f13.net

Gamestop called me and said my preorder will be in tomorrow morning. I am fairly excited.

yay! Proper Mass Effect thread. Here's a couple of things: Elevators are slow. Combat is weird, but once you get used to it and get some levels under your belt you'd wish you had Hardcore unlocked the first time through. Which brings me to - the rpg system is a tad on the simple side, you have to work pretty hard to fuck up a character. Don't start with the "rogue" character (mechanic or whatever). Exploration can get a bit annoying at one point. I never thought I'd get to use my uber skills at trying to climb above Ironforge in a game ever again. Game is le awesome. If you're unsure about it and even remotely like any Bioware game - get it. It's way better than Jade Empire. I'd even say I liked it more than KOTOR.

ps: Don't go heavy on the main quest. First time through I thought "hey, let's move the main story a bit", got hooked, finished the game with almost no side-questing (about 15ish hours).

I'm eaglerly looking forward to snagging the game tommorrow, but I'm reading the GameSpot review (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/masseffect/review.html?mode=gsreview) and seeing that there's a number of odd issues like Wolf is describing.  There's a few minor spoilers in the GameSpot review, so I'll quote some of the important glitches sans-spoilers:

• Oftentimes, multiple choices have the same result, a somewhat transparent trick that makes it seem as though you have a lot more impact on the conversation than you really do.
• once you've finished the mission, there's never a reason to return.
• Too bad that the driving portions are undoubtedly the weakest of the game.
• the [ground rover's] turret, for whatever reason, can't move up or down. The result is that bullets don't necessarily land where your crosshair is [...]It's sometimes maddening
• The problem is that the game doesn't check on the [ground rover's] position before respawning [a monster]. Multiple times, we had the creature emerge from directly underneath us, which either resulted in an unavoidable insta-kill or getting stuck [...]while the camera jittered madly.
• provided you micromanage [your teammates in the typical BioWare pause-and-issue-orders fashion] [...] you won't be apt to notice any drawbacks to the AI.
• The menu interface isn't terrible, though on its own, it's a bit clunky. But it's the little things that add up in a game that requires you to spend so much time in menu screens.
• Other problems rear their heads as well, such as the occasions when you or your party members get trapped on level geometry, which forces you to reload your last save
• There are some technical hitches, however. The framerate can dramatically dip at the worst possible times, and there is a lot of texture pop-in. There are also frequent load times--some of them hidden by elevator rides, others popping up in the midst of exploration.

Why mention this?  To kill the hype so the game is better when you actually boot it up.  It's still worth buying and playing.  At the end of the day if you're able to deal with that and still call it 'le awesome" (GameSpot gave it an 8.5) then there must be a whole lot of gold shining through the dirt. 

While true, that's one of the only true role playing elements left. You actually get to "roleplay" your character. Now the answers you choose and what comes out of Shepard's mouth is a different story. At times you choose an answer and than go "Woah, did I really just say that?".


Not entirely true. Every planet has a bunch of "hidden" points of interest. Most of the times it's a couple of resource nodes that you survey for a crazy exploration quest. Some of the times it's an explorer's wet dream (hidden lore).


Can't argue with those. Like I said - driving around with the Mako can get irritating. Not as much as trying to keep it level so the turret shoots where you're aiming while a couple of Geth Colossi are pounding you on hardcore difficulty.


Lameass gamespot people. The Mako has jets (A) that take you off the ground if you get stuck on something. Not entirely their fault, though. You get NO tutorial on the rover. I played through several missions until accidentally I found out I had a turret, at which point I was... well d'uh obviously, stupid. A couple of missions later, again by accident, I found the mako's rocket launcher/shotgun. At which point I just clicked every button to see what they can do.


Yup. Shotting at walls is not beyond them. But with the right imba-class atm I'm stomping trough the game at hardcore difficulty practically alone, with the occasional help from teammates.


That's like the ultimate nitpicking. The only thing you can call clunky is the Equipment screen. And you get used to it real quick.


At this point I have at least 60 hours in the game. Never happened to me. With the rover comment, I'm guessing the guy sucks at console controllers even more than I do. And that's saying something.


Now that's just spoiled. Play a PC game and come back to me buddy. Fucking hell. Elevators are fucking irritating though. I give him that. They're good if you're a smoker though. Jump on an elevator go light a cig. Works like a charm.


I've been dying to talk about Mass Effect. I'm glad it's out. I have more gripes with the game, but really, it's just nitpicking. Like the fact that Liara is the most un-sexy Asari in the game. Or the still annoying at times dark side/intimidate lines. The only real thing, and you can argue if it's a problem, but you sure as hell have to mention it, is that the rpg system is halotard friendly. Even more so than Jade Empire. I'd still call it the best Bioware game to date. Yeah, I liked it more than Baldur's Gate.  Guns > Swords. Blue skinned entirely female race of practically immortal hotness > elves.

Just got mine last night and have about 6 hours on it. It's...interesting. I'll second the comment that as an RPG it's a bit dumbed down as compared to, say, Fallout. Still, it's pretty cool.

Presently, I"m playing as a vanguard type. After a few hours, I'm beginning to wish I'd gone soldier (my usual bull-in-the-china-shop routine), but maybe biotics will start to come in handy later. So far, most enemies won't get close enough (or live long enough to get close enough...) to make much use of the more offensive ones. The cover system is a bit odd at first, and your teammates are entirely too likely to jump in that foxhole with you and screw up your aiming. Also, they tend to mill around a bit before taking cover, but once there they do seem to get it together. I'm still experimenting with their control.

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with it so far. It does seem to have various routes to the same place in conversation trees, but you do say some pretty surprising things! I've been leaning towards the Paragon side of things, since my basic playstyle in RPGs is always noncommital and reserved...until I have to shoot someone. To paraphrase Churchill, it costs you nothing to be polite to someone you're going to kill. Hey, it worked in Fallout.

I'm enjoying myself. Can't ask too much more than that.

I'm glad I'm going into this knowing some of the issues people are having i.e. inventory, saving, etc...  that way I'm not expecting the perfection that all the hype lead the title to posses

*waits impatiently for the UPS truck* This morning my ass. Fucking lying gamestop.

Well, my copy came in.   :awesome_for_real:

 Time to wire the 360 back up to the TV.   :ye_gods:

Since the expected play time on this is 20 - 30 hours, I'm expecting to be coming in around 45 or so, the way I play. It has the KotoR feel so far, but does seem a little shinier and more polished. Combat seems pretty fun - it actualy matters where you go and what you hide behind, unlike the auototarget combat of Knights. I need to find out if I can actually hurt my squad mates or not, since they keep running in front of me and I want to shoot them in the back (for the good of galaxy of course).

I've only punched out one guy and pulled my gun on one so far, so I guess I'm not quite in full Bauer mode yet.

I'm actually a bit disappointed in my first hour of play....

i have this weird feeling that i made the wrong conversation choice a couple conversations ago... maybe i'll load an old save.. like i said before knowing the issues before you start up the game definitely helps with not expecting too much. But overall i like what i am playing so far.

take a look at those acheivements, gonna take several playthroughs to unlock em all.

So I got the game, and once again suffer from chronic class indecision. I do like the straight forward combat approach, but being able to use some Biotecs sounds pretty good also. So as it stands I am torn between Soldier and Vanguard. Can any one give any info on the differences of the two, and with no spoilers.

I /mock your chronic class indecision.

Hello Pot...

 :grin:

i want to keep most of my comments and discussion to myself till i finish the game but i have one question. Without spoiling anything or ruining the illusion that the dialogue is natural, is it possible that i chose the wrong dialogue in one conversation and that set my character to be pissed and angry all the time?

like i said i don't want to know how the dialogue trees work or anything like that, i just have a feeling i have changed the entire game for myself from one "wrong" dialogue choice

Well, did you take the ruthless choice at chargen?  That would probably explain it. 

As to biotics, I went adept, and I do alot more shooting than anything else so far.  Pretty much all the abilities have what seems like a rather long recharge timer on them, especially what I had thought would be a main attack if you went biotics.  And there's really no out of combat biotic abilities, so they're basically more of a supplement to shooting things full of holes, instead of a main form of attack.  Throw, one of the basic abilities, has something like a 60 second base timer.  It's better once you've thrown points into it, but I'm rather disappointed in how often I'm waiting for it to recharge.

All the same, I'm loving the game so far. 

No the dialog trees are going to be mostly independent because that's how bioware does things with their tools.  They use flags to carry info between conversations but that's usually for special case stuff.

BIG PRO TIP HERE:  Read the manual portion on the conversation wheel thing. 

I didn't do this at first and I was kind of unsatisfied with the things Shep was saying.  Turns out that wheel has an actual system to it.

Stuff on Left = dig deeper into conversation (ie the stuff you get after hitting investigate)

Stuff on top = usually good guy/paragon responses
Stuff on bottom = usually bad guy/renegade responses
I think the top/bottom good/bad doesn't apply to stuff in the investigate menu though.

Stuff on right = ending the conversation or moving it along

This actually makes things very interesting since you can pick responses much faster if you know what kind of stance you want to take in any particular situation.  I'm actually finding the replies far more satisfying than even Kotor sometimes where I could read them ahead of time.  In Kotor I'd often pick something and the other persons response to it would be wildly different than what I expected based on the text.  It feels like a little freedom of expression is lost but when you can start making replies quickly the whole "cinematic conversation" thing can be quite fun.

Also to be noted for anyone considering a renegade path, as is standard with Bioware games, the 'dark' path of things is more a case of being a colossal dickhead more than anything else. 

With the soldier you get access to Snipers, as a Vanguard you don't. With the Soldier you will have more health and better armor (fyi Heavy Armor looks teh ugly on a Female shepard), along with a very powerful ability that will make the game a lot easier for you and let you ease into the combat system and learn how to use cover (immunity). With the Vanguard you'll have access to several really, really cool abilities like lift (sends enemies in the air and you can shoot at them) and a sort of force push thingie but much more powerful. Vanguard, if built right, is most likely the most imba class in the game. With it, though, you won't really have use for one of the more interesting squad members. I'd recommend going Soldier the first way through. It's much more straight forward and like I said, you use one of the better squad members and actually have it supplement you than double shit you can already do :)

Again - to anyone wondering about classes - don't go the rogue/mechanic way. It's a bad choice.

Thanks Wolf. And by Rogue.Mechanic you mean Combat/Mechanic which is the Infiltrator?

I had thought he was meaning the pure rogue type.  Which, having played a little, I can see as not being an optimal choice, at least for a first play through, as the rogue skillsets seem pretty well covered by the squadmates.  The only thing that isn't purely covered is a pure biotics adept type, as best as I can tell.  As rather underwhelming as biotics is so far, I'm seriously debating starting a different class before I get too far into the meat of the game. 

I like the game so far.  I'm not too terribly fond of the combat system, but I've never played a shooteresque game that's this reliant on cover.  I'm used to wading into a mob of baddies and turning them into kibble.  I'm looking forward to more of it though.  I think it's something I can master, given the opportunity. 

I love the setting.  I love the explorer aspects that Wolf eluded to.  Nothing like hacking a computer and finding a quest for a remote planet or clicking on a suspicious looking gambling machine and having it kick off a quest. I spent a lot of time in the Citadel finding every possible quest I could along with scanning all of the keepers.

There's also just a shit ton of lore they put in the game. I doubt I'll read all of it, but the effort behind it is seriously impressive.

I don't like the hacking.  I really dislike how games are finding different ways to insert "Simon" into my gaming experience. Other random dislikes would be the graininess of the graphics in parts (intentional?), the 3 person group (this game screams for 4), armor graphics (functional! yet fugly), and the loading.  The loading really isn't bugging me that much, but that's because I was playing the Witcher previously.

