Excuse me, Ashley?

I'm playing Mass Effect 2 at the moment. It's entertaining enough, but I've just experienced the worst scene in the game so far. Some background:

There's a character named Ashley Williams who's a potential romantic interest for male Shepard player characters in the first Mass Effect game. After spending two years in a coma -- or is that simply dead? -- Shepard awakens and joins pro-human group Cerberus, who task him with recruiting the best team in the galaxy to help thwart the dreaded Collectors. At one point, he has to travel to a colony which is under attack by the Collectors. Ashley Williams just happens to be stationed there.

Now, my Shepard and his merry companions succeeded in driving off the Collectors and saving the majority of the colony's inhabitants -- including a certain Ashley Williams. Great, I thought, a chance to rekindle our romance and add another worthy member to my burgeoning squad.

Except that the conversation doesn't quite go in that direction. No sooner are we reacquainted than she's absolutely busting my balls for not bothering to contact her for the last couple of years. Shepard quite reasonably argues that this is because he was, in fact, dead. However, he lets slip that he's now working for Cerberus. This only adds fuel to Ashley's fury. "How do I know Cerberus isn't working with the Collectors?" she asks, blatantly ignoring the fact you've just shown up, killed dozens of them and saved the colony.

Then she storms off.

All the while, my right hand is turning white from its death grip on the mouse as I'm forced to select one unbelievably lame response after another while I unwillingly guide this farcical conversation to its inevitable conclusion. Had I been able to unload my shotgun on the back of Ashley's head as she walked away, I probably would have done so.

The most ridiculous thing is that of all the characters from Mass Effect 1 who return in the sequel, Ashley Williams is the most likely character to support Shepard working with Cerberus. She's essentially a xenophobe who believes in human superiority. Damn it, she killed my trusty right-hand krogan companion in Mass Effect 1 by shooting him in the head. But now she's so disgusted that Shepard hasn't been sending her flowers from beyond the grave and has joined a proactive, pro-human group dedicated to doing something to save humanity from an obvious threat that she won't even give me the chance to explain?

This tops the abortion debate in Mass Effect 1 as the most risible conversation I can remember in a BioWare game. Which is a shame, because until now the writing has been rather good. Ashley's unbelievable and out-of-character reaction is a poorly constructed way of not having to deal with her in Mass Effect 2, for whatever reason (and there are several that come to mind). Understandable, but then leave her out completely or kill her off. This... this was just lame.

To top it all off, it's possible to have Kaiden Alenko show up in place of Ashley if you import your save (one of the two characters dies in the first game). Guess what? The conversation is almost word for word the same. For shame, BioWare!