Developer: Bioware
I don't know why I feel like doing a "review" on the ME trilogy. Maybe it's because my blog is severely lacking these past few years. Oh well, I do what I want "foo".
For those who are unfamiliar with the ME series, ME is a sci-fi adventure game with shooting elements. The game advertises itself as having a choice system where the player's choices will transfer through each save through all 3 games, shaping the ultimate outcome of the whole galaxy. I never regretted getting into this series and finishing it; regardless of the pick-your-color endings. You take control of a male or female Commander Shepard, tailoring him/her to your tastes in terms of appearance and skills. I kinda went backwards by playing ME2 and then the 1st one, which was a bad idea in the beginning.
Review time:
Story: The lore of the ME universe was interesting enough to make me care about the end of the game. ME1 focused on stopping the baddie, Saren, from restoring the Reapers (gigantic, mechanical squids) to full strength. ME2 had a story that was essentially a spin-off of sorts where Shepard sets off to stop the Reapers' lackeys called the Collectors. ME3 was the finale where the story went back on course to eradicate the Reapers once and for all. In a more minute detail, Bioware had done a good job on personal interaction with the NPCs and teammates as well as the interactions between every race. The main storytelling focus, for me, lie in the conversations taking place among the crew and acting as a diplomat (or not) in the universe with the attempt to unite everyone against the Reapers. The entire lore built up in the ME trilogy is also something to note. Although the lore might be confusing at times, it still made the ME universe believable to a certain extent (until Bioware botched it towards the very end). ME2 and ME3 heavily emphasizes character relationships between Shepard and the teammates. Specifically, ME2 was character backstory-heavy with the loyalty missions.
Characters: This trilogy is story-heavy so characters are to note for the creation of the ME universe. Shepard is essentially a blank slate so the player can make Shepard totally good or bad. ME1 did fine keeping things neutral, although it's hard to get what you want out of the story if you stay neutral. ME2 and 3 practically halved the amount of neutral responses and left it as paragon or renegade. By picking either side, Shepard becomes the goody-two shoes or becomes a rebelling soldier with a streak of badassery in ME2 and early ME3. Here's a little taste of what would happen if you wanted to raise Shepard to be a renegade in ME2:
Some like Shepard's personality in this manner, and some don't like the restrictive personalities in the sense of gaining paragon/renegade points. Most of the squad mates, to me, were a likeable cast. ME had Wrex/Garrus/Tali/Anderson (from popular observation) to ME2's Mordin/Liara/Grunt/Thane. ME3 almost had a cast of returning characters with the exception to the useless Diana Allers as a new character. The romantic relationships were also icing on the cake, especially for characters who have stuck around from beginning to end.
Gameplay: ME1 had, unfortunately, the most elaborate skill system compared to the other two installments, but it also had some minor flaws in the shooting department. ME1 had things like weight capacity, weapon attachments, and about 10 + skills/traits for upgrading. Compared to ME2/ME3, the first installment had an issue (for me) during battle where the default keyboard layout was slightly inefficient and needed personal keybindings. Also, if you were out of ammo, you were out of ammo. ME2/ME3 allowed Shepard to take cover and leap over certain obstacles as well as having universal ammo to make reloading easier. ME2 lowered the amount of skills per class for upgrades, but the upside is that Shepard gains a bonus ability from any loyal squad mate. Lastly, ME3 simplified the skill system significantly by making each 6+ skills a single thread that branches out to 2 paths for the last 2 upgrades. It's essentially level up > pick skill to be upgraded > level up to the next stage > pick 1 of 2 perks from the upgrade. Some people might be picky about this super streamlining system, but I don't really care. To me, the shooting wasn't clunky and worked fine. ME3 stepped up in terms of gameplay with multiplayer that affects the ultimate outcome of the trilogy. Multiplayer consists of making your own character and then playing up to 4 players against AIs while completing escort, collection, and hacking tasks on a map. Multiplayer is important for ME3's "galactic readiness" where the percentage is multiplied with the total war assets that make up the overall score that determines the amount of damage Earth, Normandy, mass relays, and team takes. The higher the score, the less damage will be inflicted.
Overall: I'd say definitely get the ME trilogy. It may not be Game of the Year-worthy, but it is definitely a good series for the ride. There will be at least one or two characters who will stick on you. Some people feel like the choices they made didn't matter and drastically altered the ending at all. I didn't follow Bioware's advertisement about the choices influencing the ending, but the choices did affect how the player plays through the story? Don't want to have to pick one race over the other? No problem, if you did certain things in ME1 and 2, then you can have both sides on top of picking paragon or renegade. If you wanted the "happy" ending where everyone lives, then you have to use a walkthrough to make sure whatever choices you did fall into the category of plan A or B. An example would be killing A and keeping B, and then you can lie to C and sabotage D in order to get both races to cooperate. But if you want to be a bit masochistic, you can make whatever choices and see if there are any alternatives left to make everyone happy to make it a real twist. In my Paragon run, I didn't have an ME1 save so I was out of luck, had to lose someone to win over a race, and didn't get the support of the other. Remember, the choices you made affected how the story laid out and did not directly affect the endings. The endings are still ok... if you install the Extended Cut DLC from Origin into ME3. Also the EC hit me in the feels saying goodbye to my love interest, but that's in the story-telling section.
Overall: I'd say definitely get the ME trilogy. It may not be Game of the Year-worthy, but it is definitely a good series for the ride. There will be at least one or two characters who will stick on you. Some people feel like the choices they made didn't matter and drastically altered the ending at all. I didn't follow Bioware's advertisement about the choices influencing the ending, but the choices did affect how the player plays through the story? Don't want to have to pick one race over the other? No problem, if you did certain things in ME1 and 2, then you can have both sides on top of picking paragon or renegade. If you wanted the "happy" ending where everyone lives, then you have to use a walkthrough to make sure whatever choices you did fall into the category of plan A or B. An example would be killing A and keeping B, and then you can lie to C and sabotage D in order to get both races to cooperate. But if you want to be a bit masochistic, you can make whatever choices and see if there are any alternatives left to make everyone happy to make it a real twist. In my Paragon run, I didn't have an ME1 save so I was out of luck, had to lose someone to win over a race, and didn't get the support of the other. Remember, the choices you made affected how the story laid out and did not directly affect the endings. The endings are still ok... if you install the Extended Cut DLC from Origin into ME3. Also the EC hit me in the feels saying goodbye to my love interest, but that's in the story-telling section.
