Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures [Archive] - Page 2

Bubba

08-01-2016, 03:18 PM

Big update coming! I'll attempt to restrict my waffling but will probably fail miserably...

We left Shepard recovering from a monster hangover and he stumbled his way into another sidequest. This poor Quarian has a shop selling salvage parts. He came here on his Pilgrimage but now can't afford to leave. Maybe it was the residual alcohol in Shepard's system but he did seem saddened by this. A nearby Elcor called Harriet was forcing poor Ken to keep his prices high which meant he couldn't sell anything. I love those funny-talking Elcors! I'll happily have a chat with the dude and get him to chill out on his prices. Leave it with me, son!

Harriet was already pretty chilled actually. After I threatened to break his legs (which of course I wouldn't do to a funny-talking Elcor!) he agreed to let Ken charge what he wants. Shepard saves the day yet again. Ken was mighty pleased and I had a bit of a soft spot for the guy so I offered to pay his 1000 credit ticket off Omega. He duly accepted and buggered off. I thought I'd take this opportunity to raid his shop as he clearly no longer needed his gear. I was pretty miffed to discover that I still had to pay for any items. What the hell, man?! Give me back my 1000 credits! Anyway, I bought some couplings as I remember my engineers banging on about them. Sidequest updated!

Whilst in this seedy back alley, I had a brief chat with these Vorcha dudes. They were as attractive as they were friendly. Something tells me I will be putting a few of these guys in body bags before too long.

Anyhoo, let's crack on and get this professor. The entrance to Quarantine was guarded by a... well, a guard, which makes sense. Some human lady was trying to get in to access her apartment before it gets looted. Her argument was valid as it turns out Humans and Vorcha are not affected by the plague. I managed to convince the guard doing the guarding that I was here to clean up this mess! He seemed unconvinced but let me past anyway. Maybe I'll loot that lady's apartment... we'll see!

After picking up some element zero I noticed a couple of Vorcha in the distance. Spotting their health bars I assumed they weren't going to greet me with a jovial wave. I proceeded to snipe one in the head and holy sh*t the sniper is amazing! So glad I went Infiltrator again!

There was a particularly unwell Batarian dude lying against the wall who we had a decent chat with. He obviously hates us because obviously humans created this plague in an obvious attempt to kill other races. Obviousness is obvious. Anyway, prick, I'll let your accusations slide for the time being as I need some answers. I gave him some meds via one of those quicktime things (not that the f**ker deserved it). He told us about Dr. Mordin Solus and his groovy lab further along. Apparently the doctor is a bit of a badass and he's killed a load of Vorcha protecting his patients. Sounds like my kind of team mate! I told this Batarian prick that I'd send someone to help him... maybe.

A bit of a sad moment here. I hacked my way into some guy's quarters and he'd been locked in to stop the plague spreading. He didn't even have the plague and he ended up dying of starvation. We all shed a tear, Kasumi lit a candle and Jacob gave a heart-wrenching rendition of Amazing Grace. Out of respect, we then robbed his safe.

Next we finally had some decent action! These Blue Sun jokers ambushed us and were pretty tough cookies. There were loads of the little blighters but our special powers saved the day. Kasumi is awesome! She keeps going invisible and sneaking up on them. Jacob's Wingardium Leviosa spell was pretty effective too. I've definitely noticed my squad mate's presence more than I did in ME1. About smurfing time.

I found these two cowardly humans holed up in their apartment. They were pretty dull, to be honest. Yada yada yada nasty threatening Vorcha yada yada. Grow a pair, will you? I guaranteed them safe passage because I'm nice... not before robbing their safe though. Hazard pay. I'm sure they understood.

There was a dead Turian a bit further along holding a sweet new gun. He clearly had no need for it now so I swiped it and hurried on. Another wave of Vorcha to deal with which caused very little trouble thanks mainly to Kasumi slicing everyone up. She is awesome.

Once the fight was over I managed to find my way into an abandoned apartment building. At least, I thought it was abandoned. Two looters were here and hoo boy... DO I NOT LIKE LOOTERS. They tried to explain their presence by saying the owners of the apartment were actually dead. Shepard responded by saying "Stealing from the dead is pretty low, don't you think?" Mate, it's been less than five minutes since you stole a gun from a dead Turian. What a hypocrite.

Anyway, I wagged my finger at them, told them they'd been very naughty boys and I would give them a sound spanking if I ever caught them at it again.

OK, this post is already too long. Second half of the update to come later on today!

Freya

08-01-2016, 03:59 PM

your commentary is the best xD

Formalhaut

08-01-2016, 05:03 PM

It really is. Though I have more sympathy for the ailing Batarian than you do, Bubba.

You mentioned the sniper rifle - my second (first male) Mass Effect playthough had me as Infiltrator in this game. The Sniper Rifle is awesome. It's so much more usable thanks to the time dilation effect inherent to the Infiltrator. Seriously, it's so good. You get better sniper rifles as well as you go through the game, too.

As for Kasumi, easily one of the best team members in the game, both personality and gameplay. Shadow Strike is so powerful. It has a 2x damage multiplier against barriers, shield and armour, and incapacitates unprotected enemies (if they live). But what I really like is the fact that she tends to draw enemy fire away from you when she reappears, as enemies are distracted by her sudden presence.

When she's loyal, she becomes even better with Flashbang Grenade. It incapacitates any enemy within the impact radius, which gets pretty big. It also disables tech and biotics for a bit, too.

Coupled with the ever reliable Overload, Kasumi is killer. Her loyalty mission is really fun, but also rather tough, but you should just about be able to do it after getting the Doc.

Pumpkin

08-01-2016, 05:05 PM

Kasumi is awesome :excited:

Bubba

08-01-2016, 06:48 PM

So I finally made it to Mordin's lab and this guy is freakin' hilarious. He sounds like he's just inhaled 4 grams of cocaine. Clearly very intelligent whilst simultaneously bat-shit crazy. He's perfect for my team :D

Anyway, he reckons the Collectors made this plague and the Vorcha are just transporting it. Luckily, the crazy genius has knocked up a cure. He just needs me to stick it through the air con (or something like that) and that will get everyone cured. At least I think that's what he said. Slow down, for smurfs sake. He asked me to keep an eye out for his assistant too. Fine, but only if it's gonna get me some XP.

We made our way out the back of the lab and took part in a bit of Vorcha culling. These idiots were just stood there waiting to be shot like Donald Trump at his next rally (hopefully). My sniper was the order of the day here... until things got out of hand then I just hid while Kasumi cleared them all out. I found Daniel (the doctor's assistant) being held at gunpoint by some badass Batarians. Seeing as he has an awesome name, I decided he was worth saving.

A bit further on and some sh*tbags decided to fire some rocket launchers at us. Well that's not nice, is it? The old trusty sniper makes another appearance. Did I mention I love this gun? Although, I do miss the overheat mechanic in the first game. Picking up ammo is a pain in the arse. Plus, I keep running out of sniper bullets.

It turns out the Vorcha are definitely working for the Collectors. They've shut down the air con and are being generally inconvenient. I clearly am not gonna stand for this so we dispatched the offending offenders and placed the cure vial in the machine. Job done! Well, it would have been if the fans were on. Which they weren't. Right then, let's add air con mechanic to the ever-increasing skill set of Shepard. They were located in two separate sections which unsurprisingly came hand-in-hand with a load of ugly Vorcha assassins. It was this point I decided that Kasumi would never leave my team because she is a killing machine. Whereas Shepard appears to be a start-things-off-so-Kasumi-can-finish-the-job machine.

Two fans now functioning that appears to be mission over! I find myself transported back to Mordin's lab where hopefully he'll now agree to join my team of intergalactic heroes!

Tune in next time when Mordin is hand-cuffed to a goat for 24 hours as part of his Normandy initiation ceremony.

Freya

08-01-2016, 07:09 PM

EEEEE! You got/are getting Mordin! He's a fun character.

I can't wait for your next omega mission!

Bubba

08-01-2016, 07:30 PM

It really is. Though I have more sympathy for the ailing Batarian than you do, Bubba.

Haha, I was overly harsh in my summary but we parted on good terms! He was actually pretty cool with me when I said I'd get him some help. He actually was there when I went back to Mordin's lab at the end. He was healed and eternally grateful. We're buds now :)

Kasumi is awesome :excited:

Couldn't agree more!

EEEEE! You got/are getting Mordin! He's a fun character.

I can't wait for your next omega mission!

I'm actually a bit further along from where I finished that last update! I can confirm Mordin is part of the Normandy crew :D

Will do another little update first thing tomorrow.

Bubba

08-02-2016, 01:56 PM

Just a quick update before I soldier on with the main missions. I had a look through the thread and it turns out the first game took me over three months to complete! I suppose with family stuff that isn't too bad. I am determined to get this finished before the end of September though. I'll then be taking a break before starting ME3 due to the release of FFXV.

So yeah, assistant Daniel is more than equipped to deal with any continuing issues with the plague on Omega. Don't smurf up, young man. That being the case, Mordin agreed to join our team!

I can't wait for your next omega mission!

Well I'm not gonna keep you waiting too long as I've decided to stay here for the time being. Arial mentioned another person by the name of Archangel so I'm gonna stick around and what is the saying? Throw some sh*t around and see if any of it sticks? I'm not sure that's right... and I'll probably not use real excrement. Let's just start by talking to people.

First things first though, I need to see how well Mordin is settling in on the Normandy. Oooh, I have access to the medilab now and our new member is pleased as punch with his new equipment. Speaking of new equipment, I was able to upgrade some of my gear using the elements I'd discovered. Quite a cool way of doing it! I better get prospecting some planets... I need 50000 of something to upgrade the medilab though which would fix Shepard's scars. Did anyone do this? They did mention that they should heal automatically if I do well enough. Is that right?

I had a chat to the rest of the crew just to get a feel for which member I could have a feel of at some point. Up to this point, Miranda seemed a bit cold. My actions on Omega have clearly made her warm to me though as we had quite a good personal chat. Now she's opened up a bit I'm contemplating hitting on her. She looks like Hannah McKay from Season 8 of Dexter and she was smoking hot. Yeoman Kelly is nice and everything but she's not much of a challenge. I'll keep them both sweet for now. Also, Kasumi is pretty hot. Gahhhh! I can't decide!

I should probably just focus on another mission for now. Let's explore more of Omega!

Freya

08-02-2016, 03:33 PM

She looks like Hannah McKay from Season 8 of Dexter and she was smoking hot.
That's cause she is. Her model and voice actor is Yvonne Strahovski

https://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/Miranda+lawson+from+mass+effect+2+and+yvonne+strahovski+_785716c6a6a699f80251e97c387452ec.jpg

Bubba

08-02-2016, 04:15 PM

Huh. I probably should have figured that out. They are exactly the same only with different colour hair.

I'm stupid.

Forsaken Lover

08-02-2016, 04:16 PM

Miranda is quite bitchy at first but as soon as you get the Normandy SR-2 she becomes much more polite and professional. She is your second-inc-command after all and she is nothing if not efficient.

As for pursuing that particularly delicious piece of booty, there is one other lady you might be interested in. Well, 2. Well...1. Hm. It depends. In any event, Miranda is a bit more of a "traditional" option compared to them.

I myself pursued the one lady who will remain nameless but it was ruined by Manshep's voice. I hate it and he ruined all romance scenes. Also she should have been a bi option!

If there is one thing Mass Effect 2 isn't perfect with, it's romance. Miranda was originally gonna be a bi option and this character I'm thinking of even mentions being with a couple in the past. But noooooo, gotta hog all the sexiest ladies for Male Shep. Well, okay, Femshep does get one but...uh...

Anyway, my Femshep and Miranda would have been the perfect couple an dI'm glad there's so many slashfics of the two out there.

But yes, I'm late to the party. Still, this is hands down the greatest game in the series and one of the best games ever. By comparison, I missed very little with ME1.

Formalhaut

08-02-2016, 10:16 PM

First things first though, I need to see how well Mordin is settling in on the Normandy. Oooh, I have access to the medilab now and our new member is pleased as punch with his new equipment. Speaking of new equipment, I was able to upgrade some of my gear using the elements I'd discovered. Quite a cool way of doing it! I better get prospecting some planets... I need 50000 of something to upgrade the medilab though which would fix Shepard's scars. Did anyone do this? They did mention that they should heal automatically if I do well enough. Is that right?

So the deal with the scars are thus:

- At a neutral level (the beginning of the game), your scarring is sort of moderate. The healing process is sped up or reversed depending on your morality level.
- With a high Paragon level, the scars heal up as you progress through the bar and will disappear when you get down this line far enough
- However, with a high Renegade level, the scars deepen and frankly become pretty horrifying. Look at this ugly mug:

http://rlv.zcache.ca/waving_flag_donald_trump_for_president_2016_ringer_coffee_mug-rcdc172d4aedd4d01b8286935f05d8b8e_x7jpm_8byvr_324.jpg

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/masseffect/images/c/c1/Shepard_renegade.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20100131114026

- The medical bay is there if you want to follow the Renegade route, but disapproves of the deepened scarring. And I mean, who wouldn't?

Hope that helps clear up the scarring stuff. Basically, I wouldn't invest in it. You don't need it as you're going down the Paragon line, and it costs too many materials for the effort. It doesn't affect anything in ME: 3 either, like some of the other Normandy upgrades (which you should get, absolutely).

I had a chat to the rest of the crew just to get a feel for which member I could have a feel of at some point. Up to this point, Miranda seemed a bit cold. My actions on Omega have clearly made her warm to me though as we had quite a good personal chat. Now she's opened up a bit I'm contemplating hitting on her. She looks like Hannah McKay from Season 8 of Dexter and she was smoking hot. Yeoman Kelly is nice and everything but she's not much of a challenge. I'll keep them both sweet for now. Also, Kasumi is pretty hot. Gahhhh! I can't decide!

While we're on the topic of romance: I literally have no opinion with ME: 2. My first playthrough featured an asexual FemShep, and with my current second playthrough with MasShep, he's going to be gaying it up with Kaiden in ME: 3. So honestly, I have don't know what to recommend you. I'm sure they're all good?

One of my main complaints with this game (and the first one) is the rather puritanical attitude it had to romance compared to Dragon Age: Origins and 2. I don't think it was their intent, and more than likely were forced to back down against some religious group. I can only imagine the hell they got for making the feminine-presenting Liara be in a lesbian relationship. Still, it would've been nice to have more options. They've definitely improved with 3 and apparently Andromeda will just continue that trajectory.

So Bubba, you've mentioned interest in a few ME: 2 characters. The question is: will you stay faithful with Liara, or change course with someone else?

Freya

08-02-2016, 10:25 PM

Let him meet all the new people first! You never know, someone may sway him!

Formalhaut

08-03-2016, 01:20 AM

Let him meet all the new people first! You never know, someone may sway him!

I keep forgetting he's only met like four or five members of the team. :p

Pumpkin

08-03-2016, 03:47 AM

Bubbashep + Jack 5eva <3

Bubba

08-03-2016, 12:26 PM

Thanks for the info, Formy! I thought I remember them saying something like that so I just wanted to check.

So Bubba, you've mentioned interest in a few ME: 2 characters. The question is: will you stay faithful with Liara, or change course with someone else?

Well... I do love Liara but smurf knows what she's been doing for the past two years. If I have a dabble with a newer crew member I reckon she'd forgive me. I died for her after all!

Let him meet all the new people first! You never know, someone may sway him!

Yeah, I'll wait until I have a full compliment then see who takes my fancy :jokey:

I can tell you who it won't be though: Kelly Chambers. She keeps giving me these bunny-boiler looks like Glen Close from Fatal Attraction. This moment was actually far more creepy in real time. Her fingers were still typing away but she was just STARING.

68878

Leave me alone, you psycho.

Loony BoB

08-03-2016, 12:50 PM

ME3's version of Kelly Chambers is far superior in every way, so yeah, no loss in not going for Kelly in ME2.

Bubba

08-03-2016, 02:57 PM

Trying to squeeze in as much play time as possible so a quick 45 mins this morning during Baby Bubba's nap time.

We parked the Normandy back on Omega and were on our merry way! I took Mordin and Kasumi along with me this time hoping that we'll be a pretty badass trio. We headed back to Afterlife and I had a little chat with a Turian soldier called Gavin outside. He said he was happy because a human had cleaned up the quarantine zone and dispatched a load of Vorcha. Not one to blow my own trumpet I said "That was me!! Just me... SHOWER ME WITH PRAISE!!" He could have been a tad more enthusiastic with his thanks but that's fine. Whatever mate.

Back inside Afterlife, I thought I'd quickly check in with Arial. I did ask her about Archangel on my last mission but you can't expect me to remember everything... gawwwwd. On approach, I had a quick chat with Jizz, her Turian bodyguard. Looks like I'm on another sidequest! This old Krogan called Patriarch (who I've already met) is wanted dead by some assassins. Arial wants to keep him alive so it's up to me to assassinate some assassins! Patriarch was dickish but accepted my help so I went on the hunt as the would-be killers were apparently already here.

My eagerness to dispatch these plebs dissipated after I wasted a ridiculous amount of time doing two circuits around Afterlife. They were nowhere to be found. I eventually found them in the tunnel near the entrance. So they weren't technically here, were they?! My time is precious, game! The encounter was brief as after a quick conversation, Mordin and Kasumi blasted them to sh*t. I didn't have to do anything! Naturally though, I went back to Patriarch and Arial and took all the plaudits myself. "You're welcome and don't forget, Shepard gets the job done!" Cue angry looks from my team mates.

Onwards to Archangel! There was a merc recruiter looking to hire guns to take down Archangel. Well, I'm your man (but secretly I'm not). I spoke to this Blue Suns member and the mission sounded about as appealing as an angry ferret super-glued to my testicles. What they basically want is for us to be a distraction for the important people. We run at Archangel's base firing our pea-shooters while we get horribly torn apart by a wall of bullets. Sounds f**king delightful mate, where do I sign?

He stressed heavily that this wouldn't mean that we were members of the Blue Suns. Whatever dude, I don't want to be a part of your stupid club anyway. Was it Groucho Marx that once said, "I don't care to belong to any club that would have me as a member"? Maybe it was Popeye, I'm not sure. Anyway, the Blue Suns are led by Turok who is taking a break from dinosaur hunting to co-ordinate this attack. I agree to be fodder for the attack and then convince a young kid (who was about to sign up) not to make the same stupid mistake we did.

Tune in next time when Mordin sings the entirety of West Side Story in attempt to distract our potential new companion.

Freya

08-03-2016, 04:14 PM

Haha I can just imagine all the NPCs being like "Who the fuck does this guy think he is" as I picture you skipping through omega.

Loony BoB

08-03-2016, 04:25 PM

I never have much to say but keep it up Bubba, this is really entertaining.

theundeadhero

08-03-2016, 09:02 PM

You can romance Kelly and another crew member. Really it's more of a fling with her and the other crew members won't even say anything about it. The advantage is if you do invite her up to your room and then go for the one-night stand, she'll offer to feed your fish for you. By the way, if you bought any fish on Citadel they'll die if you don't feed them regularly after missions :p Romancing Kelly means your fish will still be alive for ME3, while I think they may die between games if you don't.

Formalhaut

08-03-2016, 09:25 PM

Yup, she can feed your fish for you. It actually provides this rather amusing line in the wikia:

Shepard can flirt with Kelly anytime prior to the suicide mission, which eventually results in a private dinner at the Captain's Cabin, after which she offers to feed Shepard's fish. It is still possible to pursue a relationship with a squadmate after this point if Shepard is solely interested in having her feed Shepard's fish.

If you're not interested in Kelly, it is well worth putting enough effort in to get to this stage of the friend/relationship, due to the fish services she offers. And also...

Kelly can appear in ME: 3 as well, but it is conditional, dependant on whether or not you managed to have that dinner. If you did, she'll appear in ME: 3. If you did not have dinner with her (like what happened with my first Fem!Shep playthrough) she does not appear in the third game.

So basically, have that dinner. It doesn't have to go anywhere after that, and you gain slightly more narrative in the third game. And fish feeding services. All about that fish, really.

Pumpkin

08-03-2016, 09:53 PM

I really didn't like Kelly

Forsaken Lover

08-03-2016, 10:06 PM

She's okay. Bit bland is all. I never got the romance to trigger for her because you apparently have to be super nice and my Shepard was generally very "cool" towards people. Trying to be professional and all that, ya know. Plus, it's frickin' Cerberus. You kinda shouldn't trust them too much and should be very wary if you encountered their sidequest in ME1.

They grow on you, though. My Shepard ended up being a pretty big Cerberus fangirl. Even in ME3, I wore the Cerberus armor and used a Cerberus Harrier as my primary weapon. (the gun doesn't actually exist in ME2 but it's the thought that counts)

Pumpkin

08-03-2016, 10:16 PM

I dunno, something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. Everytime I'd walk by I'd be like

http://i.imgur.com/QmqUdvQ.gif

Randy

08-04-2016, 08:16 AM

Is it wrong that I know what episode of Buffy that's from?

theundeadhero

08-04-2016, 08:25 AM

If it is I don't want you to be right?

Forsaken Lover

08-04-2016, 12:15 PM

Speaking of Buffy, I hear a lot of the VAs in Mass Effect are from this Firefly show no one gives a shit about but where are the Buffy and Angel actors? I guess there's Oz/Seth Green/Joker but he was never that big in Buffy.

Maybe we'll finally get some real stars in Andromeda.

Freya

08-05-2016, 05:28 PM

Oz was in like 3 seasons! How was he not big in buffy?

And technically Freddie Prince Jr is in ME3 and that's Sarah Michelle Gellar's Husband

Forsaken Lover

08-05-2016, 05:59 PM

Oz was in like 3 seasons! How was he not big in buffy?

And technically Freddie Prince Jr is in ME3 and that's Sarah Michelle Gellar's Husband

Well I'm a die-hard Willow/Tara shipper so maybe I'm biased.

Have Giles' actor voice the new Anderson or whoever our senior mentor/father figure might be.

Randy

08-05-2016, 07:17 PM

Speaking of Buffy, I hear a lot of the VAs in Mass Effect are from this Firefly show no one gives a trout about but

The only one I can think of is Adam Baldwin who played a random Quarian in ME2. I think that's it though.

Forsaken Lover

08-05-2016, 07:29 PM

I coulda sworn there were a couple more but it looks like you' re right. I never watched Firefly.

Bubba

08-23-2016, 06:29 PM

After my initial meeting with the Batarian Recruiter, I was directed to a pilot just outside of Club Afterlife. It was his job to fly me over to Archangel's hideout. This pilot was terrible which is why it's been twenty days since my last update. If he'd taken the interstate like I told him to, this update would have been here weeks ago!

Ahem.

OK, we finally arrive outside Archangel's den. According to another charming Batarian, the crafty bugger has destroyed all entrances to the building except a single bridge to the front. Perfect for sniping any unwanted intruders. I like your style, Archangel. There are a few merc groups involved in the attack and I got chatting to this Salarian called Gareth. He was the only merc I spoke to here that didn't want me to die a slow, painful death. Still got bog all information from him though. I did swipe a datapad from a side table which seemed to activate some sidequest. Groovy.

I did a spot of hacking in the next area to net me a decent amount of credits. I also hacked this badass robot which I remember AI telling me before that doing this would confuse it and I could kill the bastard easier. See you in a bit, pal.

A few more hacks and non-stimulating conversations later and I arrive at the start of the assault. A Batarian called Cathy was fixing a gunship which they were gonna use in the assault. I'm not sure whether it was a paragon or renegade quick-time action (I can't help myself, either way!) but I knocked the f***er out. That should help me in my 'don't kill Archangel' mission though there are plenty of other ways I could smurf it up.

Here we go, CHARGE! I didn't give myself away as a double-agent straight away. As soon as I spotted Archangel's health bar though I decided to start taking out my fellow, completely innocent freelancers. They turned back on me straight away but I'm fantastic and they were quickly deaded. I cleared the upper and lower floors before taking a breath mint in preparation for my first meeting with Archangel. As a hot-blooded male, I was secretly hoping for some sort of Valkyrie warrior maiden with a cleavage I could ski down...

Sh*t the bed, even better! It's Garrus!! Turns out he thought I was dead (yeah, I get that a lot) and didn't like how the council was being run so he decided to come to Omega and kill bad people. Nice plan. Now I'm back from the dead though he's happy to get the hell out of dodge with me and my crew. Unfortunately, this was just when the bloody assault started!

Garrus picked a particularly impressive spot for sniping so I joined him in taking out the mugs from afar. I freakin' love the sniper! Only problem is the reload isn't great and it's only one shot per time. That being the case a few of the pricks managed to enter the base so I had to leave the Garrmeister upstairs while I went down and took out the trash.

Whilst downstairs, that big robot I hacked earlier on made an appearance. It started shooting all the mercs and freelancers instead of us! How much do I rock?!! A lot. That is the answer. It wasn't long before the bridge was swept of all foes like pubic hairs from a toilet seat.

The danger wasn't over yet, however. An alarm sounds and I have to leave Garrus here to kick some more ass. I decided to leave Mordin with Garrus to help protect my homie. Plus, Mordin is a fellow Omegan so will be more than capable.

