Mass Effect 2 Discussion

[Gromnir]

The Normandy Crash Site is enjoyable only if you're all weepy and nostalgic about ME1. Otherwise, it's a lame pixel hunt. And the memorial that the Alliance gives you to put there looks ridiculous.

 

I did the

dead Reaper

and Tali's loyalty quest last night. Spoiler request: How is

the dead Reaper bit different if you go there right away? Are some of the Cerberus crew still alive or something

? Also, on Tali's quest, I predictably failed the dialogue check at the end. I presume that making it

manages to acquit her of the treason charges

? (Personally, I don't really mind the outcome I got-- it's a more poetic sacrifice than making everything all better would be.)

 

Oh, and I now agree with whoever it was a while back who said that the usefulness of Throw lies in its quick cooldown time. The hordes of

husks on the dead Reaper

were a simple matter of getting enough distance so that Throw could recharge faster than the rate they were coming at me. (That and constantly running side to side to avoid

the Scions' shockwave attack.

)

 

 

even with incinerate and the widow sniper rifle, we found it took more than just a couple shots to take down a scion, and scion-killing still weren't a simple task as we were getting mobbed by those husks you mentioned. nevertheless scions move ssssoooooo slow. our surefire approach for taking out husks on the derelict reaper were as follows: fallback. husks will continue to attack, but the scions has difficulty navigating terrain 'cause o' their sloth and size. fallback some considerable distance and waste the husks. then, as the scions lumber towards your position, you may incinerate, warp, or snipe at will, with little genuine fear o' taking damage. feels a bit like cheese, but Gromnir's party config were more suited for fighting synthetics than organics... and we were too stubborn to restart mission.

 

 

apologize in advance for being a tad crude, but am gonna admit that the resource acquisition mini-game felt like a big bioware FU to all those folks who complained 'bout the mako. " You thought the mako sucked? Fine, we got rid of the mako you whiny plebes. Are you happy now? If you decide to b!7ch about me 2 ammo or excessive reliance on cover, keep in mind how we "improved" planetary exploration between me 1 and me 2. Ungrateful little..."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps am not honestly suggesting that me 2 resource acquisition were a result o' biowarian vindictiveness... but it felt that way as we slowly mapped a dozen or so planets looking for iridium and platinum.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Gromnir

[Oner]

I'm NOT looking forward to reading all these spoilers after I'm (eventually) done with ME 2.

[Nightshape]

The Normandy Crash Site is enjoyable only if you're all weepy and nostalgic about ME1. Otherwise, it's a lame pixel hunt. And the memorial that the Alliance gives you to put there looks ridiculous.

 

I did the

dead Reaper

and Tali's loyalty quest last night. Spoiler request: How is

the dead Reaper bit different if you go there right away? Are some of the Cerberus crew still alive or something

? Also, on Tali's quest, I predictably failed the dialogue check at the end. I presume that making it

manages to acquit her of the treason charges

? (Personally, I don't really mind the outcome I got-- it's a more poetic sacrifice than making everything all better would be.)

 

Oh, and I now agree with whoever it was a while back who said that the usefulness of Throw lies in its quick cooldown time. The hordes of

husks on the dead Reaper

were a simple matter of getting enough distance so that Throw could recharge faster than the rate they were coming at me. (That and constantly running side to side to avoid

the Scions' shockwave attack.

)

 

 

even with incinerate and the widow sniper rifle, we found it took more than just a couple shots to take down a scion, and scion-killing still weren't a simple task as we were getting mobbed by those husks you mentioned. nevertheless scions move ssssoooooo slow. our surefire approach for taking out husks on the derelict reaper were as follows: fallback. husks will continue to attack, but the scions has difficulty navigating terrain 'cause o' their sloth and size. fallback some considerable distance and waste the husks. then, as the scions lumber towards your position, you may incinerate, warp, or snipe at will, with little genuine fear o' taking damage. feels a bit like cheese, but Gromnir's party config were more suited for fighting synthetics than organics... and we were too stubborn to restart mission.

