Valmy in SPAAAAAAAAACE (Mass Effect Series AAR)

[viper37]

For future reference, here is the mod I used to improve graphics on ME2:
http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect2/mods/68/?

They were absolutely gorgeous.  The same exists for ME3.  It takes a couple of days to install though...

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Six or Shepard is a colossal douchebag.

Ok so let's travel to the Exodus Cluster, where Eden Prime is located, to check out the peaceful and prosperous human colonies and...OH MY!



'Well we should let the authorities know about this, they should really send somebody to...oh right. Me.'

Guess we will have to cancel our scenic lunch on Terra Nova. How about that hero timing eh? Showing up randomly with just four hours to go. A distress call from on the asteroid begs us to shut down those fusion torches. So they land and check it out...quickly. No pressure Shepard. So they find a small prefab building where the engineer has...had better days.



'Vengeful ex or terrorists...'

His last log says the transmission tower went out and he sent one of his techs out to fix it. They find the tech, dead, and his burned out transport nearby. Well that is not good. But they need to get to the first torch fast as the clock is ticking. After knocking out the defense towers (oh sure defense towers, let the terrorists in but keep us out) they break in to find: Batarians!



'Hey so that Skyllian Blitz thing...can we let bygones be bygones?'

Obviously not, these guys really hold a grudge. So a little about the Batarians: so they joined the Citadel awhile ago but had this nasty habit of continuing to attack and raid Citadel worlds. So in 2160 when the humans started settling the Skyllian Verge their charming way of pissing off the other species led to the Citadel siding with the humans over them. So they left the Citadel and joined up with the Terminus Systems and have launched numerous efforts to push the humans out of the Verge. Shepard stopped one big raid during the Skyllian Blitz back in 2176 almost singlehandedly.

So the Batarians are humanity's foil. And they also make extensive use of a species of attack dogs called the Varren, even though they are native to the Krogan Homeworld. Anyway we get to see far more Varren in ME2.

Shepard and company defeat the Batarians and Varren and then shut down the torch. And yes the same damn minigame you use for everything else also shuts down torches. The woman who issued the distress call then calls us and thanks us for shutting down the first torch. Her name is Kate Bowman and she is one the engineers who were assigned to originally bring the asteroid to Terra Nova before it was hijacked by the Batarians. She, and a few others, are currently being held hostage in the main control center.

As Shepard leaves another human enters the building and shoots him, but fortunately the shot was absorbed by his kinetic barrier. Crazy. These things hardly ever work in cutscenes. Shepard is kind of a douche after the shot btw. 'It takes more than one shot to bring me down.' Hey Shep it takes more than one shot to bring anybody with a kinetic barrier down...well unless a heavy turret or a thresher maw hits you. The DLC do not bring out the best in him. More on that later.

He is Simon Atwell, the chief engineer. He thinks a giant asteroid being driven into the planet might be bad.



'In English please Mr. Engineer.
The Planet is doomed!
Spare me your techno-babble.
It is going to make a BIG BOOM
Could you dumb it down a shade?'

He also wants Shepard to check on his three engineers out on the surface...yeah well about one of them. Also he tells Shepard the main facility where the hostages are being kept is locked down and impossible to enter without a key pass. Good thing somebody decided to have the torches not controlled by the main facility...which I guess raises the question of what exactly the purpose of the main facility is. Oh and the batarians made him activate a motion detection mine field around one of the torches. FUN!

Oh and the plan was to push the asteroid into orbit, mine out its minerals, and then convert the shell into a space station. It sounds like a plan Tim would be excited about.

The whole thing seems a little extreme even for the Batarians. They generally try to conquer colonies and enslave people not destroy entire planets.

They come to another engineering station and the engineer went off to investigate the attack on the main facility.



'I am not sure I can enjoy a game that so ruthlessly kills off poor hardworking engineers.'

Ok it is personal now Batarians!

They go to the second torch, defeat the batarians, and then shut it down to. This seems to really piss off the Batarian leader, a real charmer named Balak, who shoots one of the hostages and then sends out a team to hunt Shepard down and then starts setting up bombs throughout the main facility.



'Unfortunately when you re-activate their signal all you get is the elevator music from the Citadel. Man so much for my hope for rocking this rock.'

They find the last engineer. She locked herself in her pre-fab building and the Batarians just blew it up. So zero for three on Atwell's engineers.

So they come to third torch.



'Man nice of them to mark the mine field for us like that.'

So they get out on foot and charge to the edge of the mine field while the heavy turrets are firing at them...very slowly and with poor accuracy. Good thing to since one shot will one-hit kill you. Mass Effect one loves its one shot kill bad guys. They creep along the edge of the mine field and then take cover by the torch control building and take out the batarians and snipe the turrets.

Inside it is really dark and really blue. Even for Mass Effect.



'A very smurfy firefight.'

Man is everything dark in this DLC. Anyway they shut off the last torch and save Terra Nova! But there is still the matter of the hostages. On the way out Balak's gang intercepts them and...a conversation breaks out.

The leader insists he wants to resolve the situation peacefully.



'Man Shepard is kind of an asshole'

But the Batarian insists he was just here for a few slaves and destroying a planet is more than he bargained for. So he wants Shepard to take his key card and break into the main facility and kill Balak while he escapes. Shepard promises to do so.



'You know who else was 'just following orders?' THE NAZIS!!11 Oh right you don't who they are...human thing.'

Anyway he really wants Shepard to kill Balak who is kind of a nut and the other Batarians are only going along with this since he is such a ruthless asshole. We will see how that goes.

So they assault the main facility and, after defeating these ridiculous heavy turrets on rails, they go inside. HOLY CRAP IT IS A NEW MAP! I haven't seen a non-recycled interior in so long, though things are just as dark as before.



'Um ok the badguys are out there someplace. Just shoot randomly in their general direction.'

After beating these guys Balak comes out and says that now that the gig is up he is leaving and if Shepard tries to stop him he will blow the facility. He also says he hates the humans so very very much for colonizing worlds the Batarians think should be theirs. He is also really mad at Shepard personally for the Skyllian Blitz. So revenge was almost his but the failing Batarian Hegemony failed again. Sad.

Shepard says he will stop Balak but Balak knows Shepard's weakness for saving hostages.



'And to add insult to injury his Varren stuck out his tongue at Shepard.'