My next task was to seal these annoying three doors. The first one was fine. Though I don't see why there needs to be ten-second countdown for the smurfing things to close. I thought this was the future? Anyhoo, if any enemies made it past a certain point then the countdown resets. Really. Smurfing. Annoying. I won't mention how many deaths I experienced on the last two doors... let's just say it was more than one.

OK, final door done and I magically teleported back to Garrus. There were a few pesky cronies to deal with before a confrontation with... the gunship that I passed at the start of the mission. "Nice one!" I thought. Earlier on, I took out that Batarian making repairs to this badboy, that means it will be a pushover just like that robot I hacked, right?! Wrong. Nonchalantly skipping out into the open armed with just a pistol was a terrible move as I was ripped to pieces by its guns. Luckily, I'd been hoarding grenade launcher rounds so two or three shells and the confrontation was all over. Mission complete!

Back on the Normandy, Garrus had been pretty badly shot up by the gunship but he's a hardass and was up-and-about in no time. We actually had some quality bantz in the briefing room. Missed you, man! Thus ends the latest instalment of Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures.

Tune in next time when Shepard's bank account is defrauded after he replies to an email from the Nigerian lottery saying he's won 10 million credits.

Freya

08-23-2016, 07:02 PM

YES! I didn't want to spoil archangel for you. It's such an epic intro for garrus in this entry. Garrus is your bro. He does bro things with you.

Formalhaut

08-23-2016, 07:18 PM

Wheee, nice to have this back! We've both been somewhat behind on our LPs, haven't we?

A few more hacks and non-stimulating conversations later and I arrive at the start of the assault. A Batarian called Cathy was fixing a gunship which they were gonna use in the assault. I'm not sure whether it was a paragon or renegade quick-time action (I can't help myself, either way!) but I knocked the f***er out. That should help me in my 'don't kill Archangel' mission though there are plenty of other ways I could smurf it up.

It's definitely a Renegade interrupt as far as I recall, but even as Paragon Shepard I always take this route, because it's such a kickass move to take and it helps you out. I mean, it isn't as if you killed him (I think)...

Sh*t the bed, even better! It's Garrus!! Turns out he thought I was dead (yeah, I get that a lot) and didn't like how the council was being run so he decided to come to Omega and kill bad people. Nice plan. Now I'm back from the dead though he's happy to get the hell out of dodge with me and my crew. Unfortunately, this was just when the bloody assault started!

I was just wondering whether you pegged it was Garrus from the start or found the surprise genuinely well, surprising! You see, I kinda already knew that Tali and Garrus returned as squad members, and as soon as it was revealed that Archangel was a mean sniper, I sussed it. I liked his return though. I loved the Archangel mission.

Garrus picked a particularly impressive spot for sniping so I joined him in taking out the mugs from afar. I freakin' love the sniper! Only problem is the reload isn't great and it's only one shot per time. That being the case a few of the pricks managed to enter the base so I had to leave the Garrmeister upstairs while I went down and took out the trash.

You get better snipers (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Sniper_Rifles) throughout the game, but half of them are one shot weapons (your default sniper and arguably the best sniper in the game are one-shotters). All of them are fantastic upgrades and handle much better than the first game snipers, as I'm sure you've noticed. The rapid-shot snipers are perfectly viable, but are honestly better suited to classes that don't possess the Infiltrator's time dilation or the Soldier's Adrenaline Rush (you get to pick another weapon much later on). Personally as an Infiltrator, I prefer the one-shot weapons. But again, it is all a matter of preference.

Either way, you won't get another sniper rifle for quite awhile, so get used to your Mantis (Unless you have DLC or a digital deluxe edition). I went down Infiltrator in this game, so I'm more than happy to give advice when you need it!

My next task was to seal these annoying three doors. The first one was fine. Though I don't see why there needs to be ten-second countdown for the smurfing things to close. I thought this was the future? Anyhoo, if any enemies made it past a certain point then the countdown resets. Really. Smurfing. Annoying. I won't mention how many deaths I experienced on the last two doors... let's just say it was more than one.

Probably the toughest part of this mission. The doors close agonisingly slowly. As an Infiltrator, the only advice I could have given on that section is to not rely on the sniper, as you need to press at a reasonable pace and you are limited to Garrus's health bar. Sticking to the SMG helps, but really, it's just a tough section all round.

Bubba

08-24-2016, 12:26 PM

Garrus is your bro. He does bro things with you.

:jokey:

Wheee, nice to have this back! We've both been somewhat behind on our LPs, haven't we?

Absolutely not :colbert:

I was just wondering whether you pegged it was Garrus from the start or found the surprise genuinely well, surprising! You see, I kinda already knew that Tali and Garrus returned as squad members, and as soon as it was revealed that Archangel was a mean sniper, I sussed it. I liked his return though. I loved the Archangel mission.

I had no idea. It was a lovely surprise. I love Garrus' voice :D

Freya

08-24-2016, 04:45 PM

Oh man, yeah! Brandon Keener is awesome! I wish he was in more things though. He's a great actor too.

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Bubba

08-24-2016, 05:10 PM

Oh man, yeah! Brandon Keener is awesome! I wish he was in more things though. He's a great actor too.

I would like him to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

So I decided to nip back to Omega to complete that datapad sidequest. It seemed to be a pretty straight-froward task of giving the pad to Ariel. Even I couldn't screw this up. She was very grateful and said there was a load of abandoned cargo on this planet that she could direct me towards. Paragon Shepard would not hold with such shady dealings... but I wanted the stuff. Gimme. I thought I might as well grab it now as it sounded like maximum reward for minimum effort. This is always appealing. Onward to Daratar!

Bad idea is bad.

Yeah, there were three huge robots there blowing up all the loot! Bastards. I didn't even realise on my first attempt. I was trying to snipe the middle robot from afar without realising what the other two were doing. I noticed there were only 8-out-of-20 crates left before I decided to start again. I have no idea what the ideal strategy is for this but I could not get all 20 crates. I think my team are just at too sh*t a level to complete this effectively. I eventually passed the mission with 14-out-of-20 crates which I didn't think was too bad.

Have I missed out on an amazing item having not got 20-out-of-20?

Mr. Carnelian

08-24-2016, 10:58 PM

Have I missed out on an amazing item having not got 20-out-of-20?

14 is good. Don't worry, it's impossible to get 20 out of 20, and all that gets you is a bit more money anyway.

Formalhaut

08-24-2016, 11:10 PM

Fighting this mission straight up? Eh, it's pretty impossible to get 20/20. On the lowest difficulties it is possible but still very difficult, because there's three mechs to destroy and they love to smash those crates. For those interested, there are two other methods of getting 20/20. One is 'Yes we Cain!' which involves the nuclear explosion caused by the Cain. Aimed well enough, it can destroy all three mechs (your own weapons fire doesn't damage the crates, thank goodness). The other involves the Missile Launcher.

Basically, if you stay in the beginning area and not charge down the hill, the script which triggers the mechs to attack the crates isn't triggered. Using the homing feature of the Missile Launcher, you can shoot from the starting area, just past the rocks, and hit one of the mechs, luring it back to the beginning area and finishing it off that way. Then just repeat with the other two. But that requires some effort and is a bit cheaty.

14/20 is a perfectly good score, so don't worry about it! You only lose some credits.

Bubba

09-03-2016, 11:51 AM

Gonna try and blast through a couple of updates as I'm behind on this yet again! This first one will be a quickie as it was just the Lost Operative sidequest. The next one will be lengthy as it details my exploits in recruiting Jack!

Anyway, Lost Operative. I had a sneaky suspicion this would centre around an operative that had been lost. Unsurprisingly, I was absolutely spot on. After scanning the planet Lorek, I found an anomaly and was able to land on this watery beauty. I took Kasumi and Garrus for this mission. I remembered Garrus being a tad weak in ME1 but I assumed he'd stay alive long enough to complete a little sidequest. Plus, Kasumi was there too with her badassness.

I entered the base and was immediately under attack from some quite irritated troopers. I unleashed death on them all and Garrus held his own much to everyone's surprise. I then logged onto a nearby terminal to try and find out what the hell was going on. Lost operative who was lost was not lost at all. He was captured by a group called Eclipse. He has sensitive information that must be retained by Cerberus AT ALL COSTS. There were rumours circulating that this information was actually pictures of The Illusive Man at a transvestite orgy in the Omega Nebula system. This has yet to be verified.

It turns out this agent has been killed and they're trying to crack his encrypted data. We better get moving! As we approached the next area, another wave of pretty fierce enemies decided to try and take us out. Bring it on, chumps! Kasumi did most of the work, I sniped a few of them from afar and I made Garrus hide behind a box. Job done.

After looting the facility, I hacked my way into the interrogation room. Lost operative Rawlings was lying on a table and he's clearly had better days... seeing as he is now a decomposing corpse. I then located the heavily-encrypted data and was given three options: Send it to the Alliance, send it to Cerberus or keep it for myself. Knowing that Anderson gets off on weird sh*t, I sent the offended pictures over to the Alliance for Paragon points. Enjoy, my man!

Mission over. Tune in for the next update when much hilarity ensues as Joker's pilot headset gets stuck on the country and western channel.

Bubba

09-03-2016, 02:52 PM

Time to go and recruit the convict!

I'd heard quite a bit about this dude Jack who is a ridiculously powerful biotic. For some reason I pictured him as some beefy guy like Jack from Tekken. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I relayed over to a prison ship called Purgatory, which is the best name for a prison ever. Upon arrival, I meet Warden Karl who wants us to surrender our weapons. No f**king way, dude. Kasumi is my insurance policy and Garrus needs all the help he can get. Jack has been stored in the freezer to prolong his shelf-life. It seems Cerberus are paying for his release which is pretty common on Purgatory. This place sounds, as my Gran would have said, "bent as a nine bob note".

We walk past a few cells and in the first one, a guard is beating the living sh*t out of a prisoner. I managed to convince his fellow guard that they needed to stop being a couple of meanies. Paragone and got me some points. Oh yes, I went there. In the next cell along, I chatted to a nice young man who told me all about the prison ship. Apparently it's lovely. They have a pool table, self-flushing toilets and book club every second Thursday of the month. The final cell contained a crazy man just saying crazy stuff. Timothy Dalton the best Bond? Tssk! Shut it, you wacko.

We push on to a room with a computer, some furniture and blood smeared over the walls. For a minute, I thought I was back at the Shauna's house the morning after the EoFF party. I clearly had reason to be suspicious and this was confirmed a moment later when Warden Karl came over the intercom. Apparently, Shepard is worth more to him as a prisoner than the amount Cerberus were paying for Jack. Cue epic onslaught.

As there was only one exit to this room, we'd clearly been led here like lambs to the kebab shop. The Blue Nun Troopers were out in force along with these really annoying mech dog things. Patience was the key here and the SKG trio emerged victorious once again.

We headed down a nearby corridor into a room with a sole science dude who I dispatched with ease. I then decide to release all the prisoners on the ship because that can only result in good things happening. The key thing though is that Jack was defrosted and HOLY SH*T. Jack isn't a dude... she's a dudette! Now, I'm not really into tattoos but I may make an exception in her case. She is DEADLY. She Biotic-ed a load of mechs before tearing a hole in a wall. I like her. A lot.

I picked up a couple of cool upgrades after laying waste to a few guards and prisoners. There were a couple of tricky mechs further down the line but nothing we Kasumi couldn't handle. We eventually found our way into the final chamber where Warden Karl had congregated with a load of goons. He was a bloody coward though and surrounded himself in a protective barrier while he sent waves and waves of unpleasant people our way. They seemed to take AGES to take out as they just kept on coming. Eventually though, it was just Karl left. THE FINAL SHOWDOWN.

... was anti-climactic. How was I going to figure out how to bring down his barrier? HOW?! Oh yeah, it'll be those three generators right near him that have health bars. I was kind of expecting more waves once I'd taken the barrier off but nope just Karl and his pathetic pea shooter. Damn it, Karl! Anyway, a couple of specials to the face and this mission was over.

Cut scene with Jack and she clearly doesn't trust us as we're Cerberus. I told her she can look at all the files Cerberus had on her as this would no doubt piss off Miranda. Jack then agreed to join the team! Back on the ship I was given the option to welch on my promise but Jack does not look like the kind of girl you want to cross. I gave her access to the files and Miranda was NOT pleased. Oh well, I'm not sure I'll be pursuing a relationship with Miranda anyway. I don't think I want a relationship with Jack either but I would definitely be up for a night of freaky sex with her. Someone tell me this is an option?

Tune in next time when Mordin's addiction to the home shopping channel culminates in him ordering a portable walrus-polishing kit... four super brushes capable of tackling even the trickiest of sea-bound mammals.

Formalhaut

09-03-2016, 03:10 PM

Nice updates! Garrus isn't as fragile as he once was, he's about average in terms of health.

As for Jack's mission, easily one of the best. As for romancing Jack: you can pursue it just enough to have sex and end it there, but I wouldn't recommend that as she turns very cold towards you afterwards. Either romance her fully or don't basically.

So who's left on your list? Is it just the Krogan left?

Bubba

09-07-2016, 04:30 PM

So who's left on your list? Is it just the Krogan left?

Sorry man, meant to reply sooner. Yeah, I've just got Dossier: The Warlord left for new recruits, I think. Sounds like a Krogan to me!

After just finishing a recruitment mission, I looked around for other sidies to do before taking a big plunge again. I stumbled on something called Overlord and thought it sounded pretty cool. So apparently, there is a Cerberus outpost that has "gone dark". My suggestion of hiring a local electrician did not go down well with the Illusive Man so we relayed over to the fantastically-named planet Aite.

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It's quite a lovely looking planet, actually. No time for sightseeing though! My new team of Shepard, Garrus and Jack headed straight into the complex. As I entered, something stirred in my memory. Overlord. I remembered this being discussed earlier on with Randy. I checked back on the thread and yup... this is DLC. What have I gotten myself into?!! No doubt an impossible mission for my current level. I thought "f**k it, I'll give it a go anyway".

For a place that had gone dark, there was plenty of light everywhere. There was a message from someone called Archer on a nearby console. However, I was interrupted by an unexpected side quest. MissH came into the gaming room to inform me we had an infestation of daddy-long-legs in our bedroom. Bravely and skilfully, I removed two enemies using toilet paper and left no remains of the carcasses on the bedroom wall. Sidequest complete! XP yield was disappointing...

Picked up some loot and engaged in a little vandalism by breaking a nearby window. Memories of the ASBO I attained in my youth came flooding back. Archer was on Facebook Live in the next room explaining a little bit about the situation here on Aite. There's a scary dude called Rogue 6 who is some sort of human/AI hybrid that's gone cray cray. First step was to retract the communication dish so we can destroy it (I think). No sooner had I done that then Rogue 6 appeared on a nearby monitor and I honestly nearly shat myself. What the hell is his voice/scream/death song??!! It sounded again further down the corridor and I actually had to turn my TV volume down. Smurfing horrifying.

Bollocks. The next room housed an onslaught of geth. Initially, I thought I was way under-levelled as I was doing bog all damage. After switching to a shield/synthetic weapon, I was downing enemies quicker than Dr Chakwas downs her booze. Jack is a pretty top-notch companion and even Garrus was getting the job done. Go team! With the room cleared, we headed downstairs and jumped onto a tram to the communication dish. A short, pleasant journey that could have benefited from some elevator-style music... maybe a little soft jazz.

We made our way round the dish's exterior walkways taking out the trash with minimal fuss before arriving inside the thing itself. The fight here was horrible and I died a couple of times. You basically just get shot from all sides and there is no decent cover anywhere. Smurf you, game. It was third time lucky though when I discovered that using disruptor ammo shot everything to sh*t. How had I not used this before?!!

We climbed the stairs and emerged outside onto the dish itself. The view was breathtaking. If I could just disable the dish as opposed to destroying it, this would be an usual-but-amazing spot for some prime real estate. There were four fuel tanks to disable (all accompanied by a standard wave of goons) but my disruptor ammo was the equivalent of using a mini-gun on some garden gnomes. Quick work was made.

We're treated to a cut scene which highlights the stupidity of blowing up a communication dish whilst still running around on top of it. The first human spectre, ladies and gentlemen.

Mission over! Well, sort of. I'm still on Aite and there's clearly more stuff to do. Firstly, there was a little tête-a-tête with Archer. He had a team of people (who are all dead now... good job, dude) here working on Virtual Intelligence, Rogue VI is actually his brother who carelessly got fused with the VI. He is surprisingly OK with us hunting down his sibling. To be fair though, after years of cruel torture courtesy of my older brother, I can completely understand.

I headed out in my brand-spanking new mako! This thing is a marked improvement on the one from ME1. It has a new boost, higher floaty-mode button and probably a TV/BluRay player in the back. I was heading for some place called Vulcan but decided to do some exploring before going there. I may or may not have accidentally ran over some wildlife... oops. I clearly wandered too far as I'd begun to head towards some place called Prometheus instead. OK, I guess we'll see if the location is as disappointing as the film. I'll just get my team into this station then I'll call it a night.

Remembering ME1, it will surely be a case of parking up outside and strolling in the door, right? WRONG. The station has a huge shield courtesy of four generators surrounding it. Only... THE GENERATORS HAVE SHIELDS TOO. Damn it, game! Luckily, I'm a genius. There was a huge cannon firing at us in a very aggressive manner. I cleverly hid behind each generator, enticed the cannon to shoot then ran away which destroyed the shields. So once all the generators were destroyed it was a simple matter of... dying because I stayed still too long and was blasted to f**k. On my next attempt though, I destroyed the generators, destroyed the cannon, parked the mako and entered the station. Game saved!

Tune in next time when Jack gets matching 'M's tattoed onto her butt cheeks as a tribute to her Mom.

Formalhaut

09-07-2016, 05:37 PM

Huh, I always leave Overlord to postgame. Same with Lair of the Shadow Broker and Arrival. I guess out of the three, Overlord is the only one which loses nothing if done during the main story, so go for it! I will recommend leaving Lair and Arrival till' last, but that's just me. Leave Arrival dead last, as a matter of fact.

As for Overlord, one of my favourite DLCs. The story really kicks in towards the last third, and the battle music MY GOD the battle music is incredible.

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Anyway, the new Mako. It's... okay. The Hammerhead is very fragile. Even on Casual, it can't stand up to sustained fire. Fortunately if you duck out of range and wait for a short bit it regens health very fast, but it can make combat with it somewhat tedious. That and it tends to burst into panic-inducing flames with panic sirens with worrying frequency. I also have an immense fear of the Geth-controlled cannon in this DLC. My first time playing through this DLC, I got stuck on a piece of a terrain and got blown to bits despite doing everything else perfect. I got snagged by a smurfing branch. I really hate dying in video games, especially so dramatically as that. So I load up again, and pretty much the same thing happens again. So me and the instant death cannon don't see eye to eye. Every other time I do that section I let Mr. Carny handle it, I don't like the stress.

Bubba

09-07-2016, 06:18 PM

Formalhaut

09-07-2016, 06:23 PM

Yeah, the only reason I went for Overlord is because it was the only thing left to do on my journal sidequests. The other DLC's aren't even available to me at this point anyway so I assumed this one would be OK to do now. I could have just done the next recruitment mission but I think I'm just used to more sidequesty stuff after playing ME1! I honestly didn't realise how long Overlord was when I started it!

Ahh, the Hammerhead, sorry. Yeah, it seems pretty cool but I haven't come under sustained fire (one-hit kills not withstanding) as of yet.

I feel your pain with instant-kill moves. The amount that I die generally in games though I suppose it doesn't bother me as much anymore :p

No, that's fair, part of me hates having to leave it alone in the journal for so long! I tend to make it the first post-game mission mainly so the last team member you get actually gets some combat time. Not to mention they actually excel against synthetics, so it makes sense from that angle. Plus, you get changes to dialogue as well. But that sort of thing can be experienced on a second playthrough, so no worries!

Overlord is pretty long. All of the big three DLCs are, in fact, so bear that in mind. With the Hammerhead, the toughest missions are probably the Geth missions as part of the Firewalker set. Lots of retreating in those ones.

Freya

09-08-2016, 02:48 PM

Overlord is fun. Not my favorite, but fun. Really fucked up though. HAVE FUN!

Loony BoB

09-09-2016, 12:08 PM

A bit late, but that Jack recruit moment is one of the best in the game imho. Sadly she never is as badass as that moment ever again, but dude I loved watching her rip the place to crap.

Fox

09-09-2016, 02:42 PM

Oh hey, I'm playing Mass Effect 2 again right now. About to go get Jack which is always good fun. She's such a laugh. In a maniacal "is she going to snap and kill us all" sort of way.

Bubba

09-09-2016, 02:51 PM

A bit late, but that Jack recruit moment is one of the best in the game imho. Sadly she never is as badass as that moment ever again, but dude I loved watching her rip the place to crap.

Oh hey, I'm playing Mass Effect 2 again right now. About to go get Jack which is always good fun. She's such a laugh. In a maniacal "is she going to snap and kill us all" sort of way.

She's AWESOME. Totally unpredictable to talk to which I love. Yeah, I thought she'd be a bit more badass as a teammate (though she's still pretty damn good!) after how destructive she was in her opening FMV. I suppose if she was that good though the game would broken to all hell.

Overlord is fun. Not my favorite, but fun. Really smurfed up though. HAVE FUN!

I certainly am so far! Gonna crack on with Prometheus either tonight or tomorrow :D

Fox

09-09-2016, 08:05 PM

I guess I should probably go do the Overlord mission as well...

You know, I remember being super happy first time I played ME2 that we had the Hammerhead replacing the Mako. But after playing ME1 a few days ago... I actually quite like the Mako. The issue was never with the Mako itself for me, just the level design for it. If you landed on a random planet there was nothing interesting to do, and if you were using it for a mission the driving section would go on too long. But actually driving around and jumping over rockets with your little thrusters was great fun

Bubba

09-20-2016, 10:03 PM

I have now finished Overlord and recruited the warlord!

Lots of updates are imminent. You might even call me... The Imminent Man! HA!!

That sounded so much better in my head.

Freya

09-20-2016, 10:21 PM

Nerd.

Loony BoB

09-23-2016, 12:22 PM

Boy, those updates couldn't be more imminent. ;)

Bubba

09-23-2016, 12:48 PM

OK, Prometheus awaits!

This was my kind of level... in that there wasn't a smurfing enemy in sight. There was just plenty of loot to be had for the having. My plain-sailing was short-lived when I arrived at a terminal which moved floor panels around. I was quite startlingly bad at this relatively simple manoeuvre. I fumbled around for about 15 mins before finally figuring out how the damn thing worked. Reaching the far end of the facility I released the lock and I was left with the simple task of retracing my steps. This being a video game though they decided that this was the point where the enemies come back from their nap/meeting/15 minute cigarette break. I killed lots of stuff and was then outside. Onward to Vulcan!

Honestly, I didn't enjoy the hopping from brick-to-brick on the lava flows. It wasn't difficult, I just thought it was very generic and platformy. Come on game, I'm a respected spectre... not a f***ing bandicoot.

Vulcan was short and not very sweet. A heavy wave of mechs and assault drones were picked off from afar. Plus the old "shoot the explosive container right next to them" tactic worked wonders. It always baffles me while they have things this unstable in all these facilities...

Worker 1: "Is Eddie not in today?"
Worker 2: "He had a half day"
Worker 1: "Huh, it wasn't on the log"
Worker 2: "Yeah, it wasn't on purpose. He tripped over an explosive container on his lunch and was blown into seventeen different pieces."
Worker 1: "Ah right, OK. Facilities Management should really move them out of the way."

Anyway, I activated the second override and there was only one place left to go... Atlas!

When I arrived here it was just a big room with an elevator at the back. Facilities Management are clearly slacking again as the elevator was out of order. Maybe they weren't slacking at all and were just playing a practical joke on the staff. The buttons next to the elevator moved it two floors but the buttons further back in the room moved it three floors. I can just imagine an FM guy hiding in a closet somewhere giggling at me as I try to get the lift to the right f***ing floor. Screw you. man.

After heading down, we came to a terminal which I immediately regretted accessing. It reminded me of the time when I took acid after watching the movie Tron. The whole place suddenly turned virtual... kind of like what Neo sees in the Matrix. Plus, I was alone! Kasumi, I need you! There were a few flashbacks in this weird world of Archer experimenting on his brother. His brother's maths skills were as impressive as they were creepy. A few more easy fights and I was riding another elevator down to finally take on this annoying, screeching VI!

From what I could gather, this pesky VI was attempting to upload porn to the Normandy which would apparently cause no end of problems. Hey man, I like Asari-on-Turian bondage as much as the next guy but there's a time and a place, you know? It was a pretty simple task of shooting these glowing globes of porn before they ascended to my beloved Normandy. Once the globes were destroyed, the VI core was exposed and my disruptor ammo was ripping through everything at the minute. VI destroyed and Overlord was complete! There was even time at the end to chat with Archer and tell him he's a terrible brother.

Tune in next time as Shepard recruits a krogan and has to conduct an awkward meeting with him following crew complaints about his body odour.

theundeadhero

09-26-2016, 03:50 AM

I may have complained a lot about the Mako, but compared to the other vehicles in the series it was a dream. Really, they should just stay away from player controlled ships in the future.

Bubba

09-29-2016, 12:03 PM

Imminent update is imminent! Dossier: The Warlord.

