Part 4: "Ah yes, the 'Reapers'"

"Ah yes, the 'Reapers'"

Like every other ME game, we spend some time fucking around on the Citadel. Except this time we get to do very little shopping. At the hospital we run into a couple of people we know, and we tell Chakwas to get her ass on the boat. Apparently we did such a good job scaring that one Krogan that Dr. Michel is in charge of the hospital, so giving away those free supplies to the poors turned out to be NBD. We buy some booze but we don't get to drink it Then we yell quietly at Kaidan to get out of bed.

The conversation we hear in the lobby is very indeed. There are quite a few of these you can run across and the great majority of them are sad. With the exception of one you only get to hear a few sentences and then to progress you have to leave the area and come back for the next little snippet, which makes hearing them all a pain. The exception convo triggers the next bit if you just run off a few feet and come back. I'm sure they did this so you didn't actually miss anything, but it's kind of shitty. Maybe if you had a "listen" prompt or something so you could just hear the whole thing at once if you wanted. The Asari here is a commando who was assigned to fight Reaper forces on a colony planet named Tiptree. Her and another Asari who is apparently an Ardat Yakshi (but in control of herself so she doesn't go around brain-melting people; it doesn't jive very well with lore but whatever) end up staying for a bit with some human family when they get overrun by Reaper forces and everything goes to shit. I'm spoilering the next bit so don't read if you don't want to know: you can put the clues together and realize the girl who gets 'murked is probably Joker's little sister

Then it's off to see the Council. This time they're totally on board and willing to help us anHAHAHA I can't finish that sentence. Nope, they're pretty much unhelpful as always. Now some people will say Ashley Was Right, and I guess that's true. But if the shoe was on the other foot, would humans go out of their way to rush over to Palaven? Who knows. And sacrificing one group to save the rest is pretty much a standard tactic in war. Hell, Hackett himself does it with the 3rd Fleet so the rest can get out of our system. But what really chaps my ass is that you don't get the opportunity to use what would be the best comeback in the whole series. What were you thinking guys, I've been waiting for this!

The Turian Councilor goes behind the others' backs and tells us that if we rescue their Primarch then we can probably get the assistance we need, so we have our next major plot point. On the way out we pick up a new hanger-on. Diana Allers pisses a lot of people off because she's modeled on and voiced by Jessica Chobot who is a games journalist. Why this makes them mad I don't know, I guess she is a woman who doesn't "deserve" to be in the game, as peripheral of a character as she is. If I were her I'd be mad at what they did to my face. Her VA isn't super stellar which goes to show just because you are good at talking in one medium doesn't mean you are good in another. She gets you some extra war assets, a tiny amount for herself but if you do well in interviews with her it buffs your allies a bit.

Then back on the ship we get the worst new addition to ME3: dream sequences. As I said in the video, these could have been really neat but with the addition of the stupid kid and having to chase his dumb ass all over at chilled molasses speed they're just tedious. Fuck that kid, I hate him. If you haven't played the game there is another HUGE reason to hate him but we won't get into that just yet. Then we meet a new crew member, Samantha Traynor. Traynor is romanceable for FemSheps only so if you haven't hooked up yet or feel like cheating on your current LI then you have an option. I like Traynor though her romance isn't anything to write home about and it's a bit male gaze-y. She has a couple of fun segments in the Citadel DLC.