So I'll start at the beginning.
Mass Effect
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| BWAHAHAHA, meet Commander "Katrina" Shepard |
I decided to do a renegade (badass or -guy in ME3) playthrough since I intended on having a renegade save after finishing my paragon (good guy) save. Anyways, Shepard is sent to investigate an incident with Geth (robotic AIs) invading a human colony. Shepard's like "F THIS SHIT! WHY DO I GOTTA GO DOWN AND DO THE POLITICIAN'S DIRTY WORK?" and she still has to go down there. Meet Ashley, one of the colonists who has a prejudice view on aliens. People keep bashing on her, but she wasn't that bad. She's from a military family where her grandad was the first to surrender to the Turians (reptile, dinosaur looking aliens) and the whole military system practically prevented any of her family members from climbing up the career ladder because of that incident. Yes, she does say things like it's not worth going through all the trouble to get some "asari mumbo jumbo" and questions Shepard a few times about letting some aliens on board out of security concerns. But I couldn't get Shepard to go full renegade so she was almost 50/50 throughout the whole thing. Shepard tells her that Ashley's not the one in charge, and Ashley complies with that. It turns out that Saren is going to be the bad guy as he killed a fellow Turian commander to cover up his tracks. Then there was Kaidan, boy scout biotic (mage- lol), who almost touched an ancient transmitter that zapped Shepard instead. Shepard gets some funky images about Reapers and stuff and goes back on board.
The Citadel (main city hub of the universe) council full of aliens think Shepard's off her rockers without evidence. Shepard runs into Garrus, a C-Sec (police) officer gone rogue, who also suspects Saren is a bad guy and yet he can't be touched because he's part of the council. Garrus doesn't actually have to come onto the team, he can be left behind. But after hanging out with him in ME2, I couldn't leave him behind. It's been half a year since I played this game so I'll probably get details wrong. So fast-forward to getting Tali, a Quarian (Nomad people), who was on her pilgrimage until she witnessed Saren's wrong-doings. Tali testified against Saren and then his council status was suspended. As a result, Shepard was promoted to Spectre (vigilante super police cop in space) and it's a huge deal. I honestly had no idea what people meant when NPCs in ME2 referred to Shepard as a former Spectre until I played ME1. The nice part was actually exploring the Citadel's Presidium (swanky shopping area) because you may sorely miss it in ME2. Meet the cop and a Hanar (jellyfish-looking thing), Hanar says it has the right to spread its religious teachings and the Turian cop says no. So I threatened the jellyfish to bugger off.
Throughout the entire game, however, I dread going up the Citadel's elevators just to go back to the Normandy. Funny conversations can show up depending on who I take with me. Always tension between Wrex (another lizard-like alien from a race of Krogan) and Garrus because of military conflict. Throughout the entire game, I have to go up and ask random NPCs for quests and then I go planet-scouting for those items. Story progression arises when I have to get Liara, Matriach Benezia's daughter, because she has knowledge about the Reapers. Every time I come back from a main story mission, I have to "embrace eternity" with Liara and make the images of Reapers clearer.
A choice I made was not killing the Rachni Queen because that's too much and that the Queen can keep her spider army under control. I had to kill Liara's mom because she was under Saren's control. All the while my ugly Shepard made moves on Kaidan. It felt like sexual harassment to me, LOLOLOL. So Kaidan was in a school of other biotic kids and he was guilty of a time where his entire squad got killed over a mistake. The whole Kaidan romance thing was getting him over that guilt, wow. Garrus keeps acting more and more of a bro, and Shepard maintains the "Wrex" "Shepard" spiel going with Wrex.
The Citadel (main city hub of the universe) council full of aliens think Shepard's off her rockers without evidence. Shepard runs into Garrus, a C-Sec (police) officer gone rogue, who also suspects Saren is a bad guy and yet he can't be touched because he's part of the council. Garrus doesn't actually have to come onto the team, he can be left behind. But after hanging out with him in ME2, I couldn't leave him behind. It's been half a year since I played this game so I'll probably get details wrong. So fast-forward to getting Tali, a Quarian (Nomad people), who was on her pilgrimage until she witnessed Saren's wrong-doings. Tali testified against Saren and then his council status was suspended. As a result, Shepard was promoted to Spectre (vigilante super police cop in space) and it's a huge deal. I honestly had no idea what people meant when NPCs in ME2 referred to Shepard as a former Spectre until I played ME1. The nice part was actually exploring the Citadel's Presidium (swanky shopping area) because you may sorely miss it in ME2. Meet the cop and a Hanar (jellyfish-looking thing), Hanar says it has the right to spread its religious teachings and the Turian cop says no. So I threatened the jellyfish to bugger off.
Throughout the entire game, however, I dread going up the Citadel's elevators just to go back to the Normandy. Funny conversations can show up depending on who I take with me. Always tension between Wrex (another lizard-like alien from a race of Krogan) and Garrus because of military conflict. Throughout the entire game, I have to go up and ask random NPCs for quests and then I go planet-scouting for those items. Story progression arises when I have to get Liara, Matriach Benezia's daughter, because she has knowledge about the Reapers. Every time I come back from a main story mission, I have to "embrace eternity" with Liara and make the images of Reapers clearer.
A choice I made was not killing the Rachni Queen because that's too much and that the Queen can keep her spider army under control. I had to kill Liara's mom because she was under Saren's control. All the while my ugly Shepard made moves on Kaidan. It felt like sexual harassment to me, LOLOLOL. So Kaidan was in a school of other biotic kids and he was guilty of a time where his entire squad got killed over a mistake. The whole Kaidan romance thing was getting him over that guilt, wow. Garrus keeps acting more and more of a bro, and Shepard maintains the "Wrex" "Shepard" spiel going with Wrex.
