Spoiler Warning S4E8: Mordin Solus, M.D.

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 9, 2010

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 133 comments

Mordin Solus. Salarian. Doctor. Brilliant. Even has amusing combat taunts. Best character in the game.


Link (YouTube)

 


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133 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S4E8: Mordin Solus, M.D.

  1. Aelyn says:

    I hate the code segment mini-game.

    Just sayin’.

    1. Factoid says:

      It’s terrible to watch, but I never felt like it was that tedious in the game. I wish they’d done ONE more type of puzzle though to keep it more interesting. But this is a huge step up from simon says in ME1.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        Indeed.Its also better than the other one,which I didnt like particularly.

        1. Velkrin says:

          At least in ME1 you could opt to bypass the infernal things. In ME2 it gives you the choice of either solving the puzzle or potentially not having enough of a resource for an upgrade you want later on.

          I got tired of being forced to do the puzzles halfway though ME2 (I like having my stuff fully upgraded) and was ready to murder someone by the time I was finished with my second play though.

          1. Taellosse says:

            Well, there’s not really any risk of being unABLE to get all the upgrades. It’s just a choice of how you want your tedium distributed. There’s GOBS of uncharted worlds to probe for resources, after all. WAY more than you could ever possibly need to pay for every upgrade in the game three times over. The only resource you can’t get essentially as much as you want is cash, and you get plenty of that, too, if you’re at all thorough about doing side missions.

      2. Ateius says:

        The PC version of Mass Effect did not have Simon Says for hacking. Instead it had … I suppose the closest parallel is Frogger. Guiding your data hack in through layers of security, some mobile, some stationary. Oh, and you’ve only got a few seconds to do it.

        It was much, much better than the ME2 games, for two reasons. One: There’s actually a chance of failure, which is all but impossible with the ME2 hacks, so it’s a challenge rather than a tedious timesink. Two: If you were good at it, you could blast through it in a matter of seconds, rather than the ME2 tedium of searching out the matching pairs or waiting for the right code segment to slooooowly crawl onto the screen.

        ME2 hacking is awful.

        1. Avilan says:

          Oh I so disagree. The ME2 mini games are infinitely more fun than the “frogger” crap.

          1. Nyaz says:

            And thank god it isn’t Pipe Dream.

          2. Ateius says:

            Where exactly is the fun in waiting for the next row of images to slowly scroll up so you can see if maybe this one has the text block you need? There’s no skill involved as the only way to fail is to get unlucky and have a solid wall of the red security blocks scroll up, and all you need to succeed is basic pattern recognition. It even takes longer than the old minigame because you can’t make them scroll up faster.

            Granted, it’s still better than Pipe Dream.

            Edit: Oops, I just noticed I forgot Reason #3 in my first post. You could also just skip ME1’s hacking at the cost of some omni-gel if you didn’t want to bother. Spend resources instead of time.

      3. Integer Man says:

        I rather liked the wiring one. The code segments one was promising, but ultimately a little annoying.

        1. Mattias42 says:

          Heh. For me it was the other way around. I couldn’t stand the “Pictunary” ripoff, but I really liked the other one.

  2. Hitch says:

    Shepperd is no Reginald Cuftbert. Because, apparently, she totally is a mercenary.

    [Would have been funnier if I could have stuck that in as a Viddler pop-up comment. But I don’t miss those, so we’re all good.]

  3. Nyctef says:

    You want to stay at the clinic because there are some additional health and research pickups you might have missed.

    1. Integer Man says:

      Oh pfft. Josh has enough health as-is. He hardly ever dies!

    2. wtrmute says:

      Also, she can move on and pick up Archangel (which is why you get to repick your party members and spend level-up points in the taxi, by the way) without needing to stop in the Normandy.

  4. poiumty says:

    If you went ahead and edited out part of Mordin’s combat section, why not edit out Archangel’s exploration and minigame part? Minus the “totally backstab that guy working on the aircraft” part, that one’s cool.

    1. Integer Man says:

      That Vanguard is a spy!

    2. bit says:

      They edited out those sequences because they had already done them, and died.

  5. Zagzag says:

    There seem to be a lot of episodes all of a sudden. Is Josh’s new computer fan (or whatecer it was) working so well that everything just went faster, or are you merely making up the episodes that didn’t go up over the last week?

    1. Shamus says:

      Our plan when we switched to 15 minutes was to have 4 or 5 updates a week. But we didn’t want to launch the season, try 5 eps a week, find out it’s too much work, and then have to cut back. So we’re just speeding them up until it feels right.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        And the fans approve.Just dont make gaps longer than a day,please.

