You mean the Priority: Rannoch mission?
You might as well tell me. No doubt I've buggered something up.
Edit: Oh man, I didn't mention Legion's sacrifice! He gave up his life in order for the rest of the geth to become fully sentient.
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You mean the Priority: Rannoch mission?
You might as well tell me. No doubt I've buggered something up.
Edit: Oh man, I didn't mention Legion's sacrifice! He gave up his life in order for the rest of the geth to become fully sentient.
Priority: Thessia
Despite the death of Legion, things were looking up. Neither the Quarians or the geth had perished and they have both agreed to fight the reapers with us. Excellent! Right, I think it's about time to completely f**k things up.
My dear Liara's homeworld of Thessia was under serious attack from those crazy-ass Reapers. Obviously this was unacceptable and Shepard rushes to the aid of the Asari in order toreceive some mind-blowing sexsave the ancient race.
The familiar sound of sh*t-hitting-fan was clear for all to hear when our dropship landed. Shepard, Liara and Kaiden were sprinted down a ramp to assist some Asari under heavy fire. Within seconds of getting down there the barrier they were conjuring (conjuring? Creating? Casting? Idk...) was destroyed and Husks were pouring through!
Oooh, a gun turret! Time for a spot of husk-hunting. Shepard jumps behind the controls and what do we have here?? There were a load of Brutes heading over the horizon. Shepard shouts "Et Tu Brute?!" and mows them all down. He helps Liara and Kaidan mop up the Husks and we have saved Thessia! Well, not quite. We chat briefly to the Asari Commander Kurin and we need to head to a place called Outpost Tykis. I'm betting that things there will not be all sunshine and roses.
It would be an understatement to say that the buildings on Thessia could use a lick of paint. Unless the theme they were going for was crack den after nuclear explosion. Enemies here were pretty straight-forward. Marauders a-marauding, husks a-husking, banshees a... what now? What the hell is a banshee?
Ahhh, ok. It turns out banshees are mutated Asari that are controlled by the Reapers. Nice. Well no, not nice at all. They are horrible. You know the pain you get when you bang your shin on a coffee table? Well judging by the noise they make, they experience this pain constantly. They teleport around, screaming and trying to kill you. No thanks, game. I'm all good. My ridiculously souped-up sniper eventually took care of it but it was still brown-trousers time.
We proceed into more demolished buildings and there were some Asari snipers under fire from a couple of Cannibals. Oh lovely! We were approaching the Cannibals from behind and they were unaware of our presence :mwahaha: We stealthily stealthed over, stole their pocket money and gave them a wedgie... before killing them to death.
We help the snipers clear out the area the other side of them and...sweet! An even better sniper rifle! A bit further along there was an Asari soldier in a spot of bother. Her platoon/regiment/people-she-was-with were all dead. You're in the company of Commander Shepard now, love. All is well.
To be honest, I didn't actually need to do an awful lot. The lone Asari called for help on her radio and an Asari gunship showed up and blasted everything to sh*t. It was taken out straight after but still, cheers for the help dudes!
There was a clusterf**k of enemies further up the slope. Husks, Ravagers, Marauders, banshees (shudder) and two flappy-ass Harvesters. This was not as troublesome as it sounds, surprisingly. The fact that I spent 90% of the time behind cover may have been the reason for this... *Shepard uses Unity again* "Come on, guys. Put some effort into it"
At the very top of the slope was the Asari temple. Ooooh, fancy! There were lots of old Asari artefacts on display along with a huge statue. Luckily, Shepard has an in-built Prothean beacon radar and calmly tells Liara that this huge statue is one of them. Wasn't expecting that one! The beacon also thinks Shepard is a Prothean and basically says "Come touch my artefacts... come turn me on". We run around touching all the old Asari stuff and the beacon is revealed!
Oooooohhhhh!!!!!! It's similar to the beacon found on Mars and would appear to explain why the Asari are the most advanced race in the galaxy! Here was me thinking they were just more evolved than us. They've been scumming Prothean technology to advance themselves, the sneaky bastards!
Anyway, the beacon spits out an old Prothean AI and we're on the cusp of gaining the information we need to complete the Crucible and kick the Reapers to the kerb! There appeared to be one more monkey in the wrench though... Kai Leng. Looks like we'll have one more boss battle before this mission is through.
Before fisticuffs though, he shows us a familiar face. The Illusive Man! He too is after the information contained in the beacon. Over my dead body, pal! Realising that my dead body was a distinct possibility, I thought I'd be cautious in the coming fight.
CLEARLY THIS WAS THE WRONG APPROACH. I managed to get his shields down a couple of times but he just regenerated and before I knew it he'd done a runner WITH OUR CRUCIBLE INFO and we were left to watch the destruction of the Asari planet of Thessia... what have I done? Please tell me this happens regardless and I haven't smurfed up in a huge way??
Tune in next time when Shepard buys Liara some chocolates in order to apologise for letting millions of her people die and her planet be destroyed.
Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong. Thessia's just doomed. :)
Priority: Horizon
Following my horrible failure on Thessia, it was time to dust ourselves off then kick some Cerberus arse. There's no way they're getting away with causing pain to my darling Liara. You better put some lotion on, boys... because you're about to get a spanking!
Traynor managed to track Kai Leng to a Cerberus-owned facility called Horizon. We head on over there and like most locations at this point in the game... it's a sh*t tip. There's fire and debris everywhere and this only gets worse as a Cerberus drop ship crashes right near us and spews out a few goons. Oooh yeah, I'm just itching for a good fight... bring it on!
