Mass Effect 2

[elmuerte]

The Alliance won't become involved in a Cerberus operation due to what Cerberus stands for; they are essentially viewed as a Pro human anti alien group. It isn't a plot hole.

Didn't mean it like that, although Cerberus might be "too big to fail"

I was more thinking along the line of an attach on Cerberus to by the Alliance to get rid of them. Most employees of Cerberus are motivated by their paycheck.

[Sombre]

I found that with all loyalty missions, it works with:

Legion in vents, Garrus on fireteam.

Samara to biotic you through the locust swarm.

Jacob to assist the doctors.

Miranda as the second squad leader.

And I made sure I had all the ship upgrades.

Zaeed didn't make it, because I failed his stupid tracking mission.

TOO MANY DOORS

[brkl]

Oooh, I get it. I thought Samara would be good. I had Garrus as the second squad leader. Might be fun to try it with everything wrong -- Jack as squad leader!

[elmuerte]

Just finished Jarrehe Station side mission.

That felt a lot like System Shock 2. I was constantly expecting to be attached by the Shodan... erm... the VI. Shame it was only 3 insignificant "puzzles". They should have made a full length mission for this one.

[miffy495]

Just finished it tonight. Goddamn, that is a nice chunk of GAME. Over the past two weeks, I logged just over 14 hours in ME1 and just over 34 hours in ME2. That means that 50 hours of my last two weeks were spent as the same damn commander Shepard, and I loved every minute of it. The entire final act of the game was great

particularly the shocker moment when I had control of Joker. What the hell happened there?

The only part I wasn't all that into was

the sorta contrived "Boo! Now fight the Reaper fetus!" moment at the end of the game. Probably didn't need to be there.

Everyone survived for me, and I was really impressed with how the whole thing turned out.

I told the Illusive Man to go fuck himself too. Interested to see how that'll turn out in ME3.

I stand by my earlier comments though. All things considered, I think I preferred the Mako to the planet scanning. It just felt more like being an explorer to me. Sure, the Mako needed some re-jiggering to get into a less frustrating state, but I think that removing it altogether was the wrong move. The heat clips for weapons were also pretty irritating, and I wound up using a gun that I wasn't actually that big a fan of as my primary weapon just because it was the least likely to run out of ammo at an inopportune time. At the same time, I found myself a lot more reliant on biotic powers this time around, particularly Overload and Warp, as ammo didn't get through shields and barriers nearly as effectively. After they were softened up, Shockwave and Body Slam would usually finish them off. Would have been nice to see a bowling achievement when going up a bunch of husks, as one hit from Shockwave was normally enough to kill them. I'd line a bunch of them up, throw out a shockwave, and watch the corpses fly in every direction like bowling pins. Very gratifying, and made me feel as much like a badass as any game has.

Anyway, I don't think a full replay of both MEs as a renegade is what I want to do right away, but I'm still in an RPG mood. Think I'll finally fire up that copy of Dragon Age I've had sitting around for a month.

[brkl]

I didn't fully realize how shit Mako was until I went back to ME1. I'm so very glad they took that out. Every minute they would have had to spend on getting it right (and that would have taken a whole lot of man hours) would have had to be taken out of some other feature. And you'd probably be complaining about how shit that other feature is now.

The scanning was frustrating, yes. Could have been easily fixed with a ship upgrade that gave you some idea of concentrations just by looking at the planet.

I agree about the clips, to an extent. It was frustrating, but I think the point was that you were supposed to use more than one weapon. My team in ME1 were armed with one good weapon and the rest were what you started out with. Still, it wasn't a perfect solution. Maybe the heat clips should've dissipated heat over time automatically.

My problem was that since my powers didn't hurt people with shields, barriers or armor, by the time they were weak enough to hurl a power at them, they'd be as good as dead anyway. And Vanguards were supposed to be super powerful at close range -- more like dead meat. Shockwave was really nice though.

Samara is on my shit list now for letting Legion die the first time. Why couldn't you do what Garrus did, huh? If I can fuck with you in the next game, I will!

[ysbreker]

I do not get what everyone's problem with the mako is I had no problem at all with driving it around. I can even say that I enjoyed toying around with it.

My problem was that since my powers didn't hurt people with shields, barriers or armor, by the time they were weak enough to hurl a power at them, they'd be as good as dead anyway. And Vanguards were supposed to be super powerful at close range -- more like dead meat. Shockwave was really nice though.

