Author: Trafficblast

The Season of the Splicer is here in Destiny 2, bringing new weapons and armor, a new six-player activity, and new transmog capabilities. Xur returns for his weekly visit to bring you new Exotics for your collection as well, giving you a chance to outfit your Guardian characters with a new weapon and new pieces of armor.

Xur appears every weekend in Destiny 2, starting with the daily reset at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET each Friday. The thing is, it’s not always clear where he’ll show up. Xur can hang out at one of several locations, including in the Tower Hangar area, on Nessus in Watcher’s Grave, and in the Winding Cove area of the EDZ. We’ll update this post with Xur’s location when he arrives in the solar system.

Xur offers a fresh weapon each week for the cost of 29 Legendary Shards, as well as three pieces of armor, one for each of Destiny 2’s three character classes. Armor costs a bit less at 23 Legendary Shards. In addition, you can also purchase an Exotic Fated Engram from Xur for 96 Legendary Shards, which is guaranteed to give you an Exotic you don’t already have (not counting Exotics tied to specific activities). Just note that you can only buy one per week, and the engram is specific to the character class who buys it–so if you’re trying to get a new Titan helmet, don’t buy the engram with your Warlock.

There are many fantastic side missions in the Mass Effect series–known in-game as Assignments–that are well worth your time. There are also plenty that aren’t worth doing at all, so we’ve compiled below a list of some of the best side missions you won’t want to skip during your time playing the series in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Note that we’ve only listed Assignments from the first Mass Effect so far. We’ll be updating this feature with even more you shouldn’t miss in other games in the coming days. Otherwise, be sure to read our Mass Effect: Legendary Edition review in progress.

MASS EFFECT 1

Asari Consort

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadel. You can find this one in the Consort’s chambers in the southeastern corner of the Presidium. Speak to Sha’ira.

Why It’s Worthwhile: In this Assignment, the Asari Consort Sha’ira asks you to help with a Turian general who is spreading lies about her. It is a fun quest in its own right with two rewards: One being a steamy encounter (if you pick the right dialogue), and the other a Prothean trinket, which, if taken to the uncharted world on Eletania, gives you a nifty little Easter egg.

Rita’s Sister

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadel. Speak to Rita in Flux to pick up this Assignment.

Why It’s Worthwhile: This particular Assignment has you helping a C-Sec officer save her sister, Jenna, who is working undercover and in potential danger. Complete it, and Jenna will show up in Mass Effect 3 in an unexpected way.

The Fan

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadel. Speak to Conrad Verner in the Upper Markets of the Ward.

Why It’s Worthwhile: You’ll get to meet Conrad Verner, the galaxy’s biggest fan of Commander Shepard. You’ll need to return to the Citadel several times for this one (typically after each major story quest) and talk with Conrad to finish the quest. Conrad is a fan favorite and will return in both Mass Effect 2 and 3 as long as you complete his quest.

Homecoming

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadel. Talk to Samesh Bhatia, who will be in the Presidium Emissary suites after Tali joins your party.

Why It’s Worthwhile: This Assignment is a heartbreaking little quest about a man who wants to recover his wife’s body so he may give her a proper burial. It’s hard to miss because, as we mentioned above, it will present itself outside the Presidium Emissary after meeting Tali.

The Fourth Estate

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadel after you’ve completed one or more of the game’s main missions (Therum, Noveria, or Feros). After coming down off of the elevator to meet with Captain Anderson in the story, a reporter will be waiting for you. Talk to her to trigger this Assignment.

Why It’s Worthwhile: The Fourth Estate is a tiny little quest where reporter Khalisah Al-Jilani interviews Shepard. Al-Jilani makes an appearance in all three games, each time referencing how things played out previously, so it’s a good idea to talk to her and experience that fun continuity of events as you go.

Shepard’s Backstory Quests

Acquisition Details: When you first start Mass Effect, Shepard has three possible backstories to choose from, and each has a related Assignment you can do that fleshes out your selected background. All three of them are located on the Citadel and are available after completing one or more of the game’s main missions (Therum, Noveria, or Feros).

• Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things (Spacer Background): A human named Zabaleta will call Shepard over when you’re passing by the Wards Access corridor.
• Old Friends (Earthborn Background): A human named Finch will address Shepard in passing when you’re running around Chora’s Den in the Wards.
• I Remember Me (Colonist Background): When you returnto the Citadel and leave the elevator from the docking bay, Lieutenant Girard will contact Shepard.

Why It’s Worthwhile: For the most part, Shepard is built as a blank slate for you to define through your decisions as you play through the Mass Effect series. However, these backstory Assignments offer more story detail to help provide insight and color to Shepard’s past.

Squad Member Assignments

Acquisition Details: While squad loyalty missions wouldn’t become a series hallmark until Mass Effect 2, there are missions available for Garrus (Find Dr, Saleon), Tali (Tali and the Geth), and Wrex (Family Armor) in ME1. To unlock them, keep talking with your crewmates and exploring all their dialogue options when on the Normandy between missions until they come up.

Why They’re Worthwhile: All three of these squad member Assignments are great missions and will help progress your relationship with these characters. Wrex’s, in particular, is worth doing if you don’t play pure Paragon or Renegade, as completing it can be invaluable to keeping Wrex around as a mainstay party member.

Colony of the Dead

Acquisition Details: Located on Feros. Hack the server node in the upper level of the ExoGeni headquarters to retrieve it.

Why It’s Worthwhile: This one is a creepy horror-themed Assignment that we won’t spoil. Just expect to be spooked. It’s important to note that you need a character with good decryption to hack the server node, so make sure you’re allocating your skills accordingly or have a teammate who can handle it.

Hostile Takeover

Acquisition Details: Located in the Citadelafter completing the main missions in Therum, Noveria, and Feros. Hack one of the computers in the C-Sec Academy located at the Aroch Ward of The Citadel to pick this one up. C-Sec is investigating a suspected criminal named Helena Blake, who you can find near the Emporium in the Financial District.

Why It’s Worthwhile: Criminal Helena Blake asks you to take out her two business partners. It’s a fun quest, and depending on the outcome, Helena will make a small appearance in Mass Effect 2.

Missing Marines, Cerberus, Hades’ Dogs

Acquisition Details:

• Missing Marines: Acquired when you talk to Admiral Kahoku after the meeting with the Council, who can be found at the terminal before the stairs up to the Council’s chamber. Alternatively, you can get it by completing the Doctor Michel Assignment. You can also pick up the marine unit’s distress call yourself when you approach Edolus.
• Cerberus: After completing Missing Marines, the next time you use the Galaxy Map, Admiral Kahoku will message you about a new Assignment.
• Hades’ Dogs: You can acquire this after completing Cerberus. When you return to the Normandy, you’ll be able to track the location of the main Cerberus base.

Why They’re Worthwhile: This ongoing questline involves Alliance officer Rear Admiral Kahoku. These three quests technically contain the first mention of the organization Cerberus, which plays a major role in Mass Effect 2 and 3.

Rogue VI

Acquisition Details: You’ll get this Assignment after warping into a system. Admiral Hackett will contact you and ask that you return to Sol.

Why It’s Worthwhile: Shepard’s asked to visit an alliance training ground and destroy the VI stationed there. The quest takes place on Earth’s moon, which is always fun. It’s worth doing from a gameplay standpoint, as completion will unlock Shepard’s specialization class. It also comes back in a very interesting way in later games, which we won’t spoil here.

Bring Down the Sky

Acquisition Details: Becomes available after you leave the Citadel. It’s marked on the map as Asteroid X57.

Why It’s Worthwhile: This is Mass Effect 1’s only major DLC (Rest in peace, Pinnacle Station). It is not required to beat the game, but it is an excellent mission involving stopping a group of terrorists from sending an asteroid into the planet of Terra Nova. It is also the introduction (and only appearance in Mass Effect 1) of the Batarian species, which shows up regularly in the following games. Depending on your choices at the end, you’ll even get an epilogue of sorts in Mass Effect 3.

