Spoiler Warning S4E29: More Fighting!

By Josh Posted Tuesday Jan 25, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 103 comments

I’m really starting to run out of name for episodes where everything is fighting all the time.


Link (YouTube)

In any case, I want whatever Vasir’s having. Seriously, this boss fight took most of the episode. And let’s have a look at the sequence of events here:

1. We crash her spacecar into a building. She’s apparently injured, but not enough to keep her from shooting a bunch of robots and walls for no reason.
2. She walks into a large bar while bleeding out to the point that her boots are covered in her own blood, and takes a hostage.
3. We shoot her (and the hostage, yay!) which is apparently the equivalent of a mild breeze to Vasir because…
4. Only after all of that do we finally launch into a lengthy seven minute boss fight wherein we discover that she still possesses an enormous reserve of spare shield energy and armor (and a respectable supply of mooks).

I swear, she has more lives than Saren. And she’s more of a pain to kill to boot! I know the Illusive Man keeps telling Shepard that she’s “humanity’s savior” and that she can “do anything,” but sheesh, this was just one of the Shadow Broker’s agents! I mean, we do have the “reload last save” button on our side, but really, my years of shooter experience tell me that “godmode” is better.

Maybe we could just settle on noclip.

 


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103 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S4E29: More Fighting!

  1. Majere says:

    Mumbles, I am disappoint.

      1. Sydney says:

        You didn’t make him Examine the TV. Liara has a fun conversation if you do that.

        1. Fede says:

          I thought it was because of her “i don’t like HK-47” comment.

          1. X2-Eliah says:

            Don’t see why you’d think that.. hk47 is so last generation, it’s not even funny to say you liked it.

          2. RTBones says:

            And I thought was because she doesn’t like The Princess Bride.

            1. krellen says:

              That’d be my reason.

              1. Irridium says:

                And mine.

                1. Mumbles says:

                  goodd damn you ruts i told vent that in confidence.

      2. Psithief says:

        I am disappoint because you keep cutting yourself off with your own push to talk button.

    1. Rutskarn says:

      Mumbles, everyone knows if you don’t want your humiliating secrets revealed, you have to call “no blackmail” right afterwards.

      1. Mumbles says:

        At least you didn’t tell them that I don’t like Lord of the Rings.

        ohshi-

        1. Robyrt says:

          At this point it would be pointless to judge you, because you have already internalized the judgment of your nerd peers.

  2. Josh R says:

    Really feel like recomending Josh go get some tips off seeing the vanguards playing on insanity on youtube.
    Whilst he’s still far better at this game than I am, when you see how the real pros do it, it’s hypnotic.

    Having no idea what’s coming, I hope the shadow broker is someone we already know. I’m hoping for Conrad Verner.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Nah,you get to meet conrad in a bar and shoot him in the leg.Though if he was the shadow broker,that would end up being an awkward meeting.

      1. swimon says:

        would still be better than the real shadow broker.

      2. Josh R says:

        Yeah I know this. But it would be so great if it was him, or that reporter we punched. think of the awkward pauses, oh the awkward pauses we could have had!

    2. krellen says:

      Get used to disappointment.

  3. Cheeso says:

    If you are interested in the possible outcomes to the hostage situation, you can find that video here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWZuGQI_PGA

    There is a little bit of repetition, as they cover several variations of the dialog based on past decisions with the same outcome.

    Personally, I feel that the non-Intimidation Renegade option is way more Renegade than the actual “Red” option.

    1. Hitch says:

      The red renegade option should have been shooting the hostage dead and then getting a another shot which takes a nice chunk of Vasir’s barrier away while she’s in shock that you would do that. Then you point out that after the body count of the car chase one more doesn’t really matter. That’s renegade!

