The Return

After feeling a bit stressed and seeing a ton of very nostalgic The Witcher 3 content related to the 10th anniversary of its release, I decided that it was a good time to spend some quality time with one of my favorite game series.  Now here's where you would think I would go for The Witcher 3, but no, why would I do something so logical?  Instead, I decided that I should revisit my favorite commander on the Citadel--good ol' Commander Shepard in Mass Effect.

Shockingly it had been 2 entire years since I had done a re-play (I generally like to do an annual re-play just for funsies).  I completely forgot how irritating it is to boot up the legendary edition on Steam only to remember that you have to go through the EA App (ick).  For my umpteenth playthrough I decided to go with a male Shepard--I generally opt for femshep because she is voiced by THE absolute video game voice acting legend that is Jennifer Hale--but, I decided that I should roll as the male Shep this time around for a bit of variety.  I think my only other male Shep playthrough was the one time I decided to do a hardcore renegade run (so many people got shot...and punched...and betrayed).

Here's my Shep (a nice looking fella).  He's a space born, war hero, infiltrator who blasts all the baddies with a sniper rifle.  Oh and I think he's going to strike up a nice romance with Ashley (who I know gets a ton of hate).

Paul Shepard--paragon of the sniper rifle.

I'm in an awesome Mass Effect fan group on social media and there is usually an intense debate about starting off with the first game or jumping straight into the second.  I will admit that ME2 is definitely my favorite in the bunch, but skipping the first game just feels like blasphemy.  The writing and atmosphere in the first game is so great--it almost makes up for the janky combat and weird exploration with the Mako.  The legendary edition upgrade also slapped on a fresh coat of paint and slightly revamped combat so it's not only less difficult (I never could finish the OG game on insanity--krogan were basically unkillable--but I can easily do it in the legendary edition) but it's also much less annoying.

The beginning of Mass Effect is such a mixed bag--you start off injected into the middle of a great space mystery but then find yourself plopped on the Citadel and just basically sightseeing.  Perhaps part of that is the fact that I've played it so many times that I know exactly where all the quests are and it's my goal to complete them all in one go.  It becomes fairly boring, so I can totally understand why some people might have started up ME in the past and decided that it wasn't for them.  Once you get past the Citadel, things start to take off and you're back in the mix.

I'm not to my favorite part of the game (the fight on the Citadel), but I'm making progress.  I'm also very much loving the ease of moving from game to game in the legendary edition--no struggling with importing saves or downloading DLC's--just fire up the next game in the series and get rolling.

If you're feeling stressed or sad, fire up a nostalgic favorite and bask in the glow of familiarity.  Chat up your favorite romantic interest and feel all the feels for the 900th time.  7 more days of school for me and then it's the magic of summer!  If you're a fellow educator, hang in there, we'll make it!