Posted on: Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
Posted in: Featured
Comments: 587
ME3: Extended Cut Analysis + Leviathan DLC
Angry Joe breaks down and reviews the Extended Cut Endings for Mass Effect 3. Do they improve the franchise? or add further insult? And what might we see next for Mass Effect? Find Out!
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587 thoughts on “ME3: Extended Cut Analysis + Leviathan DLC”
This is what was wanted and was given, Bioware final took some balls and finish what they started proper…just needed us to point Cupcakes at them is all. An Sheperd Immortal is just icing on the take, taking the true step into legend.
The Extended Cut endings is one of those things that should have been in in the first place. It kinda sucks cause I can’t play mass effect 3 for the first time with the extended cut endings as the original endings.
Remember, in the beginning they called us stupid and entitled. They got all their friends and pet journalists to do so too. They didn’t give people a fleshed-out ending because they wanted to; they wanted us to eat shit and ask for seconds. They did it because their stockholders put a gun to their head and forced them to.
Never forget. Don’t buy anything else with the Mass Effect name attached, if not the Bioware name.
P.S. Joe, stop pinning EVERYTHING on EA. EA didn’t write the game, and the biggest flaws in the ME sequels are caused by bad writing. Mac Walters needs to be fired, he’s the vidya equivalent of Vince Russo.
your right, but the corporate culture of an Corporation is derived from its parent company through policies and procedures, it was not right away but over time different mandate by EA eroded what bioware was and because of this it is directly EA’s fault. Also the endings scream EA political agenda since you know EA has in the past used gaming as a means to promote political causes and to take jabs at the opposition.
Never forget Dead space 2′s “your mom will hate this game” advertising.
I’d agree, IF bioware was just a partner of EA. Copyright law can be a good thing, IF the copyright stays in the hands of the content creator. However, when a media company is bought (movie, music, or video games) the purchasing company isn’t buying the company they’re buying that company’s copyrights. In this case EA now holds the Mass Effect copyright from the purchase, because of this EA can dictate to bioware what elements are included. If Bioware’s employees don’t play ball with EA, EA can threaten not to release a game and/or just play dirty pool with bioware and it’s all legal because the rights to the game belongs to EA now, not bioware. Copyrights protect the copyright holder, not the actual creator of the IP and EA has perfected copyright hoarding to an artform.
Well people were stupid and ( why are you denying that the people that freaked out are not entitled) and are still entitled it is just a ending to a great game and best series so far you guys need to calm down they gave what you wanted and not gratefull for it just because you are a fan deos not mean you are better than the developers and why are you boycotting the game.
I wonder if a ME MMO would be released, where you would choose the race and dependingly a class of your character, have your party doing stuff in this massive universe in your own ship.That would be epic and as this dlc shows epic sometimes happens
The new endings are way better than the original and I never stopped to consider how thankful we should be until you brought it up. They aren’t perfect but at least they listened to the fans and made improvements over the original. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a company ever admit to having a crap ending and then give us new endings to make up for it and in such a short time too. I liked Mass Effect 3 and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the series but my biggest concern is EA. Like you said before Joe, BioWare has to take orders from the worst company in America. This whole thing was probably their fault to begin with. Let’s hope they learned their lesson after seeing what happened with ME3.
Hey joe! Great coverage of the ending! Just popping by to tell you the Leviathan was explained to be an inactive reaper that, when activated, indoctrinated most of the Dis System. Those of the system allowed for the reapers to invade easier by sabotaging the defenses of the Batarian Hegemony
Joe, what happened to you man? I mean WTF? The ‘extended ending’ solved absolutely bullcrap!! The Catalyst is still a randomly introduced Muguffin Character no matter how much he trieds to fit himself in. The geth and other robots are still being blamed for an endless war THE REAPERS FORCED THEM INTO!! And what about all the plot holes like The Catalyst doing Sovereign’s job in ME1, Harbinger’s Obsession with Shepard and Humanity when they should’ve probably focused on the Quarians, the fact that they attack organics when Robots can live forever.
And Just HOW THE H*LL DID IT DISPROVE INDOC THEORY?! There’s still the Shadows in his dreams (they were pretty spot on with the insect queen), he still has Indoc eyes in Control and Synthesis, and how about now in the REFUSAL ending THE CATALYSTS HAS HARBINGER’S VOICE?! They never attacked the theory and all the supports are still there!! What part of this DLC completely destroyes this theory?
We had 3 complaints about this ending, 1) It made no sense, 2) It contradicted the theme of Mass Effect of Individual but Equal, and 3) No closure. This DLC only BARELY tried to solve the last. SO apparently 1/3 is good for you?
I expected you to shine a positive light on the closure but still rage at the COMPLETELY OBVIOUS PLOT HOLES STILL THERE!! And really WHAT CLOSURE? A few still images and that’s supposed to be good for you? And even then the narration and music at Control and Synthesis make them sound evil.
Since when did the “Angry Army” become the “Take What We Can Get Army?” I never expected the Man who got me to believe we could fight for a better ending turn tail and run the first chance he gets.
What happened to you Joe? Did EA pay you off or what?
Ragemode Activated. Btw I felt he praised EC a little too much for my liking.
So why the hell did sovereign hafta stay behind to survey everything. Do we get an explanation for that also how did the Reapers get out of dark space maybe it will be saved for dlc but dammit i wanna know
Sovereign was a vangaurd to initiate the invasion, when the protheans sabotaged the citadel, it had to find a way to take the station by itself. as 1 reaper wit hand army of geth it easily attacked the station, it was shepard that stopped it.
for your second questions I can only assume two things, one that the reaper prepared for the possibility that sovereign would be eliminated and prevented from initiating the invasion. So harbinger sent the collectors to find out information about what happened to vangaurd and found out that the galaxy was alerted to the reapers presence due to the attack on the citadel, finding that shepard was the one who was able to defeat sovereign harbinger wanted shepard since shepard’s will was unusually strong and sent the collectors to start the process while he awoke the reapers and got everything ready.two) that while sovereign was attached to the citadel he was able to send the signal to the rest of the reapers warning them that the citadel was no longer a viable option for surprise attack.
So disappointed in you Joe, so expected you of all people would be as pissed off as I am by this insult of a “fix”. This was still completely crap, showing that they clearly don’t care about us. Nothing short of rewritting the ending from scratch is an improvement.
He’s been Indoctrinated by the rEApers. J.K
I haven’t been able to beat the game with 100 percent war assets, yet, so I don’t know if having full will allow you to win, but that’s the fun of Mass Effect. It gives me a reason to want to play again, and even you lose with your assets at full, the Control ending is pretty cool. With having the Reapers actually help rebuild mankind. I like it.
Control ending… isn’t terrible, but its bad… congratulations, you’ve created the Shepard AI. Lets hope it doesn’t eventually bug out! Not to mention that its kind of… megalamaniacal? Is that the word? Meh. You’re an AI god now that can enforce its views with an iron fist. Its pretty much the formation of a dictatorship. That’s ignoring the insanity of believing the star child in the first place which they still don’t make any effort towards that despite the Reapers being liars and manipulators to get their way. It felt very strange that it was pushed as the Paragon ending. Sure, the geth survive, sure the Reapers could come in handy if things don’t go horribly wrong in the future… but is that really the sort of choice a single individual has the right to make alone without looking at everyone else’s viewpoints, just as was done in the previous two games with decisions like the Rachnai queen and such?
I do agree with you joe that some of the problems were addressed, but there are still problems with the ending. First of all Space Magic does not belong in Mass effect, it belongs in star wars(no offence). Second I still don’t like the idea of having a you win no matter what button. Third, introduction of a new character in the last 10 min is still bad writing. Fourth, the reject ending is a slap in the face( I thought a theme in mass effect was betting the odds). Finally I still find starchild’s faulty and not believable. Still mass effect should have ended in a bang, not a wimpier. *rant over*
On the positive side BW turned a really ****ty ending (0/10) into one that is mediocre at best (5/10).
