***Warning - Blog post contains more than a few spoilers, stop reading if you haven't finished the game yet.***
There is a large swath of information to cover on this topic. I'll try to break it down.
TIM = The Illusive Man
My Game I have thoroughly enjoyed this entire trilogy. Playing almost completely Renegade throughout the series. For ME3, I chose to get the largest possible army (as determined without any walkthroughs) which meant a couple Paragon choices (e.g. Geth/Quarian).
I have always enjoyed the basic brute-force soldier/sniper method of playing and ME3 was a nice step back to enjoying that gameplay. ME2 seemed less suitable for sniper rifle usage out of the series due to the map layouts. ME1 was great for snipers due to the long ranges you had in many cases.
ME3 was a phenomenal trip, filled with plenty of action and excellent storytelling. There were a few good questions that I had to sit and ponder for a second before committing, which is a sign that I've become fully engaged in the story. Even playing a heartless killer of species since ME1, I paused when approached by the Salarian ambassador at the beginning of the Genophage missions.
Skipping ahead to the end, as the rest of the game is laid out pretty well, any complaints about the bulk of the game are rather petty. If you didn't know you were getting into a cover-based shooter with some spells, you didn't know the ME universe to begin with.
Earth Leading into the last portion of the game was the most frustrating time I had with the entire game. Trying to use exclusively the Black Widow for some of those encounters on Earth was painful. (Disclaimer: The game was on Normal, I can't imagine being able to use my preferred style on an Insane playthrough) Specifically the spot where you are waiting for pickup and the endless waves pour in, my choice to carry only a rifle with a three round clip felt especially hopeless. But I got it eventually. I realized when I reached the vidcalls from former teammates that things were likely not going to go well and it was the first inkling that there wasn't going to be much left of the game.
The Ending I have gone through a complete cycle of thought over the past few days regarding the ending. I finished the game Monday night after a co-worker warned me in passing that there were complaints on the internet. I didn't think much of it and completed the game mid-evening. The following are my initial thoughts on the ending.
Beaming up, I certainly got the feeling that something wasn't right. I went back and forth on the thought that I was either near-death or hallucinating/dreaming. Encountering TIM made sense as he was one of the loose ends at that point. The argument and Anderson's involvement further gave me a twinge of disbelief as to what was going on. I saved Anderson by shooting TIM. I was sad to see Anderson go and confused by Shepard bleeding out suddenly.
Already mildly confused by the events so far, I was not ready for the last twist awaiting me at the top of the lift. I listened carefully to the being and was surprised by the lack of aggressive options that had become my trademark in the game. The 'renegade' responses to the entity seemed lacking. When the ultimatum was delivered, based on the options given, I chose destruction, not so much that it was the pigeonholed renegade response, but because it has been the purpose of the entire trilogy to destroy the Reaper threat. Again, I had to think for a bit on the decision, but I felt it was the lesser of the three evils. The option to control them just plain felt odd, TIM failed to control them and it was slated as a death sentence. I guess it might be considered paragon due to the fact that everyone lives including the Reapers. The Synthesis option seemed like a bizarre way to end things and turned out to be my least favored option.
Personal Thoughts as Ending Played the First Time So I blasted the power couplings and away we go, Big Ben gets demolished, the Reapers fall over dead and it appears that the soldiers on the ground are alive after the blast. We won! That was the whole purpose of the game! Then the power is sent throughout the galaxy and the Relays starting exploding, the finality of the decision kicks in, I've done some serious damage and I've basically thrown the universe back to the stone age. Switch to the Normandy trying to outrun the blast, I got the planned anxious feeling as Joker is frantically pounding the controls to escape. With the change in music, I thought that it was the end, again, for the Normandy. Upon seeing the crash landing sequence, mild confusion settled in again, though I didn't consider the teleporting crew issue, just the oddity of Liara coming out of the ship first (my lady!). Based on playing the multiplayer and massing the troops, I got the breath at the end, which made me smile, Shepard didn't die. The storytime epilogue fit against everything else that had just happened.
