Solid Snake's Pseudo-Let's Play: Mass Effect - Page 4

DFM · 07-16-2008, 10:44 PM

WOAH I THOUGHT I WAS READING A MASS EFFECT LET'S PLAY THREAD

NOT A MAKE A PRETTY BARBIE SHEPARD AND PAINT HIS NAILS SPARKLE GREEN THREAD

Solid Snake · 07-16-2008, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFM

WOAH I THOUGHT I WAS READING A MASS EFFECT LET'S PLAY THREAD

NOT A MAKE A PRETTY BARBIE SHEPARD AND PAINT HIS NAILS SPARKLE GREEN THREAD

I love how attempts to ensure the maximum possible attempts of flexibility (you think I wanted to waste a couple hours of my life coming up with several different templates for Shepard?) in an effort so that people would feel comfortable as decision-makers with a let's play thread results in...people hating on a let's play thread. =)

DFM · 07-16-2008, 11:00 PM

I DON'T THINK YOU LOVE IT AT ALL

PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME

Kerensky287 · 07-17-2008, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

I love how attempts to ensure the maximum possible attempts of flexibility (you think I wanted to waste a couple hours of my life coming up with several different templates for Shepard?) in an effort so that people would feel comfortable as decision-makers with a let's play thread results in...people hating on a let's play thread. =)

Deciding on how the character looks isn't flexibility because it has no impact on the game itself.

Thanks for trying to give us decisions to make, but it's not much of a Let's Play if there's no playing involved.

Seriously, this thread is almost a week old and nothing's gotten done yet.

Solid Snake · 07-17-2008, 02:37 AM

Mass Effect: Chapter ONE -- I Eat Slavers For Breakfast
(Or: Shouldn't Jenkins and Kaiden be scared shitless of the prospect of working with this guy?)

So I found this redhead build fairly decent, so we're going to be using him as our Taran Shepard. (He was listed as "Alternative B" in a previous post of mine.) For the record, and though I doubt any of you will likely care, Taran is the name of one of my favorite literary characters of all time, the vastly underrated main character of the Prydain Chronicles series. Also, Taran is a nice wordplay on "Terran," and given Taran's Earthbound origins, the name seemed to fit well.

Anywhoo, let's take a closer look at the personal biography we crafted for Taran:

According to a Codex Entry labeled "Personal History..."
(Codex, for the record, seems to have little affiliation with Metal Gear Solid's lovable codecs. The Codex system acts somewhat as Mass Effect's encylopedia of random facts, presented at your request. Basically it just fills in all the gaps that Mass Effect leaves unexplained regarding this massive galaxy they've concocted...including tidbits about past events and ailen species and political systems that Shepard knows all about, but that we've never heard of before.)

Taran Shepard was born on Earth, abandoned at a young age by his parents, and raised as an orphan. On the streets of the disgustingly polluted and overpopulated megacities, Taran became a 22nd century variation of Oliver Twist, garnering some serious streetsmarts and generally singing and dancing his way into the hearts of a loving, caring foster family...
...Or maybe not. Actually, Taran's childhood was probably filled with such nasty topics as abuse and neglect and pain and suffering, which probably explains why Taran's grown up into a thoroughly badass, take charge kind of guy who's not terribly willing to put up with excessive levels of bullshit. Unlike those who may have descended into a life of petty crime, Shepard nonetheless had just enough of a moral compass to consider signing up for the Alliance Military, because shooting down eeevil ailens is much more lucrative and acceptable a career path.

Upon joining the Systems Alliance Military (note: the Systems Alliance is the unified government of all humanity, based presumably on Earth, and expanding to all of Earth's recently conquered colonies, which includes our lovely Solar System as well as a few newer acquisitions in the darker reaches of space. I guess at one point or another -- probably around the time ailens started showing up -- the Russians and the Chinese and the Americans and everyone else decided it'd be best to stick together and form a more cohesive defense for all two-legged primates...)

...Where was I?
Oh, yes, upon joining the Systems Alliance Military, Taran Shepard learned that the best way to get the job done involved getting one's hands dirty in the muck and mire of moral quagmires. Specifically, Taran rather enjoyed killing bad guys, particularly slavers (who probably reminded him of the ruffians who took advantage of the young orphan back on Earth.) So on this colony called Torfan, Shepard shows up with some Marines, and promptly gets 75% of his fellow soldiers killed off in exchange for a perfect 100% kill rate of slaver scumbags. This leaves our redheaded Shepard with some serious military credentials, but also some serious personal issues with other soldiers, who are understandably a bit miffed as to exactly why Shepard considered such a tragic loss of lives necessary.

