The Anti-Monitor
Banned
Is it possible to talk about him without picturing his depiction in the Ragecomic here?
He's the Cereal Killer to me.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE
- Thread starter XANDER CAGE
- Start date
- Status
Is it possible to talk about him without picturing his depiction in the Ragecomic here?
He's the Cereal Killer to me.
APZonerunner
Member
When they fire the beam, doesn't the Citadel/Crucible explode? Seemed like a one-time thing to me.
Apophenia Overload
Member
I just realized that the cyclical nature of history in the game, while cool, is pretty much what Matrix: Reloaded was going on about. But even the Matrix sequels made Neo significant because out of love or whatever he chose Trinity instead of rebooting the cycle. In ME 3 for whatever Shepard gets to meet the Catalyst (which I assume no organic being ever has)... because he can? And then he gets offered a choice to change the cycle in three possible ways... because he's awesome? (Why is the Reaper Kid even giving him the time of day? He must have a worse sense of humor than Gravemind.) And why didn't the Reapers ever try merging with organic life before? Isn't the whole collection process basically merging synthetic life with organic life anyway? Does anyone have a video with the full conversation with the Catalyst?
APZonerunner
Member
Also - bit disappointed there were no direct exchanges with Harbringer, what with him banging on throughout ME2.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Pretty much killing of organics to prevent them from going too far with synthetics so the synths don't fly off in spaceships and kill other organics who are less developed. In a way, they're killing off the organics out of a "Prime Directive" type of code.
It seems the Reapers were a bit LTTP with the whole Geth ordeal but I guess they make it an every 50,000 years kind of thing they do. A lot of this makes little sense in the grand scheme of things. I really wish the Reapers were kept to be more mysterious, Lovecraftian machines. I guess we will still never know their true origins, however, and why the feel a need to act as cosmic "janitors".
Oh and what exactly is the Catalyst/Guardian or whatever it is called? The king of the Reapers or a member of some ancient and wise race?
One thing that's really bugging me about the end that I don't think anyone's brought up: Just how the hell did Joker pick up the rest of my crew from Earth? There were Reapers everywhere, yet he managed to pick everyone up (including EDI, who we see in the cutscene, who was in my squad the entire time on Earth) and get to a Mass Relay unscathed before the Crucible hit the Mass Relay...but since there's no way he could've picked everyone up before the Crucible pacified the Reapers, and the relays were destroyed quickly after...yeah. I suppose it's not my biggest issue with the ending, but I tend to really notice inconsistencies like these.
mercenar1e
Member
who here was disappointed with the DLC? here's one way they could of made it much better..
Prothean revived, gets off Eden Prime.. on the Normandy he reveals a secret perfectly preserved underground city that was built and hidden from the Reapers, travel to the underground city, collect technology.. see how they lived, etc.. but it's Bioware lol
horrible ending though lol i hope Bioware gets shit on by the fans
Prothean revived, gets off Eden Prime.. on the Normandy he reveals a secret perfectly preserved underground city that was built and hidden from the Reapers, travel to the underground city, collect technology.. see how they lived, etc.. but it's Bioware lol
horrible ending though lol i hope Bioware gets shit on by the fans
mercenar1e
Member
What Ashley and Liara can die for no reason too?
At least they don't suicide like Tali.
Do they?
Alright, I read the whole thread and I have to ask:
WHY do the Reapers think synthetic life is going to kill organic? Was there any effort made to explain this? Why would the natural course of... progress?... go from life creating 'fake' life to 'fake' life destroying real life? Or is this just some random aniMatrix bullshit?
If I'm not mistaken, the Geth/Quarian debacle had more to do with Quarians being dicks to the Geth who rose to escape some sort of space slavery. Not that it wasn't already established that the Citadel council had already outlawed development of synthetic life so the Quarians were breaking international law from the very beginning.
Furthermore, the games already established that the Geth only continue to be villainous because they're being controlled by the Reapers who they have come to worship as a god because of a simple change to their universal programming.
Or does BioWare completely forget about all the stories they wrote earlier? Seems pretty egregious given that apparently this synthetic vs life debate was the overarcing theme of the series even though all they've done is develop conflicting and inconsistent messages about it.
