Well, that's done. My thoughts on the ending. I'm trying to be vague without giving specific details, but better safe than sorry.
I'm glad a played the game and the series, but damned that was a pretty unsatisfying ending. It was a great lead up with some good stuff happening which made it seem like the game would have a some umph in the end, but then the last 10-20 minutes was one giant misstep. It forgot a lot of what made the universe awesome and went for some a big chunk of uninteresting bullshit. They tried to explain the Reapers in the space of a breath and then wrap everything up in a way that more or less erased everything that lead up to the end.
They really would have been better off trying to keep things simple and then the ending was a rundown of how the universe turned out after all your actions. They could pull some heart strings with characters you've gotten attached to, show that some races didn't quite make it out of the war alright, and then others coming out even better. The Reapers didn't need to be explained, they were just a way to push the story about the races along and how Humanity came to their place among that.
Oh well. I understand a lot of the bile that Bioware's getting over the game. It's not as bad as a lot of people would like to say and generally the game itself is right up there with ME2, but it's hard not to come away not feeling let down. I suspect Bioware's in for a rough couple of years thanks to this and Dragon Age 2. Hope they have some tricks up their sleeves.
Edit: Also, having what is effectively an ad to continue the adventure with upcoming DLC isn't the last thing you want players to see before cutting to black. Who's stupid idea was that?
Honestly, I expected the ending to be far, far worse than it actually was. In 99% of games, the choice you're given at the end would have been considered a fine way to go about it, and that probably includes the majority of modern RPGs. A.) Save the universe by destroying all synthetics, but you run the risk of repeating the cycle. B.) Save the universe by taking control of the Reapers...but you die (and maybe you run the risk of repeating the cycle?). or C.)create an entirely new universe where synthetics and organics are one....and again you die. It's a hard choice, which I view as a good thing...but more importantly, to me, is that you don't really know the outcome of that choice when you're making it - which, going through the series is something I viewed as it's weakness. You always more or less knew what the ultimate result of your choices were, which makes sense to some extent, but takes some of the fun out of it. I did enjoy the aspect of the ultimate choice presenting at least the potential of moral ambiguity and an unknown result stemming from it. Which seems to be at least where some of the complaints come from.
And then I watched all three videos for the endings on youtube and they're exactly the same. Again, I'm not that let down about it, but they could have done it A LOT better. For instance, I opted to wipeout all synthetics. It wasn't easy, as I'm pretty fond of the Geth, but assumed that they, as well as any other synthetic life (Reapers aside) may make the sacrifice knowing that it saves a far greater number of lives. And then I saw the relays destroyed and was like "fuck! Forgot about that" . But, watching the other videos, the relays are destroyed in all of them, which has major, major consequences...and is bullshit as that should have been one of the chips on the table.
Opting for synthesis doesn't really make any sense, ending-wise, as, even though it may be the best overall option, I considered it to be a rewriting of life as we know it, and it would consist of wiping everyone currently alive out. Apparently that didn't happen and that ending doesn't really make any sense to me because of that: There's no real downside except that Sheppard was sacrificed.
Which also happens in the control ending. Which could again be viewed as great: hero sacrifices life to get rid of Reaper menace and everyone wins...but it didn't really focus on any downside (presumably that the cycle COULD still be continued...and maybe your influence wouldn't last, so you'd just be setting the clock back a few years or something.
But the thing that got me is that in each ending, the Mass Relays were destroyed. Regardless of civilization being set back to a point they can't really return from as a result, where the fuck is everyone going to live? There's like 3 quadrillion military peeps orbiting earth when this goes down.
But, all in all, I don't have a problem with the actual final decision or how it was presented (although it needed to be fleshed out more after the fact, as I kind of got into above). And I'm not naive enough to buy into the backlash that's going around because my other 150 hours of decisions didn't come into play in the ending: I didn't really ever think that'd be an option due to the logistics of it (although it would be cool if your performance as a peace broker/total dick had a bigger effect) - otherwise we'd be looking at 150 or something endings (See Star Ocean II for an attempt at doing this). I just kind of wish they put more effort into showing you what exactly the repercussions of your decision were.
All in all, I loved the game and still love the series. The ending was kinda weak, but not nearly as bad as I was picturing from the reaction and I'm perfectly content in thinking that the decisions along the way were about the journey, not necessarily the result.
As for DLC to flesh out the ending, I'd love it as my Sheppard lived, but most people's probably didn't and the final save puts you back before the assault on Cerberus, so I can't see it happening.
