Citadel: Old Buddies

Before we start today? Before we start. HOLY CRAP I WANT IT. I can't believe Bioware made an N7 hoodie that was actually pretty trendy, you know? Holy crap I want that hoody so bad I'm vibrating. My birthday is coming up, send cash.

Welcome to the Space Skype Room! The Normandy's had a few upgrades. We'll be allowed to look around later, but one of the new things the Alliance sprung for was a brand new Space Skype Room where Shepard can Space Skype with all her Alliance buddies. The holograms are blue, not full color like the last game because the Alliance didn't have the cash money I guess.

Can you imagine the lag on Space Skype in real life?

DID NO ONE ELSE NOTICE THIS?! The Prothean device, also known as the Crucible by the by, big as life is a huge pipe with a head on it. Make it look like a cannon or something, Bioware. Shit. Like, at least pretend that this isn't the horniest game ever published? Pretend that we're not going after the reapers with a giant dick?

Fine, whatever, let's just go to the Citadel.

... what. None of you saw the Mass Effect 3 Citadel and was like, "Hey, that's straight out of Xenosaga 3?" None of you? Man, and I can't even hate on Bioware for it, Mass Effect is pretty much horny Canadian Xenosaga. Oh no, there are two video game trilogies out there with robots and floating space stations where everything is blue and shiny and the people wear long tunics, whatever shall we do.

Not to mention (spoiler for Mass Effect 3, highlight it to read): they both have big tittied robot weapons running around.

Allen was my favorite character. Don't look at me like that.

Guess who's going to greet us on Fifth Jerusalem the Citadel!

Ahem.

Which we can do, or we can play around on the Citadel first. Let's play!

Okay, uh, we need to talk about some life decisions that Bioware made.

Children, once upon a time, there was a lady named Jessica Chobot who licked a PSP. This qualified her to work at IGN. Of course it did, why wouldn't it. So anyway, Bioware decided to honor her as a video game lady by sticking her in Mass Effect 3 as a reporter, Diana Allers. They tried to make Allers look like Chobot, but ... it ... they didn't try hard. In addition, they had Chobot voice Allers, but she can't ... she can't ... she can't act. Or read lines. I hope Jennifer Hale got roaring drunk before she heard Chobot read lines, I do.

The result was this weird shiny bug-eyed poorly acted character in the middle of a pretty good game.

Why? I don't know. There was some suggestion that Bioware was trying to buy a good review from IGN? If I was going to pick a video game lady for the role, I would have picked Aisha Tyler. Tell me that wouldn't have been hot shit.

Shepard can invite her on the ship, and she may lead to a potentially better ending, but really, in the long run, probably not.

Really, there's only one reason to invite her on the ship: if you're an asshole with a shitty MSPaint parody blog, and you see an easy target, by all means, invite her the fuck on.

No one likes Diana Allers. Literally no one. That means I get to be as mean to her as I want! We'll have good times, Allers, try not to piss me off too bad.

Hey, wasn't Ashley in the hospital? Let's go see what's going on in there.

Oh, rad! You all remember Dr. Michel from Mass Effect 1, right? She was in the second Homeworlds too. She's back! Good times.

You can actually choose which doctor goes on the Normandy, but, I mean, is it a choice?

Husbando~ took Michel once. He says she does nothing at all.

Anyway, you can visit Ashley, but it's not exciting.

I have a ton of images for next time, so we'll cut here.

NEXT TIME: I draw a lot of middle fingers again.

Margo Monday!

So how does a multiplayer match actually work?

There are 10 waves, plus an extraction wave. For rounds 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9, you beat up all the bad guys on the map.

Waves 3, 6 and 10 are special in that the game will give you a co-op mission to complete before you complete all the bad guys on the map.

There's several tasks, the game will pick one at random. For example, you might have to hack a terminal and send data to the Alliance.

Once you're close enough to the terminal, your character's omnitool will light up and the game will put up a circular blue field around the terminal. If you stay in this field, your character's omnitool can connect to the terminal and send data. Step out of the field, the omnitool disconnects.

The more omnitools that are uploading, the faster this goes. Meaning, you want all four players in the field, uploading as much as they can.

Which of course means that you'll always play with at least one dick who won't get in the field for love nor money.

see 'cause there's stuff to kill and he's gotta get the most

i hear the amount of kills you get is equal to your penis length

A Metaphor

We now join Shepard and Brother TIM bitching each other out, now in progress.

\

Ashley's reward for doing Shepard's fucking job for her is Core beating the teeth out of her. Damn, that's legit hard.

Oh my GOD this picture looked 1000x better in my head. I could say that about literally every MSPixel drawing, but this one especially.

