In which our author saves the universe

[cyrano]

Independence Day, punks! Boo yah!

I started out at the front door of the IFF mission. This was, again, nicely creepy, and included Shepherd saying something like Let's just step away from the creepy spiky altar covered in dead things, and Tali guiltily saying "I was just looking. I wasn't going to touch it."

And then there was a bunch of "You seem like a trustyworthy fellow! Would you like to join our quest?" Everybody constantly bitched about how dangerous the inactive Geth had the potential to be to our computer systems, and then we said "Hey let's store it in the AI." I don't know if you can actually leave the geth shut down, but as soon as I showed the least bit of friendliness the game took that as my cue to have a cutscene where we turned off all the security and gave it run of the ship. And then, I'm guessing, we made out.

Don't get me wrong. I love the concept, the idea that the geth I met were a splinter group, and the name. I just think Shep would have taken things a little slower. But then we followed it up with "Hey why don't the ten of us all get in a shuttle and go somewhere while our porridge cools?" I didn't have any missions left, so I spent some time poking around before activating the cutscene where EDI pushes me into the shuttle and Miranda says "We saved you some time! We're all in the shuttle already, and then when you get to wherever the mission is (hopefully somewhere nearby) you can just pick which two of us you want to get out with you."

And I was most dubious. But the game frowned at me sternly so I sighed and got in the shuttle. And then I got to do the Joker missions. Which I will readily say I thought were excellent. After the insanely well powered and protected Shep stuff, it was exciting to play somebody who was completely unarmed and couldn't move very quickly. Plus, Joker dialogue is always a win, second only to Mordin dialogue.

Plus, then there was the stirring 'rescue the crew' mission to follow up with. I was sad we couldn't save Lilith, but it definitely set the tone for the suicide mission that I'd heard so much about. I ended up running the mission four times. First, Thane got shot in the face. Second run, Legion got carried off by a flock of seeker swarmers like some sort of metallic Mary Poppins. I wish there had been some feeling that I knew why I lost squad members. And I loved the psyche out when the team leader from the second B-team gets shot, then rubs their stomach and shrugs. "I'm Okay." Anyway. The third run through, I was fighting the freakin' Reaper. (So... it sounds like whoever built Sovereign was a race of space squids, yes?) There had been thunder but I thought it was far enough away, and I couldn't save here anyway, so of course the power drops for about half a second, just long enough to trip the computer off.

And when I logged back in, things were hinky. First, Steam eyed me suspiciously and said Who the hell are you? Log in again. And I couldn't remember my password, so I went out hunting and reset it. And then it wanted my Cerberus Key, and the one I had was already in use. And I said Yes, by ME. And... it went on like this for about an hour before I was finally logged in and started the suicide mission again but by this time I was damned good at it. Nobody died (which is good, because Steam forgot all my achievements so now I have three) and when Tali rolled off the edge of the platform I squeaked. I kept the base, because this Shep is all about 'anything that helps us beat the Reapers even if it costs my soul'. I'm hoping that gives me a cool toy in the next one, but my decisions in the first one didn't have a huge impact. And Kelly did not give me the sexydance, despite being breathless and ecstatic about being saved.

And it still took pretty much all day and I am for bed.

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[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Wow. I started on 28 May. It only took me five weeks to wrap this one. This is a Bioware record.