Category Archives: Mass Effect

About the Mass Effect games and other media

Caved in and bought Mass Effect 3

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As the title says, I have caved in and bought Mass Effect 3. I always was going to buy it eventually, but after all (if I could work that out) the single player campaign DLC had come out, so I could play through the whole story with all the additional bits in one go, for my ‘proper’ run through. There are two reasons for me doing this, one is that it worked very well for Mass Effect 2 for me (see my Mass Effect 2 done properly this time post for instance), the other being that I am fully aware of what the ending is like, so I would like to enjoy all the story before that happens. I have explained in previous posts how being spoiled on the ME3 ending is probably helpful for me, rather than an annoyance. This is all just in the case of myself of course, as always.

Anyway, the thing that triggered me off into buying it now was that it was (still is as of the time of this post, the 1st of September 2012) on special offer on Origin. I got the heads up from SavyGamer whom I also follow on Twitter – @SavyGamer. I got the standard digital edition for £7.49p. I don’t think I have even seen Mass Effect 2 for less than that, and I think that will be the lowest price I will see for a while! So I bought it.

The DLC (as far as I know) doesn’t get discounted so I just went ahead and bought the two single player campaign DLCs so far released (From Ashes, and Leviathan). These require BioWare points and for UK people BioWare points are cheaper from the BioWare social site than from Origin (you have to be a bit careful to make sure that your BioWare login and EA/Origin login are the same account – this is important for all sorts of reasons not just buying BioWare points!). Login to the BioWare social site with your EA/Origin login (which should be the same as your BioWare login these days, since the assimilation proceeded past the point of no return) and go to Profile → Add BioWare points.

One other thing, and I didn’t spot this at first (@zappdos (a friend on Twitter) pointed it out a bit too late, and I really should have seen it as it stares you in the face on the BioWare points store page), is that the points are cheaper if you buy them in lots of 800, rather than going for the 1600. The only downside to this is that if I make a bunch of purchases in a row my credit card company at least tends to regard it as suspicious and lock out my card*. On the other hand they are very very trigger happy in doing this and do it a lot. It is really annoying. Anyway, thanks to @zappdos at least I will remember to look more carefully next time.

So now I have ME3 and the two campaign DLCs released so far. I have no intention of even thinking about considering the possibility of playing multiplayer. It looks a cool fun multiplayer game, but the ME3 PC tech support forum on the BioWare social site is full of threads with people who have been banned from online ME3 by EA – which because of the requirement to be online each time you launch the single player game too (if you have DLC installed at least) means you can’t play the main game either. They get banned if they happen to be in a game with someone exploiting a glitch, or even if they encounter a glitch. One guy got glitched in an MP game and took a while to exit out of the game (he tried to de-glitch himself first) and EA banned both his and his wife’s accounts! Same IP address you see. Apparently getting glitched is an exploit for which they ban you, no appeal, no chance of playing the game again. Now, I daresay it is a minority of ME3 MP players who are being banned for nothing they did wrong, but it is a big enough minority that I don’t want to risk it. So I won’t play MP – and if that means I don’t get the ‘optimal’ ending so be it. The info in this paragraph came from reading the BioWare forums as stated above, so take that as you will – I guess all those people complaining could possibly have really been ‘cheating’ in some form and were making up stories to cover it up, but there are so many of them.

I do want to play all the campaign DLC, and there is a good chance there will be more released (if Leviathan does well according to Patrick Weekes (via Twitter)). I think there are fairly strong rumours about a possible Omega (as in take back Omega with Aria T’Loak) and weak possible rumours about another Citadel based DLC. So I am intending to try and wait for those, or at least to make sure they won’t be happening, before starting ME3. The Omega one in particular, if it is helping Aria take it back, sounds like it could be really good.

To keep me off caving in again and starting it, I have two novels (Retribution and Deception) and one set of comics (Invasion) to read (plus another graphical novel (i.e. comic set in one binding) on preorder (Homeworlds)). Plus a whole bunch of games to play of course, so I should be OK. Though I am due soon for another massive computer failure (every 11 – 18 months) so there is also that, though I am dusting the inside of this one a bit more often which should help.

