AJ 10/22/21 AJ 10/22/21

Mass Effect 1 : Spectre Status Conferred

There is a model of Mass Relay at the Citdel

In the face of the recording Taali discovered, the Council has no choice but to accept the fact their illustrious Spectre has gone rogue. They are also able to recognize the other voice on the recording. She is another Asari who is old and powerful enough to be a matriarch. She goes by Benezia, and the fact that Saren has already corrupted her is an ominous sign. The Council members are able to tell Sheppard about her next of kin, one Dr. Liara T’soni. She is an archeologist who specializes in the study of Prothean artifacts. It will be a good idea to locate her. Not only will she able to provide more information about her mother, but she might also be able to help Sheppard translate some of the information the artifact has put in her head.

The Council is not done being skeptic. Even though they believe Saren has gone rogue, they still are having a hard time believing anything about the reapers. This is going to be a thing with the people in power going forward. In the face of danger, they will constantly choose to ignore it instead of preparing to fight it. Maybe when this game came out, it may have been a fantastic position to take, but in the last two years it has become painfully obvious how true to life this is. People would much rather deny the deaths of 700,000 people than get a vaccine or wear a mask. The most Council is willing to concede is Saren is using the myth of the reapers to contril the Geth. But they are adamant they will do absolutely nothing to even explore the possible existence of galaxy destroying threat.

Since the Council still finds it unnecessary to send in a fleet to protect Alliance colonies, they move to appease humanity by making Sheppard the first human spectre. They have also taken away the spectre status from Saren and strongly encourage Sheppard to hunt him down. Udina is bristling at the inaction and leaves after instructing Sheppard to meet him at the docks.

There are quite a few things to do and places to explore in the Citadel. It feels quite a bit bigger here than it will in the next two games. The Citadel gets scaled down quite significantly as the series progresses. I think there will be far fewer things to do here in the later games as well. Eventually Sheppard finds her way to the docks. Udina and Anderson are waiting for her. Sheppard will be taking over the ship, Anderson has been made to step down. He will be serving under Udina at the Citadel for the time being.

Normandy is a beautiful ship. It is the firstin its class, and was made with shared technology of humans and turians. This is definitely the kind of ship worthy of being captained by a spectre. Anderson tells Sheppard about his past brush with Saren. There was a time when he was being considered to become the first human spectre. Saren was the supervising officer on the mission Anderson was sent on. The mission was sabotaged by Saren to make sure no human will join the spectre rank. It result in mass casualties and Saren went on dump all the blame on Anderson. The humanity was set back so much so no other human was even considered again until today. At the same time, Alliance lost their chance to have a seat on the Council.

Ferro is another human colony set up by a major corporation. There have been recent geth attacks there as well. It will be a good place to start. There may be something Saren wants over there. If nothing else, we can help the colonist fend of the geth that keep attacking them.

Council washes their hands of any responsibility

No one really knows who built the Citadel.

Normandy lands in the middle of a geth attack. After beating them back, Sheppard makes her way to Fai Dan. He seems to be the one in charge here. The colonists are not fighters. They all came here to work for Exogeni a while back. Whatever they were doing attracted the wrath of the geth. They have been under constant attack and have retreated to this area. The Exogeni headquarters have already been taken over. Now the geth use it as a base to launch attacks on the remaining humans. The colony is barely surviving. They are running out of power and water while being constantly ambushed by the geth from the tunnels.

Sheppard will have to find a way to the HQ, but it is probably a good idea to reinforce the colonists first. I remember there is a persuasion check at the end of this mission which is impossible to pass if you visit it first. I don’t want to look it up, but I think it is important for the survival of Feros. I am not going to restart the game for it now, but I do hope there are other checks that can mitigate the failure of this one check.

Most of the reviews have commented on how awful the play experience is in the first Mass Effect, and how much better it gets with the second one onwards. I don’t know if it is just the nostalgia colored glasses, but I am having a whole lot of fun playing this one. As far as I remember, ME1 was the closest to being an RPG. The series became more action oriented as it went on. This one still carries some of the old Bioware charm. Bethesda is famous for jank in its games, but I remember games from Bioware to be deliciously janky as well. Even with the Legendary Edition polish, some of the old school messiness shines through, and Mass Effect 1 is all the more unique for it.

AJ 10/20/21 AJ 10/20/21

Mass Effect 1: Welcome to the Citadel

Citadel welcomes Normandy with open arms

Sheppard is still snooping around the Citadel to find more dirt on Saren. She meets up with a disgraced C-sec officer named Harkin. Harkin was the first human on C-Sec. As such whenever he did something untoward, the authorities looked the other way. Now there are loads of humans on the Citadel police so no one cares about him much. These days Harkin is considered a washed up officer who is constantly in trouble for taking bribes or being drunk on the job. The thing is Harkin is still a C-sec officer so he could help us get in touch with Garrus. Sheppard finds him at a bar getting drunk and being lecherous.

