As a 90% Paragon player, I still say go for it.
Mass Effect
- Thread starter Caldwin
- Start date
I choose Green for the same reasons. But I'm not sure there is a perfect ending.
Destroy - Destroys Edi. It also destroys the Geth after all the work you went through to create peace between them and the Quarians.
Control - It's exactly what the Elusive Man was trying to do and we vilified him for it. And yes, I understand he couldn't do it because "we already controlled him." But it just seems icky to go the route that the villain was advocating all along.
Synthesis - Seems the best on the surface until you realize that for good or ill, every species in the galaxy has had their genetic structure completely altered without any input on the matter. Sure it was either that or extinction...but that's not too far off of the argument Saren was trying to go with (submission or extinction). It's also not too different from what was going on with husks. Plus, what about those husks, marauders, banshees, etc...who now all of a sudden get their sapience back? Are they the same people they used to be before being "altered?" Are they completely different beings? Do they know and understand what's been done to them? What kind of hell is that?
So none of them are really perfect.
That said, my recent play through had a helpful glitch. After finishing the game, it couldn't save because it exceeded the maximum amount of storage space allowed for saves for a single game. So when I continued, it started me after speaking Star Child and right before choosing the ending. So I was able to record these in quick succession.
Destroy - Destroys Edi. It also destroys the Geth after all the work you went through to create peace between them and the Quarians.
Control - It's exactly what the Elusive Man was trying to do and we vilified him for it. And yes, I understand he couldn't do it because "we already controlled him." But it just seems icky to go the route that the villain was advocating all along.
Synthesis - Seems the best on the surface until you realize that for good or ill, every species in the galaxy has had their genetic structure completely altered without any input on the matter. Sure it was either that or extinction...but that's not too far off of the argument Saren was trying to go with (submission or extinction). It's also not too different from what was going on with husks. Plus, what about those husks, marauders, banshees, etc...who now all of a sudden get their sapience back? Are they the same people they used to be before being "altered?" Are they completely different beings? Do they know and understand what's been done to them? What kind of hell is that?
So none of them are really perfect.
That said, my recent play through had a helpful glitch. After finishing the game, it couldn't save because it exceeded the maximum amount of storage space allowed for saves for a single game. So when I continued, it started me after speaking Star Child and right before choosing the ending. So I was able to record these in quick succession.
My favorite ending is still "everything after the last talk with Anderson is a trauma-induced fever dream".
I was always able to rationalize it. The Illusive Man obsessively wanted control, but Shepard only reluctantly accepted it to end the war without sacrificing anyone and to prevent another one between organics and synthetics.
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My issue with Synthesis is that the game explained sweet ****-all about what it entailed. Kind of hard to weigh the pros and cons when I have no idea of what it's supposed to do.
My issue with the three endings as a whole is that they felt like a morality play rather than proceeding from the semi-hard military science fiction story that had proceeded.
Destroy: Gets rid of the Reapers and their forces, as was your objective for the entire game, but at the cost killing at least one of your friends and an entire species that you may have killed another species to save.
Control: Somehow, despite the rest of the series, including this game, saying that exposure to Reaper technology will eventually fry your brain, it won't happen this time, and you can use them to become eternal God-Emperor.
Synthesis: Flip this switch and dump the rest of the galaxy headfirst into your transhumanist fantasies. What does this entail? Unknown. How does this work? Also unknown. Seriously, the game doesn't even bother to handwave a mechanism, the Catalyst can just make green Tron lines appear across the galaxy.
Finally, the whole encounter with the starchild was just poor pacing; it was effectively introducing an entirely new dilemma after the story had already reached a conclusion. People would rather have the story end with the conversation with Anderson because that's where the narrative wrapped up.
My issue with the three endings as a whole is that they felt like a morality play rather than proceeding from the semi-hard military science fiction story that had proceeded.
Destroy: Gets rid of the Reapers and their forces, as was your objective for the entire game, but at the cost killing at least one of your friends and an entire species that you may have killed another species to save.
Control: Somehow, despite the rest of the series, including this game, saying that exposure to Reaper technology will eventually fry your brain, it won't happen this time, and you can use them to become eternal God-Emperor.
Synthesis: Flip this switch and dump the rest of the galaxy headfirst into your transhumanist fantasies. What does this entail? Unknown. How does this work? Also unknown. Seriously, the game doesn't even bother to handwave a mechanism, the Catalyst can just make green Tron lines appear across the galaxy.
Finally, the whole encounter with the starchild was just poor pacing; it was effectively introducing an entirely new dilemma after the story had already reached a conclusion. People would rather have the story end with the conversation with Anderson because that's where the narrative wrapped up.
If only we could use mods in the console version...
Still to this day think the climax of the game should have been a suicide run into and through Harbinger trying to get to the catalyst (aka the Reapers original source code) and get back out again, all the time fighting indoctrination.
After reading the ME wiki, it occurred to me that one potential side effect of ME3's ending could be that all of the dormant mass relays were activated.
That could open the door for a lot of new regions of the galaxy suddenly being available for exploration.
And who knows what sort of terrors lie on the other end of those dormant relays? Hell, maybe one of them leads to Andromeda...
That could open the door for a lot of new regions of the galaxy suddenly being available for exploration.
And who knows what sort of terrors lie on the other end of those dormant relays? Hell, maybe one of them leads to Andromeda...
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On the one hand, I can certainly see a mass relay being aimed at Andromeda to see what the colonists are up to. On the other hand, that would mean a huge time skip from 3, with how long it took the Andromeda Initiative to actually get there.
Liara would still be alive, possibly Wrex. I'm not sure just how old Wrex was and exactly how long Krogan live (llonger than humans but shorter than Asari I think). Human characters would most likely be dead unless there was a compelling reason to put them in a freezer. Heck! Depending on if they truly went with with Destroy as Canon, how close they adhere to the consequences that implies and just how well she was built...EDI isn't totally out of the question.
But I thought most people were thinking a time skip of some sort was a given with how old Liara looked in the trailer.
But I thought most people were thinking a time skip of some sort was a given with how old Liara looked in the trailer.
Krogan have never had a stated age limit, because no krogan has ever been known to die of old age. Wrex is already over a thousand (stated by Uvenk during Grunt's loyalty mission) and Drak is even older. Some dialogue hints that Drak might not have much time left, but he's also been through hell and half of his backup organs are shot, so he's not exactly the model of krogan health. Grunt could still be around, though.
Amazon is giving away a bunch of PC games to Prime subscribers right now, including Mass Effect Legendary Edition:
https://gaming.amazon.com/home
https://gaming.amazon.com/home
Agreed.
When some new news about ME4 pops up, this thread will live again.
When some new news about ME4 pops up, this thread will live again.
Yup, Council is not gonna be happy about that: