Teiman
1801
Our memories if the game become tainted, we cant remember has a fond memory but has a wound. We cant plan to replay it because is a place we dont want to visit anymore.
Imagine buying a house with beatiful views of a forest, then this forest burns so the view become depresing now. It was good while it lasted but now is horrible.
NOTE: thats not how I feel about ME3. I am ok with the current ends. I was tryiing to explain a sentiment.
Bioshock’s an interesting comparison. Yeah, the ending’s a letdown, but it’s entirely down to a failure to follow up on the ideas and arguments it presents. There’s no big reveal in the ending that recasts the motivations of the principal actors. Mass Effect 3 has that kind of reveal in its end, and a lot of people - me included - found that reveal to be kinda crap.
The ending shifts the context for events in the rest of the games. Why is it ridiculous that this affects how you experience the events of the rest of the series? If I think Prometheus slightly lessens Alien because now I have to suppress the images of super-buff Powder men and Michael Fassbender sticking out his finger when they find the space jockey and John Hurt gets a face full of facehugger, does that make me a Prometheuser?
I think it’s an entirely understandable reaction to find the rest of the games lessened by the ending. It’s silly to throw a hissy-fit over it and start screaming about how EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER instead of being disappointed and a bit sad, but the base reaction is understandable, even if the lack of perspective is eminently slappable.
Grifman
1803
An interesting take on the Reject ending as the most moral of all the choices, and who the true surprise hero of Mass Effect is:
I don’t think Bioware actually intended this but it is an interesting take on the reject ending.
Oh dear, as if anyone need additional reasons to be fond of Liara!
On the other hand, I won’t watch The Phantom Menace again, unless it’s the Phantom Edit cut.
I haven’t been reading this post too closely lately, because I’m near the end of my second full playthrough and I’d rather see the differences for my self then read about them here, but I’m wondering: did they chance more then just the ending with the patch? The thing is: I’m pretty sure Miranda lived during my first playthrough, and now she died on me right after killing her father? Was that always an option and did loads of you see that happen allready, or did they perhaps put stuff like this in the patch to make earlier choices (helping/not helping Miranda to alliances resources in this case) more meaningfull?
Agreed.
The one thing I will say about the new ending is - I don’t get all the people who feel it’s a giant ‘fuck you’ to everyone who complained it wasn’t an option the first time around. I think it fits perfectly with everything that has come before. if the Crucible is the only hope you have of defeating the Reapers, and you don’t use it - hey, you’ll lose. I’m OK with that. Doing otherwise would have ignored the facts they spent the last 2.9 games building up.
Be interesting to see if the add or modify to the current endings with future DLC. I would think having a Reaper on the team (assuming that to be true) would change the equation a bit.
Yes, and it’s based on choices much earlier in the game.
Sorry but I’m not certain what your exact question is, but just guessing, no, nothing other than the ending changed. Miranda living/dieing has nothing to do with the DLC.
Ah, ok. Well, at least sóme choices are meaningfull then! And watching Tali get drunk through her emergency acces port/straw is still fun!
Well, too bad, it would have been fun looking for small differences through a future playthrough. Then again, I hadn’t seen this before, so there’s still enough too find I guess, even if the patch didn’t add anything new.
I don’t think it’s such a big shift in theme. If we step back for a moment from the organics vs. AI conflict, the entire series is about more powerful species directing the fates of the less powerful, either for their own benefit or for some perception of greater good : from the obvious Salarian/Krogan/genophage to the Rachni queen on Feros and the stories of the Hanar and Thane’s people. It’s pretty much what the vaunted Protheans were all about. In that light, the motivation of the Reapers is thematically consistent. It’s the genophage writ large. The pro-genophage argument is that it’s actually the most humane solution; the premise being the Krogan are inherently, irredeemably warlike, fecund, and expansionist and the only solutions are extinction or containment. If you believe that then the genophage at least provides them with an existence, not their ideal existence but an alternative to extinction - which is pretty much exactly what the Reapers offer the advanced organics of the galaxy every time they pass through.
