And then I irreversibly changed the world.

I've spent over 40 hours on Mass Effect 3. Here I'm discussing the ending. If you haven't played it yet, or for whatever other reason you don't want it spoiled, you may want to stop reading here.

Oh, okay, you're still here. Well, I'm going to start off by saying I remember when Mass Effect 3 (called ME3 for the rest of this, because it's faster to type) was first released. I remember the absolute hysterics that seemed to be pouring over the internet about the ending. Even now, after playing through it and looking up other possible endings, I find scathing criticism for what some members of the public have declared is nothing more than an ending that got slapped on because the developers ran out of time.

Can I just raise my hand and say "get a grip"?

I loved the ending to this game. I thought the reasoning behind the Reaper invasions made sense in a twisted way, even if there were possibly a couple minor holes in the logic. (If the Catalyst has decided that synthetics always rise up against their creators, why haven't the Reapers yet turned on the Catalyst, who claims to have created them and be in control of them?) I thought it gave the player a thoroughly world-changing choice to make, and I love it when games do that.

However. I am right now going to say I thought my ending of choice - synthesis - was the only one that made any flipping sense to me.

This is how I see it. Control: no brainer here. I've spent over 40 hours of game time telling the Illusive Man that controlling the Reapers is a Really Bad Idea. So why the hell would I change my mind in the last five minutes of the game? Yeah, I wouldn't. Unless my Shepard is completely crazy and changes her mind every five minutes throughout the game. Which mine doesn't. So control, not going to happen.

Destroy: Possible. Destroying the Reapers solves the immediate problem of the Reapers killing everybody. But then of course you have the Catalyst, who has already said if the Reapers stop being a solution, he will have to come up with a new solution. The words "new solution" sound an awful lot like "I'll build new Reapers that are bigger, stronger, and scarier that you won't ever have a hope in hell of defeating". If you look at it that way, defeating the Reapers kind of only delays the inevitable. (Unless of course I have this wrong, but I'm not sure. Does the Catalyst cease to exist if the Reapers are destroyed? What happens to him anyway?)

That leaves synthesis. Ideal solution: stops need for Reapers. Makes every organic part synthetic, and every synthetic part organic. Yes, there will be some truly scary complications from this one. Yes, there are no doubt some nasty consequences that they couldn't possibly predict. But at least they won't have some synthetic overlord liquifying them every 50,000 years, right?

I have more to say, but I think I will have to do another post tomorrow to finish my thoughts.