Mass Reflect

It’s time for the finale of Mass Effect. We bring the first game to a close, and discuss the dramatic final choices.

Before we wrap up the game, it’s time to finish up some side quests. Join us as we discuss the major themes that get off-loaded to the side quests, and discuss the strange, unfinished nature of the game.

The group was unable to get together for a full episode, so Rob sat down for a short episode to ramble about the new games announced at this year’s E3 that he’s excited about.

After realizing that we can’t go back into the game after we hit credits, Rob and Bea decide instead to wrap up the side content starting with the DLC: Bring Down the Sky. While we’ve flirted with alien races that feel similar to real world people, we get probably the strongest analogy yet when we meet the Batarians. They’re a group who have been so bereaved by the Human Alliance and the Council that they are forced to violence after the “legal” system fails them. What’s Shepards response? Listen in to find out.

It’s time to storm the beaches soldiers! We may not be remembered, as this is a black site where we are technically not allowed to be, but our sacrifice will be be remembered as the day a cure for a horrific bio-weapon was destroyed. We have won many great wars through preventative strikes to wipe out entire populations. These sacrifices were necessary, we assume. Today we make another such sacrifice for a questionable goal that our superiors will make right to justify their continued power. Today, we take Virmire!

We finally get to Noveria and, much like our previous experiences, find there’s less to this sequence then we remember. Yet there’s still much to discuss and dissect as we continue through the game.

Rob and Betrys go to Artemis Tau, then decide to go to Feros as well. Life’s too short to spend an entire episode talking about how the Asari seem unaware that being on the top of a political structure means that, no matter what, you have taken a side. Feros shows us the other side of colonization: corporations trying to spin a profit out of the skeletal remains of an ancient civilization. Yet something beats deep under the surface, and with the fiscal year about to end things start to come to a head.

Rob and Betrys are ready to get into juicy plot of Mass Effect… just after they finish talking about more Codex entries. It’s clear that whatever claims of order and unity the Council professes, they struggle with keeping things in order back home on the Citadel. Between cops lamenting that they’re not let loose and others protecting the heads of the criminal world, the problems might be too large to fix. Will we cut through the blurred lines to find justice? Forget it Jake, it’s Citadel town.

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Quick Programming Note: We say in the next episode that we will cover just Artemis Tau, however after playing through Artemis Tau we also decided to play through Feros so that we have enough to talk about.

Rob and Betrys are quickly surprised by the world they thought they knew. In a pangalactic space hegemony, who gets to write the history for those species and worlds that fall between the cracks? And are humans right for wanting to participate more on the galactic stage, or are there problems at home that are being ignored?

This episode covers the beginning of Mass Effect 1, from arriving at Eden Prime to right before arriving at the Citadel.

In this prologue episode, Rob and Betrys discuss their personal history with the Mass Effect series, as well as their hopes for revisiting the trilogy with the new Legendary Edition.

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