Bubba's Mass Effect Adventures

[Freya]

SO ABOUT THAT DLC

lmao

anyway you're well over halfway through it I think

[theundeadhero]

If Mordin had lived through ME2, it would have been him that died to cure the genophage. Or not, if you so chose. Much sadness. Goodbye, little buddy.

I hope we can expect smaller, talkative updates in the future

[Bubba]

Temporal vortex complications have delayed updates. Next one will be up this week!

[Bubba]

So erm yeah, booted this up last night and...

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A quick trawl through my journal though and I got the general gist. Reapers, death, destruction and carnage. My next big port of call was to head to the far rim and rendevous... rondev... rendavou... meet with the Quarian fleet. This thought excited me as I hoped to meet up with old pal and living legend, Tali

Before this undertaking, I decided to traverse the galaxy and see how much it had gone to sh*t. There were a few 'scan planet' sidequests that I needed to complete for random dudes/dudettes back on the citadel so I decided to get some of these out of the way. Plus, I've missed the Citadel's sexy face.

Holy crap. My previous main mission came flooding back as I remember Cerberus taking a giant turd on the Citadel. Fires everywhere, bodies burnt into the floor. The Citadel crew are a resilient bunch though as all their dialogue options were exactly the same. Business as usual and all that. Carry on, chaps!

I ticked off a few sideys on my trip before eventually catching up with Jacob in the hospital. Ahhh yes, I can imagine this scene being particularly awkward if you'd romanced him with FemShep. Especially the part where his new missus wanted to call their baby Shepard. AWKWARD

I also caught up with Miranda. Oh hey, I'd almost forgotten you existed. You've barely been in this game. What's that? Something about your sister? Can't remember love. Hope you sort it out. All the best.

I headed back to the Normandy as i was itching to get out and see how bad a spectre I now was after months out of action. I did a quick tour of the ship to ensure all was well. All seemed serene until I entered Dr Chaka Khan's ofice and it appears she has been in the Normandy for so long now she is literally part of the furniture...

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I then accessed the galaxy map and set a course for the Quarian... oh wait! A distress signal! Let's check this bad boy out. Stay tuned for our first official mission (following our erm... sabbatical) later today!

[Bubba]

Kallini: Ardat-Yakshi Monastery

Oooooh exciting! Time to see how many ways I can get myself killed in combat. I brought along Garrus and Liara for the lols.

This particular monastery was pitch-black and completely bereft of monks or nuns. This to me is a defining characteristic of what makes a monastery a monastery. Clearly evil doings are afoot. Flashing our flashlight about we discover the body of an Asari woman/man/person. I don't know why but seeing a dead Asari unsettles me more than any other race. It must be my love for Liara. "I'm such a romantic!" I thought as I rooted through the corpse's pockets for spare change.

Our destination was the Great Hall which conjured up images of plates full of food and flagons of pumpkin juice. I sincerely doubted this is what I would find. It turns out there is a bomb set up to blow up the entire facility and as we were soon to find out... for good reason.

Oh, another blast from the past! Dear old Samara has returned to try and help her two daughters, Fiona and Rita. Apparently, more Reaper naughtiness was occurring with Asari being taken-over and turned into Banshees. Not good.

It wasn't long before we met one of these abominations as one popped up in the next room. No. I don't like these. At all. They have about three shields to whittle down and teleport all over the shop like a demented Dhalsim. Cue overloads, disruptor ammo, kitchen sink... the lot. We eventually took it down but ugh, no thank you.

After this monstrosity, the cannibals that appeared were easy pickings. We cleared the room and were rewarded with a cut-scene between us, Samara and her youngest daughter, Fiona. Things started well and then deteriorated rather quickly. The conversation was something like this...

Shepard: "We are here to help you, fair maiden!"
Fiona: "How are you going to do that?"
Shepard: "We're gonna make sure this bomb goes off, destroying your home. We don't like the Banshees."

She was not impressed.

She jumps off the ledge and floats down to safety followed closely by Samara. We set off in hot pursuit but used conventional methods like doors and stuff. We were obviously impeded by more cretins on the way and another of those horrible Banshees. I mean, I feel a bit bad because they used to be Asari but I pelt these things with everything I've got. I hate them.

We eventually reach the Great Hall and yeah no food, no pumpkin juice, no Dumbledore... but at least there were no bloody Banshees. It was just Samara and her two daughters. Unfortunately, Rita was already on the turn into Reaper-zombie status so she was already a goner. We had one last round of cretins with two of the cock-a-doody Banshees. My dispatching of these two horrors was about as smooth as an Egyptian whiskey. I lost my shield lots. They were just plain mean.

Eventually though, the room was cleared and Rita does the honourable thing and decides to stay behind to detonate the bomb while the rest of us escape. Sounds good to me. You crack on, love. Her mother Samara was naturally in tears... and when I say tears I mean her expression didn't change one bit. Heartless.