I've been sorely missing ME1 when I had good ol' Tyrannosaurus Wrex by my side. I was excited to recruit my new tank! Read the summary of the planet Korlus where this dude is located... violent crime and heavy pollution. Alec Guinness' voice drifted into my head "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy". Sounds like my kind of place.

I landed in a wide area of rubble which, as years of gaming has taught me, will be home to all sorts of undiscovered trinkets! Clearly I know f**k all though as I just spent ten minutes fumbling around a load of rocks. Huh, oh well.

Rounding a corner, I spotted a few Blue Sun troopers in the distance having a friendly game of Trivial Pursuit. How many bits of pie have you got, lads? Well here... have a slice of mine! HA! I should so be writing Hollywood action blockbusters. My pie consisted of sniper bullets to the head then I moved on.

I kept hearing the voice of some lady talking about random crap. It can be difficult sometimes to distinguish in-game voices from the voices in my head but I'm pretty sure she was part of ME2. I came across an injured Blue Suns soldier who was suffering quite badly from a life-threatening hangnail. Obviously fearing for his life, we did nothing to allay his concerns and used it to garner some information. He tells me about this lady (J'Adore) who runs the place... and whose voice I've been hearing. Phew! She's using our boy Dr Okeer the Krogan to create a Krogan army. Apparently though, things aren't going too well. I let the injured soldier rush off for treatment in case his hangnail fatally caught on the material of his sleeve.

More pesky Blue Suns on a higher-levelled bridge. I made short work with my sniper though. I find I run out of sniper ammo far too quickly. Bring back the overheat mechanic from ME1! After they were deaded, I pushed on and came across what looked like a suicide pact between a load of Krogans. Poor dead bastards. Ooh! Here's an alive one though! He was firing away at more troopers so I thought I'd help the guy out. We had a a quick chat with him afterwards and the poor dude is only seven days old but is fully grown?? He then told me about a voice in his head (Just one, mate? Lucky you) that sounds like our boy the warlord.

We crack on to try and reach this lab. We found some more dead bodies and decided to honour them by going through their pockets for credits. Two troopers seem to spot us and immediately run away. Well, of course. FEAR US, FOR WE BRING DEATH. We took them out anyway before rounding a corner and coming face-to-face with what they were actually running away from... some badass Krogan with more health bars than a Nutri-grain factory.

Now it took me a while to deal with just one of these guys. What does the game do next? Sends about 20 more of them one-at-a-time so I spent a lengthy amount of time taking these tanks out verrrrrrry slowly. I did not enjoy this. Next came a long meander with no encounters which always makes me nervous. Managed to grab some supplies though which including a sweet sniper rifle upgrade. Aww yis!

It's a shame I couldn't use the upgrade straight away as I was in my snipering element next! Have you ever tried one of those 'shoot the duck' stalls at a fairground? Well, it was like that... but without the ducks. Or the unwashed vendor taking your money. Anyhoo, fake ducks were down and I moved on. The problem with relying on the sniper, is that my close combat pistol shooting subsequently suffers. Hence, I was mowed down outside an office at the top of some stairs. Luckily, due to bad experiences in ME1, I save the game after every 5 seconds of action. This results in no replayed sections but can mean a long time between updates on this thread. Are you buying that? Probably not.

The waves of enemies were relentless going forward. A lot of them firing rocket launchers which simply shouldn't be allowed, except mine of course. I feel like I've climbed about fifty flights of stairs but we were finally getting closer to the Krogan's lab! After leaving a final grisly trail of dead Blue suns, we have our first meet with Dr. Okeer!

I like him. He's currently working on a cure for the genophage like Saren in ME1. By all accounts though, he's not using the most ethical of practises. After a brief chat, that J'Adore lady piped up over the intercom and started flooding the place with gas. How rude. She pleasantly invited us to what I assume was a coffee morning in the room next door. Ooh, I hope she's put some nice pastries on! Imagine my surprise then, when we arrive and it's just her and a load of Krogans trying to kill us. I assume Jack or Kasumi killed J'Adore because I only downed about three Krogans and the room was clear.

I thought we dispatched them quite quickly but upon our return to the lab Dr Okeer had been, inconveniently for him, gassed to death. I assume there is no way to save him? Ahhhh, all this time I thought the doctor was gonna be our new team mate when it turns out he has a Krogan monstrosity sat in a cupboard in his office! I thought at this point, the most sensible course of action would be to bring this potentially dangerous and psychotic genetically-bred Krogan onto the Normandy.

Once we were there, I again erred on the side of caution... I released him and hoped that he wouldn't tear the ship apart on a murderous rampage. I almost instantly regretted doing this as he was threatening to tear my face open. Shepard was not voted Most Charming Spectre 2183 for nothing though. After complementing his physique and expressing in interest in some of his hobbies, Shepard convinced Grunt to join the team!

Tune in next time when an awkward ship meeting culminates in Grunt refusing to own up to blocking the men's toilet.

Freya

09-29-2016, 04:12 PM

Baby Grunt is hilarious :3

Bubba

10-04-2016, 02:38 PM

Horizon

Four new recruits in tow, it's time for us all to get our hands/claws dirty! The Man Illusive informed us that there was a human colony under attack from Collectors. If we hurried, we could get down there and catch the shifty f**kers in the act. There was an exciting development in the form of a cut scene from Horizon. My main man Kaidan is down there kicking ass! Oh how I've missed your handsome face, Mr Alenko.

The colonists were under attack from those weird hornet things that were first out of the game in Jumanji. One sting and you're paralysed for the Collectors to... well... collect you. Luckily, Mordin is a genius and apparently we won't be affected by the Jumanji wasps. Time to get down there and kiss save Kaidan and his chums.

This level started in the usual way for us. Pick-ups picked up, enemies sniped, celebratory dance with Kasumi while Grunt gave us a disapproving look. A brief radio chat with Joker was cut short which frankly I found as a relief as Seth Green's voice grates on me. Looks like the Collectors know we're here and are blocking our comms. They were probably alerted when I shot their friends in the face two minutes ago.

Approaching a courtyard, I immediately regretted dancing with Kasumi mere moments earlier. Because clearly, my buttshake brings all the boys to the yard. There were Collectors and what the hell... Husks?! These glass dudes were everywhere in ME1 and they don't seem to have changed much. So are the Collectors and the Reapers working together now? Well, they're gonna rue the day that they decided to join forces as Shepard will ensure there will be some serious reapercussions!
:chocobo:

After pausing the game for ten minutes to laugh at my own hilariousness, I cleared the courtyard and pressed on. Mini cut-scene in which Shepard says these Husks look stronger and more evolved. Really? They look like the same dozy bastards to me. More Collectors up ahead. I was able to sneak through a trailer (grabbing loot on the way) to get the jump on them. Death dealed, we ran up some stairs and happened upon some petrified humans. Looks like Professor Sprout better get cracking with some Mandrake potion.

A bit further along and ohhhhh yes! We picked up some sort of Collector, space-lazer weapon! It replaced my rocket launcher so it is obviously gonna be something special. I better save this for for when we're inevitably attacked by a pan-dimensional liquid beast from the Mogadon cluster.

My decision to save this mega-weapon I immediately regretted as some heavy-duty barriered Collectors tore me a new one within five seconds of the next encounter. These guys were tough! I had a couple of retries but I was keen to save my heavy weapon. I employed my usual cowering-behind-a-box technique while Grunt and Kasumi did all the hard work.

After hacking through a nearby door, I was confronted with some twitchy mechanic guy. It's safe to say the dude is not a big fan of the Alliance and I slapped him about the chops for daring to insult Kaidan. He did mention some defence systems that we could use against the Collectors though. Groovy.

I was really confused in the next fight. These chump enemies kept glowing orange and I had no idea what was going on. It turns out they were being possessed by some chief Collector as he kept talking jive at me. I decided it was time to break out the mega-lazer. The first guy in my sights was... well, it was Grunt as the daft prick ran in front of me. The second guy in my sights though was a possessed Collector and holy crap this gun is good! The pesky chief kept jumping from enemy to enemy chatting sh*t all the while. We exchanged a few 'your momma' insults before I finally cleared the area.

I was slowly making my way to the defence system when another wave of Husks and a couple of new enemies called Scions appeared. Eeesh, I don't like them. Hard as nails. Once down though, we reached a large area in which we could activate the Alliance defence system. Unfortunately, starting this system is slower than loading a ZX Spectrum game. I'm certain this process will take just long enough for three waves of Collectors to start some sh*t.

It was a tough fight culminating in the appearance of a giant Jumanji Wasp. If there was ever a time for me to rock my mega-lazer, it was now! He was particularly annoying due to his shield constantly refilling. We eventually wore him down though as I shot him lots, bent him over my knee and spanked his little bottom blue.

Cue cut-scene and I was ready for a slow-motion embrace between Kaidan and Shepard with some full on tongue action. I was sorely disappointed however when he basically said I'm a dick for siding with Cerberus. I didn't use all Paragon responses (though no Renegade ones) but at the end he just walked away! You're breaking my heart. man! With that, we were transported back to the Normandy.

Tune in next time when Shepard picks up a flower but his game of "He loves me, he loves me not" does not end like he'd hoped.

Freya

10-04-2016, 03:38 PM

Ahh shit's starting to happen! Ahhhh are you spooked yet?

Bubba

10-04-2016, 04:03 PM

Ahh trout's starting to happen! Ahhhh are you spooked yet?

Not spooked, just curious! Excited to see further developments :D I assume I couldn't recruit Kaidan at that point then?

I went back to the Normandy and I've got a crapload of new missions that have just appeared. I spoke to Jacob and Miranda and they both want me to go off-mission and help them out with their situations. I assume these are the loyalty missions? I've got Kasumi's to do as well. Plus, a few more Dossier Recruitment missions. I don't know where to start!

Do you think it's worth doing some of the loyalty ones first or are they better saved till nearer the end?

Freya

10-04-2016, 04:57 PM

Yeah do the loyalty missions as soon as you can. You'll also have a chance to do the next DLC, Lair of the Shadow Broker. That one fits best until after the last big story mission, though.

You'll have one more big story one (like horizon) and after that you need to try to get all your loyalty missions done. Because the next story mission after that one is the IFF. That's the "point of no return". If you dawdle on too many missions after the IFF one then it'll negatively affect your endgame.

After that point, you'll have got your very very last member. Talk to them right away to get their loyalty mission. Do it, then get onto the endgame. Anymore missions after that and those negative consequences will happen.

Bubba

10-04-2016, 05:37 PM

AHH YES, Lair of the Shadowbroker! That popped up as well after Horizon. My beloved Liara!! There was a message saying she'd been tracking the Shadow Broker and she was down on Illium. That is definitely my next stop. I've been faithful, Liara, I have! Although it must be said I've been flirting with Kelly, Miranda and Jack so far. No touchy-touchy though.

The Jack flirting is a recent development. I don't know what it is but I've got a bit of a thing for her. It's weird because I hate tattoos and I love... err hair. I think it's her bolshy attitude. I kind of want to see if Shepard can tame her.

Well, I'll do Shadow Broker and see how I feel once my blue lady is back in the picture. Unless of course she's gone and had babies with Conrad Verner.

Freya

10-04-2016, 07:11 PM

Well do the next to recruit missions first on illium before then at least. Because I think there's a side quest there for liara if I remember that's just part of the normal game. Or do it first! It's whatever!

theundeadhero

10-05-2016, 02:41 AM

smurfboi Kaidan was all I though I got rid of you. HE NEVER LOVED YOU! Maybe it makes you wish he would have... died. Liara though. What's happened to Liara? Does she still love you? Did she ever love you? Are you nervous to find out?

Bubba

10-05-2016, 07:41 AM

What do you mean "did she ever love you?"

OUR LOVE WAS PURE, DAMMIT.

Formalhaut

10-05-2016, 01:31 PM

Liara though. What's happened to Liara? Does she still love you? Did she ever love you? Are you nervous to find out?

Look at all those questions, seeding doubt in your mind. Don't listen to him, Bubba.

Bubba

10-05-2016, 01:58 PM

theundeadhero

10-05-2016, 08:05 PM

Well, the difference between saving the two is very minimal, if you want to keep reading. In almost all cases their lines are exactly the same. The only real difference between the two is romance.

Fox

10-05-2016, 09:07 PM

I assume you get a similar reaction from Ashley (on Horizon) if you chose to save her? I just wondered if there were any huge differences depending on who you chose. I'm actually really excited to play through again so I have a completely different experience. Heads are gonna roll when Renegade FemShep hits town!

Yeah unfortunately there's no way to kill them both on Virmire. Trust me, I tried after the trouty attitude they greeted me with on Horizon.

Yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about her when I see her. I suppose it will depend entirely on her reaction to me. I am a bit nervous! Though you know, not really... I know it's just a game.

No it's not. It's important. It's the most important thing. ^^; Quick note: don't tell Liara "let's go get the Shadowbroker" until you've done everything else with her on Illium. Triggering the shadow broker DLC cancels everything else, and I personally think your interactions with Liara on Illium are really important.

Formalhaut

10-05-2016, 09:12 PM

Yeah, I don't know how I'm gonna feel about her when I see her. I suppose it will depend entirely on her reaction to me. I am a bit nervous! Though you know, not really... I know it's just a game.

I assume you get a similar reaction from Ashley (on Horizon) if you chose to save her? I just wondered if there were any huge differences depending on who you chose. I'm actually really excited to play through again so I have a completely different experience. Heads are gonna roll when Renegade FemShep hits town!

Yeah unfortunately there's no way to kill them both on Virmire. Trust me, I tried after the trouty attitude they greeted me with on Horizon.

Now now, they do apologise later on. I'm willing to forgive Kaidan because my M!Shep and him just have to get together. It's a road bump.

Bubba

10-06-2016, 04:44 PM

Postcards from Illium

So after properly reading what Freya posted earlier, I decided not to do the Shadow Broker mission just yet. Though the description of Illium meant that I had to visit this place next! It was teeming with beautiful Asari along with the cream of the crop... Miss T'Soni!

This place looks smurfing awesome. Kind of like Neo-Dubai. These Asari folk know what they're doing! It was my intention to dive head first into Miranda's mission but Illium has more distractions than Diagon Alley. I'll help Miranda in a little while but first lets see what inappropriate shenanigans we can get up to :D

I took Miranda (obvs) and Grunt because he makes me feel safe. Kind of like my comfort blanket. We are greeted by a nice Asari who informs us that all of our docking fees have been prepaid by the lovely Liara. This is encouraging! Maybe I'll get a little Illium action :jokey:

I arrived first at the trading floor where I activated a side quest by chatting to the lovely Gianni Parasite. If you've been following my guide, you may remember her as 'hot secretary 2' on Noveria in ME1. The fact that she offered to buy me a beer meant that I instantly fell in love with her. Apparently, one of the vendors here was selling illegal stuff and she wanted me to do some digging. For you, love? Anything. I went over and charmed the female vendor into offering me top secret stuff at which point Gianni showed up and shouted "You got punk'd!" and issued her with a heavy fine. Gianni was very grateful and clearly wanted a piece of Shepard ass. She kissed me and said "much better than an autograph" whilst pulling this face :jokey: Easy lady, I don't want to smell of another woman when I meet my Liara :flirt:

I headed up some stairs to a bar called Eternity. The Asari owner was outside and told me some dick was starting trouble inside and trying to get the deeds for Eternity. Fear not, m'lady! The offending offender was at the bar and... and... I saw red. It was CONRAD SMURFING VERNER. The guy who had spent the last two years porking Liara (in my head) and now must die a slow, painful death. Unfortunately, I couldn't do this so I just initiated a conversation. Cue Shepard's folded-arms, not-impressed pose. The deluded prick seemed to think the bar was a front for selling sand. I don't know about you but I'm convinced. He was told this by some undercover Asari lady who I managed to track down. I turned on the old charm and persuaded her to ask for the deeds herself. Which she did... and got arrested. Ooops, sorry love. Smurfing Conrad was confused by this turn of events. I convinced the dozy bastard that he had helped catch a terrorist which was a blatant lie. He bought it though and buggered off. Side quest done!

There were a few more encounters in the delightful Eternity Bar. I listened to an amusing conversation at some guys bachelor party. They were watching some Asari do some table dancing. To be polite, I also watched. I also chatted to the barmaid who was probably the most interesting person I've spoken to in the entire game. She had history! I love the detail this game goes into. Finally, I spoke to another Asari called Lantern. This was clearly the start of the Miranda loyalty mission as they were chatting sh*t about Miranda's sister. Hold your horses, ladies! Illium still holds undiscovered delights! I mean what's more important, your sister's life or me perving on Liara?

Following this rhetorical question, I left Eternity and made my way to Liara's office. I'm nervous! After being chatted up again, this time by her secretary, I entered her office aaaaaand... she's changed :( She was talking threateningly over the phone to someone and seemed much more... bolshy. When she turned though she definitely softened and we shared a nice hug and quick smooch. This is better! We had a nice catch up. She's now an information broker and she actually had a bit to say about two potential new recruits. I... don't know what it is... she's just different. I DON'T LIKE CHANGE. Why the hell did I have to be dead for two years? She isn't the shy Asari I knew. It's great she's become this assertive, respected figure but... we'll see. I agreed to help her with a side quest and it was goodbye for now.

A couple more side quests and and I decided that was enough for one night. There was a ditzy Asari being harassed by a cute Krogan spouting terrible poetry. She was a bit unsure about him and I was like "Damn guuuurl. Dat man is fiiiine. If you doan't wan' him then send him maaa wayyy, girlfrieeeend". She took him back in the end so they could have Asari babies.

Finally, I ran into a cool orange-coloured Asari who I remembered from ME1. She and the colonists needed medical treatment due to exposure to Asbestos or something. Anyway, I had to speak to a medical rep (who conveniently was ten yards away) to convince her to change the contract she signed with the Colonists. I did this the only way I knew how... by bringing up her dead children. "Remember when your kids died?" *cue sobbing*, she agreed to help the colonists and I felt really good about myself. Also, when talking to orange-Asari lady again afterwards she also hit on me! Shepard is on fire today!

Illium explored and now we set Miranda's mission in motion!

Tune in next time when Shepard starts a play through of Mass Effect 1 which causes a paradox that unravels the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroys the entire universe.

Freya

10-06-2016, 07:53 PM

Ahhh yes, the bartender.

You're gonna play ME3 right? The bartender is just a little side info you learn in ME3.

theundeadhero

10-06-2016, 11:25 PM

You missed your opportunity to shoot Conrad, buddy. Seriously. Renshep is just like, nope... *blam*

Bubba

10-07-2016, 12:55 PM

Ahhh yes, the bartender.

You're gonna play ME3 right? The bartender is just a little side info you learn in ME3.

I certainly am! Though with my speed of play, I'll probably take a break after ME2 as I'll want to dive into FFXV next month.

Honestly though it was such an interesting conversation! I'm glad to hear it will carry on in the next game :D

You missed your opportunity to shoot Conrad, buddy. Seriously. Renshep is just like, nope... *blam*

When was my opportunity? Back in ME1 or this point now that I just missed?

Whichever, he's definitely gonna get it when my RenShep hits town.

Bubba

10-11-2016, 03:15 PM

Miranda: The Prodigal

OK, we told Lantern we were ready to go. Let's go and get your twin, Miranda, so we can maybe arrange a threesome gain your loyalty.

We hopped on a number 46 bus and purchased a Day Saver (much cheaper than paying for two singles) to get to our location. We were greeted by a guy called Marc Leader who treated us like we'd just booted his dog. He did reveal to us however that Miranda is a great, big, dirty liar liar pants on fire. It turns out her sister is genetically her twin but she was actually a lot younger than Miranda. Also, Miranda kidnapped her sister when she was a baby. What the hell, woman?!

There was clearly no getting out of this fight so we took cover and tried not to get hit in the face by rocket launchers. The enemies were tough and quite far away... no probs! If I was a Harry Potter character I would be Professor Snipe... The Half-Hidden Prick. Enemies taken out.

We find a radio which triggers a cut scene partially involving Miranda's face but mainly involving her arse. It looks like her friend is double-crossing her. Also, she apologised to Shepard for being a fibber. She kidnapped her sister to protect her from her father. Hmmm, Daddy issues. I was nice to her though as she has a fantastic bum.

The next twenty minutes was 3 x enemy waves, grab loot, push on. I'll spare you all the details but rest assured, we were amazing. During this slaughter, we heard the voice of some cocky woman saying she's going to "deal with us herself". Is that right, bitch? Bring it on.

The identity of this lady was revealed when we ran into Miranda's old pal, Nike. He was in cahoots with this mercenary leader... Irish singer/songwriter Enya. Who'd have thought it? There was a bit of a to-do between Miranda and Nike. His betrayal did not go down well with her. She was seconds away from shooting him when I paragon-interrupted to say "leave it aaaaaot. He's not werf it" in my best scally-cockney accent. It mattered not as Enya dispatched Nike herself and triggered a final battle. Smurf you, Enya! You may have a lovely voice but I hated Sail Away and you're going down!!

I mean, not straight away though, obviously. Inconvenient goons of inconvenience showed up for us to deal with first. Once dealt with, it was just a matter of taking out the angel-voiced songstress. She was a right pain-in-the-arse actually but ultimately no match for our specials. Laterz.

Threat eliminated, we hot-footed it out of there. Miranda spotted her sister on the way out but was unwillingly to initiate conversation. Shepard told her to "stop being silly, sweetcheeks" and she ended up going over for a catch-up. No idea of the impact this will have later on as Miranda was quite upset when we left. No doubt I've just sentenced Miranda and her sister to death in ME3.

Tune in next time when Miranda causes controversy by turning up to the Normandy 'Dead Celebrity' Halloween party as Ashley Williams.

Freya

10-11-2016, 03:53 PM

Hahha, that'll be an awkward party. Whomp whomp

Bubba

10-11-2016, 04:46 PM

You see I'm caught now between doing some more loyalty missions or recruiting some more members!

I may do a couple more loyalties before bringing someone else on board. Is there a benefit for recruiting the new guys first?

Freya

10-11-2016, 04:54 PM

Well if you recruit them now you'll have less time to worry about their loyalty missions. Cause you get loyalty missions after so long of them on your team. Well it's based on how many missions you've completed as shepard. Some require dialogue choices and you get more of those after each mission so go get new people so you can get their loyalty missions too!

Formalhaut

10-11-2016, 09:35 PM

Yeah, get into the habit of talking with your crew so you can unlock their loyalty missions. By the end though, they appear almost instantly, your final member a case in point.

Bubba

10-13-2016, 10:10 AM

Bubba

10-13-2016, 02:13 PM

Dossier - The Justicar

I've enjoyed my time on Illium so much I decided to stick around for a while. Plus, I remember Liara telling me some info on a couple of potential recruits. Time to find the Justicar! Sounds like some sort of vehicle I'd drive round in serving justice. As cool as that would be it's probably unlikely.

I remember chatting to a nice lady about this on my tour round Illium. I managed to find her at the tracking station. She was called Daria, who has clearly changed a lot since her days of playing an animated, cynical teenager on MTV. I've already forgotten the conversation we had previously so it just gave me the option to get a cab somewhere. As a professional Spectre, I'll take my usual approach and try to figure out what I'm supposed to do when I get there.

It looks like some sh*t has gone down. There's a dwarlian (anyone know what race these things are? The short, stumpy ones?) here who is trying to leave so he can sell his crap. Officer Aulayna won't let him leave though as the guy's business partner has just been killed. This dwarlian, Brad Pitne, denies any involvement and says it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick Eclipse. Whatever happened, the guy is scared sh*tless of our friend the Justicar.

I had a chat with Officer Aulayna and the Justicar are basically a law unto themselves. Kind of like Judge Dredd. Karl Urban Judge Dredd though... not Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd because that didn't even happen so I don't know why I'm even mentioning him. Anyway, this Justicar is getting a bit big for their boots and Aulayna is wanting to arrest them. I told her of my intent to recruit her so she'd be leaving anyway. Aulayna agreed. Everybody wins!

Aulayna was so desperate to be rid of the Justicar that she gave me permission to cross the police line and do some investamagating. It looks like Brad Pitne may have been right about the Eclipse because they were here in force. They were a piece of piss to take out though as I made very quick work of them. A bit further along and I come face-to-face with my potential new recruit... Samara!

She's trying to find out the name of some ship that some criminal has recently left Illium on. The Asari officer she's chatting to though refuses and Samara does not like that. At least I don't think she did as she proceeded to break the Asari's neck with her boot. A little extreme, I thought. We have a brief chat (from a safe distance) and if we can help her find out the name of this ship, she'll agree to join our awesome team. Fair deal!

Game saved and mission to be completed tonight!

Formalhaut

10-13-2016, 04:11 PM

Yeah, get into the habit of talking with your crew so you can unlock their loyalty missions. By the end though, they appear almost instantly, your final member a case in point.

Will do! I completely forgot to do this after Miranda's loyalty mission. I have been chatting to them regularly though. So much so that my chats with Jacob usually end up like this.

Shepard: "I actually just want to talk about you."
Jacob: "You say this to me every day and it's really weird. Leave me alone, you freak."

