Mass Effect 2

[Daft]

I'm not convinced by ME2 either. It's fairly middle of the road.

 

There are way too many characters to pick from. The only one I particularly liked was Grunt and that was because I took him on every mission (and Garrus from the last game).

 

The combat is bad. Predictable, especially when you see those waste high walls. The close combat is atrocious, shockwave helps a bit. The team AI is shoddy, or at least their path finding is.

 

The best mission was the one in the Nova VIP area which consisted of all talking.

 

It's not that this is bad, I just don't see what's so great about it.

[Shorty]

The team AI was probably the worst part of the game for me. They were utter morons, constantly running into fire and on insanity, that lead to death pretty quickly. When in cover, they would lean out to fire randomly, instead of at opportune moments or hiding to recharge their shields. You had to put team power usage onto manual control, because if you gave them free reign over their abilities they would use them at the single most useless moment they could manage. Pathfinding was a joke, I don't know where they were going most of the time but it's fortunate they could magically teleport past me whenever I was looking the other way.

 

Also the story wasn't amazing. It felt like a bridge between two other epic stories. I just hope you keep your whole team (or those that survived) for Mass Effect 3, then it will actually make a bit of sense that you spent a whole game doing little more than bringing together allies.

 

But despite these things and a few other niggles, I found it so damn fun to play. While the overall story fell somewhat flat, the conversation and quality of writing was always top notch. I disagree about the combat, I thought it was excellent and extremely varied. Each class feels very different to the next, and there are so many approaches to bringing down an enemy. I played through as a sentinel, sinking rounds of submachine gun into enemies and throwing them off ledges, protecting myself with a heavy shield. The next time I played I was an infiltrator, cloaking myself, freezing enemies with cryo ammo and a heavy pistol and then shattering them. There's also the engineer with hacks and drones, or the adept with singularity. And none of them feel rushed, although sentinel was certainly more of a challenge.

 

Waist high walls... I don't understand this complaint. Zero Punctuation said the same thing. What do you expect? It's still a game, game mechanics are needed for it to function properly, and Insanity difficulty is impossible without constant cover. What is the alternative?

Edited February 20, 2010 by Shorty

[Eddage]

Most of the time I just told my team to hide somewhere well out of the way and just replied on my sniper rifle and their abilities, much easier that way as you don't have to worry about them being retards.

 

I don't really understand the complaints about the combat, sure it was obvious when there would be battles due to the cover but how else could they do it? It's not like they could have random battles out in the open since you'd be ripped to shreds in seconds. It's a huge improvement over the first Mass Effect though, which was just stand in the open and fire, occasionally use your power and don't worry about dying because the enemies are retards.

 

I loved the side missions in the sequel, so much variety compared to the first one, whether it's just exploring a wreckage on your own to having to destroy three heavy mechs in a given time limit (that one on Insanity was a real bitch). There is a fair bit of variety in them, much needed over the first games choice of 3 different buildings.

 

The worst part though was scanning for materials, god knows what they were thinking when they came up with that one. Got boring after scanning half a planet, give me the mako over that every day!

[drahkon]

Waist high walls... I don't understand this complaint. Zero Punctuation said the same thing. What do you expect? It's still a game, game mechanics are needed for it to function properly, and Insanity difficulty is impossible without constant cover. What is the alternative?

 

The walls itself aren't the problem. Only that they give away the enemy appearances. It always goes like this:

You walk through rooms, hacking things here, taking things there...then you see some waist high walls and you know: enemies.

There is no way foes can ambush or surprise you. So it is as Daft has said: very predictable.

 

The cover mechanics are a different aspect. They work very well.

 

An alternative would be different environments. You often walk through warehouses, docks and other space ships. They all have containers and little boxes which you can use as cover.

 

Let's take a different environment. A forest:

 

You walk through the forest. Every tree and every ledge can be used for cover. Since there are lots and lots of trees and other natural advances for you to use you don't know when enemies attack you (if you take into consideration that cover is an indication for enemy attacks). They could jump from trees, climb down little hills that might be in the forest. Some wild beasts could even dig themselves up and launch a surprise attack.

