Nerd Pic: Watch it in order

So this week has been a little slow in the Nerdery. I've logged over 30 hours of game time into Mass Effect 3 on the hardest difficulty, and I'm proud to report that it's awesome. I'll give a detailed blow-by-blow after I beat the game--as well as crank out another outstanding blog post, too--but for now suffice it to say that if you played the first two games, you should already be playing this one.

And if you haven't played the precursor installments, you ask? Could you enjoy Mass Effect 3 on its own? Frak you, Fox execs! Watching things out of order killed Firefly. Watching things out of order leads to ignoramuses complaining about how slow the Battlestar Galactica mini-series was. Watching things out of order make Space: Above and Beyond, Babylon 5, and Tolkien's Middle Earth literature feel cheap and anti-climactic. Don't do it.

Sure, Mass Effect 3 covers all the setting, still introduces you to the content anew even while dropping you into the middle of the end of everything in the galaxy. But the choices you make, the friends you assemble, and the moments you experience in the first two games are what makes the final adventures of Commander Shepard frakkin' awesome. So pick up the series from the start, or just stick to reading about it.

Just do the right thing: watch it in order.