Lol i just realizsed that that is the most devastating form of Karma. In ME1 the batarians try to kill humans with a astroid and then shepard does a uno reverse card and does the same. But in shepards case it was justified.
This mission has a much bigger emotional impact if you're playing a Colonist-background Shepard. Imagine if it was Balak's crew that torched Shepard's home and murdered their family. The choices suddenly carry a lot more weight.
As someone who usually plays Colonist, I LOVE how this adds to the dramatic weight and investment of BDTS! And how that in turn comes to make Arrival more dramatic later, as a reversal of BDTS. Definitely headcanoning this next time
The Batarians play a role in several background stories. The Hegemony supported the raid on Elysium. The Siege of Torfan was against Batarians and The Spacer's mother was involved in The Liberation of Mindior. I feel like there was supposed to be more Batarian related content given that fact but I guess BDtS and Arrival plus Balak and the Batarians being worth 150 war assets was probably enough.
I took colonist and ruthless background. My Shepard is probably the worst war criminal in Batarian history. He didn't just want Balak to die he wanted him to suffer which is why he didn't kill him immediately and shot him several times. Balak survived though and Shepard realized that was a mistake so he should have just shot him in the head. However he needed those ships.
I've been hoping for that as well. My vote would be for a Batarian who is an ex slave turned merc who prefers jobs that are against higher caste Batarians, and specializes in sniping, gaurilla combat, and doing the dirty fighting that wins fights when the odds are against you. They wouldn't care if they fought pretty, because they do what's effective.
@@golfer435 A Vorcha Squadmate could actually be really cool. I think they can be oddly cute. Picture this, a Vortcha that has survived a bad fire or is one of those Vortcha that had been purposefully hurt to make them stronger, but they just have a fascination with collecting stuff. Not really anything in particular or anything of value necessarily, but they just like to have nicknacks and stuff all over their space and particularly like Shiney things. So we have this vortcha who is tougher than the average, and probably fights to brutal efficiency, but has this childlike fascination with stuff and would be overjoyed just to be given an odd looking and really Shiney doorknob and in the scratch vorcha voice go "me like this one!" In whatever the Vorcha equivalent of a smile is. So essentially one of the ways you could make a goblin endearing. And they could even just be really good with one of those dog mechs because that I think should just be standard in the next installment. I've had a long time since 3 originally came out to think over this. Personally I think what Bioware should do, is for the next Mass Effect give fans a way to submit these ideas to them for consideration. We love this series, in spite of it sometimes, and for Mass Effect to be done properly it has to be a labor of love. That's the difference between a good game and a great game.
Volus black weapons merchant as an engineer class squad mate. Also helps fund the player with missions that rare weapons can be found and/ or high credit payoffs?
@@bleachedtiedye or even a Vanguard with a heavily armored suit. Volus are in those suits because they come from a high pressure world. That means they are small and dense like a bullet. I wouldn't want to mess with that in a straight fight if it could biotic charge me.
@@B-rex395To me BDTS felt like one of these bland Mako missions. I wasn't even aware I'm playing a DLC to be honest since it came by default with the DVD release of ME.
@@KritoSkywaker You still get the batarian fleet even if you kill Balak; it's just not as many points, I think. Plus the other guy doing it is helping his people instead of killing off Alliance soldiers & turning off life support to humans in the hospital.
I like the fact that paragon shep ends up turning half the batarians he meets into antiheroes instead of dropkick slavers that deserve an asteroid up their asses
Sparing a guy that was about 2 hours away from committing genocide to save 3 people doesn't make you a good person. Renegade option is the clear moral choice here
@@lukasa6374 to be fair you killed like 50 other bad guys on that asteroid what is leting a couple go to save three innocent people isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things.
@@geth7112 more like you already killed 50 people on the asteroid so why would you let the leader of them go? The guy that planned it all who literally goes on about the death of all humans.
You know Balak still kills a bunch of innocent people right. Here, 8. In ME3 if he's alive, over 50. Kill him and Batarian refugees use the codes for more food and resources. You can recruit them like Balak with the same amount of assets too.
I recently learned a neat fact about this choice. The actions of Balek in ME3 change depending on if you let him go to save the hostages vs if you arrested him and handed him to the alliance. If you saved the hostages, in ME3 Balek uses the Batarian codes to blow up human ships and disable life support for human patients at the hospital. But if he was arrested in ME1 and breaks out during the reaper chaos, he instead uses the codes to steal food and other supplies to try and help the Batarian refugees.
At the rewards part, you should've mention how it gives you the best armors or omni-toolfor your level, so it's better to complete it late in the game. Colossus armor are pretty rare to come by.
Always bugged me that the guard in ME3 is standing like 10meters away from this happening going like "Huh, this gun sure is handy, better keep looking straight ahead and nowhere else."
