Liara: Lair of the Shadow Broker

You know what? Let's light this candle. Let's go after the Shadow Broker. Quickly, to Illium!

Come for the art, stay for the writing, that's what I say.

Hey, all of you remember Feron!

(I bring Tali on this mission just for the pure Mass Effect 1 Brosquaditude of the situation. Who am I kidding, I'm the only person on the Internet that loves Miranda anyway.)

gurl~

Pretend asari turn dark blue when they get all ~bothered~, okay? Just pretend for me. I don't think Bioware ever specifies, and damnit, I'm working in MSPaint here!

This happens in the damn game, by the way. It's a game play thing, they just want to give you some time to get your shit together before you go help Liara, but it's still odd: why the hell do we take separate cars? Does Shepard smell?

It gets even worse when you find out what happens next.

Fuck! Someone tried to shoot Liara! Tela Vasir was hunting for clues, but she's an incompetent NPC, so it falls upon Shepard to do police work. Again. All right, let's search Liara's apartment for shit.

You know what's funny? My husband knows, like, off the top of his head where Liara got her degree. How much of a big damn nerd can you be? He's going to come home from work and tell me what it is, too. I'm not going to look it up, just to fuck with him.

Eventually:

... I guess TVs work on USB drives in the future. Odd, you'd think they would have streaming video.

Shit, you guys, did Bioware correctly predict Netflix tanking?

But! We'll have to do it next time.

Postponed Again

Okay, so that memory trick that Thane does -- does it just happen at random?

And, can it be any topic?

Because that would be unfortunate.

After the fertilizer explosion in Texas, I'm going to give up on any sort of violent MSPixel this week. Every one of you promise me you'll stay safe, and we'll go after the Shadow Broker on Wednesday.

But here, since we're on Illium right now, let's look at my favorite sidequest:

Meet Char the krogan, who's so totally in love with this asari named Ereba. He's decided to win her heart by reciting krogan poetry, which is a thing he just made up.

This is the full text of the poem, from the Mass Effect Wiki:

Oh Blue Rose of Illium, let your roots dig deep into the hot soil of Tuchanka. Let our scorching sun and sheeting rain turn your supple beauty into strength. For if our love is to survive, it must grow thorns to pierce the hand of any that would uproot it!

Blue Rose of Illium, you have blossomed in a tower of glass and plastic. But beauty under glass is untested and weak. Where are your honored dead, to fertilize the ground that you might grow strong? On the rocky plains of Tuchanka, I will build you a garden from the bones of my ancestors.

Blue Rose of Illium, leave eternity unembraced and grapple in the glorious struggle that is us, here and now! I am speechless, not with blood rage, but with love, and I stand here, humble and mute, to offer you a home. Come to me, Blue Rose of Illium. Let our three hearts beat as two.

Shepard has the option to interject, but sadly, they don't have the dialog option that they need:

Postponed

Why do I keep drawing the Normandy with a steering wheel?

Some of you probably figured out that today was the day we began Lair of the Shadow Broker, given that I was going through DLC. However, given recent events in the United States, I'm not actually comfortable drawing comics about a story line that's so violent. (There's a scene in Shadow Broker that involves lots and lots of bombing. Today's just not the day.)

I suspect that we'll be healed up enough as a nation for me to forge onwards come Friday. If one of you would really have a problem with me going on, please say so in the comments. For now, please enjoy the filler comic above, and I'll have much more funny for you next time we meet.

If you'd like to help, Boston.com has a list of places that are taking donations for aid.

Saturday Post! Following MSPixel!

Happy Saturday, everyone! I come bearing a question this Saturday.

You've probably heard that Google is shutting down Google Reader come June. And, uh, Google hosts my site, so I don't think I'm going to say much more on the topic past that, so as not to piss off my overlords.

I have no idea what will happen to those of you following the site via Google Friend Connect. Do you see updates in Google+? G+? Whatever it's called? I honestly don't know, I'm asking.

