“Shepard, where are we?”
“London… I think.”
“London? How did you work that out? Some sort of alien navigation fixing? Did EDI, our spaceship’s virtual intelligence, triangulate the location using the galaxy-spanning Mass Effect relays? Did you manage to patch your omni-tool’s computer microframe and sensor analysis pack into the Alliance spaceship fleet and get them to relay the output of your cybernetic tracking implant via subspace comms?”
“No, look, a red phone box.”
It’s comforting to know that, around two hundred years from now, we English folk will be firmly ignoring the flying cars, VIs, aliens, spaceships, Mass Effect relays, space stations and the like, and stalwartly sticking by the good old copper wire public payphone. ‘If it was good enough for my great-grandparents, it’s good enough for me. Now you kids get your hoverboards off my lawn!’
Did anyone else notice that each civilian corpse was wearing a bowler hat and clutching an umbrella?
I was disappointed that most of the crashed shuttles appeared to be standard Alliance models, rather than hover-black-cabs. Also a missed opportunity in war assets, a distinct lack of the 4th Battalion Cheery Cockney Chimney Sweeps and their animated penguin artillery support. “Gawr bloimey Poppins Shepard!”
I’m sure the future has some sort of Historical Preservation Society that files a lawsuit every time someone suggests removing the red phone boxes.
6% of U.K. postboxes are over 100 years old.
Well, I must revisit that bit of ME3. Maybe it was just so fitting in its environment that I didn’t even notice the vivid red phone box against the apocalyptic backdrop.
I remember seeing this as I approached the finale and thinking to myself “haven’t these been pretty much entirely removed now? In the very beginning of the 21st century?” I’m not sure if it was a matter of needing a reminder that we are, in fact, in London, or if it was just what the Canadian developer thought American gamers would expect to see in Britain.
Careful observation also reveals that Big Ben is still intact. Say what you will about the Reapers, they’ve got an awful PR department, but they do know enough to pick out the best parts of a city to leave as iconic ruins.