S1E1 - Gas Bag Massacre (Eden Prime)

Welcome back, Commander. Though it may not know it yet, the galaxy is under threat, and to combat this threat, two idiots must ride a train and disarm a bomb. The game is Mass Effect, and this is the N7 Project. Welcome back to the N7 Project. We are going to start off with our status report. Status report. Zach, it's only been about five minutes since we recorded our last episode. How are things going for you?

Well, you know, a lot's happened in those five minutes. Apparently, my video froze.

Okay. Actually, I do have an idea. We have to do a dog check because what. What dogs are in the. Are in the recording studio today.

At the moment, we have Imoen, who is hard asleep on her bed. We've got Pico similarly asleep in his bed, Penny following suit, and we've got Piper in her little crate right now.

So it sounds like you have the full suite.

Oh, yeah, we got all four dogs in here. We do this mainly because if they're in here, they're sleeping. If they're anywhere else in the house, they're barking at everything that moves.

Gotcha.

Kind of their. Their chill zone.

So I have today in the recording studio is just pretty boy who insists on coming into the office, but then when I close the door, seems to get kind of upset about it and just, like, goes and sits by the door.

Oh, buddy.

Because what he would really prefer is that allows him to do whatever the fuck he wants. That's what he would really prefer. So. All right. Yeah, man. I am thinking about buying an MP3 player in, like, the year of our lords. 2020. 20. 20, 21, 22.

Like, did we just go back in time 20 years? What's happening?

The problem is that they stopped putting 3.5 millimeter jacks on cell phones.

Okay.

So you have to, like, use the special dongle thing to, like, hook up your cell phone to your headphones. And I've been trying to, like, listen to more music on decent headphones lately. And so I have. That's, like, kind of a faff. And then also, this happened with my last phone. If you use the USB C port a lot for that kind of thing, it gets looser and looser over time, and it becomes worse and worse. And it's like, the problem is that, like, it ruins. It's, like, slowly wears down my phone and, like, it sucks to, like, to be plugging and unplugging that thing. And then also, like, earlier this week, I found a band that I really like. They're a funk band that does covers.

Okay.

And they're not on Spotify, but they're amazing. And so I'm going to have. I had to download actual MP3s like a caveman, and they're just sitting on my hard drive where I will never listen to them. So I've got to, like. I guess I could put them on my phone, but I don't know how to do that. And I'm, like, thinking about just getting, like, a. Like a zoom or an ipod or something.

Get a zoom. Good Lord. You know, I actually still have one around here somewhere.

Oh, dear.

That was actually the last player I own, to be honest.

Yeah, I had an ipod. Oh. That was the last time that I owned. Okay. With the dog check in and our other things out of the way, let's get into our mission briefing.

All righty.

Mission debrief. First of all, the very most important question of all. Zach, do you shoot the gas bag?

Aliens didn't this time. I did the first time because, you know, that's. They're there.

It's like a compulsion almost where, like, you're like, there's a thing and I have a gun. I should shoot this gas back alien. It makes like. I don't know. I have a hard time not shooting them because, like, my brain is like, they're a thing that I can shoot. Like, I should shoot them, right?

Like, now that I know what they are, like, I feel bad. Just like shooting basically cattle.

Yeah, that's true. Okay, so let's go through what happened this time on Mass Effect. All right, Shepard and their team are dropped into Eden prime, currently under attack from the robotic Gethsemane after promptly getting lost because they missed a left turn. Literally, I miss this bit every time. It's literally like, before you meet any enemies, there's a point where I go straight and I find a crate, and I can't find a place where you're supposed to go forward. The very first time I played the game, I got stuck there for, like, 30 fucking minutes. It is ridiculous how, like, my brain just cannot see the correct left turn.

Can you just not turn left?

It's weird. Like, it's. It. The way the. The level is, it's literally like, the very first place you could get lost in the game. I always get lost. My brain just doesn't see it. And so every time. This time I've played this. I've played Mass Effect probably seven or eight times all the way through. I've played this section probably more than that, and I still get lost every time. I don't understand it. Anyway. Shepard and their team encounter some Geth drones and Corporal Jenkins. Oh, no. Is gunned down. Alas, poor Richard. We knew you for all of about five minutes and we will miss your very large ears. We have a brief moment talking to Kaden about, you know. Oh, no. Jenkins is dead. And we're only down companion for about two minutes because in comes Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Action. Moving. Action. Action. Moving her way into the movie, into the game. That was not really a verb. I tried to make it a verb. It doesn't really work.