We take them out with ease and enter the facility. There are a few PDA's dotted around and also a video log from ol' perky-ass, Miranda! It seems she's tracked her sister here and suspects that her father had a hand in her disappearance. Talk about a Family Feud! "I'll take 'Daddy issues' for 200, Alex!" Hang on, that's Jeopardy isn't it? Ignore me.
The next area has a guy relaxing on a lilo in the middle of a huge swimming pool. No wait, he's dead... and it isn't a pool. Well, whatever this large body of water is, we press a switch to drain it. There's nowhere to go except into the newly-drained pool which contained some Reaper tech... possibly a snow-cone maker. There was also a secret passage in the empty pool. Onward!
We arrive at a new room and are tasked with turning on the power. This is all very Resident-Evil, so far! We access a nearby computer and holy sh*t... Cerberus are bad, bad people. I mean, we already knew this BUT STILL. This 'sanctuary' was just a facility for Cerberus to turn all the refugees into Husks!
The next room has another console where we see Miranda and her sister being pursued by that walking vomit-stain, Kai Leng. I hope we're not too late to tear this guy a new one. HUSKS! A lot of them. I suppose this was expected considering the amount of refugees that would have been turned here. I refused to think about them as former people though... they were now smelly husks so I went pew! pew! Bish bash bosh. Job done.
We then bust up an anger management meeting between a couple of marauders, a banshee and a ravager. Clearly their meetings aren't going very well as they seemed very angry. Luckily for them, their meetings will no longer be required as I took them out... and I don't mean for a steak and a nice bottle of shiraz.
We descend some stairs into a room with a couple more audio logs from Miranda's troublesome Dad. I scan the rest of the room and legitimately nearly soiled myself when I approached a window... there was a banshee on the other side literally inches from my face. Smurf off, Horizon with your Resident Evil-style scares!
A new room, a new set of ugly-faced, freak-shows to deal with... and deal with them I did :cool:. A new PDA gives us a big reveal... Miranda's Dad is working for the Illusive Man! Well yeah, I'd kind of already figured that out but thanks anyway, game. Mr Lawson and Charlie Sheen's Dad were discussing their experiments which changed refugees into Husks. It's strange they would leave this incriminating evidence just lying around on a desk but hey ho.
We pushed on and an interesting 'double-corridor' fight took place. Cannibals down the left one, Ravagers to the right (Everyone! "Here I am, stuck in the middle with you!!"). I berated Tali and Garrus as they kept walking in front of the Ravagers and getting killed. Then I remembered I'm the Commander and should be telling them where to go. OK fine, I'll do that... though I would've thought "don't walk into a barrage of oncoming fire" is common sense. This was certainly a dangerous corridor so when I downed what I thought was the last enemy... I waited. Just to make sure. Eventually, the game flashed me a message saying "Search the Perimeter" which is another way of saying "Get a move on, you smurfing coward."
Final battle time! We activate a little platform taking us to the other side of the facility only to find three brutes and a banshee... which sounds like the name of a Norwegian death metal band. A combination of Garrus' Overload, Tali's combat drone and my awesomeness were enough to nullify the threat. Lovely!
We hear gunfire from the next room... it turns out the Lawson Jeopardy/Family Feud was in full swing! Daddy Lawson had his daughter (Oriana) held hostage while Miranda was standing off. Tense! Will Mr Lawson make it out of this Family Feud alive? Our survey says...
III ERRR!!! Or, whatever the noise for an incorrect answer is on Family Feud in your respective country. Fun fact: In the UK, the show is called Family Fortunes. The more you know :monster:
Anyway, back to this game I'm playing. Shepard manages to convince her Dad to let Oriana go. Yey, no-one dies! Miranda had other ideas though and biotic-punched her Dad through a glass window and he fell to what I'm sure was a horrible, splattery death. Ah well, they didn't sound that close anyway. Mission completed!
Tune in next time when George R R Martin is drafted in to write the end of ME:3 resulting in the destruction of the entire universe.
Did you see the videos with the origin of EDI? That came as a surprise to me.
Not on Horizon! I did see them tonight though. Just finished Priority: Cerberus Headquarters. Lots of interesting reveals!Quote:
Originally Posted by theundeadhero
Should have it typed up tomorrow :D
Oh yeah, I thought that was Horizon, but I guess it is HQ. I remembered wrong :p
A quick update before I dive into the next mission!
There was a lovely scene with Tali in the Normandy bar area after the last mission. She was sat getting wasted by inhaling booze through a straw/ventilation port. It was pretty damn hilarious! It was also quite sweet as she expressed how much she liked and respected Miranda. A touching scene... not that kind of touching you filthy cretins.
Also, it appears my previous dalliances with Jack and flirting with... well, everyone... has not dampened Liara's feelings towards me. She came to my quarters. We sat on the bed. There was definite touching and yes... that kind of touching. She told me she loved me, I told her I liked her as a friend and then we bonked the night away. Happy times :)
Priority: Cerberus headquarters
OK. We've found the Illusive Man's hideout at the arse-end of some galaxy. We need to recover the Prothean VI which holds the key to completing the Crucible that should enable us to finally defeat the Reapers.
Attachment 73641
Good.
EDI is a mandatory part of the squad for this escapade and I also bring Garrus for his sexy voice. A quick Skype to Admiral Hackett reveals that attempting this mission will let the Reapers know about our plans with the Crucible. I thought it was strange that the Hack man gave me a choice of proceeding or waiting. Ahhhhh, this must be the ol' point of no return. Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let's go!
Joker gets us in close and we shuttle our way into the hangar. I was foolishly hoping we would take them by surprise and they would all be taking coffee breaks or something... no such luck. We were met by Troopers, Centurions, a Nemesis and a damn Atlas Mech.
