Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[Sjofn]

I don't consider the loyalty missions "side missions" because they spell out for you, time and time again, that you should REALLY do those, so your team is basically ready to die, nothing left hanging over their heads to distract them. I mean I guess I can see thinking they're side missions, you can finish the game without doing them, but I found them a lot better feel-wise than the random bullshit I could do in ME1. I mean, ME2 has the random bullshit quests too, but hopefully you guys get what I mean.

[Sky]

I, too, saw the loyalty missions as critical to the main threat. You're building your team to save the galaxy, part of building the team is winning them over 100%.

[Rasix]

Gah, this reminds me I still need to do my renegade femshep run through  and redo my paragon dudeshep.  I ended up taking too long with the reaper beacon crap and my crew was turned to goo.  I'd rather have saved them going into ME3, although I imagine the difference wil be minimal.  I just feel bad about it.

[Special J]

Paragon farted around and got the crew killed but the squad survived.  Renegade Shep is going in guns blazing to save the crew, but the squad will find out what she meant by 'suicide mission'. 

[Bunk]

Also, that little popup that Fallout New Vegas gives: This will be it, are you sure you are done fooling around?

Because immersion-breaking or not. I'd rather know when I'm about to go to a point of no return. Because at the end of the day it is still a game. And no, I don't believe in playing a game twice to see everything. Solve it, move on. Maybe play it again for Evil/Renegade play through after I forgot what the game was about.

Fable 3: and no, I'm not spoilering this at this point:
 - you need 6.5 million in the treasury to save everyone
 - you do kingly stuff, and each day it tells you how many days are left to Doomsday, when you need the money in the vault
 - you get down to 187 days to go - if you click done on your agenda at the end of that day - end game begins - no warning.
Doesn't matter if you have the 6.5 million in your pocket at that point, if the treasury is empty, it promptly jumps 187 days ahead and kills everyone in your kingdom. Fun!

Oh, and that's on a game that only allows one save file, and of course autosaves. Have fun starting over...

[Tebonas]

Thats what I would call the antithesis of what I want. And therefore I would burn that game and scatter the ashes into the wind.

[Sjofn]

I was helped by being slightly spoiled. I knew at some point my crew would be stolen, that it was actually time sensitive, and that my team could possibly die during the end. Getting the ... IFF? Thingy? seemed suspicious, so I avoided it until I finished the loyalty missions of the people I had (while I wondered where the hell the last person was  ). It worked out! I think if I had gone into it knowing absolutely nothing instead of almost nothing, my crew would've gotten melted, and I would've been traumatized.

[NowhereMan]

Fable 3: and no, I'm not spoilering this at this point:

That's beyond annoying and into evil. I do like a bit of balance between "The sky is falling!" and "Here let's deliver flowers to my ex-girlfriend!" but really either make it clear that at some point shit is getting real, do this and there's no going back or pull a Fallout 1. Make it clear that I'm working to someone else's timetable but give me enough time to do some jerking about of my own and make an effort to ensure the side quests largely fit in with the progress of the main quest so I don't feel quite so much like I'm abandoning trying to save my people so I can go look for kittens in trees and more like I'm taking care of small problems to help me take care of the big one. Not having any point where really, you have to start paying attention to the bad guy now, leads to an utter lack of any urgency. It's something you need if you're really going to take the main plot seriously (assuming you're in some save the world from X style plot). However there's no excuse for suddenly throwing the player into this without warning because they happened to pick up that magic sword people have been talking about and now it's the end game, who cares if you haven't bothered with side quests and didn't know. I felt that was something KotOR handled well in terms of pacing without the same countdown timer Fallout used.

[Sjofn]

I definitely agree that side quests need to make some amount of sense in their relation to the Real Plot to not make the game feel very, very silly as far as the "ho hum, no rush, the zombie hordes (or whatever) understand you have other things to do" thing goes.


EDIT: I started a ME1 renegade playthrough, could not STAND how big an asshole Shepard is, and loaded someone else's save to see if I like it better in ME2. It's way easier for me to deal with in ME2. It's less being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole or something. Maybe I would've done better with MANSHEP as my renegade, I am pretty sure his ... less enthusiastic delivery would've amused me more. LadyShep's superior voice acting in ME1 just makes me feel like an even bigger asshole. 