ME: 3 is actually much better about telling you that they don't want to chat. If you go up to them and talk when they have nothing new to say, they'll go something like "commander" and won't drag you into a proper cut-scene conversation. Which is nice, and means you don't have to spend time having to furiously hit the 'goodbye' option every damn time.

...gave me permission to cross the police line and do some investamagating.

Riiiiide ze justicar?

Freya

10-13-2016, 10:12 PM

IF only karl Urban was in these games too. :(

Officer Aulyana lol

Bubba

10-14-2016, 01:36 PM

Right, we ended last time with Shepard agreeing to help Samara find the name of a ship someone/something left Illium on. She was actually now being held in custody by Officer Aulayna for a period of 24 hours. Apparently, once this 24 hours is up Samara will go ape sh*t and kill everyone. Sounds reasonable. In any case, I better get a shifty on... so yeah, that's what I did.

Samara had told us that Brad Pitne (they're called Volus! Though I much prefer Dwarlian...) had some more information for us. We caught up with the stumpy f**ker back at the police station. He didn't know the name of the ship, which I expected, otherwise this would be a short-ass mission. I probably shouldn't be saying "short-ass" in this guy's company, oh well. Anyway, he gave us a copy of a key that he made which would give us access to the Eclipse base. Time to ruffle some feathers!

We jumped into an elevator and were greeted on the next floor by a lone mech who we promptly dispatched. Come on, game! Is that all you've got?! Hilarity ensued around the corner when Grunt let go a toxic fart and was immediately surrounded by his brown poop gas. Jack and I were highly amused. The fun didn't last long though as a fartometer appeared in the bottom right-hand corner and it turns out Grunt's bum burp was actually killing us. What the hell, man? What the smurf have you been eating?!

As it transpires it wasn't Grunt farting at all. I vaguely remember Brad Pitne telling us about this hazardous substance that he'd left lying all over the place. The careless prick had left them everywhere. Blowing them up was kind of a double-edged sword. It was effective for taking out Eclipse dudes but we then had to wade through the cloud and try not to die.

I picked up a sweet shotgun in the next room and gave it to Grunt by way of an apology. We then discovered an Asari Eclipse merc hiding behind a desk. She was clearly scared and told us she didn't do any fighting. I felt sorry for her (and she was cute) so I decided not to kill her. Though I did make her go and sit on the naughty step and have a long think about what she'd done.

I was slowly making my way upstairs. I cleared out a few rooms full of Eclipse, credits, platinum and poop gas. I eventually came to this huge area with baddies and an ominous-looking stationary gunship. Something tells me it won't be stationary for very long. When I say stationary I mean it was stood still... not that it was made out of pencils... but you knew that. Shut up, Bubba.

Picked up a few goodies in the next room and listened to a recording on a computer. It was that nice Asari girl I sent to the naughty step before. Bitch! She killed the Volus! Here's me feeling sorry for her... I should have popped a cap in her ass! Oh well, I got paragon points for letting her go, I suppose. Still! Just you wait until renegade FemShep is in town, lady!

Well, I knew it was coming. I crossed over a bridge and the pencil gunship from before loomed into view. I'd just picked up some heavy ammo so I took the hint and decided to lazer the thing to death. In hindsight, it would have been wise to intersperse this with you know... taking cover. I was dead in less than ten seconds. My second, far more cautious attempt, was successful.

Pushing on I found another Volus stood at a vending machine. This part actually had me laughing out loud! He was clearly off his tits on drugs and was rambling on about how he was the most powerful biotic in the world/galaxy/universe. This guy was freakin' hilarious as he was about to storm into the next room and get his arse riddled with bullets. I managed to convince him to go for a sleep instead. Haha, honestly I was laughing so much here!

Final confrontation in the next room. There were a wave of mechs, an eclipse captain and a sh*tload of Grunt poop gas. I decided this was worth using some more heavy ammo and made pretty short work of all involved. Though I did break a tonne of crates expelling enough gas to kill the entire British Navy. We made it out alive but not before finding the name of the ship that Samara needed! Time to head back and hope she hasn't annihilated the whole of Illium.

Luckily, she was just sat on Officer Aulayna's desk. I gave her the good news and she was so grateful that she got down on her knees (not like that, you dirty buggers) and swore allegiance to Shepard. She is one of us! I love Samara, she is the breast best. I mean, she is chest just fantastic. She's also pretty hot for a thousand-year-old.

I'd clearly been thorough on my mission as I completed a couple of sidequests here too. I shopped Brad Pitne's illegal shenanigans to Officer Aulayna whilst also solving her murder for her too. I am the best. Just the best.

Tune in next time when under the influence of red sand, Grunt reveals his burning ambition to play Fantine in a stage performance of Les Misérables.

Galuf

10-14-2016, 01:48 PM

I am a biotic GOD! Fear me!

iirc if you let him go in. He powers up a ball blast. Then it hits the commander and its tiny or something. Lol I kinda forgot.

Freya

10-14-2016, 05:30 PM

http://noobfeed.com/app/webroot/ckfinder/userfiles/images/The_Biotic_God_Niftu_Cal_by_Fanimusmaximus.jpg

I love the little things in this series like that. I crack up each time at him.

Also the letting the girl go thing is one of the first times I think that being a good guy gets you a bad result. Which is refreshing, cause sometimes you can't do the good thing without having negative results. That's life.

Bubba

10-15-2016, 11:31 AM

I am a biotic GOD! Fear me!

It was hilarious! I love how this series doesn't always take itself too seriously.

Also the letting the girl go thing is one of the first times I think that being a good guy gets you a bad result. Which is refreshing, cause sometimes you can't do the good thing without having negative results. That's life.

Yeah, gives it an interesting dynamic! I always try to be honest in my reactions. I'm generally taking the paragon route but I don't always take it. There were a few times when I've thought the renegade approach was more appropriate. Letting the council die in ME1 was definitely not the paragon choice! :lol:

A few more developments. After chatting with the crew I've now acquired Jack and Mordin's loyalty missions! I've also upgraded a load of armour and weaponry so I have barely any materials left and no Element Zero! I was thinking I should be saving that for something but it's too late now!

Also, all the fish in Shepard's quarters are dead :(

Fox

10-15-2016, 02:35 PM

Also, all the fish in Shepard's quarters are dead :(

This infuriated me. I only forgot to feed them for ONE GORRAM MISSION

theundeadhero

10-15-2016, 07:16 PM

I'm going to say all your fish died because you're parashep. It's not true, but I'm saying it anyways. Renshep's fish are too scared to die.

Bubba

10-19-2016, 02:46 PM

Dossier - The Assassin

I'm the sniper specialist. I should be the assassin. It could be added to my list of other titles... Commander, Spectre and Sex Bandit. Fine, whoever he/she is they better be pretty damn good.

We remain on Illium for this mission which suits me fine as I love it here. I'd already spoken to the lady that starts the quest. Sabrina the Teenage Asari was waiting over in Shipping. Shepard has no qualms about getting a car with a strange Asari so we soon off into the night. We had a semi-friendly chat before she dropped us off at the bottom of this huge tower. This place was apparently home to our potential new recruit and a crapload of Eclipse mercenaries. Bring it on!

I was thrust into action straight away as a couple of defenceless Salarians were gunned down by some naughty mech enemies. They then turned their attention to myself, Jack and Kasumi. Bad move guys, bad move. Once they were downed, I spotted that one of the poor Salarians was still drawing breath. A nice paragon interrupt moment allowed me to apply a soothing ointment and give the guy a back rub thereby saving his life. What additional information did this guy have to offer following my life-saving actions? He told us we're probably gonna get shot at in the tower. Cheers pal.

The next room we enter was full of conveniently-placed waist-high crates. I knew from my years of playing games this can mean only one thing... people are going to try and kill me. I found a cracking spot to crouch with my sniper rifle and soon the air was filled with the sounds of bullet-on-mech... as well as my teammates crying "Good shot!", "Nicely done", "Tally Ho" and all that jazz.

We moved around the next corner and the Eclipse mercs were now showing up in force too. The enemies here are relentless. There were a few irritating biotics too. Ugh, go away. When I'd cleared the entire floor of goons I finally had chance to do a bit of exploring. I hacked a terminal for credits and then found OOOOHH!! A Viper Sniper Rifle! This bad boy could fire a lot faster with no annoying reload after every shot. This made me exceedingly happy!

Before activating a nearby elevator, I hacked another door which housed three more Salarian dudes. It would seem our friendly assassin locked them in here to keep them safe from all the Eclipse. I suppose this was a nice thing for our assassin to do but it was just an empty room he stuffed them in. He/she could have left the poor guys a deck of cards or Monopoly or something.

I called the elevator and I was unsurprised to see a load of bad guys pour out when the doors opened. They were all pretty weak except a huge unwashed Krogan Bounty Hunter. I kept my distance. Mainly because he looked like he had breath that could cut through bank vaults.

Exiting the elevator further up the tower, it was time for Shepard to turn on the old charm once again. A merc there was flapping his gums about bad guy stuff. "Evil things grrrr! Death to all grrrr!" You know the stuff. Shepard chatted to him for two minutes during which time he became a changed man. He now has a smile on his face, a song in his heart... and pays £3 a month to sponsor a child in Africa.

We cleared the next huge room of enemies and there was another locked room with another two Salarians. They also had been locked up by the assassin for their own safety. They were clearly grumpy about it though as one of them pulled a gun on me. Shepard was on charm factor ten though and this exchange ended without incident. Apparently though, the assassin was taking out the Eclipse garbage pretty efficiently. Good effort, son! ...or daughter.

The next room was standard shoot-things-in-the-face fare with one particularly difficult Eclipse commando. Do I not like biotics. I just sent Jack and Kasumi to deal with him whilst I hid behind a crate. Delegation is the key to being a great leader.

There was just one last bridge to traverse at the top of the tower and we were home free. There were two annoying gun turrets making progress slow. Where is the mako when you need it? After a lot of fannying about I just took them out with my heavy lazer gun thingy. We pushed on into the penthouse for a final showdown with Nassana and her guards.

I actually did bugger all though as our assassin friend dropped in from the ceiling and took everyone out like Jason Bourne on crack. The guy's name was Thane and he's a bit of a strange cat. He prayed for all the people he just mercilessly killed and then told us that he was ill and dying or something. Whatever man, I'm not shelling out another £3 a month.

Luckily, he wasn't after charity and offered to join our team for free. Aye, go on then. We boarded the Normandy again where Jacob acted a bit dickish towards Thane for reasons unknown. Maybe Thane slept with his girlfriend behind his back and got her pregnant. Oh wait, no. THAT WAS YOU, PRICK.

Tune in next time when Thane is found to own a copy of Abba's Greatest Hits and is subsequently hung, drawn and quartered.

theundeadhero

10-19-2016, 08:48 PM

I feel like if the assassin had left monopoly in the locked room with Salarians you would have opened the door to find them all dead. Murder-suicide.

Bubba

10-24-2016, 06:01 PM

Dossier: Tali

The opening cinematic to this mission was a real tear-jerker as we see the tragic death of a planetary bug who spontaneously combusted. At least I thought this was the case until I stepped out into the sunshine. Man, it was like Dubai in July and I'd forgotten to bring Factor 5000 sunblock. OK, so sunlight can kill us. Now I just need to make sure we don't get wet or get fed after midnight.

We made our way cautiously to some blast doors. Locked. Dammit. Oh well, I didn't use Tali too much in ME1 anyway. I turn around to head back to the Normandy when I spot a little office off to the side. OK, we'll take a peek. We find a message from her and it looks like she's holed up here somewhere. Fine, we'll come and get you, you wacky Quarian! We popped open the blast doors and pushed on.

We'd barely taken a few steps inside when a dropship arrives dumping a load of geth in front of us. "Aha!" I thought. Surely these guys will be stupid enough to walk into the sunlight thus being fried like a cajun catfish! Well, yes they were but for some reason they are not affected by this dying sun going nova. Lucky them. Not that lucky though as we dispatched them in about ten seconds.

Next area was rammed with baddies waiting to be taken down. I like the stay-out-of-the-sun dynamic as it gives the usual easy fights an extra element of difficulty. Spices things up nicely! I found a sweet pistol upgrade and a few other bits as I mowed down enemies like the tornado of destruction that I am.

He then picked up a Quarian radio and had a chat with some Quarian called Kal Drogo. It looks like his team are there to extract Tali the same as us. We agreed to combine forces to rescue Tali which is awesome! Well, it would have been if a dropship hadn't shown up at that exact moment and wiped out the entire Quarian force. Lovely. Also, a huge concrete block was now blocking our progress which needed to be blown up with explosives. Explosives that I didn't have. Great.

So there were two charges lying around this area that I had to locate. Sounds simple enough. You just knew there was gonna be some trouble waiting for me though and hoooo boy... there was plenty. I managed to get myself trapped here getting shot at whilst also getting a lovely tan from the deadly sun. Cue very quick death. I eventually cleared the area as well as the concrete block courtesy of my newly acquired explosives.

The room behind had a few more pick-ups. It also had another recorded message from Tali reminding me to pick up milk, eggs and fabric softener from the local shop on my way there. As it happened, we were able to speak to Tali directly a moment later through a comms device. She was up sh*t creek without a paddle. She's in some building that's being attacked by geth and all her Quarian team mates have been horribly killed. Don't worry, Tali! I'll rescue you, fair bloom, or my name's not John Shepard, Space Adventurer.

This next bit can get to smurf. There were about a million drones (as well as geth) that kept flying towards us from the horizon. These little bastards only take one hit to kill but there were so many of them! Plus, when they work together they pack more of a punch than Punchy McPunchface. I ran out of sniper bullets twice trying to take these buggers down. Onward to the final showdown!

Tali's building was under bombardment from a load of geth and a particularly grumpy Colossus. Kal Drogo was in cover nearby so I thought we'd get the lowdown on what's shaking. His plan was to draw the fire of the Colossus so we could flank it and take it down. I paragon -interrupted him though to say "No way dude, you're sh*te and will no doubt f**k it up" or words to that effect. Either way, he agreed to stay low (and alive) while we took care of business.

I did take his advice though of using the far side catwalk to flank the Colossus. Getting across the platform was not simple though and I died a couple of times trying. By the time I made it across on my third attempt I was well done with this crap. I busted out my particle lazer and made quick work of the geth Colossus. Job done!

I finally came face-to-face with Tali who was mightily pleased to see me. Well, I am a handsome bastard. Kal Drogo showed up as well to announce that he was still alive. Tali was more than happy to join our team so she handed over her data to Kal Drogo and we were on our merry way. I think that's everyone I can get for now!

Tune in next time when the ship's annual Swingball competition gets way out of hand.

Freya

10-24-2016, 06:26 PM

FUN FACT:

This mission was supposed to be, and the whole idea of Dark Energy consuming things such as this sun, the introduction to the whole plot of the reapers. Originally they had the reapers coming to smurf trout up because of the threat of the Dark Energy. We use Dark Matter for everything (FTL stuff, biotics, etc) and it has a negative effect of Dark Energy. Which caused this sun to go BOOM. And the reapers kill things to keep the balance cause otherwise the universe will implode!

The former head writer for the ME games and the ME novels, Drew Karpyshyn, shared this but he left in 2010 before ME3 came out. Casey Hudson, the dev, said, "screw that" even though they'd been setting it up across both ME1, 2 and the novels. And we got the different ending we did in ME3.

He left Bioware in 2014 and not surprisingly, Karpshyn came back on to Bioware in 2015.

Strange how that works and ME3 is the least favorite of a lot of fans. Weiiird huh.

Bubba

10-24-2016, 06:43 PM

Freya

10-24-2016, 07:03 PM

I personally enjoy ME3. All the DLC really makes it great. You'll like it. Gamers are just salty over-reactionaries

Fox

10-24-2016, 07:59 PM

Ahhhh, I wondered what happened in ME3 to get everyone so upset. All I know is that it has a questionable ending. Though apparently, my copy has the "new" ending that doesn't suck quite as much??

I could be wrong!

Not *quite* as much! I still recommend either stopping 10 minutes before the end or making a point not to think about it.

Everything before that is fantastic ^^

Mr. Carnelian

10-25-2016, 05:14 PM

Gamers are just salty over-reactionaries

YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW OR I'LL GYYGJDFJDRSFYGHVHDTDXH

I agree with you. Despite the problems with the ending, ME3 is still a very good game. It IS a big shame that they just threw away the dark energy plot, though. Basically renders everything Tali was up to on that planet pointless.

Her squad died for nothing. :stare:

Freya

10-25-2016, 07:39 PM

Casey Hudson seemed to be the one that made fans upset, storywise. I believe I read where he kicked everyone out of the writer room and wrote the ending himself. Then wouldn't let the other writers know the ending til near release. SURPRISE there was backlash and then they had to fix it for him, kinda. I think he got too big of a head about the series and thought he knew best.

but he's gone now! so we're all good.

Bubba

10-27-2016, 02:42 PM

Jack - Subject Zero

Time to earn some loyalty! My infatuation with Jack is showing no signs of waning so it was an obvious choice of which one to go for first. Let's learn more about your past in order to gain valuable information which will hopefully give me access to your pants.

In true Jack style, she wants to go back to the Cerberus facility where she was tortured and experimented on... and blow the place sky high. No prob, Bob! or... Jack. Hi ho hi ho it's off to Pragia we go!

The place is atmospheric as all hell. A rainy, overgrown planet that was in desperate need of a good weeding. We head down a catwalk and into the facility. The place was full of big, empty boxes which Jack delightfully informed us contained children to be experimented on. Lovely. There were a couple of recordings a bit further on and it seems the employees here were keeping some of their shady dealings a secret from the Illusive Man. The Unaware Man! Haha LOL!

First action of the level as the facility guard dogs, otherwise known as those Varren creatures, greeted me with a smile and a sharp set of teeth. Here poochie poochie! BLAM. For anyone not sure, "blam" is my generic gunshot noise. We were in some kind of arena where they used to give Jack class A drugs and make her fight... and she loved it. No wonder she's so smurfed up.

Another message a bit further on let us know that Jack started the riot here which led to her escape. She is bad ass! No wonder I have a thing for her. We notice a fresh varren corpse stinking up the place. Someone else is here! Honestly, I thought, it'd be a pretty boring mission if there wasn't.

So this place is another hive of scum and villainy as it's used by pirates and other unsavoury characters. The next room we came to was full of those Blood Pack mercs we ran into back on Omega. If I compare the two types of enemies here to tea-dunking biscuits... The Krogan would be McVities Hobnobs. You can dunk them numerous times and they'd still be hard as nails with minimum liquid retention. The Vorcha would be Rich Tea. One dunk and they melt and end up a soggy mess in the bottom of your mug.

Once we'd taken care of the mercs, we carried on and came to a load of cells. This place looked pretty grim. A couple more messages, one with a man being offed by Subject Zero mid-message. Brutal! The next room had some more piratey-type enemies doing piratey things. They were here to loot the place but didn't take too kindly to our presence. Cue gunfight! It was pretty straight-forward apart from one guy called Karen who was a pain-in-the-arse. Eventually though, he was no more.

We finally make it through to Jack's old cell and there is a guy in there called Fresh. Apparently, he was one of the kids that were experimented on. Jack and Fresh has a rather unpleasant conversation which resulted in Jack pulling a gun with intent to kill. I made her see sense though with a paragon interrupt and she agreed to let him go. That's my girl!

OK, time to blow this place to smithereens! Jack was feeling nostalgic though and gave me a nice tour around her old cell. Highlights included the bed where she was tortured, the desk she used to hide under... and the toilet where she experienced a number of tricky bowel movements.

Final cut-scene and this place is gone FUBAR. A lovely explosion and we were back on the Normandy. It wasn't all happiness and light though as I arrived back into a huge fight between Miranda and Jack. I was able to diffuse the situation but these two clearly hate each other. They agreed to keep civil though to until our mission was complete.

Tune in next time when Shepard hires a group of drunken Russian cossack dancers for Garrus' birthday celebrations.

Bubba

10-27-2016, 04:53 PM

Relationships update!

I have decided that too much time has passed and too much has changed to continue my relationship with Liara. I love her but she's changed. I am currently torn between two members of my crew... and they hate each other.

Yup! Miranda and Jack. I like Kasumi as well but I have concerns that I'd wake up with parts of me missing. I know Miranda is the obvious love interest but I find myself more drawn to Jack.

After her loyalty mission, Miranda has been showing a definite interest in me. We were talking about her biotically-improved body and she said she would maybe like me to "appreciate" it. I... couldn't help myself. Our conversations invariably show shots of her from behind and man... that ass. Only problem is, I've also been progressing things with Jack too. She's a bit more direct and cold (which I quite like!) and she's now fully aware that I would like to get freaky with her. She told me to f**k off for a bit so she can think.

So yeah, I'm flirting outrageously with two women who hate each other. If I keep flirting with both of them, what will happen. Will it come to a head and I'll have to choose? Cos you know...

70911

Fox

10-27-2016, 07:00 PM

Damn. That's cruel. Liara only changed so she could save you, and now you cast her aside like yesterday's beans! Or... something. Either way - dick move :roll2

Bubba

10-28-2016, 09:20 AM

Damn. That's cruel. Liara only changed so she could save you, and now you cast her aside like yesterday's beans! Or... something. Either way - dick move :roll2

Nah man, I'm saving my dick moves for either Jack or Miranda :jokey:

Bubba

10-28-2016, 01:11 PM

Collector Ship

Following Jack's loyalty mission, Kelly the psycho informs me that the Illusive man would like a little chat. Sure, why not? He better make it quick though as I'm running low on materials and I have planets to probe. He tells me about this Collector ship that's been disabled (somehow) by Turians. It's up to Shepard and his cronies to find out more about these pesky Collectors... where they're from, what they want, favourite ice cream flavours. OK, no worries I'll just do some more exploring befo...what the hell, game?! It jumped me straight there! I better not have missed anything now, you prick.

I can't deny though that I was pretty excited to see the inside of a Collector ship and it didn't disappoint! The place looked fantastic! Though it did give off an air of impending doom for me and my team. The first bad sign was an empty pod which clearly housed some satanical abomination. The second sign was the huge pile of dead human bodies a bit further along. Always encouraging.

We locate a terminal which triggers a cut scene and oh my word... we send the data to EDI and she tells us that the Collectors are using human colonists to test their own DNA. EDI notices that the Collectors have the exact same DNA as the Protheans. THAT IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION.

I slowly work my way up the ship picking up upgrades, credits, heavy ammo. There was a distinct lack of enemy encounters though which is... perturbing. Something is clearly not right here. Joker says that this ship actually followed the first Normandy back in the day. Also, we found a room filled with loads of those pods. I have a bad feeling sh*t is about to go down.

Man, I hate being right. We reach another terminal and start sending info to EDI. Suddenly though, there is a major 404 error and the platform we're on shoots up into the air. AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!! These dudes were not messing about! I was attacked from every side by Collectors. The Harbingers in particular were horribly tough to bring down. Miraculously, I didn't die in this section though that was due to a couple of "MEDIGELDEPLOYED" moments along with a few pretty damn good (if I do say so myself) sniper shots.

Once the battle smoke cleared, I stuck my dongle back into the terminal and got the rest of the information. It looks like we have a way to get to the Collector home world. I'm sure that will be fun and not dangerous in the slightest. Joker then tells us the ship we're on is doing stuff so we better head to the nearest exit sharpish!

A few frantic minutes passed with us running, shooting, panicking, screaming, flapping all-the-while making our way to the exit. I just knew there was gonna be one tough bastard to beat and it showed up in the form of this Praetorian dude. Hiding was definitely the order of the day as he caused huge amounts of damage. The only problem with this strategy was the husks and Collectors that kept flanking me. Stop it, you big meanies! I decided to bust out the particle lazer weapon to take care of the Praetorian. I'm not hanging about.

Once done and dusted, we pushed on to the exit with a few more waves of enemies trying to stop us. Can I just say, the music here was AWESOME. Those pounding drums really added to the urgency of the situation. So good! The last few waves of enemies were simple enough and we were back at the dropship. We rendezvoused with the Normandy and managed to hotfoot it out of there before the Collector ship could take us down. Phew!

OK, the mission was a success as we now know where the Collectors are based... but the Illusive Man has some answering to do. The prick knew we were walking into a trap and said nothing. I clearly can't trust him as far as I could throw him. Though with my biotic powers I probably could throw him quite far... whatever, he's a dick.

I go back to the crew and we all just slag off the Illusive Man. Ultimately though, we know where to go to visit the Collectors. Apparently it's right at the centre of the galaxy which is incredibly unstable. Nice. I'm definitely not ready to advance the story at this point so I decide to hang fire and get me some team loyalty!

Tune in next time when all hell breaks loose as Mordin spikes Grunt's cup of tea with salt instead of sugar.

theundeadhero

10-28-2016, 05:50 PM

Yep, time to do all the extra things and get all the upgrades you can.

Freya

10-28-2016, 10:15 PM

Yup. The next story thing is the point of no return. So get in all your loyalty missions!

The soundtrack is amazing for this series.

Bubba

11-01-2016, 03:48 PM

Yep, time to do all the extra things and get all the upgrades you can.

Yup. The next story thing is the point of no return. So get in all your loyalty missions!

The soundtrack is amazing for this series.

Man, I've got seven loyalty missions to do along with scanning all the planets for anomalies and then the final end game levels... however many of those there are. With my limited play time I am so not gonna be finished for the release of FFXV on the 29th.

