Who you saved on Virmire doesn’t really matter when you’re standing in front of the Catalyst. It’s true that, at the end of the day, your choice to kill or spare the Rachni queen doesn’t influence your final decision. Questions were answered, and players were handed a neat little package, a pat on the back, and, honestly, a whole lot more closure than the original endings. In response, BioWare released “extended cut” endings that showed the effect of Shepard’s efforts and final decision. The story wasn’t tied up neatly with a bow, and many questions were left unanswered (in the original endings). Other fans of the series have railed against the less-than-ideal choices at the end of the game, or bemoaned that every last decision they made wasn’t given a fanfare or a cookie at the end of the series ( author’s note: I hate message boards sometimes). It would have added an interesting monkey-wrench to the mix if Shepard also had to contend with knowing biotic powers were potentially destroying the galaxy and so the Reapers were coming to stop organic life from being wiped out. Okay, so I’m on board that the endings weren’t perfect, even though I liked them. My biggest gripes are that the original endings felt startlingly abrupt, and that one promising – and somewhat important – detail about the Reaper invasion (having to do with Tali’s work on Haestrom) was cut due to time. I remember in college, the conductor of the university’s orchestra once said, “As long as the rest of it isn’t a train wreck, audiences will only remember the first note you play and the last note.”īut, to quote Aria T’Loak, “How things begin is not nearly as important as how things end.” The beginning of a story can set the stage for the entire journey, and the ending can leave a lasting impact.

I sort of liked the uncomfortable feeling at the end of it all. But when I played through the original endings, I thought they were fitting, and I appreciated the open-ended feeling they had, as if the writers wanted to challenge the players to wonder and discuss and problem-solve what they thought happened next. I’m always up for more story, especially for characters that I like. So beware spoilers for, you know, Mass Effect 3. Otherwise, we’re going to dive right in and pick apart the endings of this final chapter in Commander Shepard’s space opera.

Now, if you’re looking for a good review of Mass Effect 3 to start you off, you should definitely go and check out Falcon509’s detailed review. In order to experience the full let-down, I played through the final game with the original endings before downloading the extended cut and playing through those, in order to really get at the meat of what made the endings just so gosh darn bad. To be honest, I’m incredibly late to the Mass Effect party, and went into Mass Effect 3 ready to hate the endings. How about… the Mass Effect 3 endings! Yes, I’m sure this has never been discussed or debated before. Let’s start off with something nice and light and that no one has ever talked about before. Guess what, everyone? It’s Mass Effect Month over here at AmbiGaming! Hold on to your N7 helmets, because we’ve got four weeks of Mass Effect feature posts coming your way!

Mass effect 3 endings playing gof