Welcome to the sixth in a series of guides for the different starting classes in Mass Effect 2! If you enjoy this guide, please check out our other Survival Guides.
So, you want to be a soldier? Well, the good news is that despite some limitations you are probably picking the easiest class to understand and play with in Mass Effect 2. Unlike the first game where it was not advisable to play as a soldier on your first play through, picking the soldier class in Mass Effect 2 will have you running and gunning around the galaxy like an intergalactic badass in no time at all.
The soldier class is also recommended for anyone that is more interested in 3rd person shooting games than in Bioware’s Role Playing Game heritage. If the series of menus and grinding that made up large portions of Bioware’s previous RPG’s have previously put you off, ME2 is the game to change your mind. Likewise, if the mention of ‘biotics’ and ‘tech’, leaves you running back to the safe familiarity of Modern Warfare, then the soldier class is the class you should set your sights on.
Soldier Starting Weapons: Assault Rifle, Shotgun, Heavy Pistol, Sniper Rifle and Heavy Weapon (i.e. Everything except the Submachine gun)
Soldier Special Ability: The Soldier class’special abilities is Adrenaline Rush. It can be described as “a boost to speed reflexes and weapon damage.” To put it more simply, and in words that Max Payne would understand, it’s Bullet Time. It allows you to slow time for long enough to pick the perfect headshot with your sniper rifle, or have time to unload half a clip (or more) of your assault rifle into your hapless victim of choice.
Adrenaline Rush evolves to either lasting for an extended period of time or works to reduce health damage when active. I found that once leveled up to level 3, that Adrenaline Rush lasted for a sufficient amount of time and opted for the reduced health option as it was a nice useful bonus. What options suits you best depends on your style of play and I will go into more detail about how I choose to use Adrenaline Rush in the following tips section.
Concussive Shot is a heavy blast capable of knocking an opponent off their feet. It is undoubtedly a useful skill, as I have seen my Krogan ally use it to good effect many times, but I chose not to put points into it from the very beginning. I have heard it said that it is a ‘vital’ skill but I think it a skill that you can do without. I would like to hear from someone that used this skill and is a big fan of it but I certainly did not feel I was missing out and it did not seem to suit the way I like to fight.
Soldier Pros and Cons
Pros:
Deals more weapon damage than any other class
Greater health and larger health increases than any other class
Access to various types of weapons means you are well equipped to deal with any situation (and keeps combat interesting)
Heavy weapons can really be a life saver.
Can access third tier weapons for the Sniper rifle, Assault Rifle and Shotgun.
Cons
No Tech abilities.
No biotic defenses and limited biotic attacks
Soldier Tips
Being a soldier means that you want to be the main part of your squad’s direct attacking force. One given tactic is to team yourself up with a biotic and a tech (I liked teaming with Jack a lot and always took Tali, Legion or Mordin with me if ever I knew I was facing Geth) However, you can be equally effective teaming up with any two heavy hitters (like Zaeed or ‘Archangel’) but my favorite team (and the one I took with me into the final battle) was Miranda and Grunt.
When you add Miranda’s squad healing abilities to supplement your own high amount of health and the Krogans regeneration abilities & Fortification skill, you end up with a formidable fighting force that is very hard to kill (I do not think I had to use Unity once while using this squad tactic)
Adrenaline Rush can be, most effectively, used in one of two ways. The first, and most obvious tactic, is to kick it off as soon as you engage the enemy, giving you plenty of time to unload into targets before they get a chance to get into cover and attack you. The other way to make use of Adrenaline Rush is to ’save’ it for getting you out of tight spots (i.e. big motherfunking invisible Geth appearing in your face). This is the other reason that I advise going with the reduced health damage upgrade option with Adrenaline Rush.
You have three options for augmenting your ammo. Incendiary is for all round general use (it turns out nothing in the universe likes to be set on fire) and I kept these rounds in my Assault rifle 90% of the time. Disruptor rounds are great at attacking shields or synthetics and so should be used when fighting Geth or other robots. You can continually swop ammo types around but I prefer to stick with different ammo types for different guns and so keep Disruptor rounds in my sniper rifle.