So, despite my thoughts prior to picking up this title, it's The Witcher that will wait for this game to finish.   At least by then I'll have my additional RAM  :grin:

And for the class stuff, only soldier appealed to me.  What I've seen of the other classes so far fails to impres. The biotics I've seen so far seem to pale next to the joy of a beefed up assault rifle.  Plus, like folks have said: much like KOTOR this game will likely be more difficult if you're not playing the muscle.

I'm about 10-15 hours in now.

The game does seem designed around the idea of Shepherd being a Soldier.  You want to keep Shepherd alive, your death is game over while your party members just get back up after a fight, and the Soldier is the best suited to durability.  Also, the Soldier weapon focus suits Shepherd considering the party members seem to be lousy shots.  Anything technical or biotic that needs doing you can pull from a party member you're taking along.

I chose a Infiltrator and haven't regretted it entirely.  I'm half-Engineer but also half-Soldier, and so I can still contribute quite effectively with Pistol and Sniper Rifle.  My survivability is improved with medium armor (though heavy would have been better).  I can shift the odds back in my favor by making liberal use of Sabotage and Shield Overload.  Still, I can't take many hits at all before I go down.

An Adept, Engineer, or Sentinel must be really hard to play since they've next to no durability and few-to-no weapons.

My Pro-Tips:

• You can pan the screen with the right analog stick while the game is paused in the weapon selection or power selection screens (bumper buttons).  Do that - it's a lot easier than aiming or trying to get properly positioned in real time combat. 
• If you don't want your party members burning all their ability timers on who-knows-what, partly or completely disable it in the Game Options menu.
• Crouching (press left analog stick) improves your accuracy as well as reduces your profile.
• You can skip dialogue with the X/Blue button.

Yeah the button pressing is getting old fast.

Also you can turn that graininess off in the options menu under graphics.

Mako  :ye_gods:  Gyah, what a terrible design decision.  "HEY GUYZ, HOW ABOUT A SUPER MARIO HUMVEEE?!?!" There's a reason certain games don't make you drive and play gunner at the same time.

Still, this game is very engrossing.  BTW, you might want someone with medium decryption for the later parts of Feros.  Just might come in handy.  Feros is just a great level.

Must sleep now.  I'm not used to marathon gaming anymore.

It will be here tomorrow morning. Already took the day off, can't wait.

I love the Mako (jump jets 4tw) but using it in combat certainly isn't what I'd call "expanded gameplay" or whatever.  I basically just drive it up and use it like a turret that can sometimes maybe dodge.

The regular combat is growing on me though.  First time I went to a planet with combat I could really start to see how it's a bit more interesting compared to what I was seeing on the Citadel.  Charge a bunch of guys and blow their faces off with a shotgun then quickly drop behind some cover and snipe a sniper you can't even see without the sniper rifle scope.

I really, really dislike the Mako. I love exploring though. I'm torn.

Took the day off to continue playing like a drug fiend. I'm level 30-something and I just started Feros. Sidequesting is boners.

On my skills/powers screen it give me the option to "Bind Power to Key", but I cant for the life of me figure out what button it is bound to.

right button

I'm about 8 hrs in as a Vanguard and kinda wishing I went Soldier. I think the biotic cooldowns are too long, why use skills you can only use once a combat? 
-Citadel is very cool and I like the stations that warp you around fast.
-Combat is weird, things are happening fast and I'm stumbling around with my biotics and Marksmen abilities.  The more I do it though the more I'll probably like it.
-Exploration is great fun and I like the Mako.  I am looking for a way to log what systems/planets I have explored though.
-Loading is a mite annoying but not as bad as I feared.  Not an issue with me.
-Pop-ins aren't bothering me too much.
-I would have to say that I prefer cake to pie.
-It's a very deep game and so far very very enjoyable.

I figured it out. Right Bumper.

I rerolled my soldier to vanguard just to check it out. I think I like the pistol better than the Assault rifle. The rifle is so inaccurate. I agree that the power cooldowns seem to take way to long.

Does anyone know if you get the second rank of a skill, like Warp -> Master Warp, is that a new skill or just a modification to the original. If so, then you could use Warp once and then Master Warp. That could make pumping biotecs very powerful.

I was playing Soldier/Commando and all my specials upgraded (same slot), not sure if they're biotech per se.

Also, GOTY for me. Beats Portal only because it's longer.

Currently a level 10 Vanguard, and finding the combat frustrating and unintuitive. Which is odd, since I really like KOTOR's combat. I'm at the planet where I rescue the "blue chick" and there have been two battles that I just die again ... and again ... and again... and again. I'm now at the battle at the top of the elevator trying to escape this place, and the game is really making me pull my hair out at this point. I am trying to take my time, pausing and using all the abilities me and my dudes have, but it just isn't enough. I haven't been this frustrated with a game in a long time. And it's a shame, since I really like the story/dialogue parts of the game.

I dropped the f-bomb on the Matriarch about 257 times but she was immune or something OH HO HO

Once I got used to the combat dying constantly became less of an issue, but the fucking Mako almost made me explode with hatred. O wot cruel duality.

I love this game. It's like a long-lost episode of Babylon 5 in its space operatic feel - just pulpy enough, with soaring soundtracks and dramatic visuals. Better than the stuff JMS has been coming up with lately!

That being said:

*  Mako combat is a lot less frustrating once you learn to dodge Geth ArmaturaorutuTANK shots with the jump jets.
*  Regular combat is frustrating simply because it follows rules that are poorly explained (a 170 damage pistol does not do the same damage as a 170 damage sniper rifle). So do what I do - trigger Barrier, run up to people, and shoot them in the face with a shotgun. That trumps most combat rules quite handily.
*  Wrex: BEST. NPC. EVER.  :awesome_for_real:  Seriously, there is no problem that Wrex cannot solve, given enough explosives. Wrex is even more anti-social ultra-violent than HK-47. If you're trying to decide what's the right thing to do, occasionally Wrex will just pull out a gun and shoot things. Because THAT'S HOW HE SOLVES PROBLEMS.

Reason #40 why I have such a huge man-crush on Wrex: without too much spoiler, Wrex is off being unhappy. One of your party members recommends you talk to him. This is the conversation.

"You should go talk to him."
"Yeah, you're right. What could it hurt?"
"Uh, actually, it could hurt A LOT."

The exact same thing happened to me. I went right after Liara once I got off the citadel and died like a motherfucker on her quest. Don't worry, just don't stop playing. The combat will grow on you and you'll love it in a couple of hours.

How do you guys use cover? Do you use it in the gears way - run up to something, put your back to it, show from the corner and shoot shit down? 'cause I just run up to some obstacle and strafe out of it to shoot stuff - just like in an old shooter. Works great for me.

Someone asked if advanced skills appear on a different timer - no, they overwrite the pre-existing ones. But cooldown gets a big bonus so they're worth it if you can get them.

Also something I forgot to add last time around - even if you're not doing side-quests do the mission in the "Local Cluster" as soon as it appears. It's important :)

Wrex is definitely a cool character, starting with his appearance alone.  His gravely voice causes me to think of him as a mildly psychotic Eeyore, as though the popular stuffed mule were a deadly alien juggernaut depressed about his dying race.  He's been behaving himself reasonably well with me, perhaps because I went straight max-charm Paragon this first time.

Kaiden, on the other hand... (spoiler:) I threw him to the jackals the first opportunity the game gave me.  Worthless biotic!

Pretty much.  Need to have your gun out, then just run up to a barrier.  You might need to crouch (tap left anlog stick) to use a low cover.

I just finished the game and am already debating if I want to start a new character for my next playthrough or use my game+ character and work on the hardcore achievement.

Tips:

Achievements actually give you stuff in this game. I got the assault rifle kills achievement and now any character I make has the assault rifle tree. I highly recommend going soldier the first time through and unlocking your favorite weapon for all characters in this way. I can now make a biotic that has:

+10% shields
+10% health
Assault rifle talent tree
+5% XP bonus
and a couple of others I forgot.

Using achievements you can unlock almost any talent tree in this way. Eventually, if you're obsessive enough, you could make a class that had access to most talents.


Use the mako jump jets to dodge. It makes combat 100% less frustrating and it is alot of fun to jump over missiles, land, and blow them away with your cannon shot.

Get the rich acheivement and then buy the special spectre weapons.

Give Ashley a sniper rifle and watch the game become insanely easy. I had fights that were over almost before I even was able to get involved in them in this manner. I don't know why she was so awesome with it, but half the time I'd have just targeted an enemy only to watch them die before I ever pulled the trigger.

Pay attention to weapons. I noticed the cutscenes actually switch your weapons, so if Ashley pulls her pistol in a cutscene, that's what she is using when you go back into the game.

I don't know if it's just because I haven't played a shooter with thumbsticks in so long but the combat is absolutely ruining the game for me, I hate the battles.

That's...pretty cool.  I need to play a soldier next to unlock some weapons.  Is the change retroactive?  I really like my adept now, I'd rather not start him over completely once I've unlocked some non pistol options. 


Having played a biotic for awhile now, once you get points into adept and the power talents, the cooldowns become alot better.  You'll still be using your gun, just nowhere near as often as early on.  Singularity is very fun.  I need to practice with the grenades so I can lob a grenade under all the floating enemies.  While you can be somewhat fragile without barrier up, biotics can make you pretty survivable.  I was fighting in a research lab for a quest, and as I was running to cover, the enemies didn't do the same, they all just charged me instead.  Which, as an adept, is pretty much an "Oh shit, I'm dead!" moment, except I'd just gotten singularity.  Toss that, and warp, shoot into the mass of floating enemies, and a grenade to finish most the rest, and I'd just killed most of them in about 5 seconds. 

Don't forget to turn on the auto aiming if the combat is annoying you.  No reason to punish yourself to the point that you don't even like the game.   Is everyone else using all the weapons by the way?  I'm playing a soldier but I've only trained assault rifles.  I still constantly use the shotgun and sniper rifle even without skill points in them.

I pretty much went assault rifle all the way through the game. It was really helpful until I got used to the combat. When I replay my soldier I'll probably concentrate on shotguns next since I am not sure I'd have alot of luck with the sniper rifle in this game.

I really wish I wasn't Vanguard now.  They are watered down combat and biotic nancy-boys who have to hang back while the she-wolf Ashley cleans house.  But combat now is easier now that I send my team in first to engage and, you know, use tactics an all.  Combat is quite challenging for me, but I am digging it.  At least the mobs don't just fall down and die like KOTOR II.

I adore the MAKO but it's ezmode. 
1. See red dot on radar
2. LT for turret view
3. Click RS for zoom in x2
4. Squeeze money button
5. Profit.

I just now got Medium Armor, hopefully that will slow my impressions of the last moments of Sonny Corelone.

The battle at the end of picking up blue girl was a tough one, after several tries I had to turn down combat to easy to get by it. I'd have tried more attempts at normal, but it was frustrating that you had to wait on the cutscene each time and couldn't save right before the combat.

Was also a bit of a shocker the first time a Cerebus Sniper got me lined up. I wasn't really expecting to get one shot with full health and shields. I am starting to enjoy the combat more now that I've been playing with ordering the team around. They work great for running up the hall and then back again to draw out an enemy so I can snipe.

Overall, I'm doing pretty good. Only had to punch out two civilians so far.

I had to sleep on that one, and got up this morning and got it on my third try. The combat is definitely not alcohol-friendly gameplay. I didn't know you could change the difficulty midgame or I would have done the same thing.

I've also been trying to use cover more and it definitely helps.

Soldier is definately easier on the ulcers, but I've gotten my vanguard moving along and it does get easier. Med armor helps, but getting armor with good shield stats and putting in a shield module help tons.

