All posts by The Dyre Wolf

Aria would most definitely be capable, she’s a well established force to be reckoned with. Breaching the containment field in Omega was pretty metal, so I do not doubt the Collectors need to learn that no one fucks with Aria. 

Liara is a biotic, but I just don’t know that we ever see that as her primary talent. Yes, her combat role is as a biotic, but her character growth is focused on the her shedding the naivety of the captured, helpless archeologists, and shifting to the role of spymaster. I would absolutely believe it if she offered up a means of outsmarting this particular defense mechanism, but I do not believe she would brute force her way through the encounter. 

Same with Vasir, I doubt she would have been capable. Yes, she’s a biotic, but she’s not exactly a noteworthy combatant. Benezia probably was, if you are looking to pull from the roster of adversaries.

The noir Elcor detective, all day! When the femme fatale Eclor shows up, I hope he'll be able to parse out the truth despite her lures as a temptress!

"Deceptively: I need someone I can trust, you are the only one I could turn to. I'm in a real bad way, with no way out. They say you were the best."

'Jaded by years in the system: Were. I'm no good for you, doll. Those days are long gone.'

"Seductively: Surely, detective, you could find a way to help a gal like me?"

Our detective glances out the window.

Internal Monologue: I had seen too much. Been burned too many times. But she had me by the heart strings and knew just how to play the chords.

He was no Boone, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I always remember him being pretty solid.

The Reapers. A taste from Sovereign, who is the reveal villain in the final stretch of ME1, having been there to push characters like Saren and the matriarch down all the wrong paths. Saren is the most direct rival through most of ME1, but arguably he is not even the final boss. The necro-mecha corpse piloted by Sovereign drives home who the big bad really was, with even Saren himself not knowing the full extent of his role. Additionally, Saren’s presence fades completely after ME1, and he’s not really relevant again until the final confrontation with the Catalyst, where he can be seen as the avatar of the synthesis ending, along side TIM as control and Anderson as destroy.

Lang in ME3 is a rival, just as Saren was, but he’s finished off in the penultimate level. A milestone victory? Absolutely, but ending him does nothing to stop the overarching crisis. Killing him was probably the most cathartic, final kill of ME3, with that full blown renegade trigger being a real “fuck yeah” moment. But there’s too much at stake and too much left to do after his defeat, stopping a threat which he was not responsible for or even working for, so I would not call him the series’s primary rival.

But as the plot really kicks it into high gear with ME2, Harbinger is the closest thing to an ongoing rival. The line “assuming direct control” is burned into my head after enough playthoughs, and he really becomes the “face” of the coming storm. To me, this makes Harbinger the real standout.

ME2, great from start to finish. Phenomenal moments for its new and returning characters, introduces TIM, adds the dialogue interrupts, and gives us the ability to tactically nuke* all sorts of problems.

Someone has to stop those goddam batarians.

A bad game with a familiar face is just as bad, if not worse, than a bad game with new characters. Duke Nukem Forever would not have been a best seller if it started Baron Bakem or Ronny Roastem. For that matter, I do not believe I would have enjoyed Andromeda any more if the brave explorer leading the charge had instead been Shep. 

So for me at least, cast has little to do with quality. A returning character could be as perfectly introduced or butchered as a new character could be. As long as the writing is solid and the gameplay is fun, I will have a good time. Well, probably. It could be great quality but intentionally presented tonally as a complete emotional downer. 

Off the list of potential newbies? Turian medic with robot hand would be my pick. We see very few obvious cyborgs. Even though Shep with max upgrades is sitting alongside New Vegas’ Courier as protagonist vying for the title of more machine than man with all their respective upgrades and perks, it’s hardly visible. Evil Shep can develop a little bit of an evil Terminator face, but that feels more like a science fiction version of Fable’s morality augmenting appearance than cybernetics. Closest we see at scale are species who require certain tech built into their suits to share environments outside their survival tolerances. The only 2 characters I can think of who wear visible upgrades are Saren and Lang, 3 if you count TIM. Seeing cybernetics as either prosthetics or willingly taken upgrades feels like it would be more common. Post Reaper, the number of injured and maimed who might need prosthetics would be even higher.