We got there.

Yeah. Action. Movies her way into the scene and gives shepherd the sitch. A Prothean beacon has been uncovered and was being prepared to move. But the aliens, presumably Geth ship, attacked with no warning and tore the colony a new asshole. Since there's a soldier shaped hole in the roster, Shepard promptly recruits Ashley Williams, which, by the way, that is the same name as Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead series, and you won't be able to unknow that fact.

Now, she unfortunately does not have a chainsaw hand, so.

And they go to investigate the crash site where they find. Crash site, beacon site, wherever the dig site, where they find a series of big creepy spike things with people impaled on them. Turns out these make people in or humans into very disturbing cyber zombies. We'll skip over the skippable bits, but you can extort loot for some people and punch a guy with mental health problems if that's your bag. Tracking the Prothean beacon into port. Shepherd has to disarm some bombs and then ride a train. I don't really remember why the train was there. Anyway, when they go to secure the beacon, Caden Alenko probably breaks like 400 different alien artifact safety protocols and gets really close to it, where it activates Shepard, pushes his useless butt out of the way and instead of. Instead take the brunt of whatever happens. Alien malware that gets installed into her root folder. I don't know, it gets downloaded into Shepard's brain and we get a series of disturbing visuals. So that is Eden Prime. This is your tutorial section, for lack of a better word. It's where they tell you how to shoot things and that you don't. You don't need to reload your weapons. You can just like wait there for them to cool off. And then they're. They're like, oh, by the way, this is a cover shooter. Did we not tell you? This is a cover shooter. You thought it was an rpg, but it's Actually a cover shooter.

Yeah, the intro, the introduction to the importance of COVID comes pretty quick if you're just running and gunning. Like I remember my first time through. I think I actually died the first time playing through this. Just.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh God, I'm getting murdered here. And then like no cover dummy.

Yeah, especially because you've got regen regenerating shields. I actually, I know that it got a lot of hate the first time through, but I actually quite liked their ammo less gun system. The in universe explanation for how ammo works in the Mass Effect universe, at least in the first game, is that you're like firing either energy beams or you're firing like stuff that's getting shaved. Like flechettes that are getting shaved off of a block of material. And there is so much of that ammo in the gun that is essentially unlimited. Like you could fire your main rifle for like days on end and it won't matter. What matters is that heat builds up in the gun over time and at a certain point it can no longer deal with it anymore and you need to let it cool down. So it's rather than like long sustained fire, you're supposed to pop out, shoot a little bit and then drop back. And as an explanation for why, because you're playing a cover shooter, that's like what they're going for. You know what, it actually kind of matches up. Like they're, they're. They don't want you to have long sustained gunfire out in the open. They want you to be popping out and shooting a couple things and then popping back in. I understand it, I quite dig it.

Yeah.

I know that it's not everyone's favorite.

But yeah, like it's, it's a little clunky like until you learn that the, the ammo management side of it. But like. Yeah, yeah, I thought it was, it was an interesting take and it later on they introduced things like ammo pickups. Which. Not as big a fan of that just because like, I don't know, I've never been a big first person shooter fan so much. Like yeah, I've played them and enjoyed them, but like I don't necessarily want that mechanic in my RPGs all the time.

It means that you don't have to worry too much about your resources. Like you're like, oh, I gotta track how much ammo I have for all of my different weapons. I can just use the tools that I, that I like all the time. Makes your guns a little Bit more. Almost more like an ability rather than a weapon.

Yes.

In the traditional, you know, shooter sense.

Which is good because I think initially, like the biotics and skills had a very long cooldown, if I recall. Like, compared to later games.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And honestly, the biotic interface, they improved it a lot in the Legendary edition. But like, using your biotic stuff in the original game was kind of a pain.

Yeah. It took you out of the action a bit.

Yeah, yeah. I felt like I was pausing a lot more, which is why the first couple times through I always played soldier because it's just more fun because it's a less complicated thing. That being said, it's not like you're playing this game because you really want all of the shooter reaction. That's just stuff there to get, you know, to the next to the next thing they did. They definitely didn't start with a really strong equipment management system though. Like, man, the. I understand what they're doing. They're like, okay, you know, it's an rpg. You should have lots of different guns, you should have lots of different armors, you should have ways to socket gems into these armors. We're going to call them mods or whatever. And like that is too involved, man.

