f13.net

Nothing like getting to the party late on a good game, but after spending several hours with the PC version I imagine it was for the best I didn't get a 360 since I probably would have destroyed and consumed my non-existent 360 controller due to anti-thumbstick rage. A simplified third person shooter with a semi-useless cover system combined with ye olde dialoge treese, great voice acting, generally interesting characters, and some pretty amazing texture pop in. I imagine Mass Effect was a sweaty-palmed nightmare for the Bioware fans who didn't play the incredibly clumsy Jade Empire, but any FPS veteran will quickly discover that popping a weapon skill, zooming in, and strafing back and forth with the fire button held down solves pretty much every single fight. Cover is of questionable use and doesn't work half the time, and letting your squadmates fight nearly anything for more than 5 seconds without your backup ends with you just gunning everything down by yourself again. It's still a great time due to the plot, dialog, and characters (WREX. SHEPARD.), but the shooting portion for me at least just felt like riskless self-gratification after navigating all of the dialogue. That's fine though.

Also when the textures decide to show up 2-3 minutes into any dialogue the faces of some characters (and yours if you didn't make a mutant clown for laughs) approach the uncanny valley. Even the non-human looking aliens.

Buy it.

Also: Seth Green as a bandy-legged cripple.

Oh right, the side quests. They suck.

*Go ride around a randomly textured planet in the Mako. Loot random probe. Go in the same 2 buildings and shoot some people. Return to Normandy and get asked by gravel-voiced Earth captain to do it again*

Yep, but it's a decent time killer if it's cheap. The lack of locational dmg hurts gameplay a bit, pop from cover burst on leg gets repetitive after a while. The choices felt too generic at some part, but I enjoyed the game overall. The romance is still vomit inducing  :uhrr: and that asarian culture designer needs to get a life.

I definitely got the image of some writer wearing a 3XL shirt, sweating profusely over his laptop writing the Asari stuff thinking, "This. This is good."

"YOU SEE US RACE OF BLUE HUMAN-FACED TENTACLE HEADS CAN REPRODUCE WITH ANYTHING AND ALSO THE ONLY THING PAST CASUAL CONVERSATION WE DO IS SEX TAKE ME YOU HOT SPACE MARINE"

Also I like the consort. She gives me advice and you can be like "*ziiiiiiiiiip* AHEM."

Also there is locational damage on sniper rifles...at least it feels like it. I tend to one-shot things on headshots way more than I do body shots.

Never had the texture issue you had.

The side quests didn't bug me, other than collection. What was the point to that? I never finished the resource collection stuff, and got piddly experience from a couple others. I didn't mind the side quests to go kill a bunker of bad guys, those were pretty easy...but it was a cheap way to pad the playtime of the game. Seems to be a step backward from KotOR. Hopefully it's not a sign of a Bethesda thing.  :ye_gods:

Minigame for hacking: suck. Mako driving: suck. Actually those two things are what led me to rush the last quarter of the game, ending up 1000xp shy of getting the lvl 50 achievement. And I'm not sure I'll play through again. I played through KotOR, on the xbox no less, twice at 60 hours light side and 40 hours dark side.

While the hacking minigame was just repetitive and obnoxious, you could skip it with that magic gel crap (an odd thing in itself). The mako was much worse, next time how about a flying machine or some other way to no have to deal with a gazillion mountains? When it worked it was cool, jamming around with a big cannon. Mostly it didn't work and was just slogging through a shitty terrain. Maybe that's realistic, but it sucked in a game.

My evil character was going to be this cool black mofo named Lamont Shepard, but when he had the whitebread voice it just kinda didn't work.

The rest of the game (read: most of it) was pretty cool.

Yeah if they hired Samuel L Jackson to do Shepard and defaulted the appearance based on him, it'd come out so much better.
I think the most glaring repetitiveness is probably the Lunar VI mission where I went to 3 identical bunkers, blowing up identical enemy types and 8 same terminals in each bunker.  :uhrr: I felt really cheated in there. Where's the variety ?
Some missions just lack polish, all we get is a damn pop up telling us where to go and after we kill everything in there, we get another pop up. Yay, even WoW delivers better reward than some of ME's side mission.

The decryption minigame struck me as a wrap-around frogger. It was light enough to not get annoying, so I would call it a success. It was a huge improvement over the logic puzzles they snuck into KoTOR, which bugged the heck out of me.

ME gets a huge thumbs up for me. I even bought the book. This game is one of the reasons its been a good year for PC RPGs.

I found wrap-around frogger annoying. I thought KotOR's logic puzzles were the best part of the game. Sorry you aren't in MENSA, dumbass.  :awesome_for_real:

Note: I say this as a member of the PC gaming master race.

ME is really quite playable with the thumbsticks. They didn't bug me at all. Well, except for driving the Mako, and I hear that's shitty in the PC version too.

My rants about that game are almost all about driving the mako on yet another planet with yet more mountains. I wanted to beat the shit out of the guy who designed the mako using the body of the guy who designed the planets. I don't know what the console was like, but trying to maneuver that damn vehicle with the keyboard was some of the most frustrating gameplay I've ever experienced.

Beyond that, pretty darn good RPG. KoTOR still kicks it's ass, but it's well worth the purchase.

It had it's weaknesses, but overall it was a lot of fun.  I played once as a goodie-two-shoes and then thought I would play again as a evil a-hole for more fun.

Except for some great dialogue lines it was actually more fun to be good than be evil.  Being an ass too long cuts off some quests but some of Shepard's comments had me rolling on the floor laughing. 

It leads to some of the more brutal cut scenes I've seen in an RPG too. Not in terms of graphic violence as it tends to cut away from that sort of thing, but just kind of on the 'whoa' scale.

i used to think that KOTOR 2's [Force Persuade] Give me your weapons, credits and go jump down that ledge over there was the ultimate jerkface I've seen in game but ME somewhat gave a new level of jerk with all the inappropriate punching to solve conversation problems. 'What's wrong with him?' 'He's a little over the edge, don't worry I gave him some stimulants..' 'I know what'll calm him down...*POW*' 'WHAT THE- You can't just hit people around like THAT!'  :drill:

But the ultimate was probably near finale where I performed mercy kills on POWs. Shepard literally popped 4-5 POWs heads with a pistol without an expression.

I'm waiting till it hits the bargain bin, but only because of the DRM. I would otherwise like to play this game.

IIRC they got rid of it and just went with regular old securom.

At first I read that as "IIRC they got rid of it and just went with regular old scrotum."

Played through it on the 360 and loved it. Had very few issues with the combat, and the cover was actually useful for me as a sniper. Also, there was locational damage.

The mako bits were full of suck though, trying to crawl the damn thing up a cliff, UGH.


The in-game encyclopedia bits were great though. It was refreshing to see so much Actual Effort put into a seemingly minor portion of the game (re: lore).

I agree about the lore stuff. I also read the planet descriptions, it was pretty cool.

And I liked cover once I started sniping later in the game (I was mostly using the assault rifle early on). I noticed by dipshit squadmates finally tried to find cover when I would hide and snipe. I actually stopped using the squad control buttons after a while because it didn't seem to make a difference except for the 'charge like a moron and die' button.

I've been bagging on Bioware a lot over the last few days, since I finished ME, which was overall a decent game. It's just that their games lately have smacked of unrealized potential and a lot of design compromises.

hm finished one planet on insane difficulty. The difficulty jump from Hardcore to Insane is a little wide, but it's nice to see that enemy snipers are actually deadly and space zombies are bad to touch. I started to worry about cover and strafing like crazy. The funniest part is telling Wrex and Ashley to hold position in a far position while I lure the mobs at a distance to whittle them down. Feros is insane.

Thanks (I did all those). ^_^

I actually saw this game in the shop today and was going to buy it till I say the "periodic online activation" crap and put it back. If thats been pulled I'll pick it up. Looked fun.

:heart:

My understanding is that the nerdrage tsunami convinced EA to compromise. It used to be that ME would phone home every ten days to make sure that you had a valid copy. Now it is only at every install. Which still sucks. You only get three installs before you have to appeal. Or crack. We all know what is more efficient.