As for the endings - having "bad" endings isn't the problem here. It is that they serve no purpose, make no sense, and sound really poorly executed. In no way does everyone dying help whatever theme they were striving for in the series and just seems... bizarre. The ending should be the natural conclusion of all the conflict and personal struggles leading up to it that drives home the message the author is attempting to explore.
WHY do the Reapers think synthetic life is going to kill organic? Was there any effort made to explain this? Why would the natural course of... progress?... go from life creating 'fake' life to 'fake' life destroying real life? Or is this just some random aniMatrix bullshit?
If I'm not mistaken, the Geth/Quarian debacle had more to do with Quarians being dicks to the Geth who rose to escape some sort of space slavery. Not that it wasn't already established that the Citadel council had already outlawed development of synthetic life so the Quarians were breaking international law from the very beginning.
Furthermore, the games already established that the Geth only continue to be villainous because they're being controlled by the Reapers who they have come to worship as a god because of a simple change to their universal programming.
Or does BioWare completely forget about all the stories they wrote earlier? Seems pretty egregious given that apparently this synthetic vs life debate was the overarcing theme of the series even though all they've done is develop conflicting and inconsistent messages about it.
As for the endings - having "bad" endings isn't the problem here. It is that they serve no purpose, make no sense, and sound really poorly executed. In no way does everyone dying help whatever theme they were striving for in the series and just seems... bizarre. The ending should be the natural conclusion of all the conflict and personal struggles leading up to it that drives home the message the author is attempting to explore.
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
I don't think it ever explains why. It can be assumed that during a cycle in the past, perhaps personal experiences by the creators of the Reapers, synths went out and enslaved/killed organics. This is why exploring who or what the Reapers really are may have been necessary. To give them a purpose. Keeping their origins a mystery may have hurt the story even more.
It really seems they're just interested in combining synths and organics anyhow and not really much else. It's like an excuse for them to do that, again for reasons unclear.
Besides that, the Reapers sure don't sound like they're doing things in our best interest from Shepard's conversation with Sovereign in the first game or Harbinger's attitude in the second.
Apophenia Overload
Member
In their attempts to supplant the Japanese for the hearts and minds of RPG players, Bioware has created the ultimate Western JRPG.
Probably should have just left them as robot Cthulu's like they were suggesting from the first game. But, that was one concern I had from the very first iteration. While I didn't put a lot of thought into it, I couldn't really see any interesting angle they could take the Reapers from what they had first established. It was always going to be awkward by the very fact that they were robots and had to be created by... someone with obviously very little foresight.
Also, it seems strange to have called them Reapers when Collectors would have been more appropriate. Course, I don't think BioWare is fooling anyone with the idea that they had planned this whole trilogy out from the start.
Man, the dialogue in this game has really gone downhill.
Was it always this bad?
Like, there's a whole lot of NPCs saying redundant questions and Shepard in the background going 'Yes'. Also, don't get me started on the EDI stuff. Jesus christ. I'm scared to keep going. I may not even finish this.
Was it always this bad?
Like, there's a whole lot of NPCs saying redundant questions and Shepard in the background going 'Yes'. Also, don't get me started on the EDI stuff. Jesus christ. I'm scared to keep going. I may not even finish this.
Hm, I just poked my head in the official thread and the tone there is radically different than here. I wonder how many will come over after the end sequence since that seems to be the big problem with the game.
As for the writing - both games have pretty cringe worthy dialogue. The first one had Ashley (enough said) or Kaiden (also enough said). The other NPCs range from alright to really awful. The second game definitely stepped up in the characterization department, with perhaps the strongest showing for Tali and Garrus (though I have no idea about the third game since I won't be playing it) but the overall writing for the game was still pretty questionable.
And that's not mentioning the massive plotholes in a game with almost zero narrative.
Red Blaster
Member
Just finished
Just finished
Just read your post in the main thread.
I think alot of those who haven't finished yet will end up feeling like that.
Thagomizer
Member
Reading through this thread...damn. Pretty much what I expected in terms of endings, but the blatantness of the copying of ideas and stock photos is what's really shocking to me. I mean, Tali's face, something they've been teasing since ME1, being a lazily photoshopped stock photo? The epilogue is the FIRST RESULT in a Google Image search? REALLY??
shingonation
Member
You're being trolled. And the Tali thing is a possibility.
vitaminwateryum
corporate swill
Out out of those is true.
