Mass Effect 3 - Completed

Earth is saved & I am dead !!

I went for the Synthesis ending & passed on my DNA to everyone across the galaxy.

In terms of Sci-Fi lore the trilogy has been fantastic, some gameplay elements were not ideal like the fetch & retrieve side quests but overall I would have to say it is an amazing trilogy.

It goes into my top list.

Next on the list then after much nagging from many on UGVM & RLLMUK is going to be Portal.

I've gone off iOS games for the moment so have deleted Tiny Dice Dungeon, Disco Zoo & a few others I was playing. Will just leave the turn based games like Lost Cities, Carcassonne & Disc Drivin.

I've also gone and purchased another WiiU console (WEAK) in readiness for Mario Kart 8.
Edit 3:15 - Too good to be true John Lewis have cancelled the offer.

Mass Effect 3 - Revenge !!

After causing so much trouble & upheaval it was time to get rid of the thorn in my side "CERBERUS"

An attack on their headquarters leads to a boss fight against Leng & you finally get the chance for revenge. Although be warned he is a tough bugger & it took me a couple of attempts before I managed to defeat him.

That was for Thane

Now I am all set for the return to Earth & the Final Conflict

Mass Effect 3 - Choosing sides SPOILERS !!!

Enough Movie & TV talk, back to gaming !!

Throughout the series you are asked on many occasions to make a choice but none have proven that difficult until you have to decide to go with the Geth or Quarian race.

This proved a very difficult choice & I replayed the mission a few times to see if there was anyway I could save both but alas no, so I decided to go with the Quarians.

 Really enjoying the story of this game, it is sci-fi lore at it's best.

Mass Effect 3 - Thane

After delivering the cure to Tuchanka & deciding to ignore the sabotage option. I returned to the Citadel following up on a video call from the Salarian politician about Udina working with Cerberus.

The Citadel is under attack by Cerberus forces, during the mission whilst saving the Salarian politician an assassin Kai Leng fights and wounds Thane. After taking back control of the Citadel, Thane is admitted to the hospital.

He has lost a lot of blood & even with his son's help, because his Kepral's syndrome is in it's final stages, his time has come.

The weapons in the game can be upgraded with various mods & by only carrying a few weapons your powers recharge quicker. I only carry the Assault Rifle, Sniper & Handgun with damage & ammo capacity mods equipped.

Time to go find this Kai Leng for some revenge.

Mass Effect 3 - Chemist

I enjoyed planet scanning for minerals in Mass Effect 2, this has changed quite a bit now in that you scan the solar system you are in to reveals areas/planets to investigate. You can only get three to four scans before the reapers are alerted & you have to run the Normandy out of the solar system to escape. If you get caught you restart the game.

You find lots of fuel, some credits, intel which you can then use at Liana's Glyph for upgrades or side mission artifacts (fetch & retrieve quest lines).

Ashley is now out of the hospital & has accepted an offer by Udina to become a Spectre. I've met quite a few characters from the previous games including Garrus who is now an advisor on Reaper matters but happily joins me on my quest. Miranda who is worried about her twin sister again. Jack who is now a biotic teacher, Kasumi who is still using her stealth abilities to steal tech, I've sent her to help the alliance build the reaper weapon. EDI has decided to take over the robot that attacked Ashley to give herself a body. Thane who is still slowly dying, Urdnot Wrex & Grunt who I've helped recover a female Krogan from a Salarian research lab, hoping Grunt becomes a controllable character so I can recreate my Mass Effect 2 team again (Garrus & Grunt).

For now my team is Garrus & James. I've done a ton of side missions since my last post & rescued the Turrian Primarch. After saving the female Krogan, I now need to go and dispense a cure for the genophage. Cerburus also are a constant thorn, the illusive man I think wants to control the reapers.

Mass Effect 3 is all about uniting the various races together to take on the reapers but for now I'm a chemist dispensing a cure for the genophage.

New Game - Mass Effect 3

Yes I have Knack & Dishonored to still complete but I have forgotten the story, button control & what I was doing in both of these games. Also I really wanted to start playing Mass Effect 3 instead.

I imported my 45 Hour ME2 character to receive bonus credits & level stats to upgrade some skills.

