T w e n t y S i d e d

There’s a distress call from Grissom Academy, an Alliance military school for gifted young Biotics. Shepard goes to help and finds out Cerberus is attacking the school.

Grissom Academy

On my first playthrough of this game, I’d lost my Mass Effect 2 saves in a computer migration and so I had to use the default world state, in which Jack is dead. If we make the assumption that anyone using the default character is new to the seriesWhich is not remotely a guarantee, but it’s probably a better policy than just assuming all players are returning ones., then this actually makes sense. Jack is a tricky character and it would be awkward to try to explain who she was in the second game just so the player could appreciate her transformation here in Mass Effect 3.

But this series is based on a full play-through of all three games, and so I got to see the different ways BioWare handled the fact that most of your Mass Effect 2 crew might be dead. They put a lot of work into it, and it really does make for a better world if you take the time to import the saves.

Here at Grissom Academy, Jack has somehow joined the teaching staff. She’s trying to clean up her potty mouth and has ditched the nihilism and random violence in favor of being a mentor to young adults.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mass Effect Retrospective 38: Cerberus Unlimited”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.