You an do Jacob’s mission anytime. It’s fine.
I never got Kasumi, but it sounds fine to me.
Sorry about the confusion. I keep mixing Jack and Jacob. 
But yeah, I mean I will do Jacob’s and leave Jack and Miranda for later.
Anyway, to the surprise of no one, couldn’t keep my hands off the ps3 and played for a bit tonight again! Here’s what happened:
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I decided to do some mining and side missions first, so I picked Firewalker, which turned out to be four mini missions instead of just the one - but awesomely I got to drive the hover craft. Which was kind of annoying at first, but was fun after I got the hang of it and stopped crashing into rocks or lava (which…instant death. Dang.) But shooting is quite simple, and on one of the missions there’s this really cool cut scene where the hover craft have to crash land into the loading dock of the Normandy. Love that scene.
The whole story of Project Firewalker is quite interesting though, even if the missions were basically drive a cool hovercraft and look for stuff with minimal fighting. Oh, and I got a cool energy ball relic from it that’s in my cabin. (This also sounds incredibly stupid, but I only just now discovered that I have a toilet and shower in my quarters! Thought the door was a wall. So… I can flush now! Whoop?) -
I found it really fun to ask Joker about my squad since he’ll talk about whoever was in my last mission.
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I haven’t found any anomalies on random planets on my own yet, so my remaining assignment is Overlord, which I’ll do after I finish a few more personal missions.
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This I found adorable - local cluster is the Solar System! I’m kind of glad Pluto’s in there.
Didn’t want to mine on my own turf, so I didn’t. Maybe later, if I really need it. -
I still had one firewalker mission left when Martin Sheen dragged me to go to the dead collector ship mission…and damn it, SCIONS! I think I’m slightly better at destroying them this time around though. Harbingers are all right, just kind of a nuisance. And the giant bug machine was doable as long as I keep my teammates on the husks and collectors while I deal with the bug. Nice cut scene when we first approach it - reminded me of Firefly pulling up to the Reaver-ed ship episode, all dark and scary, I wish Shepard had a Jayne hat. The part with all the pods in the ceiling also looks beautiful (in that it was really creepy to see so many pods carrying dead bodies in them).
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HOLY CRAP! The Collectors are Protheans? Wow. That was a pretty big moment. Which I proceeded to ponder on as I basically paused the game for 15 mins wondering which extra gun I wanted. I still don’t know if I made the right choice, and it’s pretty annoying considering after I chose shotgun (I’m a lousy shot, so I don’t think having a sniper rifle would help me or make the game more fun for me… and the assault rifle seems like it’s just the middle of the two. I still don’t know! Choices.), the other guns are still lying around on the ground. Why couldn’t I pick them all up?
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Anyway, interesting mission, and I’m officially a wee bit scared. So I told the crew that we’re recruiting some more before retrieving the Reaper something or other to fix the Omega 4 relay or something. What is Martin Sheen hiding?
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So, the collector ship mission took up most of what I thought I’d be using to do personal missions, so ended up doing just one - Kasumi’s. Which was pretty long and tedious, because I only had one squad member, Kasumi, and she’s not my favorite fighter. Fun beginning though, where you crash this party of this arrogant guy Hock, Shepard got to wear heels and a cute black dress (which I got to keep after the mission for casual wear! Though she still runs around like a linebacker while wearing heels and a short skirt. Not too elegant.) there’s even a bunch of art (including the head of the Statue of Liberty, heh) to check out before you start fighting. But I got a gun called Locust, and it’s a pretty swell gun, so this mission was worth it. There’s also a pretty nutty cutscene where Kasumi jumps on Hack’s ship like an acrobat and disables his shields. (Which makes me wonder why she’s so good in the cutscene but otherwise sucks during combat).
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I wish loyalty works differently though Seems awfully simplistic to have a mission, and then BAM! She’s loyal. Doesn’t matter what I say to them, really, that only affects paragon/renegade.
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Oh, Garrus, Grunt and Tali gave me their personal missions too. Which I guess is good, since I don’t have to run around and talk to any of them after every mission now since all they do is pester me about their personal missions. Next session will focus on personal missions, unless Martin Sheen sweeps me away again for a mandatory mission.
Questions:
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I still have one more upgrade level to get to full Defender status, and I have more than enough squad pts for it, but here’s the question: Full Defender status can double your paragon/renegade (it says 100% gain) - so should I upgrade when my paragon bar is half full (so it’ll max it out, or at least be quite full) or does the game give me double the paragon pts I get after I made full defender, so it doesn’t matter when I upgrade? Combat wise I’m all right for now and don’t necessarily need to upgrade yet.
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What kind of additional power should I pick? (I’m a Sentinel) The research option for it is open, but I can’t see the list until I spend 5000 eezo on it (need to find more eezo!) and maybe I should do a few more personal missions so I get more choices, according to the description.
Phew, that was a long recap.
A. There’s an easter egg for launching two probes at one of the planets in the Local Cluster.
B. I actually find Kasumi’s mission fun. It’d be nice to have an extra squad mate, but I didn’t even have any problems with it on my Adept runthrough.
C. There are two special cases that can effect the loyalty of 4 characters after you finish their loyalty missions.
D. As far as I know, it doubles the points you get from then on. The messages will still say the same number of points, but you still get the bonus (I think either 100% or 70% depending on which specialization you pick.
E. The additional powers you choose from are the loyalty bonus powers for the characters you’ve completed loyalty missions for (even on previous playthroughs). I haven’t done a Sentinel playthrough yet, so I don’t really know what one works best for that class. I usually go with Reave (Samara’s) or Slam (Miranda’s).
Heya gang, this just broke on Joystiq:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/21/mass-effect-2-arrival-dlc-detailed-by-latest-patch/
Some believe that “Arrival” can refer to the arrival of the Reapers, setting up events for the upcoming Mass Effect 3.
Indeed. Bioware has already said that the next ME2 DLC is going to bridge the gap between 2 and 3.
This is going to be the year of Bioware with the Dragon Age and Mass Effect releases!
New DLC, cool. I’ve got at least one more play through to get the Insanity run playthrough, so I can do it when the new DLC comes out.
And what’s with that achievement, The Ultimate Sacrifice?
First I was like, “Meh, I died once, I can die again.” and then I thought, “If they kill Liara I’m gonna kill them! And then take her body to Cerberus and make them rebuild her! But this time with a beer tap!”
My guess is a secondary character that is introduced in the DLC will die at the end to delay the arrival of the Reapers.
Is it wrong that my first thought was “Sheppard, the man they call Sheppard.”
Wow that was excellent!
Some incredible Mass Effect 2 fan artwork.
http://patryk-garrett.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d38ynl6
This guy’s work is amazing!
I just randomly decided to go to Bioware’s Mass Effect store, and they have some great T-shirts.
Ooooh $24 is kinda steep for an all-words tee, but I’m really considering that.