Mass Alex: Mass Effect 2 - Part 08

WOO!

Glad to see it's longer than an hour this time!

Thanks GB. LOVE this feature.

To the Mass Alex.

Jack's back!

Now that's a long episode!
I'm ready for some SCANNING BABY!!

I think Alex is going to really like Jack. I'm looking forward to so many moments in this series, can't wait for Alex to see them! Thanks for playing for us, Alex!

Jack! Love that image. Cannot wait to watch this later today. I agree, I will be surprised if Alex doesn't dig Jack. But then again, who in f*ck doesn't love Jack?! Hell yeah, Alex. Hell yeah, Vinny. Hell yeah . . .everybody who loves Jack.

As always, thank you for Mass Alex.

Oh, my God, yes! It's finally time for Jack!

Mentioned it a previous episode, but I think the "crew" dialogue option with Chambers will tell you who wants to talk? Or is that wrong?

I'm 80% sure there was a way to see who was down for dialogue that didn't involve checking on everyone individually.

If it spikes, I likes.

Jack is the best

When Alex goes Music/Movie critic, I'm out!

it is the world's biggest crime that alex brought grunt along and didn't get his lines after jack's release

@drew327: why

Everyone else is crazy about Jack....

IM HYPED FOR ELEMENT ZERO!

WOOOOOOO!

Jack is lame and try-hard as hell imo but ME2 is still good.

I remember that prison ship ship escape battle being really rough, especially on Insanity. Alex did really well! Glad to see he loves the Locust SMG as much as I did. That gun is a beast.

Also agree that Throw is somewhat ineffective in those types of battles. It's fantastic against the Husks in later fights though! The quick recharge makes it brilliant for crowd control.

Some advice about talking to crewmates: They usually only have new stuff to say about major/story missions. So far you've only been recruiting and doing side stuff, so not much to discuss. Also take a look at your level 4 skills, it usually modifies the skill in a major way and includes a choice, and you won't be able to get them all.

Ma'am.

Assuming Control

Does Jack not come on to you if your playing as a girl Shep? I remember that jack had some pretty awkward dialogue about sex. She said something like “you just got to know where to stick it”. That’s a shame. I was hoping to hear Alex’s reaction to that funny dialogue.

I would caution alex going to illium and accidently getting into the shadow broker dlc without meaning to. Its integrated into liara's stuff from the main game pretty well and you could easily stumble into it. Not because the content is bad or anything its a great dlc but you'll just be locked in for a few hrs

Just a tip, do arrival after you beat the game! Its much better as an ending than something you do mid playthrough.

Long episode, looking forward to getting to this tonight!

Alex, we all love you, but definitely save the heavy weapon ammo for the BIGGGG guys like at the end there.

I think Vinny is already aware of the Arrival DLC situation. Someone a bit more knowledgeable about Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC will have to recommend a good time to do that.

Be careful, it can be easy to stumble into and it will absolutely require a full episode, regardless.

@garr123:

chambers only tells you 'they want to talk' when a character has a loyalty mission avaliable but not normal dialogue. There's also the fact that the amount of dialogue that each character has is not equal. Miranda, jacob and garrus are some of the characters that have the least ship dialogue to the point where 'garrus doing calibrations' becomes a gag in 3 but like the talk with grunt other characters will definitely have stuff to say. So i would say that its still worth it to do the rounds after a main mission but just don't expect everyone to have something to say.

Like Vinny, I have a lot of awful memories of that final battle on Horizon on the highest difficulty levels. IIRC it was the hardest fight in the game on Insanity, in part because I could never find a good place to take cover that didn't result in me getting flanked or overwhelmed by husks almost immediately. The Praetorian also is a ridiculous bullet sponge on the higher difficulties.

@max_cherry:

so, in maybe one of the weirdest choices in this series, jack is straight and gets Angry if you so much as pick a paragon choice around her as femshep

I like Jack’s tattoos. They are pretty cool.

The message from Admiral Hackett was the Arrival DLC. Like others have said, save it for after you complete the main story (reason below for those curious - very big spoilers).

It's a direct tie-in to ME3, as it's the reason that Shepard gets court-martialed, requiring him to return to Earth. It also essentially alerts you that the Reaper invasion is very imminent (like in a few weeks), so it really doesn't make narrative sense doing it in the middle of a ME2 playthrough. Also the ending of the mission changes a little bit depending on whether you have completed the main story, where you either speak to Harbringer's Collector form (pre-main story completion) or his true Reaper form (post-main story completion). I think his dialogue changes a bit as well, but less sure on that.

The timing of the Lair of the Shadow Broker stuff is less important. Personally I would probably do it later with your final rounds of loyalty missions, but it's not really a narrative issue like with Arrival.

