Mass Effect

[Atomic Postman]

****SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE TRILOGY IN THIS POST*******

It's funny, really. Mass Effect has always been one of those things that people keeping chirping on about saying it's a classic and a must-do for a self respecting gamer, in the same fashion that someone would exclaim in horror at the fact that someone they know hasn't seen Star Wars, and would then go onto bothering them about it until they sat down and watched the entire saga on Blu-Ray.

So, that same niggling issue of not having played presented by friends and the whole mass hysteria of Mass Effect 3's ending were my only experiences of Mass Effect before now.

You could say, then, that my expectations were set rather low going into the Trilogy (With all DLC on PC.).

As a side note, I went with a rather default character to experience the game as "Properly" as possible, I went with a Male Soldier with the default Male Shepard face. (Earthborn, Sole Survivor being my background.Paragon being my behavior alignment)

The first Mass Effect (Which I will simply refer to as ME1.) turned out to be a rather pleasant, yet confusing surprise. (I'll get to the confusing part later.)

I very much enjoyed the immersion that ME1 provides in regards to your Character, Shepard. I don't know what it was but I found it rather easy to slip into the role and persona of Shepard.

The setting and Universe of Mass Effect at first seems generic, but unfolded as time went on and became increasingly unique and interesting. The atmosphere was excellent and the story and characters were very well written and interesting, I really enjoyed ME1, even the Mako areas.

The downfall of ME1 would be the gameplay, the combat specifically, which felt incredibly clunky. The inventory and loot system was also particularly frustrating.

Overall, I'd give ME1 a 8/10. Purely for the writing and atmosphere, the gameplay wasn't so fresh.

The sequel, ME2, turned out to be as good if not better in my eyes.

For starters, it had a very strong opening, what with your character just fucking dying in the first five minutes in a very powerful scene.

Mass Effect 2 seemed to address all the issues of it's predecessor, the gameplay was massively improved and the inventory system was streamlined to the point of almost nonexistence. Combat was thrilling and played smoothly and was ultimately very satisfying to play. I also noticed your squadmates were more than just Human/Alien shields too.

The plot of ME2, whilst not as enthralling and interesting as ME1, provided a solid stage for the expansion of the Mass Effect setting, giving some fantastics sets of characters and stories aside from the main plot. Despite the fact that I couldn't go down to every planet and bounce around in a rover like an idiot, I actually felt the exploration in ME2 was better and gave a stronger sense of travelling in a large, living Galaxy.Side quests were a definite improvement specifically, the Side Quest areas, though fewer in number, were actually well designed independent areas as opposed to the same copy pasted four buildings on an empty map as in ME1.

The whole idea of "building a team" was pulled off really well and I actually thought the characters in ME2 were up to par if not better than those presented in ME1. I also felt that Commanding the Normandy felt more immersive, detailed and carried more weight.

Speaking of features carrying more weight, the amount of choice and consequence in Mass Effect 2 is huge, with the whole system of carrying over your character from ME1, minor choices and sidequests actually came into play as larger roles in the sequel. It really made the games feel like one whole story rather than segmented experiences. The final "Suicide Mission" was extremely tense and a fitting finale. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but apparently if you do not receive the Loyalty of all your squadmates, explore the Galaxy sufficiently and get all of the Ship's upgrades and assigned Squad mates their appropriate roles during the finale, all of your crew and numerous members of your team can die, even Shepard can end up dying if you fuck everything up.

Obviously I was very lucky in making all the right choices, gaining all the loyalties of my squad and taking my time to explore and upgrade the Normandy. I can't imagine what it would have been like for other people to see their whole squad die permanently because of mistakes on their part.

Overall fantastic game, I'd give it an 8.5/10.

After completing that, I went onto the infamous Mass Effect 3.

I went in with mixed expectations, and the beginning of the game did not help.

The writing felt way off base, it was so generic and cliche and I felt as if 90% of Dialogue choice had been taken away from me. It also didn't help that in the intro everything happens at once and the Reapers act way out of character and previous description (A result of retcons, as I later discover.)

The game does get better as it progresses though, (The writing is definitely several steps down though.) and there are some absolutely golden and even tear jerking moments scattered throughout (Mordin Solus curing the Genophage, I'm looking at you).

