Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Mass Effect 2 Notes

I have to put in a code from the manual to gain access to the Cerberus network.
Then I get to import my character from the first game.
The titles start
We see a planet surface which consists solely of Lava. In orbit above it a space station. Two people stand on an observation platform. A woman and a seated smoking man.
They are discussing the aftermath of the first game. They both agree that Shepherd is important to the future. They seem more concerned with the reapers than the Geth which Shepherd has been sent to chase down.
Both think that Shepherd is the icon that will lead humanity through the coming crisis.

The scene shifts to the Normandy arriving in the terminus system. Almost immediately they come under attack from a large rocky spaceship. The Normandy is no match for it's weapons and is badly damaged.
Liara is tasked with getting the crew evacuated and Shepherd goes to save Joker from the cockpit.
We get control.

We have to run through the broken burning Normandy until we come to an area open to space, then we find Joker. We get him to leave and throw him into an escape pod.
We then get caught in the blast from the enemy ship, the Normandy comes apart and Shepherd is thrown out into space. Her air supply is damaged and we see her hurtling into the atmosphere of the planet. Everything goes black.

We watch as Shepherd is healed using advanced medical technology, implants are put into her. The woman we saw speaking at the start is named Miranda.
Shepherd wakes to find the space station under attack. Miranda is guiding her by voice and tells her to get up and find a pistol which is in a nearby locker. We get control.

Mission 1
Now the tutorial level. We are told to pick up a gun and shown how to get into cover using A.
Camera and movement is the usual analogue sticks.
Holding Left bumper brings up a weapon selection wheel.
We have to fight a few robots. We can see other personnel being slaughtered by mechs.
We meet up with Jacob who is a biotic soldier, we get to add him to our squad and can order him to use his biotic powers.
We get to investigate using the conversation wheel.
seems the Mechs are the stations own security which have been hacked.
We progress until we speak with someone called Wilson on the radio, he is trapped in a server room and we go to save him.
We find him injured and get to pick up some medi-gel which we can use to heal him.
We get to investigate the two about Cerberus, who were enemies in the first game. Seems they have went to enormous trouble and expense to bring Shepherd back from the dead.
I find and hack a data pad, you have to identify text thumbnails as they scroll by and get three correct to progress against a time limit.
We progress through some mech fights then meet up with Miranda. She instantly shoots Wilson and tells us that he was the instigator of the attack.
We get to quiz Miranda about Cerberus and Lazarus.
She takes us to another Cerberus facility where we are to meet the boss, who is named the illusive man.
At the facility we use a holographic vr phone system to speak with the Illusive man.
He tells us that human colonies are under attack. Just like Saren and the Geth did the Reapers work before a new enemy is attacking these colonies.
Illusive man feels that Shepherd is a symbol of fear to the Reapers, she has killed one before they must respect that. This is why he spent so much to get her back from the dead.
Freedoms progress is the name of the latest colony that has come under attack, we have to go there and find a connection between the attackers and the Reapers.
With a grudging truce between Cerberus and Shepherd we agree to go on the mission.
We get to speak with Jacob and Miranda and get a little of their background.

Mission 2
We arrive at freedoms Progress, it is a snowy ghost town.
Again the defense mechs are reprogrammed to attack humans.
We fight through the base until we come to a room filled with Quarians.
Tali is amongst them and she is overjoyed to see us again.
Seems a Quarian named Veetor was on the colony when it was attacked.
Seems he has a damaged suit and is suffering from infected wounds. It was Veetor who programmed the mechs to attack anything that moves.
We make our way through the maze and find some dog like and flying mechs.
We come to a door and are told to send our squad to certain positions, You have Jacob and Miranda's images in the middle of the bottom of your screen, this is mapped to the dpad where pointing at a location and pressing left on the dpad will send the left person to that location. Pressing down on the dpad brings both of them back  to following you.
We find a heavy mech which kills most of the quarian squad in cut scene. We are left to take it down.
We find Veetor in a computer room. He shows us a video of the attack, swarms of bugs and aliens that Miranda recognises and the collectors. A race from far away who are fairly elusive in this part of the galaxy.
Tali wants to take Veetor back to the quarians. Miranda wants to take him to the Illusive man. We have our first major choice.
Ask Tali to join us, tell Miranda that Veetor should go home or tell Tali that we are taking Veetor.
I ask Tali to join us, she tells us that she had a mission and responsibilities that she can't walk away from.
I let Tali take Veetor, however we get his omnitool.

Back at the Illusive man he tells us that he suspected the collectors.
They come from beyond the Omega 4 relay which only lets Collector ships through.
Collectors have previously been interested in rare mutations and certain biological items, they have never taken more that a few dozen people before. Suddenly they are harvesting tens of thousands.
We are to get a team together and with the Help of the Illusive man be ready at the next collector incursion.
He tells us about someone who may be able to help us get an antidote to the reaper swarm paralysing agent.
Joker turns up and gives us a new Normandy.
We get to tour around the new Normandy which is slightly bigger than the last.
In the weapons room Jacob seems to be hanging out.
There is a scientific lab that we need a scientist to get into.
On the crew deck I meet a cook who give me a list of ingredients to get on the citadel.
Dr. Chambers wants a bottle of wine. Wow it's mini-quest city in here.
Miranda has her own office, where we can quiz her about cerebus.
She reveals that she is genetically suped up.
The crew deck has the mess, toilets and bunks. Also life support and the a.i. core.
On the engineering deck some engineers need new couplings.
I go to the star map and find it a little different. You get to drive your ship around the map, which I have to say looks a little silly.
You can also survey planets by running a scanner over them and when it bleeps and rumbles you fire one of your limited amount of probes down. I assume this collects the minerals as well.
The map shows a location named Omega, under it it says i can recruit some people here. This looks like the next mission.
Omega is a hollowed out asteroid and a haven for criminals.

Mission 3
I get to choose my squad, of course only Miranda and Jacob are available.
On  arriving we are met by a Batarian who suggest we go to aria at a place called afterlife and present ourselves.
Inside Afterlife is a huge bar and the first thing to present itself.
A batarian called Kylan nearly starts a fight.
Inside the bar I buy Brandy for the Doctor.
We meet Aria, we ask her about Archangel, who it seems is unpopular.
We are also trying to find Mordin Solus a solarian doctor, Aria tells us that he is in the Quarantine zone.
I go to a Merc recruiter who takes us a blue sun member.
He send us on to the place where Archangel is, seems he is taking on all comers.
Archangel has a base with only one entrance which is across an exposed bridge.
We meet Jaroth a member of Elicpse who are another crime group after Archangel.
We now meet Garn leader of Krogan blood pack who also are after archangel.
I find Cathka a batarian.
Who is doing something with a dropship.
I go to attack archangel and I can't get to him. I blow up a bomb which mercs are working with to see if that does anything and they all turn on me, I shoot them and then can get in to Garrus.
Garrus has been a bit lost without us to give him purpose. He is glad to join up.
We now have to escape this bottleneck.
The Eclipse Mercs attack and we have to hold them off. The robot we hacked earlier is deployed and fights for our side, which is handy.
Garoth comes out and when we kill him the attack is over.
We have to go back to Garrus.
Now the Blood pack merc find a way into the lower levels. We have to leave one of our squad with Garrus. We get to choose, I leave Miranda.
Now we have to go downstairs and close three security shutters that the enemy have opened. We have to clear our way to the shutters and then close them. Rinse and repeat three times and we have to go back to Garrus.
The Krograns arrive in the main area where Garrus is and we have to clear that area as well.
Back to Garrus.
Only the Blue sun are left.
And they use the drop ship to come in through the windows. We have to take out the drop ship as it fires machine gun and rockets at us, also soldiers are deployed on both flanks.
Garrus us wounded and it looks for a second like he might die. The mission ends as Shepherd calls for extraction by the Normandy.

Back on the Normandy Garrus is ok and Joins our team on the forward batteries.
I suppose I have to go back to Omega to look for the scientist.
I go to the marketplace and find a shop.
In the shop are some trinkets I buy a few.
Visor, which improves accuracy.
Capacitor chest plate, which absorbs incoming energy.
Hack module, which doubles the time for hacking attempts.
Stimulator condutis, which make you run faster.
Sniper Rifle damage improves damage from sniper rifles for your whole squad.
Heavy weapon Ammo +15% ammo capacity.
Couplings, for the engineers.
Shotgun damage.

We meet some vorcha, which are a new race I think.
They look like demons and don't seem freindly.
I meet a quarian who is down on his luck and needs 1000 credits to get off Omega.
I give him the money.

Mission 4
I find a guard at the quarantine zone door. He is stopping people getting in andd out.
Some chat later he lets us in without much trouble.
Inside we find Blue sun gang members who are shooting up the place and burning the bodies off the dead.
A batarian plague victim blames humanity for the plague. We help him. He then tells us about Mordin. Seems that Mordin is more than a doctor, example is that he killed blue sun members and displayed their bodies as a warning.
Vorcha have moved in since the plague is killing everyone else.
We come across a pitched battle between Blue sun and Vorcha and it seems the vorcha are winning, it always seems that where you find Vorcha you find Krogan's.
Once the battle is done I find the clinic.
Inside the clinc we find lots of ill people and Mordin.
Mordin will help us but only in return for clearing Vorcha from the environmental control room. Mordin has a cure but it needs distributing.
We also need to find his missing assistant.
I fight my way through the area and come to the assistant who I diplomatically save from Batarians.
We come into another large area where we have to press three switches to inject the cure and turn on the fans.
Back at Mordin he agrees to come with us.

On board Mordin gets to work on the samples taken from Freedoms Progress.
I can now get into the tech lab. Inside here we can research upgrades using raw materials as the money to pay for them.

