I still can't believe most of the criticism leveled at the ending. Did these people really expect rainbows and unicorns in the ending? I mean I wasn't in love with the ending but it's largely because I thought some very minor changes would make it way stronger but the more I see these complaints it's like "did we just play the same three games?"

I think the problem is the lack of closure. The ending is not clear and it's not well defined. But I'm with you. I see the game getting hammered all over the place, and it's like people are completely disregarding the 99.999% of the game that exists before the last 10 minutes. "It's ruined the game, it's ruined the series. Why replay any of it?"

It just boggles the mind. I think it's an amazing game, even with the head-scratching ending. But different people react in different ways I guess.


I should add that the kind of people who are prone to finish the game by last weekend or even by now (I count myself in this group...) are probably the kind of people who are most likely to fly off the handle on the internet. I think the saner people 1) won't be on boards to begin with and 2) are probably still only 20 hours into it.

I finished this last night. And son, I am dissapoint.

I played the first two games for weeks/months. I finished this one in a week, and really have no desire whatsoever to replay it. I found the gameplay to be repetitive, boring, and occasionally annoying. The side quests and exploration were terrible, the interface was a step down from the last game, and I'm sorry, but that ending just absolutely chugged cock - frankly, it was worse than KOTOR2. And for all the continuity, they sure dropped the ball on some stuff (Shepard would have known what the ardat-yakshis were, for example).

This was not worth the wait, nor did it come close to living up to the standards of the first two games.

:mad:

I had a whole side-quest built around Samara and her daughters. My Shepard definitely knew what they were. Wonder if you ran into a bug of some kind.

I think may I missed out on a good deal of interesting content by not importing an ME2 character - the one I would have imported wasn't finished yet, and I just wasn't motivated enough to wrap it up before playing this one. Samara wasn't mentioned during the entire course of the game, and that makes no sense at all.

Oh well. Perhaps at some point I'll finish up that ME2 game and import the character and give it another shot, but I'm not in any hurry to do so. I think I'll wrap up Kingdom of Amular and then perhaps revisit Skyrim.

Ooooh, I forgot.

Yeah, that would explain some of it. I was wondering first how you were done already and second why you were saying it seemed repetitive. Basically every returning ME2 character gets a fairly involved sidequest. A lot of the really cool moments in the game came from those quests. The only one that I didn't like was Jacob's, and that was basically because he was just as bland and pointless in 3 as he was in 2. Zaeed's didn't do a lot for me for the same reason, but Jacob's was the dog of the bunch.

I know you didn't like her, but Jack's was pretty great when you found out where she was and what she was doing. Miranda's was eventually great. Samara's was really good. Did you see Thane at all? I thought he was tied in with the main quest. Grunt's was tremendous, the first real 'oh shit' moment of the game for me.

You may be better of waiting anyway. The longer this goes on, the more I think they're going to do something to 'fix' the ending, if that hasn't been planned all along anyway.

Yeah, I didn't get any of that, other than Jacob (yeah, he sucks) and Miranda. Jack was only mentioned once but never encountered, no mention of Samara, Zaeed or Grunt. And Theos was already dead (IIRC he was terminally ill in ME2 and would be dead in this one anyway).

In my nearly finished ME2 game, Ashley is dead (never liked her useless character, only picked her over the whiney and equally useless Carth/Kaiden character because she actually looks hot this time around), Wrex is alive, and I haven't got to the part yet where a couple of them get greased, so I'm not sure how that will pan out yet. I guess I should get busy and finish that so I can give this turd another shot - perhaps I'll enjoy it more the second time around.

Yeah, that's right. Thane was/is terminally ill. That carries over from ME2. When you have a game where he's still around, you'll find him at the hospital in pretty bad shape.

I saw some rumors flying around about the DLC coming for ME3, most notably from IGN.com.

First, that it will be FREE DLC, and that the current ending of the game is so bad because the true ending was leaked before it was done or something (I didnt follow ME3's production so I dont know) and that Bioware had to rush to change the ending so it wouldnt be spoiled, ending up with this pile.

The DLC coming is called "The Truth" and the singleplayer content in it is supposed to address and "fix" this horrendous frothy jar of ass that is this set of endings, showing us all what was "really" supposed to happen at the end.

:rolleyes: Not sure about that stuff, but Broken Steel did fix Fallout 3's absolutely atrocious ending, and if it doesnt cost anything Ill certainly give it a look.

People without brodband access to XBOX live however, seem to be terminally fecked until the obligatory re-release of the game that will include all DLC on the discs.

It will also contain multiple new classes for multiplayer.




I hated that the ending showed virtually zero aftermath, and had absolutely no dialogue. Youre gonna end a series with some of the characters looking up in the sky silently? LAME ASS.

I've heard the same rumor.

It makes sense in terms of how the ending seems like a departure from the game/series, and the part about doing it due to leaks could be feasible if far-fetched. It completely doesn't make sense to me, however, that a company would allow this much absolutely brutal online reaction. And I wonder how many people have returned the game at this point. I'm not sure whether a move like that would be a PR nightmare or a PR coup.

Either way I have very little problem with it if it's free. If EA charges the players money for this, to get the goddamn ending to the game, it would be one of the worst attempted money-grabs I can ever remember in gaming.

I've determined that playing this game without downloading a ME2 save is almost like punishment. Playing through the second time, with the added dimension of the old characters makes the game about 200% better.

Yeah, I guess Im gonna have to rent ME2 and replay it over because none of my characters will import. I played through ME3 and while the gameplay was great, the story didnt follow anything that I had done over the course of the other games.

I only ever saw a couple of the characters from previous games as well. According to the Normandy Memorial Wall, Wrex and Thane were dead. I didnt see Jack, Legion, Grunt, Samara, or Zaeed.

Playing ME3 without the ME2 import just sucks ass. I hate that they didnt give the quiz like they did in ME2 so that you could play the storyline you wanted and make sure it was right.

Hell, some of my character saves I dont remember what choices I made with them because I wanted to see all the outcomes.

Ah well. Maybe the "real" ending will be available by the time I finish playing back through 2 and get around to renting 3 again.

Bioware was saying in the lead up to release that this game was a great entry point for newcomers to the series. Which is absolute horseshit. Reuniting and reaching conclusions with old characters and seeing stuff you've done play out is the reason to play this game. New players likely wouldn't have any context for most of the shit going on.

Ultimately I think were the ending falls flat is you've gone through three games and probably have at least a half dozen characters you care fairly deeply about, have been put through the emotional wringer for the last hour or so and then the denouement is perfunctory at best. I realize they don't want to put a ton there because then they would either be stuck with it for future games or retcon it but in terms of resolution there needed to be more. People just had too much invested in the game for you to give them such an empty, sterile ending.