|
The synthesis ending honestly bothers me more than the others (though not much) because it's asking Shepard to agree to something so ethically questionable. While genocide or... whatever the gently caress the control endings were about aren't much better, forcibly changing the genetic code of every single living thing in the galaxy, totally without their consent or input? It flies past "agreeing to cure the genophage because some krogans want that" straight into "I AM YOUR loving GOD NOW, HAHAHA" territory. At any rate, I've thought something and I haven't really seen it mentioned anywhere yet. I'm curious as to whether it's me being a dumbass, or what. No matter what, the mass relays end up being destroyed, and even with the assumption that the FTL drives are still active, that isn't going to allow for much of a chance to leave whatever system someone happens to be stranded in. Like, the entire galactic fleet in the Sol system, right? And currently orbiting Earth are remnants of that aforementioned fleet--and possibly the Reapers, if you choose destroy. Just masses and masses of destroyed ships orbiting Earth, occasionally crashing. Without the Mass Relays, what are the odds that they'll be able to clear that away? What is the possibility that there's enough debris that it could permanently affect the atmosphere of Earth? Everyone's booooooned.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:21 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2013 07:54 |
|
|
It's mostly tweets and Kotaku, I believe. Maybe IGN, too. Forgive me if I don't race back through the thread just now.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:21 |
|
|
Merry Magpie posted:Could you possibly link the specific articles? Has anyone actually claimed the articles were good? I know there have been articles that demean those asking for a new ending, but I have not seen anyone outright claim the endings were coherent. This one implies to in the title but I don't think it actually does in the actual text. http://penny-arcade.com/report/edit...the-series-mass
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:22 |
|
|
And what's-his-face. The Penny Arcade attack dog. e: f,b
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:22 |
|
|
Returning to my last post about Tali being resurrected for bang bang, why did she show up rather than Liara or Ashley? I just can't figure out how I managed to revive Tali for one night... and then have a dream about that stupid reaper kid. That kid is such a dumb concept.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:22 |
|
|
Palisader posted:The synthesis ending honestly bothers me more than the others (though not much) because it's asking Shepard to agree to something so ethically questionable. While genocide or... whatever the gently caress the control endings were about aren't much better, forcibly changing the genetic code of every single living thing in the galaxy, totally without their consent or input? It flies past "agreeing to cure the genophage because some krogans want that" straight into "I AM YOUR loving GOD NOW, HAHAHA" territory.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:23 |
|
|
Lotish posted:I'm thinking Aristobolus either is remembering something I didn't see while I was skimming back over the thread or is conflating the opinions of the gaming press with those in this thread. Figured as much. Thank you.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:23 |
|
|
Edge Zero posted:NIER's ending didn't make too much sense either when it first happens, but then you get a NG+ to explain it and plenty of info online about it. I suppose that just means it was confusing at first instead of nonsensical. NIER's ending and ME3's ending should never be compared ever. They are about as far away as possible, quality wise.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:24 |
|
|
Pathard posted:That kid is such a dumb concept. The instant I saw that kid's shuttle get blown up I congratulated Bioware for subverting my expectations and actually killing him. Then that first dream sequence started and I despaired because they were taking the most heavy handed approach possible. Has any game ever done a good dream sequence?
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:25 |
|
|
Pathard posted:Returning to my last post about Tali being resurrected for bang bang, why did she show up rather than Liara or Ashley? I just can't figure out how I managed to revive Tali for one night... and then have a dream about that stupid reaper kid. That kid is such a dumb concept. I'd be fine with the kid if they didn't bring him out every chance they got. If he just died in the beginning and you had that heart-to-heard a little bit later with Garrus, I'd be cool with it - the war is hitting home, and hitting the innocents, and Shepard is deeply moved by it. By bringing him up constantly (especially the dream sequences) it crosses from being bearable to being obviously intended emotional manipulation.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:25 |
|
|
Palisader posted:The synthesis ending honestly bothers me more than the others (though not much) because it's asking Shepard to agree to something so ethically questionable. While genocide or... whatever the gently caress the control endings were about aren't much better, forcibly changing the genetic code of every single living thing in the galaxy, totally without their consent or input? It flies past "agreeing to cure the genophage because some krogans want that" straight into "I AM YOUR loving GOD NOW, HAHAHA" territory. It's a vaccine against synthetic/organic genocide. It's actually a extremely clever take on the current vaccination issue in the US. (Yes there might be some sarcasm in this post)
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:26 |
|
|
Having just finished the game a couple of days ago, I find my main issue is the lack of any clear epilogue. Granted we were given a nice little speech courtesy of Mr. Buzz Aldrin, but it is nowhere near what we expected or deserved as fans of the series. Given the time Bioware took in developing not only your individual teammates, but the history and impact of their cultures as well, there really needed to be more. What would have been the long-term consequences of each ending? With Synthesis what would the ramifications of everybody becoming techno-organic be? In Destroy would there be outrage over genocide commited in the name of the greater good? Even in Control, would Shepard be able to dominate the Reapers, or would he have been taken over and used as a new control proxy by the star child? (Though I do like the idea of the Reapers on all planets stopping and proclaiming "I'm Overlord Shepard and this is my favorite planet in the Galaxy!) I can understand if the developers had no room to add any extra cutscenes, but additional information could be given through notes (like those provided in The Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC). Overall I still consider the Mass Effect trilogy to be an excellent series but with an highly disappointing finale.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:26 |
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:The choices for the end of Legion's Loyalty mission in ME2 are mass-murder or forced rewriting, it's not entirely different to that (except in tone, structure, foreshadowing, outcome, etc).