        1. Newbie says:

          Yes they are spinning around with excitement.

          1. Josh says:

            It was actually more like “the entire CPU died” than “there was a problem with a fan.” And of course since I had a Core i7 860 processor the motherboard had a socket that was incompatible with the new Core i7 9xx series, so I had to get a new one of those, and if I’m going that far, why not get a new hard drive and some more memory too? I even replaced the case.

            The reason Shamus got it into his head that my fan was broken is both because upon inspection one of the case fans wasn’t turning on, and because when I moved to Vegas I flew in on a plane and had to wait for more than two weeks for any of my stuff to get here, so I had my PC shipped here by UPS. I told them it was “fragile,” so they wrapped it in four sheets of construction paper instead of three, and then presumably kicked it a few times. Needless to say, it arrived with the case banged up and the CPU fan knocked loose, so I’d always suspected there’d been some damage to the CPU or motherboard.

            1. MintSkittle says:

              Don’t ever use UPS to ship fragile stuff. We get daily UPS dropoffs at the shop where I work, and we regularly get abused boxes. We had one a couple months back, half a dozen 18″ square boxes, foam packing and bubble wrap, and every part was damaged on arrival.

            2. Sekundaari says:

              “I moved to Vegas”

              So, I thought if Rutskarn drew his vision of this event, it might make a good intro for some possible future season of Spoiler Warning, or something. Possibly adding the “I flew in” too, with some kind of theme-appropriate aircraft.

              1. Blanko2 says:

                in west philadelphia born and raised
                LP’n is how i spent most of my days
                reginald cuthbert was kind of a tool
                but out in the wasteland he made everyone the fool

                but the damn UPS they were up to good
                trying to get the PC to my neighborhood
                it took one little trip for them to smash up the cases
                and so i gotta get new parts to do LPs in las vegas

                or am i too late for this meme?

            3. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

              Couple of months ago I decided I should update my processor since the LGA775 is most likely going out completely soon, and it would be nice to update with reasonably prices. And being able to find Core 2 processors without hunting down the one shop that still has them in store.

              And I did find them. It’s just that Intel had decided to change the frequency on the processors a couple of times so none of the processors could work in my current motherboard. Meaning I’d have to change the motherboard just to stay with an old processor model.

              So yeah. Decided to update when I start giving a damn again, and most likely I’ll jump to AMD side, because I don’t want to spend over a hundred everytime I update my processor because Intel can’t decide on the goddamn frequency.

              Edit: I feel the need to note that I’m not certain what frequency it is exactly, I just know there are at least three different ones just for the LGA775 socket and that the online shops I checked don’t list it in a way that would make browsing easy.

              1. 4th_Dimension says:

                Frequency, as in erm from the physics, describes how often a recuring event happens in a second. For example, if you work 5 days a week, your frequency of going to job is 5 per week. The measure of frequency is Hz, and equals one “event” per second.
                Usualy you hear about frequency whan talking about processors (though now it’s more about the number of cores, since producers hit a wall in the freq department), and whan talking about radio stations (98FM is a radio station broadcasting on 98 MHz by using FM modulation (forget about the modulation for now)).
                In processors frequency describes their Clock Cycle. It’s basicaly a BEAT, to which computer “dances”. The time it takes for an instruction to finish is inversly proportional to the frequency. For example, a 2GHz processor will “beat” 2 000 000 000 times per second. Obviosly, the faster the “beat” is, faster can processor process data.

                This is a bit of a simplification. For exaple the “beat” above is real. It’s a signal that synhronizes all other components of the processor. It’s bassicaly a ON/OFF signal, with one ON state, and one OFF state per cycle (or “beat”). Especially it’s necessary for memory elements in processor to function, because you can write only during the ON state. To rewrite the memory, you need to wait for the next one.

                1. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

                  When in the old days both AMD and Intel measured their processors by the frequency, like say “a 200 MHz Pentium processor”, that’s not the frequency I’m talking about. It’s a frequency that the motherboard needs to be able use when “talking” with the processor, so I figured it’s the socket’s frequency. Anyway, it’s not the “processor speed”.

                  Checking it, I think it’s the System Bus Frequency. And the “current” Core2 processors seem to have it at 1333 MHz, while my board can only go to 1066 MHz.

                  And I was well aware what a frequency is, it’s why Intel went around fiddling with it breaking compatibility in an unclear way (I only found out because I checked what processors are supported by my motherboard) that I don’t get. And I couldn’t remember what frequency it was called.

