Why the Boy in Mass Effect 3 Annoys Me

Everyone that has played Mass Effect 3 (sorry if that doesn't include you) is familiar with a boy that you encounter near the start of the game. When making your way to your ship, the Normandy, during a Reaper (giant, sentient, synthetic ship-beings) invasion of Earth, you stumble across the boy, hiding in an air vent. You reach out to him and try to get him to come with you to safety, but he declines, then disappears. Seems innocent, actually annoying.

During the opening cinematic, you see the boy outside, playing with a Normandy toy. If he has a Normandy toy, he knows who Commander Shepard (your character) is. If he knows who Shepard is, then he knows what he/she looks like. If Shepard tries to save him, he'll let Shepard save him.

If the boy had allowed the player to help him out, then gamers would not have had to witness the shuttle he boarded get incinerated by a Reaper. That death haunts Shepard's dreams throughout the rest of the game and is the reason why the Catalyst (a sentient being that controls the Reapers) decides to take the form of that young boy. 

Had this one thing happened (the kid accepting your help), players would not have had to sit through multiple, repetitive dream sequences (that were a missed opportunity) where you are forced to "run" incredibly slowly, chasing the boy around a forest until he disappears in flames. Shepard would have been in a better state of mind throughout the rest of the game as well.

Many Mass Effect fans also hated the ending (I held out as long as I could, but eventually joined them in their rage.) If the Catalyst chose a different form, then at least one part of the much-hated ending would have been different.

Lesson: If you are hiding in an air vent and the hero of humanity and all of the galaxy offers to help you, say,"YES!"

The Black Sheep

The Black Sheep is a comedic/creative website and newspaper written for college students by college students. I wrote a couple of articles for it last semester and here they are.

Zombie Apocalypse

Zombie Undergrad

Road Test?

I've had my 2006 Volvo S40 for about two weeks now. I'm considering writing a complete road test on it, but I'm worried that I'll tear it apart and then get stuck driving it for years. I don't want to get overly picky, so we'll see what happens.

Your Name Here

My new (used) car is on its way from Phoenix to Des Moines. About a month ago, before the car was purchased, I jokingly told a friend that if I ever owned a red Volvo, I would name it "Meatwad." There were two reasons behind this.

There is a show on comedy central that I fell in love with this past fall called Workaholics. A character on the show drives an old Volvo that he refers to as "the Swedish meatball." Volvos are made in Sweden and his particular Volvo happens to be a red/brown kind of color. Hence the name.

There is another show called Aqua Team Hunger Force on Adult Swim. There is a character on this show that is quite literally a wad of meat named Meatwad. So, I thought it would be funny to name a Swedish meatball Meatwad.

I only said that I would do it because I assumed that if I did ever actually own a Volvo, it would not be red. Outside of the Chicago Auto Show, I scarcely ever see red Volvos. Typically they are white, silver, gray, or black. However, my Volvo (that I'll be driving this Friday) is bright red.

I'm not going to name it Meatwad.

Monica is Gone

Monica, my car . . . former car, is gone. Over winter break she suffered multiple mechanical failures. I had to pump money into her just to make her drivable and after that she still had no rear breaks and needed a new transmission (that was her third trans already). It no longer made sense to pay to keep Monica running, so I sold her to Carmax, where she was going to be auctioned off for parts.

Now I am without a car to call my own, but not without a set of wheels. My girlfriend is in China until May, so I get you cruise around in her 95' Volvo that has just under 198k miles on it. Sometime this semester, I'll be needing to get a new car. Lets just hope that my second car isn't my second Monica.

R.I.P.

Monica