Leviathan: My Experiment

So Leviathan's going to fight. Why? To protect the galaxy? For the greater good of organic life? Perhaps for the preservation of all things moral and cultural?

Naw, it's just because Leviathan has an ego alllllllmost as big as Shepard.

Anyway, let's literally jet on out of here.

Once ashore, some brutes roll up on Shepard.

Buuuuuuuut she's got the bends pretty bad, so that's a thing.

Hold the hell on, are they ... punching each other? The hell happened?

Ah! Gotcha, Leviathan's mind controlling them! Cool.

... as for the next part, do you remember when I said I was trying an experiment? The first time I played this section, I brought Garrus along, who stepped in:

Garrus helps you to the ship.

I was curious about this cut scene: does it only let your love interest carry you to the ship? Apparently not, Husbando~ said that Garrus carried him to the shuttle in his game. But what if Garrus isn't around?

That's why I brought Tali and Liara with me, I wanted to see what would happen if I brought the two physically weakest characters. Turns out:

Exactly the same thing happens. I'm honestly impressed, I was half expecting the game to sub in Steve.

I can't figure out how the game determines who carries you back to the ship. Maybe it prioritizes love interests? I think the game keeps a running tally of who you're nice to (it ties into the ending), which would explain why Liara took me to the ship instead of Tali. But what if I was doing Steve? Would he take me back to the ship, then?

Anyway, Liara gets it done.

It's time to leave!

But naw, Leviathan shoots the reaper out of the air.

On the shuttle:

What the hell did you think would happen, Liara?!

Famously, Garrus has a line here if you're doin' him that I hate:

Next time will be comic books, requests in the comments will be considered.

Leviathan: Leviathan

And so, we finally come face to face with Leviathan.

Leviathan then sends Shepard to some place that looks exactly like the place where Link meets Dark Link in Ocarina of Time.

What? What. Look at this shit, deny it:

Okay, the Leviathan area might be bluer, but still, damn, look at it.

PS, when I was searching for that, do you know how much, and I quote, "Dark Link x Reader" porn came up? JFC Internet.

Leviathan appears to Shepard and cycles through the form of Ann Bryson, Dr. Bryson, and Dr. Bryson's assistant. Why those three characters? I don't think Leviathan ever even posessed Dr. Bryson. If you're in the deepest recesses of Shepard's head, wouldn't Garrus or Joker or whatever be talking to her?

I think the answer is that Bioware couldn't reliably tell who would be dead or alive by the time you hit Leviathan, so they picked some NPCs instead of risking it.

This is, by the way, the part where I talk about keeping all of Leviathan's dialogue in tact, but there is a ton. I've edited it down this time.

Back in the diving mech, now Shepard has a nosebleed, because she's in an anime and has an erection I guess.

Let us now attend to the origin of Leviathan.

And maybe the origin of some other Mass Effect stuff.

... wait, that sounds --

Aside from the Morning War, and also EDI, I'm pretty sure I've yelled about this before.

I'm not sure which drawing I like better, the big eyed baby reaper or the big eyed baby reaper drawing the knife on Leviathan.

... I really love that we took the time to connect all of this to Mass Effect 2.

... valid point.

MSPixel Black Friday Special!

Welcome to MSPixel's Black Friday special! You know my deal: I give you guys a double length MSPixel, and you promise to stay in and not get shot over a megacorporation's wish to see y'all shoot each other over 15% off.

Because legit, lock your door, you gon get shot.

I've gone three games and never depicted the squad select screen? That's sort of irresponsible of me, really.

I took Tali and Liara for this mission, instead of my usual brosquad. I was doing an experiment. I'll tell you more later.

Yeah, a random energy pulse just rolls up and whacks us sideways, sending us plummeting to the surface. Kind of. Does an all-ocean planet have a surface? Either way, Cortez kindly finds us a little landing pad.

oh yeah and also reaper troops roll up too

What can I say? They're looking for Leviathan as well.

We take care of them with incinerate. ... what do you think we do?!

I was able to plonk enemies straight into the ocean, that was good times.

An unintended side effect of my experiment: Tali and Liara died once every, oh, three seconds. I had no idea how much I was relying on Garrus, dang.

Kill enough baddies and Steve will call you over.

Cortez comes up with a plan to get the mech online: he's going to give Shepard batteries, and Shepard's going to get the batteries to the mech. Cortez kind of totally stole that plan from multiplayer, but we'll forgive him.

So get that mech online, and it's pretty good times.

Man, so I ran into a situation on the last leg of this level.

Tali and Liara had died, you know, again.

Back to Cortez.

Leviathan gets compared a lot to Bioshock, but I think anything wet gets compared to Bioshock. Wet is kind of Bioshock's thing.

Exclusive Bioshock 4 screen shots:

Anyway, into the drink we go.

I'm glad we're doing an extra long MSPixel today, it gives me time to pull total bullshit.

The level here is simple enough: Shepard shoots little glowy probes, you walk toward them.

No, but seriously.

Ha! We have fun here at MSPixel Headquarters. But really,

Next time, I'll make him talk!