I go back to Aria and give her some info.
One of Aria's men asks us to help someone called Patriarch, a Krogan.
I find the Krogan, then have to go and kill the thugs who are after him.
I have to go back to the Krogan.
Then back to Aria who gives me the co-ordinates of a cache for our reward.

Back on the Normandy I investigate the map a bit more.
You use fuel up when moving from system to system, in system travel does not use fuel.
You can buy probes and trans system fuel at a refuelling station.

I go to another system and mine a little. On one planet I find an anomaly.
We can go down and investigate.
Here we find a little base on which a cerberus operative has been captured and tortured to death. We have a few little fights, bypass lots of locks and eventually find the data.
We have to option of keeping it to ourselves or sending it to the alliance to Cerberus.
I send it to Cerberus.

Seems time to move on to a new system I go to the mass relay and jump to the system where our mission seems to be to recruit a convict named Jack from a prison ship named Purgatory.

Mission 5
In cut sceen the governor name Kuril tells us about Purgatory. Each cell is a self contained movable unit. The cells can be jettisoned into space in the event of trouble.
We get to wander towards the area where Jack is being thawed out. We get to intervene in a beating scene and I influence the guards to stop the abuse.
Another prisoner wants us to free him until he realises we are going to be taking Jack with us. Seems jack is nuts and very dangerous.
We progress through the base seeing nutty prisoners.
As we get to where we were meant to be going a cell opens for us and Warden Kuril tells us that we have been conned and we are now his prisoners. Of course we now get to fight the guards as they pour in through the doors.
We move through to processing and in cut scene hack a terminal that releases Jack.
Jack turns out to be a skinny tattooed woman. She wakes and immediately attacks huge mechs that are guarding her with furious biotic attacks.
We now have to progress through the prison which in in full riot as we have unlocked all doors not just released Jack. We eventually come to Warden Kuril as a boss. He is protected by loads of guards and is in a shield bubble which needs three towers  shot to open, once done he is easy meat for our sniper rifle.
We meet up with Jack, she will come with us only if we give her full access to cerebrus data. Seems there is history here with cerebrus. Miranda is appalled but allows us to do this.

I go to a planet named Daratar where It says I can secure smuggled cargo.
I find some mechs shooting up the fragile crates, you start with 20 and it rapidly deteriorates.
There are really long loading times when you die which is unforgivable.
I kill all three mechs and have only 8 crates left.

I go to the Imir system where we havve to go to a planet named Korlus to recruit the Krogan.
On the planet we find Blue sun Merc. A wounded one tells us the someone called Jedore is breeding Krogan, however they are all turning out crazy.
The blue sun are using the failed Krogan's for target practice.
One of them talks to us, it's monosyllabic but it seems the Krogan we want is trying to help them.
The krogan lets us into the lab area by moving a huge barrier for us.
We have to fight through a large area filled with blue sun mercs.
Then we come to Rana Thanoptis, we met her in the first game at Saren's biolab. Seems she is up to her old tricks. We let her go last time, should we this time.
Okeer is doing something here with the Krogan, he is not trying to breed lots, or to cure the Krogan genophage.
Okeer seems to be working to make a perfect solider. In history a group of aliens banded together to create a genophage that rendered the Krogan sterile and reduced their numbers.
Okeer seems to have done a deal with the collectors for some tech in the past.
He will tell us what he knows if we stop Jedore from poisoining his new krogan superbreed.
I go and stop Jedore which is a good fight with some Krogan, heavy mechs and Jedore herself. When we get back up to Okeer he is dead and the Super Krogan is safe. Shepherd decides to take him back to the ship.
I don't know if it was just me but the storytelling he was a little unclear.

Back on the ship we have to decide to open the supersoldier or leave him in the box. Since we saw him in our squad in the trailers it's a no brainer.
I find Jack and she is a bit of a twat.
I find the Krogan and open the tank, he shows his teeth but will join us.

I am told by Kelly that the Illusive man wants a word. I go to the briefing room and initiate a holo chat with him.
He tells us that Horizon is about to come under attack.
Also Ashley is there on alliance business.
Mordin has to come up with a protection against the collectors swarm and fast. We go to visit him and he has something.
This is our chance to intervene and stop or at least gather data on the collectors.

In cut scene we see Ashley on Horizon, she is caught in the attack and downed by the swarm. We watch the huge ship that destroyed the original Normandy land and Collectors emerge. They are huge armoured humanoids.
Inside the collector ship a more crab like leader type collector takes control of one of it's soldiers outside the ship for a closer look at the humans.
We land and find that the swarm protection upgrade to our armour works.
We find collectors and engage them.
Humans are inside stasis fields and there are pods lying around everywhere that look organic.
Are the humans being packed into them? Husks from the first game arrive, in the original husks were made from human corpses by the Geth as suicide soldiers.
We fight a few more collectors and witness one being taken over by the leader, however this does not seem to make them that much more effective that the normal soldiers.
We come to a door and hacking it find a personn cowering in a small garage type area. He tells us about guns that were being installed to protect the colony. However the targetting system is offline. We have to go and get it working.
We go through two large areas of colony fighting all the way, larger husk type creatures name Scions arrive, which seem to be a whole bunch of husks jammed together to make one bigger creature.
I swear a saw a flying husk without legs also.
We get the tower online and communicate with the normandy. Edi can get the towers sorted, however they will need to power up which will be easily spotted by the Collectors.
We will have to defend the tower control system while they power up.
We get a two waves of collectors then a boss type collector, a large flying insectoid with a powerful laser blast.
Once it's downed we see the collector ship getting pounded by the guns.
It takes off. Ashley arrives from nowhere. A little suspicious if you ask me.
Is Ashley cross eyed?
Ashley won't join us, good, she was a pain in the ass anyway.

The Illusive man tells us of another bunch of team members to recruit.

I go to the far rim to recruit Tali.
The planet is Haestrom.
I got a please insert disc 2 message here.
This is a Geth planet, the sunlight here is radioactive and will damage our shields. This means we must fight in the shade or take damage.
We encounter Geth and it's just like old time. The quarians have taken a pounding from the Geth and are trapped. we have to get demo charges to blow open a doorway to get them out.
I find a journal from Tali which tells us that the Quarians were studying the sun here, it is dying too quickly.
I blow the pillar only to find no one left alive inside.
Tali talks to us through a comms device. She is nearby.
We have to go to her of course, through loads of Geth.
A large Geth walker appears.
We meet a Quarian commando, he is trying to take down the Collossus but it self repairs.
We stop him from being suicidal and do it ourselves. Getting plenty of paragon points for making it hard for ourself.
I fight the Geth and the collossus, it's a load of fun and not that hard.
Inside we find Tali who does not take much convincing to join us.
She gives the data to the other Quarian that we saved and leaves with us.

Now we are off to the Crescent nebula where we are going to a planet called Illium to recruit the justicar and the assassin.
This is an Asari colony world, though a fringe and slightly lawless one.
We are met by an Asari called Karena. She welcomes us to the city of Nos Astra.
We meet an Asari who gives us a message from the Rachni queen, an entity we saved from extinction in the last game. Seems it might have been the right choice as it pledges help in the coming stuggle.
There are a load of small quests here.
I get a Krogan and an Asari back together?!?!
I find Liara's office and speak with her assistant.
Then Liara herself, who give us a kiss. She is troubled by her job, she wants us to hack something for her. She gives us leads on both of our targets however.
We get an asari trader into trouble for selling other peoples schematics.
We speak to Seryna an Asari about Thane the assassin on the shipping area.
Thane is going to assassinate an Asari named nassanna, who was in the first game.
He if going to gain access to her tower block using a nearby tower which is under construction.
Seryna can take us to the tower.
At the tower we find some workers who have been attacked by Nassana's mechs for no obvious reason.
We find some more workers after a long fight with loads of mercs.
I find the elevator up to the penthouse. There is a nasty surprise of around three heavily armed thugs inside when you open the door, I died the first time here.
Next time I was ready.
We speak to an unwary guard and he tells us that Thane was spotted near the bridge.
So we now are heading for the bridge.
I find some more workers and free them.
The final assault across the bridge is fun.
We get to Nassana's office and whilst we chat with Nassana Thane drops out of the roof and kills her.
Thane is a man of few words but will join us. It said so on the trailers.
Thane reveals he is dying and will join us.

Mordin wants to talk to us. He tells us that he was involved with re-engineering the Krogan genophage. One of his team has been captured and as a personal favour wants us to go and save this team member. Also preventing the Krogan from torturing the fact that Mordin led the team out of the poor captured team member.

Jacob wants us to go and check out his father's crashed ship. He thought everyone on it had died including his father ten years ago. However, the ship has started broadcasting a distress signal.

Jack wants to chat and tells us about being tortured by cerberus to make a stronger biotic. Seems she was treated really badly as a younf girl. She wants to go back to that base and nuke it. I agree.

Garrus wants us to find someone who betrayed him.

Miranda wants us to reloacte her sister who her father is hunting down. Seems their father was fairly abusive.

Back to Nos Astra on Illium, we now have to collect the justicar and help Miranda's sister.

I help a colonist negotiate her way out of a binding medical contract with and Asari. The asari was angry becuase of her daughters dying on the citadel attack.