I've done a bit of exploring already and I found a couple of anomalies which led to sidequests. I'm sure there are loads though so I need to keep going. The two I completed were short and sweet. The first was a mech with no power that I needed to keep topping up with batteries. It eventually dug me up some treasure. Cheers dude! The other one was a planet that had a faulty barrier that was failing to protect them from solar rays. Luckily, I was there to fix everything and be generally amazing.

I've got loads of Iridium, Platinum & Palladium (over 100,000 of each) and a bit of Element Zero. Is there a perk for mining loads of this stuff or should I not really bother? I've upgraded most stuff I'm able to at this point.

Fox

11-01-2016, 05:22 PM

You just need to make sure your Normandy is upgraded. Beyond that there's little point collecting resources.

Bubba

11-04-2016, 01:28 AM

I've got so much to update in here!

Earned the loyalty of two more members and I'm halfway through a third. Game has me hooked! I've also found a load of anomalies/side quests whilst probing planets. I err... may have a slight addiction to probing.

70962

I'm probably not even gonna use half of whats left. Oh well!

I've finally decided on a female to court too. Whilst she does have a wonderful ass, I decided to cool things with Miranda in order to get jiggy with Jack. Miranda was nice and very professional when I told her. Jack on the other hand is being a bit of a dick to me... which I quite like because I can tell she wants me too! She's treating me mean and keeping me keen :love:

A few big updates to follow!

theundeadhero

11-04-2016, 03:02 AM

Makes sure to probe Uranus. Twice. But yeah, you probably have enough resources for all the Normandy and crew member upgrades about now.

Bubba

11-07-2016, 11:05 AM

Tachunka

My first visit to the Krogan planet of Tachunka, which I'm sure was the name of an old wrestler in the WWF... anyway, let's crack on.

The basic premise of our mission is that Mordin's old work buddy, Melon, was being held against his will by the Blood Pack. Back in the day, Melon and Mordin were hosts of a Saturday morning kids TV show worked together on mutating the genophage. Let's see if Melon is as crazy as his partner.

Upon on landing, we received the standard unpleasant Krogan greeting and were told to report to their leader. It seems from there they will decide whether or not to kill us. Awesome.

I meet first with a cool Krogan shop owner called Rash. His attitude was rare for a Krogan in that it seemed he didn't want to vomit all over us. He actually gave me a cool side quest where I had to use a grenade launcher to kill these rat monkey things called Peejacks or something. I was suitably fantastic and completed it in one try. No monkeying around from me! Haha LOL!

Next I had a brief chat with a Krogan scout who tells me that the Krogan are fighting amongst themselves here on Tachunka. I tried my best to look surprised. I also spoke to a Krogan mechanic who says he needs a combustion manifold. Don't worry pal, I know exactly what that is and I'll pick one up from Tesco later on.

There was shed loads to see here and I spoke to a Krogan scientist who was clearly tapped in the head. He had a pet Peejack sat in the corner and the game (rather disgustingly) gave me the option to punch it! I'm not an animal though and would not harm a defenceless creature.

After punching the peejack in the face, I bet on a fight between two Varren in some sort of fight-to-the-death pit. After losing three times in a row I got the feeling this was a huge fix and moved on. There was a shaman and another dude around the corner but they seemed pretty boring.

Finally, I approach this throne and who was sat there looking as beautiful and ugly as ever?! TYRANNOSAURUS WREX!! How've you been old buddy, old pal?! We embraced like brothers though I may have gone too far when I signed "You complete me" to him. Unfortunately, he didn't know much about Melon but directed me back to his scout.

The Krogan scout tells us that Melon is being held by some Blood Pack mercs over at some abandoned hospital. Cheers you ugly bastard, time to leave Tachunka for now and get me some more loyalty!

Bubba

11-10-2016, 02:17 PM

Mordin - Old Blood

So the chief scout got us a groovy jeep ride over to the abandoned hospital to see what's shaking with Mordin's old partner. We'd barely stepped out of the jeep when we were attacked by two of these new dudes called Klixens. They kinda looked like those rubber finger monsters you used to get as a kid, remember? Ugly little things with wavy arms. They were pretty tough and for some reason, even though they were clearly an organic lifeform, they exploded when they died. How does that work?? Anyway, it was highly inconvenient.

This area had bog all in terms of pick-ups so I pushed on dispatching a couple more finger monsters on the way. They were soon joined by some charming Varren dogs, Vorcha and Krogans who clearly did not take too kindly to our presence. That's fine, I didn't take too kindly to their faces so they were soon shot to sh*t.

We arrive at the main hospital entrance and were not exactly welcomed with open arms. There were some Vorcha outside brandishing flamethrowers which I'm damn sure they didn't have permits for. Rather than ask them for ID I decided to snipe them from behind a rock. Shoot first, ask questions later and all that. Also, grabbed me a combustion manifold for that mechanic's side quest. Sweet.

Inside the hospital there were human bodies strewn on the floor... kind of like Manchester A&E on a Saturday night. A cut scene with Mordin tells us that the Krogan have been experimenting on us humans as we are genetically fantastic and are great for lab experiments. Lucky us.

We eventually arrive in this hangar where some pretty nasty Blood Pack Krogans were waiting for us. This bit was weird as they told us they were going to let us go and warn people not to come here. Even though I went paragon it seemed this fight was unavoidable. These bastards were a pain in the arse too. There was hardly any cover and they came pouring down the stairs. I died twice but bested them third time round. Tricky blighters.

We arrive in a Krogan lab where it was pick-ups galore. There was also a dead female Krogan on a table which triggered a cut scene with Mordin. It seems that he's showing some remorse for his involvement with the genophage business. Don't worry mate, I'm sure the knowledge that you were implicit in wholesale murder won't haunt you until the day you die. Mordin is a bad monkey.

Next we found a depressed looking Krogan scout locked in a room. He was happy just to sit there and waste away but I was having none of it. Get your arse in gear, soldier! This updated another side quest for me and the guy went trundling on his way.

Some final enemy waves to take care of next culminating in an appearance by some bad ass Krogan called Chief Wiggum or something. He was packing loads of shield and armour so I employed the reliable tactic of just lazering him to death.

We get to the final room where Melon is waiting patiently for us. We kinda thought he was being forced to work for the Krogan but it turns out he was actually there willingly. Treachery! Mordin decided that his old pal should be sacrificed and pulled a gun on him. I kinda agreed so nearly didn't use my paragon interrupt but decided I wanted those good person points. Due to his near-death experience, Melon was a changed man. He swiftly left and lived out the rest of his days selling creams and body lotion to Vorcha. Thus endeth the loyalty mission for Mordin!

Tune in next time when the entire Normandy crew follow through with a suicide pact when they discover that Donald Trump was elected President of the United States.

Freya

11-10-2016, 02:47 PM

bahaha

Yeah Mordin is an interesting story. Like the genophage was horrible but you kinda understand but then you don't and you do and you're like ughhhh this is horrible.

Bubba

11-10-2016, 05:05 PM

bahaha

Yeah Mordin is an interesting story. Like the genophage was horrible but you kinda understand but then you don't and you do and you're like ughhhh this is horrible.

Yeah, I get what you mean. I'm pretty ambivalent towards the genophage as well. If it hadn't been done the Krogans could've just rampaged across the galaxy. I'm glad it wasn't a choice I had to make!

Bubba

11-10-2016, 05:21 PM

Grunt - Rite of Passage

Staying on Tachunka, it's time to get young Grunt to kiss my arse too. He's been increasingly angry and basically wants to tear everything apart all the time and thinks something might be wrong with him. I could've told you that, pal. Hopefully the dudes on Tuchanka might be able to help him out with his little problem.

I went to my pal T-Wrex first of all and he didn't disappoint. It turns out there's nothing wrong with Grunt, he's just going through Krogan puberty! That would explain all those awkward erections on the last mission. Wrex sent us over to the Krogan Shaman who explained that young Grunt will need to complete a rite of passage to prove his worth. Only then will he be considered a true Krogan.

There was a bit of a problem though as Grunt is a clone and doesn't belong to any clan. Not all the Krogans were keen on him taking the rite but Shepard, as per usual, talked them round. Also, there is no way our boy Grunt is going in there alone. Myself and Jack are gonna be right by your side... taking pictures and laughing.

The rite was actually pretty cool. Have you ever played Super Smash TV? It's kind of like that. A big arena with enemies that come pouring in from all sides... only without the cheesy TV host shouting "Big money, big prizes! I love it!" We basically have to press this keystone to initiate a wave of enemies. Me being a complete idiot, I decide to scour the battlefield for supplies before starting the first wave. I then realised that I may need these supplies after each wave had finished. The first human spectre, everyone.

Eventually I pressed the keystone to get us started, if only to get Grunt to stop saying "Press the keystone, Shepard", "Shepard, you need to press the keystone", "You need to activate the keystone, Shepard"... I KNOW you big, annoying prick.

OK, first wave was a piece of piss. It was just a load of Varren stinking up the battlefield. I was able to take most of them out from afar. The ones that did get in close regretted doing so instantly. The second wave I crapped myself initially as this huge flying vulture appeared that I couldn't shoot. Luckily, it was just dropping a load of those Klixen finger monster things. This was definitely tougher as they came from all angles and man... do not let these things get close to you. They do obscene amounts of damage so I did lots of brave running away. Oh yeah, what's the deal with Shepard only being able to sprint for about three seconds before getting knackered?? The dude is more unfit than I am!

Wave three and what a blast from the past! A Thresher Maw! These bendy bastards caused plenty of Shepard deaths back on my ME1 play through. Apparently, I only had to survive this encounter for five minutes. Great. I was clearly about to be battered by this thing. I decided I wanted Grunt to pass his rite with flying colours though so I tried taking the thing down. His armour was tough as sh*t so I whipped out the old lazer. It was still only taking it down slowly, plus the blasted thing kept destroying my cover. I was soooo close to dying twice. We did it eventually though I think with about a minute remaining. Go team!

We weren't done yet though. One of the Krogans from earlier (the one who opposed Grunt's participation in the rite) showed up and had clearly changed his tune. He invited Grunt to join their clan after watching his awesome display against the Thresher Maw. Grunt though, remembering the Krogan's animosity towards him earlier, blew a raspberry at him and called him a smelly poopoohead. Cue firefight!

Following the defeat of a Thresher Maw, these chumps were easy work. We took some cover and picked them all off in a matter of minutes. End of mission! Grunt was confirmed a Krogan by the Shaman and even ended up joining Wrex's Urdnot clan. Couldn't have chosen a better one for you, son!

Tune in next time when Shepard takes part in Movember resulting in him accidentally being added to the sex offenders register.

Formalhaut

11-10-2016, 06:03 PM

One important question: did you save the genophage data or decide to destroy it? It comes up again in ME: 3 and has some surprising consequences.

Freya

11-10-2016, 07:23 PM

I love baby grunt and all his trials :3

theundeadhero

11-10-2016, 10:14 PM

I was wondering what you did with Melonhead's research too.

Bubba

11-10-2016, 10:54 PM

One important question: did you save the genophage data or decide to destroy it? It comes up again in ME: 3 and has some surprising consequences.

I was wondering what you did with Melonhead's research too.

Haha, once again I waffle absolute bollocks and forget to mention the important bits :lol:

I was actually in two minds about whether to destroy it or not. It was a close call but I decided to save it. My thinking was that I can still destroy it later down the line if need be. Whereas if I destroy it now it's gone for good. I probably smurfed up again. I suppose I'll see in ME3!

I've got three more loyalty missions (Jacob, Samara & Tali) to type up. I'd better get my arse in gear tomorrow.

I've pretty much explored every planet now and I've done soooo many side quests. They're actually really varied and make the game much richer. The only loyalty missions I've got left to play are Garrus, Thane & Kasumi. After that I'm full steam ahead to the end!

Bubba

11-11-2016, 11:44 AM

Jacob - The Gift of Greatness

Our pal Jacob is not a huge talker though he eventually opened up to me about a personal matter. It turns out he has some unresolved Daddy issues (Cats in the Cradle plays gently in the background). Apparently, his father's ship crashed ten years ago and not a peep was heard... until now. Jacob received a distress call from the ship on his personal log. We head over to the fantastically named planet of 2175 Aeia. Snappy.

After sending a probe down, we're able to land and this place is like the freakin' Amazon. The rainforest that is, not the internet-based retailer. The crashed ship wasn't hard to miss so myself, Jacob and Jack hustled over to see what had happened. There was a pretty smurfed up VI near the wreckage. Fill me in, pal! So this ship wasn't built to land anywhere (a bit late now!) and this planet didn't turn out to be the best spot. The surviving crew were chowing down on the local plant life. Whilst it tasted great as part of a nicoise salad, it makes you forget your own name and go bat-sh*t crazy.

We head on up the coast and happen upon one of the females and hoooooo boy. She was really twitchy, said she was following some leader then claimed that FFII was the best game in the series. Clearly smurfing mental. The conversation ended abruptly though as an equally-smurfed-up male started shooting at us. I paragon-saved Margot Kidder and was thrust into a firefight with a few locals. These guys had no shields or anything so were no match for my sniper rifle. I spoke to Margot again afterwards but she was just rocking back and forward muttering "soup is a drink... soup is a drink" so I just left her alone with her insanity.

A bit further up the hill there was a large group of women who seemed reasonably sane... from afar. Up close they were clearly not all there. They were worshipping some statue made out of metal, palm trees and duct tape. These women scared me more than their homicidal male counterparts. I didn't linger here a second longer and carried on climbing. There were some mechs further up but they were a bit addled as well. Someone give me a real fight!

There was a female doctor nearby who whilst wasn't quite as mental as the others, still couldn't read or function properly... just like your typical Trump supporter. Oooof, satire! We examine a nearby PDA and it appears that Jacob's father may have been up to some evil shenanigans. We don't know for definite though so lets give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

There were some corpses further up the hill which I never take as a good sign. More pesky mechs appeared but again were clearly malfunctioning. It was a tad trickier than before though due to the sheer number of them. We finally arrive outside Jacob's Dad's place. He was talking to us over the intercom saying that the mechs and the guards are beyond his control. I knew he was a goodie!

Last fight of the mission and finally some challenge! A big-ass Fenrir Mech popped up along with a load more of those mentally-disturbed dudes. The mech was pretty lethal so I decided to focus on him first. My heavy lazer was the order of the day and Number Johnny Five was out for the count. I was just left with the simple task of mopping up the crazy men and that was it. OK, Jacob's Dad (Ronald)... let's hear your story.

Well, Ronald Taylor seemed completely compos mentis. After a bit of prying he comes clean. He'd let all his crew eat the poisonous local plants and kept all the ships food stores for himself. He even killed his senior officers in the process. The ship's beacon was actually repaired not long after the crash but he chose not to use it. He was living the high life with all the food stores whilst his crew lost their minds. I knew he was a baddie!

We decide that the best course of action is to send him to prison for a very long time. Jacob is disgusted with his father and pretty much disowns him (...and the cats in the cradle and a silver spoon...). Mission over! We're transported back to the Normandy and have an interesting conversation with the Illusive Man. Shepard is suspicious that it was him that gave Jacob the info about his Dad. It was at this point Miranda owned up and said she gave Jacob the message as she was keeping an old promise. Hmmm... me thinks that Jacob and Miranda may have bumped uglies in the past! Well if that's the case I'm glad I decided to romance Jack. I'm not having Jacob's sloppy seconds.

Tune in next time when Shepard puts a stop to Thane's violin lessons after his appalling cover of Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger.

Freya

11-11-2016, 03:20 PM

Bahaha that was a great write up. I'm very amused.

Jacob's dad is a douche.

Bubba

11-11-2016, 03:56 PM

Samara - The Ardat-Yakshi

Why are all my team-mate's families so smurfed up? When we found Samara back on Illium, she was tracking down the Ardat-Yakshi (which is Japanese for 'nipple-clamp' - don't look it up, just trust me). It transpires that her target is actually her daughter and is really smurfing dangerous. I'll show you dangerous, love. Samara has discovered that her daughter is causing havoc down on Omega so we blast ourselves over there for a look-see.

There's only one go-to person for information on Omega and that's our Asari Disney princess, Arial. We head to Afterlife for a bit of a chin wag. Arial reliably informs us that the Ardat-Yakshi likes to seduce club-goers, take them back to her apartment then kill them. It also happens that she has had a recent victim. Time to do some investamagating!

Arial had given us the details of the victim's mother so we left Afterlife and tracked her down at some nearby apartments. The mother's name was Diana and she was clearly still traumatised by her daughter's death. Shepard's impromptu rendition of Michael Jackson's Dirty Diana did nothing to improve her mood. The victim was called Nerf who was an artist and a bit of a loner. Her behaviour had changed in recent weeks as she was constantly clubbing it with her new Asari friend. Hmmm... At the end of our conversation, Dirty Diana broke down in tears. I was able to paragon-interrupt here and Shepard consoled her by creepily rubbing her back.

We needed some more info so we decided to ransack Nerf's room. I'm sure she won't mind with her being dead and all. We looked through her recent video diary entries and I actually felt really sorry for her. She was clearly infatuated with Samara's daughter (her name is Morinth) who took advantage of her vulnerable nature. Our strategy suddenly became clear. We would use Shepard's ridiculous levels of charm to play Morinth at her own game. So Shepard changes into a chequered shirt, dark jeans and then splashes on some Old Spice. Time to go on the pull!

I remember being turned away from the VIP section earlier in the game. Not this time! We dropped the name Jaruut (gained from Nerf's video) at the door and we were in. Samara (who was keeping a low profile) gave me a bit of a pep talk before we got into the club proper. Pffft! I'm a handsome, charming Spectre. I don't need tips! Samara insisted though and it appears Morinth is drawn to confident, aggressive, artistic types. Gives me a nice excuse to go for some renegade options!

Apparently, she's going to be watching me from the moment I walk in so I need to make an impression. I'm barely through the door when I start chatting to this guy called Vag. He seems to have a bit of a thing for our Morinth and is trying to get tickets for a band that they both like. Cheers for the info, kid! I speak to another guy further along called Huffin or something. He was banging on about his reporter boss and some safe words. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. I was looking for my lady!

I then manage to convince a couple of Turians not to rob everyone before finally persuading the barman to give everyone a free round of drinks. Shepard was clearly on Charm Factor Ten so I wasn't surprised to see Morinth saunter over and invite me for a private chat. Too easy!

I then had an enjoyable chat with Morinth where I was being particularly arsey. It made me excited for my RenFemShep play through next! We discussed her favourite band, my love of danger before I dramatically recited Shakespeare's "Now is the winter of our discontent" speech and she was like putty in my hands. She didn't even hesitate in inviting me back to hers for some jiggy jiggy time. Lead the way!

I had a quick shifty round her apartment before making myself comfortable next to her on the sofa. I gave her the old Flyn Rider smoulder and she was all over me. I decided enough was enough though and hinted towards the real reason I was here. She was not pleased. Luckily, Samara appeared at this point wielding her biotic powers and I was suddenly caught between a mother/daughter clinch... and not the kind that I fantasise about.

Oooh, I wasn't expecting this! I was given the choice to help defeat Morinth OR Samara! Killing Samara is obviously the Renegade option. Does that mean Morinth takes Samara's place on your team? I suppose I'll find out next play through as I sided with my girl Samara this time. Her daughter was defeated and this mission was over!

Samara and I had a brief chat back on the Normandy to make sure she was OK. She's obviously quite sad but relieved at the same time. I decided this would not be an appropriate moment to tell her about my mother/daughter threesome fantasy.

Tune in next time when Shepard issues Grunt with a written warning when his extensive plushie collection causes a small fire in the cargo hold.

Freya

11-11-2016, 04:26 PM

Yeah she will impersonate Samara! You can seduce her too but it game overs you hahahaa

Bubba

11-11-2016, 04:55 PM

You can seduce her too but it game overs you hahahaa

Hahaha!! That's amazing! I might have to YouTube that later on :lol:

Bubba

11-12-2016, 04:27 PM

Tali - Treason

This sounds serious. You could tell it was serious by the look on Tali's face...

70985

See.

We have to travel this floating floaty thing in which the Quarians float around in. It was pretty cool actually! Tali pissed me off slightly upon our arrival telling her Quarian friends that our ship wasn't clean. Oi!! I'm busy saving the galaxy! Plus, do you know how much it would cost for a full-time cleaner?!

We're greeted by Captain Kardashian who gets us up to speed on Tali's charges. It seems she's been sending active geth back to the fleet. Tali says that she sent parts back but none of them were active. It sounds to me like she's been stitched up but it looks like we're gonna have to have a trial anyway.

Tali seems to have sneakily changed her surname to Normandy via deed poll. Apparently this means Shepard has adopted her or something, I don't know. Either way, I'm able to represent Tali in her upcoming trial! Luckily for her I've seen every episode of Judge Judy... she'll be fine.

The trial begins with a nice display of blatant racism. One of the council objects to me representing Tali because I'm not a Quarian. Smurf you, man. Luckily, the other council members insist as Tali carries the Normandy name. OK, here we go! Tali explains again that she sent inactive geth parts to her father. It's then the council drop their bombshell. Tali's Dad's ship has been taken over by geth! The Council eventually come to the conclusion that our team should head over to Tali's Dad's ship to find out the truth. Shepard's response of "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!" was ignored by everyone and we agree to go.

The council provided a nice shuttle for us to get over to the ship (The Alarei). Apparently, Tali's father was investigating geth technology because he wanted to reclaim the Quarian's homeworld which is currently occupied by geth. Damn squatters. We enter the Alarei and are finally able to draw our guns. Time to open a can of whoopass on these geth!

There was a nice greeting party of geth waiting for us with balloons and party poppers... and guns. The geth hunters in particular were a bunch of bastards with their Star Trek cloaking devices. They were dispatched with minimal fuss and we entered a room on the left. The geth parts that Tali had sent were here. I couldn't help but notice that she'd sent them via Parcelforce instead of Royal Mail... I would convict her of treason just for that.

Another wave of geth appeared so I waved them goodbye! LOL! Thank you, I'm here all week... or all year with this thread. Anyway, we find a terminal and we have absolutely no clue how the geth got on board. It does kind of seem that poor Tali has been framed. This ship was clearly here to help the Quarians take back their planet though. More geth with those ever-so-pesky hunters to deal with before we eventually reach the body of a Quarian at the end of the room.

It's clearly not a good week for the Dads as the dead Quarian turned out to be Tali's father. I proceed to console my friend with another creepy back rub. Tali's father had kindly left a recording of his final moments just to compound her feelings of loss and heartbreak. Good going, Dad. We push on to try and find some evidence to exonerate Tali.

A deadly geth prime blocked our path to the final terminal. I'm currently a healthy level 23 though so the challenge was minimal. We get to the terminal where we finally find out what the hell's going on. Tali's Dad and the scientists were reactivating the parts that she sent them (naughty naughty) and he decided not to inform the Quarian powers-that-be. Tali was embarrassed by her father's actions and asked me not to tell the council what he'd done. You think that's bad? My Dad once told a group of my friends that my Mum was a big fan of bondage when they were married. Now that's embarrassing. OK, fine.

We arrive back on the Quarian floaty float and are brought back in front of the council. Shepard was gonna need to be charm central to pull this off. I keep Tali's secret to myself and instead focus on the fact that she helped clear her Dad's ship of geth. I also make up some crap about her volunteering in a soup kitchen and the council finally agrees to drop all charges. I must have been very convincing because back on the Normandy Tali mentions that the Quarians were considering having her take her father's place on the council. Go me!

Tune in next time when Thane buys a wig and the crew are shocked to see he bears a striking resemblance to Liza Minelli in Cabaret.

Freya

11-12-2016, 06:19 PM

The quarian x geth drama is hella interesting. YOU'LL GET EVEN MORE OF IT IN THIS GAME AND THE NEXT!

Bubba

11-16-2016, 06:38 PM

Garrus - Eye for an Eye

Our sexy-voiced Turian wants my help. You and everyone else, pal. Garrus is my bro though so I'm more than happy to help him out. He's trying to track down some guy called Sidonis. They used to be Batman & Robin down on Omega... fighting crime and such. It sounds like they formed their own Omega Avengers with Garrus and Sidonis leading the team. Sidonis betrayed them though and all their squad were killed by the Blue Suns before the cheeky mare disappeared.

Garrus has received word that someone called Fade has helped hide him Walter White-style. Our only hope was to track down Fade (what a sh*t name, btw) and shake the dude down for Sadonis' whereabouts. Time to head back to the Citadel!

We find one of Fade's minion's over in the warehouse... some Volus guy flanked by two Krogan bodyguards. I was expecting some pistol action here but as soon as we drew our guns the two bodyguards wisely thought "smurf that" and buggered off. Nobody wants to mess with Shepard. The Volus then crapped his pants and divulged that Fade was in fact that annoying prick Harkin. Oooh, I've wanted this guy dead for a while! I left the Volus with some toilet paper and deodorant.

We hailed a cab to Harkin's location and he was there with a load of Blue Suns. Harkin being the true warrior that he is, turned tail and fled and left his troops to deal with us. All in good time, Harkin. The Blue Suns were quickly dispatched before some Loki mechs got the same treatment. We're coming for you, you baldy bastard!