So they run around and de-activate the bombs. Huh that is the second time somebody mad at Shepard for the Skyllian Blitz tried to blow him up with bombs.

They rescue the hostages and everybody celebrates miraculously still being alive. Simon Atwell decides to retire and gives Shepard his rather amazing Omni-tool. He is bummed that Shepard had to let the terrorists go though.



'Spoiler: we actually won't.'

Yeah so that is Bringing Down the Sky. It is just a slightly longer and much better side assignment. If all the other uncharted world assignments were like this Mass Effect would have been a much better game. There were not even any minerals and other various things to needlessly collect. So it is a good DLC, not great by any means, but good.

Speaking of which it is time for: MORE UNCHARTED WORLD ASSIGNMENTS.

It is time for the Argos Ro Cluster! Please try to contain your excitement.

In the Hydra System they hear a distress call from the planet Metgos. After mining all the minerals and finding all the exciting collectibles they find an escape pod and...IT'S A TRAP.



'Right before this Tali said 'I have a bad feeling about this'. I guess it was Star Wars Quote day.'

They defeat the Geth and...well...that is that. Nice assignment huh?

They go off to the Phoenix System and land on the world of Tuntau in search of the Turian who is selling 1500 year old relics. And let me tell you about this world: it has lots of mountains and minerals on it. The galaxy all starts to look the same after awhile. So they break into yet another prefab structure and kill the Turian. Though I have to say these fights against the Turian and his mercs were actually pretty fun. I like when I actually can use my sniper rifle and abilities a few times in a fight.



'Well geez Wrex it is 1500 years old.'

So that provides Wrex with some kind of closure to leave his clan and homeworld and family behind forever.



'You will never ever see me on Tuchanka ever again. Promise.'

We'll see Wrex.

But anyway now it is time for the pinnacle in shitty DLCs: Pinnacle Station. Now it starts off well enough. You get there and hey it is not a prefab building or the same freighter you have been in a million times but an all new space station! But those few seconds are pretty much the high point.

The entire 'plot' revolves around this Turian named Vidinos who thinks humans suck.



'Are you wearing lavender face paint?'

And he has most of the top scores and you have to beat him. The leader of the space station is a human, Admiral Ahern, and he wants to see what all the best Citadel operatives can do.



'Oh and all the facial animations are noticeably subpar compared to the base game. Maybe they were training for Mass Effect: Andromeda.'

Ok the other good thing about this DLC is the world weary and sarcastic Salarian who runs the simulator.

I like this response if you ask him if the enemies in the simulator are holographic:



The way the voice actor reads the line is especially good.

But anyway there are 12 scenarios to beat, four different types of missions in three different environments. Well that sounds fun but here is why it sucks: they are all the fucking same mission. Sure one has you survive waves of enemies, another has to kill a certain amount of enemies, another has you kill as many enemies as you can, and another has you capture some points. But they are all doing the same thing: killing stuff as quickly as possible. And doing it basically the same way: killing them at point blank range. So yeah I was thinking that maybe I could work on a few different fighting skills during this part of the game but NOPE. It is all running around shooting as fast as you can. You rarely even have time to take cover.

Anyway once you beat Vidinos' score once he threatens to throw another human who has beaten some of his other scores in the stockade for cheating, since no human could beat him. Shepard says he can beat him, and indeed he already has, so Vidinos bets Shepard cannot get the top score in seven other tests. If Shepard fails the other guy gets stuck in prison. So there is your plot. Pretty compelling eh?



'Behold your motivation in all its glory!'

My real motivation is that everytime you beat a challenge you get 1,000 exp which is pretty nice.

So now you fight.

You kill dudes at point blank range in a capture battle.



You kill dudes at point blank range in a survival battle



You kill dudes at point blank range in a hunt battle



You kill dudes at point blank range in a time trial battle



It is as monotonous and samey as it looks. Oh and the scenarios are completely unbalanced. Some are incredibly trivial while others are almost impossible even with level 60 characters min/maxed with the best gear at the higher difficulty levels.

Then eventually you beat all eight scenarios and Vidinos concedes...sort of he still thinks Shepard cheated somehow.

And Shepard is kind of an asshole about it. Actually that is kind of a theme for this DLC, Shepard is a macho overconfident douche for most of it.



'From douchebag to douchebag.'

So it is not very satisfying. But if you thought you were done THINK AGAIN! Shepard has four more scenarios to beat Vidinos in for...no reason whatsoever.

So yeah! More of this:



'Admiral Ahern has little quips he says throughout the scenario and he has like five total...so you get really sick of them fast.'

He also has little one liners after you beat a scenario like 'Shepard your accomplishments are an inspiration to knuckleheads everywhere.' Cute.

So after you finish those the stupidest shit ever is about to happen. Admiral Ahern says he is building a new scenario recreating a battle he was in against the Turians during the First Contact War. He says it was basically a suicide mission, no cover and being heavily outnumbered. Then Shepard, out of pure machismo idiocy, wants him to kick it up a notch and do it without safeties.



'That would be incredibly stupid and irresponsible. So when do we start?'

So after Ahern calls him out that it would be insanely suicidal. Shepard is all 'oh yeah? I will show you dude. I am Commander Fucking Shepard. I put my life on the line for stupid reasons every day.' So the Admiral just goes along with it and says if Shepard somehow survives this suicide mission he will give him his retirement home on Intai'sei because he is too macho to ever retire or something. The whole thing is so stupid it made my head hurt.

Man Shepard kind of sucks. I hate this guy. I hope Saren wins.

So anyway we now start the stupidest fight in the history of the galaxy. It basically works like this: you run in and pick off some Turians and gather some data. Once you do that a metric fuckton of Turians show up and you have to hold them off for five minutes. To do this you run and activate two heavy turrets and then run to a chokepoint to hold them. If you do not do this snipers will take you out pretty fast.

The first part is the only interesting fight in the whole damn DLC since you have time to get a position and use your squad's skills and abilities to take out the Turian squad at long range. After that it turns into the same thing you have done for the past 12 challenges.



'Ashley is too tough for cover. She just stands there in front of dozens of charging Turians like a BOSS. A stupid boss.'

So after that is over everybody celebrates the 'hero' Shepard and he gets the retirement home. There is no feeling of relief quite like leaving Pinnacle Station for the last time for the Normandy.



'Actually I would prefer we never speak of this again.'

