WVUEers

Honestly I thought the ending was out of character for the series. The entire series has been pretty straight forward and then they decide to go all sort of meta and philosophical in the last one, not to mention the concept of chaos and order (which was never really explained all that well IMO) was only really brought up in the later half of the game (unless I'm mistaken) and that to me seems cheap.

Honestly though here is my biggest gripe with the endings, lack of closure. For a series that prided itself on building character relationships it seems stupid that they kind of just abandon that in the end of a trilogy for an artsy pull out. What the fuck? My Shepard had all these friendships and romances and shit, i want to see how people got on after I was gone. I wanted to see my true impact in the galaxy (which was kind of the fucking point of the game, right?)

My other beef is that for having 3 endings, they're all kind of the same. I mean sure they're different, but nah, not really. Again elaboration could have aided this. Show me the consequences of my choice. Rather than the old the old "Use your imagination..." cop out (which honestly is an old writers trick to get out of something when you've written yourself into a corner in terms of creativity) I would have loved to see the true effects of what I did.

I'm just bummed that I spend 5 years building my Shep, crafting his universe, forging relationships, and then I'm left with this kind of artsy ending. I mean I fancy myself somewhat of a writer, so I appreciate what they attempted. That said, I think writing in games isn't close to what you can get away in TV, movies, or books. For this game you've had some people invest over 5 years and hundreds of hours of playing. They've become engrossed in the series, I don't think that you can get away with thought pondering cliff hanger ending in a game. I think when you ask an audience to put that much effort and time into something they're going to want real closure. You've made your audience work for the story in a game, they've also forged their own tale in some cases (definitely in this one) at that point it's more on the developer to stay consistent with the style being used than to try and serve up some sort of thinker of an ending. Provide closure to everything the gamer has deemed important in his universe, if there are greater issues that over hang the game world, perhaps allow those to carry on and let them ponder that. But in terms of characters and the world? I guess I feel like games should always provide a firm ending.

I'm going to try and play some MP. Last time I played I found myself bored pretty quickly and the game went on for a lengthy period of time for what is an online MP match.

But Jeff said that he doesn't think he maybe got the "best" ending after all.

I had issue with the pacing myself. It's funny because I picked up ME3 release date and didn't listen to the bombcast until days later to avoid spoilers and such and I found myself echoing a lot of Jeff's sentiments. The game kind of starts of with a "HOLY SHIT!" Bang, I think they were kind of trying to match the pull in that ME2 had, but they over shot it. It sets up this whole tense feeling that earth is going to be obliterated in hours. Now apparently the games lore says other wise, but you seriously watch a city pretty much get destroyed in 10 minutes, so it's kind of hard to understand why it would take "Years and years" for that to happen to all of Earth. So right off the bat I kind of felt like, "Well fuck, shit is going down, can't pussy foot this thing." In previous games I think the tone seemed perhaps a little less heavy on the "SHIT IS HAPPENING NOW!" vibe. ME1 I kind of felt like I was more or less playing detective for a a good portion of the game so picking up quests like getting some dude to the front of the line with an Asari hooker (or whatever that shit was) seemed less stupid.

Secondly the way you pick up quests is just lame as shit. I think i've probably completely 100% of the "fetch" quests and I don't think I know the story to any of them, you kind of just magically get them unless you hang around to eaves drop. I don't get why you wouldn't just throw in an interaction of Shep being like "I think I could help you..." etc. It would make the situation less stupid. The N7 quests seem fine. I get the complaint about the generic quality of them, they do have story qualities, but some can be very standard military shooter in things like "Secure comm. base" or whatever. I did all of those too, but none of them ever stuck out to me as not fitting in with the flow of the game. They all seemed to make sense in the general order of things, I think the problem goes back to again the pace set by the game in the very beginning. If it wasn't made to seem like such an urgent thing the idea of Sheperd helping out scientists and shit would make plenty of sense, but again they set this tone that leaves the gamer to feel like "Couldn't some other scrub do this shit? I've got to save the universe". For a 20-30 hour game I really don't enjoy the decision they made to make the entire back drop of the game the destruction, er "war" on earth. I think if they dropped the first 20 minutes into the last 10 hours of the game that would have honestly kicked shit up a notch.

while on the Citadel? Fantastic idea.