My Personal Journey - The Ending As I said, I went through a cycle of thought regarding the ending. Day 0 After I beat the game that evening, if I felt anything, it was a dull numbness and indifference to the ending. I recognized that I had just played a great game and I enjoyed the ending I received as it stood. I didn't think it was an epic ending or anything, but I wasn't specifically dissappointed. I didn't have much to work with when explaining it to my wife. "We won, we killed the bad guys. It was a good game."
I had a bite to eat with her and then returned to complete the game for the other endings, I hadn't gone looking for spoilers and had avoided most of the media involving the game. I loaded up the save and went about things a little different this time. TIM killed himself and I chose to control the Reapers.
This was when I started to understand why some people were complaining. The last thing I expected was a simple palette swap and only a different scene or two. So this time I gain control of the Reapers, we leave and the Relays still blow up. Great.
Hoping against hope, I played through a third time to try Synthesis. I thought to myself that this one should be substantially different, hell, we are making a new life form! Circuit boards in leaves... circuit boards in leaves... do I need to say more? Joker and EDI can finally interface the way they've always wanted.
The numbness returned and even though I had enjoyed my initial ending, seeing the others helped to diminish my overall opinion of the way the game concluded. I went to bed confused and slightly stunned at what I had just watched.
Day 1 I began searching out the criticisms levied against the ME3 ending. Read through the thread here and also watched a few of the YouTube commentaries and Top 10 reasons the endings sucked.
I started to agree with them. Where is my big wrap up? Damn right I've spent a few years working on this game, bring on the 30 minute cinematic to tie everything together in a nice bow. The contentment I had from the previous night was all but lost. Then I came across the Indoctrination theory.
Now there was something I could sink my teeth into. The claims put forth at face value work very well when presented in that manner. Of course there are holes in the theory and in retrospect I don't believe that is the intended narrative for the end sequences, but it sure looks good at first glance. When you are confused or conflicted about an unknown, sometimes the first reasonable answer you find is sufficient. I was wondering, sometime during the confrontation with TIM on the citadel, how is it that Shepard has never been indoctrinated. He's easily spent the most time around Reaper technology and actual Reapers than anyone in the series except maybe Saren. I went to bed on Day 1 thinking the the writers of the game put together something amazing that went over everyone's head.
Day 2 Revisiting the thread here on TL, the argument raged on and I started rethinking the past two days of discussion and personal opinions on the final minutes of the game.
Going through many of the arguments and counter-arguments for the indoctrination theory, I've come to the conclusion that it is only a convenient explanation to help fill a void that some people felt. The writers would not put out an ending that had no resolution. The theory is that the final decision determines if Shepard is indoctrinated or not. As good as the idea is up to this point, it fails on the other side in the fact that there is no conclusion if true. Shepard either succumbs and everyone dies, which we don't see, or he survives and there has been no progress against the Reapers other than the battle for his own mind. No, the game is over at this point, it is not open-ended.
Blog Time After discarding the indoctrination view, I returned to examine the ending a little deeper. I have to chime in on a few of the items that strike me the wrong way.
One of the main issues I have with many of the commentary provided so far is the use of the term God-Child. The being or collective known as the Catalyst would obviously choose the form to communicate with Shepard. While some will argue that the nameless boy introduced at the beginning of the game in the beginning of Shepard's indoctrination, I am convinced that it is more for a story-telling device meant to humanize Shepard. Showing that he is human after all, regardless of all of the hardship he has endured and surmounted. The nightmares again serve to help the audience to associate with a person struggling under immense pressure. The Catalyst, likely able to see into Shepard's thoughts chose the most appropriate form.
The arguments against the unknown nature of the Catalyst and Reaper technology is naive. While there is an explanation for much of the lore in the known ME universe, there are always unknowns. There has always been an air of mystery about the Mass Relays and Citadel. The collectors were a mostly unknown entity in ME2. There has to be a level of discovery in any story, otherwise it is a biography. What I do sympathize with is the fact that everything is so abrupt and fast-paced at the end. The introduction of a brand new entity in the final moments of the game has elicited so many cries of Deus Ex Machina it is deafening. The fact that there is little explanation of what exactly the Catalyst embodies is slightly maddening.
Post Mortem I'm expecting to follow-up this with some more(!) comprehensive ideas and thought. But for now, I'll leave you with my take on the Catalyst.