    2. Deadpool says:

      “I hope your plan doesn’t hinge on me not shooting a damn hostage”

      Badass line, sure, would have been better if you got the damned gramma right. MY not shooting. MY. Gerund… For god’s sakes…

      Shepard does it again later after winning the boss fight. Friggin frustrating…

      1. Avilan says:

        Really? It sounds wrong to me. Of course English is a second language to me. But I don’t think I have heard anyone say “My” in a sentence like that.

        1. krellen says:

          Most people, especially Americans, speak English improperly.

          1. Avilan says:

            Not more than any other country, and with that I mean that most Swedes speak Swedish “wrong” although it’s the way they have spoken it for generations. It’s just not “correct”.

            1. Will says:

              Very few people speak proper English, primarily because English is a horrid bastard language that defies it’s own rules more than it follows them.

          2. uberfail says:

            It really comes down to whether ‘correct’ is the way it’s actually used or what a bunch of dead guys thought.

            1. Klay F. says:

              So can we go back to using the word “nothing” as a synonym for vagina now?

              *Cough*

        2. Deadpool says:

          My friends make fun of me for that too. English is my second language, but improper grammar is my pet peeve… I just had really good ESL teachers in High School…

          But yeah, a gerund is when you turn a verb into a noun. It’s exemplified when you add the -ing suffix without using the verb to be. So “I am shooting” is a verb, showing a current or persistant action. “I like shooting” for example, makes shooting a noun.

          when you use a gerund and you must precede it with a noun, the noun is always turned into the possessive. MY shooting is great, YOUR shouting is annoying, OUR running away is working, so on so forth.

          Note that this rule applies to english only. The gerund means something completely different in almost every language…

          1. Zukhramm says:

            Well, that’s a dumb rule and I’m going to ignore it.

    3. Blurr says:

      Wait… so throwing a table at a villain with a hostage hits only the villain, but you can’t shoot without hitting the hostage? Seems like it should be the other way around.

  4. Excludos says:

    To quote from Shamus’ comic:
    “Can I kick you in the balls?”

    Possible answers:
    “Yes”
    “Maybe”
    “Only a little”

    God I hate the talk tree in Mass Effect..

    1. Irridium says:

      And what Shepard actually says:

      Paragon: “Let me spread my legs for you.”
      Neutral: “Well, I guess thats alright.”
      Renegade: “If you really have to.”

      Or, if your going by the ME2 system:

      Paragon: “NO”
      Neutral: “If it helps”
      Renegade: “Do it hard”

      Which translates to:

      Paragon: “Okay then, if you really have to.”
      Neutral: “Alright, but I won’t like it.”
      Renegade: “Let me just spread my legs for you”

  5. jdaubenb says:

    You are pissed off about Vasir calling you out on your Cerberus-ties?
    Finish the game, pick the paragon ending and then have her STILL call you out on working with/for Cerberus.
    I had a rage-induced blackout.

    1. Integer Man says:

      Almost makes you wonder why you’re trying to even save these folks.

  6. Sydney says:

    I assumed Vasir’s “health” gauge wearing down was indicative of the health-regen tech in her armor wearing out (the in-universe justification for your ability to regen faster than even a krogan). Yours never wears out at all; Vasir probably wishes she had your stuff.

    The Vasir fight, for me, was a pretty workable imitation of fighting against another PC. I know this isn’t exactly new ground here, but imagine what Shepard must look like to everyone else.

    “She just took a rocket, eleven machine-gun rounds and a Warp to the face. I saw her spleen fly out. It’s over there, that vorcha is eating it. And now she’s Charging at me. FML”

    1. some random dood says:

      New keyboard please!
      Hehe, really like the way you described how the player might look to an NPC :-)

    2. Halfling says:

      The image of a Vorcha running over to pick up and eat Shepard’s spleen is simply priceless.

  7. Raygereio says:

    Your speech options being tied to the paragon and renegade levels probably is the worst design choice in the ME series. I get the idea they were going with, for instance to intimidate someone into backing down; you need to have a certain reputation for being a Billy Badass.