The hangar was huge and had limited cover but it wasn't too tough. They seemed to have borrowed a smoke machine from the 80's rock band Van Halen as I could barely see any of them. Luckily, I thought it prudent to update a lot of my weapons prior to this mission and my sniper had a smoke-scope thingy... nowhere to hide, f**knuts! I saved the mech till last and thoroughly enjoyed sniping the pilot through the cockpit window.
My glorious victory was short-lived however. Once the hangar was clear, EDI told me "We need to deactivate the hangar vent". No worries, Just gonna have a little scout around of the area. "Shepard , we need to deactivate the hangar vent." OK fine, where is it? "Shepard, the hangar vent needs deactivating." WHERE IS IT, YOU METAL DICK?!!
Attachment 73642
Oh for f**ks sake.
Fortunately, we re-spawned after the hectic hangar battle and I managed to find some well hidden ladders up to... well would you look at this!! A deactivation point for the hangar vent! Cheers EDI, you could have told me it was on the upper level. I wasn't happy with that death, especially considering there was no timer :mad2:
Activating the vent alerted more troops to us. I was in a bad mood now so I wasn't taking any sh*t. We blew the troopers away and made our way down a couple of ladders. My spirits lifted slightly when I was able to fiddle with some rotation controls and send a Cerberus ship hurtling through a set of closed hangar doors. Pretty cool, game. More stuff like this please :-)
The fiery hole it left behind just happened to be the perfect size for an Atlas Mech to come sauntering through. Do Atlas Mechs saunter? I dunno but this one did. The anger from that sneaky death was still burning inside me though and I dispatched him and his cronies, ruthlessly. I mean seriously... I was ruthless. There was literally no ruth to be seen anywhere. That chick has gone, scarpered, disappeared.
Like a turd after a curry, we passed through the burning hole and found ourselves in a series of rooms with terminals giving us some interesting insights. We learn a bit more about the Lazarus Project which is the only reason I'm still playing this game. I appreciate your efforts, everyone! Also, EDI's origins were revealed to be from the Rogue VI that we dealt with way back in ME1! She'd been engineered with additional Reaper tech too. I did enjoy that link back to the original game.
Anyway, we jump down a random blue hole because it seemed like the right thing to do and find ooooohhhh! It's the leftovers of the Terminator boss we fought at the end of ME2! Thankfully he's still well and truly deaded and we just had to deal with Nemeses and Phantoms on these awkward catwalks. Popping in-and-out of cover with my trusty sniper soon had the way forward clear.
We climbed right up to the top and eventually entered... The Illusive Man Room! You know the one, when he Skype's you he's always sat in that chair with stuff in the background. Yeah, you know the one. It's the picture after every single mission you complete in ME2. Anyway, we're here and guess who isn't home? Yup, Mr Illusive himself. Illusive indeed.
He bing-bongs us on Skype though and some serious sh*t gets revealed. Are you guys and gals ready?? The Illusive Man is attempting to control the Reapers which just sounds... stupid. We try our best to convince him of how stupid he's being but it clearly doesn't work. Ahh, forget talking to this prick, we find the Prothean VI and The Illusive Man does a runner.
The VI has some earth-shattering information... and earth-shattering is definitely the appropriate term to use. The Catalyst thing that is due to destroy the Reapers is in fact... The Citadel! To make matters a million times worse, The Illusive Man knows this and is heading there now. He's also alerted the Reapers who in turn have taken control of the Citadel and moved it. Before the location was revealed I found I already knew the answer... Earth.
I barely had time to digest all this when we are suddenly faced with that damp tuft of rectal pubic hair... Kai Leng. Surely now, it was time for this :bou::bou::bou::bou:'s demise.
Eeek, the fight starts with the prick running straight at me and I'm pretty sure he wasn't going to give me a hug. We do a bit of grappling before I manage to break away and then leg it to the other side of the room. I knew this guy would be tough! I used Overload a lot and tried sniping him from a distance. This seemed to work because he stopped to regenerate his shields and summoned a swarm of troopers to keep us busy. I tried to take these out first but found that just running around and keeping focus on Kai Leng seemed to be doing the trick. The battle became even tougher when he started summoning Phantoms and Nemeses to help him but eventually (and following a few Shepard deaths)... we clear the room and Kai Leng is dead!!
Oh wait, no he isn't. He's still moving and somehow sneaks up on me from behind. Oh man... there was a renegade interrupt option here and I have never been more tempted to press one. I seriously just wanted to gut this guy. Everything turned out rosy though as Shepard dodges the attack, turns around and sticks a blade right in his stomach! Damn... I wonder what the renegade option was then?
Anyway, mission over and all that's left now is a journey to the Citadel and see if we can save Earth!
Tune in next time when this thread which started at the dawn of time may finally be coming to a conclusion.
Awww, there was also a lovely moment back on the Normandy. I spoke to everyone and they all seemed very focussed on what we needed to do. Everyone except Tali and Garrus who were touching each other up in one of the rooms! You go, you two! Get some!
The Renegade Interrupt
Well worth it.
Priority: Earth
Well, it's finally arrived. After over a year of typing up an LP for these three games, we're finally at the end... for those of you still reading anyway :lol:
An epic cut-scene plays showing us arriving at Earth. All of us. All the races I'd managed to unite in an attempt to kick the Reapers into oblivion. I was very proud of the fact that there were so many of us and I felt a little emotional. Go me! *sobs* I pull myself together in time for the start of the mission though. Come on! One last fight!
Here's the situation: The Reapers have control of the Citadel and they have managed to close the thing up. This poses a serious problem for us as there is no way we can dock with it and try and activate this Crucible. Commander Anderson has a plan though. There is a facility on Earth (London, to be precise) which allows the Reapers to 'beam up' to the Citadel, Star Trek-style. Unfortunately, this facility is being guarded by a big-ass Reaper (that is, a large-in-size Reaper... not a Reaper in the shape of a plump bum) and there was no way to take it down from the air due to interference or something. That only leaves us with one option... Shepard will lead a ground assault and face these f**kers head-on.
