Mass Effect 3 thoughts, and spoilers
Wow...just. Wow.
Some of that is good wow, some of it is bad wow. Granted I'm not raging against the whole multiverse as some ME fans seem to be (and I doubt it's because I haven't played ME yet, though I did purchase it at a discounted price this weekend to play on my computer that can actually HANDLE game play now). The ending is what I expected, I don't think the execution was anywhere near perfect, and I do have some issues, but I wasn't surprised. It is what it is.
I do however think it's crap Bioware/EA want to force me to play multiplayer so that I can get the best ending offered, but that's neither here nor there.
First things first, the game is beautiful. I felt disappointed in some instances were I had to run through a scene due to the story and fighting but I wasn't able to look at everything around. Bioware reall went all out in scenery, and I enjoyed it. I loved going to the Citadel to just look out and around at everything, there was way more to see in the Citadel than there was in ME2.
Second, the story was written well enough and engaging enough I literally began feeling a sense of doom about half way through the game (granted, I honestly completely the game in 3 days once I sat down and pounded it out, which is a minor quibble I have when ME2 seemed to take longer on playback and I KNEW what I had to do, BioWare taking a page out of the Dragon Age 2 book?). I had no doubt Shepard would die, seemed the fitting end to my Shepards story (though I would have liked a true ending = death, happy ending = survival choice, but I'll get to that). My biggest quibble is the ending didn't feel real, it felt like the story ended in the middle of the Act 3 climax, so while intense it left me wanting..something. Again I'll get to that later.
Gameplay...I enjoyed. I tend to play on easy (I'll admit it), because I like to ENJOY a game not pound my head on the wall till it's bleeding just trying to defeat a boss on insanity difficulty. I didn't really get BioWare's claim that the fighting wouldn't be hide and pick off in shelter, it honestly was. At least in easy, and I've heard the game is harder in multiplayer, but I don't really want to play multiplayer. The enemy AI was smarter though, in some levels I died multiple times because the enemy flanked me instead of charging head on like the British.
I am disappointed that when BioWare game me the ability to run (instead of run for two feet and then be out of breath, I don't know what the fuck BioWare was thinking doing that in ME2, why bother, running was useless) they would implement it. Two times in the game was running necessary to defeat a level, and one of those times it's useless anyway. I had assumed there would be more "run away from the big fucking Reaper like a bat out of hell and don't look back" type of missions, I was wrong and I think it was a miss opportunity. Granted it is a fine line writing levels like that, you have to tread that line between "easy as cake" and "dear god my thumb is going to fall off and I'm going to shoot the tv the next time I die because I ran into a barrier and didn't jump over it fast enough". I do like those types of challenges though, they up the adrenaline because you WILL die if you fail.
Characters - as always, character models in ME are fantastic. And some of my disappoints come back to story and writing. Yeah I get this is Shepard's story, but I felt like ME3 put Shepard's relationships with characters kind of on the sideline. For instance in ME2 my Shepard went out of her way to help out all her crew when they needed help, there were hours of character quests I finished to progress my companions attitudes and morality, and I enjoyed that because I gave a shit about the characters and whether they lived or died at the end of the game (and believe me, you could royally screw up ME2 to where everyone on Normandy died). This game? Not so much. I get why they wrote Shepard so distant, I mean Shepard was war weary and getting cut off, but I'm not sure it worked how the writers wanted.
Which I supposed that train of thought can take me to my quibbles, so here's the list, I'll start where I left off..
Characters - I wasn't connected to them. Sure I was MORE connected to Liara because I had chosen to have her as my companion in ME2 so it was a hold over making me more invested in the character and their life and death. Everyone else was just kind of...tacked on. For instance:
- Ashley - honestly I'd probably be more invested in Ashley's story if a.) she really had one and b.) I'd played ME. However she spent most of the game being catty and the rest of the game responding to me like ME 2 DLC characters Kasumi and Zaed (no real interaction outside of specific loyalty stories). I get Ashley is supposed to be pissed I joined Cerberus in ME2, but damn was she a bitch to me most of the time, even after I saved her sorry ass TWICE. She added little to the story outside of setting the tone of what to expect the rest of the game (She was nearly offed in the first mission out of the gate).
