In which a Duder with too much time on his hands decides to marathon the Mass Effects.

Click here for Part 1

This took a bit longer to get up, life got in the way. These will be a little more regular from now on.

Creating the Universal Soldier

It’s time to make some decisions, time to tweak some sliders, time to do everything I can to keep my Shepard from looking like a mutant. The easiest thing to do, would be to go with default Shep, but if a game gives me the option to customize, by god that’s what I’ll do.

When I first played through ME, I did my best to create a character that looked as close to myself as possible. I spent a loooong time nudging sliders, picking just the right nose, looking at myself in a mirror (no joke) and trying to get the eyes just right. After what was probably at least 45 minutes, I had managed to create a character that had the same skin color as me, almost the same hair as me, but looked mildly constipated and vaguely Asian. I’m not Asian, so clearly my quest to create a digital space me had failed, but I soldiered on just the same.

This time around there was none of that, I just did my best to create a Shep that looked human. Human and kept himself regular. I think I accomplished that goal, my Shep looks tough, capable and laughs in the face of any razor. Ok, he sorta looks like a meat-head but hey I’m playing a space soldier on a mission to save the universe, a meat-head is just what we need.

I want with Infiltrator in my ME and ME2 playthroughs, I will pretty much always play the stealthy, sneaky, shoot you from a mile away or stab you in the back character in any game I can, and I really enjoyed it. This time I wanted to switch things up and go with a class I would normally never pick. I decided to roll a Sentinel, strong biotic, savvy technician, only somewhat aware of which end of the gun to point at the thing what needs to die. My Shep was a colonist who’s entire family had been wiped out when he was but a lad, and he was a war hero, taking out an entire army by himself when all his comrades had fallen. Apparently people had a tendency to die around me. Totally not my fault...right?

Moral Dilemma

Now the question is, what kind of Shepard will I be? An upstanding textbook soldier? I cold calculating ‘job done at any cost’ asshole? Well, normally I like to play somewhere in the middle. I’ll give you a bit of insight into how I live my life. Whenever a problem comes up that needs solving, I just think “What would Han Solo do?” Or at least I’d like to. I don’t have the balls to roll that way for reals, but digital me, well that’s a different story. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a biotic warp blast at your side. There’s a problem with that style in the Mass Effect games, however, and it’s the source of one of my few big complaints.

When I was playing through ME2, I was rolling Han Solo style, save some innocents here, kicking a dude out a window there, totally comfortable in my role as like-able asshole rogue out to save the day, until I was forced to break up a Jack/Miranda cat fight. Ok, I can neither select the Paragon or the Renegade options that will resolve this situation...lets just go with something else. Oh no, I’ve lost Jacks loyalty!!! Now, I knew enough about the game to know if I didn’t have a characters loyalty, there’s a good chance they were gonna die in the final confrontation. This is unacceptable.

Now, there’s an argument to be made about playing the game the way you want and whoever lives or dies, THAT is your story, and I totally respect and admire that! But that’s not me. I can’t lose anyone. ANYONE! Losing Wrex in ME1 was too painful. As much as I hated it, I had to reload a save about 8 hours previous and mash the Paragon button as much as possible. This kinda broke the game for me, and I think is a fault of the series. Being forced to pick a path to get the best ending goes against letting you play as the character you want. That being the case, and considering I’ve never been able to play as a bad guy, my Shep shall be the most Paragon of Paragons. Bioware has left me no choice.

Ship Out!

So I had my class, I had my fiction, I knew what kind of man I was to be, it was time to throw myself into the fray. Hey it’s the Normandy! Hey its Captain Anderson! Hey its Nihlus! Hey there goes Nihlus! That Promethean beacon just shot some scary crap straight into my brain! Reapers, dog. Reapers.

My adventure had just begun.

...weapon overheating..what do you mean weapon overheating??

In which a Duder with too much time on his hands decides to marathon the Mass Effects.

Click here for Part 1

This took a bit longer to get up, life got in the way. These will be a little more regular from now on.

Creating the Universal Soldier

It’s time to make some decisions, time to tweak some sliders, time to do everything I can to keep my Shepard from looking like a mutant. The easiest thing to do, would be to go with default Shep, but if a game gives me the option to customize, by god that’s what I’ll do.

When I first played through ME, I did my best to create a character that looked as close to myself as possible. I spent a loooong time nudging sliders, picking just the right nose, looking at myself in a mirror (no joke) and trying to get the eyes just right. After what was probably at least 45 minutes, I had managed to create a character that had the same skin color as me, almost the same hair as me, but looked mildly constipated and vaguely Asian. I’m not Asian, so clearly my quest to create a digital space me had failed, but I soldiered on just the same.

This time around there was none of that, I just did my best to create a Shep that looked human. Human and kept himself regular. I think I accomplished that goal, my Shep looks tough, capable and laughs in the face of any razor. Ok, he sorta looks like a meat-head but hey I’m playing a space soldier on a mission to save the universe, a meat-head is just what we need.

I want with Infiltrator in my ME and ME2 playthroughs, I will pretty much always play the stealthy, sneaky, shoot you from a mile away or stab you in the back character in any game I can, and I really enjoyed it. This time I wanted to switch things up and go with a class I would normally never pick. I decided to roll a Sentinel, strong biotic, savvy technician, only somewhat aware of which end of the gun to point at the thing what needs to die. My Shep was a colonist who’s entire family had been wiped out when he was but a lad, and he was a war hero, taking out an entire army by himself when all his comrades had fallen. Apparently people had a tendency to die around me. Totally not my fault...right?

Moral Dilemma

Now the question is, what kind of Shepard will I be? An upstanding textbook soldier? I cold calculating ‘job done at any cost’ asshole? Well, normally I like to play somewhere in the middle. I’ll give you a bit of insight into how I live my life. Whenever a problem comes up that needs solving, I just think “What would Han Solo do?” Or at least I’d like to. I don’t have the balls to roll that way for reals, but digital me, well that’s a different story. Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a biotic warp blast at your side. There’s a problem with that style in the Mass Effect games, however, and it’s the source of one of my few big complaints.

When I was playing through ME2, I was rolling Han Solo style, save some innocents here, kicking a dude out a window there, totally comfortable in my role as like-able asshole rogue out to save the day, until I was forced to break up a Jack/Miranda cat fight. Ok, I can neither select the Paragon or the Renegade options that will resolve this situation...lets just go with something else. Oh no, I’ve lost Jacks loyalty!!! Now, I knew enough about the game to know if I didn’t have a characters loyalty, there’s a good chance they were gonna die in the final confrontation. This is unacceptable.

Now, there’s an argument to be made about playing the game the way you want and whoever lives or dies, THAT is your story, and I totally respect and admire that! But that’s not me. I can’t lose anyone. ANYONE! Losing Wrex in ME1 was too painful. As much as I hated it, I had to reload a save about 8 hours previous and mash the Paragon button as much as possible. This kinda broke the game for me, and I think is a fault of the series. Being forced to pick a path to get the best ending goes against letting you play as the character you want. That being the case, and considering I’ve never been able to play as a bad guy, my Shep shall be the most Paragon of Paragons. Bioware has left me no choice.

Ship Out!

So I had my class, I had my fiction, I knew what kind of man I was to be, it was time to throw myself into the fray. Hey it’s the Normandy! Hey its Captain Anderson! Hey its Nihlus! Hey there goes Nihlus! That Promethean beacon just shot some scary crap straight into my brain! Reapers, dog. Reapers.

My adventure had just begun.

...weapon overheating..what do you mean weapon overheating??

The Han Solo style of decision making should be your guide in real life, as well. Make it so!