The combat and gameplay is easily the best of the three though, with the RPG elements actually being more indepth and generally improved from Mass Effect 2. The combat is intense and fun, I particularly like the ability to perform Dark Souls esque rolls on the battle field. The inventory and loot system from ME1 also makes a return, albeit in a totally redesigned and much less head aching inducing form.

The DLCs were enjoyable, Citadel specifically (Which served as both a parody of Mass Effect itself and a send off for all the excellent characters.). I did detest Leviathan DLC though, it's total reveal of the Reaper's origins, motivations and end goals were absolutely horrid and removed the best elements of the Reapers (What happened to the incredibly cool and eerie explanation from Sovereign? "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it.")

One major feature irked me about ME3 though, and that would be the Galactic Readiness system.


The fact that I have to grind the newly introduced Mulitplayer mode just so collected assets in the single-player aren't rendered near useless and so I am not restricted from a better ending is diabolical.I did end up grinding the Galactic Readiness Multiplayer system to 100% and felt no guilt abusing the War Assets system with guides as a result.


In terms of endings, they weren't nearly as bad as people say (This is with the Extended Cut installed, mind.) as I viewed the whole of ME3 as tying up loose ends.


I went with Destroy (This is with a full Paragon Shepard with 7000+ Effective Military Strength.)


Control was bad for very obvious reasons, they even show the indoctrinated villain choosing it.


Synthesis was bad because it's essentially what Saren wanted, and it's forcing radical changes with unknown effects and it's incredibly creepy and weird, and just feels "off" to me. It's also what the Reaper Intelligence wanted, which set alarm bells off in my head.


The reason I chose Destroy is because on a very basic scale, I disagree with the Reaper Intelligence (Star Kid AI thing) .He says Synthetics will always overcome Organics and destroy them,there can never be peace.Yet I managed to create total peace and understanding between Organics and Synthetics (Quarians and Geth) without creepily forcing them together.EDI, though unshackled, cooperates and even falls in love and expresses understanding and peace, with absolutely no hatred for Mankind or her creators.


Then there's the fact that of course the Original Fucking Reaper would want to avoid it's own destruction.


Destroy also leaves a bright future that's not a weird creepy Borg utopia, and also brings us closer to the status quo and sets up a premise for a new game.Destroy also works with the message of "Strength through Difference and Diversity" which the Trilogy gives out, and even Javik the Prothean says the downfall of his civilization was the lack of diversity.

So, ME3 gets a 7.8/10 or a weak 8/10.


That's my massive wall of text post-game analysis of the whole Mass Effect Trilogy.

I'm left feeling hollow after finishing it all, the same feeling you get once you're done binge watching a TV show. I miss the characters, I want more of that Universe.

I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks of Mass Effect.

What does everyone expect Mass Effect 4 to be like?

Feel free to discuss all aspects of Mass Effect.

 

[Atomkilla]

Dude, you should put a huge spoiler tag, there's plenty of those in your post.

I personally thought that ME3 endings were better without Extended Cut.

Spoiler

I'm subscribing myself to the "Indoctrination theory", and believe developers were waiting to release an ending DLC after the commotion was over (some clues indicate to that), but failed at it after a harsh (yet deserved) backlash from fans. It could've been a cool ending, but not in line with the rest of the trilogy - giving a metagame, philosophical ending to the more-or-less streamlined sci-fi role-playing shooter franchise is hardly fitting.

In any case, I'm personally disappointed with the series and don't have any real expectations from the sequel...whenever it is released. I probably won't (be able to) play it, at all.



I do listen to Sovereign quotes from ME1, sporadically, from time to time. Those are some of mine favorite lines of dialogue (or rather, monologue) I've ever heard. Too bad ME series went downhill from the first game, at least as far as story is concerned.



I'll post some more in-depth thoughts later on.

 

[Atomic Postman]

I've added a spoiler tag.


See, I wasn't a fan of the Indoctrination Theory at all and thought it was way above the capabilities of Bioware's writing team.

I'm not sure how you could prefer the Pre-EC endings, unless you were specifically referencing the Indoctrination Theory: In which case, each to their own.

