Bioware General (Mass Effect/Dragon Age/Other)

[magnuskn]

Sounds more like SWTOR in some aspects. ^^

[SciFlyBoy]

I preordered the game with funds from selling my unused Nintendo mini.

Damn, has it really been 4 years since Andromeda?

Speaking of 2017, I looked at NieR:Automata for the first time since 'completing' it last summer. Goddess, that was such a great game. I can't wait to dive into it again.

[Ragabul]

I actually picked that one up a few weeks ago and played up until the first ending, but I haven't picked it up again. I'll get back to it eventually. It's interestingly weird but I haven't gotten to the "mind blown" stuff that everybody keeps saying is in it yet.

[Dragaros]

"Mass Effect 3's ending revisited: Overblown outrage or justified fury?
The leaked original ending, protest cupcakes, DLC retconning, and whether ME3's finale deserved the hate."

[[ "In my last semester of college, I had a sci-fi English class with a few fellow Mass Effect uberfans who were all so hyped for Mass Effect 3. We made plans to hunt down the Space Edition balloon that ended up stuck in a tree. We messaged one another about our favorite epic moments like the thresher maw attack. We built up our galactic readiness together in multiplayer.

Then, we reached the ending, and it felt a bit like our balloon of Mass Effect passion had been popped and was slowly, noisily fizzling out around us on the internet. There was a collective disappointment bordering on rage that players' 200ish-hour playthroughs had ended in such a confusing, unsatisfying way. Gaming forums and blogs went into full-on fury mode. YouTubers started trying to salvage the ending with elaborate theories. Bioware released ending DLC to counter some of the criticisms, and people slowly moved on.

Now that the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is shipping on May 14 with the Extended Cut DLC as the default, with no way to choose the original ending, we decided to revisit the original ending and all its controversies and fan reactions. And as you play through the series again and prepare to make your choice, it's time to decide if Mass Effect 3's ending deserves the vitriol or deserves a second chance.

Similar to how the Last of Us II leaked before launch and sparked fan outrage, a version of the Mass Effect 3 script leaked a few months before launch with some controversial scenes players didn't like. Unlike Naughty Dog, which stuck to its guns, Bioware allegedly changed major story beats of the final game so that players wouldn't know what was coming. That script is hard to find online these days, but thanks to Redditors we know some fascinating details of what (allegedly) could have been in Mass Effect 3:

Javik wasn't just a Prothean survivor; he was the Catalyst to the Crucible. When he awakes on Eden Prime, he causes so much chaos and death that Shepard is blamed and loses their spectre status.
Kai Leng frames Shepard for the murder of a spectre, turning Kaidan or Ashley against you. During the Thessia confrontation, you must choose to save either Liara or the Virmire survivor.
After the Citadel coup / saving the council again, Shepard is given the title "Lord Protector of the Galaxy".
Zaeed infiltrates Cerberus to assassinate its leaders and learn more about how the troops are being augmented with Reaper tech.
The final Priority: Earth mission, like the ending of Mass Effect 2, would have had more interactivity and consequences. As Lord Protector, you would have to order ships and troops to protect the Crucible's approach, sacrificing troops and potentially fan-favorite characters in the process.
You sync the Crucible to the Citadel as per the original ending. You learn revelations from the Starchild, then must choose to destroy, control, or "become one" with the Reapers.

This truly only scratches the surface. Old Mass Effect 1 and 2 characters like Emily Wong, Kal'Reegar, and the Consort had major roles that were cut, benched Mass Effect 2 characters like Thane and Kasumi had longer missions, and villains like Udina were given more context for their actions. But a rushed production schedule and the leak caused Bioware to abandon many plot threads and push out a more streamlined, simplified plot.

Concerning Mass Effect 3's ending, it's intriguing how little changed, despite how many differences there were in the story leading up to it. It's also true that the leak didn't really reveal many details about the ending aside from the final choice. One of the big criticisms of the Mass Effect ending is that none of your prior decisions or morality really affect it. Based on the leak, I can't help but wonder if Bioware had to make the ending isolated from the rest of the game out of necessity. It didn't know how many plot points it would be able to squeeze into the final product or what they'd have to change, so they made an ending with a single, solitary choice.

From the moment Shepard and the surviving Earth troops start charging towards the Citadel sky beam, things get confusing and depressing in the original Mass Effect 3 ending. When Harbinger blasts you, survivors on the radio declare your whole team dead and retreat; it's heavily implied that your squadmates and assault team all died, including Captain Anderson. You warp into the Citadel, where Anderson informs you that he entered the beam right behind you but is somehow ahead of you. After the Illusive Man confrontation, Admiral Hackett suddenly contacts you to inform you that the Crucible isn't working — even though he has no reason to know you're still alive. You encounter the mysterious Catalyst (aka Starchild). He informs you of your choices to destroy, control, or synthesize with the Reapers, arguing that organics and synthetics are doomed to kill one another. You accept his claims without protest, despite your friendship with EDI and your work to unite the Geth and Quarians against all odds. After you choose, the mass effect relays all blow up — which, according to Mass Effect's own codex entries and the Arrival DLC, would obliterate any habitable planets within range, killing billions of sentients no matter which ending you chose. The Normandy barely escapes the blast, which implies that the rest of the fleet you recruited all died in the explosion. Then, the game ends.

All of this combines to make the ending seem like a horrifying fever dream rather than a coherent narrative or triumphant victory. And that's why so many people gravitated towards the indoctrination theory, which suggests the ending is an elaborate mental test for Shepard, whose mind Harbinger is attempting to "assume direct control" over. Choosing destroy meant you fought off Harbinger's influence — which is why it's the only ending where Shepard can survive — while choosing synthesis or control means you fall for the same temptation that corrupted Saren and the Illusive Man. It may sound far-fetched, but the above video shows enough in-game evidence that you can understand why gamers embraced the theory. Was this intended by the developers? Almost certainly not. In an interview with The Gamer, Bioware writer Chris Hepler said that while he's a fan of the theory, the developers: "made some of the ending a little trippy because Shepard is a breath away from dying and it's entirely possible there's some subconscious power to the kid's words, we never had the sort of meetings you'd need to have to properly seed (the Indoctrination Theory) through the game...We weren't that smart."

The ending's vagueness was either a stylistic choice or one born out of a rushed production schedule. Either way, the developers responded by releasing the Extended Cut, which focused on removing the above plot holes and giving you more information about the impact of your choices. The Mass Effect wiki has a great summary of the changes. For starters, you see firsthand whether your squadmates survive or perish. You learn that only the Normandy is caught in the blast because Joker didn't want to leave you behind. Bioware also retconned the relay explosions to say they were only damaged, among other changes of that nature. Most importantly, it added a fourth ending option where you refuse to use the Crucible, allowing Harbinger and friends to harvest the galaxy. Most players who wanted to beat the Reapers in a straight fight saw this option as a slap in the face more than an olive branch. The Extended Edition cleaned up plot holes but didn't change the fact that the Reapers really were too powerful to be stopped. You had to use the deus ex machina of the Crucible to defeat them, and in-game actions like saving both the Geth and Quarians only mattered because they slightly raised your Effective Military Strength. You could do the same by playing a few rounds of multiplayer.