Yeah, they. They definitely cleaned that up in a much cleaner system later. Later on. But early on you've got shepherd lugging around basically a bag of holding full of guns and suits of armor. And it's probably like the one thing that kind of breaks the immersion a little bit.

Yeah, well. And like every time you pick something up, having to pause the game and compare it to like three different characters. Am your current equipped stuff?

Yes.

And like there's a place for that. And I feel like a. A game that is like, it's not the most action packed game in the world, but it is action packed enough that like pausing every after every battle to like re equip all of your bullshit does break the flow.

Yes.

I remember the last. I vastly improved my experience the last time I played through because the very first thing I did was hack myself the best weapons and armor in the game. And because like, let's be Frank, Mass Effect 1 is not the most challenging game in the world. So it's not like you're ruining the fun by making it like easy. And then I was like, oh, everything I get, everything I get for the rest of the game is just going to become omni gel. I can just gel everything and it's fine. I don't need to worry about it.

How, how did that impact your, your, your cash flow? Cause I remember, like, currency was a, a thing in the first one, wasn't it? Like, you could actually buy equipment.

You can, um, yeah, it, it meant that I had essentially unlimited money. But once you no longer have to buy equipment because you have the best equipment in the game, money is useless.

Fair enough.

Like, it also removes the one thing that you need that for, and so it just removes a headache from the game. And since I was mostly playing it just to like see the game again, you know, I didn't, I wasn't like really trying to, like, nobody's grading me on my Mass Effect, like, score. I was just playing it. So, like, it was fine. But yeah, like, the only thing you spend money on in the original one is equipment. And so if you're not worrying about it, then, yeah, the number goes up. Who cares? And we get introduced now to the little mini games that they have you do instead of unlocking everything.

So you're playing on PC, right?

Yep. Yeah, where they got the little Frogger game.

Yeah, we're playing on PS4. So we have the Simon says game.

Oh, it's still Simon Says. Yeah, okay, I remember that. That was like, you know, they make you. They like red, green, blue, red, green, blue. You know, like make you remember it in the, in the PC version. It's a, it's a little game of Frogger. You have a circular kind of target window with some blocked off sections and things that are moving around it. And you have to like, move your little cursor around the circle and then like pop up the levels to get to the center.

If I recall, it's actually a lot more difficult than the Simon says game it can be.

It is one of those things where, at least for me, that minigame is devilishly difficult, incredibly, almost impossibly hard. Until you figure out like some flip switches in your brain and you go, oh, this is facile. Easy now. Like, literally, like, I'm gonna move to a section, wait for a clear section, and all the way through. And it like every single one of those things in the game takes like five seconds and you don't even really think about it anymore. Like, it's the kind of thing where it is either impossible or trivial. There is no, like, difficult. Yeah, you just like your brain figures it out and then you're like, oh, God, I'm just done. Okay, fine. That being said, I much prefer it over Simon says. I. The Simon Says I remember was like, kind of not hard, but like, Tedious Tedious, definitely.

It's just, I don't know, it's about like five seconds of waiting for like a pattern of five to seven things to match which the colors correspond to the button faces on the Xbox. I think. Yeah.

If you are playing the game for the billionth time, this is why I would recommend at least in one hacking in the best armor and never remembering about it again. Because then you can just omni gel everything and you can just smear that omni gel over every lock that comes near you and they dissolve away.

Yes. It was such an interesting sidestep for that. We're like, well, people may not want to play this minigames so we'll just give them an option to just basically skip it and get the loot anyways.

Yeah, well, and it makes a kind of gameplay sense because you are great. You, you get omni gel pretty much by like turning junk like the stuff that you would just normally sell to the end to a npc. You just turn that into omni gel in order to have some around. And then you can use that to. To smear it on some locks so that they become. They get open so you get other cooler stuff instead. And so, you know, as things go, that's not that bad. I kind of liked that version. I mean like the balance is not great. And also in game reasons, it's fucking stupid. Like the idea that you can take any item in the game, reduce it to goo, anything can be gooed. And then once you can take that goo and just rub it on locks and it will magically unlock them. I don't understand how that's supposed to fucking work.

I don't understand why anyone still uses those locks.

