Citadel: Climax

Hi, there's a spoiler in this post. I didn't write around it.

Did you ever doubt that Shepard was a badass?

Naw, see, because she gets out of the car, stands on it, and then shoots at Kai Leng. I mean, he barriers her, but shit on my chest, she just climbs on the damn car.

But, brother Leng still manages to get away.

... don't worry about Shepard. If death didn't stop her, explosions aren't going to do shit.

Shep et all fight their way to the elevators.

Luckily, Liara and Garrus find a second elevator, and get in. They all climb on top of the elevator. Bailey helps us out:

Which is all well and good, but?

Vanguard don't shoot. I've spent three games not shooting at anything, I can't hit the broad side of a barn. I almost failed out of this section the first time I played. But hey! Want to know a cool trick?

Pull will also take out the elevators. Probably, there's other powers that work on them too?

To finish this section, Shepard and company jump on the elevator that holds Ashley and the Citadel council.

Want a hint? Udina's crooked, remember? He knows the elevator's full of Cerberus guys, and he knows they're all about to get killed.

We don't know all the deets yet, but you can start putting some stuff together: Udina is the human councilor, Cerberus is a pro-human group ...

Oh yeah, and if you're not quick on the paragon interrupt, another squadmate (Garrus in my game) will totally waste Ashley. I saved her. You can probably figure out why it's more advantageous to keep her alive.

The game goes through a check here: if you're nice to Ashley, you get one scene. If you weren't, you get another. Interestingly enough, I was nice to Ashley but not SUPER nice to Ashley (I visited her in the hospital and wasn't a dick to her on Mars, but we didn't fuck her in ME1 so that's a thing). Luckily, the game also factors in your reputation score, and I did a bunch of sidequests off-camera to pop that up way high. So, we'll be getting the nice scene, which is:

*cough*

Kay, so, Udina gets shot. You can't get around it if you save Ashley. There's a renegade interrupt here, if you take it, Shepard takes the shot, otherwise, Ashley will do it. I usually let Ashley take the shot, but this time I got spooked on my interrupts and Shepard took it.

I considered lying and showing Ashley taking the shot, but that's not the sort of hard hitting journalism you've come to expect from your serious art blog over the years.

Jus' Folks

On occasion in Mass Effect 3, you'll be invited to the Citadel to piss around with various NPCs.

... the good news is that this is more of a beginning of the game thing than an end of game thing, so the plot does pick up somewhat after we do a few of these.

Since we're talking about NPCs, here's the thing about Miranda in ME3: if she says to do something? Do it. Fast. Just trust me, when Miranda says jump, you're going to ask how high.

This first time, though, she doesn't have much for us to do. That's okay, let's go see if there's another Mass Effect 2 regular hanging around the Citadel.

Oh, shit, hi Kelly!

... that sounds like a joke, but you actually can tell Kelly to change her look so that Cerberus won't find her. I know it's the renegade choice, but trust me, do it.

Not too far from Kelly is Garrus! Apparently he helps the turian refugees when he's not busy calibrating the Normandy guns or assisting Shepard on missions.

... do you not just hate people like that?

Anyway, moving on, we --

This is in the game, I'm not being a shit.

Hey, let's see who's in the bar.

I'm not being a shit, again, this is also in the game, the horniest game there is.

Fuck you, Vega.

Anyway, we're also here to see Ashley in the hospital. When we enter Huerta Memorial Hospital, though, we get to see an old friend:

(You know there were fangirls who were mad over this? His first line in Mass Effect 2 was "I am dying," it's not like Bioware exactly sprung that one on us.)

Speaking of Ashley, we probably need to go peek in on her now.

HEY! Pay attention to this next bit, this is, like, actual factual plot that's about to happen.

NEXT TIME: The next people to talk to cause unsafe blood pressure spikes, you've been warned.