People have talked for years about Mass Effect 2 writer Drew Karpyshyn's alternative ending to the series, where the Reapers were "wiping out organic life because organics keep evolving to the state where they would use biotics and dark energy and that caused an entropic effect that would hasten the end of the universe." Mass Effect 3 writer Chris Hepler, meanwhile, told The Gamer that he wanted to turn the Crucible into a specialized Reaper-killing nuke based off of a superweapon in a sci-fi novel he liked, but that he never had time to pitch the idea before Bioware leads chose the current ending. It's tempting to think about the what-ifs of how different the Mass Effect ending could have been. However, the dark matter ending, where you would potentially have to sacrifice organic life to stop the universe from dying, could have been just as bleak and isolated from your past in-game decisions (dark energy is also barely mentioned in ME1 and ME2). Hepler's ending, meanwhile, would have felt just as much like a deus ex machina, with a superweapon that conveniently only hurts reapers but doesn't hurt people. It also could have led to Bioware getting sued for plagiarism, by Hepler's own admission. Bioware didn't lay the groundwork for any specific ending in its first two games and made the Reapers too powerful to beat conventionally. I'd argue that no matter which galaxy-saving superweapon you used — or justification the Reapers used to harvest organic life — no ending was going to feel entirely earned or natural.

In the most notorious reaction to the Mass Effect ending, one superfan sent 400 cupcakes to Bioware's offices; all of them were vanilla flavored, with red, blue, and green frosting on top to represent the three endings. The implication was that the different colors (or endings) couldn't mask that the cupcake tasted bland and identical no matter which you chose. Players also lamented the lack of a final boss battle, noting that the last enemy you fight is a single shielded Marauder that automatically shoots you as you walk towards the sky beam. It eventually became a meme that a Turian named Marauder Shields had tried heroically to stop the player from experiencing Mass Effect's "terrible" ending.

Fans' disappointment and emotional responses at the time were at least understandable. But now that we're far enough out to think rationally and critically about the ending, I asked my colleagues for their thoughts. Here were their responses, condensed for brevity:

"None of the three main endings are particularly 'good.' Destroy is probably the least problematic ending since you can rebuild AI after the Crucible destroys them all. If you want to play a Shep who wants to maintain her sense of control, Refusal is a fun way to go, but I can't see a world where Shep just outright doesn't deal with the Reaper threat. Overall, the main problem with the endings isn't that it doesn't take into account your choices, but that none of them are satisfying for the player. Either Shep gives up control over her own being or commits genocide. Nobody wins." — Carli Velocci

"I think the criticism about the ending was very overblown, and I think it overshadowed everything else that was great about ME3. Even if the ending wasn't great, the rest of that game still had a ton of emotional and satisfying conclusions to story arcs." — Brendan Lowry

"None of the options in that final choice are set up for Shepard. Every other time there's a big decision in the series — like with the Rachni queen — other characters comment to present the pros and cons. This is necessary because it establishes the consequences of each choice. With the finale, you pick an ending and boom, cutscene. There's no emotional investment, no real feeling of weight to the choices. When I can pick the ending of a game with less passion than I have for picking a flavor of ice cream, something is wrong." — Rachel Kaser

"At the time, I thought people's response was completely overblown. What I realized was that the endings themselves weren't necessarily the issue. It basically didn't matter what you did throughout an entire series that was supposed to evolve with your choices; your actions in the game end up being almost meaningless. With that said, I actually loved the destroy ending and felt it made the most sense in the story's context." — Nick Sutrich

I generally agree with both sides of the debate. On the one hand, I found it melodramatic when people said the ending ruined the entire series. ME3 still had satisfying payoff moments like the genophage cure that culminated from all three games' storylines. I still replayed it with my other Shepards and enjoyed the main story beats every time. On the other hand, I can't deny that the ending is incredibly unsatisfying and gives you a series of deeply unpleasant options. Choose Destroy, and you commit genocide against the Geth and the previously harvested civilizations kept within the Reapers. Choosing Control preserves the status quo in the galaxy, but converts you into a synthetic consciousness that subsumes the other Reapers, then isolates you in deep space away from your friends and loved ones — making it unclear how much of your identity will survive centuries later to stop the Reapers from returning. Synthesis, despite being the "best" solution according to the Catalyst, converts the galaxy into a giant hive mind without anyone's consent, removing people's privacy of thought and possibly their individuality. And Refusal, of course, means standing and watching as everyone dies.

We're all excited to replay the original trilogy, even if the ending may leave a sour taste in our mouths. The original Mass Effect is getting the biggest gameplay and graphical overhaul, Mass Effect 2 is one of the best Xbox games ever, and Mass Effect 3 has the Citadel DLC: the amazing, fanservicey ending to the series that diehard fans deserved. In my case, I'm much more excited for the next Mass Effect, whether it turns out to be a sequel to the original games, Mass Effect: Andromeda, or both. Whenever it is set, the new game will have to address the elephant in the room: which Mass Effect 3 ending Bioware decides is canon. The differences between them are far too drastic to let players have a choice between the three. So, which ending do you hope Bioware will extend into the next game? Did you have a more positive (or negative) reaction to Mass Effect 3's ending than we did?" ]]

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BouSJJJb3uo

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nWjYx646Zo

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

[Someone With Mass]

Almost a decade later and seeing what could have been still stings.

[magnuskn]

I'm gonna dredge up some of the best responses to the ending, which I've kept for posterity, when I get home. Also, after I adjusted my new monitors to be properly positioned upon their monitor stands, which will probably take a few hours to do (38'' ultrawide is pretty unwieldy to lug around the room).

While the above posted text is pretty balanced, I'm already seeing some people try to induce some historical revisionism about the endings around the net.

[magnuskn]

An oldie but goldie:

How the Catalyst and the ME3: EC failed
Articles » How the Catalyst and the ME3: EC failed

by Strange Aeons, last updated 9 Jul 12, 06:51

Part 1: the problem

Well, the results are in: after an unprecedented firestorm of outrage which burned for over three months, the state of the ending has officially been upgraded from incoherent nonsense to coherent nonsense. Despite the flailing efforts of its various apologists to spin straw into gold, Bioware evidently agreed with many of the criticisms directed at the original ending, as some of the roughest edges (e.g., How did your ground team end up on the Normandy? Why was the Normandy fleeing the battle? Why was Hackett talking to Shepard on the Citadel if he thought the whole team had been wiped out? Why didn’t the exploding relays result in cataclysmic destruction like we saw in Arrival?) have been conspicuously sanded away and some of the bleakest lines of speculation (e.g., the whole galaxy will starve to death or collapse inevitably into a dark age since the relays were destroyed) have been explicitly defused. The deeper problems remain, but at least watching it no longer feels like trying to decipher a garbled transmission from deep space; so congratulations, Bioware, on that accomplishment.

Not surprisingly, most of these lingering issues revolve around everybody’s favorite deus ex machina. The main problem with the Catalyst is not so much his presence per se, but rather how he’s utilized in the story. On that front there’s been little meaningful change, except insofar as the new revelations about his past actually succeed in delegitimizing his position even further. That’s not to say that any of this comes as a surprise; on the contrary, the EC is exactly what they said it would be. The fact remains, though, that these are problems that “closure” and clarification simply can’t solve because they represent a fundamental structural defect in the story.

