toblix

Mass Effect 2

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I heard that the Katsumi stuff was pretty good too.

I agree with JonCole, it's irritating to play out of the main sequence. It's not Fallout after all, it's not open world, so DLC is just kind of annoying.

I wish they'd announce how many they were going to make like Bethesda did. That way I could just wait for the last one to come out and buy them all at once.

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Katsumi wasn't interesting at all to do after having finished the game. Maybe it wouldn't been OK to do along with the rest, but it's pretty throwaway.

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I bought 1200 Bioware points, and the Overlord DLC, on a wrong account. Now they are completely useless. :tup:

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Katsumi wasn't interesting at all to do after having finished the game. Maybe it wouldn't been OK to do along with the rest, but it's pretty throwaway.

brkl is right; the Kasumi mission wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special. The view from the bad guy's balcony was nice. Mass Effect 2 should have been that pretty all throughout the game.

Fun fact: The bad guy has the head of the Statue of Liberty in his secret vault of secrets. I guess he took it from that storeroom on Liberty Island following the events of Deus Ex 2. And somehow it gets reattached and buried in time for Planet of the Apes.

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Oh, one more thing about the Kasumi mission—I honestly can't imagine playing it as male Shepard.

The mission starts out at a high-class party. Female Shepard looks appropriate in a cocktail dress, but male Shepard must look like a meathead with a bow tie. Especially the default Shepard—there's nothing about him that says suave socialite.

Mass Effect is now primarily a dating sim soap opera in space. Male Shepard needs some serious fashion tips.

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I bought 1200 Bioware points, and the Overlord DLC, on a wrong account. Now they are completely useless. :tup:

Did you buy them on someone else's Xbox? Because I've always been able to use DLC that my housemate bought / unlocked for his account and vice versa (Including some ME2 DLC).

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Did you buy them on someone else's Xbox? Because I've always been able to use DLC that my housemate bought / unlocked for his account and vice versa (Including some ME2 DLC).

No. I have the PC version. For some reason I had at some point created two EA/Bioware accounts and accidentally used the wrong one on OS X to purchase the DLC. I could log in with that account on Mass Effect 2 and activate the DLC if it wasn't for the fact that I had activated the Cerberus Network stuff on my other account. I can't open a save game while using that other account because of Zaeed and the other Cerberus stuff.

It might all be under control now, though. EA customer service guy said he could transfer the DLC to my other account and just needed some more information.

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The Bioware site is confusing as hell. Every time I want to get a DLC I have to figure out how the hell it's supposed to work all over again.

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Got the DLC thing sorted out.. eyy. :tup: Things with EA customer service went suprisingly smoothly.

One thing that really started to bother me at some point of the game just came to my mind: Space Messiah Superstar Shepard. Jesus Chris, I don't know if I met anyone in the galaxy that didn't already know who I was. And most of them either wanted my help or me dead. That would still have been okay, but the fact that Legion, a geth

who still cling to a piece of Shepard's N7 armor

couldn't give a satisfactory answer as to why it had done so, and thus suggested that its actions are

affected by emotion when it comes to Shepard

was a bit too much for me.

I hope the Normandy has enough room for the gigantic golden statue of me in Mass Effect 3.

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I heard that the Katsumi stuff was pretty good too.

I agree with JonCole, it's irritating to play out of the main sequence. It's not Fallout after all, it's not open world, so DLC is just kind of annoying.

I wish they'd announce how many they were going to make like Bethesda did. That way I could just wait for the last one to come out and buy them all at once.

Yeah, this is the reason I haven't bought any DLC yet, and I'm still not sure if I will. I played the free DLC missions after completing the game, and it just didn't feel right. The story's too important to ignore.

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I can't believe I'm going to buy more stupid Mass Effect 2 DLC.

Lair of the Shadow Broker

Judging by that trailer, our Countdown To Asari Tears ends on September 7th.

I'm replaying Mass Effect 2 right now on Insanity difficulty as douchebag male Shepard. Perhaps instead of sleazing on every woman in sight, I'll keep him faithful to Liara. So out of character!

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My girlfriend plays a fair amount of games, but not much that people would generally consider part of the "hardcore" fare. I bought her Mass Effect 1 during some Steam sale a long time ago and she recently just decided to try it out... resulting in a 30+ hour playthrough in less than a week. She bought Mass Effect 2 immediately and honestly has been talking to me about it practically non-stop, which made me want to play again.

