Mass Effect: Ilos

May Contain Spoilers!

The next couple of posts from me will be what happens at the end of Mass Effect.  As well as informing you what happens in the game, I will let you know the choices that I made that change the outcome of different scenes.  There will be spoilers and if you do not want to know what happens I suggest holding off on reading these posts.

Mass Effect: Virmire Part 2

May contain spoilers!

We last left off with the choice of what character you were going to leave with Captain Kirrahe.  I really did not use Kaiden very often, so I felt that he was the character I could leave behind.  After this point you can start making your way into the back way of the facility.

The first group of enemies you will run into will be protecting the Communication Tower.  As long as you keep cover and use your sniper riffle you should be able to easily handle the majority of the Geth.  If you are looking for Paragon points you can shut down communications which would help Captain Kirrahe.

Continue to make your way past the enemies.  There are monitor objectives that can be completed on your way into the facility.  Once you reach the facility you can disable the alarms.  With this you are given the option to send the enemies to the front of the facility.  If you don't think you can handle them yourself you can choose that option.  I however decided to fight them myself.

Most of the difficult stuff is out of the way.  Make your way through the facility and shut down the AA guns so you can get set the nuke.  While going through the facility you will come across some of the prisoners that Saren has been experimenting on.  You can free them to gain Paragon points, or leave them or even kill them.

When looking to shut down the AA weapons you will come into contact with an Asari named Rana Thanoptis.  She has been working for Saren and offers to get you into his private chambers.  You notice that there is another Beacon here.  As you activate it you see some of the same images from the first beacon.

When the cut scene is complete you notice and have a long conversation with Sovereign, a Reaper.  They are real after all.  How are you going to convince the counsel of this?  You will worry about that later.  You have to shut down the AA weapons so that you can set the nuke.

Taking the elevator down to the Breeding Grounds you will encounter a few more Geth.  After finishing them off you are finally able to shut down the AA weapons.  With the AA weapons down the Normandy can bring in the nuke.  You tell Kaiden to meet you at the rendezvous point.  He is pinned down with the crew he is with.  Once again you will have to make a choice, Ashley or Kaiden.

If losing one of your team members was not enough the timing of Saren showing up definitely does not make things better.  Saren believes the only way to save himself and others is to work with the reapers.  This is why he has been doing the things he has.  The worst part about it is that he believes he is doing the right thing.  After the conversation ends there is a battle between your crew and Saren.  Do what ever you can to attack him, but make sure to find cover.  After the battle you will enter the end mission cut scene...

Next up: Return to the Citadel.

Mass Effect: Virmire Part 1

May Contain Spoilers!

This planet has to be the exact opposite of Noveria.  Blue skies and sand beaches everywhere make this planet very pleasing to the eye.  Now to find the salarian reconnaissance team that has sent out their distress call.  All we know at this point is they have information on Saren.

As you approach Virmire, you are dropped onto the planet with the Mako... Now going 4 for 4 using the Mako on planets you have traveled to.  Your objective, to shut down the AA guns so that the Normandy can land. 

Traveling in the Mako you come across three separate Gatehouses that are swarming with Geth.  In order to get past the gates you will need to get out of the Mako and fight your way through the Geth and activate the gate in the gatehouse.  This applies for all gatehouses.  Once again you can use the Mako to kill enemies in passing, or take the route I did and just take a nice Sunday drive past everything.

You will soon reach the Salarian Camp and come into contact with Captain Kirrahe.  He informs you that he has found Saran's Research Facility.  It has been discovered that Saren has found a cure for the genophage (the hereditary virus which causes only one in a thousand krogan offspring to survive) and is now breeding a Krogan Army!

Having a Krogan in your party does not make things any easier.  Wrex (the Krogan in your party) is torn on what needs to be done.  On one hand he knows that Saren needs to be stopped at any cost.  On the other he has a chance to bring a cure that would repopulate his race.

There are a couple different ways you can take care of this.  I personally chose to talk Wrex down from the ledge by informing him that even though there is this cure, these Krogan would be slaves to Saren and they need to be destroyed in order to defeat Saren.  In order to go the route I did you would need to have your charm or intimidate leveled enough.  The other option would be to kill Wrex.  This option might be the only one available given the circumstances.