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:26 |
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:The instant I saw that kid's shuttle get blown up I congratulated Bioware for subverting my expectations and actually killing him. Then that first dream sequence started and I despaired because they were taking the most heavy handed approach possible. Has any game ever done a good dream sequence? Max Payne in my opinion did a neat job showing Payne's crumbling psyche as he forced himself to relive the pain of losing his family over and over again.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:27 |
|
|
Palisader posted:At any rate, I've thought something and I haven't really seen it mentioned anywhere yet. I'm curious as to whether it's me being a dumbass, or what. No matter what, the mass relays end up being destroyed, and even with the assumption that the FTL drives are still active, that isn't going to allow for much of a chance to leave whatever system someone happens to be stranded in. Like, the entire galactic fleet in the Sol system, right? And currently orbiting Earth are remnants of that aforementioned fleet--and possibly the Reapers, if you choose destroy. Just masses and masses of destroyed ships orbiting Earth, occasionally crashing. Without the Mass Relays, what are the odds that they'll be able to clear that away? What is the possibility that there's enough debris that it could permanently affect the atmosphere of Earth? The way I've seen it is that not all of the species are doomed because there's bound to be survivors on every homeworld and every colony world that every species has. The games up to this point have all pointed out that a successful Reaping takes decades and possibly centuries to accomplish. And ME3 takes place in the span of maybe a few months or a year? So the species like turians and quarians that were in the fleet are probably screwed, but in most of the outcomes there's still a sustainable amount of those populations back in their homeworlds/colonies. As for Earth, the Destroy ending seems to just have the Reapers fall over and stop working as opposed to violently exploding like Sovereign did, so I think it's safe from dramatic planet-altering space debris crashes, except for the occasional dreadnought (which would probably burn up enough in re-entry to not cause global catastrophe.)
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:28 |
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:The instant I saw that kid's shuttle get blown up I congratulated Bioware for subverting my expectations and actually killing him. Then that first dream sequence started and I despaired because they were taking the most heavy handed approach possible. Has any game ever done a good dream sequence? One could argue whether or not the dream sequences were necessary, I'm sure, but they definitely added something to the plot and the nature of your character's relationship with Irenicus and the Bhaalspawn influence.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:28 |
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:The choices for the end of Legion's Loyalty mission in ME2 are mass-murder or forced rewriting, it's not entirely different to that (except in tone, structure, foreshadowing, outcome, etc). Too true. But the choices during Legion's mission made sense because it was being presented as an important, weighty matter--I mean, even the fact that Legion was torn about it lent its own gravitas to the issue. With the synthesis ending you're sort of stuck with "everyone's green" and forced to extrapolate meaning from there, which is why I keep falling back on the IT'S AN ETHICAL DILEMMA argument. At least make Joker not limp, for chrissake.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:30 |
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:The instant I saw that kid's shuttle get blown up I congratulated Bioware for subverting my expectations and actually killing him. Then that first dream sequence started and I despaired because they were taking the most heavy handed approach possible. Has any game ever done a good dream sequence? Psychonauts is pretty much a masters course in doing dream sequences well.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:30 |
|
|
Palisader posted:At least make Joker not limp, for chrissake. Good point. Joker gets his fancy new synthetics and still has a limp. What good is the fusion then? Making rave parties more interesting?
