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The Significance of Mass Effect || Mass Effect Month
97 Plays5 months ago
In the year 2022, two podcasters travelled through time to stop the threat of the podcast bots, unaware that it was the beginning of something far bigger. After establishing the PodPack Collective, the Chatsunami podcast and their allies now ready themselves to defend against the podcast promoters that lurk in the darkest depths of the internet.
They called it the greatest alliance in podcasting history.
The communities of the internet call it... MASS EFFECT MONTH.
Welcome to the beginning of Mass Effect Month! In this episode, Satsunami is joined by PodPack member Luke from the Nerdstalgic podcast to discuss the game that started it all: Mass Effect. What made this game so iconic in 2007? How has it impacted our gaming lives? And could a space jelly fish really be the only way to stop a space squid? Only one way to find out in our first episode of Mass Effect Month!
This podcast is a member of the PodPack Collective, an indie podcasting group dedicated to spreading positivity within the podcast community. For further information, please follow the link: https://linktr.ee/podpackcollective
Check out all of our content here: https://linktr.ee/chatsunami
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Aaron Huggett
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Stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated!
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Transcript
A New Threat on the Horizon
00:00:03
Speaker
It's been two years since we held back the podcast bots on Earth, but now I fear a greater threat is coming over the horizon. Any word on reinforcements?
Challenges for the Pod Collective
00:00:12
Speaker
The Pod Pod Collective has been stretched thin these past few days. Review-it-yourself and weird horizons are holding the line their end while the push for health and seismic cinema have been forced back into Twitter space.
The Game Pod Incident
00:00:23
Speaker
Even the stop-dropping role initiative has gone quiet. too What about the game pod pod? The crash landed after Slade fell asleep at the helm watching anime. Damn that anime! So who do we
The Remaining Forces
00:00:33
Speaker
have left? Well there's us on the Chatsun army, my ship the Nerdstalgic, Dan from the casting views and Marie from Two Girls One Reusable Cup. Reusable what now? Satsu, look! The senses have picked up a signal. Do we have time to wait for the others? Afraid not, we're going to have to jump through the MASH relay now or else it'd be too
Mass Effect Month Introduction
00:00:50
Speaker
late. Very well, let's show these podcast promoters what the Podpack elective can do. Welcome to Mass Effect Month.
00:01:01
Speaker
One, two, Hello everybody and welcome to the very first episode of Mass Effect Month. My name is Satanami and joining me today is none other than the commander of the PPC, Nerdstalgic. It is the one and only Luke. Luke, welcome to Chatsunami. It's an absolute honour and a pleasure. one. It's been a long time coming and I am so glad to be here Commander Chatsu. Yeah, it honestly has been such a long time in the making because I keep saying to you, oh we should do an interview episode, we should do an episode on Doctor Who and things like that, but I am so glad that your first episode on here is really to talk about a franchise that we both love. I think you've loved it longer than I have, Regan. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I absolutely love Mass Effect.
Admiration for Mass Effect
00:02:00
Speaker
It is one of my favorite series of all time. And like I said, I've always been a big lover of the show, big listener. So yeah, it's been a difficult one with life, but we finally managed to get a fine swing that we both like and enjoy. Thanks to kind of our long conversations on the Pipak Collective Discord. So it's one of those where it's a long time coming, but I'm glad that we're starting with Mass Effect. Oh no, absolutely. It is a fantastic game, a fantastic topic and indeed a fantastic guest on today. So yeah, today we are going to be diving feet first into the 2007 widely acclaimed game Mass Effect, which came out in 2007. It makes me feel old right enough that it is that old. It is 17 years old. Am I right in saying that? Yeah, makes me feel old. Yeah, I'm turning to dust right now. You can't see it, but I'm turning to dust. But I have a curiosity before we dive into what makes this game great. What could have
Personal Journey with Mass Effect
00:02:56
Speaker
done better? What was your introduction to this game? So my introduction with Mass Effect. It's a bit of a long story, but I'll try and keep it short. Growing up, we didn't get a lot of pocket money. And the way it sort of worked is that I tended to go through a lot of license-based games because I always knew that they would be a safer bet that I know would enjoy them, or at least there'd be a chance of some sort of fun with them that I'd get a couple of hours out of them. So I'd go for license-based games. As I got older, because again, I didn't have a lot of pocket money, I went for a lot of pre-owned games. And I remember going into Blockbuster. I don't know, old call back there. And I went to Blockbuster and I went into the pre-owned section and everything I'd either played or I wasn't really interested in. And I'm currently holding my original copy of Mass Effect. It's baton, it's beaten, it's a relic, but it means so much to me. It still has the pre-owned sticker on it and everything, which shows the age. But I just remember looking at the front cover and seeing the word Mass Effect, seeing this alien figure on the back and seeing the aliens in the background, the gef. The spaceships, the planets, it just sort of blew me away. I had to have it. So I took it home, come around, which I paid for it sadly. And from then I just kind of fell in love. And it was my introduction to Bioware. And from there I played Dragon Age. I played Anthem, which I know a lot of people don't like, but I still kind of partly enjoyed for what it was. And yeah, I just was a huge fan of Mass Effect since and I've played them all. I played all the DLC. I've got figures. I've got statues. I've got clothes. I've got the Mass Relay necklace, which I don't wear much anymore, but I used to wear a lot. when I was younger. Yeah, from day one, from the first of my press start, I was just brought in because when you press start in the original game, you are sort of introduced by classified. It kind of made you feel a bit sort of like you were doing something secretive, you're doing something special that you was creating a character that was being introduced to this huge universe and that to get to you had to go through clearance and it just felt really special, really unique and like nothing I'd ever played before. Yeah, Mass Effect
00:04:48
Speaker
to this day is still a series that every year, the how many times I've played it. I always go back and I play for the series all together. And it's like a pilgrimage. It's something I just have to do. It calls to me. I absolutely love and enjoy it. And I'm so glad, I know we're going to get into it, but I'm so glad that Chatsa, you finally got into this series. And I can't believe you didn't get into it any sooner because it's it's just that good. Oh no, absolutely.
Rediscovering Mass Effect
00:05:08
Speaker
away. You could say I got a little bit indoctrinated by fellow pod type members, Dan from Casting Views and Miri from the Wonderful Two Girls Want to Use A Book Up podcast, because we were chatting away and I've had Dan on a couple of times in the show and whenever I put out a tweet to say, oh what's your favourite game of this particular year or whatever, he would always jokingly say, oh Mass Effect, I have to say Mass Effect is one of those games that, to me, the reputation preceded it. Because when it came out, I wasn't really focused on it. You know, I would play games like Halo and Call of Duty games, Gears of War, those kind of shooter games, but to me that
00:05:52
Speaker
kind of genre wasn't really on my radar in particular. This one because I know Mass Effect was Bioware's, I want to say their second attempt at making a real-time action RPG where you know you could run around and shoot in real time and it was quite the feat for what it was when it came out, but again it kind of slipped me by in a new of it, a new friends who played it. I never really played it until I ended up going into HMV, another callback there because they only sell vinyls and plushies now. I think. Yeah, they don't do video games anymore, sadly. Rest in peace to that particular area, that corner of HMV. But I remember, this is how old I am, because I remember going to the very back of the shop and they had hundreds upon hundreds of games for the 360, the PlayStation 3 at the time, they had the console set up in the corner. That's when I played Simpsons Hit and Run for the very first time. Oh, classic game, classic. That is honestly how old I am. But yeah, I ended up coming across it was a weird too two for one bundle. And I don't know why they did this. So it was like Mass Effect and Crackdown. Oh, that's a weird combination. Isn't it? Yeah, you'd think it'd be a Mass Effect one and two. No, no, it was that. Yeah. And there was another one I'm sure it was like Borderlands and some other random game. I don't know why they did it, but I ended up buying this and I played through Crackdown. Yeah, I was OK. That's an episode for another day, but I ended up playing Mass Effect. and I've got to say it never really grew gripped me and don't worry this episode has a positive ending trust me but I played it I thought yeah it's all right I put it down I never really played through it again then people were saying oh you have to finish Mass Effect you really have to player so I was like right okay I'll go back to it. So I went back to it, yeah I sped the route because I just wanted to end the game and everything and that to me was quite a, I wouldn't say negative but just a very, no pun intended, lukewarm experience.
00:07:53
Speaker
where I was just like, yeah, it's okay, but not my cup of tea. So I'm never really bothered with the sequels, but I saw the controversies about the traffic lights and things like that at the end of the third game. Spoilers, yeah yeah real fans will know. o I'm still getting flashbacks. Exactly. Yeah, I just never really got into it in until, of course, I met you guys and you started to saying, oh, how wonderful it was. And I remember seeing it was on Game Pass and everything. Dan, of course, was saying, oh, you should try it and we should do an episode on it. And Marie, of course, was hugging her goddess body pillow. at the same time probably saying yeah you should play it and of course you were encouraging it so I was like you know what I'm gonna play the legacy edition which for transparency sake this is the version that I've played for this month which has a lot of updated stuff in it compared to the originals but I played through it and although I wouldn't say it's my favourite
00:08:53
Speaker
the read. I'd say I enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than I was actually expecting to. And of course I finished the first one, I thought oh I've got to play the second one. The second one has a very visceral opening which just sucked me in and then as soon as I started playing that it
Exploring the Mass Effect Universe
00:09:10
Speaker
was over for me. I was a Mass Effect fan. I was indoctrinated, converted, whatever you want to say. I was just absolutely hooked in now to this day. I'm looking over and I've got like a massive omnibus collection of all the comics that I've read for this episode and you know what? It's just as absolutely fantastic. I was going to ask the question, what was the moment for you where you saw a moment in the game and it it just clicked and it was like, you know what, this is where the fandom begins for me. Do you remember that Pacific moment? You know, ironically enough, I think it might have actually been some of the side missions for my because a lot of people tend to criticise it and I can see why because they're very big liminal spaces that you have to drive through and don't get me wrong we will get onto that in depth later on but yeah it seems quite boring but I have to admit between the lower and this world they built up
00:10:05
Speaker
I am an absolute sucker. I am one of these people who reads the lore for the Elder Scrolls as well or Halo and things like that. I just love reading about the universe and I thought it was such a clever idea. It was this idea that humanity was a fledgling spacefaring species and they come across three very powerful alien races who are basically in control of a very prominent part of the galaxy. It was the civilized part, let's just say, compared to the will get on to the term of the system next week. No, you're worried, but the fact is that you had this expansive universe and just the more I was going into it, I was learning about the Turians, I was learning about the Salarians, the Asari, not keen on them, but I'll get on to that later.
00:10:55
Speaker
you know You saw the Volus, the Elkhor, just all of these creatures you wanted to know more about, and they were all so distinctive as well. You know you see Hannah or floating around, it was basically more than just little green men. yeah definitely There was thought, there was absolute passion, there was ancient to detail and I think that as soon as I started to click with the universe in the game I was like right I love this this is a franchise that I want to learn more about I want to see where it goes and everything and again you know I've got my pros and cons about the game itself but see without any further ado will we get into it yeah let's just jump straight in I'm excited we will be right back after this very long elevator ride Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and journal interests.
Chatsunami and Nerd Staget Podcasts
00:11:46
Speaker
Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all the podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:12:22
Speaker
Howdy Beans, and welcome to my podcast trailer. Now you're probably be wondering, who's this weird English fella talking to me about beans? Well, great question. I am the host of the Nerd Staget Podcast, Luke the Human. Nice to meet you, hope you're doing well, hope you're all good, as always. Now, you're probably wondering, what is the Nerd Staget Podcast? Well, another good question, let me answer that for you. The Nerd Statute Podcast is a variety podcast talking about all things nerdy and nostalgic, from books, to video games, to movies, to TV shows, basically, if it is nerdy, and even if it just has the smidge, the hint of nerdism to it. Rest assured, I will cover it.
Mass Effect's Narrative Depth
00:13:02
Speaker
I'm on all platforms from Spotify, Google Podcasts, amazon Amazon Music and YouTube. All you do is search on our target podcast and you'll find me. So I hope to see you there really soon.
00:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, that was a long elevator ride. I don't know about you, but Yeah, they should have really put a skipped feature in. Yeah, if only. If only, by all means. Yeah, if only. We all really wanted to sit and listen to those news broadcasts about all that the exploits that we went on, but you don't need to tell me I was there. I'm not going to lie, I was really into those. Well, no, they were interesting at first, but when you've played the game, it's like, I don't need to hear what I've done. I know. It's like when you play through Fallout, I love Fallout, don't get me wrong. But when you listen to the radio and you're bopping away at the music and all of a sudden you've got free dog, whoever comes on and you're like, it was interesting at first. Cause again, it shows there's a reactive world, which I love about Mass Effect.
00:14:04
Speaker
But once you've replayed the game as many times as I've replayed it, it's like the fact of, yeah I don't need to hear it. It was interesting the first few times, but now I'd rather just skip. And I understand why they did it because obviously the power of the 360 or the console at the time, they needed a way to kind of do a loading screen without actually having a loading screen. So it makes sense. But I'm glad in the legendary edition, he's put a skip function. and It was just so much better. Oh no, a hundred percent. of but But speaking of that, speaking of, you know, as we were talking about lore dumps and interjections as well, while we talk about the story of this game. Oh, what a wonderful story it is. Oh, it is absolutely amazing. But I don't know about you. And again, we're going to get into spoiler territory here. So genuinely, if you haven't played Mass Effect and you really, really want to play it before you listen to this, please feel free to pause the episode, go away and buy it, or play in Game Pass, come back and then listen to us gush about this game. But I have to say, I was really surprised at the direction that they took with this game. Would you say that this story, see compared to 2 and 3, would you say this really stands out? I do if you've never played Master before. One thing that I love about Master 1 so much is that it works fantastically as an introduction which obviously makes sense because it's the first game in the series but it does a great job of just straight away setting up this universe that as soon as the game starts you have your music in the background and you have just a bit of tech
00:15:27
Speaker
say in this year, humanity find a profanate technology on Mars and that excelled them to travel to the stars. And if I'm traveling to the stars, they traveled through the mass relays, mass effect. And then you get to Eden prime and what happens there. Then you go to the council and you get a slow sort of a drip introduction to all the council races and the different species and humanity's place in this whole hierarchy. And then you are basically set free in the Milky Way galaxy or one section of it anyway. And slowly but surely after you've been drip fed, you are then free to explore. You can go to any planet you want. You can go to any system you want. Each planet has bios about each planet. Some of them is is basic when it just says, oh, this planet is good for helium free. Other ones, like there was one planet that I love to go to and you can't land on it. I think it's called Sakuraha. I can't pronounce the name. It's a weird name. But if you read the bio on it, basically it it explains that there is a theory in Asari sort of teachings that there is a cloud in this planet that they can't send probes in because this cloud is made out of nanobots. And that any bits of metal or tech technology that goes through gets eaten and disintegrated. And that the Asari believe that a much more advanced race than the Profians designed this technology to protect themselves or from something. And again, it's never stated, and it's even stated in the biome that it's just a theory. It's a conspiracy theory. It's not proven, but it's those sort of bits of things. If you dig for it, if you go looking, or if you go into the codexes, you will find so much rich law and story that I've spent many hours just listening to the codexes, the ones that talk to you and the ones you have to read yourself. And like you chat, so I love the law. I've read all the mass vet books. I read all the comics.
00:16:59
Speaker
I Citadel, and then it just opens up from there. And with each game going forwards, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. By the time you get to Mass Effect 3, you get access to the whole Milky Way galaxy. Like there's nothing off limits. You can go everywhere and anywhere. The only downside is you have the Reaper threat. It's just so expansive and so huge that it's like, this is what I want from an RPG. This is what I want from a role play experience is that I want to be able to go everywhere, go anywhere, and then have a story or have some sort of structure to it. And Mass Effect One, I'm glad that you chose me to do Mass Effect 1. I'd be honest, my favorite is Mass Effect 2. I know a lot of people like 2 or they like 3, but I feel like as a stepping stone, as the beginning, it does a fantastic job of introducing players to basically get them prepared for what is to come in terms of more characters, more races, more lore and history, because I'm fascinated with races and why some races have certain religions, why they have different types of terminology, things like that. Absolutely fascinated in the cultures. So for me, it's perfect for me because I can literally just not do anything, cannot play the game, and I can just delve deep into text after text of just pure law. And I think for that first mass effect is perfect. I mean, that is the both baffling and amazing thing about this game, the fact that you do have so much lore to get through. You know, they didn't have to do that. They could have just said, oh, these are blue space smurfs. They are very promiscuous. Oh look, these are lizard birdmen, they're very angry. You know, obviously I wouldn't expect Bioware to have done that back then, but you know, they didn't have to go so in-depth and they did. And I think that's why my initial experience of Mass Effect was quite poor, because I basically played through the game as just the paragon, oh I'm shepherd, blah blah. And then that was it, I finished the game. And see if you take us in a very surface level, it almost feels like
00:19:07
Speaker
a very action-packed episode of Star Trek. It's like humanity are trying to prove themselves to this wider council. They're trying to say, you know, oh, we are ready for this. I'm ready, coach. Put me in. Put me in. It's like, oh, steady on jump. You've got to get your training wheels off first. But it's this humanities impatience and everything that you see the discontent that a lot of people have, which leads to very extremist movements like the Terra Firma party, and of course the infamous Cerberus, which we will get into. But upon playing it for the second time for this month, I was blown away. When you play through it, as I said, on a surface level, this is basically a very standard linear hero story. You play as Commander Shepard, you're hunting down a rogue spectre called Saren, and you basically have to take him down and save the galaxy. That is the bare basics
00:20:03
Speaker
of this plot. You've got to stop the bad guy, you've got to save the day and you've got to make out with all the aliens as Fox News reminded us of many moons ago. That's all we're really here for, let's be honest with ourselves. Yes, the quote-unquote sex box caption will never not be funny when they started talking about Mass Effect saying, oh it's a simulator for degeneracy and you're like, no. no It's got this steaminess of two action figures slapping together. But that's the thing, that's what always made me laugh, is that's the choice. You choose to romance a character. It's not one of those things where you're like, oh, I'm going to romance them. It just happens through conversation, as it would normally in the real world, from talking to somebody and getting to know them and taking them on missions. Eventually, you grow a connection and then you can then choose to then go, you know what, I likely are. I'm going to see that through or like Garris or i like Rex.
00:20:53
Speaker
so or Ashley or Caden, like you have to get to know them first. And I've spoke to a few people who don't romance anybody through Mass Effect. They literally go through and they have them as best friends and mates. And that's it. I always romance because again, I'm a romantic at heart and Liara and Tali, they just called to me. No, you know what? No, I can't disagree with that. Yeah. You know, I like my blue space women and I like my techie nerds. Okay. But basically it's a choice. You know what I mean? It's one of those where you don't have to, it is there. Of course it is, but at the same stage, it's like, you can't go through these games without that actually coming up. But I think it's more fun if you do that, because it's, it's more personal to you because you are a shepherd, you're creating the character, you're playing a shepherd, you are shepherd. So if you find some sort of connection or some romance to a character, then by all means pursue that. If you don't, you don't. That's fine.
00:21:39
Speaker
But again, this is what I love about RPGs and what I loved about old school bioware is the fact that they just gave you the choice. You don't have to, but if you want to, it's there. It's the same with the lore. They didn't need to go crazy with the Rachni War and the First Contact War, but they did. And that's what pulled people in more. For that, you just can't get that sort of appreciation for the player and for the player choice nowadays. It's hard to find. It's just so amazing how, as I said, at the very bare basic level, this seems like a very simple story, but if you actually plunge yourself into this universe and do the side missions and things, I mean, granted, they're not all going to be great because there's a lot of repetition in terms of, especially with the gameplay for the Mako, which I know is infamous,
00:22:23
Speaker
Oh, Mako. I mean, hot take, I don't think the Mako is as bad, but this is coming from someone playing the legendary edition. Yeah, I was just about to say that. If you play the original, that vehicle plays like if you're sliding on butter. It's terrible. It kind of reminds me of, you know, the old Halo controls. Yeah, that's not great either, but that's a conversation. but It was like a rite of passage for Mass Effect fans. If you've played it that many times and you can get the reins of the Mako and you could do it, then you'd know you'd have played this game enough. Whereas if you were still struggling, you still need to go for a few more playthroughs. Oh no, absolutely. Mako physics aside, right enough, I actually really enjoyed exploring certain planets, because don't get me wrong, some of them were boring. It was like, oh, Luke, it's Geth, or oh, it's the same corridor that you've seen in other places. But I found it interesting when you actually found something of substance. Like, for example, when you come across the Alliance
00:23:20
Speaker
squad to have been ambushed and then I came across my very first thresh or more. oh yeah I had no idea that was coming that genuinely. I was like what the hell was that and I managed to take it down but it was a tough battle. yeah You need a lot of army jail for that one and a good engineer otherwise the repair takes forever. Oh no absolutely, otherwise I would have been scattered. You know you had other ones where for example you had to do loyalty missions but they weren't official loyalty missions but they were missions you could do for your crew like Rex with his family armor, Tally with blowing up Geth. I really enjoyed Garris' one though, when you go after a Salarian who's been experimenting on people, that was really grim. But that's the thing about this game though, the more you go into it, because the one that really got me really hooked was the Cerberus subplot, where it's Admiral, is it Admiral Koku or something? Yeah, I can have an ad. You meet him when you go see the council, after you become a spectre, you chat within the Yeah and they happen to ask you to go out and basically investigate what's going on in the universe with these disappearances and you find out that this very radical group of humans are experimenting on other humans and other races, they're kidnapping them and it was really sad when spoilers but you find the he's been killed by Cerberus after trying to stop them. That really hooked me into the universe because when I played the second one that was really peeved that I had to cite for Cerberus because I was like no this admiral didn't die for nothing. One thing I love about that mission is that if you do that mission in Mass Effect 1, when you play Mass Effect 2, that comes up in a dialogue option, where one of the characters, or even Shepard might say himself or herself, being like, oh, you were testing for super soldiers, you killed that admiral, and then you get, I think it's Miranda, basically says, oh, well, Cerberus has different subsections, and some of us get away from us, basically them being like, yeah, yeah, we know, but they kind of try to sweep it under the rug, like, don't worry about it, we're not the same. of Like, that was not long ago.
