Giantevilhead

This is pretty easy to explain away but that's not the problem. The problem is that they were too lazy to put in an explanation, which would only take a few lines of dialogue. But that wouldn't actually be possible since they had no idea what a cure would be like or how the Shroud could be modified to distribute it. The only way for the sabotage to work is if it prevented any kind of tampering with the Shroud.

5-How the <bleep> did a vorcha end up as *leader* of the Bloodpack (sp?) mercenaries, when they went out of their way to explain in ME2 that they are the brainless canon fodder in a Krogan run military outfit. Having a hard time seeing a nasal whining vorcha command somebody like Grunt or Wrex around. 6-Why did the Reaper artifact in "The Arrival" not only reveal the existence of the Reapers but also gave information on their back up invasion plan? 7-How did Udina end up on the Council if you picked Anderson in ME1? 8-What happened to the poison the Reapers were using against the Krogans and how come the Salarian's sabotage didn't prevent the Reapers from using the Shroud to spread the poison? 9-Why did the Geth Dreadnought have hallways and consoles and medi-gel and all sorts of stuff that the Geth don't need? 10-Why did Legion suddenly call itself "I" and what did that have to do with it becoming a "fully realized AI?" 11-Why did EDI have to use a console to contact Admiral Hackett after they found the Prothean VI at the Cerberus base? 12-How did the Reapers take over the Citadel and why didn't they use it to shut down the Mass Relays? 13-How does anything having to do with Cerberus make any sense?

Avellone, Cain, Fargo, Sawyer, and Urquhart, by your powers combined, I am Black Isle Studios!

The problem with ME3 began long before the end. It goes back all the way back to "The Arrival" DLC and having ME3 follow that instead of the end of the main ME2 story. Look at ME2's ending. Shepard has just survived the impossible suicide mission and dealt a blow to the Reaper's efforts. He has a wealth of new information on the Reapers from the Collector base. He confronts the Illusive Man and tells him that he'll do whatever it takes to stop the Reapers. His team is stronger and more committed to the cause than ever before. Although the current battle is over, you see the team preparing for the next fight against the Reapers as Shepard considers his next move. "The Arrival" and ME3 basically ruins all that. Shepard didn't get a chance to prepare for the Reapers like he told the Illusive Man. His team got broken up and separated. They don't even bother to stay in contract to help each other in their mission against the Reapers. And the Collectors? They weren't important at all. All the data Shepard gathered from the Collectors meant nothing. No one, except for Cerberus, bothered to go beyond the Omega 4 Relay to investigate. All the support Shepard earned evaporated. Heck, "The Arrival" didn't even get a decent follow up since the Batarians were wiped out and Shepard suffered no consequences for killing those 300,000 colonists.

Whether or not the ending should be changed really depends on the type of game. Planescape: Torment is a very layered and nuanced game that was always meant to be open to interpretation. The players are supposed to speculate about the true identity of The Nameless One and the crime he committed. There are hints and clue that support many different theories about The Nameless One's identity. So it wouldn't make any sense for Avellone to change the ending to reveal The Namelesss One's real identity, even if everyone wanted it, because that runs counter to everything in the game. Mass Effect is a very straightforward series with a lot of fan service. The franchise is all about fantasy fulfillment for the audience. The story is written to play out the way that the fans want. Mass Effect's plots, themes, characters, and intentions that are not very layered or obscured and they are not very open to interpretation. The developers even said that the ending would be conclusive and not leave lingering questions. Mass Effect 3's ending on the other hand, runs counter to the entire franchise. It doesn't make any sense for 99.9% of the series to be like Flash Gordon and then suddenly have the last 0.1% become Blade Runner.

Why is it that you can only choose the destroy ending if your war assets are really low and what does the destruction of the earth in that ending represent?

I think it was a mistake for Bioware to make the game about a full scale Reaper invasion. It would have made much more sense if the Reapers were only able to send a small force due to the destruction of Sovereign and the Collectors while the rest of their fleet remains stranded in dark space. Their goal should have been the same as Sovereign's, take over the Citadel so they can activate its Mass Relay and call the rest of the Reaper fleet from dark space. The attacks on the various worlds should have been a feint, to draw their fleets away from the Citadel. In fact, it should have been part of the Reaper's plan to let Shepard gather a fleet to retake earth. While the bulk of the galaxy's forces are attacking earth, the Reapers assault the Citadel. You could then have an ending where the Reapers are defeated for the time being but their fleet is still out there and will reach the galaxy in a few centuries. Shepard's journey would be over but the story isn't and there's the potential for a lot of sequels.

