I pause before answering. Not because I’m torn for choice, but because I don’t know quite what to say. I do know what I’d like to say:

“I’m sorry, ‘cheated?’ You understand why I ‘cheated?’ I don’t think so, Major.

“So I spent some time flirting with you while we served on the Normandy. That is, if listening to you recount how you white-knighted some girl in biotic school by killing your teacher is considered flirting. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like the bastard pretty much deserved it, but whoa. I mean, I watched the slaughtering of my entire family on Mindoir, then watched my entire Alliance unit get devoured by a thresher maw on Akuze, but I never accidentally broke a dude’s neck over a boy I liked. That’s some hardcore darkness you’ve got swirling around inside you, buddy!

“Yes, there was also the night before Ilos, and I’m not going to take anything away from that. Our ragged band of brothers was heading into an uncertain future, and you and I managed a sweet, if brief, moment of connection before it all went down. As if enough hadn’t already gone down. Between almost having to shoot Wrex and losing Ash on Virmire, I was barely holding on. You were there for me, and I was there for you. We’ll always have Ilos.

It was good, but it wasn’t THAT good.

“Then I defeated Saren and saved the Citadel. Do you remember what happened after that? A Collector ship attacked the Normandy, ripped a hole in its side, and I got spaced. And DIED. I died, Kaidan. Dead. Suffocated in space, where no one could hear me scream. Not that I could, due to that whole suffocating thing. But thanks to Cerberus (I know, I know, you’re not a huge fan), I was rebuilt as a regular Bionic Woman and woke back up — two years later.

“And I’ll never forget our reunion on Horizon. Your dramatic entrance from behind those crates, touting me as the savior of the Citadel and a living legend. The awkward hug. Your accusations that I was showing up after two years and acting like nothing happened. Your petulant whining that you thought we had something, something real.

“‘Thinking you were dead tore me apart,’ you said. ‘How could you put me through that?’

“Uh, I was dead, then unconscious for two years? Then I woke up to some serious shit going down, what with those Collectors abducting people from colonies all over the galaxy? Like they did right before you got all up in my face, on the very ground we were standing upon? Believe it or not, things aren’t always about you?

“So all this talk of cheating and the ‘I still love you,’ stuff? We spent one night together, sweetie. Then you (rightfully) assumed I was dead. Then, and I can’t stress this enough, two years went by. I hate to be all Ross about this, but I think we were on a break, at the very least. A reasonable person would assume all bets were off. But like I said, I never accidentally broke a dude’s neck over a boy I liked.

“What do I want? I want you to shoot what I tell you to shoot, or lift the baddies up into the air so I can shoot them. I want you to quit being such a dummy. I want you to stop acting like a sixth grader facing rejection for the first time. I want you to get it together, Alenko.”

I don’t say this. I don’t say any of it. I opt for the kinder, simpler, “I’m sorry Kaidan, but we should just keep it professional.”

Then you make me pay for the lunch you invited me to.

You know what? Garrus is way better in the sack anyway.

He’s a better dancer, too.

—

Sara Clemens is an ad copywriter for a book publisher, so every single day she pretends she’s in an episode of Mad Men. You can follow her on twitter at @TheSaraClemens, and find all the things she’s ever written for the internet at saraclemens.com.

I’d perform soliloquies for Stitch, my teddy bear. My G.I. Joes took part in an ever-evolving saga of espionage. My Barbie dolls were the members of a huge and convoluted family tree, and participated in all the drama that comes with it. My mom’s Barbie was the mom. She still wore her makeup and hair exactly the way she did when she was a teenager herself.

Can’t you see it just dates you, Babs? You don’t look any younger!

