SWTOR and losing companions in MMOs: walking a thin line

Warning: this post contains spoilers for SWTOR's Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion up until Chapter XV (The Gemini Deception), as well as Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins.

When I game, I love to immerse myself into fictional worlds. The same goes for companions: I get attached to them almost as if they are real people. So when a guildie accidentally implied that the newest KOTFE chapter would involve losing a companion, I considered playing through it on an alt I cared about less first, in case I made any wrong decisions. It made me think about how companions impact us and how they even more seem to do so in SWTOR than other Bioware games, to a point I'm delaying logging in, feeling stressed about playing and terrified at "doing it wrong"! Why do the developers make me suffer through this?

Fandoms that I never thought I'd like (but did)

Today's 5 Fandom Friday post was enthusiastically called "Fandoms You LOVE But Didn't Think You Would!" I usually try to keep an open mind and not dismiss things without knowing them. I obviously fail at this, though, because I managed to come up with this list of five anyway!

Six times purple

It's already that day of the month... the sixth! Surely you know what I'm talking about (if not, you can quickly read up here and pretend nothing happened); this month's issue is all about purple.

Mums in games

Pokémon mums, by ViViVooVoo

When I saw that last week's 5 Fandom Friday* theme was "favourite fictional mums", I knew I was going to have a hard time adapting this to "favourite mums in games". What I did not know was that I would have to scratch the "favourite" part altogether, because there simply wasn't enough data. With games traditionally focusing on the combat adventures of healthy, young characters; mothers, associated with homeliness, parenting and familial relationships, don't exactly score high on the agendas of game developers.

I'm sure there are some games featuring great mothers out there, but for now I'll focus on two questions: how many mums are there actually in the games I play? And: in what way is motherhood portrayed?

ME 3: Omega DLC

So while the laptop is still (!) away for repairs, I've started playing Mass Effect 3 again. Mass Effect was one of the games I played when I just started this blog, so that's two years ago already! However, I was very disappointed with the ending, and I never came about writing about it.

Now Tiger has installed the DLCs for Mass Effect 3, which also should include some changes to the disappointing ending. Time to replay the game and see what it's like.

We are playing this 'together' again, for as far that is possible with a single-player game. In our case, this means Tiger does the controls, and I tell him what to do.

The rest of this post will contain some spoilers about the Omega DLC, so if you don't want to know anything you better stop reading.

The first DLC we got to was the Omega one. Omega is taken by Cerberus (a sort of terrorist organization) and former leader Aria has fled to the Citadel (central space station when the galactic council is situated).

Now Omega is some sort of space dock full of criminals, so maybe it's not the first choice of a world to free. But Aria helped you out in Mass Effect 2, so it's time to return the favour. Also, there's the fact that she promises you the help of the major crime gangs in your fights against the evil Reapers if you help her reclaim the station.

What I really liked about this DLC is that it explores the character of Aria a bit more. Aria is this really ruthless person that does everything for the power of what she sees as 'her' Omega. At the same time, she is also your ally and I can't help but feel sympathy for her. The situation gets tense when a turian is introduced. She has taken control of the underground movement while Aria was away and wants the best for her people. It then turns out she also has a special relationship with Aria.

It didn't occur to me earlier, but Aria is kinda purplish for an assari. Maybe it's that Omega air she's breathing in. She's also an expert at looking sulky.

I won't spoil more of the story, but overall, this DLC was fun. A nice surprise is that Shepard could get access to the special (pretty overpowered) biotic attack you see Aria doing all the time. This makes this DLC extra cool for biotic Sheps.

ME: Character identity

Today I posted an article on iRez on avatars and identity in Mass Effect. iRez is a collaboration of multiple authors with different backgrounds, with virtual identity as subject. The writers form a mix of Second Life girls, professional artists and MMO players. It's refreshing to write for a public of non-MMO players for a change and look at gaming from a different point of view.

Writing about Mass Effect reminded me of some things I should do:

• Play the Extended Cut - I still don't know what they changed about the ending!
• Replay Mass Effect 3 with the Omega and Leviathan DLC, just waiting for that third content DLC to get released
• But before all that, I should finally write that article about Mass Effect 3's ending!

If you're curious at some Mass Effect theory-crafting, check out Avatar & Identity - Mass Effect (2) at iRez.

LOTRO/ME/SWTOR: October update

It's been a while, so I thought I'd give a small update to tell what I'm up to these days (apart from studying and not having enough time to write as many blog posts as I want!).

