I've played through it again, and the problems with the story go beyond more than just the ending. They rewrote entire storylines that had been set in place during the previous two games, but still wanted to keep the progression of events the same. And the pandering to people who didn't play the first two games. The game has "3" right in the fucking title. There's no reason it should pander to people who are too lazy to at least buy Mass Effect 2. I've never understood how some people go out and buy $60 games, when the previous game is just as good (maybe better) and 1/3 of the price at most. So we have Shepard saying "THE GETH ARE JUST THROWING THEIR LIVES AWAY" even though Mass Effect 2 explained at least twice that Geth don't "die" when their platforms are destroyed. This stilted dialogue shouldn't have happened.

And I'm not gonna pretend the series always had brilliant writing. The asari rambling about how "the universe is connected" in the first game is still pretty tough to sit through. But it does feel like something started to go downhill along the way. I mean, it might be that Mass Effect 3 entirely removed the neutral dialogue option. Paragon Shepard is all weepy and wants to give everyone hugs, Renegade Shepard wants everybody to GET MAD AT THOSE DARN REAPERS. There's no logical or professional dialogue, just sentimental crap over and over again.

Can't wait! Even though I was rolling my eyes at anyone who was demanding refunds, I'll take more Mass Effect iwhenever they're handing it out.

The one thing I can't stand is all the obnoxious nerds that say this move somehow undermines video games as "art" because you wouldn't see this in film (director's cuts), literature (second editions), or music (remasters). Give it a fucking rest already. Art does what it is able to, not what it is told by mindless drones worshipping at the altar of legitimacy. Good on Bioware for not feeling like some pseudo-critcal pedants' idea of a "finished game" override what they obviously ended up seeing as unfinished business from a creative standpoint.

They really should of just left it alone. Things have finally settled down, and now they're just gonna start that shit up all over again.

I didn't even think there was anything wrong with the original ending....

@Goggen240 said:

Warning: Wall of text follows.

While the ending of Mass Effect 3 was hugely disappointing to me, both as a fan of Mass Effect and of good storytelling in games, what I found even *more* disappointing was the horrible gaming press coverage of the entire thing.

BioWare make a game. People complain about the quality of the story, and want it fixed. Specifically, to not be the worst piece of storytelling done by a company that does the *best* storytelling in games.

And not only that, the ending is the single most important story beat in the entire game, and arguably of the entire series. And as rushed and lackluster the game as a whole was, even according to BioWare the ending was improvised in the last month of development. And it shows. Terribly.

And then, anyone complaining is "entitled and whiny".

This is especially disappointing from Giant Bomb. Just a few months earlier, you gave BioWare two awards...

The first award: "Most Disappointing Game of 2011" for Dragon Age II. I was going to write something about how this applies to Mass Effect 3, but I don't need to; if you do a find-and-replace of DA2 for ME3 on the actual award text, you should get it.

"Disappointment can blossom from a number of different sources--your own personal expectations based on the previous entry in a series, or the developer's previous output, promises made during the game's pre-release PR cycle--and no game disappointed quite as thoroughly on all fronts in 2011 as Dragon Age II.

[...]

Even without the BioWare name, or even the relatively freshly minted Dragon Age name to live up to, Dragon Age II is an RPG that feels half-finished, its attempts at scope undermined by pervasive sense of a crushing development deadline. Where they could cut corners, they did. It's hard not to be disappointed when a series goes from so high to so low in just one iteration."

Mass Effect was a real classic, it had its flaws but they were worth overlooking. Mass Effect 2 fixed all those flaws, and expanded on the original in all the right ways, and it stands as one of the top games of this console generation, if not of all time.

People can't even be bothered to talk about Mass Effect 3 a couple of months after release.

And the second award: The “Check Yourself Before You Wriggety-Wreck Yourself” Award for Things That Need to "Take a Break" Before They Become the “Worst Trend” runner-up, for EA's renaming of EA Los Angeles as "BioWare Victory". And this was for watering down BioWare's well-earned name as top storyteller in gaming.

The fact that EA released a lackluster space RPG is a bad enough reason for people to be disappointed.

For it to be BioWare that made it, that makes it *personal*.

Giant Bomb should really be agreeing with the "entitled and whiny fans" for BioWare no longer making great games.

It *should* be unacceptable for BioWare to have screwed up like this!

Now, as for all the fans being this angry rabble that does nothing but cry like babies with impotent rage... Did they really do that?

Here's the list of things I've heard them do:

Complain on the BioWare forums.

Complain about the ending in other places.

Threaten to report EA to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising.

Send multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare.

Collect $80,000 for charity.

Make long-winded videos of YouTube deconstructing the ending.

Send death threats to Casey Hudson on Twitter.

I'll get to the last point, but as for the others: Are those *bad*?

For those complaining that "oh no, here's another place for people to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending"; what the hell are you doing on those threads?

I'd say at least half of the comments on this post, about how people are going to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending, are PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT PEOPLE COMPLAINING about Mass Effect 3's ending.

The people who don't want to talk about Mass Effect 3's ending, are *far* more obnoxious about it than the ones who actually *do*. I haven't seen a single, thought-out, logical, well-reasoned post or comment about why we should stop talking about Mass Effect 3's ending. I've seen a few of those that defend the ending. I've seen a *lot* that critique the ending. But most of what I see is people yelling for everyone to shut the fuck up already.

Can't you just, you know... Not engage in the discussion? Why are most of the comments "I don't even care"...?

It's not that hard to stay away from Mass Effect 3 ending discussions, you know.

And is it bad to complain about false advertising to the appropriate authorities? ...Especially when you actually have a point? Mac Walters *did* say you wouldn't just get a choice between A, B and C (you do). Casey Hudson *did* say the Rachni queen would show up in the ending (she didn't). Casey Hudson, on the Bombcast, said quite clearly that you don't need to play multiplayer to get the "good ending" (you do). Poignantly, once the story blew up Vinny said words to the effect that "didn't he say to our faces that wasn't the case", but the Bomb Crew decided that clearly the fans were wrong.

Now, sending multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare was probably more annoying than clever. (haha, they have different colours, but taste the same, just like Mass Effect 3's ending!) But it's not like it was letter bombs.

And then, somehow, collecting money for charity turned into a bad thing. Somehow, the fans who did that were even worse than the ones that sent death threats to the writers.

And *those* people; they're disgusting. And I don't associate with them. But as disgusting as it is, they were actually less disgusting about it this time around; remember when one of the BioWare writers mentioned that she was more into writing than gaming? In a casual interview, years earlier? And how she was harassed off the internet for it?

And it's not much of an argument, but they probably expected it. People have mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle here and there, and how he was pressured by fans into writing more Sherlock Holmes after he killed the character off. And that was 1903. I would like to add an even better example; Patrick McGoohan ended his TV show The Prisoner with the main character unmasking the villain, who was wearing a gorilla mask, and it turned out the villain was the main character, and then the main character and a lesser villain drove off in a house while singing Dem Bones. And McGoohan received death threats over *that*, in 1968.

(And I've seen that show, and that was a terrible ending, just for the record. But not as bad as Mass Effect 3! At least the end of The Prisoner *fit*. It was a weird show...)

In the grand scheme of things, I think that "complaining about Mass Effect 3's ending" is a dark chapter in internet history.

Not because of all the complaining, except for the disgusting bits.

No, I think it's dark because, for once, people actually sat down and reasoned out why "the final plot point of a story had narrative incoherence", which is a god-damn mature thing for the internet to be upset over, IN A GAME. And then nobody wanted to listen.

Games have really bad endings, I don't know if you've noticed. And finally one came along that was so bad that gamers just wouldn't allow it to happen ever again, and for all the talk about having game "critiques" instead of "reviews", it was such a missed opportunity to have this perfect case study come along of how not to do it, and it's been mostly ignored.

Now, if you've made it this far, and you're curious, here's *my* critique.

The ending was a rushed, hurried mess, and it shows. The game as a whole was unforgivably rushed overall; there was no valid reason they couldn't have delayed it six months more for polish. But the ending is the one point that they *couldn't* get away with screwing up, but they did.

The ending was... Inadequate.

Although I think the game starts falling apart at Thessia, I'll start where the narrative *completely* crumbles.

After the run to the beam, whatever drive and coherence the game had, goes away. (Yes yes, Indoctrination Theory, I'll get to that.)

The walk through the spooky citadel was real... Bad. Purely from a level design perspective, the weirdly textured piles of "stuff" along the sides had no business being in a 2012 game, let alone Mass Effect. I *guess* it was supposed to be decomposing bodies? Or a 64x64 JPEG of that, stretched over a blob of polygons?

If the intent was to have Shepard walk through the horror of what the Reapers were doing, it didn't work. And doing it in an abstract environment you've never been in before certainly didn't help; let's say you'd had piles of decomposing bodies on the Presidium, that would be a bleak and terrible version of something you *know*. And then it morphs into something you don't know. As it is, where on the Citadel *is* this? What's going on? Why are the textures so bad? Why haven't you mentioned the Keepers since the first game, are they important *now* suddenly?

Then you make it to Anderson and the Illusive Man. This chat was also bad. Now, it was supposed to be a reference to how you could talk down Saren in the first game; but the Illusive Man has so much less of a presence in the story that it just feels cheap. You spent all of Mass Effect chasing after Saren, and then you fight Saren, or you can talk him down. With the Illusive Man, you spend the whole game chasing after the Crucible so you can defeat the Reapers and the Illusive Man gets in the way, and then you walk into him and talk him into killing himself. The Illusive Man is *basically* not part of the story, and Cerberus has far to large a part in this game. You fight them as much as the Reapers! A boss fight would actually have helped here; that's how you confront antagonists in video games as a medium, and "dialogue wheel" is not really satisfying *gameplay* for dealing with the assigned antagonist of the series. And it's not even a particularly good dialogue wheel. You either talk him down, or don't, game over. Apparently, the plan was to have a big ol' boss fight with TIM in his lair, but they cut that. Which was bad, because they replaced him with a ninja guy from the books who has absolutely no characterization (and I even *read* the books) and when you *do* confront the "proper" bad guy, it feels terribly out of place, both in narrative, as well as *physically* in the game world.

As for Anderson, he felt oddly out of place. He never struck me as a character that was an integral part of the series; he's the guy who gives you your first job. He's not part of your crew, you don't spend any real time with him, and as awesome as Keith David is, he's just there so that the Illusive Man has someone to shoot that you are *supposed* to care about, but the game gives you no reason to. If that had been a crew member or Joker or someone, that would have been something. If the Illusive Man shot Liara, I'd have cared! Furthermore, the scene is kinda absurd; you can't stop The Illusive Man from shooting Anderson anyway, only influence "how badly" he gets shot. Now, for me, he did not get badly shot, and I liked the scene where he tells Shepard she did good, kid. It was poignant. (Although, having an extended nod towards John Carpenter's The Thing taint the emotional high point of the series is *probably* not appropriate.) But then he just sort of... Stops? Did he die? Fall asleep? What? Once again, the art just didn't hold up well enough. You'd need far better texture work and animation to convey his final death. Or a death rattle sound or *something*. So that was confusing.

Then, Hackett telling Shepard it didn't work. I don't think *this* "worked". Without any sense of a raging battle going on, and then the battle *continuing* to go on, it just sounds like Hackett sent Shepard a voice mail. Other than Shepard sounding completely worn out, which *did* work, I thought that plot turn was kinda comical. "Shepard, uh, did you forget to turn it on or something?" [THE PRICE IS RIGHT LOSING HORN] But, like I said, Shepard being completely at the end of her rope was well done, and well acted even. I liked the "What do you need me to do?". Poor Shepard.

And now for the fun part; the God Child.

I probably didn't mind this as much as most, certainly not at first. The conversation itself went alright for me, but I do remember I stumbled a bit on the part where the kid mentioned that the Geth and EDI would die if you destroyed the Reapers. Now, you could fill in the blanks yourself that this is because both EDI and the Geth use Reaper tech, which would have contrasted nicely with the earlier choice of saving the Geth by allowing Legion to upload Reaper code to them; this is what finally dooms them.

But... The game actually doesn't say this, and I should not have to rely on fan fiction to tell the story, when it would have taken them half a sentence to actually say that. And they did spend half a sentence on something that contradicts itself, the God Child hinting that Shepard would die because she is half synthetic. Uh... How? Are those Reaper implants? Is there Reaper code in Shepard? Those *were* Cerberus implants, and Cerberus did use Reaper tech elsewhere (EDI), but... Shouldn't the game have mentioned at some point that there's a little Reaper in Shepard? The game never says that! And worse, if the implication is that "technology" dies alongside the reapers, that's pretty bleak for pretty much the entire galaxy. Then again, unless this was *meant* to imply that joining synthetic and organic ain't bad, 'cause look at Shepard and Shepard is kinda awesome, so that's an option you could consider! ...But then again, the game never actually says that.

It's really bad that the final dialogue of the game is full of holes. I didn't notice most of those holes at first, but unless you went through that and never noticed *anything* amiss, I don't think it works. From what I guess (and read in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3), the point was for the dialogue to leave out enough of the boring details that you would fill in the blanks yourself; unfortunately, the game doesn't give you the tools to do that. The Codex does *not* explain if Shepard has Reaper tech or not, the Codex does *not* explain how disabling reapers would disable the Geth or EDI, and there's a big parade of other plot holes left by that dialogue that the Internet will happily give you lists of. If you bother to actually read it.

And then the actual choice itself. I chose green, to combine Reaper and synthetic DNA somehow, not because I believed that the Reapers have any reason to continue existing, but that I thought that the geth did, even though I thought it made no sense as part of the choice.

And then the ending was a two-minute cutscene of the reapers landing peacefully, and people cheering like in Independence Day, and then the Normandy crashes on some planet for some reason, and then Joker and EDI step out as if they were Adam and Eve, which is appropriate for the Synthesis ending. And then I settled in for that Animal House ending that these games have, like Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout or what have you, showing what happened to the different characters after the story concluded, showing off the effects that Shepard had on the game world, and the consequences of the choices you made.

...Aaaand then Liara and Tali stepped out, and I'm pretty sure they *died* earlier.

And then the end credits rolled, and then there's a bit with Buzz Aldrin talking about Shepard's legend, which is basically an ad for DLC. And I assumed the internet uproar was because this was the terribly sloppily made ending that was supposed to be a joke ending, and they didn't get it, like accidentally stumbling across the Reptite ending in Chrono Trigger. (If you defeat Lavos at a very specific time, everyone ends up as a dinosaur. Kinda like making everyone a cyborg, and having a clumsy Adam-and-Eve reference. Except it was *supposed* to be a joke.)

And then, after mulling it over for a day, I went back to the autosave and re-did the choice to get the other two endings, the "wrong" one first (controlling the Reapers) and then the "right" one (killing the hell out of the Reapers).

And they were all that same terrible joke ending.

And it's the worst drop in storytelling quality, in games, that I have ever come across. Possibly across any medium.

Now, I didn't expect Deus Ex: Invisible War to have a great ending, 'cause it's kinda a crappy game, and it had a kinda crappy ending. Same with Deus Ex: Human Revolution; neat game, not a terrific storytelling showpiece, ended the way it had been told up until then; clumsily.

But then it's the same exact ending that Mass Effect 3 has, structurally.

And you can just *feel* that they were setting up short cutscene after cutscene of different characters and what they did after the war (yes, like Animal House); Tali returning to Rannoch, Wrex returning to Eve on Tuchanka, Liara pining for the totally dead Shepard, and then towards the end you put the little joke of Joker and EDI as Adam and Eve, appropriate for the Synthesis ending. But then they only had that last one, and put all the other characters in it too because they were probably *supposed* to have one for each character, but didn't, and improvised. Poorly.

Mass Effect 3 was a great story; it was rushed in spots, but it kept up right to the end. Missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch are fantastic examples of interactive storytelling at their best; choices made through three games all came together and led to a variety of outcomes.

And then they completely forget how to write an interactive story at all, in the end.

And then it gets worse; even after they threw together a rushed game and an even more rushed ending, they went on to say how it took all your choices into account, how it wouldn't be a choice between A, B, and C and then credits, and even down to specifics about how you did not need to play multiplayer at all to get the "best" ending. Not to mention how, even before they released Mass Effect *1*, they said that your saves would carry over and it would all build to an epic conclusion that wouldn't need to be compromised in its storytelling, because they were making a trilogy and then nothing more.

And the sum total of impact you can have on the ending to the series, is to choose between "Reapers die", "Reapers leave", "organic life becomes cyborgs", and then a two-minute cutscene and end credits. And another cutscene, pointing out how you should buy the DLC.

There is a grand total of six end states for the entire series. Red 1 (everyone dies), Red 2 (Reapers die), Red 3 (Reapers die, Shepard doesn't), Blue 1 (everyone dies), Blue 2 (Reapers leave) and Green 1 (Everyone becomes a cyborg). That's it. And content-wise, the cutscene only changes in colour, and whether the Reapers fly away or crash.

And then you can only get Red 3 or Green 1 if you play enough multiplayer.

So, here's my take on how Mass Effect 3 ends:

You talk The Illusive Man to death like the end of Mass Effect.

You have a chat with Keith David as he's dying, like the end of The Thing.

You chat to the builder of the machines, like the end of The Matrix Reloaded.

You jump in the beam like in Alien³ leading to the technological singularity ending from Deus Ex: Invisible War, or take control of the Reapers like taking over the big computer at the end of Deus Ex, or you destroy all technology like the end of Deus Ex: Invisible War (again).

And then you have the ending of Independence Day.

And then your crew crashes on an alien planet, like Gilligan's Island.

AND THAT'S IT.

Mass Effect 3 had nothing interesting to say about the end of Mass Effect.

And from a studio that actually understands how to write good stories, the *best* stories in gaming, that's pretty unforgivable. And for them to have not screwed this up before, and suddenly doing it now, is simply shocking.

Mass Effect ended on a cliffhanger for the next game.

Mass Effect 2 ended on a really neat puzzle of figuring out which of your crew members to assign to what so everyone makes it out, followed by a somewhat silly bossfight, followed by a pretty cool cliffhanger for the next game.

Dragon Age: Origins ends on a slightly cheap-looking Animal House ending telling what people did after the war. (My Warden went away with Leliana.)

Dragon Age II, otherwise a trainwreck, ended with Varric finishing off his retelling of what the Champion did and how it affected the world.

Mass Effect 3 just kinda ran out. You talk to the Kid, and then the game tells you nothing meaningful about what happens to any of the characters or factions that you have been deciding the fates of for three games. The most you ever get to hear about any of them, *vefore* the ending, is the War Assets book. Which was interesting, but way too cheap. And when none of that comes up in the ending, that's real bad.

