Rannoch: Carl

Okay, so. Our homie Sovereign got an entire entry to himself, probably we should let this reaper have his own entry.

You know what I realized? We never got to have this conversation with Harbinger. This was a big feature in Mass Effect 1, and they're bringing it back for ME3, but ... I dunno, I guess the most Harbinger gets is to perve on Shep?

Also, this reaper, while significant to the plot, has no name. I have named him Carl. Sovereign, Harbinger, Carl. Sounds legit.

Carl was the reaper put specificially in charge of the geth. Since Carl's on his last legs, the geth'll be free as soon as this motherfucker quits soliloquizing.

For the ease of our literary analysis, this is exactly what Carl says in game.

okay except for that

Hay gurl, is Carl busy telling us the reaper's final solution? It's very close.

Don't forget, Sovereign said that the reapers harvest folk at the "apex of their glory," so that matches up.

Wait, but why does Carl think we're all gonna die if we keep on living?

Shep's highlighted something important here: the reapers think they're the good guys, but they don't seem to want to say why.

I love this line, because it matches up so nicely with a line from Mass Effect 1:

I'm being a shit.

There's a weird ... I'm not sure it's a plot hole. Inconsistency? Inconsistency, I guess, anyway, it's in the story, and for whatever reason Bioware addresses it exactly Zero Times. The reapers are all like, "NOPE NOPE ORGANICS AND SYNTHETICS THAT'S NOT HAPPENING" and, you know, we just fixed that. We're about to, like, turbo fix it on Friday.

It'll pop up again, just keep that in your back pocket.

No it doesn't. It's over. We all cool. What the hell, Carl.

Yo, not to stomp all over Carl's dramatic exit, but it's worth mentioning that Carl said nothing of Harbinger's final solution, which was that reapers used organic life to make semen. What, you go back into that entry and you fact check me, that's what they're using us for!

... Harbinger was some kind of crazy off the rails pervert, real talk.

Priority Rannoch: She's Commander Shepard

And here we have the target, the reaper base.

I can draw two guns, if you've noticed. If I put that thingie on the end of the target painter, then it magically becomes a third gun! Art.

I can't remember if the Normandy just lazers it or bombs it, but I love the visual of tossing that bomb-omb Mario Kart style, so the visual stays. ... damn, I should have drawn a banana peel.

You'll never guess what happens to Shepard next.

Okay, so there might have been a reaper inside the reaper base. Oops. This was a surprise to everyone who didn't see the E3 trailer for Mass Effect 3. Hell, this game's been out how many years? I realized, like, last week that Shepard didn't expect the reaper.

You know what solution Shepard comes up with to, "Oh fuck, Shepard's face to face with a real reaper right now?"

SHE PULLS OUT HER PISTOL. I love you, Shepard, don't you dare change.

That's cool, Legion's got our back.

Shepard climbs on top of the geth fighter to use the turret. I guess geth fighters have turrets now? Anyway, everyone knows how much reapers hate turret fire. I guess. She shoots ping pong balls at the reaper while yelling at the quarian fleet.

Finally, Han'Gerrel shoots first.

I'm not convinced he actually heard Shepard calling for help. I think he just takes pot shots at whatever target sounds good at the time. Look, the alternative is thinking that Han'Gerrel actually did a good, so.

Gerrel manages to stun the reaper, giving everyone a second to make a plan.

Welcome to my favorite character moment in the Mass Effect series, in any given game/book/comic, for any given character. Ever.

After all, what's the one thing that defines Shep?

Shepard hops down and tells Legion et all to get the hell out, because she's going to defeat the reaper on foot.

It's Shepard, of course this makes, like, perfect sense to her.

Well?

All right, welcome to the coolest boss fight in the game. That blinking headbit on the reaper? That's where the reaper fires out of. Shepard has to paint the target so that the quarian fleet knows where to shoot. But, it's got, you know, lasers coming out of it, and Shepard's on foot, so that's a thing.