Shepard, however, probably doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks, because he likes to ensure the rigid enforcement of the law -- and if you fuck up, kiddo, you better get used to some Biotic powers knocking your body around like a battered pinata. Shepard is an Adept, meaning he casts the spells that makes the peoples go boom. Okay, so he doesn't actually cast magic. He, uhh...uses some pseudo-sci-fi bullcrap to manipulate space and time through the power of his mind alone? Maybe? Sort of?

Anywhoo, that's enough about Taran Shepard, the sexiest human the galaxy will ever know. Now it's time to see what Taran's next mission is going to be like...presumably, it's just a simple shakedown over at a friendly colony called Eden Prime. Nothing can go wrong. Am I right? Right?!?

Unfortunately, Chapter One is about to continue in a subsequent post and, yes, you guessed it, everything is going to go terribly wrong.

(As a side note, one thing I love about the Suikoden series is how you're sent on all sorts of early errand missions, and the plot is continually construed in such a way that you as the viewer are totally expected something tragic and unexpected to happen, and yet for a surprising amount of time, nothing really does. After a while the whole "this is just a simple peaceful mission we're expecting no resistance and oh noes everything has gone to hell! Good Lord Almighty!! The greatest evil has been awakened!! Heaven have mercy on us all!!" deal gets rather predictable.)

Solid Snake · 07-17-2008, 03:39 AM

Mass Effect: Chapter One Continued
I wonder what my descendants will be up to in the year 2183?

So enough of the pointless recap. Let's actually start the game, you say!! Let's begin this epic adventure!!

Hey, it's Earth! (Either that, or Mars really has been effectively terraformed over these past 175 years.)

...Let's enjoy the pretty view for a moment, shall we?
During this introductory sequence we hear a few blurbs of insight from two unidentified voices. They speak of "Shepard" and how he's, frankly, a bit of an ass who likes jeopardizing people's lives a bit too much, but he always gets the job done and he did a smashing job on Torfan. (Slavers sacrifice their rights to life the moment they break the law, right?)
So in a cryptic piece of potential foreshadowing, we're given this mysterious job and, apparently, we join the crew of this intergalactic starship called the Normandy (World War II references will never go out of style, even 175 years from now) and we blast off for...

...Jupiter!
And Neptune!
And beyond!!

...That's the Normandy, for the record.
Look, I'm all for fun and fantastic sci-fi stories that stretch any rational human's concept of "reality," but isn't it more than just a teensy bit ludicrous to suggest that in 175 years, humanity's going to conquer, terraform, and colonize the entirety of the Solar System -- so much so that around 2140-someodd, we start messing around with ancient technologies, discover alien races, fully integrate with those ailen races and accept their existence, beat an alien race in a series of battles to force a truce, and settle into colonies halfway across the galaxy?
...Am I the only one who'd feel more comfortable with this game if it took place in, like, 3183 AD?

Although I do not have a screenshot of this, you can accept on good authority that we are beamed into interstellar space at super-fast (faster than light) speeds with the assistance of an ancient Prothean device (if it starts with "Prot," and it's a sci-fi alien species, chances are it's highly advanced, very mysterious, mythical in scope and either already extinct, or on the verge of becoming extinct.) Humanity also learns how to use this device in like record time, though at least the story accounts for this; other alien races are every bit as confused as we gamers are as to how humanity accomplished so much technological advancement in so little time. I'm sure there will ultimately be a moment in the game when the explanation for this is something like "humans are eevil, hideous creatures filled with greed and lust and sin, and their sinister desires drive them towards innovations, but for all the wrong and nefarious reasons." That message appears in nearly every sci-fi game I've played before, ever, without fail.

You can be sure that in any sci-fi story with alien species either the aliens are:
A: Vile, horrific monsters hellbent on destroying all of humanity (but eventually, occasionally given a justifiable reason to do so)
or
B: Infinitely smarter, better, more noble, morally superior beings who don't understand why we're such pathetic warmongering, polluting, greedy-as-shit dumbasses.
I'm sure Mass Effect will not disappoint me in this regard.