*Update as of the following day: Barclaycard locked my card down after all, according to their staff (after a ridiculously long phone call) the combination of two transactions with EA yesterday, plus a domain renewal (for this domain) today, was very suspicious and they locked out my card. They made me jump through hoops to unlock it – all this ‘for my protection’. They do this every couple of months at least, and it is really annoying and can cause problems as they (Barclaycard) sometimes reverse the charge on a genuine transaction – if they ever do that with PayPal or Steam (for instance) I will lose those accounts. About one in three times they lock out the card they don’t phone me about it, so I am blissfully unaware until my card gets refused at a petrol station or something, which is embarrassing. It is like they don’t want my business as I buy stuff on the internet.

Mass Effect 2 done properly this time

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As I have mentioned before (see the previous post for instance) I started Mass Effect 2 on a previous computer and was making a bit of a pig’s ear of it to be honest, even by my own standards. Which are probably a bit higher for myself for Mass Effect 2, as I liked Mass Effect 1 so much and really got into the ME universe, reading the books and comics and so on. Anyway, I have finally beaten ME2 ‘properly (as far as I am concerned, for me)’ so I thought I would record a couple of achievements from towards the end of the game here.

All of this post is personal, if you like to play the Mass Effect games, or any games, in a totally different way then that is sort of the whole point of playing games, as opposed to passively watching a film. If you see what I mean. So when I say ‘properly’ I just mean for me, how I wanted things to go, nothing intrinsic to the game at all. Spoilers for ME2 follow obviously!

I think I must have done nearly everything in the game, I tried to check out every planet and picked up a bunch of little side missions. They were fun and somewhat unexpected. It was a little tedious to check in on every planet but you don’t have to scan them (once you have enough minerals) just those where EDI detects an anomaly. The galaxy map was covered in systems with a 100% marker by them by the time I had finished.

Fully loyal crew

Fully loyal crew

One of the things that made me realise that I wasn’t doing things optimally (for how I wanted to have the game turn out) during my first attempt at the game was that I was running up against conflicts with or between my crew causing them to not be loyal, or losing loyalty. The game had dropped a few hints by then that things wouldn’t go well if my crew didn’t trust me totally, and/or weren’t fully loyal, so I knew this would probably cause ‘problems’ later. I guessed that I wouldn’t get an optimal ending or that more people would die (which would have been true). So when my previous computer died, and I couldn’t rescue my ME2 savegames (I had my ME1 canon savegame backed up, and these days I use Game Save Manager (which is really good so check it out if you like to keep and back up game save files)) I wasn’t that upset. I played some other games in the meantime and decided to spoil the game for myself a little, and basically cheat by looking up some stuff on the Wiki.

So, I had a better order to do side missions and crew missions in, and worked out where the conflicts would occur, and one of the things I remember from my first attempt was seeing greyed out paragon/renegade options at crucial junctures. So I did a bunch of missions up front to get XP (squad points) and maxed out Assault Mastery (my Shepard is a Vanguard) early. This maxed the paragon (I was playing mainly paragon) score early and lit up those greyed out top left options in blue. So I got to resolve the conflicts and keep people loyal.

All of whom survived

No one left behind

This includes all the main combat crew, plus Kelly Chambers, Dr Chakwas and everyone. Again I cheated a bit to get some hints as to who to assign to do what during the final mission (the suicide run) but hope I would have made reasonable decisions without that. The game does drop hints about who is good at what, as long as you do the running around the ship talking to everyone fairly often.

Sarah Shepard’s model ship collection

Sarah Shepard's model ship collection

I think I got them all, can’t see any spaces in the cabinet! In case you are wondering, when you get close to the photo frame Liara appears in it.

What next?

Probably Saints Row the Third in terms of actual game playing next. In terms of Mass Effect I have a couple of novels and some comics to read. Then, eventually, I will get and play ME3 with any single player DLC that comes out for it. But that is some way down the line. In terms of replaying Mass Effect, I don’t know. I think it is definitely replayable, possibly on a harder difficulty, and there are always different classes, paragon/renegade balances, male shep options and so on I could play.