I haven’t seen the endings myself as I am too busy at the moment. I also don’t want to watch them on youtube, I’ll see them myself. To hear the positive reactions of this extended ending gives me hope and has restored my faith in Bioware, so thanks to them for doing this for the fans.
As to the Indoctrination Theory, Joe. As much as I liked the idea and hoped it was true, I’m glad they made sure there was no chance at a misconception as to it’s validity, one way or another. To do that may have possibly just continued an argument about the ending and I’m sure it is an argument most people are tired of having.
There are a few plot-holes I’m curious about, just from watching this video. Shepard’s wound in the lower left side of his torso(maybe they took it out or explained it, I don’t know) Also, why did we spend the game fighting Cerberus and trying to convince The Illusive Man that taking control of the Reapers was a bad idea when it appears to have a positive outcome? As I said, I haven’t watched the ends yet myself, so maybe these are dumb questions to be asking. I will see for myself in time.
While the EC is better than the original in some ways, it still manages to cause even more plot holes to be brought up showing how shoddy the writing is. One big one that jumped out at me, was that when the Crucibal was designed it was found to not have a good enough power source so someone incorperated the Citadel to be used for that. Yet when the star child talks about it it says that the Crucibal is just a power source. That makes absolutely no sense at all. Even further is the fact that it admits to being the head reaper leader, why is it even conceivable that Shepard would believe it unconditionally when it’s been proven that lies and deceipt are it’s main strategy? And if it’s plan no longer works, why does it continue to follow through with it in the reject ending instead of taking time to make a new plan?
because bioware wanted to drive home two things, one that a conventional victory was not possible and the hidden meaning that if you fight for freedom your fighting a losing battle.
It makes the ending much better i suppose. Not like thats a huge accomplishment. If i had to rate the original ending, i would give a 1 or 2 out of 10, depending on how much my girlfriend bitched that day.
The extended ending i would give a 5/10. There’s still a lot that doesnt make any sense, and i think the whole star child and 3 choices platform is just a poor idea to start with, but it’s at least a complete ending now, and at the very least acceptable. If they would have went with the indoctrination theory, then that could have easily been a 10/10 ending, even with the crappy one they put out first, but oh well.
I’m still pretty wary of any bioware product, and dont really respect them, but at least they had to brains to drag the mass effect series out of the crapper where they left it.
I have just gone through all endings. I has taken 3 hours but I liked it. I also think that the synthesis is bad ending (at least you can say to the Catalyst that synthesis is bullshit that you cannot do that). What I liked was that I could tell to the catalyst that I will not use the crucible that I could explain what we have been fighting for and what is worth dying for. I was happy for this possiblity (though the outcome of this possibility could have been better). I was also dissapointed that Liara’s message did not contain anything about Shepard. But at least another different ending. And hell, it might have been great if you say the catalist that you can win this without crucible and you actually manage to do that if your war assets are high and galactic readiness is very high (even 100% requirement would be fine).
I’m most likely gonna get flamed for this, but I disagree with the notion that the war could have been won without the Catalyst/Crucible. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved an option to defeat the Reapers and live to see my believe in organic and synthetic cooperation. But with the Reapers being the Sci-fi equivalent to Cthulhu, not having a “Holy Grail” weapon as the sole means of their defeat kind of cheapens their threat.
Secondly, a lot of the missions in the game are geared specifically to the preparation of the Crucible. Getting to the end and not using it, kind of lame. Just my opinion. OPINION. And like I said before, I still would have like an ending where we could defeat the reapers and live to see organics and synthetics get along. But it would have to be another way than, “I refuse to use the ultimate weapon to end the Reaper threat”.
No matter how much I disagree with the insane/annoying star-child, it doesn’t make sense not to use the Catalyst/Crucible just to spite it.
As for as the choices of how to use the Catalyst go, I think it’s too obvious which ending the writer(s) preferred you choose. Which is displayed in the lack of closure in the Destruction ending vs. the Control and Synthesize ending. In my own opinion, the added narration, explanation, and epilogues make the Destruction ending appear absolutely pointless. I know, that we all know, that the Destruction ending is the only one where we can survive. But does Shepard know that? No.
Most of us disagree with the erroneous logic of the star-child. Which is largely irrelevant when we still have to make a choice regardless of the star-child’s presence. Seriously, the only reason the star-child is there is to convince us that the Synthesize ending is the best. The choice is still ours to make.
So let’s say you don’t agree with force evolution on everyone in the Galaxy, you’re options are now:
A) Sacrifice myself – Galaxy is saved, organics and synthetics forge alliance as I believed they would.
B) Sacrifice myself – Galaxy is saved, synthetics are all wiped out and technology is temporarily set back.
Without prior knowledge that Shepard could survive the Destruction choice, there is absolutely no “good” reason to choose it. A blatant step in convincing the player that it’s bad. Which is really sad since the show Anderson making that choice, like he was some ruthless renegade.
But hey, guess what? We can survive the Destruction ending. Only we don’t get to see our survival get closure. It’s just kind of hinted at. Another blatant expression of how the writer(s) don’t like this ending. And in a multiple ending game, where they still get to keep the one they like intact, it’s really petty to leave the survival so open ended.
There is one more thing I would like to point out. Major “OPINION” coming up. I can not stress how much of an opinion this is. The star-child, nor the synthesize ending did not break the mythology of the game.
The star-child’s appearance is irrelevant to the fact you still must use the Catalyst/Crucible to defeat the Reapers. With that said, his entire existence is pointless. He doesn’t break the galaxy, he just has no reason to be there. Secondly, he doesn’t surprise me one bit that his logic is flawed. He’s an A.I. He doesn’t act from emotion, but from logic. Did you really want he to have a “sane” logic for harvesting organics and synthetics*? It’s not the first villain in story-telling history to be off his rocker. Try not to let it’s insanity spoil the ending. Thirdly, even if the star-child doesn’t admit it’s wrong, it does admit that our cycle is different and that a new solution must be found. It then tells us to decide the new solution, putting the choice in our hands. And once again negating the purpose of the star-child, safe for telling us it’s crazy and that it had a creator. Both I found obvious without the extensive dialogue. Sometimes you just know you’re dealing with crazy.
*((I believe that it didn’t mention harvesting the synthetics the first time around and that this is specific to the extended endings.))
Now onto the Synthesize ending. I’m sure some of you will disagree with me, and if there is something I missed, let me know please. I found that the extended dialogue did present this ending as was initially intended by the writer(s). In the original ending I felt that the Synthesize ending was another form of indoctrination/mind control, and no I’m not referring to the Indoctrination Theory. I believed that you were taking away free-will and enforcing peace upon the galaxy. Which flew in the face of everything I had fought for. Best ending my arse.
Now I believe that the Synthesize ending forces the apex of evolution on everyone, and that peace comes from everyone naturally being above petty fighting and war. Obviously for anyone to swallow this pill, you first have to believe in a perfect evolved state, and everyone would simply choose not to fight because they’re so “perfect”. Even if you do believe this state of evolution can be reached, which the writer(s) obviously do, you still have to contend with forcing it on everyone or letting it happen naturally. Not only that, aside from the completion of the Crucible, I don’t see how our cycles organics are different from any other cycles in which organics under went 50,000 years of evolution. If anything, I get the hint that it’s our synthetics that are different, show through Edi and Legion.
Still, in a Fictional Sci-Fi universe where evolution is continually brought up as the leading factor in the galaxy’s progression, I would have to say that the “Apex Evolution” idea is not far fetched or broken. I’m going to come right out and say that I don’t buy it. Especially when the Destruction/Survival ending is left ambiguous in favor of Synthesizing. But I didn’t create the Mass Effect Universe.
