I cant stand to play ME1 its quite painful (I started with 2). But I think there is DLC i can get to cover that right?

So, I'm confused.

Everyone is angry. Why are they angry?

Maybe I just did too good a job being awesome? I don't know.

If you haven't beaten ME3 yet, don't read below, but I'll still try to be as vague as possible.

So yeah, like I said. Cured the thingy on Tuchanka, saved Maelon's data and Wrex, so everything was awesome except for Mordin. Mordin was incredibly sad. But good sad. Fitting sad. I liked it.

I'm also the best fucking paragon in the world, so I managed to get the best possible ending on Rannoch. The geth and quarians are holding hands now.

I got my readiness to 100% and managed to rack up about 5500 worth of war assets. I've read that 6k is the max, so I was a little worried that it wouldn't be enough to get the best ending ever, but it seems as if my fears were for naught.

My paragon was maxed, so I convinced Martin Sheen to put a bullet in his head. Then I chose the green ending. If you don't know what I'm talking about and you've beaten the game, you should probably replay it with boosted readiness and a bit more war assets. From what I've read, you have to pass a certain asset threshold to get it, but its totally worth it.

The scene with the Normandy at the end confused me, but I kinda liked it. What confused me was, how the hell did my crew get aboard and get to the mass relay in time? Weren't they JUST fighting a ground war on Earth? Whatever, I'll forgive it that. There were other things too, I suppose. Didn't really give you much of "what happens after", but I've read enough sci-fi to be able to handle that. Blowing up the mass relays kind of has me worried though. Billions upon billions of people are left stranded on Earth with no way to get home? Kind of depressing. But I chose the green ending, so I figure that with help they can figure out a way to either flourish where they are or find another way home.

I'm sure there are other things, I could probably talk about it quite a bit, but that's all for now. Let me know if you have any more direct questions about my reaction, OS. And let me know how you felt too.

Also Om: going to Earth with low enough resources restricts your ending choices. As far as the final BIG choice, there are three possibilities: blue, red, or green. You might not have unlocked green, if your readiness was only at 50%. Depends how much shit you did in game. Also, if your asset score is abysmally low, Earth is either devastated or completely obliterated.

Also, I've been reading some stuff online that suggests that there's a very good chance that all three endings are fake, and that you're being indoctrinated. Allegedly, they're going to release DLC with the "real" ending. We'll see.

The controversey is ALL with hte last 5 minutes

Yeah, no green ending for me. I chose blue which of course killed me. But yeah, I thought the crew that the short end of the stick.

Loyally fighting and dying for 3 games only to be stranded on an unknown world with only the consequences of my choices to determine their pairings to maintain a viable population?

The reason I chose blue was because if I chose red, I heard the explanation about the relays blowing up and I wanted to prevent it. I guess they also said that with the blue choice but I didn't catch it because they blew up anyway!

And better hope there is no female krogan on Earth or the Krogans stranded on it will compete with rabbits for domination.

Yeah, I couldn't bring the Geth and Quarians together. :(

I did not mind the jumping to the future with the dad and son talking in the end. I just murmured, when the kid asked: 'when can I go in space, Pa?'...."When we get the @#$#@ mass relays rebuilt!"

I've been having a lot of trouble articulating thoughts lately (hence why I haven't posted IC in a very long time), so apologies if my thoughts don't flow coherently at times...


I am definitely not among the legions of fans angry about the ending. My feelings on the ending sort of branch into two categories...


***MAJOR SPOILERS***


The first category concerns the entire game up until Shepard passes out for the second time in the Citadel.


I felt the game did an excellent job setting the emotional tone for the war... at every turn in the game even as you made small victories, you were confronted with even bigger losses. The stresses of a seemingly hopeless war are ever present and they weigh openly on the characters (I did not feel this in ME2 regarding the suicide mission, Shepard always seemed gung-ho about that). I liked the element of the nightmares... they generally seemed to occur right when I was starting to trust again that the game would carry me to an epic victory *somehow* if I just continued my perfectionist paragon play through. That walk before the final battle where Shepard speaks to all of the team members for the final time really sealed a sense of resignation and loss for me... I just knew my Shepard was walking to her death, and I wasn't at all certain that the reapers could even be defeated. Made my skin crawl...


Shepard and Anderson's last conversation, that was just epic. Having said all of that... am I the only one who felt that sort of resigned 'well, this is it... this is how it ends for me. I am going to die' feeling? Because I thought it was neat to discover in increasing amounts throughout the game that Bioware had succeeded in connecting me that closely to Shepard. At least with the character driven plot elements, I felt Bioware did very well.




The second category is that whole bizarre, out of left field last 5-10 minutes. So Shepard passes out a second time. Me being the nurse I am, I think 'she's bleeding out now, too much blood loss. Well shit. Reapers win.' But oh wait.... Shepard coincidentally passed out on a MAGIC FLYING PLATFORM that also miraculously revives her to have a whole discussion about the fate of the galaxy and the purpose of the Reapers with... the Citadel itself which also happens to be a reaper!


Was it just a hallucination after Shepard passed out? Was Shepard indoctrinated? A lot of people are angry about this sudden deviation from the usual ME formula, but I am sure Bioware had it's reasons. Either I just haven't figured out "the meaning of the universe" yet (maybe the answer is 42!), or some DLC or sequel will hit eventually. I took the green ending... glowing matrix type people wandering the universe is a little weird sounding, no? Well at least now EDI and Joker can have babies on their lush tropical planet after I went to all the trouble to coach them into a relationship.


Zark, when you chose green did you feel like Shepard was doing for the whole universe what Legion had done for the Geth on Rannoch? I totally thought of Legion as Shepard ran down the platform (I swear it was a hallucination, Shepard was in no physical condition to run!).


Only things I really didn't like were, not much closure with most of the characters other than the surviving three on the Normandy, and no ultimate showdown with Harbinger other than 30 seconds of him burning you into a Reaper fried Shepard crisp. But, Bioware had a lot of ground to cover.


I also found it interesting to note that the child in the very last scene referred to Shepard as "The Shepard" when he asked for another story. Where is that couple standing, anyways? It isn't Earth!

I think the implication is that they're standing on the jungle planet that the Normandy crashed onto.

And yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I felt. Following Legion's example. It did hit me pretty hard when I became sure that my Shepard wasn't going to make it out alive, but I wasn't angry with Bioware for doing that. I knew even before I started playing ME3 that his death would be a logical ending point.

I don't know. I guess the ending was a little lackluster. I read that they had this big boss fight with the Illusive Man at the end all scripted and designed, but they took it out because it felt too predictable and gamey. I guess I can understand that. I think Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade's viewpoint is really the best, though. Everyone is complaining about how brief and anticlimactic the last 15 minutes are, that its not a very good ending. But think about it, Mass Effect 3 is the ending, the entire game. The moment the Reapers hit Earth, it's the beginning of the end. Just because there isn't 45 minutes of exposition after the last battle doesn't ruin the game for me.