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Mass Effect 2

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I own a copy. It's sitting on my desk and I am staring at it right now. I wish I had the time to play it. Meanwhile the stack on my desk literally keeps getting higher.:blink:

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My copy is 20% downloaded, but I'm at school so if I continued downloading it while using my computer in class I'd kill the battery (in a 3 hour lecture tonight). It hurts a bit that I won't get to play it when I get home, but will only get to resume my download.

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Dear God, this game rocks. I have to go on a short trip with no 360 to play it on now, and I'll be in severe withdrawals! I really feel it's superior to the original in every way.

Also, a possibly spoiler-ish opinion, especially if you've been ignoring preview coverage:

I find Subject Zero unbearable. I thought that it was all hyped up for the marketing, but I'm actively avoiding the character and I never want to include her in the team. When she called my Shepherd a "pussy" in our first dialogue exchange it made me physically cringe. Add to that her bizarre affinity for calling mercs and mechs "bitch" while she uses biotics, and I never pick her on the team. I might not bother with her loyalty mission. I can't believe she's actually that ridiculous in the game.

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when you're scanning a planet for minerals, how do you know you're "done"?

Do you just keep going until the planetwide scan status says "poor" or is there another step past that?

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grr.... no ME2 in my mail box today and also not dispatched...

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Well got a new disk(lots of complications there) installed it to hd... then found out I need to swap disk 2 half the time and when I do everything runs off the disk... not sure if my xbox is going to make it through this. lol

So far so good. Not really a spoiler and I know I've been kind of bagging the game(overall impression is good)but I'm getting more down the paragon/renegade path and, well the whole starwars "be evil, look evil" thing is kind of annoying not to mention the direction its going in is making my character look like something out of too human... like good job there. The eye thing is more annoying, maybe I'm crazy, but I swear I'm getting eye glows of red and blue based on that system... it looks dumb. I just want to be human shepherd regardless of these choices.

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I think the eye glow may just be a trick of the lighting, like the freak-eyes in Uncharted 2. I'm getting red glows every now and then and playing as a pure paragon, but it's always when there's some kind of terminal nearby or something. I noticed those little face scars are kind of glowy though. I don't know what's up with that, but considering how paragon my character is, the red glow seems odd. Are you sure that's dependent on your actions and not just cybernetic parts from the reconstruction or something? After how well they handled morality the first time around, I'd be really disappointed if they went all Fable on this one...

Haven't recruited anyone yet, but have done the missions on the Citadel to get reinstated. It's pretty amazing how much of that was entirely dependent on my ME1 playthrough. Almost everything I encountered could have been drastically different. Fantastic stuff.

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You do get told that due to the integration of your cybernetic modifications, your attitude will affect the healing of the scars. After a little while, however, you can purchase an upgrade for the medical bay that you can use to remove the scars permanently. I don't know if they get worse, but I'm quite high up on the Paragon side, and they're almost completely gone.

I was also a bit surprised at Legion's story.

What little they had shown made me think that he was a Geth that went renegade, but the real story adds a bit of a twist to the Geth conflict. I hope it gets fleshed out some more for ME3, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a major plot point in the story.

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For those with the PC version: is there a way to change the mouse sensitivity? I changed the camera settings to "low" but the change was insignificant if there was a change at all.

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Just finished and HOLY SHIT.

To avoid spoilers, I won't say much more than this: it's an extremely good idea to buy ship upgrades and do the crew loyalty missions.

I can't wait to see how my actions in this one play out in ME3.

EDIT: Oh, and nice little feature: after the credits, you can drop back into the game to clean up any outstanding missions or galaxy exploration.

Edited by Lord Korax

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As a counterpoint to IrishJohn, I think that Subject zero isn't anywhere near as bad as the trailer made her out to be. I'm finding her tolerably annoying. Also, if you do her loyalty mission you can upgrade her so she gains the ability to

wear a shirt

.

Edited by spindrift
spelling

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A SHIRT???

Crazy talk! I'm about to go recruit Subject Zero, so soon I'll be able to comment on that stuff. So far I've been exhaustively going through every system I encounter scrubbing the galaxy for content. Goddamn this game is good. I now have Zaeed, Archangel, and Mordin, and have finished Zaeed's loyalty quest. I was a bit worried, as I played it strict Paragon and his methods are... not, but it seemed to work out ok. I would be going for the Krogan party member next, but I'm actually a bit worried about having a Krogan and a Salarian on the same ship, given the history between their races. It's a bit sad that I've bought into the mythology of Mass Effect this hard, but god do they do it well.