                2. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

                  Also: Big part of my annoyance is that Intel went out of their way to wisecrack about AMD having several sockets (AM2, AM2+ and AM3, IIRC) while they had just the one (LGA775).

            4. RTBones says:

              I feel your pain, Josh. This story reminds me of my own anecdote: A couple years ago, I was working in flight simulation. We sent a simulator from the heartland of the US to Geelong, Australia, for an airshow. One piece of this sim was a rack that contained ~24 1U PCs, routers, KVM, audio amplifier, video switches, a DEC (Compaq) Alpha, and all manner of wiring. Imagine a cabinet roughly 6 feet wide, 3.5 feet deep, and 7 feet tall to hold all this.

              Arrive at show site, get our crates, realize a foklift had been put through the side of one crate. Fortunately, the rack was steel, and all we got was a minor dent in the side panel and some paint removed. That was fine. The big uh-oh was when we rolled the rack out and realizes that it had been dropped (the rack and contents weighed ~1200lbs). How did we know? The subtle “V” shape the rack now had was the biggest clue.

              So, assemble sim and go to fire it up. Lots of parts dont work. We ended up having to re-seat pieces of memory, video cards, hard drive controller cables, and in some cases even play swaptronics with hardware to get a sim that was anywhere near usable. There also wasnt a computer store handy – so if we lost any hardware (which we did) readily buying replacements was a non-starter. Not the best way to start off a week-long show.

              To quote one of the local guys who was helping us with power when he saw me and my colleague with 6 of the 1U PCs field stripped on the floor – “I don’t want to know.”

            5. Taellosse says:

              For a very brief period, as a summer job following my first year of college, I worked in one of the UPS distribution hubs, as a truck loader.

              I tried to be gentle with packages marked ‘fragile’ but they value speed and efficient packing over care, definitely.

  6. Christopher M says:

    Hi. I have an idea. It is this: When people are talking in an episode of Spoiler Warning, would it be possible to lower the volume of the game sounds in direct proportion to the volume of speech? (Sort of like in commercial radio broadcasts etc.)

    The reason for this is, oftentimes when watching an episode of SW, I find myself listening to the game and ignoring your excellencies. I want to listen to you more! Please make it easier!

    1. poiumty says:

      Stop giving them more work to do, you mean person.

    2. Volatar says:

      If he is running Windows Vista or 7 it may be possible to set windows to automatically do this in the communication options.

      1. Heron says:

        Windows 7 will lower the volume of a running program when that program starts up, but not dynamically based on input volume. It’s rather unfortunate, and it’s actually extremely annoying having your game suddenly go almost-muted just because someone called you on Skype. It drove me crazy, so I had to disable it… I’ll manage my own volume, thanks Windows!

        1. Volatar says:

          …It does adjust it dynamically. What the heck are you talking about?

    3. Nidokoenig says:

      I have this problem, too. I haven’t played this game, so I tend to listen to what the characters are saying once, then zip back a minute or so and listen to the SW crew. Works well enough.

  7. Ringwraith says:

    It asks you if you want to stay when you finish that mission because there’s some minerals lying around the clinic which you go and pinch, so you can go and pick them up if you missed them first time.
    …and you can talk anyone that you pushed to run towards the clinic too.

    Also, the reason behind having to re-select squad members is because you sometimes need specific members in your party while wandering around for some things to happen, and it prompts you to reselect before you actually start the mission as once you have picked them, there is no changing your mind until it’s through or you restart the mission.

    I also have no idea why I felt compelled to say that.

    1. Hitch says:

      It just doesn’t seem reasonable that you’d need or want a different team for the little missionette of going from the ship to talk to the recruiter than you would for the rest of the mission. Unless it gave you the option of adding the dumb guy as an actual part of your team just to see if anyone wanted to gimp themselves that bad.

      1. Ringwraith says:

        Some missions call for some squad members more than others.
        Mordin isn’t particularly well kitted up for taking in a lot of mechs for example, so you may want to switch him for someone more suited.

        That and remember some missions require a certain member, so can be forced into changing that way, or at least have to take that into consideration when picking them.

      2. Volatar says:

        Honestly its really not very annoying when your actually playing and its way better that you are given the option. If you actually did need to switch characters and had to run ALL the way back to your ship to switch you would realize the need (I had this problem in ME1, very grateful they did this in ME2.)