London has clearly seen better days. Cortez flies us into what looks a bit like a train station... and this station was Prick Central. We hadn't even landed and already I was having my shield reduced by Cannibals and Marauders. Ooooh, let me at 'em!
I seemed to have picked up a snazzy rifle from somewhere because the one I was using was awesome. It was very similar to the sniper rifle (damage-wise) but I could use it a number of times in quick succession. Cue lots of falling Reaper goons. I would have made quicker work of them all but there is some weird blue cannon that keeps going off in the distance causing the ground to shake. It was like trying to snipe whilst sat on a high-speed tumble dryer.
We slowly creep up this hill whilst taking out goons that were trying to flank us. "I see you there hiding behind that barrel, you sneaky bastard!" Shepard would yell... or at least he should have. I did.
We were greeted at the top of the hill by a couple of Brutes. I was pretty sure they weren't there for autographs so I wasted no time in taking them down. The normal goons were more annoying though as they kept circling around in an attempt to penetrate from behind. Only Kaidan has permission to that, you ugly :bou::bou::bou::bou:s.
Once we'd disposed of these freakazoids, we were tasked with locating one of our drop ships that had crashed. Apparently, it was carrying some juicy weaponry which will enable us to take out that weird blue reaper cannon I told you about before (if you were paying attention :colbert:).
We head up a nearby 'rubble ramp' and our path to the wrecked shuttle was blocked by even more agents of ugliness. This time, we had a ravager to deal with, he kind of looks like a less-colourful version of Mr. Blobby... with none of the slapstick humour associated with that comedy legend.
We clear out the goons before finally arriving at the downed ship and sure enough... an M-920 is sat there waiting for us to give its trigger a tickle. I assume I only get one shot with this thing. Luckily, the weird blue reaper cannon is literally right next to us and it's huuuuuuuge. You'd have to be a special kind of incompetent if you were to miss from here. I take aim and BOOM! The Reaper Cannon is an ex-Reaper Cannon!
This was the most joyous of news as it meant it was now safe for a drop ship to arrive and complete our extraction. Of course, it was never gonna be that simple. A Banshee was stalking us and a gaggle of Cannibals were trying to flank us. I took down the Banshee but was completely pinned down by the chuffing Cannibals. That drop ship extraction would be handy right about now!
Oh, you are taking the piss. The drop ship pilot either hates us or is a complete f**ktard. He decides the best place to land is on the other side of the Cannibals. What a prick.
I bring up my special menu to see what power I can blast them with and oh! I have a rare moment of inspiration! I realized this was the perfect opportunity to wearHarry's Cloak of Invisibilitymy tactical cloak. I leg it past the bewildered Cannibals and make it safely into the warm, cosy drop ship. Mission over and game finished!
Well, not quite. We find ourselves at the forward command base and we had a bit of down time. THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM. There were some familiar faces loitering about here. My favourite was my old pal Urdnot Wrex. He was busy giving an uplifting speech to the Krogan. I decided to stand directly in front of him and stare because I am a crazy cat.
Shepard then gives a stirring speech of his own to the Normandy crew and we are finally ready for the final battle/assault/thing.
Tune in tomorrow (or ten days from now... or whenever I can be arsed typing up the end) for the exciting conclusion to Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures!
So close to the end! I think my favourite "last chance to talk before the trout goes down" might be with Garrus. Just like old times, you bird-thing with a metallic exoskeleton, you. :whimper:
I'm not sure if you caught it, but there's like a ?telephone? thing where you can call all your buddies not their on Earth at the moment. Some good moments all around there though. I can't wait to hear how much you cuss at different parts of the last mission, though!
Oh yeah! I did catch those bits!
Some dude was manning a phone and asked if there's anyone I'd like to contact. I had some lovely conversations with Jacob, Samara, Miranda and best of all Jack. She does look really hot with her new haircut.
I'm gonna smurf my way through everyone on my Renegade playthrough
It's all over.
I was gonna wrap this up in one update but I've changed my mind. It'll be one post for the lead-up to the end... then one for the ending.
Buckle up!
Was that dafuq for the ending? xD
Unpopular opinion: I quite like the ending. But, to each their own. There are definitely problems with it.
Priority: End of Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures
Well, I expected things to be tasty... and they were! Not just gammon-egg-and-chips tasty... but Chinese-duck-pancakes-with-cucumber-spring-onion-and-hoisin-sauce tasty!
A year of honing my skills on these games have turned me into a c**t-killing bad-ass. I now effortlessly switch from sniper to rifle to shotgun and mow down all comers. My dear Liara was on hand with her maxed-out biotic powers and Tali was on hand with her super-handy combat/defence drones. Good to go!
All you mako-haters from ME1 must have thoroughly enjoyed the start of this mission. We advance under cover of a pair of gung-ho mako bad boys. It does not end well for them. The first one gets blown up and the second one is inconveniently set on fire by a Harvester. Oh dear.
I've decided that Banshees are my most hated enemy in the entire Mass Effect series. Their scream is horrible and just when I have them in my sights, they teleport away. NO. STOP IT. I took this f***er down first to get him out of the way. The Harvester on the other hand, was a very good boy. Whose-a-good-boy?!! You-are!! Oooshaboo!! Yeah, he just sat there and let me shoot him. *pats his corpse on the head when walking past*
We get a call from a nearby patrol saying they need our help. Of course you do. We head into a building and end up in a parking garage. We happen upon a group of husks huddled around a barrel fire singing There Are Two Kinds of Love. They don't take kindly to being interrupted and charge at us. These guys are a piece of piss now but they were soon joined by a couple of Brutes. I hid behind an old jeep in the corner and kept myself on the opposite side to them. We did the dance-around-the-car-dance until I finished them off with my shotgun.
