My Favourite Mass Effect Moments

For me, when it comes to entertainment, the Mass Effect Series is definitely up there with the likes of Doctor Who and Harry Potter. It's deeply laid out universe and lore mixed with compelling characters and solid storytelling makes it the best thing since cheddar cheese. It's well worth the 100 hours of your life that it takes to complete the thing, if you have that amount of time of course. Question is, how do you go about cataloguing all your favourite moments from an experience that is 100 hours long? How do you define what's good and what's bad? Well I could have easily made this list a Top 100, because really every hour of the series holds a least ONE good moment for me to justify. For the sake of sanity though, I've decided to cut it down to simply the Top 10-15: 


Discovering the Citadel (ME1):

I remember playing Mass Effect 1 for the first time, not knowing what would come next, or what would be thrown at me. This bit, right at the start of the game, opened my eyes to see just how expansive this game series could become. It's a glorious vista, one that sets the scale and just sheer epic-ness of what's to come in the next 99 hours. 


Meeting a Reaper for the first time (ME1):  

This is one heck of a reveal. Before this point Mass Effect seemed to be a fairly straight forward Space-opera, one that involved a rogue council agent named Saren gaining the allegiance of the Geth, an army of synthetics in order to (supposedly) find this Conduit thingy and eradicate the human race. Then in the middle of the game it's revealed that Saren is actually just a pawn in a massive chess game played by the Reapers, a species of super sentient life forms that want to eradicate all organic life in the galaxy in order to preserve the 'chaos'. Just imagine a floating army of chuthulu's, each one 2 kilometres wide and wanting to eradicate all life it sees. Now THAT'S a threat. The game suddenly went from being your classic run of the mill save the earth plot to the threat of ALL ORGANIC LIFE IN THE GALAXY BEING WIPED OUT. Now those are some odds. From then on, it was epic all the way...


The Battle for the Citadel (ME1):

A space battle worthy of Star Wars, the final battle in Mass Effect 1 is something to be gawped at, as the Reaper Sovereign ascends upon the Citadel with his Geth fleet to start the mother of all galactic conflicts. Again, it's just the scale of this battle that gets me every time. It also showed just how powerful the Reapers were, and made the prospect of there being an army of them all the more terrifying. This battle wouldn't really be topped til' Mass Effect 3. 


Shepard Dies (ME2): 

The opening to Mass Effect 2 is one of the best introductions to a video game of all time. Mass Effect 3 tried to mimic it, but lacked the element of surprise that this had. Bioware essentially pulled a twist where your character Shepard, after having been built up over the last 15-20 hours, suddenly died from an unknown threat. Everyone you knew had supposedly died as well and your ship, the Normandy, was completely blown to SH*T. Fantastic surprise, but of course they had to resurrect your character afterwards. 


Tali's Loyalty mission (ME2):

For many players like myself, the character Tali holds a fond place in our hearts. A lot of it is because you feel so protective over her, because she generally is a nice, sweet person (that happens to be a suit wearing alien but you get the idea). So when her life on the Flotilla is put at risk, you naturally feel inclined to help her in just any way you can. What follows is an emotional roller-coaster, and Tali is put into a horrible situation by the end of her loyalty mission. I felt for you, Tali.


Garrus' Loyalty Mission (ME2):

The best parts of Mass Effect 2 are the loyalty missions, without a doubt. They offer an insane amount of depth for everyone in the squad roster, and elevates them beyond your average 'Soldier Number 087' type fair that most video games suffer from. A great example of this is Garrus' loyalty mission, where he essentially becomes the Mass Effect version of Batman, in a weird way. Garrus is compelling as a character because he's a wise-cracking always-got-your-back-pal type of guy, but this mission gives him some SERIOUSLY dark undertones, and for a second I wondered if he would turn into a full on cold blooded killer if I didn't restrain him. The video above demonstrates one of two possible endings, and how compelling this 'video game' can become. 


The Suicide Mission (ME2):

The ending of Mass Effect 2 is even more bombastic and loud than the ending of Mass Effect 1. It's essentially an hour long Michael Bay set-piece, but one that is riddled with gut-wrenching moments. Depending on your choices throughout the game and during this mission, everyone on your Team could die (including you) or live. This uncertainty makes you genuinely nervous, because you care for your squad so much at this point and don't want to see any of them go, especially since if they die here, they won't be showing up in Mass Effect 3 if you import your save. I've played this mission multiple times on different playthroughts, and whether I lose two, four, or even eight Team members it still has that same effect: dread. 


The kid dies (ME3):

  
A brilliant scene, one that kicks Mass Effect 3 off with an emotional punch and sets the stakes for the rest of the game. The fact that this is the only kid seen the Mass Effect universe makes it even more poignant. The music is what sets me off though. 


Discovering Project Overlord (ME2):

Oh god, the ending to this Mass Effect 2 DLC left me shattered. It just messes with your head, it's so awful. I can't even begin to describe this one, it's just heart wrenching. Poor David...at least we see him again (and well) in ME3. 


Liara becomes the Shadow Broker (ME2):

Another powerful moment, one that stems from the DLC 'Lair Of The Shadow Broker' in Mass Effect 2. Liara as a character has evolved tremendously over the course of three games: she was shy and rather socially awkward in ME1, but the two year gap between ME1 and 2 evolved her into an emotionally cold, revenge fueled blue chick with a lust for blood. Well okay, maybe not that extreme, but she was pretty cold-hearted this time around. This moment marks another turning point in her character, revealing her more human side once again. It's nice to see her overcome a massive burden as well, not to mention the scene is reallllly epic. 


Mordin's death (ME3):

What makes this so heart wrenching is that Mordin is so accepting of his oncoming fate, and he can finally put his guilt over making the Genophage to rest. Plus the song, a callback to his character in ME2, turns something originally humorous into something really sad and touching. Mordin, you really are the model of a Scientist Salarian *SOB*.  


Anderson's death (ME3): 

Oh god every time I watch this scene I want to tear up, it's just so PERFECT. Anderson is such a father figure to Shepard in this scene. 


The final goodbyes (ME3):

After 100 hours of playing as Commander Shepard, this hit me the most. Why? Because it was the last time I was going to talk to these characters, and I knew that I wasn't coming back for another mission this time. This was the end, and no matter what choices I made during the Series, nothing would change that. So bitter-sweet, and so sad...


The fleets re-take Earth (ME3):

Just amaze-balls. I'd like to see Star Wars match a battle of this scope of size. It's pretty much every ship in the galaxy vs every Reaper in the cosmos. Pure epic-ness on a scale never seen before in both movies AND video games. SO MUCH PRODUCTION VALUE! 


Well those are my favourite moments from the series, I would have made a list with the worst moments on it but to be honest, I can't really think of any bad moments that stick out like a sore thumb. Again, I'm just sad that my Shepard's journey is finally over. I can always start again from the beginning though, and make different choices than the first time around.