Besides all the experience points you get, and you get a pretty good weapon from Vidinos once you beat his records, the retirement home is actually really great.

First it has a grenade dispenser along with a medi-gel dispenser. As far as I know this is the only easy way to refill your grenades in the game. Why this is in some retirement home I have no idea.

Secondly the home has access to discount gear. Random discount gear. Basically you pay a fee and a random thing gets delivered to the home. Why? Um well this note explains it somehow.



'Uh what? Ok...I guess.'

So if you pay 220K credits one of the best pieces of gear in the game will be delivered to you. So yeah I can get level 60 gear anytime I have the money. And I will do this every chance I get. I got level 60 armor for Garrus, Tali, and Ashley as well as a level 60 biotic Amp for Kaidan this first time. So yeah this retirement home is very good to have. Like bizarrely good to have, like it makes no damn sense why it is so great.

So anyway you can see why I hate this DLC. It is boring and unbalanced, Shepard is an asshole, and the reward is nonsensical and overpowered. The fact that Admiral not only allowed Shepard to do that but expressed admiration at him for doing it...well anyway let me just say it is a lowpoint for Bioware. I haven't played most of the Mass Effect series as it stands but it has got to be better than this.

So they return the Citadel. Ashley and Shepard celebrate never having to go to Pinnacle Station again by dancing at Flux.



'It is sad to see with all these great advances in the future that dancing has regressed to the Stone Age.'

And I forgot to do this earlier but after every story mission you should go back to the human embassy to watch Udina get mad at you about it. It is one of the highpoints in the game. Anderson comes to Shepard's defense.



'Oh? I thought I was out there risking my life for retirement real-estate.'

Ok well I guess it is finally time to start that Saren thing. But first: MORE SIDEQUESTS and then Noveria. Maybe? Is something at stake in this game?

[Valmy]

For future reference, here is the mod I used to improve graphics on ME2:
http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect2/mods/68/?

They were absolutely gorgeous.  The same exists for ME3.  It takes a couple of days to install though...

Wow. Now that is an intimidating Mod. I will try it out.

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Seven or Sing that Funky Music Rachni Sing that Funky Music Right

Leaving the horrors of Pinnacle Station behind them our intrepid heroes ventured forth into the Horse Head Neigh-bula. Somewhere down there on the surface of Amaranthine (any similarity to a any Dragon Age towns living or destroyed by Darkspawn is purely coincidental) in the Fortuna System, Helena Blake was building a new criminal empire and waiting for the man who made it all possible.

And that man, after scanning some minerals and finding some collectibles and climbing rocky mountains in his Mako, finally arrived.



'Excellent! Soon our enemies will be on the run! Oh wait I am supposed to be a good guy.'

But fortunately Shepard has the charm skill so he is like 'crime doesn't pay' so she goes legit.



'Really? Your gang will just say 'no problem ma'am' and just go work stocking groceries or something?'

The charm skill is just magic. So she walks away and the gang disbands and Shepard wins again!

Ok so that is that. Time to go scout out Garoth's brother's ship, hey you remember when Shepard was asked to do that way back in part 2? Well now he does it. It is floating abandoned and derelict in the Strenuus System but they detect an exhaust trail down to the frozen (and mountainous and mineral filled) world of Xawin. And eventually they find the pirate lair of the vile buccaneers who raided the ship.



'Wait so they brought him back to their base just to kill him?'

Man those pirates could have made some money if they held him for ransom. They never tell you what is on the datapad.

So let's go to Noveria! And...maybe...get it to Garoth at some point.

Man I am so excited! No minerals will be gathered for a few hours!

I always loved the plot where the hero shows up after the disaster and has to figure out WTF happened. I LOVED the beginning of KOTOR 2 for that reason. So the whole mystery part of Noveria always made it one of my favorite parts of this game.

But first they arrive at the corrupt corporate HQ of Noveria, Port Hanshan. And we start assignments full of crime and intrigue...or at least three of them.

So basically after getting past security we are approached by the administrator's assistant, Gianna Parasini, who tells them:



'So does that mean we have to get past 14 other peaks first?'

Liara is alarmed to hear her mother is there on Noveria but Shepard assures her he trusts her. I mean from what Liara has said she barely knows Benezia anyway.

In order to get to Peak 15 they need authorization from the Administrator, a rather shady Salarian named Anoleis. Alright that seems straightforward enough. But Anoleis is not very friendly.



'Ok you can bill the Citadel, care of one Ambassador Udina.'

On leaving Parasini tells Shepard to seek out Lorik Qui'in, some Turian Anoleis is putting under arrest for corruption. But, of course, it is Anoleis who is corrupt and Lorik Qui'in had discovered evidence of it for his employer Synthetic Insights. Lorik Qui'in wants them to break into the Synthetic Insights offices, beat off the corrupt security guards Anoleis bribed and recover the evidence.



'Yeah we would hate to do that to the maintenance staff'

But I don't know what carpet he is talking about. Port Hanshan is a charming combination of brutalism and water features.



'I bet Sheilbh would love this'

So they break in and talk their way past the first group of corrupt security people but the rest I guess failed to hear the conversation because they attack. After defeating them they reach Qui'in's office and get the evidence. On the way out they meet the badass biotic who leads the corrupt rent-a-cops.



'Probably the same sort of thing they do to everybody on your homeworld?'

Pffft. Like killing rent-a-cops counts as being a cop killer. Because I did Noveria before I knew that fighting biotics and organics was going to be key here so I brought Liara and Wrex and gave them both shredder ammo and damn did that shine here. Even with Kiara throwing out her powers they took her out in seconds. Nice.

On the way out Parasini meets Shepard and eventually it comes out that she is actually an undercover rent-a-spy working for Noveria's corporate overlords to investigate Anoleis' corruption. She wants them to convince Lorik Qui'in to testify against him. He does not want to but quickly agrees since Shepard has a maxed charm skill. So she arrests Anoleis and gives them a pass for Peak 15.



'AN OUTRAGE! He and Udina must have gone to the same charm school.'

It is kind of funny. From the corrupt trading cartel, The Iron Throne, in the original Baldur's Gate to the big corporations plaguing the galaxy in KOTOR Bioware used to be all about these immoral money hungry big businesses doing dirty deeds that endangered the world/galaxy. But boy they cut back on that since they got bought by EA eh? Or maybe not, but I don't recall that really being a thing in ME2. When I get to the later ME games I will make a mental note to check.