I thought sparing him was necessary to get the Batarian fleet in 3. Now that I know it's not, I'm definitely killing his ass in my next ME 1 playthrough
Killing him in ME1 is worse cuz you lose Kate and the team, which actually becomes war assets in ME3. Killing Balak in ME3 is better since you get the same amount of batarian war assets even if he’s dead 💀
You left out what happens in ME3 if you kill that Bararian. C-Sec will still ask for your help but, the ending is different. As C-Sec will arrest a generic Batarian (literally as he doesn't have a name) and, you can pass a red/blue speech check to get the Batarian fleet like normal.
A good small touch in this DLC is showing him executing the guy whe Kate doesnt give away who shes been talking to. So it has shown hes serious about hos threats and will detonate those bombs if you dont let him go
11:20 -ish - there's also a News report about a memorial service on Terra Nova if Shepard saved the hostages; it references Kate Bowman making a speech.
No matter what I always kill the batarian on in bring down the sky. No amount of war assets is payment for destroying a god dame planet. Something that he totally successfully accomplishes if you skip dlc.
One of my favorite responses in this game, which i discovered just today while replaying the trilogy, is if you choose the "Oh, he won't get away" option when speaking with Simon. I wish i had the transcript of it
One issue I have is leaving Balak for Alliance authorities has no effect later. He shows up on the Citadel as if you let him go, O guess the Alliance let him go for some reason, but it's never explained. And I have no idea who runs the batarians in game 3 if you kill him.
Fun fact if you choose to kill him in Mass Effect 1 then in Mass Effect 3 complete the mission it'll be some random batarian and you can speak check him to get the batarian fleet in your final battle
Basically the Batarian won't point a gun at you. The officer will already have arrested him. He will then blame you for deaths of his people then you surprise him with the paragon and you will tell the officer to uncuff him and drop all charges specter authority then he's in shock and says I will talk to my people and boom you gain the Batarian fleet war assets
I agree, but Batarians in general are anti-human so recruiting one of them to be part of your squad is going to prove difficult, unless it will benefit their interest...
Doing the warning shot, shooting a grazing shot at Balak, wounding him, then leaving him to bleed out is by far one of the most satisfying endings in any mission in Mass Effect. My Shepard was a War Hero so Balak and Shep got into a nasty argument about Elysium that made it even more tense.
@@SonikPanther Easy, have the characters get specific background traits based on your customization options. No need to make them a romance option either
Can we all admit that the arrival DLC in Mass Effect 2 is just Shepherd paying it back to the batarians or the bring down the sky situation in Mass Effect 1 the only difference is Shepard is a hell of a lot more successful
@@Rayner921 If you kill him, it affects the galactic score but not by much. I prefer to kill him as it makes the body count practically non existent for the side quest in ME3. If he lives, Balek kills people in Huerta hospital, causes a ship collision that kills over a hundred Alliance marines, etc. If you kill him, his replacement merely diverts resources to the batarians, smuggles them onto the Citadel, etc.
@@sarasunshinemt4444 I never played any ME1 DLC's before, so not knowing what the future might bring, I chose to kill Balek because I didn't think he would actually blow up the hostages. I thought I was leveled up enough to stop him and save them anyway. When he blew them up we ended up in a long drawn out sniper battle. I had Garrus and Tali equipped with sniper rifles. After it was over I just shut is filthy mouth for murdering the hostages. I was contemplating going back to a previous save and redoing the mission. It's good to know that a lot of people lived because of that decision. Now I don't have to redo it. But I have one problem, in the assignments the mission isn't complete because I didn't find two of the scientists. I'm wondering if I can find that asteroid and go back to find them?
Am I the only one who finds it hard to sympathize with the batarians? Like I understand that humans screwed them over but it seems like they were hated even before that and every batarian you meet (with maybe two exceptions) is a complete dick.
I think the armor rewards are level dependent. I remember getting heavy colossus X armor when I did this mission on NG+ and I was already level 60. I believe you get the best omni-tool in the game if you are high enough level also.
I played on insanity with my infiltrator character + garrus and wrex. We lured them all upstairs to where the hostages are locked and I beat the crap out of them with melee combat + shotgun, they went out like flies it was so funny
I had a play through of mass effect trilogy and I play bring down the sky and I chose to kill balek and when I got to mass effect 3 to see who pulls the gun on me and it was still balek
Oh good why didn’t I do this DLC, especially since they had Quarian armor, I must’ve spent like 10 hours on my first play through going to all the vendors to try to find better Quarian armor....
@@212mochaman maybe the current squad thing messed me up? I used Tali for most of the main quests but maybe I didn’t bring her with me to the Citadel. IIRC, she gets a ton of shields so she’s surprisingly tanky.
