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[Digoman]

Part of what I hated the ending so much was just that... I was really liking the game up to that point. It appear to be fewer full conversations with the crew, but they were mostly well done and as you said some funny moments like when making fun of the Sheppard dance or the Garrus calibrations. It just the made the difference in quality to the last 15 minutes even more absurd, it really feels like two completely teams wrote the first 99% and the last 1% of the game.

I didn't see any use of the poker table either... hmmm. DLC? hehehe

 

[Fudgepuppy]

It's so painful talking to my friends who are at the moment in constant state of bliss.

Wait a few days and they'll join me and my scotch.

 

[Rebel Leader]

I believe everything before assulting illusive(sp) man base was fantastic.....then it went to shit...

I think they were lazy as hell to.... I would of liked to know how all the species are doing after defeating the reapers but nope.. Mass relays destroyed were a lazy ass way of advoiding this....

 

[heliosRAzi]

The part in the London camp just felt so right. The right amount of desperation, hope, fear, anticipation, frustration and so on. It made things seem so final. It kind of made me wish they went for another suicide mission kind of thing and had you bring along the entire crew to get things done.

 

[Guesong]

- I was startled that I didn't have enough Paragon charm for TIM's third option. What happens when you do? I think I missed 1 or 2 quests thanks to bugs. I am puzzled if that is why I couldn't. I was missing a sliver of reputation.

Also, what is the "Secret ending" for New Game+?

From what I've read, you HAD to have chosen all the BLUE MAGIC or RED MAGIC options whenever speaking to the Illusive Man across the game. Only then would the final set to make him off himself unlocks.

And there's no Secret Ending for NG+.

 

[The Technomancer]

I actually think they had something with the idea of the inevitable technological singularity that requires cleansing for the safety of the wider galaxy. I mean, if you have to explain the Reapers I don't think that's half bad.

 

[heliosRAzi]

The Reapers should've been a means to a Culture-type setup. Organics and synthetics living together peacefully in a post-scarcity, utopian society.

 

[dragonelite]

Still think they should have gone with the Dark Matter/energy story line.

Just a nice concept after seeing the the illusive man boss concept. I posted on a other forum so i'm just going to quote it.

Lets just say the ending made me more depressive about how i wasted over 150 hours into the trilogy. They should have went with the Dark energy plot ending.

Have Shepard make the choice let the reapers go on and find a solution to the dark energy plot or let the races that survive find their own solution. But not the 3 space magic option we got presented. And you're squad should survive and not get hit by the beam. So when choosing to oppose the reapers view and not get assimilated into a couple of human dna strand reapers. The Catalyst would then revive the illusive man body like sovereign did with the Saron fight. You have to defeat him and break down the Catalyst after that the reapers would go offline. Then some time run to get to the Normandy in time to outfly the citadel destruction blast(could be a cutscene). Of course you get to know more about the reapers and how the come into existence with investigate option when talking to the catalyst maybe showing some cutscenes.

Queue in Ending cut scene telling how the Mass relay and citadel get destroyed how it took the other races months if not years to get back to their home planet with FTL speeds.

See what happens with your Team mates. They probably get a high functional diplomatic function or advisory function. Now the races Top scientist are gathering Mass relay debris after 10 years of rebuilding to restore instant traveling around the Galaxy. And being able to rebuild Mass relays reseeding the galaxy with them. I say rebuild because the are still technologically to advance to understand for the races so the best they could do is rebuild them from the debris left over.
And rebuild a new Citadel type Space station. Then show Sheppard having a break from war maybe becoming the Human ambassador or Living the good live with his Love interest maybe a child in the picture. That all is 30 years into the future. Maybe to fill some gaps in that time with stand alone dlc which focus on those big events like stealing tech from rogue teams that want to gain powers to rebuild the first couple of Mass Relays.

That is probably how i would have done that. Incorporate the War Asset concept from team members you will loose after the point of no return mission storming the Cerberus base. So a 5k plus would let everyone survive. Shitty War Asset everyone dies on your team and the normandy get blown up and Shepard and team can't get of the Citadel.