Mass Effect 2 started

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Well I got Mass Effect 2 working, with its DLC. Did have a couple of problems – one was with Windows firewall being far too nervous about allowing ME2 access to the internet, although I had ‘let the program through the firewall’ it only let it out as far as the LAN, so I had to tick an extra box to get the firewall to allow it access to/from the internet proper. At about the same time I had to contact EA support via their web contact form. I will say this, EA support fixed my problem (manually activated the Cerberus network on my account) and emailed me back with a superbly polite email within half an hour. I cannot fault that service.

The game is superb so far, lovely graphics – and I am glad I got it working and am playing it, hence these pics. Maybe I am a bit of a doofus and easily pleased/excited, but there you go. All images screen-shotted (that isn’t a real word I am sure) by myself in game, all visuals and whatnot copyright Bioware and/or EA.

Sarah Shepard lives!

Sarah Shepard at the beginning of Mass Effect 2

In the new Normandy

Sarah Shepard in the CIC of the new Normandy

In Armour

Sarah Shepard in armour

A note here about the black lipstick (I think in ME1 it was just dark purply red, but it appears to have come out even darker after the import). Apparently, having black lipstick on a Femshep is a cliche or something. I tend to play with Shepard, when in full armour, having her helmet on. This just seems sensible to me in terms of in game, if she is in armour and thus, presumably, expecting to be shot at she would wear the helmet too. I think they ‘fixed’ that in ME3 in the sense there is an option for combat with the helmet on, but Shepard takes it off in conversations. That is probably the best option. Meanwhile, she has the helmet on, so I gave her dark lipstick as her mouth is sort of the only thing noticeable under the helmet and I wanted her to stand out a bit.

Catching up slowly

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I am slowly catching up with my backlog of games to play. As I have mentioned on here before I have a chronic progressive health problem which flares up and down and is painful. Thus, when I am bad I have to concentrate my time and efforts on the thing that pays the bills (i.e. work!), and thus gaming (and other things) take a back seat. However, and meanwhile indeed, Steam sales and GOG.com special offers continue apace so I tend to buy games at (what I regard as) bargain prices. Because, you know, it is a bargain. I daresay others do that as well when the Steam sales are on!

As a result I have a lovely selection of games built up that I haven’t played yet – or in some cases played (some of or most of) in the past and have bought again. For instance Half Life I am sure I have played before, but have got it on Steam now to play through properly. And a fair few other games too. Part of the problem is that if I am ill, in pain, on painkillers I tend to not want to start up a ‘big’ game, but tend to just relax and play something like Bejewelled 3 or The Binding of Isaac. Smaller games in the sense that I can just play 10 or 20 minutes of them. As a result I had ended up with a few games half played, and others waiting on me to get round to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like these games and wanted to finish them, and want to get on to the others. I am looking forward to it! So here is a little update on games I have beaten and what I will be playing next. More as a sort of diary for myself really, I doubt anyone else is that interested, but maybe someone is playing the same games as me out there.

Before going on to the games I have been and am about to play, I will mention a new addition to my blog roll, the links section on the right of the home page. That is ‘Dead End Thrills’ a site/blog devoted to extracting some gorgeous art from game engines and games. Do pay it a visit for some lovely eye candy, and read the ‘about’ section of that site so you know how much work the author is putting into getting these images out of the games.

Borderlands

I am talking about Borderlands 1 here for anyone visiting this post in the future after 2 comes out. I have beaten the main game and all the DLCs except for Mad Moxxi’s Underdome (which I don’t fancy and probably will never play). Just playthrough 1, with one character (the Siren). Great game, replay value in it so I will keep the savegame – but as I said above I have a bunch of other games to play so not sure when I will get round to playing it again. If I do I will try the playthrough 2, and also have a bash with a different character – I would like to try the game with the Hunter.

I will probably end up getting Borderlands 2 sometime after it comes out. However tempting it might be to get it on release I really do have so many games to get through I can’t justify it. Also I have a damaged game disk for my Borderlands 1 GOTY edition, so I was a bit nervous as I played through the game in case it decided to not recognize the disk totally and stop me playing it. So I am keeping an eye out for a Steam sale or something to get a digital copy for future installations etc. The save games swap across according to the internet.

I didn’t complete all the ‘fetch 100 of these’ ‘now fetch 200 more of these’ type sidequests. I did the zombie brains collectathon in the Zombie Island DLC and that was quite enough thank you. I probably missed a few other side quests too, but that will give me something ‘new’ to do or be a bit surprised by if and when I start the game up again in the future.