Yeah, and the answer is that next time around they don't. The universe moves on in the intervening years and everything's different all of a sudden. But yeah, so that's not too bad. The real advantage of having some goo around or at least being good at the minigames is it will get you access to little side areas where not just like loot, but like there will sometimes be NPCs and stuff. And this happens here where you're walking along and after you've killed some geth, you walk up to a door and you get inside and there's little conversation to be had where you can learn some interesting things, which is cool. Like they're. They. I like it when a game has the gumption to be like, yeah, you could just skip this if you don't want to talk to these people.

It does it does actually surprise me how many of the NPCs in this game end up being or NPCs and companions like end up being optional encounters.

Yeah. Yeah. You could go through the whole game without ever picking up Rex. You can go through the whole game, I think, without picking up Garrus. I don't think you can go without Liara. I think you have to have Liara, but I think you can skip Garrus and Garrison. Rex, you have to have Tali. But yeah, so like there's a couple of people. It's just like. Yeah, never pick them up. Which is cool. Like having the gumption to be like everybody will have a different experience is cool. Yeah. Because I guess some of that information should have been in the spoilery section.

Sure.

Yeah, we may have. We may arrange a little bit far afield there. Sorry, guys. You'll find out who Garrus and Rex are in like five episodes. They're around. Okay, so we kill the gu. Oh, man. This is the introduction to the Geth zombies, the human zombie thing. Husks which. The husks which. Man, that is like as stupid as zombies are because that's what they are. They're the throwaway zombie enemies of this game. They're freaking creepy, man. They've got kind of a. I've got kind of an HR Giger kind of, you know, body horror biomechanical thing going on. Except they glow blue. And now that I'm thinking about it, the Expanse definitely. The TV show definitely stole the blue glowing thing from these guys because that's not in the books. That's their. They do not glow in the books. So it's like. So they, like the TV show guys were like, you know what? Let's make them husks. Let's do the husk thing from Mass Effect. So it's good to see bigger other shows like. Or other properties pulling from this. This property.

I remember there was actually a little bit of panic the first time I played through because they do an EMP burst if they get close and that'll completely wipe out your shields. And so like spoiler. Like spoilers. But like a little bit about me. I am not a great first person shooter on consoles. Like I just. Yeah, yeah, there's something about that that just does not click well with me. So like early on, like when I would be like, you know, zooming in on something and it's only to be a guy in like right next to me or next to me, like, here's that moment of like, oh God, get it off me. Get it off me. And then everything goes to.

Yeah, that is one of the advantages of playing a soldier In Mass Effect 1 is that at least for me, you. Because you have access to all of the weapons, you can be like a snipery guy most of the time. And then when they get close, you switch out of that shotgun and you go. You go ham with the shotgun on those husks, which really works well.

Interesting thing is like, you can actually in meth Mass Effect 1, you can actually use all the weapons. Like regardless of your class, you just aren't as good.

You won't necessarily be better at them. Yeah, you won't. You won't be good. But the. The soldier gets every. Like, not just gets everything, but gets good at everything too. Like you can. You get advantage on all of the weapons, which is really cool. And that's the trade off for like not having cool biotic abilities.

Yeah.

So you go in, you. You find out the. The Prothean beacon has been missing. We talked to Manuel and his friend and you can punch him if you want. Which I ended up doing because I'm a renegade this time around. Even though he's just an. He's just. The dude's just dealing with ptsd, man. And he's. Oh, sorry. Spoilers. God damn it. So anyway, then you go through, you fight some more Gu. You have to disarm some bombs. How many times did you die on those bombs back in the day?

Uh, I think one or. One or two times. And in fact, to be fair, I died the first time around this time around because I forgot where the fourth.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I forgot where the fourth bomb was and got on the wrong side of the wall.

Yeah, that's the. That's what happens is I remember distinctly getting I. The very first time I played through that playthrough one. I died on that frickin bomb section a stupid number of times. Because again, my brain, whoever designed Eden prime and me do not get along. Like, my brain doesn't do what they want me to do. And so I just never ever found the last bomb. Like I would walk all the way to the end of the game and like where. Or to the end of the level where there's the beacon and being like, where the fuck is the goddamn bomb? Yeah. So you go through and you do the. You know, there's not even really a boss fight. This one. You just kill some gu. And then you walk up to the beacon again. This is a tutorial level. It's not super hard.

One of the interesting things is we get a little bit of insight into the proteins. Like, we get told that basically, like the last discovery of protein technology basically bumped humanity's technology level forward by 200 years, which is like, if you think about, like our current progression of technology. That's insane.

