I'm Commander Shepard: A Mass Effect Retrospective (Part One)

NOTE: Spoilers for the Mass Effect series are all over these posts. If you have somehow never played the series and plan to, do not skip past this paragraph.

Here is a spoiler you can read, however: I love this series.

Mass Effect is amazing at what it does with emotions. It can be a mix of heartwarming, funny, smart, frustrating, compelling, and that is all in just the first few hours of gameplay. The journey of Commander Shepard takes players on a virtually endless number of planets, meeting hundreds of interesting characters, and shooting some of them in the face (trust me, they deserve it). With the advent of this trilogy's remaster on the horizon, I thought it would be a good time to tell my personal history with this franchise and how it affects me personally.

This first part in the series is going to talk about the original Mass Effect, with the rest of the parts discussing the second and third games in the trilogy as well as share my hopes for the future of the franchise after the reveal of the Next Mass Effect last November. The Next Mass Effect already has such beautiful imagery, I am using a screencap from the trailer as my desktop background image and the header of this series. Keep in mind this article series is not going to go into the development history of the games unless it is essential to the writing, which it most likely will be when we get to the article on Mass Effect 3. Now let us get started, shall we?

(Note: Due to issues concerning copyright laws and what is fair use and what is not, I will not be using images from the series in this article.)

Mass Effect (2007): Where it all began.

My history with the franchise began where the franchise itself started, with the announcement if the first game. I watched the first trailer for the 2007 release back when it was revealed in 2005. I looked at the ads in the magazines, I watched development videos on it, and watched the E3 trailer in 2006 multiple times in a row. It was an amazing time for me when it came to the hype. Growing up, I was always a huge fan of science fiction stories, and hope to write my own one day, so when I saw the trailer and gameplay for the original Mass Effect I was hyped. The hype increased tenfold when I realized it was from BioWare, the developer of the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Do not worry about the fact it took so long for me to make the connection; I was not a smart teenager.

The game came out in November of 2007, three days before my mom's birthday to boot. I begged my parents to let me buy a copy and it took a few weeks of convincing. I eventually got it in my hands, however, and the moment I put it in the Xbox 360 I was greeted with an update screen. So that went on to do its thing, so then I was greeted with the loading splash screens. I was shaking with anticipation at this point, and that gave way to a calming sensation when the calm, almost alien music, titled "Vigil", began playing as the title fell into view above the image of Earth. The opening showing our home planet is, presumably, a way of showing us "this is where it began, this is the start of our own journey as we travel beyond the comforts of home. Or it could not be Earth, and I am overthinking this. Could be Eden Prime for all I know.

Mass Effect is an action-RPG video game that takes place in the year 2183. Roughly forty years prior, humanity discovered ancient alien technology called Mass Relays which were seemingly developed by an extinct alien race known as the Protheans. Humans discovered the relays, formed the Systems Alliance, traveled to different parts unknown, and found another alien race called the Turians (which did not end well). This backstory to the game series is found in the Codex, an in-game encyclopedia which updates for the player with new information as they discover it.

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite backstory for my characterization.

The player character is named Shepard, an elite commander in the Alliance N7 program. That is all the player gets from the backstory given before the game starts, because the player can create their own story from a select group of options. Players can choose the gender between Male Shepard, voiced by Mark Meer, or Female Shepard (affectionately known as FemShep to the fans), voiced by Jennifer Hale. Shepard can be the survivor of a colony attacked by a slave race known as the Batarians, a brutish rogue who grew up on the streets, or be the last survivor of a squad sent to die. The player crafts their own backstory, they player IS Commander Shepard, and this has an impact on the game itself through specific missions that show up based on which story they choose.

For my usual playthrough, I choose having come from a military family and the sole survivor of a mission, which weirdly enough does involve a mission that has an impact on the rest of the series, but I am getting ahead of myself. I also choose FemShep most of the time, due to being a huge fan of Jennifer Hale, and for the sake of simplicity in this article I shall be referring to Shepard with female pronouns when necessary.