But mang, this game is great. Whats a rootkit on your machine compared to a good story?

I'm finally getting around to playing this. Quite frankly, I'm having a helluvah good time. I've got about....27 hours in and by far the bulk of that has been on side missions. Yes, even the collection ones.

I've only barely scraped the story so far but up to this point, excellent play.

I just knocked out some babbling idiot to the shock of my teammates fucking dick was annoying as fuck, anyway yeh great game like the amount of freedom of movement it gives you renegade +9

i blew up some monkeys with a tank cannon. +4 renegade  :drill:

I have the same understanding, and I object to this level of DRM as well (the limited installs, specifically).

Meh, I got plenty o'other games to play. I won't go on to derail this BiiF into DRM-thread part 2.

aww man haven't got that far yet  :awesome_for_real:

Since someone mentioned it, I must say that the "dark side" responses in Mass Effect are way more actually...you know, evil than even anything in KOTOR 1/2. KOTOR's dark side choices were mostly vaguely cheesy, Snidely Whiplash sort of stuff ("Mwahahah! I shall make you two FIGHT eachother though you are friends! *evil cackle, lightning*"). Half of the "intimidation" or "dark" responses for situations in ME make you kinda lean back in your chair and say, "Jesus Christ!" Kudos to whoever put some of those scenes together, because they're pretty sudden and brutal.

I haven't got very far in this - I've just become a jedi spook and am heading off to do missions. For some reason* I haven't felt the urge to load it up again even though it wasn't a bad game at all so far.  But I've got to say that I don't think of the choices as being Good/Evil.  For a start, they don't seem to be mutually exclusive - you can build up charm and renegade at the same time (and building up one doesn't reduce the level of the other).  I feel renegade is more of a Jack Bauer approach to things rather than a Darth Nasty approach.

*Two reasons - one planet mission started crashing the game which was kind of annoying and also I started playing through the Half-lifes (half-lives?) again.

I don't think the intention was to be good/evil only to be Han Solo or Luke Skywalker so it works on that level.

I see the choices in that game as far more liberal/conservative (or sometimes extremes on other political axes) than good/evil, personally. It is in many ways a very political game.

I finally got around to beating this tonight.  Overall its a good game and I feel it was money well-spent. 

What I'd like to see in Mass Effect 2:

2-4x length of the main story
Less than half of the side quests/collections, in fact do away with them
Continue with the excellent journal/codex entries
Less Mako
Less alien sex (dirtay  :pedobear: she was only 106!)

Strip out the outdated pause combat and skill system, put in more specifically defined characters.  That should allow for design to make a more challenging and tactical experience.  This game was about the story and the side quests simply got in the way.  If squad combat will continue in ME2, make one toon the soldier, one a biotic and the other a tech.  Cross-classing makes it feel like you have more control over the characters, but it's at the expense of the depth of the gameplay and challenge. 

I bitch a lot above, but this game was done right.  The grainy effect over everything was wonderful.  The game ran like a champ.  Simply put, it was a fun game... but needs more story next go-round.  Good work, Bioware. 

I didn't ever really get bored with the sidequests... If you do it all, there is some pretty cool stuff. I loved the planet descriptions, and the random little things you would find, like abandoned settlements and dead soldiers. RPGs are all about the side quests IMO.

SPOILER!

On one of the planets, you find this floating silver orb. If you got the trinket from the Asari consort and put it in the orb, you experience a vision of a caveman being studied by the Protheans. Too bad it was just a textbox.

wow , i somewhat...dont' give a flying fuck about that talisman shit after 5 replays. I mean it's not even THAT significant. It had nothing to lead us on, it gave no clues, just 'go to that potentially uninteresting planet over there and go to each waypoint in a big truck'

yeah I never found a use for that, nice find though.

Yeah, I found that one early on in the game because I explore a lot.  It was a nice bit of fluff. 

And 5 replays?  Holy shit there's no way I'd make it past one.  I can't even read books a second time, let alone play games twice.

Same here, I only seem to replay games/re-read books if I have forgotten 90% of them, but after reading/playing for an hour it all comes back and I stop.

I'm about 2/3 through my second playthrough. My first play was as a nice guy Sentinal, heavy on the shotgun, trying to do the right thing. My second play through has been as a female Infiltrator, who doesn't take shit from people. Not going complete renegade, but far enough to experience the fun of randomly punching or shooting people that deserve it. Also, playing the game using the Sniper rifle is a very different combat experience.

VERY late to the party :D

I finally beat the game 15 minutes ago  :heart: :heart:

Some data:

- It took me 49 hours, 51 minutes
- Played as an Infiltrator (Commando Spec.). Used the Sniper Rifle like there is no tomorrow and loved it.
- Main Companions: Wrex and Ashley
- Romanced with Liara
- Played the DLC too
- Level 50, finished as a Paragon character (entire scale)

Not sure If I love more this or Kotor 1, but HUGE props to the writers and the Team in general for creating such a great, diverse universe, no matter how many influences from other series you can clearly see while playing.

My favourite part was definitely Virmire: fantastic soundtrack, great atmosphere (and ideal for a sniper oriented character like me) and storyline. Oh, and when you hear the "sad tune" once you get back to the Normandy...Awesome  :heart:
-------

Toward the end, my setup was quite simple:

- Wrex and Ashley (former with Rage X Geth Armor, latter with Colossus) equipped with Spectre Equipment (Assault Rifles and Shotguns). Shredder (for organics) and Tungsten (for synthetic) ammos, and BOOM, Geth are no more happy mechanic pandas.


I was quite intrigued by the storyline, I really hope the second chapter will show us even more stuff, for example the Quarian Fleet.

I was disappointed you couldn't bang the Quorian.

I got told this repeatedly.  I think it's some meme somewhere but since it angered me to no end:  Not yours.  Can't have.

Same :(

You people are making some mighty big assumptions about what is under that environment suit imo.

For serious.

(http://www.iwatchstuff.com/2007/10/26/alien-predator-hybrid.jpg)

Hey, some may like that kinda thing if it wouldn't bite their face off.

Not that I've ever been into that, but I'm pretty sure I went out with her and a few of her friends in my early 20s. 

You're assuming I care.

Space gypsy, tech-geek-girl, and not annoyingly naive or a holy rolling speciest.  It's all good.

(And if it's really, really bad, she can keep the helmet on.  Hey, it worked for Brock!)

She also had some of the better animation, in my opinion. Her character's motions felt more alive than most of the other female characters in the game. Especially the hips, or maybe it was just an optical illusion with the texturing, but it just seemed far more.. feminine than any of the others.

More on-topic; if it wasn't for the sheer degree of repetition in the game alongside some absolutely horrendous path finding issues (both squad-mate AI and Mako -- not too mention how most enemies would merely suicide charge you regardless of their weaponry) the game would have been very good. Instead it was a very good story wrapped up in average game play.

Well...










LOL, such a string of creepy disturbing nerdy replies. How can't you love this...umm, Forum?  :heart: :drill:

Don't forget the quoting.  The delicious quoting.

Psycho.

Not picking on Lantyssa here, but she brought it up. This has been brewing in me for about two years now.

I see these criticisms of Ashley quite often, and I find them fascinating. Ash mentions god once - precisely once in a 20-40 hour game, and she never specifies her religion. But that's enough for many to paint her as a holy roller. Likewise, she presents logical reasons to distrust aliens in times of crisis (humans will never be as important to them as people of their own species are), and she becomes "Space Hitler." Even when she reads the riot act to a actual racist (Charles Saracino (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Charles_Saracino)) at the end of the game, she's still saddled by this perception.

For myself, an atheist and multiculturalist, I only wanted to make Ash seem more like an actual woman than the obvious fantasy wish-fulfillment that is Liara. What players have ascribed to her disturbs me, because it says more about their knee-jerk political correctness than it does about the dialogue I actually wrote. As a liberal, I want to believe other liberals are too thoughtful to emulate the reflexive scorn of conservatives. Often, it seems, they're not.

I think it's probably the whole "why the hell are there aliens on this ship" conversation. 

I never got the feeling that I convinced her that it was right for them to be on the ship as much as she went with it because I was her commanding officer.  Which is fine, she didn't let her own issues get in the way of the mission, but I wasn't going to pursue a relationship with her after that conversation.