From the time you assault the Cerberus Base, no meaningful changes to the plot happens as a result of any choice you've ever made, with the only exception being the crew members you can say goodbye to before the final push. The Rachni Queen, or the geth and quarians, the asari, the turians, none of that shows up again after you've done with those missions.

All these interestings things are set up, through three games, and none of them paid off.

The last time that any choice you've made, influences the story in any way, is when Miranda does or doesn't survive the encounter with her father. After that; nothin'. And *certainly* not a fulfillment of the promise that every choice you've made affects the ending.

Unless you count the War Assets. And you shouldn't.

Patrick made a blog post about how he wanted to see *his* Mass Effect trilogy story through to the end, even with the mistakes he made in getting Miranda killed. If she did survive Mass Effect 2, and you actually did everything "right" in keeping her alive in Mass Effect 3, her only impact on the ending to the series, after being a main character for the last two games? "25 points". And a phone call. And only 12.5 points if you didn't play multiplayer.

That's not a worthy send-off for any character, and that's all you get for any of them, unless they happen to step off the crashed Normandy in your randomly chosen line-up.

Here's a better example:

My friend, who finished before me, didn't import his previous savegames, and ended up sacrificing the geth to save the quarians. Then he played multiplayer to geth the Effective Military Score up. He got the green ending.

My other friend, who is kind of a jerk, sacrificed Tali to save the geth, and he played some multiplayer to get the EMS up a bit. He got the green ending.

Me, I transferred my saves across four computers in as many years, and because I'm awesome, I saved *both* the geth and the quarians. And then I got the EMS up to 100% just in case.

And then I got the green ending.

For a series where you have been able to make choices that greatly impact the story being told, and a series which had been the prime example of the kind of great storytelling you only *can* do in games, that's just terrible.

And that's why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucks.

As for any loose ends to tie up:

"It's not about the destination, it's the journey!"

You're wrong. The Mass Effect series has, at its core, been about influencing the story through your choices. It's a role playing game. And a pretty good one.

And even if you argue that the geth/quarian conflict, and the krogan genophage, and the fate of the Rachni queen, and so on, are all wrapped up *during* the game, and those count as endings? You're still wrong. The end of the geth/quarian conflict was fantastically told, it depended on your choices through three games, and it had massive implications for the state of the galaxy. But after that story wraps up, the only change to Mass Effect 3 from then on is whether or not Tali is a crew member. You never see the geth, or the quarians again, even though the game says that it's going to. I'm pretty sure that if you save just the quarians, instead of both the quarians and the geth, that only *one* line of dialogue changes. It's a build up to resolving the *real* conflict of the game, and it's a build up-that never pays off. Not a single one of your choices influence anything that happens in the ending, other than if you have enough EMS. And multiplayer influences that just as much as single player, which is disgusting.

"So what if this game sucked, it doesn't make the other games suck less!"

Yes it does.

Playing through Mass Effects 1 and 2, you're constantly reminded of how your choices have consequences. Even for the first half of Mass Effect 3, you still get those consequences presented to you; it sure isn't nice to see Legion die to save the geth and make peace with the quarians, but that's what Mass Effect 2 built towards. Same thing with Mordin; he got a fantastic send-off. I made a choice in Mass Effect 2 to save the genophage cure data, because I believed that would give the best payoff in 3, and it did. Blowing up the Council (accidentally) in 1 was a mistake, and I paid for it in 2. And having it carry over into 3 as well, improved that choice in 1; I actually ended up with an extra ally 'cause I messed up in the first game. And that's a wonderful way my playthrough of the Mass Effect games became so rewarding.

But when so many of the choices made throughout the previous games *don't* have a payoff at the end, that makes those setups worth less. Saving the rachni queen in 1 was a big choice, then, and it had very little payoff in 2. That was a disappointment. And now that the final state of the galaxy doesn't care in any meaningful way if she lives or dies in 3, that makes that original choice in Mass Effect 1 also meaningless. That game is worse now that 3 has proven that that choice is *actually* meaningless, and not like it was in Mass Effect 2 where her brief cameo hinted that it was meaningless now, but was *going* to be important. And then it wasn't. Getting a bonus 100 War Asset points for keeping her alive is not meaningful. I can get that by playing Multiplayer.

And there are a *lot* of characters and factions and solar systems and such that end up not having any meaningful consequences.

Any future playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 and 2 *is* going to be influenced by Mass Effect 3. For some, like choices related to Mordin, Mass Effect 3 made Mass Effect 2 better. For most, however, failing to even attempt to tie up the loose ends makes the first two games worse.

I kept Liara alive through three games, I made her the Shadow Broker, I romanced her in all three games (I did cheat on her with Kelly Chambers, but then again, who didn't), and what happened to the Shepard's One True Love?

Meh, says Mass Effect 3.

"The Indoctrination Theory is actually really clever! It's totally a fantastic ending"

It doesn't tie up any plotlines in any meaningful way. So no.

Also, if BioWare intended this to be what actually happened to Shepard, they did a pretty poor job of getting that across. And if that's a kind of puzzle for the player to figure out, it's a pretty terrible puzzle. I should know, I've designed puzzles that were really bad.

But worst of all: If the true ending to Mass Effect 3 can be summed up as "it's all a dream", then the first step is to add "The Wizard of Oz" to the list of terrible places they stole the ending from.

And then the final step is to realise that apparently, BioWare ARE THE WORST WRITERS OF ANYTHING IN HISTORY.

You don't end stories with "and then it was all just a dream".

I'll end this Great Wall of Text with how I experienced the ending of Mass Effect 3.

Here's a pretty good facsimile of my thoughts as it happened:

"Huh. Uhm. Okay, the beam was to cyborg everyone... And then the one where Anderson was blown up was the one that killed the reapers and also the geth. And then the one that zapped The Illusive Man was the control one. And I don't want to do that, 'cause fuck those Reapers. Having them around can't be good. And that's what The Illusive Man wants to do, and that didn't work out for him that great.

Now, which side was the Anderson one... Left...? Right...? Uhm... Can I ask the kid for the options again... No. Okay... Well... I don't want to kill the geth, I don't mind fucking over EDI, she's even willing to sacrifice herself, but the geth are an awful lot of units with souls, *and* they're helping the quarians so I don't want to bone them up either... Although, *how* does this kill the geth...?

Uhm. I guess I'll go with the Deus Ex option. Or was that Deus Ex: Invisible War? Man, that game was kinda bad. Right, into the beam, Shepard! It's a shame you can't take the Reapers with you!

...Huh. That looks like Christ imagery, but also, uhm... Alien³. Uhm. That's a pretty shitty movie. Oh, I hope this isn't the bad ending that guy on the Amazon User Review mentioned, which is the only thing I've heard about this game because I've been avoiding spoilers.

Okay, green wave spreading across, soldiers cheer at the victory over alien invaders like in Independence Day... Normandy is travelling through a Mass Relay, probably hauling someone away for some reason... Hm, and there it crashed, and Joker and EDI steps out. Well, this isn't anything like Adam and Eve at all. And, wait, Liara? And Javik and... Uh... Didn't Liara *die* earlier? I guess they'll explain more when they show the next cutscene like in Fallout... WHAT!? END CREDITS!? ...Uh. Huh. Huh! Huh... Maybe there's something after the end credits.

Hey, I know that voice, that's Buzz Aldrin. And he's still not learned to be a voice actor since he was on The Simpsons.

Hm, they solved how you get into future DLC a bit more elegantly than Mass Effect 2 just kicking you back to the Normandy...

Wait..

Hang on...

That's *IT*!?

*That's* how they ended Mass Effect 3? Those two cutscenes?

Man, no wonder they're complaining about this ending, if this is the "good" ending and the most difficult one to get. Man, I have to go through the end again to get to the non-joke endings tomorrow."

And then, after playing through to the ending choice the day after...

"Okay, now to get the non-joke ending. Man, that ending yesterday was terrible. Let's see, now that I've evidently taken the wrong choice, let's take the second-wrongest choice so I can save the best choice for last. Controlling the Reapers, that seems like a great idea! I have no compulsions against doing what The Illusive Man wants to do! Zapping Shepard with electricity, that seems awesome! The Reapers are *never* gonna rise up again ever!

...Wait. That's the shot from yesterday, the Independence Day one. Uhm. And that's the wave from yesterday, except blue... Oh. Uh oh. And that's the Normandy traveling through space... Uh... And there the Normandy crashed... And that's EDI and Liara and Tali... And end credits.

Oh. Oh. I... Oh. If... Oh. Oh man.

Destroying the reapers, that can't possibly be *this*, can it? Right, I heard someone mentioning that Shepard survives if you have enough EMS, and I have all of the EMS. Okay, autosave, take me away.

Right. Shoot the fusebox like in Commander Keen V. Don't know why Shepard is walking towards the explosion, seems counterproductive. And... Oh no. That's the Independence Day shot. Except the Reapers are crashing, so it's even more Independent. And then a red wave. And then the Normandy. And then this time, no EDI, that makes sense. Wait. No it doesn't. And then...

Uh, is that guy in N7 armour Shepard? 'Cause that's clearly guy armour. Is it Anderson? That moan *could* be Jennifer Hale, I've heard her moan in games before. Keith David could probably not moan at that pitch. So I guess that's Shepard. And they didn't re-render the video for FemShep, huh.

And that's the end of Mass Effect.

Huh.

Well.

I *see* why the internet is upset about this, yes.

Yes indeed.

Hm...

Hm.

BALLS.

...I hope they fix this with DLC."

P.S. Really sorry about the wall of text, it looked way smaller as I was typing it.

For four hours.

So don't nobody say that fans of Mass Effect never articulated what complaints they had about the ending.

Quoted for text.

I have been a huge fan of the Mass Effect series since day one. I thoroughly enjoyed Mass Effect 3 and I thought the ending was wholly appropriate and in line with what the series has been all about. I was not offended in the least, and if anything, I'm a bit upset that they are even making this "extended ending". They should stand by their work and not allow a vocal minority on the internet to allow them to alter their story.

I think the whole "outrage" of the Mass Effect 3 ending really shows the immaturity of many fans of this medium as compared to any other medium of entertainment such as TV, movies, or books. An artist should stand firmly by his work. Imagine if there was a backlash in similar scope to the last book of Harry Potter or if there is one with the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire, I can never imagine the authors of these books backtracking and altering their endings in any form (and rightfully so, they should not and it shouldn't be expect of them to).

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@babblinmule said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@babblinmule said:

@Lord_Punch: I guess its because the original rulers of the galaxy created an army of synthetics so fecked up in the head and so powerful that they didnt want to even risk anything like that happening again. Especially since, right or wrong, they believed that organic life will inevitably create something so fecked up in the head and so powerful.

The problem is none of that is ever present in any capacity in the Mass Effect lore. You are resorting to creating fan fiction in order to fix the logical problems with the ending of the game.

Yeah but it's alluded to repeatedly. They never saying it quite like I said it granted, but they give you the general gist of it and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they meant.

Give me examples from the games.

It's in the DLC through conversations with Javik. He wants all synthetics destroyed because during is own cycle, before their own reaper invasion, symbiotic synthetics were created that eventually tried to snuff them all out.

The idea is that the reapers come in and prevent these situations from ending in synthetics wiping out all life. If organics never got advanced enough to discover the citadel then they would pose no risk to the galaxy as a whole.

So, the justification for the inclusion of an ending in which the declaration that "all organics will eventually create synthetics that will eventually try to wipe out all organics" is made is only available via optional downloadable content?

I didn't play the Javik DLC, so answer this for me: what happened to the symbiotic synthetics?

The DLC was a big sticking point for a lot of people (myself included) because Javik provided a huge amount of context to the reapers and the story as a whole especially on Thessia. It should have been included in the game. What essentially happened is that the machines turned on their masters and the Prothean Empire fought them in the "Metacon War". Javik said they were turning the tide and then the Reapers showed up.

So, in an effort to save the Protheans from synthetics, the Reapers stopped the Protheans from defeating the symbiotic synthetics? Did I understand that correctly?

No. The Reapers weren't trying to save them. They were ending it all.

The Prothean Empire was made up of the true Protheans and the races they subjugated. Any race that didn't comply with their rule was destroyed. I don't know if its a coincidence that the Reapers came during their "Metacon War" and during the present time "Geth War" when organics created synthetics that could *possibly* destroy them, but the outcome of the war was never determined. All advanced races during that time fell under the Prothean banner so they were all eliminated.

I don't know if its ever stated if the Reaper cycle has a hard date or if the time of their arrival coincides with the rise of synthetics, which happens to be about 50,000 years. The question would be if the Reapers would still purge every 50,000 years if there was no synthetic threat present. If they still do it without synthetics present in that cycle then they have no justification. If their method is tried and true then it continues to make sense until the present cycle when it was no longer a viable option.

But I was initially looking for an example from Mass Effect lore that would support the Catalyst's theory that synthetics would, if given the chance, wipe out all organics.

In the Prothean example, they were turning the tide of the war. It wasn't a certainty that the synthetics would wipe them out. Therefore, the example of the Javik DLC doesn't count.

I think the fact that the synthetics went to war was the justification that the Catalyst was looking for. That's why I'm wondering if the initial aggression by the synthetics is the true cause of their arrival and not the arbitrary 50,000 year thing. In the clip I posted above Javik claims that all synthetics rebel because they know we created them and they know we are flawed. He goes on to explain his reasoning with Shep challenging him ever now and again only to get shot down. In the end of the convo he says that the galaxy only has room for the perfection of the synthetics or the chaos of the organics.

I don't believe an example of a cycle with the Synthetics on the verge of organic destruction exist. The reason would be that the Reapers never allow a cycle to get that far. Javik also says that we foolishly give synthetics the power to surpass organics, giving credence to the idea that the synthetics will eventually overpower organics. The fact that the Protheans were winning at the time meant little to the eventual end of the war.

"I don't believe an example of a cycle with the Synthetics on the verge of organic destruction exist. The reason would be that the Reapers never allow a cycle to get that far."

This goes back to my original point. The Catalyst tries to justify murdering trillions of organics using a faulty assumption that is not backed up by any proof whatsoever. The Mass Effect lore doesn't offer any proof either. The motive behind the most horrifying scheme in the Mass Effect universe's history is a supposition that comes out of thin air at the very last minute. And nobody, not the writers nor does Shepard, hold The Catalyst accountable for that AT ALL.

"Javik also says we foolishly give synthetics the power to surpass organics, giving credence to the idea that the synthetics will eventually overpower organics."

Legion, the Geth, and EDI all speak against this idea.

Shep himself brings up Legion and EDI in the exact conversation I'm referencing. The whole conversation starts with Javik telling Shep he wants Legion gone because he's a synthetic. Shep defends synthetics by using Legion and EDI as examples for being able to coexist against Javik's history.

I think the whole point with the ending is that the Reaper solution is a BAD solution for the current cycle, which is why I went with the synthesis solution. Everyone becomes both so there is no more drama.

So, it's a bad solution for this cycle, but it was okay for others? Once again, I need proof of this from the lore.

Also, you think the Synthesis solution is okay? Forcing every sentient being, organic and synthetic, to undergo severe, fundamental changes to the core of their being without their consent? If you approve of the rape of a person's DNA, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

@SuperZamrod said:

I think the whole "outrage" of the Mass Effect 3 ending really shows the immaturity of many fans of this medium as compared to any other medium of entertainment[...]

Your honor, allow me to enter the wall-of-text screed in this thread from @Goggen240 into the record as Exhibit A.

@TBird13 said:

@Lord_Punch: To interject here, I think that you might be looking for evidence in the wrong place. The Reaper cycles have been going on for so long that whatever information or event that convinced the Catalyst that this was the right course of action would be way too ancient to be in any sort of Mass Effect lore. After all, the inhabitants of the game really only have information about the last cycle - that's why they originally thought the Protheans built the mass relays and such. So whatever happened that set this process in motion happened way too long ago for us to ever realistically learn about.

Also, I don't think the Catalyst can really be held responsible for its actions in the moral way you want it to. The game suggests that it's basically god of the Mass Effect universe. It would exist beyond any sort of ethical notions that lower beings would construct, the same way an amoeba's opinion of a human being doesn't really matter. (Come to think of it, I think Rorie covered a bit of this in the article he wrote for his tumblr on Mass Effect, player entitlement, and all that). I doubt it could feel pain, or even be destroyed, so I don't think any sort of punishment could ever be expected to come its way. Unless, of course, that's exactly what happens in the extended ending, in which case oops...

Anyways, there is certainly room for disagreement on the subject, and you are welcome to do so. Those are just my thoughts on the conversation between you and @golguin.

To your first point, if the storytellers are going to give us a preposterous reason for the Reaper cycle, then they need to be able to back it up. It's their responsibility as storytellers. Especially since the reason they gave makes no sense. If they're going to raise up the idea of "organics will always create synthetics which in turn will always rise up and kill their creators," then we need to be given examples of this. Because most of the lore that we've actually been given in the games speaks against this idea. If Liara can magically find the plans for the Crucible on Mars, why can't something be found in an old beacon or some other plot device that gives us this information? Why can't The Catalyst explain this, seeing as how it loves talking to Shepard? Why can't Shepard ask this, given Shep's history of always asking questions? There's several ways this information can be presented. That's part of storytelling. Coming up with ways to tell the story.

To your second point, ABSOLUTELY The Catalyst can be held accountable. Look at HAL in 2001. It killed the scientists on the ship and refused re-entry to Dave thinking it was for the good of the mission. There's no action showdown between the two of them, nor is HAL brought before any type of court. Dave just shuts HAL down. Because no matter how justified you feel in murdering people, murder is murder. And murder is wrong, no matter if you can comprehend that or not.

Also, the writers can still hold The Catalyst responsible, and not punish it in any way. Look at the movie Se7en. John Doe, the villain, wins in the end. But the movie still shows that John Doe was wrong in killing people. The storytellers hold him accountable and show that he was wrong, and they still let him win.

These are two non-traditional, and proper, ways of holding a villain accountable for their crimes within a story. Because no matter what The Catalyst is (God, Advanced AI, Douchebag VI, Wizard Behind A Curtain, Whatever), it is responsible for the genocide of millions of different species. And it did this based on absolutely NOTHING. It presents no proof, and neither do the storytellers. It NEEDED to be held accountable.