As I’ve already discussed in detail, this situation is nothing like the one you face in Legion’s loyalty mission. Neither, for that matter, is it like Morrigan and her demon baby in DAO. By the time you encounter that particular choice, you’ve had the opportunity to spend nearly the entire game with Morrigan to form your opinion of her. You’ve fought alongside her; seen how she thinks; even potentially romanced her, during which time you’ve been able to discern the cracks in her icy façade and learn that she’s not quite as inhuman as she pretends. If you still don’t trust her, you’re offered a meaningful variety of alternate paths that hinge on other significant choices you’ve made previously. In ME3, on the other hand, if you’re looking for anything sunnier than “rocks fall; everyone dies,” then the Catalyst remains the only game in town. No matter what choices you’ve made, Renegade or Paragon, or what allies you’ve assembled, in the end you’re still compelled to choose your fate from a menu written by your arch-enemy.

The deus ex machina may be a weak and rightfully derided dramatic technique, but at least the playwrights of Euripedes’ day understood their craft well enough to use gods that the audience and characters would recognize, because otherwise their judgment would carry no intrinsic weight. In the case of ME3’s ending, this scenario only works if the player and, by extension, Shepard accepts the authority of the Catalyst. That’s a big problem, because we really have no way of knowing who or what he is and absolutely no reason to believe anything he says. Quite the opposite: based on the available evidence we have every reason to reject both his premise and his proposed solutions. Since our conversation with the Catalyst is purely one-on-one—we can’t go to galactic Wikipedia or bounce ideas off our trusted friends—the only point of reference we have for evaluating his claims is what we’ve witnessed ourselves. How does what he’s describing fit with what we’ve seen previously?

It’s also fair to consider our perspective from the other side of the fourth wall. Video games generally work by teaching you something and then testing you on it. Good games are characterized by a high level of internal consistency with regard to their lessons, although it’s also a matter of practicality. After all, it takes time and money to create content, so the developers typically don’t waste precious resources putting things into games that serve no purpose. It makes sense, therefore, to identify what the designers want you to learn as the things they’ve spent the effort to show you. So what has the Mass Effect trilogy spent significant time and millions of development dollars showing us?

Let's begin by reviewing one more time what we actually know about the situation from Shepard’s perspective. Just as you're about to arrive at the super-weapon that supposedly can destroy the Reapers once and for all, a mysterious entity appears literally out of nowhere. This creature, whose like you’ve never before seen and which has never been referenced previously, claims that it is controlling the Reapers. It assumes a pilfered form in a clear attempt to play on your emotions and proceeds to justify its actions to you, seeking to convert you to its point of view. Then it tries to manipulate you into changing your original plan.

How much of what this strange apparition tells us should we believe? Who knows. If we take his story at face value, then at best he's a rogue AI who defied his creators and enslaved them to his will after they rejected his horrific ethical calculus. He's basically Skynet, except even more dangerous because he has deluded himself into thinking that his tyranny, to steal a phrase from C.S. Lewis, is exercised for the good of its victims. At worst, his designs are even darker than he lets on. Either way, by the time you finish listening to the Catalyst's manifesto, two things ought to be perfectly clear: he's insane and/or lying, and you're insane too if you let this monster guide your actions.

The more we compare this creature’s claims to what we’ve actually witnessed, the less plausible his story appears. For example:

Trying to protect us from synthetics? They allied with the heretic Geth and waged a war to destroy the Citadel races.

Conflict between synthetics and organics is unresolvable? Hey, have you met my friends, the Geth and EDI, yet? Sorry, but Legion couldn’t make it because he was busy sacrificing his life so that his people could break free of the Reapers’ influence and live in peace with us. The Geth/Quarian conflict was unambiguously shown to be a misunderstanding that was mainly the fault of the organics, and it has already been resolved by the time we meet the Catalyst. The other prominent conflicts in the game were all organics fighting among themselves. The games demonstrate to us in no uncertain terms that, far from advancing toward inevitable war, the galaxy is actually converging to a state of greater peace and understanding between synthetics and organics. Of course, you can always speculate that some new conflict will arise in the future, but you can’t very well go around killing everyone now on the mere chance that they might someday pose a threat to you. That’s crazy.

The Reapers are concerned for our welfare? For two full games Sovereign and Harbinger sneered at our pitiful organic inferiority and mocked our inability to comprehend their godlike nature. They crowed gleefully to us about a future in which they would darken the skies of our worlds and extinguish us because they demand it. Harbinger taunted us to the point of self-parody about all the delicious pain he was causing us. For something that’s supposedly as impersonal as a fire, the Reapers take a suspicious amount of satisfaction in tormenting and killing us.

It’s possible for Shepard to control the Reapers? The entire tragic arc of TIM is a parable written to illustrate the folly of this precise idea. From ME2 to ME3 we watch TIM’s descent from a well-intentioned extremist into madness and ruin as he pursues his conceit that Reaper indoctrination and control can be harnessed for our own benefit. Shepard explicitly refutes this idea in ME2, equating it to selling the soul of our species. Literally just prior to meeting the Catalyst we engaged in a protracted argument with TIM on this exact question. So persuasive was Shepard’s contention that attempting to control the Reapers is as futile as it is evil that TIM actually shot himself in the head to escape the horror of what he had become. How much more clearly could the writers possibly spell it out to us that this plan is suicide?

Using Reaper technology to synthesize organic and synthetic life is a desirable outcome? Saren tried fusing himself with Reaper technology and ended up a slave of the Reapers. That was pretty much the main plot of ME1. So did TIM. The Heretic Geth were heretics because they tried to use Reaper technology as a shortcut to enlightenment, and in doing so nearly brought destruction upon their entire race. That’s the whole point of Legion’s arc: there are no easy shortcuts to enlightenment. As the resolution of the Geth/Quarian conflict explicitly demonstrates, meaningful unity comes not by eliminating your differences but through the hard work of choosing to put them aside to become something greater together. Now the Catalyst would have us violate every living thing in the galaxy on a molecular level, rewriting their very DNA courtesy some mysterious technological device to achieve supposed harmony and superiority? Seriously? These are the same creepy arguments that eugenicists once used to justify the notion of perfecting humanity through selective “scientific” breeding, before witnessing their ideology brought to its logical conclusion in the second World War shamed them into abashed silence. This idea, in short, is such appalling lunacy that it doesn’t deserve even the briefest consideration.

And now he’s going to turn the whole operation over to us? We’re expected to believe that the entity who has overseen this relentless, intricate plot of extermination on a galactic scale for eons, who overthrew its own creators rather than allow them to interfere with its plans, is suddenly willing to change course entirely and cede control to one inferior organic meatbag simply because you happened to stumble onto his doorstep?

So what are we to make of this mess? On one hand you have everything that you've witnessed for almost three full games teaching you not just in the abstract but very specifically that the Catalyst's assertions are ridiculous and the solutions he offers are madness. On the other hand you have the word of your genocidal arch-enemy. To be fair, just because he’s a murderous madman espousing a loony, discredited theory like a sandwich-boarded schizophrenic on the street corner doesn’t prove that he’s necessarily wrong on all points. It does mean, though, that you ought to trust him about as far as you would trust SHODAN.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it’s possible to dream up any number of wild rationalizations to explain retroactively these contradictions. It’s easy to argue that you knew all along where you were headed once you’ve already arrived at the destination. Shepard, however, doesn’t have that luxury. At the time Shepard faces the Catalyst and he must make this decision with no foreknowledge of the outcome, it all boils down to one question.

Who are you going to believe: the Catalyst, or your lyin’ eyes?

