Mass Effect Replay: Wrex says the things I wish I could say

Cutting across a highway overpass to leave the strip club, I prepare for the slog through the Citadel’s underground. There are only a few things I remember about my initial playthrough of Mass Effect back in 2007, and one of them was how this section seemed to drag at a NyQuil pace. I love Mass Effect, make no mistake, but this chapter is what always prevented me from tackling a full-on second playthrough. 

I won’t be stopped this time. In fact, since my playstyle is 200% more walking simulator than ever before, I’m literally walking through these side quests, despite my eyelids drooping closed more than once through this one hour of gameplay.

But I leave Chora’s Den, the aforementioned strip club, with the enormous Urdnot Wrex and the never-unmasked Tali’Zorah in tow. Wrex is my dude. He chooses violence over parley, assault rifles over dialogue, but that’s why I like having him along. He completes me. 

When operating at my default setting, I’m going to play the Pollyanna, the goody two shoes. In Mass Effect-ian parlance, I’m the consummate Paragon. I bore myself just thinking about it. I can’t not do the right thing. I can’t not choose peaceful resolution over bloodshed and vengeance. The worst you’re ever going to see me do is maybe pick a neutral approach when talking to someone new, and that’s just in the interest of maintaining a modicum of professionalism.

So yeah, I keep Wrex around for his blunt personality and his violent rhetoric, even when his deep bass voice is at its most levelheaded and ASMR-soothing in its tone. He tells it straight—from the perspective of a species that’s constantly killing others or, conversely, killing itself when there’s no outside enemy. He’s the perfect inverse reminder of how precious life is, considering he grew up on a planet where life is cheap. And he’s completely aware of his people’s reputation of being incessantly armed and dangerous. They make good bouncers. He knows it’s a status symbol to have one of his kind standing guard at the door of a seedy nightclub. 

Wrex isn’t one of the monotone Elcor (Wrex is a Krogan), but Wrex’s even-keel delivery of anything and everything he says sometimes makes him a hard read. I don’t have any idea, for instance, if he approves of disapproves of anything he hears or says. I suppose that when you’re in a line of work that can turn your kill-death ratio against you in a hot second, perhaps that puts everything else into perspective. Anything that doesn’t kill you only makes you chill.

Here's that hour or so of gameplay that takes me from the strip club to the cop shop, and from the gray market to the escort service. It's too much back and forth, as far as pacing goes, but I'm here for it. The Citadel is the intentionally boring hub of the known universe, so I relish in its seedy underbelly—which should be decidedly seedier, but I'll take what I can get. And get used to these elevator rides. They're the place where you get exposition on your deeds around town. The news reports in the elevators are always talking about you, and the banter between your companions is what's going to make them one of the most memorable casts of characters in all of science fiction. Go ahead and let the loading screens happen in those elevators. Those loading screens are hidden behind some of the best character building you'll find anywhere. And the PA makes Mass Effect's always-awkward journalistic vibe make at least a little more sense.