Gaming Mass Effect Series

Neither does Jacobs if I remember right.

 

Who? Oh, Jacob. Right, I remember him.

 

Yup. Never invested in the Alternate Appearance packs; I'd rather spend $1.99 on new guns or a storyline DLC. I may change my tune if they come out with a second one for ME3 that's worth it - the Cerberus Ajax Armor has some pretty great stats, but even my adept isn't running around in Cerberus gear (and Ajax Armor is more tailored to soldiers). Give me some kick-arse N7 or Spectre gear, or maybe a new +25% Weapon Damage outfit for Ash - one that doesn't either make her look like a bridge bunny from Star Trek or a Kai Leng groupie

Speaking of my adept ... dear god, I get the feeling I don't even need guns for him. Singularity + Warp is tearing a new one on Assault Troopers as I work my way through Mars, and since right now I'm only carrying a Blood Pack Punisher and an Acolyte (the latter of which is crap, but I decided I'd see if I could get some use out of it) I have a +200% power recharge. Sadly for some reason I wasn't able to get Flare to come up on my character creation options, so I'm using Dark Channel as an interim bonus power.

 

Although it does explain why I get the sudden urge to play the music from the intro to the animated GI Joe movie whenever I face Cerberus in MP...

I think they said it was a "significant investment" to bring back Shep and the Normandy, not that it necessarily bankrupted them. Although between that and the Alliance-Turian raids in the book Retribution, I kinda wonder where they got their resources from, given that was supposedly a "crippling" blow. Soldiers, I can understand more or less. I kinda figured that at the start of the game, say Mars, that those were Cerberus regulars (people that joined before the Reapers showed up). By the time Udina's Coup rolls around I figure they're using the "inductees" from Horizon. As for ships, weapons, armor, Atlas mechs... yeah, I got nothing. Maybe they were surplus or something?

 

Well, the Cerberus cruisers are definitely similar to the Alliance cruisers in design (although something about them is different; ME not having a Fleet Junkie detachment I can't put my finger on it), the "command ship" at Omega sure as heck resembles an Alliance dreadnought, and they use the same shuttles, gunships, and fighters. If they haven't acquired those ships by Alliance defections or theft, they must have a shipyard turning them out somewhere. We do know that Din Korlack gave Cerberus intel that would have helped them capture a Turian shipyard.

 

I mean I guess with the Reaper Apocalypse tons of pro-Cerberus people just gave all their money, or pro-Cerberus shipbuilders, bankers, etc... just gave it to them for free. Or they just waved Reaper tech in front of them and they yelled 'HAIL CERBERUS!' and gave them the ships.

 

More likely lots of folks decided the Alliance wasn't taking the Reapers seriously and threw their chips in with Cerberus. Traynor puts it quite nicely - while the Alliance was "investigating," Cerberus was saving the Horizon colonists. Given that multiple colonies and tens of thousands of people were taken by Reaper proxies while the Alliance and Council did nothing, that could be a pretty powerful recruiting draw.

The messier option is if some Cerberus sleeper agents were able to acquire Alliance ships in the same manner Eva cracked open the Mars outpost - hack the systems, pop the airlocks, and space the crew before inviting a boarding party over. Funnily enough, that's exactly how the Confederacy in the Legacy of the Force series (yes, sorry I mentioned that ****show that makes the ME3 ending look like a staggering work of narrative genius) got its hands on a Galactic Alliance frigate. Given Cerberus's extensive reach into the Alliance detailed in the Shadow Broker's files, and how they were able to take down C-Sec from the inside during the coup, it's not farfetched.

 

Well that would explain why every Alliance soldier no matter where they are always has their breather helmet on.

 

Well, aside from that fun thought - kinetic barriers or no kinetic barriers, you might as well have some armor over your face. That's one thing I miss about ME1 - your entire squad got helmets and sealed armor. None of this crap where someone's walking around on an uninhabitable planet or a possibly-depressurized starship with just a flimsy little breath mask.

 

Or Javik who can apparently breathe in space.

 

Yes, that bugs me.

On another note, my adept just finished Eden Prime ... again, I could almost get away with not carrying a gun (still carrying a Punisher SMG and Indra sniper rifle for Cerberus, though). I managed to switch my bonus power to Flare in the Med Bay and while the cooldown time is a bit long, it's devastating - even if I have it specced for damage over radius, which I may change. Stinks at hitting heavy targets, but it works wonders on blowing up a mob of mooks.