Yeah, yeah. Imagine being a. Like a blacksmith in 1790 and then somebody hands you a Nokia cell phone from 1990.

Yeah.

Like, that's basically the advantages that we pulled out of that. Which is cool. And that was supposed to be a quote unquote, small cache on Mars, which was cool. And then they're like, so that explains why this beacon is supposed to be so important. Right. That were there could be all kinds. Like, even if it wasn't itself important to the Protheans, just like the crap that's in it could give us all kinds of insights into the. Into the technology and the world at large.

And humanity is sort of like, the idea is that we're putting together this joint mission with Turians because we're going to deliver this beacon to the Council and hopefully sort of solidify our position as allies of the Council by being buddy buddy and sharing this technology.

Yeah. It's a giant olive branch, basically, to say sorry for the Turian War.

Yeah.

But then also because they do make a point to say that humanity wouldn't necessarily be able to handle on cracking this thing on its own.

Exactly.

And so getting the advantage of the other races is useful. And even though, like the other Council races, we get the impression they've been around for hundreds of years, they've been around for a super long time even. They are like, super interested in Prothean technology. Like, nothing has been able to match the Protheans, which is really cool. And we get a little brief shot of something Prothean in that vision that. That shepherd sees at the end, which is gross and like super gross. Meat and circuits. Yeah. Not. Not great. So, like, we'll, you know, it's a big mystery what's going to happen here. So to talk about some of that mystery stuff and to finally let ourselves off the leash, let's move into the Shadow Broker files. Shadow Broker files.

So to piggyback off of what we were just talking about, like, I kind of wonder if. So we're clearly in spoiler territory here. If you're playing through for the first time, get out. But to piggy back off what we were talking, I kind of wonder if that meet in circuits is what the Synthesis ending is.

Ooh, that's not a bad idea. The thing that always bugs me is that you see very clearly in the first couple of games that Protheans look very, actually, honestly, pretty human. Like, they're not that weird. They're not that different from us. And then we find out later on that that's completely not true. Like, yeah. That because they didn't know what they were, they hadn't done the design yet. They look little too human, a little too normal. Like they're supposed to be weirder than that.

Yeah.

And that's. Yeah, we get little visions of that in this one, too. I will say, as far as, like, dealing with mystery visions, this is one of the better ways that's handled a game like that. Like, you have basically information that was plugged into your brain and that you do not know how to handle and that it wasn't built for your brain to handle. So it's like causing trouble for shepherd. And that's something we'll get into later. But, yeah, this is a good way to start some creepiness off, I think. Honestly, way better than they did it in three, where those visions are, by comparison, not nearly so creepy. Like, they're very tedious by comparing versus this one, where you're just seeing these brief flashes of kind of disturbing imagery.

Yeah. And I think at that point, like, they're. They're making a little too. Too hard on connections that they didn't do a good job of establishing.

Yeah. Whereas this is all it is. It is getting by a lot on the fact that, you know, you. It is a mystery. And it's kind of easy to make promises that you don't necessarily have to follow up on, which is what they're doing here. But I think they followed up pretty well with that. With that stuff in the end. Like, they kind of knew if. Or either they figured it out or they knew what they were doing from Ground One with the Reapers. So let's see. Is there anything else under spoilery? We've got to meet Ashley, who is going to be a companion. She is of the two. So at this point, we've met both Kayden and Ashley. And do you have strong feelings on Kaden versus Ashley?

You know, basically nothing about Kaden at this point. Like, they.

But I mean, like, we're in spoilers. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So usually, like, I'll save Kaden, like, just because.

Oh, okay.

Like, I saved Ashley the first time, and that was because, you know, you know, hot warrior chick that, you know. And I think she also complimented my vanguard a little Bit better than. Yeah, Alenko did not. Alenko. Yeah, Kaden. Kadenko. That's who it is. Yeah, you got it. And so. But I don't know personality wise, like I'm actually a bigger fan of how Kaden develops throughout the series than I am of Ashley.

Okay. I. Not that I have not. Not that either of them are like S tier companions to me but like I have taken Kaden so infrequently on anything and like I barely remember anything about him. Like at this point we have. I. I'm on a fresh playthrough. I've only played up through the end of Eden prime on this blade playthrough. I. So I haven't had a chance to really talk to him. I don't remember anything about him. Like it's just. He's just a blank hole in my brain. Yeah, he's probably fine. I just don't remember anything about. So I've always taken Ashley and she. Of the two of them. Of the two like original human companions. I think she'd be my preference because she's a little bit to me a little bit more interesting of like she's got that dichotomy of being both kind of a warrior and a poet a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know she's got some complexity and she's got that big chip on her shoulder because of what's going on with her family which I like. I kind of dig it. And then of course you know, hot chick. I will admit that like the game is pandering to me a little bit with the. With the various female characters and you know what? I'll be pandered to. I'll take it.