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's two years. I don't believe that you've changed that much. But again, that's what I love is the fact of, as you mentioned, you don't have to explore. When I first played Mass Effect the first time and I played it through the second or third time, I never discovered that mission at all. It wasn't later on when I actually, since played Mass Effect 2, then decided to go back and play through one again, that I found that mission. And it was like, oh my God, I didn't realize that you had Cerberus that early on. And it's just one of those that you can just appreciate. Like if you dig and you look for stuff, you find so much. And like you said, we're traveling the planets. You know, I'm a big lover of space. So being able to land on planets, being able to go to the moon and then to travel on the moon and just feel like Buzz Aldrin or go to an alien world. And granted, yes, some of the environments look kind of the same. Some of the bases that you went into, there were copies of each one. But it didn't always bother me because I knew that as soon as I stepped out of that base, I just saw the base as a habitat. It was like one company that I was making a lot of money out of that sat in the same habitat. That was my way of kind of dealing with it in the law, my headcount, shall we say. But I knew that as soon as I would leave that little copied base, that I'd been an alien world, that some worlds I'd have to wear my helmet the whole time because it's hazardous. And there'll be some planets where I could walk around and I'd be free to breathe the air. Did you ever find the space cow? I didn't, but is that the cow that steals money from you? Yeah, he does. I found that again, it's one of those random things that if you're not looking for it, you might even find it not by looking for it. But it's one of those that, I can't remember what planet it was. I was going around a planet. Next time I'm going to know, I turn my back on this cow and he's taking money out of it. And every time I turn my back, he's stealing from me. It's like the shifty space cow or something like that. And I think to myself, well, why is that a thing? And it was one of those, but I remember when I first happened, I killed the cow to get my money back, didn't get my money back. But then I got renegade. I was like, Oh God, I've just killed a cow. And I got renegade. So I had to go back and reload my save. And I was like, I'm not going near the area. I'll leave that cow. Again, it's one of them things of like, it's not important. It's not needed, but it's one of the things that if you are willing to explore and find stuff, you will find some really wacky and strange things in the Mass Effect universe. It's not all serious. There are some things there that are generally just silly or you can just tell the developers were like you know what people might never come to this planet but if they do we've got something for them to sort of look to enjoy a little bit of funny thing for them to discover. Yeah there's certainly a mix of tones in this game and I don't feel as if it clashes which is good but I feel as if compared to the other games it sets a precedent that it's more of an RPG and I'm kind of glad that the future iterations played a bit more lusigousy because as much as I love Mark Meyer and Jennifer Hale who do the voices for Shepard, both male and female Shepard, I feel as if they are deliveries, feel as if it's light. you know, they've been told, oh, this is a serious action RPG game, and you can tell maybe more from Mailship that he's a lot more kind of, oh, the Reapers are here, I should go. And I'm not saying these baddies not at all, but it does feel that kind of this is more of a serious game. They definitely tried to make it more serious. They do have the levity in there, but you have got some really dark moments in it. And I have to say, especially story-wise, when you're going from planet to planet. I mean, some planets are better than others. Like, Naveria is my space Vietnam. I'm going to be honest. Yeah, I don't like Naveria either. I don't like the cold. No. I mean, I'm Scottish. I have to put up with it. But at the same time, I'm like, every time I have to go to Naveria, I'm like, oh. I play games for escapism, not to be back where I already am. I know giant bugs, the codes, big blue people running around, you know it's Scotland all over. Yeah I knew it was rough up there like but did he Al? You got the rachni too? Well yeah that's what I mean yeah big bugs and I can't lie.
00:29:08
Speaker
dated references aside though. Yeah I feel as if that kind of, I wouldn't say hinders the replay but it fills me with dread. Playing through Eden Prime, I'm okay with it after but I'm fine playing through Eden Prime. Playing through the Citadel and what I will say is this is a double edged sword here because the Citadel itself and this kind of links onto the gameplay but the Citadel is probably one of my favourite iterations of the Citadel in the games. I agree. But it's also the most confusing out the three also agree yeah I make the joke all the time that people are still lost there today because I've had many friends that got into Mass Effect, loved it, got to the Citadel and stopped playing because they had no idea where they were going. Now that they fix it for the Legendary Edition but the original Mass Effect There are signposts, but they're there, but they're not there. If that makes sense. like It's not really clear where to go, yeah what to do. So if you're not using the fast travel points, you're lost. And I had a lot of friends who just got lost in the Citadel. It was like, oh, it's beautiful. It's grand. I have no idea where I'm going. And I just gave up playing, which is a shame. But yeah, my love of the Citadel is from this first game that you actually get to explore it. Now you do get to in certain sorts of sex areas in Mass Effect 2 and 3. actually been able to go from the market area to the Pressium sector to the Pressium ward, then you get to go to CSEC and you can go up to the Spectre council area, being able to just walk there. And as you walk through, you'll find like Hanai's having an argument, we want to CSEC because if I remember correctly, there's some sort of race conflict with the different Sioux races, but it's these little things of like, You can go through the fast travel, but if you explore around the Citadel, you find small little missions, like there's a mission on the Citadel, which most people never usually find, where you can help a bloke with cracking into one of the many clubs you can go to in the Citadel. And there is a mission where you help him crack into these roulette machines. And as you go through, you realize somebody's put a code in and that it's AI and that you track it down and you find yourself in the market area where the shadow brokers sort of bloke is. And the AI says like, you've got to diffuse this bomb. And if you don't, I'm going to blow up this whole area. And it's one of those things of like, you might never find this mission, but if you do, it's one of them experiences that's just, it's a strange, because I never would expected that just helping a bloke out trying to cheat a system would find me talking to an AI a robot who's going to blow me up and blow up the whole market. If I don't deactivate and shut him down. They don't give you a lot of time to do it. It's one of them sort of quickly press some and says sort of things like quickly press red, blue, green. If you get one wrong, it blows up. And yet it's so interesting how well crafted the Citadel is. that It just feels huge. It feels like a city. It's a station, but it's more like a city. There's so many different races and they're all sort of walking around and it feels, it just makes the universe feel huge. So, so much. Oh no, absolutely. It is absolutely amazing the detail they put in. You know funny you mentioned that that you miss a lot if you fast travel and this is a philosophy that my very good friend the ghost Adam has also brought up in past episodes especially with games like Skyrim where you can fast travel and I have to admit if you're in a rush sure
00:32:12
Speaker
fast travel but you miss so much in between if you just walk there or ride there and you miss the really funny adventures and this is something I was speaking to with Miri from the Podpack Collective and I was saying how I decided to play a very brief run of a Renegade Femeshit to see if there was any differences. And there are a couple of interesting differences, and I will get on to that. But one thing that I thought was interesting was that when I got to 3 with the male ship, or brochureistible and bro ship when I got to 3, I came across this consort called, I think, Shira? Shiara? One of them. She very much brushed me off in three. She was like, oh, how you doing? Blah blah blah. And I was like, you know, it feels as if I should have a lot more to say to this character. And then I didn't realise that if you walk along and it's right beside, I think you mentioned it before, where it's a Hanar arguing with the Turian C-Sec officer about the right to preach and everything, which is another crazy moment. yeah You come across the office of the consort who asks you to help her out, and in the words of Mary wids to a very thorough bonking session in a bubble.
00:33:25
Speaker
and Yeah, I have to admit, I was just like, oh, thank you for giving me this. I can't remember, she gave you information or something and she said she was going to give you a reward. So I was like, oh, great, you're going to give me money, credits, you know, what's going on here? And then it faded out to black and you saw the handprint on the bubble. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, I'm with Caden and Ashley here, they're watching me bonk and I'm sorry, and the bubble. I was like, oh, my God, this is really awkward. But, you know, Mass Effect. I'm just an innocent little commander. What do you mean? We're just innocent commanders. We're just innocent men. I love that one so much. But speaking of that, I feel as if this is a good point to leap off of. Well, leap from the Citadel and talk about the characters of this game, because I feel as if this is one of the core strengths of this game. You have a wide variety and a huge wealth of brilliantly written and just fantastic characters to deal with. So initially when you start off you get tasked with investigating Eden Prime, which is this human colony that has been attacked. They think that could potentially be, you know, another hostile alien race. Technically it is, but we'll get on to that. Turns out to be space robot zombies and space quids. Space quids, yeah, as well. Squids could be the best of times, never mind space quids. You end up coming across these things and you're like, what the hell was going on here? And of course you lose your first companion Jenkins. Jenkins. But of course you gain another one. So you have Caden, who is this very mild-mannered space Canadian.
00:35:08
Speaker
yeah And then you've got Ashley who is, I don't want to say she's xenophobic, but she's borderline xenophobic, isn't she? Yeah, yeah, basically. I'll just rip the band out off now and I'll say I like Ashley and Caden. As characters, they're very interesting and very deep and complex. And Ashley, yes, she is on the borderline xenophobic. When you start talking to her, you realize that her family was in the first contact war and that she lost a lot of people. You can realize why she doesn't trust aliens and why she doesn't like the Torians. But it's one of those that she would always fight back with you with the fact of she'd say, Oh, while we have no, this is an Alliance ship. Why have we got all these different aliens on? And then as shepherd, you'd be like, well, the whole point of to fight this big war, to fight this battle, we need everybody on our side. And I always used to keep Ashley alive because she used to be a love interest.
00:35:52
Speaker
But as I've grown older and as I've matured, I actually find Caiden a lot more interesting companion. So when we get to, and again, spoilers, but then if you've listened this far, we've spoiled most of it anyway. But when you get to Vermeer and you have the option between to sacrifice Caiden or Ashley, whenever I do my playthrough now, I always sacrifice Ashley and always keep Caiden. Not just because i I prefer his character now and and I've grown as a player and as somebody who a lot more mature of sort of person but also the fact of I just feel like when it comes to not so much Mass Effect 2 because you don't see him as much but Mass Effect 3 it's more important to have in my opinion have Kayden there but without going to major spoilers for the third game he's just more important to have him there so yeah I like them both And I find that very interesting. Like you have with Caden as well, with his L2 implants, that because he was one of the second generation to get Bionics in human, that there are moments where he gets migraines, he gets really bad pains. And then you meet the other side missions where you, other L2 people who are going psychotic and having really bad problems. And there's a warrior that Caden might be as well, but because of the help of Dr. Chockwise, it keeps under control, that sort of thing. But they are very interesting characters, but I always now, nowadays, always save Caden over Ashley. I can't remember who I saved when I first played through it but I have to say for the Legendary Edition when I was playing through it again, I saved Caden much like you and I have to say in the first game I kind of found him alright and I have to say I don't think it's because he's a bland character. I thought yeah he's alright and I was wondering why I thought that way about Ashley and Caden. And it isn't so much the writing, although Ashley's could be a bit very much on the nose. oh definitely ah I feel as if the main thing for me is just because the alien companions just shine so much in comparison. As you've mentioned as well, you've got Dr. Shaka's as well, who is a fantastic addition. She is such a good character. You've got Joker as well, who's a fantastic pilot and everything. You've got Kresley, who's your navigation officer. You've got all these really cool side characters and everything and you would think that you would gravitate towards them more because they are, not to sound like Ashley here, but because they're human, because they are the quote-unquote relatable ones. But then as soon as you start diving into the other characters, which of course we're about to go into, they are absolutely fantastic. I mean look at Garris and I know somewhere Marie's ears are burning. And don't worry, Dan's ears will be burning once we get onto the Arab. With Garris, he is very much a rebel without a cause, a renegade turning your gun in your badge kind of character, and you as Shepard have to temper his attitude towards being a renegade, or you can totally encourage it and say, yeah, shoot that evil doctor. Fortunately, he dies either way, but It's interesting to see with Goddess he is very much a headstrong, wants to try and get things done as fast as possible but he slowly realises why you do the things you do and he is just such a well fleshed out character. Oh yeah, absolutely. As sort of Commander Shepard, you are, even if you are a Renegade or Paragon, you are always the voice of reason. And even though that you could get Garris and you could, again, let him go down the path of the Renegade, he still kind of, I think he just finds respect for you of like, is that a very honorable side of the Torians? Because the Torians are very militaristic, that their whole race and religion revolves around being strong, being in the army, doing service, and just being sort of... Plagmatic. Yeah. Yeah. A good old boy, sort of like the soldier, basically. That is something that I feel like he can relate to Shepard, of like, look, he's a man or a woman on a mission, and that I will stand by them no matter what, because what they stand for, I might not agree with it, or I might agree with it, but they stand for something that's going to do something in the universe. Instead of everybody else going, oh, it might be the Reapers, it might not be, oh, we don't know, yes, no, and we'll talk about the council when we get to the council. but garis is very much the fact of look Shepard has a cause and nobody has to do anything so I'm going to follow him whether it be Paragon or Renegade somebody's doing something and I think he's just a very honourable character in that respect. And I mean going off of that you also have Tali who or can I just say it is a crime that you can't romance both Tali and Garris in this game.
