Lets Play: Mass Effect (Updated - Ch 6 Part 2 - Virmire)

[AD-Stu]

[http://s20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/stu270/Mass%20Effect%20Lets%20Play/?action=view¤t=Boxart.jpg]

Having enjoyed a bunch of other people's Lets Plays of late, I've been inspired to get off my butt and try making one for myself. The subject? Mass Effect, the first episode in Bioware's epic space-RPG trilogy. I've chosen it because I thought it'd be interesting to go back and take a look at where it all started in the leadup to the release of ME3.

What is it?
For those not familiar with the game, Mass Effect is an RPG very much in the mould of the Bioware games that came immediately before it (KOTOR, Jade Empire), but set in space with full player-character voice acting. We play as Commander Shepard and, naturally, we'll be saving the galaxy.

What's being covered?
I'm planning to cover all the main story content, both DLC packs, and cherry pick some of the best of the side quests along the way since the others have a tendency to be repetitive...

What's the format?
This will be a screenshot Lets Play for a bunch of reasons, ranging from my total lack of experience with video editing and recording to my desire to spare anyone following this thread from having to listen to my voice for large chunks of time.

I plan to be updating as often as possible, and will try to get through everything before Mass Effect 3 drops at the beginning of March. No promises on that count though

Reader input
There will be lots of opportunities for reader input along the way, and I'd like to start right now with the character build. Please let me know what your preferences are for the following:

- Gender
- Paragon or Renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist)
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless)
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard)

Aside from cosmetics, gender only really affects the romance plots that become available. For anyone who hasn't played the game looking for an overview on all the other options, <a href=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Shepard>this page gives a good description of the effects of each.

As far as the Paragon / Renegade choice goes I'll use whichever one gets voted up as the default choice for everyday stuff and put the big choices to the readers as we come across them. I'm also open to choices such as the popular "Paragon with the crew, Renegade with everyone else" model if people want to go that way.

EDIT: So the results are in, we'll be playing an infiltrator / colonist / war hero FemShep and try to walk a mixed paragon / renegade path.

[HEADING=2]UPDATES[/HEADING]

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13788398>Chapter 1, Part 1 (Normandy) - Introductions, exposition and eau de turian
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13800791>Chapter 1, Part 2 (Normandy) - Grunka attends a management meeting
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13819617>Chapter 1, Part 3 (Eden Prime) - Extorting farmers for fun and profit
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13832506>Chapter 1, Part 4 (Eden Prime / Normandy) - Protheans are into weird stuff...


<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13849690>Chapter 2, Part 1 (Citadel) - Why couldn't they have elected Arnie?
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13874370>Chapter 2, Part 2 (Citadel) - I was promised strippers and booze...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13917094>Chapter 2, Part 3 (Citadel) - A human, turian and krogan walk into a bar
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13960599>Chapter 2, Part 4.1 (Citadel) - Faff...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.13960607>Chapter 2, Part 4.2 (Citadel) - ...and the Citadel faffs with you
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14006722>Chapter 2, Part 5 (Citadel) - Grunka gets a promotion

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14114014>Chapter 3, Part 1 (Artemis Tau) - Cheap exploits and hovering asari
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14249416>Chapter 3, Part 2 (Artemis Tau) - The slaver and the giant worm
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14443678>Chapter 3, Part 3 (Various) - Do rogue VIs dream of electric pyjaks?

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14476414>Chapter 4, Part 1 (Feros) - Of Darwin awards and structural engineering
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14614711>Chapter 4, Part 2 (Feros) - A road safety announcement from the Prothean Empire
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14774211>Chapter 4, Part 3 (Feros) - Tonight on Worst Workplaces: ExoGeni Feros
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14891152>Chapter 4, Part 4 (Feros) - Little Shop of Horrors without the singing
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.14969439>Chapter 4, Part 5 (Normandy) - The curious case of the krogan testicles
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15172857>Chapter 4, Part 6 (Citadel) - Adventures in media relations and amateur psychiatry
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15266323>Chapter 4, Part 7 (Pinnacle Station) - If you can't spot the sucker at the table...
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15498328>Chapter 4, Part 8 (Various) - Hades' dogs and ExoGeni's morons

