A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Dialogue Trees

[Souplex]

Garrus was a beloved and respected friend, but shagging him would be less about romance and more about blowing off steam before the final battle. That left Thane ... terminally ill, noble, honey-voiced Thane, who was surprisingly romantic for a highly-trained assassin. He was exactly what Joanna needed: someone else who understood how precious life was, who had seen and done things he would rather have not, who was unlikely to survive what duty compelled him to do. The perfect salve for her wounded heart.

Is it me or is it pretty messed up to get into a relationship with a person who has less than a year to live?
Also, from a purely mechanical standpoint, both Garrus and Thane are covered in scales. I am fairly certain that would not be a pleasant experience.

Mass Effect is based on sci-fi from the 70's and 80's... I'm sure they can um... do it.

I am not saying it would be impossible, I am saying it would be incredibly unpleasant due to the scaleyness.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Perhaps it's just me, but between the January 28th Context Sensitive, and this one, I couldn't help but laugh.

Spoiler Alert!

If you don't watch your mouth I'll break your knees, too.

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Warning: The following article contains major Mass Effect 2 spoilers.

At any rate, great article. Raises some interesting points.

Not sure why that's funny.The whole point of the previous article was that you should warn people that you're going to discuss spoilers so that they can avoid them if they want to. Which is why I threw in the warning at the beginning of the current article.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Garrus was a beloved and respected friend, but shagging him would be less about romance and more about blowing off steam before the final battle. That left Thane ... terminally ill, noble, honey-voiced Thane, who was surprisingly romantic for a highly-trained assassin. He was exactly what Joanna needed: someone else who understood how precious life was, who had seen and done things he would rather have not, who was unlikely to survive what duty compelled him to do. The perfect salve for her wounded heart.

Is it me or is it pretty messed up to get into a relationship with a person who has less than a year to live?
Also, from a purely mechanical standpoint, both Garrus and Thane are covered in scales. I am fairly certain that would not be a pleasant experience.

Why? Is he any less of a wonderful person because he's dying? Just because he won't be there forever and ever, does that make him any less worthy of being loved?

 

[Woodsey]

I noticed the exact same thing, except with Ash.

It was pretty upsetting when she walked away after only seeing her for 2 minutes. Then getting an email from her; way to rub it in.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

Wow, that's kinda beautiful, much more subtle than I ever expected from any video game. That makes me want to play this game much more than any of the "I'm joining Shepard because I love killing stuff, gruff gruff" TV commercials.

 

[LiquidGrape]

My Audrey was pretty heartbroken after that encounter on Illium.
But even though Thane was sympathetic (and something of a looker; despite the gills) she stayed true to her azure sweetheart.
The reward?

Spoiler: A long and wistful look trailing the photograph.

...it was kind of worth it.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Wow, that's kinda beautiful, much more subtle than I ever expected from any video game. That makes me want to play this game much more than any of the "I'm joining Shepard because I love killing stuff, gruff gruff" TV commercials.

They show you the worst characters in those things, Grunt and Jack are both pretty simple/dumb/unlikable.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Garrus was a beloved and respected friend, but shagging him would be less about romance and more about blowing off steam before the final battle. That left Thane ... terminally ill, noble, honey-voiced Thane, who was surprisingly romantic for a highly-trained assassin. He was exactly what Joanna needed: someone else who understood how precious life was, who had seen and done things he would rather have not, who was unlikely to survive what duty compelled him to do. The perfect salve for her wounded heart.

Is it me or is it pretty messed up to get into a relationship with a person who has less than a year to live?
Also, from a purely mechanical standpoint, both Garrus and Thane are covered in scales. I am fairly certain that would not be a pleasant experience.

Why? Is he any less of a wonderful person because he's dying? Just because he won't be there forever and ever, does that make him any less worthy of being loved?

My Shepard wouldn't have been able to get close to someone she knew she was going to lose... she has serious issues with loss.

 

[SageRuffin]

I too am one of those mutated hybrids who likes to get into their characters in WRPGs. Ergo, Erika found Miranda somewhat easy to get along with while Jack reminded her too much of how she was back on Earth before she joined the service: violent and vulgar, her only peaceful times being those when she licked yet another poor bastard's blood off her knuckles.

I thought it was kinda cute that there happened to be a picture of Liara by the ship display. How I imagine Erika staring longingly into that portrait, recalling quiet (and some not so quiet ;3 ) nights of bliss with her blue-skinned companion.

I admit, I actually felt the heartbreak a little when Liara refused to join Erika on her quest to stop the collectors. And try as she might, as many times as she visited in between doing random favors for the other squadmates, Liara was still wrapped up in her own quest to usurp the mantle of "Shadow Broker" (well, that's how it sounds; she could just be wanting to kill her/her/it/them and get them out the way of... something).

