Mass Effect

[Waldorf and Statler]

By the time infiltrator comes out for the android it'll be far too late for me as I'll have returned ME3 by then, so fuck it I'm gonna go through with the ending and hope I can survive. will let you guys know how it goes since I've done absolutely everything in the singleplayer.

[Hot Heart]

Thing is, I think the combat mechanics are good enough that multiplayer can totally stand on its own. I'd love to see some sort of full-on co-op game...starring Krogan!

[Waldorf and Statler]

I

 

 

AM

 

 

KROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGAN

[CorgiShinobi]

Looks like this thread found its quad!

 

GRRAAAAAAWWWRRRRRR!!!!

[Cyber Rat]

"I don't need luck. I have ammo."

[Vargras]

"I don't need luck. I have ammo."

 

One of the best lines in the whole damn game.

[jimmuhpage]

So, I finished it earlier today. Almost 53 hours, but only because I read the Codex entries and the planetary info on places I landed on.

 

 

Went with the Synthesis ending. Checked out Maritan's link a few pages ago. Didn't look into the NG+ ending, but I am wondering, what do they mean by "save" Anderson? AFAIK, Anderson died before I was taken to the Catalyst. Does Anderson just not die if you have more war assets. I did everything I could before starting the last missions and played multi a couple times, my readiness rating was at 79%, the EMS was over 5600. Also, if you don't paragon/renegade TIM at the end to make him commit suicide, do you have to kill him yourself? I read in the art book that they were going to make him look more like a Brute, but then designed him to look more human to make the final boss more personal.

 

[deanb]

In my ending

 

Anderson came up after me in the beam, ending up in a nearby area of the Citadel. I then hobble to the control panel and he's there, but so is TIM. Then Anderson was shot in the stomach by Shepard after our bout of indoctrination power display by TIM. TIM then goes to execute Anderson but I Renegade QTE shot TIM n killed him. I then open the citadel up and me n Anderson sit down n have a heart to heart and gaze at the view. Anderson then closes his eyes one last time. Then I get in the call that it's "something on my end" and end up with the rest of..the ending.

 

I actually had the left hand side greyed out in my choices with TIM, which I guess means I did something wrong with the illusive man. Maybe in ME2?

 

[jimmuhpage]

Hmm I see.

I guess "save" was in quotations because he dies anyway and not "saving" means TIM gets the satisfaction of killing him. But yeah, I used paragon choices 100% of the time in the game, so maybe that's the difference, since you mentioned you didn't para/rene during Rannoch. I don't think the reputation system is affected by earlier games. TIM ends up shooting himself just like Fai Dan and Saren in the first game.

[Waldorf and Statler]

Just beat the game, around 40 hours.

 

I gotta say, I can see the problem with the endings. I mean if they were hinting at a sequel then yeah fuck it.

 

But let's be reasonable here people. The people at Bioware tried their fucking hardest

 

 

to not let shepard out alive. I mean they really did. No way in hell can they make another game with shepard]

 

 

My problem deals more with what everybody else is saying. All the decisions we made, all the big talk about how big relationships were in the games, and none of it mattered. When you end a trilogy, you need to end it with a good resolution. Not a "hey, shit might happen next lololololz" resolution. And that's where Bioware fucked up. No resolution whatsoever and nothing we did mattered much at the end.

 

Horrible ending in terms of a video game. If this were the second in a movie trilogy it wouldnt matter but as it is? Bullshit.

[jimmuhpage]

Well,

some endings have Shepard live in the end. We don't know how alive he is, but he definitely breathes in hard, as if waking up. I don't think they should, but just like there are Mass Effect 2 saves where Shepard dies and can't be imported into ME3, perhaps they could do the same here. They really shouldn't though. I'd prefer they either they make a prequel that deals with First Contact War/Krogan Rebellions/Rachni War or they make a sequel hundreds or thousands of years later with the species present in the after credits sequence.

 

 

In fact, how awesome would it be if you played as an asari or krogan that lived through the Rachni War AND the Krogan Rebellions?

 

 

Also, @dean:

 

Given that I got into Tali's suit and would never let her die and convinced her to stay on the Normandy and have the Collector's Edition, I had a total of 7 squadmates to choose from: Garrus, Kaidan, EDI, Tali, Liara, Javik (Prothean), and James. Other than Javik and Tali, who did you not have?