MASS EFFECT 2 & 3 Coming Soon

As noted above, we’ll be updating this feature with all the side missions that you need to play in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 in the coming days. For now, enjoy your time in Mass Effect 1 and make sure you complete the ones we highlighted to optimize the fun continuity of your series playthrough.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition brings the first three games in the series together in one package, letting new players experience it for the first time with new visual enhancements. But if you’re an experienced Spectre, you should know that playing the Legendary Edition won’t feel exactly like you remember. BioWare has made some quality-of-life and balancing changes from the originals. If you’re diving back in for your second trip through the galaxy (or third or fourth), read on for things you may need to know.

For more about how the collection stacks up, be sure to read our Mass Effect: Legendary Edition review in progress.

DLC Is Sprinkled Throughout

In the original Mass Effect releases, DLC expansions were added post-launch as usual, so buying the extra stories would grant you immediate access to them. Sometimes there might be level restrictions, but in general, you wouldn’t have to wait. The Legendary Edition includes almost all of the DLC across all three games from the start, but you can’t just jump straight into the DLC. Instead, BioWare has spread out the DLC missions so that they’ll appear more organically alongside regular missions. That makes it a single, unified experience, but it also means that you can’t, for example, start up the Shadow Broker mission as soon as you start playing Mass Effect 2 (you can go recruit the two DLC squadmates, Zaeed and Kasumi).

But The Pinnacle Station DLC Is MIA

The one piece of DLC missing from the package is the Pinnacle Station add-on from the first Mass Effect. As BioWare has detailed before, the data was corrupted after the original Mass Effect was released. That led to the DLC being absent from the PS3 port for Mass Effect. Similarly, when BioWare went to remaster the game for this Legendary Edition, the same corrupted data problem prevented it from inclusion in the game. Pinnacle Station does still technically exist on the Xbox Store, for the original Xbox 360 release, but for obvious reasons, it isn’t compatible with the Legendary Edition.

Use Weapons Without Penalties

The original Mass Effect included classes like the rest of the series, but more narrowly defined them by creating penalties for using certain weapons that weren’t optimized for your class. The Legendary Edition removes these penalties to give you more flexibility in your class and weapon choices. However, certain classes will be able to allocate points into certain weapon types to improve their effectiveness.

Galactic Readiness Depends More On All Three Games

In the original Mass Effect 3, your Galactic Readiness level could be buffed by playing plenty of the multiplayer mode. In the Legendary Edition, that mode has been cut (though it could return), and the Galactic Readiness level has been rebalanced. If you’re playing through the entire trilogy in order, it will be determined by the content you’ve completed across all three games. If you jump straight to Mass Effect 3, however, you’ll need to do almost everything to reach max readiness and get the best ending.

Respec at a Discount With Shadow Broker

You can respec your party’s powers and upgrades in Mass Effect 2 by investing in the Retrain Powers upgrade from the Research Terminal on the Normandy. You can find it on the second deck. But if you can wait a little while until you complete the Shadow Broker mission, you can get a significant discount. The Normandy respec costs 2500 Element Zero, while the Shadow Broker respec is only 1000 EZ. Either way, don’t worry too much about spending your upgrade points because you can always retrain.

FemShep Looks More Consistent

In the original Mass Effect releases, the male Shepard was the default in all marketing materials, and this was reflected in the games themselves. Though FemShep was always an option, her default look was inconsistent between games. That has been fixed for the Legendary Edition, so you can pick FemShep (expertly voiced by Jennifer Hale) without worrying about the consistency being broken by an ever-changing face. Naturally, if you make your own custom Shepard–male or female–that will carry through all three games too.