I do have a couple of gripes to temper the raving fanboyism. First off, why the hell did they need to change the interface on PC? I keep finding myself holding shift to run and spacebar to open my tactics menu, when for no reason they do the opposite in this game. Then I'll hit E to use something and accidentally order one of my allies into an odd position because the game changed it so that spacebar is your all-purpose interact. Bullshit. Also, adding ammo to the game seems like an entirely dumb idea. The first game handled it so well, with you always having to worry about heat dissipation but never being stuck for ammo. My go-to weapon in this game is a super powerful pistol, but it can only hold 24 rounds at a time. During any firefight of consequence, I'm out of ammo and switching to my secondary weapons before the fight is a third over. Very frustrating. Third, and perhaps most oddly, I miss the Mako. I know I was just complaining about it over in the other thread, but the concept was still a good one. Just because it controlled like crap last time and the height maps were a bit boring doesn't mean the idea wasn't worth saving. I really liked, for example, the long approach to the Salarian camp on Virmire in ME1, which this game just doesn't seem like it wants to even try to recreate. The DLC mission where you go to

the Normandy crash site

only rubbed it in, as it looks like the Mako is in pretty good shape, just ignored. Boo.

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The controls in the PC version are a pretty significant downgrade from the previous one. Guess that's the trade-off for getting the game at the same time as the 360 version. It's still very much playable and I'll stomach it since the rest of the game has been so good, but I'm starting to wish they patch 360 controller support soon.

On the plus side, it runs way better than Dragon Age did on my modest PC and looks much better to boot.

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As a counterpoint to IrishJohn, I think that Subject zero isn't anywhere near as bad as the trailer made her out to be.

I didn't see the trailer, but I heard the clips/comments on the thumbs podcast and was very concerned.

The character, as it turns out, is well written even if it's a cliche personality type. She's just an annoying character full of the punk emo bullshit, but the emotional side and the complete actualization of teh bullshitty nature of it is what makes her a decent character; shes a headcase, but a well written one.

Also, and I'm ashamed to know this, but the whole type of character and name seems like one big reference to that vin diesel movie; which is sad if true.

***

Overall I'm enjoying it but I need to get this off my chest. I'm not done with the game so there's a chance that things may change, but I doubt it.

It's not that it's bad or poorly done(mostly) but the direction of the gameplay isn't necessarily what I would have done with Mass Effect. Maybe Dragon Age spoiled me with endless dialog trees, side quests, and quests in general, but Mass Effect is seemingly dropping the RPG elements and going more towards the action game route.

In short, I wouldn't be surprised to see ME4 be more like a modern warefare game then a Mass Effect 1 type game... just with better narrative.

I am by no means a supporter of old school rpgs with ridiculous menus and convoluted customization. I also agree that ME-1 was pretty flawed with that crap, but they seem to have turned the dial back a bit too far with the inventory/items/upgrade type stuff. It's a more simple system(not a bad thing) but it's not entirely straight forward; I have a page worth of upgrades that are currently greyed out, not because of resources, but because I need something else before I can upgrade that one thing.

The only problem is, from my understanding, that something that I need first is what I'm trying to upgrade... so I have to seek out a lower level upgrade first? I don't get it; so it's a bit "dumbed down" but still confusing to me; I'd just prefer a straight up "you need to be level whatever for this" or something.

Quests/side-quests: Right now this appears to be dialed wayyy back. I mean one of the "dissapointments" with Mass Effect was that outside of the Citedal it just turned into a series of combat missions (at least there were a lot of side combat missions) but instead of directing the game more towards improving that, it's taken the action game route... so it's starting to boil down to just map selection for combat zones. It's neither good or bad as awhole, just a different direction then what I personally wanted to see. It looked like the organization your working for

Cerberus

was going to feed missions to you like the Alliance, but I only recieved one and I haven't met too many other people asking me too do things.

edit2: Ok I just read on the shack that you get more by listening to entire coversations overheard from npcs... I tend to get the gist and move on, so far I've only got one quest and never thought anything of it... so yeah thats cool, time to stop and smell the roses more.

Combat/Action/WTF:

Agree with Miffy completely about the ammo/heat thing; it's a change that seemed redundant/not as good. I didn't like random generated terrain and mako stuff, but I'll agree the game is somehow missing something with out it.

At the best of times they really improved this, the classes are more specialized(I miss my shotgun!) but I really like the 1-2 punch team ups with the biotics, it's cool to mix and match to see what happens, but the combat still has that shitty/wtf quality about it that ME-1 had. If you walk through a combat zone I can see the level design had intent, just like in ME-1, but it never gets utilized, either due to bad AI, poor design, or I as a shitty player. If I advance or flank on my own; I die. If I walk into a room, take the first peice of cover and stay there, I live. So I clear out entire areas huddled in a corner or when I'm force to move just a little bit, then I walk through these areas seeing the intent and think "this would have been neat".

