences of your final choice? Bioware said that they weren’t changing the endings, only clarifying things. So according to Bioware, nothing has really changed, therefore nothing can be “nerfed”.
There seems to be some confusion regarding this. If you launch ME3 and select “Continue” it will put you on your ship before the Cerberus Base. This is bad. Instead, you want to go to Load Game and select your most recent autosave. This should put you in front of the Citadel beam right before Marauder Shields. You’re looking at about 20 minutes of dialog to see the (an) ending.
Incidentally, there’s two ways to get the “Fuck You” ending. Refusing to do any of the three original endings, and also shooting the Star Child.
Fuck you, too, Bioware!
Razgon
1691
It is important when differing in opinion to show that the opposing party has done something to make things worse. No matter what the truth is.
I actually like the refusal ending. That, without the starchild, should have been the original ending if your readiness was too low or (especially) if you made bad choices along the way. It would show cut scenes of your surviving members being killed, one by one, and end with the Liara message. Fade to black.
I dunno what the “good” ending should be though.
After thinking abut it some more I’m more inclined to agree with Brad.
I think the key factor here is the mass relays, but all depends on what you though happened after the ending, the original on was pretty ambiguous but never crossed my mind that relays were merely damaged and it was just a minor inconvenience that they weren’t working, maybe that was there idea all along but to me easy space travel was set back back for many yeas probably hundreds, in this new version every is great no matter the ending the relay are up and running in no time and all is rebuild in galaxy, in the original ending there were consequences to the galaxy that space travel was a lot harder, at least in my mind but maybe this was there intention all along.
I quite liked it. It breathes now, and I appreciate the additional questions you can ask before making your final choice. Plus, my Shepard got a shot of Jack after making the leap, as he should (but didn’t in the original).
The Star Child is the real narrative problem with the plot and they actually made it worse with this.
IMO the actual endings have been moot from the beginning. They are fine for what they are, and this gives some more information, but how we got there is more important than what happens.
My main reaction is that the EC doesn’t give fans “the closure they wanted” at all. It’s giving the Bioware writers closure for themselves.
You are actually right, that’s exactly what Bioware people say happened in the Reject ending. The next cycle heeds Liara’s time capsule, builds the Crucible early, and never has to fight an intergalactic war against space cuttlefish because they chose a color that you wouldn’t. Of course, this renders the Reject option as the worst possible choice you can make at the end of ME3 for obvious reasons; it is consigning your cycle to destruction for no reason at all.
I chose Control originally, though I like the idea of Destroy too. Instead of the arbitrary “shutting down” of the Mass Relays in all the endings (which are just repaired anyway now, so what’s the point?") they should be truly removed in the Destroy ending as the cost for choosing to let biological life set its own course. It was one of the few good ideas in the original endings, but the execution was godawful; keeping it just in Destroy would be very thematic!
It just shows that the writers have no idea what they are doing with the endings and were just flailing about wildly on both attempts. Anything great is likely just an accident.
I feel like I got closure. The original endings, besides sucking, were very depressing. The mass relays were destroyed, most races were stuck around Sol and some were going to starve because they couldn’t eat the carbon-based food, etc. The Normandy was stranded on some remote world and would be stranded so long they would eventually repopulate the planet and re-enable space travel untold hundreds of years on the future. Very depressing and bleak, imo.
The endings are much more upbeat. I like happy endings.
Right. Or someone could just hit up Youtube and watch the endings immediately.
But according to Bioware, this was their intent all along. They never meant for everyone to think that the relays exploded with devastating consequences to the galaxy (though their own canon implied this). So if anything ,you (and others) misinterpreted what you saw. Now you have a correct understanding. So again, nothing is “nerfed” according to Bioware’s original intentions - at least so they have said.
DeepT
1700
For a real kick in the balls, the kid should have asked, “How did we win?” And the lady should have said, “We picked the green ending.”