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15610341>Chapter 5, Part 1 (Noveria) - Oh no, not the protectionists and communists!
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15736183>Chapter 5, Part 2 (Noveria) - Holy flying space lobsters, Batman!
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.15945984>Chapter 5, Part 3 (Noveria) - Space lobster mornay
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16144923>Chapter 5, Part 4 (Noveria / Normandy) - The smell of neutron in the morning
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16474864>Chapter 5, Part 5 (Various) - Grunka, Garrus and Wrex go big buck hunting
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16736572>Chapter 5, Part 6 (Asteroid X57) - Frak the laws of physics
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.16839941>Chapter 5, Part 7 (Various) - Biotic odds and ends

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.17131075>Chapter 6, Part 1 (Virmire) - Salarians suck at sneaking
<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.341194.20210098>Chapter 6, Part 2 (Virmire) - Confrontations and hoverboards

 

[piplink]

- Gender male
- Paragon or Renegade renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist) colonist
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless) war hero
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard) soldier

that would be my character if i had the game, but i only have KOTOR.

 

[Zhukov]

Sure, why not?

- Gender: Doesn't matter that much. Basically, go female if you want the better voice actor or male if you want to do the Ashley romance subplot thingy.
- Paragon or Renegade: Going paragon usually involves less silly choices. Can't you just mix it up as you see fit?
- Background: Colonist. It gives the best side quest.
- Psych profile: Doesn't really matter at all.
- Class: Doesn't matter since you're not making gameplay videos. Soldier if you're boring, adept or sentinel if you want to spend the game watching ability cooldowns, engineer if you want to be borderline ineffectual, infiltrator or vanguard if you're intelligent and attractive.

 

[AD-Stu]

Depending on the choices our psych profile (and background for that matter) does influence how quickly we accumulate Paragon / Renegade points. Spacer / war hero give us a Paragon bonus, earthborn / ruthless give us a Renegade bonus, and colonist gives a small bonus to both. Sole survivor affects neither. That said we'll have plenty of opportunity to max out our chosen path with or without the bonuses so yeah, in the end it doesn't make a huge difference.

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

 

[The Pinray]

I say Male, Mix it up, Colonist, Sole Survivor, Doesn't matter since there's no gameplay.

Also,

Spoiler: Regarding Virmire

Leave Ashley. But I guess that's jumping the gun.

 

[Rusman]

Female
Renegade
Colonist
Ruthless
Infiltrator
Looking forward to reading it

 

[Pegghead]

Female, call her dog-bollocks. Make her bald and put her eyes as far apart as possible. Make all her armour hot pink and make her the baddest ***** in the galaxy in terms of moral choice. Maybe make your let's-play a video whilst your at it.

 

[Erttheking]

Female
Paragon
Colonist
War hero
Soldier

That's my two cents on the matter

 

[putowtin]

Female
Paragon
Spacer
War Hero
Soldier

Spoiler

On Vermire Leave Ashley, but don't date Alenko, save her for Garrus in ME2

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

 

[hazabaza1]

Female
Paragon
Spacer
War Hero
Soldier

Spoiler

On Vermire Leave Ashley, but don't date Alenko, save her for Garrus in ME2

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

Well, if you make a new character in 2 then Shepard seems to have made all the 'massive dick-end' choices.
OT: I don't think I'll be keeping up with this, but I say that you should create a male whose sole focus is on Big Stupid Jellyfish.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Female
Renegade
Spacer
War Hero
Infiltrator

Just my $0.02

 

[AD-Stu]

Interestingly, default Shepard is an earthborn sole survivor - conspiracy nuts, feel free to ponder whether that means the default Shepard is also "meant" to be a renegade

where's it said that he was ment to be renegade?

It's not stated as such - I just thought it was interesting that the default background Bioware chose (earthborn) is the one that gives a renegade bonus when there was a balanced option (colonist) available. I'm sure there's nothing much to be read into it, but people shouldn't let that stand in the way if they want to get their conspiracy theories on

And as hazabaza1 mentioned, a default Shepard in ME2 does seem to have made mostly renegade choices. But there could be all sorts of reasons for that and I don't want to get a full game ahead of ourselves when we've got the opportunity to make our own dickish choices in this game

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, I'll leave suggestions open for a bit longer and then start work on the character build and first update tonight.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Welcome to the LPer club. Cookies to the left, punch to the right. Enjoy your stay.