Maybe it's more a comment on my shittiness; I'll try the PC version one day to see if they actually get used, since I'm a better shot with a mouse, but with all the subtle improvements and the full throttle direction in the action direction I'm really surprised to see level design not being used and the same shitty "wtf I died" moments from the first.

Mood/Tone: It's not surprising this was my biggest concern for the sequel, Mass Effect just hit something very, very subtle and special in me and I wondered if it was a fluke. The sequel's mood and tone is alright, it's not that far off from the original, but it's not tickling me in the same way; small differences and directions have change that, so it was either a change in direction or a fluke.

I'm not so much dissapointed by this as I expected it, but it just boils down to the approach, music, and art direction that has subtley shifted it.

The one place that actually tickels me is Omega; I think it's kept what they did from Mass Effect 1 and showed you the dirty other side, it has stmosphere and character that just delights my senses... I'm only saddened that this isn't the equivelent of the citedal where I can spend 6 hours talking to people... also considering its the Terminus system it would have been amazing if they introduced a ton of new species on Omega rather then recycling everything from ME-1. It's a great place that has been sadly underused so far.

Edit: Oh and one last thought: this may sound a bit strange, but it's the second game in the series and most likely the direction the whole thing is going in, but it kind of feels like a spin off game of mass effect; sort of like the Fallout Tactics of the Fallout series.

If anyone understands that and knows what I mean, cool, if not, just call me crazy.

Again, that's the direction I'm seeing it going in and it's not my preference, which kind of sucks, in a perfect world this is what I'd like to see:

Mass Effect 3: Incorperate a more Dragon Age party system, scope(not game length) and quest/dialog system. Further more, I'd really hope it's on the next xbox and they invest in some new technology, the static npcs and crew is getting a little old; I'd love to see a more "fable" approach to the game worlds where npcs are walking around and have purpose, where you actually have to ask around to find someone, etc...

I'd also love to see the ship bustling with activity as everyone has a job to perform... a small touch I'd enjoy.

Dragon Age 2: Take the same approach for Presentation/Design/Art direction as Mass Effect did... polish it up and make something wonderful.

Edited by Murdoc

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ffs... my copy is on back order. Crappy retailer kept claiming they still had CE versions available.

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As a counterpoint to IrishJohn, I think that Subject zero isn't anywhere near as bad as the trailer made her out to be. I'm finding her tolerably annoying. Also, if you do her loyalty mission you can upgrade her so she gains the ability to

wear a shirt

.

Well, I do like her back story, or rather what little detail she's said so far. I'll definitely do her side mission. I doubt I'll include her on teams after that though.

I'm probably just too sensitive about the "emo" crap. Absolutely loving the game though.

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when you're scanning a planet for minerals, how do you know you're "done"?

Do you just keep going until the planetwide scan status says "poor" or is there another step past that?

If anyone else is wondering, it goes on 1 more step to "depleted."

Also in the way of a critical response:

I'm liking it, but I can't help but feel that if they took the shooting from this one and slapped it into ME1 (the faster cooldowns and firing off powers without going into the menu are great), I would like that a lot better.

edit: and I don't really care about the ammo thing either way.

Unlike the vast majority of the internet, it seems, I liked the tank bits in ME1 and scanning planets for resources is a slog. Just tell me how many credits it's going to cost me (for however many probes it takes, possibly fuel to get to/from the nearest fuel depot) and hand over my minerals. Grar!

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About the scanning, there is WAAAAAAAAY more minerals than you will ever need for all the research... IMHO just go to the planets that are labeled Rich and get them to moderate and you will do just fine.

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For those with the PC version: is there a way to change the mouse sensitivity? I changed the camera settings to "low" but the change was insignificant if there was a change at all.

Yeah there is a way. You need to edit the Coalesced.ini located in steamapps\common\mass effect 2\BioGame\Config\PC\Cooked , or somewhere around there in non-steam versions.

The catch is you have to edit with notepad++ and keep the count the same or the game will crash on load. The line you are looking for is MouseSensitivity=

I have altered the default config to disable mouse smoothing and dampening (which gives that horrible feeling of negative acceleration) if you want to try that as well. I've also tweaked the sensitivity but you may want to adjust that further if you think it's too high or low once you get in game.

http://sites.google.com/site/pyidefiles/MassEffect2MouseFix.zip

You might have to redo your keybinds since this is based on the default config, but that doesn't take long. Hope this helps!