[Shrike]

EDIT: I started a ME1 renegade playthrough, could not STAND how big an asshole Shepard is, and loaded someone else's save to see if I like it better in ME2. It's way easier for me to deal with in ME2. It's less being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole or something. Maybe I would've done better with MANSHEP as my renegade, I am pretty sure his ... less enthusiastic delivery would've amused me more. LadyShep's superior voice acting in ME1 just makes me feel like an even bigger asshole. 

I think Jennifer Hale is undoubtedly a better VA than Mark Meers. However, Meers really does step it up in ME2. I think his take on Shepard is more a stoic, laconic type character and this fits well with how a renegade Shepard plays out. And, yeah, he can be a real asshole. Hale's take on a renegade Shepard, though, is quite good in ME2. She hisses lines out and comes across in a very threatening manner, which delighted me no end. Consequently, femSheps in ME2 (all one of them in my playthroughs) were invariably renegade.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, MANSHEP was a lot better in ME2 voice-wise I think, although he didn't bug me nearly as much in ME1 as I expected, given all the bitching about him I had heard beforehand. The only times he really makes me laugh with delight over how bad he is is during his romance lines. He is sooooo terrible. 

I discovered LadyShep has a bit of a LeerCam when she's talking to Jacob, but it's still nowhere near as terrible as when you're talking to Miranda. I feel like a sex offender talking to her.

[rk47]

I didn't like the loyalty mission 'Do or Die' policy. It really grates me why these guys are considered 'top of the picks' if they're have issues to begin with.
I understand it's supposed to promote team bonding, but why can't the conflict/issues arise from joining up with Shepard instead of 'something they were dealing with currently' when Shepard recruited them.

[Velorath]

I didn't like the loyalty mission 'Do or Die' policy. It really grates me why these guys are considered 'top of the picks' if they're have issues to begin with.
I understand it's supposed to promote team bonding, but why can't the conflict/issues arise from joining up with Shepard instead of 'something they were dealing with currently' when Shepard recruited them.

The obvious answer is because it provides back-story for each of the characters.

[Reg]

I'm trying to make it through Mass Effect 1 with a Renegade Ladyshep but it's tough going.  I remember that at one point someone was developing a save game editor for ME 2 that would let you create a character with whatever background choices you wanted. Does anyone know if anything ever came of that?  All I really want is to vary my ME 1 choices without having to actually drudge through the whole game again.

[Sjofn]

I didn't like the loyalty mission 'Do or Die' policy. It really grates me why these guys are considered 'top of the picks' if they're have issues to begin with.
I understand it's supposed to promote team bonding, but why can't the conflict/issues arise from joining up with Shepard instead of 'something they were dealing with currently' when Shepard recruited them.

Aside from the obvious answer already provided, these people are going into a mission expecting to die. It makes sense to me there's a "one last thing" they're all keen on doing. For most (all) of these people, Shepard's cool and all, but their life doesn't revolve around him or her. Almost none of their loyalty missions deal with "zomg major issues" anyway, aside from Jack, but they're all relatively understandable This Gives Me the Closure I Need Before Suiciding Myself Nobly type things.

[Mosesandstick]

There's a site Mass Effect Saves that provides saves, not sure about all the smaller choices like Parsini, etc.

[Reg]

Oh cool. That's probably about all I need really. All I wanted was a female renegade who did the Kaidan romance and see how ME2 looked based on that.

[Lantyssa]

There is an editor.  I forgot the name but it's out there.  I remember using it to change my hair to one of the nice hidden styles.

[Koyasha]

Gibbed's save editor has a link here: http://www.masseffectsaves.com/tools.php

There are some limitations though - it only mods ME2 save files, which means any changes you make have to be made to a ME2 game.  And changes to ME1 decisions only work on starting a new game, so you basically have to edit an ME2 game and then start a new game+ with the edited save file as the base.

[Reg]

Oh neat. I have an earlier version of that that I used to give myself more resources so I wouldn't have to scan planets on my second play through.

[Shrike]

That's interesting. Might have to look at that editor.

As for Masseffectsaves, well, good luck. It is what it is, but what's on there is actually rather limited. I couldn't find a combination of traits that I wanted to run with on my femShep ME2 playthrough. Simply wasn't there. If what you like has been uploaded, then you're golden. If not, well...not so much. If worse comes to worse, a default ME2 new game is rather interesting, but it's one screwed up universe. Not a game save I'll be carrying through to ME3.