I was also a voracious reader and movie watcher. I especially dug sci-fi. I saw Alien for the first time when I was eight, and apart from gifting me with the image that still pops up in my nightmares (the baby xenomorph birthing itself from John Hurt’s chest, obviously), it also introduced me to Our Ripley of Nostromo, the first female film character I found entirely relatable. I mean, Leia was close, but at the end of the day? I wanted to be Han Solo. Soon enough, I was calling my cat “Jonesy” and pretending she and I were going into cryostasis when we’d go to bed.

She always wanted to sleep directly on my head though, the little facehugger.

But wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to up the ante? To actually feel like I was on a spaceship? To wear the right clothes, say the right words, and be surrounded by a bunch of people doing the same? To feel really immersed in these worlds? Heck yes, it would. So I decided to become an actor.

And I did, and it was great. I made people laugh and cry (mostly laugh). I met the people who make up my core group of friends. I met my husband. I made contacts that got me my first paying gigs in New York. I told a lot of stories.

However, as with most things that are awesome, there was a catch. While little Sara assumed it was the actors who were at the center of the make-believe, actor Sara discovered it was really the audience (as of course it should be).

It may look like she’s on the deck of spaceship, but she’s actually standing in front of several panels of green spandex. Her costume is held together in the back by safety pins. Half the time, she’s not even talking with the person who appears in the scene with her. Theatre offers her more immersion, but then it’s a constant exchange of energy with the audience, because they’re actually there in the room. That energy exchange is important and wonderful and absolutely thrilling, and I miss it dearly, but there came a time when I realized I was the one who wanted to be fooled.

Enter Commander Shepard, stage right.

I was already well acquainted with the immersive qualities of video games, but Mass Effect took dead aim at my childhood fantasies and struck true. An epic space fantasy spanning three games, where decisions from the first affect outcomes in the second and third, it offered me the chance to be the badass space explorer I always wanted to be.

I stalked the decks of the Normandy. I donned space armors and wielded high tech weapons. I befriended my crew. Flirted with them, too. Some of them died, and I mourned them. I helped some people, and hurt some others. I saved the galaxy. For the most part, I was the good gal, but I followed my own code — sometimes you just have to use the Renegade interrupt option and blow up that gas tank your opponent is too busy monologuing to notice.

“Boring conversation anyway,” you’ll say out loud from your couch.

A video game tells a story for an audience of one. A great video game lets that audience help tell it. I may never get a chance to play Ripley in the Alien reboot (though I am totally available, Hollywood), but my Shepard ain’t a half bad substitute. Especially because she’s mine.

There are lots of ways to tell stories, and I’ve got no plans to stop.

—

Sara Clemens is an ad copywriter for a book publisher, so every single day she pretends she’s in an episode of Mad Men. You can follow her on twitter at @TheSaraClemens, and find all the things she’s ever written for the internet at saraclemens.com.

What was it about this game that cost me so many hours? It was easy to play, easy to understand the mechanics of the game, and easy to fall for the story. You wake up on a ship, you don’t know who you are and you are under attack. Simple premise. And then factor in the Star Wars universe and an epic story that takes dozens of hours to complete. Not only that but the story, as it unfolds, is full of twists and turns worthy of the finest Star Wars films. Each character you can interact with has their own dialog options, so the tapestry of voices in the game is wide and unique. And ultimately, and this was a major promotional selling point of the game—you at home get to choose the character’s true nature. The options in the game are designed to make you either a good character that has been saved from the dark side, or an evil character that once revived does not stray from the dark path. If you head down the path of the dark side, your character’s physical appearance changes. Your face becomes gnarled and white and if you go all the way to the dark side your character profile on the menu screen will be surrounded by flames. This was the first game that I can remember playing where your direct, specific choices influence where the game is going and how the game ends. In Knights of the Old Republic, you either end up good or bad and the universe rolls with your decision. The sequel a few years later was one of the more unsatisfying sequels one could imagine. The basic premise, gameplay and decision making remained relatively intact but the story was unfulfilling and the ending caused me to seek out a video game message board to make sure I had not missed something along the way. Seems that BioWare, the game company that had designed the first game did not design the second game. The absence was glaring and all the hours I poured into the sequel carry none of the fondness or memories that I received playing the first game.