...We see our first close-up frontal shot of Shepard after a nice little sequence that shows him walking up to the bridge of the Normandy, with everyone saluting him as he struts to his position of destiny. We of course are given that nice moment to see him glare pensively out into the stars, and we also get to reflect on how terribly we've created this custom-appearance inhuman monster of a man. Actually, most the guys ended up far worse than this version of Taran -- I'll just throw that out there, in my own defense. I do appreciate the scars, though. It's nice to actually have a main character who actually looks like he has seen the combat he's so well-known to have frolicked in.

After this shot we have a conversation that serves as our introduction to Kaiden and Joker, two characters who may or may not actually prove of any importance later on in the plot. Joker appears to be the ship's pilot or gunner or something, though his role seems rather purposefully vague, as Anderson (the Colonel who's your superior in this mission) just kinds of badgers him to check off all sorts of random sci-fi data. (This is intended to impress us gamers into fully believing that we're now in the distant future. "Scanners are online! Electron capacitors are in full flux! We're traveling at a speed of four-fifty kiloweezers!" That kind of nonsensical jargon.)

Carth Onasi meanwhile...oh wait I mean Kaiden, yes, Kaiden...dear Lord, how in the hell did we manage to get stuck with Carth again? I would have thought of all the voice actors from the KOTOR series to not rehire...
...Anyway, Carth is back, sort of, but this time he's toned down his vocal inflections just a tad, which means he's moved on up...from "downright insultingly annoying" to merely "distinctive vocal, but in an overly familiar way." I really wish there was an option to rename secondary characters because I'd totally just call him "Carth Junior" or whatever the hell the name of Carth's son in KOTOR was.

Nihlus also shows up for his first apperance. For the record, this is Nihlus:

...That image is from a later scene in this chapter but it will suffice.
Nihlus screams badass from the very first moment you see his image and hear his voice, which means two things:
1: He is never going to be playable.
2: He is always going to be better than you.

Nonetheless, Joker can't seem to stand him. In Carth's usual self-righteous, I'm-more-tolerant-and-understanding-than-you tone, Carth knocks Joker around for being a speciest and misjudging Nihlus, who is clearly a good guy because he is so damned awesome sounding. Seriously, Nihlus is not voiced by a dark and mysterious and brooding VA, so it's safe to assume that Nihlus will, in fact, not screw anyone over.

Apparently there's this plot device wherein the Humans (that's us) and the Turians (that's Nihlus and his race) fought in a war a generation or so back. The Turians were the first race to realize that humanity had, in fact, accessed the Prothean technology and had joined Star Trek's league of powerful-enough-to-be-communicated-with species. However, humanity predictably abused the technology (y'see? What'd I tell ya? It's all our fault!) and the Turians decided to beat the crap out of them. Unfortunately, and despite several thousand years a technological head-start, the Turians somehow were outsmarted by a human fleet. The Turians appealed for help from the other alien races but instead, for better or for worse, the other races forced the Turians to back off and settle with a truce.

Since then, humans and Turians have got along...sort of. Really, the Turians are sort of the "Roman-style-culture" species in Mass Effect -- very well disciplined, militarily strong, but due to intelligence and order as much as sheer brute strength, brutally effective, valuing honor, autocratic political system, etc. etc. (You learn all this from the appropriate codex entry.) So the Turians, in a fashion similar to KOTOR / KOTOR2's Mandalorians, fight enemies to the death, but are generally very forgiving of those same enemies once the tide changes and there's a peace or a truce. In a similar fashion, the human victory, however impractical as it may seem, must have convinced the Turians that humans were worthy of respect and friendship. While a few Turians and even more humans hold grudges regarding the "First Contact War," (we're about to meet another human who rather dislikes the Turians, too) the Turians seem (mostly) valorous enough to maintain amiable diplomatic relationships.

So we make our first Renegade decisions of the game, and it simultaneously involves reprimanding Joker for being an idiot, as well as seeming cautious regarding the idea of a Turian SPECTRE hanging around a Human Alliance ship on a typical, ordinary, humdrum patrol (We net a couple Renegade points for this.)
Oh, by the way: SPECTRE is an all-alien run agency of James Bond-esque one-man (or one-woman) agents who basically act as the law enforcement branch of the alien-run Galactic Council. So they're sort of like Jedi, except they don't actually get to use lightsabers (and many of them don't even use anything like force powers.)