You had a number of other characters who displayed their unease with the shipboard aliens, without going as far as Ashley did.  So yes, she was more real than the fanwank that was Liara, but that doesn't mean I liked her.

The religious part didn't bother me.  I did go with Ashley when I went Renegade though.

Thankfully I was sterotyping all the ladies there, purposefully putting Tahali on a pedastal while knocking the legs out from under the others using the bit of character traits I could.  Next play through I'm going to do my best to hook her and Kaiden up.  Though maybe that's mean since I know how it will turn out.  (That'll be a good test to see if my new vid card is holding up, too!)  They all had their good sides, tried to work past their negatives, and I appreciated the dialog that let you tease that kind of information out of them.

My prefered party was Tahali and Ashley, 'cause we kicked ass and looked good doing it.  And the gossip we spread over a few drinks in the bars... good times.

My party was Liara and Ashley.  Biotic and Soldier. 

Liara and the Quorian here, since I was a gun toter already and Ashley seemed superfluous.  That's why I was so disappointed that you couldn't sex up the Quorian.

A)  She's with me all the time anyway since she can use her tech to blow stuff up real good.

B)  She's less annoying than Ashley.  Yeah, I've heard enough about your disgraced family.  Shit, I'm trying to kill the mother of one of my party members, and she's not droning on and on about family issues.  Get over your baggage already.

C)  If it's Kirk-like to bang an alien, isn't it even more Kirk-like to bang two?

But yeah, I loved the game, especially when viewed through the lens of "Commander Shepherd and his space bitches"!

The reason I react to her religion thing negatively is probably because she's a little bit confrontational about it. And even casual off-hand racism of the kind she expresses is enough (as opposed to something Saracino's AUSLANDER RAUS act) to get me really pissed at people in real life. I do think she's a much, much better-written character than Liara (who is essentially uninteresting) and I don't have a problem at all with the game addressing those issues or including her viewpoint, but all that stuff doesn't make her likable. Put the two things together and she comes across as a bit willfully ignorant, which is something I find infuriating in people. But she was still a well-done character.

I found Wrex and Garrus to be the most interesting party characters, personally, which was a little disappointing in that Garrus was probably the character who got the least screen time/attention. Liara is nigh unto a waste of space, and Tali is entertaining but perhaps a bit lacking in depth - which is OK, I think it adds balance to have a character like that around. Not everyone has to have some dark secret.

As for Kaidan, the fact that he was done by Raphael Sbarge in the exact same voice he used for Carth was such a distraction that I don't think I could be objective. Major mistake in casting I would say, at least for my tastes. If I had never played KOTOR it probably would have been fine.

Bear in mind actual women can be holy roller speciests, so don't think the criticisms of her character take away from the "actual woman" aspect.  :why_so_serious:

By all military standards, or any reasonable security precautions whatsoever, she's absolutely right about the aliens.  Here we have a collection of people you've known for a matter of days at most, who's backgrounds and such you have no verified knowledge of, being allowed aboard the newest and most technologically advanced ship in the Alliance fleet that also happens to be top secret.  Rather than observe reasonable security precautions (restricting their movements and access to sensitive data and devices) they appear to be given free access to all ship's systems.

Garrus is the only one who's presence isn't entirely objectionable, and that's cause he's a C-Sec officer who presumably has a good record you could have requested and reviewed before allowing him to join up.  Wrex, Tali, and Liara have no such records and are all potential security risks with unknown backgrounds and loyalties.

Ashley was picked up from the middle of a backwater after her unit was obliterated.  She probably should have been sidelined for psychological evaluation rather than being given security clearances and a ranking position on said super sekrit ship.

Luckily as a Specter Shepard could tell protocol to take a hike and we got an interesting game instead of 'reality' in a futuristic fantasy world.

I liked how Ashley was written for the most part, but I was a little disappointed when you went down the romance angle. It felt to me as though she was written in the main story to work well with either the Honorable main character or the Renegade - she was multidimensional, had good traits and character flaws, etc. When you went in to the romance however, it felt like you were being forced in to the "be mister sensitive guy" choices in every dialog option, or she was going to drop you on the spot.

This kind of sucked if you were trying to play a middle road guy or a renegade, as I was expecting more to win her her over with my rogueish charm and devil may care attitude. Instead, I had to talk to her about her daddy issues and swingsets.

It would be nice if those character angles were written to be obtainable through more than one path, so you could still explore those parts of the game without having to go totally against the character you have developed. At least in Jade Empire, you had alternate characters to romance based on which way you played the game. Personally though, I'd rather see those options built in to the one character.

Hell Stormwalz, it's only double the dialogue, shouldn't be a big deal.    :grin:

Technically Ashley, was also a recipient of the randomness of allowing the aliens on board.  Other than the original crew and Shepard, none of the party members should've been on there, so I assumed vetting took place off-screen, with the except of Liara who came in under different circumstances.

I'm hoping the Normandy gets a crew shift in the next one, throw some more aliens on board.  Maybe one of those Salarian dudes.  I wondered why I couldn't have one on my team, when they were everywhere.

Also the Salarians were pretty interesting in general - they get their moment in the HOLD THE LINE speech, but it would definitely have been interesting to get more about then via a party member.

Maybe she just likes sensitive guys?  Everyone knows it's the 'good' girls that like the bad boys.  :wink:

I think I'm gonna start playing this again... Can't decide if I want to use my old char and start a new game or start a new char so I can use all my extra unlocks.

I wouldn't argue that they shouldn't be part of the team, but one of Ash's lines is that "I'd feel more comfortable if they didn't have access to engineering and the CIC."  Which seems perfectly reasonable.  I mean, the Normandy doesn't have a lot of room, but restricting non-military personnel to the center "living" deck unless circumstances require their presence elsewhere would have been a reasonable option.

Ironic, given that Ashley is restricted to the lower deck, and the quorian is allowed in the engine room, and the bluebian is allowed in the medical room right off the command center.

That was a surprising conversation with Engineer Adams, wherein he expressed that he loved having Tali down there helping him.  You expect it to go in a different direction.

I'm also wondering why the crew in the lower deck don't get any tables or anything.  Something to play cards on.  They're all just sitting far away from each other.  Do they just scowl at each other when you're not around?

Liara isn't so much 'allowed' in the medical wing as she is in there because she's being treated for her weird headaches after you have that vision after every mission.

Here's two aspirin, now get your xenoc ass down into the garage. And probably should've had sex with the doctor, too.

Maybe the Witcher was onto something :)

It was.  I can never sex up the people I want to in these games.  Or any, in fact: in Rune Factory Frontier I want to tag the bartender but she's not an option.

I had to bite my tongue for the last couple of posts now ... How come no one mentioned Wrex? He is the most popular character for a reason!

I was talking about me doing the sexing, not being sexed. :oh_i_see:

Infertile means impotent, right? :awesome_for_real:

Hmm don't really remember Ashley being like that. The family thing is her "big secret" so it pops up if you do the private conversation bits, but doesn't really show up anywhere else. (well you can invoke it after the bomb drops if you did get the big reveal by then) But certainly, it didn't strike me as she was doing any more of "droning on" than the blue alien chick. Who does make a stink about the mother kill business in advance, and then can be optionally pressed for details about it after the deed is done, too. Oh and the blue alien keeps yammering about her Goddess, too. In some aspect these two are very similar and it's interesting how differently people can interpret similar data, based on personal preferences.

I rather liked Ashley; she does feel more real than the others because you can see some faults and hard edges to her, as opposed to just pliable conformity and some blatant pandering. Would say she's been shortchanged by the game not making it more obvious the distrust for aliens is quite prevalent and as such she's hardly out of line with her behaviour. You can get this as small bit of info in the Codex, but outside of it the game creates impression this is only view held by minority.

edit: oh and as far as other characters go... as much as i enjoyed Wrex, wish he wasn't such close copy of the Black Whirlwind from Jade Empire. Both of them were great source of amusement, but between the posture, voice, mannerisms and to a degree even the backstory, they're pretty much one and the same. Kept waiting for the "That's the most stupid story i've ever heard! <g>" as the way to end the ME conversations.