LotRO

We've had a period of less signups, but this has changed for the better and lately we've been doing great on Fire and Frost Challenge mode. Fire and Frost T2 is quite easy, but Challenge mode requires some fine tuning. At least we got well-trained at resetting the fight! We have been close a few times and hopefully we'll get it done before the update with a bit of luck. That would be totally epic. It's a shame we won't get all the Challenge modes done in time, but then again, some of them are extremely hard (and indeed, none on our server has completed them all).

After the introduction of Riders of Rohan we can of course still run ToO, but it won't have the same value to me: gaining even just a few levels already has such an effect on the overall difficulty.

On another note, I had great fun when I found that someone had linked to my Raiding rabbits post on Reddit and talked about "the Bear Flattener" as if it was a factual name. Of course I just made it up because I didn't want to call them Rabbit 1, 2 and 3 or something (besides, I wouldn't know which rabbit to give which number anyway)! It did give me loads of pageviews.

Mass Effect

It's been ages already since I finished Mass Effect 3 with the original ending, and I still need to write about what I thought about it. I just feel that so many people have been saying something about it already, it's sort of hard to add something at all. However, I wrote a Mass Effect article for iRez: Avatar & Identity - Mass Effect (1). It's about how the 'Mass Effect experience' works and in what way one gets immersed in that world. I'm really happy how it turned out. In fact, I got so enthusiastic about Mass Effect again that I decided to extend it to two articles, and I feel I should really get the DLC and play the new ending soon. I might also finally write my Mass Effect 3 Ending story here on Ravalation.

SWTOR

Just at the day the new raid was released, our subscriptions ended and we had to renew them. The annoying thing is that you need a credit card for it, and those aren't that normal where I live. You need to pay money to get one, and you don't need it for anything. The only use for one would be if I'd need a hotel in another country (which I never do) or for Star Wars, which is not good enough of a reason for me. So far we've been using Tiger's foreign one which was free, but it now was empty and would take a few days for new money on it to arrive. On the SWTOR website we found it was now possible to pay with Paypal as well and use your normal bank account. However, we didn't get it to work and the customer service isn't replying to our mails. 

So now we don't have a subscription running and I'm not sure how much use it is with Riders of Rohan coming up so soon. I barely have time to game at all with the study load I got. I got a SWTOR post ready (just need to get one more screenshot in game) and I do plan on continuing to play the game, but with all the stuff going on this might be something of a short break.

LOTRO/ME/SWTOR: Gimme six!

Vaneeesa from I Rez Therefore I Am started a challenge called Gimme Six: show us your favorite 'must see' places and tell us where to find them. Most authors connected to iRez walk around in Second Life, one in World of Warcraft... It will be fun to see what they all come up with, what all those other worlds look like. For that to happen, I should of course start with my own selection, covering the three games I play. So here we go!

1) Stangard

Lord of the Rings Online 

This small Rohirric town near the border of Rohan is the current 'place to be' in Lord of the Rings Online (together with the Dunlending village Galtrev) for level capped players. It is filled with authentic looking Rohirric wooden buildings with many horse-themed decorations, as well as with sexy Rohirrim men with long, waving blond hair. Can you imagine a better place to hang out? The game developers did something right here that they failed to do in other towns (such as Bree, the major old town for low level players): you can open each door and take a glance at what's behind it - even if this has no direct purpose in the game. This makes Stangard in my opinion the most realistic town so far in this game.

Where: To the Southeast of Lothlórien, in the Great River region. The area offers quests for players of level 70-75.

2) Households

Star Wars: The Old Republic

IKEA has evolved into true design in the age of the old Republic! Almost every household in this game looks absolutely gorgeous and stylish. If someone would offer to make my own, real-life house look like this: please, go ahead! The thing I love the most about the Star Wars interiors are the Roman-looking flasks. So beautiful! If only these were in fashion in real life... I would fill my house with them!

Where: nice interiors with the distinct SWTOR-style are found in almost every building you enter. The picture above was taken in the cantina of Anchorhead on Tatooine.

3) Evendim

Lord of the Rings Online

Evendim is a beautiful area where the sun (almost) always shines. This is a favorite place for me to take screenshots, because it has a brilliant blue sky. Even during the night it's great to look at the stars above the big lake of Evendim. This lake used to have the nickname "Everswim" upto until the developers had an eureka moment after four years and invented boats that port players to the other side. Before that, it took at least five minutes to swim to the other side. Evendim also shows many ancient remains of the Numenóreans, now guarded by the Dúnedain rangers. A must for Tolkien lore addicts.

Where: West of the North Downs, South of Forochel. In general in the Northwest of Middle-earth. The region contains quests for players between the levels 30 - 40.

