I know, right? I think she should have stuck with the fish. I'd pick the red snapper/destroy option myself.

Philosophy time.

Ok, I think I've hit on something. It's not about the plot, flaws, or mechanics of Mass Effect. It's about the recognition of manipulation... a collective human improvement on understanding magician tricks.

I think now that gamers have finally 'leveled up' with the critical errors in the logic of the ME3 ending. I've been watching videos on various people analyzing the ending, everything from the dialogue choices to the overall logical fallacies created by the Catalyst. It may be bad writing (and it is), it may be a cop out (and it is), but ultimately what I observe happening here is a slow, yet organic understanding of the child-like psychology tricks used to manipulate and control populations and cultures. It's a subversive element, but it is there... it exists, both for the purposes of commerce, and for more... nefarious reasons.

The Catalyst offers not just flawed logic in the Reaper agenda, but it offers a larger dark world view of transhumanism, eugenics, and coercion of racial determinism. People might not understand these ideas as actual concepts, but they do grasp them in terms of video game mechanics. Odd, I know, but I won't criticize the method if the end result reaches the proper results. The Catalyst is offering the player various paths to the same approach... genocide. The Catalyst, for lack of a better example, is the Hologram version of Hitler explaining that killing all the jews is justifiable, if for no other reason than the all-some-if argument is used to present a clear and present danger of a as of yet not dangerous subject, in this case, mankind and all organic life.

This gets into free will and objective logic, but in the end the Catalyst is offering a argument for genocide based on a future possible threat of organic life, a threat that presents a percentage based chance of organic life doing exactly what the Reapers are going to do and have done every cycle going back who knows how long. This is not only contradictory logic, but is ultimately bad writing and a poorly thought out plot contrivance. In this case, the Catalyst is not only incorrect in its logic, but it is also inherently evil and should be confronted and opposed at all costs... not obeyed by zombie Reaper Shepard. Even slack jawed gamers should have at this point put down the controller and picked up several books on Greek philosophy.

With the polls, boycotts, and petitions, the audience has obviously detected this, even if it is in a slightly child like way. Again, gamers might not always be academically inclined to logically observe and ponder larger questions, but in this case the magic trick was so poorly done that the audience has taken to throwing rotten tomatoes at the hack on the stage. I'd go more into this, but I think the point is made. The man behind the curtain of the entire franchise... of the entire genre of fictional software entertainment, has become exposed as the emperor with no clothes. For that, I give all gamers a thumbs up. You just upgraded your own base intelligence, even if you just wanted to bang Tali all along. Even to use suspension of disbelief, a certain set of rules are necessary to engage the viewer/listener and take them along for the ride. These sets of rules are based on cultural beliefs, social norms, and a smattering of critical thinking. All of these basic tenants were violated utterly and completely with the ME3 ending. Even the largest stretches of suspension of disbelief cannot be accepted if the foundation for the entire concept contradicts itself in its genesis and purpose. What the ME3 ending did was the definition of fictional subversion. In that, I think we actually have to give Bioware and EA a round of applause. Through their endless horseshit and hackneyed product creation, they have inadvertently created a smarter and more cynical consumer base. In the momentum of quality vs quantity, I find this to be a very good sign.

So yes, the ending was very bad. But we should commend ourselves and recognize the fact that we now recognize the naked man behind the curtain. If only for that reason alone, I think this is a very good thing. If we are also a greater number of the whole, we can also assume that we will also be tomorrow's writers, developers and creators. And if we can and should learn from our predecessors' mistakes, then this is also a very good thing.

So... I guess in a way the ME3 ending was actually really good. Its unintended consequence was a subtle but strong logical rebellion against its pointlessness and cruelty. It may have actually helped create a legion of really good writers for the stories of tomorrow.

Sigh, so I finally installed origin and played this ME3 (was laying on my shelf since premiere), extended cut ofc... as I was avoiding spoilers all I knew was that ppl didn't like the orginal endings.
And if this are the better endings, I rly don't want to see the 1st one. I don't even know where to start with it, I'm sure that all was said about it alrdy.

But overall I enjoyed the game, it's just went retarted at the end.

Also had "nice" adventure with it, when my net broke down I couldn't authorize DLC's and load my save just before ending, yay for DRM (well, unpluging the router fixed that problem but still...).

