The Biotic Bubble

Before we do anything! THERE IS MSPIXEL FAN ART TO ATTEND TO.

The obviously sexy and well-groomed @Buildabearatron, an actual factual art student, drew this for us:

I love the entire thing, but I nearly fell out of my chair when I realized Miranda was sewing Shepard's asshole back in. Buildabearatron's website is Long Siesta, and I'm assuming he won't mind the plug.

And now, the rest of today's entry.

It's our anniversary, and husbando~ said this to me when he saw last time's MSPixel, so I felt it fair to let him explain himself.

... and I felt it fair to post my reply to him, too.

Okay, so who's coming with us under the biotic bubble with us?

I'll talk about this in a second, but if you're not rolling with Legion and Tali under the bubble, you're working too hard.

Did anyone else think this was shitty of Shepard? "Hey, the seeker swarms will kill us. So anyway, y'all have fun running through the seeker swarms, which will kill you, while we stay under the nice safe bubble." Just take everyone!

While group B stays and drinks hot cocoa, I swear.

By the way, the game asks you to make this choice. I always pick Garrus because I can remember him, but Jacob and Miranda will work too. Anyone else eats it.

So, the bubble.

This part is the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for Game Cube. Holy shit that game was amazing. Anyone else play it? I always went selkie.

Jack generates this huge thing of biotic power that the seeker swarms can't penetrate because ... uh, space magic. She's busy, though, so the fighting is left to Shepard, Legion and Tali.

Meanwhile, Shepard, Legion and Tali can walk through the bubble because ... uh, space magic, but don't do that. The seekers will overtake you. And whatever you do? Don't charge out of the bubble. Learned that one the hard way.

However!

Legion's drone and Chiktika can penetrate the bubble because ... uh, space magic, so just let them slip through and do all the hard shit. Easy. I mean, after that, you can toss out the occasional pull, and --

This happened while I was replaying this part for MSPixel. No joke.

So once you reach the end, Jack takes care of the seekers for you.

Whoever lead the second team gets shot.

... when did the seeker swarms get guns? Or did Garrus get friendly fired?

Miranda, Jacob and Garrus will survive the gut bullet, though, and get up like it ain't a thing.

... does anyone else wonder about this? Like, first of all, the Normandy must broadcast the strongest LTE signal in the universe for Joker to be able to make all of these crystal clear calls to this uncharted ship that no one's ever survived on. And then? It's an UNCHARTED SHIP, how are we mysteriously charting it all of a sudden?

Stay with me for a second, the game does some fucked up math.

The game assigns each character a number. Garrus, Zaeed and Grunt are the highest numbers (I think they get a 4, but I'm not sure) while Kasumi, Jack, Tali and Mordin are lowest on the scale. If the characters are loyal, the game will give that character a bonus. The game then adds up all the characters. If you've got enough defense points, everyone lives. If you don't, the game starts offing people, starting with anyone unloyal and then prioritizing Mordin, Tali, Kasumi, Jack, Miranda, Jacob, Garrus, Samara, Legion, Thane, Zaeed, Grunt.

Don't do math, though, math sucks. If you want to save everyone, there's an easy way to do it:

• Send Mordin back with the crew to the Normandy. If he's not on the line the game can't kill him.
• Have at least Garrus, Zaeed or Grunt on the line and loyal. One of the three is usually enough to jack the defense score high enough to where you don't have to worry. If you've got two loyal, the game won't kill anyone. We've got all three loyal, we are golden.
• Take either Kasumi, Jack or Tali with you to the final battle, assuming they're loyal. If they're not loyal, leave them on the line and hope that Grunt will take a bullet for them

It's possible to have a character survive being on the line while not being loyal by the way, you've just got to have a loyal Garrus/Zaeed/Grunt around to run interference with them. The first time I played, I didn't have Miranda's loyalty and she was fine. If you bring someone unloyal with Shepard, they will die.

I always bring Jack and Kasumi. Tali's a big girl, she's got Chiktikka. ... and Zaeed.

If Mass Effect 2 was being made today, this is totally where the dude you was doin' would say something. Lie to me, tell me I'm wrong.

NEXT TIME: I think I can end this shit in one entry! Let's see!

The Collector's Ship: No, Really, This Can't Get Much Worse

Okay, so when we last left everyone, EDI had attempted to connect to the collector's ship, but found some kind of trap and wound up disconnected.

And sure, she can reconnect, but she needs time, and also Harbinger just rolled up, so we're currently dealing with that.

Life is pretty rad.

EDI can't help us out with the collectors AND connect to the ship, because apparently in the fucking future they still have Out of Memory errors. It's a fucking star ship built by the richest organization in the galaxy, but noooo, an extra gig memory stick, that's too much.