...There's a galaxy in the middle of our starship! Holy shit!!
...Nah, it's just the navigational room and there's apparently a navigator we can chat it up with:

...This is Navigator Pressly, and I really wish it wasn't so late at night or I would have thought of a sweet Elvis descendant joke to throw in here.
...The gist with Pressly is that he doesn't actually believe, of course, that we're on a typical, ordinary shakedown mission to this far-off human-run colony called Eden Prime. Nihlus' presence as a SPECTRE (not to mention a Turian SPECTRE) seems extraordinarily rare to Pressly, and Pressly doesn't like Turians much anyway. He has friends and family who fought in the First Contact War and it's apparently a touchy subject. Nonetheless, Pressly still follows orders unconditionally...though he does ask you to do some...investigative work for him. Of course, being the type of man who naturally distrusts strangers, I agree...but not before asking him a few questions that Taran Shepard should have known the answers to anyway. (I keep hoping for a KOTOR-like moment where Pressly shouts: "What, you get hit in the head too hard or something? What'dya mean you don't know shit about Eden Prime?")

...I don't think we look that bad, do we?
This screenshot shows the unique way that (at least the PC version of) Mass Effect allows you to make decisions as your character. You select an option from the dialogue...err...circle with the mouse. You're given several options but I suspect that, more often than not, different options will ultimately only change minor expressions in dialogue and not really have a gigantic impact on the flow of a conversation. I mean I'm sure there's still Paragon/Renegade moments but in these simpler conversations, it doesn't really matter what I say, the convo's a one-way street and we're stuck on it.

...Further back in the Normandy we overhear a man and a woman debating. The man is Corporal Jenkins, a soldier who's going to eventually join you and Kaiden on your Eden Prime expedition. The woman is Doctor Chakaras (what language is that from? Greek?) and she has an intriguing accent.

...Compared to the likes of Kaiden and Joker, Jenkins looks rather...plain, doesn't he? Unattractive. Bland. Almost as if he's...not a very important character at all.
The dialogue between these two involves Jenkins looking forward to returning to his homeworld of Eden Prime, where he plans to kick ass and take names. The doctor, meanwhile, cautions him that it's never a good idea to dive headfirst, begging for a fight. (Possible foreshadowing, maybe?)

Jenkins describes Eden Prime as "a stable, peaceful colony" that is "stunningly beautiful" and of course there's "no real danger" there. Uh-huh. I'm absolutely positive that's exactly the way it'll turn out, too.

...My advice to Jenkins here is particularly sound and it nets us Renegade points. For the record, I will be allowing you guys to make Renegade/Paragon decisions for us later in the storyline, but everything's so predictable, linear, and boring in this early stage in the game that there's really no sense in holding us up. I'll wait until the decisions start really getting...interesting.
(If you're wondering how I know all this despite it being my first Mass Effect playthrough, technically speaking, as those of you who've read my previous Mass Effect topics already know, I've played this intro segment and into the beginning of Eden Prime about five times already with five different characters. We'll soon reach the point where I'll go back to being comparatively clueless.)

Next Up in the Third and Final Segment of "Part One..."
Nihlus, Anderson and I sit down for some tea and crumpets and discuss the weather in Eden Prime!
And shit inevitably hits the fan!
And someone will almost certainly die!
And you will finally get a couple semi-important choices to deliberate over!!

EDIT: It's late so I'm hitting the sack before, err, Part Three of Chapter One is finished and ready to post. It will come, my friends. It will come.
In the meantime I am quite open to criticism, folks.

Kerensky287 · 07-17-2008, 07:49 AM

Great job so far... the backstory is good.

I would like to point out, though, that Taran actually casts the spells that MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN. Nobody can actually be made to go boom from biotics - they're physics only.

"I, Taran, will KNOCK YOU ALL DOWN!" *Throw*

I also hope you cause as many needless deaths as possible.

Sir Pinkleton · 07-17-2008, 12:01 PM

At first I was a little annoyed at how you described the entirety of the opening, but that's just because I've played the game twice (Never got close to finishing though. I should really buy the game sometime). Otherwise, yeah, not bad at all.

Solid Snake · 07-17-2008, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aunty Sir Dr. Pinkleton "Nightshade" III Cubic

At first I was a little annoyed at how you described the entirety of the opening, but that's just because I've played the game twice (Never got close to finishing though. I should really buy the game sometime).