The last type of rounds were Cryo rounds capable of freezing a target on impact. I deliberately completely avoided assigning any points to this skill. I may have been put off of this skill by it’s underwhelming performance from the first game and while it may have been improved it did not really fit well with my Renegade attitude (I haven’t got time for you to stand around, I want you dead already!) Again I did not miss it and I would always advise to level skills all the way up rather than spreading you points across various skills. When it comes to killing, it is better to do one thing really well than to be bad at doing many things.
When you get the opportunity to steal one of your teammates skills I chose to learn the Barrier skill. While I could have taken an offensive move, I opted for a defensive one, despite being quite defensive already. It means that with all the defensive moves I can make use of I am nearly impossible to kill. (Top tip: When using Barrier it is tempting to engage the barrier as soon as you encounter enemies, when using it as a soldier you can wait until you lose your shields and allow your shields to return while the Barrier defends you)
Soldier Weapon tips
The assault rifle is a soldier’s best friend. Accurate over medium distances, with a high rate of fire and heavy amount of damage. You should be using the assault rifle for the majority of the game, only ever choosing to switch out to the sniper when enemies are out of range and saving the heavy weapons for emergencies (if you just died, then that was probably one of those emergencies). You have no real need of the pistol (unless you run out of ammo) and the shotgun is a little underpowered. I only made use of it when low on ammo and facing husks, or those robo-dogs. Really and truly though, nothing should make it through the range of your assault rifle.
The heavy weapons is where the greatest freedom of player choice is given. While some weapons are good for certain purposes, it will mainly come down to personal preference. I did not like the [flamethrower] as I found it to be much shorter range than most of the other heavy weapons and therefore meant I would have to get much closer to dangerous enemies than I found comfortable.
The M920-Cain is the most powerful weapon in the game and is best described as a handheld nuke. The only problem being that if you want to fire it you may need to book an appointment! It takes FOREVER to fire and this is longer than most of the enemies will allow you to stick your head out. It definitely saved my butt a couple of times but there were more times when I wished it had not been the weapon I had with me, and so I stopped taking it with me.
Again showing my anti-cryo biasis, I made no use of the M-622 Avalanche (a cryo gun or freeze ray as it would have been called in the 1950’s) I took it out on one mission, did not use it and never took it out again. Leave it out in the cold, you won’t miss it.
The M-100 Grenade Launcher is fine and can come in very handy in the earlier levels but is redundant once you unlock the missile launcher. Due to it’s large ammo capacity, greater damage and ability to home in on a target, the ML-77 Missile Launcher soon became my heavy weapon of choice.
When it came to choosing a weapon specialization I went for the Assault Rifle. Could have as easily gone for the sniper rifle option but the Assault Rifle picked up here was still my number one choice by the end of the game. Again I applied the same principle to this decision as I carry through out my leveling up – don’t be a Jack-of-all-trades, be a master of one.
Collector Edition Footnote
The Collector Edition version of the game came with a Collector’s Rifle and a really ugly freaky looking Collector’s Spacesuit of armor. The rifle is better than the ones you start the game with but I actually preferred the rifle you get from choosing the assault rifle specialization. The armor is great on paper with a boost to rush, a 20% health boost and 10% health regeneration. Despite having a great practical use (keeping you alive more) I opted not to use it for the majority of the game for two reasons.
The first being that I would not have had a clear picture of the game to help write this guide but the larger reason (and the more relevant one to you) is that it looks like they let the work experience kid loose on this one. There is nothing in this whole game that is designed as badly as this suit of armor, it’s DAMN UGLY and, as it covers you face, detracts from any cut scene that it appears in. All that said I still took it with me for the final mission – it’s a suicide mission for godssakes, not a fashion parade.
That’s all for the Soldier, if you enjoyed this, check out our other Mass Effect Guides!!
“The first one was well received, and we want to take advantage of that start with something that has tremendously wide appeal,” Visceral Games senior VP Nick Earl told IndustryGamers. “We’re more focused on the action than the horror this time. We’re more empowering to the player.”
Ugh. That is not what I wanted to hear. It seems that, as I feared, Electronic Arts is going to transform Dead Space protagonist Isaac Clarke into a damn space cowboy. Sigh. Don’t we have enough gun-toting hotshots?
Earl didn’t directly confirm my suspicions, but the term “empower” tells me all that I need to know.