With all the drama with Wrex completed you can start to prepare for the assault.  Captain Kirrahe has a plan, he is going to use his ships drive core as a nuke to blow up the facility.  It needs to be airlifted into the facility but someone will need to go in and disable the AA guns.  Captain Kirrahe suggests two teams, your team to sneak in and disarm the AA weapons, and his which will provide cover and distraction in the front.  The lack of ground troops he has is a concern and asks for one of your crew members and you have to decide between Ashley and Kaiden....

Next up: Virmire Part 2!

Mass Effect: Feros

May Conatain Spoilers...

By now if you have not noticed, I plan on posting a blog after I complete a planet.  This way I will be able to talk about the planets as a whole and not have to worry about stopping midway through missions.  I have been able to get in about a planet a day.  As I get more into the game I will have to see if I can keep up that pace.  Now onto what's really important here...  Feros.

Coming into the port at Feros you are greeted quite differently than Noveria.  As a matter of fact you are not really greeted at all.  After you exit the Normandy, you start to wander through Feros.  Knowing that the reason you came here was because of the Geth you make your way through the port.  To no surprise you are met with the Geth attacking you as you explore the new planet.

Shortly after your first encounter with the Geth on Feros you find what is left of the civilization Zhu's Hope.  It appears to have been under constant attack and you will quickly learn that something doesn't seem quite right with some of these people.  Strange or not, you decide to help them with their current Geth infestation.

With the Geth now exterminated from Zhu's Hope your mission now turns into finding the cause for the strange behavior with the locals.  Once again you will find yourself using the Mako and traveling across the sky way.  This time i just drove past the enemies and didn't give them a chance to kill me.  After a short time in the Make you find more survivors that have been holed up since the Geth attacks.  Here you are able to accept a couple more missions and then continue to the ExoGeni Facility.

The Geth's main ship has attached itself to the facility.  Fighting your way through enemies and completing a fairly simple puzzle helps you rid Feros of the Geth for good.  Now all you have to do is make your way back to the survivors.

              

Once you return to the holed up survivors you find out what has been wrong with them.  They are being controlled by the Thorian and all the survivors in Zhu's Hope will turn against you and the choice is yours to eliminate them, or subdue them.  I personally chose to just subdue them, keeping my nice guy image alive.  Turns out, the Thorian has been under Zhu's Hope for quite some time.  Gain access to the Thorian's home and destroy him to save the colonists. 

Overall this was a fun planet to play through.  There were not many moments where I felt overwhelmed by the enemies, but had enough action throughout that kept me hooked.  I can easily see myself playing through this game again and doing the opposite of what I did the first time around.

Next up: Artemis Tau cluster  

Mass Effect: Noveria

Contains possible spoilers!

Picture Canada in the Winter.  Now make it 10 times worse!  That is the impression that I got from the wonderful planet Noveria.  It is a frozen planet where no one would want to travel to unless they had specific business there.  As it turns out the reason you are there is you are looking for Matriarch Benezia.

When you first land you will encounter a greeting that is as warm and friendly as the planet itself.  After the guards are told to stand down you are then able to start looking around.  While you are searching the area and finding information on Matriarch Benezia, you quickly find out that many of the locals have been told not to talk with you.  Eventually you will find people who are willing to give you information on Matriarch Benezia.  Only problem is she has traveled to Peak 15 and the only way there is through the garage that you can't access.

Once you gain access to the garage you are able to get into a vehicle and drive to Peak 15.  This was not an easy task for me.  For some reason it took me a few times to get through it without everyone getting killed.  After driving your snow vehicle to Peak 15 you enter and find that it is in disarray.  Something has gone wrong and you first encounter The Rachni.

You fight your way through the Rachni in Peak 15 and finally find survivors.  How could things have gotten this bad here?  Turns out that the researchers at Peak 15 are responsible for the Rachni.  They were trying to raise them to be allies.  It does not go according to plan.  

Being the good hearted character that I am, I agree to help rid them of the Rachni problem.  What a bad decision I made.  Shortly after killing off the remaining Rachni I return to the survivors.  No one is around so I start to wander around for them.  Had I killed them off in the process?  My question is soon answered when I walk through a door and am fired upon by the survivors from orders of Matriarch Benezia!  At this point I really wished I had saved my game less than an hour ago.  Fortunately, I made my way through the survivors and onto the battle with Matriarch Benezia!