Oh, and nice that they blocked save feature on last mission combined with fact that you can't skip the movies/dialogue, gj bioware.

Well, if the curiosity gets the better of you, here are the original ones, all together, to highlight the "differences".

Mass Effect 3 Original Endings Comparison

Yea... It's good that I didn't play it when I got it.
Guess I have to thank EA for Origin spyware thing back then.

Or they can go with "that only happened in Shepard mind" in the next game. Tbh I'm not sure if I would like to see reboot.

But I can agree with most of your post, they rly should put more thought in it.

Considering that Casey Hudson (and, by extension, BioWare) went on record as saying that Mass Effect would not end on a "Choose A, B or C" scenario, it is their betrayal of the fans that is the real tragedy. Everything that you said above is valid, accurate, and true. But the reason we did not get the choice we were promised is because EA's execs and Casey Hudson sold us out and, when we called them out on their bullsh'tet, they hid behind the shield of "Artistic Integrity" and then called us "whiny and self-entitled fanboys".

I bought all three games in their collector's editions. I bought the iPhone games. I bought Dragon Age: Origins for the Blood Dragon Armor DLC for ME2. I bought bottles of Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper to get helmets and weapons for ME2. I played Facebook games to get early access to the ME3 demo and boosts for my multiplayer character. I bought the novels, the toys and the art books. Heck, I even made a song parody music video!

Regardless of all of that, none of it makes me entitled.

What does make me entitled is BioWare themselves. By letting the fans have a voice, listening to that voice, and changing aspects of the game because of that voice is what makes me entitled. People wanted to romance Tali and Garrus, two characters that BioWare felt were "too alien" to be appealing as love interests, and they made it happen. People hated the Mako, so they took it out. People hated scanning planets, so they took it out. Some people wanted more RPG and some wanted less, so they created alternate playstyles in ME3 to suit both groups of gamers. We were a part of the development process and BioWare liked it that way.

When the third game was nearing release, they made promises that were not kept. They told us our choices would matter, they didn't. They told us that playing from ME1 to ME3 would have better rewards than just playing ME3 alone, it didn't. They said our endings would be unique to our Shepard's story, they weren't.

What we got was a half-assed ending and an advertisement to buy DLC.

Amazon offered full refunds on returned open copies of ME3. EA was voted the worst company in America by Forbes magazine. The founders of BioWare left the video gaming industry entirely. Fan efforts such as"Retake Mass Effect" and "Marauder Shields" and the "Mass Effect Ending Mod" made international news.

The endings were bad, there's no doubt about that. But BioWare / EA's betrayal was worse.

TL;DR = I'm butthurt, but justified. EA sux.

Honestly the choice and consequence in all three games was extremely cosmetic and limited. When you carry saves over from game to game it limits how different you can make results. I wasn't disappointed by the ending because I honestly don't see what more they could have done with it.

Probably would have been best if your choices decided which ending you got, i.e. renegades get the destroy ending, paragons the control ending, etc. etc., but I would guess people would have thrown an even bigger hissy-fit over not getting to choose.

I still haven't finished ME3... maybe some day I will, but for example I remember Fallout 1&2's endings. And it had a different ending for each location, depending on your actions. You might have saved city X or doomed settlement Y. I don't know how this is played out in ME3 but if it's similar then I'm fine with it...

It's not, it's just like Deus Ex.

That is another game that I haven't finished yet :). Damn, games keep piling up... and I'm buying more and more :(. I think I'm addicted.

Oh... well basically you choose which cinematic ending you want from a list.

Wtf? That's it? I understand the outrage then. Why play as a Paragon or Renegade, when in the end it doesn't matter...

Ultimately, you are right. You don't actually have "choice", but you do at least have the illusion of choice and that illusion is very vivid and, therefore, pleasantly unnoticeable throughout 95% of this franchise. You could see the strings, smoke and mirrors in the ending to ME3 as plain as day.

How could they have done more? They could have considered any accomplishments the player could have achieved over the course of three games. Instead, they chose to consider none. Coming off of the ending of ME2 which was, arguably, the best ending to a game ever, just made it all the more insulting.

Fixed that for ya. :P