Part 38: Identify Friend or F- oh fuck

Identify Friend or F- oh fuck

The Drink
Dereliction of Duty
1 1/2 oz teqila
1/2 oz creme de violette
1/2 oz bergamot (or blood orange) juice
2 1/2 oz prosecco

Add all ingredients to a shaker full of ice. Shake well and strain into glass. Make sure your seal is tight because of the carbonation.

The Drinking Game
Drink every time we get swarmed by husks. I'm sorry. Not really. If I have to suffer so should you.

The Episode
We finally head off to grab the IFF we heard about around 25 episodes ago. We had stuff to do, okay? This IFF is inside a "dead" reaper. You may remember TIM talking about the Great Rift Valley on the planet Klendagon, and how it was actually created by a massive fuckoff gun. This was what it was shooting at. If they'd remembered this tiny huge detail we could have had a better thing going on in 3 than the shit we ended up with. Here's something that actually kills reapers. Alas.

Upon arrival there's also a Geth ship alongside. Surprisingly once we get in it doesn't look like Geth are responsible for the science team dropping contact. Or not, what the fuck else would you expect when you stick a bunch of people inside something that's been known to cause indoctrination just by having chunks of it around? Another brilliant Cerberus operation. The entire group got turned into husks. It must have been a big project because we kill about a bajillion of the fuckers. If you're doing this on insanity you'd want to bring maybe Miranda or Garrus, someone with overload to strip shields and then either Jack or Samara to pull/shockwave what's left.

We also discover that we're not the only non-reaperized thing running around the ship. Checking ahead with the sniper rifle reveals a really neat detail that probably got missed by a whole bunch of people. Then my game fucks up because I got stuck in the floor or some shit. Once we get through the unnecessarily-locked door we come face to face with a funny looking Geth who not only helps us, but addresses us by name. Previously all Geth just made digital fart noises. Then a long stretch of combat, another fine use for the Cain, and we collect some scrap.

Now I pointed out in the video you can give the Geth to Cerberus, which is a colossally stupid idea for reasons you'll soon see. You do get a cash reward, but at this point in the game we don't need it. I guess maybe some people did this mission right away and thought the spacebux were more important. Morons. They also got another nasty surprise for doing it early on. This mission is very sneaky, in that once you do it an invisible timer starts. Upon completion you only get a short window before ~*something*~ happens. If you wanted you could just keep on keepin' on, recruiting squadmates and doing stupid sidequests or DLC. But after that thing happens, you need to hit the endgame within a couple of missions or ~*something else*~ will happen during the last story mission. And it ain't pretty. It's kind of shit because in pretty much every ME game there's this narrative sense of urgency while mechanically it means fuckall and you can go shopping on Omega or bang the Consort or do anything without it having a story impact. But surprise! Not this time! If you want a "perfect" run you have to metagame. I guess one advantage to getting this later on PS3 is that I knew about the thing in general terms - I didn't know what the bad thing was, but knew I should save this mission until I was pretty much done. I'm sure there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth upon release.

We're in the chute now folks, 2 more missions and then it's endgame. Buckle in.