#also you have to replay me1 3 times which

[nellasbookplanet]

I know I'm about a decade late but I've been replaying the Mass Effect trilogy for the first time since I was a teenager and I'm going absolutely bonkers trying to figure out if the endings are actively and stupidly working against the core themes of all three games, or if they actually thematically work but in the bleakest way imaginable.

All three endings are the embodiment of what we've been fighting literally from the start. In ME1 Saren thinks the Reapers cannot be defeated and so strives for Synthesis, thinking it will save us but not realizing he's already been indoctrinated and has basically willingly turned himself into a husk by the end. In ME2 & 3 the Illusive Man thinks destroying the Reapers would be a waste and that we should instead control both their technology and them as a species, ignoring that this is not only a heinous thing to do but also incredibly arrogant, seeing as anyone poking at Reaper technology gets indoctrinated. Both Synthesis and Control are actively argued against by the very narrative. That in combination with Destroy being the only ending in which Shepard survives, it’s no wonder many fans seem to consider it the only "true" ending (and it’s also not very surprising the indoctrination theory got so popular).

But Destroy comes with its own issues. Aside from the ethical implications of only being able to win by committing genocide against your own allies (synthetics in general, geth and EDI in particular), like with the other two it seems to be actively argued against throughout the narrative.

You are the strongest at the end by striving for cooperation throughout the games, showing time and again that destruction isn't necessary. You save the krogan from extinction, stop the geth and the quarians from wiping each other out. From Javik we find out that the strength of this cycle compared to his is the diversity and cooperation between alien species; from the Leviathan DLC as well as the history of the geth and of EDI we find that synthetics are only violent by mirroring their creators, and can be peaceful just as much as organics. And yet here is an ending arguing for completely wiping out all synthetics.

Assuming the writers were not actually trying to work against their own themes, this makes all three endings incredibly bleak. With the constant emphasis on making hard choices throughout the trilogy, is the point that there is no way to achieve a truly "good" ending? That you'll have to compromize your morals or your allies or both to stop extinction? That Saren or the Illusive Man's solutions could have worked had they not been corrupted, similarly to how synthetic implants (a step toward synthesis) did not automatically corrupt Shepard (with Kai Leng as a foil of cybernetic implants instead leading to indoctrination), or reaper code upgrades didn’t automatically corrupt EDI or the geth?

But if so, why are all endings presented as... happy? Why is Synthesis lifted as the epitome of evolution and peace while never touching the sacrifice of agency in the name of survival? Why does Control lift the "power in control" and "wisdom of harnessing the strength of your enemy" while ignoring the ethical implications of basically indoctrinating and enslaving the reapers in turn? Why does neither of these endings lift the risk of them turning sour the way they did for Saren and the Illusive Man? Why does Destory lift victory and rebuilding while ignoring the literal genocide that took place to allow for it? None of these are presented as bittersweet endings in which morals had to be sacrificed in the name of survival and a better future, but they also work against the themes in such an obvious way that I refuse to believe the writers didn’t notice. There must be more to it.

[stormikins]

Mass Effect Trilogy Tag

tagged by @nowandthane thank you!! Warning I ramble a bit in this lol

I am a fan since: 2017, I got it for Christmas in 2016 so I always just say '17

Favorite Game of the series: By virtue of simply replaying it the most, three. I really love the combat in it so I've played it near thirty times? But all time fave would have to 1 because of the aesthetic, tone, and story. There's something about first discovering a world which is what me1 is about.

MShep or Femshep? Gotta go with Femshep. I have played both, its just hard to capture the male shepard image I have in my head in the character creator so Femshep it is.

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer: earthborn! My main Shepard Jenn is earthborn so that's what I'm going with. Though, I have numerous Shepard's are various background combinations. I have feelings about each background trust me

Biotics or tech: Both! Though I really do love biotics, you can do some cool stuff with them, setting up and detonating both biotic and tech explosions.

Paragon or Renegade: I have to repeat what nowandthane said, paragon choices, renegade dialogue.

Favorite Class: Sentinel. I love the versatility of the class, but I do have an affection for Infiltrator because that's what got me through me2 on insanity.

Favorite Companion: Tali. By story value, Javik. He's like one of the most important characters

Least Favorite Companion: Javik, throw your attitude out the airlock. IM JOKING! (he has every reason to be like he is. I love him very much) Liara is my answer though only because I don't like some of the story choices the devs did with her. (ex: why does she have Shepard's armor in a display case when i didn't even romance her??? I can't mention this at all??)

My squad selection: For Jenn's playthrough: Wrex/Tali in me1. Garrus/Mordin/Miranda generally in me2. Thane and Miranda/Samara for the collector base. Kaidan/Javik/James in me3. Of course, I mix it up based on story aspects and the difficulty settings. But me3 is pretty fixed bc I always play on insanity.

Favorite in-game Romance: Tali and Garrus. I'm a sucker for awkward, wet cat of a man like Garrus is. But Tali's romance man.... her parting line to Shepard during the beam run "I have a home" makes me insane actually

Other pairings I like: Obligatory Nihlus/Shepard/Kal (and the duos within in this throuple) mention here. Other than that, Joker/Miranda and Joker/James, Ashley/Garrus, and Shepard/Wrex, I could list a whole lot so I'll keep it to those ships lol

Favorite NPC: Nihlus and Kal'Reegar for sure. Victus and of course Niftu Cal our favorite biotic god.

Favorite Antagonist: Saren. He's the best one that we get in all three games (Harby could have been number one if they did anything with him in three but that's a rant for another time lmao)

Favorite Mission: Haestrom/Tali's Loyalty mission because that's when I get to see Kal <3 and blow up a colossus with the Cain. Also, the Collector Ship mission I have to mention because it's frankly the only mission besides the two previously stated where I've loaded up the save to play it on insanity when I'm bored. It's fun. Of course, this is with the Infiltrator.

Favorite Loyalty Mission: Tali for numerous reasons. Kal mention here. But I love the insight into Quarian culture we get. Also we see that fire in her when she's talking to the Board which I always appreciate. Along with her dialogue at the end, "I got better, Shepard. I got you." and then on the ship afterwards, "I don't think life is about what we deserve." I love her so much.

Favorite DLC: Leviathan. Only because of the horror aspect.

Control, Sythesis, or Destroy? Destroy. I have so many issues with the ending and that's the least worst option in my opinion so. (I too ignore that it wipes out the Geth and Edi fuck that)

Favorite Weapon: The M-90 Cain or the M-99 Saber aka the "Big Iron". Lancer in three was my favorite weapon before I found the Saber. Special mention to my bud the Mattock, I have been convinced of its glory. I do not think the Harrier is better anymore lol which my brother would be happy to hear

Favorite Place: me1 Citadel my BELOVED.

A quote I like Quotes I Like: The ENTIRETY of Sovereign's dialogue on Virmire GOD ITS SO GOOD!!!! / "Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer." / "Does this unit have a soul?" / "Just followed your example, Shepard. Yell loud enough and eventually someone will come over to see what all the fuss is about." / "I won't let fear compromise who I am." / "I MADE A MISTAKE!" / "Help me out here, Shepard. The line between friend and foe is getting a little blurry from where I stand." / There are so many great quotes in these games I could go on and on but I'll stop myself

No pressure tags: @spacebunshep @jtownnn

[annakie]

Finally started my new Shepard, who I named Indyara after my currently-favorite TTRPG character.  Not a lot of analogues between the two characters.  I just like the name.