    But on the other side it limits you and forces you to choose only certain dialogue option, even if they aren’t appropriate, just so that you can accumulate enough renegade/paragon points and that's just annoying.
    So yeah, I always abuse the infinite paragon/renegade glitch in ME1 and the second thing I modded into ME2 was a “give me max paragon/renegade levels”Âť-button.

    1. Sydney says:

      You know the speech checks are all optional, yes?

      The way it works is, if you have a reputation for being erratic (back and forth, Para sometimes Ren sometimes) or ambivalent (lots of neutral options), nobody’s going to take it seriously if you threaten/sweet-talk them. “Oh come on, this is Shepard. He wouldn’t do that.” “Are you kidding me? This is Shepard, I can’t trust him.”

      Most of my characters are either erratic or ambivalent; I rarely use persuade unless it’s both available and in-character.

      Not to be overly harsh here, but…all you’ve said is that “If I plan to min-max, I have to min-max”. Which, yeah.

      1. Raygereio says:

        “if you have a reputation for being erratic (back and forth”
        No, that explanation doesn’t really work for me. Because any normal person would behave differently in different situations. No one is a renegade’ish dick 24/7, just like no one is paragon saint all the time. I would like the ability to think over situations and use what options feels best, instead of just mindlessly mash whatever option happens to be at the top or bottom of the dialogue circle.

        And yes, the speech checks are options. But 9 out of 10 times the scenes that makes these games actually fun are behind the speech checks. Take ME1’s final boss fight. Sure, you can just fight Saren in the first phase. Or you can speech check him and convince him to commit suicide after which follows the best cutscene in the game.

        1. Sydney says:

          If you do keep a balance, and get your passive skill up a few ranks, you’ll be able to pass most of the persuade checks. Only the really hard ones – and there’s only a handful of really hard ones in ME2 (usually dealing with people who are really determined, like Morinth or the conflicts) – require consistency.

          And again, keep in mind that it’s about reputation, not Jedi mind tricks or whateversuch.

          “I’m a famous Spectre. If I get a reputation for being a maniac like Saren, people won’t co-operate with me; I’d better treat people well so I’m trusted.”

          “I’m a goddamn Spectre. I’m not out here to make friends, I’m out here to get results. Let’s put some fear of God in these people so they’ll jump when I say jump.”

          1. Raygereio says:

            I’d say we both agree that the idea behind it is pretty decent. But we’ll just have to disagree on whether the execution of said idea is crappy or not.

            1. Sydney says:

              I’ll say this: ME2 didn’t do it as well as ME1. There, reputation was just part of it – the “how seriously you could be taken if you tried” part, with a slight bonus in the form of free points if you had a lot of reputation. You then had to invest skill points to develop your ability to do that talking.

              I preferred that.

              1. Gale says:

                Problem with ME1 is, the “consistent behaviour” argument doesn’t apply. There was no organised ParaShep or ReneShep character. Case in point: a discussion with Ashley, where choosing all the renegade options would lead to a conversation in which Shepard agrees with everything she says, is just as much of a space-racist as she is, and then, at the last moment, tells her to shut up, keep her dumb feelings to herself, and that she should just do what Shepard tells her to do.

          2. Taellosse says:

            keep in mind that it's about reputation, not Jedi mind tricks or whateversuch.

            The problem with this view of it is that each game takes place over the course of a few weeks at most. And there’s no indication that the majority of people from one area to the next have heard about what you’ve been up to. And in many cases, there’s strong evidence supporting the fact that they haven’t–especially in the first game where the system was far more pronounced, since the Charm and Intimidate ranks played such a large part.

            I think it’s supposed to have more to do with being good at a style of persuasion, as was suggested by the skills in ME1–a Paragon is good at diplomacy, while a Renegade is good at intimidation. Someone you’ve never met before and know nothing about can still be very convincing if they present themselves in the proper fashion.

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      I liked the explanation someone gave during the previous episodes:”Would monty burns be able to sweet talk anyone?”Being a manipulative jerk is a hard thing to do and it requires practice.Same goes for being a smooth talker.