We're soon running through a warehouse with an inexplicable number of boxes. Seriously, what the hell is in these things?! I suppose I should be grateful as they're all bulletproof and are perfect for cover. There wasn't a great deal of variety in the firefights. Kill stuff and move on was the order of the day.

We eventually reach this weird, multi-levelled room in which I had to hop up the various tiers. I could see Harkin's shiny head at an office right at the back. More downing of mechs ensued. This mission has been a little dull compared to some of the recent ones. Oh well, let's hope it has a nice ending!

We finally corner the slippery twat in the office at the end. Garrus was not at all keen on polite negotiations and I was OK with this. Harkin just has one of those faces... Harkin reluctantly assists us with Sidonis and sets up a meeting for us. Job done! There may or may not have been an option for me to stop Garrus shooting Harkin in the leg. I may have missed my cue... accidentally of course.

Leaving Harkin to enjoy his remaining working leg, we get ourselves ready to take out Sidonis. Garrus takes up a decent sniper position while Shepard heads out and tries to distract Sidonis by asking him if he's found Jesus. I was given the option to block Garrus from taking the shot. He'd given a passionate plea as to why he wanted this guy taken out so I ignored the paragon option and stepped aside. Blam! One dead Sidonis. I was a proper renegade this mission! I don't know why, it just felt like the right thing to do. Maybe I'd eaten some bad cheese or something, I don't know.

Garrus was very grateful and I said "Got your back, bro!" and we hugged it out. I may have held on for a bit too long though and it was slightly awkward when we both released. Though I'm sure I saw a glint in his eye. Maybe this a relationship I can explore further in Mass Effect 3.

Tune in next time when Mordin's murder mystery dinner party is ruined when a mass brawl breaks out over who gets to be Colonel Mustard.

Freya

11-16-2016, 06:58 PM

If you were femshep you could explore it now!

Bubba

11-16-2016, 07:00 PM

If you were femshep you could explore it now!

Garrus is definitely gonna be my love interest on my Femshep play through!

theundeadhero

11-17-2016, 05:05 AM

Bubba

11-17-2016, 07:33 AM

You're almost there and I'm a little jealous. I can't get EA's origin platform to open that's required for playing mass effect on PC.
Who do you have left, just Kasumi? I like her loyalty mission. It's a little different than the others, but fun.

I just need to write up Thane's but yeah... just Kasumi's left to play. I'm excited for it! After that I'm at the Reaper IFF which you kindly informed me was the point of no return.

So do you think it's worth waiting till after I finish the game before playing Liara's Shadow Broker mission?

theundeadhero

11-17-2016, 08:13 AM

Bubba

11-17-2016, 10:42 AM

I always do the extra content stuff before going to whichever game's point of no return, excluding bonus character stuff that I just weave into the normal playing. I guess it doesn't really matter, but I like to do all the stuff I can before the end of the game.

Yeah, this would be my instinct as well. I'll have a think. I've got two hours spare tomorrow morning so it'll be either Shadow Broker or Reaper IFF.

Thane and Kasumi's missions are done and dusted!

Freya

11-17-2016, 02:56 PM

Bubba

11-17-2016, 04:07 PM

Thane - Sins of the Father

After a brief chat with Thane it's clear he isn't going to win any father-of-the-year awards. He left his wife and son at home while he gallivanted around the world assassinating people. Come on mate, you need to address your work/life balance! It seems Thane's son has found out what his Dad does for a living and decided to follow in his footsteps. It's a good job he's not my son otherwise he'd be sat in an open-plan office watching Elaine from recruitment stuff her face with a Krispy Kreme donut.

Following Garrus' mission, we were conveniently already on the Citadel where this sh*t was gonna go down. I chatted to Captain Baileys who had a lead on where we could find Thane's son. He also gave me a sob story about all the orphans dotted around the Citadel. Look mate, FFXV comes out in twelve days and I need to have this game finished. I'll sign up for Save the Children once I've saved the galaxy.

We're directed to the Dark Star Lounge to find some dude called Mouse. Apparently he was one of these orphaned kids but he managed to do quite well for himself. He spots Thane and actually calls him Krios (Thane's surname) thinking it is Thane's son. BUSTED! Mouse was apprehensive about giving up his contact but Thane was all like "No harm will befall you..." in that comforting voice he has. I was convinced.

Mouse gave us the name of Elias Kelham who was a petty criminal from the Citadel. Baileys kindly sets up an interrogation for us. Ooooh exciting! Because I'm clearly a closet renegade, I chose to be 'bad cop' to Thane's 'good cop'. I couldn't resist! We explain to him that this meeting is "off the record" and tried to put him at ease by jovially discussing the recent DEA raid on Charlie Sheen's house. He saw right through this though and refused to tell us anything. I had a load of renegade interrupts flash up and I was soooooo tempted as this guy was a prick. I stuck to my paragon guns and thought my chance had disappeared when his lawyer walks into the room.

The threat of court though was enough to convince Kelham and his lawyer to spill the beans. Kelham hired Thane's son (Kolbert or something) to assassinate some Turian politician. We'd better get a shifty on as Kolbert is tracking this poor sod down as we speak!

Thane explained the plan. I was gonna follow this politician and keep Thane updated as to his whereabouts. Thane was gonna hide in the shadows and try and find Kolbert. This bit was cool! I slinked along some upper catwalks like... like something that slinks. I kept this dude and his bodyguard in view as they walked around the Citadel. I thoroughly enjoyed this and immediately started looking online for careers in private investigation.

Suddenly, a wild cut-scene appeared! Yes, that was a Pokemon reference... what of it? Kolbert tries to take out the politician but unfortunately seems to have gone through Storm Trooper training. He accidentally injures the Krogan bodyguard which gives us a chance to catch up to him and give him a slap round the chops. We distract Kolbert by shooting a lamp next to him which allows our Turian politician to make his escape.

Thane and his son were then left to embrace which made me exclaim "God, get a room." Worryingly, they did just that as Baileys gave them the use of his office. A little while later they emerged and I had no desire to enquire as to what went on.

Baileys was looking to get a conviction for Kolbert's attempt on the politician's life. Baileys is my bitch though and I convinced him to keep it within C-Sec. Mission completed!

Tune in next time when the crew are equally baffled and annoyed that a pair of Jehovah's witnesses managed to track them down in the middle of deep space.

Bubba

11-18-2016, 01:42 PM

Kasumi - Stolen Memory

So Kasumi and I are heading off to a swanky party at a mansion owned by a dude called Hock. Shepard has been down to Asda (or Walmart to you Yanks) and bought himself some new threads. He scrubs up pretty well! Kasumi even makes an approving comment. Side note: Kasumi has a very attractive mouth. I like the way her bottom lip comes out further than her top one. Plus she sounds a lot like Kathleen Turner from Romancing the Stone.

OK perve session over, we arrive at the mansion. I am one suave-looking mother-f**ker so I am obviously granted access. Unfortunately, Kasumi still looks like she's attending a Comic-Con as a low budget Assassins Creed guy. She is immediately rebuffed. You could've worn a dress or something! We were here to obtain some graybox that her old partner Keiji owned. This guy Hock apparently had it locked in his vault. Exciting!

Shepard heads in on his own and starts snooping around. There were a few interesting conversations to be had before I was instructed by Kasumi to case the vault. There looks to be a lot of things we need before we can break in. I love all this James Bond stuff! First thing we need is a voice-recording from our host, Hock. This is remarkably easy to obtain as the dude loves the sound of his own voice. People gather round like sycophants as he spews absolute bullsh*t. Recording obtained!

We go outside (the view is amazing, btw) and find a datapad on the wall. How very careless! It mentions some dude called Captain Roe. I'm thinking that's important. We then head to the first floor and some action! We discreetly take out the guards... well, not that discreetly. I machine-gunned them to death. I'm sure no-one noticed that at the party 15 yards away. We find a datapad and a password! Let's hope it's an important one and not Hock's Instagram or something.

Next stop, Hock's bedroom! We need to obtain some of his DNA to use on the vault. The password we obtained turned out to be the key to getting past the guard outside his bedroom. That and we told him we were maids and offered an exemplary turndown service. Once in, there were lots of items to investigate to find his DNA. A wine glass, a datapad, some antique weapons... though I flatly refused to check the box of tissues next to his bed.

Last step was a power cable running out of the vault. There was a conduit in the hallway (blue is neutral, brown is live - never forget!) and the last barrier was removed! We head into the vault and are immediately reunited with all our gear. Oooft, time for some action methinks!

There's an entrance here to Hock's ridiculously large display room. He's got the friggin' head of the Statue of Liberty! They were shocked, but Shepard and Kasumi couldn't pass up the opportunity to grab a selfie. There were some other interesting items here too. Some old Prothean artifacts, a number of sculptures, a Pacman cabinet and the Annabelle doll. The most important item though was Keiji's graybox thingy that Kasumi wanted. Mission accomplished!

It obviously wasn't going to be that easy though. Hock's head suddenly appeared as a huge digital image right next to us looking like something from The Lawnmower Man. Anybody seen that? No, just me then. He said he recognised Kasumi as soon as she arrived. I told you you should have worn a dress!

We were soon joined by the infamous Captain Roe and all her little helpers. This was pretty tough as there were some badass mechs here too. Plus, not having a third team member really didn't help. The waves were relentless as we slowly made our way through a car park and finally outside. I took the hide-a-lot-and-don't-be-stupid approach and it clearly paid off.

The final confrontation and it reminded me of the helicopter fight in Metal Gear Solid. I think I even said "A hind D?!!" in my best Solid Snake voice. Hock was not in a Hind D though, it was some souped-up gunship with a shield. I figured out that fighting him in the open was a good way to die extremely quickly. My situation was not improved by waves of goons also taking pot shots at me. There was lots and lots of hiding on my part.

Once we'd dealt enough damage to Hock's ship, Kasumi did this cool-as-smurf jump onto the ship itself and took out the barrier for good! Hock was then just hanging in the air like he just don't care. A few seconds of my trusty lazer and this guy was toast.

There was a final touching cut scene with Kasumi as she listened to the message from her old flame Keiji. It was one of those depressing "if you're reading this then I've been horribly killed" messages. Pretty grim. The information on the box apparently had some dirt on the alliance and Keiji wanted Kasumi to destroy it. This box was her only image of her old partner though and she was reluctant to destroy it. I pointed out that the guy had one of those stupid chin beards and we'd be doing him a favour by destroying any memory of that. She agreed. Loyalty obtained!

Tune in next time when Jacob's Netflix account is frozen cutting short Shepard's binge-watch of Gilmore Girls.

Bubba

11-18-2016, 01:58 PM

With ME you can still run around after you finish the main storyline, at least in ME2. So it wont lock you out or anything. If you want to kissy kissy your love liara, then go for it! It's my favorite DLC of ME2.

Well hold onto your hats as I decided to play this mission this very morning! Update to follow!

theundeadhero

11-18-2016, 07:29 PM

Of course I've seen The Lawnmower man. I'm not some computer illiterate savage! Did you find the pistols in his museum? They're pretty amazing.

Bubba

11-18-2016, 11:59 PM

Did you find the pistols in his museum? They're pretty amazing.

I think I did yeah! I need to have a goosey at my set-up before I start the Reaper IFF.

Freya

11-19-2016, 12:54 AM

Ahhhhh I forgot about kasumi's one. That one is so fun. I feel sneaky in it

Sneak sneak

sneak

Bubba

11-22-2016, 02:06 PM

Lair of the Shadow Broker

OK, this is a pretty hefty mission so I'll try to keep my usual waffle to a minimum. I can't promise though because this was easily my favourite mission so far!

Last mission before we start heading down the final stretch! We blast over to Illium and talk once again with the lovely Liara. I'm not sure what she's going to make of my imminent romance with young Jack... I decide to get straight down to business when I get there to avoid any awkwardness. Let's go get the Shadow Broker!

Liara's reaction to me agreeing to help her was to... go back to her apartment. OK. Apparently when the going gets tough, the tough...go home. It turns out she's just getting herself prepared so we jump in a cab and swing by Liara's apartment. I have a slight moment of panic when we arrive though as her apartment was the scene of a crime! Someone has been shooting through Liara's window and there is no sign of her. There will be hell to pay if anyone has hurt my lady!

There is an Asari Spectre here by the name of Tele Vision. She is clearly terrible at her job as she's happy for us to snoop around Liara's apartment even though it's a crime scene. Liara being the awesome person that she is, left me clues to her whereabouts around her apartment. Don't worry, my dear. I'm on my way!

We team up with Tele and head to some offices. This building is clearly intimidated by Shepard's presence as it explodes as soon as we get there. We decide to head in the ground-floor whilst Tele flew herself up to the roof. Maybe I'm being overly paranoid but I don't trust her at this point. She's a bit smug and she walks weird. We'll see how that plays out.

Heading up a couple of floors and we are introduced to our first wave of enemies. Introductions followed the usual tradition of them firing stuff at our faces. They were smurfing annoying actually as they kept throwing these flashy grenades that meant I couldn't see anything. Kind of like a more annoying version of the squid ink power-up in Mario Kart. We eventually blue-shelled these f**kers to oblivion.

Shepard was fortunate enough in his youth to complete an under-18 apprenticeship on cooling systems. I assume this was the case anyway as he was able to use one of these systems to put out a nasty fire blocking our path. A man of many talents!

After steam-rollering some more mercs we make our way into an office where Tele had just killed Liara's contact! She's a big, fat liar though as she told us it was the mercs that did it. We're on to you! It was this point that Liara burst in and confirmed that Tele was the one who tried to assassinate her. Bitch!

It turns out that Tele is a bit of a bio... err hazard. She biotic-breaks the window and legs it with Liara in hot pursuit. Wait for me, my love! As this mission has progressed I've been thinking that I may have been too hasty in disregarding my relationship with Liara. I do like Jack though... oh man! What to do?!

I eventually realised that the first thing I should do is follow Liara rather than just stand here contemplating who I might have sex with. We had to fight through a couple more waves of mercs before OH! OH MY WORD! This bit was amazing! A chase through the airborne streets of Illium in a flying taxicab! It was like that scene from Star Wars: Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones... you know, if that film existed which it clearly doesn't. None of the prequels do. Prequels? What am I talking about?

As it turns out, I wasn't very good at this flying car malarkey. I kept losing Tele's car and having to restart. I eventually worked out that, much like real driving, keeping the accelerator pressed down and hoping for the best yields the most effective results.

We eventually reach a point where Tele carelessly crashes her car onto the roof of a building. We obviously land there ourselves to finish the job. My new team is Shepard, Tali and Liara! Just like old times in ME1! It wasn't the most pleasant reunion though as mercs kept dropping from all sides and flanking us. I was hoping to be the dashing hero in front of my beloved Liara but I was unceremoniously killed within about 15 seconds. Smooth, Shepard. Smooth.

Once we finally dealt with these pricks (and my pride had recovered) we round the corner of the rooftop to stop Tele. She does the whole cliche-baddie move of grabbing a hostage. Shepard immediately puts the hostage's mind at ease by saying "I'll shoot if I have to". What?! This was my paragon option?! Anyway, it works and the hostage is released and we start duking it out!

This was a lonnnnnnnng fight. Have you ever seen the film Jumper? It was basically like fighting one of those teleporting twats from that. There a few other mugs that showed up mid-fight too which complicated matters. We eventually wore her down though and recovered her datapad. This gave us the location of the Shadow Broker!

A little downtime before the final assault and Liara and I had a little alone time (Bom chika wow wow!) but... no! I've blown it! I gave her the old 'suggestive eyes' and she was having none of it! She basically accused me of having my head turned by a "tattoed girl with anger management issues". WHAT HAVE I DONE?!!!!

Can Shepard repair the damage and win back his dear Liara? Final part to follow very shortly.

Freya

11-22-2016, 04:39 PM

Liara is a beast I love her :3

You Hussy, cheating on her with Jack.

theundeadhero

11-22-2016, 04:40 PM

What do you want?! Jack? Liara? Your pet space hamster? You can't have it all.
You've only just begun Lair of the Shadow Broker. Make sure to follow it through. It's all pretty good.

(Sidenote: Jack gets a sexy haircut in ME3. Well, hairgrowth, I guess?)

Bubba

11-22-2016, 05:55 PM

(Sidenote: Jack gets a sexy haircut in ME3. Well, hairgrowth, I guess?)

Don't make this harder than it already is!

You Hussy, cheating on her with Jack.

I haven't done anything with Jack yet! Plus, Liara has barely been in this game, at all! I'm only human!

WE WERE ON A BREAK!!

Bubba

11-24-2016, 11:08 AM

Lair of the Shadow Broker (continued)

With Liara and Shepard's relationship up-in-the-air, we focus instead on the mission at hand. Onward to find the Shadow Broker!

The Shadow Broker's location was unbelievably cool. He/she was on board a huge ship that was in the middle of a mahoosive lightning storm. We decide the best course of action would be to land on the outside of the ship and try not to die. Good luck with that.

This was actually a thoroughly enjoyable section! There were loads of lightning capacitors dotted over the ship. The mercs on here were not too bright and stupidly hid behind these bad boys. A couple of pot shots at the capacitors and the poor bastards were fried like a cajun catfish.

Our last action on the ship exterior had Liara trying to hack her way in while Tali and I fended off a troutload of enemies. Of course, the door was unlocked the very second that we killed the last merc. Oh video games... it's a good job I love you!

OK, we're inside and the end is in sight! We took care of a few more mercs before finding Liara's friend (Feron) in a room at the end of the corridor. He was strapped to a chair looking like he paid for the 'special package' in Helga's House of Pain. He was getting zapped with electricity every twenty seconds or so. It seems we need to cut the ships power to free Feron. OK dude, but if it turns out you and Liara are an item I'll kill you myself.

We fight our way to the end room and we're finally face-to-face with the Shadow Broker! No idea what race this guy was but I'd never seen one before. Hope you're not the last of your kind mate because you're gonna be a goner soon!

This was actually a great boss fight. Had to take his shields and armour down but the prick kept getting close and destroying me. My first attempt at him ended in defeat as my hiding-behind-cover skills were unbelievably poor. Kind of like an elephant hiding behind a palm tree. My second attempt was more successful though. Halfway through, he put up this biotic shield which made things trickier but I still kicked his arse. Once his shield and armour were gone it just a case of running up to him to give him the old Glasgow Kiss. After the third round Liara finished the job in spectacular fashion! She biotic-breaks the glass roof and the dude is fried by lightning. Done and dusted!

Liara decided to take the Shadow Broker's place which means that she'll pretty much know everything about everything. I do not approve of this for two reasons. One - my flirting days are officially over. Two - she might become corrupted by her new-found power! I remind her of the old saying "Power corrupts; absolute power is even more fun."

We had a moment and I'm given a paragon-interrupt opportunity which can only mean one thing. I knew before this came up what my feelings were though. I grabbed her by the waist and gave her oodles of Tommy Tongue! I then invited her back to the Normandy for a drink and... stuff :jokey: It seems I have been forgiven for my flirting with Jack and the Liara/Shepard romance is back on!

Tune in next time when Shepard orders a Quarian suit in a desperate attempt to avoid interaction with Jack.

Bubba

11-24-2016, 03:32 PM

The Reaper IFF

OK, it's time to put my love life on hold and finish saving the entire universe. I've explored everywhere now so I joust over to the Stephen Hawking nebula and there is a derelict Reaper ship waiting for us. Ooh exciting! There was a mass effect field around the ship so Joker's approach was about as smooth as an Egyptian whiskey. The ship was on some kind of stand-by mode (which wastes electricity - turn off your TVs, folks!) and was orbiting a nearby planet. Joker steadies the Normandy and we board.

I remember Pumpkin saying ages ago that she'd like a mission with Kasumi and Tali. Sorry it's taken so long (if you're still reading!) but here it is! We're gonna grab ourselves this IFF so we finally use the Omega-4 relay and kick some Reaper arse on their own turf!

Things were a little too quiet for this first section. We grabbed some credits and watched a couple of recording of scientists doing researchy stuff. I can see things going to sh*t any minute now. Yup, here we go! Some turbulence hits and Joker Skypes us to say he can't pick us back up because he's got a doctor's appointment or something. It looks like we have to shut down the ship's barrier generator before we can get away. Great.

We were soon met with the familiar sight of bloodied corpses reminding us of our impending doom. More recorded messages now and the Reapers have been doing some freaky sh*t. Two of the scientists have had their minds transplanted. Kind of like more sinister version of the classic 80's movie Vice-Versa only without the comedic talents of Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage.

Our first action and it's those irritating husks. I have to say that the ship interior looks amazing and the music here was great. Really intimidating sporadic drum beats! I hate these smurfing husks. It felt like there were about a hundred of them. If you don't take them down quickly they just swarm you like locusts... big, zombie-man locusts.

The last few of these twats were gunned down by a mystery helper. Some cool-looking geth just took them out for us! I've obviously noticed we still have a slot for one more team member. Could this be you, perchance?!

More annoying husks round the next corner along with a particularly troublesome scion thing. We got more help further on by our new friend the geth sniper. He took out a few more husks for us. He looks a bit like Number Johnny Five from the movie Short Circuit so I'm just gonna call him Johnny for now.

Man alive, these husks are never-ending! I died a couple of times as it's so easy to get cornered... especially when you throw a couple more of those scions into the mix. Managed to grab a couple of upgrades before taking out a final (I f**king hope so anyway!) wave of husks. The next corridor led us to a number of pick-ups including the all-important IFF!

OK, last step is to take out the ship's barrier so we can finally be done with this husk orgy. The next room contained the huuuuuge generator and our friend Johnny Five was busy tapping away at the terminal next to it. Yeah, shut that bad boy down, Johnny! Unfortunately, he didn't get the chance to as he was surprised by a load of... (drum roll please)... husks! Shocker.

Our turn to try! Shepard took a different approach than Johnny when it came to shutting down the generator. We just stood there and shot the f**ker. After taking some damage, the generator core put up a shield and we had to deal with three waves of... yeah, them. The generator was eventually destroyed and we FINALLY had no more husk pricks to deal with. Yey!

One order of business before leaving was what to do with Number Johnny Five. He was pretty much out for the count so should Shepard take him with us and put the entire Normandy crew at risk?? Of course he should!

Back on the Normandy, Miranda and Jacob are arguing about whether we should keep Johnny Five. Bicker all you want, children, Johnny is staying! He was lay in the medibay so I turned him on (not like that, you perverts) and had nice chat with him... if it is a him. He was a man/thing of few words but I did quite like his persona. I asked what we should call him and he said we should call him Geth. No sorry pal, that's unoriginal. Plus, the guy from Manchester Specsavers that f**ked up my last prescription was called Geth and that guy was a prick. We settled on Legion which I quite liked!

Joker and EDI install the IFF onto the Normandy but it needs time to upload. Joker said maybe I should go and do some side missions while I wait. Maybe you should get f**ked mate, I've done them all.

Tune in next time as Shepard denies Legion's request to use the ship's supply of WD40 as aftershave.

Mr. Carnelian

11-24-2016, 04:58 PM

Always, always, ALWAYS bring along at least one biotic character when there are going to be husks involved, Bubba. It's one of the fundamental rules of Mass Effect 2. AND YOU BROKE IT. :stare:

Bubba

11-24-2016, 05:06 PM

Always, always, ALWAYS bring along at least one biotic character when there are going to be husks involved, Bubba. It's one of the fundamental rules of Mass Effect 2. AND YOU BROKE IT. :stare:

HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THERE'D BE HUSKS BEFORE STARTING THE MISSION?!! I guess I just assumed I'd be a high enough level to deal with anything at this point. I mean, I was... but it could've been easier! :lol:

theundeadhero

11-24-2016, 07:20 PM

Talk to your robot friend, learn how to upgrade things from him, and help him out a little bit.

Then, IT'S TIME TO BEAR THE FULL WEIGHT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR BEING A COMMANDER. Do you know your friends well enough to suit their strengths to a task? Will friendship cause the death of half your ship? Is Jack pissed you dumped her for a floozy?! Find out on the next episode of the greatest space adventures.

Bubba

11-24-2016, 10:02 PM

Talk to your robot friend, learn how to upgrade things from him, and help him out a little bit.

Way ahead of you. Spoke to him, upgraded stuff and gained his loyalty!

Update coming up :D

Freya

11-25-2016, 05:01 AM

Woo! So you're near done! Just the final mission which is hella epic, and then you need to do the DLC Arrival! That will set up ME3 and you'll be on your way!

But you're just about there! You've got such an epic end to this one first!

Also, yeah Shadow broker is my fav DLC of ME2. So awesome! Fighting on that ship and you shoot the guys and sometimes they end up flying off cracks me up.

Bubba

11-25-2016, 09:54 AM

But you're just about there! You've got such an epic end to this one first!

Yup! I plan to play it to completion this weekend. Very excited!

Also, yeah Shadow broker is my fav DLC of ME2. So awesome! Fighting on that ship and you shoot the guys and sometimes they end up flying off cracks me up.

It was such a great mission. Perfectly paced, nice and challenging. Spot on!

Bubba

11-25-2016, 03:23 PM

Legion - A House Divided

Final loyalty mission and it has an interesting set-up. Legion tells us that there are actually two types of geth. 'Heretic' geth want all organics killed. Rude. There are also 'Neutral' geth that are happy to let all organics live. Legion confirmed he was the latter. Good job mate, otherwise you'd be bitch-slapped out of an airlock.

