Mass Effect has a rich video game universe with a compelling plot, lots of scenic and iconic locations, and some of the best developed characters of any video game universe made in the past 15 years. The characters are arguably the very best part. Of course, since we’re living in the year of 2017, the moment any game with any kind of exploitable personalities comes into the veil of existence, it will be turned into more memes than you can shake a stick at.
Good memes, bad memes, forgettable memes, or memorable memes, they are all memes nevertheless and almost always worth taking a look at. Like most memes related to video games or, well… anything, they are the funniest to the people who play and love the games the most. They can sometimes contain some deep introspection into gameplay mechanics, mock the bizarre situations that the characters find themselves plunged into, poke fun at the personality quirks of some characters, or otherwise rather inappropriate actions. Or maybe they can be used to just make silly puns and turn characters into something they’re completely not.
Regardless, the following list will bring you 15 memes that are funny in their own right, but will make Mass Effect fans cry of laughter.
15 What’s My Name?
Ahh, poor Commander Shepherd. He or she saves the galaxy from the Reapers and goes into battle to save a whole ton of people (his/her crew included), negotiates trials for a crewmember who is being charged with a crime she did not commit, and tries to punch reporters for being too nosy. One of the great things about Commander Shepherd is that you can customize the good commander’s appearance in almost every way. Skin complexion, eye color, hair style, gender, whatever you want. Of course, you had the option of putting in your name as his/her name as well.
However, despite the inseparable bonds that form between Commander Shepherd and his crew, and no matter how obvious it is that the crew of the Normandy don’t adhere to any real military protocol, they never, EVER refer to Commander Shepherd by his or her first name. It’s almost like of all the things you could do to customize your character, this is the one that makes the least difference. Why even bother? They obviously couldn’t get the voice actors to say every possible name out there anyway.
14 Calibrations
Garrus is an awesome character. He’s a classic tough guy that doesn’t look in the slightest bit human, but is loved for his video game badassery and grotesque handsomeness anyway. He’s also an extremely hardworking weapons engineer since that’s all he’s been doing since birth, being a Turian and all that jazz. This meme is one of many that show him engaged in pretty much the only activity he ever seems to do while he’s aboard the Normandy…
No seriously, whenever you go to talk to Garrus on the Normany, whether you’re on the second or third game (never played the first, you guys, you must forgive me), that’s literally ALL he’s doing. I understand the Normandy is a pretty big warship and it needs lots of work to keep it going nice and smooth… but just how out of whack are the big guns to the point where all he does is calibrate them? Or is maybe calibrations slang for some other activity that he needs lots of alone time for…
13 No One Cares About The Volus
A lot of aliens in the game cover themselves up quite well. The Quarians are the ones who generate the most interest, with their rather human like bodies and very vague glimpses of their faces. The romantic option with Tali doesn’t exactly do much to diminish the fanbase’s interest, either. We also really got a major teaser into Tali’s face when she removed her mask in Mass Effect 3.
However, you know who else has their entire bodies and face covered up? The Volus. Sadly, no one wanted to see what was underneath their pressure suits. I’m pretty sure that if they did, the fans would quickly ask them to get dressed.
12 Garrus And His Anti-Arrow To The Knee
Garrus is a battle hardened spec-ops Turian with very little in terms of darns to give. He’s faced up against a massive amount of mercenaries who he started a war with due to them smuggling weapons and drugs. During the ensuing battle, however, he takes a grenade blast to the face that leaves him with the iconic scars that last him for the remainder of the series.
Since Mass Effect 2 came around within the same timeframe as Skyrim (OK, so they’re almost two years off, but never mind), it couldn’t be helped to compare that one incident of badassery to one of the most infamous lines in Skyrim. Yes, I’m referring to that one… ‘I was an adventurer like you once, but then I took an arrow to the knee’. That was as hilarious as it was cringeworthy, but Garrus’ take is especially good. If you’re tough enough to take a grenade to the face and keep moving, then you can take anything and keep going.
With or without sci-fi medical technology, of course!
11 Sara Ryder’s Face
We’ve really dropped deep into the uncanny valley with this one. I mean even the graphics from the original 2007 Mass Effect weren’t this bad, or just plain off.
Seriously, the faces are so utterly off in Andromeda (before the patch) that it’s almost hilarious as it is creepy. Sara Ryder is in a class of her own though. Just googling her will reveal that she’s the butt of almost every single joke about the game. However, the best part is just how the REST of them could be squeezed into this one picture. I honestly just want to laugh when I look at it to get the creeps out of my spine.
10 Always Enough Time For Decoration!
Between saving the galaxy and defeating terrorists, Commander Shepherd can also do things like spend valuable resources to buy things like model spaceships and fill his personal aquarium with various forms of marine life (be careful, if you don’t feed them, they will die). You can even buy alien adult films, just in case you were wondering what turns on some aliens.
However, it’s funny to realize that while the whole galaxy could be in danger, Shepherd found the time to make a detour, just so he could buy some needless trinkets for a room that you’re never in.
9 Commander Shepherd’s Ceaseless Endorsements
Look, celebrity endorsements are not uncommon. They go as far back in our history as Ancient Roman Gladiators, who endorsed things before they went off to stab each other for the glory of Rome. That being said, Commander Shepherd can do this for a discount, but the good commander has a pretty weird definition of ‘favorite’.
