[Megathread] Mass Effect 3

[Puck]

Has anyone ever read this article? It was just posted on the BSN.... it is pretty damn interesting. It adds a lot of depth to the ending for me at least.

http://galacticpillow.com/2012/04/02...fect-3-ending/

[Oerba Yun Fang]

That's... a lot of reading.

[Adam Jensen]

4.0 On the ending’s lack of closure

Wrex: No matter what else happens today, you did what no one else could – you united a galaxy. That’s a victory right there.
There’s a saying in the music business: “play the beginning and ending well; no one will remember anything in between”. Never has this held truer than for Mass Effect.

When people complain about all of their choices throughout the 3 games having been for nought, I ask them what they’d been doing throughout the whole of Mass Effect 3. Here’s what one guy said:

I got maximum EMS, I did every mission, thinking, hoping that it would make a difference as my choices actually made changes within the narrative, but then the ending hits you like a tonne of bricks, not in an emotional way of narrative, but more in the way that you’ve just realised, this whole series, you’ve performed these choices, all for nothing because Bioeware and EA decided not to give it a proper send – off

There’s the problem right there: he’d played the whole game just to rack up points and forgot that all the major issues in the story were resolved during the last game – not at the end.

He’d forgotten that Shepard cured the genophage, gave the Geth individualism and souls and established peace between them and the Quarians, gave the Rachni and Krogans inclusion on the Citadel, found Joker his dream girlfriend, turned Kolyat away from Thane’s lifestyle (much to his relief – one of my favorite scenes), earned vengeance for a living Prothean, and heck, even had his ass saved once by a much-refined Conrad Verner.

All this could not have possibly happened in the ending sequence. It would have been a several-hour-long barely-interactive movie – and that would not have been an appropriate use of the game medium. The last 5 minutes of the game is really the ending of the reaper story, not the ending of everything in Mass Effect. And as far as the reaper story goes, I believe it was a satisfying ending.

Most people seem to have played Mass Effect 3 on autopilot, thinking everything that Shepard accomplishes during the game was a means to an end – not an end in and of itself. They’d united the galaxy, and they still weren’t satisfied.

Think about it: the Mass Effect story is about a hundred hours long, and the ending is proportionately long, because Mass Effect 3 is the ending.

I HIGHLY agreed with this part. The whole "your choices don't matter" was a load of crap, and I always felt that way. Your choices did matter, they mattered throughout the events of ME3, just not in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I didn't read it in depth, I skimmed most of it, but the writer made a few good points.

[Rukh]

Meh. I had a lot of fun with Mass Effect 3. I really enjoyed it. The original ending still sucked though.

[Puck]

That's... a lot of reading.

It's really worth it. It actually made me like the ending so much more. It is probably one of the best well thought out takes on the endings I've seen yet.

[Adam Jensen]

Meh. I had a lot of fun with Mass Effect 3. I really enjoyed it. The original ending still sucked though.

Oh I agree with that. But I think the EC fix most (but not all) of the problems with it and I don't think the end was as bad as most the whiners claim.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

I HIGHLY agreed with this part. The whole "your choices don't matter" was a load of crap, and I always felt that way. Your choices did matter, they mattered throughout the events of ME3, just not in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I didn't read it in depth, I skimmed most of it, but the writer made a few good points.

Ditto. I always wondered why everyone seemed to think all your choices would show their consequences in the last 10 minutes of the game, and why none of them seemed to realize you'd already seen the consequences of your choices while playing the game. Didn't save Maelon's data? Eve dies. And that's just one example of a ton.

[Adam Jensen]

Besides, aside from Starbrat, I find the ending to be very emotional and bittersweet.

[Rukh]

Oh I agree with that. But I think the EC fix most (but not all) of the problems with it and I don't think the end was as bad as most the whiners claim.

Yeah unlike a lot of people, I thought the updated ending wasn't too bad, and overall made it one of the best games I've played, and certainly one of the best series. Though going back through 1 makes me remember all the stuff I hated and was so glad they got rid of. XD

[Puck]

I also like what he said about the Stargazer scene:

The diminished significance of the Buzz Aldrin Stargazer scene

I’m happy that we got new content, of course. More cut scenes, more dialogue, more Mass Effect. I’d be crazy to complain about that.

But I do think it distracts from the Stargazer scene, which I personally loved.

The Stargazer is voiced by Buzz Aldrin, one of the first humans to land on the moon in 1969. He’s a hero to space nerds, and his casting as the Stargazer, as well as his dialogue, is a huge treat, as well as a subtle breaking of the fourth wall, which I’ll explain:

Child: “When can I go to the stars?”

Stargazer: “One day, my sweet.”