Luckily, EDI gets herself reestablished again.

Hooray! That's what we came for! Surely this won't get any more --

... hmm?

AWW HELL.

Miranda lays in the floor and has kittens if you bring her on this mission, it's pretty great. Jacob might too, but let's be honest, no one ever brings Jacob anywhere.

But, no, that's where we are in the plot: more or less, Brother Tim revived Shepard and tried to get her killed again. He's got reasons, and we'll talk about them later, I promise, but we need to stay that again: Brother Tim revived Shepard and tried to get her killed again. You'll start to quickly see that Cerberus has more resources than common sense.

Just then, Joker calls.

I mean, seriously, The Illusive Man, what if Shepard ate it a second time? Do you think maybe this time it would only take eighteen months because you've got practice or some shit? What do you do in the meantime, just let collectors capture all the humans? Maybe you oughta protect your investments, dog, that's all I'm sayin'.

Never mind the fact that he's an asshat, Shep and crew have to get the hell out before Shepard gets killed. Again. I mean, she's got practice dying and all, but still.

To slow you up, the game throws plenty of collectors at you, and of course, where there are collectors, there is Harbinger.

I always deal with him like any vanguard does.

Fuckin' love vanguard.

Right at the exit, the collectors unleash a praetorian on the crew. Now, this time when I played through, I just got out the collector's particle beam gun and dispensed of his ass in like 90 seconds, but the first time? I wasn't so smart. After five or ten deaths, I devised a very vanguard strategy that I'm still to this day proud of.

See, I'd just sit and take pot shots at him from across the map. But when he comes up close and personal?

I'd charge across the map at a random collector drone, beat the teeth out of the fucker, and enjoy the fact that the praetorian couldn't corner fast enough to come get me.

See, that's important to remember in multiplayer, too, vanguards need to use their extreme mobility to their advantage. But multiplayer's another topic.

Did anyone else notice I forgot Shepard's helmet? I don't want to go back and fix it, it would make the already shitty art even more jacked up. Just ... I don't care, she can breathe because of mass effects now.

Just kidding! No one will ever use the mass effect core for any reason! Because there is none. Because there are no mass effects.

NEXT TIME: Brother Tim's got some 'splainin.

The Collector's Ship: Gross

I get Ilos and Illium mixed up and I'm too lazy to go edit the image. Just pretend there's a damn Quik-E-Mart out in the Prothean ruins.

Speaking of, I suspect? that Brother Tim is calling us early, we've still got a SHIT. TON. of missions to go through. I'm hoping the game isn't futzing out on me. Surely to hell not.

The Illusive Man has discovered an abandoned collector ship. Or rather, he's discovered that a turian patrol unit discovered a collector ship and took it out.

Feh, details! The point is, before anyone else can get close to it, Shep and the Shepettes can step in, grab data, and zip on out and then roll up to Ilos for peanut butter. Wait, Illium. I may have stopped caring.

How indeed. Wouldn't they have to, you know, shoot at the damn ship? Curiouser and curiouser.

The collector's ship has very little oxygen, so everyone has to wear helmets. For reasons I don't understand, some characters don't have helmets -- they just have these little breather units that cover their mouth and nose. Miranda's one of them. You want to trip hard? Bring Jack. Shepard (a human!) is standing there in heavy armor and a helmet and she wears a breather mask and a tit strap. Sci fi playing fast and loose with the rules of science? I never!

The collector's ship inside is like a giant bee hive or some shit. It's grosser than that one level in Super Mario Land 2. If you automatically filled in "six golden coins", we could party.

Point being, remember all those pods we found on Horizon? The collectors brought them back here and were fucking gross ass bugs about it. Some of them are empty. Did the collectors suck their guts out or .... ?

Oh, hey, Siri's calling.

This ship is fucking dogging Shepard! That's not cool.

The collectors don't clean house very well, either.

The crew rolls up to some sort of dead collector hooked up to a computer.

By the way, watch this scene close -- Shepard turns on her omni tool. Usually characters just sort of stick out their arm and it appears. I swear I think it's the only instance in the Mass Effect universe when a character does that. I can't decide if that would resolve the nerd fights I've overheard about how omni tools work or just make more of them.

Hey, EDI, what's going on with that dead collector?

SAY WHAT

The collectors are Protheans?! Not really. EDI suggests that they used to be, but the reapers altered their genetic code so that they'd be more ... useful. The Protheans didn't die out, they just got conquered and taken over in a terrifying example of body horror!

Anyway, we came to hook EDI up to the collector's ship, so let's get that done.

NEXT TIME: Assuming direct control ~of your heart~