THURSDAY CRUSH: Garrus

Name: Garrus Vakarian
Born: Unknown
Played By: Brandon Keener
You Know Him From: The Normandy
Geek Cred: Part of the Mass Effect game series

“It's so much easier to see the world in black and white…. Gray? I don't know what to do with gray….”

We can all probably remember our first video game crush. Now Bioware does a great job when it comes to its romances. This is due to amazing voice acting, brilliant dialogue and giving all sorts of players someone that they would like to romance. And of course lots and lots of choices. For me one of the best crushes and romances I have had in recent years was a certain scarred turian. That’s right we are talking about Garus Vakarian.

Ah Garrus Vakarian, turian bad ass and love interest all through my Mass Effect trilogy play. For those of you who haven’t played Mass Effect you first meet Garrus when he leaves C-Sec to help you defeat Saren and the geth. I loved him because he was sweet and courteous, a bit noble even but absolutely ruthless when it came to battle. He was eager to be the hero and right all the wrongs in the world and annoyed as all hell that bureaucracy was preventing him every which way he turned. Plus it was nice to have a sniper on the team. Of course as Femme Shepard I could romance him and did in the second installment. There was something about him. Maybe it was quotes like, “Your, uh, hair looks… good, and your waist is… very… supportive.” I think it was the sweet awkwardness, the nervousness and let’s face it Garrus is pretty cute for a member of an alien race. And the voice. You got to love that voice (thank you Brandon Keener).

The whole courtship is cute really and as I played the trilogy, I became more and more attached to my man in blue. I became emotionally invested in that game, a rare thing these days. I liked Garrus as a character overall. He’d been hurt and betrayed, seen a lot of loss and “my” character just wanted to offer him something more, a slice of happiness in all that destruction (great writing by the way peeps). In the last game the parting words between my character and his was enough that I really really didn’t want to go into the battle. I was worried about the loss of him as such things could happen and worried that I would be up in that bar in heaven waiting without him.

“Forgive the insubordination, but your boyfriend has an order for you...come back alive. It'd be an awfully empty galaxy without you…. ” To this day Garrus is one of my favorite video game characters and one of my favorite video game boyfriends. Who is yours?