I just beat Mass Effect 3 and most people hate the ending, but I loved it. Yes, everyone will get one of three endings that are slight variations on each other and the thousand choices made through the series will not impact the end. What did you want them to do? Give you a thousand different endings?
I chose the middle road of synthesis. It wasn't a perfect ending but it was a great capstone for a great series. As much as I like it though, I am not interested in having movies, TV shows, comics, books, etc adding onto it. I know some are already done but they're not really worth it. They're fame comes from the games' fame. Anyway, here are my pros and cons of the ending.
The choices had an impact before the ending. The choices were half the fun of the game. I would spend three hours just wandering around the citadel and exploring space for artifacts and resources before jumping into a mission that involved shooting things. Towards the end, yes, all my time was focused on shooting thing BUT it was also broken up by talking to my crew. The choices affected who I had on my time, who survived, who joined the fight, yadda yadda yadda. But no, none of that had a huge impact on the end. Stop bitching about it. It wasn't going to anyway unless you wanted this game delayed 10 more years so that a thousand endings could be created.
I did all this because I care about the ME universe and characters and my crew members. The characterization is remarkable except James. He's a bit light. EDI could've had a lot more done with her. So could the new Liara. However, the overall story had impact because there were so many diverse characters and none were melodramatic. Everyone had their moments of sentimentality, of depression, but 70% of the dialogue has either plot movement or jokes. The overall seriousness of the story only hits home because at crucial moments characters make jokes. Even just before Captain Anderson dies, he says "It's been forever since I've just sat down."
We only saw about four spectres (two turians, two humans) so it seems like the first game's story wasn't all that important except the Reapers part. The characterization was important especially for returning characters. But the overall story with the Prothean beacon, the visions, etc is ignored except for a brief moment in the third where there's another beacon. Even the Reapers' origin is forgotten it seems. In ME1, sovereign says Reapers are organic and synthetic. But that gets ignored through the rest of the series. It has vague implications when they talk about harvesting organics to make more Reapers. I guess that was the Catalyst's way of moving forward with evolution but it seems a bit screwy to me.
The overall philosophy of the Reapers is contradictory. "We must destroy to preserve order because organics represent chaos." Yet throughout the 50,000-year cycle, organics always follow the same pattern. It's true that in ME1, Sovereign says that organics are given tools to let them move forward along a predictable pattern, but it doesn't account for humanities initial evolution (pre-relay) or for a species' attempt to create synthetics which are supposed to destroy everything. Why can't the Reapers destroy the synthetics and not the organics? Why are synthetics always going to destroy organics? Though the synthetics with the Reapers help, the Mass Effect team has been destroying synthetics with ease. Maybe the geth are too young to be a true threat but it seems hoaky to me. And if the Reapers pushed species to this point of evolution and it always comes out that the organics create these awful synthetics, then maybe it's the Reapers' fault that synthetics end up being evil.
I chose the middle road of synthesis. It wasn't a perfect ending but it was a great capstone for a great series. As much as I like it though, I am not interested in having movies, TV shows, comics, books, etc adding onto it. I know some are already done but they're not really worth it. They're fame comes from the games' fame. Anyway, here are my pros and cons of the ending.
The choices had an impact before the ending. The choices were half the fun of the game. I would spend three hours just wandering around the citadel and exploring space for artifacts and resources before jumping into a mission that involved shooting things. Towards the end, yes, all my time was focused on shooting thing BUT it was also broken up by talking to my crew. The choices affected who I had on my time, who survived, who joined the fight, yadda yadda yadda. But no, none of that had a huge impact on the end. Stop bitching about it. It wasn't going to anyway unless you wanted this game delayed 10 more years so that a thousand endings could be created.
I did all this because I care about the ME universe and characters and my crew members. The characterization is remarkable except James. He's a bit light. EDI could've had a lot more done with her. So could the new Liara. However, the overall story had impact because there were so many diverse characters and none were melodramatic. Everyone had their moments of sentimentality, of depression, but 70% of the dialogue has either plot movement or jokes. The overall seriousness of the story only hits home because at crucial moments characters make jokes. Even just before Captain Anderson dies, he says "It's been forever since I've just sat down."
We only saw about four spectres (two turians, two humans) so it seems like the first game's story wasn't all that important except the Reapers part. The characterization was important especially for returning characters. But the overall story with the Prothean beacon, the visions, etc is ignored except for a brief moment in the third where there's another beacon. Even the Reapers' origin is forgotten it seems. In ME1, sovereign says Reapers are organic and synthetic. But that gets ignored through the rest of the series. It has vague implications when they talk about harvesting organics to make more Reapers. I guess that was the Catalyst's way of moving forward with evolution but it seems a bit screwy to me.
The overall philosophy of the Reapers is contradictory. "We must destroy to preserve order because organics represent chaos." Yet throughout the 50,000-year cycle, organics always follow the same pattern. It's true that in ME1, Sovereign says that organics are given tools to let them move forward along a predictable pattern, but it doesn't account for humanities initial evolution (pre-relay) or for a species' attempt to create synthetics which are supposed to destroy everything. Why can't the Reapers destroy the synthetics and not the organics? Why are synthetics always going to destroy organics? Though the synthetics with the Reapers help, the Mass Effect team has been destroying synthetics with ease. Maybe the geth are too young to be a true threat but it seems hoaky to me. And if the Reapers pushed species to this point of evolution and it always comes out that the organics create these awful synthetics, then maybe it's the Reapers' fault that synthetics end up being evil.
Hmm, it's late and I can't think of anything else. I'm too tired.
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