It's a difficult, but also a fun, challenge to attempt to write a "Let's Play" thread that both avid Mass Effect fans and...well...folks who've never played the game before could read, understand, and enjoy. So yeah, for at least the next couple updates the style's going to continue to delve into lengthy detail.
This is also my very first attempt at a Let's Play thread and I'll (hopefully?) get better as I get used to it.

Azisien · 07-17-2008, 12:05 PM

It's not bad but I demand you use Fraps to record a video of you fighting Lady Benezia.

07-16-2008, 10:44 PM	#31
DFM Om Nom Nom Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 3,850	WOAH I THOUGHT I WAS READING A MASS EFFECT LET'S PLAY THREAD NOT A MAKE A PRETTY BARBIE SHEPARD AND PAINT HIS NAILS SPARKLE GREEN THREAD __________________ [14:26] ManoftheRus: YOU GODDAMN SNEAKY DEE

07-16-2008, 11:00 PM	#33
DFM Om Nom Nom Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 3,850	I DON'T THINK YOU LOVE IT AT ALL PLAY THE GODDAMN GAME __________________ [14:26] ManoftheRus: YOU GODDAMN SNEAKY DEE

07-17-2008, 02:37 AM	#35
Solid Snake Erotic Esquire Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 5,563	Mass Effect: Chapter ONE -- I Eat Slavers For Breakfast (Or: Shouldn't Jenkins and Kaiden be scared shitless of the prospect of working with this guy?) So I found this redhead build fairly decent, so we're going to be using him as our Taran Shepard. (He was listed as "Alternative B" in a previous post of mine.) For the record, and though I doubt any of you will likely care, Taran is the name of one of my favorite literary characters of all time, the vastly underrated main character of the Prydain Chronicles series. Also, Taran is a nice wordplay on "Terran," and given Taran's Earthbound origins, the name seemed to fit well. Anywhoo, let's take a closer look at the personal biography we crafted for Taran: According to a Codex Entry labeled "Personal History..." (Codex, for the record, seems to have little affiliation with Metal Gear Solid's lovable codecs. The Codex system acts somewhat as Mass Effect's encylopedia of random facts, presented at your request. Basically it just fills in all the gaps that Mass Effect leaves unexplained regarding this massive galaxy they've concocted...including tidbits about past events and ailen species and political systems that Shepard knows all about, but that we've never heard of before.) Taran Shepard was born on Earth, abandoned at a young age by his parents, and raised as an orphan. On the streets of the disgustingly polluted and overpopulated megacities, Taran became a 22nd century variation of Oliver Twist, garnering some serious streetsmarts and generally singing and dancing his way into the hearts of a loving, caring foster family... ...Or maybe not. Actually, Taran's childhood was probably filled with such nasty topics as abuse and neglect and pain and suffering, which probably explains why Taran's grown up into a thoroughly badass, take charge kind of guy who's not terribly willing to put up with excessive levels of bullshit. Unlike those who may have descended into a life of petty crime, Shepard nonetheless had just enough of a moral compass to consider signing up for the Alliance Military, because shooting down eeevil ailens is much more lucrative and acceptable a career path. Upon joining the Systems Alliance Military (note: the Systems Alliance is the unified government of all humanity, based presumably on Earth, and expanding to all of Earth's recently conquered colonies, which includes our lovely Solar System as well as a few newer acquisitions in the darker reaches of space. I guess at one point or another -- probably around the time ailens started showing up -- the Russians and the Chinese and the Americans and everyone else decided it'd be best to stick together and form a more cohesive defense for all two-legged primates...) ...Where was I? Oh, yes, upon joining the Systems Alliance Military, Taran Shepard learned that the best way to get the job done involved getting one's hands dirty in the muck and mire of moral quagmires. Specifically, Taran rather enjoyed killing bad guys, particularly slavers (who probably reminded him of the ruffians who took advantage of the young orphan back on Earth.) So on this colony called Torfan, Shepard shows up with some Marines, and promptly gets 75% of his fellow soldiers killed off in exchange for a perfect 100% kill rate of slaver scumbags. This leaves our redheaded Shepard with some serious military credentials, but also some serious personal issues with other soldiers, who are understandably a bit miffed as to exactly why Shepard considered such a tragic loss of lives necessary. Shepard, however, probably doesn't give a damn what anyone thinks, because he likes to ensure the rigid enforcement of the law -- and if you fuck up, kiddo, you better get used to some Biotic powers knocking your body around like a battered pinata. Shepard is an Adept, meaning he casts the spells that makes the peoples go boom. Okay, so he doesn't actually cast magic. He, uhh...uses some pseudo-sci-fi bullcrap to manipulate space and time through the power of his mind alone? Maybe? Sort of? Anywhoo, that's enough about Taran Shepard, the sexiest human the galaxy will ever know. Now it's time to see what Taran's next mission is going to be like...presumably, it's just a simple shakedown over at a friendly colony called Eden Prime. *Nothing can go wrong. Am I right? Right?!?* Unfortunately, Chapter One is about to continue in a subsequent post and, yes, you guessed it, everything is going to go terribly wrong. (As a side note, one thing I love about the Suikoden series is how you're sent on all sorts of early errand missions, and the plot is continually construed in such a way that you as the viewer are totally expected something tragic and unexpected to happen, and yet for a surprising amount of time, nothing really does. After a while the whole "this is just a simple peaceful mission we're expecting no resistance and oh noes everything has gone to hell! Good Lord Almighty!! The greatest evil has been awakened!! Heaven have mercy on us all!!" deal gets rather predictable.) __________________ *WARNING:* Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text. Last edited by Solid Snake; 07-20-2008 at 10:00 PM.