 

Edited March 12, 2012 by jimmuhpage

[Waldorf and Statler]

@jimmuh

 

 

the only ending where shepard survives is if you have 4000+ EMS and you choose destroy. So unless you play multi it is not possible.

 

[jimmuhpage]

Oh, I thought there were more of them. Well, mostly rules out what I didn't want anyway

[TCP]

I hope the reason people are pissed about the ending is because something so lame it's awesome happens (Kaiden never actually died and is working with the Reapers?).

Just spent some bro time with Garrus, so great.

 

"I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is my favourite spot on the Citadel!"

 

The writing between the characters is top notch.

Edited March 12, 2012 by TheCowboyPoet

[Waldorf and Statler]

That's not it at all Cowboy.

 

 

I wish it was something cheesy and lame. alas....

[Mister Jack]

Well I just beat the game.

 

 

I convinced The Illusive Man that he'd been indoctrinated, which prompted him to kill himself. Shepard and Anderson sit and talk for a bit, then Anderson eventually bled out from the wound he got from Shepard's gun. Shepard goes up to activate the crucible. I chose synthesis because I didn't feel right destroying all the geth right after they'd gotten sentience.

 

So what exactly is the "best" ending in this game? Because it seems like someone gets fucked no matter what you do.

 

[Waldorf and Statler]

there really is no best ending. There's only one ending where

 

 

your shepard can live

 

 

and I mentioned it above.

[Mister Jack]

For that matter, what exactly IS the catalyst?

[Waldorf and Statler]

 

To be completely honest man, I wouldn't stress too much about the plot of the finale. Reapers had one purpose in ME1, and a completely different one in ME3. But from what I gather, the catalyst was represented as the little boy VI/AI inside the citadel. It basically is what controls the Reapers. I'm seeing it as the "master program" of the reapers, aka the leader that controls what they do. Like a geth consensus in a way.

 

But again to reiterate myself, don't worry about it. The ending was so full of fuck, some came to my head

 

[Johnny]

I'm done.

 

By that I don't mean I completed the game. I didn't. I'm at the last stretch.

But I just stopped caring. The game feels like More Tedious Mass Effect 2, and the writing doesn't hold up as well imho. Just feels like no significant improvements were made and I can't bring myself to care anymore.

Probably won't finish the game.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

The only problem I really had with the ending was that none of your choices mattered at all except in how they affected your war readiness. Not just the previous games' choices, but even THIS game's choices didn't make one lick of difference. That was stupid.

 

I chose to destroy the Reapers, because that's been my quest all along and I'm not going to change it now on the say-so of some little kid AI who's been in charge of the Reapers.

 

I'm sad that I never got to have any of those little blue children we'd talked about.

 

Also, is there any way to not destroy the Mass Relays? Because the kid told me that synthesis would, but not the others, which was why I didn't choose synthesis, but then destroying the Reapers also destroyed the mass relays anyway.

 

 

@Johnny: I disagree, I felt like it was Improved in Every Way Mass Effect 2, except that I didn't think there were enough actual conversations with crew members/squad mates. And the ending, but I didn't think that was the worst thing every like most people seemed to. Overall I do think it's my favorite Mass Effect. It had the better gameplay of ME2 but a more focused story.

[Hot Heart]

So far, I don't think there have been less 'actual conversations'. I mean, yeah, a lot of them are 'auto' conversations but there are still regular ones for important things. And there seems to be an increased focus on getting all the crew saying more about each and every mission, which I really like.

[deanb]

Mass Relays:

 

They get destroyed if "the cycle is broken". Which is what you're doing; breaking the cycle. It's not explained why, and given that the epilogue shows a space faring race they're clearly back up n running, so I don't know why Bioware thought it required the relays exploding.

 

Edited March 12, 2012 by TheMightyEthan
fixed spoiler tag

[TheMightyEthan]

I did really like the crew talking to each other, but while the auto conversations with Shep did expand the characters it didn't give me the feeling of interaction.

[TheMightyEthan]

Mass Relays:

 

They get destroyed if "the cycle is broken". Which is what you're doing; breaking the cycle. It's not explained why, and given that the epilogue shows a space faring race they're clearly back up n running, so I don't know why Bioware thought it required the relays exploding.

 

 

 

I don't think that necessarily implies they're back up and running, FTL is still possible without the mass relays, it's just impractical to cross the galaxy with it. You can still go to other nearby systems in reasonable time.