4) Tatooine

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Famous for all Star Wars fans from both the movies and several games, Tatooine is a place you cannot skip. In SWTOR, Tatooine has it all: far reaching deserts with nothing in it, the Jawas, Sandpeople, old deserted sand crawlers, the countless times recolonized town of Anchorhead... The only thing I miss are the swoop races. I'm not sure why they are not there, perhaps they don't fit in the timeline (I'm not much of a Star Wars lore expert). Either way, I still enjoy the famous two suns of this planet and its well designed quest chains.

Where: Desert planet in the Outer Rim, the first of three planets orbiting the suns of a binary star system. Contains quests for players between the levels 24 - 28.

5) Rannoch

Mass Effect

It struck me that I couldn't think of a nice landscape in Mass Effect, even though I've visited hundreds of planets in the course of the three games. The stories, actions, the characters of this game are all much more important than the surroundings. That, plus, as you play a soldier, many landscapes you encounter are scarred by warfare and devastation. Not my favorite type of places to walk around and enjoy the weather. Thus my favorite place to be in Mass Effect is the planet Rannoch. To get there, you need to end a war between two peoples that has been going on for centuries. It is not only the end of a war, it is a victory over racism and prejudice, a story about accepting and reconciliation. When you stand here, on this barren planet, inhabited for several hundred years, you gave the Quarians their homeworld back. Your good friend Tali, member of that species, stands besides you, both of you are filled with happiness. You are looking at a barren, empty landscape, yet you see so much more. A beautiful moment in the game.

Where: A planet orbiting an old star in the Tikkun system, behind the Perseus Veil. Accessible near the end of Mass Effect 3.

6) Voss

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Voss is a lovely autumn planet that already inspired me to write a post about its beauty before. It has a special storyline: the planet is inhabited by the mysterious Voss people, of whom some master the force and use it to create visions. The Voss believe blindly in the visions of their so called Mystics, and would blindly leap from a mountain if they would be told it was for a greater good. I'm always fascinated (and a little terrified) by such faith. The Voss don't choose for the light or dark side of the force, but find their answers in the grey middle, that may sometimes be more harsh than the light sided jedi hippies ('peace!') would prefer. This was a beautiful nature planet to explore, accompanied with an interesting storyline.

Where: Planet in the Outer Rim, the third one of the so called Voss system. Contains quests for players between the levels 44 - 47.

Is that all?

Well, these are the six I came up with. It was a hard choice and I'm already regretting not having included some places (LotRO's Lothlórien comes to mind...), but it was "gimme six" and not "gimme hundred". Nevertheless: did I do it all wrong or did I miss your favorite place to hang out? Write your own post about it, or leave a message below in the comments!

Edit: Reposted on iRez, as I was apparently supposed to post it there instead (oops).

ME 3: Shepard, Geth and Quarians

 

Mass Effect. So much fun to play, but so hard to write blog posts about. There are many things to talk about, but I also feel that I shouldn't spoil too much for people who haven't played it (this far) yet - a conflicting combination. One thing that urges me to post about Mass Effect after all are the nice character pictures you can take. The game has beautiful colours, scenery and portraits from time to time. I think the shot of badass-looking Shepard & co above contains all three!

This time some shots of my time at and around Rannoch, homeworld of the Quarians. I had been both dreading and looking forward to this moment. Looking forward because there has been a distinct lack of Tali in Mass Effect 3 thus far, and dreading because I had a feeling the absence of both the Geth and Quarians in the war against the Reapers was not just a coincidence. A who has to clean up the mess? Right. Shepard.

   

Artificial lifeforms: evil, risky or lovely?

One of the largest revelations of Mass Effect 2 was that the main force of the Geth were never aggressive towards "organics", but that it were in fact the Reapers who convinced a splinter group of the Geth to believe otherwise. But how to tell this to the Quarians, who's total nomad culture encircles around their past exile by the Geth and their idea of the conscious AI as an dangerous and evil entity?

The Geth form a prelude to some of the bigger pictures behind Mass Effect, initiating questions like: Can artificial intelligent beings be considered lifeforms of themselves? And if so: 

Are Artificial Intelligent lifeforms destructive against organic lifeforms by nature?

These are not new questions, but themes that have already been explored through a lot of mediums. I'm sure you're familiar with the countless movies that answer the above question with "yes" (especially the ones involving the destruction of Earth). I can also see parallels between the Matrix and Mass Effect's Reapers harvesting alien life cycles. There are, however, also thoughtful movies that answer the question with "no", and one I came to think of is A.I. by Steven Spielberg. This excellent movie tells the story of a young boy who turns out to be an A.I. and gets abandoned by his human 'parents'. The inevitable question: who is more human, the little boy or 'real' people?