Tali took off her mask and jumped off a cliff in my game. As far as I'm aware the Wrex one isn't true, but it may depend on decisions in past games.
Good. Goooood. Let the Bioware Social Network butthurt flow through me.
So long as Garrus and Wrex don't die, I'm okaywiththis.jpg
Thagomizer
Member
OMG I just saw the EDI sexbot.
I'm not sure if I should be impressed that it's a Fritz Lang's Metropolis reference or laugh that it just looks so ridiculous.
I'm not sure if I should be impressed that it's a Fritz Lang's Metropolis reference or laugh that it just looks so ridiculous.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
Why are you using spoiler tags in the spoiler thread?
I recall reading somewhere that either Mordin or Wrex have to die. Mordin gets a cool death but I don't know anything about Wrex's.
I recall reading somewhere that either Mordin or Wrex have to die. Mordin gets a cool death but I don't know anything about Wrex's.
EmCeeGramr
Member
remember "you won't find some long-lost reaper off switch"
Darkmakaimura
Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
The Crucible.
Red Blaster
Member
ME3's story became too massive for its own good. Part of the appeal of ME1 and ME2 was picking fights with random thugs and helping people with their stupid problems. ME3 has some funny moments but the tone of the game gets bleaker and bleaker the further you get. There's no equivalent of "I can bludgeon pretty hard" or "This store discriminates against the poor!" in ME3.
Just saw the ending on Youtube. I had to (once again) squint at subtitles in 240p but OH MY GOD. How the fuck do you make the Reapers purpose... that? I couldn't catch all of what that kid/AI was saying since LOL BLUE BLURRY TEXT ON BLUE AI BACKGROUND but the Reapers are sent every 50,000 years to "kill"/collect the DNA of space-faring "organics" so their AI creations can't kill them. Really?
I mean, I can see the point of that, but it's still stupid as hell. And then the person chose to mergewith Helios with the Reapers, thereby disappearing. Badend.
Even more of a bad end is Joker and the Normandy jumping through the relays (WHY?) and then being stranded on a desolate planet with CREDITS ROLL.
This was apparent with "YOUR CHOICES MATTER! (LOL NOT REALLY ASSHOLES. YOU'LL GET E-MAIL'S AND YOU'LL LIKE IT!)" in ME2. But given the BIG BAD ANTAGONISTS were the reapers (airquotes here) you'd think Bioware planned out their "trilogy" wayyyyy ahead of time to where the Reapers had a better motivation.
I mean, I can see the point of that, but it's still stupid as hell. And then the person chose to merge
Even more of a bad end is Joker and the Normandy jumping through the relays (WHY?) and then being stranded on a desolate planet with CREDITS ROLL.
Red Blaster said:
This was apparent with "YOUR CHOICES MATTER! (LOL NOT REALLY ASSHOLES. YOU'LL GET E-MAIL'S AND YOU'LL LIKE IT!)" in ME2. But given the BIG BAD ANTAGONISTS were the reapers (airquotes here) you'd think Bioware planned out their "trilogy" wayyyyy ahead of time to where the Reapers had a better motivation.
I'm not going to be able to actually play this until next week, so I watched a playthrough in-between studying.
Honestly, I don't think the story is bad, but it almost completely blows it in the last five minutes. There was a lot of well-written vignettes, or at least good moments with the cast toward the end that carried the proper amount of weight, and I appreciated that. I can even accept the bleakness of the story, the contrived reasoning for the Reaper's motivations (it was never going to make sense after ME2 retconned a lot of their ME1 characterization), the deus ex machina...
I don't even mind a "sad" ending, where Shepard dies or the galaxy is screwed.
But the tone is all screwed up in the final minutes of the game. Shepard makes a big sacrifice, does one of either three (poorly explained and very similar) things, and we don't get much follow-up on what any of our choices meant. What is the point of three choices if we don't even see their repercussions?*
And then to top it all off, we cut away from the main action for some out-of-place scene of Joker flying the Normandy through the relay FOR NO REASON, only for him and the crew (how'd they even get on the ship again?) to get caught up in the mass relay explosion. And our parting image before the main credits is some weird, hopeless situation where they've crashed on the ground.