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| Look at the outer map glitch I had here (Late into ME1) |
I decided to go on a crusade to wipe out all of Cerberus' operations because they're the Alliance's Black Ops that does cruel experiments. One time, I had to help a Salarian (reminds me of a salamander) gather data on finding the odds of jackpot. It took several tries because there's a terrible glitch trying to go around the machines, getting money, and going back for my reward. Ok, back to business. Saren gets free and sets up a bomb to destroy the whole facility experimenting on Krogan and the effects of the genophage (infertile black plague). This is the part where Shepard fights Wrex and the two have a standoff. Shepard decides to let Wrex live and then the gang sets off to get to the base. After a close call with Saren, a giant nuclear bomb was set off to go BOOM and Shepard had to choose between saving Ashley or Kaidan. Shepard saves Kaidan because he was her love interest, and Ashley understood what was going to happen to her (R.I.P ASHLEY I DIDN'T WANT YOU TO DIE... OK, MAYBE IN ME3 YOU SHOULD HAVE).
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| I'M GONNA PUT EVERY PICTURE OF THAT SCENE HERE, AHAHAHA |
In the upcoming battle where Saren held the Citadel hostage because the Citadel is a massive Mass Relay, Shepard intrudes for some sexy times with Kaidan.
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| How she can make out with those lips and nose, I don't know XD |
ME1 had full nudity for the final romance scene, and then ME2 was full clothes on, and then ME3 was in the middle (underwear).
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| Let's play bed wrestling |
After Kaidan wakes up to see Shepard already dressed for the final battle, the Normandy sends Shepard in a shuttle to infiltrate the Citadel in order to open up its sections to let the military ships in. It turns out that the Keepers (praying mantis janitor robots) were servants of the Reapers and the Keepers were keeping track of the Citadel in order to prepare for the Reapers' return. It's too late an a fleet of Reapers were summoned, with the largest warship being taken down at the last minute.
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| Hello, Handsome. Time to go. |
Shepard defeats Saren, commands the Alliance to save the alien council with the cost of human lives, and becomes a hero.
Mass Effect 2
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| Left-Right, Top-bottom: Shepard, Thane, Miranda, Jacob, Grunt, Jack, Legion, Tali, Samara, Garrus, and Mordin |
Aaaaaaaand, we're back for round 2 in the adventures of Commander Shepard and crew. Shepard and crew cruise around space when an unknown alien spaceship starts firing beams of death on the Normandy. The Normandy gets ripped to shreds while the ambiguous-looking Femshep gives commands to evacuate. Joker's being a stubborn arse so Shepard had to cross through an exposed section of the Normandy (with surrealistic slo-mo) and into the cockpit to get Joker off the Normandy. Right when Joker's all comfy in the escape pod, a giant explosion causes Shepard to fly off into space. Her air tank is punctured and she struggles for air while she burns up into the nearby planet's atmosphere.
Minutes later, the scene fades into multiple shots of machinery trying to restore what looks like Shepard's body. This was the part where she could be rebuilt. For a Paragon run, she looks like this:
Femshep wakes up on the wrong side of the bed when Cerberus robots are destroying the facility. A woman named Miranda directs Shepard to Jacob in order to get to an emergency shuttle. Jacob reveals that Shepard was close to death until The Illusive Man (TIM) paid a fortune to revive Shepard. Therefore Shepard's practically Cerberus' lapdog to others, but to Shepard she sees herself willingly co-operate with Cerberus to help humans when the Council wouldn't. This time, it's Shepard on her own against popular opinion of Cerberus so I felt like a bad guy (and I was from what default choices were made w/o an ME save). Most of the game is about recruiting team members and, with time, prepping for the destruction of the Reapers' servants, the Collectors.
So the first two guys Shep gets are Miranda and Jacob. Miranda's the perfect genetic product her father obsessively fawned over until she ran away from him. Everything about her is perfect from her smarts to her butt (I don't think so, but Bioware loves to put in some butt screen time). Jacob's an ex-Alliance soldier who switched sides when the Alliance and Council wouldn't lift a finger for the harvested human colonies. He's ok... just not romance material. The trio first goes to Omega, third-world civilization, to look for Mordin and then a rogue called Archangel. Mordin is a Salarian (read: salamander-looking) doctor who was a part of a secret bio-weaponry team and is now studying the effects of a plague on Omega. Mordin likes to do things by the calculations, which is something his pupil disagrees on. Just because of that, the student decides to play hero and gets hostage'd. Shep talks down some bandits into letting the doc-student go and then goes further in to activate the cure in the air ventilation system. After the problem is solved, Mordin agrees to join and leaves the clinic to the pupil. The next person Shep goes after is Archangel, someone who managed to piss off all of Omega's mercenary gangs and Archangel's held up somewhere. Shep and gang convinces one of Aria's (Asari leader of Omega) men to let them join the mercs. As Shep moves in to corner Archangel, he actually had his scope on her but removed it. Shepard undoes her alias and eliminates the merc team inside the building to reach Archangel only to find out it's none other than one of Femshep's possible love interest and bro, Garrus.
So I thought, "Huh, so he's one of the fan favorites I heard so much about" (This was before I played ME). No way I'm gonna flirt with a dinosaur when Femshep only has Jacob as a viable human option since Kaidan thinks I'm a traitor. I was wrong. Anyways, Garrus takes a rocket launcher to the face and Femshep thinks it's already over when Garrus was actually alive. After destroying a chopper, Shep and Garrus book it out of Omega for a while to catch up. Apparently, Garrus lost hope that Shepard was alive so he decided to be a vigilante on Omega and stir shit up. At this point, I was flirting with Jacob with every opportunity I get. But each time I do, I feel like it's sexual harassment all over again with the questions as Jacob puts it.
Anyways, word from TIM says that Collectors are invading a human colony called Horizon and it's Shepard's job to save as many as possible. Shepard gets there, fights off a gigantic Collector monster, and then runs into Kaidan. Kaidan thinks Femshep is Cerberus' lackey no matter how much Femshep tries to convince him that she's helping on her own accord. And then Kaidan says, "Well just be careful" and I say "Well FUCK YOU, Kaidan". Sigh, moving on... Shep gets Jack onto the team. Jack was a convict who has the most powerful biotic abilities. I already didn't like her because of her vulgarity and her tendency to act overly macho because of her guinea pig background. INTO THE ENGINEERING LOWER DECKS YOU GO, JACK. Then there's getting Okeer, the Krogan warlord. Too bad HE DIED. So Shep had to make do with Okeer's legacy which was a test tube "perfect" Krogan. Once Femshep released the Krogan, it tried to attack Shep but failed with her gun poking at his guts. It decided to call itself "Grunt" since it sounds lame to be named after his creator. Grunt was the new "Wrex" so he did the whole "Shepard" "Grunt" routine.