We climb a ladder to somebody's swanky apartment. Well, I'm sure it used to be swanky before the invasion of huge, horrible killing machines. Stepping out onto the street disturbed another husk singing troupe. These pricks were singing Dancing Queen so I threw all my grenades at them as quickly as I could.
We made our way down the street taking out Marauders and Ravagers. Suddenly, a Brute burst out of a Hooters (the dirty dawg) and took down my shield. Run away! Cue much scrabbling by me before retreating and taking him down from a distance.
Right, what followed was a lot of killing and advancing. I'm going to save you the blow-by-blow account though. Some of the locations (full of reaper uglies) featured: A retail shop (possibly HMV), a cute little square (a little tapas bar here would be lovely) and a restaurant dining room (where the only thing being 'served' were the Reapers :lol:). Holy crap, I'm hilarious.
After the restaurant was a long alleyway which looked suspiciously empty. Maybe I'm being pessimistic. The game might be giving me a little break before the next horrible thing arrives... NOPE. We arrive at the end of the alley when two Brutes come smashing into the alley giving us nowhere to go.
(SPOILER)Attachment 73882
Obviously, we do a quick 180 and sprint back to the other end of the alley to take refuge. Methinks they'll have a slight advantage when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. Hide, overload, hide, snipe... job done.
OK, we arrive at (what turns out to be) the final big section of uglies. Here's the lowdown: We're still trying to reach the conduit which will beam us up to the Citadel. Unfortunately, it's being guarded by the biggest Reaper you've ever seen. Luckily, the place we've just arrived at is home to a couple of huge rocket launchers... both facing towards the big boy! We just had to run about the area like headless chickens, protect the launchers, and kill anything that moves. Hoooo boy.
I'm not going to detail all my deaths here but rest assured... I died A LOT. The first wave was manageable with just Marauders and stuff. Next came a couple of Brutes which I stupidly took care of using a nearby one-shot Hydra cannon. Yeah, I should have saved that for the next wave...
Sh*t the smurfing bed. The final wave consisted of SIX Brutes, THREE Banshees and a Harvester. Speaking of final waves, I gave mine A LOT here. A LOT. Did I mention how much I hate Banshees? Well I do. I really do. I don't think I'd even finished killing everything when EDI pipes up saying that the rockets were ready to fire. About smurfing time!
I leg it over there, activate the controls and BOOM! The rocket fires and hits the Reaper right in the... red dot thing, whatever that is. It's not completely down but the Conduit is exposed! More legging it ensued as we all dashed for the Conduit. Allies were disintegrating left, right and centre as the Reaper kept blasting away with his big, red beam thingy. Suddenly, the screen turns white and... I honestly thought I was dead.
Not quite as it turns out! We wake up looking like absolute s**t BUT... we were only yards from the Conduit! Man, this is exciting! We stagger over like a drunken Irishman, occasionally shooting the odd Reaper with some very shakey aiming. Despite a few stumbles along the way, we drag ourselves over and into the Conduit.
Stay with me... we're almost there!
That section where you're holding out against the waves of enemies is intense. Hands down the hardest section in all of the Mass Effect games, I'd say.
Priority: F**k the f**king ending, man. F**k it.
We materialise in (though I wasn't sure at first) The Citadel. There were bodies lying everywhere like a party at Charlie Sheen's house. It appears that Anderson had gotten here first and was tapping away at some console. Wait for me, man!
Shepard limps forward and up a walkway eventually arriving in a huge room (which kinda looks like Professor X's Cerebro place) with our pal Anderson still tap-tap-tapperooing. It turns out he's actually being controlled by none other than... The Intrusive Man!
It's at this moment where I would like to remove any further recollection of Mass Effect 3 as it did its very best (but luckily not managing) to ruin the entire series for me. It has to be said, this is partially due to my own stupidity but anyway... here we go.
The Erosive Man (who looks epic as half-reaper, btw) is still giving his verbal diarrhoea about trying to control the Reapers. He then decides he quite likes the look of Anderson's sidearm. He removes it from its holster and points it straight at Anderson's temple. A renegade interrupt flashes up! Nah, I'm not falling for that. I know how this works. Shepard will keep him talking until the paragon interrupt option appea... NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
How am I only given a renegade interrupt?!! I thought I was a goodie :( When a second renegade interrupt flashed up I didn't hesitate. He tried shooting me but of course... we get there first. Yeah! Burn in imaginary fiery, sub-world you bastard!
Shepard is literally on his last legs now and it really doesn't look good for him. I always thought he might die for the cause in the end. After a quick comm link to his pals outside, Shepard opens up the arms of the Citadel and docks with the Crucible. OK ending, let's see what you've got.
We are approached my that annoying little boy from my dreams. Well, Shepard's dreams... I don't dream about little boys. He turns out to be the Catalyst (or a human representation of it, at least) and he has some interesting news... we can actually control the Reapers! The scrawny little dude is about to present me with three options...
Option 1: Destroy the Reapers
Option 2: Control the Reapers
Option 3: Synthesis
The last option was interesting and was indeed very tempting. We synch together organic and Reaper/geth life into one new species. Hmmm, interesting. But I've come all this way trying to destroy the pricks and dammit that's what I'm going to do.
I guide an increasingly-shakey Shepard up a nearby ramp. There were three paths to explore so we'll get the uphill ascent out of the way first, otherwise Shepard might not even make it. We get to the first option and... prepare yourselves for some incredible stupidity on my part.