I’ve been stewing what I wanted to do with a new character for awhile now. Again, in the interest in doing things and seeing content normally you wouldn’t see in a typical paragon everybody lives game, and using some mods.  I made a post about some of it like a year ago but this is what I decided for her in the end:

1. In general, going to skip a lot of quests that have little to no impact on later games, or to ensure someone dies in ME2.  Also going to be treading that line between Renegade and Complete Asshole most of the time. I already got Ashley mad at me for not always being nice to her during Eden Prime, but smoothed the situation out, then ended the conversation with a barb.  I know most of the dialog to avoid in order to not look like a psychopath, but she’s also not going to take any bullshit.

2. Low-Garrus playthrough.  I love Garrus and all, but would like to experience a playthrough where he’s not forced to be your best buddy no matter what.  Not going to recruit him in ME1.  Will wait as long as possible to pick him up in ME2, including using mods that let you do recruitment missions in different orders.  No loyalty mission so he’ll die during the suicide mission probably leading the fire team.  I’m sorry, but there absolutely is a Shepard without Vakarian, Shepard can save the galaxy just fine without him, especially for Indyara here.

3. Save Mordin.  This will mean Wrex dies in ME1, sorry buddy, but Mordin must live.  Sabotage genophage, convince Mordin to go into hiding.  Likely going to let Ashley kill Wrex on Virmire.

4. Tali also dies in ME2.   Would like to see Ran’s expanded role in ME3, and this also will mean saving the Geth over the Quarians whereas I’ve always in every playthrough otherwise made peace between the two.  Probably going to skip her loyalty and send her to the vents.

5. Romance No one –> Thane –> Joker.�� Have never done a Thane romance and have always wanted to.  And now I really want to do @hatboyproject‘s Joker Romance Mod so this is the TIME.  It’ll be awhile til I get to LE3 with the speed I’ve been gaming so hopefully it’ll be out for LE3 by then.   I may still do a Thane Lives mod option if I can do that while romancing Joker.  I’ll have to check when it’s time.  But if Hatboy is still not an option when I make it to LE3, it’ll be Samantha, instead and I’ll either replay LE3 with Indyara later for Hatoby or make a new LE3-only Shepard.

6. Virmire Savior mod for all 3 games! Gonna save both Ashley and Kaidan.  I’m not normally going to use this mod in my games because it prioritizes Ashley, like on Horizon, and obviously in my canon-Kaidanmance-faithful run I want to maximize Kaidan content.  But I am VERY excited to use it this time!  In order to make myself not romance Kaidan even in ME1, I specifically made a Shepard that kinda looks like Kaidan, and I am going to headcanon that they found out that they’re like, cousins.  My Shepard is Earthborn for even easier headcanoning.  She really likes Kaidan, and they’re going to remain close but... just friends. Thanks Optional Flirting mods (And I think it’s the Same Gender mod in LE1 that fixes the issues) for making it easier to avoid the accidental romance.

6. Class wise, Infiltrator, which I’ve never done before.  Plus, you know, Garrus is one so normally, why bother?  So this is my chance to finally play one.

7. Probably screw up a few other things, like pick Morinth over Samara, delay going to pick up Jack in ME3 so she gets reaperized just because I’ve never done those things before.  Probably won’t let other characters die who don’t need to when letting them die does nothing but just have less content in future games instead of different content.  I don’t care to have a near-empty & depressing Citadel party, after all.  Just experience most of the rest of the little things I’ve been interested in that I’ve never gotten around to because of playing my canon Shep time and time again instead.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3 replay, N7: Communications Hub:

-At least this one has a better excuse than most. The hub is critical to the war effort and it’s time sensitive.

I still feel Hackett could have assigned another group to it.

-Par for the course, this is just another battle royale with nothing to make it stand out.

-I feel the game could have done more with Grace Sato.

Depending on your performance, she should have lived or died and that would have impacted your war assets.

Maybe if you insisted that she tell you the third location she died, and if you figured it out on your own (or deactivated it through a different means) she lived.

For an extra umph keeping her alive would give you fewer war assets than letting her die.

-Side note: Apparently Grace Seto can die? Does anyone know what causes it? I saw in a Reddit post that she can die, but no one knew what caused the difference. It may happen if you don’t help Steve move on from his husband’s death.

Normandy

-Liara tells Joker refugees from Tiptree are landing on salarian colonies. Mostly children.

We really need to be able to Joker his sister is most likely dead.

-Walked in on Garrus and Tali talking.

Garrus is so bad with women. At least this time he recovered faster.

Silversun

-Considering in ME1 renegade was often racist, it’s interesting that when picking the winner for the James and Vega meetup that renegade is the asari team and paragon is the human team.

And I love that James and Vega were betting on if Shepard picked the winner instead of which team would win.

-I like that Samara’s meeting goes very differently depending on if you go paragon or renegade.

The observation game you play as a renegade could be fun with the right company.

-Traynor: My body is just this inconvenient thing I use to carry my mind around.

Me too, Samara.

-I like the touch where despite medical technology existing, not everyone has access to it.

So Samara is stuck with a bunch of allergies despite the fact they could be cured.

Odd that the Alliance didn’t fix them for her, though.

-Kahlee Sanders has massage wands at Anderson’s apartment.

Of course she does.

-Odd that Samantha didn’t learn sucrocapsunol is a sugar pill when she was searching for it.

Did she not Google it? What, did she just go directly to pharmacy inventories and search for it there?

I’m sure if she had asked a pharmacist what she could use as a substitute they would have told her…

-Nice touch that the trophy Samantha brings over is on display in the apartment after she leaves.

-Joker is so full of bullshit.

Good storyteller, though.

Joker, just tell people about how you were the one to take out Sovereign. That will impress them.

-Nice attempt on Bioware’s part to make the kids with Jacob appear younger by giving one of them purple hair, but they still look like adults.

-Jacob’s meetup is fairly meh, but at least it’s not bad. Promising sign of how he’ll be as a father, at least.

-In Grunt’s meetup, the noodle shop sign’s krogan mascot is adorable.

I also like the digital trees in the background.

-Grunt’s meetup is hilarious.

The paragon options are better than the renegade.

[proserpine-in-phases]

The conflict between wanting to use my skill points as effectively as possible which means not using any on charm or intimidate, versus my desire to never fail a mission

[that-wildwolf]

Mass Effect Trilogy tag game

Tagged by @whiskynorocks

I am a fan since… 2020. When the quarantine hit, I decided to finally play all the video games I’ve heard about but haven’t played before: Gears of War, Mass Effect, Fable, Borderlands... Okay, I didn’t get into all of them, but some were good.

Favorite game of the series: [CONTROVERSIAL] 3. When you take away the ending, it’s a solid game with a lot of cute and funny moments between the crew. There’s no more weird randos like in ME2, just a slightly modified crew of my best friends from 1. Everyone is friends and I finally have the romance I want.

MaleShep or FemShep? Femshep. My first playthrough was as M!Shep, but then I googled Garrus and the second I read about the romance I yeeted myself to replay everything as Femshep... Hadn’t expected to fall in love with her so much. Jennifer Hale really gave a 11/10 performance there.

Earthborn, Colonist or Spacer? Spacer.

Paragon or Renegade? Paragon

Biotics or Tech? Tech all the way!

Favorite class: Infiltrator. I always play as a sniper, in every game with class choices. (Why yes, I am an archer is Skyrim, how did you know?)

Favorite companion: Garrus, but that’s kind of obvious. I also have a strong love for Ashley, Tali, Legion, and Grunt. And Wrex. And Jack. Okay, I love everyone. All of them. Even the ones I love the least I still love.

Least favorite companion: Kaidan, because I literally not once had a playthrough where he survives. I have literally 0 emotional attachment to him. If I had to choose from characters I do know, I guess maybe Vega. You know, new guy.

My squad selection: Garrus+Ashley for ME1, Garrus+whoever’s loyalty mission it is for 2, Legion+Grunt for Collector Base, Garrus+Ashley for ME3 because bless ME3 for giving me back my OG dream team

Favorite in-game romance: Have you seen my blog?

