Specs at a glance: Garrus Vakarian Body Pillow Dimensions 6'4", dreamy, lotsa scars, heavily armed No, the PILLOW's dimensions Oh. Uh, about 6' tall and rectangular—you know, pillow-shaped. Material Some kind of cotton blend? Who even knows. Texture accuracy Disappointingly pillow-like and not at all Turianesque Snuggleability 8.66 out of 10 Calibrations performed All of them Will Garrus return my love? No Will I be lonely forever if I buy this? You will likely be forced to forsake all human contact, but at least you'll have Garrus Price $40 at the Bioware Store Do you seriously have one of these, Lee? ...maybe

It's no secret that I love Bioware's Mass Effect—last year I wrote a 10,000 word piece on why the series is so great, and I've played the games through more times and written more fan fiction and obsessively edited more Mass Effect music videos than anyone else on staff. I am the closest thing Ars Technica has to a Mass Effect editor. You can imagine, then, the absolute delight I felt deep down when FedEx dropped off my prerelease review version of Bioware's new Garrus Vakarian Body Pillow.

Body and build quality

The whole thing is six feet in length (1.82 meters), which means that Garrus himself is quite a bit shorter on the pillow than he is in real life (everyone knows that Turians are typically a bit over six feet tall). For better or for worse, Garrus is emblazoned directly onto the pillow—there is no pillowcase. This means that if you spill something onto him—like, I don't know, wine or something, like when the two of you are watching a movie—it's going to be a bit complicated to clean. You can't just throw the pillow case into the washing machine.

I was able to overlook the shortcomings of Garrus' height, though, since the pillow is well made and very snuggly. In bed, the pillow functions excellently, and I was able to hold it closely and whisper secrets and sweet nothings to it without any issues. The pillow also had no problems absorbing the tears that I shed on it—finally being able to have Garrus this close was an emotional moment, but he dealt with it admirably.

A short honeymoon

However, there are three major problems with the Garrus Vakarian body pillow that keep it from being a must-buy. First, there's the fact that Garrus is wearing his trademark blue armor. This is an unbelievably dumb oversight on Bioware's part, because it's clearly shown both in Mass Effect 2 and in Mass Effect 3 that Garrus has at least one casual outfit that he wears when meeting Commander Shepard in his or her quarters, and another worn during the "Citadel" DLC. Putting Garrus in full battle armor in a situation that clearly calls for casual wear is a stunning blunder, and it's hard to believe Bioware would get this one wrong—it's like they're not even paying attention.

Even dumber, though, is the pillow itself. Turians have rough, plate-like skin containing trace amounts of thulium that protects them from solar radiation on their homeworld of Palaven (which, of course, has a weak magnetosphere due to its lower-than-average heavy metal content). However, rather than going for true verisimilitude, Garrus is soft and cloth-like. Turian fans expecting to finally be able to curl up into a genuine Turian embrace are going to be sadly disappointed.

Finally, I'm most disappointed in the fact that Garrus' face on the pillow is permanently turned to the right, which means that he's only looking at me if I hold the pillow a certain way. None of the seven bootleg Garrus body pillows I'd previously purchased on Etsy have this issue—they either feature Garrus' steely gaze fixed entrancingly forward, or the pillows' obverse and reverse sides have different images so that Garrus can be looking at you no matter which side you're sleeping on. With Bioware's pillow, no matter how tightly I wrapped my legs around his thin but supportive waist, I felt like Garrus was telling me that he was busy calibrating and that I should come back later.

Bottom line: this is only a middling effort on Bioware's part. There are so many things that could have been added to make the "bedtime with Garrus" experience so much more authentic. At the very least, a choice of slip-on outfits for the pillow would have been a good starting point—that way, users could decide exactly how ready for action Garrus should be. Armor might be appropriate if you're taking your Garrus pillow out for dinner at a nice restaurant, but the option for casual wear around the house would certainly be preferable.

So for now, I'd recommend you keep your life-size Garrus cardboard cutouts around. The pillow is good as a regular pillow, but as an actual substitute for a tall, dreamy Turian, it just doesn't work. Try harder, Bioware.