@@TJRex01 guarantee it. My first 2 playthroughs were normal difficulty so i didnt care about squadmates. Kaiden and liara. Soldier shep. It only had human armours. Next time i had wrex and tali and it had krogan heavy armor and quarian light armor. I'm about to get to it a third time and I'm thinking garrus cause I'll probably need a tech sniper. Will let you know in about a week if turian armor is there
@Mason Garrison unless I am missing something then that really all the dlc was. If this is people favorite across the entire series then that makes me worry about how good or bad the other dlc is then. Maybe I expected too much but if I didnt know it was dlc, I would have easily thought it was just a side quest haha
@@jodyboles8208 just a preference. It's dynamic and interesting. It doesn't need too much. As a dlc, it's bad, but as a mission you get automatically in Legendary Edition, it's pretty cool
It doesn’t matter if you’re Paragon/ or Renegade, if you save the hostages to let Balak live. There’s an old saying; “The enemy of my enemy, is my friend.”
So you encounter Balak in ME3 if you've let him go to save the hostages, or if you've left him to die (I guess he makes it out somehow). But what if you leave him for the Alliance? Is he still in Alliance custody come ME3?
Yeah but you don't know this when you play MF1 and who wants to know what this choice make you totally losse suprise if you looking what choice you should do
You missed the side consequences. If you let Balak go free in bring down the sky, the work he is doing in Mass Effect 3 that starts the side quest is killing humans. If you capture him, his work is diverting resources to his people.
correction, this wouldn't just destroy the colony they point out that it would make the planet uninhabitable do 2 the asteroid being big enough to cause a dust cloud blocking the sun so full on ice age
I'm playing a Colonist Shepard Paragon. This mission has the most value then. But as far as how Balak returns in 3 is pretty rotten. Honestly he deserved his own mission in either ME:2 or 3. But not a sleezy choice of him being a potential resource. It could have been handled better. He never escapes that bullet in the end though. Any other playthrough he usually lives for the good of his species. Since there aren't many of them left period. And by that time the impact of this mission has cooled down to much for me to even care. But that said this makes a interesting choice for a Colonist Shepard even on Paragon in ME:1. Showing some of that trauma rising to the surface.
*@Big Dan Gaming* I cannot fathom you only got about 2500 likes, so far! U deserve 50 times as much - 1 from every viewer of this enlightening video :) Stay healthy and take care!
I dont know if people are aware that you can get into the second plasma torch easier if you go around to the back of the building. There are only three mines to deal with.
My Shepard let him escape to save the colonists, promised that Balak would be hunted down like a dog. And after all the Batarian deaths in arrival, after the fall of the homeworld and the Batarians as a functioning culture in 3, it is a glorious feeling to finally put that rabid terrorist down. If he was the last officer the Batarians had then I will happily watch their meagre fleets burn, alone and separated from all the races they attacked and took slaves from.
I viewed sparing Balak partly as an opening for him to end up de-radicalizing himself and at least some other Batarians as they're forced to really work with Shepard and wider galactic society. A common enemy is a great unifier and de-radicalizing is greatly helped by close interaction and cooperation with the groups/races/etc the extremist hates.
paragon shep be like "the end does not justify the means" but dying once suddenly changed their views in me2. oh sure, spare a couple scientists and let a terrorist get away in order to 'not endanger innocent lives' but two years later, turn around and launch a batarian populace into an space relay to delay the inevitable emergence of millenia-old space reapers with lasers and limbs like a cephalopod.
@Nikodim Ignatov So it's better to kill him for fun right? I already have max xp (due to xp glitch right before saving liara), And max paragon+renegade (due to lorik quinn glitch). Hopefully he doesn't affect mass effect 2,3. Now i am playing Ilos mission and I realized I can't go back and it's probably the final mission. Thankfully i did all my assignments but hopefully I am not in trouble because the last time I saved my game was a long time back.
I would never use a paragon speech check to recruit Balak. 90% of the time I kill him on the asteroid. Of the remaining 10% there is a 1 in 4 chance I kill him, 3 in 4 chance (paraphrased) "Fuck-you! Join me or watch as your people burn!"
Balak was the biggest hypocrite ever. In fact I like all of the Batarians except for him. He was so sadistic, ruthless and a cold-hearted bastard. I just wanted him down the minute I saw him.
I love how there is no way to disarm all the bombs first so Balik has nothing...it's as if the makers of this DLC are railroad GMs that only think in black&white.
Man, it seems like the batarians suffer horribly in the Reaper War no matter what course of action (or inaction) you pursue. You can't do anything to warn or save them in the Arrival DLC, thus dooming them to being blasted during the destruction of the Alpha relay. If you kill Balak in BDTS, their leadership is crippled, and thus they are unable to put up any real defense against the Reapers. If you let Balak go, their leadership gets indoctrinated because of how they react to the failure of the Terra Nova mission, and they still get decimated by the Reapers. Someone once said that if you don't do the BDTS DLC at all, the asteroid will hit Terra Nova. Is that true? If so, what consequences does that have for the batarians in ME3?
Batarians in BDTS: *YOU'RE ALL GONNA DIE CRUSHED BY THIS ASTEROID!!*
Shepard in Arrival: *no u*
A galactic reverse Uno!
Mega oof
bdts?
@@samuraigaming3042 "Bring Down The Sky", ME1 DLC.