Eden Prime: The Doomed World

At the start of the game, Shepard and her team aboard their personal starship the SSV Normandy-SR1 are sent to recover a Prothean Beacon, an artifact unearthed on a human colony planet called Eden Prime. The mission immediately goes awry when they arrive on the planet to see it attacked by a mysterious alien ship commanded by a Turian Spectre. Spectres are a Council-run Special Operative who has unlimited resources to complete his or her mission, so it is very odd to see one actively destroying planet and its people. However, this is a science fiction RPG, and both of those genres have a love of doomed hometowns so obviously the planet must be attacked; it is an unwritten rule at this point.

Shepard and her squad are sent along with another Spectre named Nihlus, who partially wears red and has so much potential for a drawn-out backstory it is obvious he is going to be a prominent, well-developed character through the entire trilogy. Just before Nihlus is killed by the other Spectre in his next cutscene, we find out that said Spectre is named Saren. It becomes obvious that Saren is trying to keep the Beacon for himself, but the player does not quite know why or why he is working with creepy alien flashlight-headed robots called the Geth. The Geth also seem to have these spikes that emerge from the ground and turn humans into zombie-like creatures called Husks, which is fun (sarcasm intended).

So, the next bit of the game is Shepard's squad traveling through Eden Prime and fighting the Geth. Shepard is accompanied on her mission by Kaidan Alenko, who is basically the by-the-book soldier with special powers called Biotics, and L. Jenkins who rushes into combat and immediately dies, putting the rest of his squad in danger in the process. It does not take a copy of the Normandy's crew manifesto to figure out what the "L" stands for.

Ashley Williams joins the group not too long after Leeroy Jenkins himself into a permanent retirement. Ashley's character is based on her being the sole survivor of her own squad on Eden Prime after the Geth invades, but she does not seem to have much in terms of this specific characterization. To my recollection, she does not mention her squad she lost on Eden Prime very much after the player leaves the planet, which I feel is a missed opportunity.

After recruiting Ashley, Shepard's group travels to a city which the Geth are planning to destroy with a group of bombs. They disable the bombs before they go off and it is here where they find the Beacon. Depending on Shepard’s gender, either Kaidan or Ashley get too close to the Beacon afterward and Shepard, doing one of many feats of daring-do, throws herself in front of the Beacon to push the teammate (Ashley, in my case) away from it. Shepard herself gets the full brunt of the energy and the audience is treated to a wonderful vision of horribly mutated bodies and a cacophony of noises as the artifact transmits its message to her brain. The Beacon promptly explodes, and Shepard is knocked unconscious.

I personally love this opening. It sets the tone for the rest of the game and has a layer of mystery which makes the player wonder what is happening. What was that ship that attacked Eden Prime? Why did Saren kill the other Spectre? Did L. Jenkins ever actually get his chicken? Sure, it is a bit too tropey in some cases, but I like it when game developers do not take their game too seriously. The Citadel downloadable content (DLC) in Mass Effect 3 is a good example of this, but I am getting ahead of myself.

After the Beginning: Journey to the Stars

Shepard wakes up after the incident on Eden Prime in the sick bay of the Normandy. After some dialogue with crewmates aboard the ship, the Normandy itself returns to the Citadel. This is where we meet with the Council, or as I like to call them, “Why Are These Idiots in Charge?”.

The Council does not believe Shepard’s story about Saren attacking Eden Prime because they are useless until Shepard finds the proof given to her by Tali’Zorah, a Quarian whose people are drifters and exiles to the rest of the galaxy due to their having created the Geth in the first place. Shepard also takes along a few more allies in her mission at the Citadel, including a Turian Citadel Security officer named Garrus Vakarian and a Krogan warrior named Wrex.

The Krogan were brought up into the greater galaxy years earlier by another group of aliens known as the Salarians to fight off the Rachni, a bug-like race that attempted to wipe out all sentient life. After the war, the Krogan race attempted to overtake the galaxy itself and as a result, the Salarians controlled their population with a biological weapon called the Genophage to render most of them sterile.