Shadow Broker is easy to avoid. Just don't pick "let's go after the Shadow Broker" when speaking with "specific character." (Not saying the above is verbatim, but it's close.)

As far as when to do this dlc, obviously everyone has their opinion. I will say I used to always play it after the main game, (before The Arrival), but I will always play it in game from now on. One reason is there is a hub you open that you can visit as often as you like, but there's really no narrative reason to save it. Like ME3's Citadel dlc, I think it's a nice calm before the storm. (First time I played Citadel after the game, since then, like many, right before PoNR.)

So, for what it's worth, maybe after all the loyalty missions are done. Again, it's a nice "holiday special" after a long stretch of ME2 narrative. But honestly, if Alex plays it as soon as it comes up, it's not the end of the world, but I think it's nice to experience the character as the original game plays it, and then come back later. Shep having one last adventure with ???? before heading off to possible death. (Heh, granted, it may depend on what level of care you have for ????)

(Shadow Broker) Quick correction from below: Not after ALL loyalty missions. There is one loyalty mission that is "on the clock." I don't want to say beyond that. So I guess Shadow Broker sometime after all the dossier (prerequisite to any loyalty) missions have been done at least. But as mentioned, it doesn't really matter as far as the narrative. It's really personal preference.

Why does Shepard's visor say "SHEPARD" in capital letters, oriented so it's readable to the wearer? Does she often forget who she is?

@asarihobbes: I'm considering whether we should try and make Vinny aware of the "on the clock" event you're speaking of. It's the one case in the entire series where urgency actually matters, so it can blindside you and be a bit of a bummer.

Jack is NOT straight, though, she frequently references having relationships with women AND men, she's just not into FemShep...which COULD HAVE been a cool subversion of "Hey, you're the protag, everyone wants you!" but they never really DO anything with it. FemShep's options in 2 are as sad as the female protagonist's in Baldur's Gate 2.

All that having been said: LOVE JACK!! JACK BEST ROMANCE!

@undeadpool: I always interpreted Jack's comments about past female relationships being one of curiosity and experimentation in figuring herself out considering her only being open to Male Shepard in ME2. Could be wrong though, not that it really matters either way.

Kind of a bummer though, Jack is my favorite, and in my opinion the best human party member in the series and I think her character development, especially when romanced is satisfying as hell and I kinda wish we could have seen it in this feature.

I haven't played this in a while but is Alex just using throw instead of overload?

I also seem to recall that last set of battles giving me a tougher time, good job Alex

Good episode, thanks guys

Vinny you spoiled the surprise!

Jack is one of my favorite characters and it was oddly emotional seeing her again here for Alex's first time. She's such a challenge to get to know and understand and even harder to romance. Which is probably why she had such an impact on me. This is a great feature and such a great game! :)

The moment I met Jack in ME2 was when I realized the kind of edgy tone BioWare had taken their franchise.

Also, I’d wish Alex would pick the renegade options sometimes as they are badass and sometimes hilarious.

@undeadpool: ah, right! i forgot about that, my bad.

anyway my point is mostly: as a huge honkin lesbian myself, bioware is cowards for not letting me romance jack as femshep

This may seem funny, but I never noticed those symbols on the hacking screen when I played this, so I always literally traced the points by looking at the lines on board itself. Realizing now that by using the combination of looking at the symbols and tracing can make that stuff super fast.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I have to assume it will brought up down the line. However, to anyone playing ME2 for the first time who care about "good vs bad" endings, I offer you this soft, milquetoast, non-specific pseudo-spoiler:

There is a ticking clock towards the end of the game that begins PRIOR to the PoNR. That means there's a good chance you won't realize when it starts, unlike a PoNR, which is obvious as you can't veer off to other missions. That said, you DO have time once the clock starts to do certain missions, but if you start the clock, and have a handful of missions undone (like more than one or two), and you take the time to do all of them before heading into the PoNR (which will be obvious), you run the risk of having a "bad" ending. All this to say, if you care, just do a quick search online for details.

I honestly didn't realise so many people liked Jack. I'm not a huge fan.

Samara was my main Biotic party member, mainly because I didn't find myself saying "yeah, we get it" every time she said something.

@brangus: Hey, I'm 100% with you, especially with how they wrote the character. If they'd made her more like Aveline from Dragon Age 2 (you try to romance her, she flat-out says: "I don't really LIKE you like that") it would have been one thing, but it seems like they just didn't think of it in ME2.

@_brojangles_It DEFINITELY doesn't matter ultimately, but the way they executed it on this feels lazy. That being said: I was a little disappointed by her limited appearance in ME3, and they absolutely made good with the Citadel DLC.