On Mass Effect 3’s Ending

I wanted to wait until our resident Penguatroll finished Mass Effect 3 before putting this up.

I would rant, but J. Stevenson does an outstanding job of describing, in great detail, exactly how Mass Effect 3’s ending is such a letdown.  The series was approximately 139 hours and 50 minutes of awesomeness, and 10 minutes of sheer crap.  There is also a follow-up, and an analysis of Bioware’s statement that they really aren’t going to fix the problem.  I don’t agree with everything in his set of posts—I actually do like the Cerberus-Reaper dynamic and consider it a very important part of the series.  In previous cycles, we know that the Reapers used organic life against itself (Javik mentions this in his own story), and so co-opting one of the bigger non-military forces around seems like an obvious thing to do.  It’s a fair point that Cerberus seems to be way more powerful and go from being a fringe group to Dr. Moneybags McEvil incarnate.

My dream ending isn’t quite like Stevenson’s (I would like a happy ending myself), but at least I’d like something not full of gaps and holes.  It would probably be better than the Animal House style ending, which would still have been better than the actual one…