Mass Alex: Mass Effect 2 - Part 06

Yaaaas!

Finallllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! I thought we'd miss a week. :)

Aww yeah.

Finally we get to see if Alex will have Zaeed be loyal. PS Probably be a good idea to get all your powers so you can play your class to the best of it's ability.

If alex just wants to see the face of his shep, then the option in the helmet slot all the way to the left is no helmet at all. Which is how I played through the game.

Maybe they'll find the captain's toilet in this episode!

I might be mistaken but is eezo found more on planets that were inhabited? That's mostly discovered in the planet descriptions, but I seem to remember that to be the case.

Awe that sucks if you play a little more renegade that mission is so much cooler. Good job getting him loyal my first play-through i did the paragon thing, but didn't have enough points in paragon to sway him.

"it's your fusing episode"

who doesn't love a good reference to the persona 4 endurance run

Scanning planets the game.

Honestly, the John Boltzmann quip cracked me up.

This is dumb but please have Alex go to the local cluster and launch 2 probes at uranus.

@crunksmcgee: That's not dumb it's the logical thing to do.

Yes! That speech check at the end of the mission is impossible to pass later in the game unless you're max paragon. Glad our advice to do this mission early didn't go to waste and you were able to get past it (otherwise you wouldn't have gained Zaeed's loyalty).

With regards to resources, there is really no reason not to stockpile up on certain resources (i.e., don't leave resources on a planet because you have a lot currently). Since there's no cap, you'll need those resources later on when upgrades start costing 40-50k. If you've stockpiled 100k you won't have to go back out late in the game when you're trying to wrap things up.

EDI's blocks get removed later in the game. You'll know when those restrictions are removed.

I heard "Super Earth", and a chill ran up my spine.

PTSD from my previous lives in Helldivers.

Dear Vinny and Alex,

The benefit of researching a particular item is given to you in the first line of the description box. The paragraph is just flavor text.

Regards,
purc

The Hammerhead missions are neat. A good palate cleanser after some of the super shooty bits.

Man, watching the probing is really nice and chill. Maybe my brain is broken but I could totally just play some of that right now. Watching those lines max out is so satisfying.

@alex Check out the text on that Cryo Blast ability you have in your skills, if it sounds cool you might want to work towards unlocking it.

Also, thank you for changing the armor so we can see Shep Shep's face, it really makes the cutscenes more enjoyable to watch.

Zaeed's loyalty mission music is good, but not quite as good as the best ME1 stuff.

@alex@vinny You can totally use more than two powers. You just have to use it from the wheel as opposed to the shortcuts. Thank you for exploring one of my favourite series! maybe Witcher next? ;)

@axl159: Vinny made the right call honestly. Alex never uses the wheel. He didn't in ME1 and its looking to be the same here as well. No reason to waste points in something he will never use.

Probe Away

“Rage is a hell of an anesthetic” love Zaeed.

When Alex hovered over Miranda and changed her out of that GODAWFUL black outfit into her default white one, I was so happy... for about half a second before he switched back to the DLC costume.
That dumb headset thing that comes with the black outfit.... Guh, so ugly.

Love the series! <>

@alex@vinny Have you gave the good doctor her booze yet? I know you bought it on the Citadel but I can't remember.

This is what I look forward to every week.

Yes, I don't have much going on in my life right now.

I don't remember Zaeed's mission being this dull. Like, I remember loving the possibility of having him not be loyal after it being really cool and unique, but the actual story is just such... nothing? Hopefully the rest of them aren't this disappointing. Surprised that there's bits of the game that aren't as I remember, I beat it at least six times (one for each class) on the highest difficulty alone. You'd think that after that much time spent it'd be deeply ingrained in my memory (especially considering the game's not even thaaaat old), but I guess the human brain is even more fallible than I give it credit for.

@alex It doesn't matter where you exit a system. The arrows on the outer ring just indicates there's something in that direction.

Meanwhile in another spaceship somewhere in the galaxy, another hero is tracking down the interstellar criminal guilty of strip mining planets.

"Goody two shoes" Shep Shep strikes again.

@dirt410: me either, this is also one of the highlights of my week along with the Abby RE2 playthrough

Never have I been happier that this isn't a live show than when there are 15 minutes of planet scanning.

@threeoct: No, you're completely right. Element zero is mostly found on garden or post-garden worlds, IE where thing are alive or things used to live.

Alex keeps scanning lifeless rocks and gas giants which is why he hasn't found any.

Man, I've played this game so many times, and in so many ways, but I NEVER saved the people in this plant... Love that South African accent to much.

Yaaaay, good stuff as ever, thanks @alex and @vinny!

The thought struck me while watching this one that you could end each episode by looking through a codex entry or two, especially if there's something you're curious about that came up during your travels.

I seem to remember enjoying listening to the dude's Starship Troopers-y voice telling about what makes the galaxy tick when I played.

I think I remember finding the largest deposits of Eezo on certain asteroids.

Zaeed doesn't have a South African accent if that's what you mean

@vinny please have Alex see what Uranus has available for resources.

Man, I miss good Mass Effect.

So you'll sit through endless planet scanning but you won't wait 10 seconds to listen to Zaeed? Some of his stuff is the best writing in the game.

Real interesting to see some fans of Zaeed here. He was the most forgettable part of the game for me.

I recently finished replaying this. Still an incredible game, but this was my fourth playthrough and I downloaded a mod to auto-win hacking and auto-probe all resources off of a planet and I am so, so, so glad I did.

I liked him well enough but I would much rather have had an actual conversation with him and Kasumi on the Normandy, rather than just some short quips about his some of his past adventures.

Jacob is so forgettable that it took me a little while to remember who the most forgettable Mass Effect 2 character is.

this line is so good, and would be so terrible without Robin Sachs' delivery. some of my favourite voice acting in the game- you can practically smell the gin coming off his breath and the 'U WOT M8'-ness of it all.

So I enjoy and am in favor of all the planet scanning.

Sooo I don't think you've actually gotten Zaeed's loyalty if you made that choice.

...Should be interesting to see how that works out.