I find my way to the justicar's location by speaking  to officer Dara in Nos Astra.
When we land in the new part of the city a Volus called Pitne For is being told to stay in the area until the  murder investigation is over. Seems his business partner was murdered. The justicar is here to investiagte.
Pitne tells us that the Justicar is in the area where his partner was killed, we have to speak to a cop called Anaya. She wants Samara out of the way as well and is delighted that we want to recruit her.
We go and find some trouble with Eclipse Merc's at the end of it we find Samara and she is a very powerful biotic.
She needs to do her job and so does Anaya, the only way that the two can be reconciled without a fight is for us to sort out the murder enquiry while Anaya holds Samara in a cell for the night. If we don't solve the mystery in one day Samara will escape and wreck the place.
I go back to Pitne For and threaten him. Seems he and his partner smuggled a bitoic boosting chemical onto Illium, the Eclispe want him dead as a result.
Pitne For will let us into the merc base using a stolen card. Seems we are going to just kill the mercs and the problem will be solved???
We go through an elevator and into the merc base, there are containers of this chhemical called Minogen X, Shooting the containers releases a cloud of gas, standing in the gas makes a level increase, it makes your biotics more powerful, however if thee level reaches the top it will kill you.
We find a cowardly eclipse soldiers in a room hiding, seems they wanted out as they don't like what the eclispe are into, essentially guns and drugs. There is also something called an Ardat Yakshi or demon of the night winds which they have been smuggling.
I let her go.
We fight through some more of the base.
At a terminal I find that Elnara, the Asari I let go was the killer. Doh!
We encounter a gunship.
We find evidence that Pitne For sold drugs to the Eclipse.
I find a volus named Niftu Cal, seems he was part of Pitne For's group, the Eclipse seem to have been mucking him about and filling him full of drugs.
He seems to think he is a god like biotic.
We make sure he lies down.
Wasea isn't that hard of a boss battle. A bunch of merc and a very strong biotic. She is no match for my rapid fire sniper rifle.
I find evidence of the smuggling of the creature.
Time to go back to the spaceport.
I give Pitne For his manifest back which clears him. I get renegade points for this, but what the hell the money is better in my pocket for upgrades than in his for drug money.
The Justicar is satisfied and will join us, Anaya gets rid of her and is happy.
She swears an oath to us and the mission ends.
I go back down to Illium as we have to help Miranda's sister.
I help Ilara by hacking her data. She is after the shadow broker. We can help her again by hacking more data for her. This will help her narrow down a list of suspects.

This seems to be a puzzle. I run around for a while finding the terminals to hack and each contains a small report, piecing it together I guess that the Krogan was the obsevrver, maybe I got it wrong as I don't get any real reward.

I find Miranda's contact, she won't speak to us unless Miranda is in the party.
I go get Miranda and she tells us that Eclipse Mercs are sniffing around.
We decide to send Ariana with a friend of Miranda's named Niket while we go to the spaceport as a diversion for the Mercs. When we get there it's a trap and we are attacked. Seems that the Mercs know of the plan. We kill the mercs then go after Ariana, who may already be in trouble.
When we find Niket it seems he is not working for Miranda's father, he is working for Oriana's best interested, presumably without asking her.
Niket is killed by the eclispe and we have a big fight with them
Then we get to see Oriana with her adopted family.
I persuade Miranda to go speak with her sister.
Mission done.

I help a slave quarian get sold to an asari company.
I return a locket I found during the last mission to and Asari who lost it.
Found a spelling mistake in the text of the game Slave was misspelled Slake.

Back to the Normandy.

I try and get some mining done so I can afford upgrades.
I find another anomaly.
Seems there is some blood pack shenannigans going on down on the planet
I find a mining operation, seems Vorcha were being used as miners. There are insectoid indigenous animals called Klixen which aren't friendly. There is also a larger flying creature which can be seen in the distance. seems the miners were being attacked by these creatures.
We activate a beacon path as we progress.
I come to the main area of this map and find a large blood pack Krogan in charge. Killing him and hacking the beacon finishes the mission.

On the Normandy the illusive man wants a word.
Seems some Turians encountered a collector ship. They managed to disable it before they were destroyed. We are sent to go and investiagte the ship.
We find the ship looking dead, though suspiciously there is little external damage to see.
This ship is the same one from Horizon. It's possible that the guns on Horizon softened it up for the Turians.
Inside the very organic looking ship we find pods and some mutilated bodies.
I find a control node and upload data from it to edi on the Normandy.
It seems that the Collectors have a quad stand genetic structure, which is supposed to only be shared with the Protheans. The Protheans are the ancients who built the Mass relays.
Edi postulates that these Collectors are indeed Protheans and the reapers have turned them into their slaves.
We get a new weapon here of our choice.
I progress deeper into the ship. Joker warns that the data taken from scans of this ship also match data taken from the original Normandy. This is the same ship that attacked it two years ago. It seems there is only one Collector ship.
This is looking more and more like a trap.
Samara notes that there are no Collector bodies.
We find our way out into a huge open space lined with what could be billions of pods.
I come to a control terminal.
Pressing it sets up a data link between the two ships.
As the data flows to the Normandy something happens. It seems that a virus has been sent.
Suddenly the platform that Shepherd is on moves up into the air and another platfrom moves closer.
A few other platforms join it and we suddenly have a mass of collector soldiers to deal with. I manage to deal with them and we have to restart the link.
Edi takes control and moves us away.
Edi manages to get data which will take us to through the Omega 4 Relay.
She also finds that the Illusive man must have known that the Turian distress call was a fake as Edi can easily see that it came from the Collectors themselves.
Seems he knew that the Turian scheme was a lie and that the Collectors wanted Cerberus/Shepherd to come to them.
The Illusive man sent them here into the trap without forewarning them.
We get to run through the ship now filling with Collectors.
Husks also arrive and run at us in larger amounts.
We eventually get back to the shuttle and the Normandy runs for it before the Collector ships weapons power up and blow it to bits.

We speak to the Illusive man
He is unrepentant about sending us in to the trap. He tell us that the stolen data shows that a device on Reaper and collector ships is like a key to the Omega 4 Relay.
The lastest intel he shares with us is that there is a 37 million year old reaper ship stuck in orbit around a Brown Dwarf star. He wants us to go there and get it's key.
Seems that the Collector home is in the Galatic core which seems hard to believe.
The gang postulate that there must be some very advanced technology keeping the homeworld or whatever it is safe inside all the black holes and exploding stars.

Here it seems that we get a choice. To go after the Reaper IFF or continue building our team.
I stick with Team building as in the last game there was a point of no return and it looks like this is it here.

I go and speak to Grunt and he is having blood lust, well more than usual.
Seems we need to go to the Krogan Homeworld to see a Doctor.
Time to mop up side missions and get ourselves levelled up for the big fight.
I go to the Krogan Homeworld as there are two missions to be done there.

The Krogan homeworld is dank and dirty. There is an Asari and a Krogan who are dating trying to get her past immigration.
A blood pack Merc is recruiting.
A Captain tells us that our Krogan needs the rite.
We go into the main area which looks like a bombed out city.
Wrex is here and it seems he is now in charge. Though his more liberal ideas learned from Shepherd are not going down well. Though like Shepherd and his previous lifestyle he is taking no abuses.
A shaman can help us with Grunt's puberty rituals.
Wrex's chief scout can help us with finding Mordin's team member.
The chief scout tells us to go looking in the bloodpacks base.
We take a truck out to the base which is an old hospital.
We fight Vorcha and Krogan, also their lizard like dogs outside the hospital then get inside.
We find a human body, which seems to havve been the victim of horrific experimentation.
We meet clan weyreloc, he is of the revenge for the genephage group and lacks any reason whatsoever.
We end up fighting, inevitably.
We find a dead Krogan, Mordin does not see himself as guilty for creating the Genophage.
Eventually we come to Maelon the Solarian scientist supposedly kidnapped by the Krogan. He is working for them deliberately.
He wishes to cure the Genophage. Which morally is a right thing to do. However the genophage potentially stops the Krogan from overrunning the entire galaxy and killing everyone.
Tough choice.
I stop Mordin from killing Maelon and let him go.
Now we have the choice of what to do with the data.
I let Mordin keep it.

Back to the Shaman for Grunt's rite. Uvenk, the challenger to Wrex is sniffing around causing trouble.
I manage to get the rite started and alienate Uvenk totally.
The rite consists of standing around in an arena while waves of Klixen and Varren arrive for us to kill
A thresher Maw arrives and we have to take it down as well.
Uvenk Arrives and tries to make us accept him as leader. I fight him as well.
grunt gets accepted into the Urdnot clan.
I find a shopkeeper, he has trouble with pyjaks stealing his food. I do a little mini-game where you have to shoot up three waves of pyjaks. I manage it first time and it was fairly easy.
I buy up his upgrades at a cheaper price for helping and feed his Varren. it starts to follow me around.
Back to the ship.

I go to a planet called Pragia on Jack's mission.
We find the facility named Kelton on the jungle planet. It is old and broken down, overgrown with trees and other vegetation.
I find security logs which seem to suggest that Jack wasn't the only one who was tortured here in the quest to unlock biotic powers by any means necessary.
It also appears that the Illusive man might not know about what went on here as it seems the leaders might have not been giving him the full story.
Varren are our only problem until a bunch of bloodpack merc appear.
We find a man named Aresh in Jack's cell, seems he was a child here as well. He has come back to restart the experiments and gain biotic power for himself.
I stop jack from killing him. We take off and watch as the place blows form the shuttle.

Back on the Normandy a cut scene kicks in. Joker tells us of a disturbance. In Miranda's room Jack is hurling the chairs around.
They are arguing about cerberus.
We have to choose between the two of them??
I choose to side with Jack. Miranda now hates our guts.

Garrus has a lead on his traitor, we have to go to the citadel and speak with someone named Thade.

I find Samara in the observation deck.
Turns out that the Ardat Yakshi is Samara's daughter, she must be killed as she is very dangerous.

I speak to Tali, she has been accused of Treason. We have to go to the migrant fleet and see what has happened to bring this about.