Time for some loyalty missions. I cheated so I read the FAQs to see which ones I shouldn't do because it would lead into a fight. Jacob's loyalty mission was finding his father who happens to go insane after crash landing his ship. Afterwards, his crazy dad mistreats the females and is the cause for the stranded staff to have their brains degrade into nothing from eating toxic stuff. Femshep had to maintain her paragon run, so she couldn't let Jacob kill his own father. Afterwards, Jacob kept saying nothing but "Now isn't the time for questions" and "Lets spill some drinks on the Citadel after dealing with the Collectors". So now I'm like "WTF, Jacob" and then I realized I picked the wrong dialogue choice somehow so I'm friendzoned by Jacob (which turned out to be a good thing) so GARRUS, HERE I COME WITH FEMSHEP'S SEXUALLY HARASSING ADVANCEMENTS. I don't know why, but it was like Bioware's romance writing department decided to have Femshep's line be practically borderline sexual harassment AGAIN with the exception of the lesbian options and Thane.
Miranda's loyalty mission was getting Miranda's sister, Oriana, away from their dad and living on a human colony far away. A funny moment would have been pushing off a merc 70+ stories down, but that was too mean. Garrus' mission was a personal vendetta against a former teammate who ratted out Garrus' vigilante squad to an enemy ambush. Once again, the planned paragon run dictates Femshep must stop Garrus from killing his ex-teammate. Eventually, Garrus saw the light and got better, thus progressing our romance. Some awkward scenes I remembered was Shepard implying that Garrus and her should "relieve some tension" in her quarters after Garrus implied he banged some Turian chick. All of a sudden, Garrus clams up because it's between teammates and some might back off because bros don't do that (and yet some guys would want to go gay for Garrus). I thought it would be sweet seeing Garrus' awkward attempt to play it cool, but it was kinda sad Bioware's writing made it look like a one-night stand... a very dragged-out, researched one-night stand. One moment was talking about the Collectors and then it goes to Garrus doing some research to see if intercourse would be compatible.
Grunt's loyalty mission was getting rid of his war-like dreams by going to Tuchanka, home planet of Krogan, and get him initiated into a clan. A corrupted leader objects, but Femshep knows how things work by head-butting him. Grunt and Femshep took down a Maw Thresher with a name-I-forgot because Threshers with names are ones thought to never be defeated. As a result, Grunt becomes a true Krogan and his morbid tendencies are kept in check. Jack's loyalty mission was helping her blow up the Cerberus facility she used to live at. Then she discovers that people were trying to protect her and blah, blah, blah I forgot most of it except for the part that it was all a misunderstanding and that nobody wanted her dead. And then shit hit the fan when Femshep comes back, Miranda and Jack are fighting, and Femshep has to pick a side. Unfortunately, it's easier to get both loyalties back with a renegade choice than paragon so I was screwed. Shep picked Miranda over Jack, because screw Jack she's annoying. And... I couldn't get Jack's loyalty back because Femshep's paragon rating wasn't quite 100%.
After getting (and losing) loyalties, Shep gets Tali, Samara, Thane, and Legion on board. Shepard saves Tali from a planet that burns when exposed to a dying sun and yet I find out Shepard only loses her shield and not health. Tali, like Kaidan, thinks that Cerberus is using Shepard but goes along with her anyways. Samara is an Asari justicar who follows a strict code of honor and acts as the arbitrator to her people's transgressions. It took some convincing to get Samara on board by telling her that her duties stretch across the whole universe involving other species. Thane is a Drell, fish person because of the gills, assassin for a living. Femshep didn't use much effort to convince Thane that he was needed (and I forgot his reason for joining). Legion was a Reaper IFF who was a good Geth and was thought of having a stalker tendency by wearing a piece of Shepard's old armor. Loyalty missions were: Killing Samara's rogue daughter who is an AIDS-spreading monster, get Tali un-banned from her flotilla, getting Thane's son out of the killing business, and controlling the evil Geth that serve the Reapers. In Samara's loyalty mission, Morinth is a gothic-loving, space AIDs-spreading daughter of Samara. The sad part is that Samara gave birth to 3 daughters of Ardak-Yashi, killer Asari with no sense of humanity. 2 of Samara's daughters are living in a temple where they control their violent nature, but Morinth is going around literally mind-fucking her mates to death. Femshep played the role of a mysterious and dangerous lesbian until Samara barged in and held Morinth at her grasp. Femshep can continue with Samara or kill her and have Morinth replace Samara. Space AIDS, I tell you (below)
Tali, on the other hand, was accused of treason because her father had something to do with Geth invading a flotilla. Turns out that Tali's father made a mistake by re-activating some Geth to do weapons testing and they went rogue. Tali begs Shepard to not reveal the evidence at her trial. This wasn't a problem as Shepard's paragon points were high enough to rally the crowd against the Admirals and pardon Tali from her accusations. Thane wants Shepard to help him find his son who's going around in the assassin business and stop him. Even though Thane found his son, his son tells him to go away because Thane wasn't there when his wife died. Shepard and Thane stopped his son, Kolyat, from killing a Turian politician and got Kolyat to forgive his father while Shepard tells Bailey to make Kolyat serve community service instead of prison. Lastly for Legion, Legion asks for Shepard's help to destroy the Old Machines, or Reaper-serving Geth. In the end, I get Shepard to rewrite the Geth into helping the good guys instead of destroying the Geth at the space station (I later learned this was a bad idea in ME3).
So let's see what I have so far... ok, right. TIME TO GO INTO THE OMEGA-4 RELAY AND PROBABLY NEVER COME BACK. But before that is the complimentary romance scene between Shepard and Garrus. For Femshep's scenes, it was like Bioware took out any implications of sex at all while Maleshep gets all the implications he wants. Garrus walks in with wine and then turns on some music, to which I face-palmed because it felt awkward and cheesy. And don't get me started on the whole "You know, if you were a Turian I'd be complimenting your fringe or waist so uh... your hair looks good and your waist looks... supportive". BWAHAHAHAHA. And then Garrus freaks out and pleads Shepard to throw him a line or something, 'cause he's nervous. And Mordin previously coached Shepard not to ingest Turian tissue and sends her all the sex ed stuff on Turians. And it was adorable that Garrus talks of Shepard as the best buddy he's ever known and would follow to the ends of the world. Then the scene fades out from Shepard and Garrus doing the forehead touching (wtf Bioware? Ok, well it would've been weird).