 

I expected the "help Jacob mission" to be like this when I landed on th planet. But no, there are more boxes and containers. It just feels artificial.

 

 

The AI worked fine for me oO Didn't have much trouble at all.

[Daft]

I'm not saying it's a bad game but bar it's extreme polish it is by no means spectacular.

[ViPeR]

Right i'm seriously getting annoyed now with the relationship and keeping everyone alive achievements. Just did another play through and no one wanted to pursue a relationship until the end. I spoke to Jacob all the damn time! What more do you want. What a goon. Also for some unknown reason Zaeed wasn't loyal even though I did his loyalty mission....what's that about? So yes, you guessed it, the fucker died. Good one.

[Shorty]

You pursue the relationship after completing the main game.

 

Any character, loyal or not, can die if you send them to do something they're not good at. A safe bet is Legion for the vent/tunnel, Garrus to lead team two, Jacob to lead the defense squad, Zaeed to lead the survivors back.

 

If you're not sure how it's going to play out, make a save before you go after the IFF and keep it to one side.

[Eddage]

You can get the relationship before though, I got the achievement when I set of for the suicide mission and did the alien deed with Thane.

 

As for who to select, I chose Legion for the tunnels, Garrus to lead the other team both times, Grunt for the survivors and Samara for the barrier.

[Shorty]

Ah yeah, I forgot about the barrier. Jack can do it too. And I never really pursued a relationship on my game, it was the last achievement I got, actually :/ but I know it's very easy to do when the main game's out of the way.

[Goafer]

Right i'm seriously getting annoyed now with the relationship and keeping everyone alive achievements. Just did another play through and no one wanted to pursue a relationship until the end. I spoke to Jacob all the damn time! What more do you want. What a goon. Also for some unknown reason Zaeed wasn't loyal even though I did his loyalty mission....what's that about? So yes, you guessed it, the fucker died. Good one.

 

For Zaeed to become loyal, you have to:

 

leave the civilians to die. I think you can still make him loyal if you have a very high paragon, but that's the only paragon option I've seen greyed out, so you must need a very high paragon.

 

 

I did his mission again to get the achievement. He's a twat though.

 

 

For me the game was pretty boring up until the last mission. There was no real flow to the story, it was just do some mini missions to get the squad numbers up. There was no big story other than "we're going here to kill something that wants to kill us." It just felt like I spent 90% of the time preparing and 10% actually progressing the story. Can't they progress the story at the same time as preparing?

 

 

 

I sent Legion into the Tunnel, Miranda led the team both times and I sent that Weasley alien scientist fuck to take the survivors back (since he seems the most useless to me. Aparently it doesn't matter who you send back). No one died (all loyal).

Edited February 23, 2010 by Goafer

[Eddage]

For Zaeed to become loyal, you have to:

 

leave the civilians to die. I think you can still make him loyal if you have a very high paragon, but that's the only paragon option I've seen greyed out, so you must need a very high paragon.

 

 

I did his mission again to get the achievement. He's a twat though.

 

 

For me the game was pretty boring up until the last mission. There was no real flow to the story, it was just do some mini missions to get the squad numbers up. There was no big story other than "we're going here to kill something that wants to kill us." It just felt like I spent 90% of the time preparing and 10% actually progressing the story. Can't they progress the story at the same time as preparing?

 

 

 

I sent Legion into the Tunnel, Miranda led the team both times and I sent that Weasley alien scientist fuck to take the survivors back (since he seems the most useless to me. Aparently it doesn't matter who you send back). No one died (all loyal).

 

Are you ragging on Mordin? That guy is freaking awesome. One of the most interesting characters with a back story relating to one of Mass Effects most morally grey part of history. Possibly my favourite character.

[Cube]

Are you ragging on Mordin? That guy is freaking awesome. One of the most interesting characters with a back story relating to one of Mass Effects most morally grey part of history. Possibly my favourite character.

 

Agreed. He also has the most interesting things to say about pretty much everything.

[Shorty]

For Zaeed to become loyal, you have to:

 

leave the civilians to die. I think you can still make him loyal if you have a very high paragon, but that's the only paragon option I've seen greyed out, so you must need a very high paragon.