        1. Ringwraith says:

          You also had to actually physically enter tne leave the ship, whereas ME2 just allows you to chenge from a menu that pops up when you try and use the door.
          Much better.

          1. Blanko2 says:

            the implementation of most interfaces in ME2 is better. not so the whole “can only change armor in your quarters, which are separated from the ship by a loading screen.” and the lack of variety of weapons. but the interfaces are a big improvement from ME

  8. Hitch says:

    Oh yeah, Shamus. I can’t believe no one has pointed out that you misspelled your favorite character’s name.

    1. Sigilis says:

      Its a side effect of typing as fast as Mordin speaks.

    2. Integer Man says:

      I too am guilty of this…

  9. psivamp says:

    Pipedream!

    (please, don’t send me ebola)

  10. mneme says:

    Huh. Lockpicking is Concentration? Makes as much sense as anything.

  11. RTBones says:

    [bows humbly]

    Josh likes to have his Sheppard in positions just precarious
    The Spoiler Warning crew harasses Josh with jokes hilarious
    Like Reginald our Sheppard takes on good bad and preposterous
    But taking rockets to the head is consequence disaster-ous!
    While seeing red in Elmo’s Way is something quite nefarious
    Josh likes to have his Sheppard in positions just precarious

    [passes the bottle]

    EDIT: To Messrs Gilbert & Sullivan – I will try to cut back on the coffee

    1. eri says:

      Never stop. Please.

      1. Ringwraith says:

        Agreed.

    2. Irridium says:

      This is having a massive effect on my psyche.

      In a good way.

  12. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

    Mumbles:
    The electronics-looking minigame is Memory/Concentration/Pairs, or whatever it’s called, transformed into singleplayer.

    The other one I can’t place though. It’s pattern matching, but I can’t come up with a game to associate it with.

    Personally I’m starting to feel like the whole minigame hacking/lockpicking nonsense should stop. Just check if the skill is high enough, if it isn’t tell the player to attempt with a higher skill later, if it is just make it happen. The only point for minigames would be, if you’d want to make the skills work similiarly to combat skills. So higher skill level would make hacking/whatever easier, but you could attempt any locks/whatever without any points.

    After all, a game should either be testing the character’s skill or the player’s, not both. Or if both, then have the character’s skill cover for the player’s. Which is what I’ve always thought was the point of Action RPGs. You want the game to be easier, you grind points into the appropriate skill to make that part fit your abilities/needs.

    1. Gale says:

      While I don’t necessarily agree, I will admit that I ended up using the “unlock” command in the console when faced with terminals in Fallout 3/New Vegas. I figure, I’ve got a high enough Science skill to play the hangman game, so success is just a matter of clicking words until I beat it. Gaining access to this terminal is an inevitability, but I just can’t be bothered to sit here and do it, so…

      1. Ringwraith says:

        Doesn’t that deny you of the xp though?

        I did like the lockpicking a lot though.

        1. Blanko2 says:

          it does, but the hacking mini game gets real old, real fast.

      2. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

        Yeah, pretty much the feeling I’ve got. But they really start pushing it when you have to play a minigame several times in a new area all the while you’d rather just be shooting dudes. Ruins the whole “variety to the gameplay” -thing I thought the minigames were supposed to bring.

        Which is why I’m slowly leaning against having them in games. The little fun they bring (including successful ones, like lockpicking in Fallout 3) is so often outweighted by how dull they get over time. Or how annoying they get at Very Hard or whatever. Especially with time limits. And a bad randomizer.

        Fucking Frogger: The Ring.

        1. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

          Just in case anyone checks here, I thought I’d mention my dream situation.

          Minigames are there, but improving the skill makes them easier.

          Minimum Change Example: in Fallout 3 with a Lockpicking of 1 you can attempt any lock as the game offers them. Every "point" (Lockpicking "level" jump) every lock would be one difficulty lower. So after the first "point" Easy locks would be played as Very Easy locks and V. Easy locks would be autosolved. Once Lockpicking is maxed out all the locks are auto-solved.

          Better Example: every point in lockpicking makes the correct area larger, maxed out even Very Hard locks don't pose any sort of a challenge.

          Naturally neither are good if the game has The Elder Scrolls type skill leveling and don't allow placing an artificial limit from Settings. So you could put Lockpicking to, say, always act like it's at most 15 or 31 etc.