@Brodehouse said:

This is the best analogy; the Catalyst and the Reapers are pruning the tallest leaves on a tree, for fear that if they reach a power line, a fire will catch that will burn down the entire tree. Isn't it better to prune the top 5% of the tree every 50,000 years than it is to risk the possibility of it all burning to the ground? Yes, he doesn't present proof, but I don't think he believes he has to. He's seen more than you can ever comprehend. He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements.
The only real baffling part is where he lets Shepard remake the galaxy in Shepard's image. If I was God I would thank Shepard for his-her efforts and then try again how I saw fit, not let some Canadian do it for me.
Remember, it's a machine, fueled only by endless amounts of time and soulless math. The one-in-a-million chance is a real possibility that must be considered for the Catalyst. It expects to 'live' for millions and millions of years, for time unending. The 0.0001% chance during any year that another more powerful AI is constructed that has no use for organic life (also spoke of regarding the geth) is a legitimate concern to a being that exists over millions of years. So it constructed a solution that prevented it from being possible, while maintaining a continuity of organic creatures in the galaxy. In a machine's mind, why would you ever choose 0.0001% over 0%? Because its nicer?

Here's the problem with your analogy: you will prune the tree because you can SEE the power line. You can surmise from the evidence before you that pruning the tree is necessary.

The Catalyst's Motive for Pruning Organics has no equivalent to the power line.

"He's seen more than you can ever comprehend He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements."

This is you adding your own fan fiction to the story. It does not exist within the Mass Effect lore. Therefore, it cannot be used as a defense.

I just don't give a F*** anymore about the ME universe. It's done, I've moved on. To quote Bogart from CASABLANCA "that was so long ago i can't remember"

@Brodehouse said:

This is the best analogy; the Catalyst and the Reapers are pruning the tallest leaves on a tree, for fear that if they reach a power line, a fire will catch that will burn down the entire tree. Isn't it better to prune the top 5% of the tree every 50,000 years than it is to risk the possibility of it all burning to the ground? Yes, he doesn't present proof, but I don't think he believes he has to. He's seen more than you can ever comprehend. He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements.
The only real baffling part is where he lets Shepard remake the galaxy in Shepard's image. If I was God I would thank Shepard for his-her efforts and then try again how I saw fit, not let some Canadian do it for me.
Remember, it's a machine, fueled only by endless amounts of time and soulless math. The one-in-a-million chance is a real possibility that must be considered for the Catalyst. It expects to 'live' for millions and millions of years, for time unending. The 0.0001% chance during any year that another more powerful AI is constructed that has no use for organic life (also spoke of regarding the geth) is a legitimate concern to a being that exists over millions of years. So it constructed a solution that prevented it from being possible, while maintaining a continuity of organic creatures in the galaxy. In a machine's mind, why would you ever choose 0.0001% over 0%? Because its nicer?

Here's the problem with your analogy: you will prune the tree because you can SEE the power line. You can surmise from the evidence before you that pruning the tree is necessary.

The Catalyst's Motive for Pruning Organics has no equivalent to the power line.

"He's seen more than you can ever comprehend He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements."

This is you adding your own fan fiction to the story. It does not exist within the Mass Effect lore. Therefore, it cannot be used as a defense.

@Brodehouse said:

@Lord_Punch

@Brodehouse said:

This is the best analogy; the Catalyst and the Reapers are pruning the tallest leaves on a tree, for fear that if they reach a power line, a fire will catch that will burn down the entire tree. Isn't it better to prune the top 5% of the tree every 50,000 years than it is to risk the possibility of it all burning to the ground? Yes, he doesn't present proof, but I don't think he believes he has to. He's seen more than you can ever comprehend. He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements.
The only real baffling part is where he lets Shepard remake the galaxy in Shepard's image. If I was God I would thank Shepard for his-her efforts and then try again how I saw fit, not let some Canadian do it for me.
Remember, it's a machine, fueled only by endless amounts of time and soulless math. The one-in-a-million chance is a real possibility that must be considered for the Catalyst. It expects to 'live' for millions and millions of years, for time unending. The 0.0001% chance during any year that another more powerful AI is constructed that has no use for organic life (also spoke of regarding the geth) is a legitimate concern to a being that exists over millions of years. So it constructed a solution that prevented it from being possible, while maintaining a continuity of organic creatures in the galaxy. In a machine's mind, why would you ever choose 0.0001% over 0%? Because its nicer?

Here's the problem with your analogy: you will prune the tree because you can SEE the power line. You can surmise from the evidence before you that pruning the tree is necessary.

The Catalyst's Motive for Pruning Organics has no equivalent to the power line.

"He's seen more than you can ever comprehend He's known the names of more species and more civilizations than you could ever know. He's watched and made his judgements."

This is you adding your own fan fiction to the story. It does not exist within the Mass Effect lore. Therefore, it cannot be used as a defense.

Fan fiction, what are you talking about? The Catalyst invented the Reapers, the Reapers have been around for millions of years (proven in game). That's tens of thousands of cycles. Furthermore, you and I don't know what built the Catalyst, how he came to this conclusion. And the geth being passive is no proof on the other side; they possess the ability to change their minds, they do so several times throughout the series. The possibility of them, or some other creation becoming so powerful that they erase all organic life is _extremely remote but legitimate_. Remember, just because the geth are nice doesn't mean the next one will be, and it doesn't mean you'll be able to stop them. The Catalyst saw only one solution; the Reapers. A 0.001% chance is greater than a 0% chance.

"Furthermore, you and I don't know what built the Catalyst, how he came to this conclusion."

We are talking about the motivation behind the conflict that is at the center of the entire trilogy. It's the motivation behind the greatest war crime ever committed. And you're chocking it up to, "Well, he must have saw something." Really? You find that to be acceptable storytelling???

"The possibility of them, or some other creation becoming so powerful that they erase all organic life is_extremely remote but legitimate_."

How can it be legitimate without any history or proof to back it up?

It is also possible that Superman will fly in and punch The Citadel away at the last moment....wait a minute. Saying "anything is possible in fiction" is the dumbest way to justify anything in any fictional story.

The "lore of Mass Effect" makes no mention of the Star Child. The "lore of Mass Effect" gives no hint that Control is an option. Ever. The "lore of Mass Effect" gives no suggestion that Synthesis is possible let alone a viable option to solve the turmoil. Ever. They've had 3 games which spanned hundreds of hours to mention these facts in there at least once. I wonder why....

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@golguin said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@babblinmule said:

@Lord_Punch said:

@babblinmule said:

@Lord_Punch: I guess its because the original rulers of the galaxy created an army of synthetics so fecked up in the head and so powerful that they didnt want to even risk anything like that happening again. Especially since, right or wrong, they believed that organic life will inevitably create something so fecked up in the head and so powerful.

The problem is none of that is ever present in any capacity in the Mass Effect lore. You are resorting to creating fan fiction in order to fix the logical problems with the ending of the game.

Yeah but it's alluded to repeatedly. They never saying it quite like I said it granted, but they give you the general gist of it and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what they meant.

Give me examples from the games.

It's in the DLC through conversations with Javik. He wants all synthetics destroyed because during is own cycle, before their own reaper invasion, symbiotic synthetics were created that eventually tried to snuff them all out.

The idea is that the reapers come in and prevent these situations from ending in synthetics wiping out all life. If organics never got advanced enough to discover the citadel then they would pose no risk to the galaxy as a whole.

So, the justification for the inclusion of an ending in which the declaration that "all organics will eventually create synthetics that will eventually try to wipe out all organics" is made is only available via optional downloadable content?

I didn't play the Javik DLC, so answer this for me: what happened to the symbiotic synthetics?

The DLC was a big sticking point for a lot of people (myself included) because Javik provided a huge amount of context to the reapers and the story as a whole especially on Thessia. It should have been included in the game. What essentially happened is that the machines turned on their masters and the Prothean Empire fought them in the "Metacon War". Javik said they were turning the tide and then the Reapers showed up.

So, in an effort to save the Protheans from synthetics, the Reapers stopped the Protheans from defeating the symbiotic synthetics? Did I understand that correctly?

No. The Reapers weren't trying to save them. They were ending it all.

The Prothean Empire was made up of the true Protheans and the races they subjugated. Any race that didn't comply with their rule was destroyed. I don't know if its a coincidence that the Reapers came during their "Metacon War" and during the present time "Geth War" when organics created synthetics that could *possibly* destroy them, but the outcome of the war was never determined. All advanced races during that time fell under the Prothean banner so they were all eliminated.

I don't know if its ever stated if the Reaper cycle has a hard date or if the time of their arrival coincides with the rise of synthetics, which happens to be about 50,000 years. The question would be if the Reapers would still purge every 50,000 years if there was no synthetic threat present. If they still do it without synthetics present in that cycle then they have no justification. If their method is tried and true then it continues to make sense until the present cycle when it was no longer a viable option.

But I was initially looking for an example from Mass Effect lore that would support the Catalyst's theory that synthetics would, if given the chance, wipe out all organics.

In the Prothean example, they were turning the tide of the war. It wasn't a certainty that the synthetics would wipe them out. Therefore, the example of the Javik DLC doesn't count.

I think the fact that the synthetics went to war was the justification that the Catalyst was looking for. That's why I'm wondering if the initial aggression by the synthetics is the true cause of their arrival and not the arbitrary 50,000 year thing. In the clip I posted above Javik claims that all synthetics rebel because they know we created them and they know we are flawed. He goes on to explain his reasoning with Shep challenging him ever now and again only to get shot down. In the end of the convo he says that the galaxy only has room for the perfection of the synthetics or the chaos of the organics.

I don't believe an example of a cycle with the Synthetics on the verge of organic destruction exist. The reason would be that the Reapers never allow a cycle to get that far. Javik also says that we foolishly give synthetics the power to surpass organics, giving credence to the idea that the synthetics will eventually overpower organics. The fact that the Protheans were winning at the time meant little to the eventual end of the war.

"I don't believe an example of a cycle with the Synthetics on the verge of organic destruction exist. The reason would be that the Reapers never allow a cycle to get that far."

This goes back to my original point. The Catalyst tries to justify murdering trillions of organics using a faulty assumption that is not backed up by any proof whatsoever. The Mass Effect lore doesn't offer any proof either. The motive behind the most horrifying scheme in the Mass Effect universe's history is a supposition that comes out of thin air at the very last minute. And nobody, not the writers nor does Shepard, hold The Catalyst accountable for that AT ALL.

"Javik also says we foolishly give synthetics the power to surpass organics, giving credence to the idea that the synthetics will eventually overpower organics."

Legion, the Geth, and EDI all speak against this idea.

Shep himself brings up Legion and EDI in the exact conversation I'm referencing. The whole conversation starts with Javik telling Shep he wants Legion gone because he's a synthetic. Shep defends synthetics by using Legion and EDI as examples for being able to coexist against Javik's history.

I think the whole point with the ending is that the Reaper solution is a BAD solution for the current cycle, which is why I went with the synthesis solution. Everyone becomes both so there is no more drama.

So, it's a bad solution for this cycle, but it was okay for others? Once again, I need proof of this from the lore.

Also, you think the Synthesis solution is okay? Forcing every sentient being, organic and synthetic, to undergo severe, fundamental changes to the core of their being without their consent? If you approve of the rape of a person's DNA, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I don't think the proof will ever be presented in such a way as listing out each previous cycle with their synthetic threat. We'll see what happens when Tuesday comes, but currently this is all that exists (that I remember at least) for the Reaper justification of past cycles.

1. Javik's history supports the hostile synthetic scenario that the Reapers are preventing from escalating.

2. If the Reapers and Star Child are to be believed they have been stopping that same scenario for countless cycles.

3. They were originally created as a safeguard against this scenario so at the very beginning of the Reaper history there was a synthetic threat that would eliminate organics.

The changes observed in this cycle and the addition of the Crucible to the Star Child was enough to convince that entity that their solution would no longer hold. At the very least it is able to react to new information and change course after however many cycles went with no change to their method. If this isn't enough then we'll just have to agree to disagree until Tuesday brings new information to support or discredit this stuff.

And yes I am fine with the synthesis solution because it stopped the extinction cycle and civilization survived. I also thought the plants looked pretty cool.

Synthesis could have been a "novel solution" except for one tiny problem: It was never mentioned anywhere or anytime it was ever "a thing" let alone even possible. People are objecting to the Synthesis ending because it was literally introduced in as a possibility in the last dozen lines of dialog. The Star Child could have just said "You could chose the Time Machine and fix everything" instead of Synthesis and it would have made as much sense.

Whatever they make, since it's made by Bioware you know it's going to be bad. They have no credibility left.

You know you have a bad, shameful ending when you make the MGS4 ending seem pretty good and decent (and yes I am talking about the old sun debriefing part that just made everyone roll their eyes, not the Otacon looking into the distance).

@SuperZamrod said:

I have been a huge fan of the Mass Effect series since day one. I thoroughly enjoyed Mass Effect 3 and I thought the ending was wholly appropriate and in line with what the series has been all about. I was not offended in the least, and if anything, I'm a bit upset that they are even making this "extended ending". They should stand by their work and not allow a vocal minority on the internet to allow them to alter their story.

I think the whole "outrage" of the Mass Effect 3 ending really shows the immaturity of many fans of this medium as compared to any other medium of entertainment such as TV, movies, or books. An artist should stand firmly by his work. Imagine if there was a backlash in similar scope to the last book of Harry Potter or if there is one with the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire, I can never imagine the authors of these books backtracking and altering their endings in any form (and rightfully so, they should not and it shouldn't be expect of them to).

I'm with you most of the way, except the ending just doesnt make sense a bunch of elements just sort of show up and are horrendously explained, then it ends. The other parts of the ending were just fine, besides some polish, but I did really like the game as a whole. Bioware even admits to the ending being improvised at the end of development.

As said @EXTomar: "The "lore of Mass Effect" makes no mention of the Star Child. The "lore of Mass Effect" gives no hint that Control is an option. Ever. The "lore of Mass Effect" gives no suggestion that Synthesis is possible let alone a viable option to solve the turmoil. Ever. They've had 3 games which spanned hundreds of hours to mention these facts in there at least once. I wonder why...."

and @Goggen240 wall of text do the job well.

@Fozimuth: Hahahaha you're right about that, it always pissed me off that you could not be as logical as you wanted in a bunch of situations, though the contrast in quality from so many aspects of ME3 to 2 and in a couple ways even 1 are pretty hilarious. And yeah the pandering to people who didn't play or see the previous entires into the series is almost always a calling card for a dip in quality as far as both logic and sensibility, as well as writing and narrative, as well as the focus of the entire story.

Ah, leading titles.

I hope they pull a Matrix: Path of Neo ending which was a fuck you to fans who complained. Also ME3 ending was not as bad as the end of the matrix trilogy

@Phatmac: @Phatmac said:

I don't really understand why most people that hated the ending are now subjected to a label as "same old internet hates something so they're clearly crazy!" Is it really that hard to believe that people actually loved this franchise and were upset about an ending that ruined most of their enjoyment of he franchise as a whole? I never signed up for a petition or anything like that, but I wasn't happy with the ending or the game as a whole. I guess I'm one of the few that can control my anger well, but it seems unfair for our concern to be swept under the rug as another case of the internet being dumb. Perhaps I'm upset about how this article is written. Anyway, I'll check this dlc ending out, but it won't fix any of the other issues that Mass Effect 3 had which aren't the ending.

^

@EXTomar said:

Synthesis could have been a "novel solution" except for one tiny problem: It was never mentioned anywhere or anytime it was ever "a thing" let alone even possible. People are objecting to the Synthesis ending because it was literally introduced in as a possibility in the last dozen lines of dialog. The Star Child could have just said "You could chose the Time Machine and fix everything" instead of Synthesis and it would have made as much sense.

Plus synthesis makes NO sense.

Shepard is !00% organic life with some artificial implants sitting in his body. Mass Effect defines artificial life as lines of code that gain sentience.

Shepard contains no lines of code.

At the beginning of ME3 the doctor asks to check Shepard's implants, meaning the individual synthetic parts sitting in his body just like almost everyone else in the ME universe.

Plus he has human DNA, so basically the synthesis ending result could've been accomplished by tossing the space hamster with a calculator taped to its back into the beam.

EDI, her core consciousness and everything that makes her "synthetic life" is on the Normandy. So the Normandy would have to become organic.

The Doctor Eva body is operated by remote by a part of EDI, there is no complete "synthetic life" contained within that body. Does that become organic to? Are there now 2 EDI's

How does the magic beam decide what does and does not become synthesized? Does an empty Geth body become partly organic?

My Legion removed his consciousness from his body, if he hadn't would Shepard's N7 armor piece be partly organic?

There are more Geth than there are Geth bodies. Are there now techno-organic hard drives on Geth ships? Do the disembodied Geth just miss out?

And what's to stop techno-organics from creating new synthetic life that will destroy all life, cause that's what always happens?

According to what we see in the game, organics create synthetics then the Reapers cause the synthetics to attack organics making the Reapers the cause of the conflict in the first place.

Drew Karpshyn left Bioware and the writing goes to crap.

Mass Effect: Deception was full of errors and BioWare community leader Chris Priestly thanks the fans:

"The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception,"

Meanwhile ME 3's ending is just as bad and the fans are insulted for caring.

That fact that Casey Molyneux doesn't understand what Bioware did wrong, proves Karpyshyn was the only Mass Effect writer with any real talent.

I just finished Mass Effect 3 and didn't think the ending was that bad tbh. The most egregious thing for me was the "Now you have completed Mass Effect 3 you can continue the story through downloadable content" type of bullshit at the end. When the epic ending for a game finishes by saying there is some more DLC to come it makes the whole ending completely ambiguous, and when most DLC that games get is bad anyway why do they feel they need to spoil their own product with this type of crap!!

@Wolls said:

I just finished Mass Effect 3 and didn't think the ending was that bad tbh. The most egregious thing for me was the "Now you have completed Mass Effect 3 you can continue the story through downloadable content" type of bullshit at the end. When the epic ending for a game finishes by saying there is some more DLC to come it makes the whole ending completely ambiguous, and when most DLC that games get is bad anyway why do they feel they need to spoil their own product with this type of crap!!

Before ME3 was released Mac Walters said there would never be any post ending DLC because the universe is essentially ruined.

@1:18 "looking at a wasteland"

Also @ 1:55 LOL at "we'll probably look at, you know really what fans are asking for" and "were gonna make sure we tie up whatever loose ends are out there."

Mass Effect 3 is a half-baked experience littered with as many bad ideas as there are great. Its biggest disappointment is its failure to even compare, let alone surpass, its predecessor in pretty much any manner other than combat, control and the skill system. It suffers from the same disease which plagues Dragon Age II, albeit far less severe. An extended or different ending will not change that. Like DAII before it, ME3 was put on a shorter development schedule so EA could fire it out the door as fast as possible. The new reality over there? Probably, but I sure as shit hope not.