The Reapers have arrived & Earth is under attack. Ashley has had plastic surgery & arrives in time with the Normandy to save you. A quick trip to Mars reveals a Prothean weapon that could be useful against the Reapers but alas Cerberus possibly also have the data. Ashley also gets her butt kicked & ends up in the Citadel hospital. Whilst I walk around trying to convince the citadel politicians to get take the threat seriously & support Earth.

A few subtle changes to the interfaces with a quick save on the back button but otherwise it is the same control method. The map screen is now slightly easier telling you where characters are located. I have not noticed any other differences.

After the brief tour of the Citadel I'm on a mission to save a turian primarch.
Rumours about ME Trilogy inbound for PS4/XB1, wish the developers would focus on releasing new games rather than releasing previous gen games with a fresh lick of paint.

Mass Effect 2 - Completed

After completing the various assignments & loyalty quests it was time to advance the main quest & use the Omega 4 relay. The final mission gives you various choices along the way when deciding which of your companions you want to use for a particular task.

Through these choices some of your companions might end up dying like Legion & Mordin (although I have no idea how he died). You then get to the final boss fight, a giant Terminator with lasers.

Decide on what you want to do with the collector ship, I ended up destroying it. The ending scene shows reapers gathering at the edge of space all building up for a final showdown in Mass Effect 3.

Time for some co-op gaming now with Knack & Army of Two Devil's Cartel whilst I decide on what single player game to play next.

Mass Effect 2 - Recruitment Drive

I hate the way the game forces certain missions on you without giving you the option to refuse or delay those quests. These quests are related to main quest line about the collectors, seemed to be triggered when you have recruited  a certain number of companions.

I currently have seven recruited but to avoid triggering another forced quest I am not going to recruit any more players thus giving me a chance to clear up on many of the various side quests & assignments.

I have just investigated a collector ship which was a trap & after giving the Illusive man a rollocking I decided to not go after an IFF (whatever that is?) but instead focus on further developing my team.

New Game - Mass Effect 2

After completing Assassin Creed 4 I decided to take a break from the PS4 & return back to the 360 to start playing Mass Effect 2 ( I really should go back to Dishonored at some point). I am enjoying this game far more than the first, I found the side quests really boring in the first game & then rushed the main quest to complete the game.

Good to see some characters from the first game returning, I have just recruited Garus to go along with Zaeed in my group. The levelling up of the characters is far more simpler than the first which is a bit disappointing but thankfully the mini games for hacking etc are far easier.

I'm currently focusing on side quests to recruit team members whilst also scanning planets for resources needed for upgrades & research.

Even though I have the PS4 I expect most of my gaming this year to still be on the 360 tackling the back catalogue which still includes Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Trilogy, Dead Space 2 & 3, Fable 3, GTA V & a few more I forget.

Mass Effect - Completed

Decisions ! decisions ! Just like my current car dilemma, Mass Effect offers you many choices through-out the game and some of these are very tough to decide. Ashley or Alenko which one do you save? Save the Citadel Council or destroy the Sovereign? I decided to save Ashley because she was part of my main Squad with Garrus & I chose to destroy the sovereign so the council members died. Apparently if you carry your character over the choices you make are reflected in the next game or so I think?

I will wait a while before starting the second game to clear up a few unfinished titles, also I’m going to start playing Rayman Origins with the kids. I have a stack full of games on PS+ (PS3 & Vita) which I have not touched, yet I still went out & purchased Rayman Legends, Batman Arkhan Origins (Pre-Order) & my PS4 pre-order is still valid. So lots to keep me busy this year & next.

Cutting back on watching television shows has given me more time to enjoy gaming finishing Mass Effect in 13 days is friggin fast for me, in the past I would take months to complete a game. Slowly but surely clearing my backlog of games I’ll start with Gears of War Judgement, Thomas was Alone & Fallout New Vegas Old World Blues DLC this week before moving onto Spec Ops The Line.

Mass Effect 2 can wait until after Spec Ops, hopefully the side quests are more enjoyable, inventory management easier & the lifts are faster !!

Mass Effect - Sidequests

After neglecting the main quests in favour of the Sidequests I have finally had enough of visiting planets to rinse & repeat the same pattern again. Start quest, find planet, land with mako, drive around collect minerals & artifacts, attack compound. Kill Geth, recover item or save someone.

The Sidequests now all just feel the same so I'm now ignoring them & focusing on the main quest. I have completed Noveria & Feros quest line each ending with a boss fight that makes a change & throws up a new challenge.