      What pisses me off,however,is that renegade in me2 means being all cuddly with cerberus.Which is stupid.Evil is not a big happy family,and just because you are a jerk doesnt mean you are a space equivalent of a nazi.

      1. eri says:

        What annoys me is that “badass” in Mass Effect’s world seems interchangeable with “petty thug” and “mild annoyance”, and “heroic icon of justice” is interchangeable with “tree hugger” and “doormat”. I’d much prefer there were simply a dialogue skill that you could increase independently of your choices. Yes, it’s “unrealistic”, but no more so than leveling up and placing points into combat skills.

        1. Avilan says:

          That is much more ME1 than ME2. Most Paragon choices in ME2 are much more Badass. As for renegade choices see my post below; navigate correctly, and you can be a mean mother and still not hurt innocents.

      2. Avilan says:

        What I like is that you can navigate past a lot of the obvious ones. Don’t want to be a complete dick? Choose the neutal argument to continue the conversation and the next renegade option is based on your last pick.

        MAde up example:

        A “Help woman”
        B “Inquiry why woman wants help”
        C “Leave woman to cry her eyes out and kick her warren while laughing”

        Pick B

        Choices are now

        A “Help woman by talking to her ex”
        B “Help woman by shooting her ex”

      3. Deadpool says:

        The problem is that someone who’s good a manipulating people CAN be both.

        If we’re using fictional characters, pick any cop in a long running cop drama (example, Detective Stabler in Law and Order SVU) and they’ve played the good cop AND the bad cop several times with success.

        Remember that people hear about you, but they don’t KNOW you. Never met you in most cases. It’s less about reputation and more about how you act.

        Btw, Burns has endeared himself with every family member of the Simpsons at one time or another, looking like the misunderstood good guy.

  8. Ateius says:

    “Oh, you wanted to role-play your character? Well too bad, now you can’t do this really awesome thing.”

    This really irritated me in ME2. It wasn’t as bad in ME1, because the checks relied more on your skillpoints than your renegade/paragon meter, and I was able to max out both Persuade and Intimidate while still playing my character the way I felt she would have reacted in any given situation. This allowed me to choose whichever dialogue options were appropriate, up to and including the final check against Saren.

    In ME2, it’s directly tied to your Space Jesus/Hitler level. Sure, it’s got that little four-point tree but let’s be honest, it doesn’t help at all. I tried playing ME2 like I did ME1 and got locked out of so many dialogue choices simply because I didn’t go pure Saint/Asshole and tried to roleplay rather than metagame. It was disappointing to say the least.

    EDIT: Oh, and whichever writer decided to A) Railroad you into working for Cerberus and give you no opportunity to do otherwise B) Have key NPCs berate you for working for Cerberus, including literal terrorists, is no longer welcome to pen my game scripts.

    1. Sydney says:

      How is failure to persuade an NPC equivalent to an inability to roleplay? Turns out your character isn’t liked/feared enough to persuade this dude. He also can’t master every form of offence; at most he can be good at two of the three. And there are some powers he’ll never have at all.

      Although, EDIT, it would be funny to have the options available at all times and to all characters, but open to failure. You’d need a Fallout-esque chance-to-pass indicator so it didn’t feel like guesswork, though.

      1. eri says:

        Rather than having four or five options (the “best”, “worse” and the “grey”), I’d much rather just have the results be better/more impressive/etc. the higher your renegade/paragon score is. That way you’d be rewarded for pursuing a consistent path through the game without feeling like you’re being cheated out of dialogue options.

        1. Sydney says:

          On the one hand, that’d be really awesome and I’d love to watch it.

          On the other hand, the verb there is “watch”. That system would take away a lot of agency – there’d be no way to “scale it back” the way you can now. Even if you could Intimidate, you still have the choice to just take a Renegade option. For example, by shooting Wrex instead of berating him.

