Mass Alex: Mass Effect 3 - Part 26 (The Finale)

Brad *almost* ruined this with his annoying "marauder shields" and "but you're the Shepard" remarks etc. Just let Alex experience the ending without the constant snarky comments, geez. Why didn't they warn Alex before he jumped in the beam? Whyyy???? This was handled rather poorly. :[

Anyway, congrats to Alex for accidently picking the best ending.

EA acquired Bioware a month before the first Mass Effect shipped, they had pleeeenty of influence over where this trilogy went.

The ending as is, is goofy but fine, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the precedent that the Gamer Discourse blowblack set in 2012 has reverberated throughout time to the point we're at now in 2020 - where militant fanbases take personal 'ownership' of videogames in a more literal sense than the marketing actually means.

I'd almost consider sacrificing the Extended Cut from existence if it meant never having to deal with that shit in an alternate timeline. All of Mass Effect 3's other plot resolutions are such a remarkable achievement anyway the game is excellent enough regardless of the ending, I think.

ME3 is a good game up until the London section at the end here. The ending is very mediocre, but it doesn't completely ruin the series or even this game, in my opinion.

I actually have not played any of the Mass Effect DLC, for any of the games. I guess that means it's worth playing again... Although new content means I'd want to be paragon, which I've already done like 3 times. What a conundrum.

Oh sure, absolutely! I just got the impression that the noose wasn't as tight in the years directly after the acquisition. Maybe I'm wrong about that. What I was trying to say is, while ME Andromeda seemed like a game fucked up by mismanagement, ME3 seemed exactly like the game Bioware wanted to make at the time and it stinks. And killed my love for the franchise and Bioware in general.

Been a good time seeing these games through this series and getting more of a sense for what they are, thanks a lot Vinny and Alex.

I enjoyed the Faith of the Heart reference.

1. There was a lot of talk at the time about "entitled" gamers, etc. I remember being annoyed by that conversation because it was a perfect example of groups of people fundamentally not understanding one another's argument. Were players entitled to the exact ending that they wanted? Obviously, no, because there were just too many possibilities to tailor an ending to everyone. But I think they are entitled to the sense that the developers put in a reasonable amount of time and effort into the ending they did make.

The ME3 ending, especially the original un-extended ending, had a real "Oh, shit. My term paper is duetomorrow?!" kind of feel to it. As a player, there really was an unbelievable sense of "You had two years to come up with an ending and that's the best you could come up with?"

2. I think the ending fundamentally misinterpreted what people were after to end the trilogy. The endings proceed from the assumption that the biggest questions on people's minds was "what happens with the Reapers?" when in reality what people were thinking about was "What happens to these characters?"

Personally, I never really have a shit about the Reapers, because it was never a question of whether the Reapers were going to be destroyed. Instead, it was always a question of what's going to survive the fight. That's why the Suicide Mission at the end of 2 was so successful. You cared about the consequences of that mission because you cared about the characters involved.

Instead of "pick a color" it would have been much better if the endings had focused on the fate of Earth and the Normandy crew. For example - "The Reapers are defeated, but Earth got fried in the process" or "The Earth is saved, but the Normandy bought it during the battle." Those kinds of things would have focused on consequences people actually cared about. Instead, you got some over-long ham-handed explanation about the Reapers that no one ever asked for (what ever happened to "You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it"?)

Ugh. This whole thing pisses me off, even nearly a decade later. I have a sudden urge to bake cupcakes . . .

Thanks for the show guys! It was a blast to relive these with you, even though I only came into it just before this season started.

PLEASE!

Yeah, no, chat was screaming at Alex to stop and also screaming at Vinny and Brad to tell him to stop. I doubt any of the guys were looking at chat at the time, so there wasn't a lot chat could do.

I'm so glad I was able to watch this live as it unfolded...absolute hilarity near the end and utter confusion. I really hope Bioware game designers and play testers were watching this to see how confusing the designed that entire ending and how it still completely falls flat on it's face. All things considered the green ending is probably the most 'happy' ending, but in no way canonical if you take into consideration Andromeda exists...shout out to Brad with the Marauder Shields meme, let that never die! Died trying to protect us from that shambolic ending.

@professorx86: I thought the green beam only reached areas that were accessible via the mass relays? Which I assume is a long way from Andromeda so it probably wouldn't affect any life there.

Also I loved this series. So much fun to watch. Thank you guys for sticking with it.