Mass Effect lets you decide on your own what your views on this are, although they do give you certain leads in the form of EDI, your ship's A.I. who develops an identity, and Legion (picture above), the highly developed Geth that can operate on itself (unlike most other Geth) and can follow you into combat. I choose the more positive approach, so my Shepard believes that organic and artificial lifeforms can co-exist, as long as they respects each other as a living being. 

Happy ending

Thus on Rannoch, I established a peace between the Geth and the Quarians, and the Quarians were able to set foot on their homeworld for the first time in centuries. In my opinion, the Quarians were extremely lucky that the Geth were less frightful and more forgiving than themselves, as the Geth already consciously neglected several opportunities to destroy the Quarians altogether. It also struck me as quite painful that there were Quarians defending the first Geth in the Morning War. So many missed chances, it could all have been so much less painful... 

Of course, the way I describe all this must make it sound all very simple and straightforward, but it actually feels very intuitive and realistic in-game. It was a really cool theme and I'm happy to have brought it to a good end.

And wow, I've never seen Tali so happy! The picture above also shows one of the rare moments that even Shepard actually looks happy - previous attempts to smiling looked more like grinning while enduring dental pains. They just set foot to Rannoch and are daydreaming about the Quarians building it up again. Could you think of a happier ending to this story? I certainly cannot.

I sincerely wonder if there even are people who keep being anti-Geth in their first playthrough and choose to eliminate them. Let me know if you did, because that would be fascinating to hear about.

ME 3: What's better than one Krogan? Ten thousand Krogan!

And what's worse than yet another Mass Effect post? No post at all. Mass Effect 3 is going on and on and I don't have enough time to keep up here with the events that happen in-game. So I'll write another post and it will be a lovely thing to do, as it will be about my two all-time favorite characters: Urdnot Wrex and Mordin Solus. I do have to give out an alert, though: the following will be a huge spoiler if you haven't played Mass Effect 3 and are planning to do so in the future.

We saw how Wrex turned from a mercenary outlaw to a leader of his clan on Tuchanka. Even better, he became a leader with a vision, wanting to stop the Krogan to fight each other and work together instead. With so little fertile Krogan females, he understood that it is better to share than to kill each other, ending up with less Krogan all the way. Who knows, the example of the Normandy with its cooperating races and the knowledge of the Reapers lurking in dark space might have inspired him. The other Krogan are not all so enthusiastic about Wrex' new ideas, but he seems to be making some progress when you visit him in Mass Effect 2.

Wrex likes war, but he does not seek to overflow the whole galaxy with Krogan, even if there would be a cure for the genophage. He has learned from the past. Besides, Wrex is my all-time favorite Mass Effect character, with his awesome sturdy and hilarious comments. I wrote about the complications of curing the genophage (Ode to Wrex, under "Krogan with brains") before, but have always been secretly hoping there would be an opportunity to cure it anyway. I was disappointed in Mass Effect 2, but it seems my hopes were finally fulfilled in Mass Effect 3!

Mordin Solus was able to save one Krogan female test subject that his former student worked on (much to his displease when he found out). I've always been really curious as to what female Krogan would be like, but I was pleasantly surprised. They look like Krogan, but are still feminine (picture to the right). Their voices are heavy, but still feminine as well. And on top of that, they're strong, like their male counterparts, but they're also wise. The one that Mordin saved was an awesome character, with a "we women will save the galaxy"-attitude. She started traveling Tuchanka, advocating the Krogan to stop fighting and work together instead.

Anyway, Mordin was able to extract a cure from the female Krogan, which had to be spread out over Tuchanka by adding it to some sort of huge device, and of course everything ended with a lot of running, jumping, things collapsing and an epic matron threshermaw vs Reaper battle. Unfortunately, it also ended with Mordin dying, which made me sad. My brilliant funny talkative scientist! I guess it makes it a bit less worse knowing Mordin wanted to do it himself, finishing his life's work in the right way. He also was very old for Salarian standards. This made me deal with his loss, otherwise I would have been so depressed!

Overall, this was an epic mission. Tomorrow I'll write about SWTOR again, I promise!

ME 3: Present in a box

It's pretty frustrating, but my boyfriend wanted to upgrade his pc with some new hardware, and now he's reinstalling everything on it. Sure, the result might be grand, but this means that I'm not able to log into SWTOR or LOTRO until it's all done! I usually shamelessly hop to his computer to take screenshots from LOTRO for this blog (his graphics are way better), and I can't run SWTOR on my own computer. I can't post anything about those games right now, so I guess I'll have to expose you to more Mass Effect talk.

Not that that is bad: Mass Effect 3 is very exciting! Now the Reapers are attacking Earth, it feels like everything you do is urgent. I keep facepalming at how different races fail to understand that it's crucial to work together. Luckily I'm making some progress there, and people seem to understand the need better when the threat becomes worse. I just hope we're still in time.