07-17-2008, 03:39 AM	#36
Solid Snake Erotic Esquire Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 5,563	Mass Effect: Chapter One Continued I wonder what my descendants will be up to in the year 2183? So enough of the pointless recap. Let's actually start the game, you say!! Let's begin this epic adventure!! Hey, it's Earth! (Either that, or Mars really has been effectively terraformed over these past 175 years.) ...Let's enjoy the pretty view for a moment, shall we? During this introductory sequence we hear a few blurbs of insight from two unidentified voices. They speak of "Shepard" and how he's, frankly, a bit of an ass who likes jeopardizing people's lives a bit too much, but he always gets the job done and he did a smashing job on Torfan. (Slavers sacrifice their rights to life the moment they break the law, right?) So in a cryptic piece of potential foreshadowing, we're given this mysterious job and, apparently, we join the crew of this intergalactic starship called the Normandy (World War II references will never go out of style, even 175 years from now) and we blast off for... ...Jupiter! And Neptune! And beyond!! ...That's the Normandy, for the record. Look, I'm all for fun and fantastic sci-fi stories that stretch any rational human's concept of "reality," but isn't it more than just a teensy bit ludicrous to suggest that in 175 years, humanity's going to conquer, terraform, and colonize the entirety of the Solar System -- so much so that around 2140-someodd, we start messing around with ancient technologies, discover alien races, fully integrate with those ailen races and accept their existence, beat an alien race in a series of battles to force a truce, and settle into colonies halfway across the galaxy? ...Am I the only one who'd feel more comfortable with this game if it took place in, like, 3183 AD? Although I do not have a screenshot of this, you can accept on good authority that we are beamed into interstellar space at super-fast (faster than light) speeds with the assistance of an ancient Prothean device (if it starts with "Prot," and it's a sci-fi alien species, chances are it's highly advanced, very mysterious, mythical in scope and either already extinct, or on the verge of becoming extinct.) Humanity also learns how to use this device in like record time, though at least the story accounts for this; other alien races are every bit as confused as we gamers are as to how humanity accomplished so much technological advancement in so little time. I'm sure there will ultimately be a moment in the game when the explanation for this is something like "humans are eevil, hideous creatures filled with greed and lust and sin, and their sinister desires drive them towards innovations, but for all the wrong and nefarious reasons." That message appears in nearly every sci-fi game I've played before, ever, without fail. You can be sure that in any sci-fi story with alien species either the aliens are: A: Vile, horrific monsters hellbent on destroying all of humanity (but eventually, occasionally given a justifiable reason to do so) or B: Infinitely smarter, better, more noble, morally superior beings who don't understand why we're such pathetic warmongering, polluting, greedy-as-shit dumbasses. I'm sure Mass Effect will not disappoint me in this regard. ...We see our first close-up frontal shot of Shepard after a nice little sequence that shows him walking up to the bridge of the Normandy, with everyone saluting him as he struts to his position of destiny. We of course are given that nice moment to see him glare pensively out into the stars, and we also get to reflect on how terribly we've created this custom-appearance inhuman monster of a man. Actually, most the guys ended up far worse than this version of Taran -- I'll just throw that out there, in my own defense. I do appreciate the scars, though. It's nice to actually have a main character who actually looks like he has seen the combat he's so well-known to have frolicked in. After this shot we have a conversation that serves as our introduction to Kaiden and Joker, two characters who may or may not actually prove of any importance later on in the plot. Joker appears to be the ship's pilot or gunner or something, though his role seems rather purposefully vague, as Anderson (the Colonel who's your superior in this mission) just kinds of badgers him to check off all sorts of random sci-fi data. (This is intended to impress us gamers into fully believing that we're now in the distant future. "Scanners are online! Electron capacitors are in full flux! We're traveling at a speed of