You know, I will be interested to see what choice happens on is it. It's not noia. Ver. Ver meer. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. I. At some point I'm going to have to make the decision on my playthrough because I do have the option. I'm not sure I want to do it but I do have the option of doing a genocide run where I try to make sure everybody that can die does die. And like so like you can get, you know, weren't spoiled. So like Urdnot Rex can die on Vermire. You can also kill Kirahe and Vermire depending on which. Which companion you leave with Kirahi and whether or not you go pick them up or not. And then like there are. And then two. You can go. You can go. You go ham by killing people in two. And then apparently when you get to three, like, because they, all of these people who are now dead need to show up and like, fix the plot. They have to like, make up some new dudes who just show up randomly out of nowhere.

Like, I think the bare minimum you can have at the end is Edie James. Yeah. And then either Ashley or Kaden.

Yeah.

And then you can kill one of those off at that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, you can have a very bare bones team at the end.

You have a very bare bones and three will be. Would be a very different experience. The only reason why I am reluctant to do that this time is that then I would miss out on content that we could talk about in three, you know, and honestly, you can go on YouTube and watch the genocide run results where it's like really weird and like everybody's dead already, you know? Yeah. Anyway, well, yeah, so I guess I probably won't. Being, being a renegade is very strange for me because this is the first time that you like, really get into being a renegade and like the like, conversations and stuff. Like you can kind of be a little bit of an asshole in on the ship, but down on Eden prime, like, you literally just punch a dude because he's like, bothering you, which is a bit like, that's not my shepherd, but I'm interested to see it, you know.

Oh, man, we completely got glossed over. Like the biggest part of this episode, which was the Saren reveal.

Oh, shit. Yeah. It's because I didn't put it in my. I just forgot. Yeah. So I don't know. That's. It would be actually kind of hard to talk about Saren too much without getting into spoilery territory. So I don't feel too bad about it.

The main thing is Nihilus gets offed by this new Turian who's covered in bits of cyborgy bits.

Yeah, yeah. Saren's design is cool and his voice actor does a really good job. Um, yeah, yeah, I, we, we both malign the loss of Nihilus and I think maybe that was by design. Is that like, they give you a character who's cool and badass and that like, you feel like, oh, yeah, we're gonna see more of this guy. And then they like, they, they cap his ass really quickly in the game and so you get this little, little twinge of like, oh, like a, a loss of potential right there. Which is kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. I, I, I do feel bad for Nihilist. I hope they like, if they do a. I Don't know what the time frame is for the Amazon series. They're talking about if they're going to be doing that as, like, Shepard's story or if they can do something else. But if they did a prequel and had Nihilus in it, that would be freaking cool.

Yeah.

You get to see more of him. Yeah. And he gets to, like, go talk to the dude who was hiding behind a crate and saw Nihilus get offed.

Yeah. I mean, he's basically the guy who saved the universe, if you want to get down to it. He's the one who put you on Saren's trail.

That's true. Yeah. That's that. Yeah. He.

Without that, you'd never have known what happened. You just be like, well, we stopped the gift. And then.

Yeah, I think that eventually the Saren would come out and like, I mean, it would be worse. Like, you would not have a head start on him. But eventually he's gonna, like, make his move.

Yeah. Yeah. Because he. He finds out that, like, from Benizia, that. Yeah, like, someone accessed the files.

Yeah, yeah. So he's gonna be coming after Shepard at that point, but maybe he gets the drop on Shepard, you know, and then like, Liara never gets let out of that trap on the planet where she, like, accidentally get, like, she gets like, stuck in a bubble, you know, and like, she's there forever and like. Yeah. That weird alternate fanficie universe. Yeah. And so. And did you ever do the romance with. With Ashley?

I think I did, yes.

Yeah. I. I can't. I. It's been so long since I did.

She's like, I can never again. She's not test here one time through in Mass Effect 1. But I've never done a full play through with Ashley.