- Gender
- Paragon or Renegade
- Background (spacer / earthborn / colonist)
- Psych profile (sole survivor / war hero / ruthless)
- Class (soldier / engineer / adept / infiltrator / sentinel / vanguard)

Female
Paragon (Basically, selfless lawful good)
Spacer
War Hero
Any is good. I'm partial to Soldier, personally.

 

[Bocaj2000]

Male shep
be mixed (make a flawed hero/nice douche)
colonist
sole surviver
Sentinel (soldier is very boring. sentinel will give the most interesting playthrough)

I'm trying to make this interesting for you. everyone else is pushing the shepard that they made and played with.

 

[AD-Stu]

OK, let's get this show on the road!

Thanks to everyone for their input so far. The votes in three categories are pretty conclusive, so it looks like we'll be playing a colonist / war hero FemShep.

Paragon / renegade / mixed is pretty much a wash, so I'll go for mixed and see if I can run both up high enough to get the special missions at the end of each path. I've never tried it before, but I know theoretically it's possible.

As for the class it's pretty close between soldier and infiltrator - I'd like to go with infiltrator purely because being able to do our own decryption and electronics work will give us a lot more flexibility in choosing who we take on each mission. I'll probably take assault rifles as my bonus talent as a nod to those who wanted soldier though

I'll get started and be back with part one in a while.

 

[Seaf The Troll]

Male shep
Paragon mostly
Colonist
Sole surviver
Infiltrator

now the Infiltrator makes the back story for Sole surviver make more sence cause he was in the back of the battlefeild at the time. The colonist back story make out thats why he became a Infiltrator class because he is used to being left on his own.

Just the way i see it.

 

[woodaba]

I love Mass Effect, so i'm definitely following this. Favorite'd. Sad I missed the character creation, but I'd probably be boring anyway.

Looking forward to this!

 

[Weaver]

Let's plays are supposed to go in the user reviews section.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284840-User-Reviews-Forum-Rules

 

[woodaba]

Let's plays are supposed to go in the user reviews section.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.284840-User-Reviews-Forum-Rules

There have been plenty of LPs in Game Discussion that the mods have never even looked at the wrong way, and even took part in. I'm not entirely sure you're correct.

 

[AD-Stu]

[HEADING=2]CHAPTER 1, PART 1 (Normandy) - Introductions, exposition and eau de turian[/HEADING]

Spoiler

Welcome everyone to the first installment in this Lets Play! Let's get started with some character creation. As discussed, we're eschewing the male model look...



...and going for a FemShep for this playthrough. Here's her default appearance.

And here she is after we make a few minor tweaks. The only major change to the default appearance is the hair, since for some reason most female hair in this game looks even worse than male beards in Dragon Age: Origins.

With cosmetic surgery and background choices completed, here we are: Grunka Shepard. Infiltrator, colonist, war hero and handy with an assault rifle to boot.

Why Grunka? I guess Shepard's parents were fans of either Ikea cutlery or that 21st century TV show Chuck. Plus I'm led to believe that silly character names are traditional when making a Lets Play So, away we go!

Disembodied Voice 1: "Well, what about Shepard? She grew up in the colonies."

Disembodied Voice 2: "She knows how tough life can be out there. Her parents were killed when slavers attacked Mindoir. She's the only reason Elysium is still standing."

Well blow me down with a feather, our background choices are already having a meaningful effect on gameplay!

Disembodied Voice 1: "We can't question her courage."

Disembodied Voice 2: "Humanity needs a hero. And Shepard's the best we've got."

Disembodied Voice 1: "I'll make the call."

An unspecified period of time later, on the Human Systems Alliance frigate SSV Normandy...

"The Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence. <font color=0000BB>Other serious sounding stuff - I bet I could say we're in the pipe five by five and nobody would notice I was quoting the wrong franchise..."

<font color=0000BB>"Why does the bridge smell like unwashed turian?!?"

<font color=0000BB>"Ludicrous Speed is go!"

Huh. Guess we're off on an adventure! That was a mass relay BTW - a gigantic, ancient piece of technolgy that's been around longer than any know species in the galaxy. A now extinct species, the protheans, is credited with inventing and building them.