00:40:15
Speaker
And I actually wonder, because I don't know if they have officially said this, but I'm sure somebody said that they didn't expect the fanbase to be like, well, why can't we romance this birdman or why can't we romance this Korean alien? Because although I absolutely love Tally, I am Tally through and through when it comes to romancing, but I was deeply shocked when you couldn't romance her in the first game. Yeah, I found that recently. Every time I've done a playthrough, I've always done as a male Shep. And for my playthrough recently, I decided to make things a bit different. I wanted to play it as a female Shep. And my plan was, you know, I'm going to romance Garris. No matter how much I tried, that devil would not take any of my advances. And I had Liara, and again, I love Liara, I already do. And I always romance Liara or Telly, depends on how I'm feeling with each playthrough. And I felt really bad because she made a pass at me and I had to turn her down and it killed me to do it. But it was mainly because I wanted to romance or have the option to romance Garris in the next game. So it was one of those where she tried to comfort me, showed me my friend, and I had to push her away. And it's just one of those, connection it sounds silly, but it's one of the connections that I've got with the character so much that it feels wrong to decline her advances. It felt like I should have. But you are right, it's weird that in the first game you can't romance the Quarian or you can't romance the Etorian. But you can't even romance Rex, which I'm sure some people out there, you know, they love Rex and they'd love to romance him. You had the option between Caiden, Ashley and Liara. That's basically it in terms of romances. Yeah, it's really surprising in that regard because Mass Effect, obviously for the characters as well and the very funny moments, but
00:41:48
Speaker
It's really well known for its romance options. So when I went back to replay the first one, I was actually really shocked that the romance options were very limited. And I have to say, and I think this is something that is a kind of symptom of the time as well. I think because you know news outlets in certain groups like Fox News, blah, blah, blah, they were going absolutely mad that you could bonk up. you know, Liada, this loose space morph woman who was very promiscuous and whatnot, as male and female Shepard, but for the other ones it was only very heterosexual relationships and things. I feel as if if they added at that time especially an LGBT relationship, can you imagine how insufferable it would have been listening to the news? Oh god yeah. If Mass Effect had come out nowadays there would have been a lot more approval. Uh-huh. But my argument always is, especially with the asari is that they even mention it in the game and it's in the sort of codexes that yes, the asari happened to take the form of what us humans would call female, but they don't class themselves as female. yeah It's one of those where it's the fact of yes to us, to humans, they look like women, but they're not. And that's always been my argument is the fact of that's. as to why they're attracted to male shepherd or female shepherd because to them there's no such thing as sort of gender in their culture really it's a fact of love is love and i really find that really respectful and really commendable that Bioware would make a sort of race like the asari of like they've got no gender they're all women technically yes but they're not women at the same stage And that when they have a connection with another species, they take the best of each species. Like in Mass Effect 2, they expanded on it. Where you find Asari have relationships with Volus. They're relationships with Krogan. They have relationships with Torian. And it's all just sort of a betterment of love. And it's done in such a really beautiful way.
00:43:40
Speaker
One bit of trivia though that I want to give you, I don't know if you ever noticed going back to what you said about Tali and Garros. You might not have noticed this and most other players might not have. I found this out by accident. So if you decide not to romance Garros or Tali, Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2, there is a moment in Mass Effect 3. that I went down to engineering in randomly and there was somebody I wanted to talk to and I just decided to go into the engineering bay and I went in there as the doors opened there was Garris and Tally in an embrace kissing each other it was one of them moments of like I didn't expect it I didn't see it coming but when I saw it I was like yo makes sense he likes to calibrate things she likes ships it's a perfect union it just makes sense and it's one of them things that was like one expecting it it was a complete surprise but i thought you know what i love it and then by the time i got to the end of the last game there was that moment where i thought you know what i want to take garris and tally together because i want them to be together i don't want them to fight alone and And again, it's weird, but it's these little emotional moments that you notice and you're like, oh, I've got to take them together with me in the last battle, just so they're together and they're with me. And I love them both equally and I've romanced them both. It's just one of the things of like, they've both found love because I've decided to romance Miranda or somebody else. It's just one of them sort of beautiful moments of us like so freeing and so open that you can romance anybody. You can do what you want, no matter who you are or what you are. There is love out there for everybody in the whole universe. It's not just centered to humanity. and many things I love about Mass Effect, and that's just one of billions of things I love about this series. It is so open, not just in the respect of the universe, but it's just open in emotion. It's open in passion. It's open in creativity, in world building, in character development. It is just a open box of just wonderment. and And this is probably why Mass Effect has stood the test of time and why it has so many fans, because even though in the first game, when it comes to the romances and the characters, you are very much sort of, you ya have to pick and choose. I think they realised that with Mass Effect 2 and was like, you know what, for this game, everybody, if you like somebody, you can romance them. And for that, if you like somebody, you don't have to romance, but to give them the option that you can, and it can be anybody. It's a wonderful thing. No, I couldn't have said that better myself, to be honest.
00:45:40
Speaker
So when you're passionate about something, you can't help not. No, no, absolutely. definite Definitely go for it because I totally know what you mean. It is something that is really surprising because I have to say, and this is probably going to get me hit in the back of the head by Dan for this one, but I didn't romance anybody in the first game. And I kind of wish I did now, but because my main aim was Tali, because I really love her as a character, I think she's just absolutely hilarious. The Quarians in themselves, they are my favorite race out of all the races in Mass Effect. The Quarians are my favorite. They're the most interesting, most complex, and the one that I want to spend the most time with, to be honest. Every time I play, I love going to their ship in Mass Effect 2 and just to see the technology and see how they're living and to learn why they're living that way. To me, it's just perfect well-building. honestly go for a halt. I could have a mass fix sequel or prequel. That is literally just the Quarians and I would be happy. I would honestly love to see more from the Quarians. I totally agree with you when we got to see more of the culture and the second one. It was fascinating. Don't get me wrong, it was really fascinating to see Tali talk about that, but on the flip and again I don't think it's a massive detraction from it and it's the same with Rex as well but I feel as if with Rex and well maybe not so much Rex because you get to see a little bit more of his struggle but for Tali a lot of what she says it almost feels like she's a walking codex entry at times. where she says, oh, the morning ward and the Quarian fleet and telling you everything that's going on. And I find it really annoying that there's no way to sympathise with the Quarians, the real logic. I feel as if that's one of the rare times that the game actually real logic into saying, oh, no, you should have never abused the geth and everything. And I get where they're coming from. But I'm like, yeah, can we not have more interpretations of this? Speaking actually of moral
00:47:40
Speaker
greatest for our penultimate character. We do have Rex. I'm going to say if it wasn't for him, I probably would have a very different view of the Turians, Salarians and the Asari because as you said before, you know the Krogan are just like battle lizards, battle toads if you will. And they were basically hired out by the council races to fight against the Rachni who are just basically space bugs, let's face it. yeah So they put them down and then they said, right, we are going to expand our territory. The council said, no. And long story short, the council members, in particular the Salarians, the Blizzard, the Thunner Blizzard people. Yeah, basically. yeah they decided to create a chemical weapon that would essentially cull the birth rate of the Krogan's, which I thought was absolutely horrific. yeah the jeniage yeah It honestly made me think of a Doctor Who episode, especially, you know, I think it's Genesis and the Daleks, it could be. yes where, you know, the doctor's standing there for context for any non-huvians out there. The context is that he has the chance to absolutely obliterate the Dalek race. He can wipe them from time, wipe them from history and memory, and he stands there with the two pieces. All he has to do is put his hands together. It's one of my favourite scenes, some classic who this is. Oh, it really is amazing and it's amazing how it still holds up because he's standing there and he gives this very impassioned speech of does he as a person have the right to carry this out because it's like an execution? Although these are obviously a very war-like and absolutely xenophobic race and everything, does he have the right to obliterate them in the blink of an eye? And it's the same with this because what you find out in the later games with other characters like Mordin and other people that you get to see a different side of the conflicts and I feel as if that makes it a bit less hard to swallow but if you're going purely by the first game it is horrific. I genuinely I had such an annoyance with the Turians and the Salarians I thought you sneaky bastards It's a real slap in the face, but when you go to the Citadel for the first time, when you explore around at the first area, you can find a huge statue of a Krogan. And there's a plaque that basically goes, this is to commemorate all the Krogans that fought and died to protect the council races from the Rachni. And at first you're like, Oh, this is incredible. And then you meet Rex and then back a lack of better words, such as the Lord of ours gets revealed behind the curtain and you realize, Oh, actually a lot darker than what is to be received. And you learn that yes, the council couldn't fight back the rack on the rack. The Krogan stepped in, destroyed them. All they asked was that we just want a bit more land because we nuked our planet. Tuchanka is one of my favorite places to go in Mass Effect 2. Tuchanka is a gorgeous world and it's full of history, but it's just been nuked because they found nuclear weapons and because they're a warring race, they annihilate themselves. So they wanted a chance to redeem themselves, but also to spread. And then you see the council races realize, Oh God, if these guys get out of control, because they breathe like rabbits, technically, if we can't fight the Rachni, there's no way we're going to fight a Krogan planet. So it's one of those sort of problems where I don't agree with it. I really, really don't. But and again, I'm not trying to defend it or justify it. But it's one of those, that as you mentioned, you see two different sides, you get Rex's opinion of it. And then I love Morden. But when you meet Morden, you learn more about the Solarians. They're very much like Spock. They're very sort of logical. Like we did it because it made sense. Like yes, just because it made sense doesn't mean it was the right decision. I like that analogy to Doctor Who, where the Doctor's like, do I have the right to do this? Because if I destroy the Daleks, then yes, loads of races and loads of people will be saved. But how many different species will never come together or find peace or find harmony over the war and strife of struggle of the Daleks?
00:51:33
Speaker
And it's one of them sort of questions that it's one of many moral things in sort of mass effect where you sit there and you actually, many times I've paused the game and I thought to myself, I've like, what would I have done? I understand that they felt at the time it was the right thing to do, but to castrate a whole lack of better words. Yeah, they castrate a whole species and that now they are living in squalor and that the people don't even want to stay on to Chunka anymore. They've ever hired themselves out as mercenaries because they've got nothing else to live for, but to fight. It's heartbreaking and Rex at first, when you first start to talk to him, he's just a rough guff, sort of like, yeah, um'm I'm here to do a job. But as you get to know him, you realize actually he's just as emotional as the rest of us. It's just the fact of, look, I don't want to be a mercenary. It's just, I have to, because my whole planet is screwed. And when you get to Vermeijer, if you haven't made the right choices in terms of your speech and your charm and being able to get unique dialogue options, there's high potentiality that you might put heads and you might lose Rex and it's.
00:52:28
Speaker
It's such a sad moment. It really is. And there's so many morally gray areas in the whole Mass Effect series that you can't happen to sit there and go, I've got all the facts. I understand why this side thinks of this and why that side thinks of this. But is it good? Is it bad? That's always up for your interpretation. But yeah, I don't think what happened to the Krogan was fair at all. And then when you start learning more, especially when it's like Mass Effect 3, you realize that the Torians are hidden a nuke under one of their cities just in case. I'm like, whoa. Yeah. Just the wee bit Yeah. bit. Yeah, Vermeijer is such a hard level, not just because of the Vermeijer survivor, but also because of just the amount that you have to struggle with. And honestly, at times, I genuinely felt as if I was playing an action-packed version of Doctor Who or you know even Star Trek. where that's another show which of course has a lot of these moral quandaries where it's like do I have the right to do this? The Prime di Directive comes into it which I know the Mass Effect kinda has a similar thing with uplifting species which is a whole other topic in itself. and ju But yeah, that whole confrontation with Rex is just heartbreaking because what ends up happening, just to give context, is that the main villain, Sadin, ends up creating artificial krogan. And Rex, of course, he sees that as his chance to restore his people. And you have to convince him, of course, that no, this is just a bunch of mindless
00:53:56
Speaker
clones and everything, they have no autonomy, they are just controlled, you're doing these newborn creatures into a life of servitude for the main villain and it's such a heartbreaking thing because you can see the desperation and if it was humanity who were in a similar boat, chances are yeah they would be pissed and they would be trying to find some kind of cure. I mean look at Children of Men but that's another review. yeah But you know, you would be absolutely heartbroken that you have the cure so close to you, yeah you can't grab it. And that's what I think this game does really well with its characters because they start off as relatively one note, but then the more you get to know them and peer away. This is very much an onion game in the sense that you peer away and not to reference Shrek. of course, but you know, you peel away and each character's got layers. The only character that I would say, and this is kind of the final character, but the only character I would say I wasn't a big fan of as much was Liara. Yeah, I can say why.