- James - new character, first one you meet in the game...and that's about all I can tell you about James. I was supposed to be empathetic towards him because he lost his whole crew, but this was all done in talking heads and didn't really connect me to him. I can honestly say once I got other crew members I stopped using him all together, which is too bad, Freddie Prinze, Jr. did a great job with the voice acting. Adding a loyalty missing for James probably would have helped me give a shit about him way more than just having him talk and leer at me.
- Steve - I cared slightly more about him due to his backstory, losing his husband on one of the missions from ME2 (we didn't see it, it's just mentioned). But his actual story was about 15 minutes total of me telling him to stop being a whiny bitch and move on. Seriously. I liked what they were doing with his story, but it was so half assed and seemed tacked on I didn't care. I honestly BELIEVE his story was tacked on since BioWare announced about 2 months from release he was the new gay romance option since they goofed in the first two games and didn't implement a male/male relationship, but every other type of relationship was on the table. His story felt like the default female Shepard character model, shitty and put in to pacify the audience (I still don't understand why they had a default female Shepard this whole time, but wanted to give a vote to the fans for what she looked like for the box...how about go with what you've already had in the first two games?).
- Tali - you get a semi mission for her, but she's more a tertiary character in it. In the game you have to fight with the Quarians to save them from the geth and try to take back their homeworld Rannoch. In the end you win, Quarians have a homeworld again and Tali hitches a ride with you after talking about being able to live on her homeworld again. That's pretty much it on the Tali front after her extensive story in ME and ME2. Also they kind of retcon her from ME2 when she started getting along with Legion and seeing how wrong her father was to treat the geth as they did. However with her and Legion you pretty much retread that whole story.
- Legion - stuck in so you have a familiar face when fighting the geth. We retread the heretics and old machines story from ME2 so that the geth will fight and help the Quarians when ME2 made it explicitely known that the true geth wanted peace with the creators. The one sad thing, that alluded to everything Shepard would experience, is that as Legion gained his independence right before death. Though once I heard him say "I" instead of "we" I knew he would die.
- Mordin - another tacked on character. I also figured he would be a casualty due to the fact he wast he reason for the genophage in the first place. It seemed only fitting the scientist who caused thousands of Krogan deaths to sacrifice himself to fix the situation. Another one whose story was about 10 minutes total, though sad it wasn't earth shattering (they were obviously saving that for Shepard).
- Wrex/Grunt - I'm going to put them together, they were simply a cameo. End of story. Neither offered much to the story other than be a typical Krogan. You honestly could have replaced them with any Krogan and it wouldn't have affected a damn thing.
- Thane - Not sure why they couldn't have just let him die. Yeah he was helping people in the hospital, and he sacrificed himself to save Shepard, but again it could have been anyone. The only significant thing was the prayer Thane requested be read that was read for Shepard's sake pretty much flat out laid out that Shepard was a dead man/woman walking.
- Miranda - I had honestly wished her mission would have been a full mission, not her tacked into a main mission. It wasn't necessary to make the head of Sanctuary, the Cerberus lie to create husks, Miranda's father. It was a cheap way to get her back in the story, and it failed.
- Samara - While her story added some fo the story, we learned that the Reapers were mutating races (therefore Mauraders are Turians and Banshees are Asari and Husks are Human), this was another instance it could have been anyone. Hell since Liara is both an Asari and the Shadow Broker it could have been her to lead you to the Ardat-Yakshi temple. I get the significance, when we went there we would KNOW Samara's daughters are there, but the character wasn't necessary. Hell her goodbye vid was pretty much "Good luck, don't die, you were awesome".
