The issue I had with the ending was the logic of the Catalyst: Spoiler 'Organics will inevitably create synthetics that will destroy the organics. So I created a race of synthetics to destroy the organics before they create synthetics that will destroy them.' I just wish Shepard had an opportunity to argue with the Catalyst that says it doesn't have to happen that way. In my play-though, I united the Quarian and Geth, had a Joker/EDI romance and got the galaxy to come together. Shepard should be able to prove that the universe's cycle can be broken.
Spoiler It was using calculated logic. It may be an AI, but it serves a limited function. I theorize that the Catalyst was indeed originally created as an AI to preserve life, but got sidetracked with what 'life' actually meant. It saw war (it what ever time it was from), wars that persisted, and it had to learn new ways of reacting to the threats and find new ways to preserve 'life', and as a result created the Reapers. The Reapers are the result of what is possibly the consumations of thousands of galactic civilizations, incorporating the best attributes into the design of the reapers which each conquering. This is how I choose to interpret the ending, anyway.
I'm not going to read all the "tag" spoilers in here, but I have to to say I'm not completely happy so far. I haven't gotten too far in the story but I just feel like something is missing.. or a lot of things feel they were just side thoughts. "Here's this thing so you can remember it from the previous game, now.. keep going." Really looking forward to how this pans out, I have this idea in my head of what I want it to be (like the twists in ME1 and the revelations from ME2 - those were great), but I feel that its not going to happen.
Don't get me wrong, I loved 95% of the game... few games have impacted me on the same emotional level as this one did a few times. Even when you do everything "right" there is no way for every scenario to end as you hoped it would. That being said, the last 5 minutes were crap. :tear: Also, I knew there was a reason Grunt was one of my favorites from ME2 He just kicks so much ass.
Spoiler I kind of saw something like the ending coming though. They had to have some form of permanent closure. And for those of you who obviously have a sucky war rating / military strength you can see shepard rising up out of rubble if you choose to destroy all synthetics at the end (So long as your military strength is very high). So if you do things right, shepard does live.... BOOYA... go me with having the best ending.
Spoiler I was playing the game without multiplayer so It was actually impossible for me to to achieve that ending (Due to choices in previous games etc) My maximum available war resources:7554/2=~3700<4000 required for the 'breath' ending. I guess shame on me for believing Bioware that I wouldn't have to play it to get the best possible ending(still pretty shitty unless the whole hallucination theory pans out which I doubt it will).
Horribly disappointed, just finished my first play through. Most of the game felt like watching a movie then actually "doing" something. That's my biggest gripe so far. Guess I'll do a few more playthroughs with different decisions to see if I can get something I like out of this.
I noticed this as well. My other issue was that it felt extremely short, compared to the other games, or other games in general. I did pretty much all I could do (and made sure to do all the side quests) and still wrapped it up very quickly.
Strange, I am at 30 hours right before the point of no return. Mass Effect 2 with all DLC was about 30-35 hours as well. Seems like they follow the same pattern. It's no Skyrim or Kingdoms of Amalur but it's pretty decent for an action RPG. Witcher 2 and Deus Ex were about the same length.
First playthrough on ME1 for me I beat it in about 25 hours Same with Mass Effect 2 ME3 took me 29 1/2 hours my first playthrough and felt much longer too. Im going through it on Insanity now so we will see how long that takes.
I've started my second playthrough on Insanity. I skipped a lot of content the first run through, so it took me about ~25 hours to finish. I still adore this game, regardless of the ending (which I have no problem with).
Actually it is when you save before going AFK and load after. I usually do this with every single player games I play.
The ending had a good epic feel, but if I was in Shepard's position, I'd want to ask: Spoiler 1. If you don't want synthetics to kill the organics, why can't you just wipe out the synthetics when they start rebelling? 2. If you're synthetic, doesn't that prove your logic wrong?