As this is also my first renegade character (even my infiltrator was about 2:1 paragon), I'm finding myself amused at how some dialogue changes. In ME2 for instance, rather than the nice, friendly final conversation with Samara, she tells Shep if they meet again after her oath of service lapses she might have to kill him. The funniest so far is the Shepard VI in the refugee camp - rather than the hi-ho friendly naval officer, the renegade Shep VI is a psychotic little thing, asking the actual Shepard to rip him out of the store machinery and install him in a mech so he can do some actual damage.

 

Because the ME 3 ending is shooting fish in a barrel, and I'm in a mood to pass the ammunition...









Oh, and one specially for DarthCane given our recent topics of discussion...

 

And just this, because it's funny:

 

Aw, hell, triple posting because THIS IS AWESOME:

 

*snerk*

Actually, the funniest bit out of the renegade Shep VI is where he asks you to install him in "one of those flying drone things and strap a Cain to it." ME4, please make something like that happen, just for gits and shiggles.

 

I just finished ME2 for a second time. I want to play a third time to get the rest of the achievements. It gives me the option to import one of two ME2 play-throughs, as well as ME1 imports.

What happens if I import an ME2 character during a third play-through? Will I erase any of my hard work? Can I choose a different class afterward?

 

No and yes respectively, I believe.

Just finished dealing with the Cerberus Coup - first time I took the "Step aside" conversation option trying to get the VS to stand down and then skipped the Renegade interrupt (at the time I thought doing so would have meant plugging the VS), and had to take a reputation check (thankfully Ash seems to have forgotten or forgiven the whole bit from ME1 where this dudeShep floated the idea of a threesome with Liara). Now mired in a whole load of running around the Citadel before I can go biotic *****-slap some Banshees. At least I got Conrad killed in ME2, one less person I need to talk to ...

 

Likewise, I'm done with the Cerberus Coup - which was fun. First encounter with Phantoms, and the first time in a while I was able to pull out my Executioner. "Oh, you're going to do ninja flips and stuff? Okay, (Inferno Ammo) (AR) KA-BLAM, *reload* "Who's next?" I brought Garrus and Liara for this one, figured a Virmire reunion might be interesting -- and Garrus dropped the lifts with Overload. Bye-bye, silly ninja people!

And I'm not ashamed to admit the last scene with Kolyat and Thane had me in big manly tears. The story still has enormous punch when done right. "It was for you." I'm sorry, just have to leave for a second, I...

I've had no experience with Cereal Ninja before, but I think there's two reasons the character seems to suck:

(1) He does stuff effortlessly and nothing really affects him. He moves in a frictionless way, no real expressions of emotion (visible or otherwise), nothing fazes him at all. Those sort of Smug Snake characters annoy me, because in the real world, or with real-ish fiction characters, nobody is that controlled or emotionless - unless they're a sociopath, which is generally much, much better characterised. Hell, look at Tela Vasir from LoTSB: she's a Judas Spectre, but she's not above frustration, annoyance, hatred when fighting Shepard or the like. She works so well as the Shadow Broker's Dragon partially for those reasons - you get a sense she hates your frigging guts. Not so with Kai Leng. To make matters worse, he's an uninteresting villain. Generic flat-affect ninja whose eyes we can't even see. Doesn't even sneer with homicidal glee when he kills Thane/Kirrahe/Salarian Councillor/etc., it's just another day at the office. This was a mistake: Thane is an emotionless type, too, but he's made sympathetic by what we see of his behaviour and his backstory. At least Saren was a rogue Spectre and had history with Anderson. At least the Collectors are grotesque aliens. At least the Illusive Man is a kind of Lex Luthor figure who fights with his mind and contacts rather than fight you directly.