Also...shotguns. The trump card of doom when you have to kick enemies off the gun barrel. Generally, as a vanguard I find myelf boosting my shield, then running in and going all Steven McQueen on the enemy of the moment. Seems to work pretty well. A well place warp can help clear a room in a hurry as well.

Also, as much as I like Ashely, Teli is the one that has me grinning maniacly in a fight. Enemies dancing around like squirrels on meth? Not after she sees one and blows his shield. Always brings out a smile. Sheeeeelds? You don't need no steeeenking sheeeelds!

Another nitpick - why am I forced to go through the whole game carrying around two weapons I can never use because of my class?

And I can't tell you how many times I've exited the galaxy menu when I just wanted to zoom out.

But still I find myself compulsively playing. I think the overall theme and story and character interactions are really, really well done. It's a shame combat isn't more intuitive and there seems to be several minor, odd annoyances.

Probably wasn't worth special case coding.  You can get all 4 weapon skills on every class via achievements afterall.

The galaxy menu thing drives me batty though too.

I never knew you could increase the zoom before reading this. Using that tidbit, the mako sections have been far less annoying.

With my soldier I'm really only using the assault rifle and shotgun.  Shotgun is really useful for close corridor fighting and for stuff that likes to close to melee.  My party seems to consist of Wrex and whatever tech person I managed to bring along. Wrex with fitness, max armor, barrier, and a shotgun is death incarnate.

This game is really well crafted. I just can't stop playing it. 

Sank 15 solid hours of playing into that baby yesterday. Its been years since I've done that. The only downside is that it is the first 360-game I bought that isn't multilingual. A nasty surprise, but at least the German translation is decent enough to not let me run screaming. Still, gotta try to return it on monday and order a proper copy online. I hope I have the willpower, because that game is digital crack.

Well, I'm about halfway through my second playthrough. My game+ soldier is level 55ish. I'm playing on hardcore mode with Ashley and Garrus in my team. So far the only mobs that are a challenge are biotics.

With the soldier, once you hit a certain point you do become the Grim Reaper made flesh. I love using immunity, then my assault rifle kill skill. (I just blanked on the name, it's late and I'm tired.)

The thing that is annoying on hardcore is alot of the enemies use immunity too. Also, snipers are evil on that level. I've had to be alot more of a tactician than I was on normal but for the most part the only nasty stuff is running into a ton of missile mobs while I'm in the mako.

I'm pretty close to finishing it the first time through with my Infiltrator.  This is indeed most excellent digital crack.  The combat seems a bit clunky at first, like it tried to imitate Gears of War but fell far short, but the gap closed between the two games closed somewhat once I got used to it.  KOTOR + Gears of War = Win.  + Starflght = Uber Win.  I'm already looking forward to the sequel which (if I had any say in it) would include calling in support strikes from the Normandy while driving around.

But enough gushing.

So they've got a hardcore difficulty in New Game+ eh?  That's good, even my Infiltrator (Operative spec) seems to have transcended what most Veteran-level foes can do.  Breaking out the Blue Girl was finished the first time with only one application of Medigel.  (Granted, I put it off until only collection assignments were left.)  Sabotage and Dampening are extremely effective abilities.

I've found my team.  Ashley to tank, her Immunity and (rapid fire shot thingy) make her the room cleaner.  Garrus has been brought onboard to support her (was going to use him as sniiper but he goes where Ashley goes) as well as Decrypt containers and eventually have Electronics.   Despite the title the Vanguard stays in the rear, commanding the action and using Unity, Healing, Marksman and Warp to lower defenses.

Yah the fight with Benezia was rough.  Got down to just me vs. 4 of her minions.  I barely pulled it out.  Good times.  I played for 12 hours yesterday.

I put in the big hours last night as well. Final team is looking like soldier Shepard, Ashley, and Tali. Kinda odd, but they take no prisoners.

I could probably replace Ashley with Wrex, and might very well off and on, but two soldiers can simply lay down the hurt. Tali is surprisingly effective. Anything with shields is fair game for massive explosions and she's pretty handy with a shotgun. Also, I'm used to being able to crack and loot every console, computer, and locked stash that I come across. Some nifty stuff in those. She supposedly can hack AIs, but I have't gotten that skill high enough yet to play hob with the Geth--yet.

I squared off with Benezia last night. If it hadn't been for unity I don't think I'd have pulled it off. Still, the final showdown had me busy cranking my shields back up while Ashley and Tali executed her with a flurry of shotgun carnage--well, as close to an execution as that fight could get anyway. I felt kinda left out.

Fun stuff!

It's the VO. There's enough of it that we don't have enough space on one disc to include more than a single set.

We contracted out to a very reputable place in Ireland (I forget the name, not my end of the business) to get the translations done, and let them make whatever creative edits they needed to make it work within the idioms of their language. One example I know of is that in French, Ashley quotes French poems with the same "message" as the ones she quotes in the original English. So you don't have to put up with an awkward translation of Tennyson's "Ulysses."

I suspected it was a space issue. Let me give kudos to the place you contracted. The translation and the voices they chose both feel right. Its like watching an english SF movie in a superbly translated version. One of these days I still want to rewatch that in English, in the way the creator envisioned it. And if I have to choose (if multilingual is no option), I rather choose the English version right now. Because all due respect, even as good as Mass Effect is, even that game isn't worth buying  twice. That is no knock against your contractor. Everybody should hire them, their reputation is well earned.

Despite some of my initial frustrations with the combat system, I also have become really addicted to this game. You get on a roll and it's "just this one more thing" and before you know it two hours have gone by. My wife is getting to hate the game but I've been giving her plenty of shopping money over the weekend so I've been getting away with monopolizing the tv :).

I don't really have a set crew, I like to mix it up. Wrex is always great for his random comments. Though that other human dude, I haven't used him since the first mission, I wish there was another character for that spot that wasn't so generic.

God Damn.

I'm enjoying the ever living hell out of this.

Just clearing out Peak 15 atm.  Some seriously fun stuff.  Currently going Soldier.  I've kept Tali around because of the crazy open boxes (My lootwhore self suffered so bad when I couldn't open a box).  So my team is Shepard + Tali + whoever I feel like atm.

Having so much damn fun.  Even the soap opera stuff is awesome.

Edit: Wrex cracks me up.

Finished my first time through.  Now I'm going the second time through with a badass Vanguard gothette.  (I'm playing female the second time for the voiceovers and not to ogle polygons, but I might as well have fun with it.)  I'm going for achievements now.  Apparently there's one rigged to every active skill and 150 kills of every weapon.

The game can be beaten in 6 hours or faster if you stick to the main storyline and speed through dialog.

There's about 20-30 hours of excess content that usually is mostly dialog, loading screen, or something to that effect.  The actual "game" portions are relatively light.

The pain in the ass achievements are the ones where you need to complete "a majority of the game" with each of the 6 side members.  Oh, and beating the game on Hardcore *and* Insanity.

Well I could care less about that particular part but I actually hate when they do translations that way myself.  Poems are kind of an odd ball situation if you are doing subtitles for a foreign VO but I'd far rather have an awkward translation than have it completely changed.  The quality control on such little changes are often far below the original state of the game.  They also have an awful tendency to regionalize a title making it lose uniqueness.  I feel sorry for anyone who has to get this amazing game filtered through horrible translation work like that.

Seriously, I bring her along a lot of times when I'd rather not just so I don't get some frustrating message that I can't open some loot box.




I would have to disagree, I'm at 15 hours and maybe I would guess a little halfway through the main storyline, and the optional stuff has been a lot more than talking and loading screens. Plenty of combat and exploring and lewt.

And really, saying gameplay is "just dialogue" in this game is selling it way short. I have never played a game where conversing with other characters was this fun and immersive. I still like it more than the combat itself.

This four day weekend came at a perfect time, I've played the game so much since Wednesday night that my wife hates it. OH WELL there is a galaxy to be saved and a blue alien chick to get busy with!

I can't find keeper 21.  I left the station and headed out to see the universe though so I figure it's all good and I'll swing back around Citadel at some point.

Can't find 21 either, been all over, since I'm completely infallible I have assumed it is in a section of the station that only opens up later in the plot :wink:.

My 21 was under a back-alley stairway somewhere huffing space gas.

There's at least 4 in the tower area alone. Maybe 5.  Another one is out by the Normandy, I can see people missing that one. 

It's hard to say where your keeper #21 can be, but my guess is you haven't tried the dock yet: there's one there.  Another good possibility is the one in the Wards Access Corridor (need to access by taking an elevator between the Presidium and the Wards).  If those are not it, there's a complete list here (http://www.gamespot.com/features/6183235/p-16.html).

I've put my badass gothette Vanguard reply on hold while I do a New Game+ with my original Infiltrator Shepard in order to unlock the remaining tech and weapons.  High accuracy, higher-level weapons are relatively easy to use even untrained.  When I reroll my goth chick, I've decided to go straight Biotic but with an Assault Rifle bonus skill: throwing, lifting, and singularity is kinda fun.  You wouldn't realize it, but there's actually physics support for combat in this game.

Hardcore mode is surprisingly easy, even with a new character, once you've played long enough to get your game on.  The grind:power curve in this game is not very steep at all.  Level 40 (about IX or Spectre rank) weapons only have about 3x base stats of level 1 (I) weapons.  Mods influence that a bit, but not much.

Has anyone gotten the Scholar achievement? I think I'm one race short, most likely Batarians if they have a Primary entry. I read that you could get everything before leaving Citadel for the first time.

What's with the character+/game+ bit you all keep speaking about? Also, please, go on. You're all making this game sound more delicious as I read each post.

It is so delicious and moist.

NewGame+ isn't really listed as such, but you can start a new game and re-use an existing character.  You keep all your gear and stats.  The enemies and loot usually scale to level, so it works.

Ok, figured I'd post an update about my hardcore playthrough.

So far, it's actually pretty easy. I have a level 57 soldier shepard, ashley, and garrus. Ashley is shotgun hell, and Garrus is now my sniper. We're all using Spectre X weapons, and Colossus X armor. It's...evil how quickly we clear a room. My only weakness is biotics and if something knocks me down it usually gets killed by the other two.

I'm on the last mission before the final planet. After this playthrough I'll probably make a female shepard sentinel who will travel with kaid and wrex. Then play with the soldier on insanity level with tali and liara.

I'm really, really hoping there'll be a PC version of this some day.

I'm about 7 hours in. I'm doing fine with an Infiltrator except for those annoying fights where the baddies charge in on you. (The fight with the Matriarch was a pain for that reason). Often I just send my guys up to kill what they can until they get killed, I cower behind cover and snipe/overload/sabotage some stuff, then I reanimate people with Unity, repeat.

I agree with some of the criticisms of the game: the total lack of a tutorial, the weakness of the driving game. But a lot of it is RPG-goodness. The voice work, cinematics, etc. are excellent, and the time invested in facial expression often pays off big. I'm a little eh about some of the derivative content, which doesn't seem witty enough to qualify as homage. (For example, the Aliens/Ender's Game recycling in the Matriarch encounter.) I don't always play Bioware stuff back through a second time but this time I'm sure I will--I'd like to see what kinds of subplots open up if you're a total dick renegade.

I have to laugh here. At 7 hours I was just leaving the Citadel for the first time.

Same here. I was a decent level before ever leaving the citadel because of all of my side quests.

Well, can't you do Matriarch last?  That's what I did (The Mainline splits 3 ways right?)

Yeah, and it's best to, otherwise, without developed skills, all those asari commandos turn you into a patch of goo.