The rest is to interleaved with the previous games and other choices.
Choose the other option reapers win anyway.

The next trilogy could be about one of the races/faction take advantage of the dark matter stuff Growing faster then other races in tech and get cocky they want to conquer the galaxy. Bad concept but then again i feel this shuts off the trilogy better then bioware did and Shepard survives if you did your war Asset stuff and make some good choices in previous games like Geth and qurian peace which should tie in with War asset reach the critical point that everyone survives perfect trilogy playthrough.

And would make me actually want to replay the game without some shitty dlc.
Because the ending really feels rushed or they were out of disk space for a better end cutscene.

Edit:some shitty language probably still full with mistakes

 

[Rengoku]

On a completely different note, this was easily the funniest moment of the game. The whole game was full of comedic gems, but this one took the cake.

Funniest moment was an incident on the ship with EDI, I don't remember the exact line, but I think it was regarding a conversation between EDI and Legion where she was criticized about the efficiency of the body she took, about it being 'top heavy'. That one caught me off guard.

 

[Rebel Leader]

And why the fuck couldn't we talk to the catalyst? That would of been a intresting scene..... Ask it: did it rebel against it's creators? why? Did you create the Crucible?

That was a missed treasure trove

 

[LumpOfCole]

I want to believe that the space elevator and everything after it was just a dream.

At least I know now how Deception was allowed to happen.

 

[Vamphuntr]

Finished this last night but I needed time to collect my thoughts before I posted. When I was reading this thread while waiting for my copy or while playing it, I was sure you guys were overreacting about the plot. Well, I'm somewhat embarassed to say you guys were right.

The last 20 minutes of the game were really, really awful story wise. It felt like they had no idea on how to solve everything even if they had introduced a nonsensical deux ex machina weapon in the plot. As soon as you get hit by the reaper's laser, the story crumbles on itself. Basically some ancient race built the reapers so that no AI/Synthetics would enslave organics and every 50K years or so they come back from hiding to kill civilizations advanced enough to create AI. This is revealed in the last 5 minutes and you basically hav no information about who were these people, what pushed them to built reapers and mass relays and how they did so. They had 3 games to do a logical build up to this and they pulled a ME2 by making an outrageous reveal at the end of the game.

It's also hilariously bad that they built synthetics to prevent organics from making synthetics that would kill them. The explanation on how their DNA is safeguarded in reapers make little sense as we don't even know how reapers really function. Moreover, the endings are all the same and not really a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Whatever you do, you die and the mass relays are destroyed anyway and you don't even get some epilogues panels like in DA or Fallout that explain what happened to all the races. What happened to everyone stuck in the Sol System? You get nothing but a terrible cutscene about the Normandy crashing on some random generic Jungle. Hilariously, the ending cutscene showed EDI and Kaidan even though they're supposed to be dead as they were with me on earth when we got hit by the Reaper's laser. Oh and the whole reason the Illusive man was super evil in the end was because he was indoctrinated?

I beat the game in 25 hours and I have to say that not much happened story wise regarding the reapers or the way to beat them in these 25 hours. The Crubile was a really weak twist in itself. It becomes even more non sensical when they reveal that every races add something/add new parts to it. How can you add parts to something no one even knew how to use? It's basically like ME2 but instead of recruting people you go to each world and help their forces to gain their alliance. Can I just say how outrageous was Wrex' request? CURE THE GENOPHAGE. Mordin said in ME2 that even with Maelon's data it would take years to cure and well, here you cure it in like 2 days.

The most interesting plot twist for me was that the Asari were basically a fraud. They are superior simply because they had an intact prothean beacon but once again this plot is simply thrown at wall and doesn't stick much. No one else found it baffling that Liara knew about all of these artifacts and never realized that it was obviously protheans depicted on them?

But the most offending thing was that converstion at the end with the two stargazers. "THE SHEPARD". Please, please tell me the whole story wasn't a retelling by the old guy to the kid and that Shepard is named Shepard because he was able to rally every race to together and that they don't remember his real name. Ending also implies that some part of the story might be wrong and distorted so Bioware can override your choices if necessary in a sequel.