Were you not a fan of Mass Effect 2?

 

[Ilosar]

Yeah, if we're going to speak about ME3 and all, let this be a thread with unmarked spoilers for the trilogy. It's been two years now, after all.

I broadly agree with your assessment Alpha. ME1 had the best story of the lot but the combat is ridiculously unbalanced and clunky. It's also the first game with the dialog wheel, and it shows; several times the three options lead to the same line from Shepard.

ME2 had better combat but it was way too simplified, and also poorly balanced. The difficulty mostly came from every enemy being able to kill you in seconds even if you built tanky, so you sticked to cover at all times or died. Unless you were a Vanguard, which is bar none the best way to play both ME2 and ME3. The main story is a bit lame (mainly being forced to work with Cerberus and being forced to fall into the incredibly obvious Collector Ship trap), but the Suicide Mission is probably the serie's finest hour so it evens out. And of course as per Bioware tradition the characters were pretty amazing, and we didn't have to drag Liara the creator's pet around to boot.

ME3 has the best gameplay by a fairly wide margin. It's the best blend of action and RPG elements, and the dodge roll makes it far more dynamic. Being able to decide which and how many guns to pack is great, rather than the fixed proficiencies/loadouts of previous titles. Balance is better, normal enemies don't kill you too fast but Phantoms and Banshees will ruin your day. ME3's multiplayer would not have worked with the combat of the previous games, that I can tell you. The variety in guns is also fairly staggering, with the DLCs you have something like 40-50 available weapons not counting mods.

Story-wise, it was a huge mixed bag. The Tuchanka and Rannoch arcs were among the serie's very best, with really great writings and standout missions and cutscenes (Mordin ). The rest, however? Ugh. Cerberus becoming the Sith Empire? check. Terrible writing in the opening sequence? check. Rampant auto-dialog? check. Stupid scenes with the kid? check. The Crucible coming out of nowhere? check. Everything surrounding Kai Leng? ugh.

And of course the ending. With the EC it's less terrible, but originally there were strong implications that the team was stranded on some random planet (which means Garrus and Tali would likely starve, or the entire rest of the ship would, depending on the planet) and the Mass Relay network blew up, which meant the complete collapse of galactic civilization. it wasn't intended by the writers, but even then it was terrible. The explanation for the galaxy-destroying Reapers is that... the Leviathans suck at programming an AI? So that it's forced into a logical loop of ''to protect organics from synthetics we gotta kill organics''? Really? That was supposed to be a satisfying payoff?

Not to mention that thematically it sucked. In ME3 alone we had potentially two examples of organics and synthetics coexisting just fine (EDI and the crew, Geth and Quarians) yet the ending goes ''na, that doesn't count, you're all destined to kill each other''? Come on. Plus, as Alpha said, Synthesis was just abhorent, yeah let's brainwash the entire galaxy int accepting peace and love and turn every synthetic and organic into hybrids at once... somehow. Mass Effect was never the hardest sci-fi, but that was just silly space magic even for it.

It's a shame, because if the story held up to the other two game's, ME3 would have been such a stellar game. As it was it's still probably my favorite thanks to the great combat, but that ending... ugh.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Have you heard the original story of Mass Effect 3?

The one written by the writer behind all of Mass Effect 1 and half of Mass Effect 2.

Apparently "Dark Energy" which is alluded to in Mass Effect 1 very, very briefly and referenced numerous times (Tali's recruitment mission being the biggest one) in Mass Effect 2, is slowly killing the Universe as it gets larger and more powerful, leading to a reverse big bang. This process is accelerated by the eventual technological advancements of Galactic Civilization and the only way to stop it is through the use of biotics, and the Reapers need to find the perfect race of Biotics to solve the problem, so their solution is to keep resetting galactic civilization until the perfect Biotic species evolves, and it's getting closer and closer to it, apparently the Protheans were close and the Asari even closer. The two endings would have been either destroying the Reapers and leaving the Galaxy to try and find a way to stop Dark Energy, or to sacrifice everything and let the Reapers win so they could try again and eventually find the perfect Biotics.

I'll try and find the interview with the writer that talks about it.