    2. some random dood says:

      Part of the reason I like RPGs is because my own reflexes are not very good. (OK, yes, I am totally clumsy.) I like the idea that the character I play can perform amazing feats, but if you expect *me* to perform amazing feats of dexterity with any sort of controller (whether keyboard/mouse or joypad) then the game is just going to annoy the heck of me. And as I get older, things are only going to get worse as my hand/eye coordination gets even poorer. So for the RPG games to start depending more and more on the player’s own dextrous skills is going to cause me to enjoy them less and less, until ultimately they will exclude me from being able to play them at all.
      Sad face. Very sad face. Oh well, at least I hear that Planescape: Torment is available on GOG!

      1. Sumanai - a grouchy ball of bile and cynicism says:

        Yeah, it’s really nice when in response to needing more income, the video game companies’ reaction is to limit their games to smaller audiences. A choice in the options to set minigames/whatever off would be good.

        But of course that would either cut you off from the extra XP you get from them, meaning the game will end up being more difficult for you, or players complaining that there’s no point playing the minigames. Forgetting the whole “fun” thing, unless the minigames suck at which point no-one should complain about not having to play them anyway. Not that it would stop me.

        Them. Not that it would stop them.

  13. Jarenth says:

    You know, I was a little confused about Rutskarns cracks about Archangle not murdering you, but then I remembered that Ruts hasn’t actually played this game before.

    That should make the next episode a little interesting.

    1. Velkrin says:

      Though if you stand out in the open (while not solving a puzzle) he will shoot you. You get the same dialog either way, which is rather confusing.

      1. bit says:

        His line when you meet him, specifically the line about getting shot, is that he only hits you with concussive rounds to drop your shields, but not kill.

        1. Velkrin says:

          Yes but in my first play through he didn’t drop my shields, much less shoot at me. I had to stand out in the open for about 10 seconds in the next play through for him to actually take a shot.

    2. X2-Eliah says:

      I am very sure that Rutskarn already knows that Archangel is really Tali’s older brother..

      1. Blanko2 says:

        woah, spoiler warning, dude!

    3. Ringwraith says:

      I was almost about to comment on it, but then remembered that he hadn’t played it before, so I didn’t, as that’s perfectly understandable.
      Might also be the reason why no-one else corrected him either.

  14. Michael says:

    I like when the game asks you to pick your party just a minute after picking your party.

    “Are you quite sure you want to leave Strahovski behind? We paid her good money, we don’t want to see it go”” no? Okay, your call, but I’m just sayin’…”

  15. eri says:

    You know, something is increasingly occurring to me over the course of this video series.

    Mass Effect 2 is a boring game. Yeah, okay, so it’s pretty and the dialogue is well written, but dammit, so much of it is just running from A to B and shooting dudes in the face. There’s some good parts here and there (and some horribly stupid ones), but when you aren’t actually engaged in playing it there is very little of interest – no difficult decisions to make, very few cool NPCs to talk to, not much reward for exploration, etc.

    While the previous Spoiler Warning episodes were interesting because the crew would discuss the plot, characters, scenarios, etc., here they’re quiet precisely because nothing of interest is actually happening in the game. I guess that’s sort of what a commentary on Gears of War would be like. “So we’re shooting people! And now we’re shooting some more! Oh, look, an explosion.”

    1. Gale says:

      I suppose the reason why the Fallout 3 season wasn’t quite as bad, was that despite containing a similar stretches where there was nothing interesting story-wise to comment on, Josh played the game in a completely buckwild and crazy way, compounding exploit upon exploit until all encounters became a farce. There aren’t quite so many opportunities to break ME2, so there’s less hilarity offered by the mechanics themselves.

    2. X2-Eliah says:

      I wholeheartedly agree. ME2 is certainly not a game to watch – especially how linear it actually is in terms of gameplay (not story :P that’s another kettle of jellied squid).

      1. Halfling says:

        But it is always fun to watch Josh die horrible and painful deaths over and over again.

      2. Avilan says:

        I disagree. I have watched several LPs on Youtube, especially Toegoff’s, who does excellent Blind LPs. Both his Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 ones are very fun to watch.

  16. Deadpool says:

    You guys skimmed it, but I love how badass they make Archangel seem. Held off three of the largest mercenary groups in the UNIVERSE, on their home turf, by himself, for DAYS…

    But yes, this IS basic siege rules. All it would take is waiting and seeing..

    Btw, they DO explain why you didn’t get shot despite runnning around out of cover this whole time…

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Except he wasnt alone,he had a whole crew up there.

      1. guy says:

        Nope, they all died before the start of the siege.

    2. bit says:

      And it’s totally not plot armor.

      No plot armor at all.

      None.

      No.