00:54:59
Speaker
The reason being because when I first played her years and years ago, I rescued Liara first, then we went to rescue her mother, who is the same actress that plays Diana Troi in Star Trek, and which I thought was really cool. But yeah, when I played it through the this time, I left her till last, which is a really bad idea because yeah once you play through it, you go into the next mission and she starts confessing her love to you. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We've just met. Aye, exactly. Look, I like you, but I'm not in like with you. I just need you for your protein knowledge. I don't need you for your pity, okay? Just sit down. That's the thing with Liara, like she's a fascinating character and like a love interest. I love that and I know Dan's gonna hate me for this, but I do agree with you with that with Liara is the fact of if you don't get her early, because I always get her first,
00:55:51
Speaker
If you don't get her early, and then you have that sort of induction with her and her mother, mate Sharpenazia, had to explain it without being mean, because I love her. It's just one of those, the fact of, there's a lot to her, but not until the second and the third game. Until then, Liara is very much the fact of, oh, she's very much like a child, even though she's like a hundred and something years old. She's very much like a child. She's like, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that that would be an issue. Um, are you okay? And then Shepherd's like, yeah, I'm fine. And he's like, well, let's touch heads. and Um, I can maybe de scramble some things. And. As an exposition, as sort of like getting to one page to the next in terms of the story, she does a good job. But I feel like, apart from being, and again, it's going to sound horrible, apart from being a sort of a love interest, she's kind of just there to pull on that thread of the Prophian and that she doesn't really get expanded on more so until the second and third game, which is a shame, but to say, because I love her, but yeah. No, I'm totally with you there. I genuinely was really surprised, even when we got to the second game, and she's introduced as being quite a cutthroat businesswoman who was about to flee someone alive over in a video call, and then she hangs up and she's like, oh my god, Shepard, and you're like, Jesus Christ, what happened to you in two years? Because even in the comics, which I find quite interesting, there's a comic that bridges the gap between one and two from Liar perspective. I really like it because not only does it explain what happened and her ties to Cerberus and how she knows, I think it's fair on the drill. yeah I absolutely loved how much of an action hero she appeared in it. You know, she's got the armor on, she's kicking ass. She's coming to an element a lot more in comparison to this game because I am totally with you. I really got annoyed with her quite a lot where she seemed very
00:57:38
Speaker
a old like, especially for someone you're supposed to be romancing and everything. It's just like, oh my goodness, look at me, I'm just a poor little asari girl. It didn't, it was from you know an adult perspective, it didn't really like with me. And i he as if maybe it was and again i don't want to you know criticize theda too much because i do think she is a character that gets i wo bait it as the games go on but I feel as if maybe it was for a more teenage audience. Dan is going to kill me for saying that. It just in terms of the way she looks and everything and the way that Bioware seemed to really push her character is almost the true relationship between Shepard and Liara. And again, if that's the character that you go for, that's perfectly fine. But again, she just came across and the first one is quite needy and not as engaging, which is a shame because, as I said, I do think the characters themselves have a great baseline. But I think if you evolve them, they've got the layers, as I said, but there's a lot more that could have been done in some regards. But as I keep saying, this is my catchphrase of the episode, I genuinely don't think it's a detriment to the overall game. I don't think that it takes away. But speaking of that, speaking of, well, not detriment so much, but I was going to say, should we talk about the finale of the game?
00:59:03
Speaker
Yeah the ending starts quite early in terms of the story in terms of when it actually ends if that makes sense. I say it begins when you go to Vermeijer and then from there it kind of just one after the other like dominoes. It's quite an interesting one because this is one of the few Mass Effect games like in fact the second one's probably the Outlier where you can replay it after the end credits. But for this game you would expect to be able to play it after the credits, but you're not really given that opportunity, which I've always found really weird but I can kind of understand, given the way the Citadel gets absolutely destroyed at the end. probably understand why they wouldn't want that, but yeah, as you said, Vermeijer is really the endgame, or it's the catalyst where you lose one I of your crewmates, can you're at your lowest point, then we get taken back to the Citadel, the Citadel ground us, and then thanks to the help of the amazing Captain Anderson, I love that character, we end up getting out of the Citadel, and I don't know about you, but I asked him to punch you, Dina. I always do. And I have my reasons because I've never liked Odina. There was always something about him even before I ever got round to ever play Mass Effect 2 or 3. There's just something about Odina that just rubbed me the wrong way. And it wasn't until I got to Mass Effect 3 again, I'm not going to spoil it for anybody. But if you played it, you know who Odina is and what he does.
01:00:25
Speaker
And ever since then, I'm like, every time I have the opportunity to fight back at him or punch him, or shall we say Anderson, sort of Anderson's the hand of God. I'm just directing him. You know, I'm like, he punch that man. He has, you know, we don't like him, but yeah, I don't like who do now. So I always choose Anderson to be the next sort of representative for humanity. Cause Anderson really reminds me of a Churchill sort of character, sort of like not the man that's needed, but the man that we need for the war that is to come. To fight a war, you need a leader who knows how to be a fighter war, basically. And with the Reapers on the way, Anderson is not only just the better character, but it made more sense in terms of logically, of like, well, he is a former N7 soldier, potentially would have been a Spectre, but he kind of got thrown under the bus by Saren, managed to get his own back at Saren. And now he's got his opportunity to to finally represent humanity as he should do, as he deserves to be. But yeah. like Aduna for many reasons. and He's very snaky. He reminds me of, what's his name now? He's a little finger from Game of Thrones. He reminds me of a little finger. Yeah, he is just a stereotypical slightly politician. Basically, yeah. In a sci-fi setting and no fiction in general. He's up there with one of the worst characters. He's good at being bad. I mean, I don't want to say that he's a bad character. He's good at making you want to hate him. Oh, definitely. It just comes down to the writing as well. Oh, yeah. How that a character that you don't actually spend a lot of time with Adina, really, if you think about it, all the time you spend in Mass Effect is exploring planets going on missions. But every moment that he's on screen, there is just that sink about him. So it's like, sink about this guy I just don't like. I don't like his energy. I don't like the way he talks to me, the way he talks to Anderson, the way he treats everybody around him. He's very much the fact
01:02:00
Speaker
of I know better than you and you're going to go off now and you're grounded and I'm going to go talk to the council because I know better blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm like, shut up, go away. Big boys are talking now. I've met the Reapers. I've met sovereign. All right. I'm dealing with the problem. You're not. But again, it's that thing of the option between a politician and somebody who actually does something. I'm not going to get political, but yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. I'm talking about the other. But eventually once you get him punched right for his own, it's a shame you can't chain punch to the council as well. But once that happens and you escape the Citadel, this is the endgame where you can't really diverge because the game sets you on the path to go to Ilios, which is this former Prothean, I want to say colony or lab or something. Yeah, it's a colony world. It's not their home world, but it's one of their many, what was one of their many empire sort of worlds. end up going there and you find out the secret about the reapers and things that they, you know, they're not a nice bunch of space squids, to be honest. i don know And I have to say, I was actually kicking myself because something that I didn't realise when I first played through it, I completely forgot the twist that Solvren was a reaper. So when that actually popped up, I was like, oh my God, it's a reaper. You know, it was just absolutely amazing to play through and like, oh my God, It's just that noise. It's that er oh not it's like that noise is ingrained in my head. that and Whenever I hear that noise, it just instant chills because I know what's coming. yeah oh it's hortifying It's so iconic for sci-fi now that whenever you hear that noise, if you've played Mass Effect, you know what that means. You haven't got to have an explanation or to see what it is. You know what it is from that sound. Oh, so damn good. And of course, you go through Alios, and I have to say it's one of my least favourite parts of the game. ah I mean, well, no, it's a good… See, in terms of lore building and story, love it for that, but see, actually traversing it, I would say I'm not… Like, not compared to Navaria. Navaria is still the worst. Zoo's Hope as well. I love the story of Zoo's Hope but I'm not a big fan of you know traversing in the meekle and then you know you go through all the corridors. I was just about to say my two favourite places to visit in Musfoot. Next of Armaiah is Pharos, which is where Zeus Hope is, which is the old sort of Prophian skyscrapers and Eilos. Just because, as you go through the story, there are many moments where there's a constant reference to the Prophians. The Prophians, they were incredibly advanced. They disappeared 50,000 years ago. They had an empire that spanned the entire Milky Way galaxy. And mean then when you get to first go to Pharos and you get to see these skyscrapers and I don't know if you ever noticed it yourself. I've, any ever noticed it when I was actually trying to properly pay attention was that when you go from down the stairs through our loss, if you just look at the walls, they're popmarked with bullet holes and scarring. And at first, when you first played the game, you might not notice it, but it's not until you realize what happened to the profunes, how they were attacked by the Reapers that you realize actually there was a war in this city and that there were people fighting on these stairs and they're probably Reapers chasing people up and down the stairs, shooting at and missing them. I love the architecture of the profunes. especially in this game because in Mass Effect 1 Bioware didn't really know what they wanted the profunes to be able to look like so the architecture is very different like you go to some planets and there'll be pyramids on the planets and there'll be like profune data discs on them and or you go to Eilos and Faros and like the architecture will be different. And then they change it a little bit. that You find a few Profion ruins and a few side missions in MassVet 2, you find those little sphere things. And then when you finally get to meet Javic in MassVet 3, by that stage they'd realize what they wanted the Profions to look like and how they wanted to act. But I just love the idea that you've had this huge buildup to what the Profions are, that they were in an advanced race, that they held off the Profions for thousands and thousands of years.
01:05:48
Speaker
and that to finally to go to a planet that hasn't been touched that is completely in ruin but still in a very sort of bleak way incredibly beautiful if that makes sense and that's why I enjoy going to Feros and why I go enjoy going to Eilos because it's sad that you know this is the ruins of a former race but the same stage it's incredibly beautiful because their architecture is still standing after even though that the Reapers had come in and harvested and destroyed most of the planets Eilos is still standing and I get it with the Mako it can be a bit of a daunting thing going through the tunnel but just looking around and being like, Oh, what are those weird objects in the wall? And then when you talk to Vigil, and you realize, Oh, this is a vault. I'm inside a vault. And then obviously as visual starts to break down and he explains, like I had to keep, make sure that we would eventually get discovered by the next cycle of of races that I had to start shutting down parts of non-essential personnel. So security had to go, maintenance workers, blah, blah, blah. And originally all that was left was the scientists. It's a beautifully, hauntingly sad, but beautiful place to go. And so I get why it can be a bit daunting to drive through because it can, especially with the maker. The maker just makes everything awkward. I think it was just more, say when you get out the mako and you have to like run around and go up stairs and down stairs. Yeah, yeah and more of that, but that you are constantly running up and initially I was totally away with you, you know, and I do.
01:07:04
Speaker
100% agree with you that the architecture is beautiful. And it does remind me of other sci-fi games like Halo, for example, where you see the forerunners' architecture for the first time and you think, wow, this is completely different to what I'm used to. And, you know, especially with this game where you are essentially a stranger in a strange land here, are both literally and figuratively, but you are also the hero of this or anti-hero if you decide to punch that reporter. ah We all do. oh Well, I don't. I have to say I didn't throughout the three games. Do you know what I was actually angry at? The fact that you don't get an achievement for it. For not punching the reporter. Because I know it's a meme that you punch a reporter, but I didn't for three games. So, by the way, see if you're listening. I would like my medal posted. DM me for the details of my address.
01:07:55
Speaker
But yeah, Ilios, I know completely what you mean, it's just it's a haunting ghost city yeah or ghost settlement. It's just you look around, everything's dead except for, ironically enough, the guests who are just stalking the whole place and you have to shoot through them and you have to chase Saren. It is absolutely amazing when you take the mako through the mass relay I didn't even know that was possible but the fact it is is just so damn cool as a visual. And then of course you just take the fight to Saren and you end up defeating him in battle. Or weirdly enough you can convince him to shoot himself but yeah that's a really weird ending. It is a strange one, being the fact that if you manage to do the right choices when you talk to him on Vermeer, you can convince him to end himself. And I always found that was a bit strange.