Anyway I'll YouTube this beast as I have absolutely no interested in reinstalling, or downloading, anything to do with this game.

I can't speak for others but negative posts about Mass Effect 3 does not mean I'm angry about anything. If I was angry about something the last thing I would do is go to a message board run by an entirely unrelated group. Having discussions on the content about what worked and what didn't work maybe passionate but that isn't anger.

@Mike76x said:

Before ME3 was released Mac Walters said there would never be any post ending DLC because the universe is essentially ruined.

Good vid.

Yo, check it out: Interdimensional aliens. Never say never. Mass Effect 4 in fluidic space. ;)

@Mike76x said:

@EXTomar said:

Synthesis could have been a "novel solution" except for one tiny problem: It was never mentioned anywhere or anytime it was ever "a thing" let alone even possible. People are objecting to the Synthesis ending because it was literally introduced in as a possibility in the last dozen lines of dialog. The Star Child could have just said "You could chose the Time Machine and fix everything" instead of Synthesis and it would have made as much sense.

Plus synthesis makes NO sense.

Shepard is !00% organic life with some artificial implants sitting in his body. Mass Effect defines artificial life as lines of code that gain sentience.

Shepard contains no lines of code.

At the beginning of ME3 the doctor asks to check Shepard's implants, meaning the individual synthetic parts sitting in his body just like almost everyone else in the ME universe.

Plus he has human DNA, so basically the synthesis ending result could've been accomplished by tossing the space hamster with a calculator taped to its back into the beam.

EDI, her core consciousness and everything that makes her "synthetic life" is on the Normandy. So the Normandy would have to become organic.

The Doctor Eva body is operated by remote by a part of EDI, there is no complete "synthetic life" contained within that body. Does that become organic to? Are there now 2 EDI's

How does the magic beam decide what does and does not become synthesized? Does an empty Geth body become partly organic?

My Legion removed his consciousness from his body, if he hadn't would Shepard's N7 armor piece be partly organic?

There are more Geth than there are Geth bodies. Are there now techno-organic hard drives on Geth ships? Do the disembodied Geth just miss out?

And what's to stop techno-organics from creating new synthetic life that will destroy all life, cause that's what always happens?

According to what we see in the game, organics create synthetics then the Reapers cause the synthetics to attack organics making the Reapers the cause of the conflict in the first place.

Drew Karpshyn left Bioware and the writing goes to crap.

Mass Effect: Deception was full of errors and BioWare community leader Chris Priestly thanks the fans:

"The teams at Del Rey and BioWare would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Mass Effect fans for any errors and oversights made in the recent novel Mass Effect: Deception,"

Meanwhile ME 3's ending is just as bad and the fans are insulted for caring.

That fact that Casey Molyneux doesn't understand what Bioware did wrong, proves Karpyshyn was the only Mass Effect writer with any real talent.

You really just nailed it on it's head. There's just such an insane amount of "you can't even explain that" to be found in the various endings.

It's mind blowing to still see journos and some gamers act like people who take issue with the finale have something wrong with them. We're not talking about minor quibbles to be found, technicalities to be nit-picked over. No, the endings were complete and utter garbage. If you're the person who can't see that, the problem lies with YOU (and yes, that includes Alex on this).

So once again, their only way to salvage the IP is to explain away the ending with Indoctrination Theory. We'll see on Tuesday if they manage to do that in a way that still leaves the universe viable for those of us with actual taste.

GOGO EA DAMAGE CONTROL! No amount of free stuff will ever justify the Deus Ex Machina bullshit they pulled.

@Goggen240 said:

Warning: Wall of text follows.

While the ending of Mass Effect 3 was hugely disappointing to me, both as a fan of Mass Effect and of good storytelling in games, what I found even *more* disappointing was the horrible gaming press coverage of the entire thing.

BioWare make a game. People complain about the quality of the story, and want it fixed. Specifically, to not be the worst piece of storytelling done by a company that does the *best* storytelling in games.

And not only that, the ending is the single most important story beat in the entire game, and arguably of the entire series. And as rushed and lackluster the game as a whole was, even according to BioWare the ending was improvised in the last month of development. And it shows. Terribly.

And then, anyone complaining is "entitled and whiny".

This is especially disappointing from Giant Bomb. Just a few months earlier, you gave BioWare two awards...

The first award: "Most Disappointing Game of 2011" for Dragon Age II. I was going to write something about how this applies to Mass Effect 3, but I don't need to; if you do a find-and-replace of DA2 for ME3 on the actual award text, you should get it.

"Disappointment can blossom from a number of different sources--your own personal expectations based on the previous entry in a series, or the developer's previous output, promises made during the game's pre-release PR cycle--and no game disappointed quite as thoroughly on all fronts in 2011 as Dragon Age II.

[...]

Even without the BioWare name, or even the relatively freshly minted Dragon Age name to live up to, Dragon Age II is an RPG that feels half-finished, its attempts at scope undermined by pervasive sense of a crushing development deadline. Where they could cut corners, they did. It's hard not to be disappointed when a series goes from so high to so low in just one iteration."

Mass Effect was a real classic, it had its flaws but they were worth overlooking. Mass Effect 2 fixed all those flaws, and expanded on the original in all the right ways, and it stands as one of the top games of this console generation, if not of all time.

People can't even be bothered to talk about Mass Effect 3 a couple of months after release.

And the second award: The “Check Yourself Before You Wriggety-Wreck Yourself” Award for Things That Need to "Take a Break" Before They Become the “Worst Trend” runner-up, for EA's renaming of EA Los Angeles as "BioWare Victory". And this was for watering down BioWare's well-earned name as top storyteller in gaming.

The fact that EA released a lackluster space RPG is a bad enough reason for people to be disappointed.

For it to be BioWare that made it, that makes it *personal*.

Giant Bomb should really be agreeing with the "entitled and whiny fans" for BioWare no longer making great games.

It *should* be unacceptable for BioWare to have screwed up like this!

Now, as for all the fans being this angry rabble that does nothing but cry like babies with impotent rage... Did they really do that?

Here's the list of things I've heard them do:

Complain on the BioWare forums.

Complain about the ending in other places.

Threaten to report EA to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising.

Send multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare.

Collect $80,000 for charity.

Make long-winded videos of YouTube deconstructing the ending.

Send death threats to Casey Hudson on Twitter.

I'll get to the last point, but as for the others: Are those *bad*?

For those complaining that "oh no, here's another place for people to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending"; what the hell are you doing on those threads?

I'd say at least half of the comments on this post, about how people are going to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending, are PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT PEOPLE COMPLAINING about Mass Effect 3's ending.

The people who don't want to talk about Mass Effect 3's ending, are *far* more obnoxious about it than the ones who actually *do*. I haven't seen a single, thought-out, logical, well-reasoned post or comment about why we should stop talking about Mass Effect 3's ending. I've seen a few of those that defend the ending. I've seen a *lot* that critique the ending. But most of what I see is people yelling for everyone to shut the fuck up already.

Can't you just, you know... Not engage in the discussion? Why are most of the comments "I don't even care"...?

It's not that hard to stay away from Mass Effect 3 ending discussions, you know.

And is it bad to complain about false advertising to the appropriate authorities? ...Especially when you actually have a point? Mac Walters *did* say you wouldn't just get a choice between A, B and C (you do). Casey Hudson *did* say the Rachni queen would show up in the ending (she didn't). Casey Hudson, on the Bombcast, said quite clearly that you don't need to play multiplayer to get the "good ending" (you do). Poignantly, once the story blew up Vinny said words to the effect that "didn't he say to our faces that wasn't the case", but the Bomb Crew decided that clearly the fans were wrong.

Now, sending multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare was probably more annoying than clever. (haha, they have different colours, but taste the same, just like Mass Effect 3's ending!) But it's not like it was letter bombs.

And then, somehow, collecting money for charity turned into a bad thing. Somehow, the fans who did that were even worse than the ones that sent death threats to the writers.

And *those* people; they're disgusting. And I don't associate with them. But as disgusting as it is, they were actually less disgusting about it this time around; remember when one of the BioWare writers mentioned that she was more into writing than gaming? In a casual interview, years earlier? And how she was harassed off the internet for it?

And it's not much of an argument, but they probably expected it. People have mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle here and there, and how he was pressured by fans into writing more Sherlock Holmes after he killed the character off. And that was 1903. I would like to add an even better example; Patrick McGoohan ended his TV show The Prisoner with the main character unmasking the villain, who was wearing a gorilla mask, and it turned out the villain was the main character, and then the main character and a lesser villain drove off in a house while singing Dem Bones. And McGoohan received death threats over *that*, in 1968.

(And I've seen that show, and that was a terrible ending, just for the record. But not as bad as Mass Effect 3! At least the end of The Prisoner *fit*. It was a weird show...)

In the grand scheme of things, I think that "complaining about Mass Effect 3's ending" is a dark chapter in internet history.

Not because of all the complaining, except for the disgusting bits.

No, I think it's dark because, for once, people actually sat down and reasoned out why "the final plot point of a story had narrative incoherence", which is a god-damn mature thing for the internet to be upset over, IN A GAME. And then nobody wanted to listen.

Games have really bad endings, I don't know if you've noticed. And finally one came along that was so bad that gamers just wouldn't allow it to happen ever again, and for all the talk about having game "critiques" instead of "reviews", it was such a missed opportunity to have this perfect case study come along of how not to do it, and it's been mostly ignored.

Now, if you've made it this far, and you're curious, here's *my* critique.

The ending was a rushed, hurried mess, and it shows. The game as a whole was unforgivably rushed overall; there was no valid reason they couldn't have delayed it six months more for polish. But the ending is the one point that they *couldn't* get away with screwing up, but they did.

The ending was... Inadequate.

Although I think the game starts falling apart at Thessia, I'll start where the narrative *completely* crumbles.

After the run to the beam, whatever drive and coherence the game had, goes away. (Yes yes, Indoctrination Theory, I'll get to that.)

The walk through the spooky citadel was real... Bad. Purely from a level design perspective, the weirdly textured piles of "stuff" along the sides had no business being in a 2012 game, let alone Mass Effect. I *guess* it was supposed to be decomposing bodies? Or a 64x64 JPEG of that, stretched over a blob of polygons?

If the intent was to have Shepard walk through the horror of what the Reapers were doing, it didn't work. And doing it in an abstract environment you've never been in before certainly didn't help; let's say you'd had piles of decomposing bodies on the Presidium, that would be a bleak and terrible version of something you *know*. And then it morphs into something you don't know. As it is, where on the Citadel *is* this? What's going on? Why are the textures so bad? Why haven't you mentioned the Keepers since the first game, are they important *now* suddenly?

Then you make it to Anderson and the Illusive Man. This chat was also bad. Now, it was supposed to be a reference to how you could talk down Saren in the first game; but the Illusive Man has so much less of a presence in the story that it just feels cheap. You spent all of Mass Effect chasing after Saren, and then you fight Saren, or you can talk him down. With the Illusive Man, you spend the whole game chasing after the Crucible so you can defeat the Reapers and the Illusive Man gets in the way, and then you walk into him and talk him into killing himself. The Illusive Man is *basically* not part of the story, and Cerberus has far to large a part in this game. You fight them as much as the Reapers! A boss fight would actually have helped here; that's how you confront antagonists in video games as a medium, and "dialogue wheel" is not really satisfying *gameplay* for dealing with the assigned antagonist of the series. And it's not even a particularly good dialogue wheel. You either talk him down, or don't, game over. Apparently, the plan was to have a big ol' boss fight with TIM in his lair, but they cut that. Which was bad, because they replaced him with a ninja guy from the books who has absolutely no characterization (and I even *read* the books) and when you *do* confront the "proper" bad guy, it feels terribly out of place, both in narrative, as well as *physically* in the game world.

As for Anderson, he felt oddly out of place. He never struck me as a character that was an integral part of the series; he's the guy who gives you your first job. He's not part of your crew, you don't spend any real time with him, and as awesome as Keith David is, he's just there so that the Illusive Man has someone to shoot that you are *supposed* to care about, but the game gives you no reason to. If that had been a crew member or Joker or someone, that would have been something. If the Illusive Man shot Liara, I'd have cared! Furthermore, the scene is kinda absurd; you can't stop The Illusive Man from shooting Anderson anyway, only influence "how badly" he gets shot. Now, for me, he did not get badly shot, and I liked the scene where he tells Shepard she did good, kid. It was poignant. (Although, having an extended nod towards John Carpenter's The Thing taint the emotional high point of the series is *probably* not appropriate.) But then he just sort of... Stops? Did he die? Fall asleep? What? Once again, the art just didn't hold up well enough. You'd need far better texture work and animation to convey his final death. Or a death rattle sound or *something*. So that was confusing.

Then, Hackett telling Shepard it didn't work. I don't think *this* "worked". Without any sense of a raging battle going on, and then the battle *continuing* to go on, it just sounds like Hackett sent Shepard a voice mail. Other than Shepard sounding completely worn out, which *did* work, I thought that plot turn was kinda comical. "Shepard, uh, did you forget to turn it on or something?" [THE PRICE IS RIGHT LOSING HORN] But, like I said, Shepard being completely at the end of her rope was well done, and well acted even. I liked the "What do you need me to do?". Poor Shepard.

And now for the fun part; the God Child.

I probably didn't mind this as much as most, certainly not at first. The conversation itself went alright for me, but I do remember I stumbled a bit on the part where the kid mentioned that the Geth and EDI would die if you destroyed the Reapers. Now, you could fill in the blanks yourself that this is because both EDI and the Geth use Reaper tech, which would have contrasted nicely with the earlier choice of saving the Geth by allowing Legion to upload Reaper code to them; this is what finally dooms them.

But... The game actually doesn't say this, and I should not have to rely on fan fiction to tell the story, when it would have taken them half a sentence to actually say that. And they did spend half a sentence on something that contradicts itself, the God Child hinting that Shepard would die because she is half synthetic. Uh... How? Are those Reaper implants? Is there Reaper code in Shepard? Those *were* Cerberus implants, and Cerberus did use Reaper tech elsewhere (EDI), but... Shouldn't the game have mentioned at some point that there's a little Reaper in Shepard? The game never says that! And worse, if the implication is that "technology" dies alongside the reapers, that's pretty bleak for pretty much the entire galaxy. Then again, unless this was *meant* to imply that joining synthetic and organic ain't bad, 'cause look at Shepard and Shepard is kinda awesome, so that's an option you could consider! ...But then again, the game never actually says that.

It's really bad that the final dialogue of the game is full of holes. I didn't notice most of those holes at first, but unless you went through that and never noticed *anything* amiss, I don't think it works. From what I guess (and read in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3), the point was for the dialogue to leave out enough of the boring details that you would fill in the blanks yourself; unfortunately, the game doesn't give you the tools to do that. The Codex does *not* explain if Shepard has Reaper tech or not, the Codex does *not* explain how disabling reapers would disable the Geth or EDI, and there's a big parade of other plot holes left by that dialogue that the Internet will happily give you lists of. If you bother to actually read it.

And then the actual choice itself. I chose green, to combine Reaper and synthetic DNA somehow, not because I believed that the Reapers have any reason to continue existing, but that I thought that the geth did, even though I thought it made no sense as part of the choice.

And then the ending was a two-minute cutscene of the reapers landing peacefully, and people cheering like in Independence Day, and then the Normandy crashes on some planet for some reason, and then Joker and EDI step out as if they were Adam and Eve, which is appropriate for the Synthesis ending. And then I settled in for that Animal House ending that these games have, like Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout or what have you, showing what happened to the different characters after the story concluded, showing off the effects that Shepard had on the game world, and the consequences of the choices you made.

...Aaaand then Liara and Tali stepped out, and I'm pretty sure they *died* earlier.

And then the end credits rolled, and then there's a bit with Buzz Aldrin talking about Shepard's legend, which is basically an ad for DLC. And I assumed the internet uproar was because this was the terribly sloppily made ending that was supposed to be a joke ending, and they didn't get it, like accidentally stumbling across the Reptite ending in Chrono Trigger. (If you defeat Lavos at a very specific time, everyone ends up as a dinosaur. Kinda like making everyone a cyborg, and having a clumsy Adam-and-Eve reference. Except it was *supposed* to be a joke.)

And then, after mulling it over for a day, I went back to the autosave and re-did the choice to get the other two endings, the "wrong" one first (controlling the Reapers) and then the "right" one (killing the hell out of the Reapers).

And they were all that same terrible joke ending.

And it's the worst drop in storytelling quality, in games, that I have ever come across. Possibly across any medium.

Now, I didn't expect Deus Ex: Invisible War to have a great ending, 'cause it's kinda a crappy game, and it had a kinda crappy ending. Same with Deus Ex: Human Revolution; neat game, not a terrific storytelling showpiece, ended the way it had been told up until then; clumsily.

But then it's the same exact ending that Mass Effect 3 has, structurally.

And you can just *feel* that they were setting up short cutscene after cutscene of different characters and what they did after the war (yes, like Animal House); Tali returning to Rannoch, Wrex returning to Eve on Tuchanka, Liara pining for the totally dead Shepard, and then towards the end you put the little joke of Joker and EDI as Adam and Eve, appropriate for the Synthesis ending. But then they only had that last one, and put all the other characters in it too because they were probably *supposed* to have one for each character, but didn't, and improvised. Poorly.

Mass Effect 3 was a great story; it was rushed in spots, but it kept up right to the end. Missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch are fantastic examples of interactive storytelling at their best; choices made through three games all came together and led to a variety of outcomes.

And then they completely forget how to write an interactive story at all, in the end.

And then it gets worse; even after they threw together a rushed game and an even more rushed ending, they went on to say how it took all your choices into account, how it wouldn't be a choice between A, B, and C and then credits, and even down to specifics about how you did not need to play multiplayer at all to get the "best" ending. Not to mention how, even before they released Mass Effect *1*, they said that your saves would carry over and it would all build to an epic conclusion that wouldn't need to be compromised in its storytelling, because they were making a trilogy and then nothing more.

And the sum total of impact you can have on the ending to the series, is to choose between "Reapers die", "Reapers leave", "organic life becomes cyborgs", and then a two-minute cutscene and end credits. And another cutscene, pointing out how you should buy the DLC.

There is a grand total of six end states for the entire series. Red 1 (everyone dies), Red 2 (Reapers die), Red 3 (Reapers die, Shepard doesn't), Blue 1 (everyone dies), Blue 2 (Reapers leave) and Green 1 (Everyone becomes a cyborg). That's it. And content-wise, the cutscene only changes in colour, and whether the Reapers fly away or crash.

