A personal crisis has recently left me shaken. Like most nerds I was beyond excited for March 8 2012 as it was the day that Mass Effect 3 came out. I had been a huge fan of Mass Effect 2, spending hours doing as many side-quests as possible, romancing Miranda (sigh..) and kicking collector ass. I was rewarded for my efforts with a squad that made it out of the suicide mission completely intact, and a crew that had survived their capture at the hands of the collectors. It was thrilling, and left me quivering with anticipation for the next one.
During the year it took for Mass Effect 3 to be released I suffered a death in the family. My beloved PS3 had kicked the bucket after 4 years of service. It was a gradual goodbye as sometimes it would turn on after multiple restarts, but eventually it was lost to the world and I mourned it until I could afford a new one.
As Mass Effect 3 drew closer it dawned on me, my dead Playstation had my completed Mass Effect 2 save file on it. I was devestated, but as other games like Uncharted 3 and Deus Ex began to command my attention I realised I had no time to go back and play an epic game like Mass Effect 2 again. I panicked a little when I read that Mass Effect 3 would have no bridging comic for people to input decisions from the previous game. How was I supposed to let it know all the choices I made? What would happen if I approached my beautiful Miranda and playfully addressed her, only for her to act like like nothing ever happened between us. I held faith though, telling myself that my Commander Shepherd would be sufficiently charming to whisk her off her feet even when the world was falling apart. Not even a dreaded default start could stop me!
I bought the game and shoved it in the PS3 excitedly. I created a new Shepherd, giving him his requisite bangs and stubble to look like a muscly, jock version of the dumpy guy with a scruffy beard sitting on the couch. I watched the first scenes and was absorbed by the gravity of the situation, taking brief moments to look at my Shepherd and wonder why he hadn't come out quite like my Mass Effect 2 version. I took control of the Normandy and had a chat with my old pal Joker. I was home.
Or at least I thought I was. I had played the game for about three hours before I discovered it. I had seen brief glimpses and thought that it was cool but I hadn't examined it. Not until I had recruited Diana Allers (If Miranda wasn't going to be a squad member, she was an adequate replacement) and my boy Garrus did I truly notice. I am talking about the memorial wall on the Normandy. I stopped my Shepherd and examined the names when my heart sank very mildly.
"Kelly Chambers is dead??" I said out loud to myself like a very sad person "But I saved her!"
I took a deep breath and pulled myself together, even though Kelly had become a valuable crew member and something of a flirt, she wasn't a main character and I could go on without her.
What happened next stopped me dead in my tracks. Thane Krios.
"But Thane hadn't died yet! I didn't even get to say goodbye" I said, growing sadder by the moment
Then another one, Jacqueline Nought. At first I couldn't recall a Jacqueline on the ship until it hit me that my beloved Jack (who I had ended things on a sour note with in Mass Effect 2 and could never acquire the requisite paragon points to get her back) might be named this officially.
I jumped into action, or rather leant across the couch and flipped open my laptop. I typed in Jacqueline Nought into Google and told myself it was all going to be OK. It wasn't. Jacqueline Nought was indeed Jack, and I had indeed lost her. I put the controller on the floor and retreated into a ball on the couch. My room mate came home and asked what was wrong, when I told him he tried his best to seem sympathetic but had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. When I could finally move again I once more hit google, to find out what the default start of Mass Effect 3 truly entailed. The results horrified me. Party members dead, romances dead, crew dead. Along with a still weird looking Shepherd I had lost the will to go on.
This was not the game I should be playing, not the game I deserved to be playing. Mass Effect is a journey, and even though the interactions may prove to be entirely insignificant, they were interactions that I had earned. I would be missing my reunions with friends, uncomfortabe tensions with enemies, and the burning of loins with my conquests.
I messaged a friend and fellow Mass Effect fan what I had discovered. I found little solace in his apologies but thanked him for helping me during these dire times. I researched possible save files to download, but found that PS3 was the only format that didn't support it. I paced around my apartment thinking about it, crossing off all the possible solutions until the most obvious, yet painful one was left.
I had to play Mass Effect 2 again.
Defeated, I popped the disc out and replaced it with a game I beat a year ago and began the long process of doing it all again. I'm currently a bit more than halfway through, and it's going quicker than I anticipated. I've also used this game to correct some of the wrongs I committed as a Mass Effect 2 amateur, and have now secured both Jack and Miranda's loyalty by breaking up their catfight. I also took a little extra time to flirt with Kelly Chambers, almost as if I was sad at knowing what was to become of her in the dreaded default start.
So I'm now about minus 10-15 hours away from enjoying a game I bought nearly a month ago, and am trying my hardest to stay away from spoilers. While fans bitch about the ending Bioware provided, I've muttered under my breath about the start I was provided with. But knowing that I will get to see Thane and Jack again keeps me going.
Oh yeah... My Shepherd looks normal now too, and he has sweet bangs.
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