We all escape in the elevator and Rita blows the building to sh*t killing all the Banshees at the same time. Awesome job, sister. Her actual sister is devastated but vows to keep on the work at the monastery. Garrus read some poetry in honour of the fallen Rita. This clearly didn't go down too well with Samara who promptly tried to shoot herself in the head. Luckily, my paragon interrupt saved the day... and her. We gained her as a war asset along with a load of other Asari forces. Sweet.

Tune in next time when Samara's Facebook game requests lead to her immediate removal as a war asset.

[theundeadhero]

The monastery is so hard on the upper difficulties. I think we share the same dreadful hate of banshees. Seeing Samara again is cool though.

[Bubba]

Priority: Geth Dreadnought

Oooooooohhh exciting!!!

The Quarians (who haven't committed their forces to the cause as of yet ) are in a space battle with some Geth Dreadnought. They are finding it difficult so it's up to Shepard and the team to utilise the Normandy's stealth runs and sneaky-sneak in under the radar. Also, I was right! The lovely Tali has joined us and is in my three-person team! A rather splendid cinematic occurs and before we know it... myself, Tali and Garrus are heading to the dreaded... err Dreadnought.

OK, so here we g... what the hell is this?? We're doing a spot of space-walking through a long docking tube. This would be fine if not for the inconvenient gaps along the way. Trying to walk around this tube whilst also approaching the Dreadnought was disorientating. Luckily, I'm amazing and made it there with little trouble.

This was a solo Shepard jaunt as my team-mates for some reason decided not to join me. Cowards. Oh, that's right, I had to open a door for them. Why we couldn't all go together I don't know. Probably another plot point that I missed. Either that or Tali has turned into a spoiled princess since ME:2. As soon as we're all together, Tali gives us a new pistol (cheers love) and we have the Operations Centre marked on our map. We then use some bridge controls to open our way forward. Exciting!

Activating these controls triggered a wave of Geth who have finally cottoned-on to the fact that there are intruders on their ship. Dumb asses. I called on the services of Snipey McSniperface and they were picked off from afar like apples from a tree... using a long picking device to pick the apples with... ahem.

The next room was made trickier by some cloaked Geth hunters. They had the annoying habit of materialising right in front of my face. When this happened, they made clear their intentions were not amorous so I shot them in the face with my shotgun.

My excitement for this level was waning slightly as it was just a case of deal with wave, go to next room, deal with wave, etc. For a moment, I could have been back playing ME:1 again until... SHOCKWAVE (...and I don't need anyonnne!) Things suddenly got interesting as a shockwave kept pulsing through the ship which, unless you were hiding behind a crate, would remove your shield entirely because, you know, crates are impervious to shockwaves.

This did make things much more exciting! There would be a weird rumbling-generator sound and then the wave would come! Pow! The warning sound was weird. Do you remember those vuvuzela trumpets that ruined the 2010 football world cup? Well, it sounded nothing like that.

I did some impressive jack-in-a-box popping in and out of cover. Sniping geth, duck for the waves,Pic 7.jpg pop back up and snipe again. I was f***ing amazing. Eventually, we reach the end of this section and activate the controls which turned the shockwaves off though I was actually enjoying them

Some good ol' fashioned platform jumping followed until we got to another tunnel and YEY! More shockwaves! there should be a Mass Effect Shockwave Difficulty where the entire game is spent ducking from shockwaves. Actually no, that is a terrible idea. Ignore me. I used the same snipe-and-duck tactics here and eventually we find ourselves in an elevator to the ship's core. Ooooooooohhh!!

We walk in and sh*t-the-bed! It's Legion! He's suspended by his arms and legs in a device that wouldn't look out of place in Horny Helga's House of Pain. The Geth are using him to do erm... bad, bad things like reeeeeeallly bad stuff. I should really pay attention to these cut scenes. We fiddle with a few panels and Legion is free from all the bad things they were making him do. That's it! He was powering their shields so the Quarians couldn't destroy the Dreadnought!

It came as no surprise that a wave of Geth immediately followed this. This wouldn't have been a problem but the wave included two Geth Primes which are ultra-annoying. I brought out the heavy artillery for these bad boys and after a prolonged exchange, I finally smote my enemies and left their ruins for the crows... there could be crows, you don't know.

Hooray! Now, we can make our escape before the Quarians start... HOLY SH*T!! They've started shooting at the ship already! WE'RE STILL ON BOARD, YOU PRICKS. Explosions everywhere. We're flying all over the place because there is no longer gravity. Luckily, Legion gives us a helping hand and we escape the Dreadnought just before it's demise. Phew!!!