The Catalyst is a synthetic form of life that controls the Reapers, another synthetic form of life. The Catalyst states that the created will always rebel against the creator. I argue that the Catalyst and Reapers are the first or at least the most dominant form of synthetics in the known ME universe. Their 'solution' to the 'organic problem' has been to cull any civilizations that would prove to be a threat to the Catalyst and Reapers. The comments about the necessity for saving organics from themselves falls flat with the fact that AI's exist in the current world and that the Reapers do not specifically harvest synthetic life. Having exterminated their creators and found ways to keep the universe safe from the pesky insects that would endanger their way of life, they proceeded as programmed until countless eras of civilization pooled enough technology to interrupt the cycle.
That's where this ending picks up. The program is broken, the Crucible forcing a rewrite of the code and you have to choose which option. The main issue is that the conclusion wraps up so quickly, you can't even attempt to put any of it together.
TL;DR - I liked the ending, then I didn't, then I did. The game is great. Read above for reasons.
Wiki - A 'deus ex machina' (Latin: "god out of the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object
Sadly, this is the absolute worst way to end a trilogy, THE Mass Effect Trilogy. My thoughts were if they ended the game with shepard and anderson dieing on the citadel (or crucible) and the reapers blowing up. I feel when a creator throws in something that big of a plot twist at the end (or a f**king joke of an ending, where all the mass relays are destroyed and everyone is pretty much screwed anyways) then the game has a fail of an ending.
As a fan, all I wanted was for the game to be summed up, that is it. I did not want to have sooooooooo many loose ends that it makes the game feel and seem retarded.
I can tell you after Dragon Age 2 I thought Bioware learned their lesson to stick with what the fans like and want to see (obviously it is their own game and I respect that) but with that sort of thinking you (as the creators of the game) will lose massive amounts of money in this day and age. Look at the amazon store, Mass Effect is going for $40 used. It is pathetic how many people are returning the games and it ultimately hurts Bioware losing that much money.
Honestly, thank god for the multiplayer. This game would be dead without it.
I would have wrote more reasons why the ending was terrible but there are plenty of EXCELLENT written articles to sum it up for anyone who wants to know why I hate this game now and Bioware.
EDIT: On top of this, 86% of the people who voted in a poll said the game's ending was garbage or close to it.
Article talking about Bioware already promising a change to the ending. (Bioware you are so fucking terrrible for not creating a good (or bad) ending in the first place that made any f**king sense, I mean "We created synthetics to kill you so other synthetics would not kill you." LO f**king L!
Well indoctrination has ALWAYS been a theme of mf3 and the fact that shepard has never been called indoctrinated is definitely peculiar, because shepard certainly isnt THAT special, one of the most poignant moments in ME for me was getting convinced by morinth that you could actually survive her whole brain explodey power, she said you were special, you believed her, you died just like any other man/woman. That was a brilliant scene because it demonstrated how what makes shepard special is not some kind of destiny or special power/dna bullshit(hey midochlorians!) it was his/hers remarkeble will power that allowed him/her to be more than just another organic. In her twisted way morinth was an alpha predater, she represented nature at its cruelest in a similar way that the reapers do and shepard has to resist her or perish. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the dlc is just shepard waking up from the rubble from his dream and actually dealing with the reapers for reals.
It's just so weird that they promised that your decisions would have a giant impact on the ending and instead you get to choose the colour of the explosions that wipes out the entire galaxy.
And then there's Cerebus. I like this comment:
It’s not even just a matter of logistics that makes Cerberus completely ridiculous. Even if we assume that in a mere few months they brought to bear thousands of transport vessels, weapons, suits of armour, supply lines, outposts, and everything else which they would need to give them anything resembling a fighting chance against the Reapers… how is it that nobody has tracked them down and cut off their resources?
The Cerberus of ME2 was a shadow organization which relied on autonomous cells and backroom deals to stay off the radar while funding elaborate projects for a limited group of elite operatives. Nobody knew where its power came from or what it was up to because it left such a small footprint. All of its strength rested in the very fact that it was so nimble and hard to pin down. In many ways it was the failed Majestic 12 of the Mass Effect universe.