Other pairings I like: Tali/Reegar, Liara/Javik, Nihlus/Saren. Yes I copied this from @whiskynorocks but they got it 100% right.

Favorite NPC: Lorik Qui’in, by a loooooong shot. Anderson, Nihlus, Victus.

Favorite antagonist: Saren! Fuck, I love Saren so much, he was genuinely one of the coolest villains ever

Favorite mission: Hey what the fuck, I don’t even remember which 

Favorite loyalty mission: Uhhhhh I have no clue, they’re all so good. Probably Tali’s, I get to play detective. Samara’s is also great. For the same reason.

Favorite DLC: Citadel, obviously. Garrus dragging Shepard to the danceflor by force is worth any price.

Control, Synthesis or Destroy? Lmao none, I pick Refuse every damn time. Breaks my heart, but then again so do all of those ridiculous choices and all of them are bad so in the end does it matter if we all know that the true ending was the Reapers all exploded and Shepard survived and the geth and the mass relays were not destroyed and everyone got married and retired and had a happy life right?????????

Favorite weapon: The Black Widow. Obviously.

Favorite place: I love the Citadel, especially in ME1. Like, that’s my home.

A quote I like: “I won’t let fear compromise who I am.” on par with “It's so easy to see the world in black and white. Gray? I don't know what to do with gray.”

I’m tagging: @evvi and @biasedsteam9 my beloved

[firelxdykatara]

I have never played a Mass Effect game in my life, but I’m pretty sure Liara is that blue girl with the weird tentacles on her head, right? Why do you dislike her (if you want to share that is, I don’t want to cause any unnecessary discourse)?

Yeah! Liara is the asari teammate from the original trilogy and one of the three original romance options, and the only one who has a mandatory presence in all three games--and she’s also the only character who is a mandatory crewmate in both the first and third game.

And it really, really shows.

I’ll be honest--the most of my resentment for Liara has nothing to do with the character herself. (Although I do have issues with her--most notably in ME3, where Priority: Thessia, the main plot mission set on her home planet, pisses me off every single time I play. To the point where, apparently, whenever I replay ME3 it pisses me off enough to pause the game and write a post about it lmfao. But I also hate things like Shepard [the player character] not being allowed to stay pissed off about the fact that Liara gave her dead body to fucking Cerberus [it’s a long story; you can get angry in the moment but it doesn’t affect their relationship and that has always bothered me], and how much Lair of the Shadowbroker [the massive DLC dedicated to Liara, which no other romance gets anything like] feels like it was written entirely with a Liara/Shepard romance in mind, and non-romantic lines were added as an afterthought..) My primary ire, though, stems from the fact that the trilogy is heavily, heavily Liara-focused, and the way she is pushed so fucking hard (and I’m not even talking about the fandom, which is bad enough, but the fact that it’s actively difficult not to romance her in ME1 chaps my ass to this day) by the games themselves, as if she is considered the ‘right’ love interest, really bothers me.

No other character in the series gets that kind of attention. No other romance interest has romantic scenes in all three games. No other romance interest has a mandatory presence in all three games, in fact. Liara is the only crewmate, and the only romantic interest, who is in all three games--and who can be romanced in all three games--with absolutely no option at any point to get rid of her.

The other two romance options in ME1, Kaidan Alenko and Ashley Williams, are colloquially termed ‘The Virmire Survivor’ if they survive the first game, because one of them dies on Virmire no matter what you do. Garrus and Tali, who are romance options in ME2 for female Shepard and male Shepard respectively, are not romanceable in the first game, and like every other crewmate in 2, they can be killed during the final mission. (Also, you don’t even have to recruit Tali if you don’t want to, since her recruitment mission is in the second batch and therefore optional since you only need eight total crewmates to advance the plot.)

The only mandatory crewmates in 3 are Liara, EDI, and James. Of those, only Liara is a romance option. (You can technically flirt with James, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.) The Virmire Survivor is only mandatory at the beginning of the game, and can be killed during one of the main plot missions halfway through--even if they survive, though, they can be sent to serve the council rather than returning to the Normandy, which cuts off their romance path. And while the Virmire Survivor does show up in ME2, they are angry and antagonistic (for good reasons, in fairness), and even on a romance path the most you get is a hug and their picture on Shepard’s desk, along with vague promises of ‘maybe when you’re not working with Cerberus anymore....’ in an apology e-mail.

Liara, as mentioned, gets an entire like... five mission long DLC, which feels like it was created with her romance path in mind, and even without the DLC, if you romanced Liara in ME1 she’ll kiss Shepard and she is a fixture on a planet who can be returned to and talked with at any point in the game. Non-romanced, her reasons for being unable to give up Shepard, to the point of giving them to Cerberus to be resurrected, come off as extremely creepy, and like....no one else in the game is allowed to even react about it. Like, jfc, if I were a romanced Kaidan/Ashley and found out what Liara did, I’d never trust her again. But no, it’s treated like a minor blip no matter what conversational options you choose, no one else gets to react, and Liara’s insane sense of entitlement to Shepard (especially if there was no romance) is never really addressed.

Then of course there’s the way the fandom fawns over her, as if she’s the Unquestioned Best Romance (she really isn’t), and it combines with the way the game pushes her so hard (like I said, it’s difficult to avoid romancing her in ME1, because if you keep talking to her there will come a point where what seems to be a normal investigative conversation option leads to Shepard saying they’re attracted to her no matter which option you choose; also, in the Genesis DLC, which plays at the beginning of 2 if you want to use it to make the decisions from 1 without importing a save, Shepard will talk about Liara as if they were romantically interested in her before you even get to the point of choosing who they romanced) to have just made increasingly me sick of Liara fucking T’Soni over the last several years.

So, yeah. When I saw her at the end of the trailer, my first reaction was a very loud ‘are you FUCKING kidding me???’ Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly excited, no matter what happens, but if Liara is a mandatory squadmate again--especially if it’s some centuries after the OG trilogy so every other character is dead and gone, which is the only reason I can somewhat justify her appearance since asari have such long lives--I am probably going to break something.

[ljandersen]

Mass Effect Tag

Thank you for tagging me @rpgwrites and @aricazorel

I’ll tag:   @ripley95 @alphahelices @pip-n-flinx @pigeontheoneandonly @soldiermom1973 @laelior @hollyem @jedirangerpenguin @spectrekaidanalenko @biglywolf @1esk19 and anyone else who wants to play!  No obligations, of course.  Also, if you’d rather I don’t tag you in games just let me know.  

I am a fan since:  2018

Favourite game of the series: Mass Effect 3 > Mass Effect 1 >>>>>>>> Mass Effect 2 (I have no desire to replay Mass Effect 2)

Mshep or Fshep? FemShep.  MShep doesn’t interest me whatsoever.  If femShep didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be fanatic about Mass Effect.

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer? Colonist

Biotics or Tech? Biotics

Paragon or Renegade? Paragon 

Favourite class: Vanguard.  I played as an adept, but after playing vanguard in MP, I’ve actually decided it’s my favorite class.  Biotic charge and nova are fun!

Favourite companion: Kaidan 

Least favourite companion: Legion, just because I forget he exists.

My squad selection:

ME1 Kaidan and Ashley

ME2 Garrus and [Someone, pretty even rotation]

ME3 Kaidan and Garrus/Liara (Next time I play, I’m actually going to use the “maximizing Kaidan dialogue” directions.  I had to replay a few scenes in my first playthrough.  When I swapped out Garrus, Kaidan actually started talking!  Why does Garrus talk to Anderson over Kaidan in the shuttle during the Battle of London? It seems like an Alliance conversation.  Strange.  It seems like Javik, James, and EDI might be a good second companion to increases chances of Kaidan getting the dialogue prompt.  From my experience,, Garrus and, to an extent, Liara tend to bump other companions in dialogue priority in ME-3)

Favourite in-game romance: Kaidan

Favourite NPC: Joker, Dr. Chakwas, or Anderson . . . I can’t decide!