- Jack - I wanted MORE of this story. It was a real instance to see how Shepard could affect someone drastically. Jack was a ruthless murdere in ME2 who didn't give a shit about anyone or anything other than kicking Cerberus in the balls, but due to Shepard's influence she changed. Not completely, she still enjoyed kicking ass and killing bad guys, but Shepard helped her find she needed purpose. Jack in ME3 was no longer a prisoner in anyway (to herself or the galaxy), but she moved on and gained hope and respect for life. I would have liked to have seen more of this progress, but after the school mission Jack is nothing but a cameo to remind you of ME2.
- Garrus - Though Garrus has been by Shepard's side since the beginning he honestly offered little to the story. He could have been replaced by any other Turian in the game. Even the heart to hearts with Shepard felt a little lacking.
- Kasumi - Yeah, she was mostly just there to round out the old crew, same as Zaeed. No real purpose even if you go on her little side mission it isn't a necessary mission in the grand scheme of things. It is a glorified cameo.
- Zaeed - He was treated even worse than Kasumi, he basically showed up in the middle of a mission for Aria, said howdy then stood around the rest of the time. Complete waste of mine and the developers time.
- Jacob - I won't even bother mentioning him, the game barely did. You talk to him when you save Cerberus scientists, then he tells you he's with one of the doctors and going to be a dad. Really, that's about it.
- Liara - She had a bit stronger writing, but not by much. I mean here is a character who completely changed her path in ME2 and is again changing her path in ME3, though we get a throw away line that she moved all her Shadow Broker material with her since the Illusive Man took out the old Shadow Broker ship. When it came to the nitty gritty though the writing was a bit lame. Here is a character who literally watched her world crumble and die around her, she mopes about it for 5 minutes and is then giving Shepard a moral boost. It should have been the other way around. Shepard should have been way more sympathetic to Liara than he/she was considering Shepard had already experienced the same thing on Earth. Instead the speech was pretty much "Buck up, we'll beat them, now go be the Shadow Broker and be awesome", end of story. Hell even the big moment at the end (since I was in a relationship with her) and she was doing a mind meld/bondmate thing with me it was...underwhelming. Bright lights, hugging...I was supposed to be seeing something specific to Liara's memories and I get ME3 meeting 2001: Space Odyssey. WTF?
On to the ending. Now I don't mind that Shepard died. At all. I figured Shepard would die, and honestly like I noted it was pounded over our heads through all of the actions Shepard did throughout the story.
What don't I like? The execution of the ending. Shepard sacrifices his/herself for the good of the universe, but good is debatable. Basically in order to save everyone Shepard has to fuck everyone over first. Let me explain.
The game pushes Shepard forward, and even harder in the end since Shepard takes the fall of the Asari homeworld particularily hard. Up until that point you have designated choices you can make, who you want to be in bed with for the war, so on and so forth. Climax of Act 3...all choices are essentially stripped from you.
Shepard and squad essentially get desimated by Harbinger while they try to get to the one thing to save the universe. Shepard wakes up, drags his/her half dead self into the beam and you end up in very linear game play.
This? Sucked. I had no choice in what to do, I charge Harbinger, get my ass handed to me, get to the Citadel, Illusive Man tries to hand my ass to me again while I bleed profusely, I open the doors for the Crucible to dock and sit down for a rest. Shepard dieing here would have been fine. Everything fit, possibly a quick movie to show what happened to the survivors and the rest of the universe would have been great. Even if it was just a scroll like they did in Dragon Age, explaining how my decisions affected the rest of the galaxy, instead, I get a weird ending that makes no sense (and from what I've seen, all endings are very similar).
The Catalyst decides to talk to Shepard and give him/her a choice. Die taking over the reapers, die killing the reapers, die combining synthetics and organics. So, I have no way to save myself in any way shape or form. A CHOICE to save myself would have been a better solution, since the whole point to ME and ME2 is that, while the odds are low and well non-existant, Shepard never intended to die. Shepard did everything NOT to die, or let anyone around him/her die. The choice should have been there.