They're dotted all around the galaxy and all we really need to know at this point is they allow ships to move instantly from one relay to another, travelling distances that would otherwise take centuries to cover.

Humans found one orbiting Pluto in the year 2149, 34 years before the beginning of this game, opening up the rest of the galaxy.

That patronising thing was a turian. The game's writers/developers generally describe them as having bird-like features, but personally, I think they look like one of those scary deep-sea fish has latched itself onto the face of a malnourished voodoo priest. Nobody else sees that? It's OK, I digress anyway...

<font color=0000BB>"Zipped or unzipped, it'd be even better if you didn't come out with those suspicious splash marks on the front. *sigh*. Men."

<font color=0000BB>"N'yeah... anywho, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid..."

<font color=0000BB>"...and you're overly literal, emo boy."

"The Council helped fund this project. They have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah, that's the official story. But only an idiot believes the official story."

"So there's more going on here than the Captain's letting on."

*on comm* "Joker! Status report."

<font color=0000BB>"Hey! It's Disembodied Voice 2 from the intro!"

"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."

<font color=0000BB>"...and it smells like he hasn't washed in at least a month."

<font color=0000BB>*stifled gagging noise* "He's already here, Lieutenant. Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing."

"Pff, don't blame me. The Captain's always in a bad mood <font color=0000BB>and besides, you're not the one that stands to have their leg broken by a smelly turian Spectre later on..."

So after all that scene-setting we're finally in control of Grunka. Note that even though she's on a friendly starship she still carries no less than four loaded weapons on her person. Pays to be prepared, I guess. We can't access anywhere else on the ship at the moment so we might as well do what we're told and head towards our meeting with Captain Anderson in the comm room.

Before we do that though let's assign our initial talent points.

As an Infiltrator we have access to a pretty good mix of combat and tech skills. I chose Assault Rifles as our bonus talent during the character build, so shotguns are the only weapons we can't train in. Infiltrators are mostly about fighting at distance anyway, so we shouldn't miss them.

We started with one point each already assigned to Electronics and Decryption, which is fine as that will let us unlock/bypass "easy" doors, containers and objects as well as use the Overload and Sabotage abilities during combat. Overload damages enemies and shuts down their shields, while Sabotage temporarily overheads their weapons.

We were given three more points to spend, which I've chosen to drop into Pistols (our main weapon early in the game) for damage and accuracy bonuses, and our Infiltrator class talent which gives us a bonus for pistol/sniper rifle cooldown and tech ability explosion damage.

I don't claim to be especially good at character builds, BTW, but Mass Effect is very forgiving in that there aren't really any skill tree dead ends or spots where you'll find yourself irrevocably stuck because you didn't build your character right. That said, some talents are pretty boss - Fitness in particular gives us some very handy perks later on.

I'm planning to just give occasional updates on our talent progression rather than showing every single level up, but if people want to see all of them just let me know and I'll make it so.

Incidentally, I have the achievement unlocked where we can level all the way up to 60 (the first time you play you're capped at level 50 IIRC) but it's a moot point since it's impossible to get to 60 in a single playthrough without cheating anyway. So moving on...

On our way to meet with the Captain we run into Navigator Pressly, who we overhear having a bitching session over the comm with someone in engineering about the ship's turian guest.

<font color=0000BB>"I was just practicing my robot dance ahead of the official welcome function on Eden Prime..."

<font color=0000BB>"...riiiiiiight."

"But you have to admit, something's odd about this mission. The whole crew feels it."

"<font color=0000BB>Everyone sure seems keen to impress upon me that there's more than meets the eye to this mission, don't they. So you think the Alliance brass is holding out on us then?"

"Spectres are elite operatives. Top covert agents. Why send a Spectre - a turian Specture - on a shakedown run? It doesn't add up."

Statement of fact, not a question. Grunka is like a space Sherlock Holmes when it comes to detective work.

Aaahhh, the First Contact War. Most of the game world lore is communicated through codex entries and while I certainly don't plan on covering all of them (you can read all of them verbatim <a href=http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex>here if you're so inclined) I'll give overviews of the more interesting / important ones.

