A day in a life of a gamer's girlfriend.

3/23/2015

Effecting The (M)Ass (Part 2)

"Butt of course you are a valuable asset to our team"
Said Shepard to Miranda.

Hello, Earthlings, and welcome to another episode of: Maya trying to be funny, but failing miserably. Anyways, I planned to throw in a few more words about this franchise before I leave the gaming part aside for a while. To be frank, I actually planned on going through another playthrough of the trilogy before writing this last post (so my memory would be fresh), but I kind of lost track of what I wanted to write about. So in exchange for that I'm just gonna add a few more interesting things for you to think about or discuss with me and/or anyone else. And to make you laugh. 

So, in my first post, I described the first Mass Effect game and gave an honest opinion on some of its parts, like graphics, soundtrack and story-line. But I find it quite useless to do it again on the next part because, honestly, I would hand out a lot of medals. 


Mass Effect 2 and 3 on the other hand, have a lot more characters, missions and events, which makes the review almost impossible to make, with my lack of experience in writing them. But I am going to give you some of my thoughts, mainly about the characters and their actions, and some regarding the gameplay. 



So first thing I realized while playing the second part is that ME will always, and I mean it, have a bug. No matter how many times you play it, you will have to encounter some kind of bug and although some of them can be annoying, in my case, many of them were hilarious as hell (like in the video above). Some of the most common bugs are listed here, but I'll try to tell you about some that aren't listed that I've came across. To elaborate the video, I was on the Freedom's Progress mission at the beginning of the game, when between two of those containers/warehouses/smh came out a FENRIS mech and got stuck in the stairs. I killed it, but Jacob was not that convinced. For my non-native speakers, I said: "Jacob? Pošandr'co.", which roughly in Serbian means: "Jacob? He lost it.". I had to load the game again, firstly I got scared I might have to play from the beginning, but, fortunately, I had an autosave. 

Next bug I found was pretty much useful, although I'm not sure if it was a bug or if it was meant to happen when you do it. Tell me if I'm wrong. Since I'm a lousy shooter, I almost always use up all my good ammo (usually sniper rifle, pistol and heavy ammo). So whenever I came across a weapon locker, I could recharge by switching the weapons, getting out of the interface, and then switching back to the old one, and voila! It's recharged! 

Besides... You know something's about to get down if you have a weapon's locker before a room, and it's not the beginning of a mission.

ROW ROW ROW YOUR MAKO GENTLY UP THE HILL


Next, I have to pay a tribute to our beautiful MAKO (as I didn't mention it in the pervious post, shame on me) that has made the game more entertaining than ever. I have done stunts with it more times than I can count and I don't regret dying every time! Controls are so sensitive, and driving it looks silly as hell, I literally had panic attacks and screamed every time it was time to drive. It was hilarious to say the least, I swear if someone took footage of me while playing it would be a viral video on youtube.

 

Following this, I'm gonna leave a few comments regarding the Mass Effect 2 characters and their loyalty missions:

1. Ashley/Kaidan


Basically, in the second part, regardless of which character you save, the same fucking thing happens. 

On my first ME2 playthrough:

Me: Oh, my God, there's Kaidan! Kaidan, my beautiful, annoying, boring boyfriend that I got attached to without any particular reason! I've been looking everywhere for you, I love you! 
Kaidan: Piss off you Cerberus bitch, I ain't doin' shit with ya. 
Me: What?! Listen you whining asshole, I didn't come all the way here to get rejected by that cute little face of yours, now come with me!
Kaidan: Lol nope. 
Me: Oh, that's how? Fine, see ya in Mass Effect 3, you'll come crying. 

A few hundred hours of game time later...

Mass Effect 3: 

Kaidan: Please take me back!
Me: Lol nope. *continues to make out with Garrus*

Things change, however, if you play with male Shepard: 


So, putting that aside, basically, shit stays the same with him. Except, in my experience, Kaidan makes a great squad mate during missions, and I can't deny it. Ever. Always worked for me. Ashley on the other hand, I'm not sure of. She never gets to live, and I never regret it. I think I explained earlier why. 