What's in the box?

So what are we staring at on the picture above? It was one of the coolest moments of Mass Effect 3 so far: finding a living Prothean on Eden Prime. He was hibernating in a special survival pod until we woke him up. Thousands of years ago, when the Protheans realized they could not win their war to the Reapers, they decided that they would hibernate, arising with an army when the next cycle would start and the Reapers would have retreated. Sadly enough for them, the Protheans did not have enough power to maintain or reactivate themselves after so many years: they were dependent on species of the future to find them. Then, they would arise with their whole army and seize power over the galaxy of that cycle.

They didn't know that the Reapers would find many of their chambers, and destroy them. Of that whole frozen army, only one Prothean remained: the one we found, called Javik, who embodied the concept of "vengeance" to his people. I must say I was a bit disappointed in our Prothean only being a fighter and a warrior. He's not able to help us create our superweapon at all. Javik does have a great personality, though. He remembers every race he encounters from what they looked like 50,000 years ago, and it is not much of a surprise that he feels superior to them. His remarks are priceless. It's also funny to see how much this freshly awoken Prothean differs from how Liara imagined him. Having studied all known aspects of Prothean life, Liara thought they would fit her own ideals: intelligent scientists that would do everything to stop the Reaper threat. Instead, the Protheans turned out to have had a martial culture, steering an empire that oppressed many alien races. It's cute to see her struggle with this and funny to hear Javik complain about what silly questions the "Liara-Asari" keeps posing him.

Shepard's boyfriends

Speaking of which, I started a relationship with Liara now. In Mass Effect 1, I accidentally ended up with Kaidan. Yes, accidentally. That guy just really talks you into things. I recall something happening as follows:

- Kaidan: "Why do you ask all these things?"

- Shepard conversation option: 

1) Interested in how Kaidan is doing (I read this as: you're a nice guy) 

2) I ask this to the whole crew (I thought that sounded a bit harsh)

- Shepard choosing option 1: "I'm interested in you." (whaaat? that's not what I meant!)

Then in Mass Effect 2, he's apparently happy to see me, but doesn't trust me because I work with Cerberus and I didn't contact him to tell him about it (err, you were on a secret mission, so I wasn't able to track you down, in case you don't remember?) and he walks away angrily from you. After you've killed the Collectors and everything, you see him again in Mass Effect 3 and he STILL doesn't trust you. Seriously, that guy has trusting issues. He doesn't even give me time to explain myself, he just keeps doubting me. That guy just needs a psychologist, not me. I've totally had it with him.

Liara, on the contrary, became more awesome by the day. I think she has one of the strongest character progressions of all companions. She was this really cute naive scientist in Mass Effect 1, but grows to be a wise Shadow Broker. She can still be cute from time to time, but I guess my Shepard likes that. When I told her in the Citadel I wanted to be more than friends she reacted in her old shy but happy way and gave me a small kiss. I'm usually not into character romances (I don't enjoy watching kissing and sex scenes), but I think this one is the cutest I've seen so far.

ME 3: Fish defying the laws of physics

(Did you notice how I resisted writing "fishics: there? Good, uh?) So I'm back on the Normandy now and I'm handling my new appearance quite well. I guess all the Reapers and Cerberus terrorists got me distracted from important matters such as my haircut and the shape of my eyebrows. I must admit that I did succumb to plastic surgery (read: save editor) to get rid of those horrific pink lips of ME 3. Red suits me better. I fit in well now and feel at home again. I even managed to get some of my old fish back in my cabin's aquarium, and I picked up some new ones at the Citadel. The jellyfish are my favorite!

Now I've noticed something fishy (sorry!) about my fish, though. It happened for the first time when Liara visited my cabin for a pep talk. You'd think the screenshot above is just a nice picture of Liara, right? Check again, specifically left of Liara's face. Yes, that's a fish spying on us! At first I thought I was dreaming, but apparently my fish get bored by their aquarium now and then and decide to leave, defying the laws of physics as if it's nothing. Apparently they preferably float freely through my cabin when I'm not watching (picture below). I'm certain they didn't used to do this before. What happened during those six weeks when I was grounded on Earth? Did someone upgrade them with Reaper technology? Did Cerberus equip them with implants so they can gather intel on me during my mission? There's a lot of creepy stuff out there in the universe, but the creepiest of all lives in my cabin!

ME 3: Creating a character

Why is it so hard to pick your character's appearance? I always need about one hour to get it working, and sometimes even then I'm not satisfied and delete my character after all. Same for Mass Effect 3. My imported Mass Effect 2 character looked horrible in Mass Effect 3, so I really had to change some things around. Luckily there were new hairstyles to help me. Hairstyles! One of the things that really makes or breaks a character for me.