Once back on the Normandy, we made it clear to the Quarian general that we did not appreciate them trying to kill us. I resisted the temptation to renegade interrupt but I'm sure I'll enjoy whatever it was when I play through again as renegade FemShep. I also manage to convince the Quarians not to dismantle Legion as the dude did us a solid. Plus, he'll be handy to have round if we need any tins opening.

Tune in next time when Legion makes a Spanish omelette using his 'groinal attachment' and nobody is brave enough to try it.

[theundeadhero]

You're getting to one of the many most amazing parts of the series. I can't wait to read about it.

[Formalhaut]

Yeah, the next mission is excellent. But also utterly terrifying for me, for reasons you'll find out.

Also, banshees can go die. Scary scream? Menancing appearance? Teleportation? INSTANT DEATH ATTACK? Ugh, no.

[Bubba]

You guys have got me all excited now! I have a rare free night tonight too so I'll be getting a good few hours in

[Bubba]

Rannoch: Admiral Koris

This Quarian Admiral is not having a good time of it. The ship carrying him has crashed on Rannoch and now the Quarian fleet are without a leader. No prob, Bob! Shepard, Liara and EDI head over there and begin a search. Our first trip to Rannoch! It's lovely, Shepard makes a mental note to grab a postcard before leaving.

We exit our dropship and immediately happen upon the corpse of a Quarian. Hope this isn't our guy otherwise this will be a very short mission. We move in for a closer look and BLAM! A bloody trip mine removes my shield. Oh, we're playing this game are we?? Fine. From that moment on I became as sure-footed as cat on Berocca.

Our main threat appeared to be some big AA guns. Niet problemski, we headed to the guns controls and *sigh* we had to assign a squadmate to deactivate it. I assigned EDI (makes sense) to the task before the inevitable onslaught of geth appeared. There were only two of us but Shepard has had his Weetabix today. Not even the appearance of a geth prime rattled me as I disposed of him with ease. Bring it on, boys! EDI's keyboard-tapping was minimal and the AA guns were disarmed.

We head on and find severely-wounded Quarian called Don Hat. He wasn't wearing a hat which I though was strange but he had some useful information. I was given the option to ease his mind (paragon) or press him for details about Admiral Koris (renegade). Now, I'm playing paragon but Shepard isn't messing around today so I went for the latter. He tells us we need to get this jamming tower offline in order to find him (or some sh*t) so as per usual, I just go with it.

More disarming of AA guns now (EDI, you're up) while me and Liara whooped more geth arse. OH YES! There was a handy gun turret nearby that gave me an instant boner. I got behind the controls and it was time for a souped-up version of Duck Hunt... only without any ducks... and with an automatic gun turret... and set in space. You get the idea. The geth's demise was swift. I am rocking this level!

The second AA gun followed and the geth were once again mopped up like the remnants of a tomato and red pepper soup with some crusty bread. We then finally gain contact with Admiral Koris. Hi mate!

He's in a spot of bother as his extraction was going to prove difficult. He was all like "Leave me behind" and we were all like "No man, we'll save you!" but you know, fleshed out in a Mass Effect cut-scene with lots of dialogue.

We're given the option to save the smegger so that's exactly what we do! A cool section then happens where we basically re-create the ending of the movie Platoon but we manage to save Willem Dafoe (spoiler, he dies at the end) AKA Admiral Koris. We are flying next to him in our dropship shooting geth from all around him. We allow him to run through this geth-fest, pull him onto our ship and hot-tail it out of there. Koris is saved!

Rannoch: Geth Fighter Squadrons

Once we were back on the Normandy, we decided that we missed the scenery on Rannoch and immediately returned. We were charged with heading down there, accessing the geth servers and taking them down to disrupt their fighter squadrons.

What followed was a really weird level that reminded me an awful lot of the movie The Lawnmower Man... only without Pierce Brosnan or that weird surfer dude. We connected Shepard to this VR world Matrix-style and a little VR Shepard began destroying all the orange geth connections with a... a... something. It reminded me of a little VR fire hose. Anyway, it was weird. There was no danger of death though which was a nice change.

We jogged along, severing connections and accessing snippets of recordings which were mildly interesting. It was actually quite therapeutic putting out these little orange blocks with my VR hose.

Things got a tad trickier later on when some of the connections began regenerating after I hosed them. This was remedied by hosing some smaller connections higher up. It did get a bit tiresome after a while but eventually Little VR Shepard + Little VR Hose = No more geth connections. Go me!

Weirdness over, the geth fighter squadrons could no longer communicate and we headed back to the Normandy.

Shepard decided a trip back to The Citadel was long overdue and we managed to crap out a few lingering sidequests. Once these distractions were out of the way though, the pull of the beautiful vistas of Rannoch were too great and we headed back. Time for our main Rannoch mission!

Tune in next time when Shepard enters the Normandy system via VR and accidentally destroys Joker's file of robot porn.

