[WhiteTiger]

I went and had a looksee at the extended endings. Better, I think, they helped salvage some of their credibility though there are still some serious problems, but...

Spoiler!

The keynote thing that stands out for me is how horrible playing and replaying the endpiece is. This should have been a big glaring red warning sign for them. This is a game where you're a space marine who runs around with big guns and... in the ending, you restrict the character to limping along with a weak pistol. And you give him three choices, none of which involves anything more interesting than crawling to its terminus and activating the objective there.

Frustrating your players, I submit, is a good way to snap them out of the game and push the "I'm not having fun" button.

The dialogue tree is hardly anything to brag about either, it's basically linear, and your only options are to talk the Illusive Man into offing himself or shooting him before he can shoot you, via Renegade interrupt. Then you talk to the Starchild who explains the options.

So, you've lost gun, and you've lost chat. The only thing you have left to play for in ME3 is hoping that everything you've worked for will be saved in the ending... So when they showed three different colors of explosions and cut away after the Normandy crash-lands on some distant planet with no adequate explanation, It's no wonder that fans complained so vociferously about the unsatisfactory endings.

So, here's the hundred thousand dollar question: what would I have done instead?

Okay, I'd keep the endgame up to the point where you're trudging into the beam. That part was fine. A moment where you're staggering feels appropriately shocking.

But that's the point where I would have the player's squadmates come charging forward, rushing with him into the beam. They slap some medigel on him, he's back and ready for the final level. This is it, live or die.

The final level would be similar to the Collector base at the end of ME2, except here the Illusive Man got in ahead of you and is in control of its defenses, which he's using to churn out cyborg minions. He shows up to taunt you as you dismantle the defenses, and at each point you have the opportunity to rebut him in some way. If you fail, you get a brief fight where you have to take him down 25%, and you can observe his special moves and learn to react so you don't get killed in the final boss fight.

The Starchild appears throughout the level as well, giving you information you need to choose your final destination. It's an AI left by the originators who created the Reapers, to watch for and recognize when organics and synthetics can live in peace, when their solution can be halted... But the Reapers are more interested in perpetrating themselves, and want the Illusive Man in place, under their control. They want the cycle to go on forever, so they sabotaged the Citadel to prevent it from generating the galaxy-spanning energy pulse. Shepard and his crew, it seems, are the Starchild's last hope to ensure the Citadel is opened and the Crucible is docked.

The Crucible is in fact, a design of the Starchild's, released cycles ago in the hope that the Citadel could be restored and the cycles could be ended. (in my version-- in the actual extended ending, the Crucible is "doh, we thought we had destroyed that ages ago")

Heck, maybe more of Shepard's team get through, and like the Collector base, you choose which two you want to send on side missions. Who do you send to unjam the shutters so that the Citadel can be opened? Who do you use to sneak through the ventilation ducts to hack into the security system?

And finally your confrontation with the Illusive Man... Yeah, I'm thinking if you don't succeed in talking him into killing himself, there needs to be a blow-out final boss fight. And if you do succeed, I liked how the Reapers reanimated Sarevok in the first ME, and the Illusive Man certainly looks cyborg enough.

After that-- destroy, control, or synthesis? I'm thinking that should be a result of bonus objectives either you achieved during the final level or what you told your team mates to accomplish on their missions. With a low EMS, some points on the Citadel might be destroyed by Reapers (cut scenes showing your allies stopping them or failing to do so) making them inaccessible.

Once you make the endings available, you get to pick between them, of course, Skip making the player walk to the beams, just give the choice via the Starchild, who is grateful to Shepard for freeing it from Reaper domination, and wants to know what Shepard proposes be done... before the Reapers smash into the Crucible, turning it into space dust. Think fast, Shepard!

Anyway... Initially I picked Synthesis, but after watching it and Control this time through, I felt that Synthesis was too invasive. Control by a full-Paragon Shepard seems the best route. I picture my Shepard withdrawing from the galaxy after reconstruction of the Relays is complete, acting only to prevent species-level extinction and galactic disasters. The galaxy's races must be free to develop at their own pace, because in infinite diversity, there are infinite possibilities.