Mass Alex: Mass Effect 03 - Part 21

First time seeing this dlc. WTF?!?!? This TOTALLY should have been in the base game! It greatly improves the game! Fucking EA. No wonder they killed ME.

I don't know if it's been mentioned before, but Alex, your microphone is coming in, incredibly loud and hot, destroying my ear drums and speakers.

I vote for doing the Citadel DLC before the ending / point of no return.

As well as upgrading the Javik beam gun to V (the final level) and using it because it is overpowered and silly.

do the Citadel DLC before the ending / point of no return. Upgrade your weapons.

Alex's Mic is WAAAAAAYYYYYY too loud. Like seriosuly.

About Citadel DLC: Also, definitely, definitely do not play Citadel DLC after the end. The game's ending is so definitive that everything after it (especially the Citadel DLC) would be super jarring and weird.

People saying the tone "doesn't" fit with the rest of the game don't get it. The point is that it's the big "lets party like there's no tomorrow" moment. It"s like that GoT episode before The Long Night. People drinking reminiscing etc before the end. Doing it after would just be bizarre. You don't do an after party after the end of the galaxy as we know it.

@dan_citi: You get into some of those Super DLC Weapons and they make even Insanity a breeze.

@twolines: @xdeser2: While I'm fine with the Leviathan Explanations, I didn't realize how many similarities it has to the Halo games' thing with the Forerunners and the Rings and the Flood. Preserve what you can, cleanse the rest, reset back to 1.

I appreciate how this DLC gives us something, character-wise, we haven't really seen before, up until now: a somewhat-unsettled Javik. Really helps to sell the atmosphere of unease of the circumstances beyond...well, the obvious. He was a good choice to bring along, I think.

Edit: Also, well done, Vinny - I lost it at, "...I've joined Cerberus." SOMEONE'S not getting their Loyalty Mission done any time soon!

As ever, great episode, Commanders. And William Petersen as an Admiral in the next 'Mass Effect', please.

I never played this DLC and I must say I think this was one of the best episodes of Mass Alex, just in terms of interesting game shit getting done (holy cow what a mission!) and goofs. Thanks as always, Commanders Vinny and Alex!

TOUCH THE HEAD!

My vote: Citadel DLC first.

In terms of the progression of a video series, I think the final dlc stuff should be after the end. It’s a nice final hurrah and interesting note to leave things on.

Between the 3 games this has been a long series, so it has potential to be a good set of reminiscing episodes.

Two things, first I vote for doing the DLC before the ending. Sure it would be nice to go out on a high and do it after. But that wasn't the game, or how it was designed. The ending, regardless of how we (those have seen/played it) feel about it, is the ending, and should also be the ending point for the series. (Yeah, i know some dlc for some games is design to go after the ending of those games, or are complete side adventures, but that isn't the case here in ME3).

Second, I would highly recommend buying the power you got from the DLC (dominate i think its called), resetting your powers to get it added to your skill set, and then using it. It is a unique power that you get from the DLC, and it is the best ability in the game (imo).

I have never seen or played this DLC but I was wondering if after you get Ann can you find her on the ship and talk to her before you head back to the lab?

Citadel DLC before the end, absolutely. Before the Cerberus Base mission that you've got, even. Maybe play it right away why not, it's really really good.

@alex@vinny: Play the DLC before the assault on Cerberus. Conversations still carry the weight of what needs to get done in the end so it would feel weird to go back after.

Also wouldn't mind if you guys play some of the co-op with the community before starting the assault on Cerberus. Would be kind of funny watching you guys react to what sort of characters the multiplayer allows people to play. Doesn't have to be on the hardest difficulty either. Playing it on the easiest difficulty can take as long as 15 minutes. So yeah. Citadel DLC, Co-op (my pipe dream), and then the assault. Thank you guys again for playing through the franchise. It's been awesome.

I also think they should play the game in the order I played it and am biased towards (citadel DLC after the ending)

Seems crazy to me that people would recommend playing Citadel after the end of the game.

Is it lighthearted and immersion breaking in the threat of galactic extinction? Yes. So is flying to some random system and scanning a planet for some books to make some random NPC happier 25 times.

Do it before. Even in the "worst case scenario" where he thinks the ending is awful, Alex deserves to be a true ME fan by being disappointed.

The original ending of ME3 that most people got since they played it before they revised the ending and added the DLC made a lot of people not even want to play any DLC. The Wii U version doesn't even have the option to buy the DLC. This should have been part of the main game. You don't need to finish the game to do the Citadel DLC but it should be done last right before the point of no return. There is where you will end up if you load a save after finishing the game anyway.

I concur with doing the citadel BEFORE the ending for a lot of the reasons mentioned. The end is the end .

Definitely play the dlc before the end.

DLC before the end is the best option.

No, she's not there, unfortunately.

For what it's worth - playing Citadel after the game originally was fine because I had months to sit with the ending and move on. So coming back months later was like watching a holiday special. That said, now I always play it BEFORE the point of no return because it has a nice last hurrah feel before things get really serious, if you will.

The extended cut dlc cleaned up a lot of the "plot holes" that I personally had issues with during my first playthrough. Now the end, while perhaps not exactly as I wanted, overall ends the trilogy in a way I can walk away from and feel. . . full, I guess. Going back for the Citadel immediately after is not something that I would want to do. But, you know, I don't think it matters as far as your enjoyment of the Citadel dlc in of itself. (But I like the end of the trilogy to be the end, so play it first IMO.)

The answer to why that lore dump was DLC can probably be answered with two letters:

EA

Though I won't excuse Bioware for the obnoxious design of 30 minutes of storyless combat arena followed by 5 minutes of lore dump. Audio logs aren't great but at least they are a supplement to the gameplay.

Also seeing this after having finished ME3 without any of the DLC is kind of making my brain hurt. In the end it didn't really matter because I kind of stopped caring about the story except for a character or two.

Man, I'd forgotton that they explained the origins of the goddamn Reapers in a piece of DLC, in addition to the most important (lore-wise) squad member also being DLC. I guess the only consolation is how lame and throwaway the reveal was. "Oh hey, yeah, this race of giant cuttlefish just made them. Yeah, turns out that's why they look like that. Why did they try building one that looked like a Terminator in Mass Effect 2 when all the others are cuttlefish? Dunno, who cares. Anyway..."

This game was such a train wreck in every possible way. EA are the worst.

Ridiculous. I never played this DLC and just pretty much chewed right through ME3 as soon as it came out. This is my first time ever seeing Leviathan, and wow. Yeah, they were assholes for putting this behind a paywall.

@noobsauce: Its like the Javik DLC...that was day one DLC and it was an extra 19.99. I never played this one though.

This DLC man. I did not have that on my playthrough. Pretty fucking cool!

I absolutely died at Vinny's "idk, how many heads does a human need?" lmao

The audio mixing in this entire series ranges from absolutely horrible to downright unlistenable which is made worse by Alex's inability to modulate the volume of his voice.