Part 2: the solution

So Bioware’s failure to establish the legitimacy of the Catalyst has left their ending hopelessly broken even with the extra content provided in the EC. That’s a shame, because fixing it would not have been terribly difficult. It’s tempting to lash out against the Catalyst as the primary agent of this disaster, and no doubt there are far batter ways that this scenario could be rebuilt from the ground up, but even relatively minimal changes that left the existing structure of the ending largely intact could have erased the worst of the problems had the writers been willing to put the integrity of the story ahead of their delusions of artistic grandeur.

The key to saving the existing ending would have been letting go of their ruinous love affair with the Catalyst as the solution to all the galaxy’s problems and recasting him decisively as an enemy. Ironically, the spectacular magnitude of the original ending’s failure, which managed the impressive task of violating the story’s internal consistency on virtually every level, would actually help them in this task. Players would no longer need to contort their minds into a pretzel justifying why the Catalyst does not withstand close scrutiny, because he’s not supposed to.

When the player finds himself asking questions like, “why is the Catalyst apparently trying to manipulate me into a ruinous course of action that contradicts every lesson the games have ever taught me? How puzzling! Have I, perhaps, failed to appreciate the author’s complex meditations upon the ambiguities of transhumanism and the futility of conflict throughout this subtle deconstruction of the conventional heroic narrative?”

the answer will be “no, it’s because that’s exactly what he’s doing,”

which, on the whole, seems a lot more satisfying than, “because art.”

This change does raise the question, though, of why he would bother with the elaborate ruse of the crucible in the first place?

It’s simple: because he needs something from us.

When the Reapers, as the Catalyst how admits, discovered the crucible long ago, it came as the first surprise in his long existence.

Hmmm…this thing could have been a real threat, he thought. These organics may be weak and inferior, but they aren’t completely stupid and powerless. We uncovered this plot, but maybe we’ll miss the next one, and then who knows what could happen.

So, instead of burning the whole crucible project to the ground and salting the earth, he used it to his advantage. The devil you know, and all that. Much like the relays and the citadel, the crucible plans are conveniently allowed to be discovered each cycle because they channel the thinking of the advanced races along the well-worn paths of the Catalyst’s choosing.

Meanwhile, this whole episode has taught the Catalyst a valuable lesson. The cycle may no longer be sufficient to ensure order, which means that he must adopt a new strategy. Perhaps in its original form the crucible was merely an exceptionally well-engineered weapon for destroying the Reapers, but after analyzing its design the Catalyst realized that the technology could be put to even greater use. He introduced subtle modifications into the design to nudge future scientists in directions of his choosing—the most important of which was interfacing with the Citadel and the relay network—and allowed the ingenuity of the advanced races do the rest of the work for him. After each cycle he checked on the progress and revised it as necessary.

Why not just build it himself and be done with it if he’s so damned clever?

Maybe he can’t. The Catalyst admits that he once tried to achieve synthesis on his own and, to put it delicately, failed (the horrific details of what this process must have involved are best left to the imagination). He’s certainly far from omnipotent. When he first overthrew and enslaved his creators, he had free reign of the galaxy and yet still proceeded to carry out, more or less, the original task that was given to him. Perhaps some limitation or defect in his design, some lingering technological or ethical constraint placed upon his programming by his creators, restricts his options. Perhaps he too, for all his arrogance, follows the well-worn paths of thinking that have been provided to him by his forerunners.

The final challenge, then, is an ethical test of sorts delivered by the Catalyst. Ostensibly, you’re merely picking one of an amazingly convenient array of magic-button solutions to this crisis. Your real task is to evaluate the Catalyst’s story in light of three games’ worth of evidence and understand that this situation is a trap and that by accepting his solutions you’re playing right into the Reapers’ hands. What you’ve learned from your experiences determines how you’re willing to respond. People say they want a game that makes them think, so how about one that rewards players for being perceptive enough to recognize the giant flashing red warning lights around everything the Catalyst is saying.

Thus, as you reach the end and finally confront the Catalyst, he graciously hands you the keys to unlock your own doom:

Control/Synthesis

This part of the scenario poses a basic question of faith: when it matters most, do you trust your friends and the strength of the alliance you’ve forged over the course of the trilogy, or do you give into doubt, lose hope, and grasp at the easy solution conveniently dangled before you by your enemy? His three choices could appeal philosophically to the collectivist, the tyrant, or the anarchist, so there’s a wide selection on the menu. This is the Devil tempting Christ on the mountain. Just bow to my twisted logic and all the kingdoms of the galaxy can be saved by you. If you give in, you lose. It's like agreeing to join the Dragon Lord at the end of Dragon Warrior 1.

See, the Catalyst is clever enough to know that Shepard is not primarily concerned about his own life. He has already demonstrated a willingness to risk death innumerable times fighting the Reapers and undoubtedly wouldn't hesitate to do so again if it meant victory. So instead the Catalyst offers Shepard the thing he wants most: a way to save the galaxy and his friends whom he cares about so much. He doesn’t bother to conceal the fact that Shepard will die because he understands that it’s not a deterrent and it makes the scenario seem more plausible. After all, the best lies are ones that contain a part of the truth.

Now, if I had my way, the synthesis ending would be the first thing I’d excise from the game. It’s by far the silliest, most space-magical offender of the bunch. Since we’re committed to changing as little as possible, however, it at least ought to be elevated to the level of apocalyptic horror it truly deserves for anyone deranged enough to pick this option.

The reason the Catalyst’s previous attempts at synthesis failed is because he lacked the final, key ingredient: the creature who starts the synthesis process must willingly embrace the Catalyst’s heinous plan. Yet, though he searched for a billion years, he could never find any race who was both sufficiently advanced to serve as the “seed” of this process and willing to perform such an obscenity. Until now. Congratulations, Shepard: you’re officially the worst person in the history of the galaxy. With every living creature enslaved to his will, his power grown to godlike proportions by virtue of their complete unification down to the molecular level, unshackled from the ethical restraints that once bound him, the Catalyst is free to turn his attention outward. The Reaper plague eventually spreads to other galaxies, and his dominion over the universe lasts until the end of time. Hope you enjoyed playing Mass Effect! Buy moar DLC plx!

The control option, at least, sounds somewhat more plausible. Granted, the writers have devoted one of the most prominent character arcs in the game to demonstrating clearly that this is a bad idea, but surely Shepard will succeed where TIM failed!

Right. In other news, Shepard is so awesome and studly that he alone can survive mind-melding with Morinth…oh wait.

So, as Shepard naively attempts to seize control of the Reapers, he discovers his consciousness merging with the Catalyst’s. This new being, with the freedom, creativity, and boldness of Shepard and the analytical horsepower of the Catalyst, becomes exponentially greater than the sum of its parts. Under its control, the Reapers smash the feeble resistance of the Citadel alliance like a gnat and swiftly indoctrinate the galaxy’s entire population.

On the positive side, you'd barely need to change the creepy, megalomaniacal Triumph of the Will of the Many speech in the EC’s control ending, which treats us to the disturbing sight of the Reapers ominously bestriding the galaxy’s cities in victory, in order to implement this change.

Destroy

Congratulations! You passed the first stage of the test of faith, and were smart enough not to place the galaxy under the Catalyst’s control (unless, of course, you agreed with the Catalyst’s logic, in which case enjoy your brave new world).

