The original ENDING was a piece of a shit and the Extended Cut did nothing but polish that piece of shit so that it's a bit nicer to deal with, however it is still a piece of shit. And on hindsight, there were plenty of problems with ME3. The sidequests were lackluster all around save for a handful of story oriented ones, the dialogue options were minimized and automated, flying around the galaxy map was annoying with the Reapers chasing you, the sexing up of certain female characters was a bit questionable and in general there were many things that added nothing to the game.

It's my game of the year. I liked the original ending and enjoyed the extended cut.

I didn't really mind the original ending, it did feel a tad lackluster though.

With Leviathan added it became one of my favourites of the year. It doesn't top ME2 but it's still a great game.

wheres the "i beat the original and thought it was okay not great not even good just okay" option?

@Liquidus said:

The original ENDING was a piece of a shit and the Extended Cut did nothing but polish that piece of shit so that it's a bit nicer to deal with, however it is still a piece of shit. And on hindsight, there were plenty of problems with ME3. The sidequests were lackluster all around save for a handful of story oriented ones, the dialogue options were minimized and automated, flying around the galaxy map was annoying with the Reapers chasing you, the sexing up of certain female characters was a bit questionable and in general there were many things that added nothing to the game.

QFT.

This whole 'only the ending was bad' ignores the massive amount of dumping down of other aspects of the game Vs ME1 & 2 (massive drop off in conversation choice throughout), coupled with risible pandering that made up a lot of it. The only thing Bioware got right this time was the combat model in truth.

@Liquidus said:

The original ENDING was a piece of a shit and the Extended Cut did nothing but polish that piece of shit so that it's a bit nicer to deal with, however it is still a piece of shit. And on hindsight, there were plenty of problems with ME3. The sidequests were lackluster all around save for a handful of story oriented ones, the dialogue options were minimized and automated, flying around the galaxy map was annoying with the Reapers chasing you, the sexing up of certain female characters was a bit questionable and in general there were many things that added nothing to the game.

I used to get mad at people saying videogames, and those who enjoyed them, were inmature.

But truly, after the Mass Effect 3 tantrum over what was a great ending on a great game, we deserve that label through and through.

@feliciano182 said:

@Liquidus said:

The original ENDING was a piece of a shit and the Extended Cut did nothing but polish that piece of shit so that it's a bit nicer to deal with, however it is still a piece of shit. And on hindsight, there were plenty of problems with ME3. The sidequests were lackluster all around save for a handful of story oriented ones, the dialogue options were minimized and automated, flying around the galaxy map was annoying with the Reapers chasing you, the sexing up of certain female characters was a bit questionable and in general there were many things that added nothing to the game.

I used to get mad at people saying videogames, and those who enjoyed them, were inmature.

But truly, after the Mass Effect 3 tantrum over what was a great ending on a great game, we deserve that label through and through.

So, being critical of poor writing and demanding better is a bad thing? Oh okay.

The EC for Paragon is fucking amazing:

I liked the Renegade EC ending in that

which I found very appropriate to the badassery of a renegade Shepard. Of course she wouldn't play by the rules!

The Synthesis ending was just plain silly.

Where's the choice for me? I had nothing against the original ending, and I liked the EC ending.

I like how they added the fail state ending for shooting the kid in the EC.. because it's not like I wasted half an hour or nothing to see the extended cut..

Great game. Side quests felt sloppy in comparison to earlier games. Reaper invasions made exploring the galaxy, an activity central to the franchise, more of a chore than it should have been. Didn't care for the multiplayer.

All the uproar over the original ending was the stupidest damn thing I've ever seen. The ending was fine.

@AngriGhandi: I picked E, but I didnt love the ending. I thought the ending was fine, my issues were with everything up to the ending

Hated the original ending, and the extended cut did nothing for me. I have yet to play Leviathan, and from what I've heard from Brad I kind of wish I hadn't played ME 3 until Leviathan was out. Still really like ME 3, just disappointed because it wasn't how I wanted the trilogy to end.

It's a great game. But the ending is shit. So it pretty much trips just before the finish line. A pretty sad fate to a series that's been so good through three games. It's surely better with the DLC, but there's no way that can save the whole mess at the end. Or rewrite my first impression.

So far it's actually more people who like the ending. 41,9% to 38,8%. What a pleasant surprise.