Instead my choice is how to die, and fuck over the universe by destroying all the mass relays, and possibly destroying all technology. I don't get to see Tali go back to her world and finally have a home. I don't get to see if Liara makes it back to Thessia to try to clean up the rubble that is her home. I can't experience anything to do with the advancement to the Krogan now that I unshackled their death sentence. All of this is left in the air and I hated it. Shepard died making a choice and...that was the fucking end!
It ended in the middle of a climax, an unsatisfying one at that (story wise, get your minds outta the gutter). To top it all off, after Shepard kills him/herself we see a cut scene with the Normandy, mid jump when...last we saw Normandy was in battle around Earth not leaving the scene. Second, some of the team members I had with me when Harbinger basically killed everyone was shown on the Normandy. WTF? This makes no sense.
I'm half expecting BioWare to pull a "PSYCH, our ending is like St. Elsewhere!" DLC or something. I didn't get the ending, and I didn't like having no real choice in Shepard's outcome. Even in 2 you had a bad ending (Shepard dies in the suicide mission) and ok ending (Shepard loses the crew of the Normandy to the Reapers but her small fight crew survives) and the good ending (everyone lives). The fact that the endings in ME3 are bad, worse, and suicidal after I play kind of sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I still loved the game, the ending just left much to be desired. I'm not sending hate mail to BioWare, but I think they slapped the fanbase in the face by really not allowing them to have a choice on what can happen to their Shepard. They can give an official ending (Shepard dies), while allowing people who are bothered by a character they've spent 5 years with dieing the ability to allow that character to live.
Also...it is kind of disturbing that after you die the game asks you to continue playing and download some DLC. Uh, my character just Jesus'd herself, there's nothing left but particles, how can I continue her story?!!
Anyway, with my few minor quibbles, I enjoyed the game. So much after I finished I started a New Game+ hot off the credits. I am however still pissed I may have to play multiplayer in order to get the best possible ending for my Shepard. I play EA, they are the devil. All parts of a game should be unlockable in Single Player mode, Multi Player is an extra, a DLC if you will. I hate having my hand forced.
Some of that is good wow, some of it is bad wow. Granted I'm not raging against the whole multiverse as some ME fans seem to be (and I doubt it's because I haven't played ME yet, though I did purchase it at a discounted price this weekend to play on my computer that can actually HANDLE game play now). The ending is what I expected, I don't think the execution was anywhere near perfect, and I do have some issues, but I wasn't surprised. It is what it is.
I do however think it's crap Bioware/EA want to force me to play multiplayer so that I can get the best ending offered, but that's neither here nor there.
First things first, the game is beautiful. I felt disappointed in some instances were I had to run through a scene due to the story and fighting but I wasn't able to look at everything around. Bioware reall went all out in scenery, and I enjoyed it. I loved going to the Citadel to just look out and around at everything, there was way more to see in the Citadel than there was in ME2.
Second, the story was written well enough and engaging enough I literally began feeling a sense of doom about half way through the game (granted, I honestly completely the game in 3 days once I sat down and pounded it out, which is a minor quibble I have when ME2 seemed to take longer on playback and I KNEW what I had to do, BioWare taking a page out of the Dragon Age 2 book?). I had no doubt Shepard would die, seemed the fitting end to my Shepards story (though I would have liked a true ending = death, happy ending = survival choice, but I'll get to that). My biggest quibble is the ending didn't feel real, it felt like the story ended in the middle of the Act 3 climax, so while intense it left me wanting..something. Again I'll get to that later.
Gameplay...I enjoyed. I tend to play on easy (I'll admit it), because I like to ENJOY a game not pound my head on the wall till it's bleeding just trying to defeat a boss on insanity difficulty. I didn't really get BioWare's claim that the fighting wouldn't be hide and pick off in shelter, it honestly was. At least in easy, and I've heard the game is harder in multiplayer, but I don't really want to play multiplayer. The enemy AI was smarter though, in some levels I died multiple times because the enemy flanked me instead of charging head on like the British.