The only party NPC I liked was Tali. Only played ME once, but everyone else seemed like whining bitches or mellow like spaghetti. Not necessarily bad characters, just not people I could sympathize with at all. :sad:

Wrex can be bag of fun on Noveria... or for that matter anywhere else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1HJT6ZrB3U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rIxBlB_x0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-0PxoDOOPw

I almost want to play just to kill that thing in the 3rd video, fuck I hate hivemind species bullshit.

SPOILERS!!!
(Apparently I can't use the spoiler tag anymore? Wtf.)



PIX!

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/99701/Mass%20Effect%201.jpg)
(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/99701/Mass%20Effect%202.jpg)
(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/99701/Mass%20Effect%203.jpg)

20 bucks on steam now. I'll be adding shortly...

My desire to play this game (and a couple of others) is making me start watching XBox360 prices  :uhrr:

Just get it on PC. Looks better, loads faster, and won't redring on you.

Still can't sit at a PC for more than an hour or so per day, and I have a feeling that games like ME would frustrate me greatly with that limitation, plus most of my daily allowed hour is taken up with playing WoW with my brother.

But yeah, 360 prices would have to come down a fair bit before my weak resolve was sufficiently weak to lead me down that path  :why_so_serious:

Edit: plus, if I could afford another console I'd be paying f13 subs ;-)

Why not just buy a wireless keyboard and mouse, and set something up?

:oh_i_see:

Mass Effect 2 (http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14235013/mass-effect-2/videos/masseffect2_trl_pree3_7051409.html)

I like those geth dog things! And the geth with its leg blown off that still crawls after you. Does that mean ME2 has location damage, or is that just kind of a 'hit them this hard and this sometimes happens' kind of thing?

Excellent!

Repeat after me, Storm!  Salarian teammate! 

And is this coming out for PC at the same time?

I like the persistence angle!

I think I do. But I won't call that I for sure "like it" until I never ever hear "Oh man, I wish x were here now, he'd know what to do" or any variety of that. I don't even want the dead characters brought up in conversation. Not even a little. I made my decisions because I wanted them dead.

That's kind of unrealistic from a writing/story perspective, isn't it? I mean clinging to dead or missing people is something humans just do.

Also if the rule34 and random forum postings are something to go by, romance option for Turian. Ladies want fun with aliens, too.

Please tell me Jack Wall is on team for this one too? Or it's a :heartbreak:

Yes. You shoot the leg, the leg blows off.


I think it's safe for me to confirm that. They've said they wanted sonic continuity between the games.

The music he did for E3 is pretty fucking incredible. I don't know if the plan is to make any of it public, though.

There's a high-def .mov up of that trailer now. (http://na.llnet.bioware.cdn.ea.com/u/f/eagames/bioware/masseffect2/teaser/videos/download/mass_effect_2_prelude_e3_720p_5000.mov)

Awesome. I liked Jade Empire and Mass Effect for their game qualities enough, but his scores make a difference between a 'good game' and a 'holy shit' experience for me. Really looking forward to it.

It didn't click at first but having watched the full size video now... is that blown up Normandy at the end of it? :ye_gods:

I really, really hope there's less of the annoying Mako in ME2.  Like, none.  I started replaying ME lately and as soon as I get to the parts where I have to drive around, I instantly don't want to play anymore.  It's not hard, it's just pure annoyance.

How about "Thank god you got rid of that asshole x!"

 :drill:

Since we're putting in feature requests  :why_so_serious: Let's see what that quorian chick was packing under there! Subplot to get a cyborg implant to interface with her business!

No endless planet searching with the buggy, or at least make the buggy easier to navigate so you don't get stuck in little valleys.

Easier squad controls, though I don't know what that entails. I always seem to remember them not following my orders or orders not sticking.

Close-up shadows that work  :grin:

I don't even want that. I want them gone and forgotten. I plan on going through the game one more time just so I can kill off the other annoying one.

It most certainly does not.

Because it's sitting I can't do and propping myself up with a wireless mouse & keyboard is just as painful as sitting at the PC unfortunately :(  I've tried and just can't make it work. I think it is slowly weaning me off my games addiction (slightly) though  :why_so_serious:

There is a little blurb about there being a 13th league of one member that escaped the purge, so you might just get your wish.

7 hours in just hope the sequel has more elevator riding...

The character animations reaaly have a nice feel to them I'm assuming it was all mocaped?

I'm really enjoying it and just wishing it kept going.

I just finished the dlc fall from heaven and can only say... :ye_gods:

I'm amazed at the two choices in that scenario. Well done. Well done.

I liked that one a good bit as well.  Also liked the speech Shepard gives the guy when she lets the batarian go, about how they'll always be after him.

Probably one of the best and most thought-provoking choices in the game, since the danger of letting him go is not so large as to make it a complete non-choice if you consider the situation through a logical perspective.

It was a pretty damn good DLC.  I really wanted to smoke him where he stood, but my character is mostly paragon, so I did the right thing.

I wasn't aware there was "a right thing" in that situation.

Which is what I really liked about it. It was about as grey as it gets.  I always thought it would be fun to make a game with every decision coming back to bite you.  You save a kid from an oncoming car about to kill him - he grows up to be Hitler...that sort of thing.

Uh.... a reasonably recent pc rpg already did that.

Which?

Witcher.

No - which game?

I want to punch you.

That's only because you laughed...

No, I didn't.

It was way too obvious.

You came in too soon.

I tried making a new adept for an insanity playthrough. I'm swearing at the TV again.

I've unlocked shotguns, rifles and barrier... I wonder if it will follow through to Mass Effect 2?

E3 teaser for part 2 (http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-mass-effect/49798) is up.

Doesn't show very much. Reminded me how much superior the female Shepard VA was... oh and looks the fans of geeky jailbait are in for some more of "can't tap this" teeth gnashing.

All the cool game developers are dead.  So, no.  These days, I'm happy if they let me copy my savegame off the Xbox and cry out "Thank you sir, may I have another".

Might be fun to make such a game, but I wouldn't find such a game entertaining.  Don't want a perpetual bad day, no matter what I do it just gets worse and worse, because the solution to that situation is to stop playing that game.  Also, a plot line where things just get worse and worse and worse tends to end with a big cheesy deus ex machina at the end, and that's just cheap.

Anyway, sorry for joining the discussion late, but, regarding aliens on the ship, ok so maybe the humans distrust aliens and I didn't roleplay a human properly.  But aliens are supposed to distrust humans too, and (besides the Volus ambassador saying so), I've never seen any of the aliens do anything but completely and totally trust the human crew / me.  And, the Normandy is advanced from the humans point of view; probably just second-hand tech as far as Turians are concerned.  "Store the heat instead of venting it" can't believe nobody thought of that before humans.

I don't think we'll play Shepard in the second game; I think we'll start from level 1 again as someone else, and we'll simply hear about Shepard's exploits on the news or whatever.

And, I have a question:  is the Geth language = the Quarrian language?  I'm assuming that that light on Tali's helmet is the translator, and that the Quarrians designed the Geth to speak their native language.  You can hear Geth sound bits in the game (and to me they sound like the electronic-distorted version of a lion's growl/purr).

The Geth language is re-used 'alien speak' from KotoR. Specifically the water planet aliens.

Is everyone who's met Shepard going to comment on how much the new guy looks like Shepard?

That's pretty much what the Witcher was like -- every decision you made it'd then show you consequences and lot of them were not positive no matter what you picked. It's one of themes in the Witcher books though, so it fit the game nicely. They avoided the deus ex machina ending too imo, most pieces at the end is allowed to stay where you let/made them fall.

I recall number of aliens making it very obvious they don't expect my Shepard anything but fail and/or how he/she's part of pitiful species. The council Turian, the citadel security chief, Noveria administrator, some other Turian in the personal mini-arc you get if you pick the criminal background... think some others too i can't remember off the bat.

"Oh man, after that huge explosion, your face got all fucked up! The doctor said he can make you look like whatever you want!"

CHOOSE NEW APPEARANCE.