Fallout 3

I beat the Fallout 3 main quest and the Broken Steel DLC after that. I had already done the Operation Anchorage DLC fairly early on – to get the very resilient power armour which I will basically wear through the rest of the game. I have done a lot of the earlier side quests, but the ‘world’ of Fallout 3 is huge so I am sure there are more that I could go and do. But I will leave it for now, and come back to it later for the other DLCs. I really like this game, it was one of the first ‘modern’ PC games I got after I started to get back into gaming. Part of the reason I have taken so long to beat it is my health problems, but also this same game has spanned three PCs now – I have managed to salvage my savegames and continue. But it is sometimes hard to get back into a game even if you really like it, if you have had to not play it for a long time due to computer and/or other problems.

So I have stopped this for now to go on to other things, but will come back to it to complete it (i.e. the other DLCs) in the future. I also have Fallout New Vegas in my Steam library so there is that one too.

Next up – Mass Effect 2

Yes that is right, Mass Effect 2. On my last computer I beat Mass Effect 1 and loved the game – I think Mass Effect (1 and 2) are my favourite games up there with Fallout 3, and the Tomb Raider series. The combat was a bit flaky, probably because the game (this is ME1 I am still talking about) was originally an Xbox exclusive so the PC port was always going to suffer. But I didn’t mind the combat or the inventory management (two of the main criticisms aimed at ME1). I loved the epic storyline, the characters and how you can play your Shepard to vary the way the story goes. I liked the ‘proper’ science fiction consistency of the in game universe – posit that the mass effect exists and works as stated, and the rest just follows. No hand waving or ‘a wizard did it’ type space magic.

So I got Mass Effect 2 for a good price, imported my save game, started to play and kinda realised I was screwing up how I wanted things to go. Then my last computer broke. I salvaged my ‘canon’ ME1 savegame so I can hopefully import my Shepard into ME2 on my current computer and play the game. This time I have all the story based DLC and have even gone so far as to read the books and comics/graphical novels that come before ME1 and inbetween ME1 and ME2. For an overview of the books and comics, and how they fit with the games see my post Mass Effect – the whole story. I have also become reasonably spoiled on how ME2 goes as that is hard to avoid when you are playing it so long after it comes out. But I don’t mind game spoilers myself (I know most people hate them).

So, as long as my paragade Femshep (sole survivor, colonist, vanguard) imports OK into ME2 I am hoping to do a reasonably completionist run and end up with a loyal squad and ‘no one left behind’ (I told you I was spoiled on how things go!). I have the Prima guide and will not be afraid to use it (or look things up on the Wiki and/or forums) if I get a bit stuck. Then I will read the books and comics that come after ME2, and then I can consider what to do about ME3.

Mass Effect 3?

Mass Effect 3 looks very much like there is going to be some single player ‘campaign’ DLC coming up, that will be in-game chronologically set before the ending. I have already blogged about my thoughts on the day one DLC for Mass Effect 3. And I am thoroughly aware of the ending controversies and reactions, and indeed the ending itself. Interestingly I suspect that even though I have seen the endings, that won’t spoil the rest of the game for me too much as the endings seem to be very disconnected with the rest of the game (and of course the previous two games, and the books and comics). So I will probably wait until all the single player DLC is out, get the game itself and the DLCs, and take ‘my Shepard’ through to the conclusion of her story. Which will probably be, in my head, a bit before the controversial game endings that has/had some corners of the internet in a kerfuffle.

With such a final end to the whole story arc at the end of ME3, I really do want to do all the single player DLC during my run through. Loading up a prior savegame to do any DLC when I have already beaten the game doesn’t appeal to me, bearing in mind the main reason I like the Mass Effect games so much is the story and characters. It just seems to make much more sense to me that if I am going to play the pre-ending single player DLC I will play it before the ending (i.e. before I have played through the game to the ending). I just hope Origin will work for me to allow me to play Mass Effect 3 and its DLCs, a lot of people are having trouble with it.