 

 

apologize in advance for being a tad crude, but am gonna admit that the resource acquisition mini-game felt like a big bioware FU to all those folks who complained 'bout the mako. " You thought the mako sucked? Fine, we got rid of the mako you whiny plebes. Are you happy now? If you decide to b!7ch about me 2 ammo or excessive reliance on cover, keep in mind how we "improved" planetary exploration between me 1 and me 2. Ungrateful little..."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps am not honestly suggesting that me 2 resource acquisition were a result o' biowarian vindictiveness... but it felt that way as we slowly mapped a dozen or so planets looking for iridium and platinum.

 

/Facepalm.

 

Resource stuff is purely about having something to do during down time, it's exploration based, slow paced gaming. I actually enjoied it, it broke up the action and story and made me feel like I was preparing for a purpose. If I ever got bored of collecting resource's I'd just go do a quest, or seek out a side quest etc...

 

ME2 is now a very entertaining shooter as well as having role play and exploration elements.

 

Then again I suppose most folk think we should let the stats do all the killing *yawn*.

[Raithe]

Personally, I found evolved Shockwave into Heavy Shockwave rather entertaining to use on groups of husks.. they'd rush at you forming a line naturally.. blast them with shockwave..they fly into the air and always landed with a really fun crunchy sound splattering into bits..

[213374U]

/Facepalm.

 

Resource stuff is purely about having something to do during down time, it's exploration based, slow paced gaming. I actually enjoied it, it broke up the action and story and made me feel like I was preparing for a purpose. If I ever got bored of collecting resource's I'd just go do a quest, or seek out a side quest etc...

 

ME2 is now a very entertaining shooter as well as having role play and exploration elements.

 

Then again I suppose most folk think we should let the stats do all the killing *yawn*.

Well, if you are going to bother having stats at all, they should do something. Character building and customization is a part of RPGs, and BIO turned the dial way down for ME2. Everyone has different tastes and all, but at times it felt like I was playing a shooter with RPG elements, not the other way around. (Is that what's supposed to be?)

 

I agree with Grom on the resource thing. I never had resource problems, but that's only because I'm a tad obsessive about this stuff and can't leave any planets unexplored.

 

 

As for the huge hordes of husks, shooting their legs works wonders, especially in bullet time. Freezing ammo is quite useful as well.

 

[Raithe]

Heh, and I managed to miss Legion doing

[RPGmasterBoo]

I've been through a 7 hour session of ME2 and these are my first impressions:

 

 

I've collected Garrus, Jack, Mordin, and done several of the side missions. I've yet to go and collect the Krogan.

 

 

First the technicalities:

Graphics: Bioware has strained to pull as much as it can out of the XBOX360 limited capacity. To circumvent the fact that the polygon count isnt the greatest and that many of the surfaces are simplistic some of the time with very blurry textures - they made great use of lighting. The glow that seems to be everywhere smooths out what's essentially a somewhat dated looking game.

- However the graphical design is substantially better than the first ME. Omega station in particular stands out as great piece of work, though the other parts of its design (music) supplement it greatly.

The redesigned Citadel station is smaller but much more satisfying visually - it finally has some sort of identity.

The combat areas are functional but suffer somewhat from being subordinate to the gameplay: the endless crates and waist high walls slightly reduce immersion but that's to be expected.

- Animation is mostly good, since its not a dedicated action game I suppose its done as well as it could be.

 

Sound:

-Music. Very nice, I especially liked the one on the Omega station (in the bar). Its not mindblowing, but its appropriate to the mood of the location/event.

-Sound Effects. Functional, I think the weapon effects are better than in ME but my memory is somewhat fuzzy on the subject.

-Voice overs: Much improved over ME. Of course this tends to go hand in hand with the characterization, and since the characters are better in general their voices do a good job of supplementing their personality. I like them all so far (voices) with Mordin being the obvious standout.

The guy who did Shepard has again managed to be the greatest cretin of all, and if one VO is lacking its his. I'm playing male shep because I imported my character (but I wouldn't play fem shep anyway)

 

Gameplay:

Gameplay as has been noted has suffered substantial changes most, if not all to the better.