Yeah, I. I can't remember why I. I would have carried on with her or not. It's weird because she. I know she's a romanceable one. She. And so is Kaden too. Although I've never seen that one. I don't think I've even seen the YouTube videos where they're. Where they're doing K. Because I never play Maleshep and I. No, wait, that's right. He's only available to romance as male Shep in Mass Effect 3. But I always play fem Shep. And if I'm ever going to play a straight fem Shep, it's definitely going to go. She's definitely going to go for Garrus. I mean, of your available options. We'll get to that in our character bracket in a few minutes. But yeah, so we've now gotten into the gameplay a little bit. We've seen the plot start to unravel, or not unravel, but start to show us where we're going to go. I think we've. As far as tutorials go, with the exception of my inability to understand what they want me to do in terms of level design, I just got lost so often on this one episode, on this one thing, and the fact that I continue to get lost even though I've played it many times, says to me that something's wrong either in my brain or in the level design.

But definitely their level design was definitely was rough in the first game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They definitely refine it in further games.

Oh, for sure, for sure. Yeah. And I don't know about you. Well, anyway, I'm always trying to say it's a really solid landing or launching off point for us to get into further plot developments. So with that, we're going to move into the second part of our Shadowbrooker files, which is the character bracket.

Alrighty.

Character bracket. So, character bracket. This is just an opportunity to sort of talk about all of these characters. So I've broken down. We have 68 characters from all of the three original trilogy mass Effect games. We're going to talk about them, and Zach and I are going to come down on who of each round is better. So because there are some characters who it would be unfair to throw some random ass NPC who only shows up for five minutes against, you know, the heavy hitters, we've given a couple of them a buy. These are the four characters who will not enter into the tournament. They will not be facing off against anybody until the final eight. So they're all making it to, I guess that's quarterfinals, something like that, whatever. And those are Tali Zora, Vasnima, Liara Tassoni, Garris Vikarian, and Urdnot Rex. You will not hear us talk about these characters in the bracket section for quite a while because we got to blow through all the rest of these.

Yeah, these characters are typically considered fan favorites, and it's just. Yeah, it does no one any favors to have them in the tournament that early.

And they're the. They're the right overlap of the Venn diagram between fan favorite and our favorites too. Because, like, there are other ones that are fan favorites that Zach and I don't necessarily agree on. So those get to have. They'll be hashed out. But our decisions in this bracket are. They are final and arbitrary. There are. There is no broking with argument about how we come down on these things. However, I am considering at this moment running a fan bracket at the same time. So we'll have the same matchups, initial matchups, but allow people to vote on them. I just need to find a good method for allowing that to happen. Sure. So onto that, our first bracket, we're going to have two Mass Effect 3 characters because we're so far away from Mass Effect 3 that we're going to have to drag these guys in. Maya Brooks versus Steve Cortez. So in case you guys need to be reminded as to who these people are, Steve Cortez is the shuttle pilot who shows up in Mass Effect 3. He is a Navy man. His husband has died, and he's going to pilot your Kodiak shuttle through most of that game. Maya Brooks shows up only in a dlc. She is a initially approach reveals herself to be sort of a mousy little intelligence analyst who's helping shepherd with some sort of problem. And then because we're deep in spoiler territory, it reveals that she's actually a Cerberus agent who's been fucking with you the whole time and is actually like a sexy secret agent instead of like a. A nerdy little bookworm. So of these two, we got only one of these can move on to the next round. What do you think? What's your initial thoughts?

I got to say Cortez for a couple of reasons. One, I think he's like the first just straight gay. Well, not straight. First gay character that they introduced that is just like, strictly, like, it's BioWare's first step beyond, like, pandering to the assumed single male demographic of this game.

Yeah, that's true.

Or, sorry, straight white male demographic.

And in Cortez's corner, he is fully romanceable. He's got a full romance plot that you can get that only your male shepherd can get really close to him and help him process his trauma. It's well written. I actually totally dig Cortez's plot because though we can't just have this be a complete blowout, I do think we need to give Maya her at least a little bit of her due. So let me make an argument for why maybe we should choose Maya, which is that few characters can make you feel actual anger. Right. Just the fact that. That a character can be effective at, like, pissing you off. Oh, yeah, that's good writing right there. Like the fact that she shows up, she's actually really endearing. Like the original. Like, when you first meet her, she's like, cute and, like, funny and, like, really, really awkward and like, totally like a really personable little character. And she's ostensibly on your side. And then when you get the like, evil reveal where she comes out in the sexy, evil cat suit and is suddenly all like, self assured and like, fuck you, Shepherd. I hate you. I'm going to go like, okay, wait, did you get the feeling that she's fucking the clone?

