Mass Effect 2

[Murdoc]

When did they even say CIC in Mass Effect 2? I never noticed anyway.

Wasn't it the main floor of the Normandy? I think it stated that in the elevator and they mentioned it whenever anything happened there.

[Coldkill]

I played through 3 or 4 times and managed to save my entire crew. There is actually a formula for keeping your crew alive:

Use Jack or Samara as the Biotic Shield, use Garrus as the squad leader both times and use Grunt to escort the Normandy crew back to the ship. Legion or Tali can be used in the pipes as long as you've got Garrus as the leader.

I'm really wishing I could play as Legion, I find it the most interesting character, especially with the back story on the Geth.

Also, to keep both Jack and Miranda loyal, you need around 90% Paragon/Renegade at level 20, if you don't have it, you'll loose the one that isn't loyal

I'm now left with nothing left to do in the game, but with the ability to carry on playing .

[Korax]

I played through 3 or 4 times and managed to save my entire crew. There is actually a formula for keeping your crew alive:

Use Jack or Samara as the Biotic Shield, use Garrus as the squad leader both times and use Grunt to escort the Normandy crew back to the ship. Legion or Tali can be used in the pipes as long as you've got Garrus as the leader.

I'm really wishing I could play as Legion, I find it the most interesting character, especially with the back story on the Geth.

Also, to keep both Jack and Miranda loyal, you need around 90% Paragon/Renegade at level 20, if you don't have it, you'll loose the one that isn't loyal

I'm now left with nothing left to do in the game, but with the ability to carry on playing .

Don't forget loyalties.

It doesn't matter if you choose Garrus as Fire Team leader if the technician isn't loyal. They'll still take a blast in the face.

I also wish that I had more time with Legion. I was actually a bit surprised with the Geth back story.

[Marek]

So, question, how are you supposed to know that you need to assign

Garrus

to the fire team? What information about this character do you as the player have to make that decision? Same with sending back

Grunt

to the Normandy.

[Sombre]

So, question, how are you supposed to know that you need to assign

Garrus

to the fire team? What information about this character do you as the player have to make that decision? Same with sending back

Grunt

to the Normandy.

I think it's a inherent "lore" thing to be honest. We know he's been a big turian leader in his past, and there's a VERY brief line as you recruit him. And I think grunt just ate your people

[Korax]

So, question, how are you supposed to know that you need to assign

Garrus

to the fire team? What information about this character do you as the player have to make that decision? Same with sending back

Grunt

to the Normandy.

It's also not specifically Garrus or Grunt. Miranda will work as the team leader, and I've had success with both Jacob and Mordin leading the crew back. There are "correct" choices, but it's not limited to only one character.

[Erwin_Br]

Finished it today, after I bought and finished ME1 the week before. Heh.

Anyway, this time I spent much more time on side missions, and also invested in and fully upgraded the ship, most of the weapons and armor. I finished the game with a level 25 Shepard, and

saved every crewmember

.

I've got 50 hours on the clock, but I left the game running several times when having dinner or watching TV.

I'm very curious how they'll continue Mass Effect 3.

[lobotomy42]

It's also not specifically Garrus or Grunt. Miranda will work as the team leader, and I've had success with both Jacob and Mordin leading the crew back. There are "correct" choices, but it's not limited to only one character.

I'm almost positive that *any* loyal crewmember will work as the escort.

For the escort, Garrus, Miranda and Jake will all work.

For the biotic, Samara and Jack will work.

For the techie, either Tali or Legion will work.

In *all* cases, the crewmember must be loyal, though, or else either he/she will die, or someone they're supposed to be helping will die.

Also, non-loyal characters may die randomly at end, and for some reason, Mordin seems to die randomly regardless of loyalty.

[infovore]

I think it has something to do with this being one of the first generations of humans to be in open space. The amount of progress we have made according to the fiction is phenomenal, especially when compared to the other species in the universe.

Not sure it is, really: the biggest leap other species have is innate biotic powers. Beyond that: it's made quite clear that pretty much every species in the universe has stumbled on Prothean technology, and that's how the great leap forward happened. The asari just happened to get there first, that's all - they've had 2000 years of dicking around with the Mass Relays and the Citadel. Granted, they might have had neater spaceships when they found their first Prothean tech... but the long and the short of it - and one of the key themes of the trilogy imho - is that every race in the ME universe has had some kind of "great leap forward", based upon Prothean technology. I like how near future the game is - it's a reminder of just how colossal the influence of mass effect technolgoy is - but humans are just the most recent race to make that leap, not the only ones.

I wouldn't be surprised if one (potential) outcome to the series was Shepard turning off the mass relay network; the Prothean tech is how the Reapers maintain their influence, and one potential outcome is to say "we have to discover this stuff for ourselves, we can't just leap forward by borrowing somebody else's inventions that we don't really understand". And so, until that point, no more Mass Relays. I would not want that to be the only ending, but I think it'd make sense as one.

[Murdoc]

I dunno, i sent Miranda as team leader both times and used Morinth(Samara) as the shield. I assume if I used Tali or Legion for the pipes everyone would survive, but I hated Jacob and he did volunteer after all.\

Everyone was loyal... though I have to say this was an odd system. I liked the idea of it, but really the only way someone wouldn't be loyal to you is if you were lazy and didn't want to do the games content. It would maybe be interesting if you could only have x amount crew members loyalty. A split in loyalty could trigger whether they take orders or not and may result in their death. For example: I was sure the whole Cerberus vs you thing was going to happen, that they were going to screw you over and if Jacob and Miranda wasn't loyal would turn on you too.

