Favorite Moment? AKA - When you fell in love with the ME Universe.

Don't worry, you're not the worst case I saw in the matter, and far from it

Heh heh...beaten...heh heh...

How could you possibly even imagine a double meaning in there ?

Believe me, I'm really trying not to.

I'm sure you're about to blame the RGB Space Magic for this

Oh, all right.

Now I am relieved. And worried.

Planning to stick to the beaten path?

Rule #34.

Let's see... The moment I fell in love with Mass Effect.... I bought ME1 because I actually found a copy of The Collector's Edition of ME2 just sitting on a shelf in Best Buy for like $29 and I'd heard that to fully enjoy ME2 you should play ME1 and I'm like that about games with a sequel. So I bought ME1 on Amazon for $15.

The first thing about it was that I could play a female Shepard (which based on the description of the game I wasn't even sure if you were playing Shepard like Garret from The Witcher or what) and then that you could customize her was even cooler.
Then seeing the opening pan out and listening to Hackett, Anderson and Udina talking about your character mentioning the service history you'd just chosen and seeing your character was really cool. The whole thing with Eden Prime was just great. It put down this groundwork and I knew then that this was different kind of game and that the days of just completing a quest were over because my choices were going to come back and haunt me.

Then playing through ME2 (finding out that Garrus was Archangel because I, too, did not know I avoided spoilers and that he was a love interest was great). I remember telling my husband that if Garrus had been an option in ME1 she'd have been with him, they had so much in common. He told me later to go after Archangel first, that he'd suit my playstyle and that I should just trust him. I was so happy it was Garrus I got all teary-eyed, then when I thought he'd died I was so upset and then when he lived I was so happy again. I hugged my hubby and he teased me forever about it. Sorry for the wall of text but there is just so much I loved about ME.

The moment where Mass Effect stopped being a game and started being a passion was...I hate to admit it...the romance scene with Garrus.

There's something about the timbre of his voice, how he talks about constantly screwing things up in life and he wanted just one thing to go right. It reminded me of all the times I pounded my fists against my desk at home and had wished for the exact same thing! For the simplest of mercies to go right and not take a nosedive off the cliff of misfortune.
Then a paradigm shift happened for me. I stopped thinking about the characters like pictures on a screen and started thinking about them as people. That's when I started to connect with Jack and the shadows of her past, Mordin and his confliction about using medicine to hurt people, Wrex and his uphill battle to save a people who don't want to save themselves...and the list goes on and on.
When I got to ME3, I felt like all that connection I'd established had been rewarded, especially with Garrus. I felt a little put off that I couldn't get my family back together, but at least they saw me one last time before I fell into the gaping plot hole that is the ending of the game.

I also liked talking to Tali in Mass Effect to learn more about her and her people, that's when I started to get really interested in the series.

The moment I fell in love with Mass Effect was two parts of the opening of the first mission on Eden Prime. The first was when I pulled the trigger on the shotgun for the first time. I immediately started grinning like an idiot. The resulting thud was so...perfect. The way the 360 controller recoiled by vibrating instantly immersed me completely in the world the developers created. I had never been drawn into a game that quickly.

The second was when you round that first corner and Jenkins get mowed down right before your eyes. You've just spent time assigning his squad points, checking out his gear, and talking to him in an effort to learn who is this guy you're given for your first mission. And he gets killed off before the mission even really begins. In an instant BioWare forced you to understand that people will die, people you thought were invulnerable as how often does a member of your squad die? Maybe one of them gets killed near the climax, forcing the stakes even higher, but on the first mission? Mass Effect gave you a little time to get attached, and then killed the character off to set the tone for the rest of the game. In the first ten minutes I experienced a blend of gameplay and storytelling like nothing I had ever seen before.

But while those moments made me love the series, my favorite moment was Legion's loyalty mission in ME2. The decision to either destroy the heretics or rewrite them stuck with me for days. A game had presented me with a complex moral dilemma that I didn't have a straight answer for. Is it more inhumane to kill or brainwash? Are your beliefs worth dying for? And would taking away someone's central principles change them so much that you've still murdered the person they were in order to create a new individual who shares your view of the world? No other story in any media has brought out such a level of self-reflection so quickly and poignantly for me. The greatest art shows you what's inside yourself, and Mass Effect did so again and again.

How beautifully eloquent!

JENKINS

LEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOY!!!! jjjjeeeeeeeeenkiiiiins!

Jenkins...gets Eden Primed every time

Was he on the ME3 crew deck memorial? I can't remember.

I *think* he was. I won't swear to it. Now that you mention it, though - I don't think Nihlus was, and he should have been also.

"Richard L. Jenkins" is on the wall but Nihluus Kryik is not.

L for Leroy, I presume?

Where'd you learn Nihluus' last name?

neither is xo presley, he was forgotten on the wall