Mass Effect 2

[Maria Caliban]

Right. Like DA, ME 2 is having problems with downloading and registration. I assume that like DA it will take 3-7 days before everything is fixed.

 

Feed your fish after EVERY mission. If someone says, "You need to talk to companion X or important person Y," feed your fish before hand. Some conversations will lead immedately to missions.

If we do that, do we get the "Summon Bigger Fish" ability?

 

No. I was just very sad when I came in from a mission to find a bunch of dead fish.

[RPGmasterBoo]

No. I was just very sad when I came in from a mission to find a bunch of dead fish.

 

[Wrath of Dagon]

Mass Effect 2 is far superior to Mass Effect in regards to gameplay, story-telling, and squadmates. It's possibly the most linear BioWare game since Jade Empire though.

What do you mean by linear? How's JE more linear than other Bio games? You get a good/evil way to resolve each problem, or do you mean something else?

[Maria Caliban]

You can also buy a space hamster.

[RPGmasterBoo]

You can also buy a space hamster.

 

I know.

 

Its infuriating.

 

 

 

PS People: While I wait for Me2 is there any program that can load my save file and tell me what my character's level and other stats are? I cant be bothered to install the game again.

Edited January 26, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[Raithe]

You can also buy a space hamster.

 

There had to be a hamster somewhere....

[Pop]

Someone at bioforums posted what benefits he got when he imported level 50 Shep from ME1:

 

For importing a (full or almost full, got the 75% acheiv) Paragon, level 50, when I started, I got:

+2000 exp (start at level 3)

+30000 credits

+5000 Element Zero (eezo)

+5000 Iridium

+5000 Palladium

+5000 Platinum

+190 Paragon

+19 Renegade

 

And for having the Rich Achievement:

+100000 Credits

Not bad.

Kinda tough to judge what any of that means without knowing how quickly you would earn that XP normally, what all the minerals & credits can be used for, and how much of each is considered "a lot." The alignment points are particularly confusing-- what is that on a scale of?

Having beaten the game, I can tell you that the added resources at the start of the game are a big help. One of the things that ME2 does pretty well that a lot of games don't is the balancing of currency and resources. There's not a lot of stuff to buy, but most of it is incredibly expensive, and you generally acculumate enough cash for one or two upgrades per mission.

 

Anyway now that the game's actually out and nobody's going to go Nurse Ratchet on me, non-spoiler review!

 

Pros:

- Combat is much improved. I've got to hand it to the lady who designed the system but it actually works pretty well, and the Soldier will probably turn out to be more useful than we all believed he would be - the weapons have relatively distinct strengths and drawbacks, and as far as I can tell only the assault rifle works against all types of defense. Direct damage powers (incinerate, throw, etc.) only have their intended effect when all defenses are destroyed and the enemy is left with only their health bar, but in the meantime they do some damage to defenses. Tech and Biotics both have powers specifically designed for reducing defenses as well.

 

- Pace. It's good, and varies a bit. As a whole it feels a lot more like KOTOR than ME, and that's good.

 

- Characters are all pretty well done, the adverts were always bull**** meant to draw in the Halo crowds. Subject Zero and especially Grunt are not nearly as ridiculous as they might seem initially. Mordin remains the best character.

 

- Exploring planets is now a bit better. You don't do any exploring of worlds ala ME1, instead you scour the planet using a sensor and send probes to collect resources. It's not bad, usually takes no more than a few minutes per planet. "Anomalies" that you investigate are relegated to approximately one planet per star system (there are several in a cluster) and in general these are about as robust as the side missions in ME1 which is to say they're usually boring.

 

- Jennifer Hale is great as Shepard. Meer is ehhh.

 

Cons:

 

- I'm disappointed by the "Loyalty" system. They played this part up a whole bunch but since there's no influence system to speak of, it ends up just like any other Bioware game, wherein you go out and go on missions that are of personal interest to your squad and they get "loyal" when you complete them. It's not really bad, it's just a letdown since they made it seem like gaining trust would be, you know, hard. These side missions are actually quite robust otherwise, about as lengthy and involved as a core path mission.

