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Welcome to Massively Affected, where I, Josh Silverman, bring on a guest and ask them the not-so-simple question: Why Mass Effect?
This week I’m joined by Kenneth Shepard, who you may know as a Staff Writer for Fanbyte, and the co-host of NormandyFM. On this week’s episode, Kenneth and I discussed agency in the Mass Effect universe, among many other topics. In exploring Commander Shepard’s journey, players are often put in situations where they’re guessing at what Shepard will say based on snippets of dialogue. These don’t always relate to the exact circumstances of what will be said, leading to a bit of occasional cognitive dissonance between what players intended, versus what actually happened. In this episode we looked at how the ending to Mass Effect 3 gave the only true agency to Commander Shepard, as through no spoken dialogue Shepard was finally able to do exactly what the player wished. At least within the confines of the game’s planned out story.
If you enjoyed my conversation with Kenneth Shepard, make sure to give him a follow on Twitter.
The entire first season of Massively Affected will be featured right here on But Why Tho through July 13.
Massively Affected can be found on all podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts & Spotify! For a full list, check out the Massively Affected page.
As always, my thanks to Adam Leonhardt for his brilliant work making the Massively Affected logo, Julian Villarreal for his beautifully composed theme song for the show, and Mark B. Donica for helping me out by editing the back two-thirds of this season!
Bear Punch Media is a network of shows founded by Josh Silverman and Justin Stanley. After shutting down the long-running Constantly Calibrating Podcast Josh and Justin were looking for something else to do in the podcasting space, and from that Bear Punch Media was born! Much like its predecessor, BPM is built on creating passionate, interesting shows and giving voice to positive creative voices throughout all industries.
For more details on the Bear Punch Media slate of shows check out the below information. And to follow the network and keep up to date on announcements, head on over to @BearPunchMedia on Twitter.