Ha.  Ya, I was wondering because I really didn't have a problem with her.  Also, I've been reading way to much planet descriptions, how much cosmology (?) research did they do? I really like the psuedo-science that's being thrown around.

The Matriarch is probably the hardest fight in the game.  Even the main boss goes down easier.  Still, all challenges can be overcome thanks to the awesome power of the reload function.

'course I trundled off to see her fresh out of Citadel and got my ass stomped about ten times before finally getting it. (http://zombiehof.com/goor/pics/shakefist.gif)

Haha, no pain no gain!

Yeah, I went to see her first, because the planet was closest. It was the first thing I did when I was done with many (not all) of the side quests in the Citadel. Whoops! Splatty splat splat! But yeah, I beat it eventually. Now I'm on Feros and it's pretty much cake so far. I'm actually doing what most people say not to do and that's build up some electronics and decryption on my Shepherd Infiltrator and then I just take Ashley and Wrex and let them pound most stuff into wheatena while I one-shot snipe things.

I'm nearing the end level or I'm currently near the false-end "haha, one more level, not the real end boss" part of the game.  This game feels like the main plot is about 1 or 2 planets/levels short of more recent Bioware RPGs.  Still hard to complain with nearly 30 hours logged. 

I got the "Completionist" achievement without beating the game (only haven't completed a few side quests).  Happened on Ilos about midway through it.  However, I didn't get the "Quarian Ally" or "Krogan Ally" achievements.  I'm guessing I had to have either Tali or Wrex around for every mission, even though I did 90% of the content with them (I switched out Garrus for a specific personal quest, did Feros with Ashley, and Noveria with Liara.   :| )

And..

Watched the Gamespot Mass Effect video review.  "However, your turret can't move up or down."  Uhh, now, I know I didn't find out you could zoom the Mako until a few missions in, but this is a ridiculous lack of fact checking.  They never mention cover (or show it being used) and they show gameplay video of someone playing like a complete retard.  Constant pausing needed?  Did this jackhole even play the fucking game or did is he just reciting from notes stolen off someone's desk?  Avoiding flat land due to thresher maws? You mean the whole 4 or 5 you encounter in the game (no mention that you can just out run them easily either)?

And nice fucking spoilers in the review.  I had to close it due to it showing end game cinematics near the tail end of it.  If I had to give Mass Effect a score, I would have likely given it something equivalent, but that review was just an atrocity.  I know I'm a fan, but it was a bit unfair and a whole lot inaccurate. I don't think I've seen a video review of theirs that was this bad even if the Crysis and Halo 3 reviews left me scratching my head (for other reasons). 

The one Mass Effect review I read was pretty off base, I can't recall if it was Gamespot or IGN.  The reviewer was talking about how the AI simply wouldn't activate sometimes and he could just run right up to things and shoot them.

Uh, yeah.  I'm guessing he had a tech or biotic character in his team that hit the mob with one of their CC abilities.

It's certainly the best RPG that I have played in a LONG time.

Got the Assault Rifle Achievement last night and when I looked in my footlocker I found a couple of kick ass assault rifles.  Nice touch that.

Re: Ally achievement.

You pretty much need to have them in your party for all missions from the moment you get them to get the achievement. The good news is even ally sidequests don't need that particular ally in your party, though it makes at least one of them a little more interesting. (Garrus sidequest.)

I also read a dev comment that says you need to play the game a minimum of 5 times to have a chance to see everything. I'm on my 3rd playthrough and already found something new I missed the first time or two. (I totally missed something on Eden Prime and feel silly about it. I even remember bitching that buying charm on Eden Prime is a waste because you don't get a chance to use it and finding out I was wrong. It helps to you know, explore.)

I'm currently playing a fem Shepard Sentinel. Mostly to see the difference between male and female dialogue. I chose totally different backgrounds and it is amusing how some of the dialogue is very different between "War hero", my first character, and "Ruthless", my current character. I've already had to defend myself a few times as not being a monster.

Done, took 24 hours /played

What a great game, great story, cool characters and universe to roam around in.  The end boss was just the right level of toughness, he was a bitch fo sho.  Graphics were great and I really got to enjoy the combat system finally.

Dings
Pop-in, minor at first was pretty annoying on the last level.  Some textures took up to 3 seconds to load I estimate.
Length was SHORT.  I finished it in 24 hours and really just dinged around a lot. I bet you could play the main storyline between 10-15hours.  That is really kinda shocking.  Fortunately there are tons of side missions to keep you busy, lots of planets to explore and gear to find, artifacts to gather.
Exploration was kinda bland on some planets and you can only land on certain ones so that was a bit disappointing.  But they did give almost each planet a distinct look, color wise.

All in all a great game, another home run for the 360.  As soon as I finish this I am replaying the game, this time gonna focus on side quests and exploring.  Don't know if I'll finish it again but thats ok.

Final Score 96%
-1% Pop-in
-2% Length
-1% Bland exploration in some cases

I think any game you can classify as having untapped potential should be handicapped at least -5% in any review.

Beat the game.  Enjoyed the ending.  YAY SEQUEL SET UP!! :grin:

Now it's time to punish myself and try hardcore as an infiltrator.  Going to go Ashley (sorry Kaiden, meat for the grinder again) and Wrex to offset my expected fragility.  I don't expect this to be easy, but towards the end I really didn't need much of the soldier's added HP. 

About an hour in and playing a renegade female is pretty fun already (I always go evil with the female chars.. a bit misogynistic of me).  "Hey Manuel.. I got something for you." *right cross* Heh, although it's already looking like this character and Ashley are going to be pissed off at each other the entire time.   There was at least one Eden Prime encounter that I missed the first time around.   Renegade already seems a bit different from light/dark.  You're not exactly a puppy kicker, but you sure are an aggressive asshole.

This will be more difficult, I can already tell.  I'm going to have to make better use of my abilities if I'm going to make it.  Soldier wasn't really much of a challenge on normal past Benezia.

I had a bit of trouble with my infiltrator on Feros, mostly because I ran out of medigel while taking out the Thorian--more health would have helped a bit. That was with Ashley and Wrex helping. But I ended up not having to reload, just having to be very very very careful when the plant-men were charging at us given that I had only a sliver of health left.

Is anyone running into a periodic bug where your party stops following you and will only move if you give them a specific waypoint to go to? Happens on occasion during a play session.

I went back to the Citadel after Feros just to see what was going down. Two fun things happened right away: it's definitely worth going back.

Yes, I had Wrex get stuck and he wouldn't respond to commands.  Had to back track to him and use the waypoint commands.  Happened once on Ilos and once on Virmiire.

I'd also gotten stuck on geometry a few times with one time having to reload and the others time I managed to click on something that repositioned me automatically.  My party has trapped me a few times, but thank god for being able to waypoint them off.

Could be worse, could crash my XBox like KOTOR 2 did.

And for the Thorian, I ran out of medigel as a damn soldier.  You just kind of have to be careful with you positioning.  Also, shotguns help.  Hooray for the shotgun achievement  :grin:

Yeah, I've gotten stuck in geometry occasionally. Last night on Feros I knocked one of the colonists into the geometry with a punch, without knocking them out, and that was a pain. Couldn't get them with the anti-thorian gas, couldn't hit them, but I could shoot them if I got to one angle. So much for being Mr. Perfect Paragon: 1 dead colonist beats a reload.

Gah.

I haven't been back to the Citadel since I left.  Been too busy raping planets of their resources.

So, how do I use my team mates to open locked stuff? This is driving me crazy!

Finished, it. Just under 40 hours (39 and some minutes to spare). Splendid finale to a splendid game!

You automatically use your team mates. If you try the minigame the ability to do so is checked against your current parties skill.

A friend of mine is driving me crazy telling me how this is, performance wise, the worst 360 game ever. He said he's getting constant FPS drops and that "EVERYONE IS HAVING THEM AND YOU JUST DIDIN'T SEE THEM". So, anyone having framrate drops? Like all the time to the point where they ruin the game for you?

No, not really. Nothing I've really noticed anyways.

Citadel can get a little loady, but never in a combat situation from what I've seen.  It's definitely the most drive intensive game I've seen and again, that's mostly in the Citadel.

No, the load times weren't that bad either.

Disclaimer: I played The Witcher directly before it, so my perception might be faulty.

Oh, I'm not talking load times.  Those really are fine and seem to be limited to the longer elevator ride or two, and those are still miles better than the Witcher.  I'm just saying there appears to be a lot of background loading done (drive spinning) while in the Citadel and other larger level areas.  It's barely noticeable, but it's there.

I've had a FPS once or twice during very large fights. But it was quick and didn't effect things. Sounds like his 360 is faulty.

I'm almost done with my sentinel  playthrough. Wow. The combat difference is amazing. It started out alot harder than the soldier but once my powers were bought up I blow through combats. I have to use the combat wheel a lot to select powers, but it's worth it.

I have had a time or two when using a lift and throw combo where I threw an enemy onto something and they couldn't get down and I couldn't kill them. Oh well. One guy I knocked into this structure which was basically a hollow rectangle with some bits sticking out. He kept yelling "they're everywhere" when I tossed grenades over the top to try to finish him off.

A bioware dev said to hang on to your favorite save because Mass Effect 2 will use your Mass Effect 1 character. That means I need to remake my soldier with throw as a bonus talent. My current level 58 soldier has maxed out charm and intimidate because I used him to try both paragon and renegade paths. Which was stupid of me. That's like 10 wasted talent points.

 I'm also considering seeing how the combat + biotics character plays out. Or making a male sentinel and playing him all the way through. I love the combination of tech and biotics the sentinel gives you.

I also still need to beat the game on insanity.

I don't understand why this game is such digital crack for me. I've never replayed a game like this and been this obsessive about it.

Tell me about it. I had to give the box to a friend to stop playing it :)

After reading the review here and watching all the preview videos I am so, so pumped about playing this.  Except now with Christmas approaching I have a moratorium on game purchases.

I think my are odds good though. My list kind of went like this:

Socks
Other stuff
a game
Mass Effect  :awesome_for_real:
World Peace
Tools

One thing I'll say on this game is that the combat takes getting used to. My first play attempt was with an Infiltrator and that was a mistake. Trying to figure out the combat system using the sniper rifle is not good. I restarted with a Vanguard after about 7 hours of the first character, and I haven't looked back. Leave the sniping to Ashley.

The combat is definitely wonky at times.  Nothing sucks more than being behind cover and having a teammate's lift grab the crate that is your cover as well as some of the enemies.  Made Benezia more difficult than it could have been. 

I will say, learning to effectively use the grenades makes a HUGE difference.  It's saved my ass a lot.  The sidequest that gets you your specialization would have been a lot more difficult for me without them, as the drones seemed to not want to cooperate with my biotics. 

I did one better, I bought Mass Effect, gave it to my parents and said 'Give me this at Christmas'

Hah, I usually have a special arrangement with my in-laws since they love to keep me happy.  I straight out tell them one game to buy me for my birthday and Christmas.  I just couldn't wait for this one.

One thing about grenades, does the damage not scale well towards later levels? I found them less useful towards the end of the game.  Perhaps I should just add status effects like Cryo when they become available instead of High Explosive.

Cryo rounds effect is pretty cool.  Haven't tried cryo 'nades though.

I'm kind of bummed at the effectiveness of shield bypass rounds so far.  If they bypassed enough shield so that I could actually kill something faster it would be cool but the way it feels is that you take small chunks off shields and health until shields drop and then with the full effect on health things drop quick.  It seems to go faster if I just smash down shields and then health.

I got some 40% shield bypass ammo last play session, maybe those will have a more noticeable, uh, impact.

BTW Assault rifles with 50+ accuracy are luverly.