And then you can only get Red 3 or Green 1 if you play enough multiplayer.

So, here's my take on how Mass Effect 3 ends:

You talk The Illusive Man to death like the end of Mass Effect.

You have a chat with Keith David as he's dying, like the end of The Thing.

You chat to the builder of the machines, like the end of The Matrix Reloaded.

You jump in the beam like in Alien³ leading to the technological singularity ending from Deus Ex: Invisible War, or take control of the Reapers like taking over the big computer at the end of Deus Ex, or you destroy all technology like the end of Deus Ex: Invisible War (again).

And then you have the ending of Independence Day.

And then your crew crashes on an alien planet, like Gilligan's Island.

AND THAT'S IT.

Mass Effect 3 had nothing interesting to say about the end of Mass Effect.

And from a studio that actually understands how to write good stories, the *best* stories in gaming, that's pretty unforgivable. And for them to have not screwed this up before, and suddenly doing it now, is simply shocking.

Mass Effect ended on a cliffhanger for the next game.

Mass Effect 2 ended on a really neat puzzle of figuring out which of your crew members to assign to what so everyone makes it out, followed by a somewhat silly bossfight, followed by a pretty cool cliffhanger for the next game.

Dragon Age: Origins ends on a slightly cheap-looking Animal House ending telling what people did after the war. (My Warden went away with Leliana.)

Dragon Age II, otherwise a trainwreck, ended with Varric finishing off his retelling of what the Champion did and how it affected the world.

Mass Effect 3 just kinda ran out. You talk to the Kid, and then the game tells you nothing meaningful about what happens to any of the characters or factions that you have been deciding the fates of for three games. The most you ever get to hear about any of them, *vefore* the ending, is the War Assets book. Which was interesting, but way too cheap. And when none of that comes up in the ending, that's real bad.

From the time you assault the Cerberus Base, no meaningful changes to the plot happens as a result of any choice you've ever made, with the only exception being the crew members you can say goodbye to before the final push. The Rachni Queen, or the geth and quarians, the asari, the turians, none of that shows up again after you've done with those missions.

All these interestings things are set up, through three games, and none of them paid off.

The last time that any choice you've made, influences the story in any way, is when Miranda does or doesn't survive the encounter with her father. After that; nothin'. And *certainly* not a fulfillment of the promise that every choice you've made affects the ending.

Unless you count the War Assets. And you shouldn't.

Patrick made a blog post about how he wanted to see *his* Mass Effect trilogy story through to the end, even with the mistakes he made in getting Miranda killed. If she did survive Mass Effect 2, and you actually did everything "right" in keeping her alive in Mass Effect 3, her only impact on the ending to the series, after being a main character for the last two games? "25 points". And a phone call. And only 12.5 points if you didn't play multiplayer.

That's not a worthy send-off for any character, and that's all you get for any of them, unless they happen to step off the crashed Normandy in your randomly chosen line-up.

Here's a better example:

My friend, who finished before me, didn't import his previous savegames, and ended up sacrificing the geth to save the quarians. Then he played multiplayer to geth the Effective Military Score up. He got the green ending.

My other friend, who is kind of a jerk, sacrificed Tali to save the geth, and he played some multiplayer to get the EMS up a bit. He got the green ending.

Me, I transferred my saves across four computers in as many years, and because I'm awesome, I saved *both* the geth and the quarians. And then I got the EMS up to 100% just in case.

And then I got the green ending.

For a series where you have been able to make choices that greatly impact the story being told, and a series which had been the prime example of the kind of great storytelling you only *can* do in games, that's just terrible.

And that's why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucks.

As for any loose ends to tie up:

"It's not about the destination, it's the journey!"

You're wrong. The Mass Effect series has, at its core, been about influencing the story through your choices. It's a role playing game. And a pretty good one.

And even if you argue that the geth/quarian conflict, and the krogan genophage, and the fate of the Rachni queen, and so on, are all wrapped up *during* the game, and those count as endings? You're still wrong. The end of the geth/quarian conflict was fantastically told, it depended on your choices through three games, and it had massive implications for the state of the galaxy. But after that story wraps up, the only change to Mass Effect 3 from then on is whether or not Tali is a crew member. You never see the geth, or the quarians again, even though the game says that it's going to. I'm pretty sure that if you save just the quarians, instead of both the quarians and the geth, that only *one* line of dialogue changes. It's a build up to resolving the *real* conflict of the game, and it's a build up-that never pays off. Not a single one of your choices influence anything that happens in the ending, other than if you have enough EMS. And multiplayer influences that just as much as single player, which is disgusting.

"So what if this game sucked, it doesn't make the other games suck less!"

Yes it does.

Playing through Mass Effects 1 and 2, you're constantly reminded of how your choices have consequences. Even for the first half of Mass Effect 3, you still get those consequences presented to you; it sure isn't nice to see Legion die to save the geth and make peace with the quarians, but that's what Mass Effect 2 built towards. Same thing with Mordin; he got a fantastic send-off. I made a choice in Mass Effect 2 to save the genophage cure data, because I believed that would give the best payoff in 3, and it did. Blowing up the Council (accidentally) in 1 was a mistake, and I paid for it in 2. And having it carry over into 3 as well, improved that choice in 1; I actually ended up with an extra ally 'cause I messed up in the first game. And that's a wonderful way my playthrough of the Mass Effect games became so rewarding.

But when so many of the choices made throughout the previous games *don't* have a payoff at the end, that makes those setups worth less. Saving the rachni queen in 1 was a big choice, then, and it had very little payoff in 2. That was a disappointment. And now that the final state of the galaxy doesn't care in any meaningful way if she lives or dies in 3, that makes that original choice in Mass Effect 1 also meaningless. That game is worse now that 3 has proven that that choice is *actually* meaningless, and not like it was in Mass Effect 2 where her brief cameo hinted that it was meaningless now, but was *going* to be important. And then it wasn't. Getting a bonus 100 War Asset points for keeping her alive is not meaningful. I can get that by playing Multiplayer.

And there are a *lot* of characters and factions and solar systems and such that end up not having any meaningful consequences.

Any future playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 and 2 *is* going to be influenced by Mass Effect 3. For some, like choices related to Mordin, Mass Effect 3 made Mass Effect 2 better. For most, however, failing to even attempt to tie up the loose ends makes the first two games worse.

I kept Liara alive through three games, I made her the Shadow Broker, I romanced her in all three games (I did cheat on her with Kelly Chambers, but then again, who didn't), and what happened to the Shepard's One True Love?

Meh, says Mass Effect 3.

"The Indoctrination Theory is actually really clever! It's totally a fantastic ending"

It doesn't tie up any plotlines in any meaningful way. So no.

Also, if BioWare intended this to be what actually happened to Shepard, they did a pretty poor job of getting that across. And if that's a kind of puzzle for the player to figure out, it's a pretty terrible puzzle. I should know, I've designed puzzles that were really bad.

But worst of all: If the true ending to Mass Effect 3 can be summed up as "it's all a dream", then the first step is to add "The Wizard of Oz" to the list of terrible places they stole the ending from.

And then the final step is to realise that apparently, BioWare ARE THE WORST WRITERS OF ANYTHING IN HISTORY.

You don't end stories with "and then it was all just a dream".

I'll end this Great Wall of Text with how I experienced the ending of Mass Effect 3.

Here's a pretty good facsimile of my thoughts as it happened:

"Huh. Uhm. Okay, the beam was to cyborg everyone... And then the one where Anderson was blown up was the one that killed the reapers and also the geth. And then the one that zapped The Illusive Man was the control one. And I don't want to do that, 'cause fuck those Reapers. Having them around can't be good. And that's what The Illusive Man wants to do, and that didn't work out for him that great.

Now, which side was the Anderson one... Left...? Right...? Uhm... Can I ask the kid for the options again... No. Okay... Well... I don't want to kill the geth, I don't mind fucking over EDI, she's even willing to sacrifice herself, but the geth are an awful lot of units with souls, *and* they're helping the quarians so I don't want to bone them up either... Although, *how* does this kill the geth...?

Uhm. I guess I'll go with the Deus Ex option. Or was that Deus Ex: Invisible War? Man, that game was kinda bad. Right, into the beam, Shepard! It's a shame you can't take the Reapers with you!

...Huh. That looks like Christ imagery, but also, uhm... Alien³. Uhm. That's a pretty shitty movie. Oh, I hope this isn't the bad ending that guy on the Amazon User Review mentioned, which is the only thing I've heard about this game because I've been avoiding spoilers.

Okay, green wave spreading across, soldiers cheer at the victory over alien invaders like in Independence Day... Normandy is travelling through a Mass Relay, probably hauling someone away for some reason... Hm, and there it crashed, and Joker and EDI steps out. Well, this isn't anything like Adam and Eve at all. And, wait, Liara? And Javik and... Uh... Didn't Liara *die* earlier? I guess they'll explain more when they show the next cutscene like in Fallout... WHAT!? END CREDITS!? ...Uh. Huh. Huh! Huh... Maybe there's something after the end credits.

Hey, I know that voice, that's Buzz Aldrin. And he's still not learned to be a voice actor since he was on The Simpsons.

Hm, they solved how you get into future DLC a bit more elegantly than Mass Effect 2 just kicking you back to the Normandy...

Wait..

Hang on...

That's *IT*!?

*That's* how they ended Mass Effect 3? Those two cutscenes?

Man, no wonder they're complaining about this ending, if this is the "good" ending and the most difficult one to get. Man, I have to go through the end again to get to the non-joke endings tomorrow."

And then, after playing through to the ending choice the day after...

"Okay, now to get the non-joke ending. Man, that ending yesterday was terrible. Let's see, now that I've evidently taken the wrong choice, let's take the second-wrongest choice so I can save the best choice for last. Controlling the Reapers, that seems like a great idea! I have no compulsions against doing what The Illusive Man wants to do! Zapping Shepard with electricity, that seems awesome! The Reapers are *never* gonna rise up again ever!

...Wait. That's the shot from yesterday, the Independence Day one. Uhm. And that's the wave from yesterday, except blue... Oh. Uh oh. And that's the Normandy traveling through space... Uh... And there the Normandy crashed... And that's EDI and Liara and Tali... And end credits.

Oh. Oh. I... Oh. If... Oh. Oh man.

Destroying the reapers, that can't possibly be *this*, can it? Right, I heard someone mentioning that Shepard survives if you have enough EMS, and I have all of the EMS. Okay, autosave, take me away.

Right. Shoot the fusebox like in Commander Keen V. Don't know why Shepard is walking towards the explosion, seems counterproductive. And... Oh no. That's the Independence Day shot. Except the Reapers are crashing, so it's even more Independent. And then a red wave. And then the Normandy. And then this time, no EDI, that makes sense. Wait. No it doesn't. And then...

Uh, is that guy in N7 armour Shepard? 'Cause that's clearly guy armour. Is it Anderson? That moan *could* be Jennifer Hale, I've heard her moan in games before. Keith David could probably not moan at that pitch. So I guess that's Shepard. And they didn't re-render the video for FemShep, huh.

And that's the end of Mass Effect.

Huh.

Well.

I *see* why the internet is upset about this, yes.

Yes indeed.

Hm...

Hm.

BALLS.

...I hope they fix this with DLC."

P.S. Really sorry about the wall of text, it looked way smaller as I was typing it.

For four hours.

So don't nobody say that fans of Mass Effect never articulated what complaints they had about the ending.

Gosh. I love you. ♥

@Brodehouse said:

You still don't get it. They're not trying to save YOU. They're trying to save organic life in its entirety. Just because the Reapers want to kill all humans, does not mean they want to kill all organic life. Which they clearly do not. If this cycle completed as normal, humans would be dead... but varren, and pyjaks, and dogs, and horses would live on. And eventually one of them would come to evolve into a sentient species, become civilized, master space flight and discover mass effect technology. The cycle will continue in perpetuity, and no organic race will become powerful enough to create an AI that completely erases organic life forever. The difference between the Reapers and the ultimate synthetic creature they fear is that the Reapers have ethical restraint; they see organic life as worth saving at some level, so they will stop at advanced spacefaring life. Without that ethical restraint, they would exterminate the humans, and the varren, and the fish in the sea, and plant life, even bacteria and single-celled life, anything organic they would eliminate to prevent it from being a threat. THAT is the key to its actions. The problem is is that you look at this from the view point of your life and the 100 years you have, or maybe the 6-8 thousand years of human civilization... the star child (and the Reapers) look at it from millions and millions of years. What Sovereign is true "you can't grasp our nature". There's a lot about the Mass Effect ending that doesn't make sense (and more that is just poorly done in a storytelling sense), but this part ABSOLUTELY CHECKS OUT. For real.

I get it just fine dude. I know that they only kill advanced organic life. I'm saying it's a load of bullshit since they don't back up their assertion that A.I.s will try to kill all organic life if organic life continues unabated. The fact that they have restraint at all disapproves their assertion. The fact they exist at all, that any organics exist at all disapproves the assertion. They have absolutely no proof to back up such an idiotic conclusion. On the other side, we have organics winning wars against synthetics, synthetics not wanting to fight organics, synthetics falling in love with organics and synthetics not killing all organics over millions of years.

@CJduke: I like Alexs writing style and find him usually very funny and entertaining. Just my 2 cents seeing as every time an Alex story comes out, so do the inevitable haters. Heres my advice - dont read his stuff. Problem solved. Reminds me of the entitlement people seem to think they deserve regarding ME3; GiantBomb is a community driven site .. lots of members with lots of opinions.

@Goggen240 said:

Warning: Wall of text follows.

While the ending of Mass Effect 3 was hugely disappointing to me, both as a fan of Mass Effect and of good storytelling in games, what I found even *more* disappointing was the horrible gaming press coverage of the entire thing.

BioWare make a game. People complain about the quality of the story, and want it fixed. Specifically, to not be the worst piece of storytelling done by a company that does the *best* storytelling in games.

And not only that, the ending is the single most important story beat in the entire game, and arguably of the entire series. And as rushed and lackluster the game as a whole was, even according to BioWare the ending was improvised in the last month of development. And it shows. Terribly.

And then, anyone complaining is "entitled and whiny".

This is especially disappointing from Giant Bomb. Just a few months earlier, you gave BioWare two awards...

The first award: "Most Disappointing Game of 2011" for Dragon Age II. I was going to write something about how this applies to Mass Effect 3, but I don't need to; if you do a find-and-replace of DA2 for ME3 on the actual award text, you should get it.

"Disappointment can blossom from a number of different sources--your own personal expectations based on the previous entry in a series, or the developer's previous output, promises made during the game's pre-release PR cycle--and no game disappointed quite as thoroughly on all fronts in 2011 as Dragon Age II.

[...]

Even without the BioWare name, or even the relatively freshly minted Dragon Age name to live up to, Dragon Age II is an RPG that feels half-finished, its attempts at scope undermined by pervasive sense of a crushing development deadline. Where they could cut corners, they did. It's hard not to be disappointed when a series goes from so high to so low in just one iteration."

Mass Effect was a real classic, it had its flaws but they were worth overlooking. Mass Effect 2 fixed all those flaws, and expanded on the original in all the right ways, and it stands as one of the top games of this console generation, if not of all time.

People can't even be bothered to talk about Mass Effect 3 a couple of months after release.

And the second award: The “Check Yourself Before You Wriggety-Wreck Yourself” Award for Things That Need to "Take a Break" Before They Become the “Worst Trend” runner-up, for EA's renaming of EA Los Angeles as "BioWare Victory". And this was for watering down BioWare's well-earned name as top storyteller in gaming.

The fact that EA released a lackluster space RPG is a bad enough reason for people to be disappointed.

For it to be BioWare that made it, that makes it *personal*.

Giant Bomb should really be agreeing with the "entitled and whiny fans" for BioWare no longer making great games.

It *should* be unacceptable for BioWare to have screwed up like this!

Now, as for all the fans being this angry rabble that does nothing but cry like babies with impotent rage... Did they really do that?

Here's the list of things I've heard them do:

Complain on the BioWare forums.

Complain about the ending in other places.

Threaten to report EA to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising.

Send multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare.

Collect $80,000 for charity.

Make long-winded videos of YouTube deconstructing the ending.

Send death threats to Casey Hudson on Twitter.

I'll get to the last point, but as for the others: Are those *bad*?

For those complaining that "oh no, here's another place for people to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending"; what the hell are you doing on those threads?

I'd say at least half of the comments on this post, about how people are going to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending, are PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT PEOPLE COMPLAINING about Mass Effect 3's ending.

The people who don't want to talk about Mass Effect 3's ending, are *far* more obnoxious about it than the ones who actually *do*. I haven't seen a single, thought-out, logical, well-reasoned post or comment about why we should stop talking about Mass Effect 3's ending. I've seen a few of those that defend the ending. I've seen a *lot* that critique the ending. But most of what I see is people yelling for everyone to shut the fuck up already.

Can't you just, you know... Not engage in the discussion? Why are most of the comments "I don't even care"...?

It's not that hard to stay away from Mass Effect 3 ending discussions, you know.

And is it bad to complain about false advertising to the appropriate authorities? ...Especially when you actually have a point? Mac Walters *did* say you wouldn't just get a choice between A, B and C (you do). Casey Hudson *did* say the Rachni queen would show up in the ending (she didn't). Casey Hudson, on the Bombcast, said quite clearly that you don't need to play multiplayer to get the "good ending" (you do). Poignantly, once the story blew up Vinny said words to the effect that "didn't he say to our faces that wasn't the case", but the Bomb Crew decided that clearly the fans were wrong.

Now, sending multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare was probably more annoying than clever. (haha, they have different colours, but taste the same, just like Mass Effect 3's ending!) But it's not like it was letter bombs.

And then, somehow, collecting money for charity turned into a bad thing. Somehow, the fans who did that were even worse than the ones that sent death threats to the writers.

And *those* people; they're disgusting. And I don't associate with them. But as disgusting as it is, they were actually less disgusting about it this time around; remember when one of the BioWare writers mentioned that she was more into writing than gaming? In a casual interview, years earlier? And how she was harassed off the internet for it?

And it's not much of an argument, but they probably expected it. People have mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle here and there, and how he was pressured by fans into writing more Sherlock Holmes after he killed the character off. And that was 1903. I would like to add an even better example; Patrick McGoohan ended his TV show The Prisoner with the main character unmasking the villain, who was wearing a gorilla mask, and it turned out the villain was the main character, and then the main character and a lesser villain drove off in a house while singing Dem Bones. And McGoohan received death threats over *that*, in 1968.

