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carinavet · 6 years

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Aftermath, Part 2: Hackett

Hackett had a headache the size of a planet. He had always taken the translators for granted, until they stopped working. Now he was expected to lead the rebuilding of a civilization using soldiers who spoke dozens of languages, while coordinating with several alien races, all of whom might have the same problem. Lines of command were broken by more than the chaos of battle: soldiers who spoke the same language had instinctively banded together. Not to mention none of the coms were working, so what information could be passed on had to be passed directly. As yet there was no contact with anyone outside of London. He didn’t even know how many ships of the grand united fleet had crashed safely to Earth and how many were still up there somewhere, drifting along their previous courses. And that was before even thinking about the actual work that needed to be done just to make sure nobody died of starvation, exposure, disease, or wounds in the next few days.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He had also come to realize just how different aliens were, how differently they thought, as even rudimentary gestures and signs had been almost completely useless for basic communication. He needed to find somebody that had bothered to pay attention in a high school language course.

There was a commotion heading toward him. Hackett looked up to see a few turians pushing through his soldiers, heading his way. It was all he could do to keep from groaning: the turians and their dextro diet were the biggest problem of all. But then he noticed something that made him sit up and pay attention: the prothean was with them. Taking a closer look, Hackett realized he recognized the leader of the group. Vakarian, that was the name. The one who had been aboard the Normandy for years now, even when she was technically a Cerberus ship.

Vakarian’s face was set in a determined grimace as he approached, despite the way his companions hissed at him, seemingly trying to talk him down from something. Hackett grimaced, their multi-level language (consisting of two sets of vocal cords plus additional clicks and chirps) grating against his migraine. Vakarian, however, ignored them completely, and when he looked Hackett in the eye and spoke, it was a single word.

“Shepard.”

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#mass effect #me3 #post campaign #hackett #garrus #mass effect spoilers

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iambicbrose · 2 years

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Make a New Option - Chapter Twelve - No, No, Turians are Definitely Built for Blizzards

Rating: Explicit Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, Nihlus Kryik/Female Shepard, Nihlus Kryik/Garrus Vakarian, Nihlus Kryik/Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian, EDI/Jeff “Joker” Moreau Tags: Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Nihlus Kryik Lives, Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, Love Triangles, Rating May Change, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alien/Human Relationships Alien Sex Chapter Word Count: 3513 Summary:

Destroy. Control. Synthesize.

Aristaeus Evangeline Shepard has been through hell and back. She’s died, for spirits’ sake. But it was all worth it. It all finally brought her to the Crucible. She could take care of the Reaper problem.

Destroy. Control. Synthesize.

The options are presented to her, but… But is this it? No matter what she chooses, it still doesn’t feel like winning. This is just another instance of sacrifice for the greater good. She’s so tired. She doesn’t want to have to lay down anymore lives for the sake of the war.

Destroy. Control. Synthesize.

Ari Shepard decides on something else.

Excerpt:

“I heard you might have a way to get into the garage,” Ari picked up, looking at him. “Would this happen to be true?”

“Indeed? News and gossip travel quite fast around the port, I suppose,” Lorik leaned back in his seat, taking a sip of his drink. “As for it being true or not, well. Everything is possible.”

“Well, we can’t expect something like that for free,” she said with a snort. “If you did have a garage pass, what would someone have to do to get their hands on it?”

Lorik’s mandibles flared in a brief, wide grin, the turian giving a soft chuckle, “I can see how you’ve already charmed two other turians… As it so happens, I’m the manager of the local Synthetic Insights office — for the moment, at least. Mr. Anoleis has decided to close my office and send in some local thugs to investigate for corruption. He’s quite the interesting man, and has happened to become quite wealthy after taking direct control of rents.”

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#mass effect #femshep #garrus vakarian #shakarian

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fanfoolishness · 7 years

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Mass Effect: Andromeda - my review

Well it only took me about 75 hours, but I got there. Full spoilers.

Overall, I enjoyed it. However, it never quite suckerpunched me the way the previous trilogy did. It was fun and interesting, but overall, something didn’t quite click. I think if I had to boil it down to a single letter, I’d go with B. But it’s easier for me to review individual components than it is to review the game as a whole, so here we go:

Characters

One of the most important parts of any ME games, there were times I loved individual characters, and yet times I was bored or unimpressed with them. With all the talk about tons of dialogue I thought there’d be, you know, tons of dialogue; but when you’ve only completed 75% of the game I’d expect there to still be new dialogue with your squaddies on ship, but I haven’t had any new conversations with anyone for about 20 hours. Banter in the Nomad still works, thankfully, but that’s about it.

I liked almost all of my squaddies, but to varying degrees. Even Cora I liked when she wasn’t going on about being a wannabe asari; when she focused her conversations on the future or gardening or gaining insight on herself then I quite liked her. Drack was tough; I liked his general vibe, but he was also extremely Wrexlike, which was disappointing. I’d rather he have been fully his own character. I really liked getting to know some of the krogan on Elaaden who were gardeners, though.

Liam’s passion was really refreshing, not to mention his easygoing humor. Vetra was sweet and alternately a total badass and a big cream puff (remind you of any other turians you know)? I loved how unconventional Peebee was, a much more tomboyish asari than we’re used to seeing. Jaal was hard for me to get used to at first, given he was so prickly initially, but he was one of my favorites by the end.

