It's REALLY dumb to have the "breathe" bit, this isn't a horror film and Sheppard isn't the baddy, we're told there'll be no sequal. That sequence only makes sense if being REALLY UBER AWSOME results in a final scene which establishes Shepard is not only Alive but safe. At that point you can imagine that he/she will go off with his/her love interest and make babies. I mean, I don't need to see everything, but why have just that little tease there?
I'm actually OK with Shepard dying, it sucks but it's not horrible - the problem is the choices you're given and the way they map onto Shepard character.
1. Destroy: It's dumb that you have to shoot something for this one, btw, but this is the obvious choice for most Shepards. The Child is NOT a reliable source for Shepard, even if he plays it completely straight in reality Shepard has no reason to trust him. With that in mind, there's no reason for Shepard to believe the child when he says the Geth and "synthetics" will all be destroyed. What is a Synthetic, anyway? Are we talking a synthetic lifeform, or any sufficiently complex computer? Given that Synthesis implies a hard division, Destroy should operate on the same principle. Taken to its logical conclusion this implies ALL Tech, or it means all Reaper Tech, which potentially explains why Shepard lives but EDI and the Geth croak. Even so, this is the child (your enemy's) least favourite choice, so it should logically be your prefered one. There's also the little fact that DESTROYING the Reapers has been the point for the last three years of your life.
2. Refusal: I suppose "we can't win but we'll die on our feet" makes a certain amount of sense as an ending. It's mostly the one you'll choose because Destroy will kill EDI and the Geth though - i.e. BIOWARE have given you no good choices.
3. Control: Best presented Ending, "Shepard" is now the driving impetus behind the Reapers, but "His" apparent detachment and hsi references to the Many imply the danger of A.I. Rampency, which is probably what happened to the original Reaper A.I. (it is a built thing). Eventually "Shepard" will conclude that higher-level societies are building Synthetics that he keeps having to smack down, then he will destroy the Organics capable of building such Synthetics. The Cycle has only been delayed. This is also what the Illusive Man, one of your antagonists, has wanted all along. Bad idea, then.
4. Synthesis: This is the Borg saying "become like us", as has been previously noted the visual effect sucks, but beside that it's a creepy Asimov-esque future that may or may not be your cup of Tea. The main problem with this ending is that there's no realy logical way to get from the Shepard who boards the Citidel to the one who decides this is a good idea based on the ramblings of a Rampant A.I. The reason the player will pick this is because they don't fancy "Control" for the reasons stated above and they don't want to kill EDI and the Geth.
Conclusion: Destroy is the best and most logical option, it permenantly removes the Reaper threat. The only confounding factor is the fate of the Geth/EDI - while this confuses the issue for the player it is unlikely to actually confuse Shepard, partly because of what's at stake but also because Shepard has no reason to trust the Catalyst A.I.'s information. It's worth noting that many Shepards will choose to sacrifice the Geth to save the Quarians anyway (they may have to if they lack the prerequisites) and many "Paragon" Shepards will already have watched Mordin sacrifice himself and might legitimately decide that EDI would rather be destroyed than watch the Normandy Crew and Joker die.
In other words, BIOWARE have achieved an Obsideon-level of Narrative Logic Fail.
It's worth noting that one the company's founders went back to medicine while ME3 was in development. I'm inclined to think that the ending has been changed and the bits that point towards indoctrination or somesuch are the result of artefacts left behind from a different ending. It's also worth noting how many of the effects, including the light blossom from the Crucible, have changed - as well as the addition of the "jump out" scene with the fleet and the change with the Normandy crash.
Re: Mass Effect 3
Originally Posted by Monk
Well it's more so "end it our way or not at all" because who in their right mind is going to pick Refuse? That's an even darker ending than what the original ending implied. If language rules here we much more relaxed i'd have a few names to call the bioware writers - but i suppose i'll have to settle for pretentious, after seeing Refuse.Goodness, what a laugh.
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That's just my opinion though.
Come at me Harbinger.
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