Crash Defect: One Man's Desperate Quest to Correct the Galaxy, Part Uno

 Our Hero, exhibit A in the case that God occasionally makes mistakes, stares his ugly mug out a window while three old farts talk about him. Amazingly this description gets even worse on the rare occasion you play as FemShep. In this playthrough, Our Hero is a former "street urchin" (translation: god-emperor of the local street gang) who enlisted when he got bored and decided to bitchslap some four-eyed alien bastards. Exposed to Element Zero in utero, Siegfried Shepard likes shotguns, women, and flinging poor schmucks off of cliffs with his mind. The old farts decide he'll do. For what? Yeah we'll get to that.

In some bizarre parody of the thing they do whenever they recast James Bond by not showing his face for a few minutes, a sequence of Shepard wandering through the Normandy is mostly conveyed via shots of his backside. Already I am regretting my decision to play as a male character, but we shall endure. Seth Green is the pilot. Having been in both Buffy and Austin Powers, he should be well acquainted with crazy shit and megalomania, and this game has plenty of both. 

The ship flies through an enormous artificial wormhole called a jump gate "Mass Relay." Don't worry, this series doesn't excessively rip off Babylon 5. It's just that (ZOMG HUGE SPOILERS FOR BOTH SERIES INCOMING)... 

• it's a few years after a First Contact War (which humanity would have lost had it continued), 
• humanity is the new kid on the block, 
• there's a massive cylindrical space station on which ambassadors live,
• the station spins to create gravity, despite artificial gravity being part of the setting,
• a massive cylinder with a bulb at one end does the big firework at the end of the story,
• similar names abound:
• aliens called "Keepers" have a sinister purpose, 
• there's someone or something called "Tupari," 
• a pilot named Jeff(rey), 
• a guy named "Mord(e/i)n" who does terrible things in pursuit of a cause he believes is right,
• presence of aliens with hard plates on their heads, 
• things named after titans of science fiction associated with the Hugo Award (its namesake Hugo Gernsback/its first novelist winner Alfred Bester) given negative connotations, 
• Robin Sachs and Keith Szarabajka both show up in the second installment, 
• the friggin' Modern Major-General song, 
• there are technically two protagonists (Sinclair/Sheridan, Bro!Shep/Fem!Shep), one of which is played by an actor unfairly pigeonholed as "wooden," letting the fans argue about which one's better despite the fact that one only shows up in about 20% of the story, 
• the hero's surname starts "She-", and they served under a black captain prior to the main events of the story,
• the protagonist is named after someone who served in the US military (but whose accomplishments tend to be overshadowed by other people), 
• the protagonist is killed (falling from a great height as this happens) and resurrected with attendant religious symbolism (Sheridan's Crucified Hero Shot and God complex; Shepard has 12 followers in the second game, is resurrected via the Lazarus Project, and visits "Afterlife" (to recruit "Archangel"), "Purgatory," and "Eternity"), 
• the protagonist does not get to live happily ever after,
• an "Earth First" group that becomes more and more Nazi-esque as the series goes on, 
• the leader of said faction shoots himself in the head, 
• the most prominent representative of one alien species wears purple and speaks in a fake Eurotrash accent that very few other members of the species bother with, 
• said species has enslaved another species (which fought back, causing the decline of the first species) in the backstory, 
• the enslaver species' fleet conducts an orbital bombardment of the formerly-enslaved species' world during the story, 
• there's a cycle of war involving abusive precursor giant space crabs which is ultimately deus-ex-machina-ed in part by other precursors, 
• the very first precursor has survived to the present day, 
• psychic powers are present in the setting and integral to the plot,
• bad stuff happened to officially-licensed human psychics in the backplot,
• a resentful, out-of-control psychic whose name is four letters long, 
• a character is brainwashed during the lead-up to a climactic space battle at Earth, 
• some psychics were created specifically by one set of abusive precursors to fight the space crab precursors,
• the final installment is "controversial," 
• the sequel was canceled after its first installment, 
• and the guy writing Saren's theme seems to have used the B5 Seasons 1, 2, and 4 themes as a jumping-off point (the theme from the first two installments is largely missing from the third...)

So basically we're stealing everything Deep Space Nine didn't. 

"Where can we find the designs for the Crucible?" "Check your DVD collection, but don't worry if you don't get the proportions right. Prothean copyright law lasts forever, you know."

On the other side of the jump, Joker (Seth Green) says that they're 1500 kilometers off target, which is more accurate than it gets (just to get some idea of scale, the International Space Station orbits the Earth at an altitude of roughly 420 kilometers). Remember this when we get to pinpoint jumps in later games. For a much more immediate continuity error, consider that Nihilus goes to see Captain Anderson (who remarks over the comm that "he's already here,") but when Shepard go to see the Captain, Nihilus is there and the Captain isn't there yet.

Nihilus and Shepard trash-talk each other for a bit. It's a human-turian bonding ritual, as we'll come to see in later games. Anderson interrupts to tell them that humans found a prothean artifact on Eden Prime, which is why they're going there. There's some as-you-know infodumping going on (the protheans ruled the galaxy 50,000 years ago, building the Citadel and the Mass Relays, and then vanished, as all the characters learned in school) while a distress call waits patiently in Joker's comm buffer, waiting for Shepard to run out of questions. Funny how that always works. Good thing it works, though, because asking about the protheans is necessary for 100% completion. Yay. Speaking of patiently waiting for things, something that's always bugged me about this game in particular is how the audio isn't cut as tightly as it should be. When one character cuts off another, there's a noticeable pause between the two lines. 