There are only two side quests in Noveria, one involving getting stuff past customs and another involving industrial espionage on patent infringements. Neither of them are particularly complicated or interesting so I will just leave it at that.

One character I find really bizarre and funny is the Turian who works in the garage who has a thick northeastern US accent. Like 'ey I'm a fuckin' Turian. How ya doin?'

Anyway Benezia went to Peak 15, which is a facility for Binary Helix in which Saren is a major investor, with a squad of Asari Commandos and a large number of large and very heavy crates. Some of that cargo greets Shepard, Liara, and Wrex in the garage.



'So how many assassin Geth do you have to order before you get free shipping?'

With that we get the Mako section of Noveria, fortunately this is a much smaller percentage of the adventure than on Therum. It is just the drive to Peak 15, which fortunately does not involve traversing Peaks 1 through 14. Just a long straight road to the peak filled with Geth and heavy turrets, really easy with the Mako. Just to make it a bit more fun I got out and did some fighting on foot, even with the ability of the turrets to one-shot-kill you.



'Behold Peak 15! Huh...I guess it is an artificial peak.'

Then the fun really begins! As in the graphic glitches really begin. First all the party members, enemies, and some random textures but black out. So I fought the first fight against some Geth and Krogan with everybody being just black blobs. It was fun.



'So much so they have triggered small singularities throughout the facility.'

Ok so it turns out this is a well known bug when I went back to Syt's mod it said I had to download a FPS counter to solve it. Huh. A FPS counter? Ok whatever. But for some reason that made Shepard's eyelashes appear on his cheeks, which you have to admit is a very specific bug.



'The more realistic graphics get the more freaked out I get by minor graphics glitches like this.'

But this problem with the FPS counter can be solved by turning off 'ambient occlusion'. This, however, made the cursor vanish which was then solved by turning on hardware cursor in the ME options menu.
So whew, everything back to normal.

So we enter the cold dead wreckage of Peak 15. A disaster happened and an emergency shut down of the facility has occurred. There are survivors out at Rift station but you have to re-activate the AI using the famous 'Tower of Hanoi' which was made fun of and then un-ironically used in Dragon Age Inquisition.



'No problem I am pretty expert at these things by now.'

Then we have to activate the rest of the facility while Geth and Rachni, though Shepard and company does not know they are Rachni, attack them. Something not seen since the days of Diocletian! Well except by them at the Cerberus facility earlier.



'Hey we're back! How did that Tetrarchy thing work out? Did they manage to retake Dacia?'

Not even Wrex recognized them but I guess not even he is THAT old. So they manage to reactivate the facility enough to get the tram working again and get all the updates from the VI system. But first they get to purge all the Rachni from the transport area with a plasma purge.



'Man that is satisfying. Why activating this gave me 11,400 credits I have no idea.'

So that section was a lot of fun. It was really awesome the first time I did it, but even knowing basically what was going on it was pretty great.

So on to Rift Station! Once you arrive the Binary Helix guards are freaked out on Stims, staying awake for days trying to keep the Rachni from eating the few remaining staff. He tells you the Rachni came out of the Hot Labs below and gives you a key card to get down there and tells you Benezia is down there. Well we will see about that.

Shepard goes and meets the few remaining staff including a surprisingly calm Asari scientist. Some staff in the medical bay are suffering from Binary Helix's work on biological weapons of mass destruction. Because EVIL CORPORATIONS. Anyway the cure is still down in the lab but because they accidentally set the weapon off (man how many disasters does this evil corporation suffer in a week?) the security personnel are too scared to let anybody in, in case the weapon spreads. But it should have long sense dissipated...supposedly. Because Shepard is almost suicidally brave he volunteers for this mission and convinces the guards to let him in. After a silly (but new!) minigame he creates the cure and is about to leave when that Asari shows up with some Geth buddies after killing the guard outside.



'I knew it! All Asari are in league with Benezia! Oh right...no offense Liara.'

But my team can handle Biotics easily enough. Man how many sleeper agents does Benezia have in this place? Spoiler alert: basically everybody.

So they take it back and cure the scientists. After that they talk to the only survivor in the Hot Labs, a Volus who naturally escaped in a cowardly way.



'Oh you Volus.'

So he was afraid of the Rachni he closed the door and watched his colleague die. But this is a much darker toned sort of Volus incident I have to say, for once not played for laughs. He explains how they tried to bring the Rachni back from the dead and that turned out to be really bad. He is pretty traumatized. He also tells them the geth came in from the maintenance area. They will have to head there soon but first, down to the Hot Labs to find Benezia and the Rachni.

Ok time to head down the Hot Labs and take care of that. When they get down there instead of finding Benezia and a horde of Rachni they discover a single human scientist who fills them in on more details. Binary Helix found a Rachni egg in a derelict Rachni vessel on the edge of the galaxy. It turned out to be a queen so they started breeding all these Rachni and tried to control them to make an army. But without their mother the Rachni go insane and just start killing everything (except each other for some reason). So now, angry and aggressive Rachni are crawling throughout the facility. He advises they set off the emergency neutron purge has to be activated. Oh and Benezia never came down to the Hot Labs. Interesting.

The VI confirms that the scientist is the only person in the Hot Labs besides them. It also cannot activate the purge without the code. They go back to get the code from the scientist and he is about to tell them when...



'You mean you Rachni could have killed him at any time?

No, not anytime. Only when it was dramatastic!'

So um how did he survive down here all this time? Fortunately they find the codes on his body and go back to the VI and activate the purge. Naturally, this being a most dramatic moment, all the Rachni come pouring into the room as Shepard and company try to escape. What they had been waiting for I have no idea. So that takes care of most of the Rachni.

So the guards lied to Shepard about the location of Benezia. What could this mean?



'Oh so...all of you are Benezia moles? So why did that Asari kill the guard? Oh nevermind.'

I can only assume they were really committed to maintaining the charade. I also presume they sent Shepard down to the Hot Labs hoping the Rachni would kill him. Well we showed them. WE SHOWED THEM ALL.

Shepard and company kill the guards but all the other staff has vanished. Not sure where they went. They fight into the maintenance and clear out the rest of the guards and Geth before making it into the super top secret lab where the Rachni Queen is kept...and that other matriarch.



'This line may be called back at a later date.'

