Gaming Mass Effect Series

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Looks like Amazon UK has the cover art for the Annihilation novel, also another possible push back on the release date to September 30th 2018

An official tie-in to the hit video game Mass Effect: Andromeda, written by award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente

An official tie-in to the hit video game Mass Effect: Andromeda. As the Quarian ark Keelah Si'yah sails toward the Andromeda galaxy, it carries 20,000 colonists from several races including the Drell, Elcor, and Batarians. Along the way a routine check reveals that many of the Drell colonists have died in their cryopods, and a pathogen is discovered. It begins to jump species, then the ship's tech begins to fail, making it clear that this is no accident. It's murder, and the perpetrator is still on board. The ship's systems rapidly degrade, and panic spreads among the colonists. To make matters worse, the virus yields a terrible swelling of the brain that causes madness, hallucinations, and leads to violence. If the ship's crew can't restore their technology and find a cure, the Keelah Si'yah will never make it to the Nexus.

Bit of a Necro but I thought it worth the share.

 

A small update for anyone really looking forward to this book, it did get pushed back again to November 6 also it seems that amazon uk has finally put the Digital pre-order up.

 

Damn, I thought a new ME got announced even though that'd make absolutely no sense since they're finishing up Anthem and then working on Dragon Age IV.

 

Finished my playthrough of the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 1 today. Having last played the game nearly a decade ago, I was curious as to how much my opinions on it have changed over the years. The answer turns out to be very little. The writing still holds up pretty well, but the actual gameplay tends to lean more towards tolerable rather than actually being enjoyable, though Virmire and the final push up the Citadel Tower still kick ass. Looking forward to revisiting the next two entries.

 

So for the first time ever I played through the mass effect trilogy. I played Andromeda back when it first came out. Don’t ask me why I thought it was a good idea to start out with the fourth game in the series and the worst one.

side note. Mass effect Andromeda isn’t the worst game ever. It’s a fine game, but it’s not as good as 1,2 or 3.

Anyway. Mass Effect has to be my favorite series of games ever. It doesn’t have my favorite game, but as a series it works so well even with the mass effect 3 ending and the controversy around it. I felt sad when the third game ended. I just wish the 4th one was out right now. I can’t recommend the legendary edition enough. Your getting 3 great games for an amazing price. Sure some of the features of the gameplay are very dated, but that’s to be expected from a remaster and not a remake.

Anyway if you want to know what my major decisions were here they are spoiler tagged since it’s long and in case no one wants to be spoiled.

Spoiler

Mass Effect 1
Paragon mostly

Let Balak live

Saved the Rachni queen

Saved Kaiden as I know his voice actor is the same as Carth from KOTOR.

Didn’t kill Wrex

Convinced Saren that he was indoctrinated.

Was nice to Conrad Verner

Spoiler

Mass effect 2
Paragon again

Got everyone loyal and recruited all 12 companions. I was very amazed I was able to do this as you have to have a very high paragon skill at certain points to get everyone loyal.

Romanced Tali as I really wanted to see what her face looked like. Was disappointed that you had to wait until the 3rd game to see her face. And it was only a picture. Although the picture was updated for the legendary edition.

Somehow saved everyone in the final mission although I didn’t do it fast enough to save the crew.

Destroyed the collector base.

Freed David. That Overlord DLC was some of the most depressing DLC I have ever played. ****ed up.

Spoiler

Mass effect 3
Paragon mostly although I sometimes did Renegade options if I thought it would help with the war. And I did a renegade option to kill Kai Lang because **** him.

Cured the genophage losing Mordin was crushing

Was able to end the war between the Geth and the Quarians

Conrad Verner died to save me apparently there is a way to save him.

Saved the Rachni queen again.

Didn’t shoot Kaiden.

Spared the general who had control of Omega

Tried to save my clone and let Brooks live.

Saved Steve

again killed Kai Lang

killed the Illusive man on the citadel.

Picked the destroy ending because I wouldn’t want to be turned into a sort of machine so I wouldn’t want to force that on the galaxy.

I also got the ending where you are still alive at the end so that’s cool.

 

Bioware just released a bunch of statistics regarding what choices players made in the Legendary Edition. Most notable to me was that the number of people who went played as FemShep nearly doubled compared to when the games first came out, going from 17/18% to 32% (image behind a spoiler for size):

Spoiler

 

I am so confused as to what I'm going to do with gender when I play. I've played as both genders and it's annoying that the quality of the romances is as much of a main factor for me as the voice actor. Just let me romance anyone!

 

I mentioned before that Wrex dying was a default outcome in ME2 if you didn't save transfer despite how incredibly easy it was to avoid killing him. Well, 94% avoided killing him. That's what I was talking about.

 

Excellent - I am the six per cent!

 

I alway kill Wrex

 

You monster.

 

I didn't expect the game to throw in a you-must-have-this-level-of-points-in-speech to get the Paragon talk option to talk Wrex down and stop space racist Ashley from shooting him in the head.

More seriously - Prior to playing ME1 I hadn't played a Bioware RPG so didn't know what to expect.

 

When does this beat happen? It'd be great if space racist Ashley killed Wrex, and then male-Shepherd left her to die before romancing Kaidan in ME3.

 

I did two of those three.

 

Basically, if you don’t use the charm/intimidate option, but try to keep talking to him, Ashley will shoot him in the back. Alternatively, you can order her to kill him during the stand off.

 

I didn't even realise Wrex could be killed until after ME2 came out and I found out that Wreav would be the Clan Urdnot chief instead.

 

I think I just like the idea of a beginning game Renegade becoming more and more Paragon as the series progresses, and killing Wrex is one of the only impactful ways in Game 1 to showcase a Renegade character.

Granted, it's been so long since I've played that I'm not even sure I can process what a Paragon to Renegade would look like throughout 2 and especially 3.

 

If you do Wrex’s quest you won’t even have to paragon him.

 

I did, still needed a certain level of points in the speech skill as well and I didn't have that so it was greyed out.

 

You could always sacrifice the council and/or kill the Rachni queen.

 

I was looking at those stats. I know Kaiden is considered boring as hell by many, but I really like him especially in 3. I like him more than Ashley that’s for sure. Also not that shocking that the paragon options are overwhelming picked.

Spoiler

you have to be a real dick when doing renegade. I couldn’t imagine killing the Rachni Queen for instance.

 

Trouble with sacrificing the council is it doesn’t really seem to change anything in 2 or 3. Those games obviously don’t want you to.

 

The third game basically retroactively begs you to have picked Udina to be on the council.

 

Speaking of 3, it’s a shame that Clint Mansell only did one piece for the soundtrack, because “Leaving Earth” is great.

(And before you bring up “ An End, Once and For All”, that was composed by Sam Hulick. He just gave Mansell credit because it reused parts of “Leaving Earth”.