You don’t empower a gamer by offering a meek and ill-prepared protagonist. The aim of empowering an individual is to elevate his/her abilities so that he/she feels superhuman, or, at the very least, authoritative. In a traditional horror experience, the player is forced to creep through dark, tight corridors with limited ammunition in a struggle for survival. This helps create a tense atmosphere in which the user feels a constant sense of trepidation. The player, in turn, feels vulnerable, as if the next turn could be his/her last.
After reading Earl’s comments, I envision an Isaac who totes a double-barreled shotgun and has a penchant for drop-kicking Necromorphs.
Isaac was not established as an action hero, but rather a gutsy and savvy engineer who survived a monster-infested planet cracker without proper combat training. He was a regular guy in dire situation; that was his appeal, at least for me. Isaac wasn’t the most exciting or colorful character, but he was admirable, and his reliance on wits made him feel unique when compared to the gruff, salty brutes who typically populate shooters.
I understand that a character can change with time, but Isaac 2.0, as I’ve come to call him, seems to be a noteworthy departure from the chap who bested the Hive Mind. As I see it, EA established a character, and is now trying to mold him into the popular guy who everyone wants to hang with.
As part of the official unveiling, EA revealed some rudimentary details, including the shift in Isaac’s demeanor.
“Survival isn’t the only thing on Isaac’s mind in Dead Space 2 – this time, he calls the shots,” the press release foretold.
Based on that statement, I surmise that Isaac will actively pursue trouble, as opposed to running from it.
“The infection continues to spread throughout space and our hero Isaac Clarke is the only person able to contain it,” executive producer Steve Papoutsis said. “There are still loads of necromorphs that need killing!”
Shortly afterward, Game Informerfeatured Isaac 2.0 on the January cover, decked out in sleek new armor. Clearly, it was a re-branding of his image, signaling a more assertive personality. The suit appeared to be far lighter, which would give Isaac greater mobility.
In general, the Dead Space franchise seems to be on a Resident Evil arc from horror to action, albeit at a much faster pace.
Despite a slow start, Dead Spacesold admirably, with EA executives backing the IP as a solid long-term investment.
Still though, for a premier franchise, I assume that the company has loftier expectations.
The action genre is extremely popular, and transitioning from horror seems to be a wise business decision. For all the complaints levied against it, Resident Evil 5 has thus far sold around five million copies.
Perhaps EA hopes that re-focusing the franchise will attract a bigger audience. I only hope that the shift doesn’t rob Dead Space 2 of the eerie atmosphere that was a pillar of the original.
Rally driving is one of those things, like prog rock, that appears immensely boring from the outside, because it’s populated by anoraks and hardcore fans who are also relentlessly boring. Secretly, we all think it’s kickass. Sometimes it takes a Rush, or a Dream Theater, or in the case of rallying, a Colin McRae, or a Ken Block, to bring it into the mainstream and make it seriously cool. The World Rally Championship (WRC)games, alongside those of the late Mr. McRae, are prime examples of that.
With DiRT 2 dominating the rallying game scene there hasn’t been a worthy competitor for a while, especially since the WRC franchise died a death on PS2 a few years ago now. In Gran Turismo 5, that will all change. The WRC is all set to appear in Gran Turismo 5 alongside NASCAR as a licensed championship, so all of your rally races will be sponsored up to the eyeballs in official logos and the like. The secret anorak inside me is already going gaga for it. Y’know, when GT5 decides to actually come out.
To my surprise, a press release cropped up in my inbox this morning from publisher Black Bean Games announcing a new WRC game to be released in Autumn 2010 – at the same time, in other words, as GT5. That’s just asking for lackluster sales.
Not to be mean here, but going up against Gran Turismo 5 with a single premise is suicidal. Don’t expect DiRT 2 – there’s no frantic rallycross, no bashing bumpers with the likes of Dave Mirra and Tanner Foust and the chances are that it’ll be very much an anorak game, subdued in “classy” menus with either plinky-plonk jazz piano or unnecessary dance music. A bit like Gran Turismo, then.
As far as I know EA aren’t planning any more NASCAR games since that series died a retail death a long time ago, so I’m wondering why someone’s decided to taking on the world’s biggest racing game this side of Forza at the same time in the release schedule. There’s gonna be a car crash and the chances are the Japanese guys are going to come off a lot better.