No Benezia, but I brought my own. She is not particularly moved by Liara's presence.



'You know it would have been helpful if you explained how to kill her earlier.'

So the battle is on! But fortunately as soon as the Asari charge in Wrex and Liara are hitting them with biotics of their own so it is no big deal. Shepard can concentrate on the Geth.



'I got you sucker! Wait...Liara uses her assault rifle when she fights? Huh.'

I always just assumed she stuck with her pistol. I guess I should keep that in mind next time I do her inventory.

Once all the goons are dead they approach Benezia and she gains control of herself for a moment to explain that Saren is using some sort of indoctrination on her that she cannot resist. She went to him to try to turn him away from the bad side and instead ended up joining him instead. She explains that they needed the Rachni Queen to find the Mu Relay, which will take Saren to the Conduit. Wait even relays not even known to humans have Greek names?

Rachni Queens inherit the memories of their ancestors and the relay was in Rachni space. So she recovered the location from the queen and gave it to Saren but she hands the location to Shepard. She also says Saren's ship, the Sovereign, is more advanced and powerful and larger than any other ship in the galaxy. So it might be significant somehow.

She tells Liara she always loved and was proud of her right before submitting to Saren's will again. After another fight she lays dying and asks to be left to die to escape Saren's indoctrination.



'Little wing? I think Benezia and Liara might have been closer than Liara let on. LIES!'

Farewell Counselor Troi. So with that comes the matter of the Rachni Queen. She creepily takes control of a dead Asari Commando to beg for her life with Shepard.



'Man...no pressure.'

Wrex is pretty clear on what should be done.



'I will tell you what: we will cure the Genophage and let you guys live on the same planet.'

I don't know. It was probably bit of an overkill for the Krogan to actually hunt them to extinction and the Queen is promising to only sing nice non-galactic conquest songs from now on. Besides, I have this weird feeling we may need them later on. So Shepard lets her go. She promises to sing of his awesomeness.



'Why? Do they only write Dubstep? Because I hate that.

With that they go back to the Normandy.

Ashley wants to charge off the Mu Relay but the relay probably connects to dozens of systems so they need to first find out where exactly Saren is going. Hey maybe they will know on Feros!

The council seems to only care about the Rachni and not at all about the Mu Relay or Benezia.



'Don't worry, the Reapers will have killed us all long before then.'

I thought it a little weird the Turian Councilor was the one to be annoyed by this since it was the Asari and Salarians who lost millions killed over nearly three hundred years of war fighting the Rachni while the Turians were still pre-spaceflight. But hey maybe the Turian is just the Council's designated whiner.

So let's talk to the people.

Joke is just glad to be away from Noveria.



'No kidding. Once big corporations take over everything goes to shit.'

Alenko is baffled that nobody else seems particularly worried about Saren and Reapers and the Conduit and all that stuff.



'Oh sweet innocent Kaidan. They have not yet begun to deny.'

He then talks about that time he finally got fed up with his abusive Turian instructor and lashed out with a biotic attack that killed him. Kaidan, as ever, is pretty philosophical about it saying he learned to control his powers and realized that for all their differences aliens are not so different from us. So, yeah, don't piss of Kaidan thought that seems like something that is really hard to do.

He might be one of the most reasonable and thoughtful characters Bioware ever made. It is kind of funny since the guy whose voice actor he shares, Carth Onasi from KOTOR, was neither of those things. Anyway he thinks it was ridiculous for Shepard to have to make the choice on the Rachni and it should have been the council. Yeah that would have been a good idea. I mean it was not like Shepard was under a time crunch or something.

Everybody is concerned for Liara but she is still stuck in that place where she cannot decide if she and her mother were close and distant. I mean for being estranged they sure had an emotional meeting on Noveria.



'Ah ok. You and she were never close so it is no big deal.'



'Wait what? Do you need comforting or not?'

Maybe it is an Asari thing.

Ashley is having a drink to honor her grandfather, general Williams, who was the commander who surrendered Shanxi to the Turians during the first contact war. The entire Williams clan was then blacklisted by the Alliance but they are crazy stubborn and keep joining the military anyway. Shepard comments that that is pretty shit and he wishes there was something he could do to help. Then Ashley gives him an ULTIMATUM.



'Um...wait I don't think we are at the ultimatum part of our relationship yet.'

No strong woman needs a man fighting to correct obvious injustices! But damn Ashley we have only flirted a bit. Maybe you should save this for the third date right? Or at least the first date. Just to ramp up the sexual tension more they have a debate on humanity's place in the galaxy and Ashley eventually admits that Shepard might have a point. HOT.



'I hope so, you have heavy armor and immunity.'

Nobody else has anything to say. Not even Wrex. As they are about to get going the Council calls Shepard and lets him know they also sent out a few Salarian Special Task Groups to scout for Saren. They received critical information from one of them, crucial information that they need to tell Shepard right now.



'Ah this critical piece of intel changes everything!'

But they are pretty sure it was supposed to be important though. The Salarians are scouting out a planet called 'Virmire' and so it might be worth checking out. Yeah I don't know. Can't they get a better lead than just a bit of static? I don't think they will bother.

But hey we have more pressing matters. Admiral Hackett and the Alliance have an exciting side assignment to take care of. BIOTICS ARE KIDNAPPING HOSTAGES.



'Wait I already did the biotic fanatics. Actually I already did this assignment twice. Wait...oh there are three groups of biotic fanatics capturing people? Damn.'

At least it is less common than the demon possession quests in Dragon Age.

Ok so to wrap this up they go back to the Citadel and visit Udina. He is OUTRAGED by what Shepard did.



'Are you being sarcastic dude?'

Damn I just realized I totally forgot to go see Garoth in the Council chambers. Damn.

So that is Noveria. So much ice and snow and yet another long extinct species you get to meet in person in a Bioware game. I really enjoyed it and I hope it brought back good memories for you guys.

But now back to what we really enjoy in Mass Effect: more uncharted worlds missions! And then Feros.



'I wish. I cannot even leverage this into a promotion to Captain.'

[Valmy]

According to internet legend Marina Sirtis was approached by some fan with a box copy of Mass Effect shortly after the game came out. But she forgot she was in the game and refused to sign it despite the fans rather panicked insistence she was. I guess that shows just how much of her heart and soul she put into being the myth, the legend, Matriarch Benezia.