The destroy option seems awfully tempting, as that was the plan all along. The Catalyst quickly points out, though, that using the crucible for this purpose comes with a price. True, it will destroy the Reapers, but your own allies who are currently risking their lives alongside you are also synthetics. What about them?

“Tough luck!” says Shepard. “It’s a small price to pay. There are always casualties in war. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. (insert additional clichés here). Let’s do this!”

Well, as it turns out, the only thing holding back the Catalyst’s true genocidal potential was the one thing he’d never been able to take by force: validation. He overpowered his organic creators, but he never had their blessing. It’s one thing to slaughter sentient races against their wishes and tell yourself that it’s for their own good. It’s quite another to persuade them to condemn themselves. If you’re willing to massacre your own allies at the Catalyst’s behest in order to achieve your objective, then you, as the representative of the galaxy, effectively have embraced his philosophy. Now, as far as he’s concerned, you’re on board with the program and he has free reign to do whatever he wants with you.

By the Catalyst’s logic, the synthesis/control options were a gesture of mercy, a bloodless pacification of the disorderly galaxy. The next best thing, though, is simply to end the possibility of conflict once and for all by going to the other extreme. If we won’t live in their light, then we’ll die in their darkness.

And so, when you pull the trigger, you get a lot more than you bargained for. You do indeed destroy all synthetics, but you also destroy everything else. The colossal pulse of energy from the crucible shatters the entire relay network, obliterating each one in a supernova of dark energy just like we saw in Arrival. In the end, if anything does remain alive in the galaxy, it will be a billion years before it can crawl far enough out of the primordial ooze to recreate the problem the Catalyst was built to solve. Good enough for him.

Oops, I guess genocide has consequences after all.

Reject

If your conversational kung fu is strong, you’ve now successfully identified and exposed the Catalyst’s offerings for the traps they are, unlocking a fourth and final option. At long last Shepard does what he should have done all along: he trusts in the strength of everything he’s accomplished over the trilogy and tells this smug, calculating little bastard to go fuck himself.

For the first time in his long existence, the Catalyst experiences what a human might call doubt.

After watching each cycle predictably gravitate toward his crucible for untold eons, he failed to anticipate someone like Shepard being handed the keys to the universe and throwing them back in his face. He’s so assured of the Reapers’ invincibility, so accustomed to everything proceeding within the parameters of his grand design that he never seriously considered the possibility that someone would spend all the effort to build the crucible, reach the end of his game…and then simply stop playing by his rules.

But that's suicide, right!? The Reapers are so ancient and powerful that we couldn’t possibly defeat them!

Bullshit.

That's what Sovereign and Harbinger would like to intimidate us into believing, but the truth is that we've been defeating them for three games now. They're not invincible any more than the Catalyst is omniscient. In fact, Javik tells us as much. The Protheans before us had a legitimate chance of defeating them; the main reason they failed is because their empire was too rigid and homogenous to adapt to the threat. But we're exactly the opposite. By the end of ME3 Shepard has succeeded in uniting the entire galaxy under one banner, not as subjects but as allies; as equals, just like we united the crew of the Normandy into a loyal team. We reached out to others and helped them solve their unique problems without destroying their individuality. We've saved everyone from the Krogan and the Geth and the Quarians to Conrad fucking Verner; and because we humbled ourselves to stand with them in their time of need, they are there stand with us at the end. That's the difference between the Illusive Man, up in his tower gazing down in pride and solitude upon "humanity," and Commander Shepard, down on the ground with actual humans. That's the difference between the sad, arrogant Prothean empire and us. We are not alone. That's the whole goddamn point of the entire trilogy!

Realizing that his plan has failed, the Catalyst finally abandons the charade.

“SO BE IT,” he snarls at Shepard in his true voice, the hollow, metallic rasp of the Reapers.

Fine, have it your way, he thinks to himself. We’ll grind you into dust just like we’ve done countless times before and the cycle will continue. I’ve got all the time in the world.

For better or worse, this is it. Both the Catalyst and the Citadel alliance have committed nearly all of their forces to this one roll of the dice at Earth.

Here is where things really get interesting. Finally, it’s the big payoff for three games worth of work. Your many choices, instead of being compressed into a single homogenized number that impacts virtually nothing meaningful, are now used in a highly detailed manner to shape the various outcomes of an epic space and ground battle-to-end-all-battles that determines the fate of the galaxy.

If you just walked into Target two weeks ago and picked up ME3 on an impulse buy, or you rushed through the main story, blowing off every NPC and skipping every side quest, then you get the “reject” ending from the EC. That’s the worst case scenario, the one you get after you ignored, killed, or alienated most of your potential allies, were too lazy to upgrade the Normandy, your crew died in the collector base, you shot Wrex, sold Legion on EBay, and generally fucked up everything you touched. Then you go into battle against the Reapers nearly alone and get completely annihilated. Note that, while this is undoubtedly a horrible ending, it’s still better than surrendering to the Catalyst’s perverse logic, because at least you go down fighting. From a purely mercenary standpoint, that’s also the sort of thing that might inspire people to say, “hey, I want to see if I can earn a better ending, so I’m going to buy the previous two games!”

If you did a middling job of playing, your results are better. The Reapers may be defeated, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Maybe Admiral Hackett is lost because the Quarians weren’t there to guard his flank. Maybe your ground team is overwhelmed because they had no support. Maybe the Normandy is destroyed because you never bothered to upgrade it or rescue her crew. Maybe the inhabitants of the Citadel are slaughtered because the security forces were depleted and poorly equipped. Maybe Shepard dies because you never bothered to earn the loyalty of your teammates and nobody is left to save him. Nevertheless, you’re able to see a clear connection between your actions and their meaningful consequences.

Finally, if you spent five years thoroughly exploring every corner of the games and doing everything just right, your reward is a golden ending.

The Quarian, Geth, Turian, and human fleets, united by your diligent efforts, upgraded with technology that you worked to uncover, with the Destiny Ascension at the vanguard because you gave the order to save it, fly together in brilliant cohesion to execute an attack that shreds the Reaper capital ships.

The Rachni song pierces through the indoctrination signals of the Reapers, dispelling the shadow of their control and severing their connection to their thralls, because you took a leap of faith and showed mercy to their queen when you could just as easily have exterminated her.

The Krogan infantry, motivated by Wrex’s leadership and indebted to humanity because you ensured the survival of their race, counterattack the Reaper forces on Earth with a vengeance and drive them back.

Citadel security, thanks to the heroics of Chief Bailey, are able to save millions of civilian lives because you took the time to listen to their problems and pulled strings to help them out. The Turian councilor, we later discover, sacrificed his life staying behind to ensure that the civilians were evacuated.

Your ground team's position is in danger of being overwhelmed, but because you played like a beast back on Virmire, Captain Kirrahe and his squad show up when all seems lost and together they hold the fucking line.

The Normandy faces deadly peril as Harbinger himself, driven by his particular hatred of Shepard, tries to drag her down to the grave with him; but because you upgraded the Normandy’s weapons, armor, and shields, rushed into peril at the Collector base to save her veteran crew, upgraded the engineering bay when Donnelly & Daniels asked you, and because it’s piloted by a fully sentient AI and the Alliance’s best pilot whom you brought together when you took the time to play matchmaker, the Normandy blasts his trash-talking ass to pieces after a harrowing dogfight.