Between 2008-2009, Fallout 3 and Borderlands took nuclear devastated wastelands and desert landscapes and made them all fun and cuddly! I mean, who doesn’t just want to pick up and squeeze those shotgun-wielding midgets from Borderlands, or get a big ol’ bear hug from a raging Super Mutant hopped up on Rad-x and Nuka Cola? They both had technical problems, but damnit, they were great fun.
Am I right, fellow Tunnel Snakes?
Enter 2010, and developers are trying to capture that lightning-in-a-bottle formula again of a heap load of sales, tacked on downloadable content, and raising level caps. Let’s bring out our contenders!
The Challenger:
Plucky young upstart Metro 2033 is coming out for the 360 and PC. Based on the Russian novel of the same name, it is the story of post-apocalyptic Moscow living in the subway systems, which were supposedly designed to withstand a nuclear war. Your main character is born and raised only knowing the subway system, and for some reason or another, is forced to the venture into the “Wasteland” to save humanity.
Sound familiar? It should, as it seems ripped directly out of Interplay’s Fallout universe. The book was written in 2002, so it’s not impossible that its Russian author was inspired by the game.
Metro 2033 is the maiden title for 4A Games, a studio made of the fractured remnants of the folks who made the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl game. The game was a buggy mess, but a hell of a good romp as far as a style and presentation goes; it really captured a wasteland feeling very nicely. It felt like a very European version of a Fallout title, and by that I mean, it felt like it had that odd European development vibe that PC games like Risen, Kings Bounty, and Mount and Blade all have: somewhat poor localization, usually laughable voice acting, and generally lacking the same polish a Western developer might put on a game.
That being said, there’s already a “Metro 2034”novel, so as far as storyline goes, there should be a healthy amount of it to go around. If you’re into that kind of thing like I am, then you might be in for a treat. Seeing that THQ has really been knocking it out of the park over the last year, with published titles like Red Faction, Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, and now Darksiders, this game could really shake things up on the 360.
The Defending Champion:
Not to be confused with Fallout 4 or Fallout MMORPG , the current heavyweight champion of the Wasteland, Fallout, is working on the next title in the series, Fallout: New Vegas. The game is currently in development by Obsidian Entertainment is supposed to be coming out this year.
Good news? New Vegas may improve all the bugs out of Fallout 3 and could very well be awesome. Bad news? Good luck finding a damn thing about the game. If you check the Wikipedia page for Fallout: New Vegas, you get little more than a paragraph about how it’s due out this year and a list of designers on the project.
That’s bloody it? No pics, no details, no nothing? Nada. It’s the equivalent of a fat, aging champ getting ready for a big prize fight, but there’s only one picture of him hitting a heavy bag, and you can see McDonald’s wrappers on a table behind him. There are some disturbing red flags here, and unless Obsidian is planning on showing up at PAX East or at the latest E3 with some pretty big surprises, I’m going to go ahead now and presume this is going to get pushed back to 2011. At the rate they’re going, if this gets rushed out late this year, you can expect little more than a big $60 Fallout 3 expansion pack.
Of course, that’s not a terrible thing, but with games like Borderlands nipping at the heels of the Fallout universe and appealing to the Halo 3 frat-boy Xbox Live crowd, they’re going to have to step up their game a little bit or they’re going to find themselves eating Rad Roach when sales numbers come out.
YOU GRABASTIC PIECES OF DOG SH&T! WHAT IN THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?
We had over FIFTY people sign up for the Sarcastic Gamer Modern Warfare 2 Community Team tryouts across all three platforms. I went through all the trouble of coming up with tournament matrices and clever little sidebar advertisements and neat little lapel pins for our winners, and what happens? We had less than half of those people who registered actually show up for their first match. Even less for the second match…so few that I couldn’t actually pick a team!
This is what Sarcastic Gamer is going to put forward against Gamertag Radio’s crew? They’d eat us alive, if half of our team even showed up! You people need to check that package swinging between your legs and make sure that you get your sh%t squared away, or GTR is going to bend you over and spank your asses while you’re wearing your pretty My Little Pony panties!
Seeing as you stupid bastards share your attention spans with gnats, we’re gonna have to figure this out in a very short amount of time. Next weekend, we’re going to do TWO back-to-back Gamernights for the systems to decide who the hell is going to have the HONOR to represent Sarcastic Gamer against the heathen barbarians knocking on our gates.