I very much doubt I will even try multiplayer for Mass Effect 3. That has even more problems with connectivity, the EA servers and Origin than the single player game does. Also the ME3 MP ‘community’ is very unforgiving of noobs, so I have no desire to spend my time online in the game getting vote kicked out of lobbies because I am new to the game.

After that

Saints Row the Third, From Dust, and lots more. Probably SR3 first though as that game looks like loads of fun. I have all the Half Lifes so far published to go through some time too. I might even LP Half Life – again like this blog more as a sort of diary for myself that happens to be public than any expectation of too many people watching/reading it. Perhaps I will do Dead Space and LP that instead so everyone can hear me jump and yell as horrible things happen. Or Bioshock 1 and 2. Yeah I have enough games in my backlog to keep me quiet for a fair while!

The effect on my game buying habits of the Mass Effect 3 day one DLC

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There is currently a fair bit of discussion concerning the upcoming Mass Effect 3′s day one DLC ‘From Ashes’. You get this as part of the (sold out in the UK at least) collectors edition, the digital deluxe ‘premium’ download edition (Origin exclusive I believe) or by paying extra for the DLC on day one. The price point is $10, no idea how much it will be in £. I won’t go over the arguments as to why this is not a good thing, feel free to Google to find articles on it. If you want to watch/listen to a critique of EA/Bioware over this topic by TotalBiscuit on YouTube click here for for his ‘Why I think Bioware has gone too far with Mass Effect 3′ – careful of spoilers in that YouTube footage, it shows gameplay from the demo. I have tried to avoid spoilers in this post, but there is a lot out there on the web so careful with that search engine.

Mass Effect 3 would have been one of the very few games I would have considered buying at or soon after release, at full price (I am also considering Borderlands 2 which comes out in the Autumn as it is looking very good). As I have explained in other posts most of my games I tend to buy sometime after release when they are cheaper, or even waiting for sales and deals on them. But I really like the Mass Effect series, and to be honest Mass Effect 3 does look very good. However, even before this day one DLC was leaked and subsequently confirmed/announced I was already getting a bit fed up with the storm of marketing and blatant monetization push for this game.

Multiplayer – I almost certainly won’t (be able to) play this. Not just because I don’t have many friends into gaming, let alone Mass Effect specifically, but also I play on the PC and Origin really doesn’t work very well for me. I suspect it would be very hard to get it to work for online multiplayer matchmaking. This may have something to do with the generally rubbish ping times and internet service in the UK in general, and from Virgin Media in particular for me, but I know others have problems too. It seems that the ‘war resources’ you get from multiplayer whilst theoretically not essential to the single player campaign help enormously with getting to the ‘best ending’ of the game. I may usually not play on veteran but a lot of people do, and that may well make it essential for them to play multiplayer to get their desired ending to the series – it is more than just one game, it is the final game in a trilogy. Also, how long will EA run the servers for the ME3 multiplayer? If they shut them down after 6 months or a year, and you want to play through the game again (as I am sure many will want to!) then you might have to do without the extra war resources from the multiplayer (they ‘decay’ so you can’t store them up, you have to play the multiplayer concurrently with any single player campaign you are doing). That is a big if though, by the way, I hope they will keep them up for years and have no information that they won’t.

Then there are Facebook games, iOS games and so on. I refuse to spam my friends and family on Facebook just to feed the EA/Bioware marketing machine, so that I can get the full benefit out of my bought on a disk single player game. I don’t even own an iOS or Android device so can’t play that bit of the ‘game’. Extra DLC with an art book? Extra DLC with some action figure toy dolls? All exclusive? Dear oh dear.

So I won’t buy it soon. I will wait until I am fairly sure all DLC has come out for it, then I can look at the DLC and pick which bits I think are essential to the story and just buy them, along with a copy of the main game which will probably be cheaper by then. This is essentially what I have ended up doing with Mass Effect 2 although it wasn’t so deliberate, it just ended up that way. I will probably end up spoilt (in terms of the story) by the time I play it but I am not that bothered by spoilers. If it turns out that I cannot get some DLC (because it is an exclusive to something that I cannot get) and that DLC is ‘proper story content’ (not just cosmetic or a fancy gun) then I guess I will be somewhat disappointed. EA and Bioware know that they have a big loyal fanbase for this game series, so really can milk them for scads of cash. That is up to them, their game their rules. But it causes resentment and bad feelings towards the company from that very same fanbase, who might not be so loyal now. I just hope their marketing middle managers and the executives have factored that bad feeling into their spreadsheets somehow.