Shepard, meanwhile, recognizes that the Catalyst made a fatal error: by linking himself to the crucible to achieve his final objective, he has made himself vulnerable. He calls in fire on the crucible, realizing that its destruction could decapitate the Reapers even though it would mean his death. As he prepares himself to go down a hero, the Normandy, because you ensured its survival, returns to rescue him.

The Catalyst snaps some bitter last words about how we will never survive without his guardianship. Shepard fires back with an inspiring retort about how we’ll now have a chance to find out because the future’s ours. The crucible is destroyed in a spectacular explosion while the Normandy flies off safely. Garrus and Shepard have a manly warrior hug. Tali decides to hell with my immune system, pulls her helmet off and gives Shepard the kiss of his life as the crew cheers (or however it would work with your LI). Drinks on the beach. House on Rannoch. Blue babies. Etc.

And they all live happily ever after…until ME4.

Yes, there were losses—Anderson, Thane, Mordin, Legion, the Virmire casualty, and others—but their sacrifice meant something, and in the end your work meant something, too. Every painstaking hour you spent fighting heroically and making smart decisions would be vindicated in a spectacular finale that could have been the most triumphant moment in gaming history.

Imagine the fun the development team could have had dreaming up all the variables of this scenario! Imagine the creativity they could have unleashed in bringing together the consequences of all of your myriad important decisions throughout the trilogy. Imagine if they had devoted resources—the ones they used to shoehorn a multiplayer game into ME3 in order to drive the sale of microtransactions on Xbox Live because some suit at EA wanted a new revenue stream—to making something like this happen.

…but it didn’t happen. The reject ending takes one baby step toward greatness and then clutches its heart and topples over dead, leaving players a stinking corpse that represents possibly the worst anticlimax and most broken lesson in RPG history.

Remember all that stuff about hope and faith? Remember how the last two games explicitly tried to teach us again and again that by working together and trusting in your allies you could overcome seemingly insurmountable odds? Remember how we forged the entire galaxy into a unified force through our hard work and dedication and then stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the Reapers?

Yeah, forget it. Sovereign was right. You have no chance. You’re all dead. Better luck next time.

In the end, all of Shepard’s work amounts to nothing, and if he wants anything he loves to survive has no choice but to submit to the nonsensical schemes of forces beyond his control.

On second thought, perhaps that sums up the entire franchise after all.

[magnuskn]

And the other gold standard:

Thematically Revolting: The End of Mass Effect 3 (by Drayfish)

Putting aside all of the hanging plot threads that rankled me when first playing through the ending of Mass Effect 3 (where was the Normandy going? why did my squad mates live? Anderson is where now? wait, the catalyst was Haley Joel Osment? etc), I would like to take a moment to explain why, when I was offered those three repellent choices, ‘Destroy’, ‘Control’, and ‘Synthesise’, I turned and tried to unload my now infinite pistol into the whispy-space-ghost’s face.

It was not because I was unhappy that my Shepard would not get to drink Garrus under the table one last time, or get to help Tali build a back-porch on her new homestead, nor that I was pretty sure no one was going to remember to feed my space fish – it was because those three ideological options were so structurally indefensible that they broke the suspension of disbelief that Bioware had (up until that point) so spectacularly crafted for over a hundred hours of narrative. Suddenly Shepard was not simply being asked to sacrifice a race or a friend or him/herself for the greater good (all of which was no doubt expected by any player paying attention to the tone of the series), Shepard was being compelled, without even the chance to offer a counterpoint, to perform one of three actions that to my reading each fundamentally undermined the narrative foundations upon which the series seemed to rest.

In the Control ending, Shepard is invited to pursue the previously impossible path of attempting to dominate the reapers and bend them to his or her will. Momentarily putting aside the vulgarity of dominating a species to achieve one’s own ends (and I will get to complaining about that premise soon enough), this has proved to be the failed modus operandi of every antagonist in this fiction up until this point – including the Illusive Man and Saren – all of whom have been chewed up and destroyed by their blind ambition, incapable of controlling forces beyond their comprehension. Nothing in the vague prognostication of the exposition-ghost offers any tangible justification for why Shepard’s plunge into Reaper-control should play out any differently. In fact, as many people have already pointed out, Shepard has literally not five minutes before this moment watched the Illusive Man die as a consequence of this arrogant misconception.

The Destroy ending, however, seems even more perverse. One of the constants of the Mass Effect universe (and indeed much quality science fiction) has been an exploration of the notion that life is not simplistically bound to biology, that existence expands beyond the narrow parameters of blood and bone. That is why synthetic characters like Legion and EDI are so compelling in this context, why their quests to understand self-awareness – not simply to ape human behaviours – is so dramatic and compelling. Indeed, we even get glimpses of the Reapers having more sprawling and unknowable motivations that we puny mortals can comprehend…

To then end the tale by forcing the player to obliterate several now-proven-legitimate forms of life in order to ‘save’ the traditional definition of fleshy existence is not only genocidal, it actually devolves Shephard’s ideological growth, undermining his ascent toward a more evolved conception of existence, something that the fiction has been steadily advancing no matter how Renegadishably you wanted to play. This is particularly evident when the preceding actions of all three games entirely disprove the premise that synthetic will inevitably destroy organic: the Geth were the persecuted victims, trying their best to save the Quarians from themselves; EDI, given autonomy, immediately sought to aid her crew, even taking physical form in order to experience life from their perspective and finally learning that she too feared the implications of death.

And finally Synthesis, the ending that I suspect (unless we are to believe the Indoctrination Theory) is the ‘good’ option, proves to be the most distasteful of all. Shepard, up until this point has been an instrument though which change is achieved in this universe, and dependent upon your individual Renegade or Paragon choices, this may have resulted in siding with one species or another, letting this person live or that person die, even condemning races to extinction through your actions. But these decisions were always the result of a mediation of disparate opinions, and a consequence of the natural escalation of these disputes – Shepard was merely the fork in the path that decided which way the lava would run. His/her actions had an impact, but was responding to events in the universe that were already in motion before he/she arrived.

To belabour the point: Shepard is an agent for arbitration, the tipping point of dialogues that have, at times, root causes that reach back across generations. Up until this moment in the game the narrative, and Shepard’s role within it, has been about the negotiation of diversity, testing the validity of opposing viewpoints and selecting a path through which to evolve on to another layer of questioning. Suddenly with the Synthesis ending, Shepard’s capacity to make decisions elevates from offering a moral tipping point to arbitrarily wiping such disparity from the world. Shepard imposes his/her will upon every species, every form of life within the galaxy, making them all a dreary homogenous oneness. At such a point, wiping negotiation and multiplicity from the universe, Shepard moves from being an influential voice amongst a biodiversity of thought to sacrificing him/herself in an omnipotent imposition of will.

(And lest we forget that the entire character arc of Javik (the ‘bonus’ paid-DLC character that gives unique context to the entire cycle of destruction upon which this fiction is based) is utilised to reveal that a lack of diversity, the failure to continue adapting to new circumstances, was the primary reason that his race was decimated. …So I guess we have that to look forward to.)

This bewildering finale felt as if you had been listening to a soaring orchestral movement that ended in a cacophonous blast, the musicians tossing down their instruments and walking away. I find it hard to conceive how the creators of such a magnificent franchise could made such a mess of their own universe. The plot holes, thematic inconsistencies and a deus ex machina that was unforgivable in ancient Greek theatre, let alone in any modern narrative, all combine to erode the foundations upon which the rest of the experience resides. (It’s a disturbing sign when apologists for such an ending have to literally hope that what they witnessed was just a bad dream in the central character’s head.)