Then Mass Effect 3 happened, and Cerberus became the Empire from Star Wars – storm troopers and all.
You can’t hide an army big enough to threaten the combined military forces of an entire race, let alone the inter-species collective that Shepard is forming. To wage that kind of war you need big obvious permanent facilities: training grounds, spaceports, workshops, garrisons, armories, ships, then builders and suppliers and funding for all of these things. You need hundreds of each and the time to build them.
An army is not something you can create on the down-low – it’s one of the biggest, loudest, and most obvious entities known to history. You can be a secret shadow organization or you can be a military superpower, but you cannot be a giant secret shadow army.
Also, the second video you linked unfortunately is very directed, and lead you places that are concocted instead of actually there. As an example, the end scene where Shepard 'lives' (around 19min), the camera shot doesn't even look like that. The background hue is changed from a dull unsaturated post-battle aftermath look, to something that is supposed to look like the 'portal' is still active and you just wake up (implying the battle is still taking place). It's a shoddy and rather disingenuous presentation. Yea a lot makes sense in certain ways, but it's way too biased to be taken terribly seriously.
Great call on the Morinth example, I loved that 'ending' as well.
As for promises, Fable is easily the biggest, now second biggest, case of marketing versus reality. The amazing things that you would be able to do in Fable based on his rantings made it sound unbelievable. Turns out it wasn't close. You will always have the hype machines and the marketing crew doing everything they can to stir the population into a frenzy. The main question I have is how did this game survive the reviews?
Wolf, I'll check that out tomorrow, it looks like a tremendous read and I'll need some time with it. I've thrown out the indoctrination theory, though I did like it for a day or so.
It's just so weird that they promised that your decisions would have a giant impact on the ending and instead you get to choose the colour of the explosions that wipes out the entire galaxy.
It’s not even just a matter of logistics that makes Cerberus completely ridiculous. Even if we assume that in a mere few months they brought to bear thousands of transport vessels, weapons, suits of armour, supply lines, outposts, and everything else which they would need to give them anything resembling a fighting chance against the Reapers… how is it that nobody has tracked them down and cut off their resources?
The Cerberus of ME2 was a shadow organization which relied on autonomous cells and backroom deals to stay off the radar while funding elaborate projects for a limited group of elite operatives. Nobody knew where its power came from or what it was up to because it left such a small footprint. All of its strength rested in the very fact that it was so nimble and hard to pin down. In many ways it was the failed Majestic 12 of the Mass Effect universe.
Then Mass Effect 3 happened, and Cerberus became the Empire from Star Wars – storm troopers and all.
You can’t hide an army big enough to threaten the combined military forces of an entire race, let alone the inter-species collective that Shepard is forming. To wage that kind of war you need big obvious permanent facilities: training grounds, spaceports, workshops, garrisons, armories, ships, then builders and suppliers and funding for all of these things. You need hundreds of each and the time to build them.
An army is not something you can create on the down-low – it’s one of the biggest, loudest, and most obvious entities known to history. You can be a secret shadow organization or you can be a military superpower, but you cannot be a giant secret shadow army.
it looks like you never met the combined power of a certain group of people + Show Spoiler +
On March 23 2012 12:13 Buzzworth wrote: Great call on the Morinth example, I loved that 'ending' as well.
As for promises, Fable is easily the biggest, now second biggest, case of marketing versus reality. The amazing things that you would be able to do in Fable based on his rantings made it sound unbelievable. Turns out it wasn't close. You will always have the hype machines and the marketing crew doing everything they can to stir the population into a frenzy. The main question I have is how did this game survive the reviews?
Wolf, I'll check that out tomorrow, it looks like a tremendous read and I'll need some time with it. I've thrown out the indoctrination theory, though I did like it for a day or so.
Thanks : P Im personally infatuated with the indoctrination theory, it's the kind of mind fuck that I want to see more out of gaming in general, also it's totally plausible that shepard was shot with a beam thingie, then went unconscious, had the whole dream and then (potentially) woke up. The only thing thats hard to swallow is the reapers not killing shepard but the reasons for it are ok. I'd like it if bio ware just ran with the theory ,even if it wasnt thiers , in the dlc.