@Liquidus said:

So, being critical of poor writing and demanding better is a bad thing? Oh okay.

You, and the majority of people who complained about the ending, wouldn't know what poor writing is if it was a Thannix missile being fired into your nostrils.

I found the ending fine before the EC. Sure, it wasn't great, but it was far from a travesty. If anything, I thought the ending was a bit rushed, like if they were allowed more time things could have been done more eloquently.

Where's the "I liked the original ending and hated the extended cut" option? Because that's where I stand.

I loved this game and its my pick for goty. I enjoyed the game when it came out and I grew to love it more with time. Ive played the series a good 4 times since ME3s release and I just felt it hit most of the right notes. I dont consider it the best out of the series but I felt it was a very good game worthy of the Mass Effect title on it. I will say that I totally get the controversy over the ending among fans but I really felt that it was a very sci-fi ending and it left me thinking like some sci-fi novels I had read or films Ive seen. well those are my 2 cents...

Didn't hate the original ending nor did I love it, but more so along the lines that I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thought the addition of the Extended Cut was brilliant as well.

@feliciano182 said:

@Liquidus said:

So, being critical of poor writing and demanding better is a bad thing? Oh okay.

You, and the majority of people who complained about the ending, wouldn't know what poor writing is if it was a Thannix missile being fired into your nostrils.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/11435886/1

I think I'll go with the literary professor tbh. He seems to be a bit more erudite in expressing himself when it comes to what's wrong with the ending, Vs your blanket insistence that it was 'a great ending to a great game'.

It felt like a weaker version of ME2 before the ending, and with the ending well... it's already been said so I won't bother saying other than complete garbage, EC did nothing to satisfy me expect acknowledge and they realize that the ending was garbage.

It didn't work for me at all, there was too much of a railroaded feel towards the end, the story was disjointed, and they only made Vega a decent character when he had his back & forth with Garrus. The end was just so poorly executed that it rendered the narrative pointless, DLC seemingly added random bits and pieces to it that supposedly made it better, but even then, from what I've heard there were no indications of what the bloody hell they were trying to explain.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Shepard's choices at the end never made sense, those events didn't make sense, given the fact that the entire narrative of the game has been fighting impossible odds, being ready for certain defeat, triumphing with some loss, but coming out feeling that you've survived and have retained the, for want of a better term, humanity, that you've fought for throughout the series. Shepard can choose to destroy all AI life, going against everything we've influenced throughout the series, how we brought peace to the Geth and Quarians, have an AI teammate and the like, he can choose to control the beings that have destroyed everything in the universe because of flawed logic that is also redundant, or play god like the reapers had done, changing the galaxy to 'fix' a problem that doesn't exist anymore. Free will, in whatever form, the basis of humanity or any being with autonomy, is utterly destroyed...by the end of the game, with those choices, you have become the Reapers, the villain, the war criminal. The EC ending for Refusal was the only way to go...you die holding onto the free will you fought for, the galaxy may be doomed, but your actions help the next generation to save themselves, and that's a worthy goddamn sacrifice. If you're fighting for survival, it's not just for you, but for everyone, present and future, and if you can't save yourselves, you'll damn sure spite whoever killed you by sowing the seeds of their defeat for someone else. That would be proper martyrdom in the games' context, not the alternative endings.

No appropriate poll option for me, so I went with B. Here's the thing: The original end broke the end for me. I acknowledge that Leviathan and the Extended Cut made things better, maybe even "good enough", but I know that, when I look back at Mass Effect 3 when the inevitable announcement of Mass Effect 4 comes... when I think of the end, it won't be the Extended Cut. It won't be what Leviathan added. It'll be that gutwrenching feeling I had when I first saw the rushed mess that was the end, back in March 2012.

On the bright side (for Bioware, I suppose?), I've pretty much written off the entire end-part, and don't really care much about it anymore. When I look back at Mass Effect 3, I'm much more likely to remember Tuchanka and Rannoch. Thessia and London. And some of the amazing scenes that played out in those locations.

Or, even more likely, I'll think of the least likely to be great part of Mass Effect 3: The Multiplayer, which I've put more time into than any other game last year, and see myself playing more this year. I really hope they keep supporting it for a while still.

And yeah, Mass Effect 3 was my Game of the Year 2012, despite it's warts.