Mass Effect – the whole story

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I suspect most of those reading this will have heard of the Mass Effect games, but there are also Mass Effect books and comics. I daresay a lot of people have heard of those too, but I only ‘discovered’ the extra media (for want of a better way of putting it) that rounds out the Mass Effect universe after I played the first game. I have made a rough list of the books and comics, and where they (very approximately) fit into the Mass Effect universe timeline. One warning – spoilers ahead! – after the following list I will talk a bit about the books and comics I have read so far so that will be fairly spoilery for anyone who hasn’t played the games or read the books/comics in question.

So surf away now if you want to avoid all spoilers, and definitely don’t read anything after the list if you want to avoid some major spoilers about the games, comics and books (I am assuming you have played the games and/or don’t care about game spoilers, but those are there too). Below I make various statements about how the books’ and comics’ stories fit into the Mass Effect universe, and what they might be ‘about’. I must stress that all this is just my personal opinion and speculation. I am genuinely interested in others’ opinions and speculations, and also of course any ‘canon’ tidbits that emerge from Bioware. The Bioware Social Network and forums is a goldmine for speculation about Mass Effect and other Bioware games.

  • Comic: Evolution – set very early in the Mass Effect (ME) universe, includes the origins of The Illusive Man (TIM) and Cerberus, and some background about the first contact war. Four issue mini series by Mac Walters and published by Dark Horse Comics. Although set before Revelation in the ME timeline, in someways it makes slightly more sense to read it after playing ME2 (the game Mass Effect 2) because of the involvement with TIM and Cerberus in that game.
  • Book: Revelation is a prequel to Mass Effect 1 (ME1) and is written by Drew Karpyshyn and published by Orbit. Its plot involves David Anderson and Saren Arterius investigating an attack on a human research station. It was first published some months before the release of the first Mass Effect game.
  • Game: Mass Effect 1
  • Book: Ascension – again written by Drew Karpyshyn and published by Orbit – is set a few months after the events of ME1, and concerns a young biotic prodigy (Gillian Grayson) pursued by Cerberus, aided by a character called Kahlee Sanders. It was first published in July 2008. Kahlee Sanders (and indeed David Anderson) feature strongly in the books, in some ways the books are ‘about’ them (and another character – Paul Grayson – that features strongly) and the games are ‘about’ Shepard.
  • Comic: Incursion Eight page mini comic download, the prequel to Redemption (below). Downloadable from the Mass Effect site – Mass Effect incursion comic as pdf file from the main Mass Effect site. Concerns some happenings on Omega, and Aria T’Loak’s reaction to them.
  • Comic: Redemption four issues written by Mac Walters, scripted by John Jackson and drawn by Omar Francia. Published by Dark Horse (and Bioware of course). The comics can be bought combined into one graphical novel, which is more easily available in the UK (e.g. from Amazon). Redemption is set between ME1 and ME2 and concerns Liara T’Soni. If you have played the ME2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker this comic series/graphical novel explains the background to what Liara was up to between ME1 and ME2.
  • Game: Mass Effect 2
  • Comic: Inquisition 8 page mini comic on the USA Today site. About Captain Bailey, and illustrates some more of Ambassador Udina’s unpleasant (in my opinion) character. USA Today is a US newspaper, but the comic isn’t geo-locked so you can access it from the UK. The link is Mass Effect Inquisition on the USA Today site and works as of the date of this post.
  • Book: Retribution – again written by Drew Karpyshyn and published by Orbit – is set after the events of Mass Effect 2, and concerns Cerberus and their investigation of Reaper technology by using it on Paul Grayson. Kahlee Sanders and David Anderson are again in the story.
  • Comic: Invasion follows the conflict between Aria and Cerberus, and seems to bridge to ME3. As of the date of this post (late December 2011) the third in the four comic series has just been published. Written by Mac Walters, scripted by John Jackson and drawn by Omar Francia. Published by Dark Horse and Bioware. You can pre-order Dark Horse comics in the UK from Forbidden Planet if you want to avoid international shipping charges. You can of course order them direct from Dark Horse Comics if you don’t mind international shipping, or if Forbidden Planet has run out. Failing that you will have to wait for the graphical novel I guess, assuming one is made for this series too (it has been for the others). You can probably get the comics from other retailers, but I have just mentioned the ones I know, and have got the comics from for myself.
  • Book: Deception by William C. Dietz. Scheduled for release in early 2012 (?), as they appear to be timing the release for just before ME3 and the game is currently scheduled for release in early March 2012 (staggered release with North America first, and Europe last). I am not sure when it is set in the ME storyline but it looks like it follows Retribution between ME2 and ME3, but after invasion perhaps? I had it pre-ordered from Amazon but they recently emailed me to say they won’t be stocking it, so I have it currently pre-ordered from the Book Depository.
  • Comic: Conviction 8 page mini comic about James Vega, from Dark Horse Digital but can only be accessed via a voucher, and that can only be obtained somehow from mostly North American comic book stores. The vouchers may well have run out now. However, some judicious searching on the internet might turn up something.
  • Game: Mass Effect 3 as mentioned above currently scheduled for release in early March 2012 with a staggered release with North America first, and Europe last.