When he finds out who Sheppard is, he immediately goes on to bad mouth her superior officer. He tells Sheppard that Anderson was once in line to become the first Spectre but he also failed his mission and the opportunity to put a human on Spectre force passed away. This might be why he is so invested in seeing Sheppard succeed. Harkin also tells us that Garrus was on his way to apprehend someone at the medical clinic When he was last seen.

At the clinic, Jane walks into the middle of a hostage situation. Some thug has a gun to the doctor’s head. Consequences be damned, Garrus takes his shot. He is lucky enough to get the perp before the doctor is killed, but Sheppard is not impressed. She tells him that he put the life of an innocent civilian at risk when he decided to act in such a cavalier manner. As a law enforcement officer, he should be more mindful of his actions. I guess the cops are going to be the same in the future as well.

Luckily, the doctor is still alive to help us. She said the thugs had come in asking about a quarrian she had treated earlier. The quarrian herself had shown up asking for the Shadow Broker. This is quickly devolving into the mafia mess. Shadow Broker deals with information and has lots of dangerous and shady clients. No one has seen him or her. No one even knows if it is just one person or a group of people. Shadow Broker maintains an office on the Citadel, but all transactions are made through his representative. Even the representative has never met their boss.

Wrex is here to chew gum and kick ass. and he already chewed out his gum

The quarrian has some incriminating evidence against Saren, which she has not shared with anyone. She is adamant that she will only bring it personally to the Shadow Broker. In an effort to get to him, she has gone to someone named Fist. Fist runs a club in the wards called Chora’s Den. He is famously known as one of Shadow Broker’s representative. Unbeknownst to the quarrian, Fist has recently betrayed the Shadow Broker to join forces with Saren. As a result, there is a bounty out on him. Wrex, the krogan, has taken up the bounty and he is here as well. C-sec is trying to avoid a blood bath on the station, so they have brought Wrex in for questioning. Sheppard decides it will be useful to have another hand with her when she goes to face the mafia of Citadel. She finds Wrex in the C-sec, and he is willing to come along as long as he gets to kill Fist.

When the party gets to the Chora’s Den, Fist and his men are well prepared for a fire fight. After cutting through his goons, we finally get to Fist. Quarrian is no longer here. She did not want to hand the evidence over to Fist but instead wanted to talk directly to the Shadow Broker. Fist has arranged the meeting, and she is headed there right now. What she does not know is that it will be Saren’s men waiting for her over there. Fist has outlived his usefulness, so Wrex shoots him. Sheppard and Garrus are angry at him, but they knew exactly what they were getting into when they asked Wrex for help. All this indignation is for show. Which is why neither of them arrest the krogan.

Right now, we need to go save the quarrian. Sheppard and her team get there in the nick of time. Quarrian is saved and the evidence is recovered. Her name is Talia and is on her pilgrimage. She thought she could make good money by selling this evidence of Saren’s treason to the Broker. And that money would be the offering she could bring back with her to her flotilla. Talia is grateful for being rescued and as a toke of her gratitude, she offers the disc with the evidence to Sheppard. This is a voice recording of Saren ordering the Geth to attack Eden Prime. There is another voice on the record but none of the humas recognize it. Saren is heard talking of a mysterious race of machines called Reapers. He is trying to bring them back from somewhere. The Geth follow him because Reapers are gods to them. They see Saren is a prophet. This is enough evidence to convince the Council. Now we can finally go after Saren and see why he is working with the Geth.

We are still in the tutorial phase of the game. The names of places and races are coming in at a rapid pace. I remember most of the lore so it does not feel unfamiliar to me, but I can see how a newcomer may quickly get bogged down in the details. There are quite a few of the races already introduced. In fact, I think rachni and the batarians are the only ones not on the Citadel (and for good reason). We will see them later in the game. The batarian might even be one of the species that were introduced in the DLC. There were rachni wars in which the Salarians fought and batarian wars against humans. They are mentioned off-handedly but don’t come into play too much at the beginning of the game.

I had forgotten how quickly the main team is assembled. We have most of our team here. Asari is the only we have yet to meet. Mass Effect progresses at a rapid clip. There is no need to grind so there is no padding on here. The game is paced really well. There is the intro with the mission on Eden Prime and investigation on the Citadel. Then there are three main quests, followed by one more to wrap up the investigation. And then there is the final battle. I have a feeling I will breeze through this game.