If I were writing ME3, I wouldn't have even given the Reapers a motivation, as Sovereign said, their motives are incomprehensible. They're ancient cosmic beings of death, they don't need any explanation.


I would have just had ME3 be about the unification of species to stop the Reapers.The Reapers would have just been an unstoppable force slowly and methodically harvesting the Galaxy in an orderly manner, like a slow moving wave through space, a constant presence of Death moving in from outside of the Galaxy, always there on the Galaxy Map, edging closer. They'd have "Herald" fleets of Husks and genetically modified Collector-Type abominations that would travel through the relays (The actual Reapers wouldn't, they wouldn't need to, they're unstoppable and slow and precise in their method of extermination) who would soften up Galactic civilizations and try and stop any progress on anti-reaper measures. You don't need to explain the Reapers, that just ruins them.

 

[Akratus]

until they sat down and watched the entire saga on Blu-Ray.

HERESY.

I really don't have the time and energy to talk about mass effect again. Since I already discussed it to death in the past. But here's my blog post on the matter:

Mass Effect is a real bummer of a topic for me. Well, it used to be. I got past it. See, the first game was near and dear to my heart. Mass Effect 2 had been released for a while, and I saw glimpses of my brother playing it. Being a sci-fi nut I couldn't pass up that good looking game. And naturally I have to experience chapter 1 before chapter 2.

My first impressions of Mass Effect 1 were decent, and then relatively boring. The game has long sections of dull combat or dull quests. But there is stuff in there that you might not find much of in any other game. Real science fiction. Pure science fiction. Where have we seen that before in games? Star-wars? That's not pure sci-fi and you know it. Mass Effect, it does not have the soul of the best sci-fi, but it has the feel of it. The game looks smooth and dull, with toxic atmospheres over burning horizons and with the silence of space covered by the smooth synths of canadian composers.


No matter how much my opinion on parts of Mass Effect 1, and certainly the whole of 2 and every single element of 3 have been tainted, the first game will always have a sweet spot in my heart. And then later, the knowledge of where they went wrong in the second and third games made me reflect more on the first and where that game was lesser too. And I have mentioned, the combat and content had gaps of quality or design flaws.


But the second game is now for me where the series dropped the ball on it's chances of becoming actually good. But at first it was a major improvement. My initial impressions were very good. The graphics were more advanced, there was more color, the combat was smoother and more visceral and the story seemed to hold up. But I wasn't inspecting the decisions Bioware had made at all until later. It is strange to say that even though I replayed the game six or so times, I now really quite honestly loathe the stupidity I find in that game. For convenience, let me set my dissapointments up in a list:

-Killing off Shepard in the intro cutscene has no impact on the story, it is used as a cheap emotional ploy and kickstarts the story in a hollywood like fashion.

-The collectors are geth clones with a new coat of paint.

-Having guns reload feels like a betrayal of the idea that this is supposed to be science fiction. It is a real life issue changing the nature of the fictional world in a way I could never believe in.

-The reaper at the end is a retarded design, concept, idea and execution.

-The beautiful synth score is replaced with more generic orchestral affairs.

-The team is too big. Jacob is useless and dull, and all the characters are flawed. The amount of characters places quantity over quality.

-Joining cerberus is pulled straight out of Mac Walters' ass for the sake of a sense of being a special agent anti-hero.

-No more exploration.

-No more inventory.

-Even less rpg elements.

-The overarching story goes nowhere. We are left at the exact same point at the very beginning and end of the story, as far as stopping the reapers goes.

-Too little connection to the first or third games.

-Bad side quests that don't connect to the rest of the game or the overarching story.

-Too much filler combat.

-Although touted as an intricate feature, choices both taken from the first game or made in this one have too little or no effect.

-Shepard has even less input, opinions, interesting dialogue choices or personality.

-There simply isn't a villain, that has any presence!

-Bad writing, bad design, and too much focus on characters in a vacuum.

-They might as well call the normandy 'S.S.V. Daddy Issues'. Yes, loyalty schmoyalty.

But, you know, Lair of the Shadow Broker was good, I guess.

 

[Ilosar]

Have you heard the original story of Mass Effect 3?

The one written by the writer behind all of Mass Effect 1 and half of Mass Effect 2.

