Since I didn't liveblog ME2 on my first playthrough, I'm doing it this time with the third game in the trilogy. My character's male, Paragon, Sole Survivor, Vanguard, and last I knew was in a relationship with Jack.
And he ended up killing over three hundred thousand batarians in Arrival. Man, I hate that. Probably nowhere near as much as I'll hate the ending (which I don't know what it is but I do know everybody else hated it), but killing so many innocents even when the Reapers would've killed them anyway in less than an hour, even if it wound up saving the rest of the galaxy...if I were faced with a dilemma like that in real life, it'd make me sick afterward.
As I understand it, the game begins with me on trial for either that. (If you didn't play the Arrival DLC in the last game, they put you on trial just for working with Cerberus, I've read.) So let's get to that, but first I want to see if I can give my default-appearance Shepard a beard without making his face look like some kind of terrible abomination. Every time I have tried to make a custom face in the last two games, it has been a terrible abomination. Terrible abominations are bad.
Not really. Okay, going default. He looks okay, I guess. I wanted a beard though. Not Perma-Stubble, but an actual beard. Just to change things up a little.
Ah okay, doing the opening scene now, and it looks like the trial already happened. I've met James Vega, who doesn't seem like a Scrappy yet, but then again neither did Ashley when I first met her. I'll see what I think of him as the game progresses.
There's Anderson, and he's wearing a uniform. I guess he got tired of being on the Council or something?
And there's Kaidan! Now, I don't actually mind Kaidan. I didn't think he was useless in combat in the first game, I think that Rafael Sbarge's voice acting with this character is better than what he did with the Carth Onasi character (who had this weird way of talking where he'd kind pepper his statements with brief pauses in strange places, as I recall, and which Kaidan does not do), and if he isn't still angry at me for working with Cerberus then I have no problems with him.
Hell, maybe I'll even go to bed with the guy, if somehow things don't work out with Jack! But I like Jack a lot, and I'd like to stay with her even though she won't be a permanent part of my squad in this game and its DLC.
Anyway, the Reapers are almost here, and we have to talk the Council into doing something about it. Kaidan, a Major now, has just finished talking to them.
OHCRAP THOSE GIANT MECHANO-SQUIDS ARE ON THE MOON!
Um, I don't believe that my character said what he just said. He told the brass that we have two choices right now, now that the Reapers are invading Earth and we are on Earth. "We fight, or we die."
I would have said "We RUN, or we die."
You can't fight the Reapers. They'll just kill you. As somebody in the last game said (I believe it was Admiral Hackett), it took a whole fleet to kill Sovereign, and that was just ONE Reaper.
We have to get the fuck off-world and rally the rest of the galactic community to see if there is any way we can stop these giantmechanosquid fucks. Fortunately Anderson seems to have the same idea, since we're supposed to head for the Normandy.
You know, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I had two of my future squad members—Alenko and Vega—right outside in the hallway and I didn't realize the significance of that, i.e. "You are going to need to fight in a minute, so here are two guys to back you up!"
ANDERSON: "How do you stop something so powerful?"
I know it's rhetorical, but dude, we don't.
Oh man, it looks like playing a Vanguard's gonna be more fun in this game than in the last! On top of gaining the Nova ability and getting to put points into Fitness, some of my melee attacks have a biotic punch to them! That just looks awesome and seems effective, too!
It's amazing how many long falls Shepard can get up from. Actually, I guess it's not so amazing since the Lazarus Project enhanced him physically, but Anderson (who is with me right now) is an ordinary human and past his prime physically to boot, and yet he didn't get injured by the same fall.
Willing Suspension of Disbelief, activate!
Joker, I have literally never been happier to see you and the Normandy before, but it seems like an awful idea for us to just hover in one place and watch the giantmechanosquids destroying everything around us when, at any moment, we could be one of the things they destroy.
Aaaand now I see why people don't like Vega. He's angry that we're leaving Anderson behind when he insisted on it and he wants to stay and fight when that's suicide. Stop being stupid, James.
More later.
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