But for those of you who follow me via Google Reader, and then those of you who don't besides, here's some other ways you can keep up with MSPixel:

• On Tumblr, mspixel.tumblr.com. I'm not as reliable about updating that, but I'm okay. You also get the added bonus of random MSPixel comics showing up on your dash on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
• On Twitter, @MSPixelBlog. The twitter feed updates without fail, and you get the added bonus of seeing me tweet a few random things. You can even set text alerts for yourself, or notifications if you've got a smart phone.
• If you're still jonesing for hot hot Google Reader action, don't forget that you can transfer all your RSS feeds to The Old Reader. It works like a stylized Google Reader. It is boss, highly recommended.

Still, there are some other social networks I was thinking about, so I post today to ask you about them.

What's that, you still want shitty MSPaint? Okay, fine, here we go.

Here are the social networks I was considering:

Facebook: I don't book face very often, but a lot of people do. I'd gladly explore this platform just for y'all.

Pinterest: Well? MSPixel is photo based. Bioware has a Pinterest presence, too.

G+: Google updates my G+ feed sporadically. If G+ is something you all use, I'd gladly research how to get it to update on the regular.

So toss me a comment and tell me what you'd be interested in, yay nay or otherwise. If you know of another network that you'd like me to use, let me know about that too. (... I mean, I'm not quite sure how I'd do on Instagram, but.)

Rescue David Archer!

Dr. Archer says he can unhook the VI by hitting three switches. He's got the one, but he's making us hit the other two. The turd.

All right, then, let's go on and travel to Vulcan station through the field the DLC gives us:

WELL? It does. Earthbound 64 would have looked just like Project Overlord, you lie to me and tell me I'm wrong. PS, years later I am still bitter about Earthbound 64, because I bought a Nintendo 64 for that shit. Nintendo got lucky that Ocarina of Time was amazing, that's all I'm saying.

We're traveling to Happy Happy Village Vulcan station in the hammerhead, Mass Effect 2's answer to the mako.

It's a hover car thing that drives LEAGUES better than the mako. The hammerhead gets a lot of shit because it's part of a seperate DLC pack, and one of the hammerhead missions is next to impossible. I'd still rather drive the hammerhead than the mako.

Oh I'm going to ride the fuck out of that joke, y'all just sit back and enjoy.

Vulcan station isn't anything special. You do pilot the hammerhead over these lava rocks, that's kind of neat.

Except for when they break up and disappear like it's a Mario platformer or some shit.

Next comes Prometheus station, which is guarded by a big ass geth turret.

Wet, gross, dilapidated ... does that sound familiar?

Moving on, pulling the switches in Vulcan and Prometheus stations grant us access to Atlas station, where David Archer is held. Let's get in this elevator that looks totally safe!

After a few waves of geth, Shep and crew come to a console that can shut the VI down.

... buuuuuuuut it's easy to forget that Shepard not only has her mind fucked up from a Prothean beacon (hey, who remembers that plot point?), but she's full of cybernetic reaper parts keeping her alive after that whole dying thing. It's, like, nothing for the VI to just jump her.

The game flips, then, to a digitized view of the world. It is amazing. Here, let me shit it down my leg for you.

... you know, my special effects budget is like zero whole dollars, so.

As Shepard makes her way through the facility, she can hear the VI clearly now.

She can also see David Archer's memories. There's really only one relevant to our interests.

... that's .... that's supposed to be geth noises.

... yeah, so, uh, apparently David Archer can just make geth noises. Apparently this is an autism symptom now. REALLY now, Bioware?

But, thankfully, we can find David Archer, and --

WHAT

The game flips to a boss fight. Once that's over, the VI lets Shepard go.

You all are actually, for once, benefiting from my shitty art. The real David Archer hooked up to the geth? Is disturbing. Don't google it.

Uh, yeah, so, you get a paragon/renegade choice here. You can leave David hooked up to the geth, but why? I've never heard of anyone actually doing it. I've heard plenty of people tell me, "Yeah, I played total and complete 100% renegade, except for Overlord."

So, let's all take the paragon --

okay that is rad as hell

Hey! Grissom Academy! We all know that place!

So ends Project Overlord. You're left to imagine the unhooking and recovery of David Archer, but you totally know everyone was excellent to him back on the Normandy. Here, let us envision it, using the magic of MSPaint.

NEXT TIME: Let us help an old friend.

Yeah, that one.