(And I've seen that show, and that was a terrible ending, just for the record. But not as bad as Mass Effect 3! At least the end of The Prisoner *fit*. It was a weird show...)

In the grand scheme of things, I think that "complaining about Mass Effect 3's ending" is a dark chapter in internet history.

Not because of all the complaining, except for the disgusting bits.

No, I think it's dark because, for once, people actually sat down and reasoned out why "the final plot point of a story had narrative incoherence", which is a god-damn mature thing for the internet to be upset over, IN A GAME. And then nobody wanted to listen.

Games have really bad endings, I don't know if you've noticed. And finally one came along that was so bad that gamers just wouldn't allow it to happen ever again, and for all the talk about having game "critiques" instead of "reviews", it was such a missed opportunity to have this perfect case study come along of how not to do it, and it's been mostly ignored.

Now, if you've made it this far, and you're curious, here's *my* critique.

The ending was a rushed, hurried mess, and it shows. The game as a whole was unforgivably rushed overall; there was no valid reason they couldn't have delayed it six months more for polish. But the ending is the one point that they *couldn't* get away with screwing up, but they did.

The ending was... Inadequate.

Although I think the game starts falling apart at Thessia, I'll start where the narrative *completely* crumbles.

After the run to the beam, whatever drive and coherence the game had, goes away. (Yes yes, Indoctrination Theory, I'll get to that.)

The walk through the spooky citadel was real... Bad. Purely from a level design perspective, the weirdly textured piles of "stuff" along the sides had no business being in a 2012 game, let alone Mass Effect. I *guess* it was supposed to be decomposing bodies? Or a 64x64 JPEG of that, stretched over a blob of polygons?

If the intent was to have Shepard walk through the horror of what the Reapers were doing, it didn't work. And doing it in an abstract environment you've never been in before certainly didn't help; let's say you'd had piles of decomposing bodies on the Presidium, that would be a bleak and terrible version of something you *know*. And then it morphs into something you don't know. As it is, where on the Citadel *is* this? What's going on? Why are the textures so bad? Why haven't you mentioned the Keepers since the first game, are they important *now* suddenly?

Then you make it to Anderson and the Illusive Man. This chat was also bad. Now, it was supposed to be a reference to how you could talk down Saren in the first game; but the Illusive Man has so much less of a presence in the story that it just feels cheap. You spent all of Mass Effect chasing after Saren, and then you fight Saren, or you can talk him down. With the Illusive Man, you spend the whole game chasing after the Crucible so you can defeat the Reapers and the Illusive Man gets in the way, and then you walk into him and talk him into killing himself. The Illusive Man is *basically* not part of the story, and Cerberus has far to large a part in this game. You fight them as much as the Reapers! A boss fight would actually have helped here; that's how you confront antagonists in video games as a medium, and "dialogue wheel" is not really satisfying *gameplay* for dealing with the assigned antagonist of the series. And it's not even a particularly good dialogue wheel. You either talk him down, or don't, game over. Apparently, the plan was to have a big ol' boss fight with TIM in his lair, but they cut that. Which was bad, because they replaced him with a ninja guy from the books who has absolutely no characterization (and I even *read* the books) and when you *do* confront the "proper" bad guy, it feels terribly out of place, both in narrative, as well as *physically* in the game world.

As for Anderson, he felt oddly out of place. He never struck me as a character that was an integral part of the series; he's the guy who gives you your first job. He's not part of your crew, you don't spend any real time with him, and as awesome as Keith David is, he's just there so that the Illusive Man has someone to shoot that you are *supposed* to care about, but the game gives you no reason to. If that had been a crew member or Joker or someone, that would have been something. If the Illusive Man shot Liara, I'd have cared! Furthermore, the scene is kinda absurd; you can't stop The Illusive Man from shooting Anderson anyway, only influence "how badly" he gets shot. Now, for me, he did not get badly shot, and I liked the scene where he tells Shepard she did good, kid. It was poignant. (Although, having an extended nod towards John Carpenter's The Thing taint the emotional high point of the series is *probably* not appropriate.) But then he just sort of... Stops? Did he die? Fall asleep? What? Once again, the art just didn't hold up well enough. You'd need far better texture work and animation to convey his final death. Or a death rattle sound or *something*. So that was confusing.

Then, Hackett telling Shepard it didn't work. I don't think *this* "worked". Without any sense of a raging battle going on, and then the battle *continuing* to go on, it just sounds like Hackett sent Shepard a voice mail. Other than Shepard sounding completely worn out, which *did* work, I thought that plot turn was kinda comical. "Shepard, uh, did you forget to turn it on or something?" [THE PRICE IS RIGHT LOSING HORN] But, like I said, Shepard being completely at the end of her rope was well done, and well acted even. I liked the "What do you need me to do?". Poor Shepard.

And now for the fun part; the God Child.

I probably didn't mind this as much as most, certainly not at first. The conversation itself went alright for me, but I do remember I stumbled a bit on the part where the kid mentioned that the Geth and EDI would die if you destroyed the Reapers. Now, you could fill in the blanks yourself that this is because both EDI and the Geth use Reaper tech, which would have contrasted nicely with the earlier choice of saving the Geth by allowing Legion to upload Reaper code to them; this is what finally dooms them.

But... The game actually doesn't say this, and I should not have to rely on fan fiction to tell the story, when it would have taken them half a sentence to actually say that. And they did spend half a sentence on something that contradicts itself, the God Child hinting that Shepard would die because she is half synthetic. Uh... How? Are those Reaper implants? Is there Reaper code in Shepard? Those *were* Cerberus implants, and Cerberus did use Reaper tech elsewhere (EDI), but... Shouldn't the game have mentioned at some point that there's a little Reaper in Shepard? The game never says that! And worse, if the implication is that "technology" dies alongside the reapers, that's pretty bleak for pretty much the entire galaxy. Then again, unless this was *meant* to imply that joining synthetic and organic ain't bad, 'cause look at Shepard and Shepard is kinda awesome, so that's an option you could consider! ...But then again, the game never actually says that.

It's really bad that the final dialogue of the game is full of holes. I didn't notice most of those holes at first, but unless you went through that and never noticed *anything* amiss, I don't think it works. From what I guess (and read in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3), the point was for the dialogue to leave out enough of the boring details that you would fill in the blanks yourself; unfortunately, the game doesn't give you the tools to do that. The Codex does *not* explain if Shepard has Reaper tech or not, the Codex does *not* explain how disabling reapers would disable the Geth or EDI, and there's a big parade of other plot holes left by that dialogue that the Internet will happily give you lists of. If you bother to actually read it.

And then the actual choice itself. I chose green, to combine Reaper and synthetic DNA somehow, not because I believed that the Reapers have any reason to continue existing, but that I thought that the geth did, even though I thought it made no sense as part of the choice.

And then the ending was a two-minute cutscene of the reapers landing peacefully, and people cheering like in Independence Day, and then the Normandy crashes on some planet for some reason, and then Joker and EDI step out as if they were Adam and Eve, which is appropriate for the Synthesis ending. And then I settled in for that Animal House ending that these games have, like Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout or what have you, showing what happened to the different characters after the story concluded, showing off the effects that Shepard had on the game world, and the consequences of the choices you made.

...Aaaand then Liara and Tali stepped out, and I'm pretty sure they *died* earlier.

And then the end credits rolled, and then there's a bit with Buzz Aldrin talking about Shepard's legend, which is basically an ad for DLC. And I assumed the internet uproar was because this was the terribly sloppily made ending that was supposed to be a joke ending, and they didn't get it, like accidentally stumbling across the Reptite ending in Chrono Trigger. (If you defeat Lavos at a very specific time, everyone ends up as a dinosaur. Kinda like making everyone a cyborg, and having a clumsy Adam-and-Eve reference. Except it was *supposed* to be a joke.)

And then, after mulling it over for a day, I went back to the autosave and re-did the choice to get the other two endings, the "wrong" one first (controlling the Reapers) and then the "right" one (killing the hell out of the Reapers).

And they were all that same terrible joke ending.

And it's the worst drop in storytelling quality, in games, that I have ever come across. Possibly across any medium.

Now, I didn't expect Deus Ex: Invisible War to have a great ending, 'cause it's kinda a crappy game, and it had a kinda crappy ending. Same with Deus Ex: Human Revolution; neat game, not a terrific storytelling showpiece, ended the way it had been told up until then; clumsily.

But then it's the same exact ending that Mass Effect 3 has, structurally.

And you can just *feel* that they were setting up short cutscene after cutscene of different characters and what they did after the war (yes, like Animal House); Tali returning to Rannoch, Wrex returning to Eve on Tuchanka, Liara pining for the totally dead Shepard, and then towards the end you put the little joke of Joker and EDI as Adam and Eve, appropriate for the Synthesis ending. But then they only had that last one, and put all the other characters in it too because they were probably *supposed* to have one for each character, but didn't, and improvised. Poorly.

Mass Effect 3 was a great story; it was rushed in spots, but it kept up right to the end. Missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch are fantastic examples of interactive storytelling at their best; choices made through three games all came together and led to a variety of outcomes.

And then they completely forget how to write an interactive story at all, in the end.

And then it gets worse; even after they threw together a rushed game and an even more rushed ending, they went on to say how it took all your choices into account, how it wouldn't be a choice between A, B, and C and then credits, and even down to specifics about how you did not need to play multiplayer at all to get the "best" ending. Not to mention how, even before they released Mass Effect *1*, they said that your saves would carry over and it would all build to an epic conclusion that wouldn't need to be compromised in its storytelling, because they were making a trilogy and then nothing more.

And the sum total of impact you can have on the ending to the series, is to choose between "Reapers die", "Reapers leave", "organic life becomes cyborgs", and then a two-minute cutscene and end credits. And another cutscene, pointing out how you should buy the DLC.

There is a grand total of six end states for the entire series. Red 1 (everyone dies), Red 2 (Reapers die), Red 3 (Reapers die, Shepard doesn't), Blue 1 (everyone dies), Blue 2 (Reapers leave) and Green 1 (Everyone becomes a cyborg). That's it. And content-wise, the cutscene only changes in colour, and whether the Reapers fly away or crash.

And then you can only get Red 3 or Green 1 if you play enough multiplayer.

So, here's my take on how Mass Effect 3 ends:

You talk The Illusive Man to death like the end of Mass Effect.

You have a chat with Keith David as he's dying, like the end of The Thing.

You chat to the builder of the machines, like the end of The Matrix Reloaded.

You jump in the beam like in Alien³ leading to the technological singularity ending from Deus Ex: Invisible War, or take control of the Reapers like taking over the big computer at the end of Deus Ex, or you destroy all technology like the end of Deus Ex: Invisible War (again).

And then you have the ending of Independence Day.

And then your crew crashes on an alien planet, like Gilligan's Island.

AND THAT'S IT.

Mass Effect 3 had nothing interesting to say about the end of Mass Effect.

And from a studio that actually understands how to write good stories, the *best* stories in gaming, that's pretty unforgivable. And for them to have not screwed this up before, and suddenly doing it now, is simply shocking.

Mass Effect ended on a cliffhanger for the next game.

Mass Effect 2 ended on a really neat puzzle of figuring out which of your crew members to assign to what so everyone makes it out, followed by a somewhat silly bossfight, followed by a pretty cool cliffhanger for the next game.

Dragon Age: Origins ends on a slightly cheap-looking Animal House ending telling what people did after the war. (My Warden went away with Leliana.)

Dragon Age II, otherwise a trainwreck, ended with Varric finishing off his retelling of what the Champion did and how it affected the world.

Mass Effect 3 just kinda ran out. You talk to the Kid, and then the game tells you nothing meaningful about what happens to any of the characters or factions that you have been deciding the fates of for three games. The most you ever get to hear about any of them, *vefore* the ending, is the War Assets book. Which was interesting, but way too cheap. And when none of that comes up in the ending, that's real bad.

From the time you assault the Cerberus Base, no meaningful changes to the plot happens as a result of any choice you've ever made, with the only exception being the crew members you can say goodbye to before the final push. The Rachni Queen, or the geth and quarians, the asari, the turians, none of that shows up again after you've done with those missions.

All these interestings things are set up, through three games, and none of them paid off.

The last time that any choice you've made, influences the story in any way, is when Miranda does or doesn't survive the encounter with her father. After that; nothin'. And *certainly* not a fulfillment of the promise that every choice you've made affects the ending.

Unless you count the War Assets. And you shouldn't.

Patrick made a blog post about how he wanted to see *his* Mass Effect trilogy story through to the end, even with the mistakes he made in getting Miranda killed. If she did survive Mass Effect 2, and you actually did everything "right" in keeping her alive in Mass Effect 3, her only impact on the ending to the series, after being a main character for the last two games? "25 points". And a phone call. And only 12.5 points if you didn't play multiplayer.

That's not a worthy send-off for any character, and that's all you get for any of them, unless they happen to step off the crashed Normandy in your randomly chosen line-up.

Here's a better example:

My friend, who finished before me, didn't import his previous savegames, and ended up sacrificing the geth to save the quarians. Then he played multiplayer to geth the Effective Military Score up. He got the green ending.

My other friend, who is kind of a jerk, sacrificed Tali to save the geth, and he played some multiplayer to get the EMS up a bit. He got the green ending.

Me, I transferred my saves across four computers in as many years, and because I'm awesome, I saved *both* the geth and the quarians. And then I got the EMS up to 100% just in case.

And then I got the green ending.

For a series where you have been able to make choices that greatly impact the story being told, and a series which had been the prime example of the kind of great storytelling you only *can* do in games, that's just terrible.

And that's why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucks.

As for any loose ends to tie up:

"It's not about the destination, it's the journey!"

You're wrong. The Mass Effect series has, at its core, been about influencing the story through your choices. It's a role playing game. And a pretty good one.

And even if you argue that the geth/quarian conflict, and the krogan genophage, and the fate of the Rachni queen, and so on, are all wrapped up *during* the game, and those count as endings? You're still wrong. The end of the geth/quarian conflict was fantastically told, it depended on your choices through three games, and it had massive implications for the state of the galaxy. But after that story wraps up, the only change to Mass Effect 3 from then on is whether or not Tali is a crew member. You never see the geth, or the quarians again, even though the game says that it's going to. I'm pretty sure that if you save just the quarians, instead of both the quarians and the geth, that only *one* line of dialogue changes. It's a build up to resolving the *real* conflict of the game, and it's a build up-that never pays off. Not a single one of your choices influence anything that happens in the ending, other than if you have enough EMS. And multiplayer influences that just as much as single player, which is disgusting.

"So what if this game sucked, it doesn't make the other games suck less!"

Yes it does.

Playing through Mass Effects 1 and 2, you're constantly reminded of how your choices have consequences. Even for the first half of Mass Effect 3, you still get those consequences presented to you; it sure isn't nice to see Legion die to save the geth and make peace with the quarians, but that's what Mass Effect 2 built towards. Same thing with Mordin; he got a fantastic send-off. I made a choice in Mass Effect 2 to save the genophage cure data, because I believed that would give the best payoff in 3, and it did. Blowing up the Council (accidentally) in 1 was a mistake, and I paid for it in 2. And having it carry over into 3 as well, improved that choice in 1; I actually ended up with an extra ally 'cause I messed up in the first game. And that's a wonderful way my playthrough of the Mass Effect games became so rewarding.

But when so many of the choices made throughout the previous games *don't* have a payoff at the end, that makes those setups worth less. Saving the rachni queen in 1 was a big choice, then, and it had very little payoff in 2. That was a disappointment. And now that the final state of the galaxy doesn't care in any meaningful way if she lives or dies in 3, that makes that original choice in Mass Effect 1 also meaningless. That game is worse now that 3 has proven that that choice is *actually* meaningless, and not like it was in Mass Effect 2 where her brief cameo hinted that it was meaningless now, but was *going* to be important. And then it wasn't. Getting a bonus 100 War Asset points for keeping her alive is not meaningful. I can get that by playing Multiplayer.

And there are a *lot* of characters and factions and solar systems and such that end up not having any meaningful consequences.

Any future playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 and 2 *is* going to be influenced by Mass Effect 3. For some, like choices related to Mordin, Mass Effect 3 made Mass Effect 2 better. For most, however, failing to even attempt to tie up the loose ends makes the first two games worse.

I kept Liara alive through three games, I made her the Shadow Broker, I romanced her in all three games (I did cheat on her with Kelly Chambers, but then again, who didn't), and what happened to the Shepard's One True Love?

Meh, says Mass Effect 3.

"The Indoctrination Theory is actually really clever! It's totally a fantastic ending"

It doesn't tie up any plotlines in any meaningful way. So no.

Also, if BioWare intended this to be what actually happened to Shepard, they did a pretty poor job of getting that across. And if that's a kind of puzzle for the player to figure out, it's a pretty terrible puzzle. I should know, I've designed puzzles that were really bad.

But worst of all: If the true ending to Mass Effect 3 can be summed up as "it's all a dream", then the first step is to add "The Wizard of Oz" to the list of terrible places they stole the ending from.

And then the final step is to realise that apparently, BioWare ARE THE WORST WRITERS OF ANYTHING IN HISTORY.

You don't end stories with "and then it was all just a dream".

I'll end this Great Wall of Text with how I experienced the ending of Mass Effect 3.

Here's a pretty good facsimile of my thoughts as it happened:

"Huh. Uhm. Okay, the beam was to cyborg everyone... And then the one where Anderson was blown up was the one that killed the reapers and also the geth. And then the one that zapped The Illusive Man was the control one. And I don't want to do that, 'cause fuck those Reapers. Having them around can't be good. And that's what The Illusive Man wants to do, and that didn't work out for him that great.

Now, which side was the Anderson one... Left...? Right...? Uhm... Can I ask the kid for the options again... No. Okay... Well... I don't want to kill the geth, I don't mind fucking over EDI, she's even willing to sacrifice herself, but the geth are an awful lot of units with souls, *and* they're helping the quarians so I don't want to bone them up either... Although, *how* does this kill the geth...?

Uhm. I guess I'll go with the Deus Ex option. Or was that Deus Ex: Invisible War? Man, that game was kinda bad. Right, into the beam, Shepard! It's a shame you can't take the Reapers with you!

...Huh. That looks like Christ imagery, but also, uhm... Alien³. Uhm. That's a pretty shitty movie. Oh, I hope this isn't the bad ending that guy on the Amazon User Review mentioned, which is the only thing I've heard about this game because I've been avoiding spoilers.