Grenades may not scale as well, or it might be the massive shield levels that start to show up on some of the enemies.  I haven't noticed a huge change in their effectiveness, but I've also got a maxed warp that I use before the grenades on the big groups.  So that could be compensating for any weakening of the grenades as a whole.  I tend to use the high explosive mod as well.  Pretty much the only time I haven't is during the thorian sequence. 

Ok. Figured out my next character. An infiltrator with probably a bonus talent of throw. I'll spec in commando when I get the choice. Electronics, throw, "unlimited" immunity, and adrenalin burst = win. This will probably be my character to use in the next game. Also, I found out that you can almost max charm and/or intimidate in repeated play-throughs with the same character without ever putting a point into them. You get a free point when you become a spectre. Still...I love those dialogue options.

Finally, about ammo and grenades. I love cryo, toxic and incendiary. It's fun watching enemies shatter into little pieces as well as turning them into flames. And then finally turning some of their friends into goo. For this reason I tend to have 1 of each type of ammo between my allies and I.

I'll probably keep my initial play-through guy for the 2nd game.  If weapon unlocks from achievements are usable on established characters I'll branch out to more than pistol, but other than that, I can't think of anything I'd want to change talents wise.  His face though....I didn't realize how odd his cheekbones can look from angles not really noticeable too well in chargen, so now he's got a Willem Dafoe thing going on. 

I definitely like characters carrying forward to the next game.  That also possibly means that my choice on Peak 15 could very well bone the galaxy in the later games.   Should be fun.  Not to mention all the other side effects from various choices that could result.  Hopefully by the 2nd installment the Council won't be second guessing my every decision.   

What? your PC persists to ME2?

nice.

A topic was started about this on the Bioware forums and one of the devs responded and said "I'll say this, keep your favorite save."

I'm curious how it will work since I will probably have a max level character with all spectre weapons. They either have to a) raise the level cap or b) only keep your face, backgrounds, and class, but find some reason to reset everything else or c) do like Baldur's Gate 2, let you keep your level but find an in-universe reason to strip your skills.

I'm guessing it'll be the game+ save that is carried over. Unanswered questions are:

1) Does it record your choices in the game?
2) Does it record the fates of certain NPCs?
3) Since paragon and renegade reset in the new game+ is that lost as well?

in other news, the lead writer is releasing a novel next summer that is a bridge between ME1 and 2. And sadly I'll probably buy it. They've also said they want the whole trilogy to come out on the 360, so if you assume a 4 year life span that'd be about 2 years per game. Which is doable since they have the game engine and alot of the artwork. As well as the world fully developed.

Edit:

The two relevant quotes:


Edit 2:

I hope this also includes the bonuses unlocked from achievements.

I'm getting creepy anime dick-nipples here. The fact that there will just be a Mass Effect 2 is giving me twelve erections. The character thing...I just can't quantify it.

I should have seen it coming, really, based off the way the game ends.  Now I'm in suspense about whether they're going to make it so you start out maxed or if there's whole new levels worth of character progression in the sequel.

Just a confirmation: I got the scholar achievement before I left the Citadel for the first time.  I got the last piece talking to Anderson near the Normandy right after the Urdina(sp?) left. 

ME was always supposed to be a trilogy.

I thought I'd repeat a couple of posts here about mods and ammo that I found really useful.

first, about how the math is done on % mods:


Second, about armor mods and how useful toxic rounds and other kinds of rounds are:

Yeah, there was no question as to whether there'd be sequels, that was in the design from the get go.  One character continuing to the next one though, that is a new bit of info.  I was expecting something like KOTOR 2, where you're in the same universe, but anyone left standing from the first one is left to either bit cameos or just being the subject of discussions about history.  I just hope we don't have to put up with a contrived delevelling plot device.  Adding new abilities shouldn't be a problem.  Advanced weapons training, new weapons, etc.  Stuff like biotics could definitely be opened up to new abilities.  Mass Effect 3, with an aged Shepherd, would be all sorts of interesting.  "I'm getting too old for this shit." 

Here's something I can't figure out. How do you know which mods you actually have in your weapons/armor?

I also really, really wish you could select a bunch of mods at once to turn into omni-gel. Doing it one at a time when you've got a backlog is teh tedium. Though given the things I've found out how to do that there's no hint you can do, I'll bet you can and I just haven't figured it out yet.

Whenever you open up the upgrade menu, the one currently equipped will be at the top of the list. 

As to melting stuff and everything, yeah, they need to improve the inventory management a bit.  It's a pain in the ass to dig through it. 

But how do you tell where the ones you have equipped end and the non-equipped list begins?

Errr...go to the weapon or armor. click the X button. Whatever is at the top of the list is equipped. Everything else is unequipped.

I still don't get it. Take the armor mods list that comes up when I hit X. It's a long list. It has duplicates of stuff on it.

Let's say I'm trying to figure out whether I've equipped a current piece of armor with one unique mod of each major type that I have in inventory. So I clicky-clicky on the various mods. This shuffles around what's at the top of the list. I find it confusing to have to scroll down and figure out where the equipped mods end and the unequipped ones begin so I can be sure there isn't some unique type of mod I have yet to equip on that particular piece of armor. It seems to me that the UI here is pretty lame: it would be much better to have two separate lists that come up side-by-side: what's equipped and what is unequipped and in my inventory. It would also be really, really nice to have two parallel stat listings of the unmodded and modded armor so I can see concretely what it is that all the mods are doing when it's added up. That's pretty much standard with equipment in RPGs: base item stats in one color, modded stats in another.

I also really wish it were possible to somehow select multiple items for conversion to omni-gel. I hate having to stop in the middle of a tense, good mission to do five minutes of inventory management because if I don't I'm going to end up at the end with six Exoskeleton VI armor mods that each have to be converted to omni-gel one at a time.

The "ONE" at the top of the list is equipped unless it says "EMPTY".  In the sales inventory view equipped mods do not show up in the list at all.

! So you can only have one armor or weapon mod equipped. I didn't understand that. I thought you could have one of each type of mod. D'oh.

Depends on the armor/weapon.

Early armor has one slot, later armor has two.  Early weapons have one slot for a weapon mod and one ammo mod. Later weapons have 2 weapon mod slots and one ammo mod slot.  So, the top thing listed will be equipped for each mod slot.  How is this that hard of a concept?

Here's the installation instruction for equipping a weapon with a heat sink and armor piercing rounds.

1.  Hit X with the weapon equipped.
2.  Scroll down to heat sink and hit right on the directional pad while it's selected.
3.  Scroll down and highlight armor piercing rounds.  Hit A.
4.  You now have a weapon equipped with a heat sink and armor piercing rounds.  These equipped mods will now always show at the very top of the selection list.  There are also graphical indicators on your currently equipped weapon to detail this.

If this does not help you, perhaps you should be playing Peggle. I can see problems with the inventory system, but this I think anyone would figure out with relative ease. 

Edit: Heh, for a lark I'm going to look at the manual when I get home.  Most games are very poorly documented.  Lamentably so, coming from the perspective from someone that works in the documentation field.

See, what I thought was happening was I was hitting A on a mod that I wanted, and it was disappearing from a list of equippable mods because it was now equipped. So what I've been doing without realizing it is cycling through available mods, and whatever the last I put in is what the armor or weapon actually ends up having. I thought the graphic was displaying the mod presently on the top of a list of equippable mods, not the mod I actually had in the armor or weapon.

I got that you could have ammo mod and weapon mod and how to switch back and forth between those.

Just me not getting it.

I feel silly. I didn't know you could just highlight and hit right to go the next mod slot (or ammo) and it would equip that mod. I've been hitting X, finding the mod and hitting A, then going back in for the ammo.

Yea... me too.

I found sniping to be pretty easy actually, and a lot of fun.  For Benezia and the last boss I had to switch over to pistol, since sniping really wasn't viable (and most times I was fighting Husks I suppose, since they all tend to bum rush you as soon as you shoot one of them), but it made a lot of the game allmost feel too easy.

My first being an infiltrator too, I can see where Bunk is coming from here.  Sniper rifles are effective weapons after you get used to them, but they're sort of the advanced weapon you learn to use in long ranged combat after you figure out how to crouch and aim effectively.  Starting out players are better off learning pistols, shotguns, and assault rifles first.  At the high end of the spectrum, we finally figure out what Tech attacks and Biotics are good for.

Man I'm torn about what to play as my next character and the one I'll take to ME2.

A vanguard, maybe with AR or a tech ability.
An infiltrator with lift or throw
or
A sentinel with AR (probably.)

A Sentinel or Biotic (for Singularity fun) with Assault Rifle sounds like good choices to me.  Having lousy durability becomes less of an issue after you get really good at using cover.

Wasn't really that hard for me to learn (this was my first character also).  The hardest part for me was just having the patience to let the gun cool down enough before firing it again to keep it from overheating.

On another note, are there some encounters in this game that are just completely random?  When I was doing the Benezia part, I entered one area and there was an Asari Commando with a gun pointed at one of those Volus guys, and was getting ready to kill him (which I prevented).  Shortly after, I got to Benezia and was promptly killed, and then I discovered that I hadn't saved in a while so I had to go back through a couple parts.  This time though, when I got to the room where I saved the Volus, it was completely empty.

I think that, deep down, there's a but of the Aurora Engine (used in NWN) here.  Either that, or at least some of the design methodology involved.  In the same way that the enemies scale to player level, it's entirely possible that there's other elements at work such as random chances of spawns in places.  That's some of the stuff I could do using the NWN tookit, too.

The waving about of the sniper rifle makes it annoying to use.  Thus, I don't use it much.  Is there a way to keep that to a minimum?  I may mess around with the sniper rifle more once I've got the pistol achievement done.

Infiltrator on hardcore is a little difficult at first. You're far too fragile to start.  Pistol + shotgun + tons of cover + power spam + funneling enemies has worked ok.  Couple things I've noticed: krogans are absolutely nasty now and sometimes the AI can go a little wonky.  I didn't notice any playing on normal, but on Feros I had enemies got a little braindead a few times.

It usually only waves about right after you take a shot.  It's usually best to just wait a few seconds (you have to wait for the gun to cool a bit anyway), and it will stop.

Excessive waving around (without relation to when you last took as hot) could also have to do with a low accuracy score and lack of crouching.  Crouching is the important think - the Sniper Rifle (and just about any other gun) is much easier to aim when you're crouched (ideally behind cover).

Well, my fem shep was a sentinel. I got the AR bonus talent and never used it once. I like the sentinel because you have a mix of all skills. However it has downsides:

No adrenalin burtst or immunity. To my knowledge all other classes have one or the other, or both in the case of the soldier.
No armor to speak of other than light.

Still...sentinel seems an awesome general use class. I found the combats with my sentinel were almost absurdly easy in late game except against large numbers of enemies. Cooldown was my biggest issue.

Vanguard with electronics is looking interesting right now. I wouldn't be able to decrypt on my own but I could do almost everything else, and electronics adds to shields if I remember right which can only help my cause.

Bingo. A rifle with high base accuracy (one type has lower accuracy for a lackluster damage boost) modded for even more should stop all swaying a couple of seconds after you zoom.

Well, now I'm 22 hours in and have only done one of the main story planet missions :P

Playing a Vanguard/Shock Trooper with Ashley sniping and Tali there to open boxes and hack Geth Rocket Bastards. Finding it much easier than my first partial playthrough.
It was very exciting to find the last damn Keeper to scan - as someone mentioned, the one I missed was at the docking bay.

I beat the game, completing most of the side quests as a soldier in roughly 22 hours.  Used Tali and Liara most of the time.  Once she learns singularity, combat is a joke.  Guys just float over to where you can pick them off safely.