four-fifty kiloweezers!" That kind of nonsensical jargon.) *Carth Onasi meanwhile...oh wait I mean Kaiden, yes, Kaiden...dear Lord, how in the hell* did we manage to get stuck with Carth again? I would have thought of all the voice actors from the KOTOR series to not rehire... ...Anyway, Carth is back, sort of, but this time he's toned down his vocal inflections just a tad, which means he's moved on up...from "downright insultingly annoying" to merely "distinctive vocal, but in an overly familiar way." I really wish there was an option to rename secondary characters because I'd totally just call him "Carth Junior" or whatever the hell the name of Carth's son in KOTOR was. Nihlus also shows up for his first apperance. For the record, this is Nihlus: ...That image is from a later scene in this chapter but it will suffice. Nihlus screams badass from the very first moment you see his image and hear his voice, which means two things: 1: He is never going to be playable. 2: He is always going to be better than you. Nonetheless, Joker can't seem to stand him. In Carth's usual self-righteous, I'm-more-tolerant-and-understanding-than-you tone, Carth knocks Joker around for being a speciest and misjudging Nihlus, who is clearly a good guy because he is so damned awesome sounding. Seriously, Nihlus is not voiced by a dark and mysterious and brooding VA, so it's safe to assume that Nihlus will, in fact, not screw anyone over. Apparently there's this plot device wherein the Humans (that's us) and the Turians (that's Nihlus and his race) fought in a war a generation or so back. The Turians were the first race to realize that humanity had, in fact, accessed the Prothean technology and had joined *Star Trek's league of powerful-enough-to-be-communicated-with species.* However, humanity predictably abused the technology (y'see? What'd I tell ya? It's all our fault!) and the Turians decided to beat the crap out of them. Unfortunately, and despite several thousand years a technological head-start, the Turians somehow were outsmarted by a human fleet. The Turians appealed for help from the other alien races but instead, for better or for worse, the other races forced the Turians to back off and settle with a truce. Since then, humans and Turians have got along...sort of. Really, the Turians are sort of the "Roman-style-culture" species in Mass Effect -- very well disciplined, militarily strong, but due to intelligence and order as much as sheer brute strength, brutally effective, valuing honor, autocratic political system, etc. etc. (You learn all this from the appropriate codex entry.) So the Turians, in a fashion similar to KOTOR / KOTOR2's Mandalorians, fight enemies to the death, but are generally very forgiving of those same enemies once the tide changes and there's a peace or a truce. In a similar fashion, the human victory, however impractical as it may seem, must have convinced the Turians that humans were worthy of respect and friendship. While a few Turians and even more humans hold grudges regarding the "First Contact War," (we're about to meet another human who rather dislikes the Turians, too) the Turians seem (mostly) valorous enough to maintain amiable diplomatic relationships. So we make our first Renegade decisions of the game, and it simultaneously involves reprimanding Joker for being an idiot, as well as seeming cautious regarding the idea of a Turian SPECTRE hanging around a Human Alliance ship on a typical, ordinary, humdrum patrol (We net a couple Renegade points for this.) Oh, by the way: SPECTRE is an all-alien run agency of James Bond-esque one-man (or one-woman) agents who basically act as the law enforcement branch of the alien-run Galactic Council. So they're sort of like Jedi, except they don't actually get to use lightsabers (and many of them don't even use anything like force powers.) ...There's a galaxy in the middle of our starship! Holy shit!! ...Nah, it's just the navigational room and there's apparently a navigator we can chat it up with: ...This is Navigator Pressly, and I really wish it wasn't so late at night or I would have thought of a sweet Elvis descendant joke to throw in here. ...The gist with Pressly is that he doesn't actually believe, of course, that we're on a typical, ordinary shakedown mission to this far-off human-run colony called Eden Prime. Nihlus' presence as a SPECTRE (not to mention a Turian SPECTRE) seems extraordinarily rare to Pressly, and Pressly doesn't like Turians much anyway. He has friends and family who fought in the First Contact War and it's apparently a touchy subject. Nonetheless, Pressly still follows