They Myst series? The Journeyman Project trilogy is where it's at!
The Legacy of Time was top notch when it comes to 90s adventure games with pre-rendered graphics. Even the walking was visualized! The Story was interesting! Science Fantasy at it's best! (Mass Effect is also science fantasy, because "mass effect fields" are a fantasy technology) And I liked Aurthur. He was funny. They also did a good job with visualizing Atlantis, El Dorado, and Shangri-La. They were realistic portrayals without things over exaggerated or supernatural.
Mass Effect 3's ending was all wrong. This is what I think should have happened:
The race that built the reapers built the Catalyst as a fail safe. It's a lost artifact that contains a signal which destroys the reapers (who don't know about the catalyst). Unfortunately, that race never got to use it, and it has been lost in time. Other races long ago only had a little information on the catalyst's location and how to build the crucible around it.
Over many cycles of reaper destruction, this information would grow and be passed down, and a design for the crucible would develop with the hope that the Reapers would some day be destroyed.
The Protheans finally finish the design of the Crucible. They
almost have the location of the catalyst, but they run out of time. They never get to start construction on the Crucible, and never get to finish looking for the Catalyst artifact.
Now, in ME3, we discover the plans for the Crucible. Eventually, we find the the Prothean VI, which would give Shepard the information that they had on what the Catalyst is and where it might be. It's up to Shepard to finish the search all these races started.
The goal would be to find the catalyst, and bring it to the crucible, which would be a device that amplifies the catalyst's reaper-destroying signal, and connects a mass relay, distributing the signal all over the galaxy and killing the Reapers once and for all.
As for the Mass Relays- they were built by a race older than the race which created the reapers. They are unrelated to the Reapers. The race who built the Reapers (and the Catalyst) took advantage of the Mass Relays. Nobody would want to destroy them since there would be no way to go anywhere.
The final battle should have been a matter of defending the Crucible on a journey from it's construction site to the nearest mass relay. The Reapers figure out where the Crucible is right around the time you find the Catalyst (coincidentally), and are on a course towards the fleets guarding the crucible. The Normandy races them to get there with the Catalyst in its cargo bay. Whether or not you can get the catalyst plugged into the crucible in time is what determines whether Shepard defeats the reapers or not.
In a successful scenario, Shepard attaches the catalyst to the Crucible in the nick of time, and almost instantly, the reapers overload themselves with energy and explode.
The end! No more cycles, everyone else becomes friends, and that's all, folks!
The second possible ending should have been Shepard failing to deliver the catalyst in time, and then the reapers destroying everyone.
The end. You failed.
How much military strength and support you can gather will determine how easy it is to get back to the crucible, and how well the crucible will be defended from the Reapers. The catalyst should be located on the other side of the galaxy from the construction site of the crucible, adding to the challenge of getting back there. Some of the relays would be under Reaper control, and you have to figure out the path you're going to take to reach the crucible safely.
Where would Cerberus fit in? Well, they would be an annoyance, and would have some stupid plan to try to control the reapers using other methods (which won't work). Kind of like what actually happened in the game.
All of that would have been great! Instead, we got crap about order and chaos. A stupid, confused, and most of all,
depressing ending which half the fans think isn't even real in the first place (the indoctrination theory). We had to deal with stupid theories about how organic and synthetic life will never be able to work together, even after you befriend the Geth and they help you attack the Reapers. So much for that theory. It seemed like in the end, everyone was best pals with the Geth, united under a common enemy. Besides, If the indoctrination theory was right, and the last parts were in Shepard's mind, then we would never even get to use the crucible anyway! Why bother? The whole ending is disappointing no matter how you look at it.
Thanks a lot, Bioware! (sarcasm) You tried to be too original and it backfired, created a terrible ending.
Who likes
my idea for the ending, BTW?