Jazar
1761
I agree with this and I didn’t have a big problem with the original endings. The massive vitriol has been strange IMO given how most epic movie/book/game endings are let downs. (You want a let down to a multi-game epic try Ultima 9.) The new DLC endings of ME3 do address the criticism of limited outcomes which I do appreciate. The endings aren’t just different colors now. It’s not even enough to just youtube the main choices. The choices you made throughout the series are reflected back in multiple ways. People are realizing just now on the subtle differences the new DLC endings differ based on alignment, EMS, love interest, etc. This comes however at the cost of removing some of that original ambiguity. That’s a small shame but an acceptable trade off personally. Honestly I am OK with both the original and the DLC endings.
What has surprised me most is how I’ve warmed up to the series with each chapter. I really didn’t care much for ME1. ME2 was interesting but still overrated. ME3 was amazing with great battles, good heartfelt scenes with characters that have followed you game after game, and finally a morality/alignment meter that didn’t promote extremes.
Teiman
1762
My friends like TV series where the episodes are standalone, but I like series where theres a long story arc and the characters evolve and new ones are added, others are removed. The risk with liking long story arcs and character progresion is that you must trust the writer. You can be betrayed, and a hard sci-fi story can have a religious end, or like LOST, you can end with a lot of pieces that dont connect. This retroactivelly make a serie bad, like LOST. You cant wach lost again because is only a bunch of random crap that happends by a improvising writter.
George RR Martin normaly makes great ends, but theres stil a risk the end of GOT is a crappy end.
Basically, when you are like me, you must put trust in writters, and often you are betrayed and served random crap.
The ME3 end is a illogical mess of things that dont make sense. Is what you can have when you cant have the real thing. So I cant be very happy, but I can with it.
Hilarious! Next we will have movie critics who have never watched the movie but have watched many responses to the movie.
A lot of your posts, and Brad’s, drip with contempt. If that wasn’t intended, you should probably clarify it, perhaps by releasing an Extended Cut of those posts!
Tom previously clarified that he didn’t mean anything by them. I guess people find it hard to read any kind of joking tone in a post which appears contemptuous. We don’t get the benefit of tone and demeanour.
Yeah, Starlight Falcon still hasn’t achieved the perfect Zenhood of Koontz, who could review* a movie just by looking at the poster.
- Did I say “review”? I meant “make up a bunch of garbage about”.
Ebert’s holding on line 1 for you.
Jazar
1769
Now that the DLC has addressed some of of the complaints of the original (same ending, all negative, no option to reject all choices, some unexplained events like party members in space), what is the giant mess that makes no sense in ME3’s ending? I’m genuinely curious.
To Recap the ending of ME3:
So we have this space baby that comes out of nowhere. Only he doesn’t. He is an AI construct (catalyst) of the citadel that is overseeing the reaper invasion. His physical manifestation has adapted from someone in Shepard’s memory to seem familiar and non threatening. He appears to Shepard in order to explain that the he was designed by an original alien race to orchestrate peace beteween mechas and orgas. It never worked so the catalyst developed a system of balance to preserve advanced civilizations, organic & synthetic, from their annihilation. It does this by absorbing a representative quantity into the collective, wiping out the rest, waiting for the next advance civilizations to evolve, rinse & repeat.
So he appears to Shepard because with the crucible, and the modifications made to it, no other civilization has ever come so close to stopping this reaper system until now. With this the catalyst decides that its solution is no longer effective. He offers the player a choice: Synthesis, Destruction, Control. The forth option rejects the catalyst, the cycle continues and lets the next civilizations try again.
So I ask this because I don’t remember the first two games well enough, how does this conflict with the original themes and reaper ideas? What is the illogical mess? You could argue that the catalyst is stupid and illogical but that doesn’t make the story illogical, only that you were, in the end, fighting a rogue AI (which even the original race lost to).
It’s this, which has very little to do with the themes of most of the series up to that point. The “revelation” at the end is circular (or in the EC more like toroidal) logic that doesn’t make any sense.
IMO especially in the EC if you take anything the Catalyst says at face value and you have been playing Paragon you have the nearest thing to a moral obligation to choose Destroy.
(If you are Renegade I think that slides over to Control, and note that in the EC there is a slightly different tone to the ending if you choose Control as a Renegade.)
RickH
1771
I know you were (lamely and clumsily) trolling, but I am a loyal Blizzard customer, and have been since Warcract 2. They deservedly have a reputation for quality and long-term customer support. For example they do not deny you access to the Blizzard games you bought from them if you are banned from using their official forums (unlike EA). I’m a loyal Valve customer for similar reasons.
EA doesn’t even come close to these companies.
How am I acting like it’s some sort of contrived phenomenon? Maybe if you weren’t scrambling over your own words to accuse me of condescension, you could read my post again. I was giving four reasons that I think the Mass Effect 3 situation is so different from the Fallout 3 or KOTOR 2 situation. There’s really no point plumbing the depths of EA’s “obtuse, greedy gamer hostility” in that context, but you’ve pretty much made my point for me: EA is so easy to hate that unless you catalog their abuses, real or imagined, you haven’t said enough!
-Tom
Jazar
1773
It’s the antagonist’s intent that arguably has circular logic. So what?
I have no idea what this could possibly mean. Perhaps you could rephrase it in the form of a threat?
Lantz
1775
Obviously the writers should have stuck with the tone and themes of the rest of the ME game and while Shepard is walking to talk to Anderson to start the final mission briefing there should have been a glowing tablet on a table which contained “Lifeform Co-Existence For Dummies” and then at the end (s)he could say “I hear you’re looking to ensure galactic peace, hope this helps!”
I’ll try to work hard to get to your level of not playing games before commenting on them.
Again, Ebert’s holding for you. He says it can never happen!
Andrew, seriously, you’re gonna have to explain that to me, because if you’re trying to insult me, I don’t get it. Do you think Roger Ebert only looks at the poster before reviewing a movie? Because while I have no particular love for Ebert as a critic, I do think he actually watches them.
Of course you don’t get it, that would require consideration (snerk, snerk).
