30-Day Mass Effect Challenge: Day 2

Favorite companion(s) in Mass Effect

This decision has taken me no time! But let's meet all the contestants, shall we?

Ashley Williams

I don't know why I like Ash, and I certainly don't know why she's pretty much always my Virmire survivor. She's xenophobic, although she softens up in that regard a little bit. She's all religious, which is fine, but it's nothing she and my Shep would bond over. And the poetry! She's such a weirdo, but she's lively enough that I like her. Still, I only take her on missions where I pretty much have to (ie the first time truckin' around the Citadel).

Kaidan Alenko

Oh, Kaidan, you're nice. But so boring! And in the early stages of the game you just die, like, instantly and repeatedly...so after I'm not stuck with you, I tend to leave you in the depths of the Normandy, where you stare at screens and wipe the sweat away from your glistening brow. Then I leave you to die on Virmire. I'm sorry.

Actually, I did a playthrough once where I forced myself to bring Kaidan along on every mission and he wasn't so bad. I enjoyed talking to him and when he levels up some he can kick a bit of ass. Hmm. Maybe I should let him make it to Horizon in Mass Effect 2 once in a while.

Urdnot Wrex

Wrex is my bro! Simple as that. Who would ever kill Wrex? Only people with no souls. But! To be honest, I don't keep him in my party all that often. I don't know why, since he can certainly be a tank. Just one of those things.

Garrus Vakarian

I know people really, really love Garrus. They really do. I am not one of those people! I like him okay, I guess, but mostly he kind of bugs me. He's super whiny. Maybe I just don't level him up enough, but I don't see where he's a combat powerhouse or anything...so, stay by the Mako, Garrus, and allow me to change your opinion on everything with my mighty powers of persuasion!

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Yesssss, Tali. She is a party mainstay from the moment we meet on through to the end of the game, handling all the tech skills (like...umm...unlocking doors) and dispatching geth with ease. I always help her out on her Pilgrimage, and I listen to every long, boring story she tells.

Liara T'Soni

A lot of people can't stand Liara, and I get that: she's a huge dork, coltish and weird, and on a level that maybe shouldn't matter but actually does, some of her VA's line-readings are...terrible. But I don't care! Liara is the best. She's a scientist, a big ol' archaeology nerd who gets herself into trouble and fumbles her way through social interactions...and yet, she's strong. She's been essentially on her own since a (relatively) young age, enduring scorn from her fellow asari for her choices. She's estranged from her powerful mother, who she ends up battling to the death. And man, she is a menace on the field, throwing enemies around like ragdolls. Liara has saved my ass on many occasions during a fight...then afterward, we make out and probably talk about history! She is all win.

So, if it's not super obvious by now, my favorite character from Mass Effect is...

Liara T'Soni.

30-Day Mass Effect Challenge: Day 1

Sure, I can't squeeze in all 30 days before Mass Effect 3 hits, but I feel like doing it anyway, so there. Feel free to play along in the comments, or if you want to play along on your own site, link it up!

Do you prefer Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2?

Don't make me choose a favorite child!

It's a tough call, to be honest, although comparing the two is a bit apples and oranges, they feel so different to me.

Mass Effect hit me out of nowhere- "I really dig Knights of the Old Republic," thought I. "I will try this game!" and WHAM- I was in love. Even though it vaguely follows the same pathline as KotOR, ME was really like nothing I'd ever played before. The missions! The companions! The exploration! The Shepard! The epicness of it all truly dazzled me and I played it so much I thought my roommate would end up killing me or smashing the disc.


Along came Mass Effect 2. I got it the day it shipped, but I didn't crack it open until the weekend so I could basically do nothing but play it interrupted. I was that excited. I don't know what I was anticipating, necessarily, but I don't think I anticipated quite so many changes. My companions, mostly gone! Liara is being such a bitch (DID WHAT WE SHARED MEAN NOTHING)! Where's my inventory? Everyone has, like, four abilities now? But I have email!

It took some getting used to, but I loved it as much as I'd figured I would. It lacked that certain wonder of its predecessor- the galaxy was no longer new. Naivety and wide-eyed exploration was a thing of the past. Shepard was tired and frequently drunk, working with an organization she loathed toward a seemingly impossible goal. Mass Effect 2 is a pretty dark game.


For all the changes, ME2 feels more solid, I guess, than ME. While it's not as customizable in terms of abilities and skills, there's really no denying that the gameplay is tighter and better in the sequel. And while inventory is one of the best things in an RPG, I'd rather have none than that unwieldy mess we got in Mass Effect. But if we're talking story in general, the first game is tighter and better. Sigh.

Boy, that's a lot of blah blah blah...and I still don't know the answer. Maybe I should just base the decision SOLELY on which game I've played more often, or which one I'll pop in when I feel like firing up the Normandy. Otherwise, I'll be here forever. So, I choose...

Mass Effect 2.

If Mass Effect had the same gameplay style as the sequel I would have chosen...ARGH I have to stop. THAT WAS SO HARD TO DO.

Where do I begin?

The other night I fired up Mass Effect to begin my super canon totally complete epic do everything ME 1 - ME 2 run in anticipation of the March 6th release of Mass Effect 3. My FemShep needs to be ready to roll for galaxy savin', you know? (OH MUH GAH I CAN'T WAIT). In fact, this run is the only thing that got me to take Skyrim out of my Xbox 360...which I think is going to be Mass Effected for a long time to come.