SUICIDE MISSION TIME. The Normandy crosses the relay and there's the reason why nobody ever came back... It's because the Collectors zapped every single ship that ever crossed the Omega-4 relay. The ship upgrades saves the Normandy from losing anyone at first. I cheated and kinda used the guide to pick who would be the experts in vents, escort, and shielding. In the end, the destruction of the human-looking reaper caused the collector base to shatter. I had femshep do the RENEGADE thing and keep the base for war assets in ME3 and everyone else disagreed with her decision. Jack was the only one who didn't make it just because she was being an uncooperative bitch and should've been loyal. Lol, I'm just partially kidding. I was glad Garrus survived because that means ROMANCE FOREVER IN ME3. Post-game bonus was calling Garrus up to Shep's quarters, sitting in his lap, and cuddling in bed. Ok... I guess that's cool...
FINAL GAME, OMFALFJADLSFJDLFDSJ. The Alliance realized that Shepard was right and the stinky human-only council was wrong. Oh yeah, I totally forgot. My paragon run missed out on ME, so Femshep was like the colonist who did all these bad things (Sacrificed Council, killed Rachni Queen, killed Wrex, etc) and then did completely good things in ME2. So Femshep became a Spectre again, running around doing good things on her own authorization. Everything's all peachy until the Reapers started invading Earth, beginning with Vancouver, Canada. Then it's back to Shepard to get her team back and take out the Reapers once and for all.
Sorry for the upcoming lack of diversified screenshots because I keep forgetting to take some when I'm in the middle of playing. I couldn't wait to get Garrus back on the team, much to Shepard's surprise that Garrus is a Reaper expert (it's not much) for the Turian military. Shepard also got Primarch Victus to come along for a summit reaching an agreement for an alliance. Tali came back as another "Reaper and Geth" expert for her people and is acting as Admiral. Jack's dead so who cares, she was supposed to be teaching students at a biotic academy that Cerberus attacked. Grunt had his own merc troop and I thought he died fighting the evil Rachni, but he barely survived much to my joy. There was tons of problems getting the Krogan leader Wreav to come because he hates Turians and Salarians. The Dalatrass was a total bitch, asking Shepard to sabotage the genophage cure. Thane works alone as a sickly man. Jacob knocked up a female scientist he works with in an ex-Cerberus lab (yeah good thing I didn't romance him). Miranda's on the run, trying to look and save Oriana AGAIN. Kaidan was horribly injured by a female robot and was hospitalized for a while. EDI is able to walk around in a robotic suit and get along with Joker better. James Vega is a beefy Mexican who works out and tinkers with his weapons all the time, calling Femshep "Lola" 'cause she looks like one. Liara returns from her Shadow Broker days in order to help translate the Prothean plans for the super Reaper-killing weapon "The Crucible". And I think that's it so far...
Anyway, Victus asks Shepard to save his son who fucked up real bad trying to disarm a nuclear bomb on Tuchanka in case the Krogan ever acted up. All the Turian soldiers hated Victus' son and after some persuasion and heroics, the son sacrifices himself to allow deactivation of the bomb while Reaper harvesters attack. Wreav the meathead refuses to help until the genophage is cured. After a short reunion with Mordin, the Salarian base gets overrun and Shepard saves the last female Krogan from Cerberus attacks. You know, that was the one part I didn't get. Cerberus all of a sudden turned into the 2nd most antagonistic organization ever. Upon arriving Tuchanka, a named Thresher Maw nearly jeopardizes the mission and a Reaper warship does the same. Shepard calls the Thresher to attack the Reaper and it was amazing how a natural creature took out a super weapon. Shepard and Mordin reach the tower that is supposed to spray the cure into the air, but then the Dalatrass' crew had secretly sabotaged the tower. Mordin decides to sacrifice himself in order to cure the genophage. The only way I could have both sides was if Shepard lied to Wreav about the cure, but Mordin would still die. Or Shepard can convince Mordin that it wasn't worth curing and Mordin can stay alive. But that was too cruel so I let Mordin sing his last song before an explosion interrupts him. NOOO MORDIIIIIN, YOU WERE SO FUNNY.
Next up was uniting the Geth and Quarians together. It was kinda cool to have Shepard go all Tron in virtual Geth space in order to get the Geth upgrade. Then it was stepping onto Tali's home world Rannoch. I'm amazed Rannoch is a FREAKIN' DESERT. Another awesome moment was Shepard using a laser-guided missile assault on a Reaper. I died several times during this battle >__> Anyways, the Reaper goes down and then Legion proceeds to upgrade the Geth. Too bad freakin' Admiral what's-his-ass almost killed Shepard and co. while on a Reaper dreadnought. Also the idiotic Admiral ordered an assault on the Geth, to which Legion was gonna upgrade to ensure survival. But then Tali begs Shepard to prevent the upgrade because it would mean wiping out the fleet even though Legion was going to order the Geth to stop. After an intense talking down, Femshep stops the fleet from attacking and allowed Legion to upgrade with a high Paragon rating to make it possible. This result was much better and stops Tali from committing suicide.
In between main missions, Shepard does all the side quests available and gets as many war assets. And the Citadel is a hotspot to interact with teammates. Fun times like Liara confronting her "father" from ME2 and talking about all the bad things Liara did as a Shadow Broker to contradict her innocent nature. Or helping a guy uncover a Hanar diplomat conspiracy, only to let the poor guy die saving a colony from blowing up. Or there's bailing a Quarian from being branded as a thief. Then there's helping my gay shuttle pilot get over the death of his husband.
There was the evacuation of an Asari temple that houses all the Asari affected by the Ardak-Yashi. Too bad for Samara because one was kidnapped by the Banshees and the other is lost. The sister that was cursed to becoming a Banshee went suicide bomber by blowing up the Main Hall where all the Banshees gathered. Samara stood firm that her last daughter needed to be killed or else her daughter will turn into Morinth. Shepard knows that Samara couldn't bring herself to kill her own daughter, so Samara turns the gun on herself and it was a good thing my trigger finger stopped her from killing herself. Samara's daughter convinces her mom that she can stay at the temple to rebuild it and that her convictions shouldn't be stuck with a physical place like a temple.