"Oh, you want 'The Shepard'?  That's my most popular face these days!"

I'm going with the Kirk Lazarus. Played a blond/blue white guy in ME1, I'll play a black dude in ME2.

That's only about half of the full trailer. The full version should be released today.

New website. (http://masseffect.bioware.com/)

Full-length trailer in HD. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRo7JWy744)

Hmm pity i kind of let the Destiny Ascension crash and burn in part 1 then, could be fun to fly that. That was btw one moment in game where the options rubbed me wrong way, it totally missed an extra "Try to save the Ascension" option which would be quite logical middle ground, given how big military asset it made and how it could help shoot the Big Bad. Instead it's either "save a few replaceable politicians at all cost" or be a calculating but rather short-sighted dick.  :uhrr:

Weren't said politicans on the DA? I'm not seeing the difference between the 'save them' option and a 'save the DA' option, other than how it is framed I suppose.

It's down to the wording, yeah :why_so_serious:  But it also allows for wider range of motivations driving the player's character's, imo -- i mean, for a "paragon" who's been the whole game focusing on how beneficial cooperation with aliens etc is, saving the alien council "at all cost" might be a natural decision. While character played in more reserved manner could be less inclined to risk everything to save said council first and foremost... yet still recognize the value of the dreadnaught. In other words, i wouldn't mind having option to save the ship, but without getting in the process Paragon points for saving few guys that i didn't actually care about. And if Shepard could actually tell them in following cutscene she didn't do it for them, that'd be just icing on the cake :grin:

Yeah, I would have figured the neutral option should have been to try to save the ascenscion.  Tactically and logically there's good reason to do so because it's a powerful ship, it has the most powerful mass accelerator in our fleet, and who knows (at that point) whether the rest of our fleet can even seriously damage Sovereign, since maybe it would take the most powerful mass accelerator we have to get much damage in on him.

It's all hindsight talking, of course, but it does feel like the big decision of the game was weaker than some of the other choices presented elsewhere due to that.

One side effect of your new website, btw, is that all of the links all over the web that pointed to various tidbits of very useful Mass Effect 1 information on your forums are now broken.  Good discussions about the various classes in the game, how to fix some sound issues, etc etc., all were google-able till you changed your website.

Very annoying. 

New website looks good, tho.

Some gameplay of ME2 in g4tv hands-on (http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/38775/Mass-Effect-2-Preview-Hands-On/). Game hopefully coming "early next year".

/necro


I'm not really hating on the game, but my small gripe so far is that some of world elements are a little too spelled out. It's hard to articulate what I mean here, but it's written like nerdy technobabble sci fi at times. Like, the type of sci-fi that's fascinated with technology, and needs to explain how everything works. I like sci-fi that doesn't explain itself too much. Or at least, does it less directly. Oh, and even worse, Shepherd, a guy who lives in this "world", is used as the person who asks these inane questions.. like he's completely ignorant of the world around him. This doesn't make sense. He is a well traveled, hardened military veteran who's grown up around and seen 50 million holographic terminals at this point in his life. Why the fuck does he need to ask a terminal how it operates, what it is, etc..? Like he's never seen one before..

It's like those old Star Trek episodes where Picard needs an explanation on the how this or that Enterprise feature works. If he doesn't know, then why the fuck is he the Captain? It's the kind of writing done by uber nerds so impressed with their creations, and want everyone to go "NEATO!!!" when they give detail explanations of the props and elements within their stories. I hate that shit


Sorry, that was a bit heavy handed. "Small gripe" indeed.  :why_so_serious:

[edit] Ugh, actually I take that back. This game isn't all that great. Which team did this?

The combat is cool, but otherwise, it's laborious. Which is strange, usually it's the other way around with Bioware.

First off, if you feel that way, avoid the Codex at all cost :oh_i_see:.

Second, are you talking about the VI in Citadel?  You're right in the sense of "why does he need to learn how to use a VI" but I think you're missing a bit of the fun of that system.  It's a bit like a phone-tree and tour guide mashed into one.

As for the combat, it really depends on what weapons/abilities you're using.  On the 360 I did a lot of specials and using Pistols from cover.  On PC I played a lot more run-and-gun with the AR.  Neither was the first method I was going after.

Well, actually... I'd rather they just save most of that stuff for Codex. Show,don't tell. Or something.

I'm playing assault rifles. It's OK, I didn't expect much. And I imagine it'll ramp up into something almost shooter like. Pretty cool for an RPG.

Just a few things rub me the wrong way about the actual RPG elements. Besides the way things are presented, it's just boring. Maybe the story gets better, but the Citadel isn't a good way to kick things off. Nor is it enjoyable on some kind of atmospheric level. A lot of the NPC's talk about what a marvel the Citadel is, but I don't see it. Perhaps I need a cutscene.  :why_so_serious:

Uhh, the citadel is overly long (mostly due to loading), laborious in the sense that you're doing a lot of Fedex quests, and light on combat. It's like 6 hours to complete on your first play through and there's only a handful of fights. 

I wouldn't judge the game based on that.  Wait until you get to some of the main plot planets.  Action picks up.  Just a warning, the side quests with the rover are mainly ass (well, just when you're in the rover).

Your complaint is somewhat of a Bioware game staple.  There's always an option for "explain the results of the last 100 years of human progress".  There's a lot of this in Dragon Age as well.

I didn't like this game.  I felt like I was playing KOTOR 2.  And when I was playing KOTOR 2 I felt like I was playing KOTOR 1.  If you're really hardup for some KOTOR then this game is probably great, if you played KOTOR and feel like you've been there and done that, avoid.

I suppose you're right, but it seemed conveniently set up where some explanations about the world made sense. Like, my character was just a human noble. He didn't know the intricacies of Dwarven life, etc., so of course he'd ask these things. And even then, they were handled sort of indirectly a lot. You were asked to support a Dwarven King, and only would get minor details on what each candidate was like within dialogue. I actually came to my decision to support Bhelen from the town crier guy.. When he mentioned that Bhelen was marrying an non-caste woman, and that the other dude was stuck in the old ways. That right there told me a lot.

Not only that, but it seemed like there were dialog choices to allowed you to either be ignorant and push for further info, and choices that assumed you knew things. For example, you didn't have to ask Alistair "What's a Templar?" or Wynne "What's the Fade?" when you first meet them.

So basically everything seemed to present itself in a more natural way. While more info was in codexes.

So, they learned?  ME2 will probably take things a step beyond Dragon Age and assume you do know more about the world now.

I'm kind of thinking it is at the level that it will be for future Bioware games already (and has been since ME for that matter) and I don't really think it was better in DA:O then it was in ME. A good example of that is the gray warden lore. Think about the gray wardens and how popular they are among EVERYONE, including everyone that was in your starting area regardless of your origin story, yet when you first meet Duncan the questions to learn about what gray wardens are are right there. I understand questioning the ritual/initiation, but the rest of the stuff (such as who the gray wardens are, the blight, etc) just shows it hasn't progressed.

Additionally, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, the AI in the citadel for ME was about as pushy to teach the player what it was as any support character is to tell you about their class in DA:O. The information is there for both, but neither makes you choose it to progress. I thought the AI/info stations in ME just had it as an option but you didn't have to pick it to continue at all.

That said, I do agree with the disliking of those options always being there, and would have liked to not have those options at all (except what was needed for learning the specializations in DA:O from the support cast). What I would like to see though, is for games to associate dialogue choices with the difficulty level you pick. Say I pick beginner/easy difficulty, they keep it as it is now. If I choose advanced/hard/etc, they assume I know and just add the information into the codex. Some form of adaption like this would be great, even if it was an option in the menu.

The psuedo-cop-out in Dragon Age is that no one except the Grey Wardens actually thinks/cares that a Blight is occurring.  For humans/elves, the last Blight is the same place I'd file the English Civil War.  For Dwarves of course, they're always fighting Darkspawn.

The best analogy would be how Geth lore is handled in Mass Effect as the timelines and previously-hidden-big-badness of the two groups are rather similar.  Unfortunately, I can't remember how I learned much about the Geth that wasn't from talking to Tali.

