Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[schild]

Also, to follow up on my UI gripe on the PC, I just want to know why I can't navigate the Armor menu with the keyboard?  Why do I have to mouse over left and right arrows for absolutely everything?

Because you're playing a 360 game, mang.

[GenVec]

Game play-wise this is a vast improvement over the original. In terms of story, I liked it, but I don't think it quite lived up to its predecessor... fighting off the Lovecraftian horror from beyond with my rag-tag crew was more compelling than squashing bugs with a band of intergalactic super heroes.

The ammo thing makes combat a lot more interesting, but it really doesn't make any sense. According to the Codex the Council races adopted the ammo design from the Geth after the first war when they realized that the higher volume of fire was more important than endless ammo.

Really? Two or three extra shots per minute is worth never needing to worry about logistics?

I finished it at the end with all my crew alive, after gaining their loyalty and snatching a few upgrades. I was sort of disappointed, actually - I was expecting Jack, to turn on me at any minute. I did manage to get Chakwas and Kelly killed, as a small consolation prize. It's a pity they couldn't put in any of those "hard choices" like on Virmire that made ME1 so good.

Also the final bad guy is a huge disappointment and seriously detracts from the hard science fiction angle that they seem to be going for in the game. I was reminded of  Or perhaps an end boss from Sonic the Hedgehog. It was never explained why
Oh, and why can't we romance all the NPCs? Simultaneously. Haven't these guys played the Witcher? Three out of five isn't bad, but come on...

[TripleDES]

Also the final bad guy is a huge disappointment and seriously detracts from the hard science fiction angle that they seem to be going for in the game. I was reminded of  Or perhaps an end boss from Sonic the Hedgehog. It was never explained why

Can't be 100% sure tho until I'm again at the endgame.

[Stormwaltz]

Can't be 100% sure tho until I'm again at the endgame.

You remember correctly.

[GenVec]

Yes, I heard the EDI explanation, but can you imagine how out of character for the series that would be?


It's still a very good title. But it makes the scene above that much more jarring when it's set against the other fantastically well thought-out material.

[Tarami]

Yes, I heard the EDI explanation, but can you imagine how out of character for the series that would be?


It's still a very good title. But it makes the scene above that much more jarring when it's set against the other fantastically well thought-out material.

[TripleDES]

Regarding the end boss...

[Ratman_tf]

Thread is much easier to read if I don't have to hold my hand in front of the screen to block out stuff I don't want to read.  

Sorry. I didn't think that really was a spoiler, but eh.

Sometimes I hate the fact that I play games like this so methodically. I have spent all my time since release day in this game out side of work, sleep, and one hockey game in fast forward - and I've only just finished recruiting Jack, Grunt, and crazy Doctor. Yet it appears that half the people here have finished it already.

Do you all not have jobs, or did you all pirate it two weeks ago?

I am unemployed, and have been playing it pretty much nonstop except for pooping, eating and sleeping since tuesday, and haven't finished it. I'm wondering if other people are posting from some wierd time warp from a few days from now.  

[schild]

You've only played it for 12 hours. Your days must be shorter. Also, they're likely posting from a pirate ship.

[tmp]

Holy shit, and i thought the elevator in original ME Normandy was annoying...

[Nonentity]

Holy shit, and i thought the elevator in original ME Normandy was annoying...

I think it's hypersensitive to disk fragmentation - my load times at home are about a fourth of what they are when I play from work, and the difference was that my work computer was pretty fragmented. The work PC is faster in every respect.

[schild]

I have practically no meaningful load time in this game. (Caviar Black drives / 8800GT / 4GB DDR2 800 / Q9450).

It runs flawlessly with everything at max. That's pretty much the only thing good about the PC port itself.

[Ratman_tf]

You've only played it for 12 hours. Your days must be shorter. Also, they're likely posting from a pirate ship.

Perhaps I'm in the time warp?  

I'd point out that X-Fire didn't record my first day, I  had to reboot before it detected ME2, but why spoil the fun?

Finished it tonight. Great game. Flaws and goony design decisions and all.

[TripleDES]

The loading screens are weird. Some disappear as soon loading is done, some play to the end, even if it's done loading (i.e. no disk activity anymore).

[NiX]

The loading screens are weird. Some disappear as soon loading is done, some play to the end, even if it's done loading (i.e. no disk activity anymore).

That's why it's Science FICTION. It doesn't have to make sense.

[Bunk]

Thread is much easier to read if I don't have to hold my hand in front of the screen to block out stuff I don't want to read.  

Sorry. I didn't think that really was a spoiler, but eh.

Hey, no problem. I don't even know what it said. I just realized it was something that Stormwalz had put in spoiler text, so I stopped reading and ran away.

[Gunzwei]

Just finished a run through on PC (win 7, new rig).

Game was beautiful and was a major face lift to ME1 aesthetically. Performance was top notch with only a minor glitch/bug here and there. The new combat system felt much more tactical, but the addition of ammo became redundant as my team matured and I became less dependent on conserving it. Same can be said about hacking/bypassing in ME2, neat gimmick at first, but it does get tedious after 20+ hours into the game. Controls were weird at first but I got used to them and the menu UI needed less clicking involved.

The story/combat felt more fleshed out in terms of the bio-diversity of the galaxy that ME1 lacked.

[TripleDES]

It seems all that was cut out or rewritten after I left. What can ya do. /shrug[/spoiler]

So yeah, tell me a few things, since you're in the know, if you can:

[tmp]

I think it's hypersensitive to disk fragmentation - my load times at home are about a fourth of what they are when I play from work, and the difference was that my work computer was pretty fragmented. The work PC is faster in every respect.