Favourite Antagonist: I’m kinda meh about all of them.  TIM has potential but does too many irrational things that it undermines what I like about him, which is his intelligence and unconventional thinking.

Favourite loyalty mission:  None of them stand out to me.

Favourite mission:  Ardat-Yakshi temple or Leviathan.

Favourite DLC: Citadel 

Control, Synthesis or Destroy: Destroy.  Control seems like a set up for abuse.  I don’t like that synthesis forces change on every living thing.  One person decides to change the foundation of who you are, whether you like it or not.  Some people might rather lose the war than their identity.

Favourite weapon: I usually forgot I was carrying a weapon.

Favourite place: Vancouver, because it’s an emotional opening to ME-3. Plus, it’s Kaidan’s hometown which brings it forward in a lot of fanfic.

Favourite Quote:

“I’ll relinquish one bullet.  Where do you want it?” -- Renegade Shepard ME-1

[maskydoolovesmasseffect]

Mass Effect Tag

Wellio, I’ve been tagged by @berryshiara. Passing this on to @grummel83

Gunna answer my questions now. Y’all feel free to tell me what you think of these answers. ​

I’m a fan since: 2008. I was just out of high school and still not over KoTOR. I was fresh in the army and got to talking to some other dude fresh to the army about video games. He asked me if I played Mass Effect. I said no. By the next day I just about totally forgot about him, then he suddenly appeared out of nowhere sat in front of me in the chow hall and pulled a copy of ME1 for Xbox 360 out his pocket like he was a magician doing a magic trick (ACU pockets are huge.)

Anyway turns out that guy was a romance option and I must have picked the right dialogue options. I’m still with him, too.

Favorite game of the series:

Mass Effect 2. It seemed like that’s the one where choices mattered most and you really got to know your squaddies. Also MAJOR gameplay improvements over the first game. And that game gave me the most freedom to do basically whatever I wanted and wasnt afraid to give me consequences for it.

MShep or FShep:

FShep. Nothing against MShep, but for me the real Shep is FShep. Can’t beat Jennifer Hale’s voice. 

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer:

Colonist. I like having the background of knowing just how dangerous the galaxy can be and how the Alliance can’t be everywhere at once so sometimes you need to manage your best on your own.

Biotics or Tech:

Both.

Paragon or Renegade:

Paragon, mostly. I tried being renegade but some of the actions are just so pointlessly dickish, or even outright unhinged in a way that would make it impossible to believe the Alliance would ever promote Shepard as an officer or even keep her in the Alliance at all, especially in the first game.

That said, there are times where a renegade action is more expedient and practical than a paragon one, like in 2 when you stab a dude in the back to prevent him from repairing an enemy gunship, so even with a paragon playthrough, my Shepard will have no issues taking that opportunity. She’s already seconds away from betraying all those guys anyway.  

Paragon in treatment of others, renegade in combat pragmatism.

Favorite Class:

I play as infiltrator and vanguard.

Infiltrator is great for using a sniping and opening loot, and then for going invisible, and if I remember right AI hacking too. That’s cool and I wish there were more genuine opportunities for stealth.

Nowadays I play as Vanguard in my playthroughs mainly just so my Shepard can be canonically biotic for story reasons. From 2 on when looting no longer needs a special skill and I get to charge around the map. I don’t really care much about using biotics (that’s what the squadies are for) but the movement is super useful (when Shepard actually does the thing instead of just standing out in the open soaking up bullets until the ability decides to actually work.)

Favorite Companion:

Garrus. I like to set him up in sniper positions. When he actually STAYS where I put him instead of running straight up to enemies to try to snipe them at point blank, he’s great.

Also his quips in 2 on are pretty entertaining.

Least Favorite Companion:

Garrus, Oh my god. Go back to the sniper position where I put you. Leave tanking to krogan; you do not have the HP for this.

Also Kaidan in ME1. He can not shoot to save his life - literally.  

My Squad Selection:

For all ME1 playthroughs after my first one, Ashley and Kaidan, just of their comments and because... well... I only have so much time with them.

Apart from that I mainly just pick my team based on who’s likely to have the most interesting commentary on whatever the mission happens to be, squad balance be damned. 

Favorite In-Game Romance:

Garrus X Shepard is my favorite love story. They are just so adorable together and always supportive even when they disagree.

But my cannon romance is Kaidan X Shepard for the drama and angst.

Favorite NPC:

In ME1 there’s this random Turian on Noveria who randomly has like a New York accent and I absolutely adore him. He plays basically no part in the story other than some minor information but he’s just so pleasant to speak to.

“If you need anything, I’ll be here.”

Favorite Antagonist:

Morinth, the Ardat-Yakshi daughter of Samara. Yes, she’s a murderous vampire who will absolutely kill you given the chance... but like, it’s a medical condition. And I really can’t help but feel for ardat-yakshi in general when their only options are to spend their whole lives on the run from justicars out to execute them, or waste their entire 1000 year lifespan imprisoned in a monetary unable to experience the world at all. Yeah, Morinth is evil, but Ardat-Yakshi don’t exactly have a good deal.

Favorite Loyalty Mission:

Grunt’s loyalty mission is the best. I get to help my baby boy, reunite with Wrex, enjoy krogan society being fleshed out, have a kickass battle against a thresher maw, and get a breeding request. It’s nice to have a quest that isn’t about family drama and genuinely gets a happy end.

Favorite Mission:

Despite Citadel DLC requiring everyone to have a deathgrip on an idiot ball, and also basically gloss over some really dark stuff, the whole clone storyline with the whole crew is an absolute ride all the way though, with lots of interesting and unique scenarios, a ton of replay-value, and funny party banter that feels like it came straight out of a Marvel movie.

Favorite DLC:

Again, Citadel DLC. Not only did it come with the story above, it also had all those interactions with past and present crewmates, including a memorial for Thane (finally!), a cool apartment to hang out in, a party, an arcade, and an awesome battle arena. It really added a TON. Also, it’s nice to see Bioware figure out that DLC needs characters - I’m remembering back in the DLC to ME 1 the party never had a single thing to say, no matter what was going on. The fun and wacky Citadel DLC is a far cry from the serious and somewhat dark space opera Mass Effect started as, but as the final DLC capping off the end of the series, it gets to do a silly victory lap (and get the taste of the ending out of our mouths.)

Control, Synthesis, Or Destroy:

No.

Favorite Weapon:

Sniper rifles, whatever I have that’s fast and has high damage output. Also that one pistol that shoots tiny energy grenades. Pew pew.

Yeah I wasn’t really big into the weapons so much. I’m here to get my story on. 

Favorite Place:

The presidium on the Citadel. It bothered me a lot when I couldn’t explore it in the second game. I know it would have been terribly impractical, but as the presidium is just a huge ring, it would have been cool to be able to explore the whole thing, going past all the little park areas, shops, monuments and so on until you loop aaaaall the way back around to where you started. Like, how cool would it be if the ring had a running track? Maybe C-sec  academy trainees would be spotted jogging together along it in formation. And can you imagine grabbing a coffee (I was going to make up a space-related name for Starbucks but it’s already STARbucks...) and taking a nice stroll along the water before finding a nice bench to alien-watch from? Other locations in the game are like great places to explore and do gameplay stuff, but the presidium seems like a nice place to just be.

Favorite Quote:

"Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer." - Javik.