I don't think that is a valid cop-out in anyway for the original complaint of providing basic information in the dialogue simply because that is a different line of questioning entirely. If the issue was no one knowing about a blight incoming except for the gray warden, and that was what we were able to ask about, that would change the question from what a gray warden is (which everyone in the game knows what that is) to why the gray wardens believe/know a blight is incoming. I'd even say that if the player was able to ask the gray warden why they believe a blight is coming, that would have been a good thing as that wouldn't have been what is basic knowledge across the lands like "what is a gray warden" is as we currently are limited to asking about.

I'd agree that the blight was similar to the geth in the sense of they are the threat to the hero, but then spectres would be the equal to gray wardens. Everyone knows who they both are except for the player in both cases, they're the exact same thing only with different names. And it's further proving that DA:O didn't progress at all to get away from what the original complaint was.

Personally, I like Mass Effect more than Dragon Age (although I do really like DA).  I think what it mostly comes down to is that fact that your character in ME has a voice and a name that people actually call you by, making him/her feel more like an actual character.  In DA, having your character just standing there with a blank look on your face during dialog while everyone refers to you as Grey Warden or any other number of impersonal ways ended up making me care about all the other characters more than the one I'd created.  If I could have replaced my character with someone else in the party, I probably would have.

With ME on the other hand, there's just a certain attachment I feel for my version of Shepard, to the point where it's a bit jarring to see a different Shepard in the ME2 trailers.

I guess there's plus and minuses to both approaches. I can see getting attached to Shepherd that way, however, I felt a bit limited by character backgrounds as it was in Dragon Age. Not sure I'd want more things that were defined for me.


Back to the "backstory" thing.. I noticed something in my recent Jade Empire playthrough.. They handled it well there too. You're a senior student at a martial arts school, and there's a series of dialogue with a lesser student, where you "test" him on his knowledge of the basics of the school. Like what styles are taught, things like that. It's all meant for the player's benefit, but presented in a way where it seems like your character already knows. This is what I mean when I prefer knowledge to be given to you a little more indirectly. It's a little nitpicky, but I appreciate the efforts at stuff like this.

If your game is going to have a tutorial, that's the best way if you are playing a character who should know this stuff.  The little known game Tachyon used it by having the main character run through a training sim to advise its creator of its flaws.

I'm finding this has made a big difference for me as well.  The further I get from the starting stories, the less I feel my character is an actual part of the plot.

It was rather strange that my character became a bit detached from his origins.. and transitioned into the identity of some demigod Grey Warden dude, who virtually shed off his identity as a noble.  Not that I'm really complaining.. still a great game.. but leaving it all out was a big oversight in my character's development.

[edit] I don't think I'm asking too much for them to tailor make origin stories that tie in to the overall breadth of your Grey Warden duties.. Sure, it's more writing and work and voice acting, but considering that they wrote a shitload of stuff as it is, might as well have gone balls out with it.

Do we have a forum equivalent of jumping the shark?

Wait, am I the one jumping the shark, or are we still talking about Bioware plots?  :awesome_for_real:

If I'm derailing, I just wanted to make a quick response to what Lanyssa is saying about the Grey Warden "identity".

I just finished this, never played it before.  I don't usually do Bioware games but someone gifted it to me on Steam for xmas.

Details on my playthrough

In total it took me about 14 hours, which was a good length.  I made it to level 37.  If they can keep the good parts and improve the squad AI and commands while removing the fucking Mako tank nonsense the sequel should be awesome.

My personal pet peeve gripes would be the voice actor for Garrus was lame and he never seemed alien to me.  I really preferred Saren and the spectre from the beginning to him both made much more of an impression.

I'm out of the Citadel and finally warming up to the game. I'm not sure if I made a bad decision to first go to that snow planet. The matriarch boss fight is tough, even while using all kinds of cheap/pausing tactics (maybe that's not actually cheap, but whatever).

I do not use Kaidan. Talk about creepy. There's something wrong with that dude.

Wow, that was distinctly different from any of my 2.5 playthroughs. 14 hours in and I was barely off of the citidel.

I'm having fun simply forging through, not "reloading" etc.. My character started out fairly nice, but he's increasingly getting pissed off.  :grin:

I don't know if you know, but the rogue VI mission is what unlocks your character specializations, so as a Soldier you would have been able to go Commando/Shock Trooper after that mission if you hadn't skipped it.

Nice path through the game overall, I like your decisions and such.  At Virmire I usually save whoever is at the AA tower, simply because the person at the bomb goes ahead and activates it without my express authorization. You do not arm and activate a nuclear weapon without the direct authorization of your CO!

I found out about the sub-class upgrade last night.  I figure I'll wait and see what transfers over to MA2 and what doesn't so I can min/max the Sheppard I want to have.  I've also almost figured out how to activate the Bring Down the Sky DLC on Steam.  The second one with all the training/arena missions I'm even less clear on.

The second one is pointless, I wouldn't bother with it.

Instructions on getting Bring Down the Sky (http://masseffect.bioware.com/me1/galacticcodex/bringdownthesky_pc.html).  The only thing that changes with Steam is that you have to find your Mass Effect CD game by right-clicking on Mass Effect in the My Games tab of Steam.

Yeah there was just some confusion about where/which patch was ok to use.  The Bioware/MA forums suck balls but Steam forums had pointed me to that page I just wasn't confident I could use that patch.

Do you know anything about the second DLC or did that not come out for PC users?

Got to pay I think.

I used the patch in that link and it worked fine for me.

The second DLC I haven't picked up for the PC yet, but my understanding is that you can buy the direct download from the EA Store (http://eastore.ea.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&SiteID=ea&Locale=en_US&ThemeID=718200&Env=BASE&productID=152041300) and sometime after release it was updated to work on Steam.  I've been reluctant to try though because typically when you buy something off the EA Store you have to install their download manager.

I don't really like a lot of the level designs here. Too "maze-y".  :roll: Which is neither challenging or fun. I think I've fallen asleep with the controller in my hand like 5 or 6 times now. It's just an old cheap FPS tactic that relies on the fact that everything looks like shit compared to the real world. Take me to the action. What a waste of my time.

What?

Especially that last level (well, the one before the last Citadel level).

It's a maze just to find shit, even with the map. The graphics don't help. Kind of dark green, hard to see walls.

Anyhow, the game ended fine. But once again, I felt like a God at the end of a Bioware game. Kind of sad seeing Saren go down like a bitch.

I don't know, maze-y doesn't really come to mind when thinking about Mass Effect.  Hell, most of the side quests end up in enemy bases that all have pretty much the same layouts.  A couple of the main quests have spots where you might get turned around, but overall, they're fairly linear.

Yeah 'maze' is about the last thing that comes to mind. If anything I'd say a lot of the game was a little *too* linear.

I couldn't actually set waypoints on my map, which caused me no* end of grief, between that and no useful minimap I did feel lost a little too often.  I really had fun though and I'm pretty stoked for Mass Effect 2 now.

*fuck you dyslexia

Ok, I can now confirm that the Pinnacle Station DLC does work on Steam.  And like I said, you need to buy it off EA's store and download it with their download manager, which is a hassle.  Everything seems to be working ok though.  Whether or not you'll find it worth $5 is up to you I guess.  It certainly doesn't play to ME's strengths, but I'm a bit of a completionist with this game.  Every time I've played through it, I've done every side quest.

If you can win Pinnacle Station, it's worth the 5 bucks just for the retirement home you can win. Free grenade upgrades, and random level X stuff for 220k a pop? I was running around in Collosus X armor, Spectre X gear, and everyone using the BEST of the omnis and amps at level 40-something.

It's expensive because it's random, and they don't have decent human heavy armor, but if you sell stuff at the clinic you're rolling in so much cash it doesn't matter.

Of course, I got it during my soldier playthrough, and I've been told you might as well hammer your nuts to a wall than try some of the fucking time trials with a soldier. You have to kill EVERYONE in a group to spawn the next, and you have a very limited amount of time. Biotics can one-shot whole groups with throw, but targetting each one individually? (IE: with a gun?) is a fucking waste. Even on casual, winning at least two of the four time trials is an exercise in frustration -- unless you're really good with managing your biotic NPCS.