Lol i just realizsed that that is the most devastating form of Karma. In ME1 the batarians try to kill humans with a astroid and then shepard does a uno reverse card and does the same. But in shepards case it was justified.
Balak: * points a gun at the best hope the galaxy has. *
Armed Turian C-Sec officer right behind him: I'll ignore that.
Turian: "Someone is in danger, and it isn't Shepard."
@@michaeledmunds7056 That and he's threatening Shephard, he must have a death wish.
@@michaeledmunds7056 right bout to say the same thing that Turian knew Shepard was straight
"It's over Shepard, i have the high ground!"
"You underestimate my Garrus!"
Only a Batarians deals in absolutes!
@@goldenwoofer4757 LMAO!!!
The comments on this post had me dieing in laughter 🤣 😂 😆 💀
I. Am. The. Council!
SCRATCH ONE
This mission has a much bigger emotional impact if you're playing a Colonist-background Shepard. Imagine if it was Balak's crew that torched Shepard's home and murdered their family. The choices suddenly carry a lot more weight.
As someone who usually plays Colonist, I LOVE how this adds to the dramatic weight and investment of BDTS! And how that in turn comes to make Arrival more dramatic later, as a reversal of BDTS.
Definitely headcanoning this next time
The Batarians play a role in several background stories. The Hegemony supported the raid on Elysium. The Siege of Torfan was against Batarians and The Spacer's mother was involved in The Liberation of Mindior. I feel like there was supposed to be more Batarian related content given that fact but I guess BDtS and Arrival plus Balak and the Batarians being worth 150 war assets was probably enough.
I took colonist and ruthless background. My Shepard is probably the worst war criminal in Batarian history. He didn't just want Balak to die he wanted him to suffer which is why he didn't kill him immediately and shot him several times. Balak survived though and Shepard realized that was a mistake so he should have just shot him in the head. However he needed those ships.
@@BHRamsay Actually the Batarians were supposed to be a main antagonists working with Sarin.
Funny, if your ruthless then it could be the opposite
Your the villain then who is doing a lot to keep them dead
"And they chose you for this mission? Then I guess we have nothing to worry about" I forgot Shepard just straight up hurts this dude's feelings 😂
The renegade dialog choices in this mission are really good and sarcastic. "Should I requisition a cow?!" I laugh every time.
"we were a proud race! A beautiful race!'
Press X for doubt
Wish you could rub in that if the hegemony endorses slavery they shouldn't be surprised they aren't well liked.
“You dropped out of galactic politics for 1 petty reason and use slavers to exhort us.”
I wouldn’t mind having a Batarian squad mate in the next game.
I've been hoping for that as well. My vote would be for a Batarian who is an ex slave turned merc who prefers jobs that are against higher caste Batarians, and specializes in sniping, gaurilla combat, and doing the dirty fighting that wins fights when the odds are against you. They wouldn't care if they fought pretty, because they do what's effective.
Can we add a Vorcha to that mix as well?
@@golfer435 A Vorcha Squadmate could actually be really cool. I think they can be oddly cute. Picture this, a Vortcha that has survived a bad fire or is one of those Vortcha that had been purposefully hurt to make them stronger, but they just have a fascination with collecting stuff. Not really anything in particular or anything of value necessarily, but they just like to have nicknacks and stuff all over their space and particularly like Shiney things. So we have this vortcha who is tougher than the average, and probably fights to brutal efficiency, but has this childlike fascination with stuff and would be overjoyed just to be given an odd looking and really Shiney doorknob and in the scratch vorcha voice go "me like this one!" In whatever the Vorcha equivalent of a smile is. So essentially one of the ways you could make a goblin endearing. And they could even just be really good with one of those dog mechs because that I think should just be standard in the next installment. I've had a long time since 3 originally came out to think over this. Personally I think what Bioware should do, is for the next Mass Effect give fans a way to submit these ideas to them for consideration. We love this series, in spite of it sometimes, and for Mass Effect to be done properly it has to be a labor of love. That's the difference between a good game and a great game.
Volus black weapons merchant as an engineer class squad mate. Also helps fund the player with missions that rare weapons can be found and/ or high credit payoffs?
@@bleachedtiedye or even a Vanguard with a heavily armored suit. Volus are in those suits because they come from a high pressure world. That means they are small and dense like a bullet. I wouldn't want to mess with that in a straight fight if it could biotic charge me.
One of the most memorable DLCs of all time in my opinion.
What xd
Yea but That plotline was snubbed if charn (balack's righ hand) lives idk what happened to him etc
I completely forgot about this one
Not trying to hate on this dlc, but I’m pretty sure shadow broker and citadel are the Most memorable mass effect dlcs.
@@B-rex395To me BDTS felt like one of these bland Mako missions. I wasn't even aware I'm playing a DLC to be honest since it came by default with the DVD release of ME.