It's a shame, really. This is not how you do a decent conclusion to a trilogy. I do agree with the other posters that said that the presentation and atmosphere were really good for the mission in London. Calling all the previous squamates was a nice touch too. Level designs was very basic for this area though. Fights waves of monsters again and again until you get the ok to proceed.

Overall it burned me on the trilogy bad. I don't think I'll be able to replay 1 and 2 again knowing on how it ends now :/

 

[Guesong]

I want to believe that the space elevator and everything after it was just a dream.

At least I know now how Deception was allowed to happen.

If only it had cut with Shepard crawling to the button, and pressing it with the last of his strength. Kills all Reapers.

Then a proper epilogue.

Shepard's body is found amongst the rubble. You get to see krogan childrens, Turians returning to their homeworld, Asari reconstructing, Quarian settling back down, so on and so forth, with it narrated by Liara.

If your War Assets were low, it ends with an eulogy of Shepard on Earth, with survivors from ME2 and this game all taking 1-2 lines to praise him, and his Love Interest being one sad widow. If your War Assets were high, ends with Shepard lives and you see him with his LI, doing whatever.

The end.

Seriously, how hard could it have been to do that instead of...whatever we got. I know some people would hate a "sappy, cliché" ending like this, but whatever, that's what I wanted to see.

 

[delirium]

Outside the Cerberus base, was it ever explain the point of the human baby reaper? Or was it pointless diversion that didn't really matter.

 

[Tess3ract]

The baby reaper was the collectors trying to start assimilating humanity because they beat the last reaper. They convert the dominant species, remember?

 

[NihonTiger90]

TIM origin is covered in the comics. It is as you said, but I think he was indoctrinated at some level. His madness grew in ME3, but in the comics he was still very Machiavellian

It also explains why he really would have wanted to keep the base for Cerberus in ME2 (keeping it allows it to be used to build more Reapers in the future)

 

[WiiredShawn]

The "dream" ending could have worked out perfectly in the thematic interests of the game. Everything post-elevator ride was Shepard having an "out of body", dream-like experience (thus explaining why she sees the child as space God). You are still given the same choices, but instead of physical, they are a metaphorical indication of Shepard's willingness to die for the sake of the galaxy (thus fulfilling his/her role as Space Jesus, but in a figurative sense). Then, the choice would lead to a different ending, one of which would be your teammates finding Shepard in the Citadel, activating the weapon and the armies mounting a final assault on the reapers in their moment of weakness.

Game ends, epilogue plays, Shepard can survive, mass relays persist, everyone's happy. This or the "Refuse" ending would easily solve Bioware's problems - but I doubt they will want to "admit defeat," per se, by releasing such a change.

 

[dragonelite]

The baby reaper was the collectors trying to start assimilating humanity because they beat the last reaper. They convert the dominant species, remember?

And should have the right DNA structure if i remember it right to have the human material survive the mutation.

 

[BeesEight]

Either way, I always found the Sovereign "reveal" in Mass Effect 1 to be eye-roll worthy. It didn't ruin the game for me, but it certainly drained me of any confidence that Bioware's writers could deliver a compelling villain.

Basically this. The problems of the Mass Effect story were started in the first and I had been moaning about the Reapers since Sovereign's silly speech. They were meant to be some terrible alien intelligence beyond comprehension and understanding. Yet they were synthetics created with a stated purpose that (in theory barring BioWare's horrible execution) is very comprehensive and understandable.

If they wanted to have this alien fear motif, Sovereign should never have spoken to Shepard, their goals should never be explained, and they should just be treated as this terrible enemy from the beyond. You could even save the necessary monologuing for their indoctrinated slaves if you must but even hint that the indoctrinated don't understand their masters and just act on their will.

If only it had cut with Shepard crawling to the button, and pressing it with the last of his strength. Kills all Reapers.

Then a proper epilogue.