I'd imagine running it with an adept or even an engineer (I suspect overload would work well, and they cluster) would be a lot easier.

Hoax: I tend to grab all the NPCs, go rescue the blue chick, then run around the galaxy and just hit the quest planets when I get bored of Mako driving. Mostly because I enjoyed the game at higher levels (more powers -- for you and your enemies). Not getting the specialization class hampers you a bit, too. I did work out not to do any of the citidel quests but the "become a spectre" one if I was using the blue chick, because unlocking ally achievements is more or less by 'quests completed'. (The achivements give nice bonuses).

Oh do the enemies scale up too?  That is too bad if I missed out on some fun that way.  I got to L37 by the end though so I felt like if 50 was the cap I must have been doing ok.  My gear was on 6-7's with a few rare 8's

Sounds like you zipped through. I can remember almost hitting 50 at the end of a single playthrough.  I could mistaken.  Been a while.

I hit 50 on my first playthrough having done just about everything there is to do.  With lv. 51-60 unlocked, the xp bonus from one of the unlocks, and both DLC packs, I think I can level up a character to the upper 50's in one playthrough.

I was around 37 and 20 hours.. sometimes i'd just leave the game on for awhile though. I guess I played through fast like Hoax. I did a few sidequests, but didn't care for them.

I had to unlock 50 with the first play through, and 60 with the second on Hard.  Did they change that?

I took a bit under 30 hours, and I think I hit most of those god-damn awful side planets up. Then again new computer = no loading times  :awesome_for_real:

The advanced character classes are unlocked by completing that...

Yeah it was my bad, I ignored it for RP reasons.  The alliance brass calls me up and basically says, forget the council you owe us so go handle this VI and I told them to fuck off for rp reasons.

Last of those bunkers in that mission is a fucking bitch, too. "let's get, oh, five or six rocket-firing drones and have them all AIM AT YOU". While their buddies with machine-guns swarm around.

I still found soldier to be the most boring of classes, while adept or Vanguard rocked. Garrus and Wrex make excellent companions for those. Also, if you either max out charm or intimidate OR do Wrex's armor quest (it's not even hard, some planet has it in a safe) you can convince him not be a dick and you don't have to kill him.

I didn't care to depart from Soldier much. Just felt like being straightforward about it. 90% of the time my team was mostly me (soldier), Ash, and Wrex or Garrus. All basically soldiers with the exception of Wrex.. but he isn't strictly biotic either.

Not sure if I'd call soldiers boring without calling the entire game boring, as it's basically the foundation of most gameplay.

I don't think a soldier-heavy mix even works on higher difficulty levels. Too many special protections. My problem is the soldier AI is fairly intelligent, but the powers AI isn't -- and I hate micromanaging shit, especially since the camera makes it difficult for me to see what's going on at times.

So soldiers can be relied on to get somewhere, and shoot, and use their specials at least semi-intelligently. But adepts and engineers, not so much. And if I'm going to micromanage someone's biotic use, it might as well be mine.

I ran....Wrex, Garrus, and myself (adept + shotgun) and the only issue I had was having to spend enough skill points for Garrus to unlock everything. Wrex simply destroyed everything and was a major tank, Garrus sat back with a sniper rifle, and I basically just gave them targets. (Singularity or lift to suck them out from behind cover, throw to damage groupings of weak enemies, stasis to lock one of the Lts or Bosses out of combat). Anyone that got close got a face-full of shotgun.

I suppose I enjoyed shaping the battlefield and more or less corralling the enemies together, and left the "aim and pull trigger" stuff to the NPCs.

In hindsight I would have definately gone a combat/powers hybrid.  I just didn't have any sense of it at the time.  I micromanaged with tab/pause all the time, but not powers I found they were almost always being used.  I mostly only activated teammates shield regen and defense buff powers when I knew the fight was about to get ugly.  The lift and whatnot they used all the time themselves.

It sucks though I really would want to have pistol/shotgun + powers and I don't think you can do that w/out bonus feat.  Obviously if the sinper rifle sucks a lot less in MA2 I might go that route I loved my Borderlands Hunter to death.

If there a human equivalent setup like Wrex? I gave him shotguns, and trained most of the other stuff up at max.

I used a sniper rifle on my main the entire game; it does not suck.

What was wrong with sniper rifles? Just for reference, how high did you invest points into the talent and what type of gun were you using?

Only soldiers can wear heavy armor, so --- soldier. Vanguard is probably the closest you can get. Medium armor, pistols and shotguns, and Warp, Throw, Lift, and (I think) Stasis as biotic powers. You can specialize into a more soldier-y class from there.

I tend to add Singularity to Vanguard.

Hoax: Sniper rifles take some getting used to. They're EXCELLENT weapons once you figure out what you're doing. You need a good rifle, for starters (Spectre Gear, if you can get it). Second, you need a lot of ranks in it for accuracy and stability, and the right mods.

One tip: Your gun is more accurate when crouching, or when firing from cover. With a sniper rifle, if you're shooting, you need to be crouching or behind cover. :)

Yeah, I played as an Infiltrator (and will do the same in ME2, just to experience some "continuity" with the first game) and it was great, but at the beginning you have to get used to the hybrid strategy/real time system. Normally, in these games you tend to get to the frontlines, but it's nice to stay back and order your companions around and place them so that they cover you while you rip enemies apart from distance.

I think Virmire was simply the perfect environment to use sniper tactics, especially when you are in the forest. Obviously you won't have as much fun in those cramped bases/labs on side-quest planets.

According to a Dev interview I read the sniper rifle is one weapon they specifically mentioned as being improved for the sequel.

I never had a problem with the sniper rifle except for the fact that the vast majority of fights were not in places where sniping could be effective, since you were really pretty up close with the enemy most of the time.

Agreed 100%. Most of my time as Vanguard, I never even bothered with anything else but the pistols and force push.

I'd like to see someone do a game like this, but with even more emphasis on dialog and covert encounters. There was a detective-story-in-space feel to it, but at the same time, it also wanted to be action. I'd rather see more of the detective shit... Like a new Bladerunner game.

I'm the old thread necromancer today. Most of my gripes have already been aired but I chip in anyway.

I picked this up from the 360 bargain bin last friday and I'm now already 20 hours in.

Short: If Bioware had put as much effort in the game as they did in the descriptions and dialogue it would be great, so it's just a good with some minor flaws.

360 controls are bad, seriously. Trying to aim with the analog sticks is a recipe for frustration. Whoever designed the controls either didn't care or has superhuman precision. It's just too jerky, the number of times the targeting cursor went just a little bit too far off are too many to count. I list this because there are other games which did it better. I now also get why Bethesda invented the VATS system. Stopping time not just to select powers but also for orientation would have been great.

This is quite a problem for every part of the game with fast movement. Aiming and trying to avoid getting two-shotted by some alien thing while driving the Mako made we want to punch somebody. Enemies are usually just suicide-charging your position completely ignoring their target or your squad mates and they run like they are on exctasy. They also in the later game pack insane defensive and offensive power. Full-auto shoot them for 10 seconds and you merely wear their shields down but if you move your ass out of cover you are two shotted by some mad display of firepower and biotic powers.

There were two boss fights already which nearly made me quit the game for good.

The decrypting/hacking mini game is just pressing the right button when it lights up on screen, just like 'Simon says'. Unfortunately it's been programmed by a twelve year old with perfect reflexes. I seriously had to save/reload quite a few times even on the easy challenges because the time that you have to react feels like milliseconds rather than seconds. Alternatively you can open locks or hack computers by using a ridiculous amount of universal gel (15 - 25 for a lock? When I can repair a whole armored transport with 15?) which is hard to come by if you don't want to dismantle equipment or upgrades.

You can notice the lack of polish in a few details. People talking to you about things you've never mentioned. A whole class that doesn't get a single weapon skill. I can buy all sorts of weapons and upgrades but there is not one electronic lockpick or other misc equipment that temporarily boosts skills, no augmentations or body modifications. You get 6 different versions of every weapon and armor at every level of which usually only one is worthwhile. Sell value is ridiculous (a piece of armor that costs 100,000 credits sells for 1,500) and other such things where you just notice something missing or not entirely tuned.