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About the complaints of bioware having taken too much rpg out of ME2... to me, this feels like what they were trying to do in the first game but just couldn't get right, being too entrenched in the more traditional rpg system tropes. This game now feels less like a mashup of two genres and more that it's becoming something new. I don't want Dragon Age in space, I want Mass Effect to be it's own thing. There's a bunch of little things in the game I don't like, but I can't fault their direction.

I would be a whole lot more concerned if they hadn't just put out Dragon Age, but they did. So i'm pleased to see them going down a different path.

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. I don't want Dragon Age in space

Well it was more a personal gripe as in a choice of direction; I recognized ME1's potential to go either way and I'm fine with both; but personally I do want dragon age in space; the characters were better, the combat system was better, and the dialog trees were more robust; but that's me.

I'm perfectly fine with it becoming its own thing, but if they could keep one solid rpg thing, it'd be more quests/talking.

I am, however, talking with several people and starting to think I am playing the game "wrong" as they say they have tons of side quests. I get e-mails from the people I helped in ME1; but no one has ever asked for additional help. I've only got one assignment by over hearing a conversation so far, and from the sounds of it there are a ton... so it's possible I'm in the situation where "it's not you, it's me."

Just a thought; could it possibly mean there is potentially backlash from being a space asshole? Maybe thats why people don't ask for help anymore... if that's true, by nature of my character, I would stop being a prick to people; but this goes against the very fundamentals of Bioware games since they have taught me that being a dick for no reason to everyone you meet gets you more.

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Juv3nal, you could hotbar biotic powers in the first game, just like now. That never changed.

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like the Mako stuff either, I actually really did. On 360. The PC completely gunked up the controls. Still, it's too bad they gave up on it rather than improving it.

Dragon Age in space is the last thing I want out of this game. All the same, I do wish the action were toned down a little bit more. It's making me think I should have played the game on Casual instead of Normal, as I don't care about the action nearly as much as the story and the story wouldn't change either way. Murdoc, the side missions are actually quite plentiful from what I've seen so far. A few little things from running into people on Omega, but actually most of them come from scanning, detecting anomalies, and following up on them. I've had encounters with paranoid VIs, checked out ruined spaceships, salvaged ditched cargo, and generally just found cool shit. Nobody told me to go to the places though. It's much more like Fallout, where you need to go looking for cool shit, cool shit doesn't just come to you. In some ways, I think I find it that much more rewarding when I find something awesome. For example, it was in exploring a crashed ship that I discovered a datapad that let me know the existence of an orbital station in another system. Landing on that station gave me a separate side mission exclusive to that place. The world is smaller and more focused, but at the same time gives a greater reward for exploring what there is to explore. Nothing wrong with that. The way to enjoy the side missions is to stop expecting people to give them to you and start actually being a space explorer.

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Juv3nal, you could hotbar biotic powers in the first game, just like now. That never changed.

You could only put your own powers and abilities on the hotbar in the first Mass Effect. In Mass Effect 2 they allow you to put the powers of anyone in your squad up there as well which really helps, especially if you prefer to turn squad power usage off and use them yourself.

Also, does anyone find the fact that Shepard's

corpse was reconstructed 2 years after he/she died a bit unsettling? You are basically controlling a dead person who might not be "all there" and whose face is visibly deteriorating. They don't really play up the fact that Shepard has risen from the dead or that you could have been corrupted during revival because it's the future(!) and technology is amazing(!!), even your buddies like Garrus don't seem surprised that you are alive. I wonder if that's because they never believed you died or because it's the future(!). Anyway, I really wasn't expecting this from BioWare, even after the very first teaser trailer which said Shepard was KIA. I thought about it yesterday and could only reason that it's occasionally off-putting to me because I was so used to my normal, non-undead Shepard from the first game. I doubt people skipping ME and starting with ME2 get any of these weird vibes.

Edited by pyide

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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

Fighting the first Collector Praetorian on "Insanity" is brutal. I must have spent at least an hour on him alone. I finally beat him by having him chase me around a large piece of cover while my squad used their powers from the other side of the arena. The other mission shave been tough, but all the Collector ones are going to require some powerful biotics. Now I'm trying to decide whether I want to press on or sacrifice the time spent and just start a new biotic character.

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Murdoc, the side missions are actually quite plentiful from what I've seen so far. .

Yeah I dunno man, I'm playing the shit out of this game and I'm coming up with nothing, so i dunno.

****

So I got an interest tip in the load menu... "Export your saved game to Mass Effect 3... If you survive"

I realize they already use the import saved game in ME2, but for some reason this just implies and makes me hope the sequel is on the next xbox?

Can only hope so... I'm pretty sure my current box is barely going to make the end of this game.

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