Shepard's body is found amongst the rubble. You get to see krogan childrens, Turians returning to their homeworld, Asari reconstructing, Quarian settling back down, so on and so forth, with it narrated by Liara.

If your War Assets were low, it ends with an eulogy of Shepard on Earth, with survivors from ME2 and this game all taking 1-2 lines to praise him, and his Love Interest being one sad widow. If your War Assets were high, ends with Shepard lives and you see him with his LI, doing whatever.

The end.

Seriously, how hard could it have been to do that instead of...whatever we got. I know some people would hate a "sappy, cliché" ending like this, but whatever, that's what I wanted to see.

It's terribly cliched and not particularly great but this ending definitely plays to BioWare's strengths. They've never created a really deep, philosophical plot or a thematic game. They should really stick to their grandiose hero journeys between good and evil. It's what they were good at.

 

[probune]

Just finished the game last night. Usually don't post here, but since none of my friends have finished it, I just had to post my thoughts somewhere.

I kind of agree with the majority on the ending. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Here they'd bought me into caring about all these people over this game (I wasn't really attached to them, for the most part, in 1 and 2, but I thought they did a great job in 3) and then they make the ending about something completely different. There's almost nothing about my characters - instead, we're treated to Shep having to completely change the galaxy that I'd worked the whole game to unite.

I mean, I figured Shepherd would have to die no matter what. He/she probably does in every ending, right? I did Synthesis. She jumped into the big pillar of light and thought of Liara as she was disintegrated. Now, I would even have been satisfied with this if I'd seen my remaining characters living out their days as weird cybermen on this cyber planet. Instead, we get a really short scene of them landing out there. Well, at least EDI is happy that Joker's a robot-person now. Maybe it cured his bone disease?

What happened to Earth? What happened to all the people there fighting the Reapers? Did they just leave? And what about all the dudes there? I wanted to hear about them.

At the same time, though, even if it's not what I expected or even wanted, I can respect it, unlike a lot of others I guess. To be honest, after playing the ending they made and hearing about what people wanted - the standard "we beat those machines and now everyone goes back to doing whatever again, and people live if you had enough bar fillled" doesn't seem to quite cut it. I like what they did with it in that way.

I just wish I could have seen more of what happened with my characters in the end.

 

[Digoman]

Going by the text floating on the net and already posted on this thread here (but that I can't find the actual source to) the baby reaper was their last desperate attempt to use human genetic diversity to stop the spread of dark matter... but who the heck knows.

Whatever the original idea was, its pretty clear that between ME2 and ME3 Bioware plans changed. The "reaper assumes the traits of the dominant species" theme was abandoned, the hints about dark energy led to nothing, and so on.

Maybe it was something forced "from the top" to accommodate future plans... I don't know... it just doesn't make any sense for me right now. It is bad ending storytelling wise (even the cliche good ending would be better), hurts replayability and probably doesn't help push people to keep playing the multiplayer either.

 

[Vamphuntr]

Yeah, I've read the Dark Energy plot from something awful. It was much more sensical that what we got here. It was also why the way Tali's recruit mission was presented in ME2 made it so much important. This would have made the ending even more a copy of Xenosaga III though.

No one is disappointed that there is no final boss in the game? You don't fight Harbinger, the Illusive man nor the catalyst. It's weird that the game reminds you of Harbinger during the geth/quarian mission and even during the final assault and you never attack him anyway. It's not like they had no gameplay mechanics in place to kill reapers in place.

 

[Rebel Leader]

^ I expected TIM to rise.. but he did not.. which was surprising
------

Respect it? Hell no.
I am not gonna respect a shitty ending. They talk about the future and not show it? Destroy all mass relays no matter what choice. I cured the krogan and I want to see what haapened to them. I am in utter disbelief & dissatisfaction. So, how high is shit moutian now?

 

[Guesong]

If you look at the art book though, you see there's a Reaper version of Illusive Man in concept.

They said they wanted him to be the final battle of the game, but that it wouldn't fit with the Illusive Man, so they went with the intellectual mind battle instead.