This is such a fucking raw damn line. It makes me think a lot about Cerberus. When ME3 wasn’t out yet, I thought maybe the plan was Shepard would at some point choose a side, Alliance for paragons and Cerberus for renegades. It would have been so cool to have morality not merely be good vs evil, but idealism vs that ruthless calculus Garrus mentioned. How fucking raw would it be if Cerberus wasn’t just generically evil for no reason and suddenly indoctrinated but really were embodying that ruthless calculus, determined to defeat the reapers at any and all cost. Maybe Cerberus actions’ were more likely to do terrible things for the sake of ultimate victory, doing whatever it took, whereas the Alliance would be less willing to make the terrible choices and ultimately be less likely to succeed.

Now obviously, that’s not what happened, as it would have required Bioware to basically make two entirely separate games. But that line from Javik makes me think of that concept, and a universe where like Dragon Age party members can approve or disapprove of actions not merely as good or evil but along the lines of their personal values. I think Javik would sit at victory at all cost.

Also that one mission in 2 where some random NPC catches Shepard sneaking around and is all like ‘what are you doing here?’ and Shepard is like ‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Get out here before it blows!’ and the guy’s freaking out like WTF and she says ‘RUN!’ then laughs to herself as he flees from an imaginary bomb. Shep you troll. 

The thing I like the least about the entire franchise:

The misogyny and objectification that crept its way in, epically from the second game on. Really didn’t like those ass-shot camera angles, or female characters being slut-shamed in-universe for the clothes the designers made them wear. Yikes. 

But the biggest yikes for me in that regard is actually the reveal in 3 that the prothians guided asari development. That was fine and all, but the part that bothered me was the characters commenting “ooooh, so that’s why asari are so advanced,” as it was ever any kind of mystery before that exact moment. For one thing, asari aren’t really shown as being more advanced than anyone else, apart from having discovered the citadel first, and for second, why wouldn’t asari be advanced? All the way from ME1 it’s established that 1: Asari live for a really long time, and 2: can instant transmit information directly from brain to brain. That means they have long lifetime in which to accumulate knowledge and experience, and also can easily spread and preserve that knowledge without even the need for books. That ALONE should put them ahead. And even with all that, they only barely beat the salarians to discovering the Citadel first. But no one asks for an explanation for why salarians, who live only a few decades and can’t do mental data-transfer, are so advanced. No, only the success of the all-women race needs explaining. It was just one moment but it still bugs me. 

Also the general loss of realism after the second game. First game everyone gets armor, including full-face helmets automatically on in environments that need it. After that, people can apparently just wander the battlefield half-naked and even somehow survive in a total vacuum if they just put a plastic cup (that isn’t even connected to anything) over their mouth and nose. In the first game they at least made up some reasonable-sounding science fiction explanation for things, but after that it’s like F-it everything is just space magic now. 

Oh, and those repetitive unlocking stuff minigames. I use a mod to just skip those. 

[ejunkiet]

mass effect tag game~

thank you for the tags @forestcreatures @mordinette @weakzen

tagging - you, reading this (seriously, anyone else who wants to do this & hasn’t already!)

I’ve Been a Fan Since: 2012! I was doing a lab stint (internship) working with these critters, and my friend working with me was waiting for the extended cut / had just gotten the extended cut, and after a month (of two), he convinced me to pick up a second-hand xbox 360 to play the series.

(also, an author I’d been following for years had also written this fic, and the double whammy of recommendations was the perfect storm >:D)

Favorite Game of the Series: hmmMM. I loved Mass Effect 2 (the impact of that opening sequence, coming straight after the first game? god.) But ME3, with that sense of urgency and impending doom, the character moments, has to top (but let’s just ignore the last ten minutes).

Mshep or Fshep: Fshep all the way~!

Earthborn, Colonist, Spacer: Spacer! (those final conversations with your mom before the crucible...)

Biotics or Tech: >:3 Biotics! (always paired myself with another biotic to blow shit up)

Paragon or Renegade: Paragade! (polite until you get punched in the face)

Favorite Class: VANGUARD. I also liked Infiltrator (my renegade shep playthrough~ sniping is fun)

also, oh god, this got long. uh, continues under the cut.

Favorite Companion: Garrus! (just. hands down.)

Least Favorite Companion: Ashley. It’s not on her really, although I never really identified with the character - but first time playing Mass Effect, I messed up the conversation with Wrex, and Ashley took him down. I was so close to making him see reason...

My Squad Selection: all three games, Garrus. ME1: Wrex (!!), Kaidan/Liara. ME2: hmmm... Grunt, Legion? ME3: Javik (dark channel!!), Kaidan/Liara, James I think !

Favorite In-Game Romance: started off ME with Kaidan (by accident asfdsa), but then kicked off the Garrus romance in ME2..... best friends to lovers with a sprinkle of BAMF on top? Hands down, my ultimate OTP I think. My phone background for at least five years. (Zen, you have to let me know what you think of the romance, oh my god.)

(also, those moments in ME3? there are too many to name, but they were always so soft and comforting in the middle of a space war. plus, turian tango.)

Favorite NPC: Space dad!! Anderson! Break my heart into a million pieces why don’t you! but also, there is a conversation between a turian at the docks(??) in ME3 and an orphaned spacer girl which never fails to break my heart. I love them too.

Favorite Antagonist: hmmmMM. Saren? Is that cheating? (wish we had more time with Nihlus so we could see more of that dynamic!)

Favorite Loyalty Mission: there were so many good ones, oh my god. For now... Legion?

Favorite Mission: so many!!! Maybe... Horizon? And that first mission, after you wake up in ME2, where you’re getting your bearings and learning about the threat. I loved the sense of mystery and creepiness that came with the collectors, and I’ve replayed ME2 many times.

...I just remembered that moment at the end of ME2, where you play as Joker after the Collectors storm the ship, and that was amazing.

Favorite DLC: CITADEL, hands down!! the BANTER, the mission!! (the heartfelt good byes ;m;) SO fun to play as well! Although I loved the dlc where you could try different game modes, i.e. investigate (there were some in ME2 and ME3!)

Control, Synthesis, Destroy: tried them all, to varying levels of frustration - Destroy ONLY.

Favorite Weapons: always travelled light as a vanguard for shorter recharge times, so locust SMG was my main! >:3 Also had a favourite sniper rifle.... cannot remember it now though ;___;

Favorite Place: hmmMM!! Does Omega count? Also, basically any location in ME3 that was used in multiplayer (I made so many different characters...)

Favorite Quotes: fajfsdsh so many.

Garrus: Come back alive. It’d be an awfully empty galaxy without you.

Shepard: ...that's a straw, Tali. Tali: Emerrrrrgency. Induction. Port.

[Citadel dlc, i may have googled this, but so good- ]

Shepard: She messed with my hamster guys... this is personal.

Drunk Tali: Garrus? But you're with Shepard! Oh... the three of us? Well... hmmm....

[trutown-the-bard]

Why Did Bioware Force you to work with Cerberus?

So I’ve been replaying the Mass Effect games before the remasters come out and I reread the Final Hours of Mass Effect 3. Working with the terrorist organization Cerberus always bothered me and I always wondered why they went in that direction. Here is what I can figure:

My impression while playing ME2 was that the new writing team actually wanted to have Shepard working for a teen/YA fiction-style “cool and edgy” organization (y’know: those underdogs who heroically Get Shit Done while the authorities are too busy being slow and petty). Cerberus was a ready-made, already-in-the-lore solution created by Mac Walters (who suddenly found himself in the head writer position after Drew Karpyshyn left to work on SWTOR when production on ME2 began), but had been inconveniently cast as a villain in the first game.

I think if Mac Walters had fully had his way, Cerberus would’ve been a 100% unambiguous cookie-cutter “chaotic good” organization in ME2, and the only reason they weren’t was because Walters was stuck with ME1 continuity he couldn’t just retcon away.