Original Four of the Normandy Ride-Till-We-Die crew

AJ 10/18/21 AJ 10/18/21

Mass Effect 1 : Eden Prime

Remember when lens flares were all the rage?

Ashley definitely owns a Confederate flag

Eden Prime is the furthest human colony. Humanity has recently found space travel and they are eager to spread their wings and fly to the furthest corners of the galaxy. Eden Prime carries with it the promise of spreading out to new world and leaving Earth behind. As Normandy approaches the young colony, the ship receives an emergency transmission. The colony is under attack and taking heavy casualties. This mission just got more complicated. Alliance team is deployed while Nihlus go ahead to scout the land. Jane will be responsible for securing the beacon and her second priority will be to save the colonists. Sheppard finds the Geth are responsible for killing the humans here. Ashley is the lone surviving member of the security team on the ground. She joins the Normandy team to guide us to the beacon.

Nihlus has gone ahead and found dead colonists. He is also surprised to see another Spectre here. Saren has been in the force for a long time and Nihlus counts him among his most trusted associates. This makes Saren’s betrayal all the more shocking. The moment Nihlus turns his back, Saren puts hot laser through his head. With Nihlus dead, Saren orders the Geth to blow up the place and leave no signs of them being here behind.

Sheppard finally catches up to Nihlus only to find him dead. There is one human still alive over here, and he only survived by the virtue of being lazy. When the Geth attack came he had been sleeping behind some boxes, so they never saw him. It was fortunate he survived since it meant he was there to witness Saren killing Nihlus. If it was not for him, this death would have been the last nail on the coffin of any hopes of Sheppard becoming a Spectre. As it stands now, we know there was another Turian Spectre here and he has gone rogue. While trying to save Kaiden, Sheppard accidentally activates the beacon. It blows up but not before giving her some disturbing visions of death and destruction. Back on Normandy, Captain Anderson is not happy with these new developments. The mission has been a spectacular failure. The beacon has been destroyed, the colony itself is in shambles, one Spectre is dead while we are about to accuse another one of treason. This is not a good start to joining the ranks of galaxy police. Council will not be happy with this, but moreover Alliance brass is going to have a conniption when they hear this turn of events. There is not much left to do here but to head back to the Citadel with our tails between our legs.

Normandy heads back to the Citadel to report on our findings. If we thought Mass Relay was big, Citadel is humongous by comparison. It is bustling with activity even before we dock on the station. There are hundreds of ships in all colors and sizes going in and out of the station. This is the seat of the Council, the government of the galaxy, and the hub of intergalactic commerce. Ashley has not seen anything like it before. Pretty much everyone is in awe of the sheer size of this place. No one really knows how this place was built. Presumably, the Protheans built it as a seat of their government. Not enough records have survived from their time to tell us much about the place. It is maintained by the mysterious class of robots only known as Keepers. Any attempts at discovering their secrets have been met with failure. Making home in a mysterious construct built by an unknown race which disappeared mysteriously. Surely, this will not have any bad consequences. There is no way the owners of the place will ever show up and forcefully vacate the races living here.

Ashley has not gone full MAGA yet, but the clues have been there. While visiting the Volar embassy, she exclaims she can not tell the difference between aliens and animals. Maybe one of them has more intelligence than you do should be a clue, Ashley. Her rampant racism is something I remember from my first run through the game.

The meeting with the Council goes as well as can be expected. The human ambassador is a cantankerous old man who goes by the name Udina. He berated Anderson and Sheppard in private before even going up to the council. To his credit, Udina does stick by the story Sheppard has brought back with her. The Council is not willing to budge. They are dismissive of the whole mission and not even willing to consider Saren is a rogue agent. Sheppard is told to find some proof on her own before she comes back in front of the Council accusing one of their Spectres of treason.

Citdel will never look as beautiful as it does in ME 1

Udina is angered further when the Council decides against sending the fleet against the Geth to avenge the destruction of the human colony. He is told Humanity was well aware of the risk they were taking when they went to colonize the worlds at the end furthest ends of the traverse. Geth attacks are a part and parcel of being at the frontier. Udina points of the Council has been the entity that encouraged the humans to colonize the furthest corners of the galaxy, but the elder statesmen are in no mood to listen.

It is up to Sheppard to find enough evidence to convince the Council of Saren’s misdemeanors. While here wanderings through the Citadel, Sheppard becomes aware that C-Sec has also been investigating Saren. Citadel Security, or C-Sec is the agency tasked with policing the Citadel. They have noticed Saren has been in contact with the underworld of the Citadel. Garrus, a turian officer, was investigating Saren but has been told to shut down his case. He has taken too long and the investigation has been shut down.