But if you feel sad that the series got a little less STNG don't worry. Worf is in Mass Effect 2. 

[garbon]

Looks like a few images glitched. Same photo a few times.

[Valmy]

Looks like a few images glitched. Same photo a few times.

Well at least this means you are reading it. I fixed it. I suspect User Error was the culprit. Though the barrage of ads on photobucket often gets in the way of functionality.

[grumbler]

Another great installment.  Thanks again for doing this.

[garbon]

Looks like a few images glitched. Same photo a few times.

Well at least this means you are reading it.

It has been quite humorous.

[Valmy]

Mass Effect Part Eight or A Cipher. A Cipher wrapped in an Enigma, Smothered in Secret Sauce.

Ok I just couldn't stand it. As soon as I got back into the game I went all the way back to the Citadel to deliver the bad news to Garoth about his brother.



'Damn. Quite a downer after our long trip.'

Then back to deal with yet MORE biotic terrorists.

There are two 'morality' quests in the Hades Gamma Cluster. You get to visit both worlds and fight Thresher Maws (three of them combined on the two worlds!) and mine for more minerals.



'Man it is hard to take screenshots and aim this thing at the same time.'

I think that may be all the thresher maws. I know you fight ten of them in this game but I am not keeping track, they all kind of fade into each other.

Ok now they have to go in and take out the terrorists while being careful to not hurt any of their drugged out meat shields.



'Oh should we not have created this huge explosion then?'

Fortunately they somehow manage to not hurt a single hostage. These terrorists might need lessons on how to use human shields. Hackett is super impressed and praises Shepard as a credit to the uniform and the Alliance. You notice how when Shepard does these little side assignments everybody heaps praise on him but whenever he actually makes progress to stopping Saren everybody gives him shit? The psychological impact on Shepard's priorities cannot be good.

So naturally we do more side content. We are easily influenced.

After Noveria you get access to a different Star Cluster, Styx Theta. Glad we got back to the random mix of Greek Words.

They instantly get messaged by Marie Durand of the Alliance 10th Frontier Division. Her detachment was dropped off as a small garrison on a random world but now they are under attack by a strange unidentified alien species.



'Huh. I think I can identify them.'

Well that queen sure wasted no time. Or is it her? Wait and see.

So they find Durand and the remains of her unit and help them beat off the Rachni. Then Shepard finds the Rachni nest and destroys it. He strategically does not mention releasing the Rachni Queen.

But there is no Queen. Can they make Rachni without her? Or did these nests not actually make Rachni? Huh.

Durand tells them there is another Alliance outpost in another star system nearby that dropped out of communication. Inside an exciting recycled map base they find loads of Rachni, dead Alliance soldiers, and egg looking things. Huh...where did they get the eggs They find a computer and Tali says the Rachni came on a supply ship from a depot. Shepard says this system is almost entirely uninhabited so why would a supply shit be sent? Tali tracks it.



'So...someplace in a star cluster?'

I love space games. Only in a space game can saying something in located in a cluster of thousands of stars and millions of entire planets is specific enough to quickly follow up.

And sure enough they have access to a star cluster in Argos Rho that they couldn't go to before. And there is a supply depot, Sigma-23 in the Gorgon system. So they board it and yes it is filled with Rachni and dead Cerberus terrorists.

This is a Cerberus facility for storing the Rachni being stolen from Noveria, from where I presume they shipped the Rachni to Binthu in the earlier Cerberus quest. But it did not go well for Cerberus. I know you are all shedding tears for them.

The Rachni were too smart for them and start taking over the supply ships and reprogram them to go to random destinations so they can randomly spread throughout the galaxy. I find that hilarious for some reason. Still not clear how the Rachni make more Rachni without a Queen but hey whatever.



'Their motivations are to be evil. Super evil in complicated and expensive ways.'

Wait ships have scuttle charges? Man that seems easily abusable. They set the charges and only give themselves 90 seconds to escape for some reason. I guess Shepard likes to live dangerously.

Fortunately I have learned the layout already so they manage to escape while the Rachni all attacked them. The Rachni always know the most dramatic times to attack.

So...hopefully that is that for Cerberus trying to fill the galaxy with Rachni.

They travel to the star cluster to go to Feros but the Alliance has something more important to do first. A probe was shot down on a planet full of space monkeys and the Alliance needs Shepard to go hunt for its data disk. Well first things first!

They land on Eletania and soon find a strange Prothean device. Now I think I forgot to mention this but the Asari Consort gave Shepard a random piece of Prothean junk when he helped her earlier. It works in this sphere device and gives Shepard a vision.



'The weird hair guy from the History Channel had it right!'

So yeah I am not saying it was aliens but it was aliens. The space monkeys stole the data from the probe so one of them must be carrying it around. Time to carefully fondle a bunch of monkeys.



'Ok just relax and this won't hurt at all.'

Eventually they find a mine and in the bottom of the mine there is a monkey. This most inaccessible of monkeys had the data disk. Once they have it the Geth arrive and try to keep Shepard from escaping with it. Well the Alliance is grateful but they never find out what was on the disk. I hope it was super important Hackett!

Ashley comments that fate has put Shepard right where he needs to be. The conversation soon has a sexual subtext...until Ashley just makes it text.



'Nice! I hope your AI is better off the battlefield though.'

I mean she just stands there up front taking brutal punishment without even bothering to take cover. Huh...that puts a lot of pressure on Shepard.

Ok so they go back to the Citadel, sell all the stuff, then go to Shepard's retirement home and buy lots of level 60 stuff. Then it is off to Feros!



'It is so beautiful. I just want to enjoy having all the Assignments done for a few seconds. Brings a tear to my eye.'

They land at Zhu's Hope, the star port, and a guy is there to tell them to go see their leader, Fai Dan. He is then instantly gunned down by masses of Geth attacking the docking bay.



'So...I hear you are having Geth problems?'

So you fight your way to the colony, in the midst of the ruins of a giant Prothean super city (kind of reminds me of Taris from KOTOR), right as the Geth are moving in for the kill. Man how is that timing eh? So the Geth control the tower right by the colony and Shepard charges up the tower and takes out the Geth. So now everybody has time to talk...and say creepy stuff.



'Because you really love decaying ruins, starvation, and Geth attacks?'