Saren's Character Analysis
01:08:43
Speaker
like I get why he does it because he realizes I'm too far gone with the indoctrination. There's no hope for me. And he just decides that's it. I would have preferred to potentially with Saranov. He has that realization and his last sort of ditch attempt to kind of do the right thing. Maybe he infects sovereign with a virus or he fights back at Well, you know, something like that, maybe even if it doesn't work, instead of him just ending himself, he decides, you know what, I'm going to fight back. And with the last bit of strength I have, do something that stops sovereign or gives the council or the Alliance the opportunity to fight back and destroy him. You know, I think that would have been a lot better payoff for such an interesting character like Saren. I mean on the flip side of that you have one of the absolute coolest set pieces where you've got the alliance ships coming out of the master relay and they come to save the day and everything and I am an absolute sucker for this. A really good spaceship battle. Oh I love them. Mass Effect 3 had some of the best. Oh, that was amazing when you have all the ships at the end. The final battle is just absolutely brilliant. I mean, I think that's why I like Halo so much, because you've got that scene in Halo 3 as well, where the Forerunner ship's about to go and then they end up diving in with the UNSC frigates and oh my God, it's just so cool, between the music and I think that's the thing as well, between the music and Mass Effect and the visuals, it's just, oh, it's a perfect combination because as I said you've got the alliance fleet and you can obviously decide whether or not to save the council and it is absolutely brilliant because you are just in full yeah let's save the day let's destroy this reaper and it takes all of your effort just to fill one reaper.
01:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, and that is the worrying thing, that there are masses of these reapers out there, and you only manage to defeat one, because everybody collectively fought together to bring it down, and it has a very... I mean, you know you feel triumphant, and then you realise that, and you're like, oh my God, this is going to be a lot harder than you think. It is one of them epic moments where not only, like you said, puts into perspective, oh god, like just one of them destroyed half of the Alliance fleet and the council, but also the fact of it's that realization that we are not advanced enough, we're not ready. The Protheans were advanced enough to fight the Reapers for a thousand plus years. Granted, it was by planet by planet basis, but they were able to last that long. I don't think that advances as the Asari are, as the Salarian, that if all things went pear-shaped and mass-fed free and we wasn't able to sort of defeat them, I think they would have wiped us out in a lot quicker
Moral Dilemmas in Mass Effect
01:11:19
Speaker
period. And I think it puts into perspective that this cycle that we're in currently, well for the game that is, we are not ready to fight the Reapers, so we have to come together to stand even just a smidge of a chance.
01:11:29
Speaker
And one thing I want you to add, and I wanted to ask you this question, when you first played through Mass Effect, or even the second playthrough, did you save the council or did you realize that it was something that you should do or didn't want to do? I did save the council, but I'm going to be honest. it's a very difficult decision. That sounds really, really horrible because it's something we haven't touched on, but the fact that initially, you know, like on the out outside you think, should you save the rulers of this particular area of the galaxy? And you know, the non-brain answer is yes, of course, it's a non-thinker. But when you play the game and you have to deal with the council constantly talking down to you like you are a child, and you've got that button where it's like, do you want to save them? and basically sacrifice one-third of the alliance fleet? Or do you want to sacrifice the Destiny Ascension, their flagship, in order to stop the Reaper yourself? i get Again, you're standing there like,
01:12:28
Speaker
Not because at the end of the day, they are the antagonists. Well, not antagonists, but they are kind of the side antagonists. They constantly berate you. They say, oh, we don't believe the reaper, so they are despite the evidence. And they only get worse throughout the trilogy. And I know they're supposed to be the bureaucracy that doesn't really listen to the facts and things. I feel like they soften up with mass victory. It's only because they have to, because they realise, oh god, Shepard was telling the truth the whole time. But when I first played for Mass Effect the first few times, this is before Mass Effect 2 came out, I'd kill the council each time. It's a strange thing to talk about it, because I know we're talking about a video game, but when you say it out loud, it makes you sound like a monster. But it's one of them things where you realise, well, I sacrifice tons and thousands of human lives. Is that worth one big ship? One big ship and three or four council members? It doesn't really make sense when you first go through. It's like, well, no, of course I'm going to side with the humans, get rid of them. They never liked me anyway. I'm going to side with the people that liked me. Alliance comes in, bosh, saves a day, top banana. It's not until you get to Mass Effect 2 or Mass Effect 3, you realize that was a bad decision and I won't go into full details. But it was more just the fact of if you kill the council, a new council gets elected anyway, and they're less likely to believe you than the first council was because they won you sacrifice the last council. So they've got no reason to fully trust you anyway. And also the fact of all the other races now hate humanity a lot more than they did because they see humanity is greedy and is out for themselves. And it's actually, it's kind of a backwards decision, but it actually makes more sense
01:13:55
Speaker
to be the paragon and to save the council, because then even though you've lost half the human sort of fleet, humanity is looked on a lot more fondly, especially when you get to Mass Effect 3. People are more willing to help Shepard because of what you did in the first game. And that council, even though some of them are asked still a bit standoffish with you, are a lot more willing to help you because you saved them in the first one and that you were always right they just would never believed you and i find that if you kill them and you have the new set of council members it's a lot more difficult to persuade them to your side you do but it's a lot harder so i feel like the better ending of the whole trilogy even though they're not the best and even though you have to sacrifice half the alliance fleet it is in your best interest to save the council and again it's one of their moral things of like is it the right thing to do sacrificing half the human fleet for three or four people that don't like you. you know it's It's very strange but it makes sense, especially if you've played the game anyway. But I mean that is the sign of a good game though, yeah especially in terms of writing to actually pull you in and engage you because I'm going to be honest and I'm going to touch on the gameplay a wee bit here.
Story vs Gameplay in Mass Effect
01:15:00
Speaker
I feel as though if beyond the dialogue choices, the gameplay is quite... and again, this is looking back on it from a 2024 perspective here since we've had so many other amazing games since, but even to its contemporaries later on, I feel as if the gameplay is
01:15:18
Speaker
key. It's not really anything special in terms of its gunplay and the action itself. I find maybe it's a bit bogged down and muddled because of those RPG elements that there's so many guns and things, but I feel as if the core of it as the whole dialogue options and the fact that your choices, whether you're a paragon or a renegade throughout the story, these choices, as you said, they carry over to the other games but they also carry throughout the story. You can see that in the other games where other characters who you thought were insignificant, they actually reference you, for example, in the first one you've got a guy who his wife's body is being held by the Alliance of this such a sad scene but you get permission to or rather you tell the Alliance that you want this body released and he writes to you in the second game and he says you know thank you I've actually opened up a restaurant with a picture up and everything and it's just ah such a beautiful thing to see that something that you thought oh it's a silly well not silly but it's just a side mission you know it's not going to cause any repercussions but it's like that butterfly effect where the smallest of decisions do have an impact later on and as you said despite the fact that throughout this game you do get a lot of really heavy choices whether that is to kill the asari that's been overtaken by the tholian in pharaohs which is an interesting one again it's an ancient creature that's probably as old as the reapers which i found fascinating and then of course that gets killed off. You've got the racknigh which you come across, the big space bugs that again you have to decide whether you're going to wipe them out or not. Again as we said you have to reason with Rex about bringing back the Krogan in Endangered State as it were. So there's a lot of heavy decisions and I feel as if that's the bit that does the heavy lifting. But going off on that, see if this just had a bog standard story. See if it didn't have the morality wheel and whatnot. Do you think this game would have been as successful just on its gameplay? No, I don't think it would. Mainly because, as you said, this game, Tarzan 7, it was very rudimentary, very somewhat basic in what you could do. Yes, you had abilities. If you chose Bartix, you know, you, you could lift or throw and do singularities, that sort of thing. But in terms of actual sort of the game, especially for the first game, it was very basic. And I feel like if it was just a box standard story of like your Commander Shepard, you've got to take down the Reapers. You've got to fight the Gef to get to them. X, Y, and Z. And you don't even get to go from planet to planet. You literally just end in one planet, cutscene, go on another planet, that sort of thing. I don't think it would. I think it would have been a flash in a pan. I thought it would have come and went as soon as it had started. But I feel like the reason why a lot of people stayed and the reason why I stayed is the fact that it's the story. Now I'll admit, I think I got into Mass Effect at too young of an age, because as you mentioned, there are a lot of moral decisions that are not decisions that you should make easily. Even now that I've played the game thousands of times, I still sit and think of like, I still question of like, is this the best decision? And I remember when I first played Mass Effect 3 and some of the decisions in that one, I'm sitting there thinking, I don't know what is the best point of call. And I love games like this. I love choice and consequence. I love the telltale games where you don't have and any, you don't have any second to think about it. You literally have to make a split second decision as if you would in real life.
01:18:39
Speaker
So no, I don't think this game would have lasted as long and had such a legacy if it wasn't for the characters, for the world, for the lore, for the choice and the consequence. Because as you mentioned, even the smallest of side missions that you do in the first game, you might not have any effect in the second game, but they could appear in the last game. And you're like, I forgot about you. How are you doing? Oh, you're doing well. I'm glad. Or that person went off and did something and they help you in the war effort in the end. It's little things like that. It doesn't seem important, but everybody you meet has some sort of importance later on. And I feel like that's what people kept coming back to Mass Effect was the fact of it might not pay off now, but it have a big off payoff later.
Character Interactions and Themes
01:19:16
Speaker
And it did. And I know there is big controversy about the ending of Mass Effect 3, but for me, playing through Mass Effect 1 and then 2 and then 3, and then getting the whole story, getting the whole conclusion to a point where I thought, yeah, I didn't mind the ending from being honest. where I was like, you know what, this is a series that I'll always come back to. No matter how many times I've played it, even though the ending is always the same, despite the choices. No matter what choice you make, you usually tend to get the same sort of ending anyway. But the point I'm trying to make is no matter what, I'll always come back and I'll try something different just in case. I know it sounds crazy. Even though I know that it will always end one certain way, I'll always want to be like, I'll talk to this character or I won't talk to that character just to see, will they pop up later? Will they not pop up later? I realized it recently as I played as femme chef, as always playing as male shepherd, I never realized it. And I played as female shepherd. And when I first had to go to Fisk's club to go talk to the Admiral, to find where Garris was straight away, because I was a female character, he was being very disgusted towards me. He was being very sort of sexist and really sort of horrible towards me. And I felt very uncomfortable. And it was one of the moments of like, I've spoke to this person multiple times as male shepherd, never had a problem. As soon as I play as a female character, it's completely different. For me, even though that was a very uncomfortable situation, it's got me excited to go, you know what? If that's changed, what's changed for Mass Effect 2 and 3? So it's got me excited to now play through those two games as a female, just to see how I'm treated. If I'm treated any differently, do characters talk down to me because I'm playing as a woman.
01:20:43
Speaker
You know, it's these sort of things of like, I'm finding a whole new sort of side of Mass Effect that I'd never experienced before. And for me, it's an absolutely wonderful concept to take a game that I've loved and a world that I've lived and characters that I've loved and experiences that I've had multiple times to then be able to go through it again as somebody else. And to get a different experience makes this game even more powerful and meaningful to me, if you get what I'm trying to say. Oh no, absolutely i do. And funny, I should mention that because I came across the exact same thing and it absolutely creeped me the hell out. He was just vile, you know, he calls you princess, says, oh, come sit in the lap and things. And as you said, you never get that offered his mail ship.
01:21:26
Speaker
which either way you want to blow his head off, but there are kind of subtle differences from what I know for a few people and they really just, that it gets you angry, but again it goes back to that idea that this game in particular is just so rich in both lore and the way it tells its story and also the replayability of it because you could play through so many times and still miss things. Like as I said the first time I played this game years ago. I played it. I wasn't a big fan. I rushed through it. I got to the end just so I could say, oh yeah, I completed Mass Effect and then you'll never talk about it again. But I couldn't remember a single thing about it except for Novaria, ironically enough.