Apparently "Dark Energy" which is alluded to in Mass Effect 1 very, very briefly and referenced numerous times (Tali's recruitment mission being the biggest one) in Mass Effect 2, is slowly killing the Universe as it gets larger and more powerful, leading to a reverse big bang. This process is accelerated by the eventual technological advancements of Galactic Civilization and the only way to stop it is through the use of biotics, and the Reapers need to find the perfect race of Biotics to solve the problem, so their solution is to keep resetting galactic civilization until the perfect Biotic species evolves, and it's getting closer and closer to it, apparently the Protheans were close and the Asari even closer. The two endings would have been either destroying the Reapers and leaving the Galaxy to try and find a way to stop Dark Energy, or to sacrifice everything and let the Reapers win so they could try again and eventually find the perfect Biotics.

I'll try and find the interview with the writer that talks about it.

If I were writing ME3, I wouldn't have even given the Reapers a motivation, as Sovereign said, their motives are incomprehensible. They're ancient cosmic beings of death, they don't need any explanation.


I would have just had ME3 be about the unification of species to stop the Reapers.The Reapers would have just been an unstoppable force slowly and methodically harvesting the Galaxy in an orderly manner, like a slow moving wave through space, a constant presence of Death moving in from outside of the Galaxy, always there on the Galaxy Map, edging closer. They'd have "Herald" fleets of Husks and genetically modified Collector-Type abominations that would travel through the relays (The actual Reapers wouldn't, they wouldn't need to, they're unstoppable and slow and precise in their method of extermination) who would soften up Galactic civilizations and try and stop any progress on anti-reaper measures. You don't need to explain the Reapers, that just ruins them.

Yeah, Drew Karpshen (or however you spell his name) said that, I remember. I fully agree the Reapers should have been left unexplained; there is simply no way for them to live up to the hype. Bioware just chose a particularily stupid reasoning for their existence. They're the glorified attack drones of a bugged AI. Bleh.

The Dark Energy idea has merit and imposes an interesting choice, and is actually foreshadowed by the series at least. I still think most people would take the ''figure it out ourselves'' option because humans are stubborn like that, but it would be much more satisfying than the crap we got.

Another big problem, as Akratus has said, is that ME2 doesn't address the Reaper problem in any way. We only know they are directly involve in the very last cutscene, and the story of ME2 doesn't advance Shepard on his Reaper-killing crusade one iota. So they needed to pull the Crucible out of their ass at the beginning of ME3, when it could easily have been found or developped based on data from the Collector base.

 

[Atomkilla]

The idea of an AI construct which destroys highly advanced organic life in cyclic pattern in order to prevent the absolute destruction of organic life in the galaxy is fine to me. In fact, I quite liked it.
However, I do agree with everyone - Reapers should have been left without explanation, without motif. The idea and reasoning behind them could have been saved for some other project, if anything. This - not to mention the "Leviathan" backstory absolutely ruined an otherwise amazing antagonist. The original Lovecraftian mechanical gods of yore is a lot more powerful to me than, as Ilosar put it, a bugged AI.
As I've mentioned before, I love Sovereign's quotes - one of the main reasons is because it shows such indifference to life as a whole. That, in my mind, is what Reapers should have been. No malice, no benevolence. No redemption and no mercy. No emotions. No reasoning. Just indifference. And ours inability to comprehend them.



However, looking at the story, the only game that had a really good one was the first. The second game had an almost non-existant one - granted, the companions and their quests were okay, mostly, and I actually liked The Illusive Man's character, especially Sheen's performance, but the basic plot of fighting the Collectors was so disjointed from the first game that it was painful. Exploring and seeing the criminal side of life in the galaxy, Omega and so on was somewhat entertaining and a solid contrast to the first game, but the game still fades in comparison.
Basically, all the weight that game had on me was that I grew attached to some of my comrades, and that is all. It was the only motivation to try and finish the suicide mission with the least possible number of casualties.
Gameplay-wise, second game was an improvement over the first, even though I didn't like the new gun mechanics.