Everybody seems really committed to defending this place as if they had lived there for generations instead of a couple years. I mean for colonists who just left their homes a short time ago they sure sink deep roots fast. When Shepard asks Fai Dan about this he is all like 'look this place is just really special to us alright? It is our home. A great home of decaying wreckage with no natural resources or economic prospects of any kind!'

So they send Shepard out to get them some things. They want to hunt the Varren, who I guess the Krogan have let loose throughout the galaxy, but need Shepard to kill the Alpha Varren, who I nicknamed Legbiter. They also need Shepard to get power cells and turn the water back on. Oh and clear out the Geth in the tunnels below. But besides food, water, power, and defense against the Geth they got it under control. So much for them on Feros. Yep.

So they venture down into the tunnels below the tower beside Zhu's Hope and slay the Varren Alpha, which means Beta Varrens now have a chance to leave the friendzone with the lady Varrens. They start turning on the water and find some power cells in the many wrecked transports. Man the colony must be losing a fortune with all these ruined transports laying around.

Then they find a guy just hanging out with the Geth down there. He seems to be getting off on powerful headaches he gets from his 'master' who he cannot talk about.



'Hey whatever weird master-slave play you people do in this colony is your business.'

So Shepard and company find and destroy a Geth transmitter that...um...somehow allowed them to get into the tunnels. It was guarded by Krogan so that is interesting. Saren is hiring mercenaries.

The colony is sponsored by the ExoGeni, whose missing survey team turned into space zombies way back in part 4. They want the colonists at Zhu's Hope to find something valuable in the ruins but so far they had not had much luck before the Geth arrived and then they REALLY did not have much luck.

Fai Dan is strangely uninterested in the sub hiding down in the tunnels, claiming there is nothing anybody can do for him. It is complicated and he cannot tell Shepard why. He does direct Shepard to the ExoGeni office at the end of a Mako driveable track, where the Geth have set up shop and are blocking all transmissions into and out of the colony.

They go let the colonists know they have food and water and power again. They are really grateful.



'Oh thanks for a few Cre...wait...69,000?'

Man the colonists are rich! You would think they could have just hired their own army to defend the colony.

So they enter the colonial Mako and head off down the track. There is a lot more burned out vehicles and trash on the track so that at least makes it a bit more interesting than the flat track on Noveria. The Geth ships are dropping Geth all over the track to make it fun.

You know if they dropped bombs on the track instead of Geth they would have much more success. Just saying.

While they are driving along they hear radio transmissions from ExoGeni employees hiding on the track. I bet they would hide better without blasting the radio across the planet.



'Yeah who are you even talking to anyway?'

Shepard finds them and there is some kind of argument between Jeong, a corporate stooge, and Juliana who is also a corporate stooge but a less evil one. Jeong claims he only cares about ExoGeni and its shareholder value but he seems to be a dick without any profit motive at all.



'Whatever I am a Spectre, my immunity allows me to conduct industrial espionage to my heart's content.'

So anyway they do not give us much new information except Juliana wants us to look for her daughter Lizbeth. Jeong says we shouldn't waste our time because she knows all the EVIL things ExoGeni has done.

A guy beside them is a contractor who left some information from his freelancing on his computer and wants us to get it. Eh sure...we are going to be there anyway. So having learned nothing new they get back in the Mako and soon arrive at ExoGeni HQs.

Inside they find Lizbeth hiding out. Just like that engineer in Bringing Down the Sky she tries to shoot them.

She tells them ExoGeni found an ancient plant called the Thorian on Feros. She hands us her ID card so we can access the building and drive off the Geth.

Well a short way in they find a Krogan trying to access the ExoGeni VI. They use Lizbeth's keycard to access the VI and discover that ExoGeni discovered it had some kind of mind control abilities. So, like you do, they placed a colony right on top of it to see how these mind control powers worked on the colonists because evil = shareholder value. Lizbeth had an annoying moral problem with that so she was placed on probation. Could big corporations be more evil?

They find the computer of that guy from the ExoGeni refugees and finally find the Geth ship, which is grasping onto the building tied into ExoGeni's power and information systems. They close a particularly ferocious door to smash its attachments and send it plunging to its destruction.



'By way of this little addition minigame. Math is fun!'



'Well it probably looked like a flashlight...'

So that destroyed the Geth ship and allows communications again. Joker tells Shepard that a short time ago, probably coinciding to when Shepard learned of the Thorian's existence, the colonists from Zhu's Hope started attacking the Normandy.

They get Lizbeth on the way out and she confirms the dirty deeds of ExoGeni. She got stuck in the building because she was trying to out ExoGeni to Colonial Affairs but the Geth cut the power. Man so close to being fired for being a whistle blower.

They get in the Mako and fight their way back to the ExoGeni refugees. Lizbeth rushes in to see her mom right when Jeong is being extremely dastardly.



'Damn you are one cold blooded motherfucker.'

ExoGeni wants this place purged so soon nuking from orbit will occur. But Jeong and his evil corporate ways have not met the power of Shepard's amazing charm skill.

Shepard tells him that it would make ExoGeni look good if they supported the colony. At this ridiculos suggestion Jeong, well, he completely agrees.



'Yes! Use your shareholder value for good instead of evil!'

But he still says they still need to get rid of the infected colonists. Shepard instead says they will get rid of the Thorian. Jeong has turned good now so he is alright with that. They give Shepard some knock out gas he can deploy with his grenades to knock out the colonists when they defend the Thorian. The colonists parked a cargo vessel on top of the entrance to the Thorian's lair and Shepard saw the controls to the freighter earlier.

Oh and he gives that guy the mod data he wanted. In case it becomes important later his name is Gavin Hossle.

So they take the track back to Zhu's Hope, fighting through the Geth. When they get there the Thorian has a new surprise for them. Space zombies called 'Thorian Creepers'. You might remember these guys from the Cerberus mission. Oh and ExoGeni sold the Thorian information to Cerberus because EVIL but more on that later.



'Man everytime I get involved with ExoGeni I discover a new kind of space zombies.'

So they have to kill the Creepers while gassing the colonists. It is tricky but they manage.

They get to the controls of the freighter and expose the lair of the Thorian. Then Fai Dan walks up and dramatically says he failed the colony as leader and says the Thorian wants him to kill Shepard.



'Wait just let me get out my gas grenade and *blam* oh damn.'

So, he kills himself in dramatic fashion. That was dark.

They descend into the Thorian's lair and they do not have to go far.