I am disappointed that when BioWare game me the ability to run (instead of run for two feet and then be out of breath, I don't know what the fuck BioWare was thinking doing that in ME2, why bother, running was useless) they would implement it. Two times in the game was running necessary to defeat a level, and one of those times it's useless anyway. I had assumed there would be more "run away from the big fucking Reaper like a bat out of hell and don't look back" type of missions, I was wrong and I think it was a miss opportunity. Granted it is a fine line writing levels like that, you have to tread that line between "easy as cake" and "dear god my thumb is going to fall off and I'm going to shoot the tv the next time I die because I ran into a barrier and didn't jump over it fast enough". I do like those types of challenges though, they up the adrenaline because you WILL die if you fail.
Characters - as always, character models in ME are fantastic. And some of my disappoints come back to story and writing. Yeah I get this is Shepard's story, but I felt like ME3 put Shepard's relationships with characters kind of on the sideline. For instance in ME2 my Shepard went out of her way to help out all her crew when they needed help, there were hours of character quests I finished to progress my companions attitudes and morality, and I enjoyed that because I gave a shit about the characters and whether they lived or died at the end of the game (and believe me, you could royally screw up ME2 to where everyone on Normandy died). This game? Not so much. I get why they wrote Shepard so distant, I mean Shepard was war weary and getting cut off, but I'm not sure it worked how the writers wanted.
Which I supposed that train of thought can take me to my quibbles, so here's the list, I'll start where I left off..
Characters - I wasn't connected to them. Sure I was MORE connected to Liara because I had chosen to have her as my companion in ME2 so it was a hold over making me more invested in the character and their life and death. Everyone else was just kind of...tacked on. For instance:
- Ashley - honestly I'd probably be more invested in Ashley's story if a.) she really had one and b.) I'd played ME. However she spent most of the game being catty and the rest of the game responding to me like ME 2 DLC characters Kasumi and Zaed (no real interaction outside of specific loyalty stories). I get Ashley is supposed to be pissed I joined Cerberus in ME2, but damn was she a bitch to me most of the time, even after I saved her sorry ass TWICE. She added little to the story outside of setting the tone of what to expect the rest of the game (She was nearly offed in the first mission out of the gate).
- James - new character, first one you meet in the game...and that's about all I can tell you about James. I was supposed to be empathetic towards him because he lost his whole crew, but this was all done in talking heads and didn't really connect me to him. I can honestly say once I got other crew members I stopped using him all together, which is too bad, Freddie Prinze, Jr. did a great job with the voice acting. Adding a loyalty missing for James probably would have helped me give a shit about him way more than just having him talk and leer at me.
- Steve - I cared slightly more about him due to his backstory, losing his husband on one of the missions from ME2 (we didn't see it, it's just mentioned). But his actual story was about 15 minutes total of me telling him to stop being a whiny bitch and move on. Seriously. I liked what they were doing with his story, but it was so half assed and seemed tacked on I didn't care. I honestly BELIEVE his story was tacked on since BioWare announced about 2 months from release he was the new gay romance option since they goofed in the first two games and didn't implement a male/male relationship, but every other type of relationship was on the table. His story felt like the default female Shepard character model, shitty and put in to pacify the audience (I still don't understand why they had a default female Shepard this whole time, but wanted to give a vote to the fans for what she looked like for the box...how about go with what you've already had in the first two games?).
- Tali - you get a semi mission for her, but she's more a tertiary character in it. In the game you have to fight with the Quarians to save them from the geth and try to take back their homeworld Rannoch. In the end you win, Quarians have a homeworld again and Tali hitches a ride with you after talking about being able to live on her homeworld again. That's pretty much it on the Tali front after her extensive story in ME and ME2. Also they kind of retcon her from ME2 when she started getting along with Legion and seeing how wrong her father was to treat the geth as they did. However with her and Legion you pretty much retread that whole story.