Back to Omega to sort out Samara's daughter.
Aria tells us that someone was murdered by the Ardat Yakshi in the appratment.
I head over there and find A human woman named Diana. Turns out she was the mother of the girl who has been killed.
The girl was called Nef, seems she met Morinth in the VIP area of afterlife.
We get the password from her journal.
I go to the vip area and am to go in alone and unarmed as bait.
I am to lure Morinth into a trap.
I chat a bit in the bar and eventually Morinth comes up to me and invites me to her private booth.
We chat a bit and I have to try and fit in with her needs.
She is happy with our responses and takes us home.
He we chat a bit more and she pulls her tricks on us.
Samara comes in and they fight with Samara eventually killing her.
There was a glitch here where the voices dropped out of the cut scene, so I missed what was said.
A Solarian named Ish wants us to bring him packages from the citadel and Eternity on Illium.

I go to Jacobs crashed ship site looking for what happened to his father.

When we get there the beacon has been fixed by someone only recently. There are logs which indicate that the crash was survived by a large proportion of the crew. The food on the planet was toxic however, it didn't kill only damaged neural functioning.
In order to survive the lack of food the survivors had to become idiots.
The captain, Jacob's father kept the officers on the ship and exiled the crew to the land. In the hope that they could be restored to normal functioning later.
This didn't go well and there was a revolution. It seems that the mech's were turned on the surviors. It looks like Taylor has kept his own little empire here in charge of the idiots and most probably getting his wicked way with all the docile females.
The males however have became aggressive and it looks like this had led Taylor to fix the beacon.
We have to plough through the mechs and some more survivors before we get to Taylor
Jacob pours out his scorn and disappointment, and we bring in Cerberus to clean up and send Taylor to jail for a long time.

Time to help Tali, time for a trip to the migrant fleet.
When we ge tto the fleet Captain KarDanna tells us that Tali has smuggled active Geth into the migrant fleet. Tali admits sending Geth parts to the fleet for her father to study but claims they were all inactive before being sent.
We get into the trial and it turns out that the geth have taken the ship her father is working on and the Quarians haven't been able to take it back.
Seems that an admiral called Korlis has a problem with Tali's father's plans for the Geth.
On the captured ship the Geth are fully in control and there are a lot of Quarian bodies lying around. It looks like Tali's father was trying to hack Geth software in the hope of getting a handle on killing or reprogramming them. The Geth were built by the Quarians and they took over their homeworld and cast them out as exiles from their own world. The Quarians have been trying to get it back ever since. Though some are now happy living in the migrant fleet and want to just forget the homeworld and get on with it.
We find Tali's father dead. The remaining Geth we wipe out.
Tali's father was working on live Geth, the evidence is clear. Tali wants us to bury it so that her father is not remembered as a war criminal.
We go back to the trial.
I decide to not give the trial the info and Tali is cleared.

I suppose it's finally time to go back to the citadel and help Garrus.
I think I have been avoiding going here as we spent such a long time there in the last game.
As we go in security scanners tell the guard that we are dead. He asks us too check in with chief Bailey.
We ask him to leave it like that. Death is serving us well.
Fade works in a marketplace.
I wander aorund the citadel, which is all new so far.
I find the place where Thade is and a volus and two Krogan appear.
We ask about Sidonis and have to shoot the Krogan.
The volus tells us that someone called Harkin can help us.
I have to use the transport system to get to the next objective.
I go to the Presidium, I figure I may as well get the annoyance of the council over with.
They think the Geth were controlled by Saren and don't fully believe in Sovereign or the Reapers.
We get reinstated as a spectre.
I go to the factory district looking for Harkin. We are attacked by a lot of blue sun Mercs. seems that Harkin is Thade.
I beat him up a little and he sets up a meeting with Sidonis for us.
Garrus is going to snipe Sidonis from a distance. We are to meet him.
We get a choice moment, Garrus has him in his sights but we are in his line of fire. we either move or warn Sidonis.
I let Garrus shoot him, after all it seems a waste of time to bring him all this way to get revenge on Sidonis and then stop him when he's in Garrus' sights.
We leave the citadel.

I find Thane and speak to him. He is worried about his family, or what is left of it.
His son Kolyat is in trouble. He has taken a job as an assassin, and Thane does not want him to take this path.
Back to the citadel, at least we were in orbit.
I speak to Bailey at CSEC and he tells us to go see Mouse
Mouse is a petty criminal who is the go-between for the bigger fish and Thane's son.
I find Mouse and he gives us a name.
Now we go back to Bailey with the Name Elias Kellham.
Bailey brings Kellham in for questioning. We get to beat a name out of him.
Jorham Taleed is the target, he is an anti-human campaigner. This makes it obvious why Kellham wanted him dead.
We now have to tail Taleed and watch for Kolyat making his move.
We have to wander around in the gantries above one of the citadels corridors and keep up with Talheed while he wanders around talking to people.
Eventually Kolyat makes his rather clumsy assassination attempt.
We intervene and father and son have a heart to heart.

I go to a map marker which says "save crashing ship"
The ship has been taken over by Geth and is being crashed into a colony. We have to go aboard and turn the engines back on. We do this by pressing three switches.
The Geth run interference the whole time.
We only have 5 minutes to complete the mission in.

Annother map marker says "Destroy Blood pack base"
This is a small blood pack base with very little in the way of resistance or challenge. We have to blow up a large device at the end to complete the mission.

That seems to be a good proportion of the side missions done.
Time to get onto the main story again. I go to the system where the dead Reaper is that the Illusive man told us about. The ship is only minimally powered and has large holes blown in it, it is also 37 million years old. It does look dead, I am sure it won't be however.
As we get close it looks like A Geth ship is present.
We dock with the science ship that has been here studying the wreck.
We see logs of the missing crew, they talk of an oppressive atmosphere and strange behaviour of some crew members.
As we get inside the actual wreck barriers come up sealing us inside. We will have to take out the source off the power, however, this will also shut down the fields that hold the wreck in orbit.
Inside is further crew logs showing two crewmen remembering the same memory of their wedding day.
We are attacked by husks en masse.
The logs shows one of the crew talking about the Reaper, calling it a God, a dead God that is dreaming.
We move into a new area through a hacked door and A Geth with a sniper rifle has us in it's sights.
However it shoots husks that are about to attack us rather than us.
It says our name and walks off.
We progress further through the ship under heavy husk and scion attack. The scion attacks really take down your health and with loads of husks running around survival can be a challenge.
We come to a door and hack it. We find the Reaper IFF here. Inside the main room the Geth is manipulating some controls.
A huge glowing core opens up and the geth falls seemingly inert. It seems the only thing to do is shoot the core.
After taking a bit of damage husks arrive in large numbers. We have to kill a wave, shoot the core a bit then another wave, after about three waves the core blows.
We watch in cut scene as the gang decide to take the Geth. The Normandy pulls up to a handy hole in the side of the ship and we throw thee geth and ourselves into the airlock and escape as the Reaper falls into the sun.

back on board the Normandy we are deciding what to do with the Geth. Miranda wants to send it to Cerberus. Jacob thinks we should just destroy it.
What seems outrageously stupid is that they are storing the geth in the a.i. core???
The IFF can be used and linked with the Normandy. Edi urges caution as it is Reaper tech.

I go to the a.i. core and activate the Geth, of course it is in a shield and heavily isolated.
It tells us that it knows of us but has never met us. It also says that Shepherd has never fought the Geth. When we query this it says that there are two factions of Geth. The heretic believe in the old machines and this ones faction believe in making their own future.
This means that we have the same goals. The Geth faction is on our side. It agrees to join us.
The Geth explains that all Geth are copies of the same program. They are networked via FTL conduits.
As such giving one a name is useless as you are talking to all of them.
Edi suggests that we call him Legion, the name sticks.
Legion tells us that the heretics are planning to release a virus that Sovereign gave them. The virus will alter the Good Geth programming to make them the same as the heretics.
We have to stop this.

We go to the Heretic Geth Space station. Using cloaking the Normandy docks. Joker wonders if one of the Geth will just look out of the window and see them. Legion tells him that there are no windows. Legion floods the Geth data networks with random noise, this means that they will have to cut down their networking, making them more vulnerable and the alarm will only spread to the room we are in.
Legion tells us that he can reprogram the virus to do the opposite. To make the heretic Geth into good Geth.
Samara tells us that this is as bad as killing them.
Legion answers that they will have no qualms about killing her.
Inside the geth base we find data paths on the floor that if walked on trigger and alert.
The Geth stand plugged into base stations until we trigger the alarm.
Blowing up the base stations opens the doors out of the rooms.
We come to the main terminal and Legion starts hacking.
We have to survive three waves of heavy Geth attack while the virus works.
We get to decide wether to kill or cure the Geth.
I say cure.
We now have to evacuate the station in three minutes or die in the em pulse of the virus broadcast.
We have to run through some corridors with heavy Geth attack.

Back on the Normandy Tali and Legion are having a spat.
I have enough paragon points to defuse this one properly without alienating one or the other.

The IFF is nearly installed.
We are told to take a shuttle for our next mission. We see a bunch of the gang get into the shuttle and leave the ship. Which is odd because I wasn't planning on going anywhere.
We see the progress on board as the IFF is brought online. Edi warns of  a signal in the static that is broadcasting our location. As if by magic the Collector ship warps in.
The ship is being boarded.
Edi asks Joker to go to the a.i. core and give her full control of the ship.
We go through the ship with Collectors arriving in full force. We see a lot of the crew getting killed.
We get to the core and flip the switch Edi wants.
Then we have to go down to engineering.
More collectors are visible on the way loading the crew into the pods.
We get to engineering and actiavte the console for EDI. She then locks Joker behind a force field and opens all the airlocks and accelerates rapidly away from the collectors.
Joker is concerned for the crew and Edi tells him there are none left.
Shepherd and the gang get back and find the ship empty apart from Joker.
The Iff is working, there are no viruses left. We can go through the Omega 4 relay.
I choose to wait a little.

