Mass Effect

[Waldorf and Statler]

It won't be free. But fans were only ASKING for it to be free, we'll gladly pay the 10-15 for a better ending if it comes to it.

[jimmuhpage]

Kai Leng was a bona fide evil bad ass in Retribution who

slit Liselle's throat after she was already unconscious. Liselles is Aria's daughter btw.

Then Deception turned him into the cereal killer that he is today, kicking, stomping and running people left and right while constantly reminding the reader that his legs are still fucked up from Anderson shooting them with a shotgun at the end of Retribution. At the end, TIM promises him some interesting upgrades that will allow for tactical espionage action to happen.

The worst dialogue in the game comes from his battle in the Cerberus station.

 

Kai Leng: We evolve or we die! Those are the options! (Too similar to "The only thing we can do. We fight or we die.")

 

Shepard: You ran on the Citadel. You ran on Thessia.

Kai Leng: Shut up!

 

And my all time favorite:

Kai Leng: You're still slow, Shepard.

Shepard: I'm only slow 'cause I'm not running.

 

Edited March 15, 2012 by jimmuhpage

[Vargras]

It won't be free. But fans were only ASKING for it to be free, we'll gladly pay the 10-15 for a better ending if it comes to it.

 

Mass Effect DLC tends to be pretty solid anyways. I can't really think of any bad DLC from any of the games.

[jimmuhpage]

Pinnacle Station was.... ok

And is the only one that never gets mentioned in the rest of the series.

Would have been nice to at least hear about your apartment on Intai'sei.

And the appearance packs and weapon packs for ME2 are technically DLC as well. Although I can't see myself using any assault rifle other than the Mattock if given the choice.

[deanb]

I'm not sure I'm keen on the model of:

Buy game, then buy ending/arrival/truth later.

 

I guess it's a pretty smart way to break past the $60 pricing barrier, but not one I'm keen on as a gamer.

[Waldorf and Statler]

I'm not a fan either Dean, but if it means getting a satisfying conclusion for my Shepard I'll fucking take it.

 

I AM wondering how this is gonna work though, since [like previous ME titles] once you beat the game you're brought back to a point where you have the chance to explore the galaxy further [in this case a pre-cerberus base state].

 

 

So if they ARE gonna bring a new ending, they better give you the option to jump straight to the last arc of the final mission, instead of having to replay it all again.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Waldorf And Statler

[deanb]

All the non-ABC endings at once! See if you can spot the difference, which guys saved the rachni, which killed the geth, the ones that saved the collector base n the save where everyone lived. (even Kaiden n Ashley at the same time)

 

 

 

 

Best I can tell beyond the colour there's only one difference and that's for the low-War Asset ending where Earth is wiped out.

 

[jimmuhpage]

@WaS

 

 

The last auto save (which gets overwritten if you play later on pre-cerberus base save) is when you wake up from the harbinger laser. And also, New game + uses an after-game save that seems to be inaccessible to the user in normal loading conditions, much like Mass Effect 1.

 

[Waldorf and Statler]

I am confused. What does this mean for me if I didnt play anything but I did start a new game+? I believe my last save was somewhere in the last mission so worst comes to worst I don't have to do the entire thing again

[TheMightyEthan]

New Game+ creates an entirely new "Shepard", so it doesn't affect the autosave from your first playthrough. If you go to "load game" and then "switch careers" you can see both the first playthrough and the New Game+ as separate careers.

[Waldorf and Statler]

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

 

 

To be completely honest, I only started the New Game+ for the achievement Once I got it I stopped

[jimmuhpage]

At first, I just wanted to get the char. lvl 60 and import me3 achievement. So I set it to Insanity just for kicks since I was level 59. Mars was so easy, I just kept going, doing only Priority missions. In 8 hrs, Marauder Shields was dead.

 

It just might be possible that the only achievement in the series I don't get is ME2 Insanity...

Edited March 15, 2012 by jimmuhpage

[Vargras]

At first, I just wanted to get the char. lvl 60 and import me3 achievement. So I set it to Insanity just for kicks since I was level 59. Mars was so easy, I just kept going, doing only Priority missions. In 8 hrs, Marauder Shields was dead.

 

It just might be possible that the only achievement in the series I don't get is ME2 Insanity...

 

Horizon. Praetorian fight on Insanity. Oh my gooooooooood, such a pain in the ass as Vanguard.

 

In other news, Cerberus now has a space program, courtesy of my Sentinel. I don't know if the physics engine decided to crap itself or what, but I used Throw on some poor Assault Trooper, and the guy basically rocketed into the atmosphere. He was just... gone.

