Virmire: Whoa, Hey, There Was A Plot?

Let me be honest.

I knew when I started this blog that I was going to have to draw some cray shit.

"Is there any way to make Mass Effect less horny?" I asked. Really!

But in the end, there's no way to do that. To perv is to mass effect, such is the essence of the story.

I mean, even though my art is truly, truly shitty, I kind of hope I can work out ways to work in new things, like different poses. Such is a puzzle, but I persevere.

Still, is there a way to avoid being known for drawing anything truly horny?

Or worse, to actually draw something awful?

These are things I worry about. Let's hope I don't resort to shitty Internet memes.

Okay, so the council -- remember those bastards? -- call Le Shep up and they're like, "Hey, we think Saren -- " -- remember that guy? -- " -- is on this backwater shithole called Virmire, go check it out if you want to advance the plot since you already did the Three Bioware Story Worlds (c) (tm)." Right, see, because the game actually does have a little more plot than "krogans have four balls." They have four balls, by the way. Don't make me draw them.

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I know some of you haven't played Mass Effect. That's fine. Well, no it isn't, go out and play it! I've been leaving smallish chunks of the game out just so that you'll discover them for yourself and be as delighted as the rest of the Internet was when they first played with Aveena or told off Presley or whatever.

There are three huge spoilers on Virmire. You need to trust me, here: I am leaving all three out.

Yup, even that one. The one you're thinking about.

So, the next blog posts that follow (Virmire will take three) will be ... enh, sort of truthful? Not really, because I'm writing around all these spoilers. If you pick up and play the game after reading this, I'm going to strongly advise you go check a walkthrough and spoil yourself, but hell, it's your choice. I know a lot of people who didn't, though, and were sorely disappointed with how Virmire shook out.

Speaking of: Virmire can end in several different ways, depending. This is one way.

So anyway, the Normandy's supposed to land on Virmire next to a Salarian STG camp. (Salarian STG troops are like spec op groups. They're the dudes that genophaged the krogans.) But, the geth have set up these tower things that are blocking the ... uh ... equipment ... signal ...

Shut up, I didn't pay attention to the science.

So, they're blocking the Normandy's mass effects, maybe, probably not, and so Shep and pals get to drop in the Mako and take the towers out.

Oh, yeah: Virmire is a jungle planet. It's stupid beautiful, but it also means that you're going to be rolling around in water to get to the towers. In the mako. My heart sings with glee.

There's all these geth guys, and you're supposed to shoot them, but ahhahaha guns ahahahah mako, so I just run them all over. This actually happened to me.

They make these big ass geth called geth colossus, right? They look like big fucking spider horse geth guys.

So I went to ram the fucker, you know, like you do, which normally kills them. Instead, the ragdoll physics fucked up somehow, and the body just sort of ... fell on the mako. I drove all around, but I couldn't get the body off. It was wiggling and ...

It just looked unfortunate.

Eventually, you drive up to a structure that looks really familiar if you've played other shooters. Ahem. Shepard and pals get out and run inside to the control room.

I seriously expect to go and blue screen a console every single time I play Virmire. It looks and feels so much like a Halo level, y'all don't even know.

So anyway, the Normandy lands, and Shep goes to talk to the STG leader, Captain Kirrahe. (You can say it "Kir-rah-hee" or "Kir-rah-hay," apparently either is correct?)

See, the salarians discovererd that Saren cured the genophage. Sweet! And he's got a secret krogan breeding facility to breed hundreds of angry, breedable krogan soldiers! Maybe not so sweet! Kirrahe sent a message to the council saying all that, plus the fact that he was bleeding men out the cloaca. Oh, by the way, salarians have a cloaca. The game makes this very clear. That's something you can add to that four ball sampler you're currently cross stitching.

The council got the message, but like it says in those two images I spent hours lovingly rendering, it got garbled, and the only thing the council could make out was "Saren" and "we're fucked". So, instead of the waves and waves of troops Kirrahe needed, he got Shepard. Awkward!

So, Kirrahe sets out his proposal: nuke the facility. Clean, simple, efficient. But, he's losing guys, so, err --

The game gives you a choice between Ashley or Kaidan. I have no idea why you can't send Tali or some shit, but there it is. It really truly doesn't matter who you chose, except for the fact that whoever you send with Kirrahe can't be in the party for storming the Virmire facility. Whatever, I always roll with Garrus and Liara, so I don't really need Ashley or Kaidan avaliable.

You can, naturally, guess who I always send, though.

So then we all gather for an inspirational speech.

If you've ever heard a Mass Effect nerd talk about holding the line? This is the scene. Congratulations, you're a nerd now too.

So the plan is that Kirrahe/Kaidan's team goes in and does, uh, something, and Shep and pals, also called "shadow team" for no real reason, sits in the lounge and enjoys hot cocoa goes in the back and kick's Saren in the nuts.

As you go along, Kaidan will radio Shepard and give these vague little hints. These are sidequests, dumbass! Please trust me on this, you need to do them. Trust. Me.

Most of them involve shooting satellites down off towers. Fuck, I don't know, maybe Kaidan really hates DishTV. Maybe he used to work for Time Warner.

So Shep and buddies bust in the facility, and what do they see?

Oh, hey, rad, some of Kirrahe's old men! I wonder what they're --

Indoctronation? That's probably a word you should remember.

Okay, the game hasn't outright told us yet, but you've got enough pieces to start figuring some shit out. Didn't Benezia say that Saren could control people? Whisper in their mind? Probably, that's what happened to the salarians in the facility, especially since they keep bitching about voices controlling them.

Wasn't Saren controlling them with a magical floating space ship? Shit. Maybe we should find that ship.

Unfortunately, Shepard finds something else instead.

But, can you imagine? The thing that Shepard sees next? Totally beats out some lame beacon.

Gonna save it for another entry, though.

NEXT TIME: Magical space ships.