I never was really fond of my old hairstyle, but it was the best I could find at the time. There were even some long hairstyle mods for Mass Effect 3, which I enthusiastically imported. They really changed my character's look too much though - it made her look too cute. Shepard of course isn't cute, she is badass and sturdy. It would be nice to let her look at least a bit beautiful though - after all, you do have to look at her all the time. The following three looks were the options the character creation panel could come up with:

This one is basically my old hairstyle in Mass Effect 1 and 2. I never have been fond of it, though, and it looks a bit old fashioned.

Another option, perhaps a bit more ladylike. It reminds me of Dr. Chakwas. I guess it looks great on the doctor, but I'm not so sure about myself.

This was the last hairstyle  I found fitting. It looks more cool than the previous ones. I think I'll stick with this one for now. I'm still not totally satisfied with her general appearance, though. What do you think?

One thing about Mass Effect is that the characters in the game actually look a lot better than on the creation panel. This is a good thing, as I otherwise probably would have run off in despair. An example of my current character ("option 3") to the right. Looks a lot better, right? I might be able to live with this, if I can get used to her. 

I honestly don't understand myself why I care so much about game appearances. In real life, I usually don't even look in the mirror. If I travel by public transport, more often than not I'm combing my hair in the bus because I just plain forgot to do it in the morning. And that's not because I have this hair that doesn't need care - on the contrary, I have this really long hair that I'll never get apart if I skip combing it. I guess I'm just illogical, as Mr. Spock would say.

After spending far too much time at the character panel, I got to play (well, I got my boyfriend to play for me). It started amazingly scary with Earth getting attacked by a lot of Reapers, whoa! It made the "I told you so, do you now finally believe me?" feeling a lot less fun. Okay, I might have anticipated on the Reapers not being much fun. Earth was looking pretty bad, what a horror! Had I really not been doing anything at all in these past six months to prepare us for this? We knew they were on their way and that I was only able to slow them down by blowing up that Mass relay. I guess not, I had been grounded all the time to keep those Batarians happy. A few things really shone in the tutorial, while I was escaping Earth (you'd almost think I'm a coward!):

• Biotics now look really cool!  I'm not really sure what they changed, but each time I cast a power, it looks great, much more realistic than before.
• Movement is very dynamic. Sliding over crates, jumping over gaps... all just made everything much more realistic.
• The whole thing feels like as if you're in a movie. Debris falls just before your feet, a building collapses as you run past it. There are much more cutscenes when things are happening. I'm not sure if it will stay like this, but Mass Effect 3 makes a much more realistic experience than the previous games.
• I think I used the word "realistic" a bit too much in the past sentences! I think you get the idea now!

I guess I'll just have to play further to see what happens. The whole story is pretty scary, though! Hopefully I'll get used to my new character appearance soon as well.

ME 2: The highlights

I haven't written about Mass Effect for quite a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing it. On the contrary, I've played loads of it, especially back when my internet connection was broken. I have collected all companions and was ready to start the final mission: to exterminate the Collectors. I promise I'll make up for my lack of Mass Effect posts by writing a massive one right now. Get ready for impact. Needless to say: if you haven't played Mass Effect 2 at all, this will be quite a spoiler.

Favorite characters

Before I finish the last part of the game, I'd like to look back at all what happened, starting with my favorite companions of Mass Effect 2. I can't just leave the game without giving them a bit of attention. Darn, it's so hard to order them!

I'll restrict myself to five, even though it'll be hard:

1. Garrus

Garrus in Mass Efect 2 is just completely badass. I remember very well that you're trying to recruit some sniper into your ranks - not a very interesting mission, I thought at first. When I came closer I got more and more respect as he  was just holding hundreds of men off on his own. Then you eventually get to him and find out it's Garrus! One of the most awesome missions, and what a lovely character.

2. Mordin

New to Mass Effect, check out the picture above (left alien, the right one is Grunt). Kleptomaniac with hilarious comments. I love how he deducts everything around him like a Salarian Sherlock Holmes. Not only hyper intelligent, but also hilariously funny.

3. Tali

Cute Tali is the first one who actually is happy to see you, which is a happy change after even that sucky Council you saved thinks you're a lunatic who's imagining Reapers. Tali has transformed from a cute young Quarian trying to prove herself, into a well-respected member of the Flotilla, totally kicking ass.