In the meantime, Cerberus was invading the Presidium and freaking Kai-Leng shows up to kill the Dalatrass. Thane jumps in to save the day, only to bleed out from Leng's stabbing. THIS IS WHY ROMANCING THANE WILL BE A TRAGIC ONE. It was made clear that invading Cerberus HQ will indicate the final battle so Shepard should raise Galactic Readiness and whatnot.
DATE TIME WITH GARRUS. Shepard and Garrus go on a date up in the Presidium. Garrus didn't give a damn anymore so he wanted to shoot bottles with Shepard. Shepard's line of "Sleeping with a Turian" didn't faze Garrus, but suddenly kissing him fazes him because the videos didn't take him that far. It was a tie until I had Shepard do the paragon thing and let Garrus win leading to this result:
Letting Shepard win kinda puts him in a defeated state so I wanted to see him happy. Pretending to lose, Shepard makes an excuse that it's windy. And then Garrus puts his waist around her and say," Don't worry, I know there are other things you're good at."
Minutes later, the scene fades into multiple shots of machinery trying to restore what looks like Shepard's body. This was the part where she could be rebuilt. For a Paragon run, she looks like this:
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| Ok, to be honest I lost all screenshots when I was trying to make space for a backup. But she does look like this from ME2. |
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| Miranda |
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| Jacob |
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| He gets a bigger picture since he's my favorite LI |
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| Jack. I only used her at most, 3 times >__> |
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| Grunt, the new "Wrex" |
Time for some loyalty missions. I cheated so I read the FAQs to see which ones I shouldn't do because it would lead into a fight. Jacob's loyalty mission was finding his father who happens to go insane after crash landing his ship. Afterwards, his crazy dad mistreats the females and is the cause for the stranded staff to have their brains degrade into nothing from eating toxic stuff. Femshep had to maintain her paragon run, so she couldn't let Jacob kill his own father. Afterwards, Jacob kept saying nothing but "Now isn't the time for questions" and "Lets spill some drinks on the Citadel after dealing with the Collectors". So now I'm like "WTF, Jacob" and then I realized I picked the wrong dialogue choice somehow so I'm friendzoned by Jacob (which turned out to be a good thing) so GARRUS, HERE I COME WITH FEMSHEP'S SEXUALLY HARASSING ADVANCEMENTS. I don't know why, but it was like Bioware's romance writing department decided to have Femshep's line be practically borderline sexual harassment AGAIN with the exception of the lesbian options and Thane.
Miranda's loyalty mission was getting Miranda's sister, Oriana, away from their dad and living on a human colony far away. A funny moment would have been pushing off a merc 70+ stories down, but that was too mean. Garrus' mission was a personal vendetta against a former teammate who ratted out Garrus' vigilante squad to an enemy ambush. Once again, the planned paragon run dictates Femshep must stop Garrus from killing his ex-teammate. Eventually, Garrus saw the light and got better, thus progressing our romance. Some awkward scenes I remembered was Shepard implying that Garrus and her should "relieve some tension" in her quarters after Garrus implied he banged some Turian chick. All of a sudden, Garrus clams up because it's between teammates and some might back off because bros don't do that (and yet some guys would want to go gay for Garrus). I thought it would be sweet seeing Garrus' awkward attempt to play it cool, but it was kinda sad Bioware's writing made it look like a one-night stand... a very dragged-out, researched one-night stand. One moment was talking about the Collectors and then it goes to Garrus doing some research to see if intercourse would be compatible.
Grunt's loyalty mission was getting rid of his war-like dreams by going to Tuchanka, home planet of Krogan, and get him initiated into a clan. A corrupted leader objects, but Femshep knows how things work by head-butting him. Grunt and Femshep took down a Maw Thresher with a name-I-forgot because Threshers with names are ones thought to never be defeated. As a result, Grunt becomes a true Krogan and his morbid tendencies are kept in check. Jack's loyalty mission was helping her blow up the Cerberus facility she used to live at. Then she discovers that people were trying to protect her and blah, blah, blah I forgot most of it except for the part that it was all a misunderstanding and that nobody wanted her dead. And then shit hit the fan when Femshep comes back, Miranda and Jack are fighting, and Femshep has to pick a side. Unfortunately, it's easier to get both loyalties back with a renegade choice than paragon so I was screwed. Shep picked Miranda over Jack, because screw Jack she's annoying. And... I couldn't get Jack's loyalty back because Femshep's paragon rating wasn't quite 100%.
After getting (and losing) loyalties, Shep gets Tali, Samara, Thane, and Legion on board. Shepard saves Tali from a planet that burns when exposed to a dying sun and yet I find out Shepard only loses her shield and not health. Tali, like Kaidan, thinks that Cerberus is using Shepard but goes along with her anyways. Samara is an Asari justicar who follows a strict code of honor and acts as the arbitrator to her people's transgressions. It took some convincing to get Samara on board by telling her that her duties stretch across the whole universe involving other species. Thane is a Drell, fish person because of the gills, assassin for a living. Femshep didn't use much effort to convince Thane that he was needed (and I forgot his reason for joining). Legion was a Reaper IFF who was a good Geth and was thought of having a stalker tendency by wearing a piece of Shepard's old armor. Loyalty missions were: Killing Samara's rogue daughter who is an AIDS-spreading monster, get Tali un-banned from her flotilla, getting Thane's son out of the killing business, and controlling the evil Geth that serve the Reapers. In Samara's loyalty mission, Morinth is a gothic-loving, space AIDs-spreading daughter of Samara. The sad part is that Samara gave birth to 3 daughters of Ardak-Yashi, killer Asari with no sense of humanity. 2 of Samara's daughters are living in a temple where they control their violent nature, but Morinth is going around literally mind-fucking her mates to death. Femshep played the role of a mysterious and dangerous lesbian until Samara barged in and held Morinth at her grasp. Femshep can continue with Samara or kill her and have Morinth replace Samara. Space AIDS, I tell you (below)
Tali, on the other hand, was accused of treason because her father had something to do with Geth invading a flotilla. Turns out that Tali's father made a mistake by re-activating some Geth to do weapons testing and they went rogue. Tali begs Shepard to not reveal the evidence at her trial. This wasn't a problem as Shepard's paragon points were high enough to rally the crowd against the Admirals and pardon Tali from her accusations. Thane wants Shepard to help him find his son who's going around in the assassin business and stop him. Even though Thane found his son, his son tells him to go away because Thane wasn't there when his wife died. Shepard and Thane stopped his son, Kolyat, from killing a Turian politician and got Kolyat to forgive his father while Shepard tells Bailey to make Kolyat serve community service instead of prison. Lastly for Legion, Legion asks for Shepard's help to destroy the Old Machines, or Reaper-serving Geth. In the end, I get Shepard to rewrite the Geth into helping the good guys instead of destroying the Geth at the space station (I later learned this was a bad idea in ME3).