You can still use your powers when an enemy is shielded/armored/barriered It's just removes some of the barrier/shield/armor and stuns them for a short bit.

Would have been nice to see a bowling achievement when going up a bunch of husks, as one hit from Shockwave was normally enough to kill them.

Try playing on insane. Husks are armored and can't be killed with a simple shockwave or incinerate. You'll also get really frustrated with them, since they can rush you and get you killed in seconds now

[Roderick]

I avoided this topic like the plague to avoid spoilers. Now that I've finished Mass Effect 2, a simple, hearty YESSSSSSSSSSS!! will suffice.

Perfection.*

(*Especially if you('re gonna) regard the Mass Effect trilogy as a whole. MAKO was cumbersome, but the one thing that ME1 did well that wasn't in ME2 at all was the sense of lonely, void-surrounded space exploration. Landing on some alien world with MAKO, looking at the irridescent sunscape... those were breathtaking moments of beauty.)

(Also, Infiltrator makes everyone else its bitch)

(I mean, who's the biotic bitch now? That's what I mean)

[miffy495]

Try playing on insane.

No thanks. I'm a guy whose resolution this year was to start clicking on "normal" instead of "easy." I beat ME2 on normal, only died a few times. That's good enough for me.

[Korax]

Try playing on insane. Husks are armored and can't be killed with a simple shockwave or incinerate. You'll also get really frustrated with them, since they can rush you and get you killed in seconds now

I'm doing that right now. I started a new soldier and didn't have too many problems until

the ambush on the "abandoned" Collector ship.

Barriers on Collectors + two of those motherfucking Scions at the same time = an hour stuck at the same spot before I finally said, "Fuck this!" and re-started with a new game + character.

[Murdoc]

Yeah, I think I'll give a playthough again on insane just to see what it's like. I found most of the game fairly challenging on hardcore(or whatever it was) but by the end once I got a decent combo going it went really smoothingly.

Curious to know what domination would do on insane level husks, as group domination proved to be a one stop cure for them on hardcore. I think the domination + ai drone really worked well for distraction while I fired massive warps.

[brkl]

I wish I could start a new game with my leveled up character and change his class. I can change how he looks, so why not class?

The people who liked Mako should try this game: http://mooses.nl/nice/relatedprojects/nivplus/latest/release/nivplus-r2_1.rar

Use Dosbox. I used to love that. No combat, only exploration of billions of worlds. It's aged a whole lot, but still kind of pretty occasionally.

EDIT: Nevermind, it doesn't work on Dosbox or 64-bit windows. I'm sure it works on something.

[eljay]

I wish I could start a new game with my leveled up character and change his class. I can change how he looks, so why not class?

Er..... you can change the class.

[brkl]

Huh, I must have missed that. My brother complained about the same thing.

[brkl]

Nope, you can't change the class of your character if you import an ME2 character from a previous playthrough.

[eljay]

I was given the option to do so when I imported my character, I was tempted to change her to an infiltrator as my original (and lost) character was one but I ended up choosing to stay as an engineer.

EDIT:- Sorry I just realised I misunderstood, you are talking about doing a New Game+ with an existing ME2 character, I thought you were talking about importing an ME1 character ;;

That's a really odd decision on their part.

[brkl]

Yup. You can easily change it with a save game editor, though, which is what I'm going to do.

[Murdoc]

I was given the option to do so when I imported my character, I was tempted to change her to an infiltrator as my original (and lost) character was one but I ended up choosing to stay as an engineer.

EDIT:- Sorry I just realised I misunderstood, you are talking about doing a New Game+ with an existing ME2 character, I thought you were talking about importing an ME1 character ;;

That's a really odd decision on their part.

Man, this and the stuff I found with dragon age, I'm really glad to see the benefits for the pc, but really sad that I prefer mass effect on the consol simply because it's one game that gets me away from the PC for a length of time.

[infovore]

I got it.

I wouldn't say it's so much the specialist, as the leader of the other team. On my second playthrough, Legion survived just fine because the Fire Team leader ordered the team to provide cover fire while the door closed, preventing Legion from accidentally sticking his head out and being shot.

