At this point, it shouldn't be a surprise that there are multiple endings for Mass Effect 3. What may surprise you is that to obtain the "best" ending in the game, you probably have to play multiplayer. The ending you get depends on your war assets and readiness level, which multiply to determine your effective military strength. This leaves a sour taste in my mouth for a "single player" experience.
You can get enough war assets through single player to obtain the ending, but it is very difficult. You basically have to complete every quest in the game. Essentially, the game forces you to play multiplayer co-op in order to complete your single player experience. This tactic seems a little underhanded. Maybe it's a way to drive the sales of unlockable multiplayer items. I don't know.
It is possible to get the best ending in single player without playing multiplayer, but it’s hard. All your war assets only count for 50% of their potential value. The biggest gains in War Assets come from a culmination of your decisions in the previous games and your decisions here. If you’ve helped a race before, and you help them in this game, you can get their full support and resolve their conflict... possibly even getting someone else on your side.
In other situations, a wrong call somewhere along the line or a Paragon or Renegade score too low to pick the right thing to say, can mean a character dies, a race is demoralized, and if they fight for you at all they’re worth much less to the war effort.
All this isn't to say that Bioware didn't make a great game. They did. A lot of the complaints over this readiness and ems issue seem to stem fro the fact that people just aren't happy with the game's ending in general. I just wish the culmination of your single-player efforts didn't depend on a multiplayer experience. I'd rather just see a focus on the story. It seems like another strike against EA/Bioware that has already come under fire for things like Origin restrictions on the PC, DRM issues, and the day-one-DLC fiasco.
Hmph, never really wanted to play multiplayer either, as this should have been kept just single player, at least to get the best ending. Good timing once more.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm under-appreciating how hard it is.. but I definitely think the best ending should be the hardest to achieve. If I think there's anything wrong here, I'd say they might have to make the multi-player even harder to achieve, just to make it as fair as single player.
ReplyDeletei understand making it hard to get, i'm just not a big fan of multiplayer play. especially if I feel like I'm being forced to play it.
DeleteWell said Leon, just the fact that they MAKE you play multiplayer on what I already think of as an amazing single player experience is angering.
DeleteBut I also understand that if you work for free then you're a chump. They are just trying to make money like everyone else.
I love it when games have multiple endings, makes you want to play the whole campaign again!
ReplyDeleteI honestly thought there were only 3 endings...
ReplyDeleteknowing there's more is interesting... I finished single player and rushed to multiplayer and now I'm full on assets so I'm going for another play through this time from my paragon to my renegade along with one more paragon to see what I get for a second play through on my now maxed character how they'll keep it interesting for me
there are a lot of small bugs and glitches and honestly the graphics look a little worse than ME2 when it comes to characters which makes me a little sad considering how often I look at my shepard it's annoying to look at his graphically marred face, and all the multiplayer glitches get annoying
all fixable with a patch or two (maybe?) other than that no real complaints
I kinda wish there were a rapid decision maker thing to literally make a save game with all the decisions from the previous games available so you could play from that view, as it was I made a ton of saves from ME1 to port into ME2 for that reason and only finished half of them before ME3 hit and now I'm going to be playing catchup for a while
supposedly there are 3 main endings, but 17 different endings (minor differences) according to IGN. There's also a secret ending after a second playthrough
ReplyDeleteI'm playing ME2 again before I get 3. It's amazing just how good Mass Effect is... I just ran through the fuselage of the Normandy mark II as joker and it was just like the first time.
ReplyDeletei know, i definitely played through bits of ME2 again for a few weeks before I got ME3. It's really an amazing series and story
DeleteAs much as I like Bioware they're really screwing up here.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice to see a joint server like FFXI had. PS3 and PC on one, it was so nice. I'm a PC gamer so my experience is limited because all of my friends play console.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it take, a rally?
I think its great when games have multiple endings. It makes you want to play the whole campaign again, and the fun last so much longer!
ReplyDeleteI'm buying that game soon!
ReplyDeleteBioware is either deliberately trying to screw gamers up, or just have became extremely shitty recently.
ReplyDeleteThis is a foreign language to me, but those virtual people do look very real!!! lol
ReplyDeleteCurrently replaying ME2. ME3's release snuck up on me a bit. This doesn't sound that bad for me since I usually 100% RPGs like this.
ReplyDeleteI never was interested in the Mass Effect games, so this isn't one for me either. I think it's stupid to "force" people to play multiplayer, when it should be just an addition.
ReplyDeleteMass Effect was awesome, but I dont know about all this...
ReplyDeleteBah bad call Bioware, looks like success has changed you too bad.
ReplyDelete