Garrus lives! Well as much as he every has.  He's been dead inside for years. He's now going to be set up for the next however-long in the ships gunnery area, typing away at his console there. See you later buddy. 
 
Lets check in at the Citadel. We have to pick up Kasumi Goto, the master thief, tell everyone that Shepard isn't dead, and do some shopping for ourself and the crew. Dropped into Zakera Ward, got everything straightened out with security, the Council, and our homie Councilor Anderson over being dead, stopped a quarian from being scapegoated by a volus as a thief, and went to dance at the club (I told you we'd be dancing at every opportunity, and I meant it).
  
Fresh off of crushing it on the dance floor,  asked a groundskeeper about fish in the Presidium ponds, bought some upgrades, a fish, some models for our Gundam shelf, and got jumped by an ambush reporter for an interview in which she began to blame Shepard for causing the death of thousands when Soverign was destroyed. He punched  her in the face. It was the best. (I don't condone violence against women, but against video game hack journalist ladies, I think it's ok).

And now we're out of money. Crap. What does Shepard do when he's hard up for some cash and he NEEDS him some Assault Rifle damage upgrade research? He heads to the bathroom at the bar in the wards on the Citadel, where that one Turian is always waiting at the urinal, and you know what for. Wait, we have a space ship and a bunch of guns, lets not prostitute ourselves yet, lets go kill some randoms and loot their stuff for cash. Better idea. 
   
-
 
Back to the ship, deliver our foodstuffs to the janitor/cook, have a deep philosophical talk about French poetry with Kelly, check our new fish and space hamster in our room (Can't wait for the ME3 DLC that allows you to customize Shepard's place with blacklight posters). Ok, I just picked up this thief, and it''s close by, lets go do what she wants.
 
-
 
I like this missions heist feel at the outset, although it plays out a little weak in it's mechanics of the heist part.  The accent that the villain, Donovan Hock, has is bizarre. It's some sort of lunatic mix of a Scottish burr and a Russian growl: not good, even for a space accent. Tough to take seriously. 
 
The mission is less exciting than it could be since, it tells you where to go fairly explicitly, and since the mechanics of the game highlight stuff you can interact with from quite a ways away, it takes quite a bit of the detective work out of it. It's a cute idea for a heist mission, but, especially a second time through this DLC mission, I ran through the initial gathering of things to break into the vault like a crazy person at this party. 
 
Got to the vault, and picked up the upgraded SMG, which should be useful. Now I have to fight my way out. Problem is, that I've been hanging out all afternoon and evening, watched some movies and playoff football, and now I'm deeply into a bottle of bourbon. No way this goes well. 
 
Or, if it does, I might have to play the rest of the game boozed up, which is a sacrifice I will make, for anyone reading these. I'm selfless. 
 
So far, things going ok. We had a few false starts in the initial combat in the vault chamber, and by false starts I mean that Shepard got iced before anyone else, and then we got to a place where things were working pretty good, and we were able to clear out that first room. I don't remember enough of the combat specifically from my other playthroughs to recall exactly when/if enemies began tossing out flash-bang grenades, but these guys are, constantly, and it's crazy how they pop you out of cover when they go off. It makes for a sudden death. 
 
Going forward, it is becoming apparent that Kasumi is not as well prepared for this difficulty level as some of the other companion characters. Her one skill, in which she goes invisible, gets behind an enemy and attacks, is fine. However, it's all she's got in your iintial encounters, and with all the heavy mechs and rockets in the running fights you're in here, she seems to go down even quicker than other companions, even though she appears to be better about staying in cover than, say Miranda. 
 
The next few battles, as you try to fight your way to the landing pad so the shuttle can pick you up, you deal with a bunch of heavy rocket soldier and heavy mechs, which is nice, since they actually seem to want to sit back and try to hit you from long range, rather than flanking you, which is by far what has killed me most often. So  far, not super impaired by my alcohol consumption, but that might just me more telling of the low skill level I usually possess. 
 
It's late, I'll finish this battle with Hock's mercs and his own gunship (Space Helicopter) next time.  
 
- Nick

After getting Mordin set up in his new digs, getting some upgrades to medi-gel capacity and weapons, and talking to Kelly (Sure, I'll call you Kelly, if you call me Dadd- Shepard, call me Shepard), it's right back off the ship and onto Space New Jersey, otherwise known as Omega. We have someone else to pick up here, and I will be damned if we are going to go all the way across space to pick up someone else and then come all the way back here while he changes outfits again. There will be plenty of time for him to primp on the way to the suicide mission. 
 