 

[popsicle_sundays]

So excited to sink my teeth into this tonight after work, I've only had time to fix my PC version up. What should I expect if I LOVED ME1 but only liked ME2?

 

[Vamphuntr]

If you look at the art book though, you see there's a Reaper version of Illusive Man in concept.

They said they wanted him to be the final battle of the game, but that it wouldn't fit with the Illusive Man, so they went with the intellectual mind battle instead.

What an "impressive" mind battle it is.

Shepard : Oh no you can control me because of my implants you used when you rebuilt me.

Illusive Man : I'M NOT INDOCTRINATED AT ALL. I do what I want and saving/controlling the reapers is saving humanity.

Shepard : You are insane

Illusive Man : NO

Shepard : Yes, you are blind

Illusive Man : NO

renegade interrupt -> shoot him

 

[Rebel Leader]

So excited to sink my teeth into this tonight after work, I've only had time to fix my PC version up. What should I expect if I LOVED ME1 but only liked ME2?

Everything uptill the last hour or 2

 

[Guesong]

So excited to sink my teeth into this tonight after work, I've only had time to fix my PC version up. What should I expect if I LOVED ME1 but only liked ME2?

The game as a whole is a great game, combining the better elements of ME1 and ME2.

But then the ending happens, and you despise it retroactively.


^^ Vamp : Not true! You can force him to suicide as well! (god paragons are jerks, that's two times they can do that now)



EDIT : I just tried to start a new game with FemShep (cause the gameplay is great, after all). I couldn't make it past the intro mission because my mind kept telling me this was a pointless exercise .

 

[vitaminwateryum]

Going by the text floating on the net and already posted on this thread here (but that I can't find the actual source to) the baby reaper was their last desperate attempt to use human genetic diversity to stop the spread of dark matter... but who the heck knows.

Whatever the original idea was, its pretty clear that between ME2 and ME3 Bioware plans changed. The "reaper assumes the traits of the dominant species" theme was abandoned, the hints about dark energy led to nothing, and so on.

Maybe it was something forced "from the top" to accommodate future plans... I don't know... it just doesn't make any sense for me right now. It is bad ending storytelling wise (even the cliche good ending would be better), hurts replayability and probably doesn't help push people to keep playing the multiplayer either.

It also doesn't make sense that so many of the reapers look the same. If it really is a cycle and the reapers have been around for a long ass time, why do all of the reapers look like space squids?

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

why the fuck would i ever want to wonder that

Parenting

Spoiler

"And then, EVERYBODY DIED." "Dad, you're such a dick. Like, seriously"

But I can see why they ditched the Dark Energy plotline. No idea how Drew intended to connect the build-up with continued harvesting, but I think it wouldn't be a very compelling reason for people to buy into. Meaning that the Reapers wouldn't be a 'suitable enemy'. Their motive would be clear and all (and the ending and story much better), but it might not make the most compelling game story you would want to play. The singularity may be bogus and all, and the ending that now exist entirely avoiding the rest of the series, but I think most people will probably not object to it as much as they would against a (equally poorly executed) dark energy plot.

I do think there really should have been a 'fuck you' ending to whatever the hell that thing was (God? first life? Synthetic overlord?) instead of just accepting it like that. It's as if Bioware thought the endings to some reviled endings of SF shows was cool or something.

 

[Tacitus_]

It also doesn't make sense that so many of the reapers look the same. If it really is a cycle and the reapers have been around for a long ass time, why do all of the reapers look like space squids?

Maybe only the innards differ? The human-reaper embryo certainly wasn't that big compared to the actual reapers.

 

[Vamphuntr]

^^ Vamp : Not true! You can force him to suicide as well! (god paragons are jerks, that's two times they can do that now)

What do you mean by not true? This is exactly what happened to me. I selected the paragon choice for all but the last because it seems the last one is based solely on the replies you gave to TIM in all previous conversation instead of your reputation bar. I mean sure you can have him suicide but this isn't what happened to me. The other paragon replies are how about he's insane and indoctrinated but TIM simply says no you are wrong each time. You then get to shoot him while he tries to kill Anderson but it's pointless as Anderson dies anyway after.