Anyway, Core punches out a console with her omnitool.

FUCK. FUCK. That's probably a thing, fuck!

She's uploaded the Prothean data to Cerberus! SHIT. We're done for now!

Core begins to run off.

You guys, chasing Core as a vanguard is a joke. All you do is wait about 20 seconds and hit charge, then wait again. You really don't even have to use the left stick if you don't want. All y'all who play sentinel are feeling really silly right now. (Ahem, husbando~.)

So Core hoofs it to a Cerberus shuttle, and --

-- can we talk about this scene for a second? I know it's seriously early in Mass Effect 3, but this is one of my favorites. Look at it: every character is a girl. The leader is a girl, she's got two girl sidekicks, the bad guy is a girl, whole nine. It's also not a plot point or anything that they're all girls, they're just all girls and it ain't a thing. You can't name me a moment in scifi that's like this one particular moment.

... you know, the Lifetime channel is trash, but them doing their very own space ship show would be cool.

Core's getting away! Fuck! Whatever will --

... is that Vega? Is that fucking Vega piloting that shuttle? And did he just crash into the whole of everything?

Ladies and gentlemen, a metaphor. Thanks, Bioware.

I fucking hate James Vega, I swear.

At least Core's a burning husk now, so hey.

WHAT THE HELL

Core's alive? Fuck! All her human parts have burnt off! Core was never human to begin with, she's a fucking robot!

Core kicks the shit out of Ashley, since that's pretty much her hobby now. Actually, I think that's what she lists as her occupation on her taxes. She comes after Shepard, but Shepard at least has the time to draw some heat:

There's some glitch here if you're playing New Game +, something about the game giving you a gun that can't shoot Core in time. I don't know what it is, one of you will correct me in the comments.

Anyway, I've got a theory about the Mass Effect Story: Joker doomed the galaxy to extinction in Mass Effect 2, but Shepard, right here, signs the paperwork in one line:

We'll talk later. Shepard grabs Ashley and they all scoot off to the shuttle to escape, right as some reapers land on Mars.

... if the secret to beating the reapers is ON MARS, why the hell didn't the reapers reap Mars FIRST? Why did they even bother with the other planets? All they had to do was fuckin' eat Mars or whatever it is they're doing, THEN go after the other planets.

Actually, if I was going to fuck up the galaxy, I'd probably reap the Citadel first. Or Thessia. Not fucking Vancouver. Who the hell is the strategist for the reapers?!

Anyway, let us now to the Normandy med bay, where we can find Ashley's mangled remains.

Did this scene not kill you guys?

Eww, Gross!

But everyone who read Mass Effect Evolution could have already told you that.

As they go through the facility, everyone comes on a giant ass turret.

Welcome to the cover tutorial! This is how you play the cover tutorial:

Fuck cover in this game. It doesn't work. Thankfully, I play vanguard!

What the hell with this scene? Anyway, let's see what Ashley's up to.

Wait, what the hell? Is Cerberus turning humans into husks to use as an army? Who the hell saw that coming?! Besides the smart, sexy readers of MSPixel, that is, because we went through the media.

... someone's going to wail on Ashley for being mad at Shepard, but she kind of has a point. I never felt like Bioware gave a strong enough reason for Shepard to not just give the finger to Cerberus in Mass Effect 2 and march off. I think she has one line back in ME2 about needing the resources Cerberus has, but ... like ... that's a major plot point through two games. You don't give it one line.

Also there is literally no reason for the Illusive Man to not get pissed off, grab Shep at the end of Mass Effect 2, and reaperize the fuck out of her. He did it to Paul Grayson, and he liked Paul Grayson!

I love it whenever Shepard acts. Saving the galaxy is no big, but sounding natural on a microphone is hard work, y'all.

If you thought the same thing when Shep et all hit the Prothean archive, we could party.

Okay, watch this, this is some quality shit.

So yeah, Brother Tim shows up in a hologram, but did you notice? Liara pulls heat on a hologram! Doesn't she have a doctorate? I'd expect that shit out of Shepard, but come on!

HEY, THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT: Most people lock themselves out of one of the endings right here. Here, let me help. The game's going to flip you to a dialog choice.

I have no idea what the right two options are, but it doesn't fucking matter, because you're going to pick the left option. Shepard and Brother TIM will argue a little more.

This happens, I am a shit, ect.

Okay, so, the dialogue wheel will pop up again.

I Xed out the shit on the right, because you're not picking it. You're only allowed to pick blue or red.

You have to blue or red option TIM every time he shows up to get the good ending, if you were wondering.

... as good as any of the endings in this game are OH BURN OH FUCK.

NEXT TIME: Shepard quite literally brings about the end times.