So F*&%$(*ING CANCEL YOUR TEA PARTY WITH YOUR SUZIES, CLEAR YOUR GOD DAMN SCHEDULE FOR NEXT WEEKEND, and get ready to rumble, because next weekend, we’re going to figure out who is the best of the best among you UNGRATEFUL PIECES OF TRASH!
Once upon a time, I was in the Army, deployed forward to Iraq to help rebuild that god-forsaken country while fending off insurgents from blowing up everything we repaired. It was a hair-pulling exercise, one which no matter how many billions of dollars or shipping containers of blood gets spilled… you get the picture.
/soapbox
Prior to going over, I got to drink from the learning firehose, being inundated with crappy hip-pocket lessons in Muslim culture, the Islam religion, taboos, and generally how things work. It’s way too much information for one person to ingest in one sitting, and after 13 months over there, I still haven’t scratched the surface of understanding.
So, what does the Institute for Creative Technologies, a think tank funded by the Army come up with? A SimCity-style urban planning game, where you play the role of a Battalion commander, becoming the de facto mayor of whichever town your forward operating base is closest.
However, instead of this SimCity having a tornado come through and wreck your neatly manicured line of industrial zones, you get insurgents detonating improvised explosive devices outside of your police academy or suicide bombers blowing themselves up inside crowded markets. Just like in real life, you have to maintain the balance between helping the local people out of the stone ages and then bombing them right back into that stone age again because they won’t stop trying to exterminate you.
What a brilliant idea. This software is a monumental leap forward by an organization that by and large moves with the speed of a lumbering giant. Will it help the Coalition “win” the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? I dunno. But if saves a soldier or two, then I’ll give it a perfect score.
I wonder how many achievement points you get if you bring your entire Battalion back alive?
I am surrounded by 3D objects and 3D people. Now, my cinemas are going 3D. Some guy named James says he just changed the world and deserves a Noble Prize for showing me basketball-playing Smurfs in 3D on my 3D cinema. I met another man and he showed James’ game in 3D. Then, despite not having a driving license, I drove a car in another type of 3D and I soon crashed in 3D.
To put things into perspective for you, I have tried both methods of 3D gaming that will by vying for your attention in the next few years. With a lot of buzz around 3D TVs coming out of this year’s CES, some say the future of gaming is moving into 3D.
Allow me to give you my views…
A couple of points that may need explaining if you have not ventured out of your man (or lady) cave for a few years. When we talk about 3D these days, we do not mean what you used to mean when we said 3D. Gone are the days of green and red coloured lenses that would delight our visual senses with a house- sized Jaws popping out of your cinema screen.
It is also worth noting that when talking about gaming, this is not the same as the 3D revolution that started with a well rounded plumber’s adventure into his own world at the launch of the SNES (Super Mario World – although why a whole world would be named after a plump service engineer from another world, remains a mystery to this day).
Let’s get one word out of this conversation straight away – stereoscopic. Despite sounding impressive, it means nothing (well to be precise, it means double visual) and as all 3D methods make use of it, it becomes irrelevant – besides that’s been around for 200 years or more, we want to talk about the future.
These days when we talk about 3D, at least in the cinema, we are talking about “RealD 3D” (similar to what was seen in James Cameron’s recent Space-Cowboy Vs Space-Indian tale of Avatar) “RealD” glasses have a different style of lenses than their red and blue ancestors (before anyone points out they can also be red & green, they can actually be what ever the hell colours you want – just most commonly red & green or red & blue). Both lenses are now clear to the naked eye and polarise the image. At one time, this polarisation was achieved by having one eye with a horizontal filter and the other with a vertical filter. This has now been superseded by a system that can most easily be described as having clockwise and anticlockwise filters.
My technological knowledge is not great enough to tell you the boringly exact scientific difference between the various 3D methods, but I can tell you from my end-user level appreciation that the only difference I have manage to discern is that of depth. The older red/green technology seemed to focus around objects coming out of the screen at you and the newer “RealD” methods seems to be much better at giving the illusion of depth. This does seem less gimmicky and not having coloured lenses avoids problems occurring with colour shifts, but I am yet to be fully convinced that it greatly adds to the immersion for a gamer.