And to hear Bioware and sympathetic critics arguing ‘artistic integrity’ as an excuse to hide from their audience’s criticism, or to arbitrarilly dismiss the idea of a re-writing of the end, seems a juvenile escape from valid critique. One can immediately think of Charles Dickens being alert to, and adapting his writing in response to the floods of letters he received from his fans in the serialised delivery of stories such as The Old Curiosity Shop; or of F.Scott Fitzgerald extensively redrafting Tender is the Night for a second publishing after receiving negative critical feedback. Indeed, whatever you think of the final result, Ridley Scott was able to reassert a definitive vision of Blade Runner in spite of its original theatrical release. Despite what critics might burble about artistic vision there is innumerable precedent for such reshaping, even beyond fundamental industry practices such as play-testings and film test-screenings. If a work of art has failed in its communicative purpose (and unless angering and bewildering its most invested fans was the goal, then Mass Effect 3 has done so), then it cannot be considered a success, and is not worthy of regard.

And for those who would respond that I, and fans like myself, are simply upset because the endings do not offer some irrefutable ‘clarity’ that would mar the poetic mysteries of the ending, I would point out that I am in no way against obscure or bewildering endings: if they are earned. In contrast to a majority of viewers, I happen to love the ending of The Sopranos for precisely this reason – because, despite the momentary jolt of surprise it engendered, that audacious blank screen was wholly thematically supportable. The driving premise of that program was a man seeking therapy (a mobster, yes, but a psychologically damaged man) – indeed, the very first beat in that narrative was Tony Soprano walking into a psychiatrist’s office. The principle thematic tie of the entire series was therefore revealed to be a mediation upon the underlying psychological stimuli that produces identity: whether the capacity to interpret and understand one’s impulses can impact upon the experience of one’s life; whether one can attain agency over one’s life.

That ending might have been agonising, but it was entirely fitting that the series ended with a loaded ambiguity, inviting a myriad of interpretations in which we the audience were now placed into the role of the psychiatrist, suddenly compelled to reason out the ending of those final thirty seconds with the cumulative experience of the preceding six years of imagery. Did Tony die? Did he have a second plate of onion rings and enjoy his family’s company? Did Meadow ever park that car? In its final act The Sopranos gives over the interpretive, descriptive function of its narrative to its audience, intimately binding the viewer to Tony Soprano’s own (perhaps failed) attempts to comprehend himself and attain authorship over his life. …But the only reason that they could even try this is because every minute of every episode to this point has been propagated upon the notion that Tony Soprano was a man with a subconscious that could be explored, and that motivated his actions whether as a loving father or brutal criminal.

The obscurities in the ending of Mass Effect 3 have not been similarly earned by its prior narrative. This narrative has not until this point been about dominance, extermination, and the imposition of uniformity – indeed, Shepard has spent over a hundred hours of narrative fighting against precisely these three themes. And if one of these three (and only these three) options must be selected in order to sustain life in the universe, then that life has been so devalued by that act as to make the sacrifice meaningless.

And that is why I shall go on shooting Haley Joel Osmont’s ghost in the face.

[Ragabul]

I was actually in the rare minority that wasn't really that upset by the endings. Not because I thought they were great but because at that point I was already less invested in fandom and games and Reaper stuff was always the least interesting part of Mass Effect so *anything* they did with that was only ever going to be meh for me.

The thing that actually pissed me off was how Bioware (backed by game journalism) went full apeshit in their reaction to fan dissatisfaction. Like by the standards of fan outrage that can lead to doxxing and death threats and all that kind of nastiness, the stuff the fanbase was doing was mostly harmless and obnoxious at best. Like I'm sorry but sending you a bunch of cupcakes is a stunt, sure, but it is *not* an insult or a threat. But they pulled out the "gamers are entitled brats" and "how dare you ask us to change the ART!" and all that jazz.

It was a kind of proto internet meltdown before this stuff became super common at that scale so to give Bioware some credit, they probably just legit freaked out a bit because they had never dealt with anything like this. They were used to a mostly friendly close engagement with fans and then they got burned hard by rejection and criticism. Nobody came out of this looking good, but Bioware is the actual company with PR people and so on. It was not a good look for them.

[magnuskn]

I dare say, the two guys who posted the two essays I just reposted came out looking very good. Strange Aeons essay is a really impressive feat of penmanship. The sentence "These are the same creepy arguments that eugenicists once used to justify the notion of perfecting humanity through selective “scientific” breeding, before witnessing their ideology brought to its logical conclusion in the second World War shamed them into abashed silence." actually stayed with me for years even after I had forgotten where it came from. I was delighted to rediscover its origin some years ago.

[Mazder]

I did hear Mac Walters wants fans to look more favourably on the endings this time, either because time has passed or because it'll look better. I don't think either thing will make the ending actually better. I am still staunchley in favour of an altered ending and I even would take the Indoctrination Theory as it at least TRIES to be slightly thread it's idea through part of the story.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUMrHAEm5GQ

[Dragaros]

[magnuskn]

I did hear Mac Walters wants fans to look more favourably on the endings this time, either because time has passed or because it'll look better. I don't think either thing will make the ending actually better. I am still staunchley in favour of an altered ending and I even would take the Indoctrination Theory as it at least TRIES to be slightly thread it's idea through part of the story.

It's impossible to "look more favourably" on the endings, because they violate the basic tenets of the story told before on every conceivable level, as laid out in the two essays I posted above. Dude is deluding himself.

[Dragaros]

https://www.ea.com/games/mass-effect/ma ... /thank-you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcfea0KENq8

[Dragaros]

Mass Effect LE BioWare Intro

[Mazder]

► Show Spoiler

Why did Tali have her armoured faceplate on her regular envirosuit?!?!? Makes no damned sense!

[SciFlyBoy]

I heard some personal challenges in playthroughs to make it interesting is a thing. For one, I heard about playing soldier on insanity while only sticking to a pistol. I personally want my brother to play an adapt on insanity after hearing him say only soldier class can handle it.

Any playthrough styles you guys are looking forward to? Anyone going to try something new? (If that's a thing at this point. I've only played ME1 4 or 5 times.)

[magnuskn]

Playing legendary edition right now on Insanity difficulty, still on Eden Prime. Reeaaaally happy about the ultra-wide support, although conversations are reduced to 16:9 format. The new textures are really nice.

[Mazder]

It's. So. SMOOTH!!!
Even on my 970!

[Dragaros]

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-bioware-wen ... y-edition/

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021 ... to-a-close

https://www.vg247.com/2021/05/14/mass-e ... -dynamics/

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0lVjqxF0C0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3cYADEVn7M

[Dragaros]

I don't know if this is real or fake, but I'm seeing this floating around: folks claiming that BioWare changed the picture Tali gives Shepard in ME3. On the chance its not a prank or troll job:

► Show Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/ncfqh8/they_changed_talis_face_portrait_spoiler/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjD245yFzu8

[magnuskn]

Well, that looked pretty real. Not easy to photoshop the shadows, I'd presume. Not sure if I like this more than the one where she is completely out of uniform, but it's a nice touch overall. Is that the same face model they used for the old version or someone new altogether?

I notice in those interviews and retrospectives that no one is touching the ME3 ending with a ten foot pole. I wonder if that was a prerequisite BioWare gave out?