Making that map extremely vague? Horrible idea.

Honestly I think I've spent more time searching for people that are supposed to be by a certain area and end up being across the map than anything else. Would it have really been so bad to simply show the player the specific spot on the map the character is?

Nothing against Bioware, but let's be real, very few people play Mass Effect for the gameplay. I've always kind of found the gameplay to be passable, but nothing special or deserving of long winded sessions. (ME2 did make amazing strides in the gun play though, I was honestly bored to tears by ME1's shooting). I play Mass Effect for the story, the characters, the unique story telling device that casts the player into the role of the main character with choices and all that. So I was a bit confused when I kept hearing that to receive the "best" ending a certain amount of multiplayer must be played. I kind of moaned an took one swing at it earlier, honestly it's pretty garbage IMO, wave based survival? Again not one of Mass Effects finer points. So really what I'm asking is how much of this stupid ass multiplayer do I have to suffer through so that I (a person who has played this series since ME1 launched) can get myself the "best" ending?

Jeff said that keeping creative control was a major part in this, the entire GB team seem to be extremely conscious of the plight of journalists who forfeit the control of their work so I would assume that in the contract with CBS Jeff having ultimate say as GB's Editor-In-Chief is a pretty major part. And assuming that the rumor of why he was released from GS is correct then I'm almost certain that he wouldn't have considered agreeing to this deal without fully exploring how free they really are.

GB is being acquired because it's successful, I think it's safe to assume that the only tinkering with GB will be how to further that success by supplementing the site with more features and better technology, not to go back to square one and rebuild. That said in the eyes of the always cynical gaming community GB has in many ways "sold out". Most criticism they'll receive from hence forward will be unavoidable, it will be the cries of those who dislike the idea of their hobbies being "mainstream" or popular. This phenomenon is apparent in television, music, and even games. No matter how true GB remains to their original image they will no doubt have to face critiques of wavering to sponsors and changing their style. It's the sad nature of the best for pretty much any medium, gain awareness and popularity and you will inevitably face backlash.

In the opening scene we basically witness the destruction of a city in less than 10 minutes. And as the game progresses we're constantly reminded that there is very little in regards to defense on earth until the crucible is complete. So I guess my issue is that you flee earth with the general feeling that the entire planet will be decimated in mere hours and then you kind of run errands and pussy foot around for what are hours of real time and what I'm assuming are days (if not weeks) of in game time. The tone they open the game with kind of just feels out of place. I'm not finished with the game but it bothers me to go off and do side quests that are in some ways over all pretty inconsequential while my entire species is eradicated. I kind of feel like Bioware felt they had to open with a bang like they did in ME2 but they kind of went way too big here and it screws up the tone and pacing for the rest of the game. In previous games you're kind of playing detective and while a threat looms over head it doesn't seem necessarily impending until you activate certain late game missions. As a result of that pace I had no problem being like "Sure I'll go arrange for you to see an Asari hooker, why the hell not?" Now I feel like I should always be given the standard option of "Fuck if your son is missing! We're all going to die and I'm the only hope you lazy shit! Maybe ask someone who's not tasked with saving the universe to keep an eye out for your dumb shit kid!"

The more I think about this the more it bothers me, I keep thinking maybe there was a loop hole I didn't think about, but nope.

Ok so in this story arch the dilemma of curing the genophage comes up, and as you prepare for the mission to go spread the cure the Salarian Counselor presents you with an alternative option in which you don't spread the cure but by the time the Krogans realize they would have already helped the war effort. My issue with this whole story line is that I guess i played it too well, I thought it out too politically. I purposefully didn't tell anyone about the sabotage issue with the device that spreads the cure until it was only me and the other Solarian (not-Mordin) at this point he went and sacrificed himself to release the cure. So here's my issue and what my line of thinking was. If the Krogan wouldn't have been able to to tell if the cure worked until after the war effort, wouldn't that also work vice versa? And given that the only other person that knew we really release the cure dies moments after, why couldn't I have just gone back to the counselor and lied? I mean how did he know that I didn't actually follow through with his proposed plan? I know I'm kind of splitting hairs here but it bothered me because I was playing for the double cross the entire time. I made note of when they offered me a chance to confess about the sabotage and those present. I mean I guess it's not that big of a deal, it just seemed like a major over sight in the logic of that plot.