There are a lot of side quests but so far all of them have been kill quests, I have yet to do a side quest in which I don't encounter geth or mercs or the person I should find is already dead.

Dialogue is usually well written but it's harder to get decent speech skills since you not only have to put points into either charm or intimidate but also have to earn paragon/renegade points to get additional slots for the skill points.

So far I enjoy it, I miss quite few things though that I kinda got used to in the Fallout games.

I'd like a lot more diversity in missions and the levels are entirely too linear. I hope they changed it in ME 2 (which I also got cheap). In my mind it's actually a step backwards from Fallout 3 (which was released in the same year) at least it's rock solid and hasn't crashed on me once.

I also don't see the reason for why the game let's me choose between six different possible squad members. By the time I get most of them I and my squad are past level 10.

My recommendation would be to pick it up at bargain pricing because it's actually a nice RPG and the sci fi setting makes it stand apart from most other games.

Um, I did exactly that repeatedly on the XBox version. Only way I would make it through the 1st Krogan fight, and it was a huge help against Saren. Hold down RB, reorient cursor on to your target, release RB while pulling RT.

Not sure about your dificulty with the Simon game (it was annoying though). I analy saved before every salvage, and in 40 hours only screwed up twice. Anyone who knows me will advise you that I do not have the reflexes of a young man. As far as the Mako goes, I've run in to many people who played half the game before realizing that the Mako has jump jets. Fighting in the Mako without using Jump is suicide.

Don't get me wrong, the game had flaws (horrid inventory UI for example), but some of your complaints are confusing. Like why would it matter what level you are when you get new companion choices? They get the same xp and you just level them up.

Omni-gel is your universal lockpick. Crush some of your 4358936458245 spare guns into it, life is happier!

There was actually a line in Mass Effect 2 talking about the good old days when omnigel worked on everything that I found amusing at the time.

Ha, yes, that made me laugh too.

I always connected that to selecting powers only. Which is annoying enough since you have to hold RB the whole time. Thanks for the tip.


I don't know if I'm just that slow and simply live in denial but the last reflex-based game I played was Heavy Rain and I managed to beat that on the highest difficulty setting. There you have even more potential buttons and longer sequences.

Last night and with not enough gel left I spent half an hour and more than 50 tries on a medium difficulty lock just to get a 5 part button sequence right. Reload, start sequence, get the 'decryption failed' message because you failed to press one of the buttons on time, repeat. It was not because I pressed the wrong button but because I didn't hit the right one quick enough.

Maybe I'm obsessive enough to try and time it but I reckon that you have less than a second to actually press the right button after it flashes on the screen. This is getting more and more frustrationg because the length of the sequence doesn't seem to depend on the difficulty of the lock (this only determines the skill level in electronics needed to open it) but rather on the item level of the contents. I'm now at 6 or 7 step sequences for easy locks to get to level 5 or 6 gear and the number of retries needed to get a perfect try multiplies.

Since you need between 15 and 25 units of gel per lock and only get 4 units per destroyed component (regardless of item size) I cannot collect enough gel to open every lock that way. This is becoming more and more a really frustrating experience, even so frustrating that I don't bother to open crates anymore.


By the time I got the first NPCs my main party (Ashley, Kaiden and Shepard) was already at Level 15 and decked out in Level IV gear, I played Artemis Tau and the quest to find Liara last, after Feros and Noveria by that time my party was beyond Level 20 and yet I had huge problems with the Benezia boss battle.

So I never bothered to take any of the others with me because I didn't want to waste time playing side missions until they had caught up with me in experience and levels. Facing hordes of Geth at Level 30 with a Level 1 biotic user (useless without skill points) seems pointless.

Unless you tell me that they level up whether or not you use them, something I never considered and so didn't include them in my away teams.

The second thing I complained about was the skill choice for characters. Kaiden for example doesn't have a single weapon or armor related skill not even small arms even though you can outfit him with all 4 gun types and light armor and he actually uses the selected firearm when his biotic powers are on cooldown.

For several reasons this makes him quite useless in a fight every time his powers are on cooldown. First you have to spent a whole lot of skill points to actually unlock all possible powers, second his starting powers are weak unless you have invested some SPs in them and third he cannot tap the potential of his armor or weapon without the skill.

Um, they auto-leveled. All your party members were your level. Complete with skill points. The biggest bitch was if you were using Ashley and Kaiden (I used the same pair the whole game, for the unlocks) and you had to replace one of them as a plot point. So I ended up with Wrex instead of Kaiden, and he HAD all his skill points -- but Level 1 armor. Took a few fights to get him geared.

After that, I just used the guys I wasn't using as high-end gear storage. (I had a feeling the store algorithm might have leaned towards "Which of your companions has the shitties armor" because it only seemed to have good shit for the people I wasn't using.).

So, um, either your game bugged out in the weirdest way, or you didn't bother clicking over to the character screen and assigning all those points.

As for Kaiden -- didn't he have pistol? Everyone has pistol. Maxed-out pistols skills were pretty stellar. (I think someone crunched it and it topped out near the top on DPS). Second, he was a biotic/tech mix -- one of his skills massively boosted his shields (in addition to either allowing decrypts or hacking). And didn't he have barrier too?

Seriously Jeff... You got all the way through the game without realizing the characters all auto-leveled to keep up with you whether you took them out or not? It makes me suspect you must have been doing something consistently wrong over and over again to have so much trouble with the lockpicking.

 :heart: JeffK

In-game it's never mentioned and since you never actually have to use one of the other NPCs (at least up to where I am now) you don't realize it by accident either at least I didn't.

I have just re-read the manual and auto-leveling is mentioned there so I must have missed it the first time. (It's mentioned in a sentence somewhere in the party control chapter). So I just assumed that it is handled the way it is in nearly every other CRPG, that NPCs start off with a certain higher level if you get to them later in the game but don't actually level further if you don't include them in your party.

I seriously never considered that possibility. I checked the inventory saw that they had crap items and kinda assumed that this must be because they were lower level than my squad.  So my presuppositions about the way RPGs usually work fooled me. Now I feel stupid (at least more than usual).

So I suppose that I could be equally stupid with the handling of the lock-picking mini game. As I understand it the game shows you the a,b and x,y buttons on screen and you have to press the button that is highlighted. If you were fast enough another button is randomly highlighted and so on until you've reached the last in the sequence and the lock opens. If you are too slow the mini game fails and you have to use universal gel to open it. Sounds simple enough. Yet somehow 9 out of ten tries I fail because even though I press the right button it seems like I hit it too late.

In my version of the game the window of opportunity for pressing the button is at most 1 seconds.

@Morat: I checked, Kaiden has neither pistol, nor light armor skills in my version of the game. Barrier and guardian skills offset that to some extend though

To conclude, it seems that I have to retract some of my issues with the game due to player stupidity  :oops:. So to save face I'd at least say that Bioware doesn't do a great job tutoring you on the game mechanics, since most players won't even read the manual (even if they do this might not help as I so gloriously demonstrated).  ;D

Kaidan doesn't have a weapon skill talent, but his Sentinel class ability improves his pistol damage and accuracy (along with some other useful stuff) so he can still be pretty functional with it. Liara is the one with no way to improve her weapon use at all (but she's got every biotic power available anyway so her weapon use isn't really that big a deal.)

Yeah, but everyone has crap items at start. I mean, you weren't getting curious when you kept finding Krogan heavy armor despite not using Wrex or anything?

Kaiden worked out fine for me -- I think I used him and Ashley with my Vanguard run-through. He was there for tech/biotic powers, and to open locks. Using him for guns was a bit pointless.

Oh well, given that ME2 shoves you to first the character screen EVERY FUCKING TIME anyone in your party has even a point to spend when you go on a mission, followed by the load-out screen, that's not a mistake you can make in ME2.

Actually the xbox version has (unless they fixed it) a bug where the first lock you encounter after loading the game determines the length of sequence for the rest of that play session.  So if the first lock you open is an easy lock, you'll only need to do a sequence of three even for the hardest locks.  But if the first lock you open is a harder one, then you'll need to do a long sequence even for the easiest of locks.