Bad Moon On Horizon

Sometimes I start these with a cute ass comic, but NO TIME FOR THAT! Because last time, on MSPixel!

... we did Incursion, but BEFORE THAT ON MSPIXEL!

Let us hope Kelly is not the hooker with the heart of EXPLODE! (Jesus that's like 13 yeras old now I think.)

Mass Effect 2 was originally meant to be totally nonlinear. You know, like Legend of Mana? Damn that was a great game, go play it if you haven't. ... yes, I realize the similarities between MSPixel and Little Cactus. Bitch, I draw better.

Point being, the game was just going to set three types of missions in front of you: recruiting missions, shit The Illusive Man wanted you to do, and a third type we'll discuss later, and you could do whatever you want whenever you wanted. Sadly, Bioware couldn't get this working on the XBox, because of the disc change, so the choices were either degrade the art assets until they looked like, well, MSPixel, or divide the game up as we see it today.

As we see it today, the game gives us a few missions to choose from. Notice we've only run around recruiting people? That's all we're allowed to do right now. I could have done the missions in any order. I feel like most people actually go grab Garrus first, but I could have gone after Dr. Okeer or Jack first and left Mordin coughing in the slums and Garrus still shooting for his life in that building if I wanted. When you do enough missions, Kelly's all,

and then the game forces you in to doing the mission Brother Tim sets in front of you. Speaking of, let's go call him up.

say whaaaa?

The Alliance, as an outreach program, has been sending troops in to little Terminus system colonies and helping them get settled. Officially. Unofficially, they may be gathering collector data. (Oh, who the hell are we kidding with this "may" shit?) Ashley happens to be the with the one on Horizon.

Ashley gonna get eaten.

How is shit going on Horizon, anyway?

Just then! Over the Horiz -- you know what, forget it, over that way --

Okay, who can remember where those ships are from?

Ashley starts doing that standard action hero thing where you pick up a gun and you fire it and that means you're DOING SOMETHING YAY.

But children, what did we learn from Freedom's Progress?

Before the collectors come the seekers.

And they got no beef with stinging your ass.

Seriously, Ashley, honey, I like you, but that was like firing at a swarm of bees.

Meanwhile, the collectors are off collectin', as they do.

Pay some damn attention, we're about to have Plot happen.

There's this guy -- don't worry about his name or species right now, we'll get there -- who apparently controls the collectors. In addition, he can take over a random collector and posses his body. You can always tell where he is because he gets glowy.

Also he can't keep his damn mouth shut.

Actual line from the game! Are you paying attention? He just spoiled the ending of Mass Effect 3 for you! ... but of course we don't have the information to tell what he's talking about, so let's just move on and see what Shep and pals are up to.

(Maybe some day I'll draw squadmates who aren't Garrus and Miranda, but to be honest, I forget about Mordin a lot and I'm trying to draw Jack as little as possible.)

Mordin's been studying the collectors. That was the whole reason he was allowed on the Normandy in the first place. He's installed some armor upgrades to make everybody invisible to seeker swarms, thus rendering them uncollectable.

Probably.

Just then, Joker radios in:

... why didn't Mordin install the same upgrades to the Normandy's armor?

Whatever, let's cut it off here.

NEXT TIME: THIS HURTS YOU

Saturday Post!

MSPixel on a Saturday? The fuck is this?

I decided that if I can update on Wednesday and Friday, I can update on Saturday. Saturday is Whatever The Hell I Want Day. Do I want to post a comic? I can do that. Do I want to post a picture? I can do that. Do I want to post nothing at all? Good news, kids, I can do this too!

But today is a special Saturday! Pretty cold, though. Do you dig tea, or maybe coffee?

Yeah, sure, that's how all the BAMF kids drink it, but what if you're stuck drinking out of something like this?

Not very shepardy. No sir. Hey, let me fix that up for you.

I like to make things, and someday I might be good at it. Even better, that damn red and white stripe so iconic to the series is easy to put on everything.

This is your chance to win two Shepard stripe cup cosies. I'm working on the assumption that you'll have your friends over for hot drinks, of course. I crocheted them out of Knitpicks Shine, which is 60% cotton and 40% wood fiber. It's REALLY nice yarn.

Here's how you win:

• Leave a comment below telling me how you follow MSPixel. Remember, there's three ways to do it: @MSPixelBlog on Twitter, mspixel on Tumblr, or by clicking over to your right and using your Google account to join the site. You must follow MSPixel at least one way to win! Your comment must include your username (ie: I follow you on Tumblr and I'm so-n-so) so I can check to see if you're telling the truth. Liars will be disqualified.
• You must comment before Midnight EST on October 27th.
• At midnight, I'll use a random number generator to pick which comment is going to win.
• If you win, I'll contact you via email if you provide it, or if you don't, via tumblr/twitter. You'll have 24 hours to email me a mailing address so that I can get your prize to you!

If the winner doesn't email me within 24 hours, I'll pick another winner, and if that person doesn't email me in 24 hours, you get the idea.

Anyway, good luck to you, and get to entering!

Mass Effect: Incursion

When we last left the Normandy, The Illusive Man was calling. This is a game mechanic thing that I promise I'll explain later, but it more or less divides the plot up into three (or four ... is it shameful that I can't remember?) neat little sections. We've got a lot of media to cover, so we're going to use Brother Tim's calls as an excuse to take a break and look at some of the comics or books or whatever the hell else I feel like putting out there.

Such as Mass Effect Incursion! This is a short (seriously, eight pages) comic that's actually based on a line in Mass Effect Redemption, but we can't do that one yet because ... um ... shut up. Spoilers. It's fine, it'll still make sense.

