OH GOD BIOWARE WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE

[BitVyper]

I'd gladly sacrifice the Sol System to keep the relays intact.

This is all based just on what I've heard/seen of the endings.

Quality of the endings aside, if it's only the relays being destroyed, there's still going to be ftl travel at an inter-system level, so it's not like civilisation is being destroyed to the point that some planets are going to starve to death. Everyone should still have enough access to resources to keep their people alive. I don't know what the circumstances are, but sacrificing sol is guaranteed killing the majority of one species, and a lot of several others. Destroying the mass relays at least gives people in various places a chance. Plus humans got pretty good with Prothean tech, so it's entirely possible they'll be able to build their own relays within a generation.

All civilisations fall. Usually sooner than later. Sacrificing sol wouldn't stop that from being true. It would be a much bigger setback than otherwise, but as far as I can tell from what I've read, it's nothing that's going to stop people from rebuilding with time.

Of course, it still should have been an option. I'm just saying it's not necessarily the right one. Really, neither should be an option because the ending should be something different that isn't shit.

[Arcanum]

Wrex remains the best character ever. Like, the only thing better than Wrex is the banter between your old squadmates.

Also I forgot to mention this before, but I told the Chobot-Clone (no idea what her character name is in the game) to fuck off when she asked to be on my ship. I'm glad they included the option to just not have her around, since having her in the game in the first place (and as a journalist on your ship? really? that's the best they have to squeeze her in?) was a terrible idea.

Also great: Al-Jilani dodging my first punch because I've done it twice before, and then head butting her.

And finally, I think playing the multiplayer a whole bunch before hopping on the singleplayer is biting me in the ass. I've done two side missions (one given by Hacket to check out a Cerberus base, the other to investigate some biotic school) that required me to insert Disc 2, and then when I go back to do a mainquest mission it tells me to insert Disc 1 again. So either this stupid disc swapping is the norm, or you unlock these side missions by playing the multiplayer, and I unlocked them "early."

[Bells]

a few hours in and i already have a Gay Shuttle pilot that is also 100% professional, seems like a nice guy and is friends with the Ultra-macho Military hunk with cement blocks for shoulders. Also alread helping my Horny Pilot to get his LuvLuv on with the Ship's AI now in Super-Sexy-Android Form all the while having a serious Bromance with Kaiden.

I really like this game...

[Sifright]

Originally Posted by Mannix

To be fair, he was the only human child in the galaxy.

You know, put like that I can understand the nightmares in one fell swoop the reapers have ended the future of humanity by killing the only remaining human child!

so i've played a bit further into the game now.

Spoilers regarding the ship based reporter below:

"So basically the ship reporter makes a huge difference to war assets if you utilise her effectively you can gain upwards of 400 war asset points by increasing recruitment and making the Krogans happy with you and various other bullshitery things that really don't make huge amounts of sense because apparently politics."

Combat is pretty fun although as vanguard it's pretty easy even on insanity using any shotgun in combination with biotic charge and nova allows you take pretty much everything out in crazy times i've had some of the Cerberus side missions take less than four minutes because of how fast you can slaughter everything also biotic charge is the best power purely for the ability to jump 20+ meters in a single stride.

Some of the writing is mega hammy and badly done regarding Ashley

[spoilers]
So basically Ash is all like "I can't trust you Shepard how do I know you aren't secretly going to just flip out and commit murders and shit!" to which the correct response is "Are you fucking retarded?" jesus christ, it's just so badly handled I mean christ talk about a incredibly poorly forced attempt at increasing tension between the characters it just doesn't work because it's so obvious that Shepard was never working FOR Cerberus only WITH them especially given how you give up your ship to the alliance because as we all know a loyal Cerberus agent is really going to give up a ship like the Normandy and themselves to the alliance given that it supposedly cost Cerberus BILLIONS to bring him/her back to life. This is a problem through out a large portion of the game the writing isn't good enough to not make a lot of the situations and circumstances not feel forced for the explicit purpose of inducing an emotional response making it fall flat

Still don't have access to the multi player portion of the game until Wednesday when my legit copy arrives.

[Mannix]

More big ending spoilers: I played through on a new character (engineers are pretty sweet this time) and I did every single thing possible to do as paragony as I could. I even made peace between the geth and the quarians, which i didn't know was possible my first playthrough. still didn't do any of the multiplayer missions, but the war map put my odds at 50/50 instead of slim but measurable. This unlocked a third ending option that wasn't available the first time, and that was to throw myself into the beam thing in the middle, thereby merging all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy. as near as i can tell that ending is basically exactly the same as the other two in terms of what that last movie shows, but now everything has a techno-y shimmer. I'll redo the ending one more time and choose the destroy option to see if you can get that 'still alive' ending without any multiplayer. also, i had maaaaaaaaaximum paragon but that final dialogue option with the illusive man still had the paragon/renegade options blocked out, the ones that come up just before you shoot him. has anybody been able to use those and if so what happens?

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Mannix

More big ending spoilers: I played through on a new character (engineers are pretty sweet this time) and I did every single thing possible to do as paragony as I could. I even made peace between the geth and the quarians, which i didn't know was possible my first playthrough. still didn't do any of the multiplayer missions, but the war map put my odds at 50/50 instead of slim but measurable. This unlocked a third ending option that wasn't available the first time, and that was to throw myself into the beam thing in the middle, thereby merging all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy. as near as i can tell that ending is basically exactly the same as the other two in terms of what that last movie shows, but now everything has a techno-y shimmer. I'll redo the ending one more time and choose the destroy option to see if you can get that 'still alive' ending without any multiplayer. also, i had maaaaaaaaaximum paragon but that final dialogue option with the illusive man still had the paragon/renegade options blocked out, the ones that come up just before you shoot him. has anybody been able to use those and if so what happens?

The endings are all essentially the same, just with a different color of energy blasting through the Mass Relays. I looked them up on youtube after I beat the game. And I had maxed out reputation (mostly paragon with like 5% or so renegade. Just a note: I had picked the reputation bonus passive skill for the first third of the game or so before I respecced, dunno if that's what gave me enough rep to pick the final option or not) and I could select the final paragon option for TIM. When you do, he shoots himself in the face just like Saren does in ME1.

And finally, to get the "Sheperd lives" ending you apparently need over 5k assets (I think that's after the galaxy readiness percentage modifier). Or at least that's what the internet tells me.

[Mannix]

Originally Posted by Arcanum

The endings are all essentially the same, just with a different color of energy blasting through the Mass Relays. I looked them up on youtube after I beat the game. And I had maxed out reputation (mostly paragon with like 5% or so renegade. Just a note: I had picked the reputation bonus passive skill for the first third of the game or so before I respecced, dunno if that's what gave me enough rep to pick the final option or not) and I could select the final paragon option for TIM. When you do, he shoots himself in the face just like Saren does in ME1.

And finally, to get the "Sheperd lives" ending you apparently need over 5k assets (I think that's after the galaxy readiness percentage modifier). Or at least that's what the internet tells me.

I was reading the something awful forums and apparently to get the final option in the TIM dialogue, you have to choose all the same paragon/renegade dialogue choices throughout the game, including one that is supposedly buried in the dialogue tree during your conversation on Mars that I seem to somehow continually miss.

[Azisien]

I don't think I got the "Shepard lives" ending but I did the merge with synthetics ending with over 7000 war assets. I guess that counts him out anyway? What with the disintegration.

[01d55]

That was dumb. The Catalyst is dumb. I have proven your thesis wrong, Catalyst. I would like for my bestest buds, the Geth, to show up here and fix your broken system with me.

Also Insanity is not hard enough, I beat it on my first playthrough.

I have other thoughts but they are positive and therefore belong in the other thread.

[Osterbaum]

So what I'm getting out of this thread and the other one, is that I should get the game for better and for worse.