I also disagree that the game doesn’t give you the chance to play out your belief that AIs and organics can coexist - that’s what the Control option is for. Functionally, what’s the difference between persuading the Reaper-mind to stand down via some clever conversation and just taking control yourself? The Reaper-mind is pretty explicit that by your actions you’ve already won the argument and earned the right to choose whatever outcome you want, no debate necessary. Here’s how I see that conversation playing out:
FemShep: But wait, the Geth and Quarians didn’t kill each other and Joker and EDI are dating!
Reaper: Bitch, please. We’ve been at this shit for 3 billion years. It may happen in a hundred years or a thousand, it’s a rounding error to us. Point is, every single one of the 14.38 quintillion simulations we’ve run comes down to O(n) vs O(n^2) and you meatbags always lose. But whatever. You obviously know best and you did give that Salarian those heat exchanger blueprints. Do what you want.
Final note: I actually really liked the ending. Yeah, the extended cut fleshes it out a bit better, but I was fine with the original as it gave me one of my favorite RP moments in an RPG. Personally I wanted to choose either synthesis or control, but after a bit of reflection it was pretty obvious that after 3 long games and all the decisions she had made (keeping the Reaper base, etc), Moira Shepard was determined to the point of obsession with destroying the Reapers, even at the expense of friends and loved ones. Spent all 3 games running around the galaxy for other people, so watching her walk down that ramp and kill those fuckers because she wanted to, galaxy be damned, was up there with the end of PS:T for me. [Watched the YouTubes, not going to bother playing again but I would have taken the ‘Refusal’ option]
ShivaX
1814
I think Freespace did the whole extermination race thing better.
You never found out why the Shivans did what they did and they never told you anything. They just did it. That mystery and their invulnerability made them superior villain in my book. The Reapers had that going for them, but then they finally show up and they’re kind of unimpressive. They land on planets and very slowly destroy things? We could do better with our technology right now.
You’re absolutely right, it /would/ be thematic. The ‘fuck you’ comes in when the ending itself is so abrupt and half-arsed compared to the other ‘real’ endings. If you’d seen the tragic results of your desire to not be corralled down one of three nonsensical paths thrust upon you in ten minutes by an inscrutable, alien mind… if you’d /seen/ the races and people you’d grown to love going down fighting an unwinnable war, /that/ would have been acceptable, even poignant and satisfying.
Instead they added that option just to give the player two minutes of ‘everyone died because of you, how do you feel now, ass?’
I would say a film with a bad ending certainly can lessen the overall work, as can a game, if the respective ending is bad enough.
Yeah. Took a few days though, didn’t it? The passage of time should calm the demeanor of reasonable people. I am already OK with the game thanks to the new endings, not to say the entire reason the Reapers do what they do isn’t still stupid, but they are still well-made games.
Nesrie
1817
I don’t really watch the Matrix movies anymore, even the first one which I really enjoyed because of 2 and 3. For me, those sequels really did ruin the first movie.
What? You’re crazy.
They only made one Matrix movie.
I liked the extended endings, I felt the original endings were half-assed. Maybe quarter-assed. Could be 1/8.
Mass Effect was better when the reapers were a force of nature – a punch in the face every 50,000 years.
Here’s where BioWare went wrong. Hacks think it’s better if you show the knife, the blood spray, etc. Bad writers think it’s necessary to explain to you why the killer is bad.
The reapers as an agent to preserve order is as nonsensical as midichlorians. It doesn’t work because you don’t address chaos with clockwork mass genocides. And BioWare doubling down with its nonsense doesn’t “fix” the problem. It’s the electronic equivalent of Elihu and God’s monologues in the Book of Job.
The reapers should likely never have spoken. I’m not sure why they needed the collectors to do their dirty work. And it’s for damn sure their motivations didn’t need an explanation.