So he spent ME2 trying to do an awkward balancing act where he had to hard sell the “Cerebrus r edgy sekret heros!” thing to new players, while dropping the occasional tiny vague reference to their “old” villainy to (unsuccessfully) keep the returning players from being too weirded out.

I think this was probably the entire reason for both Shepard’s death/resurrection, and the Collectors as a new enemy. Shepard’s death was just a ham-fisted way to get him/her out of the Alliance and into Cerberus right at the start without having to write an actual character-based loyalty shift. The Collectors were an enemy that could be tied to the Reapers, but which could also be something covert and human-centric that the council could make a show of blowing off, setting up the “Cerberus has to Get Shit Done because the Alliance won’t” dynamic.

There’s some private enterprise vs. government political subtext to be had there, which was probably deliberate given the views that were common in the tech industry at the time. Unfortunately, Walter’s isn’t a clever enough writer to delve into those topics with any kind of detail.

It’s all dumb, but you can see why it happened. The only thing I can’t figure out is why Walters got so married to the Cerberus idea when there is another lore friendly organization that would have worked much better for his purposes in the Shadow Broker’s organization. Maybe Geoff Keighley should write another book where he asks some more relevant questions?

[ooachilliaoo]

Top 5 fics of 2020

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your five (ish) favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I was tagged by my very best friend @faith-less-one who did this here (go check out her fic list too!)

I’ll Tag: Whoever wants to! Show me all your fave fics 😊

 This year this was super easy for me because I’ve posted exactly 5 fics this year so yeah titles, links and explanations under the Read More!

Time Effect

So I think I actually wrote the first draft of this in 2019 and spent 2020 reworking a few bits and then passed it over to my dear @Faithless for her edit but regardless of when it was penned it was super fun to get this out there. I think I got the idea from just re-watching Dr Who while playing ME and realising that it’s super easy to combine the two because …time travel. I also thought it would be super fun to have the Doctor who clearly knows that the Reaper war is coming and everything Shepard will do meet an ME1 Shepard who has no idea what’s coming. I played around with which Doctor and companion to play with for awhile but I chose 10/Rose for three reasons:

1)     I personally found them the easiest to write.  

2)     10 is the most…anti-gun Doctor of all of modern Who and I really wanted to see how that would play with Shepard.

3)     The 10/Rose relationship is arguably the closest to a romantic one than any other Doctor and companion combination so I could draw all these yummy parallels between 10/Rose and Shepard/Alenko.

 Time Effect: Coda

So this I wrote concurrently with Time Effect and thank god for that. This one combines a whole bunch of my post-war headcannons and actually for me made an ending where Shepard dies a little more palatable. I think the idea came part way through writing Time Effect and I jumped between writing the two which is why Time Effect is all bants and fun and Coda is all of the sad. I adored the idea of this and the bits with Tali and in the museum flowed really easily but I had so much trouble with the Krogan scene. This is honestly why it took so long to complete like I wanted there to be a statue, I knew you had to see the Krogan flourishing but what shape that took eluded me for so long.

 Origins

So I didn’t think I’d have anything for N7 day 2020 (and OMG wasn’t N7 day the BEST?) but then this little thing popped into my head. It was mostly because I wanted to explore who Shepard and Kaidan were before they met and I’ve always thought of them as like this wonderful fire and ice combination so I wanted to have a parallel that was like from opposite ends of the spectrum. Picking Kaidan’s moment was easy because obviously the most defining moment of his pre-Normandy life is Jump Zero which in turn meant Shepard’s moment needed to be her succeeding. There was a while before I could think of something but then my playlist threw up ‘What’s up Danger’ from ‘Into the Spiderverse’ and I took inspo from that scene for Shepards moment.

 First Meeting

And here we see the first evidence of the hard right I took into Dragon Age world around oof…May? (This is why a lot of the WIP’s I’ve been writing for most of 2020 are DA based). I replayed DA:O for the first time in a long time and was harshly reminded of why it’s my favourite DA game (spoiler Alistair is a big part of why, but there are…other reasons I’m sure). I realised I’ve written hilariously few fics for this paring that I absolutely adore. So I started at the beginning with where they meet. This was stupid easy to write since it’s thoughts/headcannons I’ve had for literal years and I think it came out well.

 The Waltz

This one…this one was a challenge. I’d had the beginning for a while, and I knew that I wanted them to be waltzing in the woods during the blight but managing to convey the image in my head proved super difficult. It became even harder when I began referencing this moment in my muti-chapter WIP ‘In All But Name’. I referenced it twice in IABN at like…pretty significant moments so I needed this to be memorable and good. I got there in the end (I think) but Maker it was hard work. Mostly this is just a sweet little moment that became significant later. I believe the inspiration came partly from the dance sequence in the first season of The Umbrella Academy and from Alistair’s line at Ostagar about dancing the Remigold because to me that line means he knows the title of specific dances and therefore somehow, how to actually dance. I don’t know where or how he would have learned since…templar but also I don’t care :P.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part One

A lot of these posts are going to be just my impressions, things I love, cool things to point out, I don’t know.  Rambles about how much I love this game and everything about it.

To start off I’ll talk about my OC a little bit, and how I got into Mass Effect. Then we dive into the prologue.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

My OC

So we all have our Main OC Shepards. Mine is Annakie.

Annakie is a name from an MST3k episode that I have loved since the first time I saw it in the early 90′s.  I started using the name Annakie in IRC shortly thereafter, specifically in the SciFi channel’s IRC server, which used to be fairly active back in the day.  And by the day I literally mean circa 1995. They used to host some pretty cool, especially for 1995, events there, like authors and writers of their shows would come in and do Q&A’s, including Kevin, Mike and Bill from MST3k.  Kevin Murphy recognizing where my nick came from immediately was a moment of pride for me.

So I’ve basically always been Annakie online, even after knowing that it’s a real actual name some people have, I’ve still managed to snag it most places on the internet.  And most of the time when I play a new game, I start out playing Annakie, or one of two or three other names I regularly use sometimes.  But naming my first Shepard Annakie and having her look more or less like this every time I play is just... what I normally do.

Also I normally play goody two-shoes the first time I play through any game with moral decisions.  The first time I played through Mass Effect, though, she was an engineer.  I think the second time onward she’s always been a vanguard.  

She’s a Spacer, because I love having her mom alive and get to talk to her.  I like that she didn’t start from trauma.  But she’s a sole survivor, because I like how that shows how strong she became.  I also like that it gives her extra incentive to hate Cerberus later on.

Discovering Mass Effect

I’ve been gaming since I was seven in 1982 when my parents brought home our first Atari 2600.  When RPGs became a thing I liked JRPGs a lot on the family Nintendo and some action RPGish games like Super Metroid, but when Western-Style RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights came out, I found my true video game love.  

Before Mass Effect, my favorite game was Knights of the Old Republic.  And it’s still way up there in my list of favorite games of all time.  And I really loved Carth Onasi. Although I’d loved other video game love interests before him, Arin Gend, Valen Shadowbreath, Celes/Locke... Carth was my favorite.  That also inspired me to try my hand at fanfic for the first time.  That never saw the light of day and I’m pretty sure I lost it like 3 hard drive crashes ago.

So when I heard that the same company that made KotOR was making a new, non-Star Wars space game, I was excited.  Until I went and looked at some of the trailers, gameplay preview videos, etc, and saw no female protagonist option.  I must have looked somewhat early on because even on message boards I looked at the answer was “they haven’t said anything” or “I don’t think so”.  And I was *crushed*, then stopped paying attention to that video game. After it came out, I heard it was a pretty good game, but if you could only play a guy, I wasn’t that interested.  