Time to go, there seems to be no big missions left.
I have to insert disc 1 again.
Miranda has a chat, The Illusive man has a chat. Shepherd goes to her room and looks whistfully at a picture of Liara.
It's time, we see the Normandy approach the relay and go through. On the other side there is a huge debris field, the remains of all the ships that have went through.
Joker has to fly through at speed by the seat of his pants.
A collector ship can be seen in the distance. Shepherd tells Joker to approach. Collector fighters come in behind the normandy and attack. Joker fights back.
One of the ships attatches to the Normandy. We have to go and repel the boarders.
In thhe cargo hold there are huge holes open to space. An orb like robot is in the hold.
We have to take it out.
We approach the huge collector space station.
The ship we have encountered before launches to intercept. We take it on and win.
Thane is injured, possibly killed in the assualt on the Normandy. It ends up crash landing onto the collector space station.
We have to draw up a plan to assault the station. Two teams will assualt in different areas to cause maximum distraction. We have to choose someone to go through a duct to open security doors for us. I choose Mordin, as it's meant to be a suicide mission.
Next we have to choose the leader of the second team. I choose Miranda, she would pout otherwise.
Now we are inside the collector base, much the same interior as their ship.
We have to open heat valves for Mordin as he climbs through the vents.
There are 8 valves to open and we must open them under heavy collector fire.
If we take too long Mordin gets fried and the mission is over I presume.
I manage to do it and we see a cut scene where Mordin opens the doors for us.
As we try and close them under heavy fire Mordin is killed.
We find pods with members of the Normandy crew. We free them, Kelly and the Doctor.
The doctor tells us that the colonist were melted into grey liquid and pumped away.
We now have to get into the main control room. The swarms of seeker drones are too heavy for Mordin's counter measures. Samara thinks a biotic could keep them off a small sqaud.
We have to choose a leader for the diversionary squad and send someone back with the saved crew members. I let Jacob take the crew back to the ship and send Miranda in charge of the diversion squad.
We now have to progress through the area in bubble of biotic energy that Samara is putting out.
We tell her to move on after every firefight.
We get to the door and through after some heavy fighting.
On the other side we let Miranda and her group in.
We have a choice here, to have someone stay and hold the door as a rearguard.
I am assuming the person chosen for this will be a casulty.
I decide to forget it, I might regret this.
Only I am forced to do it anyway.
We have another fight on the moving platforms, which is great fun.
As we reach the end we start a cut scene, or platform moves into a huge chamber.
There is a Reaper being constructed. It seems that the Reaper is a huge human shaped robot. The grey liquid is being used in it's construction.
It appears that a reapers shape is based on the species used to create it.
The reapers are a hybrid of Organic and technology. They use the essence of a species in their creation process.
The collectors appear to be facillitators of the Reaper reproduction process.
Edi speculates that the Proteans were victims of the reapers and that a Prothean Reaper failed in it's birthing process. The Proteans that were left were turned into the collectors.

We are to destroy this embryonic reaper, it will take billions more humans to complete it, something we cannot let happen.
We have to shoot four points on the Reaper's structure where they are pumping in the liquifed human goo.
Collectors run interference.
Once done the Reaper collapses into the pit underneath it and vanishes.
We tell everyone to get ready to go as we are about to overload the core.
The Illusive man comes over the radio and urges us to use a radiation pulse to kill all the collectors rather than destory the station. He thinks the knowledge here is too valuable to blow up.
The Reapers are still out there and they are formidable. If this knowledge can help humanity and all the other races fight them then the Illusive man wants to try.
I tell him to go take a running jump.
I set the bomb and then the Reaper embryo gets back up for a fight.
We have to shoot it in the eye.
Do this a lot and it goes down.
We run from the facility and manage to make it out in the nick of time.
We see the Collector leader having control relinguished by a Reaper, which must have been remotely controlling it.

Back on the badly battered Normandy Shepherd goes to face the Illusive man.
He is angry about us not following his Orders. I tell him that we will save humanity with it's soul intact.
Before the Credits Roll we see a fleet Of Reapers approaching, at least numbering in the hundreds.

Game over.

670 Achievement points for first playthrough.
Roughly 30 hours playtime

Side mission sees us entering a mine where a husk making machine has been dug up. It has turned the miners into husks. We have to shoot two bombs at either side of the machine to blow it up ending the mission.

The Saboteur Notes

I Choose to play on hard.
I am asked to enter a code from my game box which entitles me to download the midnight show, which is a piece of DLC that adds nudity and gambling.
Have to sign up for an EA marketing account, which I will probably regret when they spam me to death.

Tone is set as the first thing we see is a girl in panties and stockings and heel and nothing else dancing in a club.
Nazi's are drinking and abusing the place.
The hero of the piece is sitting at a bar drowning his sorrows looking at a black and white picture. A french man comes up to him and asks to join him. The hero tells him to get lost. The frenchman tells the hero that he has been watching him and tries to goad him into helping fight the Nazi's. The frenchman tells our hero to come outside when he is ready to fight.

We are to head to a waypoint marker. Usual anaologue stick controls, third person view.
Y opens the door at the waypoint.
Now after a short load we are out on the street outside the club. We have to renevous with Luc, who is I presume the frenchman.

Mission 1
Luc wants us to help him blow up a petrol depot.
We have to get into a car.
Y to get into the car, Right trigger to accelerate, left trigger to brake, A for handbrake.
A short drive through the black and white city. We find Nazi's beating on an old woman and Luc gets out and starts a fight.
Holding down Left trigger on foot puts us into brawl mode.
X to hard punch, A for quick jab, B to kick.
We have to fight a few Nazi's then onto another waypoint.
Here we find a guarded gated area where there is some weapons to steal.
I am told to climb up to a rooftop lookout post and throw the guard off the roof.
We can clamber up the side of the building in an Assassins Creed/Crackdown style.
On the roof I grab the guard and thow him off using left trigger and Y. I then have to go down and help Luc fight more soldiers. We then break some crates and get the dynamite.
Now I have to go back to the car.
A short drive gets us to the fuel depot.
We are told that a distraction is needed so we can sneak into the depot and place a charge on the main tank.
Luc will blow up a truck and we must climb the nearby building and shimmy along telegraph wires into the depot.
As I get to the top of the roof A cut scene shows LUc blowing up the truck. I then jump and grab the wire and slide into the base, planting the explosives using the Dpad to select them and pressing Y.
The base blows and we see the black and white of the area leave as the Nazi control of the area is weakened.
Now I have to escape the depot.
I find this hard on foot and die quickly.
I see a vehicle and use it to esacpe with ease.
Once I have escaped the usual line of sight type sandbox chase I am told to go back and pick up Luc, then drive back to the Belle which is the name of the club we stared in.
Sean, our hero has a room hidden behind a secret door in the girls dressing room.
The mission ends there.

Mission 2 Prologue, better days
A cut scene shows Sean working on a racing car, a french man that Sean calls brother, I am presuming brother in law comes up to him and joshes with him. A woman called Angelique appears and takes the picture we saw Sean staring at in the bar. A father appears and urges them to prepare the car for transport to a race. Seems that Sean is driving it in a race and Jules is his mechanic.
We have to drive the truck through countryside to the German border and pass into Germany for the race.
Parking the truck we are guided to a bar.
Inside the gang celebrate and get ready to turn in for the night so they can be fresh for the race tomorrow. A german race driver arrives and goads the gang until a fight breaks out.
After fighting all the nazi's in the bar we are told to run as the bar owner has called the police.
Outside a cut scene shows the Nazi's catching up to Jules and Sean, However a woman named Skylar turns up in a racing car and we get in and have to escape the alert.
Two nazi cars seem to be able to match my pace and I have to make the a.i. crash by going through some trees to get any distance from them.
Once lost we drop Jules at the hotel and get a cut scene of Sean and Skylar chatting in bed. Seems they are old flames. Skylar it seems is the rich english duchess type, moulded after Lara Croft.

Mission 3 Sunday drive.
We see Sean the next morning, Skylar was gone when he woke.
We have to take Jules to the track, this is a short drive.
A cut scene shows the race starting.
We now have to participate in the race, as soon as we overtake the german in first place he shoots out out tire. Sean is annoyed as they watch Dierker take to podium.
Sean swears to get him back.
We have to tail Direker out to a car factory, where Jules suggests that they are making more than cars.
We stash the car and have to approach the factory on foot.
We take Dierkers parked car and drive it off a cliff. However we are caught doing this and taken to Dierker.
Jules is tortured by Dierker, Sean is asked to divulge his operation to Dierker, who it seems thinks he is a British agent.
Dierker shoots Jules when Sean doesn't give him what he wants. Sean escapes his bonds in rage and punches Dierker.  Sean is restrained again and Dierker leaves to tend his broken nose. Sean then escapes his guards and we are free inside the Nazi base.
Out in the corriodors of the base we are tasked with stealth killing nazis. Holding left bumper and pressing X breaks the neck of the enemy, Y beats the back of their head in.
We now have a balcony with a huge symbol on it. We have to kill a guard, climb up the symbol and get another guard at the top.
Now we climb down a ladder and into the base proper, a fight breaks out and we find some good guns at last.
We overhear Franziska and Eckhardt talking about the invasion. Fighting our way out into the front of the base we get a vehicle and escape the base. Now we have to get out of germany. Into france we find the invasion has begun and nazi troops are everywhere blowing up everything.
At the farm we find Vittore and Veronique being attacked and we have to storm the burning farm to rescue them both.
In cut scene Veoronique is upset with Sean for taking Jules to the base and blames him.
They all escape to paris and we see them arrive at the belle and explain to Jules' mother about his death. Sean swears vengence on Dierker.