These media, the comics and books, are extras – background to the events in the games but still part of the ME universe. There is no Shepard in the books and comics, leaving the games’ and thus the player’s own personal Shepard (if you see what I mean) being that player’s alone. The first book mentioned above – Revelation – helps explain how Captain Anderson was so sure that Saren was a bad guy. This is fairly striking in the game if you think about it, although personally when I first played ME1 I just went along with the story as it was well written and presented, so I just accepted it. However, some fridge logic might set in later – how come Captain Anderson was so sure about all that stuff in his rant against Saren? If you want to know the background to that, read Revelation. The book covers a lot more than just that though.

The Evolution comic, which centres around Jack Harper who becomes The Illusive Man (TIM) at the end of the fourth comic (and also founds Cerberus about then), contains some interesting plot and information about the Turians, and the first contact war (which ends about half way through the comics). There is an artefact which appears to control those who come into contact with it and even transforming them into husk like creatures. Both Jack (who becomes TIM remember) and Saren (!) come into partial contact with this thing, and although aren’t reduced to mindless drones and transformed, it does affect them. It is reminiscent of indoctrination, and the huskification of people in the games – but that is just inference somewhat – I could easily be reading too much into it. The comic series is now available as a graphic novel which is possible to get in the UK (unlike the comics as far as I can tell).

I am in the middle of reading Ascension at the moment, so have less to say about that and the following books and comics in the above ‘sort of timeline’. What I am doing is probably slightly silly, but there you go. I am reading and playing the games in ‘order’ as above. I manage to destroy computers about one a year, which is frustrating and expensive (and I might explain that sometime in another blog post, not sure if anyone would be curious) so I played a ME1 run through to produce ‘my’ Shepard on my last computer, but managed to get the save game across to this newer one for ME2. I am reading the comics and books around playing the games, hoping to get a no one left behind on ME2 with my Shepard saved and ready for ME3 (once I have read the books and comics that come between those two). This was all set off by my discovering the books and comics that go with the Mass Effect games and deciding to get them, so I thought I would ‘do’ it all in order. Since I had to hunt over the internet a bit to find out about the different comics and books, then to work out how it all fitted together, I thought I would make this post. Which appears to have expanded beyond the simple list I had at first, but anyway.

The other thing is that I now have all the story related DLC for ME2, and to be honest I kinda made a hash of my first run through with that game (from what I can remember) and never finished it. It will be interesting as a paragade and not going full paragon to make sure I have enough paragon points (I play mostly paragon but can’t resist some of the very amusing renegade choices – I am sure anyone who has played the game somewhat knows what I mean) to gain every squad member’s loyalty. Apart from paragade ‘my’ Shepard is a femshep, vanguard, colonist, sole survivor just for the record. Why I play femshep when I usually play male characters when given a choice is an explanation for another post I think.