It still doesn't make any sense how the Reapers took over the Citadel and brought it to earth since it was established in the first game that the Reapers can shut down the entire Mass Relay network from the Citadel. So if they can take the Citadel so easily, why didn't they do it at the beginning of the war and then use it to shut down all the Relays? That would have prevented the entire alliance from forming. They don't go over nukes in that much detail. All we know is that nukes were banned and the Reapers destroyed earth's old nuke silos. There's no explanation for why they didn't try to build or use nukes against the Reapers.

I don't think people have actually considered the implications if the indoctrination "theory" was true.

And that its why the world of Fallout it's lush green since people can respect convections and....Oh. Except in Fallout, the world was already dying before the Great War. If they didn't nuke themselves, they would have all died from famine, disease, overpopulation, and resource shortages. Also, the kind of weapons civilizations with FTL travel can develop would be powerful enough to wipe out worlds leaving no technology or survivors. Which means that if they had a massive interstellar war using those kinds of weapons, there would be no way to actually set a TV show/movie/book/game in that universe since everyone would be dead.

But they would also establish certain conventions of war to prevent mututally assured destruction. Unless you are the only spacefaring civilization, you can't just go around nuking your enemies to oblivion or other spacefaring civilizations would do the same to you.

By the same token, if the Reapers were smart, they'd use nukes too. A Reaper invasion would be much more effective if they started by detonating nukes high in earth's atmosphere, creating EMP's to knock out all civilian technology and communications. Followed by nuclear strikes to obliterate earth's military bases. Then they come down to tear apart the bunkers that were hardened against nukes. Earth would then be left defenseless with most of its population alive and ready to be harvested. It would have also been smart for the Reapers to place nuclear mines next to the Mass Relay so that any ship coming through without Reaper access codes gets a healthy dose of radiation.

If they were smart, they'd use nukes. The Normandy is big enough to easily carry over 100 modern day megaton yield warheads. With the tech level of the ME universe, they can probably make gigaton yield nukes small enough to be carried by ships.

Except that in no way addresses my criticism. Just because the game is character driven does not excuse the fact that the main plot didn't matter. There's no reason why they couldn't have made both the character development and plot development relevant. There's no reason why the driving events that lead to all that character development has to be inconsequential. If the main plot of the game isn't actually strong enough to carry the game then why not make them into DLC's or part of an expansion? Why not come up with a main plot that is significant and will impact the next game?

Hm, that depends on several perspectives. Having the comparison between EDI and the Reapers as both are examples of unshackled AI's might not be a glaring "This is majorly important to the Plot!" marks, but it's very good storytelling. It adds to the sense of the world, and you couldn't build that in if it was all crammed into ME3. By establishing EDI and exactly how she came to be unshackled in ME2, it lets them weave in a more fully fledge part of the backstroy for ME3. Vital to the plot? Maybe not, but vital to the sense of character and background? I'd say so. Also, for the plot related notes, EDI's presence, unshackled nature, and attachement to both Joker and Shepard are what allows Normandy to be there to pick up Shepard on Earth at the beginning. If EDI and Joker hadn't hijacked the ship from where the Alliance were remodelling it, getting Shep off planet and back to the ship would have been a whole nother mess of things. This is not an either or situation. ME2 did have some important character stuff, I never said that it didn't, but that doesn't mean it's OK for the main plot to be pointless. There's no reason why ME3 couldn't have been written to give significance to both the plot and character development in ME2. Why couldn't they have made the destruction of the Collectors a setback for the Reapers that has some real significance? Why couldn't they have the team, not just a few members but the entire team, you assembled play a bigger role in the fight against the Reapers? Was it necessary for them to make the stuff you do in the side quests like the genophage cure and development of the Geth/Quarian relationship more important than the stuff you did in the main quest? That's like if they set next Fallout game in Vegas again but made your decision to help Goodspring more important than which faction took over Vegas.