Trophies And Achievements Are Easier, Thankfully

Some of the Trophies and Achievements were extremely tricky, or even required multiple playthroughs to claim them all, and Legendary Edition makes some much-needed adjustments. One, for example, rewards you for playing with certain squadmates in the first Mass Effect. While it used to require you to play most of the game with squadmates–which effectively restricted you from swapping out squad members and only let you get a couple per playthrough–now you can claim the equivalent Trophy or Achievement by playing a handful of missions with a squadmate. Others that make a cumulative count will stack through different playthroughs. All these changes make getting a Platinum trophy much more attainable.

EA is releasing a new Courtyard Oasis Kit for The Sims 4 on May 18. The DLC goes live across PC, PS4, and Xbox One at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET and introduces a variety of fountains and other opulent furniture with which to furnish your Sims’ homes.

“Curated for Simmers who want to design a serene and stylish oasis at the center of their homes, The Sims 4 Courtyard Oasis Kit uses vibrant and harmonious pieces inspired by the Riads of Morocco,” EA said in a press release. “Courtyard Oasis offers even more ways for players to express their creativity and design opulent spaces with traditional filigree designs, vibrant colors and intricate tile patterns.”

The kit includes “colorful fountains, ornate furniture, resplendent textiles and lush, tropical plants,” as well as columns, archways, and latticed wooden windows. EA did not confirm a price, but previous kits have each cost $5.

This marks the fourth “kit” to arrive for The Sims 4 to date. As EA describes, these add-ons are “bite-size” pieces of content that are smaller than the big Game Packs and Stuff Packs, and they typically introduce new items or features. The three other kits include the Throwback Fit Kit, Country Kitchen Kit, and the Bust the Dust Kit.

Despite first launching back in 2014, The Sims 4 continues to receive new content and updates regularly. EA recently rolled out a patch for the game that fixed a handful of small issues. The publisher plans to release another update later this month that will address even more issues; you can read more on the official Sims website.

Gameplay for Total War: Warhammer III has just been revealed, and GameSpot has a new preview that shows off what you can expect from the strategy game in development at Creative Assembly.

In the video embed below, video producer Dave Jewitt gives a breakdown of the new updates coming to Warhammer III, including one of its biggest new features: Survival battles. These huge-scale fights combine elements from tower-defense modes and skirmishes into one cohesive narrative-infused war. The single-player mode features four of these capstone battles, and in between, you’ll need to sufficiently outfit your army to take on increasingly challenging tactical skirmishes.

In this example, you’re tasked with capturing points and then holding them against waves of enemies. To do this, you use supplies you’ve acquired to literally build up a fort and paths to funnel enemies through, tower defense-style. You’ll also have to juggle adding buffs to your troops and making sure to recruit new ones.

Total War: Warhammer III launches sometime this year on PC, and will mark the end of Creative Assembly’s Warhammer trilogy. Along with new gameplay additions like Survival battles and expanded multiplayer modes, Warhammer III also digs deeper into series lore to offer new playable factions for the Kislev, Cathay, Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeench–making this game one of the most expansive classic Warhammer video games to date.

The Mass Effect trilogy is a unique series of games in how your actions during an earlier game can ultimately impact an experience you end up having by the end. These special moments can sometimes have significant consequences, but other times, they’re small, warming callbacks to something you did.

Most of the time, these strange or unique outcomes required you to do something either obscure to get or are the result of choices in the past that fall in-between the cracks of the series’ morality system. Most players tend to play full-on Paragon or Renegade in their playthroughs of the series, but if you mix and match your answer, you get some pretty intriguing consequences. Below we detail a few of our favorite rare Mass Effect outcomes, which you can still experience in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

Keep in mind that, since this covers a lot of narrative setups and unexpected ways they can pay off, it naturally includes lots and lots of spoilers, spanning the entire trilogy.

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

Confused Liara

Why don’t we take a break from all the death and sadness and talk about a more lighthearted moment in Mass Effect 1. One of the required missions of the game is to head to a Prothean dig site on the planet of Therum and find Dr. Liara T’Soni. Most players will head to Therum first as it’s what the game recommends and you’ll want Liara early if you’re interested in romancing her. But you don’t have to. You can wait. And wait. And wait.