So, I'm playing Mass Effect 1 again with playthrough 2 of my renegade character... I'm hoping to grab another couple ME1 achievements and have a good character to import for a renegade run of ME2 (since my first one turned up being a paragon one). I'm just trying to figure out how much of a superdouche I want to be... so far, I really haven't given Ashley or Liara the time of day but I'm considering getting with one of them just so I can cheat on them in ME2.

Anyways, that was a stream of consciousness with no real point, but maybe there's something interesting there.

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Pretty much the same thing happened to me. My girlfriend played through Fallout 3, and wanted another game to play. She had played through ME1 when it came out, but on my account. So she decided to play through ME2 on her old save on my account, then decided that she wanted her own character, and played through ME1 and is almost done with 2 again.

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I'm not sure if you can call what you do to Ashley cheating. I guess you don't officially break up (I don't remember if there's an option to do that), but I would if I could. She's already come to terms with your death and says she's moved on. I haven't seen what happens if you meet up with Liara after she shacks up with you in one. I guess she never gives up on you being dead, since she goes after the shadow broker for your body. She might honestly believe that after she's gotten her revenge, that she can return to a normal relationship.

I know they've said that if you've gotten with a ME1 girl, and then hooked up with someone else in 2, there will be consquences in 3 for being a womanizer or whatever. It strikes me as something that doesn't make all that much sense.

While I'm being a curmudgeon baby, I might as well mention that I'm not a fan of Bioware's list of DLC for Mass Effect 2. It's getting to the point that when I buy all of the story stuff it will end up costing enough to justify a more meaty expansion pack. Especially for a game like ME2 where I'm gonna want a run to include all that stuff before the sequel comes out. It's my main problem with DLC, one I had with the Fallout 3 stuff after it all came out. It seemed very silly to pay the price of the game over for 5 pieces that don't total up to the fallout 3 experience.

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I played Mass Effect 2 for the first time 4 weeks ago, and was blown away by how vast and immersive the game is. I turned it on at about 10:30 on a friday evening and by 1:00 the following Monday I had logged 42 hours in the game. This is not typical of my gaming habits, but that was a damn fine game.

This was a feat which simultaneously filled me with pride and shame.... lol

I had loaded a previous character from ME1, which made the earlier levels a little easier, but I really liked how the choices you made in one affected you in 2. Also, I would like to echo my frustration that was talked about on the podcast about the "ashley" character where you don't get to explain not having contact info.

Als, on a side note, I want an achievement for sleeping with all three women in the game. maybe a "player" achievement. I first got with jack, then Miranda and after the final mission, "kept it professional" with Miranda, then got with Tali. My character was a whore, but I wasn't sure it could be pulled off. I guess only because the last mission had been finished.

Anywho, great solid game, and the voice overs were really amazing.

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Some stats posted on IGN from BioWare's data mining:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1118657p1.html

One interesting thing that came out was that PC players were more likely to complete the Miranda loyalty mission, and Xbox players were more likely to complete the Grunt loyalty mission. Is that a representation of the different population's personalities, or more the privacy factor of playing on the PC? I mean if you were inclined to get in on some Miranda sexy time action by the awkward all-male mocap team, you may want some privacy.

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Statistics are not fit making conclusions; they are just measurements.

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I finished the game for the first time tonight, and I don't know how to articulate how I feel about it, so I'll just let it all roll out.

I'm not big into rpg's, but the recent gamersgate sale and a friend [who is huge into rpg's] were enough to convince me to grab it. In terms of story, having not played ME1 I did feel lost at times whenever my previous exploits were mentioned by crew or random civilians. The characters and voice acting pulled me in and I really enjoyed it on that level, even if the story is typical sci-fi action movie fare. It makes me want to go back and play the first Mass Effect. I don't think I can watch Chuck the same way again at the very least. One thing I can say is that I didn't like that the 'choices' offered have little effect on things outside of the situation immediately at hand (and the one choice I did regret never came up off the Normandy). I mean, I openly slaughter thousands of enemies and fuck people over, but that doesn't seem to change how I'm perceived or close/open different avenues to my character. As someone who enjoys the linear experience over sandbox approach (most of the time) I don't know why this bothers me so much. It felt fake, I guess.

As I'm not one with a deep history of RPG games of any kind (basically The Witcher and a few runs through Diablo2 with friends back in the day), I don't know how many of them feel like TPS's, but this certainly did. I may get lambasted for it, but my initial reaction was 'this feels like a watered down 3rd person homage to Deus Ex'. Things I wished were different: wanted to command a team larger than 3. 3 people just felt.... I dunno, too small. Still, until I had to start probing planets for platinum/iridium on a regular basis near the end I never felt like things got boring. Repetitive? Definitely. I would have enjoyed more variety in approaching a mission (like say stealth or sneaking about, being able to pilot the ship/rovers). Samara's daughter was probably the most interesting mission simply because I had to rely on my wits to achieve my goal not my gun. Weapon loadout was basically a joke. There were very few discernible differences between what weapons a character used. Of course I might have missed something along the way that nullifies this complaint.

