Mass Effect 3

Is it free? That would actually warrant a purchase. If it's extra, no thank you.
 
I am very pleased with the extended cut. This is the way it should have been from the beginning!
 
Bleh.
While it does elaborate on the choices you have and how they affect galaxy you discovered and saved, the "legend" and "stargazer" shit still makes no sense. If they did achieve synthesis/perfection, why the hell are they asking "when can I go to the stars", and the story of Shepard being a legend? Does it mean that your choices failed and the galaxy went back to the middle ages through conflicts, and the events that unfolded during our playtime was nothing but folklore?
 
As always, very nicely produced. But it still doesn't make any sense. They spent time addressing the less important problems.
 
I liked it.

Funnily enough (and without giving too much away) the green ending was my favorite, while I didn't really care for it at all before
 
You enjoy forcing your ideology on the entire galaxy? :p I'm playin'.

Personally I don't find any of the endings very appealing thematically. The Starchild manages to get something he wants in every end. You never get to defeat him. Wipe out his minions, sure, but not before he pulls out a grenade and takes all the synthetics with him - effectively a toned-down version of his goals in the first place, ensuring synthetics cannot rebel. Control is arguably just as bad as falling to total Reaperization, especially now that we actually get to hear how Shepard thinks via the epilogue. Them words be power crazed, yo. Sounded a lot like Mr Harby to me.

Even if you say "fuck you, assmunch", which is a great addition, for a bit, until BioWare just spits it back at you. You can't do it your way. BioWare just writes you out of the story and begins again. Even though it is painfully obvious a conventional victory is possible. Woulda been nice if there was both a win and lose condition based on EMS for the reject option.

But I'm not really concerned with that. What has always irked me is the contrived nature of the Starchild and his reasoning. It's just a deus ex machina designed to fit around all the plot issues, only it doesn't quite.

EDIT:

Here's a consideration that throws another layer onto the Starchild: he's broken. Well, not broken per se. Just fed the wrong instructions. I remember him saying during the EC end "my creators were resistant to the idea of becoming a Reaper, but I did what had to be done" (paraphrasing). Kinda gives me the vibe that his creators came up with the AI, gave it some kind of loose goal to pursue ("find balance between synthetics and organics" or something like that) and he essentially just went way too far following the cold logic without any consideration to collateral of any kind, including his creators wishes. Kind of a Hal moment I guess? "Complete the mission, even if it means failing the mission".

Might explain his stupid behavior. A being like that operating for eons on warped logic, from our standpoint, would most likely come up with very twisted solutions - bad input, bad output, bad interpretation. Of course that's VERY loose speculation. Whether that is actually the backstory of the character is anyone's guess now. One does kind of imagine BioWare would give you the option to defeat this kind of madness instead of play into it, see above. If I wrote it, I might've seen if I could get away with making the Starchild into a scared, confused, pitiable character. Or, at least, as close to that as you can make an "emotionless" AI. I'd probably fail but someone more adept... sigh.

The EC is done, that's that, and it hasn't really answered all that many of my questions. The big one still stands: OMG WTF Shepard's alive?!?! I seriously thought they'd have something on that. But nope.

But at least it does add nice scenes and shows a bit about your squad and some internal monologues which are nice.
 
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You still get to see the new endings when you just replay the last bit on the citadel, for which you get a "restart mission" save after a completed playthrough. They did recommend to play from the Cerberus base attack though, but I haven't done that yet so I don't what additions there are between that point and the actual ending sequence. :dunno:
 
EDIT:

Here's a consideration that throws another layer onto the Starchild: he's broken. Well, not broken per se. Just fed the wrong instructions. I remember him saying during the EC end "my creators were resistant to the idea of becoming a Reaper, but I did what had to be done" (paraphrasing). Kinda gives me the vibe that his creators came up with the AI, gave it some kind of loose goal to pursue ("find balance between synthetics and organics" or something like that) and he essentially just went way too far following the cold logic without any consideration to collateral of any kind, including his creators wishes. Kind of a Hal moment I guess? "Complete the mission, even if it means failing the mission".

Might explain his stupid behavior. A being like that operating for eons on warped logic, from our standpoint, would most likely come up with very twisted solutions - bad input, bad output, bad interpretation. Of course that's VERY loose speculation. Whether that is actually the backstory of the character is anyone's guess now. One does kind of imagine BioWare would give you the option to defeat this kind of madness instead of play into it, see above. If I wrote it, I might've seen if I could get away with making the Starchild into a scared, confused, pitiable character. Or, at least, as close to that as you can make an "emotionless" AI. I'd probably fail but someone more adept... sigh.
So they rehashed Portal 2.. in space?
 