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:32 |
|
|
Merry Magpie posted:Max Payne in my opinion did a neat job showing Payne's crumbling psyche as he forced himself to relive the pain of losing his family over and over again. No. Those godawful platforming sections. Jesus Christ I pray MP3 doesn't touch that.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:32 |
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:The choices for the end of Legion's Loyalty mission in ME2 are mass-murder or forced rewriting, it's not entirely different to that (except in tone, structure, foreshadowing, outcome, etc). Actually that isn't the case. The Geth aren't people and Legion even says that rewriting is not the same thing as brainwashing, ect. The Reaper Geth faction follow the commands of the Reapers because of the logic modification that the Reapers did. It changed their whole way of thinking by making 1+1=3 and not 2. By rewriting them you aren't brainwashing them or anything you are restoring the base computational mathematics they use to what they are supposed to be. Doing that makes them go "Wait what the gently caress the Reapers are total assholes!" I thought it was a pretty clever mission cause going in you are all MAN gently caress THESE GETH! and then you are like OH MAN BRAINWASH THEM? and then you realize that they don't think at all like people do. It follows the same narrative all the way through of making you see the Geth as they actually are and not what everyone thought they were. Same as the matrix section in 3 it's all about seeing things as the Geth see them and realizing it's nothing at all like what Humans think.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:32 |
|
|
 But seriously, gently caress Kotaku. I Had no idea they were as awful as they are until now, never paid much attention.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:32 |
|
|
I'm taking this opportunity to shamelessly promote my blog, now read by about 6 of my friends. I wrote about decisions in video games, using ME3 as an example, and will soon(ish) write about the ending of the Mass Effect series and how awesome it Major spoilers within: http://acagamia.tumblr.com/
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:34 |
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:The instant I saw that kid's shuttle get blown up I congratulated Bioware for subverting my expectations and actually killing him. Then that first dream sequence started and I despaired because they were taking the most heavy handed approach possible. Has any game ever done a good dream sequence?
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:35 |
|
|
That loving kid is there as a terrible attempt at a pathos device which doesn't work AT ALL; you only get more disconnected from your character since (s)he is starting to bite the proverbial bullet in his mind thanks to some retarded and forced "connection" which is never formed to begin with. The implied suffering is all on Shepard's part... ...Meanwhile, you, the player of a badassfully colonist ruthless vanguard veteran of a thousand and one campaigns for the Alliance and who is pretty much ensured to be part of Batarian mythology as some sort of deity of destruction by this point of the trilogy, just goes "meh" since you just don't give two fucks about that kid. I tried justifying by my own Shepard having the colonist background and somehow "relating" to the kid but NAH didn't work. Which reminds me that they actually MANAGED to do what they intended before in ME1, if you had the spacer/colonist backgrounds. You get to see two different and equally horrible facets of the war, with that veteran going completely loving nihilistic with booze and the other survivor who is desperately trying to pierce her mind together. The latter was pretty much the only person who managed to make the Shepard above tear up a bit. In which he afterwards promptly said "gently caress all Batarians forever." 
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:35 |
|
|
Jarmel posted:No. Those godawful platforming sections. Jesus Christ I pray MP3 doesn't touch that. Max Payne 2's dream sequences were pretty cool though. You couldn't die in them and there was a lot more dialogue and setpieces besides "crying baby/wife and blood trails."
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:36 |
|
|
Pathard posted:Still, Legion asks you to re-write the Geth. They're like a hive mind, and you can just assume it's in their best interest. It was for me during Legion's ME3 mission.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:37 |
|
|
The kid would have been sad if he hadn't proven himself to be some sort of hallucination or figment of her imagination. "You can't help me"? What loving kid says that while the world is literally falling apart around them? If the first time you saw the kid was when they hopped into the shuttle then yeah, that might have been sad. As it is, the kid probably never existed.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:37 |
|
|
Transmetropolitan posted:That loving kid is there as a terrible attempt at a pathos device which doesn't work AT ALL; you only get more disconnected from your character since (s)he is starting to bite the proverbial bullet in his mind thanks to some retarded and forced "connection" which is never formed to begin with. The implied suffering is all on Shepard's part... It really should have been the person who had been nuked on Virmire. There were even some of that dialogue during the sequences. The kid burning up in flames just made me roll my eyes. Then it happened two more times. 
