Bioware's "Mass Effect".

DSGamer wrote:
garion333 wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
garion333 wrote:
JeremyK wrote:
Eleima wrote:
JeremyK wrote:

I always thought it a shame the best love interest wasn't available as such until the second game.

You’re wrong. :D

:D

Duh, everyone knows Ashley is the best.

But Ashley is racist...

The correct answer is Liara, of course.

Spoiler:

Ashley is the worst. I figured everyone knew that so didn't point out my sarcasm. ;)

I think that's the risk of picking up this debate after all these years. The sarcasm flew right by me.

It's like a cycle that keeps repeating.

DSGamer wrote:
garion333 wrote:
JeremyK wrote:
Eleima wrote:
JeremyK wrote:

I always thought it a shame the best love interest wasn't available as such until the second game.

You’re wrong. :D

:D

Duh, everyone knows Ashley is the best.

But Ashley is racist...

The correct answer is Liara, of course.

If you romance Ashley, you'll find out that she's not really - there are specific reasons why she doesn't trust them, but she does come to appreciate them.

Tali is good value though - and Javik's bemused reaction is priceless.

Ravanon wrote:

From my (first game only) perspective, Ashley clearly had issues with aliens, but didn't strike me as truly anti-alien, just mistrustful and a not very diplomatic in her language. Of course, that's just based on the dialogue I'd seen of her in my one playthrough, so I might have missed some less ambiguous signs, or maybe I'm just too forgiving.

I think they meant for Ashley to be like Mordin and the Genophage, but...eh, maybe it's time to break the cycle. ; D

Look, y'allz, Ashley isn't space racist, she just has a lot of economic anxiety. The Space New York Times has this really great profile about it you should all read.

EDIT: With less flippant dark humor, I don't care if Ashley has what she thinks are reasons to distrust aliens or what they are--she has cast a toxic blanket of judgement over entire groups of people, whatever her justifications are ring hollow. That there is a reason why she is bigoted doesn't change or really mitigate the fact that she is bigoted. Also, she keeps failing upward! She keeps getting promoted on the basis of being a member of the vaunted crew of the Normandy, because it sure as hell isn't her coolness under fire of sound judgement!

So if we're being nudged into the MFK game, Ashley would be K if she didn't usually bite it on Virmire.

As for M, I'm genuinely torn between Liara and Miranda, as they're both very appealing in similar but distinct ways, with raw intelligence and boldness and drive. I'd probably have to say Miranda, just because she'd make me keep better track of my bills.

"Come to my quarters. We'll bang, OK?"

I guess Ashley just needed a better singing voice...

in any case, it makes me think:

F = Blue ending

M = Green ending

K = Red ending

MFK? Now there's something I haven't heard of in forever.

I'd marry Rex, if I could.

It might help to get Wrex's name right.

Anderson had a much better reason to be a space racist, and yet he's very professional and decent. Ashley's sense of entitlement always offended me. Humans had just figured out about fast long-distance travel and how quickly the Universe owed humanity (her) some Grand Spacefaring Destiny and how dare these non-humans stand in the way of that by being older, more advanced, and having legit claim to their territory. Turns out I was justified in my appraisal of her character. The whole "Ewww Cerebrus" dismissal of Shepard in ME2 was her acting exactly as I expected.

My dude shep was an asshole space racist and they hate-f*cked until ME2 when Tali'zorah vas Normandy showed him the true face of love and together they wiped out the Geth.

Grenn wrote:

My dude shep was an asshole space racist and they hate-f*cked until ME2 when Tali'zorah vas Normandy showed him the true face of love and together they wiped out the Geth.

Please, tell me another story about The Shepard!

Shadout wrote:
Grenn wrote:

My dude shep was an asshole space racist and they hate-f*cked until ME2 when Tali'zorah vas Normandy showed him the true face of love and together they wiped out the Geth.

Please, tell me another story about The Shepard!

I love this thread right now...

Grenn wrote:

It might help to get Wrex's name right.

Shadout wrote:
Grenn wrote:

My dude shep was an asshole space racist and they hate-f*cked until ME2 when Tali'zorah vas Normandy showed him the true face of love and together they wiped out the Geth.

Please, tell me another story about The Shepard!

