Now Leaving Vancouver, Population: Reaped

Holy crap, you all, I had the worst time getting MSPaint to work. You want to talk about being shot in the knees.

When we last left our heroes, we'd just hit some bay in Vancouver. It may be Vancouver Bay. Is that a place?

Just in case you've forgotten, this shit is still going on:

Anderson is more concerned with getting in contact in the Normandy, which sort of backfires on him and Shepard.

... or front fires. Whatever it takes to make the pun.

Our Shepard falling off shit count is up to 2 by now.

All right, defend the guys. That shouldn't be a --

AWW HELL NAW.

The tutorial level wants you to shoot shit, I think, but damnit, that's not what we're about right now! Vanguard uses charge! We should be charging things!

Fine. I pulled all the husks out of the way, only to hear:

Thankfully, the game gives us back charge in this fight.

Here's the coolest thing about Mass Effect 3. Vanguards have a new ability. After they charge, they can, well --

Meet nova! Charge's best friend!

Nova causes Shepard to jump in the air and slam a bunch of biotic shit down, thus killing whatever charge didn't get. Nova drains your shields, but by the time it goes off, charge is recharged, and charge brings your shields back up once it hits, if you spec it right.

Leaving you free to be all,

Vanguards are literally invincible.

vanguard = best class

don't deny

Anyway, if you play Mass Effect 3 right, the screen looks like this:

Let's all take a moment to look at that photorealism. Let's just soak it in.

Anderson will then ask Shepard to hold some husks off until the Normandy can extract them. I've heard a few varying things about this fight. I don't know what the ending condition is. It's not on a timer. I've heard it lasts until Shepard runs out of ammo, that sort of feels right.

Anyway, once whatever it takes happens:

How the hell did the Normandy just fly past all the reapers, not to mention the buildings, and pull up that close to the bay? I mean, I know it's not a huge ship, but it's still got to be taking the top off a building or something.

"Hey, Bean, it doesn't get in that close!"

It gets in close enough for Shepard to jump on board!

Hey, next to Vega: everyone wave hello to Ashley's new character design! She let her hair out of her bun and got blue armor. The Internet got mad, of course it did, because the Internet always gets mad over everything. I don't know, I kind of like her blue armor, but I also like Ashley, which is like the least popular opinion a Mass Effect nerd can hold next to "Miranda is one of my favorite characters" and "Hey, let's all fuck Jacob!".

Shepard's tags have taken a weird path through the three games, do we all realize that? Some merc stole them off Shepard's dead body, Liara swiped them from there, and I guess Anderson pocketed them when he and Vega took Shepard off the Normandy.

... Liara and Anderson are creepy. Fuck.

Does that tie everyone up?

Oh, right! The little nameless kid! Welp, he's getting on a shuttle, he should be good.

Yup, totally --

Um. Okay, that's something.

Shepard's visibly upset by the little boy's shuttle, because she's killed piles of men before on her way to get a soda from the corner store. Wait, hold on, what?

Don't think too hard about this, this is obviously the last time we're going to talk about that kid. Instead, let us focus on the last scene of Mass Effect 3's opening, which is the reapers reaping the ever loving fuck out of Canada.

Well?! She's got a point! Anderson is the first NPC who lives through the tutorial level and doesn't become a squadmate.

... there've been a few that have lived and become a squadmate immediately for their trouble, such as Dawn Star, Kaidan, and Amy Rose. Amy Rose is a Bioware character, don't you kind of hate knowing that? Either way, Anderson just totally achieved a first, here.