And I'm saying it is. A major facet of the plot is based around the Genophage cure, which you only knew about because you met, and affected Mordin in ME2. And he wasn't even trying to see this, or the cure itself, without your intervention. And Maelon would probably have killed all the females before he had a chance to cure it anyway. Basically what I'm saying is, the first 1/3rd of the game would be impossible without ME2. Except the genophage thing isn't actually a part of the main quest of ME2. It was part of Mordin's loyalty quest and therefore optional. The main plot of the ME2, all the quests that you have to do, not the quests that you can ignore if you want, are not important for ME3. Except it's more like stumbling into DS9 during the season that the Federation was kicked off. You know that the guys in colored shirts are good because of pop culture, but why does the story keep flipping back to those annoying side characters? Why do they matter? Well, a viewer who saw every episode would know that those are actually part of the main cast, and their station is occupied territory at that point. Yes, a viewer could say that they understood the episode, and got the story, but they would have only gotten the stick figure version, while somebody who had a clue about the meta-arc would have enough info to be able to see the intricate tapestry found withing the series. Edit: and for the record, ME hasn't ever really had a mod scene The only thing I've seen, even on a quick google skim, is basic texture updates. That analogy is completely wrong since you would not understand the main plot of the episodes without seeing previous episodes.

There's no reason why the Illusive Man and EDI couldn't have been introduced in ME3. Their actions in ME2 had little impact on ME3's plot. As for the Reapers the Collectors were building, they've been doing that for two years and EDI says that they still need millions of people to complete it. It's highly unlikely they would have been able to complete it by the time the Reapers invaded. Even then, instead of earth getting attacked by 1,000 Reapers, it gets attacked by 1,001 Reapers, big deal. I thought there was like 2 years between the suicide run and ME3....or something. And I don't think you could have gotten away with EDI and TIM being introduced in ME3 and had them be as effective. And not without SERIOUS retooling of the ENTIRE secondary plot of the game (that is "OMG CERBERUS!") Besides, two of the biggest deciding factors within the game are created specifically because of what happens within ME2. Maelon and the Genophage. And Legion. They should be self explanatory, but one thing I think should definitely be pointed out is that you could remove certain plot elements and establish them in ME 3, but all you'd basically be doing would be making ME3 into ME2 with less character work, and more "primary plotline" stuff. It's actually something like 3 months between ME2 and ME3. I never said that nothing in ME2 mattered, I said that the main plot of ME2 was inconsequential to the main plot of ME3. All that other stuff could have been done in DLC's or an expansion for ME1. The main plot of ME2 was just a side quest stretched out into a full game. In terms of the side quests, a lot of the characters don't play very important roles in ME3 either. Samara/Morinth, Grunt, Jack, Miranda, Thane, Zaeed, Kasumi and Jacob all played very minor roles in ME3 with essentially no impact on the main plot except maybe adding some war asset points. "Nice to have" is not the same as "crucial to the story." It's like the difference between Lord of the RIngs and Star Trek. You miss some very important plot information if you watch The Two Towers without watching Fellowship of the Ring. You can watch The Next Generation without knowing anything about the original series just like how you can watch DS9 without knowing anything about the two shows that came before it. Having watched the shows that came before help give you context and improve your experience but it is not necessary to understand what's going on.

There's no reason why the Illusive Man and EDI couldn't have been introduced in ME3. Their actions in ME2 had little impact on ME3's plot. As for the Reapers the Collectors were building, they've been doing that for two years and EDI says that they still need millions of people to complete it. It's highly unlikely they would have been able to complete it by the time the Reapers invaded. Even then, instead of earth getting attacked by 1,000 Reapers, it gets attacked by 1,001 Reapers, big deal.