Best I could do is say “bollucks” to all that noise. I let the galaxy continue on it’s natural course, organic and synthetic allegiances intact. I chose control. My prerogative. So that’s my 2-cents about the Synthesize ending.
I think I’ve ranted long enough, so I’m to going to end this post with one more opinion on what would have truly made the ending special, aside from closure with the Destruction/Survival ending. In place of the star-child, we should have been confronted by Harbinger in it’s virtual form. If I’m going to have to have dialogue with an insane AI, it should have been Harbinger. I obviously wouldn’t have agreed with anything the nut-job said, but having the explanations coming from Harbinger would’ve been more poignant than an entirely new AI. The conversation would have been different, but still had a chance to tell us about the creators and fully explain it’s backwards logic.
But then the writer(s) wouldn’t have had someone there to tell us the force evolution is the best answer. So a mental battle of will vs. Harbinger was never going to happen.
Alright. I’m done. Promise.
P.S. I love your show Joe!
They said the crucible was built over time by organics to combat the reapers, so why the hell would they put a option to change every ones DNA to make to them machine hybrids. Bottom line the ending is just bad writing.
I agree with the option being badly written. The fact that the explanation as to how the option of synthesizing came into the plans of the Crucible only helps solidify my believe that the writer(s) were trying to force a new idea at the last minute.
I wasn’t pointing out that the option made sense being there on the Crucible, but that the idea wasn’t implausible to the universe. And in my opinion, still doesn’t make it the best ending.
I would accept the syntheses ending if it was present in the previous mass effect games. Like you said it that the writers forced a new idea, moreover any sort of magic should be left out of mass effect, it does not belong there.(except bioitcs XD).
Here’s a random thought I had today pertaining to the “Possible” Leviathian DLC dealing with the rogue Reaper. Anyone wanna take bets that the reaper will end up being the source of the Crucible designs? You know the designs that somehow are powered by the catalyst, but entire eons worth of civilizations worked on and had no clue about starchild plotkiller, the reapers, or how to even start building such a device.
erm..so whats about N1. issue – illogical reason of Reaper invasion ?
I think the indoctrination theory is still valid. From the way the ending looks and the fact that Shepard still dies, this new ending would make Shepard feel more at ease that he save the galaxy even though they kept the seen where you see him suddenly taking a deep breath. This ending here in a story aspect would help him “move on” but if you chose to destroy it all then that would be like Shepard still wanting to fight against them. And as for a non story reason, by having it being an indoctrination story line then that would let EA sell even more DLC levels to have Shepard fight through. But I still think that is what is really going on. The Reapers are trying to take over Shepard to use him as a puppet to ruin the victory fleet and get the races to fight each other because together they really do pose a threat to the Reapers.
the answer is yes
these endings simultaneously make things worse, and better!
synthesis is made even worse (due in no small part to vent-boy admitting he tried it before and it never worked out)
but it also makes control, and destroy, bearable endings!
buuuuuut . . . the refusal ending is a middle finger ot the fans
Y’know, most people are complaining about the fourth ending, the remaining of the god-child, the fact that the endings are still the same…but guys, let’s address the -real- issue…
What about Marauder Shields?
He still failed his mission. Even more so now because people are more willing to finish the game. :p
The number one thing I was disappointed about was shepard’s romance counts for nothing in the end. Except for his lover to put the name on the memorial or hold it. There is no kids later on of shepard’s prodigy. I was faithful to my romances all the way through and so such effect later on. They could have easily done this in a slide still and I would have been happy with that. But other than that concern I was indeed happy to see that the endings were indeed sound.
Hell though I was surprised by the hidden ending. But liara just talking about how it wasn’t enough was as expected but that little scene in the cabin with liara doing making the black box made her describing shepard void. you know? but other that if you have some sense of humor. I listened to the song “It’s the end of the world.” by R.E.M
but that’s my take on this over all
There was also one other thing that got me “what if they did a prequel to the mass effect series. with Javik? and what is exactly the Leviathan DLC?
Dammit Joe think: normandy not attacked by harbinger. harbinger leaves afterwards. shepard shoots anderson, but it shows shepard wounded. destroy option shepard wakes up on concrete rubbel, citadel wasnt destroyed!!! cmon guys you are all still missing
Dude, people are still getting over the shock the endings have answered more questions than they asked.
Not really… I have just as many questions as before. Perhaps even more now.
Anderson being up there still makes no sense despite how they tried to explain it.
Harbinger leaving the beam was still absurd.
Hell, the Normandy getting there unscathed adds a bunch of question on its own. My mind immediately went, “You mean had my hover tank not mysteriously disappeared, I could have probably pulled another Ilos? Bullocks!”
The only real question answered were the implications of what each choice entailed, but the answers there for the most part are so absurd that it feels forced, it feels unreasonable.
Oh, and the whole fleet suddenly jumping ship when the Crucible armed? Didn’t make sense either. For all they knew, the Crucible simply was going to weaken the Reapers in some way and running could have made them miss their opportunity. Suppose there was the chance it’d destroy everything too, but meh… there should have been the choice to communicate with the fleet about the choice.
Which brings up another question that someone brought to my attention. If the Star Child is housed in the Citadel and the Star Child controls the Reapers… what would happen if the Citadel was blown up? What if I had called Hackett, told him what was going on, and told him the Citadel was essentially the brain of the Reapers?
On that note, how did they get the Citadel undamaged and what happened to all the people still living on the Citadel. I worked my butt off to improve security there, were there no survivors? That’s one of the biggest questions unanswered.
I can go on and on and on with this. There’s such a ridiculous amount of shoddy and terrible writing beyond anything I’ve seen before. I’d still rank this as the worst ending to ANYTHING I’ve ever seen. Even The Room wasn’t this absurd. Oh don’t get me wrong, that movie is still pretty absurd, but this takes the proverbial cake.
Harbinger leaves Earth to go to the Citadel. He’s the one that crushes the Alliance ship. You can see him and his friends out the window during the conversation with the glowing boy.
I still believe in the indoctination theory. I think the new refusal ending just proves that…
If you shoot the child, he says “So be it” after a while in a completely different voice. And… that is Harbinger’s voice, isn’t it? I just realized that, and I got chills. If that is really true, then the indoctrination theory stands, and I think it explains why Harbinger didn’t shoot down the Normandy and Shepard when he clearly had the chance!! He wanted to lure him/her into a trap, to choose “Control” or “Synthesis”. I don’t know… For me, it seems that those two endings are full of lies.
Shepard wasn’t the same after the Arrival DLC. Harbinger must have indoctrinated him/her, somehow. Indoctrination takes time, and most importantly, effort. Harbinger wanted to convince Shepard with the projection of Anderson and the Illusive Man in the Citadel at the end. After that, he took the form of a child, as a last resort to control Shepard.
The Citadel part was just… weird, and felt very unreal. I believe Shepard got into the Citadel in reality, but thanks to the Indoctrination, after he got in we see what his/her mind sees.
Hackett says that ONE person got into the Citadel and that is Shepard, but where is Anderson? I think he died before, and what we see is Harbinger’s projection in Shepard’s mind.
I still believe that “Destroy” is the true ending after this.
Shepard is different since the Arrival DLC because of bad writing, let’s face it, Bioware will never give up their Star Child as the Bolt of Plot Convenience that magically fixes everything. Don’t get me wrong Indoctrination theory was pretty creative and a sign that someone would be an asset as a writer, but it’s just not gonna happen. Clinging to Indoctrination will only lead to more disappointment my friend.
I understand what you are saying, but I’m sticking to indoctrination. I don’t know why, I just prefer it, maybe because I try to be optimistic. That new Harbinger voice in the end just gave me another “dose” of optimism.