It’s also good to know that if you complete one of the other side quests, the barbarian fleet is worth about 50 more war score
The Barbarian Fleet XD
@@nobleman9393 autocorrect be like
@@buzzard8050 It still fits.
Which side quest?
@@gaiusmanus7959 don’t remember the name, but you deliver some artifact to a Batarian preist in the refugee docks
Letting Balak go is not a stupid move as I see. Because you can gain the Batarian Fleet in Mass Effect 3.
Mostly it makes sense since it gives you instant 24 paragon points in ME1.
@@bzqp2
That much? Damn. And if you kill Balak, then you get 24 Renegade Points, right?
@@KritoSkywaker It's actually 25 - you can see it in the video at 5:00
@@bzqp2
I see. Thanks for clearing it up. Still, letting Balak go and recruit him into the War Asset is much better conclusion. 😁
@@KritoSkywaker You still get the batarian fleet even if you kill Balak; it's just not as many points, I think. Plus the other guy doing it is helping his people instead of killing off Alliance soldiers & turning off life support to humans in the hospital.
A lot of Mass Effect decisions are "Kill this guy in cold blood or be a good person."
Not that I'm complaining, it makes a compelling story.
Be a good person
I like the fact that paragon shep ends up turning half the batarians he meets into antiheroes instead of dropkick slavers that deserve an asteroid up their asses
Sparing a guy that was about 2 hours away from committing genocide to save 3 people doesn't make you a good person. Renegade option is the clear moral choice here
@@lukasa6374 to be fair you killed like 50 other bad guys on that asteroid what is leting a couple go to save three innocent people isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things.
@@geth7112 more like you already killed 50 people on the asteroid so why would you let the leader of them go? The guy that planned it all who literally goes on about the death of all humans.
You know Balak still kills a bunch of innocent people right. Here, 8. In ME3 if he's alive, over 50. Kill him and Batarian refugees use the codes for more food and resources. You can recruit them like Balak with the same amount of assets too.
"Also because he has the high ground"
Hello there!
"Commander Shepard!"
@@kelvinho2475 "You are a bold one"
I recently learned a neat fact about this choice.
The actions of Balek in ME3 change depending on if you let him go to save the hostages vs if you arrested him and handed him to the alliance.
If you saved the hostages, in ME3 Balek uses the Batarian codes to blow up human ships and disable life support for human patients at the hospital.
But if he was arrested in ME1 and breaks out during the reaper chaos, he instead uses the codes to steal food and other supplies to try and help the Batarian refugees.
favorite DLC is such a strong word... fuck those turrets and minefields.
Just walk past the mines?
I thought running past would work.
It did not.
At the rewards part, you should've mention how it gives you the best armors or omni-toolfor your level, so it's better to complete it late in the game. Colossus armor are pretty rare to come by.
the omni-tool is really REALLY good, i had completed it mid-late game and i still didn't find a need to swap it out for something else
Ive picked colossus armor for Tali and she was just immortal, even Wrex with other but maxed armor couldnt survive things she did
Qaurian armour or the heavy armour are the best to chose by far. Agreed best to do this at level 30 on legendary edition.
Yeah only place I get good armor for Tali
Always bugged me that the guard in ME3 is standing like 10meters away from this happening going like "Huh, this gun sure is handy, better keep looking straight ahead and nowhere else."
I thought sparing him was necessary to get the Batarian fleet in 3. Now that I know it's not, I'm definitely killing his ass in my next ME 1 playthrough
💀💀💀
Killing him in ME1 is worse cuz you lose Kate and the team, which actually becomes war assets in ME3. Killing Balak in ME3 is better since you get the same amount of batarian war assets even if he’s dead 💀
Serrice Council Savant Omni-Tools and Kassa Fabrication Colossus armors are some of the choicest pieces in ME1. Makes the whole thing so worth it
You left out what happens in ME3 if you kill that Bararian.
C-Sec will still ask for your help but, the ending is different. As C-Sec will arrest a generic Batarian (literally as he doesn't have a name) and, you can pass a red/blue speech check to get the Batarian fleet like normal.
Weird seeing mass effect 1 cutscenese after playing them in legendary edition
Balak: “We were a proud race. A beautiful race!”
Me: Beautiful?
The fall of Khar’shan would be a good story for a ME graphic novel
A good small touch in this DLC is showing him executing the guy whe Kate doesnt give away who shes been talking to.
So it has shown hes serious about hos threats and will detonate those bombs if you dont let him go
He could also detonate them even if you let him go lol
That wad her brother
11:20 -ish - there's also a News report about a memorial service on Terra Nova if Shepard saved the hostages; it references Kate Bowman making a speech.
I finished this dlc like 4 days ago and it was really enjoyable
(me after realizing he was that same batarian in Mass effect 3): "... ... Fuck."
I'm Cmdr. Shepard and this is my favorite channel on the Citadel.
No matter what I always kill the batarian on in bring down the sky. No amount of war assets is payment for destroying a god dame planet. Something that he totally successfully accomplishes if you skip dlc.
