Jimquisition: The Positive Side of Mass Effect 3's Ending Drama

[Uszi]

No spoilers:

...but isn't the controversy basically that it's impossible to save earth?...

Nope. You'll have to play it, but it's worse than that.

...And just because the game as shipped had an unsatisfactory ending doesn't mean that there won't be some final closure in the form of DLC...

Again, without spoiling anything, once you actually see the ending, you'll see that unless Bioware changes something this won't be possible.

...So As it stands now, just knowing the basics of the controversy, I'm not too worried about being disappointed...

"Fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding." [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVOlD0D4zhk]

 

[Metalrocks]

im not upset because it dint end the way i want it, im upset because the ending dint make sense at all. how did my crew i had with me back on earth end up on the normandy? how did the normandy end up in the middle in space wile the relays were exploding?
where are the choices we have been promised? where is the ending that my decisions throughout the last 2 games matter? all my choices i have made, are utterly ignored.

he explains pretty well why the ending sucks.
http://angryjoeshow.com/2012/03/top-10-reasons-we-hate-mass-effect-3s-ending/

 

[artanis_neravar]

That doesn't say you won't have to choose between ending A, B, or C just that you won't be trying to figure out which one that you got.

What was said, bold-faced, was that the endings were bucking the two typical kinds of ending: Unchanging and End-Game Decision style. It's true to a degree, by the fact that it's both a straight-up Deus Ex-style End-Game Decision ending, with such little variation as to make the endings almost Unchanging. It honest to God smacks of Poochie from The Simpsons.

No, it did not say that, you may have chosen to interpret it that way, but that is not what they said. They only said that you won't be trying to figure out which ending you got, and you won't be talking about which ending you got. Which is completely true, you did not get any endings, you chose an ending.

 

[acosn]

You..... don't seem to get it.

People were outraged at ME3 for a broad variety of reasons, but mainly because what translates to boring game play (its boring now, it was in ME2, and it was fairly dysfunctional in ME1) was largely being propped up by a very solid, very well realized game. It had polish, Blizzard level polish, and it showed. Graphics improved from ME1 to ME2, the experience was much more solid, and the game was generally less buggy. Voice acting ranged from competent to great, writing ranged from serviceable to good, and ultimately the only two real criticism I could level against it was that the overall plot was, in a word, pointless because no one at Bioware seemed to grasp what the middle-of-the-trilogy part of the story is about. Which is the problem with ME2's writing. Its simply hard to deliver a good plot in a game where the developers want you to insert yourself to some degree into the game. Otherwise the only real problem was that the mother / daughter / father / son trope was used to death in the characters. More than half your crew had a problem that stemmed from someone in their immediate family screwing things up.

ME3 lost most of that, and had a real lack of polish. Thank god they took extra time to add in multiplayer though!

 

[beniki]

I was disastisfied with the ending of this video.

I demand a new ending with more of Jim eating the giant purple dong sword, wearing the art guy's hat! I can't believe the producers of the video didn't think of this obvious conclusion!

Seriously though, Mass Effect 3 is the product of over marketing. They spent years getting their fan base all lubed up and ready for the biggest night of sexual deviancy of their life, only to deliver a fairly normal night of intimacy. And there wasn't even any oral.

Quite simply, they promised the world, and gave us Blackpool. There's nothing wrong with Blackpool, and it's fairly fun... but it's hardly a world tour on a private 747 filled with nymphomatic Asari.

... And for the record, I don't know why I'm being so crass. I think Jim just makes me think of dirty things.

And thank God for him for it.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

That doesn't say you won't have to choose between ending A, B, or C just that you won't be trying to figure out which one that you got.

What was said, bold-faced, was that the endings were bucking the two typical kinds of ending: Unchanging and End-Game Decision style. It's true to a degree, by the fact that it's both a straight-up Deus Ex-style End-Game Decision ending, with such little variation as to make the endings almost Unchanging. It honest to God smacks of Poochie from The Simpsons.

No, it did not say that, you may have chosen to interpret it that way, but that is not what they said. They only said that you won't be trying to figure out which ending you got, and you won't be talking about which ending you got. Which is completely true, you did not get any endings, you chose an ending.

"...Not even in any way like traditional game endings..." That's a pretty black-and-white statement. The way this quote looks in hindsight is that they were claiming a Kodiak is absolutely nothing like a Polar Bear. The "Flip the ending switch" Ending is almost as traditional as a straight A-B plot in games, especially games with morality bars.