(2) He's the equivalent of an EU immigrant to the main story. This seems to be a common problem with film, TV, etc: when they create a sideline character in the franchise but not in the "flagship" work and then import him over into the main action, the creators have to pump up his significance to the audience that never read the 'EU'. A lot of the time, they overdo it, and it shows -- as with here. I get a similar vibe off Kahlee Sanders; these people pop into the story from un- or semi-related novels and the audience who isn't familiar with the character from reading every EU book under the sun is left scratching their head saying "Why am I hearing so much about this dude now, and being forced to read his dossier, when the last two games said nothing about him? Why can't I be rocking more time with Garrus instead?" I recognise Jimmy Vega, Miranda, and Jacob all had appearances in EU material, but there's an important difference: Miranda and Jacob are with you right from the start of ME 2, James is with you from the start in ME 3, and their backstory isn't put front and centre. Not so Kai Leng, who is the original third act villain somewhat similar to General Grievous - comes out of nowhere, gets talked up by other characters, but ultimately contributes, well, not a lot.

Kaidan was the VS in my Paragon run, and what with all the talking and visiting I did with him there wasn't much chance he was going to make me shoot him. On the other hand I'm glad I did all those fetch quests when I had the chance earlier, before Tuchanka, because I really did start to feel overwhelmed with all the people who can't sort out their own problems and desperately require the assistance of the only human Spectre in the galaxy who's operating at an astronomically high diplomatic level otherwise...having the guide from the ME Wiki makes it a lot more bearable. I'll typically check what systems have been opened up after a given mission, go and clean them out, then head back to the Citadel and start playing Santa Claus.

Also did the Ardat-Yakshi monastery mission -- Sheeeez. I had run into Banshees before, but not cool, Bioware, not cool to start that level off with me only having a flashlight to see by.

 

Agreed about Kai Leng. His rivalry with Shepard seemed extremely forced, especially how Shepard always said "you" whenever he saw him. We already had a rapport with Harbinger from ME2 established and he was the one I wanted to settle my debts with, not some secondary villain who suddenly comes out of nowhere in the third game. I had no tangible experience or relationship with the character so it all fell flat for me.

 

Yeah I missed Harbinger. Was he unable to 'ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL' over the Reaper creatures? I mean Collectors are just Prothean husks? It's like after ME2 Harbinger got a phobia of Shepard, of course that would explain why he was shooting like a mad man at the end of the game 'OH GOSH IT'S SHEPARD! AHHHHH!!! KILL IT, KILL IT, KILL IT!!!!'

 

Almost forgot: as part of the whole "catch up on stuff" thing I had to do after the Citadel Coup, I wound up having three conversations one after the other in my cabin - Traynor, Allers, and Vega, one right after the other. Guess it must've really been Shep's administrative catch-up day...

 

Or you might think that since they know losing Thane/Kirahe would be hard on Shepard they all decided to try and take Shepards mind off it by trying to hang out with him/her.

 

I think the main thing about Kai Leng is how he's only badass through Cutscene Magic, and badly-done Cutscene Magic at that. First crack out of the box, Thane knocks him to the floor and you have FOUR people with guns standing within twenty feet of him. Okay, maybe Thane is kind of in the firing line for Shep's team and he has to reload, but given that Leng does his stupid ninja pose after getting up there should have been enough time to blast him full of slugs. It's worse when you actually fight Leng for the first time - odds are you're going to beat him like a rented gong, yet he still turns the tables on you and gets away.

 

Yeah reminded me of fighting Malak on the Leviathan. I'm totally owning him when Bastila decides he's too much for me and gets herself captured by him. And rather than just use my lightsaber and open the door I have to leave, even though I've slaughtered near the whole crew by new as I'm the Jedi harbinger of death.

And yeah if I have Garrus with me there is no reason he couldn't snipe Leng even with Thane that close.

 

Yeah, as a Jedi Guardian going for the dual-wielder option I tended to just pwn Malak that first time around. Endgame was considerably tougher, but at least I got to actually kill him. Best time was when I suckered him into a spot where I had him at range and he couldn't use Force Jump ... and I had enough thermal detonators that I could have just blown the station into oblivion.

Speaking of stockpiling, my favorite part about the Ardat-Yakshi mission (aside from incinerating two Banshees at once with a Typhoon) is getting that second 5% store discount. That's my cue to really go on a shopping spree. This time around I've only upgraded 4 guns and bought only the first round of weapon mod purchases; I finished the Cerberus coup with something like 296,000 credits in my pocket. I'm gonna be buying some badass armor and a new shotgun after ripping some Banshees apart