I’m currently quite busy with my final exams, meaning that I’m studying – or pretending to study – most of the time, which is quite exhausting. I’m tired, I’m sort of not really myself and keep forgetting things I usually wouldn’t forget – talk to people, listen to people, clean up the apartment, whatever it is, I can’t really focus on it. And an enormous lack of sleep. One more exam to go, which will be the hardest – History, oh, how I hate modern History -, then only the oral exam, and then I’m finally done. It’s about time, too.
There are few things that actually cheer me up at the moment, only few things that really distract me, and I’m always looking forward to them. One thing, of course, is role-playing. Planning the Maraskan trip there is so much fun, and simply being my character is just good to relax and get my mind off things.
The second thing is, in fact, my brother’s X-Box, where I seem to spend more time than I originally wanted to. First, it was Portal. Ever since David made me listen to the credits song “Still Alive” I wanted to play that game, found out that my brother has it, played it and had lots of fun doing that. The cake is a lie. Nothing more to add to this. The only problem was that ever since I played that game, I desperately wanted to have some cake – and I was absolutely happy when I got a piece of real cake on Tuesday evening. Yay! ^^
After playing Portal, I was back to slaying monsters in “Viking: Battle for Asgard”, but that grew to be boring after a while. It’s a good distraction, anyway. But the day before yesterday, my brother made me try another X-Box game he is currently quite in favour of: Mass Effect. And that’s what got me hooked immediately.
I have to admit that I’m normally not quite in favour of sci-fi stuff. I rather prefer the old-fashioned monster-slaying with some stylish sword or whatever. But Mass Effect is quite interesting, too. Of course I modified the character’s appearance, and even though my characters normally look quite weird when I do that, I am actually proud this time. He doesn’t look weird at all, he’s rather… stylish. Rough. And I love those different versions you can choose there – the background story and the psychological profile, I mean. Now, here’s my Shepard:
He’s a colonist, meaning that he grew up on the colony Mindoir. When he was 16, some slave hunters attacked Mindoir and killed his family and friends; rescued by an alliance patrol, he signed up for the alliance military later, too. Concerning his psychological profile, he is quite unscrupulous – during his whole military career he stuck to one basic principle: the mission is to be completed at any cost. He is generally seen as being cold, calculating and brutal and is respected because of his ruthless efficiency. And failure is absolutely not an option for him. I remember one scene that I played yesterday: he met a former slave, a girl that had been kidnapped by the slave hunters during the same attack where he lost his friends and family. And she was confused, and asked him, talking about herself in the third person, “Why aren’t you broken like her? She is broken, why are you still so strong?” And his answer was self-evident: “Nobody breaks me.” Rawr.
I didn’t want to play a stereotype soldier, though; he’s an expert, a biotic specialist, so rather mage-type than soldier-type. At the moment, though, I’m still shooting down most of the things. And the story, I have to admit, is really quite interesting…
Of course, knowing that it’s me, I went for the bad guy in every aspect. In conversations, I’m always the “piss off, and if you get on my nerves you’re absolutely dead” type of guy, and I have lots of fun being a complete asshole to most of the people there. Except for one, of course, because my brother told me that there are two women you can kind of flirt with, Ashley and Liara. Ashley got on my nerves right from the beginning and she’s usually the one my character looks down on, and I had really lots of fun when I was like, “Do we have a problem?” – “Sir, during the whole mission, you doubted my competence!” – “Well, then prove to me that you actually have those competences and that you’re worthy of my trust.” Yay. Love him. Anyway, so there’s only Liara left, an alien, and even though it’s hard for me not to be the bad guy with her, it’s quite understandable that he’s nice to her because… well, she’s blue. My universal argument: she’s blue. And she’s cute. And much better than Ashley. I think I’m going to play it once again when I’m done with this, though, and see what it’s like to be the bad guy all the time. And the way he talks to people… absolutely gorgeous! The kind of guy who prefers to shoot first, and ask questions afterwards. He doesn’t like the idea of anybody questioning his competence, of anybody telling him what to do and he behaves accordingly, not talking to people who he thinks waste his time. I’m getting as many renegade points as possible and I am always disappointed when I, by accident, get some exemplary points. So here we are, the bad guy in every single aspect.
My Shepard, you see, is the typical character I really prefer. And I’m so much looking forward to playing him again. And that’s my latest distraction – and quite an interesting one, too. I’m already curious to see how the story proceeds.
