Nepenthe

I realy hope this is not the deal, else we get some retarded gangrape of the original IP with overhilarious marketing, ridiculous antisecondhand sales features and NPCs asking for your creditcard numbers selling the newest DLC with special nut armor for your hero... Similar arrangement as with Brutal Legend etc, I assume. And I'm assured the "artistic intent" of that game was completely intact.

At least it's different from the ME1 boss. Having to fight an uber-avatar of the Harbinger at the end would've been an even worse call. Of course, now they've pulled One Winged Angel and giant scenery monster on us, so it does kind of rise the question what kind of clich

Jacob? I never got the impression he could be a good leader - you certain he works for that role? I picked Jacob the first time around - for some reason he felt the second best choice after Miri, I guess I wasn't thinking about Garrus at the time. So yeah, I know from personal experience that he works, at least when picked for the tech spec phase. Never used him twice, so there could be some other arcane formula that makes him/Samara work the first time, but require you to use Miranda/Garrus for the second bit.

I used Samara as a leader for my first playthrough, worked out fine. O_o First I've heard.

No, you needed to use Garrus/Miranda/Jacob as the leader of the second team the first time around.

It's going to be almost impossible to knock all 3 of them off now without killing someone else, too (although Zaeed's not exactly unwelcome on the hit list), because I've done all the loyalty quests, but not Legion's yet, since I just got him (does he have one, though)? What if I put Jacob as the tech specialist? Despite loyalty, he isn't cut for the job, so that could end... well. I'm guessing Miranda and Jack would survive either one of holding the line or being the biotic specialist, though, even though they wouldn't be the best option for the job. I could deliberately not upgrade the ship to a strong level and hope that they get killed that way, but there's no way of knowing who would be killed as far as I'm aware. Legion has a loyalty quest. Jacob dies as a tech spec. Miranda is not good as the biotic spec (she's a sentinel, not a full biotic) - "not good", of course depends on what you're aiming for. Jack, OTOH, is one of the two "best" choices for biotic spec. Again "Good" specialists Tech: Tali, Legion Leader: Miranda, Jacob, Garrus Biotic: Samara, Jack, And as we know now, the "hold the line" group is a crapshoot. With max loyalty it's possible to send Zaeed away, grab Samara and Miranda for the final confrontation and still have everybody survive. Guess loyal Thane, Grunt, Legion and Garrus are enough to keep the squishies alive, too.

Yes - and let me tell you, having the game on the PS3, with still no news of even Return to Ostagar, that's not working too well. I have serious doubts future bio games will get ported to the PS3 - or if they do, I'm pretty sure they'll get the same red-headed stepchild treatment this one has. Too bad, I still prefer it over the ugly off-white/gray screamer.

The way some people talk about "random deaths" during the first part of the mission (tech spec/2nd team), I'm starting to wonder if the timer's visible just on the x360 version

Looks like my initial assessment (Mordin survival depends on who else is holding the line) was correct. Fancy that.

He was fine... except he's a krogan. I mean, the whole "KILL! MAIM! MURDER!" thing applied to an entire culture is quite silly. I remember than in ME1, Ash and Wrex have an Elevator Convo, and Wrex specifically mocks this krogan stereotyping. Sounded promising, but Bio chose to take the easy path and reduce krogan to multi-gonad Klingons. And since Grunt is the UBER krogan, he ends up being uber silly. So... what you're saying is that she's exactly the kind of person you'd expect TIM to choose to watch his multi-billion cred investment? I liked her precisely for that. These were my impressions as well (including pretty much agreeing with mah Man Jags on the rest). 'cept Jack doesn't provoke any strong feelings in me, thae fact that she's in a hard-to-reach (well, relatively) area of the ship just makes it easier to ignore her. Miranda, though, I like a lot. Not just for the stripperific outfit, but the fact that the whole epic boobage, bootage and bodypaint uniform also apparently give her some serious self-esteem issues - best of the "daddy issue" quests, too imho. The fact that there's quite a bit of the amazingly gorgeous and superbly sexy-voiced and accented Yvonne Strahovski there is just the icing on the cake. Garrus and Tali were kind of thin in ME1, but come to their full potential here, and Mordin and Legion are just made of awesome. Jacob is just meh, I guess if I'd played ME: Galaxy, I might care a bit more, but now he's basically just a reference to a stupid handheld game I haven't played with little to bring to the table this time around. Thane and Grunt I actively dislike (pouty estrogen brigade bait with flashbacks and family issues, caricature krogan), Samara brings little to the table apart from being mechanically a really good character and having epic cleavage (though, taking the other path through her loyalty quest on this second playthrough might make it a bit more interesting). Zaeed - just feels a total let-down, especially after the way Shale showed us how a proper DLC NPC can be done... Happily I can just stick to the NPCs I like, use the ones I am indifferent to and pretty much ignore the two-three I really don't like.