There are two main rivals competing for the home 3D market: Polarization and Active Stutter. The Polarization method is virtually the same as that used in the cinema. I have played Avatar (the game) in 3D using this method and quite frankly, it blew me away. The effect was much better than I thought it would be and added a real depth to the screen. This effect was best shown off when getting into a vehicle in the game and it definitely appears as though portions of the vehicle is ahead and behind of your character. I was also given some insight, by the helpful Ubisoft PR team, into how the TV achieves the 3D effect. A small button on the back of the TV was pressed and the two images being sent by the Xbox360 were displayed side by side.
(Above) SG UK Staff members wearing 3D Specs. As you can not see in the middle picture (partly because I’m standing in the way) holding the glasses in front of the screen does not make the picture look 3D in the photo – speaking of which the appearance of a double chin is an optical illusion caused by the glasses (NOT by chocolate)
While I initially came away with some doubts that I would want to play a game like Avatar in 3D for any length of time, I did have similar reservations about sitting in the cinema for over two hours while watching the film in 3D and yet found little or no discomfort in doing so recently. I do, however, tend to play games for longer periods of time than most movies last for and so do not consider this a conclusive testing of my 3D gaming needs. For all I kno, any more than three hours and I may start exorcist-style vomiting all over my nice, shiny HDTV.
I have also played Need for Speed: Shift in 3D, using Nvidea’s Active Shutter method. Despite these being the much more expensive glasses (approx £80 per pair as opposed to the Polarization method £2-3 per pair), it uses a synchronization transmitter to convert an existing screen or TV into having 3D capabilities. I did not get on with this technology as well, found the glasses uncomfortable and the image to have a ghosting effect on it. Other people seem more impressed than me with this, so it could have been just a personal preference – just damn typical for me that this seems the technology (or similar Active Shutter systems) with the best benefits to get ahead in the market.
(Above) This lady wants to be careful, I hear 3DTV’s eat Japanese women! I saw this documentary all about it called The Ring, terrible shame.
The Polarization method requires you buying a new expensive TV with 3D capabilities. While I am sure some of the TV’s shown at this year’s CES will hit the market at a more competitive price, the TV I was shown Avatar on retails at £8,000! The Active Shutter system can be used on any TV (or screen) as long as it has a refresh rate of 120Mhz. While this may seem like a limitation now, with most TVs on the market being only 60Mhz, it is unlikely to be the case in the next few years as “120Mhz” seems to have taken the place of “1080p” as the latest buzz word in TV manufacturers must have specifications.
Then comes the real ace in the sleeve for Active Shutter systems. The synchronization transmitter can be in a separate box, as is currently being exhibited by Nvidia, but going forward it could easily, and more importantly cheaply, be built into TVs. This could mean that many people could ‘end up’ with 3D capable TVs whether you like it or not.
I do not like the Active Shutter system, but you are also talking to a person who bought minidisc, HD-DVD and Dreamcast – so what the hell do I know?
Look out for my follow up article “Why 3D is not the future of Gaming” coming soon! What do you think about 3D gaming? Which system would you be interested in seeing prevail? Have you seen demos of either system used and what are your thoughts?
Video posts are a bit like erasers. They’re quite easy to make, are usually short and you’ve probably seen them a bajillion times before. However, being expert video game journalists we feel the need to provide our readers with a little visual media once in a while, even if it is a bit like an item of stationery.
Talking of things that look a bit like items of stationery, have you seen the guy that looks like a pencil? I know, me neither!
As the titular information pertaining to this post clearly, and so obviously, suggests (you got a thesaurus for Christmas too, right?), today’s video depicts a shameful Modern Warfare 2 kill, which causes embarrassment for the victim, but much laughter for everyone else. It really is quite enjoyable. It’s also January 2 — a Saturday — so, uh, there’s not a whole lot to write about.
And that’s it! The video post is done, much like an eraser solidifying, then subsequently being removed from its mold … Wow, what a bad metaphor this was.
Casual games exist for the sole purpose of distracting children, engaging out-of-touch old people, and allowing some to delude themselves into thinking playing games on their Wii or iPhone makes them a gamer (the only REAL gamers are hardcore gamers, sorry). Even other nerds mock these people…which is sad.
Find out what my picks for “Most Challenging Titles of 2009″ are after the jump! (more…)