If this was Joe Blow Inc. working out of someone's basement, maybe a lower expectation is appropriate, but not a multi-million dollar team under what must be a multi-billion dollar publisher. When General Patton said they'd never see something coming, you'd be more inclined to believe it as a statement than if Lieutenant Johnson did.

 

[artanis_neravar]

ME3 lost most of that, and had a real lack of polish. Thank god they took extra time to add in multiplayer though!

Um...no, the majority of the people upset loved the game, and believe it was a great game, up until the end. But other than the end most people felt it was an exceptional game.

"...Not even in any way like traditional game endings..." That's a pretty black-and-white statement. The way this quote looks in hindsight is that they were claiming a Kodiak is absolutely nothing like a Polar Bear. The "Flip the ending switch" Ending is almost as traditional as a straight A-B plot in games, especially games with morality bars.

If this was Joe Blow Inc. working out of someone's basement, maybe a lower expectation is appropriate, but not a multi-million dollar team under what must be a multi-billion dollar publisher. When General Patton said they'd never see something coming, you'd be more inclined to believe it as a statement than if Lieutenant Johnson did.

What games did a flip the ending switch other than Deus Ex? Not Bioshock, or Fable or Fallout

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

ME3 lost most of that, and had a real lack of polish. Thank god they took extra time to add in multiplayer though!

Um...no, the majority of the people upset loved the game, and believe it was a great game, up until the end. But other than the end most people felt it was an exceptional game.

"...Not even in any way like traditional game endings..." That's a pretty black-and-white statement. The way this quote looks in hindsight is that they were claiming a Kodiak is absolutely nothing like a Polar Bear. The "Flip the ending switch" Ending is almost as traditional as a straight A-B plot in games, especially games with morality bars.

If this was Joe Blow Inc. working out of someone's basement, maybe a lower expectation is appropriate, but not a multi-million dollar team under what must be a multi-billion dollar publisher. When General Patton said they'd never see something coming, you'd be more inclined to believe it as a statement than if Lieutenant Johnson did.

What games did a flip the ending switch other than Deus Ex? Not Bioshock, or Fable or Fallout

Oh bugger. The other two Deus Exes, Singularity, Broken Steel Jade Empire and KotOR all count as well, funny enough. As well as Fallout 1 & 3's core game. Also, did you not play Fable? It happens twice in The Lost Chapters.

And many other games have the variation where it blatantly asks "Would you like to help this woman, or suck her dry in the name of your evil vampiric powers?", like Bioshock or inFamous, a few times over the course of the game (and that scenario is straight out of Darkwatch, another example of both).

I actually like all of the games I listed (other than Invisible War), and don't begrudge them for having this kind of mechanism, but I do begrudge lies, and I do begrudge watching $250 get wasted over the course of 15 minutes.

 

[artanis_neravar]

ME3 lost most of that, and had a real lack of polish. Thank god they took extra time to add in multiplayer though!

Um...no, the majority of the people upset loved the game, and believe it was a great game, up until the end. But other than the end most people felt it was an exceptional game.

"...Not even in any way like traditional game endings..." That's a pretty black-and-white statement. The way this quote looks in hindsight is that they were claiming a Kodiak is absolutely nothing like a Polar Bear. The "Flip the ending switch" Ending is almost as traditional as a straight A-B plot in games, especially games with morality bars.

If this was Joe Blow Inc. working out of someone's basement, maybe a lower expectation is appropriate, but not a multi-million dollar team under what must be a multi-billion dollar publisher. When General Patton said they'd never see something coming, you'd be more inclined to believe it as a statement than if Lieutenant Johnson did.

What games did a flip the ending switch other than Deus Ex? Not Bioshock, or Fable or Fallout

Oh bugger. The other two Deus Exes, Singularity, Broken Steel Jade Empire and KotOR all count as well, funny enough. As well as Fallout 1 & 3's core game. Also, did you not play Fable? It happens twice in The Lost Chapters.

And many other games have the variation where it blatantly asks "Would you like to help this woman, or suck her dry in the name of your evil vampiric powers?", like Bioshock or inFamous, a few times over the course of the game (and that scenario is straight out of Darkwatch, another example of both).

I actually like all of the games I listed (other than Invisible War), and don't begrudge them for having this kind of mechanism, but I do begrudge lies, and I do begrudge watching $250 get wasted over the course of 15 minutes.

