I finished the Mass Effect Trilogy!

"YSI-what can brown do for you" (ysi-what-can-brown-do-for-you)
07/11/2014 at 03:16 • Filed to: None

I must say, I don't really get the controversy over the ending. Yeah they reduced your choices, but whatever. It was bittersweet and it concluded everything nicely but left it open enough for you to fill in the gaps. In other news, this is a V12 with twin turbos and external wastegates.

DISCUSSION (20)

Burrito de EJ25 > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 03:18

It was about the journey, not the destination. 2 is still the best, though.

PS9 > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 03:24

The starchild stuff was kind of batshit, coupled with those murals they threw in there felt really disappointing to a lot of players.

To some, it felt like working for 5 years to save up to go to goodwood only to get there and find out Toyota has take over and Priuses are the only things on display.

YSI-what can brown do for you > Burrito de EJ25
07/11/2014 at 03:25

It really was a good journey. Makes me want to rebuy 1 and actually get 2 to play them through again. I really hated 2 but only because I played it on Insanity. Possibly the most infuriating thing I have ever done, 3 was much easier and more fun cause of it.

YSI-what can brown do for you > PS9
07/11/2014 at 03:28

Yeah I didn't have to wait that long. I literally started playing 1 when 3 was like 2 months from release. I guess I didn't build up the ending to much. Kind of like Too Human, I thought it was an awesome game, but most didn't. . . then again I got it for 7 bucks.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 03:47

did you play the patched version with the additional choices? original one just had 3 colours to pick.

I didn't think it was too bad of an ending either, the whole 3rd game was full of tying up loose threads

YSI-what can brown do for you > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
07/11/2014 at 03:52

It was prepatch. My Xbox isn't hooked up to the Internet right now. I personally liked the 3 choices, don't know what it is like post patch though.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 04:58

There's a cool little conspiracy theory going on about the end. Basically, if you choose to fight there's an additional cutscene at the end where you see Sheppard in the wreckage of the blast, and you see him take in a breath.

The theory goes is that that ending is Sheppard fighting Indoctrination (don't you think it's weird that he's been on all these Reaper ships and hasn't suffered at all). Basically, the other two options are him giving in and that's what Indoctrination is like, with the final option is him beating it back and continuing on.

If that's what they intended, it's excellent. If not, it's something I choose to believe :)

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 08:35

Here was my issue with the ending - they promised that part of the whole "your choices matter" universe that your ending would depend on your choices and how you played your shepard. There are some interesting ways to do this such as some people playing a shepard that puts all human interests first (basically, you play as if you've been a part of cerberus the whole time) or people who play to maximize shepard's safety and health at the expense of others. Also a lot of people (myself included) carried multiple saves to do things like the morinth/samara choice both ways and see how the game changes. The answer is that it basically doesn't.

Even with the "new" ending, it doesn't matter too much. The true ending of the game is found in the DLC (because of COURSE an EA game would require DLC to finish properly.....) where you play a short action story, buy an apartment, play in the arcade, get a final romance scene with your lover, and then throw an amazing house party.

djmt1 > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
07/11/2014 at 08:41

As much as I love the indoctrination theory no matter how you spin it, it was grasping at straws while trying to make sense of the nonsense.

The most tragic part of this debacle is that the rubbish ending we got was down to some arsehole hackers leaking the script for ME3 and Bioware being overly butthurt that their artistic vision being damaged so they quickly rewrote it in a few months which is such a terrible idea espically considering how good the original ending was.

Basically the Reapers are immortal like all machines and have no concept of death. However what isn't immortal is the universe as one day it will becoming nothing. Faced with this "impending" disaster the reapers sought to stop the universe from ending via the manipulating of dark matter (tali recruit mission in me2) however being machines they could only come up with linear solution and thus failed. So they turned their attention to organics who in their words represent chaos. Basically they would breed civilizations to the point of being able to solve problems like this and absorb the collective knowledge in reaper form. Thus the reapers and the cycle. The original choices were destroy the reapers and find a way ourselves (red). Allowing the reapers to win(blue). Or convince them to work together(green).