I've also noticed that levelling up now only awards the other squad members one skill point instead of two?

But Shepherd still receives two points even at my current level of 32.

I'm learning to now pause the game by holding R2 to select a skill usually this is either overkill or assassination. Overkill allows you to continue firing your weapon with no overheating & assassination steadies your aim when using the sniper rifle.

I have landed on the planet Virmire, wow it looks beautiful straight out of a Far Cry game, will hopefully spend some time with the game over the weekend (if I do not get distracted by Rayman Origins) to crack on & complete the main quest.

Mass Effect vs Grand Theft Auto V

I nearly got sucked into the hype & placed an order for GTA V. I have never played an GTA game the violence, drugs & sexual content have never appealed to me. I did enjoy playing Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption this year & because of that I felt that I might enjoy GTA V. But much like my recent dilemma on which new car to purchase, carefully thinking of the positive & negative points made me reach a sensible conclusion that a 1.4 engine is far too small & the 1.8 is the better option.  The only positive points I could give to GTA V was Rockstar, Open-World sandbox & the on-line mode which opens up an endless possibility of fun. The negatives are pretty obvious with the mature content being top of the list.

Mass Effect on the other hand is more my kind of game, huge milky way to explore different planets & complete side quests. Thresher Maws on the other hand I don’t like, friggin annoying took me quite a few attempts before I was going to give up & Abbas said let me have a go. Typical he killed it on his first attempt !!

I have now got the last member of the squad, Liari an Asari researcher she is skilled in Biotics which I don’t really use. I’m old school gun & shoot so have stuck with Ashley & Garrus. Alenko was just not good enough in the fighting skills so had to make way for Garrus. I have completed quite a few side quests & enjoy visiting different galaxies to check out new planets to explore.

On the weapon front I have now started to favour the sniper rifle & tend to leave Ashley/Garrus on standby whilst I shoot down the Geth soldiers. The loot you find is very generous & will always give you new weapons or armour that is better than what you have equipped. No doubt I will find something in the shops that is worth buying but at the moment I only seem to be selling any spare items I have or converting them to Omni-Gels. The mini game for unlocking lockers or collecting minerals started off being really annoying because it did not give you enough time to press the buttons but I have now gotten much better at these, yet I still save before attempting just in case I need to retry.

So whilst the majority of you will be robbing banks, having police chases & taking down rivial gangs. I will be planet-hopping with the Normandy, collecting minerals, researching Prothean artefacts, shooting Geth & saving the galaxy.

GTA Online does not go live until 1^st October so I have a couple of weeks to lookout for any on-line deals. I have no intention to play the single player game but the temptation for multi-player fun could be too big to resist the hype.

Mass Effect - Normandy

I have now been given the keys to the Normandy, I've not yet gone on board & given the crew my first orders because I'm finishing off a few side-quests in the Citadel & need to visit the shops to purchase some better armour. 

I've found something that is more annoying than the inventory management in the game. It's the Citadel lifts !! Sheesh !! How slow do they move.

I've also got a few keepers to still find but I've been everywhere? I have also decided on my final squad lineup & will go with Ashley & Alenko.

I know what to expect when I get on board the Normandy but I can't help wishing for an open world type game now where I can fly the Normandy wherever I want to go.

New Game - Mass Effect

I've started this game quite a few times already but after an hour on Friday got bored & switched it off. Abbas was adamant that I was making a mistake & I needed to play it for longer before I made a decision on the game.

After four to five hours playing yesterday evening I'm hooked & starting to enjoy the game. The first few hours are full of tutorials & menu pop-ups, you are struggling to get to grips with the game mechanics & the game keeps on giving you more tutorials.

J-RPGs have perfected the art of in-game tutorials. Ni No Kuni did not tell the player about the all squad command till after the first big boss fight a good fourteen hours into the game. I have now figured out what the various controller buttons do & how to control your squad. The inventory management is really crap, I collect loot & there is no easy way of knowing what I have collected without going through each weapon/armour & checking for upgrades.

I am currently at the Citadel & have recruited a few more squad members. Just need to decide on which two I want to include in my squad, I think I may just stick with the original two of Ashley & Alenko. With the trilogy to play I think I don’t need to buy anything else for the rest of the year.