One of my favorite responses in this game, which i discovered just today while replaying the trilogy, is if you choose the "Oh, he won't get away" option when speaking with Simon. I wish i had the transcript of it
One issue I have is leaving Balak for Alliance authorities has no effect later. He shows up on the Citadel as if you let him go, O guess the Alliance let him go for some reason, but it's never explained. And I have no idea who runs the batarians in game 3 if you kill him.
14:12
Shepard: [kills someone in broad daylight]
C-Sec guard: I don't get paid enough to care.
"We were a proud race, a beautiful race"
Proud, Yeah.
Beautiful, Hell No.
That was the most telegraphed backhands in history lol. Really shouldn’t have had the gun knocked out of you hand Balik
Fun fact if you choose to kill him in Mass Effect 1 then in Mass Effect 3 complete the mission it'll be some random batarian and you can speak check him to get the batarian fleet in your final battle
Basically the Batarian won't point a gun at you. The officer will already have arrested him. He will then blame you for deaths of his people then you surprise him with the paragon and you will tell the officer to uncuff him and drop all charges specter authority then he's in shock and says I will talk to my people and boom you gain the Batarian fleet war assets
Balak should've been a missable squadmate in 3. Having a Batarian squadmate is a such a missed opporunity.
I agree, but Batarians in general are anti-human so recruiting one of them to be part of your squad is going to prove difficult, unless it will benefit their interest...
Doing the warning shot, shooting a grazing shot at Balak, wounding him, then leaving him to bleed out is by far one of the most satisfying endings in any mission in Mass Effect.
My Shepard was a War Hero so Balak and Shep got into a nasty argument about Elysium that made it even more tense.
I would love to have a “Companion creator” in the next game, an option to recruit a custom companion...
That would be neat
Then how would loyalty missions and dialogue and romance work
@@SonikPanther Easy, have the characters get specific background traits based on your customization options. No need to make them a romance option either
Good stuff Dan! I always went with the Paragon option so it was good to see the renegade and other choices from the DLC. Keep up the good work 👍😁
Yea but That plotline was snubbed if charn (balack's righ hand) lives idk what happened to him etc
@@nerddragon2222
Which plotline?
Can we all admit that the arrival DLC in Mass Effect 2 is just Shepherd paying it back to the batarians or the bring down the sky situation in Mass Effect 1 the only difference is Shepard is a hell of a lot more successful
You can choose the Omni Tool and give it to a party member. Also, you seem to have forgotten what happens in ME3 if you kill Balak in ME1
What happens?
@@Rayner921 If you kill him, it affects the galactic score but not by much.
I prefer to kill him as it makes the body count practically non existent for the side quest in ME3.
If he lives, Balek kills people in Huerta hospital, causes a ship collision that kills over a hundred Alliance marines, etc.
If you kill him, his replacement merely diverts resources to the batarians, smuggles them onto the Citadel, etc.
@@sarasunshinemt4444 Okay thanks. I always save the people from the bomb 💣
@@sarasunshinemt4444 I never played any ME1 DLC's before, so not knowing what the future might bring, I chose to kill Balek because I didn't think he would actually blow up the hostages. I thought I was leveled up enough to stop him and save them anyway. When he blew them up we ended up in a long drawn out sniper battle. I had Garrus and Tali equipped with sniper rifles. After it was over I just shut is filthy mouth for murdering the hostages.
I was contemplating going back to a previous save and redoing the mission. It's good to know that a lot of people lived because of that decision. Now I don't have to redo it. But I have one problem, in the assignments the mission isn't complete because I didn't find two of the scientists. I'm wondering if I can find that asteroid and go back to find them?
@@johnspartan98 I dunno if you can go back or not; the other 2 dead scientists are outside. You can find them pretty easily.
Imagine letting Batarians exist in the same galaxy as you
Imagine letting any filthy xenos exist.
Am I the only one who finds it hard to sympathize with the batarians? Like I understand that humans screwed them over but it seems like they were hated even before that and every batarian you meet (with maybe two exceptions) is a complete dick.
Human didn't screw them.
The colonies were free to take and humans were faster and stronger.
I mean, find another planet? 😅
He exploited my kryptonite and that's the need to put the lives of Innocent people above my needs of bloodlust and all I can say is well played
That useless Turian C-Sec guard in the background of the ME3 cutscenes though
One of my favorite DLC's in the trilogy
Wacky Wavey Arm Flailing Inflatable Tube (wo)man - 15:03
I think the armor rewards are level dependent. I remember getting heavy colossus X armor when I did this mission on NG+ and I was already level 60.
I believe you get the best omni-tool in the game if you are high enough level also.
Yes that's correct. I think I was level 25 when I completed it.
@@BigDanGaming I got the best armor for my quarian girl-friend. It is a very rare item in the game.