No plotholes, no ignoring of lore and justifying past behaviour in previous games and most importantly justifying the whole as organics you won't understand thing since we won;t be here to see the universe end. So much potential gone, thanks to hackers and arrogant designers & writers.

djmt1 > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 08:41

twochevrons > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 08:45

On that topic, I desperately want this bumper sticker:

Kinja'd!!!

djmt1 > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 08:48

Also Logic.

Kinja'd!!!

twochevrons > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 09:14

It's a fantastic series, no doubt about that. Even my wife, who doesn't care for video games at all, watched me play through the whole series, because she found the story so gripping.

I was really struck by how emotionally-charged the third game was. I played as FemShep and romanced Garrus (my wife's idea, and both choices I wholeheartedly recommend – the voice acting is better, more video games need a strong female lead, and who doesn't love Garrus?), and the whole tearful-goodbye bit when leaving London really got me, as well as the bit with Anderson on the Citadel. Man-tears were shed, and I have no shame in that.

I've never played a game before that did that to me, and I think that's really quite impressive. Playing through all three games really gets you attached to all the characters – I only lost the two characters that you can't avoid having die, but those were both real punches in the gut.

Also, as far as I'm concerned, my Shepard is THE Shepard. I'm not sure if other people got this feeling if they played as a non-default Shepard, but to me it honestly feels slightly strange when I read things referring to Shepard as male, or screenshots of male Shepard, because no, Shepard is a she, and a totally kickass redhead with biotic powers!

twochevrons > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles
07/11/2014 at 09:24

I read a really interesting piece on the whole ending issue that gave me a new perspective on the whole thing. There's that bit at the end, after the credits, where (at least in my case), an old man, played by Buzz Aldrin, talks about the tale of "The Shepard" as an ancient story, the details lost in the mists of time.

With that, you can cast the whole story as a kind of myth – the details may change in different re-tellings (i.e. different play-throughs), but the overall story remains the same. After all, the whole Shepard story fits in very well with Joseph Campbell's "monomyth" concept – a basic pattern to which many classical narratives (and plenty of contemporary ones) adhere to, regardless of origin. Totally highfalutin' liberal arts stuff, but it interests me :).

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > twochevrons
07/11/2014 at 09:33

I don't buy that based on how deep some of your choices could reverberate. For example - the genophage cure. I'm sorry, but that WILL have some long term effects. Even in the new ending, all we see is a picture of some krogan babies and Wrex. What about krogan diplomats? Who will ally with them and work with them? How big does their population grow? What about the Quarians and Geth? You can't tell me that THAT conflict alone won't generate three different universes.

It goes back to bioware being great character writers but terrible story writers. They can craft an epic scenario and string together amazing setpieces one after the other. But when it comes to actually churning through the overarching story? Bioware isn't that great. Dragon AGe I felt was similar but I also felt like the characters drove the plot a lot better since it was heavily focused on your party. Plus the overall scheme was a bit more typical "come ye merry lads, let's save the world!" so the characters were free to be drawn on for the basis of quests.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > djmt1
07/11/2014 at 11:40

Ok, I like that ending more. I'm just going to ignore the canon ending and pretend that happened.

NaturallyAspirated > twochevrons
07/11/2014 at 14:29

Jennifer Hale is a great voice actress, but I didn't really understand the folks who thought that FemShep was voiced better than DudeShep until I played a Renegade character. DudeShep is voiced very well if you're playing straight Paragon, but FemShep really sells the Renegade options a lot better than DudeShep does.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/11/2014 at 20:28

I recently went back through with a new shep and got halfway through 3 and then moved house. no fuggen idea where the disc went to. So I can't tell you what post patch is like either :(

YSI-what can brown do for you > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
07/13/2014 at 01:12

Yeah I heard about this, never thought to much about it. Then I looked it up after I finished the game. There is a 3 hour video on this. People really went all in to prove this. I heard Bioware said "nope, you're wrong"

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > YSI-what can brown do for you
07/14/2014 at 04:20

Hmmm, I'd be more inclined to believe Bioware if the ending that they came up with wasn't crap ;)