[deanb]

Origin, unlike GFW n Steam, doesn't have a built in achievement system meaning stuff to get folks back into the game via MP and NG+ is largely pointless beyond the games base merits.

[jimmuhpage]

At first, I just wanted to get the char. lvl 60 and import me3 achievement. So I set it to Insanity just for kicks since I was level 59. Mars was so easy, I just kept going, doing only Priority missions. In 8 hrs, Marauder Shields was dead.

 

It just might be possible that the only achievement in the series I don't get is ME2 Insanity...

 

Horizon. Praetorian fight on Insanity. Oh my gooooooooood, such a pain in the ass as Vanguard.

 

In other news, Cerberus now has a space program, courtesy of my Sentinel. I don't know if the physics engine decided to crap itself or what, but I used Throw on some poor Assault Trooper, and the guy basically rocketed into the atmosphere. He was just... gone.

 

Yeah, I stepped into Insanity with my level 30 soldier with bonus power Reave. Collector trap owned me so badly so many times in such little time. I've gone back and tried it every now and then. Still no luck. If/when I ever do it again, I'll just use my Adept and get Domination as the bonus power.

[Vargras]

Post from Bioware on facebook:

We appreciate everyone’s feedback about Mass Effect 3 and want you to know that we are listening. Please note, we want to give people time to experience the game so while we can’t get into specifics right now, we will be able to address some of your questions once more people have had time to complete the game. Let’s also remember the man/woman that started this journey for us. What do you love most about your Commander Shepard? Please try to keep the discussion “spoiler-free."

[CorgiShinobi]

It wouldn't be the first time there was an "epilogue" to a core game's story. We had Arrival on ME2 that was essentially a prequel to ME3 rather than a "How much did Shepard piss off Cerberus?"

 

Prince of Persia '08 had "Epilogue" where you basically went on a more challenging run with the Mourning King in some ruins. Of course, now with no sequel in sight, the ending changes to, "Lose the girl you love, thus causing an ancient evil to be released with no hope of sealing it again" instead of "Release ancient evil, but save the girl."

[Waldorf and Statler]

Regarding PoP '08 the creators have said they haven't forgotten about it. The last PoP was to tie in with the film. I'm kinda glad it sucked so now they can go back to this one. It may have not sold like hot cakes, but at least it did decently in reviews.

[toxicitizen]

Spent the past 4 hours finishing the game. Now I'm tired and going to bed.

 

But before, there's just something I want to say.

 

*clears throat*

 

FUCK YOU, INTERNET!!

 

Ah, that felt good.

Seriously. The ending was disappointing, but holy shit was this blown WAY out of proportion. I guess some people just had such a raging hate-boner for Bioware and EA that they were going to fucking despise it regardless, but what the fuck. I had fun right up until the credits rolled.

 

 

Yeah, it sucks that none of your choices throughout the series made any damn difference. But shit, are people really that naive that they expected some kind of elaborate ending tree where every single decision combination branched out into a different ending? Maybe that's how ambitious they originally were but it's fairly obvious that the plan changed as soon as EA bought them out. For something so elaborate to even be feasible, you'd need a hell of a lot more than a 2 years turnaround time. Something like that would be a HUGE fucking pain to design and produce.

 

And I don't want to sound like I'm defending them here. The more the ending sinks in, the less it holds up and that's starting to actually annoy me a bit. But I actually enjoyed it as I was playing it, so who the fuck cares, really. And besides, it's not like the 30+ hours I spent playing the game weren't fucking awesome. But the way some people online are reacting, you'd think the ending gave them fucking AIDS or something. Ugh.. I didn't mean to go into full-on rant mode. Sorry about that.

 

Anyway, I went with the Synthesis ending. I spent the past two games defending the Geths' right to exist, so I sure as shit wasn't going to wipe them out. And controlling the Reapers seemed like a terrible idea, so I evolved everything and everyone instead.

 

Also, I have to say that I really fucking love this interpretation of the ending http://i.imgur.com/yyF8K.png

This spin on things actually makes it into a pretty fucking brilliant conclusion, if you ask me. I highly doubt that's what Bioware was going for, though...

 

 

Edited March 16, 2012 by FLD

[Eleven]

 

I'm trying not to read any more about this stuff, because I'm getting more and more excited about future DLC, with all of the twitter hints and posts and all. If it doesn't do a continuation on the ending (especially the perfect ending one) then I'm going to get disappointed. EDIT: I was referring to the indoctrination theory.

 

 

I still like the ending as it was. But holy shit with all this talk, I think I'm gonna replay the last part and pick perfect renegade and wait (of course to do that I'm gonna have to play some multiplayer to get the score up. I'm about 1200 assets short of 5000).