For now it consists of

1. going around and talking

2. combat dedicated areas

3. flying the ship on the galaxy map - initially an interesting and fun way to break the action/talking, the scanning process of the planets is starting to annoy me. Too much time is invested in what's essentially an artificial way to lenghten the game. Still, compared to ME's planets its shorter and more substantial (in benefits).

 

-Combat. Combat in ME suffered from being a frankenstein or two completely unrelated genres (third person action and RPG). It was sluggish, unsatisfying, badly paced and a pushover. ME2 has tweaked it to a much better version. This comes at the expense of the RPG part, skills have been lessened - turned into what's effectively a special move in any action game and character development likewise stunted to the level of any action game that has a few RPG traits.

However, its much faster and far more entertaining. The reason for this is simple: its shorter. The combat areas aren't overtly long so as to become boring, the weapons pack a greater punch to do away with the enemies quicker, and the skills are actually useful.

I'm playing on veteran level, and the challenge isn't all that great until the large mechs show up. Still it has forced me to use more tactics than ME (changing weapons to hit the appropriate shields/armor/health), running to cover (with the occasional annoyance of the single key binding making shep do something I did not intend) and utilising my squadmates.

Squadmates aren't imbeciles this time around. They will in general utilise cover, and most of the time use the skill appropriate to the enemy/situation.

 

Overall the combat is as good as it can be - because of the limitations of cover based combat. It does suffer from cheapness that would not have passed in the olden days eg: being completely immune to damage when in cover, which is set up automaticaly and having health regenerate at an insane rate. This sounds like noob land so its appropriate to examine how the difficulty is kept level:

1. enemies never miss when you're in the open

2. you can't take much damage before dying

Thus the game forces you to play it the way its designed, from cover to cover, rock-paper-scissor style (in regards to weapons). Crude yes, but at least it works. (unlike ME)

 

Story Will discuss when finished.

 

Characters

-Personalities. The characters I've seen so far aren't all that different from other Bioware cliche's, but unlike in ME or KOTOR they are implemented well. What they say makes sense, what they do makes sense, and none so far are horribly annoying or otherwise insufferable.

I like Jacob, because he's a cliche done well. I like Miranda for the same reason. Mordin is Dr. House on crack and has a certain charm. Garrus is... Garrus, and Jack seems to be a bit on the shallow comic book style but I'll give her time.

 

The only complete idiot in regards to dialog is Shepard. Unlike other characters he comes off as stupid, naive or crude depending on the occasion. Granted he's not a predifined personality but his lines should be better.

 

 

*I like Aria and the Patriarch (his voice in particular) intensely and that entire little plot was great work.

 

 

Other things of note:

-quests are practically non existant, this is for now - a linear, mission based game.

-the thing you use to select items (the pointer) is intensely irritating because it sees through walls and causes confusion. you read the title of an item before its in your view and start stupidly searching around for it.

-my core vanguard ability is completely useless as it leaves shep exposed to fire. Its only good when there's one enemy, but then one enemy can be handled in any other way

 

conclusion to come.

Edited February 2, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[Enoch]

even with incinerate and the widow sniper rifle, we found it took more than just a couple shots to take down a scion, and scion-killing still weren't a simple task as we were getting mobbed by those husks you mentioned. nevertheless scions move ssssoooooo slow. our surefire approach for taking out husks on the derelict reaper were as follows: fallback. husks will continue to attack, but the scions has difficulty navigating terrain 'cause o' their sloth and size. fallback some considerable distance and waste the husks. then, as the scions lumber towards your position, you may incinerate, warp, or snipe at will, with little genuine fear o' taking damage. feels a bit like cheese, but Gromnir's party config were more suited for fighting synthetics than organics... and we were too stubborn to restart mission.

