[Gaming Diary] Mass Effect (Xbox 360): Part 12

This is my Twelfth entry in my gaming diary for Mass Effect (Xbox 360).

First-time reader and need context? Please go here.

Update from part 11 of the Gaming Diary:

Pepe Shep, his crew and a salarian army head out to Saren’s base to fight geth and get inside. Shep sends Ashley to fight with the salarians who will take on the front of the base, while Pepe, Kaiden and Garrus will infiltrate the back.

(Photo: lvlt.bioware.cdn.ea.com)

Part 6: Virmire

(Continued)

Wow, a lot happened in this round , so forgive me if I have missed some things. Let me highlight the most important bits.

Pepe and crew head to the back of Saren’s base. Immediately, they head towards a geth communcation tower with the intention of killing it (and they do!). The next task is to head into the building to deactivate the alarms. They make it inside the building and along the way they are attacked by all sorts of geth, krogan and indoctrinated salarians. Speaking of salarians, Pepe finds some locked in cells who have been indoctrinated and are acting a little off. When given the choice to lock them up to die there, I chose for Shep to let them go.

Sooner or later, Pepe finds one of those beacons similar to the one from the first chapter that gave him those weird Prothean visions. He makes another “connection” which replays the vision to the viewer in a little more detail. I am starting to get a sense of what happened to the Protheans at the hands of the reapers and it is disturbing.

Those poor Protheans, running for their lives…(Photo: img4.wikia.nocookie.net)

Shortly after Pepe experiences this cipher, we finally meet the Overlord of the galaxy – Sovereign – in the form of a hologram. And although initially we thought this Sovereign was a ship, it isn’t; it is a giant reaper!

The hologram of Sovereign – the reaper leader. (Photo: static3.wikia.nocookie.net)

This…thing resembling a large industrial insect (of course) is the harbinger of doom. Pepe managed to ask it a ton of questions and basically it comes down to this: the reapers come out of the woodwork after laying dormant for centuries, kill any and all organic life in the galaxy and then sink back into the night. They are responsible for the Protheans’ death. No explanation WHY, or at the very least, we “organics” cannot comprehend their reasons for it. The whole thing is effed up, dude!

Following this meeting with Sovereign it is time to nuke Saren’s entire base. But not before being confronted by Saren.

Saren on Green Goblin’s ride (Photo: img2.wikia.nocookie.net)

He is flying around on what looks like the Green Goblin’s boogie board.

The Green Goblin. I dunno, the similarities are striking! (Photo: img2.wikia.nocookie.net)

He tells Shep he has formed an alliance with Sovereign so that he would be spared from the unstoppable apocalypse of “organic life”. Shep sees through his B.S. and tells him he has been indoctrinated by Sovereign, for Sovereign’s sake, and that he will be thrown under the bus along with everyone else. Saren wasn’t going to listen, and starts shooting, along with his troop of geth and krogan, while flying around on his boogie board. This part was difficult, as you were supposed to shoot at Saren, but he was a moving target, like an annoying black fly that will strike when least expect it. All this is happening while Kaiden is busy installing the bomb.

Next thing you know, Saren falls off his boogie board and Pepe and Saren start kung-fu fighting (frightening!). Pepe right hooks Saren, knocking him down. Saren then musters up the strength to jump onto his board and flies away. Bye-bye, Green Gob-ahem, I mean Saren…

Then, the race is on to get the mako on the Normandy in time before the bomb is detonated. And then…