@@sergeontheloose it also looks REALLY FUCKING COOL
Loving the videos. Keep up the great work! 👍
Hmmm, this is my very first mission after the citadel and inauguration as spectre. And, no idea that it's a dlc so it was difficult
Did this at level 6. The final battle took 3 hours!
I played on insanity with my infiltrator character + garrus and wrex. We lured them all upstairs to where the hostages are locked and I beat the crap out of them with melee combat + shotgun, they went out like flies it was so funny
Yeah, I played this in Legendary Edition and it doesn't seems dlc worthy
I mean, you can tell it's a dlc, especially with how quiet the Squadmates are.
Man, I don't even remember his story line. Been so long
I played this mission and I had to hold back Gundam Char's counter attack references.
I had a play through of mass effect trilogy and I play bring down the sky and I chose to kill balek and when I got to mass effect 3 to see who pulls the gun on me and it was still balek
Did you kill him or take the 3rd shot at him? Cuz apparently he lives if you just keep winging him. Warning shot once, I think, then kill him.
I took the first shot at him while he was still talking
@@zeglues7861 you should of gone for the head
"It was pretty awful that you killed all those batarians, shepard, but we know now that you had to stop the reapers." "Reapers?"
Oh good why didn’t I do this DLC, especially since they had Quarian armor, I must’ve spent like 10 hours on my first play through going to all the vendors to try to find better Quarian armor....
Its all lvl dependant and the options to pick from are ALWAYS for your current squad. Helps to know this if u get lucky in the future
@@212mochaman maybe the current squad thing messed me up? I used Tali for most of the main quests but maybe I didn’t bring her with me to the Citadel. IIRC, she gets a ton of shields so she’s surprisingly tanky.
@@TJRex01 guarantee it. My first 2 playthroughs were normal difficulty so i didnt care about squadmates. Kaiden and liara. Soldier shep. It only had human armours. Next time i had wrex and tali and it had krogan heavy armor and quarian light armor. I'm about to get to it a third time and I'm thinking garrus cause I'll probably need a tech sniper. Will let you know in about a week if turian armor is there
But of course, you have to take Talis Armor. It is a cruel world for the Quarian.
Shepard really pulled the Uno Reverse card on the Batarians with using an asteroid as a weapon of mass destruction.
This is still my favorite dlc in the series.
why? it was very short and didnt have much going for it. all you did was turn off 3 flares and then stop balak. thats it haha
@Mason Garrison unless I am missing something then that really all the dlc was. If this is people favorite across the entire series then that makes me worry about how good or bad the other dlc is then.
Maybe I expected too much but if I didnt know it was dlc, I would have easily thought it was just a side quest haha
@@jodyboles8208 just a preference. It's dynamic and interesting. It doesn't need too much. As a dlc, it's bad, but as a mission you get automatically in Legendary Edition, it's pretty cool
It doesn’t matter if you’re Paragon/ or Renegade, if you save the hostages to let Balak live. There’s an old saying; “The enemy of my enemy, is my friend.”
Price one day your going to find that cuts both ways
Thank you so much Big Dan, I really wonder what Happened if I didn't renegade interrupt Dr Kenson :)
She detonates that explosive and Shepard gets knocked back. She dies and The Commander just keeps rolling to smash that asteroid into the mass relay
So you encounter Balak in ME3 if you've let him go to save the hostages, or if you've left him to die (I guess he makes it out somehow). But what if you leave him for the Alliance? Is he still in Alliance custody come ME3?
Nope, he escapes and appears in ME3 as if you let him go.
You Just upload this vídeo when I finished that mission
Same. Finished it 2 days ago.
Lol! Same.
Balak kills alliance personell in ME3 if you let him live by causing ships to crash. You can save the three hostages or kill him and save a lot more.
Yeah but you don't know this when you play MF1 and who wants to know what this choice make you totally losse suprise if you looking what choice you should do
almost covering all balak choices, the "You never learn" choice, [Kill him] the second time
In every playthrough I always shoot kenson, and never tell those batarians
You missed the side consequences. If you let Balak go free in bring down the sky, the work he is doing in Mass Effect 3 that starts the side quest is killing humans. If you capture him, his work is diverting resources to his people.
ironic as letting him live he could be shepards life or death in the destroy ending
Holy shit! I didn't even know about this mission!!
Bring down the sky wasnt the best dlc but it sure as hell had an amazing name, and who doesn’t love the angry blobfish batarians
correction, this wouldn't just destroy the colony they point out that it would make the planet uninhabitable do 2 the asteroid being big enough to cause a dust cloud blocking the sun so full on ice age
The biotic amp you get is perfect for garus or talie depending on the lp but that's if you are paragon
You mean omni tool right cuz garrus and tali are not boitic
@@john02222 Actually the item is allowed for them
@@michaelgunnels9694 no they have omni tools not boitic so its impoble to give them a boitic amp
@@john02222 im playing the game right now and one of them has it
@@michaelgunnels9694 witch tali or garrus
Maybe you can make a video for the Pinnacle Station DLC for ME1 because it isn't included in the Legendary Edition.