I arrive there to find a 'control panel'. Instead of thinking "OK, this is the 'control' option. I'll go check out the others". I instead thought "Oh look, a control panel. I must be able to choose one of the three options by just accessing this terminal."
Wrong.
Yup, I had inadvertently triggered the wrong ending. What a f**king idiot. Shepard melts into a load of weird blue stuff, and huge pulse of blue energy bursts out across the galaxy. Let's see how much of a f**k-up I've made.
Initially, things look OK. The Reapers stop reaping and leave Earth... cue much rejoicing from any poor sod that is left alive. Then things go downhill quite quickly. The pulse of energy manages to destroy every single Mass Relay in the galaxy. Also, Joker is suddenly flying the Normandy away from one of the Mass Relay explosions. He's furiously pressing buttons on the console like he's playing Track and Field after taking a tonne of drugs. He manages to escape and crash-land on a nearby planet.
Joker emerges from the wreckage followed by Liara (who was on my team heading to the Conduit, remember!) and finally Garrus. They take in their surroundings and the camera pans cinematically away and the game ends.
You can imagine my surprise at the suddenness of the ending. I sat there for about ten minutes trying to digest what I'd just seen. I was then overcome with anger (both at the game and my own stupidity) and decided I wanted to see the ending if I'd done what I meant to do and destroyed the Reapers. *Pulls up Youtube*
What? WHAT?! You get the same f**king ending! Oh wait, no. It's a f**king red pulse instead of a blue one. Relays destroyed, (okay, Reapers as well this time) Joker flys away, crashes on jungle planet. Even more annoyed I then watched the Synthesis ending.
Are you taking the f**king piss? A green pulse, relays destroyed, Joker flys away, crashes on Jungle planet.
I was awake for an hour thinking about this before falling asleep. My next post is basically a s**t-list of everything wrong with what just happened. Mr Carnelian - feel free to try and explain how you could possibly like that ending. It literally had me like...
:colbert:
:doublecolbert:
:Freybert:
Take it you didn't get the free "Extended Ending" DLC? Feel free to look up the Extended Ending cutscenes on youtube.
Also, the relays are only permanently destroyed if you done goofed (again, that might be with the Ending DLC downloaded, I forget).
If you destroy them your shepard has a *BREATH* moment, otherwise yer ded.
Well, if you do the "Control" ending you don't exactly "die", just become the incorporeal Reaper Queen/King. So, the only one in which you're DEFINITELY dead is the Synthesis ending.Quote:
Originally Posted by Freya
Yeah, I really need to get the DLC because I am not a happy bunny. Not one bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Carnelian
Yeah, I saw that on one of the endings on YouTube. Lame. That's your reward for doing everything right? Shepard inhaling? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Freya
Ok, where shall I start?
- How about some closure? I've been journeying with these characters for over a year and I've grown to love (most of) them. I want to know what happens to everyone.
- Will Liara be able to move on without me?
- Do Garrus and Liara have babies together on her home world?
- Do Wrex and wifey have the baddest Krogans EVER?
- Do Joker and EDI have weird cyberbabies?
- Does Jacob do the dirty again?
- Will Miranda's bum ever start sagging?
No, we don't get any of this. Just Shepard taking a breath. That could have been his last for all I know! What happens to everyone, game?!!
- What happens now the Mass Relays are f**ked? OK, the DLC might address this but... every smurfing member of every smurfing race are currently at Earth trying to win the war. How do they get back home? Oh, I'm sure Earth has the resources to put everyone up. No worries.
- Why was Liara on the Normandy with Joker when she was on the Conduit mission with me like ten minutes earlier? OK, the passage of time is unclear but it's still very jarring. Surely she wouldn't just abandon me and fly off into the sunset with Joker? Bitch.
- Also, why was the Normandy running away when every other ship was still fighting a good fight? Why didn't it hang around to, I don't know... MAKE SURE I WAS ALL RIGHT.
Ok, I had more but I don't want to whinge too much. I think I'm just upset because it's all very fresh. I can honestly say it's one of the best game series I've ever played. It was sooo good. This is why I'm upset because I was fully invested in every character and it didn't tell me anything. I just feel cheated.
Yeah so just ignore that ending and the game is pretty good. Those are the same questions everyone asked.
I'm trying my best to ignore it!
It's a shame because I'd say ME:3 was at least on par with ME:2 up until that point. Still excited to play through them all again. I'm gonna make damn sure I have all the DLC this time.
Closure is a personal choice and it would be impossible to show what happens to everyone. Although, if you chose the renegade option EDI is destroyed along with all the other stuff, so there's that.
Now that the mass relays are smurfed, we rebuild them. I guess normal ending doesn't say so, but extended ending does.
Your teammates are on the Normandy because it picked them up and you told it to get the hell out of there before your bright white flash part. That was an extended ending thingy.
Keep whinging.
Personally, I felt that the Extended Endings gave just about enough closure. The ending still feels a bit rushed, even with the Extended stuff, but it honestly doesn't bother me that much. I'm in the minority on that, though.
As soon as I've managed to download American PSN I'm gonna run the ending again with the extended DLC. It seems they've tried their best to fix some of the problems so we'll see. I've had my rant now so I'm gonna try and focus on the positives.
There may be a couple more updates once I've sorted it out. Really excited to try out the Citadel DLC :D
Priority: Citadel (DLC)
About f***ing time too.
Since my last post, I have completed the entire trilogy again as renegade Femshep and only now, after saving the galaxy twice in pretty much the exact same way, does Anderson decide that our crew has earned a little R&R... YOU THINK?!!