I may sound like I didn't enjoy my play through with those thoughts, but I really did. I don't think I've powered through a game from install to end credits so quickly (not since Half-life 2 likely). It got its hooks in me with the characters pretty much from the get-go and I wanted to enjoy the ride and find out where it was going (even if it was easy to see the curves and loops coming most of the time). I'll probably play through it a couple more times at a much slower pace to see the different relationship outcomes/keeping Miranda alive. It wasn't much of what I traditionally think of as an rpg, but it was fun and I'd play a sequel.

Edited by Gabbo

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I was lead to believe it was. It solves a lot of my issues if it's not.

Bioware claims it is, and the obnoxious major gaming sites all do as well. As far as I can tell, the major reasons for calling it an RPG are:

1) It's heavy on the story component

2) It's made by Bioware, who specializes in RPGs

3) It's the sequel to Mass Effect, which was much more arguably an RPG than Mass Effect 2

4) You can, technically, select different classes and assign some skill points in class-specific abilities

But, yeah, I'm kind of with you. ME2 is much more a shooter than anything else, with lots of dialogue and few decision-tree points thrown in.

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Bioware claims it is, and the obnoxious major gaming sites all do as well. As far as I can tell, the major reasons for calling it an RPG are:

1) It's heavy on the story component

2) It's made by Bioware, who specializes in RPGs

3) It's the sequel to Mass Effect, which was much more arguably an RPG than Mass Effect 2

4) You can, technically, select different classes and assign some skill points in class-specific abilities

But, yeah, I'm kind of with you. ME2 is much more a shooter than anything else, with lots of dialogue and few decision-tree points thrown in.

It's definitely a hybrid, with an emphasis on interactions and combat. DoW II is as much of an RPG as ME2, with progression and equipment.

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<snip>

Yeah that's sort of what I was going in with. It doesn't make my issues go away now that I think about it. They still seem like faults, but now I understand why it lacks what I feel are certain rpg staples.

Is the first ME any different? Gamersgate seems to want me to buy into Bioware as of late.

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Is the first ME any different? Gamersgate seems to want me to buy into Bioware as of late.

The first one has more of the elements you have come to expect from RPGs, most of which actually make the game worse than the sequel gameplaywise. The dice-roll shooting is frustrating and stupid; the equipment management is horrible and you will soon drown in useless weapons and power-ups; there are too many things to upgrade on level-ups, etc.

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In ME you're getting xp on an enemy per enemy, and action basis, none of the Doom style end of level score lists existed, although at the end of quests you'd get some epilogue text. The skills are have more breadth and depth. I actually think it's a bit too granular in terms of the number of points and upgrades, but I much prefer the number of skills each class has. There are skills for renegade and paragon convincing separately, and I always dislike those, because for story purposes you always want the maximum amount, so I prefer the way your ability to charm or intimidate is just tied to your amount of Paragon or Renegade morale in ME2. The interrupt system is a big addition as well. Also, salvaging and door hacking is tied to a skill level, so you'll want an engineer to deal with that if you don't have the skill maxed out yourself. I always had Tali with me to deal with that stuff. The way skills work in ME are a lot more combinable, since they all have their own cool down. You can lift and push right after each other without any waiting. I really prefer that, but otherwise the combat is a lot smoother in ME2, and the ability to intelligently curve biotics is a big improvement. In the first game there was no thermal clips. In the ME world guns shoot by shaving an infintessimally small needle off of a mass and launching it a high speeds so ammo is never an issue, but in the first game each shot would increase heat up to an overheat point, at which you had to wait for your gun to vent. This also tied into skills like overload, that would cause a meaningful overheat period for your enemies. It was very possible, by learning to control your rate of fire, to fire a gun forever, and there were skills and weapon mods that would mitigate heat to let you fire more rapidly. There was risk reward between damage and heat, with some mods/guns adding damage for less heat control. The ammo and gun mods also allowed you to customize based on what opposition you think you're facing, shredder rounds for humans, armor piercing for robots or geth, force mods for your shotguns for more punch. All in all it was a lot of interesting systems, but the interfaces were not easy to explore (specifically the inventory) and that caused issues.

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