I mean... huh? We don't get some sort of epilogue for the characters? We don't see the effects of our decisions? We don't even get to see the state of the galaxy or it being rebuilt? We just see an alien jungle, and our characters are stranded on it? That's just poor storytelling... there's no catharsis there.
And then we cut to the horribly voice-acted post-credits scene, which is just whatever. It just leaves a poor taste in my mind.
It's like a song at a middle school band concert that ends off-key: it was barely competent but then that last note shits the bed.
*Oh wait. Bioware.
Honestly, I don't think the story is bad, but it almost completely blows it in the last five minutes. There was a lot of well-written vignettes, or at least good moments with the cast toward the end that carried the proper amount of weight, and I appreciated that. I can even accept the bleakness of the story, the contrived reasoning for the Reaper's motivations (it was never going to make sense after ME2 retconned a lot of their ME1 characterization), the deus ex machina...
I don't even mind a "sad" ending, where Shepard dies or the galaxy is screwed.
But the tone is all screwed up in the final minutes of the game. Shepard makes a big sacrifice, does one of either three (poorly explained and very similar) things, and we don't get much follow-up on what any of our choices meant. What is the point of three choices if we don't even see their repercussions?*
And then to top it all off, we cut away from the main action for some out-of-place scene of Joker flying the Normandy through the relay FOR NO REASON, only for him and the crew (how'd they even get on the ship again?) to get caught up in the mass relay explosion. And our parting image before the main credits is some weird, hopeless situation where they've crashed on the ground.
I mean... huh? We don't get some sort of epilogue for the characters? We don't see the effects of our decisions? We don't even get to see the state of the galaxy or it being rebuilt? We just see an alien jungle, and our characters are stranded on it? That's just poor storytelling... there's no catharsis there.
And then we cut to the horribly voice-acted post-credits scene, which is just whatever. It just leaves a poor taste in my mind.
It's like a song at a middle school band concert that ends off-key: it was barely competent but then that last note shits the bed.
*Oh wait. Bioware.
I think there was a dialogue/conversation part with EDI where they explain why synthetic life might rise up/kill organics, but it was mostly because synthetics have a purpose in life so they carry it out while organic life has no real meaning other than to pass on its genes to the next generation so they see themselves as superior in that fashion. Something to that extent, I think it was one of them during the Rannoch series of quests, either after the Legion one where you are in the server or something. I think for the most part how EDI changes after being unshackled and develops does a pretty good job of showing how a synthetic takes on more organic dispositions, though still in a machine-like fashion.
Which is hilarious because they don't consider what happens if you rewrite the geth with Reaper upgrades essentially making each individual unit a "soul", i.e. it no longer needs to be networked for the same level of intelligence as multiple units. So basically if you upgrade the geth you essentially created another new species, so its imperatives for survival and everything should change.
Wow, Loco's a lot worse than Lola...either way, the first conversation you have with him you have the chance to tell him just that. I took that option, haven't heard him call me Lola since (and I've beaten the game, so yeah).
Well yeah, it's designed to look human. Eva was at the Mars facility for weeks posing as a human. Kind of hard to do that when you don't look very human...
I think the reasoning was so that there was at least one full mission where you had to use Vega (Menae). To basically force players to give him a chance in combat, or else a lot of long time players would just default to VS/Liara immediately, replacing one with Garrus maybe...that's how I see it, at any rate. Also it places Kaidan/Ashley at the Citadel for later events.
So having a few hours to sit on the ending, even though I wasn't a fan it didn't really sour the game for me. It was still enjoyable. The Rannoch missions had to be some of my favorite. And even though I was spoiled on their being a Reaper at the end still liked it. Damn those early videos showing the rail shooting.
Now time to start up a renegade dick mode run. Should be interesting.
Now time to start up a renegade dick mode run. Should be interesting.
Red Blaster
Member
Also Shepard has been on a goddamn suicide mission; how is he getting PTSD seeing some random child die.
Then again that child turned out to be an omnipotent space wizard.
Then again that child turned out to be an omnipotent space wizard.
- Status