Mass Effect 3 - The Reblogening

[Preface] Look who came crawling back to the internet: Me. After an almost two year hiatus I have returned. I got lazy and stopped writing for a while (a year). Then my 42" plasma television blew up and I couldn't play anything at all. Then I moved. But now I'm settled in and ready to start this thing up again. And to help make sure I actually post this thing I will be writing this as I go instead of writing 3 weeks after I finish playing. As of writing this first installment I have yet to play one second of this game aside from the demo.

[Day 0] I've been wanting to play Mass Effect 3 for a while. It's been hard keeping away from all of the ME3 spoilers but I think I've done a pretty good job. I know about Javik but that's about it so far.

[Day 0.1] I've been doing some research on the DLC. Since I am playing this game after all of the DLC has been released I was worried about the cost of buying it all. Especially after buying the ME2 DLC on sale.

There are 9 DLC Packs available:
-From Ashes - 800 Microsoft Points
-Extended Cut - Free
-Firefight Pack - 160 Microsoft Points
-Leviathan - 800 Microsoft Points
-Groundside Resistance Pack - 160 Microsoft Points
-Alternate Appearance Pack 1 - 160 Microsoft Points
-Omega - 1200 Microsoft Points
-Citadel - 1200 Microsoft Points
-Online Pass - 800 Microsoft Points (because I'm renting from Gamefly)

That gives us a total of: 5280 Microsoft Points or $66 (more than the cost of the game at full price)
Removing the non-story DLC gives us: 5 DLC Packs for 4000 Microsoft Points or $50
Removing Omega (the least acclaimed DLC) gives us: 4 DLC Packs for 2800 Microsoft Points or $35
Removing Extended Cut & Leviathan (which make the ending better; I want to be mad like everyone else;
  I'll probably YouTube that stuff later) gives us: 2 DLC Packs for 2000 Microsoft Points or $25
Removing From Ashes (because I'm not paying $10 for a character that should have been in the game anyway)
  gives us: 1 DLC Pack for 1200 Microsoft Points or $15
Citadel I will probably get because I've heard it's amazing and is fine to play after the game is over.

Past Affect 2.5 - The DLCening

If you've read many of my posts you know that I have a particular hatred for DLC, most of the time. My recent tweet, however, may lead you to believe the opposite. I did indeed buy all of the DLC (to date) for Mass Effect 2. They were selling at a one day only price of 200 msp each. Combine that's cheaper than Lair of the Shadow Broker sells by itself: 800 msp. So the penny pincher in me caved and I bought them. I hurried to put Mass Effect 2 at the top of my GameQ and surprisingly it was the next to arrive.

Past Affect 2

First improvement I noticed was the Lazarus Project Facial Reconstruction Code. This allows you to find a Shepard you like and import them instead of messing with the appearance sliders. I had a difficult time getting my Sara Shepard to look right in the first game. Yes I play a female Shepard. Wanna fight about it? This time I just found a Shepard that looked like I wanted mine to and changed it a little bit to be perfect. Well as perfect as you can get in this game. Most of the female Shepards look awful.

My Code:
731.Q9G.A1F.F8W.IDC.16W.1HG.716.LD6.C17.2G6.337

Modified From:
Ora Shepard
Jane Shepard

Like Darksiders I finished this game with abilities left to upgrade. Unlike Darksiders you can't grind for experience. There are a specific number of missions and you don't gain anything from killing individual enemies, except for ammo.

I finished all the missions with 49 Experience before I reach the next level.

3 unused Squad Points
25 Squad Points left to get.
I would have 15 if I didn't get the bonus power from Advanced Training.

Another problem is that you can't go back and collect stuff you missed. So anything you can't buy in a store is a missable item. The one thing I missed was a Heavy Pistol Damage. Also since there is a limited number of missions there is a limited amount of credits (money). And any extra credits to be found during a mission is also missable. So there are a few things I was never able to buy because I didn't have enough credits.

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OK I officially HATE this blog post. I stopped playing this game almost 3 weeks ago and I still haven't finished writing it. I tried to motivate myself by not mailing it back. Then came Harmony of Despair. I finally decide to work on it and I find out half of it is gone. I had a huge rant about the Cerberus Network and then my internet died so I couldn't save it. I waited for it to come back on. Then I copied the post, repasted it then saved. I thought it was fine, but no. So I'm done. No Cerberus Network rant (I don't like it), no long story review (I don't like it) and no clever closing (it wouldn't make sense now).

Final save is 111.
65h.02m
28/7/2010 5:00

44/54a
830/1000g
No DLC.
I sit corrected.