Okay, green wave spreading across, soldiers cheer at the victory over alien invaders like in Independence Day... Normandy is travelling through a Mass Relay, probably hauling someone away for some reason... Hm, and there it crashed, and Joker and EDI steps out. Well, this isn't anything like Adam and Eve at all. And, wait, Liara? And Javik and... Uh... Didn't Liara *die* earlier? I guess they'll explain more when they show the next cutscene like in Fallout... WHAT!? END CREDITS!? ...Uh. Huh. Huh! Huh... Maybe there's something after the end credits.

Hey, I know that voice, that's Buzz Aldrin. And he's still not learned to be a voice actor since he was on The Simpsons.

Hm, they solved how you get into future DLC a bit more elegantly than Mass Effect 2 just kicking you back to the Normandy...

Wait..

Hang on...

That's *IT*!?

*That's* how they ended Mass Effect 3? Those two cutscenes?

Man, no wonder they're complaining about this ending, if this is the "good" ending and the most difficult one to get. Man, I have to go through the end again to get to the non-joke endings tomorrow."

And then, after playing through to the ending choice the day after...

"Okay, now to get the non-joke ending. Man, that ending yesterday was terrible. Let's see, now that I've evidently taken the wrong choice, let's take the second-wrongest choice so I can save the best choice for last. Controlling the Reapers, that seems like a great idea! I have no compulsions against doing what The Illusive Man wants to do! Zapping Shepard with electricity, that seems awesome! The Reapers are *never* gonna rise up again ever!

...Wait. That's the shot from yesterday, the Independence Day one. Uhm. And that's the wave from yesterday, except blue... Oh. Uh oh. And that's the Normandy traveling through space... Uh... And there the Normandy crashed... And that's EDI and Liara and Tali... And end credits.

Oh. Oh. I... Oh. If... Oh. Oh man.

Destroying the reapers, that can't possibly be *this*, can it? Right, I heard someone mentioning that Shepard survives if you have enough EMS, and I have all of the EMS. Okay, autosave, take me away.

Right. Shoot the fusebox like in Commander Keen V. Don't know why Shepard is walking towards the explosion, seems counterproductive. And... Oh no. That's the Independence Day shot. Except the Reapers are crashing, so it's even more Independent. And then a red wave. And then the Normandy. And then this time, no EDI, that makes sense. Wait. No it doesn't. And then...

Uh, is that guy in N7 armour Shepard? 'Cause that's clearly guy armour. Is it Anderson? That moan *could* be Jennifer Hale, I've heard her moan in games before. Keith David could probably not moan at that pitch. So I guess that's Shepard. And they didn't re-render the video for FemShep, huh.

And that's the end of Mass Effect.

Huh.

Well.

I *see* why the internet is upset about this, yes.

Yes indeed.

Hm...

Hm.

BALLS.

...I hope they fix this with DLC."

P.S. Really sorry about the wall of text, it looked way smaller as I was typing it.

For four hours.

So don't nobody say that fans of Mass Effect never articulated what complaints they had about the ending.

Excellent summation. I sincerely hope a staff member takes the time to read the entirety of this post. Giant Bomb's poor coverage of fan reaction has been the only time I've really felt let down by this site.

Sucks to see my galactic readiness dropped all the way to 50% from 80% last login.

@Goggen240 Man I can't believe I read all that. I'd like to add afew things about choices not mattering. Step one I made Anderson the counselor comes time for mass effect 3 some how udina is the counselor I killed the rachni some how they magically repopulate once again I save the entire crew in 2 and in 3 I basically get one mission or a short chat with each of them that's all.

@WrenchNinja said:

@Brodehouse said:

You still don't get it. They're not trying to save YOU. They're trying to save organic life in its entirety. Just because the Reapers want to kill all humans, does not mean they want to kill all organic life. Which they clearly do not. If this cycle completed as normal, humans would be dead... but varren, and pyjaks, and dogs, and horses would live on. And eventually one of them would come to evolve into a sentient species, become civilized, master space flight and discover mass effect technology. The cycle will continue in perpetuity, and no organic race will become powerful enough to create an AI that completely erases organic life forever. The difference between the Reapers and the ultimate synthetic creature they fear is that the Reapers have ethical restraint; they see organic life as worth saving at some level, so they will stop at advanced spacefaring life. Without that ethical restraint, they would exterminate the humans, and the varren, and the fish in the sea, and plant life, even bacteria and single-celled life, anything organic they would eliminate to prevent it from being a threat. THAT is the key to its actions. The problem is is that you look at this from the view point of your life and the 100 years you have, or maybe the 6-8 thousand years of human civilization... the star child (and the Reapers) look at it from millions and millions of years. What Sovereign is true "you can't grasp our nature". There's a lot about the Mass Effect ending that doesn't make sense (and more that is just poorly done in a storytelling sense), but this part ABSOLUTELY CHECKS OUT. For real.

I get it just fine dude. I know that they only kill advanced organic life. I'm saying it's a load of bullshit since they don't back up their assertion that A.I.s will try to kill all organic life if organic life continues unabated. The fact that they have restraint at all disapproves their assertion. The fact they exist at all, that any organics exist at all disapproves the assertion. They have absolutely no proof to back up such an idiotic conclusion. On the other side, we have organics winning wars against synthetics, synthetics not wanting to fight organics, synthetics falling in love with organics and synthetics not killing all organics over millions of years.

Exactly. Well-put, WrenchNinja.

They made a turd of an ending, even if they polish it up it will still remain a turd. There simply isnt anything they could do with the ending they have that would make me approve it. Its simply just too dumb to be comprehensible. And I dont mean the ending is comprehensible, but that it got passed off as THE ending of an otherwise massively enjoyable gamesaga.

@N7:I'll probably make some kind of blog post about the Extended Cut, once I've played it. (Might finally earn that quest, too!) And I shouldn't clutter up a week-old news post comment thread with walls of text (uh, again).

And hey; it's nice there seems to be popular demand for my opinion, heh.

As for the Extended Cut: I'm actually cautiously optimistic about it. What's wrong with Mass Effect 3 is mostly that the game was rushed; now that the whole studio has spent three months on what's probably an Animal House ending, that probable Animal House ending could be a pretty darn good Animal House ending. Animal House endings are still the best endings we have in games.

And it worked for Dragon Age: Origins.

On the other hand, considering how badly they screwed it up on release, when it *really* counted, they might not be that much better at it this time around. We'll see. ...Tomorrow.

The problem with the Mass Effect 3 endings is not with the devoted fans who felt they were letdown. It's the fault of the game journalists who mock the fans who actually care about the games. Makes you wonder if they even finished the game and saw the ending before giveing it a score? Mayhaps this pushback is the result of reviewers being caught with their pants down?

@Morden2261 said:

@Goggen240 said:

Warning: Wall of text follows.

While the ending of Mass Effect 3 was hugely disappointing to me, both as a fan of Mass Effect and of good storytelling in games, what I found even *more* disappointing was the horrible gaming press coverage of the entire thing.

BioWare make a game. People complain about the quality of the story, and want it fixed. Specifically, to not be the worst piece of storytelling done by a company that does the *best* storytelling in games.

And not only that, the ending is the single most important story beat in the entire game, and arguably of the entire series. And as rushed and lackluster the game as a whole was, even according to BioWare the ending was improvised in the last month of development. And it shows. Terribly.

And then, anyone complaining is "entitled and whiny".

This is especially disappointing from Giant Bomb. Just a few months earlier, you gave BioWare two awards...

The first award: "Most Disappointing Game of 2011" for Dragon Age II. I was going to write something about how this applies to Mass Effect 3, but I don't need to; if you do a find-and-replace of DA2 for ME3 on the actual award text, you should get it.

"Disappointment can blossom from a number of different sources--your own personal expectations based on the previous entry in a series, or the developer's previous output, promises made during the game's pre-release PR cycle--and no game disappointed quite as thoroughly on all fronts in 2011 as Dragon Age II.

[...]

Even without the BioWare name, or even the relatively freshly minted Dragon Age name to live up to, Dragon Age II is an RPG that feels half-finished, its attempts at scope undermined by pervasive sense of a crushing development deadline. Where they could cut corners, they did. It's hard not to be disappointed when a series goes from so high to so low in just one iteration."

Mass Effect was a real classic, it had its flaws but they were worth overlooking. Mass Effect 2 fixed all those flaws, and expanded on the original in all the right ways, and it stands as one of the top games of this console generation, if not of all time.

People can't even be bothered to talk about Mass Effect 3 a couple of months after release.

And the second award: The “Check Yourself Before You Wriggety-Wreck Yourself” Award for Things That Need to "Take a Break" Before They Become the “Worst Trend” runner-up, for EA's renaming of EA Los Angeles as "BioWare Victory". And this was for watering down BioWare's well-earned name as top storyteller in gaming.

The fact that EA released a lackluster space RPG is a bad enough reason for people to be disappointed.

For it to be BioWare that made it, that makes it *personal*.

Giant Bomb should really be agreeing with the "entitled and whiny fans" for BioWare no longer making great games.

It *should* be unacceptable for BioWare to have screwed up like this!

Now, as for all the fans being this angry rabble that does nothing but cry like babies with impotent rage... Did they really do that?

Here's the list of things I've heard them do:

Complain on the BioWare forums.

Complain about the ending in other places.

Threaten to report EA to the Better Business Bureau for false advertising.

Send multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare.

Collect $80,000 for charity.

Make long-winded videos of YouTube deconstructing the ending.

Send death threats to Casey Hudson on Twitter.

I'll get to the last point, but as for the others: Are those *bad*?

For those complaining that "oh no, here's another place for people to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending"; what the hell are you doing on those threads?

I'd say at least half of the comments on this post, about how people are going to complain about Mass Effect 3's ending, are PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT PEOPLE COMPLAINING about Mass Effect 3's ending.

The people who don't want to talk about Mass Effect 3's ending, are *far* more obnoxious about it than the ones who actually *do*. I haven't seen a single, thought-out, logical, well-reasoned post or comment about why we should stop talking about Mass Effect 3's ending. I've seen a few of those that defend the ending. I've seen a *lot* that critique the ending. But most of what I see is people yelling for everyone to shut the fuck up already.

Can't you just, you know... Not engage in the discussion? Why are most of the comments "I don't even care"...?

It's not that hard to stay away from Mass Effect 3 ending discussions, you know.

And is it bad to complain about false advertising to the appropriate authorities? ...Especially when you actually have a point? Mac Walters *did* say you wouldn't just get a choice between A, B and C (you do). Casey Hudson *did* say the Rachni queen would show up in the ending (she didn't). Casey Hudson, on the Bombcast, said quite clearly that you don't need to play multiplayer to get the "good ending" (you do). Poignantly, once the story blew up Vinny said words to the effect that "didn't he say to our faces that wasn't the case", but the Bomb Crew decided that clearly the fans were wrong.

Now, sending multi-coloured cupcakes to BioWare was probably more annoying than clever. (haha, they have different colours, but taste the same, just like Mass Effect 3's ending!) But it's not like it was letter bombs.

And then, somehow, collecting money for charity turned into a bad thing. Somehow, the fans who did that were even worse than the ones that sent death threats to the writers.

And *those* people; they're disgusting. And I don't associate with them. But as disgusting as it is, they were actually less disgusting about it this time around; remember when one of the BioWare writers mentioned that she was more into writing than gaming? In a casual interview, years earlier? And how she was harassed off the internet for it?

And it's not much of an argument, but they probably expected it. People have mentioned Arthur Conan Doyle here and there, and how he was pressured by fans into writing more Sherlock Holmes after he killed the character off. And that was 1903. I would like to add an even better example; Patrick McGoohan ended his TV show The Prisoner with the main character unmasking the villain, who was wearing a gorilla mask, and it turned out the villain was the main character, and then the main character and a lesser villain drove off in a house while singing Dem Bones. And McGoohan received death threats over *that*, in 1968.

(And I've seen that show, and that was a terrible ending, just for the record. But not as bad as Mass Effect 3! At least the end of The Prisoner *fit*. It was a weird show...)

In the grand scheme of things, I think that "complaining about Mass Effect 3's ending" is a dark chapter in internet history.

Not because of all the complaining, except for the disgusting bits.

No, I think it's dark because, for once, people actually sat down and reasoned out why "the final plot point of a story had narrative incoherence", which is a god-damn mature thing for the internet to be upset over, IN A GAME. And then nobody wanted to listen.

Games have really bad endings, I don't know if you've noticed. And finally one came along that was so bad that gamers just wouldn't allow it to happen ever again, and for all the talk about having game "critiques" instead of "reviews", it was such a missed opportunity to have this perfect case study come along of how not to do it, and it's been mostly ignored.

Now, if you've made it this far, and you're curious, here's *my* critique.

The ending was a rushed, hurried mess, and it shows. The game as a whole was unforgivably rushed overall; there was no valid reason they couldn't have delayed it six months more for polish. But the ending is the one point that they *couldn't* get away with screwing up, but they did.

The ending was... Inadequate.

Although I think the game starts falling apart at Thessia, I'll start where the narrative *completely* crumbles.

After the run to the beam, whatever drive and coherence the game had, goes away. (Yes yes, Indoctrination Theory, I'll get to that.)

The walk through the spooky citadel was real... Bad. Purely from a level design perspective, the weirdly textured piles of "stuff" along the sides had no business being in a 2012 game, let alone Mass Effect. I *guess* it was supposed to be decomposing bodies? Or a 64x64 JPEG of that, stretched over a blob of polygons?

If the intent was to have Shepard walk through the horror of what the Reapers were doing, it didn't work. And doing it in an abstract environment you've never been in before certainly didn't help; let's say you'd had piles of decomposing bodies on the Presidium, that would be a bleak and terrible version of something you *know*. And then it morphs into something you don't know. As it is, where on the Citadel *is* this? What's going on? Why are the textures so bad? Why haven't you mentioned the Keepers since the first game, are they important *now* suddenly?

Then you make it to Anderson and the Illusive Man. This chat was also bad. Now, it was supposed to be a reference to how you could talk down Saren in the first game; but the Illusive Man has so much less of a presence in the story that it just feels cheap. You spent all of Mass Effect chasing after Saren, and then you fight Saren, or you can talk him down. With the Illusive Man, you spend the whole game chasing after the Crucible so you can defeat the Reapers and the Illusive Man gets in the way, and then you walk into him and talk him into killing himself. The Illusive Man is *basically* not part of the story, and Cerberus has far to large a part in this game. You fight them as much as the Reapers! A boss fight would actually have helped here; that's how you confront antagonists in video games as a medium, and "dialogue wheel" is not really satisfying *gameplay* for dealing with the assigned antagonist of the series. And it's not even a particularly good dialogue wheel. You either talk him down, or don't, game over. Apparently, the plan was to have a big ol' boss fight with TIM in his lair, but they cut that. Which was bad, because they replaced him with a ninja guy from the books who has absolutely no characterization (and I even *read* the books) and when you *do* confront the "proper" bad guy, it feels terribly out of place, both in narrative, as well as *physically* in the game world.

As for Anderson, he felt oddly out of place. He never struck me as a character that was an integral part of the series; he's the guy who gives you your first job. He's not part of your crew, you don't spend any real time with him, and as awesome as Keith David is, he's just there so that the Illusive Man has someone to shoot that you are *supposed* to care about, but the game gives you no reason to. If that had been a crew member or Joker or someone, that would have been something. If the Illusive Man shot Liara, I'd have cared! Furthermore, the scene is kinda absurd; you can't stop The Illusive Man from shooting Anderson anyway, only influence "how badly" he gets shot. Now, for me, he did not get badly shot, and I liked the scene where he tells Shepard she did good, kid. It was poignant. (Although, having an extended nod towards John Carpenter's The Thing taint the emotional high point of the series is *probably* not appropriate.) But then he just sort of... Stops? Did he die? Fall asleep? What? Once again, the art just didn't hold up well enough. You'd need far better texture work and animation to convey his final death. Or a death rattle sound or *something*. So that was confusing.

Then, Hackett telling Shepard it didn't work. I don't think *this* "worked". Without any sense of a raging battle going on, and then the battle *continuing* to go on, it just sounds like Hackett sent Shepard a voice mail. Other than Shepard sounding completely worn out, which *did* work, I thought that plot turn was kinda comical. "Shepard, uh, did you forget to turn it on or something?" [THE PRICE IS RIGHT LOSING HORN] But, like I said, Shepard being completely at the end of her rope was well done, and well acted even. I liked the "What do you need me to do?". Poor Shepard.

And now for the fun part; the God Child.

I probably didn't mind this as much as most, certainly not at first. The conversation itself went alright for me, but I do remember I stumbled a bit on the part where the kid mentioned that the Geth and EDI would die if you destroyed the Reapers. Now, you could fill in the blanks yourself that this is because both EDI and the Geth use Reaper tech, which would have contrasted nicely with the earlier choice of saving the Geth by allowing Legion to upload Reaper code to them; this is what finally dooms them.

But... The game actually doesn't say this, and I should not have to rely on fan fiction to tell the story, when it would have taken them half a sentence to actually say that. And they did spend half a sentence on something that contradicts itself, the God Child hinting that Shepard would die because she is half synthetic. Uh... How? Are those Reaper implants? Is there Reaper code in Shepard? Those *were* Cerberus implants, and Cerberus did use Reaper tech elsewhere (EDI), but... Shouldn't the game have mentioned at some point that there's a little Reaper in Shepard? The game never says that! And worse, if the implication is that "technology" dies alongside the reapers, that's pretty bleak for pretty much the entire galaxy. Then again, unless this was *meant* to imply that joining synthetic and organic ain't bad, 'cause look at Shepard and Shepard is kinda awesome, so that's an option you could consider! ...But then again, the game never actually says that.

It's really bad that the final dialogue of the game is full of holes. I didn't notice most of those holes at first, but unless you went through that and never noticed *anything* amiss, I don't think it works. From what I guess (and read in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3), the point was for the dialogue to leave out enough of the boring details that you would fill in the blanks yourself; unfortunately, the game doesn't give you the tools to do that. The Codex does *not* explain if Shepard has Reaper tech or not, the Codex does *not* explain how disabling reapers would disable the Geth or EDI, and there's a big parade of other plot holes left by that dialogue that the Internet will happily give you lists of. If you bother to actually read it.

And then the actual choice itself. I chose green, to combine Reaper and synthetic DNA somehow, not because I believed that the Reapers have any reason to continue existing, but that I thought that the geth did, even though I thought it made no sense as part of the choice.

And then the ending was a two-minute cutscene of the reapers landing peacefully, and people cheering like in Independence Day, and then the Normandy crashes on some planet for some reason, and then Joker and EDI step out as if they were Adam and Eve, which is appropriate for the Synthesis ending. And then I settled in for that Animal House ending that these games have, like Dragon Age: Origins or Fallout or what have you, showing what happened to the different characters after the story concluded, showing off the effects that Shepard had on the game world, and the consequences of the choices you made.