Here's the First Contact War in a nutshell: when humans first discovered mass relays they zipped around the galaxy activating them willy-nilly. Apparently this was a big galactic no-no, as humanity discovered in 2157 when it made first contact with the turian species. The turians got pissy, attacked and briefly occupied the nearest human colony on the world of Shanxi. A three-month long war was fought before the galaxy's ruling body, the Citadel Council, stepped in and negotiated a peace. And that's the story of how humans met aliens for the first time.

Amusingly, turians refuse to acknowledge there was a war at all and instead refer to the conflict as the "Relay 314 Incident".

As an aside, the First Contact War only took place *math math math* 26 years before this game is set. Pressly doesn't exactly look like a spring chicken, so one wonders just how old his grandfather was when he fought in this war. I'm guessing at least 70 and maybe as old as around 100. Anywho, /derail.

"<font color=0000BB>Even for a turian, he has a terrible personal hygiene. Also, we're an Alliance vessel, human military. But Nihlus doesn't answer to the Captain like the rest of us. Spectres operate outside the normal chain of command. And they don't come along just to observe shakedown runs. Nihlus looks like he's expecting some heavy action. I don't like it."

"Do you have a problem with the Captain?"

"No, ma'am! But I can't figure out what he's doing here. Captain Anderson is one of the most decorated Special Forces officers in the service. If he melted down all his medals, he could make a life-sized statue of himself. You don't send a soldier like that on a do-nothing mission. He's treating this shakedown run too seriously. Something big is going on."

Having had about as much exposition on turian-human race relations as she can take, Grunka leaves Pressly to his dance practice.

Incidentally, that thing to Pressly's right is the Normandy's galactic map. With a bunch of disturbing shit seemingly about to go down, let's see if we can use it to plot a course for somewhere with mai-tais and yahtzee instead of this Eden Prime place...

Blast! Oh well, it was worth a try. Back to work.

Just outside the comm room we find a grunt, Corporal Jenkins and the ship medic, Doctor Chakwas.

<font color=0000BB>"What is it with all you clowns doing the robot? Either there's some kind of choreographed dance number scheduled for the Eden Prime welcome mixer, or the guy writing this needs to learn to time his screeshots a little better... and what's with that uniform Jenkins? Isn't your shirt the wrong colour?!?"

<font color=0000BB>*ahem* "Anywho..."

"But this waiting's killing me. I've never been on a mission like this before. Not one with a Spectre on board!"

"Only what I've heard. Spectre agents work directly for the Citadel Council. They usually work alone or in small groups. Spectres don't have any official power, though. Basically, they're a shadow organisation with a mandate to preserve and protect galactic stability."

"Protect it at any cost. Don't forget that part. Spectres operate above the law! Hey, Commander..."

"This is all just wild speculation. The Spectres aren't interested in recruiting humans. No matter how capable."

These two will tell us more about Spectres but I think we've got the gist. Before we ditch them for our important meeting though we'll get a little information on our destination.

"It was gorgeous. But when I got older, I realised it was a little too calm and quiet for me. That's why I joined the Alliance. Even paradise gets boring after a while."

"Any idea why Eden Prime was chosen as our destination?"

"Not really sure, Commander, <font color=0000BB>on account of just being a grunt of questionable breeding and intelligence. But Eden Prime's one of our most stable colonies. Good place to take the Normandy for her shakedown run, I guess. No real danger there. But there's got to be something else going on. We've got a Spectre on board! That's why I'm so wound up. I can't wait for the real mission to start!"

"But but but... this is my big chance. I need to show the brass what I can do!"

"This mission isn't about personal glory, Corporal! <font color=0000BB>Or at least, it's not about yours - nobody steals Grunka Shepard's spotlight! We have a job to do. Don't do anything stupid to mess it up!"

Somehow we got ourselves a couple of paragon points out of that conversation, despite having spent most of it calling Jenkins a bell-end.

That's probably a big enough wall of text for one update - next time, we'll get to have our high-powered executive meeting. How exciting!

Thanks for reading, all comments / feedback / discussion / constructive criticism welcome. Are the subtitles big enough to read on the screenshots? Apologies for the mouse cursor in some of the screenshots BTW, I'm still working out the kinks in the screencap software.