orders unconditionally...though he does ask you to do some...investigative work for him. Of course, being the type of man who naturally distrusts strangers, I agree...but not before asking him a few questions that Taran Shepard should have known the answers to anyway. (I keep hoping for a KOTOR-like moment where Pressly shouts: "What, you get hit in the head too hard or something? What'dya mean you don't know shit about Eden Prime?") ...I don't think we look that bad, do we? This screenshot shows the unique way that (at least the PC version of) Mass Effect allows you to make decisions as your character. You select an option from the dialogue...err...circle with the mouse. You're given several options but I suspect that, more often than not, different options will ultimately only change minor expressions in dialogue and not really have a gigantic impact on the flow of a conversation. I mean I'm sure there's still Paragon/Renegade moments but in these simpler conversations, it doesn't really matter what I say, the convo's a one-way street and we're stuck on it. ...Further back in the Normandy we overhear a man and a woman debating. The man is Corporal Jenkins, a soldier who's going to eventually join you and Kaiden on your Eden Prime expedition. The woman is Doctor Chakaras (what language is that from? Greek?) and she has an intriguing accent. ...Compared to the likes of Kaiden and Joker, Jenkins looks rather...plain, doesn't he? Unattractive. Bland. Almost as if he's...not a very important character at all. The dialogue between these two involves Jenkins looking forward to returning to his homeworld of Eden Prime, where he plans to kick ass and take names. The doctor, meanwhile, cautions him that it's never a good idea to dive headfirst, begging for a fight. (Possible foreshadowing, maybe?) Jenkins describes Eden Prime as "a stable, peaceful colony" that is "stunningly beautiful" and of course there's "no real danger" there. Uh-huh. I'm absolutely positive that's exactly the way it'll turn out, too. ...My advice to Jenkins here is particularly sound and it nets us Renegade points. For the record, I will be allowing you guys to make Renegade/Paragon decisions for us later in the storyline, but everything's so predictable, linear, and boring in this early stage in the game that there's really no sense in holding us up. I'll wait until the decisions start really getting...interesting. (If you're wondering how I know all this despite it being my first Mass Effect playthrough, technically speaking, as those of you who've read my previous Mass Effect topics already know, I've played this intro segment and into the beginning of Eden Prime about five times already with five different characters. We'll soon reach the point where I'll go back to being comparatively clueless.) *Next Up* in the Third and Final Segment of "Part One..." Nihlus, Anderson and I sit down for some tea and crumpets and discuss the weather in Eden Prime! And shit inevitably hits the fan! And someone will almost certainly die! And you will finally get a couple semi-important choices to deliberate over!! EDIT: It's late so I'm hitting the sack before, err, Part Three of Chapter One is finished and ready to post. It will come, my friends. It will come. In the meantime I am quite open to criticism, folks. __________________ *WARNING:* Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text. Last edited by Solid Snake; 07-20-2008 at 09:59 PM. Reason: Spelling Errors! And bedtime!!

07-17-2008, 07:49 AM	#37
Kerensky287 Just That Good Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,426	Great job so far... the backstory is good. I would like to point out, though, that Taran actually casts the spells that MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN. Nobody can actually be made to go boom from biotics - they're physics only. "I, Taran, will KNOCK YOU ALL DOWN!" Throw I also hope you cause as many needless deaths as possible. __________________ People who live in Glass homes should not throw stones or Jerk off at daytime

07-17-2008, 12:01 PM	#38
Sir Pinkleton What's going on? Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Hillsboro, Oregon Posts: 1,237	At first I was a little annoyed at how you described the entirety of the opening, but that's just because I've played the game twice (Never got close to finishing though. I should really buy the game sometime). Otherwise, yeah, not bad at all.

07-17-2008, 12:05 PM	#40
Azisien wat Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 7,177	It's not bad but I demand you use Fraps to record a video of you fighting Lady Benezia.