Sure, it can be considered bad writing (I agree that Arrival was bad…), but who knows… It’s not like there will be an official statement regarding the indoctrination theory. I think people are left to their own interpretations… (If there is a statement, I guess I missed it ^^’)
I’m not defending BioWare in any way; the endings were rushed, plotholes everywhere (still, they are slightly better in the EC)…
But, even if the indoctrination theory is false, the extended endings aren’t THAT bad like they were, and for me, they gave more closure than before.
Yes, ME3 was kind of a letdown in storytelling and writing (thanks EA), but I don’t believe it’s that bad so I could hate it. The game is good, but could have been so much better. In the whole trilogy, I prefer ME2 which is my favourite.
I’m tired of people using the arrival dlc as that crutch for indoc theory, fact is if shepard didn’t do it hackett sent a team in to do it.
It cannot be used as a canon storyline because it was an addon to the storyline that bioware barely touched upon again.
Except, of course, the whole reason Shepard was arrested was because of Arrival.
So guess what? It IS, and I wish I could bold that, part of the canon story. Sorry bub, try harder.
once again not if you didn’t do arrival. The reason shepard is grounded if you didn’t do arrival was because of his temporary alliance with cerberus, the defense committee didn’t want the political shitstorm that would have occurred if he was easily reinstated after having close ties to cerberus. This is another example that would have benefitted greatly from having that supposed trial at the beginning of ME3, another thing we were promised bioware never delivered on which exudes that this game was rushed out the door.
Bioware, I truly feel, did not listen completely listen to the criticisms by the game consumers. Joe, this DLC DID NOT address the most important thing the gamers wanted and that was GET RID OF THE CATALYST! The Catalyst STILL is using circular logic to justify it’s own existence and it STILL has it’s needy “you can’t do anything without me”, “you will never bring peace between synthetics and organics together” attitude. Joe,
IN YOUR OWN VIDEO, you even said if we don’t get our final battle with Harbinger, if they don’t fix the circular logic of the Catalyst you don’t want to even think about this DLC.
So let me get this straight, Bioware shows you a krogan female having a baby, the relays being salvageable, a few still screenshots and now you Joe and other people are now “Bioware is cool and again, yipee”!
The ONLY THING this Extended Cut DLC did was show the Mass Relays salvageable, THAT’S IT! Everything else was implied/inferred/already figured out by the fans.
If Bioware really wanted to listen to the fans, the Catalyst would have been eliminated, or (and I do agree with you completely on this note Joe) if you shot the Catalyst your war assets, if high enough, would have succeeded, but no, were STILL FORCED into their Deux Machina copy and paste endings.
This Extended Cut DLC is NOT a gift from Bioware, they HAD NO CHOICE but to fix the endings and make it free, If they didn’t, they would have committed PR gaming suicide. “Oh, yes we will give you an Extended Cut DLC, that tries to flesh out and tie up some plot holes but it’s going to cost you $5-$10″.
The backlash from that would have been louder and I truly believe would have sparked a honest, true boycott of not only EA BUT also Bioware completely, even from die hard Bioware supporters.
Filled in plot hole Joe, NO JOE, as long as that WALKING PLOT HOLE CATALYST is still alive, the Mass Effect 3 endings (yes, I can finally say “endings” because they are different enough) will NEVER BE FIXED.
To be entirely fair they did say from the moment the Extended Cut was released the Star Child would remain, so i didn’t know what you expected, but i in fact expected the endings to somehow make LESS sense. So the fact they made about as much sense, or slightly more, was a pleasant surprise to me, if nothing else.
It’s just that the broken plot hole Catalyst invalided EVERYTHING in the lore. He says he is in control, but Sovereign says HIMSELF “we are unto each other an independent nation”.
The Catalsyt says “synthetics and organics will all way rebel against their creators”, but you not only bring the Quarians and Geth together, Legion sacrifices himself for you and the Geth, he when you first meet him, uses your Armour to patch himself, not because he needed a quick fix but out of respect for you. EDI herself not only wants to stay by your side, but starts to develop honest, genuine romantic feelings for Joker.
As far as I’m concerned, as long as the Catalyst is alive, the ending with NEVER be fixed.
What I was expecting is what I typed earlier, what I wanted was when you shot the Catalyst, if your Effective Military Strength was as high as you can get it, you would get an alternate ending where your fleet would win the war through sacrifice and attrition.
not to mention that the catalyst made ME1′s entire storyline invalid and ME2′s storyline filler material.
Yeah, I was fully expecting Star Child still, but I was also expecting once again, everything else they promised. Of course they didn’t deliver. There’s still just as many plot holes, and they didn’t talk about the results of your actions, especially not the ME1 and ME2 actions. You know, something they promised from the beginning. As it is? All you get are a couple slides of two, maybe three of your past crewmates? And tiny clips of those who died? Not even close to what they promised.. Strike three BioWare… strike three…
wait so if shepard lives in my ending then who finds him and what happens to him next…..
It’s not against mass effect lore for the synthesis ending. It’s because of SPAAAAACE MAGGIIC!
What will we see next for Mass Effect?
If by the Leviathan DLC you mean, then a whole heaping helping of hype with an unsatisfying end. If it plays out like how its rumored, then it just pops some issues up!
1 being how in the heck did Leviathan do what it did, how they explain it, and why couldn’t it happen again after ME 3′s ending.
and
2 being in the end, it doesn’t really do anything. The War asset that we’ll supposedly be able to gain will fall into the same issue Joe mentioned, wherein we actually don’t see our assets at work. Its just all numbers, and in the end no one likes to stare at just numbers.
I’d love to give the EC dlc a go, that is if I can ever authorise my DLC because Origin is a broken piece of rubbish and EA help is about as useful as a god child!
In terms of the writing, everything completely went downhill starting with The Arrival DLC, which just completely contradicted everything that had been established about the Reapers. Think about it, the Reapers always try to wipe out all evidence of their existence. A big part of the first game was about Saren trying to prevent Shepard from decoding the Prothean beacon and discovering their warning about the Reapers. So why would the Reapers leave behind a device that not only warned people of their own existence but had information about their secret invasion plan? The Reapers kept becoming progressively dumber and weaker after that.
Heck, the biggest plot hole in the game, besides the ending, is the fact that they forgot that the Reapers could shut down the Mass Relay network from the Citadel. In fact, at the end of ME1, Saren actually shut down the Mass Relays to prevent reinforcements from coming in to defend the Citadel against Sovereign and Shepard had to turn the Relays back on so the Alliance fleet can come through. And don’t give me any crap about them being able to remove that capability. The Reapers know more about the Citadel than anyone else, what’s to stop them from just repairing that capability?
Heck, it made no sense for them not to attack the Citadel first like they always do. They’d gain all the secrets of the Alliance races. They’d remove the Alliance’s main base of operations for their joint military operations. They’d gain the ability to control the Mass Relays and even if the Alliance managed to shut down that ability, the Reapers would have had plenty of time to figure out how to fix it so they can shut down the Relays before the Crucible is completed.
The Reapers were actually portrayed as an unimaginable power with a purpose that we can’t comprehend in the first two games but they eventually devolved into a bunch of failed experiments created by a race too dumb to figure out an obvious solution to a simple problem.
Why they must attack Citadel if Illusive man brought it to them without any losses?
Because while they were waiting for the Illusive Man, the rest of the galaxy is not only uniting to fight them but also building a super weapon that could wipe them out.
A few plot corrections:
1. The Reaper strategy is to wipe out all opposition, then afterwards to spend a few centuries erasing all traces of their existence. They were not concerned about hiding their presence after Sovereign was defeated. They just wanted to wipe us out before we could properly unite against them.
2. The Mass Relay network was never shut down during the attack on the citadel. Shepard needed to open the Citadel’s arms from the main console in order to allow the fleet to close in on Sovereign. The Fifth Fleet just happened to show up when Shepard got the arms open.
3. Even though the Reapers knew how to control the Citadel and the Mass Relay network, two things prevented them from easily accessing those things. Firstly, the network was controlled by the Citadel, which was controlled by the Keepers. The Reapers relied on the Keepers to remotely follow their commands for manipulating the Citadel. Unfortunately for them, the Protheans had sabotaged the Keepers to no longer respond to the Reapers. Secondly, in order to bypass the problem of the unresponsive Keepers, the Reapers needed to directly interface with the Citadel. Sovereign tried to do this, but Shepard infected the Citadel with a Prothean-made virus that locked Sovereign out long enough for Sovereign to be defeated.
Here is where the facts end and my speculation begins: I believe that the Reapers chose their approach as they did, because they did not want to draw aggro from the entire galaxy at once. The citadel was common ground for all allied races, and if the Reaper fleet could not wipe it out quickly, then they would get flanked my every mobile military vessel in reach of a mass relay. They would undoubtedly have won, but the losses to their forces might have left them too weak to confidently eradicate the next cycle. Remember, only one Reaper dreadnought is constructed each cycle. Thus, they wiped out a few homeworlds, which caused all yet-unaffected races to focus on defense instead of counter-offensive strategies. The Reapers are patient, so it would not have mattered to them if the latter strategy had taken more time. The end result would still have been the complete destruction of all advanced life.
In the end, their strategy was a losing one, but that doesn’t make them stupid. The united races of the galaxy simply behaved differently then they had expected them to, and we have Shepard to thank for that.
1. Vigil states they are absolutely thorough and patient, it took sovereign at least 2000 year to try and determine why the citadel relay didn’t activate, because of the protheans sabotage. They would use the citadel to know everything about the race to be conquered in order to minimize casualties, not to mention that they hide in darkspace to prevent their discorvery, so as someone said before why would they leave a peice of themselves on an asteroid as potent and as detailed as that project rho device.
2) Jokers quote from the let the council live or die decision ” normandy to the citadel, normandy to the citadel, please tell me thats you commander” shepard answers, joker continues” caught that distress call commander, i’m sitting here in the enduras sector with the entire arcturus fleet, we can save the ascension, just unlock the relays around the citadel and we’ll send the calvary in” He doesn’t say give the order he says unlock the relays, meaning that saren used the citadel control panel in the council chambers to lock down the mass relays inside the citadel thus preventing the allied fleets from attacking the geth or sovereign.
3) all the disk did was give shepard temporary control of the station allowing shepard to interrupt sovereigns attempt at opening the relays, the reapers could still interface with the station directly and since cerberus was under reaper indoctrination all they had to do was provide some support for cerberus and they citadel would be theres and apparently they easily conquered captured the citadel with ease at the end of the game.
4) considering the reapers attacked every planet almost at once it would have been a better tactical strategy to send a small force of destroyers in to take out the citadel defenses and seize control of the enemies supply lines, considering the reapers have survived billions of years it doesn’t make sense they would spread their forces out and attack everyone in brute force when they can still take the citadel and shut down the relays network. Thats the problem we have because at the end of ME3 the reapers are still fighting a unified fleet that they could have prevented. The fleets from unifying the way they did instead they wait to the end to take the citadel and still fight a unified galaxy which made no sense from anyone who has the upper hand.
Basically Bioware made both sides stupid and the new lead writers decided that a conventional victory was never going to happen and the reapers were no longer intelligent beings. ME3 shows that bioware decided that the reapers were no longer intelligent and that they were tools of a rogue AI, this was biowares story not drew k’s story we need drew K to leave bioware and start his own company whether he does movies or books and get the original mass effect team together, I would watch, read or play anything they make because passion was what created mass effect 1, passion was lost in ME2 and ME3.
Drew K left BioWare before ME3 was in full swing.. that’s why Casey and Mac became lead writers.
1. Except the artifact they discovered in The Arrival was left by the Reapers. It makes no sense for the Reapers to leave behind something that would warn the galaxy of their existence when they expend so much effort to wipe out such evidence.
2. OK, I might be wrong here. I’ll have to play the final mission to be sure. However, they did specifically say that the Reapers can shut down the entire Mass Relay network from the Citadel and that they did it to the Protheans.
3. Considering how the Reapers were able to easily take over the Citadel and move it to earth, not being able to control the Keepers is obviously not a big problem for them. Plus they used Saren to gain control of the Citadel in ME1, so there’s no reason why they can’t use indoctrinated slaves or husks to do the same thing again.
As for the Reapers not wanting to draw the attention of the entire galaxy at once, it won’t matter once they’ve taken over the Citadel and shut down the Mass Relays. Every race will be stranded in their own systems with no way of helping each other. The Reapers can then wipe them out one by one without having to worry about enemy reinforcements. This is the exact same strategy that they’ve been using since the very beginning and it has always been successful, even against a race like the Protheans, which was not only a militaristic race but also ruled the galaxy and could mobilize its forces much faster than a fragile alliance of a dozen different races.
I feel like the refusal ending is a bit more then a slap in the face. Everyone jumps to the conclusion that it is somehow Bioware laughing at us; as if it’s a prank “ha you wanted a different ending nope.” In my personal opinion the refusal ending isn’t an actual ending as much as it is a refusal of Biowares established endings. I think Joe kind of understands this, but there are still a ton of people bashing it. I think Bioware respects their fans enough to go you “know what if you hate our endings so much that even with this extending cut and all you still can’t except that this happened you can straight up refuse to chose one of our endings.” No game has ever done this before. You will die; you and every other person in the galaxy will die horribly as a result, but you DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE ONE. Now as to what I think Joe really didn’t like about it was as he said the lack of the ability to defeat the reapers straight up, or even just make an epic last stand. While disappointing that that wasn’t there; that would be getting into medal ceremony territory, and it’s not like they were going to add an hour worth of last stand cinematics. In the end I think the ending is for those players who will, understandably, never accept bioware’s endings, so you can refuse to choose then go your separate way as a consumer, and never buy Mass Effect games again. I personally think the ending I got this time around was fine, and will continue to support what was, and now is once again my favorite video game franchise.
ok thats it iam no longer going to purchase any more ea games iam now black listing ea. they have destroyed this franchise and proven that they dont care about their fan base by giving us another middle finger and a kick in the nuts. ea didnt listen to what that fans really wanted and completely rushed through this just to shut us up. they never admitted that they lied to us saying that they were not going to give us an a,b,c ending which they did and they also defended their ending saying it was their artistic vision which is a load of bull and with the extended cut all we really get to see is the same thing we saw on earth with the reapers being destroyed just on different planets and then from there on out all we get are a bunch of still shots and a voice over from hacett, with the same plot holes still in place what they should have done is what they should have done with the game and they might have saved themselves from this whole thing which is they SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THERE TIME MAKING SURE IT WAS READY BE FOR THEY RELEASED IT INSTEAD OF RUSHING OUT JUST SO THEY COULD MAKE THEIR MONEY extended cut excluded from the money part. they should have gone with the indoctrination theory that what a majority of what the fans wanted if they really wanted the approval of the fan base they would have gone with that. i dont see this whole thing as biowears fault i see it as ea’s fault because of their shady business practices, i feel that if ea didnt buy out biowear we wouldent have this problem. but because of this iam done with ea for good.
How the fuck does it prove the Indoctrination Theory wrong?
It didn’t, bioware to this date has not confirmed or denied therefore it is still in the air.
It did. The indoctrination theory was based around the whole thing being a dream, the Shepard was dying in the rubble before the column of energy leading to the citadel.