Garrus and Tali are my favorite companions in this trilogy. Unless it is essential to the gameplay, those two are the only ones I ever take with me. It works in a practical sense as well; Garrus is effective at far-off gunplay, Tali is effective at close range, and Shepard is the median, based on how the player chooses their class at the beginning of the game. The other crewmates are okay, in my opinion, but Tali and Garrus are my top choice. It is possible to go through the story not having picked up one or two of these characters, and the sequels reflect this, but it is my honest belief the game does not feel complete without them.

The Sandbox Problem: Control Issues

Once the first part of the game in Eden Prime and the Citadel is complete, the player has full reign of the galaxy. More locations open as story missions are complete, but for the most part a large amount of the game area is free to explore from the beginning. These are sandbox worlds and, while feeling procedurally generated, are pre-made. The sandbox worlds feel like a missed opportunity, being filled with lots of things to find but at the same time feel emptier than they should. But in all fairness, the main reason these open areas feel off-kilter is because of what the player must use in order to navigate them: The Mako.

The Mako is a land rover Shepard uses to travel across large areas in the game. The Mako is, also, exceedingly terrible to control, so much so that the internet took this disadvantage and made memes out if it. When BioWare announced the remaster coming out on May 14, 2021, they made a point to put “better Mako controls” in the list of selling points for the first game.

The control system for the first game involves a wonderful list of advanced features such as:

• Being able to rollover on a dime.

• Confusing gun controls.

• Lack of substantial armor resulting in mission failures.

• Floating controls making it impossible to drive straight.

• A ventral thruster that just barely lifts the Mako off the ground.

• The general inability to get gud scrub.

While the Mako is a problem in the game, as it does show up in nearly every story mission, the rest of the game is a prime example of excellence. The characters are amazing, the voice acting is incredible, the story is compelling, the gameplay aside from the Mako is impeccable. It is a great game that keeps you interested until the ending, and beyond that as well due to the nature of it being the first part of a trilogy.

The Galaxy at Large

The first mission usually recommended to players after they leave the Citadel is to recover Liara, a common love interest for many players. Liara is a powerful biotic and becomes a powerful character in her own right, eventually *SPOILERS* and *SPOILERS* and definitely *SPOILERS* and Shepard still wonders how that last one happened. Liara is tied to the story because her mother is the right-hand woman of Saren, and she also has been studying Prothean artifacts for nearly fifty years (her species lives for thousands). The former is the catalyst for her starting her journey with Shepard, the latter is pivotal to her character because she can help Shepard figure out what the vision from the Beacon means.

From the planet you find Liara on, there are three more main worlds with dozens of smaller side quests in each as well as in the sandbox worlds to explore. A few pieces of DLC also help flesh out the in-game universe but there is an overall sense of linearity that permeates through the game. On top of this, quite a few of the indoor environments feel the same, not quite to the point of it feeling like the player is retreading the exact same environments over and over due to the varied appearances of the worlds around them. The only sense of non-linear gameplay really pops up when Shepard levels up to 20 and has to Ralph Kramden to the moon to deal with what appears to be a rouge Virtual Interface, only to later deal with the realization of it being *SPOILERS* in Mass Effect 3.

The player travels to Feros, an ancient Prothean world with a dark secret discovered by a corrupt genetics’ corporation. After this is Noveria, an ice planet with a corrupt financial corporation. The player then goes back to the Citadel and then travels to Virmire, a planet containing a genetics lab that may or may not help bring the Krogan out of the Genophage. Wrex is angry that Shepard wants to destroy the lab, but Shepard has the option to either:

A: Convince him to not shoot his friend in the face.

B: Shoot her friend in the face.

Option B removes Wrex from the game and does affect the story in the sequels. In this opinion piece writer’s opinion, go with Option A. Virmire is also where you do lose one permanent squad member, either Kaidan or Ashley. Unlike the situation with Wrex, this is not optional, and you will lose one of them. On most playthroughs, I let Kaidan go bye-bye, but I do not like losing either of them. I hear there were missing files that played out with a win-win scenario, but since the scene was not finished, it is not canon and presumably never will be.