Anyway, the Citadel DLC is brought to you by Commander Regina Shepard of planet Badass.
Attachment 76271
Anderson wants to meet me at his apartment on the Citadel... oh aye? Dirty old bastard. I know I shagged about a bit as renegade femshep (Liara, Kelly Chambers and Samantha Traynor if you're interested) but I'm not gonna shack up with any old dude, regardless of military ranking.
Although, entering his apartment I immediately thought that it'd be worth a roll-in-the-hay just to spend the night here. It was swanky as hell! There was a TV bigger than my ego, a grand piano, a poker table and a bar big enough to sustain my stage 1 alcoholism. How the f*** does Anderson deserve this place? I'M the one that saved the galaxy... TWICE! I'M the one that should have this f***ing apartment. I always hated that f***head Anderson, the entitled prick.
It was at this point Anderson appeared on comms and said I could have his apartment. He said he won't really need it anymore. I always liked Anderson. What an absolute gent. I celebrated by getting smashed, beating myself at poker and performing an enthusiastic but completely off-key rendition of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights.
The rest of the apartment was just Anderson doing Anderson things. It appears he is writing his memoirs as he had 30-second excerpts recorded all over the apartment. Here's an idea mate... why not keep them all in one place? Tsk. Anderson also had an interview of himself on repeat on the kitchen TV. F***s sake man, get over yourself.
New pad explored, we receive a message from Joker (yey!) asking me to meet him for sushi (boo!). I'll tolerate a plate of anti-food if it means a catch-up with Joker. Off we trot!
This being a traditional Japanese sushi restaurant I was ushered to the front of the line by an irritating French man. I took my seat next to Joker who was on fine form. It was nice being back with the crew even if it was just one of them! I was mid-joke about my spectre status warranting two umbrellas in our cocktails when a panicky woman called Brooks approached the table. She'd come to warn us that there are people trying to kill us! Being completely unperturbed by this non-new information I returned to my plate of food... my stone-cold fish with vinegared rice wrapped in seaweed. Then a bunch of guys burst in and started shooting the place to sh*t which quite frankly came as something of a relief.
Turns out Brooks was right, they grab her and demand to see Shepard. Careful what you wish for, pal! I make Joker go and grab the crew and pull out my trusty pistol. Time to wreck some goons! That was the plan anyway... but I haven't played this game in nearly two years. I was quite startlingly bad. I ran out of ammo in about 30 seconds with the majority of my bullets hitting the sushi bar. I then rushed at the remaining goons with an attempt at melee which almost resulted in my death. Embarrassing.
Once that sh*tshow was over, Brooks bravely took a bullet for me and I went crashing through the floor/fishtank(?), sliding down a neon sign before crash-landing in a dark room in the Citadel underbelly. Phew!
Brooks gives me a call to say she's ok but is completely off her tits due to consuming all her medi-gel. Wait, you can get high off medi-gel?? I can only assume that due to Shepard being a raging alcoholic that she is immune to such effects.
I jump over a few gaps, down some ladders and find myself in some weird car shop. Looks like I'm shooting some more of these merc troopers. I'm really rusty with these mechanics but luckily the lovely Liara shows up to lend me a hand! She's pretty nice to me too considering I binned her off for younger models in Mass Effect 2 & 3.
We push on further and are eventually ambushed by a dropship full of mercs. Luckily, James arrives and takes them out with all the subtlety of a nuclear explosion. He lights them up with a rocket that almost takes out us and half the bloody Citadel. Cretin.
He was handy to have around in the following firefight though as my pistol skills were still well-and-truly AWOL. I almost die like three times before Steve Cortez eventually shows up to save our arses and whisk as back to my apartment for recovery whiskey and a few lines of medi-gel.
Tune in next time when Shepard is imprisoned and her apartment confiscated following two-years worth of unpaid tax.
Welcome to the best part of the games! Those were my first time romance choices, too. Traynor is the best!
Agreed! I think it was the accent that did it for me. She piqued my interest on my first playthrough but Male Shep did nothing for her with his dirty old shlong.Quote:
Originally Posted by theundeadhero
Priority: Citadel (cont...)
A well-deserved chillax back at Casa del Shepard was the order of the day. I have a nice parle with crew: James has a crush on our new pal Brooks, Javik was hanging around outside my bedroom like a creepy perve... and Tali revealed she used to enjoy watching the marine life through the sushi restaurant window... until I destroyed it half an hour ago.
Anyway, Liara the Shadow Broker extraordinaire has found a lead on my attempted assassination and identity theft. There's a shady bloke called Khan who deals in arms... that's weapons, not limbs... and he owns a casino. ALSO, the casino has an upcoming charity event! Time for some sneaky-sneaky-stealthy-stealthy action. Our excitement was hard to contain! Liara even cracked a joke about a Hanar prostitute with camera implants. Good times :-)
Anyhoo, we rock up at the casino and f*** me... Shepard, Brooks & Garrus on the red carpet might just be the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Brooks heads to the ventilation shaft and it's up to Liara and I to distract the guards and disable alarms & cameras. Game on!
Before that though, we had some mingling to do. I decided my first port of call was to crush it on the dancefloor. What followed was a dazzling fusion of sexy/geeky street dance which left a lifelong impression on any onlookers. I followed this up with some ill-advised gambling... I managed to break even at Quaser before losing spectacularly betting on a three-legged varren named Princess.
OK, Brooks wanted access to a shaft (SPOILER):jokey: so I had to distract some dopey-looking guard. I informed him that some junkie was doing Red Sand in the toilets... the fact that it was Shepard required no explanation.
We then had to disable a sensor & camera which were being watched by a second guard. It was Garrus' turn to distract the guard. Being the charasmatic stud that he is, within two seconds the guard was madly in love and Shepard nipped in to disable the system.