But when grabbing the game off the shelf I noticed that for the first time in my life, I have a stockpile of games I haven't yet played. A stockpile. This is really not like me at all- I tend to be a very...mmm, orderly gamer, I guess. I buy a game, I play it to completion, I move on to the next. Though I own several platforms, I don't ever play more than one game at a time- my brain can't handle it! Okay, maybe I could handle playing Super Mario World alongside something else, but that's because SMW doesn't require questing and thinking. The idea of trying to go at Mass Effect and Skyrim at the same time gives me hives. Some people can do it, but I cannot.

So, as Dragon Age II and then Skyrim ate up my time, unplayed games have piled up. Games I was given (how nice!) or games that I've been wanting to play forever (hello, Batman) or games that were so cheap I couldn't resist (hi there, Enslaved brand new for $8) have been waiting for me to recover from my BioWare/Bethesda sickness.

Will that day ever come? I don't know, but here's what's waiting for me, should I pull through:












I don't even know where to start in all that. I just hope to play them all before I croak!

What about you? Do you play more than one game at a time? Anything sitting around neglected, waiting for you to play it?

cough cough

People! I don't know where I've been. All I know is that I was surrounded by darkness, I had no feeling in my toes, and everything smelled slightly of Hubba Bubba Tangy Tropical. It's possible that I'd gone through some kind of temporal wormhole and I was trapped under my very own bed in 1981, I can't say. All I know for sure is that suddenly I heard this...




...and now here I am.

And just in time, too, for lo- today is FemShep Friday, wherein all of The Internet (or, at least, those internet denizens who CARE) celebrate all the gloriousosity of the Shepard who is female. YAY!


The biggest and best thing about FemShep Friday is the newly-released Mass Effect 3 trailer that features said FemShep. If you ain't done beholden it yet, behold it now.


Oh my, YES. It is indubitably your standard pump-you-up, explosion-laden, take-no-shit, kick-all-the-asses action video game trailer...and that's what I love most about it. Okay, wait- what I love most is seeing my old squadmates kicking all of the ass beside me, as well as Jennifer Hale's totally perfect delivery of all of the take-no-shit lines. But! it's a wonderful thing that the trailer featuring the female incarnation of the Commander isn't all about being sexy and having relationships and saving the children- she's saving the world, shooting guns, dodging explosions, and being every bit as badass as BroShep. Well done, BioWare. Well done.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time deviating from my Canon Shepard. She's a vanguard, largely paragon. Still, she won't hesitate to make a renegade choice- even the more unnecessarily heartless ones, like kicking a merc out a skyscraper window when he sasses her one too many times. She's a-romancin' Liara. She saved all of her crew.

But there are so many variations and so many options, and I want to see them all! I try to roll a new Shep, though- different attitude, different decisions, different gender- and I poop out after a while. My Shep just feels like my Shep, and Mass Effect feels like her story. Who knows, maybe when all is said and done I'll make 44730 more Shepards to see all the possibilities. I mean, what if she fell into the abyss on the Collector Base at the end of Mass Effect 2? I'd like to know how she gets out of that.

How does your Shepard get it done?

oh lawd, COME TO ME NOW

do want

I'm pretty much anticipating Final Fantasy XIII-2 since...you know...YES I actually liked the first game. I'm not drooling over it since my two favorite characters from FF XIII- Fang and Lightning, duh- are ancillary this time around. I think Lightning is playable, but no one is really talking about Fang and this worries me. It WORRIES ME. Someone tell me everything will be okay!

Still, I'm going to get FF XIII-2 when it's available and when I can. I think a nice way to get it would be in bundle form with this limited Lightning-flavored PS3, don't you? Yes, I think we can all agree on that.

I don't have a PS 3, so clearly this option is in the best interests of all (me).

All my coveting has brought to mind CONSOLE WARS. Where do your loyalties lie in the console wars? Personally, I'm a free agent. Every system has its advantages and drawbacks, but dang, y'all- I just want to play games, and so I'd love to own every system.

I have a friend who was SO into Sega back in the Genesis days (and the 32X days and the Sega CD days and Saturn days and the...mmm, I don't think she had a Dreamcast) that she adopted an "us vs them" attitude with regards to Nintendo. I see it all the time on message boards and the such- Sony fanboys (and girls) bashing Xbox, vice versa, and everyone bashing Nintendo. I don't get it. I'll admit, when Xbox first came out, I rolled my eyes- but this is because I'm a Mac girl, and I was all "OH WHAT BILL GATES NOW YOU HAVE TO CONTROL GAMING TOO", which is really stupid. And you know what? A lot of games I wanted to play came out on Xbox, so when I could...I got an Xbox.

And I love my 360, no doubt. But man, I want to play Uncharted. I want to play Silent Hill: Shattered Memories with a motion controller. This means yes, I want a PS3 and a Wii. I want to play PC games, so yes, I even want a PC that can handle them. I follow the games! I'm not going to deny myself great gaming experiences because of some ridiculous loyalty to Microsoft or Nintendo or whatever. Everyone's pretty!

Portal: No Escape (no GlaDOS)

You guys watched the Portal fan film No Escape, right? It's pretty damn great.



Wow. I mean, what if Portal had combat like that? I know there are turrets, but what about people? People chasing you and shooting at you? That would be...interesting. I would likely be terrible at it. I get panicky in those situations and I'd portal right into some lava or whatever.

FYI

Here is Roland Jenseric's shopping list:

• apples
• onions
• lard
• cheese
• milk

And here is Roland Jenseric: