As you know, I'm a real Star Wars nerd. I've been watching Star Wars movies since I was a kid and playing Star Wars games since the original Star Wars Arcade game. Despite the popularity of Star Wars and how long the franchise has been around, its surprising how few good Star Wars games are available.
However, we will soon get another entry in the franchise which, from the initial videos, looks awesome. Check out this link for a tech demo on the new Star Wars game.
Man, I can't wait to get my hands on this and force choke storm troopers before flinging them through the nearest window!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Mass Effect - the bad
In my last post, I talked about some of the things in Mass Effect that I liked. This post will be about what I perceive as the flaws of this game. Bear in mind, although I will be talking about the flaws, overall, I think this game is awesome (as evidenced by the fact that I'm on my third playthrough!).
Conversations
Interestingly enough, one of the games strengths also highlights one of the games weaknesses. In my last post, I talked about how good the conversation is and how it can sometimes feel like you are watching a movie. The problem is that, although there is a lot of conversation, the NPCs don't seem to have much depth.
If you are familiar with previous BioWare games, this will catch you by surprise. BioWare are famous for providing a good story with good characterisation for the NPCs. Although you do get to talk to your NPCs and learn more about them, it just feels like the majority of the NPCs aren't really fleshed out.
To be honest, I was expecting this. I have followed this game closely during its development so I was very much aware that BioWare were focusing most of their effort in developing the game engine and the conversation engine. I knew beforehand that the characterisation wouldn't be up to the same level of their previous games. Having said that, it is still a flaw of the current game.
Uncharted Worlds (UCWs)
As I mentioned before, the UCWs are one of the games weaker points. The UCWs were basically an attempt by BioWare to give you the feeling of a universe to explore. I'm guessing that all the story developers were working on the main storyline quests and hence there weren't very many people working on the UCWs.
Each UCW has a slightly different reason for you being there. In this regard, there is quite a large variety of different backgrounds. For example, you could be chasing pirates. Or talking to a former marine who has setup some kind of cult. Or the Geth could be setting up a staging area for an advance into Alliance space and you need to take them out. Or there could be hostages that you need to rescue.
However, despite the wide variety of raison d'etre for you going to a UCW, the end result in practice is usually the same. You fly in, drive around in your Mako (a lunar buggy) until you get to the enemy base and then you kill everyone there. The feeling of sameness is exacerbated by the fact that all buildings have the same layout. All mines have the same layout. All ships that you can board have the same layout. The only difference is that the furniture is arranged differently.
Basically, whether you enjoy the UCWs or not will depend entirely on whether you like the combat system.
Inventory
BioWare have a history of bad inventory systems in their games. However, the system used in Mass Effect is poor even by their low standards. To understand how poor the system is, let me give you an actual example from the game.
I've been wandering around the UCWs and picking up lots of loot. Eventually, I get to the stage where I have over 130 different items. At this point, the game lets me know that I am nearing the limit of 150 items. So I decide to head back to base to sell off some of my stuff.
I get to the equipment sell screen. All 130 different items that I have are listed in one huge list. The list isn't sorted alphabetically. Nor is it sorted by the relative power or value of the item. Furthermore, 2 identical items count as separate items so I see the item Cryo Round III show up several times in different areas (identical items aren't grouped together either).
As you can imagine, this makes it frustrating when you are trying to identify which items you want to sell.
Conversations
Interestingly enough, one of the games strengths also highlights one of the games weaknesses. In my last post, I talked about how good the conversation is and how it can sometimes feel like you are watching a movie. The problem is that, although there is a lot of conversation, the NPCs don't seem to have much depth.
If you are familiar with previous BioWare games, this will catch you by surprise. BioWare are famous for providing a good story with good characterisation for the NPCs. Although you do get to talk to your NPCs and learn more about them, it just feels like the majority of the NPCs aren't really fleshed out.
To be honest, I was expecting this. I have followed this game closely during its development so I was very much aware that BioWare were focusing most of their effort in developing the game engine and the conversation engine. I knew beforehand that the characterisation wouldn't be up to the same level of their previous games. Having said that, it is still a flaw of the current game.
Uncharted Worlds (UCWs)
As I mentioned before, the UCWs are one of the games weaker points. The UCWs were basically an attempt by BioWare to give you the feeling of a universe to explore. I'm guessing that all the story developers were working on the main storyline quests and hence there weren't very many people working on the UCWs.
Each UCW has a slightly different reason for you being there. In this regard, there is quite a large variety of different backgrounds. For example, you could be chasing pirates. Or talking to a former marine who has setup some kind of cult. Or the Geth could be setting up a staging area for an advance into Alliance space and you need to take them out. Or there could be hostages that you need to rescue.
However, despite the wide variety of raison d'etre for you going to a UCW, the end result in practice is usually the same. You fly in, drive around in your Mako (a lunar buggy) until you get to the enemy base and then you kill everyone there. The feeling of sameness is exacerbated by the fact that all buildings have the same layout. All mines have the same layout. All ships that you can board have the same layout. The only difference is that the furniture is arranged differently.
Basically, whether you enjoy the UCWs or not will depend entirely on whether you like the combat system.
Inventory
BioWare have a history of bad inventory systems in their games. However, the system used in Mass Effect is poor even by their low standards. To understand how poor the system is, let me give you an actual example from the game.
I've been wandering around the UCWs and picking up lots of loot. Eventually, I get to the stage where I have over 130 different items. At this point, the game lets me know that I am nearing the limit of 150 items. So I decide to head back to base to sell off some of my stuff.
I get to the equipment sell screen. All 130 different items that I have are listed in one huge list. The list isn't sorted alphabetically. Nor is it sorted by the relative power or value of the item. Furthermore, 2 identical items count as separate items so I see the item Cryo Round III show up several times in different areas (identical items aren't grouped together either).
As you can imagine, this makes it frustrating when you are trying to identify which items you want to sell.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Mass Effect - the good
As promised, my impressions of Mass Effect. Sorry this took so long - but when you see the length of this post, I'm sure you will understand why!
In short, I think this game is awesome. Obviously, its not perfect and has some flaws (what game doesn't?) but in my opinion, a lot of the criticisms being directed at this game seem to be nitpicking. Anyway, I'll cover some of the stuff I wasn't impressed with and also some of the nitpicks I hear about this game in my next blog post - this post will primarily be about the stuff I liked.
Also, there won't be any gameplay examples as this is an RPG and I really don't want to put any spoilers into this post. If you really want to check out some of the cool stuff in this game and aren't worried about spoilers, then head over to YouTube. There are tons of videos there from people who played this game.
Story
As with all BioWare RPGs, BioWare have spent a lot of time and effort in writing a good story. And it shows. They have managed to create a very interesting and gripping storyline. In brief, the Reapers, an ancient race of synthetics ie non organic life, are about to awaken and these guys seriously dislike organic life. Your job is to stop them. If you fail, the Reapers won't just wipe out humanity, they will render the entire galaxy void of sentient life. No pressure!
What is really impressive about the story is that you really feel like you are in a space opera. At times, watching the story unfold, it made me feel just like a kid watching Star Wars.
At the end of Mass Effect, you are able to stop the initial threat. However, this story is far from over. BioWare have stated that this game is just the first in a planned trilogy. The story arc will span 3 games with each game being self contained. After having completed Mass Effect, I have to agree that the writers have done a fantastic job of giving closure to the first game while leaving room for future sequels.
This is hugely important as a bad ending to a game can really spoil the entire experience of the game. If you have ever played Halo 2, you will know exactly what I mean. The storyline in Halo 2 ended very abruptly and you never got that sense of closure. Halo 2 was panned heavily for this reason - and rightly so. It was also for this reason that I didn't feel comfortable giving my impressions of this game until I had completed it. Luckily, Mass Effect doesn't suffer here. The ending is superb and I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 - I guess I should have had more faith in BioWare.
:)
Universe
Unlike BioWare's previous space opera (Knights of the Old Republic), Mass Effect is a completely new Intellectual Property. What this basically means is that BioWare cannot rely on terms which people are familiar with. Lets face it, if you are in KOTOR and you mention jedi or lightsaber, 99% of people will probably already know what you are talking about. This makes it a lot easier for game designers as they don't have to worry about whether you understand what the game means when it mentions the jedi.
However, with a new IP, the designers have to do a lot more work. If they come up with a new term (eg Mass Relay), they have to find a way to explain that term to you so that you know what is happening within the game. For the record, this obviously isn't just a game designer issue - authors face this exact same issue if they are trying to create their own world. In fact, I believe it was some famous author (possibly Tolkien) who said something along the lines of - in order to create a new world, you have to come up with all of the lore and background of the world you are creating even though only 30% of it will show up in your novel.
And it certainly seems like the writers of Mass Effect have tried to do that. Throughout the game, you will pick up new entries in your Codex. The Codex is basically a giant encyclopedia that gives you more information about the Mass Effect universe. The good thing is that reading the Codex is never necessary. The game itself gives you enough information in-game to appreciate the story. However, if you want to delve deeper, then the Codex gives you that option.
Gameplay
The gameplay is surprisingly good. I will be honest when I say that the shooter elements of the game were one of my concerns about whether I would enjoy this game. BioWare aren't exactly famous for creating good shooters and their previous action RPG, Jade Empire, disappointed me a little in that I felt that the combat system in JE was too simple. When you spend a significant portion of time in combat, a simple combat system can be deadly to a games replay value.
However, the combat in Mass Effect is actually done quite well. To be fair, its nowhere near as good as some of the dedicated FPS's available on the market (which to be honest, is expected). However, the action is just good enough to keep me interested in the combat. Which is incredibly important as you spend a lot of time in combat - particularly if you take on the side quests on the uncharted worlds.
The uncharted worlds are basically BioWare's attempt to let you have a Universe to explore with your ship. Unfortunately, the uncharted worlds, overall, are one of the games weaker points. I'll elaborate on this in more detail in a later blog post.
Conversations
One of the big aims of BioWare in developing Mass Effect was to make the game, in particular the conversations, as cinematic as possible. The way they did this was to significantly change the way you approach conversations.
In many other RPGs, you would hear or read the conversation on screen. When it came for your character to speak, you were given several options on what your character would say. If the game had full voice over, you would then hear your character say the words that you had chosen. The advantage of this system is that you know exactly what your character will say. The disadvantage is that this basically results in a large pause in the conversation while everyone waits for you to read all of the available options, think about what your character would say and then make the choice.
Mass Effect gets around this by having a wheel from which you choose your response. The wheel itself only shows a couple of words to give you a general idea of what that response will be. However, the words themselves aren't known to you until the character actually speaks them after you have chosen the response. Add in the fact that the wheel pops up just before the other person finishes speaking and you can basically queue up your response. Watching this in action is incredible. It really looks and sounds like two people having a normal conversation.
Role Playing
And so we eventually come to the Role Playing aspect of Mass Effect. The reason I left this for last is because, in my opinion, the role playing aspect of this game is its main strength and I have a lot to say here.
Some of the decisions that you have to make in this game are epic. Will you genocide or save another race? Which of your team members will you save - your romantic interest or the poor pleb who wasn't pretty enough to attract you? One of your alien team members is from a race which is slowly dieing out due to a genetic virus which results in most pregnancies failing. The main antagonist develops a cure - but in order to defeat the main antagonist, you have to destroy the cure. Can you still trust your alien team member? Or do you play safe and kill him first thereby not endangering your mission?
However, what really impresses me about the role playing aspect is that the responses you get are very believable. One of my gripes about previous BioWare games (in fact, most RPGs!) is that its very hard to role play an evil character. As a general rule, in resolving any quest or conversation, you can 3-4 choices which roughly correspond to:
a) choose to be a goody goody two shoes. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me lie down in it so that you can walk all over me and not get your shoes dirty!"
b) choose a neutral response which gets you the XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me put down my cloak so that you can walk over the puddle without getting your shoes dirty!"
c) choose a neutral response that gets you no XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle."
d) choose the evil response. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me assist you in getting a closer view."
The problem is that the so called evil response isn't actually very evil. Most of the time, you just end up acting like a petty thug. Think of all the really evil characters in stories (Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Dr. Evil - ok, maybe not that last one...). Seriously, can you see Darth Vader pushing people into puddles?
The thing with Mass Effect is that there is no good and evil. Your job is to save the Universe so basically, you are a hero. The difference is whether you follow or bend the rules. Someone who follows the rules and tries to be the "good" guy is basically labelled as Paragon. Someone who makes his own rules (and you can do that as a Spectre!) is basically labelled as Renegade. The Paragon/Renegade meters are counted separately. This allows you to create the character as you desire.
For example, on my first playthrough, I created a female Commander Shepard. She was a good person in that she would do her best to save lives. However, she was ruthless in that she was willing to do whatever it took to complete the mission. If you got in her way or jeopardised the completion of her mission - she would take you down without a second thought. No remorse.
In other words, she was a renegade. She had no problem with breaking the rules if there was a point to it. However, she would not break rules for the sake of breaking rules - it was always mission focused.
And this was how I played her. Most of my decisions got me renegade points. In fact, by the end of the game, I was able to max out my renegade meter. On the other hand, I also had a fair whack of paragon points simply because she was also out there to save lives. This was what impressed me the most about this game. The fact that the choices I had within the game allowed me to role play my Commander Shepard the way her character had been designed.
And not many RPGs can make that claim.
In short, I think this game is awesome. Obviously, its not perfect and has some flaws (what game doesn't?) but in my opinion, a lot of the criticisms being directed at this game seem to be nitpicking. Anyway, I'll cover some of the stuff I wasn't impressed with and also some of the nitpicks I hear about this game in my next blog post - this post will primarily be about the stuff I liked.
Also, there won't be any gameplay examples as this is an RPG and I really don't want to put any spoilers into this post. If you really want to check out some of the cool stuff in this game and aren't worried about spoilers, then head over to YouTube. There are tons of videos there from people who played this game.
Story
As with all BioWare RPGs, BioWare have spent a lot of time and effort in writing a good story. And it shows. They have managed to create a very interesting and gripping storyline. In brief, the Reapers, an ancient race of synthetics ie non organic life, are about to awaken and these guys seriously dislike organic life. Your job is to stop them. If you fail, the Reapers won't just wipe out humanity, they will render the entire galaxy void of sentient life. No pressure!
What is really impressive about the story is that you really feel like you are in a space opera. At times, watching the story unfold, it made me feel just like a kid watching Star Wars.
At the end of Mass Effect, you are able to stop the initial threat. However, this story is far from over. BioWare have stated that this game is just the first in a planned trilogy. The story arc will span 3 games with each game being self contained. After having completed Mass Effect, I have to agree that the writers have done a fantastic job of giving closure to the first game while leaving room for future sequels.
This is hugely important as a bad ending to a game can really spoil the entire experience of the game. If you have ever played Halo 2, you will know exactly what I mean. The storyline in Halo 2 ended very abruptly and you never got that sense of closure. Halo 2 was panned heavily for this reason - and rightly so. It was also for this reason that I didn't feel comfortable giving my impressions of this game until I had completed it. Luckily, Mass Effect doesn't suffer here. The ending is superb and I can't wait for Mass Effect 2 - I guess I should have had more faith in BioWare.
:)
Universe
Unlike BioWare's previous space opera (Knights of the Old Republic), Mass Effect is a completely new Intellectual Property. What this basically means is that BioWare cannot rely on terms which people are familiar with. Lets face it, if you are in KOTOR and you mention jedi or lightsaber, 99% of people will probably already know what you are talking about. This makes it a lot easier for game designers as they don't have to worry about whether you understand what the game means when it mentions the jedi.
However, with a new IP, the designers have to do a lot more work. If they come up with a new term (eg Mass Relay), they have to find a way to explain that term to you so that you know what is happening within the game. For the record, this obviously isn't just a game designer issue - authors face this exact same issue if they are trying to create their own world. In fact, I believe it was some famous author (possibly Tolkien) who said something along the lines of - in order to create a new world, you have to come up with all of the lore and background of the world you are creating even though only 30% of it will show up in your novel.
And it certainly seems like the writers of Mass Effect have tried to do that. Throughout the game, you will pick up new entries in your Codex. The Codex is basically a giant encyclopedia that gives you more information about the Mass Effect universe. The good thing is that reading the Codex is never necessary. The game itself gives you enough information in-game to appreciate the story. However, if you want to delve deeper, then the Codex gives you that option.
Gameplay
The gameplay is surprisingly good. I will be honest when I say that the shooter elements of the game were one of my concerns about whether I would enjoy this game. BioWare aren't exactly famous for creating good shooters and their previous action RPG, Jade Empire, disappointed me a little in that I felt that the combat system in JE was too simple. When you spend a significant portion of time in combat, a simple combat system can be deadly to a games replay value.
However, the combat in Mass Effect is actually done quite well. To be fair, its nowhere near as good as some of the dedicated FPS's available on the market (which to be honest, is expected). However, the action is just good enough to keep me interested in the combat. Which is incredibly important as you spend a lot of time in combat - particularly if you take on the side quests on the uncharted worlds.
The uncharted worlds are basically BioWare's attempt to let you have a Universe to explore with your ship. Unfortunately, the uncharted worlds, overall, are one of the games weaker points. I'll elaborate on this in more detail in a later blog post.
Conversations
One of the big aims of BioWare in developing Mass Effect was to make the game, in particular the conversations, as cinematic as possible. The way they did this was to significantly change the way you approach conversations.
In many other RPGs, you would hear or read the conversation on screen. When it came for your character to speak, you were given several options on what your character would say. If the game had full voice over, you would then hear your character say the words that you had chosen. The advantage of this system is that you know exactly what your character will say. The disadvantage is that this basically results in a large pause in the conversation while everyone waits for you to read all of the available options, think about what your character would say and then make the choice.
Mass Effect gets around this by having a wheel from which you choose your response. The wheel itself only shows a couple of words to give you a general idea of what that response will be. However, the words themselves aren't known to you until the character actually speaks them after you have chosen the response. Add in the fact that the wheel pops up just before the other person finishes speaking and you can basically queue up your response. Watching this in action is incredible. It really looks and sounds like two people having a normal conversation.
Role Playing
And so we eventually come to the Role Playing aspect of Mass Effect. The reason I left this for last is because, in my opinion, the role playing aspect of this game is its main strength and I have a lot to say here.
Some of the decisions that you have to make in this game are epic. Will you genocide or save another race? Which of your team members will you save - your romantic interest or the poor pleb who wasn't pretty enough to attract you? One of your alien team members is from a race which is slowly dieing out due to a genetic virus which results in most pregnancies failing. The main antagonist develops a cure - but in order to defeat the main antagonist, you have to destroy the cure. Can you still trust your alien team member? Or do you play safe and kill him first thereby not endangering your mission?
However, what really impresses me about the role playing aspect is that the responses you get are very believable. One of my gripes about previous BioWare games (in fact, most RPGs!) is that its very hard to role play an evil character. As a general rule, in resolving any quest or conversation, you can 3-4 choices which roughly correspond to:
a) choose to be a goody goody two shoes. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me lie down in it so that you can walk all over me and not get your shoes dirty!"
b) choose a neutral response which gets you the XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me put down my cloak so that you can walk over the puddle without getting your shoes dirty!"
c) choose a neutral response that gets you no XP. For example - "Oh look, a puddle."
d) choose the evil response. For example - "Oh look, a puddle. Let me assist you in getting a closer view."
The problem is that the so called evil response isn't actually very evil. Most of the time, you just end up acting like a petty thug. Think of all the really evil characters in stories (Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, Dr. Evil - ok, maybe not that last one...). Seriously, can you see Darth Vader pushing people into puddles?
The thing with Mass Effect is that there is no good and evil. Your job is to save the Universe so basically, you are a hero. The difference is whether you follow or bend the rules. Someone who follows the rules and tries to be the "good" guy is basically labelled as Paragon. Someone who makes his own rules (and you can do that as a Spectre!) is basically labelled as Renegade. The Paragon/Renegade meters are counted separately. This allows you to create the character as you desire.
For example, on my first playthrough, I created a female Commander Shepard. She was a good person in that she would do her best to save lives. However, she was ruthless in that she was willing to do whatever it took to complete the mission. If you got in her way or jeopardised the completion of her mission - she would take you down without a second thought. No remorse.
In other words, she was a renegade. She had no problem with breaking the rules if there was a point to it. However, she would not break rules for the sake of breaking rules - it was always mission focused.
And this was how I played her. Most of my decisions got me renegade points. In fact, by the end of the game, I was able to max out my renegade meter. On the other hand, I also had a fair whack of paragon points simply because she was also out there to save lives. This was what impressed me the most about this game. The fact that the choices I had within the game allowed me to role play my Commander Shepard the way her character had been designed.
And not many RPGs can make that claim.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Commander Shepard
Currently playing Mass Effect on my X360. Mass Effect is the latest RPG from BioWare, my favourite RPG developer. So far, I've been having great fun with this game. I'll give you my proper impressions of the game at a later date (being an RPG, I don't want to rush the experience!).
Anyway, while we're waiting for my impressions of the game, I thought it would be useful to give you an idea of who my Commander Shepard is. At this point, I should apologise for the poor quality of the pictures you are about to see. Just bear in mind that they aren't screenshots but rather a photo taken of my TV screen.
Anyway, this is Commander Sarah Shepard. She was born in the slums of old Earth and spent her childhood running with various gangs in da hood. However, watching her friends being gunned down made her into the woman she is today.