I meant Deus Ex as a series. I'm fairly certain you don't choose anything in the end of Kotor, it gives you the ending based on your alignment. Never played Jade Empire. None of the others are actually hit a switch, they are all natural extensions of the game. There is a difference between "Flip the ending switch" and having a choice at the end of the game, that is an extension of everything that has happened

 

[Joccaren]

This is probably one of the few things I'll disagree with you on.
You make it sound as if ME fans would only be satisfied with an ending they had in their heads.
This is false.
The level of outcry isn't because its not what we imagined it would be, but because it is not what we were promised by the Devs themselves, and it falls so far from what made the rest of Mass Effect great that one fan of the ending said they loved it because it was like a movie. Saying something is as good as a movie in a game about choice, and how you can change what happens is not a compliment. It is the opposite.

Sadly what I have seen in a lot of Articles on the Escapist is 'Well, I haven't played it, but it can't be that bad so everyone complaining is just childish and immature'.
That is what many of the people complaining ATM originally thought. Then they played it, and now they complain with us. Even the Escapist podcast members who have played it say they want a new ending, even if they don't feel 100% entitled to it. Are they childish and immature?
Play the games (If you haven't played 1 and 2, play them then three), then finish three and THEN if you think everyone is complaining over nothing, go ahead and say that. Don't say we're being childish without knowing what we're talking about though.

 

[Saltyk]

So, was I the only one that thinks this whole video was tongue in cheek? That while Jim was saying "we should be proud of this response" he was actually saying "this is pathetic". Because that's what I took out of it. I'm not reading all the comments to see if others agree, though, because there's 5 pages at this point.

 

[I.Muir]

Not a big fan of the mass effect series huh, I mean I can see how it's easy to laugh with an outside perspective. However being more involved myself I can see how Mass Effect Three was the equivalent to slamming your dick in a door for some people and how every step recently could be a step in the wrong direction. I might have even joined in the retake mass effect thing but that requires a three foot pole up your..... Still they won't get my money even though I might play through the game anyway and in my mind place a good ending over the top.

What the real issue for me is that's it's sad the content nobody will get to experience considering how far past the point of no return bio ware/EA have gone and that they may never make a game of any real quality again.

 

[I.Muir]

So, was I the only one that thinks this whole video was tongue in cheek? That while Jim was saying "we should be proud of this response" he was actually saying "this is pathetic". Because that's what I took out of it. I'm not reading all the comments to see if others agree, though, because there's 5 pages at this point.

I thought he actually did say this behavior was pathetic but amusing nevertheless. I mean he practically did a LEAVE SONIC ALONE impression although that was probably based of a different video and there are many like it floating around you tube. In the end the message I received was feel free to criticize these people then probably criticize the people who are criticizing them or perhaps cheer the first onwards..... from afar.

 

[Therumancer]

Jim, you're full of shit if you're thinking that it's arrogant that the petition for better endings is called "Retake Mass Effect."

The fact that you basically voice the opinion "It's Bioware's work, so their vision is what matters" when they make VIDEO GAMES, which are about satisfying the CUSTOMER...

As I said in my rather large post (among other, more important things), while it sucks when a TV show blows it's ending, it doesn't actually cost the viewer anything but time, even a universally reviled ending does minimal damage. When a movie comes out that just generally blows chips, customers WILL demand their money back and theaters will return it, assuming that are a large number of complaints (ie a single person complaining about a movie they have already seen will be dismissed). With a video game, you have invested $60 on average per installment of a game, and there is no way to recoup that investment if you wind up being dissatisfied with it. Right now the ending of ME3 is borked enough to really ruin the entire experience up until that point, if that was the end of a movie, people would be justifiably be demanding their money back, and in these numbers they would probably get it. Not so with EA/Bioware.

As I pointed out, I think Jim is overly relying on the belief that no ending will satisfy all fanboys, and that no matter what happens people will complain. With an ending that is at least adequete you might see some fan outcry, but nothing on this level, and even most of those fans will admit that it was okay but they would have preferred things to go differantly. In the case of ME3 this is a situation where the ending is almost universally reviled, rather it's that small but vocal minority (Biodrones) who are defending it, rather than the other way around... and that's a big problem.

Now, if EA doesn't plan to do a differant ending that will make most of the fanbase at least content, which is incidently NOT unprecedented as demonstrated by shows like "Firefly" or perhaps more accuratly "Farscape", it should arguably offer to buy back copies of Mass Effect 3, or perhaps more fairly given the episoding nature of the series, copies of all three games in the trilogy, at full retail price. Much like a movie ticket being refunded after massive outcry over a crap movie. Of course when your looking at a game that will probably see a million returns that is going to cost them 60 to 180 million dollars depending on whether it's the entire trilogy or not, and they aren't liable to do that under any circumstances.

