Mass Effect Replay: I'm leaving this boring Citadel and I miss it already

One of the toughest things to do in Mass Effect is get through the Citadel. The difficulty level isn't in assault rifles and combat armor, but in the sameness of its architecture and the shuffling back and forth across the same white hallways and sleepy blue lighting.

I'm not mad. I say all of these things in love. I can say these things because I'm secure in the knowledge that Mass Effect, for 14 years running, has been at the pinnacle of mostly linear, party-based RPGs. So, don't be mad at me for recognizing that my favorite role-playing game of all time has a few slow spots, or the occasional pacing problem. 

Today, just hopping in quickly over my lunch break, I walk Commander Shepard out of a Council meeting—so many meetings, I swear—that appointed me as the galaxy's first human special forces Spectre agent. I'm kind of a big deal now. It's not exactly top secret knowledge, however, since a dozen random NPCs just hanging around the Council Chambers listened in to the pinning ceremony. 

But just in case I thought there were more important things to do (e.g. stop a rogue Spectre from acquiring a weapon of mass destruction and basically handing it over to a plague of locusts coming to wipe out the galaxy), the game stops me on the way out of the Council Chambers with another side quest. Some guy wants me to check on his brother who hasn't called home in a while, or something like that. 

And then (and then!) on the elevator ride down from the Council Chambers, another side quest invites itself into my mission journal, just from some seemingly rando news report going out across the PA. I'm surprised Mass Effect didn't ninja-drop a third side quest in, just from me walking back along the promenade and riding yet another elevator up to my ship's docking station.

I'll miss the Citadel soon enough, I'm sure. I'll miss the occasional NPC that I can click on who has nothing to say to me—and that's basically all they say. I'll miss the hyperactive blue neon in the C-Sec cop shop, the red light district known as Chora's Den, or the Ringworld lake garden spanning the waistline of the Presidium. 

Before I finish my lunch, I'm bumped up to level nine, I'm 2.1 out of 16 (?) on the Paragon good-guy scale, and get an insta-promotion from executive officer to commanding officer of the Normandy. I give my first speech to the crew over ship's comms, and make it sound like all humanity is now on our shoulders. No pressure, shipmates. And peace out, former Skipper. Ship's mine now, sorryyyy.