What did you do today in ME?

Was bored and wanted to talk about something, so decided to at least get past the "vent" part of the suicide mission, so I could "vent" about it.
Ended up finishing the whole mission and Benjamin brought home a shiny "Insanity" badge. Yay!

The suicide mission went fairly well. Casualties were Legion and Jack. Legion was booted up to be blown up when the engine went out because Benjamin didn't get Tali. Jack was taken away by the winged beasts, cursing all the way.

These sacrifices let Benjamin continue with his mission of always having Jacob in his party, while also saving the crew and bringing Mordin, Kasumi, Garrus, Zaeed, Miranda and Grunt home alive. So it was for the greater good. As a final insult he had Jack buried in a Cerberus coffin. Nothing but tact with that boy.

He finished the main story with a one liner and a smug smile, which will be wiped off once he enters the ME3 character creator. Had a sneak peak and his face
But he still has some loyalty missions and dlcs to do, so that horror will be delayed for a long, long while.

Recruited Archangel, did some Firewalker. Talked to some people. Killed some people.

Fantastic, have fun with these wonderful games

Did Virmire tonight. Seriously considered shooting Wrex but ended up just convincing him.
Rescued Kaidan but I'm pursuing Liara so it was nothing personal, just a tactical decision as I find Kaidan much more useful in combat.

We're back on the Normandy now and we've all been through a lot, not just on the mission on Virmire but since Eden Prime I guess.
Going to take some time on the ship and talk to people, make sure everyone is equipped as efficiently possible. Got a lot of good weapons and armour now, plus countless mods too. Need to sell some stuff actually to free up some space.

Got 2 or 3 side missions active so I think I'll tackle them and then after they're completed it's off to the Citadel to tell the council that things are not looking good at all.

This game is just ridiculously good. This is possibly the ninth or tenth time I've played through the game (1st time on PC) and it's still not boring me and I am still discovering new things.

more like what I did in Mass Effect yesterday

Miriam Shepard failed a friend, but helped two others...

[This is long, combining two play sessions. Even though this is the SP forum, I'll mention that I also played some ME3MP games as various turians to celebrate @thetechnoturian 's safe return home from hospital.]

Ordered the Normandy to the Citadel so that Thane and Garrus could take care of some unfinished business. Took a detour through the Minos Wasteland to investigate some strange lifesigns detected from an old mine on the planet Aequitas. Investigated with Jack and Samara; found the mineworkers turned into husks following exposure to a Reaper artefact. Destroyed the artefact.

Docked at the Citadel's Zakera ward; tracked down Mouse, one of Thane's old contacts, for information about Thane's son Kolyat. Caught Mouse trading in unauthorized Shepard VIs; let the matter drop in exchange for a copy. Mouse revealed that Kolyat had been hired by mob boss Elias Kelham. Spoke to Captain Bailey who admitted to taking backhanders from Kelham; convinced him to bring Kelham in anyway to be interrogated by Thane as a non-C-Sec matter. Played "good cop" to Thane's "bad cop", but Kelham could not be sweet-talked into cooperating. Eventually played the Spectre card to get a name out of him.

Kelham had hired Kolyat to assassinate Joram Talid, a turian far-right politician with anti-human views. Tracked him to the downtown wards where he was meeting-and-greeting the electorate. Unfortunately lost him in the crowd. Regrouped with Thane and headed straight to Talid's apartment; found him dead, Kolyat having already fled the scene.

Returned to C-Sec to ask Bailey about "Fade", a forger whom Garrus believed had helped the traitor Sidonis to escape with a new identity. Was advised to look for "Fade"'s contact in a nearby warehouse. Met with the contact, a volus; neutralized his krogan bodyguards; discovered that "Fade" was in fact Harkin, former bent cop now affiliated with the Blue Suns and operating from a Zakera factory.

Took a taxi to the factory with Garrus, brought Zaeed as backup. Fought through a Blue Suns security detail; spotted Harkin in a control room at the back of the factory. The coward attempted to hide behind waves of LOKI and YMIR mechs; fought through them and confronted him. Garrus "persuaded" Harkin to set up a meeting with Sidonis. Prevented Garrus from kneecapping him after the interrogation.