Only if it were a genre spinoff, not a traditional BioWare entry. Garrus is Garrus, not me. An excuse to have an adventure in the world on an interesting plan- area is fine, but don’t lessen a good character to prop up or sell a game.

I replayed Mass Effect right before 2 came out, so Cerberus was fresh on my mind. Even if I had not done that, having the space equivalent of a Bond villain’s lair is pretty heavily sign posted evil.

100% let them die each and every time. Maybe they would have lived if they cared to listen.

Favorite was the Schwarzeneggerian “You’re working too hard” electro-stab! It is the perfect example of ME2’s renegade interrupts mostly being 80s action hero moves, with a few nasty bits scattered around.

Most cathartic, though, was breaking Lang’s sword for a proper “fuck you” send off near the end of the game.

It’s been done to death, with all the theorizing anyone could ever want, but for such a minor background scene, the 3 soldiers from different species all mesmerized by the asari dancer, seeing how she exemplifies an aspect unique to their respective races, has taken on a life of its own.

Just 3 guys who were a little too lonely, a little too long, and now having drunk a little too much before seeing a beautiful woman, now imagining only what they want? Or is it the crack in the facade of the asari guise of beauty, the first warning sign of the coming horror to which they will subject the universe???

Whether you’ve taken it seriously or laughed at how seriously it can be taken, I really like it for that reason.

Closest to a canonized cold embrace of death I would want to see, is a plot or character growth critical adventure into a “haunted” crypt, where the new protagonist accidentally reactivates a now Skeletal, T800 looking corpse Shep. At the very least, beginning a sort of Hero’s Shade encounter, for the new protagonist. Revenant Shep as a companion might be asking too much, though XD

The Illusive Man.

Make it a parts donor clone, similar to evil Shep, whose trying to outrun his own shadow. As a fun little nod, he could be slightly younger and voiced by Emilio Estevez.

Maybe something unseen covers it? Like a camera shutter made of super sci fi space metal or some sort of energy barrier? Otherwise, yeah, that is a truly gigantic hole in the rear of the space station, which is not at all affected by the closing arms of the feast of the station.

Something should have been done with it. I loved the ME3 multiplayer, but none of the people I played with, who all expressed interest in playing again if it had been part of the rerelease, were interested in going back to the original version. And its exclusion is one of the reasons I did not pick up LE. I had done a complete replay of the trilogy and all its DLCs maybe 6 or 7 months before LE was announced. Works just fine the way it was originally, so there was nothing in it for me. Ironically, even the 3 or 4th rerelease of Skyrim has more in it for me than MELE, since the price is less than the cost of picking up all the Creation Club items that I never spent Toddbucks on. Multiplayer is something that could have been revived and received plenty of new content for, without ruffling many feathers. And if not that, than powers and abilities from multiplayer characters could have been pulled over to use as Shep or the crew. But nope, nothing on that front.

I can never bring myself to complete it during the course of story. It is such a fun, uplifting final adventure with the crew, that I usually complete it after the final mission. Never felt like there was a natural break in the flow of the main quest where it fit cleanly, but if you are dead set on it occurring before the final battle, I would say close to completion of the campaign. Where enough of the prep work could have been done that some of the immediacy could have taken a break.

Galaxy is full of Batarians who need their asses kicked. Meet enough of them during the course of the 3 games, but all the better if you get a head start during the background. Not to mention, your being vacation interrupted by the forces of evil, only to rise to the occasion at kick some ass is an 80s action premise worthy of Schwarzenegger. Which would also go along way to explain the one liners seen in the ME2 renegade triggers.

Harbinger, because they introduced him as a villain in Mass Effect 2, writing him as “the face” of the Reaper threat, but that was never given a satisfying conclusion. The Collectors were defeated, but he was not. The Leviathan DLC and the Alliance intel doubles down on this one particular Reaper being significant, in addition to having been the puppet master behind the opposition in ME2. But that’s it. It all fizzles out in the final stretch, with nothing meaningful coming from the character.

About a 70/30 split, leaning towards Paragon but making use of almost all of the Renegade triggers and a few dialogue options. In ME2, every Renegade trigger is borrowing a move and a one liner from Schwarzenegger, and it’s always great. It’s not until ME3 where you really have to be careful, because a handful of Renegade triggers are the “murder my alley” button instead of an 80s action movie button.