    3. X2-Eliah says:

      Seeing how you take out the leaders of all three – while at starting levels, without much effort, I’d say that the universe must be pretty darn lame.

      1. krellen says:

        Shepard is, technically, a super-high-level bad-ass Spectre, regardless of what resurrection or game mechanics say.

        1. Ringwraith says:

          It’s the old tactic of not actually depowering the character, but just bringing everything else up to par and moving where the baseline of ‘level 1’ is.
          FFX-2 did a similar thing.

          1. BanZeus says:

            Every time I think of that game I throw up in my mouth a little.

    4. guy says:

      This might come up later on, but here’s a quote from a conversation with one of the merc dudes:

      “They sent a gunship after one man?”
      “Yeah, and Archangel shot it down.”

    5. Jarenth says:

      Not to mention he’s a wizard at calibrating.

  17. Marlowe says:

    The ambient background music in the previous Mordin recruitment segments sounds a lot like the theme of the 1987 Mickey Rourke movie Angel Heart where he plays a 1950s private detective (‘Harry Angel’) employed by Robert De Niro (‘Louis Cyphre’) to find a missing 1940s big band singer named Johnny Favorite whom most people think has died. Rourke proceeds to track down Favorite’s old associates and in his search, the first person he comes across is Johnny’s old Doctor at the clinic where he underwent reconstructive plastic surgery on his face before disappearing. Shepard in ME2 underwent reconstructive surgery and is considered to be dead by most people. TIM employs him to track down his former associates.

    Which leads me to believe that The Illusive Man is Lucifer himself. It would make sense given the name of his organisation – Cerberus – the dog which guarded Hades, the Greek hell. The fact that Omega (The end time) has a club called Afterlife and you pick up another character there who goes by the handle of Archangel all supports the theme.

    Also: the Afterlife background music reminds me of System Shock 2.

    1. You do realize that if TIM is “Lucifer” that just increases the likely hood that he is a Reaper “doll” (kinda like how the Collector leader was a remote doll for a reaper, maybe the same reaper controlling TIM?)

      let’s hope not though as that would be less entertaining.
      Although it would be somewhat interesting if every reaper tries to secretly backstab each other as that could be exploited by Shepard.

      1. eri says:

        The whole “crazy eyes” thing basically made me think “Reaper puppet” the second I saw them. If he is it’ll be the lamest, most telegraphed plot twist ever.

        1. Dude says:

          I’m backing the he’s one of the geth train.

    2. X2-Eliah says:

      Since his eyes are blue, but not glowing, I’m saying he is the one true Reaper, remotely controlling all other reaper ships. TIM’s real look is not really known, but he is the one, single, mastermind of the Reapers – the rest is just an act.

      So the ‘Reapers’ are just his dolls.

      1. BanZeus says:

        Or, maybe he just didn’t like wearing bifocals.

  18. Josh R says:

    Is there something going on between ruts and mumbles?
    I’m picking up major giggly-flirtaious banter between the two of them, which also seems to be getting on josh’s nerves.

    Also – any one else reckon Daniel is going to be one of those loose ends you run into in ME3? (or later on in the game, I haven’t finished it yet)

    1. Blanko2 says:

      aint just you, man.

      1. Ah, you two noticed it too huh?
        Although my guess is that Ruts is semi-oblivious to the fact. (well not any more, who wanna take a guess at awkward silence in future SW eps? *laughs*)

        1. Blanko2 says:

          depends if he makes a cat sweater for her.
          if not then i foresee maaaany awkward silences.
          perhaps some ‘falling down the stairs’ and ‘running into doors’
          for rutskarn.

    2. eri says:

      I have a girlfriend of two years and even I’m kind of jealous of them. :(

      1. Blanko2 says:

        theyve… theyve never met in real life, man. dont be jealous. yet.
        *hands whiskey*

      2. Josh R says:

        Aww, I’m only a month into a relationship and already we are like this but knowingly so, so I’m quite happy for them

    3. X2-Eliah says:

      Hey!. I totally called it in last’s episode’s comments.

      But yeah, their interaction is far more… frivolous… during these episodes of late, something sure seems to be up.

      I can’t wait for Shamus to casually ask during one of these videos “So.. What’s the story behind you two, anyway?”

      Also, to push this analogy further – if Josh is the ‘driver’, Ruts and Mumbles is the typical pair that’s constantly smooching at the back of the car. So his annoyance is easily understood.

