Last night I killed 305,000 people

What? No, of course I don't mean real people! I'm talking about video game people, of course.

Last night I played the Arrival DLC for Mass Effect 2. So if you haven't played through the end of ME2 or the Arrival DLC, this post will contain spoilers you may want to avoid. (Well, there's already a spoiler in the title. So. Sorry.)

Arrival is all about finding Dr Kenson, who has discovered proof of the coming Reaper invasion, courtesy of a massive Reaper artifact they found in an asteroid. The only way to stop the Reaper invasion from arriving in all of two days' time is to use the asteroid to destroy the mass relay in that system. Which, you know, will destroy the entire system and kill everyone in it. About 305,000 people all told. And guess who gets to make that happen?

Unsurprisingly, this is not one of those things where you can choose not to do it. Whatever happens, Shepherd will destroy the mass relay. Which makes sense, because this kind of massive decision would have an equally massive impact on the third game. But it's still difficult watching it happen. My Shepherd is not the kind of commander to throw away that many lives without serious circumstances proving it's the better option.

But it's not a choice. And while Shepherd has the reasoning that slowing the Reapers down has saved trillions of lives in comparison to the 305,000 that were sacrificed, the consequences are going to be hell for her.

Damn good game.