It wasn’t until 2009 when I finally got an XBox 360 and realized I had no idea what games to play on it that I didn’t already have on PC.  I joined a game trading thread on a forum I was on, and bought a few titles, and someone was selling Mass Effect cheap, so I thought... what the hell, I’ll probably like it even if I have to play a dude.  

A few nights later I was curled up on my couch with controller in hand and... hmm this music is pretty good.  OK New Game... Create Profile... wait what?  Custom or default Female character?  You can play as a woman?!? WHAT??  Damn, I should have looked at this game more closely.  Okay.

So I made my Annakie Engineer... and honestly I don’t remember what origins I picked then... but the game started.

I recognized one of the first two voices I heard but couldn’t place it.  And then a third guy was talking over these space scenes and someone walking scenes and... hang on, is that Seth Green?!?!  Neat!  Real cool space imagery here, great music... and then the intro was over and another guy started talking.

That. Is. Carth. Onasi’s. Voice.  

I SCREAMED.

Then I stood up walked into my office, sat down at my PC, googled “Carth Onasi Voice Actor Mass Effect”, found the character’s name, then googled “Kaidan Alenko romance”.  Found the wiki page, saw the answer was yes, and screamed again.  Really, really mad at myself.  This game had been out for two years.  A space RPG where you can play as a lady and the same voice actor I already ADORED was in it playing another romanceable character.  I knew then, two minutes into the game, that I was going to fucking LOVE THIS GAME and I should have played it TWO YEARS AGO.

I went back, played all night, and for the next several nights until I beat the game.  And then joined forums and everything I could get my hands on to find fellow fans, then replayed the game, and played again, and again, and again until I had all the achievements.  Then I bought it on PC so I could get all the achievements on PC and be ready to import saves for when Mass Effect 2 came out.

The one good thing about waiting so long to play ME1 was, I only had a year to wait until ME2.  That year was basically all about Mass Effect for me.

The Prologue

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about the prologue.

First off, who else, the first time you played, when in character creation you heard the “Profile Corrupted!” message thought you fucked something up or maybe your game disc was bad.  Anyone?  Not just me, right? I  may have restarted my Xbox.

The class descriptions I think are a little wonky.  I chose Engineer the first time through because I like utility classes and I like healing.  But the classes don’t really... play that way I guess.  Hitting F to heal (or whatever it’s mapped to on the controller) doesn’t really matter, and a couple of classes have access to First Aid.  Nobody is really a “healer”.  Hence switching to Vanguard later.

The prologue itself does a really great job, though, of setting up the game, and the world.  It starts with the great move of telling you a little bit about your own character, helping you to understand those choices that you made “Spacer” “Earthborn” “War Hero” “Sole Survivor”,  That was a good move.  It took me until my second playthrough to connect those two guys talking about me to being Anderson and Udina.  

Also, nice that they explained what Mass Effect actually *is* and placed you in a year, so you have an idea how far ahead this game is from our own time.

And then this...

Majestic.

But it’s great how they start with a shot of you, looking at Earth

 then you see Jupiter, with an establishing shot of the spaceship you’re in.  (OK I didn’t get a great screenshot of this, I’m using gifs that are going in a gifset posting tomorrow)

And then you fly by Neptune

Then... wait what the fuck is this thing?

Along with Seth Green talking to... someone?  And the movement through the ship, giving you glimpses of Jenkins, Pressley, crewmates doing their jobs, the camera constantly sweeping, something big is happening!  Something exciting!  You’re not sure what all of it is but... it sounds cool!

The camera swings around on the person you’ve been following, and you already kinda know it’s your character, but there you are, in a very cool sweeping reveal.

The music swells.  Then the big glowy weird scissors thing... eats the spaceship and spits it back out.

It’s all so effective.  It’s kind of breathtaking to watch even for what must be like my 30th time, not exaggerating.

And I can never wait to do it again.  What a great way to start this game.  

[genesisarclite]

Ever since Mirror’s Edge Catalyst came out in 2016, there’s been some discourse about which game is the “better” of the two. Some have even wondered which they should play and why. Now, I’ve put literal tens and possibly hundreds of hours in the first, and approaching a hundred or more in the reboot. I knew the first game so well that I fell only about three stars short of getting the Platinum, and just couldn’t succeed in getting the last couple of three-star Time Trial runs.

Recently, ME1 was on sale on GOG, so I bought it again and ran through it. Partly for my own amusement, I wanted to compare them, talk about them, and see if one really is “better” than the other.

It’s not too hard to compare them, thankfully. Basic movement and structure is the same in both, with the default controls being virtually identical. If you play with a gamepad, the controls are, I believe, almost one for one. Both games are still set in an advanced “city” with heavy surveillance, and both of them heavily feature the “Runners” - an underground group of messengers who use parkour to beat the system, moving around instead on foot.

Beyond that, things get a little more interesting.

Obviously, there’s an eight-year gap of development time between the two. ME1 uses Unreal Engine 3, which is hardly the prettiest engine, while MEC uses Frostbite, which is pretty consistently gorgeous. Both are also products of their time, using conventions that were common to both eras (one has autosaving like crazy, the other has a frustrating checkpoint system, for example).

Aesthetics: starting with the first major thing the games are famous for, the aesthetics of both are pretty even. Both make use of vast white cityscapes, upon which bright primaries pop. Heavy use of color and pretty lighting mean the grounded shapes are often turned surreal in the best ways. Suddenly coming through a door to see walls painted bright green or covered in splashes of blue is still awe-inspiration to this day, in both games. MEC, however, is able to use lighting in a way ME1 wasn’t, with colors and lightning reflecting off Faith’s model, the day/night cycle changing the landscape in breathtaking ways, and globular illumination allowing for geometry and texture work to go hand-in-hand.

Case in point the Elysium building (mostly glass and bright green) or KrugerSec (heavy use of blue, shadows, and glass panels, with the datacenter being a standout example of everything working perfectly together).

I do prefer Faith’s clothing design in the new one to some extent, but overall, both of her designs are excellent.

Movement: MEC’s design is far more conducive to unbroken “flow”. ME1 requires a lot of stopping, elevator rides, slow climbing, and forced combat that was horribly out of place. Unless you know the perfect timing to execute a disarm, you are going to get shot until you die. Have more than one PK guard in the vicinity? Good luck staying alive. Need to climb a ladder, but there’s four guys with machineguns? You’re going to die.

MEC uses some things that some fans didn’t like (the... swingshot thing I can’t remember the name of now, mostly), but it’s a lot easier to stay moving at all time. The double wallrun is a little egregious, sure, and the springboard jump a little physics-defying, but at least you’re more likely to fall and die because you miscalculated than because SUDDENLY CLIFF.

Also? It’s a lot easier to wallrun. Not having to come in at a narrow range of “acceptable” angles is less stressful for sure.

Combat: here’s where MEC went too far the other direction. ME1 remains absolutely terrible at combat. It’s really bad. No-combat runs are possible, but difficult to pull off without exploiting the game mechanics and geometry. MEC makes combat too easy, with stupider AI and not enough damage dealt by KrugerSec in return. PK was far too extreme, but a balance between the two would have helped a lot.

Of the two, only ME1 about gave me anxiety/an aneurysm during combat zones. Seriously, it literally gives me nightmares. MEC sacrificed combat difficulty in favor of better movement, and the difficulty can be somewhat balanced by not buying upgrades, so overall, MEC wins.

The Shard: the first game’s Shard is responsible for my deep love of huge architecture. It’s of an unlikely design, but it’s beautiful and gives awesome views of the city. It’s the tallest building around, too, and is filled to the brim with bright colors and great lighting.

