Well I must say I'm impressed this made it onto Qhimm. I had wondered whether or not it would.
WARNING: LARGE OPINION FOLLOWS (also spoilers)
Mass Effect is the first game to exceed the level of emotional involvement I had with the PSX era FF's. Nostalgia will forever keep them in a very special place for me, but I have to say ME3 is one of the best games I've ever played in my life.
The entire trilogy has been a phenomenal ride, with choices you make with your character actually having an impact on the story. The voice acting is phenomenal, the story is vast and intricate and the characters have depth. It is perfect.
Or it was, until the end completely fucked it in the eye. Because this isn't a forum for Bioware, I will instead direct you to the Bioware forums where people have been raging about this non stop since the game's release - and rightly so. There you will find what is perhaps a worlds worth of information on why the ending is horrible, if it were printed on paper.
I'll say it again, the game has one of the best storylines I have ever experienced in entertainment (including books, TV and movies), and is incredibly well written. Like any story, it has minor flaws here and there, but is otherwise mostly solid - they make you care about your crew, and your decisions actually do matter. Until the end.
Basically, the end takes the choice away from you. Or rather, pulls a Deus Ex: Human Revolution and gives you 3 choices, with one large difference - they all lead to the same thing. You get the same fucking ending with a colour swap, it's absolutely ridiculous. Based on how much war assets you've acquired, you might see earth blow up, etc. Tiny differences, 95% the same. Your crew, some of whom were hit by a beam that killed them (you can see their bodies with a low score) manage to magically teleport to your ship EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE DEAD where they crash land on a random planet.
My crew would not leave me. This is bullshit. Then theres the magic god-like spacechild who says (and I'm paraphrasing this and quoting a meme, but this is what he says) "YO DAWG, I HEARD YOU DON'T WANNA BE KILLED BY SYNTHETICS. SO I CREATED SOME SYNTHETICS TO KILL YOU, SO YOU WON'T BE KILLED BY SYNTHETICS".
They spring this shit on you at the last minute and expect you to swallow it. Hundreds of fetch quests and side missions for nothing. Your love interest fucks off somewhere. You have no idea what the hell happens to any of your characters. If you follow the lore properly, the mass relays are destroyed in every ending which means none of the species you enlisted to help you can leave our solar system, and most of them can't eat earth food. So they're all dead.
There are people who can articulate this better and bring up better points, but basically the Indoctrination theory is the only thing that makes this ending bearable.
I have been absent from this forum for 2 weeks because I'm stuck F5'ing the main Bioware thread about this for news. The majority hate it. In every poll there are 85%+ who hate it. IGN are absolute douchebags about it (specifically Colin Moriarty) but then again, you can't spell ignorance without IGN.
The main problem comes with the fact that the developers and writes have specifically stated time and time again that this type of ending would never happen. i.e.: "It's not even like the traditional endings in that you have a choice between A, B or C" lied Casey Hudson, writer.
I'm glad they're adding content to "explain it" (as of today) but until this is explained without all the PR bullshit, I'll be over at Bioware holding the line with the rest of my brothers and sisters.