So let's see what I have so far... ok, right. TIME TO GO INTO THE OMEGA-4 RELAY AND PROBABLY NEVER COME BACK. But before that is the complimentary romance scene between Shepard and Garrus. For Femshep's scenes, it was like Bioware took out any implications of sex at all while Maleshep gets all the implications he wants. Garrus walks in with wine and then turns on some music, to which I face-palmed because it felt awkward and cheesy. And don't get me started on the whole "You know, if you were a Turian I'd be complimenting your fringe or waist so uh... your hair looks good and your waist looks... supportive". BWAHAHAHAHA. And then Garrus freaks out and pleads Shepard to throw him a line or something, 'cause he's nervous. And Mordin previously coached Shepard not to ingest Turian tissue and sends her all the sex ed stuff on Turians. And it was adorable that Garrus talks of Shepard as the best buddy he's ever known and would follow to the ends of the world. Then the scene fades out from Shepard and Garrus doing the forehead touching (wtf Bioware? Ok, well it would've been weird).
SUICIDE MISSION TIME. The Normandy crosses the relay and there's the reason why nobody ever came back... It's because the Collectors zapped every single ship that ever crossed the Omega-4 relay. The ship upgrades saves the Normandy from losing anyone at first. I cheated and kinda used the guide to pick who would be the experts in vents, escort, and shielding. In the end, the destruction of the human-looking reaper caused the collector base to shatter. I had femshep do the RENEGADE thing and keep the base for war assets in ME3 and everyone else disagreed with her decision. Jack was the only one who didn't make it just because she was being an uncooperative bitch and should've been loyal. Lol, I'm just partially kidding. I was glad Garrus survived because that means ROMANCE FOREVER IN ME3. Post-game bonus was calling Garrus up to Shep's quarters, sitting in his lap, and cuddling in bed. Ok... I guess that's cool...
Mass Effect 3
Sorry for the upcoming lack of diversified screenshots because I keep forgetting to take some when I'm in the middle of playing. I couldn't wait to get Garrus back on the team, much to Shepard's surprise that Garrus is a Reaper expert (it's not much) for the Turian military. Shepard also got Primarch Victus to come along for a summit reaching an agreement for an alliance. Tali came back as another "Reaper and Geth" expert for her people and is acting as Admiral. Jack's dead so who cares, she was supposed to be teaching students at a biotic academy that Cerberus attacked. Grunt had his own merc troop and I thought he died fighting the evil Rachni, but he barely survived much to my joy. There was tons of problems getting the Krogan leader Wreav to come because he hates Turians and Salarians. The Dalatrass was a total bitch, asking Shepard to sabotage the genophage cure. Thane works alone as a sickly man. Jacob knocked up a female scientist he works with in an ex-Cerberus lab (yeah good thing I didn't romance him). Miranda's on the run, trying to look and save Oriana AGAIN. Kaidan was horribly injured by a female robot and was hospitalized for a while. EDI is able to walk around in a robotic suit and get along with Joker better. James Vega is a beefy Mexican who works out and tinkers with his weapons all the time, calling Femshep "Lola" 'cause she looks like one. Liara returns from her Shadow Broker days in order to help translate the Prothean plans for the super Reaper-killing weapon "The Crucible". And I think that's it so far...
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| Neat little feature where teammates can show up anywhere and talk to anyone after main missions. |
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| Aw, I kinda feel bad having to interact with him and then turning him down. |
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| This is the part where Shepard gives her a chance to play chess or try out her shower. I made Shepard stand down the shower option and went for chess, to Shepard's dismay that she sucks compared to Yeoman Traynor. |
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| Goddammit Joker! Why can't you be available? Why EDI?! |
In between main missions, Shepard does all the side quests available and gets as many war assets. And the Citadel is a hotspot to interact with teammates. Fun times like Liara confronting her "father" from ME2 and talking about all the bad things Liara did as a Shadow Broker to contradict her innocent nature. Or helping a guy uncover a Hanar diplomat conspiracy, only to let the poor guy die saving a colony from blowing up. Or there's bailing a Quarian from being branded as a thief. Then there's helping my gay shuttle pilot get over the death of his husband.
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| Tali, go to sleep. You're drunk. "No, Shepard. To Miranda. Despite being a Cerberus cheerleader, she's alright... freaking Bosh'tet" |
There was the evacuation of an Asari temple that houses all the Asari affected by the Ardak-Yashi. Too bad for Samara because one was kidnapped by the Banshees and the other is lost. The sister that was cursed to becoming a Banshee went suicide bomber by blowing up the Main Hall where all the Banshees gathered. Samara stood firm that her last daughter needed to be killed or else her daughter will turn into Morinth. Shepard knows that Samara couldn't bring herself to kill her own daughter, so Samara turns the gun on herself and it was a good thing my trigger finger stopped her from killing herself. Samara's daughter convinces her mom that she can stay at the temple to rebuild it and that her convictions shouldn't be stuck with a physical place like a temple.