In the original version of the ending the explosion that knocked Shepard out in the final run also knocked out the teammates. When Shepard woke and stumbled towards the light beam they were lifeless on the ground and there were nothing to do but to leave them there and continue on. That was jarring and not a great feeling, to be sure, but I dislike the really quite absurd medevac with Normandy intermission much more. It makes absolutely no sense at all. To me that seemed like an almost sarcastic "oh you gonna be like that, well have it your way" response to the fans' critique.

Always destroy, baby. It sucks, but it sucks the least.

I don't see you guys doing an ME Andromeda run given how generally disinterested everyone here felt about it (on the GB staff I mean). However, I'd love to see it as I think that could possibly be the only was I'd see the rest of that game and enjoy it.

Ha, we were screaming for him to stop inbetween mad cackling over what he was doing, Brad and Vinny kept quiet because they knew this was a perfect way to end things.

In reference to Brad saying games have a problem with laying it on thick towards the end and drawing out the gameplay - I think the problem is that these final missions are often longer but not more engaging. I think the final level or quest should be the same length as the regular quests but there should be a lot more exciting and bespoke content to make it a memorable fight. Here Alex is going from street to warehouse to back room to burnt out office space, all the while fighting increasingly packed waves of bad guys. It's not exciting to fight twice as many husks etc in some brown warehouse. That stuff really does make the end of the game drag. Get me to the exciting parts - I didn't fly all around the galaxy for these back alley skirmishes.

I played this at launch, without any of the DLC, including Javik. Locking him and Leviathan behind additional purchases was unconscionable on EA's part, as both are incredibly important to understanding the ending. And it really was just a color change thing at the end, along with one additional scene if you chose Destroy and you'd maxed out the rating (either by doing all the sidequests or doing multiplayer BS).

The ending choice, for me, had to be Destroy. Saren was Synthesis (which wasn't really communicated well). Illusive Man was Control (they show him grabbing the two poles in the vignette). Neither of those worked out, and throughout the entire series, Shep was focused on destroying the reaper threat. Additionally, given Shep's experiences with the Reapers, it seems incredibly odd to me that he'd take something this kid, who's the collective AI of the Reapers, at face value. Particularly if you played Renegade.

This also got you an additional scene at the end, if you also had a max rating. I won't spoil it, but it's on Youtube. That scene seemed to heavily support the "Indoctrination Theory" that was going around at the time (and was eventually debunked, but still makes parts of the game may *way* more sense).

@heyitsdale said:

Or maybe they did see the chat and both independently decided to ignore it, instead preferring to let Alex experience all the clumsiness of the ending's design as blindly as a first-time player in 2012 might have. Alex stumbling forward without realizing what he was doing as a consequence of the bad way the game communicated the moment is the true Mass Effect ending experience. Alex can Youtube the other choices on his own time, but now he has a fuller appreciation for the complaints and criticisms the game received.

Personally I'd like to see a big Yakuza series run, but I also want more of @benpack playing Dragon Age: Origins!

Nobody really knows what happened behind the scenes, but what we do know is that Mass Effect 3 had ridiculous expectations and was rushed in development. This is also the era where EA pushed Bioware to pump out another Dragon Age game in like a year and a half and shoehorned co-op and microtransactions into Dead Space 3, a game that was also rushed out the door. Frankly, that any of these games have redeeming qualities and were completely playable out of the gate seems something of a miracle and is a testament to the talented developers at these studios, and for many was damning of EA's business practices.

gg

@ithas2besaidkvo: I remember thinking at the time that it actually wouldn't matter if the mass relays got destroyed. They weren't necessary for interstellar travel. Yes, the speed of travel would be greatly reduced but at the end of the day, ships are still gonna have FTL capabilities.

It is kinda super shitty though that Brad, Vinny or the chat didn't tell Alex to stop so he could actually sit back and think about his choice.

Yeah, WTH.

Hahaha fucking hell that's EXACTLY what happened to me. I walked a little too far forwards and triggered the Synthesis ending by accident. I knew Alex would do the same thing. I was thinking "Stop. Stop moving. Wait. Wait. Stop. You're gonna" and waiting for Brad or Vinny to say "Hey now, Alex, don't walk too far forwards here."

I didn't know where the choices exactly were and .. man, what a decision they made with the ending of this game.. Really great piano ending theme tho.

This is the first time I'm seeing the reworked ending. For anyone who isn't aware, the credits originally ran immediately after the Joker/EDI Adam/Eve thing. It was just done right there, hard cut to credits. With the ending rework, lots of new star child dialogue was added to give some context and actually fucking explain what each choice meant, and all the EDI monologue epilogue scenes. Edit: Brad is explaining this now. Oh well. Leaving that in, just because.

