The Little Things 2.0

Yeah, the port hanshan part doesn't really qualify as side-quest because it's part of the critical path, but it does sort of feel like one. Really, it should be comparable to which mission you tackle first before curing the Genophage on Tuchanka in ME3 since completeing the Turian quests or the Rachni mission unlocks the Shroud mission.

Also reminds me, I feel like in ME3 they were leading it up to a scenario where if you helped the turians you'd get their support for curing the genophage but then not if you didn't but it happens no matter what and in a rather well-realized cutscene sequence. My assumption is that there was a plan for this but because the cutscene was so polished they didn't have the budget to make a variation where there is no turian support. It's a shame though, because I liked the overall system where you select between missions from the planet-scanning interface.

Donnel Udina looks like John Podesta

When scanning for resources in ME3, the reapers are alerted and will chase the SR2. If the player hasn't scanned everything in that system and wants to get the remaining resources while at the sametime not deal with the reapers, he/she can complete a mission, side or main. Doing that will let the player back to that system without having the reapers chasing the Normandy.

That's right. I've posted many times a link to what I use when playing ME3. I even posted a link in another  thread a few minutes ago. I even have the link in this thread for folks in the war assets thread.

It gets better... that name will come up again a little later in ME3.

I remembered to check out Sovereign's landing site at Eden Prime in my current ME game. The place looked like a volcano had just erupted and created a lava plain. Vanguard of destruction, indeed.

Is it?  I mean, maybe from a meta standpoint, but that club is probably far older than Shepard.  Also, we've got Purgatory in ME3.  I figure they're just death references.  Almost like signs pointing to the inevitability of death by the Reapers.

Well... I guess we're not in Kansas anymore.

The codex for thresher maws in ME1 doesn't unlock until you kill the one on Edolus, even if you've killed other ones already (this happened to me today).

Both locations are listed in the wiki for this codex entry. I guess the reason it can't be obtained at the other thresher maw planets is that the codex entry on Edolus is attached to the Alliance marines you can examine after the kill; it's not associated with the thresher itself.

Never before saw Mordin sing the "krogan queen" song to her in the med bay.