Nihilus is also here to evaluate Shepard for the Spectres, because even in the 22nd century, James Bond needs a thumpin'. I kid. Spectres are elite operatives, sanctioned by the Citadel Council (the ruling government) but otherwise above the law. What could possibly go wrong? But if you think about it, Nihilus being here also makes no sense. Nihilus needs to evaluate Shepard's skills at... securing an artifact? Remember, they don't know the colony is under attack yet.

Joker finally chimes in and tells them the colony is under attack, so now they know. We see something that looks like a big dark hand reaching out of the stars - I'm going to chalk this up as Babylon 5 Reference Number Eleventy Zillion, though it may be unintentional. We also see a tiny hint of Smashley Williams, who will be your human soldier squadmate, the middle ground between Wrex's absurd tankiness and Garrus's blisteringly insane damage output. She's in trouble, because this is Mass Effect and you are required to rescue your potential love interest at some point. Except Miranda. The only time Miranda plays the damsel is after you've already romanced her. But she's not in this game.

Despite being there specifically to evaluate you, Nihilus decides to fornicate off and do his own thing. Internal consistency is not Mass Effect's strong point. Instead you are given two squadmates: Kaidan Alenko (Carth Onasi), who is your Sentinel, the single least useful class in the game (put his early points into decryption and hacking so you can open all the crates on Eden Prime, then bench him for the rest of your first runthrough; his Medic skill is more useful keeping Garrus or Tali alive on higher difficulties, but he's largely a waste of a party slot until you can sufficiently level that skill up), and Richard L. Jenkins, a gung-ho Soldier. (I already told you Ash is going to be your Soldier squadmate, so that's a clue as to what happens to him. That the L stands for Leeroy is another.) After a brief tutorial where you get to kill literal gasbags (I like the foreshadowing of the Renegade ending), Jenkins is killed by some drones (oh noes!) and you're introduced to the combat system via a short combat sequence, and the morality system where your options are "we'll assign a burial detail for Jenkins later" and "eh, leave him where he fell, nobody will remember him." Appropriately enough, Jenkins is wholly absent from Shepard's boring nightmare sequences in the third game. 

Shepard meets up with Ashley Williams (boomstick jokes will be made) and her fabulous Hello Kitty armor (right). Blah blah boob plate armor, this is tastefully constrained compared to what's to come (looking at you, Jack). Ash says that the attackers are geth, a race of robots. You have the option for another as-you-know history lesson (the quarians created the geth, who drove the quarians off their homeworld), followed by a tutorial about how to use cover, which you've probably figured out for yourself by now. In the crate next to Ashley is a guaranteed suit of Light Scorpion I armor, which is great on your first run and more useless than Kaidan on subsequent runs, where you'll be picking up at least VII-series loot. (Most of the loot is randomized and scaled to player level, but there are a few guaranteed drops here and there.) 

After this is a cutscene in which Nihilus scouts around a tram station and gets murdered for his trouble by Saren, a nasty-looking bastard whose name is a homonym for a type of nerve gas and whose theme is also the "Game Over" music, just in case you had any doubt as to whether you're supposed to hate this guy. (Also, I don't know if this was intentional, but in addition to sarin gas, Saren's name also invokes Sauron - the bad guy from The Lord of the Rings - and Soren - the villain of Star Trek Generations. Must get confusing at Bad Guy Poker Night. What's next? "Sourin"?)

When you regain control of Shepard, you see Saren's ship, Sovereign, lifting off in the distance. A few minutes later we get a cutscene of Saren still on the surface. That, again, is nothing compared to the bizarre teleportation/temporal manipulation at play in this game's climax, but it is still very weird. 

It's here before the tram that the first bit of replay value kicks in, because you probably don't have enough persuasion points on your first playthrough to find out that the "traumatized dockworker" is the smuggler's contact. It's a small point, but it's there. 

Around this point the game spawns an uber-robot that's invincible until you use Kaidan's biotic powers on it, a desperate attempt to make him appear useful. Ultimately futile though, because this particular Shepard is also a biotic.

On the other end of the tram are four bombs with a very generous timer. Curiously, this is not your introduction to the hacking minigame - Shepard just crouches for a set period of time and the bomb is automatically disarmed. That would have gotten him killed on Agebinum, though, so it's just as well they changed it after the tutorial. Begs the question of why they didn't change it in the tutorial, but eh, it's not like this is going to be the flagship game that puts this company on the map.

Once the last geth is destroyed (and one out-of-the-way crate looted, naturally), Shepard hangs back to chat with whichever squadmate has the same set of plumbing, while the potential love interest investigates the beacon and has to be rescued by Shepard. Since, like 82% of the fanbase, I am playing as BroShep, the rescuee is Ash. Again. 

The Beacon brainrapes Shepard with what appears to be a mix of concept art, CGI, and live-action footage before exploding and knocking him out. (Hint number one the Mass Relays actually weren't built by the protheans, given how easily prothean shit breaks when you poke it.) After a cutscene involving Counselor Troi's cleavage, Shepard awakens back on the Normandy. The beacon gave him a nightmare. They're on their way back to the Citadel. Grumpily, Shepard asks if it didn't occur to them that Eden Prime has medical facilities, which is... a legitimate question. Yes I understand the Normandy is well equipped and Dr. Chakwas is a consummate professional. But still it would probably be better to leave Shepard on Eden Prime to recover. Hell, he could have reconnected with that dockworker who identified Saren. Cuz, you know, actual evidence that Saren's a traitor might be something useful.

Ash is waiting for Shepard outside. She's sorry about Jenkins because if he hadn't died she wouldn't have a place on the Normandy. They're both Soldier-class characters named after someone else, so that's true. However, Ash Williams has something R. Leeroy Jenkins never could: a shot at Shepard's bed. Booyah!