Yeah, I did some of that, too. In a few of the spots,

I could outlast the waves of Husks before the Scion(s) got close enough that their shockwaves weren't easily dodgeable. I think the AI bailed me out a little, too, running interference with the Scions while I was Throwing all the Husks. But otherwise (and when my dodging wasn't in top form and I had to use a hunk of cooldown time to re-apply my Tech Armor), fleeing from the Scions worked rather well. Funny that you mention party composition-- I went with Mordin (because I wanted his scientific take on the dead Reaper) and Thane (probably because I expected Collectors, which he is effective against) for that mission, and was kicking myself for not getting more techy types (like Garrus in place of Thane) when the opening cutscene said that a Geth ship was present. Turns out that the two of them (Incinerate, Warp, Throw, Shredder Ammo) were ideal for what I ended up facing.

 

[Hurlshort]

The only complete idiot in regards to dialog is Shepard. Unlike other characters he comes off as stupid, naive or crude depending on the occasion. Granted he's not a predifined personality but his lines should be better.

 

Gotta agree on that one. The way he handled the reunion with Ashley was terrible. I tried to choose good options, but he was saying all the wrong things.

[213374U]

Yo RPGmasterboo, I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but please use spoiler tags.

[Volourn]

Not Shepard's fault there. That's BIO's lame fault. Thats cene simply doesn't make since. The fact that Ashley believes 'rumours' over you is absolutely garbage.

[HoonDing]

Concerning Garrus:

 

Is there a way to get him in mint condition? I pushed a welding torch into someone's back to sabotage the gun ship, but still he got his ass handed to him by it.

 

Edited February 2, 2010 by virumor

[Enoch]

Concerning Garrus:

 

Is there a way to get him in mint condition? I pushed a welding torch into someone's back to sabotage the gun ship, but still he got his ass handed to him by it.

 

Not that I know of. Even the alternate armor you get when you do his loyalty mission still has that big hole in the collar.

 

[RPGmasterBoo]

The only complete idiot in regards to dialog is Shepard. Unlike other characters he comes off as stupid, naive or crude depending on the occasion. Granted he's not a predifined personality but his lines should be better.

 

Gotta agree on that one. The way he handled the reunion with Ashley was terrible. I tried to choose good options, but he was saying all the wrong things.

 

 

Though telling the council to shove it where the sun dont shine was intensely satisfying. And done in a totally redneck manner.

[LostStraw]

Some of the skills in the game left me scratching my head. Charge strikes me as a rather useless skill for the most part. It doesn't do too much damage and it tends to leave the character exposed ... and dead. I also tried out some of the defense skills but they didn't increase my survivability much and felt like wasted skill points. Even tech armor didn't seem very effective.

 

I'm playing on the "Insanity" difficulty setting for reference. I'm not sure if the skills work better on the other difficulty settings.

[RPGmasterBoo]

No, I've also found charge implementation strange. Because enemies never miss and fire long bursts as soon as the charge is finished you're dead. I only use it on the big mechs, when they've been reduced to their health bar. Charge in, shotgun in the head and then retreat before they blow. But thats it.

[Enoch]

Some of the skills in the game left me scratching my head. Charge strikes me as a rather useless skill for the most part. It doesn't do too much damage and it tends to leave the character exposed ... and dead. I also tried out some of the defense skills but they didn't increase my survivability much and felt like wasted skill points. Even tech armor didn't seem very effective.

 

I'm playing on the "Insanity" difficulty setting for reference. I'm not sure if the skills work better on the other difficulty settings.

As a rule, game skills are generally balanced best on the "Normal" difficulty levels. Designers do a lot less playtesting as the difficulties increase. Insanity is going to give you a rather skewed view of how the skills and classes function.

[Pop]

With Insanity especially you have to use cover as much as possible. The game's sort of designed for it, even the easiest modes don't let you stay out in the open for long. Even at the highest levels of Tech Armor you need a few seconds behind cover if you want to Rambo it. "Charge" is a more strategic skill - very useful when you're being flanked, not useful at all when tough enemies are grouped.

[Majek]

The only complete idiot in regards to dialog is Shepard. Unlike other characters he comes off as stupid, naive or crude depending on the occasion. Granted he's not a predifined personality but his lines should be better.