- Legion - stuck in so you have a familiar face when fighting the geth. We retread the heretics and old machines story from ME2 so that the geth will fight and help the Quarians when ME2 made it explicitely known that the true geth wanted peace with the creators. The one sad thing, that alluded to everything Shepard would experience, is that as Legion gained his independence right before death. Though once I heard him say "I" instead of "we" I knew he would die.
- Mordin - another tacked on character. I also figured he would be a casualty due to the fact he wast he reason for the genophage in the first place. It seemed only fitting the scientist who caused thousands of Krogan deaths to sacrifice himself to fix the situation. Another one whose story was about 10 minutes total, though sad it wasn't earth shattering (they were obviously saving that for Shepard).
- Wrex/Grunt - I'm going to put them together, they were simply a cameo. End of story. Neither offered much to the story other than be a typical Krogan. You honestly could have replaced them with any Krogan and it wouldn't have affected a damn thing.
- Thane - Not sure why they couldn't have just let him die. Yeah he was helping people in the hospital, and he sacrificed himself to save Shepard, but again it could have been anyone. The only significant thing was the prayer Thane requested be read that was read for Shepard's sake pretty much flat out laid out that Shepard was a dead man/woman walking.
- Miranda - I had honestly wished her mission would have been a full mission, not her tacked into a main mission. It wasn't necessary to make the head of Sanctuary, the Cerberus lie to create husks, Miranda's father. It was a cheap way to get her back in the story, and it failed.
- Samara - While her story added some fo the story, we learned that the Reapers were mutating races (therefore Mauraders are Turians and Banshees are Asari and Husks are Human), this was another instance it could have been anyone. Hell since Liara is both an Asari and the Shadow Broker it could have been her to lead you to the Ardat-Yakshi temple. I get the significance, when we went there we would KNOW Samara's daughters are there, but the character wasn't necessary. Hell her goodbye vid was pretty much "Good luck, don't die, you were awesome".
- Jack - I wanted MORE of this story. It was a real instance to see how Shepard could affect someone drastically. Jack was a ruthless murdere in ME2 who didn't give a shit about anyone or anything other than kicking Cerberus in the balls, but due to Shepard's influence she changed. Not completely, she still enjoyed kicking ass and killing bad guys, but Shepard helped her find she needed purpose. Jack in ME3 was no longer a prisoner in anyway (to herself or the galaxy), but she moved on and gained hope and respect for life. I would have liked to have seen more of this progress, but after the school mission Jack is nothing but a cameo to remind you of ME2.
- Garrus - Though Garrus has been by Shepard's side since the beginning he honestly offered little to the story. He could have been replaced by any other Turian in the game. Even the heart to hearts with Shepard felt a little lacking.
- Kasumi - Yeah, she was mostly just there to round out the old crew, same as Zaeed. No real purpose even if you go on her little side mission it isn't a necessary mission in the grand scheme of things. It is a glorified cameo.
- Zaeed - He was treated even worse than Kasumi, he basically showed up in the middle of a mission for Aria, said howdy then stood around the rest of the time. Complete waste of mine and the developers time.
- Jacob - I won't even bother mentioning him, the game barely did. You talk to him when you save Cerberus scientists, then he tells you he's with one of the doctors and going to be a dad. Really, that's about it.
- Liara - She had a bit stronger writing, but not by much. I mean here is a character who completely changed her path in ME2 and is again changing her path in ME3, though we get a throw away line that she moved all her Shadow Broker material with her since the Illusive Man took out the old Shadow Broker ship. When it came to the nitty gritty though the writing was a bit lame. Here is a character who literally watched her world crumble and die around her, she mopes about it for 5 minutes and is then giving Shepard a moral boost. It should have been the other way around. Shepard should have been way more sympathetic to Liara than he/she was considering Shepard had already experienced the same thing on Earth. Instead the speech was pretty much "Buck up, we'll beat them, now go be the Shadow Broker and be awesome", end of story. Hell even the big moment at the end (since I was in a relationship with her) and she was doing a mind meld/bondmate thing with me it was...underwhelming. Bright lights, hugging...I was supposed to be seeing something specific to Liara's memories and I get ME3 meeting 2001: Space Odyssey. WTF?