There was another section with multiple terminals and guards that I totally sucked ass at. I'm not gonna talk about that too much as it took me for-f***ing-ever. Let's just skip to the part where we deactivated what we needed and gained access to the panic room.
Oh dear.
It turns out our man Khan is deader than a Saturday night in Salt Lake City. Worse than that, all the data drives have been wiped. The unknown culprit then appears over comms to tell us that he's going to destroy me and everything that I stand for. Considering I stand for alcohol, hookers and red sand... I definitely need to try and stop this guy. We grab the deleted drive and whisk it back to my apartment to see if EDI can salvage anything.
Tune in next time when Shepard kidnaps Princess the three-legged varren and serves her as part of a slap-up barbeque on her balcony.
I love making Wrex my date for that part. He gives the game something it has been missing for a while, and hearing him complain about what he has to wear, and his distraction methods, are some fun times.
I love the Citadel DLC, so glad you finally got around to it! The casino section is one sticks out in my memory, largely because of the funny one-liners you get in the walk-in scene.
I think I'm gonna have to Youtube that as it sounds HILARIOUS.Quote:
Originally Posted by theundeadhero
It was a great sequence overall. It's just a shame I became distracted again after my last update!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Carnelian
Watch this space. Gonna concentrate and pushing on with this tonight. Update to come tomorrow!
:hyper:
Sorry for the delay... a quick summary of where we're up to.
- Anderson gives us his apartment
- We eat sushi with Joker
- We meet Brooks, she tells us Shepard's been hacked
- Place is shot to sh*t then we break a fishtank
- We kill lots of bad guys then go back to the apartment
- Liara has a lead on who hacked us - Elijah Khan, Casino owner
- We go to the casino and break into Khan's office
- The dude is dead.
- We grab his disk drive and go home
Priority: Citadel (cont...)
Back at our swanky apartment, Brooks (who is proving herself very useful, despite being a medi-gel addict) has pulled some data off the disk drive. Apparently, the Mercs who were shooting us won a massive job lot on eBay for some heavy duty ME weapons. They just outbid shelbymustang2017 (100% positive feedback - A+++ ebayer) at the last second.
That still doesn't give us much to... hang on! Glyph pipes up. Shepard's Spectre access code is in use at Citadel Archives, right now! We head to leave only to be confronted by a pizza-delivering Volus with a double pepperoni. You see James, this is why you never get picked to run point. Tsk!
The archives are on lock-down so we decide to take the Barret-busting-into-Shinra-HQ approach. Unsurprisingly, we are immediately in a firefight. It's a pretty easy win but Brooks undoes all her hardwork by getting herself captured. By... wtf... by me?!! It turns out Cerberus had a second Shepard (we'll call her Anti-Shep) created so they could harvest her for spare limbs and stuff if Main-Shep got hurt. Kinda reminds me of that film The Island with Ewan McGregor, remember that? Yeah, me neither.
This new Shepard is NOT friendly so my thoughts immediately turn toa Shepard/Traynor/Shepard threesomehow we can take her down. Anti-Shep escapes with Brooks and tries to have us killed. Obviously I don't like that plan and come up with a different one. More goons dead and the chase is on! We set off with Main-Shep's words still ringing in my head "I'm really looking forward to killing myself". Ahh, me circa-2017.
We hurry on and find ourselves in a huuuuuuge room. It kinda looked that room at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark with all the boxes, but with over-sized whiskey barrels. I decided not to check to see if it was whiskey otherwise my mission objectives would have changed fairly quickly.
We push on. It was a standard Mass Effect fare of chasing the main baddie through a facility, interspersed with taking down bad guys. The most interesting parts were all the holographic recordings dotted around the place we could watch. The first flashback was of a group of Turians torturing a human for information. Cue awkward atmosphere between Shepard and Garrus :erm:
There were other entertaining recordings for our delectation. Some of the highlights included: A dreadnought assault on the Citadel, the senseless slaughter of a group of AIs... and a POV sex tape between Ambassador Udina and a Hanar prostitute with camera implants.
There was also a nice video of the the decision to promote Shepard to Spectre status back in the day! While we were busy reminiscing, Anti-Shep was making her way to the Normandy to try and steal our ship. It looks like she might succeed too as she was Jamming our commsAttachment 76507. We hauled ass and almost catch up with them before being cruelly (and stupidly) caught in some blue force field right at the exit.
Bombshell time... Brooks has betrayed us, the sneaky f***ing sneak! Turns out she used to work for Cerberus but fell out with The Illusive Man of Illusiveness. Now she's just a dick, apparently. Both her and Anti-Shep taunt us a second time ala Monty Python... then bugger off to steal our ship. Meanwhile Main-Shep and crew are shoved into a whiskey barrel and are left in the archives to rot. So ends the disappointingly-short Citadel DLC.
Oh hang on, Glyph is still buzzing around outside and is kind enough to let us out. Shepard still might have time to stop herself from stealing her own ship! From herself!
Joker shows up in a dropship and Shepard, Liara and Garrus prepare to... oh wait. Tali has a sulk about rarely getting picked and makes me feel mega-guilty. So much so that I end up reloading the last save point just so I can pick Tali. Happy now?!! So Shepard, Tali and Garrus prepare to... oh f*** off Liara. You always get picked, stop sulking! Javik had a whinge too but I really couldn't give two flying f***s about him.
And were away! Hopefully we'll get to the docks in time to prevent the hijacking :-)
Tune in next time when a comms exchange between the two Shepards reveals a surprising difference in Anti-Shep's anatomy... later the subject of the Hollywood box office hit You've Got Mail Genitalia.