As you say, you can keep him loyal with a paragon option, without letting the civilians die.

 

[Cube]

That's one problem with the Paragon/Renegade system. It punishes you for thinking carefully about each situation. Sometimes the Renegade option is best, sometimes the Paragon one is.

[ViPeR]

That's one problem with the Paragon/Renegade system. It punishes you for thinking carefully about each situation. Sometimes the Renegade option is best, sometimes the Paragon one is.

 

I'd have to agree there. Especially with

Legions side mission where you decide what to do with the Heretics. Personally I thought the better option would be to destroy them so there's no possible future threat. Apparently that's the Renegade option. Whatever.

 

 

As for Zaeed, he was loyal in my Paragon playthrough but not in my Renegade. That explains a lot now why he wasn't loyal. I used Miranda for the fire teams, Samara for the barrier, Tali for the vents and Mordin to take the survivors back. Also I think the Renegade/Paragon thing affects relationships. Samara said she wasn't interested because of the 'things' i'd done. Hypocrite, she's a goddamn Justicar!

[gaggle64]

If you throw points on you class-buff-skill-thingy you can max out your Paragon/Renegade meter and still have a bar or two on the other. I managed to get Miranda back onside after falling out with Jack (you need full a Paragon/Renegade meter) by doing a quick skill retrain before hitting the relay.

[ViPeR]

I think it's going to be a while before I go through this again. Next time I do though it'll be on Insanity and i'll be buggered if I miss the romance and everyone surviving achievements again.

[Mundi]

Are you ragging on Mordin? That guy is freaking awesome. One of the most interesting characters with a back story relating to one of Mass Effects most morally grey part of history. Possibly my favourite character.

 

Agreed. He also has the most interesting things to say about pretty much everything.

 

And most importantly, he sings!

 

One of the most interesting characters to talk to between missions.

[Roostophe]

Only Tali and Legion died in mine. I sent Tali through the ducts and Legion led the second team. Elsewhere, I had Grunt lead the first second team, have Samara make the barrier and have Zaeed take the survivors.

 

Then just before we went through the Omega Relay I got the Paramour achievement with Thane (Yep, I was a She-pard). Lucky.

 

 

Now I'm gonna play ME1 again. I always kept restarting it and playing it through but never really gave it a chance to grab me. Seeing as the second one did without much effort I suppose I ought to give it another go.

[Serebii]

Are you ragging on Mordin? That guy is freaking awesome. One of the most interesting characters with a back story relating to one of Mass Effects most morally grey part of history. Possibly my favourite character.

Mordin is the very model of a scientist salarian

[Shorty]

Mordin is brilliant, focussed, blunt and logical but with enough twists in his personality to keep him interesting. Thane is probably my favourite new character in terms of pure kick-assness. That bit when he prays then vanishes... awesome.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Shorty

[gaggle64]

All (and I really do mean ALL) the ladies love Mordin - guess they want a doctor's firm and knowing hand.

Edited February 23, 2010 by gaggle64

[Aimless]

The Hammerhead will be available via the Cerberus Network in late March, it seems. Free to download, 5 missions; presumably they'll release more in the future.

 

If anyone's planning on completing the game on Insanity, whatever you do don't do so during a New Game+ of an ME2 character. Due to the way the scaling works it's much, much easier to start a fresh character.

[Eddage]

The Hammerhead will be available via the Cerberus Network in late March, it seems. Free to download, 5 missions; presumably they'll release more in the future.

 

If anyone's planning on completing the game on Insanity, whatever you do don't do so during a New Game+ of an ME2 character. Due to the way the scaling works it's much, much easier to start a fresh character.

 

Yeah, I started with a new game plus, was ridiculous at the start without any weapon upgrades! I think you get more money and materials if you start again with an ME1 import character (but have completed ME2 once before).

 

Looking forward to the Hammerhead missions!

[ViPeR]

I don't really see the point in doing New Game Plus on ME2 anyway as you reach the level cap on the first playthrough. Unless you want to keep the face you created for your character I can't see a reason to unlike ME1.