Having wandered off track and started to talk about ME in general, I shall attempt to return to the subject of the post. One thing that does come out strongly, to me at least, from the books is the impression, or even evidence, that Cerberus is a thoroughly nasty organization. It does make a bit of a difference, and explains why the paragon choices in ME2 are vehemently against Shepard aligning him/herself with Cerberus fully. Obviously in ME1 there is a lot of evidence about Cerberus being a terrorist organization that does horrible things, such as the sole survivor background, various Cerberus facilities that you can visit for side missions and so on. The books – either side timewise of ME2 – drive this home. Also if you have been following some of the trailers and information about ME3 again you know how bad Cerberus really is. For myself this makes some of the paragon choices in ME2 easier, as you can be happily dismissive and against Cerberus even when they appear to be being quite nice to you (they brought you back from the dead at a cost of squillions of credits!) since you truly know how bad they really are, and still are despite any assurances from TIM that they are good guys now/really.

There are hints in or about the later books and comics about a couple of things – either I haven’t read these yet or they haven’t been published so I am a lot less sure of this. But there is various hints and chatter about Udina and Anderson, whether they are on the council or who will make the best human representative on the Council. There is some talk that even if at the end of ME1 you make Anderson councillor he steps down (or something) and Udina ends up there anyway. In Conviction (which I have read out of order when it came out) he is referred to as Admiral Anderson. I guess one way that Bioware can reconcile some very big choices with the plot in the later games is via the books and the backstory. If they absolutely need Captain (Admiral?) Anderson to be back serving in the Alliance (instead of being a politician on the citadel) for story purposes in ME3 then they have to extricate him somehow, and doing it in game would probably end up being boring (long expositional cutscene) so why not make it part of the story in a book (which is basically one huge exposition). In short, I don’t mind them doing this to make the game better, although some players I am sure don’t like their personal choices being overturned. As far as I can see from the hints and trailers released so far for ME3 they haven’t arbitrarily killed off any ME2 squadmates that you have saved, but in fact gone to lengths to have them appear even if just as NPCs here and there with some interaction.

Incursion is a nice introduction to the collectors and their collecting habits (i.e. humans) that features in ME2. Also we get to see Aria T’Loak in (violent) action, which is fun because she appeared not to do too much in ME2 except be smug in that little booth of hers in Afterlife. Redemption is about Liara T’Soni trying to get Commander Shepard’s body back, how she ends up in a feud with the Shadow Broker, and how Shepard ends up in the hands of Cerberus. That is, it explains a lot of the backstory to the events between the very beginning of ME2 (Normandy blown up, Shepard spaced) and when (two years later) Shepard wakes up in the Cerberus base at the beginning of the main part of ME2. It also explains why she is offhand with Shepard (which is somewhat strange especially if you romanced her in ME1) when you meet her on Illium (also Lair of the Shadow Broker explains a lot).

Retribution I haven’t read at all, not even the back cover, so I am just guessing it will follow somewhat the earlier books and continue those stories with more evidence of the nature of Cerberus etc. Conviction sets us up for Shepard’s trial (he is on trial for the events in the Arrival DLC) and the new squadmate for ME3. Invasion is in the process of being published one comic at a time – I have the comics on pre-order from Forbidden planet not so I can read them right away, but so I can get them in the UK and not have to wait six months for the graphical novel to come out, if it does. I think the title of the series gives away what it is likely to be about! Then of course there is the final game itself, ME3. I am a bit wary of how much of a shooter vs. a Mass Effect style RPG it will be (just based on the trailers and information so far given out by Bioware) so I am adopting a wait and see approach, and haven’t pre-ordered it. I will wait for reviews, views of fans, and even perhaps some let’s play gameplay before I decide whether to get it right away or wait until it drops in price somewhat. I doubt if it will be so awful I don’t buy it, or unexpectedly comes out as a console exclusive, so eventually I will be playing it!

Finally, if you are intrigued as to the plot of any of these media but don’t want to (or can’t) get the books/comics and read them, you could do a lot worse than search for the rather good plot synopses on the Mass Effect Wiki. The wiki is a good resource for all things Mass Effect and is worth bookmarking if you don’t mind looking things up on a Wiki for games you are playing or have played. This article has ended up a lot longer (and probably much more waffly) than I intended, if anyone reads it I hope they find it at least a little bit useful or interesting. Have fun playing Mass Effect and remember you can fight like a Krogan, run like a leopard, but you’ll never be better than Commander Shepard.