Third game was the best gameplay-wise, but again, the story killed it for me (you may have noticed so far I'm a storyfag). I really loved some segments of it - like the resolution of the Tuchanka conflict - but some parts felt rushed - Geth vs Quarians conflict which has not been mentioned in the least in the second game is now back, big time and you need to resolve it fast...it all felt kind of cheap to me.
Companions were again a high point of the game, a redeeming factor, especially if you played through the trilogy with the same character. As someone mentioned, fan service was well done here. The Citadel DLC, for instance, although basically a large chunk of fan service, was one of the most enjoyable DLCs I've ever played. It reminded me what I liked about the series.

The ending...the ending...
The mentioned Indoctrination theory - I also have a hard time believing that Bioware team could have pulled it off, but after seeing hours of footage and discussions on the topic, and reading several critical analyses, I do sincerely believe that Bioware did actually try to make an Indoctrination ending. As I've mentioned before, there was also indication that they were planning on releasing a DLC which would actually be the real ending, if the players survived the Indoctrination (that is, choosing the Destroy option).
Could all of that be nothing more but confirmation bias? Quite possibly. But I still like to think that Bioware was going for a metagame ending which would challenge players' perception of the game(s in general). Nonetheless, as interesting as that notion is, the execution was poor, the decision to actually go ahead with such an idea is a poor one. I do like the Indoctrination ending...but it simply doesn't fit as an ending to such a massive trilogy. Out of line, missing the point, not fitting the tone...simply a bad, bad decision. Great idea, but bad decision and execution.

The Extended Cut DLC was a last-moment, desperate move to fix things, and it...failed at it. I simply didn't like it. The three endings provided each came with their pros and cons, which I thought was fine, but I still think that it didn't wrap all things nicely, that it didn't address all the loose ties. We were left with a generic "a hero dies" bitter, but happy ending, a generic "galaxy prospers" epilogue and a whole mess of incomplete explanations and series of retcons which, in my view, denied and altered much of my most beloved elements of the series.


In the end, I was disappointed. I did enjoy the games, I did invest myself in them, but I was disappointed with the outcome.



P.S. Too lazy to spellcheck.
P.S.S. Can we put a spoiler tag on the thread title, please? Sorry for being so anal about this, but I hate spoilers and I hate spoiling for others...regular viewers and lurkers should be properly warned.

 

[Walpknut]

I always pick the control ending in ME3, is not as stupidly wastefull as Destroy, nor sappy space magix as synthesis, and you just basically created an army of reapers at the service of the galaxy.

I like the franchise a good deal, I don't have the "TRUE ARTZ!" Reverence to it, but I still found them a fun romp, altho ME1 got really monotonous and if it was a standalone gam I don't think it would be able to stand on it's own, the story was pretty generic until about the last fifth of the ending, the way new squadmates joined the team was kind of unsatisfying, most of them having no real arc after joining the team, but it did have a fair mount of choices and consequences, but the gameplay really hurt it.

ME2 is he best one in my opinion, the Suicide mission was just fantastic, and we saw less clean space colonies. And the gameplay feels less like nails on a chalkboard than before, but it came at the cost of a reduction in character skill customization.

I hope the new game strikes a better balance of cinematic and exploration than the last 2 entries.

 

[Censor]

I played and enjoyed the Mass Effect trilogy, but only once. I did feel the urge to keep playing and continue the story - I didn't care for the combat at all.
I agree with most points made above. It is also good to see that I am not the only one who felt Mass Effect 1 was the most interesting of the trilogy. Most people I know who played Mass Effect felt 2 was the best.

Anyway, one point I'd like to add is the cause and effect in Mass Effect regarding your team. I really disliked the fact that if you did not complete all "loyalty" sidequests for your companions they might die in some completely unrelated event later on. This has probably been mentioned in other threads before though. That was something that should have been integrated more logically into the story.

 

[Akratus]

No, Walpknut. The only, even remotely sensible option is destroy. Destroy, destroy, destroy. I did 2 or 3 playtroughs, I don't care to remember. Never even a shadow of doubt in my mind that I wanted destroy. First time I was given the options? No hesitation. Destroy.

Control is a retarded ending. The logic is so terrible I'm having trouble describing how idiotic it is. But basically, this is the exact opposite of what you worked for throughout the series. It is also a very ill explained ending. Shepard keeps talking about helping people and putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few. But that's al she/he does. I are in control now, things will be good. The end.