01:22:10
Speaker
I really didn't like it. Still getting flashbacks. Yeah, I really didn't like that level. But yeah, then I replayed it. I spent a bit more time going into the side missions. I spent practically a whole weekend just playing through this game thoroughly, reading the Codex entries, reading the lore, reading why things were the way they were, getting really creeped out by Cerberus's side mission. And that's the thing. Again, it goes back to that idea of, on the surface level, this game is just your stereotypical action
Gameplay Evolution in Mass Effect
01:22:44
Speaker
space adventure. You know, oh, you play as Commander Shepard, you're gonna fight the get, you're gonna fight the reaper, you're gonna fight Sauron, but if you peel away in your works, look at these seedy undertones and this darker side of the universe as well. It just enriches the whole experience that you think no wonder humanity hates the Turians because they're just a couple of years out of war with them. Because I think the game is set in the late 2100s. I think it's like 2180 the year I want to say. And it's close enough, like it's a future that I don't think you or I are going to probably see. unfortunate Sadly not, no, I'm never going to beat my, it's 2183. Yeah, you are right. I just looked at the manual for the game. Oh, thank you. but yeah Sorry. I knew it was in here. This is back when they used to put codecs in the actual manuals and when games had manuals, oh yeah but that's the top of every day. But yeah, I completely agreed. Like I know, sadly I'll never meet Rex and I'll never get to meet Tally. But it's close enough where it feels still real, if that makes sense. The only reason humanity got to where they were by that decade was because they found the profane cache on Mars. And if they hadn't found that cache, if it was never there, humanity would still probably be less advanced.
01:23:55
Speaker
a bit more advanced than we are now, but still on the same sort of path as we are. And I feel that's what makes it a bit more sort of close to home for us humans is playing it really. Because the technology isn't, I mean that is very futuristic, but some of it is relatively realistic. I wouldn't say the unlimited ammo guns. no no no That was a really weird choice and this is something I've complained about to Miriam Dan as well when I was playing through it. that You have unlimited ammo in the first game and you can customise it for different bullets and things. which is really cool but I feel as if it sometimes bogges down the experience that you're constantly flicking through different attachments and things but then in the second game they revert back to a more ammo based system and they try to bend over backwards to make it lore friendly but personally for me I think I prefer the approaching too. I was about to say I agree with that.
01:24:50
Speaker
I just feel as if it's more... Again, it sounds silly to say it's more realistic, but compared to the first one where it feels a little bit easy, although I'm saying that not having ever played insanity mode. Oh, I've tried. It's not easy. Yeah. I've never completed an insanity run in Mass Effect. I've tried. I don't get very far. Yeah. a themad Especially the first game. The first well the second or third are hard, but the first game is really unforgiving with the saves and checkpoints. If you don't manually save, you could be sent back very far. That is not good. I have to say. No, it isn't. It's an old game. I don't judge it because it was old. That's just the way the games were back then. Like if you didn't manually save, you were buggered. What I agree with you with the guns is that whenever I play Mass Effect 1, I'll be honest with you, I don't change my weapons. I don't go to a pistol or shotgun or sniper rifle. I always stick with an assault rifle i find the best assault rifle in the game and because it's got infinite ammo i know i can hold it down especially when you have the best assault ruffler in the game you have a longer time you can hold down the trigger which means most enemies hold it down broke gone dead dead dead dead dead all right next encounter same thing It's not really a challenge, whereas in Mass Effect 2 and 3, because you have clips and because they can run dry, you have to then be like, oh god, all right, salt rifles run dry, shotgun, shotguns run dry, pistol. And for me, it feels like they're more realistic, but also the fact of, actually, I'm in a fight that my ammo is going to run out and that there's not much around and that I'm going to have to use my biotics. I'm going to have to use my engineering skills or my other sort of companions' abilities so that I don't have to use as much ammo in the situation to make the situation easier. Of course, if you play at an easy difficulty, you ain't gonna worry about it. But when you play on the harder difficulties, you want to use your abilities and your companion's abilities. Same with Mass Effect 1. I didn't really find myself using my companion's abilities. I used my own, but because I was so tanky in terms of I've got the best armor, unlimited ammo, I didn't really need to worry about, oh, running with abilities, just, yeah, running, gun, unlimited ammo, kill, kill, kill, done. And yeah. Again it's an old game 2007 gameplay was very rudimentary but yeah I think they really improved it with two and three and I think like the two is my favorite because it is just it takes everything that worked and was fantastic and wonderful about last fit one and just improved on it tenfold and they took all the best bits and then added new things and made it better. Because one thing I want to leave off on just as we're wrapping up here is that I found it quite interesting that when you go to 2 and 3, and again this is very apparent with the way that the gaming industry has evolved over the years, but I was actually surprised at the lack of DLC for this particular game. Because there are only two of them and weirdly enough, one of the DLCs is discounted from the Legendary Edition because they didn't have the i think the source code or something to put it into the Legendary Edition. Yeah, if I remember correctly, it was a pinnacle station. I never played it but a friend of mine played it and basically it was an arena shooter. You get an apartment that you can visit but you can't really do anything there on a planet and you just do wave-based and then you get some armor and some weapons. The bringing down the skies DLC I really liked. And you actually get to meet that villain again, depends on the choices in Mass Effect 3, which was quite interesting. Yeah, you get to meet the Beterians for the first time after hearing so many memes about them. It's a shame that they they left them out. If you didn't play the DLC, you didn't experience them until the second one. But again, I find the Beterians very fascinating because they are very human. They don't look like humans, but they are very much kind of like close to humanity in terms of technology and advancement.
01:28:16
Speaker
that the only difference is the fact of they didn't advance as quick as we did. Cause again, they weren't lucky enough to find proof in technology. And I like to think that the Batarians are at a point where humanity would have been if we hadn't found the mass relays and that the Batarians just find it very unfair. The fact of, well, just because humanity got there first, that they get all the goods we don't, we're getting sort of side palmed off. It's like, it's not fair. And yeah I can understand why the Batarians don't like us, but it's a very interesting, again, all the races are interesting, especially when you learn more about them in the second one, but yeah. Batarians as a great introduction to them. It was a shame. It was in DLC, but like I said, but there wasn't much DLC.
Alien Diversity and Representation
01:28:50
Speaker
There's two DLC expansions for the first game. And then they really blew it up with the second one, with the Shadow Broker DLC. Because yeah, you've got the Shadow Broker, you've got Arrival. Oh, Arrival. So good. You meet a lot more Batarians. It's nice to go to the Batarium home, one of the Batarians or colonies, just to see what their architecture looks like because you don't really know what their ships look like. You don't really know what the homeworld looks like. You get glimpses and you get texts, but it's just nice to go there and be like, oh, so this is what they're fighting for. I can see now why they hate us because they live in squalor. i have to say that is one of the bugbears that I do have with the Batarians other than, you know, the fact the Batarians are the Batarians. But memes aside, something that annoys me about them is the fact that, and again, you know, they have the bigger priorities and game development and things to flesh out the core species like the Turians, the Asari, the Salarians. I mean, you even get to see what the Volus are like as King of Greedy merchants and You've got the Elcor, who I absolutely love. Curtis Lee, it was nice to meet you. Oh, that's so good. I was highly insane when I played the second game and they said they had an Elcor performance of Hamlet and I thought, oh yeah, that is the greatest joke I think I've ever heard and nothing will be able to top that. But you know, you get to know a little bit about them, but I think because they're not as offensive towards your character. They are kind of curious and they're wary of you, but they're not out of the way to try and kill you. But for Batarians in every single game, bar maybe a moment in the second one where you can heal a Batarian who's suffering from a sickness. And I remember doing that in the second game and he's like, you know what, you're alright. And I'm like, yeah, you're all right too." And I thought, you know what, I've made significant gains in human-baterian relations and then of course you're back to square one in the next mission where they're all shooting at you and you're like, I just wish there was one mission where, you know, you got to see that more human side, which I know sounds kind of like an oxymoron, and you do see that in the third game
01:30:59
Speaker
And I just hate the fact that you have to see it when they're at the lowest point. Again, with everything that goes on, the Mass Effect 1, the Batarians as a focus, I can understand why they didn't, but it just would have been nice to see them before they get indoctrinated and then completely obliterated by Sheppard and then obliterated by the reapers who fall in after because the Batarians are just, they're made to suffer in this. as angry as they are. and you know I don't like the fact that there are pirates and slavers and things, which again is a pretty big red flag, but the fact that they keep getting beaten down and just absolutely, they're under the heel of the entire galaxy the entire time. It's even worse when you play the arrival DLC, and again, I ain't going to spoil it for anybody, but the end of that DLC, and especially how it leads into Mass Effect 3, you stand there like, yeah, no, in all fairness, yeah, you you have all the right to hate me completely. It's one of those where it's just a shame that they had to be the race in the Mass Effect trilogy that got sort of smushed the most. They got the most hate. Like I said, every race in this series, they're all fascinating. Even the simple ones, what they're called now, you meet them in the Mass Effect 2, they look like cockroaches. Oh, the vulture. the vulture. Even then, again, they don't live very long. They've got very short lifespans and they talk like this. But even so, I find it very interesting because you're like, look, they're the same. Whereas like, they haven't got a lot of technology. They're kind of like the Kigya, the sort of feathered raptor of creatures with the shields from Paler. Same sort of thing, very much like the Kigya where they're like, how much of a nerd I know the name of the actual race. But the They're very much like them where they just work for pirates and mercenaries because they've got nothing else. I know we're talking about but Mass Effect 1 here, but the reason why I love Mass Effect 2 so much is the fact that you get to see the underbelly, you get to see all the things that the council hides, that the council doesn't want to talk about, and you realize if you are not one of the council races, you don't get no help at all. your only thing that you can do is be a pirate, a mercenary, a slaver. That's it, to survive. I think the Batarians get the worst of it, but the vorture, yeah, they don't get much help either. But yeah, one thing I wanted to mention though, going back to what you said about the Elkhor, there was originally planned to have, so it's in the law, a mass vet, it is stated that
01:33:08
Speaker
Elkhor go to battle with giant cannons on their backs they walk like walking tanks basically they come into battle with tanks they've got huge armor on giant cannons on their back and that's how they fight and originally it was planned to have them in the game and to actually see an Elkhor walking around with armor on with a giant cannon on their back sadly it was cut Because the Elkhor, they are very harmless, they're very sombre, very soft. So they can go to Mass Effect 3, being like, you know, we are very soft, a very humble race, but the universe is at war. So we are going to go to war, and they're going to go to war very epically. And I think I feel like we were robbed of that opportunity from the Elkhor. the Volus get to fight, but the alcohol you never get to, even Hanar, you know, they fight, but you never get to see the alcohol fight, and I thought it would have been fun to see them. Giant hulking elephant cannons walking to battle would have been epic. Well, I mean, personally, I'm just holding out for Blasto to come through the doors. Oh, yeah. Blasto comes in with his own Blasto serial. Yeah. I mean, he would have taken out the repersonals. Well, we all know it would have happened. He's too OP. He's too OP for the games. That's why he's on there. They took him out. Yeah.
01:34:06
Speaker
It was DLC, yeah. Imagine if you had the option to have a Hanar companion, that would have been incredible. That would have been awesome. I would have had him at everything. Every opportunity, I would be like, what do you think about the situation, blaster? And then they're just with his guns and his hand just being like, oh, I don't know how I feel about this. This one doesn't believe in diplomas yet. See Mass Effect 5 when it comes out. They have to have a Hanar. Oh, they do. Or at least Blasto, I'm sure the Hanar breed somehow. Just to have like whatever the next Mass Effect is, if it's set a thousand years in the future, I'd have Blasto as an old squid or just like Blasto Jr. Let's have him in the background. I'd watch it. Blasto 25 Jr. One is back.