Also, did anyone else have two of the women come up and make you choose between them?  Ashley almost knocked Liara out.

I'm at 22 hours and still have 2 main quest line planets to go, at least, Feros and the one that opens up later.

My team hit level 30 last night and is going strong.  Using Ashley and Tani.  They don't have a lot of witty banter but Ashley pretty much one shots anything out in the open and Tani lays on the floor dying while I flush everything out of cover.  I still probably get 80% of the kills though, the advanced Spectre assault rifles just do craploads of damage (+60% with proper mods!!!) 2 or 3 hits is enough to drop most things.

This being a Bioware game, I think that's when you're supposed to talk them into a three-way.

"Don't you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything. I'd have to dress different. I'd have to act different. I'd have to grow a moustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions and I'd need a new bedspread and new curtains I'd have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting. I'd have to get new friends. I'd have to get orgy friends."

I was assuming that the asshole renegade option is the natural Ashley-romancing option.

Do the female Shepherds get a chance to romance one of the men?

I'm finding that sniper makes later stuff absurdly easy as long as you have some kind of close up weapon trained for times where sniper just won't cut it. On the final approach to the Council Room, I was blowing away almost everything with my infiltrator-sniper before it even had a chance to bug the party, including the Geth Turrets.

Finished my first Paragon go-round. Time for a Renegade.

Females get Carth Kaidan.

Are the elevators in the Citadel playing Feliz Navidad?

I'm kinda pissed that if you do one of the citadel quests before talking to the consort you lose out on getting an item that unlocks a Prothean artifact on one of the planets.

Shoot. I was thinking Wrex.

C'mon! It's got alien sexx already, after all.

Finally beat it earlier.  Took me a decent amount of time, because I explored pretty much everything I could.  Except for anything involving the Mako, I loved every moment of it.  I'll definitely play it again, but I'll probably wait a bit to see what downloadable content shows up.  I've got lots of other games to occupy myself with in the mean time. 

High marks for the pace and excitement from Ilos onward, btw.

Yes. That ending was superb. It definitely made me forget I endured Assassins Creed horrible ending and made me want to play through again to see what alternate stuff shows up with being a renegade.

I'm about halfway through on my vanguard character. For some reason it's not as fun as I thought it would be. I am playing with a stupid party setup for my character so combat is a pain. (I'm trying to unlock my last two ally achievements, which means I have to have Tali and Liara in my party, so I have almost zero firepower.)

I'm finding that if you're lazy and let the computer level up characters Garrus is about 10X as useful for decryption and electronics than Tali is. The computer tends to spread her skill points out to much.

I'm thinking that Vanguard won't end up being my main character after all, as in, the one I play in ME2. I'll probably go with a sentinel or make a second soldier but with lift as a bonus talent this time out.

Soldiers really are a ton of fun as far as running and gunning go, but they can't really do anything else.

I'm not entirely clear on how the new game+ system works for a second time through.  It says you keep your skills but does that mean I keep my maxed out assault rifle or are all the points refunded since the new class might not even be able to use assault rifles?  My main question is if I want to play as a renegade the second time through do I need to max out intimidate right now or do you eventually get to a level where you can't spend any more points because they are all maxed out?

When you start a new game you can choose to use an existing career. This is your character you played before. Something interesting I discovered is that it makes several different saves of the character, one for each time you beat the game with him. So, I have two versions of my first soldier character for instance.

Your game+ character will have all the skills, money, omni-gel, and items (including items equipped on NPCs) of your old character. You do not get to change class, background, or appearance. All paragon/renegade points reset, although charm and/or intimidate does not. So you could concievably play a Renegade character with maxed out charm.

Also, I have recently discovered it is perfectly possibly to max out charm and/or intimidate without spending a single talent point if you are willing to do multiple playthroughs of your character since you get automatic points for becoming a spectre and achieving certain levels in paragon or renegade.

Oh, I was hoping to go a different class but with a maxed out, rich, well equipped character and annihilate everything in my path.  Damn.

Infiltrator + commando can get a little crazy with the pistol/sniper damage when you factor in mods.  What's also nice is having access to Spectre gear as soon as you can afford it (if you got completionist on your first play through)h. 

I recently ran into what I'd consider a quest bug.  Warning, minor spoiler.

I get the quest to go into the hot labs.
I get the quest to get the toxin cure.  This can lead to secret labs access.
I get finish the hot labs section. 
I get back to the survivor area and they attack me on Benezia's orders.  Everyone is cleaned out. 
The toxin cure quest is grayed out and it said I access the secret labs area so the guards are on to me. 

HUH? I wonder if it would have said something about that if I just finished the hot labs or if I could do the toxin quest and then do the hot labs.  But that would likely cut off the secret way into the uhh.. secret labs.  Previous play through I saved the hot labs until the end.

Reminds me of another quest bug (more like bad timing):

Do the quest to help Dr. Michel with her blackmailer. 
Find out about Banes.
Talk to Armstrong about Banes.
Armstrong says to talk to Amiral Kohoku about Banes.
Well, Banes isn't there because I just told him about his dead marines (kicks off Cerebus quests). OOPS.
Dead end, nothing else comes from the Banes stuff.   

Having a lot of fun with hardcore.  Rachni spit at this difficulty.  Not fun!

Happened to me too. But, they actually explain it. Kohoku dies shortly after you mention to him that his men are dead.

Yah, but at least his corpse should have told me something about Banes instead of giving me the last part of the Cerberus quest.

Ohh well, something to do on my inevitable third play through.  This game is going to get more completions out of me than Vampire.   God I wish this game was a MMO sans suck (yah, I know the suck comes with).

I've done it both ways. As near as I can tell going and doing the cure first is better for paragon points but other than that there is not alot of difference other than having to kill a bunch of security guys or being able to avoid them.



As near as I can tell there is nothing to find out about Banes. He's dead. The only point of that whole sidequest is to go to Kohoku and kick off the Cerebrus stuff. If you do the marine portion you can ask him again and he says something like "yeah, he was dead, those marines who were killed found his body."

And yes, hardcore is fun. I haven't done insanity yet.

Is this one of those Bioware games that basically sucks on most gameplay levels, but somehow, still wins you over because of the love story?

Be honest now.

Not really.  The combat system works well when it works (95% of the time).  The cover mechanic adds a lot.  The character advancement and weapon diversity is well done. The exploration aspects are generally fun.  They've perfected the cinematic experience in this one.  It's just epic in every sense of the word, hard to explain more than you're thrust into the middle of a grand ole space opera. 

It just has some bad design decisions IMO.  The main one being the use of the Mako.  If it wasn't tied so heavily to the exploration, it'd just be like the starship turret parts in KOTOR. 

And I've seen the combat glitch out a few times.  It's not prevalent enough though that I'd consider it a problem. And I've only noticed it on hardcore, which leads me to believe the added difficulties were kind of tacked on.

I've played through 2 times and am planning on a third.  It doesn't help that the achievements in this one are absolutely perfect.

For me, it was the other way around.  Wins you over on the gameplay level, and the love story was just an annoying distraction.

Get those naked polygons with the clever camera angles out of my face.  I've Geth to shoot.

(Granted, the riveting story with fairly likable characters made shooting Geth all the sweeter.)

I guess I'm in the minority but I don't have a problem with the Mako parts at all.  I enjoy offroading around the planets looking for stuff and the occasional Geth ambush.

I'd like to see Mass Effect 2 expand on the concept though and make it more of a fully fledged subgame.

I liked the Mako also, except for the occasional part where you get stuck in super-rocky terrain and it takes you forever to get out.

I absolutely hated the love plot here.  In fact, most of the interaction with the NPCs on your ship were pretty bland.  "I think you're special, too."  Seriously?  That's what a galaxy-saving badass says?  It's so fucking PC!  It's like they hired Danielle Steele to write the romance-specific dialog.  It makes me stabby.

Some of the charm dialogue interactions are also a bit painful.  Possible minor spoiler of a small subquest...

Criminal syndicate boss: I've spent a lifetime clawing my way up through this pirate and slave focused organization and now I'm finally on top thanks to you killing my rivals, awesome.
Shepard:  You should give all that up and go legit.
Criminal syndicate boss: What? After I finally achieved absolute power, never!
Shepard: Oh come on, it would make you feel all warm and fuzzy I bet.
Criminal syndicate boss: You know what you're right, I'll just tell all the lackeys behind me they're laid off and get a nice waitressing job somewhere, thanks for showing me a better way :heart:.  You should get out of my hidden planetary lair though, they might not be as understanding as me.

Yeah, sometimes the charm dialogue was brutal. They might as well have put "Charming Statement" in some places just because it was such a bullshit line. I can't wait to do the intimidate side of things.

The charm dialogue makes more sense if you consider that your aw3s0me st4tz are r0xx0ring the state of reality.  More problematic is that a lot of the game goes like this:

Dialogue problem presents itself.
Option 1: Non-Solution.  Your character lacks intimidation or charm to overcome problem.  Conflict occurs.
Option 2: Solution via Charm.  Conflict resolved.
Option 3: Solution via Intimidation. Conflict resolved.

Aside from using a different one-liner, edgy or peacenik, the result is the same.  In just about every situation, you have either the Charm or Intimidation solution available.  The problem is that it's a very transparent if-branch.

It's not D20, is it?

Totally new system.  It's actually more Gears of War emulated action than RPG.

Yeah, the option to go Paragon or Renegade seems to be more for RP purposes rather than having any actual effect on the gameplay or story (which ending you get hinges entirely on a decision you make near the very end of the game).  It's just best to stick with one or the other because once you've got the meter close to filled it unlocks the highest levels of charm or intimidate (which can slightly change the confrontation you have with the last boss, not that it makes much a of a difference in the end).

I think they felt compelled to add light/dark choices because that's one of the things the company is known for.  But really, I like that even though the outcome is the same I have the opportunity to change the dialog up a little.  Makes the game more replayable.

They had more fun with Renegade options and it shows as early as Eden Prime.

Well, I think it makes sense story-wise when you're planning a trilogy to not have good characters and evil characters in the way that KotoR did.

The charm options, at least, need a bit more depth to them in the second game.  (Likely intimidate too, but I've not done a renegade playthrough yet.)  Convincing someone inclined to shoot you to not shoot you and surrender instead should take more than a "C'mon........C'MON......." line of dialogue.  Make it open up a long dialogue chain or something, instead of where it's a line or two to completely turn someone around.  Like right before the final conflict.  That you could use charm to get what happened to happen is a really cool touch, but that it seemed so...rushed to happen cheapened it a little.  My first response to that, and to several results of using charm was, "....that worked?"  So, like alot of the issues I have with the game, just adding a little more polish, or expanding it a bit, would go a long way. 

Except the Mako.  Either get rid of it, or design another go at it.  Flopping around like an armored fish just isn't too fun. 

I'm always torn when there are two text branch options and one is an intimidate and the other is Kill him.

Couple of sidequest issues... possible minor spoilers, maybe?



Do you ever find out exactly who ws blackmailing the doctor?
And is there ever any follow-up on the shadow broker?

Also, has anyone tried being a perv once the romantic interest has come to visit them?  Like the one with Ashley that says "Get in that bed" or something like that?

I went with the MOAR option after alien-not-quite-but-technically-kinda-lesbo sex with Liara.  The dialog was "Ready for round 2?" followed by a shocked (but totally wanting it) "Shepard!".  Alas, 5 minutes to Ilos landing prevented anything further.  Why was I dressed already?  :pedobear:


Not that I've seen.  Perhaps it's in the text leading up to "Missing Marines".  Which supposedly is what follows if you ask Kohoku about Banes.


Shadow Broker will buy your Cerberus data. That's it that I've seen.  Definitely feels like a missing thread.

