In Progress Let's Play Mass Effect 3: Emotional Engagements

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Quaquas could've left the system at any time since the dreadnaught was down, and not attack the Geth for no real reason, to begin with. They stay - they fully deserve to die.

Oh, FFS...


Also, yeah, "orbital bombardment"? Were they firing autocannons? Anything worth firing should've leveled the landscape in a few km radius, including Shep. Not to mention the precision. Of mass drivers. Firing from orbit. Good god, Bio...
Anyway, incline in saving the Geth. Still disappointed you let the Quas live, though, RK. But I guess we wouldn't have savoured the creepy space loli romance to its full extent, otherwise. The derp must flow.

Confession:
I was initially shocked by the choice given. Clearly, the lack of Blue & Red Option on the initial "Does this unit have a soul?" question gave me pause for thought. I weighed the C&Cs a bit, and decided, 'Yeah, give the geth a fair chance to defend themselves - the quarians are literally staring at deactivated geth platforms and they still wouldn't stop firing'.

But when the upload started, the Blue & Red options appear and I went 'Meh.' the impact was lost immediately. Shepard settled the whole conflict with a strongly-worded speech. Believable? I'm not sure. I suppose the goodwill he had with Admiral Koris counted for something. I think if it wasn't for Tali & Koris backing Shepard with their authorities, there wouldn't be enough majority to sway the Quarian fleet. For what's it's worth, it's a decent ending, but the answer is too easily given.

But hey, we've pleased the geth fans and Tali at once. So it's mission accomplished for me.

Oh good, you're finally past that point so I can speak without spoiling.

Anyway the "meh" option is one pretty good occurrence of C&C in a Bioware game (I know, shocking), and IMO this makes it not so meh. There are apparently quite a few variables that play into whether you get the third option or not. Some build towards some kind of score, but there are reports that failing some of the checks automatically disqualify you, and no one's actually figured out yet exactly which choices do what. So say your XTREME SHEPARD had actually gotten both Tali and Legion killed in ME2 and then proceeded to get Koris killed, you would have failed the speech and been unable to get both sides together.

It's not bad for what it is.

Killing the Reaper by laser pointer was even stupider than the Sandworm thresher maw though.

I don't think it was stupider - a precision kinetic strike from orbit is the perfect answer to one of these stupid things on the surface. One does have to wonder how it's possible a tiny little man portable target designator could possibly get through EWAR capable of jamming an entire fleet's worth of sensors and their supporting aircraft, though. The thing was big enough to be easily visible from orbit, a visual lock would have sufficed, but poor Shepard would have been paste when it hit.

My problem with the reaper on foot fight:

Y U NO USE THANIX



I mean fuck, it can blow up a collector cruiser with ease. What is a land based reaper to it? It has to have weaker shields right?

Lol, these Reapers are the most inneficient killing machines ever existed. Please tell me that at least if the laser beam hits you Shepard dies instantly, otherwise it's pure lulz.
Also, I doubt that the Geth and the Gypsies Quarians will be able to live in peace for long. I'm sure a new war will start sooner or later, when it does, the Quarians will lose.

PS: Also, why the hell did Legion had to die? In fact, if the Geth Units gain full sentience, they lose the Hive-mind part that made the Geth somewhat interesting...

In some ways that looked like the worst and dumbest part of the game so far, but on the other hand it also looks much more entertaining than any of the earlier parts. I mean, every time someone says "keelah se'lai" I want to stab myself in the ear, and the hliariously sugar-sweet response from Shep when Tali says she loves him is especially cringe-worthy. The "you lied to me!" part in the beginning is another piece of proof that BioWare are masters in unintentional comedy. The part where Shepard gives Tali the rock is godawful. Then there is the "it's not a Reaper base, it's a live reaper!" thing that sounds really fresh and original compared to the "it's not a Reaper ship, it's an actual Reaper!" thing from the first ME. The orbital bombardment thing is just dumb as hell and the fight looks just boring. Legion becomes a Geth Jesus. The ending is total Disney movie stuff and is only lacking a group hug between the Geth and the space Jews.