Yeah, I did get that a little bit.

Yeah. There's a little bit of the air of like, yeah, that, that, like, so the, you know, to remind you she's the one who was in charge of the program to clone shepherd, where they make an evil clone of shepherd who then tries to steal your life and she's helping him or her. And like, yeah, they're. They're lowkey down low. Like, they're. They're on the. Those two are definitely boinking every night.

Oh, yeah. But yeah, she was definitely an effective villain. Yeah, I just. She was, she was a unfortunate side note. And unfortunately, she was a side note in one of the better arcs of. In my opinion.

That's true. Citadel is probably one of the best parts of Mass Effect 3. Yeah.

To be fair, it's the DLC that capitalizes on all the relationships you've made. So there's like, they have a lot to work with at that point.

Yeah. It's indulgence is maybe the way to put it.

Yes. And deliciously so. But, yeah, they introduce a new character, which is a hard sell, like, at that far into the game, and they actually do make her endearing.

Yeah.

But yeah, I just feel like for as progressive as they were with Cortez, like, I feel like Cortez wins that spot for me.

I think I'm. I think I'm with you. I've. I've played through. I don't know if I played through if I just watched his. Watched his romance arc because you can go on YouTube and you can see every individual part of Mass Effect.

Oh, yeah.

You know, somebody's uploaded it somewhere. So I think I can't remember if I've played it or if I've just seen it, but his arc is really sweet. Like, he's like, you know, he, like, really loved his husband and, like, is really hung up on it. And like, helping him process through that is a nice idea. And then also. Or nice thing to see. And then also, I, like, at one point he's arguing with Vega about the Kodiak shuttle versus the Mako. I think it was. They're just like little character moments of them kind of messing with each other. And there's a little bit of that playful joking flirting between them a little bit, because Vega is straight, but is totally secure enough to sort of joke with Cortez about it. And I really like that they've got. They went from a game series, which is, frankly, especially in early time, they were definitely dealing with the broey culture of 2007, gamer culture. And then also having to deal with the fact everybody was gonna. I mean, when the fact that Liarra was a romantical option in Mass Effect 1 was huge news in 2007, like, that was like, people who didn't know about video games knew that that was a thing. And for them to make that kind of progress in a few years and then to go so far as to be like. Like to not make the no homo joke, you know, like, to just be like, these characters, just enjoy each other's company and are willing to, like, engage with each other on a completely, like, equal footing and make the same kind of jokes they would with, you know.

Yeah. Cortez wasn't just the gay character. He was a character who happened to be gay.

Yeah. You know, I have to say that that does endear him to me as well, and I like him as well. So. Okay, our first character bracket goes to Steve Cortez, who will be facing off against the winner of next round, which is Chakras versus Kirihe. That'll be next week. Oh, geez. Yeah, that's a. That's a hard one. We have to talk. We're going to have some stuff going on there. Okay, on that note, I think that has completed us for this episode. We will join you next week. We're going to be. Probably be covering the. We'll have a. As a. As a note about how we're handling these things. I'm going to put a roadmap of our episodes in the show. Notes saying what we're covering in each one. This one will probably be Citadel side quests, or the initial walking around and talking to people in the Council and all that stuff. And then we will. And then we'll let you know which planet we go to initially, stuff like that. Because, like, you know, you have to. You have to make some decisions about where you go. And so we will give you a road map so that you can, if you're playing along with us, keep up with that. At any rate, we will see you next week.

All right, until next time.

Thank you for listening to the N7 project. If you would like to read the upcoming playthrough Roadmap there is a link in the show notes below. We can be found on Twitter as Seven Project at our website Mass Effect podcast.com or via our Discord scottpaladin.com Discord if you'd like to support the podcast honestly, the easiest way to be to write us a review on Apple Podcasts Podchaser or your podcatcher of choice. Reread every one of those and it gives us a real boost every time and it helps people find the podcast. Or if you want to give monetary support, all funds to our patreon patreon.com MonsterPod will also go to supporting this podcast Mass Effect its associated characters, sounds, plot points, whatever are copyright by some giant faceless corporation. The N7 project was produced and edited by me, Scott Paladin and hosted by myself and my best friend Zack jaquays. Audio is copywritten 2022 Scott Paladin.