Yep, it depends on both the tech specialist AND the fireteam leader. Tali/Legion are the "right" choices for the vent, IMHO - it requires a pure tech specialist. The fireteam leader needs to be a good leader, not necessarily a good soldier; Zaeed is definitely not your guy. I used Garrus both times for the second team lead, if only because my Shepard and Garrus have this whole Crockett and Tubbs thing going on, and everybody came out fine. All loyalty quests done, but Jack/Zaeed not loyal.

In other news: 21h33, holy shit, that's some game. Loved it to be despite a few niggles I probably ought to write about. Now going around a second time with female Infiltrator started afresh (as opposed to male Soldier imported).

[brkl]

I imported my ME2 guy and fiddled with the save to make him an Infiltrator. Works fine that way, though you need to be careful to get just the correct amount of skill points. If that's what you want. That save will be waiting for me when I want to play it again as a goody two-shoes.

[juv3nal]

Finished it. Did absolutely everything I could find (100% exploration across the board). Clocked at 46 hours and change although that easily could have been less seeing as I had spare resources left over.

Some more thoughts on it:

1) Unlike most other bioware games, I found with ME2 that I liked to mix up who I was going to take with me instead of finding 2 and sticking to them. The only npc that didn't get a turn was Jacob (aside from the beginning when I had no choice plus his loyalty mission). I think this is because the party acquisition was spread out throughout the game instead of being something you do at the beginning so up until the endgame, I was still trying out various party members to see who I preferred.

2) The story suffers a bit for not having a stand-out villain character like the first one.

3) The super quick cooldown on slam is awesome. Sure it's no good against stuff with armor/shields/barrier up, but against husks, you barely have to shoot.

4) Miranda may be dull as a character, but in terms of abilities she rocks. Warp plus Overload on one character plus her party health/damage bonus ability.

5) Played the first time through using my ME1 save as infiltrator which was what I'd used in that one and when I restarted, I did it a few times to try out different classes and I came to the realization that while the infiltrator abilities are nice and all the main reason I took it the first time around (in ME1) was to be able to open/hack/bypass, which everyone can do now. Biotic animations with dudes floating around everywhere are just more fun.

6) That bit when you're sealing the basement when recruiting archangel. That really tight corner with the flamethrower dude behind two cover/barricade things (the left path of the 3 you have to seal). WTF. I've somehow muddled my way through it both times, but is there anyway to do that bit without nearly dying?

[brkl]

You know what I'd like? Dudes flailing around like crazy when you Pull them.

[Squid Division]

One thing I've noticed during my time playing is that while the combat system has been streamlined, it doesn't really force you to learn how to use it like the old, clunky one did. I'm playing through on normal which might have something to do with it, and as a soldier, but a lone soldier shouldn't really be able to just go through the game with relative ease without ever really using the teammates. I think the length of the missions has as much to do with this as the difficulty; it always feels to me like the missions should be like 15 minutes or so longer.

Nice that the random difficulty spikes are gone though (save for whenever a scion or the flying collector show up).

[lobotomy42]

One thing I've noticed during my time playing is that while the combat system has been streamlined, it doesn't really force you to learn how to use it like the old, clunky one did. I'm playing through on normal which might have something to do with it, and as a soldier, but a lone soldier shouldn't really be able to just go through the game with relative ease without ever really using the teammates. I think the length of the missions has as much to do with this as the difficulty; it always feels to me like the missions should be like 15 minutes or so longer.

Nice that the random difficulty spikes are gone though (save for whenever a scion or the flying collector show up).

I got through Mass Effect 1 just fine by mostly ignoring my teammates. Mass Effect 2 is similar in this regard. (I played both on Normal, not any of the higher difficulties.)

Also, I'm playing through Mass Effect 1 again currently. The mission equivalents in ME are indeed longer than their counterparts in ME2, but that's only because there's so much more talking and so much less shooting. (Oh, yeah, and a Mako segment.) If you compare just the stretches where you're shooting to the other stretches where you're shooting, ME2's are definitely longer. The shortened missions in ME2 have as much shooting, I'd guess, as all the shooting segments in one of the main ME planets combined.

Thinking about it now, the ME1 main quest spots do "feel" more substantial, though. I wonder how much of that is the short Mako segments. Do you think breaking the shooting segments up makes it seem like you spend more time shooting than you actually are?

[elmuerte]

One of the best improvements in ME2 is the inventory system.