Part of what influenced this was the sudden wake-up without actually seeing Shepard emerge into the citadel.
However, this was laid to rest by the added cutscene of Hackett being notified that someone made it onto the Citadel, and knowing it was Shepard…’Holy shit, he did it’. It was also solved by the actual emergence scene, rather than just regaining consciousness.
The Indoc theory was good, and very clever…props to the person/people that came up with it. But it’s not the case at all.
Yeah… unfortunately BioWare has clearly shown that it wasn’t their intention. That alone proves it wrong. It would have been a whole lot more thought out and intelligent then what we got. Hell, even if the ending was changed to that and finished with the Crucible being some sort of super weapon, things would have been a lot better off. The fans wrote a better ending than BioWare… that’s pretty damn depressing when you really stop and think about it.
Instead they rip of Deus Ex and did so poorly. Deus Ex had this exact them going for it throughout the entire game. Mass Effect? Just throws it in at the end.
The 4th ending was bioware confirming that it wasn’t EA’s idea to end the game that way, it’s Bioware’s way of saying fuck you for not liking our terrible ending.
Hey Joe:
Bang on as always. I think we can call this a victory for the angry army, and consumerism as a whole. Paying customers demanded something be fixed, and it was. While it’s not a 100% perfect fix, it’s still a heck of a lot more than I think most of us were anticipating.
The fact that it all slips in so seamlessly, however, tells me that this was what they had originally intended, but ran out of time due to their EA overlords demanding release. It would have prevented a LOT of backlash had this all been in in the start.
I never expected the indoctrination theory to be true; it was too much like grasping at straws. A lot of the so-called ‘evidence’ I could explain away, although admittedly there was some I couldn’t…it was a terrific theory, and it would have been something very ballsy and original for Bioware to do…but, in the end, it wasn’t. The person or persons that came up with the idea of the Indoc theory should be lauded for their creativity.
I found out about the EC release late one night while watching a new ME2 review by someone on youtube called…Archangeia, I think. Very intelligent fellow, but his videos are very long so if you check them out I suggest clearing an hour or two…per video. Anyway, back on track; I immediately downloaded it, and loaded my save just before going up to the Citadel…I have yet to see the EC in its entirity…but I did get to see some of the improvements, like the extended dialogue with the Starchild. I then found out you could, through dialogue choices, tell him to screw off…which I did my first time through. I’m glad that they used Liara’s time capsule for that ending, because it makes sense.
I did the blue ending the 2nd time through, and was incredibly happy to see how it went..to see how my choices really did make a difference in the universe…and to see the memorial scene.
The next day, because it had been 2am by that point and I needed to sleep, I moved onto the other endings…accidently triggering the the ‘screw you’ ending again by shooting the Starchild. Again, impressed with the detail they went into…especially the Destroy ending, where your Love Interest sort of fingers the nameplate and doesn’t put it on the wall, and you see Shepard take a breath. I distinctly remember saying ‘Ahhh, I see what you did there’.
All in all, they really did do what they could to make it up for us. Bioware has been restored in my opinion…hopefully EA learns a lesson from this, but I sincerely doubt it.
And to all the paid reviewers that called us ‘entitled’ or ‘whiney’ or ‘selfish’, like Mr. Moriarty from IGN….IN YOUR FACES, B*TCHES!
Joe, please keep leading the Angry army, we’ve achieved a great victory.
Finally, ray of light in the darkness. Now i can see, that hope still exists. I totaly agreed with u guy.
I don’t really understand the outrage over the Refusal ending. I get that it feels rushed, that’s absolutely true. But it wasn’t unrealistic. If the war raged on with all the races against the Reapers, they would lose.
I don’t understand the outrage either. The guy who does Hackett (who if I’m not mistaken did Optimus Prime too) said in his little interview something about losing the game. This ending is just putting that into motion. Giant super-powerful millions-of-years-old machines will always win over smaller less advanced ships, no matter how many little ships there are.
Here. Here.
Nope, not the same guy,
Hackett is voiced by the guy that played Bishop in Aliens, and then a company man that looked like Bishop in Alien 3, and then played Weyland in the first Aliens vs Predator movie.
I’m ok with it being the way to lose. I’m not ok with the insulting undertones and a complete lack of attention that it got. It was the only ending that represented at least what my Shepard fought for, and really the obvious thing to do given that you’re being told about the Crucible from someone who really shouldn’t know what it does in the first place and has shown control, manipulation and lying as the key strategies it uses for victory.
I’m not disappointed in the result. I’m disappointed in the slap to the face. Three Alliance Dreadnaughts were able to take on one Reaper Dreadnaught according to the codex. I expected at least to see the Reaper fleet take irreparable damage and see something of our crew. A somber battle, but one last final badass push for the sake of the next cycle if nothing else.
It clearly stated in ME3 that without the crucible no victory could be acheived. this wasn’t a oversight. They simple were following rules they had previously set down. They did this out of their own free will, and you should be grateful that they are giving so much free DLC and such engaging games. If you still are boycotting them, then please don’t even comment on Bioware games. This DLC didn’t have to be made, and you should always remember that!
why the DLC didn’t have to be made? What you said don’t even make sense…
You mean that we need to accept everything that bioware done until now, without any criticism, just because they tried to fix THEIR own mistake with free dlc. Of course it nedds to be free!.
If they didn’t create EC they would farther tarnish their customer friendly reputation.
yes in ME3 its state conventional victory is a no go, but we still have ME1 and ME2 and the codex from the entire franchise that kinda paints a picture that with a high enough EMS you could defeat the reapers, but the codex writer and bioware has a falling out as evidenced by the actual game story.
I dont know if anyone else said this but my first playthrough i never played the multi-player and choose destroy and still got the shepard breathing ending, but then again i had like amost 7k war assests so yea, i dunno then
the extended cut is definitely better than the crap we got when the game first came out, but i still think the indoctrination theory would have worked out far better.
even though bioware said they didn’t want it to be “a dream”, it’s not a dream, really. it would have linked all 3 games soooo well, since there’s many situations throughout the series that would indicate that shepard has been influenced.
so, i guess i’m a little torn about it all. i’m really happy that bioware didn’t pull a crapcom and basically just say “eff you” to everyone, and actually did put some effort into fixing a lot of the issues the ending had, but their reason for deciding against the indoctrination theory is just ridiculous. whether or not they look at it as a dream is irrelevant to the fact that it would have been a fantastic twist.
The whole “it was all a dream” aspect of the Indoc Theory is what never worked for me. As fantastic and perfectly as the theory worked with the old ending, the fact was that if it was accurate, the game would basically be ending on a cliffhanger. Why would Bioware conclude their trilogy on a cliffhanger with no true answer to who wins in the battle against the Reapers?
That would be like Back to the Future 3 ending after Maddog Tannen shoots Marty in their duel and Marty flinches as he’s about to get up. Just doesn’t make sense.
Actually it still works pretty well, even better at some points than the orginal.
http://spinitreacts.blogspot.com/2012/06/mass-effect-3-is-indoctrination-theory.html
Sorry, I’m just not buying it. It’s fine for whoever wants to believe it, but I don’t.
I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care what Bioware says, its my headcanon ^^
i knew they weren’t going to the IT when they released ec, but still, its better than what those ignorant jackasses came up with.