I think Jim happens to be wrong here (ie I agree with you, though perhaps not for entirely the same reasons) but as he said in his video, he seems to be set to ignore any demands he consider changing his opinion... errr the ending, so it's largely irrelevent.

 

[WonderWillard]

Leave it to Jim Sterling to make some humor out of such a horrible internet meltdown. After becoming so frustrated and disappointed by Bioware fans (I enjoyed the ending), a good laugh was much needed.

So I agree, thank God, for Jim.

 

[Svaboj]

As someone with schizophrenia it's kind of insulting to hear the pejorative "schizo" thrown around lightly. A minor quibble in the grand scheme of things I suppose, but we do exist, and like any other group that didn't choose to be the way we are, we don't deserve to be used as a rhetorical flourish or generic slur without any sort of context. If you had said "Not in a faggy, homosexual way" instead it wouldn't have been any less offensive. Used ironically in the context of a larger discussion of mental illness as portrayed in games? Sure, no problem, but you might consider removing it from your repertoire of insults to be used out at random. FYI, not all of us share the same symptoms, delusions are not required by nor exclusive to the diagnosis.

Otherwise no arguments here, personally I didn't find the endings to be all that bad. Not amazing, certainly, but nothing to get up in arms about.

 

[acosn]

ME3 lost most of that, and had a real lack of polish. Thank god they took extra time to add in multiplayer though!

Um...no, the majority of the people upset loved the game, and believe it was a great game, up until the end. But other than the end most people felt it was an exceptional game.

I'll be diplomatic and call it an average game, but really its hard to overlook things like the use of sprites and unanimated 3d characters in a game that's supposed to be next gen. Christ, that's a step backward even for ME1. Or the phasing through boxes. Or phasing through invisible walls. The animation glitches.

As far as story goes, aside from the plot holes, the sheer amount that was lifted from predecessors in scifi, and the fact that it has to pick up where a poorly engineered sequel left off, ME3 has the issue of fairly insular writing. The quintessential problem of the western RPG story is that it gives you choices for no purpose other than to ferry you to the next plot point, which ends up removing any choices; you end up at the same bloody point anyways.

The ending was moronic and lazy- you do something renegade to get the good ending, and visa versa.

I suppose average isn't the right term so much as "serviceable." The game gets you from point A to point B but it falls shorts at so many levels with so many elementary bugs that it really begs the question of how much QA the game was put through.

Still, the simple fact that it is yet another third person cover based shooter really precludes it from getting past the whole, "average" thing. The decent story can cover for it for a while, but not forever.

 

[Gather]

I had fun with the game, it was excellent build-up to that point. Then you had a single cut-scene copy and pasted three times whose only major difference was the hue of the colour a "Wave of energy" was. They could have had a simple voice over concept artwork image slide after the cut-scene which was like "Due to Shepards actions the Genophage was cured but they were cursed Krogan were cursed with isolation due to the destruction of the mass relay. As years pass people spoke of the doom of the people as they fought over the scarce resources on Tuchinka and several times the race was almost extinct. This time, however, they finally got the time to earn the right to use the technology."

And so on. Just something that wrapped up your choices and gave a 10/20 year foretelling of what will happen in a slideshow then the ending would have appeased a lot of people (Even if it was only covered major characters/choices throughout the several games).

But, pardon my annoyance, they cut the corners for the "I want Action with little story" crowd because they wouldn't give two damns about what they did. They didn't play a single part in the story; why should they care about it?

 

[Karathos]

Alot of people have said it already - but the ending controversy isn't about the game not ending in a way "fans pictured it would" per se. It's about the game ending in three ways that ALL GIVE THE EXACT SAME CUTSCENE without any clarification what the future for Mass Effect holds - and with the implication that that future doesn't exist because the ME universe is most likely completely destroyed by any of those endings. If not completely destroyed, then pretty much bombed back to the stone age.

It's about three games worth of player choice being CENTRAL to the story and the feel of the game. Making players feel like they're playing THEIR OWN Commander Shepard, right down to appearance and relationships. It's about making choices along the way, choices that as promised in numerous interviews pre-release would have a profound effect on what kind of ending you get, and would be varying based on those endings. I do believe it was said that they didn't want to give everyone the same ending, or make it some sort of "Choices: A, B or C" thing.

Which is funny, because right now that's exactly what we have.

Brilliant video as always, Jim - the Sonic bit had me facepalming in shame.

 

[Hazmattuxedo2404]

In a way I am happy to agree. However I can't help but realise that unlike lost and star wars, we did individually create our own mass effect world. We own it there are many like it but this one is ours. I think that's why we are so emotionally attached and expected an ending that in a way reflected us.