Just finished it. Didn't play the game until after the EC was added... and I liked the ending -> I totally get why it was Brad's GOTY. If I had to make that choice now, ME3 would be my GOTY to.

Excellent game overall (better then ME2 imo, narratively and mechanically). I teared up more then once at the many emotional culminations of the entire journey. But with an ending that manged to taint the series for me retroactively.

I didn't like the ending but at the same time that's not what made me have less than fond feelings about Mass Effect 3. The campaign just wasn't as gripping to me. I understand a lot of big, important events were happening but at the same time I just didn't find myself caring nearly as much as I thought I would have. It's not nearly as bad a sequel as Dragon Age 2 but still quite disappointing to me.

Its about 50/50 right now if you like at those who like it now and those who don't regardless of the circumstance, i think its fair to say it may have been the most divisive game of the year and personally my favorite.

Over Christmas break i decided to embark on a 90 hour marathon. Please note that i played the majority of the DLC for all three games, i played them all on PC, and i had played them all before.

The ending originally seemed quite odd and really made no sense to me the first time i played through mass effect 3, but the second time, due in no small part to the leviathan DLC explaining the "star child" in an interesting way and simultaneously explaining the origins of the reapers, i found the ending to be fairly well suited to the series. Along with this newly created context that disarmed my confusion at the ending, i find myself finding people's arguments of "it disregarded all of my choices" to be rather irrelevent due to the change in scope from game to game. As i played through the three games i realized that with each game, the goals and meaning behind the decisions you make become much grander in scope, so in my head it only made sense that that in the end nothing would really matter. I ended up really enjoying the mass effect trilogy's ending and overall shift from a story of commander shepherd saving the galaxy to commander shepherd solving the galaxy.

@Gamer_152 said:

I thought it was pretty silly that the ending came to define the game for so many to begin with. However bad you thought that ending was, there was a whole game leading up to it which should have been judged on its own merits. I think what happened was too many people took for granted the positive qualities of Mass Effect, and it made the negative stand out all the more for them. Still, that ending was really bad, there were so many things wrong with it on so many levels. I respect Bioware for putting out the Extended Cut for free, but that could only go so far towards fixing it.

I've gone into more detail about it before, but my basic thoughts on the Extended Cut are that while it gave the ending the emotional weight it felt like it should have had, and it helped fixed a number of other problems, there are still a serious number of issues with that ending even with it included. I know there are people out there who had no problems with that ending, even to begin with, but I'm still not one of them. It feels okay, and in another game series might have been seen as something breathtaking, but I don't think it lived up to what Mass Effect was.

agree completely. The game wasn't all about the ending, I found the rest pretty damn amazing.

B was the most apt but I didn't hate it. I just disagreed with the way they went. When they further explained what they meant with the EC it just solidified the fact that it was the way they wanted the game to end and I'm okay with it. That doesn't mean I like the ending, and some of the story beats during the game fell a bit flat for me, as fun as it was.

I still stand by Mass Effect 2 being the best game in the series so far.

I feel like the game ended and that was that. Luckily I didn't get to play 3 until the extended cut to come out, and I found the extended cut endings to be just fine. Frankly for me it was just nice to see that everyone was alright and I was able to fix the Reaper problem for the rest of the galaxy, even if they could have made your choices create a bigger impact.

Like I said, I cared much more about the other people in the game besides Shepard herself. The big thing I was worried about while playing the last scenes was the fear that my companions and friends would die. In my end they didn't so I was pretty happy with how it concluded.

Sure, the endings themselves could have been better. By the end I did feel as though I accomplished my mission and I did the right thing to save everyone else.

I went with D, except i didn't love the ending I just did not feel like I needed to see the EC.

None of the above. Was meh about the originals, liked the extended ones.

Have not played it. Might do that later this year.

So you either hated it so much or you liked it so much? Well, this poll is useless.

Finished it a couple of week ago after replaying through the trilogy on the PS3. Never saw the original ending and only saw one of the EC endings so far (Destroy) and I liked it. It wasn't mind blowing or anything and I can see why people were disappointed by the game ending with a situation like that, but I personally came away satisfied with what was presented to me and have no real complaints.

Loved it! It was my favorite game of the year, even though I didn't care for the original ending. The Extended Cut greatly improved the ending for me, and helped me see how the Synthesis ending seemed to change everything: Seeing Reapers and Humans in harmony together was a very powerful sight for me.