01:34:49
Speaker
This one is his back, I read 100% what was. But the Hanaar, they're fascinating as well. With the Drell, I love the Drell. It's strange though because yeah, you don't always see the Drell on the first one, which again, it's a shame, but it makes the build up for them in the second game just that much more impactful. Yeah, it's so interesting how the lore behind it where the Hanaar came down, found the Drell on their planet. And gave them guns. but and gave them guns, but also gave them sort of life game hope. And they took them to their world, but obviously the Drow couldn't survive on the Hanar world. So now they they are ill and that they were dying from a disease from this. And again, it's one of them things of like, should the Hanar have left the Drow knowing that if they saved them, they're just going to kill them, but slower unintentionally. We've spoke about many times, but it's just one of the things about Mass Effect of like every layer that you pull away, you're like, Jesus, there's a lot more. It never ended. I don't think I've ever found the end of Mass Effect. There is so many different threads to pull on the extended media, on the books, on the comics, on the games. You'd never go hungry with Mass Effect. There was always something to
Mass Effect's Legacy in Gaming
01:35:49
Speaker
devour. Honestly, I could not agree with you more there. There is just such an expansive universe out there. And as you said, you're never going to go hungry with Mass Effect content because whether that's with the books, whether that's with the games and the infinite replayability of them, yet Mass Effect At least for the first one, it's just such a special game and it's such a special time capsule because if you compare it to its contemporaries and you compare it to the future games, yeah, it's not going to hold up as well. But you have to remember, it's a 2007 game. It came out in a completely different gaming landscape and it just paved the way for such an iconic trilogy, which I don't think a lot of games really can. see, you know, they can't say with confidence that, oh, we've made such an impact as Mass Effect has. And if I was to conclude in a very geeky Star Trek metaphor here, and I'm going to do it because I'm sure Sean will be listening to this one. oh go for it we all know he'll love it. So I feel as if Mass Effect the first game is more like the TNG g of the series, purely because, and you might think why am I not comparing it to DS9 and I will get onto that, but I feel as if it's, well I would say a cross between TNG and
01:37:08
Speaker
enterprise maybe, maybe closer to enterprise where it's a lot more action-oriented and the fact that between enterprise and this game both factions of humanity are relatively win new space-faring civilizations and they have to win the approval of other more advanced aliens and they end up doing it by overcoming the odds and you know there's a lot of exploration and again on the surface it's like oh pew pew it's mindless action, mindless shooter. But then the further you go into it, you see the darker side. You get that one-off episode where you're like, oh my god, this is weird. Of course with this, you get the kind of darker side. Whereas I feel as if for the second and third game, it's a lot more like Deep Space Nine, where, have you seen Deep Space Nine just before I go into this?
01:37:58
Speaker
No, I haven't realised that's one part of Star Trek that's really missed me, but I'm incredibly hooked so far, so please do. Well, first of all, I would recommend it. It's a fantastic series. I binged it through the lockdown and I was also seeing Timothy as well. I was like genuinely watching. We compared the second one to Deep Space Nine, not just for the grimy atmosphere, but in that it follows the adventures of Commander Benjamin Sisko who he runs a space station that has been liberated from a very militaristic alien race called the Kardashians, not to be confused with the Kardashians i and another horrifying entity in itself. but
01:38:35
Speaker
The fact is that in that he gets chewed out by his superior who says, oh, you have to do it the Federation way, you can't run things gun-ho willy-nilly. And he has this very impassioned rant, which I recommend you if you're curious, look it up on YouTube. But he has this impassioned rant where he basically accuses the Federation, the human faction, as being saints who live in paradise. And it's so easy for them to judge sinners when they're living in paradise because out where he is, he's on the fringes of Federation space where the Rets could come out of nowhere and attack them and things and he has to do what he can to survive and to placate radical groups who also want to take the revenge against the Cardassians and things. So it's It's very interesting to see that as well in the first game where you've got a very much idyllic and very much a paradise of humanity and especially when it comes to the Citadel as well because the Citadel is just a
01:39:39
Speaker
you know, oh look how amazing that is, it's beautiful, it's vibrant, it's all these races coming together, it's like one big melting pot. But then the further you go into it, the further you go away from the Citadel and the closer you get to that damn term in the system, the more you start to see this idyllic paradise start to fade away and start to crack behind this whole facade. It's a fascinating game not just for what it achieved at the time and what it achieves now but the fact that this stands up as quite possibly to me one of the greatest examples of video games as being an art piece and being able to tell a narrative story that is also mature and as I said don't get me wrong there's some moments that are a bit of a hit or a miss but I think for the majority this game is just absolutely iconic and although I don't think it's as strong as two or three in a narrative way, I think that it lays such a damn strong foundation in order for the other games to leap from and personally if you haven't played this game then definitely go and play it. But what are your final thoughts before we finally finish? What are your final thoughts on the first game? I feel like you wrapped it up perfectly, to be honest, but my feelings with MassFET, especially the first one, specifically, because we'll be here all day if I spend all of it, was that with MassFET 1, it was the perfect introduction for me at a young age to the world of roleplay, to the world of art. of video games being an art. Now granted at this stage by 2007, I'd played a lot. I played Halo Gears of War. I played a lot of games that really blew me away. But in terms of a game that would hook me in story, in characters, Mass Effect is and was that series. And it would then grow to later on to crying my eyes out at Gears of War 3, to getting a really emotional at Halo Reach. And it was things like this where it opened the floodgates of me to be able to not just see a character as a character that I play or a character that I shoot. to actually physically have a human connection with myself and software, basically, to be able to go, this character is in struggle. It's struggling. I'm now feeling emotional connection. And that then went on with Mass Effect 2 and 3. And yeah, I feel like Mass Effect was kind of the bastion. You know, it was the centerpiece to kind of lead the way for other RPGs for the time to really be like, this is what a role-playing game could be. And granted, you know, leaps and bounds, it was next gen when it came out. Granted, as time's gone on, Bioware is no longer the company that it was. The Bioware now is still Bioware, but those people have gone that made the original Mass Effect, made the original Dragon Age. But even so that you've got games like Baldur's Gate 3 and other role-play games that are doing what Mass Effect did but better and improved upon it, I still go back to this series. I still especially go back to the first game because it was unique for the time. It was different. Nothing played like it. Nothing allowed you to go in your ship, fly your ship on a map, go into a system, pick a planet, and not all the planets, but to pick a planet to land on it and granted even though using a small sandbox,
01:42:44
Speaker
just been able to drive around. I spent ages when I was younger not doing any of the missions just finding one of my favorite plants to land on and just to drive the Mako and just to learn how the Mako worked so that when I went to places like noveria and other places I didn't fall off the cliff or press the wrong button and die you know. So it was moments like this where I got to have connection with characters. Yes, the gameplay nowadays is not as great, but back then it was fantastic. It was revolutionary that I could choose different weapons. I always had abilities. My characters that I was with, they also had abilities and that I could talk to them on my ship. I could get to know them. They commented on choices that I've made, if they agreed or disagreed. Obviously that was improved upon in the later games, but it being very sort of next gen at the time blew me away and still does now. And it's like like I said, to wrap it up, it's the reason why I keep coming back to Mass Effect. It's just the fact of it's the pinnacle of what RPGs were and what have they become today. And this is the Genesis. This is basically where for me it began and what led me to then play Dragon Age and tons of other RPGs and why I love the RPG genre so much because it allowed me to roleplay as other characters, not just play a character, but to play me in a new universe. And for that, that's why you just can't beat role-play games, why you can't beat video games, because you can get out of reality and go into another one and completely spend hours and hours falling in love, breaking your heart, having laughs with characters that feel real because they're written to be real, because a human wrote them, if that makes sense. Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself, absolutely. The emotional core that this game manages to evoke even nowadays, because as we said, although it might not hold up as well compared to games that come out nowadays, it's still a testament that even now, 17 years on, then anyway, threw up a bit when I said that. 17 years on, the fact that we are still talking about this game in depth, we're talking about the rich characters, the amazing lore, the story, the mechanics, it is just a perfect, perfect game. Honestly, as I said, if you haven't checked out this game, definitely go check it out. But on that note, that absolutely lovely note that you sent us off with, Luke, thank you so, so much for joining me in kicking off Mass Effect Month. Oh yeah, you're absolutely welcome. Like I said at the beginning, it's an absolute pleasure. I've been a fan of Chatsunami and of yourself since the beginning, really, since I got into doing podcasting myself. It was you, it was casting views and due generation. Those were the first three indie podcasts that I listened to. And I still listen to you all, all three of you religiously every episode. So I love what you do. I love what they do. So to be asked to be on the show, first of all was a privilege. Thank you. And then to be here to talk about one of my favorite game series of all time is in our nest. So honestly, the privilege is all mine. So thank you very much for inviting me on to talk about such a wonderful game on a wonderful show. Well, first of all, thank you so much for those lovely words. That genuinely does mean a lot. Now you're welcome. you know you do You deserve them. Honestly, not because I'm on the show, but generally you do a fantastic job and each episode is better than the last. So obviously keep doing what you do when you're smashing it. Thank you. And second of all, you did get the PayPal payment, didn't you? I did. I did. I did. Just double check.
Podcast Appreciation and Future Content
01:45:58
Speaker
I had to make a few adjustments to the script there at the end, but ah you know it's in the mail. Yeah. I mean, initially we were going to see Sean from Review It Yourself was the first one you listened to and then we thought, nah, replace them with Doom Generation, you know, just mix it up a bit. Yeah. Roland Tessa, what can I say? They're two wonderful women. Oh, yeah. No, they're a fantastic podcast as well. But here they are. Honestly, thank you so much for coming on. You're very welcome. If you haven't checked out Look, then please do check out the Nerd Nostalgia Podcast. And that actually leads on to my very serious like
01:46:31
Speaker
It's a question coming up, but where can these lovely listeners at home find your content in particular? You can find me on Spotify at the Nerdstagit podcast. You can find me on Twitter at Nerdstagit underscore pod. You can also find me on YouTube, the Nerdstagit podcast. Basically, anywhere and anywhere that you can find podcasts, just type in the nerd stadget podcast and you'll find me there. On Variety Podcast, I do everything from movies, video games, TV shows, and books. So if one of those things takes your fancy, by all means, hop on over. I'd love to have ya. I'm actually having a well time. I'm in my third season at the moment. I'm going strong. Currently in the summer, I've got a lot more video game things to come. So yeah, if it interests you, you like what I heard here or you want to hear more Mass Effect things, by all means, pop on over. Can't wait to have you ah as a listener. I honestly cannot reinforce that enough. Go listen to Luke because you do some amazing work. you do some amazing podcast episodes. And yeah, especially over on YouTube, you have been absolutely killing it with your content and things. And honestly, I can't wait to get you back on the show. I'll come back in heartbeat. No, you're more than- Generally, any time you need me, even if it's talking as simple things, as while Liara is probably one of the best characters in my spectrum, whatever you want to talk about, we'll find something and I'll be here in a flash. Well, I think you'll be fighting with Dan over that.
01:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, in all fairness, you know what? I think I'd give him that one. I think I'd just come on to talk about psychrogan politics. Honestly, you could have a whole podcast about mass effecting. You still would not have enough hours on the day to talk about it. No, they wouldn't, no. But yeah, if you want to check out more episodes from yourself, as well as the rest of Mass Effect Month, you can indeed check us out on our website, Chatsunami dot.com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to give a huge shout out to our Pandalorian patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster and Sonya. Once again, thank you so much for supporting the show. And if you too would like to fund the effort against the podcast promoters this month, then you can support us on our Patreon, patreon dot.com forward slash chat tsunami, where you can get a wide range of behind the scenes content, early access, even let's play content and the exclusive episodes. So if you want a
01:48:45
Speaker
of Chatsunami content that you're really not privy to yet, then you can definitely go check it out there. That's patreon dot.com forward slash Chatsunami. And as you might have gathered by the beginning, this podcast is part of the Podpack Collective, an amazing group of podcasters. If you want to find out more information, then check us out on Twitter slash X at Podpack Collect and over on Instagram at Podpack Collective. So thank you all so so much for checking out this very first episode of Mass Effect Month. We have got another four weeks of absolutely amazing content. Honestly it's gonna be great. Next week I'm gonna be joined by Marie from the Two Girls One Reusable Cup podcast where we're gonna be talking about Mass Effect. to the week after. We're going to be joined by Dan from Casting Views where we're going to be talking about the slightly controversial Mass Effect 3 and then the week after, or three weeks you have to wait until we get look back from of course the nostalgic podcast. We are getting you back to talk about Mass Effect Andromeda. Oh my favourite. And if the planets align then fingers crossed we'll be able to get you all on for an episode where I'm going to be testing your knowledge on the Mass Effect world olds with a Mass Effect trivia episode.
01:50:04
Speaker
Honestly, look out for that because it's going to be a fantastic month filled with absolutely fantastic podcasters. But until next time, thank you all so, so much for joining this episode. Stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated people.