Mass Alex: Mass Effect - Part 16

first had to do much love to this and giantbomb

Can't wait for this! Also reminder there is still at least one or two side missions/encounters on the citadel you haven't seen, particularly on the presidium

Edit: you miss pretty much nothing with the combat arena dlc and collection missions. The arena will get you a nifty space apartment but theres little to do there, and the collection missions are basically just a pat on the back and experience

it's time for the greatest scene in mass effect!

VINNY - SEE OVERLORD

The last time I was this early, I still had Kaidan and Ashley on my team!

Welp, knew Alex was gonna make the wrong choice. Bummer.

Kaiden is 2D personality is obvious choice

@grapegrape: You are not Saren...

BR is at 62% with the critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 93% with the fans, and 8.4/10 on IMBD. It’s a great movie to see in theaters with nice, loud speakers.

@mems1224: Honestly there's no right choice because they both suck

That conversation was one of the best moments in the series. Too bad Alex didn't enjoy it.

Vinman: Watch the swedish Millenium trilogy with your wife, they are pretty damn good adaptatons of the books.

@dogpostsonly: on the bright side, now shep shep gets to turn down kaidan's weird crush a second time

I feel like Alex should take 15 minutes before the next episode (ie offline, we don't need to see it) and just clear out tons of inventory space. There's no reason to keep e.g. 8 assault rifles if only a couple of your team use them. Also, Alex don't forget to fill out all the upgrade slots for everyone's armour and weapons, there were a couple of times you swapped from an item with 2 slots to one with 3 and didn't add an extra upgrade.

Now the real Mass Effect begins!

that convo with sovereign is a lot sillier than i remember. nostalgia, man

@curufinwe: it's a fine movie if you don't know anything about the real band. if you do, it falls apart something fierce.

Another great one. Loving this series.

@madlands: No kidding. That revelation and convo seemed really terrifying when I was younger. Now it's just a vague set up to say "we're killing you because we're just evil." Certainly has less depth than I thought it did.

Time to Wrestling: 3:01

Why is the inventory lagging so bad when scrolling, even when its a text-only list like at 25:20? I don't remember that ever happening when I played but perhaps I just forgot.

@noobsauce: it’s not even the best part of that mission! “hold the line” is one of only two parts of the game that still holds any emotional resonance with me.

@aziridine: i never played on console but i’m guessing it has to do with the controller mod (the game on pc was originally mouse/keyboard only)

Glad Alex's map-checking ways meant they saved Kirrahe. I missed the refuelling platform on my first playthrough.

This series is so, so good. Hopefully you guys do a run through of the Normandy at the start of the next episode, because I believe Kirrahe and his team will be there due to Alex's heroics

Damn, Alex is ruthless.

It's easy to choose not to buy into something described as unknowable, but people still talk about Cthulhu to do this day for a reason. "You can't understand lol" is not really valid against a character or idea meant to be unfathomable. Explaining color to the blind, sex desire to someone not yet sexually developed or asexual, describing the 3 dimensional world to a 2 dimensional being, etc are all similar elements.

if they left the reapers as mysterious Cthulhu-like entities it would have been for the better, but sadly (and sorry Vinny), Mass Effect 2 flushes all the intrigue and mystique ME1 built up for the reapers and it's story and lore overall right down the toilet for a more action-oriented title that was trying to capitalize on the shooter boom.

Alex, I'm so sorry you have to keep putting up with Kaiden.

Alex, I love ya but that Scott Steiner impression is really bad.

Great ep. Was always upset that Wrex died on Virmire for me during my playthrough, knew it wouldn’t happen to Alex though considering how over leveled he is and how many points he’s put into charm.

I AM SO EXCITED.

I still like the Soverign conversation despite being a bit one-sided. I don't think opaque motivation necessarily breaks down its effectiveness, as the Reapers are more like a force of nature enforcing a cycle than defined villains like Saren.

Which brings me to what I think is the heart of Virmire, the motivations and convictions of Saren, the speech the Salarian commander gives to his team, Wrex's conflicting feelings on the nature of the mission, and the heroic sacrifice of one of your earliest companions.

On a side-note I don't know if I just kept on top of the inventory clean-up in this game but I don't feel like going over the limit was this bad. At least Alex is loaded up enough to where he doesn't have to care that much about gear going forward.

Always excited for more Mass Alex, till next week!

Oh man, I'm so excited, I've never done a play through where Kaiden survives, and I want to see how that affects the next few games.

They really shouldn't have done auto-leveling for their teammates. It's literally the reason why all their characters have way too low Decryption skill.

Tbh, not a fan of Queen. But I do recognize they did pretty good music.

Edit, written at the time of Shep Shep's choice. I've never played this game, but I would of chosen Asley. Has nothing to do with popularity, only that she seemed to be a hard-ass warrior. I know Shep Shep is going to achieve anyways, so just a bullshit personal choice. The Salurians?) already had good fighters. Kaiden of course would be of enough use to them, falling back on video game logic.

I've read down the comments, and now gotten a good hint of the results.....

@madlands: no joke, I was so excited to see it and then.......not what I remember.

@noobsauce @madlands

I played through the game (and series) again very recently, and I thought the Sovereign conversation was still awesome and held up.

I think Alex’s attempts to inject humor kinda ruined the moment, but oh well. I think knowing how the rest of the series plays out also makes that conversation better as well.

As the text clearly states on the screen, "Decryption skill to low", Tali's decryption is far from maxed. Really shouldn't have done autolevel, as other commenters have said. Can you reassign points in ME1? I don't remember.

How to solve your inventory being full - go to a vendor, go to the bottom of your list, it is sorted in order. Sell everything up to VII or whatever your highest is at. Very painful watching them omni gelling everything constantly lol

Always baffled me how people think being boring is worse than being a space racist.

Now we're getting into the meat of this game that I actually remember and loved. I don't begrudge Alex for doing all the random side stuff, and I certainly cleared out everything when I played, but it does reveal how much random cruft is in the game that barely has a paragraph of context attached to it, let alone dialogue and story. And that's setting aside the actual nightmares of inventory management. I could do with an abridged re-release of this game that rebalanced and just hit the high points.

@alex@vinny Tali does let you open harder locks. It's under Decryption, not hacking. I think you just glanced over it since you're playing on camera :)
This is why she couldn't open that "hardened" weapons locker.

Ah, Virmire. Such a big deal on my first playthrough of ME - though I saved Ashley because Kaiden is annoying. Heh. But one of the reasons I love ME2 so much is it felt like they took the experience of Virmire and cranked all that good tense stuff up to 11 for the final mission of the sequel (boss notwithstanding). Still... Good old "Hold the line" speech. Good old "angsty Wrex on the beach". Good old "Oh shit, one of them has to die".

o7 Virmire. You're a great one.

Ooooo I saw Sims 3 on that desktooooooooop.

I'd really enjoy some more of Abby's Sims videos, and Alex keep up the good work man. Your almost ready for ME:2.

It only just occurred to me that the Salarian Councilor is voiced by Quark from DS9.

"This is where Mass Effect 2 starts."

Yes!!!

Independence Day Speech!

Fuck man we're stuck with cardboard cut-out character for the rest of the trilogy. Ashley sucks but at least she elicits a reaction out of me unlike boring Kaiden.

Other than that though I'm glad the story is finally moving along.