2. Liara T'soni


(romanced on the second playthrough)

So, one of my favorite characters reappeared in the sequel. 
She dissed me... And I got heartbroken again... 


Except, unlike Kaidan, I gladly took her back in the 3rd part. Lesbians forever. On the other hand, unlike others, she tends to evolve through parts very quickly and majestically, and that's why I love her so much.

3. Jacob Taylor


When I first saw this dude, I thought: "Damn, hot!", but after some time passed, I realized: "Oh, shit another Kaidan, just black!". Tried to romance him at some point, was torn between him and Thane. God, that shameless flirting, I felt like I was forcing myself on him, 'cause he looks and acts way younger than Shepard. So I gave up in the end. His loyalty mission is one of the most boring missions ever. A totally cliche story and totally cliche character traits. But... He's hot. At least hotter than Kaidan.

4. Miranda Lawson


Oh boy have I got a lot to say about her. Just when I thought there isn't a character that I could hate more than Ashley, bam! Miranda. Her tits are saggy, her voice is annoying, and there isn't a moment I wouldn't punch her in the face if I was given the opportunity. And I can't help but notice the amount of sexism put into this character. She is supposed to be the perfect female? Firstly, why does she look like a hooker? Secondly, is that what men look in a woman? A self-centered, sexy, ultra-intelligent douchebag? 
Nice, you got the guys satisfied. But what about originality? 
Her loyalty mission is the second most boring, right after Jacob's. 
I only got her to make up with Jack once, and never again, I have no idea why. That's why I flipped her off every next time they would fight. 
The thing is, Miranda can be pretty cool at some point but she lacks more diversity. It's frustrating to have conversations with her because she would always try and beat you in a verbal match. Her obsession with her father makes it worse. She always talks about him and her younger sister. Well girl, if you were as smart as you were bragging you were, that shit wouldn't happen. Also, daddy issues?

5. Jack


Jack, oh Jack. I never thought I would make a male Shepard just to have you on my... Sack?

First time I saw her I totally thought she was a lesbian or bisexual. Tried romancing her but things didn't turn out as I expected. So I searched online and found out she was actually straight. Which was the biggest surprise for me since Nihilus got killed (By the way, Nihilus? Pretty cool name for a character that dies in the first 15 minutes of the game... Really? And I liked him too, you assholes).Regardless of that, I mean, how can you look like that and not swing the other way (and I don't mean this in an offensive manner, PLZ)? Just... damn. Anyway, after I got the deal, I immediately created a male character and went berserk on her. But she's a tricky one. First I thought I could get her laid by giving renegade answers since I realized she acts positively on them and negatively on paragon ones, but that just got me into one night stand and no relationship. I was damn frustrated, I just wanted that bitch mine. So, I tried again and that time I realized that although she reacted the way she did on paragon suggestions, she slowly let her guard down and let you into her life. That's how it works. That's how an emotionally scarred person acts in front of people who try to get near. And that's why I think she's the most original of all characters. 

She has a bad side too, though. She's acting like an emo brat on some occasions, talking about the shit she went through like she's the only one who's got it tough. Her lines during combat missions are pretty cool, my favourite one is: "Shepard, if I die, I'm haunting you!". For some reason whenever I played with her she would say that WHILE dying. She died on me too many times, for fuck sake, Jack, you can't just walk into a bunch of Collectors and expect me to evaporate them in an instant! But I always took her with me because of one thing: Shockwave. Do you have problems with a lot of Husks? Shockwave. Bam. No more husks. Love that skill of hers. 

Her loyalty mission is kind of fun, except for the part when she sulks and brags and reminisces and oh my God, shut up, did you want to blow the place up or not? Make up your mind. Damn woman. Still love her though. I even decided to do a cosplay of her some day in the future, when I grow my hair long enough like she did in part 3. 

That's it for now. I'll save a few more characters for some other time, since this post has been collecting dust for months now... Sorry guys, I'm having a hard time with blogging lately.