Misson 4
We have to walk through the belle to meet Luc upstairs.
In the downstairs cellars we find a secret club under  the main one, this one for the reistance only.
I eventually find Luc. It seems that in anger for the fuel depot explosion the nazis have been taking prisoners of known rebels. Veronique tells us that Vittore has been taken to a slaughterhouse.
We are told about the suspicion meter and the visibiltiy icon. The amount of trouble we cause will raise the meter if we can be seen by a nazi the exclamation point appears on the radar.
If the suspicion meter fills a nazi will blow his whistle and we will be on alert and have to escape.
We have to drive Luc to a waypoint.
Here Luc informs us that the resistance have been providing co-ordinates of german installations to the British air force. Bombers are due to level the place tonight.
Luc tells us to kill a nearby sentry and take his uniform, we have to punch or stealth kill him as shooting him ruins the disguise.
Once we have a uniform we can enter restricted areas, though if we run, jump or plant bombs we will be challenged.
I get the guard and the uniform, then enter the area. The guards all glow red when they are attacking you, now with the uniform  on they glow blue.
Getting too close builds the suspicion meter, so does running. We have to walk slowly and pick our way through the guards. Inside I am caught, but shooting a few nazi's and turning off the alarm is the only penalty.
I find Vittore in a cell and get him out. We are told by a wounded Luc that the bombers are coming and we will have to hide in the cellars. I go to the cellar and we see a cut scene of the bombers hitting the location.

Mission 5
now we are in the reistance headquarters. Luc is shot, and needs some anti-biotics.
We have to procure them from a black market man.
Santos the black marketeer wants us to collect a bottle of champagne for him, this will be used to barter for the medicine.
I go to the location marker and find a party going on. The bottle of champagne is sitting there for me to take. I try and sneak in over the roofs and get it stealthily, however, I am useless and end up just shooting everyone. I take the bottle and am directed to a green waypoint which is a hiding place. Getting into this while not in line of sight of an enemy loses them.
Now it's back to Santos.
Who gives us the meds in return for the champagne. We now have to take the meds to Veronique, who is rude about us getting Jules killed again.

Now there are mission markers on the map. Lu for Luc missions and Sa for Santos missions.

Mission 6 Vittore
Seems that there is an informant within the resistance.
We have to find the general that is meeting the informer as Vittore knows there is going to be a meeting later that night.
I tail the general and see him meet the mole. I tail the mole a little and when it's quiet break his neck, mission done.

Mision 7 Santos
santos explains that we can use his shops. We can get credit for items liberated from the Germans.
To be allowed to use the shops we have to do some jobs for Santos, Kill a german general, blow up a tank and blow up a radar antenna.

This was an introductory mission to conntraband. All of these jobs earned us some contraband. Other jobs include blowing up aa guns, searchlights, guard towers, fuel stations and propaganda speakers.
There is also a perk system which sees Sean's abilites being upgraded.
We can also upgrade weapons bought from the shop.

Mission 8 Santos
Santos wants us to steal a car from a German general, seems he bought it from one of Santos' competitors. Santos wants to teach him a lesson, alway buy from Santos, being the lesson.
I find the car in a guarded courtyard with gates. I try sneaking in over the rooftops, but get shot to bits and the car is driven away by a soldier. I decide to forgo the stealth approach. I ram the gate with a stolen car, jump out beside the car I need to steal then drive it away. Ignoring the masses trying to kill me. I then have to escape the wanted rating and drive the car back to Santos.

Mission 9 Luc
luc wants us to break some resistance fighters out of jail for him.
There are four men in cages in a large heacily guarded square.
I free the men under heavy fire one at a time then have to escape a wanted rating.
On  reporting back to Luc we are given the ability to call in resistance fighters to help us fight.

Mission 10 Veronique
Veronique wants us to help her deliver a package.
We have to take her in a car to pick up a package. Then drive her to a spot. She gets out and tells nazi's guarding the door that she is taking a package of wine and cheese to a general and gets let inside.
She comes running  out and tells us to drive. The house explodes, we have to escape the wanted rating.
Then return to Luc where Sean gives him a piece of his mind about letting Veronique do resistance work.

Mission 11 Skylar
Skylar escaped also and meets up with Sean.
Sean accuses Skylar of being a spy, she drugs him.
We meet Bishop, a british spy, who recruits Sean forcibly in return for absolution for his previous crimes. He will also give him Dierker.
The Nazis dug up a box from a crypt, Bishop wants the box.

mission 12 Skylar
We have to sneak  into the crypt looking for the box.
This is a fairly hard sneak mission. I find that I have to storm the building at the end of the long trek through the cemetry. Inside the crypt we have a few men to kill then we see Sean finding the glowing blue box.
Skylar arrives with a truck and we have to get the truck out of the cemetry and to an ambush point.
Here we have to kill so many nazi's to progress.
Then we have to drive the truck back to the Belle.

Mission 13 Skylar
We find Skylar sitting on our bed in the secret room of the Belle.
On talking to her we are tasked with leaving the Belle.
We have to drive to Bishop. Simple, no interference here.
Bishop takes delivery of the artefact, he quizzes Sean as to wether he peaked, Skylar motions for him to say no and Sean denies looking at it.
Bishop is true to his word and tells us that Dierker is in Le Harve just a mile away.

Mission 14 Skylar
We have to go to a location where a stolen truck is being kept by the resistance. I can drive this truck up to the gates. I then use it to ram them. Inside we have to climb around the outside of a tower then down the stairs of it's insides. All the time under fire. We then climb up to the  zeppellin. Inside a cut scene fight with Dierker then we have to clamber around the inside of the exploding zeppelin as Dierker flees.
I chase Dierker to the other end of the zeppelin and he escapes, Shaun has to jump into the sea without a parachute. He survives with minor injuries.

Mission 15 Wilcox
Wilcox is Bishop's assistance. We tell him that Dierker got away.

Mission 16 Veronique
We go to the resistance base and find Veronique, Sean seems to be about to get romantic with Veronique when Luc turns up and is obviously trying hard to get into her pants as well. Looks like the two are now love rivals.

Mission 17 Luc
Another resistance group wants to join the gang, Sean is to go and check them out.

Mission 18 Vittore
We speak to Vittore and he chides us about our vendetta with Dierker.

Mission 19 Santos
Santos can get us travel papers, he wants us to blow up supply trucks which are carrying the germans own supply of booze and cigarettes. If we blow them up the nazi's will have to buy from Santos.
I find the three trucks which are heavily guarded. However there is an emplaced rocket launching gun on the roof nearby. Getting into this makes the mission easy.
Back to santos for our papers.
Only he wants more money, so we have to go around getting contraband.
Here we have to sneak up on nazi property and well sabotage it. Like the title of the game eh! Now back to Santos when we have enough contraband and he gives us the papers.

Mission 20 Margot
The leader of the other resistance group wants us to do some work for them.
We are to retrieve an important member of the resistance from the germans for them.
Which is a total bastard of a mission. The man is inside a heavily fortified area which takes me an age to get in and out of and numerous deaths. Then we I do get out I lose him on the streets due to a.i. incompetence and have to restart the mission.
I manage it the next time I try fairly well. I learn how to use the resistance getaway car and strike feature which brings in three resistance fighters to help.
This makes it a little easier as the nazi's have more to shoot at than you.
Taking Byrman back to the resistance base finished the mission.

Occasionally NPC's come up to you and pass you notes, such as there is a street race or side mission nearby.

Mission 21 Luc
We find Luc in a square where the Nazi have hung some resistance men they captured.
It seems Dierker is the new chief around these parts. A siege gun is the next target for demolition.

Mission 22 Bryman
Bryman tells us that the siege gun is being targeted on a resistance safe house. We have to hurry and destroy it.
He gives us a special high explosive for the job.
This is quite a fun romp through a corridor type area of the rooftops to get to the gun before it fires. When I get there I plant the bomb and watch as the gun is blown up.
Now we have to escape the alert as usual.

Mission 23 Bishop
Seems that Jules was killed because he saw too much in the plant. Seems the Nazi's are tinkering with nuclear fission.
Bishop wants us to do a job for him. We have to go and meet Skylar.
Skylar wants us to blow up a bridge to derail a train carrying the nazi's bomb scientist.
Seems the scientist is going to defect and the train wreck will make it look like he died. We have to go to the bridge. We need to plant four charges in the understructure then one on top.
We now have to go back to Skylar then meet up with Wilcox.
We meet Wilcox at the trains station.
We have to get on the train and survive a run along it's rooftops with lots of nazi's.
When we get to another station the nazi's stop the train, we have to get it moving again. Then we have to go to Kesslers carriage. Inside in cut scene a man pretending to be Kessler tries to kill Sean, Sean kills him and finds the real Kessler. We then see a cut scene of the two jumping from the train as it reaches the bridge which blows as the train crosses. We now have to go and meet Skylar.
Seems that their escape route for Kessler has been blown, we now have to stash him in the city. We drive him back to the slaughterhouse base of the resistance.
In the slaughterhouse Luc and Skylar are introduced and she wants his help with British secret agent stuff in return for supplies.

Mission 24 Veronique.
Veronique is jealous of Skylar. She asks him about Kessler and Sean fobs her off.

Mission 25 Luc
Luc wants us to get papers for other resistance members from Santos.

Mission 26 Santos
Santos wants a favour in return for the papers, 500 contraband.
I go and blow up some nazi gear and get the contraband. santos gives us the papers.

Mission 27 Luc
Speaking to Luc we find we have to go and find a rebel leader called Mingo.
We have to take Luc to the meeting.
At the meeting location we are told to go and speak with Mingo and Bonnaire.
The meeting is in the open and pretty soon after it starts the Nazis arrive.
We have to fight our way out and get to the car and escape the alert.
Next we drive to Mingo's secret hideout in the catacombs under Paris.
In the catacombs a cut scene shows Luc talking to the assembled resistance leaders.
He proposes to assassinate Nazi top brass when they turn out of a race the nazi's have organised. Dierker is favourite and Eckhardt one of the brass. Sean is to be the instrument of the assassination by winning the race he will be brought face to face with the brass.
Looks like we have to get a car and enter the race.