      1. Blanko2 says:

        or maybe its cuz he is the player character. and PCs get all the chicks.
        ALL OF THEMS. and when they dont they get pissy.
        also josh is the only one of the group who has met mumbles in person. perhaps that is in some way relevant.

  19. guy says:

    Man, I hadn’t realized the mercs were basically getting free bullet sponges. I thought they were desperate enough to actually be paying people to die.

  20. Blanko2 says:

    what in the name of cheese was mumbles banging on the mike?
    hehe, this part coming up is really awesome. but also pretty hard, for the start of the game. i had a worse time with this than the mordin combat bits.

    1. Dude says:

      They really, really, really need to do something about Mumbles’ channel. It’s either so loud it’s a stun attack, or it’s so low (like today) you can’t understand what she’s saying. I would compress her channel. (ie, using a compressor.)

      1. Mumbles says:

        I used to be a sound technician/general manager of a college radio station, so trust me when I say my voice has been driving me crazy all season. The headset I’m using in these episodes has amazing sound quality (not gunna lie, I bought them because I knew they’d make Fallout: New Vegas sound sweet), but it clicked every time I moved my jaw. I have a new pair now that I’ve been extensively testing and seems to be fine.

        The main problem, though, is that my voice varies a lot more than the rest of the guys, so it’s a monster for Josh to edit. The guys just need to give me a lobotomy and it should be all good.

        1. Avilan says:

          I don’t find your sound issues that irritating compared to the fact that these videos in general are recorded with a VERY high volume; I usually never change volume settings but playing these videos (the last three at least) I had to pull down the volume slide to 5% of maximum or my ears would hurt. I usually leave it on max.

          1. Mumbles says:

            I’m changing the name of the show from Spoiler Warning to Holy Shit Don’t Play Mumbles’ Voice at Max Volume Warning.

            1. Avilan says:

              Now what are you doing up at this hour!?
              ;)

              Seriously, it’s not much of a problem and more of a “holy crap that one was loud!”

              1. Mumbles says:

                Writing Ruts love poems, of course.

                Lmao. A couple episodes ago, Shamus mentioned System Shock 2 and I made a sound like I was that big dragon in WoW :[

                1. Avilan says:

                  (Singing) *Love is in the air…*

                  :P

                2. Galad says:

                  I remember that one.

                  “Oh gawd, not THIS, he’s gonna ramble on and on about System Shock 2 for 15 minutes now, ugh! :(” :P

                3. X2-Eliah says:

                  Incidentally, I was looking forward to his ramble. So sad that it never came.

                4. Blanko2 says:

                  bahahahaha
                  unfortunately, an apt comparison.
                  poor dragon. no wait- i meant poor you, yes, that. uh…

                  that was mean of me, im sorry. v_v

        2. Blanko2 says:

          aaah so thats what that was. it sounded like you were hiting your desk for emphasis.
          i dont think i’ve had that much problem with your volume, though, cept the one where you made that loud loud noise. that time it was kinda harsh.
          oh, and when it would cut out at the end of your sentences, that was a bit annoying, but thats fixed so, other than that i think it’s fine…

  21. Zaxares says:

    Why would you want to stay in Mordin’s office? To pick up any loot you missed, of course. ;) As a completionist player, I’m wincing at all the loot you guys are leaving behind. It’s gonna make acquiring upgrades very difficult.

    Also, you guys know you can skip those Normandy cinematic cutscenes, right? Just a helpful tip in case you wanted to save more time during your episodes.

    So Mumbles wants Ga- *ahem* I mean, Archangel as a party member, and Shamus wants Mordin. I wonder who the group will end up taking once Tali becomes a party member too… XD

    1. Ringwraith says:

      Well, Rutskarn and Mumbles will both want Tali on the squad, so Tali will almost definately be on it, and someone else will get pushed out.

      1. Shamus says:

        I’m sure we’ll rotate squad members to keep things interesting.

      2. X2-Eliah says:

        GarrAngel is overrated anyways.

        1. Blanko2 says:

          …. WHAT.
          you just lost your internet points. and hand over your badge, too, while you’re at it!

          1. Michael says:

            No, see, I agree with Eliah. Bad-ass in cut-scene is not equal to bad-ass in the party. ‘Interesting’ and ‘useful,’ while not mutually exclusive, aren’t necessarily inclusive, either.