 

- The inventory system's a letdown too. Maybe it's just the way Bioware's conditioned me, but it doesn't seem right somehow when I'm 80% through the game and I'm still using the submachine gun I started the game with. Far as I can tell there are three different variations per weapon type you can use (aside from heavy weapons, of which there are 5) and I'm tired of the machine pistol.

 

- No Lance Henriksen.

 

All in all this is probably the most consistently good game they've put out since Baldur's Gate II, and in my opinion it's much, much better than Dragon Age.

 

One of the things that kind of annoyed me about the unending Talking Points promotions for ME2 (do Bioware and Obsidz use the same PR people? Because games seem to really be all about the message now) was the whole emphasis on the "SUICIDE MISSION" but by golly just when you're getting complacent Bioware did a really good job of actually raising the stakes. They also instituted choice and consequence satisfactorily - Not to get into spoilers, but there was a point at which I was given the choice to either undertake a mission or do my own thing for a little while longer. Knowing how ingratiating to the player Bioware tends to be, I figured that I could go and neglect the core path for a bit and come back and nothing will change, but it turned out that my decision not to act quickly had actual consequences. Which was a nice surprise.

[Enoch]

Thanks, Pop, although you're either a gaming savant or a dirty stinkin' pirate.

 

This: "Subject Zero and especially Grunt are not nearly as ridiculous as they might seem initially. Mordin remains the best character." was particularly good to hear.

 

I have passed the first test: Getting the ******* **** DVD package open. Will install momentarily.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Good review, I might have to get it after all.

[RPGmasterBoo]

What's the playing time for 95% thoroughness Pop? (or Maria)

 

My playing time for almost total completion of ME was barely above 20 hours.

 

Facepalm: the DLC's have already been unofficially released. How did they get their hands on them so fast?

Edited January 27, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[Calax]

I played a bit (about an hour overall) and thus far I've been having fun but was a bit annoyed that my better save profile (58 infiltrator) was renegade, I thought I know i had done paragon specifically for that purpose.

 

That said, the intro is fairly well done, and I'm loving martin sheen as one of the voice actors. I feel a little tingle down my spine when he talks

[Pop]

What's the playing time for 95% thoroughness Pop? (or Maria)

Well, in general each core mission is 1 hour, every recruitment mission is 1 hour, and every "loyalty" mission is 1 hour.

 

Intro = 1 1/2 hours

Recruitment missions ( - Miranda and Jacob, who you start with) = 8 hours

"Loyalty" missions = 10 hours

Core Path Missions = 4 hours or so (?)

Side Missions = ?

 

So blowing through it, around 22 hours or so. I can take a look at my final save when I get home.

[Jaesun]

ok MAN that opening was fracking AWESOME! <3 Now just gotta get used to these new controls and stuff.

[Enoch]

Damn, the Zaeed download is almost half a gig. Should've started that before I ate dinner.

[Calax]

seems like alot of the early DLC is problematic

[~Di]

Where's the Garrus love scene?

 

Oh, wait...

 

Right...

 

OMG! That's just so damned... wrong. Where the hell is Kaidan??

[Pidesco]

I'm more appalled by the awful dialogue than the implication of interspecies horizontal mambo.

[~Di]

I'm more appalled by the awful dialogue than the implication of interspecies horizontal mambo.

 

At least pick a species that didn't evolve from a damned bug! The only thing worse would be a romance with Wrex! And yeah, the dialogue sucked big time.

[Enoch]

As I've said before, the ideal Garrus love encounter should have involved him spawning a facehugger to do the deed.

 

 

 

Also, Cerberus clearly took some liberties in giving FemShep a couple of non-essential enhancements.

[Purkake]

Yeah they overdid the whole terminator thing. What were they thinking!?

 

[jaguars4ever]

The frame rate is uber optimized.

 

ME2 is running 15-20 FPS faster than ME1 on my rig.

[Krookie]

ME2 > ME1 in almost every single way (i say almost because I haven't beaten the game yet, but so far it's a huge improvement)

[Purkake]

@Jags: Force some Anti-Aliasing on it to even things out

Edited January 27, 2010 by Purkake

[jaguars4ever]

@Jags: Force some Anti-Aliasing on it to even things out

Dammit! There's always a catch...

[Purkake]

But this time it's a pretty smooth-edged catch.