Over the last few months of 2010 I had rented BioWare’s Mass Effect on more than one occasion and never managed to play it. I rent foolishly, renting two or three games rather than just one. What always happens is I only play one of those three games, keep them all past their due date and pay the late fees. After a few of these follies, I eventually rented Mass Effect 2. (Yes I started playing the sequel first). The game took a minute but it sucked me in. I would play it a bit at night, then a bit more, then a bit more and then I would be planning to rent the game only on Friday so I could stay up late and play it all night. During the Christmas season I found the game on sale through Amazon.com for ten dollars. I thought I was hooked when I rented it! Now that I owned it, I should almost say it owned me. I played the game for hours on end. Slightly different playing from my younger days as I didn’t have the luxury of hours stolen after an early morning class or the pathetic freedom of having no girlfriend to spend time with in the wee small hours of the morning. Instead I played when I could, once the kids and wife went to bed.

Playing the sequel first stripped any of the emotional impact of playing the follow-up to another well-received game, and allowed me to settle in and get hooked. As with KOTR and Jade Empire there is a specific code of morality you can adhere to (or not) throughout the game. You are either a Paragon or a Renegade. Each differing response leads to different responses and a totally different game experience. In Mass Effect each choice has its own response and creates an amazingly deep and nuanced game to play. I have yet been unable to go all the way Renegade. Just can’t do it. Playing that way seems easier to me, not as challenging. Perhaps one day I will play the game all the way in the red, just to see the differences and how they will change the experience in the third game, due this winter.

Now this brings me to another aspect of Mass Effect that I absolutely loved: continuity. By playing the sequel before the original I was playing what I considered the programmers’ canonical version of the Mass Effect universe. What I discovered is that had I began the experience with the first Mass Effect I would have started ME2 with completely different characters and plot points based on my actions from the first game. When I did buy ME1 and played it I tried to remember the things in the sequel that I could affect through my gameplay. The character you create in the first game can be used in the second game. Whatever storylines and plot points you begin in the first game (love and casualties) carry over throughout all three games. Major plot points aren’t the only things carried over either. As you play the first game there are minor characters that you interact with and basically free from perilous situations. I had forgotten about these characters until playing the sequel with the save data from the first game. These people start showing up! And your interactions have ramifications. I just think it is so cool and it feels like nothing I’ve seen in games before.

Another aspect I absolutely loved about the game was the scope and reality of the game universe. Every place you visit in the game is rooted in the Milky Way. The planets are invented, but the areas in the universe these planets inhabit are real and real images of these areas are used. Visiting the Horsehead or Hourglass Nebula might not entice the regular consumer but as an astronomy freak I thought this was awesome. Especially cool was the ability to visit our own solar system. This leads to a hidden bit of comedy when you visit and try to send a probe to the planet Uranus. The ship computer usually says “Dispatching probes, sir,” but when you visit our wackily-named planet the voice says, “You can’t be serious.” When you probe again the voice, sounding completely exhausted, says “Probing Uranus, sir.” It’s a combination of butt/science humor which is something to behold.

In Mass Effect your actions have direct consequences that have long standing ramifications. If you romance a character in the first game, when you enter your cabin in the second game there is a photo of that character on your desk. If you cheat, the photo is turned down. This deep, involved character development also enhances the replay value of the games. Want to play as a different gender? Check. Want to be a Renegade? Check. Want to beat the game without losing a single character? Check. Want to see if you can end the game having every character die? Check.

Do I think this is the future of gaming? No. Do I hope that more games use this system to develop a rich experience? Yes! Where in the past my emotional investment in a game was due to the game itself this method of play found me attached to the game and the characters. And this investment has me eagerly awaiting the third game to see how the stories I’ve laid out end. It can’t come soon enough.