Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures

[Bubba]

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]

Liara is a beast I love her :3

You Hussy, cheating on her with Jack.

[theundeadhero]

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]

(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]

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 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]

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]

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.

[Bubba]

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.

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!

[theundeadhero]

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]

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

[Freya]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!