Also, the post-credits scene with The Shepard was also in the original cut. lmao when we thought this meant there would be more Mass Effect games. And then we got Andromeda. RIP

One of the best trilogies of all time with one of the worst endings. It doesn't ruin the series for me, far from that, but boy it is not very good, especially at release without any of the dlc.

I would say ME3 exemplifies both the very best and worst the trilogy had to offer. There's some deeply beautiful, human moments in the game, but it's interspersed with some utter nonsense. Nonsense like Kai Leng, like Cerberus constantly hijacking the plot and sucking up a lot of oxygen that should have spent on the Reapers, and the Reapers themselves being reduced to a half-baked solution to a convoluted problem (one you yourself solve earlier in the game). Those good parts, though, they really sang to me.

Reminded of the good times, when Alex blew up bunch of people in Until Dawn. I have never played this myself, but figured that the picks on both sides were kinda obvious, but maybe just one of them being a big glowy beam was distracting during the moment...and I'm not complaining, as that was a perfect way to wrap things up.

Thanks for the ride, this was a great series to go through! Don't care about Andromeda, so not a problem if you decide to end things here. I'd rather watch Alex play something else entirely, whenever that might happen.

I highly doubt anyone remembered the auto confirmation working like that. I did the exact thing Alex did and only remembered once he'd done the same and accidentally triggered it. Besides, the chat is about 20 seconds behind so even if they remembered it was probably too late. We don't always have to blame people for shit.

Thanks Alex and Vinny. It's been a magical journey

what the fuck was that ending?

I'm of the mind that Andromeda is a dumpster fire that should only be experienced in one long episode to satisfy any curiosities Alex may have of the game but then never continue playing that sorry excuse for a ME game.

I'll also ad that at the time before this game launched EA was marketing this game as the best jumping-on point for newcomers.....you know the end of a trilogy, perfect timing. Mainly this was to push people to the fairly decent multiplayer mode that had micro-transactions. I also have a hard time believing that Bioware willingly wanted to divvy up some pretty important story content and characters into DLC packages that players could very well miss on an initial playthrough.

great show

now it's time for the shenmue 2 endurance run!

What an excellent adventure this was.

I liked the endings, always have. The choice seems simple, but the results are galaxy-defining. You vastly change the universe in a way that made it feel like the most important decision I've ever made in a game.

Mass Effect 3 is perfectly good. The original ending is perfectly fine. I had no problem with it at the time. The extended endings are much better, much more satisfying. But it's pretty shocking how much of a corner they painted themselves into with the direction they took it. Not bad, not a travesty. Just a hokey-ass let-down.

Wow! This video was amazing. So fun to watch ya'll react to this ending after hearing so much about it from everyone back in the day. Just a really, really fun video.

A lot of fun guys. I'm glad Alex got to experience this series. I'll always love these games, warts and all. Thanks Alex and Vinny.

vinny, alex, Thank you guys so much for running through one of my most favorite video game franchises. It's been a hell of a ride and I am happy to have experienced this again with someone's fresh reactions. Also thanks to brad for showing up at the end there to talk about this. I'll never forget the bullshit you went through with that dead USB stick carrying all of your ME saves. Thank you all again for the years of dumb fun.

I never replayed ME:3 with the updated ending, so this was my first time seeing the changes. It actually is a vast improvement. When I finished ME: 1 and ME: 2 I immediately went back and played through them. After 3, I was just done. I haven't touched the game in 7 years. The original endings left such a bad taste in my mouth.

In the original ending the relays are destroyed and your crew is stranded on a random planet with no way to get home. Your squad mates don't get picked up by the Normandy, you just don't see them again after the final charge. Plus you don't see the fleets jump away when the crucible is activated, implying all of the Quarians and Turians are stranded in the Sol system. Those species can't eat the food on Earth, so they will eventually die out when their own supplies run out. For me the biggest bummer was the destruction of the relays and the implication that the different species were all cut off from one another. What the hell did you even save at that point? The Universe you had grown to adore and invest yourself in was essentially gone. It just screamed rushed writing or a lack of thought in their own story.

The new endings didn't just add stuff, they removed a lot of bad story decisions. I didn't know they had retconned things until watching this. Had this been the original ending I got, I may have still been a bit underwhelmed by the three basic choices, but I would have been satisfied from a story perspective. I'm glad Alex got this experience.

Pleasure getting to watch Alex and Vinny go through this trilogy journey! Really glad you were both able to make it all happen, and it was nice having Brad sit in on this finale.

Farewell, Shep Shep.

Brilliant, well done guys

The biodigital jazz ending