Deciding that she didn't want to spend her life in the slums, she joined the Systems Alliance military as a Soldier the first chance she could. And she quickly demonstrated her ability in the field. She also developed a reputation for being ruthless. This culminated in the operation on Torfan during the Skyllian Blitz where she got most of her squad killed - although she did manage to complete the mission.
Her ability to get the job done at any cost was exactly the attribute the Systems Alliance was looking for when it was looking for a Spectre candidate. Spectre's are basically the intergalactic version of James Bond. They are authorised by the Citadel Council (the ultimate authority in the explored universe) to protect galactic peace - at any cost. To this end, Spectre's answer only to the Council and are basically above the law. As a spectre, I can gun you down in cold blood and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
This is Liara - an Asari scientist and expert on the Protheans (a race of technologically advanced aliens who died out 50,000 years ago). She is a biotics expert (think magic in D&D) and is basically my bitch! If you have been following Mass Effect, you will know that there is a lesbian love scene. Well, Liara is the other party in the love scene - and now you know why my main character is female :p
This is Tali and she is basically my chief engineer. She is a Quarian - a member of the race that developed the Geth. The Geth are basically sentient machines which were created by the Quarians to serve as slave labour. The Geth didn't like being slaves and so they rebelled and kicked the Quarians off their homeworld (clearly, the Quarians never watched any of the Terminator movies).
Tali is always fully encased in armor because Quarians are used to living in a completely sterile environment. As such, when they are outside of the Quarian Flotilla, they completely encase themselves in their armor to ensure they don't catch any of our germs. I guess this is also why Tali isn't one of the romance options! :)
This is a picture of the Bitch Brigade (as I affectionately call them) on Feros, one of the colonies established by the Systems Alliance. You can tell I am expecting trouble as the helmets are down in case of sniper fire!
And this is a picture of us sightseeing on some hazardous planet. In this picture, our combat suits have been sealed in order to protect us from the harsh environment. Even so, we can only step outside our Mako (the Mako is the armoured car you see in the background) for short periods of time.
Anyway, while we're waiting for my impressions of the game, I thought it would be useful to give you an idea of who my Commander Shepard is. At this point, I should apologise for the poor quality of the pictures you are about to see. Just bear in mind that they aren't screenshots but rather a photo taken of my TV screen.
Anyway, this is Commander Sarah Shepard. She was born in the slums of old Earth and spent her childhood running with various gangs in da hood. However, watching her friends being gunned down made her into the woman she is today.
Deciding that she didn't want to spend her life in the slums, she joined the Systems Alliance military as a Soldier the first chance she could. And she quickly demonstrated her ability in the field. She also developed a reputation for being ruthless. This culminated in the operation on Torfan during the Skyllian Blitz where she got most of her squad killed - although she did manage to complete the mission.
Her ability to get the job done at any cost was exactly the attribute the Systems Alliance was looking for when it was looking for a Spectre candidate. Spectre's are basically the intergalactic version of James Bond. They are authorised by the Citadel Council (the ultimate authority in the explored universe) to protect galactic peace - at any cost. To this end, Spectre's answer only to the Council and are basically above the law. As a spectre, I can gun you down in cold blood and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
This is Liara - an Asari scientist and expert on the Protheans (a race of technologically advanced aliens who died out 50,000 years ago). She is a biotics expert (think magic in D&D) and is basically my bitch! If you have been following Mass Effect, you will know that there is a lesbian love scene. Well, Liara is the other party in the love scene - and now you know why my main character is female :p
This is Tali and she is basically my chief engineer. She is a Quarian - a member of the race that developed the Geth. The Geth are basically sentient machines which were created by the Quarians to serve as slave labour. The Geth didn't like being slaves and so they rebelled and kicked the Quarians off their homeworld (clearly, the Quarians never watched any of the Terminator movies).
Tali is always fully encased in armor because Quarians are used to living in a completely sterile environment. As such, when they are outside of the Quarian Flotilla, they completely encase themselves in their armor to ensure they don't catch any of our germs. I guess this is also why Tali isn't one of the romance options! :)
This is a picture of the Bitch Brigade (as I affectionately call them) on Feros, one of the colonies established by the Systems Alliance. You can tell I am expecting trouble as the helmets are down in case of sniper fire!
And this is a picture of us sightseeing on some hazardous planet. In this picture, our combat suits have been sealed in order to protect us from the harsh environment. Even so, we can only step outside our Mako (the Mako is the armoured car you see in the background) for short periods of time.
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