 

[Tacitus_]

What do you mean by not true? This is exactly what happened to me. I selected the paragon choice for all but the last because it seems the last one is based solely on the replies you gave to TIM in all previous conversation instead of your reputation bar. I mean sure you can have him suicide but this isn't what happened to me. The other paragon replies are how about he's insane and indoctrinated but TIM simply says no you are wrong each time. You then get to shoot him while he tries to kill Anderson but it's pointless as Anderson dies anyway after.

If you make colored answers to the end, TIM will shoot himself in the head.

 

[Fudgepuppy]

Couldn't they just had skipped the crucible and made the game about making a last stand and stopping Harbinger? Having the setup of an ancient weapon no one knows how it works only made you think "It's gonna screw us over in the end, right?"

The end-game could be about destroying Harbinger, infiltrating him, seeing fragments of his memory where you would see how the reapers were created and why. All while Harbinger is trying to control and indoctrinate you by giving you all these examples of why they were needed as in dark energy etc. It could also have the structure of the suicide-mission with you choosing which forces to do certain tasks in the war with the end being decided on how many assets you have and how you diverted them. In the end you could have several choices, one of them being joining the reapers with the promise of only certain annihilation, protecting everyone on earth and certain other species.

In the end, if you did everything right, you are able to destroy Harbinger, deactivating all reapers in the process, with heavy casualties but acceptable in terms of rebuilding. I don't really know all the choices you could have, but you could have sacrifice, indoctrination, destruction etc, fitting different characters with different agendas.

 

[Photolysis]

So I finally got my hands on a copy of the game and have started going through the SP (when MP isn't distracting me). Only a few hours in, but the general atmosphere and the vast majority of the writing/dialogue has impressed me.

Of course this makes the fact that the ending is shit much worse.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

The explanation on how their DNA is safeguarded in reapers make little sense as we don't even know how reapers really function.

This also.

I mean why do they need to melt down humans into DNA goo to build their Reapers? For what purpose does this even serve? They don't seem to be transplanting the DNA to create new races nor do they seem to be collecting people's consciousness which would have made a lot more sense, especially considering what Legion said at the end of ME2 that the Reapers are made up of millions of minds. Hell, it would have been cool if the Reapers they built look organic from all the DNA collecting at least, but they're made of metal.... metal that is derived from DNA. Why bother with all this time abducting humans when they can just collect the materials they need from space and build a Reaper a lot faster. Makes no sense!

Edit: I guess if I had some hand in writing in this game, I would have made it that the Reapers upload the humans' consciousness and melt them down to make the Reapers. This would have at least made it a bit more horrific (tortured 'souls' stuck inside a machine) and would have actually made sense after what Legion said and the whole "merging" humans with machines that the Reapers seem to desire anyhow.

 

[Guesong]

What do you mean by not true? This is exactly what happened to me. I selected the paragon choice for all but the last because it seems the last one is based solely on the replies you gave to TIM in all previous conversation instead of your reputation bar. I mean sure you can have him suicide but this isn't what happened to me. The other paragon replies are how about he's insane and indoctrinated but TIM simply says no you are wrong each time. You then get to shoot him while he tries to kill Anderson but it's pointless as Anderson dies anyway after.

Granted, it's not big mind battle and it's certainly quite dumb, but at least you can "win" in the sense that TIM can and will recognize he's been had by the Reapers before offing himself.

But let's not argue over that and just agree it's stupid either way.

 

[Apophenia Overload]

The nonsensical nature of why Reapers collect humans and melt them reminds me of The Matrix, where the Machines use humans as batteries. In reality it would be a very inefficient way of generating power, and many viewers have commented that a better rationale would be to hook up their minds as parallel processors. Well, the Wachowskis actually already came up with that idea! They just didn't go through with it because the studios said that audiences wouldn't understand.

Bioware choosing the "melt humans down to refine their genetic goo" instead of "consuming their minds for some sort of hive intelligence" seems to be the same deal, dumbing down an idea to a purely physical form.