The heretics have a dastardly plan to infect all the neutrals with a virus. This means the neutrals will be filled with hate, want all organics killed... and will start wearing hats saying "Make the galaxy great again". Legion tells us the virus is being held in the imaginatively-named Heretic Station so let's mosey!

I took Tali along as Heretic Station was a Quarian ship. Also, Quarians created the geth so obviously they get along reeeeally well... When we stepped on board, Legion told us that the virus was finished. We could either destroy it or we could actually reprogramme it to make all the heretics support Hillary be nice to organics. Oooh, I'll have a think what to do!

We head down a ramp and entered what appeared to be a disco. There was no music but the green tiles on the floor turned red when you stepped on them. Cool! What wasn't cool was by doing that I appeared to activate a load of murderous geth. Ahhhhh, now I understand. DON'T STEP ON THE GREEN TILES. The geth were tough but still no match for us. We then destroyed their hardware pods for a decent amount of credits. Nice.

The next corridor had a couple of inactive gun turrets. We hacked these bad boys in case any more geth decided to show up and lo-and-behold. Here they come! It was pretty much a shooting gallery and all the geth were eliminated in seconds. Once the shooting was done, the turrets self-destructed which I would regard as a pretty big design flaw. Thinking about it though, the manufacturer would shift far more units if they all blew up after one use. He/she is probably a billionaire. Anyway, I digress.

Further down and I encounter another geth disco. I was very careful this time not to dance my way onto the green tiles. As long as Beyonce's Crazy in Love doesn't come on because then I'd be all over that sh*t.

There were two hardware pods here surrounded by geth. Being the military genius that I am, I position Tali and Legion at one pod while I blow up the other. The explosion damaged the three surrounding geth and I easily finished them off. Tali and Legion dealt with the other three and Shepard is declared the greatest commander in the history of everything.

We eventually arrive at a huge room with geth pouring in from the sides. There were a couple of those genius one-use gun turrets in the middle of the room but Shepard would need a rocket up his arse to get over to them in time. We took out the wave the old-fashioned way. It was only afterwards that I realised I can activate those gun turrets from distance. Cheers for the heads up, game.

Christ, I'm waffling again, sorry. The next two rooms were more of the same. I activated a turret this time to make the job a piece-of-piss. There was also another disco room with another two hardware pods. See ridiculously awesome above-tactics to see how I dealt with it.

We finally arrive at the virus location. We're at the top of a platform overlooking a huge room when Legion begins tapping away at some terminal and declares "this may take a little time." No prizes for guessing what that means... FIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!

There were geth pouring up the stairs from both sides. I managed to activate a few of the downstairs turrets but it didn't stop them getting up to our platform. Bring it on, bad boys! These pricks were relentless. Loads of hunters and geth with rocket-launchers so there was lots and lots of hiding. I almost snuffed it a couple of times but I managed to hold on like a drunk woman on a bucking bronco. Wave defeated!

Decision time! Do we reprogramme the virus to make the geth charming and friendly or do we wipe the f**kers out? There's only one choice for Paragon-Shep and that was to kill them all in cold blood give them all their happy pills.

Legion then kindly informs us that the pulse from this virus will kill any organic life so we have three minutes to get out. You didn't think to mention this before, no? I was actually expecting this to be much closer due to more geth trying to slow us down. We kicked arse though and we were out of here with two minutes to spare. The Efficient Man. Legion's loyalty obtained!

Tune in next time when the pictures from Garrus' old MySpace account come back to haunt him.

Freya

11-25-2016, 04:11 PM

Those myspace pictures, darn.

You can actually get legion before you do all the loyalty missions and then take him with you for Tali's. That has some interesting dialog with the Quarians buhahah

Bubba

11-28-2016, 04:49 PM

The Penultimate Update That Doesn't Have A Name... Mission

OK, so EDI and joker have been busy installing Java IFF. This will mean that we can jump through the Omega 4 Relay without being reduced to tomato purée. EDI says they just need to do a little more testing and we're good to go. Shepard and the rest of the crew decide that is the perfect time to all get in the shuttle and swan off to a spa planet for a little R & R. I'm sure leaving Joker on his tod won't lead to any negative repercussions.

With our main crew gone, a Reaper ship suddenly appears next to the Normandy which is clearly not a good thing. We aren't able to blast away from danger, they board us... and Joker has to stroll around a reaper-infested Normandy manually resetting consoles. Lovely.

EDI has kindly lit a path on the floor for us and I had no intention of veering off track. Especially as whilst Joker is calmly walking past the galaxy map, a Reaper hops out of the elevator and starts tearing crew members apart. Joker nonchalantly whistles Mack the Knife as he walks past the carnage and into Mordin's lab.

We head down a shaft in here to emerge on the 3rd floor and meet Joker's saviour! Crewman Hawthorne is here and says "Don't worry, Joker. I will protect you from any and all danger!" Thanks pal! We round the corner and Hawthorne is immediately grabbed by a Reaper and flung fifteen feet across the floor. Damn it, Hawthorne! Sh*t like this is why you're not in Shepard's main crew.

Hawthorne's short flight was distraction enough for Joker to make it into the medi-bay and the AI core. He then does some keyboard-tapping so EDI can activate the ship's defences. His shaft-crawling isn't done yet though as he needs to go down to level 4.

This next floor was full of Reapers and Joker decided to sneak up behind one. This was a spectacularly bad move as it just turned around and immediately murdered me. I hadn't realised there are no automatic saves on this part so I had start the entire section again. Excellent. Second time round and I made Joker wait in the shadows until the coast was clear.

We finally reach the engineering wing and activate the console. EDI has the brilliant idea of opening all the windows and flying really fast. As long as Joker is sealed in engineering, this should boot the Reapers quicker than Shauna boots the EoFF bots. Apparently, all our crew have been captured so there was no danger to them. Let's do it!

EDI's move was a success and the Reapers were goners. It was that moment that Shepard sent Joker a snapchat of himself on a sun lounger with a cocktail. Hope you enjoyed your rest, you f**kers. Shepard and crew returned as soon as they heard what happened. There was no way we were gonna let the Reapers get away with this. Time to head through the Omega 4 Relay!

There was a two-hour wait until this could be activated, cue cut-scene! Jack came into Shepard's cabin in tears. Oh man... I guess she heard about mine and Liara's... encounter. Oh, no she hadn't! She was just a bit upset about things that had happened in her past. I fully intended to tell her about Liara but there were only two options. One was the renegade "go away" option and I'm not a heartless bastard. I chose the other option which was a comforting one and... I don't know what happened but suddenly we were kissing! It all happened so fast and I didn't mean it! Honestly, Liara. It was an accident!

Not wanting to think about either of their reactions when they find out... I decided to face the less-scary proposition of the Omega 4 Relay and the Collector Base. Shepard gives a stirring address to the crew to rival Bill Pullman's speech in Independence Day. Also, the Illusive Man stops by to tell me how incredibly fantastic I am. Well that kind of goes without saying, mate.

The moment of truth! We blast ourselves through the relay and hope for the best. Joker pulls some pretty sweet moves to avoid us crashing into a million derelict spacecrafts. We made it! There were a few cut scenes where certain crew members make a point of saying "Boy, am I glad we got that Normandy upgrade!" I can only assume if we didn't then some of us wouldn't have made it.

One thing we couldn't avoid though was these scary eyeball robot things that followed the Normandy. Joker managed to take most of them down but one sneaky bastard penetrated the hull. Nobody boards the Normandy without a formal invitation! It is extremely rude. Shepard takes a team down there to expel the unwanted intruder.

Sh*t man, this thing can hurt you! I decided to bust out the heavy weaponry to make short work of it. It still took a while as it was a stubborn bastard but we eventually wear it down. The damage had been done though. The Normandy was no more than a floating turd and we crash land as close to the Collectors as possible.

Well, we might be on a guaranteed death-trip but we can at least take the Collectors out while we're here! My final decisions before our final assault was to select a team for the mission. I made Tali my tech specialist and Garrus my special team leader. Time to finish this!

Tune in tomorrow for my final ME2 update!

Freya

11-28-2016, 05:42 PM

EEEEEE The end is near!

Bubba

11-28-2016, 05:56 PM

EEEEEE The end is near!

It's about time considering I started this in mid-July!

Freya

11-28-2016, 06:01 PM

Wait, You have to do the Arrival DLC too though before you do ME3!

theundeadhero

11-28-2016, 08:57 PM

I am excite.

Bubba

11-28-2016, 10:37 PM

Wait, You have to do the Arrival DLC too though before you do ME3!

Oh yeah, of course! Though they'll both have to wait until I've completed/got bored with FFXV.

I am excite.

You should be. The final part was an emotional roller coaster. Write up coming tomorrow. I can safely say though it was one of the best games I've ever played.

theundeadhero

11-28-2016, 11:01 PM

I'm really hoping you made a good biotic choice at the end, instead of letting silly emotions get in the way. My final party usually ends up being with people I don't often play the main game with, since they're needed elsewhere.

Bubba

11-29-2016, 07:47 AM

Bubba

11-29-2016, 03:42 PM

The Final Showdown

This is it. The big one. The pay-off. The shake-down. The...end. I'd started this mission on level 29 so I was hoping that my heroic final actions would push me up to 30. Let's see!

I was expecting a reasonably swift onslaught of cretins and unsurprisingly I was right. Drones and collectors were the order of the day. I found some suitably suitable cover on the left and took them all out with ease. Ooooohh, I'm excited!!

Tali was having no trouble with the shaft (:jokey:) but she did mention that it was getting quite hot in there. There were doors in the ventilation shaft that Shepard had to manually open other wise Tali would be roasted like chestnuts on an open fire. Yes, I'm excited for Christmas. Leave me alone.

The first terminal was easy to find but then we were under attack before getting to the second one. Tali was all "Hurry Shepard! I'm burning up!" Now I really like Tali so I felt the pressure a bit here. Hang on! The fifth and sixth terminals were close calls as we they were chucking everything at us. When Tali was down to like a quarter health, I bravely (and stupidly) kamikazi-ran over to the terminal. I barely survived but there was no way Tali is dying on me! NO-ONE DIES TODAY.

The last terminal was tricky too as those Harbingers (which are big f**king pains-in-the-arse) took a while to deal with. My sniper is a souped-up bad-ass at this stage though. All eight terminals were activated and Tali was safe! We had a cut-scene with all of us charging through some blast doors and Tali sealed it before we got swarmed with collectors. Good job, team!

A bit of a shock start to the next section as we find the rest of the Normandy crew suspended in pods. I stood and observed for a second. "Awww!", I thought. They actually look quite sweet and peacefuOHHHHHH MY GOD!!!! The woman in the first pod (who did look a bit peaky) suddenly turned into Dolmio's stir-in tomato pasta sauce.

We quickly got the rest of the crew (including Kelly and Dr Chaka Khan) out before they met the same grisly (but potentially tasty) fate. The doctor tells us that people are being turned into some genetic paste of some sort and sucked out in tubes. How delightful. Next I had some important decisions to make...

Our next section is swarming with Collector Seekers so we had the idea that someone creates a biotic barrier around our team in order for us to get through. Jack has been my go-to biotic team mate but I opted for Samara. I just felt her extra experience might be useful in this final section.

Next the Doctor requested that someone escort the weakened crew back to the Normandy. I mulled this over for quite a while as I didn't know who would be most effective. I seriously considered going with another biotic but I ended up choosing Thane for his sniper skills.

Finally, I had to assign someone to lead the diversionary team. Again, I wanted someone with experience so that ruled a few out straight away. I ended up choosing Miranda as I thought she'd have the authority to do a good job. With Samara generating the biotic field, I brought along Jack so she can actually use some biotic attacks. Grunt the tank was my third member.

OK, let's do this! It was really cool walking along in a floating snow globe. Great effort, Samara! My curiosity got the better of me and I ventured outside for a moment. Yeah, don't do this. Bad idea is bad. I was inundated with these bat-things so I ran back inside.

There were a few sections where Samara hunkered-down and Grunt, Jack and I had to deal with a wave of scumbags. I really liked the challenge in this section! Most of them were no match for my sniper but those fugging husks are irritating as f***. Though not quite as irritating as the suicide-bomber abominations. The fact that I survived this section without dying once I found remarkable.

As we neared the end, Samara's giant snow globe was rapidly changing into a regular-sized snow globe. Not wanting to be covered in collector bat-droppings, we hustled to the exit.

Miranda and her team joined us in this room and we rushed to seal the blast door. The collectors were banging on the other side like over-zealous Jehova's Witnesses and we had some decisions to make! We could either push on all together or leave someone behind to guard this blast door. No way am I leaving anyone here to die so we're all gonna push on together!

Firstly, Shepard gave a stirring speech to the rest of the crew. It was inspirational and emotional. Jack cheered, Jacob saluted, Grunt cried and Mordin shat himself. Epic stuff.

Memories of the Collector ship came flooding back as Shepard, Jack & Grunt went zooming out on one of those floaty-hexagonal platforms. Turns out it was a platform party as we were soon joined Harbingers, Guardians, Scions... a load of sh*tbags, basically. Cover was pretty decent though and we were soon across the other side relatively unscathed.

We activate the terminal here and... HO-LY SH*T. Hanging from the roof is a huge human/geth-thing looking a bit like the Terminator's disabled brother only, you know... a thousand times bigger. It turns out this thing is being fed by the human dolmio paste that the Collectors were extracting from thousands of humans. Man alive... though, man dead is probably more apt.

This thing presumably never learned to swim as it had a couple of inflatable orange armbands on each arm. All we had to do was pop these armbands and the things would fall to its death... if it is even alive. The armbands were covered by barriers until we'd dealt with a few easy cretins. We eventually popped them one at a time and the big bastard was down!

Crap, this update is taking forever and I've ran out of time at work. Last part to follow in an hour!

Freya

11-29-2016, 04:02 PM

Ahh since you're past it now, If you dawdle any longer after the Reaper IFF part when they take your crew, so if you decided to do loyalty missions then, when you go to rescue your crew they'll be mostly dead and liquefied.

Skyblade

11-29-2016, 04:29 PM

Can't wait for the very ending. :)

theundeadhero

11-29-2016, 08:10 PM

I've never tried not leaving anyone to gaurd the door. How did that work out? Does it force a Shepherd death?

Also, potentially tasty. Yes.

Formalhaut

11-29-2016, 08:14 PM

I've never tried not leaving anyone to gaurd the door. How did that work out? Does it force a Shepherd death?

Also, potentially tasty. Yes.

Wait, you can choose not to leave a rear guard?

Bubba

11-29-2016, 08:23 PM

Formalhaut

11-29-2016, 08:28 PM

Sorry, final update is slightly delayed!

Yeah, it gave me the option to leave a guard at the door or push on with the whole group. I figured leaving someone behind was a sure way of getting them killed so they all came with me!

Do you mean the 'send someone back with the rest of the crew' part? Because I've always sent Mordin back to escort them all back to safety.

Bubba

11-29-2016, 08:36 PM

No, I sent Thane back as escort. This part was different. It just asked if I wanted to leave someone to guard the door in case the Collectors bust through.

EDIT: unless I misread it as something else

Formalhaut

11-29-2016, 08:46 PM

No, I sent Thane back as escort. This part was different. It just asked if I wanted to leave someone to guard the door in case the Collectors bust through.

I only completed this game last year, and I do not remember that little bit. Huh. ^^;

Bubba

11-29-2016, 09:03 PM

UPIRxhGnPRg

If you watch at 0:55 on this video. That is the bit I mean. I think I misread the situation on my playthrough though and thought I had to leave just one person behind.

I picked the option for us all to move on.

EDIT: To be fair, it does say "someone" needs to stay behind.

Formalhaut

11-29-2016, 09:06 PM

Ooooooh. I remember it now! Sorry, that was me being thick. I'm not even sure it makes a difference, then again, I've always picked the 'let's pick a rearguard!' option. It'll be interesting to see the difference!

Freya

11-29-2016, 10:16 PM

Ahhh I looked it up. Heavier combat people(and loyal) will survive if you ask them to hold the door, otherwise they get killed if they're squishy characters. So moving forward with everyone is a default good choice if you didn't leave anyone.

Bubba

11-30-2016, 12:27 AM

...will survive if you ask them to hold the door

71074

Bubba

12-06-2016, 11:29 PM

Last part to follow in an hour!

There appears to have been some time dilation problem due to gravitational issues caused by a nearby wormhole/vortex kind of thing. Final update to come tomorrow!

Freya

12-07-2016, 07:57 PM

:stare:

theundeadhero

12-07-2016, 10:57 PM

:stare:

Formalhaut

12-07-2016, 11:27 PM

:stare:

Bubba

12-08-2016, 01:07 AM

:shobon:

Bubba

12-12-2016, 11:06 AM

Typing this up now. Sorry for the delay! Been back and forth to A&E with a very poorly baby.

Bubba

12-12-2016, 03:24 PM

Memories of the Collector ship came flooding back as Shepard, Jack & Grunt went zooming out on one of those floaty-hexagonal platforms. Turns out it was a platform party as we were soon joined Harbingers, Guardians, Scions... a load of sh*tbags, basically. Cover was pretty decent though and we were soon across the other side relatively unscathed.

We activate the terminal here and... HO-LY SH*T. Hanging from the roof is a huge human/geth-thing looking a bit like the Terminator's disabled brother only, you know... a thousand times bigger. It turns out this thing is being fed by the human dolmio paste that the Collectors were extracting from thousands of humans. Man alive... though, man dead is probably more apt.

This thing presumably never learned to swim as it had a couple of inflatable orange armbands on each arm. All we had to do was pop these armbands and the things would fall to its death... if it is even alive. The armbands were covered by barriers until we'd dealt with a few easy cretins. We eventually popped them one at a time and the big bastard was down!

Just in case you forgot where we were at :shobon:

Our glorious moment was interrupted by Joker who said that the Illusive Man would like a word with us. Nah man, I'm busy setting charges that will blow this places to smithereens! What are smithereens anyway? I'll google that in a minute. Suddenly, the Illusive Man's hologram appeared in front of us. How rude. Talk about the INTRUSIVE man! Amirite?!!! Bubba - Funniest Member Winter Ciddies 2016.

Anyway, he wants us to reconsider out decision to blow the place up. He wants us to set an EMP which will kill the Collectors and hand all their technology over to him. Hey, why not? I'm sure you will only use this technology for good and not abuse it in anyway... NOT! Haha, that's right. I'm bringing NOT jokes back. Deal with it.

We of course decided to blow the smithereens, which by the way are defined as fragments or small pieces. The more you know. We were gonna set charges for ten minutes (why not 30... or 60, eh?) to make things very dramatic. It was this moment when Terminator Junior decided to make an appearance. Fuuuuuuuuckkkkk!!!!!

He went swinging around our platform like a horny gibbon exposing his handily-indicated 'weak spot'. This was a great final fight! He is pretty smurfing deadly so I hid and waited for him to expose himself (:jokey:). I can't be far from the end so I went with a full Heavy Weapon onslaught. It took me a while as he wasn't exposed for very long. I didn't see a timer so I hope the ten-minute countdown isn't going! After much caution and patience, we finally emerge victorious!

A particularly stressful cut-scene played out in which Jack nearly slid off the crumbling platform only to be bravely saved by our hero Shepard. Lots of crumbling, smoke and confusion and when the dust settles, Shepard crawls out from underneath some debris. Jack and Grunt were ok too! Nobody died!

Joker shows up in the sight-for-sore-eyes Normandy. Jack and Grunt safely board and Joker then thinks "Eh, two-out-of-three ain't bad" and decides to leave. Luckily, Shepard was an Olympic triple-jumper in his youth and just manages to launch himself twenty feet and grab hold of the entrance. Thanks for waiting, f**ker.

A couple more cut-scenes and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! It is with tremendous sadness that I must report the loss of a crew member on this journey you've taken with me. I will no longer be able to enjoy the cocaine-fuelled chatter of Mordin. I obviously made a poor choice somewhere along the way. Rest in peace you beautiful, beautiful Salarian.

This really bummed me out and soured which was actually a great ending to a truly amazing game. After blasting out of there and watching the Collector Base blow up into fragments and small pieces, we caught up with the Illusive Man who was disappointed in my actions. Don't give a sh*t, mate. Go f**k yourself with a rusty pipe. From now on, Shepard doesn't play by your rules. He plays by his own rules. Unless his rules turn out to be stupid then he plays by no-one's rules.

Shepard coolly walks through a sorry-looking Normandy while all his crew look at him like he's some sort of god. I recognise the look as it's the same one I get from my other half following fornicationThis may not be true Thus endeth my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2!

I'll pop up a proper review of this soonish then I'll be cracking on with Mass Effect 3 once I'm done with FFXV! Seriously though, this is the most fun I've had with a game in a long time. It was f**king spectacular. I'm itching to experience it all again!

Let me know what you think of how I did. More importantly though, tell me how I save all the crew for when I play this again!

Freya

12-12-2016, 03:28 PM

AHhh nooo. You need mordin damnit. Go back and do it again :colbert: He has one of the most best parts in the next game.

HiRDJLcYua0

You can listen and watch this now! Best ME song ever.

Bubba

12-12-2016, 03:37 PM

AHhh nooo. You need mordin damnit. Go back and do it again :colbert: He has one of the most best parts in the next game.

I'm sure it had something to do with not leaving a rearguard at the door. Maybe.. no idea. I tried to make the right decisions to save my crew but... I failed. I'm going to have to live with the consequences.

Doing the the whole thing again to make sure he survives feels like cheating. I'm gutted though, seriously. Especially now you say he has a great part in the next game.

I think I love the game more for making me feel like a hero... but a hero who isn't perfect and didn't make all the right decisions.

Freya

12-12-2016, 03:40 PM

I think it's cause he's squishy. I think if you send him back to guard the people, he lives and there is no issue.

Bubba

12-12-2016, 03:46 PM

Ahh, so I should have sent Mordin instead of Thane?

I did 'um and ah' over that decision! Dammit!

theundeadhero

12-12-2016, 05:16 PM

I make him part of my party as I fight the last boss. He's always survived that way too.

Bubba

12-12-2016, 10:00 PM

I'm sure there is a perfect party combination where everyone survives. Honestly, I'm kinda glad I didn't get it spot on.

Fox

12-12-2016, 10:21 PM

I'm sure there is a perfect party combination where everyone survives. Honestly, I'm kinda glad I didn't get it spot on.

There is, but it's fairly complex. Who you take with you in your main squad for each section is just as important as who you send on particular missions. There are also some bulltrout mechanics in there. Like you know how Miranda is a genetically engineer super freak who is a biotic genius? Yeah, not so good at the biotic part.

Did I lose someone first time...? I think I did but I can't remember who. I have a sneaky feeling it's Garrus but that can't be right because I KNOW I would have save scummed if I lost Garrus.

Freya

12-12-2016, 10:36 PM

Yeah Samara is the best for the biotic bubble one I believe. Miranda or Jacob or Garrus Maybe? are great for the second team lead. Legion I think is the best for the vents. I don't remember it all, it's been a while. And if you don't have their loyalty from their missions, they most likely will die regardless.

I lost uhhhh Zaeed. He's one you didn't get from a DLC, bubba.

theundeadhero

12-13-2016, 04:19 AM

I always make Garrus my second team lead both times, Tali my vent buddy, and Samara my biotic. I also leave behind my big beefy guys at the door as you mentioned earlier; Grunt, Zaeed, and so on. Kasumi is who I send back with the crew members,

Bubba

12-14-2016, 12:55 PM

Freya

12-14-2016, 07:05 PM

IS that one of those weird british ways of pronouncing things again?

You probably say lee-o-paar-d.

Fox

12-14-2016, 07:15 PM

IS that one of those weird british ways of pronouncing things again?

You probably say lee-o-paar-d.

No, we say Commander Sheh-paar-d. Like Captain Picard. ;)

Shauna

12-14-2016, 09:21 PM

The guy who sang the Commander Shepard song is actually Irish, so I am amused by the accusation that it's to do with the British pronunciation. xD (yes I know he often sings with American enunciation)

Anyway I saved everyone first time :smug:

Bubba

12-14-2016, 09:51 PM

Anyway I saved everyone first time :smug:

Rub it in, why don't you. I'M IN MOURNING!

Also, I wasn't actually disputing that leopard and Shepard sound the same. They do! I just don't remember seeing many leopards in the ME universe :lol:

I think they were stretching for something to rhyme with Shepard, that's all!

Fox

12-14-2016, 10:44 PM

I just don't remember seeing many leopards in the ME universe :lol:

Wait until you play 3!

Formalhaut

12-14-2016, 11:21 PM

You lost Mordin? Noooooo. Damn, seriously, like Freya said, he gets some great bits in ME: 3. I completely understand keeping it as it is though, just know that I would absolutely go back and re-do it. :p

The mechanics for survival is strange and points-based. It all boils down to holding the line. I'll just quote the wiki verbatim, as it does a good job of explaining it:

The teammates you do not choose are automatically assigned to hold the line against the Collectors. A 'defensive skill' value is calculated for the 'hold the line' group as a whole, based on a defensive value inherent to each character. Loyal characters gain a bonus to this value. If the 'defensive skill' check is not high enough to ensure all characters' survival, squad members will be designated to die based on their vulnerability, with Mordin taking priority if he is present.