Back into Afterlife, to talk to Aria some more, to initiate the Archangel mission. First we get asked to take care of a personal matter for Aria, involving her old mentor/enemy, Patriach the Krogan, which we pull off by telling the guy he's in danger, that we will fight his attackers on his behalf, and then running over to where they are and dispatching them with the power of dialogue options and a short animated gunfight, in which Mordin casually puts an SMG burst into the side of an aliens head at short range with little effort, and a placid, yet satisfied look on his face. I love this guy. 
 
Ok, so that;s done, and although we didn't pull the gig off the way Aria may have liked, we did it, and she's cool. I really enjoyed the Aria character, as she could have just been a Mob-boss archetype, but instead, she's built out with some finesse, some toughness, some mystery and a whole lot of attitude which contributes to her belief that she's operating on levels way above what you care about and understand. I hope her character is dropped in the series going forward. She was fun to interact with.  
 
Also, the music in Afterlife is the best in the game. Shepard can't help but dance. That you can go into any club or bar in the game and Shepard can flail around on the dance floor for a few minutes, in full armor, while his crew watches, is both horribly, stupidly goofy, and bizarrely awesome. We're dancing at every club we can from now own. This is a now a rule. 
 
Talked to some gangs who are recruiting freelancers to act as cannon fodder while they go, one group at a time, after the mysterious character who has been carving them up for months. Ooh! Ooh!, a job as bullet-bait? Where do we sign up? I'm perfect for this. Have you been watching this playthrough? I'm a bullet magnet! 
 
Grab the shuttle over to Archangel's hideout, where the idiot gangs are. Get the gist of their plan, then go about sabotaging parts of it on the way to the front line. Sabotage a heavy mech they are going to use so that it will turn on them, and murder a guy with an electro soldering-iron to the back so he doesn't fully fix their gunship. And then we're on the attack, crossing a narrow bridge to the building in which Archangel is sniping from the second story funneled right toward him, along with some other low-rent meat shields. Mordin, Miranda and I clean a few of them out on the way over and on the ground floor, and then head up to greet the mysterious murderer we hope to befriend. 
 
I have already given you one of my first (and every time since) playthrough moments that had me exclaiming "Oh, yeah!" or doing some totally doofy fist-pump-type gesture of excitement when it happened, which was the unveiling of the new Normandy, and this is another. When Archangel takes off the helmet and reveals himself to be Garrus, I got excited, and still do - my gesture of choice is reserved - as I'm getting older, I can express my excitement with a clench and shake of the fist. 
 
A quick reunion chat, and then we all realize that we have pissed off the bad guys even more, and now we're trapped with Garrus in this building. This mission lays out well, it's not just fight from point A to point B, and it's not even hold a position until a meter runs out - it's got several aspects, small cutscenes and time pressures, all within one mission. First we need to pick off the Blue Sun mercs as they try to storm across the bridge and into the building, with their mechs at the forefront. Since I sabotaged their best mech, and we have great cover, this goes bad for them. They barely make it to the end of the bridge before they are all dead, and no real damage taken my part. 
 
A little more talk with my old pal, and then the Blood Pack have breached the tunnels below the base, and Shepard and one of his teammates need to secure the area by closing the shutters to the tunnels, while someone stays with Garrus to help him. I left Mordin with Garrus and took Miranda with me down to the lower level (there's no sex joke there, that's where the mission is. Stop being so gross). Three shutters need to be closed, and the first one is dead ahead with no one coming through it as I run to it, hit the button, and watch it slam down. Piece of cake. 
 
 . . . 
 
Screw these shutters, this was barbarically hard for me. After you close the easy first one, you head through the unlocked door to the right to the second, which is at the end of a long, narrow space with a bunch of boxes and pallets it it, with with three basic lanes down, in the center and on the sides. There are a few Varren and Vorcha inside, and coming down the tunnel through the shutter, and mostly I could manage them with Miranda's help.After that first group already inside, and the first wave through the door as backup, however, you get at least one Krogan, who soaks up a massive amount of damage, and even if he doesn't waste Miranda or me, or both, allows more Vorcha and Varren to sweep in to clean me out, or at least be in the way of the shutter control and door, keeping it from closing smoothly unitl I get them out, at which point i die. 
 