 

[Red Blaster]

I also think it's funny how BioWare hyped the shit out of ME2's suicide mission as some tough challenge when in reality it was easy as shit to have everyone survive. In ME3, the War Assets and Galactic Readiness meters give players a tangible way of tracking their ability to fight the reapers yet they basically turn out to be absolutely worthless in the end.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

So excited to sink my teeth into this tonight after work, I've only had time to fix my PC version up. What should I expect if I LOVED ME1 but only liked ME2?

It's a really good game - like, really good - but the writing just falls apart in the last few minutes.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

The nonsensical nature of why Reapers collect humans and melt them reminds me of The Matrix, where the Machines use humans as batteries. In reality it would be a very inefficient way of generating power, and many viewers have commented that a better rationale would be to hook up their minds as parallel processors. Well, the Wachowskis actually already came up with that idea! They just didn't go through with it because the studios said that audiences wouldn't understand.

Bioware choosing the "melt humans down to refine their genetic goo" instead of "consuming their minds for some sort of hive intelligence" seems to be the same deal, dumbing down an idea to a purely physical form.

Producers strike again!

 

[Rebel Leader]

It's a really good game - like, really good - but the writing just falls apart in the last few minutes.

It is indeed a great game but the ending...
Falls apart? It shatters

 

[dragonelite]

The nonsensical nature of why Reapers collect humans and melt them reminds me of The Matrix, where the Machines use humans as batteries. In reality it would be a very inefficient way of generating power, and many viewers have commented that a better rationale would be to hook up their minds as parallel processors. Well, the Wachowskis actually already came up with that idea! They just didn't go through with it because the studios said that audiences wouldn't understand.

Bioware choosing the "melt humans down to refine their genetic goo" instead of "consuming their minds for some sort of hive intelligence" seems to be the same deal, dumbing down an idea to a purely physical form.

That also a thing i hate then take the effort to introduce such a concept instead of saying derp viewers derp herp herp.

You would be surprised how smart or how dumb your audience can be.

 

[The Anti-Monitor]

The nonsensical nature of why Reapers collect humans and melt them reminds me of The Matrix, where the Machines use humans as batteries. In reality it would be a very inefficient way of generating power, and many viewers have commented that a better rationale would be to hook up their minds as parallel processors. Well, the Wachowskis actually already came up with that idea! They just didn't go through with it because the studios said that audiences wouldn't understand.

Bioware choosing the "melt humans down to refine their genetic goo" instead of "consuming their minds for some sort of hive intelligence" seems to be the same deal, dumbing down an idea to a purely physical form.

Heavily doubt that's the case. They probably didn't think they'd have to explain the Reapers so they just came up with all of this at the last minute.

High enough readiness: You beat the Reapers but a lot of people die.
Otherwise, the Reapers win.
Everything else should have just branched from there.

 

[Vamphuntr]

I also think it's funny how BioWare hyped the shit out of ME2's suicide mission as some tough challenge when in reality it was easy as shit to have everyone survive. In ME3, the War Assets and Galactic Readiness meters give players a tangible way of tracking their ability to fight the reapers yet they basically turn out to be absolutely worthless in the end.

This is so true. Are there even check in place to gain advantages (or disadvantages) for having war assets asides from the ending choice? AFAIK the game isn't harder/easier no matter how much you have. The rest of your party members are also pointless here while they had a role in the suicide mission. The only thing that changes is that you see the frames of the movie showing every races in spaces and on foot if you have them and that the earth survives.

Would have been good to see the rest of the team on the battlefield too. Why are they even on the Normandy in the ending? I thought Joker went back in Space to help the "sword" team. Why does the characters with you on the battlefield survive the reaper's beam of doom and are in the ending cutscene in the jungle while they aren't there when Shepard is near death?

 

[Confidence Man]

So excited to sink my teeth into this tonight after work, I've only had time to fix my PC version up. What should I expect if I LOVED ME1 but only liked ME2?

You won't love it. Nevermind the ending, that's just the icing that went bad on top of the flavorless cake that's burned on the outside but still batter on the inside.