4. Kasumi/Legion

I know it's a bit unfair to put two here, but I really can't choose. Kasumi is a nice girl, with great stealth skills and absolutely awesome in her work. Legion really fascinates me and sounds like a great character - only I only just added him to my crew and barely got to know him. Hopefully this will chance in Mass Effect 3.

5. Grunt

Even if they suffer from puberty and just want to destroy everything, I simply adore Krogan. Found priceless search engine results of this one on the Shadow Broker's base.

An honourable mention goes to Joker for being my favorite non-combat character. I must've been traumatized by HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I was terrified by the ship's AI "EDI" at first as well. The development between EDI and Joker is priceless, though, and it ended up being my favorite conversation to observe after each mission (joined by the strong feeling of relief each time after not forgetting to feed my fish). 

Best moments

"Shepard! My friend!" Meeting Wrex was an obvious highlight of Mass Effect 2. Nothing beats meeting my all-time favorite Mass Effect character. Look how happy Wrex and Shepard are to see each other. Wait... is she blushing there?

It was really cool to see Wrex was doing the right thing for the Krogan, trying to save his species. He is so badass. I also loved the rest of the missions on the Krogan homeworld, which is for some reason called something like Tuchanka (it has three syllables, I wonder if they're able to pronounce it themselves). There was also this hilariously cute Krogan poet who tries to conquer his Asari girlfriend by writing poetry for her:

"Blue Rose of Illium, leave eternity unembraced and grapple in the glorious struggle that is us, here and now!"

"Come to me, Blue rose of Illium. Let our three hearts beat as two."

Can you imagine it, a Krogan poet? His poor girlfriend was so horrified by his cliches that she begged us to make him stop. Perhaps you must have seen it yourself in order to be able to appreciate it, but I couldn't stop laughing each time I passed by.

Liara! When I did her mission, I really thought she would end up as my last companion, as I had only one spot left. Her mission is just crazy exciting, the best of all character missions in my opinion. After two years she has evolved from a cute naive scientist to a badass woman with a terrifying goal. It was also very heartwarming to find out she actually tried to save me after Mass Effect 1. Her being my second all-time favorite Mass Effect character, I was so disappointed when it became clear she was not going to join me! Admittedly, her story's ending is perfect for her as a person, but I cannot help as to look forward to Mass Effect 3 and can only hope she'll be back there.

Another thing I love is making up bad names for teams. Teams as in the trinity of you that ventures into each mission. Behold below: "Team Biotic Bitches". I'm not particularly fond of these women (especially Jack), nor are they particularly fond of each other, but the name made me do it.

Here's another one. Can you guess the name?

Meet "Team Sexy Nerd Girls". Yes, this would be us if we were Mass Effect characters! *keeps on dreaming*

My wife is giving birth to a Collector! / Aka "The end" 

I really couldn't stop laughing when I saw the picture to the right of this baby posted by a redditor father-to-be yesterday. You really should read the reddit page it was posted on, as it contains priceless commentary. Meanwhile, I could not help but giggle all the time when fighting the very last mission on the Collector's station. I just had to think of these pictures each the time I heard quotes like "Assuming direct control." "If I must tear you apart Shepard ("mother"), I will." etc. Quite frankly, it's a wonder we made it.

The ending was really cool and I totally enjoyed the opportunity to slap Cerberus in the face. All that work I did for them, the Illusive Man ensuring me that I was allowed to do as I deemed right because I was the only one he could trust to have a chance on stopping the Collectors... and in the end it turned out he just saw me as a puppet. Well, he was wrong. No, I'm not giving a collector station full of creepy turn-biomass-into-mindless-controlled-machines technology to you! Regardless of what creepy things you'd do with it, has it even occurred to you that there are still thousands of Reapers out there - and what will they do if they realize the ship is still there? Sigh. Nevertheless, it felt great to just say "In your face!" and fly off with the Normandy.

Now it's up to Mass Effect 3 to find out what happens next!

ME 2: Claiming a substitute Krogan

It is almost as if the Mass Effect game read my former post about missing Wrex and anticipated on that. Creepy. Wrex is apparently still busy on his homeplanet sorting out who-knows-what, so my employer Cerberus sent me off to a planet to collect a substitute Krogan (picture above).

Stuff started out the old fashioned way when the planet appeared to be inhabited by crazy mindless Krogan that attacked upon sight. After fighting through these, I found the Krogan I was supposed to be recruiting: a mad scientist that was trying to breed 'the perfect Krogan'. He worked with clones and genetic modification and tried to indoctrinate his subjects with emotions and commands before waking them up. All cloned super-Krogans that were not good enough were set loose to fight mercenaries in some sort of sick minded merc-training program on the planet's surface. And I am supposed to recruit this guy? I understand there are different ethics widespread in Shepard's galaxy, but I'm still a 21st century girl from Amsterdam making the decisions here. Thanks, Cerberus, but no. Not gonna happen.