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| In despair that Kai-leng, worst Asian assassin ever, stole an important Prothean computer intelligence needed for the Crucible. |
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| Eugh, don't know how Bioware let this one slip. |
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| And that's how you kiss, Garrus. "That, I can do" |
DATE TIME WITH GARRUS. Shepard and Garrus go on a date up in the Presidium. Garrus didn't give a damn anymore so he wanted to shoot bottles with Shepard. Shepard's line of "Sleeping with a Turian" didn't faze Garrus, but suddenly kissing him fazes him because the videos didn't take him that far. It was a tie until I had Shepard do the paragon thing and let Garrus win leading to this result:
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| "I'm Garrus Vakarian, and THIS IS NOW MY FAVORITE SPOT ON THE CITADEL." |
Letting Shepard win kinda puts him in a defeated state so I wanted to see him happy. Pretending to lose, Shepard makes an excuse that it's windy. And then Garrus puts his waist around her and say," Don't worry, I know there are other things you're good at."
All of the awkward sexual harassment in ME2 is instantly forgiven in my book. Bioware's romance writing department just hit it out of the ballpark for me in terms of Garrus' route. Not only was Garrus a bro at first, but also he was loyal to the end without the romance. And the romance was just a bonus as he made a quick transition into a suave guy. And here I thought I wouldn't go for Garrus because of how he looks, but his VOICE just pulls me in. It grew on me so I ended up interpreting Garrus as a man within a beast's shell so to speak like Beauty and the Beast. I mean just listen to him:
At this point, Shepard starts closing up ties to all current and former teammates. Things like bidding Thane goodbye, congratulating Joker and EDI for their relationship, and wishing luck for Miranda and Jacob. Rejecting Kaidan, talking with Liara and Tali were also final events. Then it was the final stand into London against the Reapers.
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| Why are the pilows and bed bigger by 3x and Garrus is reading a codex while I lay in my undies? |
The final push consisted of fighting off Reaper soldiers and shooting missiles at a regular-sized Reaper squidship. Before Shepard and her two partners go off into the rush towards the teleportation beam up to the Citadel, Shepard says her final goodbyes to her ME2 comrades and NPCs. She walked around to talk about the possible aftermath of the final battle, with the last person being Garrus. This conversation was the 2nd-to-last emotional scene as Shepard confides into Garrus about their chances of winning and surviving. Garrus said the chances were slim and that if they both go out, then they should meet up at a heaven bar. I had Shepard tell him that if she's up there and he's not, then Shepard will always watch over him (FUCK FEMSHEP, NOT THE FEELS ALREADY). Garrus' romance lines come in as Garrus asks Shepard about retiring to a tropical island and making a Turian-human hybrid baby. Shepard's response was a joke about how biology probably wouldn't co-operate. The last line that hit me in the feels for the Xth time was Garrus pulling her in and telling her to pardon his insubordination because her boyfriend has an order for her to come back alive because it would be lonely without her... I'm not crying I swear ;__:
When Shepard and Anderson's troops run to the beam of light, the Harbinger's (ME2 villan) laser kept zapping left and right with Shepard barely missing them. Then this is the part where the Extended Cut hit me in the feels AGAIN when the laser zaps a tank, flips it to Garrus and Vega, and explodes on them. Both of Shepard's teammates are badly injured and Joker is called in to evacuate them. Shepard tells Garrus to go and he said, "And YOU have got to be kidding me". Then Shepard caresses Garrus' face for the last time and tells him that no matter what she will always love him. With Garrus' heartbroken eyes, Garrus says,"I love you too" while Shepard pulls away and the Normandy's hatch closes on Garrus' outstretching arm. GOD WHY, BIOWARE? WHY? SHE CAN'T SEE HIM ANYMORE! Shepard gets close until the Harbinger's beam narrowly zaps her along with the remaining soldiers. This is the part where many gamers thought Shepard was already dead and it was all an illusion, but according to Bioware's writing she's not dead yet. Shepard gets onto the Citadel and meets up with Anderson. TIM of all people is also there and coaxes Shepard into shooting Anderson in the gut. With the power of high Paragon reputation, Shepard convinces TIM to kill himself. Shepard opens up the Citadel to allow the Crucible to dock and then sits next to the dying Anderson. Anderson dies off and then Shepard is lifted onto the Crucible.
THIS IS THE PART WHERE THE EC COULDN'T EVEN SAVE THE STAR CHILD. Basically, the star child was the one who came up with the solution that since synthetics will always fight the organics, why not create more synthetics to harvest the organics to save them? I mean WTF BIOWARE? That's retarded. It turned from us vs Reapers to synthetics vs organics so that includes the Geth. So somewhere along the line, the Reapers fucked up somewhere and claims to be the saviors of saving the organics from synthetics like themselves. Sorry if I get the details wrong, but the whole presence of Reapers just dumb-ed down because of this kid. Shepard has the choice of destroying the Reapers, controlling them, or combining organics with synthetics so everything's a hybrid. I wanted the slightly happier ending so I had Shepard destroy. There's always the shoot-the-star-child method where the next cycle will take care of it at the cost of all humans being wiped out. So even though EDI and Legion were cool, I couldn't get Shepard to even combine the organics against their will just to save two synthetic characters. And I was supposed to have Shepard be dedicated to wipe out all Reapers. Shepard activates the Crucible and Commander Anderson gives the go for every combating ship to retreat to a rendezvous point through the Sol system mass relay to avoid contact with the Crucible's blast radius. Liara also convinces Joker, much to his protest, to get the Normandy to start retreating because it's too dangerous and Shepard's never coming back. The crucible wipes out all that is living synthetics which are Geth and Reapers presumably in those states. But what I said were changes the EC made so people wouldn't be as pissed about the ending. All the mass relays were destroyed, but Anderson narrated that all the races rebuilt the mass relays, the Quarians rebuilt their city and Geth, and Krogan were thriving with the genophage cured. So everything was fixed... except for Shepard. Garrus has the honor to put up Shepard's placard underneath Anderson's, but doesn't because Garrus believes she's still alive. AND LO AND BEHOLD, THERE'S A QUICK SCENE OF SHEPARD TAKING A BREATH SOMEWHERE IN THE RUBBLE. And that concludes the adventure of Commander Shepard. I'd say "losing" Garrus was sad because Shepard might really not see him again and I doubt her survival would make it into the next Mass Effect game.
So yes, the soundtrack was nice, the combat was ok, I thought Garrus' route was ok given that it was sexually harassing awkward that turned into suave and tenderness, and Shepard's impact on the galaxy was as epic much to my expectations (I guess they're lower than others). So here are Garrus' ME2 and 3 romance routes:
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