It's almost unthinkable that this is how it ends. So many things left untouched, unseen, unexplored. To think that the best incarnation of the Citadel for example, was in the first game and never improved upon. We never get to walk around earth when it's not being destroyed and with the exception of the Krogan we only catch glimpses of other species' homeworlds. Level design is just like ME2; only one way to go, one way to do things, zero exploration, and there aren't even multiple hubs anymore. Huge events like ending the Quarian's war with the geth are resolved in a couple missions, just another day in the boots of Jesus Shepard, miracle worker. Could've just banged that out in the last game, no problem.

Just makes me all the more angry at what an utter waste ME2 was in terms of narrative.

Of course all this is hidden behind a slick presentation and "good" shooting, so who cares, right?

 

[Rebel Leader]

To me the war assests could of been a mini-RTS

 

[Vamphuntr]

You won't love it. Nevermind the ending, that's just the icing that went bad on top of the flavorless cake that's burned on the outside but still batter on the inside.

It's almost unthinkable that this is how it ends. So many things left untouched, unseen, unexplored. To think that the best incarnation of the Citadel for example, was in the first game and never improved upon. We never get to walk around earth when it's not being destroyed and with the exception of the Krogan we only catch glimpses of other species' homeworlds. Level design is just like ME2; only one way to go, one way to do things, zero exploration, and there aren't even multiple hubs anymore. Huge events like ending the Quarian's war with the geth are resolved in a couple missions, just another day in the boots of Jesus Shepard, miracle worker. Could've just banged that out in the last game, no problem.

Just makes me all the more angry at what an utter waste ME2 was in terms of narrative.

Of course all this is hidden behind a slick presentation and "good" shooting, so who cares, right?

Sums up my opinion nicely. Missions maps are still a bunch of corridors with 4-5 rooms with enemies but here enemies are like DA II. They come in waves appearing from the ceiling or from an explosion.

In the beginning I was really impressed because of the high production value. The Normandy is darker, the atmosphere is better and you have a feeling that finally they nailed the whole package right. The controls are tighter, walking and running don't feel as clunky. You can make your biotic powers recharge quickly. Mods are back and you have many weapons again. But then comes the part where everyone make their petty requests in exchange for their assistance and the miracle crucible that no one know how to use is introduced and it starts to slip.

It's basically like ME2 in a sense. In ME2 most of the missions of the game are not about the reapers nor they are about the collectors. Most of the missions are about the people you recruit and their quests you do to get them loyal. In ME 3 it's similar. Most of the priority missions aren't about learning something on the reapers or the crucible. Instead they are about gaining the allegiance of races. This is why the outrageous stuff that happen in the end is a huge turnoff. They never developped the main plot. They only thing they did was to use the Joker/EDI romance and the Geth/Quarian conflict as a way to prove the catalyst wrong but you can't even tell him that.

I think it's awkward how we never visted Thessia before and the only glimpse we get of the world is a long destroyed hallway with a temple. It's supposed to be a major homeworld in the lore of the game. Same with Sur'Kesh and Rannoch or whatever how it's spelled.

Presentation wise I do think it delivers. Gameplay wise it does too besides it's map designs but the story is a huge disappointment.

 

[Sober]

I also think it's funny how BioWare hyped the shit out of ME2's suicide mission as some tough challenge when in reality it was easy as shit to have everyone survive. In ME3, the War Assets and Galactic Readiness meters give players a tangible way of tracking their ability to fight the reapers yet they basically turn out to be absolutely worthless in the end.

Thane in the vents.

But to be fair, your war score technically influences what choices you can make (sometimes only one, two or all three), but it really only changes what kinda of video you see (I looked them all up on the folder of the PC version, Big Ben either doesn't or does blow out or they show Earth getting incinerated or not).

Replaying it is going to be soured by the fact that right at the end, almost everything you did prior is kinda pointless, which is almost the exact opposite of ME2's suicide mission concept.

 

[dragonelite]

To me the war assests could of been a mini-RTS

Like assassin creed brotherhood where you send you man onto mission.