The Collectors were an asset, in that they do genetic profiles of the alien races - They kidnap various creatures and perform experiments on them over the years that the Reaper's are in Dark Space. Thus providing intelligence that the Reapers use to plan their "invasion sweeps". Also highlighting which races are suitable for uplifting to "full Reaper", which to send to the lesser reapers, and which to use just for the various Husk models.. Plus they can act as a form of early "fifth column". Since they had already provided the majority of that data to the Reapers, the only thing you get by wiping them out is stopping their "early collection" of humanity and removing the potential fifth column aspect. It made Shepard a bigger hero to the human alliance, and not even all of them. Half the universe couldn't really be bothered, and how many of them actually heard about it? It's not as if it made the Galactic News, to most people outside the Terminus the Collectors are pretty much an Urban Myth. And for the majority of the game, people thought Cerberus might be behind the missing colonies. Whilst Shep might have been willing to work with them over it, everyone else still saw Cerberus as that shady, terrorist organisation. The team wasn't gathered to fight the Reapers later. They were brought forth as being uniquely skilled, that could potentially be useful on a suicide mission. None of them really expected to make it out alive. So seeing as you likely solved a lot of their personal issues, as well as keeping them alive - They needed time to unwind and figure out where/who they were in the galaxy after it. Combien with Shep most likely dropping them off before he handed himself over to the Alliance. Since pretty much most of the team have criminal pasts and he couldn't be guaranteed they'd be let free on his say so. Although, when you get down to it, each Loyal Crew member who is alive is worth 25 War Assets. Hell, some entire fleet's are only worth a couple of hundred.. I'd say that's going to count for something. Just because their skills might be more useful in not-quite-so-direct ways. Such as Kasumi's technical knowledge helping the Crucible Project (and her ability to find/acquire useful items that might not be shared otherwise). Partly that comes down to more of a roleplaying choice. What type of person your Shepard is. Does he think the shortcut and potential dangers are worth it? Will he put principles first and not worry about whether he can trust the Illusive Man? Although on a strictly numbers game, the Collector base can provide a couple of nice boosts to your War Assets if you saved it. If you don't, you only get access to the.. Reaper Heart I believe, which is about 100 War Assets worth. If you saved it, there's about triple the War Assets in Reaper-tech of some sort. But none of that addresses the fact that the main plot of ME2 had very little if any impact on ME3. The premise of the Mass Effect 2 is that the Collectors are a big threat tied to the Reapers, destroying them is of the utmost importance, the future of the galaxy may depend on it, blah blah blah. Well, ME3 tosses all that out the window and ignores the premise of that game. You gave some reasonable explanations for why ME2's main plot didn't have an impact on ME3, but that's not the point. The point is that it didn't have an impact, the why is not relevant.

It's funny how people complain about the ending nullifying all your choices but ignore the fact that the game already makes ME 2's main plot pointless. Think abou it. 1. Collectors were a major asset to the Reapers and stopping them would seriously hurt the Reapers, right? Nope, there's nothing in ME 3 to suggest that the destruction of the Collectors was a big setback for the Reapers. In fact, the Reapers arrived just a few months after the Collectors were destroyed. 2. Destroying the Collectors made Shepard an even bigger hero, helped bring more attention to the Reaper threat, brought the different races together, and gave the galaxy a much better chance against the Reapers, right? Nope, "The Arrival" completely wiped out all the goodwill Shepard got from destroying the Collectors. People continue to ignore Shepard's warnings and remain ignorant of the Reapers. Everyone is still unprepared. 3. This awesome team you gathered against the Collectors will be a huge asset and continue to fight with you against the Reapers, and that gives me an extra incentive to keep them alive, right? Nope, the whole team disbanded and went their separate ways after "The Arrival" DLC. A few of your team members do some cool stuff but most of them have other stuff to do and can't/won't fight alongside you. 4. Surely, the decision to keep or destroy the Collector base was significant, whether or not Cerberus is still on my side no doubt depends on it, right? Nope, Cerberus becomes evil. Destroying the Collector base has no real consequences. Keeping it gives you access to a different ending that's mostly same with the "best" ending.

Jack's romance was the worst since it was necessary to get her to open up emotionally and face her pain. So playing as HaleShep will miss some pretty important character development for the character. There's also the fact that in order for a rape victim to open up, you have to have sex with her.

Command and Conquer 4. Although, the ****tiness of the rest of the game helps ease you into the ultimate disappointment of the supremely idiotic ending that goes against everything that has been established in the entire franchise much like how waking up in a tube full of ice, not being able to feel your limbs, while your mind clears from the sedatives wearing off, help ease you into the inevitable realization that your liver has been cut out and sold on the black market.

There is the obvious SYMBOLISM!!!! of the child representing earth and all the people Shepard failed to help. It worked much better in Terminator 2.

The whole SYMOBLISM!!!!! thing with the kid was really annoying. It would have been better if they killed Anderson and used him in the dreams rather than that stupid kid that you knew nothing about. Twilight Zone and... that's about it. Then again, TV shows are hardly ever a cerebral activity. Shows like The Wire are a recent phenomena. Good episodes of Star Trek and B5 are just as good. TV shows are limited by budget and time. However, some of them do try to push the boundries despite the limitations of the medium. It's generally better to judge TV shows on an episode by episodes basis rather than a whole since extra resources and effort spent on a good episodes is often at the expense of resources and time for other episodes.

Except just because a sci-fi isn't as good as Blade Runner doesn't mean it's shallow, simplistic, and clich