More Adventures in Gaming and Aunthood

I had Younger Nephew over for a nice long gaming session today. I picked him up from his house, and he spent most of the half hour drive explaining to me that he knew that there had to be a "big plot twist" coming in Mass Effect 3, and speculating what it would be. Some ideas: We would discover some Collectors were still around, and they would help us fight the Reapers. The Illusive Man would turn into a giant monster and there would be a big boss fight with him. Or "I'll break the glass and he'll go flying out into space and I'll hang on tightly to a rope."

I suspect that some of his ideas are better than the actual twist ending of Mass Effect 3. Even if I'm not sure that a big boss fight with the Illusive Man would really constitute a "plot twist".

He also speculated about various plot threads from Mass Effect 2 that might come into play in Mass Effect 3. He remembers a heck of a lot more of the plot from Mass Effect 2 than I initially thought - there was quite a bit of time in the early days when I was pretty sure he was in it for the gun battles and nothing else, but he clearly has a good grasp on the story now. It's fascinating. I don't know if he always had this all in his head but couldn't articulate it at the time, or if he's refreshed his memory on the plot points somehow. (Perhaps by watching some Mass Effect 2 videos on Youtube or something.)

While in the car, he also improvised a long song about noogies and wedgies, and how the only way to avoid the coming noogie epidemic (yes, he literally used the phrase, "coming noogie epidemic") was to go bald.

This child used to be rather taciturn. He's become quite talkative. Although, on the drive back home, I used a lull in the conversation to attempt to ask him about what he does with his life while not playing computer games. After dutifully answering a few questions about summer camp, he said, "Could we stop talking about this? Because it's confusing. And you'll just be bored anyway." I assured him that I was curious, but I was happy to stop talking about it. "So, which other characters from Mass Effect 2 do you think will appear in Mass Effect 3?" elicited a much more enthusiastic conversational response. (I shouldn't be surprised, really. It's not like he can talk about the game with anyone else in his immediate social circle. Why waste valuable conversational time talking about summer camp when you could be talking about Mass Effect 3?)

Anyhow, we played for a good few hours, and were reunited with the characters of Mordin and Grunt from Mass Effect 2. Younger Nephew loves Grunt. Loves the Krogan in general. But really loves Grunt. Like, practically every line of dialogue Grunt gets, Younger Nephew gives me this wide-eyed look of, "Isn't he the best!"

Especially for the line: "I don't need luck, I have ammo!"