 

Gotta agree on that one. The way he handled the reunion with Ashley was terrible. I tried to choose good options, but he was saying all the wrong things.

 

I just finished Mordin's loyalty mission.

Those dialogs were all over the place. First blame, than justification, in the midst stupid questions,...

 

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Just finished the game. Final boss was retarded.

IT'S MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!

. I lost Mordin, Thane and Tali - but I have no idea how I could possibly NOT have lost them. Especially Mordin.

 

Other than that, easily Bio's best game to date, and I am eagerly awaiting ME3.

[Krookie]

Just finished the game. Final boss was retarded.

IT'S MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!

. I lost Mordin, Thane and Tali - but I have no idea how I could possibly NOT have lost them. Especially Mordin.

 

Other than that, easily Bio's best game to date, and I am eagerly awaiting ME3.

 

I got everyone out. I sent Mordin

to lead the survivors back to the ship

 

[I want teh kotor 3]

Personally, I found evolved Shockwave into Heavy Shockwave rather entertaining to use on groups of husks.. they'd rush at you forming a line naturally.. blast them with shockwave..they fly into the air and always landed with a really fun crunchy sound splattering into bits..

 

Yeah, that's always fun. But my method is better: melee the **** out of them.

 

EDIT: Anybody know if it would run on an nVidia 9400M?

Edited February 2, 2010 by I want teh kotor 3

[Gromnir]

Just finished the game. Final boss was retarded.

IT'S MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!

. I lost Mordin, Thane and Tali - but I have no idea how I could possibly NOT have lost them. Especially Mordin.

 

Other than that, easily Bio's best game to date, and I am eagerly awaiting ME3.

 

 

we initial got a few party mates killed during final mission-- used some trial and error to figure out possible survivability.

 

1) garrus, if loyal, seems to always survive as your second team leader choice. samara works as your second team leader for at least the first portion.

 

2) the specialist to close door at end of first portion of the endgame works with tali and legion... but am certain that garrus will fail. we thought commando garrus would be an ideal solo option but he gots wasted.

 

3) we used jack to do biotic shield and she worked well... am guessing samara would be equal viable but we got zero proof.

 

4) escort duty? got no idea what is the basis for choosing. we used jacob and he kept himself and all crew members alive.

 

4) our final confrontation with the reaper-human hybrid thingie were using miranda, grunt, and our infiltrator. all were loyal, but not all had max equipment ( for instance, we did not have all 5 damage bonuses for assault rifles or shotguns.) our favorite party throughout most o' game were actual Garus, Thane and our infiltrator with max incinerate; we always liked to have at least 1 character with max overload, max warp and max incinerate in party to deal with pesky defenses. even so, thanks to the widow sniper rifle and the collector particle beam weapon, we got through final battle relative unscathed on hardcore (not insanity) with no team losses.

 

5) our normandy were fully upgraded.

 

 

don't know if such info is helpful.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Pop]

Confirmed on (loyal) Samara pulling through on the Biotic Bubble portion of the endgame. I had (loyal) Legion do the first part and he got a Collector Wasp to the noggin. Seeing as I had counted on his help for all of 2 hours, it wasn't a great loss. Don't know why he survived for you and not for me. Maybe something to do with your performance during that portion? I didn't make any obvious mistakes.

[Hell Kitty]

Just finished the game. Final boss was retarded.

IT'S MADE OUT OF PEOPLE!

. I lost Mordin, Thane and Tali - but I have no idea how I could possibly NOT have lost them. Especially Mordin.

 

Other than that, easily Bio's best game to date, and I am eagerly awaiting ME3.

 

I got everyone out. I sent Mordin

to lead the survivors back to the ship

 

 

I did that the second time around and everyone survived.

 

 

Apparently, guaranteed winners are Tali or Legion* in the pipe, Miranda or Garrus* as leader, Jack or Samara as bubble girl.

 

People seem to think Mordin has a higher chance of dying compared to everyone else, so maybe it's best to send him off with the crew.

 

*Haven't tried these ones personally.