Apart from the fact that itunes hasn't had music DRM in, well, ages, I guess he has a few good points.

Considering the list of the best games of the decade they just made, apparently truth is something they aren't really on speaking terms with.

Fair enough, valid points. For me, the tediousness functioned as an automatic limiter - I only did them when I absolutely felt I needed to get something. And in the end, when I had the Prima guide with the planet resource list, when I wanted to max out some research. As for the dialogue wheel, I prefer it when it comes to fully-voiced PC dialogue. Gives me a reason to listen to it as well as picking the line - but when it comes to choosing between wheel+fully voiced and full lines+no voicing, I do not have a personal preference. The AP stance system might be an interesting take on it, on a conceptual level it seems like it could be (even) better.

Considering the amount of studios they have at the moment (4, right?), and having at least 2 teams at the Edmonton studio, with just one MMORPG and 2 current franchises, I don't even think it's that fast. Seems a bit quick for DAO, tbh, but I'm pretty sure they want to get the third ME out sooner rather than later, as they don't want to hit the twilight of the current gen consoles.

I just get the urge to point out that 1) it might not be perfect, or even good, but at least there is an actual economy this time around, unlike in ME1 and 2) I did not end up with excess resources - because I only gathered them up at the rate I needed them. Not sure who's holding the gun to people's heads and forcing them to gather all the stuff in advance. Or if you leave him holding the line. Of course, some people have him die even with 100 % team loyalty, but the chap lived just fine for me.

And at that point of the post I started laughing and moved on.

Thanks for the review, thanks for saving me some money.

Combat Drone is one of those powers that seems to work a lot better when you're at the receiving end of it. And on insanity. And when half a dozen blue suns are zeroed on you.

If you die, there is no end-game save, AFAIK. So that Shepard's story ends right there, with no sequel to it. That's been the official version the whole time, any reports to the contrary have clearly been wishful thinking (that I kind of share. But I guess replacing 'Shepard' with 'Verner' in the VOs would result in too many lines...)

Only if you ain't romancing nobody else and have taken her to dinner earlier. If you prefer the red-headed shrink (and I know I do), you just have to tell your current squeeze to take a hike and the e-mail'll show up. Just save before, in case it's more complicated than that

Can't really accept you as the genre qualification specialist, if you can't tell first and third person apart.

I think he did a pretty good job with the Throne of Bhaal score. I haven't heard anything as good from him ever since.

I imported a new ME1 character after beating the game once, and also got the 50k material in all. Also, after hammering my head to the wall during Mordin's recruitment mission, things have been running a lot smoother. Ran completely out of ammo once, that was interesting, especially with a soldier. Purgatory gave me a lot of trouble last time on normal, waltzed through it on insanity now. I must be warming up.

Technically, the SMG is meant to be good against shields, but not so great against armor.. While the Assault Rifle is meant to be equally good against shields , armor, and health. Plus it works better to pick them off at longer range and is a bit more steady if you're ripping off long bursts at the enemy. If I needed to go through armour, I tended to switch over to the hand cannon. That thing ate up armour like it wasn't there. It does, but the battle rifle is a decent go-to multitool weapon. On normal, I found myself mostly rotating between it and the SMG, depending on the expected engagement distance, as with AP ammo the SMG wasn't too shabby, either. btw. Insanity + early game + regenerating vorcha&krogans = major hair-pulling.

No, it does not replace the SMGs. And with my play style, the extra punch & especially accuracy at mid-long range from the battle rifle was really useful.