 

Lastly, I realize now I'm terribly lucky with the Normandy ending. The people I saw come out of it was Joker, Traynor, and EDI who all have perfectly good reason to be there (EDI was calibrating the normandy's targeting systems last I checked).

 

Edited March 16, 2012 by elev3n

[TheMightyEthan]

Hmmm...

 

 

I had already heard of and liked the indoctrination theory, but I'd just been thinking of it as a fan-retcon to make the ending better, not as something Bioware actually intended.

 

Some of the questions that person asked have obvious answers though: How did Anderson beat you? Well, because unlike Shepard he wasn't half dead. The real question for me is how did the Illusive Man get there? The whole time I was thinking TIM wasn't really there, Shep was just imagining him because he was indoctrinated, but Anderson talks to him too so that idea goes out the window unless the whole thing is a hallucination.

 

[Cyber Rat]

 

Why shouldn't people expect endings that branch out based on various meaningful choices? Many excellent CRPGs did it years ago.

 

Also, that indoctrination conclusion sounds like the "Squall died early in FF8" theory.

 

Edited March 16, 2012 by Cyber Rat

[Vargras]

Hmmm...

 

 

I had already heard of and liked the indoctrination theory, but I'd just been thinking of it as a fan-retcon to make the ending better, not as something Bioware actually intended.

 

Some of the questions that person asked have obvious answers though: How did Anderson beat you? Well, because unlike Shepard he wasn't half dead. The real question for me is how did the Illusive Man get there? The whole time I was thinking TIM wasn't really there, Shep was just imagining him because he was indoctrinated, but Anderson talks to him too so that idea goes out the window unless the whole thing is a hallucination.

 

 

 

I can answer the one about TIM. While you're still at the Cerberus base, the Prothean VI actually says that the Illusive Man has already fled to the Citadel and has told the Reapers what you're up to.

 

As for me, I actually like all the discussions the endings have spawned, and from what I've read, that was the whole point. They WANTED folks to talk about them. Some of the fan theories so far have been fantastic - I've seen everything from Shepard being indoctrinated, to Shepard conjuring up the entire thing to give himself "a happy ending" as he slowly dies from blood loss.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Hmmm...

 

 

I had already heard of and liked the indoctrination theory, but I'd just been thinking of it as a fan-retcon to make the ending better, not as something Bioware actually intended.

 

Some of the questions that person asked have obvious answers though: How did Anderson beat you? Well, because unlike Shepard he wasn't half dead. The real question for me is how did the Illusive Man get there? The whole time I was thinking TIM wasn't really there, Shep was just imagining him because he was indoctrinated, but Anderson talks to him too so that idea goes out the window unless the whole thing is a hallucination.

 

 

 

I can answer the one about TIM. While you're still at the Cerberus base, the Prothean VI actually says that the Illusive Man has already fled to the Citadel and has told the Reapers what you're up to.

 

Ah yeah, forgot about that.

 

As for me, I actually like all the discussions the endings have spawned, and from what I've read, that was the whole point. They WANTED folks to talk about them. Some of the fan theories so far have been fantastic - I've seen everything from Shepard being indoctrinated, to Shepard conjuring up the entire thing to give himself "a happy ending" as he slowly dies from blood loss.

 

I'm somewhat skeptical that this was actually their intent, but if it was then it does make the endings less bad. Still,

 

 

I feel like even as far as open-to-interpretation endings go, this was poorly done.

 

[Vargras]

As for me, I actually like all the discussions the endings have spawned, and from what I've read, that was the whole point. They WANTED folks to talk about them. Some of the fan theories so far have been fantastic - I've seen everything from Shepard being indoctrinated, to Shepard conjuring up the entire thing to give himself "a happy ending" as he slowly dies from blood loss.

 

I'm somewhat skeptical that this was actually their intent, but if it was then it does make the endings less bad. Still,

 

 

I feel like even as far as open-to-interpretation endings go, this was poorly done.

 

 

Depends on your point of view, if you ask me.

 

 

Some people wanted a concrete ending, a true and definite finale to the three games that also wrapped up and involved every choice they had ever made (which seems a little unrealistic. That's a LOT of variables if you were to include every choice). Others were fine with an ambiguous ending, and some will actually prefer that, regardless of the game.

 

That same ambiguity is why I also liked the endings to Human Revolution. You made a choice, and the immediate results were already somewhat obvious, since Eliza tells you and all. But then you're left wondering - 'What about the rest? What about the future'?

 

Edited March 16, 2012 by Vargras