MSPixel: Noveria: Ice, Ice, Baby

So the council calls up and is like, "Hey, we're picking up some shit from this backwater planet called Virmire, you maybe want to look into that?" but we're doing Noveria first because I'm a ~~maverick~~ renegade.

So. Noveria. Do you remember Hoth? You know, that one planet that Kirk landed on in Star Trek 11 and found Spockimus Prime? It's like the same shit, all icy and snowy and whatever. Mass Effect does love its sci fi roots.

If you land and try to take a party ashore without Liara, one of your party members will bitch at you. I mean, we're going after her mom, right? She might want to be involved. You can actually proceed without her, but ... why?

I like taking Garrus too, mostly because Liara and Garrus are my ME1 Bro Squad, but also because as a turian he grew up on Palaven, the ... uh, turian planet. It's all hot, like Vulcan. You know, the place where the Fire Temple is in Legend of Zelda. (Why yes, I love delicious nerd tears, why do you ask?)

Point being, I imagine this cool little scenario where Garrus is all like, "Oh shit, I've never seen snow before," and maybe they all go make snow angels really quick, I don't know. In reality, if you talk to the bastard, all he does is whine for the entire mission.

So anyway, the Normandy docks, and this lady named Captain Matsuo rolls up and gets all in Shepard's shit because she ... docked and got off the Normandy? I don't know, you'd think that if she was going to get that pissed over it, she wouldn't have cleared the Normandy for landing, but hey. Shep pulls out her Spectre status, and Matsuo has to back down, telling you that Parsini-san is waiting for you.

She really does say "Parsini-san," too. The game alludes to the fact that everyone in the Mass Effect universe, humans, aliens, what-have-you, wear universal translators over one ear. That's why the aliens all magically speak English. I love to think that this is the same universal translator that Hoshi developed. Why wouldn't it be? It even fits in the Star Trek timeline.

Hey, are you paying attention? There's Vulcan, mind melds, and universal translators. People look at me cockeyed when I say that the Star Trek universe and the Mass Effect universe are one and the same, but damnit ~I know it in my heart~.

Point being, the universal translators are fine, but they're not spectacular, and they let words slip through every so often. Matsuo may have legit been speaking total Japanese, and "Parsini-san" just slipped right on through. You'll see a few more words in Mass Effect 2 that the translator can't decipher, quarian ones to be specific, and in Mass Effect 3 we discover that apparently the translator doesn't know much Spanish. (Please tell me at least one of you other nerds was wigging out over that? No one?)

So you're allowed into Noveria's main commerce port, which is really dull looking. Like, seriously, it's a planet made out of concrete. Wouldn't it all freeze and break on an ice planet? Anyway, I know I haven't really been putting in that much effort towards drawing backgrounds, but trust me: on Noveria, you're not missing much.

Right as you come in, Parsini-San, also known as Gianna Parsini, greets you just as a bunch of alarms go off.

(Varren are kind of like dogs in the Mass Effect universe, if dogs were also rats and lizards.)

Shep asks what's good in Noveria, and Parsini tells her that some dame named Benezia was up in here a few days ago. Hey! That sounds relevant! Turns out, Benezia's chilling (har) up at Peak 15.

You guys, wasn't Peak 15 an area in Chrono Trigger? I'm looking that up later, I swear.

Okay, I looked it up. I have Death Peak mixed up with Lab 16, I think. They're both in 2300 AD, can you blame me? It's the future, it's snowy, there's a lab involved, Chrono Trigger and Mass Effect are both great games, I'm just going to run with it. Benezia's up on Death Peak.

To get to Peak 15/Lab 16/Guardia, you've got to drive through the snow, so you've got to go into the garage. Unfortunately, there's a guard in the way, and he can't let you through without a garage pass.

Hey, guard! How do we get a garage pass?

I am not futzing around, that's the actual line from the game.

Oh, Mister Guard, but the gizzard we will polish in Mass effect 2. You wish I was shitting.

There's like a hundred ways to get the garage pass. I know of one.

You wander around Porre until ~~Square makes a better fucking sequel than Chrono Cross what the hell were they thinking~~ you come across a turian sitting at a bar, alone. This is Lorik Qui'in. I have no idea if this is a reference to a lorikeet, which is a kind of bird. It's a big coincidence if it's not.

Lorik used to be in charge of renting office space on Noveria. This is what epic sci fi shooters are made of, are you paying attention? Anyway, a salarian named Anoleis took it over, but he's overcharging people because he's a money grubbing little bastard. Lorik found out, but Anoleis busted into his offices, threw him out on his ... whatever the hell passes for an ear on a turian, and won't let him back in.

I hear that's the plot of Halo 4, by the way. CALL OF DUTY: ADJUSTING RENT RATES.

So anyway, he offers Shep his garage pass if Shepard will break into the offices and upload Lorik's evidence onto a usb drive. The game calls it something else, but let's not shit with each other, it's a usb drive.

Lorik then utters one of the more famous lines in the Mass Effect games:

The story implies that turians are obsessed with human culture. Like, they're some kind of Earth weeaboos or something.

Okay, fine, I have no idea how to draw a united Earth cultural turian. I took a screaming shot at it, though.

Today, my husband will come home from work. "What did you do today?" he'll ask. I will not have the heart to reply, "I drew a turian in a Mickey Mouse hat."

The next part's a little dull: Shep goes into the office, shoots some guys, connects the usb drive, gets the data, and comes back out. The office insides look exactly like the rest of Noveria, which is to say, you're still not missing anything art-wise.

So Giana rolls up just as you exit the office, and she's all, "Hey, what was that noise?"

And Shep's like, "Um, I dunno, snow and shit."

So Giana's like, "Whatever, meet me at the bar BEFORE you talk to Lorik."

So you do, and Giana reintroduces herself as an agent for Noveria Internal Affairs. She's after Anoleis, too! She wants Shep to convince Lorik to testify!

I have no idea why Giana couldn't have just gone to Lorik herself and been like, "We both hate the balls off this guy, let's do this," or why Giana even let Shep go get the data, or even why she wanted Shepard to meet her IN A CROWDED BAR versus an alleyway. Look, the important thing is, we've got to get into that garage so that we can get the jetbike to race Johnny across Lab 32.

So Shep talks Lorik into it. There's actually a [LIE] option on this part of the game, which is very old school Bioware. I appreciated it. I always just take the blue option and convince Lorik that he'll be a hero for testifying.

Shepard goes to see Giana, and Giana's like, "Rad. That is rad as hell. I'm going to go bust Anaoleis now." She actually mutters, "I hate skirts" as she walks off the screen. Any lady in the Mass Effect universe, unless they live on the Normandy, wears these incredibly long skirts ~~so Bioware didn't have to animate their legs.~~ See also: Dragon Age.

So Giana steps off the screen and beats the shit out of Anoleis. Off screen. Whoop dee diddle shit. Before she goes, she tosses Shep a garage pass. Yay, we can go to the garage now! This is the victory music that plays. Okay, maybe not, but I'm on a Chrono roll right now.

Actually, at this point, both Liara and Garrus start bitching about the snow. Hey, hey! Let's not be like that, guys!