Might be a tie in later on.

As for me, I'm onwards to Ilos this weekend.  I think I missed out on the macking because i turned down Liara and expressed no interest in Ashely. Stupid goodie answers.

Edit: I'm shocked I've stayed 'good' this long.  In KOTOR, about mid way through the game, the mercenary answers kept me down (more loot w/ this option).

Gears did it better though.  I took issue with a lot of their decisions and how they structured the game.  The game only gets high ratings because people don't know what a good fucking game is anymore, or are getting paid to give it a high rating.

It's true, I tried to use the word "emulated" to make clear that Mass Effect is only a knock-off of Gears of War-esque action and not the real thing.  It's not bad for a knockoff - it gets better once you get used to using cover, Mass Effect style.   Yet, it's still not specifically developed to be as good, thanks to all that bothersome effort spent on developing context, story, and Mako driving.

And uh, Bioware not being very good at creating compelling gameplay in general...


Not that I'm not knockin' their games too much though (and especially this one, since I haven't played it). Don't get me wrong. I like love stories. Haha

Bioware has created the only two RPGs that I've bothered to replay immediately after beating the game.  Compelling enough for me.   :oh_i_see:

Although this one has generally interesting combat rather than D20 that's hit or miss with folks. Funny thing you mention the love stories though, I think this is the first one where I've completed a romance instead of flaming out since PS:T/BG 2 (managed to not care/epic fail in KOTOR 1&2, Jade Empire).

I'm just kidding about the love stories really. Just my catchall term for all the dialogue and character interaction they have in their games. They almost qualify as adventure games in this respect.

I've tried exploring the Banes thing really deeply, and it seems to just drop off after you find the missing marines and Kohaku gets involved with Cerberus.  You can still ask about Banes with the shopkeeper, but it seems like something they left out, just like with follow-up on the Shadow Broker after you give him the Cerberus data.

I'm about halfway through my second playthrough. It's clear that this is one of those games that requires your imagination to meet it halfway. Otherwise there is just so much of the game that is only a facade, and you get too many peeks behind it just showing an old warehouse, like a kid running through a poorly built funhouse. It shares similarities with BioShock in just having the illusion of choice. So many dialogue options just lead to the exact same point. The Milky Way feels so small, for a game about exploring the galaxy it's just laughable really, aside from the main story planets you have a handful of tiny planets with little cut and paste bases, and random junk items spread about the little planet that aren't worth the time navigating up a mountain in the Mako to get them.

But I really like micromanaging my party's equipment and skills, even if I can't really micromanage them in battle, and I like watching the Shepards I spent a lot of time making "just right" interact with the NPCs. My imagination tends to fill in the rest, but still I'm certain the game we got is just a fraction of what BioWare intended to make.

I actually like how the text options pretty much lead to the same place, just said differently.

It keeps the game focused and moving forward and when I'm feeling annoyed I can cut off the council mid sentence or stick the barrel of my pistol up someones nose without having to worry if I made the 'right' choice.

As a serial save-and-try-the-other-path addict I find it quite refreshing that I can focus on more roleplayingy aspects.

Indeed.

This is a good point but, from the perspective of somebody who thinks gaming innovation is about having player choices matter more, it  [dialogue choices leading to the same place] seems frustratingly retroactive.

The love story is pretty lame. Talk - Talk - Talk - Jump into bed. I had a lot more fun with Wrex talking smack to everyone.

And as a Renegade you THROW PEOPLE AGAINST WALLS, WAVE GUNS IN THEIR FACE, AND SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD.

Other than that, yeah, exactly the same.

While the game essentially is on rails, driving toward an end conflict, I accomplished things a whole lot different from when playing as a renegade rather than a paragon.  Heck, the end state of the galaxy is essentially going to be different when I finish and all of this has been based on my choices in dialog. My renegade leaves behind a trail of retribution, execution, frontier justice, and genocide that my paragon avoided at every turn. 

Some of the minor crap tends to end with the same result, but convincing someone to go home and sticking a gun in their face and screaming at them are different things.  Manuel probably appreciates the paragon treatment rather than the right cross planted on his jaw. 

What's really missing most of the time and what sets a game like The Witcher apart, is the reaction and path that your actions set you down.  While you decisions have impact in Mass Effect at a certain point in time, the true impact is negligible. Although I wonder if I got a certain quest because of my renegade status and that I never got with my paragon (and the reverse, my renegade never got the traumatized girl on the docks quest).

This sidequest depends on your background, specifically where you grew up. Your career path effects some later quests but doesn't spawn any new ones.

Minor spoilers follow:





Colonist: Traumatized girl
Spacer: Old friend of your mothers
Earthborn: Blackmailed by a member of a gang you were in.

War Hero: The sidequest with the nuclear probe is more personal
Sole Survivor: The sidequest with Corporal Toombs is more personal
Ruthless: Major Kyle was your commanding officer in your famous mission.

These background choices also impact starting paragon and renegade scores:

Spacer, Warhero: Start with Paragon points (double if you choose both.)
Earthborn, Ruthless: Start with Renegade points (double if you choose both.)
Colonish, Sole Survivor: Neutral. (No points or some points in both, I'm not sure.)

Yep, this was my main point, that any freedom of choice in the game is largely an illusion with purely fleeting, cosmetic consequences that don't alter anything about how the game plays after that moment.

After BioShock and Mass Effect, I am really, really craving a game where my choices actually matter and truly alter the game afterwards - I hear Witcher is more like this? I haven't gotten around to getting that yet with so many games released lately.

In the Witcher your choices have impacts, sometimes an hour or more after you make them. The impact, at least in the part I got to, are minor however. A certain NPC may get killed, that kind of thing.

The Witcher definitely seemed to get the "Choices have impact" thing better.  In a way, it's almost sort of like the choices cascade.  What seems like a small choice in one spot affects something later, which in turn affects options and events, and so forth.  Is a small decision early on going to alter the plot forever?  Not exactly.  It's more of how things play out until the bigger choices, and some of those bigger choices have options that are dependant on how you've done things up til then.  At minimum, I felt like I was affecting what was happening to me ALOT more than I did in Mass Effect.  And there are several places where there is no easy choice, as well as places where you don't get the result you expect at all.

As much as I ultimately preferred The Witcher over Mass Effect, I do feel they were going for different things.  Mass Effect is at heart an old fashioned space opera, where the men are men, women are women, etc.  The Witcher is a gritty, dark game.  There really isn't a 'happy' ending, no matter what you do.  I found the Witcher more rewarding, but that in no way means I didn't enjoy Mass Effect.  They're both excellent games in my book. 

"Muzak" or lounge versions of the main theme, actually. We suggested it in honor of the "Live and Let Die" Ultimart scene in Grosse Point Blank.

The "Banes" thing is only supposed to be an alternate path into the Kahoku/Cerberus plot. It doesn't work, since it's presented in a way that suggests it's an entirely different plot.

And as the guy who spent two weeks trying to debug those quest journals, I have a deep personal hate for the Banes/Kohoku/Cerberus trifecta.

I like them but they feel incomplete to me as well. I chalked it up to "well maybe it'll be expanded upon in the sequel."

I really think Stormwaltz needs to bug somebody to have M4 Part 2 become a download for Rock Band. Also make sure the Faunts have something to do with the sequels. That song made the ending perfect. I watched the entire credits just to hear the whole song and see who made it so I could get it on iTunes.

Ok, somebody tell me whether I'm imagining this. I'm going total Renegade dialog options with my second character, and I'm certain that all  of the NPCs are swearing a titload more in this run-through, once I'd hit a certain renegade threshold.

There are occasional dialogues where it's really tough to select the renegade option because you feel like you're going to cut off the dialog without getting a good result. You know, it's like this:

Liara: "I don't know what I did to turn this on".

Renegade dialog selection: "Stupid cunt!"

But of course, if you go ahead and select it, the actual spoken dialog always turns out like, "That wasn't a very good idea, was it?" or something similarly mild.

It was actually the same way with some of the Paragon dialogues. I'd say something super nice and they would just stop. I was confused.

Are the dialogue choices perhaps what Shepard is Thinking, but not always the same as what is said?

In essence, I don't have a problem with this approach if it's in fact what is being used; you're thinking one thing, but you don't use those exact words. The feeling of what you wanted to say generally still gets across though.

It could be, though there are points where the option varies greatly from the result.

Finally finished, 45 hours for my first play though.  Took a renegade, err, humanocentric path.  Going to be interesting to see how the next one picks up from where you leave off at.

I just finished as well.  Just under 30 hours.  I was paragon the whole way through except the end.

Whiney bitches deserved to die.

Always nice to have a dev in on a discussion about their game. :)

Can you get the difficulty based achievements on a new game+ by just changing the difficulty after it starts (I didn't see the option to change diffs loading a previous completion)?  Or do you have to start from level 1?  I kind of want to insanity with my soldier and get the level 60 achievement at the same time.

I haven't actually done it, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't get the higher difficulty achievements with an existing career (or New Game+, as we've been calling it in a nod towards the Capcom legacy).  The thing is, the foes scale to your characters' levels anyway.

At least, that's the first time I ever saw the phrase.

You are correct, sir.

Who needs to remember anything anymore? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Game_Plus)

The achievement says something to the effect of "without changing the difficulty" so I assume it has to be left one way for the entire game. Luckily you can change that setting in the options before loading/starting a game.

I was in the second last stage that uses the Mako when I accidentally figured out it had a zoom function with left trigger + right thumb button...  That would have made blowing up turrets on all those other planets from range much much easier.  The funny thing is I actually read the manual while going home so I knew it could do that, then I promptly forgot.

At any rate I finished it last night and am looking forward to the next one.  You guys had me worried by saying that it was set up for a sequel, I thought the ending would feel incomplete and empty but it turned out fine.

Even better?  Left trigger + right thumb button == Zoom but if you hit right thumb button again?  Double zoom.

I played all the Mako parts as extended sniping games with the cannon.

Treating the Mako like a portable sniper nest made the mandatory Mako missions alot more bearable.  Thresher maws were still enough of a pain in the ass I just kept driving, though. 

Canon, jump, canon, jump, canon, jump, profit!

Seriously, after the first one raped me, I got the jist of it and demolished them all.

They can be tricky if you're in the habit of driving over to where they emerge, hungry for blood.  It helps to note that they seem to emerge at a few select spots so you can keep your distance while blasting away.

It was so obvious when you were getting to a Thresher Maw spawn point that it was pretty much trivial:

"Oh look, flat ground with that exact same hill pattern. I smell Thresher Maw"

Drive until rumble.  Spin Turret.  Jump.  Canon.  repeat as necessary.

Never noticed the hill pattern, but suspiciously flat ground is usually thresher maw territory.

Some Mako parts I just don't bother killing shit. On Feros, I just drive right past all the geth crap.

I'm confused. Is the secret to beating these things jumping and using officially recognized story elements or a brand of printers?

Mr. Hat started it.   I was just to lazy to bother to figure out which spelling was correct.

A couple of things:

Re: New game+ difficulty achievements: You can do it. Just change the difficulty the first chance you get and it still counts. A dev on their forums said you can change it all the way until you finish Eden Prime and it counts. I got the hardcore acheivement on my soldier. I haven't gotten insanity yet but will soon on my bad ass infiltrator. (My new favorite character, sniper rifle plus tech plus lift bonus talent plus almost unlimited immunity == win.)

Thresher Maws: They're very easy to beat. You just stay barely out of their melee range. Pop them with the cannon. Jump when they fire at you. Rinse, repeat. For massive XPs get them down to a sliver then hop out of the mako and finish them on foot. BTW, I highly recommend killing all enemies on foot if you can. You get more XPs that way. And frankly, I'm less vulnerable to damage than the Mako.