Really awesome blog, agree with all of this. I am happy with the indoctrination video. That was my original thought after beating the game and contemplating it for a while. Then I saw that video. TBH, I still really like the ending because it is just so WTF.
I never even played the Mass Effect series and I'm offended with the ending. While there are so many reasons, more than I could reasonably cover in this post, I feel the biggest, and perhaps the only one that truly matters, is that the ending did not do the series justice. People got attached to this game. People got attached to the people, to your friends, to the civilizations, even to their chosen soulmates. People made choices, and felt that their choices had consequences. The ending blew all of that and more right to hell along with the promises made by the developers.
On March 23 2012 10:58 xUnSeEnx wrote: Honestly, thank god for the multiplayer. This game would be dead without it.
And this is why a good, quality single-player is next to impossible to find. Quality gets sacrificed for shitty things like multiplayer and DLC
I played both ME's after their price had come way down and I got both on steam for $25 or something. I'll probably end up doing this for ME3 as well and hopefully the game will be worth the price when I do buy it. So sad how far Bioware has fallen from grace the past few years
I still think its a great game, but I also feel like so much has gone wrong for so many reasons, most of this involves the plot. It's not even the ending so much anymore (I feel like the indoctrination theory definitely holds water) but now after playing through it a second time, the rest of the plot really starts to grind on me.
Certain things I think were done very well. Certain interactions with crew mates for example were very believable and polished. I loved the camaraderie between Shepard and Garrus. Ironically enough though, I found that the things I liked most about the game were disconnected from the central, overarching plot. Basically, because it's a plot hole filled cluster fuck. Doh.
Certain things can be attributed to budget cuts/running out of time, ect. Like how none of the war assets or people you brought together for the final conflict actually DO anything. Maybe they are saving this for a future DLC (or "The Truth" DLC, w/e) but IMO thats a pretty lame business tactic.
Overall though, I feel like the plot problems can be simply attributed to one thing- the ME crew spent 2 games building up the Reapers. And at the start of ME3, they realized they wrote themselves into a corner. Instead of putting on their try hard pants and writing their way back out of it, they got lazy and took the easy route. Super powerful dreadnoughts that cant be conventionally beaten? Alien super weapon that destroys super powerful dreadnoughts! Okay, now we need someone for Shepard to fight who isn't a Reaper... hmm... How about Cerberus? Yeah people know who they are! Well, they are more of some secret shadow organization that specializes in espionage and information... Ah who cares, lets make them into a military force and call it a day!
Someone mentioned Cerberus earlier so I won't really get into them, but lets just say my suspension of disbelief was shattered several times throughout this game. Overall though, my #1 gripe with ME3 (minus the ending, of course) is:
The Crucible!
I've mentioned it in other ME3 threads, but I absolutely hate the entire idea of the Crucible. Within the first half hour, almost all the tension about defeating the reapers is technically removed by the knowledge that I can now build a super weapon to defeat them. I'll admit, finding a way to conventionally defeat the Reapers is probably damn hard to do. I wouldn't really mind the whole "super weapon" gag, but this was just done in such a lazy manner.
First off, theres the fact that the thing exists at all. You're telling me this kind of technology was embedded in the Prothean archives? On Mars? The ones we've known about all along? Whats worse, even Shepard seems to realize this whole thing is bogus.
"We've known about these archives for decades, why are we just finding out about this now?" he asks.
Well, Liara?
"Process of elimination, mixed with a little desperation!"
Oh, okay. That makes sense. ....Wait what? What the fuck does that mean???
Let's get something straight here. The human race discovered faster-than-light travel by reverse engineering Prothean technology found on Mars. In fact, Prothean data of any kind is considered extremely valuable to the entire galactic community, to the point where galactic law states that any Prothean artifacts are considered property of the galactic community as a whole. Despite the fact that the Mass Relays and the Citadel were not Prothean creations, they were still much more advanced than us. (The entire reason we are still here to fight the Reapers at all, don't forget.)
Now you're telling me the human discovery of the Prothean data on Mars went something like this...