They soon find the fearsome beast...which looks kind of meaty to be a plant...and it speaks through an Asari because they is how creepy things talk to Shepard in this game.



'Wait so if it is that pink color why did it turn the Asari green?'

So Saren came and got knowledge of the Protheans from the Thorian in exchange for something...Asari I guess...but Saren then sent the Geth to kill it so now the Thorian trusts nobody. Oh, good Shepard came here to kill it anyway.

So here comes a battle against more green Asari and Thorian creepers and you must shoot the arm things holding the Thorian up.



'You mean shooting at Lieutenant?'

So eventually the Thorian falls to its gruesome death. I guess. I would think we would need to drop a nuke or something down there to make sure.

Once this is done the original Asari that Saren gave to the Thorian, named Shiala, breaks out of her egg thing she was being kept in and explains what Saren was after was THE CIPHER.



'We have the Conduit, we have the Cipher, all we need is the Catalyst.'

So she mind melds with Shepard by saying a bunch of random new age terms.



'So...which Chakra do I need to be focusing on?'

Then he sees the vision with the new Cipher and it is much clearer now. It still doesn't make much sense but it is much clearer.



'You know now that ME2 showed us what the Protheans look like I feel like I should retroactively nitpick this.'

But it ends this time with a vision of a planet and a star, which narrows it down, followed by Sovereign flying at you. Now the Cipher is supposed to give you the ancestral memories of the Protheans necessary to see the vision clearly. I would think having the ancestral memories of the Protheans would do a bit more than just that. Like maybe knowing something about them. But maybe it will eventually, Shiala says it will take time for Shepard's brain to process. She then says she is going to join the colony and help them rebuild.

They go back to Zhu's Hope. Everybody is there except for Fai Dan. Even the guy getting perverse pleasure from angering the Thorian from earlier. Jeong is there, now a good guy, and ExoGeni is pouring investment money into the colony. Everybody lived happily ever after. Man, is that charm skill great or what? So they all sing 'Yub Nub' and then return to the Normandy.

They all have the big meeting and for the third time in a row only Ashley and Liara have anything to say to Shepard. And of course, they bicker. Liara does the mind meld with Shepard and we get to see the funky thing again.



'Wait do the Reapers use four pin connectors?'

Liara says that the vision is incomplete and they need to find another beacon. Well gee I am sure those are just laying around everywhere.

The council has surprisingly little to bitch about this time, except to say that ExoGeni might have been slightly unethical with how it handled the Thorian situation. You don't say? Though the Turian Councilor still invents something.



'Well to be fair only our colonies ever seem to get attacked.'

Once again they never bother to talk about Saren and how the investigation is going. The side content really gets the most attention in this game.

I think Feros is between Noveria and Therum in terms of quality. It has a cool creepy atmosphere in ancient ruins and creepy townspeople. Knocking people out with the gas grenades was strangely satisfying. The Thorian was pretty cool if rather simple as a boss. But it is on the short side and it is a little ridiculous how everything ties together so nicely just by passing one charm check. I mean suddenly ExoGeni is willing to pour money into this colony with no prospects for being self-sufficient as a publicity stunt? And now Shepard possesses the ancestral memories of the Protheans? Nothing in the rest of ME1 or what I played of ME2 suggests he has that in his head. But maybe that matters in ME3? And I guess Liara has them now to that she mind melded.

But enough of that, it is time to talk to people!

Kaidan is amazed at Shepard's Charm-fu.



'The judge would lock up the cop for wasting the court's time.'

Ashley wonders how Shepard handled those corporate goons so well.



'Glad to see Ashley is getting into the spirit of this thing.'

Oh you sweet talker you!

Liara is ever supportive of Shepard's efforts.



'We all could use a Liara in our lives.'

Joker pathetically whines.



'Hey! That has only happened like three or four times so far.'

They go back to the Citadel and learn that being good has provided excellent shareholder value.



'What? How? Though I guess if random colonists can hand out 69,000 credits for turning on the water it must be more lucrative than we thought.'

Udina is surprisingly not pissed off about the last mission and praises Shepard for saving the colony so keeping humanity strong in the traverse. So, to make up for the pissed off deficit Shepard fills in.



'Garrus is all: can we shoot him?'

Alright after finishing Feros everybody hit max level for a first playthrough at 50. So here is everybody's final stats.



Zero renegade points baby! I sure would have liked a few more points for Commando and Fitness but overall I like this spec. Of course, it means my companions have to invest a lot in first aid.



Soldiers are easy to spec. ASHLEY SMASH.



I like this version of Kaidan. Medic Kaidan. It is very focused on what I need him to do and managed to buff his shields with a few points in electronics there at the end.



I kind of fucked up Liara. I forgot how very rarely you use Stasis. I maybe have used it five times so far. I think I would have been better served putting those points in maxing out her other skills.



Likewise, I should not have given Tali that extra point in both electronics and decryption and maxed out her pistols.



Balanced Garrus is great.



Wrex is pretty straightforward like Ashley.

So now is the time for MORE UNCHARTED WORLDS!!!111 And more Cerberus fucking things up for the evilz. Then maybe check out what that Salarian Special Task Group is up to.

[MadImmortalMan]

I know from my DF threads that this has been a shit load of work. Good on you, Valmy.


Don't play Andromeda though. 

[Valmy]

Another great installment.  Thanks again for doing this.

I am enjoying writing it. Thanks for reading

It has been quite humorous.

Thanks I hope you enjoyed the last update.

I know from my DF threads that this has been a shit load of work. Good on you, Valmy.


Don't play Andromeda though. 

Thanks and um I played through Pinnacle Station even though I knew it was total shit so of course I am going to play through Andromeda

Besides I am sure it will all be patched up by the time I finally play it.

[garbon]

It had me chuckling, so yes, I enjoyed the last update.

[viper37]

It is kind of funny. From the corrupt trading cartel, The Iron Throne, in the original Baldur's Gate to the big corporations plaguing the galaxy in KOTOR Bioware used to be all about these immoral money hungry big businesses doing dirty deeds that endangered the world/galaxy. But boy they cut back on that since they got bought by EA eh? Or maybe not, but I don't recall that really being a thing in ME2. When I get to the later ME games I will make a mental note to check.

There's the small tiny businees with Cerberus...

[Valmy]

Oh they don't count. They are supposed to be a terrorist organization.