(Incursion was written by Mac Walters, who took over lead writing Mass Effect around the time Bioware was making 2. Learn to look for his name, because he likes humans better than the aliens, and pretty much everything he does has a pro-human thumbprint on it. Fun fact! Mac Walters wanted to replace Garrus and That One Female Spoiler Character Squadmate Who You Can Probably Guess with Zaeed and That Other Female Counterpart Spoiler Squadmate Who You Can Also Probably Guess, because yay humans boo aliens.)

Anyway, Incursion takes place one week before Shepard dies, out on the mean Omegan streets. Also, it stars my very favorite asari, Aria!

It ... I mean, I wish I had more for you, but that's the set up.

So Aria and two cronies roll up on this scene:

That's a Blue Sun selling a bunch of humans to ... the fuck is that gray thing, some kind of batarian? The fuck else in this galaxy has four eyes like that?!

Actually, I'll quit faking through it, because you already know who that guy is. Damn, Ascension is the Chamber of Secrets of the Mass Effect universe. It's the second book, you're not sure it has anything to do with anything, and BAP magically it has everything to do with all of it. Remember the guy named Pel, who sold humans to the collectors? That's what the Blue Suns are busy doing, selling humans to the collectors, AKA that weird gray guy. Actually, remember, Pel tried to sell Kahlee et all to said collectors.

Now, as for why, we don't know that yet.

Anyway, Aria sees what's up.

I never realized until I had to draw it out how much of the plot involved looking at other things over railings.

Aria drops down and biotics the fuck out of some shit.

She also comes across a praetorian, a fucking huge collector who is a son of a BITCH to kill, so naturally Bioware threw them in multiplayer by the handfuls. Seriously, the swearing that goes on in this house.

Ha, no, but seriously, there's this one collector dude?

And he tries to break the first rule of Omega.

But no one breaks the first rule of Omega.

Once everyone's dead, Aria has her people interrogate the sellers.

Wait, why would the collectors only care about humans?

Mac Walters.

NEXT TIME: We go back to Krogan bongs.

... and Mac Walters.

Okeer: Oops.

I don't think we've discussed Ken and Gabby, the engineers who keep the ship running.

There is a reason why we have not discussed Ken and Gabby.

I mean, I got no beef with Gabby.

I just utterly hate Ken. Probably more than Kaidan.

I know I lifted that joke more or less clean from the game, but it's hard to come up with sufficient original material to explain what an utter bastard Ken is. If it has a vagina, he's trying to dip his wick in it. He's gross. Gabby's mostly there as a foil. She's got no real personality of her own other than "not an utter horn dog".

Ken has a Scottish accent, because why would you have a space ship without a Scottish engineer? I love you, Bioware.

So we got two more folks to pick up, one of which is Dr. Okeer, a krogan warlord doctor guy. Let us, then, to the war torn planet Korlus.

This mission is weird to play as a paragon, because -- well, let's just play.

Shepard comes across a merc on the ground.

Okay, sure, medigel. That's pretty paragon, right?

I can't see the text on the screen very well, so I just keep picking the "up" options. That's the most paragon way to play. Let's pick the next paragon option and --

Um. On what planet is that paragon? You know what, maybe this will get better with the next --

DAMN GURL

Okay, 'paragon' and 'renegade' isn't straight good and evil, I get that. But shit, that wasn't "for the greater good"! You notice he never got that medigel either?

More important, we've now learned that there are mindless krogan soldiers running around that need to be shot. Wouldn't it be something to come across one of these bad boys?

Oh, hey!

You must know that pink armor in the Mass Effect universe is a thing. Ashley's default armor in ME1 is pink. You can get any character to wear it. You can run around with a Garrus And Wrex Totes Fab Pink Brosquad if you want.

Anyway, the krogan informs Shepard that he's a week old. Shit! And he's fully grown? Someone must be doing some science or something for this to be going on, I guess? I bet the baby krogan has a totally rational explanation for why --

Or he just stands around and says trippy shit until Shepard backs away.

Luckily Shepard backs away right toward Dr. Okeer.

(God damn it, doesn't everyone have some kind of problem?)

Meet Jedore, our lone obstacle in recruiting Okeer. She's the one making all these krogan in ... uh, bongs? Tanks, more likely. But they got out, and now she's trying to get the sitmo under control.

How the hell did they get out?

Suddenly, Jedore comes over the loud speaker.

Plot twist! Okeer's guilty! Here, let's go save the bastard.

I'm not going off topic, just stay with me for a second. How many of you have wondered what my Shepard actually factually looks like? I understand that the MSPaint rendering is so detailed that you want for little in that department, but still, maybe I could give you a better idea. You know, for the 0% out there that wondered about it prior.

See, here's the thing.

My Shepard looks damn close to Jedore.

It's unintentional, obviously, since I imported her from ME1 back before there was a Jedore, and even then, why would I pick a minor character? The troll factor of making her look like Miranda or Kelly or something would be too awesome.

You'd have to wipe some makeup off Jedore for her to be a closer match. I don't put makeup on Shepard, I can't imagine putting on your face and then going and gunning down some Blue Sun mercs. Still, it's really freaky damn close, enough to give both me and my husband pause every time we play this mission.

Which of course gives me opportunities for assholery when I draw out MSPixel. Shame she doesn't come back, what with her being dead and all!

With Jedore dead, EDI comes over the loudspeaker.

What? Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!

This shit is well written, y'all try and deny.

Welp. Jedore killed Okeer. That flat sucks.

.... but he was awful interested in that tank. Wonder if there's anything good in it?

Well! All's well that ends well, and don't forget to legalize it, kids! Let's go back to the Normandy for some well-deserved --

FUCK

Next time: SHIT