On to the ending. Now I don't mind that Shepard died. At all. I figured Shepard would die, and honestly like I noted it was pounded over our heads through all of the actions Shepard did throughout the story.
What don't I like? The execution of the ending. Shepard sacrifices his/herself for the good of the universe, but good is debatable. Basically in order to save everyone Shepard has to fuck everyone over first. Let me explain.
The game pushes Shepard forward, and even harder in the end since Shepard takes the fall of the Asari homeworld particularily hard. Up until that point you have designated choices you can make, who you want to be in bed with for the war, so on and so forth. Climax of Act 3...all choices are essentially stripped from you.
Shepard and squad essentially get desimated by Harbinger while they try to get to the one thing to save the universe. Shepard wakes up, drags his/her half dead self into the beam and you end up in very linear game play.
This? Sucked. I had no choice in what to do, I charge Harbinger, get my ass handed to me, get to the Citadel, Illusive Man tries to hand my ass to me again while I bleed profusely, I open the doors for the Crucible to dock and sit down for a rest. Shepard dieing here would have been fine. Everything fit, possibly a quick movie to show what happened to the survivors and the rest of the universe would have been great. Even if it was just a scroll like they did in Dragon Age, explaining how my decisions affected the rest of the galaxy, instead, I get a weird ending that makes no sense (and from what I've seen, all endings are very similar).
The Catalyst decides to talk to Shepard and give him/her a choice. Die taking over the reapers, die killing the reapers, die combining synthetics and organics. So, I have no way to save myself in any way shape or form. A CHOICE to save myself would have been a better solution, since the whole point to ME and ME2 is that, while the odds are low and well non-existant, Shepard never intended to die. Shepard did everything NOT to die, or let anyone around him/her die. The choice should have been there.
Instead my choice is how to die, and fuck over the universe by destroying all the mass relays, and possibly destroying all technology. I don't get to see Tali go back to her world and finally have a home. I don't get to see if Liara makes it back to Thessia to try to clean up the rubble that is her home. I can't experience anything to do with the advancement to the Krogan now that I unshackled their death sentence. All of this is left in the air and I hated it. Shepard died making a choice and...that was the fucking end!
It ended in the middle of a climax, an unsatisfying one at that (story wise, get your minds outta the gutter). To top it all off, after Shepard kills him/herself we see a cut scene with the Normandy, mid jump when...last we saw Normandy was in battle around Earth not leaving the scene. Second, some of the team members I had with me when Harbinger basically killed everyone was shown on the Normandy. WTF? This makes no sense.
I'm half expecting BioWare to pull a "PSYCH, our ending is like St. Elsewhere!" DLC or something. I didn't get the ending, and I didn't like having no real choice in Shepard's outcome. Even in 2 you had a bad ending (Shepard dies in the suicide mission) and ok ending (Shepard loses the crew of the Normandy to the Reapers but her small fight crew survives) and the good ending (everyone lives). The fact that the endings in ME3 are bad, worse, and suicidal after I play kind of sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I still loved the game, the ending just left much to be desired. I'm not sending hate mail to BioWare, but I think they slapped the fanbase in the face by really not allowing them to have a choice on what can happen to their Shepard. They can give an official ending (Shepard dies), while allowing people who are bothered by a character they've spent 5 years with dieing the ability to allow that character to live.
Also...it is kind of disturbing that after you die the game asks you to continue playing and download some DLC. Uh, my character just Jesus'd herself, there's nothing left but particles, how can I continue her story?!!
Anyway, with my few minor quibbles, I enjoyed the game. So much after I finished I started a New Game+ hot off the credits. I am however still pissed I may have to play multiplayer in order to get the best possible ending for my Shepard. I play EA, they are the devil. All parts of a game should be unlockable in Single Player mode, Multi Player is an extra, a DLC if you will. I hate having my hand forced.