At this point the Mass Effect game was being creepy again by reading my mind and letting the crazy Krogan get killed by his employer, who was pissed off by all the Krogan that had been killed by my hand. I can see a point there. I mean, sure, I would've wanted to call, set an appointment beforehand and not having to fight all those mental Krogan as well, but the game didn't let me. I guess it's not proper 22th century etiquette to knock before entering. Sigh.
Anyway, just before he died, the mad Krogan scientist asked me to take his latest super-Krogan clone with me and take care of it. And of course my natural talent to do things that sound like a ad idea (think: Rachni-queen) popped up: I took the frozen super-Krogan with me to the Normandy.

The super-Krogan was pink with lilac of colour with light blue eyes. This should have warned me that there was something ominous about this one. A pink Krogan... it just doesn't feel right. What exactly had the crazy Krogan in mind when he thought of 'the perfect Krogan'? Of course the first thing he did when I awoke him on my ship was to try to rip my head off. I needed to remind him of in what what position he was to get him back in line. After that he gave himself the most charming name "Grunt". Great.
BioWare, if you are listening: please give me Wrex back!

ME 1: Ode to Wrex

I've been playing quite a bit of Mass Effect lately, to the point where I finished the first game. My, what an epic conclusion that was! It was really exciting, apart from all the shooting that had to be done - luckily I could abuse my boyfriend for that. I don't want to tell too much about the ending of Mass Effect I though, that would be a huge spoiler for those who have not played it yet. I can only say it is really good. 

In Mass Effect II, one doesn't have the same squad mates as in I: there has been some time in between, and everyone has gone their own way. I'm suffering from some withdrawal effects in Mass Effect II though, as my all-time favorite character Wrex is not available. My boyfriend promises me "another Krogan", but I don't believe anyone can be a substitute for Wrex! Mass Effect II is really nice, but I miss my favorite Krogan. I almost ragequit when I heard I was not going to have Wrex in my squad this time and went into 'drawing therapy', resulting in the Wrex drawings presented below. Perhaps writing a bit about him here will cheer me up.

Wrex' quotes

Krogan are famous for their violent nature and being very, very tough (in case of Wrex, make that near unbeatable), but also for their dry humour. My favorite Wrex-quotes, in order of appearance in the game (imagine them being spoken with a sturdy bass voice):

C-Sec officer: Wrex, do you want us to arrest you?
Wrex: I want you to try.

Tali: How can you fight your own people?
Wrex: Anyone who fights us is either stupid or on Saren's payroll. Killing the latter is business. Killing the former is a favor to the universe.

Shepard: You must have family other than your father. Don't you miss them?  
Wrex: You trying to make me cry, Shepard?

Upon walking into an bureaucratic barrier:
Wrex: If these "executives" don't blame Anoleis for provoking this, they're fools. You should eat them.

The most famous Wrex-quote has even become a meme among Mass Effects fans. It describes the regular sturdy and cool meeting of Wrex and Shepard on the Normandy and goes like this:

"Shepard." "Wrex."

There are a dozen of videos scattered about the net showing what, according to a video comment, Shepard and Wrex were doing when supposed to be saving the universe:

~

Three years later...

*Reapers invade*

Anderson: Where's Shepard?!?!?!?

*Aboard the Normandy*

Wrex: Shepard.
Shepard: Wrex.

~

The drawing by Jennifer Stolzer / aka "jameson" to the left shows what really should have happened, though!

This is the best piece of Wrex fan art I've seen out there (so cute!) and I wouldn't want you to miss it. You can check out more of Jennifer's art at Jameson's deviant art page.

Krogan with brains

There's more awesome about Wrex apart from having cool/funny quotes and looking extremely cuddly. While most Krogan are satisfied with killing each other in clan wars, Wrex realizes that this will only drive their species closer to extinction. A genetically designed virus (referred to as the "genophage") introduced by the Turians made the krogan infertile. The Krogan were up to that point threatening to overtake the rest of the universe. They had only known their own world's clan wars so far, and with the new technology gained through their mercenary work in the war against the Rachni, it was only a logical continuation by their nature to go and raid other planets.

The genophage debate is a well constructed one: it seems a bit harsh to exterminate a whole race, but on the other hand you don't want that race to exterminate everyone else, either. I'm still hoping to be able to get some sort of cure for the genophage, preferably without Krogan killing the rest of the universe. I heard Wrex is trying to do something idealistic on the Krogan homeworld in Mass Effect II. I may then not have him in my squad (*sob*), but I'm still very much looking forward to see what's going on there!