The Shepard, who ushered in the new era of Bio/Synth peace, punched a lady reporter twice for doing her job. Thrice did he lay his hands upon her, but lo, did the lady resist the third hit with extreme prejudice and lay. His. Ass. Out. On live television. Thus did The Shepard, once again, elevate someone to greater heights through his actions. I tell you truly that he was a real influence on all those around him.

I romanced Ashley when I played this back when it came out. No regrets.

Grenn wrote:

The whole "Ewww Cerebrus" dismissal of Shepard in ME2 was her acting exactly as I expected.

'Ewww Cerebrus' is the 100% correct reaction to finding Shepard is working for Cerberus. At least for anyone who bothered to play the ME1 sidequests. Now, maybe she should have given him a chance to try to explain why he was working for the terrorists, but I can't blame her for her initial response.

Liara was my second favorite, just because she gave off the impression that she'd "been around", so I thought that she'd be a reasonable first choice for Shepard, but Tali will always be my favorite "partner". She seemed so pure and whatever at the time. Of course, that all changed when I was presented with the ultimatum of quarium vs. geth choice.

How did you get that Liara had been around? I remember the first discussion with her and what a dork she was. Total academic, and spent all her time digging around Prothean ruins.

First, I'm not exactly sober at the moment, so I'm going from clouded memory from several years ago, but I vaguely recall some conversation in which her dialog gave that impression. I should clarify that her implication wasn't necessarily purely sexual, but perhaps more on the "mind-meld" side of things.

I can't remember if that was ME1 or ME2, but I do recall that memory.

Clearly, I think it's time for me to set aside time this winter to replay ME 1 & 2.

Spoiler:

f*ck ME3 and what EA's version of BioWare had already started to become.

Actually Liara’s entire species, as I recall, was fairly open minded, so maybe that’s part of where you’re getting that Liara was a “willing” partner. Trying not to be too gross here.

A lot of what made Tali as a character, to me, was the voice actress. She was definitely playing into some tropes. I can admit that in 2018, but it hooked me in as well. It’s just that by the time I met Tali I was “Liara 4ever”.

If I recall my playthrough, though, I think I did romance both. That was a thing you could do, right? Liara in the first game and then eventually you break up with Liara over the Shadow Broker stuff.

Despite all my slagging on Kaidan, he's my first choice for Shepard as well. BroShep, Liara. Liara explicitly says that she's been too busy to ever have had a relationship as expected of an asari her age, and she's really not that far into adulthood as asari go - barely legal, as it were. Tali is sweet and all, but her view of the Geth is even more extreme than Ashley's view of nonhuman aliens.

I'll leave this here:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/ZGP5cS1.png)

Hehehehe.

Kaidan asked out my FemShep out for lunch in ME3 and during said luch, after she said she wanted to just be friends, reacted with "Huh. Well, you're paying for your own meal then."
So f*ck him.

I think that was precisely the general idea.

DSGamer wrote:

If I recall my playthrough, though, I think I did romance both. That was a thing you could do, right?

During my very first playthrough of ME 1 and 2 as BroShep, I "romanced" two characters in the same game (ME2). So yeah, definitely a thing you could do.

Slacker1913 wrote:

Kaidan asked out my FemShep out for lunch in ME3 and during said luch, after she said she wanted to just be friends, reacted with "Huh. Well, you're paying for your own meal then."
So f*ck him.

Um, that was a joke. Pretty sure the sexist notion that men should pay for women’s meals would be outdated in the twenty-second century too.

Kaiden was so awesome, he won my FemShep over from Liara.

Little did I know I'd do another FemShep and a BroShep after that because of achievements and how awesome this game was, but there you go.

Carth also ruined my Dark Side playthrough of KOTOR. Couldn't find it in my heart to be mean to Carth.

Man, I miss when this game was new.

Man, I miss when this game was new.

No kidding -- it would be so great to be able to play it for the first time again.

Eleima wrote:
Slacker1913 wrote:

Kaidan asked out my FemShep out for lunch in ME3 and during said luch, after she said she wanted to just be friends, reacted with "Huh. Well, you're paying for your own meal then."
So f*ck him.

Um, that was a joke. Pretty sure the sexist notion that men should pay for women’s meals would be outdated in the twenty-second century too.

It just rubbed me the wrong way because it felt like he was set to pay for both until rejection.

TBH, it could be in part because of a small cultural difference - where I'm from it is usually expected that the person who is inviting is always expected to pay for the whole meal, it doesn't matter if you are inviting someone you are interested in romantically or just an acquaintance.