Leaving behind strong defenders, such as Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed will increase the group's odds of survival. In contrast, certain characters such as Jack, Tali, and especially Mordin have less skill in holding their position and should be removed through escort duty or taken along. The entire group will survive as long as the combined defensive skill is high enough, otherwise the game selects one or more squad members to die based on the scenario of who was left behind and how loyal the group members are.

Squad members who are not loyal are most likely to survive here than anywhere else, provided the group's collective defense skill is high enough, although they will be the first to die if the skill is not. Leaving behind two strong defenders such as Garrus, Grunt, or Zaeed should suffice, provided you haven't lost too many people.

The order of death is: Non-loyal, Mordin, Tali, Kasumi, Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Garrus, Samara, Legion, Thane, Zaeed, Grunt

I think what happened is you sent Thane (who, for a terminally ill drell) who seems to be the third most defensive character on escort duty. You also had Grunt come with you, which cut your defensive potential by quite a bit. Mordin was holding the line and not taken along, and thus died first.

None of it is your fault, you weren't to know whatsoever, which can make it annoying that someone died due to an algorithm. I usually bring Miranda and Garrus/Jacob/Kasumi, depending on how I'm feeling. I always send Mordin away on escort, though his incinerate is great against armour, so I might send someone else to do that next time.

Sucks that you lost Mordin, but good job on completing the game! I'm glad you really liked it!

Bubba

12-15-2016, 02:37 AM

Now I feel like a failure :(

Fox

12-15-2016, 07:04 AM

Now I feel like a failure :(

Good. A commander should feel that way after losing someone.

Honestly I think you got the better experience. It was a mistake from Bioware to make it possible for everyone to survive in the first place. I would have made at least one point (probably when sending someone into the vents) where you and your entire team knew it was a one-way trip, so that whoever you gave the order to had to accept their own death but carry out your orders regardless.

Shauna

12-15-2016, 04:46 PM

Yeah, it was a difficult thing having to choose between Kaiden and Ashley in ME1. That we were forced into a decision there. It's a shame that they didn't repeat something similar here, would have make the stakes a little bit higher.

Skyblade

12-21-2016, 07:40 AM

No-one dies next time! Except Ashley again in ME1 but that's fine...

I'll try one of your ways when I go through it again. Is there a scenario when you can kill a load of your squad? Not that I want to, just curious!

I'm not sure I can get the Zaeed DLC. It isn't giving me an option to download it.

Also Freya, that song is possibly the greatest thing ever. I'll let slide the fact that they rhymed Commander Shepard with "Leopard" :lol:

I believe there is a scenario where everyone dies but Joker, who reports back to the Illusive Man. You kind of have to work at it, from what I've heard.

Also, apparently you need at least two survivors besides Shepard to carry over the game. Just one other survivor, and they jump in the Normandy but won't pull Shepard in (it may be a two man job, but they won't even try). Someone was trying to create a two person ship for their Shepard-Garrus pairing, and were shocked when their lover just jumped into the ship, left them behind, and just let Joker fly off.

I always try to save everyone. Lost Kelly Chambers the first time, though.

Bubba

01-23-2017, 03:53 PM

Are we all excited?!!

71612

Formalhaut

01-23-2017, 05:21 PM

YEAH THIS IS BACK!

...at least, that's the implication, right?

Bubba

01-23-2017, 06:21 PM

You better believe it, Awesomehaut!

I still haven't completed FFXV yet but I'll get there. The pull of this game is too great. I need to find out what happens to my crew (apart from Mordin, the poor dead bastard).

Thats right! Buckle up knuckleheads! It's time for...

71613

Formalhaut

01-23-2017, 06:41 PM

Oh no, Mordin! I forgot he died in ME:2! Nooooooooo.

Bubba

01-23-2017, 06:43 PM

I know... for me the grief is still too near :(

I must crack on though as Andromeda is coming out in like two months!

Formalhaut

01-23-2017, 06:43 PM

I know... for me the grief is still too near :(

I must crack on though as Andromeda is coming out in like two months!

I KNOW. *HYPE*

Skyblade

01-23-2017, 07:04 PM

I know... for me the grief is still too near :(

I must crack on though as Andromeda is coming out in like two months!

Well, it releases in a couple months, but it's still two and a half million light years away, and the Mass Relays weren't set to intergalactic travel last I checked, so there might still be time.

Bubba

01-23-2017, 09:35 PM

Well, it releases in a couple months, but it's still two and a half million light years away, and the Mass Relays weren't set to intergalactic travel last I checked, so there might still be time.

I've been working on the Mass Relays myself (hence my updates are irregular) and Colin (our resident expert on intergalactic travel) has confirmed they are fully functional.

Anyway, I've just arrived on Mars. Opening update is imminent!

Bubba

01-24-2017, 12:59 PM

71618

Well, let's get cracking!

The game begins with Anderson filling us on on what's been happening and things are looking decidedly grim. My actions in ME2 have resulted in me being grounded (thanks very much, you ungrateful f***ers) and the reapers are lying in wait like like a pack of wolves outside a crèche. Being an expert on reapers, it's up to handsome bastard Shepard to convince us all to unite under one banner! Quarians, Turians, Salarians, Krogans... all fighting as one living, breathing gestalt entity!

It was an epic speech. It was just a shame that it was at this point the Reapers showed up and ruined my Donald Trump joke at the end.

They were big meanies who were just being mean. They were dropping photon-plasmic-nuclear-tipped turd-bombs all over the planet. Most of the room we were stood in went Fubar and me and Anderson legged it from the facility. Now, I hadn't played Mass Effect for a while but... did they always run so weird?? Maybe it's just me but Anderson looks like he has severe diarrhoea and was clenching for dear life.

All of it sudden it was time to fondle my firearms! A few ever-annoying husks were doing some impressive parkour on an opposite wall. My pistol is crap! Took about 8 shots to take out just one of the freaks. I love my pistol so I better get a decent upgrade soon. A bit further through our escape and I found a couple of husks trying to have sex with a nearby wall. I'm not one to deny someone their kicks but they were in my way. Being out of ammo, I had to resort to the old melee so I went "HIYA!" and wow... one-hit wonder! Clearly Shepard has been working out in his downtime.

Pushing on, I spot a little boy in an air vent. My fatherly instincts took over and tried to persuade him to come with us. TRUST ME when I say that you can't take your eyes off the little f**kers for more than five seconds. Anderson briefly distracted me and when I tuned back the slippery turd was gone. He's probably safer in there anyway.

After a brief catch-up with a few goodies, we were ambushed by a group of Cannibals. Now I'm not one to judge a person by their eating habits, but I decided these guys should be put down... and when I say "put down" I don't mean belittle them with words... I mean shoot them in the face.

We then find a radio. Shepard calls for aid!! (and Rohan will answer) I seemed to have unlocked an assault rifle called the M8 Avenger. I always feel sorry for guns named Avenger... what are they avenging? How have they suffered? Lost for a second in my own stupid thoughts, we were suddenly attacked by some more cannibals so I yelled "EAT THIS!" Haha, I'm so funny! I wasn't laughing for long though because there were a tonne of them and I was running out of ammo fast. I was just about to resort to harsh language when the Normandy arrives to save the day! Yey!

Also, Shepard spots Tunnel Boy jumping onto one of the escape ships. Yey! We exchange a meaningful look, he boards and then they fly off to safet... NOOOOOO!!!!! What are you doing to me, game?! Maybe it's because I have a little boy myself but I wasn't ready for feels at this point :( Both escape ships are destroyed and I am now ready to tear the Reapers a new one...

We get to see Kaidan's handsome face aboard the Normandy. He was a little cold towards me I felt (probably because I was working for Cerberus) but I can tell he still wants a bit of Shepard ass. I was also introduced to some guy called James who looks like a new squad member. I don't like him. He is a constant reminder that I need to be eating and exercising better in real life. We set a course for Mars for reasons that I wasn't paying attention to.

Myself, James and Kaidan land, exit the shuttle and prepare to stir up some trout.

Tune in next time when Shepard's constant quoting of Arnold Schwarzenegger's classic Mars film Total Recall... really gets on everyone's tits.

Freya

01-24-2017, 03:07 PM

Oh james! That's Freddie Prince Jr if you didn't know.

Bubba

01-24-2017, 03:34 PM

Oh james! That's Freddie Prince Jr if you didn't know.

I didn't know! Thanks for sharing :D

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Formalhaut

01-24-2017, 06:27 PM

James is... okay? He's your token bland teammate, which is fine, seeing how he pops up in the last game, which is unfortunate for him. He grows on you, though.

Bubba

01-24-2017, 07:16 PM

James is... okay? He's your token bland teammate, which is fine, seeing how he pops up in the last game, which is unfortunate for him. He grows on you, though.

Yeah, I've only just met the guy so I'll give him a chance. Gonna do a quick workout, eat some salmon then get cracking with Mars!

Bubba

01-25-2017, 04:38 PM

Mars

Oooh, pretty! Mars has always been my favourite of our planets. Though it has to be said, I was disappointed that they made the same mistake as The Martian movie in regards to this "huge storm" that was causing us problems. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is really low so a storm like this wouldn't actually be possible.

71624

OK, I'll let it slide because it does look lovely. Shepard, Kaidan and James move away from the drop ship and stumble upon some formerly-alive people lying on the ground. Imminent fisticuffs, methinks! We crouch behind a wall a bit further on and spot some assault troopers in the distance and oh yes! Sweet sweet sniper, how I have missed thee! We took care of business and it was revealed they were wearing Cerberus uniforms. Cue whining from Kaidan "Wah! Why are you friends with them even though I hate them?! Wah!" I'm not so shut it, mate. You used to be cool. What's happened to you?

We took out a few more goons further on outside a huge facility. Time to find out what the craic is! We entered via an elevator, cue cut-scene. There was some scrambling from a nearby vent. Someone was being chased by a couple of troopers and... Oh! Oh! *sprays deodorant, checks breath* It's my dear Liara! Clearly she has either forgiven me or forgotten about my err... tête-a-tête with little Jack as she didn't mind at all when I invaded her personal space :jokey: Right, down to business (not that kind of business, you filthy animals). Liara filled us in on the details.

The site actually contained some huge Prothean artifacts which were being investigated. It looks like they were used as some kind of advanced weapon against the Reapers. Ahh, that's why Cerberus are here! They want to half-inch it for themselves and build a Death Star or something. Just try it, bawbags!

I assigned Liara her skill points and ooh, question! Anyone who I've assigned points to so far had about 30-odd to go on, plus I started the game at Level 30. Is this the generic starting level/points for the game or is it based off my heroic exploits in ME2? I don't think the game has mentioned giving me bonuses for my performance in the last game? Maybe I was sh*t? If you guys could let me know, cheers :D

Due to my abundance of points, I decided to max out her Singularity as it's my favourite move. Whaddya know?! An immediate chance to use it! There were a few goons on the upper level so Liara was all "Levicorpus!" and we annihilated them.

We head to the upper level and through a door and pick up some gauntlets. Then I spent 10 mins faffing in the menu trying to equip them. No idea how to. Any ideas? I found a Submachine Gun too which seemed to equip automatically. Will my gauntlets have been auto-equipped too?

After checking a security console, it seems that a Dr. Ava is here and still alive. New squadmate? Our path takes us outside the facility briefly and we get to look at the extremely impressive (but totally unrealistic - do your research, game!) storm. We eventually find a workbench a la The Last of Us so we can upgrade our weapons! Still not sure about my other gear though :shrug:

Liara and I shared another nice little cut scene where I touched her face... and not in a creepy way. This tender moment was short-lived though as a wave came bearing a new enemy! I think they're called Guardians but I called them Post Boxes. They slowly bear down on you with a huge shield and a thin slit so they could see. Well... they don't call me The Mailman for nothing! Nobody calls me this...

Fun fact: I once frisbied a birthday card into a post box from about ten feet away. It's still one of my proudest achievements. The principle here was the same only the letter was a sniper rifle. I thoroughly enjoyed taking these post boxes out with my surgeon-like precision.

Picked up a few more mods in the next couple of rooms before more goings-on were revealed! It turns out Dr Ava isn't going to be a squad-mate. She apparently is working for Cerberus and killed everyone at the facility by suffocating them all. Not really Normandy material, if I'm honest.

Ahhh, lovely auto-turrets. I had to do a little dodging in-and-out from cover to get past this jock-off turret firing a million rounds per second. I couldn't get used to the controls though and ended up stood right in front of it getting shot to sh*t. I barely survived with no health and no shield. Damn you, new game mechanics!

We managed to get around it and clear the room. Ooh! After inspecting one of the troopers it turns out they're actually Husks! Cerberus, you naughty boys. Kaidan pipes up again and is all "Gawwwd! You're such a Cerberus fanboy!" Kaidan mate, you're walking a very thin line at the minute. You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me. Prick.

Christ alive, I'm waffling again. We kill more things, get on a tram, tram is attacked, we kill more things, change trams, proceed, kill more things. OK! We get a hologram call from a lit cigarette... and it had an Illusive Man attached to it. Seriously, this dude needs to cut down. He explains about his plans for the Death Star and the fact that he's breeding an army of Uruk-Hai. We then discover that all the information about the Prothean weapon has been downloaded and is now being deleted... locally!

Kaidan discovers Dr Ava at the back of the room deleting her browser history the Prothean information and she turns tail and runs. Not so fast, bitch! She was tricky to keep up with whilst trying to shoot her... I ended up not shooting at all and waited to see where we would end up. I thought I'd buggered up here as she got on a transport and flew away. It was at this moment however, that f**kwad Freddie Prince Jr decided to ram into her with the drop ship. Brave, but stupid. Both ships crashed on the roof nearly killing him, her and us. F**ks sake, man!

Dr Ava pops out of the wreckage looking all badass. She grabs Kaidan and threatens to do some serious damage. Now this bit was weird. I have my gun trained on Ava then she proceeds to spin round and slam Kaidan into the crashed ship. Shepard meanwhile, just stands there and watches. I mean, I'm a bit pissed off with the guy but I don't want to see him beaten to death right in front of me! Once Kaidan looked like a retired crash-test dummie, Shepard finally raises his gun. A pretty cool Red-Dead style slo-mo shooting section appears and Dr Ava is finished. Thus endeth the level.

Kaidan was in a bad way so we decide to blast over to the Citadel to see if they can help him. Based on the fact that I know MaleShep can romance Kaiden in this game... I'm gonna assume he doesn't die. Either that or Shepard hides his necrophilia really well.

Tune in next time when Kaidan gets his first bad review on eBay for a delayed package delivery.

Freya

01-25-2017, 04:54 PM

Bubba

01-25-2017, 05:04 PM

Ahhhhhh that's such a crazy level. I really like what they did with it.

ANOTHER DID YOU KNOW

ON The console edition of minecraft, you can get a N7 skin pack and they made a world where it's the mars level... but in minecraft :D

Yeah, it was great! I know it comes across like I'm whinging a lot but it is really good! So far it's followed on nicely from ME2 :D

Formalhaut

01-25-2017, 07:11 PM

If it makes you feel any better, both Ashley and Kaiden whinge about you. They get better with that, but in the Mars mission they really do not let it go.

As for as armour components go, I'm pretty sure you equip it on the Normandy. Weapons you pick up on the field can be auto-equipped, but you can't slap on armguards in the field.

Mars is a great mission. Good way to introduce you to ME:3 combat, which I think is even faster paced than ME:2 combat. You'll get used to the cover mechanics, as well.

Fox

01-25-2017, 08:43 PM

I totally forgot you hadn't done ME3 yet!

Looking forward to the Mordin bits he is BY FAR the best part of 3

Formalhaut

01-25-2017, 08:47 PM

Looking forward to the Mordin bits he is BY FAR the best part of 3

:crying:

Bubba

01-26-2017, 09:13 AM

Looking forward to the Mordin bits he is BY FAR the best part of 3

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS???

So what's the deal with your starting level and points? Do you always start ME3 at Level 30 and with thirty-odd points to assign to each character.

Skyblade

01-26-2017, 10:16 AM

For what it's worth, I think Legion's part of Mass Effect 3 is just as awesome as Mordin's.

Formalhaut

01-26-2017, 12:13 PM

If you start a new character in ME:3, they start at level 1. I think. I've never used a new character, and always started from ME:1 in my two playthroughs of the game.

when you import from ME:2, whatever your level was at import is your level in ME:3. You know how 30 is the maximum in ME:2? Assuming you hit 30 there, you begin at 30 in ME:3. If you got to level 27, you start st 27 in ME:3.

I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

Bubba

01-26-2017, 12:35 PM

Wow, so I'm like... 30 levels higher than the starting level?

I don't mind having an advantage but that seems a bit excessive to me :p

Formalhaut

01-26-2017, 12:39 PM

It sounds a lot, but it isn't terribly game-breaking. There's enough challenge in the game, even at a cool level 30.

EDIT: Oh, by the way: do you have DLC for ME: 3?

Bubba

01-26-2017, 01:08 PM

Oh, by the way: do you have DLC for ME: 3?

I haven't checked yet, I don't think. I've been told by everyone on the planet though that the Citadel DLC is a must :p

Formalhaut

01-26-2017, 01:19 PM

Oh, by the way: do you have DLC for ME: 3?

I haven't checked yet, I don't think. I've been told by everyone on the planet though that the Citadel DLC is a must :p

Honestly, there's not a single DLC in ME:3 that isn't worth the purchase. The 'From Ashes' DLC includes a new squadmate and enhances the story. 'Omega' includes a very good mission on - you guessed it - Omega, with Aria T'Loak. 'Citadel' is just... amazing. 'Leviathan' includes a sort of history lesson told through gunfights. It's pretty good.

Obviously, I'd avoid the usual weapon packs that don't add much of anything, but the story DLC are all worth it in my opinion.

Skyblade

01-26-2017, 02:04 PM

Wow, so I'm like... 30 levels higher than the starting level?

I don't mind having an advantage but that seems a bit excessive to me :p

Levels doesn't translate to power, though. Just health (which, honestly, isn't super important in this play style) and abilities. Your guns don't become more powerful just 'cause you gained thirty levels. You can do a few new things with them, but overall, it's nowhere near as game breaking as it would be in, say, Final Fantasy.

Freya

01-26-2017, 03:05 PM

Yeah and your enemies scale I believe too. So it's not like you're lvl 30 v lvl 1.

Bubba

01-27-2017, 12:14 PM

The Citadel

Now this I've been really looking forward to! The graphics have stepped up a notch again from ME2 so I couldn't wait to see this beast in all its glory. I was not disappointed. Sooooo pretty!

Liara: "Erm... Shepard? The view is lovely and all but... your friend is dying. Maybe put the camera away until he's in the hospital?"

After nearly allowing his friend to die, Shepard ships Kaidan off to the hospital wing and starts exploring the new shiny Citadel. There wasn't much NPC action in the dock's waiting area though I did speak to someone called Diana Allers. She's err... perky. She informs me that she's a reporter and asks if she can join the Normandy to document our journey. Rather than study her resume and take her through a three-stage interview process... Shepard decides she's hot and immediately agrees, the pervert. "Wait, you're the one controlling him, Bubba". Shhhhhhh voice-in-head, shhhhhhh.

I felt guilty about Kaidan so decided to check and see if he'd died yet. I clearly didn't feel that guilty because I ran into Dr Chaka Khan on the way and stopped for a chin wag. It seems she's been at a bit of a loose end since our ship was grounded six months ago. This was a no-brainer. Get yourself back in the Normandy medi-lab young lady! I'll pick us up a bottle of brandy.

Kaidan looked like he'd had a few bottles of brandy to himself. He looked rough. Though this was the first time I'd seen him topless and I couldn't help but be a little aroused. The guy is ripped! He was out cold but Shepard spoke to him anyway. It was along the lines of "The Normandy needs you, I need you". I may have put a little too much emphasis on the "I" but hey ho... he's unconscious anyway.

We then headed over to Udina's office for a meeting with the council to try and convince them to help Earth. Shepard lays it on thick. "Come on, guys! We need to work together against the reapers! I love every species and I love the council!" They then bring up the fact that I sacrificed the original council at the end of ME1... *shuffles feet awkwardly and stares at the floor*. "Uh... yeah, my bad."

Unsurprisingly, the council decides not to help us. Smurf you, then. Just you wait till my renegade FemShep turns up on my next play through. We'll have you all in cages, you freaks. Where's Ashley when I need her?! They are all animals!! VOTE TRUMP!! This is not my actual opinion

Moving on, we pay Commander Bailey a quick visit and he's in mid-argument with a lady called Khaleesi, Reporter of News, First of her Name. She ends up storming off, cursing in Dothraki. The chat with Bailey was brief. He expressed sadness that he may never be able to return to Earth. Shepard rubs his back and whispers softly "I know, man. I know..."

We run into Khaleesi, The Unwed, Breaker of News near the elevator. She was proper arsey so I nearly chose the renegade interrupt that flashed up. Luckily, I waited and a Paragon one appeared. She has now been added to my team of contacts. Lovely stuff!

My final action on the Citadel was to chat to James who was stood nearby looking wistfully out of a window. Now that I know it's Freddie Prince Jr it's slightly off-putting. I keep imagining FPJ with his chin to his chest putting on a really deep voice. Anyway, we chat briefly and he invites me to join him down in the wards sometime with the grunts. I say "Yeah man, we'll do that" in the kind of way that means I'll never actually do that. I'm a Spectre, man. I don't rub shoulders with the hoi polloi.

With that, Shepard decides to head back to the Normandy to see what new gadgets he has access to this time around! Next update coming later today!

Formalhaut

01-27-2017, 12:47 PM

If you never punch Khaleesi in the face across all three games, picking the paragon interrupt will make her a war asset. Neat!

Also yeah, sacrificing the War Council in one has an impact on how pleased they are to see you. In ME:2, the new council refuses to give you spectre status unless you have Anderson on the council, who grants it to you.

So Bubba: Liara or Kaiden? I see you getting flustered every time he's mentioned.

Bubba

01-27-2017, 01:13 PM

So Bubba: Liara or Kaiden? I see you getting flustered every time he's mentioned.

Now Liara is back on the Normandy, I only have eyes for her :flirt: Though the new PA girl in the Normandy did give me some second thoughts as you'll find out!

I'll definitely be getting down with Kaidan in subsequent playthroughs though :D

Bubba

01-27-2017, 03:22 PM

The Normandy

Da fuk? I was expecting a few changes on board but not this much. The inside of the Normandy was now a huge, slow-motion forest with a weird little boy running around. Ahh, it's a dream. Yeah, I knew that :shifty: Shepard is clearly still traumatised by the death of that child back on Earth. I reckon that section will become rather irksome when you get to it on subsequent playthroughs.

Dream sequence over, we have a little cut-scene with the lovely Liara. She has Miranda's old quarters now which makes sense with her being the new Shadow Broker and all. She is then interrupted by the new Comms Specialist and oh man... can I not have an ugly crew member please, game?! You are severely testing my loyalty to Liara with this young, English filly. Finally we have a comms chat with Admiral Hackett which was just a "Grrr! shakes-fist-at-council!" session.

OK! Exploration time! The first thing I spot is this new War Terminal. It gives me a list of all my assets which includes lots of things and yey! Bonuses from ME2! All those damn minerals I collected actually paid off. Plus, it looks like I've kept all the Normandy upgrades that I picked up last time too. Nice!

The rest of the floor looked pretty much the same. The galaxy map, my messages, Joker up front. It's good to be home! My cabin hadn't experienced any drastic alterations which I'm fine with. I should probably let Liara know that she has a free pass here whenever she likes :jokey:

Crew deck next. Dr Chaka Khan had settled in fine so let's check on my lady. Liara had certainly jazzed up Miranda's old quarters! She had all her screens set up for her erm... brokering work. She also had a cool little VI called Glyph. I liked him, he was cute! We had a generic catch up and then... the mood changed :jokey: She came in closer and... dammit! She brought up Jack! "I know you two were close". You don't understand! I thought you'd gone off with Conrad Verner and had blue babies! I assured her that I am now a one-woman-man... a one-bluewoman-man... (oh wait, she's both isn't she?) a one-bluewoman/man-man. Whatever... we're a couple. We arrange a nice session at a later date and I carry on with my tour.

Engineering next where we find our new reporter Diana Allers. She kind of reminds me of someone... She's like a cross between Alyson Hannigan and Jewel Staite. Anyway, I am officially off the market so she'll have to get her kicks somewhere else. Engineer Adams from ME1 also made a welcome return. Good to see you back, pal!

Finally, we hit the Shuttle Bay. James was in here being all pull-uppy and "Oooohh, look at my mussssssssssels!" I don't like him. Even more so when I realised that he can't hold a conversation with someone without being in a fight with them. F***s sake, man. I rushed through our conversation picking all the paragon choices then left him to his pull-ups. Lieutenant Cortez was our resident shop and seemed pleasant enough. He mentioned he used to have a husband so I presume he's also a romanceable character. It was so refreshing to see an openly gay character in a video game! Can FemShep romance Cortez as well or is he strictly men-only?

Anyway, that was my tour over! I headed up to the galaxy map and saved. Here beginneth my adventures in space!