Went downtown with Garrus; tried to persuade him not to take the law into his own hands. Spoke with Sidonis while Garrus listened on the comm from his sniper spot. Learned that Sidonis was an unwilling traitor, now plagued with guilt, a shell of a man. Convinced Garrus not to murder him, his guilt being punishment enough.

Returning to the Normandy, encountered two asari who were unable to board a transport to Thessia after being wrongly added to a no-fly list. Spoke to the customs officer, flashed Spectre credentials, got the asari removed from the list.

Back on the Normandy, went to speak with Thane about Kolyat. Feels a failure; feels that all the good he has done has been at the behest of others; wishing to dissuade Kolyat from following in his footsteps was of his own volition, but was unsuccessful. Difficult to see Thane like this, he's a much better man than he believes himself to be. Perhaps seeing the Collector mission through will grant him closure of a sort.

Answered distress signal from munitions transport vessel MSV Broken Arrow in the Pylos Nebula, en route to a colony on the edge of geth space. On arrival, scans indicated geth presence but no human life. Vessel determined to be on collision course with Fargone Colony on the planet Jonus. Boarded vessel with tech specialists Tali and Kasumi. Restored power to engines while squadmates provided covering fire. Averted catastrophe.

Flew to Zorya in the Ismar Frontier to help Zaeed fulfil a contract to liberate a refinery from the Blue Suns. Took Miranda as backup. Zaeed became reckless after learning that Vido Santiago was on-site; transpired that Zaeed and Vido co-founded the Blue Suns as a professional mercenary outfit; Vido betrayed him, seized control, turned Blue Suns into crime syndicate. Zaeed blasted refinery gatehouse open, igniting fuel; jeopardized operation. Over Zaeed's protest, insisted on sticking to the plan to save the refinery workers; refused to allow him to turn mission into personal vendetta.

Re-routed fuel lines, extinguished fire, evacuated workers. Fought past Blue Suns troops and YMIR mech to shuttle pad; saw Vido escaping by gunship. Zaeed enraged. Forced him to see reason; demanded that he put his grudge behind him to focus on the mission. He eventually agreed.

[In the last section of abandoned mine, I bypassed the majority of the final mob of husks by using Charge on one near to the artefact room.

It wasn't my intention to throw Thane's mission. I lost Talid once, reloaded and tried again, lost him a second time, was too slow to reload and decided to let the failure stand. It enabled me to hear some dialogue that I didn't hear during my first playthrough, at least. It also means that I cannot flub any more loyalty missions or people are going to start dying in the final mission.

Garrus and Zaeed's missions went largely as they did during my first playthrough, Paragon outcome is the only option for Miriam (and me). The last room in Zaeed's mission turned into vanguard heaven, pinballing all over the place, culminating in a successful bumrush of the YMIR mech. Enjoyed that a lot

I've added some recent screenshots of Miriam to the "share your Shepard" thread.]

John Shepard:

Citadel (continued): Had a chat with Miranda via a Spectre terminal. Her father has her sister. She's tracking them down and doesn't want help. Admittedly, I don't have a lot of free time so maybe it's for the best. Killed a batarian terrorist. Convinced another one to use the last of the batarian fleet against the Reapers. Threw a bottle-shooting contest with Garrus. It made him feel better and, frankly, my ego can take the hit.

Saved a volus ambassador who had foolishly made a deal with Cerberus. Zaeed and some others had kidnapped him and planned to kill him after making money off of him. I was able to secretly contact the ambassador. I got him to reveal his location and name drop me to Zaeed. By the time I showed up Zaeed had turned on the others. Despite his fears, I convinced the volus to give me a fleet and the name of a turian world that Cerberus planned to invade for its shipyard.

Utukku: Went looking for some missing krogan scouts. Wrex said there was suspected rachni activity. I was happy to see Grunt there leading Aralakh Company. We found Reaper-infected rachni, much like those seen on Tuchanka. Fought our way to the queen. Freed her and she became a valuable resource in building the Crucible. Also got Grunt and his team on our side.

