Nail the ending, or don't even bother starting...

[WARNING: Here be spoilers for Mass Effect 3. And Assassin's Creed 3. Oh, and the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, as well.]

Hmm, now there's an interesting question. I was having a nice long conversation with someone today, all about why the ending of Mass Effect 3 was such a colossal bag of donkey doings, and said person asked a question about whether a bad ending can really ruin all the good stuff that came before, when the entire experience up to that point had been good.

My immediate was a big fat yes, but it raised a rather intriguing question: why? How come the ending has such enormous power over a story, and thus, how is it possible that a bad ending can ruin everything that's gone before?

Might it be something about how we, as humans, are hardwired that makes the ending of the story the single most important bit of the whole enterprise?

On bad (as in REALLY bad) video game writing...

Well, there you have it, folks. After a year of hoping for some glimmer of light, or the possibility of an ending that doesn't destroy the narrative of all three games, the final DLC for Mass Effect 3 has been released, and to quote the ever brilliant Top Gear, "It's not gone well."

Now, I'll say right away that this blog post is going to include spoilers for that new DLC, called simply 'Citadel'. And so, therefore, I'm going to make sure I only put in spoilers after the break; only click through and read it if you've played the Citadel DLC, or if you don't mind being spoiled, or if you're so jaded with the Mass Effect 3 debacle that you don't care...