This was not a very difficult fight once I knew what to do.  Matriarch Benezia send a few waves of enemies at you.  As long as you keep cover and stay out of sight from Matriarch Benezia it goes fairly quick.  Once the battle has finished you see that Matriarch Benezia has been keeping the last Queen Rachni in the universe contained.  While examining the Queen, one of the enemies bodies stands up and starts to walk towards you.  The Queen Rachni is communicating to you through the deceased enemy.

The choice then, to let the queen go and continue their race or kill her off and wipe them out of existence?  The choice is yours.  I just hope my choice does not come back to bite me later on.

Next up: Feros!

Mass Effect Cont.

The Citadel!



Last night I was able to explore The Citadel and get a bunch of side quests in.  I wanted to kind of stay on the main quest path, but it is so easy to get side tracked into other things.  Mass effect does a good job of having the side quests come to you.  This being part of the reason I got so side tracked.  It seemed to me that whenever you found a new area to explore, there was a new character asking for your help.  Knowing that I could use the exp. and the credits, how could I say no?

The combat in Mass Effect is something that I am not completely on board with yet.  The controls seem to be a bit shaky at times, but I have been told that they get better as your character builds up his skill.  One of the aspects that I am happy with is the cover system.  In the early stages of your character development it seems to be very important that you find cover when in a fight.  A few times I decided to go all out and just attack.  That ended very quickly with my entire party dead in the matter of seconds.

So, after a good three hours, and a couple of beers, I finally got back onto the main quest path (even though I had the proof I needed to move forward about 45 into playing last night).  Had I not been so tired I easily could have kept playing.  The more I play Mass Effect the harder it is for me to put it down. 

First Impression of Mass Effect

I have to start off by saying I am surprised that I have not played this game before.  Mostly because it has been out for three and a half years!  I know BluePai had probably told me to play this in the past.  Usually I listen to his suggestions, but for some reason this time I didn't.  Either way, I was only able to get about an hour into the game last night.  After all, I do have a real job that I have to get up in the morning for. 

Because I was quite eager to start playing the game itself, I really did not take much time in the character creation in the very beginning.  I was however quite surprised to hear a familiar voice once I started.  Seth Green lends his voice as Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau. 

As the game starts you find yourself on a ship called "Normandy".  After a few conversations with different crew members, you come to find out that you are traveling to a destination called "Eden Prime".  Once you have gone through the conversations with different crew members you are ready to explore Eden Prime and search for the Beacon. 

I could continue on the story line, but like I have mentioned in a previous post I may be the last person who even comes to this blog who has played this game.  Even though I was only able to play Mass Effect for about an hour, I was quite impressed.  The graphics, in my opinion, are very good.  Along with a couple cut scenes that are fantastic graphic wise. The one that sticks out in my mind is the scene where your character wakes up on Normandy after exploring Eden Prime. 

One thing I really liked was the interaction in the game. You can choose your own answer when asked a question.  I am assuming that your answers will effect the way you are viewed in the game.  In that regard it reminds me very much of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.  I can only hope that the story will be half as good as KOTOR. 

Overall I am impressed so far with what I have played.  I know it is barely scratching the surface in what I have seen out of this game, but I do look forward to diving in a little deeper and seeing what Mass Effect really has to offer.  I know for a fact that this game will be played quite a bit over the weekend!

Next game.... MASS EFFECT

So after my previous post about what game I should play next, I have decided on Mass Effect.  I know this is a game that I probably should have played when it came out, but I didn't and will now start on it tonight.

A few things went into deciding which game to choose.  The input was very important, and although not everyone seemed to pick Mass Effect as their first choice, everyone did seem to have mentioned it.  Also the fact that it was $40 cheaper than Crysis 2 did not hurt.

I plan on keeping a blog dedicated to this game in the pages tabs under Currently Playing.  I will post about things that come up in the game and situations I may encounter.  Along with that I will post my progress and how the game is coming along.  I have not completely decided if I will post a review of this game seeing as most of you have already played it, but I do welcome any tips or suggestions that may help.  After all, it does seem like I am the last person to play this game.