          Wait. Did I say “scale it back”? You get the idea =P

          1. eri says:

            The way the system is set up, the only real incentive to picking paragon/renegade options is to get the best paragon/renegade outcomes. There are only a few story-relevant decisions in the game which are tied to paragon/renegade dialogue choices, and those that are really shouldn’t have been. I mean, really, do I have to be an “extra badass” to pull the trigger on someone who is clearly a bad guy? Tying functional and moral decisions to an arbitrary score is just a dumb move.

            The way I see it, there’s a few ways to overhaul the dialogue effectively.

            1) Make paragon and renegade effectively just persuade and intimidate dialogue skills.
            2) Get better writers who are able to make paragon/renegade choices more logical and meaningful.
            3) Don’t make it so that the paragon/renegade choices always result in the biggest rewards and coolest scenes.
            4) Tie paragon/renegade to combat abilities rather than dialogue choices.
            5) Make paragon/renegade more important by allowing the player to talk his/her way out of fights much more often.

            I just don’t think the people at BioWare really understand the problems with the system, or have the time to really iron out the kinks at this point. This far into the franchise, too, I doubt they would go back and overhaul the way something as fundamental as dialogue works, since players have a lot of expectations about how their characters behave already.

            1. RTBones says:

              The other thing I would do is make a “center” choice. One of the things that has frustrated me at times is that I’ll come on a dialog option and not really want EITHER presented. Give me a way to stay neutral.

              1. Sydney says:

                And make the middle-ground choice sometimes be the best option instead of just the skip conversation button.

                1. RTBones says:

                  Exactly. Heck, for that matter, you could even make one of the choices a “skip this conversation” type of option – which has consequences of its own.

  9. Deadfast says:

    As much as I like to take game writing with a bit of salt this part was really pushing it for me. For what possible reason would you think sending several trucks full of mooks (to “slow you down” as Liara herself says) will be more efficient than to send a single car to pick Vasir up?

    1. Sydney says:

      Because, as of eleven seconds ago, she’d just tried that.

      It looked like it hurt a bit.

      1. Deadfast says:

        Well, that was before she could use 5 trucks full of armed goons as escort.

        1. Sydney says:

          Thereby creating a war with the police (and depending on where you are in the story, possibly involving the Justicar who’s wandering around killing fools), creating an enormous diplomatic incident that forces the hand of the Council.

          1. Deadfast says:

            I don’t consider shooting up a couple of apartments and a restaurant too subtle either. And I really don’t think police is anything to be worried about – their response times seem to be gigantic :P

          2. Taellosse says:

            How is having a moving gunfight–which would be inherently harder to track, surround, and neutralize–the less subtle option than holding one in a stationary location with numerous witnesses that can call emergency services and report what is going on to the authorities?

          3. Tobias says:

            and depending on where you are in the story, possibly involving the Justicar who's wandering around killing fools)

            Not possible for buggy implentation of Lair of the Shadow Broker. If you do LSB before the Samara quest, the latter won’t unlock. Really.

            You could, of course, engage in a serious philosophical meta-discussion on subjectivity, i.e. whether or not the ability of the player to engage in the Justicar quest renders the Justicar herself non-existant… but I’d rather not go there. Mostly because I want to rant on this goddamn glitch and the fact that BioWare won’t patch it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Bioware?

            1. Simon Buchan says:

              Wait, WHAT? Damn am I glad I saved after the midpoint.

  10. eri says:

    I played this fight on Insanity and it was… well, kind of insane. I think it took me a good fifteen minutes to finish. Wasn’t hard, but after a few minutes it really starts to wear on you, even though it’s actually one of the better boss fights in the game.

    Also, the first time I beat her, it was because my biotics threw her off a ledge. Unfortunately, the game didn’t realise that this had killed her, so I was left infinitely without a cutscene and was forced to reload a save. Fun times!