Okay I understand what you are saying. BioWare did answer most of our complaints and I do commend them for doing so, and the synthetic ending was a good ending for that story line; but I still believe we were shafted on the (Refusal ending) or free will ending. Basically BioWare said “screw you fans we are still going to have our way regardless of how you feel.” When you chose to refuse the Reapers and have humanity come together and fight the Reapers in one huge battle and no matter if your readiness rating was at 100% you still got taken out with the trash. They could have just left it at the Reapers and Humanity coming at each other and letting us guess as to what happened. Basically left it to our imaginations. I could have lived with that just fine. But nooooo, BioWare said “its either our ending because that is what we wanted in the first place or nothing.” So yes kudos for them taking the time to give us some more DLCs. But I kind of wonder if they didn’t have this already planned from the start. If I was in the marketing department and thought of doing the way they did it I would be a hero right now. Because just look at how well the fans are thanking BioWare for taking the time to listen to them and addressing their needs. Practically lining up to buy BioWare’s next game.
Seeing as how I had sold my Mass Effect games two weeks prior to the extended cut release, I was forced to watch reviews and people’s own endings on youtube. But from what I have seen, I still stand by the fact that I dislike the series and will not be buying them again. While I will begrudgingly admit that these new endings are better than the first one, the original endings still happened. Yes it was rushed, by impatient people who don’t know that time is needed to make a good ending, but the first one still exists and the extended endings raise more questions and still leave some unanswered. Sure they were on a budget and weren’t given a lot of time, but I think these new endings almost without thinking too much.
First, how the Normandy saved the crew. Couldn’t they have waited till after the Reaper flew off? Because a ship sitting right in front of them begs the question: Why didn’t they shoot it down? Some people may say that the Reapers don’t have eyes or the Reaper IFF they got in the last game still works. That does not explain why the Reapers attacked you whenever you scanned a planet, why they couldn’t scan the Normandy and identify it as the galaxy’s smallest Reaper, or why they didn’t notice why there was a Reaper saving people instead of blowing them up.
Next, while Hackett does acknowledge Shepard getting on board the Citadel, they still forgot to mention that Anderson was on board and he is still majorly undamaged for a guy wearing regular military clothing. Probably still has some kinetic shielding, but the same amount that Shepard had and that was barely enough.
The God Child’s logic is still my biggest issue. Mainly because it believes that peace between organics and synthetics without synthesis or Shepard taking over the Reapers to enforce order is impossible and hides our want for a reason with the most cliched excuse a synthetic life form can give: It is inevitable. And he also says that now they know synthesis is possible, that is inevitable too. We saw in the Geth collective that all they wanted was to exist and to be left alone. They only attack if they feel threatened and it was them, depending on what you choose, who extended peaceful coexistence with the Quarians who tried to destroy them. I also just don’t like endings where in order for something to happen (Control and Synthesis endings) you need someone who is “worthy” to make it all happen instead of just doing it. We already know that it would take an extraordinary person to accomplish the things we see in video games but for the game itself to admit that they need such a person is redundant and is more often than not bad story telling.
The worst part about the new ending is indeed the slideshow. I know they did not have time or money, but the slideshow just doesn’t show much and is plain lazy. It doesn’t show what policies the new council or old council is implementing because of the trilogy’s events, it does not show any other race that wasn’t in the last battle, and the ending was just too nice. As I said before, I have played my own endings because I sold my entire series, but it seems if there is anything bad that happens there is no epilogue for it. If Kasumi is dead or destroys the thing that has her memories of her lover in it, nothing is shown. During the destroy ending, it does not show the Geth dying. And I can only guess that if you give the Krogans the royal screw over by not giving them the Genophage cure then they don’t up rise. I may have to rent the game to see if this is so seeing as how everyone who has shown their endings on youtube are all goody goody two shoes, but those results are still inconsequential to Bioware’s own view of the ending: Everything is okay despite how bad everything was. The lack of consequences in the epilogue in an otherwise tragic tale filled with choices you didn’t want to make but had to is just not closure to me. I see it as bad writing.
My friend sent me a pic from a webcomic by Jay Naylor and I think it explains the endings best: You are person (player) having sex (playing game) with someone you love (mass effect 3) and its some the best sex you ever had (one of the best games you’ve played) and just as you are about to climax (about to reach the end of the game), the person you love farts on your genitals (the ending) and no matter what you do (no matter what choices you make in the game), that will always be the end result. The parts in () are me explaining the metaphor but you get the idea.
I thought that the Extended Cut for ME3 was ok. I agree with you in that if this was the original ending in the first place, the uproar wouldn’t have been there. I think BioWare just saved themselves. I did read in Forbes Mag (of all places) that the writers were extremely divided over the indoctrination theory and they didn’t want the ending to be “just a dream”. I get that. On another note, I think it would have been interesting if ME3 wasn’t an end. The tasks that Shepard ends up doing is a game story in itself. They could’ve made ME4 an end.. like being involved with the different planets helping other races fight the reapers..ground force as well as galaxy with co-op multiplayer and added cut scenes. It probably would have ended up like an MMO but you’d kind of expect that as a galactic war coming to a conclusion. No one has done that and as well written as ME franchise is that could have been done. Well, gives me hope for DA. that is another great story they have which can evolve if they do it right..Thanks to BioWare!!!
they should preserve the ambiguity of the ending by releasing a prequel
Hi Joe,
Just wanted to say I agreed with your accurate analysis of the extended cut. Perticularly on the lackluster Reject option.
In my opinion its the best possible option seeing as I just didn’t felt any of the other 3 choices belong to “Shepard”. I found it perticularly annoying to see that “you just simply lose” by choosing that option even though we’ve been put through so much effort getting the entire galaxy on our side.
Some say that we could have anticipated the fact that we would just simply “lose” by choosing reject, because of the Reapers being too strong. I disagree! Here’s why:
- As we fight the reapers throughout Mass Effect 1 to 3 we get to know more and more of their weaknesses, and we see lot’s of examples of us taking them down more and more easy.
- From the cinematic showing the Reaper fleet at the end of Mass Effect 2, there are roughly 295 Reapers visible. We don’t even know how many of them are even capital size (sovereign)
- A part of the alliance fleet takes down sovereign in Mass Effect 1, which is only an insignificant fraction of the fleet we’ve accumilated in Mass Effect 3.
- With all our war assets going at full, we can clearly see our armada standing up against the reaper capital ships even destroying one in the cutscenes.
It just doesn’t make sense for Bioware to just plainly say “You lose” even though most evidence speaks differently.
If you’re not bothered with the Star Childs options, then I guess it doesn’t matter. But I still think it would have been awesome to just have one option that said: ok screw it all “i’ll gamble it” and then have everything you’ve fought for in Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3, decide the outcome!
Just my 2 cents!
- Kaydenloss
The fleet only destroyed Sovereign because of some sort of reaction to it being inside Saren when he died that made it drop its shields. The other times that Reapers were destroyed depended mostly on the element of surprise, like the big Thresher Maw and the orbital bombardment.Though the whole bombardment thing does make me wonder why they could not take the other Reapers down Independence Day style, make them begin to fire and hit them in the weapon right then.
It’s because the two reapers you mentioned were not dreadnoughts like Sovereign or Harbinger.
shaen – in ME1 we did not have sovereigns weapon system, ME2 we did, ME3 everyone did, So my question is what happened? Bioware decided at the beginning of ME3 that conventional victory through a united galaxy was never going to happen but because drew set that up they had to tear that down. By introducing the macmuffin and then dumbing everything down including the reapers and the players control of the character. Basically when drew was demoted and forced to jump to the swtor team was when mass effect died.
The plot holes haven’t even been all filled. In fact they added more with Harbinger not firing on the Normandy or the Normandy giving air support.
