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.

DLC: Project Overlord

In the Mass Effect universe, quarians and turians have DNA based on dextro-amino acids, versus our levo-amino acids. So says the writers, dextro and levo folk can't eat the same foods, lest they risk an allergic reaction. (Such is the root of Mordin's semen swallowing joke.)

In real life, whatever they were ingesting would just pass through and be gleefully shit out.

Today, let us visit the DLC Project Overlord, which I keep misspelling as Project Overloard. I'd actually never played it before! I did it just for you all, because I love you dearly.

... and, to be quite frank, if it weren't for MSPixel, I'm not sure it would be worth it. I wouldn't be doing this at all if it weren't DLC, this plot is some thin shit. It plays a lot like a Mass Effect 1 sidequest. I got it for free, though, true story! It's like the best kept secret on the Internet that Bing Rewards will give you free XBox Live points. You can use my referral link or not, either way's fine. ... sorry PC and PS3 folk, I have no idea how to get you all free DLC.

Okay! So! Overlord! Allegedly, this DLC starts with an email, but I got no such document. I just rolled up to the site and hit A. ... sorry, PC and PS3 folk, I have no idea what button you all would hit.

Surprise, a Cerberus project went haywire. This guy, who goes by the name of Dr. Archer, sounds pretty srs business, so maybe we ought to look into --

WOW. FUCK. That's loud! Is that the VI? With all Cerberus' funding, y'all couldn't find a way to put a volume control on that thing?

So, let's go along --

-- why are there geth in this facility? Why would Cerberus have a bunch of cray ass geth running around?

When Shepard rolls up to the dish, the controls are behind some explosive crates. The hell kind of safety measure is that?

Okay, check this. Shepard blows up all the crates, thus busting the satellite and interrupting the VI from uploading itself somewhere. So shit's all falling all over, exploding, it is totally a Michael Bay movie.

This beam falls behind Shepard, right?

Shepard pulls her gun on it! SHEPARD FUCKING PULLS HEAT ON IT. It's a fucking beam, damn! Have I mentioned Shepard's my favorite character? She is.

So once Shepard's done threatening the infrastructure, everyone leaps on the catwalks to safety.

Full disclosure: if we're going to keep going on this, you probably need to know that part of my job involves working with children with autism, sooooooo this kind of hits a little close for me. Some of my best little bros and little broettes live with autism.

Ahem, I only know one response.

The correct terminology, by the way, is "[subject] with autism," in this case, "brother with autism", instead of "autistic brother". I promise I won't get mad if you forget, because I don't think someone saying "autistic brother" means anything mean by it, but the game keeps using the terminology "brother's autistic mind." That's so totally weird that I'm not even sure it's offensive. Then again, Dr. Archer doesn't strike me as Mr. Totally Caring Brother, so maybe we'll throw Bioware a bone.

Kinda sitting here wondering why the poor kid with autism is the one we're picking out to interface with a robot, though! Pretty sure that one's not okay!

That one doesn't really happen, but I can dream.

NEXT TIME: I take it down a notch, I promise