  11. RTBones says:

    On the talking boss after you’ve disintegrated her…the fix for that is easy. All the game has to do is end the fight before her hit points get to zero. That way, she’s still alive. I wonder if the devs either didnt think the option through, or just expected the player to use “normal” kinetic energy weapons.

    On the Grey Palindrome…errr, Grape Paladin…are they not called nature-less druids? Balance being a druids lot in life, and stuff. For everything a reason, for everything a season. It’s not like this is Saxet, Texas. Rats live on no evil star.

    Does this also mean that Mumbles is now call-sign Welch’s (pronounced Welch-es)?

  12. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Is it just me,or have shepards boobs grown between the games?

    Also,now Im glad that I never played this dlc.Seeing how ashleys conversation pissed me off,I think at this point I wouldve punched through my screen.Though,to be fair,its not really as bad,because she never knew you personally like ashley.

    1. Sydney says:

      They’re crammed with cybernetics! Yeah, that’ll do. Cybernetics.

      <_<;;

      1. Avilan says:

        I am busy looking at her ass.

    2. eri says:

      I think it partly depends on the type of armour you used in Mass Effect. Light armour tended to accentuate Shepard’s features a little more, and certain designs also drew more attention to her breasts than others. Also, character bodies in Mass Effect had to be universally applicable to all human-type characters, whereas in Mass Effect 2 Shepard has her own model, so that might explain the difference.

      Of course the most likely option is still “fan service”, and I have a feeling people would complain if Shepard actually had a realistically muscular and breastless body.

      1. Sydney says:

        Having done a little cosplay, can I just take this moment to point out that hard plastic “breast plates, ha ha” hurt like a fucking bitch unless they fit exactly perfectly.

        Considering how much armor Shepard scavenges out of sludge containers in ME1, she’s probably in a Krogan-style battle rage at all times by default.

        This would also explain Ashley being so…like that.

        1. Jekyll says:

          also, what the hell is with the separated butt plates? All the way back to the storm troopers, it seems like common space armour design. Someone must be making a killer in space chafe cream.

          1. Avilan says:

            The alternative is a short skirt of armor, isn’t it? If you just have one big buttplate, you can’t walk.

  13. Deadpool says:

    Btw, I hate that they never took the whole “Vasir is JUST like Shepard” thing any further… Would’ve made a much more interesting angle.

    1. RTBones says:

      Oh, now there is an interesting game mechanic. Somewhere mid-game as Sheppard progresses through the storyline, have her come across another “Sheppard”. Depending on choices made in the game, the player Sheppard could either become like (future) AISheppard, COULD have become (past, based on previous choices), or they could have taken different paths to the same point and are about to make a decision at the same point.

      That could be an interesting look “in the mirror”, as it were.

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        As a matter of fact, has anyone else noticed that except for the whole “Collector’s offer a ton of money for your body” thing making a deal with the old Shadow Broker, for example selling Liara to him, would put Shepard in largely the same position that finishing the DLC does? Especially if we consider that Liara tells us later SB was already looking for ways to protect himself from the Reapers. This even falls in line with other “pseudo-choices” of the game. The end result is very similar from the larger perspective (we still get access to the SB data) but it has the pretence of significance on person level.

        1. Avilan says:

          I don’t see h ow that would work since it would not put us in a position to meet the SB in person.

  14. Integer Man says:

    Josh, you really do have something going there with your play style. At first I thought you were nuts (and not saying you’re not), but now I see the light.

    The addiction to charge does make me wonder if Shepherd is a distant descendant of E. Honda.

  15. Scourge says:

    What I like the most about the car chasing scene is the truck part.

    “TRUCK!”
    “I know!”

    “TRUCK!!”
    “AGAIN?!”

    1. Integer Man says:

      Reminds me vaguely of Indiana Jones.

  16. Kolobus says:

    “What would a Purple Paladin look like?”
    As soon as this was said I pictured Samuel L Jackson running around the Mass Effect universe. Must be due to his lightsaber…

    1. Psithief says:

      You just RED my mind!
      Also BLUE it!