BTW, I can't remember if I posted it here, but my experiment worked. I'm referring to putting zero talent points into charm and/or intimidate and just replaying the same character. I'm on my 2nd playthrough and have 8 points in charm purely from the free points you can get. I need to make a 3rd playthrough to max those points out. I guess in theory I could play the same character 6 times and have both charm and intimidate maxed out but I'm not really a renegade type of guy so I'm not going to.

So most effective armor or weapon load outs?

For assault rifles as soon as I can I go +dam% -heat% for weapon and then swap back and forth between +organic or +synthetic damage for ammo.  Once you get a second weapon slot opened I usually just double up on +dam -heat.  You get pretty close to +100% damage and only -20 heat dissipation eventually which takes down pretty much anything in two hits from an assault rifle.   My second play through I'm using a sniper rifle as my main weapon and I'm seeing that too much -heat will overload the weapon on every shot so I'm still trying to find a good balance.

Oh, and one of the NPC's always gets whatever best sensor I have but otherwise I do a similar load out.

The armor is a little trickier and I can see some effective min maxing against certain opponents, like +physics +hardening against biotics.  Mostly though I stick with +armor or +shields, especially toward the end game with colossus heavy armor.

Armor: With anyone but a soldier I've been going with medical interfaces for the health regen. I've found it helps a ton. Especially since they also have power cool down bonuses at higher levels. With the soldier I used the one that steadies your mobile aim and gives a couple of other bonuses.

Weapons:

Assault rifle: Usually two heat cooldowns plus target ammo (+% vs synthetics/organics)
Pistol/Shotgun: Usually one heat cooldown + a scram rail. Ammo varies, sometimes +% vs a target type, sometimes incindiery.
Sniper rifle (my current weapon): Two scram rails + high explosive rounds X. I get one shot then cool down but it is worth it for the fun to be had with ragdoll physics.

Hammerhead rounds on a shotgun or sniper rifle (hell, even a pistol) can be very useful.  Especially against melee swarm mobs like creepers or husks.  They can take so much punishment and tear you up at close range, it's best to put them on the floor.

It's interesting with a pistol that if you put on at least one heat dampener, there's pretty much no chance of overheating.  My infiltrator barely used the shotgun because I could keep a steady stream of pain going with the pistol.

I think I had at least one combat optics on my sniper rifle, combined with the maxed skill and a good rifle.. there's absolutely no sway.  I can pop into zoom and fire immediately.  I could try reducing the +accuracy and put on something else, but I liked it.

And wtf is up with krogans having basically two lives?  I knock them down at low health and immediately they're nearly full again.  Some sort of near death, trigger maxed out first aid scripting going on?

I assume a white health bar means they're using Immunity, and if they pop medi-gel it means the healing can overpower incoming damage. So use toxic rounds or kill 'em harder.

See, I like High Explosives because it is basically an AOE hammerhead that is guranteed to knock many of them down and/or up.

I'll have to try that with my insanity play through.  Turn my shotgun into a rocket launcher essentially.

Explosives are great, except for the excessive overheating.  I like the higher-level incendiary rounds.  Fun to watch defeated enemies melt.

Just finished my first playthrough. Oddly, I went light side for the first time in one of these games. It was joy. I had a few questions left unanswered, expected certain choices I had made to revist me and they didn't, so I have to wonder if I need a second playthrough to see things. Oh, and I saw side-butt.

Doing a spacewalk and blowing badguys in to backwards zero G somersaults with my shotgun just made everything seem right.

I'm playing this now. And going light side the first time through.

So, I'm on my 7th playthrough and a friend told me about an entire questline on the Citadel I've never even seen that occurs towards the end of the game. It has to do with a politician for that "Humans first!" group. Sheesh. Btw, I think this is finally my last playthrough, with this I should have my character in perfect shape for ME 2.

I got one short quest off of him.  There is a whole line of stuff?  Hmm, interesting.

I get a feeling it's not a Paragon quest, as I basically just told him to piss off in a very polite manner.

Guys, does anyone else wonder why it's become a staple of adventure games to have a puzzle/reaction game embedded for unlocking shit? Didn't we get past this with multitools in Deus Ex? :( :( and why does the weapon selection tool feel so awkward.

These are my only complaints so far!

I should have said quest, not questline. My bad. I do wonder if there are other quests around that same time period I missed in the Citadel though since at that point I hit "let's go kill Saren!" stage in my gameplay.

I think it's because you have to select a weapon and then accept it.  If it was just the last one you high-lighted I think it would feel smoother.

Well yea, I'd have preferred that. I also think that relying on radial menus instead of a kickass equip screen just annoys me a bit. For whatever reason.

A few suggestions for those just starting:

In the tougher combats, learn to use the radial menu as your friend. Bring up the menu, reaim at the annoying bouncing target, release the menu button and immediately shoot.

As to the Simon puzzles, get used to them, they are throughout the entire game. 80% you can skip and just use omni-gel instead if you really hate them.

If you see a map are that seems like a pointless side path or alcove, as with all these games, there's usually loot there.

Use the Quartermaster on your ship to sell off all the crap thats below your current level. You do not want to let your self get near the 150 item limit.

Mako: left trigger, click down right analog, and learn to hop

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you decide to put points into the dialogue skills, you'll want to pick either intimidate or charm and focus on that pretty exclusively.  Unlike some other games where both can prove useful for one character, the game really isn't geared to do that too well.  For the option to exist, you pretty much have to max it out all the way continuously, and doing that at least on the first playthrough or two relies on you going pretty heavily into paragon or renegade paths. 

And you really want one conversation line maxed out by Virmiire.

I think the radial menu keeps the action flowing well as I don't like to pause very much.  It was awkward at first, but I got better at it with my infiltrator because that character relied more on power spam and weapon switching.

I would not complain if they removed the Simon sequences from Mass Effect 2.

1) You don't need it maxed out by Virmire if I am thinking of what you are. A sidequest makes that situation solvable without it.
2) If you're willing to replay the same character 3X you can max it without spending a single point on it. Which I am doing for my infiltrator who will be taken to ME2.

Also, there is a glitch that lets you max out either Paragon or Renegade on Noveria. A conversation tree you can go through again and again which gives you like 20 points each time you do.

No, there isn't. Just the short RP encounter.

Unless he's mixed up another plot on the Citadel involving a pro-Earth politician.

Since you have appeared to answer quest/storyline questions, here's one for you  :awesome_for_real:

This may be mildly spoilerish to some.




I went the Paragon route with the encounter with the Rachnai Queen. It seemed like it was set up to have some impact later in the story, yet it never came up again. Was there anything there?

The council yells at you, that's about it.

Not that I know of. I'm hoping the game tracks things like that for ME2.

Tracking to the sequel is about the only way it could.  Inside the game, almost nothing you do effects anything else beyond how much your shipmates like you.

Here's two things I was hoping for more on running through the game in Paragon:

1. The Rachnai Queen. I was hoping that she'd somehow show up again in the Big Conclusion. Failing that, I wanted Wrex to bitch about it more: consequences, baby.

2. Wrex and the Krogan genovirus. I searched that whole fucking base on Virmire stem to stern, because I wanted to find the cure and give it to Wrex. Not only could I not find it, I couldn't even promise to try. My guy just says, "sorry, Wrex, we have to fuck up that whole base and you have to help me." It's completely consistent with the Paragon approach to at least offer to find the cure if I could. I saved the damn Rachnai Queen, why the hell am I not going to try and let the Krogans breed all they want? So in ME2, I want to get a chance to hunt down somebody who knows about the research done on Virmire.

Considering Mass Effect is apparently intended to be in a Trilogy, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of these elements show up later.

I'm curious of the Rachnai can really be trusted or not.  Maybe pull a partial reversal on the Krogan genophage rather than fully enabling their overactive reproductive drives.

If I had any major disappoints in this game it is that all the commercials talk about choice, but none of your choices really matter. It's something I'm willing to forgive because they made an awesome game world and had to make the engine and stuff from scratch. However, in ME2 I might not be as forgiving since all that stuff is done now.

It's kind of ironic, if you watch the little opening movie the game has, it also suggests you're going to have to make significant choices on who to help. But again it's just a weak illusion, anyone that needs help will be waiting patiently forever, and it will play out the same whenever you get around to that particular quest. The illusion of choice sucks, please, make choices really matter in the next game. So what if I can make a bad choice, I want real consequences. The game as is is fun enough to play multiple times, imagine if you could really change outcomes significantly in the game.

Well, games like Oblivion, ME and Bioshock have all shown that choices are illusory. Not sure if that's because devs don't want gamers to burn their bridges (people of avg IQ aren't smart).

Then a game like the Witcher comes along. Don't talk to me, you dirty elf-lover! Even the Witcher could've done more, but after playing Oblivion and Bioshock, it was very refreshing to have my decisions actually mean something, immediately and later in the game.

I love all of the dev houses that created the games I mentioned, and they're all decent games (well, I'll know if ME is decent when the pc version finally comes out in 2012 ;)). But there is a certain mainstreaming of games evident in the first three I mentioned and the last one I mentioned wasn't designed for the Xbox 360. Just sayin'.

Yeah, choices like the Witcher's would be fine. Or even if I got some kind of modified cutscene at the end ala Fallout. "So and so died because you didn't help them, this colony was fine, this colony was wiped out because of your lack of action" etc...

I'd also like to see a Baldur's Gate II style summary of what happens to the NPCs. Hell I still remember loving the fate of the drow even as sad as it was.

While we are on the subject of disappointments, based on all the codex entries with well done details of space battles, countermeasures, unit deployments, tactics and strategy I was really hoping there would be some sort of fleet battle.  I would have settled for a simple "man this turret and shoot" type of thing like in KotOR but I was expecting BioWare to blow me away by going above and beyond the call again with a scaled down RTS fleet VS fleet mini-game.  Didn't get either.  I mean the writing for all those codex entries was intriguing, I think I got teased.  Ah well, maybe there will be a spinoff game.

And I agree the false choices were pretty obvious and aggravating but they were better than nothing.

Yahtzee
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2738-Zero-Punctuation-Mass-Effect (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2738-Zero-Punctuation-Mass-Effect)

Well, at least he knew that would be the first review of him I would disagree with.

Did he say there were going to be six in the series?  I thought it was three...  Six would be far too many.

He has a point about how dialogue heavy it is, how combat isn't always easily accessible, and how the inventory is heavy on the micromanagemet.  Still, it's a good game, I'd buy the sequel.  I get the feeling he doesn't like RPGs and is more a PewPew type.

Some of the weapons are a lot more fun than others. I'm going to log about 4 more hours and do a BiiF. For the most part, I'm enjoying it.

I hated the sniper rifle on my first try with an Inflitrator. I rerolled a pistol/shotgun Vanguard and played right through with that character and loved it. I've gone back to the Infiltrator, and now I've gained love for the sniper rifle. It's especialy fun that I'm playing this one Renegade, so I don't feel bad ordering my squad to run out from behind cover and draw the enemy out in to my sight lines.

I'm going "light" side and making the same orders.

Is there something wrong with that?

Of course not.  The fate of the galaxy is at stake, and we must all learn to make sacrifices.  They sacrifice blood, life, and limb.  You sacrifice air to order them to do it.    And you (maybe) feel guilt whenever their valiant charge into a horde of face eating/shooting monstrosities ends badly. 

They get to rest when they're dead, I only feel bad when I use unity to tear them away from death's sweet embrace so that they can take more bullets for me.

Yea, generally Unity just gets used to make them stand up long enough to act as a distraction or target dummy for a Geth rocket.