Still, in some ways it just seems kind of fun and reminds me of the best parts of the ME2 LP (I've never played the actual game myself). Half of it is cutscenes, but at least there's something happening all the time instead of it being just inane banter like in the earlier missions. The amount of filler seems to be minimal. Having the choice to save everyone in the end is not bad in my opinion, as long as it's affected by your earlier choices and your relationships with different characters. The dialogue between Shep and Tali at the end is also pretty good as far as BioWare romances go. Some of the characters simply seem more likable in this mission than they were before. I don't know if that was fun to play, but it was pretty fun to watch.

For super intelligent machines, reapers have the worst targeting systems ever. Also I vaguely remember just 'dropping' something from high orbit onto a planet with earthlike gravity leads to a massive crater, let alone firing hundreds of them at c-fraction. Then again, the projectile speeds look more like flak cannons anyway....

Aside: RK, do you ever use squad ammo powers? They are significant boosts, and most of your squad has one. Given their actives have slowish cooldown anyway, you might as well dump some points in them. Vegas incendiary w/r6 explosions is especially imba with a particle rifle or whatever.

Oh and how the fuck does legion need to die to distribute code? I mean fuck, if the reapers added new hardware to him that the rest had to reverse engineer I could understand it. But it's fucking code, GETH CANNOT INTO CTRL+C CTRL+V!

It's instakill if it reaches you.

I am amazed that 'precision strike' didn't obliterate anything in 50 km radius. Just look at the projectile spread on that cinematic.

Anyway, I recall something mentioning it earlier, but why are there like no missiles used, and ones that are seem to be normal combustion propelled ones, with smoke and all. You'd think mass-effect field propelled nukes would be a little more effective than farting pieces of metal around.

27 minute video...

Fucking of this LP

Napped after five minutes.... if you don't bought this shit, HK 47 is bro for playing this space shite for instead of us.

Interesting tip. Will try that later.

My understanding of pseudo physics is that high c projectiles > nukes for a set amount of energy and stuff you have to invest. Something about the amount of stuff you have to invest in nuke material could be turned into ginormous kinetic energy divided amongst projectiles as you see fit. Of course, as in the ME universe these kinetic projectiles seem to carry the energy of artillery shells instead of MASSIVE DAMAGE, I also think nukes would be much better.

Squad cryo ammo combined with the BROthean and his particle rfile was . Far better the useless crap it was in ME2, but that's because derperus and reapahs cannot into shield in ME3 .

Post Rannoch


Yes, Councilor. Two, in fact.
I've read your reports. I can't believe you convinced both sides to stand down.
I had a lot of help.
We're still facing isolated pockets of geth. They appear to be geth bodies loaded with Reaper code. But they're a minor threat relative to the full geth fleet. Regardless, Commander, you've given us the first reason to hope in this war. Speaking of which...

Uh oh.

I have information for you, vital to the war effort. I'd prefer to share it in person.

This doesn't sound very promising.

What if I come to the Citadel?
That would be preferable, Commander. Meet me in Councilor Udina's office.

And why is she still referring to the office as Udina's? Technically the new Councilor should've taken over by now.



Might as well do a status check on Hackett's fleet.


What's our state of readiness, Admiral?
Given the situation everywhere else, as close as we can be. You've done well, Shepard.
what about the extra help we've picked up along the way?
Bringing in both the quarians and the geth has helped us immeasurably. The quarian fleet is providing evac and fire support, while the geth attack Reaper supply lines.
How about the asari and salarians?
Since the coup attempt, the asari have stepped up to the plate. They're committing fleets and sending a science team to work on the Crucible.
And the salarians?
They sent an entire fleet as a "thank you" for rescuing their councilor. Plus, she seems to like you for getting her that job. That got us an STG task force.
What about the turians and krogans?
The krogan and turians have obviously been a big help. If that female krogan you rescued had survived, she might've rallied more support from the clans, but I'll take what we can get. I'm glad you disabled that bomb on Tuchanka. We could've lost a lot of krogan support. As it is, we picked up some turian troops.
Good to hear. What's the Reaper situation?
It's not trending well, even if you did buy Rannoch some time. Our threat projections show the Reapers will gain the advantage on most other fronts. And now the asari are a prime target - they're the most advanced race in the galaxy. We'll soon find out if that means anything.
If I may, Admiral, I have a personal question.
Speak freely, Commander.
Why me? Why put me in charge of all this?
Because you're the only son of a bitch I've got who knows how to kill Reapers.
I admit I've had some practice, even success - but does that qualify me for this?
Your dossier says it does, Commander. I'm well aware of your actions on Torfan all those years ago, wiping out the batarian prisoners. It came with a cost and ruffled a lot of feathers, but you made the tough call and got the job done.
And because of that, you think I qualify to save the galaxy?
Shepard, let me tell you something that I've learned the hard way. You can pay a soldier to fire a gun. You can pay him to charge the enemy and take a hill. But you can't pay him to believe.
I don't follow, sir.
When you went up against Sovereign, there was no good reason to believe you'd win.