[Mr. Carnelian]

Wahey, the Rannoch segment! Definitely one of the strongest segments of the game, I'd say.

[Bubba]

Priority: Rannoch

OK, time for the Billy Big-Bollocks mission on Rannoch!

Tali was tagging along for this mission as it was her home and I dunno... maybe she left the iron on or something. Anyway, there was a Reaper base here that had been controlling all the geth. We couldn't bomb the base from orbit because of some pesky jamming towers. It was our job to land on Rannoch, point one of those laser pens at the target and then let the orbiting team do the rest. Let's do this!

It was full-on from minute one. Geth troopers were everywhere like ants at a picnic. Like most things though, they don't particularly enjoy taking a full load to the face... apart from you reading this at the minute. Yes you, you filth-bag heathen.

We need to climb up to get into the facility here. To achieve this, our team play a little game of Ledges and Ladders - the widely-criticised sequel to Snakes and Ladders which contained none of the snakes and none of the fun. Luckily, there were a few geth to kill along the way to break up the monotony.

A tricky situation then arose where we approached a section that was on two levels full of nasty, horrible geth. I had a sudden stroke of genius and used sabotage on the below enemies. While they were busy tearing each other apart, I calmly proceeded to the top deck and took out the rest of them. Onwards!

The next bit was kind of the same... but different. Instead of up & down, the enemies were left & right. Man, my descriptions suck, don't they? We come out in the middle of an area and there are two corridors full of enemies. One to the left and one to the right. If you have trouble picturing it then think about the song Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealer's Wheel. Specifically the line "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..." But not our Joker, you know? Holy crap, Bubba. Shut up.

Once this group was cleared, a message suddenly pops up telling us to 'Survive'. Wow, thanks game. I would have really struggled to know what to do next if you hadn't told me, cheers pal. As it turns out, surviving became a lot harder as we were faced with Geth Pyros, rocket troopers and finally a Geth Prime. Eeesh. We survived though. They didn't

We activated a couple of consoles before proceeding further up the facility via an escalator. Here we were greeted by three Geth Primes. Lovely Jubbly. Fortune was on our side however, as we picked up a heavy-duty geth gun called the Spitfire (Though I nicknamed it the 'Geth Death' because I'm hilarious). Being a heavy weapon, it did heavy damage and the three were soon toppled like a drunken bachelorette party in high heels.

We arrive outside on a balcony overlooking the facility. Our previous activating of consoles had removed the barrier and we were now free to point our laser pen at the target and the orbital team can do the rest. A ship flies into view, takes aim and TALLY HO! The facility is hit by a blast only... only...

SH*T THE SMURFING BED.

Yeah, the reaper base isn't a reaper base. IT'S A MOTHER-SMURFIN' REAPER! Shepard bravely runs in the opposite direction as fast as he can. The beautifully resourceful Legion has commandeered a geth drop ship for us all to escape on. It had a handy gun turret on the back and Shepard spent a couple of fruitless minutes firing the equivalent of a BB Gun at a freight train.

Then BOOOOOMMM! The Reaper is hit in the arse by an orbital strike and the big dude was down! Legion informs us that we should have enough time to escape before the Reaper has chance to recover. A cool cut-scene then plays where Shepard basically goes "HELL NAW! We're gonna finish this!" He syncs up the Normandy and the Quarian fleet to his laser pen and here we go. Time to kick ass!!!

Death. So much death. My death. A lot of it.

It must be said, Reapers definitely have the advantage when it comes to one-on-one fights against humans. Roll left then die, roll right then die, stay still then die. It was an embarrassment. I eventually got used to the patterns with Crash Bandicoot-style trial-and-error. Eventually, the Quarian fleet and the Normandy homed in on my laser pen light and delivered a lethal strike from orbit. Hooray!!

Holy mother-of-all-decisions time now. We can allow Legion to complete an upload upgrading all the geth (which would piss of Tali and the Quarians) or stop Legion which would no doubt lead to retaliation by the geth. Oh man. I allowed the upload as I kinda hoped my paragon level would be high enough to appease the Quarians and...

I was right! I was given a second (paragon) choice which enabled me call a truce between the geth and the Quarians! This incredible act of mediation by Shepard enabled me to acquire both races as War Assets! WHOO HOO!!!!!

Tune in next time when the true identity of the Reapers is revealed to be 'Kevin from accounting' and the invasion of the galaxy turned out to be an elaborate office prank that got way out of hand.

[Bubba]

Oh man... I royally screwed up the Priority: Thessia mission tonight...

I may never get to sleep with Liara again

[theundeadhero]

No Liara. No Ashley. Who will you sleep with?

Also, I love that mission. Its super crazy ridiculous hard, though. You didn't mention things I was sure you would mention at the end, and now I'm questioning if that's where they happen at all