Ah, I finally finished Mordin's and Jacob's loyalty missions. I took Jack for Mordin's and Zaeed - for Jacob's. I came to really like the idea of having a grizzly veteran along, was fun. The renegade options seem to always encourage a character to kill someone, but it feels right in the context of the impending doom. Mordin is great as a pragmatic version, and I have tried my best to pick every option that left no doubt that everything genophage cure should be destroyed, and stuff. Wreave actually was not a goon I imagined he would be.

I've also recruited Tali and Thane, my two favourites, and it would be a bit tough to leave them out of the playthrough.

And, well, I've played a lovely batch of MP games.

(Groan) Thessia... I am so tired of hearing about Thessia. I have been playing Asari too much, lol.  Shore leave, on the other hand is awesome!

Hannah shepherd made a little trip to feros with the company of garrus and loudmouth wrex.
Fai dan requested help dealing with the geth so shepherd and her team secured the tower.
Offered to evacuate them but was met with a resounding no.
Went to the tunnels to :

restore water to the colony.
destroy geth transmitter.
Get power cells for the generator
obtain varren meat

but not before meeting the mind controlled weirdo in the tunnel.


Headed to ExoGeni to find answers as to why the geth were attacking the colony in style (driving the mako ofcourse).
Met with juliana and sketchy jeong.Juliana requested that shepherd finds her daughter lizbeth.

Found lizbeth hiding in the tunnels and she told us bout the thorian.However she was reluctant to disclose more info on it.
Atleast she was nice enough to give shepherd her id which led to the VI spilling the beans on what the exogeni was actually doing.


Fixed shuttle door
Recovered OSD
Shot jeong (good riddance)
Commanded wrex and garrus to not shoot colonists however i ended up shooting some of them myself because i ran out of the anti thorian grenade (oops)
Fai dan committed suicide.Thankfully or he would've killed shepherd.
Killed a couple of asari clones and many many many creepers.And Eventually destoryed the thorian and freed shiala who gave more insight on why
benezia teamed up with saren (i still question her explanation).Oh and she transferred info to shepherd.Looks like the 'visions' will finally have a meaning.


And with that it was so long feros.Gonna miss you (not really)

Erin/Jen Shepard:

1. Finally decided to obey Hackett's orders and take some shore leave. Went to Anderson's apartment, when he called and gifted it to her.

2. Got a message from Joker requesting that he meet her for lunch. It was just a setup for an ambush. Luckily she made it out alive.

3. Made it to a skycar lot to get picked up by Joker. Wrex dropped in (literally) and helped her fend off some of the mercs before Joker got them out of there.

* * *

Rant time. I have written this before, and I will write it again: I. Hate. The ambush section.

It is sooo bad. Trying to force a stealth mission into a game focused on shooting (and using powers) rarely works, and it fails spectacularly here. Especially since they give you a crappy weapon. Seriously, the fake Suppressor is just flat out bad (it is not the real Suppressor which is actually a decent gun). It weighs way too much (Claymore V is lighter) and its ammo pickup is horrendous.

And on console, the aim 'assist' tends to suck really bad in this section since you really need to score headshots consistently. And oh yeah, as soon as a merc loses his shields, he bolts upright immediately meaning a lot of missed headshots, which ends up wasting a whole lot of ammo.

The good news for Erin and Jen is that they were both Soldiers that used Adrenaline Rush making it easier to line up headshots even though I still missed them like crazy.

Poor Jackie on the other hand is an Infiltrator that does not use Cloak. I gave up after dying at the same spot about a half dozen times. It would not be too bad except I was stuck without my +Power Damage armor which is kind of needed for my Engineering Infiltrator playstyle (Energy Drain cannot fully drain their shields without it). Also, I use Cryo Ammo on her with a low rate-of-fire weapon so I can freeze enemies on almost every shot; cannot do that with the fake Suppressor. I need to use Disruptor Ammo for the shield damage. Also kind of annoying when I think I score a headshot but I don't and end up wasting a bunch more weak damage shots trying to kill a guy that is now rolling out of the way.

Also, drones everywhere. My Engineers wish their Combat Drones were that good.

Wrex can be annoying at times.I dont know how/why shepherd is friends with him.I hope i grow to like him as the events unfold