The additions before the ending sequence I noticed were...
The bit where your squad evades being squashed by the vehicle during the beam run, and is then picked up by the Normandy. Also, I think a few cutscenes during the Earth battle showing other teams were longer, but not sure about it - it's a while since I played the mission originally. As far as I saw it, nothing new was added to the Cerberus base, don't see why I had to replay it... save for the satisfaction of doing that Renegade interrupt on Kai Leng again.

Overall, I must say this was better than I expected it to be. Sure, it's not perfect and not everybody will be satistied, but most of my open questions are answered in all endings, and the answers are as convincing as can be it while keeping to the "original idea". Spoilers below for all endings (played Synthesis as I originally did, watched the others on YouTube):
  • Shepard clearly dies (at least as we knew him/her) in all endings but the red one - that one he/she clearly survives, if you had enough EMS.
  • The relays are shown not to be destroyed, but only damaged and then rebuilt - either by the Reapers (blue), by the organics themselves after a while (red) or by everybody together (green). Same for the Citadel, apparently. This sort of fixes the "ruined future for everybody because nobody can get home" problem.
  • There is an explanation how your crew ends up on the Normandy, how it runs away and how it gets hit while in FTL. No idea where it crashes still, but at least some clarity is brought into that. Also, it's later repaired and flies again.
  • Closure is brought to what happens to the galaxy afterwards, races are shown rebuilding, etc.
  • There is more distinct difference between the main endings, with the narration added after the Normandy crash scene, and it's rather nicely done.
  • I actually found it cool that they added the fourth option - to refuse to go with the Catalyst's offer, and thus let the cycle continue. Liara's future cycles information cache being shown with that was a really nice touch.
Now, sure this is not perfect, and one could still find things that don't quite make much sense and/or unaswered questions. However, after the desaster of the original endings and the complete lack of closure in those, this is clearly much better.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's a consideration that throws another layer onto the Starchild: he's broken. Well, not broken per se. Just fed the wrong instructions. I remember him saying during the EC end "my creators were resistant to the idea of becoming a Reaper, but I did what had to be done" (paraphrasing). Kinda gives me the vibe that his creators came up with the AI, gave it some kind of loose goal to pursue ("find balance between synthetics and organics" or something like that) and he essentially just went way too far following the cold logic without any consideration to collateral of any kind, including his creators wishes. Kind of a Hal moment I guess? "Complete the mission, even if it means failing the mission".

I think this is pretty obvious. The Starchild's logic of "machines will always rebel against their creators" stems from this very fact: he has obviously done this very thing, and cannot possibly comprehend how any other AI would not do the same. But his logic is still only a machine logic, and the presense of Shepard on the Citadel, him/her having united the races (including some synthetics) against the Reapers, which has apparently never happened before, "changes his variables" - what the Starchild has thought to be impossible is now proven otherwise, and thus his logical conclusion of the Cycle's necessity is now changed. Personally, I like this rogue AI-based explanation of the Starchild quite satisfying - before that, he was introducing another level of existence, a metaphysical creature of unknown origin with power over the Reapers that can rule over all life in the Galaxy - and that concept was really, really out of place in the ME universe.
 
Spoilers below for all endings (played Synthesis as I originally did, watched the others on YouTube):
  • I actually found it cool that they added the fourth option - to refuse to go with the Catalyst's offer, and thus let the cycle continue. Liara's future cycles information cache being shown with that was a really nice touch.

I would've only wished for some more epic space battle scenes though, showing that even if everything's going down in flames the galaxy won't give up without a fight. Seemed like the perfect set-up for that.
 
Apparently, according to kotaku, there are hints in the Extended Ending DLC about what might be in the next DLC pack.
 
I think that the Reject Starchild ending should have the possibility of a really Pyrrhic victory for the Mass Effect galaxy if your GR is nearly maxed.
Basically I would have imagined it as following
1. Citadel is critically damaged by space debris or damaged reapers crashing into it. Citadel performs a colony drip basically triggering an extinction event
2. Remaining Council forces retreat through Mass Effect relay and Normandy stays behind to trigger relay self-destruct and earth is destroyed
3. Bulk of reaper forces stuck in sol space will have to travel using conventional ftl drives allowing the various races to defeat the reaper contingent at their home base and repair their forces
4. Based on your choices in the games some races will be defeated and exterminated
5. Sol reaper forces arrive back at the council home planets and go for outright extermination instead of slow reaperization
6. Over a period of several years council forces defeat reaper forces in a fighting retreat
7. Galactic civilization has been reduced to a collection of isolated mixed refugee colonies without mass relays using conventional FTL travel
8. After a hundred years or so queue eventual reformation of some semblance of galactic society

Basically everyone you ever knew in the game dies, but galactic civilization survives and the cycle is broken. Galaxy is reduced to "dark ages" but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Sheppard cycle is still ended as intended by Bioware, it's not a disney victory and you could say that the blue green red endings are technically still the superior endings.
 
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