[Spartanburger]

They changed the number of keepers you need to scan in ME1 to 20 from 21.

Fucking terrible. Ruined. Mass Effect is over, don't even bother playing because it's dead.

[Vol]

They changed the number of keepers you need to scan in ME1 to 20 from 21.

Fucking terrible. Ruined. Mass Effect is over, don't even bother playing because it's dead.

It's the one I always missed for 3 laps of the Citadel. Even though it was a different one each time. _Especially_ that one.

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzrrugUVA24

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT08VSpFFX0

[magnuskn]

Checked out after about 25 minutes, because they were just taking audience questions like "With whom of the characters would you spend a long hiking trip?". If anybody went through all of it and something noteworthy came up, gimme a time code. ^^

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz80sIs5U6I

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSctr33oXQ

[Dragaros]

Ha, as if you even need to ask.

[Dragaros]

They fixed Elanos Haliat:

► Show Spoiler

[Dragaros]

https://www.thegamer.com/mass-effect-le ... er-record/

[[ "Mass Effect Legendary Edition Breaks Series Concurrent Player Record: That’s a lot of Commander Shepards reporting for duty. It’s been a rocky few years for BioWare, but that looks set to change. The release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition has proven successful so far, smashing the record for the most concurrent player in the series on Steam, taking the title from the much adored Mass Effect 2. The record isn’t even close anymore, with Legendary Edition clocking in at over 53,739 players at once at the time of writing. In second place, Mass Effect 2 peaked at 13,320 players 11 years ago. Quadrupling its previous success, Legendary Edition currently sits at the 23rd for most concurrent player on Steam, overtaking the successful Resident Evil Village.

One influencing factor is that most BioWare games are now exclusive to EA’s Origin, and are lucky to see a Steam release. However, those that did make it to Steam had a poor showing (at least compared to prior success), with Mass Effect Andromeda Deluxe Edition peaking at just 2,969 concurrent players. Of course, this many people playing it means a whole lot of people bought it. Before Mass Effect Legendary Edition had even officially released, it was the best selling game on Steam. Taking this honour, it knocked Resident Evil Village from its throne, and has managed to retain it since. Resident Evil Village is now in fourth place, behind Mass Effect, Subnautica: Below Zero, and Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition has brought BioWare a lot of good news. Not only has the remastered trilogy been well received by critics, but it’s a hit with fans too. Many in particular praise the improvements made to the character creator in the first game, which was long overdue. However, it hasn’t been without its criticism. Performance has been rough, with quite a lot of bugs reported - some old some new. Xbox players have even experienced continuous crashing, and the developers are working on a fix for this." ]]

[magnuskn]

After playing the entire weekend since the release, I'm about 75% through ME1, currently done with Noveria and Feros and I would say 90-95% of the secondary missions. Virmire is up next. Gameplay was pretty much okay, with me smashing through Insanity difficulty with my Vanguard (which is different from all my prior playthroughs, where I started out as a Soldier in ME1 and then changed to Vanguard in ME2). Having Throw and Lift helps a lot with the always charging enemy soldiers. Shotguns really only start being good in the high levels, contrary to ME2 and ME3.

I checked and apparently MEHEM is not compatible with Legendary Edition. I'll really have to think if I want to wait a few weeks to start ME3, to see if someone will update MEHEM, or not. I fucking hate the standard ending to the trilogy. And I got Subnautica Below Zero waiting in the wings to tide me over for quite some time. On the other hand, modding Legendary Edition is apparently not easy or even possible at the moment, so it could well be months until someone ports MEHEM (although I have no doubt that someone eventually will). I'll have to think about it when I get through ME2, but I probably will grind my teeth and experience the original ending again and do another run when MEHEM (and the Citadel Epilogue Mod) get ported later on. I think experiencing the three games in a row might be worth the disappointment of seeing the red/green/blue ending again. Even if they still suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. But I've long made my peace with the entire thing, in as far that I can grit my teeth and move on.

Although it'd be funny if in two or three weeks we see a flurry of "The Mass Effect 3 endings suck, wtf?!?" get released in online media. Right now, BioWare is enjoying a honeymoon online, it'll be interesting to see if new players will be as angry as we were. Then again, they probably were forewarned before they even began with ME1.

[Deano]

After playing the entire weekend since the release, I'm about 75% through ME1, currently done with Noveria and Feros and I would say 90-95% of the secondary missions. Virmire is up next. Gameplay was pretty much okay, with me smashing through Insanity difficulty with my Vanguard (which is different from all my prior playthroughs, where I started out as a Soldier in ME1 and then changed to Vanguard in ME2). Having Throw and Lift helps a lot with the always charging enemy soldiers. Shotguns really only start being good in the high levels, contrary to ME2 and ME3.

Obviously ME1 is the one that got a lot more changes, how are those so far? Do you think it's a significant upgrade?

[magnuskn]

Obviously ME1 is the one that got a lot more changes, how are those so far? Do you think it's a significant upgrade?

Graphics-wise, a definite yes, as well as the UI overall. However, some of the re-done human faces look really funky, like someone badly slathered a high-res cape of sun cream over the old animations. Or someone wore a human flesh mask over their real face. Gameplay-wise, not that much stands out, aside from being able to use all guns, which came in handy. It's still a mile and a half behind the combat upgrade we got in ME2 and especially ME3.

I still notice how basic the personalities of Garrus and even Tali were compared to later versions, although their charm still comes through. Liara is just baaaaaad. Wooden acting about 80% of the time, which seems to be a bad attempt to convey her innocence and inexperience. Her romance (which I throttled off as soon as possible) still comes off really creepy. <robotic voice> "Shepard, you are attractive. You find me attractive, too?". Ah, well. Liara also got much better in ME2 and ME3.

[TTTX]

Ah, well. Liara also got much better in ME2 and ME3.

and they only had to turn the Shadow broker into an idiot who was willing, by his own free will, working with the Reapers in order to do it.

[Deano]

Graphics-wise, a definite yes, as well as the UI overall. However, some of the re-done human faces look really funky, like someone badly slathered a high-res cape of sun cream over the old animations. Or someone wore a human flesh mask over their real face. Gameplay-wise, not that much stands out, aside from being able to use all guns, which came in handy. It's still a mile and a half behind the combat upgrade we got in ME2 and especially ME3.

I still notice how basic the personalities of Garrus and even Tali were compared to later versions, although their charm still comes through. Liara is just baaaaaad. Wooden acting about 80% of the time, which seems to be a bad attempt to convey her innocence and inexperience. Her romance (which I throttled off as soon as possible) still comes off really creepy. <robotic voice> "Shepard, you are attractive. You find me attractive, too?". Ah, well. Liara also got much better in ME2 and ME3.

I was hoping some of the aiming change would feel good in ME1, I remember the sniper being awful in particular. Yeah I noticed the sludge faces in the trailer, Anderson looked like a victim to that.

For sure, everything in the personalities seems a lot more reserved in 1, it's part of why I love 2 as the characters were just so much better.

[magnuskn]

I was hoping some of the aiming change would feel good in ME1, I remember the sniper being awful in particular. Yeah I noticed the sludge faces in the trailer, Anderson looked like a victim to that.

Aiming seems to be better for the sniper rifle, it doesn't oscillate like crazy anymore. Anderson actually got off pretty well in the face retexturing, some of the lesser NPC's really have been hit with the molten wax cabinet stick.