In fact. you can wait all the way until the ending of the game until there is nothing else to do but save Liara. When you finally show up, it turns out she’s been trapped in the Prothean security bubble this whole time and is losing her mind.

You get a unique conversation where Liara believes Shepard is a hallucination, followed by an equally hilarious scene back on the Normandy where you inform Liara that the plot of the game basically happened without her.

Mordin Lives

Mass Effect may be all about choice, but some things are predestined. Some characters won’t make it to the end no matter what decisions you make. The first and most heartbreaking loss in Mass Effect 3 is Salarian scientist Mordin Solus, who is doomed to either sacrifice himself to cure the genophage, or betrayed by Shepard and shot in the back. Either way Mordin has to die.

Or does he? Mordin can live. You might be thinking that sounds ideal, but the reality is to get this outcome you actually have to f**k up really badly and repeatedly.

Mistake number one: You killed Wrex back on Virmire, which means his bloodbrother Wreav is in charge of clan Urdnot. Wreav is both stupid and bloodthirsty and a future with him in charge of the Krogan may very well lead to another Krogan Rebellion. But that’s okay, because with Eve at his side, she can help guide him in the right direction.

Mistake number two: You didn’t save Mealon’s research data in Mass Effect 2 and Eve is now dead. Or alternatively, Eve dies because you didn’t stop the bomb on Tuchanka.

With Eve not around to keep Wreav in check, Shepard now has a pretty compelling case as to why it’s not a good idea to save the Krogan right now. This is enough to convince Mordin, who then fakes his death so Wreav thinks he died curing the genophage. He then assists in building the crucible, brings you a small boost to your war assets, and sends Shepard a nice little thank you email. You even get a final goodbye with him on Earth. But as far as everyone else is concerned, Mordin is dead.

Was his survival worth the genocide of a whole species? I leave that up to you.

Salarian Councilor’s Death

Another tragic death in ME3 is Thane, who dies at the hands of series edgelord Kai Lang as he’s saving the Salarian Councilor. There is no way around this one. If Thane is alive in Mass Effect 3, he is fated to die here. But what if Thane isn’t in Mass Effect 3? What happens to the Salarian Councilor? Well, remember Captain Kirrahe from Mass Effect 1?

You actually meet Kirrahe in the first game, who ultimately becomes Major Kirrahe. For most players this is just a nice little nod to the character, but for those who don’t have Thane around, it’s actually a clever reintroduction and setup because, you guessed it, Kirrahe shows up in Thane’s place and saves the Councilor.

Of course, Kirrahe can actually die all the way back on Virmire if Shepard chooses not to help the Salarian squad by turning off a couple defenses. If that’s the case, then the councilor just dies. (Whoops.) If this happens, Udina will actually use doctored security footage to make it look like Shepard was the one to kill them, making it harder to convince Ashley or Kaidan to join you.

Ashley/Kadian Refuse to join Shepard

Let’s touch on the fate of another pair of squad members, Ashley and Kadian, whose roles are largely identical in Mass Effect 2 and 3, depending on who you saved in Mass Effect 1. For simplicity, we will refer to them as the Virmire survivor.

Their story culminates during Udina’s attempted coup of the Citadel council. There is a hidden score based on a number of factors that will determine the outcome, such as whether you romanced the survivor, if you saved the council in ME1, and how you’ve interacted with the survivor in ME3. If you get a positive score, you can convince them of Udina’s betrayal and then get the option to have them join you on the Normandy for the rest of the game. If you end up with a negative score, you can’t convince them and they’ll get shot by either Shepard or one of your squadmates. Brutal.

There is, however, a rare third outcome. It is possible to have a high-enough score to persuade the Virmire survivor to back off during the confrontation with Udina, while simultaneously still having a broken relationship with them. This means they will refuse Shepard’s offer to join the Normandy crew and can’t be a squadmate for the rest of the game.