Mission 28 Vittore
Vittore tells us about a new car that Eckhardt has in his garage.
Seems it is Sean's old car.
We have to go and steal it from a chateau. Then Vittore will disguise it and we can enter it in the race.
We have to approach the chateau.
Once we get there we have to sneak in.
Blow up an entrance, fight some nazi's in the garage and then steal the Aurora.
We then have to escape the alert in the aurora without getting it blown up.

Mission 29 Bryman
We are going to Gestapo HQ to rescue Kesslers daughter.
We sneak in using a telepgraph wire which is pointed out to us by Bryman.
We find ourselves inside the building and must find our way down to the library.
In the library a secret book opens a hidden door.
Inside the hidden door is cells where Kessler's daughter is.
We find a man and free him then have to blow up a boiler to progress.
Here we meet terror troops.
We then have to chase terror trops through the building who are leaving with Maria.
We meet a few terror troops on a balcony then we meet Maria and  leave in an elevator.
We find ourselves out the back of the hq and a waiting car. I drive back to the slaughterhouse.
In cut scene we see Kessler and Maria reunited, however the fun is short lived as the slaughterhouse comes under attack.

Mission 30
We have to defend the slaughterhouse against attack.
German's marked with red signs above their head must be killed before they plant bombs.
There are emplaced guns you can use.
There are a few waves then we have to blow up a tank.
A cut scene shows Sean and Skylar making a break for it with Kessler while the  rest stay to buy them some time.
We are to take the Kesslers by car to the catacombs base.
When we get there we find that Veronique has been caught by the Nazis.
Sean wants to go and save her, Luc wants to carry on with the mission.

Mission 31 Bryman
Bryman wants us to place wiretaps on the nazi phones during a storm so the tampering will not be detected.
We have to bug 7 phone boxes on the roofs while avoiding the nazi's.

Mission 32 Bryman
Bryman tells us that there is a mole in the resistance.
He also knows where veronique is she is being held in Notre Dam, which has been turned into a prison.
We can't get into the prison as it's very heavily guarded. However Bryman has a plan to get in over the walls.
We are  to go to a zeppelin station and hijack one.
I go to the station which is a heavily fortified little island on the river.
I manage to get to the top and send a signal with Bryman's help that brings a zeppelin in. I get on board it and it taxi's me into the Notre Dam zeppelin platform.
Now we have to stop the public executions which are taking place in the courtyard. Veronique is in the queue for execution. We have to shoot the executioner and then protect Veronique.
Which is a bit of a lie as we just have to go up to her to trigger  the next scene.
Bryman drives a truck into the yard and we get in. sean has to take the gun on the back of the truck. This is a classic on rails section and we get loads of trucks and even planes to shoot at.
Eventually it ends and we split up.
We have to take Veronique back to the catacomb base.

Mission 33
A cut scene shows Luc planning to carry on with his race plan. Sean warns him that a mole may have already told the nazis what he plans.
Luc is determined to carry on as he feels that there will never be a better time to cause as much damage to the nazi top brass as this.
Vittore is to drive instead of Sean.
We see Sean knock out vittore and take his place.
The race starts through the paris streets, Dierker is driving the lead nazi car.
I basically win the race and sean slams the bomb/car into the stand with the brass under the eiffel tower causing a massive explosion.
We now have to escape the nazis.
During the race the Belle has come under attack, we have to get there now.
At the Belle we find the place a smoking ruin and Vittore dies in Sean's arms.
we have to go to the catacombs as Sean thinks that they will hit it next. He wants to warn the resistance.
When we get to the catacombs entrance it has been covered up, Sean asks two resistance men guarding it if there is another way in. There is but the Nazi's have found it.
We now have to fight through the back door into the catacombs and through the bony catacombs themselves.
We eventually meet up with under siege resistance members.
Some tomb raider/uncharted type clambering is needed to get accross to them. We find that Santos is the one who has betrayed us.
we have to repel two waves of terror squad attacks.
Luc is trapped by rubble and the gang have to flee. Sean is asked to shoot him and can't, Veronique does the job.
We escape the catacombs and meet Skylar. She is upset that Kessler has went missing.
Veronique goes to be alone for a while.

Mission 34 Skylar
It seems Kessler is back at work for Eckhardt. This must be stopped.
Skylar flies Veronique and Sean to the factory.
We arrive at a parked plane and must get to the factory.
I drive up to the factory and get inside, we have a long trek through the factory fighting terror troops all the way.
Eventually we come to the room where Dierker killed Jules. Inside we find Maria and Sean tells veronique to get her out of the factory and back to the airstrip.
Sean goes on alone to get Kessler.
We find Kessler and he tells us that we must destory the cyclotron.
We have to protect Kessler while he opens the door.
We then have to press a lever simultaneously with Kessler to open up the cooling rods of the huge machine. Once these have been shot we turn our attention to the core of the machine and then have to escape through the burning building.
Outside we see the whole place go up.

Skylar flies us back to Paris and we find that Dierker survived the blast at the eiffel tower and have been going mental since. Sean sets out to kill him.

Mission 35
I drive into Paris and find that there is open fighting in every street between resistance and nazis.
I ahve to drive to the eiffel tower.
Once there in cut scene Veronique laments the situation and wants the resistance to back off. She tells Sean that there is no leader now that Luc is dead. Sean tells her that she is their leader and must take charge and call a retreat. He kisses her and goes off after Dierker alone.
We climb up the Eiffel tower, using lifts, on the way we find lots of murdered nazis. Seems Dierker has killed almost all under his command in a fit of rage.
Sean eventually confronts him. Revenge is hollow however, though Sean is beginning to accept that while he fought the Nazis seeking revenge on Dierker for killing Jules. The greater fight against the evil of the Nazi's is more important than his original quest.
Seems he will continue to fight for the greater good this time.
The credits roll after we have blown Dierker off the balcony with a single shot.
Not the boss battle I was expecting but a nice ending which really hammered the futility of the final revenge moment for Sean.

That is the main story over. That accounts for only 62% of the missions and I have only done about 4% of the freeplay targets of which there are hundreds.
15 hours on the ingame clock.
535 achievement points.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Raven Squad Notes

I choose regular as I am not sure really what to expect here.

A voice over on a black screen where an inspirational quote from Winston Churchill glows in white. It is four days before Christmas a three man team has been sent to an unknown jungle location to eliminate a drug dealer as a favor to the NSA.
We se a helicoper coming in low over the sea, it lands on the beach of a jungle island and three men get out.

Mission 1 Prologue
The controls the usual rotation and movement with the analogue sticks.
So far no other buttons do anything, well Y make a binging sound and tells me that tactical view is unavailable.
Right trigger is shoot.
My two other squad mates follow me around.
Clicking in the left stick crouches.
Clicking on the right stick aims.
We have to progress to a white marker.
I am told that the beach needs to be cleared of guards. There are three to shoot.
I am told to get some rockets.
The three man squad are named Paladin, Oso and Thor. You can switch to any of them by pressing the d-pad button assigned to them. We are told to change to Thor once we get the rockets and use his rocket launcher to blow up the armory.
Now we are tasked with using the tactical view.
Pressing Y changes to a view from high in the sky of the landscape. we can move around using the left stick. The right stick rotates the view or zooms in and out.
If we press A on a spot the men move towards it. We are encouraged to look around the surrounding area at three specific points. We are shown the enemy leader, some of the soldiers scattered around and locations of health and weapons crates.
We are told to get some grenades and blow up some crates that are blocking the way.
I do this by Holding Down Left trigger and pressing the appropriate button for the character who has the grenades.
Seems that each character has a special skill, Thor has rockets, Oso has grenades.
I get into a firefight and switch to fps view to kill the attackers.
I am encouraged to move to the commander and kill him. Then once done to go to the helicopter. I move through the map checking the tactical view for enemies and moving around, then switch to FPS for the actual firefights.
I kill all the enemy soldiers and get to the helicopter.
The mission ends.

Mission 2 Touchdown
We have to go deep into the Amazon and find a crashed plane, primary objective is to recover a disk, survivors are secondary.
A cut scene shows the plane coming in low over the jungle, it is hit with a rocket from a Sam site and is going down. The soldiers jump from the plane and parachute to the ground.
It is a rough jump and Paladin is knocked unconscious. He wakes to find himself alone.
The handler manages to contact him but there is a lot of static. Seems we are on the edge of satellite coverage.
We are tasked with finding the rest of the squad.
I find Oso under attack and save him. He joins back with me and I can switch to him.
We are told to hide in the undergrowth as a chopper comes over.
Thor meets up with us and a jeep arrives. We are told to shoot it using Thor's rocket launcher.
I am directed to a certain point, where we have to wait for others.
Now we get to control a new squad, like before they are split up and we have to get them all together.
Shadow is the leader I get control of him.
Flash and Zombie are the other team members.
They have stun and smoke grenades as their skills. Shadow is a sniper.
We now have to reach point alpha with this team as well.
Which isn't far away.
The two squads are now separated by a piece of engine from the plane wreck. We can now switch to tactical view and see that the plane is nearby and crawling with enemies.
Using a charge we blow up the plane engine by pressing A on it in tactical view.
The enemies coming to investigate it are blown up with it.
We move forwards to the plane and kill all the surrounding soldiers. The disk is not to be found. There is another plane to search and it is the same, looks like the soldiers have found it. we go to their Sam site and kill everyone there. The mission ends here with the news that there is a logging camp up ahead under guerilla control. Looks like our disk might be here.