Hmm tried defragmenting but it didn't seem to help much -- i'm getting 15-30 sec load times per deck, depending which one it is. This on 4gb dual core machine... the weird part is, it takes this long even on sub-sequent loads of the same areas which should cut down the load times since you'd expect at least part of the data sit still in the cache. Annoying.

edit: on subject of annoyances, arrrgh at the female Shepard's eyelashes. It's worse than DA and with the rest of gfx being quite high fidelity really stands out in a bad way. Can't focus on the dialogues when i expect Leliana with a jar pop up any second.

[Venkman]

Full disclosure: I played maybe 5 hours of ME1. In this game I just got to this early point:


They spent so much time with the camera porn that I assume this is supposed to be some sort of heart-wrenching big deal. But I don't get it. Can someone explain why it was so important?

[Sir Fodder]

Have a peeve with the jaggies so I used a program called nHancer to enable anti aliasing with my geforce card, much easier on the eyes now, love the visuals in this game.

[Ingmar]

They spent so much time with the camera porn that I assume this is supposed to be some sort of heart-wrenching big deal. But I don't get it. Can someone explain why it was so important?

For the same reason they spend a bunch of time orgasming over the new Enterprise every time one gets built in some version of Star Trek.

[Kitsune]

I'm good at the minigames, so they've never gone frustrating for me.  I can see where they'd get old in very short order if you had a problem completing them.  You can at least purchase a timer upgrade for the symbol matching game if you're slow at it, but having more time won't help you much in the other hack game, as losing that one is more likely a result of hitting a bad block or running out of attempts.

Combat's a lot trickier than ME1 in that it's pretty much out of the question to just wade into the middle of a room and start shooting.  But the downside of those changes is that most every fight is now 'run into the room, get behind something, and snipe people in the face until all dead'.  I know it isn't very realistic to expect to last very long if three people are all blazing away at you while you have no cover, but it was fun to be a juggernaut of death from time to time in ME1.

The dialogue is definitely a golden upgrade over the first game.  Shepard manages to be waaaaaay less tedious, with lots of his renegade options coming off as awesomely sarcastic instead of just rampagingly douchey.  A lot of the various interrupts and dialogue options are great fun.  The only places it really falls flat are where it connects back to ME1.  Pretty much everyone from ME1 acts weird.  Except for Conrad.  

[kildorn]

I do like that renegade shep is more violent/aggressive, less raging dick. I can't resist some of the renegade interrupts that make a cutscene so awesome.

Paragon Shep is also a lot more assertive/badass while still being nice. I've had a few options that are paragon and "well, you COULD be my enemy, but they tend to wind up dead a lot.. <Grunt> Yep."

[Ingmar]

[GenVec]

"The Space Hamster gazes at you knowingly."

Fortunately it doesn't need to be fed, unlike those stupid fish.

[Bunk]

They spent so much time with the camera porn that I assume this is supposed to be some sort of heart-wrenching big deal. But I don't get it. Can someone explain why it was so important?

For the same reason they spend a bunch of time orgasming over the new Enterprise every time one gets built in some version of Star Trek.

In ME1, the Normandy was a prototype ship, and basically the pinnacle of human tech achievement at that time. It was Sheppard's first command, and it carried her throughout a war to save the galaxy. At one point she is driven to stealing the ship in order to continue the mission. And based on the extensiveness my particular playthrough, it was home to her and her crew for about 17 years of exploring the galaxy... She grows in to her role as a commander, learns about herself and the rest of the galaxy, finds love alien sex, etc, all on this ship.

Or just go with the whole Star Trek thing; big music in the back ground with a big camera pan = uber-Dramatic

[Ingmar]

After I went to all that trouble to spoiler it. 

[Venkman]

In ME1, the Normandy was a prototype ship, and basically the pinnacle of human tech achievement at that time. It was Sheppard's first command, and it carried her throughout a war to save the galaxy. At one point she is driven to stealing the ship in order to continue the mission. And based on the extensiveness my particular playthrough, it was home to her and her crew for about 17 years of exploring the galaxy... She grows in to her role as a commander, learns about herself and the rest of the galaxy, finds love alien sex, etc, all on this ship.

Or just go with the whole Star Trek thing; big music in the back ground with a big camera pan = uber-Dramatic

Wow. Geez then...

[Ingmar]

More or less.

[caladein]

"The Space Hamster gazes at you knowingly."

Fortunately it doesn't need to be fed, unlike those stupid fish.

[tmp]

Paragon Shep is also a lot more assertive/badass while still being nice.

The nice seems to be optional, too -- had my Shepard suggest certain elcor he should either comply with a request or some legs were going to be broken. Technically it was out of nice intentions (or not even that as i was just trying to get a discount) still, my jaw did drop a bit at this display of Paragon virtue.

Made me wonder if it had something to do with the Renegade score being almost equal but i don't suppose the game is sophisticated enough to have multiple versions of these dialogues just for such case...

[schild]

Stormwaltz, you wrote Thane's dialogue right?

[Stormwaltz]

Stormwaltz, you wrote Thane's dialogue right?

Thane, Legion, EDI (except for N7 mission directions), and nearly everything on the Citadel Zakera Ward.

[schild]

Thane is the most well-written character in the game.

Continue that work on [REDACTED].

Whoever decided Liara should be a useless bitchfist in this game deserves to be shot.

For some reason I figured you wrote the Zakera Ward stuff.