[Sir T]

The problem is that the default ME2 start is assuming you went everything renegade, rather than some neutral position. Granted that would still mean the council died as that the neutral choice in that encounter, but assuming pure renegade is a bit naff in my opinion.

[Sjofn]

There is an editor.  I forgot the name but it's out there.  I remember using it to change my hair to one of the nice hidden styles.

I so don't get why they don't have all the hairstyles available just naturally. Why do that? Why? ><

It did crack me up that there were like 8 different bun choices though.

[Reg]

I think there must have been some strange factional warfare going on amongst the developers. Otherwise, I just can't understand how that awful planet scanning mechanic made it into such an otherwise excellent game.

[Ratman_tf]

I think there must have been some strange factional warfare going on amongst the developers. Otherwise, I just can't understand how that awful planet scanning mechanic made it into such an otherwise excellent game.

I blame tunnel vision. I get it as a tester all the time. After a while, everything is just Work, and you can't judge what's fun or not anymore.

[UnSub]

I think there must have been some strange factional warfare going on amongst the developers. Otherwise, I just can't understand how that awful planet scanning mechanic made it into such an otherwise excellent game.

BioWare doesn't do good in-game mechanics. From Jade Empire's 1942 minigame to ME's 3D moonbuggy and QTE on every door to ME2's white line watching and Concentration or Shape Matching, they just don't come up with engaging mechanics. Yes, it is hard to offer something that is fun the 100th time you come across it, but the answer to that is either 1) vary it up or 2) don't make it come up 100 times.

[Sir T]

Yeah. i actually loved the driving sections in ME1. Bouncing around on that Jeep thingie was great fun to me. Certainly a lot more fun than spinning a planet and wiggling your mouse.

[Sjofn]

I think part of why the whole mining thing seems silly to me is why do I have to do it? Cerberus spent a gajillion credits rezzing me, do they have nothing left to send out some jackasses to find me resources for my extremely important upgrades?

[Shrike]

Yeah. i actually loved the driving sections in ME1. Bouncing around on that Jeep thingie was great fun to me. Certainly a lot more fun than spinning a planet and wiggling your mouse.

It's not the driving itself, and on the PC version Mako combat was a hoot. What sucked and sucked hugely was driving around on near vertical surfaces. The mountainous planets blew goats. The flat(ter) worlds were actually fun to tool around on.

[Sophismata]

I think part of why the whole mining thing seems silly to me is why do I have to do it? Cerberus spent a gajillion credits rezzing me, do they have nothing left to send out some jackasses to find me resources for my extremely important upgrades?

That extends to things like looting people's houses. WHY do you need money to buy things? Anything necessary to the mission should be provided for you.

There is no reason for you to be hacking into colonist safes and bank accounts.

[Sjofn]

Well, on that front, I just figure Cerberus won't pay for my fish.

[Ratman_tf]

Yeah. i actually loved the driving sections in ME1. Bouncing around on that Jeep thingie was great fun to me. Certainly a lot more fun than spinning a planet and wiggling your mouse.

It's not the driving itself, and on the PC version Mako combat was a hoot. What sucked and sucked hugely was driving around on near vertical surfaces. The mountainous planets blew goats. The flat(ter) worlds were actually fun to tool around on.

That's my opinion too. Instead of ditching the Mako for 2, they should have just cleaned up the terrain you drove on.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah with a bit less "either drive around this mountain range that takes up 3/4 of the planet or go over it and spend 5 minutes trying to find a path up near vertical slopes" the Mako would have been good fun. Even out the terrain a bit and put some effort into designing fairly clear paths you can take. That would probably have taken more actual design work than the resource mini-game but it would have had the advantage of being fun.

[UnSub]

There is no reason for you to be hacking into colonist safes and bank accounts.

One of my favourite moments in ME2 was where in one apartment you tell off looters for stealing property during a plague, then go into the next apartment, tell the people to find shelter, and loot their safe right in front of them. Hypocrisy FTW!

[Shrike]

Or Conrad's comment about picking through crates for a few extra credits. No one says anything, but I could feel my companions' eyes boring into my back...