I'm planning on it.
Anything named Exodus cluster should be named Kerensky Cluster and it should be behind the Caliban nebula :D
Just friggin got to this tonight made sure I saved.
And they chose YOU for this mission? Then I guess we have nothing to worry about.
I'm playing a Colonist Shepard Paragon. This mission has the most value then. But as far as how Balak returns in 3 is pretty rotten. Honestly he deserved his own mission in either ME:2 or 3. But not a sleezy choice of him being a potential resource. It could have been handled better. He never escapes that bullet in the end though. Any other playthrough he usually lives for the good of his species. Since there aren't many of them left period. And by that time the impact of this mission has cooled down to much for me to even care. But that said this makes a interesting choice for a Colonist Shepard even on Paragon in ME:1. Showing some of that trauma rising to the surface.
Wait, this is a DLC??? I started this in legendary, so I thought it was a part of the base game
Isn't that Love Theme playing starting 4:04? Didn't know they used it outside of romances.
*@Big Dan Gaming*
I cannot fathom you only got about 2500 likes, so far!
U deserve 50 times as much - 1 from every viewer of this enlightening video :)
Stay healthy and take care!
I dont know if people are aware that you can get into the second plasma torch easier if you go around to the back of the building. There are only three mines to deal with.
“and because he has the high ground” lol
My Shepard let him escape to save the colonists, promised that Balak would be hunted down like a dog. And after all the Batarian deaths in arrival, after the fall of the homeworld and the Batarians as a functioning culture in 3, it is a glorious feeling to finally put that rabid terrorist down. If he was the last officer the Batarians had then I will happily watch their meagre fleets burn, alone and separated from all the races they attacked and took slaves from.
I viewed sparing Balak partly as an opening for him to end up de-radicalizing himself and at least some other Batarians as they're forced to really work with Shepard and wider galactic society. A common enemy is a great unifier and de-radicalizing is greatly helped by close interaction and cooperation with the groups/races/etc the extremist hates.
They don’t deserve the second chance
I missed so many missions on my first playthrough of this game sheesh
paragon shep be like "the end does not justify the means" but dying once suddenly changed their views in me2.
oh sure, spare a couple scientists and let a terrorist get away in order to 'not endanger innocent lives' but two years later, turn around and launch a batarian populace into an space relay to delay the inevitable emergence of millenia-old space reapers with lasers and limbs like a cephalopod.
Does letting Balak's second in command have any effects? You meet him at one of the fusion torches.
same question. What happens to him in mass effect 2,3?
@Nikodim Ignatov
So it's better to kill him for fun right? I already have max xp (due to xp glitch right before saving liara), And max paragon+renegade (due to lorik quinn glitch). Hopefully he doesn't affect mass effect 2,3. Now i am playing Ilos mission and I realized I can't go back and it's probably the final mission. Thankfully i did all my assignments but hopefully I am not in trouble because the last time I saved my game was a long time back.
He should have been playable in ME3 if he survived. Always wanted a Batarian squadmate.
I would never use a paragon speech check to recruit Balak. 90% of the time I kill him on the asteroid. Of the remaining 10% there is a 1 in 4 chance I kill him, 3 in 4 chance (paraphrased) "Fuck-you! Join me or watch as your people burn!"
Balak was the biggest hypocrite ever. In fact I like all of the Batarians except for him. He was so sadistic, ruthless and a cold-hearted bastard. I just wanted him down the minute I saw him.
I love how there is no way to disarm all the bombs first so Balik has nothing...it's as if the makers of this DLC are railroad GMs that only think in black&white.
Yeah that should have been completely possible given that every teammate you can bring along besides Liara should have training to disable bombs.
Love that the officers behind him, in clear view of what's happening, do nothing...what is this New Orleans?
Hmm, apparantly if you leave him to die he survives. At least that happened twice to me with the ME:LE XD
Colonist Shepard: I'm Commander Shepard and I say fuck batarians
dont feel so bad for 'arrival' after this lol
It's not racist if they're batarians.
imagine a world where terrorists can summon meteor like sephiroth... omg
Oooh…uhhh…I killed him in BDTS, so ge couldn’t threaten anyone ever again. 😅
Man, it seems like the batarians suffer horribly in the Reaper War no matter what course of action (or inaction) you pursue. You can't do anything to warn or save them in the Arrival DLC, thus dooming them to being blasted during the destruction of the Alpha relay. If you kill Balak in BDTS, their leadership is crippled, and thus they are unable to put up any real defense against the Reapers. If you let Balak go, their leadership gets indoctrinated because of how they react to the failure of the Terra Nova mission, and they still get decimated by the Reapers.
Someone once said that if you don't do the BDTS DLC at all, the asteroid will hit Terra Nova. Is that true? If so, what consequences does that have for the batarians in ME3?
Thank oyu! Just did BDTS and let Balak go to save Kate. This should be interesting.
Welp I effed up grabbing the Omni tool...