  17. Jarenth says:

    Man, this bossfight. I remember it being ungodly annoying when I first got here (Infiltrator, of course), never being able to stay in cover, never having that sweet zone to just take aim and let loose, never a moment to rest. And now I understand why it felt that way.

    I was playing against NPC-Josh the whole time.

  18. Specktre says:

    I hated this whole conversation between Shepard and Vasir as well.

    Everything Vasir says about you is right, and the only comebacks you have are “I like Cerberus” or “It doesn’t matter!”–YES IT BLOODY WELL MATTERS!!!

    I was seething. My reaction was pretty much Shamus’s.

    EDIT: Perhaps more accurately, it felt like a slap to the face.

    1. Sleeping Dragon says:

      Precisely. Considering how they ruined the the entire Shadow Broker arc for me (I mean, the “big reveal”, ranted about it some 2 or 3 episodes ago… will spare you the repetition) this, precisely this had the chance to be the strongest part of all the DLC if not of the game. Vasir is pretty much a Spectre following the renegade path. Shadow Broker provides her with the info that she uses to protect the Council and peace in the galaxy and in return she offers to remove some people for him.

      This is double the slap if you actually told the council to piss off, because guess what. For all intents and purposes she is not only assuring a steady flow of info that will help her protect the galaxy by keeping nice with the SB. She is, in fact, removing a rogue spectre, Shepard, working with a known terrorist organization.

      Even within the confines of the railroad this still had the potential to be one of the morally strongest moments of the game. Whether Shepard is paragon or renegade, whether he/she is a spectre or not Vasir represents something that relates to the position Shepard is in at that moment. Of course this is all just thrown out the window because hey, it’s obvious that whoever stands against you they’re the bad guys and you shooting is the answer.

  19. St Eligius says:

    Y’know you can replenish your ammo if you just open up a weapons locker? Very handy, that.

    1. Smirker says:

      I had no idea of this. This is very handy info! :) Hopefully it’ll restock some heavy ammo; typically I am full up on ammo when I see the lockers.

      1. Milos says:

        I don’t think it replenishes heavy ammo just the regular one. At least that’s how I remember it, it has been some time since I played ME2.

        1. St Eligius says:

          Unfortunately that’s right…only normal ammo. Still, handy for Josh and his liberal use of shotgun variety.

  20. Veloxyll says:

    Josh needs to get around to putting points in Vanguard for the bonus renegade points. Though shooting the hostage is still entertaining enough!

  21. Zaxares says:

    Renegade option for Vasir: You basically tell Vasir how you let the Destiny Ascension die, with 10,000 people on board. “So I hope for your sake that your escape plan doesn’t hinge on me hesitating to shoot a damn hostage.” Vasir says you’re bluffing, but the distraction is enough for Liara to use her biotics to whack Vasir with a table and knock her away from the hostage.

    On getting enough points for Paragon/Renegade: Just download the save game editor and give yourself 1000 Paragon and Renegade points each. That should be enough to cover the deficit of whichever mix-and-match alignment choices you want to pick in ME2. :)

    Vasir’s Post Combat Dialogue: In one of my playthrough, I used Throw to hurl Vasir off the edge of the building and presumably hundreds of metres away and down to the street below, yet mysteriously she was back to do her speech. :P

    But yes, I SO want Vasir’s armor, whatever it is.

    1. Sleeping Dragon says:

      Wrooooong! That’s actually the paragon option if you let the council die. If you didn’t you tell her how you sacrificed hundreds of lives to save the council but there will be the same line about “so I hope…”. Yes, this is paragon.

      The Renegade option is to insult her and her race by saying something along the lines they are no good in a fight and should all be dancers.

      There’s a link to a youtube video that shows all, or at least most, possible permutations of this scene somewhere up there in the comments.

      1. Zaxares says:

        … You’re right. I have NO idea how I got those two confused. >.< Possibly because letting the Destiny Ascension die is the Renegade choice at the end of ME1. Thanks for spotting that error!