It is funny that you can claim that every store is your favorite on the whole citadel. If this was the real world, Commander Shepherd would really be wearing a Scumbag Steve hat, since he would be getting his deals, but the stores he endorsed wouldn’t get anything. Because if all stores are his favorite, then none are…
8 The Anticipation of Mass Effect Andromeda
Due to its unsatisfying ending, most would consider Mass Effect 3 to be a disappointment. Even though the game play was solid and the rest of the game was fun, the ending left a real sour taste in the mouths of gamers the world over.
And then Mass Effect: Andromeda was announced. The internet collectively lost their minds and, with every passing trailer, the hype just seemed to grow bigger and bigger. For old timers like me, it seemed like 2008’s Spore all over again… a massive hype over a game that could not possibly hope to deliver and was bound to provide tons of disappointing blunders. While Spore’s gameplay was lacking, it made up for with some interesting alien designs. Andromeda… well, you’ve seen Sara Ryder’s face, which brings us to…
7 The Massive Disappointment
So before Sara Ryder’s face made everyone’s jaw drop (for the wrong reasons), there was… the anticipation. Seriously, I think fans were just interested in getting the thought of the ending of Mass Effect 3 out of their minds that any other Mass Effect game just seemed like it would packed with gold. Also, the hype of what was promised in the game was incredible; more exploration, more combat and an increasingly immersive world that would dwarf anything that had come before it.
Then, something happened… something that sent the hype-train of anticipation into a massive hype trainwreck. The game was overloaded, not with goodness, but with glitches. On top of that, there weren’t as many loveable characters and the AI was incredibly dumb.
6 Assuming Direct Control
When fighting Sovereign, one thing that he likes to do when taunting you was to say that he’s assuming direct control over a certain individual you were fighting and boasting that ‘this hurts you’ when he attacks. It’s pretty funny when you realize how the line could be inserted into almost anything to make it look more epic.
The sheer variety of jokes that are online about this is hilarious. However, if you’ve played the game, it is a line that would eventually tick you off since the enemy you now have to fight needs to be hit harder before he can go down and deals more damage to boot.
5 Indoctrination
In Mass Effect, indoctrination is the process where the Reapers brainwash organic beings with their technology. It does this through the signal or energy field that surrounds the Reaper. Now, for something that is rather basic throughout the entire game series, this one makes for fun jokes about the sheer amount of stupidity it brings.
This especially is used to make jokes about the abysmal ending of Mass Effect 3 since the only possible explanation for many gamers is that the Reapers took control of the actual player and made them imagine the whole thing. Ditto for BioWare’s attempts at releasing DLCs that don’t bother to fix that critical part of the game. If you’re an even bigger fan and subscribe to the indoctrination theory, it makes even more sense that Commander Shepherd was basically just dreaming up the whole thing and never left his bed that morning…
4 Tali’s Mask Removal
Tali’Zorah Nar Rayya is one of many likeable characters in Mass Effect because she and her people have a rather unique set of challenges to them. They’ve been banished from their home worlds and basically live as nomads in outer space. Their ships are their homes and in a universe full of intergalactic space battles, that’s actually pretty terrifying since your entire family and everyone you know could be easily destroyed by one major hit in battle. She is also a master technician and scientist who knows a massive amount about the Geth. She had a rather notable conflict with Legion which you must resolve to keep both sides happy.
She also wears a suit and mask since her immune system is so weak that any form of bacteria will kill her instantly. This leads to some interesting theories as to how Tali really looks like underneath that mask. There’s a teaser with some rather ominous looking eyes beneath the mask, but despite all the teasers and the possible romance with Tali, we never get to see what her face looks like in-game.
The game’s obsession with keeping her mask on in that gif obviously led people to compare her to Master Chief from Halo, mocking the animation where he removes his mask (some players even manipulated the game to see exactly what lied beneath his helmet… and it was another helmet) to show that there is just another mask there. Way to go!
3 The Dancing…
Look, being an intergalactic hero(ine) is hard work. You have entire species of people to please, alliances to forge, enemies to defeat, friends to make, places to blow up, and other sorts of cool mayhem to accomplish. But after all that, Commander Shepherd needs to relax, and his/her crew needs to take it easy, down a few drinks, and dance a little. I mean they must know how to party, right?
Actually, if you look at how Shepherd and the crew dance, they’re probably going to embarrass themselves more than fully grown parents embarrass their teenage children when they do some half-remembered dance steps from their youth as a way of trying to seem ‘cool’ to their teenage children’s friends.
2 Overhearing Everyone’s Conversations
Yeah, Mass Effect has the Zelda effect of being able to break into people’s homes and taking their stuff all for a good cause. Except in this case, it’s all about overhearing their most private or needless conversations. Not only does it make for great jokes to see aliens chatter on, sometimes even dropping vital hints and personal facts that would actually become a big deal in-game, the funny part is just how loud and open people are about their personal information.
Some scenes have entire romantic get ups just happening in plain view that you can get involved with, while others have you hear about Salarian breeding contracts in a bar.
1 Mass Effect 3’s Abysmal Ending
Mass Effect has the distinction of a game where the decisions you make really do count. Characters call you out on them, it affects the plot, it effects how you’re perceived and the world around you. So what does this all mean for the final climax in Mass Effect 3 when you finally need to go out there and defeat the Reapers once and for all?
Absolutely nothing… everything you ever did meant nothing. It was a massive slap in the face to every single hardcore player who had been following the series ever since its inception, but at least we got some funny memes out of it.