I played this one sequence for at least 2 hours, maybe 20 times, until I was able to keep the fire on while moving Miranda up the side enough to provide some useful support, without her becoming space-dog food. Really, we were almost done right here. I even began to convince myself that no one will read these, they are for my amusement. "I'll just quit this run here, and no one will be the wiser - hey, Giant Bomb has a "delete blog" function, doesn't it? " 
 
But I soldiered (in this case, Vanguarded) on.  
 
So, after that crapfest, the third shutter was actually easy. There are a bunch of waist-high barricades down an L-shaped hallway, and you can take cover, use powers and fir your way through the whole ordeal, the tricky part coming at the corner of the "L", as there is a barricade right around the turn, where a Vorcha with a flamethrower is waiting to BBQ you up. I sent Miranda in, had her mess with him, then swept in, Reaved him, which halted him a second, then blasted him in the head with my SMG and it's incendiary rounds. He melted, and I was just a little crispy. All good. The third shutter is nowhere near as tough to secure as the second, so it hit the button, waited out the short countdown and was out. 
 
We then had to track back to Garrus and Mordin, who were being assaulted by the rest of the Blood Pack. After getting the lay of the land with a quick death upon loading back up on the ground floor, I was fairly quickly able to take out the Varren and mercs on the first floor, deal with a surprise Krogan on thee second, and then hide from Garm, the Krogan Blood Pack leader, in the room with Garrus and Mordin. I was able to keep popping out from cover next to him to Reave his Armor, shoot him a little, then lift his ass across the room, allowing him to be shot by my crew like a slow, meaty skeet target. 
 
After this, there's a cutscene, Garrus catches a hot one, and you have to fight a goddamn Gunship, the space version of the evil helicopter. This didn't go super poorly, I did have to make a few runs at it, but only 3 or 4, dropping massive amounts of rounds into the thing (I had the stupid Cain launcher thing with me and can't get the thing to work), and then sweeping up the commandos. Compared to the second effing shutter, not to rough at all. Then we got G-rus back to the ship to get cleaned up, have some light surgery, and then prep for our next visit, which will be to the . . . . 
 
- Nick

After a side trip to the crash site of the Normandy 1, where Shepard reflected on old times, found his old helmet, some free element zero, and the Dog Tags of his old, dead crewmen, he headed to Omega, hive of crime, dirt and vorcha. It's basically space New York City, but nicer, and with less Yankee fans. 
 
Did the talking thing with some of the locals, including the enchantingly scary Aria, got a bartender iced for trying to poison me, intimidated an elcor into letting a Quarian earn his way off this rock, bought some stuff, and headed for the plague zone and everyone's favorite singing salarian, Mordin Solis. 
 
Brought along Miranda, for her overload and warp skills, and Zaeed, for the disruptor ammo. The trip through the slums went pretty smoothly, with two exceptions. The first, the encounter where you see the Blue Sun mercenaries fighting the Vorcha, in that big room, I had to make a few runs at it. Then, in the fan control room, where the Mordin recruitment mission ends, I got worked several times, especially by the Pyro enemies with the flamethrowers. 
 
You want to know the major culprit here, the reason for my deceasin'? My squad AI. I can set all the waypoints I want for my crew to take cover and to attack from safety, but they continually put themselves out in the open, get shot up a little, and then ragdoll to the floor until I revive them, or the battle ends. Then they pop back up, hopefully chagrined at their poor performance. We will see some of this again in our next mission here on Omega, and likely numerous more times as we proceed. It became far easier to just let them lie there while I whittled down the enemies until it was safe for them to stop playing dead, 
 
Reinitializing the environmental controls and starting the fans was rough for me on my initial playthrough, due to the vorcha that perch up high in the back and on the sides with the rocket launchers. This actually went better than that on Insane, firstly due to familiarity with the layout and combat system, and secondly, in that the layout, with the different terraces and ramps, allowed me to move about, and kite enemies around until they were coming at me in small groups. 
 
So, Mordin joins up, and immediately, he's in my posse. He's rolling with me for two reasons, A) Comedy and B) Incinerate - I want to see those vorcha burn, and I'm angling for that Incinerate 30 dudes achievement. He'll earn his keep on our next foray. We're staying on Omega and reuniting with an old friend who's doing work under a new name, like the Diddy of Mass Effect. 
 
edited for some clarity and grammar

i think the first Insanity attempt I made, I didn't make it out of the Project Lazarus area without several deaths. This time, no dying, but I've got red lines all over the screen most of the time. Already thinking I should have gone with an extra shield ability instead of Reave, but I'll have to wait until the Normandy to possibly adjust that. Some sort of compulsion makes me go through as many dialogue options as possible, even in parts of the game I've played multiple times, partially to see the dialogue, but also for those sweet Paragon points, which I need for . . . Hell I don't even know why I do what I do in this game, sometimes. 
 