Sheppard decides to seek him out and see if he has any info that may help bring Saren down. Garrus will become an important part of the Normandy team. I remember relying heavily on him during my last play. He does seem a little hotheaded on his introduction. Not at all I remember him being. As much as I remember this game, I think there are going to be a few surprises in here for me still.

AJ 6/14/21 AJ 6/14/21

Mass Effect 1 - Legendary Edition

It has been a while since my last entry here. I recently found out how correct every single person was about not having any free time once you have a baby. So my game time has taken a nose dive. Having said that, I was always going to make some time to visit the Mass Effect universe once the Legendary Edition was out. I do try to finish the games I have started before moving on to a new one, but often that is an exercise in futility. There are usually about five games I am in the middle of any given time. I have been meaning to revisit the Mass Effect trilogy for a while now. When the Legendary Edition was announced, I put it off so I could do it on the enhanced version of the games instead. Once the trilogy came out, I thought to hold off on it until I had cleared my plate a little so I could jump into it. That plan lasted all of two hours. I ended up buying the game on Steam the day it was released and started the first one soon after. Mass Effect has been one of the few series where I played through all the games (notwithstanding Andromeda).

This is the second Joker in my games and none from Batman.

I was a little apprehensive how well a new game would work on my system, but I need not have worried. That is the perk of building (or buying) a new pc. You can buy and run modern games with minimal troubleshooting. Granted this is a remaster, but there is a serious overhaul of graphics which could be taxing on an older system. I don’t think I have played a brand-new game on pc before. Certainly cannot remember buying one at full price and playing it.

The first thing I noticed was how big the total download is. It takes a 120 GB of hard drive space to install this thing. That is almost as big as a COD update. I don’t think I can pick and choose which ones I want to install either. It also connects to Origin before I can play. This has been an annoying trend in EA games. If I buy it on Steam, I have to have two instances of DRMs running to play it. Origin itself seems to have completely stagnated. Epic’s gamestore, which launched after Origin seems to have progressed further. Origin is barely a store and even less of a game delivery platform. EA is too busy counting money from Ultimate Team microtransactions to pay attention to anything else. Even Origin opens up with a FIFA flash screen, just to remind us where the priorities are for EA.

This time around I started with Jane Sheppard. I did not mess around with anything in my hurry to jump into the game. I think I will regret that decision for the whole of the trilogy. Since I did not mess with the character creation at all, I have gone in as a soldier class. This means Sheppard has no biotic capabilities. I am going to be missing out on a whole system of battle mechanics. I don’t want to start again, and I plan on carrying this character through the three games. Lets see how that pans out.

As much nostalgia as I do have for this series, I can not remember what system I played this on originally. This came out back when I was in school. Since I could not find enough time to play it during my semesters, I would play through each game whenever I visited my family on vacation. I might have played it on multiple different systems. There are vague memories of wishing to carry my character over to the next game but not having the ability to do so. Joker’s voice was enough to give me a nostalgia rush. Seth Green voice acted the Normandy pilot perfectly.

Joker brings Normandy up to the Mass Relay and I am once more in awe of the size of the construct. Normandy is on its way to Eden Prime. Seems like any other mission, but something is off. For one, there is a turian Spectre on board with us today. Nihlus seems like a friendly enough guy, but you never know with the Spectres. All suspicions come true as Jane is called into the briefing room to talk to Nihlus and Commander Anderson.

Lens flares were all the rage when this game out.

A Prothean beacon has been found on Eden Prime. It may help us understand the technology of long extinct race better. Last time something like this happened, humanity went from living on Earth to travelling though mass relays. Protheans were the most technologically advanced race in the universe who went mysteriously extinct, leaving all their technology behind. Every single sentient race that is travelling though space now is only able to do so with partial understanding of the Prothean tech. No wonder the Council is so keen on protecting and studying this beacon. Who know what knowledge it holds. Humanity gets to share in the spoils not because of any important place we hold in the Council, but just because human colony was lucky enough to discover the beacon.

Nihlus is travelling with Alliance crew not only to oversee the interests of Council, but also to observe Sheppard. The Alliance have been making a push to be included on the Galactic Council but the higher races are reluctant to include the hot-headed humans in governance of the whole of Milky Way. As a compromise they have conceded to allowing a human on the Spectre force. The Alliance sees this as the first step to gaining enough clout to become leaders in galactic politics. The Spectres are the enforcement arm of the Council, and they have complete authority in conducting their own missions. They are only answerable to the Council, but historically it has stayed out of Spectre business for the most part. Sheppard has been recommended to become the next Spectre, but all will depend on how she conducts the mission on Eden Prime.