        1. Sleeping Dragon says:

          To be honest if you didn’t play the game and you actually heard the “I let thousands/hundreds of people die and you think I won’t kill a single hostage just to get to you” speech I’m pretty sure you would be hard pressed to imagine this is the goodie-two-shoes option ;)

  22. GTRichey says:

    Watching this series is making me realise why I didn’t finish this game (and just didn’t enjoy it all that much apart from some of the companion quests)… the gameplay is merely a passable cover-based shooter and there really aren’t any options that seem to have any consequences whatsoever. Combine the mediocre gameplay with no real role playing and the fact that the writing seems to have been done by a finite number of sadistic monkeys and you get a game that just isn’t nearly as enjoyable as it’s predecessor. Unfortunately it also gives the game a wider appeal so there’s not much hope it would seem for ME3 to be much better.

    1. Avilan says:

      Again, matter of taste… I don’t recognize anything you say; the combat is great, the story is fine, and the whole options and consequences… ME3. To argue that it is somehow “bad writing” that your choices doesn’t impact you until ME3 is just… odd.

      I find the gameplay and enjoyment of this game much MUCH better than ME1; I find the mix of “player skill+skillpoints” and “run and gun” abhorrent. Combat in an RPG should either be totally abstract (like the old FO games, BG or Dragon age: Click on monster and choose “kill dude”) or rely 100% on player skill (like ME2). I am right now playing through four characters at once through ME1 to get “one of every kind” to import in ME2 (one female paragon, one female renegade, etc) so I will never have to play it again.

      1. GTRichey says:

        My problem is that it takes what was a heavily story-centric RPG and essentially turns it into just another cover shooter. Yes it makes the combat more bearable but that doesn’t mean we need the game to be almost entirely combat (at least the main plot line feels that way). I agree that combat was pretty awful in ME1, but I don’t think the series needed more combat. The confrontation in this episode is a prime example of the difference in design philosophy between the two games. In ME1 Shepard could’ve either avoided the conflict or drastically reduced the baddy’s ability to fight back in the dialog sequence, in ME2 however we’re seemingly given choices that all play out pretty much identically and result in a fight with an overpowered boss who should be looking for a closet to hide in until Shepard goes away and she can deal with her wounds that would leave anyone else incapacitated.

        The quality of the writing is primarily with the main plot only and the stupidity of the railroading. Bioware still writes great characters which is why I bought the game and played through most of it. I only ended up putting it aside when Mordin who I chose as the engineer at the start of the final sequence ate a rocket after I had fully upgraded the ship and done all loyalty mission. Mordin should be an ideal engineer and I chose what should’ve been a more than competent leader for the secondary team. In a nutshell this is why I just didn’t enjoy this game as much.

        As far as none of your choices not impacting you until ME3… some of the choices obviously don’t have immediate impact blowing up or keeping the reaper base thing (again I didn’t get to this point because the game pissed me off to much shortly before and I wasn’t going to go through the whole thing again) but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be ways that the player can impact the storyline of this game in more minor ways (the only reason for that is laziness in writing).

  23. Alex says:

    These videos make me really glad that I refused to buy ME2. I enjoyed role-playing as Shepard in the first game, so having her killed off in a cutscene to show off the new baddies, then being forced to wade through EA’s utter refusal to let me do or say the things I want would just be infuriating.

  24. Philoskepsis says:

    I never got around to playing this DLC but seeing the Twin Peaks homage on the TV in the apartment got me really excited to give it a shot; though I’m disappointed no one caught the reference and just thought it was something erotic.

    1. Simon Buchan says:

      If you use it, you have a conversation with Liara about Asari porn. Not to say it’s *not* a Twin Peaks reference, of course.

  25. AyeGill says:

    This bossfight is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure she has more HP than the Praetorians(flying laser husks). And the gunships. Possibly more than the human-reaper larva.

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