When I finished talking to starkid I thought to myself:


Who would ever merge with the brat?

God I just hate this game so much I can't even say all the things I want to say. I guess I've put it behind me for so long It's hard to dig my actual thoughts, ideas and initial reaction back up.

 

[Walpknut]

You don't merge with him, you replace him. Also I saved the collector ship, so my Shepard never was singlemindedly trying to just destroy the Reapers.

 

[Kilus]

I think my bottom line is the Reapers are just a crap enemy and no fun. Everything about them is terribad. There is nothing interesting about them and they are just boring.

Sovereign the character and plot device however is an exception and an extremely effective villain. If I could beam one idea back in time to the Mass Effect 1 team it would be to just make Sovereign either Prothean or a one ship galaxy killer(standard MO could be controlling the Mass Relays and using alliances and Indoctrination to cleanse the galaxy). That way the sequels could have just gone their own way without the reapers hanging over every single second. ME2 would barely need changing and you can just remove reapers and replace them with anything and keep the best parts of ME3.

 

[Atomkilla]

Am I the only one who enjoyed the Synthesis ending?


I love the idea of turning every single creature in the galaxy into a machine-organic hybrid. They can hate me for it, but fuckers can't do anything about it. Ha!

 

[Kilus]

It was done better in Battlezone 2.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Am I the only one who enjoyed the Synthesis ending?


I love the idea of turning every single creature in the galaxy into a machine-organic hybrid. They can hate me for it, but fuckers can't do anything about it. Ha!

Nah, the writers had a boner for that ending too.

They even put the other two endings deliberately out of the way.

As I said in my original post, Destroy seems like the clear best ending for me. Pre-EC I would have been more caught between Destroy and Synthesis but Post-EC I'm a full on supporter of Destroy.

Synthesis just seems really "off" and creepy, I don't know what about it unnerves me, but it just does.

Besides, Destroy is the only ending in which Shepard gets to live! Fuck being a martyr, Shepard made a promise to Liara that he plans to keep, blue babies and a nice retirement are on the way!

 

[Walpknut]

In the control ending Shepard becomes eternal, and if Joker can bang a robot I don't see how Shep could't just build him/herself a robot body to go back and bang Jack/Garrus.


Also, how could Shepard survie in the destroy ending? He is kept alive by synthetic organs and other robot crap, wouldn't he get destroyed too? Or at least become a limbless torso?

 

[Atomkilla]

In the Destroy ending, if you've gathered enough military support during the game, you will witness Shepard "awakening" on Earth among the ruble, wounded, and heavily gasping.
I guess falling from the sky can be somewhat painful. Also, implants don't count, apparently.



Another stupid moment in the whole ridiculousness of ME3's endings.

 

[Atomic Postman]

In the control ending Shepard becomes eternal, and if Joker can bang a robot I don't see how Shep could't just build him/herself a robot body to go back and bang Jack/Garrus.


Also, how could Shepard survie in the destroy ending? He is kept alive by synthetic organs and other robot crap, wouldn't he get destroyed too? Or at least become a limbless torso?

You realize Destroy doesn't blow up all technology right?

In the EC ending they clarify it saying it will destroy all the Reapers and cause minor hiccups in technology that can be fixed very quickly and easily by anyone competent with tech, as is demonstrated by the Normandy taking off again after crashing and the fleets of Alien ships departing Earth.

In response to the Control ending, I'm just going to guess you somehow agreed with the Illusive Man and ignored all the constant arguments against his ideas?

 

[Walpknut]

Except Destroy directly states that EDI and the geth will be destroyed too.... so, yeah it kills synthetic life, and Shepard is partly synthetic.

Also I don't have to agree with the speeches of the game, I tought I was roleplaying Shepard, not being led by the hand. The Illusive man only failed because he was already indoctrinated, Shep wasn't, so yeah, I just decided to take the less dumb option.

I also picked the "use demons to further humanity's progress" ending in Devil Survivor, I would prefer the the more transhuman endng (synthesis), but it comes out of nowhere and is way too sapy, so.... Reapers for The Peoples!