Mission 3 Village attack
We have to go into the logging village, which looks like it's a slave camp anyway.
Rodriguez is the warlord here but it looks like he may be working for someone else.
Again we are searching for the disk.
A cut scene shows the gang being ambushed in the jungle and fighting their way through it. It reminded me of the A team, lots of shooting but at nothing.
We progress to the village and have to clear it of enemies. Med packs can be picked up for both teams here.
A cut scene shows us asking a slave where the package is and not really getting very far.
We progress to the logging camp. Some soldiers are taken out a small camp to get some more ammo.
As we enter the bigger logging area a cut scene shows the two teams being separated by a tree being felled in an explosion during a firefight.
Paladin's squad are hemmed in and unable to return to the area that needs to be searched for the package. They come under fire from a group of enemies.
We have to take Shadow's team into the village and kill the enemies and search a group of highlighted crates for the package. Shadow finds the package and we radio for evacuation.
The chopper is on it's way when the radio is jammed.

Mission 4 Shattered hopes
We are trying to reach the evacuation point in the hope that the chopper will be there.
A woman's voice comes onto the radio. She tells us that she is a archeologist working for the enemy, she however wants to defect. She will guide us in return for a rescue. Paladin agrees, though he has no intention of mounting the rescue and is using her to get to the chopper.
We get tactical view back and find that the two teams are not that far apart and a logging yard is up ahead. I send both teams in, in different directions and kill all the enemies in the yard.
Our next objective is to reach a clearing. Then some ruins, there are enemies of course in the way. At the ruins we have to take out a machine gun nest.
Helicopters come over and drop some enemies behind us which gives me a hairy moment.
I progress through the ruins to the helicopter and find that our pilots have been captured and the helicopter sabotaged.
25 minutes

Mission 5
We have to resupply before we can assault the main base. Hopefully rescuing Xian our pilots and getting a new helicopter.
At the village soldiers are forcing civilians into trucks.
I go in and clear the village.
I speak to the villagers and they tell us that the pilots have been taken to the hacienda nearby.
We now have to get to the coffee plantation.
Now we have to cross the large open fields which are filled with soldiers.
After we cross the plantation we come to a warehouse and are ambushed by lots of soldiers.
After this Xian tells us that Rodriguez is in the factory nearby. We are to go and kill him.
I enter the factory and kill all the men, Rodriguez escapes out of the back door however.
Next we have to assault the hacienda.
The Hacienda looks like it will be heavily guarded, however it isn't really.
I kill the few guards and talk to some civilians.
The pilots have been taken away with a group of other prisoners.
Xian is asked to try and find the convoy that has taken them.
We are attacked from the roof by Rodriguez. He runs around on the roof and we have no way up. Basically you just have to shoot him when you see him. I sent the squads to either side of the hacienda and when he went to each side just hammered at him with guns.
There was probably something obvious I was missing but it worked anyway.
Mission ends with the gang resolving to attack the pow camp and get the pilots back.
33 minutes

Mission 6 Alliances
We are about to attack the pow camp.
We have to circle around the camp, I think I was meant to be stealthy and avoid the patrols. I didn't I just shot them all.
Inside the camp are a lot of dead bodies.
I fight my way through the camp, taking it slow and sure. I find the pilots and they are dead. There is a Brazilian General with the bodies, he tells us that his men are in the next barracks. They will help us if we help them take the camp and get the civilians out.
Once we kill all the guards in the camp we have to hold the camp while the civilians are loaded into a truck. The enemy start to pour into the camp.
This is a sudden difficulty spike, the first time I have actually been taxed and died.
However this is because I was unprepared for the enemy to attack on two fronts.
Once I split up my teams placed one in cover guarding a funnel point and the other team near the main gate manning an emplaced gun it was plain sailing.
RPG soldiers arrive at the end of the time spent loading the civilians and we have to go out onto the road and clear them away.
Once done the mission ends.
In cut scene we see the civilian truck leave and the Brazilian general ask us to help him free some more soldiers. we go along with them as the Brazilian general is the best bet to give the team the aid to get the hell out of Brazil.
22 minutes

Mission 7 Urban nightmare
We enter a town to help Sanchez.
The town is quite large and although it looks like it's a rabbit warren of streets, there are blockages of walls and vehicles that make it a linear crawl through funnel points of enemy ambushes.
I make my way through the market and find a machine gun post. It looks like it's going to be hard to take out but I get my sniper in a good place and kill all the men guarding it.
Up ahead at a church a truck with an emplaced gun is circling in front of the church. I try to rocket it but run out of rockets. You only get two.
I use grenades and that does it. I get to the church and the Brazilians follow.
The mission ends when the general gets there.
21 minutes.

Mission 8 Ferry of Styx
Sanchez is reunited with his men, they are in fairly bad shape. The church is no place to defend either. Paladin thinks it a good idea to get everyone out of the town.
There is a ferry nearby and the plan is to take it and use it to evacuate.
We start back at the church and have to make our way through a series of waypoints fighting heavy numbers of troops.
We get to the ferry and as we ask Sanchez to come the church explodes as if hit by an airstrike.
We get to the ferry and find it has no fuel. One team is too stay and guard the ferry as the other goes and gets the fuel from nearby.
I get to the fuel waypoint and find a truck with fuel.We now have to drive it to the ferry under heavy attack.
As we park the truck next to the ferry the mission ends.
A cut scene shows the gang on the ferry come  under rocket attack. The ferry is sunk.
25 minutes.

Mission 9 Wet Dusk
The ferry is sunk, but at least the gang are across the river. We are now heading for a satellite control center.
The gang are dredged up on the beach at night and must now make it through the heavily patrolled jungle to the enemy base.
I make my way through the jungle, at one point enemy soldiers are taken out by a rocket. The squad question what is going on, was it friendly fire or is someone helping them out.
We come across a torched village, which Juarez had destroyed due to lack of co-operation. We promise then man we will save captured villagers and kill Juarez, since we are going that way anyway.
We have to fight through the village and up to an enemy camp where the prisoners are.
Seems there are another group of civilians, I go to the camp and save them.
Another group to save.
The waypoint indicator tells me to investigate a crate. When we do a gas grenade is triggered and the squad are rendered unconscious.

Mission 10 Revenge
The gang have been taken prisoner by Juarez. Xian thinks all is lost, however she manages to get in contact with General Sanchez, who it seems was not killed in the church blast, seems he and his men hid in the crypt which saved them.
Out to repay Paladin for his earlier help, General Sanchez sends troops to aid Paladin.
As the gang are being brought to Juarez's camp Sanchez's son saves them by attacking the convoy they are in. Together they decide to take out the artillery which has been shelling us. We enter a large camp and take out the first gun. Sanchez sees  Juarez making a break for it. He goes after him leaving us to fend for ourselves in the camp and to take out the other guns. Two more artillery guns have to be blown up by walking up to them and pressing A
Notice here that shells will explode when shot, there are also exploding barrels.
Once the artillery has been blown we are now escaping the camp.
As we do Xian is disturbed by someone coming into her room, have the enemy finally found out who is helping us.
We have to make our way through three waypoints in the jungle with no satellite view to aid us.
21 minutes

Mission 11 Ruins of Amazonia
Again we are heading for the satellite control center. No RTS view available.
We take the only path available and fight some enemy, they use smoke and grenades on us.
Xian comes back online when we reach a waypoint. She was questioned about heavy satellite activity but made excuses. However, they are watching her now.
We will have to get her out very soon. There is a large camp up ahead and we must rescue other prisoners here. We are tasked with crossing a road and avoiding being seen by patrolling vehicles.
Then we go through the jungle shooting up enemy patrols.
Next we reach the ruins and are told to go to the dig site.
Which we are already at but we must go to the centre of it.
Now we are to free the archeologists.
Once that is done we are told that if we hide in a truck loaded with archeological relics then we can get inside the camp.
We have to hold off enemies as the truck is loaded then escape the dig site to the truck.
Mission ends when you get to the truck.
31 minutes

Mission 12 Boy meets girl
Now we have been dropped off at the gates as we now try and enter the base, get Xian and escape in a helicopter.
We see a cut scene of Sam sites blowing helicopters apart, looks like we will have to get the Sam sites out of action before getting away.
I take out three Sam sites, usual stuff, attack the defending soldiers and place explosives.
Now the air defenses are down and we can call the Brazilians to try their attack again.
The Brazilians mount an all out assault on the front gates of the compound, allowing our much smaller team to enter the rear under cover of the distraction.
The base is fairly empty and we make our way through to the front where the Brazilians are shooting ineffectively at the front gate. We have to do all the work from within and this is a fairly crazy section.
There seems to be a never ending stream of soldiers from a hut at one side, while you have to deal with snipers in two towers near the gates, there are also machine gun emplacements at either side. You are also flanked by guards from behind.
A sudden difficulty spike indeed.
I eventually seem to fulfill the criteria for finishing this section which isn't clear as men keep on coming, it seems there are a key few that don't respawn that need to be taken out.
Now we have to take out a generator.
Brazilians come in to help, but are fairly ineffective.
I take out the generator, we now have to defend a satellite center containing Xian while she blows the jammer that has been cutting us of from our original controller.
I defend the center for a minute and then the jammer is off and the OC comes back online.
Juarez is coming to attack for a final boss battle, he has an armored vehicle.
He drives around in a set path, and after the earlier scene at the gates is a piece of cake to kill.
Sometimes the objective waypoints don't trigger, it's a glitch, leaves you wandering about wondering what to do.
Final cut scene shows Sanchez being interviewed by news crews and telling of the final attack that destroyed Juarez and his rebellion.
We don't even see Xian and Paladin meet, which was sad I thought.
The gang leave in a truck and the credits roll.
32 minutes

Tried the multiplayer and couldn't find a partner to play with, which is a shame, as it might have been nice to control one squad and have someone else control the other.

Roughly 6 hours of play time.
495 achievement points for one playthrough on regular.