"Holy shit balls! Using this data, we can solve the problem of faster-than-light travel!!" "Wow, thats amazing! I wonder what else we can learn from this ancient, super advanced race!" "Who the fuck cares? Lets lock this place up and go explore the galaxy!"
Oh, but we then dig up plans for a Reaper killing super weapon. Right when the Reapers invade Earth. Mmmm... Nice.
More breaking of the suspension of disbelief.
The Crucible, the super weapon that will destroy the Reapers, stays secret the entire game. ...Okay?
I mentioned earlier the existence of the Crucible removes almost all the tension in the game. The only reason it didn't remove ALL of it is because I was fully expecting that the Reapers would, at some point, discover it and destroy it, thus forcing me to deal with them conventionally. And honestly, I was hoping that would happen.
But it doesn't. This huge operation, the "biggest undertaking in humanity's history" goes off without a hitch. In Hackett's own fucking words, "we're throwing everyone who can hold a hammer at it!"
What?
Have we completely forgot about indoctrination? One of the Reaper's biggest threats isn't the Reapers themselves. It's what they do to you. It's explained in ME1 that one of the ways the Reapers systematically destroyed the Protheans was by sending sleeper agents into their holdouts who would then give away their positions. You're telling me that out of the thousands, possibly millions of people involved in building the Crucible, the location was never leaked? Anywhere? Not even to Cerberus, who seemed to know even the most minute and mundane details of everything that ever happened, even before you did?
And, if I can chat about Cerberus for a second, another event that kind of ruined my suspension of disbelief: the invasion of the Citadel.
You're telling me that a shadow organization like Cerberus manages to sneak an army onto the most secure space station in the galaxy and threatens the leaders of galactic civilization? Let's not forget, C-Sec aren't a bunch of mall cops, though they certainly seem like it in ME3. And what about the defense fleet thats always parked at the Citadel's front door??
Worse, Shepard, again, seems to notice this is a bunch of crap.
He says something to the effect of "How did this happen? I thought the Citadel was supposed to be the safest place in the galaxy!"
And Bailey responds with something like "It was, thats why we never expected this to happen!"
Oh, okay. That makes sense. ....Wait what? What the fuck does that mean?!?! ARRRG MY GOD DAMN BRAIN.
Okay I'll stop, I didn't mean to hijack your blog. Just remember Bioware, I only rage because I care! :D
This area is open for discussion, I'm happy with any and all discussions about the game. You can't hijack this blog, this comment area is for everyone.
I agree that portions of the story are weaker than others. I try to look at the sum of the parts rather than focus on the individual moments that take me out of the game briefly. Cerberus specifically is a very odd part of the universe, an intergalactic crime syndicate on a grand scale, the private sector 'corporation' more advanced than the military. The concepts aren't that far fetched, but I agree that the implementation is rough around the edges.
The Crucible plot element again was pretty odd. Though it did take one of the galaxy's greatest Prothean researchers to uncover the plans for the device. In the context of knowing the ending, I don't like to refer to it as a weapon. I am struggling to give it a name other than a plot device at the moment. Ahh, it was a structure built to interrupt the cycle.
As for the Shamus' post about previous civilizations getting lucky with the design of the device, that is a short sighted cop out regarding a situation that is on such a large scale that we struggle to comprehend it. Similar to Sovereign's speech, try to imagine this cleansing taking place for millions of years. Just one million years is 20 cycles. In each of those cycles, you have an countless number of advanced species of organics. Looking at the current ME universe, who is the most advanced? The Asari? The Salarian? I certainly don't put the humans at the top of the list. They may be catching up, but they aren't there yet. Saying that previous races would not have been able to identify the Reapers and work towards a way to stop them is convenient at best. The variables across multiple millions of years are too great to discount the possibilities in a single paragraph. This is science fiction, we are talking about jumping around from star to star, how can you lay boundries.
I see we are on the same page Wolf. I'm surprised that things were wrapped up as quickly as it was, I'm thinking about coming up with a small rewrite incorporating the Catalyst, just for kicks. Unfortunately, that just further proves that the ending isn't satisfactory as written and presented. That is even too strong of a term, it could have been better, it still wroks, but barely.
EPT
, in the dlc.