I'm also bumming that I'm going to have to go for some less cool looking helmets and armor options here in order to survive. Fashion shall be sacrificed for survival, but Shepard isn't happy about it. At least I retained my heavy weapons from my first playthrough, got 200,000 Credits, and 50K of each mineral. I bet you all are gonna be so psyched when I do updates that tell you all about my mining time! 
 
Ok, so Freedom's Progress. I think I quit another Insanity attempt here, when the weakest of mechs continually throttled me. This time, aware of my limits, I will continually cower, hoping to live. 
 
(5 minutes later, after first mech encounter of mission) 
 
Ok, fine, F- it. I died. My fault. Let's try this again. I just have to remember what I'm doing and that Shepard was rebuilt out of fine-bone china, and can take no damage. (Died again). Ok, calm down, lets not blow this right away, or they'll laugh at me, all of them. Take it slow. . . alright, survived that first encounter with the FENRIS and LOKI mechs. Yup, one encounter. . . this is gonna be a long-ass playthrough, at least until I get better at being patient, which hasn't happened yet in my gaming life. 
  
Ok, terrific no more significant issues, other than some deaths. More later 
 
Update: Ok, so after doing some other, real-world things for a while, I was able to jump back in and finish the Freedom's Progress Mission. I want everything between us to be up front and honest, so I'm just going to say it: I died. A couple more times. Maybe once at almost every enemy encounter. I just didn't tell you right away because I didn't want you to worry or be upset. It didn't mean anything, it was just some casual mission failures at the hands of some armored-up lunatic mechs, and I was thinking about you the whole time. 
 
So that's done, cutscenes have been run through and I'm on the new Normandy. I've seen that scene 4 or 5 times now, and the reintroduction of Joker, then the new Normandy gives me a little tingle every time. One of the best moments in the game. Buttered up Kelly, got a couple of shooping quests form the ships engineers, doctors and cooks, and I'm good to go. 
 
Next time will likely see a visit to the Citadel. I'll probably take care of some visits, some shopping, and maybe initiate the Kasumi side-quest to get the better submachine gun. 
 
 I don't know if anyone is going to read these, or they will just be for my own edification, and I'm not sure that I'll be altering my gameplay based on feedback, as this isn't totally a "Let's Play ME2!" thing, but if you have comments or suggestions, I'll take them under consideration. I don't know if "Be better at games", will be helpful though. 
 
- Nick

I've thought about doing an ME2 Insanity playthrough for a while. I've even started. Twice, actually, I think, but a combination of my lack of 3rd person cover-based shooter skills, and my choice of Vanguard as my first playthrough class have conspired to make this hard. 
 
What is inspiring me to give it another go is all the DLC that was on-sale over Xmas. I played through both Overlord and Kasumi after buying them, but my save games were so bungled that I couldn't do a perfect playthrough, with all the crew members, all the DLC and the no-dead people ending in place for ME3. I had one save where I did the Overlord DLC, then the endgame began, then another clear save after the ending on which I played the Kasumi DLC - basically what happened is that I f'ed it all up. So, all  this, plus going for the S-Rank, seem to make it worth it. 
 
I also think that Jeff's love for Kelly during the GOTY podcasts made me want to have her around to "feed Shepard's fish" whenever he needs it. You know what I mean? 
 
You know what I mean. 
 
So, without ado, I am going to begin my playthrough on Insanity, likely dying millions of times, and it seemed like a good idea to write about it a little.  
 
Since I can;t not be good, I will be Paragon-ing again, and will be keeping my Vanguard character with the additional ability of Reave, because the consensus is that it;s awesome. 
 
 I will likely play through the intro today, and the first mission to the human colony. My commentary may bot be day-to-day, or mission to mission, but I hope to leave some impressions as I go. I love this universe and this game, and it's my Game of the Year, but I bet I find some stuff that's weird as hell the more I think about it. 
 
Here I go. 
 
- Nick

Sh*t my girlfriend says would be an awesome blog/twitter, but if whe ever found out about it, she'd probably kill me in my sleep. Or when I was awake. Either way, it wouldn't end well.