Also with all the little details of the quantum communications thingy with the Illussive man, I'm surprised that didn't come up. I expected that if a quantum thingy exists in two places at once(Normandy and Illusive Man) that one of us would screw it with it and blow each other up or something. But maybe that's for the third.

Still curious as to how they plan on doing the third and keep it fresh with new crew/ship/etc. Nothing says it has to happen and honestly I'd rather then explore the character we currently have in the ship we have; but again how do you keep the game fresh, what excuse is it going to have to strip me of my powers and shit? Hopefully the awesome answer is; they don't, I'd like to see them deal with a game like that.

[lobotomy42]

Still curious as to how they plan on doing the third and keep it fresh with new crew/ship/etc. Nothing says it has to happen and honestly I'd rather then explore the character we currently have in the ship we have; but again how do you keep the game fresh, what excuse is it going to have to strip me of my powers and shit? Hopefully the awesome answer is; they don't, I'd like to see them deal with a game like that.

The level cap in ME1 was 60. In ME2, the level cap is currently 30. I think that's telling.

[Erwin_Br]

If I remember correctly, the ceo of BioWare said in an interview with Joystiq that they want players to be able to keep their level from ME2 and adjust the game's difficulty accordingly in ME3.

[Jaraknarn]

The level cap in ME1 was 60. In ME2, the level cap is currently 30. I think that's telling.

yer, i found that quite annoying, especially when u purchase an extra power, coz im on my second play through an i reached the level cap and i need another third more points to purchase all the ranks, which seems really stupid to me and is a problem that a lot of games with similar leveling systems seem to include, u should be able to gain enough points to fully upgrade ur character, i know it makes u make choices about wat u invest in but man, when ur playing it on insanity or hardcore u just want every advantage u can get ur hands on!

[Murdoc]

The level cap in ME1 was 60. In ME2, the level cap is currently 30. I think that's telling.

Yeah but the skills and trees are much, much, much smaller though. And I guess with out an inventory system they don't have to worry about that, but you bring up a good point. I wonder if some of the design feels limited because it'll allow them to play it out in the next.

[elmuerte]

Do levels even matter in ME?

The game completely lacks stats. "5% more health" sounds quite arbitrary when there is no health indication anywhere, or information about how much damage things do.

[Jaraknarn]

Do levels even matter in ME?

The game completely lacks stats. "5% more health" sounds quite arbitrary when there is no health indication anywhere, or information about how much damage things do.

There is actually a health stat, its next to ur abilities purchase screen when u go onto squad, to the left, its just a number, but ur right, it doesn't serve any real purpose when u cant monitor it in game, although it did take me a while to notice the red health bar at the bottom of the screen, but that was mostly because of the cod edge of screen blood vein things, i always love a good ol health bar tho

[Irishjohn]

So now I'm seeing Mass Effect 2 advertised online with the tagline "Fight for the Lost."

I finished the game already (for the first time anyway) and I'm a happy owner, but I'm still cringing when I see weird interview type shots of Grunt or Jack saying "I don't care about humans, I'm here to fight!" kind of crap. Maybe I just need to get out more. Or learn to ignore advertising.

[Murdoc]

So now I'm seeing Mass Effect 2 advertised online with the tagline "Fight for the Lost."

I finished the game already (for the first time anyway) and I'm a happy owner, but I'm still cringing when I see weird interview type shots of Grunt or Jack saying "I don't care about humans, I'm here to fight!" kind of crap. Maybe I just need to get out more. Or learn to ignore advertising.

Yeah, it's pretty poor; the worst I saw was the thing on gametrailers. At the end of the day though I can only imagine the same mutants that handle ME2 handled Dragon Age, so I'll consider myself lucky with what came out of ME2 advertising.

[elmuerte]

Just finished Mordin's loyalty mission. Awesome atmosphere. And finally good and proper musical support as I experienced a couple of times in Mass Effect 1.

[liquid]

Just started, 3 hours in. No one mentioned the problems of the game. Everyone kept saying "whatever you didn't like in the first one, it's fixed here". Not true at all. I guess someone here has mentioned them, but the game feels like a complete console port. The UI, lack of shortcuts and other (poor, imo) design decisions really bring the game down for me. BioWare shouldn't have made the PC version of this one.

[JonCole]

Just started, 3 hours in. No one mentioned the problems of the game. Everyone kept saying "whatever you didn't like in the first one, it's fixed here". Not true at all. I guess someone here has mentioned them, but the game feels like a complete console port. The UI, lack of shortcuts and other (poor, imo) design decisions really bring the game down for me. BioWare shouldn't have made the PC version of this one.

Well, the reason I didn't mention problems is that I bought the 360 version. Guilt absolved!

[elmuerte]

It wasn't mentioned? I thought it was, that's why I didn't say anything.

I'm still double clicking on things, or scrolling the wheel, just to figure out it doesn't work that way.

[mikemariano]

This weekend I did a loyalty mission and brought Jack along for support. During a break in the fighting, the other character said something like, "It looks like these people were trying to do this important thing. But something went wrong."

Jack added: "Shit happens."

Her tone was exactly like Duke Nukem's.

Time for Bioware to buy the rights to Duke Nukem Forever and toss in our favorite Subject Zero!

[brkl]

BioWare shouldn't have made the PC version of this one.

What, if you can't enjoy it none of us should?

[liquid]

No, I meant that they shouldn't have done the PC version. The guys that ported the first ME should have.