Party Members Can Show Up As Enemies

Party member death is a pretty major part of the Mass Effect trilogy. In Mass Effect 3, not only can many of the major characters die, but often Shepard is the one who kills them, which makes a Renegade run pretty brutal. Most of this friend murder happens in cutscenes, but there are several you can kill in combat.

The first is everyone’s favorite space psychopath, Jack. After parting ways with Shepard, Jack becomes a teacher at Grissom Academy, a school for gifted biotics. A major side mission in the game involves rescuing Jack and her students from Cerberus, but it’s possible to ignore it. In Mass Effect 3, if you carry on with the main story, you’ll get locked out of side content as time moves forward and this is taken into account, as Jack and her students are kidnapped by Cerberus. Then, when storming the Illusive Man’s base near the end of the game, you’ll come across a special recording of Jack being tortured. Further in, you’ll find Jack, now brainwashed into a Phantom, and you’ll have to put her down.

Similarly, there’s Legion. It was possible to give up Legion’s body to Cerberus in Mass Effect 2–a choice absolutely nobody made because who’s going to give up the Geth party member? If you did, though, Cerberus will indeed have kept the body and experimented on Legion. The empty shell that was once Legion shows up as a special enemy type in the Cerberus base, the same room where Phantom Jack also appears.

The final party member to talk about is Morinth, one of Samara’s Ardat-Yakshi daughters who you can side with in Mass Effect 2. Morinth was always a limited party member. She pretends to be Samara for the rest of Mass Effect 2 as to not arouse suspicion, which basically means she still says all the things Samara does outside of a few small moments.

With her being so limited in Mass Effect 2, it’s disappointing but not at all surprising that she doesn’t make a proper appearance in Mass Effect 3. Shepard gets an email from her, but that’s about it. However, at some point in the game, Morinth gets found by the Reapers and turned into a Banshee, like the other Ardat-Yakshi. In the final battle on Earth, Morinth will appear. She behaves just like any other Banshee and gets no special dialogue.

Romance with Javik and James

While BioWare does its best to make your shipping dreams a reality, there are some party members you just can’t woo. Two of those were military beefcake James Vega and Prothean sadboy Javik, which a vocal group of fans was pretty disappointed with.

BioWare must have heard the fans’ cries because they added two hidden “romance paths” in the Citadel DLC. During the big party, if FemShep doesn’t have a romance partner and makes certain dialogue choices, they’ll wake up the next morning having slept with either James or Javik.

The Javik scene is played as a joke, but the James is genuinely creepy. Shepard can make several advances on James throughout the game but he always turns her down, making it pretty clear he’s not interested. Yet in the Citadel DLC, Shepard eventually resorts to getting James drunk enough so he’ll sleep with her. To cap the whole thing, when the pair awake in the morning, he sounds like he regrets that it happened. I don’t think this is what the fans had in mind.

The Saddest Party on the Citadel

Let’s get back to the fun stuff: killing squadmates. The big Citadel party was the final content made for the original trilogy. As such the whole thing is one massive celebration of it’s characters. BioWare went all-out, bringing back the whole cast and stuffing in as many in-jokes as possible. As a finale to these beloved characters, you couldn’t ask for anything better.

But the Citadel’s charm is dependent on those characters, and what happens if none of them are alive? My co-worker Jake Dekker and I went on a journey to find out just that in our series The Saddest Party on the Citadel, a multipart Let’s Play where we planned out the murder of all our squadmates in order to get the fewest number of characters possible available for the party. Turns out there are only three party members you can’t kill in the whole series; Liara, James, and EDI. That’s it.

This is a bit different from everything else we’ve been talking about. There isn’t extra dialogue or a new scene. The party goes on, exactly the same, except nobody is present. I don’t think BioWare expected anyone to actually play the game this way, but I love that it’s possible. It’s the ultimate example of what happens when you push this series’ emphasis on player choice to its limits. You get a sad Shepard, throwing a rubbish party for the only few people left they haven’t gotten killed. Cheers!