It is Virmire where Shepard finds out about the Reapers, a race of sentient starships whose sole purpose is to travel across the galaxy every fifty thousand years and wipe out all advanced life. The Reapers’ reason for this is not quite understood in the first Mass Effect, and to be honest it isn’t quite clear in the other games. The second game had some foreshadowing that did not pan out in the third, but this part of the retrospective is focused entirely on the first game in the series.

Endgame

After Virmire, if the player completes the rest of the main worlds, the action is taken back to the Citadel where Shepard tells the Council where Saren is going. The Galaxy’s Most Useless Bureaucrats Outside of Earth’s Congress grounds Shepard because of reasons I still have trouble fathoming and Shepard must get her friend Captain Anderson involved in getting the Normandy back. This part of the game gives the player the option to explore the rest of the galaxy and do missions they neglected before. Shepard then travels to Ilos, the last main world in the game, and tracks Saren down.

It is here where Shepard discovers the truth behind the Mass Relays. Having assumed the relays and Citadel were built by the Protheans to facilitate galactic exploration, the player is told by a Prothean VI on Ilos the actual truth. The Relays were in fact built by the Reapers to allow the civilizations of the galaxy to explore it and become advanced enough to be harvested by the Reapers when they return.

Admittedly, this plot twist threw me for a loop. I assumed the Mass Relays were built by the Protheans just as everyone else in the game, so to discover they were built by the alien ships to trick people on a galactic scale? I was surprised. Then again, one of the prominent reasons I wanted to play Mass Effect is because the dev team created KotOR, which itself has a major plot twist so amazing I jumped out of my chair.

Shepard finds out the Citadel is the key for opening all the Mass Relays at once, allowing all the Reapers to invade the Galaxy, and Saren is so brainwashed by the Reapers he believes they are the key to galactic peace. Saren uses a portal on Ilos to travel to the Citadel with an army of Geth to jumpstart the Reaper invasion. Shepard follows and travels to the Council’s tower to stop him. When she gets there, Saren can be convinced to stop the Reapers and end his own life or is forced to fight him. The player assumes this is the end of the game, but Saren’s body is possessed by the Reaper itself, Sovereign, for a final battle. It is around this time the player must choose to sacrifice thousands of human lives for the Council or let the Useless Bunch of Morons die. For the sake of fairness, I usually save them because while they are Dumb and Dumber and Dumbest, it is good to have the good graces of a high-level Council, and maybe they would allow humans into the council as a reward?

Shepard kills Sovereign and the Reaper dies, rubble from the creature flying all over the Citadel. A piece flies directly into the council chambers, and since Shepard and not the Council is in there, the player is forced to worry. Shepard and her group survive of course, and the council allows humans into their ranks, which in my opinion is probably a bad idea because humans. Shepard chooses Anderson to be the human councilman because why would you choose the other guy who is so rude and loudmouthed I chose not to mention him in this article and Shepard walks off to go on to further adventures. And then she dies.

That’s a joke, she dies at the beginning of the next game.

Then gets better.

Isn’t science fiction great?

Conclusion: I should go.

I love this game. The writing, the music, the acting, the gameplay (not you Mako), the story, and the music which I know I already mentioned but it’s amazing so why not mention it twice? I’ve loved this game since the beginning and continue to replay the entire trilogy to this day. I love this franchise and still wear my N7 Hoodie to this day after nearly five years of owning it. And I hope the next game in the series lives up to the trilogy and is just as amazing.

“What about Andromeda?” a weak voice asks.

What about Andromeda? Oh, trust me, I’ll talk about that game when I finally get around to playing the rest of it. Mass Effect 2 is next on the agenda for me to talk/gush about, but here’s a spoiler for my thoughts on it: It is my favorite game of the entire trilogy.

-Nick