So, what do you do? Die a lot. No, really, have you ever played a bullet hell shooter? You probably have, stuff like Ikaruga or Gradius or even Parodius. Hell, I'll count Cho Aniki.

In those games, you can guide the bullets by flying your little ship over to the part of the screen you don' want to be in, which tricks the CPU into shooting over there. You can then zip over to a safe part of the screen and be safe from all of the bullets. That's what you need to do to the reaper. Let's look at a map.

Bioware kindly put a rock on the right side of the screen, which would be fine in real life, but you can't see your peripheral, so you're going to wind up getting backed into that rock and dying a lot if you play over there. Start at the left.

Sit in the left corner, wait for the reaper to fire, and then zip to the middle of the screen. In the middle, you can move around (just in case the reaper starts changing directions on you), but you've got the lead time that you bought yourself by standing in the left corner. There comes a point when the laser will get so close that you can stand still and let it pass over your head, use that time to keep firing and painting the target.

When the quarians bomb the reaper, it moves up on you. After three bombs, it's pretty much right up in Shepard's shit.

She doesn't care. After all?

She's Commander Shepard.

SATURDAY POST: Zaeed's Cooking Corner

Nothin' important, just enjoy the video.

Priority Rannoch: I'm Bad At Video Games

I accidentally triggered this conversation too early, and my dumb ass didn't write it down, so we're going off my memory. Raan's laying out our battle plans here.

I seriously love the set up to this mission, because it's all like:

I love it when we remember that Shepard is the big dumb coconut that we roll out when we need something dead.

Okay, so, Rannoch. We gon' end this shit.

For this mission, Tali is forced into the party. I brought Garrus for his mad tech skills. Legion tags along too, because it's kind of his plot line and all, but he doesn't get to come into the party.

Legion briefs you in the shuttle: Shepard and pals are going to go to the reaper base, paint the target, and get the fuck out of Dodge while the Normandy carpet bombs Rannoch. Legion is going to ... um ... you see ...

Legion is Team A, and will go to the holding area, where there is a television, and some cocoa. He will drink the cocoa and watch family programming while Shepard paints the target, I think.

... it's just so Bioware didn't have to stick him in the party.

REALLY, Shepard? REALLY. FUCKING REALLY. Naw, they shot you up like fucking swiss cheese in Mass Effect 1, but no, God be with the little innocent baby fluffy angel geth.

I get so fucking tired of Mass Effect 3 trying to act like synthetic life is so pwecious and special and without sin, like none of us were fucking present during during Mass Effect 1.

And if you want me to yell more about people forgetting Mass Effect 1, tune in to the ending of Mass Effect 3! Let's land on Rannoch.

I said Rannoch was pretty at night. It's kind of a hellhole during the day. It's almost like the robots took their chance to inhabit a planet and shat it down their leg because they have no respect for organic life! Wow, if they can't take care of a planet, we should totally trust them with the rest of the galaxy!

I know there's a canon explanation for why the quarians didn't just say "fuck it" and take another planet, but I can't remember it. There's like a billion, they could've found a nice one.

... I think Tali's supposed to pick up a rock and hand it to Shepard, but in my game, it was a clump of air. I can see why maybe the Bioware Art Team spent more time on, say, reapers than a rock in a random cutscene.

Okay, so we've got to get into the reaper base before we can blow it the fuck up. Shepard's got to climb some stuff to get in.

Mass Effect 3 will kindly show you a blue arrow whenever you can jump on stuff. It will not, however, reliably allow you to jump on said stuff.

The game throws, like, a raw shit ton of geth at you. You know, those sugar baby angel geth that we're supposed to be saving, bwess their widdwe heads.

Never mind bad art, I could realtalk make an entire blog on how fucking bad I am at video games.

Let's radio Legion.

By the way, did you know Tali can hack primes?

I think I've done it in multiplayer, but this might have been the first time I did it in single player, so that's rad.

Next time, let's paint the target, bomb the base, and go home! Nothing bad at all will happen!