Child: “What will be there?”

Stargazer: “Anything you can imagine. Our galaxy has billions of stars. Each of those stars could have many worlds. Every world could be home to a different form of life. And every life is a special story of its own.”

This may seem tangential, but did you know that NASA’s annual budget, at $19 billion, is just 0.5% of the US federal budget? That’s enough to land rovers on Mars and to find hundreds of extrasolar planets, many of which might harbor life. Yet despite these huge successes, funding is being cut more and more.

We’re in a situation right now where in many countries like Canada, the UK and the US, science funding — especially in the so-called “STEM” (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields — are diminishing faster than can be justified by the ailing economy. Space exploration and science in general needs as much encouragement as it can get right now, and surely, that’s why Buzz agreed to this role, and why Bioware chose such a relatively obscure public figure over someone who might have been more popular or a better actor.

The Stargazer scene is terse, but it’s important. It ties one of the themes of the Mass Effect series — scientific and civilizational progress — to the real world here in 2012. It makes the ending uplifting in a very real way, and attempts to give Mass Effect social significance, as unsuccessful as it might sadly have been at that. But I think it was a really good attempt at something worthwhile that most game studios don’t have the balls to do.

So, I differ a little in opinion from Master Pillow in that I’m glad that they kept the scene in, even though it was awkwardly dwarfed by an epilogue that is arguably an exercise in sarcastic verbosity.

In closing, I want to share a rant by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. It carries much of the same undertone as the Stargazer scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc

I'm really giddy about this article. Its like someone took all the things I liked about the ending and was able to present them in a logical and precise way I was never able to do. It feels good.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

And that rant he links really hits home. I often wonder where we would be today if we spent as much money on our scientists and engineers as we do on things like the bailouts. :/

[Korgoth]

Done it three times and I finished it in one sitting every time. XD

Nah I was meaning that after all the Citadel stuff with the squad members, being all so upbeat and fun that you couldn't sit through the grim ending again. How many people picked out furniture for the apartment just to go off and die afterwards. Sad really.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

Oh. Pft, I haven't sat through the ending since they released the Extended Cut. Nowadays I play up until that final run to the beacon and stop. I mean, I liked the Extended Cut and all, but it's not worth interacting with the Star Child.

[Korgoth]

Oh. Pft, I haven't sat through the ending since they released the Extended Cut. Nowadays I play up until that final run to the beacon and stop. I mean, I liked the Extended Cut and all, but it's not worth interacting with the Star Child.

Yeah i kind of wish it ended right after Anderson dies. Shepard just pushes a button to fire the laser or whatever. Then hes pulled out of the rubble by Jack or Miranda on the ground, and the game ends on the Normandy like in ME2. But no its either die or kill legion and EDI.

I watched Star Trek, I dont believe in the no win scenario, someone needs to make a new ending.

[Adam Jensen]

I always thought ME3 should have had a good ending, one where Shepard definitely lives, the Reapers die and it doesn't require the destruction of EDI and the Geth, however such an ending would require that you pick the right decisions through out all of the trilogy, max out both galactic readiness (thus requiring MP) and EMS.

Make it a bonus ending or something.

And on that note, the Earth mission should have been Suicide Mission style, where you have to pick squadmates to perform certain tasks and if you pick the wrong squadmates, people die and you get a worse ending.

[Puck]

I always thought ME3 should have had a good ending, one where Shepard definitely lives, the Reapers die and it doesn't require the destruction of EDI and the Geth, however such an ending would require that you pick the right decisions through out all of the trilogy, max out both galactic readiness (thus requiring MP) and EMS.

Make it a bonus ending or something.

And on that note, the Earth mission should have been Suicide Mission style, where you have to pick squadmates to perform certain tasks and if you pick the wrong squadmates, people die and you get a worse ending.

Destroy already does nothing to stop the Reapers problem, a new ending like that would even be less helpful. What's the point of Destroying the Reapers if doing so pretty much spells the end of organic life?

[Landin55]

Destroy already does nothing to stop the Reapers problem, a new ending like that would even be less helpful. What's the point of Destroying the Reapers if doing so pretty much spells the end of organic life?

What the what?

[Puck]

What the what?

Technological singularity. Without something to Police organic life it will inevitably destroy itself.

[Korgoth]

Technological singularity. Without something to Police organic life it will inevitably destroy itself.

According to the Reapers! I proved them wrong by uniting the Geth and the Quarians. It's all hot robosexual love in my universe.

[Puck]

According to the Reapers! I proved them wrong by uniting the Geth and the Quarians. It's all hot robosexual love in my universe.

The Catalyst never denies that you made peace, it denies that said peace is ever lasting.