Erika tried to find solace in her other squadmates, but to no avail (though for achievement reasons, I actually disconnected myself from Erika for a bit and allowed her to completely jump Jacob after suffering a complete squick [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Squick] moment with Garrus {totally my own fault; personal curiosity got the better of me yet again}). I can only hope that Erika finds some type of resolution to this conflict, either with Liara or through some other means, lest the entire galaxy suffers a shattered jaw.

...

What were we talking about again?

 

[daemon37]

My Shepard is female, though I am male. I imagine this made me view the romance options a bit differently than female player would (i.e Susan). I didn't like any of the options in ME 2. Jacob was just horny. Thane was freakin' insane. And Garrus was... tourian. I ended up choosing Garrus and I am moderately satisfied with that outcome. Though it was moreso snuggling than it was having sex.

But I do agree about one thing...
Joker should've been a romance option.

EDIT: Just like Susan, Liara was my Shepard's love interest in ME1. But she's changed too much in ME2. Whatever they had before Shepard died is long gone now. The downturned picture was not one of sadness or guilt, but simply moving on.

 

[David Bray]

Well mine was with Tali but cheating on Liara did have the same effect. I'm really shocked at the amount of subtlty they have managed to weave into this game despite slimlining it for heavy shooter gameplay.

Powerful stuff.

 

[snide_cake]

Nice article, it's great to see games are reaching out to touch us, and we all get to put our own personal spin on things and compare stories

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Mass Effect 3 will be an interesting "test" of Bioware's ability to handle an ongoing romance. Mass Effect 1 deals with a more simplistic infatuation, depending on your feelings and actions 2 hands us a whopping helping of heartbreak with a topping of longing or comfort depending on what you chose to do, hopefully 3 can bring a lot of this full circle. If they succeed it'll likely be one of the more impressive depictions of "romance" in videogaming, but I guess we'll have to wait and see, here's hoping Bioware's rumored release date of January 2011 holds firm eh?

 

[TwistedEllipses]

You should have gone for Kelly since you have a problem with dead fish and she's the only love interest that can feed them...and lap dance...

 

[WafflesToo]

Loved the game, beginning to end. Especially the end, more than a bit of a shock there. I was so thrilled at making it on my first go without losing ANYBODY (hee hee), was up until midnight before the high subsided enough to drift off to sleep (that third beer helped as well).

Anyway I digress. I was actually angry as heck after meeting up with Liara, mostly at Bioware. Felt like they'd rewritten her entire character simply for plot convienience. She actually managed to completely creep me out within three sentences of our reunion. I didn't get the full story until later, but for me the romance was over.

Didn't know which way to go with it after that; Jack was definate damaged goods, Miranda I considered to be a friend but not interesting enough to persue, Kelly was uninteresting (not to mention creating a potentially hostile work environment for her). When we went to reclaim the Quarian science ship from the Geth, my heart went out to poor Tali when she found her father.

And she's so darned cute when she starts babbling when she gets nervous.

 

[WafflesToo]

Options for a female Shepard, hmmmm.

"Jeff" and EDI have an, "amicable working relationship" *ahem* so sorry ladies, he's taken.

I just finished my first playthrough as Jon Sheppard, but based on what I know there when Jane Sheppard takes to the CIC in my next playthrough;
Jacob doesn't seem as bad as some people have suggested, of course my viewpoint is skewed a bit. His blindly professional attitude is a bit annoying but not so bad once you get him to knock it off.
Thane I don't know all that well, but I have a problem with "professionals" so I doubt I'll pursue him much.
Playing as Jon Sheppard I damn near freaked completely out when Garrus got shot in the face. I felt he remained a very close friend for the rest of the game. I have a feeling Jane will find him to be an even closer friend -_^

On the subject, does anybody else get the feeling that Kelly would like to do the Matteress Mambo with Garrus? Can't shake it for some reason.

 

[WafflesToo]

Wow, that's kinda beautiful, much more subtle than I ever expected from any video game. That makes me want to play this game much more than any of the "I'm joining Shepard because I love killing stuff, gruff gruff" TV commercials.

They show you the worst characters in those things, Grunt and Jack are both pretty simple/dumb/unlikable.

Those commercials suck and I hate them. =p

Frankly, if I WANT to play GoW I will go and play freakin GoW.

 

[Altorin]

I noticed that little touch too - once I started my romance with Miranda the picture of Ashley was turned down... then I realized that Tali was interested.. and, well, curiousity got the better of me.

Not a very good payoff though, I wanted to see her face, but I guess that will be a nice shocking moment for ME3.

 

[Meshakhad_v1legacy]

Oddly, my Kaya Shepard sounds similar to your Joanna Shepard. I stayed loyal, mostly because I could accept what little there was.

 

[Reeves88]

i never noticed that picture, just means im gonna have to play through again to find it, oh no what a shame. and just a quick question for all those people who where being good or bad, who let the volus attack the asira in illium? i did and it was the funiest thing ever but then i played again being good and i couldnt do it as much as i wanted cuz it wouldnt be something my charcter would do.