            1. Blanko2 says:

              i always found him useful >:

  22. some random dood says:

    The goss about Ruts and Mumbles makes me wonder whether you will be following a romance path this playthrough or trying to avoid any romantic entanglements? Will admit, the options for female Shep in ME2 were… underwhelming… in my opinion. I usually play through the romance option if it is available (argh, trying to remember the name of the male rogue in Dragon Age 2 – that was an interesting character – whether you were playing as a male or female character), but this one, I just couldn’t be bothered.
    Went back to Mass Effect 1 to play through as a male Shep to see how the Tali romance would go, but just never got around to finishing (and will admit, I’m not that sure that I want to replay Mass Effect 2 anyway. Not even for Tali!)
    Anyone have any comments/suggestions about Mass Effect 2 romances? I’d rather hear from you guys on this forum rather than other random internet sites ;-)

    1. X2-Eliah says:

      Hm. If the goss about Rutskarn and Mumbles made you think about ME2 romances – which one of those two was Shepard?

      And I think you are thinking of Zevran, no? Wait, da2? Was? Something is a mix.

      1. some random dood says:

        Oops you’re right – Dragon Age 1. And I think you’re right with Zavras too – thanks :-)

    2. krellen says:

      Garrus is weird, Jacob is boring, Thane is kind of hot but dying so it’s not like you’re really cheating on Kaidan.

      I find both the Jack and Tali romances to be sort of creepy, actually (as much as I love Tali) – in both cases, it’s largely a case of Shepard being mentor/father figure/protector to the girls, and them responding in Electra-ish fashion. The fact that Shepard is ten years older than both doesn’t help this (by ME2, Shepard is 31. Assuming normal standards of “coming of age”, Tali is between 16 and 19 in ME1, and thus between 18 and 21 in ME2. Jack’s age is never really discussed, but she doesn’t really seem to be much older than that).

      Miranda’s romance is actually the most natural of the bunch, but Miranda herself is so damn uninteresting and vaguely creepy-looking that it ruins the whole thing.

      1. Blanko2 says:

        dunno if shepard could be that good a mentor to jack, but anyway… i really don’t like the romance options with her. it doesnt help that by the end of the game, just talking like a human being to any of the three will make them wanna get in your pants, which is annoying:
        “hey jack, i was wondering if you-”
        “wanna have sex with me?”
        “not really”
        “WELL WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN TALKING TO ME THEN, GET OUT!!!!”
        “dude. you’re in MY cargo hold. wth.”

        1. X2-Eliah says:

          dude? Jack? Something does not add up. Are you sure you weren’t in Zaeed’s quarter?

          1. Blanko2 says:

            okay, under the stairs, in the area that has really not actual name, but i remembered as being referred to as cargo hold at some point, by her.

            oh, im just indiscriminate with my dude calling.
            i call girls dude, too, at times.

      2. BanZeus says:

        I’m gonna be pedantic here, so bear with me…

        Shepard was born 31 years ago, but he’s only ‘lived’ 29 of those years.

        Likewise, Jack could very well be chronologocaly older than Shep, she’s been in cryo for who knows how long and mentions being in prison more than once.

        Even if Tali was only 18 earth years old, she’s a full adult by her cultural standards.

        As for Miranda, maybe it’s in her contract that her uniform has to be sporting a camel toe at all times, but I doubt even Cerberus is that evil.

        1. krellen says:

          The age difference is only symbolic of the squick, not the cause. The cause is the mentor/guiding influence Shepard has on both characters leading up to their romance – there’s a TVTrope about it. (Wife Husbandry. You can look it up, but I won’t link it because I care.)

          1. BanZeus says:

            You don’t so much recruit a crew as adopt them so this it true to some extent even with the non-romance relationships. Unless you count the opening sequence, Joker and EDI are the only two people* who don’t need your help.

            According to the Mass Effect Wiki, Tali and Jack are both 24.

            *-ish

    3. Lenneth says:

      I’d vote Jacob, precisely because he’s so legendarily boring that most people probably haven’t tried his romance. (And so when I get around to actually getting the game I can enjoy the Garrus romance without already knowing all the dialogue <w<)

      1. Dude says:

        It’s also the funniest one. Unintentionally so.

        THE PRIIIII… SPOILER WARNING.

  23. Amnestic says:

    “And now we get to pick up Archangel…”
    Mumbles: “Eeee!”

    I laughed a little…but I totally get it. Archangel>All. He’s got a magic fridge.

  24. Ornithopter says:

    The idiot guy who you can stop from signing up as a merc has the same voice as Jenkins from the beginning of ME1. He even has basically the same personality. “Oh boy! I can’t wait to get into this firefight that I’m completely unprepared for! Nothing bad can possibly happen!” Clearly not a coincidence on Bioware’s part.

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