But your crew didn't seem to care - they went along anyway. Your trip through the Omega 4 relay? That was a suicide mission if there ever was one.


Yet there your crew was, standing beside you, proud to serve. Why? Because they believed in you. Their leader. That's what I need now. Where we're taking them is liable to get pretty hairy - and I know you're the one who will get us to the other side.
Nothing more, sir.
Hackett out.

We've gained so much from Rannoch.




We're literally at full strength. Too bad we'll probably have to settle matters with the asari councilor before we're allowed to finish the job.



Always have time for you, Tali. Later.



He did? I was under impression that I was dodging most of the eye-beam the whole fucking time.

Joker pulled the Normandy through some insane maneuvers to stay out of the line of fire.
It's hard being in a fight like that, especially when you're not the one flying the ship. Joker's one of the best, though.
At first, I was nauseous, swinging around in my safety harness. But then I was furious. Just... enraged. I wanted that thing dead.
You didn't want the Reapers dead when they attacked Earth?
I wanted them defeated. I wanted Earth saved. But I never wanted to physically tear them in half and watch them blow up.
Congratulations, Traynor. I believe you've discovered your fight-or-flight instinct.
Perhaps I should have stayed with chess. Although now I think I'm spoiled by the lack of explosions.

I've got this bit as well, despite saving Krogan and Salarian dalatress being all butthurt. Needless to say, said fleet didn't exist.

Well, that's something (although, from what we see in the video, you'd have to really try to get hit by that thing). What about the part just before, when you're fleeing from the Reaper and shooting at it at the same time ? Can you get killed if you don't hit it enough (something that also seems difficult to achieve) ?

Failing to spray and pray the Reaper? Uh...there's nothing else for the gamer to do. I can't imagine anyone failing at that shit.

I died a couple of times to the laser cause I didn't know I gotta wait for the tone before aiming it at the Reaper. Oh well.
And the dodge first, aim later lesson is learned after around the 3-4th death.

When you make the hero some kind of cover dodging badass, it's very hard to adapt to 'Gotta stay out of the laser's path man keep rolling'

Was it worth it?

The rest of the crew still can't believe what took place in Rannoch. Yeah, me too. They spent a few centuries planning to kill the geth, and now they're living in the same planet. I guess this Reaper war will bond them a bit.


And now my people have a world to fight for, something they know will last forever.
... So long as you and the geth remain good neighbors.
They're not our servants anymore. I'm not sure what we should call them. Allies?
Friends?
There's still too many wounds on either side, but... maybe. One day.


Who would've thought?
Not how I ever imagined that would turn out. Next you'll be telling me the krogan and turians are cooperating. Oh, right. You managed that one, too.

You're a peacemaker, Shepard. A rare thing these days. Now, if you can pacify the Reapers, we'll make you a saint.

Not everyone is impressed, however. Guess who?


You are proving that humans are capable soldiers. But I question this "peace" you have brokered. No such thing is possible between machine and organics.

Go ahead, educate us on the finer extreme arts of war.

I would have destroyed the synthetics without hesitation. And these quarians... let's just hope they are reliable allies. It's difficult to trust a species that hides behind masks.

Yeah. Good way to judge a race. By their looks. Can't you touch them and learn a bit, at least?

The only conflict you should concern yourself with is the one with the Reapers. Diplomacy does not win wars. Powerful and plentiful firearms do.

But what if Diplomacy gains us both, jackass? Meh, I didn't come down here to see him anyway. I came down to deck 4...



For her.



Totally worth it.

So... Quarians are humans ?

From what I read, that picture has generated a lot of butthurt for being a stock photo.

All those husks need to eat fresh brains.

How do we fight an enemy that has no supply lines? We attack their supply lines.