* Normandy /not/ giving air support
I think Joe forgot to mention one of the most infuriating aspects of the DLC – that in order to experience all of it, and in order to close one of the plot holes, you need to return to a stage in the game BEFORE the Citadel return sequence. If you’ve finished the game, you can only restart from the point that Harbinger hits you with the beam, which means you miss the scene where Shepard calls the Normandy for extraction of his squad mates. The only other option is to use the galaxy map to start from the Illusive Man’s base mission, which means replaying about an hour and a half (or longer) of gameplay for a two minute exposition scene. Bioware really ought to have patched the game so that the final restart point is when Shepard and Anderson first look at the conduit at the top of the rise, which would be cool anyway as the sequence where you’re storming the conduit is epic as hell. And the ‘refusal’ ending, while I’m glad it was included, should have been fleshed out more. It didn’t necessarily need a way to defeat the reapers, but it needed more shown than a scene of a Liara VI that could have been from any point in time.
Decent DLC overall, but a couple of major complaints.
It starts with the assault on the Cerberus becаuse the EMC freezing exactly on this misson, so any changes of the EMC with DLC will not countable after that mission. And the endings use that number of EMC + count of the reaper core to calculate result of the assault on the Earth.
Other bugs is just because ME3 has that sistem of saves that we had 1 autosave and 1 restart mission save and scene of the Citadel counts as directed mission.
Faith in bioware is restored
Another one… An why EC made your faith in BW restored? They didnt made any super cool ending, they didn’t rewrite it, they gave to players what they were asking for! It’s not their idea, it’s our idea! And in some of this explanations sense is.. gone! Just like when Normandy landed to evac your team, Harbinger have decided to take a break, and don’t blow up ship, which made a lot if troubles for him.
The fact is is that they really didn’t have to do anything at all, man. They listened to their paying customers, which is really getting to be a rare thing in the world of business.
The EC wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than nothing if we’d all just kept our mouths meekly shut. It’s proof that we, as consumers, still have some power…we just can’t give any of it up.
In all honesty I wish they didn’t do anything because we got that refusal ending. It ruined my whole experience. It kinda cemented the fact that everything we accomplished was meaningless. You obey the controller or you die. That’s shitty storytelling.
did they really listen to the consumers? All they did was the absolute minimum to try and make this right it doesn’t change the fact that the inclusion of the starchild still destroys the entire storyling of the first mass effect.
Harbenger was there to aviod infiltration in the Citadel, not to wipe out everything that he saw. There was many other targets to destroy. It’s just fail of the scenarist’s that they didn’t show extermination of other forces in the middle of the scene with Normandy.
Harbinger has been after Shepard all along, it says so in the second game. Blowing up the Normandy would have served no purpose. He only had the Collectors blow it up before because Shepard was on board.
I was satasfied with the endings and think they were much improved upon.
its better than what it was and bioware should be praised for actually doing something about it
If you stick by the Indoctrination thoery ending we have to presume it was cut by EA (Corporate Commanders flagship company)
if it was to allow further expansions , Mass effect 4 or simply time restraints who knows.
Joe should do a video of bioware asking Corporate commander (EA) permission to add new endings.
“what do you mean for free? they want new endings they can pay for them!”
I have to say its bothering me how many people are blindly accepting the EC, Its so heavily laced with subliminal messages its not funny.
Control = everyone is better off if one supreme AI god rules everything in the effort to provide security to the populace. EX: Cold war russia, ancient egyptian pharoahs.
Synthesis = in order to put aside our differences and evolve to a higher level of existence we must become the master race of synthetic and organic hybrids. EX: 1935-1940′s germany
Destroy – in order to protect the greater good we much commit genocide of sentient species. EX: African tribe wars of modern day, plus 1935-1940′s germany.
Refusal = if you fight for freedom to decide your own fate and unity of diverse peoples you will be extinguished and destroyed. Shepards words of i’d rather die free than live like a slave kinda points at that. Our story was a story of beating the odds no matter how difficult they were, but bioware says that the odds are too great so everyone who fights to be free must die.
I find it very interesting that so few people have actually noticed the hidden meanings in biowares endings and what bothers me more is the amount of people in support of synthesis and control. Eh oh well we’ll soon be living control and synthesis soon enough.
I ve noticed it too but I thought it was nonsence but as you ve noiced that too I am starting to beilive it
did you just call them nazis? please get a life
If we don’t analyze such points in a “safe” realm, like entertainment, how are we to recognize them in real life?
in a way yes I did notice the disturbing similarities to nazi germany that synthesis provides, I noticed it before the EC and I definetely notice it post-EC, you don’t have to dig deep to see it you only have to look at germany pre-world war 2 when hitler first rose to power and the subsequent youth groups and propaganda. There is an old saying if we fail to learn from history we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Our past mistakes are starting to come back because true history is no longer taught to our children, instead they are taught heroic lies that either omit or gloss over certain facts to ensure that a villian can be painted as a hero. Perfect example is woodrow wilson, he is painted as a hero but his policies created segregation and pushed for the KKK, they also paved the way for a lot of the social programs we have today some of them that caused some of the labor issues we have now.
Want to know what i’m talking about research everything I talked about, trust me what you remember from school and what you find will scare you and you apply it to whats going on now.
So few people have “noticed” these “hidden messages” because it’s bullshit. You’re reading FAR too heavily into this my friend. So we lose the fight if we try to fight for freedom. So what? Sometimes you lose. We all know every game we play has the good guy coming out strong, but what if he’s not enough? Bioware made it so. Your efforts are not enough on their own, so you need to do that extra step.
That’s all. No nazi insinuation, no tribal genocide, just a great trilogy. If you don’t think so, get a hobby.
Look, the hidden message isn’t like people saying that Pokemon is teaching people devil worship, that Spongebob is about a homosexual couple, or that Harry Potter is teaching kids to embrace witchcraft. Stories are filled with double meaning and Soulproviders’ views are legitimate, make sense, and do not need to be dismissed without careful thought. And even if Bioware didn’t intend for their endings to be seen that way, anyone can plainly see them. SP just found historical evidence to back up his claims.
I love Soulproviders comment. It’s so true. It’s like ObamaCare being forced down our throats. Screw free will. Your now going to do what our socialist president forced down us. Sorry still pissed about the Suptreme Courts (not a misspell). decisions to tell us that we are now force to buy whatever the government tells us to buy now.
Move to Canada we don’t have a standardised health care system here…. oh wait yes we do, so do most countries that rate higher on the world health organizations list. In short piss off and take your political views else-ware we don’t care and were not here to hear them
I agree with the others: it’s generally the same as the original, with only the minor problems fixed. The major one–that war assets, etc., did not affect the outcome of the fourth ending–was not dealt with.
The refusal ending features an Asari and her daughter at the end. We can take solace, at least, that they survived. Not that much of a surprise, since it is really hard to wipe out a race of long-lived women who can mate with ANYTHING.
I would have been more amused, however, if it had been a Yahg and its child.
I do wonder, however, if Bioware is planning to tweak the endings more with each DLC they release for the single-player from now on. Who knows? Maybe if the Leviathan DLC is more than a rumor, we will finally gain enough war assets through it to change the outcome of the refusal ending.
If they did that they would draw those that are not motivated to buy more DlC.
I agree with you Joe on the idea that if we were given this as the ending(s) there would not have been such an outcry as there was. They aren’t great, but they are better and I do agree with you that Ea probably rushed ME3′s release.
HOWEVER, the original ending we were given cannot escape our memories. That was a slap in the face that was too hard for most fans. I would have preferred that Bioware took more time on the ending to make it more expansive because, with the hole they were in, they needed more rope than they gave themselves. I can go on about how the extended cut did not help at all (especially with how crude everything seemed i.e. the Normandy picking up your crew in the middle of the charge [I almost threw my controller at the tv]) but to sum it all, it was not enough.
I stated very early when I first learned about the Indoctrination theory that if the new endings do not appeal to me due to lack of closure or lack of choice or just lack of . . . everything, IT was going to be my fall guy. So now I am a guy that does not promote the IT, but I believe in IT. So for any fans that still have no closure, just look beyond the Bioware veil and just believe in IT or whatever other ending you like.
Here,Here.