Soooo....Mass Effect 3

[Lissa]

They have a point that the ending sucks? Or they have a point that BioWare owes them for having made an ending they didn't like? Because those are very different propositions.

-Jester

Ok, I'm going to discuss the ending, if you don't want to be spoiled, turn away... (Bolty, we really need a spoiler tag that covers the spoilers up)




















Ok, this will show you how bad the ending is. When you get to Earth, you and all squad members go down to London. During this, Joker has the Normandy in the battle with the reapers in orbit. During the entire time you're fighting on Earth, you're squad members are involved, a couple directly with you, the rest helping out with the fighting in some way in the back drop.

Now, when you finally get to the final sequence, you're running for a transport beam up to the citadel. During this, you're getting shot at by Harbinger with your two chosen squad members from the prior fight still in tow (you take out Destroyer class reaper, they're must smaller that the Soverign class, about 160m to 2km for size comparison). During this run, you take a "glancing" blow from one of Harbinger's beams (which leaves you barely alive). You then make your way to the beam having to kill 3 husks and a marauder before entering the beam while barely alive. Once you get up to the citadel, you make your way to a confrontation with the Illusive Man with Anderson being there. You either kill the Illusive Man or he commits suicide (depending on if you go paragon or renegade in your choices). In this confrontation, the Illusive Man forces you to shot Anderson. Once the Illusive Man dies, you get the crucible docked to the citadel and have a short rest with Anderson where you talk a little before Anderson dies. Hackett then informs you that the crucible is not firing and you have to do something on your side. You go to do so and pass out from all the damage you've taken and blood loss.

Next you wake with what looks like a ghostly hologram human child, the child informs you that it is the catalyst. In then goes on to explain that you have to make a choice, you can destroy the reaper, control the reapers, or, if your war assets are high enough, combine organics and synthetics together. Further, the child explains that the whole reasons the reapers exist is to remove the advanced civilizations because said advanced civilizations would create sythentics that would eventually turn on their creators and go to war (much like the Quarians and Geth, although you have the opportunity to solve that earlier in the game or look at EDI turning on everyone as another possibility). And the child further explains that the reapers are there to harvest the advanced civilizations to "save" them by turning them into reapers as well (so to save the organic civilization, the reapers have to turn them into synthetics effectively). And then the reapers leave, let the younger civilizations advance, and then do it all over again!

So, that whole setup convoluted enough for you? Ok, it's gets better. Once you make your choice, either to destroy the reapers, controll them, or combine organics and synthetics into a new life form, you now cut to a beam firing out of the citadel at the Sol relay. The Sol relay then explodes and the beam continues on throughout the relay network. The next thing you see is a cut to the galaxy as you watch relay after relay blow up with the beam effect going outward (now, given what happened in the Arrival DLC, a relay blowing up is s'posed to be like a supernova going off, so effectively, Sheppard making the choice would do more to kill off all life in the galaxy than what the reapers were doing given all the young civilizations would have relays in their home systems or near by anyway). Now we cut to Joker flying the Normandy in relay space (why he left Sol is anyone's guess). The beam catches the Normandy and it looks like the Normandy blows up, not so.

The next thing we see if the Normandy has crash landed, amazingly, on a garden world. Joker, opens the airlock and goes outside, he's then joined by Sheppard's love interest, and one of the squadmembers that was with Sheppard on the run to the citadel beam.

So, now having read that, can you see the gigantic plot holes? Can you see how insipid the ending is compared to what BioWare alluded to in their various media events and commentary? Now do you see why everyone is up in arms about the ending? The game is great up to that ending, and then the ending chucks everything that everyone has done out the window with a load of tripe. The ending makes no sense and it is not the kind of ending that BioWare alluded to in interviews and the like. Pretty much everyone was given a bate and switch situation with the game.

I see ample room for them to be hit with a false advertising suit due to what they said in interviews vs. what the final product ended up.