...Aaaand then Liara and Tali stepped out, and I'm pretty sure they *died* earlier.

And then the end credits rolled, and then there's a bit with Buzz Aldrin talking about Shepard's legend, which is basically an ad for DLC. And I assumed the internet uproar was because this was the terribly sloppily made ending that was supposed to be a joke ending, and they didn't get it, like accidentally stumbling across the Reptite ending in Chrono Trigger. (If you defeat Lavos at a very specific time, everyone ends up as a dinosaur. Kinda like making everyone a cyborg, and having a clumsy Adam-and-Eve reference. Except it was *supposed* to be a joke.)

And then, after mulling it over for a day, I went back to the autosave and re-did the choice to get the other two endings, the "wrong" one first (controlling the Reapers) and then the "right" one (killing the hell out of the Reapers).

And they were all that same terrible joke ending.

And it's the worst drop in storytelling quality, in games, that I have ever come across. Possibly across any medium.

Now, I didn't expect Deus Ex: Invisible War to have a great ending, 'cause it's kinda a crappy game, and it had a kinda crappy ending. Same with Deus Ex: Human Revolution; neat game, not a terrific storytelling showpiece, ended the way it had been told up until then; clumsily.

But then it's the same exact ending that Mass Effect 3 has, structurally.

And you can just *feel* that they were setting up short cutscene after cutscene of different characters and what they did after the war (yes, like Animal House); Tali returning to Rannoch, Wrex returning to Eve on Tuchanka, Liara pining for the totally dead Shepard, and then towards the end you put the little joke of Joker and EDI as Adam and Eve, appropriate for the Synthesis ending. But then they only had that last one, and put all the other characters in it too because they were probably *supposed* to have one for each character, but didn't, and improvised. Poorly.

Mass Effect 3 was a great story; it was rushed in spots, but it kept up right to the end. Missions like Tuchanka and Rannoch are fantastic examples of interactive storytelling at their best; choices made through three games all came together and led to a variety of outcomes.

And then they completely forget how to write an interactive story at all, in the end.

And then it gets worse; even after they threw together a rushed game and an even more rushed ending, they went on to say how it took all your choices into account, how it wouldn't be a choice between A, B, and C and then credits, and even down to specifics about how you did not need to play multiplayer at all to get the "best" ending. Not to mention how, even before they released Mass Effect *1*, they said that your saves would carry over and it would all build to an epic conclusion that wouldn't need to be compromised in its storytelling, because they were making a trilogy and then nothing more.

And the sum total of impact you can have on the ending to the series, is to choose between "Reapers die", "Reapers leave", "organic life becomes cyborgs", and then a two-minute cutscene and end credits. And another cutscene, pointing out how you should buy the DLC.

There is a grand total of six end states for the entire series. Red 1 (everyone dies), Red 2 (Reapers die), Red 3 (Reapers die, Shepard doesn't), Blue 1 (everyone dies), Blue 2 (Reapers leave) and Green 1 (Everyone becomes a cyborg). That's it. And content-wise, the cutscene only changes in colour, and whether the Reapers fly away or crash.

And then you can only get Red 3 or Green 1 if you play enough multiplayer.

So, here's my take on how Mass Effect 3 ends:

You talk The Illusive Man to death like the end of Mass Effect.

You have a chat with Keith David as he's dying, like the end of The Thing.

You chat to the builder of the machines, like the end of The Matrix Reloaded.

You jump in the beam like in Alien³ leading to the technological singularity ending from Deus Ex: Invisible War, or take control of the Reapers like taking over the big computer at the end of Deus Ex, or you destroy all technology like the end of Deus Ex: Invisible War (again).

And then you have the ending of Independence Day.

And then your crew crashes on an alien planet, like Gilligan's Island.

AND THAT'S IT.

Mass Effect 3 had nothing interesting to say about the end of Mass Effect.

And from a studio that actually understands how to write good stories, the *best* stories in gaming, that's pretty unforgivable. And for them to have not screwed this up before, and suddenly doing it now, is simply shocking.

Mass Effect ended on a cliffhanger for the next game.

Mass Effect 2 ended on a really neat puzzle of figuring out which of your crew members to assign to what so everyone makes it out, followed by a somewhat silly bossfight, followed by a pretty cool cliffhanger for the next game.

Dragon Age: Origins ends on a slightly cheap-looking Animal House ending telling what people did after the war. (My Warden went away with Leliana.)

Dragon Age II, otherwise a trainwreck, ended with Varric finishing off his retelling of what the Champion did and how it affected the world.

Mass Effect 3 just kinda ran out. You talk to the Kid, and then the game tells you nothing meaningful about what happens to any of the characters or factions that you have been deciding the fates of for three games. The most you ever get to hear about any of them, *vefore* the ending, is the War Assets book. Which was interesting, but way too cheap. And when none of that comes up in the ending, that's real bad.

From the time you assault the Cerberus Base, no meaningful changes to the plot happens as a result of any choice you've ever made, with the only exception being the crew members you can say goodbye to before the final push. The Rachni Queen, or the geth and quarians, the asari, the turians, none of that shows up again after you've done with those missions.

All these interestings things are set up, through three games, and none of them paid off.

The last time that any choice you've made, influences the story in any way, is when Miranda does or doesn't survive the encounter with her father. After that; nothin'. And *certainly* not a fulfillment of the promise that every choice you've made affects the ending.

Unless you count the War Assets. And you shouldn't.

Patrick made a blog post about how he wanted to see *his* Mass Effect trilogy story through to the end, even with the mistakes he made in getting Miranda killed. If she did survive Mass Effect 2, and you actually did everything "right" in keeping her alive in Mass Effect 3, her only impact on the ending to the series, after being a main character for the last two games? "25 points". And a phone call. And only 12.5 points if you didn't play multiplayer.

That's not a worthy send-off for any character, and that's all you get for any of them, unless they happen to step off the crashed Normandy in your randomly chosen line-up.

Here's a better example:

My friend, who finished before me, didn't import his previous savegames, and ended up sacrificing the geth to save the quarians. Then he played multiplayer to geth the Effective Military Score up. He got the green ending.

My other friend, who is kind of a jerk, sacrificed Tali to save the geth, and he played some multiplayer to get the EMS up a bit. He got the green ending.

Me, I transferred my saves across four computers in as many years, and because I'm awesome, I saved *both* the geth and the quarians. And then I got the EMS up to 100% just in case.

And then I got the green ending.

For a series where you have been able to make choices that greatly impact the story being told, and a series which had been the prime example of the kind of great storytelling you only *can* do in games, that's just terrible.

And that's why the ending of Mass Effect 3 sucks.

As for any loose ends to tie up:

"It's not about the destination, it's the journey!"

You're wrong. The Mass Effect series has, at its core, been about influencing the story through your choices. It's a role playing game. And a pretty good one.

And even if you argue that the geth/quarian conflict, and the krogan genophage, and the fate of the Rachni queen, and so on, are all wrapped up *during* the game, and those count as endings? You're still wrong. The end of the geth/quarian conflict was fantastically told, it depended on your choices through three games, and it had massive implications for the state of the galaxy. But after that story wraps up, the only change to Mass Effect 3 from then on is whether or not Tali is a crew member. You never see the geth, or the quarians again, even though the game says that it's going to. I'm pretty sure that if you save just the quarians, instead of both the quarians and the geth, that only *one* line of dialogue changes. It's a build up to resolving the *real* conflict of the game, and it's a build up-that never pays off. Not a single one of your choices influence anything that happens in the ending, other than if you have enough EMS. And multiplayer influences that just as much as single player, which is disgusting.

"So what if this game sucked, it doesn't make the other games suck less!"

Yes it does.

Playing through Mass Effects 1 and 2, you're constantly reminded of how your choices have consequences. Even for the first half of Mass Effect 3, you still get those consequences presented to you; it sure isn't nice to see Legion die to save the geth and make peace with the quarians, but that's what Mass Effect 2 built towards. Same thing with Mordin; he got a fantastic send-off. I made a choice in Mass Effect 2 to save the genophage cure data, because I believed that would give the best payoff in 3, and it did. Blowing up the Council (accidentally) in 1 was a mistake, and I paid for it in 2. And having it carry over into 3 as well, improved that choice in 1; I actually ended up with an extra ally 'cause I messed up in the first game. And that's a wonderful way my playthrough of the Mass Effect games became so rewarding.

But when so many of the choices made throughout the previous games *don't* have a payoff at the end, that makes those setups worth less. Saving the rachni queen in 1 was a big choice, then, and it had very little payoff in 2. That was a disappointment. And now that the final state of the galaxy doesn't care in any meaningful way if she lives or dies in 3, that makes that original choice in Mass Effect 1 also meaningless. That game is worse now that 3 has proven that that choice is *actually* meaningless, and not like it was in Mass Effect 2 where her brief cameo hinted that it was meaningless now, but was *going* to be important. And then it wasn't. Getting a bonus 100 War Asset points for keeping her alive is not meaningful. I can get that by playing Multiplayer.

And there are a *lot* of characters and factions and solar systems and such that end up not having any meaningful consequences.

Any future playthroughs of Mass Effect 1 and 2 *is* going to be influenced by Mass Effect 3. For some, like choices related to Mordin, Mass Effect 3 made Mass Effect 2 better. For most, however, failing to even attempt to tie up the loose ends makes the first two games worse.

I kept Liara alive through three games, I made her the Shadow Broker, I romanced her in all three games (I did cheat on her with Kelly Chambers, but then again, who didn't), and what happened to the Shepard's One True Love?

Meh, says Mass Effect 3.

"The Indoctrination Theory is actually really clever! It's totally a fantastic ending"

It doesn't tie up any plotlines in any meaningful way. So no.

Also, if BioWare intended this to be what actually happened to Shepard, they did a pretty poor job of getting that across. And if that's a kind of puzzle for the player to figure out, it's a pretty terrible puzzle. I should know, I've designed puzzles that were really bad.

But worst of all: If the true ending to Mass Effect 3 can be summed up as "it's all a dream", then the first step is to add "The Wizard of Oz" to the list of terrible places they stole the ending from.

And then the final step is to realise that apparently, BioWare ARE THE WORST WRITERS OF ANYTHING IN HISTORY.

You don't end stories with "and then it was all just a dream".

I'll end this Great Wall of Text with how I experienced the ending of Mass Effect 3.

Here's a pretty good facsimile of my thoughts as it happened:

"Huh. Uhm. Okay, the beam was to cyborg everyone... And then the one where Anderson was blown up was the one that killed the reapers and also the geth. And then the one that zapped The Illusive Man was the control one. And I don't want to do that, 'cause fuck those Reapers. Having them around can't be good. And that's what The Illusive Man wants to do, and that didn't work out for him that great.

Now, which side was the Anderson one... Left...? Right...? Uhm... Can I ask the kid for the options again... No. Okay... Well... I don't want to kill the geth, I don't mind fucking over EDI, she's even willing to sacrifice herself, but the geth are an awful lot of units with souls, *and* they're helping the quarians so I don't want to bone them up either... Although, *how* does this kill the geth...?

Uhm. I guess I'll go with the Deus Ex option. Or was that Deus Ex: Invisible War? Man, that game was kinda bad. Right, into the beam, Shepard! It's a shame you can't take the Reapers with you!

...Huh. That looks like Christ imagery, but also, uhm... Alien³. Uhm. That's a pretty shitty movie. Oh, I hope this isn't the bad ending that guy on the Amazon User Review mentioned, which is the only thing I've heard about this game because I've been avoiding spoilers.

Okay, green wave spreading across, soldiers cheer at the victory over alien invaders like in Independence Day... Normandy is travelling through a Mass Relay, probably hauling someone away for some reason... Hm, and there it crashed, and Joker and EDI steps out. Well, this isn't anything like Adam and Eve at all. And, wait, Liara? And Javik and... Uh... Didn't Liara *die* earlier? I guess they'll explain more when they show the next cutscene like in Fallout... WHAT!? END CREDITS!? ...Uh. Huh. Huh! Huh... Maybe there's something after the end credits.

Hey, I know that voice, that's Buzz Aldrin. And he's still not learned to be a voice actor since he was on The Simpsons.

Hm, they solved how you get into future DLC a bit more elegantly than Mass Effect 2 just kicking you back to the Normandy...

Wait..

Hang on...

That's *IT*!?

*That's* how they ended Mass Effect 3? Those two cutscenes?

Man, no wonder they're complaining about this ending, if this is the "good" ending and the most difficult one to get. Man, I have to go through the end again to get to the non-joke endings tomorrow."

And then, after playing through to the ending choice the day after...

"Okay, now to get the non-joke ending. Man, that ending yesterday was terrible. Let's see, now that I've evidently taken the wrong choice, let's take the second-wrongest choice so I can save the best choice for last. Controlling the Reapers, that seems like a great idea! I have no compulsions against doing what The Illusive Man wants to do! Zapping Shepard with electricity, that seems awesome! The Reapers are *never* gonna rise up again ever!

...Wait. That's the shot from yesterday, the Independence Day one. Uhm. And that's the wave from yesterday, except blue... Oh. Uh oh. And that's the Normandy traveling through space... Uh... And there the Normandy crashed... And that's EDI and Liara and Tali... And end credits.

Oh. Oh. I... Oh. If... Oh. Oh man.

Destroying the reapers, that can't possibly be *this*, can it? Right, I heard someone mentioning that Shepard survives if you have enough EMS, and I have all of the EMS. Okay, autosave, take me away.

Right. Shoot the fusebox like in Commander Keen V. Don't know why Shepard is walking towards the explosion, seems counterproductive. And... Oh no. That's the Independence Day shot. Except the Reapers are crashing, so it's even more Independent. And then a red wave. And then the Normandy. And then this time, no EDI, that makes sense. Wait. No it doesn't. And then...

Uh, is that guy in N7 armour Shepard? 'Cause that's clearly guy armour. Is it Anderson? That moan *could* be Jennifer Hale, I've heard her moan in games before. Keith David could probably not moan at that pitch. So I guess that's Shepard. And they didn't re-render the video for FemShep, huh.

And that's the end of Mass Effect.

Huh.

Well.

I *see* why the internet is upset about this, yes.

Yes indeed.

Hm...

Hm.

BALLS.

...I hope they fix this with DLC."

P.S. Really sorry about the wall of text, it looked way smaller as I was typing it.

For four hours.

So don't nobody say that fans of Mass Effect never articulated what complaints they had about the ending.

Excellent summation. I sincerely hope a staff member takes the time to read the entirety of this post. Giant Bomb's poor coverage of fan reaction has been the only time I've really felt let down by this site.

Hear! Hear! Most excellent summation of fans legit gripes. Giant Bomb's handling of this story has been embarrassing.

@darkdragonmage99 said:

@Goggen240 Man I can't believe I read all that. I'd like to add afew things about choices not mattering. Step one I made Anderson the counselor comes time for mass effect 3 some how udina is the counselor I killed the rachni some how they magically repopulate once again I save the entire crew in 2 and in 3 I basically get one mission or a short chat with each of them that's all.

1: Anderson

Udina ends up as the councilor by default in Mass Effect 2, because Udina is the councilor in the books. It's a pretty bad reason, but at least I think there's *some* mention of it in Mass Effect 2. I think he said he didn't like being councilor. And for the record, I chose Anderson too.

2: Rachni Queen

Regardless of whether you destroy or save the Rachni Queen in Mass Effect, Reaperified rachni show up. If you *saved* the Queen in the first game, she will have been captured by the Reapers; you can save or destroy her again, and if you save her, you get some assistance on the Crucible Project worth 100 War Asset Points(tm) at the loss of Aralakh Company.

On the other hand, if you *didn't* save the Queen in the first game, the Reapers will have genetically engineered an impostor queen to make more rachni. Save *her*, and her minions will destroy a lot of stuff on the Crucible, costing you points.

The Rachni Queen subplot was really cheaply handled, *although* not as cheap as it was in 2, where some asari shows up and says 'hi', and that's it. One of the big hopes (and promises) of the Extended Cut is that you get to see friendly rachni in the final battle, or get to see unfriendly rachni screw things up. And *not* just a text entry and an arbitrary score attached.

Although, my guess is that when they introduced these choices in Mass Effect 1 (both councilor and Rachni Queen), they hadn't actually planned out where those choices would go in Mass Effects 2 and 3, and as it turns out, they went nowhere. Which is arguably fine; they probably did more with soldier Anderson in Mass Effect 3 than they ever could have with "councilor Anderson". On the other hand, those choices were fundamentally meaningless in the first game, retroactively.

3: Side characters

Yep, those characters were pretty much abandoned. My guess is that they'd planned out 1 mission per character, but when so many of even the main missions were cut down (by rushing the game), any meaningful interaction with main characters from earlier games fell away too. *Most* of them, though, actually have missions associated with them; Jack's mission was neat, Legion and Tali are key on Rannoch, Miranda is involved on Sanctuary. ...But then you have Jacob standing around on the hospital for the last 2/3 of the game, doing nothing. And Jack disappears, along with her elite squad of elite biotics with elite powers that sounded very elite, but which did not actually show up anywhere else for the rest of the game.

And that was the real missed opportunity of the ending, and the *hopes* I think most have for the Extended Cut; seeing all your friends and allies kick ass before the end. Or, at least, go out fighting. Grunt's "death" when I chose to save Rachni Queen was pretty awesome, and then he even more awesomely survived... And then he awelessly disappeared for the entire rest of the game, not to be mentioned again.

One phone call and then nothing more before the end credits roll was *not* an adequate send-off for characters you've been fighting alongside for three games. That sucked.

Let's hope the Extended Cut sucks less.

I never had a big issue with the ending. Most movies/games/books don't really end well, so I wasn't disappointed. Could it have been better? Sure. Do I know how to make it better. No.

So it's fine by me that they're adding shit since I'll probably wait until all the DLC and such is out and Bioware has moved on then I'll begin the whole series from the ME1 with all the DLC possible and see how much it has changed and if I like it more than I did without any DLC.

So can I apply this to a game already in progress? If I'm halfway through I a playthrough it doesn't need to be restarted does it?

@YoThatLimp: Yep. The game reverts to the save before Cerberus HQ when you finish the game. So, unless they have a way to just show you the new stuff (which would mean that the game actually remembers the ending you chose), I hope you enjoy playing the last 4 hours of the game all over again (yes, it is about 4 hours. I bloody well counted. As much as I love ME3, everything on London before the suicide run was a real slog)!

I was hoping it wasn't a new ending and actual new little scanning missions with reaper artifacts saying "The illusive man is right."