Kallo was my favorite shipmate. His gossip about the rest of the crew is great. I enjoyed my philosophical debates with Suvi and the one time I flirted with her she was adorable. Lexi was cool and professional and I would have liked to see more of her struggles as a doctor, being one myself. Gil was the only person I just didn’t click with at all. He struck me as arrogant and while he was clearly a victim of bad/bizarre/LGBT-clueless writing, if he’d been a real person settling down with a straight woman I’d have had a lot more to say than “oh, do you think you’re ready for that?”

Writing

Sadly, the reviews about poor writing weren’t out of left field. Most of the time I didn’t notice any problems, but I also didn’t notice much in the way of standout jokes or heartbreaking moments. The general plot… so why, again, does the Archon carry such a hateon for everyone else? There were a lot of threads I wanted to see followed up but never went anywhere:

The kett ascendency center: we saw kett being trained and taught, datapads giving hints to their actual culture, and then never saw any of that again except for one cutscene where the Archon’s… advisor? tells him the council or whatever thinks he’s making a mistake. No further information on kett culture. Were they another created race made by the Jardaan? Did they rebel? Did they work with someone who created the Scourge back in the day? Nobody knows!

SAM: I was really hoping that SAM would be able to fight back against the Archon somewhat and make it clear he wasn’t just a Remnant-hacking program, but his own person or self. They completely missed that opportunity. They still could have had the Archon take control but it would have been really powerful to see SAM verbally defying him.

Angaran creation and exaltation: they seem to be taking this really, really well. No riots? No mass depression? Just a couple forums on Aya. Plus with that business about reincarnation being partially possible for them, none of their scientists seemed to connect that to being made... could have been an interesting angle.

Drack’s quest: for some reason there were so many damn pieces to his quest in particular that I utterly forgot what I was doing not once but several times, as there were so many planets it was spread out over and it took me a long time to even reach Elaaden. Not so much a thread that didn’t get followed up on, but one I couldn’t keep the thread on.

Standout Quests

That said, there were some moments that were genuinely great.

The first steps on any new world

Running from the first purification field

Going onto the shadowed Nexus for the first time and seeing TALL turians and salarians! and learning things had gone so wrong

Every ark mission – spooky, sad (ahhh turians no), scary! They were each immensely satisfying.

The loyalty missions! Liam’s was damn hilarious, Vetra’s showed her vulnerable side, Peebee’s let us jump around in lava and put down her abusive ex-girlfriend (come on, Peebee, THAT’S why I shot her – she had no qualms stalking and trying to kill you!!! she was an abuser through and through and couldn’t let you go!), Drack’s was great mostly for meeting young Vorn and his smelly sweet potato, Cora’s had the urgency of saving the asari ark, and Jaal’s really got me going when I thought his sister had killed his brother.

The post-loyalty mission wrap-ups: Jaal’s was the best and most tender, but I also loved the bar fight with Drack and planting flowers with Cora.

All main story quests were generally exhilarating or surprising. When the Archon hit my Ryder with the headache to end all headaches and went after my twin I was yelling at the screen – always a good sign of how engaged I am.

The anti-AI hackers – definitely felt like a classic ME quest and I wanted to help Alain so badly. Fuck off, Overlord.

Saving the yevara from poachers! Those things are beautiful. I think.

Catching a new space hamster

MOVIE NIGHT, it ended up being totally worth all the obnoxious fetch quests that preceded it

The Nexus bad guy being named WILLIAM SPENDER (seriously they had to have been X-Files fans)

THE QUARIANS ARE COMING SOON PLZ

Gameplay

Loved: JUMPJET, Nomad, the versatility of different profiles and specializations, Sidewinder pistol, Falcon grenade launcher, and of course my beloved Black Widow; exploring different planets; BANTER IN THE NOMAD

Hated: too… many… fetch quests………. drowning….

Romance

Definitely disappointing. I feel like I got 5-7 flirts with Vetra, then after her loyalty quest she asked “is this real?” and I’m like “…is WHAT real, it’s not like we’ve started dating or anything!” but we kissed and I was like “Oh yay, romance is triggered!” Well, I had a grand total of 1 squadmate say anything about it (Drack), a few extra lines of dialogue, and 2 additional cut scenes with 0 naked turians. I didn’t even get a greeting that changed in the Tempest, she called me Sara on Aya (my Ryder’s name is Zelda), and there are no “let’s go make out” dialogue options. I couldn’t even talk to Sid anymore after the loyalty quest so didn’t get any teasing or additional dialogue there.

If I do another playthrough I’ll try Jaal and see how it goes, but my FEELS levels are definitely lower than with other Bioware games.

Multiplayer

Yeah, this is actually fun. I am having a blast playing as a krogan. I just unlocked an angaran so I might level her up over the next couple weeks too.

Overall

Did I like this game? Yes, yes I did.

Did I LOVE AND ADORE this game? No, not quite. Close – but not quite.

#me:a #mass effect: andromeda #me:a spoilers #mass effect spoilers #andromeda spoilers

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