AJ 1/19/21 AJ 1/19/21

Doom (2016) - One More Try

In the hierarchy of first person shooter video games, Doom would arguably be considered royalty. It was not the first 3D shooter, but it certainly was among the first to popularize the genre. Since the inception of the original for pc, there has been at least one Doom title released every decade. Doom 3 (2003) was not as well received as its predecessors, but even then, the hype for it was immense. I still remember the excitement around the time it came out. There weren’t computers out there capable of handling it. People were building new PCs with the sole purpose of playing Doom 3 at the highest possible settings. I think it might have been the first game to have dynamic lighting. Ultimately, having to manage light source was something most players did not like about the game. Although more and more players are recognizing it for a fun shooter that it is.

The next Doom (also the one I am going to be playing now) came out in 2016. It was the “return to roots” entry in the Doom library. Bethesda had already relaunched Wolfenstein with great success, there was no reason to think they would not be able to repeat it with Doom. It was fast and frantic with gore flying everywhere. The story did not get in the way of action. All the old demons were back, and so were all those original guns needed to blow them apart. Doom slayer was solely focused on slaying. He had no time for excuses and certainly did not care for the narrator’s rambling.

I originally got Doom (2016) on console (Xbox One I think) since I did not have a computer that could handle games from 2016. After listening to the reviews and multiple podcasts touting the greatness of this game, I decided to give it a try a few years ago. I did not like it much. It was a fast paced shooter where I found aiming to be a real chore. Especially the demons who would jump from ledge to ledge and then strafe me while throwing fireballs were a damn nuisance. I could not move my gun fast enough to keep them in sight. The shotgun was available early in the game, but the ammo was scarce. I kept running out of shells, forcing me to resort to the weak pistol. After struggling through the first few levels, I got stuck on a part where a particularly tough enemy could not be beaten because I just did not have enough ammo to deal with it. Instead of dropping difficulty, I stopped playing. I was just not having enough fun to justify coming back to it.

When I built my new PC, it gave me an opportunity to revisit quite a few of the games I had abandoned or avoided. Bethesda and ID started the new decade with a Doom title instead of waiting. Doom Eternal was one of the hottest games of the last year. Again, it received a strong positive critical response. There was a time when one could not avoid Belle from Animal Crossing and Doom Slayer from Eternal. When the Steam Sale rolled around, it was discounted quite a bit, but not as much as the previous one. I still had my reservations about Doom (2016), but at about $5 it was less than a chicken strip meal at Whataburger. I figured I will skip eating out one day and give it one more try.

Most my problems with the last experience had to do with controller based aiming. With mouse and keyboard, I figured I may be able to have a more enjoyable experience. There are so many games I had started simultaneously, what difference would one more make? So today I started Doom one more time. If it was still the same kind of experience, I was not going to spend too much time with it.

I was immediately blown away. It feels like a completely different experience. The game, by no means, looks ugly on the console. It is on a whole other level on PC. The colors are vivid, the everything seems to pop out of the screen. With the headphone on, music had me going from the moment Doom Slayer pumped his shotgun. I was ready to go when he broke the monitor to shut the narrator up.

Aiming with mouse was the missing piece that had kept me from enjoying the game earlier. Being able to aim quickly and more accurately made the action more manageable. The fast moving demons were no longer intimidating, and the shambling corpses were just fodder for my pistol. I was able to handle the waves of enemies with ease, and glory kills felt more natural when I did not have to push the joystick down for it. In fact, the melee to glory kill felt like a smooth extension of the shoot to stagger mechanic. I even used glory kills on staggered enemies to reach higher ground as traversal strategy.

I was out of the lab and onto the surface of Mars without a hitch. Mouse wheel makes switching between weapon on the fly possible. This changes how I handle different enemies. Switching shotgun in and out between enemies makes ammo management frictionless. This was not as smooth on the controller, where I ended up using a shotgun until I ran out of ammo and then made the switch. It feels more natural to choose guns based on who the opponent is.

First Person shooters are the second genre where I am seriously considering never playing on the console (unless they are console exclusives of course). Anything with aiming just easier with mouse and keyboard configuration. I am already not too keen on playing wRPGS on consoles. They are usually buggy with limited mod support (if any). There are quite a few unplayed games I have accumulated for PS4 and Xbox One over the years. I have a feeling I will end up buying most of them on PC again. In the meantime, I am going to see how far I can get in Doom and Doom Eternal.

01/17/2021