But MEC’s Shard is the better of the two in my opinion. My joy at finding out it would be returning can’t be overstated, and seeing it out in the water, knowing full well we would have to go back because, well, it’s the Shard? Brilliant. And unlike ME1′s “The Shard” level, which is way too short and spends too much time indoors in cramped hallways and elevator shafts, MEC’s “The Shard” is much longer and has you zigzagging in and out of the building constantly. You start at the train station and ascend bit by bit, even making your way through a bombed-out section that exposes you to the city around you. And once you realize you can play the level at night through some manipulation of an early-game level replay before starting this one (in a normal, unmodded playthrough, of course), you’ll never want to experience it in daylight again.

Through it all, Solar Fields’s magnificent “The Shard” plays, with a sense of wonder pervading the entire track.

I freaking love the Shard. It and the View District are my two favorite locations in the game, bar none.

Better? Depends. I enjoy both games, but ME1 is incredibly stressful and very unforgiving. While this is great for some, I have enough stress in my life. MEC gives me the ability to explore the city whenever I feel like it, for no reason at all other than to enjoy pretty music and beautiful colors. There’s a reason I bought the soundtrack pretty much the day it came out without blinking.

Both games are great, but MEC is slightly better. I still recommend both, and maybe play the first one first to really appreciate the second.

Also, Solar Fields is a master of his craft, and I’m so, so happy he returned for MEC. No one could have replaced him.

(Except maybe Carbon Based Lifeforms.)

[becauseanders]

more little mass effect 3 things i love so, so much: how unnervingly quiet the normandy is

like, in me1 there’s the normandy theme music (which i also love, don’t get me wrong) and in me2 there’s enough crew chatter that you barely even notice it doesn’t have its own score this time around

but then in me3, the silence is downright chilling and it is so tonally perfect for the whole feeling of the game; that anxiety, that anticipation, that tension and fear captured so well in the atmosphere of this magnificent warship left remarkably understaffed whilst solemnly preparing for the likely extinction of every single race which has ever come aboard it, and you just...you feel it

and it’s always so striking to me and it always pops out every time i replay it and it always hits me right in the feels and i seriously love it

[rlhy]

Mass Effect Retrospective

2010-2012 Video Game Produced by BioWare

Mass Effect 2 is one of my favourite video games ever. Despite that, DLC add-ons were a fairly new concept at the time, so I was pretty resistant on buying any of the content that came out. I’ve heard how great of an experience Lair of the Shadow Broker was or how vital Leviathan was to the lore, so after I got used to the new landscape of paid add-ons, I had every intention to return to these one day.

I finally played them ... 8 years later. 

The good news is, the games still hold up! I had to replay the first half of ME2 because my saves were deleted and I was filled with a gleeful nostalgia. It’s also interesting jumping from Mass Effect 2 and 3, and seeing the subtle and not-so-subtle changes between the two. 

The addition of 4 directional combat roll and indicators for changing cover. This is a major overhaul that made movement much improved. Camera is still quite tight around Shepard, which makes it hard to be aware of your surroundings, and easier to get stuck in level geometry. 

ME3 felt like a quieter game. As such, it felt less epic and more lonely.

ME3 has what seems to be more loading doors. Either that, or the new animation for bypassing doors make it much more obvious that they were loading doors. 

ME3 also made use of seamless camera transitions at the end of most of their cinematics. This wasn’t used in ME2. 

As a general note, all the DLC missions exacerbated the issues with level design that to this day we’re still struggling with. That is to say, the mission flow follows the basic progression of Combat Arena > Cinematic > Repeat. The best missions got away from this by starting with a low-key search for clues in a smaller environment. This resulted in a stronger story exposition.

ME3 DLC felt larger in scope than the ME2 DLC, but with the same budget. As a result, it felt like the cinematics lacked the same impact and polish.

Kasumi - Stolen Memory

+ The mansion is one of the more exquisitely designed locations in the series and the objectives of the mission are a nice diversion away from standard combat interactions. There are also multiple ways to accomplish each objective, which I learned afterwards.

- The vault area devolved into combat way too soon. I was hoping to spend more time in it with more meaningful interaction (similar to the mansion). 

- The majority of the mission involves a series of overlong combat arenas, ending with an exhausting fight with a helicopter. 

Overlord

+ The story line of the rogue VI is an interesting and ambitious premise though falls short of the expectations that come with this classic sci-fi conceit of man merging with machine. 

+ The visuals of the rogue VI are very cool, especially during the boss fight. It reminds me of Rez. 

- The Hammerhead controls better than the Mako did in ME1, but ultimately did not make for better gameplay. Platforming over rivers of lava, though a fun diversion at first, were quite annoying by the second or third time.

- The overworld between the missions (where you would drive the Hammerhead around to find one of the three stations) became tedious quickly. Bad checkpointing made accidental deaths a bigger hassle. 

Arrival

+ Great environment design in the final battle, with the looming Mass Effect Relay in the background, getting closer and closer to your location. 

- This DLC was the most dubious of them all, as I mostly remember it as just being a blur of endless combat arenas. It also begins with linear corridor sequences (though it tries to mix it up with a few puzzle switch mechanics). 

- After the vision from Object Rho, fighting 5 waves of enemies felt endless. However, I learned afterwards that you don’t have to survive for the mission to continue.

- It’s also surprising to see that the reason Shepard was back on Earth and being tried in court at the beginning of ME3 was the result of this optional DLC. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one confused when ME3 started. 

Lair of the Shadow Broker

+ By far, the best of the ME2 DLC. Expertly paced with striking improvements in cinematic direction. Dynamic camera shots punched up the action in most of the cutscenes, most noticeable in the Tela Vasir chase. 

+ The skycar chase through Illium is a scenario that I’ve always wanted to experience in a video game. Despite the subpar controls, it nails the atmosphere. 

+ Ending the DLC with a hub room that you can endlessly revisit was a very smart way of ensuring the DLC had a lasting impact on the world. Research Terminals, Dossiers, and conversations with Feron and Liara were very welcome, as well as extra interactions with Liara on board the Normandy. 

- Despite the great pacing, the infiltration of the Shadow Broker base was a slog. The roof of the ship felt labyrinthine to the point where it took me out of the experience. At least the designers had the foresight to keep the interior of the base very short. 

Omega

+ For a package mainly consisting of combat arenas, the mission flow is tightly paced. Each combat encounter doesn’t overstay its welcome, and is greatly helped by the improved combat system in ME3. There are also periods of respite where you regroup at Aria’s base. 

+ They vary up the locales quickly, more so then any other DLC package. The streets of Omega are vivid and it’s a nice touch to end the mission with a return to Afterlife. 

+ Aria and Nyreen are great additions to the team. They do a good job with their relationship, with a lot of words unsaid. 

- Nyreen’s death scene felt very unearned. It felt unnecessary, campy and didn’t serve any purpose.

- After playing Shadow Broker, having the game dump you out to the Normandy unceremoniously after the mission is over, is a slight letdown. 

Leviathan

+ Of the DLCs, Leviathan had the most amount of varied gameplay. Rummaging through the lab to find clues to the Leviathan project, and then using those clues to filter for a location were very welcome. 

+ They establish a decent mission flow, with highs and lows. Combat missions are followed by fact-finding non-combat missions. 

+ I was very glad that the mission ended after the final revealing cinematic. I was half-expecting to fight a few more waves of Reapers. 

- This is a huge omission to the regular game, and arguably should have been included in the base package with a more integrated and fleshed out storyline. 

- Though it’s clear that the end times are coming in the Milky Way Galaxy, this was a DLC that felt like they could have kept combat to a minimum. They do a good job with varying up the gameplay, but each section ends with the Reapers finding you, and you miraculously escape after waves of their horde. 

- The escort mission where you have to guide the drone wasn’t really made for a Vanguard build.