What did you do today in ME?

Sorry to hear that. 

I finished my latest playthrough of ME2 today. I finished Tali's loyalty mission first and resolved the argument between her and Legion with paragon actions. I destroyed Geth heretics during Legion's loyalty mission. Before launching the suicide mission, I finished all the mission critical Normandy upgrades, amor, shield and cannon.

The suicide mission: I sent Tali into the vents with Garrus as fire team leader. I took Mordin and Miranda with me. After the team made past the vents, I sent Mordin to help Doctor Chakwas get back to the Normandy. Samara maintained the biotic shield on the long walk though the seeker swarms and I took Miranda and Legion with me. The second team leader was Garrus. The final battle team setup was the same as above. I left all the heavy hitters to hold the line with Garrus as team leader. The squad I took with me was Legion and Miranda. The squad arrived at the Reaper larva chamber and I decided to blow up the Collector base. In the end, both Shep's squad and the fire team suffered no casualties.

I don't have the Arrival DLC, so I will start ME3 later tonight or tomorrow.

This coming ME3 playthrough will be a Paragade playthrough. All the major decisions will be paragon with occasional renegades to spice up the things a little bit. I'll try to start another playthrough of the whole trilogy as soon as I finish ME3. I am planning to make this new trilogy playthrough less vanilla than the current one. The new upcoming Shepard will be my first femshep, Visenya Shepard.

Almost halfway through ME2... this time recruiting Jack last (this is the last mission before Horizon). Somehow Insanity is a breeze this time.. even did all the Overlord data packets. I used to think that was a pain in the ass on insanity.

I did get some playing done yesterday afternoon. Thanks to the internet going down for all of last night, I didn't play for long. It didn't come back up until about 6am after going down at 1am. It wasn't that I couldn't play. It's that my PS3 kept trying to connect and I couldn't stop it without messing with my internet settings.

So every 1-5 minutes I saw "Lost connection to access port" popping up on the top right corner of the TV. It isn't very big, but as I found out the hard way, it can screw with your line of sight at the wrong moments...

--I took Ashley with me to the Monastery. On a gameplay level, her and Liara worked out very well. I take Liara with me every time I go there for her reactions. On an RP level, I was left feeling like Alex didn't help improve Ash's feelings towards aliens. Granted, Ash is better than she was in ME1 but can still be pretty caustic about the matter.

--Grabbed Tali and got to the Geth Dreadnaught. I went with Team Dextro, since I felt that Overload was better than the grenades. Next time though, I'm going with Team Anti-Geth (Tali/Ash.) I still prefer the quarians reaction to Legion coming on board if you brought him/it along for Tali's loyalty mission. "Oh, it's your geth friend." Also, telling Xen to piss off is a favorite of mine. 

--Talked to Samara. I thought about having Alex be a jerk towards her, but then I realized that Alex does truly find it an honor that Samara joined him. She is one of the few asari that Alex (and I) really like and respect.

--Saw Miranda in person. One of the things that I didn't care for with her ME3 story arc was that the writers brought up the chip again. Um, I thought that whole thing was pretty much resolved in ME2. <shrug> This is the same game where the VS continuously forgets that they had forgiven Shep for Cerberus. Sorry, I digress.  

--For laughs, I went out Space Trucking in Argos Rho. Bare in mind, the net was down so I didn't have access to my maps. Cue me scanning the systems like a kid on a sugar buzz. I managed to find everything, but I had to go do the N7 fuel reactor quest first. It gave me a whole new appreciation for those that create maps and guides for the rest of us to use.

--Took care of the fuel reactor quest. Damn near died because a Brute was coming up as I was getting that net error message yet again. Then it happened yet again because it was distracting me and Shep almost got eaten by techno zombies Husks.

--Got that damned internet message from the PS3 for the last time. I was going to do some shopping at the Citadel, then it dawned on me that I was about to throw the controller. I had no internet but the cable was working. I turned off the game and watched Cake Wars.

Once you get the achievement for getting all the packets, there is no reason to ever get them again. It has been a long time since I ever picked them up. As far as I know, they have no bearing on ME3 so why bother? But if you feel compulsive to get them, by all means, go ahead.

Jeff Shepard:

- Catchphrase of the Day: "Turn back. You shouldn't be here." Yeah, I wonder if the Leviathan doesn't get it that this isn't convincing normal human behavior.

- What I thought was Garneau blew itself, the Leviathan artifact and a bunch of husks up. Kaidan found the real Garneau's body. He'd been dead for a while. Then the miners finally started behaving normally. It turned out they had been under the Leviathan's control for 10 years. They still thought it was 2176. They were all in for some big surprises.

After dealing with himself and meeting a few buddies on the Citadel, it was time for Carter to seek Sanctuary. It went surprisingly well.
After making sure his sister-in-law was okay and having a moment with Miranda it was time to traumatize Javik, who in turn insinuated he'd eat Carters fish. Carter then presumably threatened to choke the bastard with his deluxe eel. And maybe then some biotic fisticuffs ensued, rocking the Normandy all night long... Liara will never recover from this. 
Anyways, things were tense, so Carter went to cool off by having drinks with Miranda and shooting stuff in the Armax Arena. Good times. Also saw Fleet and Flotilla with Tali. Finally he got a letter from Miranda to meet him at the bar, which he used as his carrot to survive the final part of Leviathan.

Which also went surprisingly well. And despite being short, the underwater walk was sooo worth it. Jellyfish 
Ashley had a nice moment of "Please don't pull a Kaidan on me, you idiot" so Carter made it up to her by taking her out for drinks on the Citadel when they returned home. Then he met with Miranda and creepy smiles ensued. 
A few more meetings and it was time for a party! It was loud all the way, with lots of dancing. It was nice having Wrex and Grunt this time around. Spent way to much time watching the latter one in the shower. He truly was a pretty bird.
The next morning gave some more creepy smiles and revealed that Carter likes to watch people sleep... After some eggs and asprin ( and feeling a bit guilty for the younger hang-over casualties) it was time to "Assault the Illusive Man". Once again, it went surprisingly well. Even if I learned that the Atlas has a kill grab like the banshees (so no bumping bodies with those) and turrets don't give a damn about barriers. Also I think Kai Leng survived this time. I saw him moving when Carter was leaving (but he was to busy trash talking the VI to notice).

Finally it was time to "Assault the Earth" which went pretty badly. Carter refused to charge at things in plain sight, Marauderes laughed at his barriers and my pinky cramped up. So now Carter just has to stand in the middle of trenches until he learns how to Charge. (And until pinky recovers, since brain refuses to play otherwise.)

Not sure where to ask this, so I'll put it here.


Michel gives Medigel capacity bonus and Chakwas Medigel efficiency, but I recall that if you do a new game plus, you'll be able to get both upgrades. I just forgot how it was done.

Do I recruit Michel the first playthrough and bump from 8 to 10 medigel... then on the second playthrough, I'll get Chakwas efficiency with 10 medigel?

I finished recreating most of the (good/useful/visible) ME2 guides from the old BSN into the Game Mechanics and Character builds forum in these boards. Doubtful I can recreate all the good ME3 single player guides from the forums before the old BSN shuts down on October 25, but I'll give it a shot.

So I will not be playing any Mass Effect until the old BSN shuts down. Which is a bummer. Oh well.