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:38 |
|
|
Just completed ME3 last night and I hated the choices given to me. As one youtube user put it. quote:ALL YOU HAD TO DO IS STAY CLICHE AS gently caress BIOWARE I wanted to watch Femshep ride off into the distance, go to a beach and get drunk with everyone 
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:39 |
|
|
Transmetropolitan posted:That loving kid is there as a terrible attempt at a pathos device which doesn't work AT ALL; you only get more disconnected from your character since (s)he is starting to bite the proverbial bullet in his mind thanks to some retarded and forced "connection" which is never formed to begin with. The implied suffering is all on Shepard's part... At as a Colonist/Survivor at first I saw the kid as Shepard reliving assault on Akuze and Mindor and thought it was neat. Then it kept happening over and over again but I guess I don't feel so bad that Shep is also feeling bummed about Thane, Legion, and Mordin since they were my bros. Also the dreams are so strange and lend credit to indoctrination so there is that too...
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:39 |
|
|
MoonwalkInvincible posted:I can think of one, by Bioware, even! Baldur's Gate II. I thought BG2 was Black Isle, which essentially reformed into Obsidian, not Bioware? Miss Hime posted:I wanted to watch Femshep ride off into the distance, go to a beach and get drunk with everyone Yes, this would've the be-all-end-all best of all possible endings. Right here. This is what I went into Mass Effect 3 hoping I would be able to maybe, just maybe if I Suikodened enough allies and rallied my forces hard enough, see this instead of some kind of metaphorical garden of eden poo poo. The White Dragon fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2012 around 07:44 |
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:39 |
|
|
The White Dragon posted:I thought BG2 was Black Isle, which essentially reformed into Obsidian, not Bioware? You'd be wrong.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:40 |
|
|
Duder X posted:I'm taking this opportunity to shamelessly promote my blog, now read by about 6 of my friends. I wrote about decisions in video games, using ME3 as an example, and will soon(ish) write about the ending of the Mass Effect series and how awesome it This is really cool so far. Thanks!
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:40 |
|
|
The kid thing would've been a lot more poignant if instead of "everyone's dying, you can't help me", he responds to Shepard, Shepard tells him to get to the Alliance marines, and THEN gets blown up. Or at least in the dream sequences, instead of the kid with flames in front of it, we got some Terminator 2 poo poo where all his flesh gets burned off and the bones are left desperately clinging to the playground fence.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:41 |
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:
Oh man that image. I'm going to finish up the Witcher series and AP and I think I'm going to stop gaming for a while. It's pretty obvious that developers don't give a gently caress about lying or what fans think of them. Can't wait for the handwaving for Ninja Gaiden coming up by the 'professional' reviewers. Mahuum Aqoha posted:Max Payne 2's dream sequences were pretty cool though. You couldn't die in them and there was a lot more dialogue and setpieces besides "crying baby/wife and blood trails." MP2 definitely handled it better.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:41 |
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:
This would be accurate if B and C were scratched out, and had A written in next to them.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:42 |
|
|
That Kotaku article from a few pages ago is just fantastic. I genuinely don't understand why the review sites/gaming press has decided to take potshots left and right over this whole thing. The game ending sucks, people are pissed at Bioware about it, I don't see what their angle is here unless they are paid off to the point that they are acting as another PR department of EA. 
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:44 |
|
|
From a different thread:TheJoker138 posted:I'll just say that if you want to continue this we can go to the ME spoilers thread, but, it does make it worse. Because everything you have done in those 100 hours is made instantly meaningless, all gravitas from those experiences is taken away, and every choice you have made is stripped of all value, because no matter what you've done you get the same exact cut scene that has nothing to do with anything that came before it. gently caress that ending. I don't believe anything was made instantly meaningless. Throughout the whole game you're making large decisions with far reaching consequences, and all of those decisions and actions are given closure before the end of the game. All of the major characters are given their time to shine and they all close their respective arcs before the end. In my second play through right now I'm enjoying all of the individual moments just as much as when I first played through. I won't argue that everything that happens after the Illusive Man is dumb. But it's also feels very standalone to me. It's just Shepard and the Catalyst talkin about nonsense. It doesn't have much to do with the game before it. I guess the major difference between you and I is that I am able to look at the ending from and distance and realize that stands separately enough to be safely ignored. I must just be one of those "journey is more important than the destination" folks.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:48 |
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2013 07:54 |
|
|
Omnicarus posted:That Kotaku article from a few pages ago is just fantastic. I genuinely don't understand why the review sites/gaming press has decided to take potshots left and right over this whole thing. The game ending sucks, people are pissed at Bioware about it, I don't see what their angle is here unless they are paid off to the point that they are acting as another PR department of EA. Bioware keeps saying that they care more about what their fans think than what the games press thinks, and if there's any truth in that these big petitions should be worth something regardless of what side Kotaku comes down on.
|
| # ? Mar 14, 2012 07:50 |
|
